← Parenting in the Screen Age - The Screenagers Podcast
Parenting in the Screen Age - The Screenagers Podcast
Raising The Amazing Generation: Helping Kids Become Wiser Tech Users
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- [00:03]
A
Hello, I'm Delaney Rustin, primary care physician and creator with Lisa Tabb of the four Screenagers movies. And this is Parenting in the Screen Age, a show about discovering the best ways to help our youth and ourselves navigate our rapidly changing digital world. Today I'm joined by journalist and author Catherine Price, whose book how to Break up with youh Phone was a big hit. And now she's here with me to talk about her new book, the the Amazing Generation that she co wrote with Jonathan Haidt, author of the Anxious Generation. In our conversation, Katherine explains why she and John wrote the Amazing Generation, a book specifically for kids, and how it's all about planting early seeds to help kids become more savvy about technology. We talk about choices parents can make around tech, including things like delaying giving a phone by having a loaner phone. Katherine shares how she handles tech with her 10 year old daughter and we talk about the importance of protecting plenty of off screen time so kids can build in person connections and gain other important benefits. Let's get started.
- [01:11]
B
Katherine, it's wonderful to have you on the podcast today and to talk about your wonderful new book, the Amazing Generation that you and Jonathan Haidt have recently launched. And before we get into that book, which is incredibly important, I wanna start with the fact that you wrote earlier book about breaking up with your phone that really hit a nerve. And can you speak a little bit about that book and how that came to be?
- [01:35]
C
Sure. So I'm a health and science journalist by background and I never really set out to write about technology. I had been writing a lot more about medical science and health and nutrition. My previous book had been about the history of vitamins. But then about 10 years ago I had my daughter and I started to notice that I was having these moments with her where she would be looking up at me as a baby and then I would be looking down at my phone. And I wasn't looking at social media. I've never been into social media, but I was definitely scrolling on my phone and I realized that that was not how I wanted to be living and it was definitely not how I wanted her to feel or interact with, you know, her own mother. And so that's what inspired me to write how to Break up with your Phone. I basically looked around to try to find the solution. This was in 2016 is when I started researching this. And at that point there were some books about technology, there was the Shallows, there's Sherry Turkle's work, et cetera, but there was no book that offered what I was looking for, which was a solution. And so I decided, hmm, I'm not only one to be struggling with this, we're just not talking about it very much. So why don't I actually write a book that would help me solve my problem? And so that's what the genesis of how to break up your phone was. Was very much a personal issue I turned into a professional project. And it's been very interesting to see the evolution of the conversation since then, since 2016.
- [02:49]
B
And that's the year Screenagers came out. I had been working about three and a half years on it before the film came out. And we have an updated version.
- [02:56]
C
Yeah, and actually an updated version of how to break up with your phone came out just this past February. So Febr 2025. I really wanted to provide people with a practical plan and it's evidence backed, mindfulness inspired plan to take back control of your phone and then also really get back in touch with what's important to you in life. And what was interesting personally as a result of how to break up with your phone is I ended up with a lot more free time, unsurprisingly. And that led me to my next book, which was actually about fun, the power of fun. Because I realized I have all this free time I used to spend on my phone. What do I want to do with it? And so that was another example of a project where it was a personal issue I turned into a professional project. So that' become a theme for me.
- [03:34]
B
And just to be clear to our listeners, you're not saying a person can't have a smartphone or cell phone.
- [03:40]
C
Yes. Thank you. By breaking up with your phone, I don't mean you have to throw it under a bus or totally get rid of it. Although I do meet some people who want to do that. It's really, it's about creating a healthier relationship with better boundaries. So I always say, you know, if you dump a person, you're not saying, I never want to have a human relationship again. You're just saying that relationship wasn't right for me. I want something healthier for me. And so you can end that relationship to start something that's new and better for you. So that's what breaking up with your phone is about.
- [04:07]
B
Turning now to your new book, the Amazing Generation. Can you speak a little bit about what it is? It's actually two books in one, but can you speak about that and the genesis of that?
