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- [00:01]
A
Hello and welcome to the Tech Dirt Podcast. I'm Mike Masnick.
- [00:06]
B
The world is increasingly technological, so we had better get methodical bringing precision to critical digital journalism with the singular vision of a modern monocle Stopping the copyright police for pulling the wall on us, painting and taking on all the blatant pay to troll Document the ways that they aim to take control, scrutinize and do their lives and make them fold. If we don't stand up to them, someone will get huh to grab a shovel and dig up the tear. If we don't stand up to them, someone will get huh to grab a sh
- [00:34]
A
we are having a bit of an accidental three part series here on the Tech Dirt Podcast, which was not exactly planned, but actually worked out pretty well thematically. Though I do promise that next week's podcast will be on a somewhat different topic. Two weeks ago we had on Professor Alice Marwick, an expert on the sociological role of social media in the life of students and children, talking about how the various proposed legislation proposals out there for protecting child safety online were misguided and could actually be fairly harmful to many kids. Last week we had Professor Candice Odgers, a psychology professor and researcher who is one of the foremost experts on studying the intersection of teen mental health and social media and who has been trying, I'd say, somewhat desperately to let people know that the public narrative is perhaps a bit misleading. And that was a fun discussion. I hope that you listen to both of those discussions and if not, please go back and take a listen, because I think they are both really worthwhile conversations and really understanding this space and also really a good setup for the conversation that we are about to have this week. And that is whenever I have these kinds of discussions and point to things like the the research that Professor Aers talks about or the potential harms of certain legal interventions that Professor Marwick talked about, people still come back to me with a demand about we need to do something. And often that's framed at the more micro rather than macro level of what can I do for my family, how do I deal with this issue for my children? And you know, larger stats and aggregate data is one thing, but that doesn't change the fact that my kids spend too much time on their phones or on social media media and I need to know how to deal with that. Just last week the Surgeon General of the US Came up with part of his solution, I guess, which is to add a Surgeon General's warning to social media, claiming that social media can be harmful to teens and this is despite, as we discussed last week, that the evidence not really showing that social media is inherently harmful to teens, though there's a lot of nuance in there, as we discussed. Rather, it's, you know, as noted, it shows a fairly complex picture where many kids clearly benefit from social media and some kids have trouble with it. And understanding those differences and nuances is a really important thing. So this week we have on an expert who can hopefully help people better answer some of the what can we do? Question. And that is Dr. Devorah Heitner, who is an expert on kids and technology and the author of two excellent books on that subject, Screenwise, Helping Kids Thrive and Survive in Their Digital World, and the more recent Growing up in Public, Coming of Age in a Digital World. So welcome to the podcast.
- [03:38]
C
Thank you.
- [03:39]
A
So let's start just by getting this part out of the way, but because it's in the news, I'm wondering what is your take on the Surgeon General's idea to put a warning on social media?
- [03:53]
C
I think it's is very limited and I think there's just a sense of we gotta do something and this is, you know, cheap, and we can do it. Although I don't even really understand if it's. What is it when you enroll and when you register, you know, a new app, would it be every single time you use the app? How frequently would it come up? I know Colorado and some other states have proposed interventions like if you're on the app late at night that it'll remind you to go to bed, that kind of thing. So there's all kinds of ideas of these behavioral sort of nudges. And to be fair, the social apps already are filled with behavioral nudges. You know, like this photo that putting this in your algorithm or not. So it's not like I'm like, oh, no, we're being manipulated. Like, we're already being manipulated. Like, you know, that's already happening when we're using these apps. I mean, what I said to another media space is if we want them to be really good behavioral manipulations, instead of the Surgeon General's office designing them like Meta or Snapchat or TikTok should design their own warning labels because of course, they would do a really good job.
- [04:58]
A
Like their people, they have a better sense of what would actually work and what would make a difference.
- [05:04]
C
Yeah, because they have all this data on what people click on and what they ignore. We know that actually TikTok has some warnings already. Right. And kids and young people kind of make fun of those. So, so big picture, I think it's a bit of a kind of quick and cheap. We said we're doing something, parents feel like we need to do something and so let's do this. And it's confusing in a lot of ways because of course cigarettes are actually harmful to your health. They are actually made of an addictive substance that is physically addicting. And social media is not universally harmful by any means. Most of us experience both benefits and risks every time we use social media. So there's upsides and downsides. Some people would say mostly upside or mostly neutral. A few people could certainly point to more harmful experiences. So I would hope that if there are labels that they would say more specific things like staying up all night scrolling is going to really wreck your day at school tomorrow is like, that is a true fact. Right? You will feel bad if you don't sleep. You know, social comparison, like if social comparison is bringing you down, you probably want to do some self talk around that or find some other ways to engage or if you're seeing something that's making you feel left out, it might be helpful to think about something you are looking forward to. So there's sort of the cognitive behavioral strategies that you can tell. I've been to a lot of therapy over my lifetime that I think might actually be helpful. But just saying this is going to make you feel bad isn't true and it undermines the credibility of whoever's saying that. And just as a parent, I know when I say to my 15 year old if I radically overstate the harm or the risk in something, right, Everything has some risk. You know, boiling pasta, boiling water for pasta has some risk. Do I want my 15 year old to make his own pasta instead of bugging me to do it? Of course. Right?
