When Snap CEO Evan Spiegel was growing up, he wasn't allowed to watch TV.
The 28-year-old chief exec told the Financial Times in a recent interview that his parents enforced a no-TV policy until he was “almost a teenager."
Spiegel — whose messaging app Snapchat now claims 186 million daily active users — said not watching TV made life at school a “little tricky," but "actually thought that was valuable because [he] spent a lot of time just building stuff and reading or whatever."
Today, Spiegel and his wife Miranda Kerr impose an hour and a half of screen time per week on their seven-year-old child, who comes from Kerr's first marriage.
“I think the more interesting conversation to have is really around the quality of that screen time,” Spiegel told the Financial Times. He brought it back to Snapchat: He says more “positive” videos should be promoted on the app, even if they will unavoidably be among mind-numbing content he describes as “junk food” stories.
Spiegel also thinks parents need to lead by example.
He said that parents should cut down on their own screen time or explain what they're doing on their devices so kids aren't "looking at the black back of the phone . . . [with] no idea what’s going on”.
Of course, Spiegel may need to start practicing what he preaches, as the Snap CEO reportedly spends much of his time during board meetings glued to his phone and disengaged from conversation.
Read more: Evan Spiegel spends most of his time during board meetings on Snapchat
Read the full Financial Times interview here.
