January 31, 2024 • 12 mins
This is so important. Especially now since the screen seems to be the new pacifier. These are some good tips on how to reduce that screen time!
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
The idea of your kids, you are on screen too much,
too much screen time. This is a really interesting piece
by Jeffrey Fowler, who's one of the you know, all right,
I'll put this in a positive way. I think he's
absolutely terrific writer and a good dude. And he works
for the Washington Post. How big a crew of great
(00:21):
writers and good dudes are theirs up in the eye
of the beholder? Anyway, expert strategies that really help kids
reduce screen time, and he writes for a while, and
I found it very interesting about the fact that a
lot of kids are aware that too much screen time
is not a great thing, and that there are things
they don't like about being online and are wrestling with
(00:44):
how to limit it and or fight against their impulse
to be online constantly. Can I interject, do they break
down at all what screen time means or is it
just looking at a screen period with no differentiation between
Instagram or watching a documentary about whales. It's the former.
(01:07):
Nobody's worried about whale document Okay, I don't think, but well,
and it gets into that a little bit more as
it gets into the strategies. But I thought this was
really smart as parenting advice, and he mentions parents have
plenty of reason to be concerned about mental health, bullying
(01:28):
exploitation online, but try to remember screens aren't always the enemy,
even if children are using them differently from how you
grew up. Many teens find community online that can be constructive.
That's why, Yeah, well I get the building community, you know.
My belief is that it's a substitute community, substituting shallow
(01:48):
and online for real, in depth and in person. But
that's why the first step is to practice more empathy
and less eye rolling, said this gal, who's the executive
director of Harvard Center for Digital Thriving. Number one. Have
an awkward conversation. Parents have never been teenagers in the
age of TikTok and artificial entails. I'll start it this way.
(02:08):
Your mom's really good in bed. Is that a good
awkward conversation? Or does it? If you're looking for awkward,
does it have to be about a certain subject? Does
it just start an awkward conversation? Well? Who am I
to tell you how to approach it? That she meant
something different. So before you launch into rule making, it's
essential to do some fact fighting. Talk to your team
about their online life the same way you would talk
about school or extra curriculars. Where do they like to
(02:31):
spend time, What need does a particular app or game fulfill,
What real world activities do they value? And how can
tech get in the way. To get this conversation started,
calling casual family meeting. Tell your teen you want to
hear their thoughts about the family's tech use, what's going
well where they could use your help. Make sure you're
open a feedback about your tech use as well, and
(02:52):
listen to what your kids already do to tame their
own screen time. A good question this scientists learned from
a research with quote, what do you do when you
really want to focus on something or something, on someone
or something you care about for what it's worth? And
again there's more detail in this, we'll post it at
armstrong and getty dot com. And then they say, and again,
(03:15):
I like this. Conduct some screen time experiments. Now you
need an action plan. Critically, though, it shouldn't just be
rules handed down by parents. Think of it instead as
experiments as a family brings storm some ways to reclaim
your time and focus from devices, and the focus should
be as much about reducing screen time as it is,
replacing that time with something you would like more of,
(03:38):
be it family adventures or sleep or whatever, both sides
of the coin. But part of the buy in you're
more likely to get from your kids is that you
pic a date on the calendar and agree to all
get back together and talk about it. So you're not issue.
You're not bringing the Ten Commandments down emosis like and
decreeing that from now to all time unless you fight
(03:59):
me hard enough, this is the way it's going to be.
It's an experiment. Let's see how this goes for a
limited time. That was interesting, and they have a bunch
of ideas to support that and make it more interesting
and fun for everybody, which I thought are good. Number
three agree on rules that parents have to follow to
hmmm for real, or just claim that I'm following them.
(04:25):
Then I go in my room and close the door
and I'm snap chat and discording Instagram and it out
exactly Well, again, that's up to you in your personal style.
