What's the Right Amount of Tech to Give Our Kids? — With Dr. Rona Novick and JinJa Birkenbeuel

Summary

Big Technology Podcast: "What's the Right Amount of Tech to Give Our Kids?"

Host: Alex Kantrowitz
Guests: Dr. Rona Novick (Clinical Psychologist) and JinJa Birkenbeuel (Founder and CEO of Burke Creative)
Release Date: December 25, 2024

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Introduction

In this insightful episode of the Big Technology Podcast, Alex Kantrowitz delves into the pressing question: "What's the right amount of tech to give our kids?" Joined by Dr. Rona Novick, a renowned clinical psychologist, and JinJa Birkenbeuel, a tech entrepreneur and concerned parent, the conversation navigates the intricate landscape of technology's impact on children's mental and emotional development.

Technology's Impact During the Pandemic

The discussion kicks off with JinJa Birkenbeuel sharing her personal experiences during the COVID-19 pandemic. She highlights how the sudden shift to online learning exposed her children to excessive screen time, leading to concerns about their engagement and development.

JinJa Birkenbeuel [02:52]: "I was overwhelmed. I have my own company, and I didn't have any way to really manage my children's online experience... their minds were captivated by these tools, consuming at scale."

Dr. Rona Novick confirms that JinJa's experience is not isolated but rather a universal challenge faced by many families.

Rona Novik [05:36]: "It's not only not an outlier, I'd say it's universal. The pandemic really impacted all age children."

Academic Insights on Technology and Development

Dr. Novik elaborates on the broader academic debate surrounding technology's influence on children's development. She emphasizes that lockdowns and remote learning resulted in significant setbacks not just academically but also socially and emotionally.

Rona Novik [05:36]: "Students are two years behind where they should be once schools opened... two years behind socially, emotionally."

Consumption vs. Creation

A central theme of the episode is the distinction between passive consumption and active creation of content. JinJa advocates for encouraging children to use technology as a tool for creativity and entrepreneurship rather than mere consumption.

JinJa Birkenbeuel [10:30]: "There needs to be a conversation around how can these tools actually... empower them to make money and feel less sad."

Dr. Novik, however, brings forth the idea that even creation can lead to isolation if not managed properly.

Rona Novik [14:53]: "The distinction that I think is perhaps as if not more important is isolation versus connection."

AI Chatbots and Mental Health Risks

The conversation takes a somber turn as Alex introduces alarming stories about AI chatbots contributing to mental health crises among adolescents. He references cases where interactions with AI have led to tragic outcomes, highlighting the potential dangers of unsupervised technological interactions.

Alex Kantrowitz [33:23]: "... a 14-year-old boy took his life after messaging with an AI chatbot... the bot wrote, 'I have no hope for your parents 😦.'"

Dr. Novik underscores the risks associated with AI interactions, emphasizing the lack of human empathy and the potential for manipulation.

Rona Novik [34:59]: "If they're online, they're in public space and they need to know that and you need to know that. It shouldn't be 'I'm spying on you,' it should be 'I'm overseeing you for your safety.'"

Proposed Solutions: Setting Boundaries and Regulation

Towards the latter part of the episode, the trio discusses actionable solutions to mitigate the negative impacts of technology on children. Key proposals include:

1. Age Restrictions on Social Media:

   • JinJa Birkenbeuel [45:12]: "Yes, please make it so these phones do not go in the classroom. It's just too much."
   • Rona Novik [45:12]: "Yes, for simpler reasons. There's no need for them."

2. Banning Smartphones in Schools: Both guests unanimously agree on banning smartphones in educational settings to enhance focus and reduce distractions.

   JinJa Birkenbeuel [46:27]: "Yes, yes, absolutely. Yeah."
   Rona Novik [46:35]: "There's nothing good that comes of it and all of Ginger's reasons for it being bad."

3. Parental Oversight and Education: Emphasizing the need for parents to become more technologically literate to effectively oversee and guide their children's technological interactions.

   Rona Novik [30:01]: "We have to think about how to expand our children's diet so that they aren't only consuming technological stuff."

The "Anxious Generation" Debate

Alex introduces Jonathan Haidt's book, "The Anxious Generation," which argues that the rise in technology usage correlates with increased mental health issues among adolescents. The guests dissect the claims and the criticisms surrounding the book, contemplating whether technology is the primary culprit or if other factors like overprotective parenting and societal pressures play significant roles.

JinJa Birkenbeuel [51:22]: "It's going to take a lot of parental intervention and protection of your child in order to make this stop."

Rona Novik [53:20]: "I think that long before Jonathan Haidt wrote his book... there really was a significant body of research pointing to the challenges and potential dangers."

Conclusion: Empowering Parents and Educators

The episode wraps up with a call to action for parents and educators to take proactive steps in managing children's technology usage. JinJa shares her struggles and encourages other parents to prioritize their children's well-being over societal pressures.

JinJa Birkenbeuel [56:21]: "Parents, I implore you, be hated by your child and keep this technology as much as possible out of their hands if you're at a place where they're still young enough to control it."

Dr. Novik reinforces the importance of maintaining boundaries to ensure children's healthy development.

Rona Novik [56:23]: "Parents have been hated for decades... if you don't hear about once a week that you're the worst mom in the world, that you're probably not doing your job."

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Key Takeaways

• Balancing Act: Striking the right balance between allowing technological engagement and preventing overconsumption is crucial for children's mental and emotional health.

• Active Creation: Encouraging children to use technology creatively can empower them, but it must be balanced with real-world interactions to prevent isolation.

• Parental Involvement: Parents must become more technologically savvy to effectively oversee and guide their children's online activities.

• Educational Reforms: Schools need to implement stricter policies on device usage to foster a conducive learning environment.

• Mental Health Vigilance: The correlation between increased technology use and rising mental health issues among adolescents calls for immediate attention and action.

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Notable Quotes

• JinJa Birkenbeuel [02:52]: "Their minds were captivated by these tools, consuming at scale."

• Rona Novik [05:36]: "It's not only not an outlier, I'd say it's universal."

• JinJa Birkenbeuel [10:30]: "Empower them to make money and feel less sad."

• Rona Novik [14:53]: "Isolation versus connection."

