Screen time, the fight for kids’ attention

Jenny Radesky, is associate professor of Pediatrics and Director of the Division of Developmental Behavioral Pediatrics at the University of Michigan Medical School. Her clinical work focuses on children with autism, ADHD, and learning disabilities, while her research lab examines how young children and parents use mobile and interactive technology, parent-child relationships, and child self-regulation.

Radesky joins the Michigan Minds podcast to discuss the hidden design forces that make modern technology difficult for families to manage, the limits of classroom phone bans, and what parents can actually do to reclaim summer. She also explores why she sees the struggle over screen time not as a parenting failure, but as a systemic problem—and what it would take for tech companies to change.

How hard is it to restrict what your child sees on his or her device?

It depends on if you have been honest about the child's age on their device. And here are a couple of ways that can be difficult. Sometimes devices are shared between different family members and they just have the account under the parent. That device might not default to child safety settings.

Another thing about accuracy and honesty of age is I have asked so many of my patients, how old did you say you were when you started that TikTok account? They will be like, I have no idea. I started it five years ago. I probably said I was 25. One kid told me, he always says he is 65 or something.