What screen time does to children's brains is more complicated than it seems
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The other day, while I was doing some household chores, I handed my youngest child his dad's iPad to keep him entertained. But after a while I suddenly felt uneasy: I wasn't keeping a close eye on how long he had spent using it or what he was looking at. So I told him it was time to stop.
A full-blown tantrum erupted. He kicked, he yelled, he clung to it and tried to push me away with the might of a furious under-five. Not my finest hour as a parent, admittedly, and his extreme reaction bothered me.
My older children are navigating social media, virtual reality and online gaming, and sometimes that concerns me too. I hear them tease each other about needing to "touch grass" – disconnect from the tech and get outdoors.
The late Steve Jobs, who was CEO of Apple when the firm released the iPad, famously didn't let his own children have them. Bill Gates has said he restricted his children's access to tech too.
