3
An important rite of passage for parents and children alike is learning (and teaching) how to ride a bike. For generations, we all used essentially the same approach: training wheels. Those rickety little wheels provided a safe way for kids to get used to riding the bike before having to do it on their own. The problem is that those well-intentioned training wheels actually taught the wrong skills. Driving and steering aren’t nearly as important as learning to balance. So inevitably there came that heart-stopping moment of taking the wheels off and running behind your totally out-of-control kid, hoping nobody ended up in the hospital. Even if it didn’t result in any broken bones, the process took longer than it needed to, and the transition was always more difficult than necessary.
Then along came a totally crazy new idea, a small bike with no pedals. Balance bikes, as they are known, help kids learn to tackle the most important part of riding a bike (balancing and counter-steering) first and the least important part (using the pedals) later, with an approach that is immediately transferable. There was no heart-attack moment for my kids, who used balance bikes. When it was time to switch to a real bike, they just got on and rode off. It was amazing. How could we ever have taught kids to ride a bike any other way?
When teaching kids to regulate the amount of tech use in their lives, we are still taking a training-wheels approach. It is inefficient and ineffective, but familiar. But like learning to ride a bike, our approach to teaching kids to regulate their device use needs to change. We need a strategy aligned to the bigger picture of what we’re trying to accomplish in both our physical and digital worlds with those devices. There is a better way.
We’ve Outgrown Screen Time
Keeping the previous example in mind, let’s discuss the idea of screen time. One of the most common questions parents ask me is how much screen time is appropriate for their kid on a given day. I understand why they ask this question and appreciate the intent behind it: parents recognize that there should be limits on digital activities. We’ve all seen how addictive certain apps can be. We’ve watched children (other people’s, of course) actually walk into walls because they are too glued to their screens to look where they are going. We’ve all read the mommy-blog posts about the dangers of too much tech use. We know there must be limits. Yet, at the same time, there are lots of enriching activities that our children can do online. Not to mention, appropriate tech use is fun. The privilege of participating in digital activities can be a great motivating factor to get other jobs done too. And let’s face it, children participating in healthy digital activities can provide a much-needed break for parents that is also safe. If you’re the type of parent who plans a nurturing activity for your kids every second of the day, you can absolutely feel free to judge what I’m about to say. But the reality is that technology has been a key strategy in keeping sanity in our house when I need to make dinner or we need to take another trip to the store because I forgot something on the list.
We all live with these competing realities: on one hand, technology is useful and fun for our kids, and on the other, we don’t want kids walking into walls or having their brains turn to mush. So, we turn to the clock as a way to mediate these competing concerns. If we can just set a reasonable time limit, everything will be OK. However, as I will show, using the clock as the primary way to set boundaries is misdirected vigilance, like training wheels, and is not the best long-term approach to raising healthy digital kids.
Based on Old Research
The idea of limiting tech use based primarily on the amount of time a child spends on a screen each day stems from research conducted on children watching television. Excessive television consumption in children was correlated with adverse effects on their health in terms of weight, sleep habits, and language development. Studies showed that fast-paced cartoon television shows could have a negative impact on cognitive skills including problem-solving, working memory, and inhibitory control in young children.1 Based on these and similar studies on TV use, the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) previously recommended limiting screen time for children to two hours per day. It reasoned that any device with a screen was analogous to the TV experience.
But TV and mobile computing devices are not the same. Most notably, television is an entirely passive experience. There is no way for TV shows to engage with the watchers. A few kids’ shows (think Dora the Explorer or Bo on the Go!) ask kids questions as part of the show and even pause for them to answer. But kids rarely take the bait. TV watchers can fall asleep or slip into a coma, and the TV continues playing its programs without missing a beat. Yes, it’s true that other tech devices can be put into “TV mode” by using apps like Netflix or Disney+, but the majority of the activities that can be performed on a mobile device have some level of two-way interaction, either because of a connection to another human through the device or from computer-generated responses based on the choices of the user. Applying research conclusions from the passive TV experience to highly interactive tech use is a bit like giving someone medication for a sickness that someone else has. As a result, in 2016, the AAP revised its guidelines, removing specific time limitations for children ages six and up.2 The US Department of Education echoed this guidance.3 The World Health Organization more recently published guidelines placing screen-time limitations only on what it called “sedentary screen time” (watching TV or digital activities with limited or no interaction).4
Reinforces Binary Thinking
Another problem with using screen time as the primary approach for moderating tech use is that it creates the perception that all activities that take place in the digital world are of equal value. Nothing could be further from the truth. I think we can agree that FaceTiming with Grandma and playing Temple Run are activities with very different value, even though both occur on the same device. Even among games we see different value from different apps. Candy Crush and Minecraft are both games, but one requires about as much creative thinking as a slot machine, and the other is a highly creative design platform. If you’ve never heard of Minecraft, think of it like a digital version of Legos, but with unlimited pieces and the ability to program new types of interactions (you can actually build a working computer in Minecraft).
