← The 1000 Hours Outside Podcast
The 1000 Hours Outside Podcast
1KHO 567: How to Resist a Hyperactive Worldview | Kay Toombs, Changing Our Minds
00:53:52
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- [00:01]
A
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B
My name is Jenny Urch. I'm the founder of 1000 Hours Outside and I met such a wonderful woman so special at the Homestead Festival in Columbia, Tennessee back in June. Or Rory and Rebecca Thieck put on such a wonderful festival and it was just a gift of my life to sit with Kay Toombs. I got to sit with you at lunch a day or two and then I have just finished reading your book. It's called Changing Our How Digital Technology Affects Our Children and Disconnects Us from Reality and from each Other.
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A
Welcome.
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C
Thank you very much Ginny. And I was so happy to meet you and I was particularly happy to see what you're doing with A Thousand Hours Outside because it really spoke to me that it is helping children to get off screens and I'm passionate about getting children off screen. So I was very happy to hear about you.
- [02:08]
B
You have got such a unique story. You live in this community that is prioritizing relationships and hands on living and you do things like there's no Internet in people's homes and you have some specific things that are helping to protect those parts of humanity that are so important. And so this is a really special thing to have gotten a chance. Cause I know it's like to do it through technology is not the most ideal. So I just wanna say a heartfelt thank you for being willing to do that. And I know people are going to get so much from this also. Thanks for. I, you know, I didn't know I came to that festival by myself. Our family was supposed to come, and then some things changed last minute, and so I kind of just crashed your lunches. And you were so kind, welcoming your whole group of friends. So I really appreciate that you are an associate professor Amerita of Philosophy at Baylor University in Texas. And you have spent many years exploring the ways in which contemporary values and the context in which we live our lives impact our effort to develop sustainable culture and to form caring communities. And you just have really an extensive background here. But I would love to kick it off with something that really struck me from your book that I haven't really read anywhere else. And you talk about this concept of a hyperactive worldview. I thought, oh, that's really interesting how technology is creating sort of this hyperactive worldview. And then what we're losing is we're losing patience. And especially kids. You know, it's too boring to go out and watch a plant grow. It's too boring to go outside because I didn't catch a fish. And on the Discovery Channel, you catch a fish immediately. Can you talk about that impact of technology to give. It changes our worldview.
- [03:59]
C
Yes, it really does. And our children have grown up at a time where they never lived their lives, where they could be connected all day, any day, everywhere. And so what's happened, I think most people have probably noticed it with children. And as I say in the book, actually, excessive time on screens changes your brain because the brain is plastic, and so the brain alters with whatever you do. And so what's happening with our children, I know you've noticed it, is that they have no attention span. I've noticed it. If you take kids to the zoo, they'll run up to a cage, look at whatever in the cage, stay five seconds, and run away to the next cage because they want to see what's going on next. And I think that we have all become part of this hyperactive worldview in the sense that if we are connected and we know we can be connected every minute of the day, we get into the habit where we keep for one Thing we feel that if the phone pings, we have to look at it immediately. And it used to be the case that if you wanted to have lunch with someone, you would pick up the phone and talk to them. Now it takes about 10 texts because you say, let's do it Tuesday. No, can't do it Tuesday. Let's do it Wednesday. Can't do it Wednesday. But the thing is that it's very difficult, I think, for people to relax and to do slow things because they're so used to. It's kind of like, I hate to say it, but it's kind of like we all have the Amazon world view where, you know, you order something, you expect to get it now. And that's the way that's what technology has done to us and particularly done to our children. As you mentioned, teachers say if they take children out on a nature walk and they go to a pond or something, the children get bored because they've watched stuff on Discovery Channel and they expect everything to be alive every minute. And so they don't have the patience and they don't see that it's relevant either.
- [06:26]
B
You know, these are interesting conversations to have as it relates to technology because sometimes it would seem that technology is neutral. And yet what this has done is it has sped things up so fast and then obviously artificial intelligence is similar, if not faster, that, you know, you can spit out an itinerary for your trip, you know, you can have it make a top 10 list. And it's just so fast. So one of the things you talk about is you have this community and you're bringing in field trips often from the schools a lot in the spring. And so you've interacted with all of these children and have had the opportunity to see the changes over the past 10, 15, 20 years. So you talked about this situation where, you know, you're in your fiber crafts shop, you're weaving and all of these things that we do with our hands, they help our brains release dopamine, they just help us feel good. And you know, I try and keep a cross stitch kit in my purse, you know, do 10 stitches, you just feel a little better.
