1KHO 519: How to Avoid Interrupted Potential, Stunted Development, and Stimulation Dependence | Dr. Nicholas Kardaras and Andrew Laubacher

Summary

Summary of Episode 1KHO 519: "How to Avoid Interrupted Potential, Stunted Development, and Stimulation Dependence"

Introduction

In the 1000 Hours Outside Podcast Episode 519, hosted by Jenny Eric from the That Sounds Fun Network, the focus is on the detrimental effects of screen addiction on childhood development and overall mental health. The episode features two esteemed guests: Dr. Nicholas Kardaras, author of Glow Kids and Digital Madness, and Andrew Laubacher, executive director of Humanality. Together, they delve into the pervasive issue of screen time, its impact on various age demographics, and strategies to combat its adverse effects.

Key Discussions

1. Screen Addiction as a Modern Epidemic

   Dr. Nicholas Kardaras begins by elucidating how screen addiction has evolved from a minor concern into a full-blown epidemic over the past decade. He emphasizes that unlike traditional addictions such as alcohol or drugs, screen addiction is ubiquitous and deeply integrated into daily life, making it more challenging to treat.

   "It's the addiction of our times now. And I was one of the first that really was aware that it was an addiction and then understood how to begin to treat it because it is similar to substance addiction in very many ways, but different to treat in a variety of ways because it's the ubiquity and it's all around." — Dr. Nicholas Kardaras ([02:09])

2. Demographics and Screen Time Impact

   The conversation highlights that screen addiction predominantly affects younger individuals, particularly millennials and Gen Z. However, its reach extends even to older adults, including those in their mid-70s, who grapple with gaming addictions and excessive screen time.

   "It skews gender, it skews young guys with gaming and then young women with social media and mental health issues that tend to comorbid." — Dr. Nicholas Kardaras ([03:35])

3. Andrew Laubacher's Journey and Humanality

   Andrew shares his personal transformation from a musician heavily reliant on social media to adopting a minimalistic approach by switching to a flip phone in 2018. This shift led to enhanced productivity, deeper personal connections, and a newfound passion for holistic healing. Consequently, he joined Humanality, an organization dedicated to helping individuals detox from smartphone addiction through community-based "humanity villages."

   "We essentially started launching these villages, I call them, at universities where students are willingly going to a light phone, going to a wise phone, detoxing." — Andrew Laubacher ([05:00])

4. Impact on Creativity and Social Skills

   Tony Hawk discusses the negative repercussions of excessive screen time on creativity and social interactions. He observes a decline in live performances and genuine creative endeavors due to the allure of digital platforms.

   "We're in a creativity crisis... There's like less people pumping out music. There's like less people having the capacity to take the risk to go play songs in front of people because it is kind of scary." — Tony Hawk ([09:08])

5. The Future of AI and Societal Implications

   Dr. Kardaras delves into the rapid advancements in Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Artificial General Intelligence (AGI), expressing concerns about their potential to disrupt job markets and influence human behavior. He warns of AI's capability to target vulnerable individuals with precision, exacerbating mental health issues and fostering narcissistic tendencies.

   "We have to separate AI and AGI. Some people call it artificial general intelligence or generative intelligence... it's going to control our infrastructure, it's going to control our military, our supercomputers." — Dr. Nicholas Kardaras ([10:00])

6. Community-Based Solutions and Grassroots Movements

   Both guests advocate for grassroots movements and community-building initiatives as effective countermeasures against screen addiction. Andrew emphasizes the role of Humanality in creating supportive environments that encourage real-life interactions and reduce reliance on digital devices.

   "Andrew is creating a grassroots movement for people, for the mass awakening of young people." — Dr. Nicholas Kardaras ([10:00])

Notable Insights

• Protective Factors: Incorporating activities like sports, music, faith, and family strengthens resilience against screen addiction by providing healthy outlets and support systems.

  "More protective factors you have, the less likely you might be to fall down that rabbit hole." — Dr. Nicholas Kardaras ([44:07])

• Potential Interrupted: Excessive screen time hinders children's cognitive, social, and creative growth, leading to a generation with stunted potential.

  "Potential interrupted. They weren't blooming with a full cognitively, socially, creatively." — Dr. Nicholas Kardaras ([24:52])

• Aggressive Algorithmic Manipulation: Modern algorithms are designed to exploit psychological vulnerabilities, making screen time even more addictive and harmful.

  "Now you have not just heat-seeking missiles that look for psychological vulnerability, but now you have AI programmed heat-seeking missiles." — Dr. Nicholas Kardaras ([27:44])

Key Quotes

1. "Treating all of that now over the last 10 years has been a full-time uphill climb." — Dr. Nicholas Kardaras ([02:55])

2. "We are never designed to be omnipresent." — Tony Hawk ([09:08])

3. "There's nothing intrinsically happening, but they're looking for external that rush." — Dr. Nicholas Kardaras ([24:52])

4. "This was never a reality where I wasn't reading, interacting with these technologies but I just noticed getting to know myself and allowing time to be with me has been incredibly formative and healing in my life." — Andrew Laubacher ([62:02])

5. "Meaningful things, healthy relationships, education, getting a degree, playing, learning how to play music." — Dr. Nicholas Kardaras ([45:57])

Conclusions

The episode underscores the urgent need to address screen addiction's pervasive influence on modern society, particularly among the youth. Dr. Kardaras and Andrew Laubacher advocate for proactive measures, including community-building and fostering protective factors, to mitigate the adverse effects of excessive screen time. They emphasize the importance of nurturing creativity, resilience, and genuine human connections to ensure the healthy development of future generations. Additionally, the discussion warns against the unchecked rise of AI and its potential to further entrench addictive behaviors and disrupt societal norms.

Final Thoughts

Jenny Eric concludes the episode with a message of hope, encouraging listeners to take actionable steps towards reducing screen time and embracing outdoor activities. She highlights the importance of community support systems like Humanality, which provide structured environments for individuals and families to detach from digital dependencies and reconnect with real-world experiences.

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This comprehensive summary captures the essence of the podcast episode, highlighting the significant discussions, insights, and concluding thoughts shared by the hosts and guests. It provides a clear and engaging overview for those who haven't listened to the episode, while including notable quotes and timestamps for reference.

Transcript

[Tony Hawk]

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[Jenny Eric]

Welcome to the 1000 Hours Outside podcast. My name is Jenny Eric. I'm the founder of 1000 Hours Outside and one of my favorite guests ever, ever, ever, ever. In fact, Dr. Nicholas Carderis, you were one of the guests where I, I think I was shocked when you said yes because I had read Glow Kids and it was like such a transformative book for me and was like, maybe he'll come on, but probably not. And then you said yes and I was so excited. So Dr. Nicholas Carderis is back and a new guest, Andrew Lawbacher. We welcome to you both.

[Dr. Nicholas Carderis]

It's a pleasure. I'm glad to be on and I'm glad that you've had such amazing success since way back when, since we first met. So congratulations to all your success, Jenny.

[Tony Hawk]

Yeah, happy to be here.

