October 7, 2025 • 20 mins
Ever feel that jolt when your phone buzzes and suddenly you’re halfway through an endless scroll? We unpack why that happens, what it does to mood and sleep, and how it hits differently for teens whose brains are still wiring the circuits for impulse control, risk, and judgment. The takeaway isn’t doom—it's design. When we understand dopamine loops, cortisol spikes from online conflict and FOMO, and the melatonin crash that comes from late-night feeds, we can build simple rules that actually stick.
We walk through the research with a clear distinction between correlation and causation: social media doesn’t automatically cause depression, but overuse, comparison, and cyberbullying can intensify existing anxiety or low mood. There are real upsides too—supportive communities, practical local advice, and niche groups that bring people together. The pivot is curation. Follow accounts that teach and uplift; unfollow the highlight reels that nudge you into comparison. Learn how ad ecosystems chase a single search across apps so your feed feels like it’s “listening,” and put friction back in the system with no‑phone zones, app timers, and shared family rules that are easy to enforce.
Parents get a concrete playbook: co‑view content with kids under 14, run weekly history audits, set device boundaries for meals, cars, homework, and the hour before bed, and replace passive scrolling with real-world activities that restore attention and calm. We also tackle emerging risks from AI avatars and deepfakes, along with verification habits that help teens spot manipulation before it spreads. Finally, we name the red flags—withdrawal from in-person life, disrupted sleep, slipping performance, and any signals of hopelessness—and how to mobilize community and professional support fast.
If you’re ready to scroll smarter, protect sleep, and choose connection over comparison, this conversation gives you the tools. Subscribe, share with a parent who needs it, and leave a quick review to help others find the show. What boundary will you try this week?
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
SPEAKER_00 (00:02):
Welcome back to a living a full life podcast.
I'm Dr.
Enrico Dolci Gori, and todaywe're tackling one of the most
talked-about health concernstrending all over social media.
The link between social mediaand mental health.
It's scrolling, is the scrollingpart hurting us?
Is it helping us?
Or is it a little bit of both?
Let's dig into the science, therisks, and how we can use social
(00:25):
media in a healthier way.
We're going to bring it home forboth our use and our kids' use,
especially teenagers.
Social media is a daily habitfor billions of people around
the world, yet teens and youngadults spend three to five plus
hours on social media per day.
Studies show correlationsbetween high school media use
(00:47):
and increased rates of anxiety,depression, sleep problems, and
low self-esteem.
Parents, teachers, and evengovernments are raising red
flags, but the full story isn'tso simple.
We need to look at the researchand really dive deep into what
social media is really doing toour culture as a whole.
But you know me, I'm thinkingabout our families, I'm thinking
(01:08):
about our health, I'm thinkingabout ourselves and our children
when we do this podcast.
And we know from many podcaststhat I've reviewed neuroscience
is that the human brain developsuntil 25 years of age.
We need to remember this becausewhen we talk about the human
brain, we talk about it up untiltwo years old and everything
that happens in the infancy anddevelopmental stages of the
brain.
And how by the two-year mark,the size of the brain is
(01:29):
starting to get to its maximumpotential.
However, size does not meandevelopment.
From two to 25, the braindevelops.
Motor skills, language skills,academia, uh, coordination,
balance, all these things happenthrough those stages of
development.
And it's about that 10 through25 phase where the frontal
cortex develops connections.
Cognition, risk, behavior, allthese things develop later in
(01:54):
the teenage years.
And it's not until 25 when wehave full connection.
That's why when you go back tothink about your life as a
19-year-old or 22-year-old,you're like, why did I do that?
How did I do that?
Why did I think that was smart?
How did I jump off the roof ofthe garage onto a trampoline
when I was 22?
You wouldn't have done that at29.
There's a difference betweenthat, the risk factor there and
the things that happen withdevelopment.
So we want to talk about thesethings.
(02:15):
So correlation versus causationis not the best way to analyze
things.
I know the big thing right nowin the media is Tylenol.
And the jokes online is thatTylenol will cause autism if I
take my Tylenol.
That's not what it means.
Correlation and causation can'tbe put together like that.
So let's take that from thecurrent events of today and talk
(02:36):
about social media and mentalhealth.
It's not always the cause.
So social media doesn't causedepression outright.
But overuse in certain patternslike doom scrolling or
comparisons or evencyberbullying can worsen current
symptoms in teens.
So if they're really feeling alittle anxious or already
feeling a little bit depressed,going online and doom scrolling
(02:57):
and comparing and maybe evengetting some bullying online can
set people off the edge.
So the positives to social mediais that we have access to
support communities for a wholebunch of stuff from welding to
weaving to knitting to health tomental health groups to mom
groups to parenting groups.
There's so many good things thatsocial media has connected us
(03:18):
with support and groups andonline um connections that you
can have immediately.
It's brought awareness toresources that you can access
when you need something.
You can go online and look up.
Most people go to social mediato ask local communities about
where the best pizza place is orwhere the best barber is or
wherever the things are.
And they'll take that moreseriously than just scrolling on
(03:39):
a search engine like Google orDuckDuckGo and seeing the top
rank.