- [07:24]
A
This is how God made us.
- [07:26]
B
And what you talk about is that some of these kids come in and they immediately discount count a craft like that because they think it's going to take too long, whatever that means to them. And you say that it has changed the things that we imagine about spending our time. So you say this. The new technologies have brought us not only to the belief that the quickest way is the most efficient way, but to the reality that it is the only thing, the only way we can tolerate. We can only tolerate quick. So these kids are saying, I wouldn't have the patience to knit that, right?
- [08:06]
C
And it's not just kids. Let me just back up a little because people would be a little confused as to why I'm weaving and spinning and just say that, you know, in my 50s, I became part of a Christian community. It's an agrarian based community. So we have a working farm and we have children coming on field trips to come and look at the farm. And I'll talk about that in a minute. And we have a craft village because we teach the traditional crafts. Some of the crafts are weaving and spinning. I learned to weave and spin after I retired. So I demonstrate in the fiber arts barn. And every time somebody comes in and it's not just children and they see me weaving and they'll say, oh, that's beautiful. How long does it take? And if I say, well, if I wove this, it would take me probably five hours. And they go, oh, that is so long. Because I point out to them that they probably spend two or three hours a day on Facebook. And then they say, oh. And I wouldn't have the patience to do that. And I tried to tell them, well, actually it teaches you patience. And you know, our children are homeschooled and they all learn the crops. And one of the things that we found about crafts, and you probably found if you do it with your own children, that it does teach them patience and perseverance and it gives them a tremendous amount of excitement that they actually did something. I remember we have a Thanksgiving fair here. We have thousand, 20,000 people come. And I was teaching knitting at the fair and two kids came over, a 17 and 18 year old girl. And you know, frankly, they didn't look like children who'd want to do that. I mean, one looked like her hair was sort of plugged into an electrical outlet. So they said, what are you doing? And I said, well, we're knitting a, you know, a thing to put on your hair headband. Oh, we want to do that. So they were sisters. One sat each side of me and they struggled. They do a row. I'd help them do a row. And the first one finished and she jumped up and she went and looked herself in the mirror and she jumped up and down and she said, I can't believe I did that. And then she took it off and I said, well, aren't you going to wear it. Oh, she said, I'm going to wait till my sister finishes hers. So her sister finished, she went, looked in the mirror, she jumped up and down. They took pictures of themselves and themselves with me and they said, oh, I can't wait to show all my friends. And the one girl said, oh, I'm going to go home and I'm going to knit a scarf next. And they, they were so thrilled to have been able to do something themselves. And I just feel like it's so sad that children nowadays, number one, don't get the opportunity but number two, that they don't think it's anything that's relevant to their lives because they want to be on screens. And with regard to the children coming to the farm, many of them have no idea where food comes from. They think it comes from, from Heb. You know, they have no idea. And we had, one time we had a lady and she was showing her child the horses and she said to her little girl, see the horses when we go riding, we shoe the horse. Then we put the saddle on the horse. We thought, why does she shoo the horse every time she goes riding? And we realized that going riding for her child was on the computer. It was a computer game.
- [12:04]
B
And they're doing that with the vegetables, you know, and you're saying, oh yeah, you can't eat that.
- [12:09]
C
We had, we had someone in a knitting class one day and her phone pinged and she said, oh, I have to stop, I have to plant my carrots in her video game.
- [12:23]
B
So, you know, it's a really interesting conversation though, Kay, and I'm so glad that you're writing about it and talking about it. The book is called Changing Our Minds. Fantastic one for any family tree. In fact, it has the most references I have ever seen in any book. It's just absolutely fantastic. Just study after study and research after research and book after book. But you know, I got emotional when you talked about those girls knitting and you know, they're a little older, they haven't had this experience and how life changing these simple hands on things can be. And you bring up a really good point that there are unknown effects of technology that you might never consider. And as technology changes and becomes even more pervasive, these are the conversations that are really important. You have to try and extrapolate out and think, well, what might this impact? And so you say that this hyperactive worldview shapes a person's perspective on time. And you can never even really imagine that. But when you bring it up, it Makes a lot of sense. And so these, you know, kids that are saying, I would never have the patience to do that, or the parents, and you say, but a lifestyle that includes crafts, traditional crafts. It teaches, and I'd never thought of this. K. It teaches attentiveness, care, perseverance, striving for quality over quantity, cooperation, willingness to listen and accept, direction, creativity and personal responsibility. Their character skills that apply to the art of human relationships. I would say that of all the conversations I've had, which is about 550, this has never even gotten brought up once. But this is a huge thing.
