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Ep 25 - Clare Morell - "The Tech Exit: A Practical Guide to Freeing Kids and Teens from Smartphones"
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On this episode of the Sphere Podcast, Pascal-Emmanuel Gobry, Publisher of Sphere Media, interviews Clare Morell, a Fellow at the Ethics and Public Policy Center and author of "The Tech Exit: A Practical Guide to Freeing Kids and Teens from Smartphones." They talk about the evidence for why smartphones are bad for kids, why things like parental controls and screen time limits aren't enough and you need to just rid your kids of screens (Pascal is skeptical, but Clare makes a convincing argument), how you can start with a 30-day digital detox, what substitutes you can find for your kids, and finally they do discuss some public policy options for protecting our kids from interactive screens.
Subscribe to the PolicySphere Morning Briefing: https://policysphere.com/subscribe
More about Clare's book: https://thetechexit.com
Subscribe to Clare's Substack: https://claremorell.substack.com/
Clare's EPPC scholar page: https://eppc.org/author/clare_morell/
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Transcript
Introduction and Guest Background
00:00:00
Pascal-Emmanuel Gobry
Hello, everyone, and welcome to the Low Production Value Sphere podcast, which is shot, as per usual, from my terrorist hideout in the Druze region of Syria.
00:00:13
Pascal-Emmanuel Gobry
And I have with me ah Claire Morel, who's a fellow at the Ethics and Public Policy Center, a wonderful, wonderful think tank with which I was affiliated with many years and where everybody who works there is amazing.
The Dangers of Smartphones for Children
00:00:28
Pascal-Emmanuel Gobry
ah And there's many things we could talk about, but ah Claire, you recently wrote a book and it's called The Tech Exit, A Practical Guide to Freeing Kids and and Teens from Smartphones.
00:00:43
Pascal-Emmanuel Gobry
um ah Reading my notes, I have terrible handwriting. ah Practical Guides to Freeing Kids and Teens from Smartphones. okay like One of the things that I really like or that I'm intrigued by is you know, you're a policy person, but you didn't write a policy book. There's some policy stuff in there, but that's not the main focus.
00:01:04
Pascal-Emmanuel Gobry
So why don't we start there?
00:01:07
Clare Morell
Yeah.
00:01:07
Pascal-Emmanuel Gobry
Why? why
00:01:09
Clare Morell
Yeah, so actually in my policy work for the last four years working to protect kids from online harms like pornography, social media, and smartphones, I would get asked a lot by parents for my professional advice. What should we do? When should we get a smartphone?
00:01:25
Clare Morell
And I would tell them, my research has convinced me I'm not going to be giving a smartphone and social media to my own kids. But I recognized I had young kids. I hadn't navigated the teen years myself yet, so I didn't have the credibility to explain how to do this.
00:01:39
Clare Morell
And they would say, well, what's a resource you recommend that shows us how to raise our kids smartphone free? And I didn't have a good book to give them. And I actually then was kind of determined to find one. So I...
00:01:50
Clare Morell
set out reading every book on parenting tech and technology really that I could find. And I found them all deeply disappointing. They would talk about how bad these harms were for kids. They were pretty accurate on the harms.
00:02:03
Clare Morell
And then the best solutions they could offer parents were, you know, so set screen time limits, put parental controls in place and talk to your kids about the dangers of technology. And all of the research I was staring at was showing me like the time limits weren't working And the addictive design of the tech was really – like the time limits were no match for. And then the parental controls were completely a myth. Parents had no real control. It was ah impossible to effectively lock down a smartphone. I would hear story after story of parents who had no idea what their child was getting into on this app.
00:02:38
Clare Morell
Even innocuous apps that were like educational games had dangers, portals to the internet, think parents aren't aware of all the in-app browsers. And so I i personally seen just how bad the parental controls were.
00:02:47
Pascal-Emmanuel Gobry
Right.
00:02:51
Clare Morell
And so I decided that I would write this book to parents because there wasn't one. And I wanted parents to both know why smartphone-free childhood was necessary.
00:03:03
Clare Morell
But more than anything else, and what the book focuses on is trying to actually give parents the practical steps for how this is possible from interviewing just dozens of families who have done this. I wanted to give parents their tips for success, how they had been able to do this, navigate through the teen years, and raise their kids free of smartphones. And so that in the book, in a nutshell, that's the book I wrote.
00:03:29
Pascal-Emmanuel Gobry
All right. ah Okay. Well, so let's get into it because I have kids and ah ah and in particular, a teenage, my God, God help me, teenage daughter.
00:03:42
Pascal-Emmanuel Gobry
ah and so, you know, I'm i'm sure I'm going to tell you stuff you've heard a million times, but probably this is also the audience. So I'll ah well i'll just tell you my story. I, you know,
00:03:58
Pascal-Emmanuel Gobry
We were ah very ah defensive or reluctant ah to let her have any phones or things of that nature. um At first, we bought her a flip phone ah because you know she can use that for emergencies, but there is no like, blah, blah, blah, blah.
00:04:20
Pascal-Emmanuel Gobry
ah and But eventually, we realized that, and again, preteen teen girl, you know, if if she has if she's going to have a social life, she needs to be in the group chats.
00:04:34
Pascal-Emmanuel Gobry
ah If she has to have a social life, she needs to be in the group chats. She asked her for a phone. She has excellent grades, which is extremely frustrating because, it you know, she's like, ah you know, if I'm first in my class, will you buy me an iPhone? And it's like,
00:04:54
Pascal-Emmanuel Gobry
Okay.
