Subscribe
Share
Share
Embed
Unfiltered insights and hard-hitting questions that challenge the status quo in law, life, and everything in between.
Join Travis Patterson, Fort Worth's straight-shooting personal injury attorney, as he tackles the tough questions nobody's asking—but should be. In "Driving Change," Travis brings his signature blend of legal savvy and real-world experience to challenge the status quo in law, life, and everything in between. From practical safety tips for your family to navigating the complexities of modern parenting and entrepreneurship, each episode delivers unfiltered insights and actionable advice. Drawing on his unique perspective as a seasoned lawyer, entrepreneur, and changemaker, Travis offers a legal lens on everyday scenarios, breaking down complex topics into easy-to-understand, actionable steps. Whether you're a busy parent looking to protect your kids, an entrepreneur seeking fresh perspectives, or someone who wants to be better prepared for life's curveballs, "Driving Change" equips you with the knowledge to make smarter decisions and safeguard what matters most.
00:00:03:15 - 00:00:22:06
Travis
Hey there, I'm Travis Patterson, and welcome to Driving Change. Here to find unfiltered insights and hard hitting questions that challenge the status quo in law and in life. As a personal injury attorney in Fort Worth, Texas, I've seen firsthand how challenges like distracted driving, family safety issues impact our community. But I refuse to accept these problems as inevitable.
00:00:22:08 - 00:00:41:13
Travis
In this podcast, we'll dig deep into real world problems, bringing you practical solutions from my experiences in law, parenting, and entrepreneurship. I'm not here to preach. Here to start conversations that make you think differently and provide actual advice that you can use right away. Welcome to Driving Change. Let's get to it. All right, guys, welcome to another episode of the Driving Change podcast.
00:00:41:15 - 00:01:04:04
Travis
Very honored today to have the batons, with us. Ben's are good friends of ours and just, admire both of these guys, a lot for what they're doing in our community. And we are going to get into it. I got a quick intro on Elizabeth and John Baton. The bands are here. They want to help you raise launch ready kids who wholeheartedly engage with the real world.
00:01:04:06 - 00:01:24:03
Travis
They are very proud parents of three wonderful teenagers. They are wonderful. I have, gotten to know all of them. They are awesome. And they are passionate about educating parents to know the facts about our current digital landscape so they can set healthy boundaries for their children and help you set healthy boundaries for yours. The key to success here is banding together with other families and sticking to a plan.
00:01:24:05 - 00:01:29:13
Travis
Their message should leave you encouraged and empowered. Elizabeth and John, welcome to the show.
00:01:29:18 - 00:01:30:09
John
Thank you.
00:01:30:11 - 00:01:31:14
Elizabeth
I'm so glad to be here.
00:01:31:19 - 00:01:55:03
Travis
All right, so this is the fifth episode I've done. So this podcast we bounce around topic. You know, a lot of different topics, important stuff. But I have to meet this topic as I've been getting ready for this one. It's probably given me the most anxiety. We're going to talk about anxiety today, but just it, it's really scary what's going on with kids and phones and social media.
00:01:55:05 - 00:01:57:11
John
There's a lot, yeah, a lot to talk about.
00:01:57:11 - 00:02:06:15
Travis
There's a lot to talk about. Right? So get comfortable. Yeah. So how did you guys get started on this journey? Tell us about kind of your story.
00:02:06:20 - 00:02:28:13
Elizabeth
Yeah, well, we've always kind of been a less is more tech family. You know, we've always wanted our kids to be fully kids. Oh. So we were kind of we kind of media deprived our children a little bit when they were small and let them add a little bit more along the way. But we were kind of propelled into this argument, this scratch, I don't want to say argument.
00:02:28:15 - 00:02:42:03
Elizabeth
We were propelled into this conversation like real time when our oldest was 12. He was in sixth grade. Okay. And he came back from an overnight field trip, and he had seen some really disturbing content on a friend's phone.
00:02:42:05 - 00:02:44:12
Travis
So how long ago would that have been?
00:02:44:13 - 00:02:45:16
Elizabeth
It was eight years ago.
00:02:45:18 - 00:02:48:09
Travis
Eight years ago. So cell phones were already kind of a thing.
00:02:48:10 - 00:02:50:18
Elizabeth
They were a thing. You know, most of.
00:02:50:18 - 00:02:54:10
Travis
15, 20, 16 ish. So.
00:02:54:12 - 00:03:11:21
Elizabeth
Most of him, his friends did not have cell phones at that time, right? So so this was kind of unusual. And we were like, okay, I guess here we are. Like, we had been hoping that this day, you know, hadn't we? We thought we had a little more time. But all of a sudden here we are, a child has seen something really disturbing on a phone.
00:03:12:02 - 00:03:16:16
Elizabeth
What are we going to do about that? We were. It was really we were really sad and mad about it.
00:03:16:18 - 00:03:19:17
John
And just to be clear, we're talking about seeing hardcore pornography.
00:03:19:19 - 00:03:21:12
Travis
Pornography at the age of 12.
00:03:21:14 - 00:03:39:00
Elizabeth
12. Yeah. I mean, not rated R like way beyond, like we felt like we sent him on this, you know, trip as a 12 year old and came back as a 19 year old, you know. So fortunately, about two weeks later, my friend Chelsea Ray calls me and she says, hey, do you all want to be you? And John want to be part of a discussion with some other families?
00:03:39:02 - 00:03:49:05
Elizabeth
We're going to get together. We're going to let the boys play outside. The parents are going to talk. We, as parents of a high school child, want to tell you all about the landscape of the high school.
00:03:49:06 - 00:03:50:03
Travis
Yeah. Here's what's.
00:03:50:03 - 00:04:14:13
Elizabeth
Cool phones. Here's what's coming. And so we of course, we said absolutely we want to do that. And we gathered with this group. There were ten families. And our friends just, you know, told us all about how the phones were changing, how high school kids related to each other. They weren't talking as much. They had their, you know, brand to uphold and and work on all the time.
00:04:14:14 - 00:04:15:16
Travis
Oh, like their social media?
00:04:15:18 - 00:04:37:20
Elizabeth
Yes. Yes. And not to mention they could see things like binge drinking and vaping at, you know, we're talking 14 year olds watching college. You know, vaping and binge drinking because you're all all these kids are like two degrees removed from each other, right? So at that meeting, we kind of decided as a group of families, we're going to hold off on the smartphones as long as we can.
00:04:37:22 - 00:04:50:13
Elizabeth
We made it to about the end of seventh grade, which at the time was actually pretty good. And we're going to hold off on social media through middle school. And we did. And it really made a difference for these boys. Yeah.
00:04:50:15 - 00:04:52:16
Travis
Could you move them just a little bit closer to you?
00:04:52:17 - 00:04:54:23
Elizabeth
Oh, sure. Sure. Yeah.
00:04:55:01 - 00:04:57:11
Travis
Push it upward.
00:04:57:13 - 00:05:08:16
Elizabeth
Is that better? Okay. So, it really did make a difference for these boys. Like, they just they found other things to do, basically. And when they finally got the technology, they didn't need it quite as much.
00:05:08:19 - 00:05:16:00
Travis
So it wasn't just your son that seemed to have benefited from the absence of the phones and social media, but his buddies seemed to really respond to that as well.
00:05:16:02 - 00:05:25:18
Elizabeth
His buddies and they all knew that they couldn't pull that. Nobody has a phone with us because we were like, no, we know nine other families whose sons don't have a phone.
00:05:25:20 - 00:05:51:03
Travis
Okay, so, obviously your kids have come out strong. You're still working on it, too? I know you got kids at home still. But, so let's talk about just kind of what's going on with kids in general. General population. Right. Because it's kind of scary. It's very scary. And it's a long laundry list. But what just kind of on a high level, what is social media doing to teenagers today?
00:05:51:07 - 00:06:02:15
Travis
Just in their, their mental state, their product activity, you know, their relationships with each other, their growth and maturity? I mean, what are we seeing? What's the data showing?
00:06:02:17 - 00:06:13:02
John
Yeah, I mean, I think probably there's a lot of data out there, Travis. And a lot of people will argue with different sets of data. And, and the tech companies have some studies where they try and say, no, this is beneficial.
00:06:13:04 - 00:06:14:00
Travis
Right?
00:06:14:02 - 00:06:34:15
John
And really, just as a brief aside, those studies where they're arguing it's beneficial are just kids saying they like it. Sure. It's not really showing that there's a benefit to it, but I think probably the the one that's beyond dispute would be the Surgeon General's advisory report. And, you know, Surgeon general's make advisory reports for societal issues, right?
00:06:34:17 - 00:06:45:21
John
Like, like, drunk driving or HIV and Aids when that was new. I mean, it's it's usually big issues. So for a surgeon general to release an advisory on social media means there's something on there.
00:06:46:01 - 00:06:47:10
Travis
Yeah.
00:06:47:12 - 00:07:00:21
John
Your question was, what is it doing to them? Right? I mean, I think it's it's a question in my the best way to think about it, it's not it is what it brings into their life. Right? In terms of bullying, in terms of pornography, in terms of violence.
00:07:00:23 - 00:07:02:03
Elizabeth
Sexual content.
00:07:02:03 - 00:07:19:09
John
Too soon. But it's also what it keeps out. Right. So yeah, it's just the time it takes. Right. So the I think the best way to look at it is how much time are kids spending online. And you know, when you when you look at the data on that I mean, it is it you know, Gallup did a study.
00:07:19:09 - 00:07:25:12
John
And so when they add up social media, which they do include YouTube. But, you know, YouTube is not just educational anymore.
00:07:25:14 - 00:07:27:04
Travis
And yes, I just had two videos anymore.
00:07:27:07 - 00:07:28:08
John
There's a lot of two.
00:07:28:08 - 00:07:28:23
Elizabeth
Way street.
00:07:29:00 - 00:07:32:13
John
Short form like just hook them. But I mean, you know, the.
00:07:32:17 - 00:07:36:11
Travis
YouTube shorts, it's the same thing as like little reels and stuff. Absolutely.
00:07:36:13 - 00:07:49:05
John
So percentage spending at least four hours a day of all teenagers is 51% and the average is 4.8. It's a little higher for girls and boys. It's 5.3 versus four point. So the average teenagers.
00:07:49:05 - 00:07:51:15
Travis
Spending about four hours a day on social media, almost.
00:07:51:15 - 00:07:52:03
Elizabeth
Five.
00:07:52:03 - 00:07:55:12
Travis
Actually almost five hours a day. So where do they even find five hours?
00:07:55:16 - 00:07:59:15
John
Is that right? So where does that typically. So it comes out of I mean just.
00:07:59:17 - 00:08:00:11
Travis
Everything.
00:08:00:12 - 00:08:05:05
John
Set the statistics aside. If you took five hours out of your life every day right. What would you have to give.
