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Breaking the Digital Cycle: An Interview with Screen Time Advocate & Our Founder Munur Shah

In this featured Radio Harrow interview, host Tim Harrison is joined in on his show ‘The Sunday Detox’ by Munur Shah, our founder and a dedicated Screen Time Advocate.

Munur is working passionately with his team here at Rebel Therapies to educate both parents and young people about the significant dangers associated with excessive screen time. Throughout the discussion with Tim, they explore the various pitfalls of social media and identify the “Bad Actors” who are currently endangering children.

The following is the full word-for-word transcript of their conversation regarding Munur’s book, Screen Addict, and his mission to help families navigate the complexities of the digital age.

Tim: I’m here with Munur Shah and we’re talking about Munur’s book and his work. The book is “Screen Addict: Combating Screen Addiction.” Hello Munur.

Munur: Hello there, how are you?

Tim: I’m good thanks. Very good. Thank you for coming down. Would you like to explain just a bit of background about how you came to be working in this field?

Munur: Yeah, for me it was really that I about eight years ago, I think I call it I woke up. Woke up to being addicted to screens. It was literally one very, very early morning. It was about 2:31. And I’ve got that on the front of my book. Came off of looking at my phone and realised I’d been on my phone for about eight hours. And it was just time had flown by, I didn’t know where it had gone. And I had just been scrolling. I’d been looking at videos and scrolling Facebook and looking at YouTube. And it just absorbed me. It pulled me in so much so that I forgot everything else that was around me. And realised that I’d been doing this continuously over a number of years. And the impact to not just to me but to my family and to my children was quite big. I mean, my children also realised that they were addicted to screens. So my daughter was pretty much full on in social media and was getting bullied online. And my son played his PS4 a lot. I mean more than I would say would be was healthy. And he would come off of that being quite aggressive and angry.

So it was at that point when I came off, I felt really disappointed in myself. I was quite angry and frustrated at why I’d spent so much time on my screen, that I really wanted to understand why that was happening to me. As part of my work, I’m a coach, I’m a mentor, and I help people get through different things, but I also help people build change in their lives. And at that stage I decided to understand more about why we’re drawn into screens in the first place. So I went on this on this journey of exploration to find out about why do we get pulled in? What sucks us into screens so much? What makes them, you know, want us to pick them up all the time and just give them our attention and our time? And that’s what that’s what my last sort of eight years has been about. It’s been understanding the science behind it and really about how and why they’re created. And the not just the screens per se, so not the not just the physical screen itself or the phone or the iPad or tablet, but about the applications that are housed on them and why they’re created and how they’re created to capture our attention and then sell our attention, which is the underlying part of all of this is they want to sell our attention to be able to make money. And that’s the sort of the bottom line. But really for me it was understanding how does it happen, why does it happen, and can I change my behavior?

Tim: Yeah, yeah. ‘Cause I know as as an adult, I mean I consume a lot of YouTube and I’ve found myself going down the rabbit hole. I look at one thing which leads me to another thing and so on and so forth before I know it I’ve come full circle, I’ve gone through all the conspiracy theories, all the alternative news, what have you. I’m also I’m a sort of amateur musician so I’m looking up stuff about music and all the rest of it. But it does occur to me for kids, for them this is something that they’ve just been they’ve been born into, whereas my generation, your generation, we knew a time before all of this. Before the internet was there or before social media, before YouTube and all those pressures. So I imagine your work, reading through your book, your work is concerned primarily with children, would you say?

Munur: Yes and no. I would say yes, it’s about children, so it’s around families that approach me that that find me who’ve found me on the internet or know about me through people, other friends. But my work is really about how I can help people in general reclaim and take back control of their lives. So that is regarding screens and their relationship with technology. So I make that really clear, it’s about our relationship with technology and how can we make that better or how can we make that healthier. So the people that actually come to me are parents that are in very distressing situations with their children. And what we find is when we start working together, it’s not just the children that are addicted or that are drawn into their screens, it’s the adults as well. And there has to be a complete change in the total relationship. So not just in the child’s relationship with screens or where they’re at. So in my book I have various degrees of different age ranges from 18 months to 18 year old children who are in very different spaces regarding addiction to screens. And they are very distressing as you mentioned. But the parents themselves are also addicted and it’s about changing the parents’ behavior and getting them to understand what that looks like.

