Can We Talk About iPads?
Toddlers on Tablets is out of hand. We need more shrieking, running & jumping in our world.
I was having coffee with a dear friend the other day when she started telling me about a recent trip to the grocery store. Somewhere around the Froot Loops and Raisin Bran, she passed by a shopping cart carrying a 1 year old child with eyes glued to an iPad. My friend was flabbergasted. Between the two of us, we have five kids so there was no lack of appreciation for the challenges posed by a building full of sugary sweet snacks and a small child who wants nothing more than to be let out of the shopping cart to roam the enticing aisles. But how young this child was really caught my friend off guard.
As I’m listening to my friend’s story, similar scenes started running through my mind, as did statistics about tablet ownership by the under 5 crowd. I recalled the day, to my own children’s embarrassment, when I tried to distract a preschooler from an iPad by playing peek-a-boo while we waited in the checkout line. (Okay, so maybe what really embarrassed my children was when I made a not-so-subtle, but very kind, comment to his mom and grandmother about dopamine and brain development. Moving on…)
This trend of constant entertainment is not limited to the safety seat of shopping carts. Honestly, I can’t remember the last time I went to a youth soccer game and didn’t see a few siblings sitting on the sidelines scrolling. (Once I even saw a player who would pull out his smartphone everytime he wasn’t on the field!!) Restaurants, airports, church services: toddlers on tablets is ubiquitous.
The data says this phenomenon is only getting worse. According to a 2024 Common Sense Media report, 40% of kids under the age of 2 have their own tablet. By age 4, it is a staggering 58%. (By way of comparision, only 7% of children under the age of 8 had their own tablet in 2013.) The report goes on to say,
Two-thirds (66%) of parents use screen media at least sometimes to occupy their child in order to get things done or take time for themselves… 44% use it to keep their child occupied when in public (e.g., doctor's office, grocery store, restaurant), and a quarter of parents use screen media of any kind (not just mobile devices) to help their child calm down when they are angry or upset (25%)
Yet, in the same report, 80% of parents of children under the age of 8 admit to being concerned about the amount of time their children are spending with screen media, 79% are concerned about screen time’s affects on attention spans, and 75% are concerned about screen media’s impact on mental health.1
A shocking “75% of parents whose children use screen media do not use any tools or settings to limit screen time, and 51% do not restrict the types of content their children consume.” The overwhelming majority of screen time for kids is pure entertainment with little to no guard rails.
Parents are right to be concerned about the negative impacts of screen time on their children, but more and more parents are allowing children to have tablets and are hardly policing the content at all. This is nonsensical. So, why is it happening? Honestly, I can’t say for sure. The report hypothesizes that school issued devices are not only lowering the age of tablet ownership, but also creating a structure of one device per child instead of one device per household. Certainly this plays a role with children over the age of 5 but I haven’t heard of pre-schools handing out tablets (at least not yet). I haven’t come across any other research providing better insight.
Having more data on the causes of these changes would be fantastic, but in the meantime, I have a two-fold hypothesis. First, Toddlers on Tablets has skyrocketed over the last decade because the world has gone quiet. Second, the advice we are giving parents sucks (pardon my French, and please don’t tell my kids I said “sucks”).
Shhh!
Think about it: at crosswalks, in elevators, in waiting rooms, in pews waiting for church services to start, we are all guilty of pulling out of our phones for a quick scroll. The places where small talk once flourished have become zombified.
Last month, on a packed bus, a grandfather stepped onboard with his young granddaughter. My teenage son hopped up (because I asked him to2), giving his seat to the old man and young girl. The man was appreciative and made a point of telling me so. This led to a conversation about his granddaughter’s newly healed broken foot, my son’s recent broken elbow, the weather out the window in comparison to at his daughter’s home in Vermont, his time working for IBM and being a part of a team leading to huge computer chip advances in the early 1990’s (y’all, I’m not making this up!), the engineering degree he earned in Egypt (where he met his wife), living in Palestine prior to that, old growth olive trees that look like something out of a Tolkein novel (he showed me the most amazing pictures!), and more. It was the best 25 minutes I’ve ever spent on public transportation. Most everyone else on the bus that day was scrolling. (I assume. I was far too engaged in our conversation to know for certain.)
