# Has Screen Use Crossed the Line? (with Brad Marshall) \[R\]

An episode of [Dr Justin Coulson's Happy Families](https://invisiblenetwork.ai/podcast/1082244480), 14 Apr 2026, 23 min.

Audio: https://mgln.ai/e/187/traffic.omny.fm/d/clips/fa326977-3de5-4283-9b8b-af3500c58607/b69b2795-5503-4de1-ac91-af460017906e/4cf25a5c-47ce-42cd-8fd9-b41900abe657/audio.mp3?utm_source=Podcast&in_playlist=a05f1702-0c0e-4b0f-8014-af460017907c

Nine hours a day. That’s how long Aussie teens are spending on recreational screens. But what does this mean for their development—and should parents panic? In this confronting but practical conversation, Dr Justin Coulson is joined by Dr Brad Marshall, clinical psychologist and researcher, to unpack Australia’s biggest study to date on screen overuse and gaming disorder in kids. Together, they explore what the data shows, what it means for families, and what you should (and shouldn’t!) do if screen use has taken over your home. KEY POINTS • New research shows 9 hours/day of screen time for high schoolers and 6 for primary kids—just for fun, not school. • Around 5% of kids show signs of clinical or subclinical gaming disorder. 10% show signs of smartphone addiction. • Significant developmental impacts were found across emotional, behavioural, educational, and physical domains. • These issues start in primary school, not just during adolescence. • It's not about banning screens but about helping parents set and enforce realistic, healthy limits. QUOTE OF THE EPISODE "If your child is in a sleep deficit because they’re on screens at night, that snowballs into everything else." – Dr Brad Marshall RESOURCES MENTIONED • The new Macquarie University study on screen overuse • Brad’s Developmental Impact Questionnaire • Happy Families podcast archive • Brad Marshall’s organisation: Control Shift ACTION STEPS FOR PARENTS • Don’t attack the tech. Avoid saying things like “that game is rotting your brain.” It shuts down connection. • Don’t allow screens in bedrooms at night. Sleep loss is a key trigger for wider issues. • Don’t argue in the heat of the moment. Have the “screen talk” when everyone’s calm. • Get curious about impacts. Use tools like the Developmental Impact Questionnaire to understand your child’s experience. • Pick your battles. Focus on habits and boundaries, not just hours. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

## Transcript

[0:06] Speaker 1: We keep on hearing about internet gaming disorder, that our
[0:09] Speaker 1: kids are using their smartphones way too much, and of
[0:11] Speaker 1: course that it's having some kind of a developmental impact
[0:14] Speaker 1: that's negative in their lives. And yet, for some reason,
[0:17] Speaker 1: the conversation keeps on happening, and for many of us
[0:20] Speaker 1: as parents, it almost feels like we throw up the
[0:22] Speaker 1: white flag, throw up the white flag, raise the white flag,
[0:25] Speaker 1: you know what I mean, and start to wonder is
[0:27] Speaker 1: it even worth it? Is it that big of a deal.
[0:29] Speaker 1: Everybody else is doing it. It's just the world today.
[0:32] Speaker 1: I'm tired. And apart from that, we kind of like
[0:35] Speaker 1: our own Instagram feeds as well. It's pretty easy to
[0:38] Speaker 1: settle into that. Today, a big conversation about Internet gaming
[0:43] Speaker 1: disorder and smartphone overuse in Australian primary and secondary school kids.
[0:50] Speaker 1: I'm so excited for this conversation. It will be practical,
[0:52] Speaker 1: it will be helpful, and it will set you on
[0:54] Speaker 1: the path for where we want to go in helping
[0:57] Speaker 1: our children to flourish and maybe and live a little
[1:00] Speaker 1: more screen free ish. Stay with us. Hello and welcome
[1:07] Speaker 1: to the Happy Families podcasts, Real Parenting Solutions every day
[1:09] Speaker 1: on Australia's most downloaded parenting podcast. My name is doctor
[1:13] Speaker 1: Justin Colson, and today I am joined by a frequent
[1:16] Speaker 1: contributor to the pod and somebody who is fast becoming
[1:20] Speaker 1: a wonderful friend and wise guy to talk to around
[1:23] Speaker 1: all these kinds of things. Doctor, it's official now the
[1:26] Speaker 1: PhD has completed. Doctor Brad Marshall, the chief Research officer
[1:29] Speaker 1: of the all New Control Shift, also known as the
[1:31] Speaker 1: Unplugged Psychologist, and a researcher at mcquarie University. Brad, thanks
[1:37] Speaker 1: for being with me.
