Youth Mental Health and Social Media: A Pediatrician's Perspective - Talking Technology with ATLIS

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[00:01]
A
This episode of Talking Technology with Atlas is sponsored by Aura, a real time attendance platform trusted by leading independent schools nationwide. If you're in it, you know academic attendance systems often leave gaps. Aura helps you ensure teachers take attendance accurately while capturing all the data you need to know where your students are in real time. You get powerful insights with AURA to streamline follow ups and reduce manual work for your team and faculty. In fact, Blackbaud and Veracross schools can set up the Aura SYNC for a free trial of attendance insights and attendance alerts within 30 minutes. To see how it all works and to claim this limited time offer, head to www.aura.com atlas. That's www.orah.com atlis. Welcome to Talking Technology with Atlas, the show that plugs you into the important topics and trends for technology leaders all through a unique independent school lens. We'll hear stories from technology directors and other special guests from the independent school community and provide you with focused learning and deep dive topics. And now, please welcome your host, Christina Llewellyn.
[01:21]
B
Hello everyone and welcome to Talking Technology with Atlas. I'm Christina Llewellyn, the Executive Director of the association of Technology Leaders in Independent Schools.
[01:30]
C
And I am Bill Stites, the Director of Technology at Montclair Kimberley Academy in Montclair, New Jersey.
[01:36]
D
And I'm Hiram Cuevas, Director of Information Systems and academic technology at St. Christopher School in Richmond, Virginia.
[01:43]
B
Hello everyone. Welcome back to the Pod. We're going to kind of jump right into it today because we have a really special guest that is a huge get for our growing fledgling podcast. I met Dr. Hansa Bargava back in the early summer. We were at an event in Washington, D.C. it was a summit on social media and youth mental health. I know, guys. I talked about that a little bit on the POD when I went.
[02:07]
C
Remember that?
[02:08]
B
Yeah, Hiram and Bill, you guys remember, I came back really energized about it. So the idea that Dr. Bhargava is available to speak with us for a few minutes today is just really huge for us. So thank you so much for joining us. Welcome to the podcast and please meet my friends Bill and Hyrum.
[02:23]
E
Hi everyone.
[02:24]
D
Welcome, Welcome.
[02:25]
B
I would like to start with the fact that we met at this event in D.C. and the American Academy of Pediatrics has a grant from the Department of Health and Human Services. And the idea here is that they're looking at the center of excellence that focuses on youth mental health and social media use and all of the complexities that go into that. Dr. Bhargava, how did you get involved in this initiative.
[02:52]
E
Thank you for shedding light on this initiative. It's so important, especially today. We know that the youth mental health crisis is not only a real thing, but it has been getting worse over the last decade, and there's plenty of studies to show that, but also that it's actually linked to social media. And the Surgeon General has come out with statements about that very recently, and there's really very little doubt that there has been a direct correlation of youth mental health issues and social media and actually increased usage of cell phones. So the center of Excellence basically was established by the American Academy of Pediatrics to help address this issue. They realized that this was an important area because so many of children and adolescents are affected and. And they wanted to guide in those areas. I personally was involved with the Executive Council on Media and Communications for many, many years, and I wrote a book on building happier kids, which actually was a holistic approach to parenting, including looking at them from a mental and emotional wellness perspective, as well as understanding the impact that media can have on the children's health as well as parenting. So I was involved with all of that. And then when they established this, I was asked to be one of the subject matter experts. And I'm honored to have that role because it's such an important issue and
[04:23]
B
you've built your career as a pediatrician, so I would imagine that you've seen some shifts, you've seen some changes that also led you to feel called to be involved in this kind of work.
[04:35]
E
Exactly. So one of the reasons I wrote that book was actually not just what I had seen as a pediatrician, but I'm also a mom of twins. And, you know, when my kids were in fifth and sixth and seventh grade, I started seeing how stressed out they were. They call it Generation Z, I think. And that stress is throughout many, many families. So that was one of the areas that I was really, really concerned about. I think that in the last decade or so, the use of cell phones, and that even by itself, forget social media, taking away from really important structural family interactions, and even at schools, teacher student interactions has been really impactful in a negative way.
[05:23]
B
And I think we see that a lot in our schools. Most of our listeners represent the independent K12 community. And with some exceptions, there are always different ways to meet the mission in terms of educating our young people. But for the most part, many of these parents are sending their kids to these schools with an expectation of certain outcomes. And that naturally does put a lot of pressure on kids to perform Academically, maybe in sports. And then you throw into the mix just being a kid and all these issues with social media. It's almost like the perfect storm and it makes it really challenging for kids. Why do you think that it's important with the center of Excellence work focusing in specifically on social media? Can you speak a little bit about the impact there or why is that the thing that really is kind of the silver bullet? Like there is a very direct correlation between social media use and teen mental health. Like, it's a good thing to talk about and drill into, but at the same time, is that the low hanging fruit? Is it just the most obvious answer? Is it something that we can have any impact on?
[06:32]
E
Yeah, great questions, Christina. Look, I think that the reason they're focused, hyper focused on this is because it is definitely, as I said, a huge association of the mental health trajectory and cell phone use. 2007 was when smartphone was first introduced. 2012, 2013 is when social media kind of had its uptick. And now we're in 2024. And over the last decade, you can see the uptick with the mental health issues. If you look at surveys in 2023, 51% of teens are using social media for more than four hours a day. How do you find four hours a day to use social media? When you go to school, right, and you have homework, these are teens, so they're high school level homework and probably athletics and everything else that's thrown in. So what that means to me is that basically those four hours are taken away from those super important interactions that should happen between teens and their friends, teens and their families, teens and you know, authorities, teachers, coaches. So it's gotta be taken away from that. And you can see that happening or it's intruding on sleep. And you can see the issues that are happening in sleep too. So there's a lot of issues that social media does other than just anxiety and depression. I say that tongue in cheek because obviously anxiety and depression are huge issues that our youth are struggling with.
[07:58]
D
What's interesting to me is this conversation is revolving around social media and cell phones. And I'm curious to see what your opinion is on what I'm calling the gateway drug to social media for our youngest users of social media. I'm thinking of Roblox, for example, Club Penguin, Hot Wheels, Wizards 101. All of these applications that parents inadvertently provide their children with and have little to no understanding at some of the detrimental impacts. Those applications start at a very young age.
[08:35]
E
Yeah, no, I think That's a really good point. And what you said is absolutely correct. Parents have little awareness of this. They are not doing this on purpose. It is also the fact that there's more and more social pressure on parents to get the smart device at an earlier and earlier age. I mean, a Large proportion of 8 year olds have that device now. And I think that the gateway. Sure, but there's so much information that is being thrown at parents right now that how can they possibly keep up with all of the things that are out there? I mean, industry always has a head start in front of schools, in front of parents, in front of. Right. Policy and regulations, and it's very hard to fill that gap. So that's, I think, what we're struggling with as a society that, you know. Yes, there's a lot of new things that are out there. And the last statistic I read is at least a third of parents are parenting on their own. They are single parents, or it might be a grandmother who's taking care of kids or they're struggling with two jobs and just trying to put food on the table. Of course, quarter of parents cannot put enough food on the table for their kids. I mean, that's a real statistic. The inequities that are the parental burden adds to this whole perfect storm. And industry, I'm sorry, like I shouldn't say this, but industry has time and resources which parents don't have.
[09:59]
B
Yeah, absolutely. What was really interesting to me is that when we were gathered in D.C. for the summit where you and I met, there were a lot of kids involved, a lot of teenagers, mostly high schoolers, I think, and they were serving shoulder to shoulder in these conversations. They were peers in the conversation, talking about their own habits and the pressures that they feel. It was really impressive. At least I was really impressed with these young people who were talking about the challenges that they're facing when it comes to pressure and social media use. Do you think that kids are ahead of us on this or do we still need to take an active hand on the problem and do something about it?
[10:41]
E
Well, I think one of the things that the AAP center for Excellence has done really well is to bring in the kids and get their opinions. I mean, you can't really make recommendations without actually having the user there to tell you about that. So I think it's really smart. I think the other area we should potentially investigate is how parents are feeling about this. Right. And how parents are using social media. And there's been some articles coming out on that as well, so no, I think it's great the way that they're doing that. Are the kids ahead of us? They'll always be ahead of us in terms of technology, but they may not be ahead of us in terms of understanding and having the insights and wisdom around the exponential effects of this. So I think that it's kind of both. And that's what we're trying to do at the ap, you know, trying to get it from the kids point of view, but also having the authorities and the experts there, there to kind of look at policy and regs.
[11:34]
C
So one of the areas that I'm really curious about is Hiram mentioned the gateway drug. I want to talk about how children view this as acceptable use and where does this normally start? And I look to whether that's the teacher or the parent as the model for this. And in terms of taking an inward look at how we're using, whether it be social media or our phones, in front of our children and with our children and what type of message that is sending. So what type of work are either you doing or do you see going on around talking to adults about how they're modeling this behavior and what they need to do to address their own use, particularly when that's in front of children, when it's in the home, when it's in these times, when it really should be the face to face dialogues. How do you speak to them about that?
