For families who want to keep their tween children from spending too much time in front of screens, a new study offers illuminating – and potentially challenging – advice: parents, you’ll need to put your phones down first. The study, published this month in the journal Pediatric Research , examined the links between parenting strategies involving digital media and early adolescent screen use. Among the most striking findings: parental screen use was strongly associated with higher adolescent screen time and problematic social media or video game use.
Phones and social media are addictive at any age. Credit: iStock “One of the biggest predictors of adolescents’ screen use is their parents’ screen use,” says Jason Nagata, a pediatrician at the University of California at San Francisco and the lead author of the study . This might feel startling, given that preteens are increasingly independent and influenced by their peers.
But parental modelling still matters. “It’s especially important that parents follow their own rules and practise what they preach,” Nagata says, “because even if they think their kids aren’t watching them, they really are.” The study examined data from a racially and economically diverse sample of more than 10,000 American 12- and 13-year-olds and their parents, who answered a questionnaire about their screen use and parenting strategies.
Participants indicated whether they felt their relationship with screens was problematic – .
