April 13, 2025 • 40 mins
Neuroscientist Dr Mark Williams partnered with Amazon Kindle and found that kiwis are checking for notifications up to 50 times an hour - a major contributor to 86% of us feeling stressed by bedtime.
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Speaker 1 (00:05):
You're listening to the Weekend Collective podcast from News Talks EDB.
Speaker 2 (00:11):
You know.
Speaker 3 (00:14):
Weybody you know need you knows hevy.
Speaker 4 (00:30):
Oh you sir severy time.
Speaker 2 (00:34):
Yes, welcome back to the Weekend Collective. I'm Tim Beverage.
Speaker 5 (00:36):
By the way, if you missed any of Politics Hour,
we had a chat with Peter Dunn just about Winston
saying that Chris Laxon should talk to him first before
he goes and talk to these other world leaders, and
you can listen to the discussion that unfolded there. And
also we talked to former local government minister David Carter
around how much we rely on people's name, recognition and
celebrity when we choose our mayors and our counselors. You
can listen to that on News Talk, SEB, dot co,
(00:57):
dot m Z. Look for the Weekend Collective on iHeartRadio
as well. That's another way to do it. But right
now this is it's time for the Health Hub and
we're gonna have a chat about the effects of technology
on I mean not just our mental well being on
the whole, but in particular our sleep because technology. This
(01:18):
should not be the first time you've heard that that
if you're checking your phone at all hours of the
day and night, then it is actually not good for
your sleep. But do we really know how bad it is?
And we have a new guest on our show. He
has a partner with Amazon Kindle and found that kiwis
are checking for notifications up to fifty times an hour,
a major contributed a major contributor to eighty six percent
(01:40):
of us feeling stressed by bedtime. But what can we
do to manage it? We want your calls on this
as well, and if you've got any questions for our
guest as well as to just how well do you
monitor your device use and are you aware of the
effect that it's having on you, because if you're addicted
to it, you might well be away.
Speaker 2 (01:59):
You know, I shouldn't check my phone. I shouldn't check
my phone.
Speaker 5 (02:01):
I just once, oh, well check this notification before you
know it will wait for another hour or wake up
in the middle of the night.
Speaker 2 (02:08):
Anyway.
Speaker 5 (02:09):
Our new guest is neuroscientist Dr Mark Williams, and he's
with me.
Speaker 2 (02:14):
Now could I marquee gaing?
Speaker 4 (02:16):
Hi? Tim?
Speaker 2 (02:16):
How are you good? Good?
Speaker 4 (02:17):
Hey?
Speaker 5 (02:18):
Just let's tell us a bit about yourself. How long
you've been involved with neuroscience.
Speaker 4 (02:26):
Do I have to say that, Okay, twenty five plus years.
Speaker 5 (02:32):
Let's say you could have gone twenty plus years and
saved yourself and us doing an extra calculation, What did
you How did you end up becoming a neuroscientist?
Speaker 4 (02:42):
Yeah, that's a great question. I actually was doing a
Bachelor of Science and I was doing a couple of
different courses and I did an amazing lecture from a
guy who was talking about neurophysiology, so how our brain
works and how brain creates this illusion that we perceive,
and I just fell in love with it. From then on,
(03:03):
I just just completely I had a bit of an
existential crisis at the time as a result of it,
and then just I wanted to learn more and I
was lucky. I was at the start of the cognitive
neuroscience revolution and all these new technologies that we can
use to look at the brain. So it was a
fascinating time to be involved.
Speaker 5 (03:22):
In crisis of did you say crisis of something confidence
or something that.
Speaker 4 (03:27):
Was existential crisis I think I had.
Speaker 5 (03:31):
And was that just about what you were studying versus
what you were suddenly becoming really interested in it? And
where the hell is it going to take me? And
what's all about? And am I wasting my time? And
I don't know.
Speaker 4 (03:41):
No, it was more about the fact that our perception
isn't real, right, this video that we think we see
isn't actually what we're perceiving, and we're creating this based
on our memories and not what's actually out there, and
that there's actually like no noise in the world and
there's no Yeah. So that's what really threw me and
(04:01):
made me go, Wow, what's actually going on here? And
how can I to the bottom of how our brains
are actually creating this amazing illusion that we all perceive constantly.
Speaker 5 (04:10):
You were responding there when you just went yeah, because
my jaw dropped open at your description of the reality.
Speaker 2 (04:16):
So what I'm seeing this? Because this could go quite deep.
We maybe we'll dig into that, Maybe we'll dig into
that beyond out at the topic we're going to talk about.
But tell us about what is from your perspective, How
would you describe the work you do in neuroscience? What
do you do?
Speaker 4 (04:35):
Yeah, so I'm a cognitive neuroscientist. There's lots of different
disciplines in neuroscience. Cognitive neuroscience just means that we're looking
at alive way humans and how they actually think and
perceive and do all the amazing things that us humans do.
So it's very much at the global, the whole body
or whole brain level, rather than being into the chemicals
(04:57):
or into the neurotransmitters or all of the all En
animals and all those things, which are other amazing disciplines
within neuroscience.
Speaker 5 (05:03):
Okay, so you've done some you've done some work on
the whole sleep thing and devices. Tell us a bit
about tell us a bit about the work and what's
gone into it and what's it revealed.
Speaker 4 (05:15):
Yeah, So I was lucky enough to be at MIT.
I went to MOTE and worked at MIT in the
US for a number of years, And I was at
MOT when the first iPhone came out, which was a
fascinating place to be given the MIT is where the
Internet started. There's two offices at MOT where the Internet.
Speaker 5 (05:36):
You guys would have been your own subjects.
Speaker 4 (05:42):
Everybody was fascinated right by the fact that we had
this new technology. And at the same time, Mark Zuckerberg
was across the road at Harvard University setting up Facebook.
So I was a fascinating time to be in that, Yeah,
right in the middle of what was going on and
what was changing. And then I came back to Australia
and I had kids, and that really made me hang on,
(06:05):
is this actually good for us? And is this actually
something that's going to push our species forwards or is
it going to drag us backwards? And so that made
me really interested in how the devices are impacting us
and how the devices have been used to manipulate us
in failing negative ways in a lot of cases. And
(06:27):
I'm fascinated by technology because I'm a neuroscientist and technology
is my go to right It's what enabled us to
look inside brains.
Speaker 5 (06:36):
Which fast It's a tool, isn't it. At the same time,
it is gosh that I mean, that's a fairly big question,
isn't it. Because as soon as you said, as you know,
you're questioning the thing as the technology that we're doing
is dragging our species forward and backwards? What do you reckon?
Not quite what we're talking about, But I just had
to ask you. I mean, you would have concerns about it, obviously,
(06:58):
wouldn't you.
Speaker 4 (06:59):
Well, since the iPhones come out and since Facebook and
social media has started, our IQ has dropped, right, Our
general IQ across population has dropped, and that's the first
time in our recorded history that's actually happened. So we
used to have what we call a flint effect, where
every year our average IQ was getting greater and greater
(07:21):
because we were getting more educated, and we were doing
more fascinating things, and we were getting more advanced. But
in the last ten years that's actually gone in reverse,
So that really scares me and really worries me. The
other thing is that we've got this huge increase in
early onset dementia. That's people around the age of twenty
(07:42):
five to thirty five who were getting dementia, which we
haven't seen before, and that's tripled the number of people
with dementia in the last two years in that young
age with the twenty five to thirty five and for
the first time, we've now seen someone under the age
of twenty who's been diagnosed with Alzheimer's with dementia. So, yeah,
those are two things that really worry me about how
(08:04):
we're using these divine and if the way we're using
them is actually what we want to be doing.
Speaker 5 (08:10):
Is it what you've talked about with the younger. Is
it because simply devices enable us to access so much
information in the course of a minute, an hour a day.
Are we scrambling our brains a bit that we're losing
the ability to work things out in a logical at
a pace where we can our brains can understand information
(08:33):
better as opposed to we're just bombard and we're scrambling
our brains and by the time we're in our twenties
or thirties, we're stuffed.
Speaker 4 (08:40):
Yeah, that's a good way to think about it, but
I think it's actually the opposite that we're not actually
using our brains, so it's not getting stronger. So we
know our brains that use it or lose it basic paradigm,
just like any other muscle. But you've got to exercise
it to make it actually stronger. But when you're doom scrolling,
you're not actually exercising your brain because you brain doesn't
(09:01):
have to do anything. It's just mindlessly looking at pictures
as they come up, or when you google something. You know,
when was the last time you went to out for
dinner or a pub and someone asked a question or
said something and someone else said, oh no, that's not true,
it was two years earlier. So and so won another football,
you know, in this year, and no, no, no, what
(09:23):
happened the year before? And then you spend the next
hour and a half actually arguing about when that actually
happened nowadays instead of doing that, which is really good
for our brains, and we're actually pulling out all this
information where we google it, and so we don't actually
do all that exercise for our brain that we normally
would have done. So having all this access means that
we're not actually using our brains in a way that
(09:43):
actually exercises them, which makes them actually stronger, so that
we can actually do more things later on.
Speaker 5 (09:49):
BlimE me, it's quite freaking when you think of it
like that, because I was literally thinking, of course, we
don't have arguments in Marcusin. Someone just goes, let's google it.