They'd rather hear it fromsomebody in a group.
So social media has had somepositive outcomes to it as
communities and as, you know, asus networking as humans.
The negatives is the constantcomparison.
All we get from social media isthe highlight reel of other
(04:00):
people's lives.
And the people who have time topost all the time are usually a
little bit more affluent, maybemake a little bit more money, do
some other CEOs, they're sellingstuff, whatever it is.
They got time to be on socialmedia, and they just show the
highlight reels of them sittingon the beach in Fiji.
And then we look at that stuffand we're like, well, I wish I
was in Fiji.
And then it lowers your ownself-worth.
(04:21):
Even in adults, it can cause alot of things.
The endless notifications andscrolling end up disrupting
dopamine regulation, reinforcingaddictive patterns.
Every time we hear that littleding, people jump almost in like
a stress response or like a 911response to that notification.
They got to check their phone inmid-conversation, mid-dinner.
(04:42):
Something happens, boom, they'relooking at their watch, looking
at their phone.
It's created a traumaticresponse and anxious response to
these things that we're supposedto save naturally for responsive
situations in life.
A screeching tires of a car,running to that, uh a car horn
going off, jumping to that.
Um, things that really, youknow, an animal coming around
(05:04):
the corner for your kids orsomething like that, you know,
that is our instinct.
And it's being replaced orsubstituted with digital stress.
The notifications just neverstop.
And that is disrupting thedopamine patterns in the brains,
especially in the developingbrain of your under 25-year-old
kids.
Nighttime scrolling reducessleep quality, which directly
(05:27):
impacts our mood the next day.
So if you see this in yourchildren, having that one-hour
buffer time before bedtime is soimportant of just that quiet, no
screens, no music, no digitalinfluence.
They can play with some toys ifthey want to.
They can uh, you know, play agame of solitaire, like with
cards if they want, on thetable, the old-fashioned way,
(05:49):
uh, whatever it is, just todecrease their mind, or just
read a book, just kind ofbedtime books, come back and
read actual paper, not Kindleand screen time things.
Uh exposure to harmful ormisleading mental health hacks
online and all the othermisleading health tips and hacks
online.
These are the negatives thatsocial media bring, which we
(06:10):
need to make sure we screen andprotect our children from, but
also ourselves from.
And realize when someone says,uh, the hack, the biohacking,
I'm like, just turn it off,switch the podcast.
There is no biohacking.
There is no biohacking.
God made the body the way it isperfectly.
The DNA cannot be changed.
If you start messing with DNA,you're really gonna screw things
(06:31):
up.
There is no hacking.
There is no hacking of thisinfinite wisdom and this innate
intelligence.
There is no biohacking.
There's no such thing.
Do not listen to these people.
These are key terms that aresent out there to be on the top
of your feed.
So you see this stuff, andthey're like, you got to eat 290
grams of protein per day, andyou're like a 120-pound woman,
(06:53):
you're like, okay, let's, I'mgonna do this.
I'm 49 years old, I'm gonna eat200 grams of protein and I'm
gonna run seven miles a day.
And then you're in my office twoweeks later because your hips
are falling off your body.
But the fact of the matter is,is there is no biohacking.
There are, if you hear the magicsupplements, the new and
involved supplements, they'rejust taking the same six
(07:14):
ingredients and putting theminto a new capsule and then
selling them as you know, thenew male enhancement thing.
Like it makes no sense.
There is no biohacking.
Please eat your organic foodsand uh go back to some of the
old podcasts we talked about,all that.
So the physiology behind socialmedia, the physiology behind
screen time is brain chemistry.
(07:35):
That's what we need to talkabout.
Social media taps into the samereward pathways as gambling.
Dopamine hits every time you geta like, a comment, or a new
follower, or a message, or a DM.
It's the same thing as hitting20 on the blackjack table, that
dopamine rush that you get whereyou think you're gonna win.
The stress response, onlineconflict causes stress.
(07:59):
Have you ever had a negativecomment in a comment feed about
you or about something or aboutsomething you believe in?
And then you felt that immediatestress.
That was unnecessary.
If you didn't have a phone, youwould not you would not have
seen that, you would not havedone that.
There's the fear of missing out,FOMO.
There's an event that's comingup tomorrow, and you can't make
it, causes stress.
You didn't know about it, butyou know about it now because
(08:20):
you scrolled through Instagram.
And then cyberbullying with ourkids trigger cortisol spikes.
Chronic stress can dysregulatethe nervous system, and this
deregulation causes immediateanxiety.
Then there's the sleepdisruption.
The blue light and stimulatingcontent before bed lowers
melatonin, poor sleep, andworsens mood regulation.
(08:43):
So those are those are thethings that we need to think
about on the physiology side.
There's practical ways to lookat this and set boundaries to
help work with social media forour children.
So no matter what age there are,set boundaries on this.
Because the five plus hours onsocial media scares me.
Because if we create this inthis generation, they're gonna
(09:04):
be normalized to spending thatmuch time on their phones
forever.
And when they hit the workforceand you got to work all day,
where is there gonna be the fivehours of time to be on social
media?
