July 19, 2025 • 36 mins
Kids these days are far more tech savvy than previous generations, but does that really help them stay safer online?
Tim Beveridge is joined by Principal Psychologist at Umbrella Wellbeing, Dougal Sutherland, for Parent Squad.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:05):
You're listening to the Weekend Collective podcast from News Talk
sedbeh It.
Speaker 2 (00:32):
Is for her he Hers for betterf West for Wednesday
and welcome back to the Weekend Collective. Gosh, if you
listen to the music, the grooves and everything, you wouldn't
You don't realize it's a key we band until the
vocals come on and all of a sudden you hear
that doozy of a key we ax And of course
that a supergroup anyway, and that is because we're playing,
(00:53):
but of supergroup because I think that's the pick of
our guest for the parent squad. And by the way,
just before, well introduce him right now, then we'll get
into the intro. He is a principal psychologist at Umbrella
Well Being and his name is Google Southerland. Google.
Speaker 3 (01:07):
Hello, Good afternoon, Tim, and you're you're you're lovely mustache
is making an entrance to and good afternoon to that.
It does look good. We were talking off here before,
and you know you see that sort of looks. I
think it does give you a sort of a British
military sort of touch, a little bit of Biggles or
(01:28):
Captain Darling from Black Header.
Speaker 2 (01:30):
Perhaps, I guess that's better than Joe McCarroll call me
Ned Flanders and I was no, I think there was
a bit, there was a bit harsh. It's a funny
one in the mustache because my family ever known he
has mustaches. And I'm like, oh, look, I'm looking at
one of our herold gymnalists just walking past with the
full blind mustaches. But young, it makes you look younger,
(01:51):
I reckon, Oh my god, I'm definitely keeping this baby.
Speaker 3 (01:54):
Yeah, yeah, no, it does. Young people do it all
the time and it makes you look at least thirty seven.
Speaker 2 (02:00):
Doogle stop flirting with me. But that's fantastic the show mate,
How have you been keeping?
Speaker 3 (02:07):
Been well? Yes, pretty well? Thanks, trying to think of
anything exciting. No, not really got a grand I think
I've got a grandchild. She's been changed six months, not
long ago.
Speaker 2 (02:18):
That's right. You mentioned that. That's fantastic. Is that a
mindset change when you realize that instead of being just
a dad, you're a grandfather.
Speaker 3 (02:26):
It's we've not quite got there yet. I'm I'm comfortable
saying that my son and his wife have had a baby,
but not quite saying I've got a grandchild. But I
have I have.
Speaker 2 (02:39):
How have they? I mean, because the child is too
young to really to register the sound of what your
name might be. But how have you been introduced to
the child? Have you been called granddad, puppy or caught off?
Speaker 3 (02:52):
Well, well, my kids often call me douggie, and so
they've morphed that into Grandduggie.
Speaker 2 (03:01):
Oh, I would hope you could just stick with Dougie, granddad.
Speaker 3 (03:04):
I could stick with yeah, grand Dougie.
Speaker 2 (03:06):
Is Hey, Look, you've been doing quite a bit of
work in the online space, and something we want to
talk about is keeping keeping kids safe over the years.
Because I think it was a sentence I read and
what's something you'd written? We talked about how this generation
(03:27):
of children's what's the expression digital natives, so they've grown
up with it, and some of the conversations that we've
had on this show probably acknowledged that maybe this generation
of kids in some ways is better prepared for the
Internet than maybe the first generation that had to deal
with it. And yet it's it's obviously got obvious dangers,
(03:50):
and there's there's the potential for a whole lot of
anxiety and worries about I mean, one of them big
ones are probably self image and mental health issues and anxiety.
But it's not just a case of trying to address
it sort of in an instant, is it. I mean,
we've got the kids have got a lifetime of dealing
with this stuff.
Speaker 3 (04:09):
Yeah, they have, I think, And I think that's where
that generation gap between us as digital migrants and them
as digital natives sort of kicks in because we're always
struggling to keep up and go, oh, I wonder what
we can do to help them. And they're already streets
ahead of us, so we can probably listen to them
quite a lot about what we could do to help them.
Speaker 2 (04:29):
I think, well, that's I guess that's the that's the issue.
If there's streets ahead of us, where do we where
do we play a role? And I don't want to
be naive because my kids don't have social media, they
don't have Instagram. They probably look at silly TikTok videos
for you know, you know, a dog running around the
(04:52):
yard and then attacking the cat or something. I don't
know what they look at. I should probably be out out.
Speaker 3 (04:58):
I don't know what they look at.
Speaker 2 (04:59):
Well, actually I do, but most of the time, for instance,
they're looking at at dance videos and music and things,
but they're not sharing images of themselves. They're yeah, and
that's that's coming one day.
Speaker 3 (05:12):
Yes, but well, yeah, I think people are getting smarter.
Like a number of young people i'm aware of have
have you know who sort of in their mid twenties
are starting to sort of be quite protective of their
images online. And you know, people that have had new
babies saying, hey, do you know what, We're not going
to put our We're not going to put our baby's
(05:32):
image online. We're going to leave that for them to
decide later on. So I think we've gone from this
state where you know, we just put everything on Facebook.
Here we all are everything and all our glory sometimes
and I think there's a bit of a move towards
people not doing that, and I think we need we
being those people, those of us who are over about
thirty five, need to catch up with that and go, actually,
(05:54):
we need to be much smarter about what we do
with our presence online and just don't put a whole
lot of stuff up because you can't get it off again.
So once it's there, it's there. And so I think
there's a whole lot to be learned from how do
we help kids adjust to this and train them to
use it in a smart way, not not just in
(06:14):
a dumb way like we've perhaps used it.
Speaker 2 (06:16):
And I guess from a psychology obviously from your expertise
point of view, what are the things that we you
know that I don't want to say, what's the worst
case scenario, because you know, everything can be utterly tragic.
But what are the the common risks that we could
read me easily protect, But what are the common avoidable
(06:37):
risks and the dangers slash damage that it actually does
to kids?
Speaker 3 (06:42):
Yeah? Look, I think you touched on one before around
self image. That there's the constant comparison to to people,
to other people and in the you know, in the
very sort of photoshopped way, AI generated way that make
people look greatly perfect. So I think there's self image.
The other thing that I you know, that worries me
perhaps more than anything, is the how you can perhaps
(07:04):
go from watching the highlights of an all black test
match to something sort of some far right extremist material
within about four or five cliques. And if that's so,
it's the exposure to what you might call, you know,
just pretty horrific sort of objectionable material, you know, more
(07:27):
than just sort of sex and nudity, sort of extreme stuff,
and kids get this click click, click, quite easily, and
I think that's the stuff to be do you know,
although it's not just kids, it's any of us. I
don't want to be viewing that stuff. I don't want
anybody in my family and my friends to be viewing
that kind of stuff. And yet it just happens that
gets sent to you. So I think I think it's
not necessarily an age issue. I think it's a social
(07:51):
media issue. Is that we can so easily get sent
or get access to horrific material on the internet.
Speaker 2 (07:59):
Yeah. Actually, just I mean it's a slightly side issue
on that. But you mentioned people who don't put images
of their babies and stuff online, which I mean, I
would tend to think as a slide over reaction because
I think ill babies look like Winston Churchill, uh, and
that you know what I mean, If you post an
image of you holding your but your infant in the
(08:20):
first few months, I mean, I don't think you've done
anyone a need disservice really, because that baby doesn't look
anything like that toddler's going to look. And I guess
there's that question around you know what age the philosophy
is right, but yeah.
Speaker 3 (08:35):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah yeah, maybe the baby like a
newborn for sure. But then as you say, when do
you actually stop? And and and you know you hear
you hear warnings from the police all the time, you know,
at the start of school terms, they say, don't post
kids of photos of your kids in their school uniform
on the internet standing outside their homes. People can find them.
