# Screens, Kids & the Hijacked Brain: Dr Wayne Warburton on Beating Screen Addiction

An episode of [Dr Justin Coulson's Happy Families](https://invisiblenetwork.ai/podcast/1082244480), 15 Sep 2026, 15 min.

Audio: https://mgln.ai/e/187/traffic.omny.fm/d/clips/fa326977-3de5-4283-9b8b-af3500c58607/b69b2795-5503-4de1-ac91-af460017906e/021c1ffe-72c7-42ae-ad21-b4bf00289aeb/audio.mp3?utm_source=Podcast&in_playlist=a05f1702-0c0e-4b0f-8014-af460017907c

Is your child’s screen time spiralling—and every conversation about it ends in a fight? Professor Wayne Warburton, leading psychologist and researcher, reveals how apps and games are deliberately engineered to hook young brains. He explains the hidden neuroscience of addiction, what excessive screen use does to a child’s emotional regulation and attention, and how parents can reclaim calm without all-out war. If you’ve ever wondered why your tween melts down when you say “time’s up,” this episode is a must-listen. KEY POINTS • Why modern apps use gambling-style tactics and AI to keep kids scrolling. • How heavy screen use weakens the prefrontal cortex—the part of the brain that manages focus, planning, and emotional control. • Simple, science-backed steps to reset family screen habits and return kids to the “driver’s seat.” • Practical advice for conversations that don’t turn into shouting matches. • Why social connection doesn’t have to mean social media. QUOTE OF THE EPISODE “It’s not your child’s fault—or yours. These products are built to be addictive. The goal is to put your child back in the driver’s seat, not the screen.” — Dr Wayne Warburton RESOURCES MENTIONED • Dr Wayne Warburton’s books Growing Up Fast and Furious and The Importance of Media Literacy • HappyFamilies.com.au for family screen-plan templates and parenting resources ACTION STEPS FOR PARENTS • Choose the right moment: Discuss screens only when everyone is calm and offline. • Externalise the problem: Frame it as “us versus the tech designers,” not parent versus child. • Co-create a plan: Involve kids in setting screen limits and consequences; write it down. • Build healthy replacements: Help kids identify offline ways to cope with boredom, anxiety, or stress. • Model balance: Show your own healthy screen habits—your example speaks louder than rules. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

## Transcript

[0:05] Speaker 1: Dr.
[0:06] Speaker 2: Wayne Warburton is a professor of developmental psychology at Macquarie University,
[0:10] Speaker 2: and he's also a registered psychologist. His research centers on
[0:15] Speaker 2: issues related to media use, aggression, and behavioral addictions like
[0:20] Speaker 2: screen disorders. He's the co-author of the books Growing Up
[0:24] Speaker 2: Fast and Furious and The Importance of Media Literacy. and
[0:29] Speaker 2: of several statements by international panels of experts on topics
[0:32] Speaker 2: around media impacts on young people. Wayne's done some great
[0:36] Speaker 2: work with some commercial TV stations, including Channel 7, as
[0:39] Speaker 2: well as having a really touching Australian story on the
[0:41] Speaker 2: ABC that followed two great teenage boys who were struggling
[0:45] Speaker 2: with screen disorder as he worked on them with an
[0:47] Speaker 2: intervention program. And today on the Happy Families podcast, We
[0:51] Speaker 2: talk about his research and the ways that what he's
[0:54] Speaker 2: discovered through empirical data collection can help us to make
[0:59] Speaker 2: our families do better around this endemic and never-endingly challenging
[1:05] Speaker 2: screen issue.
[1:07] Speaker 1: Stay with us.
[1:10] Speaker 2: Hello and welcome to the Happy Families podcast, Real Parenting Solutions,
[1:13] Speaker 2: every day on Australia's most downloaded parenting podcast. My name's Dr.
