You check in to say good night to your son only to find he is playing "Fortnite" in bed.
Or your daughter is busy texting when she is supposed to be studying.
Children and their phones are inseparable today, and all that reading and playing games on their handheld devices may be harming their vision.
To reduce screen time, some parents ban phones at the dinner table. This applies to both adults and children. And in some homes, playing games or texting must stop two hours before bedtime.
To put a hard stop on screen time, some moms and dads set time limits on their children's daily device use. For example, when a total of two hours of screen time has been reached, no more texting, game playing or YouTube watching.
Definition of "screen time"
"Screen time" refers to the amount of time a person spends staring at the digital displays of computers, tablets (iPads, for example) and smartphones.According to The Vision Council, 72 percent of American parents report their children routinely engage in more than two hours of screen time per day. And it's very likely most kids actually spend significantly more time staring at screens than their parents think they do.
As kids grow, their screen time tends to grow with them. And even very young children these days are spending a significant amount of time each day staring at screens. According to Common Sense Media, young children in the U.S. spend the following amount of time each day using digital devices:
- Kids under 2 years of age: 42 minutes per day
- Kids ages 2 to 4: 2.5 hours per day
- Children ages 5 to 8: nearly 3 hours per day
