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- [00:05]
A
Thank you for being a part of raising me. I'm Adrienne Stein, and this is where we talk about the things we're facing every day as parents with honesty and curiosity. And we bring in the experts to help us navigate it all. And I'm really glad you're here with us today because not only are we talking about screen time and why, our expert today says we have got to stop falling, fighting it. I know it might sound a little crazy on the surface, like you're probably saying, wait, what? But it makes such good sense when you hear from him. Plus, this is when we struggle with in my house, video games don't even know where to start. Which games, when you should allow them, how long they should play. Here's a big one. How do you get them off the video games without a battle? We get an answer. Today we're talking with Dr. Michael Rich. He is a very big deal when it comes to this space. Dr. Rich is the creator and the director of the Digital Wellness Lab at Harvard Medical School, which is a great resource for parents. It's a nonprofit research center which is dedicated to helping young people develop healthy digital media habits. He is also the author of a book. It's called the Mediatrician's Guide. Our conversation, it's eye opening. It may also change how we think about screens and media and video games when it comes to our kids and for us as parents, too, who Dr. Rich calls caring but confused right now.
- [01:31]
B
And if that's you, this is for you. Dr. Rich. I almost just don't even know where to start because you are such a wealth of information on so many important things that we are dealing with as parents. I should mention, you are also a parent yourself, having raised four kids. So you understand where we're coming from, just from a basic human parenting level when it comes to all of this.
- [01:58]
C
Yes, absolutely. In fact, I talk about this as aimed at parents who are caring but confused. This is a whole new environment that we need to learn to parent in and to raise healthy, smart, kind children in.
- [02:15]
B
Caring but Confused, I think should be the absolute headline if not for this episode, maybe just for life. As a parent today, I want to first talk about this Digital Wellness Lab. You are a founder of the Digital Wellness Lab, and this really is a wealth of information and resources for all of us parents who are caring but confused. Tell us about what it is and how the idea came about.
- [02:42]
C
Well, I have to give you a little bit of an origin story here because I actually spent 12 years of my professional life As a screenwriter and filmmaker in Hollywood, including two years in Japan working as assistant director to Kurosawa. On coming back to the US Was discouraged by the quality of the films being offered to me and had an early midlife crisis. Went to medical school and became a pediatrician. And as I was coming up in pediatrics, was exactly when the world, in many ways led by pediatricians, was becoming increasingly concerned about the health effects of then watching television. The couch potato effect is my child lying on the couch getting fat, stupid and violent. So I worked with the American Academy of Pediatrics for about a decade, really helping them bring media consciousness into the annual physical exam and health maintenance visit. Realized that we really needed a lot more research, a lot more public health research on the effects of the screens we use and how we use them, particularly how children use them and how that affects their health and development. And so really, since the early 90s, we've been doing research and education as well as clinical care based around our increasing knowledge of screen effects. And one of the things that happened kind of in the first decade of this century was increasingly I was realizing that this is a very polarized environment, that you're either for kids or you're for screens, but you can't be for both. And there was a lot of conflict between pediatricians and the entertainment and tech industries. And I was increasingly being put onto these national stages to debate with someone from Facebook or what's now meta. I did not see that we were really moving the ball, really helping kids. And so I actually had the contrarian, audacious idea about what if we were to work together on this instead of arguing with each other and saying right and wrong, how can we work together to move away from the sort of values based good, bad, right, wrong concept to what is healthier not just for children, but for all of us? And how can we bring good, solid public health research to bear on what we see really as an environmental health influence in positive as well as negative ways, like air quality? We are surrounded by screenshots. They're in our pockets, they're on our wrists, they're on gas pumps. We can't get away from them. We need to learn to live well with them rather than worrying about them or trying to cut them off, which ultimately ends up like playing whack a mole. You know, you turn one thing off and the next thing pops up.
- [05:51]
B
Well, and it creates resistance with your kids when you're. When you're talking about it in a sense of control. Yes, versus, you know, if I'm hearing this correctly. Like, how do we work together to establish healthy. A healthy relationship with screens? Because the reality is, as you're saying too is toddlers are on screens on their iPads. I mean, it is just part of life today. So how do we maybe switch from that idea of we need to step in and kind of be in control of our young child to teenagers screen use, whether it's social media or video games or whatever, to more of a collaborative relationship with screens since we know they are part of our lives today and probably will be from here until. Until eternity.