00:04:58
Pascal-Emmanuel Gobry
And so eventually, you know, we did a lot of research. ah My wife is a total computer gadget nerd.
00:05:08
Pascal-Emmanuel Gobry
Um, and so like what And so we bought her one of the, so we chose Apple because it has the best, we thought, parental controls, blah, blah, blah. And so she has screen time limits. She has limits on what apps she can install.
Addiction and Brain Development
00:05:25
Pascal-Emmanuel Gobry
Da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da. ah And we are careful about ah not letting her use it too much. ah di Just before I was, because it's it's the summer holiday, so I got a request.
00:05:41
Pascal-Emmanuel Gobry
I want more time. It's like, no, you have to ah ah you still haven't finished ah doing the laundry or whatever it was. Anyway, so why am I a terrible parent?
00:05:54
Clare Morell
Oh, i've not I'm not trying to um judge your individual decisions, but I will say, i i first I'll acknowledge the difficulties in resisting the smartphones.
00:06:06
Clare Morell
And this is part of some of the solutions I try to address in my book is why parents need to band together because it's it's difficult for individual parents to say, my kid's going to be the only one not on a smartphone.
00:06:16
Pascal-Emmanuel Gobry
Yes.
00:06:17
Clare Morell
So I really,
00:06:18
Pascal-Emmanuel Gobry
Yeah. Oh, and her her school is very good. Like smartphones are banned in her school.
00:06:22
Clare Morell
ah
00:06:23
Pascal-Emmanuel Gobry
They they have they have to be in the backpack.
00:06:23
Clare Morell
that's great.
00:06:26
Pascal-Emmanuel Gobry
And like there's a very clear ah rule. Like if we see a phone, we we're just going to take it.
00:06:32
Clare Morell
Yeah.
00:06:33
Pascal-Emmanuel Gobry
ah and but but But nevertheless, all of the kids in her class are in the are in the group chats. And therefore, you know if if if you don't participate in that, you're a social outcast.
00:06:44
Pascal-Emmanuel Gobry
And you know it's very hard for, especially a preteen girl, to be a social outcast.
00:06:51
Clare Morell
Yes. No, I understand that the the peer pressures and the peer.
00:06:53
Pascal-Emmanuel Gobry
I'm not defensive at all, by the way, as you can tell.
00:06:58
Clare Morell
No, it's fine. I talked to her.
00:06:59
Pascal-Emmanuel Gobry
well i'm just I'm just joking around because I think most of our most of the viewers of this are going to be somewhere like this.
00:07:03
Clare Morell
Oh, yeah.
00:07:06
Pascal-Emmanuel Gobry
And so, ah you know, I'm not asking joking a aside. I'm not asking you to judge me. But okay, so why are screen time limits, you know, not good enough?
00:07:13
Clare Morell
Yeah.
00:07:14
Pascal-Emmanuel Gobry
ah
00:07:15
Clare Morell
Oh, no, no, no.
00:07:15
Pascal-Emmanuel Gobry
Why?
00:07:15
Clare Morell
Sure. And I was just going to answer your question by saying, um you know, like I would want to hear more about if you've seen just any behavior changes even in your daughter despite the time limits, despite the parental controls.
00:07:17
Pascal-Emmanuel Gobry
No, seriously, I want to know.
00:07:32
Clare Morell
if you feel like she's and if she if you feel like she's drawn to the smartphone, if you feel like she's asking for more time. Because my my premise in the book, what I try to explain, and listen, adults are not immune from these effects, is that they're just it's highly addictive.
00:07:47
Clare Morell
And even a small amount of time per day, just it it really does make us crave more time.
00:07:48
Pascal-Emmanuel Gobry
Yeah. Yes.
00:07:53
Clare Morell
And I try to explain the brain science ah to people that it releases these dopamine bursts in our blank brain, these hits of pleasure,
00:08:00
Pascal-Emmanuel Gobry
yeah
00:08:02
Clare Morell
But dopamine doesn't produce lasting satisfaction. And in fact, then once you log off, your brain goes into a dopamine deficit state, which is meant to incentivize you to do the activity again.
00:08:05
Pascal-Emmanuel Gobry
yeah
00:08:12
Clare Morell
And so these kids, even when they're off the devices, their brain is in this kind of constant craving state.
00:08:13
Pascal-Emmanuel Gobry
yeah
00:08:18
Clare Morell
And more studies are coming out. The University of North Carolina had one that showed kids who were habitually checking their phones, checking social media, over time showed divergent brain development.
00:08:28
Clare Morell
What happened is their reward pathways in the brain. became more sensitive to social media and the cues for social media. they became the The addiction term is sensitization.
00:08:37
Pascal-Emmanuel Gobry
Yeah.
00:08:39
Clare Morell
They became more sensitized.
00:08:40
Pascal-Emmanuel Gobry
Yeah. Yeah.
00:08:41
Clare Morell
to that type of reward. And the other side effect of that is also then desensitization to other natural pleasures in the real world. And I will say, I think one of the dangers of smartphones is it's it's sometimes also difficult um to see like the harms overnight.
00:08:57
Clare Morell
You're like, you hand your kid a phone, you're like, ah, it doesn't seem so bad. But it's the cumulative changing of the brain over time and then their gradual even kind of loss of interest in real world things that because it actually doesn't produce as much pleasure.
00:09:10
Pascal-Emmanuel Gobry
Right. Right.
00:09:13
Clare Morell
And even you're saying about the group chats, like the virtual world becomes more real for kids than the real world. And so I just try to explain for parents the the addictive design really just undermines this premise of screen time limits.
