As a parent, how would you want your child(ren) to ask this?
Sorry if this is badly formulated; I’m really not motivated at all. I wrote this over the course of 9 days. I hope you understand the point of this post!
Up until my parents got divorced, they’ve always been fairly strict—if I do say so myself.
There were rules for how much candy me and my sibling were allowed to take; when we owned tablets—at the age of 9-12—we had a screen time of 1 h; and when I turned 11 I was given a Nokia to primarily call my parents. I was only first given my first ever smartphone at the age of 12, compared to a former friend who has had a smartphone since they were 4 years old.
But ever since my parents divorced and moved away from each other, my phone screen time somehow went up to 6 hours /day (not instantly; over time)—what’s the point of even having screen time at that point?—not to mention, I already didn’t have any screen time on my computer (which I got right before my smartphone).
The thing is, even considering how much time I could spend on a device, this might very well be interpreted as a necessarily good situation compared to other children at this point; considering the fact that I had—and still haven’t—never owned applications such as snapchat, instagram and tiktok. The only social media that was actually a problem was YouTube—and now also Reddit.
I remember that—when the only device I owned was a tablet—I’d ask for more time and my parents would most of the time deny, but this time I would get more time, and ask yet again, until I had finally used 4 h of screen time straight. I INSTANTLY felt super dizzy and almost felt sick.
It is now 1:36 PM, where I live, and I’ve used two devices for a total of more than 3 hours today.
So—after having an insane screen time for way too long, I decided to ask my dad a question, so very strange for a child. I asked my dad if he could implement screen time on my computer.
He surprisingly reasoned against this.
‘But you’re a teenager now; we shouldn’t control you as much’.
This being, to an outside observer—so to speak—an unconventional question for a child to ask, I had not expected that reaction and just kind of walked away.
At least two weeks later I tell my dad I really want a 5 h screen time on my computer and a reduced screen time on my phone to 3 h. He accepted.
A while later I asked my mom for reduced screen time on both devices. Phone: 2.5 h. Computer: 3h on weekdays, 5h during the weekend.
Then I got it down to 2 h or on the phone.
This is where I am at right now. The devices still take up my whole day, and if I somehow manage to use up all my screen time, I just ask for more and they accept.
They simply do not care anymore.
I want to initiate one of those important, serious, uncomfortable conversations where I convince them that they should be against social media, and maybe ban those apps so that I can actually do stuff with my life.
I am a teenager asking my parents to restrict my own screen time because I struggle to regulate it myself.
No, no—I don’t struggle, I can’t. I need help, and I need my parents to be willing as they are currently not; just agreeing.