The Generation Who Forgot How to Think - How Social Media & AI is RUINING Kids’ Competence & Childhood with Dr Kaitlyn Regehr

Here’s a run down of what we discussed in today’s episode: The Biggest Harms of Social Media Why Social Media Is Designed to Be Addictive Can Lawsuits Change Big Tech? Diet Culture, Body Image & Social Media The Hidden Risks Facing Boys Online Video Games, Dopamine & Screen Addiction Sharenting, Privacy & Your Child’s Digital Footprint AI, Child Influencers & Online Safety Building a Healthy “Digital Diet” How to Raise Smarter Digital Citizens Check in with today’s amazing guest: Dr. Kaitlyn Regehr Instagram: instagram.com/kaitlynregehr Research: researchgate.net/profile/Kaitlyn-Regehr Book: Smartphone Nation: Why We're All Addicted to Our Screens and What You and Your Family Can Do About It Disclaimer: The content in this episode is for educational and entertainment purposes only and is never a substitute for medical advice. If you’re struggling with with your mental or physical health, please work one on one with a health care provider. If you have heard yourself in our discussion today, and are looking for support, contact the free NEDIC helpline at 1-866-NEDIC-20 or go to eatingdisorderhope.com. • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • •✨ Reach Your Weight & Health Goals — Without Dieting! Pre-order The Hunger Crushing Combo Method, Abbey’s revolutionary additive approach to eating well. Learn how to boost satiety, stabilize blood sugars, reduce disease risk, and improve your relationship with food — all while getting the best nutrient bang for your caloric buck. With 400+ research citations, cheat sheets, evidence-based actionable tips, meal plans, and adaptable recipes, The Hunger Crushing Combo Method is the only nutrition bible you’ll ever need. 👉 Pre-order today! 🛒 Where to Purchase: Amazon Barnes & Noble Amazon Kindle Apple Books Google Play Kobo Apple Books (Audiobook) Audible abbeyskitchen.com/hunger-crushing-combo • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • •✉️ Subscribe to My Newsletters: Abbey’s Kitchen Newsletter 📘 Check out my FREE E-Books: Hunger Crushing Combo™ E-Book Protein 101 E-Book 👋 Follow me! Instagram: @abbeyskitchen TikTok: @abbeyskitchen YouTube: @AbbeysKitchen Blog: abbeyskitchen.com Book: The Mindful Glow Cookbook • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • 🎧 Don’t forget to subscribe on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you listen — and leave us a review! It really helps support the show ❤️ 💬 If you liked this podcast, please like, follow, and leave a review — and let me know who you’d love to hear about next! ⭐ ⭐ ⭐⭐ ⭐ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Speaker 00

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• 0:30Speaker 01

  Social media is just one part of this story. It is just one part of the story of technology's increasing encroachment on childhood.

• 0:48Abbey Sharp?

  Welcome to another episode of Bite Back with Abbey Sharp, where I dismantle diet culture rules, call out the charlatans spinning the pseudoscience, and help you achieve food freedom for good. Okay, so, truth time here, folks. I have been a content creator for over a decade. And honestly, the more time I spend online, the more time I wish the internet didn't exist. Obviously, social media is my livelihood and has been a huge blessing in many ways. But I would happily give up everything I have built for it to just disappear. If not for my own mental health, then for that of my kids. Because I have seen firsthand the damage

• 1:33Abbey Sharp?

  it can and does do to young folks, I have become a fierce advocate for enhancing our kids' digital literacy, internet safety, and experiential learning in an increasingly digitalized world. In fact, I spearheaded a campaign at my son's school to significantly reduce digital or gamified learning tools for young children because I feel so desperate to keep them off these devices and apps as long as I possibly can. But if you are also growing increasingly more anxious about the impact Act of social and digital media for both yourself and our younger, more vulnerable generations.

• 2:17Abbey Sharp?

  You are not going to want to miss today's episode. My guest today is Dr. Caitlin Regehr, an associate professor at University College London, who researches social media, algorithms, and the detrimental impacts of screens. Her work contributed to the UK's Online Safety Act, which was a law establishing legal duty to protect online users from harmful content. She also has a new book out called Smartphone Nations, which breaks down why we are all addicted to our screens. This was such essential reading for me, so I'm definitely going to be linking to it in the show notes, and I highly suggest you check it out. All right, friends, let's get into it.

• 3:08Abbey Sharp?

  All right, Caitlin, thank you so much for joining me. I'm like overwhelmed with excitement about this conversation. This is such a passion of mine, so thank you.

• 3:14Speaker 01

  Thank you for having me.

• 3:16Abbey Sharp?