And it’s kind of a three-part process, whereas when we work together we look at the first part which is awareness. So it’s actually to become aware of what’s actually happening. And until we can become aware, we can’t do anything else to change. We can’t take that next step, we can’t do the educating piece. So the educating piece comes next whereby we teach people how, what, why, when, how they can take back that control in terms of understanding and changing their behavior. So that goes through a process to the last part which is taking back that control. So control is that last part. And that is where you’ve understood, you’ve learned, you’ve put in practices to be able to almost sort of unwind or uninstall what’s been installed in us. I kind of make a comparison to you know we get the next software installation which is installed in us by these apps and that changes our behavior. So I help people uninstall, so go back to their original, you know it’d be Tim 1.0 rather than 3.5, 3.6 and you keep getting updated. I try to get back to your core whereby then you can take control. So once you’re able to understand it, you can take control of how you interact with tech. And once you’re in that position, once you understand it, then your life changes completely.

I mean that’s that’s what happened to me. So I had to go through that process myself. And then I had to, well I had to I say I had to, I didn’t have to. I my children were my guinea pigs. So I trialled the things that I was learning, the changes I you know I went into the the deep realms of behavioural change. I looked at I think I mention B.F. Skinner in my book, it’s all about operant conditioning and how our behavior is changed over a period of time. He was the sort of the godfather of this back in the 1930s. The American government utilised him and his system very very well and so did all the gambling industries. And now the tech companies have seen how that works, and most of them get taught this when they go to Harvard or Stanford or MIT, they get taught about how to control and change behavior. That’s part of their course. And they use it to amazing effect.

Tim: Yeah, so they it’s kind of it’s psychologically informed and directed.

Munur: Yeah, yeah. It’s it’s psychological warfare, basically. It’s a way of them chipping away at us over a period of time to be able to change and alter our behaviour. Things that we wouldn’t even ever notice. But now when your phone buzzes, you automatically feel you have to pick it up because there is something on the end of it, right? So that’s the reward. And it’s that reward system that’s that’s built in as part of our whole sort of behavioural change operant conditioning piece that I’ve sort of mentioned and worked very hard to understand. That is what I undo. So I undo that and I almost instill a different behaviour. And I suppose I use the same techniques as what’s used in that whole operant conditioning behavioural change process and reward system to be able to help you change what you do and bring you back to that sort of 1.0 I mentioned.

And we do that with children. So we do that with young kids, it’s much easier. I tend to find that we’re able to change their behaviour very, very quickly. And that all comes into how the parents and the families work together. But there has to be a commitment and there has to be an agreement with the parents and with the children that they want change. Sometimes, the little children that there’s not much agreement there, it’s quite difficult to get them to agree to it. But the older children really understand it. So the teenagers really get it. And only if they want to change is there is there space to work with them. But yeah, we work with a lot of parents and their children, but initially we work with the parents. The parents are the ones that have to make the change first. And it can be really difficult. It’s very difficult to tell an adult to change their behaviour regarding what they do with screens.

Tim: Yes, and it’s part of the family dynamic, isn’t it? Because it works as a system, like with family therapy you’ve got a whole system going there with the parents and the kids and the interactions and where the parents have already established and allowed a certain amount of use, the screen time, suddenly things change and and that’s difficult I’d imagine well I know as a parent it’s difficult on any level.

