Screen Time on macOS is very broken, FWIW. It thinks I used the App Store for four hours yesterday because I had left it open in the background during a build.
Yeah, the app level statistics are wrong. For the total screentime, it looks about right to me. 8 hours at work, a couple hours of email on either end, entertainment for an hour, then reading on a screen in bed.
It's like those dystopian heavy metal graphics of a feeble human with a screen strapped to their face. Back in the 80s and 90s they were thinking about televisions. People wasting their lives away being pacified by tv media while some faceless companies and government controlled the world. If they saw the world today it would probably blow their minds.
I would think that this number would actually be higher than 'nearly' half. They are at school all day with laptops, and then I would imagine they go home and do homework, watch videos, and communicate with friends all using a screen. The only time away from screens is showering or playing a sport.
For me, I would guess that I spend 13 hours a day looking at a screen. I think that's just modern life for a lot of people, especially those who work in tech.
Actually here in Finland a lot of schools are moving towards laptops/tablets/etc. Kids as young as 9-10 are expected to use those devices. Books and materials are provided through online portals and downloaded locally on the machines. A lot of homework is done and returned online. Along with exams, essays and all kinds of other nonsense.
As you get older most exams are done on Linux distro called DigabiOS (https://github.com/digabi/digabi-os) the same distro is also used for the matriculation exams. You boot this off of a USB drive and hope it works well with your own machine.
So I can absolutely see people spending most of their school day on a computer staring at a screen.
I recently rewatched Neon Genesis Evangelion and noticed that in many of the classroom scenes all of the kids had laptops. The anime aired in 1995/1996, but was set in 2015.
> Those figures don’t even factor in the time kids are using screens for school or homework, where smartboards and school computers are likely a part of many classroom settings.
The article mentions that the 7.5 hours a day specifically excludes time spent at school or doing homework.
So, you're absolutely correct that the figure is much higher, and the rest of the article shares potential health and social risks that children (instead of adults) have when they are so plugged in, "modern life" aside. I believe, however, that children are more vulnerable to these risks than us who work in tech all day.
I don't know any high schools that allow laptops in normal classes.
This is in the tri-state area at least (NJ/NY/PA) where I know a bunch of people who are teachers. Maybe the rest of the country it's common for high school students to be allowed laptops in class?
I'm in the same area, my kids don't have their own laptops or chomebooks for use in class. There are a half dozen desktop computers in the classroom and students rotate using them for some educational games, but the normal work is not computer-mediated.
Some districts in NJ have a 1 to 1 policy where students are all given a chromebooks at the start of the year. Teachers who can utilize this policy and google classroom love it because it off-loads the grading to a program and not a piece of paper.
In the same area, both my hometown and the district I attended had 1:1 Chromebook policies. They also had Orwelian programs to allow teachers to see what was on student's screens (!) and later a list of recently closed tabs (!!).
I think as a child your mind is pretty easily distracted ( looking at you IT classes of my time where 90% + of the class would be sneaking on miniclip every time a teachers back was turned )
It's pretty essential if we're going to have those connected devices in the classroom there is a way to control it.
I would prefer rigorous blocking over teacher control - but reasonably I think it's kind of necessity in a classroom setting.
In north Chicago suburbs, my 1st grader gets an iPad, and my 3rd and 5th graders have chromebooks. All communication is through school apps, and much of the work is done on those. They use them for homework, and spend much of the day on them. I hate it.
I have 3 kids in middle and high school in West Windsor NJ. The school gives each student a chromebook or you can bring your own (I believe BYOD that is only allowed in high school).. everything is done through google classroom + printed handouts....
Really? Around here (rural Minnesota, in a rural school district), probably 80% of schoolwork is done on a Chromebook, at least in the final years of high school. I'm amazed by how much lighter my kid's backpack got in 11th grade.
Although there's a difference between spending time on a screen for school vs. social media/youtube/video games/etc. I don't think the mere fact of being in front of a screen is the determining factor here, but rather the nature of the content. We would, for example, look very differently at two kids, one who read only for enjoyment and one who read mostly for scholastic reasons.
I agree, but also there's no way spending a childhood mostly sitting and staring into a light panel 18 inches away from your face is ideal.
