
Ask HN: Babies and screen time? - lando2319
What are your thoughts on babies and screen time? Should there be a total ban or is some okay?
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dougireton
I have four kids ages 14, 11, and twin 7-year olds. We have never watched TV,
don't own any tablets, etc. We rarely watch movies (about a movie every 2
months or so), although I just took the older two to Star Wars. So basically
little to no screen time at all for our kids when they were under two.

I can only comment our our family's experience. Our kids have never said they
were bored. They build things in the garage out of scrap wood. They play with
Legos. My eldest son has built several working boats from scratch, including a
birch bark canoe. My daughter spoke at Velocity Conf in 2014 with me on
learning to program (she was 7). All of my kids love to read, draw, create,
etc.

Anecdotally, I'd say no screen time has forced my kids to not be passive
consumers, but to be creative in many different ways. They are also kind and
empathetic, probably from so much reading.

I think Facetime with grandma is just fine, even for little kids.

The one or two times our kids came home from their grandparents and had
watched 2 - 3 movies, they were crabby and demanding. So we had a gentle chat
with my parents to not show them >1 movie per visit.

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jotux
This is one of the best books I've found on parenting that actually supports
claims with evidence:
[http://www.parentingwithreason.com/](http://www.parentingwithreason.com/)

There's a chapter on media consumption and "Baby Einstein" type media
products. They found no real evidence to support that media helps or hurts
children, as long as it isn't vulgar or violent and limited to a reasonable
amount of time.

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_dps
I'd be curious to hear people's logic for concern about screen time as a
general category, vs something like "unrewarding screen time".

To me it seems like, as with all new media, we are going through a period of
moral panic that it will corrupt the youth by its very nature (the same has
been said of video games, comic books, movies, television, rock and roll,
blues, jazz, the twist, and, yes, even literary novels back when they were
"new media").

In my opinion I think it makes sense to limit screen activity that is
analogous to "junk food"; everyone will have their own categorization, but I
think things like child-targeted Youtube autoplay spam videos are easy
candidates.

On the other hand if a child wants to use a screen for something productive
and enriching ... why is that a concern, even at fairly high levels of use?
Obviously there are limits (e.g. eye strain, opportunity cost of playing
outside and socialization etc.) but I just can't understand the seemingly
popular theory that screen time, _per se_ , is a problem and must be carefully
controlled.

I would genuinely be interested to hear people's thoughts on this.

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fma
It's been a slow downhill for me and my 17 month old. It started with no
screen time...to let's see this photo or video we just took... To let's see
this video we took in the past that you like...to OK here's a fun video to
watch (YouTube).

Now she can voice her own demands she will sometimes request for a certain
video. Will still try to limit it as much as possible, though.

Its also impossible to avoid video chats with relatives.

We still rarely turn on the TV so at least have that going.

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fiveFeet
Our pediatrician's recommendation is to limit it to 2 hours a day.

