The Trouble With “Screen Time”: Disability and the Social Construction of Children’s Mediated Bodies

• In Event: Coming of Age With Popular Media: Tracing Youth Cultures Through Screens, Comics, and the News

Abstract

This paper critically analyzes popular discourse around “screen time,” a phrase coined by the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) in the early 2000s that refers to children’s time spent with any screen-based media. The concept is frequently employed in the US press, mostly in the pejorative sense—for example, campaigns aimed at reducing children’s screen time. While critical media scholars have pointed out myriad ways in which this terminology is problematic (e.g. as determinist and classist), new angles emerge when considering children with disabilities and their varied uses of media. This analysis of screen time discourse draws on feminist disability scholar Alison Kafer’s political/relational model of disability, which emphasizes identifying ableist rhetoric in sites where disability is not overtly present. I contend that while youth with disabilities are largely rendered invisible in popular discussions of children and media, their social construction as “other” underpins the cultural hegemony of screen time.

Author

• Meryl Alper, U of Southern California - Annenberg School for Communication