How To Deal With Phone Addiction and Get Safe Alternatives with Hidden Strength Founder Linsey Lunny
Nomophobia, the fear of being without a mobile device, is a real word, and phone addiction is something many of us share.
In this episode, Linsey Lunny, founder and CEO of Hidden Strength, talks about what phone addiction can look like and how it can affect children's mental health. As a mom of two, she explains why open conversations work better than strict prohibitions, and shares practical ideas such as screen time limits, phone-free dinners and family game nights.
What you'll learn in this episode
Phone addiction has a name. The episode opens with the word nomophobia. Marijo mentions there are about 6.8 billion smartphone users on the planet, and shares a figure from her notes that 6.3% of them have a phone addiction.
Start educating early. Linsey says we should teach children about phone addiction and social media from a very young age. She says we tend to underestimate young people, and that many already know how harmful phone addiction can be for their mental health.
Talk with your kids instead of just saying no. Linsey says repeated "no, no, no" can put barriers up. Her approach is to educate, avoid showing too many scary things online, and discuss both the negatives and the positives of social media.
Explain the why. When her daughter was 11 and wanted TikTok, Linsey says they read the terms and conditions together and talked about why she did not want her to have it at that age. Linsey says her daughter understood and still does not have TikTok.
Help older kids understand algorithms. Linsey says teenagers should know how algorithms work and how to protect themselves online. Marijo shares that she stopped getting videos she did not want once she realized she kept watching them.
Teach children to connect face to face. Linsey says children often turn to phones to find connection and belonging. She encourages parents to build open dialogue and face-to-face communication skills early so kids lean on smartphones less.
Set screen time limits and block sites. Linsey uses screen time limits on Apple devices, no iPads on school days and a weekend limit that they can talk about. She has also blocked sites such as YouTube on her son's device, so he asks to watch things together with her.
Educate yourself first, and have alternatives ready. Linsey suggests parents learn about games as well as social media. Her family brings cars and drawing supplies on outings, keeps phones off the dinner table, and plays Uno and holds regular game nights.
Use the phone for good. Linsey says her free Hidden Strength app for ages 13 to 24 offers a mental well-being content library and text-based sessions with qualified therapists. She says it is live in the UK and she hopes to launch in the US soon.
About the guest: Linsey Lunny
Linsey Lunny is the founder and CEO of Hidden Strength, a unique mental health platform for young people. Hidden Strength offers meaningful support, advice and guidance in a safe, anonymous environment. Support is both peer to peer and in the form of fully qualified therapists available on demand using secure virtual environments. Linsey is also a mom of two.
Hidden Strength website: hiddenstrength.com
Hidden Strength on Instagram: instagram.com/hiddenstrengthuk
Hidden Strength on LinkedIn: linkedin.com/company/hidden-strength-uk
This episode is for general information only and is not medical or mental health advice. If you are concerned about your child's mental health or well-being, talk with your own doctor or a qualified health provider.
Enjoyed this episode? Subscribe to the podcast by emailing subscribe@teachingyourtoddler.com, and leave a 5-star review or a thumbs up so we can reach more parents like you.
Full episode transcript
Read the full transcript
Intro (recorded)
Nomophobia is phone addiction. There's actually a word for it. There are 6.8 billion phone smartphone users on the planet, and many of them are addicted to their phone. Today's guest, Linsey Lunny, is going to help us understand a little bit more about what that looks like, how that manifests, the effect it has on our kids, and then also give us some ideas that are really fun and helpful in helping alleviate some of the phone addiction. Linsey is the founder and CEO of an app called Hidden Strength. It is a mental health platform for young people. They offer meaningful support, advice, and guidance in a safe anonymous environment.
The support is both peer-to-peer as well as in the form of fully qualified therapists available on demand using secure environments. It is all free and it's an amazing resource that is available right now in the UK and hopefully soon in the United States. So, please welcome Linsey Lunny to the Teaching Your Toddler Show.