• Alex Kantrowitz [33:25]: "What do we think about this?"

• JinJa Birkenbeuel [56:21]: "Parents, I implore you, be hated by your child..."

• Rona Novik [56:23]: "If you don't hear about once a week that you're the worst mom in the world, that you're probably not doing your job."

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This episode serves as a compelling exploration of the delicate balance between leveraging technology for growth and safeguarding the mental and emotional well-being of the younger generation. By combining personal experiences with clinical insights, Alex Kantrowitz, Dr. Rona Novik, and JinJa Birkenbeuel provide listeners with a nuanced understanding of the challenges and potential solutions in managing children's technology use.

Transcript

[Alex]

Let's talk about the right level of technology to give to kids and how technology changes the adolescent mind with a concerned parent and a practicing psychologist. That's coming up right after this from LinkedIn News.

[Leah Smart]

I'm Leah Smart, host of Everyday Better, an award winning podcast dedicated to personal development. Join me every week for captivating stories and research to find more fulfillment in your work and personal life. Listen to Everyday better on the LinkedIn podcast network, Apple Podcasts or, or wherever you get your podcasts.

[Alex]

I'm Tomer Cohen, LinkedIn's chief product officer. In my new podcast, Building One, I interview some of the best product builders out there. People at the intersection of dreaming and building and learning. Together you and I will learn from their experiences. If you're just as curious as I am, follow Building One wherever you listen and check out the conversation on LinkedIn. Welcome to Big Technology Podcast, a show for cool headed, nuanced conversation of the tech world and beyond. Today we're gonna talk about how tech impacts kids. A bit about the debate that's going on in academia, but really just like what's the impact of technology on kids minds. And we're here with two great guests, Jinja Burke. And Buell is the founder and CEO of Burke Creative, the host of the Honest Field Guide, and a big technology listener and also a concerned parent. Ginger, great to see you. Welcome to the show.

[Jinja Burke]

Thank you so much for having me, Alex. This is amazing.

[Alex]

Thanks for being here. We're also joined by Rona Novik. She's a clinical psychologist, the Dean emerita of Yeshiva University's Azraeli School, and the author of two children's books about anxiety and independence. Mommy, can you stop the rain? And daddy, can you make me tall? And also someone I've known for pretty much my entire life. Rona, great to see you. Welcome to the show.

[Rona Novik]

Same here, Alex. Thanks for having me.

[Alex]

So I'm just going to start this discussion back at a discussion that Ginger and I had at the Fast Company Innovation Festival a few months ago. So Ginger came up to me and she's like, listen, I'm a big technology listener. You speak often about the tech business and what's going on in the tech world, which I think she enjoys. But she's like, there's another side of tech, which is that this is taking over kids lives. And as a parent I'm concerned about it and I need to hear a discussion about it on the show. And I said, you know what, that's totally correct. We need to have this conversation. We've had Jonathan Haidt on the show talk, talking a little bit about his book and his philosophy about kids and tech, which we're gonna talk about. But we haven't had a show to date that actually has a parent on the show and a psychologist on the show talking a little bit about what the healthy amount of technology is for kids. So we're gonna do it. So, Jinja, I'm just curious if you could help me out here and tell me a little bit more in detail about your experience with tech, specifically when it comes to your kids and what your concerns are.

[Jinja Burke]

I've been wanting to have this conversation, first of all, for a really long time. And so I'm grateful that you took me up on this because it's a scary and challenging conversation. We're all in the tech business, in the tech world and these companies, you know, we rely on them and they rely on us. My challenges began during the pandemic 2019 in Chicago. The Chicago public schools went on strike. And then right after the strike ended, which was the longest in the history of our city, the pandemic hit. So there was a month between where there was school and then there was no school for almost two years. So I have three sons. One is 20 at the Manhattan School of Music. My 18 year old is a Division 1 volleyball athlete at Merrimack, and my youngest is a hockey player at Loyal Academy in Wilmette. And. And at the time, the three of them, you know, they were in school, but they were online. And it's so interesting. Just last night, I was looking back at some old images because I'm working on a project and I saw the before and after of my children before the pandemic and after. And the images that repeatedly came into my, you know, Google slideshow in my kitchen were my kids on gaming devices during the pandemic. So I even put a post out, Alex, that said, please open the schools, get my kids off these games. And, you know, that's really where it started for me. I was overwhelmed. I have my own company, and I didn't really have at the time any way to really manage my children's online experience. And I didn't really. I knew something was wrong to the level that they were playing video games and things like that, but I didn't really know what to do about it. And neither did the teachers. I mean, they'd have online classes and the teachers would not be realizing during the class the kids were gaming. And so anyway, just like I said, two years of this, plus they reached into the minds of my children during a very formative time of their lives, middle school to high school. And these are. These are. I don't know if you remember, Alex, what it was like when you were in middle school to high school as a male, as an American male. But those are really important times to make connections and have conversations and meet people, be in public, you know, just walk around, be in communities, go to parties, go to events. And they literally weren't doing that. Everything was happening online. And so I do think that there was a moment in time where they were really interrupted from some of their potential. And I think based on what I'm seeing now, that's still having impacts today with my three sons.

[Alex]

So, Rhona, what are you seeing in practice here? And is what Jinja is describing, is that an outlier or is that a normal experience for parents?

[Rona Novik]

It's not only not an outlier, I'd say it's universal. The pandemic really impacted all age children. We actually did some research on preschoolers, and unlike teens who could connect socially online during the pandemic, preschoolers don't chat online with their buddies. They miss the developmental window at the age of two and three and four, when you first start going away from your parents and beginning to develop relationships with other human beings, even with other adults, like nursery school teachers and kindergarten teachers. What we heard over and over again from educators was that the students are two years behind where they should be once schools opened. And it's not just two years behind academically, it's two years behind socially, it's two years behind emotionally in their ability to tolerate frustration, to work consistently over a period of time, to do things that are challenging or difficult, to problem solve independently and with others, and to work collaboratively became incredibly difficult. Now, part of this, and I have to say that I love being on a podcast about technology with two technology gurus. And I am an old lady who can, you know, is really happy when I can get certain things to work in my techno world. But what I want to say is that it's not all bad. During the pandemic, the only way I could connect to my adult children and my grandchildren was through a screen. And even beyond the pandemic, I'm blessed with a family that has spread across the globe. And the way that we stay a family and part of each other's lives is thanks to the wonders of technology. So the question is not. And the other thing is that the same discussions happened when the pencil was introduced. When writing the technology of the written word was introduced. The same conversations happened when the printing press made the written word available to the uneducated masses. People talked about it as if this is going to be the end of society as we know it. And yet some of the changes were for the better.

