Baby years
Screens are a boon to busy parents, especially those on their own: sit your child in front of CBeebies or a video on your tablet and – hey presto! – you have 10 minutes to call a colleague, do the washing up or even take a shower.
But Dr Jeanne Shinskey, head of the Baby Lab, which studies infant learning and memory at Royal Holloway, University of London, says that before the age of two-and-a-half, children don’t learn much from anything they see onscreen. “It’s very difficult for under-twos to learn from a video without adult help,” Shinskey says, “because they have difficulty understanding the speech and do not see the relevance of onscreen events to real life.”
There is also the displacement hypothesis: while your child is sitting in front of a screen, they’re missing out on something potentially a lot more enriching, such as sharing a book, getting physical exercise or even just sleeping. Research suggests reading to small children has decreased in recent years: this is potentially damaging, says Shinskey, because reading books involves vocabulary that wouldn’t come up in everyday life.
There are no specific UK guidelines on screen time for small children, but the WHO recommends zero screen time for babies under a year, and an hour or less a day for two- to four-year-olds.
Some researchers have stressed that this is an ideal, and not workable in many families, and suggest a “harm-reduction” formula. Spending 20 minutes or so watching CBeebies with you around is much less detrimental to their development than spending long hours unsupervised watching adult-content TV.
The other important thing is the kind of content they’re engaging with. What matters, says Shinskey, is that programmes are slow-paced, educational and age-appropriate. Content such as that found on CBeebies is ideal.There is emerging research that too much screen time may lead to children having a small vocabulary, being less able to control their temper and being more temperamental and more aggressive. But an important caveat to this, says Shinskey, is that almost all these studies establish only correlation, not causality. “For example, does prolonged viewing lead to attentional difficulties, or is a child with attentional difficulties allowed more viewing?” There are also likely to be other factors that predict outcomes regarding screen exposure and development, such as parental stress and socioeconomic factors.
So is there any upside to screen time for small kids? “One thing is that their fine motor control is improved because of what they’re doing on touch screens,” says Shinskey. But that may be a high price to pay for the downsides.
Preschoolers
Once children turn two, the educational benefits of screen time start to kick in. And the important thing, says psychologist Dr Sandra Mathers of Oxford University’s education department, is what’s happening during that time. “If your child engages with what’s on the screen in a productive way, there’s plenty of evidence that they are learning,” she says. “But not all apps, games and programmes will be good for their development.”
Choosing a high-quality app or game is essential (for guidance see the National Literacy Trust’s apps guide). When it comes to content, Mathers says the watchword is “minds on” – that it prompts active rather than passive engagement. You want to see your child responding to what they’re seeing.
It is also vital to explore digital content together. “Think of an app or game as you would a book,” says Mathers, as “something that will give you quality time together.” Young children learn most from social interaction, she stresses.
Primary schoolers
By this stage you’re likely to start feeling that your child understands the technology better than you do. To address this, Parven Kaur, a tech specialist and mother of two young children, set up Kidsnclicks.com to improve parents’ confidence.
What’s crucial, she says, is that whatever device or app you give your child, you get to grips with it yourself. “Before you buy anything tech-related for your child, ask yourself: do I have the time to understand this? If you were teaching your child to swim you wouldn’t buy the floats and then just throw them into the pool; you’d know that they are only tools. The same is true of tech purchases.”
Most parents worry about technology, and while it’s important not to let this get out of hand, you need to address it with your child. Kate Edwards, associate head of child safety online at the NSPCC, advises stressing to young children that they have power over anything that frightens them: “They’re in control. If anything is scaring them, they should turn it over, or turn it off, and tell someone about it.”
Secondary schoolers
Many kids are on social media much younger than 13, but Kaur points out that data protection laws mean social media sites require children to be 13 to register. As with apps, when the time comes, check out any site your child wants to join. Remember, too, to role-model good use of social media, says Kaur – set your own limits on the time you spend scrolling.
If your teen is into gaming, make sure you understand what’s happening in the game and when the cut-off point might come. “Imagine how cross you’d be if you had to stop watching Netflix at a crucial moment in the story,” says Kaur.
There are also conversations you need to have with teenagers about being kind to others both on- and offline. Asking them how they imagine others might be feeling, especially those having a hard time, can be a good way to start.
Many parents worry about their child being bullied – a legitimate concern – but it could be that your child is the one doing the bullying. Talk to them about when a “like” on social media could amount to being a bystander. These aren’t easy conversations, but it’s better to say something, and to be honest about your own shortcomings, than to leave them to negotiate choppy waters alone.
Young adults
Too many young adults are getting their sex education from the internet, says Will Gardner, CEO of Childnet International. “But porn isn’t normal behaviour; it’s fantasy, and it’s problematic. It doesn’t reflect equal sexual partnerships, and there’s a lot of violence towards women.”
Young people need to understand that porn is designed to make money, not to teach you anything helpful about sex or healthy body types. But make sure your reaction doesn’t lead to your youngster feeling shamed by having watched porn. Most young people, and indeed most people, do look at porn sometimes. The last thing you want to do is make your child feel you’re so horrified by it that they can’t ever talk to you about what they’re feeling.
Start by reassuring them that, whatever they tell you, you’re not going to be angry or upset, or judge them. Unless they know this, they’re likely to be too afraid to be honest. And don’t have the conversation while you are feeling upset or angry. Ask your child how they ended up watching porn, and ask them how they feel about what they’ve seen. Underline that they shouldn’t feel shame; if it’s easier, have this conversation while you’re out walking or in the car, so you’re not face to face and it’s less intense.
Childnet commissioned research to find out what parents were telling their youngsters to offset this maelstrom of misinformation. “And many young people told us: nothing. Their parents’ voices are absent in the conversation,” says Gardner.
So while it’s a difficult conversation, you absolutely need to engage with it if you’re a parent. You need to depersonalise it, but you need to make sure your child knows that porn, sexting and abuse simply aren’t OK. The vital message, and this goes for any age group, is to help your child realise that if they feel uncomfortable with anything, it’s a legitimate concern that it’s OK to share.
“Online sexual harassment can take many forms: taking and sharing intimate images, rape threats, receiving porn images, or about sexual orientation,” says Gardner. “If young people think this behaviour is normal, they won’t report it and it will continue. They need to know that if they feel a line is being crossed, reporting it and telling someone can help.”
As with all age groups, young adults will be acutely aware of how you are using digital devices. Talk to them about your own issues, such as being tempted to spend too much time online. Talk about family boundaries around, say, phones – you may not want them at the table during mealtimes, for example.
Technology brings huge benefits for all of us. But the real world matters, too.
Grooming: Sarah Cherry. Photographer’s assistant: Harry Brayne
• This article was amended on 6 December 2022. An earlier version, due to transcription errors and missing punctuation, misquoted Will Gardner. One paragraph, containing the line “you need to make sure your child knows that porn, sexting, and abuse simply aren’t OK”, was previously misattributed to Gardner, but has now been restored to the writer’s prose.
