On: Yes, social media is a cause of the epidemic of teenage mental illness

[Loic]

I explain to our kids that it is normal for them to have difficulties with stopping playing or looking at a stream from a social media platform.

My explanation is that they are fighting against a team of PhDs optimizing everything to make them addicted.

Luckily they all do a lot of sport and have this way disconnected time everyday.

[ghxst → Loic]

Just want to say I love how simple yet effective this explanation is. Can I ask what age range your kids are in and do they understand this perspective enough that they are aware of it and take steps to avoid it?

[Loic → ghxst]

They are 11, 15 and 17.

Thanks to the screen time stats from their mobile, they can reflect on the time wasted per week. This works great for the oldest ones, but not for our youngest.

My impression is that getting older is enough for them to start reflecting as we are as adults also struggling. Screentime hygiene is for us a tooic we try to address like mouth hygiene, think about it every day, but do not make a big fuss about it.