[12:25]
E
That's a great point. And it's a huge factor what parents do and what behaviors they show have more impact than anything they say. And we know this across the board. So, you know, parental involvement with social media, parental involvement with cell phone use has been also exponential. It's been increasing. And you can see there's been some great studies done from some of the leads over at the center of Excellence, including Jenny Radesky, where, you know, they looked at parents and parental behavior when parents walked into restaurants and when they walked into restaurants, how they would basically just like. And this happens, you see it, people sit down, the family sits down and everyone pulls out their device, right? So there's no interaction happening at all. But if those little ones, even before they have their cell phones and they have iPads or they don't have iPads, are seeing their parents just looking at the device all the time. That's definitely something that they kind of integrate in their heads. The other thing is that these devices are actually taking away from some of the super important developmental aspect of conversation. So conversation for younger kids is crucial for language development. But Also for social emotional development, too, right? Reading facial expressions. And this study was really interesting. It was done, I think, four or five years back. I actually pulled it into my book. But it was a study on middle school kids who were on social media. They were on their phones a lot, and they showed these middle school kids. They divided them two groups. They showed them all these facial expressions. They asked them, is this person happy, sad, angry, surprised, whatever it is. And the kids did terribly on these assessments. So I took one group and sent them away to a camp for six weeks where they're outdoors, they were just flying with each other, they were boating, they were camping, all this stuff. And the other group basically was told about social media and sent home. And then they brought them back to look at that test again of facial expressions. And lo and behold, the group that had been away from their devices now could actually understand what surprised, happy, all of that is. So that is such a huge skill to be able to understand. Like, I'm looking at Christina right now. I see she's completely engaged. I hope you are, Christina. I'm joking. But, you know, you look at a person and you know, whether they're engaged, whether they're happy, whether they're depressed or so important in so many facets of our life, not just professionally, but even more importantly in our relationships. Right. How do you build a relationship with someone, whether they're in the family or external or a partner, if you can't figure out what they're thinking? And so the consequences of being on the phone all the time is time lost. Time lost.
[15:06]
B
You know, it's interesting that we have just gotten to this place where this conversation is more prevalent, and it's certainly gotten a lot of media attention, primarily because of Haidt's book, the Anxious Generation. That's, at least in our circles, it's like, what everyone is talking about. And yet this has been an issue. This is data that we have had for some time. Why do you think that book cut through? Why is that getting our attention when we have had some of this data for a really long time? What are your thoughts on that?
[15:37]
E
Yeah, good question, Christiana. His book is not the. I mean, he wrote a great book, there's no doubt about it. But there's several books that came out, like, in the last five to 10 years on this exact subject. Right. When I was writing my book, and that was. I started writing about four years ago, and I had this conversation with an expert on social media and mental health. And I said to him, I'm like, In my book I want to talk about, you know, the dopamine response and also like the fact that, and I'll just say it, the fact that in some way social media could be the nicotine of our generation. And he was like, oh, you can't do that. There's just not enough proof. So going back to your question, Christina, unfortunately, what happens, and I see this in medical issues as well, you get a case study, you get a few small study, then you get a large study, then you get meta analysis. And then finally like everyone's like, oh my God, there is something happening here. And I think his book timing's everything and it doesn't even matter. Like that's great, that time's everything. But the good news is that we're actually listening. The good news is that it is a topic of conversation.
[16:39]
B
And so now that it certainly has taken our community by storm, whether it was the luck of the draw on that, that finally it was the right timing, the right message at the right time, that message is out. So now I would love to give you some space to help our listeners because I think that a lot of schools are now putting up the pockets on the door, putting the phones away, but then it creates other sometimes unintentional consequences, right? Where like to protect the student data infrastructure, the kids need multi factor codes on their phones, but they don't have phones. We were just talking a few days ago, Hiram was getting students ready for standardized testing and you know, be able to log into these systems where they take their PSATs if they don't have the multi factor authentication on their phones, it creates some challenges. There are boarding schools in our community where parents don't even live in the same country. They wanna be able to reach their students. There could be emergency situation, all of those arguments, right? So given that we have both the irrefutable, I would say proof or indicators that this is the nicotine of our generation and combined with the fact that we are living in today's world, what kind of guidance are you giving? If people come to you and say, look, from your perspective representing kind of the pediatric health and well being perspective, where do we land on this?
[17:59]
E
Look, I mean, Christina, whenever you want to change culture, there's always going to be issues, especially with this, like I liken it. And I've had these conversations with parents where they're like, I need to take the phone away. The other thing I'll just point out, like in the last five, six years, as we are kind of leading up to this moment, in time, I was also seeing, literally in my own practice, in my own friends and family circles, this uptick of, you know, Hansa, can you tell me, like, my daughter is so depressed she missed three weeks of school, or, you know, our neighbor's son tried to commit suicide. Like, these are so real. Like, I've been a board certified pediatrician for about 18, 19 years and I can just tell you that the last three or four years, the number of people I was hearing about having this issue was really astronomical numbers.
[18:50]
B
That must feel overwhelming to you.
[18:52]
E
It's totally overwhelming. I totally agree with you. Like, it's not 6 degrees of separation anymore, it's less than 1. I mean, it's just really out there. And the thing is, I think even the mental health surveys that are coming out, I bet you they're under reporting not everyone is going to talk about their anxious or depressed or suicidal child. They're just not. And that's because of stigma. And we're overcoming that mental health stigma for sure. But that's a process. So going back to your question, yes, I understand that parents are going to be hesitant and certainly the international parents will be, and certainly the parents who want to know where their child is at all moments of the day will be. I understand that, I'm a parent myself, but we have to look at the bigger cause here. Like, what is the long term effects on these kids? What's the long term effects on, on your child or teen? Again, there's so much I could say about how. I mean, there was a study done by the Common Sense media which looked at pornography and exposure. 73% of kids between 13 and 17 have seen pornography. 73%, no joke. Three out of four and 50% before the age of 13. And a lot of them said they accidentally stumbled on that. And you know what, I'll tell you, like, my daughter, when she was 11 or 12, accidentally stumbled on that. She was into Minecraft and she looked at Minecraft babies and all of a sudden all these like, oh, no. But this is what happens. Right?
[20:21]
B
So innocent.
[20:22]
D
Yeah. There's a big issue on Roblox as well.
[20:24]
E
Yeah, I mean, she came to me and she told me, thankfully. Yeah, we talked about it. And so it's just the algorithms. And since the audience is tech, I'll just say that the algorithms that push these kids down rabbit holes because they accidentally stumble on something. Because the next thing that kid's going to do is like, oh, what's this? Click, click, click. And so the hazards of this, I'm Sorry is like the nicotine example. I will stand by that example. And so now we all have to kind of come in and say, you know what? Yeah, it's totally integrated into our culture, everything's dependent on it. But we've got to figure out a way to protect our kids and to protect our families, actually, because the family, the social fabric of families and communities is also falling apart.
[21:12]
B
So if we stick with your nicotine example, where does the responsibility lie? Is it the social media companies? Is it the schools? Is it the parents? Is it some kind of combination of all? What do you think about that?
[21:24]
E
It really is a combination of all, Christina. I'll tell you it's interesting. I had a great conversation with my nephew who is a first year college student. We talked about social media, we talked about, you know, all these issues. So I asked him because I was like, hey, you're the generation, like, how would you approach this public health crisis? What would you do? And I thought his answer was amazing, actually, because he said, I would address it. Like all these other public health campaigns that have been successful. One of them was actually drunk driving. It's interesting. I mean, these kids and I have two teens, like I know a lot of families with teens and gram students and they don't drink and drive, period. End of story. So we were incredibly successful, incredibly successful. And so going back to my nephew, I asked him, he's like, well, I would take a three tier approach. He says. And I was like, oh, okay, why should. Tell me about that. Three tier approaches. And he says, well, first of all, it can't just be authorities talking to kids about this. It has to be our own generation. Because I'm not going to listen to somebody who is older than me. I want to listen to someone who looks like me and talks like me. So that's one. Number two is he's like, restricted access. You have to start with environments where you can restrict the access. That's schools. And then number three was again striking early. You start educating kids and families when they're younger, when they haven't fallen into this NAT or spider's web of now being addicted to media. So I thought it was a really interesting answer.
[22:58]
C
