Is it wrong to let my child play on my smartphone?

We've often been told that screen time for children should be limited. But what if the real danger is our own addiction to our phones?

• If you would like advice from Emma Brockes on how to be a human online, send us a brief description of your concerns to human.online@theguardian.com

I have a two-year-old son who likes nothing more than to play on my iPhone. Should I let him?

The first thing to say about this is that if you talk to anyone who works in pediatrics, they will tell you the severity of the advice is relative to the severity of the abuse at the worst end of the scale. A guideline that says, in a wishy-washy way, oh, screens are bad for kids, but it also depends, and if you're a sensible parent, even if you let them play on your iPhones for longer than is strictly desirable, we assume you're not letting them do it for eight hours a day so it probably won't make any difference in the long run. These are not the kinds of warnings that effect behavioral change.