Chasing Life: How Social Media and Mental Health Affects Young People’s Minds: A Call to Talk with Dr. Sanjay Gupta
Technology has advanced at breakneck speed over the past decade. That has disrupted our lives, the ways we interact with each other and even grow up. The impact of technology on young people is being looked at this season. Like many parents, this topic is personal for Dr. Sanjay Gupta. In the first episode of our show, we speak with some of the people most directly impacted by it all, one of which was his daughter. Plus, a conversation with Jean Twenge , Professor of Psychology at San Diego State University, about how social media is affecting youth mental health.
My daughter is with me. Soleil is 13 years old, making her the youngest of my three daughters. She is intelligent beyond her years. She is a smart person. She has a lot of teenage girl confidence, which can be intimidating even to me.
I’m sitting down with my daughters and their mom, for the first time ever on the podcasts, and we’re doing something really different and needed for the first time on Chasing Life.
The Best Child of Your Parents? A Conversation with Your Grandparents on Smartphones, Snapchats, TikTok, and Snapchat
All the teenagers are going to do something. They’re going to set their phones so that they live in Canada. And they’re still gonna use snapchat and TikTok.
And so many of these discussions we hear from experts. I wanted to hear from the people who use these technologies the most this season. My kids, my young people. And as you’re about to hear, they didn’t hold back.
Who did you think was the best child of your parents’ generation? Overall, just for a kid.
Because they could communicate with their phones, like flip phones or telephones, home phones, whatever. They don’t just stay in their bed, but they’re a whole lot more entertaining, and a whole lot more addictive, because it’s not just something you carry around in your hand.
Source: https://www.cnn.com/audio/podcasts/chasing-life/episodes/188a0639-7090-4b13-aa23-afa400d3612e
CNN Chief Medical Correspondent, Dr. Jean Twenge, When I Was a Kid: Why I Wanna Be a Father?
I want you to know that as I work on this very important season, I’m going to be asking these questions as a journalist, as a doctor, but most importantly, as a dad. I’m Dr. Sanjay Gupta, CNN’s chief medical correspondent and proud dad to three teenage daughters. This is chasing something.
Jean Twenge, who you just heard there, is the author. My oldest daughter was about to be a teenager. I think it hit me one day. I was going to be a father. You know, I spent so much of my life planning and training and preparing. I worked 100 hours a week for seven years during my neurosurgery residency. People expect me to answer their questions. I am Mr. Fix-It for my family and many of our friends. The issue was gnawing at me. How much did I know about raising girls? Especially at this time? The time of the i generation. I was sure that this book might help.
The changes in how teens spend their time and feel were big in the 2012 and 2011 national surveys. I realized we have a new generation when I saw that. These young people are not like the previous generation. They’re the next generation who I think the best name for them is iGen, like iPhones.
In addition to being an author, Jean Twenge is a psychology professor at San Diego State University. I wanted to learn more after reading her book. So using my journalistic license, I called her up and asked if we could sit down and chat. Honestly, she scared the heck out of me. Describing the igeneration in ways that were so stark and so worrying.
Source: https://www.cnn.com/audio/podcasts/chasing-life/episodes/188a0639-7090-4b13-aa23-afa400d3612e
Twenge and the Internet of Things: What do we really know about technology? The lesson that we’ve learned from living in the digital world
Their satisfaction with their lives as a whole and with themselves really fell off a cliff in terms of the way they spent their time really shifted that they were spending less time hanging out with their friends in person.
I was told by Twenge that the I generation is fundamentally different in many ways. They spend their time in a number of different ways, but also with differing attitudes towards sex, politics and religion. More than anything, though, Twenge worries that the digital world has made them lonely. I remember having that conversation, immediately running home and hugging my girls and trying to do it as cool as possible. It didn’t work. Kids pick up things. They sensed something was wrong. The oldest of my three children looked at me and asked who died. You know, talking to them. Twenge had described how they were falling off a cliff. What do I know for sure? What did I know? It was a lesson in humility. There was a thought that the people most important in my life had one world and another that was almost invisible to me. Mr. Fix It felt vulnerable, ill equipped and at a loss.