One question I have for you. The second thing you said there was restricted access. I want to just dig in on that for just one second because one of the things that we've struggled with here at our school is that we give every kid a device. And parents, they're always wondering, like, what are you blocking on the device? How can we stop Stuff on the device, so on and so forth. And what level of access do kids have on the device? So we look at it from that device perspective. But when it comes to the cell phones, when it comes to social media, when it comes to a lot of those things, our ability in the school to restrict access within the building is very limited because we don't own the device. It's not tied to our network. It's really outside of our control. Other than what Christina was talking about earlier, where kids. There are certain policies, usage policies within the school where they have to come in and they have to put it in like a storage caddy or locked away or it needs to go in there. So when you say that the schools need to take on some of that burden of restricting access, at what level are you describing there? Because often it's a challenge for me in my job as the director of technology to say, how do we restrict access to these social media platforms? Sometimes I have nothing to offer.
[24:20]
E
Yeah, great question. I do think that, I mean, the weight, responsibility actually lies in the parents and the schools. And to get the parents engaged, I think you kind of have to do the grassroots efforts of actually having a lot of education around the hazards, first of all, and I talked a little bit about that. So collaborative efforts of like continuous education definitely can have behavioral change. But specifically, Bill, putting those phones into pockets during school hours so that they aren't looking at the phones during classes is a great first step. What I thought was interesting when I was just looking up some studies prior to jumping on this call was that eight states right now have passed laws restricting cell phone access public schools, right. And there's a lot that have it in legislation. But the state of Florida actually blocks social media and district WI fi. Did you know that? So interesting. Right? And they have a digital literacy education program starting in sixth grade. So again, education and policy. And my kids went to independent schools. And so I have a little bit of insight into that. You know, could you actually block social media sites 100%?
[25:28]
C
And that's what we can do. Like that's the step we can do. But as soon as you put the cell phone in the student's hands, that device is usually not on the school's WI fi.
[25:39]
B
They turn off the WI fi and they use their data.
[25:42]
C
They use it as if they're just walking down the street. So we can do all of this work to secure our environment. Right. So that they can't access it. But normally I'm not putting a student's phone on Our WI fi, because I'm only putting like the device, the laptop or the tablet that they need in order to do the schoolwork, and I can block access on that. But as soon as you take this out of your pocket, that's when everything kind of falls apart. And that's what I think the struggle is. You talk about the education aspects of it between the school and the parents. That's one of the initial hurdles that we need to get over. We can do all of this work, but the fact that your child has this in their pocket and this can connect to any network.
[26:26]
E
Yes.
[26:27]
C
That's where our abilities kind of fall short. So I'm happy to partner with parents. I'm happy to put together education around that and in support of that to let parents know what's going on. But to say that it's all in schools, and I come from a family of educators where I've seen all sorts of social and different issues saying that the schools need to step up, the schools need to step up, the schools need to step up. Every once in a while, you need the parents to take that step with you and do all of that work.
[26:55]
E
Bill, I could not agree with you more. I couldn't. It has to be a multi tiered approach. It has to be. And the only thing I would say is that I really do think that the parents somehow need to be educated around this issue so that they collaborate with the schools. The partnership is between the parents and schools. I would compare it to parents who are separated or divorced or not even separate, divorce. They're still on the same marriage, but if they're not on the same page about things to do with driving or drinking or partying or whatever it is, or drugs. Like, you know, one parent is saying, oh, yeah, like it's fine for you to do cocaine. And the other parent's like, no, don't do cocaine. That kid's gonna fall through the cracks. That's a crack. That's a crack. So united front in this circumstance equals teachers and parents. I mean, school admin and parents. And that is where you need to get to, I think.
[27:48]
D
Yeah. And sometimes it's those one on one conversations you have with parents to enlighten them on certain situations. I had a parent call me and said, my son's done social media during the school day. I thought you guys were blocking social media. And I said, we do, but does your son have a smartphone? And she was like, oh, yes. And then the other piece that parents often forget, like, with these plans, is they will often have hotspots associated with these smartphones, and then they just open up the hotspot and then multiple students are now connected to these devices and you're no longer in that walled garden of the school network protecting them from that kind of access. But yes, when it comes to at risk behaviors, which is you gave a litany of a variety of them, this is just the first of many conversations schools and parents with their children will be having.
[28:40]
E
And I honestly think that this is a big enough issue that it should be in that grouping of litany of behaviors. It should be. And just like we approach, like, what do we do to protect kids from all of those things that I just talked about? We have education for the kids, we have education for the parents. So education for the kids and parents. This topic is essential to be integrated. And you guys are actually in a great spot because you are independent schools. You're not waiting for like public policy change to do this.
[29:09]
B
That's right.
[29:10]
E
And I think it's a great time to do that. The other thing I would say is because my kids went to independent schools, I know a lot of the parents, and maybe I'm overstating, but a lot of the parents or some of the parents that I knew were sending their kids to independent school so they had better success at college. Right. So if that is their reason for sending the kids to school. Well, how do you tie this thread into academic success? And there's a ton of research and literature to show that. Okay, because it affects sleep.
[29:40]
B
Very interesting.
[29:41]
E
It affects the teacher student relationship, it affects learning, it affects emotional maturity, and those are crucial in academic success. And it's not just about getting to the Ivy League college, because I know a lot of these parents want that, but it's also surviving. There's a lot of kids, like, I haven't seen the colleges report this yet. And maybe there's literatures out there. There's a lot of kids who fall out in the first year. So it's not just getting there, it's actually surviving it. And this skill set of being able to navigate socially, emotionally, and academically is super important. So why would they want something to stand in that way?
[30:16]
B
Oh my gosh, that's a wonderful aha moment. Let's tie this thing to outcomes. Oh, my goodness. That's impressive. That's a wonderful, wonderful thought path that we will walk down at another time. But I do want to touch on the fact before I let you go, that the center of excellence has resources and tools. I know you're A proponent and an outspoken supporter of some of those tools. Anything in particular that you really like that you would point our technology directors to go learn a little bit more about, because there's a lot of great resources there if they're struggling to try to pull this information together.
[30:49]
E
Yeah. So I would say that if you go to their site, there's definitely resources there, their recommendations of what parents and teachers can do. So that's a great opportunity. The second opportunity is that we do send ambassadors. I was just asked to go and speak to Wake Forest for Grand Rounds. We definitely come out to schools and talk, and I've done a lot of talks at schools about this topic. And lastly, I would say that one of the things that they talk about and should be mentioned is the issue of communication in moving anything forward. So that's between parents and teachers. But also parents should also realize that what's really golden in their relationship as the kids grow is communication. So they should be encouraged to communicate about this and get on board with this and make sure that kids actually are active collaborators in this as well. Like, we can do parents and teachers, and we can do parents and school leadership, but if you leave the kids out of this and the AAP talks about this, then again, that's a crack. It has to be united front. I love that.
[31:55]
B
Dr. Bhargava, from the minute that I met you, I loved your energy and I love spending time with you. I would keep you all day if I could. But if people are also picking up on this delicious, wonderful, soulful energy that you have and want to get to know you better, can you please tell everybody the name of your book? But you also have a podcast.
[32:11]
E
Yeah, I do. So my book is called Building Happier Kids. So I would encourage that. The second thing, the podcast is called Physicianary. That's basically to talk about issues like this. And we will be having Jenny Radisky coming also on that podcast from the ap, but talking about, you know, these really, really important issues of our time. Lastly, you can always find me on social media. I'm on LinkedIn. I'm on Instagram, Dr. Hansa, MD. I'm on Twitter, or I should say x. Hansa Bhargava md. So I would love to hear from you. Any feedback that you have, any questions. And this is. I'm really passionate about this as a pediatrician and an educator and most importantly, a parent.
[32:56]
B
Well, we can definitely tell now we didn't go through all of the niceties of our podcast because I know that your time is precious. But we generally do ask our guests, what's your coffee drink?
[33:06]
E
Oh, wow.
[33:07]
B
I mean, I know you're a doctor, but you gotta have caffeine, right? How do you survive your days?
[33:12]
E
Oh, my God. Every single day. I can't survive without. Oops, I'm not supposed to say that. No, I don't need a caffeine drip latte. My favorite is boring. An oat milk latte. I usually need a cookie with that too.
[33:27]
B
Oh, yes. I can get behind this whole thing. I'm allergic to gluten, but if I can get a gluten free cookie.
[33:33]
D
Lemon bar. Lemon bar.
[33:35]
C
Lemon bar. Yes, we agree on something, Hyam. Lemon bar.
[33:39]
E
I like lemon bars. They're awesome. And chocolate covered almonds too.
[33:43]
C
Ooh, there you go. Chocolate covered espresso beans.
[33:47]
D
Yeah. Now you're cooking.
[33:49]
B
Double dipping. All right, now we have the perfect break. Everybody go out and get something to snack on. We are so grateful for your time. Please feel free to come back anytime. Anytime you have something shaking that touches our kids in our schools, you have an open invite to come back to our podcast. We are incredibly grateful that you made the time for us, and we look forward to talking to you again in the near future.
[34:09]
E
Thank you, Christina. It's been a pleasure.
[34:13]
A
This has been talking technology with atlas, produced by the association of Technology Leaders in Independent Schools. For more information about ATLAS and ATLAS membership, please visit theatlas.org if you enjoyed this discussion, please subscribe, leave a review and share this podcast with your colleagues in the independent school community. Thank you for listening.

