Left To Their Own Devices: Bonus Panel Discussion

Episode: Building Healthy Digital Habits for Youth
Host: Toronto Star—Carrie Marsh
Guests: Ava Smithing (host, Left to Their Own Devices), Dr. Michelle Locke (clinical psychologist)
Date: February 2, 2026

Episode Overview

This bonus panel brings together journalist Carrie Marsh, digital safety advocate Ava Smithing, and clinical psychologist Dr. Michelle Locke for an urgent, candid discussion on how devices and the digital world are shaping children’s development, mental health, and family life. Moving beyond mere screen time statistics, the panel debates the addictive quality of social media, rising cases of digital harm, the limits of parental awareness and control, and the collective role of communities and policy. The conversation explores both risks and opportunities, and spotlights strategies for families seeking a healthier relationship with technology in the 21st century.

Key Discussion Points and Insights

1. The Landscape: Devices, Digital Access, and Usage

• Widespread Use:
  • "90% of Canadian teens have access and use social media; 82% use it daily. Similar trends in America." —Ava Smithing [01:30]
  • Major platforms: YouTube, TikTok, Instagram (take up 87% of teen screen time).
• Usage Patterns & Concerns:
  • "47% of teens are spending up to 45 hours a week on social media." —Ava [01:30]
  • Heavy users report worse mental health outcomes.
  • Although some reports suggest declining engagement post-2022, "we're still sitting around 90% of young people using social media every day up to... five hours a day.” —Ava [02:45]

2. Screen Time is About More Than Time: The Neuroscience of Addiction

• Social Media as Digital Dopamine:

  • "Social media triggers the same dopamine release that substance abuse would trigger." —Ava paraphrasing Dr. Anna Lembke [03:44]
  • “After...that initial dopamine surge...the brain responds by decreasing the amount of dopamine that it's naturally emitting...creates a chronic deficit." —Ava [04:00]
  • The constant access (“It’s in your pocket”) makes it more insidious and harder to regulate.

• Behavioral Signs in Children:

  • "Kids can't tolerate boredom...they have really poor frustration tolerance..." —Dr. Michelle Locke [06:02]
  • Dopamine dependency explains why activities like coloring or reading seem dull in comparison to fast-rewarding device interactions.

3. Parental Blindspots and the Scale of Digital Risks

• Generational Gap:
  • "Most parents right now, we just didn't grow up in a world where we had these things..." —Michelle [07:31]
  • "It's not your kid I don't trust…it's the Internet, it's the algorithm that will find your child." [08:03]
• Parental Powerlessness:
  • Features like location tracking and direct stranger contact on apps such as Snapchat often go unnoticed by parents. [08:20]
• The Illusion of Safety:
  • "When an app is free...but that same company...is opening at billions of dollars...they are making their money from our attention, our beliefs, our attitudes, and our behaviors." —Michelle [09:32]

4. The Spectrum of Digital Harm

• Acute Dangers:
  • Eating disorders (esp. among young women): “One in five young women have eating disorders nowadays.” —Ava [10:39]
  • Sextortion: “Snapchat gets 10,000 reports of sextortion a month. It's just unacceptable.” —Ava [11:12]
• Everyday Costs:
  • Beyond extreme cases: "It’s hurting the quality of their life...taking away the amount of time that they have to do other things.” —Ava [12:00]
  • “What I just think about is the kind of humans we're raising...” —Michelle [14:04]
  • Loss of adult guidance: “Something happened around 2010 where that stopped occurring. And kids looked to look a lot more to peers because they have such chronic and constant access.” —Michelle [14:37]

5. When Parents Realize There’s a Problem

• Typical Patterns:
  • Early intervention (ages 2-5): Even small changes like removing iPads reveal major behavior shifts. [16:15]
  • Adolescent rabbit holes: "Parents don't typically realize until it's really bad...police [get] involved, until pictures have been leaked, until their child's at the center of a cyberbullying incident…” —Michelle [17:28]
• Addiction is Systemic, Not Individual:
  • "If we make tech addiction a medical diagnosis, we're really saying there's something within the child...it's not within us, it’s within the device." —Michelle [19:23]

6. Not All Bad: Social Media as Lifeline and Community

• Community-Building:
  • "Young people in the South…say that social media is a crucial part to their mental health and well being and…community." —Ava [21:15]
  • “It's the most marginalized communities who are finding the most benefit, but also most susceptible to harm.” [22:23]
• Reframing the Conversation:
  • "We need to start to lend credit to future iterations of what social media could look like and how social and beneficial those are…” —Ava [23:25]

7. Solutions: Regulation, Collective Action, and Education

• Role of Regulation:
  • “If we don't…we're going to see a progression of what's already happening.” —Michelle [25:24]
  • Government age minimums, platform accountability, and digital literacy are all necessary, similar to car safety: “We engineer safe cars ... we set ages for driving ... and then we teach driver's education.” —Michelle [27:14]
• Support for Parents:
  • Regulations would “make it so much easier for them to hold boundaries from a young age, start to have early conversations with their kids, etc.” —Michelle [28:25]

