The Q&A Files
The Q&A Files drops A Wellness Explosion
💥 BOOM! Attention Wellness Warriors. The game changer you have been waiting for is finally here. Say hello to “The Q&A Files,” where wellness meets revolution and your questions lead to new discoveries. Spearheaded by Trisha Jamison, your host, a Board Certified Functional Nutritionist. Cohost Dr. Jeff Jamison, a Board Certified Family Physician, and featured guest, Tony Overbay, a Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist. This podcast blends three diverse perspectives to tackle your questions on health, nutrition, medicine, mental wellness, and relationships. Dive into a world of expert insights and actionable advice, all sparked by your curiosity. Tune in, ignite your wellness journey, and join the Wellness Warrior community.
The Q&A Files
26. Balancing Teen Screen Time: Part 3. Practical Tips for Healthy Digital Habits and Mental Well-being
Screens have become an omnipresent force in the lives of teenagers, reshaping their mental health and social dynamics in ways both beneficial and detrimental. How can you help your teen balance these digital interactions without losing touch with the real world? Join us on Wellness Wires as we explore practical parenting tips like creating tech-free zones and enjoying family meals without devices to encourage face-to-face interactions and reduce screen dependency. We also weigh in on the positive aspects of screen use, from enhanced communication to accessing valuable educational resources, while acknowledging the risks of distraction and avoidance of important tasks.
Social media’s grip on young minds is tighter than ever, causing teens to often feel disconnected even when physically together. We share personal stories about this phenomenon and delve into alarming behaviors like self-harm linked to online stress and anxiety. Parents grapple with managing screen time amidst this backdrop, as evidenced by insights from the U.S. Surgeon General and the American Psychological Association highlighting a mental health crisis tied to excessive screen use among adolescents. We discuss the necessity of distinguishing between virtual and real-life events and the broader implications of this digital dilemma for families.
Parenting in the digital age requires a balanced approach, as outlined by pediatrician Michael Rich’s "four M's" strategy: managing screen use, encouraging meaningful online experiences, modeling healthy behavior, and monitoring for signs of unhealthy use. Through exploring the potential risks like increased aggression, depression, and gambling tendencies, we emphasize the importance of teaching self-regulation skills to foster healthier screen habits. Our conversation offers actionable insights and alternative activities that provide dopamine rewards, aiming to assist parents in navigating the complexities of modern technology and its impact on their children’s mental health.
Teens and Screens Episode 1
Teens and Screens Episode 2
Hello, Wellness Wires. I'm your host, Trisha Jameson, and I'm here with my two awesome co-hosts, Dr Jeff and Tony. So glad to have the two of you here with me today, hey everyone, hey Well, we have a fantastic show lined up for you and you won't want to miss this one if you're struggling with your teens and screens. But before we dive into our topic today, let's give our listeners another parenting tip. Do either of you have a parenting tip you can share?
Dr Jeff:Oh no, let's see. Tony, do you have one? I haven't got one, If not.
Trisha Jamison:I'll go and then you guys can be thinking about it.
Tony Overbay:Yeah, yeah, you go, you go.
Trisha Jamison:Okay, okay. So my parenting tip is to encourage family tech-free zones and times. So this means designating certain areas of your home, like the dining room, your bedroom, just specific times of the day, like dinnertime or an hour before bed, as tech-free time zones. So this promotes face-to-face interaction and helps reduce screen dependencies. It's going to be so important. It also sets a great example for your kids about the importance of balancing tech use with real world interactions with friends and family, something that I think some of them don't understand sometimes. But consistency is key here. So if you choose to make it a family rule, you want to make sure you stick to it. So did that help either one of you? Yes, yeah.
Dr Jeff:I've got one, you go first Okay.
Dr Jeff:Okay, so my, my suggestion for families is, as best you can, to have one meal together, and if you have one meal together, make sure that you put your phones down, put them away, put them aside somewhere so they're not interfering with it, so you can have good, solid, face-to-face time. And I think that there's some really good studies. Check me if I'm wrong, tony, but there's some really good studies that say that people that eat together at least one meal per day, that their families are stronger and they stay together and their children are more rounded more well-rounded.