(08:59):
Or worse, what they say, and I've heard of this
is that somebody sees them and says, oh, you must
be you must be living in a particular suburb, and
the kid goes, oh my god, they must know who
I am, when of course they don't. They've just sort
of deciphered by your school uniform. And then they said,
and we know what you've been doing, so you better
tell us, you better give us some money, otherwise we're
(09:22):
going to be telling everybody else what you've done. So
I think I think we've got to be really savvy
around what our images that we post online, particularly of
our kids. Like for sure, maybe newborn babies aside, but
once they get older, it's like, actually that's their stuff,
and that's going to be you can't take it off
the internet, and then when do you kind of stop?
(09:43):
And we've we take that away from our kids if
we put it on for them, if that makes sense?
Speaker 2 (09:47):
Yeah, have we? Actually? I do wonder if I'm trying
to think of my own evolution of what might have
been shared in the past of family. But these days
I wonder if I have even sort of pulled back
on all that. I mean, not that I'm not a
huge share on social media, but holiday photos Prince, so
you know, we went on a skiing holiday and I
(10:08):
probably I wouldn't think twice of posting a photo. I
wouldn't think too many times about posting a photo when
we've all got basically a helmets and our goggles and
everything on. It's like here we are, I'm not yet.
It's a funny one though, if you were at a
beach though, and you're just all, you know, T shirt
and jeans or something, and you're standing there are those
(10:28):
the things that we shouldn't be posting on anything either,
Because yeah, I tend to think I pulled back from that.
Speaker 3 (10:36):
I reckon I have too. I tend like I think
I've posted. I've been much less active on social media
over the last six months or twelve months anyway, and
that's just like it's sort of kind of boring. But
when I do post stuff, it tends to be more
kind of stuff that I'm looking at or that I
can see, rather than of me, if that makes sense.
(10:56):
Of people, So this is what, this is, what's happening,
or this has caught my eye as something and it's
out there in the world. So taking photos of things
rather than people. And maybe it's extreme to say, don't
even post photos of yourself, and I'm not really saying that,
but I think I think we need to be thinking
carefully about when we've post photos of ourselves and of
(11:18):
our kids, remembering that you know it's it is going
to be there pretty much forever, and certainly employers search
it when you're looking for a job. I know that
I've definitely done that. When we've been recruiting people. You
get their CV and you interview them and you go, Now,
just before we do anything else, let's do a quick card,
quick internet search and what's happening. What have they been doing?
Speaker 2 (11:39):
There's Google and his MANKINI yet time.
Speaker 3 (11:43):
That's right, that's rights. Oh yeah, so I think we
just need to be much lever about it than perhaps
we are, and we need to listen to kids, I think,
to creating knowing that kids are going to access weird stuff,
because that's what kids do, you know, as teenagers, and
(12:04):
creating a place there a space for them to come
and tell you if they'd come across anything really horrible
that's really upset them, and having them do that so
that they don't think you're going to take away their
device all of a sudden, because that's an immediate reaction.
I think that many parents have.
Speaker 2 (12:19):
Right, well, get rid of it. You have to have
the no blame you have they have a no blame policy.
If I don't think I don't know when I last
said this to my daughters, but I know that at
some stage we've said, look, if you see anything, you know,
if something really bad, We're not going to punish you.
We just need to know. If you've seen something that
really upsets you, just tell us and our consum will
be to make sure that you're safe and all that
(12:40):
sort of stuff. But I mean, that is that is important,
isn't it?
Speaker 3 (12:44):
Because it's super important because kids are going to see it. Look,
some work at you were mentioning stuff before. But and
I did a little bit of work with the Classifications
Office and a lot of their research was around kids
get shown this inadvertently. They see it, you know, somebody
shows it in a group, you know, physically, they share it,
(13:04):
and well, they share that they have an unsolicited message
or pick from somebody. So it's not always that kids
are searching it out. They are sometimes, for sure, but
sometimes they just get sensed and if they think it's
bad and wrong, and then they won't tell you and
then they're left to deal with it on their own.
So I love your no blame policy. I think I
think that's really great.
Speaker 2 (13:23):
Yeah, we love your cause on this. By the way,
the short question is because it might be for grants especially,
I don't want to say specially for grandparents because then
I'm accused of being agist, and you know, we having
a crack ad old Google there as a granddad. But
how do you protect your kids, you know, your mark
upon or your grandchildren from the dangers of social media
when you might hardly be familiar with it ourselves. And
(13:45):
that's the thing Google there, But how do how would
an older generation, because certainly of people who have an
older generation are not so okay with what their kids
can access. Are there lessons that, you know, you might
not need to be a technical guru, but just messages
about I mean, what are the common dangers that could
(14:07):
be heading their way on social media?
Speaker 3 (14:09):
There certainly are, I know, the Classifications Office has got
stuff up and net safe has got stuff online. But
actually one of the I think one of the easiest
way is get your younger person to educate you. Get
them to show you. You know, I know my kids
have done this for me and they love doing it
with their grandmother. You know, is showing this, showing them
how TikTok works or whatever, and there's there's something nice
(14:33):
about that. So getting your kids to actually be the
experts and teach your stuff, I think is quite a
nice way to do it. But yeah, just educate yourself
a little bit. It's out there. It's not going back
in the box anytime soon, that's for sure.
Speaker 2 (14:46):
What are the common problems that kids are experiencing from
your from your experience.
Speaker 3 (14:51):
So the common things would be I guess one of
the common things is getting sent or being exposed to
really nasty stuff that they have not searched for. Well
they might have searched for, but they and then they
click on it out of interest or they just get
sent unsolicited picks or whatever of really nasty stuff, like
(15:12):
really really nasty stuff. I think the other thing we
mentioned before too, was that the is the continual self comparison. Like,
I don't know about you, we never took selfies when like,
because you couldn't back in the days when you just
had a camera, so you never And I can still
remember the first time I saw people doing that sort
of that fish mouth thing where you suck your cheeks
and you know, to look at the camera, and I
(15:35):
was going, that's an odd thing. I wonder why they're
doing that, But of course they'll take the selfie. But
so I think that's that's something that's different for our generation,
as we didn't have that sort of sense of always
getting feedback about what we looked like and compared to
other people. And I think that's, yeah, I don't I
don't think that's a super good thing.
Speaker 2 (15:53):
How did it, Well, what can we do about it?
Speaker 3 (15:57):
Well, again, it's it's not going anywhere, So the Internet's
not going away. That might not be a newsflash. But
I think it's around helping young people think about what
the what the implications of it are and think about, well,
you know, if you post this, do you know, do
you realize that this will be there forever on the internet,
and and just helping them stop and pause, like sometimes
(16:21):
did we send responses back really quickly, So getting getting
in while they're young the first time they give a device,
and just sitting down with them. Friends of mine kind
of sat down with their daughter when she got her
first smartphone and she was sort of texting everybody left,
right and center, and they kind of just did a
little bit of gentle education about hey, if somebody doesn't
(16:43):
respond or reply, maybe they don't actually want to hear
from you. So there's I think we can just be
guide them set you know, be their guide rails for
a little whit as they start using it.
Speaker 2 (16:54):
Right, we'd love to have your cause on this as well.
How do you approach protecting your kids from the we're
talking about slightly longer term dangers of social media and
self comparison and all that sort of stuff, and especially
if you're hardly for where that stuff ourselves. Give us
a call on O eight one hundred and eighty ten
eighty in text on nine two nine two as well.
It is twenty three and a half past five. If
(17:24):
you like to gamble, I tell you you will, so lost.
Speaker 3 (17:37):
I do is to blame.
Speaker 2 (17:40):
Say yes, and that song is not Google Sutherland's choice.
It's fair to say, although potentially could be. That's well,
it's one of my favorites. It's become ever since we
started playing but a hard rock. This is the parent
Squad on News Talks Big Google Sutherland, he's a principal
psychologist that Umbrella Well Being. As my guest, we're talking
about navigating the long term dangers of social media, because
(18:02):
it's not just one issue where you sort of address
it and it goes way social media, the Internet. It's
with us long term. My thing doogle that I worry
about most being the father of girls, you know, maybe
it's the same for boys as well, is the self
image stuff because you know, well, you know, you go
into Instagram and there's everyone's posting a photo themselves and
(18:24):
at this beach or this beach, that beach, and this
celebrity and this bikini and this is outfit and I
just said, God, that must be just unrelenting to me.
I just get bored. You know, it's just I just think, God,
is there something else that you know? It gets boring.
