DD18 Phone Addiction

Does she never spend time with him in person??

This really needs to be addressed before she starts reading for a degree. I work at a university and there is a massive gap between those who are able to sustain concentration in order to do required study tasks, e.g. a 2 hour lecture or read a journal article, and those who can’t. It’s been a very sad deterioration to witness over the last few years (young adults struggling to learn) but those who are coming out on top are the ones who can resist their phones and can actually embrace study and university life. There is no point getting into thousands of pounds worth of debt paying fees and for halls if they’re just going to be sat scrolling.

From the OP:

appears to be messaging on Snapchat and scrolling through TikTok all day long if not seeing him.

Yes but presumably NOT seeing him very often given the thread! 😆

Your question was does she "never" see him though.

Op?

😊

This may not be relevant but I find I get phone addicted when my iron levels fall and I have less desire to use it when I'm diligent about supplementing. So that might be something worth investigating perhaps. I think this is relatively common and I've seen it with one of my DC too. You want ferritin >100 and transferrin saturation >20% for optimal physical & mental health.

It doesn't change the social pressure eg from boyfriend but in my case it does have a big effect on how much I can resist the social pressure to use more devices.

I would also be aware that there’s been a massive rise in students seeking ADHD diagnoses once at uni when they realise they don’t have the attention to study. They present very differently to the students with ADHD we typically saw before smart phone use was so prevalent in the teen years leading up to uni. There are students who would rather pursue a diagnosis than consider that their phone has ruined their concentration and dopamine release patterns.

There’s also a big uptake in students being prescribed drugs for depression and anxiety without any lifestyle changes being made and we do believe reducing phone use would help lots of our students in the first instance. I would ask your daughter to keep you informed if she’s prescribed any medications so you are aware and can help her to monitor any potential side effects.

In terms of preparing for uni, she needs to do some reading stamina building exercises. She will need to start with seeing how long she can read a journal article or book chapter from her chosen academic field without stopping to check her phone. This may be less than 5 mins at first. She will need to use a timer for this. Buy a cheap kitchen timer so she is not using her phone timer. Once she has her base line she can challenge herself to add minutes to this (up to 25 mins) which should give her little dopamine hits to keep going and add to it. Obvs she will have to actually want to improve her reading stamina in the first place and she may not be there yet.