How Verge readers, and writers, are managing our kids’ screen time

This week, the Pew Research Center released a study on how parents manage screen time for their children ages 12 and younger. The results weren’t particularly surprising (or enlightening, if we’re honest). 90% of parents said their children watched TV and 61% said their children interacted with smartphones at least occasionally. Somewhat surprisingly, only 50% said they let them play any gaming console. While 42% of respondents said they could better manage their children’s screen time, 86% said they have rules around screens, even if they don’t always follow them.

What you won’t find in the Pew study, however, are these rules. The fact that a certain percentage of parents “someday” let their children watch TV doesn’t provide us with useful information such as how long they watch, what they watch, or how parents ensure they don’t watch anything inappropriate.

With my eight-year-old child, we set up a sort of barter system that I borrowed from Greg McKeown, author of Essentialism. They start each week with 10 tokens, worth a total of $5 or five hours of screen time. They can save time or extra money by reading. How they use that time is largely up to them, they might play Minecraft or watch shows on their kids’ accounts on Disney+, Netflix, or Paramount+. They also have access to some music creation apps and games on their iPad. But we don’t allow them unlimited access to the iPad.

Lest you think I iron out my kids’ screen time first, my youngest gets an hour of (mostly educational) TV a day, just so we can help the older ones with their homework in peace. And every Saturday we have a family movie night and we take turns choosing what we watch that week.

It also turns out that the amount of time kids spend in front of a screen isn’t the biggest concern. Delays were common, but not universal.

That seemed to be parents’ biggest concern: what kids were doing with their screen time. Social media is a major concern, with 80% of respondents to the Pew survey saying it does more harm than good. Somewhat shockingly, 15% said their children used TikTok, although use of other platforms like Instagram and Facebook was much less common, just 5%. 74% said they watch YouTube with their children, while only 15% said their children don’t watch YouTube at all.

In terms of time management tools, the good old removing the device or pressing the power button was the most popular. Although some use Apple’s Screen Time tool to specifically limit iPad usage.

Telephones were not common among young children. The Pew survey found that only 29% of parents allowed their children ages 8 to 10 to have their own smartphones. But once children reach adolescence, they become more common.

Remember, there is no right answer on how to raise your children. What works for one parent may not work for another. We are all doing our best. Or at least 58% of us think so, according to Pew.