Clare Morrell
speaker
113 appearances
1 recordings
1 series
first heard Jul 2026
last heard 26 Jul
Clare Morrell’s voice in public audio — every appearance, attributed to the second.
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recordings per month · last 12 monthsRecordings per month over the last 12 months — 1 in all, peaking in Jul 2026 with 1.
Appearances
Absolutely.
So what I talk about in my book is how the main strategies kind of sold to parents are screen time limits and parental controls.
But if we look at the research, in reality, these are really not working out.
And we can see this because the design of interactive screens, smartphones, social media apps is inherently addictive.
And screen times do not work when something is addictive because even in a short amount of time, these children are getting these artificially high bursts of dopamine while they're on these platforms or these screens.
And then immediately as soon as they leave the app or the screen, their brain plunges into this dopamine deficit state, which creates this constant craving to go back on.
So the time limit will really never be enough.
And even in a short amount of time, they can experience those addictive effects.
And then what happens is say you, you know, 15 minutes a day, cumulatively over time, even those 15 minutes a day is really too much for a child's developing brain and nervous system.
And so what happens then is they actually, their brain over time becomes desensitized to pleasures in the real world.
Their brain is in this kind of chronic dopamine deficit state.
And so just I kind of make the analogy in the book.
We've treated screens like sugar, something that can be enjoyed in moderation.
But when we look at the brain research, these screens act on the brain the same way highly addictive substances like drugs, alcohol, and tobacco do.
And so they're not safe in any amount.
In the same way we've restricted those other dangerous addictive substances out of childhood, we need to take a similar approach to screens.
They're more like digital fentanyl than they are like sugar.
No.
So screen time today is very different than it has been in the past.
And I try to distinguish this in the book, these categories of what I call interactive screens, where the user is actually interacting and getting feedback from the screen or the app.
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