How Much Screen Time is Too Much?

From the Publisher’s Wife
The television had a 17-inch screen and was strategically placed on top of an old treadle sewing machine in our little kitchen on Denver Avenue in Wildwood Crest. Most of the viewing was done from a standing position as children played at my feet and enjoyed Mr. Rogers or Sesame Street. That was the only acceptable fare at our house back in the days when we had a cable connection. The only chairs were the straight-back variety that we sat in for meal times.
You might say I have had a long-running feud with media entertainment. The rule for our family allowed the children to watch 30 minutes a day and I had to approve the shows. Saturdays were the exception when they could watch cartoons in the mornings before they did their Saturday chores. Then came the blackout years when we pulled the plug altogether. The decision to cut the cable at our house did not make us receive favorite-parent status from our four children because they resented being different from many of their peers.
Right or wrong, Art and I felt that was best for our family. Now, way too many years later, our children are grown and all have children of their own. Their challenges with media or technology in general are so far greater than ours were. We had only the cable television to monitor but they have iPads, iPhones, iPods, Kindles, Netflix, Game Boys, Xboxes and who knows what else to consider. I don’t envy our kids the job of bringing up their children in this digital age. Even the toddlers in our families know how to swipe a screen and maneuver their way through the digital mazes that exist in their worlds.
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Cutting the cable at our house did not win
for us favorite-parent status from our children.
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Our son, Benjamin, recognizing the challenges ahead, sent this email to his siblings: “I found this article interesting given the times in which Francis (their son) is growing up. Perhaps it will be a useful point of discussion in your family as well.” The article in question was about the impact of media on children and it contained the new recommendations from the American Academy of Pediatrics. Studies which they cite have shown that too much time spent before the ubiquitous “screen” may lead to sleep problems, aggression, obesity, eating disorders and attention problems at school. (This sounds even more alarming than my addiction to chocolate). Well, just reading those warnings made me want to throw away all my own technology, which I have to confess my love-hate for.
My iPhone keeps me connected to all the family and brings me instant videos of the latest accomplishments of adored grandchildren. I can enjoy ‘face time’ with them, read my Kindle in the night without disturbing Art, and watch any movie on Netflix. So you see I am also a part of this digital culture but at a rather removed level. Video games—never! I don’t have enough coordination to be anything but a source of comedy.
But what does the Academy of Pediatrics report that they have found in children ages 8 through 18? The average screen time for recreation in a day is 7 hours and 38 minutes, with no rules to guide them! I can only ask, “What are we to do?” It is like the chocolate in our house. Someone who loves me needs to see that I have the appropriate amount and at the proper times. It is evident that the 8 to 18 year olds are with their digital media much like me with chocolate. It isn’t fun to earn the scorn of our children, but fortunately they come to appreciate it later when they begin to raise their own families in this Brave New World.
From the Bible
“Train up a child in the way he should go, and even when he is old he will not depart from it.”
Proverbs 22:6 ASV