- [04:18]
C
Sure. So the Amazing Generation is my new book with John Haidt, who is the author of the Anxious Generation. The Amazing Generation is a book that's specifically written for kids. So both John and I have heard from countless people over the years since our books came out, countless adults who've been begging us for a book for kids. How do I talk to my kids about screens? Do you have a book that I can give to my kids? And so this book is our answer to that. We realize that if we want to make a real difference and if we want to avoid another generation turning into what John calls the anxious generation, we have to intervene earlier. They can choose a different path without it seeming as overwhelming as it can say for a teenager right now, an older teenager. And so we did some focus groups and we did some research to figure out what's our target age range here. We wanted to have a book that would be appealing to kids as young as nine years old and then going through middle school years. So that is what the Amazing Generation aims to do. That is a very wide age range when it comes to reading abilities and cognitive capacities. Part of my other background is I used to be a middle school teacher. I actually taught and tutored kids from fourth grade on up. You can see a huge difference just between sixth and seventh graders. So that was an interesting challenge. So what we decided to do is we decided to have the book work on several different levels at once. I'd almost say there's three levels to it. So one of the levels is a graphic novel because obviously graphic novels are incredibly popular right now for not just kids, but also teenagers and honestly adults. And so we got a graphic novelist named Cynthia Yuan Cheng to do illustrations and to tell the story of two groups of kids, one of which gets smartphones at the beginning of the school year, one of which does not. And it tells the story of what happens to those kids where at first the smartphone kids seem like they're having more fun and they're happier, and then as the as the year progresses, the dynamic switches and by the end, well, I won't spoil it. You can probably going with this. The book is designed to look like an analog scrapbook. And so we have lots of what look like stickers in the book, we have lots of post it notes and there's lots of try this activities that they can do on their own or with their parents.
- [06:19]
B
What's a favorite one that you like?
- [06:22]
C
One of my favorites was suggested to me by a friend of mine and it says it suggests for kids to ask their parents if their parents are of a certain age to imitate the sound that a dial up modem made as it connected to the Internet. And what I love about that is I think it's a perfect example of how John and I were really trying to make the book feel fun to read and playful. I mean I'm, you know, I wrote a whole book about fun. I believe strongly the power of fun. That's what the book's called.
- [06:47]
B
You have those other examples of talking to grandparents and parents about what types of telephones they had and how that.
- [06:55]
C
Exactly.
- [06:55]
B
I think that just giving that prompt to have those kind of conversations is so wonderful.
- [07:00]
C
We also did lots of anecdote gathering from young people just older than our readership. So 15 years old through 20 something years old Gen Z, but also a little younger to ask them, what advice do you have for the younger generation? What do you wish that you knew when you were a kid? So they have all these little anecdotes from their own lives which are really powerful.
- [07:19]
B
Let me stop you for a second. Read one.
- [07:20]
C
Oh sure.
- [07:21]
B
From Ben in the book. He's 21 and he says, I really wish I had gotten to know my grandfather better before he died instead of always playing video games when he visited. So I thought that was a beautiful one. That's one of a big theme throughout our films is the displacement of interactions in the family.
- [07:40]
C
Yes, exactly. And that one, I mean that just gets you in the heart. That's pretty early in the book. I think one of the main reasons we did that is if you look around, it can seem like teenagers and young adults like being on their phones all the time. And I think that's the impression that younger kids have is like, I want to be like these slightly older kids. They seem to really want to be on social media and smartphones and video games. And in reality a lot of them feel trapped. The older generation. There's a really interesting Harris Poll study that John helped with where they found that almost half of people ages 18 to 27 wish that some of these main platforms like Snapchat and TikTok and X had never been invented.
- [08:23]
B
Can you speak about the Rebels code?