Marijo: Hello, this is Marijo Tinlin from the Teaching Your Toddler Show. Today we have a great guest to talk to us about an a subject that is extremely important and one that affects a lot of us. Please welcome to the show Linsey Lunny. Linsey, welcome to the show. Tell us a little bit about yourself.
Linsey: Well, thank you so much for having me today. I'm Linsey. I'm the founder and CEO of the Hidden Strength Foundation, which is predominantly an app that we have built for children and young people aged 13 to 24 to help them with their mental health and their mental well-being. So, obviously the topic of today's conversation is quite close to our hearts because obviously the app is based on a phone.
Marijo: Absolutely. So tell us a little bit about phone addiction and I know for most of the listeners they may have children who are really young and so they may not be addicted yet but maybe we can talk a little bit about how to prevent that but then we'll also what can we do to address that
Linsey: Of course absolutely I think I think it's really important for people to understand that you know we need to educate our children from a really early age around all types of phone addiction and issues around kind of you know social media. You know I think we tend to have this ability to kind of underestimate our young people. You know, a lot of the young people are fully aware of actually how bad phone addiction can be on their mental health and their mental well-being, but they almost need people to help them get through this rather than a parent. I mean, I have children myself. I have a son who is 10 and my daughter who is 14, nearly 15.
And the thing I have always been really strong on is talking to them rather than just saying no no no which you know can really it can really put barriers up. My my whole stance has always been educate them teach them don't show them too many of the scary things online but talk to them about you know the negatives and the positives of things like social media. Talk about the, you know, how phone addiction can have such a detrimental effect on their their mental, you know, mental health, mental well-being. You know, I talk quite a lot with my daughter actually around social media. She she spent a long time with me looking through, bizarrely enough, the terms and conditions of TikTok.
Because I wanted to understand I wanted her to understand. This wasn't her mom saying no, no, no, you can't have TikTok. It's the reason I don't want you to have TikTok at such an early age is because of this. And actually, she really understood it and appreciated the conversation. And actually, to this day, she doesn't have TikTok, which I know that's a bit of a
Marijo: Congratulations.
Linsey: Not quite sure how well I've done on that one. Let's see with my son. He's a different ball game, but
Marijo: Right. That's an amazing approach to kind of I mean she's old enough that she could clearly she could understand that but I love that you sort of were like hey look it says we're not supposed to do this right.
Linsey: Yeah. And it was actually when she was 11 because her school all of her friends had TikTok. They were doing the TikTok dances and she was like mommy I want to I want to get involved. And it was really hard as a parent to sit there and almost isolate your child from her friends because she doesn't have TikTok. But I sat her down and I said, "Look, this is this is what TikTok is and this is what TikTok does. And and you know, if you understand that, then maybe you might have a different, you know, a different opinion on something like TikTok. So, I'm not, by the way, I'm not here to bash just TikTok.
Marijo: Sure. No, I mean, any of them, right?
Linsey: Just, you know, and actually she's she's she's just got her first Instagram account at 14. And again it's around talking to her around safety and how to protect herself online and how things like algorithms work. And I think that is vital. And I know obviously that your audience have younger children, but for older teenagers, understanding how algorithms work is, I think, so important.
Marijo: Oh my goodness. Yeah. Because they have no idea that when they're why do I keep seeing an you know animal videos or workout videos or whatever, right? Like what once they understand here's why you're seeing them then then that would help I think a lot. In fact, that that helped me. I got I kept getting served these like I don't know dance videos or something and I don't know I feel finally realized I was like it's because I keep watching them. I don't want to see these but so I stopped interacting and guess what I don't get them anymore.
So anyway, well, so I know that I have some stats here from the notes that I got that there are that there are there's 6.8 billion people on smartphones on the on the planet of which 6.3% have a phone addiction. So and that there's actually a word nomophobia that means phone addiction or behavior and addiction I guess is a it says phone addiction is a behavior addiction known as nomophobia. So it exists clearly. So what are some of these things that people need to know about phone addiction for either themselves or their children?