But how do you get your kids to that, to
not judge themselves by all those other standards?
Speaker 3 (18:44):
Yeah again, I mean I completely agree, it's that sort
of It's it's almost like that's the water that you're swimming,
and now the water is just people looking fake.
Speaker 2 (18:55):
The water of vacuousness.
Speaker 3 (18:57):
Yeah, the water of fake vacuousness is what people are
swimming and look. I think helping kids understand that, maybe
showing them filters and how that they can filter themselves
to look really weird would be a good example. I
know I've done that before. It's used to filter and
you can change your face shaping and it kind of
looks all right, and then you keep going, you go act.
(19:18):
And so helping them understand that a lot of what's
on there might not be real, it might be earbrushed,
it might not be the real thing, I think is
really important. And that idea that people just post it
really good things. They don't just post their normal selves
most of the time. So I think helping them understand that.
And my sense is that young people often are a
(19:39):
bit more aheadibist than that. They kind of they do
have that sense that not everything is real or as
it's made out to be, but it's still they're still
swimming in that sea. They're still swimming in the water.
Speaker 2 (19:50):
Because it's a natural thing that you are going to
I mean, as kids, we always wondering a too short
and my too tall, I mean fat, thin wide, you know,
my head to burg too small, all that sort of thing.
I mean, that's a natural thing that you're not going
to avoid kids questioning, isn't it. But you just wanted
to get hung up on it.
Speaker 3 (20:08):
Yeah, Well, I think it's just more that it's just easier,
not easier, it's almost unavoidable now to compare yourself, whereas
you know, back in the day you needed a mirror
and once you were home, you were kind of that
was away from all that. So that's one of the things, right,
is that it's there all the time, and helping kids
learn not to be on it all the time, I
(20:28):
think is also really useful. Helping them sort of set
some guidelines for themselves around how often they are going
to be on screens. They don't have to be on
it constantly, so setting some sort of broad and starting
young because then they'll just sort of get into it
rather than sort of starting when they're sixteen.
Speaker 2 (20:45):
Gosh, we're not far away, almost from having a repeat
conversation about some of that stuff about what Australia is
doing with banning people age was from social media. But
I've got to say I'm all for it.
Speaker 3 (20:53):
Yeah. Well, it's interesting, isn't it, Because the last time
I heard anything about that. They're hitting a few problems
from what I can see, because they're trying to get
down the list of what is social media, and one
thing they've taken off the list that is not going
to be banned as YouTube, so YouTube is still going
to be available. And it's like, isn't that like the
mother of all social medias?
Speaker 2 (21:14):
I guess it's a difficult one, isn't it, because there's
so much. I mean, I watch the Stephen Colbier Show,
which has been counceled, I watch on YouTube and I
watch it for news and all sorts of stuff, And
I think that the usefulness around that is that it
gives parents more license to say to their kids, look sorry,
you can't and even look at it not even legal
so you know what I mean. I do think there's
(21:35):
some sort of whether they ban YouTube or whatever, I
think that at least introduce I mean, I think somehow
I still think it's useful.
Speaker 3 (21:46):
No, I don't think so, Like I kind of sit
on the fence around it a little bit. I think
it is useful. But my worry is that people go, oh,
see we ban it front of sixteen, and we've solved
the problem, and it's like you've not solved the problem
by any stretch of the imagination. People will get round
that just really easily. I remember when you weren't supposed
to buy alcohol when you're under the age of twenty,
(22:07):
and I can remember being a fifteen year old buying alcohol,
so you can. You could get round things really easily,
and you'll continue to be able to do that. So
I just worry that people will think they've solved the
problem and then they'll take their eye off the ball
and they'll and and as I said earlier, I don't
want to be exposed to that stuff any more than
(22:27):
I want a twelve year old to be exposed to.
I don't want to see graphic, violent, horrible stuff online.
And why aren't we saying to social media companies, you've
got to take this stuff off, and if you don't
take it off, then we're going to slam you with
great big fines and some sort of punishments because that
they are. I heard this at least today, I didn't
(22:48):
believe my ears. Social media is Facebook, Metha, et cetera.
Are not liable for content that are put on their
platforms because they're not seen as publishing it. It's not
their content, it's not their content. So it was like,
that's if you've got to change that so that then
they can be held liable because at the moment they say, well,
well we can't.
Speaker 2 (23:06):
Stop either that or held liable once it's brought to
their attention, because you know what I mean, the impossible
task would be to monitor and everything in real time.
But well you.
Speaker 3 (23:16):
Can build it. Why can't they build in a gap
you don't need to post, you know there is what
what's the need to post immediately? If there was a
thirty second buffer building, I bet you they could build
AI that will scan something within thirty seconds to see
if if it's a pencible or not.
Speaker 2 (23:30):
Yeah, yeah, that is an interesting one, isn't it. Yeah?
But I mean again, if there's still a point at
which you've just got to try. And I mean because
things that can be incredibly damaging to kids can just
be the endless comparison themselves with unrealistic peers who've got
all the you know, the apps that can make your
eyes a bit bigger and your chin a bit smaller,
(23:51):
and your hip's a bit wider or this or that.
I think, for me, off the top of my head,
my my main thing i'd be cautioning my girls would
be about if they were doing would be don't edit
your face to look the way you want to do it,
because I don't want you to end up looking in
the mirror and having thinking that that's wrong and that
the Instagram was right.
Speaker 3 (24:11):
Yeah yeah, yeah, yeah yeah. And I think helping them
be aware that people do that all the time, so
what they see in front of them is often not
the case as a really valuable lesson just yeah, again,
it's helping them sort of navigate it. So I think
there's a really key skill there for parents.
Speaker 2 (24:30):
One of the texts is banning doesn't work, talking to
your kids is better. YouTube is good. In my opinion,
we have labels, don't drink when pregnant, in some drink, smoke,
et cetera. You've got to basically talk to people. Well, hey,
there was something else I want to touch on which
does relate to this. And you said you've done some
work on with film classifications. I think yeah, because I
(24:54):
I do pay, as a parent, quite specific attention to
what a film classification says. Right, Not that I'm a
Puritan either, but for instance, if a movie says M
and it just says violence, I might think, depending what
(25:15):
the movie is. So the reason I'm sort of skirting
around this is it involves a sort of confession in
a way. So one of my daughters, my daughter who's
twelve going on thirteen, twelve going on eighteen, it was
interested in that Mission Impossible films. And I've watched all
the Mission Impossible films, and actually they are pretty extra.
(25:37):
They are over the top. It's Mission impossible. What the hell?
And over the course of a few weeks, because the
new one had been released, she watched them one by
one generally when we were around. But I know that
those m is for violence. Usually somebody gets stabbed or
shot or whatever. And I thought, well, I think she
(25:58):
can probably handle that, but if it had said sex
scenes and nudity, I might have been, no, you're not
going to watch it, So it's it's the other description.
But I took her to see Mission Impossible and had
a great time. She loved every moment of it. But
it is there is an important role those classifications, and
I was like, righted, m, what's the recommendations. Then I
remember myself as a kid to see an R sixteen
(26:22):
when I was thirteen. I'm still alive.
Speaker 3 (26:27):
Well, I mean I think two things. Firstly, I think
being able to, as you were saying, having some sense
of what the actual content is and is it violence
or is it sex. I think that's a really useful thing.
One thing from talking to the classifications office is that
they're battling with is that they can label things M
(26:48):
or R sixteen or RA eighteen whatever, and people can't
see them at the movies. But then, of course, see
our previous conversation, they just jump online and download this,
so it's almost it's almost a bit it's almost a
bit fruitless really because people can get around it so easily.
But I do think those sort of descriptors are really
(27:08):
nice because you know, as you kind of just illustrated.
Really you can use those to help make your own assessments, like, Okay,
you know, maybe some stabbing or some shooting, and it's
probably not graphic and gory. That'll probably be okay. I
wouldn't want them to see this.
Speaker 2 (27:26):
But the sequence where someone gets thrown off a train, yeah,
we all know it's over the top. I mean Tom
Cruise taking his shirt off while he's underwater in a
nuclear submarine sort of thing like that. That's not going
to frighten the horses too much.
