Kids, Screens, and Schools (Part Two)

This is the second in a two-episode series on the issue of kids and screens and schools. In the first episode, I talked to Jessica Grose of the New York Times about her survey of parents about their kids’ screen use. The tenor of that episode, overall, was pretty negative on screens. Basically, less is better than more.

My guest today is Michael Rich, a pediatrician, child health researcher, and children’s media specialist. Michael has built his practice and research around helping families with problematic screen use, but also around providing actionable guidance to parents and families. I found his take on this whole thing refreshingly realistic. Put simply: our kids’ lives are going to involve screens. Our job is to mentor them and help them develop a healthy relationship with devices. We should teach them on phones the same way we teach them on cars.

I do not always come away from these podcast episodes with changes to my own parenting, but I will say in this one I did. Michael and I talk about the value of engaging with what your children watch, even when you feel it is unfathomably stupid. In the wake of this conversation, I tried this, and … it wasn’t as bad as I thought. It turns out my son and I both really enjoy memes around “I’m looking for a man in finance” TikTok. And if that’s not bonding, I don’t know what is.

This episode is a must-listen for any of us who are looking for realistic advice about navigating the screen time balance.

Here are three highlights from the conversation:

Don’t set screen time limits. Instead, set non-screen minimums

There’s some that are really important, such as no screens at the dinner table. A sit-down family meal every day is the single most protective thing you can do not just for their nutrition but for their mental health. Obviously, no screens in the bedrooms at night. It’s good to not use screens in the last hour before sleep time. And I call it sleep time, not bedtime, because so many people have screens in the bed with them. It’s about being planful and purposeful about your health and it’s also about putting screens away when they’re not needed to do homework.

One of the myths that we all persist in is that we can multitask with media. The reality is the human brain works on one channel at a time. When we think we are multitasking, we’re actually rapidly switch tasking. And that means we don’t give our full attention, we don’t think deeply about what we’re doing at any one point in time; we’re skipping to the next thing.

When is the right time for your kid to have a smartphone? When you’re ready to talk to them about pornography

What does it mean to monitor when I’m not able to watch the whole time and know what it is on there?

The first thing is to have an open conversation as you introduce these devices or platforms. And be explicit about it. Say, “Look, you’re going to come across hate sites, you’re going to come across pornography.” These are out there. There’s no way we can protect them from it any better than teaching them to protect themselves. Instead of giving them a fish, let’s teach them to fish. 

A lot of parents say to me, “When can I give my kid a smartphone?” And I say, “When you’re ready to talk to them about pornography.” And that holds them up short a little bit, but we have to recognize the fact that it’s out there. It’s a click away. And if they don’t stumble across it, certainly a friend of theirs will introduce them.

What is the role of AI in the classroom?

Where we are actually right now is that teachers are being forced into being cops to see if the kids use ChatGPT to write things, instead of teaching them to learn to use ChatGPT as the powerful research tool it is but respecting themselves enough to take care of the work at hand, to do the work and present it as their original work and recommend to them that this is actually disrespecting themselves to use something from ChatGPT or online. We run the risk of graduating a whole lot of people who got good, solid Bs all the way through school and came into the workplace knowing nothing, right? Because they went the easy path of resistance. 

I think that the most important thing we can do here is encourage our kids to demand to do the work. In other words, because they understand it’s what goes into them and what they are able to do in terms of synthesizing it that really matters; it’s not the grade.

Full transcript

This transcript was automatically generated and may contain small errors.

In our last episode, we talked with the New York Times journalist, Jess Grose, who conducted surveys in students’ technology use in schools to fill in the gaps about what we don’t know. And those results, they really lined up with the black hole vortex fears.

His work aims to take the pulse of our current moment, but not necessarily wish for the past. And he has some thoughts about how scared parents really should be. We talk about how to be sane and realistic about technology with the understanding that it’s not going anywhere. And we talk about how to teach kids early on to be good digital citizens, and how parents need to rethink how we use technology in front of our kids. Yes, I should put my phone down. Thank you, doctor. And we talk about strategies for engaging with your kids as they engage with social media.

