← Parenting in a Tech World
Parenting in a Tech World
Catherine Price on Screen/Life Balance, Phone Addiction, and Kids' Mental Health
00:48:56
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- [00:00]
Host
If you've ever looked up from your phone after what felt like five minutes only to realize that an hour had disappeared or watched your kid do the same thing, then today's guest is someone you need to hear. Katherine Price is an award winning health and science journalist, founder of Screen Life Balance, and a number one New York Times best selling author whose books have been published in more than 35 countries. She's the author of how to break up with your phone and most recently co authored the amazing generation with psychologist Jonathan Haidt, a handbook written specifically for kids and teens on how to live a life not hijacked by screens. I got my copy for a very special 11 year old in my life and he loves it. So today, Kathryn and I are getting into the real practical side of all of this. What screen life balance actually looks like for families. Like for real, what it takes to get there and what she wants every parent to know right now. Kathryn, I am geeking out to be able to talk to you. Thank you for being here.
- [01:14]
Katherine Price
Thank you so much for having me and inviting me to speak with your community.
- [01:18]
Host
It's gonna be, gonna be great. Okay, so we're all about the data, right? At bark. All about the data. And you know, there's one thing to have a gut feeling, either maternal instinct or just wisdom of like something's not right, but it's another thing to be in the research as you are. So you spent years on the research. And before we get into that, I want to know what personally got you so focused on the relationship between people on their phones.
- [01:46]
Katherine Price
Well, my interest in writing about technology and looking into this issue is very personal and similar to yours, it sounds like, because I too have an 11 year old. Yes. And I had previously been writing about health and nutrition. I have a kind of background in health and science journalism. I didn't really think I'd ever. I never thought I would write about technology. But when my daughter was a baby, I had a number of moments where I noticed that she was looking at me and I was looking at my phone and, and yeah, and it was like kind of like a dagger through the heart. It was really very upsetting to me because I didn't want to live that way. I didn't want that to be what she experienced as a human relationship, let alone have that be her relationship with her mom. I knew that babies could only can only focus about 10 to 12 inches in front of their faces, presumably so they can bond with whoever is holding them. And so I didn't want to be not looking her in the eye when she was only able to focus on my face. So I looked around for a solution because I realized that I wasn't the only person who was struggling at that point. This was around 2016. She was born 2015, but this was like early 2016. I wasn't the only person who was struggling with my relationship with my phone, but at that point not many people were talking about it. And while there were some books out about it, like Sherry Turkle's work or Nicholas Carr's excellent book the Shallows, Gene Twenge was on the cusp of publishing Igen. There wasn't a book that offered what I was looking for, which was a solution. And so that's why I wrote how to break up with your phone, which basically is a look at what the look into the science of what our screen time and our relationship with our devices is doing to us on a number of different levels. And then it's coupled with a 30 day evidence back plan to take back control. So yeah, that's how that book came to be. And everyone got it. I thought that was so interesting. You know, it was like the relationship metaphor immediately resonated with people in a way that would not make any sense for another technology. If you said like, oh, I wrote a book called how to break up with your toaster oven, or like, you know, with your CD player, whatever it was at the time, like, it wouldn't make sense. But smartphones, even if people had some resistance, they were like, oh, I get that.
- [03:45]
Host
Oh, I get that. Yeah, that checks out. Yeah. And so you published this originally February of 2018, but you've, you've made updates to it, you've recently revised it. So you and I know what's changed between 2018 and 2026. But for the general population, what have you had to update and talk about the broader conversation about phones and mental health since you first wrote this?
- [04:11]
Katherine Price
Well, it's been very interesting to track that conversation from 2016 when I really started thinking about it, to now where it seems like, I mean, granted, I'm in my own filter bubble, but like, it does seem like everyone's talking about this now. Obviously John Haidt's anxious generation really helps spark a global conversation too. But so much has changed since 2016. It's kind of strange to think about how big a problem our devices were and apps were even then. And now it's even worse. Now we have TikTok, now we have all these features within the major social media platforms that are even More, for lack of a better term, addictive, that are designed to really suck us in. And we have so much more awareness from the company's own research about what they know about their products, effects on young people in particular. And then you also have AI. I mean, that's a big one. So honestly, I mean, so the revised edition came out in 2025 and it has a bit more about AI, a bit more about parenting. It also has slight revisions to the 30 day plan based on the feedback I've gotten over the years from thousands of people who have gone through this plan. But it's, you know, it's interesting to write a book about technology because it's, it's. You have to be very careful about trying to future proof it because everything changes so fast.
- [05:23]
Host
I get it, I get it. I wrote a book about that 2024 and you know, that was one of the biggest hurdles and I wrote one in 2022, 2020 also. And the biggest blocker to me actually getting it done was that like, but it's just gonna not be relevant, you know, once published. Right. But you have to get past that. And you have.
- [05:47]
Katherine Price
And yeah, I think you have to kind of like zoom out a bit in order to have a broader perspective on it. Even when John and I were working on the Amazing Generation, it's like, what do you do about AI in that book? And so what we try to do there is come up with some general principles that you can use regardless of what state the technology is in. So not trying to speak about the specific moment that we're in, because that moment is a moving target and everything is changing so fast. So that's been an interesting challenge, but a fun one.