Munur: Yeah, it is. And I think with that specifically, changing their behaviour and changing our children’s behaviour and the way that that family dynamic works, it is really about them working together. So it’s not about a sudden change. And that’s what I try to make quite clear is this takes a bit of time. So I think the shortest amount of time it’s within four weeks we’ve had a massive shift in the relationship with screens in a in a household. But also what it’s done is it’s it’s improved the relationship within the family unit. And that to me sort of is the is the win-win. You know, the first win is we’ve changed your relationship with screens, great, and technology, you understand it, you know how to utilise it, you know how to control it. The other part which I think is the bigger part is the is the relationship within the family unit. And throughout all of my case studies in my book, I think it’s quite clear that that has become much stronger and better as we go through the process.

And that was the same with me, even though I had a very strong relationship with my children, the relationship now or since we sort of worked together and changed what we wanted to do and be with tech has helped us grow as well. And so we now have a really very open relationship, it’s it’s very clear, it’s very safe. We sit and we talk. And that was something that we tried to instill from an early age. But that has grown and it’s even safer now, whereby we create a safe space. So if our children um and my children, I say children, they’re 19 and 21, but even so if they have a problem, they realise they can come to us and we can have a conversation without you know no confrontation, no aggression, no judgment. It’s just about them opening up and having that conversation. And that is what I find is the most difficult but the most rewarding with the parents that I’ve worked with. They’ve all come back and said the relationship with our children is so much better.

And by you helping us create this safe space in our or sort of safe zone in our home whereby our children can come and ask us something and we don’t react. ‘Cause it’s so easy to react, right? When you’ve got something that comes and we just, you know, you might start shouting and screaming at something and thinking, why would you do that? Why would you even why would you go there? Why would you do that? You know. Um but if you do that constantly and consistently, then your children switch off. Then they won’t come to you when it matters the most. And then you sort of and then you get to a point where almost you you scream and shout of, why didn’t you come to me before? Um and it’s that why didn’t you come to me before. So we try to put in place all of these different strategies and and systems and how parents can work and create parent coaches. And that’s kind of what we do. Our underlying thing to all of this is creating parent coaches so that they can prevent some of these things from happening later on with their children. So in the book, some of the things that have happened are are almost too late, but they’re not. We’ve been able to claw back and get back to a very good strong relationship. But doing that being preventative, wow, that’s just brilliant. Because if you can have that open relationship with your children at an early age, then they can come to you with anything. Which means you can be a step ahead.

And you don’t have to have all of that stress and all of that anxiety and anger and whatever else that comes with it, which which we you know we see on a daily basis. And it and it does make life so much easier if your child comes to you with a with a potential problem or with a problem that is you know at its early stages and you can help them navigate what that looks like. You can pull the right levers, you can change what you do, you can help them see things differently. And they’re able to express and have a relationship and a conversation which is you know the art of conversation is nearly is being lost, is being lost because we find people are looking at their screens all the time.

Tim: Yes. And it’s easy for, I mean, parents with the stress of work and the fact that we don’t have a lot of time for a lot of things and it’s easier to put our kids onto their devices where they’re locked away in their own world. It’s so easy to slip into that.

Munur: Yeah, yeah, it is. And probably like you, you like me, we sit and go to you know coffee shops and whatever else and I do a lot of my writing in coffee shops. I just like being out in the open with people. Well what I find is when we sit there and you a parent comes in with a young child and they sit down and they’re with another adult and they put the child, they put a screen in front of the child as soon as they sit there and they have a conversation with the adult. Um and sometimes I’ve seen kids that don’t want to look at the screen that want to play with the salt and pepper or play with something else or get up and move around and the parent takes that away and puts the screen back in front in front of the child. The child is saying I want to do something, I need interaction, I need to be interacted with you. Um but if we continually do that, we are then sort of playing into the power of of the tech that’s on our on our screens and we are, in effect we’re doing the their job for them by conditioning our children.

