Alabama lawmaker pushes for screen time limits for children
Peter Cade via Getty Images
Jeana Ross, R-Guntersville, said research shows that less screen time for children from birth until five years old helps build social skills.
This article was originally published by Alabama Reflector.
An Alabama lawmaker has pre-filed a bill for the 2026 legislative session that would limit screen time for children.
HB 78, sponsored by Jeana Ross, R-Guntersville, would require licensed child-care facilities, public kindergarten classrooms and certain Pre-K classrooms to implement guidelines and training on screen time created by the Department of Early Childhood Education (ADECE) Research and Evaluation team.
Ross, who previously served as Alabama Secretary of Early Childhood Education, said after seeing what research said about the effects of screen time on children wanted to find a way to prevent it.
“I can remember early on, like in the early 2000s writing grants, because I wanted every child to have an iPad. I just thought, because it was the new technology, and they could put all their books on the iPad, and they wouldn’t have to carry those heavy books in a backpack,” she said in a recent interview. “I didn’t know better, but now we see what the outcomes are and why it wasn’t such a bad idea for the older students, but it absolutely was not a good idea for the younger students.”
An August report from Cedars-Sinai Medical Medical Center, a hospital in Los Angeles, said that children under three years old should have “little to no screen exposure” because it can delay social skill development.
“We’ve long recognized that the earliest years of life matter the most, and from birth to age five, their children’s brains are developing so fast, I mean, faster than any other time, and the experiences they have during those years shapes their learning for a lifetime,” Ross said.
Ross said one key piece of this bill is bringing awareness to parents about screen usage.
“This is not about shaming or making people feel like, oh my goodness, what have I done? This is just about informing, and that’s going to be a big piece of this legislation, that parents are going to be able to have information that they might not have known about, as far as how to best use screens and when not to use them,” she said.
Alabama State Schools Superintendent Eric Mackey said after the Dec. 11 Alabama State Board of Education meeting that while screens have their place in society, students need to be spending instructional time with teachers.
“There’s a lot of research about the overuse of screens in some places. We already have limitations on our four-year-old Pre-K program in this state, so I’m excited about us having discussions about how we can extend some of those limits to five-year-olds,” he said.
Under the Alabama Administrative Code, children under the age of two are prohibited from screen usage and children over the age of two are limited to less than 30 minutes per day for children in half-day programs and less than an hour a day in full-day programs in licensed childcare facilities.
Not all child care facilities in Alabama are licensed. Out of 2,458 facilities roughly 78% (1,922) are licensed by the Alabama Department of Human Resources (DHR). Licensed facilities are required to reapply for licensure every two years.
Ross’ bill expands these limitations to include weekly limitations of 90 minutes per day for children ages two through four and individual screen usage is prohibited. Local boards of education must adopt policies on appropriate screen time usage in kindergarten classrooms.
Guidelines implemented in the bill would be created by the Department of Early Childhood Education (ADECE) Research and Evaluation team in collaboration with DHR and the Alabama State Department of Education (ALSDE). All three agencies will implement the guidelines once created.
“If you provide the opportunity to people, for people to have input, not only are you creating something that’s got a lot of good across the board perspective, you’re including people in the process, and I think that’s very important,” Ross said.
The guidelines must include the importance of reading, play, physical activity and caregiver-child interaction; the risks of excessive screen time on children and strategies for creating “screen-free routines” at home.
The bill would require certain teachers and staff to undergo annual training developed by ADECE, DHR AND ALSDE that includes guidance on the appropriate use of screen time in early childhood settings, what constitutes high-quality programming and alternatives to screen time.
Mackey said he believes Legislature will spend a considerable amount of time discussing the bill when they begin meeting on Jan. 13.
“I know the governor is very interested in this and we’re having a lot of conversations about it,” he said. “I think something will come of it and there’ll be some limitations by the end of the spring.”