The term “iPad kid” gets thrown around often as a joke, but I think the issue of children’s increase in screen time is more serious than we realize. 

I’m the assistant coach at my local recreational swim team. I spend two to three hours per day during the summer working with kids under 8 years old.

Because of my thousands of hours teaching kids how to swim, I can vouch for any take involving children being harmed by too much screen time. 

I started volunteer coaching in 2016, when I was 11 years old. I continued until I became an assistant coach in 2024. 

I’m now 21, going into my 10th year as a swim coach, and have noticed a massive change in  attention spans and discipline of kids during practice compared to pre-COVID. 

About 63.4% of parents said that their kids’ use of technology during the pandemic has gone up in terms of duration and frequency, according to a Dec. 28, 2022 National Center of Biotechnical Information study.

Now, I am a summer recreational swim coach, so I don’t expect my students to be the second coming of Michael Phelps, but I do expect a little bit of respect. 

During team practices and private lessons, kids struggle with simple social tasks such as maintaining eye contact, which were easier for them to do just a few years ago. 

“In through one ear and out the other,” is an easy way to describe my experiences. 

However, the problem goes beyond simple attention span issues. 

When children are introduced to technology at a young age, it can cause them to lose important social interaction skills, which leads to a lack of body language and eye contact, according to a November 2023 Institute of Digital Media and Child Development article. 

In my opinion parents need to do a better job of managing their kids’ screen time and being more present when they misbehave, especially in a setting like swim practice. 

It’s infuriating when parents just sit and watch their children misbehave without stepping in and correcting their kids’ behavior. 

I find myself constantly having to repeat directions and raise my voice to capture the attention of my swimmers. 

Some swimmers struggle with these simple tasks, while others cause chaos during practice by jumping around and splashing others because of a lack of impulse control.

Since the pandemic, children aged 4 to 13 have worse concentration, attention and impulse control than they did pre-pandemic, according to an Oct. 11, 2021 National Center for Biotechnology Information study.  

I have noticed a big difference in the kids that I coach when they are in the water and trying to complete simple tasks compared to when they are immersed in their iPads. 

When they do eventually get out of practice and go on their iPads, it’s like a whole new kid appears. 

The behavior of these kids flips from unattentive and hyperactive to calm and mellow as soon as their eyes make contact with the blue light of their iPad.

Children are repeating phrases and mimicking people from the internet with no idea of what they are actually saying.

It can be as simple and harmless as making incoherent jokes about a three-legged shark, or as bad as cuss words and slurs. 

I find myself chuckling every once in a while when a kid comes up to me and hits me with new funny phrases that can be found in the chasms of Instagram reels.

However, I feel passionately about how dangerous open access to the internet can be for children. 

I know kids aren’t saying bad words and phrases with ill-intent, but it doesn’t excuse the overall situation that they have been put in to learn these phrases.

In the end, even when I get frustrated, I never blame it on the kids. 

Honestly, I look over at their parents and then down at their kid’s iPads and feel like attempting to Superman heat vision their devices.

This problem seems to be getting worse, and I notice that kids on the pool deck secure access to the dreaded iPad at younger ages each year. 

I absolutely love my job, and if I could I would be a summer recreational swim coach for the rest of my life, but I think we need to make a big change when it comes to children’s access to technology.