[Dr. Nicholas Carderis]

Oh, by the way, Ginny, look what I go biking with every day. I've got my thousand hours outside. Little ouch. What I go back in with. So thank you for the merch.

[Jenny Eric]

That's so cool. I love it. So I would love to hear how the two of you met, but I just want to set the stage. Dr. Nicholas Carderis has written these, I mean they are life changing books, Glow Kids and Digital Madness. And they cover this breadth of what is going on in our world right now in terms of kids and AI and what you're seeing. And I'd love to hear how the two of you connected. But before we get there, I just am really curious because you're an addiction specialist by trade and you talk about how you were working with all sorts of addictions. You're working with alcohol and drug and the different types of addictions that I learned about growing up right, doing like DARE or whatever those different programs are. But now primarily you're working with screen addiction and you talk about pornography and social media and gaming and just on our phones in general, these different types of screen addictions. Was that a trickle? I never really fully understood. Like, did it change kind of overnight? Was it a trickle now? It's an. I mean, mostly. That's what you're doing these days, right?

[Dr. Nicholas Carderis]

Yeah, I mean, it was a trickle that turned into a, you know, the floodgates burst because it was, you know, it's the addiction of our times now. And I was one of the first that really was aware that it was A, an addiction and then B, understood how to begin to treat it because it is similar to substance addiction in very many ways, but different to treat in a variety of ways because it's the ubiquity and it's all around and it's. So, yeah, that's primarily what I treat now because it's the epidemic. It's the epidemic of our times, which is also correlating to not just making people addicted, but making them more mentally unwell, Anxious, depressed, self harming, adhd. All those things are comorbid, as we would say in my field. So treating all of that now over the last 10 years has been a full time uphill climb.

[Jenny Eric]

Wow. And there is there a major difference in terms of age demographics. So it's like, you know, you hear about people that are addicted to drugs and alcohol that are 47 and that are 61 and also that are teenagers. But is this really skewing younger?

[Dr. Nicholas Carderis]

Well, yeah, yeah, definitely skewing younger. Obviously, you know, millennials and Gen Z. But we've had, we've had 75 year olds in my treatment program with gamers and it skews gender, it skews young guys that are failure to launch with gaming and then young women, young ladies with social media and mental health issues that tend to comorbid. So there tends to be a little bit of a gender divide that way, but definitely skews younger.

[Jenny Eric]

What a major difference in just a decade. Okay, so Andrew, talk about where you come in in the picture. Where did the two of you meet and tell us what you have going on?

[Tony Hawk]

Yeah, so I essentially read Glow Kids and Digital Madnesses as well, and they just absolutely rocked me. And I got interested in these subjects over the years. As a millennial with all my own addictions to social media. I've been a musician my whole life and traveled around the world playing music. And while I was growing my following and everything like, I experienced all of the detriment and negative outcomes of living a life in the interwebs, in these social connections, from the social comparison to the pornography to the waste of time. And in 2018, I decided to delete all my social media and go to a flip phone, and I was like this random guy playing music around the world with a flip phone. And, you know, T9 texting was horrible, by the way, so I don't, like, recommend that. But the fruit and the healing that I experienced in my friendships, in my purity, in my concentration, productivity, like, everything got better. And I didn't know how God was going to use all this or, like, what was going to be the outcome. Right. But I got very interested in these subjects. And I saw the mental health crisis unfold before my eyes as a musician just from going to so many different places and meeting so many young people. And essentially by 2022, there's a lot in between there. Obviously, Covid shut down most of my music at the time, but I came on board with this organization called Humanality that was started by Hope and Justin schneer. They paid 30 students scholarship money at Franciscan University to give up their smartphone and take on a dumb phone. And Humanality was born. And they came to me and offered me this executive director role. And it was, like, so aligned with just my passion for healing and really holistic healing. So, yeah, we essentially started launching these villages, I call them, at universities where students are willingly going to a light phone, going to a wise phone, detoxing. And Carteris work was, like, so impactful for me. I was like, I gotta get a hold of this guy too. And I was like, there's no way he's gonna talk to me. We're like a new startup nonprofit. And, you know, he reached out, and I'm essentially implementing a lot of his work and many others. Right. I mean. Sherry Turkle, Cal Newport. Your Nicholas Cars. I mean, there's a whole slew. Right. Of thinkers. I'm synthesizing Adam Adler into real, actionable ways for people to live. So, yeah, we got him on our board of advisors, and he's in our curriculum. So a lot of our curriculum are 11 humanity ways to be more human. You know, he's in. In pretty much every episode. So I've been super honored to get to know him. And I just think he's spearheading this thing in a way that I've not seen in a lot of other people. Like just the boldness. Right. Because I think once you start to dive into these subjects, it gets pretty dark, you know, and pretty intense. And I think people feel kind of helpless. And I think the hope that we're doing with humanity is to give people kind of a way out and a home where they feel they can be part of the rebellion, you know, and live differently and live more human.

[Jenny Eric]

So you brought up a really interesting point, and it actually relates to our own story. Andrew. I've got two daughters that we have five kids. But our oldest two, they do music together.

[Tony Hawk]

Cool.

[Jenny Eric]

They have a band, it's called Two Better Friends. And it comes from this phrase in one of their songs that says, you've never seen two better friends. And they are really talented. They're 15 and 12. They've recorded with an actual producer down in Nashville, and they have a couple songs up on Spotify and Apple Music. But I have not at all put their stuff really on social media ever. And that's kind of what people say is you would have to do that in order for their things to be more well known. So we're kind of in a conundrum with our kids. It's actually fairly awful, isn't it, Andrew? It's like if you have these talents or these skills or these things that bring you to life and you want to share them with the world, you're almost required.

[Tony Hawk]

Yeah. And what's funny is, when I got off of all that social media platforms, my music kind of exploded. I mean, I went all over Canada, South America, Europe, Jerusalem, like, all that year once I got off of those things. And I have a lot of young people come up to me and ask me this question too, and I just kind of share. And I know Doc talks about this a lot, but this default mode network of the brain, like our lack of boredom, which, you know, Steve Jobs recommended boredom, which is hilarious. But we're in a creativity crisis. Right. Like, Sherry Turkles talked about this. There's a lot of people talking about this because we're so digitally stimulated and addicted to this heroin. Actually, I've been talking with musician friends even this summer. There's, like, less bands. There's like less people pumping out music. There's less people having the, you know, being able to have the capacity to take the risk to go play songs in front of people because it is kind of scary. It's a really vulnerable experience. Right. And for me personally, like, I just keep encouraging young people. Like, the longer you can stay off of these things and actually create the skill sets for live performance, the more success you're going to have. Because I can shred on my guitar on YouTube, in my room by myself for 12 hours. Right. When you go live and you start playing in front of large crowds, it's a completely different game. And I would say, Jenny, your kids are going to be on a different level because they're fostering a skill set that's literally going to be non existent in I'd say the next decade, you know.

