Tech leaders keep their own children away from the products they built
From Steve Jobs to Evan Spiegel, tech billionaires and executives are publicly limiting their children's screen time, even as they build the apps and devices that dominate modern life.
Some of the most influential figures in Silicon Valley are keeping their own children away from the technology they helped create, even as their companies build an increasingly screen-focused world. The practice dates back at least to 2010, when Apple cofounder Steve Jobs told a New York Times reporter that his kids had never used an iPad and that his family limited technology use at home. Since then, the trend has only grown as concerns about excessive device use among children have become more widespread.
Children in the United States ages 8 to 18 now spend an average of 7.5 hours per day watching or using screens, according to the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry. The rise of short-form video and time-consuming social media platforms has pushed many tech executives to take a cautious approach with their own families. YouTube CEO Neal Mohan, who has three children, said he and his wife try to limit how much time his children spend on platforms like YouTube. In a December interview with Time, Mohan said the family is stricter on weekdays and more relaxed on weekends, adding, «We’re not perfect by any stretch.»
YouTube cofounder Steve Chen expressed similar concerns at a talk at the Stanford Graduate School of Business last year, saying he would not want his kids consuming only short-form content. «Shorter-form content equates to shorter attention spans,» he said, suggesting it might be better to limit children to videos longer than 15 minutes.
Approaches vary widely among tech leaders. Instagram CEO Adam Mosseri, who has three children, said in an interview last year that his kids start at a baseline of zero minutes of weekend screen and video game time. They can earn up to 90 minutes by completing three 30-minute homework sessions during the week. Mosseri said he avoids taking away earned screen time because it caused his children to act out more, though he noted one exception: «When really all barriers go out the window is on planes.»
Early Facebook investor and billionaire Peter Thiel previously said he lets his two young children use screens for only an hour and a half per week, a revelation that prompted audible gasps from the audience at the 2024 Aspen Ideas Festival. Snap CEO Evan Spiegel takes a more adaptable approach, adjusting rules based on the child. Spiegel, who has four boys ages two, six, seven, and 15 with his wife Miranda Kerr, said the two-year-old gets almost zero screen time unless he is getting a haircut, when his parents allow him to watch videos of Bobcat tractors because «he really struggles with getting his haircut.» The six and seven-year-olds also rarely use screens, though they do watch movies occasionally and play video games on ModRetro’s Chromatic handheld device. Spiegel’s oldest son, Flynn, is «all in on technology, whether he’s using it for school or whether he’s using it to talk with his friends or using Snapchat,» Spiegel said.
Other prominent founders have also spoken about limiting their children’s access to devices. Microsoft cofounder Bill Gates has said he did not give his children smartphones until age 14 and banned phones at the dinner table entirely. Elon Musk, who bought the social media company X in 2022, said it «might’ve been a mistake» to not set any rules on social media for his children.
Scientific research increasingly supports the instinct to rein in screen time. A 2025 study of nearly 100,000 people found that short-form video use was consistently associated with poorer cognition and a decline in many aspects of mental health across both younger and older social media users. The backlash against minors’ use of social media has reached a breaking point, with Australia, Indonesia, and Malaysia all banning adolescents under 16 from using social media over the past year. Several other countries, including Spain, Denmark, and the United Kingdom, are considering similar legislation.
The effectiveness of such bans remains unclear. A study by a team that advised the Australian government on its social media ban found in July that some test accounts for fake 16-year-olds were not prompted to verify their age. Meanwhile, several social media CEOs have publicly pushed back on claims that their platforms are harmful. Mosseri testified earlier this year in a trial against Meta, the parent company of Instagram and Facebook, that social media overuse does not constitute «clinical addiction.» Meta this week reached a $17 billion settlement in the case.
