Helping Young People Become ScreenWise

3 Tips Researchers Actually Agree About

By Jonathan McKee, Author, Parenting Generation Screen

Last year a group of researchers put their heads together about the effects of screen time on young people today, and they asked an important question:

“What do we agree about?”

And the results were eye-opening.

The researchers didn’t agree on how many hours of Netflix were too much, if video games were addicting, or even what age is the perfect age to give a kid a smartphone. But they did agree on two important truths:

  1. A very real mental health crisis is hitting young people in the last few years, pre-Covid, mind you.
  2. The hours young people specifically spend on social media strongly effects their mental health, especially girls. Point of fact, mental health and happiness are the strongest when teenagers spend just 1 to 2 hours a day on social media. The more time spent past two hours, mental well-being decreases rapidly.

Just 1 to 2 hours a day… in a world where 86% of kids want to be an influencer of some sort.

So what can Mom and Dad do to help their kids, especially their daughters? Here are a few tips most researchers agree on:

  1. Connection before correction

The temptation after reading this kind of research is to overreact and respond with rules. But what your kids really need is you to interact with them and work on respond relationally. The old adage is true: rules without a relationship lead to rebellion.

We need to convert our overreaction into interaction. So talk with your kids about the research in this article. Take them through a book like my Teen’s Guide to Social Media & Mobile Devices, engaging them in a dialogue with the discussion questions. Owning a phone is much like driving a car—it’s a privilege. We spend hours upon hours talking with our kids about driving before they get behind the wheel. Why is the smartphone any different? Take them through the manual.

  1. Delay social media until high school.

I know, I know. This is extremely difficult when (and I can hear your daughter saying it now), “Aaaaall my friends are on Tik Tok, Mom!” But just like driving, owning a smartphone is a privilege that comes with age. And as a guy who researches this stuff all the time, I think that age is 14 for most kids.

This is where groups of parents can unite and commit to waiting until all their kids graduate from middle school to get them smartphones. It’s much easier if their close-knit group of friends are in the same boat.

  1. Keep devices out of the bedroom

I’ve heard hundreds upon hundreds of horror stories from real parents at my parent workshops of their kids getting into trouble with their phones. And in all those stories of kids streaming inappropriate content or sneaking off with someone they met on social media (often someone who turns out different than who they thought)… almost all of those stories have a common phrase in the story: “all through the night.”

They were messaging each other all night. He snuck and played his games all night. She would wake up and check her likes all night. He downloaded inappropriate pictures in his bedroom late at night.

Maybe that’s because the most recent studies reveal 79 percent of teenagers actually take their devices with them to the bedroom each night, 68% of teens keep it within reach, and 29% actually sleep with their device in bed.

Would you like to avoid a lotta grief?

Collect your kids phones every night about an hour before bedtime. (I bet you can think of about 10 things they can do in their room instead.)

I can hear it now. “But Moooooooooom, I need it for my alarm clock.”

And that’s when you can reply, “Well, I’ll tell you what. If you want to read through this Teen’s Guide book with me and discuss it, there’s an entire chapter with research about phones in the bedroom. In the meantime, here’s $12. Go to Target and buy an alarm clock.”

Jonathan McKee has authored more than two dozen books including the upcoming, Parenting Generation Screen and The Teen’s Guide to Social Media & Mobile Devices. He has 30 years of youth ministry experience and speaks to parents and leaders worldwide. You can find helpful articles and videos of Jonathan on his website, becomingscreenwise.com.

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