We’ve all seen it happen. You’re standing in line at the grocery store, perusing the latest Us Weekly and thinking about buying a pack of gum, when here comes the 21st-century mom, basket full of kale and kombucha, pushing a stroller with a little one in front, drooling onto the screen of his mom’s iPhone. Maybe he’s playing Timmy Tickle or Move the Turtle or, most likely, Angry Birds*. If the mom is really cool, she’ll have a second iPhone that she’s using to check her email, text her girlfriends or, most likely, play Angry Birds. And you have to wonder: What ever happened to talking to your child?That’s so 20th-century. A new study commissioned by the mobile chip manufacturer Qualcomm shows that the majority of parents with kids under the age of 13 use their smartphones to shut their kids up. This is perhaps less relevant in the bustling grocery store setting than it is in coach section of the redeye flight from LAX to JFK. Aside from the 53 percent of parents who said they use the phone to calm their children, 44 percent said that the devices were equally as good as television. (Except obviously better since they’re the size of a candy bar and can be taken anywhere.) Perhaps the more startling statistic is that 25 percent of these parents have bought their kids smartphones or tablets of their own. And 22 percent of these parents say their child had lost or damaged their smartphone while using it.It’s tempting to write off these smartphone-wielding parents as lazy if not a little bit neglectful. Why distract your kid with a touchscreen when you could maybe read a book together or put together a puzzle or something. But some convince themselves, perhaps correctly, that screen time is good for their kids. "I'll lie to myself that these are skill builders,'" said Keith Lender, the father of a 3-year-old named Jaden and a 1-year-old named Dylan for whom he’d downloaded dozens of apps, told The New York Times last year. "No, I'm not lying," he said, correcting himself. "Jaden's really learning hand-eye coordination from the golf game, and it beats the hell out of sitting and watching television."Further research suggests, however, that this is just a fantasy — at least for the youngest children anyways. The American Academy of Pediatrics determined in a study last year that children under the age of 8 are spending more time in front of screens than ever before. For now, it’s hard to say what exactly the effects may be, but the Academy has been saying for about a decade that screen time offers no benefits to kids under the age of 2. The Times talked to one parent who first downloaded an app for his son, Alexander, when he was just eight-months-old. It didn’t exactly herald in a breakthrough in the child’s development.It was a free app a friend showed me, doodle something, where the screen is black, but when you move your finger across the screen it changes colors," said the parent. "Alex thought it was cool for a few seconds, then he tried to put it in his mouth." Just like a real pacifier!* Small children suck at Angry Birds, by they way. If you’re a fan of the game, it’s awful to watch. They just launch the things into oblivion paying no mind to the green pigs or the most fragile part of the structure holding them up. It’s just awful!
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