{"id":10591,"date":"2020-10-01T13:53:12","date_gmt":"2020-10-01T20:53:12","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/hesarizona.org\/glendale-charter-school\/?p=10591"},"modified":"2020-10-22T14:55:21","modified_gmt":"2020-10-22T21:55:21","slug":"dealing-with-screen-obsessed-kids","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/hesarizona.org\/glendale-charter-school\/dealing-with-screen-obsessed-kids\/","title":{"rendered":"Dealing With Screen-Obsessed Kids"},"content":{"rendered":"

When\u2019s the last time you saw your kid\u2019s face? Not a silhouette or a partial view\u2014but a full-on, forehead-to-chin, look-\u2018em-in-the-eye view? If you\u2019re trying to remember the last time, this is probably the answer: It was just before you let them use your phone or tablet for the first time.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

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Perhaps you\u2019re one of those lucky parents whose child isn\u2019t quite so enamored with technology and still chooses to engage in conversation rather than messaging. But most kids are screen-obsessed from an early age. Who can blame them? Go to any restaurant or doctor\u2019s office, ride the tram or wait for a movie to start, and every adult is looking down at a screen. Why wouldn\u2019t kids do the same? The question is, is there anything wrong with that?\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

A few generations ago, parents probably worried because their children were spending too much time listening to their Walkman or playing Nintendo. A generation earlier, parents worried because their children were spending too much time in front of the television. A few generations before that, parents probably had concerns about kids who were spending too much time listening to the radio. It\u2019s doubtful any of those things caused any residual damage.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

So take a deep breath, ignore all the doomsday scenarios predicting a generation of tech zombies, and let\u2019s see if it\u2019s even a problem.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Do a Google search for \u201c<\/span>Dealing with screen-obsessed kids<\/span><\/a>\u201d and here\u2019s what you\u2019ll find: <\/span>Have Smartphones Destroyed a Generation?<\/span><\/a>, <\/span>5 Strategies for Coping With Screen-Obsessed Kids<\/span><\/a>, <\/span>How To Tell if Your Child has a Screen Addiction<\/span><\/a>, <\/span>We Quit Screen Time Completely and it Saved Our Kids<\/span><\/a>, and on and on.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Reading that list of web-page titles, it would be easy to see why a parent would be concerned; however, as with anything, moderation is the key. Children need to enter adulthood with a comprehensive background and a variety of experiences, so sheltering them from technology would be counter to that goal. However, screen time should be just one component in the development of a well-rounded child.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Are there valid reasons for concern over screen-obsessed kids? Definitely. A study by the <\/span>National Institutes of Health<\/span><\/a> (NIH) is tracking over 11,000 children, ages 9-10, to discover how screen time can affect children\u2019s brains, mental health, and emotional development. It\u2019s a study that won\u2019t be completed for a decade; however, preliminary findings show that there are <\/span>changes in the brains<\/span><\/a> of children who are excessive phone and tablet users, revealing why screen usage can be addicting. Researchers found that parts of the brain\u2019s reward system are most active when children access social media.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Dr. Kara Bagot<\/span><\/a>, an NIH investigator, believes that screen time stimulates the release of dopamine, which plays a role in cravings and desire, in the same way as addictive substances do. Dr. Bagot says that the dopamine causes children to act impulsively and use social media compulsively. Instead of self-regulating, kids want to keep checking social media so they can keep getting the positive feelings the dopamine provides.<\/span><\/p>\n

Jean Twenge<\/span><\/a>, a psychology professor at San Diego State University, says those born in or after 1995\u2014a group she calls the \u201cI-Gen\u201d\u2014are the first to spend their adolescent years with smartphones. She discovered a radical shift in the behavior of those children. While the percentage of those engaging in risky behavior went down, loneliness and depression went up, as did visits to hospital emergency rooms for self-harm.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Children under the age of two are even more susceptible to the effects of screens because, when kids in that age group are able to make things happen on a phone or tablet, it\u2019s much more gratifying than in older children. Consequently, they are less likely to want to give up the source of that gratification.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Dr. Dimitri Christakis<\/span><\/a>, from Seattle Children\u2019s Hospital, says that children under the age of two should not have contact with digital media at all. Dr. Christakis showed that parents who think kids in that age group can learn from digital media are largely misinformed. Kids below the age of two, have little ability to learn from phones and tablets because skills don\u2019t transfer at that young age. For example, if you give a child an app where they can play with virtual Legos or virtual blocks, they may become proficient at stacking them on-screen; however, when confronted with the same Legos and blocks in real life, they have no idea what to do, unable to transfer their online skills from two dimensions to three dimensions.\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

The final piece to the puzzle is that every app, game, and social media site has been created by teams of engineers and psychologists whose job it is to capture and keep a child\u2019s attention. And those apps, games, and social media sites are updated and improved, often on a daily basis, to make them even more attention-getting and persuasive.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Earlier, it was suggested that kids using digital media wasn\u2019t that different from kids in previous generations watching TV or listening to the radio, but here\u2019s where that comparison fails: earlier media wasn\u2019t responsive and engaging, it didn\u2019t elicit a reward response that released dopamine, it wasn\u2019t designed by teams of experts to get and keep one\u2019s attention.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Jean Twenge says that phones and tablets should be tools that you use\u2014not tools that use you.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

So\u2026with all that dire information, why shouldn\u2019t parents be alarmed? Because parents are in a position to supervise phone usage, set a good example, and distract kids with other activities!\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Kids should, of course, be allowed to spend time on their screens, messaging friends, playing games, checking and posting on social media. But the odds are stacked against children ever being able to muster the self-control to stop, so here are some ways parents can intervene:\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Apps\u00a0<\/b><\/p>\n

There are several excellent apps that can schedule and limit screen time, block websites, block apps, block search results, geo-fence, locate and track, and monitor calls, app usage, text messages, contacts and more. Since this discussion is about screen time, we\u2019ll focus on that, and we\u2019ll only list apps that work on both iOS and Android. The highest rated apps all have an annual fee, which may make them hard for many families to afford; however, the most expensive app shown below\u2014$54.95 annually\u2014works out to only about 15\u00a2 per day, which is a fairly small price to be able to monitor your children\u2019s screen activity.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n