Wimpy Kid author’s screen time warning

BESTSELLING Diary Of A Wimpy Kid creator Jeff Kinney has warned that children are not being “fully socialised” because of their changing relationship with technology.

The writer has sold more than 150 million print copies of his Wimpy Kid series, with the books being adapted into movies for the big-screen.

But the US author said that screen time posed a problem for authors wanting to set their books in the real world.

And he described children’s relationships with technology as the “great experiment of our times”.

“I don’t know if anybody really has the right answer, but what’s undeniable is the way that kids communicate with each other has changed fundamentally and probably permanently,” he said.

“What we really want for our kids is to be fully socialised and to hold a conversation with one another and I think that’s what’s being lost.

“If I get in the car with my kids now everybody’s on their phone ... and it feels weird to drive around with everybody on their phone.

“I think it is being lost, not just slightly, and I think that we’re all complicit as parents as well. It’s on my mind all the time.”

Kinney, whose books have been translated into more than 50 languages, added: “Screen time is the issue that every parent is facing these days.”