- [06:17]
Host
Yeah. You know, and at Bark, we try to have the most updated, like tech guides. Like here is literally where you go to find the parental controls and the timelines and filters. But UI keeps changing. So anyway, it's, it's. But it's important work and it's better to be, you know, generally informed than just be like, yeah.
- [06:38]
Katherine Price
And actually you reminded me of a bit of a huge change is that in 2015, 2016, there were not as many resources. I mean, there weren't as many problems, but there also were not as many resources. So now when I give talks, I can talk about Bark, I can talk about other basic phones, I can talk about other app bloggers. There's so much more out there. So many companies and people have developed solutions that are much more powerful than the native options built into iPhones and Android devices. So in one sense, that's depressing because it's like, why haven't these main companies solved the problem better? And, like, we have even bigger problems now. But on the other hand, it is nice to be like, no, no. There actually are practical tools that parents can turn to to help with this. So that's, that's a big change.
- [07:21]
Host
And parents don't have to feel so alone, and kids don't have to feel so alone. Like, they're the only one with a safer device or the only one that's not allowed to have social media until 16, because more and more parents are waking up, thanks to people like you and Jonathan Haidt and Nikki Petrosi of scrolling to death and so many amazing advocates and, and researchers out there. So it's. It's really a wonderful time to be in the space that we're in, the momentum that we're feeling from the lawsuits that, that just took place, showing real, real harms. You know, we're not just. This isn't all made up. This is really happening.
- [08:04]
Katherine Price
Yeah.
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Host
So anyway, so with the Amazing Generation, which I was, like, so stoked when that book came out, like, I was, like, waiting, you know, at the mailbox, like, come on, come on, come on, come on. You're now talking directly to kids and teens, not just the adults trying to parent them. And that's critical. You know, whenever probably you, I, anybody goes and gives a talk to parents, a lot of time, inevitably they're like, can you talk to our kids for us? So I think it's pretty obvious why that was the next book. But what is the core message you want young people to walk away with?
- [08:41]
Katherine Price
Yeah, so the core message of the Amazing Generation is that all of us have been tricked into giving our lives, our time and our attention and essentially our lives away to these companies. And we need to rethink that and that there's a better option, which is to prioritize real life. So if I had to summarize it, but basically that book came to be because John Haidt and I had started to team up, I guess, shortly, right around the time that the anxious generation came out. I had, honestly, when I read how to break up with your phone, I was hoping someone would come along and take care of the kid problem because it just seems so daunting. You know, I was like, oh, my daughter's gonna, like, I really hope by the time she's 11, like, someone has solved this problem. And I remember meeting John for the first time and he said, how old is Your daughter. And she was about eight at that time. And he goes, she's gonna be okay. And I was like, okay, tell me she's gonna be okay. Which was, you know. And it's amazing to see. That sounds like a crazy thing to have said, but it's, like, amazing to see how much has changed just in the past two years. So, anyway, we kind of teamed up and started collaborating in the loose sense. And then there was talk of creating a young readers edition of the Anxious Generation. I used to teach middle school. I love working with that age group. And both of my books are very playful and multiple books. But my power of fun and the how to break over your phone are. They have serious messages, but they're written in a playful tone and a playful style. And so I was like, oh, I'd be really interested in that project. So we ended up teaming up together to do the Amazing Generation. And it quickly became apparent, and thankfully, John recognized this as well, that you could do. And you could do a traditional young reader's edition of the Anxious Generation, which would sell very well with parents, but it wouldn't really convince kids to change their attitudes or their. Yeah, like, how they feel about devices, because it would just be adults telling them what to do and charts of loneliness and isolation. You know, like, that's not going to really encourage behavior change. So we ended up writing kind of a combination of our three books. It's a very playful book. It's a very brightly colored book for those of us who are people who are watching this. Like, I can hold up the book. It's got lots of colored illustrations. It has a graphic novel in it. It has quotes from young people, actual young reader or young people who are slightly older than our target readers age, so that they can hear from people who are not just old people like me and John, but instead peers who are just a little bit older. We profile a number of what we call young rebels. Who are these young people who are. Who are part of a growing movement of young people who are standing up and saying, you know what? I either deeply regret that my childhood was essentially stolen from me because of smartphones and social media and video games and I want to live differently, or young people who are saying, I don't want to choose that path to begin with. So we profiled some of those young people, and then we structured the book so that the first half of it essentially goes through some secrets, as we put it, that tech companies do not want any of us to know, but they especially don't want Kids to understand, like, how the attention economy works, how they use dopamine triggers to get us to spend time on their apps, even when we don't actually want to, how they fundamentally need us more than we need them, and also how spending lots of time on these apps and devices can actually change your brain, especially if you are in adolescence, as our readers are, and how important it is to protect your own brain and decide what kind of brain you ultimately want to have and adjust your habits to help support that kind of brain. And then the second half of the book is really all about how do you become a rebel? And so, yeah, so that's basically the. The reason being, like, we're telling the truth in the. Well, obviously the whole book is true, but I think the reason that young people are really connecting with it in ways that honestly go beyond my wildest dreams is that we're really just revealing the truth that many adults don't even know about, how we've all been taken advantage of, and then we're giving a positive path forward. And so the second half of the book is all structured around this concept that we call the Rebels code, which is our attempt to boil down the philosophy of these young rebels into two main concepts, which is to use technology as a tool. So we're not anti tech, but use it as a tool, don't let it use you. And then second, to fill your life with what we call real friendship, real freedom, and real fun. And the idea there is that part of the reason that people of all ages, but especially teenagers, spend so much time on these apps and devices and games is that the makers of these products have promised us that they'll give us better connections with our friends or the freedom to explore our own interests and discover our own identities or. Or just fun. And I wrote a book about fun. I can tell you that, like, that's not actual fun. Real fun and real friendship and real freedom actually happens in real life. So we're kind of pulling back the curtain on the lies that we've all been fed. And then we're giving young people a very concrete path forward if they would like to choose a different path and become one of these rebels. And that whole second half of the book gives a lot of really practical suggestions, encouraging, for example, kids to actually protect their own brains by choosing not to get smartphones and social media accounts until they're older. And then also to advocate for their own right to have more real world independence and free play and responsibility. I'm rambling, but, like, it's been amazing to see that kids actually have been like, we have heard from so many families and young readers that having read the book, they are choosing not to get social media accounts and choosing to get smartphone alternatives or, you know, basic phones. I hate when people call them dumb phones because they're actually smarter. But to get a non smartphone like kids are choosing for themselves. So it's been amazing. I really, I had dreams for this book and the reality has exceeded my wildest hopes and it's really heartening. It's been really wonderful.
