Clear answers about screen time, first phones, online risks, difficult conversations and what to do when your child cannot stop.
Meta settlement guide
See how the two-hour limit, midnight block and new parent controls affect teen accounts, and what the agreement does not fix.
Advice From Working With Parents
I do not have children, but I have worked with many parents. I have seen how difficult excessive screen use can become when the problem is left to grow. Here are the boundaries and changes I would consider.
Read Michael’s advice for parents →Choose the question that is closest to what is happening in your family.
The difference between a child who uses screens a lot and a child in real trouble, what to do this week, and where to get help that costs nothing.
Start here if it is already a problem
Under 2, 2 to 5, 6 to 9, 10 to 12, 13 to 15 and 16 to 18. What the guidance says at each age, the main risk, how much sleep they need, and what screens push out.
Age by age
What the ownership figures actually show, what the campaigns recommend, and the smartwatches and basic phones that give you a way to reach them without giving them a feed.
The big decision
More than 50,000 reports in 2025 and at least three dozen boys dead. It targets teenage boys, it moves in hours, and one sentence said in advance is the best protection there is.
Most urgent
86% of children aged 9 to 17 now use AI and 11% say it understands them better than most people. What these companions are, what has already gone wrong, and what to do.
Newest risk
Why confiscation teaches concealment, the sentence that puts you on the same side of the problem, and how to raise it so the conversation continues afterwards.
The conversation
The research in full: what is not in dispute, what is genuinely contested, the case made by Haidt's critics, and my answer to it.
The research
The organisations worth knowing, the books worth reading, the films worth watching together, and what to ask your child's school for.
Directory
Both are fiction from Michael's book Entranced. Read them together, then talk about what felt familiar.
A man gives the boys everything they ask for. It does not make them free.
A mother's son returns after fourteen months unable to look out of a window.
Personal stories and darker scenes about children, parents and screens.
A woman unplugs the router for a moment and discovers how much the household depends on it.
Adults and children meet after a long separation, but work calls, phones and a Nintendo Switch keep taking over the visit.
A sourced account of sudden tic-like behaviours spreading through social media, with the uncertainty left in.
A dark scene about impaired choice and persuasive technology.