How Much Is Too Much FaceTime?
Parents worry about their kids' excessive video chatting with peers.
My children spent several days with their grandparents and uncles over the Christmas holidays. We talked on the phone each day, but the kids always asked, at some point, to switch to FaceTime. I obliged a few times (of course I wanted to see their adorable faces), but then the conversation derailed immediately from talking about their skating and snowmobiling adventures to making silly faces, bringing other people into the frame, and showing me around the house. The tone and quality of the interaction shifted and, quite frankly, became more boring for me than when they were focused on an audio-only conversation.
Video chatting is an impressive modern invention, but I've been hearing from parents who are concerned about how much time their kids spend on FaceTime with friends. Several parents have told me their teenage daughters are "constantly" on FaceTime with friends and wondered if I have the same problem with my teenage sons. (I don’t, but that might be because they’re boys, or don’t have phones, or both.)
One Vancouver mother emailed me to say that her almost-11-year-old is getting more requests to FaceTime with friends and extended family members overseas, and she is not sure how to handle it. She wrote, quite thoughtfully:
"I have found, over the years, that there is not much to be shared over FaceTime. Setting boundaries is challenging. It's easy to drone on for hours without much meaningful conversation. I find it difficult to argue why FaceTime is not ideal for kids; it's based on my gut feeling, and I haven't really reasoned why. I recently realized that my reluctance might stem from the same reason why I don't let my kids surf the Internet on their own: I cannot control what they might be exposed to visually when conversing on FaceTime."
I went down a bit of an Internet rabbit hole as I mulled this over. There's a lot of information out there about kids using social media and video platforms like YouTube, but less about video chatting, specifically. Common Sense Media's 2023 report, "Constant Companion: A Week in the Life of a Young Person's Smartphone Use," suggests that 30% of young people use video chat daily, and only for very short periods of time.
Anecdotally, it seems that girls want to video chat more than boys; perhaps that's because girls are more motivated by visual comparison and/or want to spend more time connecting with peers and developing relationships.
I’ve met parents who say FaceTime is useful for homework, particularly group projects or if a child lives at a distance from friends. While there may be a time and place for video chat-based homework, I am skeptical of its effectiveness. At risk of sounding like a crank, kids are highly prone to distraction and goofiness, and I wouldn’t be surprised if more fun than focus is had during those sessions. My advice would be, have your kid finish their homework in screen-free solitude as quickly as possible, then arrange a real in-person hangout.
Lack of Privacy
I was intrigued by some Reddit threads where parents talked about the lack of privacy in a home when teens are on FaceTime with friends or romantic partners for hours on end. When a teen is carrying around a live camera, it puts others on edge. Family members can get caught on video when they don't want to be seen, e.g., a mother walking out of the bathroom wrapped in a towel, which means the home no longer feels like a sanctuary, safe from the prying eyes of the outside world.
One parent commented online: "When [my daughter] does her chores, she's got her phone propped up chatting to friends. She walks through the house always on video chat with her friends, and it's like we have to pardon ourselves because she's always conversing this way."
Constant Presence
Several therapists have written articles about teens being on FaceTime all day long, which surprised me. One teen explained that he and his girlfriend "keep it on all day, in case either of them wants to say anything."
This is troubling on several levels, not least of which is the fact that a person's behaviour on camera automatically becomes performative. It's inevitable. You can't help but talk and act differently, worry more about your appearance, and be afraid of looking like a failure, when someone is watching you all the time.
Being on screen all the time can also push a teenage romance to more controlling behaviours (through constant tracking) and greater levels of intimacy than would develop naturally in-person. From one counselling website:
"Some teens actually use certain apps such as Skype or Facetime to 'sleep together.' They fall asleep and wake up with each other and this can quickly lead to sexual intimacy which they wouldn’t jump into as quickly if they only talked to each other at school and after school events."
Mental Exhaustion
One study found that video chats are neurologically exhausting. Researchers found that "when conversations take place through a screen versus face to face, our brains work a lot harder to make a connection with others. It renders communication less effective and requires greater focus and concentration." Doing it for hours, repeatedly, could result in a "potential cost... for brain maturation, particularly among youth."