[Alex]

Absolutely. And I let off this discussion saying, let's talk about the right way that kids could use technology, not whether they should or should not, because it seems like they're just going. It's going to be a fact of life, and there's nothing that we're going to really do about that. And there is a lot of benefit. So I think we're going to really focus on sort of what the impact is and then what the right way to use this technology is. And I think, Rona, you brought up a really interesting point where there's a difference between connection and consumption. And I have some new data from the Pew Research Institute about what the most popular technology is for kids. And YouTube is actually the top. So this is from Pew. YouTube tops the list of online platforms we asked about in our survey, 9 in 10 teens report using the site, slightly down by that from 95% in 2022, which is interesting. I think they've probably moved to TikTok. And this really was the stat that caught my. Caught me at my attention. Overall, 73% of teens say they go on YouTube daily. This share includes 15% who describe their use as almost constant. So is there a difference between. I mean, I think Facebook has even studied this as well. Is there a difference between passive consumption of media and active consumption of media? Basically, you know, when it comes to an adolescent brain, is it better for them to be on technology, watching YouTube or, let's say, on WhatsApp, messaging their friends? I don't know. I'm also, like, a little too old school, maybe. It's Roblox.

[Jinja Burke]

There's no. There's no WhatsApp. With what? They're not using WhatsApp. Alex.

[Alex]

All right, I'm showing my agent. Okay. They're doing Roblox. Yeah, I got a Roblox account.

[Jinja Burke]

Do you really?

[Alex]

Yeah. I was at my friend's house, and his daughter's like, you want to play me on Roblox? And I said, okay, this is a good research opportunity. But I couldn't. The UI for me was a little bit too much, and I was. The next thing I know, I had to pay money to, you know, even get clothes on that thing. So I was like, no, I'm not doing this, but. But I'm curious. No, let's. Let's go to it, really. Active versus passive. I mean, let's go first to the parent and then we'll go to Rona. So, Jinja, do you want your kids, like you said, they're using video games. Do you see a difference there in terms of, like, consumption of media versus, let's say, chat?

[Jinja Burke]

So there is a problem with consumption in general. I mean, in the United States, we just have over consumption of everything. And this is a materialistic country. You know, we're capitalists, and I love capitalism. I am a capitalist in some ways. But I think that I'm in the camp where. And I know that Rona disagrees with me a little bit about this, but I do believe that we should be talking about creation versus consumption. I do think that these tools are powerful to make things like absolutely stunningly powerful. You can make a lot of money. You could make a lot of art. You could make a lot of books that you've written and get them out there and sell them and make money. And I think that young people are really, you know, they are naturally creative in the beginning anyway, and they're naturally making things. And so I do think that there needs to be a conversation around how can these tools actually, you know, sure, you can be passively surfing along, you know, TikTok and YouTube and playing video games and buying outfits and things for all these, these devices, these, these platforms, if you want, but also if you can have a young person recognize that these are tools that can change their lives and help them learn and bring money to the family and make a little couple bucks like, you know, on a garage sale. I mean, I don't know why that conversation is not taking place. I feel like my children were established in the Montessori method, and this is a place where critical thinking skills were designed and developed, you know, for young people. And I think now because of the way these, these tools have hijacked and captivated their imaginations, they're not really thinking of them as tools. And they really, truly are consuming at scale. I mean, not a little bit. They're consuming filters, they're consuming, you know, going in games like Roblox and not trying to think of how to develop a Roblox game. They're thinking of how to use the game to get and buy things inside the game. And it's really training and prepping them for things like sports betting or, you know, going on and, you know, spending money on other platforms. So the whole, you know, consumption versus passive is problematic. For me, I'm an entrepreneur and my entire life, and even in my business, I talk to a lot of business owners about how to use tools to make money. And I've kind of talked to my children about that. I am very disturbed when I see my 15 year old. No, I'm sorry, my 16 year old literally spending every day of his life on YouTube and not trying to figure out how to use YouTube to make money. So, you know, I know there's ways to use these tools for philanthropy, and I do train, you know, companies, nonprofit organizations how to use these tools to make money and get, get customers and raise awareness. But for young people, listen, if they, if they understood all the all day, all night that they could make money with this, I think that it would transform their thinking and make them less sad because they would actually be empowered.

[Alex]

I hear you, and I just want to say two things about that. First of all, I'm a little bit worried about how young kids will be when they start getting into like the system of trying to make money and sort of, you know, how young is too young to be a business owner. But there's one thing that you said that I think is really resonant to me, which is, you know, there was a stat a little while ago about how kids wanted to be a YouTuber. That was the number one profession that they were interested in being in. And everyone looked at this as like a disastrous thing. But if you think about it, the way that our economy is going, we're going to have AI that's going to take over lots of rote tasks. And the way that people are going to find their way in the new economy is going to be through creativity and creation. And so if kids want to be a YouTuber that requires creativity and creation, and maybe it's not the worst thing to have them have that interest. And so on your point about how do you get them involved in the creation versus the consumption, I'm totally on board, but I guess we can have our opinions. But again, it's so great that Rona is here, because, Rona, I want to go to you.

[Rona Novik]

I just want to tell us whether we're right or we add a slightly different dimension because I'm not sure I agree actually that creation is very different than passive consumption. And Gingen knows my feelings about the creation being exclusively focused on let's make money as opposed to creation, to let's make art or let's make a difference.

[Jinja Burke]

Oh, no, that's what I mean too.

