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The developmental power of digital play
Screens are part of childhood now. Woven into our homes, our routines, and even our learning environments, screens bring both opportunity and challenge. While concerns around screen time often center on overstimulation or disconnection, the more helpful question is not how much screen time children have, but what kind, how, and with whom they experience it.
Since screens already permeate children’s worlds, it’s important to understand how digital tools can support rich, developmentally meaningful experiences. We can make the time they spend with technology more active, social, and supportive of critical life skills. When designed well, digital play can be a powerful space for children to explore emotions, practice problem-solving, and build other life skills that transfer beyond the screen.
At the core of a developmentally appropriate and empowering approach to children’s screen time is a shift toward active, instead of passive, screen time. Understanding what that means, and how it balances the concerns of negative screen time impacts, gives today’s parents/carers and educators a more confident, informed, future-focused path to children’s digital experiences. It also builds in the flexibility and practicality for modern life.
The differences between active and passive screen time
Since all environments a child engages with have the potential to be learning environments, it’s important to structure them for active engagement. When children are on devices, we want the majority of that time to engage them and help them practice their social, emotional, and cognitive skills, whether that’s by solving a challenging puzzle or Facetiming with relatives.
Passive screen time
Passive screen time refers to digital activities where the child plays little to no role in shaping the experience. This often includes watching videos, movies, or shows with little cognitive effort, interaction, or variation. These experiences are typically one-directional, and while they may be entertaining or calming, they rarely challenge thinking or support skill development.
Screens are powerful tools. We have to be thoughtful about the habits children form around them. If your children’s main engagement with screens is passive time — where they are watching content and not being challenged or engaged — then they’re missing opportunities to grow and utilise technology to support their development.
Active screen time
Active screen time, by contrast, involves participation, decision-making, reflection, or creation. It might include games that prompt children to solve problems, apps that encourage storytelling, or digital experiences that model emotional regulation. The child plays an active role by making choices, processing consequences, and often building connections with characters or narratives.
Developmentally supportive games for children can ask the player directly to decide, reflect, or think critically about a situation, including a character and supporting characters’ emotions and reactions. They go much deeper than mashing buttons and activating reflexes, helping children build their sense of curiosity and resilience, as they seek out increasingly complex challenges.
The amazing thing about games as a form of active screen time is they help children experience flow state and practice agency. In these digital worlds, they’re given the freedom to express and challenge themselves. If a game is too easy, they will get bored and disengage. But if it’s too difficult, they become frustrated and give up.
Active screen time helps children expand their tolerance for challenging situations, as they learn they can overcome all sorts of obstacles with a little perseverance and a new strategy.
Balancing screen time
It’s important to note that passive screen time isn’t inherently harmful. Children often return to familiar shows or slow-paced videos for comfort, relaxation, or co-regulation — especially during transitions or moments of fatigue. These moments can serve emotional needs and don’t need to be eliminated. What matters most is achieving balance, and ensuring that screen-based experiences are not dominated by passivity or overstimulation.
Just like how we might go on social media to “unplug” at the end of a long day, passive screen time can be a comfort to children. It’s all about having a balanced “Digital Diet” as Dr. Rachel Kowert says!
The risks of too much passive screen time
When passive screen time becomes the default, especially without rhythm, adult co-engagement, or meaningful alternatives, it may contribute to developmental risks.
Passive screen time, especially fast-paced or highly stimulating content, can also reinforce a pattern of instant gratification. Interactive digital media often trigger the brain’s reward system, releasing dopamine and encouraging repeated engagement. Without guidance and structure, this can make it more difficult for children to disengage, self-regulate, or transition to other activities.
These risks underscore the need not to vilify screens, but instead what’s needed is to use them intentionally, with developmental context and caregiver involvement in mind. This approach can flip screen time from a risk to a benefit, helping children to build critical life skills that get them ready for their future.
Using active screen time to build critical life skills
The best digital experiences for young children mirror the foundations of early learning: curiosity, trial-and-error, and meaningful emotional engagement. Active screen time supports this by inviting children to participate, reflect, and apply thinking in real-time.
