August 5, 2025 • 23 mins
Nine hours a day. That’s how long Aussie teens are spending on recreational screens. But what does this mean for their development—and should parents panic? In this confronting but practical conversation, Dr Justin Coulson is joined by Dr Brad Marshall, clinical psychologist and researcher, to unpack Australia’s biggest study to date on screen overuse and gaming disorder in kids. Together, they explore what the data shows, what it means for families, and what you should (and shouldn’t!) do if screen use has taken over your home.
KEY POINTS
- New research shows 9 hours/day of screen time for high schoolers and 6 for primary kids—just for fun, not school.
- Around 5% of kids show signs of clinical or subclinical gaming disorder. 10% show signs of smartphone addiction.
- Significant developmental impacts were found across emotional, behavioural, educational, and physical domains.
- These issues start in primary school, not just during adolescence.
- It's not about banning screens but about helping parents set and enforce realistic, healthy limits.
QUOTE OF THE EPISODE
"If your child is in a sleep deficit because they’re on screens at night, that snowballs into everything else." – Dr Brad Marshall
RESOURCES MENTIONED
- The new Macquarie University study on screen overuse
- Brad’s Developmental Impact Questionnaire
- Happy Families podcast archive
- Brad Marshall’s organisation: Control Shift
ACTION STEPS FOR PARENTS
- Don’t attack the tech. Avoid saying things like “that game is rotting your brain.” It shuts down connection.
- Don’t allow screens in bedrooms at night. Sleep loss is a key trigger for wider issues.
- Don’t argue in the heat of the moment. Have the “screen talk” when everyone’s calm.
- Get curious about impacts. Use tools like the Developmental Impact Questionnaire to understand your child’s experience.
- Pick your battles. Focus on habits and boundaries, not just hours.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:06):
We keep on hearing about internet gaming disorder, that our
kids are using their smartphones way too much, and of
course that it's having some kind of a developmental impact
that's negative in their lives. And yet, for some reason,
the conversation keeps on happening, and for many of us
as parents, it almost feels like we throw up the
white flag, throw up the white flag, raise the white flag,
you know what I mean, and start to wonder is
(00:27):
it even worth it? Is it that big of a deal.
Everybody else is doing it. It's just the world today.
I'm tired. And apart from that, we kind of like
our own Instagram feeds as well. It's pretty easy to
settle into that. Today, a big conversation about Internet gaming
disorder and smartphone overuse in Australian primary and secondary school kids.
(00:50):
I'm so excited for this conversation. It will be practical,
it will be helpful, and it will set you on
the path for where we want to go in helping
our children to flourish and maybe live a little more
screen free. Ish Stay with us. Hello and welcome to
the Happy Families podcast, Real parenting Solutions every day on
Australia's most downloaded Parenting podcast. My name is doctor Justin Colson,
(01:13):
and today I am joined by a frequent contributor to
the pod and somebody who iss becoming a wonderful friend
and wise guy to talk to around all these kinds
of things. Doctor, it's official now the PhD has completed.
Doctor Brad Marshall, the chief Research officer of the all
new Control Shift, also known as the Unplugged Psychologist, and
(01:34):
a researcher at mcquarie University. Brad, thanks for being with me.
Speaker 2 (01:38):
Thanks for having me again, Justin, it's good to be back.
Speaker 1 (01:41):
So you've published a brand new article with Wayne Warburton,
who we recently had on the pod, talking about some
more of these kinds of topics. The name of the
article is Internet Gaming Disorder and Smartphone overuse in Australian
primary school and secondary children prevalence and developmental impacts. Now,
I know that most people who will listening to this
don't like the academic jargon, the dent academic speak. Walk
us through this one, because almost every single person who's
(02:02):
listened to this pod has a child who is either
in primary school or secondary school. They are in front
of screens devices, they are playing games. They do often
own their own smartphone. How prevalent is the reality that
they've got them? But more than that, how prevalent is
this smartphone overused? How do you even define that? What
is it? Let's hear all the details.
Speaker 2 (02:23):
Okay, yeah, so I think we need to start with
When myself and my research colleagues set out with this study,
it was very much designed around We have two major
studies in Australia, one by Professor Daniel King in Adelaide
and the other was by my research partner, Professor Wayne Warburton,
(02:44):
who have done prevalence, which for those at home parents,
it basically just means what's the percentage of kids that
have an issue with Internet gaming disorder or gaming issues
or smartphone addiction or smartphone overuse. So we only have
two studies to date and they were both pre COVID, Justine.
So the question then always that God asked in the
clinic and when I was speaking at schools and other places,
(03:05):
was has this gone up over COVID or Usually parents
were just saying it's definitely gone up, and we weren't
sure about that. So we did this study in twenty
twenty three. Now, what we did was we went to
schools and we asked them if we could survey kids
within schools. And first of all, I should note that
(03:27):
one of the limitations here is we could only use
independent schools. If any of you remember two years ago,
there was a freeze on research in Catholic schools and
public schools at the time, so this is only independent schools.
But what we were trying to achieve is number one,
the biggest sample to date in Australian populations, and number two,
(03:47):
we wanted a wider variety of ages because one of
the things I were critical of in previous research is
that it focused on this sort of teenage fifteen, sixteen,
seventeen year olds. But I was seeing in the clinic
kids age eight, ten, twelve, so I wanted to go younger.
