Stop Talking About 'Screen Time,' Start Thinking About Screen Use

Stop Talking About 'Screen Time,' Start Thinking About Screen Use

In a new episode of "If Our Bodies Could Talk" published at TheAtlantic.com on Thursday, health columnist Dr. James Hamblin takes a funny, whimsical look at screens and kids. The young doctor has his tongue firmly planted in his cheek most of the time, poking fun at the the cycles of technophobia parents go through every generation with successive generations of media and display technologies. (Next up, he suggests, will be holograms.)

Although Hamblin suggested that there are more appropriate rules for screen exposure than the 1-2 hours recommended by the American Academy of Pediatrics, he didn't offer any substantive tips for parenting when screens are everywhere.

He recommends doing away with the term "screen time," and there he makes a useful point. As parenting experts explored this summer on HuffPost Live, what's on the screens they see is paramount -- along with the attention that parents give to their infants.

"In the world of television research for half a century, we've known that content is king," said Heather Kirkorian, director of cognitive development at the Media Lab at the University of Wisconsin. "What kids are watching matters a whole lot more than whether they're watching."

Watch the video with Dr Hamblin below:

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