Geoff and Ellie live in a suburban Chicago neighborhood that looks familiar from movies like Pretty in Pink and Ferris Bueller's Day Off — both filmed in the area.
They have three kids — Nathan, 5, Benji, 11, and Abby, 14 — and they're worried that all three are too into their screens.
An all-too-common experience
Ninety-eight percent of families with children now have smartphones. Young children Nathan's age consume over two hours of media per day on average, tweens take in about six hours, and teens use their devices for nine hours a day, according to the nonprofit Common Sense Media.
Technology overuse ranked as the No. 1 fear of parents of teenagers in a national survey last year.
As we sit in the family room, Ellie tell us how it feels to have a houseful of tiny electronic devices that travel with her kids into their bedrooms, to the table, in the car — everywhere.
"We're the first generation of parents that has to do this monitoring," Ellie says.How did Geoff and Ellie get here? They are not hands-off parents, nor are they lacking in rules. In the kitchen, Ellie has posted color-coded schedules for all three kids, which show when each child is allowed to use screens.
But the kids don't listen. They fight back and complain. And sometimes, with dad working full time, mom part time, and three kids with three different schools and three different schedules, the rules fall through the cracks. "Give them an inch, and they'll take a mile and you're in trouble," Ellie says. "It's exhausting."
At one point, all three kids are sitting in separate corners on the sectional couch in the family room, each on his or her own device. Nathan, the little one, is playing on his iPad, totally hidden under a blanket — head and all. As I talk with Abby, Benji looks up and comments, "This is the most I've heard my sister say in a while."
Ellie puts it this way: "I lost my daughter when I gave her the cell phone."
I've brought an expert to observe and to give Geoff and Ellie some tips. Devorah Heitner has a Ph.D. in media, technology and society from Northwestern University and is author of the book Screenwise.
Heitner says she hears this kind of thing all the time. "I think all parents are like, 'Can you just tell me how many minutes?' Or I'll go speak at schools, and people will say, 'Can you just tell me the device I can use to fix the problem?' "
This misconception comes in part from the media, she says, and from companies — Apple, Google, Amazon — that advertise parental controls and settings as a magic solution.
Heitner and other experts do say to draw a bright line — and be a little authoritarian if you have to — over two times of day: bedtime and mealtime. Research says that more than two hours a day of screen time for young children doubles the risk of childhood obesity. Staring at screens can interfere with sleep, not only because of blue light but because of the emotional excitement of media content and the feeling of urgency about responding to messages.https://www.ttspy.com/the-best-phone-hack-software-for-android-and-...