I took what you might call the more difficult path
in this because I wanted the younger sample kids. So
(04:11):
year forty year eight is what these kids are now.
I will acknowledge as well, there are not as many
primary school age kids as I would have liked in
this sample. It's still high school heavy. But as far
as what the prevalence is, the numbers that we actually
found the pertinent numbers are. First of all, the amount
of hours on a recreational screens that our kids are
(04:32):
spending is about nine hours a day for our high
school kids year seven, year eight, and about six hours,
just over six hours for our primary school kids.
Speaker 1 (04:44):
All right, So I've got to interrupt you here. This
is critical that we make this distinction between what you
might call or consider necessary use and what you've called
recreational use. So can we just get a quick definition here,
nine hours or six hours depending on the age on
average worth highlighting as well, on average means that fifty
percent are above that and fifty percent below, right, that's
(05:05):
what the average is. So there are fifty percent of
kids who are getting more than nine hours per day
on their screens. And yeah, high school kids, and it's
recreational use that we're talking about here, So just break
that down for me.
Speaker 2 (05:17):
Yeah, I mean, so again, there's no perfect way to
measure this. The only perfect way to measure this would
be to literally install tracking devices on your kid's devices, right,
which is not possible. So what this is it's asking
kids to break down how many hours in the last
few weeks, how many hours per day are you spending
on a console. How many hours on your phone? How
(05:38):
many hours on your you know, home devices, gaming, laptop,
et cetera, et cetera, iPad. Now, some of this may
be a little bit confused with school time, and that's
one of the difficulties in measuring this because obviously if
you get a ten twelve year old kid, they may
interpret that read the question quickly. But ultimately, Lee, we
(06:00):
were not targeting your use of PowerPoint in a history
lesson in year seven. That's not what we were asking there.
In fact, one of the limitations of this is the reverse.
If you ask most kids these days how many kids
in class are actually gaining or on YouTube in class,
they will say that a fair amount of them are,
(06:20):
And we were ruling that stuff out as well, right,
So we were talking about outside of school hours, so
those hours of six and nine hours for primary and
high school kids. I think what's really important to note
here is that I gave this testimony to the Australian
Parliament last year in the Social Media inquiries, and that
is distinctly different to what the E Safety Commissioner reported.
(06:43):
The E Safety Commissioner told that inquiry that their research
indicates what was the equivalent of about two hours a
day of recreational screen use. It's nowhere even close to
what we found. So I'll also point out that our
data is very consistent and the amount of hours to
the OECD statistics that came out in May twenty twenty five.
Speaker 1 (07:08):
Yeah, we talked about that when it came out on
the podcast. These numbers are big, not nine hours of
recreational screen use every day. So let's say a teenager.
I know that you're highlighting primary versus high school, so
let's stick with the high schools for a moment. Let's
say that the average teenager should be getting even if
we call it nine hours of sleep a night, right,
that's we'd like them to be a little bit more
(07:30):
than that, but let's call it nine hours. Then they've
got to go to school and all the travel and
all the stuff around that, so we've got at least
another seven to eight hours. I'm not really good at
live maths, but that tells me that we're somewhere around
about sixteen seventeen eighteen hours of the day is kind
of gone, and then we've got to find nine hours
for screen They're supposed to have a hoo many of
them have jobs, they've got relationships, they're involved in structured
(07:52):
activities outside of school. It doesn't fit, which means that
stuff that matters is going by the bye so that
they can stare at their screens, play game, look at Instagram, TikTok,
that kind of thing.
Speaker 2 (08:03):
Yeah, spot on, And that's exactly why in this study,
myself and my colleagues at Macquarie University developed what we
call the Screen Developmental Impact QUESTIONNAI. We wanted a way
to measure what the developmental impacts are on children and
teenagers in a variety of different areas, so education, social development,
(08:27):
physical health, emotional and behavior. Now keep in mind, these
are students that are responding to these questionnaires, so this
is not a parent's view. This is what students are
telling us. And we did find in this study that
there are significant impacts in all of those areas of
development when you get into these high levels of either
(08:51):
smartphone overuse or gaming.
Speaker 1 (08:53):
So, Brad, this is the crux of the study, and
this is really why I wanted to talk to you,
because it's one thing to say, all right, kids are
using their devices a lot. We've got smartphone over use,
we've got a lot of activity happening on screens and
it comes to you and I stand up in front
of groups all day, every day and say, our children's
well being is being undermined by screens. And there are
plenty of adults who all point to the things that
(09:16):
they're concerned about. But when we hear it in their words,
and when we've got something that actually measures what the
impact is, then there's more heft, there's more thunk. I guess,
you know, like you're dropping a big book on the
table rather than a pamphlet, and it's like, Okay, there's
something weighty here, So walk me through. What did these
(09:36):
young people themselves identify when it comes to the impact
of their use of screens.
Speaker 2 (09:46):
I think what we actually have to do is just
take one step backwards here, if I may justin, because
we've missed here a key part around the prevalence. So
not only did we measure the amount of hours, but
we also measured how many kids have what we would
call Internet gay disorder, the diagnostic term on a screening tool.