Linsey: I think you know phone addiction is we're all we're all guilty of phone addiction. I think to a certain extent I know I am. You know it's the ease of life now isn't it? You know everything's at the touch of a button. It's touch of the screen. I think from from a social media standpoint, I think education is really important from a really early age to understand and I think that would help relieve the phone addiction to a certain extent because if they understand social media a little bit better, it's not the constant need to be on it to be kind of, you know, looking for a source of connection, which is The problem is we've kind of created this situation where children no longer communicate.
They don't talk to one another. You know, that was pretty much how hidden strength the app came about because there is a need for young people to get help in a form that they understood which is text. You know, they they struggle to communicate from face to face. So I think the great thing about your audience is there is an opportunity for them to change this from a really early age to teach their children to communicate, have that open relationship, have that open dialogue, teach them how to have face-to-face conversations and relationships and encourage that because then they're not gravitating towards a smartphone to find that connection, which is what they're doing, whether they are, you know, struggling with school work or friendship groups or just trying desperately to feel like they belong.
If you give them that that kind of I guess building blocks from an early age on how to do that as an individual, they won't go to the smartphone or the social media platforms as much to crave that that connection which is which is why they have been so popular. And obviously there is the side where they're all kind of designed by people that can help them have that addiction, but ultimately it's we've created a situation where our young people just can't communicate anymore. So we have to reprogram the next generation, I guess.
Marijo: Yeah. Right. I mean, it is a programming, right? They're they're they're set in the way that they either communicate or they don't communicate. And yeah, I definitely have seen that in my kids, they're a little older now. But I'm actually shocked that my youngest who is 17, he actually uses the phone. He actually like talks to people and he seems fine if you have to talk to someone. Which I'm I'm shocked by because my older ones who are in their early 20s, they don't want to talk on the phone at all. I mean it's almost like they don't know that the phone is actually a phone like for actually calling people.
It's more for like you said you know texting or certainly social media and that kind of thing. So it is interesting how it does manifest differently in different different people. Right.
Linsey: Absolutely. And I do I do think you know there is a I do think the next generation are craving that they are you know they want they want to be listened to. They want to be heard. They want people to understand that this isn't their fault and it isn't their fault. We we've created the legacy for them. You know, we created the situation and they've unfortunately the The result of it. So, I do I do think if you listen to the gen next generation and you know, I listen to my daughter, they're all desperate. They're all desperate to not be like this. And and it's about helping them on that road.
And and I know I've created an app, which is slightly ironic. We're talking about phone addiction, but there's a place for good as well. There is a place, you know, that we can we can use things like the phone for good. It doesn't have to be negative. You know, we with hidden strength, we are able to access the young people in the comfort of their own home so that they feel they feel able to open up and share. You know, you know, they're struggling with the face to face as we mentioned. So, what we're doing is creating a platform for them to feel comfortable to open up.
It could be used for good, but you know, and but it teaching them, like I said, that it's just moving away from this desperation to feel connected through social media. And that's where the kind of addiction comes, I think.
Marijo: Mhm. So, since you've mentioned it several times, tell us a little bit about Hidden Strength. I didn't realize that it was like through text, but they actually have the core audience, they actually have access to therapists, right?
Linsey: Qualified therapists. Yes. Like I said, in the comfort of their own home, just because The way that obviously the next generation are, they they find it very difficult to have that face-toface conversation. So what we've done is almost ironically created a mental health version of a social media platform. Very ironic, I know, but it means that the demographic find it very easy to navigate and understand. But again, like I said, it's it's kind of using the phone for good rather than for a negative. And I'd much rather they spend 20 minutes, half an hour having a look through our kind of mental well-being library Rather than being on Snapchat.
So, it's it's kind of little things like that.
Marijo: Tell tell us a little bit about those kinds of things like they have access to the library you just said to the therapists. How does how does it all work?
Linsey: So, there's two parts to the app mainly. There's, like I said, the mentor, it's called our help zone, which is a huge bank of content around kind of TikTok style videos and kind of we have an Instagram style story feed, but it's all around mental health, mental well-being to really empower the young person to feel back in control of their situation. It could be about anxiety, friendship group issues, exam stress, anything that can kind of really cause our young people additional worries. And we're super proud of that.
