> It's quite possible for children to have parents reading to them often and more than an hour a day of screen time.
I wonder if this is the case? I think you're quite right about the fact that it's more likely the time with parents than the screentime. But I don't think there will ever really be a chance to study kids whose time with parents and time with screens differs.
My kids are pretty young, but because they're in bed so early there just isn't enough time in the day for them to have dinner, a story and even an hour of TV after pre-school. I suspect that's the case for most kids of two working parents.
I read to my kids every night, until they could start reading to me and then to themselves. They also get plenty of screen time. My kids are doing great in school. This article seems like complete BS to me. At best it compares kids with lots of reading to kids with no reading - we already know this makes a difference. To say that the kids with no reading had lots of screen time and then to blame only the screen time seems disingenuous. This is a boat load of confirmation bias by smug assholes that know better than you.
I was born in 89. Until I turned 9 or 10, one of my parents would read to me every night, and I had over an hour of screen time just about every day too.
That was probably not as common back then, since it was hard to get an hour in unless you were really into computers and happened to have one.
Today, it’s hard to find a parent who will read to their kid every night. Who will read them good stuff like poetry, the classics, Greek mythology, etc., Not Harry Potter or whatever. It’s also hard to find a kid today who isn’t exposed to at least an hour of screen time. And that’s not time being social or productive like screens meant for kids like me - it’s time for them to be pacified by some crap manufactured by Netflix.
The people here trying to apologize for their parenting choices and accusing the stats of having a twisted ulterior motive, are making some puzzling remarks. Haven’t these people not realized how much harder it is today to be a good parent than it was in prior eras? They should have thought of that before breeding children.
Obviously the way screens are utilized today is going to warp kids brains in some difficult to measure ways. But better parenting would probably offset that tremendously.
The vast majority of parents are trying, reading at least a couple times a week.
I also haven’t seen any data to suggest that WHAT is read is all that important. The important things seem to be that the reading happens and roughly aligns with or mildly stretches the child’s language capacity.
Finally, there is no reason to assume a “twisted ulterior motive” to parents doubting the article- the study was small N (47) and doesn’t seem to disentangle high screen time from low reading/other interactions.
It's harder to be a good parent in the sense that the bar has been raised much higher. Go ask your parents' generation how much time their parents spent with them. Then compare to what's seen as the minimum now.
Oh man, the time use surveys in the US are amazing here. I can’t find the data or remember specifics, but the amount of time both moms and dads spend parenting has gone WAY since the 60s, even as family size as plummeted.
Edit: I assumed you meant to write "way down" but now realize you probably meant up... original comment below.
That's interesting! I'm mainly going by my mother's recollections of her childhood in 1950's rural Finland, but in her words: "We kids didn't spend time with our parents. It would have been embarrassing!"
I wonder if this is the case? I think you're quite right about the fact that it's more likely the time with parents than the screentime. But I don't think there will ever really be a chance to study kids whose time with parents and time with screens differs.
My kids are pretty young, but because they're in bed so early there just isn't enough time in the day for them to have dinner, a story and even an hour of TV after pre-school. I suspect that's the case for most kids of two working parents.