00:08:05:09 - 00:08:06:04
Travis
Relationships.
00:08:06:08 - 00:08:18:02
John
And ships. Study time and sleep. And so, you know, you can see in the data as well, kids don't sleep as much or as well when they're on social media. And that has all kinds of physical.
00:08:18:04 - 00:08:18:12
Travis
Yeah.
00:08:18:16 - 00:08:23:18
John
Problems, not least of which would be, you know, anxiety and, and some of the other things we'll talk about.
00:08:23:20 - 00:08:47:07
Travis
Yeah. So I mean, are you all familiar with the what's called the happiness curve or what used to be called the happiness curve, I guess, where it's, it's a U-shaped, basically. And I don't think it I don't think it holds anymore. But prior to like, 2014, 2015, we had this thing in, you know, that psychologists called the Happiness Curve where, like, in your youngest years, you're super happy.
00:08:47:09 - 00:09:02:13
Travis
And then as people kind of get older and it kind of, hits the peak and around, like when you turn about 50, that's like where, like, not your happiest phase, right? You get less happy. And it makes sense, right? You're getting stressed. You've got bills to pay, you've got kids to raise. You've got to figure out what you're doing with your life.
00:09:02:15 - 00:09:09:08
Travis
But then after that, you kind of start to get really happy again. So it's just like this U-shaped curve. So it's called the happiness curve and it looks like a smile. It's kind of cool.
00:09:09:14 - 00:09:12:18
John
This is great news because we just are in our early phase.
00:09:12:20 - 00:09:13:07
Travis
You're turning the.
00:09:13:07 - 00:09:14:21
Elizabeth
Corner pretty happy. You turn the.
00:09:14:21 - 00:09:15:02
Travis
Corner.
00:09:15:07 - 00:09:16:07
Elizabeth
It's only going to get better.
00:09:16:09 - 00:09:33:19
Travis
I've got a little ways to go, but, But no, it's all good. But they realized, like, it doesn't apply anymore because kids on the front end, as you guys probably know by now, aren't as happy as they used to be. And this is the really scary stuff that because you don't get your teenage years back, you don't get your 20s back.
00:09:33:21 - 00:09:49:22
Travis
And now we have teenagers kind of wasting that. Prime happiness should be the, you know, the most joyous time of their lives. Because they're stuck on social media. I mean, we all know if you look at social media, even as an adult, for 20, 30 minutes and you look back up, you're like, that was a waste of time.
00:09:49:22 - 00:09:51:13
Travis
And I don't feel any better about myself.
00:09:51:15 - 00:09:52:12
Elizabeth
Absolutely.
00:09:52:14 - 00:10:01:05
Travis
Then when I started. And so it doesn't take a lot of, you know, fancy experiments to know that it's not a good thing to be on social media for, for a very long period of time.
00:10:01:07 - 00:10:01:21
John
Right?
00:10:01:23 - 00:10:03:19
Elizabeth
Kind of sucks the life out of you.
00:10:03:21 - 00:10:04:14
Travis
Oh, absolutely.
00:10:04:14 - 00:10:15:21
John
And you make a good point, and I'd love to circle back to it at some point, but just we've got to lead by example. No, no, we can't ask our kids to not be using social media if we're doing it at the dinner table.
00:10:15:23 - 00:10:38:22
Travis
Oh yeah. Absolutely. So mental health issues are increasing with young people, and they have been ever since 2014, 2015. That's when we see smartphones taken off. Front facing cameras taken off, Instagram taking off. And so you've got this, combination, this confluence of all those kinds of things. And then you see the decline in the mental health, particularly with young women.
00:10:38:22 - 00:10:46:20
Elizabeth
Yes, absolutely. More so with the girls. Now the boys have their own issues with the video games. And, let's talk about that some too.
00:10:46:22 - 00:10:55:18
Travis
Well, yeah. I mean, but even at the even the social media too, I mean, it's affecting boys too, but yes, girls, I mean, we're seeing increased rates of self-harm.
00:10:55:19 - 00:10:56:16
Elizabeth
Oh, absolutely.
00:10:56:16 - 00:10:57:11
Travis
With young women, I.
00:10:57:11 - 00:11:28:02
Elizabeth
Mean, yes, suicide has jumped like 30% in the let's see from the years. I just have a statistic on that actually, the number of 13 to 18 year olds who committed suicide jumped 31% between 2010 and 2015. Okay. And I mean, that's before probably every single kid had a smartphone. So and then the number of teens who felt useless and joyless in that same five year period, kind of what you're talking about, feeling useless and joyless jumped 33%.
00:11:28:03 - 00:11:37:11
Elizabeth
So, you know, like you said, our kids, they're not as happy. Well, it's so just it's nonstop comparison.
00:11:37:15 - 00:11:38:20
Travis
Nonstop comparison.
00:11:38:22 - 00:11:40:01
Elizabeth
I think it's the biggest.
00:11:40:01 - 00:11:41:21
Travis
I didn't get invited to that party.
00:11:41:21 - 00:11:51:23
Elizabeth
And you can see it live like it used to be. You know, maybe you heard about the party on Monday, and that was a bummer. But to sit there and watch it happening in person is just devastating.
00:11:51:23 - 00:11:55:22
Travis
Yeah, I'm at home with my parents. All my friends are at this other thing right now.
00:11:55:22 - 00:12:00:02
Elizabeth
Yes, it'll ruin your night. Trust me. Right. But we've been there, and.
00:12:00:02 - 00:12:14:11
John
I think everybody understands that likely that are listeners. But we're talking about snap map in particular, right. Like that's the. So on Snapchat there's a map where you can see where all your friends are at any time. So they look at that and they know in real time if they're being left out or not.
00:12:14:11 - 00:12:15:15
Travis
Oh goodness gracious.
00:12:15:15 - 00:12:26:03
Elizabeth
Well, and girls or I say girls, but girls or boys could be posting photos live on Instagram, also from wherever they are, the event they're at. So.
00:12:26:03 - 00:12:51:23
John
Yeah. So the Surgeon General again on this thread is talking about social media perpetuates body dissatisfaction, disordered eating, social comparison and low self-esteem, especially among girls. And so when you look, you know, I think the saddest statistic out there, Jarvis, is one on emergency department visits for non-fatal self-harm. Yeah. What does that mean. So that means, you know, basically that's cutting.
00:12:52:01 - 00:13:12:07
John
Yeah. Which I don't fully understand. I'm certainly no expert in. But it's basically a way to deal with pain. Right. And to get to care for yourself. I'm not going to pretend to be a psychologist here. But you look at the incidence of it and it ramps at 2010, you know, up five acts 2010 to 2020, especially in my girls and boys health flat, but it's girls.
00:13:12:07 - 00:13:19:01
John
So there is something that uniquely affects girls with social media. And I do think the root of it is comparison. And having too little.
00:13:19:03 - 00:13:39:09
Travis
Yeah, the chart is pretty stunning. I saw that chart, as well. And the materials you sent over and it just. Yeah, it takes off and, we'll put a link to the data and some of these resources in the show notes because there's like I said, there's a lot of data out there and a lot of resources, you know, some people try to make counterarguments right.
00:13:39:11 - 00:13:53:12
Travis
Well, there's some pros to kids having phones. And I was like looking at the other side of the coin. And it's like, okay, let's go through those. Right, right. So and I'm sure you guys hear this when you and we'll talk about what you all do and y'all's mission and what you all have been up to in the community.
00:13:53:14 - 00:14:02:01
Travis
But what are the arguments that you guys hear in favor of? No, we need to give high school kids or middle school kids phones. And how about in the social media?
00:14:02:06 - 00:14:16:17
John
Yeah, the biggest argument is everyone else has one, right? The kids are saying that to their parents, but the parents will say that to each other as well. Right. So it is a you know, it's like, there's a guy named Jonathan Hite who I mentioned later has written a book and done a lot of studies on this.
00:14:16:17 - 00:14:31:18
John
But when he talks about this, it's a collective action problem. Yeah, everyone gets a phone because everyone gets a phone and everyone gets social media because everyone gets social media. And part of what we're trying to do is figure out a way to stop that. And we think we have an answer on that level to tell you about.
00:14:31:20 - 00:14:51:00
John
But I think it's also so it's one everybody get everybody has should have one because everyone else has one. The other reason is they say, well, okay, after sports and middle school, how will they let me know when they're ready to come home? Right. For me, the simple answer to that is, you know, everyone up until the early 2000 figured out a way to get home after sports, right?
00:14:51:02 - 00:14:58:18
John
Like we all did. And there's also phones you can, you know, you can't throw a rock and not hit a phone. So there's phones everywhere. The kids.
00:14:58:18 - 00:14:59:17
Elizabeth
Can do can never be that.
00:14:59:17 - 00:15:13:11
John
Far from it. Those are the two that come to mind for me that are arguments against also safety. You know, some of that is I would say it's the parents fear that's driving. That is the idea that, well, if my kid is out there and can't get a hold of me, if something bad happens to them and how I feel.
00:15:13:13 - 00:15:30:21
Travis
Yeah, I've heard the school shooting argument. Yeah. Like if there's a school shooting, I want to know that my kid's okay. And I've heard experts weigh in on that and say, no, no, no, we do not want parents calling kids phones and having their phones chirping when they're in a situation like that. It's the last thing that we want.
00:15:30:23 - 00:15:52:13
Travis
We want them following 1 to 2 directions, and we don't want them distracted, and we don't want them getting, you know, don't want a shooter getting notified of where these targets might be. Right. So you can throw out that argument pretty quickly. And the school obviously has notification systems built into the into the source by now. I mean, when they do a snow day, I get like a text, an email, a phone call, and right, Anika shows up at my door basically.
00:15:52:15 - 00:15:52:19
Travis
I.
00:15:52:19 - 00:16:10:15
John
Understand that argument, and I'm probably even a little sympathetic towards it because we had that happen with our oldest. There was a lockdown one time at school. And I did get a text from him, so I, you know, and he said, I mean, it was basically like, hey, we're here, we've got books. We're ready to jump out the window.
00:16:10:15 - 00:16:21:17
John
We're ready to attack whoever comes in the door. I mean, it was a little intense and. But what? I've been okay without knowing that. Yeah, of course, because not five minutes later, the school sent out a all clear. It was a misunderstanding, right?
00:16:21:21 - 00:16:22:09
Travis
Yes.
00:16:22:09 - 00:16:33:13
John
So I, you know, I, I understand this desire as a parent to know your kids. Okay. But that also is just the perception of control. It's not actually control. Right. Like, I mean.
00:16:33:15 - 00:16:36:10
Travis
You're it was me. You hearing from your maker better.
00:16:36:10 - 00:16:40:11
John
But you're saying it makes you feel better for a few minutes, but it doesn't affect the outcome of that situation.