Speaker 3 (27:39):
Yeah, no, no, no.
Speaker 2 (27:41):
But if it was a funny thing is you could
have an M rated movie, which was if it was
really realistic, I mean, if the acting was how do
I put this, If it was a scenario which it
compels you to watch it because of the storytelling and
how and it really it feels real and as we know,
(28:02):
it's Tom Cruise and it's incredible stunts. That's something where
we know we're in fantasy land, as opposed to that
some quite low budget, gritty story which could actually be
really disturbing without actually taking all those boxes in the
same way.
Speaker 3 (28:16):
Yeah, look, I'm not sure an expert in sort of
in how they do the classifications, but I believe that
they do take some of that context into account. So
so sort of for one of a better term, fantasy
violence might be it might be seeing classified in a
different way as realistic violence, because there is quite a
psychological difference. And I'm you know, if I think back
(28:39):
about things that have freaked me out, it's the realistic
stuff that's freaked me out, the things that you could
imagine happening, rather than the sort of the weird you know,
you know, alien when it pops out of your body.
It's like, sure, it was frightening, Oh that was a
jump scare of it, but it didn't haunt me, you know,
and those things that are realistic and have haunted me
(28:59):
of those And so I think that's a very key difference.
But and I'm fairly certain that they do take that
into account a little bit when they're classifying it.
Speaker 2 (29:08):
Yeah. Actually, funny enough, when I've searched it on my
I've actually, out of curiosity, I searched what the silence
of the Lamb slassification was because I hope that that
was was fairly high. Although because the performance of Anthony
Hopkins is just so eerie and scary, but I don't
know why I searched that, but in part of it.
(29:29):
One of the questions that anticipated from me was in
New Zealand, a count a twelve year old watch m
rated movies and it says, yes, I mean, did you
ever did you have a as a parent? I mean
your kids are a little bit older now, obviously for
your granddad. Did you go down that journey of.
Speaker 3 (29:49):
Yes, we did, But I tell you one thing I
remember is that we were staying at my mother in
law's house and our nephew, who was about fifteen years
older than my son, had been there and he'd have
the whole Game of Thrones on DVD. And my son
was staying in the room with the DVD player and
the TV, and he got up and wanted said, oh,
I've seen the whole biggest series of Game of Thrones.
(30:11):
And he was like ten, and it was like, oh, whoa.
And so that we wouldn't have wanted him to see
that when he was ten years old, let's say, But
he did and he survived. But yeah, I don't remember
the ratings things being a huge issue, but I did
(30:31):
find them useful in terms of, you know, just what
little bits of information are they giving me that I
can help make a judgment about what I want my
kids to see.
Speaker 2 (30:38):
Yeah, well, we'd love your participation if be like to
give us a call and button between me and Google Sutherland,
we're talking about one about managing keeping your kids safe
over the years with their online presence. And even if
you're not particularly o fay with the technology around social media,
(30:59):
how have you approached keeping your kids safe with it?
And also just on the film classification thing, how seriously
do you take them on. I'll give us a call
on eight hundred and eighty ten eighty text nine to
nine two. It's twenty to six. Yes, News Talks will
be My guest is dougle Sutherland, principal psychologist at Umbrella
Well Being, talking about keeping your kids safe over there
during their online lives. But also we've touched on the
(31:21):
film classification side of things, and I just think Google,
I guess with the film classification it's probably the best
for me. And I think you touched on something with
you know, it's not just whether it says PG or
R thirteen or R sixteen and I google what that
means and all that matter. But if it says are
I mean for me as as a kid, I think
(31:41):
it was a target if I was thirteen or fourteen,
if something was R eighteen, that was a challenge to
try and.
Speaker 3 (31:46):
Get you go and that. But that's teenagers, right. Teenagers
love that challenge. They yet love to push the boundaries.
And that's actually a good message to think about about
everything we've talked about, because they'll push the boundaries. They'll
look for stuff on the internet because it's a challenge.
But I kind of interrupted you. I think you're going
to say that you know, having the detail about what's
(32:08):
on something rather than the just the age is much
more helpful having the details.
Speaker 2 (32:14):
Well, I think. And the other thing is so cliches
lecturing people in a way, but it's just knowing your kids.
Because for instance, M says suitable for mature audiences sixteen
years of age and over suitable, it's not suitable forbidden.
So if you if you've got a childhood, you think
you know you're having mature conversations with and there's certain
(32:35):
and if it says you know it's got violence in it,
I must say, for instance, I think if Won the
movie with Brad Pitt, I think that's got a few
sex scenes in it, or love scenes or something like
well I thought it did, my producers shaking your head
and saying it doesn't. But if that was the case,
I'd be like, I don't think I'm taking mador to that.
(32:55):
But if it's Tom Cruise jumping out of an airplane,
well you've got.
Speaker 3 (33:00):
You've got the info right, and then you're in that
position to judge. And I think that's the useful thing,
you know, And an age just goes or some eighteen
year olds are different, so and and yeah, and I
would definitely have treated our kids differently. I know that
they had different sensitivities and some one of them would
like this and the other one wouldn't like that. So
the more knowledge I have around it, the better I think.
(33:21):
And I think that's a real good thing for parents
to have.
Speaker 2 (33:24):
My kids actually made their own decisions. At one door
who doesn't didn't like movies at all. She just didn't
like anything that wasn't real, so she and then one
day she was just like, yeah, I'm okay with it.
But she made so we never forced to.
Speaker 3 (33:35):
Yeah, gosh, that's it. I took the first movie I
took my son to was that The Train One at
Christmas time and the title has escaped me, The Polar Express.
Oh yeah, he cried all the way through it. He
was like flat five because it was so loud and
it was the first movie he'd ever been to see.
Speaker 2 (33:53):
And it's also okay, that didn't go well and it's
not real. I think sometimes it's it's why, I mean,
is there a reason why people some people are terrified
of clowns?
Speaker 3 (34:01):
Is it because oh I find clowns freaky. Yeah, they're
kind of weird, and yeah, I find them quite unusually
kind of weird that I think they lose their facial
expressions and they loom over you and it's like, you know,
I'm sure if you took a pole of your listeners,
there been a number of people that found clowns are
very weak.
Speaker 2 (34:19):
We might have to save that for the adult squad
rather than the parents squad growing fabioaus Hey, just quickly
before we wrap it up, for people, who are you know,
what are the things that parents are in danger of
being overly complacent about that you should always maybe keep
more of an eye on it when it comes to
(34:39):
online presences in the danger.
Speaker 3 (34:42):
I think one of the things is who are they
connecting with. Do they know the people that they're connecting
with on social media or are they just strangers? I
think too. Also, what do they see inadvertently, not directly
looking for, but what goes on and their friends' houses
or on their friends devices or maybe on the devices
(35:03):
at home when you think that the kids are in bed. Yeah,
so I think those Yeah, who are they friends with?
And what are they inadvertently being exposed to, not necessarily
what they're deliberately seeing.
Speaker 2 (35:16):
Hey, by the way, just a trivial question. Have you
actually seen Mission Impossible? By the way, not.
Speaker 3 (35:20):
The most recent one. I have seen the number of
the others, but I haven't seen.
Speaker 2 (35:24):
That is It's pretty good. It's it's worth catching it.
I was amazed at how quickly it ended up out
of the cinema though, because they have the opening and
then a couple of weeks later, it's not trying to
find a cinema to watch it, and it's like God,
they've moved on quickly. Anyway, Trivia, Hey, doogle. If people
want to catch up with you, or will read about
your work, or or seek some sort of further contact
(35:46):
with how do they do so?
Speaker 3 (35:48):
Just jump online? Umbrella dot org dot Nz.
Speaker 2 (35:51):
Excellent mate. Hey, great to have you on the show again.
Look forward to catch them again.
Speaker 3 (35:55):
Yep, and keep keep keep care of that mustache.
Speaker 2 (36:00):
I'm not sure it'll be there next time we spend
No thanks, there we go, there's Google. Southerlanies principal psychologist
said Umbrella Wellbeing. We'll be back in just a minute
to Rap Sport with Jason Pine. News Talk SIDB.