The point is that when we moderate device use by screen time, we are also communicating that tech use is binary, allowed or not. If that is the case, a young person will likely draw the conclusion that all the activities available on their device during that time are of the same value. This removes the necessity to develop the critical skill of learning to associate different values with different digital activities. To underscore this point, imagine for a moment that we are talking about teaching our kids to become healthy eaters. Just because it is “food time” (aka dinner) doesn’t mean that eating Twinkies is an appropriate meal. In our house, you are allowed to eat fruit and drink water anytime, day or night, if you are hungry or thirsty. A variety of other foods become available at lunch and dinner. Sometimes we break out the chips or have a Twinkie for a snack, but we teach that foods like chips and Twinkies have little nutritional value and should be eaten far less often than fruits and vegetables, and only when other healthy food is also being eaten that day. The goal is to teach our kids that they should eat different types of foods in different amounts if they are going to have a balanced diet. When it comes to device use, the idea that our kids should consume different digital activities in differing amounts based on their value is an equally important concept.
Limits the Ability to Self-Regulate
Finally, using screen time as the primary factor for moderating tech use takes away our children’s ability to learn to self-regulate. Waiting for a timer to tell us when to be done may work for the bumper car ride at an amusement park, but it is not a good strategy to navigate the expressways of the digital world. We want our kids to learn to move on to new activities when it is appropriate to do so, not just because a timer runs out. The danger of teaching kids to stop using technology only when the timer goes off is that it prevents them from developing the “muscles” of regulating their own amount of participation in digital activities. What will happen on the day when no time limit is given?
Let’s go back to the food analogy. The goal is not to eat nonstop until the lunch or dinner hour is over. The goal is to recognize when we’ve eaten enough, even if there is still a little food left on our plate. Remember, even healthy food, if we aren’t learning to self-regulate, becomes unhealthy. I could probably eat twelve apples during the course of my lunch hour, but if I did, I’d be very sick. Likewise, it would be unhealthy to believe that my cue to stop eating apples should come only from a timer telling me that the lunch hour is over, instead of from my body recognizing that I’m full. A critical skill for budding digital citizens is learning to recognize for themselves when it’s time to transition to another digital or physical activity.
At this point, you might be thinking I’m making the case that there should be no limits on technology use. Nothing could be further from the truth. We need appropriate limits, but there are better approaches to finding them than measuring screen time. Let’s explore a more effective approach to teach limits that is in line with the US Department of Education’s and the World Health Organization’s updated guidelines.
A Better Approach: Finding Balance
If we’ve outgrown using screen time as our tool for moderating tech use in our families, how do we avoid having a wall-crashing kid? Instead of enforcing screen-time limits, the concept that we should seek to teach is balance. This is a concept that we regularly teach in the physical world. We point out that healthy people balance the time they spend with friends and family, and by themselves. They know how to balance exercise and rest. They make time for work and play, being serious and having fun. In school, we reinforce these concepts from the first days of kindergarten. We have math and language arts, but we also value music and physical education. We study for tests, but we also play during recess. Being a healthy person in the physical world means learning how to have moderation in all things. While some activities can be easily classified as either good (brushing your teeth) or bad (picking a fight with your brother), the value of the vast majority of activities is determined by their proportional relationship to other activities. Exercise is a good thing, unless we start exercising so much that we aren’t finishing our homework or spending time with family and friends. Getting rest is also good, but oversleeping, especially habitually, diminishes our productivity and mental health. Being imaginative is good, but when done in the wrong contexts, it’s considered lying.
Balance may not look the same from day to day either. The day before a big science project is due, it would be out of balance to spend the whole day riding a bike. The day before a violin recital, it might be inappropriate to spend the whole day reading instead of practicing, even though on a different day that might be a great choice. As parents, we watch for indicators in the physical world when activities feel out of balance. Finding balance in our virtual world is just as important. We have to make sure we are equally adamant about helping our kids learn to find digital balance as we are at helping them find balance in other parts of their lives. The following three principles can help.