00:16:40:12 - 00:16:40:17
Travis
Right.
00:16:40:22 - 00:17:04:00
Elizabeth
Well, I and you run the risk of adding a lot more chaos to the situation. If if all the kids are texting their parents and they're panicking and they're telling them different things, not to mention if they're on their phone, they're not fully engaged with what's going on, and they may need to be doing something to to be safe or something like they really need to be focused on the situation and not communication with the outside world.
00:17:04:02 - 00:17:29:04
Travis
Yeah. Completely agree. The other thing I hear from like the economist, the, the, the psychologists, you know, super smart people is like this whole like correlation causation issue. And we see this all the time. Like in the law, people make these kinds of arguments all the time. But they say, okay. Yes, there are it looks like the data showing increases in depression, anxiety, self-harm.
00:17:29:06 - 00:17:50:07
Travis
But that doesn't mean that that's caused by variable A, but in this case social media and cell phones, maybe it's caused by a bunch of other stuff. So like these two things are correlated doesn't mean one's causing the other. And unless you can properly diagnose a problem, you can't you can't fix it. But that argument to me, it kind of reminds me of like the food industry.
00:17:50:07 - 00:18:22:07
Travis
Like, you hear that argument sometimes too, like, well, you can't prove. And a double blind, placebo controlled test that processed food or seed oils is causing you to get sick or fat or whatever. And until you can do that, let's just not do anything. Let's like, allow it. Let's just allow everything. And to me, it's just a ridiculous argument, because what else explains the fact that this stuff started ramping up the exact same time that we're seeing famines in social media ramp up, and that it's particularly impacting young people.
00:18:22:09 - 00:18:38:21
Travis
Right. So I've heard the argument, well, maybe it was, people are just upset because of, media is kind of angry all the time, or climate change or, you know, all sorts of different arguments. And I'm like, do we think teenagers are really that upset about climate change right now across the board?
00:18:38:23 - 00:18:39:10
Elizabeth
They're not.
00:18:39:10 - 00:18:49:16
Travis
And so I think the common sense answer is that the phones and the social media are the biggest driver of these big problems. So Elizabeth and John, what do we do about it?
00:18:49:18 - 00:18:54:21
John
Well, and I just say real quick, I'm a data guy. I'm a totally financial guy for a living. So I you just.
00:18:54:21 - 00:18:57:22
Travis
Look like a data guy. I mean, you're just well-dressed.
00:18:57:22 - 00:19:15:21
John
I got graph paper on my jacket. No, but I mean, what I do for a living, like, I, I understand the argument of correlation versus causation. Yeah. You know, my favorite example is that it's true that the more bars there are in a town, the more churches there are. So you want to say, right, I will see all these people go out drinking and then they feel guilty and then they go to church.
00:19:15:21 - 00:19:33:18
John
But the fact is they're both actually correlated. How much money is in the town? Not to each other. Right. That's my favorite example that I remember from stat class. But in this case, you're never going to have a control group because there are no kids to speak of that don't have phones. So you're never going to get the double blind study with a control group, right?
00:19:33:23 - 00:19:51:16
John
You have to act based on what you see. And I think you ask any parent of teenagers and they can tell you you can talk about correlation all you want. They see what's going on in the lives of their kids. Yeah, it's friends and that's certainly where we are. So while I, you know, have an academic respect for the argument as a parent, I think it's baloney.
00:19:51:18 - 00:20:16:09
Elizabeth
I mean, I can tell you why we see it not just in our own kids, but you can see the anxiety and the tension. I was at a meeting, about a month or so ago where there were parents and and children and, I was watching this 13 year old girl on her phone, and she just she was on it just, I mean, I could see, like, she was getting worked up and and she kind of put it down, and then she kind of grab it back.
00:20:16:09 - 00:20:32:07
Elizabeth
I mean, you could see the tension and like, the anxiety brewing that, you know, she felt like she was missing out. But then, you know, what she saw was kind of didn't really fulfill her. So she picked it up again. And it was just. Yeah, I thought that, like a cell. Oh, I just could hardly put it down.
00:20:32:07 - 00:20:41:14
Elizabeth
I don't need to see any statistics like we see it. We know a lot a lot of teenagers and we can see it firsthand.
00:20:41:16 - 00:21:00:16
Travis
Or, you know, the situation where you see a group of young people and they are physically present with each other, but they're staring at their phones. It's like, guys, y'all are missing the gold here. Like, this is your chance to, like, go cut it up, have fun, go mess around, just talk. Whatever. And you guys are talking to other people who aren't present with you right now.
00:21:00:18 - 00:21:03:15
Elizabeth
That's right. Yeah. It's so sad. It's so dysfunctional, so real.
00:21:03:15 - 00:21:23:03
John
And it's because trust back. I think it's because you look at the Stanford like, this all came out of a Stanford psychiatry department way back. Like the way that these these apps, the phones themselves are designed to biohacking. Right? They are highly tuned and designed to keep attention. Right. And we all have talked about dopamine hits and all that.
00:21:23:03 - 00:21:46:09
John
But it's true. Like they are those phones exploit our natural wiring to keep us overly engaged with them. Right. And that body of work, again, I'm no psychologist, but I've read enough about it to know it's true. Like, that all came out of Stanford, and it works, right? So, I mean, the colors, the notifications, the haptics, all of that is, is made to keep you engaged in search of revenue.
00:21:46:09 - 00:21:49:09
John
Right? Because they they are make it's a revenue model for these companies.
00:21:49:12 - 00:21:51:18
Travis
Yeah. So when you just said.
00:21:51:18 - 00:21:55:20
John
I think the mic got a little it's I good.
00:21:55:22 - 00:21:59:06
Travis
A little bit closer I gotta shove it in there.
00:21:59:08 - 00:22:00:13
John
You want me to say that. No.
00:22:00:13 - 00:22:02:17
Travis
You're good I think it's clean, Arthur. Clean.
00:22:02:19 - 00:22:03:02
John
Okay.
00:22:03:02 - 00:22:06:14
Travis
And, when you say haptics, that's like the vibrations, right?
00:22:06:16 - 00:22:17:15
John
And so there are studies on that, right? That, you know, kids, I'm sure we'll talk more about phones in schools, but if you have a phone in your pocket, right, even if you're not looking at it, just that vibration on your hip in.
00:22:17:16 - 00:22:18:00
Travis
Your rear.
00:22:18:00 - 00:22:25:04
John
End like that is enough to distract you enough that your performance academically decreases, right? So just having the phone near you in class or.
00:22:25:04 - 00:22:25:23
Elizabeth
In your backpack.
00:22:26:03 - 00:22:29:22
John
Has been shown in studies to to decrease academic performance.
00:22:30:00 - 00:22:37:05
Travis
Have you ever had the sensation that your family's vibrating in your pocket and then you looked and there was nothing. It's just like it and it was there. What is.
00:22:37:06 - 00:23:02:11
John
So weird? That's creepy. And maybe that speaks to the biohacking right? But you were talking about people sitting around looking at their phones. Yeah, not engaging with real life. Pardon me. You were. You were talking about people sitting around looking at their phones, not engaging in real life. And so that makes me think of our our second kid, which really was the impetus for this movement.
00:23:02:13 - 00:23:03:07
Travis
Yeah.
00:23:03:09 - 00:23:05:06
John
So tell you a little about that if you'd like.
00:23:05:10 - 00:23:06:00
Travis
Let's go.
00:23:06:02 - 00:23:24:23
John
So our second kid, you know, our first kid, we had basically success. We had other parents, we banded together and it worked. Yeah. Our second kid, who's one of our two daughters, when she was in early middle school, so I call it fifth grade, sixth, fifth and sixth, like, the cat was out of the bag before any parents and discussed it.
00:23:25:01 - 00:23:32:04
John
Girls were getting phones, girls were getting social media, girls were getting, you know, I think at the time, tick tock.
00:23:32:06 - 00:23:33:20
Elizabeth
Tick tock and Instagram shortly thereafter.
00:23:33:20 - 00:23:43:07
John
If not. And so, you know, and we had told her like we had success with your brother. So you're not getting a phone early and you're certainly not getting social media.
00:23:43:09 - 00:23:44:12
Travis
But everyone else but.
00:23:44:12 - 00:24:01:12
John
Everyone else has. Yeah. So we could see her and she would come home and say, hey, like on the sidelines at sports practice. They're all doing TikTok dances on their phones. And I'm just sitting there watching, oh gosh. Or if we go out to dinner, they're all on the phones and I'm just sitting there kind of carved out.
00:24:01:14 - 00:24:08:02
John
So and then also so eventually we let her get a phone, but we said no social media. And that was seventh grade for her.
00:24:08:04 - 00:24:12:00
Elizabeth
Yeah. Mid mid seventh grade. Well and earlier than we wanted to give her a phone.
00:24:12:00 - 00:24:25:22
John
And we told her we're going to give you a phone but we're not going to give you social media. And she's, she said oh no that's, that's great. And I said look in a month you're going to be here begging me for social media. No, I promise, I want well, I mean, we gave her the phone and then immediately she's still left out because I have got the device.
00:24:25:22 - 00:24:27:03
John
But now I'm not connected.
00:24:27:05 - 00:24:28:12
Travis
Right.
00:24:28:14 - 00:24:35:10
John
And so we the punch line of our second kid experience was we did what we believed was right for the kid.
00:24:35:12 - 00:24:35:22
Travis
Yeah, but.
00:24:35:22 - 00:24:46:05
John
Effectively, we just cut her out of social communication and that network. Right. So we did make it hard for her based on our decisions of what we thought was right.
00:24:46:07 - 00:24:46:16
Travis
So our.
00:24:46:16 - 00:24:48:05
John
Big conclusion parenting was.
00:24:48:05 - 00:24:48:21
Travis
Parenting is hard.
00:24:49:02 - 00:24:50:06
Elizabeth
It's pressure is.
00:24:50:08 - 00:25:03:01
John
So we looked at the first two kids and we said, all right, what worked with our son was that had a group of parents. Yeah, right. And they were involved. We were all on the same page and we all did the same thing. Like we took away that collective action problem. We took away that argument. Everyone else has it.
00:25:03:03 - 00:25:03:20
Travis
Yeah.
00:25:03:22 - 00:25:13:13
John
Second, at our our daughter, we did what was right by us, but it didn't work because it just cut her out of her friend group.
00:25:13:15 - 00:25:30:19
Travis
So if a parent's listening to this and they say, well, I'm fine, I got this all figured out because I'm not gonna let my kid have a phone until 16 or whatever. It's like, well, you need to think through this because the buttons try that with number two. And like you just said, we had we had problems. And so what what is the movement now?
00:25:30:21 - 00:25:38:16
Travis
What are y'all doing? And I assume the goal is getting parents to band together early, right? Right. So tell me about tell me about the project.
