12-13 Hours of Screen Time

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Are they doing Spelling Bee because when I play that, I really get sucked in and mad.

Yeah most teens are averaging double digit screen time because of Spelling Bee

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Do you know what kind of screen time it is mostly? Watching TV, playing video games, social media, doing homework using their phone, reading a book on a kindle app, listening to Spotify while doing homework?

12-13 hours is a lot no matter what but some kinds of screen time is worse than others.

Everyday. X, Tiktok, Youtube, IG, Netflix, Discord & Games.

So either this includes much of the school day or the doesn’t sleep nearly enough and is on screens every waking hour he is not in school?!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:16 hours/day here and I'm fine

Do you not have a job or school?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:16 hours/day here and I'm fine

Do you not have a job or school?

Lots of people use screens at their jobs, and at school.

[Anonymous]

I would take a really hard look at what is driving it.

[Anonymous]

The world is depressing

[Anonymous]

I would want more information about what kind of screentime.

My 18 year old spends a lot of time on screens.

He has an accommodation for typing, so he uses a screen of some sort for all writing at school and at home.

He prefers to use the Kindle app for most of his reading.

His math textbook is virtual, and he often has homework that is done in the virtual textbook.

He is a musician, and a lot of his sheet music is on devices. He also uses an iPad for other music related tasks, like recording himself so he can hear what corrections to make, or mixing together tracks, or looking for new songs to learn

He spends a lot of time on facetime with his girlfriend who lives too far away for him to see during the week. They will often set up facetime and keep each other company while they do homework.

He likes to watch ice hockey. Often he'll have the game on when he's doing tasks like folding his laundry, or cooking dinner.

He plays video games.

Across a day, those things might add up to a fairly high amount. I don't keep track across all platforms, so I don't know if he's ever hit 12 hours, but while I don't love how much he uses screens, it's not the same as a kid playing 12 hours of video games, or fooling with apps on his phone.

[Anonymous]

OP already shared that a lot of the time is on social media apps.

Those apps are designed to be addictive and can trap your kid in a toxic loop. As long as your kid is living in your house, you are in control. Set screen time limits for apps as well as time that the phone shuts off at night.

Kid might protest, but it's better in the long run. You're not always going to be there to help them, but you are now.

I speak from experience of never expecting my child to view toxic content and essentially be duped into believing some harmful behavior and thought patterns were normal. But regardless of what's happening or not happening with the content your kid is viewing, there are many opportunity costs to spending that much time online, especially on social media.

I'm surprised by the number of posters defending this amount of screentime. This isn't comparable to being online for work all day, taking an online class, or teaching yourself coding. The kid isn't reading on Libby for 12 hours or listening to Spotify while studying.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I assume it isn’t on a school day, because that would mean the were skipping school and/or losing sleep.

Otherwise, unlike most of DCUM, I don’t have an automatic problem with screens. I consider them just another form of media, which should be judged primarily on the content accessed in that format. Generally speaking, we considered as a privilege to be used during leisure time as long as obligations (homework, chores, activities, etc.) are fulfilled. Like any privilege, it could be restricted when we felt it was necessary for discipline or balance, but we generally didn’t limit on the basis of time.

A child occasionally spending 12-13 hours with screens, I think is fine - like it’s fine for an adult to binge a series or working on a project. Sometimes they were working on a project or a game or we might binge a series as a family. Having it on in the background listening to podcasts, music, etc., while they did other things, I can see being a more common use. However, if they were spending every day off solely devoted to screens to the exclusion of anything else, I think they probably should be encouraged to branch out to other activities and may need to have screens limited until they readjust and can balance them for themselves.

Agree with all of this.. I don't have a big problem with screens in general.
Are you sure stuff wasn't playing while they were sleeping?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I assume it isn’t on a school day, because that would mean the were skipping school and/or losing sleep.

Otherwise, unlike most of DCUM, I don’t have an automatic problem with screens. I consider them just another form of media, which should be judged primarily on the content accessed in that format. Generally speaking, we considered as a privilege to be used during leisure time as long as obligations (homework, chores, activities, etc.) are fulfilled. Like any privilege, it could be restricted when we felt it was necessary for discipline or balance, but we generally didn’t limit on the basis of time.

A child occasionally spending 12-13 hours with screens, I think is fine - like it’s fine for an adult to binge a series or working on a project. Sometimes they were working on a project or a game or we might binge a series as a family. Having it on in the background listening to podcasts, music, etc., while they did other things, I can see being a more common use. However, if they were spending every day off solely devoted to screens to the exclusion of anything else, I think they probably should be encouraged to branch out to other activities and may need to have screens limited until they readjust and can balance them for themselves.

Agree with all of this.. I don't have a big problem with screens in general.
Are you sure stuff wasn't playing while they were sleeping?

That was my question! I'm trying to figure out how 12-13 hours is even possible ... unless you're not sleeping or otherwise leaving your phone going all night? I've had music/podcast/radio apps going while I work for a ton of this week and my daily average is still less than half of that (according to my phone at least).

[Anonymous]

Take the phone.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:16 hours/day here and I'm fine

Do you not have a job or school?

Lots of people use screens at their jobs, and at school.

I think there's a difference between having to work at a job that requires a computer and being paid to work, and sitting on social media all day.

Similarly I wouldn't count in time at school where the kids are required to be on their chrome books as "screen time" (although I agree those are screens and are detrimental in many ways when added to the social media fun screen time out of school).