There's gonna be no realself-reflective time for people
moving forward.
And some of you are guilty ofthis, some of you are in your
40s and you do this.
And um, and as an adult, you canmake your own decisions, but
(09:24):
knowing this information, maybeyou should cut it back too.
Be like, wow, am I reallyspending 30 hours a week on
social media?
That's like a part-time, almostfull-time job on the side.
What else could I be doing withmy life?
Right.
And we got to think about thatstuff.
Uh, time block social media.
Use, you know, no scrollingtimes or particular scrolling
times.
I find the no scrolling timeswork better where there's
(09:46):
boundaries of like during thesetimes, you cannot be on your
phones or tablets.
That works better than like settimes because they're like only
between you know uh 4 p.m.
and 6 p.m.
you can be on social media.
And it kind of limits it becausemaybe you got busy between 4 and
6 p.m., but you still want to gocheck Instagram at seven.
So I find the blocking times arebetter.
Use app timers.
(10:06):
There's timers you can put onthe phones, you can put you can
connect them to your phone toyour children's devices, which
automatically tells you it'stime to turn off.
And then you can hit the button,say off.
It'll turn off their pet iPad orkick them out of all their apps.
There's digital well-being beingtools you can find online as
well.
And then curate your feed.
Follow uplifting educationalaccounts.
(10:29):
Follow uplifting educationalaccounts, and you'll get more of
those into your feed and you'llfind that.
You'd be like, my phone'slistening to me.
It's not quite listening to theaudio that's talking about, it's
catching your habits online andwhat you're searching.
So if you search something onGoogle, let's say you search um
Peloton bike or bike, indoorindoor biking um equipment.
(10:51):
Boom.
Now now your social media isgonna be tied up to that and
they're gonna show you differenttypes of ellipticals and inline
biking and in-house bikingthings and ads from those
companies for the next littlewhile.
And you're like, it's listeningto me.
No, it's really that one searchyou did 24 hours ago that ended
up queuing a whole cascadebecause you went and checked it.
(11:11):
And these things are all tiedinto your phone, believe it or
not.
Apple tried to uh tried to do ablock a few years ago on that,
but there's only a limitation onit, what they can do.
So Google phones and Androidphones, it's the wild, wild
west.
They're gonna track you forever.
Um, so curate your feed,unfollow accounts that trigger
comparison or negativity.
This is for the guys out there,guys.
(11:33):
Unfollow the and I thinkactually it's for everyone.
Women too.
I guess as a guy, you're outthere, you know, comparing
yourself to the 25-year-oldathletes, and you're now, you
know, you're in your 40s, andyou're like, well, maybe maybe
stop it.
Those kids can do differentthings than you can do, and
maybe makes you feel like youwant to be back there and just
(11:54):
eliminate those, just unfall.
Hit the unfollow button, hit theunfollow button on all that
stuff.
Hit the unfollow button on theKardashians, hit the unfollow
button on the Paris Hilton's.
Get rid of this stuff.
Don't even follow these people.
Follow things that are upliftingand replace your algorithm and
your feed with the things thatactually lift you up.
Um, and replace actual scrolltime.
(12:16):
Do something, go for a bikeride, go for a walk, make fakes,
face-to-face connections withyour family time, dinner time,
uh, neighbors.
You go out, you know, haveneighbor time where the kids
play together, reading ormindful practice.
Um, over conversations andstrict bands usually lead to
resentment from your kids.
(12:38):
So encourage co-viewing anddiscussion about online content,
especially with your kids under14.
Make sure you're co-viewing thisstuff with them.
What are they watching onYouTube?
What is the algorithms thatthey're starting to build on
there?
What are they actually clickingon?
Make sure you do audits everyweek on them.
Say, hey, can I look at yourFacebook feed?
Just go to the history, go, ornot even my kids are not allowed
(12:59):
on any of the uh social media,but they are allowed on YouTube.
So I have to go to their YouTubefeed and look at the history and
just see what's going on.
Is it Dr.
Squish?
Is it all Dr.
Squish videos?
Is it all whatever?
Is it all okay things that theycan be watching?
Uh, but if there's some otherthings in there, and then now
we're starting to get into musicand performers and concerts.
So I got to make sure whatstuff's coming up on their feed
through the algorithms throughthere.
(13:19):
So a once-a-week audit, it takesa few minutes just to go through
their history and catch what thewhat the shorts and all the
things that are coming on to,and honestly, what they're
clicking on, because you can seethe videos and in their history
that they're actually watching.
These are things you can auditand have those rules where
you're allowed to audit thetablets at any time and any
moment as a parent.
That's those are goodboundaries.
(13:40):
And then just teach criticalthinking to your kids as well
about what they see online.
Be like, hey, if this isuplifting and making you feel
good and then making you singand dance and you love the music
and you love the jokes and theand it's funny, then you can
continue watching that.
If you watch anything that youdon't like, please come show it
to me so I can see what it is.
What's the thing that's bringingthem down?
Was it scary?
(14:01):
Was it uh influencing?
Was it uh derogatory?
Was it anything around thosethings?