- [14:06]
Host
I mean that's been the consistent ask from our community and from our user base is like, can you talk to our kids? And you've done that. And it's interesting. I was speaking at a high school earlier in the week where out of 400 students, 16 of them opted in to do a social media free week challenge. And just, just that many of that whole population. But hey, we'll take it, right? And the insights that they came up with and have been sharing with their friends are so beautiful. Also heartbreaking, you know, when you listen to them talk about it like, I don't know how, I don't know how I can do this. And I kept trying to pick it up and now I'm bored. I don't know what to do with my time. And now I have to face my feelings. And it's very, it's the worst facing
- [14:54]
Katherine Price
the feelings for adults too. It's like, oh wait, I wanted to distract myself. Please numb me.
- [14:59]
Host
I want this dopamine hit. I don't want to like, you know, whatever, fill in the blank. One girl said, I started to do laundry. I had more time for things. And it's like, yep, yep, that happens. But, but what was also interesting too is when you hear them talk about their addiction or their relationship with their smartphone. With social media, you could swap the word social media, snap, anything for cigarettes, alcohol, pornography. It's like, it's addiction science. And so as you're talking, I'm thinking, man, if you get the kid at the right age and they read that book and you're set, that's awesome. But like, how do you, you know, how do you get kids to say no to cigarettes, to say no to trying marijuana when all of their friends are like, how do you inspire and empower a child with their child brains that aren't fully developed to realize the truth and be like, no, I'm going to stand firm. I'm going to do what's best for my physical and mental health, even though I might feel left out.
- [16:01]
Katherine Price
That was, that was definitely something we struggled with in figuring out how to frame the book. And what you were just saying about cigarettes is extremely relevant because I remember years ago speaking to a psychologist about the anti smoking campaigns in the 90s and about how when you framed it as, you know, saying you shouldn't smoke because you might get lung cancer, that was totally ineffective for young people because they felt immortal and like, okay, whatever, like, yeah, theoretically in the future, but whatever. It seems cool. But if you instead help them to understand that there are these big corporations that were profiting off of tricking them and that the companies, the cigarette companies thought that they were dumb enough to believe the idea that like sucking on a stick with smoke and tea like that, that was cool, that that's they're manipulating and tricking you and they think you're stupid. That's when young people were like, what? They got righteously outraged. I'm not someone who likes to stoke outrage in. I feel like there's plenty of outrage. But if there's one area where I think we should have more and we should have more disgust, it is in this realm of what these tech companies have been doing to all of us and especially young people. And so that was very much part of the philosophy driving the approach of the book was to again, like, pull back the curtain and say, hey, this is what they're doing. They think you're dumb enough to think that being like a snap streak matters. Like, let's just think about that. That's stupid. If I may, but we have quotes from other young people. So it's not just me saying that, right? It's like we've got quotes from young people saying things like, I think it's really like, it's really, it's really not cool to like live your life for social media. No living, do things. Doing things just for social media is really uncool. Or like, some of the coolest people I know aren't on social media, or if I could relive my own teen years, I would have said, get off those apps and go have some real experiences. So I think that that's where, like, you can get this mindset shift where if they get kind of outraged and they feel like, wait, you're trying to take advantage of me. Which of course that is what the companies are doing. That's where you start to have this internalized desire not to be a part of this attention economy as opposed to being lectured at by adults. And I will tell you that the Two page. There's two parts of the book that nearly every kid I've talked to has mentioned. It's very consistent that they really, really resonated with them. One is the section where we talk about how some of the leaders of the tech companies, many of them, don't let their own children use the products that they created. The. That level of hypocrisy hits really hard for kids as young as nine years old. They do not like that. They are very righteous, these kids, and they have a sense of what's right and wrong, and that seems very hypocritical. And they can sniff it out from a mile away. And then we also have a screen time calculator in the book, and the title of that page is a screen time calculator you can use to freak people out. And they're using it that way. I've heard, actually from multiple parents who are like, hey, thanks, Katherine. My kid came up and showed me this page about my own screen time. I'm spending four months a year, you know, and so it's. It's interesting. So all that is to say that very much was the approach. The philosophy was not to lecture at kids, but just to actually make them feel smarter than adults. Because if they read this book, they will know more about this issue than most adults in their life. And one of the most effective things we've seen happen is when parents kind of leave this book out. And because, again, it's very colorful, John was insistent that it be printed in full color. I'm so grateful to him for having pushed for that. It is essentially a dopamine trigger, if I'm being totally honest. But, like, it's a beautiful book with all sorts of visual elements. And we're finding that what's happening is that kids are picking this book up on their own. And then we're finding it very effective. If parents then say, hey, can you teach me something from that book? Or, like, if a parent says, hey, I've been thinking about my own screen habits, and I know I'm always lecturing you, but can you read this book and teach me something or help me change my habits? That leveling of the playing field has been very powerful and effective. But, yes, answering your question, that's part of the approach is to just help kids feel and be smarter than most
- [19:53]
Host
of the grownups about this education that leads to empowerment. And you're so right. Nobody is okay with being manipulated, whether you're 41 or 11. Like, and that's the key. That's what I want to convey to everybody listening and watching right now. It's not about, you do what I say when I say it. It's about, hey, we're in this together. We are learning in real time what these things that feel so good. What's behind that design.