[Jenny Eric]

Wow. Okay, so let's talk about that. Let's talk about the next decade. So here we are. I just, I just talked to a man who wrote a book called Generation AI. The book just came out and he is like, the train will stop for no one. I mean we're here and the statistics from the futurists and I, And I know Dr. Carderis, this is one of the things I loved about your work is you talk about those futurists, you talk about Ray Kurzweil and the, if you read his stuff. And I got lost about halfway through, through once it started to get into like the cubits and I was like, I don't really know what's going on. But you, you do see that a fair amount of her predictions have come true. So one of the statistics is that 85% of the jobs will be different come 2030. Yeah, 2030. So we're there. I mean this is within the next five years. We're in this spot of rapid change. What should parents be aware of? That's a really big question.

[Dr. Nicholas Carderis]

That the planet is changing so seismically. Can I just back up for a second just with Andrew's story and the whole. Because by the way, I love Andrew and I think what he's doing is so amazing because you know, we talk about grassroots movements and versus top down political movements. Like I'm involved in some of the legislative initiatives and some of the lawsuits to try to attack big tech and that's kind of top down, changing the laws and making things kind of different for people. But Andrew is creating a grassroots movement for people, for the mass awakening of young people. And I just loved his energy and the way he, he's come to this in such an authentic way. So I think that's a big part of the solution. Right? A mass awakening from the ground up. Right. Because if we're waiting for some lawmaker to wave a magic wand and say, you know, only use your devices for 45 minutes a day, we're going to be in trouble. But to your point about what's happening in the next decade, I mean there's two parts of this AI thing. I think we have to separate AI and AGI. Some people call it artificial general intelligence or generative intelligence. It used to be general intelligence, which is essentially consciousness sentience. You know, the Frankenstein movement of it's alive where basically our it's not just your smart refrigerator or your self driving car, it's now cloud based intelligence that comes becomes sentient. So yeah, job market with automated, you know, replacing human beings. And you hear about, you know, the big tech folks are talking about that a lot and they're saying oh but you know, people will be displaced in the jobs. We'll do all the work for you. But it'll be so much more free time that people will, you know, either become hobbyists or create new careers. You know there's something called tech stinction. There was one sociologist that looked at it about two weeks ago, the report came out that he believes because of this automation movement there's going to be less people because people will be having less children. They're not going to want to have children to come into a world where there's no jobs. So eventually our population is going to go down because who's going to want to have children in this automated world? So there's that. But what really gets to me is and maybe this is, you know Andrew talked about it gets dark and this has a spiritual component to it. But this the singularity that you mentioned and Greg Kurzweil, I mean the guys at the top of that food chain, it's frightening their God complexes that they have. I mean they really view this as an effort to evolve or to become God. Like you know a lot of scientists have what we call a God complex. You know they, the people working in the lab trying to create viruses or trying to create biological advances without bioethics and then all of a sudden they create the Frankenstein monster that comes back and wuhan like may come back to destroy us. So it's people with a lot of grandiosity and intelligence but yet not driven by a lot of the spiritual core or ethics. Just because we can do something, should we do something? There's something called the risk peril conundrum. And so just because we can clone people, should we be cloning people? Just because we can create AGI, should we? Because everyone who knows about AGI has said we're not going to be able to put the genie back in the bottle and we're not going to be able to control where and how it because essentially it's going to control our infrastructure, it's going to control our military, our supercomputers. Everything is going to be sort of controlled by this new entity that we create. And the recursals of the world somehow think that there's going to be a humanity AI merger that we're going to, you know, we're going to breed, that we're going to become this, this is going to be the next generation. And my thing is, why would AI want to merge with these poor simple skin wrapped biological containers? We're not going to be a pretty date for them. And I know that sounds, it can sound kind of dark, but the concern is this is happening at a quickening level. It's happening much faster than even they had predicted. They were talking about in the2030s. Now they're saying we're two to three years away from AGI. So it's a concern, it's a concern that maybe we have some guardrails and try to pump the brakes before things get out of control. And I think we have the power still for a short period of time because in the, I think shortly we may not have the ability to be able to pump the brakes on this.

[Jenny Eric]

I mean, it's interesting when you talk about clones, I mean, that's already here, right? So this Matt Britton in his book Generation AI, he says that there already are digital twins. You can be anyone you want to be through a few clicks. And he talked about these different companies that are already doing it. And he said this is so wild. He has some sort of a watch that will record everything he says all day, every day and then can play back. You know, remember you were supposed to do this and you forgot. But also it creates his Persona. So one of the things that we talked about is that you basically could be to a spot where you, I mean it's not like you never die, but it's like you can almost kind of live on in this digital Persona.

[Dr. Nicholas Carderis]

Well, that was became a kind of a technical and philosophical question. If you can download people's memory engrams into, if you could download them into software, carbon based computer, is that who you are? You know, if just because a computer has all your memories and knows all your personality ticks and all of a sudden you flip a switch, you biologically die. But now this supercomputer has your memories, personality ticks, is that you? And you know, we can kind of philosophically debate that that's not you, but it can kind of be a copy of you in some way. But I think that's the concern and I think the other bigger problem is they're sedating us and putting us in digital cages while they're working on their schemes to basically have transhumanism be the next stage. And so they want to keep us digitally Preoccupied, playing Candy Crush all day, not being human, which is where Andrew comes in. Because if we can really embrace and own our humanity, we're hopefully going to be able to stop the transhumanism movement from essentially spreading and, you know, really not being for all of us. You know, they don't expect all, you know, this is not a plan that they have for the 8 billion people on the planet. This is a plan that they have for the few. So without sounding too conspiratorial, you already see this happening. You already see us. You know, I'm an addiction psychologist and we know that addiction has always been a way to sedate the masses. We know that back in the American slavery times, the slave owners used to give male slaves a bottle of moonshine every Saturday because they knew that a drunk slave was not going to escape or educate themselves, raise their heads up and basically be able to change their lot in life. So rather than giving us a bottle of moonshine, they're giving us, you know, a smartphone and they're giving us some other things to kind of get drunk on or high on or distracted on while this transhumanism movement is playing out in the background. And that's where I'm sort of saying, let's wake up. And people like Andrew are saying, let's wake up to let's, you know, hear no further. You know, we're not going to allow humanity to essentially be seated to some AI. We're not going to be the CRO Magnons to the Homo sapien in this model. So that's part of what I'm also not trying to say. Yeah, depression is terrible, Tech addiction sucks. And all those things are things that moms and people should look out for. But the larger, more nefarious goals are I think, even potentially darker. And that's what we also need to be aware of.

