Children spend longer in front of screens than they themselves consider responsible

This is shown by research conducted by I&O Research into ‘parenting in times of social media’, commissioned by de Volkskrant. What is special about the research is that both children (living at home, aged 10 to 22) and parents answered the questions.

According to the children themselves, the average amount of time they spend in front of a screen on a normal day is 3 hours and 20 minutes. Parents estimate this screen time at around 3 hours, somewhat lower. Children consider around 2.5 hours of screen time responsible, while parents consider 2 hours acceptable. This means that, on average, children spend 55 minutes (almost an hour) longer in front of a screen than they themselves consider responsible, and an average of 83 minutes (almost 1.5 hours) longer than their parents consider responsible.

As many as 52% of the children and 69% of the parents also say that they themselves consider this screen time too long. Of the children aged 16–19, more than 60 percent feel that they spend too long in front of a screen.

Parents seem to underestimate the negative effects of device use

Children assess the effects resulting from device use more negatively than their parents do. They experience more back and shoulder complaints (50%) and finger cramps (28%) than their parents estimate (38% and 18%, respectively). Both parents and children consider the risk of sleep problems to be greatest (parents: 52% estimate a major or minor effect; children: 57%).

Note Figure 2:

[1] The total percentages in the figure sometimes differ from the sum of the two component percentages; this is due to rounding differences.

Methodology

This research among children and parents, which took place from 5 to 21 June 2019, was conducted by I&O Research on behalf of de Volkskrant. A total of 1,145 parents and 569 children participated in the research. Parents completed the questionnaire with one specific child in mind.
For this research, ‘children’ means: children living at home aged 10 to 22.
The sample was weighted according to the parents’ educational level.

Read here the article from de Volkskrant of 30 August 2019 about this research.