Tony Overbay:I know there are, because I know that was always something where I remember, when my kids were little, always thinking, okay, I want that we're going to eat together. But then when they're little and you've got a million things going on, you start telling yourself, well, I'll do that later, when they get older. But you really have to start that habit early, or else you'll always find a reason to not do that.
Trisha Jamison:But yeah, I think that's spot on, that's good, that is such good advice and one thing that I would like to add to it is to have a question for the family that they can answer during dinnertime, and it could be as simple as what was your favorite part of today? What? Stood out to you today, or something like that, some sort of conversation stimulator.
Tony Overbay:Yeah, Okay, I'll throw one in there real quick. And it's just because the client that literally left my office. We were talking about modeling behavior. So if we say things as a parent, if you say how important it is to be on time, but then you're not on time, then your kids are mapping or picking up on the fact that it really must not be that important. If you're not willing to do that and I thought that was really really interesting- I think that's fantastic.
Trisha Jamison:That's always so imperative, as parents, to help our children model our behavior and not expect something that we're not willing to also do ourself. Yeah, exactly yeah willing to also do ourself. Yeah, exactly yeah. So let's get into our topic today, and it's kind of a heavy one, but it's so important to get this information out Now.
Trisha Jamison:Last week we talked about teen screens and the propensity for pornography use, the week prior we focused on young children and screens, and today we are going to address teen screens and the association with depression and anxiety. And is there one? Is there an association between screens, depression and anxiety? So the first thing that I'd like to start off with what are some of the positive aspects of our teens using screens? What are some things that you both can think about?
Dr Jeff:Well, I think if you're using them to make sure that you connect with each other, that's really good. I mean being able to connect with your son or daughter when they're at afterschool sports or coordinating rides or making sure that you know where they are on a Saturday night. Things like that can be really helpful as a tool to have a phone, and I think that's really helpful. Yeah, that's excellent.
Tony Overbay:So it's going to seem like a. I'm going to go over into the next lane over from this one, but I think that you'll see I'm still on the same freeway. I really think that the you know, the amount of information or things that we can learn, I love, because I now, as an old man, we'll get on YouTube and learn how to do something, install something, build something, and I love that. Uh, that kids are are growing up knowing that if they want to do something, they can most likely go find a way to do it. And, and you know, I've seen some pretty industrious, uh maybe engineering type of kids that are just finding out how to build things off of videos on YouTube.
Tony Overbay:Now, the challenge, I think, is that one thing that I see is that therapists working with when I used to work more with teenagers, and especially people that were young kids in college, is the fact that if they don't want to take a core you know a class, I know when we were all young, you just took it because that's what you're supposed to do, and the distractions we had were, you know, maybe one set of encyclopedias, but now if somebody doesn't want to take a class, they really don't want to take a class and because they want to do the things that they have access to on YouTube or you know. So if they really want to learn about a subject, they can go learn about it. I mean, I remember taking meteorology and I thought I'll never use this, and but I knew I just had to do it because it was there and and so I know that that's a challenge. So, anyway, I think it can be amazing for learning new things. But and no, but it can be amazing no-transcript.
Trisha Jamison:really great space for our youth. But I think the one thing that I learned, that I was quite the challenge for all of us, and that is the internet actually wasn't made for children or for adolescents. It was made for adults, and because of that it can be quite a scary place for our children.
Dr Jeff:Do you mean social media?
Trisha Jamison:I'm talking about social media. So sorry, let me let me.
Trisha Jamison:Yeah, no, the whole internet is only made for adults. No, the social media yes, so I appreciate that clarification. Social media yes, so I appreciate that clarification. Social media was really only intended for adults using, and now that the adolescents and children as young as 10, 8 are now accessing social media is really quite scary, because they put a lot of bad stuff on there. Now, what are some thoughts that the two of you may have in regards to kind of the negative side of social media?
Tony Overbay:I will give an anecdotal answer first, but I think we can probably draw our own conclusions from this. But it was maybe a year ago and there was some activity, some event on that. My son asked if we could purchase it. He was going to bring a bunch of his friends over to watch it, maybe some uh fight boxing or something. And so then I said, sure, and and you guys don't have pizza, you can have this big shared experience.