Principle 1: Experience a Variety of Digital Activities
When creating the US National Ed Tech Plan, my team began by looking at the digital divide—the gap between kids who had access to technology and those who didn’t.5 Earlier in this book I explained how that work led to providing connectivity for underresourced and rural schools. But our work at the US Department of Education also revealed another digital divide that hasn’t received nearly as much attention. In the schools we visited, we began noticing two types of technology use. In some classrooms, students were using technology in a very active way: creating and designing, collaborating and problem-solving. In others, students were using technology in a very passive way: watching content online. The only interactivity the second group of students had was clicking the “next” button to advance a slide or answer a multiple-choice quiz at the end of the unit. In the National Ed Tech Plan, we called this gap the “digital use divide.” Students who were taught to use technology as a creation or problem-solving tool were on the active side of the divide. Students who primarily used technology as a content-consumption tool were on the passive side of the divide. For the passive users, technology was very similar to a portable TV. For the active technology users, their device was more analogous to a set of paintbrushes or building blocks. The exact same devices could lead to a very different experience, based on the activities that students were conducting on them.
As parents, it is important to help expand our kids’ digital palate by exposing them to the wide variety of activities that exist in the virtual world. We shouldn’t be satisfied with just the apps and digital activities that our kids already know about, any more than we should allow our kids to only try the foods they ask for. (If that were the case in my house, we would be eating macaroni and cheese for every meal.) If you find your kid is requesting the same types of apps (for example, eight different variations of a first-person shooter game), you might agree to approve the next new app if they also find an app to try that is in a different category (for example, a rhythm game or photo-editing app). Even if they don’t use those new apps as often, just the process of searching for different types of apps increases kids’ awareness of new possibilities.
Another way to help expand the range of digital activities is to periodically suggest new apps for our kids to try, just as we periodically suggest a new book for them to read. I am constantly looking for books that I think my kids will like. Sometimes I get it right, and other times I don’t, but either way, this communicates that the things they choose to read matter to me. If we don’t ever recommend new apps to our children to try, then we can’t really be too frustrated if we don’t like the digital media they choose on their own. This, of course, means that as parents, we ourselves have to be aware of different types of digital activities. There are many ways to do this. Sites like Common Sense Media or the EdSurge app index provide expert reviews of apps specifically with children’s use in mind. I particularly like digital tools that encourage kids to develop their creative talents, like making movies or composing music, as they help reinforce the idea that technology is most powerful when it is used to assist humans in design and problem-solving process. In chapter 6, I will provide examples of digital activities focused on helping kids become more engaged with their communities and families.
Be aware that the idea of participating in a variety of digital activities runs directly against the design of some apps. Apps with in-app purchases or advertisements are often designed intentionally to keep young people using that specific app as long as humanly possible. Using tools like autoscroll, streaks, and point systems, they try to make it as uncomfortable as possible for the user to switch to a different digital activity. It’s not evil for an app developer to design an app to be as attractive as possible, but it is problematic if we don’t alert our kids to what is really going on. As we teach digital balance, it’s helpful to call out these design elements and explain that their purpose is to limit the range of digital activities we participate in. For example, if there is a game where the player loses all of their points if they don’t play every day, we might explain that the person who designed that game is using a trick (called a streak) to keep players from using their devices for other activities. If there is an app that unlocks special features when players download other apps by the same developer, we might point out that the designer is using a trick to get them to buy their other apps. It doesn’t mean our kids can’t still choose to use these apps, but they should do so being fully aware of the techniques the app developer employs to undermine digital balance.
Principle 2: Recognize the Varying Values of Digital Activities
Having exposure to a range of digital activities is important in the same way that having fresh fruits and vegetables at home is essential to becoming a healthy eater. But just putting broccoli on the counter may not be enough to motivate most kids to start eating vegetables. We also have to explicitly teach the concept that different foods have differing levels of benefit to our bodies. When teaching digital balance, one of the most important skills we can teach our kids is to ask how much value they receive for the digital activities they are participating in.
