Latest / Dr Justin Coulson's Happy Families / What “Addicted to Screens” Really Means for Your Family

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What “Addicted to Screens” Really Means for Your Family · Dr Justin Coulson's Happy Families

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  Speaker 1: The research keeps piling up and it continues to tell
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  Speaker 1: a mixed, challenging and nuanced story about kids and their
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  Speaker 1: time on screens. God I and welcome to the Happy
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  Speaker 1: Families Podcast. My name is doctor Justin Coulson. Today it's
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  Speaker 1: a doctor's Desk episode. In just a sec, I'm going
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  Speaker 1: to spend a couple of minutes talking with you about
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  Speaker 1: screen addiction and mental health. There's a reasonably new study
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  Speaker 1: that's been making headlines and it is fascinating. Headlines include
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  Speaker 1: real risk to youth mental health is addictive use, not
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  Speaker 1: screen time alone? Why parents should focus on screen addiction
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  Speaker 1: over screen time. Screen addiction and suicidal behaviors are linked
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  Speaker 1: for teens according to a study. So what do we
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  Speaker 1: make of these findings? What does the research report actually
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  Speaker 1: tell us? Is screen addiction a real diagnosis? Where do
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  Speaker 1: we go from here when it comes to kids and screens.
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  Speaker 1: That's all coming up in just to sec on today's
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  Speaker 1: episode of the Happy Families Podcast, a Doctor's Desk special edition. Gooday,
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  Speaker 1: Welcome to the Happy Familiess podcast, Real parenting solutions every
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  Speaker 1: day on Australia's most downloaded parenting podcast. I'm doctor Justin Colson. Today.
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  Speaker 1: Unfortunately on my own misus happy families couldn't make it
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  Speaker 1: in for this one. So short, sharp to the point.
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  Speaker 1: A brand new study, a new paper published in I
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  Speaker 1: think it was June in Jammer A researchers at Jammer
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  Speaker 1: is a fairly prestigious publication that scientists love to publish
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  Speaker 1: their stuff so that everyone gets to find out the
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  Speaker 1: latest in research science. Researchers analyzed data from the Adolescent
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  Speaker 1: Brain Cognitive Development Study. It's a massive study happening in
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  Speaker 1: the United States's been going on for a number of years,
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  Speaker 1: following thousands of kids right across the US. This particular
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  Speaker 1: study four two hundred and eighty five tweens. They participated
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  Speaker 1: three different time points between the ages of ten and fourteen.
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  Speaker 1: Break this down and talk about what was measured so
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  Speaker 1: that we can have a look at what the research
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  Speaker 1: has discovered. They looked at addictive screen use, screen time,
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  Speaker 1: mental health symptoms, and suicidal ideation and behavior. Okay, so
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  Speaker 1: two screen measures and two mental health measures. Let's talk
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  Speaker 1: about the two screen measures. First, addictive screen use. We're
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  Speaker 1: talking about where the kids are literally using their screens
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  Speaker 1: in addictive ways, whether they're on phones, social media, and
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  Speaker 1: video games. Okay, so looking at just compulsive use of phone,
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  Speaker 1: compulsive use of social media or addictive use, I should say,
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  Speaker 1: and video games screen time. They just reported the total
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  Speaker 1: number of hours that they spent per day on screens,
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  Speaker 1: not including school activities. Okay, so this is for recreation
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  Speaker 1: use for non school activities. Then they looked at mental health.
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  Speaker 1: Parents were reporting whether or not kids had concerns around depression, anxiety,
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  Speaker 1: and behavior problems. And there was the suicidal ideation and
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  Speaker 1: behavior side of things, where parents and kids were both
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  Speaker 1: interviewed about whether or not the child had any suicidal
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  Speaker 1: thoughts or attempts over the last few years. So we're
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  Speaker 1: looking for patterns here between time on screens, addictive screen use,
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  Speaker 1: and mental health outcomes. Okay, what they find, let's talk
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  Speaker 1: about that. First off, addictive use was very common. To me.
