Basic Education Minister Siviwe Gwarube told Parliament this week that the Department is developing national advisory guidelines on screen time for children aged 2 to 6, in a bid to protect the development of language, attention, memory and social skills.

International research has shown that prolonged, non-educational screen exposure is linked to delays in language, reading cognition and fine motor control.

Commenting on the topic, the Managing Director of Sesame Workshop International South Africa, Dr Onyinye Nwaneri, says parents and caregivers should be asking what screen time is being used for, not just how much screen time is being used.

She says reducing the conversation to “how much screen time” oversimplifies the issue.

“An hour spent alone, passively watching mindless videos is one thing, but an hour spent video-calling a parent who is away for work is something else entirely. So is an hour spent engaging with age-appropriate content in a familiar language, with an adult nearby to discuss it with and help connect it to real life. These are very different screen time experiences, even though the stopwatch says the same thing in all three cases.”

Nwaneri says simply imposing a time limit on children’s screen time is not enough on its own.

The more useful question is whether screen use is helping or hurting the overall balance of a child’s day. To answer that, adults need to look beyond minutes and pay closer attention to quality, context, and what screen use may be replacing.

She says this broader lens is especially important in South Africa, where families are navigating very different realities from many of their Global North counterparts.

“In many homes here, a shared phone is the only device the family has, and every minute of use is informed by data costs. In others, children may spend longer on screens because caregivers are juggling work and household responsibilities, or because there are fewer safe places to play outside. In these instances, more screen time doesn’t make the parents careless; it just makes careful assessment more important.”

Nwaneri suggests that a healthier way to approach screen use in South Africa is to start with a few practical questions:

• What is the child doing on the screen?
• Who are they with?
• How do they feel before and after?
• What might screen time be replacing?
• Can they move away from the device without major distress?
• Does the screen use fit with the family’s values and daily realities?

Nwaneri argues these questions change the focus from “how long?” to “how healthy?”, shifting the conversation away from rigid limits towards co-engagement.

“When adults are present, even some of the time, screens can become tools for connection and learning rather than simply a way to keep children occupied. A song can turn into a game, a story can open up a conversation about feelings, and a counting activity can continue later with cups, pegs or fruit in the kitchen.”

She says if screen time is not disrupting sleep, meals, movement, relationships, play or early learning routines, these outcomes are a better measure of its value than any fixed number of minutes or hours.

“If the content is age-appropriate and supports curiosity, creativity, language or social and emotional development, that also tells us more than a daily total can. So, in some contexts, screen time may look high, but it may not automatically be harmful, provided that broader balance is still in place.”