Teens, Screens, and The Science of Adolescence

Summary

Podcast Summary: This Is So Awkward — Teens, Screens, and The Science of Adolescence

Episode Overview

Date: December 16, 2025
Hosts: Dr. Cara Natterson and Vanessa Kroll Bennett
Guest: Erin Walsh, Co-founder, Spark & Stitch Institute; Author of "It's Their Teen: Screens and the Science of Adolescence"
Main Theme:
This episode tackles the nuanced intersections between adolescence, technology, and brain development. Dispelling panic and simplistic narratives, the conversation focuses on science, curiosity, and balanced guidance for parents and educators. Special attention is given to how adults can approach teens and tech with curiosity, nuance, and respect, rather than fear or rigid restrictions.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Setting the Tone: Balanced Curiosity vs. Fear (03:14–05:56)

• The hosts and guest agree to begin from a balanced, non-alarmist perspective about teens and tech, acknowledging both positives and negatives.
• Positive relationships can and do form through tech, for adults and teens alike.
  • “It’s really easy to be judgmental and it’s really easy to go negative. And yet... so too are there positive things that come out of teens’ tech use.” – Vanessa (03:21)
• Approaching conversations with teens about tech use "from a place of respect" is crucial, per research and decades of experience (05:24).

2. Common Myths & Narratives That Shut Down Conversation (06:44–09:19)

• Erin highlights two dominant, problematic narratives:
  • "Teens plus screens equals bad" —the presumption that any tech use inevitably harms wellbeing.
  • “The best parent eliminates screens entirely”—creating guilt and anxiety.
• These narratives foster unproductive parental fear, shame, and control-based strategies.
• “The same screen that can be a portal to harmful content... can also be a portal to connection and learning or just taking a break.” —Erin (09:19)

3. Approaching Tech Use With Curiosity, Nuance, and Trust (10:10–13:16)

• Use curiosity and ask open-ended questions; avoid coming with pre-written stories or assumptions.

• Draw analogies from parenting in other risky domains (e.g., teaching kids to drive): nuanced, gradual, and skills-based approaches work best:

  • “...if we think about our kids starting to drive, right? ...We are able to have nuanced conversations to teach kids how to drive, to empower them with not just the ability to, but the responsibility that goes along with.” – Cara (10:10)

• Avoid the “dose-dependent” fallacy; the impact of tech varies based on context, content, motivations, and the individual child.

4. Adolescent Brain Science: Risk, Reward, & Dopamine (21:13–29:53)

• Adolescents’ brains are naturally sensitive to reward, especially social reward (23:49). This is adaptive, driving them to seek connection and find their identity.
  • “Their dopaminergic pathways... are more sensitive, not just to any kind of rewards but especially social rewards, which becomes very important to their development.” —Erin (23:49)
• Dopamine isn’t tech-specific—it’s part of all rewarding experiences, physical or digital.
• "Frictionless" rewards (instant, easy digital pleasures) are particularly compelling; the concern is when these easy pathways become avoidance of growth or learning.

5. Practical Guidance for Parents: Skills, Gradual Access, and Agreements (34:58-40:54)

• Device Readiness:
  • There’s no magic “right” age; readiness depends on the child’s skills, context, and family needs (35:32).
  • “Delay as long as makes sense for your family... but think in terms of developing skills over time with coaching and mentoring.” —Erin (36:34)
  • Start with minimal tech needed; increase gradually.
• Agreements vs. Contracts:
  • Shift from ‘rules handed down’ to a collaborative, values-driven agreement that all family members strive to uphold.
  • Adults should model digital behavior they expect from kids (40:54).
  • “They’re watching us more than they’re reading some agreement.” —Erin (39:25)

6. Social Pressure, Isolation, & Balancing Connection with Limits (42:21–46:03)

• Social connection is a critical developmental need; complete tech forbiddance can cause social exclusion or distress.

• Observe your child's actual experience: Are they actually isolated, or maintaining relationships?

• “We want to take seriously the cost of social isolation. That said, root that fear in real observations of your kid.” —Erin (42:21)

• Use “training wheels” – introduce tech and social platforms in stages, monitor, slow the rollout, and provide guidance rather than instant, total access.

7. Lack of Simple Answers: Data, Bell-to-Bell Bans, and Real-World Messiness (46:03–52:21)

• There is no definitive evidence that all-out bans or strict age minimums are universally better or worse; adolescence is too individualized.

  • “We can get into this assumption that [all] non-screen time is good... There’s not yet clear evidence to support this Pollyanna view.” —Cara (47:27)

• School “bell-to-bell” bans may help focus, but don’t eliminate issues (kids compensate with more use after school). Positive effects depend heavily on what schools and families do with the “unplugged” time (49:56).

  • “It's not just going to happen just because the phones are away.” —Erin (49:56)

8. The Age of Opportunity: Skills, Purpose, and the Path Forward (53:44–59:25)

• Frame adolescence as a period of opportunity, not just risk:

  • Mistakes—whether offline or online—are opportunities for growth, learning, and practicing social skills.
  • Avoid seeing every tech mishap as evidence of bad parenting or “broken” kids.
  • Foster bridges between online interests and real-world, purposeful activities.
  • “The adolescent brain is built exquisitely to learn from experience and to try to figure out what I might do next.” —Erin (55:39)

• The “recipe” for adolescent thriving in 2025—purposeful boundaries, warm adult connections, and skill-building—is consistent with decades of research.

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On Parenting from Fear:
  "When I parent from a place of fear, I am not showing up as my best self." —Erin (13:16)

• On Data Gaps:
  "Anyone who says we have clear, robust data across... where we know what works, we don’t. We’re doing our best to connect the dots." —Erin (49:56)

• On Agreements:
  "Part of how we get to that is by, yes, offering up some of our non-negotiables—but also having kids come up with some of those ideas as well." —Erin (39:25)

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Timestamps for Important Segments

| Timestamp | Segment | |---------------|--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------| | 03:14 | Host/guest introduction; agreement to non-fear-based perspective | | 05:56 | Curiosity as a “first tool” for engaging teens about tech; defining negative narratives | | 09:19 | Debunking the “dose-dependent” screen time fallacy; importance of context | | 13:16 | Impact of fear-based parenting; the myth of the “tech tightrope” | | 21:13 | Nuanced developmental differences between 12- and 20-year-olds in digital conversations | | 23:49 | Dopamine and reward systems in adolescence—opportunities and risks | | 34:58 | Readiness for devices, staged access, and “developing skills over time” | | 39:25 | Agreements vs. contracts; adults modeling behavior | | 42:21 | Navigating social pressures, tech-based exclusion, and need for connection | | 49:56 | Bell-to-bell phone bans in schools; consequences and complexities | | 53:44 | Adolescence as an age of opportunity—skills-based framing for parents | | 59:25 | Final thoughts and summary of actionable guidance for thriving adolescents |

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Updates and Supplementary Segment: Snapchat’s “The Keys” & More (59:54–77:41)

• Guest: Jacqueline Bosher, Snap Inc., discusses Snapchat’s new online safety course, The Keys (60:18)
  • "We want these keys to really ignite critical thinking in teens’ brains." –Jacqueline (63:10)
  • Course covers cyberbullying, sexting, sexual extortion, and drugs, using real scenarios and emphasizing parent-teen conversation.
  • Snapchat “Family Center” allows non-intrusive monitoring and parental engagement, respecting teen privacy while providing oversight (72:37).
• Both “The Keys” and Family Center serve to support and spark ongoing communication and digital skill-building between teens and caring adults.

