Pediatricians rethink screen time policy for children

All screens are not created equal.

In a nod to the changing nature of digital media and technology, the American Academy of Pediatrics announced this month that it is starting the process of revising its ironclad guidelines for children and screens.

For more than 15 years it has advised parents to avoid screen time completely for children under the age of 2, and to limit screen time to no more than two hours a day for children older than 2.

“In a world where ‘screen time’ is becoming simply ‘time,’ our policies must evolve or become obsolete,” the AAP’s media committee wrote in an article published this month in the publication AAP News, which circulates to the academy’s 64,000 members.

Ari Brown, lead author of the article and chair of the AAP committee that’s been investigating children’s media use, noted that the 2011 statement on media use for children under age 2 was being written and published at about the same time as the first generation iPad came out. “It literally felt outdated before we even released it,” Dr. Brown said. “Technology moves faster than science can study it, so we are perpetually behind in our advice and our recommendations.”