I will say, this is one conversation that I used almost immediately. Later in the conversation, we talk about engaging with your kids’ own YouTube, and I did that. And it was weird, but also we learned that my son and I both really, really love that TikTok where the person talks about looking for a guy in finance, and it was a great moment of connection. 

After the break, Dr. Michael Rich.

We are not in the habit of saying, “Turn it all off,” because that’s not going to happen. And we are realists and pragmatists, but we are also realizing that there are many positives that have come from what is called social media, although no one has the same definition for social media. And as you might imagine, with the litigation and the legislation around social media, a lot of the companies are running for the exits and saying, “They’re messaging companies, they’re broadcast companies.” And we have a long way to go before legislation or litigation is going to make things better; we should keep working at it. But the reality is for me is that I have to give kids and parents the information they need right now to be healthy right now.

And so one of the key things that I say to parents is to observe what I call the three plus two Ms. The first M is model the behavior with your screen use that you want to see in your kids because they listen to about 1% of what we say and 100% of what we do. The second is to mentor them with each new device application platform they go on. Sit next to them just as we will sit next to them in the front seat of our automobile and help them learn to drive.

The reason I use the term mentor instead of teacher is that mentors learn as much from the mentees as the mentees learn from the mentors. And a lot of parents hesitate to go into the digital space because they feel their kids are better at it than they are. The kids still need us. They still need us to guide them to the kind of healthy, smart, empathetic, good citizens that we want to see them become. We have to recognize that they live in a seamless, single digital physical environment that they move back and forth between. And the concept of screen time limits is obsolete. It never worked in the era of television anyway, but it’s obsolete. What we need to do is be using these screens in conscious, purposeful ways, which includes turning them off when we’re done with them.

The third M, and the one that kids and parents push back against the most, is monitor. Parents say, “I don’t have the time to monitor everything she or he does online.” The kids say, “I want my privacy.” This is not about privacy invasion or anything of that nature. What it’s about is being present in your child’s digital life. And what I suggest is that they do know their kids’ usernames and passwords but they respect their kids’ privacy as much as they can. The fact that parents can monitor the kids changes the kids’ behavior much the way random drug testing in the workplace changes workers’ behavior. I think that it’s up to parents to understand that the kids need their privacy, but the kids actually both need and, believe it or not, want their parent to be there so that if they come across something that freaks them out, something that scares them, something they don’t understand, their parent is not a police officer who you hide it from, their parent is a supporter of their success who can help them.

Now, if we can observe the three Ms, there are two goodies, two Ms that are goodies. The first one of course is mastery of this environment, really being able to know how these tools work, what they work well for, what the pitfalls are, when, where, and how to use them and when, where, and how not to use them, including using them for what they do well and turning them off at the end because that’s when we make memories. And that’s the really great M. We make memories in our real-life interactions with people. We don’t remember interactions online, but we do remember camping with our family or kicking a soccer ball around the backyard or just making a mess in the kitchen while trying to cook something. These are the things that bind us together, these the things that give us meaningful, sustaining relationships.

One of the myths that we all persist in is that we can multitask with media. The reality is the human brain works on one channel at a time. When we think we are multitasking, we’re actually rapidly switch tasking. And that means we don’t give our full attention, we don’t think deeply about what we’re doing at any one point in time, we’re skipping to the next thing.

But even for younger kids, when they’re consuming media through YouTube or when they’re older through Instagram, they’re going to see things that you can’t predict. And it’s not reasonable to imagine that we’re sitting next to them watching YouTube. For one thing, you would go insane. Can’t even believe how terrible some of this content is. But also, it’s not reasonable. The question is what does it mean to monitor when I’m not able to watch the whole time and know what it is on there?

The first thing is to have an open conversation as you introduce these devices or platforms. And be explicit about it. Say, “Look, you’re going to come across hate sites, you’re going to come across pornography, you’re going to come across thing.” These are out there. There’s no way we can protect them from it any better than teaching them to protect themselves. Instead of giving them a fish, let’s teach them to fish. And be explicit about what to do with them, when to do it, where to do it, and how they go about it and explicitly when they are not to do it and where they’re not to go, et cetera, et cetera.