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Takeaway Tools and Guidance

• Lead with Curiosity: Ask open questions about your teen's tech and social life.
• Collaborate on Agreements: Co-create digital boundaries with your child.
• Model Good Behavior: Adults should follow tech boundaries they set for kids.
• Gradual Exposure: Use “training wheels” to introduce new platforms or devices.
• Balance Risk and Opportunity: Recognize that both tech and adolescence are messy, and that mistakes can lead to growth.
• Protect Social Connection: Avoid isolating restrictions—connection is a developmental need.
• Integrate Purpose: Encourage meaningful tech use that bridges to real-world interests and contributions.
• Prepare, Don’t Panic: Data isn’t definitive—avoid all-or-nothing thinking.

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Final Thoughts

This episode offers a science-grounded, nuanced toolkit for parenting and mentoring in the digital age, emphasizing the importance of relationship, gradual skill-building, and celebrating adolescence as a period bursting with opportunity—even, and especially, when navigating awkwardness, screens, and uncertainty.

Transcript

[A]

This is a Bose moment. You've been there before. Somebody's apartment, small talk that's going nowhere. Plastic cup that's almost empty. It's not great. Then someone hits play on a Bose speaker. Heads nod, feet tap. One person dances, then everyone does. Awkward. Becomes electric. When Bose sound fills the room, you don't just hear the music, you feel it. Your life deserves music. Your music deserves Bose. Find your perfect [e-mail] when we combine the story around tech with popular, dominant narratives around the teen brain, and then we bring those together, it can really, really close down conversation and curiosity as opposed to kind of opening that up. When I think about adolescence, it's really a period of discovery. It's truly a period of development, not just a period of, you know, impulsive risk.

[B]

Hi, Vanessa.

[C]

Hi, Cara.

[B]

You know, there's a lot of talk about tech and teens.

[C]

Really?

[B]

I hadn't noticed if you hadn't heard, but this is a conversation unlike any we've had before. It's a really interesting look at how adults can think about tweens, teens, and screens. And it gets into all of the little subtle cracks and spaces between the data that we know about and that we have espoused a ton on this podcast and the data that does not exist, Vanessa, that the world wants to believe exists, but it's not there. So I've really enjoyed this conversation.

[C]

Yeah, I mean, Aaron Walsh is our guest today. And one of the things I love about Aaron is when she admits that we don't yet have the data or the research to come down on one side or the other. And in a world where people are willing to make huge proclamations based on tenuous connections, Aaron is the opposite. Her attention to the research and what we know is so rigorous that it makes for such a healthy and rich conversation. She's the co founder of the Spark and Stitch Institute, and her book that we're gonna talk about is called It's Their Teen Screens and the Science of Adolescence. And I wanna underline with Sharpie, the Science of Adolescence. Cause much of this conversation is truly about what we know and understand about adolescents, about their brains, about their development, and how that allows us to forge ahead in figuring out their relationship to tech.

[B]

And if you need one reason beyond everything we've just said to stay on and listen. It's the conversation we get into about what life would look like without tech and what the science shows there. It's fascinating. We hope you enjoy.

[C]

Hi, Erin. It's so nice to have you here.

[A]

It is such a Thrill to be here. Thanks for having me.

[C]

So we're friends on Instagram, which I say, you know, a little tongue in cheek, but also because this is a conversation about teens and tech and how we treat them and how we get into conversation with them. And it's really easy to be judgmental and it's really easy to go negative. And yet, just as we adults have friendships and colleagues that we build on tech, so too are there positive things that come out of teens tech use. So that is the like point from which we are having this conversation. Are we all agreed, Aaron and Cara, that that is where we are beginning from? Not a place of major anxiety, major stress, major fear mongering. We're coming at it from a balanced point of view. Yes.

[B]

Go.

[A]

Yes.

[B]

Hurrah. Huzzah.

[C]

Yeah.

[A]

And that doesn't, you know, let's just acknowledge that takes a little effort to get to that place right now.

[C]

I'm not going to use the profanity. It takes a beep ton of effort.

[A]

Yeah.

[C]

To do it.

[A]

It's a small lift.

[C]

Yes. Which is why you're here and why it's worth devoting an episode to this conversation.

[B]

But we just do have to have a moment to honor the irony of where and how you met.

[C]

Yes, exactly. No, that's right.

[B]

Let's just take a moment of silence.

[A]

Okay.

[B]

Huzzah. Let's.

[C]

But think about how many people, Cara, how many work colleagues and now friendships we've built with people because we initially met them like, and on Instagram.

[B]

And we are old. Can you imagine how the young people do that?

[A]

Central social ecosystem. Exactly.

[C]

And not tech savvy. And trying to figure out how to use Slack so you can tell. Exactly.

[A]

For instance.

[C]

For example.

[A]

For example.

[C]

Yes, I did.

[A]

Random example.

[C]

Okay, so let's level set here, Aaron, before we go into the nitty gritty.

[A]

Yeah.

[C]

Which is we want to engage teens about everything from a place of respect. Right. All of the research tells us that that is the most effective way to connect to teens, to guide teens, so on and so forth. Knowing that as we approach a conversation about tech use, what are some overarching principles that you can offer up as like big tent framing for this conversation for adults to think about how they go into these conversations with teens about tech.

[A]

Yeah. I love that question. And of course, for your listeners and given both of your contributions to the world, this is going to be no surprise that one of our first tools in our toolkit is to access that place of curiosity. And that's not an easy thing. To do sometimes around technology because we tend to have preformed stories about what the presence or absence of a device or presence or absence of a screen around an adolescent means. We tell a very fast story about that and accessing some of our curiosity to let our adolescents or the young people we care for author a little bit of that story and acknowledge that it's not just as simple as sort of presence of screen equals bad. So I think curiosity in that non judgmental stance, which is true across so many topics, but deeply true of course around technology.

[C]

And before you keep going what are some of the quote stories or non curious, a curious judgmental versions of that story can you think of? Because I got a long list of stuff that has come out of my mouth and I'm curious Erin, this sort of what not to do. And then we'll keep going on what what to do. We don't like to go negative, but we're just sort of like setting the scene here.

[A]

Well, there's a couple, I'm going to talk about a couple of broad stories that are really dominating our conversations around adolescence and technology. And one is this idea that sort of dose for dose, ounce for ounce, any amount of time with tech sort of equals an inevitable decline in mental health, in well being and all things good for for young people. So there's a sort of like teens plus screens equals bad. That that just sort of permeates the air around our interactions with young people. And I think following that is this idea that a good quote unquote good parent then's job is to protect young people from screens and that the quote unquote best parent would have screen time zero like those two stories are strong and powerful and can quickly put us into a What are you doing on that thing? What bad thing must you be doing? What nefarious activities are you up to or harmful content are you viewing or what a bad parent am I that I have come into your room or come into the living room and there you are with a screen. So there's a lot of feelings that are running hot around young people in tech.

[B]

That's a brilliant framing and I, I want to restate it because I think if this is all that people get out of this episode, it's this might be enough. I mean we're going to get at it in lots of different directions. But this idea of a what we in medicine call a dose dependent relationship that there is a belief that the more screen time you have, the more toxic, right? That the higher the dose the worse and you did this math equation. Teens plus screens equals bad. So I'm going to offer up then teens plus 2x screens equals 2x bad. And teens plus 5x screens is probably 20x bad. And this meant math you are going to argue is not correct.

[A]

Yeah, I think. I think the reality is, is that it flattens what is a nuanced and complicated set of activities, that the same screen that can be a portal to harmful content or hate content can also be a portal to connection and learning or just taking a little break from a busy day. There's so much happening on screens that when I look at the data, there's these. We could talk about the sort of broad population associations, and there's a lot to be concerned about, there's a lot to pay attention to. But when it comes to the young person living in our home or sitting in our classroom or that this living, breathing human that we're in relationship with, their own outcomes are a lot more complicated. It depends on who they are, what they're doing, why they're doing it, what else is getting crowded out, what access to supports they have. It just gets a lot more messy when we're talking about an individual young person.

