A

Foreign. Welcome back to the East Merchants Podcast with Kags and Kyle, where we discuss kids, technology and growing up in today's world. I'm Michelle Cagliano, AKA Kags.

B

And I'm Kyle Gordon, AKA Kyle. So today we're going to continue discussing the Anxious Generation by Jonathan Haidt and diving into some deeper discussions surrounding the effects that technology has on our youth, specifically what Jonathan Haidt calls the four foundations, foundational harms.

A

Yep. So, leading question today, Kyle, before we get started, I have another question that

B

I don't know that you don't know surprising me again.

A

So this one's just a little bit more conversational. So if you compare childhood today to childhood 20 or 30 years ago, what do you think is the single biggest thing kids are missing that technology has replaced?

B

Oh, wow, that's a great question. See, I wish I would have known this to prepare for it. No, it's good on the spot.

A

Yeah.

B

By the single biggest thing. I want to say

A

so many things.

B

There's so many things.

A

Yeah.

B

So for time's sake, because just, you know, saying hm for 10 minutes does not create audio. So the one thing that first comes to mind is like, almost like the need to, like, or. Oh, gosh, this is difficult.

A

This is a great question. I know.

B

All right. So the thing that came to mind is responsibility in the real world. Meaning the one thing I think of, like, you know, your parents would teach you, listen, if you're out, when you're not around, like, go ask an adult.

A

Blank.

B

Right. Go to an adult and say, you know, can I use your phone? Or what time is it? Or something like that, you know, and today it's like, I don't know. Not that kids don't have those skills at all, but I feel like it's like, emphasize less because you. You don't need it, but until you need it, you know, so that you fear. And fear too. Yeah, yeah.

A

Like parents being afraid of not trusting other adults.

B

Stranger danger.

A

Yeah, right. Yeah, Yeah, I know. I was thinking about it too. And I mean, there's so many things. Problem solving, attention. Right. Kids have no attention.

B

Yeah.

A

They can't.

B

And problem solving. Maybe I was a. Maybe I was the same way in middle school. I don't remember, but I do. The. The lack of, like, grit to be like, I don't get this, but I'm just gonna keep going for it.

A

Yeah. And just that instant gratification and the instant just. You wanna know something? Look it up. Like, it's just right there. There's no, like, you had to get a dictionary or an encyclopedia or you had to find something out. Like you had to really actively look for the answer.

B

Or even 10, 12 years ago, like when you googled something, you didn't just get the, like the answer right away. You had to like ask the right question. You had to make sure, like if, if it wasn't worded properly, you just get weird responses. It wasn't like guessing what you were wanting and giving that to you. You had to, even, even when Google came out, you still had to like word things the right way to find

A

what you're looking for. And now it's like chatgpt everything even. I mean I find myself doing it.

B

Chatgpt a little too much.

A

A little too much, too easy.

B

Yeah. So today we're gonna dive into the four foundational harms, which is sort of the basic, the main premise of the book. Right. That the screen based childhood created these four foundational harms that we see from 2013 on in the research and data statistics. So just to kind of go back to what those, like the, you know, what is a screen based childhood? So a play based childhood, which is the traditional way for hundreds or thousands of years. Let's say that children were raised right.

A

Pre technology.

B

Pre technology, unstructured and free play, physical play and social play. That can be risky. Like we said, things that are, there's some element of risk. Right. Like the, not necessarily that you know you're going to get a severe permanent injury, but you can get hurt and even socially as well.

A

Yeah.

B

Real world interaction, face to face in real time and then developing resilience like we talked about last episode, this idea of anti fragility that children need challenges and they need some kind of hardship in order to properly grow and develop.

A

Yeah. And now we're in a screen based childhood phase of life which trying to avoid and get away from. So screen based refers to not all device, not just smartphones, all devices.

B

All devices. Yeah.

A

Right. TVs, computers.

B

Yep. Tablets, video games, all of it.

