So How Bad Is Screen Time For Kids? A Psychotherapist & Mom Explains

One of the most persistent questions parents are bringing into therapy is: How do I approach screen time with my kids?

We have enough research to know that there’s a relationship1 between screen time and anxiety and depression rates in adolescence. Parents, rightfully so, are worried about the impact of living in a screen-centered world on our children’s development.

However, when we are afraid, the part of our brain that is responsible for logical decision making is not accessible (a process called “amygdala hijack”), which causes us to remain paralyzed to make a positive choice for our families or react in ways that are not helpful in addressing the challenge.

I want to offer up a different way of approaching screen time, because as I see it, my primary issue is not necessarily with my kids watching too much Moana or with a teen patient of mine having an iPhone: it’s with the experiences these devices are taking away from young people having with themselves and with others. 

When we label something as “bad,” like smartphones, it prevents us from relating to it in an empowering way. For example, when we state that humans are a threat to nature, we don’t feel motivated to help nature—we are more likely to feel like we’ve already lost the battle, so why try.

Technology, including social media and AI, is here to stay, and demonizing these tools makes it hard to engage with them usefully and intentionally.

If you find yourself thinking in black and white terms (get my kid a phone or don’t), this may be your brain’s way of managing the anxiety of living in the messiness of the unknown.

The data on mental health outcomes shows that Gen Z, not Millennials, have experienced higher rates of anxiety and depression in recent years.

Gen Z is the first generation to grow up with a Smartphone. So focusing less on all screen time being bad, and more on: “what trade offs am I making when I or my children engage with this specific device or app?” allows us to reduce the harm associated with digital media.

We now know, from research shared in The Anxious Generation by American social psychologist and author Jonathan Haidt, that there is a causal relationship with social media and negative mental health outcomes. Delaying Smartphones until high school and prohibiting engagement with social media until age 16 has benefits on mental and emotional development of young people.

Asking ourselves: “How do we use this research to support decision making around a value system for technology?” allows us to feel more empowered and may make the problem feel more manageable.

Doing this in community, rather than as individuals, can create more impact and less struggle within families. Some school systems have created policies around technology–like no phones allowed in the classrooms.

Our children do what they observe/what is familiar. If we have rules for them around technology that we aren’t following–for example, checking our phones while we are with our kids, having phones out at the dinner table, having the television on in the background–it is going to be very difficult for them to shift their relationship to these devices. 

Get clear on how technology is impacting your ability to be present.

When we are digitally connected, we are not connecting to ourselves or others. There is an experience in psychology called “feeling felt,” which we can only do when we are present with others and they are present with us.

Psychologist and sociologist, Sherry Turkle, PhD, focuses on the studies of science and technology and teaches that “digital technology can provide the illusion of companionship without the demands of friendship, without the demands of intimacy.”

In my therapy practice, I witness people who have no one in their lives who they can cry with, but thousands of friends to connect with digitally. This type of connection is a placeholder for what we need to thrive: touch, eye contact, laughter, and tears, shared, witnessed, and cared for.

Research presented in the book Reclaiming Conversation: The Power Of Talk In The Digital Age shows a recent decline in interaction and eye contact at the playground as early as 4 years old.

Meanwhile, we know from World Happiness Reports that connection is the key to joy and the balm for healing. So instead of demonizing technology, let’s ask ourselves: “is this interaction with my device enhancing my and my kid’s life or is it distracting from the experiences we need to be having to thrive and grow?”

The tricky thing about these devices is that most of us pick them up, subconsciously, when we are feeling something we may want to get away from. For example, sometimes when I am feeling depleted, I’ll scroll through my Instagram feed.

The issue with this isn’t the scrolling, it’s that the scrolling is helping me avoid the depletion, and therefore avoid addressing the depletion.

Jonathan Haidt posits that the cause in the increase in anxiety rates for young people is an increase in monitoring their behaviors in person and a decrease in monitoring their interactions online.

When we are engaging with our devices, we are not engaging in real work risk taking: going up to a new person and asking them a question, struggling to come up with our next business idea, noticing an attractive person across the room, and making eye contact with a smile. 

The prefrontal cortex, the part of our brain that is in charge of decision making and reasoning, doesn't fully develop until mid-twenties. It is normal that the quick hits that social media offers entice our kids and make them want to engage with them frequently. We cannot criticize the desire, but we can uphold the boundary. 

Sometimes our boundaries make our young ones angry and disappointed. We don’t need to convince them that they shouldn’t be mad, we can be with them in this feeling without agreeing to shift our limits. 

I start my boundaries tight and loosen up over time, when my kids are more able to make wise choices for themselves.

For example, I remove the remote from the living room when it’s not TV time, create rituals around TV use (like making popcorn together during family movie night), and choose programs that display values that I want my children to embody. If they want to watch something I don’t know of, I screen it first, and then engage in a conversation with them about why I do/don’t think it will be supportive of them.

This is not supposed to be easy to navigate. We are the first generation of parents who are navigating child development with a Smartphone—it is new and therefore will feel hard. Each family and community will have to decide what approach to technology is best for them.