Hi, I'm Nicholeen Peck and I talk all about kids, families, child development,
parenting, all through the lens of the principal's self-government,
and in this video we're talking about what screen time can really do to kids' brains.
In this video, we're going to be talking about how screen time has changed in recent years and what
happens to a child's brain when it is on screens and what you might want to do about it. Years ago,
a child would watch a little bit of TV in the afternoon, maybe after school,
they might watch some Mr. Rogers Neighborhood or Sesame Street when their mom felt like it was
time to take a rest from the day for a little bit, maybe for an hour, and then they might watch some
Saturday morning cartoons, maybe something with the family at night. That's how my childhood was.
Okay. On Saturday nights, we usually watched something together as a family, and then on
Saturday mornings, we had Saturday morning cartoon time and in the afternoon after school or before
I was in school, just in the afternoon there, we might watch something for maybe a half an hour to
an hour. During those times of entertainment, we saw full scenes play out where people would move
and talk to each other in real time. We didn't have clip, clip, clip, we didn't have the speeding
up of the scenarios. We watched real life unfold or what seemed like kind of real life unfold in
front of our eyes in what would seem to be a real sequence of time. Now, the media has gotten more
intense, more strategic, more sophisticated in the way that the filming is done. You even
see that here on YouTube so that the clips change every couple of seconds. You don't have to watch
somebody for very long if somebody stands still for too long of a time, boom, the clip changes
just like that because there's multiple cameras, multiple angles, and lots of different editing
tricks that make it so that we can make things even more exciting. But in our process to do this,
we have actually groomed the human brain to pay less attention. Our attention spans have
decreased in recent years because there's so much stimulation that we're looking at all the time on
our phones and on the screens in front of us. It used to be when I started making videos with
YouTube that people's normal attention span was right around the eight minute mark. Then it went
to the six minute mark. It has dropped since then. That means that many people start turning the
video off even if they think it's useful at that moment where their attention span has decreased.
This is probably something you've noticed in yourself. I know that I've noticed within myself,
and I've felt a little bit concerned. Many parents are concerned about their child's attention span
because this impacts all the other areas of life. It impacts school, it impacts friends, it impacts
family dynamics, and it impacts their overall wellbeing because they start feeling bored,
dissatisfied, even passive or lazy in the way that they live their lives because they want to
be entertained all of the time. They also start to think outside of the realm of a regular series of
an event unfolding. In fact, everything seems to be sped up, and so whenever one problem occurs,
that problem seems more intense because in their minds, there isn't a way to handle the
problem quickly, and they're used to everything happening quickly. So this overwhelms them when
they have to handle regular things in regular life. Their brain has a hard time staying focused
on solving a real life problem, and so then they assume somebody else needs to take their problem
away because the problem has become overwhelming for them. Not only are we having attention span
problems with all of the device time that we're having as a society, but we're having some pretty
significant relationship problems. We're not able to stay focused on each other while we're talking
long enough to have really good connections so that attention span problem is spilling
over and creating a disconnection problem in relationships, which then makes people feel
very alone and isolated. This makes all of their problems seem worse because they have detached
from their support system because they've attached to their screens. This is just one
of the ways that the increased screen time and the change in screen time, not only the availability
of screens and the amount of time that a person is using on their screens, but also just what is
happening with the editing on the media as we're increasing and sophisticated, the quality of our
media entertainment has changed. We are all at a place where we have to decide what are we going
to do with these screens and media for ourselves and for our children. We're going to talk about
what you can do to help your child pull away a little bit from screens, but first, do you see
that button that says, subscribe if this channel's interesting to you? I promise there's more where
this came from, and you'll find out what that more is if you click the subscribe button. Now, did
you know that on average kids spend seven hours and 22 minutes on their phone per day? We've got
to do something, right, that is just too much, and that's the average number, which means there are
many youth who are spending a significant amount of time, seven hours more than seven hours. What
do you think is appropriate time for a child or any person actually to spend on a phone or device
in a day? It's important that you answer that question for yourselves because you have to take
a stance where you will protect the mental health of your child by giving a number that actually
is doable. Now, if you feel like the child does need a phone and you've taken protective measures
to make sure that the phone is hopefully not going to expose the child as much to bad things,
and you're trying to set up some good parameters, but you're still feeling like I still have a
worry about what that phone is going to do to the relationships and the mental health of my child,
then you are a wise person and you should also take some time limit precautions. So decide what
does that look like. For me, I would say, okay, if a person is younger than age eight years old,
they do not need to be on a device at all in the day. If they're older than eight years old,
maybe they could have 30 minutes or an hour on a device every couple of days or maybe even once a
week. When my children were in that phase between ages eight and 12, they got to be on a computer
for about 30 minutes to an hour a day. Once they hit age 12, things change a little bit for youth
because the youth groups, the teams, the schools, they start referring more things to the devices
and the phones just to manage all the people, and so they do have to start having a little bit more
time on the devices. So what is that going to look like? Is it going to look like 30 minutes a day,
an hour a day? What is that going to look like? You've got to make sure that you have a plan for
that and don't be afraid to pull back on it if you feel like even that hour a day is too much for
your child. Let them know why, though that's going to be important. So if you tell them, this is how
much average people are on their phone, this is how much you probably are on your phone, we've
got to pull it back. Here's why. Here's what can happen to you, your relationships, your overall
wellbeing, your productivity, which gives you a sense of purpose in your life. All these things
can be damaged if you get lost in the isolated world of the phone for too much time. You've got
to keep seeing that device as a tool and not a toy. Don't let it take you over. Start planning
ahead. Now, I have a skill that I have taught in a training called Parenting in a Tech Sexual
World that is all about teaching the child how to give themselves "no" answers and instructions,
how they can create a support system for when they are going to go on their device so that
they actually keep their goal to hold to that time limit that they know they need
to be using so that they don't get sucked in too far into the device. And that is all
taught on a training that I did a few years back called Parenting in a Tech Sexual World.
You can find parenting in a tech sexual world on my website, teachingselfgovernment.com. So
go to teachingselfgovernment.com, search Parenting in a Tech sexual world,
and you will be able to get that training. It's a full seven hour training all about how to navigate
with your parenting technology and the sex culture that are inundating our children and our families.
Click on teachingselfgovernment.com and find that training today. I'll see you there.