Summary8 min read

Talking Technology with ATLIS Episode: Youth Mental Health and Social Media: A Pediatrician’s Perspective
Release Date: November 26, 2024

Episode Overview

In this engaging episode, the ATLIS team welcomes Dr. Hansa Bhargava—pediatrician, author, and subject matter expert for the American Academy of Pediatrics’ (AAP) Center of Excellence on Social Media and Youth Mental Health. The conversation offers both a medical and lived-parent perspective on the escalating youth mental health crisis and the tangible impact of social media and device usage. The hosts and guest delve into the data, explore the responsibilities of parents, schools, and tech companies, and share actionable guidance for independent schools. The discussion is practical, compassionate, and underscores the power of school-family partnerships and proactive education in supporting well-being.

Key Discussion Points & Insights

The Worsening Youth Mental Health Crisis

The Shifting Landscape
Dr. Bhargava frames the current youth mental health crisis as a worsening trend, with a clear acceleration over the past decade—strongly correlated with increases in social media and cellphone use.

"We know that the youth mental health crisis is not only a real thing, but it has been getting worse over the last decade… there's really very little doubt that there has been a direct correlation of youth mental health issues and social media and actually increased usage of cell phones." — Dr. Hansa Bhargava [02:52]
Generation Z Stress
As both a pediatrician and a parent, Dr. Bhargava notes worrying levels of stress among preteens and teens, observing firsthand how device and social media use siphon away time from crucial familial and social interactions.

"In the last decade or so, the use of cell phones... even by itself, forget social media, [is] taking away from really important structural family interactions, and even at schools, teacher-student interactions." — Dr. Bhargava [04:35]

Why Focus on Social Media?

Direct Correlation, Disrupted Lives
Dr. Bhargava references data showing 51% of teens use social media for more than four hours a day, resulting in less time for sleep, extracurriculars, or in-person relationships.
She cautions that the harms go beyond anxiety and depression to developmental impacts on sleep and emotional health.

"Those four hours are taken away from those super important interactions that should happen between teens and their friends, teens and their families, teens and... teachers, coaches. So it's gotta be taken away from that, or it's intruding on sleep." — Dr. Bhargava [06:31]

Early Exposure & the Gateway Effect

Platforms for Young Children
Host Hiram Cuevas raises concerns about seemingly innocent platforms like Roblox, Club Penguin, and Hot Wheels as early "gateway" digital spaces, often overlooked by parents.

"Parents inadvertently provide their children with [these apps] and have little to no understanding at some of the detrimental impacts. Those applications start at a very young age." — Hiram Cuevas [07:58]
Barriers for Parents
Dr. Bhargava highlights socioeconomic stresses and a lack of informational parity—parents are often outpaced by the resources and reach of tech companies.

"Industry always has a head start in front of schools, in front of parents, in front of policy and regulations, and it's very hard to fill that gap." — Dr. Bhargava [08:34]

Youth and Adult Roles in Solutions

Youth Voices Matter… But They Need Adults' Perspective
The Summit in D.C. modeled youth-adult partnership, and Dr. Bhargava emphasizes that while kids are tech-savvy, they may lack the context and wisdom to see long-term risks.

"They’ll always be ahead of us in terms of technology, but they may not be ahead of us in terms of understanding... the exponential effects of this." — Dr. Bhargava [10:40]
Adult Modeling & Parental Example
Adults' device habits strongly shape children's behavior. Research shows device distraction by parents undermines both language and social-emotional development in children.

"... what parents do and what behaviors they show have more impact than anything they say." — Dr. Bhargava [12:25]
Communication and Face-to-Face Time Dr. Bhargava recounts a powerful study: after six weeks at camp, kids deprived of devices became much better at reading facial cues—a crucial social skill.

"The consequences of being on the phone all the time is time lost. Time lost." — Dr. Bhargava [15:06]

The “Nicotine” of Our Generation

Why the Debate Broke Through
The sudden impact of Jonathan Haidt's book, The Anxious Generation, reflects growing mainstream acknowledgment—it's not new data, but rather the collective readiness to take action.

"Timing’s everything... The good news is that we’re actually listening. The good news is that it is a topic of conversation." — Dr. Bhargava [15:37]

School Policy Challenges & Practicalities

Phone Bans and Unintended Consequences
Schools imposing no-phone policies face dilemmas: multi-factor authentication needs, boarding school communications, and emergencies.
- Dr. Bhargava reiterates the dramatic real-world trends in mental health, arguing for a balance—realistic, nuanced, and collaborative solutions between school and family.
"We have to look at the bigger cause here. Like, what is the long term effects on these kids? What's the long term effects on, on your child or teen?" — Dr. Bhargava [18:52]
Content Hazards
The prevalence of accidental exposure to harmful content (notably pornography) even among children as young as 11 or 12 is alarming, highlighting the role of platform algorithms.