- [14:12]
C
Yes, yes. Well, one thing that I want people to understand because I think it's very important, is how compulsively attractive to technology is to children. And we are not just talking about teenagers. They have done studies with babies where if you have an infant who is looking at a book or something and you say to them, you point and you say, look, the child will look up. If that same child is on a tablet, on a screen and you say, look, the child will not look up, won't even hear you. And the thing is that unfortunately, infants are becoming the fastest growing users of technology. I mean, you see people all the time with strollers, with iPads, and the minute a child sit down, they give them something to keep them occupied. So now we have psychiatrists seeing children, infants, three and four year olds, who are addicted to technology. You take the tablet away and they screen. So it's very important. You know, psychiatrists say that screens are like electronic cocaine because they are addictive. I mean, you know, people say, well, our children could stop, but they spent. Teenagers spend eight hours a day on screens. If you spend eight hours a day on screens, it is changing your brain, it's changing your mindset. And one of the things that I talk about, and I don't know whether you want to go into it, but one of the things horrifying about our children having smartphones is that they are getting into all kinds of harmful chat rooms and websites that their parents know nothing about. And Jonathan Haidt, you know who's written about this? Just his. Actually, it was his research assistant just came out with a thing on video games. And video games are horrifying because now they cannot see necessarily, they can't police the content because users can now put content on the video games. And one of the harms is that young boys in particular getting into the most dreadfully violent, pornographic, dreadful games that their parents don't realize they're on.
- [16:55]
A
Wow.
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B
Wow. And you talk about. It's like in this online world, the kids, the child is often on their own and they're chatting with strangers and there are all sorts of things going on. And you know, it's just interesting. The, the problems are so layered. I mean, I think it is a really big deal that technology changes our perception of time and what feels worth it. And of course as a parent, you're thinking, I want all of these traits that come from crafts. You write knitting in talking about knitting, but in general, it is not a small thing to find this kind of meaningful activity.
- [17:32]
A
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- [21:03]
B
So one of the things that you talk about as an answer is being very intentional about making sure that there are alternative activities available. You say you have to replace it with something that engages kids. You have to replace the technology with something that engages them and allows them to escape it. They have to be able to escape it. And you talked about how this requires an extraordinary commitment. So I want to read the sentence it requires extraordinary commitment to take the steps necessary to create a context in which we live out the values, practices and activities that produce a sustainable culture. So, you know, someone says, turn off your TVs, homeschool, your children, join a community of like minded people. And people will say, well, what do you do if you don't watch tv?
- [21:47]
C
Exactly. We have young people who come and they'll say to our children, what do you do if you don't have tv? And our children go, how does anyone have time to watch tv? Because they have so many alternative activities. But one of the things that is the key, I think, is that you have to have a group of people, group of families who are all committed to getting their children off screens so that the young people have an opportunity to be with other young people who are also not on screens. And you know, one of the things that's interesting is when you ask young people, do they like social media? A large percentage of girls say they don't like it, but they can't get off it because that's the only way they communicate with friends. But I just recently read an essay and I think it was in the New York Times. Jonathan Haight put it out. He has a program called called After Babble. I don't know if you've seen it, where he puts up the technology stuff. And this woman was a journalist and she had two children, teens, and she decided she wanted to get them off smartphone. So she said that they were only going to be on their phone, the smartphone, one hour a day. And she gave them, I don't know what you call them, light phones, dumb phones, whatever. But the key was she told them they were going to do it for a month and at the end of the month they could sell these phones she'd given them. So that was like, oh great. So they got six other children their age to do the same thing. So they were off phones for a month. And then she had read that Jonathan Haidt said, well, you know, they need to be able to do things on their own. So she allowed this group to go on a one night camping trip completely on their own. And she said they came back changed. Changed, absolutely. And they now didn't want to go back on the smartphones.
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A
Wow.
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B
And it probably changed the parents as well.
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C
Oh, I'm sure.