And make sure we delete thatfrom the history and then click
on the right things, or eventake digital breaks.
So here's some things as aparent to look at some red flags
maybe from your children.
And you probably know some ofthese, but here are just you
know three or four red flagsthat if your kids are showing
(14:23):
this, there has to be animmediate interference with the
screen time.
We have to limit it, we have totake it away, we have to do
something drastic for ourchildren to protect them and
teach them.
During that time, it's not apunishment, it's a teachable
moment during those times.
So noticeable withdraw fromin-person social life.
Once your kids are now no longerwanting to talk to their
(14:44):
siblings or spend time aroundthe table and they're running to
their room to go use socialmedia, that's a huge red flag
because they're substituting thedigital world for the real life.
And some scary things that arehappening with AI is these
avatars that can be created now,you can now have full
conversations with them, kind oflike Siri or Alexa on your on
(15:04):
your devices, more like Siri.
Siri won't necessarily have afull conversation with you, but
you can tell Siri, like, heySiri, tell me a joke.
And Siri will start telling youa joke, and then you can say,
Hey Siri, what's the weatherlike?
And you have direct question andanswers.
There are now AI avatars whereyou can create them and call
them Buddy.
And then Buddy will you caninitiate, Hi Buddy, how are you?
(15:26):
And Buddy will say, like, I'mdoing great today.
How are you?
Name, and they'll be like, I'mdoing great.
That's great.
What did you do today?
Like, and is engaging them intoa conversation.
And some crazy things about itis you can create avatars of
like your dead parents or yourgrandparents or the death of the
neighbor or a child, and thenand then they continue on as an
(15:48):
avatar, which is messed up.
If you really think I'm justtrying to scare you a little
bit, dun dun dun dun dun dun dundun, got the Jaws music there
for you, just to kind of scareparents a little bit and
yourself on how far this can gowith AI.
They said by 2025, uh, this wastwo years ago, and I think we're
close, but by 2026, you will notbe able to tell a real video
from a fake video.
(16:09):
Like it's you know, PresidentTrump's gonna get up on there on
a video, and you're gonna belike, What?
We attacked Israel?
Like, what's going on?
And then you look at the go tothe new news feeds and you're
like, no, it's not true.
It's gonna be so realistic, andthen by 2030, it's gonna be out
of control.
Like your kids will send youtext videos of them.
It's not them, it's likesomebody trying to create
identity theft, and it's yourchild talking to you in a video,
(16:31):
being like, Hey, you know, I'mdown the street here.
Can you just wire me some money?
I I left my keys in my car, andit's gonna get out of control.
Like, this is we're alreadythere.
So just remember why we need toprotect ourselves on this
digital world is because AI isgetting out of there.
So by having this, imagine yourkid getting connected to buddy
on an AI, and they're like,they're my best friend.
(16:54):
Oh man, that's a tough break tomake.
Remember us growing up as kids,imaginary friends, and we're
like, Oh, that's okay, they'reusing your you're using your
imagination.
Okay.
And if you were seven years old,it was like, yeah, that's cute.
If you were 17 years old, yourparents were like, dude, there's
no freaking imaginary friend.
Like, we need to get youchecked, right?
Like, that's what happened inthe 80s and 90s.
Now, in 2025, you know, you canhave your 17-year-old be like,
(17:17):
I'm just talking to buddy.
And that's not right.
So we need to be we need to becareful with this stuff.
Just that's more of a scaretactic for you to be on top of
this digital stuff.
Uh, drastic changes in sleep,that's another red flag.
They're just not sleeping, theirappetite gets cut off, uh,
school and work performancestarts to tank.
It's because their mind is nowfocused somewhere else and it's
(17:38):
in the digital world.
Expressions, direct expressionsof hopelessness or self-harm
online.
Work as a community, be tightwith parents, be tight with
other friends and families thatyour kids are friends with, so
that you can watch out for eachother's kids.
When something is said, maybe toa friend and it's risky.
(17:58):
Parents can get together and belike, hey, you know, just out of
caution, you know, Amanda saidthis online last night.
Is she doing okay?
And then the parent can be like,wow, I didn't even what what are
you talking about?
What did she say?
And then you can get into thatand then sit down and manda be
hey Amanda, we heard somethinguh along these lines.
Tell me how you feel.
How what was that all about?
And we can catch these thingsearly.
Uh, if you see these signs,encourage professional support
(18:20):
immediately.
This is like immediatelypsychology, something to go in
there, uh, or therapy to help.
Because as a parent, you knowhow it is.
You're wrong.
Everything, everything you sayis wrong.
It's not no, you're not right.
My six-year-old keeps saying no.
The first word that comes out ofher mind mouth is no.
Hey, Abby, you know, don't getclose to the oven.
It's it's pretty hot.
No, no.
I'm like, no?
(18:40):
What do you say no for?
No, no, I wasn't.
I know, I know, I'm not gonnaget close.
Like the first word out of hermouth is no, I'm always wrong.
I'm like, girl.
Uh, so you know how it is to beparents, and that's what I'm
doing, just trying to influenceum parents and and families to
live a healthy life.