It's not diagnostic because you've not done a clinical interview,
but it's a screening tool, which is a common tool,
(10:08):
and how many have a smartphone addiction. So we found
that four percent of Australian kids have a either subclinical
or clinical gaming disorder and about nine point nine percent
of Australian kids have medium to high levels of smartphone
addiction or overuse. Now, if we just extrapolate those numbers,
(10:32):
and I know I've talked to you about these numbers
roughly on the podcast before, right, but we're talking about
about one hundred to one hundred and twenty thousand Australian
kids with gaming disorder and about four hundred thousand with
a smartphone overuse or addiction. The key element here being
in this study, this was the first arm of a
(10:53):
trial and the second arm was a follow up where
we were actually going to invite parents into a parent
intervention TREA control, So that is a fancy term for
those parents at home of we're going to help the
parents in the second TROL. So in order to do that,
the ethics board of Macquari univer University said, hey, you
really need to tell these kids that you're going to
tell their parents if their use is high. So we did.
(11:16):
You can imagine how many kids aged ten to fourteen
are going to read that and go there's no way,
I'm answering this accurately. So those numbers that I've just
quoted you, the hours and the percentages, they're probably understating
the issue.
Speaker 1 (11:31):
So now that we've got these prevalence data and we
understand that, I'm going to forgive me for being imprecise
and rounding, but it's just easy to remember round numbers.
Let's say about five percent of kids are showing up
with a subclinical or clinical gaming disorder, and about ten
percent ish are showing up with medium to high smartphone
addiction or over use. How they seeing the impacts? What
(11:56):
does this mean at a practical level in their daily lives.
Speaker 2 (11:59):
Yeah, Well, one of the most practical things out of
this study is that we didn't actually find any notable
differences in those prevalence rates between primary school and high school.
So what that tells us is that both of these
phenomena gaming disorder and smartphone overuse start in primary school.
Speaker 1 (12:19):
The great rewiring of the adolescent brain begins around about
the age of seven or eight, once these could start
to really invest in these screens.
Speaker 2 (12:26):
Correct, But I think what you're getting out obviously is
the developmental impacts, and that's sort of what I'm excited
about as well, excited and scared at the same time,
of course. But we had these five main categories, and
what our investigations found is that there was probably more
indicative of four categories, and so the emotional impacts, the social,
(12:48):
and physical were tied together in our exploratory factor analysis.
For those at home that don't know what that is,
don't worry, it's just sort of fancy stuff. That's a
little bit researchy, behavioral impacts, and education. We had a
list of questions that we asked them in different domains.
So for example, with education impact, there would have been
(13:08):
a question or there was a question there around have
screens or gaming ever gotten in the way of you
handing in an assessment or getting your homework in? So
that is an example of a question or an item
that was in measuring the educational impacts. Now, what we
found for all four of these areas is all four
were significant in the research. But what we also found
(13:33):
is that there are no real impacts for kids that
didn't meet criteria the internet, gaming disorder, or smartphone of use.
Then we have a step up to the impacts that
were there in developmental domains for kids that had smartphone
of use or addiction, then a step up again in
developmental impacts for subclinical gaming disorder, and then a step
(13:55):
up again for kids with clinical gaming disorder. So what
that tells us us is that the developmental impacts on
our children and teenagers is greatest for gaming disorder, and
then significant for smartphone addiction you are overuse, and then
down to the normal quote unquote sample at the bottom.
Speaker 1 (14:22):
All right, So, Brad, now that we've gone through the study,
there's a bunch of practical implications that every parent wants
to know the answer to. And these things I think
are just vitally important for us to discuss. First off,
I want to clarify something, and I think this really
requires some It just requires a minute or soel of elaboration.
Gaming per se, there's a values question. Are you okay
(14:45):
with your child playing first person shooter games or having
the sound on and lots of strangers in your living
room who are swearing and using inappropriate slurs and epithets
and so on. But let's say that you've got your
values sorted out and the kids know which games are
okay from a values perspective and which games are not.
The research evidence seems to indicate that playing games, so
(15:06):
long as it's not at an excessive level, at a
high level, playing too much, that is Internet gaming disorder,
playing it pathologically and not being able to survive without
the game, does have a whole lot of benefits. It
seems to be really good for the kids socially, It
seems to be quite good for them emotionally and even cognitively.
The thing that I see in the data. No matter
(15:26):
how many studies I look at, and no matter how
much I try to find an argument to just say
let's get the kids off games, I'm not finding an
argument that says that it's bad for them until it
reaches an unsafe or unhealthy level. Fundamentally, gaming is a
whole lot of fun for a whole lot of people,
and they don't have any negative effects. Tell me where
I'm wrong or still mans the argument that I'm making
(15:47):
So parents can go okay, I can breathe a little
safely here.
Speaker 2 (15:50):
There are opportunities and risks that come with gaming, and
so I certainly should acknowledge the opportunities here with social
connection with mastery. There is research and evidence that suggests
there are benefits in smallish doses. The problem is that
it's different for every child as to when that dose
(16:12):
becomes too much, and so you know, that could be
thirty minutes a day for one pial, that could be
two hours for another child. And that's why we developed
the Developmental Impact Scale because we really wanted to know
and have parents understand what are the areas of red
flags that you can look out for. And all of
(16:32):
this is public knowledge. You'll see in this paper that
we list all of the domains in the supplementaries as well.