- [20:23]
Katherine Price
Yes. And exactly what you're saying, that's actually a really meaningful piece of feedback we've gotten repeatedly is the idea that after reading the book, parents feel like they and their children are on the same side. And that, I think, is so powerful. And just to share an anecdote, a friend shared with me, her son plays a lot of Fortnite and. And loves Fortnite. Right. And I'm sure there had been screen. There have been conflicts over this amount of time he was spending playing it. And she said he'd read the Amazing Generation. And he himself. And he is also everyone's 11 in the story. But we've heard from much older kids, actually, and then also younger, going all the way down to third grade, but in this case, he was in fifth grade. And he said, you know, I've been thinking about it. I really like video games, but I'm not sure that this is a hobby. This is the type of insight kids can have. He said, I'm not sure that it's a hobby that's actually making me a more interesting person. You know, can you help me discover some new hobbies? And as a result of that, they started doing a family outing to the climbing gym weekly. And he's. And he himself has been sticking to the screen limits. Like, he has actually been putting his screen down, like, before they even have to ask, because he's internalized that he doesn't want to live that way, you know, and that they're on the same side. And again, we are on the same side as our kids in this issue.
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Host
Yes.
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Katherine Price
It's just true. And the more we can embrace that, I think the fewer confrontations and the more productive conversations we're going to have.
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Host
It's like, what child or tween or teen is going to be like, you know what? I would rather be physically and mentally unwell. That is the path I'd like to go down. Nobody's actively saying that.
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Katherine Price
Yeah. Or I want to be, like, a boring person with no interests or skills. Like, that's what I want. I want to be lame, you know? Like, that's not.
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Host
No, no.
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Katherine Price
Yeah. And I think it's also a matter of, like, helping people. And I found this with how to break up with your Phone as well. And certainly in my own experience writing that book, it's like once you see certain things, you can't unsee them. You know, once you start to notice whole families out to dinner with everybody with a separate screen or a phone on the table, you can't not notice that it's actually quite distracting. I can't even eat dinner sometimes. I have to switch places with my husband.
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Host
It's hard.
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Katherine Price
But, like, then you start not people texting while they're walking across the street of major intersections, or people, very smart people who are in the car with their children, driving them to school, and they're on the phone at the same time. And then you're like, we are being manipulated on a biochemical level, because there is no way that that person, if you ask them, hey, is that a good idea to be texting while you're driving your child to school in a car? Of course they know that. That's all of us. I mean, I'm sure that many of us have done that. And that is because of the effect that these devices are having on our brain chemistry. When you are in this dopamine cycle, it actually is much harder to activate the part of your brain that makes rational decisions. So there's like, yeah, yeah, it's pretty nuts when you really start to think about it and see it. And once you start to internalize that, you can't go back.
- [23:11]
Host
I'm Googling right now how to see your amount of phone pickups. This is the most telling thing, I think, for everybody listening and watching right now. If you have an iPhone. I do. My youngest two don't, but I do because I'm an adult. So on your iPhone, go to settings, go to screen time. Gotta scroll down, like halfway down. See all activity. Here we go. See all activity. It's at the top and I missed it. Then scroll to the pickup section. Guess what my daily average is, Katherine?
- [24:03]
Katherine Price
I have no idea.
- [24:07]
Host
95. I pick up this thing 95 times a day on average.
- [24:13]
Katherine Price
What's your first app that you open? I think it tells you that, too. Your most common messages.
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Host
Text messages.
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Katherine Price
That's for me, too. Yeah.
- [24:20]
Host
Followed by Slack, then Gmail. So I'm glad it's not Instagram, Snap, TikTok, Amazon, but 95. You know what? That's 95 times my attention has been taken out of the real world. So, you know, if it's nine to five or whatever, you know, my work hours are, that's fine because this is a tool I use for work. But if it's taking away from family time, family dinners time. I could be reading, praying, exercising, cooking, like connecting with people in real life. That is sad. So everybody, I recommend doing this with your children. Go with your kids. Be like, hey, let's see how many times mom or dad or babysitter picks up our phones and let's maybe try to dial that back anyway.