- [07:07]
A
Yes. Yeah, yeah. So I mean, again, like as I said in the intro, you know, one of the questions that always comes up and for good reason though, is that, you know, I think parents are confused and worried and, you know, not always sure of what is, what is the best way to deal with their kids and how they're using social media and smartphones and things like that. And so I know, like you've written two whole books on it, so like you're not going to be able to summarize that in like one paragraph or whatever. But what is your sort of general starter advice for. For parents and adults thinking about this, this topic?
- [07:49]
C
My core piece of standing on one foot advice is mentoring over monitoring. We want to teach kids how to make decisions in these spaces, including when to walk away. Walking away from a really toxic group text, you know, unfollowing a YouTube channel where the comments really toxic. Right. There are definitely situations that, that are good to walk away from and talking about that with kids, anticipating situations before kids are in them to some degree. Before your kid starts texting, you know, what are some conversations you can have about some pretty common things that can go wrong, pretty typical misunderstandings that you can then kind of rehearse and game out. It's not going to prevent every problem or misstep or etiquette failure on your kid's part, but just to get ready and also for you as the adult and caregiver to see where is my kid more likely to struggle? Do I have a kid who easily feels wounded and left out, you know, at every turn? Is that a kid who maybe I would start them kind of slow on social media because social media can exacerbate that vibe. Yes. Right. I would, I would definitely wade in slowly with that kid. If you have a kid who's a social butterfly, talking to them about how to keep your contacts more limited at first because they're going to feel like it's rude to say no and they're just going to want to yes everybody and maybe that's not what you want them do to, to do initially and that's not what. Or they, they may need some scripting and language. How can I say to my friends I can't play Minecraft after 8 o', clock, right. So that they don't worry that the friends will be mad. And so a lot of what we want to do is, is teach kids. There's other human beings on the other end of these screen based interactions and if it feels bad, take a break. And if you're not sure what to do, you can always take a break. Like if in doubt, don't share it out. Is another thing I'll say to kids about social media. Like, if you're not sure if this should be public, if you're not sure that this will be a good look for you later, if you're not sure if it's funny or mean, if in doubt, wait a little bit, right? It's always better to pause and think, should I share this? Maybe I shouldn't. If in doubt, maybe don't.
- [09:47]
A
Yeah, I mean it strikes me and this is, this is the conversation I've been having with a lot of people, some of whom get angry with me when I, when I suggest this. But like I think I agree with you and your take on it. And part of my thinking on it is that it's important to train kids to understand the technology and how to use it wisely rather than denying it entirely. It feels like there's a big push and this is coming from a bunch of different avenues right now that I feel is potentially extremely counterproductive, where the whole idea is effectively prohibition or just say no kind of a approach to things that kids are not going to react well to. And it's also not that helpful if you, you know, it's, it's. And obviously as we discussed in the past on last week's episode, like, you know, different kids are different in different situations, different social media is different. Like there's no like universal thing. But the idea that, that kids should not use this technology and then with no training, when they turn 18 or 16 or whatever the number might be, suddenly set them loose on it. I fear that that is a more problematic approach than exactly what you were talking about. Like, let's have a conversation about how do you use this wisely? How do you recognize you are going to come across some things that you might not like or might not be pleasant, or might not make you feel good and learn how to deal with that. That feels to me like a better, more productive approach. But you're the expert.
- [11:24]
C
Well, it gives you a lot more opportunity to be in the conversation. Before, I mean, I left home at 16, but like, you know, even if you're going to leave home at 17 or 18, that's still one foot out the door. Parental authority is really diminished at that point developmentally. And so if you want to have, like, if you want to be talking about this with your kids while they're still kind of more developmentally compliant, frankly, and interested in what you think in an open way. Because 16 year olds still care like crazy what their parents think, but they can't really acknowledge or admit that just developmentally it's not safe. Right. They actually still very much care what you think of them. But a 12 year old, an 11 year old is going to listen to what you say in a different way and your esteem is going to be more directly still just developmentally important to them. And so it's really a good time even if you don't let your kid start before 13, because I know about Copa, but like, even if you're starting to talk to them about your own social media or if you're talking to them about the other digital communities, kids are a part of one of the things that really frustrates me about the current kind of moral panic is people are talking about social media. They're not defining their terms. Most kids are part of online communities starting from second grade with Roblox, maybe even earlier. And that's the time to start talking about digital interactions. I have so many parents telling me very kind of smugly sometimes, like, I'm waiting till 8th, and I'm like, oh, what's your kid doing right now? And they're like, oh, they're home talking to random people they don't know on Roblox. And I'm like, you are not waiting for anything. If your kid is in an online community, they need mentorship.
