National Screen Time: Pros and Cons

The Need for National Screen Time Limits for Youth in America

As digital technology continues to dominate life, it's becoming important to consider the impact of screen time on health and development.  In America, kids under the age of 16 are exposed to more screen time than ever before, whether through smartphones, tablets, gaming consoles, or computers. While technology has its benefits, a national screen time limit tailored to children’s ages could be a critical step toward protecting their mental, physical, and emotional well-being.

For younger children, access to screens can be detrimental to growth. Studies have shown that children under the age of 5 who spend excessive time on screens are more likely to experience delays in language development, difficulty with social interaction, and problems with attention and focus. Exposure to screens early on can interfere with essential developmental milestones. It's crucial that young children spend more time engaging in physical activity, imaginative play, and direct social interaction activities that contribute to their cognitive and social development. 

Research consistently shows that excessive screen time is linked to a variety of health problems in children, such as, sleep disturbances, attention issues, and an increased risk of obesity. The American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) recommends limits on screen time for children, suggesting no more than two hours of recreational screen time per day for kids aged 6 and older. However, without enforcing national guidelines these recommendations can be difficult to follow. Establishing clear age-based screen time limits would allow parents, educators, and healthcare professionals to work together in managing children's digital habits, fostering a healthier life. 

In contrast to the relatively unregulated approach in the U.S., China has already implemented national regulations to limit screen time for children. In 2021, the Chinese government introduced measures that restrict children under the age of 18 to just three hours of online gaming per week, with no gaming allowed during the school week. These regulations help to curb the rise of addiction among youth and ensure focus on more social and academic activities. 

In conclusion, establishing a national screen time policy in the U.S could be a key strategy in mitigating the negative effects of excessive screen use among children. By setting age appropriate limits, America can ensure that children grow up with a healthy balance of technology and experience.

In Opposition to a National Youth Screen Time

It is no secret that the youth of today are increasingly in online spaces. Over the years, as the world adjusts to the new digital age, regulations and safety rules have been put in place to help ensure children especially are safe online. Nonetheless, many believe that screen time usage is harmful and should have overall limits for the youth. This disregards the many benefits some kids are seeing from their online presence and creates a one-size-fits-all approach to a much more nuanced problem.

Of course, it isn’t good for kids to be addicted to their phones, but not all kids are the same. For instance, many kids use platforms for educational purposes and have ended up ahead in school due to their thirst for knowledge. Many people see the internet as a blanket drug, rotting kids’ minds and debilitating their critical thinking, but in reality, it has always been a digital library full of any information a young child might wonder about. The days of parents listening to a frustrating stream of “but why’s” are over, as kids increasingly have the agency to answer questions themselves. Games like Duolingo repurpose the same “addicting” parts of the internet and use them to encourage kids to learn a new language or get invested in a new culture.

Additionally, screen time is preparing kids for their futures. While it may be difficult to believe, the digital age has come with an entirely new job market. Now, social media is one of the biggest growing industries, and managing it is a common job option for freelance workers. By limiting the ability of interested youth to acquire these skills, they are significantly limited in their career prospects. Similarly, kids who are interested in things like coding, video game development, and digital design often get their skills from actual engagement with these things online.

This type of one-size-fits-all approach is significantly detrimental in the long run. While many people are using screen time for entertainment purposes, which isn’t inherently bad in itself, there are plenty of brilliant kids out there who, if given the opportunity and access to the internet, will use it to do great things. By limiting those kids, a screen time mandate would also limit some of the future’s greatest minds. 

It is not necessarily the government’s place to be regulating the way kids spend their time either. When it comes to the day-to-day activities in people’s lives and similar concepts, the choice is traditionally left up to their state and local governments to regulate, if at all. The government has no place allocating what kids are allowed to spend their time doing, whether that be playing video games all weekend after a stressful week or mindlessly scrolling through their phones searching for a spark of inspiration for their next art project. The reason kids spend so much time on the internet is because it is providing them some value.

When this type of regulation is put in place by a governing body, it takes away the opportunity for kids to regulate themselves. It is an important skill that through trial and error, and maybe a bit too much screen time, young people learn how to manage their screen time usage on their own. As people get older and they no longer have the same restrictions, they are likely to go wild, like when college students finally get a taste of freedom to choose their own food and instantly go wild with junk food. The reality is that taking away screens from kids takes away their ability to build healthy habits and a good relationship with the internet while their brains are developing the schemas that will come to rule their adult lives. 

If the youth never dig themselves into a deep internet hole, they are bound to become dysregulated adults. This is why currently, even though older generations are less likely to turn toward technology initially, those who do use it tend to spend an average of 40 minutes more online each week and Boomers and Gen X are more likely to use their phone at the dinner table than Millennials according to Nielsen studies. Generations who were not born into the digital age didn’t grow up learning how to regulate their technology usage in the same ways that today’s youth have learned to. 

Previous generations were forced by their lack of technology to wait until adulthood to indulge, and setting governmental limits creates those same conditions for kids who have the privilege of growing up in modern times. It is far better for a kid to make mistakes, get addicted, and learn to overcome them when they are young and the consequences aren’t as significant as when they are struggling in the workforce, with the unmotivated inability to care for themselves.

When it comes down to implementation, a youth national screen time limit is a dangerous idea. It gives the government too much power over individual lives and how they spend their time without acknowledging all of the great things that can come out of it.