50 episodes listed below
Practical parenting for digital-age family life.
Parenting in the Screen Age - The Screenagers Podcast is a parent-facing guide to the daily frictions around kids, teens, and digital life. It pairs Delaney Rustin’s steady framing with conversations about AI chatbots, ADHD, sleep, social media, motivation, sex talks, and screen-time rules.
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Parenting in the Screen Age - The Screenagers Podcast is built around one persistent problem: young people are growing up with powerful digital tools, and families still have to make ordinary daily decisions around them. The show does not treat screens as a single villain. It asks where the risk sits, what can be changed at home, and how adults can keep talking with kids and teens when rules, emotions, privacy, and independence all collide. Delaney Rustin anchors the conversations with a steady, parent-facing style. The recent run shows a wide but connected range. AI chatbot episodes bring in concerns about lifelike companion chatbots, Snapchat’s MyAI, Replica, young people’s data, location sharing, and targeted advertising. ADHD and sleep episodes focus on support from parents and educators, positive feedback, motivation, and the environment around a young person. Screen-time-rule conversations get concrete about family media plans, screen-free zones, parental controls, laptops, social media blocks, and the need to revisit rules over time. The show also makes room for harder family talks. An episode on talking to teens about sex emphasizes humility, validation, and the fact that teenagers may want parents to keep trying even when they appear resistant. Another episode follows teen advocacy around tobacco and nicotine sales, city council meetings, and youth organizing in California communities. That mix gives the show more texture than a simple tech-advice feed. It moves between household tactics and bigger systems. Big tech, big tobacco, schools, clinicians, public health groups, and family routines can all appear in the same editorial world. The pacing is explanatory without being abstract. Guests are allowed to describe programs, studies, tools, and personal examples, but the conversation repeatedly comes back to usable language for adults. A parent might leave with a rule to simplify, a question to ask, or a calmer way to respond. The show is especially clear when it refuses perfection. Family media plans can change. Parental controls can glitch. Parents can get triggered and still practice new skills. That gives the podcast its practical value: it frames digital wellness as ongoing family work, grounded in evidence, conversation, and repair.
Made for: Suits a listener who wants grounded help with kids, teens, screens, social media, AI tools, motivation, and hard conversations. It is especially useful for adults looking for practical language rather than alarm or easy answers.
What sets it apart: The show connects screen-time decisions to youth mental health, family communication, public health, and development. Its edge is the way expert conversations keep returning to concrete parent-child moments.
Join Delaney Ruston, MD — a leading authority on parenting in the screen age and the filmmaker behind the award-winning Screenagers movies — as she explores the challenges parents face raising kids in today's digital world: think smartphones, social media, video games, and more. Through interviews with experts, thought leaders, and young people themselves, Parenting in the Screen Age delivers the latest science, practical tips, and key insights that parents will want to implement — and share — with their kids and teens.
A parental-control app missed Snapchat; Delaney Rustin asks which one, and you get an answer.
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Short reviews from the PlayNext desk, based on the episodes we processed.
A clear look at how chatbot conversations can tie location data to personalized advertising for young people.
Companion chatbots move from novelty to parenting concern as Delaney Rustin, physician and creator of the Screenagers movies, talks with Natalie Futh, director of VoiceBox.
A practical conversation about ADHD, screen time, motivation, and the support children need around them.
For families thinking through ADHD and screen time, this episode keeps the focus close to daily life, where parents, educators, children, and teens are already doing the work. Delaney Rustin's conversation with Dr.
A practical conversation about calming kids and setting screen rules that can shift with family life.
Screen time is treated here as a family-regulation problem, not just a device problem, especially when technology becomes a way to calm a child or when emotions are already running high. Delaney Rustin keeps the conversation practical with Dr. Jenny Radesky and Dr.
A grounded conversation about pairing high standards with the support young people need.
Parents looking for a steadier way to handle screen time will find useful shape in Delaney Rustin's conversation with developmental psychologist David Yeager.
Teens turn concern about nicotine into practical local advocacy.
A youth-led campaign to ban the sale of tobacco and nicotine products gives this episode a clear, grounded angle on civic engagement. Raven Twilling, program coordinator for Bay Area Community Resources in Marin County, California, connects her own awareness of nicotine vaping…
A practical conversation about delaying phones and helping children notice what technology takes from real life.
This single-episode review frames the conversation as a practical look at helping children become more thoughtful tech users, anchored in Catherine Price's The Amazing Generation with Jonathan Haidt.
Jonquilyn Hill chases one listener question per episode to the experts who can answer it.
Hard conversations, patiently held, with room to laugh.
Care, culture, and the choices shaping Black women's lives.
Root-cause health, explained plainly.
Hope, tested in real conversation.
Delaney Rustin, a physician and creator of the four Screenagers films, talks with Natalie Futh of VoiceBox about the 54-page report Coded Companions, Young People's Relationships with AI Chatbots.
Delaney Rustin interviews Dr.
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["David Yeager says a seventh-grade essay study doubled revision rates from 40% to 80% when teachers attached a note saying, \u201cI have very high expectations and I know that you can meet them.\u201d", "Delaney Rustin, host of the Screenagers podcast and creator of Tweens on Up, frames the conversation around Yeager\u2019s book 10 to 25, The Science of Motivating Young People.", "Yeager says \u201cmentor mindset\u201d means high standards plus high support, and he applies that idea to police officers, bosses, parents, and teachers who have power over young people.", "The episode connects adolescence, status, respect, testosterone, Vegemite, and a moms-and-daughters nagging study to show why respectful language and collaborative troubleshooting work better than groan-splaining."]
Ross, California became the first U.S.
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Delaney Rustin talks with Catherine Price about The Amazing Generation, the kids-focused book she wrote with Jonathan Haidt after How to Break Up With Your Phone.
["Jean Twenge tells Delaney Rustin that her first rule is to keep electronic devices out of the bedroom overnight, backed by Common Sense Media data showing six out of 10 11- to 17-year-olds on phones between midnight and 5 a.m.
Cam Adair says bullying pushed him into gaming as escape, then online school and Starcraft turned that escape into all-day play.
Delaney Rustin and Amy Neville center this episode on Alexander Neville, a 14-year-old who died after a counterfeit pill from Snapchat was laced with fentanyl.
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