But what we're really proud of is what we've built is the therapy hub which allows young people to access qualified therapists and have either a kind of a 20-minute touch point which is almost like a triage and then once they've done that they can have a 40-minute text-based therapy session with our qualified therapists.
Marijo: Oh that's amazing. What how does how is the pricing work for that? How is that pricing structured?
Linsey: I believe really strongly in making sure that young people have access to free qualified support. Young people should not have to pay for mental health support because you know I live in the UK as well as in the US you know just because your parents have money you shouldn't have to you know it shouldn't mean that you can get support and someone else doesn't. So it should break down the barriers from a society point of view. Children should have access to qualified support.
Marijo: Wow. That is a great that's a great model. I mean it's hard to say no to that if it's if it's free. That's the right price.
Linsey: Yes. Exactly. Because you know financial barriers are huge for young people getting support And you know they like we just said they they they have the phone addiction. And they're on social media or they're gaming or they're doing any, you know, these things that, you know, are are really destructive for their mental well-being and then they can't afford to get support to help them. Where's the outlet? Where's where are they able to get that help? It just causes, you know, the situation to get worse for them.
Marijo: And do you I know in the notes it says it's from 13 to 24. If a if a child that's younger than that comes to you, how can are you allowed to address them or is that because is that your TNC like you said your terms and conditions? Do you have to be that?
Linsey: At the moment it's 13 through legislation. We have a really amazing safeguarding team to make sure that everybody is safe and secure on the platform. We have banking level security on the app. But due to kind of regulatory wise under 13 young children are unable to kind of almost make those decisions for themselves. So right now it's 13. Our hope is once we get bigger to lower that to 10 because we all know young people are on social media platforms before the age of 13. But that's that's our hope as we get old, you know, grow bigger to be able to help younger children.
Marijo: That's great. I'm glad you said that about banking level security because I'm sure people are concerned about their children's safety from from A mom.
Linsey: I built it as a mom as well. I built it wanting to know that if my children use the platform, they were 100% safe. So, we have banking level security on the app. They can't communicate within the app, but they can obviously, you know, speak to therapists, but they can't communicate with each other. At the moment. So, it's it's just really important that they're secure and they are and they feel safe.
Marijo: Absolutely. Absolutely. So, what are some of the tips that you have for if a mom is listening and they're like, "oh, I give my kid the iPad while we're at the restaurant or whatever, what am I doing to my child? Are there some things that you would recommend for parents to have some safety around being on social med or not social media but devices of any kind?
Linsey: We're all culprits of that by the way. I have many a time given my children an iPad. But I think first and foremost we need to educate ourselves. I think as a parent we need to spend some time understanding the other side to game of games not just social media there's games there's many you know roadblocks etc take some time to educate yourself I did you know I make my friends many times to educate yourself first so that you are informed on how to kind of navigate it with your children and as I said from an early age I have been very open and honest with my children about games, social media and kind of really talking to them about why we have limits.
I have screen time limits with my children which is very easy to do on we're an Apple device family so it's very easy to put screen times in. I discussed it particularly with my son because he's slightly younger and I sat sat him down and I say you know we don't do iPads during the week we're at school and at weekends we have a limit and if you want if you're doing something and we want to discuss having an additional 15 20 minutes then let's talk about it but what it actually does is get the children to stop and think how long they've already been on the platform.
If you give them screen time for 30 minutes and it comes up, it makes them stop and think that actually I've done my time. And and many times they'll go, "Okay, I'm done. And off they go. By the way, I don't have all the answers and I get things wrong a lot. But putting the screen time part, like the screen time limits in place was a really big thing for my children. And they really understand and appreciate it as well. The other thing I did was I blocked certain websites and things on their iPads devices particularly YouTube. You can block websites like that. It's difficult because even as my son at 10, he gets sent YouTube videos and things like that and TikTok videos and I've blocked them from his device.
So, he has to come to me and say, "Oh, mommy, my friend sent me this. Can you can I look at it with you? And I'll go, "Well, let me let me watch it first and Then we together. So, there's many things you can do to kind of almost limit the screen time and kind of have that conversation with them.
