As I scroll through Instagram Reels romanticizing life in the late 1990s and early 2000s — girls gathered around a boombox at a sleepover, kids riding bikes until the streetlights came on and teenagers hanging out at the mall instead of staring at their phones — I’m struck by the irony: I have to browse social media to recall what life felt like before it took over.
Millennials may have been the last generation to grow up with technology instead of growing up inside it. We had family computers, Nintendo 64, DVDs, flip phones and, eventually, iPods, but those tools occupied a place in our lives rather than becoming the center of them.
Technology made our lives easier. It just hadn’t become our childhood.
Interim U.S. Surgeon General Dr. Stephanie Haridopolos recently warned that early and excessive screen time in young children can delay attention, memory and language development. Parents, she noted, are now competing with screens for their children’s attention.
Her “5 Ds” framework — Discuss expectations, Do by modeling healthy behavior, Divert children toward other activities, Disconnect for screen-free time and Delay access to devices — offers parents a practical roadmap for reducing excessive screen time and helping children develop healthier habits.
Haridopolos is right to sound the alarm. Excessive screen time can affect how children think, learn and develop. That’s reason enough to pay attention. Her warning is also an important reminder that childhood is about more than cognitive development.
That’s why reducing excessive screen time isn’t just about protecting developing minds. It’s about ensuring screens never replace the experiences that shape childhood.
Screens are not inherently bad. They help us work, communicate and learn, and they aren’t going away. But when they become children’s primary source of entertainment, companionship and stimulation, they begin replacing the experiences that help them grow.
When we were bored, we looked for people, not screens.
I remember summer mornings beginning with a knock on the front door from my neighbors, Krista and Courtney, asking my mom, “Can she come out?” The rest of the day usually took care of itself.
We rode bikes, climbed trees, built forts and played until the streetlights came on. We didn’t need entertainment delivered to us. We created it. Boredom wasn’t something to escape. It became imagination, curiosity and adventure.
Even as teenagers, the memories we still laugh about came from living life, not documenting it. My friends and I once printed MapQuest directions to a New Found Glory concert and somehow ended up three hours off course. We were frustrated, argued over whose directions were wrong and thought we’d never get there. Today, a navigation app would correct the mistake within seconds. Back then, getting lost became part of the adventure, and one of the stories we still laugh about.
Today’s childhood often looks very different. Concerts disappear behind a sea of glowing phones because we’ve been conditioned to believe that if there aren’t pictures, it didn’t happen. Fireworks are watched through tiny screens as people record videos almost no one will ever watch again. Some of our greatest memories exist only in our minds because we were fully present when they happened.
Social media has also turned comparison into a daily part of childhood. Awkward childhood moments now live online forever. Self-worth is increasingly measured in likes, views and follower counts instead of being built through real-life relationships and experiences. What was once a pressure largely confined to celebrities and public figures now follows nearly every child in America through the device they carry in their pocket.
As a mother of three, I am grateful for technology that makes parenting safer, easier and more convenient.
But I also worry about what it quietly steals.
I want my children to climb trees and enjoy the moment without stopping to capture the perfect photo. I don’t want them to be spectators of life. I want them to be participants in it.
I don’t want them spending their childhood watching other children play with toys on a screen when they could be outside creating adventures of their own. I want them to build friendships face-to-face, discover who they are without comparing themselves to everyone else online, learn how to work through uncomfortable conversations and become comfortable simply being present with other people. I want them to have stories they laugh about years from now because they lived them, not because they posted them.
We don’t need to reject technology.
We simply need to put it back in its proper place.
It begins with screen-free dinners, device-free car rides and family time that isn’t interrupted by notifications. It means modeling presence instead of merely demanding it from our children. It means allowing boredom to become creativity and delaying personal devices until children have had time to develop an identity rooted in real-life experiences instead of digital validation.
Haridopolos is right to urge parents to protect their children’s developing brains by reducing excessive screen time. We should take that advice seriously.
But we should also recognize what excessive screen time is replacing. Childhood is where we discover who we are, learn how to relate to other people and create the memories that stay with us for a lifetime. Those experiences cannot be downloaded or taught by an algorithm.
Our children deserve more than endless content. They deserve connection. They deserve meaningful relationships. And above all, they deserve a childhood they actually lived, not one they merely recorded.