A

Kids are spending more time alone on a device instead of with friends. Right. So for teens 13 to 18 years old, they spend 40 to 50 hours per week on a device full time job, last face to face interactions from gradual maturity to instant exposure. And a little stat that I found was interesting that Jonathan Haidt was discussing was that 40% of two year olds have a device.

B

Two years.

A

40% of two year olds. It's insane. Yeah. And then just, you know, thinking about pre Covid and post Covid, like pre Covid I feel like people were starting to get on the trend of technology and screen based might not be a great idea.

B

Yeah.

A

And then Covid hit and everything was.

B

Now you kind of didn't have another option and everything was pushing you to be on more, you know, like in a good way almost. It was, it was, it was pointed

A

towards, you know, we want to stay in school, but it's online.

B

Yeah.

A

You know, you want to, you still want to talk to your friends and socialize, but it has to be online.

B

Yeah.

A

You can't go to the baseball field, you can't go to the hockey rink because you might get Covid. And that's where they would socially interact. So that was taken away.

B

Yeah. And during that time it was like, okay, this is the best we're going to get right now if we can't go meet up in person. So it wasn't the worst thing then. But when life goes back to normal and that doesn't go back to normal, we see, you know, we see the repercussions. Absolutely. So we're going to dive into the four foundational harms. The first one being social deprivation. So offline kids engage in free play. They learn social skills like negotiation, problem solving, conflict resolution without the intervention of parents or adults. That's, that's the goal, right. That a kids are playing on the playground or they're at the park or they're riding bikes and they get into an argument and there's not mom or dad to settle it or to say, you, you know, whose turn is it? You have to figure it out on your own. And you have to figure out when is the time where I'm going to push because I think I'm right and when is the time where I think I'm right. But I still want to play with my friends, so I'm going to give in.

A

Yeah.

B

But online social media replaces real world interaction which can lead to underdeveloped social skills. If you are in a conversation that is purely text based or even really commenting direct, like DMs, direct messages, it is easy to. You leave a message, you don't have to respond right away. You don't have to respond someone face to face.

A

Yeah. And often taken out of context. Right?

B

Yeah.

A

So like, I know sometimes I always think someone's yelling at me when they might not be, you know, exactly. Like the tone. You don't get that tone. You don't get the facial.

B

The period at the end of the sentence.

A

Yeah, right.

B

Oh, they put a period at the

A

end of the sentence.

B

They're mad, right?

A

They're upset. Meanwhile, you don't.

B

You don't. Exactly. That's right. And another thing, you know, in the anxious generation, one of the stats that, that the author talks about, he says that the rates of teens having close friends and spending time with friends plummeted after 2010. So one of the charts that we'll, we'll throw up right here, 15 to 24 year olds. So that's like, you know, later. Teen years, high school into college age in 2003 spent an average between like 140, 160 minutes. So two and a half hours a day face to face with friends. By 2019, still pre Covid, it was under one hour.

A

Insane.

B

So from almost three to under one in that time period. And that's pre Covid. So who knows what the numbers were not just during the pandemic, but even the year since. Is it recovered? Is it the same? But that's a pretty drastic drop in that face to face interaction.

A

Totally. I mean I even see it with my son. I mean he's an athlete, so he is with friends, but it's often, you know, it's just his teammates, it's not really hanging out with his friends after school, he comes home and he's usually talking to them on whatever game they're playing. You know, so I definitely see that myself as a parent. The second foundational harm that we're going to discuss is sleep deprivation. So between 2013 and 2019, the percentage of teens getting less than seven hours of sleep rose sharply. So they're staying up later, they're on their devices and that's when your brain is developing. Especially teenagers, they need those nine to ten hours of sleep for their brain to fully develop.

B

Yeah, that's right. Nine plus hours for teenagers is what you really need.

A

They're growing. Your brain needs that sleep when you're

B

growing, going to sleep at 9pm and waking up at 6am yeah. Which I'm sure teenager does. Rare that that happens.

