Latest / Dr Justin Coulson's Happy Families / The Baby Screen Habit Parents Need to Break
Transcript
- 0:05Speaker 1: This is the Happy Families podcast, doctor's desk episode today.
- 0:09Speaker 1: Some stats that are going to blow your mind. I'm
- 0:11Speaker 1: going to lead with it right now. 16% of Australian
- 0:16Speaker 1: three and four-year-olds have been using social media. One in
- 0:24Speaker 1: 10 primary aged kids owns a smartphone. And a massive
- 0:28Speaker 1: new review of the world's research on babies and screens
- 0:31Speaker 1: has just landed on a recommendation that is going to
- 0:34Speaker 1: stop you in your tracks, especially if you're raising kids
- 0:37Speaker 1: under the age of two. I'll tell you what that
- 0:40Speaker 1: is shortly. Today, Doctor's Desk episode, what our littlest kids
- 0:44Speaker 1: are really doing on screens and what it's doing to them.
- 0:50Speaker 1: That's next. Welcome to the Happy Families Podcast, Real Parenting
- 0:55Speaker 1: Solutions Every Day, Australia's most downloaded parenting podcast. We are
- 0:58Speaker 1: Justin and Kylie Coulson, the parents of six children. Kylie,
- 1:02Speaker 1: screens seem to dominate way too many podcast episodes. I
- 1:06Speaker 1: wish we could talk about parenting.
- 1:09Speaker 2: It feels a bit like that.
- 1:10Speaker 1: But screens and parenting, they're inseparably connected now.
- 1:14Speaker 2: Yeah.
- 1:15Speaker 1: So today we're talking about two different new pieces of
- 1:19Speaker 1: evidence that have come through that I find fascinating. One
- 1:21Speaker 1: of them is off the back of a new article
- 1:23Speaker 1: that was written on Jonathan Haidt's substack after Babel. So
- 1:27Speaker 1: Jonathan Haidt, he's the guy who kicked off the huge
- 1:29Speaker 1: noise globally around keeping big tech away from kids until
- 1:34Speaker 1: the age of 16. Hence, we have the laws that
- 1:37Speaker 1: we have in Australia as of December 10 last year,
- 1:39Speaker 1: where if you're under 16, you're not supposed to be
- 1:41Speaker 1: on social media. So his substack, he's reporting on four
- 1:45Speaker 1: brand new studies that have been published just this year
- 1:48Speaker 1: looking at how that change, that legislative change, is going. Interestingly,
- 1:54Speaker 1: on a Doctor's Desk episode recently, I shared one article
- 1:58Speaker 1: that talked about how it's not going well. He somehow
- 2:00Speaker 1: managed to find four that say it's going great guns.
- 2:04Speaker 2: You'll find whatever you look for.
- 2:06Speaker 1: Well, you will. What I'm going to say is this.
- 2:08Speaker 1: He's a very, very enthusiastic proponent of this. I'm actually
- 2:11Speaker 1: on his side, but he's pushing too hard. The evidence
- 2:15Speaker 1: is not strong enough. The studies are not well enough.
- 2:18Speaker 1: built and put together. And the anecdotal evidence that I'm
- 2:22Speaker 1: getting every single day in schools is very, very clear.
- 2:26Speaker 1: Our under-16s are on social media. But there was a
- 2:30Speaker 1: report just published, Kylie, and that's what I want to
- 2:32Speaker 1: talk about now. It comes from the East Safety Commissioner.
- 2:34Speaker 1: It's called the Growing Up Online Report. The families were
- 2:38Speaker 1: surveyed in September 2025. So I'm actually sharing data that's now,
- 2:42Speaker 1: even though it's only recently been released, nearly a year old,
- 2:45Speaker 1: because it takes a long time to get good data out.
- 2:47Speaker 1: And that's the other thing, like Jonathan Haidt's trumpeting how
- 2:50Speaker 1: well the policy is going, but it's really hard to
- 2:52Speaker 1: do good research and to have it published within seven
- 2:55Speaker 1: or eight months of the ban taking place. It's just
- 2:58Speaker 1: not realistic. Anyway, the East Safety Commissioner, before the ban
- 3:02Speaker 1: came in, found this, Kylie, hold your breath. It was
- 3:06Speaker 1: never just a teenage problem. It's much bigger than that.