For older kids, we might teach this concept using an analogy known as attention economics, based on work by business strategists Thomas Davenport and John Beck in the early 2000s.6 Their idea is that in a world of unlimited competing digital resources, our attention has actual monetary value. In other words, attention economics takes the term “paying attention” literally. We are making choices about how to distribute deposits of our valuable attention among competing activities. Using attention economics to explain digital balance might start with a tangible example from the physical world. Something like: “If someone asked to buy your bike for $5, would you sell it?” Why not? Because the value of the bike is much greater than the $5 they would be giving you. From there, we can introduce the idea that our attention has value, too. We can talk about how much we have “paid” in our attention to different activities during the day. This becomes a fun way to calculate how much time and creative energy we’re spending on our digital activities. But most importantly, it allows us to ask if the activities we’re paying for with our attention are giving us a reasonable return for our investment. Did the $10 of my attention I just paid to playing Among Us return a value that was reasonable? What if I had spent that same amount of my attention playing a different game, or using Marco Polo to talk with a friend? This can help kids begin to see that their attention has real value, and they should expect a return of equivalent value from their digital activities.
For younger kids, the idea of attention economics might be too abstract to understand. But there are other ways to teach the idea that different digital activities have different values associated with them. On Sunday afternoons, our family has a block of free time between church in the morning and dinner in the evening. We’ve made a conscious decision to take a break from doing all schoolwork on Sundays so our kids can have a day to reset. But we also found that without some structure, our well-intentioned Sunday family time quickly turns into fight-with-your-brothers-all-afternoon time (shoot me now). So, together with our kids, we created a list of low-, neutral-, and high-bar Sunday activities. We assigned values to them and wrote them on a chart. For this list, we included both physical world and digital activities, but to illustrate my point here, I’m only including the digital ones. Low-bar activities were things like watching National Geographic videos, listening to music, or playing Minecraft. Medium-bar activities included things like playing a chess app with a sibling, reading an ebook, or listening to a podcast. High-bar activities included writing a letter to a friend, FaceTiming with a grandparent, learning new words in Duolingo, or composing a song in GarageBand. Medium- or high-bar activities could be done at any time. But high-bar activities could also offset low-bar activities. So, if one of our children wanted to play Minecraft, they could earn that opportunity by writing a message to Grandma or composing a song. This helps reinforce the concept that different digital activities have different values—a fundamental part of learning balance in the virtual world.
Principle 3: Adapt to the Interests and Needs of Each Child
The third principle of teaching balance comes from recognizing the unique needs of each child. We cannot apply a single formula for balanced tech use to all children any more than we can give a single prescription for everyone needing glasses. When considering the appropriate balance of amount and type of digital activities, we need to consider the child’s natural interests. Talk with them about how well their digital activities support their goals and interests. Ask which types of activities would be a stretch for them to complete and which wouldn’t. Getting my son to read a chapter of an ebook is a big stretch that we might reward with an opportunity to play a game in order to keep good balance. For my daughter, reading the ebook would be the reward.
Ask yourself similar questions about the design of varying digital activities as you seek to find the right balance. For example, consider how appropriate a particular app or online community is, given the child’s age or maturity level. Or if participation in a particular digital activity makes sense based on their other responsibilities. The answer will be different based on current school deadlines or extracurricular demands. It will likely vary between summer and the school year as well. There are a variety of unusual factors that could change the appropriate balance on a given day, such as physical illness, severe weather, or extended travel. If a child is sick in bed or stuck in a car on a long trip, the balance for what digital activities are appropriate could change. Finally, consider how much parental supervision is possible. Making a movie is a great digital activity if you are available to guide and support but might be too challenging for younger kids to do on their own. While at least some digital activities should be shared with parents, the amount of parental involvement that is possible may shape the balance of activities. Consider and discuss all these factors with your children as you work to find the right balance on their digital menu.
Resetting Language
My wife and I often find ourselves repeating the same things to our kids over and over again. In fact, we have an ongoing joke that you could replace us with a tape recorder and our kids would never know the difference. At one point, we actually started to write down our most common messages: “Don’t forget to wash your hands”—that’s recording #15. “Please shut off the light when you leave the room”—that’s recording #37. “Does everyone have their seatbelts on?”—that’s #54, and so on. If we were to compile all parent recordings, we would find a whole category of statements just focused on technology use. Many are based on the screen-time paradigm.
After years of thinking about moderating tech use based on screen time, it can be difficult to shift toward making balance the goal. As such, some of our statements need rerecording, with our knowledge of digital balance in mind. Here are four common screen-time statements that I often hear parents make with suggestions for how we might reframe them as digital-balance statements instead. These may seem like minor language changes, but the way we talk to our kids about using technology can have a huge impact on their ability to become balanced digital citizens.