[B]

I mean, such a simple analogy is, you know, if we think about our kids starting to drive, right? And the car is an absolute weapon. There's no question. And yet we are able to have nuanced conversations to teach kids how to drive, to empower them with not just the ability to, but the responsibility that goes along with. We do this in a lot of different directions in our life experience.

[A]

I love that. I love that reminder. Sometimes for parents, it's like, this is whole new ecosystem. We have no idea what's going on. And there are certainly. It's moving quickly, and there's a lot that feels unfamiliar. But we do know a lot about what helps adolescents move into spaces that have a lot of risk and what helps them succeed in those spaces.

[C]

So let's keep going down this path a little bit. Erin. So we've got curiosity, we've got nuance, right? Sort of like approaching it, not with the you suck and I failed and everybody's like, equivalently affected, but like, hey, we've got to make space for the kids and the family and the reality. So some nuance. What's a third kind of principle that you like to think about as you approach teens on this issue?

[A]

Yeah, I think the other thing that we can add to this lens is around adolescence in general, and maybe this is a little too broad. Vanessa so we can, we can sort of get closer into the weeds of, of what it looks like in individual conversations. But I think in general, there's also this story about adolescents that they, their brains are broken until they're 25. They're impulsive, they're not to be trusted, and they're just built to take risks. And therefore, again, our job becomes to protect, to control. And I think that's not fair to young people either. And I think that does shape our stance. So when we combine the story around tech with the popular dominant narratives around the teen brain, and then we bring those together, it can really, really, really close down conversation and curiosity as opposed to kind of opening that up. When I think about adolescence and I write about this in the book, it's really a period of discovery. It's a truly a period of development, not just a period of, you know, impulsive risk taking.

[C]

Right. And you quote early on in the book, you quote Alan Galinsky, who came on the podcast, who's so brilliant, and she likes to reframe the stage of life as an, as a time of opportunity. Yeah, right. And I think we're going to get into that more as we talk about how to manage this complicated topic. But before we do that, Aaron, there are some folks screaming at us through the headlines, through the news, through our social media that are really scaring the crap out of us. And I'm wondering from your perspective as someone who's so steeped in this work, what impact do you think that's having? What impact do you think it's having on kids? What impact do you think it's having on parents and caregivers and educators?

[A]

Yeah. Well, I don't know about you both, but when I think about my own parenting life, so I have a sixth grader and a ninth grader, and when I parent from a place of fear, I am not showing up as my best self. Usually like after I watched the Netflix the Adolescent, the show Adolescent, that next week was like a perfect, perfect. It was like if somebody was filming me, it would be an example of how fear shapes our stance and our approach with our kids. Like when we are terrified and when we feel like we are walking on this tightrope and one wrong move and the whole thing falls apart and the Internet will just eat our kids. We tend to grab some pretty reliable tools or some sort of go tos that we think are going to help. And when we're scared, we tend to go to control, we tend to go towards limits and lectures, we tend to go towards protection. I don't want to throw out limits by all means. But when that's the only tool in our toolkit, it tends to come at the cost for adolescents of one of the biggest protective factors, which is our relationship with them. That I think the steady drumbeat of fear makes us feel like we are truly at one wrong parenting decision away, one app away from really catastrophic results. And that makes it hard to go in and have a curious stance. And tell me about your favorite. Who's your favorite YouTuber. And, you know, I heard this thing. What do you think of it? Like, when we are scared, we are position ourselves often as what I call on off regulators. Like, our job is to turn things off, and the best parent just walks around protecting them from that.

[B]

Right. And when you pull the lens back and you think about it sort of in a. In a more global sense, then there is another kind of on off or analog way of viewing this, which is, well, if you don't want me to control everything, I will control nothing.

[C]

Right.

[B]

And that is its own false truth.

[D]

Right.

[B]

Because being curious by definition means you're very much in there. You're just not. Your hands are not controlling the steering wheel at all times, but you're trying to guide. Can you talk a little bit about what it looks like to. I mean, let's use the example of adolescence, which you are certainly not alone. Three for three of us finished that. First of all, we binged it. And second of all, and we dreaded it while we were bingeing it.

[A]

Yeah, 100% right. It was. And it was powerful and beautifully filled,

[B]

beautiful, like, beautifully acted, gorgeous, all the things. And terrifying, painful, Very scary. And we finished it. You know, your youngest and my oldest are separated by a decade, and yet we all had the same reaction to it, which was, oh, my God, I gotta get in there and I've gotta do all these things and cut off all of these toxic streams. And that is not wrong in the sense that there are things that we can start talking about and being in conversation around all that. But, like, what does that look like when it comes from a place of curiosity instead of a place of control?

[A]

Yeah. Yeah. I think that this example of when we come in with that. That predetermined story, and I think that what it looks like when we're scared. I love that you brought up this. Sometimes we just hands off, we're like, I'm good luck, here's a phone, close my eyes, cross my fingers, and see you when you're 25. Like, I really hope this works out because it's too much. It's totally over. I can't keep up. It's a full time job. And then we've already talked about those control based strategies and I think the More One of the powerful tools in our toolkits after you watch a show like Adolescence and I think it sounds like we share a lot of feelings about that beautiful, powerful, deeply terrifying is to take a deep breath, take like five or six more, and do our very best to approach our kids with questions that actually reflect that we don't have the story written already. And it can even be I watched this documentary or I watched this show or I saw this article or I read this thing and it made me realize I haven't asked you about this in a while. Are your friends talking about this at all? Do you have thoughts about this at all? What would you say to a younger kid about this kind of thing? These kinds of ways that we can get at what they're thinking about that isn't. You know, I heard the statistic that this is going to happen online. Are you listening to this podcaster? Because if you are, you know you're grounded for a month. Like this sort of. I have this story and it's my job to sort of protect you versus figure out what's going on for them.

[B]

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[C]

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[B]

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[C]

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[B]

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[C]

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[B]

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[C]

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[B]

A hey babes, it's Paris Hilton.

[C]

So I was checking my points balance

[A]

in the Hilton Honors app the other

[C]

day and yeah, I've got about a billion, which feels excessive even for me.

[B]

Just kidding.

[A]

You can never have too many Hilton

[C]

Honors points and I want to do something iconic this summer, so I'm giving away all my Paris points.

[B]

Just find somewhere you've always wanted to

[C]

stay, then go to my socials or Hilton's and tell me about it. Just make sure you're a Hilton Honors member and I might be sending you Paris points because when you want points that make your summer even hotter, it

[D]

matters where you stay.

[B]

How does brain development factor into all of it when you're having that exact conversation with a 12 year old versus with a 20 year old?

[A]

Well, I think when we think about 20 year olds are probably a lot more capable of thinking about this in sort of abstract ways. They're probably thinking about this in terms of their place in the world, how they might take action, something like, you know, what are we thinking about the manosphere online or online influencers. As kids get older, they're able to sort of contextualize their own experiences in this broader thought landscape. They're, you know, really likely to be able to engage in a conversation in sort of these more nuanced ways. But 12 year olds have a lot to say about these things as well. But we aren't probably going to expect to be able to sit down and have, you know, a long, thoughtful dialogue about the role of masculinity influencers. But we can ask questions that are a little more concrete. Hey, have you ever heard of this? Has anybody ever talked to you about this? What questions do you have Those kinds of questions that we can ask a 12 year old who's just. Their social world is sort of just starting to expand. They have all of this incredible transformation happening where their emotions are becoming more intense. They are just at the time that their digital world is expanding and they're starting to be much more tuned into what their peers are doing. So even if they aren't listening to certain podcasts, starting to understand, like, what are kids talking about on the bus and what are kids talking about at school that you may or may not totally understand, but might have some questions about.

[C]

Right. So just because they don't have a nearly mature brain doesn't mean they can't participate in sort of thoughtful, incisive.

[A]

Yeah.