As a tech worker I use screens more than them, but I am at least paid OK for destroying my body and can evaluate the trade-offs and adjust my life if needed.
Yeah - optometry issues are literally the only time such a metric makes sense and even then it may have issues from conflating differing screen types, brightnesses, and distances.
Or allow me to make my own categories based on apps. Here's an extreme example: meditation timer. All I need you to do is ring a bell after 30 minutes, otherwise I'm meditating and obviously not looking at anything but the wall. So I'd like $TIMER_APP to not count toward screen time. Instead, it racks up 30 minutes every day toward that number. Does the yoga app that I throw to the Apple TV count? I guess it does. Should it count? Depends on what I'm trying to measure. If Screen Time is a measure of "sitting on my ass swiping at a piece of glass", then no, yoga time is not Screen Time. But it's early days, perhaps they'll refine it into a more useful feature.
Now, Screen Time does do what you're asking. Screen Time/See All Activity/Show Categories. It's not perfect. Messages shows up as "social networking". Okay, if that's what you want to call "telling my wife I'm not dead in a ditch" and "hey, neighbor kid, wanna walk dogs with me?" But's it what we've got, and it's better than what we had.
Seeing eight kids organize a playdate via text message and then do some collaborative building with redstone circuitry in Minecraft is pretty impressive to watch, and makes me strongly feel there's more to the debate than just "screens vs. non-screens".
The article touches on the type of screen time when it says the time cited is in addition to that for school, but the non-school screen time is not broken down into other buckets. I would expect a significant difference between kids whose primary screen time was videogames vs. videos vs. social media.
I'm over thirty and I probably spend 12+h on screens every day. That's par for the course when you work "with computers". The rest is Kindle and my smartphone.
I can imagine, people who are heavily invested into social networks probably take it up to even 15h.
As an adult I must spend at least 80+% of my time staring at a screen, but I'm guessing that will never be diagnosed as a problem and get its own article because nobody cares when it comes to adults?
Some have screens at school (Chromebooks or iPads), but even then, their weekdays should largely be screen free - which means they’re getting these hours in nights and weekends.
Assuming someone sleeps 8 hours a night and spends 100% of their 40 hour a week job in front of a computer and no other time in front of a screen, that's about 36% of an adult's waking hours.
My total screen time is higher than that, but that's largely my fault (although I do work 50+ hours a few weeks out of the year). If you work in tech your going to spend a lot of time in front of screens, likewise fishing guides spend a lot of time staring at water.
What I find really interesting is that if this problem is so common, then won't the kids who don't spend so much time behind a screen be the odd ones out? I wonder what impact that is going to have on their life. Perhaps teens that spend all that time looking at screens will be better at looking at screens once they become adults?
It’s possible that they are the odd ones out without “screen skills”. I’m actually betting that kids who spend most of their time away from screens will have some weird, competitive advantage in a future economy.
I would think that it's the opposite. I think the kids with significantly less screen time to no screen time will be like the people who never learned to drive. Doing many things is more difficult for them unless they're rich.
I don't think having a deeply engrained reflex to open youtube or tiktok or whatever the nanosecond you're start loosing attention on whatever you are currently doing will enrich peoples lives. Sure, some will use the tools productively. But most will fall victim to the most effective pleasure industry mankind has come up with so far.
This totally nails it. My wife and I very carefully control our kids' (13 and 14) screen hours to make sure they're engaging with real people in the real world and not thoughtlessly pulling out a phone every two minutes. But even with restrictions, they manage about an hour of screen time a day, and they're still superbly capable at handling whatever device they happen to be using. They're in no way disadvantaged from a 'computer skills' POV.
I agree with this theory, and I think we're seeing some of it with the trades. Digital natives are competing in a global marketplace with millions of others, while local tradespeople are competing with the other people in town.
Yep! You can’t send your kids out to play anymore because all their friends are home glued to phones or video game screens. A friend told her kids to go play outside and an hour later, found them sitting on the front step playing games on a handheld device.
Yeah I spend most of my time in front of a screen too, but let's break down just a few of the ways that's a little better.