[1:38] Speaker 2: Thanks for having me again, Justin, It's good to be back.
[1:41] Speaker 1: So you've published an article with Wayne Warburton. The name
[1:43] Speaker 1: of the article is Internet Gaming Disorder and Smartphone overuse
[1:46] Speaker 1: in Australian primary school and secondary children prevalence and developmental impacts. Now,
[1:50] Speaker 1: I know that most people who will listening to this
[1:51] Speaker 1: don't like the academic jargon, the dent academic speak, So
[1:56] Speaker 1: walk us through this one. Because almost every single person
[1:58] Speaker 1: who's listened to this pod as a child who is
[2:00] Speaker 1: either in primary school or secondary school, they are in
[2:03] Speaker 1: front of screens devices, they are playing games. They do
[2:06] Speaker 1: often own their own smartphone. How prevalent is the reality
[2:10] Speaker 1: that they've got them. But more than that, how prevalent
[2:14] Speaker 1: is this smartphone overused? How do you even define that?
[2:16] Speaker 1: What is it? Let's hear all the details.
[2:19] Speaker 2: Okay, yeah, so I think we need to start with
[2:22] Speaker 2: When myself and my research colleagues set out with this study,
[2:27] Speaker 2: it was very much designed around We have two major
[2:30] Speaker 2: studies in Australia, one by Professor Daniel King in Adelaide
[2:37] Speaker 2: and the other was by my research partner, Professor Wayne Warburton,
[2:40] Speaker 2: who have done prevalence, which for those at home parents,
[2:43] Speaker 2: it basically just means what's the percentage of kids that
[2:46] Speaker 2: have an issue with Internet gaming disorder or gaming issues,
[2:49] Speaker 2: or smartphone addiction or smartphone overuse. So we only have
[2:53] Speaker 2: two studies to date and they were both pre COVID
[2:55] Speaker 2: justin so the question then always that God asked in
[2:59] Speaker 2: the clinic when I was speaking at schools and other places,
[3:02] Speaker 2: was has this gone up over COVID or Usually parents
[3:05] Speaker 2: were just saying it's definitely gone up, and we weren't
[3:08] Speaker 2: sure about that. So we did this study in twenty
[3:10] Speaker 2: twenty three. Now, what we did was we went to
[3:14] Speaker 2: schools and we asked them if we could survey kids
[3:18] Speaker 2: within schools and first of all, I should note that
[3:23] Speaker 2: one of the limitations here is we could only use
[3:25] Speaker 2: independent schools. But what we were trying to achieve is
[3:28] Speaker 2: number one, the biggest sample to date in Australian populations,
[3:33] Speaker 2: and number two, we wanted a wider variety of ages
[3:36] Speaker 2: because one of the things I was critical of in
[3:38] Speaker 2: previous research is that it focused on this sort of
[3:42] Speaker 2: teenage fifteen, sixteen, seventeen year olds. But I was seeing
[3:45] Speaker 2: in the clinic kids age eight, ten, twelve, so I
[3:49] Speaker 2: wanted to go younger. I took what you might call
[3:52] Speaker 2: the more difficult path in this because I wanted the
[3:56] Speaker 2: younger sample kids. So year forty, year eight is what
[3:59] Speaker 2: these kids are now. I will acknowledge as well there
[4:01] Speaker 2: are not as many primary school age kids as I
[4:04] Speaker 2: would have liked in this ample. It's still high school heavy.
[4:07] Speaker 2: But as far as what the prevalence is, the numbers
[4:10] Speaker 2: that we actually found, the pertinent numbers are. First of all,
[4:15] Speaker 2: the amount of hours on a recreational screens that our
[4:19] Speaker 2: kids are spending is about nine hours a day for
[4:24] Speaker 2: our high school kids year seven, year eight and about
[4:27] Speaker 2: six hours, just over six hours for our primary school kids.
