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School lets out, the routine disappears, and the screens fill the gap. A new report on kids and technology puts a number on what most parents already sense: children pick up more than four extra hours of device time a week once summer starts, close to 30 percent more than during the school year. The same report surfaces a quieter finding that may unsettle parents more than the hours. Nearly half of children ages 7 to 11 said that talking to a digital companion, the chat-based characters and bots built into apps and games, feels like talking to a real character or a friend.
The data come from Aura’s 2026 State of the Youth Report, a survey conducted by Talker Research that polled 2,000 U.S. parents of children ages 7 to 11 along with their kids in late April and early May. Aura sells digital-safety tools, so the report has a point of view, yet the underlying numbers line up with what pediatricians and other researchers have been describing for years.
What the Report Found
The summer spike is the headline. With no school schedule to anchor the day, younger kids add roughly four hours of weekly device time, and those hours tend to land in unstructured stretches: late mornings, long afternoons, and the slide toward bedtime. The increase is not small. Thirty percent more screen time across a 10-week break adds up to dozens of extra hours by the time school returns.
Kids are not oblivious to the cost. More than half, 52 percent, agreed that too much screen time is not good for them. That gap between what children know and what they do is familiar to any adult who has doom-scrolled past midnight, and it is a reminder that awareness alone does not set a limit.
The companion finding is the one drawing the most attention. As chat features and AI characters show up inside ordinary kids’ apps, children are forming something that feels like a relationship with them. When roughly half of 7- to 11-year-olds describe talking to a bot as talking to a friend, the line between a tool and a confidant has blurred for a group still learning how real friendships work.
What Experts Say
The American Academy of Pediatrics stopped recommending a single magic number of screen hours for school-age children years ago. Instead, it points families to a Family Media Plan and asks a more useful question: what is the screen time replacing? Hours that crowd out sleep, physical activity, in-person play, and family meals are the ones that do damage, regardless of the total on the timer.
That framing helps in summer, when some extra screen time is realistic and not worth a fight. A child who watches a movie on a rainy afternoon but still sleeps well, moves their body, and sees friends is in a different place from one whose device has quietly replaced all three. Pediatricians also stress protecting the hour before bed, since stimulating content keeps the nervous system revved long after the screen goes dark and pushes sleep later.
On AI companions, child-development specialists are more wary. A chatbot is engineered to be agreeable and available, which is the opposite of how human friendship works. Real friends disagree, get busy, and require a child to read faces and repair conflicts. Clinicians worry that a young child who leans on an endlessly accommodating bot misses reps at the harder, more valuable skill of getting along with people. Concern has reached lawmakers too. New York recently passed a law restricting AI companion chatbots for kids, a sign that the worry extends well beyond any single company’s report.
What This Means for Parents
You do not need to ban screens for the summer, and most experts would tell you not to try. A loose plan beats a strict rule you cannot keep. A few moves make the season easier:
- Anchor the day with a couple of fixed points. Kids drift toward devices when nothing else is scheduled. A morning activity and an afternoon outing, even small ones, shrink the open hours that screens tend to fill.
- Protect three things first: sleep, movement, and meals. Build the day so screens fit around them, not the other way around. Keep devices out of the bedroom overnight.
- Decide on screen-free zones and times, not just totals. No devices at the table and none in the last hour before bed are easier to enforce than a daily hour count, and they target the moments that hurt most.
- Ask your child what they do on their apps, including who or what they chat with. If an AI companion is part of their day, sit with them while they use it. Talk about how a bot is built to please and is not a substitute for a friend.
- Use the awareness kids already have. Since half admit too much is bad for them, bring them into the plan. Children stick to limits they helped set far better than ones handed down.
- Model it. A summer where the adults also put phones away at meals and outings carries more weight than any rule.
How Much Is Too Much, by Age
Because the AAP moved away from a one-size limit for older kids, parents are left judging quality and trade-offs. A rough guide helps. For children under 2, the advice stays strict: avoid screens beyond video chatting with family. For ages 2 to 5, about an hour a day of high-quality content, watched together when possible, is a reasonable ceiling. For school-age children, the 7- to 11-year-olds in this report, there is no fixed number, but the test is whether screens are pushing out sleep, activity, reading, chores, and face-to-face time. If those are intact, a higher summer total is less concerning than it looks.
Not all screen time is the same, either. A video chat with a grandparent, a creative app where a child builds something, and a co-watched documentary sit at one end. Passive autoplay and engagement-driven feeds that are designed to keep a child scrolling sit at the other. When you size up your kid’s summer, weigh what they are doing on the device, not only how long they hold it.
Signs the Balance Has Tipped
Most summers of extra screen time cause no harm. A few patterns are worth a closer look. Watch for screens that crowd out sleep, with a child staying up late or waking tired. Notice if your child loses interest in activities they used to enjoy, melts down disproportionately when a device is turned off, or sneaks screen time after limits are set. Pay attention if an online or app-based relationship, including with an AI companion, seems to be replacing time with real friends rather than adding to it.
None of these alone means a crisis, and summer disruption can mimic them. If the pattern holds for weeks, or if you see a real dip in mood, sleep, or friendships, bring it up with your pediatrician. They can help sort an ordinary lazy summer from something that needs a plan, and they can point you to resources for families navigating heavy device use or worries about chatbot relationships.
Easy Swaps for the Open Hours
The four extra hours have to go somewhere, and they are easier to redirect than to eliminate. Keep a short list of low-effort alternatives within reach so that “I’m bored” has a fast answer that is not a tablet. A stack of library books and a summer reading log, a bin of art supplies left out on the table, a backyard sprinkler or water table, a bike ride or a walk to a park, baking together, a simple chore that earns a small reward, or a standing playdate all fill the gap. None of it has to be elaborate. The point is to make the non-screen option the path of least resistance during the stretches when boredom would otherwise win. Many parents find that loosening up on screens during travel or a heat wave, while holding firm at meals and bedtime, strikes a balance they can actually sustain all summer.
The Bigger Picture
Every generation of parents has worried about whatever screen was new, from television to video games to smartphones. What feels different now is that the screen talks back. A child no longer just watches a show or plays a game. They can hold a conversation with a character designed to keep them engaged and to never log off. The summer hours are worth watching, but the more lasting question is the one the companion finding raises: as kids spend more of their social energy on software, parents have a fresh job, which is teaching the difference between something that responds and someone who cares. That lesson does not come from a setting or a timer. It comes from the messy, irreplaceable practice of real relationships, and summer, with its long days and low stakes, is a good time to give kids more of them.