The Truth About Teen Mental Health, Smartphones & Social Media with Natasha Devon

This week I'm joined by writer, broadcaster and mental health campaigner Natasha Devon. Natasha has spent nearly two decades working in schools, speaking to thousands of young people about everything from anxiety and perfectionism to social media, body image and friendship. In this episode, we get into what's really happening to the next generation, from the impact of smartphones and Al to why genuine human connection is becoming harder to find.

We also talk about why banning social media might not be the answer, what parents are getting wrong, and why Natasha believes authenticity, not perfection, is what young people need most. We also chat about her brilliant new book, The Nuance Drought, which explores how we've lost the ability to have thoughtful, balanced conversations in an increasingly polarised world.

[00:00:00] I've just launched a Substack, and I'm really excited to share it with you. It's a more personal space where I dive into what's really been going on in my head each week. From the realities of eating out with an eating disorder to traveling with OCD and navigating the awkwardness of social situations while managing my mental health, I'm writing honestly about it all.

Some weeks I'll have a glimmer of light to share, other weeks that glimmer might be harder to find, but this space is about showing up as I am and hopefully giving you something to relate to, laugh at, or feel seen by. If you'd like to read more, please subscribe to the Substack and be part of this growing community.

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I think the best thing that parents can do is show their children what genuine connection looks like. Because if they experience that, they'll know that [00:01:00] they're not getting it from the online space. Rather than putting pressure on yourself to learn every single platform and how it works, actually a better use of a parent's time is to prioritize genuine connection with their child.

Hi, and welcome to Hurt to Healing. I'm your host, Pandora Morris. This podcast is a space for honest conversations about mental health, where we share real stories, explore the messy middle, and remind each other that we're not alone. Each episode is a chance to listen, reflect, and connect with voices that bring insight, vulnerability, and hope.

If anything you hear today resonates deeply or feels overwhelming, please know help is always available. You can text SHOUT to 85258 for free, confidential support 24/7, or visit giveusashout.org. Thank you so much for being here. Let's dive into today's conversation.

[00:02:00] This week I'm joined by writer, broadcaster, and mental health campaigner Natasha Devon. Natasha has spent nearly two decades working in schools, speaking to thousands of young people about everything, from anxiety and perfectionism to social media, body image, and friendship. In this episode, we get into what's really happening to the next generation, from the impact of smartphones and AI to why genuine human connection is becoming harder to find.

We also talk about why banning social media might not be the answer and what parents are getting wrong, and why Natasha believes authenticity, not perfection, is what young people need the most. We also chat about her brilliant new book, The Nuance Drought, which explores how we've lost the ability to have thoughtful, balanced conversations in an increasingly polarized world.

Before we get into today's episode, if you're new here, then welcome to Hurt to Healing. If you'd like to support the podcast, then [00:03:00] please follow or subscribe, because it really helps us to grow. We also read every comment and message, so please keep leaving them. Right, let's get into it.

I'm very, very excited for this conversation because we're gonna cover so many topics that are very close to my heart as well. And you do a lot of work in schools. Uh, will you just tell us about that and what age group you're specifically focused on? So I've been going into schools, it, it will be 18 years in September.

I started in 2008, and the idea behind it originally was I have very few complaints about my own school experience apart from my PSHE was crap. And in particular, I felt that even though we did have conversations about mental health, which was fairly unusual for someone of my generation, it was very much the extremes, the fringes.

So I was listening to stories that were very engaging and very interesting, but they weren't particularly relatable. [00:04:00] And therefore, when I began to experience mental health issues, I didn't recognize it in myself because I thought, "Well, I'm, haven't been hospitalized," or, "I'm not living on the street," or the other examples that we'd heard from speakers.

So I wanted to create mental health lessons that were a little bit more universal. So I went back to my old school, and I interviewed hundreds and hundreds of teenagers and asked them, you know, "What's missing from your PSHE? What would you like a lesson on?" And based on their responses, I came up with a lesson on body image, and then that's still the pattern that I use today.

