The Trouble with ‘Screen Time Rules’

“Screen time,” as ever, is a hot topic for academics, policy folk and for parents. There’s a seemingly endless debate about how much is too much, or indeed (as we’ve argued) whether ‘time’ is really the right frame at all.

We were inspired to take up the screen time debate on this blog for two reasons:

First, because in our research, we listened over and over again to British parents referencing some version of the famous American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) 2×2 rules (no screen time under 2, only 2 hours a day for kids 2 and above), even if they usually had no idea where this came from. Second, because we knew that the AAP was about to update these guidelines (announced in October 2016) to recognize the changes in the family media landscape, and that these guidelines would be influential to parents far beyond U.S. borders.