[C]

Conversations. But we have to figure out what their starting point is. And we gotta get some shared vocabulary when we think about brain development. Aaron. And we won't spend a ton of time on this here because we've done it in a bunch of different ways. But I want to get to some specific corners of brain development that you explore in the book. And then I think is actually we haven't covered in depth before. And that is the impact of dopamine and the relationship between dopamine and tech use and kind of what that looks like and how it progresses in an adolescent brain. And I think a place to start is sort of like, what impact does it have? Right. What's happening with dopamine? And then we can explore, like, how different pathways a kid is choosing might then take them down a certain road.

[A]

You know, one of the things we know about adolescents is that they're especially sensitive to rewards. So they have this sort of hopped up reward system. So they're dopaminergic pathways. Right. Those feedback loops are more sensitive, sensitive not just to, you know, any kind of rewards, but especially social rewards, which becomes very important to their development. So sometimes we think of this again in this negative story about adolescence, like, oh my gosh, they're sensitive to rewards. And so therefore, the moment that they get an online reward, there's no going back. It's really good that young people's brains are. Are sensitive to these kinds of rewards because it propels them out into the world. They're out there trying to figure out what feels good, what doesn't feel good. It's very helpful to them as they figure out, who am I and where do I belong to be sens to social rewards, to go out and find their people, and to be sensitive to social rejection. So all of that sensitivity, the reward sensitivity is not a pathology.

[C]

Right.

[A]

It's not a glitch in development. It's very useful as young people sort of move out to figure out, where are my people? You know, how do I take risks to learn more about what I like and what I don't like and to test and experiment, which you all talk so beautifully about. So the question then becomes, you know, dopamine is a naturally occurring chemical in the brain. So it's not like TikTok creates dopamine, and we could take it away if we wanted to. But there are frictionless rewards that young people are experiencing in online spaces that can be especially salient for young people whose brains are really are more sensitive to that experience. So if we think about dopamine occurring right, dopamine makes us feel good. It's a pleasurable feeling. When I got on this podcast and you smiled and said, hello, yeah, I felt a little. That felt good. When I look at, you know, a beautiful. The trees are turning here in my home. And that is also a reward. So I just. The reason I bring that up is because sometimes I think when we're talking about young people and dopamine, it's almost as if TikTok is the only place where young people find it. As if we could sort of do dopamine fasting or things like that. And I think we want to be really careful about the science and thinking really thoughtfully about this also, so that we don't tell this story that because of dopamine, all young people are addicted to their devices. We don't see that in the data, but we should be really thoughtful about the fact that our devices are designed to grab and hold our attention, and our devices are designed to deliver frictionless rewards and especially designed to give us frictionless social feedback and social rewards. And that can intersect with this reward sensitivity that's naturally occurring in adolescence in ways that, for some young people, can be really hard for them to unplug or can make those sort of tech transitions or resisting tech rewards more challenging.

[B]

I want to push on the term frictionless because it's really interesting. You're someone who uses that word a little more often than others, and I appreciate it. It's not just sort of having access to these things and having this sort of common final pathway, be that your brain squirts a little dopamine out there and it feels good. It's that it's easy to access these things, and your brain does this. So, you know, if we think about sort of something in any of our lives, that we worked hard to get.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

And how good it felt. And then we think about something where we didn't work that hard to get it, but it felt really good. Right. Generationally, I do wonder if there's a difference, because for me, and maybe it's just the voice of my grandparents in my head, but the thing you worked harder to get was supposed to feel better because you worked harder. I don't know that it did. When I listened to you talk, when I read what you've written, I left thinking, it's all the same common final pathway. And yet we put it through this different lens. I wonder generationally if this frictionlessness is that for a word, if that is changing, then the value proposition of these various things. Will a generation that can get a dopamine hit really easily because it's right there at your. Literally at your fingertips, will that generation then go on to either feel more joy because they can appreciate the easy things? You're walking down the street, you see a flower, you smell it, like. Is that the. You know, like literally, or is the exact opposite?

[A]

Yeah, yeah. And I don't know that we fully know exactly.

[C]

Right.

[A]

This is sort of. This, in some ways a big experiment which can, I think, can sound a little scary, but I think it's just an acknowledgment that there are some things that might be unforeseen benefits about our ability to access experiences that are connecting and inspiring and where we can participate in conversations we didn't have access to before. Those sort of pathways to purpose for young people might be really rewarding in ways that aren't just a frictionless, quick hit. And there are other things that when we look at cycles of avoidance for adolescents, that's where I start to get a little more confusion concerned where I hit, hit some friction in something that's a goal that I have, whether it's, you know, learning my lines for the school play or it's learning, you know, doing my vocab to learn another language so I can speak to my friends who go to school with me, those things aren't necessarily going to be easy. And. And I think the question is whether when we start to hit something that's challenging and then we. We avoid that challenge with something that's less. Less difficult to access that feeling of. Of happiness. I think looking for patterns of avoidance is where we want to make sure that we're holding up some guardrails around that so that we can experience both.

[C]

Yeah, I mean, in a very tactical sense, it's like, okay, when is scrolling through TikTok a nice way to have downtime before you dig into your homework? And when is scrolling through TikTok that sort of bufferless reality with constant dopamine hits causing you to avoid things that require ongoing, committed work at something that doesn't offer the same dopamine? I mean, I do something with my kids, which, getting back to, like, sources of dopamine, and I know for the rest of their lives they will make fun of me for it, and yet. So I'm often in the car with them either really early in the morning as the sun is coming up, or late in the evening as the sun is setting. And, you know, I will say, oh, my God, look at the sky. Look how beautiful the sky is. And, yeah, they kind of make fun of me. They're like, ugh, mom, it's not even good tonight. Like, why are you even saying that? It's like a B. Right? But recently, one of my kids in college has started sending me photos of the sunset.

[A]

Yeah.

[C]

So I'm like, okay. So it makes me think about the ways in which we can teach our kids to find sources of pleasure and joy in the analog ways. And yes, it makes me feel like a dork. And yes, sometimes I don't get the response I want, but other times I'm like, oh, it actually works. And by the same token, what sort of brain rot behaviors are we practicing ourselves that are modeling for our kids? Like, just keep mindlessly scrolling and not paying attention and sort of like, not doing the other stuff. So anything we talk about is what is it? What's good for the goose is good for the gander. I guess what's good for the goose is good for the gosling or whatever version of that.

[B]

Yeah.

[C]

So sorry, that was like the worst application of that saying.

[A]

I think. I think where we're getting, though, is a reminder, like, young people talk about this all the time. They're like, adults are not. Not behaving well. Like, we're not necessarily modeling the most. What. What can we say? I love to talk about digital agency. Right. Stepping into this sort of like, where we're using technology aligned with our values and our goals, we're not necessarily modeling that. And I do think those kinds of questions that you're getting at, whether it's the offline, the analog version of. Of pointing out finding those sources of awe and joy and then also asking those questions about their online lives, especially as adolescents get older, what are the experiences that bring you lasting habits, happiness and joy? What are the experiences that feel good in the moment but fade very quickly and then where do you spend the most time? And that kind of self reflection when we see like oh I'm actually spending the most time in the places that bring quick hits but don't bring lasting happiness and sometimes get in the way of things that I wish I was doing with my time. Can be helpful for us to just start that process of looking at our own digital lives with some with some curiosity. Now is a 12 year old going to sit down with us for a 30 minute reflective dialogue about no. Some might. But I think the spirit of that of starting to ask those questions both in in offline spaces and online spaces helps us get to that nuance a little bit and helps us get to those those reflective like TikTok's a place where I think it's going to be good, but it doesn't last.

