Between March 2020 and June 2022, families in Toronto experienced . Ontario schools closed for in-person , longer than , and government . Parents were left to figure out how to manage work, child care and virtual school.

We interviewed mothers of young children to reflect on how they managed their children’s screen media practices during this tumultuous time.

Our study is part of a larger collaborative research study, with researchers in , the United States, China, Colombia, South Korea and the United Kingdom.

 consumption and production can .

Our interviews suggest there is never-ending pressure on mothers to negotiate kids’ technology use. Mothers need support managing these new realities.

Constant re-negotiation of media use

Between January and July 2022, we interviewed 15 mothers in the Greater Toronto Area over Zoom. We recruited parents and caregivers through 10 neighbourhood parenting groups on Facebook. Only mothers responded. Participants had children between the ages of four to 12, with people based in downtown and midtown Toronto and North 91ŃÇÉ«, as well as Burlington and Niagara.

All mothers were in two-parent families, although one was solo parenting with the other parent overseas. Most were middle class. When asked to self-identify racial and ethnic backgrounds of both parents, a range of answers included southeast Asian, Chinese, Jewish, white, Chinese Canadian, Scottish, “born in India now Canadian” and Canadian.

Mothers shared that for most of the pandemic, they were reassessing and re-negotiating their children’s technology use. Negotiations were focused on screen time and home spaces where children used technology.

These negotiations and decisions were loaded with moral implications. They were also refracted through families’ values and practices, mixed with anxieties about children as future adults — and nostalgia for mothers’ own childhoods in less technologically complex times.

Balancing time

Mothers’ reflections on screen time .

For example, mothers constructed some screen time as “good” if it involved skill-building, educational opportunities, communication with friends or family or was a family activity (like watching movies or playing with video consoles or online games together).

Mothers positioned video games played alone or with peers as more concerning. They worried about isolation and addiction. Families adopted strategies for monitoring screen time by using timers, scheduling screen time and limiting children’s access to WiFi or devices.

Guilt for letting someone down

Several mothers cited  around screen time, and many felt that these guidelines placed immense pressure and expectations on them as parents during the pandemic. While they cited these guidelines as ideal, following them was more complicated.

One mother stated: “I’m pretty sure we’ve broken all those rules.” She described parenting during the pandemic as “an impossible balance” of being in a “survival mode” where sometimes “the TV is [the] parent now, because I have to get work done so that I can, you know, generate an income.”

This increased presence of technology in the home and her children’s increased screen time was connected to “feelings of guilt” of either letting her kids down by not being able to interact with them, or letting work down by “ignoring tasks.”

Balancing space

It was not just that time on screens was an “impossible balance” but which screens were being used, where and for what (leisure or school). Families’ domestic spaces changed drastically with the lockdowns.

Open-concept houses made it easier to see what kids were doing with technology for leisure, but was distracting when kids and parents were trying to work and learn from home.

Parents who let their kids use the technology in the bedrooms found this allowed more focus for both the kids during school time and parents during the workday. However, this arrangement made it difficult to know what children were really doing online.

It took a toll

For some, reliable WiFi access wasn’t available in all spaces in the home, and  meant the digital encroached into spaces that parents had previously designated as tech free.

With online school, many mothers found they had to sit near their children to keep them focused and help with the technology. This was even more challenging for those who had two or more young children in school.

One mother described supporting two children online as constantly “ping ponging” between them. Trying to work from home while supporting children took a toll. Many mothers described feeling frustrated as short lockdowns morphed into long months with no sense of returning to normal.

Some parents were able to transcend the school-home binary in a way that they were never able to before. These parents who closely supervised and supported their children with online school had a much greater sense of classroom dynamics between teachers, students and the curriculum.

Tech use changed a lot for families

As the pandemic wore on, decisions and negotiations around screen time and where that screen time happened in the home were ongoing, and perhaps impossible to get completely “right.”

Technology use changed a lot for families during the pandemic. . Instead of one family computer for example, with online school, each child had access to their own device. This affected how mothers managed children’s and families’ time and space.

Mothers’ decisions around children’s screen media use are wrapped in worries about being a “good parent,” concerns around children’s childhood and futures and work-from-home realities.