Well-designed digital play experiences can help children practice and internalise skills such as:
- Critical thinking and problem-solving: Navigating puzzles, overcoming challenges, and making decisions with visible consequences.
- Resilience and a growth mindset: Learning to try again after failure, regulate emotions, and persist through setbacks.
- Empathy and social skills: Exploring character perspectives, identifying emotional cues, and making kind or cooperative choices.
- Financial and digital literacy: Understanding value, consequences, or feelings through narrative-based metaphors and age-appropriate decision-making.
Taking the online offline
What sets active screen time apart is not just what happens during the digital experience, but what continues afterward. Children often carry characters, language, and concepts from games or stories into their pretend play, conversations, or real-world problem-solving. With support from adults, these moments become bridges between digital and physical learning.
Many of the future-proof skills you hope for your child to develop can be supported through screen time. It just requires thoughtful up-front curation of content, and continued engagement with children about their experience on screens.
Supporting screen time with balance, structure, and digital wellbeing
While active screen time offers meaningful benefits, structure is still essential. Children thrive with clear rhythms that balance different types of play and rest — for example, daily routines that include time for outdoor experiences, quiet moments, and curated screen time.
Establishing balance and routines like these helps young children manage transitions, reduces screen-related friction, and reinforces that screens are a tool, not a constant.
Equally important is modeling good screen time habits and prioritising co-engagement. When adults sit with a child during screen time — asking questions, reflecting on choices, or simply narrating observations — the experience becomes more social and reflective. Co-engagement enhances learning outcomes and gives caregivers a window into what the child is thinking and feeling.
Ultimately, digital wellbeing in early childhood comes down to communication and alignment: aligning screen-based experiences with developmental needs, family values, and the reality of modern life.
Conclusion: Intentional screen time supports life skill development
The conversation around screen time is evolving as screens become embedded in learning and play. The question is not whether young children should use technology, but how to use it well.
By prioritising active, co-engaged digital play and embedding it within a balanced daily rhythm, parents and educators can ensure screen time supports, rather than disrupts, children’s development. When screen time becomes a space for thinking, imagining, and connecting, it’s not a distraction from learning. It’s part of it.
Key takeaways
- Not all screen time is created equal — the quality and context matter more than the quantity.
- Active screen time engages children in thinking, problem-solving, and emotional development.
- Passive screen time has a place (e.g. comfort viewing), but overuse may impact wellbeing.
- Digital play can support core life skills when embedded in a balanced daily rhythm.
- Adult co-engagement is essential for enriching screen-based learning and making it transferable.
Critical considerations
- What types of screen-based activities are part of your child’s routine — and how do they engage with them?
- Are there clear rhythms in the day that allow for green (active), screen (digital), and serene (quiet) time?
- Do caregivers have time and tools to co-engage with children during screen use?
- How are digital experiences designed — are they developmentally appropriate, interactive, and socially reflective?
Explainer
- Active screen time: Interactive digital use that engages thinking, decision-making, or creativity (e.g. games, story-based apps)
- Passive screen time: Screen use involving minimal interaction or cognitive effort (e.g. watching videos or shows)
- Co-engagement: When adults participate in a child’s screen activity to support learning and connection
- Digital wellbeing: A child’s healthy relationship with technology, including screen time balance and emotional regulation
- Life skills: Foundational abilities like empathy, resilience, problem-solving, and emotional literacy that support lifelong learning
This podcast episode & article is sponsored by
Nurture is an interactive learning app designed for children aged 4–7, developed to teach essential life skills that traditional schools often overlook.
Through immersive, story-driven games and a unique dual‑screen experience (mobile/tablet + TV), the platform focuses on mindfulness, emotional regulation, growth mindset, resilience, money smarts, and critical thinking.
Built on a science-backed educational framework and crafted by educators, child development experts, and Emmy-winning storytellers, Nurture aims to transform screen time into purposeful play
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