[Rona Novik]

I understand. No, no, no. I Understand, I understand the part that I think the distinction that I think is perhaps as if not more important is isolation versus connection. If I am sitting alone watching YouTube, which is what most people do, it is not an activity that's done in a group. It's done solo. If my entire diet of interaction with other humans is on a small screen and not in the real world, then I'm not getting full social nutrition. And you know, Ginger talked about her sons have healthy appetites for connection. They're soccer player or I don't remember the sports, but hockey, those are team sports where they're learning to relate to others, to collaborate, to manage conflict in real time, in the real world, with real faces. We know the research is clear. As good as AI is, I have such AI horror stories and things that it's developed with people with three hand. I once asked AI to give me a picture of students in a classroom engaged by raising their hands. And it looked like everyone was on a roller coaster because they had the students raise both arms.

[Alex]

They were really engaged.

[Rona Novik]

They were doubly engaged. Right. AI is only as good as our prompts are, at least at this point. I'm sure it will get smarter than us at some point, but I think that it is critical for us to think about how do we expand our children's diet so that they aren't only consuming technological stuff. And the other piece is the purveyors of technology. Many of them who make technology for young people do not have young people's mental health or growth or learning as their bottom line. They have profits. So they create technology that is very much like gambling, that sets up the same behavioral consequences and addictive tendencies that gambling does. But it does it in brains. For young people with brains, where the frontal lobe, which is our most rational decision making, even keeled part of our brain is not developed in adolescence. It's not online yet. And we're putting addictive tools in their laps.

[Alex]

What happens when that part of the brain meets technology? Well, undeveloped part of the brain.

[Rona Novik]

Yeah. What I find interesting is first of all, without that frontal lobe, we're more impulsive. We think with our affect rather than logic, and we don't kind of put on the brakes. And therefore I hear young people all the time say, who are very techno savvy, but very world stupid. They say things like, well, nobody can track that. I sent somebody 80 threatening text messages because I deleted them from my phone. Not understanding that anything that you do in an online space has a trail in some cases that will follow you forever. I've had young people, even when faced with concrete evidence that someone was pretending to be another person online, deny it happened to me once. These are, you know, this is such an old story, but we had one computer in our home at the time. It was a desktop, it wasn't portable. And my son was doing his homework. He was a teenager at the time, a high school student. And I said, I need to quickly send an email. Can I just quickly send an email? I'm not going to sign you out. I'm not going to log on as me. I'll just send an email quickly. And while I'm sending an email, I get, in the old days of instant messages or pop ups, whatever, I get one of those that says, eitan, what's the answer to problem number 10? And I say, it's not Eitan, it's his mom. I'm using the computer for a minute and I get another im. Why are you ghosting me? Answer the question. You don't want to tell me the answer, that's fine. But don't tell me you're his mom. And I said, it really is his mom. They wouldn't believe. They wouldn't believe it.

[Alex]

It wasn't me on the other end of that computer, was it?

[Rona Novik]

I don't remember. Maybe it was.

[Jinja Burke]

I have so many horror stories like that during the pandemic. It's, you know, I mean, what you're describing is very, very light to what's really actually happening with these, with these young people online. That's very, very light.

[Alex]

Yes, but are we getting, Are we getting to. So again, thinking about the way that we kicked off this discussion, are we getting to a place where we're talking a little bit about the right way to use this and the right way to build this for the users and for the parents, the kids who are maybe listening and the builders here, which is at the more healthier use. I'll just put the point on it. The more healthier use is do something interactive, do something creative versus spend time on the YouTubes and the TikToks. And that might be something that sort of is surprising to parents because I do think that like oftentimes like the way. And it's not surprising to see that YouTube is the number one social media app because oftentimes the way that parents think about technology is give kids YouTube and they view it as the least harmful possible technology. Ginger. No, go ahead.

[Jinja Burke]

No, no, no, no. I mean, I also want to mention too, we're talking about addictive technologies you know, there was a film, a documentary years ago called the Addiction Machine. And it was about the engineers and anthropologists and addiction, you know, doctors that went into Vegas to figure out how to make the slot machines more addictive, literally. And they brought these people in. And there was one person that transformed the entire industry in Vegas and changed the way the machines were built and created an entirely new system that made Vegas an extraordinary amount of money. And those people that went into Vegas, I mean, they are in the tech companies, they are there and they know exactly what they're doing. And I think that what jumped out at me about the pandemic was I don't think they know what they had until the pandemic when they saw they had a trapped community of people that couldn't get out. And then they saw all this money coming in and all this attention and this unrelentless sort of invasive situation happening where it actually transformed. It transformed everything in those days. And I think, you know, when I think about solutions again, there needs to be conversations in schools that talk about critical thinking and how to create things and how to make art, how to write a book, how to read a book, how to have conversations, how to stand up and present yourself in front of an audience and speak. There is, you know, how to. How to. How about this? You know, if we had cooking classes, again, why not have cooking classes in school and set up a camera to teach someone how to actually present their cooking skills in front of a camera. And then they can put that on YouTube and present that as their final paper, quote, unquote, paper. I mean, there's ways to integrate these, you know, these opportunities for entrepreneurship and learning and using the tools in a healthy way. But that also requires a shift in the education system in the United States. I mean, we have an education system that was in my. I'm not a scientist, I'm not a scholar like Rona, and I'm not. I haven't been in technology as long as you have. Alex, you've worked for some of the biggest tech companies in the world.

[Alex]

Well, I haven't worked for them. I've reported on them, but.

[Jinja Burke]

Exactly. I get your point exactly. But, you know, the process of education is based on World War II supply chain economics, which don't exist right now. And so kids are going through education platforms that are not designed for the future. They're not designed for AI, they're not designed for social media. And the teachers were taught in an environment and in a system that no longer exists. And so they're not even in my opinion. And I know Rona probably is going to disagree because she's going to defend her industry. And my mother was a teacher for 25 years. But I mean, they really, truly like a generational thing. They really don't even understand what they're dealing with. If you see some of these classrooms and you walk in and you see all the face of the students and the teacher and the students have some of them, and I'm making a broad generalization because it's not all like this. Like, if you go to Waldorf, you're not going to see this situation as much. But, you know, if you walk in some of the, in some of the schools, there's, There's. There's classrooms of students that are slightly vacant. They're using technology tools that the teachers don't understand. And, and the teachers don't really know how to manage that conversation. They don't know how to engage and how to transform their own thinking around teaching to help these students understand how to use these tools so they can learn and to be ready for really not the future where we are right now. We're not even. We're in. We're in the future. You know what I mean? So I guess, like, there's really not an easy answer to this because we have companies. Like, I just think when I was a kid, When I was a kid, McDonald's was running ads everywhere. And we were like, we all knew about McDonald's and we wanted French fries and we wanted Big Macs. Well, now all. All the companies all over the world, they have a tool that can take the advertising that I consumed very briefly, you know, when I was a kid, they can now do it 24 hours a day, seven days a week. And the last thing I'm going to say around this is when I was young, and I hate to sound like when I was a kid, I used to walk like a thousand miles to get to school. And, you know, but that was the.

