{
 "title": "How to reduce screen time: 1 in 5 kids ages 6–11 now spend 4+ hours a day on screens",
 "description": "How to reduce screen time for kids, with data: about 1 in 5 US children ages 6–11 had 4+ hours of weekday screen use outside schoolwork in 2024.",
 "url": "https://raisingstoics.com/research/data/kids-screen-time-4-hours",
 "question": "\"On most weekdays, about how much time does this child usually spend in front of a TV, computer, cellphone or other electronic device…\" — not including schoolwork. Answers: less than 1 hour, 1 hour, 2 hours, 3 hours, or 4 or more hours.",
 "measure": "Share of children with 4+ hours a day on screens, % (parent report)",
 "unit": "percent",
 "source": {
  "short": "NSCH · HRSA and CAHMI",
  "name": "Child and Adolescent Health Measurement Initiative, National Survey of Children's Health (NSCH) data query 2022–2024: time spent in front of a TV, computer, cellphone or other electronic device, not including schoolwork, on most weekdays. Data Resource Center for Child and Adolescent Health, supported by HRSA, Maternal and Child Health Bureau",
  "url": "https://www.childhealthdata.org/browse/survey/results?q=12603&r=1&g=1250",
  "license": "Survey data: HRSA Maternal and Child Health Bureau, collected by the U.S. Census Bureau (public, U.S. Government); query results courtesy of CAHMI, childhealthdata.org",
  "licenseUrl": "https://mchb.hrsa.gov/data/national-surveys",
  "question": "\"On most weekdays, about how much time does this child usually spend in front of a TV, computer, cellphone or other electronic device…\" — not including schoolwork. Answers: less than 1 hour, 1 hour, 2 hours, 3 hours, or 4 or more hours."
 },
 "license": "Survey data: HRSA Maternal and Child Health Bureau, collected by the U.S. Census Bureau (public, U.S. Government); query results courtesy of CAHMI, childhealthdata.org",
 "method": "Percentages and 95% confidence intervals as published in the Data Resource Center's NSCH query for 2022 and later, not recalculated. The chart shows 2022–2024 only: the Data Resource Center notes that its archived 2016–2021 estimates are not comparable with 2022 and later because of weighting and imputation changes in the Census Bureau's public use files. The archived 2018–2021 estimates, which use the same question wording, are in a separate CSV for reference; in 2016–2017 the survey asked two separate questions (TV and video games, and computers and phones). Population estimates for 2024 are from the same tables. Other surveys in the text (Common Sense Media 2025, Pew Research Center 2025) are cited as published and not included in the data files.",
 "takeaways": [
  "In 2024, 19.9% of children ages 6–11 were reported to spend four or more hours on screens on most weekdays, excluding schoolwork — about one in five, roughly 4.7 million children. The share was 18.3% in 2022 and 17.3% in 2023. The 95% confidence intervals for 2023 (16.1–18.5%) and 2024 (18.7–21.3%) do not overlap, which suggests the increase is unlikely to reflect sampling variation alone.",
  "For children ages 0–5, the percentage was 7.9% in 2022, 8.2% in 2023, and 7.6% in 2024.",
  "At the other end, 36.0% of children under 6 spent less than an hour a day on screens in 2024, up from 32.1% in 2022. Among children ages 6–11, it was 10.8% in 2024 (9.4% in 2022).",
  "Earlier NSCH estimates for 2018–2021, in the archived data, suggest that the share of children ages 6–11 with four or more hours was highest in 2020, the first pandemic year. The Data Resource Center warns that these archived estimates are not comparable with 2022 and later because of changes in weighting and imputation, so they are not shown on the chart.",
  "The question excludes schoolwork and covers most weekdays, not weekends. It's a parent's estimate, not a measured figure."
 ],
 "series": [
  {
   "name": "0-5 years",
   "points": [
    {
     "period": 2022,
     "value": 7.9,
     "ci95_low": 7.1,
     "ci95_high": 8.8
    },
    {
     "period": 2023,
     "value": 8.2,
     "ci95_low": 7.2,
     "ci95_high": 9.2
    },
    {
     "period": 2024,
     "value": 7.6,
     "ci95_low": 6.7,
     "ci95_high": 8.7
    }
   ]
  },
  {
   "name": "6-11 years",
   "points": [
    {
     "period": 2022,
     "value": 18.3,
     "ci95_low": 17.1,
     "ci95_high": 19.6
    },
    {
     "period": 2023,
     "value": 17.3,
     "ci95_low": 16.1,
     "ci95_high": 18.5
    },
    {
     "period": 2024,
     "value": 19.9,
     "ci95_low": 18.7,
     "ci95_high": 21.3
    }
   ]
  }
 ],
 "csv": "https://raisingstoics.com/research/data/kids-screen-time-4-hours.csv",
 "chart_embed": "https://raisingstoics.com/research/embed/kids-screen-time-4-hours",
 "image": "https://raisingstoics.com/research/og/kids-screen-time-4-hours.png",
 "credit": "Raising Stoics (raisingstoics.com)"
}