00:09:28
Pascal-Emmanuel Gobry
right
00:09:29
Clare Morell
I mean, we don't – any addictive substance, we're not like, oh, okay, you know. It's okay if my my kid has a little bit of fentanyl today. um you know, we just – we don't approach – I mean, I know it sounds crazy, but I think when we use that analogy, like if we think about other inherently addictive products, we don't put like time limits on them for kids. We just actually don't allow children to use those
Smartphones as Addictive Substances
00:09:53
Clare Morell
things.
00:09:53
Clare Morell
And I'm trying to make the case that smartphones and social media, particularly because of how immersive, interactive they are, how constant the dopamine hits are, that they are that addictive and that we have to put those types of screens more in the category of fentanyl then sugar because I think we've often just treated screens like sugar. Okay.
00:10:14
Clare Morell
Yeah, bad if it's too much, but okay in moderation. and with the smartphone and social media in particular, I'm really trying to encourage parents to wait as close to adulthood as possible to allow their kids' brains to develop as much as they can without the phones and to form their habits without them to allow their brains to really develop as as best as possible.
00:10:36
Clare Morell
Yeah.
00:10:36
Pascal-Emmanuel Gobry
Okay.
00:10:37
Clare Morell
Yeah.
00:10:38
Pascal-Emmanuel Gobry
So, okay, so go over the science, go over the evidence, you know, ah make me want to, you know, as soon as we get off the recording, I'm going to go in her bedroom, which is right there and like, take the phone and smash it with a hammer.
00:10:54
Pascal-Emmanuel Gobry
no No, but like, okay, so explain the evidence. Explain why, and I like the analogy. Like most people would say it's like sugar.
00:11:05
Pascal-Emmanuel Gobry
It's, you know, yes, not too much, but if it's a little once in a while, you know, that's not the biggest deal in the world.
00:11:06
Clare Morell
Yeah.
00:11:11
Pascal-Emmanuel Gobry
And that's that's a good analogy.
00:11:12
Clare Morell
Yeah.
00:11:13
Pascal-Emmanuel Gobry
So explain to me the evidence why I and parents in general should believe that it's more like fentanyl than sugar.
00:11:21
Clare Morell
Okay. All right. We're going to go for a little bit of even a deeper dive in the brain science. So brain scans are showing that the parts of the brain that are activated and then even over time what they look like, the brains of users of social media, the scans actually look like the brains of heavy drug users.
00:11:40
Clare Morell
The same changes have structurally happened in the brain. um Again, so that's like what is happening on a structural level in the brain is actually the same as using a highly addictive drug.
00:11:53
Clare Morell
The other point is that what happens is kids, especially ah around age 10, their brains start going through another critical period of development um called pruning and myelination.
00:12:05
Clare Morell
Pruning is that we actually start to – our brain starts to cut out and reduce neural connections that we're not really using. It tries to become more efficient to build the brain um to strengthen, and that's the myelination, is that the nerve fibers actually become coated in this like white substance called myelination. And so it makes up the white matter of the brain.
00:12:27
Clare Morell
it That white matter increases connectivity between certain parts of the brain and actually speeds up the firing of the neurosignals. So these processes are happening in tandem. And what they're finding is with kids who are on screens using smartphone, social media, their white matter is reduced the connections between their prefrontal cortex and the reward center of the brain, which means their ability actually to exert self-control and impulse control to be able to say, I've really been using social media too much, is actually being stunted. Like the the fully formed develop of that, the breaks to kind of put the but brain, breaks on your brain,
00:13:08
Clare Morell
is being inhibited. So they're they're seeing reduced white matter between the the cortex and the reward center. They're also seeing a lot more white matter in the reward center. Those pathways are becoming like hardwired in the brain towards the stimuli that screens provide, which means it will always be more addictive and alluring and appealing to the brain.
Alternatives and Benefits of a Smartphone-Free Environment
00:13:31
Clare Morell
um So the sensitization can be a lasting structural change in the brain, which means you're always going to be a little bit more compulsively drawn to those things and kind of puts the brain again in more of a state of constantly craving.
00:13:44
Clare Morell
that particular stimulus.
00:13:44
Pascal-Emmanuel Gobry
Right.
00:13:46
Clare Morell
And then the last point is the gray matter and the cortical thickness in the cortex part of the brain, the judgment center, is reduced. So it's less.
00:13:57
Clare Morell
And so that's what I'm talking about is that the brain is changing. It it really works to become more efficient. And so if we are underusing our prefrontal cortex, that there's actually reduction in the structure of the brain which So what they see is over time it leads to greater impulsivity, less self-control, emotional regulation, um poor judgment. In the brain, that cortex isn't fully developed until age 25. And so this is why scientists are trying to explain for a kid on social media or a smartphone, it's all gas and no brakes.
00:14:29
Clare Morell
And it's actually inhibiting their ability to develop the brakes and that they need to exert that kind of self-control as an adult. And so it's not an exaggeration to say, you sometimes hear people say, oh, the phones are rewiring the brain.
00:14:45
Clare Morell
they They actually are on a structural level. And so, and the last thing I'll say is we see this mental health crisis
00:14:48
Pascal-Emmanuel Gobry
Yeah.
00:14:52
Clare Morell
The mental health crisis crisis is related to these changes. So when the brain gets used to these artificially high levels of dopamine while they're on the platforms and then you log off, it goes into a dopamine deficit state.
00:15:05
Clare Morell
And you actually experience less ability to feel pleasure from real life things, the normal kind of mundane things of life. And it can put people into a depressive state.
