10 Reasons to Keep My 3-Year-Old Screen-Free This Week, and Every Week

This is a week of worldwide unplugging—a much-needed break for some at a time when the average smartphone user picks up his or her device 1,500 times a week.

Screen-Free Week, an annual international event sponsored by the Campaign for a Commercial-Free Childhood, kicked off Monday and runs through Sunday, May 10. Begun in 1994 as “TV Turnoff Week,” Screen-Free Week today encourages adults and children alike to power down all devices, recharge, and reconnect to the vast offline world. (Note that the focus is on unplugging from all forms of digital entertainment; using screens for work or homework is forgiven.)

There’s a lot of talk these days about “unplugging.” There’s a National Day of Unplugging, held each March for the past six years. There are entire blogs devoted to unplugging and living a less distracted life. There are even retreats for unplugging and an “unplug” hashtag.

And it’s no wonder. The average mobile user spends almost three hours a day on mobile devices, according to a recent study by the research group Flurry. Pew Research Center reported last month that 46% of smartphone users say their device is something they “couldn’t live without.”

The Web is particularly filled these days with advice columns, blog posts and tip sheets on how to unplug your children and limit their screen time, such as this from the Mayo Clinic, this from an Internet addiction specialist, and this, which digs into some neuroscience and explains how those little hits of dopamine keep us endlessly reaching for our phones.

This wave of advice is only natural at a time when more kids than ever seem glued to smartphones and tablets. It’s not your imagination: More than six in 10 kids aged 12 and under owned their own Internet-enabled mobile devices in 2014, according to a report by Ipsos MediaCT—a 250% increase since 2011. In 2014, parents were “significantly more willing to pay for online content for their children” compared just to 2013, according to the report.

And today's mobile users are getting younger by the year. Last year, Common Sense Media, a San Francisco-based nonprofit, released its second large-scale study in two years on children and media use in the U.S. It found that the percent of children ages 8 and younger who had used a mobile device nearly doubled between 2011 and 2013, from 38% to 72%.

Among children under 2 years old, 38% had used a mobile device in 2013, up from just 10% in 2011, according to the study. In just these two short years, there was a five-fold increase in tablet ownership among families with kids ages 8 and younger, up from 8% of all families in 2011 to 40% in 2013.

Even babies as young as 6 months old are now tapping away on smartphones. In a study by pediatric researchers presented last month, more than a third of parents said their baby had “touched or scrolled a screen” before turning one. Fifty-two percent said their baby had watched television on a mobile device.

“We didn’t expect children were using the devices from the age of six months,” said the study’s author, Dr. Hilda Kabali of the Einstein Healthcare Network. “Some children were on the screen for as long as 30 minutes.”

This study, which polled parents of young children in an urban, low-income community, found that a majority of kids were using smartphones or tablets by the time they reached age 2. Fourteen percent of one-year-olds were using a mobile device at least one hour a day. By age 2 this number jumped to 26% percent, and by age 4 to 38%.

Many parents know by heart the most recent guidelines on screen time and children from the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP): No screen time for any child under 2, and no more than one to two hours for older children. But clearly these guidelines are not meshing with much of today’s reality.

The Common Sense Media study, titled “Zero to Eight: Children's Media Use in America, 2013,” found that children under 2 years spent an average of about an hour a day (58 minutes) with screen media. Two- to 4-year-olds spent an average of about 2 hours a day (1 hour and 58 minutes) with screens. And that was just in 2013.

The AAP itself, in a resource called “Why to Avoid TV Before Age 2,” states that “Surveys tell us about 40% of infants are watching some sort of video by age 5 months, and by age 2 the number rises to 90%.” In “Tablets and Smartphones: Not for Babies,” the organization states, “Unfortunately, when the use of tablets, smartphones, and computers is added to TV time, it has been estimated that the average 12-month-old is exposed to up to 2 hours of screen time a day.”

Let’s pause for a moment for some math. Two hours a day equals 730 hours a year—or the equivalent of 30 straight 24-hour days out of the year spent looking at a screen. And that’s if the child didn’t sleep at all. Taking out the time a baby or toddler might spend sleeping—let’s say approximately 12 hours a day—that’s 60 straight 12-hour days of screen time in a year, or about one-sixth of the child’s year.

