A (4:12)

Three years. Three years. It has only been three years since you have been on this quest, which is insane and also remarkable because in the past, before the Internet, before smartphones, and this is a positive about tech, it would take us maybe 50 years to get to, or 20 years to get to like a learning, a collective learning amongst respected professionals. But thankfully you have been able to dig in and do research and come to this conclusion quickly, which is a wonderful, I guess, aspect of all of this doom and gloom that we're talking about. It's. It's really. It's really wild. It's really wild.

B (4:55)

I think it's easier to buy into the rhetoric too, because you see it in your own home. Like, no, I don't have a 17 year old, but I've seen the patterns. Right? It's. Yes, everyone is living it 100%.

A (5:08)

You know, you're in Canada, we're in America. Our pediatricians follow the American Academy of Pediatrics guidelines for screen time, which have been changing over the past few years. Do y' all follow that too? Do you have a separate thing? What do you do?

B (5:22)

We have the Canadian Pediatric Society and they do have some guidelines, but I would say that they are due for an update too.

A (5:30)

So what do those say?

B (5:33)

They're pretty similar. Like, they talk about just being. They use the M's, like being mindful and, you know, mediating risk and. And those kinds of things. We still have the, like, time limit of the one to two hours a day kind of thing. Try to stick to less than that. But there's not a whole lot for older kids and the addictive algorithms. It's more for the younger kids.

A (6:00)

That's wild. Is it do. Does your board recommend no screens before the age of two?

B (6:10)

Yeah. Okay.

A (6:12)

Yeah, that's. That's some of the wildest stuff I've. I've seen is little. Little babies on. On iPhones. It breaks my heart.

B (6:20)

Like, I'm a doctor. Ask me if I knew about those guidelines and whether they even existed before. Like, my son saw screens and iPads before he was 2. For sure.

A (6:31)

Of course. Yeah.

B (6:33)

And there's nuance there too. Right? Like, I don't think they're gonna be irreparably damaged from a little bit of screen time either. But I was not aware.

A (6:41)

No. And so this is a wonderful tee up, layup, whatever, go sports for the next question. Part of it, which is what is actually happening in the brain that becomes the default when kids are spending five to six hours a day on a screen. And I'll caveat that with, again, you're going to hear some stuff that is scary, might make your heart heavy, might really dig into that parenting guilt that we all have. But thankfully, there's also a beautiful aspect of our brains called neuroplasticity, and you can always turn the tide. So anyway, what's happening in the brain when kids are getting lit up by screens?

B (7:22)

Yeah. And I think on a very basic level, a lot of times when kids are going on a screen, they're using that screen to fulfill some kind of need initially. Right. They're bored, they're sad, they just want to be distracted. They want to socialize with their peers. So it often starts as a very innocent need. And then, unfortunately, because of the way that tech has evolved over the last decade or so, most of the time they're going onto a platform that is by. Designed for compulsive use or addiction. Even if it's the little kids, they're hopping onto YouTube, onto Roblox, these kinds of things. And because of those features that we know exist, the infinite scroll, the predictive algorithms, the intermittent reinforcement, they get these spikes in their dopamine. And then I think what a lot of people don't realize is that you get that little pleasure spike and that feels good. But then when that is over, your dopamine actually kind of dips below its baseline. And that leads the brain to have a craving. And so you want to repeat that behavior fast forward, you know, several months. And you need a more intense stimuli to achieve that same level of, of pleasure in your brain. And that's what we see when, I mean, among other things. But that's what we can see resulting in that rise in sadness and isolation and anxiety because you just aren't achieving pleasure from everyday activities. And what I try to explain to parents, too, when I, when I present is kids in particular. You know, we know, everybody kind of knows that that frontal lobe of the brain is not fully developed until they're in their mid to late 20s, right? And but what a lot of people don't realize is that your midbrain reward center or that dopamine center is not fully connected to that frontal lobe in childhood and adolescence. And so that's why kids are more vulnerable to addiction in, in general. And we know that, right? We know if you, if you start smoking when you're young, you're more likely to smoke as an adult. We know that if you watch porn as a child, you're more likely to have a pornography addiction as an adult. And although this is maybe not recognized in the DSM yet as an addiction, I mean, the premise is the same. The, the psychology behind it is the exact same as, as these other substances and behavioral addictions. And so I think that's really important for parents to realize is that when kids are getting access to these platforms so young, in great amounts of time, that's where we have to watch it.