I, I go into schools, I do focus groups, I find out what they want a lesson on or what they're being taught in ways that they don't think are particularly helpful maybe, and then I work with experts in neuroscience and psychology and other social sciences, and I come up with these lesson plans which I then take back into schools.

And I cover exam stress, body image, social media, and friendship, and I work now with year five up to year [00:05:00] 12, so that is nine-year-olds all the way up to 18-year-olds. And what are the most common problems that seem to be presenting in that age group that you see? It's really weird because in some ways the, the problems have remained consistent.

I would say that it's anxiety, pressure to be perfect, and just pressure generally from a world that has become ever more individualistic and, and competitive. But it manifests in different ways with each generation. So for example, with teenagers that are at kind of the older end of the spectrum, there is a massive problem with perfectionism.

They will overachieve in the areas of their life where they're, they're most confident, and then they'll self-sabotage in the areas of their life where they are least confident. Epic amounts of exam stress. In the younger cohort, friendship has become a really major thing. They put so much pressure on themselves to do friendship [00:06:00] perfectly or to curate the perfect friendship group, not realizing that humans are kind of complicated and messy.

And I would say it's a lot of the same feelings at play, but they're just kind of, like I say, manifesting in slightly different ways Do you see problems with people who have the opposite problem, so they're not sort of high-achieving perfectionists? They're more, like, they don't give a shit. They think they can get overnight success becoming an influencer, and actually it's sort of that whole thing about exams.

To them, it just seems like a complete waste of time. I don't encounter that often. I do see a lot of apathy towards school and a lot of resentment that they don't think that they're learning the things that they need to know at school, which I understand to an extent. But I, I think the biggest kind of myth around perfectionism is that it's somebody who gives 100% to everything that they do.

That, the, the perfectionist mentality is more about a fear of failure, and you see that it wouldn't necessarily be in an academic sphere, but you do see that in, I would say, two-thirds [00:07:00] of Gen Z have traits of that. Interesting. What is the biggest shift that you've seen in the 18 years that you've worked in schools?

Well, I would say two things. First of all is in terms of body image, when I first started wasn't really a thing for boys as mu- Of course, there were always- Mm ... boys who were affected by it. But over the 18 years I've been working in schools, I've seen the fitness industry and the beauty industry as well kind of hook their claws into boys and men in a more and more kind of insidious way, to the extent now that we're kind of on a par, which is not the equality that anybody wanted.

Nobody was like, "Oh, woo-hoo," you know, "boys are as insecure as girls always have been." Mm. But that's a major shift. And then the other one is, um, technology. Social media, but also AI and chatbots just weren't part of the, the picture when I first started, and now they are a huge part of everything. What do you think social media is doing developmentally to children's minds, and [00:08:00] actually how is it really hindering their ability to, I guess, develop that sense of self as well as in real life friendships?

It's really difficult to say what impact it's having on them developmentally, 'cause part of the problem that we've got is that to do really good quality peer-reviewed research takes time. So I, I will never forget that, um, there was a, a piece of research that I think was commissioned in about 2010 that came up with some really robust evidence that Facebook use was having a detrimental impact on self-esteem and body image of teenage girls.

But by the time that was published, it was 2016, and by 2016, teenage girls had moved on. They were on TikTok and Instagram. You know, and that's part of the problem, that it, it all kind of moves so fast that the science is always playing catch-up. I would say to an extent this current generation are kind of a guinea pig generation in that regard.

But what I see, and this is just anecdotal, is less ability to kind of look [00:09:00] someone in the eye Less attention span, definitely. Mm. Um, a lot of young people watch you like you're on a screen as well. I've really noticed less, when I'm doing an assembly for example, less audience engagement, and they kind of sit there really poker face.

And, and afterwards they'll often come up to me and say, "Miss, that was really good." And I'm like, "You need to tell your face 'cause I can see you, and and I kind of- Yeah ... feed off of your energy." And I think in terms of friendship, there's a, there's a sort of expectation, like I say, that everything will be okay all the time, and that messiness is failure, and disagreement is failure.

