{"id":2807,"date":"2026-06-25T06:36:09","date_gmt":"2026-06-25T06:36:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/americanmovershub.com\/?p=2807"},"modified":"2026-06-25T06:36:09","modified_gmt":"2026-06-25T06:36:09","slug":"opinion-what-toy-story-5-got-right-and-wrong-about-how-screen-time-affects-kids","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/americanmovershub.com\/?p=2807","title":{"rendered":"Opinion: What \u2018Toy Story 5\u2019 got right \u2014 and wrong \u2014\u00a0about how screen time affects kids"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

Sunday night provided one of those moments that all mothers have occasionally. You look at your children and wonder how did those three beings come from me? I was walking a few steps behind the rest of my family as my three teenagers and my husband entered our local movie theater to see the latest movie in the \u201cToy Story\u201d franchise. Two of the kids are taller than my husband. This fall they will both be in college. All I could think about was how small they once were and how I had seen each one of the previous installments of this movie \u2014 some multiple times \u2014 with each one of them. <\/p>\n

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As someone who has been sounding the alarm about kids and screen time for more than a decade publicly and for many more years among my own friends and family, the theme of \u201cToy Story 5\u201d certainly resonated. Bonnie doesn\u2019t seem to be able to make any friends because all the other kids have given up on playing and are addicted to their devices. So Bonnie\u2019s parents, who we see are also a little distracted by screens, decide to get her one as well. \u201cNow that you\u2019re 8 \u2026\u201d <\/p>\n

The results are predictable. Bonnie turns into a zombie, tapping on the screen from morning till night. The toy, Lily Pad, says that she will help Bonnie make friends by joining a group chat with the girls from dance class, but of course that only results in bullying. She loses interest in all the other toys, including cowgirl Jessie, the leader of the bunch. <\/p>\n

All of this seems fairly accurate. My now-19-year-old kept playing with her dolls until 12, long after many of her friends had stopped, in part because screens were not an alternative. All three of my kids became used to reading for entertainment. Playdates were spent outside or playing ping-pong in the basement or board games. It became clear quickly which friends were willing to submit to such rules and which asked for devices when they arrived on our doorstep or (heaven forbid) brought their own. <\/p>\n

There is much that the movie gets right about screens. Jessie complains that all the electronic toys and devices have wasted years of precious childhood. They have made kids grow up too fast. They have made friendships harder to form. Jessie is willing to accept that kids eventually grow out of their toys \u2014 she is still sad about her previous \u201ckid\u201d becoming a teenager and putting her aside \u2014 but there is no reason to cut the process short. <\/p>\n

Still, the movie comes to a bit of a dead end on the question of how to fix this problem. Jessie forms an alliance with a couple of the throwback electronic toys to communicate with another child who lives far away so that Bonnie can become friends with her. The implication seems to be that at their best, electronic toys can be used as a tool for helping form face-to-face connections. But what about Lily Pad? Is there a way for her to coexist with real toys, ones that require imagination and that preserve the innocence of childhood? Not really. <\/p>\n

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No child is going to give up screens voluntarily and the movie\u2019s creators don\u2019t pretend otherwise. Sure, there are a few teens and 20-somethings out there who have gone old school and gotten flip phones in recent years. So what\u2019s missing here is \u2014 you guessed it \u2014 the parents. One of the great joys of the \u201cToy Story\u201d movies has been that the adults are an afterthought. The kids and the toys live in their own worlds. Like the adults in \u201cPeanuts\u201d cartoons, the \u201cToy Story\u201d grown-ups are just disembodied voices setting up the plot\u2019s circumstances but they are rarely involved in any of the real action.<\/p>\n

But when it comes to restricting screen use, parents are actually an important part of the story. Unfortunately, not only do Bonnie\u2019s parents seem unaware of the problems of handing a child unlimited access to a screen \u2014 keeping it next to her bed at night, no less \u2014 they don\u2019t even seem to understand they have made a mistake once everything goes wrong. Why is their daughter always upset, always clinging to this device? Why does she lose her mind when the device is not charged? They are blind to the problems that the audience sees. <\/p>\n

More parents are aware of the downsides to screens than when I first started writing about this problem, which is a little gratifying. There are phone bans in schools. Wait Until 8th<\/sup> has grown to a nationwide movement. Parents are now fighting ed tech too. <\/p>\n

It is bittersweet, of course, to see your children grown, to find them long out of the make-believe stage. It is a comfort, though, knowing that you let them grow out of it on their own time. <\/p>\n

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As someone who has been sounding the alarm about kids and screen time for more than a decade, the theme of \u201cToy Story 5\u201d certainly resonated.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2806,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2807","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-opinion"],"yoast_head":"\nOpinion: What \u2018Toy Story 5\u2019 got right \u2014 and wrong \u2014\u00a0about how screen time affects kids - American Movers Hub<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/americanmovershub.com\/?p=2807\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Opinion: What \u2018Toy Story 5\u2019 got right \u2014 and wrong \u2014\u00a0about how screen time affects kids - 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