I have a very personal interest in these numbers and in the creep of mobile screens these days into smaller and smaller hands. It comes in the form of an adorable tiny human who’s running around our home, delighting us with her hilarious antics and huge, infectious giggle.

The iPad debuted in April 2010. My daughter debuted the following year—and thus she is part of a brand-new, budding generation of children born after smartphones, tablets and apps began permeating every facet of life.

My daughter and her fellow i-Era toddlers entered a world in which caretakers could hook iPads to their bouncy seats and strollers—even to their potties. They live at a time when the company BabyFirst, with its expanding array of videos, games and apps for babies as young as 6 months old, is reaching 50 million homes through cable TV alone.

Ten years ago a 4-year-old would not have been seen watching YouTube—it had only just launched in February 2005. Today’s 4-year-olds have an entire YouTube Kids app, just for them—a gigantic repository of videos that even “preliterate” kids can easily access through a voice search function.

Even today's toys have gone mobile. Remember those classic barnyard sets, where you could open the doors and play with the little figures inside? Well my daughter can have the iPad-added version. It’s part of a whole line of “Apptivity” toys by Fisher-Price devoted to iPhone and iPad play, some with a target age of 6 months and up—even “birth & up.” From one product description: “Share the technology you enjoy every day, with baby… Your device locks securely inside to protect against baby’s messy dribbles, drool and teething.”

My daughter knows there are screens in her world. But watching or using them is not part of her daily life or routine. She’s seen her dad’s iPad. She’s taken pictures with it here and there and also with our iPod Touch. She knows what taking a video is all about. She knows that my laptop can produce dazzling, alluring images and videos. We’ve watched a few short clips on it together—we once watched the “So Long, Farewell” bit from The Sound of Music, and she’s loved acting it out ever since. This past holiday season, we all watched A Charlie Brown Christmas (bless you, Charles M. Schulz) and had a great time.

But she’s never used an app or video game made for kids. And our cellphones and devices have never been go-to items for keeping her busy—we’ve just stuck with old-school toys instead. When she’s around, the TV is off—and she doesn’t seem to miss it. (Weirdly enough, neither do we.) She’s made it three and a half years without being interested in our TV set, and frankly I’d love to ride this wave as long as possible.

I think of screens in my daughter’s life the way I think of lollipops and cupcakes. She’s seen them. She’s eaten them. She knows they’re out there. She loves them with a deep and powerful passion that sometimes borders on fixation. But she doesn't eat them every day, every week, or every month. They make extremely rare appearances—usually tied to her toddler friends’ birthday parties or special holiday events. They bring her ridiculous joy. But in her regular, daily life she is certainly fine without them.

My daughter will have her whole life ahead of her to be inundated by screens of all kinds. Early childhood is a magical time—a time for digging and building and climbing and gluing and pouring those same objects out of a container and putting them back in again over and over and over, just to see how it all works. There will never be another time like this in my daughter’s life—I know this. Her early childhood—this, right now—may be the only chance she’ll ever have to not be reliant on screens and devices as an important part of each day.

This alone is usually reason enough to keep the screens away as much as possible during these first fleeting years. But in honor of Screen-Free Week, here are 10 more reasons for keeping my little one “unplugged” this week, and every week.

1. What we know about early learning.

It is well documented that infants and toddlers learn best through hands-on playing and face-to-face interaction with other human beings. During this critical time of extremely rapid brain development, babies and toddlers learn by using their five senses and by freely moving their whole bodies to explore the world around them.

Real-world, physical play helps infants and toddlers develop hand-eye coordination, fine motor skills, and visual perception—which the AAP says “can’t be addressed in the same way on a 2-dimensional screen.” Our young brains build in response to the stimuli we experience from the world around us—which is why the type of stimuli we experience really matters.

Michael Rich, director and founder of the Center on Media and Child Health (and also known as the “Mediatrician”), puts it this way: “What optimizes early brain development is interaction with other people (like snuggling with a parent or making faces with a sibling), creative, problem-solving play (like trying to roll a ball), and manipulating the physical environment (like knocking plastic containers together to see what noise they make). As sophisticated as they are, screens can't provide any of these.”

The details in the AAP resources “Why to Avoid TV Before Age 2” and “Tablets and Smartphones: Not for Babies” are worth looking at. They note that “Infants may stare at the bright colors and motion on a screen, but their brains are incapable of making sense or meaning out of all those bizarre pictures. It takes 2 full years for a baby’s brain to develop to the point where the symbols on a screen come to represent their equivalents in the real world.” 

