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Join Derek Hudson as he explores Essential Dynamics, a framework for approaching the challenges facing people and organizations. Consider your Quest!
Welcome to Essential Dynamics. I'm Derek Hudson, the host of the Essential Dynamics podcast and the developer of the Essential Dynamics Framework. On the podcast, we learn about how things work through deep conversations with interesting people. My interesting person of the day today is doctor Jason Daniels. Jason, welcome to Essential Dynamics.
Jason:Thanks so much for having me. Really appreciate you having me on.
Derek:Jason, this is long overdue. I remember a conversation we had on my back deck at beginning of COVID. We had to sit outside to talk, and I guess part of that conversation, I don't remember it very clearly, but I've said maybe I'll do a podcast. And so I have I I have done a podcast, and this is episode 134.
Jason:It's amazing. I
Derek:feel bad for not having you on earlier, but I'm really looking forward to the conversation today.
Jason:Me too.
Derek:So, Jason, you're a psychologist.
Jason:Yes.
Derek:Tell us a little bit about your work. Sure.
Jason:Yeah. So I'm currently I work as an assistant professor at Concordia University here in Edmonton. Most of my work is looking at the impact of digital media, so including phone, screen, social media, AI on development and how we learn, how we come to understand ourselves, and and basically kind of the the impacts that that has on what we see in terms of behavior both for kids, but also as those kids become adults and continue to to learn and develop over the course of their lives.
Derek:So has a lot of your work been focused then on on children and child development?
Jason:You know what? It's kind of that's kind of where my training is, is looking at developmental psychology. A lot of my work has has been done in the school system, but also with young adults and and postsecondary. And recently, I just did a study with adult 18. So it kinda spans the the age so, know, from from birth through through older ages, but, yeah, primarily focused on kids.
Derek:Well, I I think children are fun to study because you see the changes fast.
Jason:Mhmm. Yeah. And that's where things are really developing. Right? So
Derek:Well, I'm I'm really excited just, like, interested in this just personally, but but I'll just get kind of tip our audience off here. You know, on this podcast, we do talk about Essential Dynamics, which, I believe is really applicable to individuals, but it's, originally designed to help us figure out how to work better in organizations. And I think there's some parallels to how people operate and how organizations operate. There can't there can't not be. So one thing I've noticed, Jason, in your work, particularly the blogging and stuff that you've done recently, and why we'll link that in the show notes, is that you keep coming back to this idea that these days, people aren't necessarily less capable, but they're encountering fewer situations that require them to do hard things.
Derek:So therefore, they may appear to have less capacity to deal with stuff. What what are you seeing?
Jason:Yes. And that's that's really one of the fundamental things that I'm really digging into here, and that really is where I started this whole work. One of the big arguments that I've heard over and over and over again is things like, you know, children are losing the capacity to pay attention. They're they're they don't have any social skills. They and and on and on.
Jason:Really, these these kinda some deficit focused approaches to understanding humans, which really made me start to think because, you know, for all our flaws as as a species, the one thing that I think we can we can all agree on that defines humans is that we're adaptive. Right? We adapt very well to environments. So it doesn't seem to make any sense to me that all of a sudden within, like, a ten year span, we suddenly lose the capacity to be able to to function. And so part of what I've been looking at is, you know, if we understand or we look at the psychology of what's going on here, and specifically from a developmental psychology perspective, it makes total sense that, you know, what gets practiced gets learned.
Jason:And so if we're seeing deficits, if we look at what's not getting practiced, we're probably gonna find some of the answers in those kinds of things. And I think that's really where I'm leaning into is what what do digital environments lead us to practice more, and what do they lead us to practice less, and how do we see that then manifest in terms of, like, behavior and challenges and other types of things.
Derek:So so that sounds like a sort of clinical observational approach where, I guess, like you're saying, you're not focusing on an individual's potential deficit.
Jason:Yeah. Yeah. Exactly. I mean, definitely, there are. Right?
Jason:We can look at these things and say, like, is attention span in young kids lower than it was? Absolutely. A 100%. Like and I we talk to teachers and say, you know, coming into into schools, there are definitely deficits in social skills out of COVID, a 100%. But but, again, are those things a function of somehow my brain has has shifted and I no longer have the capacity to build those skills?
Jason:And that's, think, where I differ from from a lot of other researchers in that I don't think it's a fundamental deficit in terms of the capacity. We can we it it's that we haven't learned those, and the environment doesn't produce the conditions to practice those things naturally. We have to actually create the situations and create the scenarios where we can practice those kinds of skills more effectively.
Derek:I think I know where you're coming from, but why don't you share a couple of examples?