Let's just ask a hey, chet GPT blah blah blah,
what's the story are there?
Speaker 2 (10:00):
We go.
Speaker 5 (10:02):
What does it mean for our because we going to
dig into things around sleep as well. I mean, everything overlaps,
doesn't it? But how does that? Is the blue light thing?
I've heard somebody say to me that the blue light
thinks nonsense, it's just the fact of using your device
and accessing all this information. How do devices and technology
(10:25):
impact our sleep?
Speaker 4 (10:27):
Yeah, so there are multiple aspects to it. The blue
light is one of the aspects to it. So blue
light is because a lot of people say behind on
these blue light coming from the sun, so we're always
subjected to blue light, so that's not really a problem.
But blue light is really high energy. I won't get
into all this physics behind it, but it's really high energy,
so it scatters a lot, which means it doesn't actually
(10:49):
get into your retina and so therefore it doesn't affect
you in the normal way. But when you've got a
screen close to you, it's giving off blue light that
does go straight into your eyeball and therefore straight into
your retina. And we've seen an increase in people with
eye issues and i damage, which is why now over
in China they've actually banned iPhones from kids under thirteen
(11:09):
because of the big increase in eye damage that's been
caused by the phones. So it is causing damage, and
that high energy actually affects your malatonin levels and melotone
is really important for us to go into sleep. So
there's that aspect to it, the blue light which we
need to get rid of, which you can do on phones.
You you can turn them off where you can make
them gray scale, which is great. But then there's also
(11:32):
the fact that we're constantly being We become stressed when
we're on devices because of all the stuff that we
do on the devices. So you know, you have your
email on the device, and you do your work on
your devices and all these sorts of things. So as
soon as we open a laptop or pull out our phones,
our cortisol levels increase, which is an indication of stress.
(11:53):
And that happens automatically when any of us increases, and
of course if you're stressed, it's up to sleep.
Speaker 5 (11:57):
Is that the bigger factor in a way, the fact
that the information we're getting as opposed to the light
is because I speaking, I guess sometimes I look at
the arm I watch a bit of Netflix or something
for ten minutes, but I'll turn if I'm reading anything,
I'll turn the light right down. But I have a
suspicion that I probably shouldn't be reading anything on the
(12:18):
internet late at night anyway, because it's what you're talking
about with the cortisol levels and stress and reacting to
something on Twitter and then being.
Speaker 4 (12:25):
Ah, especially at the moment. I mean, there's just this
constant feed of yeah stuff which is scaring everybody. But
we also the algorithms that run in the background, especially
if you're using social media, they bias our feeds towards
more dramatic and more violent and more scary stuff because
(12:49):
we know that we attend to that more because it's
a warning signal, right, We're worried that it's something that
we need to actually attend to. So those algorithms are
also biased towards that information. So we're getting fed information
that it gets us excited and get us as stressed
as well, which also impact on our stress levels.
Speaker 5 (13:06):
Because one of the things we I mean, these these
conversations that we're having, I mean, there is conversation around
going on in the you know, amongst people about kids
and phones, and I think most people would think, I
really need to put off giving my kid a phone.
But are we in danger of ignoring the effect it
(13:28):
has on us adults, the grown ups, you know, regardless
of our age, Because obviously, yes, we should be concerned
about children, but in focusing on that, we think but
you know, put down your phone, love and off the bed,
and then I'm on my phone myself, not thinking about
the potential of that.
Speaker 4 (13:44):
Yeah, absolutely, I think it's it's something that we all
need to think about because it is really affecting a
lot of us in really negative ways, and so we
need to be aware for ourselves so that we can
actually use it in a way which is better for
our brains and so we don't end up getting because Alzheimers,
even in the older age groups is increasing and has
been increasing pretty dramatically over the last few years. So
(14:08):
we want to be doing things that are actually going
to be good for our brains and good for us
and good for our stress levels and all those sorts
of things roman things that we know are negative. Plus
we want to demonstrate to the younger generation what's a
good way to live? Right, It's you can't tell a
teenager what to do. You've got to show them what
to do by actually showing them is what you do.
Speaker 5 (14:31):
Is there a difference between and may've got the kindles
and cobos, which I mean the one I've got to
black and white thing and it's got the setting. The
later it gets, the more orange it gets in fact,
it gets so orange it's like staring at the reflection
of Donald Trump. But anyway, but are those devices safer
because they are I don't look, I don't have the
(14:52):
latest Kindle or Cobo. I know some of them you
can get the full color experience, but many of them
they're just that black and white. Is that slightly is
that slightly more much safer?
Speaker 4 (15:04):
Yeah, it's a lot better for our brains because we're
not getting all those notifications. The notifications are really the killer, right,
because you get a thing or whatever from your email
or from social media and all those sorts of things
that will actually then make you automatically, through habitual training,
automatically open it and have a look at it. Whereas
if you're on a kindle, there's no social media, and
(15:26):
there's your email is not on there on all those things,
so therefore you're not being constantly distracted by those things,
and you can just do what you've gone there to do,
which is just to re read a book. And even
the color one now you can put into it that
will go black and white at night so that you
don't have that blue light just before you go to sleep.
Speaker 2 (15:46):
So what do you do?
Speaker 5 (15:47):
Are you concerned about devices in your own life from
the point of view of your I don't know what
I want to list the some priority, but what's the
major issue would be for most people and including yourself.
Is it about the effect on your cortisol levels and
stress or is it for you just simply if it
affects sleep, that's the first part of the slippery slope.
Speaker 4 (16:08):
Yeah, to me, it is the cortisole levels, because we
know cortisole's quite toxic for your body if you have
it for a long periods of time. So it's not
only going to affect your brain in negative ways, it's
going to affect your body in negative ways as well.
And I want to stay healthy, right, I want to
keep surfing into my sixties and seventies hopefully, and so
therefore that concerns me a lot. And also the way
(16:33):
I interact with other people when I'm stressed. Right, when
we're stressed, we actually interact with the loved ones around
us and all those differently than we would normally, and
so that concerns me as well. So I try to
limit the amount of time I'm on the devices when
I'm at home and when I'm not working, and so
young ones.
Speaker 5 (16:53):
A lot of my people have heard on my show
I say this sometimes I like to ask the dumb
questions or the lay person's question based on instinct. I
almost wonder when I look at my daughters and look
they and sound's busy with a whole lot of things.
Our younger people in a way going to learn to
handle their devices in a way better because they've grown
up with them.
Speaker 2 (17:15):
Because I watch the.
Speaker 5 (17:16):
Way my daughters don't seem to be as attached to
their devices as much as I thought they'd be. Mind you,
but they're not on Facebook or Instagram, so there's no notifications.
But is there something where we could be mildly hopeful
that they might evolve to be able to cope with
the stuff better simply because they've had to deal with
it from a younger age.
Speaker 2 (17:35):
Or is it all bad news?
Speaker 4 (17:37):
Yeah? Great question. The problem is that our brains haven't
really evolved, haven't really changed in the last ten thousand years,
and so you can't change. You can't evolve that quickly.
It takes thousands of years to actually change in a way,
which could mean that it's actually positive for us. And
there is a generation who got iPhones and so on
(17:59):
at the end of their teenage years. So they've already
developed their ability to control our attention and so on,
and they've seen the negative impact of it, and so
they treat it differently. We've now got a younger group
who have grown up with it from basically birth or
from very early on, and because it's affecting their attention,
(18:21):
they're not developing a normal attentional net network. So therefore
they can't control their attention and they can't stop themselves
from being addicted to these devices. And we're also seeing
that the younger a child is given a device, the
more likely they have abnormal development of the white matter
tracts areas of their brain, and the more likely they'll
have ADHD symptoms or be diagnosed with ADHD. So it
(18:45):
seems as though there was this really lucky group that
got it in their late teens, and they'd already developed
their attentional networks, and so therefore they were able to go, oh,
this is a bit silly, and I'm not going to
spend too much time on it. But the younger group
that are now going into their teens and hitting the
twenties seem to be really affected by it. And that's
going to be a real problem in the future.
Speaker 2 (19:08):
So what do we do about it?
Speaker 4 (19:11):
We have more controls. I think one of the big
problems is that there's a whole bunch of tech guys
over in the US who are making billions of dollars
out of our attention, and we're not making and we're
losing our time. I have a colleague who did calculations
recently and they looked at how much time a kid
spends on a device, both in school and at home,
(19:34):
and then how that will project into the future, and
it's something like thirty years they'll spend on a screen, right,
And that's really sad that they're going to lose it.
That much of their time on a screen, and that's
just doom scrolling doing those things. It's not actually working.
Speaker 2 (19:53):
So that's a high level.
Speaker 5 (19:54):
That's like eight hours a day, isn't it.
Speaker 4 (19:58):
Well, if you look at it, a lot of the
kids are spending up to six hours a day on
a device right on a screen, either gaming or social
media or doing all those things. Most teenagers these days
will be spending at least six hours a day on
a device outside of school time, which is just horrendous.