On the flip side, “Good evidence suggests that screen viewing before age 2 has lasting negative effects on children’s language development, reading skills, and shortterm memory. It also contributes to problems with sleep and attention”—with toddlers who watch more TV being more likely to have problems paying attention at age 7. “If 'you are what you eat,' then the brain is what it experiences, and video entertainment is like mental junk food for babies and toddlers,” the AAP states.

Recently, researchers with Boston University's School of Medicine zoomed in specifically on young children's use of mobile devices and interactive media. In a new commentary published in the journal Pediatrics, they argued that too much use of mobile media—especially if used to calm and distract children “during mundane tasks,” i.e., as an electronic babysitter—could be detrimental to the social-emotional development of young children, stunting their problem-solving skills, self-control mechanisms, and development of empathy.

2. What we don't know about toddlers and screens.

Research on how smartphones, tablets and other mobile devices are affecting young children is truly brand new. As the Boston University researchers point out in their recent commentary, studies on interactive media and infants and toddlers under 2 are particularly scant.

Remember, it was only in 2007 and 2010 respectively that the iPhone and iPad launched, helping propel forward the use of mobile devices by everyone. Ever since, there’s been an explosion of apps-for-kids and new kinds of children’s programming created specifically for mobile. It will take society some time to see the real effects of all of this.

“The impact these mobile devices are having on the development and behavior of children is still relatively unknown,” the Boston University researchers wrote. 

In the study (found here) they state that “research regarding the impact of this portable and instantly accessible source of screen time on learning, behavior, and family dynamics has lagged considerably behind its rate of adoption.”

The researchers stress: “Pediatric guidelines specifically regarding mobile device use by young children have not yet been formulated.” (Emphasis mine.) There is nothing beyond the AAP's general guidelines on children and screen time that more specifically addresses mobile devices. “New guidance is needed because mobile media differs from television in its multiple modalities (eg, videos, games, educational apps), interactive capabilities, and near ubiquity in children’s lives. Recommendations for use by infants, toddlers, and preschool-aged children are especially crucial, because effects of screen time are potentially more pronounced in this group.”

That’s enough for me to take a wait-and-see stance about any real effects mobile media might be having on our little ones. I don’t want to conduct social experiments on my toddler. I'm happy to wait and take in whatever new guidelines on mobile device use and children the experts might develop in time.

3. What a lot of teachers say.

Despite a scarcity of research in this specific area so far, there's plenty of anecdotal evidence suggesting something may be happening to our youngest generation of learners in this age of mobile proliferation. 

One day not long ago, a well-respected preschool teacher in our community began telling me about a marked change she's noticed in the children she's been teaching in recent years—ever since, in her opinion, smartphones and other mobile devices started becoming ubiquitous in young kids' lives.

A seasoned veteran who's worked with 2-, 3- and 4-year-olds for decades, she described observing that in more and more children today, imaginary play was becoming much more passive. Active imaginary or “pretend” play, which requires that children invent their own “play narratives”—i.e., engage in make-believe using their imaginations—develops important social and emotional skills, language skills, and thinking skills.

Many educators argue that when children use video games and apps, they are given “pre-loaded” play experiences. The narrative is already provided for them. (A good description of the difference between active imaginary play and playing with screen media, along with great ideas for fostering imaginary play, can be found here.)

I've heard other preschool teachers discussing the same thing, concerned by what they see as an alarming trend that's getting increasing attention at today's teacher conferences. 

A guide from TRUCE

TRUCE, a national group of educators concerned about the effect of children's media on children's play and behavior, addresses what it calls the “escalating misuse and overuse of screen technologies in the lives of even the very young” in a detailed guide for educators called "Facing the Screen Dilemma." Created together with the Campaign for a Commercial-Free Childhood and the Alliance for Children, the guide states: “There’s no question that screen technologies are drastically changing the lives of children,” and “It’s clear that both the nature of what children encounter on screens and the amount of time they spend with screens are vital issues."

The group urges early childhood educators to make careful, evidence-based decisions when it comes to “how, why, whether, and when to incorporate screen technologies into their settings.” As a parent, I take heed as well. TRUCE, which stands for Teachers Resisting Unhealthy Children's Entertainment, has additional guides worth looking at, for educators and parents alike, on screen media and young kids and how to encourage active play.

