I’m a Doctor and I Feel Guilty About My Kids’ Screen Time

A new study provides more evidence that time watching screens is not time well spent.

The term “screen time” has been around for nearly 100 years, though for the majority of that period it referred to the length of a movie. Cut to 1991 (according to the OED) and a new use of the term appeared in Mother Jones magazine.

Since then, “screen time” the phrase and screen time the amount of time kids spend on screens have both skyrocketed.

It is the phrase that gives me more parental guilt than any other. My name is Perry and my kids use screens.

Just how much am I hurting their brains?

Screen time emerges again as a topic for discussion this week because of this paper, appearing in JAMA Pediatrics, which ties some oft-missing physiology into the screen time / executive function relationship, and focuses on a particularly interesting group of screen-watchers: infants.