Sometimes I wonder how my mother did it, coordinating afterschool activities as a single mother when everything had to be set up that morning and, if something changes, well, everyone is out of luck.
Nowadays parents can give children smartphones so that they are always just a text away. If my 16-year-old picks up another shift at work on Saturday, or if my daughter’s soccer game goes long, my wife and I know right away and can change our plans.
But there is also a risk to giving your children smartphones. It has been well documented that too much screen time can be detrimental to adolescents, especially for teenage girls. Facebook’s own internal research found that the use of Instagram increased body image problems for 1 in 3 girls who used the app.
Parents need to set clear rules for using smartphones, and new research from the Institute for Family Studies and the Wheatley Institute shows that two married biological parents are better at setting and enforcing those limits than other families.
According to a survey of 1,600 adolescents between the ages of 11 and 18, children in homes with two married biological parents spend an average of two hours less a day on their smart devices than children from other family types.
For all children, the risk of depression and lack of sleep goes up significantly the more time they spend on digital media. For children who use digital media less than eight hours a day, just 13% report feeling depressed, and that percentage holds true for both children living with married parents and those who do not.
But for children who use digital media for more than eight hours a day, the level of depression jumps to 23% for children living with married parents and to 31% for children living in other types of families. There is a similar break in sleep deprivation with 24% of heavy media users in married households reporting sleep deprivation, compared to 35% for heavy media users in unmarried households.
Whether you are single or married, the report recommends that all parents not allow devices in the bedroom after bedtime and to try and limit screen time to less than three hours a day for teenagers.
These are reasonable rules, and it is much easier to enforce them when you have another parent helping you do it.
