Band 6.5
In modern life, many children use smartphones and tablets every day. Some people think parents must strictly limit the time for using them. I agree with this idea, but I also think devices have some good points.
Firstly, too much screen time is bad for children. They sit for many hours and do not play outside, so they can become fat and unhealthy. Also, watching videos and playing games for a long time is bad for their eyes. Moreover, children may see bad things on the internet, and this is dangerous for them.
On the other hand, smartphones are useful for studying. Children can watch lessons and find information quickly. In the pandemic, many children studied at home with tablets. So we cannot say devices are all bad.
In conclusion, I think parents should limit screen time because health is very important. But children can use devices for study sometimes. Parents should make rules at home.
Band 7.5
It is now common to see children absorbed in smartphones and tablets for hours at a time, and many argue that parents should impose strict limits on this. I largely agree: limits are necessary, although they should be sensible rather than absolute.
The case for restriction is strongest where health is concerned. Prolonged screen use displaces physical play, and the consequences — poor fitness, strained eyes, disrupted sleep — are well documented. There is also a developmental cost. A child who spends the evening scrolling through short videos is not practising conversation, boredom or sustained attention, three things that cannot be downloaded. Finally, unsupervised access exposes children to content and contact that no parent would knowingly allow through the front door, let alone into a bedroom.
None of this makes the devices themselves the enemy. A tablet can carry a library, a language course and a grandparent's face across an ocean; during school closures, for many children it carried the classroom itself. The problem is not the screen but the absence of boundaries around it — no agreed stopping point, no distinction between creating and consuming, and no adult example to copy.
For that reason, I favour firm limits: fixed hours, devices out of bedrooms at night, and different rules for study and entertainment. A total ban would only make the forbidden more attractive; no rules at all is an abdication. What children need is parents who treat attention as something worth protecting.
In conclusion, limiting children's screen time is not nostalgia for a pre-digital childhood; it is a practical defence of their health and development, and it works best when the limits are strict about time but flexible about purpose.