That one's self explanatory. And then number four review safety
rules together. Most social media and gaming sites come with
safety and privacy settings, and while they won't fix systemic
issues with abuse and social media amplifying harmful information. They're
(04:47):
worth a regular checkup. Turn off the ability for people
outside your teen circle of friends to direct message, mention
or tag them. Oh my god. The more I read
about the ease and EFFICI see with which or effectiveness
with which predators contact kids on these various platforms, it's shocking. God. Yeah, yeah,
(05:08):
I'm sure this is true and a good idea, But
I have not done that. I mean, because, uh, the
only one that they could possibly communicate with other people
on is Discord, But I haven't looked into hy yet.
Shut it off. So we have had the conversation about
how the the twelve year old who joined your game
might be a forty five year old weirdo methadict pretending
(05:32):
he's a twelve year old. But you've had that conversation. Yeah,
you know. The only thing I would say it is,
and I tend to think of the world in metaphors.
Don't think of that stuff as a swim in the ocean,
and it's conceivable there are sharks around. Think of it
(05:52):
more like you're going to a place that advertises swim
with the sharks. There's one hundred percent certainty the sharks
are there one hundred percent, and they mentioned other privacy
things turn profiles to private, so your team has to
accept new friends before they can engage in that sort
of tip. It's worth mentioning. I don't think did they
(06:13):
get specifically. Oh. Part of the you have blood on
your hands thing at that hearing where Lindsey Graham was
thundering on is the sexploitation thing. And this is so insidious.
Anybody who's gone through young manhood knows that. To say
horny young manhood is redundant. Although what with their dropping
(06:35):
testosterone levels and sperm levels these days, I don't know
what's going on with young men, but the sexploitation thing is.
And these guys are good at their job. That was
something I always talked to my kids. People who would
exploit you, whether it's sexually or to steal your money,
they're very good at their jobs. So don't think, well,
(06:56):
this seems legit, means it's legit. No, that's what they
do for a living anyway. So what these guys do
is they go to young man established that they're an
attractive young girl who saw their profile online or the
or saw the replay from the football game or whatever.
The highlight, and they think you're super cute and they
(07:16):
just want to chat. And then they keep working the
young man like that, and then they say, I think
you're really cute. I wish we could get together in person,
and they somehow maneuver it to They have these videos
of a teenage looking girl who will, for instance, address
the camera and say I shouldn't do this, but like
(07:37):
I said, I think you're super cute, and then the
girl will show her breasts or or but or whatever
her erogena zones to the young man, and the young
man has every reason to believe that the person he's
been chatting with is the person showing her breasts, but
it's not. It's a scumbag. And then the scumbags will say, well,
(07:57):
I have the cute girl online, say hey, can you
show me a picture of your crank or whatever? The kids,
the girls's probably not gonna say that, probably not going
to use that terminology, but the kids then do that,
and then the predators have them, and they blackmailed them
for more and more explicit material, telling them if you
(08:18):
blow the whistle or if you stop sending this material,
we will put this on the every social media that
your high school friends are on, or maybe how you're
high school, or maybe just tell your parents, because you're
not supposed to be doing that, right, And in multiple
cases the young men have killed themselves. Right, so it's funny,
not funny, it's funny peque, you're not funny. Ha ha uh.
(08:38):
As you were getting into this more and more, I
was thinking, I'm glad I don't have girls. I mean,
I wish I had a girl, but the fact that
I don't have girls keeps me out of this one
now one because they're my kids, don't seem to have
the personalities that they're going to get into some sort
of Instagram depression over you know, who's having more fun
or cuter whatever, like a lot of girls do, right,
But the whole getting sucked into some sort of girl
(09:02):
coming on to you thing, obviously that's a trap for
any young man that's ever existed. We had the story
yesterday that a science has proven that when you get angry,
your IQ goes down by was it ten or twenty points?
Twenty points? Should we get angry, your IQ goes down
by twenty points? How much does your IQ go down
(09:22):
when you have an erection? As an FD fifty points
and that's conservative. So you started a one hundred years
old fifty year you're you're you're an imbecile. Yes I am. Yes,
So I mean even if, good God, even if, as
you would you would normally think, when you're not aroused
(09:43):
as a guy, you think, well, I'm not going to
fall for that. You know, you get those orogenos zones tickled.