- 3:10Speaker 1: They found, I can't believe I'm about to say this,
- 3:13Speaker 1: One in four kids, 25% of kids aged between 3
- 3:17Speaker 1: and 10, 3 and 10, had been on social media
- 3:22Speaker 1: in the previous month.
- 3:24Speaker 2: When you say been on social media, they've picked up
- 3:27Speaker 2: mum and dad's phone and they're on their account or
- 3:29Speaker 2: they've got their own account?
- 3:30Speaker 1: It's a combination of both. You and I both know parents,
- 3:33Speaker 1: some friends of ours, who have set up social media
- 3:35Speaker 1: accounts for their kids from the day that they were born.
- 3:38Speaker 1: And their kids have always had access to their Facebook
- 3:40Speaker 1: and their Instagrams. So it's that, but it's also I'm
- 3:44Speaker 1: looking over mum and dad's shoulder or I've taken the
- 3:46Speaker 1: phone or I'm just going through the social media feed.
- 3:49Speaker 1: But check this one out. This is the one that
- 3:51Speaker 1: blew my socks off. From the eSafety Commissioner, we're talking
- 3:54Speaker 1: about three and four-year-olds with this specific stat, three and four-year-olds.
- 3:59Speaker 1: Sixteen percent of three and four-year-olds had used TikTok in
- 4:06Speaker 1: the last month or YouTube or Instagram. Mostly, mostly on
- 4:11Speaker 1: mum or dad's account, but about 20% had their own account.
- 4:15Speaker 1: TikTok for toddlers. Sorry, it just came to me. TikTok
- 4:20Speaker 1: for toddlers. Let's get it out there.
- 4:22Speaker 2: I still don't even know what TikTok is.
- 4:24Speaker 1: No, well, that's because we haven't downloaded it.
- 4:28Speaker 2: Every now and again, somebody sends me something that says
- 4:30Speaker 2: you've got to view it on TikTok. I'm like, oh,
- 4:31Speaker 2: I don't have it.
- 4:32Speaker 1: So I just don't look. I'm on TikTok. My team
- 4:34Speaker 1: posts some stuff there every now and again, but we
- 4:36Speaker 1: don't really focus on TikTok, even though we should because
- 4:37Speaker 1: that's where the world is now. But it's probably costing
- 4:41Speaker 1: me commercially, but I'm not willing to do it. Here's
- 4:44Speaker 1: what this is really about. And there was an article
- 4:48Speaker 1: in the Daily Telegraph just a couple of weeks ago
- 4:50Speaker 1: about this. They did a News Corp study. Something like
- 4:52Speaker 1: 700 kids were surveyed. they found that two thirds of
- 4:57Speaker 1: 12 to 15 year olds are still on social media
- 5:00Speaker 1: five or six months into the ban.
- 5:02Speaker 2: Yeah. Well, our personal experience would suggest that. Right.
- 5:05Speaker 1: Yeah. So essentially the legislation has shifted the boundary. It's
- 5:09Speaker 1: moved the line, but it hasn't built the fence that
- 5:14Speaker 1: is supposed to keep them out. It's like, okay, well,
- 5:15Speaker 1: the boundary was here and now the boundary is there,
- 5:17Speaker 1: but it's just a line on the ground and people
- 5:18Speaker 1: are quite happy kids are quite happy to to go
- 5:21Speaker 1: over it um what what's happening i think it's going
- 5:24Speaker 1: to be a slow burn i'm actually still on the
- 5:26Speaker 1: side of the people who are saying it can work
- 5:29Speaker 1: what it's doing is what seat belt laws do or
- 5:32Speaker 1: helmet laws do people go oh yeah okay that's not
- 5:35Speaker 1: okay i'm aware that if i'm doing this i'm actually
- 5:37Speaker 1: being a little bit naughty i'm being a little bit
- 5:38Speaker 1: sneaky and slowly but surely the the line will shift
- 5:42Speaker 1: or not just the line the fences will be built
- 5:45Speaker 1: The parents.