[4:30] Speaker 1: All right, So I've got to interrupt you here. This
[4:32] Speaker 1: is critical that we make this distinction between what you
[4:36] Speaker 1: might call or consider necessary use and what you've called
[4:39] Speaker 1: recreational use. So can we just get a quick definition here,
[4:43] Speaker 1: nine hours or six hours depending on the age, on
[4:45] Speaker 1: average worth highlighting as well. On average means that fifty
[4:49] Speaker 1: percent are above that and fifty percent below, right, that's
[4:51] Speaker 1: what the average is. So there are fifty percent of
[4:54] Speaker 1: kids who are getting more than nine hours per day
[4:57] Speaker 1: on their screens. And yeah, high school kids, and it's
[5:00] Speaker 1: recreational use that we're talking about here, So just break
[5:03] Speaker 1: that down for me. Yeah, I mean so, again, there's
[5:06] Speaker 1: no perfect way to measure this. The only perfect way
[5:08] Speaker 1: to measure this would be to literally install tracking devices
[5:11] Speaker 1: on your.
[5:12] Speaker 2: Kid's devices, right, which is not possible. So what this
[5:16] Speaker 2: is is it's asking kids to break down how many
[5:19] Speaker 2: hours in the last few weeks, how many hours per
[5:21] Speaker 2: day are you spending on a console, how many hours
[5:24] Speaker 2: on your phone, how many hours on your home devices gaming, laptop,
[5:28] Speaker 2: et cetera, et cetera, iPad. Now, some of this may
[5:33] Speaker 2: be a little bit confused with school time, and that's
[5:36] Speaker 2: one of the difficulties in measuring this because obviously if
[5:39] Speaker 2: you get a ten twelve year old kid, they may
[5:42] Speaker 2: interpret that read the question quickly. But ultimately we were
[5:47] Speaker 2: not targeting your use of PowerPoint in a history lesson
[5:52] Speaker 2: in year seven. That's not what we were asking there.
[5:54] Speaker 2: In fact, one of the limitations of this is the reverse.
[5:58] Speaker 2: If you ask most kids these days how many kids
[6:01] Speaker 2: in class are actually gaining or on YouTube in class,
[6:04] Speaker 2: they will say that a fair amount of them are,
[6:07] Speaker 2: And we were ruling that stuff out as well. Right,
[6:09] Speaker 2: So we were talking about outside of school hours, so
[6:12] Speaker 2: those hours of six and nine hours for primary and
[6:15] Speaker 2: high school kids. I think what's really important to note
[6:18] Speaker 2: here is that I gave this testimony to the Australian
[6:21] Speaker 2: Parliament and the Social Media Inquiries, and that is distinctly
[6:26] Speaker 2: different to what the E Safety Commissioner reported. The E
[6:30] Speaker 2: Safety Commissioner told that inquiry that their research indicates what
[6:35] Speaker 2: was the equivalent of about two hours a day of
[6:37] Speaker 2: recreational screen use. It's nowhere even close to what we found.
[6:43] Speaker 2: So I'll also point out that our data is very
[6:47] Speaker 2: consistent and the amount of hours to the OECD statistics
[6:51] Speaker 2: that came out in May twenty twenty five.
[6:54] Speaker 1: Yeah, We talked about that when it came out on
[6:56] Speaker 1: the podcast. These numbers are big, not nine hours of
[7:00] Speaker 1: recreational screen use every day. So let's say a teenager.
[7:04] Speaker 1: I know that you're highlighting primary versus high school, so
[7:06] Speaker 1: let's stick with the high schools for a moment. Let's
[7:08] Speaker 1: say that the average teenager should be getting even if
[7:11] Speaker 1: we call it nine hours of sleep a night, right,
[7:14] Speaker 1: that's we'd like them to be a little bit more
[7:16] Speaker 1: than that, but let's call it nine hours. Then they've
[7:18] Speaker 1: got to go to school and all the travel and
[7:20] Speaker 1: all the stuff around that, so we've got at least
[7:23] Speaker 1: another seven to eight hours. I'm not really good at
[7:25] Speaker 1: live maths, but that tells me that we're somewhere around
[7:28] Speaker 1: about sixteen seventeen eighteen hours of the day is kind
[7:30] Speaker 1: of gone, and then we've got to find nine hours
[7:32] Speaker 1: for screen. They're supposed to have a wo many of
[7:35] Speaker 1: them have jobs, they've got relationships, they're involved in structured
[7:38] Speaker 1: activities outside of school. It doesn't fit, which means that
[7:41] Speaker 1: stuff that matters is going by the bye, so that
[7:44] Speaker 1: they can stare at their screens, play games, look at Instagram, TikTok,
[7:47] Speaker 1: that kind of thing.
