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Is Screen Time as Poisonous as We Think?

With Professor Andrew Przybylski
Speakers:
With Professor Andrew Przybylski

I am going to say a dirty word: screentime.

That simple and suddenly terrifying word includes all the hours that you spend streaming movies, playing video games; especially the hours you spend caught in the vortex of social media and news and communication that gushes from your phone.

Everyone seems to have something to say about screentime, from the American Academy of Pediatrics to religious and educational leaders to the New York Times opinion section — especially the New York Times opinion section. Our own devices scold us, with reminders to get off Instagram, to hold the phone further away to avoid eye strain; if you have an iPhone, you know that it tracks the hours you spend on it every day — and then makes a point to tell you that number, that always surprisingly large number.

The people we are most worried about when it comes to screentime are children and teenagers. Parents around the world are in a full-on panic about the relationship between screentime and mental health — in part because there is new scientific evidence on this relationship. … Read full transcript

How to view

The video can be viewed externally, on the Freakonomics website.
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