- [25:06]
Katherine Price
That's a wonderful suggestion because if you turn it into a bit of a game and also you show vulnerability to your kids, where you allow them to see that and then you're like, hey, like, I'm not perfect perfect either. I mean, none of us are perfect and never will be. But you know, it's very helpful. I think another thing we suggest in the book in terms of social media is that if you're on Instagram or if your kid is on Instagram, Instagram is particularly notorious for this. Have them scroll through, scroll through together like the first 20 posts and count how many of them in your own feed if you're on Instagram, are either straight up ads or sponsored for you or suggested for you, and chances are it's going to be more than 30%. And then you can also say like, how many of the remaining posts are from people you actually know because supposedly Instagram is there to connect you with friends, right? How many of those are actual friends? And then you can do the math on that to say, okay, so like 30 to 40% is like literally ads. And if you do the math on how much time people are spending, the average American teenager is spending about five hours a day just on social media and YouTube, we can have a conversation about whether YouTube is social media. But on social media and YouTube, that's two and a half full months a year of 24 hour days. That's close to four months if you take sleeping into account. So that when I give talk to kids at schools, actually I just talked to the seventh grade at my daughter's school yesterday. It's like if you Woke up on January 1st and you started just looking at social media and YouTube and you slept eight hours a night, you would be doing Nothing else until May 1st. Like nothing. Literally nothing else. That's how much time. And if you just start to think about the opportunity cost there. And in the amazing generation, we, we don't use the term opportunity cost, but we do talk about how free apps actually cost a lot, which is our way of talking about opportunity cost. And it's like just think about all the things you could do, all the fun you could have all the things you could learn, all the adventures you could have with your friends. I mean, and it's true for us adults too, right? Like, if I spent the amount of time that I've spent texting on blues piano, which is one of my interests, I'd be much better at it. Or, like, I'd be able to speak Spanish by now, you know, like it's, it's kind of nuts to think about.
- [27:09]
Host
Yeah. Full disclosure and vulnerability. If I spent time, the amount of time I spent on Instagram watching other people lift weights, actually myself, I might, you know, have the. Whatever. It's just like, it's, it's stupid is what it is. And we're not stupid, so let's not do this.
- [27:29]
Katherine Price
And it's an interesting invitation for anyone listening. And this is something that really got to me when I was writing how to break up with your phone. It's like, okay. At that point, the best statistics I could find was that adults were spending about four hours a day on their phones. Just their phones, not like work computers, which is about 60 full days a year. And I was like, okay, let's think, like, what are you interested in doing? Like, if you reclaimed even just a half hour of that time daily and put it toward lifting weights or improvising on the piano or, you know, I also want, I play drums. Like practicing drums, whatever it might be, or a hobby that you haven't picked up in a long time because you're, quote, too busy. Yes. If you just do an experiment of trying that maybe even three times a week for a month, like, what difference would that make? I'm a big fan of these little tiny experiments where don't feel that you have to do it forever, but just play around with it and see. How different do you feel when you do a half hour of this thing you've always said you want to do? You suppose, you suppose you don't have time for, but you want to do. And in my case, that's actually what led me to write the power of fun is that I asked myself, I was doing a digital Sabbath. Like, I was taking a 24 hour break from screens when my daughter was a baby and my husband was out of the house and she was asleep. And I was like, oh, this should be a great hour. But instead I didn't know what I wanted to do. And I asked myself a question. I asked people when I was writing how to break up with your phone. I said, okay, what's something I say I want to do, but I supposedly don't have time for. And my answer at that point was to learn to play the guitar. Because I had a guitar my grandmother gave me money in college for. I was really close with her. I never learned how to play it. And so I ended up signing up for an adult guitar class. I say adult guitar class because it was at a children's music studio. And that ended up being so much fun. Not just the skill that I was developing, but like the people I was meeting. The feeling when we were together that that led me to write the Power of Fun. Because I was like, what is this feeling? And how. Like, what do we know about why this feels so good and is so good for us? And to that day that this is like we're coming up on. Ten years since that happened and I'm still. I just saw some of those friends this weekend. You know, I have a whole new community of people and new skills. The reason I'm taking blues piano is because I took the guitar class. The reason I started taking drums is because I had that moment experimenting with guitar. So I just offer that as like, you don't know where like a little experiment could lead. It could really have a life changing effect and bring so much joy and fun to your adult life. That's so rad. Yeah. And it's exciting to think. I mean, it's depressing to think that so many young people feel like their teen years and their childhoods have been stolen from them because of these platforms, which is a real thing I hear very often from young people. But it is also exciting to think that if we could help them understand what's at stake here, like, they have a lot more free time as teenagers than we do as adults. So, like, just imagine all the skills you could develop and all the things you could do if you actually, we're a little bit more intentional about how you spend your time when you're a teenager.
- [30:18]
Host
Yeah. It's not. It doesn't have to be as big of a mountain that looks like it's impossible to climb. Right. It's about a bunch of little micro revelations that you embark on together as a family to get smarter, to get healthier, and to connect more authentically for the parents who come to you totally overwhelmed that are like, I already gave my kid a phone. I already let my kid have snap. Now what? Where do you tell them to start? What's the most realistic first step? And I get it. It's much different for an 11 year old than it is a 17 year old. But any thoughts you have There.