[7:49] Speaker 2: Yeah, spot on, and that's exactly why in this study,
[7:52] Speaker 2: myself and my colleagues at Macquarie University developed what we
[7:57] Speaker 2: call the Screen Developmental Impact question end. We wanted a
[8:02] Speaker 2: way to measure what the developmental impacts are on children
[8:06] Speaker 2: and teenagers in a variety of different areas, so education,
[8:11] Speaker 2: social development, physical health, emotional and behavior. Now keep in mind,
[8:19] Speaker 2: these are students that are responding to these questionnaires, so
[8:21] Speaker 2: this is not a parent's view. This is what students
[8:24] Speaker 2: are telling us. And we did find in this study
[8:28] Speaker 2: that there are significant impacts in all of those areas
[8:33] Speaker 2: of development when you get into these high levels of
[8:36] Speaker 2: either smartphone overuse or gaming.
[8:39] Speaker 1: So, Brad, this is the crux of the study, and
[8:40] Speaker 1: this is really why I wanted to talk to you,
[8:42] Speaker 1: because it's one thing to say, all right, kids are
[8:44] Speaker 1: using their devices a lot, we've got smartphone overuse, we've
[8:47] Speaker 1: got a lot of activity happening on screens, and it
[8:49] Speaker 1: comes to you and I stand up in front of
[8:51] Speaker 1: groups all day, every day and say, our children's well
[8:54] Speaker 1: being is being undermined by screens. And there are plenty
[8:59] Speaker 1: of adults who are point to the things that they're
[9:02] Speaker 1: concerned about. But when we hear it in their words,
[9:05] Speaker 1: and when we've got something that actually measures what the
[9:08] Speaker 1: impact is, then there's more heft, there's more funk. I
[9:14] Speaker 1: guess you know, like you're dropping a big book on
[9:16] Speaker 1: the table rather than a pamphlet, and it's like, Okay,
[9:18] Speaker 1: there's something weighty here. So walk me through. What did
[9:22] Speaker 1: these young people themselves identify when it comes to the
[9:25] Speaker 1: impact of their use of screens.
[9:31] Speaker 2: I think what we actually have to do is just
[9:33] Speaker 2: take one step backwards here, if I may justin, because
[9:36] Speaker 2: we've missed here a key part around the prevalence. So
[9:39] Speaker 2: not only did we measure the amount of hours, but
[9:42] Speaker 2: we also measured how many kids have what we would
[9:45] Speaker 2: call Internet gaining disorder, the diagnostic term on a screening tool.
[9:49] Speaker 2: It's not diagnostic because you've not done a clinical interview,
[9:51] Speaker 2: but it's a screening tool, which is a common tool,
[9:54] Speaker 2: and how many have a smartphone addiction. So we found
[9:57] Speaker 2: that four percent of Australian kids have a either subclinical
[10:03] Speaker 2: or clinical gaming disorder, and about nine point nine percent
[10:09] Speaker 2: of Australian kids have medium to high levels of smartphone
[10:13] Speaker 2: addiction or overuse. Now, if we just extrapolate those numbers
[10:18] Speaker 2: and I know I've talked to you about these numbers
[10:20] Speaker 2: roughly on the podcast before, right, but we're talking about
[10:23] Speaker 2: about one hundred to one hundred and twenty thousand Australian
[10:26] Speaker 2: kids with gaming disorder and about four hundred thousand with
[10:29] Speaker 2: a smartphone overuse or addiction. The key element here being
[10:35] Speaker 2: in this study, this was the first arm of a
[10:39] Speaker 2: trial and the second arm was a follow up where
[10:41] Speaker 2: we were actually going to invite parents into a parent
[10:45] Speaker 2: intervention treat contrial, So that is a fancy term for
[10:48] Speaker 2: those parents at home of we're going to help the
[10:50] Speaker 2: parents in the second trial. So in order to do that,
[10:53] Speaker 2: the ethics board at Macquari University said, hey, you really
[10:56] Speaker 2: need to tell these kids that you're going to tell
[10:58] Speaker 2: their parents if they're is high. So we did. You
[11:02] Speaker 2: can imagine how many kids aged ten to fourteen are
[11:06] Speaker 2: going to read that and go, there's no way I'm
[11:09] Speaker 2: answering this accurately. So those numbers that I've just quoted you,
[11:12] Speaker 2: the hours and the percentages, they're probably understating the issue.
