Last fall, I was contacted by a reader who was so concerned about the pervasive use of screens in their young child’s classroom, they had pulled their child out of their local school district. The parent wanted to know if, from my reporting, I had heard of districts that were either not using screens in grades K-2 or used them only sparingly.
As I started researching, interviewing parents and watching school board meetings around the country, I found there are many districts and states grappling with how to best incorporate screen time in the early grades — or whether they should at all. Some have already taken steps to back away from screens. And in many more districts, I found parents growing especially concerned about the amount of excess — non-academic — entertainment their young children were accessing at school, especially during snack time, indoor recess and lunch. In some cases, children came home knowing commercial jingles and language from YouTubers because of the screen time they had at school.
Last week, I wrote about this screen time battle in a story published in partnership with The New York Times. The response has been immense. Here’s a sampling of feedback I received via email and LinkedIn, or saw in comments and on social media. (Some have been edited lightly or shortened for clarity.)
Parents and educators around the country say screen time in early elementary has been a concern for years
“I was horrified that my son’s school gave each kindergartner a Chromebook (in 2023),” one New York mom wrote on LinkedIn. “I had worked so hard to limit screen time and then he was in school-based aftercare watching YouTube videos on the Chromebook. (The aftercare has since banned Chromebooks, thank goodness). And snack time! In kindergarten, they watched PBS Kids videos during snack time. And I love PBS Kids, but snack time should be for learning to converse with your classmates, not watching videos. I wanted to complain to the school, but didn’t want to be ‘that’ parent so I never said anything.”
“My daughter was watching sexy K-Pop Demon Hunters videos within the first weeks of school,” wrote Lindsay Lieberman, a cyber abuse attorney in the District of Columbia, in an email. “Many of us are advocating for policy changes within the district as more evidence emerges about the cognitive and developmental harms associated with excessive screen use in young children.”
Andrea, a substitute teacher in her local Massachusetts preschool, said on Facebook, “They have smart boards in every ‘classroom.’ For toddlers! No cute little songs sung by teachers who don’t care if they have a great voice. Just animated, cluttered, attention-destroying ‘songs’ for toddlers.”
Kayla, who works in a school in North Dakota, said on Facebook that at her school, “There are movies or YouTube videos being played for students on the smart board during snack time. … Readalouds are done by someone who made a video of the book on the internet, so there aren’t natural stopping points to stop and talk about what’s happening in the book.”
Betsy Tao, the technology committee chair of the Montgomery County Council of PTAs in Maryland, said in an email that the group recently surveyed district families about technology use. More than 1,000 families responded, and the majority of elementary parents said there was “too much” Chromebook use in schools. Based on the results, Tao said, it was clear parents were also concerned about “the ways in which these devices were being used to access inappropriate and sometimes harmful content, and the impact they were seeing on their own kids.”
Teachers turn to screens for many reasons
“I’ve learned from many early educators that screen time isn’t always replacing social-emotional learning,” wrote Tanya, the president of a private elementary school in California, on LinkedIn. “Often it’s replacing 15 minutes of escalating chaos that prevents learning from happening. Or filling gaps exhausted teachers don’t have the bandwidth to manage differently. An iPad designed for solo engagement creates a very different experience than media designed with compliance guardrails, developmental appropriateness, and clear use cases.”
A lack of school funding for staff positions has led to increased screen use in some cases
“In our schools they cut teacher assistant $$ and thus sometimes the iPad takes the place of what should be in-person instruction,” wrote EmmyEm, on Bluesky. “I used to volunteer in my kids’ classrooms as the iPad person who’d take a group out to the hallway for iPad time while the teacher did small-group sessions.”
State testing needs to change in order for device usage to change
A teacher named Allie posted on X that students in her district have to complete state tests on computers, one of the reasons they need familiarity with devices. “For a long time we assumed kids would be able to translate the skills from tablets to computers. Then we learned they could not.” But she also criticized some of the nonacademic uses of screen time that I wrote about. “I am mad at the teachers putting their kids on YouTube in class because yes, that’s dumb, and it makes the rest of us look bad.”
District leaders and administrators set the tone for classrooms
“Teachers that are required to do student-led learning are left with little choice but to use tech,” wrote Heather Ann, on Facebook. “We need the ‘people in power’ at the schools to allow teachers to go back to teaching without tech without fear of being penalized in yearly evaluations.”
“Parents need to push back!” wrote Terrie Jordan on Facebook. “The pressure to use devices comes from the higher-ups not the teachers (in most cases!).”
Within classrooms, children may have varying experiences
Two parents from Croton-Harmon Schools, one of the districts mentioned in the article, told me their experiences have been different from parents quoted in the story. “I have two children who attend Croton schools … and I have been extremely happy with the District’s purposeful approach to the use of technology,” one parent wrote. Her children have explored coding and are learning digital fluency, she added. “Like it or not, those skills are necessary to thrive in the world we live in.”
Screen time at home is a big concern for educators, and parents need to cut down there as well
“We get the kids in the classroom that are very addicted to screens. Some of them cannot sustain any amount of focus off the screen. Parents can’t allow hours of screen time at home and then expect miracles at school!” Billie Hall, a third-grade teacher, said on Facebook.
“This isn’t all on teachers and schools! Stop giving your kids devices all the time so we don’t have to reteach them how to focus!” Paige Elizabeth, on Facebook.
“Perhaps because I am older, I don’t use tech with children,” wrote Christina Carico, on Facebook. “I don’t have devices in my room, and I don’t know the passwords for the school-issued devices the school provides (older children). My room has chess, Spot-It, Apples to Apples, Monopoly Deal, Word Uno. They *love* game time. I am heartbroken, though, when I see devices at dinner tables, at church, in theaters. They are everywhere.”
More on screen time in schools
The ed tech industry is trying to fight bills in 16 states related to technology use in classrooms, writes Tyler Kingkade for NBC News.
A proposed bill in Minnesota aims to ban screen time for pre-K and kindergarten students, according to Richard Reeve with KSTP.
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This story about screen time for kids was produced by The Hechinger Report, a nonprofit, independent news organization focused on inequality and innovation in education. Sign up for the Hechinger newsletter.
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