All of a sudden, common sense goes out the window. Yeah,
I do need to talk to my son more about that,
because I could see none of this even close to
existed when I was young. I mean nothing within a
(10:04):
million miles. It was like star Trek stuff, anything like this.
But now it's available to every single young man in America.
And I would have been such a sucker for that
sort of thing, I think. And these monsters are good
at their jobs, I mean, have honed their unholy art
over multiple trial and error sessions with many kids. The
(10:24):
combination of the desire you have is like a fourteen
year old boy with the what's the likelihood that it's
a some scumbag that wants to abduct me or blackmail me?
Come on, what is that a one in a million.
I'm not going to waste this one opportunity of this
chick that thinks I'm cute and decide an out of
date example is straight out of the department of I've
(10:46):
got speakers in my van from work. Once you're familiar
with the scam, it's idiotic and you would never fall
for it. But until you're familiar with the scam, it
seems perfectly plausible. Wow. Yeah, you can't keep them away
from sin. You just have to teach them how to
(11:06):
deal with it. And it's scary. I got to admit
there's part of me that's grateful that my kids are grown.
This is an enormous challenge. Yeah, anybody who claims it's
always been difficult raising kids, Yes, it has always been difficult,
but the entire range of the worst of humanity wasn't
(11:27):
coming into your home until like fifteen years ago. And
I would also suggest that there are some parents who
are quite restrictive in their kids online activities, and I
think that's probably a good idea, but they're doing a
lot more than you think they're doing. In ninety percent
of the cases. It's like the super protective parents who
(11:49):
think that they can keep their kid away from temptation
then send them off to college. No, because you haven't
taught your kid how to deal with temptation. Your kids are,
they're doing stuff you don't know. You have to strengthen
their ability to resist it. But again, this is complicated,
it's and it varies child's child and family to family out. YEA, well,
I've spent a lot of time on this and it's
(12:10):
hard to do. Armstrong and Getty
The idea of your kids, you are on screen too much,
too much screen time. This is a really interesting piece
by Jeffrey Fowler, who's one of the you know, all right,
I'll put this in a positive way. I think he's
absolutely terrific writer and a good dude. And he works
for the Washington Post. How big a crew of great
(00:21):
writers and good dudes are theirs up in the eye
of the beholder? Anyway, expert strategies that really help kids
reduce screen time, and he writes for a while, and
I found it very interesting about the fact that a
lot of kids are aware that too much screen time
is not a great thing, and that there are things
they don't like about being online and are wrestling with
(00:44):
how to limit it and or fight against their impulse
to be online constantly. Can I interject, do they break
down at all what screen time means or is it
just looking at a screen period with no differentiation between
Instagram or watching a documentary about whales. It's the former.
(01:07):
Nobody's worried about whale document Okay, I don't think, but well,
and it gets into that a little bit more as
it gets into the strategies. But I thought this was
really smart as parenting advice, and he mentions parents have
plenty of reason to be concerned about mental health, bullying
(01:28):
exploitation online, but try to remember screens aren't always the enemy,
even if children are using them differently from how you
grew up. Many teens find community online that can be constructive.
That's why, Yeah, well I get the building community, you know.
My belief is that it's a substitute community, substituting shallow
(01:48):
and online for real, in depth and in person. But
that's why the first step is to practice more empathy
and less eye rolling, said this gal, who's the executive
director of Harvard Center for Digital Thriving. Number one. Have
an awkward conversation. Parents have never been teenagers in the
age of TikTok and artificial entails. I'll start it this way.