[Jenny Eric]

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[Tony Hawk]

Yeah. And the average 18 year old right now, you know, if you were to break down their life into months, you know, and they have a 90 year lifespan, right now there's about 334 months of free time. Right. You know, 30 year life is asleep. There's going to be multiple months of working, multiple months in the bathroom. You know, it's all going to add up. Right? And right now those 334 months of free time, this is where you create art. This is where you fall in love. This is where you build a business. This is where you go outside and Play. Right now 93% of that time is going to be spent on a screen which is 27 years of their lives. So like I remember getting off of social media because you know, I was playing the game too. I posted every flight I was in, I posted all these shows of hundred thousand people I'm playing for. And I remember just thinking if I could maybe save someone five minutes of watching what I'm doing so they could go live their lives like this is worth it. And it's been about seven years since I've been off of these platforms completely. But the data on the time is one thing obviously the psychological fallout is a completely other thing from the depression, anxiety, suicidality. Also this idea that Nicholas Carr talks about in Superbloom of Personality Formation. I find this incredibly fascinating because as social animals, we are formed by the people that we're around. And now he talks about this digital overcrowding, which I felt very much too, like we were never designed to be omnipresent. When you have so many minds that you are interacting with, you know, Dunbar's number of 150 acquaintances was really what our normal interaction was. I remember feeling totally overwhelmed just by interacting with so many scrolls of minds each day. And then, you know, think about all the toxic masculinity, toxic femininity. I mean, go down the list of the influencer realm, which, you know, Dr. K talks about. Like, the number one thing in America, like young people want to be is an influencer. And in China, it's an astronaut. You know, it's like our personalities are literally being altered and we're not becoming the people that we would have become because of these social interactions via these technologies and screens. So, like, I'm really interested in helping people, one, get their time back. But two, becoming the people that they're meant to become without these influences that are largely toxic and exacerbating the desire for fame, pleasure, power, and money that we all know make us really unhappy eventually, you know, So I. I agree that the number is terrifying, but to me, all the other implications from social contagion effect to the social comparison, it's so toxic. I'm not in the camp of like, let's try and moderate these things, Jenny. I'm like, okay, I know we're talking about teens a lot, and I know a lot of moms are listening to this. I know so many married couples that when I bring up this topic and I'm speaking around the country, you know, and. And the mom hits the dad shoulder and the dad hits the mom's shoulder, and they're like fingers. And it's like, we all know we're all addicted, right? You know, how many couples I see that are, you know, in older age and just scrolling together at a restaurant, you know, this stuff, when you wake up, it starts to hurt. So I'm more interested in, you know, how can we create creative, free thinking, happy, healthy, flourishing human beings? And to Dr. K's point, with the AI, I'm trying to study it, so I'm not, like, completely out of the loop. I do see a lot of disruption happening. And I think us creating villages in our local communities is going to be the antidote. You're going to have to find moms and dads and people in your local physical proximity that are going to opt out of the matrix, you know. So yeah, there's a lot there to unpack.

[Dr. Nicholas Carderis]

But if I could piggyback on one point that he said, because I think Andrew just really hit it out of the park with that. You know, my wife was an elementary school teacher for a long time. She used a phrase called potential interrupted that so many of these kids, her students that were more and more increasingly online, it was potential interrupted. They weren't blooming with a full cognitively, socially, creatively. Right. It was just stunting, it was stunting their development. And you know, so for the parent I'm a parent of, you know, my sons are grabbed. I have twin boys who are graduating high school this year. And it's such an important because developmentally now we're talking about screen time and being dopamine addicted. So if you become stimulation dependent, you're not free playing, being creative, writing music, writing a song, poetry, falling in love. You're just a programmed stimulation seeking organism now. And so many of the young people that I treat, they essentially have the dull look in their face and stimulate me. There's nothing intrinsically happening, but they're looking for external, that rush. And on the very superficial level, we talked about, you know, AI and you know, global takeover. But from a parental parenting point of view, algorithms were already so problematic with social media really targeting children, adolescents targeting what they think, you know, children and adolescents want with usually toxic content because toxic content increases engagement more than positive content. So body image issues for teenage girls and violence and other negative content. But, but now that if you throw AI into the algorithm equation, now you have not just heat seeking missiles that look for psychological vulnerability, but now you have AI programmed heat seeking missiles that are going to really be even more specific. This is not going to be just some random missile that hits your child's psychological profile. It's going to be a very curated missile. And so what it does not only does it target negative content towards vulnerable kids, but you know, Andrew touched upon this also. Now we have a whole generation of young people who are really the influencer effect, who are really baked in with narcissism because the digital world is created in the child's image because you know, the child thinks of something, you search for something and that's what, that's the feedback loop that you get. So now it's almost a form of magical thinking. Little Johnny and little Susie think, wow, think of something. And it appears before me my digital world. So that feeds into I'm the center of the universe kind of thinking. It doesn't feed empathy, it doesn't feed into caring, we or creativity. It feeds into me, me, me, me. Look at me. Likes, Likes. And aspirationally, I'm looking at not just the Kardashians of the world, but now some of these psychiatric influencers who are really not well and they're getting billions of followers. I've written a lot about the social comparison effect, so all these negative trends are going to trend more steeply now with AI thrown into that equation.

[Jenny Eric]

Right, because the missile is more accurate, but also it can create the content.

[Dr. Nicholas Carderis]

It's not like a North Korean Kim Jong Un missile that will fly it and then fall into the ocean. It's going to be a Pentagon hyper targeted missile. That's going to be very specific. Exactly.

[Jenny Eric]

Yeah. Yes, because there's already AI influencers. It's like not even a real person. Like I read about that in generation AI. There's one called Lil Mick, Lil Mikayla, who has 2.5 million followers. It's a fake thing. It's like an AI generated influencer. So then to your point, Dr. Carteris, it's like not only can they target that so well toward the kid, but like the. They can create the content.

[Dr. Nicholas Carderis]

Yeah, that's pretty. AI avatars. I know. AI is replacing therapists now too. They're programming with, you know, so it's not just going to be the Uber driver that's getting replaced. It's going to be the doctor, the lawyer, it's going to be all potentially professions that are going to be replaced. But, but like you were saying, creating influencer avatars, you know, machine made in the factory to be perfect attractors of young people. It's frightening because then if there is a nefarious agenda, Pied Piper, like they are leading our young people down roads of, you know, just toxic thinking, toxic values, toxic mental health effects. Andrew sees it, you know, you're seeing it. We're all seeing it. I think we're all trying to say, you, Ginny and Andrew, we're all trying to say we do still have some agency, we still do have some power to say, hey, wait a second, we won't go quietly into the night. Not yet.

[Tony Hawk]

I think actually Zuckerberg came out and said already 50% of Meta's algorithm is AI, so this actually isn't. We don't need to wait any longer. And here's the thing with algorithms. I've tried to study these pretty intensively. No one knows what they are. So that's what's to me, the most interesting. But Dr. Cage brought this up and other authors as well. Francis Hagen Facebook files 2021. Internal research showed that Facebook Meta knows that their algorithms are explained exploiting, you know, and you know, exacerbating, you know, suicidality and self harm amongst young girls. They were asked to change these algorithms or should we? And they said no, that would decrease engagement so we don't have to question whether they know this is happening. Really good book that's come out that, you know, Meta doesn't want you to know about is called Careless People by Sarah Wynn Williams. She was literally kind of there at the beginning of all things Facebook. She goes into pretty in depth, you know, research and shares her experience. But one of you know, their mantras was move fast and break things. And the reality is, sadly, they have broke so many human relationships, it's actually incomprehensible what these algorithms have done to the human population. Which is reasons why Sean Parker, you know, who is one of the first, you know, presidents of Facebook, has come out and said that we are, you know, I'm a hacker, we are exploiting vulnerabilities in our human psychology. Shamath has said, I feel incredible guilt for what we created and I don't give these things to my children. So to me, the AI algorithm experience is already here. Your Instagram, Snapchat, Facebook, TikTok feeds are already AI. Your data and privacy is already being exploited in ways that we don't even know. But we know that it's bad, right? Because these apps aren't free. They cost you an incredible amount of time and they cost you most of your data as well.

