Article by Mark Dolliver
Source: www.emarketer.com, November 2020
The screen-time wars are over in many households, with parents having surrendered en masse. In a period when large numbers of parents and school kids are stuck at home with one another, this is one battle many parents choose to forego, at least for now.
Many parents feel incapable of doing otherwise. That came across in August–September polling fielded by OnePoll for Smith Micro Software. About seven in 10 parents of school-age kids declared themselves “helpless” to keep screen time in check “since they need to be online for school and their other options for entertainment and socialization are more limited than usual.” That dovetails with a Harris Poll survey in August for NortonLifeLock where nearly seven in 10 parents of 5-to-17s said their kids’ screen time had increased, and 60% felt they “have no choice but to allow it.”