And I find that really difficult. I speak to lots of schools and they’re saying that speech is being impeded um with in terms of the children learning and speaking at a at early ages that it’s later and later. Their ability of I’ve had you know one child that parent came to me and said you know the the teacher says that my daughter is you know is at a you know she’s at a year four when she should be at a year six um in terms of being able to read and write and also speak and the words that she’s using. And a lot of that comes down to just being placed in front of screens and having no there’s no interaction with the screen, it’s just you’re watching and you can’t see the words being formed, there are there’s no one-to-one interaction with a with a real person. So there is a decrease in a number of things and one thing is is that your level of empathy um slows right down or becomes um insignificant. And that changes in the way we behave and we grow as we get older. Um and if we start losing empathy, well then we sort of almost go into a a world of chaos. And that becomes a real big problem.

But there is a real issue uh and a link between um screens and the the ability of children to speak properly, to use words correctly, to be at the right level that they need to be when they’re at school. So I’m finding that kids are nearly one or two years uh younger in terms of their ability to um to understand. So where they should be at year six or year seven, they’re at year three or year four. And that’s quite scary. So I but and there are a lot of schools um that are still out there or that are out there that uh that do a lot of their work on on screens. So all the homework is done on tablets, everything that the children do when they go home has to be on tablets. So we’re in a very difficult position of how we navigate technology and children. And there’s a big conversation around banning at the moment.

Tim: Yes. Which is it’s a very it is um kind of a contradictory situation where we need the technology um but at the same time there’s a we need to stop at some point and and let our kids be kids. And it’s very difficult isn’t it? And I was interested in your book you mention about the kick we get in our brain from the screen. Do you want to talk us through a little bit of about that?

Munur: Yeah. So it’s a bit like um what is it? Um it’s a well it’s it’s so it’s a dopamine that happens that kicks into our brain. So it’s that sort of it’s a drug, it’s one of those um uh it’s not a drug, uh it is a um a physical response, a chemical response that happens in our brains when we feel that there is a reward. And that’s when we pick up a phone, we immediately feel that there is a reward. It’s a little bit like and I’ll and I’ll liken the phone to a slot machine.

Tim: Yes.

Munur: So when someone goes and plays a slot machine, you put your money in and you press the button and the immediate hit is what’s going to come? What am I going to win? Am I going to win? And that is the dopamine hit. It makes your brain light up. And it’s the same with a screen. When you pick up a screen and you pull down to refresh, it is what’s going to happen next? What’s going to come up when I watch the video, it’s what’s the next video? What’s going to come up? And it’s that reward of what’s happening next. And every time we get those rewards, our brains light up or it’s the thought of the reward and then the reward. And sometimes we don’t get one. So sometimes we pull down on a screen to see if there is a next message that’s coming up and there isn’t. And that’s part of the whole uh the whole process of our of that behavioural change operant conditioning piece I was talking about. It links with it completely. The more variable the rewards are, the more variable the dopamine hits are, which means we are drawn to our screens even more because we don’t know what we’re going to get.

So it’s almost like putting your hand into a bag of sweets. And you don’t know what you’re going to get and you pull it out and it could be your favorite, which means every you know your brain’s going crazy at that time. Um or it could be that you get an I don’t know an orange cream chocolate which is not my favorite. So I you’d be disappointed, but your brain has gone through that whole thing of what am I going to get? And that is where the dopamine kicks in and that drives us to want the next kick. It’s a it is a little bit like a drug. It is a little bit like if someone’s on hard drugs they want the next kick. Um so when you come down um off of that that rush to your brain, it does bring you to a low. Which is why when I was talking about the gaming piece where my son would come off playing a game, he would be on such a high and such a rush when he’s playing and so aggressive that if he loses, that’s the low. When he comes off, when we try to pull him off, that’s the low. That’s the bit of I want more, I need more of that drug. And it’s exactly the same with our phones and our screens. I need more of that drug. And the thought of having more or going and picking up that screen then uh sort of kickstarts that dopamine hit again.