[1:16] Speaker 2: Justin Coulson. I'm Wayne. It's such a delight to have
[1:19] Speaker 2: you on the podcast. I've wanted to talk to you
[1:20] Speaker 2: here for such a long time and we finally made
[1:23] Speaker 2: it happen.
[1:24] Speaker 1: Yeah, look, it's wonderful to be here, Justin. Thanks for
[1:26] Speaker 1: the chat. And this is something that's of great interest
[1:29] Speaker 1: to so many Australian families. You know, when I go
[1:31] Speaker 1: to school, so many parents come up and say, this
[1:33] Speaker 1: is like the big issue at our house.
[1:35] Speaker 2: As parents, we know that this stuff's bad for our kids,
[1:40] Speaker 2: but it's so hard to effectively navigate it and have
[1:43] Speaker 2: the conversations and So my question is really vague and nebulous.
[1:47] Speaker 2: I guess I'm just generally asking, why is this so hard?
[1:50] Speaker 2: It's hard like no other thing that parents have ever
[1:53] Speaker 2: encountered seems to be.
[1:55] Speaker 1: I think it's hard because the products that we use
[1:59] Speaker 1: are designed to be addictive. And I don't mean that
[2:02] Speaker 1: in this kind of hand-waving way. The people who make them,
[2:04] Speaker 1: they use neuroscience and they design their products so that
[2:08] Speaker 1: they engage the brain in a way that you see
[2:11] Speaker 1: it engaged in other sorts of addictions. And when you
[2:13] Speaker 1: see the changes to the brain, they're the same as
[2:15] Speaker 1: the ones you see with drug addiction and other types
[2:17] Speaker 1: of addiction. That's why they make the products. And just
[2:21] Speaker 1: to make it even more difficult, once they build in
[2:24] Speaker 1: all of these things that kind of keep the brain's
[2:27] Speaker 1: reward system going and disable the sort of natural breaks
[2:30] Speaker 1: on behavior in the brain and build in all the
[2:32] Speaker 1: things we know from gambling and neuroscience, they then have
[2:35] Speaker 1: an AI that monitors every user in real time and
[2:40] Speaker 1: uses the information that they get from that device to
[2:43] Speaker 1: decide what you're going to see. If that AI thinks
[2:46] Speaker 1: your attention is waning, then they're going to give you
[2:47] Speaker 1: a pop-up of a banner or something on the game
[2:50] Speaker 1: that's going to be irresistible to you that just keeps
[2:52] Speaker 1: you at the screen because they work on what's called
[2:55] Speaker 1: the attention economy, which is monetizing your attention. And it
[3:00] Speaker 1: is not a good business model if people don't spend
[3:02] Speaker 1: a lot of time at the screen. The business model
[3:04] Speaker 1: only works if they have you at the screen for
[3:07] Speaker 1: long periods of time. And the best way to do
[3:09] Speaker 1: that and to stay competitive is to use addictive technology.
[3:13] Speaker 1: So it's not the fault of kids. It's not the
[3:14] Speaker 1: fault of parents. You know, this is just stuff that's
[3:19] Speaker 1: designed to be addictive. And that's what makes it so
[3:21] Speaker 1: hard for all of us to leave it aside.
[3:25] Speaker 2: What happens when the ping goes off or when the
[3:29] Speaker 2: phone rings or when you're scrolling through that Instagram or
[3:33] Speaker 2: TikTok feed and you see something that kicks off the
[3:37] Speaker 2: cascade of neurotransmitters that pull you in?
[3:40] Speaker 1: Okay, I'm going to do this on two levels and
[3:43] Speaker 1: try not to confuse everybody. On one level, you know,
[3:47] Speaker 1: your brain is wired up to capture particular sounds and
[3:50] Speaker 1: colours and things like that. And so if something that
[3:53] Speaker 1: we're hardwired to get our attention gets our attention, then
[3:57] Speaker 1: sorts of brains that register sight and sound kind of
[4:00] Speaker 1: pull us in. But at another level, it's also linked
[4:04] Speaker 1: to a reward because when you hear that sound, And
[4:08] Speaker 1: you know, oh, this could mean I'm getting another like.