A

Absolutely. So with that sleep deprivation, it impairs your cognitive function, it weakens your memory, increases anxiety and contributes to health problems. Some longitudinal studies confirmed that heavy social media use proceeds and predict sleep loss. And experiments show that reducing screen time before bed improves sleep quality. So, you know, don't have your phone next to your bed when you go to sleep. Put it across the room. Charging in a different room totally would even be better. And you know, companies like Netflix openly admit to competing with sleep. You know, they want you up, they want you watching their shows, they know,

B

like, they're not competing against other apps, they're competing against whatever else you're doing, not on a screen. You know, it's like that once they had that. Once they had that timer of you didn't have to click next episode. Next episode starts in 5, 4, 3. Am I going to watch another one? Oh, it's starting. Just. All right, here we go.

A

Totally.

B

Yeah. And that's like, sleep is when your brain. Like, that's when your body recover. Like, everything that you need for the next day happens when you sleep.

A

Yeah. I mean, we know when we don't get a lot of sleep how we feel the next day.

B

Yes. Yeah.

A

So that's for teenagers. They need it even more.

B

Yeah. Um, so the next is attention fragmentation, which I think probably goes hand in hand with sleep deprivation. Um, but, you know, the combination of, you know, the world in your hand, the amount of apps, even, like the notifications. Right. You. Have you ever had the. The phantom buzz?

A

No.

B

You know, when you feel like your phone's vibrating in your pocket, but it's. It's not. It's not just because you're so used to it happening.

A

Right.

B

The. So the constant notifications, even just the fast movement of everything, you know, how responsive the touchscreens are, and even when you play games or video games, everything is meant to capture your attention. Yeah. So smartphones can help undermine executive function, making it harder for adolescents to sustain attention to complete tasks. That could be tasks. Schoolwork. That could be tasks like cleaning your room, doing chores, even like, having a sustained conversation with another person face to face. You know, I believe we talked before just about the. You know, the heavy smartphone use correlates to increased ADHD symptoms, particularly in younger adolescents. But it's. It's one of those things where I feel like a great analogy is, you know, our bodies and our brains, like, have developed in a way where they can handle a lot. You know, like, our body has systems to, like, filter out toxins.

A

Yeah.

B

But when it gets overwhelmed is when you start having issues, you know, whether it be stimulated autoimmune or just your body. But your brain is the same way. Like, it can only. It's an incredible thing, but it can only handle so much. So if you're filling it so much with things that grab your attention and your. Your. Your. Your mind is so split, like, you can. You can only handle so much. And I, I think he talks about. It might not be in the book. It may have been in the podcast that I've heard. But there really is no such thing as multitasking you're doing. You can't do two things at once, but you can flip back and forth really, really fast. But it's always going to diminish the amount that you can get done. So if it's not two things, if it's eight things, you know, it just. The amount that your brain can handle and produce is. Lowers significantly.

A

Absolutely. I mean, I see it in the classroom every day. The kids are having a harder time focusing on lessons because their attention is just. They're so used to just, you know, bopping around doing 100 different things.

B

Yeah. And I'm sure you're extremely engaging, Michelle, but you can't compete to the, you know, what they're watching in a show or in a video game, you know, like as a human being face to face. Like, you can't replicate the speed at which they're getting, you know, information or stimuli.

A

I mean, I'm just trying to get them to, you know, we're reading a chapter book and just me reading aloud to them. Some of them in the beginning could not sit through one chapter because they just need to get up and move and they just don't have the attention span. But they're getting better.

B

Yeah, yeah.

A

The more you do it. So the next foundational harm is addiction. So these social media platforms, they use these behaviorist techniques similar to slot machines to hook their users. And it's no surprise, you know, they use the algorithm. They are seeing what you're watching, they're seeing what you're liking. They're sending you what they think you'll enjoy. Constant notifications, constant, you know, ads being thrown your way. I know if I'm home talking about like, what mattress are we going to get the next day? I'll get an ad about a mattress.