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  Speaker 1: This is the big concern. Addictive use is very common
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  Speaker 1: and it goes up as kids get older. Forty nine
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  Speaker 1: fourteen nine percent of kids showed addictive patterns of phone use. Surprisingly,
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  Speaker 1: only ten percent showed addictive patterns of social media use,
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  Speaker 1: and forty one percent showed addictive patterns of video game use.
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  Speaker 1: Now I'm wondering whether or not, the addictive patterns of
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  Speaker 1: phone use and the addictive patterns of social media use
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  Speaker 1: could have been conflated, and so the forty nine percent
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  Speaker 1: and then down to ten percent, maybe that's not quite accurate.
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  Speaker 1: But what what the researchers did find is that levels
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  Speaker 1: were increasing consistently over time for those things and addictive patterns.
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  Speaker 1: And this is the real take home message. Addictive patterns
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  Speaker 1: of screen use were associated with worse mental health outcomes.
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  Speaker 1: What do I mean by that? Kids who showed highly
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  Speaker 1: addictive social media use or highly addictive video game use
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  Speaker 1: were at greater risk for suicidal thoughts, suicidal behavior, and
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  Speaker 1: other mental health problems. Okay, if your kids look like
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  Speaker 1: they're highly addicted to social media or video games, you
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  Speaker 1: would expect that there would be an associated increase in
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  Speaker 1: mental health challenges and perhaps even the pointy end, which
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  Speaker 1: I think is really concerning. When it comes to highly
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  Speaker 1: addictive phone use, those children were also a greater use,
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  Speaker 1: a greater risk sorry for suicidal thoughts and behavior as well.
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  Speaker 1: So what's really interesting in this pattern of research is
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  Speaker 1: this the total amount of screen time that you could
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  Speaker 1: just spending in front of the device doesn't seem to
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  Speaker 1: be associated with mental health problems, but when they are addicted,
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  Speaker 1: when there is addictive behavior. So time on device is
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  Speaker 1: not the same as addictive styles of behavior. And I'm
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  Speaker 1: going to break that down in just a sec. So
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  Speaker 1: what that basically means is total screen time not associated
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  Speaker 1: with mental health challenges, but addictive screen news is associated
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  Speaker 1: with mental health concerns. Okay, what I mean by associated
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  Speaker 1: is we're not saying one thing causes the other, and
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  Speaker 1: we're saying when one thing moves, so does the other thing.
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  Speaker 1: So it might be poor emotion regulation, it could be
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  Speaker 1: a lack of sleep, it could be poor diet, it
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  Speaker 1: could be a lack of friendships. It could be any
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  Speaker 1: number of other things that are driving both and we're
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  Speaker 1: just not measuring that in this study. Okay, so what
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  Speaker 1: does addictive screen news actually mean? We need to disentangle
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  Speaker 1: addictive screen use from time on screen. I think that
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  Speaker 1: the two would be correlated, but it seems that in
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  Speaker 1: this study that hasn't been the case. So common criteria
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  Speaker 1: for addictive or compulsive social media use, phone use, video
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  Speaker 1: gaming use number one. I just don't seem to be
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  Speaker 1: able to stop or limit my screen news. Try to
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  Speaker 1: use them less and not able to try to reduce
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  Speaker 1: phone usage's not able to second one feeling distressed or
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  Speaker 1: irritable or anxious or depressed when not on a screen.
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  Speaker 1: Third one using the screen as an emotional regulation tool.
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  Speaker 1: Fourth one, just thinking about being on the screen all
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  Speaker 1: the time, Like what am I supposed to do if
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  Speaker 1: I'm not on a screen? I need to be on
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  Speaker 1: my screen? And fifth causing problems with other activities, So
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  Speaker 1: having an impact on sleep, having an impact on school,
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  Speaker 1: having an impact on relationships, having lots of arguments, those
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  Speaker 1: kinds of things. So that's what we're talking about with
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  Speaker 1: addictive screen use, and that's how it differs from time
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  Speaker 1: on just screen time generally. So after the break, we're
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  Speaker 1: going to talk about whether the screen addiction is a
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  Speaker 1: real diagnosis and what we as parents are supposed to
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  Speaker 1: do when it comes to kicks and screens. This is
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  Speaker 1: the Happy Families podcast. Justin Colson breaking down a recent
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  Speaker 1: study in JAMMA. JAMMA the Adolescent Brain Cognitive Development Study,
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  Speaker 1: a massive ongoing study of child health that's been following
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  Speaker 1: thousands of US kids. Addiction. Addictive screen use, whether it's phone,
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  Speaker 1: whether it's gaming, whether it's social media, is associated with
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  Speaker 1: all the bad stuff and none of the good stuff. Seemingly,
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  Speaker 1: if your child is using a screen a lot but
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  Speaker 1: is not addicted to it, we don't get the same
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  Speaker 1: negative outcomes. So what do we need to know here?
