By Megan Orton
Summer vacation is here! It’s the season of popsicles and sprinklers. However, the kids aren’t in school, so it can also be the season when families have the hardest time managing screen time. Having to make so many technology decisions every day with very little guidance is often overwhelming. Here’s a summer tech tip that can help parents make healthier choices when it comes to kids, screens and socializing. It’s called Lower The Ratio and it’s one of the strategies developed by Mindful Media (mindful-media.net) to manage screen time concerns.
The amount of in-person hangout time has dropped 50 percent for kids and teens since 2000, because so much of their social life has been moved to a screen. It’s easy to assume that this is “just how kids are today” and that on-screen socializing is no different than in-person hang outs. But the latest research shows that there are big developmental benefits to hanging out in person, and kids and teens are missing out on crucial growing experiences when they spend hours socializing on screens.
50 percent less time in-person means half as much practice reading body language, looking people in the eye and mastering the social skills necessary to thrive in relationships and careers. It also means 50 percent less of the positive mental health benefits that in-person friendships bring. With all the technology choices parents have to make today, we can make a healthier choice for kids if we Lower The Ratio between the number of kids versus the number of houses and screens.
Let’s imagine the common scenario of our child or teen coming home from school and spending the afternoon and evening gaming with five friends on Discord. Here, we have six kids, six separate houses and six different screens. Aside from the opportunity cost of fewer hours practicing social skills, socializing over a screen also wraps a child or teen in a perfect cocoon of ease and comfort for many hours a day.
It turns out that kids actually need a steady dose of small hardships, difficulties and awkwardnesses to develop resilience and the ability to manage in the world. Think back to being at a friend’s house as a child or teen. It was lots and lots of fun and it required you to handle many small discomforts. You had to talk to your friend’s parents, deal with annoying younger siblings or intimidating older ones, cope with different pets, eat unfamiliar food and adjust to another family’s rules and parenting styles. You also often had the challenge of getting yourself there on foot, bike or public transportation. It is exactly this kind of constant, low-level challenge that protects kids and teens against anxiety, and excessive screen time socializing can keep them from getting enough of it.
In this way, on-screen socializing is a lot like the empty calories of highly processed food: it’s missing lots of necessary and important nutrients but still fills you up, leaving no appetite for more “nutritious” socializing.
An example to Lower The Ratio is to imagine the scenario of our child or teen inviting five fellow gamers to the house for a big gaming session in the living room instead. There are still six kids and six screens but only one house. Now the kids are gaming and practicing their social skills.
Want to go one step healthier? Let’s Lower The Ratio even further. What if these six kids decide to watch a movie instead? Now we’ve got six kids, one house and only one screen. For kids and teens, movies and TV shows are much healthier screen choices than YouTube, gaming or social media. This is because in 2007, the tech companies started hiring behavioral scientists, neuroscientists and psychologists to help make screen technology as irresistible as possible.
Since 2007, much of the tech our kids and teens are using has the same behaviorally addictive elements that casinos use in their slot machines. A few examples of this “behavior design” are Snapstreaks in Snapchat, which drive engagement through fear of breaking the streak and the “infinite scroll” of Instagram and Tik-Tok, which removes any stopping cues. Games like Fortnite, Roblox and Minecraft use “urgency triggers” like artificial resource scarcity to reward habitual play and make players feel like they’re missing out if they don’t engage constantly.
It’s not possible to add this kind of addictive design to movies and TV shows, and they also have the benefit of coming to an end. When the movie ends and the kids are in the living room talking and eating snacks, you’ve now got six kids, one house and zero screens, which is the healthiest option of all!
You can also Lower The Ratio in your house with your family by lowering the ratio between the number of people, versus the number of rooms and screens. For instance, a shared family movie night where you all watch together in one room with one screen, is a much healthier version of screen time than each family member in a different room on a separate screen.