- [06:48]
C
Yeah. Or. Or the next iteration, whether it's holography or whatever. Right. I work with the young people, both the kids who've gotten in trouble with media issues of one kind or another at our clinic for interactive media and Internet disorders, but also for primary care patients. You know, it's really about moving from this idea of control. And I've even argued directly to the tech companies and continue to tell them, you got to stop talking about parental controls because there's no kid on the face of this earth that wants to be controlled by their parents. It just sets up a workaround situation for the kids. Let's talk about parental engagement. Let's create tools for engaging because the parents will be chasing the kids and usually losing that race every time if they try to control them and clamp down on them. But what they really should be doing is sharing this environment. These kids spend as much or more time in the digital space as they do in physical space now. And in fact, I talk about our continuous physical digital environment that the kids move seamlessly back and forth between. It's only us that think of them as two separate spaces. One of the things that I really emphasize is first of all to treat the devices, whether it's a smartphone or a laptop or a tablet, as power tools, like a chainsaw, like an automobile that you share with your child when your child needs that tool, when your child can handle it responsibly and with respect for themselves and others. And then you sit down and teach them how to do it. Much the way we sit white knuckled in the front of the car as the kid learns to drive. And one of the things that I really emphasize to make it sort of easy to Remember is the 3M's model. Parents should model the behavior they want to see in their kids. So don't be staring at your smartphone reading that all important email from work while wagging your finger at your kid who's playing Call of Duty. Put your devices down and be together. The second is to mentor them so when they are ready for these devices and can handle them in your best judgment, you sit down with them. And the nice thing about mentorship is it's a two way dialogue. You're learning as much from the kid as the kid is learning from you. Because believe me, they are more technically facile with these devices than we are. Sit down and talk through with them what they need these devices or applications or platforms for, how they're going to use them and, and explicitly how they are not going to use them, not just in terms of the places they don't go, but when, where and how they are using the devices. Because something that's perfectly fine at one point in their life, like texting a friend, is not good in the middle of the night from bed or at the dinner. And then the third one, and this is the one that both parents and kids really drag their heels on because they worry about how hard it's going to be is to monitor their use, be present in their digital use, know their usernames and passwords. The kids will scream, I want my privacy. But to a 13 year old whose prefrontal cortex is still a dozen or more years from being able to really control impulses and use judgment, privacy to them is so mom and dad can't see they have no concept of the larger world, that what they post will go fast, far and sticky. It's sticky because the edgier it is, someone's going to hold onto it in a hard drive. And that cute 14 year old in her bikini holding a beer can at a party is, is going to show up on a college application, it's going to show up on a job application. They don't have any concept of what is really going to happen. So I think the three M's model mentor, monitor. Oh, and by the way, parents don't like monitor. I'll tell you why, because they say I don't have the time to monitor my kid, right? And that's absolutely true. But what happens is if they can visit their child's feeds or their activity at any time, the child behaves differently. Just like random drug testing works in the workplace.
- [11:38]
B
So like being friends, quote unquote on Instagram or Snapchat or whatever it is. The privacy part is such, it is a tricky one. But what I'm hearing is you saying like, look, kids at 13, that's like almost like a code red or a red flag if they're saying they want privacy because ultimately that is, I'm trying to hide something from mom and dad,
- [12:07]
C
and I think that one can defuse that discussion to a certain degree. So it's not so much about hiding and prying. As much as I want to share and be part of your life, I want to be there for you as a support. I'm constantly saying to parents, stop policing them and start supporting their success. So catch them being good. And that goes a lot farther than catching them only being bad and avoiding it. So I think that it's really important to recognize that adolescence is a period of time where you are transferring discipline from the outside in by parents to the inside out by the child.
- [12:50]
B
You know, one thing that came to mind, we really avoided Snapchat for a very, very, very long time with our teenager. She's 16, and on her 16th birthday, we were like, okay, fine, you can get it. Because, of course, she was the last one. And everybody has it, you know, all the things. And so part of it was, is that we set up an account, her dad and I, and we have actually had a lot of fun communicating with her on it. So there is. I don't think she thinks we're as funny as we think we are sending her these pictures.