Mm. Part of that, I think, is being used to the kind of sycophancy of AI. And these highlight reels- Mm ... so they're really just seeing such a tiny pocket of someone's life. And so I think everyone assumes that sort of life should be this rose-tinted, like all happy days, and, you know, success they see sort of everywhere.

Whereas when we were growing up- Mm ... we didn't have a clue what other people even down [00:10:00] the road were doing because unless we were with them, we didn't really have that exposure to the stuff that was everywhere. It's so true. I'll, I'll never forget, I was doing a focus group with some teenage girls in South London and, um, I said, "Do you think a social media ban for under 16s is a good idea?"

They said, "No," really emphatic about it. And I said, "Why?" And they said, "Without social media, how would we know anything?" So I went, "Oh, this is a teaching moment." And I started going into my spiel about, you know, "You can't trust everything that you find online. It's not necessarily a verified source, and you need to check it."

And they were like, "Miss, Miss, Miss, we know. We don't mean that. What we mean is, how would we know what anyone else is doing?" And I thought, "Oh, okay, so what you mean is omniscience. You've been given the superpower of omniscience," and that's a godlike power. No wonder they don't want people to take it away from them.

Yeah, in the sense that they're these sort of all-knowing creatures because they've got these tablets and these smartphones that just give them unlimited, unfiltered access to [00:11:00] anyone, anywhere. Yeah. And you know, and so you know, you now hear that Harper Beck is starting a skincare brand. I was reading the other day about another American sort of 14-year-old who's got a skincare brand.

And, and so suddenly you get these teenage girls and boys thinking, "Well, if I'm not doing something that's entrepreneurial, if I'm not an influencer by the time I'm 16, if I'm not getting brand sponsorships and partnerships, then something's wrong." Mm. And it's changed so much, hasn't it? 'Cause I think certainly when I was growing up it was all about going into law or finance or medicine, and that was what was sort of held in, you know, high esteem and good regard and, and that was a signal that you kind of did really well.

Whereas now I feel like that's really changed. Yes. Although I think there is ... Because for working class kids that don't necessarily have those ambitions of being a doctor or don't know anybody who, who does that job- You know, we've had this before, the moral panic about, "Oh, they all wanna be footballers," or, "They all want to be glamour models," or, "They all wanna be reality TV stars.

They all wanna go on X [00:12:00] Factor." You know, in a way, it is the same story, but it's different in so far as there is a feeling now that anybody can do it, and you don't need a certain set of qualities or qualifications. You just need to be prepared to show your life. I mean, the skincare thing, I was talking to a teacher from a primary school who said that she took some girls on a school trip, and they were away for five days, and she had to explain to these girls, they were almost secondary school, 10, 11 years old.

She had to explain to them that they needed to change their underwear every day, and that they needed to wash every day. Without their parents there to say, "Right, you know, it's time to have a shower, it's time to have a bath," a lot of them didn't know. But they were taking suitcases with them that had, like, a 12-step skincare routine.

And she was like, "This is really messed up that they don't understand basic hygiene, and yet they're using three different types of moisturizer." [00:13:00] Do you agree that social media is making kids less resilient? Do you think that's just a myth that we're being fed by the media? I have a real problem with the word resilience because- People use it as though it's an attitude, and you can choose to switch it on or off.

Resilience for me is a byproduct of being supported in the right way, and I always think supporting a young person is like holding a bar of soap. You don't wanna completely drop it, but you don't wanna squeeze it too hard either. You have to let them make some mistakes within safe boundaries and, and know that ultimately there's a safety net there for them.

And I think that this generation of young people, there's no evidence that they are less capable of resilience, but they're maybe not supported in the right way, and that's why we see what people are calling a lack of resilience is actually a lack of adequate support, if that makes sense. And I think the problem is, is that, I mean, I don't know whether you agree with this, but we don't really know how to support them- Mm

because a lot, that area of relatability has somewhat been lost [00:14:00] between the people who would be able to support them because we can't really fathom what they're going through 'cause we didn't grow up with what they're going through at the moment. I think that's true. I do always like to reassure parents though that what they're going through online are the same things, it's just online.