Tony Overbay:And then I happened to go downstairs and it was on and I think there were seven guys and they were all sitting there on the couch, all on their phones, and, uh, and I just thought that was so interesting, you know, not engaging with each other or not even having a shared experience, and I had to try to not be the old man and say, hey, look up, you guys, I spent like 59 bucks on this. This really, it's, it's, I don't know, world renowned. And there were these, these three girls that were a couple of people in front of us that I just, I was just fixated on because they never looked up at their phones and they were there together and I just said to my wife it's so sad that when we were their age, we would be talking to each other, and and so I think some of that is just missing out. It's being alone, even when you're in the environment of around others, and I think that is sad to me.
Dr Jeff:Oh man, I agree with that. I have a patient and I appreciate what you're saying, tony, because we get really tied up in those phones and the connecting with others through it and I have a patient that's 14. Yeah, and she came to my office because she started cutting.
Dr Jeff:And what is cutting?
Dr Jeff:That's when a person feels anxiety or stress or something and they look to some self-harm or self-manipulation in one way or another to decrease their feeling of anxiety, or they're upset about whatever is going on in their life, and so sometimes those things get worse or intensified when they're connected in social media, because they have a very difficult time determining the difference between reality or what's in real life versus the online environment. So that's a very fine line, and things that were going on online that had nothing to do, maybe even multiple hundreds of miles away from where they were actually living at the time, were impacting them. I heard a story also of a woman or a young woman that was following on TikTok or one other social media, and this particular person that this girl was following was a very prolific poster and she liked the pictures that she was posting, and then, all of a sudden, those posting pictures and so on stopped posting pictures and so on stopped, and then this girl found out that this poster, or the person that was posting online, had been kidnapped and killed.
Dr Jeff:And how that affected her was part of the anxiety and stress that this girl was going through, and so it's very interesting how young people now have a very difficult time determining the difference between online events and in-person events, and I think that that distinction is a real problem and one of the reasons that us old people sometimes don't understand why younger people like teens, when they're watching their screens, they get so involved in it. My 14-year-old patient again that I was talking about, when her parents said, hey, we need to take the phone away, she just about fell apart and threatened to cut herself more if they did that, which?
Dr Jeff:of course, is another manipulative tool, but that's how important this was to herulative tool. But, uh, you know there, that's how important this was to her. Tony, have you had anything like that?
Tony Overbay:Oh, I constantly, and I think that that, uh, constantly, that that's maybe a little dramatic for me to say, but you know, in my, for my chair, it just goes back to that Uh, what do people do to gain control or to get rid of their discomfort? And so if a teenager goes big enough, then the parent will, or they, push the right button. Then I can understand where a parent thinks okay, well, I don't want them to to continue to hurt themselves, even though there's a thought that that device that they're they're so addicted to is the very thing that has led to the desire to hurt themselves. And so I think that can be really difficult, because that's where a kid is going to push the buttons to get the parent to react or to give in or acquiesce. And even the best of us parents at times feel like we don't have a choice, and I know that can be really difficult.
Dr Jeff:It's a place to be, definitely not having a choice is a big problem for parents and they feel out of control. It used to be where if you walk in and there's a bunch of kids watching TV, or their children are watching TV and they need to do something else, that the parent will say, okay, turn off the TV and let's go do this or that, and it was much easier to control. Where these are very difficult for parents to have any sort of control.
Trisha Jamison:Yeah, yeah, I think I agree with both of you. Any sort of control? Yeah, yeah, I think I agree with both of you. That's just. That's so sad to hear how debilitating and where we are as a society and how the tides are turning when it comes to the control that screens have over our kids, and I actually wanted to address this with.
Trisha Jamison:The US. Surgeon General recently stated that screen use, particularly social media, is a public health emergency, threatening our youth's mental health. And now this is a very powerful statement and highlights how pervasive and severe the issue has become. The American Psychological Association, the APA, has also raised concerns about the neurological and developmental impact of excessive screen use on adolescents, and you know, teens are very vulnerable, and the more that they are on screens, the amount of anxiety and depression is triggered by the constant need for social validation and the comparison culture prevalent on social media platforms. So I think that you know we're in trouble here if we don't start focusing on what we need to do. There's another couple of things that I wanted to add. Did you have something you wanted to share?
Dr Jeff:Yeah, I did real quick. One of the things I'm also seeing as a physician in the teen and early 20 age group is that they're so used to getting immediate satisfaction on information that often this breeds in them or starts the process of becoming ADHD, with not being able to have patience for so many different things, and especially information. So this is one of the things that I'm finding that are really troubling our young people.