4. Potential risks to physical health.

Tech neck, tech claw, netbrain, iDisorder, digital eye strain: An array of new maladies seem to be resulting from our modern technology use.

You can find details about a host of them here from WedMd. Some have to do with repetitive strain injuries and bad posture. “Tech neck” has been used to refer both to the danger of damaging your spine due to looking downward into devices and to a newer discovery—saggy, wrinkly neck skin caused by our tilted heads.

From Dr. Kenneth Hansraj, Surgical Technology International 

And how about this one: Using multiple devices at once could be causing the structure of our brains to change, according to one study.

Maybe my young child wouldn’t be at risk of such things just yet. But too much screen time has long been linked to other physical problems, too. “Studies have shown that excessive media use can lead to attention problems, school difficulties, sleep and eating disorders, and obesity,” according to the AAP. What's meant by “excessive” here? Pediatricians often define this as more than two hours of screen time a day. 

We know that sleep problems and the risk of obesity are longstanding concerns when it comes to kids and screen time, and new studies continue to provide new information. One published in Pediatrics this year detailed many ways that sleeping near small-screen devices—tablets, smartphones and other cellphones with screens—can interfere with children's sleep.

A new study on obesity and screens finds that even a low amount of screen time might affect children's weights. Its authors found an association between watching just one to two hours of TV a day and an increased likelihood of being overweight and obese in kindergarten and first grade.

I won't delve deeply here into the complex topic of cellphone radiation and questions about possible links to cancer, but one quick overview of research on mobile phones and cancer, from Cancer Research UK, can be found here. I read its conclusion with interest: “Mobile phones are a relatively recent invention. So far, studies have indicated that using these phones for about 10 years is unlikely to cause cancer. But we cannot be completely sure about their long-term effects. And there have not been enough studies looking at how mobile phone use could affect the health of children.” 

In a 2013 appeal to the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) to conduct further research into cellphone radiation and adopt new standards, the AAP wrote: “Children are not little adults and are disproportionately impacted by all environmental exposures, including cell phone radiation. Current FCC standards do not account for the unique vulnerability and use patterns specific to pregnant women and children. It is essential that any new standard for cell phones or other wireless devices be based on protecting the youngest and most vulnerable populations to ensure they are safeguarded throughout their lifetimes.”

I am not a scientist or medical professional. I’m not a science or medical writer. I won’t pretend to understand all the ins and outs of some of these potential risks—particularly when it comes to radiation. On this one I go with my gut. I'm content to see my daughter sitting on the floor fiddling with wooden puzzle pieces, blocks, tinker toys, a magnifying glass, and other analog sources of amusement, knowing no harmful rays are being emitting.

5. Potential risks to mental health.

We don't need studies to tell us some people are addicted to their devices. But if we want verification, there is plenty to be found.

Interestingly, a new study from the UK concludes that “the more you use a smartphone, the higher the risk of becoming addicted.” The researchers of this study, which classified 13% of its participants as being addicted to their devices, actually advise that prospective smartphone buyers be “pre-warned of the potential addictive properties” of the technology.

When it comes to mobile devices, concerns about potential mental health risks, especially for children, go well beyond addiction. The Telegraph recently ran a sobering report on children and mental illness, with one child psychotherapist's take in particular on the impact of having constant round-the-clock Internet access. Despite a sensationalistic title—"Are Smartphones Making Our Children Mentally Ill?"—the report raises serious concerns as it explores some specific challenges that children and young adults of a generation ago—even a decade ago—were not up against.

Young people today can “access the Internet without adult supervision in parks, on street, wherever they are, and then they can go anywhere,” says the psychotherapist, Julie Lynn Evans. “So there are difficult chat rooms, self-harming websites, anorexia websites, pornography, and a whole invisible world of dark places. In real life, we travel with our children. When they are connected via their smartphone to the web, they usually travel alone.”

The article notes that admissions to child psychiatric wards in the UK have doubled in the past four years, with the number of young adults hospitalized for self-harm growing by 70% in the past decade. While it's unclear if this is in any way related to the rise of mobile device use among young people, Evans believes there's a connection.