00:15:15
Clare Morell
And so we see these spiking rates of depression, um anxiety, self-harm, suicide. The CDC found last year that one in three high school girls in the United States considered suicide.
00:15:27
Clare Morell
Like one in three.
00:15:27
Pascal-Emmanuel Gobry
Yeah, no, the mental health numbers are insane.
00:15:30
Clare Morell
Mental health numbers are insane. and And I mean, Jonathan, Hygiene, Twenge, others have documented this isn't just correlation. This is causation. We've ruled out the other factors. And if you even just study the brain science, it's an explanatory variable variable to see, oh what's happening in the brain is actually contributing to these mental health symptoms.
00:15:49
Clare Morell
that we're seeing in the kids. And so um for all those reasons, I would just really urge parents to proceed with great caution. Obviously, my book holds out my proposed solution, which is just opting out of smartphones and social media entirely. um And I really actually want parents to think it's possible because I think most parents are like, you know, probably same in your boat, just I don't really want to give the smartphone, but it starts to feel like this inevitability as the pressures ramp up.
00:16:16
Clare Morell
And I'm kind of trying to give parents an escape plan um for how to handle those pressures. And I'm not saying it's going to be easy, but I walk parents through that it actually is possible and the barriers may not be as big as you think. um There are lots of parents doing this, increasingly greater numbers of parents. So like let's band together and change the culture on this.
00:16:37
Clare Morell
um To protect all of our kids and so we can we can talk through more specifics But I will say the greatest piece of advice I give parents is there are better alternative phones available that allow your kids to call and text and that don't have an internet browser, that don't have social media apps, don't have YouTube, all the kind of addictive gaming apps that really allow them to start to learn to use as a phone as a tool ah for calling and texting people, but without all the immersive, addictive apps.
00:17:07
Clare Morell
And so it's just a lot easier um for parents to be able to protect their kids with that type of alternative phone to the smartphone. So that's been my new piece of recommendation is just delay the phone as long as possible. And then when you do feel like your child is independently moving around, you need to be in touch with them, opting for a non-smartphone alternative as their first phone.
Can Screen Time Limits Prevent Addiction?
00:17:31
Pascal-Emmanuel Gobry
Yeah. Well, that's what we did, except, you know, eventually um we gave up. Okay. So ah ah <unk>m I'm going to keep playing devil's advocate um again.
00:17:41
Clare Morell
That's fine.
00:17:45
Pascal-Emmanuel Gobry
Not defensive at all. um ah So, okay. So those studies, those studies were on kids that use smartphones like half an hour a day.
00:17:59
Pascal-Emmanuel Gobry
less than an hour a day or... Because I fully buy that what you're describing is real or extremely possible it for a child who's just like staring at a screen constantly. and we And we know that there are families where they are staring at a screen constantly.
00:18:23
Pascal-Emmanuel Gobry
ah Uh... But there are also families where, you know, the kid has a phone, but he's got screen time limits and so on and so forth. So, ah you know, everything you described, do those studies break down by the the the amount of usage and the regularity of usage?
00:18:42
Clare Morell
Yeah, I would have to go into the weeds. I kind of summarized at a high level probably like, I don't know, 20 different studies that I've read and and a lot of them have overlapping results. um I will say a couple things.
00:18:53
Pascal-Emmanuel Gobry
Yes.
00:18:54
Clare Morell
So the first is obviously the amount of time, like there have been separate studies done that show like the amount of time obviously increases the risk of these effects. And even on the mental health front, the amount of time um can increase increase the risk for depression or anxiety. So it's not completely separated from time.
00:19:16
Clare Morell
But I will say other studies have examined just, okay, kids who are frequently checking social media during the day, not saying that they're spending hours on it, but just the habitual checking behavior, which doesn't even mean that you're going into the app.
00:19:26
Pascal-Emmanuel Gobry
Right. Right. Okay.
00:19:31
Clare Morell
You're just checking. Did you get a new notification or a like on the phone?
00:19:33
Pascal-Emmanuel Gobry
Right. Right. Right.
00:19:36
Clare Morell
habitual The habitual checking behaviors is the thing that this University of North Carolina study – studied, not looking at time spent on the app, just – and that's what they found the divergent brain development where kids' reward pathways became overly sensitive to social rewards was just from the checking behavior.
00:19:45
Pascal-Emmanuel Gobry
Yeah. yeah
00:19:51
Pascal-Emmanuel Gobry
Wow. Wow.
00:19:55
Clare Morell
And I tell parents, I'm like, even if you set a time limit Instagram 30 minutes a day, means they could still check the app like 100 times that day.
00:20:02
Pascal-Emmanuel Gobry
Right.
00:20:03
Clare Morell
Like they're not necessarily going into it and spending the 30 minutes on it. But because of the design of the app, it incentivizes your brain to constantly check it. You want to know if you got a new follower. Has anyone liked your post? Like what's going on? And so that – what it – the kind of behavior that it induces and then that behavior over their time changes the structure of the brain.
00:20:27
Clare Morell
So, and that's separate from just how much time you're spending. The other thing I will say is, you know, Jonathan Haidt has explained in some of the research studies that there are just um bigger kind of um network effects, that it's not just an individual dose relationship, but just that it's a changing of the social environment.
00:20:43
Pascal-Emmanuel Gobry
Right.
00:20:45
Clare Morell
And obviously that's difficult for individual parents to change, which is part of why I'm advocating for collective solutions at schools, like banning the phones or the policy solutions or just parents finding each other. And so it's not as simple as just the amount of time spent.