- 5:46Speaker 2: But with anything, it's a slow burn. Change always takes time.
- 5:50Speaker 2: But you look at smoking legislation and laws or alcohol or,
- 5:56Speaker 2: like you said, seatbelts, like all of those things, it
- 5:58Speaker 2: took years.
- 5:59Speaker 1: Yeah.
- 6:00Speaker 2: Years and years and years for everything to catch on
- 6:03Speaker 2: and for those, eventually, those fences to be put in
- 6:06Speaker 2: place to help protect the most vulnerable.
- 6:09Speaker 1: The doctor's desk point that I want to make here
- 6:11Speaker 1: is the stats show, A, The ban is, I don't
- 6:16Speaker 1: want to say it's not working, but it's not comprehensively working.
- 6:21Speaker 1: There is a lot of ground to cover. Yeah, it's
- 6:23Speaker 1: made noise. And now people know this is a problem.
- 6:26Speaker 1: Although every time I do a conversation in a school
- 6:30Speaker 1: with parents, it's like screens are still the big issue
- 6:32Speaker 1: for under 16s. I am seeing more parents say, yep,
- 6:36Speaker 1: my under 16s are not on social media anymore. It
- 6:39Speaker 1: is building, but there's a long way to go. But
- 6:42Speaker 1: the other thing that I wanted to emphasize is as
- 6:44Speaker 1: a parent, if you've got a three-year-old who's using your
- 6:47Speaker 1: phone to scroll Instagram or TikTok, or if you're one
- 6:49Speaker 1: of the parents where like 20% of these kids have
- 6:53Speaker 1: actually got their own accounts, stop it. Like this is
- 6:57Speaker 1: really bad for them. So after the break, there's a
- 6:59Speaker 1: global study that's just been published. It's a really big deal.
- 7:03Speaker 1: And it's looking at what's happening with kids and screens
- 7:06Speaker 1: in the first couple of years of life. So that's
- 7:08Speaker 1: our second part of this Doctor's Desk episode. I want
- 7:12Speaker 1: to talk about that next. Whether you're a parent, a grandparent,
- 7:15Speaker 1: you've got big kids or little kids, you really need
- 7:17Speaker 1: to hear what the latest science is saying. Stay with us.
- 7:28Speaker 1: We're back with the Happy Families podcast. Okay, here's the
- 7:30Speaker 1: source of this brand new under twos evidence on kids
- 7:34Speaker 1: and screens, Kylie. It's a big systematic review of all
- 7:37Speaker 1: the research literature that's a bunch of UK researchers did
- 7:41Speaker 1: a huge synthesis, basically, of the global evidence on screens
- 7:46Speaker 1: from birth to age two. I don't know why they've called, well,
- 7:51Speaker 1: it's beyond age two because they've called it the first
- 7:53Speaker 1: 1,001 days. So we're really talking like three years, basically.
- 8:00Speaker 1: But their conclusion, it's very rare that you see researchers
- 8:04Speaker 1: be really blunt. They always couch their their conclusions in
- 8:08Speaker 1: very gentle language and say, it appears that perhaps under
- 8:11Speaker 1: these circumstances, maybe on average, like that's the research speak.
- 8:15Speaker 1: This is what they've said. And I'm quoting almost directly here.
- 8:19Speaker 2: It's so funny you say that because science is always
- 8:23Speaker 2: about absolutes. And yet when it comes to research, they
- 8:27Speaker 2: won't come down with absolutes.
- 8:28Speaker 1: But that's because science is not about absolutes. It's the
- 8:30Speaker 1: people with ideologies that grab the science and say, oh,
- 8:33Speaker 1: this supports my thing. And then they dive in there
- 8:35Speaker 1: and say, this is what it is. But science is
- 8:36Speaker 1: actually about constantly questioning what we think we know. And
- 8:39Speaker 1: that's what I love about the scientific method is we
- 8:42Speaker 1: can be so sure that this thing happens all the time.