Jason:In terms of, like, digital technology. So, I mean, if we talk about, for example, like social skills. If we just talk about social skills, humans are social creatures. We've developed over the course of our our species history many mechanisms to help us get along within social environments. One of the key factors related to social skills is being able to read and queue off of other individuals, you know, not just the words they say, but but all of the context, the body language, the other types of things that that surround them.
Jason:One of the interesting things that we're starting to see in younger children is a decrease in the capacity to sort of gauge other people's responses and be able to respond, kind of that co regulation back and forth between individuals. So, again, the question is, okay, is this is this mean that, you know, suddenly my brain doesn't have, you know, those those capacities that have developed over, you know, the life of our species, or is it simply that because a lot of kids have grown up in an environment where, like, a lot of the social interactions are mediated through screens, that they haven't had as much opportunity to practice the back and forth. Like, of the things I always joke to my kids, and I've I've read about this in one of my blogs, is, you know, it's it's different breaking up with somebody face to face than doing it via text. Right? And saying, hey.
Jason:We're done. Click. You know, block. Because you gotta then deal with the emotions. You gotta feel like you have to regulate those things yourself.
Jason:You've gotta be able to manage, you know, your motivations. You gotta sort of dig lean into difficult situations. So those are the kinds of things that I'm thinking is sort of or that's an example of one of the things I'm thinking that we're we're seeing.
Derek:So so what I'm hearing there is that even just the interposition of a screen between two people having a relationship blocks a bunch of the information that you could get to share with each other how you're feeling, how the relationship or the conversation is going, and the ability to adjust based on what you're seeing from the other person.
Jason:Absolutely. 100. Like, I think we all I mean, we got a crash course in that during COVID where we like, a lot of our communication was was mediated via screens, and we saw just how difficult that was and the the cognitive overload in that. Like, I don't know if you remember, but, you know, after sitting at a screen for a whole day, just how exhausted you you felt after that because of, again, such a a different medium and trying to to gauge reactions. I remember teaching classes where, like, I was looking at a a blank screen, and it was it was just like talking to myself for two hours, which was so awkward, and it was so unnatural to have that kind of an interaction.
Derek:And and so we're highly functional in one sense because we now can meet with people who are halfway across the world, or we can bring a bunch of people in for a short meeting where it would never make sense for them to travel to get together. And so we see that and we say, okay. So that's a net positive. Yeah. And we and we keep doing it, not recognizing perhaps what we're missing out either in that interaction or what you're saying is just in the abilities that people have to manage life.
Jason:Yeah. Exactly. That's that's a 100%. And, this is not about, you know, is technology good or bad? I think technology is.
Jason:I mean, it's the world we live in, and there's always gonna be sort of trade offs in terms of and there's some amazing benefits to to begin to be able to do things like this and have conversations virtually. But at the same time, does that actually replicate a face to face conversation? And my my argument is for all of the good that it does, it it isn't the same as having a face to face conversation. And when we when we pretend that it does, and then we're surprised that there's deficits in children's abilities to to, you know, develop social skills and have social interactions. And and that's why I think I I don't know how we're surprised because they're not they're not getting the same level of kind of back and forth interactions, and and therefore, skills aren't developing to the same extent that they would if they had that that opportunity.
Derek:I I wanna piece this together and and relate it to my work at some point, but let's go to another example that you used a couple of different ways, and that is concepts around attention, distraction, boredom, and, you know, sort of internal reflection and that stuff. What what are you seeing there?
Jason:Well, I think again, all of these things, and we've seen this I mean, there's consistent patterns. You can look at demographic research, consistent patterns for the past decade where we're seeing decreases in resilience, willingness to engage in tasks that require sustained effort, decreases in willingness to engage in in in boredom or or to to sit with boredom. And I think that really is a function of the fact that that is what digital technology is really, really good at is allowing us to escape or avoid, like, those those uncomfortable kinds of situations. Like, for me, I I don't like to feel bored. I like, when I'm in the grocery store, if I'm in a line, the first thing I do is pull up my phone and look at my phone.
Jason:And and so I think that's what screens and digital technology is really, good at. The problem with that, however, is it's in those moments of boredom, discomfort, challenge where we actually build the skills that are necessary for like, if you we're talking education specifically to be able to sit in the classroom and engage in sustained attention activities. And so some of those fundamental skills, again, going back to the same premise, we need to practice them. They're not just gonna magically develop over time. And so if we look at boredom, for example, a lot of us growing up prior to, you know, digital technology had no choice but to be bored.
