Inquiries into screen time call for nuanced approach

As reported by Psychology Today, official investigations into screen time are underway, but experts argue that a nuanced, vertical approach is needed to understand the diverse impact of various technologies on children’s well-being and education

The UK’s Education Committee launched a hearing inquiry into how screen time affects education and well-being and the Norwegian government appointed a committee to make recommendations on children’s screen use. While these inquiries are important for fostering reflection, it is argued that they have limited use in developing long-term, practical guidelines because they lump children’s internet use, social-media use, and educational-technology (EdTech) use into one broad “screentime” category.

Psychology experts say that this approach oversimplifies the diverse nature of technologies, neglecting the dynamic ecosystem they form and how children experience them as an interconnected system.

Certainly, various technologies encounter similar challenges arising from their reliance on data, especially with the growing integration of generative AI. Common challenges include the misuse of data for commercial purposes, such as advertising, and the implementation of so-called “sticky designs” that encourage prolonged screen time for children.

However, these shared challenges manifest differently for each technology and each child. Therefore, a blanket approach fails to account for the nuanced experiences associated with specific groups of users or activities.

Instead of assessing and establishing rules for children’s technologies horizontally, we should consider evaluating technologies vertically, considering their distinct characteristics.

Once we address each vertical or use case individually, we can then explore their connections to other domains. For instance, while children’s use of EdTech and social media cumulatively contributes to their overall screen time, its combination plays out very differently for children from different socio-economic backgrounds.