(20:18):
I think because they're not doing the things that we
actually need to do. We look at places like the
Silicon Valley, there's a whole bunch of schools of Waldorf
schools over there where they have no devices in any
of their schools. That the tech gurus who send their
kids that actually have to sign a form saying they
won't give their kids a device until they're eighteen, until
(20:38):
they leave school, because they know that attention is going
to be the most valued asset that we're going to
have in the future, and you get that by not
using technology. If you look at Mark Zuckerberg, as soon
as he had his first job, he took all the
devices out of his home, and now when you go
and visit Mark, you've got to leave your phone in
your car in order to take him time because he
(20:58):
doesn't want his kids around devices. Because he knows that
the most important asset we're going to have in the
future our ability to attend and control our attention, and
that's been destroyed by devices. So we really need to
have a rethink both. You know, New Zealand and Australia
have a huge number of devices in schools as well,
(21:19):
So I mean that's another conversation that needs to have
had about why we do that.
Speaker 2 (21:24):
Gosh, that's gosh.
Speaker 5 (21:26):
That does tend to make Mark Zuckerberg look like the
biggest hypocrite in the world, isn't it. He makes a
fortune through commanding our attention and yet in his own.
Speaker 2 (21:34):
Life keep the devices. I don't know, I've got a
certain reaction to that.
Speaker 4 (21:40):
Well, Bill Gates and Steve job said they did the
same things with their teenagers, So it's not just Mark, Gosh.
Speaker 5 (21:47):
We need Look, we need to take a break. We're
going to be back in just a moment. I'm with
our new guest on the show, as neuroscientist doctor Mark Williams.
I think I look, if you've got any questions for Mark,
if you're concerned about the device use and your family,
your own device use, give us a call and let's
have a chat about it and what you think you
can change. But I do you?
Speaker 4 (22:07):
Are you?
Speaker 2 (22:08):
I think that there are a couple of questions.
Speaker 5 (22:10):
One is a bit of a it's a bit of
a it's a big question is whether you think that
devices are ultimately making us dumber and if what Mark
says is right. What Mark says is that the IQ
levels have been declining. If it's because of devices, then
they probably are. Are you concerned about them making us dumber?
But are you worried about your own device use? And
how do you control it? There's so many questions around it,
(22:31):
but we're going to dig into a bit more with
Mark Williams, Doctor Mark Williams. In just a moment, this
is the health Ub on News Talks. He'd be it's
twenty nine past four.
Speaker 3 (22:42):
Daunting American enough said.
Speaker 2 (22:48):
Crazy, Are you going to meet me? Yes? Welcome back
to the Weekend Collective. This is the Health Hub.
Speaker 5 (22:54):
My guest is doctor Mark Williams is a neuroscientist and surfer.
As he dropped in there, I was just like, but
that's not what we're talking about. Surf and we're talking
about well, he might have been a surf when it
comes to the Internet, but we're talking about devices and
the negative effect has on our well being. And just
before we go to the calls, Mark, I.
Speaker 2 (23:14):
Gather you've got kids. Yes, what are your rules in
your house?
Speaker 6 (23:19):
Then?
Speaker 4 (23:21):
Yeah, it's a great question, Tim. A lot of people
ask me that. In fact, I have two teenagers once thirteen,
one sixteen, a girl and a boy. They often ask
me that too, because they want to know if there's
any difference between the two. They have mobile phones because
they travel on the bus in the morning to school
(23:41):
and then they often go to exercise and stuff early
and those sorts of things, so they have the phone
so that they can do those things. They don't have
any social media, and they know they're not going to
have any social media until they turn eighteen, because it's
just there's so much evidence that it's really really bad
for teenagers, both boys and girls for different reasons, but
(24:02):
very bad. And then in our house, we have an
area in a common area where all of our phones,
including my wife's and mine, go when we actually arrive home,
and we plug them in there, and if we want
to use them, then we've got to go and stand
there like the old days when the phone was plugged
into the wall, so that you don't use it for
very long, because pretty uncomfortable to standing there looking at
(24:23):
your phone. So that actually decreases the amount of time
any of us spend on the phone when we're at
home and we actually sit and talk to each other
and play games and do those sorts of things.
Speaker 5 (24:32):
How hard is it to get into that habit because
that would sound even for me because I read the
news all the time, and I use my phone to
read the news because I'm in the talkback business, and so.
Speaker 2 (24:42):
It be think.
Speaker 5 (24:44):
I'm not sure I go and stand there for that long.
But how did you go with implementing those rules.
Speaker 4 (24:50):
Yeah, So when I'm at work, which you know, I look,
that's when I look at the news and do all
those sorts of things because I like to keep up
with what's actually going on and so on. But when
I'm at home, I don't do those sorts of things
so that I can actually interact with the family. So
I think something is work and home life is really
crept into each other. Especially work's crept into our home lives.
(25:14):
Our home life hasn't really crept into our work, and
so I think we need to start separating those things
again and say, once I'm home, and then I'm home,
and that's time for the family. And then when I
go to work or if I need to spend time
doing something for work, then I remove myself from the
situation and do that and then come back to do it.
(25:35):
But it's not it's not easy, and occasionally one of
the teenagers will be caught, you know, sneak in the
phone into the landring or you know, we'll what's the
consequence on the couch. It's usually they have to do
some sort of chores. So they've both got chores that
they have to do normally, and then we'll add a
(25:56):
chore for that week that they don't like as a
consequence for it. We don't want to then restrict the
own more because then it's then that makes them want
the phone more, right, so you give them something else
as the punish.
Speaker 2 (26:11):
Well, that's the difficult thing about it as well.
Speaker 5 (26:12):
You mentioned they've had them at school, because you know,
most there is trying to balance that question around not
having social isolation as well when every other kid is
doing the techtok thing and all that. And I mean,
our kids don't have social media and where my wife
and I'll be continue to have discussions around that how
we manage that, because we've got to try and manage
the kids' expectations, like don't get ahead of yourself. You know,
(26:35):
you're not getting an Instagram account. And yet there is
that question of what are their peers doing? And while
you might not we might not care what their peers
are doing to peer, the peers matter, and how do
you manage how you managed that over the course of
your parenthood.
Speaker 4 (26:53):
Yeah, I think, well, we've got to reframe it. And
the tech guys, I mean, these gurus, they don't become
billionaires because they're done right. And they called it social
media for a reason, but it's not social. I think
social about social media. Social media is advertising and you're
either advertising a business or an organization or an event,
or you're advertising yourself. And that's what teenagers do on
(27:16):
social media. They advertise themselves. And that's an awful way
to grow up to think that you get friends and
people like you because of the way you advertise yourself.
And that's why we've got so many problems in this area.
And so, you know, my kids are very very social
and they have friends, you know, but they'll text their
friends and say, hey, let's my son loves basketball. Let's
(27:37):
go to the basketball courts down the road. And they
meet up at the basketball courts and play basketball together.
My daughter is surfboat and heavily involved in surf life saving,
and so she's down the beach all the time, and
you know, her phone's not waterproof, So what's the point
in taking it down there, and.
Speaker 2 (27:54):
It's very suspicious when she gets that waterproof cover. It's like,
what's happening for.
Speaker 5 (28:00):
Look, there's so much I want to dig into it.
Let's take some calls, Sue, Hello, and doctor mart.
Speaker 7 (28:08):
Look, it's good to hear you talk about things like
blue lights and gudgets. I did sewing for many, many years,
even overnight, very often with fluescent lights close are very
close above. I remember well into the seventies. Now I
(28:29):
can't even look at a screen. It's just a blur.
And personally, I can see an issue in the future
with the young people spending so much time on screens
because well, when it does affect you and there's a
very little endo about it, you know, you can't be
(28:51):
in any digital world because you can't look at a screen,
you know, and people don't even give that a thought.
No wonder the people that make them don't let they
could use them.
Speaker 2 (29:03):
Yeah, you got effects of phones.
Speaker 5 (29:06):
I think there is something about this close quarter looking
at something that's not quite your area of expertise.
Speaker 2 (29:12):
But no doubt you've learned a bit about that mark.
Speaker 4 (29:15):
Yeah, there is so our when we're actually our brain,
our brain when our eye develops, it actually changes shape
to actually accommodate for things that are far away and
close to us. But that doesn't happen when we're always
looking at things close to us, which is why now
we've seen a lot of people needing glasses from a
very young age because they're not looking into the distance
(29:36):
as much as they need to be to actually develop
the eyeball in the right way, which is a pretty
scary thing. And why countries like China are banning the
smartphones from young kids and devices from young kids because
they know that it's causing such an issue for the
health industry over there.
Speaker 5 (29:53):
So in terms of I mean with kids and access
to I mean there's a messaging app called WhatsApp, which
is convenient for kids, for teams and all that sort
of stuff, and for circles of friends. I guess in
the context of but there's still a social connection there
Are those apps such a problem? Or is it really
the things like the Instagram, the tektok constantly gained and
notifications how many views have I got on my latest
(30:14):
silly video?
Speaker 4 (30:16):
Yeah, I think I don't have such I know some
people do have issues with the WhatsApp because they can
create groups on those things, and as apparent, you probably
want to monitor those just to make sure that they're
not saying anything, you know, any bullyings going on or anything.
But they are good ways for them to actually text
each other and keep in contact and to the normal
(30:37):
messaging services and so on. The real issue is the
algorithms and so on running in the background of the
social media apps and Google and these things that cause problems.
