Arguments Against Taking Policy Action Now on Children’s Screen-Based Lifestyles

In the response letter “Screen time guidelines need to be built on evidence, not hype” to Palmer et al. (2016)’s letter “Screen-based lifestyle harms children’s health”, Etchells et al. (2017)’s primary arguments are:

  1. There is a lack of evidence to support claims that screen-based lifestyles are harmful to children’s health and therefore, to support related guidelines or policies.
  2. Screen time is not the most important factor affecting children’s health and therefore, policy that focuses on screen-based lifestyle will be ineffective.
  3. There is no consistent evidence to show that screen time and outdoor play are related. Therefore, a screen-based policy will not result in changes in outdoor play.
  4. Further research on screen-based lifestyles should not focus on screen time and instead should focus on factors that are likely more impactful – context and content of the screen use.
  5. Policies that aren’t backed by solid evidence can be unnecessary or harmful.

My Beliefs on Children and Screen-Based Lifestyles

My own beliefs surrounding children and screen-based lifestyles were not revolved around screen time, but rather social behavior. These beliefs have been developed through interpreting my emotional reactions and thoughts to various social behaviors that I have observed. Due to a formal upbringing as a child, I was given definitive, somewhat traditional views in terms of acceptable social behaviors and manners. Though this affects my view when making observations in society, I have always been flexible in my interactions and accepting that everyone has different definitions of social appropriateness.

As some examples, I believe that IPads should make no appearance at the dinner table, that children should be taught to negotiate time spent on their device with time spent having experiences in the real world and that children should incorporate physical activity into their life. I also think it’s important to teach your children conversation skills, manners and writing skills for person-to-person interactions that are unrelated to social media posts and text messaging. Also, I cringe when I see babies that are fascinated by phones and even know to smile when they see one in front of them. But I’ll admit until now, I’ve never really evaluated why I do. Seeing it just always seems to make me feel uncomfortable and so, I associate it with it being socially immoral.

How This Work Led Me to Re-Evaluate My Positions

After reading this letter and the accompanying supportive evidence, I have begun to reshape my view of children on their devices. It was the evidence (ie. links) within the letter that provided me with ideas that made me question the nature of my own beliefs and feelings. Unlike Palmer et al. (2016), Etchells et al. (2017) supported its letter with various research links that provided robust studies that found inconclusive evidence or evidence that did not support that screen time affects children’s health. One of the studies even found that toddlers using a touchscreen were positively affected as they developed fine motor controls earlier in life (Bedford, Saez de Urabain, Cheung, Karmiloff-Smith & Smith, 2016). This study’s finding allowed me to accept the possibility that babies and toddlers using touch-screen devices might not be such a negative thing after all. It also made me think that, as a parent, I’ll have to keep in touch with recent research and not my subjective ideas on what is right and wrong about children using technology.

To emphasize this, I’ll end this post with a concluding statement that Bedford et al. (2016) made after reviewing the positive fine motor control effect that touch-screens had on toddlers. I think it describes a balanced perspective – to be open to what technology can allow children, but also be mindful and aware that there could still be long-term consequences that we have yet to find out.

 “…This may be [sic] an indication of how our current generation are adapting to their new media environment and setting the foundation for a life spent interacting with such devices. How such exposure relates to long-term development, educational achievement and impacts future society are pressing research questions facing developmental science.” (Bedford et al., 2016, p.7)

References

Bedford, R., Saez de Urabain, Irati R, Cheung, C. H. M., Karmiloff-Smith, A., & Smith, T. J. (2016). Toddlers’ fine motor milestone achievement is associated with early touchscreen scrolling. Frontiers in Psychology, 7, 1108. doi:10.3389/fpsyg.2016.01108

Etchells, P., et al. (January 6, 2017). Screen Time Guidelines should be built on evidence, not hype. The Guardian.

Palmer, S., et al. (December 25, 2016). Screen-based lifestyle harms children’s health. The Guardian.

Image Source:

Photo by Robert Collins on Unsplash