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Adam Fishman (author of a top business newsletter on Substack with 11K+ subscribers) interviews executives, entrepreneurs, and company leaders in technology companies who are also fathers. They discuss the tough aspects of work, parenting, family, the mistakes made and lessons learned along the way. All episodes at www.startupdadpod.com.
[00:00:00] Jackie Nesi: Because of my work, I am pretty aware that the narrative around screens tends to be very negative, and maybe more negative than it needs to be based on what we know from the research.
[00:00:11] Jackie Nesi: So I think there's this idea out there that any screen time is bad for kids, and that we should just try to use as little as possible or avoid it in all cases. And I just don't think that's supported by the research.
[00:00:22] Adam Fishman: Welcome to Startup Dad, the podcast where we dive deep into the lives of dads who are also leaders in the world of startups and business. I'm your host, Adam Fishman. What if the expert you turn to for advice on your kids and screens was also quietly googling whether their own child's Olympic curling obsession counted as too much TV?
[00:00:44] Adam Fishman: Today, I'm joined by Jackie Nesi, clinical psychologist, researcher, and associate professor at Brown University, and creator of Techno Sapiens, a weekly Substack newsletter with over 50,000 subscribers dedicated to translating the latest research on kids and technology for the parents who actually need it. Jackie is a mom of three young kids, and the tension between what the research says and what real life demands makes her one of the most grounded and refreshing voices in this space.
[00:01:12] Adam Fishman: In our conversation today, we spoke about why the narrative around screen time is far more negative than the research actually supports, and how to let go of the guilt, the transformation framework, and how the features of social media genuinely change the way kids experience friendships, the case for dialectical thinking in parenting and how to hold two seemingly contradictory truths at the same time, how to think through the phone and device staging decisions that every parent will eventually face, and why AI represents the next major frontier for kids and families, and what we should be paying attention to right now.
[00:01:47] Adam Fishman: If you like what you hear, please subscribe to Startup Dad on YouTube or Spotify so you never miss an episode. You'll find it everywhere you get your podcasts. I hope you enjoy today's conversation with Jackie Nesi.
[00:02:00] Adam Fishman: Welcome Jackie
[00:02:02] Adam Fishman: Nesi to "
[00:02:02] Adam Fishman: Startup Dad." Jackie, it is my pleasure having you on the show today. Thanks for joining me
[00:02:07] Jackie Nesi: Thank you so much for having me, Adam.
[00:02:09] Adam Fishman: I want to start with a little backstory on you. You once made a
[00:02:13] Adam Fishman: joke that your deep knowledge of the US Olympic curling team
[00:02:17] Adam Fishman: was a very good indicator of just how much screen
[00:02:20] Adam Fishman: time was being consumed in your household.
[00:02:22] Adam Fishman: So,
[00:02:22] Adam Fishman: I want to start there. You are simultaneously an expert and study,
[00:02:28] Adam Fishman: uh, and research,
[00:02:29] Adam Fishman: kids and the
[00:02:30] Adam Fishman: internet and social media and technology use, but you're also
[00:02:33] Adam Fishman: a parent yourself.
[00:02:34] Adam Fishman: You've got three kids,
[00:02:35] Adam Fishman: and sometimes you
[00:02:36] Adam Fishman: probably need to, like, put on a TV show so that you can make dinner or, like,
[00:02:40] Adam Fishman:
[00:02:40] Adam Fishman: take a walk around the block or
[00:02:42] Adam Fishman: like that. so tell me about, like, how, I guess, y-you
[00:02:45] Adam Fishman: start with balancing this in your own household. How do you think about this with the ages of your kids?
[00:02:50] Jackie Nesi: Yeah,
[00:02:51] Jackie Nesi: yeah. So, so as you said, I'm a, you know, I'm a professor at Brown, and I study the impact of technology on wellbeing, especially among kids, and what parents can do to help. and I also have three young kids, at home. And so definitely the things that I'm studying are definitely showing up, day-to-day in my life, all the time.
[00:03:11] Jackie Nesi: I mean, in terms of the Olympic curling team specifically, I do love watching sports with my kids and, you know, at the time of the Winter Olympics, got weirdly into curling. most recently I feel like it was more the World Cup. but yeah, I do think that, you know, given what I study, I think that I am pretty intentional about how we use screens at our house.
[00:03:29] Jackie Nesi: I do think a lot about it, unsurprisingly. and I try to approach it, in a way that I think makes sense for me. but I also think that because of my work, I am pretty aware that the narrative around screens tends to be very negative, and maybe more negative than it needs to be based on what we know from the research.
[00:03:47] Jackie Nesi: So I think there's this idea out there that any screen time is bad for kids, and that we should just try to use as little as possible or avoid it in all cases. And I just don't think that's supported by the research. and that's certainly not what I'm doing in my house, so
[00:04:01] Adam Fishman: Cool. Well, I'm excited to get into all of that stuff, a little bit later in the
[00:04:06] Adam Fishman: show. I wanted to take a quick pivot to,
[00:04:10] Adam Fishman: you know, some of your research, actually a lot of it, tends to fall at the more, I would say, serious end of the spectrum. So you've studied social media use among
[00:04:19] Adam Fishman: kids that
[00:04:20] Adam Fishman: have been hospitalized with psychiatric issues, kids who have suicidal thoughts, self-injury content, like the, the internet is the Wild West of stuff, right?
[00:04:30] Adam Fishman: User-generated content is everywhere. And I
[00:04:33] Adam Fishman: have a, teenage daughter,
[00:04:35] Adam Fishman: so I think about this a lot, who does not yet have access to social media, and that will probably continue for a long time.
[00:04:41] Adam Fishman: You've provided some testimony
[00:04:42] Adam Fishman: to Congress. Maybe this is self-serving for me, but what are some of the things that you learned in sitting with teens that's maybe not super obvious from some of the headlines of your research?
[00:04:52] Jackie Nesi: Yeah. So some of this research that you're referring to that I've done has been with teens who have really been struggling with severe mental health concerns. So, uh, in many cases, they're psychiatrically hospitalized due to, you know, risk of harming themselves or harming someone else, um, maybe have a history of, suicide attempts or suicidal thinking.
[00:05:12] Jackie Nesi: I think that talking with those teens, I would say there's two big takeaways from that for me, that I've carried forward into my thinking about this that I think that maybe seem a little bit contradictory but are not. The first is that, you know, these kids had a lot going on in their lives.
[00:05:29] Jackie Nesi: So if you can imagine, there's a lot happening, for these kids. Many of them are suffering, you know, from trauma or abuse or neglect. They have parents who are, you know, using substances. There's a lot going on in their lives, big major stressors. And so for a lot of those kids, social media is actually just one very small part of the picture, right?
[00:05:49] Jackie Nesi: For these kids, it's sort of the last thing on their minds in some cases. So that's one thing that I've taken with me. The other thing though is that seeing some of these kids and just some of the situations they were getting themselves into online, the types of content they were looking at, you know, in a lot of cases, it really was pretty problematic.
[00:06:07] Jackie Nesi: You know, like images around self-injury and, cases of, you know, connecting with other people who are sort of romanticizing or even encouraging suicide, just really concerning things that I think we could all agree should not be happening to kids online. And so my takeaway from that is just, it's very hard to argue that those things were not having some negative impact on these kids, on their mental health.
[00:06:30] Jackie Nesi: so yeah, you know, I think taken together, it's sort of like on the one hand, we need to really be looking at the full picture when we think about mental health in kids, right? Like it's not just about social media, of course. There's so many other things happening. at the same time, we need to really be aware of what is happening in some of these online spaces because some of it really is problematic, and that's especially the case for kids who are already more vulnerable.
[00:06:53] Adam Fishman: Kind of building on that,did you find or have you found that the kids who are already more vulnerable because maybe there's a lot of very heavy stuff going on in their home lives, are they more likely to be drawn to online spaces for some sort of refuge from the chaos of, home life?
[00:07:10] Adam Fishman: Like, do they seek out that sort of stuff as
[00:07:13] Adam Fishman:
[00:07:13] Adam Fishman: what they think is going to be a safe space?
[00:07:15] Jackie Nesi: Yeah, of course, I think it depends a little bit on the kid, but definitely one of the, I mean, one of the most consistent findings across all of this research and on all kinds of digital spaces, not just social media, but, AI and, other online forums and things, is that kids who are already vulnerable sort of for some reason in their offline lives, whether that's,socially, emotionally, they're already struggling with their mental health, they ha- they have a lot going on, um, in terms of stressors in their lives.
[00:07:43] Jackie Nesi: Those are the kids who tend to struggle more in online spaces as well. So there does tend to be some kind of carryover of kind of what's happening offline. and in many cases, what's happening online can sort of amplify that, right? So they're more likely to be running into some of the risks, that we see in these spaces.