First, my time on a screen is far more productive (the time mentioned in the headline excludes any school work). It's not occupied by social media or games, it's occupied by more meaningful communication with people, critical thinking, etc. It's also the most efficient way for me personally to make a living and provide the needs of life for multiple other people. I'd like to think I've chosen a job where I'm contributing meaningfully to the world and not just affecting the bottom line of my employer or my own checking account.
When I'm not working, I do make it a point to not have my face in a screen. I spend time in stimulating and wholesome recreational activities with my kids, I get outside, I exercise. If you do have your face in a screen the whole time, I have bad news for you: you're probably missing out on some cool real life stuff, your wellness may be suffering, and there are articles about you using a screen too much [1]. People do care when it comes to adults, especially adults who need to be taking care of their kids more than being on their phone or paying attention to the road.
Why do you feel your time in front of the screen is more meaningful?
Building relationships and learning social skills is very important for teens. An increasing number of jobs and products will be in entertainment where attention is the currency. There are some very educational and meaningful youtube channels for example.
Teens are spending half their hours in front of a screen so it sounds like there is a balance.
>but I'm guessing that will never be diagnosed as a problem and get its own article because nobody cares when it comes to adults?
First, a quick Google tells me there are plenty of articles written about too much screen time, generally. Second, teenagers are at a very vulnerable, formative time of their lives when this excessive screen time is occurring, with as yet unknown consequences.
Probably because the mind is still changing significantly as a teenager. It’s why things like weed and alcohol are a far bigger issue for a 16 year old than a 50 year old when consumed at the same volume.
Honestly I would agree with that. I'm rarely not in front of a screen as an adult. Even if I were to go tech free on the weekends, the majority of my time would still be spent on a screen.
Teens are hunting for likes and streaks (Snapchat, I hear you) - sharing photos of themself with a ton of filter applied. And at the end, they are unable to look at themself in the mirror, because they feel ugly, and reality doesn't fit to the reality on their screens.
This is a first-hand experience I have with my 17 year old foster child.
I don't know how she grew up, but I see the results social media is doing to her self-esteem. My gf and I, both in our mid-30s, know how this works and are able to work against it as best as we can. But other parents, which are 10, 15 years older - I can understand that it's difficult for them to grasp the consequences, as they are also caught in the social media loop.
I’ve seen the same thing in people this age. It’s really tragic how social media is shredding the self esteem of kids of this generation, especially girls.
I spend the vast majority of my day staring at my phone or my monitor. I work in tech. I don't use social media besides ~1-2m on instagram every other day. I consume media/news through the financial times, reddit, HN, and youtube. I also play chess via apps daily, and other games from time to time. The rest of the time I'm either doing something physical like cooking/cleaning/walking, or reading a book (not on my kindle).
For teens, half is pretty good. For younger kids though I can see it as a problem.
Same old moral panic, different technology. Still, different technology means potentially different effects. That still doesn't mean it's any less of the same old moral panic. Fortunately, as it always seems in these cases, people are looking into it - for better or worse. Perhaps it's indivisible.
When I grew up it was over Dungeons and Dragons. Then it was video games. Now it’s these nebulous “screens” that are supposedly turning kids into... something? The constant is: When kids are interested in things that parents weren’t interested in when they were kids, pearl clutching ensues.
I'm 28 and spent a lot of my childhood playing video games (N64, GameCube and later Xbox 360) and reading. I still play video games and read as an adult (although much less often due to work and personal obligations). I have also gone through periods where I waste tons of time on social media.
Social Media is mostly mindless, it makes me think negative thoughts about my neighbors and friends, it makes me want to go out and spend money on things I don't need and I get caught in this cycle where I feel like I constantly need to check it. Fortunately, I recognize this and its not a problem any more but its a very easy trap to fall into.
Books and video games have never made me feel this way.
I hate to say it but social media's issues sound like related to other people and sick social dynamics which all too often establish themselves.
Keeping up with the Joneses and veblen goods are things which cause people to spend money on things they don't need and lead to negative thoughts about neighbors and friends over them being "too good" and provoking envy oe "not good enough" and provoking scorn.