I was thinking about technology because of you and your sisters, who were wondering how technology would affect their lives. What do you think about that?
I think that it has changed our lives a lot. It’s the same as how human evolution is going to go on. And like, the technology that’s in our lives now probably isn’t going to change as much as when you get older. I feel like when we become adults, we will be on our phones more than the people we know today. I don’t think it’s a good or bad thing. Like there’s plus and minuses, but like. Many people try to avoid certain downs because they try their hardest. But like even if they try to avoid it, they’re going to be exposed to it in their lives. There is not much that can be done about it. It’s just it’s just the thing is going to get worse as we go on or better as we go on. Depends on how you look on it.
Source: https://www.cnn.com/audio/podcasts/chasing-life/episodes/188a0639-7090-4b13-aa23-afa400d3612e
How We Waited until Middle School and I Almost Tried to Tell Them What We Did And Then Were Revisited
I really like how we waited until middle school. I know that. It’s hard, like for parents. Always with their oldest. So they’re like, when do we give them a phone? They are trying to figure it out. Wait until middle school.
I do remember that day just because there was COVID. And I went and I walked to my friend’s house who lived right nearby. We used my phone to make a TikTok. And I was like, new phone!
You’re being, every other time. Like, there’s always parents, somebody to look after you. But once you’re in middle school, sort of more of that freedom where you can go off and do things by yourself, which also allows more of the danger of going off and doing things by yourself.
To me it is. Just because, like, you know, middle school drama. On the other hand, if I hang out with a friend and they find out that we are talking to each other, they will be like, Oh, my gosh, you’re so annoying. Deal with it.
What We Can Teach Children About Driving a Car: A Power Tool for Children to Take a Stand and See What You’re Doing
I think that if we can take a step back and treat the smartphone or the tablet or the social media platform as the power tool it is, and think about it the way we think about our child driving a car, for example. Right? A car is something kids want to get. But that being said, I don’t think we would teach our child to drive either, because everyone else is doing it regardless of what their age is or in a way that is sort of a have at it, you know. But we will hand a four year old who’s screaming an iPad and say, you know, go play Angry Birds or something like that as a tool to calm them down without thinking about the implications. I think it’s important for us to treat tools as tools and teach kids how to use them with respect, because we don’t teach drivers how to stay safe when they hit a tree. We teach them to drive a car and in the process they learn to be safe. I think that we need to approach it not out of fear, but out of a sense of mastery of this powerful tool.
I don’t want access that’s limited. If people don’t have control of their lives when they’re older or when they go somewhere else, then they aren’t going to be able to do things their own way.
Source: https://www.cnn.com/audio/podcasts/chasing-life/episodes/188a0639-7090-4b13-aa23-afa400d3612e
What do I think of Soleil if I’m Not Going to Go on Snapchat? A Closer Look at the Other Side of the Problem
I do. I’ll cut back on TikTok, if I do that, I’m not going to go on it today. I will just communicate with my friends on a mobile messaging platform. It’s not that big of a deal. But if I say that I’m not going to go on Snapchat, it’s a bigger deal because then people are like, Soleil, why aren’t you responding? What do you think of Soleil? Is that Soleil? Are you where you are? I’ll just feel like people are doing that, even though I’m not doing it anymore.
Not right away, but like, it’s just me. Like, I feel like also, like, that’s just bigger for me overall because I also just sort of want to like. If my friends are upset about something, like, or something else is going on, then they need to talk to someone about that, because I can respond. One of the people that I will be able to get advice from is Soleil.
Source: https://www.cnn.com/audio/podcasts/chasing-life/episodes/188a0639-7090-4b13-aa23-afa400d3612e
What do teens really do when they use social media? A brief look at a time when smartphones were the dominant form of social media, and how they started using flip phones
She reminds me of her mom. My wife, Rebecca. She loves to show up for her friends. Just like these devices have created a world in which professionals are expected to always be on, always available. The same can also be said for our kids. This deep seated desire to always be there for the ones they love. That raises a lot of different emotions, including pride.
