7 Reasons Why Your Child Needs a Screen Time App

Do your shouts about turning off the phone and return to the school assignments fall on deaf ears of your child? Use screen time apps to let your child grow up as a healthy, happy, and secure adult.

Screens, screens, everywhere! Adults and children alike are using screen-based media in excess in the form of smartphones, tablets, computers, televisions, and the list is long.

Parents often unnecessarily revel in their child’s ability to use screens at a very young age. Even most of their classrooms are equipped with tablets and smartboards.

Excessive screen use in teenagers knocks their rhythms off-balance, affecting a child’s academic scores as well as language and math abilities. Child monitoring apps play a significant role in helping them regain balance. First, let us understand the two types of screen-time – active and passive.

What is active/productive screen time?

• Active screen time involves emotional, intellectual, or physical engagement in the process of device usage.
• Productive activities: making worthwhile YouTube videos, playing educational games, coding a website, designing digital space.
• Active screen time results in developing new skills in a child, such as communication, collaboration, and persistence.

What is passive screen time?

• A child does not progress further when they passively consume digital content without applying thought, creativity or interaction.
• Passive activities: scrolling through social media, watching videos on YouTube, browsing the internet aimlessly, playing repetitive games and binge-watching shows.

Screens are not the problem

Dr. Juana Willumsen, of the World Health Organization, had said that one could not deny that screens are part of the modern era, what matters is how we interact.

Technology is a vehicle allowing some incredible developments, from distribution of information to state-of-the-art medical procedures and space exploration too. Let us understand the advantages and disadvantages of screens.

• Pros of screen time

1. It provides an opportunity to keep in touch with friends and family across the globe.
2. Some of the apps can motivate the kids to adopt healthy behavior by promoting regular exercise, healthier food choices, and better sleep.
3. Certain screen activities allow kids to learn new information in engaging ways.

• Cons of screen time

1. Screens might delay language development among younger children.
2. Creative activities – such as drawing and crafting, building blocks, playing with playdough, and reading the books – take a backseat unfortunately in a child’s life.
3. Social skills development gets compromised, making children unable to communicate and behave appropriately during social gatherings.

It is necessary to decide at what age a child should get a cell phone.

 A screen time app allows parents to manage their child’s screen time to help them sail safely through the digital world.

7 reasons why your child needs a screen time app

1)   Improves child’s health

Being in front of the screens most of the time leads to a sedentary lifestyle, lowering the fitness levels of your child. When a child is frequently looking down to check their phones, they can develop a ‘text neck,’ – an uncomfortable condition involving pain and tightness in the upper back and shoulders.

Staring at screens invariably affects the vision, but by restricting the screen time, that problem can be resolved. The children can divert their attention to physical tasks, as well. 

It is equally essential for a parent to understand how to assure their children that they are more important than the phone.

2)   Facilitates optimum brain function

Your child’s brain is still developing, so they might have issues with impulse control and difficulty in self-regulating their screen time. Viewing screens while multitasking makes it harder for children to focus on one thing.

They can’t have a conversation with friends, dinner with the family, or homework without being distracted by the phone. According to research, the kids using screens for more than 7 hours per day have premature thinning of the cortex.

3)   Maintains a body clock

The body clock is an internal clock that keeps track of time and allows the body to have a proper routine, making it anticipating day-to-day tasks.

Research reveals that the blue light emitted from smartphones suppresses the body’s natural production of the sleep hormone – melatonin. So, physicians recommend avoiding screens at least an hour before going to bed.

With a screen time control app, you can lock your child’s phone at night, making them go to bed at a regular time daily, having a perfect body clock as a result.

4)   Enhances social and communication skill

When a child starts frequenting social media regularly in excess, they start losing touch with real friends. After some time, they find it difficult to differentiate between ‘reel’ and ‘real’ ones.

A child, who is continuously engaged on the phone, do not like social gatherings anymore. They start living in a world of their own, where only digital friends are allowed to enter.  

With screen time apps, they enjoy meeting people in real and naturally get inclined to build stronger relationships.  

5)   Regulates emotional quotient

Every parent should try to understand how smartphones affect a child’s psychology and must take precautionary measures accordingly.

Teenagers are too vulnerable to realize that what people share on social media just gives an appearance of being glossy at the outer surface. It does not take long for them to fall into the pit of depression, lower self-esteem, eating disorders, and many such vices.

With screen time monitoring apps, a child does not have enough time on screens to ponder over unnecessary comparisons or futile emotions.  

6)   Develops the ability to plan ahead

Research shows that children who spend a lot of time in front of screens have a loss of brain volume in their frontal lobes, in turn losing the ability to do a lot of things, including the capability to plan ahead.

To get through the routine we need to plan everything from what to prepare for a meal to where to travel in the vacation.

To layout a plan of action, one needs to have a healthy frontal cortex and to have it intact, a child must have a kid monitoring app installed on a phone.

7)   Have positive effects on education

Despite having many educational apps, it’s gaming apps and social media, where a child likes to spend his time. Constant notifications do not allow them to give their best performance in studies.

They start blaming themselves and have a depression relapse, and the vicious circle continues. By installing a child monitoring app, parents can set limitations on the time when they will be allowed to use the apps.

Now that you know why restricting the screen time is necessary for your child’s development, you should know how to control your child’s internet access. (21- How to Control a Child’s Internet Access with Parental Controls) The Parental control app is an amazing innovation working as ‘eyes and ears’ of parents to keep track of their precious ones’ digital activities.

How Bit Guardian Parental Control can help to limit screen time

Bit Guardian Parental Control is a child monitoring app with a wide range of features for parents. Apart from allowing you to restrict your children’s screen time and set their schedule, the app offers you other helpful functions as follows.

•       Parents can block inappropriate apps and unknown calls on a kid’s phone with the help of the app.
•       Bit Guardian allows you to create a geofence, virtual boundary around your child.
•       A child can send a panic alert to the parent in case of an emergency with an SOS button and get rescued.
•       In case your child’s phone gets lost or stolen, you can locate the device, and in turn, your child.

An eminent Greek philosopher Plato has said, “Do not train children to learn by force and harshness, but direct them to it by what amuses their minds.” 

Always be attentive to your child’s needs, explain the online safety hazards, such as cyberbullying, sexting, and internet predators. Invest in Bit Guardian, a wonderful parental control app for Android, and you will surely pat your back for being a smart parent!