[00:08:00] Adam Fishman: Yeah
[00:08:00] Adam Fishman: Yeah. so
[00:08:01] Adam Fishman: I love a good framework,
[00:08:03] Adam Fishman: uh, too.
[00:08:04] Adam Fishman: and you and that, well, that's why I want to ask you about this.You have this framework that's called the transformation
[00:08:09] Adam Fishman: framework, and that has a lot to do with how social media changes friendships for kids or can influence friendships for kids.
[00:08:16] Adam Fishman: This is something that I'm very
[00:08:17] Adam Fishman: curious about, not because my daughter is on social media, but just I see the rise of
[00:08:23] Adam Fishman: friend groups
[00:08:24] Adam Fishman: how screen kind of focused they are and stuff like that. So can you tell me a little bit about the transformation framework?
[00:08:30] Jackie Nesi: Sure. Yeah. So this is a very, uh, academia type, uh, theoretical framework that I developed with some colleagues, Sophie Tukas Bradley and Mitch Prinstein, who was actually my grad school advisor. And we developed this framework called the transformation framework. and the idea is basically like, you know, if we think about an online space, like say social media, there's a question of like, is this all just the same stuff that's happening offline, but just sort of projected online, right?
[00:08:58] Jackie Nesi: Like, is it just like, kids are having the same types of conversations, they're having the same types of friend groups, and it's all just projected in this online space. The transformation framework takes a little bit of a different approach where it says like, actually the features of these online environments impact the experience of those friendships or impact those relationships.
[00:09:18] Jackie Nesi: So like for example, the fact that on social media, a lot of the conversation is either text-based, right? Versus in person, you're having a conversation live with someone via voice. It's very image focused. It can be a lot more public. Like you can say something and it can reach thousands, hundreds of thousands of people.
[00:09:35] Jackie Nesi: That's basically not possible in in-person contexts. It can be asynchronous, so like you can say something and then there's a break and then it shows up later. Uh, it can be more permanent where something could be screenshotted, right? And kept for a long time. So just all these features of a digital environment like social media do actually impact the way that we interact on those platforms and then our experiences on there.
[00:10:00] Adam Fishman: Very cool. I will take this under advisement when I start talking to my daughter about social media.
[00:10:06] Jackie Nesi: IYou know, it's funny because I think kids actually have kind of an intuitive sense that this is the case, right? Like, they see that like, "Oh, the way that my friend acts on social media is a little different than the way they act in person, and why is that?"
[00:10:19] Jackie Nesi: And some of that is just because of the features of our environments really do play a role in how
[00:10:23] Adam Fishman: Yeah.
[00:10:24] Adam Fishman: And
[00:10:24] Adam Fishman: there's this sort of inherent reward system that exists for what you post and how big it gets and how many likes and things like that.
[00:10:34] Adam Fishman: So it does kind
[00:10:34] Adam Fishman: of chase people towards the
[00:10:36] Adam Fishman: extremes of what
[00:10:37] Adam Fishman: gets
[00:10:37] Adam Fishman: attention, right? And it
[00:10:39] Jackie Nesi: It incentivizes different types of behavior, for sure
[00:10:42] Adam Fishman: So you have a, a Substack
[00:10:44] Adam Fishman: newsletter, which I only recently learned about, and I'm very sad that it's taken me this long to find it. It's called Techno Sapiens. I think you started it after your oldest kid was born, so like maybe five years ago.
[00:10:55] Adam Fishman: You've got over 50,000 subscribers, which is like quite impressive for Substack, especially, know, one that's more academically focused, but
[00:11:03] Adam Fishman: I love it.
[00:11:03] Adam Fishman: What kind of made you make that leap? Was there a gap that you were trying to fill or were you trying to get more eyes on the work that you were doing?
[00:11:13] Jackie Nesi: I think there are a couple different things that were happening. As you said, I was right after my first child was born that I started it, and I had been in the academic world for a couple years at that point as a professor. I think I was just starting to feel a little frustrated, honestly, with the academic model of like, spending all this time, and effort and, you know, grant money on these studies. It's taking forever to write these papers on them, and then nobody reads them, right?
[00:11:39] Jackie Nesi: The only people who do read them are other academics, right? And I was sort of feeling like, you know, that's not the reason that I went into this. That's not why I became a psychologist. I wanted to feel like the things that I was learning, because I felt they were very relevant for a lot of people, a lot of parents who are sort of trying to navigate, technology and how to manage it with their kids.
[00:11:59] Jackie Nesi: I wanted to share some of what we were finding 'cause I feel like there's a lot there that we know, but that isn't making its way to parents, isn't making its way into the public conversation about this. so I started it as a way to kind of like translate some of the research on this topic for the people who can actually use it and care about it kind of outside of academia.
[00:12:20] Jackie Nesi: I also think, yeah, that, you know, having, my first child around the same time did make me just start to think more about how do I wanna be spending my time, right? Like, what do I actually care about? What do I value? And it sort of exposed me a little bit more to what are the conversations that parents are actually having about these topics day to day?
[00:12:39] Jackie Nesi: And I feel like I can sort of weigh in on some of that.
[00:12:41] Jackie Nesi:
[00:12:41] Adam Fishman: Yeah. You probably get replies and things like that that are sort of interesting ways of continuing the conversation doing a little sort of desk research in a way. Not,
[00:12:51] Adam Fishman: that the replies are indicative of the broader populace, but it's at least informative. you
[00:12:56] Jackie Nesi: Definitely.
[00:12:57] Jackie Nesi: No, definitely. I mean,
[00:12:58] Jackie Nesi: I write it weekly and so it, you know, it forces me to do a couple things. It forces me to every week to sort of pull together some thoughts on a, on a topic, right? So it forces me to kind of think about it, think about how it might be relevant to the general public.
[00:13:13] Jackie Nesi: But then it also allows me to be in kind of conversation with people who are experiencing this day-to-day, who either have similar opinion, maybe they disagree with what I have to say, or they have questions that then can go on to inform the research that I do going forward.
[00:13:26] Jackie Nesi: I'm glad I'm doing it. It's been a really great experience for a lot of reasons.
[00:13:30] Adam Fishman: Cool. Well, everyone should check it out. I'm gonna link to it in the show notes, I'm now a happy subscriber, so
[00:13:35] Adam Fishman: I just had
[00:13:36] Adam Fishman: another, author and academic on our program, who's sort of like a peer colleague of yours, Darby Saxbe. And so I have to ask, is there a bookin your future? Are, Are we gonna turn this into, a best-selling consumer novel?
[00:13:52] Jackie Nesi: I am working on a book proposal right now, so hopefully there is a book in my future, but I know.
[00:13:58] Adam Fishman: Okay. Well, I will have you back on when the book is ready to rock. So.I want to talk about a topic that I actually learned from reading some of your stuff, which this idea of dialectics.
[00:14:09] Adam Fishman: You wrote this piece about the first 72 hours after your second kid was born, and you've got like frozen italian dinners on the counter. You've got like screaming kids in the background. Like everybody's covered in spit up, and your husband's just like looking around at the chaos and he goes, "We are thriving." And I laughed out loud when I read that 'cause I was like, There nothing that encapsulates, new parenting more than that, especially second kid parenting, and now you have a third kid, so,
[00:14:40] Jackie Nesi: yeah, yeah.
[00:14:41] Jackie Nesi: The chaos has only increased.
[00:14:43] Adam Fishman: So in that piece, that's where you start to connect parenting to dialectical behavior therapy. For the Luddites in the room, the people who don't that term, what is a dialectic?
[00:14:54] Jackie Nesi: So dialectical behavior therapy is a type of treatment for mental health concerns that I was trained on in graduate school. The basis of this therapy is what's called dialectics. And dialectics, I guess the simplest definition is just the idea that two things that seem like opposites can both be true at the same time.
[00:15:16] Jackie Nesi: That is something that is very hard for us to sort of wrap our heads around. I think we just have this human tendency to sort of go to one extreme or another. I think it's actually very freeing when you are able to realize like, oh, actually I'm allowed to feel both, for example, very excited about this new baby and very in love with this new baby, and also very stressed, maybe kind of annoyed with what's happening right now, like kind of sad about it all.
[00:15:43] Jackie Nesi: You know, like you can hold those opposite emotions at the same time and it's okay to do that. So that's what that piece was about.
[00:15:50] Adam Fishman: Yeah, it's reminds of my recent vacation with my kids, or I guess trip, right? We call it a trip when we go kids, where I was simultaneously like, "Boy, this place is lovely. This vacation is so fun." And also I'm like, "I also want to kill my children," who are just like fighting with each other all the time.
[00:16:07] Adam Fishman: Like, both things can be true.
[00:16:09] Jackie Nesi: Yep, there's a lot of both things can be true in parenting Um,
[00:16:12] Adam Fishman: So this instinct of like both things can true, it's, really you kids and technology. There's risks and there's benefits. concern there's calm.