  So I think it's like at least clear from my perspective that social media isn't great for a lot of us, you know, for myself, my kids. But can you kind of speak to what the literature says, or some of the kind of big risks that we see with, you know, excessive social media use and what increases our risk?

• 3:36Speaker 01

  Yeah, so let's think about the way that social media is structured. So, social media is structured through something called the attention economy, right? So in social media, on social media, you know, you're not really the consumer, you're the product, or rather, your time and attention is the product which is being sold to advertisers. And what my previous work has looked at is how through this attention-grabbing economy, hate, harm, and disinformation is often algorithmically prioritized because it's more attention-grabbing. Because disinformation is more attention-grabbing often than truth, and harm, or things that hook into our vulnerability.

• 4:20Speaker 01

  will often hold us there just a little bit longer. And it's that extra time, that extra attention that advertisers are paying for. And so that harm is going to look different for all of us. It might be that you are being fed tons of plastic surgery. It might be that you are being fed expensive kitchens that you can't afford. It might be that you are being fed self harm or body dysmorphia. It might even be within the realm of pornography where pornography is getting increasingly, increasingly more violent. And we only have to look to the Children's Commissioner report out of the UK,

• 5:00Speaker 01

  which says there's a link between violent pornography consumption and domestic abuse now in youth relationships. Because that's what kids think sex is supposed to be like now. To see that as a massive problem. But ultimately, all of these issues are held together by an attention economy that seeks to hold us at any cost. That's what it's linked to. But here's the thing. Social media is just one part of this story. It is just one part of the story of technologies increasing encroachment on childhood.

• 5:45Speaker 01

  So we can look 2007 with the launch of the iPhone. That iPhone that pioneered a touchscreen that we stroked. And through that stroking, developed feelings of love, independence. That touchscreen where the buttons could change, which meant that we could have a boom in social media. That meant that app developers would create applications for that platform. But it's really not until 2016, when Facebook changes the way its algorithm functions to prioritize time spent on its platform, that we really move into this attention grabbing economy.

• 6:28Speaker 01

  But there's of course another story going on here at the same time. And that story is technology being put into our schools. So not just into kids' social time, but also into their school time. So there's no opting out. And then we have 2020 with lockdown. And we have a massive, massive investment into remote learning technologies. Technologies that were put into our schools to deal with a crisis. Apparently a temporary crisis. And that technology still remains.

• 7:04Abbey Sharp?

  Right.

• 7:05Speaker 01

  And then, in 2022, conversational AI technologies boom into public consciousness with the launch of a new app in November of that year, ChatGPT.

• 7:19Abbey Sharp?

  Right.

• 7:20Speaker 01

  And with ChatGPT, we then don't just see technology in kids' social time, not just in their school time, but also we see it begin to populate all of their time, where they start to ask questions of ChatGPT for homework help, for social help, for help with relationships, to sub in as a trusted adult. And so if the attention economy was about stripping away time and attention, the AI attachment economy is about stripping social, emotional, and cognitive skills,

• 8:03Speaker 01

  where technology becomes a crutch, removing young people's future agency and ability to exist without it. And so what I'm worried about now is who will have the choice to remove the crutch? Who will be able to function without this? I mean, I was in a school a year ago and a 15-year-old girl said to me, "I now use ChatGPT to text my friends because I think it does a better job of it than I can." And so this girl, let's call her Maddie, was losing her confidence in her ability to do it herself. That means not only was she losing her confidence, but she was actually not developing

• 8:48Speaker 01

  the social skills for the future. And what we're now worried about, I'm sorry if I'm getting too dark for you here.

• 8:55Abbey Sharp?

  No, I need the darkness. I think we all need the darkness, but it is fucking scary.

• 9:01Speaker 01

  So this is not just about social development, but it's now also about cognitive development. So I was in a school two weeks ago where a boy said to me, I use ChatGPT to do my homework. Because we've kind of figured out that school isn't about learning anymore. And guess what? His marks were going up, right? And he's not the only one. A new Pew Research study has just come out to say that 54% of American kids are using ChatGPT for homework support from the age of 12.

• 9:34Abbey Sharp?

  Yep.

• 9:34Speaker 01

  And so what we need to be thinking about is a cognitive, social, emotional de-skilling, which I would argue, if you thought social media was bad, you best be ready for what's coming here. But we have a choice. We can learn from those mistakes from 10 years ago, and we can make other choices now. And that is why I do what I do. I am really, really encouraging parents to make different choices. Because even if you think that you love AI and AI just makes your life that much easier,

• 10:17Speaker 01

  there is a fundamental difference between a millennial using ChatGPT to support a pre-existing expertise and a Gen Z or Gen Alpha who never develops that expertise.

• 10:30Abbey Sharp?

