Pew Research Center has a new survey report out about the way teens and parents view screen time. I read the overview , and here are a few things I thought were interesting:
- More than half of parents feel like teens are distracted from in-person conversations by their phone. But guess what? More than half of teens feel like parents are distracted from in-person conversations by their phone, too.
- Just over half of teens feel like they spend too much time on their phones, while 36% of parents do. At the same time, teens are less likely to be distracted at school by their phones than parents are to be distracted at work.
- Nearly 90 percent of teens report that excessive time online is a problem facing people their age.
- Forty-nine percent of girls and 38 of boys report feeling anxious when they don’t have their phones with them, but more than half report cutting back on screen use.
- Fifty-seven percent of parents place limits on teen use of screens, and 86 percent of parents feel very confident in knowing the amount of screen time that is good for their children.
Does this fit with what you’ve observed of teens and parents in the library? Do you hear a lot about concerns related to screen time for teens? And who do you hear it from? Parents? Teachers? Grandparents? Teens themselves?