- [13:26]
C
There's a long tradition of dad jokes. Don't worry. We've been offending parents for generations.
- [13:33]
B
We first set up the account to, say, Liv's dad's account. That was his username. And we're like, well, that's probably too far. So we made a different one. But anyway, I think that's just the point is go moving from control to sort of being in the space together and trying to find commonalities where you can both enjoy it and that you're not the big bad parent trying to clamp down on it. You get it. You can have fun in that space, too. You know, it is healthy balance. And. And so what are your who are you messaging? Who are your friends that you're connected with and that kind of thing. But if you can have some fun and that's that space, I think those conversations come a little bit easier.
- [14:16]
C
Yeah. And also, I think when there is an openness between the parents and the kids, the kids. If the kids aren't confident that the parents aren't going to be angry at them or punish them for wandering into a place, probably inadvertently, that upsets them, scares them, weirds them out, they will actually bring it to the parents and say, help me think this through or help me understand this parent. If parents and kids are open and explicit about. They will know that this is a problem, that this is not right, and they will share it with their parents as opposed to being so terrified that their parents will find out that they are in danger of harming.
- [15:00]
B
You know, just if, though a kid isn't having an open dialogue with their parents in that way, are there things that parents can look for or keep in mind?
- [15:14]
C
It's very similar to what you would keep observant about in case your child was either having problems with anxiety or depression or with substance use. And that is. Is the child not doing some of her or his favorite things anymore? Activities, you know, not playing soccer anymore? Are they withdrawing? Are they spending a lot of time in their room by themselves? Are they not hanging out with family and friends? Are they upset and angry and aggressive when they're asked to get offline? This is also the case for things like cyberbullying because they will go underground and not talk to adults. 58% of the kids who are cyberbullied never talk to an adult in their lives. They not because they don't think, the adults don't care, but because they're worried that the adults will respond by taking away their device, taking away their access, which they see as their, you know, kind of shield, their protective system so they know what's going on, which then
- [16:20]
B
they suffer in silence, which, you know, and that is. It's so hard for parents. I want to talk a little bit about, you know, you brought up the clinic, the clinic for interactive media and Internet disorders. What, what is an Internet disorder? What does that look like?
- [16:38]
C
In many cases it is a young person who has become impaired in the basic functions of life, whether it be sleeping or nutrition or academics. These are the kids who either go down the rabbit hole of the massively multi user online role playing games like World of Warcraft or League of Legends, are staying up all night gaming and not able to get out of bed in the morning, not going to school. They're also kids who get caught up in social media in, in various ways. Gaming problems more prevalent among boys. Social media problems more prevalent among girls. A subset of both of those groups follow those paths into pornography. That is usually not something that comes out at a first or second visit, but when you start drilling down a little more deeply, you realize that. And the danger there, of course, is that it actually sort of disrupts and often slows down their development as sexual beings, you know, in healthy ways, because they are represented with an unrealistic set of expectations for themselves and their potential sexual Partners. And there's a lot of confusion. And then the fourth manifestation we see are what we're calling information binging. They're kids who will go down, you know, watch YouTube forever or Quora or Reddit, where they're just following endless links to new things that are of interest. And that's often the hardest to detect by parents because it looks for all the world, like research, you know, like they're doing a paper or something for school.
- [18:34]
B
You fall victim to the algorithm too, because you'll search for one thing and then so you get an interesting video, you watch it all the way through. And so whether it's YouTube or TikTok or whatever it might be, say, oh, this person's interested, let me feed you this. And you know, before you know it. And it's not just kids because I I' suddenly I'm. I've scrolled through TikTok for 45 minutes and like, well, I was supposed to do this. That is totally out of the window. Nobody's immune to the very powerful algorithm. I, I'd like to drill down a little bit on video games because I know so many parents who struggle with this. How much time should you allow on video games? You know, I'm sure it's age dependent. It goes back to the, you know, sort of control versus engagement, I'm sure. But this is an area where so many moms, dads, caregivers really struggle.