[00:16:24] Adam Fishman: What mentioned is the concept of dialectics is sort of hard to internalize before you had some lived experience with it. So would say like did parenting teach you, this framework or do you think understanding that framework prepared you for parenting?
[00:16:38] Jackie Nesi: That's a great question. That's a really good question. I think that the framework, the idea of dialectics is one of those things, like so much of parenting, where it's a thing you have to keep relearning over and over again, right? Like, you know, it's not like you learn it once and then you're like, "Okay, now I've got this thing and I'm just gonna apply it, you know, across the board, and I'm never gonna be stressed 'cause I'm always gonna be knowing that I can just hold these two things once."
[00:17:01] Jackie Nesi: I wish that was the case, but it has not been my experience, at least. Maybe for other people it is. I do feel like it's the kind of thing where, ev-everything I'm learning in my research, in my clinical training, I feel like it's always sort of a day-to-day, moment-by-moment trying to think about, how can I apply this?
[00:17:17] Jackie Nesi: Does it apply here? It's always harder to apply it than you think it might be in the real world. And so I think it is sort of an ongoing, process of figuring out how to use it.
[00:17:27] Adam Fishman: Just
[00:17:27] Jackie Nesi: parenting,
[00:17:28] Adam Fishman: an
[00:17:28] Jackie Nesi: Exactly.
[00:17:29] Adam Fishman: journey.
[00:17:29] Jackie Nesi: As soon as you think you have it figured out, something new comes up, so
[00:17:32] Jackie Nesi: So , S-
[00:17:33] Adam Fishman: So I think we're gonna carry this dialectics thread through this entire conversation. But, things that you also mentioned is, you've written about, hey, when I tell another parent what it is that I study, their face changes like almost instantly. Like maybe they look guilty, maybe they get a little defensive.
[00:17:53] Adam Fishman: They kind of like get a little tense. Why is it that guilt is the default emotion around technology and screen time right now?
[00:18:02] Adam Fishman:
[00:18:02] Jackie Nesi: Yeah, it's really interesting. You know, so I started studying this about 15 years ago, 16 years ago. And when I started studying this, that was not the case, right? At least it was less the case that, I feel like it was a much more sort of balanced conversation that I would have with people when I talked about how I study technology and kids.
[00:18:20] Jackie Nesi: I do feel like just over time, you know, I mentioned at the beginning, I think the narrative that we hear, just like what's in the media, what we hear from other parents, what we hear ironically from our own social media, is really just this, very negative view of technology that it's bad, that it's bad for our kids.
[00:18:38] Jackie Nesi: There's also, you know, we know there's sort of this shift towards more kind of intensive involved parenting. And I think that sort of overlaps a little bit with our thoughts on technology, where the idea is a good parent or the best parent would not allow any screens at all, right?
[00:18:53] Jackie Nesi: Like this kind of parent is always making sure that every moment of the day is the most productive and enriching that it could be and that they're setting their kids up for success in all these different ways, and technology doesn't fit into that picture, or letting them use screens doesn't fit in.
[00:19:07] Jackie Nesi: I do think that over time, we've just sort of become, I think more negative on this than the research supports.The research is actually much more nuanced in terms of how technology impacts kids but I do think that I'm constantly hearing from parents who are feeling guilt about whatever decisions they're making
[00:19:25] Adam Fishman: I live on the Coast in the of Silicon Valley. seems to be especially acute here where you have a lot of people who've made their entire living and career by being front of a screen, building software like Facebook TikTok and things that.
[00:19:40] Adam Fishman: they're also like, "Oh, I'd never want my kid to be, on a screen. As you mentioned, there some nuance this. So your take is that it's not really about the minutes of time you spend, more about what kids are actually doing during that time. So can you help elaborate little bit more on that concept?
[00:19:57] Jackie Nesi: Yeah. I wouldn't say it's not that the number of minutes is, you know, the amount of time doesn't mean anything, right? but I do think it is more nuanced. Sometimes you'll hear guidance or people will ask, what's the cutoff," right?
[00:20:08] Jackie Nesi: Like, "What's the amount of time that's okay, and beyond that, you know, we're gonna have problems?" It's, it's really, like, unfortunately, most things don't work that way, where there's sort of a strict, clear number, that's gonna be okay or not okay. I, I think When it comes to this, what sometimes is more helpful and I think more evidence-based for parents is thinking about, what's actually happening during the screen time.
[00:20:28] Jackie Nesi: Like, we know from ourselves, our own screen use, that there's a lot of different things we can be doing on screen. Some of them are great, some of them are not so great. So, like, What's actually happening with that time? Is it getting in the way of other things? So this is where the amount of time actually does matter, in that, like, is it so much time that it's interfering with other things that we want our kids to be doing or other things that they or we value?
[00:20:53] Jackie Nesi: And the third thing is, just who our kids are, you know? I think that there's so much, of course, so much variability among families and among kids. people can, if they have more than one kid, people can probably see this in their own children, that the way they respond to technology is very different.
[00:21:09] Jackie Nesi: And so a lot of this is it's very hard to give, you know, one size fits all advice because a lot of it really is about knowing your child, knowing what works for them, and knowing what works for your family.
[00:21:19] Adam Fishman: So you mentioned this idea of there is no one size fits all, which I think is really helpful for people listening to podcast. This comes up in a variety of different, situations this show. There's a couple of other frameworks that I'm curious about that you talk about when it comes to viewing content or having kids content.
[00:21:37] Adam Fishman: And I wanna anchor it first on some of the younger kids, because you have a five, two, and a 10-month-old. I imagine your 10-month-old's not watching "Stranger Things" on Netflix at this moment in Um, right, right. One of the things that you talk about is co-viewing with kids. I mean, this seems like the definition of this seems pretty straightforward, but can you talk about co-viewing and why that's helpful?
[00:22:00] Jackie Nesi: Yeah, so this is actually one area where the evidence is pretty strong, um, in the research. And, you know, co-viewing is, just watching together with your kids, or in some cases it could be co-using if it's something like a video game or something you're doing together with screens. and this is actually true across the board.
[00:22:14] Jackie Nesi: So young kids through teenagers, I think, there's a lot of evidence that this can have a lot of benefits. So, you know, of course, sometimes the reason we're using screens, especially with young kids, is because we can't be, like we're making dinner or something, and so be watching with them.
[00:22:28] Jackie Nesi: And, and that's okay too. But when you do watch screens together with your kids, I think it can, one of the great things it can do is open up conversations. That's true for young kids or teens. So I think it can bring up conversations about, you know, why do you think this character did what they did?
[00:22:44] Jackie Nesi: It can bring up conversations about tricky topics, you know, like for teenagers that you maybe don't know how to bring up, without some kind of in or segue. It can bring up conversations about values and morals and sort of, you know, things that you think, you know, maybe you would've done differently or your family would've done differently than what happened on the screen.
[00:23:02] Jackie Nesi: There are a lot of benefits, I think, to watching together when you can
[00:23:05] Adam Fishman: Okay, great. Well, we try to do that a little bit in our but n- never perfect.
[00:23:09] Jackie Nesi: I do enjoy co-video gaming with my son. We like collaborative puzzle games together and stuff
[00:23:15] Adam Fishman: like that, so favorite it's pretty
[00:23:17] Adam Fishman: so my all-time favorite game that played with him is It Takes Two," which I don't know if you've heard of, but it's an amazing game for PlayStation.
[00:23:25] Adam Fishman: And then now I'm playing "Lego Star Wars" game with him,
[00:23:28] Adam Fishman: where you get to be Lego Star Wars characters and you like do different tasks and quests and stuff like that.
[00:23:34] Adam Fishman: Yeah. I'm gonna keep those in mind for when my kids are older. Please
[00:23:37] Adam Fishman: keep those in mind.
[00:23:38] Adam Fishman: Um, another kind of like framework or principle that you talk about is when you're introducing a new device or an app, you should treat it as an experiment.
[00:23:48] Adam Fishman: And I, in my professional life,
[00:23:50] Adam Fishman: love running experiments. It's what I do in my product management world. So about how you set up this as an experiment or how you talk to kids about it as experiment.
[00:24:00] Jackie Nesi: Yeah, I think this can be a useful, idea honestly, with a lot of areas of technology. So whether it's, you know, you're introducing a new device, introducing a phone, introducing a new app, or even, like, putting a new rule in place, like a new sort of boundary or limit around things, I think it can help to frame it as, "This is something we're trying out temporarily, and we will revisit how it's working, you know, a week from now, a month from now," whenever it might be.
[00:24:27] Jackie Nesi: I think when it comes to something like a new device, that gives you the opportunity then to have a built-in check-in on, like, "Is this working? Do we need to make some changes?" Um, I think it can make everyone feel a little better about sort of going into this. When it's for something like a new rule or a new limit, your child is not just gonna, you know, be psyched about it and say, "Oh, thanks for this rule you just put in place."