Speaker 1 (36:13):
For more from the weekend collective, listen live to News
Talk SIDB weekends from three pm, or follow the podcast
on iHeartRadio.
You're listening to the Weekend Collective podcast from News Talk
sedbeh It.
Speaker 2 (00:32):
Is for her he Hers for betterf West for Wednesday
and welcome back to the Weekend Collective. Gosh, if you
listen to the music, the grooves and everything, you wouldn't
You don't realize it's a key we band until the
vocals come on and all of a sudden you hear
that doozy of a key we ax And of course
that a supergroup anyway, and that is because we're playing,
(00:53):
but of supergroup because I think that's the pick of
our guest for the parent squad. And by the way,
just before, well introduce him right now, then we'll get
into the intro. He is a principal psychologist at Umbrella
Well Being and his name is Google Southerland. Google.
Speaker 3 (01:07):
Hello, Good afternoon, Tim, and you're you're you're lovely mustache
is making an entrance to and good afternoon to that.
It does look good. We were talking off here before,
and you know you see that sort of looks. I
think it does give you a sort of a British
military sort of touch, a little bit of Biggles or
(01:28):
Captain Darling from Black Header.
Speaker 2 (01:30):
Perhaps, I guess that's better than Joe McCarroll call me
Ned Flanders and I was no, I think there was
a bit, there was a bit harsh. It's a funny
one in the mustache because my family ever known he
has mustaches. And I'm like, oh, look, I'm looking at
one of our herold gymnalists just walking past with the
full blind mustaches. But young, it makes you look younger,
(01:51):
I reckon, Oh my god, I'm definitely keeping this baby.
Speaker 3 (01:54):
Yeah, yeah, no, it does. Young people do it all
the time and it makes you look at least thirty seven.
Speaker 2 (02:00):
Doogle stop flirting with me. But that's fantastic the show mate,
How have you been keeping?
Speaker 3 (02:07):
Been well? Yes, pretty well? Thanks, trying to think of
anything exciting. No, not really got a grand I think
I've got a grandchild. She's been changed six months, not
long ago.
Speaker 2 (02:18):
That's right. You mentioned that. That's fantastic. Is that a
mindset change when you realize that instead of being just
a dad, you're a grandfather.
Speaker 3 (02:26):
It's we've not quite got there yet. I'm I'm comfortable
saying that my son and his wife have had a baby,
but not quite saying I've got a grandchild. But I
have I have.
Speaker 2 (02:39):
How have they? I mean, because the child is too
young to really to register the sound of what your
name might be. But how have you been introduced to
the child? Have you been called granddad, puppy or caught off?
Speaker 3 (02:52):
Well, well, my kids often call me douggie, and so
they've morphed that into Grandduggie.
Speaker 2 (03:01):
Oh, I would hope you could just stick with Dougie, granddad.
Speaker 3 (03:04):
I could stick with yeah, grand Dougie.
Speaker 2 (03:06):
Is Hey, Look, you've been doing quite a bit of
work in the online space, and something we want to
talk about is keeping keeping kids safe over the years.
Because I think it was a sentence I read and
what's something you'd written? We talked about how this generation
(03:27):
of children's what's the expression digital natives, so they've grown
up with it, and some of the conversations that we've
had on this show probably acknowledged that maybe this generation
of kids in some ways is better prepared for the
Internet than maybe the first generation that had to deal
with it. And yet it's it's obviously got obvious dangers,
(03:50):
and there's there's the potential for a whole lot of
anxiety and worries about I mean, one of them big
ones are probably self image and mental health issues and anxiety.
But it's not just a case of trying to address
it sort of in an instant, is it. I mean,
we've got the kids have got a lifetime of dealing
with this stuff.
Speaker 3 (04:09):
Yeah, they have, I think, And I think that's where
that generation gap between us as digital migrants and them
as digital natives sort of kicks in because we're always
struggling to keep up and go, oh, I wonder what
we can do to help them. And they're already streets
ahead of us, so we can probably listen to them
quite a lot about what we could do to help them.
Speaker 2 (04:29):
I think, well, that's I guess that's the that's the issue.
If there's streets ahead of us, where do we where
do we play a role? And I don't want to
be naive because my kids don't have social media, they
don't have Instagram. They probably look at silly TikTok videos
for you know, you know, a dog running around the
(04:52):
yard and then attacking the cat or something. I don't
know what they look at. I should probably be out out.
Speaker 3 (04:58):
I don't know what they look at.
Speaker 2 (04:59):
Well, actually I do, but most of the time, for instance,
they're looking at at dance videos and music and things,
but they're not sharing images of themselves. They're yeah, and
that's that's coming one day.
Speaker 3 (05:12):
Yes, but well, yeah, I think people are getting smarter.
Like a number of young people i'm aware of have
have you know who sort of in their mid twenties
are starting to sort of be quite protective of their
images online. And you know, people that have had new
babies saying, hey, do you know what, We're not going
to put our We're not going to put our baby's
(05:32):
image online. We're going to leave that for them to
decide later on. So I think we've gone from this
state where you know, we just put everything on Facebook.
Here we all are everything and all our glory sometimes
and I think there's a bit of a move towards
people not doing that, and I think we need we
being those people, those of us who are over about
thirty five, need to catch up with that and go, actually,
(05:54):
we need to be much smarter about what we do
with our presence online and just don't put a whole
lot of stuff up because you can't get it off again.
So once it's there, it's there. And so I think
there's a whole lot to be learned from how do
we help kids adjust to this and train them to
use it in a smart way, not not just in
(06:14):
a dumb way like we've perhaps used it.
Speaker 2 (06:16):
And I guess from a psychology obviously from your expertise
point of view, what are the things that we you
know that I don't want to say, what's the worst
case scenario, because you know, everything can be utterly tragic.
But what are the the common risks that we could
read me easily protect, But what are the common avoidable
(06:37):
risks and the dangers slash damage that it actually does
to kids?
Speaker 3 (06:42):
Yeah? Look, I think you touched on one before around
self image. That there's the constant comparison to to people,
to other people and in the you know, in the
very sort of photoshopped way, AI generated way that make
people look greatly perfect. So I think there's self image.
The other thing that I you know, that worries me
perhaps more than anything, is the how you can perhaps
(07:04):
go from watching the highlights of an all black test
match to something sort of some far right extremist material
within about four or five cliques. And if that's so,
it's the exposure to what you might call, you know,
just pretty horrific sort of objectionable material, you know, more
(07:27):
than just sort of sex and nudity, sort of extreme stuff,
and kids get this click click, click, quite easily, and
I think that's the stuff to be do you know,
although it's not just kids, it's any of us. I
don't want to be viewing that stuff. I don't want
anybody in my family and my friends to be viewing
that kind of stuff. And yet it just happens that
gets sent to you. So I think I think it's
not necessarily an age issue. I think it's a social
(07:51):
media issue. Is that we can so easily get sent
or get access to horrific material on the internet.
Speaker 2 (07:59):
Yeah. Actually, just I mean it's a slightly side issue
on that. But you mentioned people who don't put images
of their babies and stuff online, which I mean, I
would tend to think as a slide over reaction because
I think ill babies look like Winston Churchill, uh, and
that you know what I mean, If you post an
image of you holding your but your infant in the
(08:20):
first few months, I mean, I don't think you've done
anyone a need disservice really, because that baby doesn't look
anything like that toddler's going to look. And I guess
there's that question around you know what age the philosophy
is right, but yeah.
Speaker 3 (08:35):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah yeah, maybe the baby like a
newborn for sure. But then as you say, when do
you actually stop? And and and you know you hear
you hear warnings from the police all the time, you know,
at the start of school terms, they say, don't post
kids of photos of your kids in their school uniform
on the internet standing outside their homes. People can find them.
(08:59):
Or worse, what they say, and I've heard of this
is that somebody sees them and says, oh, you must
be you must be living in a particular suburb, and
the kid goes, oh my god, they must know who
I am, when of course they don't. They've just sort
of deciphered by your school uniform. And then they said,
and we know what you've been doing, so you better
tell us, you better give us some money, otherwise we're
(09:22):
going to be telling everybody else what you've done. So
I think I think we've got to be really savvy
around what our images that we post online, particularly of
our kids. Like for sure, maybe newborn babies aside, but
once they get older, it's like, actually that's their stuff,
and that's going to be you can't take it off
the internet, and then when do you kind of stop?