Speaker 5 (30:46):
How do we so, I mean, New Zealand and Australia
at least have done something. Schools and schools in New
Zealand you can't take phones and the school My girls
were going to have that rule anyway, But now, I mean,
that seems to be the no brainer. I don't think
there's anyone who thinks that policy was a bad idea.
In fact, it's funny, isn't it, Because normally sort of
thing there'll be a lot of arguments. So this is
(31:06):
government overreach. But it seems to me that most of
the adults I know are like, this is fantastic. Is
there room do you think for more laws which don't Okay,
we don't want to be too paternalistic to ours two individuals,
but is there room for us to legislate more on
issues around social media? I think, what is it that
you're in an election right now? Isn't alb and easy
(31:27):
talking about some politicians talking about all they have? I
can't keep up with it. Actually banning social media above
below the age of sixteen.
Speaker 4 (31:36):
Yeah, so in Australia it's been banned for below sixteenth.
I was heavily involved in that whole yeah talk fest
that we had over the last six months and in
every state and so on, which is fantastic. I would
have preferred it to be eighteen. I think it's just
as addictive. It is just as addictive as smoking and alcohol.
(31:58):
So why we decided sixteen rather than eighteen, I'm not sure,
but yeah, I mean that's going to make the social
media companies more aware of the fact that people are
aware of the issues behind them, So I think that's
really important. But I mean, one of the easiest things
we could do is simply require the social media companies
(32:21):
to take identification when people actually sign up to social media,
and then we would know who the people actually are,
and then you would get rid of the bullying, you
get rid of the sextortion, you get rid of cyber crimes,
you get rid of a huge number of issues that
we have on social media currently because they would know
who the people are who are actually causing all those
(32:43):
issues that we see, and we could turn that around
very very easily and very quickly. But at the moment
that your governments aren't willing.
Speaker 2 (32:52):
To actually do that, I'm not just create an email
and the way you go is that.
Speaker 4 (32:55):
It yeah, yeah, exactly, just anybody can do it and
they can then do whatever they want, and that I
think is what causes a lot of the issues that
we actually see.
Speaker 2 (33:05):
Right, let's take some more calls.
Speaker 6 (33:06):
Carl gooday, how are you mate?
Speaker 2 (33:09):
Good? Thanks?
Speaker 5 (33:11):
Actually, Carl, just stand there for a time. Bank, just
hold it because actually I've just realized we've got to
come back in a couple of minutes. Just give us
a moment. It's seventeen minutes to five. Y's welcome back
(33:32):
to the Weekend Collective.
Speaker 2 (33:33):
Tim Beverage with you.
Speaker 5 (33:34):
We're talking with Mark Williams, is a neuroscientist on the
danger for our well our wellbeing and our sleeper of
devices and taking.
Speaker 2 (33:42):
Your calls as well. Carl, gooday, how am I good? Thanks?
Speaker 6 (33:47):
Okay, I've got a little thing to put forward, and
this is okay. I might be a dinosaur or whatever,
but I find it very frustrating over my working career,
and I've washed it a role that young fellows I'm
larra interested in looking at their phones then they are
(34:12):
and actually learning how to do the job.
Speaker 4 (34:16):
Now.
Speaker 6 (34:17):
To me, I look at it and you can't say
to them, no, you can't have your phone on you
on site. But I've worked with guys my age and
I'm fifty six that have got some sort of Facebook account.
And the problem I find was when I know, when
(34:39):
I go to work, I leave my phone in the
car and I check it at smoko and I check
it at lunch time, and no, No, what it is
is I walk around site so many times and certain
guys are supposed to be paid good money to do
(35:03):
a job, and is he checking their phones?
Speaker 2 (35:06):
Yeah?
Speaker 6 (35:07):
Well, I mean I'm talking about lost production as a
society as a nation. Yeah, I think about those numbers.
Speaker 2 (35:15):
Yeah. No, Look, it's just part of the scale of
the problem, isn't it.
Speaker 4 (35:19):
Mark. Yeah. Absolutely, we know that we're less productive as
individuals today than we were before we had phones, and
a lot of that has to do with this distraction
that Carl's talking about that we're constantly.
Speaker 5 (35:33):
Are all devices created equal? So for instance, you know
there's one thing too, I mean most kids, most schools,
you know, there's a little bit of handwriting, but a
lot of the homework has done through teams and through
various apps where they're submitting their homework. Are those things
as much of a problem or is there a subtle
difference between you know, checking your phone every thirty seconds.
Speaker 4 (35:59):
Yeah, no, there's very little difference.
Speaker 2 (36:01):
Oh helping it'd say, no. No.
Speaker 4 (36:06):
We know a lot of countries now going the opposite way,
are actually getting rid of all the devices and going
back to textbooks, and the OECD have done huge amounts
of research showing that the devices in schools are actually
causing a huge amount of harm not only mental health
and well being, but also to learning outcomes. And Australia
and New Zealand both have a lot of device use
(36:26):
in schools and we're both pretty doing pretty badly when
it comes to outcomes and also behavioral problems in schools.
So yeah, I think both Australia and New Zealand need
to have a think about how they're using the devices
in the schools because a lot of it, especially Scandinavian countries,
are going the opposite way and getting rid of the
devices because they've seen a slip in their outcomes and
(36:47):
a slip in the behavior in the schools. And there's
spending millions to put the old textbooks back in because
we know they're better for learning.
Speaker 5 (36:56):
What about are there things that can mitigate it? For instance,
you know kids who have an active lifestyle, Okay, they've
got phones, they're not on them all the time, but
you know, how does it make these things more important?
The fact that you mentioned your daughters into the surf
life saving and my daughters into hockey and netball and
dance and ballet, and does the extracurricular stuff, well, I
(37:17):
guess it's time they're not on their phone.
Speaker 2 (37:19):
At least that all separate.
Speaker 4 (37:22):
Now, Well, there was actually a study just recently came
out in I think was Frontiers in Human Neuroscience where
they've shown that the kids that the more active kids,
it's a less of an impact on their mental health
and well being. So the more active kids are and
the more extracurricular things they do, it seems to be
the less impact it has and the less likely they
(37:43):
are to get addicted to the social media.
Speaker 5 (37:46):
That's always so those things, I mean, obviously they're good
for physical activity and sports and all that. That's good
for you, But is it also a useful tool Because
the more kids develop joy and other things, the less
of an enticement it is. It's a useful tool to
get them off that sor.
Speaker 4 (38:02):
And also one of the big problems with the social media,
in the gaming and the other things on these apps
and programs is that you're constantly getting hit with dopamine,
So you don't actually have to work for the dopamine.
You don't have to work for that high for that feeling,
whereas when you're doing sport, you've actually got to work
to get the serotonin and multitasting, which are really good
(38:22):
for us and make us feel good. So it's also
that that they actually learn that working hard for something
actually results in a bigger high than actually just these
short term goals that we have when we're gaming or
when we're on social media. So that's also real positive
for these.
Speaker 5 (38:37):
Kids out all right, well, we need to take another
quick break, so I lift the brakes a little bit
la so and thrilled in our conversation, So back in
just a moment. It's eight minutes to five news talks.
He'd be welcome back to the health of my guest.
As doctor Mark Williams is a neuroscientists. He's done some
work on basically the effective devices on our life. I
hope Mark, We've only got about a minute and a
half to go.
Speaker 2 (38:56):
Time flies.
Speaker 5 (38:57):
Where do people go if they want to find out
more about the research you've done and more information about devices?
Speaker 4 (39:05):
Yeah, they go to my website, which is just www
dot Dr Mark Williams dot com. Nice and easy. I
have a whole bunch of blogs and stuff on there
they can read, and they all have links to different things.
And I've been on a couple of documentaries as well
on ABC and so on over here, so they all
talk about a lot of this stuff.
Speaker 2 (39:22):
Are you on the dread of Twitter as well?
Speaker 4 (39:25):
No?
Speaker 2 (39:26):
Sorry, just quickly. I mean I grew up as a kid.
Speaker 5 (39:31):
I grew up watching probably too much Telly, But there
are no such things as other devices. I mean watching
a movie and a bit of television and things like that.
Is that a different cup of tea that we shouldn't
stress about? Or what do you reckon?
Speaker 4 (39:41):
Yeah, yeah, absolutely. The difference is when you're on a device,
you've been fed information based on algorithms, plus you're getting
likes and all of these things that are all yeah,
it's all addictive stuff. Yeah, whereas when you're watching a
TV program, it's not. None of that's actually going on,
And especially if you have the TV along way away,
(40:03):
then you're also not getting the blue light as well.
So yeah, watch TV as much as you like.
Speaker 5 (40:08):
I really appreciate your time today. I hope we get
a chat another time. I think there's a few bit
more ground for us to cover a bit. I really
appreciate your time today, Mark, Thanks so much.
Speaker 4 (40:15):
No it wors Thanks Tim, Thanks a lot anytime.
Speaker 2 (40:18):
Cheers.
Speaker 5 (40:19):
That was the health up duck Dr Mark Williams dot com.
Just look for im a newer scientist and you can.
Speaker 2 (40:24):
Check out more information.
Speaker 5 (40:25):
But I think there's a lot more we could dig
into on another occasion, hopefully anyway. Up next it is
Smart Money with Max As Next, it's three Minutes to
Speaker 1 (40:33):
Five For more from the weekend collective, listen live to
news talks it'd be weekends from three pm, or follow
the podcast on iHeartRadio.