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B
Because we're losing the experience of trusting kids and that gives you the opportunity to do that. There's so many really intriguing things to think about in this book. You talk about fragmentation in a couple different contexts, but one of them you talk about is Fragmented knowledge. And this thought of that, you know, we take life and we just splice it into these different subjects and these different disciplines. And you had it in the book. I thought this was really intriguing. It's a course. Here's the course. How to grow a Fettuccine Alfredo dinner.
- [24:33]
C
Yes, yes. Well, the thing is, you know, of course, you have to realize, too, that I came through traditional schooling, I went to university where everything is in discrete categories. Philosophy and scientists don't talk to one another. And, you know, and that's the way in all schooling, you know, environmental studies are separated from literature and history and geography and so forth. And so we in our school, and we try to make it very relational so that it shows you that it's relevant. So your math skills, you can use your math skills when you're deciding to plant a garden, you know what areas you're going to plant. You can use it for measuring the yarn, to do weaving. And so it's relevant. So we had a group of kids who decided to do this project which was growing a fettuccine Alfredo dinner. So they started with everything. They went and they watched the cow being milked, or they milked the cow and they. They went to the grist mill and they saw the grain thing and they grew. They grew all the things that were going in the dinner. They used the chickens that they had. And so at the very end of it, they had not only a fettuccine Alfredo dinner, but somebody had made the napkins for the dinner, somebody had woven the bread baskets. And so can you imagine how thrilled they were to get that done? I mean, it was like, I couldn't imagine ever doing that in my childhood. But also, they learned how to cook everything. They cooked everything themselves. So it was a wonderful idea. But I could see how people could do something similar to that right at home, don't you think?
- [26:33]
B
Yes. And you really do such an incredible job of weaving. I'm not going to read the whole thing because there's a lot of details here, but you say, okay, if you've got a course, how to grow a Fettuccine Alfredo dinner, the kids are learning about dairy products. And in. Underneath each of these subjects, there's a bunch of other things. I'm just going to read the overview. They're learning about dairy products, animal husbandry, wheat products. They're learning about your. That the wheat comes, you know, it might be coming from the US it might be coming from Russia, you know, so they're learning history, they're learning Geography, they're learning nature study and botany, they're learning gardening, they're learning craft skills like woodworking, they make a cutting board. Basketry, sewing, you know, stitching the bread cloth. Culinary skills. How do you make sourdough bread, pasta, different kinds of cheeses and butter. Then they research and they interview and they write and they read and they. And they memorize and they draw and they paint, and there's rudimentary math skills as well as educational visits to the farm. And it's done in community.
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C
Yeah.
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B
And you. If you really take a step back and think about that, in comparison to first hour is math, second hour is English, third hour is social studies.
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C
Right.
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B
It's a very different. It's so cohesive.
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C
Well, and we're very fortunate because we have opportunities in community that you might not have outside of community. But I still think that if a group of families get together, there are things that you can do. And, you know, I remember one of the things about that I'm very happy about what you're doing is that I grew up in a time where you spent all your time outside, right?
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B
Yes.
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C
But one of the things that is also problematic about children being on screens is they're not using their imagination, they're not using their creation to make up games. You know, I read a story about one woman. She said her children were complaining they were bored, so she told them to go outside and they would go outside. And she said they went outside and they were out all day and they had a wonderful time. And so the next day, they said they were bored. So she said, we'll go outside. They said, oh, we did that yesterday. See, that's the mindset. You do something today, so you don't want to do it again tomorrow.
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B
Whereas that was the normal way of childhood. Yes, for a very long time. You went out today, you go out yesterday, you're going out tomorrow.
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C
Yes, exactly. You know, my mother told me my brother and sister are a lot older than me, so I was almost like an only child. And she said we had a group of laurel bushes in our garden, and we used to watch, you know, western movies. So she said I would be at one end of the laurel bushes, and I'd say, come on, boys, we're going to get those rustlers. And then I come out the other end going, quick, we've got to get away.
- [29:36]
B
But that's incredible, playing both parts. The creativity and the flexibility that comes from that. Wow. And the adaptability. So you talk about this sustainability. You're talking about Sustainability with the earth and sustainability with our relationships and some of the things that you could do to help with that would cross over between both. But I'd love to talk quite a bit about the relationships because you talk about this a lot in your book. And this is here all of these AI relationships. So there's these chat friends and virtual assistants. Can we talk about the dangers there, especially for children?
