NORFOLK, Va. — Living in 2024, technology is a major part of day-to-day life for most people.
When you look around, it feels like everyone is staring at screens. From cell phones to tablets and computers, connectivity is king.
As an adult, I know it's difficult to step away from technology, so you can imagine how tough it is for kids. In fact, I've learned there's a correlation between screen time and brain development.
So how much screen time is too much? And what are the positives about technology?
I first talked about this with Katherine Currin, a managing partner at Morris, Currin, & O’Keefe and a mother to a 7-year-old and a 9-year-old.
She says in both of her roles, she likes to keep the lines of communication open.
“We are probably on the stricter side of the spectrum in terms of not allowing screen time,” Currin says.
She tells me her girls have access to devices, but only in shared spaces at home and not without supervision.
She explains it to her kids like this: “You're not old enough to walk out of the door and go anywhere you want. And so you're not old enough to go onto the internet and cruise anywhere you want.”
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One of the rules in their home is the girls must read a book or article for the same number of minutes they want to play on a device. For example, if they watch videos on YouTube for 15 minutes, then they must read for 15 minutes.
“Without a doubt, children don't have the capacity to police themselves when it comes to knowing when they have reached that limit [of being online],” she says.
Currin says the hope is that her kids get so engrossed with the book they're reading that they don’t want to get on the device afterwards.
“For me, it is a brain development and emotional development issue,” she says.
Brain development is a common concern for parents. I talked about this with Dr. Elise Fallucco, a child and adolescent psychiatrist.
She says there is a correlation between screen time and development.
“What we do know clinically, and somewhat anecdotally, is that it's taking our development down a different path,” she says.
Dr. Fallucco says the first three to five years is when our major brain development happens, and it continues until our early 20s.
Through her work at CHKD, she says, “I've talked with a bunch of preschool teachers who say they've noticed, since the advent of screens and social media, that kids no longer have fine motor skills. They're just used to holding a screen."
She adds for young children, “We want to see kids interacting with a real, non-two-dimensional environment. We want them to be touching things. We want them to be using their hands and their bodies to help develop their fine motor and their gross motor systems.”
For adolescents and teens, Dr. Fallucco says using social media is incredibly stimulating to the brain.
“It essentially lights up our own reward centers in our brain and releases this chemical, or neurotransmitter, dopamine, which makes us feel really good,” she says.
Some refer to this as a form of addiction, which is why it's so hard to get kids off. In fact, a 2023 study from the Pew Research Center found between 80% and 90% of teens are on social media and one in five report they are using it constantly.
The overuse, coupled with a developing brain, is how some kids can find themselves in trouble.
“My youngest victim of online exploitation was 9 years old,” says Kristina Korobov, a senior attorney with the Zero Abuse Project.
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The Zero Abuse Project is a nonprofit created to protect kids from abuse and sexual assault, especially online.
Korobov tells me parents need to be willing to look through a child's phone, read messages, and look at search history.
“There is a lot of abuse that occurs by adults. It can be someone pretending to be a child [and] it can be someone who is in the child's life in a position of trust,” she says.
For example, in this federal case, investigators say a former Virginia Beach baseball coach was charged with solicitation, distribution, and facilitation of child porn.
According to federal documents, Shannon Robbins "regularly created numerous accounts on Instagram, Snapchat, and TikTok as part of his attempts both to evade detection and to deceive his child victims."
Korobov doesn’t have any connection to Robbins’ case, but says, “Most offenders who have designs on children will redirect the conversation to another application, including those with encryption, so that the parent can't detect it."
Korobov says apps with encryption, like Signal, WhatsApp, and MEGA, should not be on a kid's phone.
If they are hiding apps, turning off photo sharing and their location, she says parents need to start asking questions.
However, not every child will find themselves in a dangerous situation online and not every website poses danger.
In fact, some platforms are a great way for people with common interests to connect and find a community.
Kids are also likely more technologically savvy than their parents and grandparents, which can be incredibly helpful.
“The more parents educate themselves about this, they know what to look for then,” says Korobov.
A few other pieces of advice from the women I spoke with are to keep phones out of kids’ bedrooms and to have open conversations with them about what apps they're using.
Click here for further guidance from the American Academy of Pediatrics.
