At the Aspen Ideas Festival, tech entrepreneur Peter Thiel shared his approach to managing his children’s screen time. Thiel, an early investor in Facebook and co-founder of PayPal, believes that children should spend no more than 1.5 hours in front of screens each week. This limit comes at a time when there is growing concern about the impact of social media on children’s mental health.
Thiel’s comments were in response to a recent announcement from US Surgeon General Vivek Murthy, who called for warning labels on social media platforms to warn against the negative effects on children. Thiel acknowledged that while it is easy to blame Big Tech for societal problems, there is validity in the critique that social media executives themselves restrict their own children’s screen time.
In fact, limiting screen time for their children has become a trend among tech leaders. Snap CEO Evan Spiegel sets the same 1.5-hour limit for his son, while Google CEO Sundar Pichai has revealed that his middle school-aged son does not have a cellphone. Pichai even employs methods like locking TVs with an “activation energy” to prevent excessive screen consumption in his home.
As children continue to use screens at increasingly younger ages, the issue of balancing technology with other activities becomes more pressing. The decisions made by Thiel and other tech leaders to limit their children’s exposure to screens reflect a growing awareness of the potential negative effects of excessive screen time on children’s well-being.