"73% of kids between 13 and 17 have seen pornography... and 50% before the age of 13. A lot of them said they accidentally stumbled on that." — Dr. Bhargava [18:52]

Assigning Responsibility & Mimicking Public Health Campaigns

Shared Stakeholder Responsibility
Solutions require a multi-tiered public health approach: peer-to-peer messaging, school policies, and early education.

"It really is a combination of all... you have to start with environments where you can restrict the access. That's schools. And... start educating kids and families when they're younger, when they haven't fallen into this NAT or spider's web of now being addicted to media." — Dr. Bhargava [21:24]
School/Parent Partnership—and Its Limits
School leaders express frustration with the limits of their control—students often use cellular data, not school Wi-Fi, making technical enforcement incomplete.

"I'm happy to partner with parents... But to say that it's all in schools... every once in a while, you need the parents to take that step with you and do all of that work." — Bill Stites [26:26]
Need for Consistent, United Messaging
Without congruent home and school policies, students will slip through the cracks in digital safety, just as with traditional at-risk behaviors.

"A united front in this circumstance equals teachers and parents... if [parents and school aren't] on the same page... that kid's gonna fall through the cracks." — Dr. Bhargava [26:55]

Outcomes: Connecting Tech Use to Academic and Life Success

Linking Device Boundaries & Student Outcomes
Dr. Bhargava highlights research tying excessive device use not just to mental health risks, but also poorer sleep, weaker teacher-student relationships, and ultimately academic struggles and attrition even after college admission.

"It's not just about getting to the Ivy League college... it's actually surviving it. This skill set of being able to navigate socially, emotionally, and academically is super important." — Dr. Bhargava [29:41]

Resources & Next Steps

Tools and Guidance Available She recommends school leaders review resources from the AAP Center of Excellence, where they can find practical recommendations, request speakers or ambassadors, and leverage frameworks for school and parent education.

"If you go to their site, there's definitely resources there, their recommendations of what parents and teachers can do... communication in moving anything forward." — Dr. Bhargava [30:48]
The Need for Student Inclusion

"... if you leave the kids out of this and the AAP talks about this, then again, that's a crack. It has to be united front. I love that." — Dr. Bhargava [31:55]

Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

On the cultural moment:

"It's not 6 degrees of separation anymore, it's less than 1. I mean, it's just really out there." — Dr. Bhargava on youth mental health (18:52)
On family impact:

"The social fabric of families and communities is also falling apart." — Dr. Bhargava (20:24)
The “nicotine of our generation”:

"And I'll just say it, the fact that in some way social media could be the nicotine of our generation." — Dr. Bhargava [15:37]
The power of the united front:

"A united front in this circumstance equals teachers and parents... that's where you need to get to, I think." — Dr. Bhargava [26:55]
On actionable solutions:

"You guys are actually in a great spot because you are independent schools... you’re not waiting for like public policy change to do this. And I think it’s a great time to do that." — Dr. Bhargava [29:08]

Timestamps of Important Segments

[02:52] Dr. Bhargava explains the origins and role of the AAP Center of Excellence
[04:23] Impact of family and school structure on device use and stress
[06:31] Social media’s measurable impact on teen time use, sleep, and mental health
[07:58] The “gateway drug” nature of early digital platforms
[12:25] The impact of adult modeling on student device habits and development
[15:06] The effect of device-free environments on children’s social intelligence
[17:59] Dilemmas and unintended consequences of device restrictions at school
[18:52] Real-life stories from Dr. Bhargava's pediatric practice on rising mental health issues
[21:24] Three-tiered public health solutions (peer, school, family)
[24:19] Practical limits of tech controls within school environments
[29:41] Tying device boundaries to academic and life outcomes
[30:48] Resources and supports from the Center of Excellence

Recommendations & Resources

AAP Center of Excellence on Social Media and Youth Mental Health:
Provides toolkits, recommendations, and school/parent/community guidance
Dr. Hansa Bhargava’s Book: Building Happier Kids
Podcast: Physicianary — features ongoing conversations about health, technology, and parenting

Closing Note

This episode is a must-listen for technology leaders, educators, and parents seeking perspective and actionable frameworks for responding to youth mental health challenges arising from ubiquitous device and social media use. The conversation underscores the urgency of collaborative action, education, and intentionality in technology use—both in the classroom and at home.