- [08:25]
C
Yes, it can seem like the younger generations love being on their phones all the time, but they don't all love it. And there's actually this growing rebellion of young people who are deciding to say no to these things and stand up to big tech in different ways, some more dramatic than others, but they actually are choosing a different path for themselves. And so we believe that they're basically following what we call the Rebels code. And there's only. There's two parts to the Rebels code. One is to use technology as a tool. Don't let technology use you. And that's really key because it'd be easy to think that John and I are Luddites. We're not Luddites. I mean, you and I are doing this conversation using technology. But there's a difference between using technology as a tool and then letting tech companies steal your time and attention and your life from you. So that's the first part of the Rebels code. And then the second part is to fill your life with real friendship, freedom and fun. And the reason the real is underlined is because we realized that one of the reasons that these devices and apps are so appealing to young people and honestly to all of us, is that they promise that they're going to give us friendship, you know, connection, and they're going to give us freedom and independence, especially for young people, and they're going to be fun. And it makes sense that kids want those things that's developmentally appropriate for them to want to have more time with their friends, more independence and have more fun. But the forms of friendship and freedom and fun that exist on screens, let alone social media, is in no way comparable to those things in real life. So the second part of the Rebels code is all about finding ways to have more real friendship, freedom and fun in the real world. So just yesterday I actually had the chance to go into my daughter's school. So this is a very personal project for me. The reason I'm really excited about it right now is my own daughter is now 10 and this is obviously top of mind. And I feel like this book is the best thing I could possibly do to try to save her generation and to create a better future for her. And so what I did in my presentation is I talked about the second part of the book, which is all about the secrets of the tech wizards. So these things that the tech wizards, that's our kind of catch all term for big tech, of the kind that is trying to take advantage of kids. Not all technology companies, not all technology employees, but you know, our catch all term and explain things to them like the attention economy and brain hacking and how these companies use your brain's dopamine system to get you to spend more and more time on their products. And I talked with them about the parallels between big tech and big tobacco and about how these technology companies, you know, the leaders of the tech companies say one thing in public, but many of them don't yet let their Own children use the products that they're creating. I showed some clips from some of these tech leaders talking about the design process and their own regrets about some of their products. I had kids come up to me and thank me afterwards. They also shared a lot of their own insights. They told me unprompted things like, oh, yeah, I noticed that when I spend time online, it's not as fun as spending time in real life. Or oh, I like playing my video game for a half an hour, but then I get sucked into it and then all of a sudden three hours have passed and I don't feel good. Or, you know, my father was telling me over the weekend to get off my iPad and at first I was mad at him, but then we played a game together on the couch and it was so much more fun. We did talk about landline telephones that use Internet connections.
- [11:29]
B
It wasn't that long ago we released a film, Screenagers, that's an elementary school age edition. And when we started to do screenings with audiences of kids and adults, we were really surprised that we have to actually ask the kids, hold on, let's let an adult ask a question. Oh yeah, you know, we get a lot of teenagers talking in the Q&As with the original Screenagers.
- [11:53]
C
Yeah.
- [11:53]
B
But this younger, uninhibited, not so self conscious age group is just amazing to have these conversations with. So I'm not at all surprised by that.
- [12:03]
C
It's interesting as I'm sure you've come across as well, where you have to really like change the approach depending on the audience. You're not going to talk about sexploitation to 10 year olds, but I was talking to 10 year olds and 9 year olds yesterday and one girl raised her hand and she said, I just got a really sketchy and creepy email the other day from someone who asked me for money. And he said that he knew everything about me. And that she said, I mean, it was a quite obscene email that she then recounted in front of the entire class and the teachers were like, ah. And she said, you know, and I just deleted it. And what? And I'm like, oh my God, you know. And so I was like, yes, that's good that you deleted it. Everyone, if anyone ever asks you for pictures or for money, then you, you delet, delete that and you tell an adult. So we talked about it in that capacity, but I'm like, parents need to know that that's happening. Like, this is a fifth grader, I believe, who just got an email From a creepy like this is happening to your kids. It's not other people's kids. It's happening to your kids. They have a device, they're going to get contacted by a creepy stranger. And I just keep thinking about the contrast between freedom in the real world and then freedom online and how we're so much more protective of kids in the real world than we are online.
- [13:10]
B
And, you know, it's not just the phones we talk a lot about on a laptop, an iPad, this stuff can happen. Social media can happen.
