Devices are warping developing brains - especially social media. Since the introduction of smartphones, front-facing cameras and social media apps on phones, youth mental health has nosedived. During this time, social media companies have denied this the way tobacco companies did in the 20th century, claiming “causation does not equal correlation”.
But the latest research shows what most of us – including young people – already instinctively knew. Mental health hospitalisations for Australian boys has gone up by 51%, while for girls it has nearly doubled (Campbell, 2025), psychological distress for 15-24 year olds has gone up 120% (Australian Psychological Association, 2024), and other trends around the world paint a similar picture. In the United States, for example, suicidality for boys aged 10-14 has doubled, while for girls the same age it has tripled. Meanwhile, research from the United Kingdom show a clear correlation between daily hours spent on social media and rates of depression (Haidt, 2023), while anyone buying the “correlation-not-causation” defence would do well to check out Jonathan Haidt’s (2024) book The Anxious Generation to see how clear the cause-and-effect really is.
The clincher? Young people agree. A report from Headspace (2018) found young people put “social media” top of the list for “mental health concerns” (beating the next contender by more than double) and nearly half of Gen Z “wishes TikTok and X didn’t exist” (Greenfield, 2024). Never before in human history has the so-called “latest moral panic”, such as video games, television and comic books, been actively shunned by those who consume them the most.
So what can we do? The Australian federal government has announced a ban on social media for those under 16 and NSW public schools banned phones during school hours in 2023. However, the former will involve time and friction, and research shows the latter, while a step in the right direction, is ineffective on its own (Weaver, 2025).
With that in mind, I encourage schools to share with families an acronym I call “DEVICES”:
Detox (phone-free times)
Best practice in addiction recovery suggests a minimum 28-day detox (Lembke, 2021) - this resets the brain and the behaviour can then be carefully re-introduced (or not). However, most of us don’t need this. Taking a one-week sabbatical (for example, a family holiday), one day off each week or month, or even a 30-minute walk without a phone can go a long way. At a minimum, avoid them an hour before bed, which leads to the next point.
Eat-and-sleep (phone free zones)
Decades of research have shown that eating dinner as a family on a regular basis is one of the single biggest predictors of positive life outcomes for young people (Schlichter, 2023). Devices detract from this. Sharing, active listening, presence, gratitude, patience, conversation, collective problem-solving, each of these soft skills learned at the table go right out the window when devices are the guests-of-honour (Coyne, 2024).
Meanwhile, one of the single biggest improvements a person can make to their sleep is charging their phone outside of their room – one study even showed those who slept with their phone next to their bed and didn’t even touch it slept worse than those who didn’t (Rafique et al., 2020)! If there is one thing you do differently, let it be this – charge them outside of bedrooms with family device charging stations. If you think you need an alarm clock, buy an alarm clock (they cost ten bucks).
Vision (eliminate visual triggers)
40% of the grey matter in your brain is used for vision, and one of the biggest triggers in the world is seeing the actual thing. It’s one of the main reasons why the rate of daily smokers has dropped two-thirds since the 1990s (Australian Bureau of Statistics, 2025), while alcohol consumption remains unchanged (Australian Institute of Health and Welfare, 2019) - cigarettes are now behind shutters with no advertisements in sight, while alcohol is still advertised freely. Turn off notifications, remove addictive apps from the home screen, put it on aeroplane mode or in another room if you’re trying to focus, and (it’s worth repeating) charge them outside of bedrooms.
Intention (check in with “why)
When checking your phone, check in with "why". Do you really need this? Or are you bored? Or anxious? Or tired? Did you just pull it out because the person you’re with pulled out theirs, and you can’t stand five seconds of silence without playing “I’ll show myself mine if you show yourself yours”? Catherine Price (2025), author of How to Break Up With Your Phone, suggests asking “what for, why now, what else” when tempted to scroll, and one of the biggest wins I’ve had recently is changing the lock screen to “do I really need this?”.
Connection (replace with real people and activities)
“The opposite of addiction is not sobriety – it’s connection”. This is how Johann Hari (2015) explains the pathway out of addiction in his brilliant TED Talk, and nowhere is it more relevant than now. In the past few decades, the amount of time young people spend with friends outside of school has halved (Haidt, 2024), depriving an entire generation of the single biggest predictor of academic performance, emotional health and long-term life satisfaction – human connection. We cannot simply “eliminate” unhealthy behaviours – we need to replace them, and for young people in particular, more unsupervised real world interactions are needed.
