Is My Child’s Behavior Being Influenced By Their Screen Time?

Screen time can affect general behavior and disposition in ways we do not always recognize. Conversations around screen time and behavior often focus on how to blame excessive screen time for behavior challenges in kids. However, if you are starting to wonder about whether your child’s screen time is affecting their behavior, it is important to evaluate several factors around their media habits. 

Here are 5 key questions to help you determine if your child’s screen time is negatively impacting their behavior. 

Quality vs. Quantity

What does your child spend their media time doing? Scrolling YouTube or social media has vastly different effects on the brain than watching community television or playing Sudoku on a tablet. The quality of our children’s interactions with their media does impact the effect it has on them. Watching clips or scrolling videos for too long or too frequently has direct effects on dopamine levels in the brain. These effects can produce behaviors associated with conditions like anxiety or depression. Common Sense Media lays out some simple guidelines to help parents encourage the best use of media and screen time.

Age-Inappropriate Content

Is what your child watches regularly appropriate for their age? Children learn through modeling. Social learning theory believes that children learn the basics of morality primarily by seeing and imitating people who demonstrate appropriate behavior (Berk, 266). Parents and families are naturally the primary source of this modeling. However, children learn morality by watching the behaviors of everyone around them, even the characters they observe on screens. Therefore, children imitate what they see in the media they watch. 

It may seem simple, but if a seven-year-old is regularly watching a show about tweens, she will eventually mimic tween behaviors. If you are seeing an increase in unfavorable attitudes, talking back, or disrespectful language, it is important to consider if the content your child is viewing regularly is normalizing these behaviors. Seven-year-olds have less mature cognitive capabilities than twelve-year-olds. Absorbing media created for older children can lead to confusing or misguided behaviors.

The best way to ensure your child’s media is not promoting negative behaviors is to be involved and aware of what they are taking in. As a general rule of thumb, choose television shows and movies whose main characters are the same age or younger than your child. Pay close attention to ratings on video games, apps, and television before allowing your child to watch something. Just because they are using a platform directed at children, does not mean that all content on that platform is appropriate for your child’s specific age or emotional maturity. 

Aggressive Content

Does their screen time regularly involve violence? Media that is violent or aggressive in nature has been shown by reviewers of thousands of studies to increase the likelihood of hostile thoughts and emotions and of verbally and physically aggressive behaviors in viewers (Berk, 271). 

Due to their developmental capacity, preschool, and young school-aged children are most likely to imitate violent behaviors they see on screens because they still believe the media is real (Berk, 271). Therefore, engaging in violent video games, watching TV programs with aggressive characters or themes, or absorbing any type of violence and aggression routinely can do harm to the behavior profiles of children. This is especially true for children under the age of twelve. Aggression is one area where media use has been more directly linked and proven to alter behavior and should be consistently monitored. 

Lost Opportunities

Is all of their free time going to screen time? The effects of screen time on behavior often have more to do with what kids are missing out on, than what they are watching. Children learn by experiencing the world around them. Screens cannot teach them the skills that people, interaction, exploration, and connection can. Social emotional regulation is a learning process that happens throughout the lifespan. Here are a few activities that children should be engaging in daily to support their social and emotional development in ways that promote improved and appropriate behavior. 

• Unstructured playtime outdoors
• Parent interaction – If playtime is not your favorite, that’s okay. You’re not alone. Look for resources to improve your capacity for play with your children.
• Playtime with peers
• Free time at home to play (toys, cooking, creating, drawing, pretending, etc)

While time spent on screens isn’t bad, it decreases the time your kids have to engage in activities their brains and bodies need. This can negatively affect their behavior in a variety of ways. This is particularly true with the rise in the frequency of youth sports and after-school activities for children. Many kids have very little unstructured time, especially during the week. Ensuring that some of that time is given to social or play-based activities is essential to promoting positive emotional development. 

Consistent and Clear Expectations

Are their screen time restrictions reasonable and consistent? If you are struggling most with negative behaviors surrounding screen time limits, the most common factor to evaluate is clear expectations. Children and adults need consistency. Change is hard for all of us. Children are also wired to challenge limits. Therefore, if limits are constantly changing, being negotiated, or differ on a daily basis, it is almost certainly going to result in discomfort for your child. This can present as protest, whining, bartering, and even physical aggression. Finding new limits that are sensible, enforceable, and can be held, regardless of the schedule of the day, is the best place to start. 

We know that screen time can affect children’s behaviors in the same ways that nutrition, exercise, and family dynamics can. When we prioritize time for play, connection, exercise, and family togetherness, we work to balance screen time with experiences that foster positive behaviors in our kids. These habits naturally help reduce screen time and the negative impact it can have on the way our kids behave.

ReferencesBerk, L. E. (2007). Development through the lifespan (4th Ed). Allyn and Bacon.