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  Speaker 1: We don't actually have an official definition of screen addiction.
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  Speaker 1: It's not an actual diagnosis. You won't find it in
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  Speaker 1: any of the statistical or diagnostic manuals. And so when
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  Speaker 1: we use this term in association with screens, we could
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  Speaker 1: be conflating a whole lot of different things that operate
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  Speaker 1: differently and require different treatments and essentially not the same thing.
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  Speaker 1: And we could also be pathologizing certain behaviors that are
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  Speaker 1: not pathological. So is it really a disease if if
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  Speaker 1: your child is argumentative about screens? Is it really a
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  Speaker 1: disease if your child is thinking about what they were
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  Speaker 1: doing on their screens? Like I don't have any games
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  Speaker 1: on my device right now, but I used to and
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  Speaker 1: I used to close my eyes and just see the
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  Speaker 1: game playing in my head. Does that mean that I
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  Speaker 1: have a disease? No, it just means that fundamentally, I'm
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  Speaker 1: teaching my brain to seek certain things. My friend Jackie NeSSI,
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  Speaker 1: who runs the Techno Sapiens blog says this. She says,
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  Speaker 1: addiction is convenient shorthand for describing patterns of screen use
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  Speaker 1: that are problematic, but we need to be careful about
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  Speaker 1: what exactly we mean when we say it. So what's
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  Speaker 1: this study mean? What are you supposed to do with
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  Speaker 1: the information? How do we leverage this? Where do we go?
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  Speaker 1: First off, I think that there is a distinction between
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  Speaker 1: overall screen time and addictive patterns of use. But the
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  Speaker 1: more your child is on a screen, the more likely
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  Speaker 1: it is that they're going to get addicted. So all
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  Speaker 1: of this comes back to boundaries, right. We've got an
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  Speaker 1: upcoming social media minimum major legislation intervention that's coming December
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  Speaker 1: ten in this country, which is going to have some impact,
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  Speaker 1: but not a huge amount because kids can still use
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  Speaker 1: their screens a lot, So we need to set clear
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  Speaker 1: boundaries around screen use. The three's of effective discipline would
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  Speaker 1: be the model that I would use. Explore what your
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  Speaker 1: child wants to do on a screen and for how
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  Speaker 1: long and when and how and why and those kinds
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  Speaker 1: of things. Explain what your concerns are, and then empower
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  Speaker 1: them to work with you on a problem solving conversation
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  Speaker 1: to figure out the best way forward. We've recently with
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  Speaker 1: our homeschool daughter. Emily said, we are just tired of
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  Speaker 1: fighting with you about screens so we are deciding now
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  Speaker 1: you are going to get this much screen time every day.
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  Speaker 1: We're not big on screen time, we're more interested in
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  Speaker 1: what you're doing on it, but we're tired of the conversation.
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  Speaker 1: So we're actually going to bring in a time limit
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  Speaker 1: because it just makes life easier. So Emily now knows
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  Speaker 1: that she gets X number of hours of screen time
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  Speaker 1: every single day. It's predictable, it's locked in, it's confirmed,
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  Speaker 1: and she also knows what time of day she's going
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  Speaker 1: to get that screen time. We've put it into a
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  Speaker 1: calendar so she knows, and she also understands that she
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  Speaker 1: has to do X, Y and Z before she gets
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  Speaker 1: that screen time. So if she's choosing to be obstinate
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  Speaker 1: and not do her school work, even though we get
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  Speaker 1: to one pm and she's supposed to get her hour
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  Speaker 1: of screen time, if she hasn't done her lessons for homeschool,
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  Speaker 1: then she does not get the screen time. And what
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  Speaker 1: we found is that she's doing her lessons because she
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  Speaker 1: wants a screen time, and we're not having as many
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  Speaker 1: fights about schoolwork or about screens. It's actually working kind
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  Speaker 1: of well. But please note we haven't been dictatorial here.