- 8:45Speaker 1: And then we do some experiments and go, oh, my goodness,
- 8:48Speaker 1: that's not true. Case in point, praising kids. Everyone thinks
- 8:51Speaker 1: praising kids is great. Oh, hang on. There's some research
- 8:53Speaker 1: now that shows not. Anyway, let's move away from praise
- 8:56Speaker 1: and get back to screens. Otherwise, I'll get carried away
- 8:57Speaker 1: and this will be a four-hour podcast. This is the
- 9:00Speaker 1: conclusion that they gave us when it comes to kids
- 9:03Speaker 1: and screens, that is children in the first 1,001 days
- 9:06Speaker 1: of their life. They say the developmental risks are substantial,
- 9:12Speaker 1: which is tough talk for a scientist.
- 9:14Speaker 2: Yeah.
- 9:15Speaker 1: Really, really tough. What they've also found is this, 50%,
- 9:19Speaker 1: in fact, more than 50% of children are using screens,
- 9:23Speaker 1: I'm talking tablets and phones, by their first birthday. One third-
- 9:29Speaker 1: One third of children are actually playing with tablets and
- 9:34Speaker 1: phones by six months of age. 33% by six months
- 9:40Speaker 1: of age.
- 9:41Speaker 2: I remember when screens first, like the first smartphones came
- 9:45Speaker 2: out and it was very common to see a baby
- 9:50Speaker 2: in a pram, like a young, you know, kind of
- 9:53Speaker 2: under one. holding a phone and scrolling and everyone would
- 9:58Speaker 2: be like, oh my.
- 9:59Speaker 1: Gosh, how clever.
- 10:00Speaker 2: Are they? They know how to do blah, blah, blah.
- 10:02Speaker 2: And it was like this really cool thing.
- 10:04Speaker 1: I just want to grab the screen and throw it
- 10:05Speaker 1: in the nearest pond. When I see that, I'm like,
- 10:07Speaker 1: what are you doing? So there's one more stat that
- 10:10Speaker 1: I want to share. No, two more stats that I
- 10:12Speaker 1: want to share. And then I'm There's a concept that
- 10:14Speaker 1: the researchers talk about that really grabs me, and it's
- 10:18Speaker 1: so important. Stat number one, nearly one in 10, so
- 10:23Speaker 1: we're talking about 10% of two-year-olds, average around four hours
- 10:28Speaker 1: a day on a screen, like a tablet or a phone.
- 10:33Speaker 1: And about one in five that are under two are
- 10:37Speaker 1: using screens with zero parent involvement.
- 10:40Speaker 2: Yeah, I'd believe it.
- 10:41Speaker 1: So that's a lot of numbers. It's a lot of stats.
- 10:43Speaker 1: And because this is a podcast, it's hard to hold
- 10:45Speaker 1: onto it. So the summary of that is basically kids
- 10:48Speaker 1: under two are using screens at really high levels, really
- 10:51Speaker 1: harmful levels.
- 10:52Speaker 2: Well, before mobile phones and portable devices became an issue,
- 10:57Speaker 2: we were having conversations around the fact that, you know,
- 11:01Speaker 2: no more than two hours of screen time, which was television,
- 11:04Speaker 2: At that point.
- 11:05Speaker 1: Yeah, but that was not for under twos. For two
- 11:08Speaker 1: decades now, I've been saying, if you're under two, it
- 11:10Speaker 1: should be zero.
- 11:11Speaker 2: No, that's right. But now that we've got the convenience
- 11:15Speaker 2: of a portable device, you can see, I mean, the
- 11:20Speaker 2: stats are showing us, it just elevates their time on
- 11:24Speaker 2: a screen.
- 11:24Speaker 1: Well, this is what the scientists called it, who did
- 11:26Speaker 1: this great big synthesis. They called it digital soothing. So
- 11:30Speaker 1: what they're basically saying is, That screens are taking over
- 11:34Speaker 1: the parent or the caregiver's core jobs of comforting or
- 11:38Speaker 1: entertaining or co-regulating emotion.