  Right.

• 10:31Speaker 01

  That's very different.

• 10:33Abbey Sharp?

  Hundred percent.

• 10:34Speaker 01

  And that's what we're up against.

• 10:35Abbey Sharp?

  Wow. I don't even know where to start because there's a lot of ground to cover. Clearly, we have a lot of work to do. Let's start with the schools.

• 10:44Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 10:45Abbey Sharp?

  How do we advocate as parents for our children's future education?

• 10:53Abbey Sharp?

  When we are up against AI, when the schools know that they are up against AI? What should the solution be inside schools in terms of technology use?

• 11:04Speaker 01

  That's a great question. I first want to point out that there is a very big difference between a child using ChatGPT to do their homework and school-based ed tech or aid, we call it, ed tech with AI technologies. Those are different things. Not all ed tech is created equal. Where ed tech becomes a problem is when it is being used as a support. So what you don't want ed tech to do is to be supporting kids so that you, they are outsourcing learning to technology. That's not a good thing.

• 11:42Speaker 01

  What you do want to do is be teaching critical thinking about how AI works at age and stage-appropriate moments. And to, to think about this, I think it's helpful to look at the work of Marianne Wolf, who talks about the biliterate brain. And she talks about this idea of the need to deeply engrain confidence in print-based learning before introducing digital skills. So she would say that up until the age of 12, it should be print-based learning. You need to deeply understand that because the way we read on print, our love of reading

• 12:26Speaker 01

  that is developed through reading on print, those are fundamental skills that need to be deeply understood before you add screens, which is a different skill.

• 12:39Abbey Sharp?

  Yep.

• 12:39Speaker 01

  But be can, but can be added once that confidence is built in early years. And we've seen mistakes in the past. I mean, Norway, which is a very rich country and is a country that has a standardized education system, so it's really great to use it as a natural experiment. They implemented iPads in schools in 2016. They gave every child an iPad from the age of five. We're now 10 years later and Norway's reading scores have dropped. Their PISA scores, that's the international reading scores, they have dropped. The average vocabulary of a child has plummeted. And what has Norway done?

• 13:24Speaker 01

  They took the iPads out of primary years. That's all they did. That's what they've, that's been their reaction.

• 13:30Abbey Sharp?

  That seemed like the right reaction.

• 13:31Speaker 01

  And so we have to be very careful that in a, a kind of a mad rush to prepare our kids for a digital or AI future, that we don't actually strip away the skills that are going to make them confident people and humans distinguishable from AI.

• 13:55Abbey Sharp?

  Right.

• 13:56Speaker 01

  In the future. And that is paramount. So what you really want, when you say, I want to prep my kid for the future, what you really want is foundational, traditional, print-based skills in early childhood and primary, and then critical thinking around AI, or what I call AI fluency in later years so that they can critically respond to AI, but not so that they are outsourcing their learning and skill development to AI. And that is a big difference.

• 14:48Abbey Sharp?

  Okay, so can you give us some examples then of what that looks like in real life?

• 14:52Speaker 01

  You actually don't even need technology to teach critical AI fluency. I'm a big fan of Computer Science Unplugged, which is teaching computer science without technology. And I, I know of some prep schools in New York who have also implemented Computer Science Unplugged. And that's when you do activities, like you teach kind of binary code, binary numbers through beading, okay?

• 15:24Abbey Sharp?

  Love it.

• 15:25Speaker 01

  Or you do mazes and you talk about. How code is developed through mazes. And that is something you can do at a really young age. So I went into my daughter's kindergarten class. And I taught how algorithms work with a cardboard box and a piece of string.

• 15:40Abbey Sharp?

  I love that.

• 15:41Speaker 01

  So I took a cardboard box and I put it on one child's head, who was the screen. And then I had a string, which was held by a little girl. And I said, would you like a picture of a cat or a picture of a dinosaur? And she said, cat. So she got a cat. And then she got another cat. And then another cat. And then another cat. And then a scary cat. And then a really scary cat. And they all said together, algorithms make our choices for us. But we want to make our own choices. And if a five year old get that. If a five year old can understand how an algorithm works. How you're constantly fed things and how those things get maybe increasingly more a little bit extreme. We all can.

• 16:25Speaker 01

  And we all can educate ourselves in these ways. In a really healthy, critical and human approach to understanding technology.

• 16:35Abbey Sharp?

  And so to that point of algorithms, basically making choices for us. And this kind of addictive nature, that attention economy you're talking about. Can you give our listeners some education who maybe have not really thought much about this? Of, you know, how a lot of these apps that were on every single day are kind of addictive by design?