So ag- you know, a lot of the time bullying, for example, we all know what it's like to be bullied. It's just it wouldn't necessarily be a cyberbully when we were younger, or body image dissatisfaction, or friendship difficulties, or having your heart broken, or a creepy old, older man trying to talk to you.

You know, we've all had those experiences as young people. It's just now happening in the online space. So it's not like parents have no transferrable wisdom to offer. Do you think though that with social media it's creating this illusion that these kids are connected and have a sense of self-worth, whereas it's actually more about getting attention and not necessarily attention in the right ways?

[00:15:00] It's really interesting the way that algorithmically these social networks have often been designed. So when we properly connect, it optimizes dopamine in the brain. So when we have a really good conversation with somebody that we have a lot in common with or we're connecting with in a meaningful way, we will come away with literally bre- better brain chemistry than when we went in.

What the social media connection is designed to do is to sort of bypass all of the groundwork that you put in with that and give you a dopamine spike that feels very similar. But I always describe it to kids as it's like the difference between eating a nu- nutritious meal and then having, like, a handful of Haribo.

Um, and the social media is like a sugar high, but it's not actually nourishing you in a meaningful way. So yeah, it is. It's really easy to mistake validation and attention for what you actually need, which is connection. And as you said earlier, I think this is a problem with a lot of [00:16:00] kids, is that they're not picking up on body language and facial expressions and nuance.

And actually, you know, for me, certainly in my journey, I've realized human connection is at the root of everything. If I don't have connection on a daily basis, I feel really quite out of sorts. And, and actually, you know, I realize that as I get older, it's really all that matters- Right ... is our connection to real human beings.

And what worries me is that a lot of these kids aren't really realizing the value and importance of that. That has changed as social media has evolved, because in the good old days when it used to be you followed someone and then you saw their content, so your social media feed would consist of the content which was put out by the people that you chose to follow, before infinite scrolling, before algorithms in the way that we understand them today.

You could actually find community online back then, I think, through shared interests and passions and hobbies and stuff like that. But now even the, the whole sense of an online community is being manipulated [00:17:00] because it's all about what you stand against. It's about what you hate, and it- it's about pointing over there and saying, "You know, we don't like these people."

And that's not anything like a three-dimensional community. I know, and this whole, you know, forming these cliques around very extreme ideas- Mm ... which is potentially very dangerous because, you know, kids' minds in their teenage years are very malleable, and they, they haven't really, you know, their brains haven't fully developed, and so they are very impressionable.

And, and that's what worries me is that, you know, a lot of people on social media who don't have kids' best interests at heart are using it as this very manipulative tool. And also, I've met young people who don't believe anything 'cause, uh, that's the thing. Millennials and Gen X have a perfect magic combination, which is that we grew up without social media, but we're still quite tech-savvy.

Mm. And that's the magic combination that you need to survive it. The people I really worry about are Gen Z and boomers- [00:18:00] Mm ... because one has grown up completely immersed in social media with very little understanding and checks and balances around them. The other's been thrown in and aren't that tech-savvy.

And what I'm finding, whereas boomers tend to be, and I'm making generalizations here, but, uh, tend to be quite credulous, a lot of young people that I work with don't believe anything. So they're now in a space where you can give them the most robust evidence for something ever, and they just think everything's a conspiracy, and the truth is up for debate, and there's a, things like scientific institutions and academic institutions, there's a complete loss of faith in those kinds of things, and that's just as dangerous, I think.

Yeah, that's a very interesting point. I've never thought about that. I guess when we just had history textbooks, what was written in the history textbook, you just took as being read. And I remember it was only really in my A level year, so that's sort of 17, 18, that I realized that there were loads of different schools of thought.

So for example, when you did history, there was an [00:19:00] existentialist historian, there was a socialist historian, there, you know, various different th- and suddenly it was like, oh, gosh, so there isn't one, like, linear approach. But I guess, again, w- in the world of social media, there are so many differing opinions.

