Not all "screen time" is created equal

The debates about screen time and kids are really confused: the studies have contradictory findings, and the ones that find negative outcomes in kids who spend a lot of time on their screens struggle to figure out the cause-and-effect relationship (are depressed kids using screens more because that's how they get help, or do kids become depressed if they use their screen a lot?).

It's obvious that not all screen time is created equal: games aren't social media, social media isn't Youtube. What's more, even within categories like "games," not all usage is equal: some people play group games with far-flung friends as a social, networked activity, integrating small talk about their troubles and supporting each other. Others just scream obscenities at strangers over team-speak while shooting at other strangers.

So the screen-time debate should really focus not on "time" but on "time spent": what are you doing with your screen, and why?

I once invited the eminent social scientist Mimi Ito (previously) to present on her work studying how young people use networked devices (she ran the MacArthur Digital Youth Project, the largest-ever study of young peoples' use of technology), and one of the audience members asked "What are Ipads doing to kids' brains?"

Mimi's answer went something like this: "We probably won't know the answer to that until those kids are adults and we can study large groups of them. By that time, Ipads will be long gone, replaced by something else, that will have a different effect on kids' brains, so whatever we learn from those studies still won't tell us much that's useful for guiding kids' use of technology."

Not that researchers can't or shouldn't do the hard work of untangling those associations.