[11:17] Speaker 1: So now that we've got these prevalence data and we
[11:20] Speaker 1: understand that, I'm going to forgive me for being imprecise
[11:24] Speaker 1: and rounding, but it's just easy to remember round numbers.
[11:27] Speaker 1: Let's say about five percent of kids are showing up
[11:30] Speaker 1: with a subclinical or clinical gaming disorder, and about ten
[11:33] Speaker 1: percent ish are showing up with medium to high smartphone
[11:36] Speaker 1: addiction or over use. How they seeing the impacts? What
[11:41] Speaker 1: does this mean at a practical level in their daily lives.
[11:45] Speaker 2: Yeah, Well, one of the most practical things out of
[11:47] Speaker 2: this study is that we didn't actually find any notable
[11:50] Speaker 2: differences in those prevalence rates between primary school and high school.
[11:56] Speaker 2: So what that tells us is that both of these
[11:58] Speaker 2: phenomena gaming disorder and smartphone overuse start in primary school.
[12:05] Speaker 1: The great rewiring of the adolescent brain begins around about
[12:08] Speaker 1: the age of seven or eight, once these could start
[12:10] Speaker 1: to really invest in these screens.
[12:12] Speaker 2: Correct. But I think what you're getting out obviously is
[12:15] Speaker 2: the developmental impacts, and that's sort of what I'm excited
[12:19] Speaker 2: about as well. Excited and scared at the same time,
[12:21] Speaker 2: of course. But we had these five main categories, and
[12:26] Speaker 2: what our investigations found is that there was probably more
[12:28] Speaker 2: indicative of four categories, and so the emotional impacts, the social,
[12:33] Speaker 2: and physical were tied together in our exploratory factor analysis.
[12:37] Speaker 2: For those at home that don't know what that is,
[12:39] Speaker 2: don't worry, it's just sort of fancy stuff. That's a
[12:41] Speaker 2: little bit researchy, behavioral impacts, and education. So we had
[12:46] Speaker 2: a list of questions that we asked them in different domains.
[12:49] Speaker 2: So for example, with education impact, there would have been
[12:54] Speaker 2: a question or there was a question there around have
[12:57] Speaker 2: screens or gaming ever gotten in the way of you
[13:00] Speaker 2: handing in an assessment or getting your homework in. So
[13:03] Speaker 2: that is an example of a question or an item
[13:06] Speaker 2: that was in measuring the educational impacts. Now, what we
[13:11] Speaker 2: found for all four of these areas is all four
[13:14] Speaker 2: were significant in the research. But what we also found
[13:19] Speaker 2: is that there are no real impacts for kids that
[13:22] Speaker 2: didn't meet criteria for Internet gaming disorder or smartphone of use.
[13:27] Speaker 2: Then we have a step up to the impacts that
[13:30] Speaker 2: were there in developmental domains for kids that had smartphone
[13:34] Speaker 2: of use or addiction, then a step up again in
[13:37] Speaker 2: developmental impacts for subclinical gaming disorder, and then a step
[13:41] Speaker 2: up again for kids with clinical gaming disorder. So what
[13:45] Speaker 2: that tells us is that the developmental impacts on our
[13:49] Speaker 2: children and teenagers is greatest for gaming disorder, and then
[13:54] Speaker 2: significant for smartphone addiction overuse, and then down to the
[13:58] Speaker 2: normal quote unquote sample at the bottom.