00:25:38:16 - 00:25:46:11
Elizabeth
So yeah, so about three years ago with our youngest, at this point, we're kind of the older parents who don't really care what anybody thinks. Yeah. And we've all.
00:25:46:11 - 00:25:48:22
Travis
Been my favorite kind of.
00:25:49:00 - 00:26:10:10
Elizabeth
And we also be on the shadow of a doubt. We're completely, 100% convinced that holding off on social media, as long as you possibly can is the way to go. Yes, delay, delay, delay. So we got really gutsy and we decided to send reach out to all the parents in our daughter's grade, and that was about 85 or 90 families.
00:26:10:10 - 00:26:26:21
Elizabeth
And we are not we do not do things like that. We are not we do not take the directory and try to sell things to people like. Right. This was a really big move for us, but we felt so strongly about it that we decided we emailed all the parents in her grade and said, hey, we are going to have a discussion.
00:26:26:21 - 00:26:49:04
Elizabeth
John and I have been down this road. This is not our first rodeo. We have learned a whole lot about phones and social media. We would like to invite you to a discussion. Our experience is that the negatives outweigh the positives as far as social media goes. And we're going to discuss and and our goal would be to have a group that moves forward through middle school.
00:26:49:04 - 00:26:59:11
Elizabeth
Without social media, there were already quite a few kids who had smartphones, so we sort of missed the boat on the phone thing, but we decided to tackle the social media aspect of it.
00:26:59:16 - 00:27:00:07
Travis
Okay.
00:27:00:09 - 00:27:20:06
Elizabeth
And so we sent out this email, just kind of thought, what have we just done? You know, this is kind of scary. And then the responses started coming in and it was unbelievable. Like 60% of the parents in the grade said, we are on board with you. Yeah, let's do this. Want to do this with you? We're committed.
00:27:20:08 - 00:27:40:17
Elizabeth
And it just it took off and we would meet every like six months to kind of keep it. You kind of have to keep it like it has to be a real group. You know, you can't just say it once and yeah, you have to keep talking about it. So we brought in, psychiatrist to one of our talks, Brian Dixon.
00:27:40:17 - 00:27:48:16
Elizabeth
He was fantastic. We brought in, a teenage panel, which was incredibly easy and enlightening.
00:27:48:18 - 00:27:55:19
Travis
Tell me about that. Like they. Yeah. Kids coming up talking about how they wish they didn't have social media or they're glad they did, didn't have it.
00:27:55:19 - 00:28:16:12
Elizabeth
It was mostly 17 year olds. And that was kind of on purpose. We really kind of wanted older teens because they tend to be a little more reflective about how it's all affected them. They're not able to have to be reflective about how it's affecting them when they're 13 or 14. Yeah, they're just too young, but when they're 17, they can say, you know, I am.
00:28:16:12 - 00:28:36:18
Elizabeth
So for first of all, a lot of them said thank you to their parents for holding, making them hold off until they were maybe in eighth or ninth grade for whatever they did, the phone or the social media. And they say, you know, I can see why my parents did this now. Like, it really helped me. I didn't like it at the time, but looking back, it really helped me.
00:28:36:20 - 00:28:54:07
Elizabeth
And a lot of them had made kind of some of their own kind of rules about how they would and wouldn't use their phones and social media. They realized that it just sucks them down this like hole, that they don't want to go down, and they don't like that, you know, they don't like that. It pulls them away from so much else.
00:28:54:09 - 00:29:22:07
John
I would also add that the having a panel of 17, 18 year old speaking to parents of fifth and sixth graders is extremely eye opening. Yeah, right. Because if especially if it's your first kid who's your fifth or sixth grader and you haven't lived this yet, when you hear 17, eight year old, 18 year olds talking about people sharing nudes, people sexting, people sharing pictures, they shouldn't have each other, people, you know, coordinating drugs, people like all the things that happen with tech.
00:29:22:09 - 00:29:24:00
John
Sexual predators lose their mind.
00:29:24:00 - 00:29:24:22
Elizabeth
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
00:29:25:02 - 00:29:45:16
John
So it does. I think that kind of, that really catalyzes the thoughts of the young parents, like, okay, this is real, and we've got to get on this because these are good, good, solid kids we have on these panels. And their experience is just it's just making it very real that there's really no escape from where this is headed, barring a decision to withhold it.
00:29:45:18 - 00:29:52:06
Travis
So to to have success is that I mean, you don't need the whole grade, right? You just need a chunk, right? You need a group.
00:29:52:08 - 00:30:11:23
Elizabeth
You need a big chunk that you need to be more the merrier, right? Yeah. And if you can get boy parents and girl parents to do it together, that's even better. Because what we had with our first child was just a group of boy parents with families and something. The girls were getting all the things before the boys were, and that was kind of making it a little harder for the boys.
00:30:11:23 - 00:30:21:10
Elizabeth
So they they were kind of wanting it because they thought, you know, the girls all have this, right? We want it too. So that's kind of one of the different approaches we took the third time.
00:30:21:12 - 00:30:38:19
John
There's a real practical thing there on the number though, because there is this tipping point of that. And and that is especially when they start getting Snapchat. Right. So snap. You know, we could talk for 30 minutes about snap. But in a nutshell it's a it's a messaging system. Right. It they can text on it. They send pictures on it.
00:30:38:19 - 00:30:56:07
John
And then they do this thing where they have snap streaks, which is just sending a goofy picture of yourself back and forth, but at the app and sent you to keep doing it. I made it to somebody who doesn't use it. It sounds ridiculous, but there are people. There were people in our son's grade that had hundreds of thousands of like streaks on this meeting.
00:30:56:07 - 00:31:19:15
John
They had sent pictures to dozens of people every day for years. Well, it's a becomes this game. But okay, the things we don't like most about snap are that it's made for images to disappear. So it is designed for sexting or right being secretive. Also the texts can disappear. But here's the kicker. The text interface apparently is really, I should say, messaging interface is really good.
00:31:19:17 - 00:31:35:08
John
Like it's well designed for kids. And that is to say, the kids love it. And so what happens is when a when a critical mass of kids gets on snap, the messaging and the grade shifts from iMessage, usually at least at the schools we're talking about, most of them had iPhones. They're using.
00:31:35:08 - 00:31:35:18
Travis
Snapchat.
00:31:35:20 - 00:31:53:19
John
They use iMessage. It'll shift to that. So there really is this idea. I think it's somewhere around 30 or 40%. Once that once they get to that number of them on Snapchat, then they disappear. So now you're running and they're not going to send a text to their friends on snap and then attached to their friends on iMessage.
00:31:53:21 - 00:32:08:00
John
It just shifts. So there is this idea, I think of if you can delay that, then you kind of keep it on iMessage. And as a parent, you can monitor what's happening on iMessage. You can't see what's happening on snap because it can disappear.
00:32:08:02 - 00:32:09:02
Travis
Gotcha.
00:32:09:04 - 00:32:28:04
Elizabeth
Snap is a whole lot of information for a young teenager. It is. I mean, you can at any point and like I said, these kids will end up having like 500 friends on these platforms just in a matter of days. It does not take long, but they will be able to see where every single one of those friends is at all times.
00:32:28:04 - 00:32:28:19
Elizabeth
It is just.
00:32:28:22 - 00:32:32:09
John
Unless the friends did. There is a feature where you can can turn it over and yeah.
00:32:32:09 - 00:32:32:21
Elizabeth
You can't go.
00:32:32:21 - 00:32:33:21
John
And go. So most of them don't do.
00:32:33:21 - 00:32:48:11
Elizabeth
But it's just it's just a lot of information to process. Like you really your their world should not be that big and that complicated. It's just it's too much noise. It's just too much input for them. I think it's overwhelming.
00:32:48:11 - 00:33:05:00
Travis
Yeah. I mean, I'm like parents. It it's important to understand, like, the amount of information that these kids are having access to, like knowing where every kid in your grade is. Like you said, the snap maps or whatever, you know, it'd be like me, like knowing that, like, those poor guys wouldn't play golf and they didn't invite me.
00:33:05:04 - 00:33:16:22
Travis
And those guys went to lunch and I didn't get a call on that. Right. And those guys are doing a Bible study and no one invited him. Like, imagine, like knowing all the time, every time people got together and you weren't invited. Right? And that's what's happening to our young kids with this stuff.
00:33:17:00 - 00:33:18:12
John
Yeah. And I think it's especially.
00:33:18:12 - 00:33:18:20
Elizabeth
Day.
00:33:18:20 - 00:33:19:06
John
Girls.
00:33:19:06 - 00:33:30:22
Travis
It's especially hard on the girls. So what so what age would you start grouping these, you know, doing these initiatives like encouraging people to start reaching out to fellow parents.
00:33:31:00 - 00:33:38:18
Elizabeth
I think maybe starting in about second grade, I think you start getting the parents together to start talking, right? Yeah. Does that really.
00:33:38:20 - 00:33:40:05
Travis
That way.
00:33:40:07 - 00:33:40:20
Elizabeth
That hit home.
00:33:40:21 - 00:33:41:13
John
Anyone has that.
00:33:41:13 - 00:33:54:16
Travis
Question? Yeah. Our oldest is a second grader and you're starting to hear some talks about it. So let me ask you this. When when y'all did your last push, when you just blasted out the entire grade, was that before or after the Anxious Generation book.
00:33:54:18 - 00:33:55:23
Elizabeth
Came out for? Yeah.
00:33:56:02 - 00:34:04:13
Travis
For so I imagine the pitch is a little bit easier now, or is it not with now that we have more data in the book is kind of taken off? Yes.
00:34:04:13 - 00:34:35:00
Elizabeth
I think there are a couple things that have really helped our cause. I mean, we've been into this now for several years, but, Vivek Murphy's, the Surgeon general's, you know, report, about the danger of social media and the effect on youth mental health was huge. And he did he had a great study that they supported and with some really, convincing statistics that are being used by many different entities.
00:34:35:02 - 00:34:44:19
Elizabeth
So I think that was a really big thing for this discussion. And then also the, the timing of the interest generation thing. The book came out, I think, March 2024.
00:34:44:21 - 00:34:50:18
John
And we haven't really mentioned that yet, but that that is a great piece of work for anybody interested in this who wants to.
00:34:51:00 - 00:34:54:09
Travis
Know what are the at the high level, what did that book.
00:34:54:11 - 00:35:13:15
John
You know, he he basically he makes a few arguments. One is that he just makes a compelling argument with data that this is harming kids. Yeah. And there are people who take the other side. But I think generally he makes a solid argument. He also talks a lot about, you know, what schools should do. We have thoughts on that.
00:35:13:19 - 00:35:32:04
John
I can definitely get to that. But I actually think the tide is turning there a little bit. Schools and even some whole countries are moving to not have smartphones in the classroom or even during school day, because they've seen there is an academic decrease with it. I think schools are also learning that technology is not the best way to learn every lesson.