- [12:51]
B
Yes.
- [12:51]
C
And I'm not saying Roblox is bad. I'm just like, what does it mean to be waiting till 8th if your kid is in, like, five online communities on your personal home computer?
- [13:00]
A
Yeah, yeah. And I, again, I sort of mentioned this last week, but I think is actually, you know, valuable to think about, which is, you know, there was this story, and this is from a few years ago, about a school that had banned social media but was using, like, Google Docs for all, like, homework and stuff. People were doing it all on Google Docs, and the kids very quickly realized that they could use comments on Google Docs to effectively recreate their own social media, you know, way of communicating with other students, which is, you know, people like to communicate. Kids like to communicate, and they will figure out ways to do so even if you say that you're, you're blocking and there's all sorts of ways to do that. And, you know, again, I, I mean, I think you're exactly right. Like, we should teach kids, you know, how to do that appropriately, how to be, you know, good friends, good citizens in whatever kinds of, you know, Internet interactions that they're. They're having. And I fear that a lot of the, the moral panic is sort of suggesting that there's, there's some sort of, like, prohibition approach that will work. And, and I, I don't. I don't think that actually does work.
- [14:08]
C
So for some kids, if you build a wall, they're just going to be like, how many minutes does it take me to scale this week's wall before I make a video for other kids about how to do it and put it on YouTube. Right. So this is like how kids get around the parental control holes, et cetera. And, but even more so, I think it's also a real safety issue for some kids where if you're locking Some kids out, kids who are less tech savvy or say kids who only have the school Chromebook or they have less access to tech and there still are kids who are kind of on that side of the digital divide. And you say you can't access these public networks, whatever it is, like Snapchat or Instagram, then you're really adding an extra layer of marginalization and isolation to queer kids. You're adding an extra layer for kids who are, you know, don't have parents. I mean, one of the things that really scared me about the parental consent laws in Texas, Utah, Ohio, tried to pass one, it just got overturned, is not every kid has parents, let alone awesome parents that are in their corner teaching them and supporting them and saying, I love you for who you are and you're the best. Hopefully most kids have someone like that in their lives, but we definitely all know kids who don't or didn't have that. What do you say to the kid who's in the group home or the foster experience or just has a difficult relationship with their own family if they need parental consent to get access to community? Yeah, so I'm really troubled by that. And I also think, for example, high schools are really lovely multi age communities. Right. And so if you age gate a community in high school, like my kid is on the cross country Snapchat and that's like the main way he uses Snapchat. Like, I'm not gonna lie, my kid's not a big Snapchat user, he's not a huge fan, but he's on the cross country Snapchat and he's 15. If that was age gated to only have the juniors and seniors, then the freshmen and sophomores wouldn't be on it and it would shut down. This whole way that I think is really positive and I remember really fondly from high school. One of the best things about high school really was having this multi age community where I could learn things about life from my older friends who had jobs. And I went into New York City for the first time my freshman year of high school. I was a suburban Connecticut kid with a friend who was a senior and she was like, of course we're going to take the train and go to the city. And you want your kid to know those slightly older kids. To me that's, I know some parents are like, no, I don't. That sounds bad. But I'm like, yes, I do want that. And to me, if you age gate all the social apps, you're cutting that off.
- [16:34]
A
Yeah, yeah, no, I think it is a really big concern. I do. I mean, for parents who are trying to understand this, like, it's, it's easy to be overwhelmed. Right. And, and, and again, like, I'm not, we're not, not trying to repeat everything that, that was said last week, but one of the things that we discussed on the podcast last week was that a lot of parents think that kids in social media is like Facebook or Twitter because that's more the adult social media experience. And the reality is, as we've already discussed a little bit, that is not generally the kids experience. They're doing things like Roblox and Discord and, you know, maybe some TikTok and other things. And it's a, it's a different style of experience. And I think that is partly confusing and a little bit scary for some parents. So in, in terms of what it is that parents should be aware of, you know, beyond just like, you know, having conversations with the kids, being open with them and sort of, you know, as we noted already, you know, effectively preparing them to understand, you know, how to deal with, with situations, what I, you know, one of the things that certainly comes up a lot is like, what, what should they be aware of? What should they be on the lookout for?