(02:08):
Your mom's really good in bed. Is that a good
awkward conversation? Or does it? If you're looking for awkward,
does it have to be about a certain subject? Does
it just start an awkward conversation? Well? Who am I
to tell you how to approach it? That she meant
something different. So before you launch into rule making, it's
essential to do some fact fighting. Talk to your team
about their online life the same way you would talk
about school or extra curriculars. Where do they like to
(02:31):
spend time, What need does a particular app or game fulfill,
What real world activities do they value? And how can
tech get in the way. To get this conversation started,
calling casual family meeting. Tell your teen you want to
hear their thoughts about the family's tech use, what's going
well where they could use your help. Make sure you're
open a feedback about your tech use as well, and
(02:52):
listen to what your kids already do to tame their
own screen time. A good question this scientists learned from
a research with quote, what do you do when you
really want to focus on something or something, on someone
or something you care about for what it's worth? And
again there's more detail in this, we'll post it at
armstrong and getty dot com. And then they say, and again,
(03:15):
I like this. Conduct some screen time experiments. Now you
need an action plan. Critically, though, it shouldn't just be
rules handed down by parents. Think of it instead as
experiments as a family brings storm some ways to reclaim
your time and focus from devices, and the focus should
be as much about reducing screen time as it is,
replacing that time with something you would like more of,
(03:38):
be it family adventures or sleep or whatever, both sides
of the coin. But part of the buy in you're
more likely to get from your kids is that you
pic a date on the calendar and agree to all
get back together and talk about it. So you're not issue.
You're not bringing the Ten Commandments down emosis like and
decreeing that from now to all time unless you fight
(03:59):
me hard enough, this is the way it's going to be.
It's an experiment. Let's see how this goes for a
limited time. That was interesting, and they have a bunch
of ideas to support that and make it more interesting
and fun for everybody, which I thought are good. Number
three agree on rules that parents have to follow to
hmmm for real, or just claim that I'm following them.
(04:25):
Then I go in my room and close the door
and I'm snap chat and discording Instagram and it out
exactly Well, again, that's up to you in your personal style.
That one's self explanatory. And then number four review safety
rules together. Most social media and gaming sites come with
safety and privacy settings, and while they won't fix systemic
issues with abuse and social media amplifying harmful information. They're
(04:47):
worth a regular checkup. Turn off the ability for people
outside your teen circle of friends to direct message, mention
or tag them. Oh my god. The more I read
about the ease and EFFICI see with which or effectiveness
with which predators contact kids on these various platforms, it's shocking. God. Yeah, yeah,
(05:08):
I'm sure this is true and a good idea, But
I have not done that. I mean, because, uh, the
only one that they could possibly communicate with other people
on is Discord, But I haven't looked into hy yet.
Shut it off. So we have had the conversation about
how the the twelve year old who joined your game
might be a forty five year old weirdo methadict pretending
(05:32):
he's a twelve year old. But you've had that conversation. Yeah,
you know. The only thing I would say it is,
and I tend to think of the world in metaphors.
Don't think of that stuff as a swim in the ocean,
and it's conceivable there are sharks around. Think of it
(05:52):
more like you're going to a place that advertises swim
with the sharks. There's one hundred percent certainty the sharks
are there one hundred percent, and they mentioned other privacy
things turn profiles to private, so your team has to
accept new friends before they can engage in that sort
of tip. It's worth mentioning. I don't think did they
(06:13):
get specifically. Oh. Part of the you have blood on
your hands thing at that hearing where Lindsey Graham was
thundering on is the sexploitation thing. And this is so insidious.
Anybody who's gone through young manhood knows that. To say
horny young manhood is redundant. Although what with their dropping
(06:35):
testosterone levels and sperm levels these days, I don't know
what's going on with young men, but the sexploitation thing is.
And these guys are good at their job. That was
something I always talked to my kids. People who would
exploit you, whether it's sexually or to steal your money,
they're very good at their jobs. So don't think, well,
(06:56):
this seems legit, means it's legit. No, that's what they
do for a living anyway. So what these guys do
is they go to young man established that they're an
attractive young girl who saw their profile online or the
or saw the replay from the football game or whatever.
