Sure, I suspect it would be hard because there’s quite a bit of social pressure at school and in the neighborhood - more or less all kids are hooked on screens - and because my experience with trying to limit screen time is that it takes a lot more parenting effort, we have to actively stay on top of it since there are screens in the house, we have to actively provide constructive alternatives and more frequently check on them.

There’s an obvious implication about parenting being more difficult with screens excluded - that using screens is potentially somewhat lazy. As a parent, I think I have been lazy and allowed iPhones and Playstations to keep the kids occupied and let me work on side projects. Road trips with devices is Nirvana compared to not having them; the kids fight for hours without, and it’s silence when they have games.

I didn’t have a screen to myself when I was growing up either, until I camped on the family IBM PCjr as a teenager. This generation just has it quite different than we did, which in a way makes it harder to evaluate what we should do as parents. That said, sitting in front of the TV was something we would do as kids, and also something the adults were warning against.

One way to consider this is to think about whether we adults can go without screen time. I find it pretty hard myself, much harder than it used to be. Of course kids are a different case, but as parents we’re setting an example, and we also have to realize how much of life went online in the last 20 years. It might be harmful to prevent kids from going online entirely. On the other hand, there seems to be an emerging global consensus that considerable limits for kids is healthy and necessary.