A (10:17)

Oh, my gosh.

B (10:19)

Okay.

A (10:20)

My brain has gone to a few different places. One is, I have this thought a lot. I wish I could go back in time instead of yelling at my son,

B (10:32)

get off the iPad.

A (10:34)

Try to explain to him in an age appropriate way, like, the reason mommy doesn't want you to play Roblox well at all these days, but for one more minute is because there's a part of your brain that isn't connected to another part of your brain fully. And you doing this can prevent that from being optimally or something, right? Like, there's an age appropriate way to communicate this to kids so they realize, hey, we're on the same team here. We both want you to be optimally healthy, both physically and mentally. This isn't about mommy being controlling or too conservative or whatever. It's for your health. So there's that. The next thing I wondered was,

B (11:18)

you

A (11:18)

and me and all of our colleagues are so deep in this world that we're just like, duh, yeah, we knew, we know this. We know this. But you're seeing normal parents every day, all day. How many of them do you think realize the depths of this? Are they still really shocked? Basically, like, how much more work do we need to do to just raise awareness to the problem?

B (11:44)

Yeah. Oh, my gosh. You know, I have to, like, pinch myself and remind myself all the time because I fall into the same trap as you. Right. I mean, our algorithms are predictive. When I go on my Instagram, I feel like everybody knows this stuff. And it's not until. Yeah, you start interacting with. Either at schools, when I present to parents or in my office, like, this is largely unknown, and sometimes people will send me things or show me things, and they're like, look at this. And I'm like, wait, you didn't know that?

A (12:15)

Like, and they.

B (12:16)

They don't. And so I think we've come a long way. And I think on a surface level, parents understand that these platforms are problematic and they don't like them, and they wish they could just throw them all away. And that's kind of where everybody is at, but they're also still sort of in this world where they're like, well, this is just the way it is. And this is. I just need to deal with this and I need to do my best. Which is, to an extent, true. Right. We are all doing our best, but I think there's just still so much progress to be had to, like, empower parents to know that they can do more. And it's not easy. But, you know, going back to what you said before about explaining it to your kid, like, we should do something together, because every presentation I go to, the parents are like, do you have something that I can show my kids so that they understand from that brain perspective? And it's. It's. I don't see a lot out there directed at the little kids.

A (13:21)

You know, Big Tech often pushes the message that their platforms are just neutral tools. It's about how you use them, and they offer parental controls and family safety centers. How do you respond to that framing?

B (13:36)

Yeah, I think, you know, when we talk about the trials that have just sort of passed and the ones that are going to be coming, touching back on parents, kind of assuming that all of this is normal and this is just the way of the world, and we need to figure out how to best manage that, whether it's with parental controls or trying to talk to our kids about these topics. And I think what these trials are really highlighting is that the things that these tech companies are doing are intentional, and they are now being put on trial by a jury for the first time around. Not what they're showing people, but the actual design of their products. And we're seeing that they ignored some really, really important information that was brought to all of their attention over many years, whether it be about the impact of beauty filters or predators contacting kids via their platforms, body image concerns. And they knew all these things and they've swept them under the rug. They know that their products are meant to result in compulsive use, but they're trying to market them as still social and still neutral tools. And unfortunately, many years ago, they've sort of cornered the market with kids in terms of the way that kids are socializing. And so that's now happened and parents are seeing the effects. And I think hopefully these trials and all the ones that are to come are going to create this public stirring and this public outcry even more than what we're seeing today. And this is sort of, you know, a lot of people are comparing it with the big tobacco trials and I think this is how it started. Right. And so I think it's good for parents to know that these things are happening. But at this point, the, the platforms are not mandated to do anything in terms of their design. They don't have to change anything. But to me, when people get mad, that's when we see change. And I think it's also an easier way for parents to bring it up to maybe other parents because it can be a really contentious, awkward topic to bring up to neighbors or friends. But if you frame it around, like, look what these platforms are doing to our kids and let's get mad together, I think that's where we maybe see the most change is possible.

