What is screen time?

Screen time is a term used to refer to how long you spend on a device with a screen. A majority of our screentime comes from using smartphones, tablets and laptops.

The recommended amount of screentime for children ages 2-5 is one hour. That’s pretty tricky! Things like the pandemic and switching to online schooling have greatly increased screen time use, making the goal of only one hour even harder to stick to.

Despite higher screen time counts becoming part of our daily lives due to the changing nature of our world, there are many ways to ensure your child is using this time to its full potential and getting quality lessons about how to use screen time for both personal entertainment and productivity.

Why is screen time important?

Social interaction

Because of our ever-changing world, devices like tablets, smartphones, and laptops can allow us to connect to our friends and family who may not be close to us. Planning things like a game night with grandparents, aunts, uncles, and cousins who you haven’t seen in a while is a great way to have screen time in a productive way.

Children can also use screens to connect with classmates from online preschool outside of the classroom. Socialization is critical for growing minds, and the ability to spend time virtually with classmates from online preschool who may not be able to have an in-person playdate is a great way to nurture relationships and promote screen time that is not just watching a television show or YouTube kids (though that also has a time and place!)

Learning

Many early online preschool education programs require sitting in front of a laptop or tablet, making it harder to avoid screen time. However, this is another form of productive screen time. After class is done, there is also a multitude of exciting educational websites, classes, and videos they can explore. While they are no longer in preschool online, they can still have screen time that they can choose while also bettering their minds and teaching them new skills and ideas.

Work

Aside from children, adults also have begun using laptops and tablets for work more and more. Screens allow you to take meetings, work on important projects, and connect with coworkers faster than ever.

How to detach from screens?

After the day is done, it is hard to not just move onto using screens for things like watching television and playing video games. Instead of defaulting to this for downtime, take a break from screens by doing things like playing outside, reading books, doing arts and crafts, or just spending time talking to your children about how their day was and what they learned. This not only breaks up the course of the day between work/school and free time but also makes screens something that your child does not feel the need to rely on for fun.

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