[B]

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[C]

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[B]

I'm going to ask you a slightly unfair question, but since you brought up a 12 year old not being able to have or not being super interested in that 30 minute dialogue, you know I'd Love to understand your personal feelings about readiness and kind of how you go about those conversations because there's a pretty strong argument that if they're not ready to reflect, maybe they're not ready for the platform. And I'm wondering if you can talk a little bit about readiness for the device itself and separate that from readiness for various platforms.

[A]

Yeah, I love that. I love that question. Because this is the number one question right when I'm in a room with parents and caring adults. It's like, what age should we get these things? And you are likely familiar with the research that's underwhelming to us as caregivers, which is there is no magical age like we have yet to see that there's this shining light in the sky that says every 16 year old is ready, every 14 year old is ready. We can't say that that's data driven. What we can say is that there are these windows of sensitivity and vulnerability that early adolescence do appear to be sort of more sensitive to the harms of some of these spaces and of unfettered access, especially to social media is at young people know. But I think we do want to pay attention to these sort of windows. And what that says to me is delay as long as makes sense for your family. But I actually really love thinking about it in terms of developing skills over time with coaching and mentoring. So as opposed to saying, Aaron, there's

[C]

nothing clickbaity or sexy about that.

[A]

It's way less fun on. Yeah, way less good for the morning show.

[C]

Mine is going to sound good with that. That's so like measured.

[B]

Wait until skills.

[A]

Yes, wait until coach skills. And I think Kara, you brought up right away this idea of driving and there's all kinds of other useful places where we've done this. But one of the questions I always ask families is, okay, well what's the purpose of the device? Like you're asking, my kid wants this device or we've identified is there an agreed upon purpose in the family. Right. So. And has that purpose persisted over time? So if it's I want it because my friend got it, but then that doesn't really persist and it's not really agreed upon. Like the. Not everybody in the family is really on board, but let's say another family is like my kids biking to school. The purpose is that if they get a flat tire, we no longer have payphones in our environment. And I would like them to be able to figure out how to get in touch with somebody so we could make an argument. We're also going to teach how to fix bikes and things. But that's a really reasonable, that's a really reasonable purpose. It's persisted over time. And then what's the least amount of technology we can deliver to meet that need that exists in our family? And so that might be the most stripped down version of a device and maybe it lives at home, maybe it only goes with them and we start really, really slow. And I do think, Cara, that, that having agreements and having conversations. So if we're going to have a really stripped down phone or we're going to watch or whatever, these things are the least amount of technology we can use to meet this goal as a family. If we can't have any kind of conversation about media agreements, that's tricky. Like we want to be able to at least have some sort of sense of, here's my responsibilities, here's how we're going to handle tough things. Here's, you know, here's how we're going to navigate this.

[B]

And your answer to parents who ask or caregivers who ask what? Well, my kids are pushing back, saying I need to follow the same rules, but I'm not 10, 12, 14, 16. I'm interested in your take on the sort of two way street of it all. Especially well, given the conversation we just had about how adults are. I think you were very generous in the way you described it. I'm going to be less generous. Horrible. Adults are not behaving well, not modeling the behavior they are asking their children to demonstrate. I'm wondering, given that now you hand your kid an agreement and say these are the terms by which you need to, you have to charge your device out of your room, you have to be off at a certain, you can't bring it to the table. You can only be on these apps. By the way, adults follow none of these guidelines. They're adults. But on the other hand, the data is very clear that we would all do better if we all followed these guidelines.

[A]

So like how we would do better and our kids would do better because they're watching us more than they're reading some agreement. Like they're watching what we, we, what we do and what we model. So one thing I think we can try to get away from is handing them a long contract and saying, you know, sign on this contract, here's the 50 things I want you to do and if you don't do them, here are the consequences, right? That we're really thinking about this as agreements that we sit down and the kids are participating as well. And we're asking questions not just what are all the things that could go wrong but what are the good things we're going to do at this department. Advice like ideally we're getting something that's going to bring us value and benefit and if we don't have anything we can say that's going to bring us value and benefit, it's probably not a good choice right now. And so part of how we can get to that is by yes, offering up some of our non negotiables. Like it's a non negotiable that you're not going to have this near your sleeping area. That's one place where we have really good data. So that's an invitation to parents to think about that being a non negotiable. There may be other non negotiables, but also having kids come up with some of those, some of those ideas as well and then what advice or what, what do they want us to do? And I think parents actually need to step into media agreements. Not saying I'm gonna have the exact same cell phone life as a 14 year old, but I should probably be ready to agree to not have my phone at the table or to charge my phone outside my bedroom if I'm asking my kid to do it.

[C]

Yeah, I mean I think that's all possible. I think kids are so much more thoughtful about this than we give them credit for. Even the younger, younger adolescents. One of the biggest areas of challenge is around the social pressure that kids feel to A have devices, B, be on certain platforms with those devices, C, have access to devices in those platforms at, you know, varying hours of the day and night. And so with each of those decision points, people listening will likely have run up against the, well everyone else is, or everyone else's parents let them or, or you know, some version of that. And I think the calculus of like, and we get this question all the time, as Aaron, I'm sure you do, which is like am I ruining my kids social life? Like I've stuck to my guns, I've been super strict. It's actually clear to me I'm sort of the last man standing on this or one of the like. And I'm worried at this point my kid is kind of socially ostracized because I've, I've held on for so long, you know, and versions of that. And if I'm being honest, yes, there is a point where, you know, not having access does affect them. So how do you help parents figure out, Aaron, like When to sort of loosen up a little bit or when limits change. Like, what are the impacts that you, that you look for?

[A]

Well, I love that question because it also just respects young people's need to connect.

[D]

Yeah.

[A]

Like, I think sometimes we're so scared about the tech risks that we really downplay the role of social connection for adolescents. As if it's like, well, that's kind of an optional thing. But really we gotta be careful that we're not exposing them to toxic tech. Now, that does not mean that we just unleash fully, but I do think we want to take seriously the cost of social isolation. That said, the kinds of things I would encourage is to root that fear in real observations of your kid. So are they saying, I'm not connected? But actually they have one or two close friends.

[D]

Friends.

[A]

We're watching them keep and maintain and build relationships. They, they are able to find out where and when things are happening and participate in those social things. So watching for, for like how, how are they doing socially? And then I think one of the other things we can slow roll if you will, because we just talked about that on the device side is around the social connection side as well. So sometimes we go from my kid is ostracized and left out to now you're on Instagram TikTok and you have a phone. And I think we can also slow down and think about what is a space that we could start. So are we going to be doing a group text that is maybe on my phone first or maybe it's on a very simple phone where it's only the approved four or five people. You're starting to get the theme here of training wheels, that it's not all or nothing and that then we can start looking at how is that helping them stay connected. Right. So maybe they're getting a gamertag of a kid at school and we are. They're playing with that one or two kids that they know. And that's a lot that's very different from just sort of unleashing them into the world of Snapchat with zero guardrails and no monitoring. So, so I think we watch and see how they're doing and then an experiment and see if, if we can get them connected without unleashing everything.

[B]

But let me, let me circle back to where we started, which is the question of if we take the importance of social connection and we then ask the question again, what's then wrong with the approach of wait until 8th or one of the what if we could create a Scenario a utopia where every parent was on the same page. No kid had logistical issues that required connection and communication that felt insurmountable without a phone. What if all of those pieces were laddering up? Would it be better, all things being equal, to have them off these devices because of that sort of unknown, the wild west of it all of social media? Or is there an argument for having the training wheels on while they're under your roof? Having all, you know, seen the show adolescence and everything else and knowing that those training wheels can go awry really quickly. But for the parents who, if you're speaking in a community that is a close, tight knit community where all the parents are best friends and they all talk and they all agree, is the better thing to slow down their access to certain types of platforms or is the better thing to try to create training wheels that you can then pull off slowly? Or is there no data?

