One of the questions I often get when I’m talking to parents is, “What are the signs that my kids have a genuine screen time problem?”
There are two very clear warning signs that tend to come up when someone’s screen time is turning into an issue.
Today, let’s talk about both.
In today’s newsletter:
2 questions you can ask that reveal a lot about your screen use
Do tech billionaires let their own kids use these platforms?
My daughter and I created our own board game…
The Two Questions That Reveal a Screen Problem
Although both iPhones and Androids have ways to measure the amount of time spent on various apps, there is no amount of time that is universally agreed upon as being “too much.”
So rather than talk solely about quantity, I want to talk about how our screens may be impacting the quality of our lives, through two key areas.
Time and time again, through hundreds of conversations, talks, and trainings, I’ve found that truly problematic screen use tends to reveal itself after these two questions.
And if there’s a problem in these two areas, everything downstream tends to suffer too.
1. Are you losing sleep?
If some sort of mad scientist were to try to design the perfect device for throwing off your sleep schedule, it’s hard to imagine he could do better than the modern smartphone.
The blue light, the dopamine loops, the addictive design... all of this works together to prevent us from being able to get the rest that we need.
The National Institute of Health puts it bluntly: “Quality sleep—and getting enough of it at the right times—is as essential to survival as food and water.”
Why? Well, according to research out of Johns Hopkins, sleep is essential for our brain’s ability to adapt to life. “If we sleep too little, we become unable to process what we’ve learned during the day and we have more trouble remembering it in the future.”
If this sounds a little too abstract, not getting enough sleep can also impact our mental health, worsening symptoms like depression. Teens tend to care a lot about mental health, but the connection with sleep is often overlooked.
Given this, here are a few questions that could help you determine whether your kid (or even yourself) is getting enough sleep. Keep in mind that teens need, on average, 8 to 10 hours of sleep, while adults need at least 7.
How many hours of sleep do you usually get per night?
Do you feel rested when you wake up, or still tired?
Do you often look at your smartphone before falling asleep?
Do you have trouble staying awake during the day?
Do you have trouble concentrating, remembering things, or thinking clearly?
Do you have headaches, low energy, or a general sense of fatigue during the day?
If the answers look like “less than 6, still tired, yes, yes, yes, and yes,” there’s a decent chance this person needs a sleep intervention.
And here’s the best intervention I know of: buy an alarm clock. If you’re a parent, buy one for every member of your family, and charge your smart device in a separate room.
By recharging phones in another room, we reclaim our ability to recharge in our own.
2. Are you isolating?
This question is more subtle, because it has more to do with our motivation than with our circumstances. Isolation is not the same thing as solitude; one is unhealthy, the other is valuable.
Leadership consultant Carey Nieuwhof has suggested that one way to tell the difference between solitude and isolation is by asking this question: “Am I stepping away to grow, or am I withdrawing to avoid?”
For many of us, the phone is our way to avoid. If there’s someone or something we don’t want to pay attention to, pulling out our phone gives us an easy way to disengage.
Navigating this dynamic involves training ourselves to notice when we’re actually going to our phone, or just away from something that we don’t want to deal with.
Here are a few questions to help you determine whether this form of isolation is becoming an issue:
Do you often use your phone to avoid difficult conversations, tasks, or decisions?
How good are you at handling boredom?
Do you feel anxious, irritable, or upset if you can’t check your phone for a period of time?
Has phone use caused problems at school, work, or home?
Do you use your phone to avoid thinking about or dealing with specific life problems?
Again, if the answers here are mostly yeses, isolation may be becoming an issue.
What’s at stake here is the fact that human beings need friends. In fact, a 2010 study concluded that loneliness poses as big of a health risk as smoking 15 cigarettes a day.
So here’s the intervention: the next time your kid is going out in public—to a basketball game, to the grocery store, wherever—challenge them to try leaving their phone in the car. Even if this doesn’t immediately result in a new best friend, openness to new relationships is how new friends eventually come into our lives.
Put Your Own Mask On First
A lot of this has been directly about our kids, but these issues are just as relevant for us as parents.
So we should ask ourselves, too.
“How much are our phones impacting our own sleep and social well-being?
Life is already hard. Good sleep and good friends make it better.
So if your screen time is impacting your ability to sleep and make genuine connections with others, it could be time to consider making a change.
📱 How do you set screen time limits as a family?
Most parenting advice on screens falls into two camps: total ban or total surrender. Neither actually helps.
The Practical Parenting: Screen Time Series is a short video course that cuts through the noise with real science — so you can stop second-guessing every swipe and start making decisions you actually feel good about.
A few stories that caught my eye this week:
Despite building a screen saturated world, most tech billionaires don’t even let their own children use their platforms without strict limits—or even not at all.
The EU is considering age restrictions on social media, backed by a new panel report recommending platforms bar kids under 13s until they prove their design is safe.
This 2025 study on the impact of short form video content on mental health across social media platforms (think TikTok, Reels, YouTube Shorts) was linked to poorer attention spans and increased anxiety for both kids and adults.
My daughter and I made a board game together with some kits from Panda, a website where you can design your own games.
Not sure if the actual game will be fun, but we had a ton of fun making it together!
What’s your favorite board game? Reply and let me know!
— Ian
Giphy