Babies, teenagers, the work phone, the partner who won't, and when it's more than a habit

Babies. Feeding a baby is long and repetitive and the phone is a natural companion to it, and the baby can't tell you a story. But the still-face research in chapter 8 is about exactly this age. The baby is reading your face during the feed, and a face in a screen is a face that isn't answering. I'm not going to say never. Feeds are long. I'd say the first minutes and the last, when the baby is looking at you, are yours and theirs, and the middle can have the phone if it needs it. And the reported link between more frequent phone use and less recovery in Myruski's infants is worth holding in mind, even as one study.

Teenagers. They're on their phones more than you are, and you'll want the rule to apply to them, and it should. But it applies to you first, for a month, before you mention it. A teenager can spot a rule that's aimed at them and not kept by the person aiming it from across the house. When you do raise it, raise it as a house rule for meals, with you included, and not as a verdict on them. The reciprocity argument in chapter 10 is the whole approach.

The work phone. If you're on call, that's a real exception and the method already covers it. Say at the start of the evening that you're on call, and what that means, and take the calls. What the on-call status doesn't cover is the email, the chat, and the "just checking" that fills the evening in its name. A later book in this series is about answering work messages at all hours. For now, on call means calls.

The partner who won't. If you're reading this because your partner is the one with the lit face, chapter 10 is where to start. Do your own half without announcing it. Then, after some weeks, ask plainly and once. If the ask doesn't land and the glance is part of a wider sense of not being listened to, that's bigger than this book, and the ordinary route for it is a conversation about the relationship and not about the phone.

When it's more than a habit. Some phone use isn't a habit. If you feel anxious when the phone is out of reach, if you check it in a loop that doesn't end, if you've tried to cut down and found you couldn't, or if the checking is tied to a worry that something has gone wrong, this book's method will feel like being asked to hold your breath. An earlier book, You've checked already, is about compulsive checking. And if the phone use sits inside a low mood that's been there most days for a fortnight or more, or an anxiety that's affecting your daily life, the NHS advice is to see a GP, and I'd put that before any rule about the dinner table.