And this is how we do it byprotecting our children in a
healthy way, and that's how itis.
Digital can be useful.
(19:00):
I gave you the positives of thisand how we connect with the
world.
I connect with my cousins andstuff in Italy.
I connect with is I love socialmedia.
It's great.
We we get to see each other'skids, it's awesome.
There's positives to it.
I'm part of great groups, I'mpart of my local community
groups.
We talk about health.
It's I use it in a healthy way.
I think I do, but I catch myselfscrolling and then 45 minutes
goes by.
I'm like, have I been scrollingfor 45 minutes?
(19:21):
What the shnikes?
And then I'm off of my phone andget on with my life.
So, but I think that's a healthyway to do it.
We need to teach those healthyhabits to our kids.
So stay well, stay healthy inthe digital world as well, and
have a healthy and fantasticweek.
And we'll catch you next week onanother episode of Living a Full
Life.
Welcome back to a living a full life podcast.
I'm Dr.
Enrico Dolci Gori, and todaywe're tackling one of the most
talked-about health concernstrending all over social media.
The link between social mediaand mental health.
It's scrolling, is the scrollingpart hurting us?
Is it helping us?
Or is it a little bit of both?
Let's dig into the science, therisks, and how we can use social
(00:25):
media in a healthier way.
We're going to bring it home forboth our use and our kids' use,
especially teenagers.
Social media is a daily habitfor billions of people around
the world, yet teens and youngadults spend three to five plus
hours on social media per day.
Studies show correlationsbetween high school media use
(00:47):
and increased rates of anxiety,depression, sleep problems, and
low self-esteem.
Parents, teachers, and evengovernments are raising red
flags, but the full story isn'tso simple.
We need to look at the researchand really dive deep into what
social media is really doing toour culture as a whole.
But you know me, I'm thinkingabout our families, I'm thinking
(01:08):
about our health, I'm thinkingabout ourselves and our children
when we do this podcast.
And we know from many podcaststhat I've reviewed neuroscience
is that the human brain developsuntil 25 years of age.
We need to remember this becausewhen we talk about the human
brain, we talk about it up untiltwo years old and everything
that happens in the infancy anddevelopmental stages of the
brain.
And how by the two-year mark,the size of the brain is
(01:29):
starting to get to its maximumpotential.
However, size does not meandevelopment.
From two to 25, the braindevelops.
Motor skills, language skills,academia, uh, coordination,
balance, all these things happenthrough those stages of
development.
And it's about that 10 through25 phase where the frontal
cortex develops connections.
Cognition, risk, behavior, allthese things develop later in
(01:54):
the teenage years.
And it's not until 25 when wehave full connection.
That's why when you go back tothink about your life as a
19-year-old or 22-year-old,you're like, why did I do that?
How did I do that?
Why did I think that was smart?
How did I jump off the roof ofthe garage onto a trampoline
when I was 22?
You wouldn't have done that at29.
There's a difference betweenthat, the risk factor there and
the things that happen withdevelopment.
So we want to talk about thesethings.
(02:15):
So correlation versus causationis not the best way to analyze
things.
I know the big thing right nowin the media is Tylenol.
And the jokes online is thatTylenol will cause autism if I
take my Tylenol.
That's not what it means.
Correlation and causation can'tbe put together like that.
So let's take that from thecurrent events of today and talk
(02:36):
about social media and mentalhealth.
It's not always the cause.
So social media doesn't causedepression outright.
But overuse in certain patternslike doom scrolling or
comparisons or evencyberbullying can worsen current
symptoms in teens.
So if they're really feeling alittle anxious or already
feeling a little bit depressed,going online and doom scrolling
(02:57):
and comparing and maybe evengetting some bullying online can
set people off the edge.
So the positives to social mediais that we have access to
support communities for a wholebunch of stuff from welding to
weaving to knitting to health tomental health groups to mom
groups to parenting groups.
There's so many good things thatsocial media has connected us
(03:18):
with support and groups andonline um connections that you
can have immediately.
It's brought awareness toresources that you can access
when you need something.
You can go online and look up.
Most people go to social mediato ask local communities about
where the best pizza place is orwhere the best barber is or
wherever the things are.
And they'll take that moreseriously than just scrolling on
(03:39):
a search engine like Google orDuckDuckGo and seeing the top
rank.
They'd rather hear it fromsomebody in a group.
So social media has had somepositive outcomes to it as
communities and as, you know, asus networking as humans.
The negatives is the constantcomparison.
All we get from social media isthe highlight reel of other
(04:00):
people's lives.
And the people who have time topost all the time are usually a
little bit more affluent, maybemake a little bit more money, do
some other CEOs, they're sellingstuff, whatever it is.
They got time to be on socialmedia, and they just show the
highlight reels of them sittingon the beach in Fiji.
And then we look at that stuffand we're like, well, I wish I
was in Fiji.
And then it lowers your ownself-worth.
(04:21):
Even in adults, it can cause alot of things.
The endless notifications andscrolling end up disrupting
dopamine regulation, reinforcingaddictive patterns.
Every time we hear that littleding, people jump almost in like
a stress response or like a 911response to that notification.