Loading summary

Transcript63 lines

[00:01]
A
This episode of Talking Technology with Atlas is sponsored by Aura, a real time attendance platform trusted by leading independent schools nationwide. If you're in it, you know academic attendance systems often leave gaps. Aura helps you ensure teachers take attendance accurately while capturing all the data you need to know where your students are in real time. You get powerful insights with AURA to streamline follow ups and reduce manual work for your team and faculty. In fact, Blackbaud and Veracross schools can set up the Aura SYNC for a free trial of attendance insights and attendance alerts within 30 minutes. To see how it all works and to claim this limited time offer, head to www.aura.com atlas. That's www.orah.com atlis. Welcome to Talking Technology with Atlas, the show that plugs you into the important topics and trends for technology leaders all through a unique independent school lens. We'll hear stories from technology directors and other special guests from the independent school community and provide you with focused learning and deep dive topics. And now, please welcome your host, Christina Llewellyn.
[01:21]
B
Hello everyone and welcome to Talking Technology with Atlas. I'm Christina Llewellyn, the Executive Director of the association of Technology Leaders in Independent Schools.
[01:30]
C
And I am Bill Stites, the Director of Technology at Montclair Kimberley Academy in Montclair, New Jersey.
[01:36]
D
And I'm Hiram Cuevas, Director of Information Systems and academic technology at St. Christopher School in Richmond, Virginia.
[01:43]
B
Hello everyone. Welcome back to the Pod. We're going to kind of jump right into it today because we have a really special guest that is a huge get for our growing fledgling podcast. I met Dr. Hansa Bargava back in the early summer. We were at an event in Washington, D.C. it was a summit on social media and youth mental health. I know, guys. I talked about that a little bit on the POD when I went.
[02:07]
C
Remember that?
[02:08]
B
Yeah, Hiram and Bill, you guys remember, I came back really energized about it. So the idea that Dr. Bhargava is available to speak with us for a few minutes today is just really huge for us. So thank you so much for joining us. Welcome to the podcast and please meet my friends Bill and Hyrum.
[02:23]
E
Hi everyone.
[02:24]
D
Welcome, Welcome.
[02:25]
B
I would like to start with the fact that we met at this event in D.C. and the American Academy of Pediatrics has a grant from the Department of Health and Human Services. And the idea here is that they're looking at the center of excellence that focuses on youth mental health and social media use and all of the complexities that go into that. Dr. Bhargava, how did you get involved in this initiative.
[02:52]
E
Thank you for shedding light on this initiative. It's so important, especially today. We know that the youth mental health crisis is not only a real thing, but it has been getting worse over the last decade, and there's plenty of studies to show that, but also that it's actually linked to social media. And the Surgeon General has come out with statements about that very recently, and there's really very little doubt that there has been a direct correlation of youth mental health issues and social media and actually increased usage of cell phones. So the center of Excellence basically was established by the American Academy of Pediatrics to help address this issue. They realized that this was an important area because so many of children and adolescents are affected and. And they wanted to guide in those areas. I personally was involved with the Executive Council on Media and Communications for many, many years, and I wrote a book on building happier kids, which actually was a holistic approach to parenting, including looking at them from a mental and emotional wellness perspective, as well as understanding the impact that media can have on the children's health as well as parenting. So I was involved with all of that. And then when they established this, I was asked to be one of the subject matter experts. And I'm honored to have that role because it's such an important issue and
[04:23]
B
you've built your career as a pediatrician, so I would imagine that you've seen some shifts, you've seen some changes that also led you to feel called to be involved in this kind of work.
[04:35]
E
Exactly. So one of the reasons I wrote that book was actually not just what I had seen as a pediatrician, but I'm also a mom of twins. And, you know, when my kids were in fifth and sixth and seventh grade, I started seeing how stressed out they were. They call it Generation Z, I think. And that stress is throughout many, many families. So that was one of the areas that I was really, really concerned about. I think that in the last decade or so, the use of cell phones, and that even by itself, forget social media, taking away from really important structural family interactions, and even at schools, teacher student interactions has been really impactful in a negative way.
[05:23]
B
And I think we see that a lot in our schools. Most of our listeners represent the independent K12 community. And with some exceptions, there are always different ways to meet the mission in terms of educating our young people. But for the most part, many of these parents are sending their kids to these schools with an expectation of certain outcomes. And that naturally does put a lot of pressure on kids to perform Academically, maybe in sports. And then you throw into the mix just being a kid and all these issues with social media. It's almost like the perfect storm and it makes it really challenging for kids. Why do you think that it's important with the center of Excellence work focusing in specifically on social media? Can you speak a little bit about the impact there or why is that the thing that really is kind of the silver bullet? Like there is a very direct correlation between social media use and teen mental health. Like, it's a good thing to talk about and drill into, but at the same time, is that the low hanging fruit? Is it just the most obvious answer? Is it something that we can have any impact on?
[06:32]
E
Yeah, great questions, Christina. Look, I think that the reason they're focused, hyper focused on this is because it is definitely, as I said, a huge association of the mental health trajectory and cell phone use. 2007 was when smartphone was first introduced. 2012, 2013 is when social media kind of had its uptick. And now we're in 2024. And over the last decade, you can see the uptick with the mental health issues. If you look at surveys in 2023, 51% of teens are using social media for more than four hours a day. How do you find four hours a day to use social media? When you go to school, right, and you have homework, these are teens, so they're high school level homework and probably athletics and everything else that's thrown in. So what that means to me is that basically those four hours are taken away from those super important interactions that should happen between teens and their friends, teens and their families, teens and you know, authorities, teachers, coaches. So it's gotta be taken away from that. And you can see that happening or it's intruding on sleep. And you can see the issues that are happening in sleep too. So there's a lot of issues that social media does other than just anxiety and depression. I say that tongue in cheek because obviously anxiety and depression are huge issues that our youth are struggling with.
[07:58]
D
What's interesting to me is this conversation is revolving around social media and cell phones. And I'm curious to see what your opinion is on what I'm calling the gateway drug to social media for our youngest users of social media. I'm thinking of Roblox, for example, Club Penguin, Hot Wheels, Wizards 101. All of these applications that parents inadvertently provide their children with and have little to no understanding at some of the detrimental impacts. Those applications start at a very young age.
[08:35]
E
Yeah, no, I think That's a really good point. And what you said is absolutely correct. Parents have little awareness of this. They are not doing this on purpose. It is also the fact that there's more and more social pressure on parents to get the smart device at an earlier and earlier age. I mean, a Large proportion of 8 year olds have that device now. And I think that the gateway. Sure, but there's so much information that is being thrown at parents right now that how can they possibly keep up with all of the things that are out there? I mean, industry always has a head start in front of schools, in front of parents, in front of. Right. Policy and regulations, and it's very hard to fill that gap. So that's, I think, what we're struggling with as a society that, you know. Yes, there's a lot of new things that are out there. And the last statistic I read is at least a third of parents are parenting on their own. They are single parents, or it might be a grandmother who's taking care of kids or they're struggling with two jobs and just trying to put food on the table. Of course, quarter of parents cannot put enough food on the table for their kids. I mean, that's a real statistic. The inequities that are the parental burden adds to this whole perfect storm. And industry, I'm sorry, like I shouldn't say this, but industry has time and resources which parents don't have.
[09:59]
B
Yeah, absolutely. What was really interesting to me is that when we were gathered in D.C. for the summit where you and I met, there were a lot of kids involved, a lot of teenagers, mostly high schoolers, I think, and they were serving shoulder to shoulder in these conversations. They were peers in the conversation, talking about their own habits and the pressures that they feel. It was really impressive. At least I was really impressed with these young people who were talking about the challenges that they're facing when it comes to pressure and social media use. Do you think that kids are ahead of us on this or do we still need to take an active hand on the problem and do something about it?
[10:41]
E
Well, I think one of the things that the AAP center for Excellence has done really well is to bring in the kids and get their opinions. I mean, you can't really make recommendations without actually having the user there to tell you about that. So I think it's really smart. I think the other area we should potentially investigate is how parents are feeling about this. Right. And how parents are using social media. And there's been some articles coming out on that as well, so no, I think it's great the way that they're doing that. Are the kids ahead of us? They'll always be ahead of us in terms of technology, but they may not be ahead of us in terms of understanding and having the insights and wisdom around the exponential effects of this. So I think that it's kind of both. And that's what we're trying to do at the ap, you know, trying to get it from the kids point of view, but also having the authorities and the experts there, there to kind of look at policy and regs.
[11:34]
C
So one of the areas that I'm really curious about is Hiram mentioned the gateway drug. I want to talk about how children view this as acceptable use and where does this normally start? And I look to whether that's the teacher or the parent as the model for this. And in terms of taking an inward look at how we're using, whether it be social media or our phones, in front of our children and with our children and what type of message that is sending. So what type of work are either you doing or do you see going on around talking to adults about how they're modeling this behavior and what they need to do to address their own use, particularly when that's in front of children, when it's in the home, when it's in these times, when it really should be the face to face dialogues. How do you speak to them about that?
