Qustodio team
Experts in digital safety
Leaders in digital safety and wellbeing aim to raise parents’ awareness of technology’s effect on families’ mental and physical health, and help them to take action to unplug and regain some control over their lives on and offline.
- Interest in Digital Wellbeing is on the rise, but digital families still don’t see technology as a top concern – not even in the top 3. ● Digital natives don’t see a distinction between online and offline life.
- Most families (approx. 80%) feel bad about their current relationship with technology.
Today, as part of the National Day of Unplugging, Qustodio released an analysis and data-based look at Digital Wellbeing. The report aims to raise parents’ awareness of technology’s effect on their families mental and physical health reveals more data from study we ran with Ipsos in 2019.
“We were surprised to learn that parents today don’t yet see technology use as a top concern for their families, it’s not even in the top three,” said Manuel Bruscas, Qustodio VP of product and insights. “As experts in Digital Wellbeing,
we know how important it is that parents take responsibility for their family’s online safety and health. That’s why we created this digital wellbeing data snapshot with expert advice, to help make this relatively new concept for most parents more tangible, actionable and achievable.”
“We chose the National Day of Unplugging to release this report because screen time and being able to control how addicted we are to our mobiles is such an important element of Digital Wellbeing,” said Georgie Powell, Qustodio Digital Wellbeing expert. “And, we saw in our report that parents are clearly concerned that their children aren’t being able to use their imaginations as much as they did as kids due to ‘boredom time’ being filled with screen time. In our conversations with pediatricians, we also saw they are concerned about rising rates of obesity due to kids being more sedentary.”
The data in the Digital Wellbeing report pulls from 3 thousand families in three regions, the U.S. the U.K. and Spain, looks at the attitudes of 3 thousand parents with children aged 5-17 in regards to their children’s use of technology and the internet. All those involved in the study used either mobile or tablet devices with an internet connection. We also look at the history of Digital Wellbeing, where it is now, and made some predictions about where we think this issue is heading. In an effort to make the data and information useful and friendly for parents, we close the report with practical advice for families from expert psychologists, pediatricians and industry leaders.
The main insights from the report are:
- Interest in digital wellbeing is on the rise, but digital families still don’t see technology as a top concern – not even in the top 3.
- Digital natives don’t see a distinction between online and offline life.
- 1 in 3 parents consider themselves addicted to their smartphones.
- A typical family member spends on average 3.5 hours connected to tech (screen time) per day.
- Nearly half of parents set time limits.
- Most families (approx. 80%) feel bad about their current relationship with technology.
- Parents are worried their kids will miss out on the tech-free childhood they grew up with.
- Younger parents are more likely to use parental control than older parents.
Source: Qustodio study with Ipsos, 2019.
The main pieces of advice for achieving Digital Wellbeing are:
- Children need to be outside at least the same amount of time they spend in front of screens. Get Vitamin N for nature!
- Turn off screens (yes, this includes TVs) 1 hour before bedtime to improve sleep quality and avoid blue light.
- Keep mobile phones off the dinner table. Resist the temptation of the “digital pacifier”!
- Remember you are a role model. Put down your phone and make eye contact with your child. Their ability to socialize may depend on it!
- Set consistent screen time limits based on your child’s age and maturity or ‘digital resilience’.
- Avoid screen time for children under the age of 2.
- Take 45 minute screen time breaks to protect eye health.
- Write your agreements down in a family contract and sign it together. Put it on the fridge!
Source: doctors, psychologists and technology and digital wellbeing experts.
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