8. Youth Voice and Advocacy

• Narrative Storytelling and Co-creation:
  • “The narrative is what is most valuable to policymakers.” —Ava [29:51]
  • Including youth in policy: “…co-creating and including young people in the design of legislation is so incredibly important.” [29:56]
• Examples:
  • Gen Z AI project at McGill: Youth build recommendations on digital safety.
  • NoSo (No Social Media November): “It's demonstrating consumer power directly from young people, but it's also bringing out so much solidarity.” —Ava on Maddie Freeman’s campaign [33:22]
  • “It’s a lot easier to delete Instagram if your best friends are not on it too.” [33:44]
• Parent Collectives:
  • “If a group of parents comes together and says, we're delaying the provision of smartphones...the relief is immense.” —Michelle [35:08]

9. Best Practices for Healthy Digital Habits

• With Younger Children:

  • Delay introduction of personal devices as long as possible.
  • Consistent, predictable rules matter more than minute-counting.
  • “How do your kids act when they come off a certain show or another show, like pay attention to them.” —Michelle [55:52]
  • Prefer TV over tablets/phones; avoid open-ended, short-form content (like YouTube autoplay or TikTok).
  • “Turn off the autoplay. Anything with the bottomless bowl, the infinite scroll, is where we get into…” —Ava [57:55]

• With Older Children and Teens:

  • Start conversations by asking what they enjoy about social media, not what they hate or should avoid:
    • “My advice that I always give to parents is to start on a positive note. Ask your kid what they like about social media.” —Ava [37:08]
  • Model digital habits; acknowledge your own device use.
    • “It is much better to lead by example than to tell someone what to do and not to do.” —Ava [46:43]
  • Collaborative boundary-setting: “If adolescents that age don't feel attacked, they're so much more willing to listen.” —Michelle [45:00]
  • "Permission to change the plan" even if you did things differently with older siblings. [54:44]

• Setting Up Devices and Contracts:

  • Parents “own” devices and lend them with clear rules.
  • Device setup and expectation before gifting—"when they first get it, set parameters: when, where, how” —Michelle [41:08]
  • No devices in bedrooms or at school unless necessary.

• Digital Literacy and Early Conversations:

  • Talk about what AI is, what online risks exist, and how algorithms work.
  • “Having these conversations when kids are young...is education, right?” —Michelle [42:04]

Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On Setting the Stage:
  • "We gave children the most powerful tools in human history. Then, we left them to their own devices." —Carrie Marsh [00:05]
• On Parent Knowledge:
  • "We like to imagine that it's not harmful. We like to imagine that our kids are being pro-social online.” —Michelle [07:31]
• On Ubiquity of Online Harms:
  • "The Internet...is the algorithm that will find your child." —Michelle [08:03]
• On Everyday Harm:
  • “It is hurting the quality of their life...an entire part of this generation...is experiencing someone robbing their childhood from them, their most formative years.” —Ava [12:32]
• On Collective Action:
  • “It just takes a few friends to sort of shift that.” —Michelle, on parents and youth delaying smartphones or trying screen-free months [35:34]
• Best Practical Advice:
  • “Turn off the autoplay...the anticipation of that reward...is enough to release a low level of dopamine.” —Ava [57:55]
• On Parental Self-Reflection:
  • “You’ve got to check yourself...I would never let my mother tell me anything about my screen time use because I could always go to her phone and open her settings and say, look at yours.” —Ava [46:43]
• On Regulation and Policy:
  • "We need to count on the companies who make these products and the government to help us do this. In the absence of that, we're really going to get stuck." —Michelle [60:21]

Timestamps for Key Segments

• Intro & Panel Introductions: 00:05–01:17
• Digital Usage Stats and Concerns: 01:30–03:04
• The Neuroscience of Social Media Addiction: 03:44–06:00
• Parental Awareness & Gaps: 07:03–10:04
• Digital Risks (EDs, Sextortion, Apathy): 10:39–13:50
• When Parents Notice Trouble: 15:36–18:07
• Positive Effects & Community Online: 20:55–24:15
• Regulation, Policy, and Parental Support: 25:05–29:20
• Advocacy and Youth Involvement: 29:51–34:59
• Best Practices—Younger vs. Older Kids: 37:01–46:14
• School and Devices: 48:34–52:17
• Content Matters: Good vs. Bad Screen Time: 55:34–59:47
• Host’s Closing Summary & Final Thoughts: 59:47–60:57

Summary of Actionable Takeaways

• Digital habits are learned and modeled—lead by example.
• Collaborative, open conversations about social media are more effective than bans or lectures.
• Push for policy change: Platform accountability, government regulation, and digital literacy education are all crucial.
• Not all screen time is equal—avoid personal devices & infinite scroll; prefer shared screens and defined time/space limits.
• Early, consistent boundaries make a difference; it's never too late to adjust and improve family digital hygiene.

Resources and Further Information

• Podcast: Ava Smithing’s Left to Their Own Devices (for in-depth stories)
• Organizations: Children First Canada’s “Countdown for Kids” and Unplugged (Dr. Michelle Locke)
• Notable Advocacy/Research: Gen Z AI at McGill; NoSo (No Social Media November); Half the Story (school phone bans)
• Books Mentioned: Dopamine Nation – Dr. Anna Lembke; Hold On to Your Kids

An engaging and urgent conversation, this panel lays the groundwork for families, communities, and policymakers to reexamine our relationship with the digital world and ensure we’re not leaving the next generation—literally and figuratively—to their own devices.