They got to check their phone inmid-conversation, mid-dinner.
(04:42):
Something happens, boom, they'relooking at their watch, looking
at their phone.
It's created a traumaticresponse and anxious response to
these things that we're supposedto save naturally for responsive
situations in life.
A screeching tires of a car,running to that, uh a car horn
going off, jumping to that.
Um, things that really, youknow, an animal coming around
(05:04):
the corner for your kids orsomething like that, you know,
that is our instinct.
And it's being replaced orsubstituted with digital stress.
The notifications just neverstop.
And that is disrupting thedopamine patterns in the brains,
especially in the developingbrain of your under 25-year-old
kids.
Nighttime scrolling reducessleep quality, which directly
(05:27):
impacts our mood the next day.
So if you see this in yourchildren, having that one-hour
buffer time before bedtime is soimportant of just that quiet, no
screens, no music, no digitalinfluence.
They can play with some toys ifthey want to.
They can uh, you know, play agame of solitaire, like with
cards if they want, on thetable, the old-fashioned way,
(05:49):
uh, whatever it is, just todecrease their mind, or just
read a book, just kind ofbedtime books, come back and
read actual paper, not Kindleand screen time things.
Uh exposure to harmful ormisleading mental health hacks
online and all the othermisleading health tips and hacks
online.
These are the negatives thatsocial media bring, which we
(06:10):
need to make sure we screen andprotect our children from, but
also ourselves from.
And realize when someone says,uh, the hack, the biohacking,
I'm like, just turn it off,switch the podcast.
There is no biohacking.
There is no biohacking.
God made the body the way it isperfectly.
The DNA cannot be changed.
If you start messing with DNA,you're really gonna screw things
(06:31):
up.
There is no hacking.
There is no hacking of thisinfinite wisdom and this innate
intelligence.
There is no biohacking.
There's no such thing.
Do not listen to these people.
These are key terms that aresent out there to be on the top
of your feed.
So you see this stuff, andthey're like, you got to eat 290
grams of protein per day, andyou're like a 120-pound woman,
(06:53):
you're like, okay, let's, I'mgonna do this.
I'm 49 years old, I'm gonna eat200 grams of protein and I'm
gonna run seven miles a day.
And then you're in my office twoweeks later because your hips
are falling off your body.
But the fact of the matter is,is there is no biohacking.
There are, if you hear the magicsupplements, the new and
involved supplements, they'rejust taking the same six
(07:14):
ingredients and putting theminto a new capsule and then
selling them as you know, thenew male enhancement thing.
Like it makes no sense.
There is no biohacking.
Please eat your organic foodsand uh go back to some of the
old podcasts we talked about,all that.
So the physiology behind socialmedia, the physiology behind
screen time is brain chemistry.
(07:35):
That's what we need to talkabout.
Social media taps into the samereward pathways as gambling.
Dopamine hits every time you geta like, a comment, or a new
follower, or a message, or a DM.
It's the same thing as hitting20 on the blackjack table, that
dopamine rush that you get whereyou think you're gonna win.
The stress response, onlineconflict causes stress.
(07:59):
Have you ever had a negativecomment in a comment feed about
you or about something or aboutsomething you believe in?
And then you felt that immediatestress.
That was unnecessary.
If you didn't have a phone, youwould not you would not have
seen that, you would not havedone that.
There's the fear of missing out,FOMO.
There's an event that's comingup tomorrow, and you can't make
it, causes stress.
You didn't know about it, butyou know about it now because
(08:20):
you scrolled through Instagram.
And then cyberbullying with ourkids trigger cortisol spikes.
Chronic stress can dysregulatethe nervous system, and this
deregulation causes immediateanxiety.
Then there's the sleepdisruption.
The blue light and stimulatingcontent before bed lowers
melatonin, poor sleep, andworsens mood regulation.
(08:43):
So those are those are thethings that we need to think
about on the physiology side.
There's practical ways to lookat this and set boundaries to
help work with social media forour children.
So no matter what age there are,set boundaries on this.
Because the five plus hours onsocial media scares me.
Because if we create this inthis generation, they're gonna
(09:04):
be normalized to spending thatmuch time on their phones
forever.
And when they hit the workforceand you got to work all day,
where is there gonna be the fivehours of time to be on social
media?
There's gonna be no realself-reflective time for people
moving forward.
And some of you are guilty ofthis, some of you are in your
40s and you do this.
And um, and as an adult, you canmake your own decisions, but
(09:24):
knowing this information, maybeyou should cut it back too.
Be like, wow, am I reallyspending 30 hours a week on
social media?
That's like a part-time, almostfull-time job on the side.
What else could I be doing withmy life?
Right.
And we got to think about thatstuff.
Uh, time block social media.
Use, you know, no scrollingtimes or particular scrolling
times.
I find the no scrolling timeswork better where there's
(09:46):
boundaries of like during thesetimes, you cannot be on your
phones or tablets.
That works better than like settimes because they're like only
between you know uh 4 p.m.
and 6 p.m.
you can be on social media.
And it kind of limits it becausemaybe you got busy between 4 and
6 p.m., but you still want to gocheck Instagram at seven.