“Something is clearly happening,” she says, “because I am seeing the evidence in the numbers of depressive, anorexic, cutting children who come to see me. And it always has something to do with the computer, the Internet and the smartphone.”

“When they are 15,” Evans says, “you don’t, for example, let them go to pub, or stay out in the local park at four in morning, yet they’ll get into much less trouble physically there than they will on their smartphones on the Internet. I’m not talking about paedophiles preying on them. I’m talking about anorexia sites and sites where they will be bullied.”

While my own daughter is still too young to be facing such potential dangers, children of younger and younger ages are now owning their own Internet-enabled devices—and it may not be long before I start hearing requests for one. (I have a good friend whose 6-year-old has been begging her for a smartphone.) In 2013, 7% of children 8 years old and under owned their own tablets—about the same percent of parents who did in 2011, according to Common Sense Media's 2013 report on kids and media use. These types of concerns for even young children are here today, and will be tomorrow.

6. Habits formed during childhood can last a lifetime.

“Screen media can be habit-forming,” states the report “Facing the Screen Dilemma.” “Young children who spend more time with screens have a harder time turning them off when they get older.”

A Common Sense Media column notes: “Remember that kids quickly develop routines. If they associate going to restaurants or driving in a car with playing games on your phone, it will be difficult to transition them out of this behavior.” This seems like a no-brainer, and yet I still have to remind myself of this constantly.

Going to restaurants when my daughter was a baby and younger toddler was certainly tough. There were the rushed and truncated meals, the sometimes stressful efforts to keep her occupied and calm—not to mention the huge tips left as apologies for the gigantic mess we always made.

But as she grew and learned to talk and communicate more, family mealtimes, even in restaurants and diners, became a new kind of delight. She relishes the social aspect of meals, chatting away about her day in nursery school, giving running commentary about anything and everything she sees all around her, asking questions, joking and making up new word games and songs.  

We hope this will keep going throughout her life—the association with meals and talking, connecting, sharing, and laughing. It's the kind of habit we want to instill, no matter how much effort it takes. If we'd conditioned her from the beginning to use screens during meals—at a time when distracting her with one certainly might have made our own lives a little easier—I know we would all be missing out today.

7. I think knowing how to entertain yourself in a line, a waiting room, or a car is an important skill to have.

There are definitely a lot of situations in life that are potentially boring. But I don’t think handing my daughter a screen to help her get through them is doing her a service.

I can remember plenty of long car rides when I was a kid. We did what kids did—look out the window, play games, read, do activity books, write Mad Libs (back when it was only in paper books you could write in). We'd listen to the radio, sing, chat about this or that. And we'd learn from doing all these things. I actually liked settling in with my little book of crosswords during some very long car rides to visit grandparents several states away. I liked watching the changing scenery outside.

When I was 5, in the mid-1970s, my family took a flight from Boston to LA. I don't remember the ride very well, but I imagine my brother and I did similar kinds of things—activity books and games. I thought of this recently, on a similar cross-country flight (New York City to LA), where I was surprised by how well our 3-year-old managed. It was amazing how much time she killed with a couple of plastic eggs filled with silly puddy and a handful of crayons. There was a screen on the back of the seat right in front of her. She poked at it some and definitely enjoyed it. But we didn't buy any movies, and ultimately she seemed much more interested in examining all the new things around her and looking out at the clouds.

Learning to occupy oneself as a kid in these situations isn't just useful. It helps develop patience, resourcefulness and creativity. Little kids are so naturally great at making up their own fun and games. They have an innate ability to entertain themselves, and the results can be impressive when we let them.

8. I don’t like the marketing targeted to kids through various screen media.

I mentioned earlier the new YouTube for Kids app. Last month, a group of children’s and consumer advocacy groups filed a scathing complaint against it with the Federal Trade Commission (FTC), urging that the commission investigate whether YouTube's owner, Google, is violating longstanding laws that protect children who watch TV.

The group claims that the app uses unfair marketing practices, such as combining commercials and videos in ways that are deceptive to children, having “branded” channels for toy and other companies, and endorsing toys, candy and other products through so-called “user-generated” videos without disclosing the business relationships that the video makers have with these products’ manufacturers.

“To cite just one example,” the group's press release states, “Google claims it doesn't accept food and beverage ads but McDonald's actually has its own channel and the 'content' includes actual Happy Meal commercials.”