Interestingly, some teens report feeling pressure to participate in video chats more than they'd like. One teen, interviewed by Screenagers documentary producer Delaney Ruston, said, "I don't like FaceTiming very often because calls tend to drag on with neither person wanting to be rude and say they have to go when it is evident from the video that they are not doing anything."
Talk about wasted time!
You Can Say No
This is where parents should step in. Parents have the right to say no to video chatting. While an occasional FaceTime doesn't hurt, it should not be a primary mode of interaction with friends and family. It cannot replace real face-to-face socializing, family time, or physical activity.
If kids have spent an entire school day with their friends, I don't see anything wrong with expecting them to be present for their families in the evenings. Kids have obligations that go beyond socializing—things like doing chores, pitching in around the house, engaging with siblings, talking to parents, doing homework, caring for pets, doing extracurriculars, and getting a good night's sleep (aka life training!). If video chatting is getting in the way of these healthy activities occurring, then it should be curtailed.
You may do your kid a favour by taking a stance against it. Kids need more silence and solitude in their lives, though it's increasingly difficult to attain these days. Solitude is where deep thought happens, where curiosity and creativity can blossom, where rest and relaxation stand a chance at occurring. Kids need to get comfortable with being alone at times, and not become too conditioned to having constant interaction and stimulation.
When we think about the things that kids need—to get off their devices, move their bodies, have real conversations, engage in free play—video chatting does not support these goals. And as with so many screen-related issues, just because everyone else is doing it does not mean you have to, too. If your parental gut says something is off, it probably is, and you should listen to it.
It’s OK to tell a kid, “I want you to use your time in a better way.” Video chatting, as with all entertainment-based screen time, comes with an opportunity cost, and parents play a role in guiding their less-wise children to figure out how best to allocate the precious minutes and hours that we have.
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First off kudos on an interesting parenting topic that hasn't been done to death!
I was thinking about a related but very similar thing last night while my wife & I were folding laundry after the kids had gone to bed and she had some streaming video thing on her phone playing the whole time. I couldn't (and still can't) quite articulate why I didn't like it. People multitask all the time. Lots of people talk (positively) about listening to podcasts while doing chores. Lots of people have the TV on constantly while doing chores. Yes, there is some sense of "can't you live without your streaming video for 10 minutes while we fold laundry" but also...why should people? Do they really need to be present in the moment with Buddhist focus on every mundane task? Isn't part of the promise of technology to free us (somewhat, at least) from the idiocy of drudgery? I used to live in a developing country where parking lot pay booth attendants were still universal and it is extremely common for them to be on Youtube/Tiktok/Instagram or videocalling friends all day and...surely that's a humane improvement over them just staring at a concrete wall for 8+ hours a day in solitude? But also that's not really the use case most Americans and their kids are facing so hard to draw lessons from it.
And why is videocalling -- which is surely a closer analogue to real human interactions than a weirdly disembodied voice call where you can't see facial expressions and read body language -- seen as worse? Even though I mostly agree? Is videocalling really worse than putting someone on speakerphone while you do the dishes and putter around the house for 2+ hours (something I've seen older generations do)?
Maybe the real problem isn't the videocalling exactly but the constant but low-level connection while we try to "multitask". Instead of having a concentrated, focused 15- or 30- or 60-minute call with a friend of loved one where we give them our undivided attention it becomes -- much like chatting -- this extended thing where the other person isn't our focus but more of a fall-back. And surely nobody likes being the fall back option? Almost like we need to take Cal Newport's idea of Deep Work and apply it to our relationships as well.
Thanks for this thought-provoking essay. It resonates with my gut FaceTime reaction of “ugh” — probably because we did so much of it during the pandemic for both work and social purposes.
While of course there is a place for it in some cases, like planning a vacation with friends who live across the country or keeping in touch with family members we only see a few times a year, I do worry about my toddler, who is growing up thinking “phone” means you can see the person’s face; we don’t do much of it, but it’s hard to tell how much of her excitement is the joy of seeing a loved one and how much is the drug-like effect of using a screen.
Also ironic that I spent my teen years being chided by my parents for spending too much time on the regular old landline phone. They used the same logic (“there are better ways to spend your time”) and you know what, they were right! Just, you know, don’t tell them I said that. 🙃