Healthy Screen Habits Podcast

On March 28th of this year, Children and Screens, Institute of Digital Media and Child Development announced the release of a landmark report unveiling the significant impacts of the UK's Age Appropriate Design Code (AADC) on digital platforms.  The Institute's review identified an unprecedented wave of 91 changes made across leading social media and digital platforms.  Find out what they are when...

Tessa Stuckey, AKA:The Mom Therapist, works with families navigating the digital, tech-filled world that our kids are growing up in. Tessa takes on today's negative cultural effects on our kids' mental health from the perspective of a therapist but with the heart of a caring mother.  In this episode we talk about creating a healthier and positive lifestyle for the whole family through anxiety mana...

After her oldest son dropped out of college due to his video game addiction, Melanie Hempe  put her nursing degree to good use and founded Screen Strong, a nonprofit that empowers families to prevent screen problems and reclaim their kids from toxic screens. Listen to this episode and learn how your family can stop fighting over screens, kids can gain more life skills and everyone can benefit!  

Healthy Screen Habits was founded by a group of 4 moms who find it imperative to practice what we teach! Next week,  the podcast will take a break as we enjoy Spring Break with our own families. During Spring Break, take some time to do some digital spring cleaning!  Delete unused apps and revisit memories of the past year by organizing photos. The act of revisiting memories brings about reminisce...

Andi Smiley is a mom of three littles 6 and under and podcasts have saved her sanity. Now she wants to help other moms find podcasts without getting overwhelmed so she started her own podcast about podcasts. She's the host of The Friendly Podcast Guide, a podcast that helps moms find podcasts for themselves and for their kids.  No more screen zombies!! Build strong imagination muscles by exposing...

Jo Piazza failed at being a momfluencer.  She is a bestselling author, journalist and creator of Under The Influence podcast.  Her hilarious, and frankly a little horrifying take on how social media influences so much of our lives and how  the commodification of every single aspect of our lives is driving everyone ( but mostly girls, women and mothers) a little insane is on point.   We dive into a...

Lenore Skenazy is no stranger to doing hard things and sitting in the discomfort of letting your child explore their independence.  In 2008 she wrote an article about allowing her 9 year old son to ride a New York City subway all the way home, by himself.  The backlash from the public and media was swift…to say the least.   Lenore says our kids are smarter, safer, and stronger than our culture giv...

Kris Harrison, PhD is an expert in the relationships families have with media. As the Richard Cole imminent professor in the Hussman School of Journalism and Media at the University of North Carolina Chapel Hill, she studies children and media in a family context. Recently, Kris focused on children's use of media devices and content for sensory regulation and how this is connected with parent-chil...

Christina Crook is a pioneer and leading voice in digital well-being. The award-winning author of The Joy of Missing Out: Finding Balance in a Wired World, harbinger of the global #JOMO movement, and Good Burdens: How to Live Joyfully in a Digital Age, Christina shares her insights about technology and our daily lives. Listen and learn about living joyfully, managing tech and more!  

KOSA (Kids Online Safety Act) provides families with the tools, safeguards, and transparency they need to protect against threats to children's health and well-being online. The legislation would require social media platforms put the interests of children first by requiring these platforms to make safety the default.  Contact your Senators to urge Senate Majority Leader Schumer to bring KOSA (The...

Tiffany Shlain (@tiffanyshlain) was living life online to the fullest when a series of life-altering events led her to value being present with the people in front of you over digital distraction.   As her father lay dying of brain cancer while she was experiencing a high-risk pregnancy, Tiffany took to turning off all digital connections one day a week.  Calling upon the ancient observance of Sha...

Heed the Children is committed to the protection of children from destructive effects of smartphones and social media and the effects that they're having on kids' mental and physical health. This petite powerhouse has passion, dedication and a blueprint for you to set up your own parent group in your community!  Learn all about it in this episode.  

Dr. John S. Hutton  is a pioneer in the realm of brain development. His JAMA published MRI research showed the results of screen overuse in the brains of young children: disorganized white matter. This is concerning for a variety of reasons. Today we discuss the best ways to start healthy brain growth and development with babies and toddlers….hint….it's easier than you think...and it doesn't invol...

As  Healthy Screen Habits continues to grow and learn with all of you we see so many great things happening.  Around the country I am wanting to hand out gold stars to parents who I see are choosing to use screens intentionally.  They are packing toys, hot wheels and coloring pages for traveling - I see parents in waiting rooms who are using their phones in the best possible way to connect with th...

The remembrances of perfect events are lovely - but the ones that bring down the house with laughter?  I gotta say - those are the ones that involve ill timed stomach flus, ½ lit Christmas trees, and misunderstood ingredients….I'm saying this because I'm reminding you AND ME that mistakes are where the memories are made. Please don't make the mistake this year of gifting fully loaded smart phones...

Since 2013, the Children and Screens Institute @childrenandscreens has been a leading curator of experts in the field of digital media and children's health. This week, I got  to talk to the Executive Director: Kris Perry. If you use technology, if you have any interaction with children, if you are interested in the effects of digital media,  you need to hear this episode!  

Since 2018, Bill Brady has focused on providing children with healthier solutions for using technology. He  is the co-founder and CEO of Troomi Wireless, @TroomiWireless, a mobile phone platform designed to improve kids' mental health through a safe and balanced relationship with technology. As a husband and father of 5, Bill gets it!  He understands the challenges of parenting today. Bill and his...

As the current National Advisor for Health Education and Media Literacy at  Media Literacy Now, Tamara Sobel is deeply committed to helping parents and schools gain healthy screen habits.  The founder of the Girls Women and Media Project, she led one of the first organizations focused on activism and education to raise awareness and improve images of girls and women in the media. She's a certified...

When you install an app on your phone -  you know the "permissions" setting?  The one that says you don't want this app to track your movements across all platforms?  Meet the guy who brought that to you: Javier Aguera. He's currently working on something new, a method and set of highly practical tools that will create a journey toward a child's ownership of their first smartphone. It is is rooted...

Alex Basche is a psychotherapist (LMFT) based in the SF Bay Area (ie: the heart of Silicon Valley). He works mainly with adolescents and young adults, specializing in the treatment of tech-related behavioral addictions such as gaming, social media, pornography, online gambling & shopping in addition to substance use disorders.   In this episode we discuss how to bridge online gaming with offline t...

Aniko Hill made a career of mastering marketing and social media.  Fast forward to pandemic times when we all were living online and she recognized that the same techniques she used professionally were keeping her son hooked on tech. Aniko took a deep dive into the digital wellness pond and co-founded DopaMind, an upcoming non-profit whose mission is to educate kids about brain science and let the...

We know that what kids see on screens or the content they consume can have serious effects on offline living. Dr. Jon-Patrick Allem is an Associate Professor at the Rutgers School of Public Health and Rutgers, Robert Wood Johnson Medical School, he is also a core member of the Institute for Nicotine and Tobacco Studies.  Jon's research shows the different ways that corporations influence adolescen...

Jessica Spear is the author of The Phone Book. Stay Safe, Be Smart, and Make the World Better With the Powerful Device in Your Hand.  It is just the latest of books she has written that help tweens and teens become their best selves. We talk about all of the fun things included in her book (think puzzles, code breaking, trivia and more!) as well as why tweens and teens make amazing teachers. If yo...

How is pornography affecting our kids sexual development? Dr. Gail Dines has been researching and writing about the harms of pornography for over 30 years. Using scientific studies and data as the backbone to her organization; Culture Reframed, Gail explores behavioral and mental problems that arise with early/ongoing exposure to pornography. On this episode, Gail shares parenting tips on how to t...