So I find the blocking times arebetter.
Use app timers.
(10:06):
There's timers you can put onthe phones, you can put you can
connect them to your phone toyour children's devices, which
automatically tells you it'stime to turn off.
And then you can hit the button,say off.
It'll turn off their pet iPad orkick them out of all their apps.
There's digital well-being beingtools you can find online as
well.
And then curate your feed.
Follow uplifting educationalaccounts.
(10:29):
Follow uplifting educationalaccounts, and you'll get more of
those into your feed and you'llfind that.
You'd be like, my phone'slistening to me.
It's not quite listening to theaudio that's talking about, it's
catching your habits online andwhat you're searching.
So if you search something onGoogle, let's say you search um
Peloton bike or bike, indoorindoor biking um equipment.
(10:51):
Boom.
Now now your social media isgonna be tied up to that and
they're gonna show you differenttypes of ellipticals and inline
biking and in-house bikingthings and ads from those
companies for the next littlewhile.
And you're like, it's listeningto me.
No, it's really that one searchyou did 24 hours ago that ended
up queuing a whole cascadebecause you went and checked it.
(11:11):
And these things are all tiedinto your phone, believe it or
not.
Apple tried to uh tried to do ablock a few years ago on that,
but there's only a limitation onit, what they can do.
So Google phones and Androidphones, it's the wild, wild
west.
They're gonna track you forever.
Um, so curate your feed,unfollow accounts that trigger
comparison or negativity.
This is for the guys out there,guys.
(11:33):
Unfollow the and I thinkactually it's for everyone.
Women too.
I guess as a guy, you're outthere, you know, comparing
yourself to the 25-year-oldathletes, and you're now, you
know, you're in your 40s, andyou're like, well, maybe maybe
stop it.
Those kids can do differentthings than you can do, and
maybe makes you feel like youwant to be back there and just
(11:54):
eliminate those, just unfall.
Hit the unfollow button, hit theunfollow button on all that
stuff.
Hit the unfollow button on theKardashians, hit the unfollow
button on the Paris Hilton's.
Get rid of this stuff.
Don't even follow these people.
Follow things that are upliftingand replace your algorithm and
your feed with the things thatactually lift you up.
Um, and replace actual scrolltime.
(12:16):
Do something, go for a bikeride, go for a walk, make fakes,
face-to-face connections withyour family time, dinner time,
uh, neighbors.
You go out, you know, haveneighbor time where the kids
play together, reading ormindful practice.
Um, over conversations andstrict bands usually lead to
resentment from your kids.
(12:38):
So encourage co-viewing anddiscussion about online content,
especially with your kids under14.
Make sure you're co-viewing thisstuff with them.
What are they watching onYouTube?
What is the algorithms thatthey're starting to build on
there?
What are they actually clickingon?
Make sure you do audits everyweek on them.
Say, hey, can I look at yourFacebook feed?
Just go to the history, go, ornot even my kids are not allowed
(12:59):
on any of the uh social media,but they are allowed on YouTube.
So I have to go to their YouTubefeed and look at the history and
just see what's going on.
Is it Dr.
Squish?
Is it all Dr.
Squish videos?
Is it all whatever?
Is it all okay things that theycan be watching?
Uh, but if there's some otherthings in there, and then now
we're starting to get into musicand performers and concerts.
So I got to make sure whatstuff's coming up on their feed
through the algorithms throughthere.
(13:19):
So a once-a-week audit, it takesa few minutes just to go through
their history and catch what thewhat the shorts and all the
things that are coming on to,and honestly, what they're
clicking on, because you can seethe videos and in their history
that they're actually watching.
These are things you can auditand have those rules where
you're allowed to audit thetablets at any time and any
moment as a parent.
That's those are goodboundaries.
(13:40):
And then just teach criticalthinking to your kids as well
about what they see online.
Be like, hey, if this isuplifting and making you feel
good and then making you singand dance and you love the music
and you love the jokes and theand it's funny, then you can
continue watching that.
If you watch anything that youdon't like, please come show it
to me so I can see what it is.
What's the thing that's bringingthem down?
Was it scary?
(14:01):
Was it uh influencing?
Was it uh derogatory?
Was it anything around thosethings?
And make sure we delete thatfrom the history and then click
on the right things, or eventake digital breaks.
So here's some things as aparent to look at some red flags
maybe from your children.
And you probably know some ofthese, but here are just you
know three or four red flagsthat if your kids are showing
(14:23):
this, there has to be animmediate interference with the
screen time.
We have to limit it, we have totake it away, we have to do
something drastic for ourchildren to protect them and
teach them.
During that time, it's not apunishment, it's a teachable
moment during those times.
So noticeable withdraw fromin-person social life.
Once your kids are now no longerwanting to talk to their
(14:44):
siblings or spend time aroundthe table and they're running to
their room to go use socialmedia, that's a huge red flag
because they're substituting thedigital world for the real life.
And some scary things that arehappening with AI is these
avatars that can be created now,you can now have full
conversations with them, kind oflike Siri or Alexa on your on
(15:04):
your devices, more like Siri.