[12:25]
E
That's a great point. And it's a huge factor what parents do and what behaviors they show have more impact than anything they say. And we know this across the board. So, you know, parental involvement with social media, parental involvement with cell phone use has been also exponential. It's been increasing. And you can see there's been some great studies done from some of the leads over at the center of Excellence, including Jenny Radesky, where, you know, they looked at parents and parental behavior when parents walked into restaurants and when they walked into restaurants, how they would basically just like. And this happens, you see it, people sit down, the family sits down and everyone pulls out their device, right? So there's no interaction happening at all. But if those little ones, even before they have their cell phones and they have iPads or they don't have iPads, are seeing their parents just looking at the device all the time. That's definitely something that they kind of integrate in their heads. The other thing is that these devices are actually taking away from some of the super important developmental aspect of conversation. So conversation for younger kids is crucial for language development. But Also for social emotional development, too, right? Reading facial expressions. And this study was really interesting. It was done, I think, four or five years back. I actually pulled it into my book. But it was a study on middle school kids who were on social media. They were on their phones a lot, and they showed these middle school kids. They divided them two groups. They showed them all these facial expressions. They asked them, is this person happy, sad, angry, surprised, whatever it is. And the kids did terribly on these assessments. So I took one group and sent them away to a camp for six weeks where they're outdoors, they were just flying with each other, they were boating, they were camping, all this stuff. And the other group basically was told about social media and sent home. And then they brought them back to look at that test again of facial expressions. And lo and behold, the group that had been away from their devices now could actually understand what surprised, happy, all of that is. So that is such a huge skill to be able to understand. Like, I'm looking at Christina right now. I see she's completely engaged. I hope you are, Christina. I'm joking. But, you know, you look at a person and you know, whether they're engaged, whether they're happy, whether they're depressed or so important in so many facets of our life, not just professionally, but even more importantly in our relationships. Right. How do you build a relationship with someone, whether they're in the family or external or a partner, if you can't figure out what they're thinking? And so the consequences of being on the phone all the time is time lost. Time lost.
[15:06]
B
You know, it's interesting that we have just gotten to this place where this conversation is more prevalent, and it's certainly gotten a lot of media attention, primarily because of Haidt's book, the Anxious Generation. That's, at least in our circles, it's like, what everyone is talking about. And yet this has been an issue. This is data that we have had for some time. Why do you think that book cut through? Why is that getting our attention when we have had some of this data for a really long time? What are your thoughts on that?
[15:37]
E
Yeah, good question, Christiana. His book is not the. I mean, he wrote a great book, there's no doubt about it. But there's several books that came out, like, in the last five to 10 years on this exact subject. Right. When I was writing my book, and that was. I started writing about four years ago, and I had this conversation with an expert on social media and mental health. And I said to him, I'm like, In my book I want to talk about, you know, the dopamine response and also like the fact that, and I'll just say it, the fact that in some way social media could be the nicotine of our generation. And he was like, oh, you can't do that. There's just not enough proof. So going back to your question, Christina, unfortunately, what happens, and I see this in medical issues as well, you get a case study, you get a few small study, then you get a large study, then you get meta analysis. And then finally like everyone's like, oh my God, there is something happening here. And I think his book timing's everything and it doesn't even matter. Like that's great, that time's everything. But the good news is that we're actually listening. The good news is that it is a topic of conversation.
[16:39]
B
And so now that it certainly has taken our community by storm, whether it was the luck of the draw on that, that finally it was the right timing, the right message at the right time, that message is out. So now I would love to give you some space to help our listeners because I think that a lot of schools are now putting up the pockets on the door, putting the phones away, but then it creates other sometimes unintentional consequences, right? Where like to protect the student data infrastructure, the kids need multi factor codes on their phones, but they don't have phones. We were just talking a few days ago, Hiram was getting students ready for standardized testing and you know, be able to log into these systems where they take their PSATs if they don't have the multi factor authentication on their phones, it creates some challenges. There are boarding schools in our community where parents don't even live in the same country. They wanna be able to reach their students. There could be emergency situation, all of those arguments, right? So given that we have both the irrefutable, I would say proof or indicators that this is the nicotine of our generation and combined with the fact that we are living in today's world, what kind of guidance are you giving? If people come to you and say, look, from your perspective representing kind of the pediatric health and well being perspective, where do we land on this?
[17:59]
E
Look, I mean, Christina, whenever you want to change culture, there's always going to be issues, especially with this, like I liken it. And I've had these conversations with parents where they're like, I need to take the phone away. The other thing I'll just point out, like in the last five, six years, as we are kind of leading up to this moment, in time, I was also seeing, literally in my own practice, in my own friends and family circles, this uptick of, you know, Hansa, can you tell me, like, my daughter is so depressed she missed three weeks of school, or, you know, our neighbor's son tried to commit suicide. Like, these are so real. Like, I've been a board certified pediatrician for about 18, 19 years and I can just tell you that the last three or four years, the number of people I was hearing about having this issue was really astronomical numbers.
[18:50]
B
That must feel overwhelming to you.
[18:52]
E
It's totally overwhelming. I totally agree with you. Like, it's not 6 degrees of separation anymore, it's less than 1. I mean, it's just really out there. And the thing is, I think even the mental health surveys that are coming out, I bet you they're under reporting not everyone is going to talk about their anxious or depressed or suicidal child. They're just not. And that's because of stigma. And we're overcoming that mental health stigma for sure. But that's a process. So going back to your question, yes, I understand that parents are going to be hesitant and certainly the international parents will be, and certainly the parents who want to know where their child is at all moments of the day will be. I understand that, I'm a parent myself, but we have to look at the bigger cause here. Like, what is the long term effects on these kids? What's the long term effects on, on your child or teen? Again, there's so much I could say about how. I mean, there was a study done by the Common Sense media which looked at pornography and exposure. 73% of kids between 13 and 17 have seen pornography. 73%, no joke. Three out of four and 50% before the age of 13. And a lot of them said they accidentally stumbled on that. And you know what, I'll tell you, like, my daughter, when she was 11 or 12, accidentally stumbled on that. She was into Minecraft and she looked at Minecraft babies and all of a sudden all these like, oh, no. But this is what happens. Right?
[20:21]
B
So innocent.
[20:22]
D
Yeah. There's a big issue on Roblox as well.
[20:24]
E
Yeah, I mean, she came to me and she told me, thankfully. Yeah, we talked about it. And so it's just the algorithms. And since the audience is tech, I'll just say that the algorithms that push these kids down rabbit holes because they accidentally stumble on something. Because the next thing that kid's going to do is like, oh, what's this? Click, click, click. And so the hazards of this, I'm Sorry is like the nicotine example. I will stand by that example. And so now we all have to kind of come in and say, you know what? Yeah, it's totally integrated into our culture, everything's dependent on it. But we've got to figure out a way to protect our kids and to protect our families, actually, because the family, the social fabric of families and communities is also falling apart.
[21:12]
B
So if we stick with your nicotine example, where does the responsibility lie? Is it the social media companies? Is it the schools? Is it the parents? Is it some kind of combination of all? What do you think about that?
[21:24]
E
It really is a combination of all, Christina. I'll tell you it's interesting. I had a great conversation with my nephew who is a first year college student. We talked about social media, we talked about, you know, all these issues. So I asked him because I was like, hey, you're the generation, like, how would you approach this public health crisis? What would you do? And I thought his answer was amazing, actually, because he said, I would address it. Like all these other public health campaigns that have been successful. One of them was actually drunk driving. It's interesting. I mean, these kids and I have two teens, like I know a lot of families with teens and gram students and they don't drink and drive, period. End of story. So we were incredibly successful, incredibly successful. And so going back to my nephew, I asked him, he's like, well, I would take a three tier approach. He says. And I was like, oh, okay, why should. Tell me about that. Three tier approaches. And he says, well, first of all, it can't just be authorities talking to kids about this. It has to be our own generation. Because I'm not going to listen to somebody who is older than me. I want to listen to someone who looks like me and talks like me. So that's one. Number two is he's like, restricted access. You have to start with environments where you can restrict the access. That's schools. And then number three was again striking early. You start educating kids and families when they're younger, when they haven't fallen into this NAT or spider's web of now being addicted to media. So I thought it was a really interesting answer.
[22:58]
C