A (16:14)

We are stoked to see two landmark verdicts over the past few weeks where big Tech was on trial. But while that gives us a lot of hope and excitement, what does that mean for the parents watching for the sidelines, who aren't lawyers, who aren't online safety advocates like us? What can they do about it? How can they help push forward the momentum and educate their peers and continue this change?

B (16:41)

Yeah, so I can speak to my experience in. I'm in Ontario in Canada and last school year there was a new cell phone policy that went into effect province wide and it was for Bell to Bell, no phones, Bell to Bell from K to 6. And then within quote me on this, I think it's 7 to 12 that it's just during instructional time. A lot of middle school teachers have actually taken it upon themselves. So grade seven and eight, they have gone bell to bell as well. And all the principals that I talk to, you know, they see the difference. They're, they're like, kids are playing what a novel thing to have happen. And so it is really great. It's obviously harder to implement in those older grades. And I think something of note that is also getting more attention is that parents, you know, I always get a question about this when I speak to parents is they're saying, okay, there's, there's been this change in cell phone policies and our kids aren't to have their cell phones out, but they've got their Chromebook right in front of them. And so it's naturally led to, I think, a conversation and a bit of an awakening for educators and administrators as well. Because it's one thing to take the platforms away from them on their devices, but they're still getting access at school on their devices. And it makes the job of parenting so much more difficult at home when, you know, is my child doing homework or are they watching YouTube, like, how do I keep my eyes on them 24 7? And I always say it's a lot easier to leave your kid unattended with their pencil and paper doing their homework and trusting that they're doing their homework than it is to have them on their Chromebook. So I think at a very basic level, again, it's just having conversations with other parents, asking questions to administrators in the the kindest way possible. Like, I don't like to ruffle feathers. I find it still to be a pretty awkward conversation to have. But I think if we can just ask questions about what tech is being used in our classrooms, why it's being used, you know, maybe what's the evidence behind it. I know some people will send even superintendents or principals podcast episodes that they've listened to or things that they've come across. And just to open that conversation, some people will get petitions going. I mean, there's a whole whack of different things that people can do. But even, you know, for me, I go and talk at student council a lot. And so it's parent driven. They've asked me to come, they've asked the administrators to come and open up this conversation. So again, I think everybody knows it, the administrators know it, and now it's just that trickle down effect to see if we can continue to minimize the harm.

A (19:38)

There's a lot of pressure on parents to just parent harder, be firm, be the parent, set better limits, monitor more closely how Fair is that or is there something bigger going on here?

B (19:52)

It is definitely in part on the parents to monitor what their kids are doing online, to be aware of the platforms they're using, to ask questions, to use parental controls. But you know, that in itself in today's day and age of this addictive technology is like a full time job like Titania. I'm sure you can speak to this. I can speak to this. We are researching these platforms all the time. We are trying to stay on top of things and even still we can't so stay on top of things. So for the average parent working full time, you know, families are in such different situations. There's single parent homes, there's low income homes, there's. There's so many different types of situations where it's just not feasible and not fair to put the full onus on to parents even if you're using parental controls. So their full capacity, I mean, these parental controls are faulty. They're really not designed to be all that great. And so at this point we don't even have warning labels. We don't even have, you know, real public health awareness campaigns happening. And so I like to frame it as, yes, it is a parent's job. And also parents need help and they can't do it on their own. And so whether that comes from some kind of regulatory framework to support parents, I think that both things can be true at the same time. And the full onus cannot be on parents whose children are being targeted by these extremely powerful corporations.