Siri won't necessarily have afull conversation with you, but
you can tell Siri, like, heySiri, tell me a joke.
And Siri will start telling youa joke, and then you can say,
Hey Siri, what's the weatherlike?
And you have direct question andanswers.
There are now AI avatars whereyou can create them and call
them Buddy.
And then Buddy will you caninitiate, Hi Buddy, how are you?
(15:26):
And Buddy will say, like, I'mdoing great today.
How are you?
Name, and they'll be like, I'mdoing great.
That's great.
What did you do today?
Like, and is engaging them intoa conversation.
And some crazy things about itis you can create avatars of
like your dead parents or yourgrandparents or the death of the
neighbor or a child, and thenand then they continue on as an
(15:48):
avatar, which is messed up.
If you really think I'm justtrying to scare you a little
bit, dun dun dun dun dun dun dundun, got the Jaws music there
for you, just to kind of scareparents a little bit and
yourself on how far this can gowith AI.
They said by 2025, uh, this wastwo years ago, and I think we're
close, but by 2026, you will notbe able to tell a real video
from a fake video.
(16:09):
Like it's you know, PresidentTrump's gonna get up on there on
a video, and you're gonna belike, What?
We attacked Israel?
Like, what's going on?
And then you look at the go tothe new news feeds and you're
like, no, it's not true.
It's gonna be so realistic, andthen by 2030, it's gonna be out
of control.
Like your kids will send youtext videos of them.
It's not them, it's likesomebody trying to create
identity theft, and it's yourchild talking to you in a video,
(16:31):
being like, Hey, you know, I'mdown the street here.
Can you just wire me some money?
I I left my keys in my car, andit's gonna get out of control.
Like, this is we're alreadythere.
So just remember why we need toprotect ourselves on this
digital world is because AI isgetting out of there.
So by having this, imagine yourkid getting connected to buddy
on an AI, and they're like,they're my best friend.
(16:54):
Oh man, that's a tough break tomake.
Remember us growing up as kids,imaginary friends, and we're
like, Oh, that's okay, they'reusing your you're using your
imagination.
Okay.
And if you were seven years old,it was like, yeah, that's cute.
If you were 17 years old, yourparents were like, dude, there's
no freaking imaginary friend.
Like, we need to get youchecked, right?
Like, that's what happened inthe 80s and 90s.
Now, in 2025, you know, you canhave your 17-year-old be like,
(17:17):
I'm just talking to buddy.
And that's not right.
So we need to be we need to becareful with this stuff.
Just that's more of a scaretactic for you to be on top of
this digital stuff.
Uh, drastic changes in sleep,that's another red flag.
They're just not sleeping, theirappetite gets cut off, uh,
school and work performancestarts to tank.
It's because their mind is nowfocused somewhere else and it's
(17:38):
in the digital world.
Expressions, direct expressionsof hopelessness or self-harm
online.
Work as a community, be tightwith parents, be tight with
other friends and families thatyour kids are friends with, so
that you can watch out for eachother's kids.
When something is said, maybe toa friend and it's risky.
(17:58):
Parents can get together and belike, hey, you know, just out of
caution, you know, Amanda saidthis online last night.
Is she doing okay?
And then the parent can be like,wow, I didn't even what what are
you talking about?
What did she say?
And then you can get into thatand then sit down and manda be
hey Amanda, we heard somethinguh along these lines.
Tell me how you feel.
How what was that all about?
And we can catch these thingsearly.
Uh, if you see these signs,encourage professional support
(18:20):
immediately.
This is like immediatelypsychology, something to go in
there, uh, or therapy to help.
Because as a parent, you knowhow it is.
You're wrong.
Everything, everything you sayis wrong.
It's not no, you're not right.
My six-year-old keeps saying no.
The first word that comes out ofher mind mouth is no.
Hey, Abby, you know, don't getclose to the oven.
It's it's pretty hot.
No, no.
I'm like, no?
(18:40):
What do you say no for?
No, no, I wasn't.
I know, I know, I'm not gonnaget close.
Like the first word out of hermouth is no, I'm always wrong.
I'm like, girl.
Uh, so you know how it is to beparents, and that's what I'm
doing, just trying to influenceum parents and and families to
live a healthy life.
And this is how we do it byprotecting our children in a
healthy way, and that's how itis.
Digital can be useful.
(19:00):
I gave you the positives of thisand how we connect with the
world.
I connect with my cousins andstuff in Italy.
I connect with is I love socialmedia.
It's great.
We we get to see each other'skids, it's awesome.
There's positives to it.
I'm part of great groups, I'mpart of my local community
groups.
We talk about health.
It's I use it in a healthy way.
I think I do, but I catch myselfscrolling and then 45 minutes
goes by.
I'm like, have I been scrollingfor 45 minutes?
(19:21):
What the shnikes?
And then I'm off of my phone andget on with my life.
So, but I think that's a healthyway to do it.
We need to teach those healthyhabits to our kids.
So stay well, stay healthy inthe digital world as well, and
have a healthy and fantasticweek.
And we'll catch you next week onanother episode of Living a Full
Life.
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