My situation is very similar to what you describe: we have multiple kids — one of whom is 9, one slightly older, and one slight younger — I grew up with mostly "unlimited" computer access (though for me it was the 80s, so no interwebs — I didn't even have a modem); and I, too, struggle with the disparity between what I was allowed to do (or should I say, "what I did") and what we allow our children to do (screen time, that is. I'm far more comfortable with how much chocolate I eat vs how much we let the kids have 😸 ). With that in mind, here are some thoughts:
- I really do like dxh's answer. Nothing really to fault there (i.e. +1), but I also had more to add than would fit into a comment.
- While it has been pointed out that the context of the situation (i.e. what "screen time" actually refers to) is different now than it was for us growing up, even if the context were more similar, we still need to accept that over time we (humans in general) learn more about the world and how to do things better, such as raising kids. Lot's of things used to be ok, some even seen as positive, which are viewed much differently today (e.g. allowing teachers to hit kids, smoking, etc). Sure, those aren't perfect analogies since too much time on computers had more positives and less negatives, but there's pros and cons to most things, so I try to keep in mind that I'm looking back at that experience from only my perspective.
- To me, what this all comes down to is classification: what types of activities are being done via the screen? How active vs passive? How creative or analytical? To us, there is a huge difference between sitting and watching a show (either on TV or tablet, etc) and doing something interactive (programming, art, problem-solving games, some arcade games, even reading. For us, passive screen time is quite limited, but active, engaged screen time is much more open-ended.
- And let's not forget: kids do need / benefit from structure, especially for the age(s) that we are talking about (as they get older they should be given more freedom).
Here's how we deal with all of this:
- The kids get 30 minutes (max) of open-ended screen time per day. This can be watching a show, playing a video game, whatever they want (that's age-appropriate). Their current obsession is worm / snake games (e.g. http://wormax.io/ ) which are really just Tron Light Cycles, or to go way back, Surround (for the Atari 2600), but much better. (and regarding the single vs multi-player discussion: these snake games are multi-player and you can "friend" people to form groups, but I don't think there is any communication between people; and our kids play at the same time so they are playing with each other and with people from all over).
- Reading time is mostly unlimited. While we do have lots of books, the kids have read them enough and want more. We used to go to the library weekly but that's much more difficult now due to stupid COVID-19. We can still get books but not nearly as much or as often. So, tablets give them access to thousands of books and that really helps. (more on this in a moment).
- Programming/creative time: generally no more than 2 hours at a time. Might do more than 2 hours in a day, but needs to be broken up with going outside, reading, lunch/dinner, etc. The kids have really gotten into Scratch (Google and MIT project, I believe). It's really cool, and a great way to get kids into programming (there's also https://code.org/ and https://bitsbox.com/). With Scratch time we sometimes require an hour of programming / creative time before they can play games. But playing Scratch games isn't really treated as video games because they end up finding something they want to copy (either part of a game, a technique, or maybe an entire game to modify) and it leads to creative time in a natural way. That, and video games do help with hand-eye coordination (another reason to prefer that over passively watching TV).
- Outside time: weather permitting, the kids are required to run around outside for 30 - 60 minutes per day (play soccer, tag, catch, whatever).
- For the books, and partly for the video game time, we have Kindle Fire Kid's Edition tablets. Kid's Edition comes with a year of Freetime Unlimited which can be renewed for something like $75 - $80 per year after that. "Freetime Unlimited" has worked out well for us because not only does it provide access to thousands of books (and tons of games if they want to use the tablet for game time, but lately it's all about those snakes), but it also lets you limit the amount of time they can use the tablet, and for what types of activities. So we set them up to be 30 minutes max for games/apps, unlimited time for reading, and 0 minutes for movies, and no web/browser access.
- As a consequence for fighting, being mean, and so many other "fun" things, we deduct minutes from the video game time (we deduct from the initial 30 minutes). The effectiveness of this varies per child, of course.
- As a reward for going above and beyond, we will add minutes to video game time (sadly, though not unexpectedly, this does not occur nearly as often as minutes getting deducted).
- None of this implies a lack of doing other things, such as Legos, arts + crafts, reading physical books, playing board games, yelling at each other about the most nonsensical stuff, etc
It's not a perfect system, and it gets adjusted as needed, but it has been working for us for a while now. Just trying to find the right balance of educational/creative time, pure fun, exercise/movement, etc.