Mm. For every fact, you can find another fact that completely debunks that fact. So it is, it's quite a confusing world that they're growing up in. Well, it's just cherry-picking your own truth. Mm. Th- no wonder then so many parents are saying, you know, "Dinner time has turned into a battleground," because I know that there are all kinds of problems with the, the curriculum, but at least, you know, we're operating from a shared set of facts which we can then debate about the nuances of them.

Hurt to Healing has partnered with Brown Advisory to bring you this podcast. Brown Advisory is a global investment management firm that is passionate about raising awareness of mental health challenges. A big thank you to Brown Advisory for supporting my mission and helping people to thrive in an ever-changing world.

[00:20:00] What do you think about the social media ban that is allegedly gonna come into place next year for under 16s? It's put me in an awful situation where I never thought I would say this, but I, I, there, I have one point of agreement with Nigel Farage. Because I think it probably is well-meaning, but I don't think that it will be workable.

Or it, uh, so this is what I think is gonna happen. I think young people are gonna find ways to get around it, as we've seen in Australia. Depending on which study you read, between 60% and two-thirds of 12 to 16-year-olds in Australia where there has been a ban continue to use social media. I think it will potentially make social media quite taboo as well.

So if you do have a 13-year-old who's finding a way to access social media and they are being groomed or radicalized, they'll think, "Oh, I can't talk to the adults about it because [00:21:00] social media's banned, and I'm now doing something illegal." So it makes them even more vulnerable. It might push them onto less regulated platforms as well.

And then I also really worry because it means that we're all going to have to submit quite sensitive ID documentation to these social media companies, which will be vulnerable to hacks. Um, I mean, I don't wanna give Mark Zuckerberg my passport. I don't know about other people. So I don't know whether we're gonna see, um, maybe a mass exodus of people from social media generally, and what that will look like and what that will mean.

That, you know, that could be a positive thing, but I, I don't think... You know, we've yet to see exactly how these plans are, are going to be finalized. But from what I've seen so far, and from what all the mental health charities that I work with are saying, it's quite a blunt instrument for the problem that we're looking at.

I know, 'cause there's a part of me that just can't help but feel the government is so chaotic already, how on earth are they gonna police a ban with [00:22:00] pretty tech-savvy teenagers- Yeah ... who probably know way more about, as you identified in what's going on in Australia, all the loopholes and how they can circumnavigate the, the ban.

And you're gonna get, what, a 40, 50-year-old politician that's gonna basically try and f- I, you know, and, and this is the problem as we were discussing before. There's a lot of vested interest, you know. Mm. The government also has a vested interest in keeping social media and the investment alive because obviously, you know, it kinda goes a full circle, like all these things.

Uh, well, they've presented it as, "We're standing up to the tech giants." Mm. And I'm like, are you, are you really, though? Because everybody knows in a perfect world what would happen is more regulation of the online space for all of us, actually. You don't magically stop being vulnerable when you're 16. But, you know, particularly for children.

And my fear is that they'll go, "Well, we've banned it for under 16-year-olds, so we don't need to make it safer." And they, a- and so I'm like, you're kind of letting the tech giants get away with- Mm ... doing what they're doing, actually. [00:23:00] I'll never forget Kemi Badenoch. You know when Grok was making abuse images of women and children?

And, um, they were asking all the politicians, you know, what should be done about this? And Kemi Badenoch said, "Well, we just need to put in a ban for under 16s using social media, and that will solve this problem." And I thought That right there is my biggest fear about all of this, because I don't want to see abusive images of children either, and I'm in my 40s.

Um, no one should be subjected to that. No one should be subjected to a non-consensual image of them being made. And just because theoretically children aren't there doesn't make the problem go away. Yeah, no, it's a very interesting point. I worry as well that they might put less funding into children's mental health services.

'Cause I, I don't know if you know this about me, but- Mm ... I used to be the government mental health czar for, uh, less than a year. Um, they fired me for being too gobby about austerity and Michael Gove. But um, during my time at, trying to work with government, I [00:24:00] was trying to talk about child poverty, community services, the school system, and they kept coming back to phones.

And it, I almost felt like they were trying to say to me, "Look, can we just say that the children's mental health crisis is being caused by social media? 'Cause it would be so much easier, you know, and it would-" Mm "... absolve us of a lot of the responsibility in terms of policy making." And you know, I'm not saying that phones and social media haven't played a role.

