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When Your Kids Won't Put Their Phones Down, with Oprah & Dr. Anna Lembke (The Oprah Podcast)

Mar 2026 🇺🇸 The Oprah Podcast

In this March 2026 episode of The Oprah Podcast, Oprah Winfrey interviews Stanford addiction psychiatrist Anna Lembke specifically about children's phone and device use. Lembke describes children's devices as engineered to deliver frequent, easy rewards in a way she compares to a drug, and says some children show distress — including irritability and dysregulation — when devices are removed, a pattern she associates with the same reward circuitry involved in substance-use disorders. The conversation includes practical parenting strategies, such as family agreements and environment changes, and age-specific advice noting that intervening tends to be easier with younger children than with teenagers or college students who have less parental oversight. Lembke also calls for stronger platform-design guardrails for children, drawing a comparison to restrictions on cigarettes and alcohol. TechKids Foundation cites this interview for its direct, parent-facing discussion of children's device use.

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Winfrey, Oprah, host. "When Your Kids Won't Put Their Phones Down, with Oprah & Addiction Specialist Dr. Anna Lembke." The Oprah Podcast, 3 Mar. 2026.

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