I talk to my girls about what I’m working on because I always want to know what they think. This time felt different, as I said. I was learning from Soleil. And there’s the part of the conversation again that really struck me when Soleil said the generation before her, the millennials, they had it best. Why? Because they had to grow up with flip phones. Is she right? After the break, professor Jean Twenge will weigh in on all of this.
Last time we spoke, you know, you talked about the challenges that teens are facing. And it really stuck with me. I think it’s you if you’re a parent. but if you’re a parent, that hits you right in the chest, you know that, gosh, I think I’m I’m wanting to do the right thing. But is, you, you believe that smartphones play a role, a significant role in all of that?
What I’ve realized since then, it’s also when Facebook acquired Instagram and Instagram really took off in popularity. During that time, the majority of Americans started to use Facebook. And for teens, it’s when about 75% or so started using social media every day. It was not quite as big as it was a few years ago. Half of them use social media, but half don’t. Then it seems optional, once it gets to that 75%, 80% or so, then it feels more mandatory. And if you don’t use it, you’re left out. Teens tell me they feel like they can’t win because they don’t use social media. They feel left out sometimes. If they use it, then there’s a good chance they’ll spend all that time on it. Neither one seems like a great choice.
We have to take a broad view of this in a number of ways. Some of the other issues need to be looked at to see if they fit together. So the economy is a great place to start. There has been a significant increase in teen depression between 2011 and 2019. Well, that’s a time when the U.S. economy was on a tear. It was improving at the same time the teen depression was going up so completely misaligned. The reason that I think you could make such a strong case for technology having an impact is it’s not just something that people are worrying about that they read about in the news. It has fundamentally changed people’s day to day lives. That was true for teenagers.
Source: https://www.cnn.com/audio/podcasts/chasing-life/episodes/188a0639-7090-4b13-aa23-afa400d3612e
The Device is the culprit or the Opportunity Cost Lost in Terms of What We’re Using (Invited Talk at the CLEA Workshop on Computational and Biomedical Sciences)
The device is the culprit or is it the opportunity cost lost in terms of what you could have been doing instead of being on the device?
There are a lot of different factors. And I think it’s really important to acknowledge that it’s not really the device itself, it’s how we use it. Overall, for example, the phones are amazing. All of the things that that they can do for us, I mean, the Maps app, having the boarding pass on your phone when you when you find an airplane, being able to use Uber or Lyft, being able to call somebody, when you get a flat, you know, there’s just all of these things that really are essential. If we use smartphones just for those and then put them away, I would have very few concerns. We don’t generally use them that way because social media apps are designed to keep you coming back. It’s just it’s so tempting to always pick up the phone Then you get distracted by something else. Just because our whole lives are on it.
Source: https://www.cnn.com/audio/podcasts/chasing-life/episodes/188a0639-7090-4b13-aa23-afa400d3612e
What are you saying about your kids? What are they saying about you? How do you think? When do you feel like you’re not using social media?
I’m descended from immigrants. My parents came from India in the sixties, and I think it’s weird to say they didn’t go back after I was born, because they probably wouldn’t have come back anyways. They were raising me as they had been raised in sort of 1940s, India, But I was living in the United States, in Michigan. You know, my point being that that was who they were. That’s how they grew up and that’s the values they were trying to impose on me. We went back to India in the 80’s. They were like, Holy smokes, this place is totally different, totally changed. Right? I think it is almost a trap to try and define or describe the new generation by their older generations values.
Well, I think that one way the best way to avoid that is to listen what young to what young people are telling us. I’m taking surveys and data from people in their twenties, and they are saying about themselves. And I think that’s what we have to listen to. They’re telling us that. They are telling us that they are stressed out. They’re saying that they feel like they are not useful, that they’re suffering from depression, and that they are not happy.