Of course, they have, and they can exacerbate mental health issues. But there's all kinds of other stuff going on here, and my big fear is that the government is gonna think, "Job done." Yeah, I mean, look, I take my own story as, as an example. You know, I've never been on social media, and I've probably had one of the rockiest journeys in, you know, my own mental health than, you know, most of my friends.

Mm. But I also can't help but feel that the prevalence of a lot of things like eating disorders and self-harm and, you know, can somewhat be accelerated and exacerbated by what people see [00:25:00] online. Yes. So it's sort of, I, I don't think it lies at the root cause, but I don't think it's doing anything as well for things like ADHD and attention span, which I think is really, really suffering.

And I think adults are facing that as well. That's just not a sort of problem that's unique to kids. Mm. This is a problem that we're facing worldwide. I mean, you talk to any adult now, and they're like, "God, you know, I just can't concentrate on anything for longer than two minutes." And I do believe that that's because we have all this sort of instant resource of sort of information.

We have that instant gratification. It's all, like, kind of quick, quick, onto the next, onto the next, short video, short clip, short this, short. And it, it is, it's messing with our brains. Yes. I, I'm reading a book at the moment called Distorted. It's a proof I've got. It's not actually out until October, I think.

But I really recommend it to everyone. Mm. There is a fact in there that if you take the average life expectancy, at the age of 18, your average person, once you take away all the time we spend working, sleeping, life admin, you know- Mm ... all the stuff you have to do, the [00:26:00] average person has 10 years. 10 years to fall in love, travel, pursue your passions, connect, you know, do all the stuff that makes life actually worth living.

And for your average 18-year-old now- They will spend two thirds of that time scrolling. Wow. It actually made me feel a bit sick. Yeah, that is just really tragic actually, isn't it? And that is my fear, is when I go out and about and I just see people's heads in their phones, not looking up, not making eye contact.

I mean, I'm trying to meet a guy at the moment. I'm like, "There's no chance," because every single man you see is literally like head down. You can't even so smile at someone without them either like looking away and thinking you're a weirdo- ... or just simply not making eye contact because they're so used to just looking at this device.

Yeah. And now, you know, I was reading an article in The Telegraph a couple of weeks ago about people just having relationships with these AI chatbots. Mm. And not only are they having relationships with them, you know, I think there's been the first reported suicide as a result of an AI chatbot breakup.

Mm. And you're getting adults who are [00:27:00] getting chatbots to mimic the voice of their ex-partners on, on a WhatsApp exchange so that they continue getting messages. I mean, what is going on? Yeah. I mean, it's, I did an investigation for LBC not long ago about the number of young people, but I don't think it's just young people that are doing this, that are using AI chatbots as therapists.

And I was, I did a focus group with a, a group of young people. They all knew somebody, they said, who was doing this. And when I asked them why, they said, "Oh, it's about trust. You know, if, if we tell a therapist something that's a human being, they might judge us." And I said, "Well, what a weird way to frame trust," because you're giving your insecurities, your, your innermost anxieties, all the most sensitive information about you to a platform that hasn't promised that it will keep it secret.

At the very least, is going to harvest that to sell you some stuff, and that's the most benign interpretation of what they'll, they will do with that. And also, your therapist- If you're [00:28:00] not being your best self, we'll call you on it and say, "Do you think you could have handled that better?" Or, "How do you think that made that o- you made that other person feel?"

Chatbots don't do that. They, they tell you every idea you have is a brilliant idea, even if that idea is, "I want to end my own life." And th- there are several live ongoing court cases in the US right now where chatbots have advised people on how to end their own life, written suicide notes for them, agreed with their psychotic delusions, made their mental health crises worse.

People think that AI is smarter than us. It's not. It's dumber than us in, in many ways. It just repeats all of our mistakes. So what do you see as sort of the future of AI in terms of, like, mental health and therapy, obviously? There are people who are arguing that there is a place for it within the mental health world, uh, but that it's not fit for purpose right now, and that it could potentially save a lot of money if it's used in, in the right [00:29:00] way, because it's a kind of infinite resource that you can get out there to people.

