This TED Talk features children's media expert Sarah DeWitt, recorded live at TED 2017.

I want us to start by thinking about this device, the phone that's very likely in your pockets right now.

Over 40% of Americans check their phone within five minutes of waking up every morning.

And then they look at it another 50 times during the day.

Grownups consider this device to be a necessity.

But now I want you to imagine it in the hands of a three-year-old.

And as a society, we get anxious. Parents are very

worried that this device is going to stunt their children's social growth, that it's going to

keep them from getting up and moving, that somehow this is going to disrupt childhood.

So I want to challenge this attitude.

I can envision a future where we would be excited

to see a preschooler interacting with the screen.

These screens can get kids up and moving even more.

They have the power to tell us more about what a child is learning than a standardized test can.

And here's the really crazy thought.

I believe that these screens have the power

to prompt more real-life conversations

between kids and their parents.

Now, I was perhaps an unlikely champion for this cause.

I studied children's literature

because I was going to work with kids and books.

But about 20 years ago,

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