You're listening to the Weekend Collective podcast from News Talks EDB.
Speaker 2 (00:11):
You know.
Speaker 3 (00:14):
Weybody you know need you knows hevy.
Speaker 4 (00:30):
Oh you sir severy time.
Speaker 2 (00:34):
Yes, welcome back to the Weekend Collective. I'm Tim Beverage.
Speaker 5 (00:36):
By the way, if you missed any of Politics Hour,
we had a chat with Peter Dunn just about Winston
saying that Chris Laxon should talk to him first before
he goes and talk to these other world leaders, and
you can listen to the discussion that unfolded there. And
also we talked to former local government minister David Carter
around how much we rely on people's name, recognition and
celebrity when we choose our mayors and our counselors. You
can listen to that on News Talk, SEB, dot co,
(00:57):
dot m Z. Look for the Weekend Collective on iHeartRadio
as well. That's another way to do it. But right
now this is it's time for the Health Hub and
we're gonna have a chat about the effects of technology
on I mean not just our mental well being on
the whole, but in particular our sleep because technology. This
(01:18):
should not be the first time you've heard that that
if you're checking your phone at all hours of the
day and night, then it is actually not good for
your sleep. But do we really know how bad it is?
And we have a new guest on our show. He
has a partner with Amazon Kindle and found that kiwis
are checking for notifications up to fifty times an hour,
a major contributed a major contributor to eighty six percent
(01:40):
of us feeling stressed by bedtime. But what can we
do to manage it? We want your calls on this
as well, and if you've got any questions for our
guest as well as to just how well do you
monitor your device use and are you aware of the
effect that it's having on you, because if you're addicted
to it, you might well be away.
Speaker 2 (01:59):
You know, I shouldn't check my phone. I shouldn't check
my phone.
Speaker 5 (02:01):
I just once, oh, well check this notification before you
know it will wait for another hour or wake up
in the middle of the night.
Speaker 2 (02:08):
Anyway.
Speaker 5 (02:09):
Our new guest is neuroscientist Dr Mark Williams, and he's
with me.
Speaker 2 (02:14):
Now could I marquee gaing?
Speaker 4 (02:16):
Hi? Tim?
Speaker 2 (02:16):
How are you good? Good?
Speaker 4 (02:17):
Hey?
Speaker 5 (02:18):
Just let's tell us a bit about yourself. How long
you've been involved with neuroscience.
Speaker 4 (02:26):
Do I have to say that, Okay, twenty five plus years.
Speaker 5 (02:32):
Let's say you could have gone twenty plus years and
saved yourself and us doing an extra calculation, What did
you How did you end up becoming a neuroscientist?
Speaker 4 (02:42):
Yeah, that's a great question. I actually was doing a
Bachelor of Science and I was doing a couple of
different courses and I did an amazing lecture from a
guy who was talking about neurophysiology, so how our brain
works and how brain creates this illusion that we perceive,
and I just fell in love with it. From then on,
(03:03):
I just just completely I had a bit of an
existential crisis at the time as a result of it,
and then just I wanted to learn more and I
was lucky. I was at the start of the cognitive
neuroscience revolution and all these new technologies that we can
use to look at the brain. So it was a
fascinating time to be involved.
Speaker 5 (03:22):
In crisis of did you say crisis of something confidence
or something that.
Speaker 4 (03:27):
Was existential crisis I think I had.
Speaker 5 (03:31):
And was that just about what you were studying versus
what you were suddenly becoming really interested in it? And
where the hell is it going to take me? And
what's all about? And am I wasting my time? And
I don't know.
Speaker 4 (03:41):
No, it was more about the fact that our perception
isn't real, right, this video that we think we see
isn't actually what we're perceiving, and we're creating this based
on our memories and not what's actually out there, and
that there's actually like no noise in the world and
there's no Yeah. So that's what really threw me and
(04:01):
made me go, Wow, what's actually going on here? And
how can I to the bottom of how our brains
are actually creating this amazing illusion that we all perceive constantly.
Speaker 5 (04:10):
You were responding there when you just went yeah, because
my jaw dropped open at your description of the reality.
Speaker 2 (04:16):
So what I'm seeing this? Because this could go quite deep.
We maybe we'll dig into that, Maybe we'll dig into
that beyond out at the topic we're going to talk about.
But tell us about what is from your perspective, How
would you describe the work you do in neuroscience? What
do you do?
Speaker 4 (04:35):
Yeah, so I'm a cognitive neuroscientist. There's lots of different
disciplines in neuroscience. Cognitive neuroscience just means that we're looking
at alive way humans and how they actually think and
perceive and do all the amazing things that us humans do.
So it's very much at the global, the whole body
or whole brain level, rather than being into the chemicals
(04:57):
or into the neurotransmitters or all of the all En
animals and all those things, which are other amazing disciplines
within neuroscience.
Speaker 5 (05:03):
Okay, so you've done some you've done some work on
the whole sleep thing and devices. Tell us a bit
about tell us a bit about the work and what's
gone into it and what's it revealed.
Speaker 4 (05:15):
Yeah, So I was lucky enough to be at MIT.
I went to MOTE and worked at MIT in the
US for a number of years, And I was at
MOT when the first iPhone came out, which was a
fascinating place to be given the MIT is where the
Internet started. There's two offices at MOT where the Internet.
Speaker 5 (05:36):
You guys would have been your own subjects.
Speaker 4 (05:42):
Everybody was fascinated right by the fact that we had
this new technology. And at the same time, Mark Zuckerberg
was across the road at Harvard University setting up Facebook.
So I was a fascinating time to be in that, Yeah,
right in the middle of what was going on and
what was changing. And then I came back to Australia
and I had kids, and that really made me hang on,
(06:05):
is this actually good for us? And is this actually
something that's going to push our species forwards or is
it going to drag us backwards? And so that made
me really interested in how the devices are impacting us
and how the devices have been used to manipulate us
in failing negative ways in a lot of cases. And
(06:27):
I'm fascinated by technology because I'm a neuroscientist and technology
is my go to right It's what enabled us to
look inside brains.
Speaker 5 (06:36):
Which fast It's a tool, isn't it. At the same time,
it is gosh that I mean, that's a fairly big question,
isn't it. Because as soon as you said, as you know,
you're questioning the thing as the technology that we're doing
is dragging our species forward and backwards? What do you reckon?
Not quite what we're talking about, But I just had
to ask you. I mean, you would have concerns about it, obviously,
(06:58):
wouldn't you.
Speaker 4 (06:59):
Well, since the iPhones come out and since Facebook and
social media has started, our IQ has dropped, right, Our
general IQ across population has dropped, and that's the first
time in our recorded history that's actually happened. So we
used to have what we call a flint effect, where
every year our average IQ was getting greater and greater
(07:21):
because we were getting more educated, and we were doing
more fascinating things, and we were getting more advanced. But
in the last ten years that's actually gone in reverse,
So that really scares me and really worries me. The
other thing is that we've got this huge increase in
early onset dementia. That's people around the age of twenty
(07:42):
five to thirty five who were getting dementia, which we
haven't seen before, and that's tripled the number of people
with dementia in the last two years in that young
age with the twenty five to thirty five and for
the first time, we've now seen someone under the age
of twenty who's been diagnosed with Alzheimer's with dementia. So, yeah,
those are two things that really worry me about how
(08:04):
we're using these divine and if the way we're using
them is actually what we want to be doing.
Speaker 5 (08:10):
Is it what you've talked about with the younger. Is
it because simply devices enable us to access so much
information in the course of a minute, an hour a day.
Are we scrambling our brains a bit that we're losing
the ability to work things out in a logical at
a pace where we can our brains can understand information
(08:33):
better as opposed to we're just bombard and we're scrambling
our brains and by the time we're in our twenties
or thirties, we're stuffed.
Speaker 4 (08:40):
Yeah, that's a good way to think about it, but
I think it's actually the opposite that we're not actually
using our brains, so it's not getting stronger. So we
know our brains that use it or lose it basic paradigm,
just like any other muscle. But you've got to exercise
it to make it actually stronger. But when you're doom scrolling,
you're not actually exercising your brain because you brain doesn't
(09:01):
have to do anything. It's just mindlessly looking at pictures
as they come up, or when you google something. You know,
when was the last time you went to out for
dinner or a pub and someone asked a question or
said something and someone else said, oh no, that's not true,
it was two years earlier. So and so won another football,
you know, in this year, and no, no, no, what
(09:23):
happened the year before? And then you spend the next
hour and a half actually arguing about when that actually
happened nowadays instead of doing that, which is really good
for our brains, and we're actually pulling out all this
information where we google it, and so we don't actually
do all that exercise for our brain that we normally
would have done. So having all this access means that
we're not actually using our brains in a way that
(09:43):
actually exercises them, which makes them actually stronger, so that
we can actually do more things later on.
Speaker 5 (09:49):
BlimE me, it's quite freaking when you think of it
like that, because I was literally thinking, of course, we
don't have arguments in Marcusin. Someone just goes, let's google it.
Let's just ask a hey, chet GPT blah blah blah,
what's the story are there?
Speaker 2 (10:00):
We go.
