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Parents Are Spending 10 Hours a Week Fighting Screen Time, But It’s Still Not Enough
In A Nutshell
- 87% believe DIY projects would strengthen their bond with their kids, and 7 in 10 are already trying to recreate the hands-on activities they grew up with.
- 42% of young American parents feel disconnected from their children because of screen time, with kids averaging four hours a day on devices.
- Heavy screen use is linked to distractibility, irritability, lost sleep, and less physical activity in children, according to their parents.
- Parents spend 10 hours a week hunting for screen-free activities, and over half say the problem gets worse in winter.
Something is coming between American parents and their children, and it fits in a pocket. A national survey of 2,000 millennial and Gen Z parents found that 42% feel disconnected from their kids because of technology. On an average day, children in these households spend about four hours in front of a screen, and parents say the effects are showing up in ways that go beyond wasted time.
Easily distracted kids. Less physical activity. Irritability. Trouble sleeping. Disengagement from the people sitting in the same room. Parents flagged all of these behaviors at high rates, and nearly half of them tied the problems back to one source: screens. The word they kept reaching for wasn’t “annoyed” or “frustrated.” It was “disconnected,” a term that speaks less to logistics and more to the quality of a relationship.
Commissioned by Lowe’s and conducted by Talker Research between January 13 and January 19, 2026, the online survey polled American millennial and Gen Z parents of children aged 2 to 18 with internet access. While it’s not a clinical study, the results land at a moment when screen time has become one of the most debated topics in American parenting.
How Screen Time Is Ruining Family Time
Parents in the survey described a pattern of behavioral changes they attribute to heavy screen use. Forty-two percent said their children are easily distracted. The same percentage reported less physical activity. Thirty-four percent described irritability, 30% noticed sleep problems, and 30% said their kids disengage from the people around them.
What this survey can’t determine is the direction of the relationship. Four hours of daily screen time might cause distractibility and irritability. Or kids who are already prone to those behaviors may simply gravitate toward screens more often. That distinction requires controlled clinical research, not a consumer poll. But when 42% of a national sample of young parents independently describe feeling cut off from their children because of technology, the pattern is hard to ignore regardless of which way the causal arrow points.
Parents Are Spending 10 Hours a Week Searching for Screen-Free Activities
More than half of surveyed parents, 54%, said they try to reduce their children’s screen time by offering hands-on alternatives. Playing with toys topped the list at 68%, followed by helping around the house (66%) and coloring (66%). Crafts (63%), reading (60%), building projects (44%), and STEM-based activities (42%) rounded out the most popular options.
Finding those alternatives takes work. Parents reported spending an average of 10 hours a week looking for non-screen activities for their kids, and many said they wish more free options were available nearby. Family-friendly activities ranked highest on their wish lists at 58%, followed by outdoor activities (56%), DIY workshops (48%), creative arts and crafts (48%), and educational programs (39%).
Winter compounds the problem. Fifty-six percent of parents said their children’s screen time increases when temperatures drop or the weather turns bad, leaving families scrambling for indoor alternatives that don’t involve a tablet or TV.
Childhood DIY Memories Are Shaping How Parents Fight Screen Time
For many parents in the survey, the motivation to push back against screens has personal roots. Nearly half, 46%, said they frequently did DIY projects with their own parents while growing up, and those memories left a lasting impression. Fifty-eight percent recalled feeling happy during those activities. Fifty-six percent associated them with creativity, 47% with satisfaction, and 40% with confidence.
Those childhood experiences are now driving parenting decisions. Seven in 10 respondents said they’ve tried to recreate similar hands-on activities with their own children. And 87% believe that doing DIY projects together would strengthen the parent-child bond. Parents also saw practical value: 63% said DIY activities teach patience, 59% said they encourage creativity, and 56% said they help children learn to collaborate.
It’s a cycle powered by memory. Parents who remember the feeling of building or creating something alongside a parent are betting that the same experience can pull their own kids away from a screen, even if only for an afternoon.
A Growing Concern That Won’t Log Off
This survey arrives during a period of intense national scrutiny over children and screens. Surgeon General Vivek Murthy issued an advisory in 2023 about social media’s effects on youth mental health, and multiple states have introduced or passed legislation aimed at restricting minors’ access to certain online platforms. While this Talker Research data is narrower in scope, and a commercial survey rather than a federal report, it adds a parental voice to a conversation that has mostly been dominated by policymakers and researchers.
Parents in this survey aren’t waiting for clinical consensus. They’re already putting in the hours, 10 per week on average, to find activities that can compete with a glowing screen. And the tool many of them are reaching for is the same one their own parents used a generation ago: a project they can do together, side by side, with their hands instead of their thumbs.
Survey Notes
Limitations
This study was an online consumer survey commissioned by Lowe’s and conducted by Talker Research between January 13-19, 2026. The 2,000 respondents were limited to American millennial and Gen Z parents of children aged 2 to 18 with internet access, excluding parents without connectivity and potentially underrepresenting lower-income or rural families. Because the survey was conducted online with opt-in participants, it carries self-selection bias and is not a random probability sample. All data is self-reported, reflecting parents’ perceptions rather than clinically observed outcomes. The survey does not differentiate between types of screen time, such as educational content, social media, or passive entertainment, which limits what can be inferred about the specific nature of the concern. No causal relationship between screen time and the behavioral changes parents described can be established from this data.
Funding and Disclosures
Lowe’s, the American home improvement retailer, commissioned the survey. Lowe’s has a clear commercial interest in promoting DIY activities and home-based projects, which should be weighed when evaluating findings about the benefits of hands-on, screen-free activities. Talker Research administered the survey. No other funding sources or conflicts of interest were disclosed.
