This is great info. I know from my own experience that too much screen time = irritable kids. Whenever I can sense more tension than usual in the home, I know it’s time for a screen-free day (or five). The kids always hate it at first, but we’ve done it often enough now that they suck it up and find things to do.

My teenage son does art, my teenage daughter plays her ukulele or guitar, my 10-year-old does a craft project or checks out stuff with her microscope, and my 7-year-old plays with Barbies or plays outside.

It’s so strange being a parent in this day and age, because huge chunks of our kids’ lives are taken up with something that simply didn’t exist when we were kids. We can’t ask our parents for advice on how to deal with smartphones and screen time, and like you’ve pointed out here, we’re still trying to figure out what the short- and long-term effects of technology are.

And is it weird that sometimes I find myself thinking back to my teenage years wondering, “What did I do in my free time anyway?” I seem to recall spending a lot of time lying on my bed and staring up at the ceiling…