Jason:And I and I wrote this in one of the blogs about, you know, sitting on, like, an eight hour car ride. You know, what do you do after, you you know, you've played every, you know, car ride game, after you've, you know, you sang every song, after you've done stuff. Like, you have no choice but to somehow sit in that boredom and daydream or be creative or find some other way that you can manage that boredom. And that's that's the essence of self regulation. Right?
Jason:That's the essence of creativity. The motivation to to explore ideas, to try out new things comes in those moments of boredom or or, you know, lack lack of stimulation.
Derek:I I think I also read in one of your blogs, and maybe this was the same one, but it's that, like, in incoming stimulation that you're not even looking for. Like, you you pull your phone out and get it right away. But but if you get in sort of reactive mode, all you have to do is just take what comes. Yeah. And and to take responsibility for there's a void and you have to fill it, that's a skill.
Derek:That's what you're saying. Totally.
Jason:Totally skills. And I think I mean, that where I see it in myself, and that is in in moments of, for example, like, emotions. Like, if I'm feeling anxious, if I'm feeling nervous, if I'm feeling overly stimulated, often what I'll do is I'll pull out my phone, and I'll use my phone as a regulation mechanism to help me, you know, decrease that those levels of anxiety. And it's really effective. I mean, it works really well, but it all it is doing is distracting me from from those particular feelings, not helping me actually learn strategies to to actually deal with the emotions.
Derek:So so we can we can take a pill and feel better.
Jason:Mhmm.
Derek:And the pill is just scrolling on our phone, or we can get get better.
Jason:We can actually go exercise and get better and and do the work that it takes to actually, like, be healthy? Yeah.
Derek:Okay. Oh, there's a there's a lot here, and I'm I'm my mind's racing. But let me tell you let me tell you a little bit about my practice. Sure. So I I don't I think this has been lifelong to some degree, but when I started actually trying to put Essential Dynamics together, it it was a creative exercise, and I don't feel like I've made up very much.
Derek:I'm just stitching together, you know, great thoughts that others have had. But I often have a question on my mind.
Jason:Mhmm.
Derek:How does this fit with that? What does this really mean? Is this the ultimate expression of this idea, or is it just derivative, and is there a more foundational way to look at it? And so I find myself when I have downtime thinking about those things. And when I'm at my desk, I'm, you know, writing and does, you know, sketching and trying to make sense of it.
Derek:But I'll also be laying in bed in the middle of the night thinking about it or on a walk thinking about it. And a lot of times, that's where things, you know, kinda come together or wake up the next morning and then, you know, there's there's an idea. And so I I also use my phone for distraction, but I haven't really thought of it this way, but I have a playlist in my mind of stuff that I haven't figured out yet. And so if I you know, sometimes I'll get in my car and I'll think, no, actually, I'm not gonna listen to music. I'm not gonna listen to a podcast because I have I've got a topic.
Derek:I have a conversation I need to have with myself. Is that one of the ways to cope with this?
Jason:Absolutely. And I think that's the the key there. And I think if we look at the development of those skills, and then, again, I would say, you know, part of the reason why you do that is you've got a a history of of a process that you've developed over the course of your life that that, you know, that's kinda how you, you know, you think about things. You engage in stuff. Like, one of the one of the things I was just writing the other day was about AI.
Jason:And, again, this idea that AI is not good or bad. It's, again, how we use AI. And one of the challenges is that often what AI will do is it'll shortcut that whole process you talked about where people can put in a prompt, and it'll it'll give you the solution without having you having to do all of the work to get to that particular solution. And so some might say, okay. Well, what's who cares if I get the solution?
Jason:The problem is, again, you having gone through the process, you under like, at least presumably, understand how you got from a to b or a to f or whatever and the through lines to those kinds of things. And if somebody comes and asks you about it, you can have a conversation about it. If if AI gives me a solution, I don't have any of that sort of, like, cognitive architecture to be able to understand how these things all fit together, which I think, again, is is the key part of the learning process.
Derek:Well and I think it's on the one hand, it's an audit trail to the particular situation. Mhmm. But the other thing, it's a skill. That's muscles you develop, and you can take a different topic on.
Jason:Mhmm.
Derek:And I certainly use AI, but some of the ways I use it are to check my work
Jason:Yeah.
Derek:And to challenge my work, but I I I can't I can't use it for original thought.
Jason:No. No. Exactly. And I think it's an amazing tool if it's used to expand your thinking, to to boutique your thinking, some really great things, but not so much when it replaces It gives you the the illusion of understanding is kinda what I call it.
Derek:So I wanna stitch this together with some other ideas probably in our next episode, but one of the things that maybe you could put together for us now is what are some skills that people need that are being left behind, and what can we do per particularly, say, you're a parent of of younger children, what can you put in their lives so that they can, you know, develop those capacities?