- [13:18]
C
I mean, tablets, like tablet. An iPad is just a giant iPhone. It's actually worse. And that is something that parents don't recognize. And there's a lot of issues with chat, just chats between friends. Like some of the kids were talking about how in third grade there was some kind of iPad chat, presumably using their parents icloud accounts, where some of the kids who weren't even on that chat. All of these devices come with risks, and we need to really be thinking more critically about when we give them to our children.
- [13:46]
D
Before we dive back in, I wanted to let you know about our four screenagers documentaries, which focus on helping kids and teens navigate the challenges of this digital age. We created these films to be screened in schools and at community events. Over 20,000 hosts have shown them thus far. Along with the movies, we provide discussion guides, promotional materials, and other tools so that you can easily organize a truly impactful event for your community. And if your school wants to use the movies in the classroom, we have options for that too, along with a full curriculum of lesson plans designed for various grade levels. To learn more about the movies or inquire about becoming a host, visit screenagersmovie.com there's a link in the show notes. Now back to the show.
- [14:36]
B
You mentioned the landlines, and I just wanted to say an example of one of these is called Tin Can. The creators of it are here in Seattle. And what. What it is is that it's truly connected to a cord, just like we used to have. And you can plug in as a parent a few numbers that they can call. And that way, if you're a parent and they're old enough and you leave to go get groceries or something, you can call them and they're able to call out, but it's not using a screen. And that is the beauty of it.
- [15:05]
C
Yeah, I've actually been encouraging people to get one of those telephones. When your kids are really young. Yes. It makes developmental sense for your kid to want to talk to friends Especially as they get into early puberty. But you don't want them to be texting because that leads to all sorts of problems and you don't want them to be on social media. But so give them a landline telephone and tell them, hey, you can take that to your bedroom and you can talk to your friend in private. You can't take screens into your bedroom. But I also have been recommending getting a landline telephone for kids at younger ages because one skill that's not being taught and not being learned right now is the skill of talking to people, let alone on the phone. And so if you get a landline telephone and you have your kid call their grandparents on it, that's a great life skill. And I've heard from a number of parents who say once they got some version of these wireless Internet phones, which, by the way, in many cases you buy the phone and it's free to use because it's just your wireless Internet connection. And if there is a service plan, it's way cheaper than your data plan and it's much, much cheaper than a traditional landline telephone plan. So don't say, oh, it's too expensive. I'd have to deal with Verizon. You don't like. You actually can just use your Internet connection that I've heard friends say that now they' kids, relatively young, just pick up the phone and like call their aunt. They're just chatting with adults. And any adult who's been on a call with a child knows that if you try to do it over FaceTime, there's a time and place for FaceTime, but most of it is going to be them putting like kitten ears on their faces, right? Like dragging you around to show you everything in their room again, time and place. But the skill of being able to pick up a phone and make a phone call is something that's really disappearing. And so I personally love the idea of giving your kid access to a landline, quote, unquote telephone and having them have freedom on that. And the reason I started thinking about the landline telephones is I had a friend who said her daughter had started paying too much attention to her appearance on Zoom calls. 11 years old, then she just texted her kids friend's parents and said she was getting in this landline and asked, hey, anyone else want to get one of these and have our kids talk on the phone together? Within one day, eight other families had bought one. And she said now her daughter and her friends just, you know, yak on the phone like it's 1995 and it's exactly. Anyway, I'm just a big fan.
- [17:10]
B
Yes. Similar with other parents that I know. They're doing it as communities, letting other parents know and then they're getting them. And I do want to say, you know, at some point our kids are going to be texting with their friends and it's a wonderful time to be really coaching them about all the complexities of relationships that come out in those situations. Who gets included, who doesn't. How does that feel? So we often say let them text, but not this other stuff. I'm like texting like you have just said, Katherine. It's complex.