Trisha Jamison:Yeah, so you'll find this information, and we can put this on the show notes as well, but this information is from the US Surgeon General, and what he talks about is social media use by youth is nearly universal, and I think we all know that.
Trisha Jamison:But, it's up to 95% of youth ages 13 to 17 reporting social media platforms that they use it regularly, and more than a third saying they use social media almost constantly.
Trisha Jamison:Although age 13 is commonly the required minimum age used by social media platforms, in the US, nearly 40 percent of children ages 8 to 12 use social media regularly, so that is significant.
Trisha Jamison:The other thing that I wanted to just add is he talks also about social media can provide as of 2021, eighth and and 10th graders now spend an average of three and a half hours per day on social media. In a unique natural experiment that leveraged the staggered introduction of a social media platform across US colleges, the rollout of the platform was associated with an increase in depression of 9% and an anxiety over 12% baseline Among college-age youth in 359,000 observations. The study co -authored also noted that, when applied across the entirety of the US college population, the introduction of the social media platform may have contributed to more than 300,000 new cases of depression. So I think that you know this is really prevalent and it's really quite scary of what's happening in our world. It also talks about children, the brains and how our children are being completely hijacked, their amygdala and how their prefrontal cortex is also being hijacked from the overuse of social media and what it does to us, so it's pretty scary out there. Any thoughts?
Dr Jeff:So, tony, what do you think I mean? These are all difficult and hard to hear statistics and at times our children are the ones that are in control of doing this behavior and parents have little control. What thoughts do you have about helping parents help their children through this process?
Tony Overbay:Well, it's okay. So it's so interesting because I was going to say, first of all, I appreciated the way we started this episode by talking about some of the positive things that are, you know, that are part, because I do start feeling like when you get people like ourselves maybe together before you know and I'm yelling at the kids to get off my lawn and get rid of your you know, get your phones and throw them away and I'm going to break them all. But then I know that kids these days that they've grown up with the phone and I can make the jokes, it's an appendage, it's that sort of thing, but that's their experience. And so when we talk about needing to do the right thing for the kids and the younger generation and we've got all this data and stats I think it's really a challenge because it does even if it's the right thing, which I do think it is to try to figure out a way to limit the screen time and get people outside more and all those things that what we do with our discomfort is such a major theme. So if I need my kids to know right now they need to get off their phones and they need to go outside and have fun and do all those sorts of things. It's just it doesn't work that way to just have this abrupt. Okay, now I've got this data and now I got to go get rid of my discomfort by by telling my kids they need to deal with this right now so that I will feel like a better parent. So it ultimately ends up being, in my opinion, a parent thing. So parents need to get educated.
Tony Overbay:I think there's a lot of resources out there that will talk about ways to bring up these topics and start talking about them.
Tony Overbay:I think it needs to be the long game.
Tony Overbay:I think we talked about that in our last couple of episodes as well, and because if the parents just say and I need you to not be on your phone as much period, then it's okay, even if the kid does, at that point maybe they're going to do it for a little while to appease or please their parent, but then they're going to go right back to that home base of that phone is their lifeline. So I think it's just that long game and that the parent needs to probably work on their own what they do with their discomfort, being able to sit with that, being curious about what their kid's experience is, and then it's going to take the parent, probably having to find other things that you know. Now we're going to figure out what. What are the kid's values, what are the things that they could do? I mean, if we're just saying go play outside, and they don't even know what to do because they're always on their phone then the parent might need to help the kid discover things that they can do or have.
Trisha Jamison:Yeah, yeah, I'm going to add something to this. So I think that this goes a little bit even beyond a parent being, just, you know, uncomfortable, because I think that this is such a crisis that is happening in our world and in America and we don't want to just we realize that phones are here to stay. This isn't, this isn't a conversation we're having that you can never have our kids use phones and be on social media. It games, you know, for five hours at a time, it. But it also has been proven that there's a lot of aggression, especially with the gaming and the depression and anxiety that follows. But it also is they're claiming that it's leading to gambling.