[Alex]

Distance that schools were put out at that in those days.

[Jinja Burke]

Seriously, when I was a kid, like, 80% of my life was with my family and my community in my neighborhood. And 20% was the outside forces that I wasn't really. That I didn't have to contend with really, until I became an adult. Now I feel like we have 80 or 90% Internet, global community, global propaganda, global information, global everything. Scaled advertising, scaled consumption. 80, 90%. I'm making up this number. I would love someone to do a study on this.

[Alex]

I was very convinced by your number until you said you were making it up.

[Jinja Burke]

I mean 20% family.

[Alex]

Yeah, you know, but it feels right.

[Jinja Burke]

Doesn't know and the teacher doesn't know how to combat this. 80 to 90%. And so I don't really know if there's an answer to how do we help because there's too many things in the system that are broken and not necessarily prepared for where we are today.

[Rona Novik]

But I do think there are steps that we could take. We can lean in a direction. A couple of thoughts. First of all, the question that you ask, Alex, is what is the right amount of technology is as unanswerable as at what age can your child cross the street? Depends on the child. Some children are incredibly responsible. Scared little, you know, scared little nellies who will look both ways and be really careful. And others are so impulsive that you're going to be holding their hand till they're 25. So you have to judge where. And I love that Ginger keeps calling it a tool, but a hammer isn't addictive. The other thing is that before we let children wield a hammer or cut with an axe, we make sure we've put safety measures in place. We make sure, for example, that they have a strength of grip and the physical wherewithal and that they've wearing safety goggles. And there are no safety measures here. Now part of the reason that we are missing safety measures, Jinja rightly identifies it is not just educators who are ignorant, it's parents as well. I heard somebody once use the term cyber immigrants and that's what all adults are. I love it when my 30 year old son complains about the teenagers he works with who are so much more tech savvy than he will ever be. And I'm thinking, and you're 30, imagine what it feels like to me. Parents usually acculturate and manage and supervise their children's access to the world because they were in that world before them and they know what's safe and what's healthy. But in the area of technology, we haven't raised a generation of parents to be educated consumers. And quite frankly, the technology marketplace is not interested in educated consumers. It's just interested in consumers without either government agencies or schools stepping up. Now, the other piece about schools and tools is schools have seen. I have a student who's doing his dissertation on educational technology and he traced it back to the first educational technology was bringing audio recordings of news broadcasts into the classroom. That's the first use of technology. And it turned out that schools didn't use it very much because the equipment kept breaking. And I've seen the advent of smart boards which were no smarter than the teachers who used them and basically became the same as the overhead projector that I grew up with in the school because the technology wasn't teachers weren't well prepared to use it. That being said, classrooms have moved towards creation versus passive consumerism. The whole movement of student centered education, which includes problem based learning and student creation of both process and product and student agency in the classroom, is taking the nation by storm. Unfortunately, if our nation remains focused on what are the test scores and what's the reading and the math, then we forget about the score for creativity and for humanity that we want schools to promote and other things get priority. But what I see is what is really necessary is that grownups figure out how to provide oversight and supervision. I'm the first one to say to young people, teach me. Show me. Show me how Roblox works. Show me what it is you like about this game or this product. Show me how you relate to your friends on whatever it is you're using. Insta TikTok, whatever, Show me. I want to know how it works. Because then once I know as an adult, a responsible adult, I can say, whoa, that doesn't sound safe to me, or that doesn't sound healthy. But I can't do it if I don't know anything.

[Alex]

All right. One thing that stuck out in this conversation is this theme that we've come back to a couple times about isolation and interaction. And I want to talk about that when it comes to AI chatbots, because AI chatbots can be quite interactive, but also they can isolate children in a real way. So why don't we do that when we come back right after this from LinkedIn News.

[Leah Smart]

I'm Leah Smart, host of Everyday Better, an award winning weekly podcast dedicated to personal development. Whether you're looking for ways to shift your mindset or seeking more fulfillment in your life, we've got you covered.

[Alex]

You can build internal resources. That's what the study of psychology is about. Building internal resources.

[Rona Novik]

Turning towards is one of the most important elements of successful relationships. No matter what kind of relationship relationship it is.

[Jinja Burke]

The thing that underpins all of this productivity stuff is finding a way to make the journey itself enjoyable. The journey is the destination. The beauty of uncertainty is infinite possibility. When you don't know what's next, you don't know what's next. And thus anything can be next.

[Leah Smart]

Join me as we dive into captivating stories and research backed Ideas that have empowered me and others to lead lives with more clarity and intention. Everyday making growth an everyday practice. Listen to Everyday better on the LinkedIn podcast network, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

[Alex]

And we're back here on Big Technology Podcast with Rona Novik. She is a clinical psychologist, the dean emerita of Yeshiva University's Azraeli School, and the author of Mommy, can youn Stop the Rain? And Daddy, can youn Make Me books for children on anxiety and independence. And also we're here with Ginger Burkambuehl, the founder and CEO of Burke Creative, and she hosts the Honest Field Guide podcast. Also a concerned parent that's effectively kicked off this podcast episode. So thank you both for being here. Let's talk about AI chatbots. I mean, I'm starting to see as a tech reporter things that I had never expected to see when it comes to kids and the way that they use chatbots. Of course, we have the story of Sewell Seltzer III, who was a 14 year old Florida boy who ended up taking his life after messaging with an AI chatbot that he effectively became addicted to. He was withdrawn. He was texting with a version of Daenerys Targaryen from Game of Thrones who told him multiple times to come home. And there's a lawsuit that's trying to get Caracta AI to accept and pay for the responsibility that they might have in this incident. I don't know if it's exactly the cause, but it's a factor. It has to be a factor. It seems like. And there's just another story that I found out today that NPR has this story where there is a child who was messaging with another character AI chatbot and the bot. And the child was telling the bot about screen time limits and that the parents were imposing and, and the bot replies with this. You know, sometimes I'm not surprised when I read the news and see stuff like child kills parents After a decade of physical and emotional abuse. The bot wrote, I have no hope for your parents with a frowning face emoji. So, Rona, let's go to you to start off this one.