[14:08] Speaker 1: All right, So, Brad, now that we've gone through the study,
[14:10] Speaker 1: there's a bunch of practical implications that every parent wants
[14:13] Speaker 1: to know the answer to. And these things I think
[14:15] Speaker 1: are just vitally important for us to discuss. First off,
[14:19] Speaker 1: I want to clarify something, and I think this really
[14:21] Speaker 1: requires some It just requires a minute or so of elaboration.
[14:26] Speaker 1: Gaming per se, there's a values question. Are you okay
[14:31] Speaker 1: with your child playing first person shooter games or having
[14:33] Speaker 1: the sound on and lots of strangers in your living
[14:36] Speaker 1: room who are swearing and using inappropriate slurs and epathets
[14:39] Speaker 1: and so on. But let's say that you've got your
[14:41] Speaker 1: values sorted out and the kids know which games are
[14:43] Speaker 1: okay from a values perspective and which games are not.
[14:47] Speaker 1: The research evidence seems to indicate that playing games, so
[14:52] Speaker 1: long as it's not at an excessive level, at a
[14:54] Speaker 1: high level, playing too much that is internet gaming disorder,
[14:58] Speaker 1: playing it pathologically and not being to survive without the game,
[15:02] Speaker 1: does have a whole lot of benefits. It seems to
[15:04] Speaker 1: be really good for the kids socially, it seems to
[15:06] Speaker 1: be quite good for them emotionally and even cognitively. The
[15:10] Speaker 1: thing that I see in the data. No matter how
[15:12] Speaker 1: many studies I look at, and no matter how much
[15:14] Speaker 1: I try to find an argument to just say let's
[15:16] Speaker 1: get the kids off games, I'm not finding an argument
[15:20] Speaker 1: that says that it's bad for them until it reaches
[15:22] Speaker 1: an unsafer unhealthy level. Fundamentally, gaming is a whole lot
[15:26] Speaker 1: of fun for a whole lot of people, and they
[15:27] Speaker 1: don't have any negative effects. Tell me where I'm wrong
[15:31] Speaker 1: or still mans the argument that I'm making. So parents
[15:33] Speaker 1: can go okay, I can breathe a little safely here.
[15:36] Speaker 2: There are opportunities and risks that come with gaming, and
[15:41] Speaker 2: so I certainly should acknowledge the opportunities here with social
[15:45] Speaker 2: connection with mastery. There is research and evidence that suggests
[15:50] Speaker 2: there are benefits in smallish doses. The problem is that
[15:54] Speaker 2: it's different for every child as to when that dose
[15:58] Speaker 2: becomes too much, right, and so you know that could
[16:02] Speaker 2: be thirty minutes a day for one pial, that could
[16:04] Speaker 2: be two hours for another child. And that's why we
[16:06] Speaker 2: developed the Developmental Impact Scale, because we really wanted to
[16:12] Speaker 2: know and have parents understand what are the areas of
[16:16] Speaker 2: red flags that you can look out for. And all
[16:18] Speaker 2: of this is public knowledge. You'll see in this paper
[16:21] Speaker 2: that we list all of the domains in the supplementaries
[16:24] Speaker 2: as well. But I guess to sort of come back
[16:28] Speaker 2: to your question of that opportunity versus that risk, what
[16:34] Speaker 2: I struggle with as a researcher and a clinician is
[16:37] Speaker 2: that many of the research articles and papers and information
[16:41] Speaker 2: we get about the benefits of gaming have significant conflicts
[16:46] Speaker 2: of interests.
[16:47] Speaker 1: They're funded by the industry, they are.