Reframe 1: “You’re Addicted to Your Phone”
This statement may be the most common of all parent recordings. Saying “you’re addicted to your phone” is a confusing message for a child. In most cases, it’s not the device itself that is addictive, but a particular app or website that, when used continually, can create imbalance or even addiction. In order to reframe that statement, we should state what the real concern is. Is the problem that the child is not participating in physical-world activities that we think are important? If so, instead of communicating that we have a problem with the amount of time our kid is using a device, we could reframe with a compelling reason to do something else. The reframing of this statement would call out the imbalance between digital and physical world activities and give examples of specific physical-world activities that might not be getting enough priority. The reframed statement might sound something like: “It doesn’t seem like you’ve gotten any exercise yet today” or “I noticed you haven’t spent any time with your family since you’ve gotten home from school; let’s do that for a bit so we can balance out how you spend your day.”
Reframe 2: “You’ve Been Playing That Game for Too Long”
The second statement, “You’ve been playing [insert game here] for too long,” also reinforces a screen-time mentality. It focuses on the amount of time our kids are spending on a single digital activity. This statement is problematic because it doesn’t focus on what is wrong with the activity. Kids might even notice that if they were watching a movie (also on a screen) for the same two hours, we probably wouldn’t say anything at all. The digital balance reframe would require us to evaluate the qualities of the game. If we feel the value of the game is less than the value of other digital activities, we might call that out. The reframed statement might sound something like, “It seems like this game is getting more of your attention than it deserves, given the fact that it’s mostly based on repetition and luck.” It might lead to a conversation about the value of different types of apps that are installed on the device and whether they might give a better return on the invested attention. We might ask something like, “What other digital activities do you want to do with the time you spend on your phone today?”
Reframe 3: “Stop Sitting Around on the Computer All Day”
“Stop sitting around on the computer all day” is another statement that sends a confusing message, especially if the suggestion for a replacement activity is to read a book instead. Reading a book, it turns out, is even less active than using a device. I’m not saying that reading a book isn’t a good activity for a kid to find balance in that moment. It’s just that the reason given (“stop sitting around”) makes no sense to a kid who is offered an alternative activity that involves just as much sitting around. Also, it is entirely possible that the kid was reading on their device in the first place. As we use the balance reframe here, we need to be specific about the activity we feel is out of balance. If the concern is that they’re not spending enough time reading, that’s a great conversation to have. We might discuss the importance of making sure there is reading time (on or off a device) at some point during each day. If on the other hand our concern is a need for physical activity, that is a different balance conversation. In that case the reframe would be less about not using the computer and more about finding an appropriate time to go for a bike ride or a run.
Reframe 4: “You Need to Interact with Real People”
Telling a kid to “get off your phone to spend time with people” is a statement that makes no sense to someone who is engaging with more people through their phone than they are when they’re off the phone. As already discussed, one of the main advantages to participation in the virtual world is that it allows us to interact with a greater variety of people than we could in the physical world alone. Once again, the reframe requires us to first ask ourselves what feels out of balance. A possible balance reframe here might be “Your family wants a chance to spend some time with you as well” or “It’s good to have some in-person interactions with your friends, too.” That might lead to a conversation about the right balance between interacting with friends and family virtually versus in person.
Yes, They Still Sell Alarm Clocks
There is one particular concern that seems most problematic when talking to parents about finding digital balance: sleep. According to both American Academy of Sleep Medicine and the National Sleep Foundation, school-aged children should get between nine and twelve hours and teenagers between eight and ten hours of sleep a night.7 Not getting enough sleep leads to a host of problems, including a decreased ability to regulate mood and emotion, an increased emergence of depression, and an increased risk of obesity.8 Sleep deprivation leads to an alcoholic-intoxication-level dulling of cognitive and motor function.9 Not only does chronic sleep deprivation lead to increasingly risky decision-making, it also impairs people’s ability to realize that their decisions have become riskier.10 There is also an important connection between sleep and memory as our daily experiences are consolidated into longer-term memories while we sleep. It’s a bit like downloading all of our activity for a day into a file that can be retrieved in the future.11 If we don’t get adequate sleep, the download never really happens.