But where it becomes very dangerous is that we need more of that drug to be at the same baseline. So if we started at a one originally, then the next day you’re going to need sort of almost double that amount to get the same kick, that same rush, the same dopamine hit, the same sparks in your in your brain. And as we go through, we tend to find that we need we need uh things that are more and more extreme to be able to give us that kick. And it’s you know there are some terrible things that are out there on the internet that our children see and very distressing. And people and I do see kids sending messages to each other and sending videos to each other of some very extreme um content. And it’s that extreme content that uh almost becomes a new norm for them. So whereas before we’d look at that extreme content and just go oh my god how can anyone put that up there? It’s almost becomes quite normal and you look at it and go well, I’ve seen that before, it’s normal.

Tim: So we become desensitised.

Munur: Desensitised 100 per cent. And then we need something more extreme. So then that level then gets taken up and new baseline. Our new baseline is extreme, so we need to go to you know extra extreme and then go even beyond that.

Tim: ‘Cause I was I was um intrigued by the the case in your book Screen Addict, where um where one a child was buying in-app purchases and they ran up a bill for their parent was it 6,000 pounds?

Munur: No it was 9,000.

Tim: 9,000!

Munur: 9,000, yeah. In a month.

Tim: In a month, that’s incredible. That’s very scary. And of course, if you’re not checking your bank account regularly, it’s a big wake-up call.

Munur: Well I mean you know I suppose if it’s on a credit card, I know I don’t check my credit card until the monthly statement comes through, right? So I’ll check it at the end of the month. And if there’s something that’s not right, then I’ll call the credit card company up. But imagine in a month your child has racked up 9,000 and you know your limit’s 10,000 and you’ve spent 1,000 already and you’re out with some friends like this lady was and she went to pay for a her dinner and then it and then it bounced. And then when she called up the credit card company at that moment just to check why, she found out she was at her limit. And that is this is common, this is not uncommon, this is very common that this whole thing about gamification. So it’s about you know rewards, what reward and again this always goes back to the same old you know this guy back in the 1930s operant conditioning and you know this reward system. It’s the reward, it’s her son is out there and is playing a game and gamification means that you can buy, you know it’s part of where you you get more coins or you can buy more coins and the more coins you have you can buy, you know guns or ships or whatever else you want on a on bricks or houses or what whatever game you’re playing. Or dragon eggs, Dragonvale, so you know and there are some very rare dragon eggs which cost a lot.

So kids sometimes um I remember being a kid you sort of want to you know jump to that next level and you want to you know you want to get there quickly and but if they don’t know they don’t realise the the cost imp impl- implication then we’re in some serious trouble. But this happens all the time. So there aren’t and I say there need to be sort of checks and balances in place and then there need to it needs to be almost set to zero so that kids can’t buy anything and they have to go and get um you know agreement from their parents and it has to be signed you know almost signed off by them if they’re going to buy something. ‘Cause I most parents will say I guess would say no, if it was my parents they definitely would have said no, you know no chance that they would have ever let me spend you know anything on on upgrading a game. But I do understand it and it’s almost you mentioned something earlier um when I first came in about peer pressure. And it does come down to a lot of it comes down to peer pressure as well. It’s about um you know I’ve got this, you know what have you got? You know I’ve bought this, what have you got? What did you get?

Tim: Their worth is reflected in what they have.

Munur: Yeah. And the more that they can have then you know the further up the the ladder they are in their own ecosystem, right? You know they’re they’re the big fish in the small pond. Um but the companies that create these games, the companies that create the social media apps, the apps that are being utilized constantly by our children, they know what hooks them. They know how to hook them, that’s part they have to do that as part of their business model. It’s not about the consideration or care for your child’s mental health or physical health. That doesn’t exist. There is no care or consideration about our mental health. No. It is purely about how can we make more profit, how can we get more money. And with this they’ve found a fantastic formula and that formula is based upon slot machines, gambling industry have you know utilised it very, very well and the strategies that they used, the methodology that they have, um the systems that they’ve got in place is exactly what the uh Silicon Valley and the big sort of tech companies have used. It’s identical, there is no difference in terms of what they use and how they use it. But the impact to our children is is massive, is catastrophic even, and especially in something like this where you know this lady finds out her her son’s spent 9,000 pounds in um in four sessions I think within within three weeks.