I, like you, I, I have real concerns about it. I think definitely for looking and scanning conversations and then flagging, or looking at somebody's, what they're posting online and seeing if there are patterns that indicate that they may be experiencing a mental health challenge That's one way that it could potentially be used, but I don't think it will ever be a substitute for a human.

No, I agree. And, and if you were talking to a, a group of kids, what would you say to them if they turned around and they said, "Well, miss, we, we like using ChatGPT for as an emotional support. We really think it's really good, and we can't afford to go and see a therapist"? Well, this is the... And I'm not here to judge what, what they're doing- Mm-hmm

or tell them what to do. It's, in fact, it's quite important that I don't do that. But I do say to them, it, you know, that your data is not anonymous in the way that you think it is, whi- y- which is just a fact. You know, they think that it doesn't go any further than the conversation [00:30:00] that they're having with ChatGPT, and I get them to think about that.

I think the idea of they may be on a waiting list for NHS therapy and can't afford private therapy, I think that is absolutely valid. I can point them in the direction of, for example, Kooth, that does, um, free digital counseling sessions for 16 to 25-year-olds, or something like Shout. Charities are, are trying to plug that gap.

But ultimately, what this, these conversations always come back to is that mental health services need to be better funded. I know, and I can't help but think if that happened, then maybe it would correlate with a reduction in screen time. Kids would actually start to wake up to the fact that maybe their phones aren't their best friends.

Maybe social- Mm ... media actually isn't a sort of this nirvana that they think it is, I think, at times. Because I do think that, you know, it, as we know, with neuroplasticity and neural pathways, I think now, now kids are being so conditioned to think that this is just a, a, a, it's a habituated behavior now.

Mm-hmm. And it's becoming, as we've said, it's, it's an addiction. And parents don't really know what to do about it, because parents aren't addiction [00:31:00] specialists, so they watch their kid disappear into their room. They don't know whether they're gaming. They don't know whether they're looking at porn. They don't know whether they're kind of going down all these social media holes.

They don't know whether it's a girl who's becoming obsessed with her skincare routine. Mm. And it's how we navigate this stage. Because as you said, that it's these boomer parents who aren't that tech-savvy who are like, "Geez, we don't know what to do." So what advice would you give them? I think the most important thing is that your child knows that they can talk to you about anything.

It, it sounds counterintuitive, but, um, one of the worst things that you can do is take away your child's technology as punishment, particularly if it's punishment for just general misdemeanors. Okay, you know, you can't have the iPad for the next day or whatever it is. Because what that fosters then in a child's mind is, "Oh, I can't tell my parents that I'm slightly worried that this person that I'm talking to is not the age that they said they were because I'm gonna get into trouble."

And their biggest fear a lot of the time is [00:32:00] having their technology taken away from them. And so as long as you are keeping that channel of communication open, you know, "You can talk to me about anything that you're experiencing, and try not to freak out too much." Number one thing that the young people tell me when I say, "Why haven't you told your parents about this?"

They'll say, "'Cause they'll freak out." Mm. So if you can try and sort of put your freak out on hold. Like, you can freak out, but do it later when, when they've gone to bed. Um, then that will kind of mitigate some of their fears. I also think that parents need to role model the behavior they would like to see.

If there's no phones at the dinner table, that does mean you too. And also, tell your child what you're doing on your phone, 'cause a lot of children see their parents on their phone all the time, and they don't realize that they are answering an email or ordering an Uber or y- getting the Ocado delivery or, you know, the Tesco delivery or, or whatever it might be.

But if you tell them that and you say, "This is what I'm doing on the phone," then it kind of breaks that thing of, "Oh, this device is more important than me. It's [00:33:00] taking my parents' attention all the time." It's like, "No, no, I'm, I'm doing all the things that I have to do as your parent. It's just this is the thing that allows me to do it."