Says Dale Kunkel, Professor of Communication at the University of Arizona, in the press release: “YouTube Kids is the most hyper-commercialized media environment for children I have ever seen. Many of these advertising tactics are considered illegal on television, and it's sad to see Google trying to get away with using them in digital media.”

I could go on about marketing targeted to kids. But suffice it to say here, the less my child is marketed to in these types of ways, through various forms of screen media and “children's programming,” the better.

9. I don’t believe my toddler will be “left behind” if she doesn’t start using a smartphone now.

Some argue that learning how to work the latest technological tools as early as possible in childhood is critical today. I just don't buy it. And I'm not alone.

“There’s no evidence to support the popular view that children must start using screen technologies early-on to succeed in a digital world,” says literature from the Campaign for a Commercial-Free Childhood. But there is evidence that you can spend your earliest years without any exposure to handheld screens and mobile devices and still grow up able to figure out a new iPhone 6.

That evidence is us. Anyone who is reading this did not manipulate mobile touchscreens or any such thing as a 2-year-old—unless you happen to be about 8 years old or younger. But many of us grownups today, including those working in technology fields, feel we’ve been able to “keep up” with the latest in tech as much as we need.

It’s hard to remember sometimes, but smartphones and tablets did not begin their great and rapid proliferation all that long ago. (Again, the iPhone only debuted in June 2007, and the iPad just five years ago last month.) Even kids born 10 years ago—yes, 10 years ago—were born into a different digital time. Forget about those born 20 years ago, or 30 years ago, or folks like me born more than 40 years back. I made it all the way into high school before ever touching a “personal” computer. I was 13 when Apple's Macintosh arrived with such drama into the world. (I'll never forget this remarkable ad.) It was great, and I loved it, and it was easy to catch on as an almost-adult. And it's been the same with so many new technologies since.

I have not been “left behind” in today's rapidly changing world because I didn't use computers as a baby or toddler or have the Internet as a kid. I am not at a disadvantage today because I lived through 30 years of life (yep, 30) without having a cell phone. And I don't think my life in those 30 years suffered.

I may be sounding a bit old-fogeyish here, but my point is simple: New technologies come along and we learn them. If we have a solid foundation from our critical, earliest years in “learning how to learn,” we should be just fine. In 2011, a New York Times piece about high-tech Silicon Valley employees who sent their own children to a school with no computers or screens drew a lot of attention. It's still worth reading today what these parents had to say.

Even Steve Jobs was a low-tech parent, writes Nick Bilton in a New York Times article from 2014. Jobs wouldn't let his own teenagers use iPads when they first came out. In 2010 he told Bilton, “They haven’t used it. We limit how much technology our kids use at home.”

Bilton quotes several other “tech parents” who limit their children's screen use seemingly even more than other parents do. CEO of 3D Robotics and former Wired editor Chris Anderson says, “[We] have seen the dangers of technology firsthand. I’ve seen it in myself, I don’t want to see that happen to my kids.” If parents steeped in technology in their professional lives aren't worried about their children “falling behind,” then I can't be either.

10. Screens haven’t felt necessary.

I mentioned earlier that our digital devices, and even TV, have never been go-to items when we need to keep our daughter distracted or occupied, whatever the circumstance. We've used the same old stuff that's worked forever: pots and pans, nesting boxes, tupperware, wooden spoons, water-and-floating-things-in-the-sink, play-dough, and books—always books.

In the kitchen refrigerator magnets have absorbed her attention for countless little chunks of time. In restaurants crayons, stickers, and paper have worked when she’s gotten antsy. In doctors' offices she plays with small books or toys of her own if they don't already have some out. Often it's just her own looking around, singing, game-making, and, yes, good old conversation that keeps her completely engaged in these situations.

It's true that it's not easy to get grownup things done when there's a toddler around who needs constant supervising, help, and attention. No—this is not going to be easy. And I don’t think people should expect it to be. We were toddlers too, and we presented the same challenges to our own parents, but somehow we all lived through it without holding small flashing screens in our tiny little hands.

Our parents, in whatever ways they did it, did it. Some probably put their babies and toddlers in front of TVs sometimes—but probably not all, and we don't really know how often. If you're as old as I am, there were only about two shows on for a kid to watch when we were 2 years old. And when they were over, they were over. No 24-hour kids' channels back then. Before TV (which would be nearly all of human history), parents and toddlers somehow managed together too.