But I guess to sort of come back to your
question of of that opportunity versus that risk, what I
struggle with as a researcher and a clinician is that
many of the research articles and papers and information we
(16:55):
get about the benefits of gaming have seignificant conflicts of interests.
Speaker 1 (17:01):
They're funded by the industry, they are.
Speaker 2 (17:04):
And so it is very difficult. So I'm not sitting
here saying that every single piece of evidence is that way,
but a lot of it is. And that becomes really
difficult because if you have a researcher that is funded
by the industry, either directly or indirectly, and they are
publishing beneficial data around this. We've seen that before, Justine.
(17:24):
We've seen that in smoking, we've seen that in sugar,
we've seen that in the fact. We've seen this play before,
and so we have to look at both sides. And
what we're saying is that when overused in gaming becomes
an issue, the developmental impacts are fairly significant. Now, what
(17:45):
that all boils down to for me, if I just
sort of summarize my own thoughts on this, is that
I firmly believe that this is a decision for individual
parents to make about their own child's gaining. So I'm
not advocating banning gaming. That's not what I'm saying. Okay,
what I am saying is how do we as a government,
(18:08):
as health policy, as researchers allow parents to actually set
limits in parental controls for their child, because at the
moment they don't have that. Most parental controls are just
we've talked about this before on the last episode, ayway,
most parental controls are easy to get around, and so
I believe we should be letting parents make the decision
(18:28):
and actually apply that at the moment they can't.
Speaker 1 (18:31):
Brad, let's talk practical. People have listened to the study
that you've done. They've heard that we've got pretty hygh percentages. Really,
I mean, I think concerningly hYP percentages of kids who
are using their devices in an overuse or compulsive way.
That there's gaming disorder at a level that is really
(18:51):
concerning any family who's going through it. They know of
the just the psychological and emotional earthquakes that happen every
single time there's a quest to get off the screen.
It's time to eat, it's time to go to bed,
it's time to go to school. They're dealing with some
really really big challenges. But if I've got a child
and I'm just concerned that they're using their screens too much,
what are your three don't do this responses? What are
(19:15):
the three things that you just don't cross this line?
Don't do this with the kids, It's going to blow up.
There are better things to do. What are the three
things the most common mistakes parents make here?
Speaker 2 (19:23):
I like that you frame that question in what do
you don't do? Instead of what do you do? Oh,
we're going to get really makes me think he look,
my first don't do is certainly around parents that go
down the path of criticizing what their kids do online.
If you found yourself in a position where you know
you're sitting there going that game is such a waste
(19:45):
of time. It's going to rock your brain, and that
social media is creating You're always in there with that phone,
and as soon as we do that, it becomes combative
and your child is going to switch off. Sorry, not
the screens, I mean witch off to you and what
you're saying. Right, So, yeah, wrong, switch that's my Yeah,
that's my first one, and I guess my other don't
(20:07):
if I just sort of flip this if I use two.
We have to be really careful about the access level
that we give, especially around sleep. You've heard me talk
about this before, justin sleep is one of the primary
factors here in my clinical experience where things can go downhill.
So in all of those developmental domains in that study,
what I have found clinically is that if your child
(20:29):
is in a sleep deficit because they're up late at
night grabbing a phone because you let them have a
phone in their room to you know, listen to music
on Spotify to help them get to sleep, which is
the classic one. Yeah, but you know you find them
on something else that will snowball on everything else quickly,
on all these other developmental domains quickly. So you know,
(20:51):
don't even if you find yourself relaxing rules at other
times because the horse has already bolted, don't relax those
rules at night. Has to be number one. And don't
go down this path with just endlessly criticizing what they're
doing online.
Speaker 1 (21:06):
Okay, I'm going to add one if I can, because
I said three and you've hit us with two. Your
reactions are welcome if you disagree with me. I think
that when we see our kids on screens and we've
asked them to get off, or we've had this conversation
seven thousand times, like this is a perennial issue, right
you just you never stop talking about screens. Once they've
got one, it fundamentally becomes the center of their world
and it changes your relationship with them forever once they've
(21:28):
got it. My big don't is don't have the screen
conversation when they're on a screen, or when you've got
when you've got a head full of steam because they're
on a screen, like high emotions, low intelligence, it's just
not the time for it. You've got to pick your time,
usually on a nice, quiet Saturday or Sunday morning where
everyone's relaxed and calm, and you can give them a
(21:49):
chocolate milkshake or go down to the local cafe and
get some wedges in sour cream and say, hey, I
want to have a tricky conversation with you about that
thing that's drive me up the wall. If you do
it in the moment, you just create World War three
in your living room.
Speaker 2 (22:00):
Yeah. Look, I couldn't agree more justin and I expand
on that further to say, you know, when your kids
are coming off screens, if you've said, right, your hours up,
come off now, don't give them a terrible thing to
go to. If you transition them to now it's time
to do your maths homework, you are probably going to
end in tears.
Speaker 1 (22:19):
Right, Brad, I reckon you and I could talk for
about seventy seven hours about this and still still not
exhaust our things to share. There's so much more that
I want to ask you, so much more that we
could talk about and play around with ideas around. You've
been extremely generous with your time, though, and there's no way,
there's no way that any parent could have listened to
this and not have some really great parenting solutions to
(22:44):
help them with their challenges. Thanks so much for your time.