- [30:17]
C
Well, I wanted to. I just read this the other day. You know, one of the things that I talk about with the loss of face to face relationships is that children are no longer able to connect with people face to face. They say when children go to kindergarten, they can't look anybody in the eye. High school teachers say the same thing because they don't know how to communicate. And one of the real dangers is because they don't have face to face relationships, they don't understand emotions. They have no emotional intelligence. So if they say something really hurtful to another kid, they don't realize that it's hurtful. Or if they do, they don't have any empathy for it. And so, you know, we see on online all the communication that is really hateful and children are doing it. They're bullying one another online. And it's because they don't have these relationships, these first person relationships. And so one of the advantages I think of like getting off screens is that it allows you to have a lot of family time together. You know, people don't have family time together because their children are in their bedrooms looking at their screens or they might be too. I mean, one of the things is that one of the things I do say is that as adults we need to be very aware of our use of technology. So, I mean, one of the wonderful things about being in community is that we have relationships, intergenerational relationships. So our children. One of the problems with technology is that the only relationships that children have is peer to peer relationships, which is not healthy. And so we have, you know, intergenerational relationships because we have families here who are. We have grandparents, uncles, aunts. But even so, older and younger people are together in crab working on the crafts. We have people of different ages working on the crafts. So that's a place where you can cement those kind of relationships too. One of the young people in the community who learned to weave as a child taught me to weave. So, you know, it goes both ways. And the other thing about it is that then our children, they realize that caring for other people is a given. And so they care for older people. You Know, I think I tell in the book, one of our elderly people had cancer and she couldn't sleep at night. So a group of our young people volunteered to go and sing through the night for her because they, they have a relationship with older people. So they have, they have a respect for older. If you have relationships for your older and younger people, they have respect for older people. In our culture, you kind of throw older people out, you know, as being irrelevant.
- [33:34]
B
Yeah.
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C
Because it's a youth based culture.
- [33:36]
B
Yeah.
- [33:37]
C
But you know, with the question, with regard to the question of time, I just thought of something. You know, most of my work had to do with the experience of illness and disability because I've lived with Ms. Since I was 29 and the notion of healing, making whole, even if you can't be cured. But one of the things that I talk about is that time is subjective and I won't tell you why that's the case. If you have difficulty putting on your shoes, it takes a long time. Seems like a long time. If you just jump out of bed and put on your shoes, it's no time at all. So it's a subjective experience of time. It's the same with space. You know, what's low or high has to do with the capacity of your body. So what's high to a person in a wheelchair is low to somebody who's standing. So we tend to think of those things as objective, but they're really not, they're subjective. And that's what's happening with this time. I think weaving a scarf in six hours is quick and somebody who comes in says, oh, that's such a long time.
- [34:56]
B
Yeah, because they're used to such short inputs.
- [34:59]
C
Yes.
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B
You talk about some of the statistics and you're talking about attention in the book.
- [35:03]
C
Yes.
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B
You're talking about, you know, most people spend three seconds on a website or you know, they switch tasks every 19 seconds. All of these things have really changed us.
- [35:16]
C
The amount of time on a website before somebody switches is one second.
- [35:22]
A
Wow.
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C
That's the average amount of time people spend on a website.
- [35:28]
B
So yeah, from that perspective, six hours would seem like a long time. Even though they were probably on their screen for six hours that day and they had the time to do it. Yeah. And these are really critical books to read, books like yours. It's very critical because you have to think of the long term consequences of all of these things and you may be missing some of them. The crafts was one.
- [35:55]
A
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- [37:06]
D
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E
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D
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- [38:36]
C
And one of the things I think is surprising to people is that excessive time on screens actually causes physical changes in your brain. It was very interesting and it's for all of us too, but it was very interesting. They did a study with taxi drivers in London who, I don't know if they have to do it now because they have gps, but to be a taxi driver in London, you had to learn 20,000 streets because you knew the quickest way to get around. Took two years. They looked at the brains of taxi drivers who went through this training and at the end of two years, the gray matter in the hippocampus of their brain, which is the part of your brain that is associated with memory, had grown. So if you never put anything into long term memory, you don't know what's happening to that part of the brain. And we don't because we no longer put anything into long term memory. Want to know something? We Google it, we look at the answer and we forget it. And now they are seeing, they call it digital dementia in young people who can't remember anything. So it isn't something that is neutral. We really do have to think about those things.