It’s hard to argue against that. I find my oldest daughter who really uses it the most, but we have limited it for our younger daughters because she’s a very authentic person when she’s using it. When I look at the comments, you know, in response to something that they may have posted, it can be very affirming, I find. Love you. You are going girl. Heart emojis, you know, lots of stuff like that. It almost it it’s it’s emotional as a as a parent to see other children reacting to your child that way and and also understanding how they must feel reading all those positive comments, the tendency, the narrative is to think, okay, you’re going to potentially be surrounded by toxicity. But I haven’t anecdotally, I haven’t seen that. What about what about you?
You know, if you look at social media use and depression, it’s it’s it has a dose response curve that’s similar to a lot of other things where it’s the worst at the very, very, very high levels. Everybody who uses social media five or more hours a day is depressed. But there’s, say, double the number than at low levels of use. Some people are going to do okay with that, because it comes up in many other contexts. There will be more people with bad outcomes. I think the danger is that. How are you going to tell which group your kid will end up in? Mm hmm.
Well. I’ll ask this bluntly. Is it not a good thing that my teenagers are on social media? You’re a professor of psychology. You’ve written a book on this. You don’t ban your teenage or adolescent daughters from having social media. Am I doing the wrong thing?
Their use of the screen media is really an attempt to self-care, to self-soothe, if you will, rather than a problem in and of itself. And it is not the social media or gaming doing something to them, it’s how they’re using it that becomes problematic.
I have questions, many, many questions. How much screen time is too much? How about the warning signs? Things are going wrong. What should you do about it? He has a lot of tips for kids, parents and anyone who wants to know how to navigate this new world. I’m Dr. Sanjay Gupta, CNN’s chief medical correspondent. Chasing Life is this.
We are trying to raise kids in a dramatically different environment than we grew up in. We do not really have the rights and wrongs of parenting that our parents gave us. Right? We’re in a brave new world and we’re going to have to get used to it.
Chasing Life with CNN Audio: About a College Student Who Gets a Lot Out of His Day, but Wasn’t Going to Sleep
Chasing Life is a production of CNN Audio. Grace Walker, Eryn Mathewson, and David Rind are part of the production team. Our senior producer is Haley Thomas. Andrea Kane is our medical writer and Tommy Bazarian is our engineer. The technical director is Dan Dzula. The executive producer is a woman, and she works for CNN. A special thanks to Ben Tinker, Amanda Sealey and Nadia Kounang of CNN Health and Katie Hinman.
It was kind of starting to start to wear on me physically, I think. That was when I was scrolling for hours and not going to sleep. It was taking a lot out of my day.
The story I’m about to tell you will sound typical at first. It’s about a college student named Jerome Yankey. He was pulling all nighters, but he wasn’t studying for exams. He wasn’t hanging out with friends.
Source: https://www.cnn.com/audio/podcasts/chasing-life/episodes/f2b7f7a5-ae60-4b5a-a795-afac01011dd1
“What did I learn in high school?” The struggle of a young man with big dreams to become an influential person in today’s world
It was difficult to stop. It was very difficult to say I’ve seen enough because there isn’t enough on TikTok. There is no winning on TikTok. There is no end point. You just keep going.
I can add up half an hour to an hour when I wake up, a little bit during a meal, another two hours during the day, and even more if I had more free time.
The journey of saying, Hi to this account is my TikTok account. I don’t have any followers. I’m going to post since there’s a chance that someone will see it and I know a bunch of my friends on here. Because that’s how the TikTok algorithm works.
The story was of a young man with big dreams of becoming an influential person in today’s world. But the story also has a typical ending, and it’s not a happy one. It was frustrating that his videos did not take off, as with most people. And now all that scrolling was just fueling a downward spiral.
I was simply watching, just scrolling, just kind of just droning on through endless content. I started to become less imaginative and more cynical during that time. I would only be looking at the content. I would see it and I would be like, Oh, I could be funnier than that. They are not that good.