- [17:52]
C
To some extent, I talk a lot about algorithmic literacy, especially with more like mid teens. Like the early years are really about playing nice and learning how to manage conflict, learning how to deal with exclusion, right? And these are the group texting years. And I'm going to say this is like 10 and up for a lot of kids that I talk to because it really starts with the group texts and be like the fifth or the sixth grade group text. And then as kids get older, they're learning a lot about the world. We're in an election year. There's already a ton of content on YouTube, for example. A lot of kids are being socialized and educated and really deeply influenced, I would say, by folks out there in the political sphere talking about this stuff. And some of it is humorous. But then you'll see memes that are, they kind of are funny, they're kind of edgy, but some of them are also maybe cruel or misogynist or homophobic or xenophobic or racist. And this is where I will talk with kids a lot about. Kids will say they're hate watching something, right? Oh, I'm, you know, I'm watching Andrew Tate to hate watch, for example. I don't agree with it. I hate it. But I just want to like, make Fun of it because it's so gross. And I talk to them about, hey, you're feeding the algorithm that you like it when you watch it. Also, if somebody's channel like that is monetized, you are actually feeding their beast. You are. They're getting money from your time and you are normalizing hate speech for yourself. You're hearing slurs and other things that should feel like getting punched in the stomach to my sensibility. And you don't want to over hear them over and over again because you don't want to get used to them and you don't want them to ever come out your mouth. So these are the things that I talk to kids about with, like, oh, I'm hate watching that. I'm like, well, you know, and I get that, you know, what you don't want to say is you don't want to talk to kids like you think they're being duped because nobody likes to feel like they're a dummy and it's not really fair to kids. You know, how many of us have clicked on misinformation and not been sure what we were seeing or even retweeted something that we didn't read that thoroughly and later realized, like, oh, wait, that was not something I really wanted to amplify. So I think it's really important to talk to kids about diving deeper into anything that you amplify. And all of this. A really great book by Dashka Slater that's a Bay Area story about Albany, California. Do you know this book, Accountable, that came out in the fall? So, I mean, that's a really good story about when social media can go really, really wrong.
- [20:18]
A
Yep, yep.
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C
And also how a school district handled it in a really bad way, which compounded the problem.
- [20:25]
B
Yes.
- [20:25]
A
Which is often a story. I mean, the school districts seem woefully unprepared for all of this and I think are often acting very, very badly and just making really not great decisions, which I think is also sort of frustrating in this process. And I understand that they're also sort of overwhelmed and confused. But it bothers me how bad school districts have been handling a lot of this as well.
- [20:51]
C
I do think, though, the reason they're suing because you see school districts suing the companies like TikTok and Meta. And at first I thought, well, that's also a really limited strategy. But I will say if these companies don't get more responsive to their users and user complaints. And so if somebody like, say somebody works in your school district and there's a teacher or a principal with an impersonation account, and that account is getting, you know, hateful and threatening messages and the companies don't respond or a kid is being targeted that way. I get why people are so frustrated. So one of the worries I have to come back to warning labels is I worry that the warning labels is almost like carte blanc for the companies to just do whatever. Like, if we label it as harmful, do they then not have to be responsive to bullying and harassment complaints?
- [21:33]
A
Yeah, yeah. I mean, yeah, I mean, I think it's. There's obviously a lot of different trade offs in all of these different things. Yes. And to some extent, like, if you give a sort of baseline of if the companies do this, then, like, that is our answer, then maybe that does take some of the weight off the companies. I think most of the companies do you actually realize, like, it's not, it's not great for them to have these experiences that are awful for a significant portion of their user base. And that is why, while certainly some of the companies have cut back on their trust and safety efforts, all of the companies do have some level of trust and safety that tries to deal with these things. And some of the companies are certainly better at it than others. And every company could improve in some ways. But, you know, there is this, this sort of feeling out there that the companies don't care about this at all. And that has not been my experience in talking to the various companies and being, you know, and understanding their approaches to these different things. I think there are certainly within the companies, you know, different challenges in terms of, like, prioritization of different aspects and what, you know, they're different executives who have different, you know, different milestones they need to meet. And that could come into conflict within the companies. But, you know, I think some of the narrative, the idea that the companies don't care at all is problematic. And I think a lot of the lawsuits, especially from the school districts, and I'm particularly frustrated I wrote about this, but I'm particularly frustrated with the school district that involves my kids in that they filed a racketeering law. They claimed it was like racketeering by TikTok and Twitter, but not meta, though they eventually added meta to the lawsuit. The whole thing is just nonsense. And it just felt like a pretty clear, like, money grab. And none of the complaints were specific. Like you talked about, like, yeah, if there's like impersonating a teacher or a principal or a student or something like that, you can, you can see, like, clear Recognizable harms that you could include in the discussion. But I, I've yet to see any lawsuit that had anything particularly specific. They'll talk generally.
- [23:46]
C
I would like to see them. Yeah, I would like to see them put more staff. Staff on this. And, and I like if you call about a serious issue and you can't get a person for days. Yeah, I don't think that's acceptable.
- [23:58]
A
Yeah. Yeah. But you know as with all of the things around like trust and safety, like there are challenges and trade offs in terms of how do you handle that.
- [24:07]
B
Yeah.
- [24:08]
A
But I do think like there is something to be said for, for having the companies be better at handling some of these issues and there have been some, some eff, you know that have been made but certainly could, could see significant improvements. One of the topics that comes up a lot and I'm sort of curious on your take on this and I have a sense of what it is having having looked at your book. But you know, one topic that comes up a lot is this idea that parents need to monitor everything that their kids are doing online. And so I'm curious what is your take on that approach?
