Author delves into teen device addiction
Since his best-selling 2008 book, Sweet Poison, in which he outlined the negative effect of sugar on the human body, former corporate lawyer David Gillespie, has become known for the no-nonsense way he can break down complex topics.
In his follow-up books David has delved into other health topics, looked at education, psychopaths and now teenagers.
Orange City Life caught up with David in Orange last week to talk about his latest book Teen Brain.
So, just what is Teen Brain about?
It is about a lot of things to do with teenagers, but focused on why teenagers shouldn't be allowed unfettered access to screens and particular types of software on those screens.
What made you want to tackle this particular topic?
I have six teenage children, well the two oldest are no longer teenagers, but Generation Z who are the age group affected by this and I have personally witnessed the effect of them having exposure to particular types of software.
Anxiety and depression in teenagers has doubled in the last ten years at a time when all of the traditional addictions like drinking, smoking, drug access, underage sex — all the instances of those has halved in the last ten years, and it is more than a coincidence that that is the same time frame where we've had the release of the iPad.
People use devices in many different ways: Are you saying any use of a device is bad?
No, very few people are addicted to excel. What I'm talking about it's a very small subset of software - so for boys it is gaming and gambling and for girls it is social media and because of the particular hormonal build of teenage boys and teenage girls, those two categories of software are designed to exploit the way that hormone matrix works and to addict those teenagers.
When I started writing this book the original title was It's Just a Phase, because that's what I really believed, but then I started reading the science on what exactly was going on and I've come to a very different conclusion. The software written now has been written to take account of the was the human reward system works and the way the addiction mechanism works.
Does your book provide any solutions for parents who may have concerns about their teenagers device addiction?
The solution to addiction of any sort is to remove the thing you are addicted to; we know that in relation to any addiction… Now the question is how do you handle that in a day and age when every child has a device and there is the constant temptation to be looking at this software which is designed to addict them? So the book goes through a lot of those practicalities and sets out rules that parents can apply — and I would suggest should apply — in restricting access to that software.
The preferable message is throw it in the bin, but the reality message is since that is not going to happen minimise harm. Ensure that screens are only used in a public place where you can see what is on a screen and remove access to potentially harmful software… 99.9 percent of what is being done on a device is beneficial but there is a small subset of software that is used a lot which is harmful and parents have to be alert to that.
Teen Brain is available from Pan Macmillan Australia.