A (21:31)

Now, as the expert, walk us through your framework for families. I know you've Talked about your six Rs, what are those and how can parents start using them today?

B (21:44)

Yeah. So I've come up with these six Rs to try to give parents a bit of a working framework around when their child might be ready for their own smartphone, might be ready for social media access. And I try not to put a specific age on these things because I think it is an individual decision. Kids are very different. The needs of families are very different. The conversations that happen in a home are very different. So all of that aside, this is just some general framework that parents can ask themselves. So the first R is what is the reason? And I think asking that question alone can delay the smartphone in certain ways. So, you know, if your reason is you, you want to know where your child is, you want to have a means of communication because they're away from you a little bit longer, maybe they're walking to school, taking the bus, we now have such great tools like the Bark phone, like the Garmin Bounce Watch, the Pinwheel phone, other products that give you the tools without the addiction. A landline. There's. So that's the Number one is really ask what's the reason? I think historically we have coupled together the phone with the Internet, with the communication, and now we don't have to do that anymore. Number two is, is your child responsible? And so I just think of that in a very general sense. You know, are they attending school? Are they doing their best? Are they doing the chores that you ask of them? And how do you feel like they would treat their own phone? You know, are they responsible enough not to lose it? Kind of these basic, basic measures that you would want a child to have before they have the Internet in their pocket. Number three is, are they respectful? And so that's really, again, you know, do they respect you and your boundaries within the home? Do they respect their teachers, their siblings? Because you want to have an idea of like, how are they going to conduct themselves online? If they're having a hard time respecting others in person, that is going to be amplified online. And then how do they respect your boundaries around tech? You know, are they already sneaking the iPad, sneaking video games? That's a, that's going to be a red flag that they might not be ready for a phone. Number four is, are they risk aware? And so in a very basic sense, I think that if you are not ready, and that applies to the parent too, is the child aware of the risks and are you aware of the risks? If you don't think that your child is ready to have a conversation around predators and pornography and sextortion and they don't have the capacity to understand what that really means and, and have an approach to how they would deal with it online, then they're not ready for all those risks that are kind of come with that Internet in their pocket. Number five is. Number five is, are they resilient? And so I try to frame that. Like, when your child gets online onto social media, they are going to immediately be told who to be, how to talk, how to look. Those platforms are going to pick up on their vulnerabilities so quickly and take them down a rabbit hole. That is the algorithm. And so you kind of want your child to have this sense of like, who am I in the world? You know, do I have self esteem, self confidence? Do I know what my interests are? I think as they get into those older teenage years, they start to be able to develop a sense of skepticism and say, like, no, I don't really want to be who you're telling me who to be. So just that general sense of resiliency, their susceptibility to peer pressure also goes down in those older teenage years. And then the last one is, how is their ability to regulate their online or technology use now? So I say that in that I don't think that kids really can fully regulate themselves online, but it's just a question to ask them. Ask yourself ahead of time. You know, how. How do they come off of the iPad now? How do they come off of the tv? Or if you ask them to put the video game controller down, because those things are even less addictive and compulsive than the phone. So it's just a question to ask.

A (26:17)

What about parents who feel like it's too late? Not gonna say I feel like this, but also I might. Their kid already has an iPhone. They already have Instagram, they already have Snap, they already have TikTok. They have their tech in their rooms. Where do you even start?

B (26:35)

