Teenagers and Mobile Phones

In this episode, Clare talks to expert guest, Dr Dean Burnett, about some of the challenges that parents and carers face around teenagers and mobile phones.

They discuss the impact of mobile phone use on young people’s mental, physical and emotional health, and the problem with the catch-all term, ‘screen time’. Dean shares some simple strategies to reduce friction when agreeing and implementing healthy boundaries.

Dr Dean Burnett is a doctor of neuroscience, former psychiatry lecturer, honorary research fellow at Cardiff Psychology School, occasional comedian, well-known science pundit/commenter, and, to most people, a best-selling author of books about the brain and mind.

As a father of two, he has turned his brain-based expertise to the problems experienced by parents and their older children/teens, and written two books for younger readers, to help them understand these dynamics: the international bestseller ‘Why Your Parents Are Driving You Up The Wall And What To Do About It’, and the newly-released sequel, ‘⁠Why Your Parents Are Hung Up On Your Phone And What To Do About It’⁠. This latest book takes a look at the science behind how modern technology affects us, and why there is often conflict between parents and teens.

You can follow Dean on ⁠X⁠ (formerly Twitter),  ⁠Instagram⁠ and ⁠TikTok⁠, or take a look at his ⁠website⁠ to find out more.

Dean shares three tips in the episode:

• • Include your young person in the conversation rather than imposing blanket rules.

• • Model the type of behaviour you would like to see. For example, consider your own mobile phone use.

• • Be aware of nuances; mobile phones are not necessarily ‘good’ or ‘bad’. A more important question to think about is how your teenager is using their phone.