How much screen time is harmful to a child's brain? Does 'high stimulation' screen time cause more tantrums than 'low stimulation' screen time? What screen time is best, and worst, for a child’s language development? For parents of young children, this kind of talk is ubiquitous—it is in news headlines and social media content, arguments with partners and conversations with friends.
Scholars have argued that the catch-all concept of ‘screen time’ limits discussions about children's digital media use: it assumes all screen use is alike and is associated with an overwhelming focus on harm. Yet talk about 'screen time' dominates everyday culture. Why has this discourse proven so persistent and powerful?
Rather than debating the impacts of children's media use or the validity of ‘screen time’ as a term, this book steps further back to investigate discourse about screen time and early childhood as a cultural phenomenon in itself. It examines how dominant ideals and narratives about ‘good’ parenting shape the way screen time is defined and made to matter.
Drawing on diverse forms of data, including social media analysis, news discourse, and interviews with parents, this book maps the key narratives about screen time that saturate parents’ everyday lives. It unpacks the powerful cultural norms around parenting that have enabled these narratives to become ‘common sense’, and explores how parents grapple with and navigate these narratives in ways that are often complex and contradictory. In doing so, the book offers insights into why discussions of screen time have endured and take their current form, the pressures and challenges that parents experience as a result, and how researchers can most meaningfully intervene. This book will be of interest to scholars and students from Media and Communication, Sociology, Cultural Studies, and Education, as well as anyone seeking robust analysis of children, families, and technology.
Table of Contents:
1. Introduction 2. Just a moral panic? 3. Intensive parenting culture 4. Screen harms 5. Good parenting vs the empty time of screens 6. The right kind of screen time 7. Producers of screen time discourse 8. The comfort and complexity of judging others 9. Conclusion: What to make of screen time discourse. Appendix: Research Methods
About the Author :
Kate Mannell is a Research Fellow at Deakin University in the ARC Centre of Excellence for the Digital Child. Her research focuses on everyday digital media use, with a particular focus on families and youth, and how people manage challenging or unwanted elements of technology. She has recently published research in New Media & Society, Journal of Children and Media, and Social Media + Society and her research has been covered by media outlets including The Atlantic and The Guardian.
Review :
In her beautifully written book, Kate Mannell shows how the idea of screen time has become both the problem but also, seemingly, the “solution” for parents, researchers and the media, as they grapple with the mounting pressures of parenting in a digital age.
Prof. Sonia Livingstone, LSE and author of Parenting for a Digital Future: How hopes and fears about technology shape children’s lives.
This is a fascinating and timely book – Mannell expertly unpacks why we find it so hard to talk about tech use and raising children well, and why the discourse around ‘screen time’ can put so much pressure on parents. Essential reading for researchers, parents and policymakers alike.
Prof. Pete Etchells, Professor of Psychology and Science Communication, Bath Spa University and author of Unlocked: The Real Science of Screen Time (and How to Spend it Better).
Mannell’s book offers an acute and rigorous deconstruction of the screen time discourse, showing that if we aim to shift the conversation around children’s digital media use beyond moral panics and parental blame, we need to rethink the roles and responsibilities assigned to parents within contemporary intensive parenting culture.
Prof. Giovanna Mascheroni, Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore
A compelling and timely book that unpacks the discursive matrix of screen time embedded in contemporary parenting. Mannell examines key cultural tensions of technology use and offers constructive ways forward. Recommended to anyone interested in childhoods, the uncertainty of parenting and the stronghold these discourses have in our societies.
Prof. Ola Erstad, Faculty of Education Sciences, University of Oslo