- [30:55]
Katherine Price
Yeah. So I actually have a suggested roadmap for technology starting at a young age. So I have that I should mention on my site, which is katherine price.com, there's a family section. So I've got a free kit that lays out some of my recommendations. Actually bark is included in it for how to. Yeah, I mean genuinely, I'm again so grateful that these, these solutions exist, but it's basically my recommendations of how to introduce your kids to devices and tech and then also some family guidelines that you can use regardless of whether your kids have phones or social media or video games. And I also just came out with a seven day plan for Screen Life balance. Like a family guide to Screen Life Balance, which is meant to kind of help in the conversation we're having. We're like, how do you actually again level the playing field and get your kids engaged in helping the whole family have better screen life balance? So I encourage people to check that out. But I think what I would say and what I do say is that, yes, I totally hear how challenging it is if you're in a situation where you feel that the genie has been let out of the bottle and you're just like, what am I going to do? And so a couple thoughts on that. I know that when John Haidt speaks about this, he talks about how he felt that way just as a society level. And a lot of people criticized him early on, saying, okay, like you're writing the anxious generation, but it's too late. You know, what are we going to do? Well, that was a couple years ago and now we have over 40 US states who have some kind of phone free policy for schools. Not all Bell to bell, and that should be bell to bell, but nonetheless more than 40 of them. You have Australia leading the way and having social media restricted for kids under 16. And you have a number, I think it's like 10 countries that are considering this. Numerous US states are considering this. You have schools actually now reevaluating their use of ed tech in the classroom, thinking, was this really a good idea to have this one to one device? Yeah, chills, right? All of this stuff is happening that seemed impossible. So it's not impossible. I think that the important thing is, well, a couple of things. One is to recognize that we are parents and our job is not for our kids to like us. Our job is to keep our kids safe and to help them develop into competent and confident functional adults. And to me at least, parenting is a constant exercise in course correction and feeling like, yeah, got things wrong and you have to like, reevaluate and, you know, change course. And I would recommend having a really open and honest conversation with your kids and teens about saying like, yeah, I know, I know that you, you have a smartphone or I know that you're on social media, you're on snap with your whatever it is, and I understand and ask them like, why they feel it's important. But then also say, my job as a parent is to keep you safe and my job is to help you develop into, you know, confident, capable person. And there's been research that's come out that shows that actually this is not safe. I mean, honestly, everybody, social media is not safe for kids. It is inherently unsafe. You would never let your child go to a, say a playground where you have a pedophile. In one corner you've got someone showing like beheading videos. In the other corner you got a drug dealer sitting on a bench and you've got someone showing kids how to restrict eating and engage in self harm. Like, I don't care how many other kids are going to that playground, you would not let your child go there. And that is what's happening. So I think to actually educate yourself about the realities, like we really can't have our heads in the sand about how dangerous these platforms are inherently and what the mental health effects are, especially for kids who are predisposed to things like anxiety and depression. And we're seeing that more and more in these lawsuits, as you alluded to from research the companies themselves have done. And that just buried much like Big Tobacco did with the harms of cigarettes. So I think we can actually be quite honest with our kids to say, like, we now know more than we ever have. You can point out that the leaders of these tech companies, like the leader of TikTok, not letting his kid on TikTok, you know, Evan Spiegel had the Instagram. He grew up with that at TV and he thinks that was a good thing. Tim Cook was actually just on, I believe it was Good Morning America celebrating Apple's 50th birthday or 50th anniversary. And he was talking about how he doesn't want people to be on smartphones for too long and they should go out in nature, you know. But I think as you're saying this and as you're telling your kids, we are going to change the rules. And I know you might not like it, but we will get through it together because I think that's important. I think it's also important to Say, I understand that this is making you upset. I understand that this is making you feel left out. And honestly, I understand to go back to the messaging we used in the amazing generation that you want and need more friendship, more time with your friends, more freedom, independence from us, their parents, and more independence to discover your interests and also just more fun. And I want to support you in that. But here's the thing, it's not going to come through devices, and we are going to change how we talk about and use devices in the family. But I also want to work with you to give you more opportunities for real friendship and freedom and fun in the real world and open the conversation that way. I also think it's very important to get some of your kids, friends, parents on board with this and to try again. It depends on their age in terms of how much direct parental involvement there is. But if your kid is on the younger side to actually band together with a couple other families, it doesn't need to be everybody. But to say, like, can we collectively agree that we are not going to give our kids smartphones until, I would say, at least 16? John only said 14 in the anxious generation because it seemed like a feasible target, but he would also agree 16. And that will figure out ways for them to hang out in person and we'll figure out ways for them to stay in touch when they're not in person. So one thing I've become a huge fan of is landline house telephones that use the Internet. So like Tin can is an example of that, where even from a very young age you could give, get a house line for your, for your family very cheap. They're like, not like signing up for Verizon in the days of, you know, ye olden days, it's like $10 a month or it's actually in many cases free once you buy the phone and give them total freedom to call their friends like it's 1995. You know, if you get, if they've got a little bit more independence out of the house, then maybe you get them a bark phone or one of the other smartphone alternatives on the market so they can use it as a tool without having access to the whole Internet and importantly, not having the entire Internet have access to them. So you give them the tool aspects and the parts that actually allow them to connect with their friends. You know. And then another thing I would say a friend of mine, Catherine Martinko, who wrote a great book called Childhood Unplugged, you should totally have on the podcast, if you haven't already. She actually talked about how she went out of her way to just make her house a more fun place for her boys to hang out in.