[Jenny Eric]

I had a friend who wrote a book called the APD Out Family. It's another fantastic book. Her name's Aaron Lachner and she had talked about how like, it's interesting you bring up Andrew, like nobody really even knows how these algorithms totally work, but what they do know is that they make them a ton of money. And listen to this, she had the statistics in her book, she said under the old algorithm, you know, which isn't this like, you know, new generative situation. Instagram was making $1.8 billion, I'm assuming a year. $1.8 billion under this old way. And everybody knows when it changed, right? Everybody knows. Well, you might not, Andrew, because you're off, but all of a sudden it change and it's, you know, it's just feeding you stuff that it thinks you're going to like, right? It's not my friends anymore. It's just random. Like, why the heck am I seeing this? It went from $1.8 billion and then they changed right to this new algorithmic way. To your point, it's already here. $1.8 billion to $47.6 billion.

[Tony Hawk]

Oh my.

[Jenny Eric]

That's how much the revenue skyrocketed.

[Tony Hawk]

I did not know that.

[Jenny Eric]

So it's working. It's working exactly how they wanted it to work. And it's taking that much more of people's time and so they're, they're making that much more money and it's drawing people in in a different way. How then do we deal with the fear? Because, you know, actually, even in this conversation, I'm like, gosh, I should just have my daughters be out playing music. That's what they should do. They should go to fun places. There's a little coffee shop right where we're at in Howell, Michigan that invited us in. They could go in and do a worship night. Like we should actually be doing that. But you kind of feel like. And as a parent and Dr. Carder's, we have kids that are the same age. Our oldest son is going to be a senior this year and he asks all the time for Instagram and he's like, if I had it, I could connect with so and so and so and so and so and so. And I mean, there is something to be said about that, right? It's a way to connect. So there's a little bit of fear there where you're like, gosh, am I holding my kids back? I'm not. You know, that was the whole thing. People are like, look, if you want your girls to be able to go play music, they have to have a social media following. Like, well, I'm probably not going to do that with my 15 and 12 year old girls. I don't think that's a good idea. So how do we deal with that fear of being left behind and what do we do instead?

[Dr. Nicholas Carderis]

Well, I think, you know, Andrew's working hard on that because there's something very valid to what you're saying, Janine. No. Every kid wants to be a member of the tribe, right? Nobody wants to be de tribed or voted off the island, off the digital island, right? So all the kids are on, you know, and everyone's got. So the more you can build like minded communities where people are also tech cautious or low tech or whatever phrase we want to use for it, the less, I think, stigmatized and disconnected, we'll feel so finding those communities I think is critical so that you don't feel like you're some kind of unicorn in this digital society. And I think that's critical. I mean, you know, Andrew's work and being able to create young people who can come together in community is critical. You know, I do think, you know, after maybe a critical period of time, if you've developed, you know, we've talked about Andrew and I've talked about like the philosopher warrior, if you have created a strong psychological immune system, can you, you know, I know Andrew said, you know, we don't moderate, you know, he goes to that end of it. But there is, I think, a certain point where you feel like, okay, you can tolerate some of the toxin, right, because your immune system is now developed and strong enough. Obviously you don't want to expose the, the four year old who hasn't developed, you know, we call it the philosopher warrior archetype. The ability to critically think, the ability to analyze, the ability to have some grit and resilience. The 4 year old doesn't have that, but hopefully the 18, 20, 21 year old who has now done some of the work and is able to now navigate that, you know, getting an Instagram account may not sink their boat, but you have to do all this other work because. And in my experience, working with a lot of young people, you know, failure to launch 18 to 30 year olds, it's a little bit hard to tell because some people look like they do have a pretty solid foundation and the next thing you know, they're deep underwater and deep in the digital rabbit hole and they're in mom and dad's basement and living in a fantasy avatar world. And you were like, I never thought that person would fall victim to this. So it's a little bit of Russian roulette. It's not an exact science as to who's going to get bit and get bit hard. But we do know that I think you optimize your chances. The more of that internal work, the more sports, music, faith, family and all those, you know, in my field we call them protective factors. You know, more protective factors you have, the less likely you might be to fall down that rabbit hole.

[Jenny Eric]

It really is a message of hope that, you know, we've got 257 hours a month that we can maybe be spending doing better things. What were you going to say, Andrew? You've probably felt it lately, that rising tension, the mental load, the stress that doesn't stay at work but follows you home. You're not alone. Right now, 61% of the global workforce is experiencing higher than normal stress levels this summer. I want to be more intentional, walking outdoors in the morning and making time to unplug, even briefly. It's not about huge changes, it's about small steps toward wellness. But here's the truth. Sometimes we need more than fresh air and a walk. Therapy is one of the most effective ways to navigate work stress, and BetterHelp makes it incredibly easy to start. BetterHelp is the world's largest online therapy platform, with over 30,000 licensed therapists and more than 5 million people served. You can connect from anywhere on your schedule and even switch therapists at any time. Therapy isn't just for crisis moments. It's a powerful tool for learning healthy coping strategies, setting boundaries with confidence, and growing into the fullest version of who you're meant to be. This summer. Don't just survive. Invest in yourself. Find a therapist who can help you thrive with Better Help. As the largest online therapy provider in the world, Better Help can provide access to mental health professionals with a diverse variety of expertise. Unwind from work with Better Help our listeners get 10% off their first month at betterhelp.com 1000hours that's BetterHelp H E-L-P.com.

[Tony Hawk]

With a Venmo debit card, you can Venmo more than just your friends. You can use your balance in so many ways.

[Jenny Eric]

You can Venmo everything. Need gas? You can Venmo this. How about snacks?

[Dr. Nicholas Carderis]

You can Venmo that.

[Jenny Eric]

Your favorite band's merch?

[Tony Hawk]

You can Venmo this or their next show?

[Jenny Eric]

You can Venmo that. Visit Venmo Me Debit to learn more. You can Venmo this or you can Venmo that. You can Venmo this or you can Vemo that. You can Venmo. The Venmo MasterCard is issued by the.

[Tony Hawk]

Bancorp bank and a pursuit to license.

[Jenny Eric]

My MasterCard International Incorporated card may be used everywhere. MasterCard is accepted.

[Tony Hawk]

Venmo purchase restrictions apply.