Source: https://www.cnn.com/audio/podcasts/chasing-life/episodes/f2b7f7a5-ae60-4b5a-a795-afac01011dd1
Seeing the world through the lens of an app’s lens: From a fog to a mirror. A tale of three girls in a row
Jerome said something deep inside of him stirred. Maybe it was something that made him look up and enjoy the real world. It was like emerging from a fog.
It wasn’t until I started taking time away from the app that I realized that I wasn’t unattractive, I wasn’t unsuccessful, I wasn’t, you know, unpopular. I was comparing myself to the super ideals of every form.
That. That is the thing that really stuck with me about Jerome’s story. How innocent was it? I can’t help but think about how I can keep my daughters from going there, as a dad of three teenage daughters. Look, I see how much they enjoy the app. I can see the appeal. Heck, we’ve even made videos together. Here’s the thing that scares me. As much as I work hard to protect them, in their real world, I do worry about their digital world and what might happen to my girls when they don’t have as many rules or supervision. My oldest child, who will be attending college soon, will be the same age as me when this all happened to him. It’s hard to believe, but might the same thing happen to her? Thankfully, Jerome managed to figure it out on his own. I know people can’t do that. Sometimes it gets so bad that people need medical help.
It is a resource for those children and families who have been on the wrong side of the internet when it comes to gaming, social media and bingeing.
Source: https://www.cnn.com/audio/podcasts/chasing-life/episodes/f2b7f7a5-ae60-4b5a-a795-afac01011dd1
Going through a hard time: What I’m worried about in a brave new world (and what I can’t do about it)
We’re going to have to figure out as we go along in a brave new world. And it’s not even generational anymore. I worry about my 14 year old sibling because this environment is changing so fast, and I have 17 year old patients that say I’m cool but I really worry about them.
Source: https://www.cnn.com/audio/podcasts/chasing-life/episodes/f2b7f7a5-ae60-4b5a-a795-afac01011dd1
Is Jerome Yankee’s Story Really Out of the Ordinary? Identifying the Issues of Online Addiction and its Effect on Social Media Use
Jerome Yankee’s story may sound extreme, but as I said, it’s actually not that out of the ordinary. Nearly a quarter of teenagers in the US say they use TikTok frequently. That’s mind blowing all the time on a single app. So you know what? It’s not just TikTok. Or teens, for that matter. Three out of ten adults say they are online almost constantly as well. Here is the thing. The data is important even though it’s useful. It doesn’t paint a complete picture. The numbers do not tell us how much time is spent on TikTok impacting people’s health negatively or positively. Or if those surveyed even consider themselves to be addicted like Jerome did. And here’s one thing that I learned. We need to be careful when we use the word addiction. Internet addiction isn’t a thing for now. It’s not an official clinical diagnosis. There’s still lots of discussion on how to treat it, how to define a mental health disorder, and how to measure it, even though it isn’t a mental health disorder. Most do agree, though, that regardless of the semantics here, whatever you want to call it, too much doomscrolling can be bad for you. A lot of people are in need of help. And that’s where Dr. Michael Rich comes in.
We went to virtual visits before the lockdown. I had a 30% no show rate on first visits for kids in my office who are struggling with their interactive media use because the parents would wait until the night before or the morning of the visit to see if they wanted to take their video. And of course, the kids would say, no effin way, I’m out of here. Our no show rate fell to zero because we were comfortable in this environment.
What I found out is that I knew a lot more than my parents did about social media. When I say something about screens, Dr. Rich said my parents should listen to me.
I spent my wicked youth in the film industry. I love Screen Media, but I also respect it. In any great love affair, there’s deep respect as well.
Source: https://www.cnn.com/audio/podcasts/chasing-life/episodes/f2b7f7a5-ae60-4b5a-a795-afac01011dd1
Bringing the kid in because they’re worried. Why do parents want to keep their kids away from the world? — An audio interview with D. J. Smirnov
They’re bringing the child in because they’re worried, right? I mean, if a parent is taking their child to see the doctor, period, and leave alone for something like this, it’s because they’re worried. They’ve been having pain, and they’ve been unable to keep food down. They’re worried that you’re coming into them. What is the worry? Exactly. I am concerned that my kid is spending too much time on a screen. Ergo, what?