Yeah, I wanna, I wanna start that by saying that I have all the empathy for you as a parent of an older child right now. This is so hard. And as a parent of just littles, it can be really difficult for us and there's guilt around it. And so I think it's important to reserve judgment and blame on yourself because you are raising kids in an extremely difficult time. And what I would say is that simple changes can actually go a long way, even if they're made one at a time. So I think first, you know, the core is the relationship that you have with your child. So if that's something that you need to work on first, do that. Try to build a connection with your child, even if it's around their relationship with technology, but try to do some things together and just build that trust where they're going to be willing to engage with you. I know that can be a difficult enough feat in itself, but I would say that that parent child relationship is really the, the core of, of what needs to happen after that point. I think it just comes down to a conversation that you have around your dinner table with the entire family where you just discuss maybe what you're observing and what your concerns are and what you would like to see change and then hear your child out. I mean, they may be open to receiving that feedback, they may not. But I think it's important that you lay the groundwork for what you see as the problem and that you are, as their parent, the Person that loves them and needs to protect them and maybe has to make some hard decisions in order to do that. A contract is always a good thing to go over if you haven't done that already. It can be applied to any kind of technology, but there are some, some contracts out there that you can lay out. You know, here are our new boundaries and the expectations, and here are the consequences for breaking those boundaries. And again, it could be one thing at a time. So maybe you start with, I think never a bad place to start is getting devices out of bedrooms overnight. I always just say, you know, between the lack of sleep and the content that's being watched or exchanged at nighttime, there's nothing good that happens in a bedroom overnight. And so that can be one simple boundary that you say, okay, we're gonna do this and we're gonna do this and see how it goes. And we're gonna, you know, come back in two to four weeks and see what changes we've noticed. And then, and then all the things that you guys have talked about many times before, right, Having phone free times and zones, um, and, and really crowding in. I think with a lot of teens, when we talk about, you know, I'm like, do you think you could cut your screen time in half? Is that feasible for you? And a lot of times their initial response is, well, what am I gonna do with all of that time? Like, it's literally 20 extra hours in a week that they need to fill. And so helping your kid lean into their interests or discover their interest is gonna be really important. A lot of us, you know, if we don't call it addiction, it's habitual use because we're just bored and we're filling that void with the phone. So finding other activities can be one of the best ways to not miss your phone.

A (30:12)

Are there specific platforms or features you'd flag as the highest risk that parents may not be aware of? Whether it's Roblox, YouTube, kids, Chromebooks at school, or platforms maybe parents have never even heard of, like Discord or Kik. Give us everything.

B (30:29)

Yeah, I think for me, I'm certainly like, I don't have experience with all of these platforms, particularly the ones that the older teens use. But for me, what I see most problematic for the younger kids in particular is Roblox. I think this is such a ubiquitous app that kids use and parents do not realize what their kids can get into with these, you know, user generated games. And I think the big thing to keep in mind is just how engaging it is it also operates by an algorithm. It also has, you know, pay to play and all of these addictive features that parents are really struggling to manage their kids time on YouTube and that's not even getting into the, the whole predator issue and the fact that they can chat with people much older than themselves. So Roblox is a hard no in our house. I think a lot of parents have, have come that way but it can be a difficult thing to do. And again with these apps, the other one I would mention would be YouTube. I, I actually think YouTube Kids is quite, quite decent. You know you can create a list of shows that your kids may only watch these channels and these shows, I think they've got decent parental controls if you make use of them. But a lot of kids are watching adult YouTube in a logged out state and they've got the ads, they've got the short form content, they've got access to TikTok. Like it's just all the things on there. And so those are the two apps I would say drive parents the most crazy. And, and so I think if you can use those, if you decide to use those apps, use them in a very controlled way where maybe they only have access once a week for a short amount of time where they can watch the things or you co view, you co play and you do it together. I think those are really the only struggle free ways for most kids to engage with those apps. The other one that I think parents pay less attention to because of the way that adults use it is actually Pinterest. You know I use Pinterest for recipes and craft ideas and I love Pinterest but I have tried this app out myself as a young girl and again it's algorithmically driven. If you focus on problematic content for an iota of time. That algorithm switches so quickly and many parents have reached out and not realized that their children had entire boards about self harm. And now I think they have messaging features on Pinterest. So I think that's just another one to be aware of. And then as we touched on before, the Chromebooks are a big problem and kids are getting on to chatting and things on Google Docs and it just feels like a game of of whack a mole. I think it's really overwhelming. But we need to do something about the amount of time that kids are spending on Chromebooks in school. For sure.