[Dr. Nicholas Carderis]

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[Jenny Eric]

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[Dr. Nicholas Carderis]

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[Jenny Eric]

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[Tony Hawk]

No, I think it's a great question. And obviously this is what I'm encountering all over the country with parents and teens and, and really every human being, the 6 billion people that have a smartphone on the planet. My push and what humanity I'd say is going to formulate, you know, moving forward kind of in this, like as a thought leader, but also as like a real, you know, on the ground movement, is that I'm going to point to a couple books and data points that I want to reference to be able to create this framework that I want to see humans flourish. Right. And this is, I think kind of how so Cal Newport talks about in slow productivity, like the amount of time that some of these people we look back on, on what they created, whether it was like Mozart or whatever, like we saw after like 20 years of them, you know, working and a really long duration, you know, with a lot of ups and downs. My fear with a lot of the virality and like name your, you know, the business, the art, you know, whatever movement you're, you know, you're sharing. What I find that these social media platforms are kind of enticing us into is to think that virality is going to create sustainability. And in reality I've just found that. And this is totally not cool anymore, right? But it's like to do something for a really long period of time and put an incredible amount of effort into and then in 20 years see that, you know, the fruit that it bears. So with a lot of young people that need to be on these first sports and I have moms tell me like, I don't even know what my kids, you know, athletic events are because the coach only shares it on Instagram. Like, what do we do? And to me there just has to be ultimately again this rebellion where and I know parents that go up to their, you know, coaches and say, hey, I'm not going to put my 12 year old daughter on Instagram. You're going to need to email me when these events happen. Right? But just this idea of creativity and longevity. You know, there was this study that Dr. I think it's Elise Paul Torrance did the Torrance Creativity Test that actually showed that creativity was actually the best predictor for success over iq, socioeconomic status and wealth. So even in the workplace going into the AI realm, what's hilarious is a lot of these AI guys that have a very positive view of what's going to happen, they are literally putting Their kids in jiu jitsu and music. And they aren't giving their kids these technologies because their proposals that we're going to need to have this generalist capacity to have a lot of skill sets that can be very adaptive. And the funny thing is, if you are sedated on your social media platforms, gaming platforms, Netflix, like Neil Postman's, right? I mean we're amusing ourselves to death. We don't need to just stay in the social media realm, right? Like the amount of time that I spend on Netflix and get lost into Reacher for like six hours, you know, like that is all combining together to decrease our creativity, decrease our social capital, decrease our movement. Like humanity is pretty. I'm pretty deep in health and wellness space. So I got a national board certification, health and wellness coaching. So we're diving deep into light science. This is something not a lot of people are talking about. And Jenny, I love in the scriptures how in Genesis, you know, God separated the light from the dark. And today in our modern age, since 1887, right when the light bulb came out, like we live in twilight days and daytime, nighttime. And that is totally screwing up our sleep, our circadian biology, the average American is losing about 30 minutes of sleep a night due to our technology. So I think here's my philosophy is actually if we can create this minimal effective dose, like what's actually the least amount of technology you can interact with your day to give you the biggest bang for your buck, right? So that's a fitness idea. You know, it's a seven minute workout. You get all this cardiovascular benefit with seven minutes of workout. And that's enough to get you through like, you know, a lot of the, you know, the health crisis we're in. So I just, I'm seeing more of a reason to limit our interaction with these technologies on a way more intense scale. And I realize this is incredibly not normal to share this. And I realize a lot of your work, like you guys are on these social media platforms doing a lot of good. So I get that's attention right there. I just found that even I over I was addicted to information, Jenny. I would consume so many podcasts that I had to know the next health hack, I had to know the next biohack, I had to know the next business thing. And I realized I wasn't getting to know myself. And maybe this is something that I'm wanting to propose to the world that as self referential beings, as human beings with an intellect and a will, like there's a bunch of cows out Here in Wyoming right now, like, we're different than those creatures. There's something incredibly special about the human person. And one of those things is our capacity to get to know ourselves. And I would say the journey the last seven years for me, which has been so painful, and I've experienced a lot of loneliness in my life. You know, I'm still waiting for my wife, and I'm not doing the dating app thing. Like, those things have been difficult. It hasn't been some perfect journey not interacting with these technologies, you know, but I've just noticed getting to know myself and allowing time to be with me has been incredibly formative and healing in my life. And I noticed that I was escaping into the digital realm to get away from me, and that really wasn't what I wanted ultimately, you know, so anyway, that's, that's a lot I'm trying to unpack. But like Neil Postman said, a new technology doesn't just change this or that, it changes everything. So with humanity, I mean, I'm kind of trying to unpack everything because our technologies are affecting everything from our sedentary living to our sleep, to our relationships to our creativity. So, you know, just trying to help with everything. It's not that. It's not that much. You know, it's interesting.

[Jenny Eric]

We talk about the seven minute. You know, I, what I, what I am finding is that if we move back to things that are historically normal, it really doesn't take much to set yourself ahead, Your child ahead, your family ahead, your relationships ahead. You know, you talk about the seven minute workout, or you talk about, you know, there's 200, 257 hours a month that we are staring at screens. What could we do with 257 hours a month? That just really gives you a lot of hope, you know, that there are solutions out there and you can check out humanality. Dr. Carderis, did you have something to say about that?

[Dr. Nicholas Carderis]

I was gonna say the one thing that Andrew really talked about at the very beginning was, you know, things that really are meaningful in our lives take time and effort. And we're baking a generation of young people who don't have the ability to give time. Never. Because it's the instant gratification effect that we're creating. Push the button, get the reward. And Angela Duckworth was the psychologist that studied grit. Right. And she talked, she defined grit as passion and persistence. Right. So passion and persistence. So a lot of our, the people that I treat, they're apathetic because they've been so numbed and desensitized. So there's no real passion there. And persistence, that's like a word that they don't even understand. Because persistence does take. It's a skill that you develop over time. And so to Andrew's point, the meaningful things, healthy relationships, education, getting a degree, playing, learning how to play music. You know, most of the young people I work with, they want that to happen like that. And when you talk to young people, they want to be CEOs by 18, you know, so without the attendant footwork in there. So they want what would normally take 10 years of hard effort yesterday because they see their influencer friends are getting that. And that's. So it's really mucked up. That's this whole natural evolution of our ability to grow and to evolve in these really healthy ways. Because now we're all just sort of stunted that way. You know, like I said, there is no passion, there is no persistence. So there's no grit. And when there's no grit, there's no ability to lean into adversity. And the people that I'm treating in Austin can't handle life on life's terms. So any speed bump in the road and they fall apart. So they're not very healthy in that sense. So Andrew says it affects all of it. That's another aspect of it. Right. So the mental and wellness of young people have developed. Developed these skill sets that you need to live. And that's the sad part to see, because it's not easy to bake those skills in at 22.

[Tony Hawk]

Right.

[Dr. Nicholas Carderis]

It's easier to bake those in when Your child is 9, 10, 11, 12. But if we're not doing that, because if they're just screen sedated, potential interrupted, you know, that's what happens. So, yeah.