- [17:39]
C
Actually, one of the most moving things that happened when I was doing the presentation at my daughter's school yesterday is there's a guy who works at the school who's just in the room listening and he does a lot of the after school programs with the kids. But he also is a musician and I guess he had some video go viral. And so all the kids, they were like, oh, Zaire, like your video went viral. That's so cool. And he said to this whole room of fourth and fifth graders, he said, can I be vulnerable with you? And he said, that was the loneliest time I've ever had in my life. I was more lonely during that time.
- [18:04]
B
And why is that that?
- [18:05]
C
Because he had all of these strangers, millions of strangers watching his video and commenting on it. And he said, you know, some of them said nice things, but a lot of people didn't. And then his phone is blowing up with notifications and he said I ended up having to turn. I mean, he should have done this already, but turn off all the notifications for these apps. And then he said, it made me realize that what's important is what's right here. It's in person experiences and connection. And I was so grateful to him for having said that.
- [18:29]
B
I'm curious about his going viral, how disembodied that was. Like here it was. All these people experience in his music and he wasn't even there as part of that. It's an interesting disconnect that's constantly happening with this performative world of online posts.
- [18:49]
C
Let me take a step back, if it's okay, and just give my suggested roadmap to parents. So to give some practical ideas to people, what I would suggest is to first of all delay screens as long as possible. Like you do not need to give a two year old an iPad. Please delay the iPads if they have access to any device you have to set up parental controls and probably through a third party company because the ones built into iPads and Android devices are just insufficient. I also really do recommend, as we were talking about, getting a landline when your kid's pretty young and encouraging them to use it because that's just a wonderful life skill and it's actually fun for them and a way to use technology to connect with people. So then when your kid starts to do stuff out of the house more, and part of the goal of the book is to encourage kids to do more stu on their own and to ask their parents for more freedom and support them in that because it is really important. It'll make them more confident and capable. But when your kid starts to do stuff out of the house and you, you as a parent feel like, oh, I do want a way to be in touch with them. One idea that I've heard from a lot of people is to get a loaner phone. So some kind of basic phone like a flip phone or a smartphone alternative that doesn't belong to anyone in particular and you just lend it out to your kid and they give it back to you. And so it kind of helps you let go a little bit, but the phone doesn't belong to anybody. Then when your kid is doing more stuff on their own, like sports practices or walking to and from school, whatever it may be, and you do feel like it would make sense for them to have their own communication device, then I would say don't get a smartphone. Get a basic phone or a smartphone alternative. There's a whole slew, I mean, as you well know, of these smartphone alternatives on the market. Fascinatingly, flip phones are coming back into style, which is wonderful news. So get your kid one of those. There's so many, you can actually offer them a choice so they feel like there's some control. But the key thing is that these phones don't allow unfettered Internet access and they don't allow you to download social media apps and they have restrictions on games and watches.
- [20:40]
B
They really vary in their capabilities. So be really savvy about those because if you're giving an Apple Watch, there's a lot they can do on that. They don't necessarily need that type of a watch right off the bat.
- [20:53]
C
Yeah, an Apple Watch is a sophisticated device and as you're saying, yeah, you can. I mean, obviously you're not going to get as sucked into looking at a website or an app on a watch as you would on a phone because it's so small. But the number of notifications kids get and how distracting it is, how impossible it is to focus when you have something that's dinging you. I mean, obviously that's true for adults too, But a lot of times parents fail to realize that on a smartwatch, it's on your wrist is even more distracting. And so my daughter's school, I'm very happy they did this. They actually got rid of smartwatches this year, not just phones, but smart watches, because they realized that there were parents texting in the middle of the day. And then once the kids were out of school. I remember talking to someone who was tutoring a kid after school. She said he got something like 50 notifications in their half hour together from a group chat. My daughter has a regular watch, but she kind of forgets to wear it a lot of times. And she has a Kindle. It's a paperweight Kindle that just has books on it. And she listens to audiobooks on our Sonos. And like, you know, for traveling or something, she'll ask us to put an audiobook on. And you can really see a difference, I think, with that, because I can see her imagining the scenes. If she's sitting in the car, you can kind of see her brain working. So we don't do things like iPads and car trips.
- [22:06]
B
And so she's your one daughter, and she knows that you guys will be talking about a smartphone later, or do you have already telling her ages?