So I try to remember all of this. It may not be easy to always keep the screens off and away when the kids are little, but so many things about parenting aren't easy. At the end of the day, I always think of how fleeting this time really is. And how much I'll miss it when it's gone. I love my conversations with my daughter. I love how intense her imagination is, and the endless new games and ideas she's constantly coming up with. Before she could talk, I loved all of our playful games and all that time spent smiling and looking into each other's eyes. Each step of the way, I've marveled at her non-stop changes and never-ending new developments. This week and every week I'll try not to let the lure of any screens take either of us away from this.

Elementary School Kids and Social Media: A Dicey Proposition

If you think kids as young as 6 years old aren't posting and chatting away on social media, better think again.

The article "Does Instagram Put Kids at Risk?" in the June/July issue of Scholastic Parent & Child magazine takes an eye-opening look at just how young some users of this particular social media app really are.

Writer Sharon Duke Estroff went on an "undercover mission" for this piece, exploring the potential upsides and pitfalls of kids using Instagram, a photo-sharing app owned by Facebook that's increasingly popular among school kids. Estroff posed on Instagram as a "fun-loving 10-year-old girl with an affinity for Justin Bieber and all things adorable," she writes. And some of what she discovered might stop parents in their tracks.

"I saw little boys tossing around four-letter words like footballs; I followed young girls who asked me to 'like' their pictures if 'you think I look sexy'; I viewed popular posts that included an alleged paparazzi pic of Zac Efron's private parts," Estroff writes. All this on the accounts of elementary school children.

Technically, you must be at least 13 to use Instagram. It's clearly stated in the app's "Terms of Use." Facebook, Snapchat and other social networking services have the same age requirement. They have to in order to comply with the federal Children's Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA), which makes it illegal to collect, use, or disclose personal information from anyone under 13 without parental consent.

But as Internet safety expert Larry Magrid writes in Forbes, COPPA is about preventing the collection of personal information, not about online safety. "COPPA compliance in no way means that the site is safe or appropriate for young children," Magrid writes.

And the age cutoff certainly isn't stopping kids from signing up in droves. In a study by McAfee released last month, 85% of kids ages 10 to 12 admitted to having a Facebook profile. Last year, a study by Ipsos on kids and social media found that 29% of all kids ages 6-12 had an account on a social media site.

Facebook was by far the most popular site among kids in the Ipsos study, and statistics show that there are millions of users under 13 on Facebook. But the popularity of Instagram and Snapchat among elementary school kids has soared in recent months.

Statistics on underaged kids using these apps are hard to come by, but in her Scholastic Parent & Child article, Estroff describes a world in which 8-year-olds are using Instagram like old pros, posting photos, sharing comments, collecting hundreds of followers and "liking" each other's posts.

Estroff's Instagram investigation was triggered by her own 10-year-old daughter complaining that everyone at her school had an Instagram account but her. Estroff eventually "caved," as she says, and let her daughter sign up — but only under close supervision and with strict rules.

When it comes to social media, the "Everybody's doing it!" argument is a powerful one parents are up against these days. And it's a hard spot for parents to be in.

On the one hand, we don't want to deprive kids of important opportunities to be part of the group and to feel that they belong. Through Instagram and other social media services, kids stay connected to each other and can enjoy support and encouragement from peers and a much desired sense of community. What kid doesn't want to be "liked," online or off?

On the other hand, we don't want our kids being "followed" online by complete strangers or accepting requests from strangers to be followed. We don't want them harassed or bullied online, or subjected to posts, comments, photos and videos that are far too mature for their age.

Even with close monitoring and safeguarding, Estroff writes, inappropriate posts still slipped through to her daughter's new Instagram feed: "A string of raunchy jokes posted by a boy in her class who had re-posted them off of his older sister's Instagram; pictures of a friend's older brother funneling beer at a fraternity party; 20 minutes later, the same boy urinating on a car," Estroff writes. We're talking about a 10-year-old's account here. "As a parent, I was mortified," she writes.

And yet many parents find they must weigh these risks against the potential benefits that socializing online might have for their kids. Many, like Estroff, let their younger kids sign up for these 13-and-over services but are committed to keeping track of what their kids are doing on them and to protecting them from possible harm.