There is no returning to the pre-pandemic realities of tech in the home. Many kids have new devices, spaces to use those devices — and expectations to use technology for activities that previously were offline.

Must accept shared responsibility

It’s not enough to think our society can manage families’ changed home tech use and the burden of responsibility it brings to mothers just by having medical professionals offer screen time guidelines. One-size-fits-all solutions like .

We need broader discussions that include the responsibilities of  and educational technology companies,  and , to name a few, to support families in navigating these new realities.

Co-written by 91ŃÇÉ« Associate Professor Natalie Coulter and PhD student Lindsay C. Sheppard of the Faculty of Liberal Arts and Professional Studies

This article is republished from .

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91ŃÇÉ« expert explains how youths can shift to more engaging online activities

TORONTO, May 5, 2020 – Young people are playing endless video games and binge-watching TV shows during the COVID-19 shutdown, but that doesn’t mean parents should be policing their screen time usage too much, says Faculty of Education Professor .

The global pandemic has left Ontario’s elementary and high schools closed, families at home in quarantine and students getting a double-dose of screen time – leisure time online plus teacher-led online learning, which began one month ago tomorrow.

Tilleczek, an expert on youths’ social development and well-being, says it’s usually recommended that parents set limits on screen time for young people up to 18 years old, but these are not normal times.

“Teens and young people in their 20s are stuck at home feeling like they’ve lost their whole life, while their parents are trying to cope with all the stresses of working from home and taking care of them,” says Tilleczek, who is Canada Research Chair in Young Lives, Education & Global Good. “Parents need to know that their kids’ increased screen time is not solely their responsibility. Young people need to take some responsibility too.”

She is encouraging parents to start conversations with their kids to find out what they’re actually doing online and what online platforms they’re using.

“Parents need to figure out if what they’re doing online is active, creative, educative or is it just digital junk,” says Tilleczek. “Talk to them about whether what they’re seeing online is helping them socially, physically or emotionally. If the answer is no, then support them in  finding different activities that will do that.”

But the worst thing parents can do is to snatch their phones or walk over to the video game console and shut it off.

“For parents going into this with a mindset that they’re going to control the situation and they know better, it will fall flat,” says Tilleczek, who is founder and director of the and for three decades has been examining the social lives of young people.

A young person who is online 24-7, getting inadequate sleep, missing frequent meals, and not going outside for fresh air or exercise, may have a serious addiction issue, she said.

But even those without a serious addiction will find it difficult to disconnect entirely from devices, which offer endless online entertainment. Instead, Tilleczek suggests that we begin by encouraging them to transition from passive screen time to more active screen time like going from binge-watching movies to playing video games remotely with friends. the benefits of active screen time are more learning, more human engagement, and more creativity.

Tilleczek is available to explain how parents can talk to young people about screen time and can share tips for switching to more active online time, including:

• Create choreographed TikTok videos as a family
• Write an online blog, journal or story about being in quarantine
• Play video games online with friends and family using the talk feature
• Video chat with loved ones and use the filters to make it fun
• Play educational online games, even ones that allow you to play with others

91ŃÇÉ« champions new ways of thinking that drive teaching and research excellence. Our students receive the education they need to create big ideas that make an impact on the world. Meaningful and sometimes unexpected careers result from cross-disciplinary programming, innovative course design and diverse experiential learning opportunities. 91ŃÇÉ« students and graduates push limits, achieve goals and find solutions to the world’s most pressing social challenges, empowered by a strong community that opens minds. 91ŃÇÉ« U is an internationally recognized research university – our 11 faculties and 25 research centres have partnerships with 200+ leading universities worldwide. Located in Toronto, 91ŃÇÉ« is the third largest university in Canada, with a strong community of 53,000 students, 7,000 faculty and administrative staff, and more than 300,000 alumni.

91ŃÇÉ« U's fully bilingual Glendon Campus is home to Southern Ontario's Centre of Excellence for French Language and Bilingual Postsecondary Education.

Media Contact: Vanessa Thompson, 91ŃÇÉ« Media Relations, 647-654-9452, vthomps@yorku.ca

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