When our technology use is out of balance, sleep is one of the first things to be impacted. According to Dr. Lauren Hale and a team of medical researchers, three-fourths of US children and adolescents report sleeping with a digital device. Most of them also report regular use of these devices during the hour before bedtime.12 This leads them to get almost an hour less sleep per night and poorer quality sleep, as compared with kids who don’t sleep with devices in or next to their beds.13 Even if they aren’t using their phones before sleeping, constant overnight notifications can impact their sleep. Over a third of teens report getting up at least once in the middle of the night to check for something on their phone other than the time.14
Digital platforms have a financial motivation to keep us from sleeping. Reed Hastings, CEO of Netflix, once said the biggest competitor to the Netflix streaming video service is not other media companies, but sleep. Once you’re asleep, you are no longer viewing the content (and advertising) of digital products. In case there is any confusion, Hastings added, “and we’re winning!”15
As I talk to parents, one of the reasons I hear over and over as to why their kids sleep with their devices is that they use them as alarm clocks. Fortunately, I tell them, an exciting technology can completely solve this problem and costs about as much as a cup of Starbucks coffee. It’s called an alarm clock. It works just like the alarm on a phone but doesn’t do anything else that would distract from sleeping. If you haven’t done so already, please go buy your kid an alarm clock and stop letting them sleep with their phones. Ironically, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg knows the importance of screen-free bedtime better than most. When his wife, Priscilla, who is a pediatrician, was having trouble sleeping, Zuckerberg custom designed a screenless alarm clock that told her when it was time to get up by displaying a soft light.16
As parents, we need to develop family norms to ensure devices are not next to young people when they should be sleeping. As a family, you could designate a power-off time when everyone agrees to turn off their devices. Or you could designate a spot in the kitchen where all devices go to sleep at night. To reinforce this concept at our house, my wife and I hold a strategic monopoly on all device charging. We have only one charging station; it’s on a table in our bedroom (away from our bed). We offer free device-charging service every night, as long as the devices are turned off and plugged in before we go to sleep. If a device is not at the charging station by 10:00 p.m., we happily offer our charging services for the next day, but our daytime charging service takes the entire day. Funny how that works.
Taking a Break Isn’t a Punishment
One of the easiest strategies for teaching digital balance is to help kids become accustomed to occasionally taking device breaks. I’ve watched many kids who only have their devices taken away as a punishment. This perversely reinforces the idea that it’s a bad thing to ever be without their devices. Balanced digital citizens understand that at times it’s healthy to choose not to participate in digital activities. The language of “taking a break” is a helpful concept to practice. Occasionally we might say, “You haven’t done anything wrong, but let’s take a phone break for the afternoon.” Our kids have learned that when this happens, they’re not in trouble. We’re just helping them rebalance. It’s true that device breaks might mean that our kids may even be bored. Manoush Zomorodi has studied the surprising connection between boredom and creativity and play. In her book Bored and Brilliant, she explains the neurological factors that limit creativity in children who don’t ever experience boredom. So, if a break from a device leads to a bit of boredom, realize that it may actually increase your child’s creativity.
We can also schedule screen-free moments into our daily routines. Many families are now adopting “device-free meals” (Common Sense Media created a hilarious campaign for device-free meals with Will Ferrell that you should take a minute to watch). Having device-free meals means we leave all devices in a place away from the table (and turn the TV off) before sitting down for dinner. Everyone in the family participates, including the adults, which can be much more difficult than for the children. After about two weeks, it will become a habit, and it will feel very weird to have meals any other way. Other options include picking a day of the week to take a break from phones (for example, device-free Tuesday) or taking a periodic “social media fast” when the whole family logs off all their social media for a week. These activities all reinforce the concept that it’s OK to periodically take a break from our digital world activities in order to keep balance in our lives.
Evaluating Apps
Being a balanced digital citizen, and the parent of one, means learning how to decide which apps to permit on devices. Before sharing some strategies for doing this, let me call out a strategy that is not an effective way for making the decision: looking at what other kids are doing. Unfortunately, this is a fairly common way that parents decide which apps they will permit. The number of kids who supposedly already have [insert app name here] is rarely a compelling reason to install it on our own kids’ phones. Not only is that logic a risky way to make any decision, but the data used is always entirely skewed in the kids’ favor.
One of my kids recently made the case to convince me to approve TikTok on her phone. In her mind, she was the only person in her school who didn’t already have TikTok (a horrifying oversight, I’m sure). The reality, which I knew from talking to other parents, was that many other kids did not have access to TikTok. While you should certainly be aware when your child’s perception might not match reality, the more important point here is that the number of other kids with (or without) access to an app is almost never a good reason for us to approve the app for our kids.