- [19:34]
C
I am going to build on the research and throw a curve ball.
- [19:40]
B
Okay.
- [19:40]
C
The reason for that is I think we have to abandon the idea of age appropriateness.
- [19:46]
B
Okay.
- [19:47]
C
For the very reason that you, you have three kids, right? Were all of them exactly the same at the same age?
- [19:56]
B
Not even at all? Not even close, no.
- [20:00]
C
So how do you determine at what age is right? On a blanket basis? You know, nothing magical happens on your 13th birthday that allows you to do things and be safe. So the first thing is I think that we've got to get rid of age as a criterion. We also have to get rid of the word appropriate, because appropriate is a values laden word. What is appropriate in the Northeast is not appropriate in Florida or Texas or in other cultures around the world. Obviously this is building on my approach as a pediatrician, but we should be thinking developmentally optimal, what is optimal for this child at this developmental stage, and that you, as the child's mom or dad, are the best judge of that. Right. And even so, we don't get it perfect all the time, but, you know, one kid is capable of handling social media at age 13. Other kids are maybe ready at age 10, and there are some that are not ready at age 20. So I think it's more important to really personalize this to your child. Just like you would say, when do you try to teach a kid to ride a two wheel bike? Right? Some kids you can do it very young, and some kids, you know, it has to be later. So that's one thing. The other thing that I'm going to tell you that I apologize for in advance is screen time limits are obsolete. What? Yes, exactly.
- [21:29]
B
Okay. What?
- [21:30]
C
Why are screen time limits obsolete?
- [21:32]
A
Yeah, why?
- [21:33]
C
Because how much screen time did you spent yesterday?
- [21:38]
B
I have no idea.
- [21:40]
C
Exactly.
- [21:41]
B
Okay, fair enough.
- [21:42]
C
Nor do I. And I study it. And the reason why is we live in a screen saturated world. There are screens everywhere in our lives. They're in our pockets, they're on our wrists. It is no longer the time when you had only television that was scheduled with programs at certain times to start and begin. We are moving in and out of screens all the time, constantly, and kids even more so than us and even more hours than us. But that being said, if we can't measure it, how do you limit it? And as a sidebar here, even in the days of television when we, I and my colleagues in the American Academy of Pediatrics recommended one to two hours of quality educational screen time a day, screen time was always the forbidden fruit. If the kid had one hour of screen time a day, she or he came home from school, got in front of the screen an hour later, what happened? Absolutely Nothing. Hour and 15 minutes, hour and a half, and diet. Or mom comes and says, hey, you have homework to do or you got to get to bed or whatever. And it was always, oh, can I finish the program?
- [22:53]
B
Let me just watch. Can I just finish this game? Can I just finish this show?
- [22:56]
C
Yeah, got it.
- [22:57]
B
You've heard it 100, I've heard it a million times.
- [23:00]
C
And it becomes a conflict every single time.
- [23:04]
B
So. But do you, do you allow, Are we better off saying no, now is the time to turn it off? Or if there's four minutes left in a show, say yes, yes, after this show, or I have, you know, two more minutes on this round in the game, Are we better off just saying, nope, this is when it turns off? Or do we give them that extra two minutes?
- [23:26]
C
What we recommend is that depending on whether they're watching a show or a game, games have cycles too. And so you learn from the child. You ask the child, what is the cycle of this game? Oh, it's a 20 minute game. Right. And, and you get to the next level or whatever and then you remind the child 20 minutes before it is time to start the next thing. So it's not about stopping this, it's about starting the next thing which hopefully is as attractive or more attractive than what they're doing. And from that point on they do not start a new cycle. Right. So they may have to stop five minutes before the time or whatever. The problem is when the stop now happens in the middle of something, that's when you have a delay. Right. And so this is a way that kids and parents can work together on it by the parent being a reminder of this is your last cycle or this is your last program, whatever it is, because you need to do the next thing. The other piece of that is to schedule something they really like afterwards.
- [24:33]
B
Okay.
- [24:33]
C
So it's not about stopping something they love for something they gotta do. Because mom says I gotta do not homework afterwards. Yeah.
- [24:43]
B
Or necessarily.