Jason:Absolutely. One of the things that and this is, I mean, one of the topics that I've kinda come back over and over again is this idea of productive struggle. And and sometimes they call it productive struggle or friction or whatever you wanna call it, but but basically reintroducing that that pause or that moment where we allow if we're talking about kids specifically, allow them to sit in that productive struggle a little bit longer. And and, again, I don't think this means we have to just sort of say, no. Like, you know, goals you sort it out and figure it out.
Jason:I think we can still help out and and and support them, but the support looks a bit different. Rather than coming in to fix all the problems, it's like if we're talking about problem solving. You know, prompting them with, okay. So this doesn't make sense. What are some questions that you could ask yourself?
Jason:And and allowing them to sit there for a few minutes and think about it before then we get in and and start giving them strategies to solve the problem. So those are some things I think you could start with. With emotional regulation, it kinda works in a in a similar way. Acknowledging some of the challenges, but then allowing them to to experience those and and, again, supporting but not removing all of the barriers and challenges and sometimes actually providing some structured opportunities to to engage in those things. And so, again, if it was, you know, me wanting to pull up my phone to to, you know, deal with, you know, anxious situation, it might be simply saying, why don't you wait for a few minutes?
Jason:Let's let's let's experience this. Let's talk about this. Let's whatever. And then allowing that. Like, it doesn't have to be all or nothing, but sort of getting that practice in and those structured kinds of opportunities.
Derek:I see a lot of parallels in working with young people on physical activities.
Jason:K. Yep.
Derek:And I've had the opportunity. I talk about it sometimes on podcast to to lead a lot of kids on a lot of hiking trips and backpack backing backpacking trips and and biking and stuff like that. And it's all hard. Mhmm. But but to get from a to b, it's way better to do the work.
Derek:Okay. And so how do you support people in doing the work rather than, you know, pulling them off the trail?
Jason:Well and here's here's an important thing, and may this may not be where you wanna excel with this. But but I think part of what also has happened is the idea of what normal is also shifts. Right? And so this idea of, you know, learning should be effortless. Like, I've heard this advertisement on YouTube so many times about these educational programs that, you know, that that makes learning fun, which is great.
Jason:Learning should be fun and can be fun. But then they also make the claim, like, you're an effortless. And I'm like, learning is not effortless, or learning requires effort. Right? And and so I think that's one of the messages that somehow has gotten in that, you know, if if if learning isn't easy, if learning isn't immediate, then something must be wrong with me.
Jason:And that part of what I think is we need to do is renormalize or however you wanna phrase it, effort and say, like, you know what? This takes work. Right? If I'm looking at somebody who's not if we look at social media, one of the problems when people look at, you know, everybody's perfect life on social media, which is not you see lots of times curated content, the end product of, like, forty years of work or whatever, and you think, wow. Then if I do this, then that should be my outcome.
Jason:But but you don't see all of the effort and the millions it takes that it took to get to that particular point.
Derek:No. I I didn't think you were gonna go there, but let's let's use that to pull us together because the whole idea of Essential Dynamics came in this form early in COVID when everyone was so upset about how hard this was gonna be and the restrictions that were gonna be placed on them, what was happening to our society. And I thought about previous shocks to society and thought, this one probably isn't gonna be as bad as some of the other ones. How can we make it okay to have to do hard things?
Jason:Mhmm.
Derek:And the idea I came up with was, well, if it's an epic quest, then it's supposed to be harder. There's no story. There's no drama. And so let's think about opposition. And I came up with this idea of that there's there's tension in the purpose.
Derek:There's tension on the path, and then people have tension between themselves and the group. And none of that is inherently bad. It's in fact, it's sort of part of the plan, part of the system is that we have to work through hard things to for anything to be meaningful and for it to be something that's a productive exercise when we're done. And we, you know, we've achieved the objective, but really what we've done is we've, you know, become a different person.
Jason:Yeah. A 100%. Like, it has and I this is why, again, why I like studying development. I mean, one again, one of the analogies I use as well is looking at, you know, a one year old learned to walk. And we never expect perfection.
Jason:Right? And that's why when I teach development, I talk about this. You ever seen, like, a one year old walk? And and and I say, like, they're bad at it. They're awful at it.
Jason:Like, they suck. They fall down. You know what? They wobble. They're not very steady, but no one ever criticizes them and says, like, you are just so bad at this.
Jason:And they don't hang their head. They just get back up, and they keep trying until they get it. But somewhere between then and later on, we get this idea that that learning should just be, like, immediate, that there should be no trial and error, that failure means there's something wrong with me as a person rather than this is just part of the process of how we develop skills.