Tim: That’s incredible isn’t it? And that’s the thing, the kids the kids don’t really understand the value in terms of what it’s costing I mean. They to them they they’ve got their eyes firmly fixed on the thing they’re buying which is just basically bit of code which is reproducible. And they don’t see what what it’s about. The companies that sell these games, the buying of of various things, are very reluctant to refund money aren’t they? If a parent contacts them and says my child’s just spent nine grand on these things and I wasn’t aware, they say well you’re the parent, not our problem.

Munur: Yeah, yeah, you’re the parent, you you put in your credit card details and your pass uh your pass code, so yeah you’ve given them your code, you’ve but with this one in particular they realized that they they’ve come back and said well actually we don’t even know if it was your child, it could have been you, it could have been your husband, it could have been somebody else in your family. And they’re right. It could, right? How can we prove it was our child um and not you? Not her? It could have been her, she could have been sitting there playing games and buying all the stuff. So there is that from that end and there’s also the other side which is the credit card company. So you’ve got two places you could try and go and get your money back from. You can try the credit card company um or your bank account or you can try the gaming companies themselves. But both will tell you will say no, sorry this is your fault, this is your problem. Um and also why did you give your child your uh your pin number? So there are all these different parts to it that um that can sort of trip you up. But the gaming companies are very clever, they’ve got a really good system in place. And for our children it’s just the prize, right? They’re eyes are on the prize. They don’t really see the um the monetary impact of it. It’s just about what can I gain? How do I get to my next level of my game? Right? That’s what’s most important for a child.

Tim: That’s it, that’s entirely what they’re focused on. And again like you say from a social perspective their friends they’re elevated in their friends’ eyes because they have the special egg or the special guns or whatever, yeah.

Munur: Yeah. And that does make a big difference, for the kid it makes a big difference when they’re at when they’re at school. So I get that. Um and I think it’s about making our children understand or helping them understand what the implications are, what the impact is. If we do x, then we can’t do y. If we do this we can’t do that. But we’re not taught that as parents, right? We go through and we make mistakes and we’re not taught to be able to say actually there are these things that you need to sit down with your child and explain to them and work through with them. Um and different children will pick things up at at different ages, not everyone not all children are the same, they’re all mature very differently, so you’ve got to be very careful in what you sit down and discuss with your child at which age. But there is a there isn’t a manual for parents. No. to say here are the steps, you know one to a hundred here are the steps that you need to go through as your child goes from zero to eighteen. Um because we all go through different things. But there are some fundamentals in that.

And that is part of what we try to do in terms of our work with parents. We do have a formula, we have a way to help them get to a certain place at for different age groups. But also for us it’s really about how do we teach our children um a healthier and a better way of understanding what technology is, looks like, how to behave with it, how to grow with it. And that to me needs to start at school. Um because they’re at school for more time than uh they’re at home with us because you know parents are working, we don’t have as much time, but when they’re at school they’re in a place where they have got complete understanding and and they can be seen, they can be heard. And the the teachers have have I suppose control over what they can do and what they can um how they can work at school. And I think that when you’ve got their attention and they have got their attention, their attention is fully focused at school.

Tim: Yes.

Munur: then I think that we need to start teaching them very early on about what it looks like, what technology is, how we interact with it, but not just about that but about life skills. And so I’m I’m currently uh talking to a couple of schools at the moment going in to doing some talks about that. One to parents, two to the staff, but three to children. Um and that’s starting in February with a secondary school students. But this needs to go back to primary school students as well and it’s something that needs to come through um from the government I think. It needs to be something that’s set as as part of their curriculum as they as they grow.

