It's not easy separating teenagers from their cellphones, but in some -- and perhaps most -- cases, it may be the only way to give them the social interaction experience they need.
It's in that interaction with others that young people learn values, attitudes, beliefs, character, and learn who they want to emulate as role models, relationship trainer Julie Nise says.
And without long, solid experience in social settings it puts these young people at a disadvantage as they grow up, she adds.
These social skills are "increasingly missing i today's youth and the prices that they are paying and will pay throughout their adulthood is pretty staggering."
"They're going to end up pretty much incompetent in their lives, socially, emotionally, functionally, relationally, you can't be in a relationship, basically, unless you have certain skills.
"You have to know how to communicate, how to have your needs known, how to have sympathy for the other person, and that's only the beginning of it," she told Newsradio 740 KTRH.
"Being on a screen for hours and hours instead of the kind of social interactions you need to develop those skills and insights means you're just not going to have what it takes to be successful inter-relationally, in your life, in your adulthood.
"And that means you're not going to be as good a parent, you're not going to be as good a spouse, and to a large extent, even an employee."
So what's a parent to do?
"You absolutely have to parent," Ms. Nise says, "and that means you as a parent are responsible for everything they say and do within your control, and one of those things is their screen time.
"Parents should look at the screen as more than just the babysitter or the entertainment device -- they need to look at it as a threat.
And therefore, if the kid is going to participate in [spending time on devices] it needs to be very, very limited."