“Put it away now. Join the conversation please. You know the rules.”
Yawn. Teenager eyerolls. Usually followed by “I was just…..” or “You’re on yours all the time too!”
And they’re not wrong.
I find myself increasingly drawn towards the debate about mobile phones being “bad for us.” Perhaps like you, I am attached to mine in a weird, love/hate, panic-if-I-don’t-know-where-it-is, completely unsettling, unhealthy way. I have deleted social media apps from my phone, however I still sneak back on via a browser to see what I am missing. Feeling the shame after I slip down my familiar deliciously personalised Insta rabbit hole of choir clips and that lovely gentle man who sings to animals.
For a long long time now, lots of us have known, and know deep down, that something is very off. In fact something stinks!
There does seem to be a shift happening globally, which is very pleasing to me: Australia introducing stricter social media regulations for young people; schools adopting ‘no phone’ policies; and platforms facing growing legal scrutiny for the impact of their content on children’s and teens’ mental health or, in some cases, claiming no responsibility at all, gah!
Like the fight for cleaner rivers and seas (a reference slipped in for those watching C4’s Dirty Business) we are up against the giants, who seemingly only care about the money.
And it’s not just the kids I am worried about.
With growing research and knowledge that:
- Platforms that are intentionally designed for engagement in order to make ££
- Many of us experience behaviours that look and feel just like dependence
- The expectation of ‘always on’ reshaping how we relate to work, friends, and ourselves…..
The most obvious and worrying thing I see in my work is how many people are experiencing anxiety, low mood, dysregulated nervous systems and a lack of motivation and focus.
Platforms are not neutral tools. They are intentionally designed systems and businesses, engineered to keep us engaged: clicking, scrolling, reacting and returning. A client described it yesterday as having their finger on the lovely audiobook they knew they wanted to listen to but they watch their own finger slide sideways and compulsively click on the youtube video instead, like it was somebody else’s choice.
In my work, I see it every day.
It has become normal for my coaching homework to include structured phone reduction plans. People want to reduce their screen time and then if they fail at it, they don’t like how they feel about it and themselves. Sleep is affected, focus is difficult, people are more irritable, and tensions rise between parents and children. How many times have I heard ‘I lose track of time and it makes me feel bad’, ‘I’m not present for my kids’…or ‘the only thing we really argue about is their phone’.
We feel the pressure to be constantly responsive, always on, to keep up or be left out, to stay informed. To answer Slack, WhatsApp, email, the group chat, the news alerts. To do all of our ‘phone life admin’ (which literally never actually bloody ends by the way). To not miss anything or fall behind, to continue to belong, perform, have value, be a good….everything! It’s exhausting!
We talk about children needing to learn better screen discipline. But we are raising them in an environment where no one has clear boundaries. Our children and teenagers are not weak, far from it. I have some beautiful, strong, kind, clever, engaged, caring teenagers in my life. They’re growing up inside systems designed to fragment their attention, while doing their best to survive and fit in. And surprise surprise, adults are struggling too.
Five things I recommend when screens take over:
- Find out the truth
Track usage for a week without changing anything. Awareness alone can change behaviour. - Remove frictionless access
Remove apps off your home screen that you are most drawn to, that suck you in and that you don’t feel good about losing time on. - Make it harder
Create household charging stations that are not in bedrooms. Co-design family rules for bedtime that everyone firstly agrees to and then adheres to. - Model what you want to see
Put your own phone away/off first. Trial long periods where you don’t have it with you. Leave it at home sometimes. Don’t let it be the first thing you see every single morning when you wake up. - Replace, don’t just remove
If you take the phone away, what fills that space? Conversation? Movement? Creativity? Board games? Music? Walks? Reading?
That said, I want to highlight something more interesting and scary and kind of relieving: we are trying to backfit self control into systems that are designed to bypass it, and that we are pretty much forced to use. Like those of us who work so hard to do ‘healthy eating’, buy organic, cook from fresh…. when it’s so hard and expensive to do it and McDonalds is right there and serves ‘great tasting food from £1.19’…
So I find myself wondering…
What might change if we say out loud that most of us are addicted, and this is not just a kids problem, but a global people problem?
This is probably obvious to some…however I believe many of us reach for our phones when we’re bored, understimulated, embarrassed, uncomfortable, lonely or overwhelmed. Just like our kids, we use them to self regulate, instead of feeling what we are feeling. That we prefer the screen to the unpredictability and discomfort of real life. Removing a phone without replacing what it gives us, probably won’t work. Our devices provide connection, stimulation, distraction, validation, belonging, information… sometimes all at once. Are we strong enough to say no? What are we going to choose or do instead?
I think the work we need to do isn’t only about limits, although limits matter. It’s about us role modelling the work, putting our own phones down first. And figuring out what the hell else we want to do with our life…