You would have a rather hard time thinking of a recent event that had nearly as widespread of an impact as the Covid-19 pandemic because of the fact that this is the sort of thing that could potentially end up preventing people from being able to leave their homes. Millions of people have died as a result of the pandemic, and while things are starting to come under control for the first time in a couple of years, a lot of unexpected consequences are starting to come to light.
One such consequence of the pandemic is that the screen time that most kids are experiencing each and every day has increased by a pretty massive amount. This actually isn’t all that surprising since most kids were stuck at home for quite a long time due to widespread lockdowns, and this is something that obviously resulted in them using screens more often just so that they could pass the time. Most parents allowed their kids to have unlimited screen time so that they could avoid having to deal with frustrating situations while they worked from home themselves.
There is a bit of gender disparity in this information that is coming out of Common Sense Media, since boys tend to get more screen time than girls with all things having been considered and taken into account. Teens also tend to use screens for a lot longer than tweens, and there is an income disparity that can be seen as well with lower income tweens being far more likely to use screens for extended periods than their wealthier counterparts.
With all of that having been said and now out of the way, it is important to note that not all of this screen time is inherently bad. Kids often had to use screens to attend online classes, and much of their screen time involved educational tasks among others. However, that doesn’t change the fact that a significant portion of this time was likely spent not really doing anything of value which would obviously be a cause for concern for parents that want to protect their children.
One such consequence of the pandemic is that the screen time that most kids are experiencing each and every day has increased by a pretty massive amount. This actually isn’t all that surprising since most kids were stuck at home for quite a long time due to widespread lockdowns, and this is something that obviously resulted in them using screens more often just so that they could pass the time. Most parents allowed their kids to have unlimited screen time so that they could avoid having to deal with frustrating situations while they worked from home themselves.
There is a bit of gender disparity in this information that is coming out of Common Sense Media, since boys tend to get more screen time than girls with all things having been considered and taken into account. Teens also tend to use screens for a lot longer than tweens, and there is an income disparity that can be seen as well with lower income tweens being far more likely to use screens for extended periods than their wealthier counterparts.
With all of that having been said and now out of the way, it is important to note that not all of this screen time is inherently bad. Kids often had to use screens to attend online classes, and much of their screen time involved educational tasks among others. However, that doesn’t change the fact that a significant portion of this time was likely spent not really doing anything of value which would obviously be a cause for concern for parents that want to protect their children.
Take a look at the infographic below, titled, "The Common Sense Census: Media Use by Tweens and Teens 2022" for more insights:
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