Trisha Jamison:So this is, you know, when you talk about the dopamine dump and all the things that happen in the brain, especially at such an early age. This is something that's becoming more prevalent in our youth and it's something that they're looking for, they're seeking, they like it and they're not understanding what's happening to them. They just like what they're feeling, and I guess who wouldn't want a dopamine dump and I guess who wouldn't want a dopamine dump? But it's also when you think about other things that we can experience to allow that to happen as well. Those are the things to maybe really focus on, but it's like I said, screens and phones are here to stay, but what can we do to help them get through? This time that's going to be more, you know, not having parents fight with each other with their children, but kind of have a some sort of a compromise. So that's kind of more of the question here.
Dr Jeff:Well, I appreciate you coming from there. I think that for me, I think teaching children what the potential problems might be and why a person feels, or why a parent feels the way they do about screen time and what you're doing on the screens and so I think what we have to do is we have to, as parents, we have to teach children self-regulation. Now, how do you teach a child self-regulation and how do you teach yourself self-regulation? I think it is really important to have small chunks of things to do. For instance, if you have a set of chores that you need to get done before you are able to do something you want to do, like be on your screen. So if you can get that done first, then you can have the opportunity for some time on the phone, or one of the things that we used to do back in the days when we just had books and TV. You could shut the book and you could return to the book and be at the very same place very quickly. So it was easy to self-regulate that.
Dr Jeff:It was less easy to self-regulate when a television show was going on. So because if you turned it off in the middle of the show, the show would continue going and being broadcast and it would be over. When it was over you couldn't just restart it. But with the advent of videotape and DVDs you could turn it off and turn it back on exactly where you were. And so it's very difficult to do that with the current media, because we're almost back to the broadcasting, because media is the TikToks or the reels and other things. They happen so quickly, they're only a minute or two long and then they're gone and very difficult to find again. So this is a difficult thing and you have to work it on time, in my opinion. Tony Tricia, what do you think?
Trisha Jamison:Well, one of the things that come to mind is when you're talking about self-regulation. We talked about this in the first episode with young children, and that is when you can turn things off in the middle of something. What it teaches your child? It teaches them that they have the power to walk away from something and even if it is enticing, that really gives them a lot of power to be able to do that. So if you start that young, that they have things turned off in the middle, not have it wait until the end of an episode or the end of a game or whatever it is that they're doing, that could start that process of self regulation. What are your thoughts about that, tony?
Tony Overbay:Oh well, I really I like that. It's funny. I wanted to go back to something that I liked that you were saying, tricia, when you were saying, okay, it's like this is maybe more of an epidemic, and I just wanted to acknowledge that you know, when I'm talking about this, it's the long game, or the parent needs to learn to deal with that discomfort. Oh, I think you were saying it's more than discomfort and I totally agree and I think it shows what I like about having the three of us come together is I found myself wanting to still, you know, lovingly, yeah, but you just in the sense that man, I hear you, but then, as you know, sitting there in the trenches, I think that sounds dramatic.
Tony Overbay:But you know, helping people on a daily basis, watching them. It's like if somebody is going to be, even if something is such an intense thing and we've got this data that says it's, it's damaging the youth and that sort of thing, boy, there's no part of me that's not agreeing with that but then how do you really drive change? And you know, there's that version of change which is like I am going to basically like take away these choices for you and then you will, you will change, and then is that more of a like. I'm willing to then, I guess, almost like acknowledge or take ownership of the fact that, and you will probably resent me, and you might even, you know, go to it more when you're when you're no longer under my roof.
Tony Overbay:Exactly and that's and that's where I was kind of going with that, which and I know that parents you know I I often get some somewhat negative feedback when I, you know, I'll say I've got parents that say, okay, my only goal is I got to get them out the door at 18, or they may stay in my basement for the rest of their lives and I leave, you know, on their own and feel safe enough to go explore and then feel like this secure attachment to to their parents so they can go find themselves. You know that they aren't just this appendage of the parent or or trying to just validate the parent. So I really like what you were saying because yeah, it is from my chair it ends up being about the discomfort of the parent primarily because they want to alleviate it. The quickest way to it is, from my chair, it ends up being about the discomfort of the parent primarily because they want to alleviate it, and the quickest way to alleviate it is to control the situation and and sometimes that control comes.
Tony Overbay:Yeah, right, but so it's. It's so, I think. But I think it speaks to just how difficult this thing is, because it is here, it's not going away, but it's not good either.
Trisha Jamison:You know that's it's wild.
