How long do parents spend fighting with their kids over screen time? | National

Parents spend approximately 96 hours fighting with their kids over screen time every year.

This staggering statistic means hundreds of fights between parent and child are induced by modern technology.

That’s according to a new survey of 2,000 parents of children in kindergarten through fifth grade, which aimed to investigate how screens can impact child-parent relationships. Behind these conflicts lies a deeper concern: Two-thirds (67%) of parents fear they’re losing precious moments with their children due to screen addiction. 

Even more concerning, 41% of parents said they’re afraid they’re losing their little ones’ childhood to technology completely.

The study, conducted by Talker Research on behalf of AngelQ, an age-appropriate browser for kids, revealed parents’ biggest concerns about their children’s online lives include exposure to online predators (51%), accidental exposure to inappropriate content (46%) and screen addiction (45%).

Other significant worries include cyberbullying (44%), children looking up content that isn’t age-appropriate (40%), negative social media influence (37%), and negative impacts on mental health (37%).

About three in five parents (61%) worry that too much screen time is replacing important elements of childhood development, such as building strong social skills and empathy.

Six in ten parents who allow their children to use the internet said their time online is spent unsupervised.

“This survey demonstrates how technology is currently aligned against families instead of allied with them,” said Tim Estes, CEO and Co-Founder of AngelQ. “Our kids are losing years of their childhood – precious time they’ll never get back – to exploitive products that addict them. We believe technology should educate and empower, not distract and divide families — and that starts with giving parents easier tools to manage screen time without the daily struggle.”

Parents reported concerning side effects from excessive screen time, including irritability (27%), mood swings (24%), and full-on tantrums (22%).

Other ripple effects included decreased attention span with offline activities like homework (19%), high levels of anxiety (14%), and trouble sleeping (14%).

Children are finding increasingly sophisticated ways to maintain their screen time, with parents discovering their kids sneaking devices behind their backs (39%), accessing completely different devices (20%), and changing the controls or permissions without their parents’ knowledge (18%).

Other workarounds included children exploiting “emergency” or “educational” modes (15%), creating new user accounts (13%), and using Siri or voice commands to open apps (13%).

When children resist turning off an internet device, parents admit to giving in 65% of the time. Gen Z parents, more than any other generation, said they gave in “often” (28%).

“This pattern of resistance and surrender creates a power dynamic that undermines parental roles and reinforces screen-dependent behavior in children,” said Estes.

These conflicts are most likely to occur leading up to dinner (64%), disrupting important family bonding time.

The most common disagreements center on the length of allowable time (43%), the types of content or apps kids can access (18%), and required parental approval for watching videos or games (18%).

Half of parents (52%) who allow their children to access the internet said they wish they would have waited longer before giving their kids access to internet devices. This regret was most prominent among Gen Z parents (63%), compared to millennials (53%) and Gen Xers (50%).

Many parents’ approaches to screen time are influenced by their own childhood experiences with technology, with 34% saying it affected their parenting style and choice to limit their kids’ access to the internet.

Despite these challenges, parents acknowledged positive aspects of screen time, including watching their kids explore their interests (60%), access to educational content (59%), the ability to learn lifelong digital skills (58%), increased inter-cultural awareness (25%), and the opportunity to connect with other like-minded children online (24%).

“These findings highlight the delicate balancing act parents face, wanting to protect childhood while also preparing kids for a digital world,” added Estes. “We recognize that screen time isn’t inherently bad but today most of the options are. We want to reimagine how kids use tech to create healthy habits that enable young people to dream up ideas and create them in the real world. We’re committed to helping families set boundaries that work, so technology remains a tool for enhancing childhood, not taking away from it.”

Survey methodology:

Talker Research surveyed 2,000 parents with children in kindergarten through fifth grade; the survey was commissioned by AngelQ and administered and conducted online by Talker Research between March 7 – March 11, 2025.

We are sourcing from a non-probability frame and the two main sources we use are:

• Traditional online access panels — where respondents opt-in to take part in online market research for an incentive
• Programmatic — where respondents are online and are given the option to take part in a survey to receive a virtual incentive usually related to the online activity they are engaging in

Those who did not fit the specified sample were terminated from the survey. As the survey is fielded, dynamic online sampling is used, adjusting targeting to achieve the quotas specified as part of the sampling plan.

Regardless of which sources a respondent came from, they were directed to an Online Survey, where the survey was conducted in English; a link to the questionnaire can be shared upon request. Respondents were awarded points for completing the survey. These points have a small cash-equivalent monetary value.

Cells are only reported on for analysis if they have a minimum of 80 respondents, and statistical significance is calculated at the 95% level. Data is not weighted, but quotas and other parameters are put in place to reach the desired sample.

Interviews are excluded from the final analysis if they failed quality-checking measures. This includes:

• Speeders: Respondents who complete the survey in a time that is quicker than one-third of the median length of interview are disqualified as speeders
• Open ends: All verbatim responses (full open-ended questions as well as other please specify options) are checked for inappropriate or irrelevant text
• Bots: Captcha is enabled on surveys, which allows the research team to identify and disqualify bots
• Duplicates: Survey software has “deduping” based on digital fingerprinting, which ensures nobody is allowed to take the survey more than once

It is worth noting that this survey was only available to individuals with internet access, and the results may not be generalizable to those without internet access.