(09:43):
And we've we take that away from our kids if
we put it on for them, if that makes sense?
Speaker 2 (09:47):
Yeah, have we? Actually? I do wonder if I'm trying
to think of my own evolution of what might have
been shared in the past of family. But these days
I wonder if I have even sort of pulled back
on all that. I mean, not that I'm not a
huge share on social media, but holiday photos Prince, so
you know, we went on a skiing holiday and I
(10:08):
probably I wouldn't think twice of posting a photo. I
wouldn't think too many times about posting a photo when
we've all got basically a helmets and our goggles and
everything on. It's like here we are, I'm not yet.
It's a funny one though, if you were at a
beach though, and you're just all, you know, T shirt
and jeans or something, and you're standing there are those
(10:28):
the things that we shouldn't be posting on anything either,
Because yeah, I tend to think I pulled back from that.
Speaker 3 (10:36):
I reckon I have too. I tend like I think
I've posted. I've been much less active on social media
over the last six months or twelve months anyway, and
that's just like it's sort of kind of boring. But
when I do post stuff, it tends to be more
kind of stuff that I'm looking at or that I
can see, rather than of me, if that makes sense.
(10:56):
Of people, So this is what, this is, what's happening,
or this has caught my eye as something and it's
out there in the world. So taking photos of things
rather than people. And maybe it's extreme to say, don't
even post photos of yourself, and I'm not really saying that,
but I think I think we need to be thinking
carefully about when we've post photos of ourselves and of
(11:18):
our kids, remembering that you know it's it is going
to be there pretty much forever, and certainly employers search
it when you're looking for a job. I know that
I've definitely done that. When we've been recruiting people. You
get their CV and you interview them and you go, Now,
just before we do anything else, let's do a quick card,
quick internet search and what's happening. What have they been doing?
Speaker 2 (11:39):
There's Google and his MANKINI yet time.
Speaker 3 (11:43):
That's right, that's rights. Oh yeah, so I think we
just need to be much lever about it than perhaps
we are, and we need to listen to kids, I think,
to creating knowing that kids are going to access weird stuff,
because that's what kids do, you know, as teenagers, and
(12:04):
creating a place there a space for them to come
and tell you if they'd come across anything really horrible
that's really upset them, and having them do that so
that they don't think you're going to take away their
device all of a sudden, because that's an immediate reaction.
I think that many parents have.
Speaker 2 (12:19):
Right, well, get rid of it. You have to have
the no blame you have they have a no blame policy.
If I don't think I don't know when I last
said this to my daughters, but I know that at
some stage we've said, look, if you see anything, you know,
if something really bad, We're not going to punish you.
We just need to know. If you've seen something that
really upsets you, just tell us and our consum will
be to make sure that you're safe and all that
(12:40):
sort of stuff. But I mean, that is that is important,
isn't it?
Speaker 3 (12:44):
Because it's super important because kids are going to see it. Look,
some work at you were mentioning stuff before. But and
I did a little bit of work with the Classifications
Office and a lot of their research was around kids
get shown this inadvertently. They see it, you know, somebody
shows it in a group, you know, physically, they share it,
(13:04):
and well, they share that they have an unsolicited message
or pick from somebody. So it's not always that kids
are searching it out. They are sometimes, for sure, but
sometimes they just get sensed and if they think it's
bad and wrong, and then they won't tell you and
then they're left to deal with it on their own.
So I love your no blame policy. I think I
think that's really great.
Speaker 2 (13:23):
Yeah, we love your cause on this. By the way,
the short question is because it might be for grants especially,
I don't want to say specially for grandparents because then
I'm accused of being agist, and you know, we having
a crack ad old Google there as a granddad. But
how do you protect your kids, you know, your mark
upon or your grandchildren from the dangers of social media
when you might hardly be familiar with it ourselves. And
(13:45):
that's the thing Google there, But how do how would
an older generation, because certainly of people who have an
older generation are not so okay with what their kids
can access. Are there lessons that, you know, you might
not need to be a technical guru, but just messages
about I mean, what are the common dangers that could
(14:07):
be heading their way on social media?
Speaker 3 (14:09):
There certainly are, I know, the Classifications Office has got
stuff up and net safe has got stuff online. But
actually one of the I think one of the easiest
way is get your younger person to educate you. Get
them to show you. You know, I know my kids
have done this for me and they love doing it
with their grandmother. You know, is showing this, showing them
how TikTok works or whatever, and there's there's something nice
(14:33):
about that. So getting your kids to actually be the
experts and teach your stuff, I think is quite a
nice way to do it. But yeah, just educate yourself
a little bit. It's out there. It's not going back
in the box anytime soon, that's for sure.
Speaker 2 (14:46):
What are the common problems that kids are experiencing from
your from your experience.
Speaker 3 (14:51):
So the common things would be I guess one of
the common things is getting sent or being exposed to
really nasty stuff that they have not searched for. Well
they might have searched for, but they and then they
click on it out of interest or they just get
sent unsolicited picks or whatever of really nasty stuff, like
(15:12):
really really nasty stuff. I think the other thing we
mentioned before too, was that the is the continual self comparison. Like,
I don't know about you, we never took selfies when like,
because you couldn't back in the days when you just
had a camera, so you never And I can still
remember the first time I saw people doing that sort
of that fish mouth thing where you suck your cheeks
and you know, to look at the camera, and I
(15:35):
was going, that's an odd thing. I wonder why they're
doing that, But of course they'll take the selfie. But
so I think that's that's something that's different for our generation,
as we didn't have that sort of sense of always
getting feedback about what we looked like and compared to
other people. And I think that's, yeah, I don't I
don't think that's a super good thing.
Speaker 2 (15:53):
How did it, Well, what can we do about it?
Speaker 3 (15:57):
Well, again, it's it's not going anywhere, So the Internet's
not going away. That might not be a newsflash. But
I think it's around helping young people think about what
the what the implications of it are and think about, well,
you know, if you post this, do you know, do
you realize that this will be there forever on the internet,
and and just helping them stop and pause, like sometimes
(16:21):
did we send responses back really quickly, So getting getting
in while they're young the first time they give a device,
and just sitting down with them. Friends of mine kind
of sat down with their daughter when she got her
first smartphone and she was sort of texting everybody left,
right and center, and they kind of just did a
little bit of gentle education about hey, if somebody doesn't
(16:43):
respond or reply, maybe they don't actually want to hear
from you. So there's I think we can just be
guide them set you know, be their guide rails for
a little whit as they start using it.
Speaker 2 (16:54):
Right, we'd love to have your cause on this as well.
How do you approach protecting your kids from the we're
talking about slightly longer term dangers of social media and
self comparison and all that sort of stuff, and especially
if you're hardly for where that stuff ourselves. Give us
a call on O eight one hundred and eighty ten
eighty in text on nine two nine two as well.
It is twenty three and a half past five. If
(17:24):
you like to gamble, I tell you you will, so lost.
Speaker 3 (17:37):
I do is to blame.
Speaker 2 (17:40):
Say yes, and that song is not Google Sutherland's choice.
It's fair to say, although potentially could be. That's well,
it's one of my favorites. It's become ever since we
started playing but a hard rock. This is the parent
Squad on News Talks Big Google Sutherland, he's a principal
psychologist that Umbrella Well Being. As my guest, we're talking
about navigating the long term dangers of social media, because
(18:02):
it's not just one issue where you sort of address
it and it goes way social media, the Internet. It's
with us long term. My thing doogle that I worry
about most being the father of girls, you know, maybe
it's the same for boys as well, is the self
image stuff because you know, well, you know, you go
into Instagram and there's everyone's posting a photo themselves and
(18:24):
at this beach or this beach, that beach, and this
celebrity and this bikini and this is outfit and I
just said, God, that must be just unrelenting to me.
I just get bored. You know, it's just I just think, God,
is there something else that you know? It gets boring.
But how do you get your kids to that, to
not judge themselves by all those other standards?