A better approach to choosing apps might be to have kids learn to pitch us on an app they’d like to have. This is not the same as begging or even asking. Pitching an app is making the case for why it should be approved based on some agreed-upon criteria. These don’t have to be overly complicated guidelines, just some basic questions to consider. Joseph South, chief learning officer at the International Society for Technology in Education, says that as a parent, he teaches his kids to evaluate apps based on the following questions:
· How does the app connect me to other people? (Who are the people, are they people I know in person, and what kinds of interactions does this app allow?)
· How does the app make money? (Through ads, in-app purchases, up-front payment, etc.)
· How does the app keep me engaged? (Through quality content, habit-inducing measures, etc.)
· How does this app handle the issue of privacy? (What information about me does the app require up front, and what are the terms of service that relate to privacy?)
· Does this app make sense for me? (Based on things like age, disposition, ability and willingness to assess risk, ability to self-regulate, etc.)
· What do credible third-party reviewers say about the app?
When kids know we are going to ask those questions, they will learn to come to us with the answers ready as part of their pitch. This approach takes the parent out of the bad-cop role. When they request a new app, together you can discuss whether the app meets your criteria. If it doesn’t, then it wasn’t a mean parent who denied the app, but instead you both agreed the app simply didn’t measure up to the criteria. This creates a much healthier relationship and puts parents and kids on the same team. It’s not personal; sometimes apps just don’t meet the threshold.
More importantly, pitching apps sets up healthy, long-term digital citizenship behavior. The process of pitching an app to a parent is the exact same skill we want kids to learn for themselves when they are older (instead of pitching to a parent, they will be answering those same questions for themselves). As part of the pitch, a kid might identify that a particular app might need careful monitoring because it has some elements with the potential to interfere with their digital balance. In that case, it might make sense to check back after a week of using the app to reevaluate it together. There are certain apps that are only appropriate when other activities aren’t available, like during a long car ride. If you have children who already have devices loaded with apps, make time to review and evaluate whether the apps should stay or go.
Renee Hobbs, a respected researcher on media literacy education, recommends that parents spend time in digital spaces with their children. The purpose of this time is not to control their behavior, but to mentor them in navigating those spaces safely and effectively. We can help children evaluate their presence in that space and determine if it’s where they really want to be. This also helps parents gain a better understanding about what online activities kids most enjoy, which can help suggest other types of digital activities.
Device-Use Agreements
Setting expectations for device use with children and youth is a key part of creating a healthy digital culture at home and school. Creating device agreements is an easy way to align device use with the culture you’re trying to create. A device-use agreement is simply a document that explains how and when a child should use digital devices. It may also explain what privileges may be added if the child uses devices consistently according to the agreement as well as consequences when they do not meet expectations.
Keep these three things in mind when creating a device-use agreement:
1. Keep it positive. It can be tempting to fall back into the mode of making a list of “don’ts.” (You might even reread chapter 2 before writing the agreement.)
2. Write in plain English. This isn’t a real estate contract or a piece of legislation; write it as you would say it to the child.
3. Involve your kids. As you come up with the expectations, allow them to have input, make suggestions, and ask questions.
A sample device use agreement, based on the ones we use with our family, is provided at the end of this chapter. We chose items to include in the agreement to support the digital culture my wife and I we wanted to create. For example, family mealtimes are an important part of our family culture, so the agreement includes taking a device break during mealtimes. The agreement should be tailored to the needs of each child as well, which will depend on age, maturity, areas of interest, and so on. We wrote this agreement when our daughter first got a phone with a data plan. For that reason, there are expectations, such as needing to request permission before sending a picture, that might not be necessary for someone who has already been using a phone responsibly for several years. Device-use agreements should be updated periodically (I’d recommend doing it yearly on a birthday or the start of school) as devices change and young people become more experienced digital citizens.
Device-use agreements, either at home or at school, are learning tools, not legal entrapments. Some of the best learning opportunities come when your child has done something that goes against the principles of the agreement and you both get to practice how to resolve it when the stakes are low. You want to encourage them to talk with you about it when something goes wrong. This habit is critical to develop so they feel comfortable coming to you, should they ever have a more serious problem online in the future.
You should take violations of the agreement seriously, but the consequence should not inhibit the child from wanting to talk to you in the future. When our daughter sent a picture to someone without permission for the first time, we simply reminded her of the agreement and thanked her for telling us. The second time it happened, we discussed with her why this was an important part of the agreement and decided together to take a break from the phone for a couple of days. We didn’t punish but just reminded her of the importance of demonstrating trustworthy digital behavior. As soon as this was no longer an issue—and as she got older—that part of the agreement was changed to “be responsible with what pictures you share,” allowing her to share pictures without asking permission each time. The idea is to look for consistency over time, not freak out over a single incident that goes wrong. Remember to express appreciation when your child consistently meets the expectations of the agreement as well.
