JENNIFER DEAL: All of my friends who are parents want to know what the right answer is for their children’s technology use. I’m in that boat too–I have a six-year-old son whom I want to support in being a happy, healthy child, and growing into a happy, healthy adult. To this end, I read whatever I can find about the effects of technology on learning and development, talk with my friends who have older children about what they have seen and done, and talk with other parents about what their strategies are.
From all of this inquiry, I’ve learned one thing (which is either frightening or freeing, depending on your perspective): There isn’t one right answer. What is best for one child isn’t necessarily best for another (even another in the same family), and what is best at one stage of a child’s development doesn’t always work in the next.
For example, while the American Academy of Pediatrics recommends no more than two hours of recreational screen time for a child 3-18 years of age, that time has different implications for different children. What is the purpose of the technology use? Is it to relax alone or to bond with friends or to have family time? What effect does it have on the child? For one child, 10 minutes of video gaming is enough to get them completely hyper and unable to focus, while for another it provides an excellent stress release after school so they can focus on homework. For one child, watching a show results in many days’ worth of imaginative play, while another becomes mesmerized and is solely focused on what they can watch next. Children are not all the same and don’t have identical reactions to different types of technology, so any one approach won’t work the same way for all of them.
According to the friends I’ve talked with, each individual child’s reactions–and what you can do about them–are likely to change as they grow and as technology changes. While I’m worrying about (the relatively simple issue of) content of games and shows for a six-year-old, my friends with older children have moved on to managing the social dynamics of technology use, including contact with others during multiplayer games, Instagram nastiness, and other social media interaction with the outside world. The solutions they developed when their children were eight that dealt primarily with time on devices are no longer as relevant when they are 14 and a substantial portion of their social and school-related interaction is through technology.
What are we as parents to do if there’s no right answer about technology use that will last longer than the current development stage of the child or the technology? It seems to me that we should pay attention to the child as an individual as much as to the recommendations. Realize that no two children are the same, and don’t be surprised if what worked perfectly for one child doesn’t work at all for another. We as parents set the guidelines for technology use, and provide the example–which means if we want our children to put their devices away during family time or want them to watch fewer shows, we need to be willing to do so as well. And mostly just do our best to provide an environment that helps them grow in the most productive way possible…with (or without) technology.
Jennifer Deal is a senior research scientist at the Center for Creative Leadership and an affiliated research scientist at the Center for Effective Organizations at the University of Southern California. She is co-author of the forthcoming “What Millennials Want from Work.”
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