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listeners, we're off for Indigenous Peoples Day, but

1:01

while we take a break, we thought you

1:03

might like this episode from our friends at

1:05

How To. We're always getting questions about

1:07

how to manage screen time. So we know

1:10

that Ben, a How To listener, is in

1:12

a situation you can relate to. His fourth

1:14

grade boys love their screen time. So how

1:17

can Ben help his kids form a healthy

1:19

relationship with tech? And how should their school

1:21

come into play? We hope you enjoyed this

1:23

episode of How To. And if

1:26

you like it, be sure to subscribe to

1:28

their show wherever you get your podcasts. We'll

1:30

be back on Thursday with a brand new

1:32

episode. See you then. Just

1:34

before this call, I was actually on the phone

1:36

with a good friend of mine who's the principal

1:38

of a school in Philadelphia. And he said, we

1:40

have to find a place between the Wild

1:43

West and the Yonder

1:46

pouches. Both of those

1:48

extremes are not helpful, right? Neither

1:50

of those help prepare kids to

1:52

thrive in a future digital world.

1:56

Welcome to How To. I'm Courtney Martin.

1:59

All right, so it's... back to school season. I

2:01

don't know if your experience is like mine,

2:04

but I feel like I cannot get away

2:06

from one conversation in particular. It's at parent

2:09

chit chat during drop off, it's in the

2:11

newspapers, not beds. It's really everywhere. And it

2:13

seems like we're all asking, how

2:16

far are we willing to go to

2:18

keep our kids off of smartphones? Schools

2:22

are trying everything, right? Detention, suspension,

2:24

they're sticking phones in those weird

2:26

old yonder pouches that strike me

2:29

as very like dystopian novel. Now

2:31

this debate over kids and addictive screens is

2:34

nothing new, right? We've been having the conversation

2:36

for years, but public alarm

2:38

seemed to sort of reach a

2:40

fever pitch this past spring with

2:42

the publication of Jonathan Hight's, The Anxious

2:45

Generation. So in the book,

2:47

which of course is a big bestseller because

2:49

parents are totally freaked out, Hight argues that

2:51

social media is almost solely to blame for

2:54

the skyrocketing prevalence of Gen Z mental health

2:56

issues. It's a big claim, right? He suggests

2:58

no smartphones before high school, no social media

3:01

before 16. When

3:03

my fifth grader watches videos by her

3:05

favorite YouTube creator, Mariah Elizabeth. The cool

3:07

part though, is that people are painting

3:10

on these to customize them. I

3:12

can see the artistic spark behind her

3:14

eyes. She really, really loves it. But

3:17

also a part of me feels that it

3:19

must be wrong in some way that my

3:21

daughter is enraptured by shining pixels instead of,

3:24

you know, I don't know, running around in the redwoods

3:26

with her cousin. And

3:29

then the shame hits, deep parental

3:31

shame that I'm somehow screwing up my

3:33

kid by not being intentional or disciplined

3:36

enough about quote unquote screen time. All

3:38

right, so let's get into all of this, but

3:40

hopefully in a fresh way. Our listener

3:43

today, Ben knows a thing about parental

3:45

confusion. I am a self-employed proposal response

3:47

expert. So I get to work at

3:49

home a lot, which means that I

3:51

get to spend a lot of time

3:53

with my kids, which is fantastic. I

3:55

have twin boys going into grade four.

3:58

They are fabulous kids. So

6:00

either we'll all play a family game together

6:02

or we'll do like a movie together. And

6:05

then on the weekends, it's a little bit of

6:07

a free for all. Like if they're going to

6:09

lunch with their grandmother for dim sum, she'll often

6:11

give them a phone about halfway through the meal

6:13

or something like that. Oh, lest

6:15

we get into the grandparent relationship

6:17

with screens. Am I right, Ben?

6:20

Absolutely. Ben

6:23

and I are pretty much in the same

6:25

generation, trying to figure out what to do

6:27

about our parents' screens, our kids' screens, and

6:30

let's be honest, our own screens. When

6:32

it comes to this topic, it's hard to

6:34

tell which generation is actually the most anxious.

6:37

But last year when I was working on

6:40

a story about education, I met a technology

6:42

expert that I've been learning from ever since.

6:45

My name is Richard Colada. I am

6:47

the CEO of the International Society for

6:49

Technology and Education. But I

6:52

also have a passion for helping families

6:54

create healthy conditions for tech use. I

6:56

recently published a book called Digital for

6:58

Good, Raising Kids to Thrive in an

7:01

Online World. Yes. And importantly, you are

7:03

a dad, right? You know, I was

7:05

going to mention that probably the most

7:07

important qualification of anything is that I'm

7:09

a father of four kids, freshman in

7:12

college to a sixth grader,

7:14

so it's like right in the real

7:16

range of all the stuff when it

7:18

comes to technology use. So that's probably

7:20

my best qualification. So

7:23

today on the show, Richard shares

7:25

practical tips for encouraging healthy, thoughtful

7:27

tech use at home and in schools. Stick

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atlassian.com. Atlassian. We're

8:52

back with our listener Ben and technology

8:54

expert Richard Kulata. To get a better

8:56

sense of how Ben should parent around

8:58

new tech, I first wanted to zoom

9:00

in on how he is as a

9:02

user. Oh, I have

9:04

really, really bad screen time habits and really,

9:06

really bad technological control. So for example, I

9:08

was a paid player for World of Warcraft

9:11

and at one point I looked at all

9:13

my characters and realized that I had spent

9:15

a virtual year online and I just stopped

9:17

playing at that point. I was like, I

9:19

have spent an entire year of my life

9:22

inside this game. If I find that

9:24

a game or some app is causing

9:26

me to spend too much time on

9:29

it, I have to delete it. Right.