Estroff gives a helpful list of "Rules to Keep Kids Safe" using Instagram. These include creating a joint account with your kid; controlling the password; reviewing posts, followers, followees and comments; and setting time limits for using the app, which she calls "highly addictive."

And yes, making sure your child's account is private. This is truly key. Instagram accounts are public by default. Estroff writes that about half of the kids she saw on Instagram had accounts that were public. So it's up to parents to take charge and actively change the privacy settings.

Instagram's Photo Map feature.

It's also important to never activate the app's Photo Map option, which shows the exact location that a photo was taken, "down to the street number," Estroff explains. (For more on geotagging and kids, see the previous post on this blog. Also see this recent Digital Trends piece on a petition to Instagram to make it disable its geotagging feature and change its default privacy settings. For info on a new parents' guide to Instagram, see this post.)

Staying on top of all this is a lot to ask of parents. The recent McAfee study — which explored the "online disconnect" between parents and kids when it comes to online activities — reported that 80% of parents do not even know how to find out what their children are doing online. The study showed that a large majority of parents — 74% — say they do not have the time or energy to keep up with their children's online activity. They're throwing in the towel and just hoping for the best.

But if parents don't remain vigilant about protecting kids from inappropriate content online, who will? Certainly not the social media services.

In a recent Digital Trends article, writer Kate Knibbs shows how and why social media sites like Facebook and Instagram are failing to keep young kids off their services. Even the new SnapKidz feature on Snapchat for kids under 13, which rolled out last month, won't keep kids off the real service, Knibbs argues.

When kids who are under 13 try to sign up for Snapchat, the popular app that lets users send self-deleting photos, the new SnapKidz mode now kicks in. It allows kids to take photos and doodle on them, but it won't let them send them to anyone. Knibbs calls this new feature pointless — "a meaningless mea culpa that will achieve absolutely nothing." Savvy kids know all they have to do to get the real Snapchat service is plug in a fake birth date. It's what they do on all social media sites that require a birth date to "prove" that you're 13 or older.

"SnapKidz is like a pair of really flimsy, slightly deflated arm floaties," Knibbs writes. "Parents slip them on their kids and may assume they won’t have to watch them swim as closely. But they don’t actually make the child safer."

There's not much Snapchat or other social media services can do to keep underaged kids off without requiring complicated background checks, Knibbs says. And such checks are not likely to happen. So it will remain up to parents and other adults to pay close attention to what young kids are doing online and to keep them safe. A "snap," right? Not so much in today's rapidly changing digital world.

Controlling Your Digital Footprints: An NPR Report

Your child posts an innocent photo of the family dog on a social media site. No problem, right? Not necessarily.

As this recent report from NPR's "Weekend Edition" explains, there are many apps available that can pinpoint precisely where a photo was taken, in effect making it possible to lead someone right to your child.

This is due to a process called geotagging, or adding geographic location "metadata" to photos, videos and other media.

"Today all smartphones and most cameras add those tags automatically," NPR's Steve Henn explains. "It's like writing your address on the back of a photo."

In this report, Henn demonstrates how easy it is to drop a photo into an app that will reveal all of the metadata attached to it. Such apps allow someone to see exactly where the photo was taken — right down to the building, and even where in the building.

"All of this information gets stored, and if you email a picture to a friend or post it on a social network, a lot of that can be out there and easily accessible," Henn says. This data is catalogued with each photo, Henn explains, "unless you go into your phone and turn the location services information on your camera off, which you have to know a little bit to do. But most people, I think, don't do it."

Henn, who has an 11-year-old daughter himself, says some new tools have emerged to help people control their own digital footprints, such as Wickr, an app developed by security and privacy experts that lets you send encrypted text, photo and video messages. It also allows you set a time limit for how long a message is shared. Wickr, which has the tagline "Leave No Trace," boasts on its site that it "flips messaging on its head, giving control to the sender instead of the receiver (or servers in between)."

In the wake of the NSA scandal, at a time of heightened awareness about just how easily our personal information is collected, privacy is on everyone's minds — including concerned parents.

"Perhaps over time," Henn says, "as we continue to have conversations about privacy like this, we'll see more attention in Silicon Valley about making tools available that are easy to use that also allow you to control how your information is shared." And that let you rest easy if a photo of Buster happens to be shared online.