Tablets on Holiday

One of the biggest surprises that I had on holiday was the sheer number of children (especially toddlers and babies) who spent their mealtimes watching a phone or tablet. Let me state my biases right up front so you can be sure of who I am and what I’m blind to. I have a 6 year old, a 4 year old and an 11 month old and I don’t let any of them have a phone or tablet under any circumstances. I do let the eldest play the Nintendo Switch for up to 1 hour per day. I do let the middle child watch TV for up to 1 hour per day. The baby gets nothing. I also research the habit forming nature of mobile phones and apps. I also work in a tech company and have for years.

So many tablets

It was a pretty fancy resort and so a fairly middle class crowd. Every morning, we’d sit down for breakfast and be surrounded by other families with children of generally the same kind of age. I’d estimate that around 50% - 70% of the families had an iPad (or similar) with them and propped it up in front of the children while they ate. Generally it was one tablet that multiple children huddled round. Sometimes it was multiple tablets or phones. In one instance, it was a baby of about 6 months watching a phone.

Instinctively, I feel that this is bad. All kinds of bad. The problem is…I know the research and I know how weak it is and how disputed pretty much all elements are and so I know how difficult it is for regulators to make a strong statement here.

So far, I believe they’ve said that you should try to have no screen time for under 2s, and at most an hour a day for under 5s. Maybe these families were abiding by that (well, not those with the baby on the phone) but more likely, they probably weren’t.

However, a big theme of my writing of late has been about the sheer number of ‘guidelines’ for parents that can turn what used to be a fairly rewarding and somewhat easier job into a full-blown life-changing nightmare. And usually off the back of pretty sketchy evidence and asymmetric risk profiles (whereby health providers can give advice where their downside if you follow it to the letter is none, whereas yours is pretty substantial).

And here I am, despairing that parents aren’t following guidance that is given off the back of pretty sketchy evidence that causes huge cost to parents.

Why?

Because I really think this case is different, and here’s why.

Tablets are Easy

Tablets get used a lot because they’re basically a cheat code. You can turn any problematic event/behaviour into compliance simply by sticking a £50 device in front of your child for the duration. Wedding ceremony where you need them to behave? Plane flight where they need something to do? Car journey that’s going to drag on forever? Give them a tablet and turn them off for an hour.

But can we parents be trusted with what looks like the nuclear option? After a tough day at work, your toddler is having a tantrum because they don’t like peas and can’t they have their tablet? You look at your wife in a resigned way and dig it out. “Just this time” you say.

But kids aren’t like that. You opened Pandora’s box. Your life will never be the same again. Because what you’ve done is taught your child (using the most basic of behavioural economics) that in order to get their favourite toy, they have to be a nightmare. It’s no surprise that next time they want to watch their tablet, they’ll be a nightmare.

And soon, it’s every meal. Definitely any meal where you want a second’s peace.

Replacing Learning

Ultimately though, tablets are a shortcut. You aren’t able to moderate your child’s behaviour in the situation and have them behave how you’d like them to, so you buy them off with digital opium. As a parent, you’re not learning how to calm them down or handle their mood or moderate their behaviour. As a child, they’re not learning all of those things either. We’re not letting them sit with discomfort and boredom…we’re saying that those things can and should be soothed away by the bright lights of the screen.

This is actually I think the strongest argument that surrounds the whole screen time debate for children (and for adults, too, to some extent). The harm doesn’t necessarily come from the screen, but from what the screen replaces. If you spend every meal time reading a book, you miss out on the conversation that takes place over mealtimes and valuable social learning and bonding. If you’re running through educational books, maybe you’d say that the trade-off is fine. Maybe you wouldn’t. If you’re running through trashy novels and you’re not fully socially developed yet…well, that sounds slightly closer to toddlers on CocoMelon.

The point is, you wouldn’t say reading books is harmful, right? You’d just say that there are times and places to read books and times and places to engage with the world. The iPad probably isn’t bad for you. It’s only using it to the exclusion of other things that is.

That’d also explain why the research is so sketchy and open to interpretation. We don’t regularly ask “what would you have been doing instead?” - we just ask how long you spend on a screen. If you’re replacing 1 hour of vapid TV time with 1 hour of vapid iPad time…well, so what? If you’re replacing 1 hour of playing with friends in your garden, I bet all sorts of negative effects are going on.

It’s Never Just Once

Just once is fine, right? Right?

Of course just once is fine. A few times is probably fine. As far as the research is concerned at the moment…well, it’s a bit shaky, but maybe plenty of tablets are fine. Probably not though, on balance.

The advice I’d give is don’t tie tablet use to a regular activity. Your child has to know that this is an exception and it has to be clear to them that it’s an exception. Daddy has a headache isn’t clear to them and isn’t really an exception. Brushing teeth isn’t. Mealtimes aren’t. Car journeys aren’t (unless they are). You pick your own exceptions, but be realistic and honest with yourself.

The Swedes do Lördagsgodis - sweets (as much as they want) on a Saturday only. Maybe Saturday is the exception. All I’m trying to say is that tablets are incredibly effective at hooking us and if you don’t go in with clear boundaries, you’re going to get destroyed.

Conclusion

I’ve not offered any kind of conclusive proof that sitting your toddler in front of tablets for their meals is bad. I am deeply uneasy about it, though.

I think the reason I’m so troubled by it is because tablets at breakfast on a family holiday feels like the worst possible time/place for children to be on their tablets. Our earliest memories are typically unusual experiences with close people between ages 5 - 10 i.e. family holidays. Breakfast is the first meal of the day and is theoretically early on when everybody has full reserves of energy. Mealtimes are the perfect opportunities for people to sit and share in the company of others.

To see so many children missing out on what could be formative bonding experiences with their family felt sad. It felt like abdication of parental responsibility and I worried for those children.

I know that’s controversial and snobby and…well, nobody likes having their parenting questioned. And in fact, I feel unsure even bringing it up. But tablets at breakfast on family holidays are likely having negative long-term effects on children and we should be studying that, quantifying that, and sharing it.