B

No, no, no. Not one ad. Every ad that comes on your feed. Yes, exactly.

A

Yeah. So these apps deploy variable ratio reinforcement, unpredictable rewards just to see if you're going to react and engage. Right. Making it difficult for teens to stop scrolling gaming. Checking for likes. You know, they check their notifications. I think what they say four to 500 times a day.

B

Yeah, yeah. It's like that. The, the science behind it, like a slot machine is, is if you, the variable ratio, it's not like, hey, every 10th time I pull it, I win. So I'm gonna make sure I pull it 10 times.

A

It's.

B

I don't know when it's gonna happen. And that makes it even more enticing.

A

Right.

B

Because it's like any of, any time I pull the slot machine, it could be the time that I win. So I'm just going to keep doing it until I run out of money. And that's what happens with gambling addicts and with the apps. It's the same thing. It's. Well, every time I refresh, maybe there's going to be a comment, maybe there's going to be a like. So I have to just keep refreshing because anyone, it didn't happen the last 10 times, but this could be the time that whenever it's the same mechanism. I think that's one of the things that, like, got me on this topic. Like early on, even before I read this book was I heard somebody say, like, you don't realize there is. There is a whole economy going on of people trying to figure out what's going to hook you.

A

Yeah.

B

So you make money from. So you just passively using a phone and hoping that you spend less time on it is not a solution to win. You know, if you're going to compete against that, you need to really have a plan and, and have something in place that you want to accomplish.

A

Yeah. So, you know, excessive social media use triggers real withdrawal symptoms like anxiety, irritability, insomnia, paralleling real substance addiction. And then just thinking about, like, all the different apps. Right. So TikTok, you know, they want your engagement. Right. So that leads to addiction. Snapchat, it's like the streaks. Right. So I know when my. I didn't realize it when my girls were younger, like, oh, I can't lose my streak with so and so. Well, they got you. That's what they want. They want you to keep that streak. So you're on their app constantly.

B

Yes. It's funny, we have 1 7th graders in frost Valley right now, and one of the things, when they find out they're not allowed to bring their phones, nevertheless, there's no service there in the middle of nowhere.

A

Yeah.

B

How am I going to keep my Snapchat streaks?

A

Exactly.

B

I have. I have over a thousand days of streaks with this friend, you know, and it's like, that's addiction. How silly is that? But, you know, in some ways it's like, well, I'll never get a thousand again if I stop now. You know, it'll be. I'll be. I'll be 16 by the time to get, you know. So sad.

A

Yeah, it's so sad. And you know, one stat that I saw about Snapchat, they get 10,000 reports and Jonathan Haidt actually said this. 10,000 reports on sextortion per month, every month. And it's mostly boys, teenage boys who are reporting this, that there's strangers on there trying to.

B

Yeah, I've heard. Yeah, I've heard there was a story recently about a college athlete that the head happens to. You know, who. Yeah. But, you know, without getting into the gory details, I think that is an excellent idea of this idea that we, like, overprotect kids in the real world and under. Protect them online.

A

Yeah.

B

Like, is there anything about. Like, hey, listen, somebody messages you, you never met them before, you don't know who they are, and they're asking you to engage in this way and send them stuff that you shouldn't be sending people. Like, that's our easy red flag.

A

Totally.

B

You know, to be like, you're putting something out there about yourself that if you. Anybody else sees, you're gonna. What's gonna happen to you. And that's what. And they've. It's like 10,000 reports a day to get money out of people or threatening them with posting it all over the place.

A

Yeah.

B

And, you know, we're telling kids like, hey, listen, like, you know, sorry, you can't. You can't ride your bike to the park. I know you're 14, but you can't go ride your bike because a stranger

A

might talk to you.

B

Yeah. You might fall off and get hurt. When it's like, of course there are real dangers in the real world, but, like, if you look at the statistics. I'll tell you what, I don't know this for a fact, but you can go look it up. I can guarantee you that there's not 10,000 reports of kidnapping. Kidnappings in real life, in person.

