Doctors 2 parents: Limit kids’ tweeting, texting & keep smartphones, laptops out of bedrooms.
The recommendations are bound to prompt eye-rolling and LOLs from many teens but an influential pediatricians group says parents need to know that unrestricted media use can have serious consequences.
It’s been linked with violence, cyberbullying, school woes, obesity, lack of sleep and a host of other problems.
The policy is aimed at all kids, including those who use smartphones, computers and other Internet-connected devices. It expands the academy’s longstanding recommendations on banning televisions from children’s and teens’ bedrooms and limiting entertainment screen time to no more than two hours daily.
Under the new policy, those two hours include using the Internet for entertainment, including Facebook, Twitter, TV and movies; online homework is an exception.
“Young people now spend more time with media than they do in school – it is the leading activity for children and teenagers other than sleeping” the policy says. “There needs to be more awareness,” Gorr said. “Kids are getting way too much computer time. It’s bad for their socialization, it’s overstimulating, it’s numbing them.”