[4:10] Speaker 1: This could mean that there's another upgrade for my game.
[4:13] Speaker 1: This means something else cool is happening. So I better
[4:15] Speaker 1: attend to my phone and get that reward. And I
[4:19] Speaker 1: think one of the key things about the sorts of
[4:22] Speaker 1: screen products that we use is that they engage a
[4:25] Speaker 1: part of the brain called the limbic system where we,
[4:27] Speaker 1: you know, we process rewards and we feel things and,
[4:30] Speaker 1: you know, we have parts of the fight or flight
[4:32] Speaker 1: system and everything that happens is kind of automatic. We
[4:35] Speaker 1: don't have any control over it. And that's the part
[4:38] Speaker 1: of the brain that's mostly active when you're reeling through
[4:40] Speaker 1: those TikTok clips or playing a very repetitive game or
[4:45] Speaker 1: doing a whole lot of other things. There's not much
[4:47] Speaker 1: going on in terms of heavy thinking and being in
[4:51] Speaker 1: conscious control of your life. And when you look at
[4:55] Speaker 1: the part of your brain where you have a tension
[4:57] Speaker 1: of focus, where you manage your behavior, where you manage
[5:00] Speaker 1: your emotions, where you plan for the future, solve complex problems,
[5:05] Speaker 1: That's at the front of the brain in a part
[5:06] Speaker 1: of the brain called the prefrontal cortex. That part of
[5:09] Speaker 1: the brain is mostly turned off because you're not really
[5:12] Speaker 1: doing any heavy lifting for any of that sort of stuff.
[5:16] Speaker 1: The device is your memory. The device is providing all
[5:20] Speaker 1: of the stimulation. You don't have to do any of
[5:22] Speaker 1: the hard work. It's doing it for you. And so
[5:26] Speaker 1: in the moment, what that means is that you can't
[5:29] Speaker 1: have less access to those higher functions, which is why
[5:31] Speaker 1: we see those kind of meltdowns when you take the
[5:33] Speaker 1: screen away. or there's difficulty managing emotions when the person's
[5:38] Speaker 1: on the screen, because that part of the brain is
[5:40] Speaker 1: not as active. In the long term, the brain is
[5:43] Speaker 1: a use it or lose it organ. And when a
[5:47] Speaker 1: part of the brain isn't being used, it just starts
[5:49] Speaker 1: to lose structure and function. And that's what we see
[5:51] Speaker 1: in kids who are addicted to screens. Compared to other kids,
[5:54] Speaker 1: they have a loss of gray matter. They have a
[5:56] Speaker 1: loss of, particularly in that prefrontal cortex, where you have
[5:59] Speaker 1: those higher functions. You see a change in the density
[6:03] Speaker 1: of the cortex. You see loss of white matter and stability,
[6:07] Speaker 1: which probably means nothing to anyone who's listening, but it's
[6:10] Speaker 1: not a good thing. And it means the brain is
[6:12] Speaker 1: not working particularly efficiently and it's not connected particularly well.
[6:15] Speaker 1: You know, it's starting to lose function. And because of
[6:18] Speaker 1: those things, you know, the kids that I see have
[6:21] Speaker 1: a screen addiction and they have trouble managing their emotions,
[6:24] Speaker 1: increasing trouble, increasing trouble managing their behavior, increasing problems with
[6:28] Speaker 1: attention and focus. You know, they're working memory and processing
[6:33] Speaker 1: speed isn't as good. They have more trouble planning for
[6:36] Speaker 1: the future, thinking through the consequences, managing their time, all
[6:39] Speaker 1: of those kind of higher functions, because not only is
[6:43] Speaker 1: the brain not doing that stuff when they're in front
[6:45] Speaker 1: of the screen, but the more they do it, the
[6:47] Speaker 1: more they lose that capacity to do it. Of course,
[6:50] Speaker 1: it's reversible, right? You start to use that part of
[6:53] Speaker 1: the brain again, it starts to grow again. So it's
[6:55] Speaker 1: not like the end of the universe, particularly if you're young.