- [37:09]
Host
So she went on my laptop, you would see Legos and art canvases and crayons and there's messes. And that's okay.
- [37:16]
Katherine Price
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Even for those of us who find that mess difficult. But Catherine, sorry, she's another Catherine. She's Catherine with a cray. I'm Catherine with Cindy. She went on Craigslist and she got all this, like, gym equipment, like weights and stuff. And she was saying that they set up essentially a mini gym in their garage. She lives in Canada and they've got like a basketball hoop and I think like a mini trampoline or something like that. But anyway, they just have stocked their house with stuff that's fun for, in her case, teenage boys. And she said she just laughs because now she's got like multiple teen boys. Just like lifting. You should totally go. You can get in your weightlifting goals. They're just like lifting in Catherine's garage. So point being, like kids, one thing that John says that I really appreciate that I think is true is that they don't inherently want smartphones and social media. They want the freedom that comes with those things. They want not to feel left out.
- [38:06]
Host
Right?
- [38:07]
Katherine Price
So we have to. Any restriction we put upon them, I think is going to be taken much better and be more effective if we also couple it with an invitation for more good stuff. And I found that in my research and how to break up with your phone and the power of fun. It's like if you spend less. If you spend more time having fun, you're just not going to want to be on screens that much. Because all of us are gravito gravitating towards things like social media and our smartphones because we want to feel connected and we're lonely. You know, there's an emotional reason we want to. We feel a little dead inside. So we're like, I guess I'll. I guess I'll look at social media or, you know, we get consumed by the news like we're seeing, seeking something. If we can fulfill that need in real life, we will inherently become less drawn to screens. So I guess I'm saying more fun, less phone. And if you spend less time on your phone, you actually will have more opportunities for fun. It's a virtuous cycle that brings you up instead of sucking you down into a rabbit hole.
- [39:00]
Host
Yes. Oh, my gosh, Katherine. This is one of the most important episodes we've ever recorded. And yeah, my living room used to be prioritized to block. Look, Pinterest. Perfect, right? And now it is optimized for fun. It's a living room. It's meant to be lived in.
- [39:15]
Katherine Price
Ooh, I like that.
- [39:17]
Host
Actually, my 11 year old and I, you know, he doesn't get screens during the week and, you know, a lot of times he's like, so, what should I do now? I'm done with my homework. And we were talking about he really wants to create a video game. And he at first was like, I want to learn how to code. And I'm like, actually with Claude code. And I love that you want to learn how to code, but you don't necessarily have to learn an entire language, but you can use that creative part of your brain to like, draw it out or write it out. And like, let's do all this and then we can maybe use AI to like, help us. Anyway, long story short, I'm trying to balance the, like, I know what's possible with tech to help us go further faster, but I also don't want any child, him included, to like, get lazy and not activate that part of the brain. Kind of like when I was growing up, my dad was like, don't use that calculator. You can do that calculation in your brain. So, like, anyway, I know it's early, but any advice around parents, kids and AI? I know it's early and it's a big topic.
- [40:32]
Katherine Price
Yeah, yeah, well, yes, that's what like, literally keeps me up at nights. I normally sleep very well, but if I really start thinking about this, it's like, oh, God. I have a couple of thoughts on this. First, I would say just more broadly so AI, I think, is very similar to screen time in the sense that we often kind of lump it all together and we're like, oh, screen time is good or bad, or AI is good or, you know, it's like, it's the future, we need to introduce kids to it, or, oh my God, we can't have any interaction with it. Um, I would say that we should be thinking about it more in terms of its various potential purposes and uses. In the same way that when people come to me struggling with screen time on their phone, I say, okay, well, let's separate out the screen time that's actually useful to you or enjoyable from the stuff that feels like a waste of time. Because if you're using Google, like, I've never met anyone who spends too much time on Google Maps. I Guess that's what I'm saying, right? Like maybe there's a downside there because you can't navigate as well. But like, or the calculator app, or like your health records or your banking app, like, that's not a, that's not a time suck. It might be a tick that you keep checking it, but you know what I mean? But so for AI, I'd say in the adult sense, there's like some obviously amazing uses of AI. For example, I have type 1 diabetes and I used to do a lot of medical reporting using AI to discover potential molecular entities like drugs that have been overlooked, that might have purposes in various diseases. That's amazing. Or doing that kind of calculation the human brain would either take years to do or couldn't do. That's fantastic. But when it comes to kids in particular, I think we need to be very cautious and skeptical of AI and that we really are on the brink of making a similar mistake with AI as what we did with honestly ed Tech by letting all these screens into the classroom without any kind of evaluation about whether or not they were educational as opposed to just distraction machines. So I would say one thing very important is no AI relationships with children. Because for example, Mark Zuckerberg, the head of Meta, which owns Instagram and WhatsApp and threads and Facebook Facebook, said on an investor call he acknowledged that Americans are incredibly lonely and that they want more friends. And his solution was that they were going to put more AI chatbots into Meta's products. So that's like the approach they're taking. And there's also intense competition between these companies to make sure that AI relationship bots, that no one's going to beat them, so they're taking off guardrails. Like there's been a real reluctance, for example at Meta to include guardrails for children. You could see where this would go