136: The Trouble with “Screen Time” Rules

Alicia Blum-Ross and Sonia Livingstone (London School of Economics and Political Science) (February, 2019)

An overview of the results of a qualitative study examining and critiquing the widely influential American Academy of Pediatrics’ (AAP) “screen time” guidelines (issued in 1999 and updated in 2016) through an exploration of whether the screen time rules and guidelines match up with reports of parents’ on-the-ground practices. Face-to-face interviews were carried out with 73 families in London, UK. The research balanced a purposive sample of parents for whom the digital offered something distinctive with others whom we recruited as a cross-section of families by age of child (from birth to 17), ethnicity and socio-economic status.