Speaker 5 (10:02):
What does it mean for our because we going to
dig into things around sleep as well. I mean, everything overlaps,
doesn't it? But how does that? Is the blue light thing?
I've heard somebody say to me that the blue light
thinks nonsense, it's just the fact of using your device
and accessing all this information. How do devices and technology
(10:25):
impact our sleep?
Speaker 4 (10:27):
Yeah, so there are multiple aspects to it. The blue
light is one of the aspects to it. So blue
light is because a lot of people say behind on
these blue light coming from the sun, so we're always
subjected to blue light, so that's not really a problem.
But blue light is really high energy. I won't get
into all this physics behind it, but it's really high energy,
so it scatters a lot, which means it doesn't actually
(10:49):
get into your retina and so therefore it doesn't affect
you in the normal way. But when you've got a
screen close to you, it's giving off blue light that
does go straight into your eyeball and therefore straight into
your retina. And we've seen an increase in people with
eye issues and i damage, which is why now over
in China they've actually banned iPhones from kids under thirteen
(11:09):
because of the big increase in eye damage that's been
caused by the phones. So it is causing damage, and
that high energy actually affects your malatonin levels and melotone
is really important for us to go into sleep. So
there's that aspect to it, the blue light which we
need to get rid of, which you can do on phones.
You you can turn them off where you can make
them gray scale, which is great. But then there's also
(11:32):
the fact that we're constantly being We become stressed when
we're on devices because of all the stuff that we
do on the devices. So you know, you have your
email on the device, and you do your work on
your devices and all these sorts of things. So as
soon as we open a laptop or pull out our phones,
our cortisol levels increase, which is an indication of stress.
(11:53):
And that happens automatically when any of us increases, and
of course if you're stressed, it's up to sleep.
Speaker 5 (11:57):
Is that the bigger factor in a way, the fact
that the information we're getting as opposed to the light
is because I speaking, I guess sometimes I look at
the arm I watch a bit of Netflix or something
for ten minutes, but I'll turn if I'm reading anything,
I'll turn the light right down. But I have a
suspicion that I probably shouldn't be reading anything on the
(12:18):
internet late at night anyway, because it's what you're talking
about with the cortisol levels and stress and reacting to
something on Twitter and then being.
Speaker 4 (12:25):
Ah, especially at the moment. I mean, there's just this
constant feed of yeah stuff which is scaring everybody. But
we also the algorithms that run in the background, especially
if you're using social media, they bias our feeds towards
more dramatic and more violent and more scary stuff because
(12:49):
we know that we attend to that more because it's
a warning signal, right, We're worried that it's something that
we need to actually attend to. So those algorithms are
also biased towards that information. So we're getting fed information
that it gets us excited and get us as stressed
as well, which also impact on our stress levels.
Speaker 5 (13:06):
Because one of the things we I mean, these these
conversations that we're having, I mean, there is conversation around
going on in the you know, amongst people about kids
and phones, and I think most people would think, I
really need to put off giving my kid a phone.
But are we in danger of ignoring the effect it
(13:28):
has on us adults, the grown ups, you know, regardless
of our age, Because obviously, yes, we should be concerned
about children, but in focusing on that, we think but
you know, put down your phone, love and off the bed,
and then I'm on my phone myself, not thinking about
the potential of that.
Speaker 4 (13:44):
Yeah, absolutely, I think it's it's something that we all
need to think about because it is really affecting a
lot of us in really negative ways, and so we
need to be aware for ourselves so that we can
actually use it in a way which is better for
our brains and so we don't end up getting because Alzheimers,
even in the older age groups is increasing and has
been increasing pretty dramatically over the last few years. So
(14:08):
we want to be doing things that are actually going
to be good for our brains and good for us
and good for our stress levels and all those sorts
of things roman things that we know are negative. Plus
we want to demonstrate to the younger generation what's a
good way to live? Right, It's you can't tell a
teenager what to do. You've got to show them what
to do by actually showing them is what you do.
Speaker 5 (14:31):
Is there a difference between and may've got the kindles
and cobos, which I mean the one I've got to
black and white thing and it's got the setting. The
later it gets, the more orange it gets in fact,
it gets so orange it's like staring at the reflection
of Donald Trump. But anyway, but are those devices safer
because they are I don't look, I don't have the
(14:52):
latest Kindle or Cobo. I know some of them you
can get the full color experience, but many of them
they're just that black and white. Is that slightly is
that slightly more much safer?
Speaker 4 (15:04):
Yeah, it's a lot better for our brains because we're
not getting all those notifications. The notifications are really the killer, right,
because you get a thing or whatever from your email
or from social media and all those sorts of things
that will actually then make you automatically, through habitual training,
automatically open it and have a look at it. Whereas
if you're on a kindle, there's no social media, and
(15:26):
there's your email is not on there on all those things,
so therefore you're not being constantly distracted by those things,
and you can just do what you've gone there to do,
which is just to re read a book. And even
the color one now you can put into it that
will go black and white at night so that you
don't have that blue light just before you go to sleep.
Speaker 2 (15:46):
So what do you do?
Speaker 5 (15:47):
Are you concerned about devices in your own life from
the point of view of your I don't know what
I want to list the some priority, but what's the
major issue would be for most people and including yourself.
Is it about the effect on your cortisol levels and
stress or is it for you just simply if it
affects sleep, that's the first part of the slippery slope.
Speaker 4 (16:08):
Yeah, to me, it is the cortisole levels, because we
know cortisole's quite toxic for your body if you have
it for a long periods of time. So it's not
only going to affect your brain in negative ways, it's
going to affect your body in negative ways as well.
And I want to stay healthy, right, I want to
keep surfing into my sixties and seventies hopefully, and so
therefore that concerns me a lot. And also the way
(16:33):
I interact with other people when I'm stressed. Right, when
we're stressed, we actually interact with the loved ones around
us and all those differently than we would normally, and
so that concerns me as well. So I try to
limit the amount of time I'm on the devices when
I'm at home and when I'm not working, and so
young ones.
Speaker 5 (16:53):
A lot of my people have heard on my show
I say this sometimes I like to ask the dumb
questions or the lay person's question based on instinct. I
almost wonder when I look at my daughters and look
they and sound's busy with a whole lot of things.
Our younger people in a way going to learn to
handle their devices in a way better because they've grown
up with them.
Speaker 2 (17:15):
Because I watch the.
Speaker 5 (17:16):
Way my daughters don't seem to be as attached to
their devices as much as I thought they'd be. Mind you,
but they're not on Facebook or Instagram, so there's no notifications.
But is there something where we could be mildly hopeful
that they might evolve to be able to cope with
the stuff better simply because they've had to deal with
it from a younger age.
Speaker 2 (17:35):
Or is it all bad news?
Speaker 4 (17:37):
Yeah? Great question. The problem is that our brains haven't
really evolved, haven't really changed in the last ten thousand years,
and so you can't change. You can't evolve that quickly.
It takes thousands of years to actually change in a way,
which could mean that it's actually positive for us. And
there is a generation who got iPhones and so on
(17:59):
at the end of their teenage years. So they've already
developed their ability to control our attention and so on,
and they've seen the negative impact of it, and so
they treat it differently. We've now got a younger group
who have grown up with it from basically birth or
from very early on, and because it's affecting their attention,
(18:21):
they're not developing a normal attentional net network. So therefore
they can't control their attention and they can't stop themselves
from being addicted to these devices. And we're also seeing
that the younger a child is given a device, the
more likely they have abnormal development of the white matter
tracts areas of their brain, and the more likely they'll
have ADHD symptoms or be diagnosed with ADHD. So it
(18:45):
seems as though there was this really lucky group that
got it in their late teens, and they'd already developed
their attentional networks, and so therefore they were able to go, oh,
this is a bit silly, and I'm not going to
spend too much time on it. But the younger group
that are now going into their teens and hitting the
twenties seem to be really affected by it. And that's
going to be a real problem in the future.
Speaker 2 (19:08):
So what do we do about it?
Speaker 4 (19:11):
We have more controls. I think one of the big
problems is that there's a whole bunch of tech guys
over in the US who are making billions of dollars
out of our attention, and we're not making and we're
losing our time. I have a colleague who did calculations
recently and they looked at how much time a kid
spends on a device, both in school and at home,
(19:34):
and then how that will project into the future, and
it's something like thirty years they'll spend on a screen, right,
And that's really sad that they're going to lose it.
That much of their time on a screen, and that's
just doom scrolling doing those things. It's not actually working.
Speaker 2 (19:53):
So that's a high level.
Speaker 5 (19:54):
That's like eight hours a day, isn't it.
Speaker 4 (19:58):
Well, if you look at it, a lot of the
kids are spending up to six hours a day on
a device right on a screen, either gaming or social
media or doing all those things. Most teenagers these days
will be spending at least six hours a day on
a device outside of school time, which is just horrendous.