00:35:32:08 - 00:35:32:15
John
Right?
00:35:32:15 - 00:35:33:12
Travis
Like iPads.
00:35:33:12 - 00:35:39:20
John
And iPads. And you know, our oldest was doing math, was doing, middle school math or algebra on an iPad.
00:35:39:22 - 00:35:40:14
Travis
Yeah. How do you do that?
00:35:40:18 - 00:36:04:02
John
And it's ridiculous. And so they have we have seen the school shift away back to pencil and paper, because I think there's something tactile about writing. And yeah, as far as submitting things in your mind, and I don't think iPads are great for that. So we're seeing schools move. Right. But then his most important point I think is, is basically like if you're going to take something away, right, which would be tech, then you have to replace it with something like nature abhors a vacuum.
00:36:04:02 - 00:36:22:09
John
So if you're going to take this off, what are you going to replace it with? And he would argue real life, real world, real responsibility. You know, interactions talking with family. You know, going and exploring the neighborhood. Yeah. The nutshell of that book is that we've under protected kids in the digital world, and we've over protected them in the.
00:36:22:09 - 00:36:23:12
Travis
Real world, in the physical world.
00:36:23:15 - 00:36:27:22
John
And we love that idea. So we have lots of ideas about how to engage in real life with kids.
00:36:27:22 - 00:36:47:14
Travis
I mean, you know, when I think about my own childhood, like my fondest memories, it was playing outside in the dirt. Sometimes it was a sports thing, but most time it was just like, go play, you know, in the in the creek, go play in the yard, go camping, you know, that kind of stuff. And I can't imagine not having that because that's been a foundation, you know, for me forever.
00:36:47:14 - 00:36:57:09
Travis
Like that's a love of the outdoors and love all this kind of stuff that I now pass to my kids. I can't imagine if you'd like someone took that away from me. It's like you have TikTok now instead.
00:36:57:11 - 00:36:58:05
John
Right?
00:36:58:07 - 00:37:22:02
Elizabeth
Right. Yeah. The skills gained in just free play, just, autonomy and self-advocacy and just getting along with people and also being creative, you know, kids are really good at finding things to do when they're bored. Sometimes we don't give them enough credit and we hand them an iPad, but they are real. If you give them, like you said, and you give them a bunch of dirt and some sticks, I mean, they're going to have a good time.
00:37:22:04 - 00:37:29:08
John
Yeah, I do think there's a big lie there, especially if speaking the younger parents that giving a young kid an iPad is somehow educational.
00:37:29:12 - 00:37:30:05
Travis
Oh yeah, it is.
00:37:30:05 - 00:37:42:18
John
A form of passive learning, but it is nothing like active learning. I mean, the mind is engaged differently when a kid is, even if they're doing some spelling program or math. Simple math on an iPad that is not as good as playing with blocks or.
00:37:42:20 - 00:37:47:20
Travis
But if you're on a long flight with a little kid and iPads. Okay, Rachel, I mean, we absolutely.
00:37:47:20 - 00:37:53:00
John
So our real growing up was if the car trip was over two hours, right.
00:37:53:02 - 00:37:53:18
Elizabeth
It was three and.
00:37:53:18 - 00:37:55:13
John
A half, okay. Three and a half. They could watch a movie.
00:37:55:13 - 00:37:56:08
Travis
Oh yeah.
00:37:56:08 - 00:38:00:14
John
So we did. But short of that we would make them either read or, you know.
00:38:00:17 - 00:38:01:06
Travis
Sing songs with.
00:38:01:06 - 00:38:02:05
John
Us. For Apple Bingo.
00:38:02:08 - 00:38:03:02
Elizabeth
We sometimes did.
00:38:03:07 - 00:38:05:07
John
Clark Griswold song singing.
00:38:05:09 - 00:38:24:19
Elizabeth
Mad Libs. Sometimes. And sometimes they just stared out the window. Yeah. And that's okay too. It's okay. So the kids need they need downtime. They need their brains. Just need to observe and process their world around them. And I think a lot of kids are not getting that time. You know, you kids learn so much through observation.
00:38:24:21 - 00:38:33:00
Elizabeth
And it's in the times of, you know, when their minds are quiet, when they're really processing and exploring, and they need more of that.
00:38:33:02 - 00:38:47:01
John
You know, and we have been blessed with kids are good students. But I do think part of that is because they all read voraciously when they were young and they read voracious left because we didn't give them much tech. Right? So they did it old school, right? They read stories.
00:38:47:03 - 00:38:50:04
Travis
Yeah. If you want to entertain yourself, you can go read about anything you want to. And.
00:38:50:10 - 00:38:50:17
John
Right.
00:38:50:19 - 00:38:53:12
Elizabeth
Exactly. I mean, I don't wake me up.
00:38:53:13 - 00:39:15:00
Travis
I can't say this enough. Like when we have four little kids, y'all's kids are a little bit older. When we meet families like yours where the kids are just rockstars. It's just like, okay, I want to sit down. I want to talk to you. I want to know everything that you did. And it's so cool that you guys are sharing this experience, and especially with the social media and the phone thing, because that's obviously the biggest problem now.
00:39:15:00 - 00:39:17:03
Travis
Y'all went the other way with it. Your kids are amazing.
00:39:17:06 - 00:39:23:08
John
Well thank you. That's kind. But you know, this would be a good place to say we're not anti-technology, right?
00:39:23:11 - 00:39:23:18
Travis
Right.
00:39:23:18 - 00:39:26:16
John
We are pro real and deep life.
00:39:26:21 - 00:39:28:18
Travis
It's good for listening to podcasts.
00:39:28:19 - 00:39:43:22
John
Absolutely. Yeah. I mean, at work I rely on tech at work, and we use AI at work. And so like, I'm, I'm, I'm a technophile. Yeah. But as far as my kids go, right, I if I'm seeing something that's harmful to them, I'm going to limit it. And I'm going to replace it with something better.
00:39:44:03 - 00:39:51:02
Travis
Yeah. And that doesn't make you a hypocrite to use tech to enjoy tech and see the benefits of tech, I'd say, but my kid just isn't ready for this yet.
00:39:51:08 - 00:39:52:06
Elizabeth
Absolute guardrails.
00:39:52:06 - 00:40:11:00
John
I look at it like a tool, right? And the more powerful the tool, the more responsibility required, right? Right. So I would never hand a kid a power saw, right? And say, have fun learning to cut wood, right? Or I'd never hand him a shotgun and say, go figure out how to hunt, right? Right. Like I would teach them step by step, and then I would have scaffolding around them that I slowly remove.
00:40:11:03 - 00:40:13:07
John
Right. And I think it's the same with technology.
00:40:13:09 - 00:40:33:04
Travis
So extending that when you do ultimately hand the kid a phone for the first time, is it your advised to then limit. So like is or is it staggered like okay, let's say we're going to wait till 16 for smartphones. Can we hand kids a a phone at 16 but then block the social media part of it?
00:40:33:06 - 00:40:56:20
Elizabeth
Have a subsidiary? Yeah. And I would encourage that. I think there's enough to learn just with a smartphone. I mean, a smartphone in itself is can be a very addictive by a device. I mean just with the texting and the camera. Oh, boy. I mean, I could spend a whole hour talking about my thoughts about cell phone cameras, but I think, especially for girls, like, talk about it distraction.
00:40:56:23 - 00:41:17:02
Elizabeth
Like, yeah, the cell phone camera may be one of the worst things that's ever happened to teenage girls, because they just they take pictures of themselves and they take pictures of each other. So all that to say, to answer your question, Travis, is that, I think it's a really good idea to not give them their social media accounts right away, to give them the phone, let them figure out how to manage that.
00:41:17:02 - 00:41:31:17
Elizabeth
Also, you know, you want them to demonstrate that they're responsible with the phone before they get the social media accounts. Yeah, I would say, you know, stagger those things. So maybe two years if you could just depending on how old they are when they get the smartphone.
00:41:31:17 - 00:41:43:22
John
And to be clear though, I mean, I like the idea of no smartphones till 16. We haven't done that. I mean, our kids usually got smartphones in middle school. But they were absolutely locked down and we not done social media.
00:41:44:00 - 00:41:49:17
Elizabeth
They didn't even have browsers on them. So they were very limited in what they could do on the phone.
00:41:49:18 - 00:41:55:20
Travis
Because if they have a browser, they could get to something, right? Even if they're on the app, they could get to instagram.com or whatever.
00:41:56:00 - 00:42:15:17
John
And it would also say like through middle school, like just iMessage can become a real distraction, especially for girls, right? So if it's kind of like even handing a bunch of girls in the grade locked down iPads, I mean, you will get massive text chains and you get hurt feelings and you get, you know, the whole drama of, well, so and so remove me from the group and then so and so put me back in.
00:42:15:17 - 00:42:29:13
John
I mean, it turns into this pecking order and I would just say generally like general comment, technology is a catalyst, right? So if middle school girls are insecure and going to be catty and going to, you know, be bickering, it's just a catalyst that.
00:42:29:13 - 00:42:30:13
Travis
Accelerates stoking that.
00:42:30:13 - 00:42:40:10
John
Flame. If middle school boys have an unhealthy interest in pornography or anything, it it accelerates that. So whatever it's going, it's just going faster. Yeah.
00:42:40:12 - 00:43:08:09
Elizabeth
Yeah. 9 to 1. And Jonathan he talks about this in his book. But 9 to 14 is called like a sensitive period. And they are highly impressionable. Yeah. And they are more concerned about what their peers think than at any other time in their life. And this is when we are handing them devices that where they compare themselves to 500 people every single day, like it makes absolutely no sense.
00:43:08:11 - 00:43:18:11
Elizabeth
Whereas if you can wait until you know you have a 16, 17, 18 year old, they are so much more equipped to handle. Yeah, yeah, social media accounts.
00:43:18:13 - 00:43:32:00
John
They're more interested in being themselves. Right? In middle school, the primary goal is I want to be like everybody else. I don't want to stand up. And by the time they're getting through high school, then they're kind of becoming okay with who they are and they're okay with being a little different.
00:43:32:05 - 00:43:33:03
Travis
Yeah.
00:43:33:05 - 00:43:52:22
John
So back to your original question. Yes I, we would absolutely limit social media when we do, when we would give a device. But and this is a call for parents here a little bit handing a kid like going to the Apple Store or wherever and buying a phone and handing it to a kid, it's looked at like a rite of passage.
00:43:52:22 - 00:44:08:21
John
Some people will do it for birthdays, like we would say, don't make a big deal out of that. Don't make it a birthday present. Don't even make it their phone. So we, you know, you're an attorney. You may appreciate that's may we drew up a contract with our kids. Simple language contract. But it had the ideas in there that were key.