[A]

Yeah, I mean, I don't think that we have really good. I would be way over my skis to say, well we have very strong, robust data sets on this versus this. And long term outcome comes. The reality is we don't have that. And parenting is so often this wild ride of living in that space between the world as we want it to be and the world as it is.

[C]

I don't know what you're talking about.

[A]

Yeah, yeah, just not landing. You're like totally living in the world as it is. And so I've been in communities where there's a lot of organizing around trying to get every single parent to agree to us specific thing. And, and honestly what I hear in a lot of those groups is that it's tricky, it's, it's challenging and there's some valid reasons that families are not making that same choice. And it doesn't mean they're bad parents and it doesn't mean their kid is headed towards catastrophic outcomes.

[B]

So yeah, and it's the argument about vaccines. We can have data about what the risks of vaccines are, but the parents who then choose not to vaccinate are making choices often about only the data set about vaccines. And they're not looking at a data set about the risk of not vaccinating. I think this, the screen, you could just substitute screens for vaccines. And the only difference is we have a lot more data about vaccines.

[D]

We don't.

[B]

Right. We don't have, we know the scary places online, we understand the risks of devices, but we actually, I do think we, we have this Pollyanna view of what life with no screens might be that is not yet supported.

[C]

Yeah.

[B]

By any clear body of evidence.

[A]

We can get into this assumption that non screen time is automatically good for kids.

[D]

Right.

[A]

Like if it's offline, if it's analog, we have great outcomes and if it's online we have negative outcomes. It is, is way more messy than that. When we look at like an isolated adolescent who comes home from school, has no way to connect with peers, no way to participate in things that matter to them, no pathways to purpose. But you know, they're tinkering in something. In the analog world we are not necessarily seeing that, that young person thriving. So I think we want to be clear that when we say it's nuanced, it doesn't mean we don't know anything. That doesn't mean we don't want clear purposeful boundaries. Young people, people want and need something to push against. But I think when we think of really rigid, one size fits all solutions, it can be tricky for, for parents to find their way towards each other to think about what kids really need, which is a network of caring adults, you know, who are parenting the kid that lives in their house and their own unique family circumstances and access to supports and their own neurobiology of their kid, which some kids react really differently to devices that than, than others.

[C]

Aaron, can we talk for a minute about the bell to bell bands that are happening across the country and kind of what you're noticing about how that's impacting the balance of decision making and limit setting. My kids are in a school that has a bell to bell band. It's been great, honestly. It also feels a lot less stressful to me when they're home and I see them on devices because I know, okay, so like over the 24 hour period. Okay. That I know there's like less happening when they're not in front of me. On the other hand, we work with some educators recently who are like, we work so hard in school to like deal with this ban and then it feels like the parents are just like letting go during the after school hours and all this stuff is happening when they're home or not in school. So what are you hearing from people? What seems to be working? What are the continuing challenges that you're noticing?

[A]

Yeah, I, I love this, this speaking of an experiment because we have some data again, but again, no. Anybody who says we have clear, robust data across, you know that where we know what works, we don't. We're doing our very best to connect the dots. What I'm hearing is that when we think about things like focus, distraction and attention that it seems like a lot of educators in particular and young people themselves talk about that this can be really supportive, that having that, that frictionless off ramp to focus and in our pockets that distraction machine can be helpful sustaining focus and being present where we are. I think some of the other things we're going to have to wait and see. So the hope of course is that we're going to solve the youth mental health crisis and we're going to reduce and eliminate cyberbullying. I would be wary of thinking that there's going to be one policy that's going to solve all of that. Adolescent mental health is far more complicated than just access to phones during the school day. When I think of bell to bell, I think of that as setting the conditions that set us up for things like focus, for face to face interaction, for collaboration with peers. But whether or not that happens is going to come down to great teaching, great schools, good school culture, supporting school mental health and student belonging, connectedness. It's not just going to happen just because the phones are away. So it's going to have to be a both and, and then we do see there's, you know, at least one or two studies that, that are looking at, you know, that young people's phone use overall in all scenarios doesn't necessarily plummet when there's a bell to bell policy. We like make up for it after the school day. So I'm also a parent who would I just sort of wish it's like, oh, good screen time, problem solved. I can just completely let go because they're not on it during the day. Ugh. We don't see that totally backed up by the data. And so I think we can, it's a little bit of a release valve. We know they've gotten some face to face time. Hopefully that time has been facilitated well. But we still want to be thinking about in the those after school hours, how do we protect the determinants of adolescent mental health, not just minutes and hours. You know, talked about screen time is not as useful always around adolescence, but what are they using it for? Why and what is it crowding out? So still protecting sleep and movement and some sort of purposeful activity that lights them up. Those are still things that we want to make sure screens aren't crowding out after the school day. Right.

[B]

And it strikes me that going back to the dopamine hypothesis, if at school these face to face interactions then cause dopamine hits that make them feel good One of the many conversations we can have at home is a reminder that that felt good, that that was fun. That is an easy sort of a layup that reinforces this idea of, oh, if you love to it at school, you might love it after school as well.

[A]

You want to go join that basketball

[B]

team or whatever it is, you know?

[A]

Yeah, absolutely. And part of that is reflection and we want to make sure that we're not doing the like, see, I told you so. You know, like, what feels good and what doesn't feel great? What do you miss about your phone? What do you feel the urge to make up for after school? Like, what are you most eager to check?

[C]

Why?

[A]

But I do think what we know is that that practice, this builds confidence, right? Learning how to be in relationship with another person is hard. Being 14 and having a friendship and having a conflict that your parents are not facilitating for you is new. It's hard, it is complicated. It takes practice. So I do think we can point out the ways that like, that was hard and you and you figured it out and what's next and we can keep trying to find those face to face opportunities after school.

[C]

Aaron, we talked earlier about this stage of life as an age of opportunity, right? We covered the age of sensitivity. It's also an age of opportunity, which is what I love about Ellen's book, seeing it as the breakthrough years. Right. It puts a positive spin on a stage of life that's often viewed as negative. When you think about all the different permutations and all the ways in which kids are trying to navigate this stuff and parents are, and educators are, are, how do we come at it from the perspective of an age of opportunity? What are some things you can leave people with from this conversation where they are like, okay, I can do this and I have faith in my kid. Like, give us a couple of tools or guidance for walking away from this conversation.

[A]

Well, let's take this in two, maybe we'll do. The first one is like, the hard stuff is still an opportunity. And it's helpful for me as a parent to remember that. So, for example, let's say my kid comes home from the playground as a younger kid and they're like, I got into a fight at the play or we got into an argument. My first reaction to that usually isn't, you will never go to that playground again. Like, you are banned from that playground. Never again. I don't want to hear about it. See, I told you. It always happens on that playground. I would usually as a parent think about like, okay, Was this an appropriate place for my kid to be? Were there adults around who are helping hold some level of safety and guidance? Was this an appropriate time for them to be there? And then I would probably help them build some skills around. What do you do when you're in a fight with your friend? What's the next step? How did that feel? What are you going to try tomorrow? And I think sometimes with tech, we, we go right to the tech being the problem. Like if we just got rid of that group chat, all adolescent conflict would go away now, which, I mean, let's be clear. Yeah. When the group chat is 30 kids, really truly getting rid of the group chat would be really helpful. But sometimes we talk to parents and it's like, well, it's actually just two or three of their best friends.

[D]

Right.