Parents see a young person withdrawing from other aspects of their life. They are not up for school. Sometimes they’re staying up all night gaming or on social media or whatever. The young person withdrawing from them the most acutely is what they see. The kid is in their room. A kid is on a screen. You know, instead of spending time with the family, you would rather spend time with your friends. I think that’s a pain point for parents.
Source: https://www.cnn.com/audio/podcasts/chasing-life/episodes/f2b7f7a5-ae60-4b5a-a795-afac01011dd1
What Do You See in Your Life? What Have You Don’t Know, What Are You Want? What Are Your Options? How Do You Need Screens?
Do you define for the patient and or the family what is too much, what is abnormal in this world? We have to define normal limits in medicine. You can get lab results within normal limits by doing that. What is within normal limits here?
Their day to day functions are impaired, that is the problem. They’re not getting enough sleep. They are eating much too much. They are missing school. They aren’t spending time with their friends. In order for me to identify their pain points, the things that they wish were going better, I have to get through the chink in the armor first, and that’s what I do with these young people. I wish I had more friends, rather than having an ideal that says over a long period of hours is bad for your life. I would like to take a look at what their life was from the time they wake up to the time they sleep. I think it has been about how you are feeling in your life. What are you doing? Are you getting grades in school that are reflective of your capabilities? Almost invariably they’ll agree with it. And then we’ll explore why that might be.
One of your patients, if you were seeing them in a world where we did not have as much screen time or social media. 15 years ago. 20 years ago, whatever it was, did you know? Would that child still be seeing you? But instead of social media, it would be ex, you know, TV watching or, you know, some other sort of hyper binge activity.
It would be watching TV, eating disorders, and substance use disorders. Those are behaviors that are supposed to make them feel better or control things, and they are similar to those. And so I don’t really see social media or the Internet as, quote, causing anxiety, depression, etc., as as it has been framed by some so much as it is an enabler of anxiety and depression that may or may not have happened anyway at this stage of life. What the interactive media environment does for them is it provides them a place where those anxieties, depression, etc. can kind of manifest themselves even more, even if they were not noticed otherwise.
While Dr. Rich recognizes that screens can feel addictive, he doesn’t think it’s the right way of describing it. Why? Because, like it or not, we need screens, just like we need food.
And that’s why I sort of move away from addiction as a model, because we as a society use the term addiction as pejorative. We don’t think of addicts as strong or deserving of addiction therapy, rather we think of them as a way to be punished. These kids do have certainly short term problems withdrawing from these behaviors. When one knows that the young person is not doing anything to them or that the young person is seeking out and pursuing this behavior because it makes them feel better, then they know that it is not doing anything to the young person. Including their social interactions where they can’t keep on top of a conversation. They come home and they sit down in front of a screen and play a first person shooter. And not only are they in control of that universe, but in many ways they are better than so-called neurotypical kids at a game that actually reinforces and rewards distractibility, hyper vigilance, and all the aspects of ADHD that are problematic in a classroom setting.
Source: https://www.cnn.com/audio/podcasts/chasing-life/episodes/f2b7f7a5-ae60-4b5a-a795-afac01011dd1
How do I use my social media? What is my biggest concern about how much I’m using it? And what I can do about it
That’s fascinating. That idea of where you might be feeling behind the rest of the day is really intriguing. and then you come home and you can regain some sense of control. I mean, yeah, that sounds familiar, doc. Frankly, it sounds familiar in terms of what I may see with my kids, but even myself to some extent, you know, like I will find myself playing some silly game on planes, you know, and things because I’m. I want to regain some sense of control. It’s possible I need some wins. I have had a lot of losses, but I can beat this computer if I win a few games.
