Amid recent studies and a few heavy-hitting articles about the negative effects of smartphones on children and teens, parents have become worried about how these and other devices might affect their kids’ development and well-being.

In our Life Online research project, which involved more than 100 participants in 6 cities around the globe, we heard many parents expressing concerns about their children’s use of electronic devices. Their children are growing up as digital natives: smartphones, tablets, and laptops are ingrained in their everyday lives. It’s a time without precedent, and parents worry about the immediate and the long-term effects of these devices on their kids.

Parental Concerns

Parents’ concerns covered a wide range of areas — from health to social- and cognitive- development. They were unsure how much internet use was harmful to their kids’ attention span and classroom performance. They feared the impact of electronic devices on their children’s ability to participate in the physical world without reliance on screens and media. To top it all off, parents often expressed a strong sense of personal guilt associated with letting their children be entertained by devices.

In the United States and Canada, parental concerns centered around device addiction, as well as the potential negative long-term impact on:

  • social skills
  • attention span
  • life skills
  • personal development

A mother of a young toddler in Toronto expressed her anxiety about her son’s use of family devices: “I’m worried it’s going to affect his attention span. I’ve also read things that say there could be a link between device use and autism.” She continued to discuss her guilt and struggle around parenting with electronic devices: “I used to think it was lazy parenting to just hand your kid an iPad, but sometimes you’ve got to do what you got to do. When I need to cook or he's cranky, I’ll do it, but we try not to go over 30 minutes to an hour. Some parents don’t let their kids use them at all, which makes me feel guilty. So I will try to include some educational component by pointing out things and asking him what they are or telling him what they are.”  

Often, such concerns stemmed from the parents’ own challenges with their internet use. Some adults felt that they couldn’t control the amount of time they spent online, and those worries were projected onto their kids, as well.

A mother of two elementary-school-aged children said, “Because of my own feelings of not being totally in control of my usage, how is she [her 9-year-old daughter] going to control it? I have some friends who just give the iPad to their kids. It’s a huge problem. My friend who has a farm said they had kids come to visit and one boy had serious withdrawal from the iPad. He didn’t know what to do with himself without it.” She told us that her child’s teacher was worried as well, “[The teacher]’s had a lot of problems lately, kids that don’t have the attention span they used to. It’s so sad.”

One parent in Raleigh expressed concern about her kids missing out on meaningful social interactions if they’re too focused on devices. A father in Kansas City said that parental controls were important, because he didn’t want his kid to be consumed with video games and online exchanges.

These parents’ concerns were centered around the potential dependence on technology at the expense of time spent doing “real,” productive activities or having meaningful personal interactions that were not mediated by technology. These physical activities and interactions were seen as more beneficial to children’s social and cognitive growth than the electronic-device use.

These feelings were widespread among American and Canadian parents we studied. Interestingly, Chinese parents were also worried about their children’s device usage. However, their fears, unlike those of their Western counterparts, were centered around academic performance and the effect of screens on their children’s eyesight, rather than on the social and personal development.

One Chinese mother shared her thoughts about device use: “I think the internet will have a big impact on children. Video games will impact their focus and studies. The screens and animation can impact their eyesight, and if they learn to only like that kind of graphic information they won’t be attracted to information or materials provided in classrooms.”

The Need for Balance

“Having tablets for my kids is a gift & curse,” according to one mom in Kansas City. Many other parents in our study expressed similar thoughts. Some said they felt torn between the pressure to limit technology and the benefits of using it. They acknowledged the need for their child to be technically savvy and the value of  access to online educational content.

The Kansas City participant elaborated: “I’m kind of torn. On one hand, it’s like ‘Ok. you guys gotta put the tablets down, we gotta go outside.’ But on the other hand it helps them. When my youngest was 2 she was doing the alphabet. We were like ‘How did she do that?!’ It’s the tablet. My 6 year old knows all about the planets, like Mars, and he can tell you how many rings they have. We didn’t teach him that, it’s from the tablet. In that sense, I like it, but I also try to make a conscious effort to say, ‘Ok today we’re not doing tablets, we’re going to the farm to pick apples and learn about buying local.”