- [24:44]
C
Or do your homework first.
- [24:47]
B
First. Okay.
- [24:48]
C
So I think.
- [24:48]
B
Well, let me, let me ask you, let me just ask for a little clarification on that because then it becomes the video game is the reward. Right. Like if you do this then you get that. What?
- [24:59]
C
Right? No.
- [25:00]
B
What are we creating with that?
- [25:02]
C
Absolutely. It is not to be used as either a reward or in the taking away as a punishment for anything other than misusing the media. Right. For anything other than overusing it or you know, going to places that are less helpful and are more harmful things of that nature. But it should, it should be, you know, and one of the dangers of doing homework first and gaming later is that the kids will rush through their homework and do it, you know, short shift just to get to it.
- [25:35]
B
Yeah.
- [25:36]
C
So it's, there's a double problem there. But what I really recommend is to actually have a scheduled day, a structure to their free time. The biggest problem with screens is that they are open ended experiences and that those who make tech and media make it so that you never want to leave and so that you lose track of time and place. Just as you described with TikTok. Right. It just know the time goes. I think that if the child and the parent together say here's what we're going to do. You know, I come home from school, I eat a snack, I go outside and shoot hoops for 15 minutes or half an hour just to get the blood flowing again. Then do I do my homework first? Do I game first? But I think that in terms of time limits, instead of having limited screen time Making the forbidden fruit. We should have minimal non screen time planned. Minimal non screen time. Time when we are certainly in bed and asleep, time when we are at a meal, a sit down family meal together once a day at least is the single most protective thing you can do for your kids mental health, let alone their nutrition. Because we all need to download, we all need to break bread together. I mean this is a tradition that has spanned centuries. You know, this business of sharing a meal but also sharing your hearts. Then when you see, when you cover all the things that need to be done and see how much time is left, what you're doing here is helping the child learn to prioritize knowing that there is actually a finite amount of time in a day. There are only 24 hours in a day and you need to get things done. So I talk about it as filling an empty glass with eight or nine hours of sleep, with that family meal, with homework, with strenuous physical exercise and obviously there's school. And then see what time is left. And what you're doing there is having the young person prioritize what she or he wants in a planful way and frankly learning to manage time, which God knows all of us could do better.
- [28:01]
B
Amen. Amen to that. How do we identify when there is a problem and then what, as parents should be our first step.
- [28:12]
C
What we have found in virtually every case of the young people who are who've gotten in trouble with interactive media is that there is an underlying condition that is driving this behavior, that is causing them to seek this environment, to distract, to comfort themselves, to feel masterful.
- [28:33]
B
So that could be like depression, anxiety kind of things or.
- [28:38]
C
Yes. Which is, as I'm sure you're aware, on the rise and has been on the rise for a couple of decades in young people. But even things like attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, you know, which is extremely common. Kid who is spent the whole day feeling like they're not keeping up in class, they're not even keeping up with conversations in the playground and social situations. They sit down in front of Call of Duty or Grand Theft Auto and they are not only as good as, but they are usually better at those kind of games than so called neurotypical kids because distractibility and hypervigilance are actually a strength in those games, whereas they're not a strength sitting in a classroom or even having a conversation. We see these problems really as a syndrome of, you know, a set of symptoms that are an attempt to self soothe from the underlying issues. But you asked how do we notice it when your child's behavior changes, when she or he says, I don't really want to go to scouts meeting or I don't want to be on the soccer team anymore. I just want to stay home when their mood changes, you know, and they, they're withdrawn or they're quiet or they grow aggressive and angry when asked to stop. And so I think that hopefully, you know, one starts in a dialogue with them from the very beginning about being mindful and balanced in their use of these devices. And in fact, one of the things that I say is, you know how in the early days of the tech revolution, everybody wanted to develop a killer app. What we should be developing is our killer bees. And those killer bees are be balanced in our screen and non screen time. Be mindful in our screen use, use it as the power tool it is and turn it off when it's not the best tool for the job. And most importantly, particularly for us parents, be present. If we are staring at our phone, we are not present for the kids. And one of the things I ask my patients once their parents are out of the room is what could your parents do better? Talk about a subversive question for a kid. Almost always the first thing out of their mouth is pay more attention to me. And this shocks the parents because they say, well, he's just sullen and non verbal teenager. When he's around. He doesn't, I, I see no indication he wants me to pay attention to him, but he does, he does. He feels very alone and he is sorting out who am I as an individual separate from my parents, this, that and the other. It's important to let him know that we're there and we care. And the first way to let them know that we're there and we care is turn the phone down, upside down, turn it off and look at them even in silence.