[A]

And what's playing out on this chat is also playing out in the hallways of. So what I mean by that, Vanessa, is that there's this age of opportunity also for, for trial and error, making mistakes and building skills. The adolescent brain is built exquisitely to learn from experience and to try to figure out what I might do next. So there is even in the roughest parts of parenting. Now let's say that I, that that argument did take place in a 50 kid group chat where they're trying to get everybody involved, seventh grade in it. It's like that is not setting you up for success. There's, it's hard to build the skill. Right. This sort of is beyond what you're capable of right now. But there is this opportunity to, to not take every single tech mishap as a sign that I'm a bad parent or you're a bad kid or we have to get rid of everything. But we're thinking about what skills. This is an opportunity to build skills. Okay, so that's on one side and then there is a sort of. I, I think that we don't hear as much about some of the data, the good things that are happening for young people with their devices, especially as we look at older adolescents and we're thinking about things like participation in conversations that matter to them, creativity, contribution. And I think as parents we can start building bridges between their digital interests and things that help them do what adolescence are just wired and built to do, which is to figure out how do I contribute, where do I belong, do I matter? And so that sort of age of opportunity, thinking about, okay, my kid, all they want to do is watch YouTube videos. You know, I was gave an example in the book where I was working with a family or talking with a family, who's then like, well, what if we have them learn how to produce videos at the community media center and they are learning how to contribute, they're also with their peers and they're around purposeful adults. And I think that is an interesting time for us to think about that. We. One of the tools in our toolkit is purposeful boundaries. The answer is no. One of the tools in our toolkit is, you know, it sounds like this is an opportunity to build skills. What are the skills that we need to practice in order to be successful in this space? And then this other opportunity is like, what transformative, awesome things do we want to do with digital media? And how can we plug young people in to experiences that have purposeful peers and adults around them so that we're what I call building bridges between their online worlds and their. And their offline worlds? And. And we do see that these experiences are protective and can help young people thrive. So. So that's a more complicated path, but I think we can do it. I think that we can, at our very best, we can hold grave concern. We can be really clear eyed about the harms. We haven't even talked about AI because you've done it and you're going to keep doing it.

[C]

There's a lot to be worried about. I was like, if we start talking about AI.

[A]

No, no, no. It's a whole nother thing. But we can hold real concern and we can acknowledge that extending and deepening a friendship in online spaces can be helpful and we can hold that they are doing some cool and creative things and that we're not the worst parent in the world for letting them have even a little bit of tech. So I think that that complicated path is messy. But as I look at the data, I'm comforted by the fact that the things that bubble to the top of what helps them thrive in 2025 is not that different. We've been studying adolescence for a long time. That purposeful boundaries, warm and caring connection with adults and opportunities to build skills is still really, really sort of the recipe that young people need. And the question is, when does tech help and when does it hurt?

[C]

Erin, this was such a great conversation. We're so happy to have you here and to have built purposeful connection online, which we then extended virtually into another tech platform, which will be this podcast episode we are beginning as we mean to go on. Thanks for all the work you do helping make sense of this very complex

[A]

issue for parents and for Kids, thank you. Thank you so much for having me. And thanks obviously, for your work in the world.

[C]

This is a sponsored segment segment. This segment is sponsored by Snapchat and their new safety course, the Keys. We are joined by Jacqueline Bosher, SNAP Inc. S first global head of platform safety, responsible for various aspects of snap's online safety strategy and engagement with external audiences. Welcome, Jacqueline.

[D]

Thank you so much. Pleasure to be here.

[C]

So you all have created this course to help with with safety, and you have mysteriously named it the Keys, which sounds like the title of a book we might have read when we were like 14. So, Jacqueline, will you explain what are the Keys, how do they work? And then we're going to dive into some specifics.

[D]

Sure. I'll tell you what they are and then I'll tell you why we named it the Keys. So it is an interactive online safety learning course course, and it's designed specifically for teens and their parents. Now, I think we all know we've seen plenty of these over the years. I've been in this space for a long time. But what makes this one unique is that it addresses head on some of those issues that are most challenging for teens online today. Here we're talking about cyberbullying and harassment. We're talking about intimate images and nudes. We're talking about sexual extortion and illicit drug activity. So some of these courses kind of dabble around the edges. This one confronts these things head on. We want to be able to give kids realistic scenarios that they can work through. We give them some videos to watch. We ask them some knowledge check type questions afterwards to really dive into these issues so they can look for some of the telltale signs. And then they can really have some information and some resources that they're armed with with in case they meet anything online that might make them feel uncomfortable. And then there's a second part to the course which really dives into those features and functionality and the resources and tools that we offer directly in the Snapchat app to help them through these kinds of instances.

[B]

And what's your goal?

[D]

The goal is to get as many teens as possible to take this course. They don't even have to be a Snapchat user to take the course. We think that there's really something in there for everyone, even if you are a trust and safety learned professional. Maybe there's a piece of data in there, maybe there's a statistic, maybe there's something that you hadn't thought of. So we want everyone to take the course as I said primarily for teens, but if the teen took it alongside a parent or a caregiver or a trusted adult, then they could dive into some of these issues and unpack them together. And Vanessa, I said I was going to tell you why we named it the keys.

[C]

I'm on the edge of my seat here.

[D]

Well, we named it and we designed it after driver's education. So in driver's education, when you learn how to drive, you have your classroom instruction and then you have behind the wheel, the practical skills and the practical knowledge. So just like the keys fire up that engine to a car, we want these keys to really ignite critical thinking in teens brains.

[C]

I mean, you guys went deep on that metaphor. I'm very, very, I'm very impressed. It's a metaphor Cara actually would have come up with.

[A]

Thank you for acknowledging how my brain works.

[B]

Jacqueline, can we go deep into a few of the things that you mentioned? You listed some very big topics, and I'm wondering if we can start maybe with bullying and harassment. What do parents need to understand about young people's behavior online around the issue of bullying and harassment?

[D]

Well, things are not always as they appear.

[C]

Right?

[D]

We really, with bullying and harassment, the key thing is context. What even we might see on the receiving end of a report from a user might not be what it appears. We always say that context is king. We have to go into the conversation, somebody's reporting something to us. We have to get as much information as we can before we're going to sanction or we're going to enforce against a particular account or a series of accounts. So I would caution parents to not just look at the surface and find out who the actors are in the scenario. And there may be multiple ones, and it might just not be an isolated incident. This might be the tale to something else that's happened previously. We've got to think expansively. We have to reserve judgment, really be accepting of the facts, take it all in, then assess the situation. Don't just jump to, oh, that would never happen to my kid. My kid would never do that. I mean, let's try to reserve judgment. Let's try to go in and be open minded and think expansively.

[C]

Yeah, I've taken the keys. I did actually learn some new things, particularly some resources that are available. So people should check out the keys. Take it with your kid, take it yourself. It was really, really well done. And it's not totally specific to Snapchat. So it, these are skills and insights and scenarios that are relevant to all sorts of aspects of online life and super useful even if you don't even have a kid on Snapchat yet. So I really recommend it. Let's talk about sexting and nudes and sextortion as another element of what the QIES educates about.

[D]

So here I really want to tell parents that these are the real issues that teens are dealing with. They are confronting this kind of stuff every day. And I want you to know that we do some research. We do annual research, we call it our digital well being index. We release all of the data on Safer Internet day each year. So that comes in February and we conduct the research the prior year, year. So what I want to tell you about this is whether it comes to unwanted contact or it comes to hate speech or bullying or harassment, any of these kinds of risks that are out there. We're asking teens in six countries about their experiences. 13 to 17 year olds, 18 to 24 year olds, and then we're also asking parents of 13 to 19 year olds to also give us their feedback on some of these scenarios, videos. And I'll tell you, unwanted contact, bullying, harassment, misinformation, hate speech, these types of issues. Parents have this uncanny ability to know that their kid is experiencing something online. Okay, the kid is either coming to them directly, they're finding it out from someone else, or they're discovering it on their own. But when it comes to sexual risks, there is a blind spot, spot for parents. The research shows a 10 to 15 point gap in parents saying, no, no, no, this is not my kids. My, my kids don't engage in sexting. My kids are not, you know, exploring their sexual identity online with anybody else. This is not happening. My theory is no matter what your age, parents don't necessarily want to recognize their children as sexual beings. So I really caution there. So sextortion, when it comes to nudes, intimate imagery, all that stuff, big gap between what parents think is happening and what is really happening.

