When it comes to we know that not all tech is created equally. There’s a big difference between children plugging in and tuning out on a device with zero parental controls for hours on end — versus interacting with carefully curated educational content for 20 minutes at a time with a parent. There’s also a lot of in-between.
Educators and experts worldwide are urging parents to take action to prevent childhoods from being lost to YouTube rabbit holes and TikTok time drains. Even kids admit to feeling better without devices and say they wish adults would do more to help them learn and grow without being obsessively tethered to tech. “I’m a teenager and I struggle with how much time I spend on my phone.
I find myself scrolling on social media when I could be outside in the weather I wished would come all school year long,” wrote a reader after my on the pros and cons of screens, especially in the summer. I also heard from parents who said they continually struggle with “ground rules, non-negotiables, and all the things to set boundaries around technology. It still requires ongoing, consistent, unwavering management.
” Still, another parent wrote, “The tech is ridiculous and needs to be reined in with regulation.” A 17-year-old family friend, who asked that I not use her name, said that as a high school student, she wishes “phones were never introduced to my generation because of how much it affected my childhood and mental health.” So where does this all .