Education (learn & teach the tricks)
In the late 1990s, teen smoking was at an all-time high. The efforts of campaigners, parents and teachers, warning young people about the dangers of smoking and telling them not to, were missing the mark and even backfiring (who knew telling teens what to do would cause the opposite?). Then something interesting happened. They changed tactics and showed teens what the companies were doing to manipulate them into buying their products. All of a sudden, that innate teen rebellion streak went from “rebelling-against-parents” to “rebelling-against-corporations”. The same can be used in the fight against tech companies - a good place to start is watching The Social Dilemma (2020) with them. Your teen is a rebel. They all are. Use this to your (and their) advantage.
Show (model healthy behaviour)
They’re not listening – they’re watching. When a kid grows up seeing mum and dad pay more attention to a small glowing rectangle than nearly everything else (including them), they will follow suit. Put the phone away when they are talking to you. Charge it alongside theirs in a family charging station. Leave it at home if you go for a walk to the shops. Track your weekly usage. Whatever the situation, ask yourself the question – do I really need this?
Conclusion
Remember, most of this will work for most people most of the time, but nothing works for everyone all the time. Progress is often two steps forward and one step back, so find works best for you. And lastly, this is a collective effort. While government legislation and school policy are a great place to start, we need to empower families and individuals to come along for the ride. So if you found this article useful, please share it with anyone you know it could help!
References
- Australian Bureau of Statistics. (2019). Apparent consumption of alcohol, Australia. Commonwealth of Australia. https://www.abs.gov.au/statistics/health/health-conditions-and-risks/apparent-consumption-alcohol-australia/2017-18
- Australian Institute of Health and Welfare. (2025). Alcohol, tobacco and other drugs in Australia. Commonwealth of Australia. https://www.aihw.gov.au/reports/alcohol/alcohol-tobacco-other-drugs-australia/contents/drug-types/tobacco
- Australian Psychological Association. (2024). Australian teens trapped by social media apps as the ‘like’ button triggers mental health disorders. APS. 20th May. https://psychology.org.au/about-us/news-and-media/aps-in-the-media/2024/australian-teens-trapped-by-social-media-apps-as-t
- Campbell, C. (2025). Australia’s leader takes on social media. Can he win? Time Magazine. 3rd April. https://time.com/7273443/australia-social-media-ban-anthony-albanese/
- Coyne, S.M. (2024). Teen tech time: A new approach to dinner etiquette. Psychology Today. 29th May. https://www.psychologytoday.com/au/blog/the-right-media-mindset/202403/teen-tech-time-a-new-approach-to-dinner-etiquette
- Greenfield, B. (2024). Nearly half of Gen Zers wish TikTok 'was never invented', survey finds. Fortune Well. 17th Sept. https://fortune.com/well/article/nearly-half-of-gen-zers-wish-social-media-never-invented/
- Haidt, J. (2023). Social media is a major cause of the mental illness epidemic in teen girls. Here’s the evidence. After Babel. https://www.afterbabel.com/p/social-media-mental-illness-epidemic
- Haidt, J. (2024). The anxious generation: How the great rewiring of childhood is leading to an epidemic of mental illness. Penguin Press.
- Hari, J. (2015). Everything you think you know about addiction is wrong. TED Talk. https://www.ted.com/talks/johann_hari_everything_you_think_you_know_about_addiction_is_wrong
- Headspace & Colmar Brunton. (2018). Headspace National Youth Mental Health Survey, Melbourne. https://headspace.org.au/assets/headspace-National-Youth-Mental-Health-Survey-2018.pdf
- Lembke, A. (2021). Dopamine Nation: Finding balance in the age of indulgence. Dutton.
- Parker, J. (2020). The Social Dilemma. Netflix.
- Price, C. (2025). This is why life feels like it’s speeding up. Modern Wisdom. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JHjhw8Ek3Zk
- Rafique N., Al-Asoom L.I., Alsunni A.A., Saudagar F.N., Almulhim L., Alkaltham G. (2020). Effects of mobile use on subjective sleep quality. Nature of Science and Sleep. 23(12), 357-364.
- Sclichter, H.L. (2023). The importance of family dinner with your children. Psychology Today. 8th June. https://www.psychologytoday.com/au/blog/helping-youth-in-crisis/202306/the-importance-of-family-dinner-with-your-children
- Weaver, M. (2025). School phone bans alone do not improve grades or wellbeing, says UK study. The Guardian. 5th Feb. https://www.theguardian.com/education/2025/feb/05/school-ban-phones-not-improve-grades-health-uk-study
Written by Nick Kenny. First published on LinkedIn.