The new WHO time limits for screens are not really about screens.

The new World Health Organization recommendations strongly recommend that caregivers not look at screens longer. However, the guidelines focus less on the risks associated with screen time itself, but more on the benefits of spending time doing something else.

The recommendations focus on the physical activity and sleep of children under five and try to create healthy habits during a critical period of development. Among the recommendations regarding tummy time and active play, the WHO also states that between two and five years old, children should not spend more than an hour a day in front of a screen . And the WHO says that children under two years old should not go to sedentary screening at all.

So these new guidelines are not limited to the time spent in front of a screen. "But I think the recommendations for filtering sedentary screens have attracted a lot of interest," says Juana Willumsen, WHO consultant on obesity and physical activity in children. "It's something that concerns parents, families and people in general."

Screen time can mean a lot: it can mean being dragged into a constant stream of YouTube videos, watching TV, playing video games, scrolling social media or FaceTiming with grandparents . There is a lot of debate about what all these digital media do for the brains of people – especially children. And the truth is that science has not caught up with the worry that reigns in places like Silicon Valley, where a parent The New York Times that "the devil lives in our phones and wreaks havoc on our children."

In this case, however, WHO is not basing his recommendations on what screen time can do for the brain. "We did not specifically look for evidence about the effects of screens, in terms of the light emitted, for example, neither on the content displayed on the screen by a child, nor on the cognitive development," Willumsen explains. "We were specifically looking at sedentary behavior." So, to sit down or lie down and watch TV is against the limit recommended by the WHO; dancing with TV does not do it. Watch YouTube on a tablet account; reading with a parent on an e-reader does not do it. The FaceTiming family is doing well too, says Williams.

According to Marc Potenza, professor of psychiatry at Yale, these distinctions are essential to smooth out problems as researchers continue their research on the effects of time spent in front of a screen. "I would say that all forms of screen time are not identical in terms of their potential beneficial aspects and their potential negative aspects," he said. This is not to say that WHO should have refrained from making recommendations, he said, but simply that people should be prepared for these guidelines to change as we learn more. "There are children growing up now, and parents are wondering how to raise their children in this environment."

For Michael Rich, director of the Center on Media and Child Health of Boston Children's Hospital, which focuses on the WHO's recommendations for screen time General overview is missing: "It's not that the screen is potentially toxic, but in itself stimulates relatively impoverished for them compared to face-to-face interactions," he says. The time spent in front of a screen, in this context, becomes essentially a marker of how people interact with children – and the important thing is to give children a diverse range of experiences, he says. He would like to see recommendations for easy alternatives – like listening to music. Otherwise, he says, "setting a time limit on the screen probably generates more guilt than enlightenment."

With this type of control time, it is the responsibility of parents and caregivers to follow them. Jenny Radesky, assistant professor of pediatrics at the University of Michigan, hopes that in the future, WHO will also make recommendations to improve the digital environment for children. "These could include less use before going to bed or at night, healthier content that is truly educational and not just marketed as such, and that reduces the persuasive characteristics that young minds do not have. can resist, "she says. "This would put less burden on parents so that they are always the guardians of the children's behaviors in the media."