• 16:58Speaker 01

  When you speak about addiction, generally we're speaking about the processes that feed us content. And those processes show up in different ways. Some of them are things like the pull down gesture, that constant renewal. Which some experts have referred to as kind of gambling simulation. So sometimes you might get a renewal and sometimes you will not get a renewal. And it's actually the, that game of maybe sometimes getting in and maybe sometimes not. That keeps us more addicted.

• 17:31Abbey Sharp?

  I didn't even think about that.

• 17:32Speaker 01

  It also, it's incredibly sensitive. So because it's so sensitive, it knows us really well, which is why people think their phone is listening to them. It's hyper, hyper predictive. And, and it, and it can make choices for us. It also knows when we're maybe in not a great place.

• 17:51Abbey Sharp?

  Yeah.

• 17:52Speaker 01

  And this is something that, you know, a colleague of mine who I really respect, Sarah Winn Williams, who was the Facebook whistleblower, she wrote careless people about her time at Meta. She talks about the idea of emotional targeting. And this was something that was sold to advertisers. And she uses the example of a teenage girl who pulls down a picture of herself off Instagram, and Meta would know that that was probably a really good time to sell her weight loss products.

• 18:19Abbey Sharp?

  Whoa.

• 18:20Speaker 01

  Because in her moment of vulnerability, she's more susceptible to feeling a sense of lack.

• 18:26Abbey Sharp?

  Mm-hmm.

• 18:27Speaker 01

  Now, it's not as if advertisers haven't always pointed out our lack and then offered us products to fulfill that lack, but the ability to pinpoint the exact moment of our feelings of lack and feed us more content to potentially exploit that lack or grow that feeling of lack in order to sell us more products is new. And that is something we all should, whether we're a parent of teenagers or we are just adults on these platforms. It is something we should be aware of.

• 19:04Speaker 01

  And we can practice much more intentional, much more empowered usage over these platforms in order to live healthier digital lives.

• 19:16Abbey Sharp?

  And, you know, I want to, I want to get more into that because I love in the book how you make that parallel between, you know, digital content consumption and like food and eating and this kind of creating this digital kind of consumption food guide, so to speak. And that you describe yourself as, as like a digital nutritionist. I love it. It's all just going to come in full circle for me. And I love this kind of parallel because it's, it's like you're no different than, than with food. We can't escape this. Like unless you're going to live in the mountain and, you know, completely off grid, like we are going to have to interact with, with, you know, screens and with apps and with AI in our future.

• 20:01Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 20:01Abbey Sharp?

  It just comes down to doing it in a healthier way. Can you kind of describe what this healthier kind of food pyramid or food guide would look like?

• 20:08Speaker 01

  Yeah, so let's think about the guidance that has traditionally been given to us in order to keep us healthy online and the guidance that we should be using with our children. That was something called Screen Time. Screen Time was based on some very good research from about 15 years ago on childhood obesity. And that research suggested that if kids are on screens, they're not running around outside, and that's bad for their physical health.

• 20:36Abbey Sharp?

  Right.

• 20:36Speaker 01

  That is still true.

• 20:38Abbey Sharp?

  Yep.

• 20:38Speaker 01

  But what Screen Time didn't account for really was mental health well-being. So that guidance was about the quantity of consumption, but not the quality of consumption. And I'd really like to encourage people to think about the quality of consumption. And that can show up in different ways. One, it's around your parenting and how you parent. So I tend to say bigger is better. Big screens in collective spaces generally better than little screens in isolation. So big screens are generally on regulated spaces, too.

• 21:18Speaker 01

  There's a big difference between putting your kid on TVO and putting your kid on YouTube. And for most families in the US, we know that by the age of three, 81% of kids are on YouTube. By the age of five, it's 89. And that's a huge shame because lots of great time and advocacy went into children's programming.

• 21:45Abbey Sharp?

  Yeah.

• 21:46Speaker 01

  I mean, Sesame Street, the amount of advocacy that went into For the Creation or Mr. Rogers' Neighborhood, like, you know, the amount of advocacy that went into creating PBS and really quality children's programming, a lot of it has effectively been thrown out the window because children are not on those spaces anymore.

• 22:04Abbey Sharp?

  Yeah.

• 22:05Speaker 01

  So one thing we want to do is look for regulated spaces. The other reason bigger is better is good is generally then you're watching collectively. And that is something we want to encourage. Most guidance, most updated guidance now suggests co-viewing as a model. Where you sit with your child, you talk about what they see. You use the programming as a launchpad to have an engaged discussion. So that is something that we also want to be aware of. But then there's also our own screen time. And how we account for more quality consumption for ourselves.

• 22:40Abbey Sharp?

  Yeah.