I agree. It's just compounded by social media. It could be that I'm affected by this more than other people, but I've spoke with friends and family with similar experiences. Luckily I'm mature enough now to recognize this.
I also want to be clear that most of the negative thoughts I have aren't due to people being "too good" or "not good enough". It's due to the things people share. I see lots of anger in my facebook feed, usually related to politics, but not always. It's just a very dramatic place.
I don't want to think of what my early teenage years would've been like had social media been more accessible. Don't get me wrong, I would've loved to have access to MySpace from anywhere, but I don't think it would've been healthy and I certainly wasn't mature enough for it.
> Those children were more likely to become depressed by age 12 or 13, to be the victims of bullying, to be aggressive, to have lower interpersonal skills, to have unhealthy diets, and to be overweight, the researchers found in the April study.
> The findings suggest that very young children are missing out on key aspects of their brain development when they spend so much time staring at a screen instead of interacting with the outside world.
Or alternatively, they suggest that victims of bullying, less socially successful, and less physically fit children are more inclined to spend time using a screen.
So often studies like this find a correlation, then jump to the causation they had set out to find, ignoring all other plausible relationships suggested by the data.
Right, all of the factors they mentioned seem like the kinds of things that would make screen time more fulfilling or engaging compared to time with others or something else.
(Short version: about 5 hours a day on tv, games, and computers.)
And, let us not forget when, in 1959, Scientific American denounced the vile scourge of chess:
"A pernicious excitement to learn and play chess has spread all over the country, and numerous clubs for practicing this game have been formed in cities and villages...chess is a mere amusement of a very inferior character, which robs the mind of valuable time that might be devoted to nobler acquirements, while it affords no benefit whatever to the body."
I doubt medieval crafters were thrilled about spending 10-14 hours a day in their workshops either. Ultimately, I think self-awareness is more important than anything, including how information-selecting creations like Youtube or Facebook are affecting our minds and our ideas, rather than focusing so much on time.
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[ 14.7 ms ] story [ 829 ms ] threadhttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AGZSWdh17l0
For me, I would guess that I spend 13 hours a day looking at a screen. I think that's just modern life for a lot of people, especially those who work in tech.
What school has their students be on laptops all day?!
As you get older most exams are done on Linux distro called DigabiOS (https://github.com/digabi/digabi-os) the same distro is also used for the matriculation exams. You boot this off of a USB drive and hope it works well with your own machine.
So I can absolutely see people spending most of their school day on a computer staring at a screen.
I recently rewatched Neon Genesis Evangelion and noticed that in many of the classroom scenes all of the kids had laptops. The anime aired in 1995/1996, but was set in 2015.
So, you're absolutely correct that the figure is much higher, and the rest of the article shares potential health and social risks that children (instead of adults) have when they are so plugged in, "modern life" aside. I believe, however, that children are more vulnerable to these risks than us who work in tech all day.
It's pretty essential if we're going to have those connected devices in the classroom there is a way to control it.
I would prefer rigorous blocking over teacher control - but reasonably I think it's kind of necessity in a classroom setting.
As a tech worker I use screens more than them, but I am at least paid OK for destroying my body and can evaluate the trade-offs and adjust my life if needed.
Now, Screen Time does do what you're asking. Screen Time/See All Activity/Show Categories. It's not perfect. Messages shows up as "social networking". Okay, if that's what you want to call "telling my wife I'm not dead in a ditch" and "hey, neighbor kid, wanna walk dogs with me?" But's it what we've got, and it's better than what we had.
Seeing eight kids organize a playdate via text message and then do some collaborative building with redstone circuitry in Minecraft is pretty impressive to watch, and makes me strongly feel there's more to the debate than just "screens vs. non-screens".
I can imagine, people who are heavily invested into social networks probably take it up to even 15h.
The teens by virtue of their age probably aren’t working, so I don’t that screen tune can be attributed to work requirements.
Like Slack and Jira?
My total screen time is higher than that, but that's largely my fault (although I do work 50+ hours a few weeks out of the year). If you work in tech your going to spend a lot of time in front of screens, likewise fishing guides spend a lot of time staring at water.
That's certainly possible. I'm sure most people here were the odd balls growing up, doing the opposite of what other kids were doing.