- [40:03]
B
Yeah.
- [40:03]
C
And the reason I have so many references in the book is because I don't want anyone to think this is my opinion. You know, somebody go, oh, well, that's just her opinion. And the research studies about children on video games shows without a doubt, hundreds of research studies that being on violent video games causes people to be more aggressive, more filled with anger. So it's not an innocuous thing.
- [40:35]
A
It's not.
- [40:36]
B
I mean, you really cover everything. It is incredibly remarkable is like how well researched this book is. And it's not, you know, it's not incredibly long either. So I mean, you just packed it in.
- [40:47]
A
I was just one thing after the next after the next. It's so impressive.
- [40:51]
C
And it's not incredibly expensive.
- [40:54]
B
Exactly, exactly. It's, it's, it's needed. I mean, we have to be reading Books like this. It's called Changing Our Minds. People can get it wherever they get their books.
- [41:04]
C
They probably can't get it in bookstore, but they can get it from Amazon.
- [41:07]
B
Yes, yes. So I want to just pop back to the relationship piece especially because that is one of the things that you focus on in terms of sustainability. Can we sustain meaningful relationships? Because I thought, I was impressed, K, that you actually had already addressed these robots because that is the next frontier. It's already here. But, you know, that is what's coming. It's coming into kids toys. There's algorithms in the kids toys. So you talked about the empathy piece. Kids are going into the principal's office because they were mean and they don't even know they were mean. They have no idea. They, they don't understand that they hurt someone else's feelings. So that's one piece of it that you brought up earlier. But this other piece of. There's studies that show that most children believe that robots have mental states. So the robot could be sad or angry, that robots are social beings, they could be a friend, that robots have moral standing, so they deserve fair treatment. And, and they're programmed that way. They're programmed to appear to be emotional and because the toy manufacturer is trying to induce genuine emotions from the kid.
- [42:21]
C
Yes. Yeah.
- [42:22]
B
So this is really seductive. Can you talk about. I mean, shoot it to us straight, Kay. I mean, to me, these seem like a no brainer, like shouldn't be doing this.
- [42:34]
C
Well, you know, this is the thing, and I'm glad you brought up AI because I just read something that really horrifies me about relationships. Now, you know you can have AI companions, right?
- [42:47]
A
Yeah.
- [42:48]
C
And three out of four teams have talked to AI companions have social relationships with AI companions. One in three who do that say they would prefer to have a relationship with an AI companion than a real person. They prefer talking to AI rather than talking to a real person. One in three ask their AI companions for advice or talk to them about difficult things that they haven't talked to a real person about. Now that's horrifying. But the other thing with children and robots is the way they did that research. They had a robot that the child was playing with. Then they came and they put the robot in the closet. And the children thought this was so cruel and so terrible for this poor thing because it was shut in the closet. You know, what's the problem now is that everybody has these speakers, you know, Google speakers in the house. I was somewhere the other day and this woman showed me her grandchild. And she thought it was funny. I didn't think it was funny. She said, look, my grandchild, I don't know how old this kid was, five or six. She talks to Google all the time. So she stands in front of this voice activated thing and she asks it questions. She says, you know, tell me the joke about the chicken going over the road or whatever. If the thing that they found with that is that children end up having very problematic communication skills because if the robot, if this thing doesn't tell them what they want to do, they yell at it, scream at it. But this child spends all her time talking to Google. And you know, the other thing is that to show how they've developed these, they've developed these. This is terrible to me. A lot of people in nursing homes are lonely. They don't have anyone. So they've developed these toys that look like a cat or a dog that you give to an old person. And you know, when you stroke it, it turns it head and it does certain things. And these elderly people think this is a companion because it kind of, it's programmed to react in a certain kind of way.
- [45:13]
B
Wow. I mean, it's such a, an odd time that we live in because people would sell that based off of empathy. They would say, well, you don't want this old person to feel lonely. They could have this robot dog or this virtual companion or this child is lonely. And I read this book, it's called Love to Learn by Isabel Howe. And she said it's like a really deep question. Something like, is virtual love better than no love at all? So talk about philosophy.
- [45:48]
A
And you know, I mean, that's kind.