- [24:44]
C
Yeah, I mean mentoring over monitoring always. And I believe that if parents are looking they should disclose. So say you have an 11 year old new texter and you're going to read their text for the first couple weeks. I would let them know you're going to do that. I would sit down and do that with them. So it's not a covert thing that you're doing. And then over time I would give them communication. Privacy, location privacy. Just because you can track your kid's location doesn't mean you should. And it really can undermine trust. Reading their texts can undermine trust over frequently checking their grades. Which is another form of monitoring that I think the school districts mostly encourage. Like my kids school district want says they want us checking all the time. But it really undermines my kids own executive function and independent relationship with teachers. So I just don't do it. And I've even taken it off my most frequently used device. Right. So that I don't have that temptation to be like let me just see how it's going. Right. I can still check. I could get on a computer, I have the password somewhere. But I've created these speed bumps for myself behaviorally so that as a parent I just don't think like oh I'm waiting online at the bank. Why don't I check and see if my kid is missing any quiz grades this week, you know, or if he was late to any classes. Like they're giving me so much information that my parents didn't have. Right. And so think about in the level of like whenever you went to school, you know, for me it was the 1990s, but whether it was like, you know, 80s, 90s, it's like, would your parents have known if you were three minutes late to one class? Would they have known every grade you got on every assignment? Is that a level of knowledge that's going to be good for a relationship with a teenager who's becoming more independent? And my answer is for most people, no. Right. That's not going to be good. And even if a kid needs that level of support, maybe it's happening with a coach in school versus you.
- [26:33]
A
Right? Yeah. Another area of sort of like social media and parents and children that this is, you know, it comes up in a lot of cases and we just on, on our other podcast which talks about sort of online speech issues. It's a news related podcast, the Control alt speech for, for folks who aren't subscribed to it yet, you should be. We had a discussion a few weeks ago about the issue of sharenting and parents who are kind of over sharing or just, you know, sharing a bunch of content about their kids online. And in this case the story we were talking about was one where a bunch of kids who were, you know, sort of became inadvertent influencers because their parents sort of, you know, built them up and you know, were successful on social media by sharing stories about their lives and how they were now old enough to be pushing back and protesting that and demanding potentially laws to protect their own interests and things of that nature. What's your take on that side of it? And parents sharing information or pictures or videos of their kids or something along those lines.
- [27:56]
C
Yeah, I mean my state, Illinois is one of the first, I think, to pass a law protecting these kids. I have talked to a number of kids and even, I mean I talk to influencers for growing up in public as well as just I'll call them like regular kids whose parents share them a lot. Right. Because there's a continuum of like.
- [28:11]
A
Absolutely.
- [28:11]
C
People who just post for the likes and get a lot of likes on their kids pictures but are not monetizing that all the way to the extreme of their kids are actually doing labor and their parent, their family or kids are the product that they are selling, you know, these images. And many kids, even of the sort of former, you know, just my mom post me doing gymnastics for likes, feel really not great about it. Some, I talked to some kids who didn't really know how much their parents were posting until they themselves got on social and then they had this kind of eating the apple moment of just shock and real, real embarrassment. And then it led to a real rift in some families, at least for a while. Like in most cases families repair around it. But it really is harmful and especially for, for those who continue to violate their kids privacy even after they've been confronted and asked to stop. That's like a next level. Like there's, there's the initial like oh, you posted that picture of me when I was five and I really find that embarrassing and now I see it and I'm upset with you. But then, and if the parents response is I'm really sorry, I'll take that down and I won't do it again, that's very different in terms of future trust versus like you're my kid, I can do whatever I want. Which is the sort of like you're my property approach that is really damaging in a lot of relationships. And I don't think parents understand how much kids can inhibit their own behavior. If your kid is singing Hamilton songs at the top of their lungs at home, or running around in their underpants under the sprinkler, or snuggling their stuffed animal or heaven forbid, crying when their pet dies and you video that and put that on the Internet, you have really undermined your child's trust in you and home is no longer a safe space for your child. That is a very big deal. So I absolutely share that concern. And I've been sounding that alarm long before I think a lot of. Even since 2012 when I started speaking publicly on this, I've been saying ask before you share. Check in with your kids. And if your kids are too young to ask, maybe think twice or think about is there any age, think about your kid at their most self conscious, like 13. If this picture would be embarrassing to them at 13, then don't post it now.
- [30:17]
A
Yeah.
- [30:18]
C
Sometimes Even if your 8 year old is doing their like dance moves and they think it's great and they're like mommy, Mommy, put it on Facebook. I would still say let's just keep this in the family because you might be able to kind of see how in two years there will be cringe with that video.
- [30:35]
A
Yeah.
- [30:36]
C
Or you might be able to unfortunately imagine how an adult could misperpose that video.