• 22:41Speaker 01

  Now, that's not to say that you can't, you know, have junk food sometimes. And you can't have a binge session. But you might want to think about what your digital diet is doing to you. So one exercise that I suggest, and this is often quite cringey for people, is to open your most frequently used application and scroll through a period of usage with your partner.

• 23:07Abbey Sharp?

  Oh, boy.

• 23:08Speaker 01

  And if your partner says, whoa, like, why are you getting so many ads for nose jobs? You might want to consider if that's the best thing for you.

• 23:17Abbey Sharp?

  Right.

• 23:18Speaker 01

  And then you decide. You decide what you want to see more of and what you want to see less of. And once you decide what you want your digital diet to look like. And I do, as you say, I use a food style pyramid.

• 23:31Abbey Sharp?

  I love it.

• 23:32Speaker 01

  I talk about kind of, you know, that there is at the bottom of the period pyramid, we have things that are in information building content, educational content. So that might be, you know, that's where you choose to read the New York Times. That's very different than scrolling through influencer content that makes you feel bad about yourself, which of course should be at that top. That's your junk food at the top of that food pyramid. Once you decide what you actually want your digital diet to look like, you can start gaming your algorithm.

• 24:04Speaker 01

  And what you do is you actively search for things you want to see and quickly move past the things you don't. Do not give it your time. Do not give it your attention. Do not linger on it. Do not comment on it because that's how these systems are built. Your time is money and that's what you will get more of. So you need to be much more intentional about your usage of these platforms if you want the content that you consume to look different.

• 24:33Abbey Sharp?

  Yes, I love those tips and it is something that I do recommend often and I like mindfully try to hack my algorithm every week because I find that it'll slip a little. You gotta get back in there. You gotta like actually actively plan that in.

• 24:48Speaker 01

  It's like a deep clean.

• 24:49Abbey Sharp?

  Exactly. You need a deep clean every once in a while. I love that, that advice. I want to talk about healthier examples of different media for kids. Let's go back to our schools because we know that kids are being put on iPads. They're using smart boards, Chromebooks. What should we be advocating for in our kids' schools for more responsible use of tech?

• 25:12Speaker 01

  So again, this is age and stage appropriate. We need to be really mindful that what is appropriate for a five-year-old is different than what's appropriate for a 15-year-old.

• 25:22Abbey Sharp?

  Sure.

• 25:23Speaker 01

  I generally think that most schools have gone too heavy on screens.

• 25:27Abbey Sharp?

  Agreed.

• 25:29Speaker 01

  And that is because there was such a huge investment during COVID. Often, schools feel that they don't want to rein that in, that they've made this big investment and so they should use the tech.

• 25:45Abbey Sharp?

  Yeah.

• 25:45Speaker 01

  But I think there are a few things, a few problems with that argument. First, that investment was made during a time of crisis.

• 25:58Abbey Sharp?

  Yep.

• 25:58Speaker 01

  And it was meant to be a temporary fix. It was never meant to be a long-term goal. Next, there is now much more evidence available about the impact of screen-based learning, the impact of digital technologies on developing minds, and also the ways that this type of learning begins to formulate addictive ways of being onto other forms of usage in the future.

• 26:31Abbey Sharp?

  Right.

• 26:31Speaker 01

  So we're not just talking about an iPad, we're talking about the way an iPad shortens attention spans, fragments attention spans, meaning that children have trouble with longer-form content and need to go to more forms of digital usage in the future.

• 26:50Abbey Sharp?

  Right.

• 26:50Speaker 01

  Surely that's not a pathway, a neural pathway, we want to forge.

• 26:55Abbey Sharp?

  Right.

• 26:56Speaker 01

  We want to forge deep learning, deep reading, a love of books. I mean, the amount of people that say to me, "My child stopped reading for pleasure the moment they got a phone or a tablet."

• 27:09Abbey Sharp?

  Yep.

• 27:10Speaker 01

  That is, and that's for all of us.

• 27:11Abbey Sharp?

  Yep.

• 27:12Speaker 01

  I think we all read less for pleasure now. Because we have devices around us, and we all, even as adults, have shortened attention spans.

• 27:22Abbey Sharp?

  Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah.

• 27:23Speaker 01

  So imagine what that's doing to a five-year-old.

• 27:26Abbey Sharp?

  Yep.

• 27:26Speaker 01

  And so I think we do need to be a little bit more empowered within our education system to advocate for what we want here. So that's around screens. There's something else that's happening in schools that we've not touched upon yet.

• 27:40Abbey Sharp?

  Oh, dear. Please. All right, let's do it.