[00:24:49] Jackie Nesi: But I do think it can go down a little easier, if it is framed as kind of like, "This is temporary. We're gonna try it out. We're gonna see how it works, and then we'll revisit it."
[00:24:57] Adam Fishman: very helpful. I think a lot about this right now because, one, my kids are about to go back to school, so means screen time limits will be reinforced from, lax summer. and then two, in my household, I have a teenager who, you know, the cellphone is a big topic of discussion. I have a gamer who the gaming PC is big topic of discussion for him.
[00:25:18] Adam Fishman: As soon as start to get these things,the collective action problem starts to be challenging, So,
[00:25:24] Jackie Nesi: do you have different rules for summer and
[00:25:27] Adam Fishman: Uh, I would say, well, rules is a generous framing of it. I would say for summer, we do try to encourage getting outside of the house and not being on screens but also, we do have more unscheduled time in the summer. And so sometimes, you know, if a screen happens, like that's fine. but we try to encourage it.
[00:25:47] Adam Fishman: But during the school year, it's very minimal.
[00:25:50] Adam Fishman: At during the week. I wanted to ask you screen time limits, 'cause I think you've talked about how those can backfire. How do screen time limits backfire?
[00:25:59] Jackie Nesi: I think this is one of those areas where we don't have a great answer in terms of like what's the best way to do this or the most, you know, evidence-based way to do this. But there is some interesting research that's come out recently on screen time limits and specifically with this concept of budgeting.
[00:26:14] Jackie Nesi: The idea is that when we set a screen time limit, we a lot of times are thinking about it almost as a budget of time that we're allowing. So we'll say like, "Okay, the maximum amount of time I wanna spend on Instagram in a given day is an hour, so that's gonna be my budget for Instagram."
[00:26:30] Jackie Nesi: What this research finds is that when we do that, we actually end up sometimes spending more time on that app than we would have otherwise. Because in our heads we're thinking, "Okay, I said an hour. That's what I'm gonna do. That's what I've allowed myself. I haven't made it to an hour yet, so I'm gonna keep going," right?
[00:26:47] Jackie Nesi: "Until I get to the hour." Versus if we set a lower limit, that might, you know, not quite be the case. So basically what that research suggests is, yes, that sometimes these limits can backfire, especially if we set them at the maximum amount we want to allow, and it may be better to actually set limits that are much smaller
[00:27:06] Adam Fishman: And it's counterintuitive, I think, because a lot of times we'll think, "Oh, let me set like a higher limit so that I'm not running up into it. Let me give myself a little bit more flexibility," that kind of thing. But in the end, there is some evidence that it can, that it
[00:27:17] Adam Fishman: can backfire. So
[00:27:18] Adam Fishman: I kind of kicked this off talking about letting go of screen time guilt or the idea of screen time guilt. You have a post that's entitled "How of Screen Time Guilt." So, I will direct to that post, but also I guess my one question is How let go of screen time guilt a parent?
[00:27:34] Jackie Nesi: Yeah, honestly, this is one of the most common questions that I get from parents, that's why I wrote the post. I'd had a parent reach out and basically say, like: I'm doing all the things I think I'm supposed to do. I'm setting some limits. You know, it's not so excessive, but every time they're using screens, I feel guilty.
[00:27:51] Jackie Nesi: You know, I always feel like I'm not doing enough," and that kind of thing. I think the first thing, in terms of screen time guilt isthe advice I often hear given to parents is something like: "Just don't feel guilty," right? Or something like, you
[00:28:03] Jackie Nesi: know, just, helpful "
[00:28:04] Jackie Nesi: Don't, don't worry about it.
[00:28:05] Jackie Nesi: Don't feel gu-" And it's, of course, that's not helpful. it's hard to, get rid of a feeling like guilt. so one of the things that I try to encourage parents to do is to first think about what is the purpose of guilt. Like, where does it come from? Why do we actually feel this way?
[00:28:21] Jackie Nesi: sometimes guilt is great because it gives us information, right? It's sort of a motivator. It tells us what matters to us, and it tells us that maybe we're acting outside of what matters to us, acting outside of our values. and so for some parents, it can be worth taking a minute and saying, "Okay, like, I'm feeling guilty about my kids' screen time.
[00:28:41] Jackie Nesi: Is that because that screen time is not fitting with some kind of value I have with the way I want us to be living our lives," right? Like, "Maybe this really is sort of out of whack, in which case I need to make a change," right? and that's actually the way to get rid of the guilt is to make a change.
[00:28:57] Jackie Nesi: In some cases, though, I think a lot of cases, the guilt is based on ideas that we have about how this should go that maybe don't actually align with our values when we really think about it, right? Maybe it aligns with, you know, we've heard that screens are bad, or we've heard that good parents don't allow screen time, or these sort of ideas that we have come to believe.
[00:29:17] Jackie Nesi: In which case, the way to try to lessen the guilt is to just be aware that that is where it's coming from. It's not coming from your own values. It's coming from somewhere else. and to try to then get in touch with what do I actually care about and is the way that we're doing this in line with what I think, not what, you know, maybe I've heard
[00:29:36] Adam Fishman: Yeah. Yeah, as parent, if you spend enough time on Instagram, you'll think that everybody should be doing eight hours of arts and crafts with
[00:29:42] Adam Fishman: their kids Every single day, right? Uh,
[00:29:46] Jackie Nesi: Sensory bins at all times. Yeah.
[00:29:48] Adam Fishman: right, just not realistic
[00:29:49] Adam Fishman: for the modern working parents, I think
[00:29:52] Jackie Nesi: no. And it's not, you know, and it's not, honestly, it's just not based in evidence. It's really about balance, right? and if your kids are doing arts and crafts all day, then you're the one that's gonna need to be, like, setting all that up. Not great for your kid either, right? Like, they need some time to be doing things independently
[00:30:08] Jackie Nesi: without you setting everything up,
[00:30:10] Adam Fishman: Yeah. Um, so selfishly,
[00:30:12] Adam Fishman: I want to talk about cellphones a little bit.
[00:30:14] Adam Fishman: I guess is not super selfish because I think a lot of people that are listening to this show will appreciate this part of the conversation.
[00:30:19] Adam Fishman: So I have a 13-year-old 11-year-old. They both have Apple Watches for communication.
[00:30:23] Adam Fishman: We use it more as a communication tool and less as a, "I must track my child and know where they are at all times," because we live in a small town, so they can't go very far. You know, there's a spectrum of ages that we've seen kids get cellphones. And without putting judgment out there, this is judgment-free zone, how do you coach or talk to parents about knowing when a kid is ready for a phone?
[00:30:46] Jackie Nesi: Yeah, this is, uh, again, one of those things that's really tricky because I think that we really want to just have an age, right? That you can point to and say like, This is the age all the kids can get them. This is the age that they'll be fine, below that age they won't be fine," or, you know, whatever it is.
[00:31:01] Jackie Nesi: And that's, you know, of course, unfortunately not the way these things usually go. So I do think that this differs a lot between kids and between families. Some of this we've talked a little bit about the collective action problem around some types of of tech where, and I think this is especially prevalent with phones, where as soon as a couple friends get a phone, then it really is the case sometimes that kids are a little left out if they don't have one because they're not part of the group chats, or they're not part of the making plans or whatever might be happening on the device.
[00:31:32] Jackie Nesi: So that's part of it. Some of it is more sort of a community-based thing. but in terms of, yeah, individual kids,and thinking about it for your own child,one thing that I would say that sometimes people overlook is to think about their relationship to technology that you've seen so far, right?
[00:31:50] Jackie Nesi: So you actually have a fair amount of data points, I think, in terms of how your child is doing. They have a smartwatch. They've probably used an iPad before. They probably watch TV. They have used a lot of different types of technology, and you can be looking at that to think about, how do they usually do with that?
[00:32:08] Jackie Nesi: Do they follow the rules that I've set? Do they come to me when there's an issue? Can I trust that if they run into a problem that they're gonna talk to me about it? Do they get really upset by things that are happening on the screen? Is there a lot of drama with, you know, their friends that they're running into?
[00:32:24] Jackie Nesi: Do they have a really hard time putting it down when it's time to stop? I think kids vary a lot in all those different domains, and it doesn't mean that there's something wrong when a child is struggling more in those domains. It just means that they might need a little bit more time to sort of be ready for a device that they're managing on their own.
[00:32:42] Adam Fishman: Yeah, I think that's incredible advice. So, I'm gonna turn that one into a clip that we can share everywhere. So,
[00:32:49] Jackie Nesi: I'm curious what's happening,
[00:32:50] Jackie Nesi: with your kids, 13 and 11 Are they, are really wanting phones?
[00:32:55] Adam Fishman: The way that it went with my daughter was she said she wanted one for her 13th birthday, and we said, "Okay, let's talk about what the rules and boundaries will be." You know, "We will not have any social media apps on that phone." And actually, I have a question about that that I want to ask you next.