A

Right.

B

Per day or per month.

A

I know. And it's so funny. We had a Suffolk county police officer come to our classroom last week, and, you know, in the discussion, we were talking about social media because, you know, I brought it up, I wanted to see what the kids would say. And she asked them if anyone has, you know, tick tock or Snapchat or any of that. And some of them do. And she said, well, you know, you have to be 13 to have an account. And so they're like, oh, my mom, you know, my mom set it up or whatever. And she's like, yeah, but you have to be 13. None of you are 13. So you all, you know, you failed.

B

Yeah.

A

You shouldn't be on it. You know, you're too young. So she. She was kind of reiterating that as well.

B

Yeah.

A

Okay.

B

Yeah. But, yeah, yeah, even, like, along those lines, I think going back to that idea of, you know, last episode we talked about safety ism, you know, and I think it's like, you don't want to, like, cause a panic, but, like, you do. It's not causing a panic if it's the real thing. And I think causing a panic is. Is not looking at the facts or looking at small numbers and thinking they're big numbers, but what we're really seeing is the opposite.

A

Yeah.

B

And it's one of those things where maybe there was this shift towards safety ism in the 90s and 2000s about not letting kids go out or. No, not really letting kids have free play. Everything has to be a play date, supervised. But when you look at the statistics and the numbers of, like, what really happens in the real world, they're much more likely for something that to happen online unsupervised than in the real world unsupervised. And I think that, again, not to, like, scare people, but just, like, accurately assess the risk.

A

Yeah.

B

You know, and what actions am I taking to accurately assess the risk of letting my kid go out in real life? Age appropriate, developmentally appropriate versus what they're doing online. Age appropriate, developmentally appropriate.

A

And I believe Hate was also discussing, like, the difference between the United States and in Europe and why people in the United States were less trusting to let our kids just go. And in Europe, it's more. They're afraid that their kid will, like, get hit by a car or get into an accident. So for us, it's more fear based with. With kidnapping and stranger danger. And just to let go of that, you know, a little bit and. And give them a little bit more freedom.

B

Yeah. And just this general trust in society, like other adults are going to do the right thing.

A

Yeah.

B

You know, which I. Which I think. And that's like a societal issue. I do think that it is. It's like you're less trusting of adults. And sometimes people are afraid to step in if it's not their kid, because what happens if I'm doing what I think is best for the kid or to help? But what happens if the parent is upset or somebody else thinks they're upset? You know?

A

So true.

B

We'll actually get to that in next episode with the four new norms.

A

Totally.

B

All right, so our three key takeaways for today. The first is the issue isn't necessarily screen time. It's not. Devices are bad. Screens are bad. But it's what they're not going anywhere. But it's, what are they replacing? Right. What are we replacing the play? Like instead of being on a screen, what could they be doing? Right. And even looking at these four foundational harms is, you know, the negative results of free play and letting your kid play outside and get hurt, are those worse than what we're seeing with the results of the screen based childhood? You know, like you have to really have to weigh physical harm. Again not serious, not serious physical harm, you know, but you know, possible physical harm or possible even social harm but face to face in a way that is productive versus the other side.

A

Yeah. So these four harms, they compound each other. Right. So sleep disruption, social comparison, reduced real world interactions reinforce one another. So it's like a vicious cycle making the impact on mental health stronger than any one factor alone. Right. So these kids, it's all happening at the same time. It's not just one thing. They're not just sleep deprived, they're also addicted and they're also not socializing. So it's, it's everything in combination.

B

Yeah. What do we call that is, that's a something relationship. I shouldn't even brought it up. I don't know.

A

We'll have to look it up.

B

And as one increases, the other increases. Math teachers comment please. So I don't embarrass myself. Yeah, but yeah, all four, they make the other ones worse.

A

Yeah.