- [30:42]
B
Yes.
- [30:42]
C
Which is a sick thing that we all have to think about. And so you might say I'M gonna not. I'm gonna just show that to Grandma when she comes over. Or you can just show that to your friend on your iPad right here. But we're not gonna post it, right? Right.
- [30:54]
A
Yeah. No. I think it's a challenge, and it's one where it's interesting to see how, for all the talk of, like, kids need better instruction on these things, sometimes it feels that parents also need some better instruction on understanding that. That element of it. You know, one of the things that I think, you know, a lot of people are, you know, they hear very real and very concerning horror stories about things that happen online that are legitimately terrible. And there's a wide variety of terrible things that can happen that are connected to online communications. And it can be anything from, you know, eating disorders to, you know, images being shared among other classmates or, you know, or just online bullying or. Which, I mean, you know, is. Is part of images being shared and all sorts of other things. And so much of the conversation is like, on how do we prevent that? And that's where a lot of the, you know, banning the technology or banning this stuff comes from. But the fact is, this does happen. And so I'm wondering beyond, like, you know, some of the other stuff that we've talked about, which is sort of, you know, helping to prepare kids on how to deal with this, but, like, when things go really wrong, do you have advice on what to do in those situations? Because I feel like that part of the discussion gets even less talk. And because of that, I. You know, there are stories. Another one that we talked about on the Controlled Speech podcast not too long ago was the horrifying stories around sextortion scandals where, excuse me, kids. Kids were tricked into sharing, you know, intimate imagery and then extorted to the point that in a few cases, the. The kids ended up taking their own lives, which is absolutely horrifying in all sorts of ways. And so I'm wondering, you know, what. What are your thoughts on if something bad happens? What, you know, what should parents do in advance of that or when that kind of ha. When those things happen and also the kids themselves.
- [33:10]
C
So to draw a line back from the last question about trust at home, one of the most important things we can do by observing boundaries with our kids, by saying, you know, if you say, no pictures, I'm going to not take your picture. We're teaching kids that it's okay to have a boundary and that they should ask their friends before they take and share a picture and that they're allowed to say no, and that's actually huge. Just to support those boundaries is really huge. And we kind of trample those boundaries again. If our kids putting their hand over their face and we're taking their picture anyway, we're teaching them their privacy doesn't matter. They don't get a voice. So by teaching kids that it's okay to assert privacy, it's okay to have boundaries, and that you can trust me and to continually talk. I mean, I have a whole chapter about sexting and sharing nudes in growing up in public because it is a whole piece that parents really worry about. And the prevalence is debated. Many, many kids will not share a nude, but most kids will know someone who does. It will go around and they will see it. It may get airdropped to them. Someone will undoubtedly ask them for one. Like they're not going to not come across the practice, even if they don't participate by personally taking a nude. Right. So and or sharing it. So it's important to talk to kids and kind of prepare them for that situation. To talk about what to do if someone asks you for one, what to do if someone on the bus offers to show you a naked classmate or a stranger. What's a quick response? You can say if you don't want to see that. Right. And just really addressing that we don't want to violate other people's privacy or safety or reputation and that all of our actions should be consistent with what kind of friend we are, what kind of human being we are. And if kids do end up sharing, say in the context of a relationship, like a romantic relationship or a crush or interested in a relationship, because sometimes kids will express interest by doing this. We need to make sure that they know that they still have rights. That yes, maybe technically in most states it's not something you're supposed to do. But when we lean too far into the legal, we can put kids in a situation where then they won't come to us and say they've done it because they're worried about the legal piece of. So we want kids to know that if they have shared an image and then someone is threatening them or saying they're going to share it or has shared it with other people that they didn't consent to have seen it, that they have rights, that they can send a cease and desist, that the local police can help if it's posted on a social media site and your kid is a minor, probably right. If they're your child, there is some responsiveness that is one of the places where most of the companies are pretty fast to respond. You don't want to be hosting child pornography. They don't want that legal situation. Right. So, you know, really wonderful attorney that I interviewed for the book talked to me a lot about what, you know, what parents can do in the situation where maybe a kid is being threatened or an image has been shared without consent. And sometimes, you know, especially if the person who does it is a classmate, I mean, you're dealing with something a little different. If you have an adult who's like a career exploiter, that's a different level of situation and that's definitely terrifying. If it's just like another kid at your kid's school, it's not like it's no big deal. But that kid is much more likely to be very scared by a cease and desist later letter. A summons like that kid's parents are going to be all over. I'm going to gender this and say him. Because in many, many cases, the person who is threatening another kid is going to be a boy or a male identified kid. Not always, but no, a stereotype here, but often. But it's important for kids of all genders. I think it is also really important not to lean too much into the binary here because girls are vulnerable in certain ways and boys are vulnerable in certain ways. And kids of all genders, including non binary kids, have sometimes had images shared non consensually and have shared other kids images non consensually. And so there's a section in my chapter on sexting about what about the queer kids and what are the specialists sort of vulnerability is there? And you know, queer kids sometimes are vulnerable in specific ways because they may feel like they need to go into different kinds of spaces to meet people. Some of those spaces are going to be mixed adults and kids, right? So we do a really good job keeping kids out of bars now. But if you're on a discord, who knows who's in that discord with your kid, right? And discord can be an incredibly supportive place for kids who feel different, whether that's LGBTQ kids, whether that's neurodiverse kids. But you have to think about the fact that your 15 year old may be in a community with 30 year olds in that community. And if it's just a supportive community dedicated to coming out or pride or loving anime or being about neurodiversity or adhd, that could be fine. If it's about affinity and identity, if it's about meeting and hooking up you might feel differently about your kid being in a mixed age community. And so I think that's also really important to talk to kids about because a lot of kids are using apps to date and meet other people. Like Snapchat definitely is being used that way by some kids. So it is important. I mean, no kids are supposed to be on actual dating apps. Like if you're on Tinder, you're supposed to be 18 or up. But a lot of those other apps are being used in very sort of Tinder like ways, I'll say. And so it's important to talk to kids about that.