[00:33:10] Adam Fishman: We will know the password so that we can check in on stuff, and we'll be able to read your messages and things like that, so don't assume it's private. And that we're gonna take it at night so it's not with you in your room and all these things.
[00:33:22] Adam Fishman: And so she sort of reflected on that, She came back a day later and was like, "You know, I don't think I want a phone for my 13th birthday." And we were like, "Ah, that's a lovely and mature decision." So, now coming
[00:33:32] Adam Fishman: up, you know, it'll come up again on the 14th birthday, we'll see how we handle it.
[00:33:36] Adam Fishman: I think that approach of really having a clear idea in mind of what are the boundaries gonna be around this and making that clear, and then your child can make the decision of like, are they ready to enter into that
[00:33:48] Adam Fishman: Yeah. Yeah. To be clear,my wife this conversation with my daughter, 'cause my instinct was, "No, it's not happening. Never." You know, when you're 30 you can have a phone." But my wife takes the more principled nuancedapproach, so, uh, I learn a lot from her. But, I did wanna ask you, so there's kind of like three buckets here. There's the idea of a phone, so there's like a dumb phone or there's like, I had the founder of Tin Can on here, which is becoming a very popular like, you know, kind of old school landline phone for kids. Then there's a smartphone, like our iPhones Android devices, and then there's the apps like social media or AI, which we'll talk about.
[00:34:26] Adam Fishman: So those seem like they're three different decisions that a parent can make. How should parents think about like staging those
[00:34:34] Adam Fishman: decisions?
[00:34:35] Jackie Nesi: I like this question a lot because I think for a lot of parents, this is not something they're thinking that much about. I do think that there's this like, especially for parents who are not right in the middle of it, I think there's this idea that it's just looming ahead, the decision of are you gonna give them access to everything or not?
[00:34:52] Jackie Nesi: And the idea is like, as soon as you give them a phone, it's over, right? Like, they have access to everything. More and more now too, there are ways that you can kind of, stage those separate times as sort of separate milestones. I think in terms of phones, there's a lot of different options, right?
[00:35:07] Jackie Nesi: There's something like the TinCan. There's also all kinds of, you know, what I would call maybe kid-friendly smartphones, right? They look like a smartphone, but they basically have a whole bunch of controls on them so that kids cannot download basically any apps or even in some cases can't access the internet.
[00:35:22] Jackie Nesi: you know, You've got watches and then of course, social media is, is a whole other decision, right? The way that families approach this, of course differs across different families and like some of it's dependent on what you have access to. Do you have an old iPhone sitting around that you realize you can just put some really strict parental controls on and that's gonna work, right?
[00:35:42] Jackie Nesi: Or is it something like you wanna get a separate device? In some cases I've seen families have success with like sharing a device too, so they like an iPad or even a phone, then it's something like it's actually shared with the parent, so like it doesn't go everywhere with the child.
[00:35:57] Jackie Nesi: In terms of actually like how to stage them out, I do think that one thing that families can think about is what do you need your child to be able to do with the device, and what does your child need to be able to do with the device? Like, what are actually the core needs that you have? Maybe it's they wanna communicate with their friends, you know, they wanna be able to make plans, you wanna be able to get in contact with them.
[00:36:20] Jackie Nesi: And then think about what is actually the minimum necessary device in order to meet needs, right? Like, it doesn't need to go beyond that, right? Like, maybe you can accomplish that with a dumb phone, with a flip phone. You can accomplish it with a watch, right? and then from there you can work your way up.
[00:36:36] Jackie Nesi: And with social media, yeah, I mean, of course, there's no one right age, but I do think that when possible, delaying access to social media makes sense.I think that, um, having time for kids to sort of learn how to interact with these devices without the pull of social media can be really valuable
[00:36:53] Adam Fishman: Yeah, I think back to my own childhood when I was a teenager and cellphones were not a thing then. I had, with line that was for me and my brother, and I had a pager. So my friends could page me and then I would them back the house phone, or my parents page me and I would call them from whatever friend's house I was at.
[00:37:12] Adam Fishman: It does seem like like the Tin Can and sort of other dumb phones are not bad idea it comes to socializing and kids making plans and being independent and stuff like that.
[00:37:21] Jackie Nesi: Definitely. And I think you can accomplish that type of goal with a lot of different devices, a lot of different setups. I won't minimize though, like it's a lot of work for parents to figure that stuff out and to get it all set up and to do the parental controls and of that. Like, it really is not easy.
[00:37:37] Adam Fishman: And kids are smart and they're-- know the workarounds, They're testing the fences like the raptors from "Jurassic Park" all the time. I wanted to ask you about this sort of collective action, the pact that certain parents make. So there's the wait until eighth pledge and things like that.
[00:37:53] Adam Fishman: We have a community group called Piedmont Unplugged that is growing in prominence, that is advocating for various policies in the school, and I have another question about that next. Do pacts, this sort of like wait until eighth or like collective like parent agreements, do those tend work?
[00:38:11] Adam Fishman: Do you see those have any impact?
[00:38:13] Jackie Nesi: I don't know if we have any good data actually on this, like any good evidence whether they work or not. Anecdotally, I've seen they can work. I think that where I've seen them run into issues is that for your particular child, it really needs to be like the right group of kids who have also entered into this pact, right?
[00:38:33] Jackie Nesi: 'cause usually a lot of times these things work by, you know, 10 kids at their school or whatever, you know, it reaches a certain number at their school, and then this pact goes into place. but if those aren't your child's friends, if those aren't the people they wanna communicate with, then it'snot gonna be as
[00:38:47] Jackie Nesi: effective as Right, it doesn't really matter.
[00:38:49] Jackie Nesi: So some of it is about like what is also like the scale of this. Like is it every person in the community? In which case, great. That's very hard to achieve because there are a lot of families where this just isn't the right choice. And so I think that it can work.
[00:39:01] Jackie Nesi: But there's definitely, a lot of different factors that I think can play in that can make it tough. It's also I think in some cases, you know, the decision is being made when kids are in, say, kindergarten, right? For first grade when they enter elementary school, and that's a far way away.
[00:39:20] Jackie Nesi: It's pretty hard to predict what your child is gonna be like, what the community's gonna be like, even what the technology is gonna be like by the time they're facing the decision.
[00:39:29] Jackie Nesi: So that's another hurdle I think they run into.
[00:39:31] Adam Fishman: Yeah, this has been a real challenge with phone bans at school. So we just had this at our school, and this is happening all across the country. More than a dozen states, I think, now have statewide bans. You just have to have a plan. They don't advocate a particular position, but you have to have a, a framework.
[00:39:51] Adam Fishman: I'm curious, we've ended up in a bell to bell ban in both high school and middle school. Not yet having to your phone in like, a pouch or something like that, and I do have another question about that. But I'm curious what you've seen. What is the evidence showing around the bans? I think there's, very interesting, evidence or, or sort of differentiated evidence depending on socioeconomic status and like that.
[00:40:17] Adam Fishman: So I'm curious what you've seen and learned here.
[00:40:20] Jackie Nesi: I think that this evidence is really starting to emerge more now because we're seeing so many more of these bans go into place. I think in the next couple years we're gonna have, a lot more than we do right now. The way that I think about this is I think we have very clear evidence that phones can be distracting, right?
[00:40:39] Jackie Nesi: Like, I don't know if we even need research to tell us that, it in case we do. even just having the phone sitting there in front of you, even if you're not using it, that in itself can be distracting. And, you know, if we think about kids in classrooms, I think it's obvious that when phones are in the picture, that is a distraction to students, and it's a distraction from academic work.
[00:41:02] Jackie Nesi: But it's also a distraction from social interaction, from conversations, and from other things that we would hope are kind of happening in a school environment. What sometimes I think these bans are hoping that they will achieve, when the policies go in place, the hope is that the bans will, you know, solve the mental health crisis, right?
[00:41:19] Jackie Nesi: That they will reduce rates of all sorts of mental health concerns, that they will, turn around test scores, in places where test scores are lower, and just these sort of much bigger outcomes than I think is really realistic when we think about what we know about the effects of phones and what we know about all the different factors that play into mental health and test scores and academic achievement.
[00:41:43] Jackie Nesi: I do think that the evidence suggests that there can be some positive effect to these bans. I also think, though, that there's a common sense angle to this around like this is, they're distracting, and it can be better for a classroom when phones are not present.
[00:41:58] Jackie Nesi: but I think that we need to be careful about thinking that this is gonna be the end-all, be-all solution
[00:42:04] Adam Fishman: Right
[00:42:04] Jackie Nesi: the issues that we see among young people.
[00:42:07] Adam Fishman: Right. As it turns out, there are in fact 24 hours in a day, and school is only comprised of like seven to eight of those hours. So,this debate is now raging in our school around Chromebook access and the age at which kids should now have Chromebooks that they can take home from school.
