4 Ways Parents Can Decrease Screen Time Conflict

Needing help with limiting a child’s screen time is pretty high up on the list of issues parents have these days. The Covid-19 pandemic has meant more time at home for safety reasons, and parents have had to be creative in helping their children manage so much unstructured time indoors. Parents who had to work full-time while their child’s school was shut down often used screens to occupy the kids so they could get work done, or just get a parenting break. As the pandemic wears on indefinitely, parents are wondering about collaborative ways to regain some screen time boundaries in their homes.

Is limiting screen time even necessary? Is it actually possible to limit it, given that kids use screens to socialize and for academic purposes as well? What if, with all of your other daily responsibilities, you just don’t feel like being a screen time warden too? Can the kids manage screen time on their own? Those answers will be different for different kids and different families, but here are some screen time ideas that can be helpful for any parent.

Teach kids about manipulative technology design

Nir Eyal, author of Hooked: How to Build Habit-Forming Products, describes the ways technology companies design devices that lead a consumer through a 4-step process he calls "The Hook Model." This process creates habitual behaviors that keep you coming back to the device over and over again.

The sequence starts with a trigger. Companies use triggers like notifications from your smartphone, app icons, and links on websites to motivate you to move to the next step.

You now feel motivated to take an action, like clicking on the app, which is made as easy and streamlined as possible through user experience design. After taking that action you’ve moved into the next phase: reward.

When the human brain anticipates getting a reward, the neurotransmitter dopamine is released, creating a pleasurable experience for you that motivates you to click through to the app. Once there, you find what you were looking for and more! The other buttons you could potentially click on kicks up your reward anticipation again. This is called a variable reward—a reward that comes at random intervals—which keeps you coming back for more. Before you know it, 20 minutes have passed.

The final phase of the cycle is the investment, where you’re prompted to do something small, like give your email to open a free account. This increases the likelihood that you’ll return to that site. And the cycle starts...

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