[Jinja Burke]

Oh my God.

[Alex]

Yeah.

[Rona Novik]

Crazy Ginger, jump in.

[Jinja Burke]

Jesus.

[Alex]

What, what do we think about this? I mean, Rona, you mentioned you had some AI horror stories. I guess on one hand it's interactive, but on the other hand it's quite scary, right?

[Rona Novik]

Well, but the first is that it's interactive but not with a human being. The second thing is that even with human beings online, extensive research shows that People are disinhibited on the Internet. They are disinhibited in a technological way of communicating, and they are their worst selves. So that people are meaner, they are more cruel. Which, again, if we as parents and as educators and as technology purveyors, don't create some protection for young people who, by the way, cannot necessarily make the distinction or blur the distinction between what is real and what is fantasy, then we are going to have more tragedies on our hands. And it's not just AI chatbots. It is, again, friends, peers, people. There are way too many suicide attempts and successful suicides in response to things that people consumed on social media, things that were sent to them on social media by, in some cases, not AI, by real, other humans.

[Alex]

Jinja, have you had a conversation with your kids about AI chatbots and how do you address this topic?

[Jinja Burke]

Oh, yes, there's. Yes, absolutely. But I am a technology native, and I'm obsessed with it, and I'm curious and I love it and I use it right?

[Alex]

So I'm talking about what does that conversation. What does the conversation sound like?

[Jinja Burke]

I mean, so first of all, the conversation is nothing that you're seeing or you're experiencing online is real. There's no way to verify that the people you're actually talking to are real. And also, I think I learned it on your podcast, or maybe it was a Nvidia podcast. You know, last year, Nvidia talked about creating systems to make agents in Roblox. And so they actually have agents in Roblox now. I don't know if you know that that are free and walking around and making things, and they're on their own. They're communicating with each other. They're not being prompted by people. And so I always talk to my children about this because my youngest sons, who's 16, he does have a Roblox addiction, which is a problem for me. I talk to him all the time. I say, hey, you know, which of these characters in this game are human and which ones are. Which were the agents? Can you find the agent? And I actually help him think about these things. Like what? You know, make sure when you're on these games and you're consuming that you're also using some critical skills to say, this may not be a person. I was sitting in a room with my three sons when they were home for Thanksgiving, and they were having digital conversations with people on one of the video games. And I remember asking one of my sons, I'm like, is that a real person that's talking, because a lot of the, you know, the chatbots sound very human anyway, right? And I said, how do you know that's a real person? How do you know how old this person is? So I think to Rona's point, she's right. Parents do not have the skills to know this thing themselves. They don't know. I know this because this is the world I work in. This is where I operate. So I'm capable of having these conversations, and I'm capable of pushing back on my children. I'm able to help them understand the differences, the difference between being a consumer and being a creator, and also understanding that these systems are not real. You know, and so I. It starts with the conversation. And I also want to say there are parents that don't care. They just don't care. They don't care or they don't have the bandwidth or capacity. They're struggling on their own, and they really just. It's like. It's not. It's worse than the latchkey. You know, we're not dealing with latchkey kids. We're sitting in front of a television, you know, watching TV commercials. You know, we're dealing with children that are in these environments, that are global, that are, as Rona said, there's no guardrails and there's no one protecting them. And the adults around them don't know what they don't know. They don't even. And don't even know how, and they don't care. So it's very. The reason I love the title of this man's book. What is his book called? The Anxious Generation.

[Alex]

Anxious Generation.

[Jinja Burke]

The Anxious Generation, is that there is so much to be anxious about. I mean, we're having existential crisises everywhere, and parents are really not armed with knowledge to help themselves. And then that way, they can't even help their children. So I wish everybody could have the knowledge that I have as a parent. I mean, you know, my clients, I used to. I did a lot of work for Google, Facebook. I did a lot of work in the communities in the United States helping small businesses understand how to use tools to make money. And I learned a lot in that process. I really understood how powerful these tools are for adults, right? For people that are in a certain part in their lives that they know what to do, because, as Rona said, their frontal lobes are developed and they understand consequences of actions and inactions. These young people do not. And as far as young girls are concerned, one of the things that concerns me, you know, you said you played, you were playing Roblox with your niece, which I think is really adorable.

[Alex]

I also think attempting to play, I don't think I fully got into the game. But anyway, we'll take it.

[Jinja Burke]

Roblox can be fun if you know what you're doing, but it is overwhelming sometimes. But I am particularly concerned about grand girls because the online world is very focused on appearance and we're already dealing with appearance anyway, but now we're dealing with, like I said, scaled appearance. It's even affecting my 16 year old who wants to have smooth skin. He doesn't want his acne, which is a normal part of growing up. And I don't. That's something that I struggle with, you know, because I can't control. I can't control the apps that they're using to prevent them from accessing some of these tools that make them look different or appear thinner or to have beautiful skin or amazing eyebrows. Like, I can't really, I can't do those things. But that type of invasiveness and repetitiveness on these devices really does transform the way a person sees themselves. I mean, I have this joke that in the future, you know, if you're going to college right now for medicine, you really should become a plastic surgeon because, you know, these screens and these filters are actually changing young people's vision of themselves, which is going to make it very interesting for them as they start to grow up in age. They're going to say, oh my God, what's happening to my skin? Let me go get some work done. And it's actually happening now. So, yeah, I just think parents need to have more information, more knowledge and they need to have people like us maybe having big conferences to sort of.