00:44:08:21 - 00:44:25:15
John
Which this tech. This device belongs to your parents. We can check anything we want on it. We always have to know your passcodes. Don't look at you. I will not look at anything on this phone that I wouldn't look at if my grandmother were sitting next to me, you know, I mean, like, just. And they have to initial every line and sign off at the bottom.
00:44:25:16 - 00:44:36:12
Elizabeth
Oh, well, we refer back to it. And I think it also says some things like this does not take the place of real conversations, real friendships, like we expect you to, you know, engage with the real world.
00:44:36:17 - 00:44:42:19
John
If it becomes a problem, it will be taken away. Yeah. Just lay out the ground rules where they understand it's not there.
00:44:42:19 - 00:44:50:20
Travis
So have you ever seen one of your kids, even after they sign this contract, you know, staring at their phone, why they should be talking to a friend or something like that? Yeah, absolutely.
00:44:50:21 - 00:44:55:03
John
But it makes it easier to call them on it. Yeah. We can see right here in writing.
00:44:55:05 - 00:45:15:19
Elizabeth
I mean, yeah, you know, and here's another thing. You know, you do have to have you have to give yourself some grace as a parent like you are not going to win every single battle with technology. It's just it's too big. And so I say that to be encouraging because, I mean, there are definitely been days when we're like, oh my gosh, our kids were on devices way too much today.
00:45:15:19 - 00:45:34:09
Elizabeth
Like, let's let's talk to them. Let's do better tomorrow, like whatever the situation is. And you just have to say, okay, I'm not going to win every single battle, but I'm going to win this war and I'm going to keep I'm not going to give up just because we had a bad day or a bad week doesn't mean we're not going to keep trying.
00:45:34:09 - 00:45:48:15
John
It's a good thing you got to go some place to your kids, right? So they're going to screw up and you don't want to. I mean, this is now we're getting into parenting advice, but like the key there is the relationship. Right. So we have all these rules. But at the end of the day they know we're on their team.
00:45:48:15 - 00:46:06:18
John
And we always tell them, you may not agree with our decisions, right. But we want you to know we're doing them because we love you and we think that's what's right. Right. And so maintaining open dialog. And so when they stumble across something they shouldn't on the internet, which they will, but having them know that you're not going to come down hard on them, you come to me and let's talk about it.
00:46:06:18 - 00:46:14:01
John
Let's learn from it. Let me help you. Right. And maintaining that line of communication is way more important than trying to control everything, right?
00:46:14:01 - 00:46:36:11
Elizabeth
You cannot give a child a cell phone or even an iPad without them making mistakes. I mean, yeah, you know, I circle back with our daughters, our oldest is, you know, he's out of the nest now, but, I circle back with our daughters not too long ago, and I said, you know, if you ever see something you shouldn't say, something you shouldn't send, something you shouldn't.
00:46:36:12 - 00:47:01:19
Elizabeth
You need to come talk to us. Because, like John said, we are on your team. Yeah, we're going to help you through this. That doesn't mean there might not be some consequence if you did something really stupid, but you are in need, or you're going to need our help. Because the most tragic situations are when you have. And this happens with girls a lot of times, like somebody reaches out to them, they want a naked picture, the girl sends it and then they're they start to threaten the girl.
00:47:01:19 - 00:47:24:21
Elizabeth
I'm going to send this to everybody or I'm going to, you know. Yeah. And and the child panics and they they're embarrassed. They're ashamed to talk to their parents. Those if you look into a lot of the tragic situations, there's a story somewhere kind of like that. Yeah. And so we just over and over again just say, you know, it come to us when you've screwed up, you know, we are on your team.
00:47:24:23 - 00:47:34:21
John
There is nothing, you know, it's that there's nothing you can do that will make me love you any less. Right? Like that doesn't mean there's no consequences. But, like, come and tell us. Let us help you.
00:47:35:03 - 00:47:39:16
Elizabeth
We try not to overreact. We try to be. We try to be calm.
00:47:39:18 - 00:47:41:01
John
Some of us are better than others.
00:47:41:01 - 00:47:45:19
Elizabeth
That it depends on is on what it is. Sometimes you're more calm. Sometimes I'm more calm.
00:47:46:00 - 00:48:01:22
Travis
Oh, yeah. No, you guys are great. I mean, I'm reading a book right now. It talks about that, about maintaining that line with your kids, that relationship where they can come to you with anything. There might be consequences, like just being honest. There might be consequences. There might even be some punishment, some sort. But I'm not going to condemn you.
00:48:02:03 - 00:48:22:13
Travis
I'm not going to love you any less for it. You know, I've heard stories of young boys, too, who get in compromising positions, and then they get, basically, you know, leverage to start paying money or sending more compromising pictures. And it just spirals out of control. Right. And if we could just nip that in the bud in the, in the beginning.
00:48:22:17 - 00:48:39:16
Travis
Absolutely. Right. So, like, the biggest thing, if you could wave a magic wand and say like this, like 80, 20%, 80, 20 principle, like this one thing will chip away at a big chunk of the problem. Would you say it's no social media until 16?
00:48:39:20 - 00:49:01:08
John
That's a great question. I would actually say that it is knowing you can't do it alone. Right. The key here is you have to do this in a group. A group problem necessitates a group solution. Yeah. So I would say that because we've tried just not giving the tools and the apps to the kid and by herself that didn't work.
00:49:01:10 - 00:49:13:23
John
So that was the learn. That's the biggest here is you got to have a group. Yeah. And so you've got to be purposeful about forming that group. And then kind of stepping in the way with that group to solve a collective problem.
00:49:14:01 - 00:49:29:16
Travis
Yeah. And I think having the confidence that when you, when you guys reached out to the entire grade, it was before the stuff was a big topic before all the data was out and you still had a massive chunk of the parents response, hey, I'm in. This is the right thing to do. They just know it. And they're guys parents, right?
00:49:29:18 - 00:49:41:03
Travis
You know? So parents should have confidence if they do that email blast now, I assume there's a lot of resources that they could attach to that email. Is there a place you guys have those resources kind of readily available for people to use?
00:49:41:06 - 00:50:08:03
Elizabeth
We do. Yeah. So we created just after we built this group with our youngest and had all these meetings and everything. We created some templates that other people can use. And that's all on our website, which is social media can weight.org awesome. And you know anybody can go there. There's no it's free. You know, just even from like the first email, if you wanted to send an email out to, a group of parents like, it just gives it gives ideas for how to do that.
00:50:08:05 - 00:50:16:12
Elizabeth
Okay. Actual text and, copy. You know, anybody can copy paste, like, we, we want it to be used by people. We want it to be useful.
00:50:16:15 - 00:50:34:04
John
And. Really. Yeah. And a little more of the story. Like we got to where we are organically. And we did this with our grade and there were a few parents of younger kids that said, hey, I heard what you're doing. Will you come talk to our grade? And so we just went and sat down and talked to them at someone's house, and then somebody else said, oh, well, you need to come talk to this group.
00:50:34:04 - 00:50:51:16
John
So it's just kind of snowballed from there to where we now speak to groups at different schools and different parents. And what's encouraged me, it's two things. One is the a, the the kids ages of the parents who are coming. So we're seeing a lot of second and third grade parents. Yeah, who are fired up to stay up in front of this.
00:50:51:20 - 00:51:00:01
John
Right. And I think that's that's fantastic. And that may sound funny to some listeners that you need to care about this in second or third grade, but it happens fast.
00:51:00:03 - 00:51:04:05
Travis
Oh, I'm going to send the email this afternoon. Yeah. You guys got my attention. Yeah.
00:51:04:07 - 00:51:12:00
Elizabeth
Well and it's not just about the phones. It really is about the iPads and it's about everything. You know, you just.
00:51:12:00 - 00:51:13:11
Travis
I'm glad you said that.
00:51:13:13 - 00:51:31:23
Elizabeth
You really have to begin with. The end in mind is what we say when we talk to parents in different schools, like, you know, the the parent who hands their child a phone in the grocery store at age three to entertain themselves is going to have a really hard time convincing that child that they don't need a smartphone until they're 16.
00:51:32:00 - 00:52:06:17
Elizabeth
Like you just you want to keep them engaging with the real world as much as possible. From the very youngest of ages. You know, iPads, everybody thinks that iPads are so sweet and know you can access all kinds of stuff on an iPad and you're even if your child is watching content that is, you know, educational, they can still spend a few hours a day at it at the tender age of 5 or 6, in a dark room on an iPad, at the expense of them not being outside or not having a friend over to play.
00:52:06:19 - 00:52:34:09
John
So this might be a good place to to mention. It is imperative and incumbent on parents to understand controls on these devices. And that is, even as someone who loves tech, that's hard to do. I mean, the tech companies have not made it. They try, but it's not super easy. Even on Apple. It's a little buggy, but understanding parental controls, screen time controls, you know, there's what's the name of the website that we've recommended protecting young eyes.
00:52:34:12 - 00:52:54:03
John
Yeah. So protect young eyes has a good list of tech resources on how that can and basically how to lock down an iPhone, how to lock down an iPad. We lock down our Wi-Fi network at our house. We used a product called umbrella or open DNS where it basically is that's just blocking kind of, website level traffic.
00:52:54:05 - 00:53:12:01
John
It doesn't filter content as like, so YouTube is either on or off. That's a hard one, but it definitely like blocks a lot of bad sites. And then, there's a setting on iPhones called limit. Adult content like that has to be on. But what you have to understand on all these as a parent is how to set that up where the kids can't undo it, right?
00:53:12:02 - 00:53:34:12
John
Right. And so it requires, you know, and if you're not a technophile, then make an appointment at the Genius Bar. If you're out reading the reading, the instructions are at the Apple Store. But you have to own that. You can't just hand a kid an unlocked phone and trust that they're going to be a good kid. Like, that's just because this stuff comes looking for them as much as they come looking for it.
00:53:34:16 - 00:53:53:06
John
Yeah. Another just simple thing to do is make it where they can't install an app without your permission. And they can't ever delete an app without your permission. Right. And they know they can't hide anything on the phone. But those are just small examples. There's a lot there. Protect Young Eyes is a good resource that's probably worth putting in the show notes as well.
00:53:53:08 - 00:54:09:07
Travis
Yeah. I mean, to me it just kind of sounds like a game of whac-a-mole though. Like there's always going to be some workarounds. Yes, always going to be some new app or some bug or feature to get around stuff. Yes. Yeah. I mean for example, for example, this this, this is a true story. So let's, let's talk about schools for a second.
00:54:09:09 - 00:54:33:03
Travis
Sure. So school issued devices right. So parents can like ban together all they want. But at some schools now a lot of schools now eventually it's school issued iPads and whatever middle school. There was a presentation a school at our school, an expert came in talking about and it was kind of more of the sexual predator kind of stuff is super scary stuff.