And a lot of parents say to me, “When can I give my kid a smartphone?” And I say, “When you’re ready to talk to them about pornography.” And that holds them up short a little bit, but we have to recognize the fact that it’s out there. It’s a click away. And if they don’t stumble across it, certainly a friend of theirs will introduce them.

And I think that it’s really important to stay present. That means putting your own phone down. That means turning away or closing your laptop and being there for them so you are not only modeling for them the behavior you want to see in them, but you are being with them in that moment. Sit next to him when he’s watching YouTube, no matter how egregious what he’s looking at are, or play that video game you think he should never touch because what you’re doing then is you’re saying, “I love you, I respect you. I want to understand what engages you.” Here you are coming into that space as the Paduan, as the student, and you are learning from her or him about how to use it technically while you’re also teaching her or him to be a human.

Let’s talk about optimizing learning opportunities. Let’s think about what happens in school. You have didactic learning. You have math, science, English, et cetera. Do these devices help that or do they distract from it? I think the answer to that is obvious. Instructional time.

I am as or more concerned about the non-instructional time because I think the most important thing we do in school, particularly in the early years, is social emotional learning. It’s not learning the facts and skills that they’re going to use in life other than how do I get along with people? How do I solve conflicts? How do I address challenges of various kinds? And my real worry is that if we have smartphones in the kids’ pockets between classes, that’s when mom is saying, “Is that kid still picking on you in the playground? What did you get on that quiz? Do I need to talk to your teacher?” Et cetera. The kids never learn to solve problems for themselves, to follow a challenge and commit themselves to it if they’ve got mom in their head like Jiminy Cricket sitting on their shoulder. They never get that independence.

Now, the word ban is horrible for a whole lot of reasons. We all object to it. Why not talk about optimizing educational opportunities? And one of those opportunities actually is teaching them to use these devices in conscious, purposeful, mindful ways. And that is a role that I think is important for smartphones. Now, it doesn’t mean that every kid should have a smartphone, but we should actively teach them digital literacy and digital citizenship.

And actually, we’re edging into something now that I think we really need to talk about it, and that’s the role of gen AI in the classroom. And we are playing catch-up, frankly, with the kids already. And unfortunately, what’s happened is that education, which has historically been a series of hurdles we have to clear to move to the next level, whether it’s graduating from high school to college or even just passing to the next class, yes, ChatGPT can write your papers for you, yes, chat GPT can pass the law bar exam, et cetera. Where we are actually right now is that teachers are being forced into being cops to see if the kids use ChatGPT to write things instead of teaching them to learn to use ChatGPT as the powerful research tool it is but respecting themselves enough to take care of the work at hand, to do the work and present it as their original work and recommend to them that this is actually disrespecting themselves to use something from chat GPT or online. We run the risk of graduating a whole lot of people who got good, solid Bs all the way through school and came into the workplace knowing nothing, right?

We also put them on these devices without that education that I’m calling for for the schools and for families, really, is that when we put a powerful device in someone’s hands, we have to understand whether they are going to be responsible for it, whether they can respect themselves and others, and also what the consequences should be in advance for this kid. Ask the kid what should happen if she or he misuses the device. I think it is a good thing that the surgeon general is flagging the use of social media as a potential problem. I don’t think a warning label will ever work. There’s not just the practical issue of how do you make it work? But as you can see, all the social media companies are saying they’re not social media. And so this is-

Where we get into problems with this is we expect these media to be as meaningful and deep and sustaining as real life relationships. And we use these devices and these platforms to promote ourselves, to market ourselves to the world. Look at the great vacation I’ve been on or my dad’s new sports car or my hot, new boyfriend. We aren’t truthful. We aren’t authentic in the way we use it. We only show a piece of ourselves. And others come to that seeking connection, and they say, “Oh my God, that person is happier than I am, more fulfilled than I am,” because they know their own limitations, they know their concerns.