00:20:59
Clare Morell
um There is more complicating factors, just like the habitual checking behaviors it induces, the changes in social dynamics. um And I was forgetting my last point. I was just going to say that, ah oh, the last point is just also there have been studies just looking at when someone got the age of first smartphone and then their mental health outcomes as adults.
00:21:20
Clare Morell
um And not about the amount of time spent, but just like what age they got the smartphone.
00:21:20
Pascal-Emmanuel Gobry
Yeah. Mm-hmm.
00:21:24
Clare Morell
And the younger the age of her smartphone, the worse mental health outcomes as young adults. In particular, the the fact the measure that decreased the most with getting a smartphone older was suicidality.
Harmful Effects of Smartphones
00:21:38
Clare Morell
That kids who got their smartphone closer to age 18 rather than 6 or 7 or um actually struggled significantly less with suicidal thoughts.
00:21:49
Clare Morell
So that's also just trying to look at what's the impact over time cumulatively of having a smartphone, especially at a younger age.
00:21:55
Pascal-Emmanuel Gobry
Right.
00:22:00
Pascal-Emmanuel Gobry
Okay. Damn it. ah ah that's That all sounds very convincing. um Okay, so ah ah just curiosity, just ah asking about these studies...
00:22:13
Pascal-Emmanuel Gobry
um Do we know what it is exactly? Because so the smartphone smartphone is many different things, right?
00:22:27
Pascal-Emmanuel Gobry
There's the screen itself. And one of the things that I believe is that the the light in your eyes creates like this physical reaction, physiological reaction.
00:22:35
Clare Morell
No, it does. Yeah. yeah Yeah.
00:22:36
Pascal-Emmanuel Gobry
um Because I have a Kindle. ah And it's a totally different feeling because you don't have light blasted in your eyes, which we didn't evolve for. So there's there's the physical screen aspect.
00:22:49
Pascal-Emmanuel Gobry
There's the social media aspect where you know you read all these stories about like you know ah ah mob-like behavior, you know bullying that sort of never ends because it's always on your phone and it's like a mob of people in the group chats, dah, dah, dah.
00:23:07
Pascal-Emmanuel Gobry
So is it the social media? ah Is it games? Of course, when when it comes to boys, there's the whole porn thing, which is like its own separate thing, but obviously it's connected.
00:23:19
Pascal-Emmanuel Gobry
um A, do we know? do we have Do we have studies that sort of try to break it down? And B, ah if we don't know, do you have like a hunch?
00:23:31
Pascal-Emmanuel Gobry
youre i'm sure You probably have a theory, even if it's not proven.
00:23:35
Clare Morell
Yeah. um Okay. A couple of things. So ah i think it's I think it's actually maybe difficult to disentangle all the kind of aspects of the smartphone, um maybe in scientific studies, but I can give you some of my theories based on research and and how The smartphone just works and what symptoms it kind of induces in us.
00:23:56
Clare Morell
um Social media is obviously like the most kind of harmful because of all the things that you mentioned. I mean, it literally – teens hold themselves out to their peers for judgment. All of their relationships are built on metrics like likes and followers.
00:24:12
Pascal-Emmanuel Gobry
yeah
00:24:12
Clare Morell
um which is like inherently addicting. I mean, this is again, like it preys exactly on the brain vulnerabilities that between the ages of 10 to 12, our like dopamine receptors multiply to make us more wired for social feedback and social rewards from our peers.
00:24:19
Pascal-Emmanuel Gobry
Yeah.
00:24:28
Clare Morell
And as a normal process of development, that's supposed to help us form more friendships like outside of our families. And instead, social media comes in at just that right time and literally just hijacks the kind of brain vulnerabilities by providing that type of social feedback but through the online world.
00:24:43
Clare Morell
And I explain like kids are getting dopamine through the screen, through the social media, but they're not getting oxytocin, which only comes from real-life relationships, from eye contact, physical touch. And oxytocin is like the kind of lasting happiness hormone.
00:24:55
Pascal-Emmanuel Gobry
Right. Yeah.
00:24:56
Clare Morell
It bonds us with other humans. It makes us feel trust and like genuine friendship. And so kids are more connected than ever through social media, yet we have this loneliness epidemic because they're not actually forming quality friendships.
00:25:07
Pascal-Emmanuel Gobry
yeah
00:25:09
Clare Morell
um So anyway, that's a kind of side tangent, which is another point that when parents talk to me about their kids feeling left out because they're not on the social media apps, I'm like, the friendships being formed through social media are not very deep and rich. And like if you can instead try to help your kids spend time with their friends in real person, like the more that you can get them together with their friends in real life, the more of an antidote it is to the kind of
00:25:34
Pascal-Emmanuel Gobry
boom
00:25:34
Clare Morell
shallowness of social media. So that's a side tangent on just your point on friendships. But then the screen itself, the interface of the screen is also really um addictive, but also it is, it elicits a response in our brain that's unnatural.
00:25:49
Clare Morell
So this doctor,
00:25:50
Pascal-Emmanuel Gobry
yeah
00:25:51
Clare Morell
in her practice, she studies kit or she has kids come in with autism, ADHD. And what she was finding is in a lot of her patients, just having them do a 30-day digital detox from all interactive screens, video games, smartphones, social media, tablets, that for many patients, it completely eliminated their symptoms.
00:26:09
Clare Morell
And for patients who did have this condition, it cut them in half. And so she said she has termed this um condition where Kids have poor focus, behavioral difficulties, struggling struggles paying attention, impulsivity, mood swings, sleep disturbances, kind of this whole category of symptoms.