A (33:38)

You're a mom of two. How do you navigate this in your own home? Busy working, professional and like trying to do all the things right. We talked about that before we started recording actually, because. Cause I'm in it with you. So what would you tell parents who are struggling with their own relationship with their devices? How can they model healthy tech use? And how can we help parents who are like, but, oh, tech is such a great babysitter even though it's also the worst babysitter.

B (34:09)

Yeah. I think the first thing that I would say is even in my own home, it is a work in progress all the time. Like I'm, I'm constantly re evaluating. We're constantly having to like catch ourselves, you know, okay, put down your own phone. And I think there's no, there's no blame or shame in that because as we've talked about these, these platforms are, are buying for our attention. And so don't feel guilt. Just know that you just keep going and you do your best. In our home, so we have a four year old and a seven year old. We do our best to be screen free Monday to Friday. Now, you know, there's exceptions to that. Like baseball just started. I'm a huge baseball fan. So we have an inning or two of the baseball game on often before they go to bed, that kind of thing. But I think giving them that break from screens during the week really just helps to foster their creativity and they do awesome things and they, they desire to do other things when screens are not an option. So we try our best with that. We use iPads pretty infrequently. I think we learned again, as many parents do. We learned with our first born that that was really not good for his brain and he became really dysregulated really quickly with the touching and the, all of that on the iPad. And so we maybe will use it on a weekend for a short amount of time to play like we like OSMO games which are educational or my daughter plays some of this like Peppa Pig game. So a little bit of that maybe on a weekend. And we're, we're a hard no with Roblox. We're a hard no with any YouTube alone. So if we watch a video together, we'll do that. But they do not watch it independently. And I think if you're struggling with your own use, again, like I have empathy for that. We all are. I think a lot of people will try to like do nothing or they'll go back to doing everything. And sometimes that's setting yourself, yourself up for failure because it, it is really hard as an adult to do nothing. And so I just say to play around with some different strategies you know, find what works for you. I think not scrolling first thing in the morning and not scrolling before bed is actually probably one of the most profoundly impactful things you can do, because you're protecting your brain when you wake up from spiking cortisol right away and sort of craving that dopamine throughout the rest of the day. And then not scrolling before bed is really protecting your sleep. And so if you could do two things, that's great. And then I just try myself not to, like, aimlessly scroll in front of my children. I. I try to reserve that for at least if I'm going to have problems controlling it, I'm not doing it around them. So, yeah.

A (37:18)

Allison, what gives you hope? Are there things happening right now, whether in policy and culture or in families, that make you feel like the tide is turning?

B (37:29)

Yeah, I think it's all giving me hope, honestly. I'm seeing more parents talk about it, more people are aware of it. I think I go out and I see more kids sitting at a restaurant, coloring and doing activities than I do on screens. And, you know, maybe that is coming from a little bit of, like, maybe parents are sort of feeling shame or embarrassment if they're gonna do that. And I don't want parents to feel that way. But at the same time, like, for me, it's a bit of a good motivator. Like, I'm like, well, I don't. I don't want to be seen giving my kid an iPad when, like. So I think if some of that guilt can be a positive motivator, that's okay. I think if it's really causing you to be down on yourself and, you know, self deprecate, then that's not a good thing. But that gives me hope. I think the policy and the momentum that we're seeing with these lawsuits is huge now. The school boards are starting to get involved, and so that's going to shine a whole new light on things. And then, you know, we're seeing a lot of big names step up, too, and speak out about these issues. And so there's just more public awareness, and I think we're headed in the right direction. We have a lot of work to do, but as I say, within a home, these small, incremental steps matter. And so, yeah, I'm definitely hopeful for the next. What the next couple of years have to bring.

A (39:00)

Dr. Allison Young, thank you so much again for your time today, for your insights, for all that you're doing to help protect not only children's physical health, but their mental health. You are incredible, and it's an honor to know you. Thank you so much.

B (39:17)

Yeah, thank you. It was great to talk, and I hope it was useful for parents going forward.