How can we stop screens from stealing our kids’ childhoods? Our Best Life (2024)

CLEVELAND, Ohio – Screens are stealing our kids’ childhoods.

American kids age 8-12 spend 4-6 hours a day watching or using screens, according to the American Academy of Child & Adolescent Psychology. Teens spend up to 9 hours.

And in the summer, if they’re too old for day camp and their parents are working, it’s probably worse. It’s a constant battle to get kids outside and away from their tablets, iPhones, computers, video games and streaming services.

About 40% parents and teens report regularly arguing with one another about time spent on their phone, according to the Pew Research Center.

I’d argue that number is underreported. My husband and I fight with our kids nearly every day about screen time. And that’s when our 13-year-old has zero social media, and our 11-year-old doesn’t even have a phone.

Experts, like psychologist Jonathan Haidt, who just published “The Anxious Generation: How the Great Rewiring of Childhood is Causing an Epidemic of Mental Illness,” says kids shouldn’t have a smartphone until high school.

That idea is easier when families band together to agree on rules, he said.

But that feels impossible when middle schoolers make plans on text and Snapchat. When elementary school kids create elaborate power hierarchies on group text chats that ping ping ping with meaningless emojis.

How can we teach – and deliver – moderation?

Our family has tried to use screens sparingly. We rarely handed our kids our phones as babysitters. They have never had their own iPads. We held off phones until sixth grade, giving them Gizmo watches instead so we could track them as they biked to school, and they could call us from the pool.

That’s because we know screen time is addictive.

Screens release dopamine in users’ brains, weakening impulse control and setting off a pleasure/reward cycle that aims to control our actions.

If you’ve ever taken away a kid’s phone, you’ve likely seen the effects. Kids may be dazed, like they’re coming up from underwater. They’re disoriented and argumentative.

As adults, we know we spend too much time on screens. We’ve all caught ourselves reaching for our phones with no reason. Or watching multiple screens at the same time.

We know friends who have done a social media detox, or at least taken a break, because we didn’t like how the perfection of others’ posts made us feel, or because we realized we relied too much on the external validation of likes. And as adults we have the advantage of a fully developed prefrontal cortex.

Kids are still growing, but they know screens are problematic, too.

Nearly three-fourths of U.S. teens in the Pew study say they often or sometimes feel peaceful when they don’t have their smartphone; 44% say it makes them feel anxious.

That’s why Haidt preaches no screens before high school. Also: No social media before 16. Phone-free schools. More independence, free play, risk and responsibility in the real world.

Phones, he argues, are behind the rising rates of depression, anxiety, self-harm, and suicide in young people.

Studies show that even if teenagers are not “addicted” to their phones, phones can cause problems like obesity, sleep disturbances, depression, and anxiety. Phones can also stunt social skills and hurt real-life friendships. That’s phones alone, not even social media.

They’re terrifying, frankly. Why do we let electronics control our lives?

They make life easier for so many things. But they make raising kids harder.

A 2018 Business Performance Innovation network survey found that 88% of parents said that parenting today is harder than when they were children -- back when my bedtime was after “Jeopardy” each night.

There are so many decisions about technology: starting with, when should kids get access to it?

Our 13-year-old rising eighth-grader has a phone; our 11-year-old rising sixth-grader does not, though she has an old iPod where she is part of dozens of group text conversations, most of which are almost completely devoid of substance.

The screens are kept downstairs overnight. But in the morning, both kids can’t wait to check what they’ve missed, from midnight selfies sent from sleepovers to the latest videos on SportsCenter. They could spend hours on YouTube if we let them, watching tweens get ready at a mirror and grown men play video games.

We try not to let them. We try to make them live in the real world.

But by refusing to allow my eighth-grader Snapchat, am I stunting his social life?

Let’s salute one local school for recognizing the problem.

Kirtland Middle School’s Student Leadership Council launched a screen-free week in May, where teachers avoided the use of digital screens like Chromebooks, tablets, and projectors/TVs, and students were encouraged to take a break from screens at home.

“Our students will be healthier and happier if they spend less time with television, video games and handheld devices,” said the principal. “In the future, we hope to make this more of a community event including activities outside of the school day.”

How about a screen-free summer, too? We could limit our kids’ phone time to an hour in the morning and evening and make them meet at the pool or park for social interaction. They could call each other, or knock on doors.

Because letting our kids roam, exploring the neighborhood on their bikes or playing a pick-up baseball game, is integral to their formation. They need to be away from adults and screens, to develop self-confidence and resilience to be successful adults.

Limiting screen time isn’t easy, but neither is making my kids eat vegetables and brush their teeth. Don’t we owe it to them to cut back the phone?

Cleveland.com content director Laura Johnston writes weekly about life in her 40s in the column, Our Best Life. Subscribe to the newsletter to get the column delivered to your inbox Friday mornings. Or find her on Instagram @ourbestlifecle.