[00:42:23] Adam Fishman: And specifically, that has historically happened at the middle school in sixth grade. And now there's been debate around sixth grade, is that the right age? The jury is still out from our school on what we will decide.
[00:42:34] Jackie Nesi: I mean that's the direction that this is going too, is I think in schools where they have banned cellphones, I think it's become very obvious that actually, like, that's just one of many tech-related distractions happening during the school day. And so there's sort of a need for a bigger picture conversation about what's the right technology to introduce at different times.
[00:42:53] Adam Fishman: Yeah. I wanted to ask you about these pouches that you can, like, lock your phone, like phone jail, basically. so one company that them is called Yondr. There's a bunch of other ones. but there was a big study that landed in this spring that talked about theYondr pouches, and depending on your interpretation, it either that, like, bans work or it proved that they failed.
[00:43:15] Adam Fishman: I think you a thing that was like, you know, I'm gonna hold off from saying I told you so."What did it find from your perspective? Like, what was your interpretation of the
[00:43:23] Jackie Nesi: research?
[00:43:24] Jackie Nesi: This is, of course, one of the issues with research generally and with our kind of public interpretation of it, is that in many cases, yes, two people can look at the same study and come away with different conclusions or look at the same body of evidence come away with different conclusions.
[00:43:38] Jackie Nesi: and that's why I think we do actually need more of this research happening over time, and I'm hoping that we'll get to more definitive answers. yeah, I think that the reason I wrote something about "I hate to say I told you so," was because a couple years before this study had come out, I had written something, similar to what I just said, which is that I think there is some evidence to suggest that phone bans might be effective, and there are reasons we would think this makes sense just from common sense perspective, but we can't expect that these are going to solve these larger issues that we're seeing in our schools and among our kids.
[00:44:12] Jackie Nesi: and so of course, my take on the study is that itproved that in some capacity. So my understanding is that the study found that it, using these pouches did reduce the amount of time that kids were spending on phones during the school day, which you would think is, you know, one of the main things we're going for with these kinds of bans.
[00:44:30] Jackie Nesi: but generally that there wasn't a huge impact on things like mental health outcomes or academic achievement and test scores. I do think part of that we need to think about is also based on the timescale. Like, we're not looking at a huge time period here, and I do think it's a little unrealistic to think that we're gonna see improvements in test scores after a couple years of, bans.
[00:44:51] Jackie Nesi: I think this is one of those areas where we need more research. and I think it's also an area where we need to be thinking about just common sense. Like, what do we think makes sense for our schools? what's reasonable for teachers to implement? Because we know this is all sort of on the teachers', day-to-day.
[00:45:06] Jackie Nesi: Um, what's reasonable for them to implement? What's gonna make their lives easier, and what's gonna make outcomes better for
[00:45:11] Adam Fishman: students.. That's a great, nuanced, take there. I wanted to ask you for a second about neurodivergent kids and screens. These are kids with ADHD, autism, or sensory differences. I think screens become even more challenging but also a little confusing.
[00:45:29] Adam Fishman: Like, they're simultaneously a bit of a refuge for kids, like as a decompression valve, and then also risky. When you talk to parents when you look at research around neurodivergence and screens, what advice do you have or what do you see here?
[00:45:45] Jackie Nesi: The biggest thing that I would say around this is that for parents with neurodivergent kids, I do think that it's harder. I do think that managing screens can be harder, and I think that those parents don't always hear that. Like, I think what a lot of times parents are hearing is, "Oh, just follow these, three steps, and, you know, and this is how to beat screen time, and this is how you put a limit in place."
[00:46:07] Jackie Nesi: And it's again, that sort of one-size-fits-all type of advice that isn't that helpful to parents when it's not working, and there's a reason it's not working. Part of this is about working with a professional. If your child is neurodivergent, if they have ADHD or they have autism, ideally you're able to access and work with a professional who specializes in those types of concerns.
[00:46:27] Jackie Nesi: 'Cause I think they can really offer a more personalized guidance for a child. I think that the reason this can be more challenging is because in many cases it can be harder for kids to log off or sort of put down screens when they have these difficulties.
[00:46:44] Jackie Nesi: Sometimes there are difficulties with like impulse control or self-regulation, and we know that those are some of the core things that are needed to manage screens, and some difficulties with emotion regulation. And at the same time, I think there can be things about technology that are particularly helpful for kids with neurodivergence.
[00:47:02] Jackie Nesi: So, it may be that it's actually helpful for them to have the kind of sensory input that a screen is providing in certain situations. There may be cases for someone, you know, for a kid who's struggling with their social skills, maybe a child on the autism spectrum, there may be situations where screens can help with that as well, where it sort of gives them a different way to interact with other kids, sort of practice that.
[00:47:24] Jackie Nesi: I think it is nuanced. I think it, of course, is dependent on the kid. but yeah, I think that the number one thing is that it's, hard. It's very hard to manage this, and I think it is harder, for kids with these types of differences.
[00:47:34] Adam Fishman: Yeah. Couple more questions before we we wrap up. you know, One of the things that got me very interested in this topic, and probably a lot of parents, was Jonathan Haidt's Anxious Generation book. We had a parenting group here that literally handed out copies of that at, a party that they threw.
[00:47:50] Adam Fishman: So that sort of like lit a match on the whole powder keg of this stuff, and it was very hotly debated here in Silicon Valley, especially amongst, the social media employees and CEOs things that. you know, I know that like many things, there are nuances to this. So I'm curious to hear from you, like on that research, where do you think that he's landed some good points and where are some areas that you've pushed back on within that research?
[00:48:15] Jackie Nesi: Obviously, I think The Anxious Generation has been, extremely influential. I do think one of the great things about it is that it has really sparked this conversation. Like it's really gotten a lot of people thinking more deeply about how we introduce technology to our kids, how we manage it, and for ourselves, how we use technology as well, which is all part of this.
[00:48:34] Jackie Nesi: So in terms of the research, I sort of end up landing in a pretty similar place to Jon terms of the solution. he, He recommends a couple different solutions,and I think these are reasonable ideas, right? Like holding off on social media access, holding off on, giving a phone, encouraging lots of independent play, and, just independence for kids.
[00:48:57] Jackie Nesi: I think that is crucial. Taking cellphones out of schools. You know, so a lot of the solutions I actually think are reasonable. I think that where I differ from Jon is just in, terms of like the strength of the evidence around those. The book sort of works towards those solutions by laying out some research.
[00:49:15] Jackie Nesi: and my take on the research is that it's just not as definitive. It's not as settled. There's a lot more mixed findings in the research. I'm not sure that the research itself can get us to those solutions. I think that the research is actually a lot less definitive than what it would seem like based on reading the book.
[00:49:33] Adam Fishman: So maybe more of the common aspects of the book as solutions make a lot of sense, but it's less straightforward to draw a straight line from the research to that. that
[00:49:43] Jackie Nesi: And it, it's interesting too, 'cause I think what people have really latched onto from the book are the tech-based solutions, right? But I don't hear a ton of conversation about, "Hey, we should give our kids more independence, loosen the reins a little bit.
[00:49:57] Jackie Nesi: And we you know, let our kids do, these things that we might not be letting them do normally." and that's really interesting to me, 'cause I think it sort of speaks to likewhat we sort of want to get from book based on our own anxieties, and
[00:50:09] Adam Fishman: Yeah.
[00:50:09] Jackie Nesi: not quite ready,
[00:50:11] Adam Fishman: Yeah. We,
[00:50:12] Adam Fishman: um,our sort of offline parenting group has tried to encourage that sort of stuff.
[00:50:17] Adam Fishman: We, um,we hosted the author of Free Range Kids," for a talk. We
[00:50:21] Adam Fishman: did a few things, but even
[00:50:23] Adam Fishman: then it's still funny, like our community is so small and yet parents very nervous about their kid like going to the park.
[00:50:29] Adam Fishman: It's like, there's really nothing that could happen at the park. Maybe a skinned knee.
[00:50:33] Jackie Nesi:
[00:50:33] Adam Fishman: One of the things that I wanted to ask you about sort as we get towards the end here is the idea of parents having a tech talk with their kids, like kind like the sex talk.
[00:50:43] Adam Fishman: So can you tell me what does it mean to have a tech talk with your
[00:50:46] Jackie Nesi: Yeah. Well, I guess I would say that, you know, similar to the sex talk, I think that the evidence would suggest that what is maybe more effective than having just one big talk is trying to do lots of small conversations about this. I think that's true for tech. I think, you know, Starting when kids are very young, I think you can be having conversations about, values, about how you use tech, about how you see tech, you know, operating in your family.
