The US Surgeon General Set New Screen Time Limits. How Do You Stack Up?

Welcome to Parent Pixels, a parenting newsletter filled with practical advice, news, and resources to support you and your kids in the digital age. This week:

• The US Surgeon General releases a major screen time advisory, and the recommended limits might be stricter than what most families follow.
• Pope Leo XIV's first encyclical warns about mobile devices and the risks of the digital age.
• The hidden signs of eating disorders in boys — and why social media is making it worse.

Digital parenting

📱The Pope and the US Surgeon General agree that screens are harmful: A new health advisory from the US Surgeon General highlights the harms of screen use and suggests stricter limits on screen time than most adults probably follow. Health advisories use the best available science to shed light on major public health challenges and suggest possible solutions, such as the Advisory on Social Media and Youth Mental Health (2025). This latest publication supports what you might already suspect: 

• Excessive screen time is linked to poor educational and health outcomes in school-aged children.
• In teenagers, higher screen time is linked to mental health risks like anxiety, depression, and body image concerns, with long-term ramifications that extend beyond childhood.
• Reducing screen time impacts kids on multiple levels: in the classroom (the Advisory specifically addresses the benefits of bell-to-bell phone restrictions) and at home, through improvements in sleep and physical activity.

Of note, the Advisory suggests screen time limits should be: none for children under 18 months old, less than 1 hour per day for children under 6, and 2 hours per day for 6–18-year-olds. If you looked at your screen time numbers after reading that recommendation, we also feel your pain.

The US Surgeon General also calls on tech companies to “provide effective parental controls that are accessible and understandable. The defaults for minors should be set for high privacy, low-data-collection, and age-appropriate content settings that don’t require parental opt-in,” as well as allowing users to opt out of addictive design elements like infinite scroll and auto-play, and giving parents a way to monitor screen use. Big agree. (If you need help setting up screen time limits on your child’s iPhone, save this guide.)

And if your child pushes back on screen time restrictions, maybe this will add extra weight to parental controls: the Pope said so. Pope Leo XIV’s first encyclical letter (an official pastoral letter written by the Pope, which is intended to provide moral guidance or offer reflections on major issues) warns about artificial intelligence and the risks of the digital age, but also addresses mobile devices:

Having a personal mobile device at too early an age and using it without adult supervision can exacerbate young people’s vulnerabilities, foster addiction and expose them to isolation, bullying and cyberbullying, as well as to pressures to share intimate images or sensitive information.

If you aren’t sure where to start with screen time limits, we recommend setting intentional screen time: being mindful of our device use and making deliberate choices about it. Learn more and find out how to model it yourself.

Tech talks

School's out soon, which means more unstructured time — and more time on devices by default. Summer is actually one of the best opportunities to reset your family's relationship with screens. Here are five conversations to get you started:

1. "If you could do one thing this summer that has nothing to do with a screen, what would it be?”
2. "When was the last time you were actually bored? What did you end up doing?"
3. "Do you ever pick up your phone not because you want to look at anything specific, just because it's there? What do you think that's about?"
4. "Is there something you do online that you genuinely love? What is it?"
5. "What if we came up with a few things we actually wanted to do this summer — things that would make it feel like a real summer? What would be on your list?"

What’s catching our eye

🏕️ 60% of 6-year-olds have access to internet-connected tablets, but 58% of kids that age aren’t allowed to play in their own yards unsupervised, according to a new survey from the Institute for Family Studies. At age 11, one in four kids aren’t allowed outside without adult supervision.

🍿 Looking for your next movie night pick? We’re biased, but the ‘90s featured some of the best movies for kids — Common Sense Media compiled this list that doubles as a trip down memory lane.

☀️ What is your favorite summer break memory? Email us at hello@brightcanary.io — we might feature it in our next newsletter.

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