That's a very good point, and I think this whole mirroring of behavior is, it's a very interesting one because adults are just as guilty as , as becoming addi- well, they are addicted to their phones. Mm. And they are addicted to social media. So it's not just something that we're faced with as a sort of, an issue for young people.

It's widespread. Yeah. That, the amount of times I get a parent come up to me in a school and go, "Uh, my child is just so addicted to her phone. I d- ... I don't know what's wrong with her" And I'm like, "Hmm." It's, I mean, it, the hardest and the easiest thing to address is your own behavior, I think. But if you as a parent go on that journey of learning whether there have been habits that have been formed in certain areas, whether you, maybe you would describe it as an addiction, you know, what you are defaulting to, et cetera, et cetera.

If you learn those lessons, then it's far easier to [00:34:00] guide your child through the same challenges. And do you think adults who aren't particularly tech literate need to get tech literate if they've got kids who are growing up now? I mean, it's so difficult, isn't it? Because you will never be as tech-savvy as your child.

Mm. And I think a lot of parents feel pressure to learn every single platform. What I would say is, you know how like- If you've read an amazing book or f- quite a few amazing books, you know what bad writing looks like. Mm. Or if you've listened to great music, you know what bad music sounds like. I think the best thing that parents can do is show their children what genuine connection looks like.

Because if they experience that, they'll know that they're not getting it from the online space. Rather than putting pressure on yourself to learn every single platform and how it works, actually a better use of a parent's time is to prioritize genuine connection with their child. And digital sunsets, I learned [00:35:00] this- Mm from, um, Lorraine Candy, the, the parenting columnist at The Sunday Times. She said it completely transformed her parenting to have, I think she said it was an hour before bedtime, everybody's phones go in a lockbox, or you turn the router off- Mm ... or something happens that means that you're all taking a step back from technology, really improves quality of sleep as well, which is very important.

In the work that you're doing in schools, if you could change three things right now, what would they be? Oh, wow. Um, well, I would tear up the curriculum. I would tear up the entire curriculum, and I would rebuild it from scratch, 'cause I think the, the curriculum as we know it was designed in 1980, but actually at its heart, the school system hasn't changed for about 100 years.

And we know so much more now about child psychology, neurodivergence, how children learn. I think we should be putting that at the heart of everything and rebuilding it [00:36:00] with those principles in mind. But I also appreciate that that's not the most realistic thing in the world. So I think what I would do is I would try and, and to be fair, this government are doing that.

They've just had a curriculum review where they've tried to kind of de-Govey-fy the, the curriculum. So they've, um, they're putting back in the things that we know have a therapeutic value, like sports and arts, um, PSHE, um, they're slimming down the GCSEs so that they are not so exam-focused. 'Cause it- it's mad that now up to three years of your education is pointing at your performance on this one day, and so little coursework as part of that equation, and then we wonder why rates of exam stress have, have gone up.

I would probably do what the government is doing, short of the revolution that I secretly hope for. And what would you like children to believe, in the sense of if you could make every young person in Britain truly believe one thing [00:37:00] about themselves, what would it be? I think it would be to lean into your authenticity.

Everybody is best when they're being themselves, actually. You're liked best when you're being yourself. You're relaxed when you're being yourself, so you, you feel more freedom to try something, even if you might not be the best at it. And I appreciate that when you're growing up, yourself is a very fluid concept, but so many of the young people I meet, you can tell that they've constructed a version of themselves that they think is acceptable.

And I, I wish that I could just say, "Throw that away. Just throw that away," and just sort of be vulnerable to life and that, you know, there'll be ups and downs, but it will ultimately shape you into the person you're meant to be. And Natasha, will you tell us a bit about your book? Yes. Thank you. Um, it's called The Nuance Drought, and it's out on the 10th of September, and it's pulling together the threads of my career really.

So [00:38:00] it's about politics and media, but it's also about health and how polarization in all of those spaces is affecting us, and what we can do to reclaim the nuance that's needed. Right. Well, I cannot wait to get a copy, and, uh, yeah, I'd encourage every listener to also get a copy, 'cause I think, you know, the work you've done and, and you're still doing is, is really incredible.

So thank you. Thank you.

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