How tech leaders balance AI, gaming, and social media for families

In today’s world, parenting involves a constant stream of tech-related choices. Is it okay for your little one to enjoy "Sesame Street" on an iPad? Does FaceTiming the grandparents count as screen time? And just because "all the other kids" are on social media, should your teenager be too?

With technology’s risks and benefits, parents are keen to see how tech industry leaders manage it with their children. B

oth PayPal's Peter Thiel and Snapchat's Evan Spiegel have mentioned they restrict their kids, all under 8, to just 90 minutes of screen time weekly. 

Mark Zuckerberg, creator of Facebook, hopes his children will engage in meaningful communication rather than mindless screen use.

Interestingly, tech leaders are more like typical parents than one might think: striking a balance between offline activities and fostering critical thinking, while also providing technology-driven opportunities for growth.

Kate Doerksen, who co-founded and now leads Sage Haven, an app that assists parents in supervising their children's conversations, allocates her 7 and 9-year-olds an hour daily on gadgets like iPads or the Nintendo Switch, with extra time when they play video games together. 

Her plans include postponing the introduction of smartphones and social media, although her daughter has an Apple Watch for messaging, which Kate monitors.

As Stride's chief learning officer, Niyoka McCoy appreciates tech as a routine part of modern life but remains mindful of how her 14- and 2-year-olds utilise it.

Three years back, Hari Ravichandran's daughter, then 13, faced challenges, which he believes were compounded by her smartphone usage. Realising that she was too young when he initially allowed her a phone, he retracted it, opting to wait until she's 15 or 16 before granting access to her and his three younger children.

Tim Sheehan, who helped create Greenlight—offering debit cards for youth—allowed his four kids smartphones at age 12 and introduced them to social media at 15. 

With children now aged 17 to 26, he vigilantly observed their tech consumption when they were younger due to their susceptibility.

Justice Eroline, heading technology at BairesDev, enforces a one-hour screen time rule for his children aged 8, 10, and 12, attentively selecting the content they view.

For Ahu Chhapgar, CTO at the fintech firm Paysafe and father of two (ages 10 and 13), short-form videos are particularly troubling.