[6:59] Speaker 1: But it kind of explains some of the problems that
[7:01] Speaker 1: parents have in the home when you take the screen
[7:04] Speaker 1: away or you try to communicate or when the screen
[7:06] Speaker 1: starts to become the big problem in the house. You know,
[7:10] Speaker 1: it's very difficult to cut through, right? Because all of
[7:13] Speaker 1: those things require that kind of rational conversation. They're kind
[7:15] Speaker 1: of out the window because that rational part of the brain,
[7:19] Speaker 1: that's the one that's suffering.
[7:28] Speaker 2: All right, so let's say I'm a parent who doesn't
[7:29] Speaker 2: have a PhD in psychology. I'm not sitting down and
[7:32] Speaker 2: dealing with screen addiction on a daily basis and guiding
[7:35] Speaker 2: people through it. If I'm a regular mum or dad
[7:38] Speaker 2: and my child's screen use is concerning me, how do
[7:43] Speaker 2: I explain to them the things that you've just talked
[7:45] Speaker 2: about in a way that gets through to them? I mean,
[7:47] Speaker 2: how do you convince a 13-year-old or a 17-year-old or, frankly,
[7:52] Speaker 2: a 23-year-old that their screen use is concerning? concerning, that
[7:55] Speaker 2: it's problematic, that it's compulsive, that it's leading to negative outcomes.
[7:59] Speaker 2: And it's because their brain has been rewired and hijacked
[8:01] Speaker 2: by these multi-billion, multi-trillion dollar behemoths that have hijacked neuroscience
[8:08] Speaker 2: to their own selfish and mendacious ends.
[8:10] Speaker 1: Well, I love the way you said that, Justin. Sorry,
[8:12] Speaker 1: I'm just fangirling right now. That's beautifully put. The first
[8:17] Speaker 1: thing I'd say is that you don't have that conversation
[8:20] Speaker 1: when they're kind of in screen world. Of course, you're right.
[8:24] Speaker 1: What can I say? Get off the screen. We need
[8:25] Speaker 1: to talk. When you're off the screen, it takes a
[8:27] Speaker 1: while for your brain to kind of return to normal.
[8:30] Speaker 1: So what you want to do is to have it,
[8:32] Speaker 1: you know, sometime later when everybody's calm and when you're
[8:36] Speaker 1: able to kind of have that rational conversation. And the
[8:39] Speaker 1: thing that I think is most helpful is that you
[8:43] Speaker 1: externalize the problem. And by that, I mean, the problem
[8:46] Speaker 1: is the screen and the people who make it. It's
[8:48] Speaker 1: not that you're a bad kid. It's not that this
[8:50] Speaker 1: is you behaving in a difficult way. It's because, you know,
[8:55] Speaker 1: the screen has become a problem because of the way
[8:58] Speaker 1: people design it. And I think if you come from
[9:01] Speaker 1: that position, it's much easier to have that conversation with saying,
[9:05] Speaker 1: what can we do, you know, you and us against
[9:08] Speaker 1: these makers of the screen, these manufacturers of the screen,
[9:12] Speaker 1: so that we're kind of resisting what it's trying to
[9:15] Speaker 1: do to you and so many other millions of kids
[9:17] Speaker 1: around the world. You know, what can we do to
[9:19] Speaker 1: be the strong ones who put you back in control
[9:24] Speaker 1: so that you're the one who's calling your shots in
[9:26] Speaker 1: your life and not the screen? Because in the end,
[9:29] Speaker 1: my program is about, the parenting is about, it's about
[9:32] Speaker 1: putting you back in the driver's seat. I would say
[9:34] Speaker 1: one other thing. I have never seen a kid with
[9:37] Speaker 1: a screen addiction who, when I ask them, what is
[9:41] Speaker 1: happening in your brain at the time you go to
[9:43] Speaker 1: the screen? I've never heard a different answer than I'm
[9:46] Speaker 1: feeling anxious. I'm feeling stressed. or I've got a negative emotion,
[9:50] Speaker 1: like I'm feeling sad or bored or angry. And when
[9:53] Speaker 1: I go to the screen, it always makes me feel better.