00:54:33:05 - 00:54:46:11
Travis
And and she's like, one of these apps to look for is like this app or this game where kids are playing a game, but there's like, it's like one of those, like kind of virtual reality. I don't know how to describe it. Like you're a person in the game and you're going around the world and you're going around room to room.
00:54:46:15 - 00:54:48:20
John
Maybe Roblox or Minecraft. Roblox. Yeah.
00:54:48:22 - 00:55:09:19
Travis
Watch out for Roblox because predators are in there too. And they're talking to your kid and they're like, okay, I've never heard of Roblox, where next day I'm in the school cafeteria, you know, with my kids. And I see, like slightly bigger kids playing that very game on the school issued iPad that I've been told is controlled and locked out and all this stuff like maybe is.
00:55:09:19 - 00:55:15:17
Travis
But this seems scary, like what's going on here or our school issued iPads. A problem.
00:55:15:19 - 00:55:36:18
Elizabeth
Absolutely. Yeah, I, I still am not convinced why we ever had school issued iPads. You know, some people will say, well, my child needs to know how to use technology. Okay, well, I don't if you watch a child use their iPad, you can figure out in five minutes how to use an iPad. So they're not learning that.
00:55:36:20 - 00:55:44:03
Elizabeth
They're not any, you know, tech skills. They're learning just using the iPad so that that argument doesn't hold water.
00:55:44:03 - 00:55:49:09
John
That was in Apple's original tagline for marketing the iPad was you already know how to use it.
00:55:49:11 - 00:55:49:15
Travis
Yeah.
00:55:49:19 - 00:56:08:10
Elizabeth
So intuitively. So it's it's a no brainer. So unless your child is learning like coding or something like just the simple I-pad is very easy to use, a five year old can learn how to use it in five minutes. So then you have to look at, well, are they learning better from an iPad and I mean I've done I've done a lot of research and I can spout off some stats.
00:56:08:10 - 00:56:35:17
Elizabeth
But you know, out of Indiana University, they did a study where they were tracking brain activity, kids writing letters on paper versus typing on an iPad. The the amount of brain activity is just exponentially higher. If they're writing pen on paper or pencil on paper. There was a study about, fourth graders learning the ones who learned, most of their classes.
00:56:35:17 - 00:56:54:02
Elizabeth
Most of the classwork was on an iPad, scored 14 points lower on tests than the kids who were using almost no iPads. Right. So the traditional kind of analog, however you want to call it, methods of learning, are absolutely the better ways to learn.
00:56:54:04 - 00:56:54:11
Travis
Yeah.
00:56:54:16 - 00:57:24:11
Elizabeth
And and not to mention, you know, not only are we learning that the iPads aren't a great way to learn, but they're also a barrier basically. And you saw that in the school cafeteria. They're a barrier between that child in the real world. They are going to hide. And we've talked to teenagers about this, and they've looked back on their middle school experience and they've said, you know, I finished my classwork and instead of picking up a book to read or doing my homework, I got my iPad out and I started playing games.
00:57:24:13 - 00:57:45:12
Elizabeth
That is not what you want to hear from your child, who you're sending off to school, private or public. You know you're sending that child to school trusting that they are going to learn, right? You do not want to hear that they're getting really good at Roblox. You want to know that they're in the cafeteria talking to friends and working on social connections and talking about the weekend.
00:57:45:14 - 00:57:47:14
John
We're watching Netflix. That's the newest one we've heard.
00:57:47:14 - 00:57:48:06
Elizabeth
Oh, yeah.
00:57:48:06 - 00:57:49:14
John
One of the schools. Are you?
00:57:49:17 - 00:57:50:08
Elizabeth
No, not will.
00:57:50:09 - 00:58:00:18
John
Remain unmentioned, but no, I mean, you would hope that the Wi-Fi networks at these schools are blocking unnecessary things. But one of our kids has told us after school, people are watching Netflix at school.
00:58:00:23 - 00:58:01:18
Elizabeth
Not after school.
00:58:01:18 - 00:58:04:07
John
During school. Yeah. Or shopping at Lululemon.
00:58:04:09 - 00:58:07:01
Elizabeth
And I heard shopping. It was so limited that.
00:58:07:03 - 00:58:09:06
Travis
When it's not excited about.
00:58:09:08 - 00:58:27:10
John
We would like. I do think there's a role for tech in education. There are some things like, I don't know, looking at a 3D model of DNA or something, right. That would be better. Yeah. Or you could rotate it, look at it. Understand. So I'm not going to say there's no places where tech wouldn't help. There's no places where tech would, would not be.
00:58:27:10 - 00:58:50:22
John
But I keep hitting double negatives here. I'm not going to say there's no place. Sorry. I'm not going to say that the tech isn't better in some things, but I think they're very few, you know? And our son did AP computer science and took three years. I mean, like I'm all for learning to code and learning tech but that doesn't that's not an equivalent to getting an iPad in middle school.
00:58:51:00 - 00:58:57:06
John
Right. So there's there's definitely room there to, to pull it back a little bit. And I think the data is beginning to indicate that.
00:58:57:08 - 00:59:07:10
Travis
Yeah, I mean, I saw global like academic test scores. This this is one of those charts and the stuff that jumps off the page to like declining.
00:59:07:12 - 00:59:08:01
John
Right?
00:59:08:03 - 00:59:10:18
Travis
Yes. Kids are getting dumber.
00:59:10:20 - 00:59:22:02
John
Absolutely. The UN did a report and they're you know they doing a global education report. And in that it actually was talking about pulling back on smartphones because they were seeing a decrease in academic performance.
00:59:22:07 - 00:59:22:18
Elizabeth
Across the.
00:59:22:18 - 00:59:24:04
John
Board. And you can just I mean.
00:59:24:06 - 00:59:25:19
Elizabeth
Math, English, everything I.
00:59:25:19 - 00:59:40:06
John
Quote studies because a lot of people put their faith there. Again, I don't need those studies because I've seen it in my own kids and friends, right? That their academic performance absolutely goes down, just like my performance goes down at work. If I if you're schools around on Twitter all day. Yeah. No. Like I mean, it takes discipline.
00:59:40:10 - 00:59:54:06
John
And I think part of it is we know that kids don't have that discipline at that age. So we're going to help them build up to that. Yeah. Now like, you know the other thing, we're realistic. We don't want to send our kids. You know, when our kids turn 18, they're going to be running their own program. Right?
00:59:54:07 - 00:59:58:18
John
We're probably paying for college, but short of that, we want them to be launch ready, as you said.
00:59:58:22 - 00:59:59:11
Travis
Yeah.
00:59:59:13 - 01:00:16:13
John
And so, you know, again, back to that scaffolding idea, right. Like we put this, this scaffolding around them to help make them strong. But then as they get older, before they graduate, we're taking that down and we're not going to send them off to college with a locked down iPhone. I mean, they have to own it at some point.
01:00:16:13 - 01:00:35:02
John
Yeah. Right. So there is this role of protecting, right, as a parent, but it's also mentoring and helping them grow to where they can protect themselves. And we've seen success with that. And yeah, you know, some of our kid, our son who's off his his phone screen a lot of times is black and white because that's, you know, back to the biohacking.
01:00:35:02 - 01:00:41:21
John
If you turn off the colors, it's not nearly as interesting. So I mean, he actually has a black and white iPhone because it helps him study more.
01:00:41:21 - 01:00:43:22
Elizabeth
And I think he's turned off all his notifications.
01:00:44:02 - 01:00:56:17
John
Right. So you know we and we we help them get to that. But we we want to take we want to protect them early. We want to teach them in the middle. I want to give them the internal motivation to manage it themselves before they leave.
01:00:56:19 - 01:01:13:18
Travis
Yeah. I mean, just like the way we teach them anything, like you said, with the power tools or with, you know, skiing, with riding a bike, like. Right. We start here and we're gonna work our way up. We got to have that same mindset with, with these tech devices. And, yeah, I think that the iPad thing in schools is really interesting to like.
01:01:13:18 - 01:01:27:18
Travis
I don't know about y'all, but I could read something on the screen. And then at the very end of that, I'm like, what did I just read? Sometimes it's like it's just hard to focus when you're staring at lights. So I print out, I mean, I'm a lawyer, I read for a living, so I still have to print out stuff and mark it up and do all those kinds of things.
01:01:27:18 - 01:01:33:00
Travis
If I'm going to retain that information and I say, I assume the same applies for a lot of kids in these schools.
01:01:33:02 - 01:01:40:23
John
Absolutely. And you're seeing it from the teachers agreeing as well. I mean, you know, when you look at surveys, most teachers agree that it's a distraction.
01:01:41:01 - 01:01:46:08
Travis
Have you seen schools that have gone device free? And what are their what are they saying about.
01:01:46:09 - 01:01:47:16
John
We haven't personally seen any.
01:01:47:17 - 01:02:15:05
Elizabeth
Well, I've been reading up on it though. A lot of the East Coast boarding schools have, now have cell phone restrictions where there are no cell phones, like in not only in academic classes, but also in shared spaces like assemblies, cafeteria, things like that. And even if you're walking down the path, like in, you know, between classes or whatever, you have to get off the path if you're going to use your phone like they want those shared spaces to really be about engagement.
01:02:15:07 - 01:02:39:04
Elizabeth
Because these you think about if these boarding schools are over 100 years old, some of them, they have worked so hard to build this community, and they started to see their community threatened by the cell phones because the kids were just not engaging with each other, engaging with their teachers. Richardson ISD just 40 miles down the road, also has a very strict no cell phone in the classroom policy.
01:02:39:06 - 01:03:01:08
Elizabeth
The students actually check in their phones each morning with a yonder pouch, if you've seen those. And, it's very strict. Like if you I think you get one warning the second time. Second offense. You actually have all day in school suspension. So they are taking it very seriously. And that's a, you know, fairly sizable district.
01:03:01:14 - 01:03:23:03
John
Yeah. We have seen some victories personally. Elizabeth and some other moms encouraged the leadership at one of our schools to get rid of, phones and iPads on the school grade field trips so that, like, field trips, they would go to, Austin or San Antonio or Big Bend and just no phones on that. And the feedback from our kids was that it was great.
01:03:23:07 - 01:03:25:02
John
Like, it was just nice to unplug.
01:03:25:07 - 01:03:44:07
Travis
That's good advice. Like for parents who are if you want to go talk to your schools like it's going to be hard to go from, like, you know, everyone's got a phone to like the phone for a complete ban, but you can go get some wins, like start with field trips or passing periods or like in the lunchroom or, you know, from this time to this time, there's gonna be no phones out.
01:03:44:12 - 01:03:52:12
Travis
Just go get it. Some little wins and then get that data and talk to the, you know, two months later. How did this go to people? Like it or not? Chances are they're going to like it.
01:03:52:14 - 01:03:53:00
Elizabeth
Right?
