Podcast: Recess, Screens, and Absenteeism

Schools have been quietly chipping away at recess for nearly a decade, and a sweeping new report from the American Academy of Pediatrics says it is time to stop. Meanwhile, the federal government has issued a formal advisory on screen time and children, raising urgent questions about how schools, parents, and tech companies should respond.

This week, EdSurge reporters Lauren Coffey and Nadia Tamez-Robledo bring both stories together around a single urgent question: what does it look like when kids get less real-world experience and more pressure?

What You'll Learn:

• The American Academy of Pediatrics updated its recess guidelines for the first time since 2013, expanding its recommendations to include middle and high school students.

• One Massachusetts high school cut chronic absenteeism from 35 percent to 23 percent in a single year after introducing movement breaks, suggesting that belonging and physical activity can drive school attendance in meaningful ways.

• The screen time advisory issued by HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy calls for bell-to-bell phone bans, warning labels on apps, and the elimination of recommendation algorithms for children, but researchers caution that the evidence linking screen time to negative outcomes is correlation, not proven cause and effect.

• Experts warn that broad phone and screen restrictions could inadvertently affect students with IEPs and disabilities who rely on assistive devices, a tension the advisory acknowledges but does not fully resolve.

Listen to the episode:

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