The next installment of my Screen Time thoughts…
Please share your thoughts, disagreements, additions, research or more. This topic is getting more complex the closer I look.
Active vs Passive Screen Time
The time spent with a digital device is not all equal. Is the time spent in a FaceTime chat with Grandma the same as time spent watching cartoons? Does time spent bowling on the Wii differ from time spent playing a sedentary video game? Does time spent making a movie of a puppet show engage children more than just watching TV? Studies have found that there are differences in these different types of screen time.
With the addition of more digital tools in our homes, and now our classrooms, there is no doubt that children’s time with screens will continue to increase. “Classic behavior models and large numbers of video-gaming units and computers suggest that children are spending more time in front of screens than they did previously. Further- more, projections indicate that screen time for children is likely to continue to increase, rather than decrease” (Lanningham-Foster, et al., 2006).
Just use the off switch?
Is the answer simply to turn off all digital tools? While this may seem like a simple solution, using the off switch does not always make a significant impact. “It has been generally assumed that eliminating or reducing the use of technology by children will automatically be replaced by more active, as opposed to sedentary, behaviors. The research evidence to support this notion is lacking” (Ahern, Phalen, Le, & Goldman, 2007). Managing and coaching children to find a balance of creative and physical activities with passive screen time may be the largest factor in helping our children to be healthy.
Make gaming more active
In an article published in the American Academy of Pediatrics journal article “Energy Expenditure of Sedentary Screen Time Compared With Active Screen,” the authors feel “seat-based” screen time can be replaced with “activity-associated” screen time. They feel that encouraging this active screen time is “an essential approach for promoting an active environment that is also fun for children” (Lanningham-Foster, et al., 2006). This is one example of scholarly writings focused on the differences in types of screen time.
Some suggest introducing and encouraging video games with physical components instead of hand-controllers, may be a way to engage
children who are strongly attracted to, and growing up immersed in a digital world. “Active video gaming is an emerging technology with the potential to overcome many of the current barriers to physical activity in children. Preliminary evidence seems to support AVG play as an enjoyable medium for self-directed physical activity of light to moderate intensity. It remains to be seen whether AVGs can be used effectively in the long term to help motivate increased daily physical activity and de- creased sedentary pastimes” (Biddiss & Irwin, 2010). At the very least, the concept of having children up and moving while playing video games at least incorporates some
physical activity within a child’s digital play.
Since the AAP’s strong suggestions of limiting screen time were released, many different studies have examined the correlation of screen time and obesity. Read this analysis as explained by Darshak, chief of pediatric cardiology and associate professor of pediatrics at the University of Massachusetts Medical School.
“Reducing time spent watching television or playing video games may have some benefits—more time for creative play or academic work, for example—but slimmer bodies don’t seem to be among them. Between 1999 and 2010, screen time among kids jumped by more than two hours per day, according to the Kaiser Family Foundation. Yet childhood obesity rates remained relatively stable over the same period.
Taken together, the data above suggest that public health efforts to cut or reallocate screen time won’t have a huge impact on childhood obesity. There is indeed a well-known correlation between obesity and hours spent in front of a video screen, but the fact of that linkage doesn’t tell us anything about causality. Does watching television make kids fat, or do fat kids just happen to watch a lot of television? The accumulating work in this area suggests the latter” (Sanghavi, 2012).
Is it the tool or the content?
Is it the screen time itself that is a key factor in obesity levels, or is it more the content that they are exposed to through television commercials and other advertisements? “An issue of major concern in childhood obesity is the marketing of unhealthy foods to children through television, computer games, internet sites, and commercial tie-ins. Children spend an average of three hours a day watching television, exposing them to a great deal of advertising that is aired during children’s programming and marketing that affects the food requests children make” (Ahern, Phalen, Le, & Goldman, 2007; Ahern, Phalen, Le, & Goldman, 2007; Ahern, Phalen, Le, & Goldman, 2007). This places some credence in the possibility that the content being viewed and consumed is as much of a factor as the amount of time itself.
Once, I opened a math games website in front of first graders. While there was an advertisement for sugared cereal, not a single child could tell me what brand it was. Did they not see the advertisement at all, or had they learned already to ignore the world of commercials? I have also “caught” my three-year-old turning down the sound on the thirty second commercial on the
children’s website she was using. How did she differentiate between the entertainment content and this advertisement? This is an area that I would love to do some extensive scientific research.
There seems to be a collection of research in the video game and television realm. People have examined the obesity rates of children with limits on classic, passive screen time. The introduction of movie devices like iPod Touches, iPads and other tablets have come so recently. These tools are making a dramatic impact on children’s free time. You see these screens in the hands of children in restaurants, in waiting rooms, and I’m sure on living room couches. If the tablet is used simply as a passive screen, like a TV, then the use falls into the same parameters of the passive screen time discussed above. If children are interacting with the device alone, and not with parental
interaction and guidance, where does that fall in this spectrum?