(20:18):
I think because they're not doing the things that we
actually need to do. We look at places like the
Silicon Valley, there's a whole bunch of schools of Waldorf
schools over there where they have no devices in any
of their schools. That the tech gurus who send their
kids that actually have to sign a form saying they
won't give their kids a device until they're eighteen, until
(20:38):
they leave school, because they know that attention is going
to be the most valued asset that we're going to
have in the future, and you get that by not
using technology. If you look at Mark Zuckerberg, as soon
as he had his first job, he took all the
devices out of his home, and now when you go
and visit Mark, you've got to leave your phone in
your car in order to take him time because he
(20:58):
doesn't want his kids around devices. Because he knows that
the most important asset we're going to have in the
future our ability to attend and control our attention, and
that's been destroyed by devices. So we really need to
have a rethink both. You know, New Zealand and Australia
have a huge number of devices in schools as well,
(21:19):
So I mean that's another conversation that needs to have
had about why we do that.
Speaker 2 (21:24):
Gosh, that's gosh.
Speaker 5 (21:26):
That does tend to make Mark Zuckerberg look like the
biggest hypocrite in the world, isn't it. He makes a
fortune through commanding our attention and yet in his own.
Speaker 2 (21:34):
Life keep the devices. I don't know, I've got a
certain reaction to that.
Speaker 4 (21:40):
Well, Bill Gates and Steve job said they did the
same things with their teenagers, So it's not just Mark, Gosh.
Speaker 5 (21:47):
We need Look, we need to take a break. We're
going to be back in just a moment. I'm with
our new guest on the show, as neuroscientist doctor Mark Williams.
I think I look, if you've got any questions for Mark,
if you're concerned about the device use and your family,
your own device use, give us a call and let's
have a chat about it and what you think you
can change. But I do you?
Speaker 4 (22:07):
Are you?
Speaker 2 (22:08):
I think that there are a couple of questions.
Speaker 5 (22:10):
One is a bit of a it's a bit of
a it's a big question is whether you think that
devices are ultimately making us dumber and if what Mark
says is right. What Mark says is that the IQ
levels have been declining. If it's because of devices, then
they probably are. Are you concerned about them making us dumber?
But are you worried about your own device use? And
how do you control it? There's so many questions around it,
(22:31):
but we're going to dig into a bit more with
Mark Williams, Doctor Mark Williams. In just a moment, this
is the health Ub on News Talks. He'd be it's
twenty nine past four.
Speaker 3 (22:42):
Daunting American enough said.
Speaker 2 (22:48):
Crazy, Are you going to meet me? Yes? Welcome back
to the Weekend Collective. This is the Health Hub.
Speaker 5 (22:54):
My guest is doctor Mark Williams is a neuroscientist and surfer.
As he dropped in there, I was just like, but
that's not what we're talking about. Surf and we're talking
about well, he might have been a surf when it
comes to the Internet, but we're talking about devices and
the negative effect has on our well being. And just
before we go to the calls, Mark, I.
Speaker 2 (23:14):
Gather you've got kids. Yes, what are your rules in
your house?
Speaker 6 (23:19):
Then?
Speaker 4 (23:21):
Yeah, it's a great question, Tim. A lot of people
ask me that. In fact, I have two teenagers once thirteen,
one sixteen, a girl and a boy. They often ask
me that too, because they want to know if there's
any difference between the two. They have mobile phones because
they travel on the bus in the morning to school
(23:41):
and then they often go to exercise and stuff early
and those sorts of things, so they have the phone
so that they can do those things. They don't have
any social media, and they know they're not going to
have any social media until they turn eighteen, because it's
just there's so much evidence that it's really really bad
for teenagers, both boys and girls for different reasons, but
(24:02):
very bad. And then in our house, we have an
area in a common area where all of our phones,
including my wife's and mine, go when we actually arrive home,
and we plug them in there, and if we want
to use them, then we've got to go and stand
there like the old days when the phone was plugged
into the wall, so that you don't use it for
very long, because pretty uncomfortable to standing there looking at
(24:23):
your phone. So that actually decreases the amount of time
any of us spend on the phone when we're at
home and we actually sit and talk to each other
and play games and do those sorts of things.
Speaker 5 (24:32):
How hard is it to get into that habit because
that would sound even for me because I read the
news all the time, and I use my phone to
read the news because I'm in the talkback business, and so.
Speaker 2 (24:42):
It be think.
Speaker 5 (24:44):
I'm not sure I go and stand there for that long.
But how did you go with implementing those rules.
Speaker 4 (24:50):
Yeah, So when I'm at work, which you know, I look,
that's when I look at the news and do all
those sorts of things because I like to keep up
with what's actually going on and so on. But when
I'm at home, I don't do those sorts of things
so that I can actually interact with the family. So
I think something is work and home life is really
crept into each other. Especially work's crept into our home lives.
(25:14):
Our home life hasn't really crept into our work, and
so I think we need to start separating those things
again and say, once I'm home, and then I'm home,
and that's time for the family. And then when I
go to work or if I need to spend time
doing something for work, then I remove myself from the
situation and do that and then come back to do it.
(25:35):
But it's not it's not easy, and occasionally one of
the teenagers will be caught, you know, sneak in the
phone into the landring or you know, we'll what's the
consequence on the couch. It's usually they have to do
some sort of chores. So they've both got chores that
they have to do normally, and then we'll add a
(25:56):
chore for that week that they don't like as a
consequence for it. We don't want to then restrict the
own more because then it's then that makes them want
the phone more, right, so you give them something else
as the punish.
Speaker 2 (26:11):
Well, that's the difficult thing about it as well.
Speaker 5 (26:12):
You mentioned they've had them at school, because you know,
most there is trying to balance that question around not
having social isolation as well when every other kid is
doing the techtok thing and all that. And I mean,
our kids don't have social media and where my wife
and I'll be continue to have discussions around that how
we manage that, because we've got to try and manage
the kids' expectations, like don't get ahead of yourself. You know,
(26:35):
you're not getting an Instagram account. And yet there is
that question of what are their peers doing? And while
you might not we might not care what their peers
are doing to peer, the peers matter, and how do
you manage how you managed that over the course of
your parenthood.
Speaker 4 (26:53):
Yeah, I think, well, we've got to reframe it. And
the tech guys, I mean, these gurus, they don't become
billionaires because they're done right. And they called it social
media for a reason, but it's not social. I think
social about social media. Social media is advertising and you're
either advertising a business or an organization or an event,
or you're advertising yourself. And that's what teenagers do on
(27:16):
social media. They advertise themselves. And that's an awful way
to grow up to think that you get friends and
people like you because of the way you advertise yourself.
And that's why we've got so many problems in this area.
And so, you know, my kids are very very social
and they have friends, you know, but they'll text their
friends and say, hey, let's my son loves basketball. Let's
(27:37):
go to the basketball courts down the road. And they
meet up at the basketball courts and play basketball together.
My daughter is surfboat and heavily involved in surf life saving,
and so she's down the beach all the time, and
you know, her phone's not waterproof, So what's the point
in taking it down there, and.
Speaker 2 (27:54):
It's very suspicious when she gets that waterproof cover. It's like,
what's happening for.
Speaker 5 (28:00):
Look, there's so much I want to dig into it.
Let's take some calls, Sue, Hello, and doctor mart.
Speaker 7 (28:08):
Look, it's good to hear you talk about things like
blue lights and gudgets. I did sewing for many, many years,
even overnight, very often with fluescent lights close are very
close above. I remember well into the seventies. Now I
(28:29):
can't even look at a screen. It's just a blur.
And personally, I can see an issue in the future
with the young people spending so much time on screens
because well, when it does affect you and there's a
very little endo about it, you know, you can't be
(28:51):
in any digital world because you can't look at a screen,
you know, and people don't even give that a thought.
No wonder the people that make them don't let they
could use them.
Speaker 2 (29:03):
Yeah, you got effects of phones.
Speaker 5 (29:06):
I think there is something about this close quarter looking
at something that's not quite your area of expertise.
Speaker 2 (29:12):
But no doubt you've learned a bit about that mark.
Speaker 4 (29:15):
Yeah, there is so our when we're actually our brain,
our brain when our eye develops, it actually changes shape
to actually accommodate for things that are far away and
close to us. But that doesn't happen when we're always
looking at things close to us, which is why now
we've seen a lot of people needing glasses from a
very young age because they're not looking into the distance
(29:36):
as much as they need to be to actually develop
the eyeball in the right way, which is a pretty
scary thing. And why countries like China are banning the
smartphones from young kids and devices from young kids because
they know that it's causing such an issue for the
health industry over there.
Speaker 5 (29:53):
So in terms of I mean with kids and access
to I mean there's a messaging app called WhatsApp, which
is convenient for kids, for teams and all that sort
of stuff, and for circles of friends. I guess in
the context of but there's still a social connection there
Are those apps such a problem? Or is it really
the things like the Instagram, the tektok constantly gained and
notifications how many views have I got on my latest
(30:14):
silly video?
Speaker 4 (30:16):
Yeah, I think I don't have such I know some
people do have issues with the WhatsApp because they can
create groups on those things, and as apparent, you probably
want to monitor those just to make sure that they're
not saying anything, you know, any bullyings going on or anything.
But they are good ways for them to actually text
each other and keep in contact and to the normal
(30:37):
messaging services and so on. The real issue is the
algorithms and so on running in the background of the
social media apps and Google and these things that cause problems.
Speaker 5 (30:46):
How do we so, I mean, New Zealand and Australia
at least have done something. Schools and schools in New
Zealand you can't take phones and the school My girls
were going to have that rule anyway, But now, I mean,
that seems to be the no brainer. I don't think
there's anyone who thinks that policy was a bad idea.