- [22:14]
C
I mean, asked about. She's 10. Yeah. I took her to an alternative device fair. I was doing a talk at an alternative device fair in Pennsylvania, and they had a representative from Dumb Dumb wireless dot com, I think, is one of the companies that. Which I recommend people check out, Kind of a clearinghouse for some of these basic phones. They specifically have a ton of different flip phones. There's a whole row of tween girls lined up in front of this table, picking up this. The flip phones and saying, oh, I want this one. Oh, no, no, I want this one. Cool. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
- [22:45]
B
I was thinking paradox of choice, though.
- [22:47]
C
There weren't too many, though.
- [22:48]
B
Okay. How to break up with your phone just to end in terms of what you do with your own phone and device use time.
- [22:59]
C
Yeah. I think it's really important for us as parents and as just people who want to live fulfilling lives for ourselves, to think critically about our own relationships with our devices. I don't say that to instill guilt or shame in anybody. It's just that, you know, our kids are particularly susceptible to all this Stuff because their brains are developing. It's not like we're not affected by it. And so I think that one of the best ways to open up a conversation about screen time with your kid that feels equal instead of luxury is to actually ask them to help you with your screen time, which is what how to break up your phone is about. But you also can, like, leave the amazing generation out and then ask your kid to use it to help you. But, yeah, some of the things that my husband and I do in our home is that we charge our devices and our phones and closet overnight. So we have a charging station that's underneath our stairs. It makes it very obvious if either of us is checking the phone because we're literally standing in the closet. And then we just. Personally, I mean, this is just more of a lifestyle choice. We don't have a huge tv. It's like in a cabinet. I don't really know how to use it very well. Our daughter does not have her own devices other than the Kindle I was telling you about. We never use our devices at the table. Device free dinner is every night. Because I just don't think devices belong at a dinner table. I took the news off of my phone a number of years ago, and I don't normally have email on my phone. I never have been into social media, so I don't have social media either. But, you know, I always say to adults, if you're trying, say you were trying to not eat cookies or smoke cigarettes or something, like, you wouldn't put a pack of cigarettes in your pocket. That would not be a great way to quit smoking. So if you're having a problem with a news app or with Instagram or email or whatever it may be, you can take that off your phone. So if I were to show you my phone screen, it's totally black. I took all the apps off of it, actually. And if I want to find an app, I pull down the top search bar and I type in the name of the app. And it's a way to make it a more intentional thing. And I do try to tell our daughter, if she sees me on the phone, I try to say, like, this is what I'm doing right now. I am buying whatever. I am texting. So and so, you know, so. So it's not just such a black box. But yeah, I redesigned my home screen. I got problematic apps off of the phone. I turned off all, pretty much all notifications except for phone calls and text messages and navigation and calendar, because those things help me function as an adult. We have a alarm clock Kathryn that
- [25:12]
B
has been super helpful all these practical tips. I really want to thank you and I really encourage people to get this book for your kids.
- [25:20]
C
Yeah, I'm incredibly excited to get it into kids hands and family's hands and I really appreciate the opportunity to talk about it with you today.
- [25:28]
E
What a gift that you tuned into the show today. The Screenagers podcast and movement is all about learning together how we can best help our youth of all ages, our communities and ourselves best navigate our rapidly changing digital world. Make sure to follow subscribe to the podcast to get each episode automatically and the more subscribers, the easier it is for others to find us. And if you give it a like and write a review, even just one sentence, that helps even more. Check out screenagersmovie.com to get resources for each episode and loads of other resources. Learn about our four Screenagers films and find my weekly parenting blog, TechTalkTuesdays. And be sure to use the search bar to find many topics you might be wondering about among hundreds of my past blogs. Finally, I love hearing from you, so email me at delaneygreenagersmovie.
- [26:23]
C
Com.
- [26:24]
E
What ideas do you want to hear for future episodes? Today's show was produced by the following people me, your host Delaney Rustin, Lisa Tabb, and sound editing was done by Alan Gofinski.