- [45:49]
B
Of where we're at, right? Like that's how they sell it. And to your point of living in your community where there's actual people and people are interacting with all ages, you see the benefit of that. I feel the same way about children in the community. I've thought about how, because kids are mostly in a school building. So, you know, kids are irritating, you know, they're loud and you know, they're pulling the fire alarms. You know, they're just there. You know, that's how kids are. They're getting into stuff. And so I think that society as a whole suffers by not having more exposure to young kids. I mean, they help us to grow our patients. They're vivacious. So, you know, it's like, oh, here's the solution, you know, just stay in your room with your robot dog. And on the surface, I think some people might be tricked to say, oh yeah, I guess that's a good solution. But the downstream effects of that are lengthy. They're so lengthy.
- [46:48]
C
I actually did read about a nursing home and the medical director because everyone was. Seemed like they didn't know anybody or anything. He introduced, it's a long story, so I won't tell you those story, but he introduced animals, plants into the nursing home. But then he got children from the elementary school to come visit and the children love being with the elderly people and the elderly people love being with the children and it was a wonderful activity for both.
- [47:23]
B
Yeah, that's wonderful. So I think what the book does for me is it's very thought provoking on all of the different layers of ramifications from technology and also from our extraction from nature, because you really touch on that too. This is a twofold thing. Technology has increased while our interaction with nature has decreased. What are the ramifications of that and what can we do? There were so many things I learned about that I didn't know about one of them and I was shocked about this one K. So, you know, you have these dating apps. Once again, it's like, oh, wow, that's a great way, you know, to meet someone from somewhere else you might not have met somewhere, you might not have met them in person or you might not have had any connection. So we have these dating apps. This was shocking. It is estimated that 40% of frequent users of all online dating sites are married.
- [48:19]
C
Yeah. This is also one of the problems with social media is that our children are talking to anonymous strangers who they not only don't know who they are, I mean in terms of, I don't know Fred Smith as Fred Smith, but they don't know whether this person is a man or a woman or who it is they're communicating with. And when I saw the thing about video games, one of the thing about anonymous users is there are many of the anonymous users on those video games who are harmful to children. One example was a young girl who thought she was talking to a girl and who sent some kind of a revealing picture to who she thought was a girl. And she gets the response back that, oh, I'm not a girl, I'm a man now, I'm going to distribute this information to your school unless you do this. And so this was actually, I think they, they turned this over to the police. So it was all right. Could you imagine how many children are caught in that kind of a predicament and can't get out of it? Don't know how to get out.
- [49:40]
B
And sometimes they take their lives. I've heard stories of that.
- [49:43]
C
They do.
- [49:44]
B
And it can escalate very quickly.
- [49:46]
C
Yeah.
- [49:47]
B
Because they don't know what to do. And it's extortion. You had told the story in a, in the book about how some girl was getting bullied online and maybe it was an anonymous account. Anyways, it turned out to be a mother.
- [50:01]
C
Yes.
- [50:02]
B
In the neighborhood.
- [50:03]
C
Yes. The thing that is shocking to me about cyberbullying is the extent to which young people gang up to bully someone. And I can only put it down to the fact that this loss of empathy and the other thing is that they can do it anonymously and that they don't recognize perhaps how harmful it is. But anyway, let me on a happier note. A lot of the research studies that I've read about the interaction with nature show that there are definite cognitive, emotional, physical benefits for children being connected to nature. And they in fact use that kind of connection with children who are drug addicts or are addicted to the Internet. And I think I'm right in saying 75% of the boys recovered and they felt it was due. Plus it helps children with adhd. It really does. And so that's a very encouraging thing to. We have to be encouraged about.
- [51:18]
B
Yes. I mean the answers are there. And you talk about how it requires commitment, but it is commitment to simple things. It's commitment to being outside. It's commitment to relationships, it's commitment to hands on experiences and that changes everything. It's a commitment to. Setting the screens aside, can you tell us about your community? Does it have a name? I'm super intrigued. I'd never heard of anything like this. You say it started in New York, but now you're in Texas.
