How Many Hours of Screen Time Teens Should Have, According to a Pediatrician

If you have a tween or teen at home, then the topic of screen time is likely top of mind. How much is too much? Which social media or gaming apps are safe and which ones should be off limits? How do you ensure you raise kids with good self-esteem in a world where likes and follows reign supreme?

The answers are...complicated. But we recently caught up with pediatrician and teen health expert Dr. Hina Talib at an event for the launch of Instagram Teen Accounts, a new account type that automatically applies a set of protections to young users, and we asked her what her recommendation for screen time limits were. And let's just say that her answer surprised us.

“As a pediatrician, we've really started to move away from the concept even of screen time,” Dr. Talib tells us. “We just don't find it particularly helpful anymore because teens, as they move through their day are on their screens for education, to communicate with their parents—parents are the ones that text them the most during a school day, let's be real—and so instead of thinking about minutes for screen time, we actually encourage people to think about the quality of screen time.”

In other words, it matters less how many minutes or hours your teen is spending on a device and more what type of content they're consuming. Think about what they're using the screen for and what the intention was, suggests Dr. Talib, adding that parents should talk to their teen about how it (the YouTube video, the social media app, etc.) made them feel. “Did it help you with your day? Did it serve a function? Did it serve you?” she asks.

So something that makes your teen feel good (say, spending an hour or two messaging friends or watching a gymnastics documentary on Netflix) could be considered a good use of time, whereas something that makes your teen feel bad (like watching 30 minutes of beauty tutorials onTikTok), maybe not so much.

For what it's worth, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has estimated that eight- to 10-year-olds clock in about six hours of screen time per day (on their phones or other devices), 11- to 14-year-olds consume nine hours per day and 15- to 18-year-olds are at the 7.5 hours mark. That's... a lot. In fact, most (all?) parents would probably say that that is too much. Not least because many experts argue that there is a causal link between smartphones and the rise of teen depression and anxiety since 2010.

All of which to say that while it's certainly interesting to hear a health expert state that we don't need to worry so much about exactly how many minutes a day our teens are glued to their devices, it does seem prudent to put some limits in place in addition to thinking about the quality of content.