A Bermudian researcher and professor at the University of Washington moderated a webinar aimed at assisting adults in managing teens’ use of smartphones and social media.

Katie Davis, who works within the institute’s Information School and is co-director of its UW Centre for Digital Youth, shared ongoing research about adult development, executive functioning, emotional regulation and problematic media use while offering practical insights for parents and caregivers.

Hosted by US non-profit Children and Screens, the online panel titled “From Meltdowns to Mindfulness — Self Regulation in a Digital World Part 2: Adolescence” followed from an earlier chapter dealing with the same subject and how it affects early childhood.

Both are available on the website.

Other panellists included Jason Chein, professor chair elect for the Department of Psychology and Neuroscience at Temple University; Clifford Sussman, a child and adolescent psychiatrist; and Greg Wadley, senior lecturer at the University of Melbourne.

Dr Davis’s research examines how digital technology shapes young people’s learning, development and wellbeing, with a focus on designing healthier digital experiences for youth and families.

She is the author of several books exploring technology’s role in children’s lives.

During the panel, Dr Davis explained that attributes of self-regulation include goal setting, reflection, planning and self-monitoring.

She said: “Adolescents have a lot more on their plate — they are doing more and they are thinking more about what they are going to be in the world.

“These skills all take centre stage in adolescence and if they can get them right in this stage of development, it really sets them up for success.

“When teens are having a lot more going on, and they are also increasingly sensitive to social feedback and attention, it’s making things like long-term planning difficult.

“Combine that with their still-developing prefrontal cortex — their self-control system — and it is really hard for teens to engage in self-regulating behaviours.”

Dr Davis shared a few common features of social-media platforms such as infinite scroll and feeds that are algorithmically curated to show engaging, highly personalised content.

She asked the panel to consider the social aspect of social media: the likes, comments, tagging and notifications.

She said: “In our work at the Centre for Digital Youth, we spend a lot of time asking if we design a better social-media experience for teens.

“We developed a mobile app intervention called Locus to promote teens’ intentional social-media use.

“It allows us to control how a teen enters into any given social-media app that they may have on their phone.

“They are prompted, not every time but maybe once or twice a day, to think about what their intention is for using social media.

“At the end of the day, they are promoted again on their home screen to reflect on their use during the day and to plan for the next day.

“Once we developed Locus, we asked if it helped them to experience greater self control and agency.”

After students used the app for a two-week period, Dr Davis said their self-control and autonomy increased while absentmindedness decreased.

One student who took part said: “I started to use social media a lot more as a communication platform rather than a way to escape boredom.

“Now I use it more as a platform to see what’s going on in my friends’ lives and things that they’re doing.”

Dr Davis told the gathering: “The key insight from this work was that it is possible to design a social-media experience that supports teen self-regulation and it also helps us to reframe the problem.

“In our work, we try to shift the onus from the individual to the design of the platform, how the design of the social-media platform is problematic and what can we do about it. We are putting so much on teens and parents and families to just have more self-control.

“As a parent, I encourage you to talk with other parents, try to develop community norms. I see in my research teens developing their own norms and it is very powerful.

“Tell your school what you think about their device use policy, whether you think it is working or not.

“You can also influence policymakers to design it better.

“There are non-profits in states across the country and Children in Screens does a fantastic job on the national level.”

Dr Davis said before legislative and policy changes come about, parents can initiate conversations with their children without judgment while exploring solutions together.

“Work with your teens to co-develop strategies with them for how everyone in the family is going to handle their phones and social media.

“Change the default settings on your phone. The average teens gets about 250 notifications a day. You can change that by shutting the notifications off.

“Explore platform and device safety features. You can figure them out with enough time and they can help you.

“If you want some support helping to get those conversations started, the American Academy of Paediatrics has some fantastic conversation starters that were developed by the Centre of Excellence for Social Media and Youth Mental Health. I encourage you to check those out as well.”

• The webinar can be viewed atwww.childrenandscreens.org