[9:57] Speaker 1: It's my go-to thing. And I think part of the
[10:01] Speaker 1: conversation has to be what's another way that doesn't involve
[10:05] Speaker 1: a screen that kind of helps you when you're feeling
[10:08] Speaker 1: anxious when you're feeling stressed when you're feeling those negative
[10:10] Speaker 1: emotions what are other ways that we can manage this
[10:13] Speaker 1: so that the screen's not the go-to thing I think
[10:16] Speaker 1: that's really helpful and anything a parent can do to
[10:20] Speaker 1: be using that front part of the brain. Because if
[10:22] Speaker 1: you're doing those opposite things, like attending, focusing, having abstract conversations,
[10:28] Speaker 1: talking to people in the offline world, if you are
[10:33] Speaker 1: doing things that encourage mindfulness, if you're doing complex problem solving,
[10:39] Speaker 1: all of those things are engaged in that front brain.
[10:41] Speaker 1: And when you're engaging that front brain, really your conscious
[10:45] Speaker 1: self is in control of your life. It's you who's
[10:47] Speaker 1: driving the bus. So that's what we're trying to do,
[10:50] Speaker 1: We want to say, let's get the screen into the
[10:52] Speaker 1: passenger seat and let's get you back into the driver's seat.
[10:55] Speaker 2: I want to ask you about an issue that's been
[10:57] Speaker 2: occurring in my family around this ongoing screen issue. And
[11:01] Speaker 2: that is that my daughter says, this is how I
[11:03] Speaker 2: communicate with my friends. And by reducing or removing screens,
[11:07] Speaker 2: or specifically by removing the social media platforms that are used,
[11:11] Speaker 2: they don't text. Texting is inconvenient. It's It doesn't work
[11:15] Speaker 2: for them. It's not consistent with how they want to communicate.
[11:18] Speaker 2: And so by removing them from social media platforms, we actually,
[11:23] Speaker 2: in some ways, sabotage their relationships and leave them feeling isolated.
[11:27] Speaker 1: How do you respond to that? I think that's a
[11:30] Speaker 1: crock load. Do you know why? Because we have so
[11:33] Speaker 1: many ways to communicate. The problem with social media, I mean,
[11:36] Speaker 1: there are a lot of problems with social media. It's
[11:38] Speaker 1: an addictive technology is one. So we have, you know,
[11:41] Speaker 1: probably 6% to 9% of people have a problem with
[11:45] Speaker 1: how much they're on it. There are problems with social comparison.
[11:50] Speaker 1: There's problems with mental health, and the list is very long.
[11:52] Speaker 1: So there are problems. But we have all of these alternatives.
[11:57] Speaker 1: I mean, we don't have the same problems, for example,
[11:59] Speaker 1: just video chatting, FaceTiming, doing all of these other things.
[12:02] Speaker 1: There are so many other ways to communicate. I think
[12:05] Speaker 1: as time goes on, the evidence that screens can cause
[12:10] Speaker 1: problems difficulties becomes more compelling. And the idea that we
[12:15] Speaker 1: should protect younger brains from them, you know, to a
[12:19] Speaker 1: higher age becomes more convincing to me as time goes on.
[12:23] Speaker 1: I don't think I would have said that five years
[12:24] Speaker 1: ago because the evidence was still coming in, but now
[12:27] Speaker 1: the evidence is kind of in and it's pretty strong. Yeah.
[12:30] Speaker 2: I was ahead of the curve on this one and
[12:32] Speaker 2: I knew that I was doing it without the evidence.