It's been an absolute delight, and hopefully when there's some
more research that comes out that's just hot to try
and perfect for parents, we can chat again.
Speaker 2 (22:55):
Thanks Justin.
Speaker 1 (22:56):
Dr Brad Marshall is mcquarie University academic. He is the
Unplugged Psychologist and he is now most recently appointed as
the Chief Research Officer at Control Shift. He's written books,
he's a speaker and clearly you can hear he knows
his stuff. Thank you so much for listening. We hope,
hope so much that this has been a useful conversation
(23:17):
for you. The Happy Families podcast is produced by Justin
Ruland from Bridge Media. If you'd like more information and
more resources to make your family happier, check the show
notes for Brad's resources and the studies that we've talked
about and our previous podcasts, or just visit happyfamilies dot
com dot a
We keep on hearing about internet gaming disorder, that our
kids are using their smartphones way too much, and of
course that it's having some kind of a developmental impact
that's negative in their lives. And yet, for some reason,
the conversation keeps on happening, and for many of us
as parents, it almost feels like we throw up the
white flag, throw up the white flag, raise the white flag,
you know what I mean, and start to wonder is
(00:27):
it even worth it? Is it that big of a deal.
Everybody else is doing it. It's just the world today.
I'm tired. And apart from that, we kind of like
our own Instagram feeds as well. It's pretty easy to
settle into that. Today, a big conversation about Internet gaming
disorder and smartphone overuse in Australian primary and secondary school kids.
(00:50):
I'm so excited for this conversation. It will be practical,
it will be helpful, and it will set you on
the path for where we want to go in helping
our children to flourish and maybe live a little more
screen free. Ish Stay with us. Hello and welcome to
the Happy Families podcast, Real parenting Solutions every day on
Australia's most downloaded Parenting podcast. My name is doctor Justin Colson,
(01:13):
and today I am joined by a frequent contributor to
the pod and somebody who iss becoming a wonderful friend
and wise guy to talk to around all these kinds
of things. Doctor, it's official now the PhD has completed.
Doctor Brad Marshall, the chief Research officer of the all
new Control Shift, also known as the Unplugged Psychologist, and
(01:34):
a researcher at mcquarie University. Brad, thanks for being with me.
Speaker 2 (01:38):
Thanks for having me again, Justin, it's good to be back.
Speaker 1 (01:41):
So you've published a brand new article with Wayne Warburton,
who we recently had on the pod, talking about some
more of these kinds of topics. The name of the
article is Internet Gaming Disorder and Smartphone overuse in Australian
primary school and secondary children prevalence and developmental impacts. Now,
I know that most people who will listening to this
don't like the academic jargon, the dent academic speak. Walk
us through this one, because almost every single person who's
(02:02):
listened to this pod has a child who is either
in primary school or secondary school. They are in front
of screens devices, they are playing games. They do often
own their own smartphone. How prevalent is the reality that
they've got them? But more than that, how prevalent is
this smartphone overused? How do you even define that? What
is it? Let's hear all the details.
Speaker 2 (02:23):
Okay, yeah, so I think we need to start with
When myself and my research colleagues set out with this study,
it was very much designed around We have two major
studies in Australia, one by Professor Daniel King in Adelaide
and the other was by my research partner, Professor Wayne Warburton,
(02:44):
who have done prevalence, which for those at home parents,
it basically just means what's the percentage of kids that
have an issue with Internet gaming disorder or gaming issues
or smartphone addiction or smartphone overuse. So we only have
two studies to date and they were both pre COVID, Justine.
So the question then always that God asked in the
clinic and when I was speaking at schools and other places,
(03:05):
was has this gone up over COVID or Usually parents
were just saying it's definitely gone up, and we weren't
sure about that. So we did this study in twenty
twenty three. Now, what we did was we went to
schools and we asked them if we could survey kids
within schools. And first of all, I should note that
(03:27):
one of the limitations here is we could only use
independent schools. If any of you remember two years ago,
there was a freeze on research in Catholic schools and
public schools at the time, so this is only independent schools.
But what we were trying to achieve is number one,
the biggest sample to date in Australian populations, and number two,
(03:47):
we wanted a wider variety of ages because one of
the things I were critical of in previous research is
that it focused on this sort of teenage fifteen, sixteen,
seventeen year olds. But I was seeing in the clinic
kids age eight, ten, twelve, so I wanted to go younger.
I took what you might call the more difficult path
in this because I wanted the younger sample kids. So
(04:11):
year forty year eight is what these kids are now.
I will acknowledge as well, there are not as many
primary school age kids as I would have liked in
this sample. It's still high school heavy. But as far
as what the prevalence is, the numbers that we actually
found the pertinent numbers are. First of all, the amount
of hours on a recreational screens that our kids are
(04:32):
spending is about nine hours a day for our high
school kids year seven, year eight, and about six hours,
just over six hours for our primary school kids.
Speaker 1 (04:44):
All right, So I've got to interrupt you here. This
is critical that we make this distinction between what you
might call or consider necessary use and what you've called
recreational use. So can we just get a quick definition here,
nine hours or six hours depending on the age on
average worth highlighting as well, on average means that fifty
percent are above that and fifty percent below, right, that's
(05:05):
what the average is. So there are fifty percent of
kids who are getting more than nine hours per day
on their screens. And yeah, high school kids, and it's
recreational use that we're talking about here, So just break
that down for me.
