Too much tech is bad for children. But are we only discipling families ‘entrusted with much’?
My husband and I are hardliners when it comes to kids and tech. Granted, our twin eldests are only four, so you might say we haven’t been at it long enough to claim victory here—and fair enough. Even if teenage demands for a smartphone are the tech battle royale of modern parenting, getting through the toddler years without screens is no small skirmish.
I wouldn’t say strictly curtailing screen time for our kids has been easy. I’ve felt the allure of digital entertainment for our children many, many times. When you’ve got two screaming infants on your hands, the prospect of multiple consecutive minutes without crying—bought by a few replays of “Baby Shark” on YouTube—can look awfully like the Promised Land, glittering there across the Jordan.
But avoiding screen time has been comparatively easy for me because our family is fortunate in many ways. My husband and I both work from home, have semi-flexible schedules, and can afford full-time childcare. I can hold out against resorting to a screen to afford me a moment of blessed peace because I have many such moments, like this one—where I’m able to write alone, in my office, in a quiet house.
That’s not the norm for parents of young children, especially for those with more practical constraints than I have: single parenthood, a long commute, a lower income, disability or persistent illness in the family, unreliable or inadequate or unaffordable childcare, less help from nearby family and friends, or less tangible support from local institutions like church and school.
And that reality makes me worry about how we’re communicating the emerging consensus that too much tech use is bad for kids—and particularly …