00:26:28
Clare Morell
She now terms electronic screen syndrome. And what she explains is that the the stimulation through the screen actually puts the brain into like a fight or flight response mode. It really activates the amygdala, which is in our reward center,
00:26:43
Clare Morell
And it stimulates the amygdala to release adrenaline and cortisol and dopamine.
00:26:43
Pascal-Emmanuel Gobry
Yes.
00:26:48
Clare Morell
And she said what happens is that cortisol and adrenaline is meant to be released in like physical activity and physical movement. It's it's a stress response that cumulatively the screens are inducing the stress response.
00:26:58
Pascal-Emmanuel Gobry
yeah
00:27:02
Clare Morell
But then when it's not released, it builds up in the brain and it leads to these dysregulations because – She said when you're you get this fight or flight response, the amygdala takes over and your frontal cortex just kind of shuts down. Like it's meant to save you from, you know, dangerous situations like here's your adrenaline, like get out of there.
00:27:21
Clare Morell
um And so this is being stimulated by interactive screens. And she says it's not just using screens too much. Even the regular use of screens over time, this stress response, like it accumulates in the brain.
Physical and Stress Impacts of Screens
00:27:34
Clare Morell
um And so it manifests itself in these physical and physiological and psychological symptoms in kids and that just taking screens away 30 days allows the brain to reset, um to come back to at a normal level of balance and homeostasis and and allows a child's nervous nervous system to kind of re-regulate.
00:27:58
Clare Morell
And so that, to your point, is an effect of really any interactive screen um because of just the nature of these constant little dopamine hits and bursts and the interaction with this like bright thing in our eyes, like all of it is inducing that kind of stress response.
00:28:16
Clare Morell
um And she again cautions parents like this isn't just kids who are excessively using their screens two hours or more a day. This is just from someone who's been using it over time. That stress response accumulates in the brain.
00:28:28
Clare Morell
So what we see in kids –
00:28:29
Pascal-Emmanuel Gobry
I'm sorry, what were you saying? I was looking at my phone.
00:28:33
Clare Morell
um Just ah kids have really malfunctioning kind of like stress um stress systems in the brain from screens. The last thing I'll say on the eye point is I spoke with an ophthalmologist for my book and she is now seeing eight and nine-year-olds coming into her practice who are struggling with chronic dry eye, which is a condition normally seen in 70 and 80-year-olds where your eye glands start to dry up over time.
00:28:54
Pascal-Emmanuel Gobry
Right.
00:28:58
Clare Morell
kids staring at screens, she said, are not blinking and enough. And they don't even realize they're doing it. But the lights, whatever it triggers, they're not blinking.
00:29:03
Pascal-Emmanuel Gobry
Right. Oh my.
Digital Detox and Lifestyle Changes
00:29:08
Clare Morell
Blinking in yeah is really important because it actually has these eye glands release oil that then lubricates the eye. But when you don't I mean, it is like – it's kind of scary stuff.
00:29:15
Pascal-Emmanuel Gobry
Okay. I'm going to tell my and wife not to watch this podcast because like she's going to,
00:29:24
Clare Morell
But they –
00:29:24
Pascal-Emmanuel Gobry
she he's good she's going to full uncle Ted. ah
00:29:28
Clare Morell
Yeah, these kids' eye glands actually dry up because they're not blinking.
00:29:31
Pascal-Emmanuel Gobry
Oh, that's awful. That's so horrible. um i knew there was an epidemic of nearsightedness among children.
00:29:34
Clare Morell
And you don't – yeah. Yeah.
00:29:40
Pascal-Emmanuel Gobry
And it's definitely, like I mean, it's not just linked to, um because we've we've had this um issue as well.
00:29:50
Pascal-Emmanuel Gobry
Yeah. ah It's not directly linked to screens. It's the fact that if you live in an urban environment, you're not looking at the horizon.
00:30:01
Pascal-Emmanuel Gobry
And the act of looking at the horizon is like a workout for your eyes.
00:30:01
Clare Morell
Oh, interesting.
00:30:07
Pascal-Emmanuel Gobry
And so if if you're if you're constantly in an environment where you don't have a point far away to look at,
00:30:07
Clare Morell
Wow. Interesting. Right. Interesting.
00:30:15
Clare Morell
Interesting.
00:30:15
Pascal-Emmanuel Gobry
um then your your eye loses it its ability or the ability we, you know, gets worse to to to look far away.
00:30:27
Pascal-Emmanuel Gobry
um And so the I mean, the the numbers and like eight year olds in Japan who need glasses, it's like it's likes doubled and like in like 10 years or something like that, like really weird.
00:30:41
Pascal-Emmanuel Gobry
um ah Okay, but I did not know about the dry eye thing, which is even scarier. um Okay.
00:30:50
Clare Morell
Yeah, because if you if you lose those glands, they don't they just don't come back. So these kids now have to externally basically lubricate their eyes the rest of their lives.
00:30:56
Pascal-Emmanuel Gobry
Oh, really?
00:30:59
Clare Morell
and
00:30:59
Pascal-Emmanuel Gobry
So it's for the rest of their lives.
00:31:01
Clare Morell
Yeah. Because otherwise, um scar tissue will build up on your eyes if they're not lubricated, which can ultimately like lead to blindness if it's untreated. And so an eight-year-old starts out their life basically with a chronic health condition that they have to constantly manage so that they don't go blind. So this is – it's like it's pretty important to pay attention to.