The new mother in Toronto was also conflicted about her choice to limit her toddler’s device use and streaming because she felt that he was learning how to use technology: “He watches and learns to do the swiping motion. Last week, he grabbed the phone out of an elderly man’s hands at the grocery store,” she told us. As she spoke, her son walked up to the television in the living room and tried to swipe the screen.

Parents in China felt the need for balance as well. A Chinese mother talked about the benefits and costs of using technology: “The ability to use technology is an essential skill for young kids these days. They need guidance, not indulgence. It’s important to help them generate interest, but meanwhile control their use of time.”

Strategies to Control and Influence Usage

To manage the pros and cons of electronic-device use by their children, many parents explored ways to control their children’s usage. They shared with us the various strategies they used to provide guidance around technology and manage time spent online. These tactics ranged from trying to make device time educational (like our Toronto mom) to using parental control features and even keeping kids off devices entirely.

Some gave their kids devices with limited capabilities. One mom in Raleigh said “I don’t want my kids to have a phone and play games with it. I only want my child to have a cell phone for emergencies.” Another participant gave her daughter an old iPhone that was not connected to the internet, to listen to music and use the Duolingo language-learning app.

Other parents relied on device and platform features to limit the amount and the type of content that children could consume. These strategies included having specific tablets for the children with timers set to limit usage, as well as setting up content-streaming profiles with controlled content for kids, so parents wouldn’t have to supervise.

Chinese parents used similar management strategies. One family with a shared tablet made the decision to allow their 4-year old to use it one time per day to watch cartoons for about 15 minutes.

A 9-year-old boy indicated he had to ‘win’ the time to play games online. His mother would give him educational quizzes on topics such as the pronunciation​ of Chinese characters or the meaning of old Chinese sayings. If he got them correct, he could choose a reward. He usually chose 10 minutes of game time on the computer. Another 9-year-old boy said that he wasn't allowed to play PC games at home, although he could play at school in the computer class. It’s common for parents in China to control device usage until children reach university age.

Amid recent reports of increased myopia problems in children and teenagers, the Chinese government has also put regulations in place to manage the gaming industry. These regulations are intended to curb children’s exposure to gaming and electronic devices. Mobile games are required to include mechanisms to limit overusage (e.g., automatically shutting down after a period of time). Chinese gamers are required to provide an ID number to register, so systems can identify the age of the user.

Ironically, although parents strive to manage their children’s device use, they're not always the ones truly in control of the technology in their homes. In the US and Canada, children were often the technical experts, thus becoming the de-facto masters of technology in the home — even when parents were actively trying to limit their exposure. We saw several of these parents depending on their kids for technical support. Some parents asked their kids to help them get connected to wifi in the home. One mom needed the 6-year-old to help her project her computer screen onto the TV using an Apple TV device. The same mom said, “They have to be technically savvy, obviously. And my 9-year old just seems to know how to figure stuff out, she just seems to naturally have a mind to problem-solve around that kind of thing [devices and technology]. It amazes me, I don’t know where it comes from.”  

Conclusion

We live in a hyperdigital era. We’ve been in it for only a relatively short amount of time, and, while we enjoy its many benefits, this new way of life has also created a lot of anxiety. We documented two different phenomena that people worry about:

Personal awareness of these two phenomena, along with early reports of the observed impact of this digital lifestyle on children, have created parental anxiety about helping children navigate these challenges and lead healthy, productive lives.

Note that our research does not tell whether device overuse actually hurts children. Answering that question would require a longitudinal study, since any negative effects surely happen over time and not during a single session. Our study was a snapshot of how people use the internet today, and this methodology revealed strong feelings and suspicions among many parents, across continents. Much like a business-to-business relationship where the purchasers and decision makers are often not the users, parents are typically in control of the device and application use of their children (the users). For this reason, it is important to understand parent’s needs when designing technology for use by children.

The action items for UX designers are dual:

  • First, definitely limit (or preferably eliminate) the hurtful effects of your designs, for example by including mechanisms that prevent overuse. Also, accentuate the positive, for example by ensuring an educational component of designs targeting young users.
  • Second, make it easy for parents to turn technology use in the direction they prefer. Also, be straightforward (rather than circumvent) in communicating to parents how to do so and how to help their offspring avoid negative effects.