美国国家公共电台 NPR No Snapchat In The Bedroom? An Online Tool To Manage Kids' Media Use

No Snapchat In The Bedroom? An Online Tool To Manage Kids' Media Use 

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How much time should a child spend watching TV or videos or a phone? What about educational apps? Those are questions that the American Academy of Pediatrics has tried to answer today with its updated guidance on kids and screen time. The academy's old recommendations discouraged any digital media for children under 2 and suggested no more than two hours a day for kids a bit older than that. The new recommendations are more nuanced.

Katherine Hobson has written about this for NPR's health blog Shots. Welcome to the program.

KATHERINE HOBSON, BYLINE²: Thanks. Good to be here.

SIEGEL: And what do pediatricians know about screens and children's development that they didn't know when they made recommendations in 1999?

HOBSON: Well, there's always new research coming out. And remember, it's very difficult to study these technologies because they come out so quickly and are replaced by something else. One, I think, highlight from these is that the ban on digital media or the discouragement of digital media in kids 2 and younger has been amended³, and now they say that really kids who are younger than 18 months really should still not be using this stuff with one notable exception, and that's video chat.

There's no real evidence that Skyping or FaceTiming does anything particularly great or anything particularly bad. But because it's usually a quick thing and involves social interaction and usually involves adult supervision⁴, you don't really need to worry that your kid's brain is rotting if they're waving hi to mom on her business trip at the end of the day, so that's OK.

Kids who are older than that, who are 18 to 24 months, they're still pretty cautious about digital media. They say that if parents want to introduce digital media, there's some very mixed evidence about whether they get a benefit.

But the key seems to be having, first of all, high-quality media, not just some random⁵ cartoon you find online. And the real key is having a parent there. With kids this young, you need to treat this like a book. You need to talk with them about it, relate it to the world. You shouldn't just park your 20-month-old in front of an iPad and leave them there for an hour and figure that they'll sort it out on their own.

SIEGEL: A lot of schoolwork nowadays requires kids to use computers. Do these recommendations take that into account?

HOBSON: They do. They're really talking here about things they're doing for fun outside of schoolwork. But it is interesting, they have kind of done away with this two-hour limit for older kids - 6 and up.

Parents do need to set a time limit and limits on the type of media, but that will really depend on the kid, what they're interested in and your own family values. They say that the priority should be getting enough sleep, getting enough exercise, doing your schoolwork, communicating offline with family and friends.

So they suggest, for example, that you don't have devices in your room, that you unplug them an hour before bed, that you don't use entertainment media while simultaneously⁶ doing homework and that you set aside some times and areas in the house where the whole family - and I think this is important - the whole family, including mom and dad, are not on screens.

SIEGEL: The academy has put online a tool for families to set media guidelines. I gather you tried it for your 4-year-old. How'd it work?

HOBSON: It's just come out, so I haven't had a chance to actually put it into practice, but what I found useful is a way to kind of codify⁷ some of the feelings and values that I've had floating around in my mind. For example, we are pretty much fine with her spending a limited amount of time watching "Barney" reruns on YouTube. We're not OK with other content, so that helps us kind of make lines about what we are and aren't comfortable with.

And we have come around in the last couple of months to being, you know, more strict, and this helped us kind of say exactly how we're going to be more strict - no screens on weekday mornings, limited amount of time that she can spend on a screen after day care, before dinner, using apps and things that we supervise. So those are the things that we're comfortable with, and I think that now we have them written down and can kind of - we're hoping to actually wave it in her face and say it's the rules. It'll be helpful for all of us.

SIEGEL: That's Katherine Hobson, a contributor to NPR's health blog Shots. Thanks for talking with us.

HOBSON: Thanks very much.

1 browser   

n.浏览者

参考例句：

• View edits in a web browser.在浏览器中看编辑的效果。
• I think my browser has a list of shareware links.我想在浏览器中会有一系列的共享软件链接。

2 byline   

n.署名；v.署名

参考例句：

• His byline was absent as well.他的署名也不见了。
• We wish to thank the author of this article which carries no byline.我们要感谢这篇文章的那位没有署名的作者。

3 Amended   

adj. 修正的 动词amend的过去式和过去分词

参考例句：

• He asked to see the amended version. 他要求看修订本。
• He amended his speech by making some additions and deletions. 他对讲稿作了些增删修改。

4 supervision   

n.监督，管理

参考例句：

• The work was done under my supervision.这项工作是在我的监督之下完成的。
• The old man's will was executed under the personal supervision of the lawyer.老人的遗嘱是在律师的亲自监督下执行的。

5 random   

adj.随机的；任意的；n.偶然的(或随便的)行动

参考例句：

• The list is arranged in a random order.名单排列不分先后。
• On random inspection the meat was found to be bad.经抽查，发现肉变质了。

6 simultaneously   

adv.同时发生地，同时进行地

参考例句：

• The radar beam can track a number of targets almost simultaneously.雷达波几乎可以同时追着多个目标。
• The Windows allow a computer user to execute multiple programs simultaneously.Windows允许计算机用户同时运行多个程序。

7 codify   

v.将法律、法规等编成法典

参考例句：

• The noble,Dracon,was asked to codify the laws.贵族德拉古被选为立法者。
• The new government promised to codify the laws.新政府应允要编纂法典。