First, my time on a screen is far more productive (the time mentioned in the headline excludes any school work). It's not occupied by social media or games, it's occupied by more meaningful communication with people, critical thinking, etc. It's also the most efficient way for me personally to make a living and provide the needs of life for multiple other people. I'd like to think I've chosen a job where I'm contributing meaningfully to the world and not just affecting the bottom line of my employer or my own checking account.
When I'm not working, I do make it a point to not have my face in a screen. I spend time in stimulating and wholesome recreational activities with my kids, I get outside, I exercise. If you do have your face in a screen the whole time, I have bad news for you: you're probably missing out on some cool real life stuff, your wellness may be suffering, and there are articles about you using a screen too much [1]. People do care when it comes to adults, especially adults who need to be taking care of their kids more than being on their phone or paying attention to the road.
[1] https://duckduckgo.com/?q=adults+time+on+their+phones&ia=web. There are even articles about how this is actually a disproportionate problem with adults.
Building relationships and learning social skills is very important for teens. An increasing number of jobs and products will be in entertainment where attention is the currency. There are some very educational and meaningful youtube channels for example.
Teens are spending half their hours in front of a screen so it sounds like there is a balance.
First, a quick Google tells me there are plenty of articles written about too much screen time, generally. Second, teenagers are at a very vulnerable, formative time of their lives when this excessive screen time is occurring, with as yet unknown consequences.
This is a first-hand experience I have with my 17 year old foster child. I don't know how she grew up, but I see the results social media is doing to her self-esteem. My gf and I, both in our mid-30s, know how this works and are able to work against it as best as we can. But other parents, which are 10, 15 years older - I can understand that it's difficult for them to grasp the consequences, as they are also caught in the social media loop.
I’m really glad I grew up before this happened.
For teens, half is pretty good. For younger kids though I can see it as a problem.
Social Media is mostly mindless, it makes me think negative thoughts about my neighbors and friends, it makes me want to go out and spend money on things I don't need and I get caught in this cycle where I feel like I constantly need to check it. Fortunately, I recognize this and its not a problem any more but its a very easy trap to fall into.
Books and video games have never made me feel this way.
Keeping up with the Joneses and veblen goods are things which cause people to spend money on things they don't need and lead to negative thoughts about neighbors and friends over them being "too good" and provoking envy oe "not good enough" and provoking scorn.
I also want to be clear that most of the negative thoughts I have aren't due to people being "too good" or "not good enough". It's due to the things people share. I see lots of anger in my facebook feed, usually related to politics, but not always. It's just a very dramatic place.
I don't want to think of what my early teenage years would've been like had social media been more accessible. Don't get me wrong, I would've loved to have access to MySpace from anywhere, but I don't think it would've been healthy and I certainly wasn't mature enough for it.
> The findings suggest that very young children are missing out on key aspects of their brain development when they spend so much time staring at a screen instead of interacting with the outside world.
Or alternatively, they suggest that victims of bullying, less socially successful, and less physically fit children are more inclined to spend time using a screen.
So often studies like this find a correlation, then jump to the causation they had set out to find, ignoring all other plausible relationships suggested by the data.
For comparison, here's a 2004 paper on how teens spent their time from 1981-2003: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0-w47wgdhso
(Short version: about 5 hours a day on tv, games, and computers.)
And, let us not forget when, in 1959, Scientific American denounced the vile scourge of chess: "A pernicious excitement to learn and play chess has spread all over the country, and numerous clubs for practicing this game have been formed in cities and villages...chess is a mere amusement of a very inferior character, which robs the mind of valuable time that might be devoted to nobler acquirements, while it affords no benefit whatever to the body."
https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/19th-century-conce...
Speaking for myself, I'm not thrilled at the amount of screen time I and others spend... but the same has been said of various forms of print media and other things over the years; http://mentalfloss.com/article/52209/15-historical-complaint...
I doubt medieval crafters were thrilled about spending 10-14 hours a day in their workshops either. Ultimately, I think self-awareness is more important than anything, including how information-selecting creations like Youtube or Facebook are affecting our minds and our ideas, rather than focusing so much on time.