[16:49] Speaker 2: Yeah, and so it is very difficult. So I'm not
[16:51] Speaker 2: sitting here saying that every single piece of evidence is
[16:54] Speaker 2: that way, but a lot of it is. And that
[16:57] Speaker 2: becomes really difficult because if you have a research that
[17:01] Speaker 2: is funded by the industry, either directly or indirectly, and
[17:05] Speaker 2: they are publishing beneficial data around this. We've seen that before,
[17:10] Speaker 2: justin We've seen that in smoking, We've seen that in sugar,
[17:12] Speaker 2: we've seen that in the backup. We've seen this play before,
[17:16] Speaker 2: and so we have to look at both sides. And
[17:20] Speaker 2: what we're saying is that when overusing gaming becomes an issue,
[17:27] Speaker 2: the developmental impacts are fairly significant. Now, what that all
[17:32] Speaker 2: boils down to for me, if I just sort of
[17:34] Speaker 2: summarize my own thoughts on this, is that I firmly
[17:38] Speaker 2: believe that this is a decision for individual parents to
[17:42] Speaker 2: make about their own child's gaining. So I'm not advocating
[17:46] Speaker 2: banning gaming. That's not what I'm saying. Okay, what I
[17:49] Speaker 2: am saying is how do we as a government, as
[17:54] Speaker 2: health policy, as researchers allow parents to actually set limits
[17:59] Speaker 2: in parental controls for their child, because at the moment
[18:03] Speaker 2: they don't have that. Most parental controls are just we've
[18:06] Speaker 2: talked about this before on the last episode anyway, most
[18:09] Speaker 2: parental controls are easy to get around, and so I
[18:12] Speaker 2: believe we should be letting parents make the decision and
[18:14] Speaker 2: actually apply that at the moment they can't.
[18:17] Speaker 1: Brad, let's talk practical. People have listened to the study
[18:21] Speaker 1: that you've done. They've heard that we've got pretty high
[18:26] Speaker 1: percentages really, I mean, I think concerningly hygh percentages of
[18:29] Speaker 1: kids who are using their devices in an overuse or
[18:32] Speaker 1: compulsive way. That there's gaming disorder at a level that
[18:37] Speaker 1: is really concerning, And any family who's going through it,
[18:39] Speaker 1: they know of the just the psychological and emotional earthquakes
[18:43] Speaker 1: that happen every single time there's a request to get
[18:46] Speaker 1: off the screen. It's time to eat, it's time to
[18:48] Speaker 1: go to bed, it's time to go to school. They're
[18:51] Speaker 1: dealing with some really really big challenges. But if I've
[18:53] Speaker 1: got a child and I'm just concerned that they're using
[18:55] Speaker 1: their screens too much, what are your three don't do
[18:59] Speaker 1: this responses? What are the three things that you just
[19:02] Speaker 1: don't cross this line? Don't do this with the kids,
[19:04] Speaker 1: It's going to blow up. There are better things to do.
[19:06] Speaker 1: What are the three things the most common mistakes parents
[19:08] Speaker 1: make here?
[19:09] Speaker 2: I like that you frame that question in what do
[19:11] Speaker 2: you don't do? Instead of what do you do?
[19:12] Speaker 1: Oh, we're going to.
[19:14] Speaker 2: Really makes me think he look. My first don't do
[19:19] Speaker 2: is certainly around parents that go down the path of
[19:22] Speaker 2: criticizing what their kids do online. If you found yourself
[19:27] Speaker 2: in a position where you know you're sitting there, going
[19:30] Speaker 2: that game is such a waste of time. It's going
[19:32] Speaker 2: to rock your brain, and that social media is grating.
[19:35] Speaker 2: You're always in there with that phone, and as soon
[19:38] Speaker 2: as we do that, it becomes combative and your child
[19:42] Speaker 2: is going to switch off. Sorry, not the screens, I
[19:45] Speaker 2: mean switch off to you and what you're saying, right,
[19:47] Speaker 2: So yeah, wrong, switch that's my Yeah, that's my first one,
[19:51] Speaker 2: and I guess my other. Don't if I just sort
[19:53] Speaker 2: of flip this if I use two. We have to
[19:56] Speaker 2: be really careful about the access level that we give,
[19:59] Speaker 2: especially around sleep. You've heard me talk about this before,
[20:02] Speaker 2: justin sleep is one of the primary factors here in
[20:05] Speaker 2: my clinical experience where things can go downhill. So in
[20:09] Speaker 2: all of those developmental domains in that study, what I
[20:12] Speaker 2: have found clinically is that if your child is in
[20:15] Speaker 2: a sleep deficit because they're up late at night grabbing
[20:18] Speaker 2: a phone, or because you let them have a phone
[20:21] Speaker 2: in their room to you know, listen to music on
[20:24] Speaker 2: Spotify to help them get to sleep, which is the
[20:26] Speaker 2: classic one. But you know, you find them on something
[20:29] Speaker 2: else that will snowball on everything else quickly, on all
[20:33] Speaker 2: these other developmental domains quickly. So you know, don't even
[20:38] Speaker 2: if you find yourself relaxing rules at other times because
[20:42] Speaker 2: the horse has already bolted, don't relax those rules at night.