That last point from Dr. Rich really stopped me in my tracks and it stuck with me. When you treat someone who’s addicted to something like alcohol or cigarets, what you’re asking really is for people to give those things up. Abstinence, that makes sense. But again, for most people these days, that’s simply not realistic with technology, let’s face it. The approach Dr. Rich takes is to learn to live with it and respect it. I know that’s a big change from doom and gloom warnings. We hear people say that social media is a bad drug. Needs to be cut out of our lives.
It is possible to think about it as a power tool, more like an automobile. I think it’s really interesting as my children are starting to drive. I think about it all the time. If you said that, what is my biggest concern about screens with my teenagers? You know what I would say far and away, my biggest concern is they use it when they’re behind the wheel of a car far away, because that can be catastrophic in a millisecond. Do I worry about how much they’re using it overall? Yes. I worry a lot about what they’re using it for.
What really matters here is content that we are both consuming and creating in this space and the context in which we are using it. So something that would be perfectly fine, you know, in the middle of the day between things you don’t want your kid doing at three in the morning, in in bed at night interrupting their sleep, or you don’t want them sitting at the dinner table, you know, online, etc.. We should really focus on the content. And is this healthy content? Is it helpful or not? And what is the context in which they are doing it? And I think the one place that screen time comes in is really what is this displacing that I could be doing? Yeah. I am wondering if it’s possible to be having a conversation with my parents at the kitchen table. I wonder if I could play with my friends. And that is where the kind of seductiveness of the online space can get in the way of the rich and diverse menu of experience that is so helpful to growing up.
Source: https://www.cnn.com/audio/podcasts/chasing-life/episodes/f2b7f7a5-ae60-4b5a-a795-afac01011dd1
Chasing Life: Dr. Rich’s advice for improving family technology relationships, and I’m gonna share some of his experiences with me
And I’m going to get his advice for improving my own family’s relationship with technology. Stay tuned. And now back to Chasing Life. Before we hear more from Dr. Rich, I want to first introduce you to one of his patients.
Allison visited the doctor for the first time because of a preventive measure. Amy said that she was trying to raise Allison and her siblings in a world that was completely different from the one she lived in as a child.
The TV was broken in the back of my dad’s closet, and it got fixed, quote unquote, when I had my tonsils out. When I was 16, we did not have a TV in our house. So coming at that, you know, with screens everywhere, raising kids, it was definitely baptism by fire.
Source: https://www.cnn.com/audio/podcasts/chasing-life/episodes/f2b7f7a5-ae60-4b5a-a795-afac01011dd1
Towards a Wellness Check for Smartphone Usage: Allison’s Comments on YouTube, Dr. Rich, and the Ups and Downs
I implemented downtime where I can’t use my phone until 715 in the morning and I can’t use it after 830 in the evening so I can rest and have my morning routine. I have limits on how much time I can spend on YouTube. I only spend a small amount of time playing games. I can only spend a certain amount of time on other apps. So that means that I don’t spend countless hours mindlessly scrolling.
It’s pretty impressive. She’s only 13 and keep in mind that. Allison, I can tell you that I am very close to your parents. We often see the doctor to get their check ups to prevent future problems. Your parents did a lot for you here as well. And for all your listeners. The conversation with Dr. Rich is supposed to do something for you. Think of it as a wellness check for smartphone usage.
Source: https://www.cnn.com/audio/podcasts/chasing-life/episodes/f2b7f7a5-ae60-4b5a-a795-afac01011dd1
How do you gain the trust of your patients? A pedagogical approach to patient understanding of old and new things: An old guy or an old guy?
How do you gain the trust of your patients? I mean, I’m not saying that they’re looking at you saying this guy is some old guy. You and I are the same age. I’m just saying that. How can they understand my world? How do you get to that level of trust?