Marijo: Those are great ideas. Yeah, that's excellent. And and also just finding things that don't involve the screen, right?
Linsey: Absolutely. There's so many things, you know, and kind of really tapping into their My son loves cars, so wherever we go, we take cars and you know, and my daughter loves to draw. So, always being armed with alternatives, You know, it does help, but if you can put measures in place to prevent it, that's And also, I didn't give my husband the screen time password because he's the soft one out of the two of us.
Marijo: Well done. I can totally understand that. That's hilarious. And I there was a there's a great blog post on the Hidden Strength website also that kind of says like if you have 15 minutes, you can do this. If you have a half an hour, you could do this. You know, if you have an 45 minutes, you could cook something, right? If you like, when you said drawing, I think that reminded me, one of them was, you know, draw a picture instead of, you know, 15 minutes on TikTok or whatever, like be productive. And so I love that there's some options and ideas on there for that.
That's that's fantastic.
Linsey: There's there's there's so many options you can do, you know, and it and it's about kind of just finding something that they enjoy. Recently, we've been traveling to the States a lot and we always go out for dinner in the evening. We don't do any phones at the table And we play Uno And my kids Love it and so we have game night. So when we travel we always take games and now every other kind of well every few weeks we do game night with my mom and family and the kids love it and the whole deal is no phones.
Marijo: Mhm. Mhm. That's amazing. We've recently started doing that too with our son and with his girlfriend's family and it's so fun especially if everybody's like not super not super competitive and like nobody's making it awkward but man it's so much fun to like you know just play all the different kinds of games. I love that about Uno. And yeah, she my son's girlfriend's family, she's actually taught us a bunch of like game card games and I just like you said, you know, everybody puts their phone away and often it'll go one or two hours where you don't touch and it's like that is so refreshing and amazing.
I love that.
Linsey: They almost ask for it now, don't they? I mean, my son is like, "Can we play Uno? Can we play Uno? Every time we go out for dinner, it's like is who's packed the Uno? So, it's
Marijo: That's great.
Linsey: It helps and by the way I like I said I don't have all the answers but I've you know you tried and tested a few things
Marijo: For sure. I mean you're definitely very aware of it clearly because of your line of work and so that's I mean I think it's great to have those ideas. Is there anything before I let you go is there anything that I didn't ask you that you think that the listener should know?
Linsey: No, I think we covered pretty much everything. I think for me just trying to get the message across around education I think is super important. It's the it's what I'm really trying to emphasize with everybody at the moment is you know educate yourself and educate your children on phones, smartphones, social media and honestly it will surprise you how How interested they are but also how much they take it on board as well.
Marijo: Absolutely. Well, thank you so much. Linsey, tell us how to find you and find out more of everything that we've talked about today.
Linsey: Well, we have hiddenstrength.com which is our website which has huge bank of information around kind of social media and phone addiction and also what we do as a as a charity. At the moment we're launched in the UK. So we are live in the UK and we're hoping to launch in the US very soon and bring the platform across to the US really soon. So I'm very excited. But yes, absolutely. Please visit the hidden strength website which will give you all the information about what we do and how we can help the young people.
Marijo: Excellent. Thank you. We'll make sure that that is linked in the show notes. It's been such a pleasure to speak to you today. Thank you so much for joining us.
Linsey: Thank you so much for your time.
Marijo: Thank you.
Outro (recorded)
This has been the Teaching Your Toddler Show with Marijo Tinlin. Thank you so much for joining us today. If you enjoyed today's show, please leave a five-star review or a thumbs up so we can reach more parents like you. To be notified when new shows post, please subscribe by sending an email to subscribe@teachingyourtoddler.com. For more expert interviews, fun activities, and storytime podcasts, please visit our website at teachingyourtoddler.com. All of our shows are also posted as videos as well on our YouTube channel at Marijo Tinlin. Find us on Facebook at TeachingYourToddler, X at TeachingToddler, Instagram at TeachingYourToddler, and make sure you check out our past shows.
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