Julia Roberts' daughter gave up her phone after watching Stand By Me

Speaking to The New York Times newspaper, Julia said: "For some reason, I was thinking this morning about when my kids were young and we showed them Stand by Me, and our daughter said to me, 'I'm going to give you my phone.'

"And I said, 'OK. What do you want me to do with it?' "

Hazel told her to "just keep it", and reflected on how phones can get "in the way of things".

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The actress - who has twins Hazel and Phinnaeus and 18-year-old son Henry with her husband Danny Moder - said her daughter told her at the time to "just keep it."

She recalled her daughter saying: "'I don't want it.

"'Seeing that movie, I just thought if those boys had phones, they wouldn't be talking to each other like that.

"'They wouldn't have gone looking for that body, they wouldn't sit around the fire and share these stories.' "

The Hollywood star noted that her daughter was already understanding the importance of communication.

She added: "All that's to say, we love talking to each other and sometimes we forget how important it is."

Julia previously revealed how she and her husband made sure their children didn't have their phones at the dinner table, along with other "simple rules".

She told the Today show: "We just had sort of simple rules where we had a charging station where everyone's phones go when you get home. There's no phones at the table, certainly."

Earlier this month, the After The Hunt star admitted she is worried about young people being on their phones too much.

She told Sunday Times Culture magazine: "Our brains are incapable of that influx, our eyeballs, brains, all that is too much, especially for little, sweet, soft mushy brains, that need to be filled instead with mud and fields."

Amid concerns over rising misogyny and the manosphere online, Julia is thankful her sons haven't got involved.

She said: "I mean, I'm raising two young men with my husband and couldn't be more proud. They're curious and sure-footed and this sporting game of cruelty comes from insecurity, from feeling that you live on a very slippery slope."