How Much Screen Time Should Kids Have? An Australian Parent’s Guide

How much screen time is recommended in Australia?

The Australian Government provides screen time recommendations as part of its 24-hour movement guidelines for children and young people. These guidelines consider screen use alongside sleep, physical activity and healthy development.

Here’s the current guidance:

For children aged 5–17, the two-hour recommendation excludes screen use required for schoolwork.

For a quick answer for your child’s age, see screen time for a 2 year old, 5 year old, 7 year old, 10 year old, 13 year old or 15 year old.

These recommendations offer a useful starting point. They’re designed to help ensure screen activities leave sufficient room for the experiences children need as they grow, including physical activity, sleep, relationships and play.

However, it’s worth understanding what the numbers can and can’t tell us. If your eight-year-old spends an extra hour watching a movie on a rainy Saturday, that doesn’t automatically mean you’ve harmed their development. Equally, a child who stays within the recommended limit isn’t necessarily using screens in a healthy way.

The guidelines help us establish reasonable boundaries, but making good decisions also requires us to consider the individual child and their circumstances.

Not all screen time is created equal

Imagine three children spending an hour in front of a screen. One is watching an endless stream of short videos, moving from one to another with barely a pause. Another is video calling their grandparents, showing them a Lego creation and listening to family stories. The third is building an elaborate Minecraft world with a friend, solving problems and negotiating how to build it.

Each child has spent exactly the same amount of time using a screen, but their experiences have been quite different. The content, opportunities for creativity and social interaction, and the way the activity fits into their day all influence what that hour means.

The Australian eSafety Commissioner encourages parents to consider the quality and nature of children’s screen activities alongside the amount of time spent online. This includes thinking about age, maturity, learning needs, relationships and overall wellbeing.

It’s helpful to ask four questions when considering your child’s screen use.

1. What is my child doing?

Are they creating, learning, communicating, playing or mainly consuming content? Different activities offer different experiences. Even within gaming, there can be substantial differences between games, the social environments they create and how they’re played.

2. How does my child respond?

Does your child generally enjoy the activity and move on afterwards, or does it regularly lead to distress, irritability or difficulty disengaging? Some disappointment when an enjoyable activity ends is normal. Frequent, intense difficulties may indicate that the activity, timing or boundaries need attention.

3. What is screen time replacing?

Is your child still getting enough sleep, exercise, face-to-face interaction and opportunities to explore other interests? Sometimes the concern is less about the screen activity itself and more about the experiences that are being squeezed out of the day.

4. Is this appropriate for my child’s development?

An activity that suits a teenager may be inappropriate for a six-year-old. Even children of the same age can have different needs, strengths and vulnerabilities. Age provides guidance, but understanding your own child remains important.

These questions give us a more complete picture. The amount of screen time remains relevant, particularly when use becomes excessive, but the way children use technology deserves equal attention.

What does the research actually tell us?

Research into children’s screen use has grown considerably, although interpreting the findings isn’t always straightforward.

A major 2025 systematic review and meta-analysis published in Psychological Bulletin examined 117 longitudinal studies involving almost 293,000 children. The researchers found small associations in both directions: greater screen use was associated with later socioemotional difficulties, while children experiencing socioemotional difficulties were also more likely to increase their screen use.

This is an important finding because the relationship between screen use and children’s wellbeing appears to be complex. Some forms of screen use may contribute to difficulties, while children who are already struggling emotionally or socially may turn to screens more frequently. Both processes may operate together.

A September 2026 umbrella review published in JAMA Pediatrics synthesised findings from 23 meta-analyses representing more than 2.8 million children across 64 countries. The researchers identified associations between screen-based media exposure and outcomes including lower academic achievement and language skills, alongside higher levels of some emotional, behavioural and peer difficulties. These associations varied according to factors such as children’s ages and the types of screen use examined. Most were very small. They were stronger for mobile phone use than for television or gaming, and stronger for adolescents than for younger children.

It’s important to interpret these findings carefully. Many studies identify associations rather than proving direct cause and effect, and the strength of the relationships varies across outcomes. The findings also describe patterns across large populations rather than predicting what will happen to any individual child.