One question I have for you. The second thing you said there was restricted access. I want to just dig in on that for just one second because one of the things that we've struggled with here at our school is that we give every kid a device. And parents, they're always wondering, like, what are you blocking on the device? How can we stop Stuff on the device, so on and so forth. And what level of access do kids have on the device? So we look at it from that device perspective. But when it comes to the cell phones, when it comes to social media, when it comes to a lot of those things, our ability in the school to restrict access within the building is very limited because we don't own the device. It's not tied to our network. It's really outside of our control. Other than what Christina was talking about earlier, where kids. There are certain policies, usage policies within the school where they have to come in and they have to put it in like a storage caddy or locked away or it needs to go in there. So when you say that the schools need to take on some of that burden of restricting access, at what level are you describing there? Because often it's a challenge for me in my job as the director of technology to say, how do we restrict access to these social media platforms? Sometimes I have nothing to offer.
[24:20]
E
Yeah, great question. I do think that, I mean, the weight, responsibility actually lies in the parents and the schools. And to get the parents engaged, I think you kind of have to do the grassroots efforts of actually having a lot of education around the hazards, first of all, and I talked a little bit about that. So collaborative efforts of like continuous education definitely can have behavioral change. But specifically, Bill, putting those phones into pockets during school hours so that they aren't looking at the phones during classes is a great first step. What I thought was interesting when I was just looking up some studies prior to jumping on this call was that eight states right now have passed laws restricting cell phone access public schools, right. And there's a lot that have it in legislation. But the state of Florida actually blocks social media and district WI fi. Did you know that? So interesting. Right? And they have a digital literacy education program starting in sixth grade. So again, education and policy. And my kids went to independent schools. And so I have a little bit of insight into that. You know, could you actually block social media sites 100%?
[25:28]
C
And that's what we can do. Like that's the step we can do. But as soon as you put the cell phone in the student's hands, that device is usually not on the school's WI fi.
[25:39]
B
They turn off the WI fi and they use their data.
[25:42]
C
They use it as if they're just walking down the street. So we can do all of this work to secure our environment. Right. So that they can't access it. But normally I'm not putting a student's phone on Our WI fi, because I'm only putting like the device, the laptop or the tablet that they need in order to do the schoolwork, and I can block access on that. But as soon as you take this out of your pocket, that's when everything kind of falls apart. And that's what I think the struggle is. You talk about the education aspects of it between the school and the parents. That's one of the initial hurdles that we need to get over. We can do all of this work, but the fact that your child has this in their pocket and this can connect to any network.
[26:26]
E
Yes.
[26:27]
C
That's where our abilities kind of fall short. So I'm happy to partner with parents. I'm happy to put together education around that and in support of that to let parents know what's going on. But to say that it's all in schools, and I come from a family of educators where I've seen all sorts of social and different issues saying that the schools need to step up, the schools need to step up, the schools need to step up. Every once in a while, you need the parents to take that step with you and do all of that work.
[26:55]
E
Bill, I could not agree with you more. I couldn't. It has to be a multi tiered approach. It has to be. And the only thing I would say is that I really do think that the parents somehow need to be educated around this issue so that they collaborate with the schools. The partnership is between the parents and schools. I would compare it to parents who are separated or divorced or not even separate, divorce. They're still on the same marriage, but if they're not on the same page about things to do with driving or drinking or partying or whatever it is, or drugs. Like, you know, one parent is saying, oh, yeah, like it's fine for you to do cocaine. And the other parent's like, no, don't do cocaine. That kid's gonna fall through the cracks. That's a crack. That's a crack. So united front in this circumstance equals teachers and parents. I mean, school admin and parents. And that is where you need to get to, I think.
[27:48]
D
Yeah. And sometimes it's those one on one conversations you have with parents to enlighten them on certain situations. I had a parent call me and said, my son's done social media during the school day. I thought you guys were blocking social media. And I said, we do, but does your son have a smartphone? And she was like, oh, yes. And then the other piece that parents often forget, like, with these plans, is they will often have hotspots associated with these smartphones, and then they just open up the hotspot and then multiple students are now connected to these devices and you're no longer in that walled garden of the school network protecting them from that kind of access. But yes, when it comes to at risk behaviors, which is you gave a litany of a variety of them, this is just the first of many conversations schools and parents with their children will be having.
[28:40]
E
And I honestly think that this is a big enough issue that it should be in that grouping of litany of behaviors. It should be. And just like we approach, like, what do we do to protect kids from all of those things that I just talked about? We have education for the kids, we have education for the parents. So education for the kids and parents. This topic is essential to be integrated. And you guys are actually in a great spot because you are independent schools. You're not waiting for like public policy change to do this.
[29:09]
B
That's right.
[29:10]
E
And I think it's a great time to do that. The other thing I would say is because my kids went to independent schools, I know a lot of the parents, and maybe I'm overstating, but a lot of the parents or some of the parents that I knew were sending their kids to independent school so they had better success at college. Right. So if that is their reason for sending the kids to school. Well, how do you tie this thread into academic success? And there's a ton of research and literature to show that. Okay, because it affects sleep.
[29:40]
B
Very interesting.
[29:41]
E
It affects the teacher student relationship, it affects learning, it affects emotional maturity, and those are crucial in academic success. And it's not just about getting to the Ivy League college, because I know a lot of these parents want that, but it's also surviving. There's a lot of kids, like, I haven't seen the colleges report this yet. And maybe there's literatures out there. There's a lot of kids who fall out in the first year. So it's not just getting there, it's actually surviving it. And this skill set of being able to navigate socially, emotionally, and academically is super important. So why would they want something to stand in that way?
[30:16]
B
Oh my gosh, that's a wonderful aha moment. Let's tie this thing to outcomes. Oh, my goodness. That's impressive. That's a wonderful, wonderful thought path that we will walk down at another time. But I do want to touch on the fact before I let you go, that the center of excellence has resources and tools. I know you're A proponent and an outspoken supporter of some of those tools. Anything in particular that you really like that you would point our technology directors to go learn a little bit more about, because there's a lot of great resources there if they're struggling to try to pull this information together.
[30:49]
E
Yeah. So I would say that if you go to their site, there's definitely resources there, their recommendations of what parents and teachers can do. So that's a great opportunity. The second opportunity is that we do send ambassadors. I was just asked to go and speak to Wake Forest for Grand Rounds. We definitely come out to schools and talk, and I've done a lot of talks at schools about this topic. And lastly, I would say that one of the things that they talk about and should be mentioned is the issue of communication in moving anything forward. So that's between parents and teachers. But also parents should also realize that what's really golden in their relationship as the kids grow is communication. So they should be encouraged to communicate about this and get on board with this and make sure that kids actually are active collaborators in this as well. Like, we can do parents and teachers, and we can do parents and school leadership, but if you leave the kids out of this and the AAP talks about this, then again, that's a crack. It has to be united front. I love that.
[31:55]
B
Dr. Bhargava, from the minute that I met you, I loved your energy and I love spending time with you. I would keep you all day if I could. But if people are also picking up on this delicious, wonderful, soulful energy that you have and want to get to know you better, can you please tell everybody the name of your book? But you also have a podcast.
[32:11]
E
Yeah, I do. So my book is called Building Happier Kids. So I would encourage that. The second thing, the podcast is called Physicianary. That's basically to talk about issues like this. And we will be having Jenny Radisky coming also on that podcast from the ap, but talking about, you know, these really, really important issues of our time. Lastly, you can always find me on social media. I'm on LinkedIn. I'm on Instagram, Dr. Hansa, MD. I'm on Twitter, or I should say x. Hansa Bhargava md. So I would love to hear from you. Any feedback that you have, any questions. And this is. I'm really passionate about this as a pediatrician and an educator and most importantly, a parent.
[32:56]
B
Well, we can definitely tell now we didn't go through all of the niceties of our podcast because I know that your time is precious. But we generally do ask our guests, what's your coffee drink?
[33:06]
E
Oh, wow.
[33:07]
B
I mean, I know you're a doctor, but you gotta have caffeine, right? How do you survive your days?
[33:12]
E
Oh, my God. Every single day. I can't survive without. Oops, I'm not supposed to say that. No, I don't need a caffeine drip latte. My favorite is boring. An oat milk latte. I usually need a cookie with that too.
[33:27]
B
Oh, yes. I can get behind this whole thing. I'm allergic to gluten, but if I can get a gluten free cookie.
[33:33]
D
Lemon bar. Lemon bar.
[33:35]
C
Lemon bar. Yes, we agree on something, Hyam. Lemon bar.
[33:39]
E
I like lemon bars. They're awesome. And chocolate covered almonds too.
[33:43]
C
Ooh, there you go. Chocolate covered espresso beans.
[33:47]
D
Yeah. Now you're cooking.
[33:49]
B
Double dipping. All right, now we have the perfect break. Everybody go out and get something to snack on. We are so grateful for your time. Please feel free to come back anytime. Anytime you have something shaking that touches our kids in our schools, you have an open invite to come back to our podcast. We are incredibly grateful that you made the time for us, and we look forward to talking to you again in the near future.
[34:09]
E
Thank you, Christina. It's been a pleasure.
[34:13]
A
This has been talking technology with atlas, produced by the association of Technology Leaders in Independent Schools. For more information about ATLAS and ATLAS membership, please visit theatlas.org if you enjoyed this discussion, please subscribe, leave a review and share this podcast with your colleagues in the independent school community. Thank you for listening.