00:31:23
Pascal-Emmanuel Gobry
holy Holy crap. ah Okay. ah Okay, you're radicalizing me right now. um Okay, well, okay, well, okay, you've sold me. um Okay, next step. So what do I do?
00:31:40
Pascal-Emmanuel Gobry
ah what how how How do I do this without my children hating me? Okay.
00:31:47
Clare Morell
No, yes, I know. This is – it's challenging. Well, and I was going to say even to your earlier point, I think sometimes it's it's difficult for us to see the impact on a daily basis of our kids using a screen. But what I really recommend to every parent is to try 30-day detox.
00:32:03
Pascal-Emmanuel Gobry
Okay.
00:32:03
Clare Morell
Even if you're not sure you're going to keep this up long term, it will be beneficial for your child.
00:32:07
Pascal-Emmanuel Gobry
Right.
00:32:09
Clare Morell
I mean, summer is a great time to say, hey, for 30 days, we're doing no smartphone.
00:32:12
Pascal-Emmanuel Gobry
Yes.
00:32:14
Clare Morell
We're doing no social media. We're really doing no interactive screens. um because I want to help your brain and your nervous system re-regulate. And I want you to actually see what the experience is like not being on your phone.
00:32:28
Clare Morell
um It can be a really helpful thought exercise, especially in teenagers, to say, we're going to do this
00:32:29
Pascal-Emmanuel Gobry
Right.
00:32:34
Clare Morell
And, you know, we're going to commit to 30 days. I think any family can commit to doing something for 30 days. It's time limited. And the 30 days has a science to it. It gives time for the brain to really re-regulate and the nervous system to kind of calm down from these stimulations.
00:32:49
Clare Morell
um And so i i explain kind of how to do a detox in my book where you make a plan, And try to make it a fun activity that like we're going to do all these fun things not on the screens together. And I also like for older kids, like I want you to keep a journal and I want you to like notice things. Like what are you noticing about yourself? Because honestly, like teens are very insightful. They're like, wow, I didn't realize how addicted I was to it. Like just going – these 30 days, like, you know, the first couple of days I was like, whoa, this feels so weird not having my phone on me or like not checking it all the time.
00:33:25
Clare Morell
um So I think that can even just be especially with older kids, a very helpful just conversation starter of like, do you notice these effects like on yourself?
00:33:32
Pascal-Emmanuel Gobry
Right.
00:33:35
Clare Morell
And they often do. And then some families like they just – I mean, a lot of the families I spoke to, they just keep going because they said after those 30 days, they were like, this is so much better. And I didn't even expect to see these changes in my kids. And again, like the subtle – kind of influences of the smartphone and social media over time are maybe hard to observe. But these families say that going these 30 days without the screens, they were like, I felt like my kid's personality really came back, their interest in things in life. Like there's – it's sometimes easier to observe the effects
00:34:10
Clare Morell
by just taking it away and then seeing like, wow, they're so much more engaged in real life. And um families have done this even with teens with smartphones. And again, they're not saying it's necessarily easiest, but that it really was the best thing for their child and for their family.
00:34:27
Clare Morell
And particularly with teens, these parents emphasized if you're taking away – the smartphone, which feels kind of like the mile marker to adulthood these days um and feels like this immense privilege, then you have to replace it with some like very significant real world freedoms and
Reversing Smartphone Use Decisions
00:34:45
Clare Morell
privileges. And so one family, they gave their 17-year-old a smartphone, but – They said within like a week, they were like, it had completely morphed his behavior.
00:34:54
Pascal-Emmanuel Gobry
This is not working.
00:34:56
Clare Morell
Like they could just tell like he is constantly drawn to this thing.
00:34:56
Pascal-Emmanuel Gobry
Wow.
00:34:59
Clare Morell
And they're like, okay, we regret this decision. And the dad was like, this is not necessarily a parenting decision I'd recommend of like give your kid a smartphone for a week. And they'd be like, whoops, we regret that decision.
00:35:11
Clare Morell
But he said they really saw it as necessary and they had conversations with him about it. And Instead, they replaced it by offering him the use of a family truck. and And that was like a big thing for him to feel like as a 17-year-old kid, he could drive this truck.
00:35:23
Pascal-Emmanuel Gobry
Right, right, right.
00:35:26
Clare Morell
And he started a business, like a moving business with his brother. He made a lot of money that summer. It was really good for his confidence and like –
00:35:32
Pascal-Emmanuel Gobry
Right, right.
00:35:34
Clare Morell
gave him just a lot of satisfaction and fulfillment. And afterwards, you know, at the time they were like, he resented the decision. They were like, it kind of felt like hell for a couple weeks because of how angry he was at us.
00:35:45
Clare Morell
But over time, like he actually saw the the difference for himself. And he told his parents, he's like, it was weird, like the power it had over me. Like even they said as they got closer to giving him the phone, knowing he was getting it, it was like,
00:36:01
Clare Morell
this thing he was like drawn to. They just, they saw like the compulsive effects.
00:36:03
Pascal-Emmanuel Gobry
Yeah.
00:36:05
Clare Morell
So anyway, now he's going off to college and he told his dad, he's yeah, I'm not really sure if I'll get a smartphone or not.
00:36:05
Pascal-Emmanuel Gobry
Yeah. Yeah.
00:36:10
Clare Morell
You know, they're kind of expensive. And, um, and I saw the kind of effects it had on me, even just like looking forward to getting one and then having it for a week, he could see just how drawn he was to it.
00:36:22
Clare Morell
And, What they did instead is they gave him a non-smartphone that still had GPS on it. It was like called the Bark Phone. I mean, there's a lot of these kind of hybrid. They're not like a total dumb flip phone.