Speaker 2 (05:17):
Yeah, I mean, so again, there's no perfect way to
measure this. The only perfect way to measure this would
be to literally install tracking devices on your kid's devices, right,
which is not possible. So what this is it's asking
kids to break down how many hours in the last
few weeks, how many hours per day are you spending
on a console. How many hours on your phone? How
(05:38):
many hours on your you know, home devices, gaming, laptop,
et cetera, et cetera, iPad. Now, some of this may
be a little bit confused with school time, and that's
one of the difficulties in measuring this because obviously if
you get a ten twelve year old kid, they may
interpret that read the question quickly. But ultimately, Lee, we
(06:00):
were not targeting your use of PowerPoint in a history
lesson in year seven. That's not what we were asking there.
In fact, one of the limitations of this is the reverse.
If you ask most kids these days how many kids
in class are actually gaining or on YouTube in class,
they will say that a fair amount of them are,
(06:20):
And we were ruling that stuff out as well, right,
So we were talking about outside of school hours, so
those hours of six and nine hours for primary and
high school kids. I think what's really important to note
here is that I gave this testimony to the Australian
Parliament last year in the Social Media inquiries, and that
is distinctly different to what the E Safety Commissioner reported.
(06:43):
The E Safety Commissioner told that inquiry that their research
indicates what was the equivalent of about two hours a
day of recreational screen use. It's nowhere even close to
what we found. So I'll also point out that our
data is very consistent and the amount of hours to
the OECD statistics that came out in May twenty twenty five.
Speaker 1 (07:08):
Yeah, we talked about that when it came out on
the podcast. These numbers are big, not nine hours of
recreational screen use every day. So let's say a teenager.
I know that you're highlighting primary versus high school, so
let's stick with the high schools for a moment. Let's
say that the average teenager should be getting even if
we call it nine hours of sleep a night, right,
that's we'd like them to be a little bit more
(07:30):
than that, but let's call it nine hours. Then they've
got to go to school and all the travel and
all the stuff around that, so we've got at least
another seven to eight hours. I'm not really good at
live maths, but that tells me that we're somewhere around
about sixteen seventeen eighteen hours of the day is kind
of gone, and then we've got to find nine hours
for screen They're supposed to have a hoo many of
them have jobs, they've got relationships, they're involved in structured
(07:52):
activities outside of school. It doesn't fit, which means that
stuff that matters is going by the bye so that
they can stare at their screens, play game, look at Instagram, TikTok,
that kind of thing.
Speaker 2 (08:03):
Yeah, spot on, And that's exactly why in this study,
myself and my colleagues at Macquarie University developed what we
call the Screen Developmental Impact QUESTIONNAI. We wanted a way
to measure what the developmental impacts are on children and
teenagers in a variety of different areas, so education, social development,
(08:27):
physical health, emotional and behavior. Now keep in mind, these
are students that are responding to these questionnaires, so this
is not a parent's view. This is what students are
telling us. And we did find in this study that
there are significant impacts in all of those areas of
development when you get into these high levels of either
(08:51):
smartphone overuse or gaming.
Speaker 1 (08:53):
So, Brad, this is the crux of the study, and
this is really why I wanted to talk to you,
because it's one thing to say, all right, kids are
using their devices a lot. We've got smartphone over use,
we've got a lot of activity happening on screens and
it comes to you and I stand up in front
of groups all day, every day and say, our children's
well being is being undermined by screens. And there are
plenty of adults who all point to the things that
(09:16):
they're concerned about. But when we hear it in their words,
and when we've got something that actually measures what the
impact is, then there's more heft, there's more thunk. I guess,
you know, like you're dropping a big book on the
table rather than a pamphlet, and it's like, Okay, there's
something weighty here, So walk me through. What did these
(09:36):
young people themselves identify when it comes to the impact
of their use of screens.
Speaker 2 (09:46):
I think what we actually have to do is just
take one step backwards here, if I may justin, because
we've missed here a key part around the prevalence. So
not only did we measure the amount of hours, but
we also measured how many kids have what we would
call Internet gay disorder, the diagnostic term on a screening tool.
It's not diagnostic because you've not done a clinical interview,
but it's a screening tool, which is a common tool,
(10:08):
and how many have a smartphone addiction. So we found
that four percent of Australian kids have a either subclinical
or clinical gaming disorder and about nine point nine percent
of Australian kids have medium to high levels of smartphone
addiction or overuse. Now, if we just extrapolate those numbers,
(10:32):
and I know I've talked to you about these numbers
roughly on the podcast before, right, but we're talking about
about one hundred to one hundred and twenty thousand Australian
kids with gaming disorder and about four hundred thousand with
a smartphone overuse or addiction. The key element here being
in this study, this was the first arm of a
(10:53):
trial and the second arm was a follow up where
we were actually going to invite parents into a parent
intervention TREA control, So that is a fancy term for
those parents at home of we're going to help the
parents in the second TROL. So in order to do that,
the ethics board of Macquari univer University said, hey, you
really need to tell these kids that you're going to
tell their parents if their use is high. So we did.
