As a child I had incredibly limited screen time: 20 minutes per day. We had one shared, little tablet that me and my sisters were using to play some games. These 20 minutes became a holy amount of time we would used to play in very strategic manners: we needed to divide our time over multiple games we wanted to play. For example, you would start with playing idle games which required a low amount of player interaction: games such as my singing monsters or hay day, where you just needed to collect some money or items and maybe place a structure, after which you needed to wait for hours anyway before you could continue doing anything. After this, we needed to make a thoughtful selection of the games we wanted to play in the remaining time we had left. If we played a certain game on one day, the next day we would play something else. The strict 20 minutes forced our little brains to do some serious planning on how to effectively use the limited time we had.
Obviously, this was not the only advantage of the screen time. By limiting the amount of time we could spend on our tablet, we slowly got used to the idea these digital devices are only available for limited time. This limited availability is an illusion: you could spend hours and hours on a tablet, laptop or phone, but the limitations of this screen time made us realize that using the tablet was not the most important thing we could do on a day. We would look forward to using our 20 minutes to play games on the tablet very much, but simultaneously realized that we did not need more that 20 minutes to enjoy ourselves. There still existed a world beyond the borders of the tablet, time we would use playing outside, reading or making art. This realization was very important in my development in a world that has become increasingly filled with digital media. When, years later, I got my first phone, the 20 minutes of screen time remained. Only when I needed to use my phone in relation to homework or other school-related tasks I was allowed to use it outside of the screen time limit, but watching videos, play games and even texting my friends were limited to 20 minutes a day. Eventually my parents realized that especially this social part was very important, staying in contact with friends from my new school but also from primary school, so the rules became much more loose very quickly. Nonetheless, my subconscious awareness of the limitations of using a digital device remained. Most importantly, knowing that the world keeps existing outside of my phone and the fact you do not need much time to get fulfillment out of using a digital device led to me feeling independent from my phone. In conclusion, I think that limited screen time is a great way to make young children aware of how much enjoyment you can get out of digital devices, while simultaneously realizing the amount of screen time you need to receive this enjoyment is very low.
I agree that it would be beneficial to have limited screen time for young children. Although maybe ‘limited’ is not the right word, since we all know that humans tend to push the red button when it is said to NOT push the button, so to speak.
Thus, I believe that the type of words matters in this case. Instead of emphasising what a child can NOT do or is limited to doing, maybe it would be better to give the said child more opportunities than the digital media. Let the child see that there are other things in life besides a screen, in the hope that the child will make his or her own choice to not be glued to a screen 24/7.
Moreover, I find it interesting that you mentioned how the limited screen time helped with time management. I had no rules for that myself, so I had not thought about that.
How would you handle the screen time for your (hypothetical) child?
You make a very fair point! And I absolutely agree, you cannot JUST set hard boundaries and limitations, it is very very important to show everything that you can do as a child beyond a screen! Especially now that phones are becoming more and more important in social lives of children, I think harsh limitations are not the solution. I do however think that a certain amount of time helps children to get a grasp on how much time they actually NEED to spend on their phones, versus how much they would like to spend. Sooo my hypothetical child would get a certain amount of time to spend on their phones when they first get a phone, up to a point where they can decide themselves how much they need, while simultaneously highlighting opportunities besides digital media!!