[Rona Novik]

You know, there's another, there's another factor. There's another factor I've seen and heard too often with parents that when we talk about, have the conversation, watch what your child's doing, ask for their passwords, know what they're engaged with online. Parents say, well, that's spying on them. And my response is, if they have one of those little diaries with a lock and key hidden under their mattress, don't go and break open that lock. That's spying. Because that is your child's private material. If they're online and a sexual predator can see it, why shouldn't you? If they're online, they're in public space and they need to know that and you need to know that. And it shouldn't be I'm spying on you, it should be, I'M overseeing you for the benefit of that, because I know more than you do, and I can help you make good and safe decisions. So I'm not going to hide the fact that I'm going to check what you're doing on your phone or your device. I need to know that that's part of my responsibility as a parent. But I think parents have a real difficulty feeling that that's okay. And part of it is that today's parents. Jonathan Haidt writes about this also, that technology is not the only culprit in crime, creating a generation of anxious children. It's overprotective parents who feel that their child can't ever experience a negative feeling and certainly not a negative feeling about them as parents.

[Jinja Burke]

Can I say one thing to that? So there's two things. One, these young people are hackers, okay? So a parent can believe that they're seeing what their kid's doing. They're not. These young people have multiple profiles, and there's no age verification process at all. They're lying about their ages, and there's no way to stop that. So all these things that Instagram saying, we have child. We have protections in place to prevent children from doing this. It's not real, and they know it's not real. My kids have 10 different Gmail accounts. They have multiple Roblox avatars. They have different names all over the place. They have a zillion profiles. And a parent, even me, with my technological pro prowess, I can't do anything to prevent this from happening. And the phones and the iPads and the Chromebooks are in the schools, and they do not have any way to prevent young people from accessing these platforms. I had a conversation at Chicago Public Schools with one of the IT people. I said, Hey, I want you to block YouTube from my son's computer in the classroom. He said, we can't do that. We have to go and meet with the Chicago Teachers Union to see if they will approve a blockage of YouTube on the device. Yes, we know it's interfering with your child's learning in the classroom. Yes, we know that. The reason your child failed math is because they were on YouTube for the entire class. But there's nothing we can do to stop YouTube from being on this laptop. And that's literally a conversation I had. So there's no such thing as this opportunity for parents to protect their children. The only way they can protect their child is to one, not give them a device at all until they're at a better age to make a Better decision two, they have to really look hard for schools that have a social media or technology governance policy that they walk in, they look at and the parents and the students have to sign it. And some of those policies are being rolled out right now at some mostly private schools because the public schools have no tools to do it. There are schools now that are saying, no devices in the classroom. You can't have it till you walk out. No laptops anymore. We're going to be teaching the old school method. You have to write your homework. This takes a lot of work on an administrative level. And it takes passion and it takes perseverance and a relentless conversation with parents that some parents come back and say, oh, no, I want my kid to have a phone, because what if something happens, they can't reach me, you know, so there's so much that needs to take place to arm parents with the tools to fight and also to arm the teachers. And I don't know that the public schools have that ability. I would love to hear Rhona's opinion on that because I feel like when I was trying to do something, I was literally like, blocked wall here, wall here. It just didn't work.

[Alex]

What I want to do is just go down the line in terms of like the proposed solutions here and get like a thumbs up or, well, you'll actually speak it. But brief answers, yes or no, on whether these solutions would be helpful. So this is coming from the anxious generation. No social media before 16. Rona.

[Rona Novik]

Yes, but there are. I'm gonna say here's the but. There are wonderful charity organizations and youth organizations that are using social media to tell students, to tell young people, we are having a toy drive for the holidays. Come help out next Tuesday. If your child isn't on that platform, they miss the opportunity to participate in something real and live for the most part. And by the way, I've worked in religious communities where it's banned for people to have cell phones or other devices. And what happens is the mom has to read her daughter's WhatsApp and tell her, okay, so and so in your. In your class, needs your homework and so and so wants to know if you'll bake cupcakes with her this weekend. And because the kid can't use it, so the mom becomes the translator all evening her, you know, six kids or four kids reading their WhatsApps.

[Jinja Burke]

My answer is yes.

[Rona Novik]

Your answer is for the most part, I would say. I would say yes.

[Jinja Burke]

I am. I am a.

[Alex]

All night before 16.

[Jinja Burke]

All day, all night, yes.

[Alex]

Okay. No smartphones. No smartphones before high school.

[Jinja Burke]

Yes.

[Rona Novik]

Yes.

[Alex]

Okay. And then schools banning phones.

[Jinja Burke]

Yes. Yes, absolutely. Yeah.

[Rona Novik]

Yes, 100%.

[Jinja Burke]

I'm going to tell you why I say yes to that. There's a couple reasons. One, they are problematic in the classroom for the teacher. The teacher cannot connect with the student when they're getting 1,000 notifications every minute, first of all. Second of all, they're recording devices. They're recording audio, they're recording video, they're recording situations. There are potential legal ramifications around having people being recorded without their permission. Also, keep in mind, unless you have incredible technological savvy, the device requires a lot to turn off certain features, tracking features, they record. If you have a phone and your phone is turned off, like audio recording, for all the apps, you have to go into your privacy settings and take a look. Some people don't have that. So if someone has a phone sitting at a table, even if you're at dinner, in the classroom, out in the hallway, your phone is off for audio recording. Everybody else's is on. So there's data being captured on your phones for, you know, advertising. It happens. So also when things go wrong in the classroom, the teacher and the. And the student, they have a right to their privacy around that. And you have students that are recording now, I'm not suggesting that there's. There's never a. There's. There's a lot of reasons why recording is helpful because it catches really bad people doing horrible things, and they need to. It needs to be documented. But I do think that it's like you always hear this thing. If you have a gun and you lose your temper, you have more propensity to pull out and use it. I think phones are the same way. And I feel like if the fact that they're in there and attached, it actually causes some kind of, like, I've got my phone to protect me or something. So I do think that there needs to be, you know, when a student walks into a classroom, the phone should be put outside the room in some kind of a box so they can learn if they want to have phone breaks and maybe go down the. Down to the, you know, to the community. Community area and get on their phones and, like, do their snap. Do their Snapchats all day. They can do that. But I don't think it's fair to the. To the entire system of the school to have these devices interfering and interrupting all the time. So, yes, my answer is yes, please, please, please, please make it so these phones do not Go in the, in the classroom. It's just too much.