Tim: That’s right, yeah. I mean the your book Screen Addict, do you want to just explain where people can get hold of that?

Munur: Yes, um it’s on um it’s on Amazon at the moment, so if they uh type in Screen Addict and my name Munur Shah, they will be able to find there’s a it’s up there as paperback and also as an ebook. So you can get your hands on it now if you need it for an early Christmas present or after Christmas even before the New Year. But no it’s it’s something that it’s a combination of of seven case studies that we’ve worked on over the last six years. So it’s a very interesting read I would say, but it is disturbing at times. Um it’s sometimes I’ve had people say it’s harrowing, it’s disturbing, but it’s been enlightening in terms of what can happen and how people can change. And what strategies and what things you can put in place at at various ages and even us uh for us as adults what we can do and how we can change our behaviour, because in the end we’re our children’s role models, right? So it’s when we do something they see it and they generally tend to mirror what we do. So it’s about mirroring and matching. It’s all part of the whole sort of coaching mindset of you know I call it sort of NLP stuff that we we introduce so neurolinguistic programming, how we how we help people change their behavior. Um and I kind of call them Jedi mind tricks.

Tim: Yes.

Munur: So I think that that’s really really important. I use I’m a big Star Wars fan so I do bring Star Wars into it quite a bit. But the Jedi mind tricks are are really good in terms of what we can do as adults and how we can then help our children understand things in a slightly different way and then change their behavior.

Tim: That’s right. I mean it’s good to know there’s there’s hope and that’s the thing, a lot of parents are going to feel very desperate and that reading the book will will show them there’s there’s other people just like them facing the same problem and there’s a way through this.

Munur: There is a there is a way through this and and we we’ve been working on this and we run we run programs around this so we run courses on this and we’re just going live with a with a very with a short course which is almost like a a booster. Almost like a booster injection to to help you get through any problems and that’s a short course uh between two to two and a half hours. Um our other course is a longer course over five weeks. But the one that we’re we’re going live with early January is this two and a half hour course and that will make massive differences in people’s lives.

Tim: Fantastic. Okay well thanks ever so much for coming in Munur and uh it’s been fascinating. Once again, Screen Addict, available on Amazon. And you have a website?

Munur: It’s uh www.rebeltherapies.com. But yeah if you go to to the website uh you can get the book through the website or you can go straight to Amazon and pick it up there.

Tim: Excellent. Okay thank you very much and hopefully that’s that’s going to help a lot of parents. And I think the work you’re doing is very important.

Munur: Thank you Tim, thanks for having me on today.

Tim: You’re very welcome. Cheers.

Munur: Thank you.

 

Listen to the full interview here: 

 

To find out more about how the team at Rebel Therapies can support you and your family in reclaiming your digital lives, be sure to get in touch. Whether you are looking for more information on the Screen Addict book, are interested in the comprehensive five-week program, or want to sign up for the upcoming two-and-a-half-hour “booster” course, we can help. 

Don’t wait until the digital noise becomes overwhelming; reach out today and take the first step toward a healthier, more balanced relationship with technology.

Petra Salva OBE

Petra Salva began her career in youth and community work after graduating with a BA Hons in Community and Youth Studies in Lancaster. Since then, she has accumulated 30 years’ experience working with young people and adults. Petra is best known for her work and contribution working in the third sector in the UK and abroad, specifically leading and designing projects within homeless charities and influencing the Government, local authorities, and the London Mayor’s Office around national and local rough sleeping strategies. She also has significant experience in leadership roles and managing large-scale change.

She has been at the forefront of developing services that directly support some of the most destitute people in our society, and in 2019 she was awarded an OBE for her years of contribution and impact in this field.

Petra is passionate about helping people and organisations to grow and develop their skills and aspirations. She is a qualified coach and mentor with many years of experience in delivering training and working one-to-one or in groups. Petra is an Accredited Executive Coach, Accredited NLP Practitioner, and is also a Master NLP accreditation.

