Further to the conversation with Premier Radio this morning, I was contacted by Hits Radio, also asking for a response to the screentime story, now out on BBC News also (annoyingly later accompanied by a story about how to limit screentime). Around 11am the following segment (or part of) was used, and also used on Heat Radio:

We’ll see that the headlines are quite different, drawing on the same report:

The headlines differ slightly pic.twitter.com/9tIicqCzoq

— Brian Williamson (@MarethBrian) January 4, 2019

I also provided further audio which was available to use for a later programme (I haven’t found where the online audio is yet!) - responding to

• firstly, what’s your reaction to today’s report?
• have we perhaps been a bit tough on the impact screen time can have? Should we relax a bit?
• is there any evidence to suggest screens can have some impact?
• what is the best advice for parents?
• how much do we really know? Some who work in addiction find it difficult to believe the findings! :

Here’s some further content from my book Raising Children in a Digital Age:

Four pages from my book ‘Raising Children in a Digital Age’ about the historic fears that have been had about new technology - and that we shouldn’t be so scared/negative about digital and #screentime pic.twitter.com/194jdYI59L

— Dr Bex Lewis (@drbexl) January 4, 2019

Some content from my book ‘Raising Children in a Digital Age’ on #screentime pic.twitter.com/Ueo68ZV7N1

— Dr Bex Lewis (@drbexl) January 4, 2019

It was encouraging to get tweets like:

Thank you for this. Really helpful as a parent to think about how technology, progress, risk, and learning all intersect and need to be managed thoughtfully without panic. https://t.co/LQNn2QtOLF

— Ven Dr Joanne Woolway Grenfell (@joannegrenfell) January 4, 2019

A bit frustrating, as this tweet puts it:

Experts who have conducted research say there is no evidence that time in front of a screen harms children. But we’ll skip that and focus on the parents who are ‘disappointed’ with the advice. This isn’t balance, it’s barmy. https://t.co/GjLXeOH31x

— Kenny Hemphill (@kennyhemphill) January 4, 2019

One of the things I found when I was writing my book, and talking to a friend (a parent, unlike me) and saying they should be writing it - and they said ‘no, because I’ll just write what I know/do, and you’ll undertake research and be able to give a more balanced view!’

This has some good suggestions:

On a serious note, this piece is actually very interesting on #screentime and #parenting. H/T @JamieJBartlett https://t.co/o7bLgXurGz

— Peter Abbott (@FCOPeterAbbott) January 4, 2019