In our family, if our children tell us that they have broken a part of the agreement, they know it will result in a minor consequence. If they don’t come to us and we discover it later, the consequence becomes more severe. They quickly learn it’s much better to talk with us right away when some part of their digital behavior is out of line with the agreement.
As parents we know that if we’re not careful, certain digital activities can consume more of our children’s time and focus than they should. But we also need to be careful that our well-meaning attempts to help our kids don’t depend on screen time as the sole determining factor of their digital regulation. By teaching the concept of digital balance, we help our children learn that all online activities are not created equal. Most importantly, we give them a framework to evaluate and adjust their own digital activities with far greater autonomy—one that will serve them throughout their entire lives.
Sample Device-Use Agreement
Using your device is a privilege. With any privilege comes responsibility. Here are the expectations for using your device:
When is it OK to use your device?
· You need to finish your jobs before using your phone (other than texting your parents).
· At mealtimes, your phone needs to take a rest in another room.
· If you are using your phone in any room, the door needs to stay open.
· Devices get brought to the charging station by 10:00 every night.
What should you do with your device?
· Help us capture family memories (take photos of places we visit, record family stories, etc.).
· Use your phone to help you learn (doing homework, working on school projects, and learning how to do new things).
· Have fun (read, play fun games, listen to good music).
Who should you interact with?
· Stay in touch with your friends and family members (talk to your cousins, grandparents, etc.).
· Let Mom or Dad know the first time you want to send a message to a new contact who is not a member of our extended family.
· Ask Mom or Dad before sending a picture/video to anyone.
The things you do on your device are not secret. Mom and Dad have the right to look at anything on your phone. If you change your password, you need to let us know what it is. If you decide that you need a phone break, you can bring us your phone to hold onto for a bit. We may also decide that you need to take a phone break from time to time. That’s not a punishment, just a break.
We all make mistakes. When you do something with your device that is not in line with this agreement, let us know and we’ll help you figure out how to make it right. Over time, as you demonstrate your ability to keep the principles of this agreement, additional device privileges will be provided. If you are not able to consistently keep your part of this agreement, existing privileges may be removed for a time.
Child signature: ______________________________________
Parent signature: ______________________________________
Date: ______________________________________
Device-Use Agreements at School
Device-use agreements aren’t just a helpful tool for parents. Schools can use them as well. The Children’s Internet Protection Act requires any school in the United States that accepts federal funding to help pay its internet bill—almost all do—to have an acceptable use policy (AUP) before it allows access to the school network.17 This policy states what the school considers acceptable behavior for students using its network. Unfortunately, the vast majority of schools have totally missed the purpose of these agreements. They are often written like the fine print on a prescription medication advertisement. Just like creating home device agreements, the purpose of a school AUP shouldn’t be legal protection; it should be about teaching kids to be effective digital citizens. Also, like home device agreements, the school should adapt the agreement to the student’s level of understanding. A first-grader should not get the same device-use agreement as a junior in high school. You can check out the Renton school district in Washington and Champlain Valley school district in Vermont for good examples to model.18 If you have kids in school, ask the principal if you can see the school’s AUP. If it seems the school has lost the purpose of the document in legalese, suggest that the school check out the Consortium for School Networking’s policy guide for rethinking AUPs.19
Next Steps
Action Items
· As a family, turn off all unnecessary device/app notifications and autoplay features, and program necessary notifications to go silent during family times.
· Buy an alarm clock in order to prevent the need to sleep with devices nearby.
· Discuss bedtime and dinnertime tech breaks with your kids, and designate device-charging stations where devices live at night.
· With the help of your child, create a device-use agreement.
· Hold an app review and ask your kids to pitch their current apps to you. If an app is causing issues or doesn’t seem to provide appropriate value, together come up with a deadline for when to remove that app and exchange it for a healthier alternative.
· Praise your child when you’ve noticed them self-regulating their device use particularly well.
Conversation Starters
· Have there ever been times when a particular app is keeping you from doing other things that are more important?
· What are some things that app developers do to make it harder for you to stop using their apps?
· How do you know when it’s time to take a break from using technology?
· When are the times in our day that should be device free?
· How do you decide which apps should get more of your time than others?