Time – Martha Pickerill
“Digital devices have invaded and occupied our lives and aren’t leaving. Phones and tablets of every size travel with us everywhere. Computer screens and TVs flicker in nearly every room we enter. But even in this altered landscape, the official recommendations regarding kids’ screen time have remained largely unchanged since 1998: No TV or device time at all for kids age 2 and under, and no more than two hours per day of entertainment screen time for older kids. Policy makers at the American Academy of Pediatrics maintain that while increased use of laptops and tablets for school work may necessitate more academic use of those devices, no kid should have more than 2 hours of digital recreation per day. Those policy makers must feel slighted when they see how lightly we take their recommendations. The statistics on how much time kids are actually spending in front of screens suggest that devices are now kids’ favorite toys. A 2014 study in the journal Clinical Pediatrics found that about half of U.S. kids ages 6 to 18 exceed the two-hour limit on recreational screen time, including 16% who spend more than four hours per day in front of a screen. The revolution is happening fast, too. According to an in-depth report on kids’ media use by Common Sense Media, the percentage of kids under age 8 with access to a smartphone or tablet at home went from 52% in 2011 to 75% in 2013—including 38% of children under 2.”(more)