• 27:44Speaker 01

  So we've talked about screen-based learning, we've talked a little bit about ed tech or AI ed tech. There's another form of AI that is in schools now, which is AI admin tools that teachers use. These are tools that are used for things like attendance or behavior. Class Dojo, for example, which is a behavioral app, is used in 95% of the schools in the U.S.

• 28:09Abbey Sharp?

  Wow.

• 28:09Speaker 01

  Okay? Now, here's the thing about those applications, and this is something you need to know as a parent. If your child is being datafied, that is to say... Data is being collected about your child's behavior. Sometimes from a very young age. You should know who owns your child's data, when it will be deleted, and who can have access to it in the future. If your five-year-old is singled out as having bad behavior and is marked down as having bad behavior in primary school, can that data be shared with a university?

• 28:45Abbey Sharp?

  Right.

• 28:46Speaker 01

  Can that data be shared with a future employer? Maybe not, but maybe it can. And all of these platforms, which are generally owned by private companies, they're not owned by the school,

• 28:58Abbey Sharp?

  Yep.

• 28:59Speaker 01

  will have different rules and different agreements around the use of that data. And one thing I think that parents have not fully begun to appreciate yet is how their children, through these administrative tools that make teachers' lives easier, maybe, or maybe not, are datafying their children from a very young age. And you have a right as a parent to know who owns your kid's data and how it will be used.

• 29:30Abbey Sharp?

  That is absolutely something I've never thought of before, but it is a terrifying thought. I mean, obviously, I think about this often when it comes to like sharing online, where, you know, we're creating, you know, a digital footprint for our child at the, at birth, basically, and they have no autonomy. They haven't been able to consent to being a participant in that content, which I'm very much against. I don't share anything about my children. I don't share their photos or names or anything online. But I never thought about it when it comes to, you know, these apps in the schools. But you're absolutely right. And one thing I have, I've, I've been thinking about often as it, as it pertains to, you know, pulling back a little bit of this tech and, and this longstanding assumption that a lot of parents still have that like,

• 30:15Abbey Sharp?

  well, we have to prepare our kids for a, you know, a digitalized world. The kids have to code. Kids have to know how to use these tools. And if we pull them back, then somehow they're going to be behind. And if other schools, if this is not like a, a Worldwide mandate. Well, what if, you know, so and so from another school is using AI to be able to write their essays and get into the best school? And if my kid is not, then they're going to be behind because they're not using AI. Like, what do we tell parents when it comes to those fears? That if they aren't allowing their kids to use ChatGPT to write their homework every night, which means their their scores are not going to be perhaps as good as their friend who is, that they're going to be behind.

• 31:00Speaker 01

  Okay, so I think the question is, what are we preparing them for?

• 31:03Abbey Sharp?

  Right.

• 31:04Speaker 01

  And within education literature, there is kind of a a classic divide between performance and process. So the kid who's using ChatGPT and getting better marks, they're being graded on their performance, not on their process. And I think you're right to question that. And and perhaps we needed an entire education overhaul as a result of this. Yes. But let's think about what is the end goal of all of this? So if the end goal of all of this is to raise an intelligent, insightful, critically thinking human being who can exist without technology, surely we should be valuing the process.

• 31:48Abbey Sharp?

  Right.

• 31:48Speaker 01

  I also think there is a study that was done at Harvard that's really relevant here, which is, I mean, it was a massive study. They looked at something like two million jobs from 2015 to 2025. And they looked at this idea of entry level work diminishing. Okay, because this is what we're hearing all the time, that young people are going to leave university and they're not jobs for them. And what they found is that though jobs were diminishing and there was less available, the lack of job opportunities is not equally spread out across all young people. And they looked at this U shape.

• 32:32Speaker 01

  So at one side of the U was bottom tier universities and those young people. were still getting jobs. And then in the mid-tier, they were not getting jobs. And then at top-tier universities, they were getting jobs. And what the Harvard team point out here, this is their analysis, not mine. They suggest that at the bottom-tier universities, they were doing tasks that were not replaceable by AI.

• 32:59Abbey Sharp?

  Yep.

• 32:59Speaker 01

  And at the top, those kids were still exhibiting critical thinking skills, leadership skills, creative skills, and they were getting jobs. The very skills that using AI as a support often dulls, not sharpens. So if we think about the longevity of a young person's development and what we're actually in the long, you know, in the, you know, what's the long-term goal of this? Surely what we should be doing is fostering creativity, independent thought, critical thinking, and deep learning.

• 33:44Speaker 01

  Surely we should be fostering all the skills that AI cannot do.

• 33:50Abbey Sharp?

  I love that.