Speaker 3 (18:44):
Yeah again, I mean I completely agree, it's that sort
of It's it's almost like that's the water that you're swimming,
and now the water is just people looking fake.
Speaker 2 (18:55):
The water of vacuousness.
Speaker 3 (18:57):
Yeah, the water of fake vacuousness is what people are
swimming and look. I think helping kids understand that, maybe
showing them filters and how that they can filter themselves
to look really weird would be a good example. I
know I've done that before. It's used to filter and
you can change your face shaping and it kind of
looks all right, and then you keep going, you go act.
(19:18):
And so helping them understand that a lot of what's
on there might not be real, it might be earbrushed,
it might not be the real thing, I think is
really important. And that idea that people just post it
really good things. They don't just post their normal selves
most of the time. So I think helping them understand that.
And my sense is that young people often are a
(19:39):
bit more aheadibist than that. They kind of they do
have that sense that not everything is real or as
it's made out to be, but it's still they're still
swimming in that sea. They're still swimming in the water.
Speaker 2 (19:50):
Because it's a natural thing that you are going to
I mean, as kids, we always wondering a too short
and my too tall, I mean fat, thin wide, you know,
my head to burg too small, all that sort of thing.
I mean, that's a natural thing that you're not going
to avoid kids questioning, isn't it. But you just wanted
to get hung up on it.
Speaker 3 (20:08):
Yeah, Well, I think it's just more that it's just easier,
not easier, it's almost unavoidable now to compare yourself, whereas
you know, back in the day you needed a mirror
and once you were home, you were kind of that
was away from all that. So that's one of the things, right,
is that it's there all the time, and helping kids
learn not to be on it all the time, I
(20:28):
think is also really useful. Helping them sort of set
some guidelines for themselves around how often they are going
to be on screens. They don't have to be on
it constantly, so setting some sort of broad and starting
young because then they'll just sort of get into it
rather than sort of starting when they're sixteen.
Speaker 2 (20:45):
Gosh, we're not far away, almost from having a repeat
conversation about some of that stuff about what Australia is
doing with banning people age was from social media. But
I've got to say I'm all for it.
Speaker 3 (20:53):
Yeah. Well, it's interesting, isn't it, Because the last time
I heard anything about that. They're hitting a few problems
from what I can see, because they're trying to get
down the list of what is social media, and one
thing they've taken off the list that is not going
to be banned as YouTube, so YouTube is still going
to be available. And it's like, isn't that like the
mother of all social medias?
Speaker 2 (21:14):
I guess it's a difficult one, isn't it, because there's
so much. I mean, I watch the Stephen Colbier Show,
which has been counceled, I watch on YouTube and I
watch it for news and all sorts of stuff, And
I think that the usefulness around that is that it
gives parents more license to say to their kids, look sorry,
you can't and even look at it not even legal
so you know what I mean. I do think there's
(21:35):
some sort of whether they ban YouTube or whatever, I
think that at least introduce I mean, I think somehow
I still think it's useful.
Speaker 3 (21:46):
No, I don't think so, Like I kind of sit
on the fence around it a little bit. I think
it is useful. But my worry is that people go, oh,
see we ban it front of sixteen, and we've solved
the problem, and it's like you've not solved the problem
by any stretch of the imagination. People will get round
that just really easily. I remember when you weren't supposed
to buy alcohol when you're under the age of twenty,
(22:07):
and I can remember being a fifteen year old buying alcohol,
so you can. You could get round things really easily,
and you'll continue to be able to do that. So
I just worry that people will think they've solved the
problem and then they'll take their eye off the ball
and they'll and and as I said earlier, I don't
want to be exposed to that stuff any more than
(22:27):
I want a twelve year old to be exposed to.
I don't want to see graphic, violent, horrible stuff online.
And why aren't we saying to social media companies, you've
got to take this stuff off, and if you don't
take it off, then we're going to slam you with
great big fines and some sort of punishments because that
they are. I heard this at least today, I didn't
(22:48):
believe my ears. Social media is Facebook, Metha, et cetera.
Are not liable for content that are put on their
platforms because they're not seen as publishing it. It's not
their content, it's not their content. So it was like,
that's if you've got to change that so that then
they can be held liable because at the moment they say, well,
well we can't.
Speaker 2 (23:06):
Stop either that or held liable once it's brought to
their attention, because you know what I mean, the impossible
task would be to monitor and everything in real time.
But well you.
Speaker 3 (23:16):
Can build it. Why can't they build in a gap
you don't need to post, you know there is what
what's the need to post immediately? If there was a
thirty second buffer building, I bet you they could build
AI that will scan something within thirty seconds to see
if if it's a pencible or not.
Speaker 2 (23:30):
Yeah, yeah, that is an interesting one, isn't it. Yeah?
But I mean again, if there's still a point at
which you've just got to try. And I mean because
things that can be incredibly damaging to kids can just
be the endless comparison themselves with unrealistic peers who've got
all the you know, the apps that can make your
eyes a bit bigger and your chin a bit smaller,
(23:51):
and your hip's a bit wider or this or that.
I think, for me, off the top of my head,
my my main thing i'd be cautioning my girls would
be about if they were doing would be don't edit
your face to look the way you want to do it,
because I don't want you to end up looking in
the mirror and having thinking that that's wrong and that
the Instagram was right.
Speaker 3 (24:11):
Yeah yeah, yeah, yeah yeah. And I think helping them
be aware that people do that all the time, so
what they see in front of them is often not
the case as a really valuable lesson just yeah, again,
it's helping them sort of navigate it. So I think
there's a really key skill there for parents.
Speaker 2 (24:30):
One of the texts is banning doesn't work, talking to
your kids is better. YouTube is good. In my opinion,
we have labels, don't drink when pregnant, in some drink, smoke,
et cetera. You've got to basically talk to people. Well, hey,
there was something else I want to touch on which
does relate to this. And you said you've done some
work on with film classifications. I think yeah, because I
(24:54):
I do pay, as a parent, quite specific attention to
what a film classification says. Right, Not that I'm a
Puritan either, but for instance, if a movie says M
and it just says violence, I might think, depending what
(25:15):
the movie is. So the reason I'm sort of skirting
around this is it involves a sort of confession in
a way. So one of my daughters, my daughter who's
twelve going on thirteen, twelve going on eighteen, it was
interested in that Mission Impossible films. And I've watched all
the Mission Impossible films, and actually they are pretty extra.
(25:37):
They are over the top. It's Mission impossible. What the hell?
And over the course of a few weeks, because the
new one had been released, she watched them one by
one generally when we were around. But I know that
those m is for violence. Usually somebody gets stabbed or
shot or whatever. And I thought, well, I think she
(25:58):
can probably handle that, but if it had said sex
scenes and nudity, I might have been, no, you're not
going to watch it, So it's it's the other description.
But I took her to see Mission Impossible and had
a great time. She loved every moment of it. But
it is there is an important role those classifications, and
I was like, righted, m, what's the recommendations. Then I
remember myself as a kid to see an R sixteen
(26:22):
when I was thirteen. I'm still alive.
Speaker 3 (26:27):
Well, I mean I think two things. Firstly, I think
being able to, as you were saying, having some sense
of what the actual content is and is it violence
or is it sex. I think that's a really useful thing.
One thing from talking to the classifications office is that
they're battling with is that they can label things M
(26:48):
or R sixteen or RA eighteen whatever, and people can't
see them at the movies. But then, of course, see
our previous conversation, they just jump online and download this,
so it's almost it's almost a bit it's almost a
bit fruitless really because people can get around it so easily.
But I do think those sort of descriptors are really
(27:08):
nice because you know, as you kind of just illustrated.
Really you can use those to help make your own assessments, like, Okay,
you know, maybe some stabbing or some shooting, and it's
probably not graphic and gory. That'll probably be okay. I
wouldn't want them to see this.
Speaker 2 (27:26):
But the sequence where someone gets thrown off a train, yeah,
we all know it's over the top. I mean Tom
Cruise taking his shirt off while he's underwater in a
nuclear submarine sort of thing like that. That's not going
to frighten the horses too much.
Speaker 3 (27:39):
Yeah, no, no, no.