Martin Watson

Martin is an experienced accredited psychodynamic psychotherapist with many years of working with and helping adults. Martin believes in creating a safe space and a trusting relationship can help us think and explore together the reasons you might be looking for help and counselling. He has worked with many ranges of anxiety, depression, trauma, and loss. He has a gentle, sensitive approach and would welcome meeting you to see if he can help you too.

Martin is a fully qualified psychodynamic psychotherapist accredited with the BPC (British Psychoanalytic Council). He offers individual therapy to adults and young people. He is also a registered member of the BACP (MBACP).

He has been offering individual therapy and counselling for many years in both private practise and within organisations. He is currently working with the Counselling Foundation and has previously worked at Mind in Barnet for many years. Martin also worked as part of the Grief Encounter adult bereavement counselling team.

Richard Bell

Richard brings a unique blend of professional insight and lived experience to his work as an addiction coach. With a background in tech entrepreneurship and personal recovery, Richard has an intimate understanding of the behavioural traps and dopamine cycles that underpin digital and screen-based addictions.

As an NLP Practitioner, his work is future-focused and results-driven, helping clients rewrite their inner narratives and reclaim a life of purpose and connection. Richard works one-to-one with individuals, particularly supporting young adults and professionals navigating addiction, anxiety, and life transitions.

If you’re ready to break free from screen addiction and take back control of your time, emotions, and energy, our team is here to guide you every step of the way.

 

Shabazz Nelson

Shabazz has spent over 20 years supporting clients through transformative behavioural change. As a qualified psychotherapeutic practitioner and Accredited NLP Practitioner, he brings a depth of insight into the emotional, cognitive, and behavioural patterns that drive digital dependency.

With an empathetic yet strategic style, Shabazz supports both adults and young people to overcome anxiety, addiction, self-esteem issues, and emotional trauma. His coaching is grounded in psychotherapy principles, making him an exceptional guide for clients who need both depth and direction.

Shabazz is deeply committed to using his expertise to help others achieve personal resilience and growth.

Melanie Shah

Melanie is a deeply intuitive and accomplished therapist who combines Emotional Freedom Technique (EFT), NLP, hypnotherapy and life coaching to address the unconscious roots of anxiety, trauma, and behavioural patterns. Her approach is both scientific and soulful, blending ancient healing with modern psychology.

With degrees in both Psychology and Finance, and an Accredited Certified EFT Practitioner through EFTi, Melanie also holds diplomas in Hypnotherapy, NLP and Life Coaching from the Optimal Health Clinic in London. Melanie is also a member of the Association of Hypnotherapy and is in the process of completing her Enhanced DBS.

Her sessions, described by clients as “gentle but powerful,” focus on unlocking stuck emotions and building deep emotional resilience. Melanie’s work is a cornerstone of our one-to-one therapeutic services at Rebel Therapies.

Munur Shah

After facing the emotional impact of screen addiction within his own family, Munur embarked on a deeply personal and professional mission to understand and combat the forces driving digital overuse. This journey led to the founding of Rebel Therapies in 2017.

Munur is an executive coach who has received his master NLP practitioner accreditation, a rigorous year-long training programme equipping him with training in advanced language patterns, behavioural modelling, and integration techniques. He is also a member of both the Association for Coaching and the Academy of Coaching and Training. His coaching and mentoring style is known for its depth, clarity, and powerful results.

Munur’s lived experience, combined with years of intensive study, empowers him to develop breakthrough strategies for families struggling with screen dependency. He is the author of Screen Addict: Parenting Success Stories That Will Change Your Life, a powerful guide for those seeking to restore balance and connection in a digitally distracted world. Widely recognised across Harrow, North London and Hertfordshire, Munur has delivered impactful talks to schools, borough councils, including Barnet Council, and prestigious institutions such as the University of Oxford and Christ Church College.