horribly awry if you have having romantic relationships with an AI chatbot, let alone situations in which for reasons that no one seems to fully understand, because people don't understand how these things work, even the people who create them, you have AI chatbots encouraging kids to engage in self harm and in some cases leading to deaths by suicide. Like it is very bad. So no AI relationships for children of any kind, whether it's a teddy bear that talks and has an AI voice which is on the market, or if it is a chatbot in Instagram, or watch out for things like character AI and replica. And just as a like something I find horrible, there's one company, their Tagline. One of their tagline says, build your girl and you can build your girlfriend. And as the parent of a daughter, I mean, this does not bode well. This is horrifying. So, no hard no on that in terms of. I know you're not talking about that, but in terms of creativity and using AI in education, the AI companies and the tech companies are lobbying very hard to get rapid adoption of their technology from four kids, kindergarten on up. And I think we need to have a hard stop on that. These things have never been proven to be safe. And what I would argue is that it is essential that we help our kids learn how to be humans first and develop, as you're getting at, their own creativity and their own ability to strategize about problems and their own ability to think deeply without immediately turning to a chatbot. And so, to me, I think what you're saying makes total sense, and I applaud your approach, which is basically to say, that's great. You want to create a game that's fantastic. As you're saying, like, humans don't really need to code anymore, which that itself is like, oh, man, STEM education. Like, we kind of don't need that in the way that we've been doing it. Since you can vibe code, I mean, I can make an app right now, like, during this podcast with it. So I think that it's really wonderful to take this again, it ties into what we were talking about before of, like, trying to get at the underlying motivation that your kid has. He wants to express his creativity and create a game. That's great. Well, can you. Let's figure out. How could you build that in real life? You know, how can you prototype that? How. How do you think a designer, a game designer would think about a game? Like, let's think about your favorite video game. Like, how could you take aspects of that and translate into your own game and do it in real life? And then, sure, maybe eventually you can vibe code the game. But I think to your point, it's essential that we help our kids actually develop the ability to think for themselves. Because if you think about what happens if we don't do that, you end up with an which. We are at risk of having an entire generation or society of people who have never learned to think for themselves. Themselves who have no critical thinking ability, who've never developed their creative abilities. They're dependent on an AI tool that is controlled by a company whose goal is to make money. It's not to, like, further humanity. So what happens, you know, for example, when ads start to get into AI, or let's say that you no longer have access to that AI tool and you've never learned to think for yourself. Well, now you've essentially been lobotomized. I mean, to be honest. So all that is to say, I think we need extreme skepticism, extreme caution when it comes to AI, and my personal philosophy is that we need to help our kids become humans first, to be able to think as humans, be creative as humans, and importantly have relationships as humans and with other humans. Which is much harder than having a relationship with a sycophantic AI chatbot. Well, you got me on a screed there. Sorry, I am.
- [46:03]
Host
I was literally like trying to interject the world the word sycophancy. Sycophancy. So, like, I'm glad you like ended on that because like, done no notes.
- [46:12]
Katherine Price
And you'll also notice that now, because this has become such a more common thing that people are aware of that, like this hypocrisy is becoming better known. I've started to notice that some of the tech execs have started to say, like, no, it's great that my 5 year old daughter uses whatever this AI tool was. I think it's wonderful she has conversations. There was one person, I don't remember his name, so I won't try to attribute it, but it was the leader of one of the main AI companies and he's. She says things to the chatbot that she won't say to me as if it's a good thing.
- [46:41]
Host
And it's like, okay, yeah, okay. Well, Katherine, we have gone way over time. I am so thankful for the time that you have given us and for the work that you're doing because you are helping to reclaim childhood and empower parents in a way that doesn't instill fear, but instills confidence. And that's what we all need, myself included. So if you could leave parents in our community with one thing, one mindset shift or one action, what would it be?
- [47:14]
Katherine Price
I think what I would say is that this feels like an impossible problem. And it has felt that way for a long time, societally and as individual parents. And in a way, it makes sense that it feels impossible because it is incredibly serious. I don't know of any issue I can think of that is more important for us to be thinking about than the effect of technology on our children. So in that regard, we should be taking this extremely seriously and we should be deeply concerned. On the other hand, it is one of the few areas in which, A, there's bipartisan support, but B, and maybe even more importantly, we have individual control. We don't have control over many things in our lives or in the world, but we do have control about whether or not our kid gets a smartphone, we're paying for it, or if they're on social media. And we can make changes on a personal level or with our friends and with our friends, kids that can genuinely change our children's lives. And so, to me, I think I'd love for people to take away the fact that we should be taking this seriously and we can do something about it. It is a solvable problem, and it's not that hard. It just has to do with how we choose to interact with these devices as individuals and as families. So that gives me hope. Oh, awesome.
- [48:33]
Host
Beautiful. Catherine, thank you so much again for all that you do. I really admire your work, and it's just. It's been an honor. Thank you so much.
- [48:44]
Katherine Price
Thank you so much for having me.