In fact, it's funny, isn't it, Because normally sort of
thing there'll be a lot of arguments. So this is
(31:06):
government overreach. But it seems to me that most of
the adults I know are like, this is fantastic. Is
there room do you think for more laws which don't Okay,
we don't want to be too paternalistic to ours two individuals,
but is there room for us to legislate more on
issues around social media? I think, what is it that
you're in an election right now? Isn't alb and easy
(31:27):
talking about some politicians talking about all they have? I
can't keep up with it. Actually banning social media above
below the age of sixteen.
Speaker 4 (31:36):
Yeah, so in Australia it's been banned for below sixteenth.
I was heavily involved in that whole yeah talk fest
that we had over the last six months and in
every state and so on, which is fantastic. I would
have preferred it to be eighteen. I think it's just
as addictive. It is just as addictive as smoking and alcohol.
(31:58):
So why we decided sixteen rather than eighteen, I'm not sure,
but yeah, I mean that's going to make the social
media companies more aware of the fact that people are
aware of the issues behind them, So I think that's
really important. But I mean, one of the easiest things
we could do is simply require the social media companies
(32:21):
to take identification when people actually sign up to social media,
and then we would know who the people actually are,
and then you would get rid of the bullying, you
get rid of the sextortion, you get rid of cyber crimes,
you get rid of a huge number of issues that
we have on social media currently because they would know
who the people are who are actually causing all those
(32:43):
issues that we see, and we could turn that around
very very easily and very quickly. But at the moment
that your governments aren't willing.
Speaker 2 (32:52):
To actually do that, I'm not just create an email
and the way you go is that.
Speaker 4 (32:55):
It yeah, yeah, exactly, just anybody can do it and
they can then do whatever they want, and that I
think is what causes a lot of the issues that
we actually see.
Speaker 2 (33:05):
Right, let's take some more calls.
Speaker 6 (33:06):
Carl gooday, how are you mate?
Speaker 2 (33:09):
Good? Thanks?
Speaker 5 (33:11):
Actually, Carl, just stand there for a time. Bank, just
hold it because actually I've just realized we've got to
come back in a couple of minutes. Just give us
a moment. It's seventeen minutes to five. Y's welcome back
(33:32):
to the Weekend Collective.
Speaker 2 (33:33):
Tim Beverage with you.
Speaker 5 (33:34):
We're talking with Mark Williams, is a neuroscientist on the
danger for our well our wellbeing and our sleeper of
devices and taking.
Speaker 2 (33:42):
Your calls as well. Carl, gooday, how am I good? Thanks?
Speaker 6 (33:47):
Okay, I've got a little thing to put forward, and
this is okay. I might be a dinosaur or whatever,
but I find it very frustrating over my working career,
and I've washed it a role that young fellows I'm
larra interested in looking at their phones then they are
(34:12):
and actually learning how to do the job.
Speaker 4 (34:16):
Now.
Speaker 6 (34:17):
To me, I look at it and you can't say
to them, no, you can't have your phone on you
on site. But I've worked with guys my age and
I'm fifty six that have got some sort of Facebook account.
And the problem I find was when I know, when
(34:39):
I go to work, I leave my phone in the
car and I check it at smoko and I check
it at lunch time, and no, No, what it is
is I walk around site so many times and certain
guys are supposed to be paid good money to do
(35:03):
a job, and is he checking their phones?
Speaker 2 (35:06):
Yeah?
Speaker 6 (35:07):
Well, I mean I'm talking about lost production as a
society as a nation. Yeah, I think about those numbers.
Speaker 2 (35:15):
Yeah. No, Look, it's just part of the scale of
the problem, isn't it.
Speaker 4 (35:19):
Mark. Yeah. Absolutely, we know that we're less productive as
individuals today than we were before we had phones, and
a lot of that has to do with this distraction
that Carl's talking about that we're constantly.
Speaker 5 (35:33):
Are all devices created equal? So for instance, you know
there's one thing too, I mean most kids, most schools,
you know, there's a little bit of handwriting, but a
lot of the homework has done through teams and through
various apps where they're submitting their homework. Are those things
as much of a problem or is there a subtle
difference between you know, checking your phone every thirty seconds.
Speaker 4 (35:59):
Yeah, no, there's very little difference.
Speaker 2 (36:01):
Oh helping it'd say, no. No.
Speaker 4 (36:06):
We know a lot of countries now going the opposite way,
are actually getting rid of all the devices and going
back to textbooks, and the OECD have done huge amounts
of research showing that the devices in schools are actually
causing a huge amount of harm not only mental health
and well being, but also to learning outcomes. And Australia
and New Zealand both have a lot of device use
(36:26):
in schools and we're both pretty doing pretty badly when
it comes to outcomes and also behavioral problems in schools.
So yeah, I think both Australia and New Zealand need
to have a think about how they're using the devices
in the schools because a lot of it, especially Scandinavian countries,
are going the opposite way and getting rid of the
devices because they've seen a slip in their outcomes and
(36:47):
a slip in the behavior in the schools. And there's
spending millions to put the old textbooks back in because
we know they're better for learning.
Speaker 5 (36:56):
What about are there things that can mitigate it? For instance,
you know kids who have an active lifestyle, Okay, they've
got phones, they're not on them all the time, but
you know, how does it make these things more important?
The fact that you mentioned your daughters into the surf
life saving and my daughters into hockey and netball and
dance and ballet, and does the extracurricular stuff, well, I
(37:17):
guess it's time they're not on their phone.
Speaker 2 (37:19):
At least that all separate.
Speaker 4 (37:22):
Now, Well, there was actually a study just recently came
out in I think was Frontiers in Human Neuroscience where
they've shown that the kids that the more active kids,
it's a less of an impact on their mental health
and well being. So the more active kids are and
the more extracurricular things they do, it seems to be
the less impact it has and the less likely they
(37:43):
are to get addicted to the social media.
Speaker 5 (37:46):
That's always so those things, I mean, obviously they're good
for physical activity and sports and all that. That's good
for you, But is it also a useful tool Because
the more kids develop joy and other things, the less
of an enticement it is. It's a useful tool to
get them off that sor.
Speaker 4 (38:02):
And also one of the big problems with the social media,
in the gaming and the other things on these apps
and programs is that you're constantly getting hit with dopamine,
So you don't actually have to work for the dopamine.
You don't have to work for that high for that feeling,
whereas when you're doing sport, you've actually got to work
to get the serotonin and multitasting, which are really good
(38:22):
for us and make us feel good. So it's also
that that they actually learn that working hard for something
actually results in a bigger high than actually just these
short term goals that we have when we're gaming or
when we're on social media. So that's also real positive
for these.
Speaker 5 (38:37):
Kids out all right, well, we need to take another
quick break, so I lift the brakes a little bit
la so and thrilled in our conversation, So back in
just a moment. It's eight minutes to five news talks.
He'd be welcome back to the health of my guest.
As doctor Mark Williams is a neuroscientists. He's done some
work on basically the effective devices on our life. I
hope Mark, We've only got about a minute and a
half to go.
Speaker 2 (38:56):
Time flies.
Speaker 5 (38:57):
Where do people go if they want to find out
more about the research you've done and more information about devices?
Speaker 4 (39:05):
Yeah, they go to my website, which is just www
dot Dr Mark Williams dot com. Nice and easy. I
have a whole bunch of blogs and stuff on there
they can read, and they all have links to different things.
And I've been on a couple of documentaries as well
on ABC and so on over here, so they all
talk about a lot of this stuff.
Speaker 2 (39:22):
Are you on the dread of Twitter as well?
Speaker 4 (39:25):
No?
Speaker 2 (39:26):
Sorry, just quickly. I mean I grew up as a kid.
Speaker 5 (39:31):
I grew up watching probably too much Telly, But there
are no such things as other devices. I mean watching
a movie and a bit of television and things like that.
Is that a different cup of tea that we shouldn't
stress about? Or what do you reckon?
Speaker 4 (39:41):
Yeah, yeah, absolutely. The difference is when you're on a device,
you've been fed information based on algorithms, plus you're getting
likes and all of these things that are all yeah,
it's all addictive stuff. Yeah, whereas when you're watching a
TV program, it's not. None of that's actually going on,
And especially if you have the TV along way away,
(40:03):
then you're also not getting the blue light as well.
So yeah, watch TV as much as you like.
Speaker 5 (40:08):
I really appreciate your time today. I hope we get
a chat another time. I think there's a few bit
more ground for us to cover a bit. I really
appreciate your time today, Mark, Thanks so much.
Speaker 4 (40:15):
No it wors Thanks Tim, Thanks a lot anytime.
Speaker 2 (40:18):
Cheers.
Speaker 5 (40:19):
That was the health up duck Dr Mark Williams dot com.
Just look for im a newer scientist and you can.
Speaker 2 (40:24):
Check out more information.
Speaker 5 (40:25):
But I think there's a lot more we could dig
into on another occasion, hopefully anyway. Up next it is
Smart Money with Max As Next, it's three Minutes to
Speaker 1 (40:33):
Five For more from the weekend collective, listen live to
news talks it'd be weekends from three pm, or follow
the podcast on iHeartRadio.
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