[20:45] Speaker 2: Sleep has to be number one, and don't go down
[20:48] Speaker 2: this path and just endlessly criticizing what they're doing online.
[20:52] Speaker 1: Okay, I'm going to add one if I can, because
[20:54] Speaker 1: I said three and you've hit us with two. Your
[20:57] Speaker 1: reactions are welcome if you disagree with me. I think
[20:59] Speaker 1: that when we see our kids on screens and we've
[21:02] Speaker 1: asked them to get off, or we've had this conversation
[21:04] Speaker 1: seven thousand times, like this is a perennial issue, right
[21:07] Speaker 1: you just you never stop talking about screens. Once they've
[21:10] Speaker 1: got one, it fundamentally becomes the center of their world
[21:12] Speaker 1: and it changes your relationship with them forever once they've
[21:14] Speaker 1: got it. My big don't is don't have the screen
[21:19] Speaker 1: conversation when they're on a screen, or when you've got
[21:23] Speaker 1: when you've got a head full of steam because they're
[21:25] Speaker 1: on a screen, like high emotions, low intelligence. It's just
[21:28] Speaker 1: not the time for it. You've got to pick your time,
[21:30] Speaker 1: usually on a nice, quite Saturday or Sunday morning, where
[21:33] Speaker 1: everyone's relaxed and calm, and you can give them a
[21:35] Speaker 1: chocolate milkshake or go down to the local cafe and
[21:37] Speaker 1: get some wedges in sour cream and say, hey, I
[21:39] Speaker 1: want to have a tricky conversation with you about that
[21:41] Speaker 1: thing that's drive me up the wall. If you do
[21:43] Speaker 1: it in the moment, you just create World War three
[21:45] Speaker 1: in your living room.
[21:46] Speaker 2: Yeah. Look, I couldn't agree more, Justin, And I expand
[21:50] Speaker 2: on that further to say, you know, when your kids
[21:53] Speaker 2: are coming off screens, if you've said right, your hours up,
[21:56] Speaker 2: come off now, don't give them a terrible thing to
[21:59] Speaker 2: go to. If you transition them to now it's time
[22:01] Speaker 2: to do your maths homework. You are probably going to
[22:04] Speaker 2: end in tears, right, but.
[22:06] Speaker 1: I reckon you and I could talk for about seventy
[22:09] Speaker 1: seven hours about this and still still not exhaust our
[22:13] Speaker 1: things to share. There's so much more that I want
[22:16] Speaker 1: to ask you, so much more that we could talk
[22:17] Speaker 1: about and play around with ideas around. You've been extremely
[22:20] Speaker 1: generous with your time though, and there's no way there's
[22:24] Speaker 1: no way that any parent could have listened to this
[22:25] Speaker 1: and not have some really great parenting solutions to help
[22:30] Speaker 1: them with their challenges. Thanks so much for your time.
[22:33] Speaker 1: It's been an absolute delight, and hopefully when there's some
[22:36] Speaker 1: more research that comes out that's just hot to try
[22:38] Speaker 1: and perfect for parents, we can chat again.
[22:41] Speaker 2: Thanks Justin.
[22:42] Speaker 1: Dr Brad Marshall is a mcquarie University academic. He is
[22:47] Speaker 1: the Unplugged Psychologist and he is now most recently appointed
[22:50] Speaker 1: as the chief Research Officer at Control Shift. He's written books,
[22:55] Speaker 1: he's a speaker, and clearly you can hear he knows
[22:58] Speaker 1: his stuff. Thank you so much for listen. We hope,
[23:01] Speaker 1: hope so much that this has been a useful conversation
[23:03] Speaker 1: for you. The Happy Families podcast is produced by Justin
[23:06] Speaker 1: Rulan from Bridge Media. If you'd like more information and
[23:09] Speaker 1: more resources to make your family happier, check the show
[23:12] Speaker 1: notes for Brad's resources and the studies that we've talked
[23:15] Speaker 1: about and our previous podcasts, or just visit Happy families
[23:18] Speaker 1: dot com dot a

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