590: 'We don't even know who we're supposed to call'

Gov. Kelly Armstrong is pushing a "bell to bell" ban on cell phones in schools, and his inspiration is a book called the Anxious Generation, which was written by Jonathan Haidt. But it's more than a book. It's also a movement. Casey Mock, the senior policy manager for Anxious Generation, joined this episode of Plain Talk to discuss their initiative.

Some are condemning this effort as another teen panic, but Mock says that's not so.

"You know what makes it different from a moral panic like the satanic panic or even going back to Salem witch trials type witch hunts is that we actually have pretty clear data that demonstrates the impact that not just phones but also social media is having on kids mental health on their educational," Mock said. "There's just pretty clear data that's been assembled over the last decade, decade and a half since these things have become mainstream which makes it materially different from some of these earlier moral panics."

He said the goal of the legislation is to make state government the"bad cop" and taking pressure off educators to police phone use.

Also on this episode, Coiya Tompkins, president of Grand Forks-based Community Violence Intervention Center, and Seth O'Neill, executive director of the North Dakota Domestic and Sexual Violence Coalition, talked about the uncertainties chaos in the federal government is creating for their work.

O'Neill said that getting answers on their current funding, and future appropriations, has proven hugely difficult among cuts implemented by top Trump administration adviser Elon Musk and his Department of Government Efficiency team. "So we just heard recently that the CDC, which funds rape prevention and education,they basically decimated that division. Cut people. We don't even know who we're supposed to supposed to call or who is our a grant manager there because they just pretty much cut everyone," he said.

"What I've been telling both federal people at the federal congressional level as well as our state folks is that we do not believe that what we are proposing is a want. It's a need," Tompkins added.

Both argued that while cuts to their programs may save money in the short term, over a longer period of time costs will accumulate if their services, which often help prevent crime and violence and ease burdens on the criminal justice system, become less accessible.

This episode is presented by Bakken Backers. Bakken Backers is a coalition of businesses, leaders, workers, and citizens who support energy production from the Bakken formation and its many benefits for North Dakota. Learn more at BackTheBakken.org.

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