Expert advice for parents to help teens develop healthy social media and phone habits

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If you're the parent of a teen with a smartphone or you're planning on gifting them one this holiday season, you may want to consider discussing healthy habits first.

Dr. Ann-Louise Lockhart, a pediatric psychologist and Instagram brand spokesperson, joined "CBS Mornings" to share tips to help teens develop healthy habits around screens and social media use. Lockhart, author of "Love the Teen You Have: A Practical Guide to Transforming Conflict Into Connection," said the first step is to understand your child's behavior.

"One of the most important things I tell parents is look at how your teen is behaving in everyday life," Lockhart said. 

For example, you'll want to ensure they're able to manage their emotions, have productive conversations and make good decisions. You'll also want to make sure you can trust them.

Lockhart advised parents to have a contractual conversation, where both parties can establish some boundaries on time spent on the device and set expectations about how the phone will be used. 

According to a Pew Research Center survey, about 95 percent of teens have access to a smartphone – with 60% saying they use TikTok, Snapchat or Instagram regularly. And nearly 40 percent admit that they spend too much time on their smartphones and have even taken steps to curb their use.

Instagram teen safety features

That's why it's no surprise that one of the top concerns among parents is their child's social media exposure. Lockhart, who is working with Instagram to educate parents, shares some new features Instagram has put in place to ensure young people stay safe. 

"Two of the things that come up consistently for teens and for parents when I meet with them is how much time they're spending online and on apps and the kind of content they see," she said.

Teens between the ages of 13 and 18 are able to sign up for Instagram teen accounts, which defaults their accounts to private and offers built-in safety features. Instagram uses AI technology to make sure teens are placed in the strictest settings and enable parents to supervise their accounts.

"That's why I tell parents when you're signing up your kid for these accounts, be honest about their age. And then the AIi technology is using predictive technology to see if they are who they say they are and what age they are," Lockhart explained.

Here are some account settings that help teens have a healthy social media usage:

• Sleep mode: Turns off notifications on their app between 10:00 p.m. And 7:00 a.m. to guarantee teens can get a good night's rest
• Content settings: 13+ content setting, similar to movie ratings, to ensure teens don't see content with coarse language, risky stunts or other inappropriate material
• Daily time limits: Automatic time reminders to close Instagram after a total of 60 minutes is spent on the app in a day

A digital reset

In the New Year, Lockhart recommends doing a digital reset.

To help foster even more healthy phone habits, Lockhart suggests setting some new goals to limit use. For example, encourage your children – and yourself – to not default to looking at their phones when they first wake up and to set aside some quality family time without screens.

Around 76% of parents say managing how much time their teen spends on their phone each day is an important or a top priority, the Pew Research Center study states.

"A digital reset is important. So for me personally and what I talk about a lot in my book is looking at – for my teens no screens before noon on the weekends and holidays. That's very important as the holidays are coming up," she said. "And also talking about those kinds of things – not having the phones on in the car and at dinner time."

For more information on Instagram Teen Accounts, visit familycenter.meta.com.