[Jenny Eric]

Wow. And I know Cal Newport talked about in slow productivity, like, my 20s were about this, my 30s were about this. My 40s are about this. And he's taking it in decades. So to your point of, like, kids wanting things so quickly, it's like, no, things take a long time to grow. I'm always blown away that that Neil Postman wrote Amusing Ourselves to death in the mid-1980s. And he also wrote Disappearance of Childhood. I mean, same. It's all the same time frame in the 80s. And I just so would be curious what his thoughts would be today. I mean, he would just. I. I can't imagine. Just jaw dropping. I want to bring up one other topic which is very personal to our family, especially since you have a degree in Theology, Andrew. And we haven't talked about this, this side of it all that much, maybe hardly ever, because there's so many other layers to it. But we had an awful experience. We were attending a church. I've talked about it briefly on here. We were attending a church and it turned out that the youth pastor is a pedophile. And he's been since charged with nine felonies. It's very awful. He's on this app called Grindr. He's using, you know, it's addiction, right? I mean it's. They have in the police report the, you know, the things that he's searching in his Internet history. And it's disgusting. But also this goes right in line with the addiction. He's in his 40s and our family was concerned with his behavior. Now, we didn't know what his Internet searching was, but our 12 year old son had concerns and he was, it turned out he ended up getting caught trying to be with a 15 year old boy through this Grindr app, a 15 year old teen boy. So we had sent in these letters of concern. This guy seems off. Our 12 year old son wrote a letter that said, this man says I love you and he hugs me and I feel uncomfortable. And I stopped hugging him back and he got mad. And anyway, we got kicked out of church. We got our whole membership revoked. That was the wording that they used. And they said they did an investigation and none of it was true. And we were causing all these problems. And then seven months later he gets caught and there's all these things. So I'm curious about the theology of it because I feel like in the church, I don't know if it's really being talked about. And what's interesting is that like, we live in this day and age where we have people like youth pastors who have access to addictive things that they wouldn't have had access to 10, 15, 20 years ago. They've got access to Grindr app, they've got access to pornography. They maybe were exposed to pornography as a child because now all of a sudden it's everywhere. And what's interesting to me is that like the whole youth group is on Instagram. So like they're using Instagram to promote the youth group activities. And it's just been a really, it's been an awful experience for our children. Like, like horrifying. They lost their whole community. We didn't do anything wrong. We sent in private letters in the mail with concerns about a youth pastor. We didn't know all of the details of his private life. Neither did they. However, they were legitimate concerns and our kids lost. They've never reached out since it came public. I mean, he got charged with all these felonies and things like that. But that's kind of a side point. It's. That's our personal story. But. But my thought more so is, like, where is the church on this? Like, what is the theology of? You know, should the youth group have their middle school be promoting it on Instagram? Like, I don't think so.

[Tony Hawk]

Yeah. I mean, one, thank you for sharing. I can't imagine what that's like. I feel, like, incredible compassion for so many people around the world where the church or people of God have done such horrible things, which is kind of crazy because it does point to, like, that there is such thing as morality. And in a world now of sexual exploitation and only fans and 30% of all Internet traffic is pornography, pornographic sites get more views each month than OpenAI, TikTok, Amazon and Netflix combined. We're living in the weirdest time where people can watch people do things that they would have never had access to do. And it's completely reshaping our neural structure. I mean, Doc talks about this all the time. There's not even just a dopaminergic level, but literally on a sexual level. So I have incredible compassion for what you guys are going through. I've been in the church long enough to hear plenty of these same stories and know plenty of people. And here's the thing. It's inside, it's outside. Look, hashtag MeToo. It's Hollywood, it's sports, it's physicians, it's airline pilots. Anywhere you go, you are going to find pretty intense issues with this happening, which I think are largely correlated to the Internet, the web. I mean, isn't it funny that we call it the web? It has this capturing capacity. And especially I got exposed to pornography of 14 my friends. It was normal. I mean, this is really terrifying to think about and talk about. But I, you know, I was 14 and my. I was at a friend's house and we were all together, had a laptop, parents are home, just openly watching pornography in the living room. Like it was totally normal, you know, being encouraged, that this is healthy. That's the ideas that, you know, young people are swimming in. And I have so many men and women come up to me that are struggling with pornography. And to be completely honest, Jenny, like, my social media platforms were leading me down those rabbit holes. I went to a flip phone, largely because having A library of pornography in my pocket was not helpful and I didn't want that in my life anymore. So I think people have to start taking really radical steps to get off of these platforms if that is a propensity for you. And sadly, I think the church is so far behind on this. And I was just speaking at a conference in Phoenix actually, and, you know, there's a priest that came up and talked about how he's evangelizing through TikTok, you know, and I'm like, I'm with Marshall McLuhan on this one. That the medium is the message, right? All these mediums are so corrupted. I remember scrolling, you know, let's see Father Mike Schmitz. And then the next thing was like a bikini model, you know, so, like, these mediums are so twisted that I don't think we should be on them at all. I think the best way to share the love of God is in person. And I know this is not cool. I'm going to get probably a bunch of, you know, hate mail, which is funny because I'm not on social media, so you actually have to send me snail mail, which I'm happy to read your letters, but I really want to encourage people that, you know, one out of every eight girls on Instagram every week is sent some sexually explicit image. There's over 10,000 sixtortion events every month on Snapchat. I have, you know, even seen my dad tell me like, you know, his Facebook feed. Because these new algorithms are just pornography, you know, so it's a massive problem. The church is way behind, you know, my stance is that the spiritual implications, Jenny, we haven't even talked about, but that one was enough that I realized it's reshaping human behavior. And, you know, BJ Fogg, who's the mind behind a lot of these addictive aspects from the, you know, Stanford Lab technology, Persuasion Lab, which the headline of their website was Machines designed to change human behavior. So I don't want to participate in these platforms. This is to me, my antidote to parents. And I get it because the social implications are there. But to say no to some of these platforms now and delay the gratification long term, I'm just thinking long term for the human person, your life is gonna be so much better not engaging with these technologies. And sadly, I just think we need to keep giving away more omnipresence. What I mean by that is on the back of your, you know, Apple iPhone is a half eaten apple, which I know people have talked about this, but I think it's funny, you know, the lie in the garden was that, you know, the serpent came and obviously shared that you become like God, you know, and they ate the apple and at the knowledge of the tree of good and evil. And I believe with your smartphone, with that half eaten apple on the back of your smartphone, you are participating in one of God's attributes, namely his omnipresence, which we were never designed to experience. I remember watching like on my feed once when the Sri Lankan, I think like tsunamis hit just a normal day. I woke up probably because I scrolled waking up, I scrolled going to sleep and I remember just scrolling through my feed and seeing a kid get hit by a 30 foot tsunami wave and obviously die and perish. And I just went along with my scroll. You know, there's been a 40% decrease in empathy the last 30 years amongst college students and I largely believe it's because of omnipresence. So the more you can give that away and give that back to God, the better your life is going to be. And I honestly don't know what's happening with Taylor Swift right now. I don't know what's happening, you know, with like name the person I don't know. And my life is so much better because of that.

[Jenny Eric]

Yeah. Yeah. It's a lot of interesting things to think about. And I almost think like maybe no youth pastor should have social media or access to those Internet things.

[Tony Hawk]

I would be all for that.

[Jenny Eric]

Maybe if the youth pastor, you know, if the youth pastor would have just had a flip phone, then we would be in a really different spot. And it's, I mean it is, I don't know if it's an epidemic, but that was like a church the stones throw away. The man was in the, the worship pastor was videotaping people in the bathroom with a pen phone. And then 30 minutes from us, this youth pastor just got charged with something like 60 counts of criminal sexual misconduct with kids. So it almost feels like that should be the standard is like because it's so prolific and it's so addictive that if you are going to be someone, a teacher, anybody who works with kids, you know, use a flip phone. You can be a phone person. I don't, I'm just curious of this church's stance and theology and I don't.

