Screen Time
“When screen time is used thoughtfully & appropriately, media can enhance daily life. But when used inappropriately or without thought, media can displace many important activities such as face-to-face interaction, family-time, outdoor-play, exercise, unplugged downtime and sleep.”
- American Academy of Psychiatrics (AAP)
The 5 C’s
The American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) Center of Excellence on Social Media and Youth Mental Health developed the 5 C’s as an age-by-age guide to parenting around media and building healthy digital habits as your child grows.
Child: Who is your child? What is their personality? How do they respond to media. Where are they in their developmental stages. What kind of media are they seeking out?
Content: What is the quality of the content?
Calm: Kids need to learn other ways to calm besides media. Especially before bedtime.
Crowding Out: Make sure screen time isn’t getting in the way of other activities that are important to your family (i.e. quality family time, more sleep, time outdoors, etc.). Have a plan about when and where media is used every day.
Communication: Talk about media early and often. Help your kids build digital literacy and it helps you identify when your child may be struggling with media.
AAP Recommendations
Children under 18 months: Avoid screen time except for video chatting.
Children 18 to 24 months: If parents choose to introduce digital media, select high-quality programming and watch it with their children to help understand what they are seeing.
Children aged 2 to 5 years: Limit screen time to 1 hour per day of high-quality programming. Parents should continue to co-view media with their children.
Children aged 6 years and older: Establish consistent limits on the amount of screen time to ensure it does not interfere with sleep, physical activity or other healthy behaviors.
AAP recommends creating a family media plan to set clear rules about screen use in different contexts and to model healthy screen habits as parents.
Common Sense Media has tons of tips, guides and resources to help kids and family use media appropriately and find the right balance.
Did you know?
In 2024 Average screen time in the U.S. for all age groups is about 7 hours per day
Nearly half (41%) of American Teens (ages 13-18) have 8+ hours of screen time per day
Entertainment screen time among children in US has risen from 4 hours 44 minutes in 2019 to 5 hours 33 minutes in 2021
CDC reported that as of 2020 around 65% of U.S. children aged 2-17 exceed 2 hours of screen time per weekday, with the number increasing as children age.
Products:
Specifically designed to promote no screen time:
Toniebox
Yoto Player
KiwiCo Crates
Melissa and Doug Toys
Lovevery
For using screens in an educational and more hands on way:
Osmo