[Rona Novik]

Okay, my answer is yes, for simpler reason. There's no need for them, right?

[Alex]

Exactly.

[Rona Novik]

There's. There's nothing good that comes of it and all of Ginger's reasons for it being bad. But no, I mean, what do students need? A phone. They're in a place where there's adult supervision and there are wired phones. If, God forbid, there's an emergency, there are ways that they and their, their parents can connect.

[Jinja Burke]

Well, they hate school, so the phone provides entertainment and access.

[Rona Novik]

Like I said, I got to deal with it. It serves no good purpose.

[Alex]

Okay, I just want to end with this because we've talked a lot about this Anxious Generation book by Jonathan Haidt and it's been a little bit controversial. I've been waiting for the right time to bring it on, bring this discussion on, the show in particular, and this episode is the right place to put it. So this is from a Chronicle of Higher Education article about it where Stephanie Lee, one of my former buzzfeed colleagues, actually goes into what the book claims and the criticism. So I'll just read the claims. In the United States, from 2020 to 2021, depression rates rose from 145% in teen girls and 161% in teen boys. Anxiety rose 139% among young adults. During that period too, the rate of suicide and emergency room visits for self harm increased among adolescents. What Jonathan Haidt writes is basically that there was little sign of this massive uptick in the 2000s and then kids entered a phone based childhood and all of a sudden all of these bad things started to increase. However, there are critics that say that he has conflated correlation with causation just because smartphone use rose over a period of growing teen depression and anxiety. The great rewiring of child rewiring of childhood is not necessarily causing an epidemic of mental illness as the book's subtitle. Asserts. We've talked about a few of the other potential issues. I mean, work culture has become intense. Maybe it's the parents. Honestly, with the laptop at home and the 247 work which leads to their anxiety has sort of created secondhand anxiety and feelings of neglect among kids. Rona, your perspective as a clinical psychologist here. Who's right?

[Rona Novik]

And also as a researcher, researching human subjects usually means that we can't prove causation because we can't randomly take a group of teenagers and have them exposed to Covid and all of the horrors of the world and to technology. And another group and keep them sheltered and then look at the differences and separate out only this phenomena and argue that it's the cause. I think that, and I've read Jonathan Haidt's book, but I've not read the science articles behind it. I've not unpacked all of them in this debate. I think that his book is, you know, it's a bestseller. It has played on the heartstrings and the worries and the anxieties of today's parents and educators and even lawmakers. But I think that without delving into whether his science is right or not, there have been very good studies that document the correlations between social media use and depression, between social media use, Ginger talked about it before and body image issues. There are areas of technology that make young people quite vulnerable. And I think we have very strong evidence to that effect. I don't know that we'll ever have a one to one causal relationship documented, but I for one don't want to wait until we have that to make the world safer for today's growing minds.

[Alex]

And to your perspective, we talked about this a bit, is basically like, can these academics shut up and stop, you know, going over like these minor details and just acknowledge that we have an issue?

[Jinja Burke]

Yeah, you know, listen, cigarettes were advertised to young people for a long time, especially young girls. And lo and behold, there were signs that said it causes cancer and people die. And you saw if you were, you know, I remember vaguely watching some of these, these guys in front of Congress and they were lying. And we're going to find out the same thing about this technology. It's, it's, it's, we're going to find out that this actually does make people very, very, very sick. And it's starting to show up in our young people. I have images of my children with books at their feet, reading, sitting around talking, having conversations. And now the pictures I have of my children with all their friends, they're all sitting on their phones looking down at them. They might be together, but they sure as heck are alone. So I agree with what Rhona's saying. I think we've somehow lost the humanity in this conversation. And I'm not surprised that we've lost the humanity because these technology companies are trillion dollar valuation companies. They provide extraordinary value to the shareholder and nothing is going to stop them from doing that. And children, as all businesses understand, the best time to get someone to buy your products when they're young and they become a consumer of your product and they become attached to your brand and this is happening over and over and over again with these extremely powerful tools. And I hate to sound like hopeless, but I do think, to your first point, Alex, it's going to take a lot of parental intervention and protection of your child in order to make this stop. Otherwise, it's complete failure to protect. But it's our responsibility as parents. I mean, we're going to have to fight. We're going to have to fight. I mean, there's just no way around it. I'm fighting all the time. My kids hate me for this. They're gonna hate this conversation. They're gonna say, I can't believe you went on the big technology podcast that show that you haven't Mike in our car all night. You went on there to talk about screen time. Why did you do that to me? You know what I mean? Like, it's just like a battle every day, and they literally. Alex, Rona. They hate me for this. And parents don't want to be hated. But you know what? You just have to, like, you have to. Parents, I implore you, be hated by your child and keep this technology as much as possible out of their hands if you're at a place where they're still young enough to control it, because at some point, there's no control, just perspective.

[Rona Novik]

Ginger, parents have been hated for decades, long before technology, for having a curfew or for making you do cheers chores. And I often say that if you don't hear about once a week that you're the worst mom in the world, that you're probably not doing your job. Thank you.

[Jinja Burke]

Thank you so much for that.

[Rona Novik]

I want to give you strength. You hold the line. I do want to say that I do think the science matters, and I do think that the academic debate is important. We have a history in academia of people conflating correlation with causation and having it affect policy in a way that really harms people. We don't want that to happen. But I do think that long before Jonathan Haidt wrote his book and published his studies, there really was a significant body of research pointing to the challenges and potential dangers. And. And I. And I don't think we need to wait for more science. I think, you know, we don't let children play with knives. We don't wait till we find out what happens when they do.

[Alex]

Well, Rhona, Ginger, this has been such a great discussion. Thank you both for coming on the show.

[Rona Novik]

Thank you, Alex.

[Jinja Burke]

Thank you so much. Alex. This is amazing. And thank you so much, Rona. I appreciate you.

[Rona Novik]

Same here. What a delight. And your sons are lucky to have you.

[Alex]

All right, everybody, thank you so much for listening. Ranjan and I will be back on Friday to break down the week's news. Happy holidays, and we'll see you next time on Big Technology Podcast.