Report: Parental Monitoring Can Reduce Kids’ Screen-Time and Social-Media Harms

One recommendation is to set clear boundaries around device use. Elizabeth Hoover, a mother of two teenage girls aged 15 and 17, said she and her family used tools to monitor screen time even before the girls got personal devices, when they shared a family iPad. The daughters later got their own smartphones in middle school; Hoover said her oldest got one in seventh grade and the younger one got one in sixth grade. Hoover, who recently retired as chief technology officer at Alexandria City Public Schools in Virginia, set clear rules. At the time, the girls used their phones mostly to stay in touch with friends by text and video calls. “They could not download an app without my permission,” Hoover said. “There were specific time restraints around different apps. They did not have Instagram and they did not have Snapchat.”

Another recommendation is to put phones away at meals and bedtime. Hoover insisted on no devices at the dinner table and at bedtime, practices recommended by the American Academy of Pediatrics. Nagata said research shows such rules protect children in several ways. “Limiting phone and social media use at nighttime sort of as a household rule has been linked with lower social media addiction scores in the children, lower overall social media time,” he said. If children are not on their phones late at night, he said, they have less use, less addictive or problematic use, and may be less likely to be cyberbullied or to engage in cyberbullying. Keeping phones out of the bedroom also protects sleep, which the article said is critical for mental health and healthy brain development. Screens during meal time increase the risk of eating disorders, Nagata said. He cited linkages between social media and eating disorders or disordered eating behaviors. Distracted eating can lead to overeating, he explained, and can also increase the risk of restrictive eating by exposing children to extreme diets and fitness content. Screen-free meal times, by contrast, help reinforce parent-child bonds and have been shown to protect teens from addictive social media use.

A third recommendation is to have a digital media plan for the whole family. The American Academy of Pediatrics says rules around screen time should be part of a family media plan. Nagata said it is important for parents to follow the plan too. “It’s important to practice what you preach and serve as good role models for your children,” he said, “because that role modeling is associated with lower addictive social media use in children.”

A fourth recommendation is to “be curious, not furious.” Nagata said monitoring children’s online habits is not just about setting boundaries. Studies show that “supportive engagement” is particularly effective in protecting children from the harms of screen time and social media, he said, such as asking about their online experiences and being curious about content. Sunny Xun Liu, research director of the Social Media Lab at Stanford University, said, “Be curious, don’t be furious.” A mother of a 12- and 17-year-old, Liu said she constantly reminds herself to do that. She suggests parents ask open-minded questions about what their children are doing online, such as “What’s this? Why’s this app so interesting?” She said such questions can help keep communication open. Communication should go both ways, she added: if parents see something funny online, they can share it with their children, and if children are playing an online game, parents might join them. Liu said that is the best way to build parent-child cohesion, relationships and trust.

Liu and Nagata said trust and open communication are key. Conflict between parents and teens has been shown to push children more toward social media, increasing their risk of social media addiction and other online harms, according to the article. Trust and open communication also matter when children are struggling with something they experienced online, they said.