Square-Eyes: The Average Child Spends Over 143 Hours Staring at a Screen. Really.

A worrying new study today reveals that the average Irish child will spend a massive 143 hours and 36 minutes of their summer holidays from school sitting in front of a screen.

The Irish Daily Star reports that Ireland’s young people are more likely to spend their summer indoors than out playing with their friends. Instead, more and more young people are using their break from school to play videogames, watch television and mess around on the internet.

In fact, the average kid is likely to spend a grand total of 12 days straight in front of some kind of screen, be it television, phone, computer or something else.

These figures come from a study of 2,000 parents and the results revealed that the average child spends at least 3 hours and 11 minutes in front of a screen every single day.

The research, which was carried out by Galt Toys, also found that 1 in every 8 children now has their own iPad. Eh…is anyone else disturbed by this? Here in the Her.ie offices we don’t even have 1 iPad between the lot of us. Sad face.

Is your child spending too much time watching TV?

Anyway, the survey showed that a lot of parents find it hard to think of ways to entertain their children while they’re on their summer holidays.  6 in 10 parents admitted that they regularly put their child in front of the television or a games console on rainy days simply because it makes their own lives easier.

It may make their own lives easier but children are missing out on fresh air, exercise and spending some time with their friends.

So ladies, how do you get the kids out of the house during the summer holidays and do you have any rules when it comes to spending too much time in front of the television? Share your tips and tricks in the comments section below…