Source: https://www.cnn.com/audio/podcasts/chasing-life/episodes/f2b7f7a5-ae60-4b5a-a795-afac01011dd1
What games do you play? Tell me what you do, and when I tell you what you’re doing, I’m going to tell you how to steal a car
I ask them what games they play, or what socia-, seriously. You know, and I show them that I am knowledgeable about it in ways that are not pejorative, that are not saying it’s a bad place. I’m approaching it as the world in which they live. A lot of parents make this mistake, which is they’re dealing with it as something else. They’re standing at the top of the basement stairs saying, turn off Grand Theft Auto. I hate that. There are some really interesting things that happen when you play Grand Theft Auto with your child, so I encourage the parents to do that as well. I hate that, but it’s bad for you, and I care about you, so just get rid of it. I want to understand what engages you. I want to understand what you’re doing here. And then when you finally figure out the 47 different moves with your thumbs it takes to steal a car, and you ask your child, okay, I finally figured out how to steal cars. Let’s talk about why we might want to do that and rehearse it over and over and over again. Right. You’re coming from a very different place. You are that child’s student and you are learning that from them. You’re changing the power differential in ways that are really meaningful to the kid, which is, I care about what you do. You’re not wagging a finger at them as if you’re saying, “Let’s understand this together and you will give them a way of moving on.” The punishment isn’t very much as it’s the next step.
People must come to you all the time and say, when you distill it all down, then is there a best way, not a right way, but is there a best way to raise kids in an increasingly digital world? Like, what are the other top sort of tips that you give?
I actually say to parents, instead of developing killer apps, we should be developing our killer Bs. And, those are be balanced in our on screen and off screen activities, in a sense of be aware of what is not happening because we’re on a screen and balancing that against the screen use. The second thing is that the screens are not a tool to pull out our brains, but to use them for what they do well in a focused, directed way. And that’s where I say, you know, let’s be mindful in our use and let’s be aware of what we might be giving up because our kids really do want us to talk to them. Yeah. And that’s the final killer b which is be present, because having these screens in front of us does not allow us to be present. The apple is not far from the tree. And, you know, oftentimes the parent is staring at their smartphone while they’re sitting in a visit with me. And so and I will confess my own 16 year old, when he sees me in front of my computer or looking at my smartphone, says the mediatrician, you know, he just he gets right in my face.
Source: https://www.cnn.com/audio/podcasts/chasing-life/episodes/f2b7f7a5-ae60-4b5a-a795-afac01011dd1
Is It Possible to Break Up With Our Phones? What Do You Need to Know Before Going Through The Bad Thumbs? A Question for Dr. Rich
I had a big question for Dr. Rich at the end of the day. When he sees where this is headed, I wanted to know if I was a dad or a doctor. Does he think the future is bright?
I am very hopeful. I will acknowledge the fact that as a pediatrician that’s kind of a occupational hazard is optimism. But I am hopeful because of what I hear from the kids. I think that we will get better. Problems that we don’t even anticipate will also be encountered. So I think that, yes, things are going to get better. And yes, there will be some potholes in the road. Will we be able to spot the potholes and steer around them? Are we going to hit them and have to resolve them? But either way, I’m confident that we can do this. It’s necessary that we take a yes and be prepared for problems to occur and solve them without guilt.
I really like that. I do. I wanted to do this season because I think we can attitude towards this big issue. I wanted to understand how social media and technology were impacting all of us. I wanted to make sure that the tone of our conversations was right. It’s not about being a bad parent. It’s not related to being a bad kid. It’s not about right or wrong. I may not always make the right decisions as a parent. I know that. But I think that’s okay because instead of right or wrong or true or false, it is about doing the best you can with the best intentions in mind. There is little doubt that we’re in the Wild West when it comes to these technologies. It’s important to learn what path works best for you as we go along, but there is little doubt that we are making some of this up. For some people like Allison and her mom, Amy, it did make sense to tackle these issues early before anything bad happens. Others, like Jerome were able to self-identify, they have a problem, and then one day just decide to stop cold turkey. For some of you, you may still be worried about your habits and not know what you need to do to change them. That’s why in our next episode, science journalist Catherine Price is going to teach us how to break up with our phones.
Taking a break so you both understand the effect that technology is having on you and also appreciate it more is what you should be doing every now and then.
I think I could quit social media sites. Snapchat would be a little bit harder to give up because that’s my probably my main source of communication.