[00:51:12] Jackie Nesi: For my own kids, 'cause you know, they're still young, I sort of have tried to, put forth this principle in our house around people first, which is just like the idea that basically, like you always wanna be prioritizing the person in front of you over a screen. So like if you've got the TV on and someone walks in, you gotta pause it and say hi,
[00:51:31] Jackie Nesi: So I've tried to sort of start having just in age-appropriate ways these conversations about what do we value in our family, how does tech fit in with that or not. And then as kids get older, I think you wanna be having really regular conversations about everything from, the risks, right?
[00:51:46] Jackie Nesi: The things that, they need to be looking out for. And also I think trying to create a culture as much as possible in your house where your kids feel comfortable coming to you when they run into something maybe that they shouldn't have or that you prefer they didn't online, 'cause we know that's gonna happen.
[00:52:06] Jackie Nesi: And I think that some of the value of having these regular conversations is that, then they know that sort of this is something you're open to talking about and they can come to you
[00:52:14] Adam Fishman: yeah. No, that's really helpful. so thank you. I think we probably are overdue for that conversation in our household, or a series of
[00:52:20] Adam Fishman: conversations. Um, okay, so I wanted
[00:52:24] Adam Fishman: to ask, before we get to our wrap-up here,
[00:52:26] Adam Fishman: sort of a personal question, which is like, put yourself in, your husband's shoes for a minute.
[00:52:31] Adam Fishman: What is it like to be married to someone who is an expert on kids, parenting, and technology use?
[00:52:37] Adam Fishman: Does he win any
[00:52:37] Adam Fishman: arguments on this house or,
[00:52:40] Adam Fishman: or not
[00:52:40] Jackie Nesi: Yeah. That's funny. You know, So my husband is actually a tech entrepreneur,
[00:52:44] Jackie Nesi: so boy.
[00:52:45] Jackie Nesi: he's ... Yeah, he has a, he has a tech startup. I think we actually align on a lot of areas, actually. I would say he, you know, of course, probably, tends more in the direction of, like, tech optimism,
[00:52:57] Jackie Nesi: um, whereas I'm maybe a little less optimistic than he is.
[00:53:01] Jackie Nesi: and so we have good conversations about it. I call him my, editor for my newsletter 'cause he does actually read over every post before it goes out and usually provides a very helpful, perspective, from his background. I think that every family is having conversations about this and trying to figure out the best way to approach it, and there is no best way.
[00:53:21] Jackie Nesi: I do think that we balance each other out well, so.
[00:53:24] Jackie Nesi:
[00:53:24] Adam Fishman: Yeah. Okay, cool. before we get our lightning round, I have two and a half more questions one is around AI. we touched on this very lightly at the start of the conversation, but, you've said, and I, this too, that AI is kind of the next frontier after social media for kids.
[00:53:42] Adam Fishman: can you talk a little bit more about AI safety or how we should think about AI and kids? And then, like, are we about to make the same mistakes that we've made with social media here with another sort of open-ended tool that people can get any information from?
[00:53:57] Jackie Nesi: This is tricky because I do think,I hope we're not about to make the same mistakes. I do worry that, some of the AI platforms are sort of going in the same direction of being released without a ton of guardrails or in some any guardrails for kids. and I think that's sort of where we made the mistake with social media is that we created this product really for adults and then opened it up to everyone, and then over time have tried to sort of retrofit, safety guards and parental controls and all these things.
[00:54:29] Jackie Nesi: But at the end of the day, it's like this product wasn't really designed for kids to start and those controls came way, way too late, right? know, a decade into this experiment. So I do think that with AI, I hope that we will be more proactive in thinking about what does it actually look like to design technology that is supporting kids' wellbeing from the beginning, right?
[00:54:51] Jackie Nesi: Not just something we can tolerate for kids to use. In terms of the design, I think that's one thing I'm thinking about. I do think that when it comes to, you know, as parents trying to manage our kids', use of AI, I do think that right now one thing we can do is again, just try to be having conversations, regular conversations about what they're hearing about it, how they're seeing other people use it, how they themselves may or may not be using it.
[00:55:18] Jackie Nesi: I think that's really, really important. and then I think that, schools are again, one of the major, forces of course in kids' lives, and that's especially true now when it comes to AI. I think when we think about kids having Chromebooks, in some cases every time they open a Google Doc, they're gonna be, prompted, "Do you want, help writing this?"
[00:55:37] Jackie Nesi: Right?
[00:55:38] Jackie Nesi: Like, I think we can all agree that's probably not something we want for our middle schoolers. and so I think that this is gonna take some, collaboration among parents, schools, tech companies to make sure that we're approaching this in a way that's actually good for kids
[00:55:51] Adam Fishman: Yeah, we have yet to develop, and I think a lot of schools have yet to develop like a real strong opinion about AI and education and how to teach it and responsible use. But I'm hopeful that that's coming maybe this year for our schools. One of the things that I heard in what you said around AI usage in, kids is that maybe this sort of like co-viewing experience that you advocated for could also be beneficial in this world.
[00:56:15] Adam Fishman: doing it together shoulder-to-shoulder with your kid is better than just giving them the device and letting them go off on their own
[00:56:21] Jackie Nesi: with it.
[00:56:22] Jackie Nesi: Definitely. And I think that's true again, even from a young age. I think that can be really valuable because it can spark those conversations about why do you think it responded that way, right? Like, or If it gives you a wrong answer, "Hey, isn't that interesting," right?
[00:56:35] Adam Fishman: Yep
[00:56:36] Jackie Nesi: I think that can be very, valuable.
[00:56:38] Adam Fishman: All right. Well, before we, do lightning round, I want to do a little like, wild parenting stories lightning round you've got a few of these that I discovered, out of the internet from your writing. So, I wanted to ask you about, finding your toddler naked on the floor in the middle of bedtime.
[00:56:53] Adam Fishman: What happened there?
[00:56:54] Jackie Nesi: Well, what's tricky about that is that I, feel like this actually happens frequently, so I don't remember the specific story because it happens so often. We just moved into a house where my kids have a backyard for the first time. So there's lot of nudity happening, I would say, in the backyard because they've discovered they can just, you know, run around, go in the kiddie pool,
[00:57:11] Adam Fishman: Ja
[00:57:12] Jackie Nesi: uh, yeah, it's, there's, a lot of that happening.
[00:57:14] Adam Fishman: Okay, awesome. All right, what the next one is, your three-year-old at the time, watching barbecue sauce videos. So what
[00:57:22] Jackie Nesi: Yeah.
[00:57:23] Jackie Nesi: Yeah. So Imy memory of this is that my son, when he was three, had asked me what's in barbecue sauce, and I not really know the answer to that. And so I was like, "Oh, well, let's, look it up and find out."
[00:57:34] Jackie Nesi: And then we found this video on YouTube that, you know, walked through different types of barbecue sauce and how to make them. And he was, of course, just totally enthralled with this video. But then I, you know, we turned it off, and I didn't really think about it. assume he forgot about it completely.
[00:57:49] Jackie Nesi: And then, like, a month later, he just randomly one day started talking about all these different barbecue sauce recipes and was like, the North Carolina style and the Eastern style and the white barbecue sauce." I was like, "Oh my God." And I was almost like, maybe we're not watching enough YouTube.
[00:58:03] Jackie Nesi: Like, maybe, like, if he's so fixated on this one video, maybe I need to introduce him to more things.
[00:58:07] Adam Fishman: Oh, that's awesome. and then, uh, The last one is I understand there's a superhero obsession happening in your household right
[00:58:13] Jackie Nesi: Yes. This
[00:58:13] Jackie Nesi: is, this is, this is ongoing right now. We are in the midst of it. Yeah, my, uh, two-year-old and five-year-old sons are, extremely into superheroes.
[00:58:23] Adam Fishman: Is a yeah. favorite that they have?
[00:58:26] Jackie Nesi: So for my five-year-old's birthday recently, he asked for a bunch costumes.
[00:58:30] Jackie Nesi: we've got them all. We've got Superman, Batman, Spider-Man, The Hulk. We've got Superman coloring books, temporary tattoos. anything you can imagine, we have one point, actually, his birthday party, a friend came to his birthday party.
[00:58:43] Jackie Nesi: I said, "You know, no gifts." And then after they left, they were like, "Oh, we really wanna get him likesomething small." And like, "Is there any superhero thing like he doesn't have?" And I was like, "Trust me, he's got them all."
[00:58:53] Adam Fishman: Honestly, these superhero socks
[00:58:55] Jackie Nesi: from I was like, "Nope, we've got those." So he's got it all, all the superheroes. Yeah.
[00:58:58] Adam Fishman: Yeah. That's awesome. That's awesome. I feel like there is a resurgencein superhero enthusiasm in our household too. My son has recently gotten re-obsessed with the Marvel series, so he's watching a lot Avengers. and we may go see the new Spider-Man movie,
[00:59:14] Adam Fishman: So,
[00:59:15] Adam Fishman: all right,
[00:59:15] Adam Fishman: to end,be- uh, I hope you have a few more minutes for lightning but,how can people follow along with you or support your work or be to
[00:59:22] Adam Fishman: you?