01:03:53:03 - 01:03:54:17
Travis
And then you go get a little bit of time.
01:03:54:17 - 01:04:14:11
John
Some advice we've learned there that I'd give would be a lot of people want to blame. They want to talk to teachers about it. And teachers are usually on our side. Right? Yeah, it's a policy. So then people maybe want to talk to the division heads or, you know, principals of the middle school or high school. In our experience, it's really to drive change here.
01:04:14:11 - 01:04:33:16
John
It really is a board issue. At least in private schools, like, you know, because principals generally don't want to rock the boat. Right? Because half the parent I pri not half, but some of the parents are going to disagree. So they just like, why am I going to wade into this? So we have actually seen any change that has happened usually is from influence at the board level.
01:04:33:18 - 01:04:34:09
John
And a lot of times in.
01:04:34:10 - 01:04:35:13
Elizabeth
Conjunction with the head of school.
01:04:35:13 - 01:04:36:18
John
Yeah.
01:04:36:20 - 01:04:38:22
Travis
But Richardson ISD, I mean, that's the public school district.
01:04:38:22 - 01:04:39:20
John
So, so that's got.
01:04:39:20 - 01:04:42:02
Travis
To be coming from that school board. Yes.
01:04:42:07 - 01:04:43:09
Elizabeth
Well, absolutely.
01:04:43:12 - 01:04:44:03
Travis
Well, good for them.
01:04:44:06 - 01:04:46:11
Elizabeth
I know, good for them.
01:04:46:13 - 01:04:58:07
Travis
But perhaps other school districts around the state or in the country can look to Richardson and the boarding schools on the East Coast. I've seen some schools up in Seattle that public schools that are doing similar things with those little pouches.
01:04:58:09 - 01:05:03:21
John
And then there are entire countries that are making this push, the United Kingdom, France. I mean, there are countries out there.
01:05:03:21 - 01:05:04:12
Elizabeth
That Australia.
01:05:04:12 - 01:05:17:10
John
Has direction because we spent think about what we spend globally on education. Right. It's a shocking amount of money. Right. And so if we know that that we're not getting as good a return on our dollar spent, if we're letting kids be zoned out during the day.
01:05:17:10 - 01:05:21:06
Travis
Are you saying the US education system is not the cream of the crop?
01:05:21:07 - 01:05:22:23
John
It is in terms of dollars per pupil?
01:05:23:01 - 01:05:23:12
Travis
Okay.
01:05:23:12 - 01:05:25:15
John
But it's not in terms of outcome for it.
01:05:25:17 - 01:05:26:06
Travis
Right?
01:05:26:08 - 01:05:47:01
Elizabeth
Yeah. We all have the same goal. You know, we all want a launch. Resilient, strong, world ready kids when they're 18. We just need to all realize we need to figure out, come together and figure out, you know, at what ages and stages should they be able to interface with these various technologies so that they can be their best and healthiest versions of themselves?
01:05:47:03 - 01:06:08:09
John
You know, but one thing I would say, Travis, I think it's really important, is all along we said, you know, it's tempting to make this a school issue. It's tempting to make this a tech company issue, and it's tempting to make this a legislative issue. And I do think all of those are important approaches. But for us, we decided what is critical is to make this a parenting issue.
01:06:08:11 - 01:06:29:17
John
So if you want to engage with the legislature or with the tech companies or with the schools, that's great. But I don't think you can count on them. And I think those if anything are long term changes right, where you can have the biggest impact in the lives of your kids is by being a good parent. And so that is really where we came down on let's own this problem ourselves and our family.
01:06:29:18 - 01:06:32:18
John
And then what we realized real quickly was we need other families to be.
01:06:32:18 - 01:06:51:04
Travis
Involved in other good parents too, right? Well that's great. You guys are awesome. I appreciate what you guys are doing. Thanks for coming on the show. I think there's a really important message. I hope people share it and listen to it. If people want more information about yours, cause it's social media, can weight.org correct. And they can reach out to you.
01:06:51:04 - 01:06:55:16
Travis
Are you guys still on the speaker circuit? We all come speak at local schools, local community groups.
01:06:55:16 - 01:06:58:23
Elizabeth
Absolutely we will. We love to free of charge.
01:06:59:00 - 01:07:05:03
Travis
Just awesome. Is there anything else we forgot to talk about? Video games. Kids are spending way too much time.
01:07:05:06 - 01:07:05:18
Elizabeth
Oh wow.
01:07:05:18 - 01:07:08:09
Travis
But yeah I think that's obvious.
01:07:08:11 - 01:07:16:12
Elizabeth
I think I may need to say something about that real quick though. The average young man spends 10,000 hours playing video, ten.
01:07:16:12 - 01:07:17:06
Travis
Thousand hours.
01:07:17:09 - 01:07:26:12
Elizabeth
10,000 hours from the time he's like about 6 to 21. So that's almost two years days.
01:07:26:13 - 01:07:31:00
Travis
Oh my gosh, that is like the definition of how long it takes to become an expert or something, right.
01:07:31:00 - 01:07:32:18
Elizabeth
That's oh is that right from Gladwell.
01:07:33:00 - 01:07:38:06
Travis
Gladwell on the Beatles 10,000 hours playing for nobody. They became expert musicians.
01:07:38:08 - 01:07:39:11
Elizabeth
And you know.
01:07:39:11 - 01:07:41:08
Travis
Let's get we have expert video game players.
01:07:41:10 - 01:08:10:13
Elizabeth
We do. We have a whole lot of expert video game players. And and the scary thing is, you know, if you divide that out over, say, 15 years, it ends up only being about two hours a day. So it's really easy to see how that can happen. But I think the more the thing to really think about is we, we have a lot of young men especially, I'm sure, there I know there are girls who play video games as well, but they are not out in the world enough, and they're not gaining those skills.
01:08:10:13 - 01:08:24:14
Elizabeth
They need to leave the house. They're just they're at home a whole lot more than they used to, and they're a lot more passive. Not I'm not you know, these are not across the board statements, but they're definitely it definitely is a problem. The video games just in terms.
01:08:24:14 - 01:08:24:22
Travis
Of.
01:08:25:01 - 01:08:37:22
Elizabeth
Yeah. Young people just being at home, holed up, not getting out there and learning the skills for self-advocacy, advocacy and just everything you need to be adulting.
01:08:37:22 - 01:08:50:09
Travis
Yeah. I mean, on that front, we're seeing a delay. And, you know, young people, let's call it early 20s. But we need to go out into the world. We need to go get married. Wanting to be intimate with a partner like we're seeing, like, delays and all that kind of stuff.
01:08:50:13 - 01:09:04:18
Elizabeth
Absolutely. Yeah. Gen Z is, less likely to be interested in getting married, less likely to be interested in kids, and even less like even less interested in sex. Okay, that's like, never happened. Like in the history of humanity.
01:09:04:19 - 01:09:05:16
Travis
That's how powerful.
01:09:05:18 - 01:09:21:09
Elizabeth
That's how powerful this stuff is. And I think a lot of it is also that at a young age, they may have seen some content that was really rough, sexual content that was really rough. And time, oh my gosh, if that's what sex is, I don't want anything to do with that, right? That's terrifying.
01:09:21:12 - 01:09:24:15
John
The tech normalizes all kinds of stuff that should not be normal.
01:09:24:17 - 01:09:26:05
Travis
Yeah.
01:09:26:07 - 01:09:48:16
John
You know, one one thing to, to think about here is I just want to take it back to being parents and what that means, right? If your kids aren't ever disagreeing with any choices you make, right, you may want to look in the mirror and ask if you're really parenting. Here's the friend. Yeah, and I think there's so many parents now that want to be friends first.
01:09:48:18 - 01:10:00:01
John
But this is a cart before the horse still like if, if you are a parent first meaning protect and grow and guide and shape then you get to be a mentor.
01:10:00:05 - 01:10:00:21
Travis
Yeah.
01:10:00:23 - 01:10:23:06
John
And then eventually you get to be a friend. Yeah. But if you start off trying to be a friend then you realize, you know, wow, wait, now it's too late. But I'm trying to parent anyway, and it's really hard. And you never you never get there. So it is just imperative for parents to to step up. And I said it earlier, but like, we can't expect our kids to not be zoning out on social media if we are.
01:10:23:08 - 01:10:28:06
John
Yeah, right. So we gotta lead by example. Totally. We got to we got to step up and we got to parent.
01:10:28:08 - 01:10:34:07
Travis
Yeah. I said that in the Distracted Driving podcast. If you ever want your kid to not drive distracted, you better not be doing it either. That's right.
01:10:34:09 - 01:10:36:13
John
Moore's caught and taught.
01:10:36:15 - 01:10:55:09
Travis
Yeah. Like your son. I mean, I know you guys are, you consider him one of your best friends? Y'all go on camping trips and amazing adventures together. But you were his dad first. Yeah, absolutely. Oh, it's, And, of course, Elizabeth, your mom. Well, thank you guys. I like this because it's a such a big problem.
01:10:55:09 - 01:10:58:19
Travis
But there's a simple solution to it. Like, we can actually fix this.
01:10:58:19 - 01:10:59:11
John
The tide is.
01:10:59:11 - 01:10:59:23
Elizabeth
Turning.
01:11:00:01 - 01:11:06:16
John
The tide is turning. You're encouraged. For the first time since we've been doing this. And for four years now, that it is really starting to turn.
01:11:06:16 - 01:11:13:12
Travis
And all it takes is good parents reaching out to other folks, getting together and sticking together. That's right, that's right. Well, thank you all for coming on the show today.
01:11:13:14 - 01:11:13:20
Elizabeth
Thank you.
01:11:13:23 - 01:11:17:13
Travis
Guys are amazing. Thank you for the work you're doing in the community. And we'll see you guys round.
01:11:17:16 - 01:11:18:13
Elizabeth
All right. Sounds great.
01:11:18:18 - 01:11:33:20
Travis
All right there, listeners, I hope today's episode has been enlightening and inspiring as we dive into these important conversations about safety and community, I'm reminded of why I became a personal injury lawyer in the first place. Every day I see people whose lives have been turned upside down because of some accident in one shape or form or another.
01:11:33:22 - 01:11:55:02
Travis
It's confusing, overwhelming time, and it can feel impossible to know where to turn. If you or someone you love have been an accident and you need honest guidance, is it Patterson personal injury.com? Schedule a free consultation with our team. We'll get to know you, listen to your story and answer your questions. And we're going to help you understand all of your options, all with no obligation and no pressure.
01:11:55:04 - 01:12:09:20
Travis
A personal group, we've helped thousands of people rebuild their lives and find closure with honesty, transparency and integrity. You deserve an advocate who will fight for your rights and for your future. So don't wait. Is it Patterson personal injury.com today and let's start driving change in your own life.