I looked out the window at the crisp fall day, the sun glowing on the leafy ground. “A perfect day,” I thought.
“Do you want to go outside and play? It’s beautiful out there,” I turned to my ten-year-old brother, who had just walked into the living room. “No, I am going to get my iPad,” he replied indifferently.
I shouldn’t have been surprised by his answer; I had heard it a million times. The iPad was often chosen over the outdoors. Still, his answer tugged at something in me. Why would a ten-year-old boy choose to stay inside and stare at a screen when he had the opportunity to go out and have an adventure? I didn’t know.
I reminisced over my childhood, the majority of which was spent in the state of Colorado. I spent almost every waking second outside, whether it was 70 degrees and sunny or negative five with six feet of snow. I was out in it.
Growing up, my siblings and I utilized three pieces of technology in total. Two long-distance walkie-talkies and a single landline phone; we certainly did not have our own iPads.
In retrospect, my childhood was far different than the childhood of my youngest brother. While he is growing up in a different location than I did, the biggest difference between my childhood and his is the overwhelming presence of technology.
I was unsurprised to learn that, according to the Kaiser Family Foundation (KFF), kids between the ages of 8-18 spend an average of 7.5 hours per day with their eyes locked on a screen for the sake of entertainment. Unfortunately, my youngest brother falls into this statistic.
The Centers for Disease Control (CDC) and Prevention, breaks down the overall average into smaller age brackets, revealing that children ages 8-10 spend about six hours a day on some kind of screen while ages 11-14 are on their screens for a terrifying average of nine hours a day. Adolescents between the ages of 15 and 18 spend close to seven and a half hours daily buried in a device.
These statistics are disheartening but unsurprising; screens seem to follow kids wherever they go. I often see children at a restaurant who are immediately given an iPad or phone to be pacified so the adults can talk. I see kids in grocery stores walking around next to a parent with their little faces smooshed into a smeared screen to keep them occupied. I’ve witnessed my youngest brother being allowed to get on his iPad instead of participating in a family gathering or game night.
A study from the National Library of Medicine (NLM) entitled “Effects of Excessive Screen Time on Child Development: An Updated Review and Strategies for Management” reveals what happens when children have extraneous amounts of screen time.
This study states that “excessive screen time and media multitasking can negatively affect executive functioning, sensorimotor development, and academic outcomes,” and more specifically, “Early screen exposure has been associated with lower cognitive abilities and academic performance in later years.”
Children are missing out on learning valuable social, emotional and linguistic life skills from adults because of this constant attachment to technology. We must realize that handing a child a screen to keep them occupied might be convenient for us in the moment, but it can be detrimental to the child’s development in the long run.
There is a world outside the screens that children will miss if their existence is contained to staring at screens. At any age, outdoor activity is necessary for human flourishing; God did not make us to live constantly within the walls of a building or within the borders of a screen.
Another study from the NLM entitled “The importance of outdoor play for young children’s healthy development” reveals the benefits children gain from playing outside regularly. According to this article, “Opportunities to connect with Nature, deal with risks, and socialize with peers and adults in a responsive and caring environment will contribute to quality educational experiences, influencing children’s motivation and enthusiasm about learning and school.”
The experiences children and adolescents can gain from exploring the world around them can not be simulated or replaced by screen time. While technology can help adults with efficiency and make many tasks easier than they would otherwise be, children’s excessive exposure to screens has proved to be detrimental to their development.
What if we heeded the invitation to go outside and play, even as adults? What if we chose to value our time by limiting how much exposure we have to screens? Culture will scream that we need more and more technology, but the next generation will benefit if we return to the world outside our screens.
The World Outside the Screens
I looked out the window at the crisp fall day, the sun glowing on the leafy ground. “A perfect day,” I thought.
“Do you want to go outside and play? It’s beautiful out there,” I turned to my ten-year-old brother, who had just walked into the living room. “No, I am going to get my iPad,” he replied indifferently.
I shouldn’t have been surprised by his answer; I had heard it a million times. The iPad was often chosen over the outdoors. Still, his answer tugged at something in me. Why would a ten-year-old boy choose to stay inside and stare at a screen when he had the opportunity to go out and have an adventure? I didn’t know.
I reminisced over my childhood, the majority of which was spent in the state of Colorado. I spent almost every waking second outside, whether it was 70 degrees and sunny or negative five with six feet of snow. I was out in it.
Growing up, my siblings and I utilized three pieces of technology in total. Two long-distance walkie-talkies and a single landline phone; we certainly did not have our own iPads.
In retrospect, my childhood was far different than the childhood of my youngest brother. While he is growing up in a different location than I did, the biggest difference between my childhood and his is the overwhelming presence of technology.
I was unsurprised to learn that, according to the Kaiser Family Foundation (KFF), kids between the ages of 8-18 spend an average of 7.5 hours per day with their eyes locked on a screen for the sake of entertainment. Unfortunately, my youngest brother falls into this statistic.
The Centers for Disease Control (CDC) and Prevention, breaks down the overall average into smaller age brackets, revealing that children ages 8-10 spend about six hours a day on some kind of screen while ages 11-14 are on their screens for a terrifying average of nine hours a day. Adolescents between the ages of 15 and 18 spend close to seven and a half hours daily buried in a device.
These statistics are disheartening but unsurprising; screens seem to follow kids wherever they go. I often see children at a restaurant who are immediately given an iPad or phone to be pacified so the adults can talk. I see kids in grocery stores walking around next to a parent with their little faces smooshed into a smeared screen to keep them occupied. I’ve witnessed my youngest brother being allowed to get on his iPad instead of participating in a family gathering or game night.
A study from the National Library of Medicine (NLM) entitled “Effects of Excessive Screen Time on Child Development: An Updated Review and Strategies for Management” reveals what happens when children have extraneous amounts of screen time.
This study states that “excessive screen time and media multitasking can negatively affect executive functioning, sensorimotor development, and academic outcomes,” and more specifically, “Early screen exposure has been associated with lower cognitive abilities and academic performance in later years.”
Children are missing out on learning valuable social, emotional and linguistic life skills from adults because of this constant attachment to technology. We must realize that handing a child a screen to keep them occupied might be convenient for us in the moment, but it can be detrimental to the child’s development in the long run.
There is a world outside the screens that children will miss if their existence is contained to staring at screens. At any age, outdoor activity is necessary for human flourishing; God did not make us to live constantly within the walls of a building or within the borders of a screen.
Another study from the NLM entitled “The importance of outdoor play for young children’s healthy development” reveals the benefits children gain from playing outside regularly. According to this article, “Opportunities to connect with Nature, deal with risks, and socialize with peers and adults in a responsive and caring environment will contribute to quality educational experiences, influencing children’s motivation and enthusiasm about learning and school.”
The experiences children and adolescents can gain from exploring the world around them can not be simulated or replaced by screen time. While technology can help adults with efficiency and make many tasks easier than they would otherwise be, children’s excessive exposure to screens has proved to be detrimental to their development.
What if we heeded the invitation to go outside and play, even as adults? What if we chose to value our time by limiting how much exposure we have to screens? Culture will scream that we need more and more technology, but the next generation will benefit if we return to the world outside our screens.