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By Anne Collier

Screentime infographic

By Heather Hopp-Bruce, Boston Globe

Don’t believe everything you read about “screentime.” It’s rarely helpful – especially if presented as an undifferentiated mass of digital activity that just needs to be limited. That blunt-instrument approach is not helpful to parents. This very visual commentary from graphic designer and blogger Heather Hopp-Bruce in the Boston Globe is a refreshing departure from most messages about children’s screentime. It includes this beautiful infographic (click on my screenshot for the legible original) that illustrates three categories of screentime – passive, creative and interactive – with lots of examples of each.

All of these types of on-screen activity can be useful and good, often rich with learning. What determines value for our children, on-screen just as off-screen, is individual, situational (having to do with timing, from time of day to time of life) and contextual (home, school and digital environments).

The headline on Hopp-Bruce’s page is “How best to prepare kids for the digital world.” Certainly that doesn’t happen only on screens, I’m sure she’s saying too. But just as certainly some of it needs to now. Media Literacy 101 for us parents.


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