- 11:42Speaker 2: Yeah, because it's so good at it.
- 11:44Speaker 1: Exactly.
- 11:44Speaker 2: Like in the moment, it's so good at it. Yeah.
- 11:47Speaker 1: And so their concern, and it's mine as well, and
- 11:50Speaker 1: I've been, again, talking about this for years, is What
- 11:53Speaker 1: the screen's doing is it's displacing. It's not what the
- 11:56Speaker 1: screen is giving the kids because at two, they're unlikely
- 11:59Speaker 1: to be seeing really concerning content. They may, and I
- 12:02Speaker 1: am concerned about it. But what the real issue is
- 12:05Speaker 1: with our under twos is that the screen, it's not
- 12:08Speaker 1: what it's putting in front of the kids' faces. It's
- 12:11Speaker 1: what it's crowding out of the kids' lives. They call
- 12:14Speaker 1: it a serve and return with a parent speaking to
- 12:17Speaker 1: a child and then the child babbling back and then
- 12:19Speaker 1: the parent, just that responsiveness that's there. And what that
- 12:24Speaker 1: does is it builds language. It builds cognition, the ability
- 12:27Speaker 1: to think. Kids are moving less. I'm talking to people
- 12:32Speaker 1: who work in childcare centers, early learning centers, and they're
- 12:37Speaker 1: consistently saying that kids are coming in different in the
- 12:40Speaker 1: last few years to what they did maybe 10 or
- 12:42Speaker 1: 20 years ago. They used to come in and they're active.
- 12:45Speaker 1: Now they come in and they're either angry or they're
- 12:47Speaker 1: sedentary or both. Like there's a genuine shift here. So
- 12:52Speaker 1: we need to wrap this up. The key message is this.
- 12:55Speaker 1: The effects are significant. The data shows that the more
- 12:59Speaker 1: exposure there is to screens in those first couple of years,
- 13:03Speaker 1: it's linked with delayed language, delayed cognitive development, worse sleep,
- 13:08Speaker 1: poorer eating, higher later adiposity.
- 13:14Speaker 2: That's a big word.
- 13:15Speaker 1: I knew if I said that, you'd say that. So
- 13:20Speaker 1: adipose tissue or adiposity- is it's basically a medical term
- 13:25Speaker 1: for how much fatty tissue or body fat you've got.
- 13:30Speaker 1: So they're basically saying that kids are overweight. They're just
- 13:32Speaker 1: saying it in a very medical way so it doesn't
- 13:34Speaker 1: sound bad. The data also shows that they have weaker
- 13:40Speaker 1: social skills, weaker peer relationships, and measurably worse school performance
- 13:45Speaker 1: years down the track when they look at the longitudinal research.
- 13:48Speaker 2: Okay. We're not dealing with a two-year-old, but we've recently
- 13:51Speaker 2: dealt with this with our 12-year-old. She has been constantly
- 13:56Speaker 2: at us. She wants to watch her TV show or
- 13:58Speaker 2: she wants to play a few games. And she's spent
- 14:01Speaker 2: a lot of time on screens because she's.
- 14:05Speaker 1: At home with me. Homeschooling makes it- It's a lot
- 14:07Speaker 1: more accessible for her. And digital soothing. You need a
- 14:10Speaker 1: few minutes break. You've got to record a podcast with me.
- 14:12Speaker 1: We'll just let her have the screen.
- 14:14Speaker 2: And what- we were beginning to realize and recognize was
- 14:17Speaker 2: that she was not wanting to be involved in the family.
- 14:21Speaker 2: She just wanted to be on a screen and it
- 14:23Speaker 2: was incessant. She was just at me all the time.
- 14:27Speaker 1: So we've gone hardcore on this. We've basically said, no
- 14:30Speaker 1: more screens. And other than a little bit of TV,
- 14:33Speaker 1: and certainly no YouTube, a little bit of TV that
- 14:35Speaker 1: she watches with her big sisters, she doesn't have screens anymore.
