Could Podcasts Fix Screen Time Woes for Children?

As Deborah Nichols traversed from Kansas City to Lawrence, Kansas, daily for her postdoctoral fellowship at the University of Kansas, her preteen son in the backseat, a familiar story flowed out from the car speakers: Every day, they listened to the same cassette tape detailing Disney’s story of Bambi.

Nichols is now an associate professor in human development and family science at Purdue University and her son is 32 years old, but she knows that decades later, she can still recite specific scenes of that tape from memory.

“We can still say the lines and that was 20 some years ago,” she says. “It was that shared experience.”

While cassette tapes may be a thing of the past, a new medium has stepped up to entertain and teach children: podcasts. But as with every other form of media creeping into children’s lives, a familiar question persists: How helpful to learning is it — and does it fall under the dreaded “screen time” umbrella?

A new report from the Education Development Center, a nonprofit focused on education and economic opportunities, looked at whether podcasts potentially supplement family learning and how — and if — they differ from other traditional media like television.

Naomi Hupert, director of the Center for Children and Technology within the EDC, says the question was driven partially by the rise of podcast popularity among adults and partly by the pervasiveness of personal audio devices — think Amazon’s Alexa or Siri — that allow children to more easily access audio content.

The report, which polled 110 low-income families across the U.S., found podcasts seemed to spark creative play and conversations among children. Hupert says the majority of children played either during or after listening to the podcast — either dancing, acting out the podcast or drawing what they believed the characters to look like — which boosts child development overall.

“All those things are incredibly beneficial because it’s expanding their thinking ability to generate new ideas or engage with others or play activities,” Hupert says.

Hupert added that similar to audiobooks, podcasts can serve as a supplement for children who may not be reading at their own grade level by introducing new vocabulary and concepts.

The study also found listening to podcasts with family members can boost intergenerational learning, spurring conversations with family members that can further help children’s overall development.

“If kids are listening collectively in the car with their parents, it provides that shared experience you don’t get when you’re scrolling on your own phone,” says Nichols, who was not directly involved with the study but has studied similar concepts as director of the Children’s Media Lab at Purdue University. “It reminds me how powerful mealtime is at dinner, because you have that collective sitting down and having a meal together; I see this as the same thing. It’s better and can be more powerful in that shared environment.”

Sherri Hope Culver, director of the Center for Media and Information Literacy at Temple University, hypothesizes that the popularity of podcasts among adults partially spurred the popularity with children, as well as the idea that podcasts serve as a safer middle ground when it comes to media consumption.

“What’s been interesting to me about podcasts is how popular they’ve gotten so fast and that likely does intersect with the question of parents’ desire to let their kids appreciate the fun that media can provide while not having them engage with screen time,” Culver says. “I do think parents have been more willing to encourage or allow children to engage with podcasts. It feels like it’s enabling your creative brain to play.”

Not All Screen Time is Created Equal

Research centered on children’s podcasts is relatively scarce beyond the EDC’s recent study, but most of the experts interviewed by EdSurge estimate that podcasts can likely be viewed similarly to audiobooks or, reaching back to a previous era, serve the same purpose as stories told over the radio.

While Common Sense Media says children spend roughly two hours a day on screens — which increases in lower-income families — and the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry recommends a limit of roughly half of that, the research becomes more scarce regarding the exact sources of screen time.

Kaitlin Tiches, a medical librarian at the Digital Wellness Lab at Boston Children’s Hospital, is in favor of looking less at screen time and more at the content behind it.

“I think because screen time, or screens in general, have reached this saturation point where they are everywhere, we need to look beyond how much time we clock staring at a screen and think what we’re doing with them,” she says, adding that, for a child, an hour of screen time staring at a fast-paced, non-engaging YouTube video is different than an hour of watching Sesame Street while getting up to dance along.

“We need to reframe the conversation; it’s not how much time they are spending on it but what they are doing with it,” she argues. “[Screens] are kind of unavoidable and we need to learn to manage them, versus making it this boogeyman to avoid.”

While parents may view podcasts as one more medium they have to vet and monitor, families should refer to Common Sense Media’s guidelines about educational and entertaining podcasts for children, according to Kate Blocker, director of research and programs at Children and Screens: Institute of Digital Media and Child Development.

She added while ideally parents would listen to a few episodes of a podcast before allowing the child to listen, time-strapped parents may not be able to do so. She suggested at the bare minimum, the child should listen on a speaker versus using headphones — say while drawing in the living room — while the parent is in the next room doing the dishes while co-listening.

“It would be similar to having a TV on and at least be able to hear if you need to step in,” Blocker says. “We see co-engagement with media in general as a positive, whether it’s co-viewing or listening, especially the younger the child is. But even with teens, it opens doors to conversations and if they do come across content that’s problematic, you have the ability to stop and talk about it.”

Culver also recommended keeping the child involved and aware of the decisions revolving around the podcasts allowed, which could boost their media literacy as they continue to engage with media for years to come.

“It’s one thing to say, ‘I’m the parent and this is a good show for you,’” she says. “It’s another to have a conversation with the child, to say, ‘I’ve picked this show; let me tell you why,’ and I’ll watch with you and point out things in an age-appropriate way. Those conversations are important because they’re going to spend probably many more hours making those decisions without you in front of them than having you there.”