- [31:48]
B
I love it.
- [31:49]
C
Be there.
- [31:50]
B
That is such good advice and I hope a lot of people are hearing it right now. And Dr. Rich, you actually have a book coming out or just came out by the time this, this podcast will drop. But media Attrition, give us the, the synopsis for our listeners who, you know, know, undoubtedly are very interested in this space. What will they find in that book?
- [32:17]
C
Well, it's titled the Media Attrition's A Joyful Approach to Raising Healthy, Smart, Kind Kids in a screen Saturated World. I really emphasize the joyful apart because this is why we have kids. To bring new humans into the world and enjoy them and help them enjoy us and the world. It really is there to reassure parents that their instincts are still right, their ways of parenting are still right. We just have to move it into this new environment that they're in, which is this continuous physical digital environment that we all are in. But it is based in both a lot of research, science for the last 30 some years about these environments and also in a lot of clinical experience of kids and families that have gotten into trouble, but also just parenting stuff from my own and others experience. And in fact, in the back part of it, there's actually a primer that's very similar to what we have online at the Digital Wellness Lab called the Family Digital Wellness Guide, which follows childhood really from birth right through to young adulthood. And the way that screens interface and the ways that we can use those screens to help our kids be healthier, smarter and kinder rather than going down rabbit holes and getting into trouble.
- [33:51]
B
Healthier, smarter, kinder are the goal for all of us. And it's why we're doing this podcast here too. Dr. Rich and I do want to let our listeners know we will have more information on that book on our website, wgme.com raisingme if there was one piece of advice we could leave parents with from this conversation, what would that be?
- [34:14]
C
Enjoy media with your kids and use them wisely. And I do mean enjoy, you know, share your favorite movies with them, share your favorite music. They will laugh at you. Right. But they actually love this, you know, so enjoy them. Enjoy your media. They're part of our lives. But recognize that they are very powerful and that power can help us be better humans or lead us into kind of sticky, uncomfortable and unhealthy places.
- [34:47]
A
Yeah.
- [34:47]
B
Doing it together with our kids.
- [34:49]
C
Yeah, absolutely. And keep your sense of humor. Absolutely. Keep your sense of humor. Because you know what, we're never going to do this perfectly, but we can keep perfecting it. This is going to be a work in progress and we might as well enjoy the ride.
- [35:06]
B
Amen. I love it. Dr. Rich, thank you so much. Again, all these resources on wgme.com raisingme really appreciate your time today.
- [35:16]
C
Oh, thank you for listening and I hope you enjoy the book.
- [35:22]
A
Enjoy media with your kids. I, I gotta tell you, as much as we resisted allowing Snapchat for our teenager, we ended up having so much fun laughing and sending her crazy pictures. I don't know how much fun she had, but it was all in good fun. And I'm. Look, I'm not suggesting to go for it if it's not right for your family and admittedly, I've got work to do when it comes to regularly monitoring it now. Usually great in the beginning, did great in the beginning, but then, you know, life. But that is part of Dr. Rich's three M's. That model, mentor and monitor being a really key piece there. Video games. Big one. Big One stresses me out sometimes. And I really like that, that idea of okay, last game before whatever, but that whatever is something that's.
- [36:10]
B
That's good.
- [36:11]
A
Ideally, anyway, you know, I mean, we're all learning here. I bet most of us fit in that category of caring but confused. And hopefully today's conversation helped. Thank you for listening to Raising Me. I'm Adrienne Stein. This episode is edited by Megan Littlefield and produced with Nate Eldridge. Please take a moment to follow Raising Me wherever you get your podcasts. Of course, a positive rating and review helps others to find this message. So we really appreciate that. Wherever you are, I hope you learn something new and get to take a little time for you.