(11:16):
You can imagine how many kids aged ten to fourteen
are going to read that and go there's no way,
I'm answering this accurately. So those numbers that I've just
quoted you, the hours and the percentages, they're probably understating
the issue.
Speaker 1 (11:31):
So now that we've got these prevalence data and we
understand that, I'm going to forgive me for being imprecise
and rounding, but it's just easy to remember round numbers.
Let's say about five percent of kids are showing up
with a subclinical or clinical gaming disorder, and about ten
percent ish are showing up with medium to high smartphone
addiction or over use. How they seeing the impacts? What
(11:56):
does this mean at a practical level in their daily lives.
Speaker 2 (11:59):
Yeah, Well, one of the most practical things out of
this study is that we didn't actually find any notable
differences in those prevalence rates between primary school and high school.
So what that tells us is that both of these
phenomena gaming disorder and smartphone overuse start in primary school.
Speaker 1 (12:19):
The great rewiring of the adolescent brain begins around about
the age of seven or eight, once these could start
to really invest in these screens.
Speaker 2 (12:26):
Correct, But I think what you're getting out obviously is
the developmental impacts, and that's sort of what I'm excited
about as well, excited and scared at the same time,
of course. But we had these five main categories, and
what our investigations found is that there was probably more
indicative of four categories, and so the emotional impacts, the social,
(12:48):
and physical were tied together in our exploratory factor analysis.
For those at home that don't know what that is,
don't worry, it's just sort of fancy stuff. That's a
little bit researchy, behavioral impacts, and education. We had a
list of questions that we asked them in different domains.
So for example, with education impact, there would have been
(13:08):
a question or there was a question there around have
screens or gaming ever gotten in the way of you
handing in an assessment or getting your homework in? So
that is an example of a question or an item
that was in measuring the educational impacts. Now, what we
found for all four of these areas is all four
were significant in the research. But what we also found
(13:33):
is that there are no real impacts for kids that
didn't meet criteria the internet, gaming disorder, or smartphone of use.
Then we have a step up to the impacts that
were there in developmental domains for kids that had smartphone
of use or addiction, then a step up again in
developmental impacts for subclinical gaming disorder, and then a step
(13:55):
up again for kids with clinical gaming disorder. So what
that tells us us is that the developmental impacts on
our children and teenagers is greatest for gaming disorder, and
then significant for smartphone addiction you are overuse, and then
down to the normal quote unquote sample at the bottom.
Speaker 1 (14:22):
All right, So, Brad, now that we've gone through the study,
there's a bunch of practical implications that every parent wants
to know the answer to. And these things I think
are just vitally important for us to discuss. First off,
I want to clarify something, and I think this really
requires some It just requires a minute or soel of elaboration.
Gaming per se, there's a values question. Are you okay
(14:45):
with your child playing first person shooter games or having
the sound on and lots of strangers in your living
room who are swearing and using inappropriate slurs and epithets
and so on. But let's say that you've got your
values sorted out and the kids know which games are
okay from a values perspective and which games are not.
The research evidence seems to indicate that playing games, so
(15:06):
long as it's not at an excessive level, at a
high level, playing too much, that is Internet gaming disorder,
playing it pathologically and not being able to survive without
the game, does have a whole lot of benefits. It
seems to be really good for the kids socially, It
seems to be quite good for them emotionally and even cognitively.
The thing that I see in the data. No matter
(15:26):
how many studies I look at, and no matter how
much I try to find an argument to just say
let's get the kids off games, I'm not finding an
argument that says that it's bad for them until it
reaches an unsafe or unhealthy level. Fundamentally, gaming is a
whole lot of fun for a whole lot of people,
and they don't have any negative effects. Tell me where
I'm wrong or still mans the argument that I'm making
(15:47):
So parents can go okay, I can breathe a little
safely here.
Speaker 2 (15:50):
There are opportunities and risks that come with gaming, and
so I certainly should acknowledge the opportunities here with social
connection with mastery. There is research and evidence that suggests
there are benefits in smallish doses. The problem is that
it's different for every child as to when that dose
(16:12):
becomes too much, and so you know, that could be
thirty minutes a day for one pial, that could be
two hours for another child. And that's why we developed
the Developmental Impact Scale because we really wanted to know
and have parents understand what are the areas of red
flags that you can look out for. And all of
(16:32):
this is public knowledge. You'll see in this paper that
we list all of the domains in the supplementaries as well.
But I guess to sort of come back to your
question of of that opportunity versus that risk, what I
struggle with as a researcher and a clinician is that
many of the research articles and papers and information we
(16:55):
get about the benefits of gaming have seignificant conflicts of interests.
Speaker 1 (17:01):
They're funded by the industry, they are.
Speaker 2 (17:04):
And so it is very difficult. So I'm not sitting
here saying that every single piece of evidence is that way,
but a lot of it is. And that becomes really
difficult because if you have a researcher that is funded
by the industry, either directly or indirectly, and they are
publishing beneficial data around this. We've seen that before, Justine.