What can parents reasonably take from this research? Screen habits deserve attention, particularly when they’re interfering with sleep, learning, relationships or emotional wellbeing. At the same time, there’s little value in treating every minute of screen use as equally concerning.

A sensible approach combines age-appropriate limits, careful attention to content and context, and an understanding of how the individual child is responding.

Does educational screen time count?

This is where the maths becomes interesting. Your child spends several hours using a laptop at school, comes home with an online homework task, video calls a friend and then wants to watch an episode of their favourite show. By bedtime, they’ve spent a considerable amount of time looking at screens, even before recreational gaming enters the picture.

Under Australia’s guidelines for children aged 5–17, screen use required for schoolwork is excluded from the recommended two-hour recreational limit. However, educational screen use still involves time spent sitting, focusing on a device and potentially missing opportunities for movement.

It can be helpful to distinguish between three broad types of screen use:

• Required use: Schoolwork and essential tasks that need a device.
• Purposeful recreational use: Activities such as creative projects, social connection, age-appropriate gaming and selected entertainment.
• Passive or habitual use: Activities that continue largely because another video, episode or notification is waiting.

These are practical distinctions rather than formal scientific categories, and some activities will overlap. The purpose is to help families consider how technology contributes to their day.

For example, an hour spent completing homework and an hour of recreational gaming serve different purposes, even though both involve a screen. Both still need to fit within a daily routine that supports health and development.

What else needs to fit into a child’s day?

One of the most useful ways to think about screen time is to consider the experiences children need outside it. Rather than beginning with the number of minutes available for screens, consider what you want an ordinary day to include. For most children, several ingredients are particularly important.

Sleep

Sleep is foundational for learning, memory, emotional regulation, physical health and development. Australian guidelines recommend 9–11 hours of sleep for children aged 5–13 and 8–10 hours for young people aged 14–17.

Screen activities can interfere with sleep when they extend bedtime, encourage children to remain connected late into the evening or make settling difficult. Keeping devices out of bedrooms overnight and establishing a screen-free period before bed can help protect healthy sleep routines.

Physical activity

Children need opportunities to move, explore, develop physical skills and challenge themselves. For children aged 5–17, Australian guidelines recommend at least 60 minutes of moderate to vigorous physical activity daily, along with several hours of lighter activity.

This doesn’t all need to happen through organised sport. Riding bikes, climbing, swimming, running around the backyard or inventing games with friends can all contribute to an active childhood.

Relationships and connection

Children develop important social and emotional skills through relationships. Playing with friends, resolving disagreements, participating in family routines and spending time with trusted adults all create opportunities for learning and connection.

Technology can support relationships, particularly when friends or relatives live far away. However, it also helps to protect time for face-to-face interaction, shared activities and everyday family conversation.

Independent play and downtime

Children benefit from opportunities to entertain themselves, explore interests and decide what to do when nobody has provided the next activity.

This includes the surprisingly valuable experience of boredom. It’s occasionally accompanied by dramatic sighing, but unstructured time can create opportunities for imagination, initiative, problem-solving and managing minor frustration.

When every quiet moment is immediately filled with entertainment, children may have fewer opportunities to practise these skills. We don’t need to rescue them from every moment of having nothing to do.

How can you tell if screen time is becoming a problem?

The amount of time spent using a screen is one consideration, but changes in a child’s everyday functioning often tell us more.

Some signs worth paying attention to include:

• Regularly losing sleep because of screen activities.
• Withdrawing from previously enjoyed interests or friendships.
• Frequent, intense conflict around starting or stopping screen use.
• Difficulty completing everyday responsibilities because of screen activities.
• Persistent distress connected with online interactions.
• Increasing secrecy about online activities, particularly when safety concerns are present.
• Relying on screen activities as the main or only way of managing difficult feelings.

These signs don’t automatically indicate a serious problem. Children naturally protest limits, and some transitions are harder than others. The broader pattern, intensity and impact on everyday life are more informative than an occasional difficult afternoon.