[12:33] Speaker 2: I knew that it was sort of the 18 month
[12:35] Speaker 2: to two year thing, but I've been saying.
[12:37] Speaker 1: For as long as I can remember that Three. Three
[12:40] Speaker 1: at the earliest.
[12:41] Speaker 2: Just minimize or delete screens from kids' lives until at
[12:44] Speaker 2: least the age of three. They just don't need them.
[12:46] Speaker 1: All right.
[12:47] Speaker 2: Our time's all but up, and this has gone way
[12:49] Speaker 2: too fast, and I feel like we should go into
[12:51] Speaker 2: partnership and do a podcast every week because I love
[12:54] Speaker 2: this discussion so very much. You're on the record as
[12:57] Speaker 2: saying that you're pretty big on family media plans. You
[13:00] Speaker 2: want families to do that, but everyone needs to be
[13:03] Speaker 2: able to work together on this. I've never seen family
[13:06] Speaker 2: media plans work. It's not that I'm against the concept.
[13:09] Speaker 2: I just think that it's one of those things where
[13:11] Speaker 2: even if you agree on a family media plan, I
[13:14] Speaker 2: reckon within two weeks, you're going to be yelling at
[13:17] Speaker 2: each other again because the family media plan isn't being followed.
[13:21] Speaker 2: What do you do around family media plans that makes
[13:24] Speaker 2: it work?
[13:26] Speaker 1: The most important thing is that your child has a
[13:29] Speaker 1: sense of agency. And so they're part of the process
[13:31] Speaker 1: of putting together a plan that they think is fair.
[13:33] Speaker 2: So if they just don't think that you're right, which
[13:36] Speaker 2: is the case for so many families, the kid's just like, no,
[13:38] Speaker 2: I'm fine.
[13:39] Speaker 1: If you can't reach an agreement, then the plan's never
[13:41] Speaker 1: going to work right. Right. You need to reach an
[13:43] Speaker 1: agreement where everybody's on the same piece of paper. Often
[13:47] Speaker 1: writing it down on a piece of paper is helpful.
[13:49] Speaker 1: But in it, you need to have the kind of,
[13:52] Speaker 1: the expectations and the things that are going to be
[13:55] Speaker 1: the consequences of things. And it might be, I'm really
[13:57] Speaker 1: happy for you to have an hour and a half
[13:59] Speaker 1: on screens, you know, provided you've done your homework and
[14:01] Speaker 1: your chores, for example. But if that doesn't happen, then
[14:05] Speaker 1: the consequence will be that we're going to turn the
[14:07] Speaker 1: internet off in the house for 24 hours. And you
[14:11] Speaker 1: control the Wi-Fi from your phone, for example. And I
[14:18] Speaker 1: think that those plans have a lot better chance of
[14:20] Speaker 1: success because you've all agreed on This is what we've
[14:24] Speaker 1: agreed to do. And this is the agreed consequence. And
[14:26] Speaker 1: it's not a massive consequence. It's not like I'm taking
[14:28] Speaker 1: your phone away forever. It's just we're turning the internet
[14:31] Speaker 1: off for a day. Typically, those plans work a whole
[14:33] Speaker 1: lot better.
[14:34] Speaker 2: Oh, my goodness. Professor Wayne Warburton, Professor of Developmental Psychology
[14:38] Speaker 2: at Macquarie University, registered psychologist, a researcher who focuses on
[14:42] Speaker 2: media use, aggression, behavioral addictions like screen disorders. We could
[14:45] Speaker 2: have talked for days. There's so many questions we didn't
[14:48] Speaker 2: have time for. We'll definitely do this again and get
[14:51] Speaker 2: Wayne back. What a great conversation. The Happy Families podcast
[14:54] Speaker 2: is produced by Justin Rulon from Bridge Media. More information
[14:57] Speaker 2: and resources to make your family happier are available at happyfamilies.com.au.

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