“In those angst-ridden teenage years, teenagers are programmed to want to belong and they naturally compare themselves with others,” she says. “When they see an image on Instagram, their reaction is to think that person is happier than them because they’re wearing the right things or because they’re a certain weight. They can’t fully understand that these images are orchestrated, not reality.”

Social media interactions can set up severe anxiety in the teenage brain, she adds.

“None of us are immune to that feeling of comparison with images of others or the compulsion to check comments or likes on our posts. The difference is, if you are confident and comfortable with who you are as an adult, you can see that the numbers on your social media don’t equate to how much value you have as a person. Whereas for a teenager, that’s absolutely how they feel.”

She also worries about the increasing use of phones and tablets for studying, learning, interacting with friends and shopping. Such issues have also been brought to a head by the pandemic, which has seen an explosion of mental health problems in children, with one in six now suffering from a diagnosable condition, up from one in nine in 2017.

The combination of home-schooling via computers and physical isolation from friends has led to young people spending more time than ever before in front of a screen.

“We are living in a world of constant notifications and constant interruptions to our thoughts. So many schools now expect homework to be done on an app and we are moving children towards always being on devices,” says Baker.

“The problem is, if you have social media apps loaded on that device too, it’s almost impossible for a young person to ignore notifications – which are designed to draw us in. They can get led down a rabbit hole and lose 20 minutes before they even realise what’s happened.”

So, if social media is so harmful, is it time all parents followed Baker’s example and quit it?

“Teenagers are much more likely to do what they see than what we say,” says Baker, whose own children are 21 and 18. “If your children are seeing you instantly responding to notifications, scrolling through social media – or even just if your phone is always with you – then they see that as a normal part of life.

“If we want our children to model good social media use, we have to look at what we are doing and what behaviour we are modelling.”

She admits she’s often been guilty of not following this advice herself.

“I’ve certainly had conversations with my own teens, where I’ve said: ‘You’re always on your phones!’ and they’ve replied ‘Well Mum, you’re always checking your ‘work emails’, with heavy sarcasm.”

Lockdown hasn’t helped parents keep phones at a distance either.