Mason  🏃‍♂️ ✂️

V.sympathetic to this angle. Otoh my kid has severe difficulty regulating emotion which is markedly worse after (longer) screen time. W/o ST he's drawn to activities which seem to help him regulate (sensory stuff e.g. playing in mud). Many fewer meltdowns. Happier household.

tbh a big part of the reason I think "screen time" is so critical is that most kids are otherwise placed in very low-stimulation environments, with the unreasonable expectation that they will "work on something productive," read or play with something uninteresting

This was my experience. As a preteen and teenager, I was teaching myself web crafting and actual programming (C++, PHP, a dash of JS). But I was only allowed 30 min of programming or 30 min of TV. Drove me crazy!

What you're describing here is the importance of limiting screen time such that you perform better as a parent — specifically, avoiding laziness. This has very little to do with kids, many of whom would benefit considerably from "lazier" parents.

"screen time" is such a meaningless concept in this era. when "screen" meant tv it was apt because tv is largely hypnotic nonsense and entirely passive, but now "screen" can be literally anything

I would strongly argue that even "tv" is a totally different beast now that we're not talking about a limited set of channels with master-planned programming, but literally anything on demand

it's weird bc it's a freedom from parents that largely delivers them over to companies. i hope to give my kids enough actual freedom that screen time won't be as addictive

i guess it just goes to show how much of the human experience is increasingly mediated by market forces