Of course not every public outing reaps such rewarding conversation, but if we had been scrolling we would have all missed out on so much. His granddaughter may be too young to recall the stories & ideas carried back and forth over her head that morning, but if she had been on a tablet, she wouldn’t have fully experienced the simple pleasure of being held by a grandfather who loves her. My son, who was standing, missed many of the details though he had a handful of questions for me as the day progressed. We discussed how computers work, the Israeli-Palestine conflict, the history of Christianity, and Tolkein’s Middle Earth. If he had his own device, he would have missed out on a day’s worth of coversations regarding important global issues and faith with a mom who loves him. You get my point. There was such joy in this man’s face as he shared big events from his life with me, a complete stranger. I couldn’t help but smile from ear to ear and ask more questions. It was pure joy, on a crowded bus.
We literally have no way of knowing how much our kids are missing out on when we hand them a tablet. Our children’s ability to develop patience and take healthy risks (like talking to strangers) is being arrested. If we don’t stop our scroll, we are fundamentally changing culture and community in really frightening ways. Parents, I’m not just saying this to you. This is a call for all adults to engage with the world around them and model for children what a healthy society should look like. Let’s make the world a little noisier. More chatter, more laughing, more engagement with those around us.
Bad Advice
The second reason I think Tablets for Toddlers has skyrocketed is that for years, parents have been given horrendous advice. We have been told to co-view screen media with kids, limit daily screen time, and choose “high quality” content. Despite these warnings, screen media consumption and ownership continues to rise for children under age 8.3 The reality is, parents use screen time to take a break or keep their child occupied.
The size of an iPad alone dictates that this is a singular device, no co-viewing allowed. Endless scroll and complex algorithms are designed for binge watching, not limited screen time. As to the recommendation of “high quality content,” does anyone even know what this actually means or where to find it???4
The advice doesn’t square with reality. BigTech is winning. Families are loosing.
To the “I grew up watching TV and I’m fine” crowd: I get it; me too. But we weren’t watching TV in grocery store shopping carts or on the grassy sidelines of our older brother’s soccer game. Streaming internet media and the portability of screens made possible by tablets is a drastically different experience than watching a 9am Saturday morning cartoon on the family television, which weighed more than 3 toddlers combined.
According to the Sapien Labs Global Mind Study, the younger a child is when they get a smartphone or tablet, the worse their mental health is into adulthood. The mental health metrics included the following: sense of being detached from reality, addictions, suicidal thoughts or intentions, agression toward others, hallucinations, guilt & blame, and repetitive or compulsive actions. This is scary stuff that should take our breath away.
For everyone in the back row: giving tablets and smartphones to toddlers and young children is a really, really, really, really bad idea.
Instead…
Instead of playing with blades of grass or creating images out of fluffy clouds suspended in the sky, kids are playing games screens with brightly flashing lights while hiding under a blanket, oblivious to the world around them. Kids aren’t even getting Vitamin D from the sun, because they are more concerned with keeping a glare off their iPad.
Instead of being frustrated in the frozen foods aisle because mom said no to ice cream in favor of frozen vegetables, young children are being fed an unhealthy dose of online advertisements.
When we hand our children a tablet, we are in essence telling our children that the purpose for which they live is to not bother us and to be constantly entertained. This is leading to kids who can’t cope with the very real rigors of life. I get it: kids get in the way, slow us down, and make simple chores more laborious. But kids are also adorable, precious, joy-inducing bundles of awesomeness. For literal centuries, moms and dads have gotten dinner on the table without the modern day luxury of a quiet house. I am confident we can too can complete tasks and chores without handing kids tablets.
Dear Christian Parents, we can be different. In fact, we should be different. We talk a lot about accountability within the church and the role of the church body in supporting parents to raise sons and daughters to know Jesus. Part of this is modeling what it means to live in community. Even if that community is full of whiny toddlers. After all, I don’t think it was an accident when God made toddlers so adorably cute. Here’s to less scrolling and more games of peak-a-boo. Here’s to less swiping and tapping and more conversations and engagement.
A new study of Finnish children published by JAMA shows parents are right to be concerned. Increased screen time and decreased physical activity negatively impact mental health.
This is called parenting. I’m not an expert, but I do okay most days.
See “Total Screen Time” on page 11 of the Common Sense Media report.
Neil Postman had some insight on this one. Read more about it here.