One in three Hong Kong kindergarten pupils spends at least an hour a day on social media, a survey has found. Also, more than 80 per cent of arguments between parents and kids are about screen time.
The Hong Kong Institute of Family Education’s survey found that 34.7 per cent of kindergarten kids spend at least one hour a day on social media. But the Department of Health says children ages two to five should have no more than one hour of screen time a day.
Sixty per cent of lower form secondary school students and 66.6 per cent of senior form students went beyond the global two-hour daily limit.
Tik Chi-yuen is the institute’s head. He said kids in kindergarten mostly used screens to watch videos and talk to family using their parents’ accounts.
He said the trend was “not that worrying” because it was not common among these parents to use screen time to keep children occupied.
Tik urged the government to tighten rules on children’s social media use. He suggested that those under 16 should not be allowed on these platforms.