Derek:Alright. That makes that makes a lot of sense. So it's almost like if there's no tears, then then there's there's no learning. Yeah. And, you know, I can think of, you know, my my kids sometimes, and I think of hard things that I've had to do.
Derek:And you're asking, why is this so hard? But it doesn't take that long before you look back and say, well, I I remember it being hard, but it's not hard now. And I and I don't even know how to think about what it was like before because I have that skill now and, you know, I'm I'm gonna I'm not gonna lose it.
Jason:Yeah. Like, it'd be easier if I got on my bike and somebody just pushed me around all the time. Like, I could just sit on there and have you run behind me and and push me. But, like, I'm never going to learn to actually ride my bike and and be able to to use my bike if I don't actually have to work build those muscles and and put the effort in to to learn those skills.
Derek:So so that said, there's a bunch of things in our life right now that are easily they come easily, or or at least replacements for things that we should be looking at that come easily. So what what's a good kind of philosophy to have for trying to introduce a little bit of that challenge into development?
Jason:Yeah. And and I think it part of it is thinking about you know? And this is one of the challenges I think for a lot of us that grew up again in a in a pre Internet, pre digital environment is just because something's different doesn't necessarily mean it's bad. Then so try to differentiate what are what are the things that are necessary skills, and what are the things that are just different. One of the things that I always remember, my grandma I have so I I should back up.
Jason:I have very poor penmanship, like, awful chicken scratch, hardly legible. And I remember being in a room and listening to my grandma tell my mom that she was worried that I would not amount to anything in life because my penmanship was so poor. And, thankfully, and I really appreciate my mom for this, my mom I remember her telling my grandma saying to her mom, mom, it doesn't matter anymore. For my my grandma, it was really big. They she actually they had classes in school on penmanship, and that was like there was a huge emphasis on that.
Jason:But here's the great thing. It hasn't it hasn't held me back at all in my life. So penmanship, whatever. Like, that again, I can type faster than I can write and and all those kinds of things. So some of some of these things are just different.
Jason:Right? But there are a lot of skills that are absolutely necessary, social skills, attention, and so where where those skills are necessary. And that's part of, again, where I think research is important is is sort of determining what are some of those things. This is where I think we need to and, again, digital tools are really good at helping us to escape and avoid all those situations where we actually might have to actually productively add some of that tension back in to the learning environment and to different situations. And it's just not, again, about removing technology simply.
Jason:I don't think that's feasible. But, like, you know, again, if if if I've got kids, like, let's go for a walk without our phones. You know? Well, guess what'll happen? We'll have to talk.
Jason:Right? Having dinner without it. You know, going to bed without like, these are all things where we can add in little bits and time segments where we can practice some of those skills. Going on a road trip, and this is one I'm I'm it's gonna be totally hypocritical. Going on a road trip and maybe not having everybody pull out their devices, you know, but but but reintroducing some of that that that challenge back in.
Derek:Okay. I like that. And so I'll just add my thinking to yours if it's helpful. You make it a quest.
Jason:Yep.
Derek:And and so how do we you know, maybe that's another level that's gamifying it, but how do we make this harder? How do we introduce some constraint that that focuses our energy on, you know, a specific goal or something like that and and that uses the skills that you're talking about?
Jason:Absolutely. Great idea.
Derek:Well, Jason, thanks very much for this conversation. We're gonna get back together and just maybe one thought for our next conversation. I'm really interested in taking some of this idea into organizations. And I do wanna talk about, in particular, the skill of paying attention.
Jason:Absolutely.
Derek:Which is which is even harder when you've got a group of people. But thanks for being on. If people are interested in your work, where's the best place to find you?
Jason:My I do have a website. It's beyondthescreen.ca. There's dashes between each of the words, but it's beyondthescreen.ca.
Derek:And you and you have a book that's is it does that have the same name?
Jason:It does have the same name. Yeah. I also have a book. This is a book for parents. I tried to kinda distill all this down in in as few words as possible.
Jason:So it's a it's a it's a light read, but it tries to kinda just get away from this whole idea of guilt and making us feel bad about, you know what, so my kids aren't perfect. But you know what? None of us are, but let's focus on what we can actually change and and how we can build some of these skills, some of the stuff we talked about today in terms of that that skill building. So there's links. It's on Amazon.
Jason:There's links on the website and everywhere.
Derek:Alright. Well, you can read the book and tell them you learned learned about it from Essential Dynamics. Jason Daniels, thanks so much for being on. Bryn Griffiths, thanks for helping us sound so good. And, until next time, consider your quest.