[Dr. Nicholas Carderis]

Know, I think, I think Andrew, with omnipresence, that was really insightful and thoughtful about the apple. I never thought about the apple and the tree of knowledge and apple. But the other thing that we Talk about that. And I think you're talking about Jenny too. And it's not just youth pastors, it's that we talked about that social media and the Internet was going to create community, right? And the social animals, that was going to be a good thing for us. But the dark side of that is, look, look, there's always been pedophiles, there's always been miscreants and people that have done bad things. But now it's also given them community and them to the ability to have outreach. So now you have on the dark web you have communities of people that are everything from cannibal, they're cannibal communities online now to pedophilia. So people that maybe were in the shadows for long periods of time, deservedly so. People who shouldn't have been having community and having a long reach of the Internet are now finding the ability like pedophile pastors. I remember, you know, I'm a member of the Greek Orthodox Church and there was an article I forgot it was like vanity for something. They had interviewed a pedophile priest and they asked him why he went into the priesthood. And it was the old line, you know, why do you rob banks? Willie Sutton because that's where the money is, because that's where the children are. So in the old pedophile model, you used to have to physically go in person and maybe you had a reach of a few kids that you could maybe do harm to. But now the reach is digital and much you could cast a much wider net of harm. And so I think it creates more negative opportunities for people that may have malice of intent, you know, so we have to be careful.

[Jenny Eric]

It's just something for the church to be thinking about. And what kind of a message does it send if all of the information for the youth group, for example, is on Instagram? And so your kid is pressured to have that right.

[Dr. Nicholas Carderis]

And as a parent, you know where I think the double edged sword here is? Where we get stuck is Dan, do you become a helicopter parent, hyper protective and keep your child in the bubble, which a lot of parents have done because they're so afraid of all these forces that are out there. But then that doesn't allow your child to develop the healthy psychological immune system. Because what we really should be doing is teaching our kids the faith, the values and the critical thinking to be able to navigate these things. Because if we overly protect our children, which is our tendency as parents to do when these troubling times that we're not allowing them to develop their own resources that way. So it's tough. But I definitely encourage parents to, yes, watch your kids, but don't micromanage your kids either because that can be very unhealthy too.

[Jenny Eric]

Yeah, it's almost like if they just have some time to their own and there's no screens around.

[Dr. Nicholas Carderis]

Yep.

[Jenny Eric]

I mean that, it's a fairly simple solution. It's kind of like what you're talking about with humanity. It's like let's, let's go back to these, you know, when nobody has pornography in their pocket, nobody has these addictive gambling things in their pocket. We're just going to be together as people and it's just safer, it's safer for everyone. This is given, I'm sure it's given me a lot to think about. Really. I, you know, I came in here with, I showed Andrew because you know, Dr. Carter. So I always have all these notes. I showed Andrew all these notes I had before you came on and I was like, wow, even having all these notes, I mean this has given me a lot to think about, a lot to consider, a lot of practical things to try. So I really appreciate your time, love what you're doing. I'll make sure, I'll put all the links in the show notes and Dr. Carderis has already done this. But Andrew, I'm going to ask you, because you haven't. We always end our show with the same question. What's a favorite memory from your childhood? That was outside.

[Tony Hawk]

Okay, great question. I have an easy answer. I grew up surfing in Ventura, California. So my, my years, you know, starting I, I caught my first wave at 11 years old. Surfing has been a huge part of my life. There's something so incredible about the ocean and just getting to ride this type of wave. You can't ride radio frequencies, you can't ride these other electromagnetic fields, but you can ride an ocean wave. I would say one of the most fun things to do as a human is to ride ocean waves. And I'd say that takes the prize for me.

[Jenny Eric]

I love it. I love it. Well, I so appreciate your time here. I know this is going to help so many families and we have to be having these discussions and you can find your community through humanity. There's a place where you can go. You could say, I'm coming as a person or I'm coming as a family. And you can find people that are going to have a similar worldview as you that are committed to having a more of a low tech experience and raising kids that way.

[Tony Hawk]

Yeah, I mean we're essentially launching these humanity villages like this summer for families and friends. So the idea is like anyone can start a village. It could be adults getting together as parents. You'll go through the curriculum. We have a whole workbook Dr. K is in, you know, again, everything and you take on all these challenges. So we created these like real life victories we would call them, and then community adventures. Real life victory could be bone free meals. Community adventure could be you learn, you get, you meet together with your village and you learn to cook a new recipe and you put stickers on your water bottle every time you, you know, achieve one of these challenges. So this was only what we were doing at universities. We're launching it now, you know, for families and friends. So anyone can go on our website and start these villages.

[Jenny Eric]

I saw it, I went to the website and saw the family friends option. So what great timing that it's kicking off this summer.

[Tony Hawk]

No, appreciate it. I mean what you're doing is, you know, the one thing I watched that doc, I mean Dr. K showed me and then, yeah, just I think especially what you're doing and you know again, a couple of my cousins who were like, we're doing a thousand hours outside. That's so cool.

[Jenny Eric]

But the protective, it's a protective factor like you talked about, Dr. Carderis. You know, the protective factor is the fact that you run out of time for screens. That's really our goal. Our goal is that we're living so much good life that we run out of time for screens. And now that our kids were on the same age, the cusp of graduation, they are not addicted. And that doesn't necessarily mean that they wouldn't get addicted in the future. But we do not have any of those problems. None. You know, it's like, well, they'll play video games a little bit here or there, but like if we say no, it's not a big deal. If it's over, it's not a big deal. It's because they've been wired for real life and for hands on and for experiences.

[Dr. Nicholas Carderis]

Yeah.

[Jenny Eric]

And then you're thankful. You're really thankful.

[Dr. Nicholas Carderis]

So a comedian friend of mine says, you know, just run your kids like dogs. Just run them, run them out. They're exhausted, they're too exhaust for screens. And now my kids play tons of sports and baseball and they rode crew and they played basketball and we ran them. You know, we just try to run so that they were too exhausted by to do some of that, you know.

[Jenny Eric]

And, and that's hard. I mean, as a parent, that means you're really putting in the effort there. Like you've got to get them to their things and it costs money. But when you look back over the course of a childhood, you're so glad that you made those investments because like I said, I mean, the problems that we hear about, I mean, we don't have any of them.

[Tony Hawk]

Yeah. Jenny, you're. You're hitting obviously, like, you know, we're really. Our curriculum, I'd say, would start for like 14 and above. Obviously what you're doing is, you know, like implementing the, you know, the work of obviously plenty of people that you, you know, quote. So anyway, I'm super grateful that doctor Was willing to.

[Jenny Eric]

This is great. I love the connection. It's so good. It's a really, really good conversation. So I cherish any chance to get a chance to talk with you and share your voice. And so thank you so much to the both of you for being here.

[Tony Hawk]

Thanks, Ginny.

[Dr. Nicholas Carderis]

Thank you. Thanks.