> bad choices
As one of them, no, not really.
I looked hard into the question but all the litterature I got was a mix of "I'll give you candy if you do X" experiments that beg the obvious "what if the kid doesn't want the candy for whatever reason ?", including their mood while doing the experiment. And this goes on for every detail of the experiments.
And the rest was philosophical and hypothetical "it's not like the olden days" style of conservatism, mixed with "this time it's different" to try to barrage criticism.
Testing on kids is just hard, so coming up with good experiments is in itself a PITA. I wish people would recognize that and take the research with shovels of salt (and I don't see misleading research as better than nothing).
Buying a kindle for my kid has been a decision that still pays dividends, I would have kicked myself if I refused it on social pressure.
> Buying a kindle for my kid has been a decision that still pays dividends
Fair enough. I guess ignoring large swathes of industry research and government warnings must be a good tradeoff for an easier life.
My issue is the quality of the research. IMHO not by fault of the researcher, but because of the subject itself.
The first result that isn't a guideline or call to action when I search "preschool children screen time research"
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S074937972...
On the recruitment:
> Note: Eligible families were recruited primarily through paid social media advertisement (83%) as well as other online sources (6%) and word-of-mouth/other (11%).
So most of this experiment was done with families who click ads on Facebook/Instagram. The results are relevant for that specific public, but tougher to expand to other families and environments.
That's one specific study, but I really read a lot, and this kind of bias is common. Perhaps because they need families that are stressed about screen time in the first place ?
Would you really compare a Kindle to a full fledged tablet with endless video and addictive games? I think you are being hard on yourself.
Kindles were the only devices that had a fully locked on ecosystem, yet no device lockin on the parent side (no need to keep an up to date iPhone just for the parental controls for instance)
Nowadays I think I wouldn't mind audio and video, especially audiobooks and channels like those on Nebula. YouTube is a cesspool while also hosting the most interesting content, running something like Newpipe on a kid's tablet with specific channels locked on would also interesting IMHO.
> addictive games
The main issue for me is the lack of management options. ScreenTime is half-assed, what we have on Nintendo's Switch is a bit better, I'd actually spend time to deal with all the settings and rule system if it was available in a very granular way. We're already spending the same amount looking after other stuff.