It’s also worth considering what else may be happening in your child’s life. Changes in screen use can sometimes reflect difficulties with friendships, anxiety, loneliness, school or other concerns. If you’re noticing significant changes in your child’s mood, sleep, behaviour or functioning, consider speaking with an appropriately qualified health professional.

How to set screen time limits that actually work

Many parents have discovered that announcing a screen time limit doesn’t necessarily produce enthusiastic agreement from their children. Clear boundaries are important, but they’re often easier to implement when families have thought about the reasons behind them and how they’ll work in practice.

At Family Decisions, we encourage parents to begin with their values before establishing the rules.

Values first. Then the limits.

Step 1: Decide what you’re trying to protect

Before asking how many minutes your child should have, consider what you want your family life to include. Perhaps you value outdoor play, creativity, responsibility, strong relationships, adequate sleep or time spent together. Different families will have different priorities, and the developmental needs of each child will also influence these decisions.

For example, if your family values spending time together in the evenings, you might decide that devices are put away during dinner and remain away for a period afterwards. If independence is important, you might involve an older child in planning how their recreational screen time fits around other responsibilities.

The boundary becomes easier to explain when everyone understands what it’s designed to support.

Step 2: Establish realistic and clear limits

Use the Australian recommendations to inform age-appropriate limits, then consider your child’s development, the activities involved and your family’s routines.

Be specific about how your arrangements will work. Does watching a show count? What about gaming with friends? Are there different expectations for school days and weekends? Where will devices be kept overnight?

You may decide that some screen-free times or places are more useful than a complicated daily schedule. Family meals, bedrooms at night and the period before bedtime are common starting points.

Clarity can save a remarkable number of negotiations later. Children are particularly skilled at discovering arrangements that adults thought were obvious but never actually explained.

Step 3: Involve your child in the planning

Parents remain responsible for establishing boundaries that protect their children’s wellbeing, but children can contribute to how those boundaries work.

Ask what activities they enjoy, when screen time would fit best and what might make switching off easier. Older children can also be involved in considering the benefits and risks of different activities and how to manage their time responsibly.

Giving children an appropriate voice can help build understanding, ownership and cooperation. It also creates opportunities to practise the decision-making skills they’ll increasingly need as they become more independent.

Collaboration doesn’t mean every request is granted. Children can be heard and respected while adults maintain clear boundaries.

Step 4: Make transitions predictable

For some children, stopping an enjoyable screen activity can be genuinely difficult. Games may involve social commitments or challenges that don’t end neatly when a timer goes off, while streaming services are designed to make watching the next episode very easy.

Agreeing on stopping times before an activity begins can help. Consider giving advance reminders, allowing children to finish at natural stopping points where practical and having another activity available afterwards.

It’s also useful to acknowledge their disappointment without abandoning the boundary. A response such as “I know you’d like to keep playing. It’s frustrating to stop when you’re enjoying yourself. We’re finishing now, and you can continue tomorrow” combines empathy with a clear expectation.

The aim is to help children gradually develop the ability to manage transitions, rather than expecting that every transition will be effortless.

Step 5: Review and adjust your plan

A screen time arrangement that works for an eight-year-old may need substantial revision when they’re thirteen. Children’s interests, responsibilities, friendships and developmental capabilities change over time.

Set aside opportunities to discuss what’s working, where difficulties are emerging and whether your arrangements still reflect your family values. Where appropriate, involve your child in suggesting improvements.

Reviewing the plan together can help them develop responsibility and recognise that increased independence comes with increased accountability.

What about parents’ screen time?

Children have an inconvenient habit of noticing what adults do. We might ask them to put away their devices during dinner while our own phone sits beside the plate, patiently waiting to inform us that someone has reacted to a message.

Adults and children naturally have different responsibilities, and devices are often essential for work, communication and managing family life. However, the principles we establish are more credible when children see us trying to follow them too.

If family connection is important, everyone can contribute to device-free time together. If sleep is a priority, adults can model some sensible evening habits. And if we’re helping children develop self-control around technology, it helps when they see us practising it ourselves.

This doesn’t require perfection. It requires consistency, openness and a willingness to make adjustments when our own habits aren’t serving us particularly well.