- [51:47]
C
Yes, it started in New York with a young couple in New York by themselves at a mission church in New York in the 70s, 1973. Gradually a small group of people became part of the church and then they felt to move to an agrarian based lifestyle to live out their faiths. But before they did that they wanted to be sure that they got their relationships right. So they knew that you had to work on the relationships before you did this. So any a group of about 100 people moved to Colorado and there they learned how to. Because this was a bunch of people from New York, they didn't know how to do anything. So this should be encouraging to anyone who says, well I don't know how to do it. They started by small garden plots, then they moved to Colorado. They Learned how to horse farm, they learned how to raise animals, they learned how to do the crops. But part of the church was in Texas because one of the founders was from Texas. So they decided to move back to Texas. So we have been in Waco now since 1990. We have about 1,000 people here from all over the world. And then we have sister communities in Virginia, Idaho, Montana, Wisconsin, New Zealand, South Africa, Israel and Mexico. So the. The official name is Heritage Ministries.
- [53:20]
B
So when did you get.
- [53:22]
C
I came in, I. People ask me and I say, oh, not long ago, 1998, but I guess it has been a long time. Now.
- [53:31]
B
It's interesting at that point in 1973, and I talk about this a lot because I really like this book. It's called Amusing Ourselves to Death.
- [53:40]
C
Oh, yes, I know that book.
- [53:42]
B
Yes. And it was written in the 80s, the mid-80s, about TV. And so I always wonder what that author would think today. I can't even imagine Neil Postman, what would he think of life today? But how interesting in the 70s when there weren't these pressing technology problems, and yet what they built and the values they solve, problems that came decades down the road.
- [54:11]
C
Well, you know, when our community started in 1973, they made the decision not to have television. And they based it, not so much on what was on television, but they based it. They made the decision because they knew that it would disrupt their family relationships, their social relationships, because everyone would be focused on the tv. Now, when you think now everybody has their own TV or they have a smartphone, so they're all in different rooms doing different things, looking at different programs. So it was very wise at that time to make that decision. It was because we are informed by what we see and read. One of the things that is tragic is that children no longer read. Our children read. Children no longer read. In high school, students one in three say they have never read a whole book. Children going to college now, professors say they've never read a book. They don't know how to read a book, which is terrible.
- [55:21]
B
Yeah. And you talk in this book about there's so many great info, there's so much great information in the book, but even in the footnotes, there's extras. It's like little bonuses that when they look at a screen, your eye moves in the shape of an F. Yes. And so there's just different eye movements even when you're reading on a screen versus reading in a book. So you could see, if you take that out, you know, several years, that's going to affect a child's ability to actually read from a book on a page because it's a different type of eye movement. So it is a phenomenal book. It is called Changing Our Minds. How Digital Technology Affects Our Children and Disconnects Us from Reality and from each Other. I took seven or eight pages of notes on it, even as someone who's read a lot of books on this topic, because there were so many things that I hadn't considered and so many encouraging reminders that it really matters and that we should make the extraordinary commitment to take the steps necessary to be sustainable. And that's in our relationships with each other and our relationships with the Earth. So what a gift. I told my husband, Josh, I really enjoyed being at the Homestead Festival. It was a very vibrant community and a lot of people there. And you learn a lot. I thought, goodness, I came away with friends, you know, just after. It makes me emotional just after a couple days because I came alone. And I just felt like everybody was so welcoming. So, anyway, this is such an honor. I loved listening to you speak. I listened to one of your sessions while we were there. So I really appreciate you coming and sharing with all of the people that are listening, and I hope that they pick up your book because it's one that's really important and you touch on AI and so many different topics. So thank you for being here.
- [57:02]
C
Well, and I appreciate very much coming, but I also want to say that I appreciate all the parents who are trying to do what you're doing and are trying to get their children off technology. And I just wanted to say we have gained so much more than we've lost, and our children have, too, and your children will too. So.
- [57:30]
A
Yes.
- [57:31]
B
Okay. I have one final question, because I always ask it. The question is, what's a favorite memory from your childhood? That was outside.
- [57:39]
C
Okay. My favorite memory from my childhood was that we spent six weeks a year on a friend's farm. And one of my favorite memories is jumping from the beam in the barn into of a loose head.
- [57:57]
B
Such simple things, but so wonderful.
- [58:00]
C
Okay.
- [58:01]
B
I really admire you and I so appreciate your wisdom and your voice in all of these really important topics. Thank you for being here.
- [58:08]
C
Well, thank you. Thank you. And let's keep in touch.
- [58:12]
B
Yes.
- [58:12]
C
Okay. Bye. Bye.
- [58:16]
E
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C
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E
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