[00:59:23] Jackie Nesi: The main place to find me is probably on my Substack. So that's, called Techno Sapiens, technosapiens.substack.com. It's a free weekly newsletter. I write all about, the things we talked today, technology, parenting, and all of that. And you get to hear all the, stories that you just asked about about my, about my kids.
[00:59:41] Jackie Nesi: Yeah.
[00:59:42] Jackie Nesi: if people are looking for amore academic, my academic work, they can also find me just on my website, which is
[00:59:47] Adam Fishman: Okay. All
[00:59:48] Adam Fishman: right. Well,
[00:59:49] Adam Fishman: we will link to all of those things in the show notes, so hopefully you get a few more subscribers from this episode. All right, let's do lightning round. Uh, we'll be brief because it is lightning round.
[00:59:58] Adam Fishman: What would you say is the most indispensable parenting product you've ever purchased?
[01:00:02] Jackie Nesi: Probably a bunch of big baskets so that we can just throw all the toys into them, like
[01:00:09] Adam Fishman: Yes.
[01:00:09] Jackie Nesi: organization, just baskets where all the junk can go.
[01:00:12] Adam Fishman: Yes.
[01:00:13] Adam Fishman: I went through that phase once, probably same ages as your so. Uh, what is the
[01:00:17] Adam Fishman: most useless parenting product you ever purchased?
[01:00:22] Jackie Nesi: Uh, I feel like I'm constantly purchasing useless parenting products in the hope that they'll make my life easier. I guess the most recent one I can think of is, we bought like a, timer, one of those like visual timers with the hope it would help, my son get ready faster in the mornings, and it did not.
[01:00:38] Adam Fishman: Yeah. okay. Well,
[01:00:40] Adam Fishman: uh, we'll just keep trying there.
[01:00:42] Jackie Nesi: exactly
[01:00:43] Adam Fishman: w- what is the weirdest thing that you've found in your kids' pockets or left over in the washing machine?
[01:00:49] Jackie Nesi: we, uh, a few weeks ago, one of my kids, somehow put a whole roll of paper towels of the laundry baskets, and then it went through a full wash and dry cycle . And so there was just, there was like crum- all the clothes were like So it's just like crumpled up paper towel just...
[01:01:08] Adam Fishman: Oh
[01:01:08] Adam Fishman: no.
[01:01:09] Jackie Nesi: I don't
[01:01:10] Adam Fishman: Just
[01:01:10] Adam Fishman: shredded. Oh, I'm so sorry. Um, okay,
[01:01:13] Adam Fishman: true or false, there's only one correct way to load the dishwasher
[01:01:18] Jackie Nesi: Uh, false. I'm big proponent of just get it in there as fast as possible.
[01:01:23] Adam Fishman: Okay. Awesome. Uh,
[01:01:24] Adam Fishman: what is the crazier block of time in your house, 6:00 AM to 8:00 AM or 6:00 PM to 8:00 PM?
[01:01:30] Jackie Nesi: Definitely 6:00 PM to 8:00 PM.
[01:01:33] Adam Fishman: the
[01:01:33] Adam Fishman: nighttime.
[01:01:33] Adam Fishman: Yes. the witching hour.
[01:01:35] Adam Fishman: Uh,
[01:01:36] Adam Fishman: if your kids had to describe you in one word, what
[01:01:39] Adam Fishman: would it be?
[01:01:40] Jackie Nesi: If my kids had to describe?
[01:01:41] Adam Fishman: Yeah
[01:01:42] Jackie Nesi: oh gosh. I, I like to think it would be, you know, something like loving, but it would probably be like boring or something like...
[01:01:51] Adam Fishman: kids
[01:01:51] Adam Fishman: can be so cruel.
[01:01:52] Jackie Nesi: all day." She's...
[01:01:53] Adam Fishman: Yeah.
[01:01:54] Adam Fishman: Um,
[01:01:55] Adam Fishman: what is the funniest thing that one of your kids has ever said in a public setting?
[01:02:00] Jackie Nesi: maybe a couple that are not, uh, appropriate for, uh, for public consumption. A few days ago, actually, my two-year-old, was singing, you know the song Baa Baa Black Sheep?
[01:02:11] Jackie Nesi: Have you any Wool? And he was singing Baa Baa Black Sheep, have you any soul? Which where he came up with that.
[01:02:18] Jackie Nesi: It was like the dark existential version of Baa Baa Black Sheep, just
[01:02:22] Adam Fishman: That's awesome.
[01:02:23] Adam Fishman: That's awesome.
[01:02:24] Adam Fishman: Um, okay,
[01:02:25] Adam Fishman: so I usually ask
[01:02:26] Adam Fishman: dads on this show about dad jokes, but is there such a thing as a mom joke?
[01:02:31] Jackie Nesi: I think they're probably similar. Yeah. I think
[01:02:34] Adam Fishman: Okay.
[01:02:34] Jackie Nesi: a good-- pun. Yeah.
[01:02:36] Jackie Nesi: good
[01:02:36] Jackie Nesi: bad
[01:02:37] Adam Fishman: Um,
[01:02:37] Adam Fishman: is there a kids TV show that is
[01:02:40] Adam Fishman: completely an outright banned in your
[01:02:42] Adam Fishman: household?
[01:02:44] Jackie Nesi: Anything that's like too loud, colorful, like,
[01:02:49] Jackie Nesi: you know, anything that feels overstimulating to me,
[01:02:52] Adam Fishman: Yes
[01:02:53] Jackie Nesi: we, yeah, there's some Mickey Mouse ones that we just can't,
[01:02:56] Adam Fishman: Um, what is your favorite kids movie?
[01:02:58] Jackie Nesi: we rewatched "The Emperor's New Groove." I don't
[01:03:01] Jackie Nesi: you remember that, but
[01:03:03] Jackie Nesi: definitely held up. Still, still funny, still good.
[01:03:06] Adam Fishman: That is a great film.
[01:03:07] Adam Fishman: Uh, my kids love that movie.
[01:03:09] Adam Fishman: three more questions.
[01:03:10] Adam Fishman: long can a of food sit on the floor in your house and you will still eat it?
[01:03:15] Jackie Nesi: I will still eat it? Oh, um, probably longer than it should be. But I mean, for my kids, any length of time would,
[01:03:22] Adam Fishman: Okay.
[01:03:23] Adam Fishman: Awesome. Awesome. Do you have a favorite mom hack for road trips or flights with your kids?
[01:03:30] Jackie Nesi: well, besides screens, which
[01:03:32] Jackie Nesi: uh, I would say, uh, novel snacks. So snacks they don't usually get to eat. I always try to break those out in
[01:03:40] Adam Fishman: Okay.
[01:03:41] Jackie Nesi: to eat unlimited amounts of them while
[01:03:43] Adam Fishman: Yes. I Think I've heard that
[01:03:45] Adam Fishman: one one time before. That is a great one, so thank you.
[01:03:48] Adam Fishman: Um, all right, last question.
[01:03:50] Adam Fishman: Family of five now, and I don't know there's any pets in the household, but, uh, what is your take on minivans?
[01:04:00] Jackie Nesi: It's very funny you ask this because for a long time I said absolutely not, of course. And then recently we've realized we do need to get a new car so that we can actually fit everyone in it, and I'm like, "Oh, minivan's looking pretty good." So,
[01:04:13] Adam Fishman: Yeah.
[01:04:13] Jackie Nesi: I don't know.
[01:04:14] Adam Fishman: Okay. Okay. Well, the two arguments I've heard for minivans are one, they are just like the family car, and two, they keep your kid from swinging open the door and dinging the car next to them, especially at the ages of your car-
[01:04:28] Adam Fishman: of your kids.
[01:04:28] Adam Fishman: So, oh, yeah.
[01:04:30] Adam Fishman: Oh
[01:04:31] Adam Fishman: yeah.
[01:04:31] Jackie Nesi: So,
[01:04:32] Adam Fishman: uh,
[01:04:33] Adam Fishman: awesome. Awesome.
[01:04:34] Adam Fishman: Well,
[01:04:34] Adam Fishman: Jackie, uh, that about does it for our conversation today.
[01:04:37] Adam Fishman: So thank you so much for joining me today. This was an awesome conversation. I learned a ton,
[01:04:43] Adam Fishman: and I wish you, best of
[01:04:45] Adam Fishman: luck on your book proposal and, best wishes to you and your family for, uh, the whole rest of the year. So Thank you
[01:04:51] Jackie Nesi: Thank you so much for having me, Adam
[01:04:53] Adam Fishman: Thank you for listening to today's conversation with Jackie Nesi. You can subscribe and watch the show on YouTube or wherever you get your podcasts.
[01:05:00] Adam Fishman: Visit www.startupdadpod.com to learn more and browse past episodes. Thanks for listening and see you next week.