B

And then lastly, the shift towards a phone based childhood has changed the way children develop socially, emotionally and psychologically. And that even goes back to what you said of if the, you know, kids attention span is really low in class, like the way that they're developing is different. You know, it's being changed because of what they are doing on a day to day. The habits they have change the ways that their brain functions.

A

Yeah.

B

And we have to keep that in mind. Again, not to cause a panic and be scared, but to understand like what are the facts and then what are we based on those facts? Which perfectly leads to your discussion question.

A

So our first challenge discussion question. So if we know more now about how technology affects kids, the real question is what are we willing to change? Like what do we as parents, educators, just people in general, what can we change right now to help our kids be more successful and mentally strong?

B

If you do the same thing, you're gonna get the same results.

A

Yeah.

B

So what? Yeah. If you're not gonna, if you don't feel like it's appropriate to take away your kid's phone, what can you, what can you what can you do besides that? You know, like, nothing is not a great option.

A

Right.

B

But you don't, you know, you don't have to be like, we're going to, you know, move away and live off the grid and no WI fi. But, like, what. What is possible and realistic?

A

Well, that brings me to my little. My little shout out for my son, actually. So what I can do and what I tried to do, maybe not so good on some days, but modeling good behavior. Right. So back in November, October, I took a social media break, a phone break I wasn't on at all. You know, led me to explore different books and do different things that I enjoy, and I didn't enforce it on anybody else. But my son. Just coincidentally, the next week, his screen time went down 88%.

B

Wow.

A

And we were all shocked. So then we all screenshotted our. Our screen times to see, and he. His was the least amount. And it was just astounding just by me not being on my phone modeling that for him. He was off his phone a lot.

B

Yeah. Yeah. And it's interesting to say, like what. Like what can you. What are you willing to change? Or what do you even. Like, what do you have the power to change?

A

Yeah.

B

Right. And sometimes it's the. It's. You call what a low lift. Right. I've, you know, somebody that I know will say things like, do what you can, not what you can't.

A

Yeah.

B

If you're not, like, you know, like, don't. If you don't say, if I can't do this, I'm gonna do nothing. But, like, what can you do? And one of those things is you yourself can model it. You know, you can just be like, I'm not gonna enforce it on my kid. I don't think that's gonna. I think it's the opposite effect.

A

Yeah.

B

I'm just gonna do what I can do, which is I'm gonna do it and I'm gonna set an example or I'm gonna model it in that way. Yeah.

A

And also my daughter, she gave up her social media totally for lent, so she has an up and on at wall.

B

Wow.

A

And she's. Yeah. Just doing a good job.

B

Yeah. So on that, one of the things that is kind of cool, which my wife and I for Christmas had gotten each other, or it's really one thing. It's called brick. I don't know if you've seen any ads for it. It's just. It basically like locks your phone. So you have this. The little device. It's like Just a little. Little square. It's the magnet you can put on your fridge. And you go open the app and you say, brick, my phone. And you just tap it to the little thing on your fridge, and it locks all the apps that you want. You can choose which apps. So it's like. Then you have to physically manually walk back to where the brick is.

A

Yeah. So it just makes it a little bit.

B

It makes. So it's funny because you would think, like, well, if I really want to use it, I can still use it. Yeah. But just that little thing that gets in the way where every time. Oh, I'm a little bit bored. Let me just pull this out.

A

Yeah.

B

My phone. Look, real quick. It stops that.

A

Yeah.

B

Right. And then that's kind of. It stop. Yeah. You just naturally end up using. You use your phone for what you want to use it for.

A

Right.

B

You don't trap in the trap.

A

It's not a boredom thing. Like constantly just always being on it just to be on it. Yeah.

B

Yeah.

A

So thank you for joining us.

B

Tune in next time for our discussion of the four new norms.

A

Yeah.

B

Where we can look at what is going to positively change.

A

Yeah. Again, how we can help our kids. Yeah. Thanks.

B

Thank you. See you next time.