Trisha Jamison:It is, and so one of the things that we need to start thinking about is what can we do to mediate these risks, because we, just like you, just we all mentioned, we all agree that this is a risk and this can be damaging, especially when you've got children that are looking up on social media how to cut, how to do self-harm.
Trisha Jamison:That's available to these young kids and that's terrifying, and so children have a more propensity to have suicidal ideations, and that, again, is so prevalent throughout social media, and I think that those that are putting these, this content out, need to be held, you know, accountable. It's just, we need help, and one of the things that I also learned in I think it was in Utah you can't get a social media account until you're 18. So that was a law that was just recently, I think in March, so that's, you know. I think that people are. I acknowledge that when you start to control a situation, you get a lot of pushback, and that kids will find a different way to go around the situation so they can get more, because no one wants to be told that they can't or can do something, that no one wants to be told that they can't or can do something, and I appreciate that for sure.
Trisha Jamison:But I think that even like in classrooms, is it necessary to always have your phone? And that's another thing that's brought up is keeping phones out of classrooms, and I think at the beginning, when phones were especially with some of our kids early, you know, if a phone was brought out then they would lose the phone, or I mean there were some consequences that would follow and it doesn't seem like that's a thing anymore. But I just wonder if something more was introduced so at least kids could concentrate on lessons and be taught in a way that they're not being only always distracted. I think it'd be really important moving forward. But one of the things that I wanted to just add is, as we're talking about the key is not to just ban screens entirely, but it's, like Jeff said, to teach responsibility.
Trisha Jamison:And there's a guy his name is Michael Rich and he's a pediatrician at Boston Children's Hospital and he suggests four key things and they're called the four M's and it's to help manage screen use effectively. So number one is manage, be present when screens are used, enforce parental controls and hold the logins and passwords to your children's media accounts. Now, I know that a lot of people say well, that's being. You know that you're not allowing your child autonomy. You're not allowing them their own privacy, but I think that, depending on where your children are and every child's different, and we know our children better than most anybody else and we know what they're capable of, and so that might be something that might be really important.
Trisha Jamison:Two is meaningful Emphasize educational and social online experiences and help teens choose appropriate content. Three is model Demonstrate healthy screen use by putting away your own devices during family time so we've talked a lot about that as well. And four is monitor Watch for signs of unhealthy screen use, like complaints of boredom without technology, negative emotions after online activities and interference with sleep or social interactions. Now, we didn't even talk about sleep, you know, but sleep is a huge piece of why kids are staying up too late, and that is a huge negative impact. That having you know whether it's screens or having phones in the bedrooms can be very problematic, and that's probably one thing that I would like to add is to maybe take phones and screens out of children's bedrooms, and that could be really helpful.
Tony Overbay:Any other thoughts, gentlemen, bedrooms, and that could be really helpful. Any other thoughts, gentlemen? Well, I was going to say there's a phrase I hear often and I think that it's. You know what is it? The pioneers get the arrows and the settlers get the land. And so when you were talking about that at some point you know, yeah, maybe we do need to enact these, maybe these bigger policies or those sorts of things that there is going to be a tremendous amount of pushback. And I think often, if we're part of those that are in that that area of pushback, then, yeah, maybe it feels like we feel helpless, but then is it the right thing to do for the I don't know the greater good, or in the long run, because then at some point, yeah, somebody has to, has to be the one that that does the difficult thing, and I think that can be really hard, but it can change things on a grand scale.
Trisha Jamison:Right, excellent. Well, thank you so much, both of you and I think, kind of like. In summary, while screens are an integral part of our modern life, they come with significant risks. We just spent this whole time talking about this, especially for our teens. Their mental health are an integral part of our modern life. They come with significant risks, and we just spent this whole time talking about this, especially for our teens, their mental health. And by understanding these risks and implementing strategies potentially like the 4Ms or your own as you educate yourself, can be very helpful we can help our teens navigate the digital world safely and healthily. It's all about finding that balance and being proactive in our approach to technology use. So I just want to thank all of our listeners for tuning in today. Remember it's never too late to make positive changes for your family's wellbeing, so please hit subscribe, share with friends and family and leave us a review so we can grow this amazing community. So until next time, stay well and keep those awesome questions coming, wellness Warriors, and make it a fantastic day.
