Kara Alaimo is a professor of communication at Fairleigh Dickinson University and advises parents, students and teachers on how to manage screen time. Her book “Over the Influence: Why Social Media Is Toxic for Women and Girls — And How We Can Take It Back” was published in 2024.
You already know experts say not to let your kids keep phones in their bedrooms overnight, but if you’re like most parents, it’s happening anyway.
New research gives parents reason — and a good excuse — to change that.
Kids who use screens in their bedrooms overnight use them more and have more problematic screen use a year later, according to a national survey of nearly 8,000 12- to 14-year-olds published in June in the medical journal Acta Paediatrica.
What’s more, children looking at screens in their bedrooms at night are more likely to be cyberbullied and to cyberbully others, according to a second study published Tuesday in the Journal of Adolescent Health. Both reports drew upon the Adolescent Brain Cognitive Development Study, the biggest national long-term study of children’s health and brain development.
