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How to manage screentime during COVID
Covid-19 has left parents around the world to grapple with online learning, online entertainment and online working. As a result, it’s natural that the amount of time children spend using screens will increase.
Is it Ok to be more lax with screen time rules, or are these rules more important than ever? And how can parents balance managing their children’s technology use with work, restrictions on socialising, and calm in the family home?
It’s ok if usual screen time rules don’t work now
Screen ‘time’ has become an important aspect our health and wellbeing. It relates to measuring how many hours and minutes a person uses a digital screen such as mobile phone, tablet, TV or computer. Screen time is often measured per day and, it has become a particularly important focus for parents helping their child establish healthy technology habits.
We currently gain our screen time recommendations from several sources. These are primarily health and/or psychology authorities and include World Health Authority who has published guidelines for children 5 years and younger, American Academy of Paediatrics and Australian Department of Health who have each published their own guidelines for children birth-18 years.
Screen time guidelines bear similarities to each other. Primarily they state that children under 18 months get no screen time except for video-chatting such as skyping a grandparent, children aged two to five years should limit their use to an hour and ideally co-watching with an adult. Guidelines for school-aged children and adolescents are less definitive. There are no recommended minutes or hours per day, rather it is dependent on the lifestyle of the child, and left to the parent to decide and manage.
“Screen time guidelines’ won’t work during COVID
Current screentime guidelines do not account for our current social isolation. COVID social isolation means that children must now rely on technology for school learning, social connections, communication and entertainment. Screen time recommendations that we’ve enforced for so long can no longer reasonably apply. There are better options for now.
Let me explain.
Focus on Screen ‘Quality’ and Screen ‘Buddies’
Screentime recommendations are in place to create healthy habits during a critical developmental window of childhood. If we dissect published screen time recommendations, there are three factors embedded in what comprises healthy technology use. These include: ‘time’ using a screen, ‘quality’ of screen content, and ‘who’ you use a screen with.
Screen ‘time’ gets all the airplay, however with families confined to home, the other two factors – screen quality and screen buddies- are just as important if not more, for healthy technology use. Our emphasis should still be on ensuring children develop healthy screen habits, the way we do this need to be different; not only now but long term as well.
Importance of Screen ‘quality’
The positive impact technology makes on children’s health, wellbeing, socio-emotional outcomes, and school achievement, depends less on time, and more on the type of content they engage with when using a screen.
Consider a 5-year-old on a tablet engaging with 30-minutes of early childhood educational content such as PlaySchool. Compare this to the same child on their tablet engaging for 30 minutes with a highly violent video game or movie. They are both 30 minutes of screen time however, the experience for the child and the impact on them will be vastly different with each type of content.
Quality screen content is defined by three combined features: it is interactive, educational, and age appropriate. Online content that demonstrates all four factors promotes the best online experience for a child.
Don’t be fooled however that because something is categorised as ‘Educational’ that it is actually a good learning experience. The term educational is often simply used as a way of organising apps within the App Store or Google Play store, or to market apps. Healthier content that’s truly educational requires a child to think, problem solve, be creative and socially interactive. These kinds of apps don’t have too many distracting bells and whistles but aim to keep the child’s attention on the learning.
A great example of an educational app for your children is Thinkrolls Space. The app has fun, odd-ball alien-themed puzzles that encourage problem solving, as well as thinking logically and strategically.
The app design encourages children to persevere to solve the problem. And it doesn’t encourage in-app purchases to easily power up without solving the problem.
For high school children the app DragonBox Algebra 12+ is an innovative STEM game that helps supercharge kids’ learning of algebra.
The game is designed to help kids build a strong understanding, with lots of opportunities to practise new skills and then move through to more complex problems; and it does this is a really fun way.
Importance of Screen ‘buddies’
It goes without saying that it is not heathy for a child to be alone on a device for hours on end. Screen ‘buddies’ and varying how a child engages socially when using a screen is also highly important to developing healthy screen habits.
Sometimes this is explained using the term co-view, where a child uses a screen with their parent next to them to explain the ideas. However ‘co-engaging’ is a much more powerful idea for older children. It simply means using a screen with someone who is equally engaged (not just an onlooker or explainer). It may be playing an online game with a parent, or other person. It can also mean engaging with the online content with someone virtually, such as skyping a class friend, taking part in a virtual class study group.
Tips for Parents
Healthy screen use is about balancing all three factors. So, if you think that your child may be using a screen for longer periods of time because of the changes that COVID has brought, then ensure that Screen ‘quality’ and Screen ‘buddies’ are in check. Here are 3 tips to introduce right now.
1. Encourage time to do something with your child on a screen that is more than just watching on as a bystander.
2. Check through the apps and games that your child currently uses. Identify which are quality (educational, interactive, and age- appropriate)
3. Look for new quality educational experiences online for your child. Don’t settle for something that is simply labelled “educational”. Investigate it and make sure that it qualifies as a great educational experience.
During COVID, apply screen time rules flexibly. We don’t want a child on their device 16 hours a day. Moderation is still important however adjust this to home isolation. Too much screen time is not the end of the world. Aiming for healthy screentime using all 3 factors- time, quality, buddies is much more important.