And so I think that we need to learn to use social media in truly authentic ways where we talk about not just the great things that we’ve done or seen but the things we fear, the things that we feel weak on, the things that we feel we need from each other. And think about our real relationships in life. They’re not with people who are perfect, they’re with people who are imperfect and love us despite our imperfections in many ways because of our imperfections, because we complete each other. Your husband couldn’t fix the disposal.

And I have this fantasy that someday there will be kids in two different countries who are being authentic and know each other very well whose leaders say, “That is the enemy. Harm them. Take up arms against them.” And the kids are going to say, “No. I know them better than I know you. Why should I?” I actually see social media, if we humans can use it correctly, as potentially an instrument of peace.

We have, as you know, a clinic dedicated to this, the Clinic for Interactive Media and Internet Disorders where we’ve been seeing kids for seven plus years. We have yet to find a young person who is in some ways impaired or dysfunctional because of their screen use that did not have an underlying psychological stressor that was driving that use. We have found that there are four really predominant ones, some of which are either undiagnosed or subclinical, and then not in the interactive media space, some of which were diagnosed and undertreated or underappreciated in terms of the intensity of it and its just manifested itself in the digital space. And our acronym for it is ASAD patient. That is attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, social anxiety, ASD, autism spectrum disorder, and depression. And virtually, all of our kids have one or more of these. We have yet to see a kid for whom everything was going great and they went down the rabbit hole. They go to the internet to feel better, to feel in control, to feel mastery.

And so if you think about it, a kid with ADHD spends their day in class feeling like they can’t keep up, they can’t follow. They go out to the playground and they can’t follow the conversations that are going on. They come home and they sit down in front of Call of Duty and they are amazing. In fact, many of these kids with attentional issues are better than so-called neurotypical kids. And I use air quotes around neurotypical because I hate that word. I think we are all neurodiverse in various ways and we use that word to other people who are less than or different than me in our opinion. I think we all bring a set of strengths and limitations to this. And I think we have to recognize that.

Okay, when is this kid in trouble? This is tough for parents. And we definitely get calls from what I call the worried well because parents have not experienced this environment. They did not grow up in this environment. And when they see their kids staring at a smartphone all day, it seems like they worry. When a young person is not able to live their life in terms of establishing and maintaining relationships socially, when they’re not sleeping adequately, when they’re falling behind in academics, when they are losing touch with their parents in terms of communicating with them or being present with them, that’s when they get into trouble; when it starts impairing aspects of their life.

Now, these kids are in a different environment than we’ve ever been in before. And I actually call it the next normal because today’s new normal is tomorrow’s old normal. This is a moving target. In fact, we’re dealing with three moving targets, the development of the child from infancy through childhood, adolescence, and young adulthood, the constantly evolving and rapidly changing digital ecosystem, which is both affecting that development and reflecting it because of what they create on it and then get responded to, et cetera. Screen use is not like television anymore, it’s a dialogue with the world.

And the third is the change in all of our behavior because we have these devices. We are just as guilty of staring at our smartphones in every spare moment as they are. And so I think first of all, I want to get rid of that word I just used, which is guilt. We should just dump the parent guilt because there’s lots and lots of it out there. “I’ve screwed my kids up.” And that’s one of the things that I really worry about, books like The Anxious Generation, because it just says, “You screwed your kids up.”

And if you’ve enjoyed these episodes on kids and technology, you’re going to love the upcoming virtual event that we’re hosting. I’ll be in conversation with Jon Haidt, the author of the bestselling book The Anxious Generation, on Wednesday, September 4th at one PM Eastern 10 AM Pacific Time. We’ll be talking about the data behind phones, social media, and mental health, and we’ll answer your questions live. These virtual office hours are a perk offered for our subscribers at the plus tier. So head on over to parentdata.org to learn more about both our subscription tiers and our events.

There are a lot of ways you can help people find out about us. Leave a rating or a review on Apple Podcasts. Text your friend about something you learned from this episode. Debate your mother-in-law about the merits of something parents do now that is totally different from what she did. Post a story to your Instagram, debunking a panic headline of your own. Just remember to mention the podcast too. Right, Penelope?

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