- 14:38Speaker 1: And we've got a new kid.
- 14:39Speaker 2: We really do. And I'm looking at the way she's
- 14:43Speaker 2: interacting with each of her siblings. Correct me if I'm wrong,
- 14:46Speaker 2: but I don't think we've had any sibling conflict.
- 14:50Speaker 1: There's hardly any fighting. No, that's right.
- 14:52Speaker 2: It's blown me away at what has happened with just,
- 14:57Speaker 2: it's a massive, I'm not going to say it's little,
- 14:58Speaker 2: a massive tweak to screen usage.
- 15:01Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah. It's not a tweak. It's a complete about face.
- 15:04Speaker 1: She doesn't have screens anymore. Let's go back to the
- 15:05Speaker 1: two-year-olds and the doctor's desk episode content that we're talking
- 15:09Speaker 1: about here. Fundamentally, most parents, not all, but most parents
- 15:13Speaker 1: actually know that zero screens for under twos is what's best.
- 15:20Speaker 1: I think most parents know, but the reality is in 2026,
- 15:26Speaker 1: you just can't follow it. There's the stress, there's the busyness,
- 15:29Speaker 1: there's the isolation. There's so many challenges. I think that
- 15:34Speaker 1: what we really need to remember is this. If they're
- 15:36Speaker 1: under two, what they need is your face, which is
- 15:41Speaker 1: really exhausting for you. But hey, you have kids. I'm
- 15:44Speaker 1: actually a little bit lacking in sympathy here. I'm supposed
- 15:46Speaker 1: to be very empathetic at this point. But if you
- 15:48Speaker 1: have kids, you had them because you wanted them. So
- 15:51Speaker 1: don't stick a screen in front of them, especially in
- 15:52Speaker 1: those first couple of years. I'd say two to three years,
- 15:54Speaker 1: just don't. And if screen time is going to happen,
- 15:58Speaker 1: make sure you're doing it together, not alone. It's not
- 16:03Speaker 1: the dummy. It's not the comforter. It's Comfort comes from
- 16:07Speaker 1: being with you, not from whatever the algorithm is going
- 16:10Speaker 1: to serve up to your two-year-old and your three-year-old. We've
- 16:14Speaker 1: got to do better for the sake of our kids.
- 16:15Speaker 1: If we really loved our kids, this is the guilt trip.
- 16:18Speaker 1: I'm actually putting the guilt trip on. People might hate
- 16:20Speaker 1: me for this and we might lose listeners, but I'm
- 16:21Speaker 1: saying it anyway. If you really love your kids, you're
- 16:23Speaker 1: going to minimize their screen access to as close to
- 16:25Speaker 1: zero as possible in the first two to three years
- 16:28Speaker 1: and then keep it as low as possible after that
- 16:30Speaker 1: for as long as you possibly can. Today's content is
- 16:33Speaker 1: really hard to take. TikTok for toddlers. Kids with social
- 16:37Speaker 1: media accounts under the age of five and the data
- 16:40Speaker 1: showing genuine developmental liabilities that exist when young kids are
- 16:46Speaker 1: on screens.
- 16:47Speaker 2: And not just during that time period. Like the long-term
- 16:51Speaker 2: ramifications for our children are in the evidence.
- 16:56Speaker 1: The first thousand days build the brain. So work hard
- 17:00Speaker 1: to get that right. Okay, that was a bit of
- 17:02Speaker 1: a heavy one. Tomorrow, it's I'll do better tomorrow. We're
- 17:04Speaker 1: going to be light and fun, we hope, depending on
- 17:06Speaker 1: how the week's gone for us. And we'll share how
- 17:09Speaker 1: our parenting adventures can help your family to be happier.
- 17:12Speaker 1: Thanks for listening to the Happy Families podcast. Sound, audio,
- 17:15Speaker 1: engineering from Justin Roulon from Bridge Media. And Mim Hammonds
- 17:20Speaker 1: looks after admin and additional support for the pod. More
- 17:23Speaker 1: information about making your family happier, available at happyfamilies.com.au.