Tech and Parenting: AI, Video Games, and Social Media

The Technological Choices of Leaders for Their Children

In today's world, where technology is ubiquitous, tech leaders face complex decisions regarding their children's exposure to screens. While some abandon strict screen time limits, others continue to enforce them, but all agree on the importance of how their children interact with technology. Creativity is often emphasized, while short videos and social media remain major concerns.

Being a parent today involves navigating numerous technology-related decisions. For example, is it appropriate for a young child to watch "Sesame Street" on an iPad? Should FaceTime with grandparents count towards screen time? And what about teenagers and their access to social media, often justified by the notion that "everyone is doing it"?

Parents are increasingly aware of the potential dangers but also the opportunities that technology offers. Thus, it is natural to wonder how those who lead tech companies manage these issues with their own children. Peter Thiel, co-founder of PayPal, and Evan Spiegel, CEO of Snapchat, have stated that they limit their young children's screen time to an hour and a half per week. Mark Zuckerberg, founder of Facebook, wants his children to use screens primarily for communication rather than for passive consumption.

Ultimately, tech leaders, like the rest of us, seek to balance screen-free time with the development of critical thinking skills while providing their children access to the opportunities that technology can open up. Here’s how seven tech leaders manage these decisions for their families.

Finding a Balance

Kate Doerksen, co-founder and CEO of Sage Haven, an app that helps parents monitor their children's messages, allows her 7 and 9-year-old children one hour per day on their iPads or Nintendo Switch, with extra time if the family plays a video game together. She plans to delay access to smartphones and social media, but her daughter has an Apple Watch with messaging, which she closely monitors.

"As with most things in life, the right answer seems to lie somewhere in the middle," explains Doerksen. "It's not about technological abstinence, and it's not about unlimited, unrestrained use. It's about moderate use of non-addictive apps and games with limits."

Encouraging Learning and Creativity

Niyoka McCoy, head of learning at Stride, an online education company, views technology as an integral part of life, but she is always intentional about how her children — aged 14 and 2 — use it.

"We believe that technology should primarily be a tool for learning and creativity, and secondarily for entertainment," she asserts. Her children do not have strict screen time limits, but McCoy aims to prevent them from passively consuming content. "When children spend too much time scrolling or watching instead of creating, learning, or building something meaningful," she explains, "that's when technology stops being beneficial."

Prioritizing Well-Being Over Screen Time

Three years ago, Hari Ravichandran's daughter, then 13, went through a tough time, a situation he believes was exacerbated by access to a smartphone. He had given her a phone at 13, but now thinks it was too young, so he decided to take the phone away and delay access until she is 15 or 16, as well as for his three younger children.

"I knew we couldn't just send her back into the same digital environment that had amplified those issues," says Ravichandran, founder and CEO of the online security company Aura.

At the same time, he believes that "the idea that technology itself is the enemy is exaggerated." He adds that "cutting it off completely doesn't solve the underlying problem and can actually limit children's independence and digital literacy." Today, he focuses on the impact of technology on his children's mood, sleep, self-esteem, and overall well-being.

"For us, it's less about strict prohibitions and more about awareness, responsibility, and open dialogue," he says.

Aligning Family Values

Tim Sheehan, co-founder and CEO of Greenlight, which provides debit cards for children and teenagers, gave his four children access to smartphones at 12 and social media at 15. His children are now aged between 17 and 26. When they were younger, he closely monitored their technology consumption, knowing how impressionable they were.

"My goal is to ensure that the outside influences in their lives support the values we are trying to instill," he says.

Limiting Short Videos

Justice Eroline, CTO of software development company BairesDev, applies a general rule of one hour of screen time for his children, aged 8, 10, and 12. Even within this framework, he pays close attention to the type of content they watch.

"I do not allow short-form content for children because it affects their attention span," he says.

Ahu Chhapgar, CTO of fintech company Paysafe and father of two children (aged 10 and 13), is even more concerned about short videos than anything else.

"When children have access to them, they almost enter a trance," he says. "This level of stimulation is not how the brain has evolved to process information, and I worry about the long-term effects on attention and impulse control."

Encouraging the Use of AI and Video Games

Unlike some parents, Eroline is much less concerned about video games.

"Video games can teach children many different things: teamwork, reaction time, problem-solving, tenacity, and how to deal with defeat," explains Eroline. "The content of video games can be debatable, but there are many that are suitable for different age groups."

Chhapgar will not allow his children access to smartphones until they are 14, and to social media until they are 16, but he encourages them to use ChatGPT for 20 minutes each day.

"No one has all the answers about AI yet," he says. "So, I prefer that they explore, build, and experiment responsibly rather than passively consume technology."

Controlling Digital Interaction

Nik Kale, a principal engineer at Cisco Systems, ensures that his 3-year-old daughter does not receive a screen when she is upset.

"I don't want her to develop a dependency where the first response to discomfort is a device," he explains.

He also makes sure that he or his wife — and not an algorithm — chooses what their daughter sees.

"I don't let automated systems make unsupervised decisions in my production environments at work," he says. "I'm not going to let a system make unsupervised decisions about what my three-year-old daughter's brain consumes either."

For him, this is much more important than seemingly arbitrary screen time limits.

"Parents tally minutes as if it were a dose of toxicity," he says, "when the real variable is whether a human or an algorithm is directing the experience."