Boys and Men Spend About a Quarter More Time on Screens than Female Peers

How Does This Gender Gap Affect Their Cognitive and Social Development, And What are Its Downstream Effects?

Common Sense Media recently released a new report on screen time for young children. It caught many people’s attention for how early young kids are on screens (40% of 2 year olds have their own tablets?!). But we were also struck by the big gender gap among kids under 9, with boys spending about 24% more time on screens than girls. It was even more shocking to combine this with other data and realize that this gender gap is fairly consistent across age groups, both older kids and adults. (Common Sense Media defines screen time as “time spent watching television and online content, e-reading, and other digital activities content, e-reading, and other digital activities.” To compare with adults, we combined the Bureau of Labor Statistics’ data on time spent “Watching TV” and “Playing games and computer use for leisure.”)

This is somewhat surprising, because people who study media consumption generally say that more women use almost all social media platforms than men, and girls use social media more than boys (about 20% more time per day), the effects of which Jonathan Haidt has written extensively and persuasively about. Part of the confusion is that the terms “online,” “social media,” and “screen time” are often inaccurately used interchangeably.

We know that screen time isn’t solely a negative on its own, but that it also displaces other positive, prosocial activities: an hour with Bluey or Call of Duty is an hour that isn’t being spent learning how to interact with humans in person (or sleeping, which kids are doing less too). Increased screen time is correlated to developmental delay in toddlers and depressive symptoms in adolescents.

Is this gender gap at such an early age a result of nature (boys reach for screens more than girls) or nurture (adults direct them to screens more)? How is this difference in screen time affecting the cognitive and social development of girls and boys differently? Why do males across all ages spend more time on screens than female peers? How does this gap in screen time among older kids and adults interact with boys’ lower academic achievement and less time spent with friends than female peers? And most importantly: what, if anything, should we do about any of it?

We at YMRP don’t know the answers. But as we all grapple with technology’s role in isolating us and reducing our time spent on activities that we know make us happier—including real-life relationships—and what the downstream effects of that are, it’s important to understand and acknowledge that this is impacting men and boys differently than women and girls. And then we need to reflect on what decisions we’re making that are allowing that to happen.