- [38:31]
A
Yeah. And I will note, I mean, going back a little bit to our earlier discussion on the companies and doing more Discord actually. And not enough people know this, and I wish more people did. Discord has done quite a bit on that front in terms of they have this, this concept called the family center, which I think is a fairly thoughtful approach to giving parents some information, but not too much information about what their kids are doing. So you can see sort of like which groups they're joining or maybe limit them from joining certain groups. And it's. It. They put a lot of thought into it. It might not be perfect, but they put a lot more thought into it than most of the interventions that I've seen in terms of how, you know, giving parents a little bit more information, but not, not to the, the surveillance level of, you know, spying on everybody who they're talking to and what the conversations are. And so I was actually fairly impressed with, with the Discord Family center set up just as one example.
- [39:33]
C
I think your listeners are probably pretty sort of techie, so are more familiar with this. But I definitely go into schools where I'll talk to people where the parents are like, I haven't heard of Discord. What's that? And one of the things I'll talk about is for younger kids, a moderated Discord could be a safer first Discord or just a discord where you're literally talking to friends. You know, IRL would be another. So if your kid is going home to play an online game with three friends from school and they're using Discord to chat, that is different than joining a community on Discord. So it's important for parents to understand there's very different ways that kids are using and some might be more age appropriate for younger kids versus older kids. And the next level would be a discord where your identity is tied to some kind of thing in the real world. So a lot of public Libraries have gaming discords for kids who live in that community. If I'm a bad actor and I want to meet kids, I'm probably not going to pick the San Carlos library discord where I have to show a library card to get in because there's so many unmoderated discourse. Right. And so I just think it's, there's different levels and this is where I think it is important to be specific. And I think a lot of times when people write best selling books, they don't want to be too specific about social media because they don't want their book not to be evergreen.
- [40:46]
A
Right.
- [40:46]
C
But let's just say, like it does matter. And talking to kids about group chats versus YouTube versus TikTok versus Instagram versus Snapchat does matter.
- [40:56]
A
Yes.
- [40:56]
C
And I think another, another part of the user experience is ideally kids are not joining all of these communities all at once. I mean, I would say like, there's no perfect way to mentor a kid for social, but I do think learning to text and then learning to group text and then learning maybe like one social app where you can share and post about yourself versus like three, it is probably ideal because then the family can learn it a little bit together. If it's less familiar to the parents, the kid can kind of see and kids will want to go where their friends are sort of the most.
- [41:26]
B
Right, right.
- [41:27]
C
If your kid's friends are on Discord, if your kid's friends are on Snap, if they're on TikTok. And so, you know, again, it's not, I think about limiting or age gating, but just encouraging them. You know, if you're going to learn to like ride your bike, skateboard and drive a car, like maybe let's learn them like a different week so you could kind of like get good at all of them separately.
- [41:48]
A
Yeah, yeah, no, I think that that makes sense. So one, one other topic and I think we'll, we'll close on this one. There's a lot, there's a lot more. And again, I'm going to recommend, you know, buy the books, read the books. There's a lot of really interesting stuff. If, if you're a parent and you're concerned about this stuff and trying to think through these things, I think there's a lot of really, really useful and practical advice. You know, hopefully that just came through in this discussion. But there's a lot more in the books. But you know, from a sense of, you know, at the societal level, we've talked, you know, again and that was sort of the focus of this conversation. We wanted to talk about and get a sense of, like, what is it that parents and kids should be doing on a. On a, you know, regular basis? You know, are there things that you think need to be done at the societal, governmental level? Because that's. That's the question that keeps coming up elsewhere. That's where the warning labels or, you know, Governor Newsom just announced that he wants to ban cell phones of all kids in California, in the schools. You know, are there things that you think make sense there, or do you think. Generally speaking, and this is my take on it, but I don't want to influence you. Is that those kinds of interventions tend not to work particularly well and can often be more harmful than helpful. But I'm sort of curious, having spent all this time. What's your take on?