• 33:51Speaker 00

  Now, more than ever, we need someone on our side. But Rob Whitman? Whitman's votes drove up costs, cut Medicaid, and risked 350,000 Virginians' healthcare to pay for tax breaks for himself and his donors. He's not on our side. Shannon Taylor will fight corruption, cut taxes, and bring down costs. This November, vote for Shannon Taylor. She's for us. Paid for by HMP, the HouseMajorityPact.com. Not authorized by any candidate or candidate's committee.

• 34:34Abbey Sharp?

  And that is going to take a shift in people's priorities. And but but one that is obviously so important. So I really hope parents who are listening take that in and reflect on that. So that's very helpful. I want to quickly talk about, you know, better or best or worst examples for video games or TV shows, things like that for children. Like, what should parents be, you know, gravitating towards when their kids are saying, I want to play video games? And what should parents be more mindful about, like, holding back on?

• 35:11Speaker 01

  So, video games can do some good things, like foster dexterity. They can be good for community building for some kids, depending on how you do it. But you do need to be aware that gaming is often a space where young people are introduced to adult themes. And it's not even necessarily through the game itself, but everything that surrounds the game. So often, what you'll hear is that a young person will try to be getting to the next level of a game. They will go on Reddit to figure out how to beat the game. And that is where they are first introduced to misogynistic content, let's say, or sexist content.

• 35:57Speaker 01

  Or they are gaming with a headset on, and they are gaming with someone else. And that is an adult who they don't know.

• 36:05Abbey Sharp?

  Yep.

• 36:05Speaker 01

  That is a stranger, and they are introduced to adult themes. And so if you are, if you are going to have gaming happening in your home, there are some things we can do to be safer about it. One, you can check the PEGI rating, which is the rating on games, to make sure that they are appropriate. I would suggest also going to askaboutgames.com that talks about what games are appropriate for different age groups and talks about potential harms. You also, if there is a geolocator on that game, it is possible that anyone playing the game knows exactly where your kid is in their house.

• 36:40Abbey Sharp?

  That's scary.

• 36:41Speaker 01

  So, you know, be, be aware of how geolocators work. And be aware that if they are playing with a headset on, they could be talking to a stranger they do not know. So you want to be really, really aware of that potential as a space of harm. Generally, Just like on, we talked about big screens in communal spaces. We want those games to be in communal spaces too, for all the reasons we just discussed. Because these games, particularly if they're on, you know, online games, they're happening live and they're playing with other people. They can be introduced to harm.

• 37:19Abbey Sharp?

  Okay, that's very helpful. And then in terms of, you know, TV screens that are on, you know, big screens and things like that. That parents should, you know, be more mindful of. I mean, I know we kind of mentioned YouTube because it can become this like, you know, even if you start on one video that you feel is safe, it just is a runaway train and you can get to, you know, more dangerous places. But is there, is there content that is less kind of quote, quote addictive for children?

• 37:47Speaker 01

  So the problem with YouTube is that it often has very short form content. And low quality content, which is not great for children's attention spans. It also increasingly has something that we now refer to as AI slop.

• 38:04Abbey Sharp?

  Oh, yeah.

• 38:05Speaker 01

  So my colleague at University of Chicago, Dana Susskind, talks about toddler disinformation, essentially. Where you have AI slop being made for very young children, which is just not correct. It's factually inaccurate, or it'll say things like eat grapes or run into the street or, you know, they, it'll have essentially disinformation or harm for very, very early years. So surely that is not something that we want. There is a very big difference between watching YouTube, which I count as social media. That is an algorithmically driven feed of unregulated content and being on regulated children's programming.

• 38:54Speaker 01

  So regulated children's programming where possible, live TV where possible, which has been programmed by a children's commissioner that has been thoughtfully mapped out so that you're not just watching eight episodes of Bluey in a row, but you're actually changing and giving some diversity of content. That's often a good thing. And also long-form content. So, sitting down and watching a Julie Andrews movie is a really different experience. And perhaps it is a jumping off point where you talk about World War II history and you use it as a way in to have that discussion. You know, that is a fundamentally

• 39:36Speaker 01

  different experience than putting on YouTube kids with headphones on up alone in the bedroom.

• 39:41Abbey Sharp?

  Right. Okay. I am going to close here with probably the biggest question that parents who are listening right now, if you are like me, that they are thinking, which is, I'm now scared shitless of all these things we've talked about, and I know I have to make a change. How do I make a change? When my kid has been watching YouTube, they've been playing on Minecraft, they've been, you know, watching short-form videos constantly.

• 40:09Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 40:10Abbey Sharp?

  I'm gonna have a temper tantrum on my hands. How do I start?

