Should Your Child Really Be Spending MORE Time With A Screen?

Imagine eighth-graders with handheld video recorders filming mock commercials for products they imagined into being (at least in prototype form) for this particular assignment. They’ve written ad scripts for their products in groups of four and five, each playing an indispensable role — scriptwriter, actor, director, camera crew, film editor, and in certain cases of the overachiever and/or future film school grad, all of the above.

This project was designed to teach students various forms of persuasive appeals and propaganda techniques. It was an annual hit amongst all the eighth-graders I taught over five years, for reasons that are probably obvious. They had creative freedom, they got to be on screen, they were welcomed to include humor (including of the immature variety), and they were invited to participate and produce in the adult world of advertising and marketing.

It was, for the record, also my favorite unit of the year. This is remarkable only because I am personally quite skeptical of technology as an educational tool. My students were not allowed to use their phones in class, ever, and note-taking and in-class work were strictly done in handwriting.

Still, even I, someone with self-identified Luddite tendencies, could discern the benefit of using video to showcase a commercial. When students told me in breathless excitement about the hours they’d spent editing the jingle to autotune their voices, it made me feel good. Maybe even, dare I say, joyful.

Those were screen time hours, the thing we’re supposed to view with trepidation and disdain as parents and educators. They were just fundamentally different than other screen time activity.

That’s the gist of Christopher Mims’ recent Wall Street Journal article, “What If Children Should Be Spending More Time With Screens?”

The title deserves the immediate eye roll it got from me. We’ve reached a point where even the laudable WSJ has succumbed to the almighty temptation of clickbait.

I went in expecting to be told about “breaking” research on how slapping a beaming iPad in front of pesky kids doesn’t really play Yahtzee with their emotional stability the way I’ve personally experienced. That YouTube Kids and Snapchat aren’t deeply weird and disorienting mind holes for youths. That the future is tech, let’s all just surrender, and here’s a little balm for your parental guilt in the meantime.

Thankfully, that’s not what the article entailed. Instead, Mims outlines the way some computer programs are interactive learning tools. FaceTime with Grams is A-Okay. Parent-approved video games can be creative opportunities to learn strategy.

In short: emphasize creativity and production, and limit passive consumption. Mims insists: screens can be good!

Well, of course. All the types of screen time Mims advocates are exactly the sort no parent objects to — at least, no parent I’ve ever met. Educational videogames and/or documentaries about astronomy or literacy or the Underground Railroad are legitimately good for learning, and not at all the sort of toxic internet offering parents worry about.

The problem is, this type of screen use requires near-constant parental supervision, unless a device has been unhooked from the Internet entirely. Otherwise, why on earth are kids more self-controlled than adults? If you and I open the computer ostensibly to check our email and 30 minutes later are still scrolling through Twitter screeds and Facebook posts, why do we assume younger ones with vastly less developed critical thinking skills are somehow better at online self-regulation?

And if kids are online, and they do (shock, horror!) mosey away from chemistry practice and over to the wide web, even supposedly “kid-friendly” internet fare is suspect. The need for meticulous parental oversight rises again. (Maybe just handing them a book or a big crate of Legos might be easier…)

And yes, education can be entertaining. Great! Also yes: learning is sometimes just hard.

I’m reminded of an animated program to help students learn eighth-graders reading skills that was entertaining as hell. I used it for a few weeks with a group of students who needed extra tutoring, and we all got a kick out of the brightly colored characters who popped out of the text and asked leading questions about whether this or that section provided detail on setting, or character development, or the text’s all-important “main idea.”

But once I came to the **stunning** realization that no animated fox friend would be popping up out of their STAAR test (or Kindle, or Nook, or novel), I knew this was a waste of time. Kids have to learn how to draw the main idea and get a sense of character out of the text itself, and the text alone.

Just because a technology makes a particular academic activity more “entertaining” doesn’t mean it will necessarily help young people learn the actual material itself.

Mims notes that screens do by nature promote inactivity, which is a con worth consideration. And he also notes the various research that’s demonstrated technology’s deleterious effects on mental health. 

Plus, I get the impression that Mims’ own children are not allowed to be screen gluttons, even if he’s loosened up the timed rules a bit.

But with an article title like that, it’s little wonder that parents who manage to eek out a bit of hesitation towards Silicon Valley regularly feel drowned out by the powers that be. Mims isn’t really arguing we should pile some extra screen time on top of the average nine hours (YES. NINE.) teens spend on screens outside of school already. He’s advocating for smart, intentional use of screens in creative and interactive modes.  

“What If Children Should Be Spending Time On Screens Differently?” would have been a more accurate title.

Accurate. But not click-y.

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Photo: Flickr/Marcus Kwan