9:31

My husband and I go back and forth with trying to

9:34

prove which of us is less addicted to

9:36

our phones in this ridiculous way. Richard, do

9:38

you hear many adults being honest about their

9:40

relationship with screen time? No, in

9:42

fact, I think it's hilarious because a lot of the

9:45

conversations that I get brought into are

9:47

parents who want to focus entirely on

9:49

how horrible the situation is with their

9:51

kids and they're addicted and they can't

9:54

get off their phones. Right. I start

9:56

asking questions about the parents' relationship with

9:58

technology. important.

12:00

In fact, probably the most important thing

12:02

that we can do as parents is

12:05

help our kids learn to

12:07

find the right balance. That's the word that

12:09

I like here, the right balance in their

12:12

activities, digital or otherwise, right? We need to be

12:14

able to help them find that balance. And

12:18

different kids have an ability to recognize

12:20

that balance at different levels of maturity,

12:22

which doesn't always align with age. It

12:24

really is based on the kid and

12:27

their personality, their strengths,

12:29

etc. And the challenge is

12:31

if we take this deficit approach, if we take

12:33

this approach of saying, we're just going

12:35

to tell you all the things you can't do,

12:37

the don'ts approach, I call it right? We

12:39

don't give our kids a chance to

12:42

practice the do skills, the skills of

12:44

using technology in healthy ways, in recognizing

12:46

where their limits are. And so we

12:49

have to be really thoughtful about making

12:51

sure that we are providing kids opportunities,

12:53

not just to be said what not

12:56

to do, but opportunities to model and

12:58

to practice the do's access

13:00

to devices is

13:02

not a binary thing. It's not a moment

13:04

where it's like you have had no tech

13:06

and now all of a sudden you have

13:08

access to this phone with the full internet

13:11

data plan and off and running. And I

13:13

think that's a misconception that I hear when

13:15

I talk to families a lot. They're like,

13:17

I want to keep my kid off of

13:19

technology for as long as possible. And then

13:21

when the time is right, wha bam, you're

13:23

just thrown into this world that is way

13:25

more complicated than you're prepared for. It's a

13:27

little bit like, we're not going to ever

13:29

drive until all of a sudden you're 18.

13:31

And then I'm going to hand you the

13:33

keys to a Ferrari. No, like,

13:36

it is this process starting with access

13:38

to a device probably with no data

13:41

plan with very limited apps, right? Then

13:43

slowly adding more apps, eventually adding a

13:45

data plan, but still limiting some of

13:47

the apps, then maybe trying social media.

13:49

We have to think of tech use

13:52

in our families as a gradual process

13:54

that happens over multiple years. This

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36:00

likely to be able to capture my kids' imagination

36:02

if they're not behind a closed door, but also

36:04

thinking about some of the friendship stuff

36:06

and the bonding and the finding your

36:09

people that would seem kind of private

36:11

in a way for kids. That's

36:13

right. The idea of

36:15

teaching our kids that they

36:18

can be private on a

36:20

digital device is a

36:22

harmful message to teach. So it's not about

36:24

wanting to spy on them or any of

36:26

that stuff. It's more for them to recognize

36:29

if I need to be in private mode.

36:32

That's great. But this device that

36:34

I'm holding is not a private thing. I

36:36

feel like my wife would love this rule for me, assuming

36:38

that I would have to model it as well, because that

36:40

means I'm not taking a device into the bathroom with me.

36:43

Yes! Women of the

36:46

world unite against technology in the

36:48

bathroom. These

36:52

simple shifts, turning off autoplay, opening the

36:54

door, charging outside the bedroom, can signal

36:56

to our kids that technology is a

36:58

tool outside of us that we have

37:01

control over, rather than just a part

37:03

of our internal experience that exerts its

37:05

control over us. It

37:08

all feels to me like a really good middle

37:10

ground and habits that could benefit everyone in the

37:12

family. Ben,

37:14

I don't know if you're having this feeling, but

37:16

I'm having this feeling that I have when my

37:19

therapist says something so beautifully. I'm like, can you

37:21

just come home with me and say that to

37:23

my husband or my mom or whatever? Because you

37:25

said it so well and I'm not going to

37:27

say it like that when I try. So

37:29

Richard, can you give us a

37:32

script for when Ben goes

37:34

back to his parent community and he's standing

37:36

around with the other adults and he wants

37:38

to jumpstart this way of thinking about technology

37:40

and intentionality, what he might say to them?

37:44

Wow, that's a great, great question. So I often

37:46

get called in to meet with parent groups at

37:48

school and whatever. And I was brought in and

37:50

I shared some of these ideas and

37:52

I talked about how it's really important that we

37:55

are using technology with our kids actually at a

37:57

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