Cecilia Sada Garibay featured on the Academic Minute

Original story can be found at https://www.aacu.org/podcasts/academicminute/2025-09-cecilia-sada-garibay-university-of-arizona-screen-time-and-family-relationships

What can our children’s screen time teach us about family relationships?

Cecilia Sada Garibay, graduate student in communication at the University of Arizona, observes to find the answer.

Before entering her Ph.D. program, Sada Garibay was a professor and researcher at the School of Communication at Universidad Panamericana in Mexico City. There, she taught courses on social media effects, cyber journalism, and Spanish-language communication.

Her research primarily focuses on caregivers’ mediation of children’s media use and media effects on children and adolescents. She also studies the influence of media content on young adults’ attitudes toward guns.

Screen Time and Family Relationships

As parents, we often worry about screen time. How much is too much? What content is appropriate? When should we step in?

But what happens when Grandma and Grandpa are in charge? Who’s keeping track then?

While past studies have explored how grandparents in other countries handle children’s media use, co-author Matthew Lapierre and I wanted to know what’s happening right here at home. How do American grandparents manage screen time when they are the ones in charge?

To find out, we surveyed 350 grandparents and asked about the last time they looked after their grandkids, as well as how much of that time involved the children using screens. That included everything from TV shows and YouTube videos to video games and apps.

We found that nearly half of the time kids spend with their grandparents involves some kind of screen-based activity.

But it’s not just how much time children spend interacting with media that matters, but how grandparents manage that use. Grandparents reported using a range of strategies. Some took a hands-off approach, only keeping an eye on the child. Others co-watched shows or played games together, using screen time as a way to connect. And some talked with the child about media or set clear rules or time limits.

Each strategy has its pros and cons, but one thing is clear: media management isn’t one-size-fits-all. Understanding these different approaches helps us think more clearly about what responsible caregiving in the digital age really looks like.

But if everyone supervises differently, how do we know what works, and what might need to change? How can we support grandparents in creating healthy media habits? What does meaningful time together look like in the digital age? How can parents and grandparents find common ground in handling children’s media consumption?

Those are the questions we continue to ask in our research.

The post Cecilia Sada Garibay, University of Arizona – Screen Time and Family Relationships appeared first on The Academic Minute.