[B]

Yeah, I mean, I think that's exactly right. There's this. On the one hand, it's very heady for parents to think about their kids as sexual beings. On the other hand, now that kids enter puberty at increasingly young ages, they are being sexualized at increasingly young ages, which parents know, they see the world sexualize these kids and they're up in arms about it, rightfully so. So it's this very funny gap and you know where my brain goes with this whole conversation and we don't have probably the bandwidth to get into it now, but maybe we can do this Another time is understanding the difference between parents reporting their kids sending sexual content versus is receiving it. Because my guess is that there are many more parents who are aware of when their kids receive it than necessarily when they send it, because there's one set of conversations that might be easier to have than another. So, you know, that data, so happy to hear that it is published each year, that it is transparent. I think the whole world should know in a moment when it's very hard to find data about a lot of things like go and do this research and you know, we can put some, some links in the show notes about where people can find that information. Jacqueline, how about illicit drugs?

[D]

So this is another issue, unfortunately, that takes place across platforms and services. Teens do have access or can gain access to individuals who are purportedly selling drugs or making materials available. And we want to really caution them about this. We don't want them obviously going down these routes. We want them to be able to report it to us when they see it, because we want to be able to protect everyone in our community. Oftentimes we hear that if you're reporting, it's like after the fact, it's kind of the ambulance at the bottom of the cliff. Right, I get it. You know, we don't want to be there. We want to be on the protective stage. We want to be on the prevention stage. We want to get to the. To the left of boom, as law enforcement would say. But reporting is important because we can stop people in their tracks and we can prevent them from reaching out and potentially harming or causing bad situations for others. So we want to make sure that we know about it, but it's out there. Unfortunately, not a whole lot of kids experience it, but sometimes kids are looking for this stuff, and we have to be conscious of that as well. It's not just about. About drug dealers are seeking out kids. Kids, unfortunately, are seeking out drugs and they don't know what they don't know. And that's primarily drugs that are laced with fentanyl, these counterfeit pills that are out there. This is really significant. And we try to tell kids, if you didn't get it from a prescription from your doctor, if it wasn't distributed by a licensed pharmacy, no, we can't have this. You've got to, you know, get your prescriptions from your doctor, from your pharmacy, don't be buying something that you think is a Xanax from somebody online.

[C]

And this is, I mean, one of the things that's done really well in the Keys is very Explicit guidance on this. And by the way, because our audience has, we've done a few episodes around illicit drug use, including fentanyl. We did an episode with Song for Charlie about fentanyl, which I'm sure you, you know them well. And having kids hear it from a youth voice, which is what you do in the Keys, as opposed to from us wonderful, brilliant middle aged women, it makes a big difference. They are developmentally inclined to listen to a youth voice in a way they are not inclined to listen to an older adult. And so you may have had these conversations over and over again. It bears repeating in their young brains to hear it from another perspective. So if you're like, no, no, no, I've covered it. You can never cover this too often. It is too important not to revisit in different ways.

[D]

Absolutely right. And we've heard that so many times. It was a couple of years ago now that we launched a campaign around illicit drug activity. And Fentanyl in particular with the ad council was called the Real Deal on Fentanyl. And as soon as these kids heard from actual former drug dealers what was going on and that just a couple of grains of this material in these pills, devastating, lethal consequences. And I just remember one young gal in one of the videos saying more kids need to know. And she was actually sharing that sentiment because she wanted more kids to know.

[C]

So we've talked about the Keys and what you created. But Snapchat has other tools to help parents shape their kids experience on Snapchat and kind of figure out because there are lots of people at the forefront of this whose kids aren't yet on the platform or on any platform. And they're thinking more and more thoughtfully every year about how do I do this safely, deliberately, in partnership with my kid, in conversation with my kid. What do you all have available for that kind of larger journey?

[D]

Journey I have to highlight Family Center. So I hope you know about Snapchat's Family Center. This is a suite of tools that are really family tools. I don't want to call them necessarily parental tools because we take an expansive view of family and we take an expansive view of parents. Maybe a teen doesn't want their parent, mom or dad to have their back on Snapchat, but maybe they're more inclined for an older sibling or a cousin or an aunt or an uncle. We make it that you can establish a relationship on Snapchat with this teen. And as the adult you will gain insight into who their friends are on Snapchat because this is something that's not public like it is on other services. And also you'll gain insight into who they've been communicating with over the course of the last seven days. And this is all preserving the teens, right? Right to privacy. As you all know very, very well, they're coming into their own in these years. They are discovering their own autonomy and independence. So we want those messages to still remain private. The parent, the adult is not going to see what they said to whom. They're just going to know that they communicated with Vanessa on whatever day over the last seven, seven day period. And we do that because we're trying to strike that balance. Right? We want to give parents insight, but we want to provide, preserve and respect teens privacy as well. Since we launched Family center in August of 2022, so it's over three years old now. I can't believe it. We always add more features, more functionality to give again more of that balance, but we're still preserving that teen's right to privacy and not sharing the content of the actual snaps or the actual messages.

[C]

And is this an opt in situation where I know we're familiar with other platforms and the sort of parental controls or teen accounts that they've created. How does it work with this in this circumstance?

[D]

So Family center is the parent or the adult has to have a Snapchat account. They actually initiate the invite and ask the teen to be connected as friends on Snapchat. And then they have this relationship where the parent can see who the teen is friends with, who they've communicated with over the course of the last seven days. If there's a name on that list that says Vanessa B, do I know her? See, she's somebody from your class. Is she somebody from your soccer team? I don't think I know her. And if the parent isn't motivated or satisfied by the response that they get, they can actually just click a little flag and say, I'm going to report Vanessa B. And I'm going to see if she's actually committed any violations of Snapchat's community guidelines. And the parent will get that report back. And then there's other things. There's location sharing options, there's other privacy settings. The parent can actually disable the teen communicating with my AI, our conversational chatbot, some older teens, that might be great. But a 13 year old, the parent might go, no, I'm not really in the mood for that. I'm gonna, I'm gonna disable activity there. So the teen can enter their question, but they're not going to get a response from the chatbot because the parent has disabled that. But I encourage Courage, your viewers to check it out.

[B]

And it sounds like at the core of all of this is an emphasis on being in communication and conversation with your child, which, you know, we all know, we sitting behind mics and we, the bigger we of listeners here know if there's one strategy that protects health and safety the most, it's being in constant conversation with your kids. So there's something very beautiful about the structure of all of this, whether it's the Keys or the Family center that emphasizes going back, talking it through, asking questions, waiting and being patient for answers, but being able to do something in the interim if you're not getting the answers. You know, I hope this actually gets us all as a society to this next level of assuming that There are wonderful scripts and tips to give parents about how to raise kids, but at the end of the day, say, the very best way to help a child grow up safely is to ask them and talk to them and ask them again. And it seems like that is the premise upon which a lot of this was built.

[D]

Exactly right. That is the core of Family Center. That is the core of the Keys sparking conversations. And what we're trying to do with the Keys especially is to get ahead of these things. Give them a tool, give them a resource to get ahead of any issues. We don't want that ambulance at the bottom of the cliff. Right. We want things to move along swimmingly. Safer experiences, healthier experiences, focused on well being. That's what we're all about. But we know what drives people to action. What drives people to action, unfortunately, is something bad happening. And we want to get ahead of that and give them this tool and the resource to get proactive.

[C]

So, Jaclyn, we will link to the Keys and the Family center in the show. Notes. Notes. Thank you so much for joining us and for sharing information about this really important resource.

[D]

Thank you for the opportunity. It's been a pleasure.

[C]

Thank you so much for listening. You can email us with questions, feedback or Episode [e-mail] if you want to

[B]

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