• 40:14Speaker 01

  So, we all can be much more intentional about our usage. And this is not to say that our parents didn't also plop us down in front of television sets to watch kind of a parade of polka dot Dora characters or whatever. But those were very different screens and very different spaces. Unfortunately, we have to make choices in a way our parents never had to, because there are so many more choices available, so many different screens available, and different digital spaces available. If we just say to ourselves, we just want

• 40:54Speaker 01

  to start making better choices. That is also something we can say to our kids. You know, I speak all the time to my very small children and say, sometimes, things we see on the television are just not that healthy for us. It's not as good for us. And you have the same discussions you would have about food. We know how to have those discussions about food. We know that sometimes, there is a temper tantrum.

• 41:23Speaker 01

  Because they can't have a second ice cream cone, or whatever your temper tantrum is about. But you can start to make a norm that, yeah, we do have carrot sticks as a snack, because that's what we do in our family.

• 41:37Abbey Sharp?

  Right.

• 41:38Speaker 01

  And if we really start to use the lens of food onto this digital space, I think we can feel much more empowered to make better, more healthy, more intentional choices for ourselves and for our families.

• 41:55Abbey Sharp?

  I love that. What an amazing place to end. I feel, all right, I'm mapping out a plan after this. I'm mapping out a plan. But I am so grateful that you came in to chat about this. Of course, I'm going to be leaving links to your amazing book. That is, I highly recommend everybody, every parent read it, every non-parent read it, because it's, of course, important for those of us who are also feeling overwhelmed and kind of addicted to our own phone, smartphone nation. So, thank you so much for coming in.

• 42:23Speaker 01

  Thank you.

• 42:25Abbey Sharp?

  What an amazing episode. Honestly, this just reinforced why I feel so strongly about digital literacy and raising kids away from screens as long as possible. Not to mention, the analogy of strengthening our online behaviors as a digital diet was just like so perfect for me. And to carry on that analogy here, you know, I've been thinking about the ways to offer myself the same compassion around my admittedly not-so-great digital diet that I would give to my food diet, especially if I was just starting to make changes to that lifestyle. When it comes to nutrition counseling, we know that all-or-nothing rules

• 43:10Abbey Sharp?

  rarely create a healthy relationship with food. And I think that the same may also be said for our online behaviors. Like, I've tried so many things to keep myself offline. I've done week-long digital detoxes. I've deleted apps. I even got myself one of those like brick things to lock myself out of my phone. But we know that extreme restriction generally backfires. So in my case, I would basically just find myself binging my scroll time even harder when the time block wore off. Or I would make an excuse to myself why I needed to download that app back. Whatever hard rule I set, it obviously just wasn't sustainable for me.

• 43:53Abbey Sharp?

  And I'm seeing the same thing now when it comes to my kids. I had a conversation with my friend who told me that because they had a very strict, like no video game rule in their house, she was hearing from friends that their son was impossible to get away from the screen when he had access to those games outside of the home. And it's funny because I've been telling this exact same story about kids who've been raised in these like almond mom homes, these hyper restrictive homes around food, who will go out on full blown benders at birthday parties and play dates because they have built zero skills at moderating themselves around restricted foods.

• 44:33Abbey Sharp?

  So while I do think we need to be very mindful of the apps, games and content that our kids are consuming, and that probably means we've got to be an active participant in their use as well, maybe the question needs to move away from how do we eliminate screens entirely to how do we help ourselves and our kids build a relationship with technology that feels more intentional, more regulated and more humane? If we can't expect and really shouldn't expect our teen to not enjoy candy or chips, we also shouldn't expect them to reject all digital tools in an increasingly digitalized world.

• 45:15Abbey Sharp?

  With a more moderate approach, we can move towards a structure that leaves us all feeling more informed than inflamed and more connected than consumed. And I will absolutely be revisiting Caitlin's book again and again to help me find that balance in my own life and those of my sons. But if this episode resonated with you, I would love if you would leave me a five star review and share this episode. With a friend who also needs to cut down on their doom scrolling. A last quick reminder that my book, The Hunger Crushing Combo Method is on shelves now, and you can find me throughout the week posting daily on Instagram and TikTok and on my YouTube channel as well. But that's all for today, folks. I'll see you next Tuesday on Bite Back.

• 45:59Abbey Sharp?

  But signing off with Science and SaaS, I'm Abbey Sharp. Thanks for listening.

• 46:11Speaker 00

  Now, more than ever, we need someone on our side. But Rob Whitman? Whitman's votes drove up costs, cut Medicaid, and risked 350,000 Virginians' health care to pay for tax breaks for himself and his donors. He's not on our side. Shannon Taylor will fight corruption, cut taxes, and bring down costs. This November, vote for Shannon Taylor. She's for us. Paid for by HMP, the House Majority PAC dot com. Not authorized by any candidate or candidate's committee.