(17:24):
We've seen that in smoking, we've seen that in sugar,
we've seen that in the fact. We've seen this play before,
and so we have to look at both sides. And
what we're saying is that when overused in gaming becomes
an issue, the developmental impacts are fairly significant. Now, what
(17:45):
that all boils down to for me, if I just
sort of summarize my own thoughts on this, is that
I firmly believe that this is a decision for individual
parents to make about their own child's gaining. So I'm
not advocating banning gaming. That's not what I'm saying. Okay,
what I am saying is how do we as a government,
(18:08):
as health policy, as researchers allow parents to actually set
limits in parental controls for their child, because at the
moment they don't have that. Most parental controls are just
we've talked about this before on the last episode, ayway,
most parental controls are easy to get around, and so
I believe we should be letting parents make the decision
(18:28):
and actually apply that at the moment they can't.
Speaker 1 (18:31):
Brad, let's talk practical. People have listened to the study
that you've done. They've heard that we've got pretty hygh percentages. Really,
I mean, I think concerningly hYP percentages of kids who
are using their devices in an overuse or compulsive way.
That there's gaming disorder at a level that is really
(18:51):
concerning any family who's going through it. They know of
the just the psychological and emotional earthquakes that happen every
single time there's a quest to get off the screen.
It's time to eat, it's time to go to bed,
it's time to go to school. They're dealing with some
really really big challenges. But if I've got a child
and I'm just concerned that they're using their screens too much,
what are your three don't do this responses? What are
(19:15):
the three things that you just don't cross this line?
Don't do this with the kids, It's going to blow up.
There are better things to do. What are the three
things the most common mistakes parents make here?
Speaker 2 (19:23):
I like that you frame that question in what do
you don't do? Instead of what do you do? Oh,
we're going to get really makes me think he look,
my first don't do is certainly around parents that go
down the path of criticizing what their kids do online.
If you found yourself in a position where you know
you're sitting there going that game is such a waste
(19:45):
of time. It's going to rock your brain, and that
social media is creating You're always in there with that phone,
and as soon as we do that, it becomes combative
and your child is going to switch off. Sorry, not
the screens, I mean witch off to you and what
you're saying. Right, So, yeah, wrong, switch that's my Yeah,
that's my first one, and I guess my other don't
(20:07):
if I just sort of flip this if I use two.
We have to be really careful about the access level
that we give, especially around sleep. You've heard me talk
about this before, justin sleep is one of the primary
factors here in my clinical experience where things can go downhill.
So in all of those developmental domains in that study,
what I have found clinically is that if your child
(20:29):
is in a sleep deficit because they're up late at
night grabbing a phone because you let them have a
phone in their room to you know, listen to music
on Spotify to help them get to sleep, which is
the classic one. Yeah, but you know you find them
on something else that will snowball on everything else quickly,
on all these other developmental domains quickly. So you know,
(20:51):
don't even if you find yourself relaxing rules at other
times because the horse has already bolted, don't relax those
rules at night. Has to be number one. And don't
go down this path with just endlessly criticizing what they're
doing online.
Speaker 1 (21:06):
Okay, I'm going to add one if I can, because
I said three and you've hit us with two. Your
reactions are welcome if you disagree with me. I think
that when we see our kids on screens and we've
asked them to get off, or we've had this conversation
seven thousand times, like this is a perennial issue, right
you just you never stop talking about screens. Once they've
got one, it fundamentally becomes the center of their world
and it changes your relationship with them forever once they've
(21:28):
got it. My big don't is don't have the screen
conversation when they're on a screen, or when you've got
when you've got a head full of steam because they're
on a screen, like high emotions, low intelligence, it's just
not the time for it. You've got to pick your time,
usually on a nice, quiet Saturday or Sunday morning where
everyone's relaxed and calm, and you can give them a
(21:49):
chocolate milkshake or go down to the local cafe and
get some wedges in sour cream and say, hey, I
want to have a tricky conversation with you about that
thing that's drive me up the wall. If you do
it in the moment, you just create World War three
in your living room.
Speaker 2 (22:00):
Yeah. Look, I couldn't agree more justin and I expand
on that further to say, you know, when your kids
are coming off screens, if you've said, right, your hours up,
come off now, don't give them a terrible thing to
go to. If you transition them to now it's time
to do your maths homework, you are probably going to
end in tears.
Speaker 1 (22:19):
Right, Brad, I reckon you and I could talk for
about seventy seven hours about this and still still not
exhaust our things to share. There's so much more that
I want to ask you, so much more that we
could talk about and play around with ideas around. You've
been extremely generous with your time, though, and there's no way,
there's no way that any parent could have listened to
this and not have some really great parenting solutions to
(22:44):
help them with their challenges. Thanks so much for your time.
It's been an absolute delight, and hopefully when there's some
more research that comes out that's just hot to try
and perfect for parents, we can chat again.
Speaker 2 (22:55):
Thanks Justin.
Speaker 1 (22:56):
Dr Brad Marshall is mcquarie University academic. He is the
Unplugged Psychologist and he is now most recently appointed as
the Chief Research Officer at Control Shift. He's written books,
he's a speaker and clearly you can hear he knows
his stuff. Thank you so much for listening. We hope,
hope so much that this has been a useful conversation
(23:17):
for you. The Happy Families podcast is produced by Justin
Ruland from Bridge Media. If you'd like more information and
more resources to make your family happier, check the show
notes for Brad's resources and the studies that we've talked
about and our previous podcasts, or just visit happyfamilies dot
com dot a
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