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  Speaker 1: We have used the three e's, which means it's a
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  Speaker 1: collaborative problem solving solution rather than a here's how it's
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  Speaker 1: going to be. With the parents, just do as you're told.
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  Speaker 1: Don't think that would have been helpful, Okay. Second thing
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  Speaker 1: that I would emphasize, we've got to be good examples
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  Speaker 1: of how to use our screens. If we are constantly
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  Speaker 1: on our screens, we are modeling all the wrong stuff.
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  Speaker 1: We need to talk to our kids about what we're
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  Speaker 1: doing to curb our use. We need to show them
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  Speaker 1: that we can put their screens down, and if we're
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  Speaker 1: struggling with it, we actually need to be honest with
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  Speaker 1: the kids and say this is hard for me, just
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  Speaker 1: like it's hard for you. The third thing that I'd
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  Speaker 1: encourage is just being aware of the red flags, like
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  Speaker 1: if your child is having these extreme reactions when screen
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  Speaker 1: time is finished, then it's time to go back to
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  Speaker 1: a three e's conversation. This is actually what we've done
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  Speaker 1: with Emily as well, because she started to have some tantrums.
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  Speaker 1: We said every time we have to get mad at
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  Speaker 1: you because you're not turning off the screen even though
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  Speaker 1: your time is up. It means five minutes less the
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  Speaker 1: next day. That's all we've had to do. She's like, Okay,
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  Speaker 1: I don't want to lose five minutes tomorrow. You're telling
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  Speaker 1: me that my time is up. My time is up,
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  Speaker 1: and that's working really, really, really well. We're so happy
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  Speaker 1: with that. Two other things that I'm going to suggest
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  Speaker 1: change the environment, get the kids outside, do things that
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  Speaker 1: are incompatible with screen use. And I think that can
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  Speaker 1: really really make a difference. We use the app or
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  Speaker 1: I use the app Freedom on my devices, and I
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  Speaker 1: just find that is wonderful. There are others I know
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  Speaker 1: that I've been recommended Forest a number of times as well.
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  Speaker 1: I don't find that the inbuilt screen time works so well.
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  Speaker 1: And the last thing is we've put a list together
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  Speaker 1: for Emily of other things that she can do because
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  Speaker 1: she knows she only gets X amount of time per
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  Speaker 1: day on screens, and so we've got a list of
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  Speaker 1: ten or twelve other activities that she can participate in
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  Speaker 1: every single day, and she can feel good about doing
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  Speaker 1: those because she knows she's going to get her time
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  Speaker 1: on screen, and what we've actually found is she's become
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  Speaker 1: more helpful because helping around the house and tid in
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  Speaker 1: the kitchen is one of those things on the list,
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  Speaker 1: and we've just found that we've got a wonderfully helpful child. Okay,
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  Speaker 1: guys that it will link to the study in the
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  Speaker 1: show notes and hopefully there's some food for thought there.
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  Speaker 1: When it comes to kids and screens, it's perennial, it's endemic,
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  Speaker 1: it's ongoing, but hopefully this has been useful. The Happy
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  Speaker 1: Family's podcast is produced by Justin Ruland from Bridge Media.
• 12:42
  Speaker 1: Mim Hammond's provides admin research and a whole lot of
• 12:45
  Speaker 1: additional support and if you'd like more information about making
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  Speaker 1: your family happier, visit us at happyfamilies dot com dot au.
• 12:52
  Speaker 1: Tomorrow on the pod, Kylie will be back with me
• 12:54
  Speaker 1: for an old Do Better Tomorrow episode as we unpack
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  Speaker 1: the week, have a look at what worked, what didn't,
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  Speaker 1: get intentional about a parenting for next week, and fingers crossed,
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  Speaker 1: get things more right than wrong. Have a great day,