Building Better Tech Habits: A Guide to Digital Well-being

Screen time is one of parents’ top tech-related concerns, according to MediaSmarts’ research, and it’s the most common source of tech-related conflict between parents and young people in Canada. Kids are worried about their screen use too: almost half say they spend too much time on their phones.

First, there’s very little evidence that any of the devices or apps we use are addictive in the way that substances like tobacco or even activities like gambling are. Talking about addiction can also backfire, giving us an excuse to not do anything to change the role that screens play in our lives. 

“The label of addiction isn’t helpful when it skews our response and fails to provide the young person with the means of righting a pattern of media use that has gone awry… When addiction is invoked, not only is the young person’s strength of character questioned but the label can give them permission to plead helplessness and succumb to its draw.”  - Dr. Michael Rich, Digital Wellness Lab

Thinking in terms of addiction can also suggest that the only solution is abstinence – which is unrealistic when we consider that students need to go online for schoolwork, and most will eventually use devices at work.

Unlike genuinely addictive substances, phones and social media also provide kids with lots of benefits, from social connection to education to self-expression. 

Different activities may have different effects than others.

Using social media to actively connect with friends and family and find support – instead of just scrolling endlessly through Instagram and comparing oneself to others and feeling excluded – can have a positive impact on well-being."  Dr. Luca Magis-Weinberg  

With the exception of the very youngest kids, therefore, our goal is not to focus exclusively on how to reduce screen time as much as possible, but rather to help them develop habits that will let them be in control of their apps and devices. To do that, we need to have open ongoing conversations with our kids about what they’re doing online and how they feel about it.

Sticky design

Social media have been carefully designed to make us spend more time on them and to come back often – what app makers call sticky design.

Just because an app gives you what you want or enjoy doesn’t mean it’s good for you.

Teaching kids about the design tricks that apps use to get us to keep checking them – from Snapchat “streaks” to TikTok’s ForYou page – helps them take control of their online experience.

Taking breaks

It’s useful to take breaks from using devices, but a short break can be just as valuable as “digital detox.” 

Try to reduce time spent on specific online activities at particular times – like not viewing videos from the “Up Next” bar on YouTube, or not using Instagram while in the library. 

Instead of trying to reduce “screen time,” it may be more effective to develop better tech habits by planning tech-free times for ourselves and our kids and having tech-free parts of our homes. (See MediaSmarts’ tip sheet Co-Viewing With Your Kids for tips on how to do this.)

Building better habits

Remember that what we do sends as strong a message as what we say, so you can think about how these might help you manage your own phone use, too.

Have you ever gotten caught in the “phone loop” – opened your phone to do one thing, then done half a dozen things before you realized what was happening?

You can avoid that by being more intentional about your phone use. 

• Before you open it, say what you’re going to do: “Check the weather,” for example. (You can say it out loud at first, then just think it later.)  

• Set ahead of time how you’ll know you’re finished – “When I know whether or not it’s likely to rain,” for instance.

• Then say what you’ll do right after you’ve finished, like “Either get an umbrella or the sunscreen.” This helps you avoid that in-between moment when your thumb might tap another app without you thinking about it.

Add friction to your phone experience, by doing things like regularly changing your unlock method or moving the most tempting apps off your home screen.

For activities with no obvious endpoint, like scrolling social media, set a timer. 

It’s important, though, not to be too hard on our kids – or ourselves – if they don’t improve their habits right away. Habits take time to build.

Notifications

Notifications make us feel more stressed, but also more connected with others. Instead of turning notifications off completely, which may actually be more stressful^[1] – or muting them, which can make us check them more often – help kids set a schedule for when they’ll check them. 

You can also teach kids the “ten minutes later” method: tell them that when they feel the desire to check their notifications, they can – in ten minutes. This delay reduces the number of times they check their phones.

You can also set a schedule for when devices, and specific activities, are and aren’t allowed. That can cover both times and places: for instance, we strongly recommend that you keep phones out of your kids’ bedrooms and establish times and places where screens aren’t allowed, such as during mealtimes.

One reason kids find it hard to unplug – especially overnight – is that they worry about not being there when their friends need them,^[2] so make sure they’ve told their friends that their mean parent/guardian won’t let them check their apps or notifications at night.^[3]

Displacement

When we talk about the possible harm from too much screen time, what we’re mostly worried about is displacement – that screen activities will take up time that would otherwise be spent with friends or family or doing important things like exercising or getting enough sleep.

This is why it is important to keep screen time as close to zero as possible for kids under two, because they need as much of all those things as possible.

For older kids, think about whether or not a screen activity is providing something that you don’t want displaced:

• Is it helping them get exercise, like a dance game or Pokémon Go?

• Is it helping them learn something, whether that’s school-related, one of your child’s interests like history or dinosaurs, or something practical like cooking or playing guitar?

• Are they making or creating something, like writing a story or making a video game?

• Are they socializing in a meaningful way with friends or family members? Research has found that kids who mostly play video games alone are likely to become lonelier over time, while those who play with others become less so.

Comparison

When we compare other people’s lives as we see them in social media – carefully filtered and chosen to make them look good – we may end up thinking they’re better looking and happier than we are. 

“Social media is not simply another context that mirrors social dynamics. Rather, its very affordances transform the landscape of adolescents’ experiences.”  - Emily Weinstein and Carrie James, Behind Their Screens

We can help our kids avoid the “comparison trap” by curating their social feeds by muting or unfollowing people who make us feel bad about ourselves. We can also take active steps to have their algorithms show us more of the content that make us feel good, and less of what doesn’t.

We also want kids to understand that everyone else is under the same pressures, too – to always be available and to present an ideal picture of ourselves. If we post honestly about our lives, the highs and the lows, we make it easier for other people to do the same. 

Conclusions

We need to commit and take steps to develop better habits, but we also need to have compassion for ourselves if we don’t get things right immediately. While it’s important for parents to establish limits and routines, that works best when we position ourselves as our kids’ coaches and supporters rather than as enforcers.

Because social media is an important part of how teens stay in touch with friends and family, and can be a valuable way of socializing, psychologist Dr. Tara Porter suggests having kids reflect on this question: “Are you using your phone to connect to people, or to compare to people?”

Read the full guide here: Building Better Tech Habits: A Guide to Digital Well-being

^[1] Pielot, M., Church, K., & De Oliveira, R. (2014, September). An in-situ study of mobile phone notifications. In Proceedings of the 16th international conference on Human-computer interaction with mobile devices & services (pp. 233-242).

^[2] Heitmayer, M., & Lahlou, S. (2021). Why are smartphones disruptive? An empirical study of smartphone use in real-life contexts. Computers in Human Behavior, 116, 106637.

^[3] Rich, M. (2024) The Mediatrician’s Guide. Harper Horizon.

 

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Disclaimer: Bell provides financial support to MediaSmarts. This guide has been developed in collaboration between Bell and MediaSmarts. MediaSmarts does not endorse any commercial entity, product or service. No endorsement is implied.