There is a particular kind of silence parents know well: a room full of children, together but apart, each looking down at a screen.
For many families, that scene has become ordinary. Phones fill car rides and restaurant meals. Social media follows teenagers into their bedrooms.
Screens are part of modern life, and they can do a lot of good. But childhood is short. As a family medicine physician for more than 20 years, a mother of three, and as director of national health communications for the Office of the Surgeon General, I keep coming back to a simple question: What are screens doing to childhood, and what are they replacing?
Spending hours staring at video screens isn't harmless
The Office of the Surgeon General recently released an evidence-informed advisory on the harms of screen use in children
and adolescents to help answer that question. The advisory recognizes that screentime is not a simple issue of where a child’s attention is directed.
Age, content, design, purpose and duration are important parts of the equation of when screen engagement goes from beneficial to harmful. Clearly, a video call with a grandparent is not the same as hours of algorithmic scrolling, but where is that line?
As we show in the advisory, harmful screen use can affect children’s bodies and minds. It can mean shorter and poorer-quality sleep, less physical activity and more sedentary time. It can affect diet and weight and may contribute to nearsightedness.
Among adolescents, higher screen use has been associated with anxiety, depression, low self esteem, body-image concerns and other mental health and behavioral risks.
There are other dangers that can come as a result of screen use. Children can encounter sexual exploitation and sextortion, cyberbullying, dangerous content, misinformation and relentless pressure involving appearance, popularity and status. Parents work hard to keep their children safe, but screens can bring these risks directly into homes.
Screen time represents lost opportunities
There is, however, another kind of harm that is quieter and easier to underestimate: displacement.
No single hour a child is glued to a screen seems catastrophic – until we step back and see the displacement of real life as a whole. Because a teenager scrolling at midnight isn't sleeping, a child watching videos isn't outside playing, and a family watching TV during dinner isn’t talking to one another.
For years, parents have been told to monitor screen use and set limits. That’s sensible advice, but it is also incomplete.
Parents are contending with products designed to capture and hold attention. We cannot ask families to solve individually what has been engineered through data, design and enormous scale.
Technology companies can provide safer default settings, stronger protections and meaningful transparency. Policymakers can protect children’s privacy and support communities in creating appealing opportunities for young people to engage offline.
Schools can establish shared expectations, such as bell-to-bell phone bans, that protect students’ attention and learning. School cell phone restrictions are now the norm nationally. Education Week reported that about 40 states and Washington, DC, require schools or districts to ban or restrict student cell phone use.
We’ve changed deeply ingrained habits before. America’s culture around smoking changed over time as evidence grew and families, doctors, schools, businesses and policymakers established different expectations about what was normal.
Screens aren't cigarettes, and the health risks shouldn't be equated. The point is that what a culture considers normal can change when enough of us decide it should.
For families, this can start with ordinary moments. Put phones away at dinner. Charge them outside the bedroom at night. Give children time to play, read, talk or even be bored.
Time to bring the problem into the open
On Sept. 1, the Department of Health and Human Services will bring together experts as part of Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s "Live Real Life" symposium to discuss screen-related harms, practical ways to help children engage in everyday life and what technology companies can do to help.
As a physician and a mother, I hope this is a turning point – away from simply telling parents to manage screen time better, and toward a shared commitment to giving children room to thrive.
The goal isn’t a screen-free childhood. It’s making sure technology doesn’t swallow the rest of childhood – all the experiences a device can’t replace.
Children will have all of adulthood to be digital citizens, but they only have one childhood. Let’s encourage them to live real life.
Dr. Stephanie Haridopolos is the director of national health communications for the Office of the Surgeon General.
This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Reclaiming your kid's childhood from their screens starts here | Opinion