- [43:20]
C
I do think that the tech use in schools. Teachers need better professional development, especially since the pandemic, because a lot of things happen really fast. Things got rolled out real fast. So both on digital wellness and digital balance, digital citizenship, whatever you want to call it. And again, some of this is actually more like social skills that we could all use support on, like how to deal with conflict, how to disengage from a negative conversation, or how to stay assertive and stay strong when someone disagrees with you. Like, sometimes you don't want to walk away. Right, Right. We need to teach kids how to engage with other human beings in person and online. And some of that needs to happen at home. Some of it needs to happen in school. We also need, I think, robust mental health support in communities and schools that is free, where you don't need parental consent, that anyone can get access to a trained, qualified mental health professional. Because the. And the question of whether kids are actually in crisis is also debated and debatable. And I, I'm following that debate with a lot of interest. I am not the person who can tell you whether there is or isn't a mental health crisis among kids, but certainly there are some kids who are suffering.
- [44:25]
B
Yes.
- [44:25]
C
And there are some kids who just need some skills to, like, get through a situation. And most teenagers will have a few bad moments where they could just use a supportive adult that's not their mom or dad to talk to. And those are all situations that should be supported. And a warning label does nothing for that. Like, absolutely does not. And it's a lot cheaper. Right. That's the. I mean, mental health, you know, up to and including hospital beds, is just not accepted, not accessible to Many, many kids and teens in this country. And that needs to change. And I do think the companies, I mean, I'm glad to hear more about Discord's policies. I was familiar with some of that. I worked a little bit full disclosure on like the Google family stuff. Like, I, I do know that the company and I know some really smart people. I know the new trust and safety officer at TikTok. She's great. Like, there's good people out there doing this stuff for sure. But I think that companies need to think about, you know, not just growth. And I think some of the affordances of the apps I'll name check, the Snapchat maps, for example, I think are pretty manipulative. I think defaulting to disclosing your location is a privacy problem. And I think it went as an adolescent, like, I would have been devastated by Snapchat maps. I was not a popular kid. I would have seen a lot of people hang out without me. I don't think it would have been good for me. I think it pushes into some of the worst tendencies that we have. I think even as an adult, I don't think I could emotionally withstand Snapchat maps, even though all my friends don't even know each other. So the likelihood that they're all hanging out without me is low. I still think would make me feel bad. And so I just do think from a design perspective, the apps need to look at themselves and say, yes, of course teenagers want to know where their friends are, but is this really something we should be kind of pushing as a default setting and really kind of making it very, very hard to resist? Right. And so I, I think they have to, they have to be more thoughtful than that. And then the other thing that I think is important is to recognize that teenagers themselves are really innovative and thoughtful. Whether it's coming up with the idea of using Google Classroom in an unexpected way, whether it's making pacts. I interviewed groups of kids who made pacts about exactly how they would share with each other about their college search and acceptances. I've talked to a lot of kids who have a no screenshots packed in their friend group. Like, nothing in this group is getting screenshot and then they hold each other to that. So I also think we can look to young people to say, okay, how do we live with this stuff? Well, let's see. Maybe adults should have a no screenshot rule. You know, these are some things that the kids, I think, are leading the way and we need to really listen to young people and hear both the good and the bad. What do they say about their experience with technology? How are they navigating it? How are they modifying it? A lot of kids had quit TikTok that I talked to. That was the most frequently quit app. I thought that was really interesting.
- [47:12]
A
Yeah, yeah, no, it is. It is very interesting. Well, again, I want to thank you very much. I mean, I think the books are really, really interesting. I think they're really sort of practical, realistic, non crazy advice, which is something that we could use more of at a time when it feels like a lot of the narrative has sort of spiraled out of control and is not particularly helpful and is just sort of out there. And so I really appreciate all the work that you've done and the speaking and writing on stuff that strikes me as both more realistic and actually helpful to people. And so I'm very appreciative of that and also appreciative of the fact that you're able to take the time to come on the podcast to talk about it and hopefully give some really practical advice at a time when lots of people, I think, are reasonably concerned and reasonably confused and having a path that allows them to do something that is actually hopefully helpful as opposed to just kind of, I got to do something, something must be done which leads to results that might not be that helpful. So thank you again. Thank you for the books and for everything that you do and for coming on the podcast.
- [48:37]
C
Thanks so much. It's great talking with you.
- [48:39]
A
And thanks to everyone for listening as well. And we will be back next week. And again, I'm pretty sure next week we'll be on a different topic, but I'm sure this is not the last time we'll be talking about this particular topic. So thanks again for everyone listening. We'll be back next week.
- [48:56]
B
If we don't stand up to them, someone will get to grab a shovel and dig up the cat. If we don't stand up to them, someone will get to grab a shovel and dig up the cat.