The highlight, and they think you're super cute and they
(07:16):
just want to chat. And then they keep working the
young man like that, and then they say, I think
you're really cute. I wish we could get together in person,
and they somehow maneuver it to They have these videos
of a teenage looking girl who will, for instance, address
the camera and say I shouldn't do this, but like
(07:37):
I said, I think you're super cute, and then the
girl will show her breasts or or but or whatever
her erogena zones to the young man, and the young
man has every reason to believe that the person he's
been chatting with is the person showing her breasts, but
it's not. It's a scumbag. And then the scumbags will say, well,
(07:57):
I have the cute girl online, say hey, can you
show me a picture of your crank or whatever? The kids,
the girls's probably not gonna say that, probably not going
to use that terminology, but the kids then do that,
and then the predators have them, and they blackmailed them
for more and more explicit material, telling them if you
(08:18):
blow the whistle or if you stop sending this material,
we will put this on the every social media that
your high school friends are on, or maybe how you're
high school, or maybe just tell your parents, because you're
not supposed to be doing that, right, And in multiple
cases the young men have killed themselves. Right, so it's funny,
not funny, it's funny peque, you're not funny. Ha ha uh.
(08:38):
As you were getting into this more and more, I
was thinking, I'm glad I don't have girls. I mean,
I wish I had a girl, but the fact that
I don't have girls keeps me out of this one
now one because they're my kids, don't seem to have
the personalities that they're going to get into some sort
of Instagram depression over you know, who's having more fun
or cuter whatever, like a lot of girls do, right,
But the whole getting sucked into some sort of girl
(09:02):
coming on to you thing, obviously that's a trap for
any young man that's ever existed. We had the story
yesterday that a science has proven that when you get angry,
your IQ goes down by was it ten or twenty points?
Twenty points? Should we get angry, your IQ goes down
by twenty points? How much does your IQ go down
(09:22):
when you have an erection? As an FD fifty points
and that's conservative. So you started a one hundred years
old fifty year you're you're you're an imbecile. Yes I am. Yes,
So I mean even if, good God, even if, as
you would you would normally think, when you're not aroused
(09:43):
as a guy, you think, well, I'm not going to
fall for that. You know, you get those orogenos zones tickled.
All of a sudden, common sense goes out the window. Yeah,
I do need to talk to my son more about that,
because I could see none of this even close to
existed when I was young. I mean nothing within a
(10:04):
million miles. It was like star Trek stuff, anything like this.
But now it's available to every single young man in America.
And I would have been such a sucker for that
sort of thing, I think. And these monsters are good
at their jobs, I mean, have honed their unholy art
over multiple trial and error sessions with many kids. The
(10:24):
combination of the desire you have is like a fourteen
year old boy with the what's the likelihood that it's
a some scumbag that wants to abduct me or blackmail me?
Come on, what is that a one in a million.
I'm not going to waste this one opportunity of this
chick that thinks I'm cute and decide an out of
date example is straight out of the department of I've
(10:46):
got speakers in my van from work. Once you're familiar
with the scam, it's idiotic and you would never fall
for it. But until you're familiar with the scam, it
seems perfectly plausible. Wow. Yeah, you can't keep them away
from sin. You just have to teach them how to
(11:06):
deal with it. And it's scary. I got to admit
there's part of me that's grateful that my kids are grown.
This is an enormous challenge. Yeah, anybody who claims it's
always been difficult raising kids, Yes, it has always been difficult,
but the entire range of the worst of humanity wasn't
(11:27):
coming into your home until like fifteen years ago. And
I would also suggest that there are some parents who
are quite restrictive in their kids online activities, and I
think that's probably a good idea, but they're doing a
lot more than you think they're doing. In ninety percent
of the cases. It's like the super protective parents who
(11:49):
think that they can keep their kid away from temptation
then send them off to college. No, because you haven't
taught your kid how to deal with temptation. Your kids are,
they're doing stuff you don't know. You have to strengthen
their ability to resist it. But again, this is complicated,
it's and it varies child's child and family to family out. YEA, well,
I've spent a lot of time on this and it's
(12:10):
hard to do. Armstrong and Getty
Hosts And Creators
Joe Getty
Jack Armstrong
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