Speaker 2 (27:41):
But if it was a funny thing is you could
have an M rated movie, which was if it was
really realistic, I mean, if the acting was how do
I put this, If it was a scenario which it
compels you to watch it because of the storytelling and
how and it really it feels real and as we know,
(28:02):
it's Tom Cruise and it's incredible stunts. That's something where
we know we're in fantasy land, as opposed to that
some quite low budget, gritty story which could actually be
really disturbing without actually taking all those boxes in the
same way.
Speaker 3 (28:16):
Yeah, look, I'm not sure an expert in sort of
in how they do the classifications, but I believe that
they do take some of that context into account. So
so sort of for one of a better term, fantasy
violence might be it might be seeing classified in a
different way as realistic violence, because there is quite a
psychological difference. And I'm you know, if I think back
(28:39):
about things that have freaked me out, it's the realistic
stuff that's freaked me out, the things that you could
imagine happening, rather than the sort of the weird you know,
you know, alien when it pops out of your body.
It's like, sure, it was frightening, Oh that was a
jump scare of it, but it didn't haunt me, you know,
and those things that are realistic and have haunted me
(28:59):
of those And so I think that's a very key difference.
But and I'm fairly certain that they do take that
into account a little bit when they're classifying it.
Speaker 2 (29:08):
Yeah. Actually, funny enough, when I've searched it on my
I've actually, out of curiosity, I searched what the silence
of the Lamb slassification was because I hope that that
was was fairly high. Although because the performance of Anthony
Hopkins is just so eerie and scary, but I don't
know why I searched that, but in part of it.
(29:29):
One of the questions that anticipated from me was in
New Zealand, a count a twelve year old watch m
rated movies and it says, yes, I mean, did you
ever did you have a as a parent? I mean
your kids are a little bit older now, obviously for
your granddad. Did you go down that journey of.
Speaker 3 (29:49):
Yes, we did, But I tell you one thing I
remember is that we were staying at my mother in
law's house and our nephew, who was about fifteen years
older than my son, had been there and he'd have
the whole Game of Thrones on DVD. And my son
was staying in the room with the DVD player and
the TV, and he got up and wanted said, oh,
I've seen the whole biggest series of Game of Thrones.
(30:11):
And he was like ten, and it was like, oh, whoa.
And so that we wouldn't have wanted him to see
that when he was ten years old, let's say, But
he did and he survived. But yeah, I don't remember
the ratings things being a huge issue, but I did
(30:31):
find them useful in terms of, you know, just what
little bits of information are they giving me that I
can help make a judgment about what I want my
kids to see.
Speaker 2 (30:38):
Yeah, well, we'd love your participation if be like to
give us a call and button between me and Google Sutherland,
we're talking about one about managing keeping your kids safe
over the years with their online presence. And even if
you're not particularly o fay with the technology around social media,
(30:59):
how have you approached keeping your kids safe with it?
And also just on the film classification thing, how seriously
do you take them on. I'll give us a call
on eight hundred and eighty ten eighty text nine to
nine two. It's twenty to six. Yes, News Talks will
be My guest is dougle Sutherland, principal psychologist at Umbrella
Well Being, talking about keeping your kids safe over there
during their online lives. But also we've touched on the
(31:21):
film classification side of things, and I just think Google,
I guess with the film classification it's probably the best
for me. And I think you touched on something with
you know, it's not just whether it says PG or
R thirteen or R sixteen and I google what that
means and all that matter. But if it says are
I mean for me as as a kid, I think
(31:41):
it was a target if I was thirteen or fourteen,
if something was R eighteen, that was a challenge to
try and.
Speaker 3 (31:46):
Get you go and that. But that's teenagers, right. Teenagers
love that challenge. They yet love to push the boundaries.
And that's actually a good message to think about about
everything we've talked about, because they'll push the boundaries. They'll
look for stuff on the internet because it's a challenge.
But I kind of interrupted you. I think you're going
to say that you know, having the detail about what's
(32:08):
on something rather than the just the age is much
more helpful having the details.
Speaker 2 (32:14):
Well, I think. And the other thing is so cliches
lecturing people in a way, but it's just knowing your kids.
Because for instance, M says suitable for mature audiences sixteen
years of age and over suitable, it's not suitable forbidden.
So if you if you've got a childhood, you think
you know you're having mature conversations with and there's certain
(32:35):
and if it says you know it's got violence in it,
I must say, for instance, I think if Won the
movie with Brad Pitt, I think that's got a few
sex scenes in it, or love scenes or something like
well I thought it did, my producers shaking your head
and saying it doesn't. But if that was the case,
I'd be like, I don't think I'm taking mador to that.
(32:55):
But if it's Tom Cruise jumping out of an airplane,
well you've got.
Speaker 3 (33:00):
You've got the info right, and then you're in that
position to judge. And I think that's the useful thing,
you know, And an age just goes or some eighteen
year olds are different, so and and yeah, and I
would definitely have treated our kids differently. I know that
they had different sensitivities and some one of them would
like this and the other one wouldn't like that. So
the more knowledge I have around it, the better I think.
(33:21):
And I think that's a real good thing for parents
to have.
Speaker 2 (33:24):
My kids actually made their own decisions. At one door
who doesn't didn't like movies at all. She just didn't
like anything that wasn't real, so she and then one
day she was just like, yeah, I'm okay with it.
But she made so we never forced to.
Speaker 3 (33:35):
Yeah, gosh, that's it. I took the first movie I
took my son to was that The Train One at
Christmas time and the title has escaped me, The Polar Express.
Oh yeah, he cried all the way through it. He
was like flat five because it was so loud and
it was the first movie he'd ever been to see.
Speaker 2 (33:53):
And it's also okay, that didn't go well and it's
not real. I think sometimes it's it's why, I mean,
is there a reason why people some people are terrified
of clowns?
Speaker 3 (34:01):
Is it because oh I find clowns freaky. Yeah, they're
kind of weird, and yeah, I find them quite unusually
kind of weird that I think they lose their facial
expressions and they loom over you and it's like, you know,
I'm sure if you took a pole of your listeners,
there been a number of people that found clowns are
very weak.
Speaker 2 (34:19):
We might have to save that for the adult squad
rather than the parents squad growing fabioaus Hey, just quickly
before we wrap it up, for people, who are you know,
what are the things that parents are in danger of
being overly complacent about that you should always maybe keep
more of an eye on it when it comes to
(34:39):
online presences in the danger.
Speaker 3 (34:42):
I think one of the things is who are they
connecting with. Do they know the people that they're connecting
with on social media or are they just strangers? I
think too. Also, what do they see inadvertently, not directly
looking for, but what goes on and their friends' houses
or on their friends devices or maybe on the devices
(35:03):
at home when you think that the kids are in bed. Yeah,
so I think those Yeah, who are they friends with?
And what are they inadvertently being exposed to, not necessarily
what they're deliberately seeing.
Speaker 2 (35:16):
Hey, by the way, just a trivial question. Have you
actually seen Mission Impossible? By the way, not.
Speaker 3 (35:20):
The most recent one. I have seen the number of
the others, but I haven't seen.
Speaker 2 (35:24):
That is It's pretty good. It's it's worth catching it.
I was amazed at how quickly it ended up out
of the cinema though, because they have the opening and
then a couple of weeks later, it's not trying to
find a cinema to watch it, and it's like God,
they've moved on quickly. Anyway, Trivia, Hey, doogle. If people
want to catch up with you, or will read about
your work, or or seek some sort of further contact
(35:46):
with how do they do so?
Speaker 3 (35:48):
Just jump online? Umbrella dot org dot Nz.
Speaker 2 (35:51):
Excellent mate. Hey, great to have you on the show again.
Look forward to catch them again.
Speaker 3 (35:55):
Yep, and keep keep keep care of that mustache.
Speaker 2 (36:00):
I'm not sure it'll be there next time we spend
No thanks, there we go, there's Google. Southerlanies principal psychologist
said Umbrella Wellbeing. We'll be back in just a minute
to Rap Sport with Jason Pine. News Talk SIDB.
Speaker 1 (36:13):
For more from the weekend collective, listen live to News
Talk SIDB weekends from three pm, or follow the podcast
on iHeartRadio.
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