00:36:31
Pascal-Emmanuel Gobry
yeah yeah
00:36:33
Clare Morell
Like it looks, it actually looks like a smartphone. It just doesn't have internet, social media, other things on it. So he could still text his friends and be in group text and he could still you know, have a GPS to navigate, drive his car.
00:36:46
Clare Morell
um And so they said that was a much better kind of compromise solution for him because there were some genuine tools he really felt like he needed, like a GPS, but without the kind of addictive aspects of the smartphone.
00:36:53
Pascal-Emmanuel Gobry
Right.
00:36:56
Pascal-Emmanuel Gobry
Right.
00:36:58
Clare Morell
So that's just one story. And I just – I want parents to know, like, it's really –
00:37:01
Pascal-Emmanuel Gobry
It's a very good story.
00:37:03
Clare Morell
It's just – well, the message is it's just like it's never too late to reverse course. I think – like I don't think we do this really in any other area of parenting. Like when we find out new information about something that's like harmful for our kids, we don't like keep giving it to them.
00:37:16
Clare Morell
But for some reason, the social pressures towards the tech – I talk to parent after parent like, well, i already gave my kid a smartphone so it's too late.
00:37:16
Pascal-Emmanuel Gobry
Yeah.
00:37:24
Clare Morell
And I'm like, No, it's actually the opposite. Like you still have some years where you can help your child reform their habits without the smartphone and enter adult life without an addiction or dependence on it.
00:37:35
Clare Morell
um And so I just think we as parents have to be, and I'm not saying it's not without challenge, but again, I kind of walk through how to overcome these hurdles in my book, but that we have to be willing, I think, to um Just, yeah, like question our decisions a little bit more, which is hard. It's hard to like examine that. But just ask ourselves, like, is this really best for my kid and for our family? And if it's not, just saying like, okay, what's kind of keeping me from really trying to make a change?
00:38:02
Clare Morell
And that's why I just recommend starting with the 30-day digital detox because I think the most powerful thing is to see the results for yourself. And it's it's not something I can describe and it will look different in every family, but just actually trying it out gives you a taste of what that could look like.
00:38:19
Pascal-Emmanuel Gobry
That's fascinating. Okay. So, well, I mean, that's that's the other thing I wanted to talk to you about. So great segue. um It's okay. So alternatives. So this is one of the things you your book discusses.
00:38:33
Pascal-Emmanuel Gobry
So give give give me, give us more ideas for alternatives because I can tell you if I give my daughter a truck, she's not going to, that's not going to do it for her.
00:38:45
Pascal-Emmanuel Gobry
Also, you know, certain worlds are not allowed to drive trucks in France.
00:38:46
Clare Morell
Yeah.
00:38:50
Pascal-Emmanuel Gobry
Except in the countryside, but nobody talks about it. ah
00:38:56
Clare Morell
Yeah. And you're talking about like the real life responsibilities, activities, pursuits.
00:39:01
Pascal-Emmanuel Gobry
Yeah.
00:39:01
Clare Morell
Like what do we trade the screens for? Yeah.
00:39:03
Pascal-Emmanuel Gobry
Yeah.
00:39:03
Clare Morell
and i'm it's a It's a good question. So I think just as much as possible, like particularly for teens, just trying to give them more freedoms to just go hang out with their friends in person.
00:39:15
Clare Morell
I mean, not being helicopter parents.
00:39:15
Pascal-Emmanuel Gobry
Right.
00:39:18
Clare Morell
Like Let them bike to the local park or the movie theater with their friends. um Because I think, again, like what they're really looking for through social media is that friendship and social connection. And so actually encouraging them to go hang out with their friends in person Or being the people to have friends over to your house. I had lots of parents say like, we became the kind of party house in the sense that they just tried to host the social stuff for their teens. Like they would get a, you know bonfire pit to have in the backyard and say, yeah, like come over. this mom said, you know, I'd buy like the fun junk food and my son would host these poker nights.
00:39:55
Clare Morell
um with his friends and it was really fun. And so I think trying to provide your kids rich social life experiences by giving them more freedoms to hang out with their friends, trying to even take a little bit more initiative as a parent to be willing to host kids at your house and kind of provide that substitute.
00:40:15
Clare Morell
um This mom said it was even powerful for the kids who had smartphones because they say, okay, you can come over all the phones, go in that basket over there and um and then just, yeah, have fun.
00:40:22
Pascal-Emmanuel Gobry
Mm-hmm.
00:40:24
Clare Morell
ah and so i think for a lot of those families, they said that was just really important because what they but what the kids were looking for is really those friendships. And so helping to provide those in real life was really a powerful antidote that kind of made them realize like,
00:40:40
Clare Morell
It's not great on social media or smartphones. Like the connections are just really shallow and that actually the real thing we're looking for, like experiencing that um was a very helpful alternative um substitute that really kind of exposed that the social media was kind of a cheap substitute.
00:40:58
Clare Morell
for what the real life relationships could look like.
00:40:58
Pascal-Emmanuel Gobry
Yeah.
00:41:01
Clare Morell
So again, I think it will really depend on your context. But a lot of these families mentioned, you know, giving teens more access to a car to go drive to a friend's house or a bike um or just saying like if they wanted to have friends over, just being more willing to be like, yeah, sure, like come have your friends over.
00:41:16
Clare Morell
there So trying to provide them more opportunities for a social life um in the real world, ah free of phones as much as possible. was really powerful. um For younger kids too, a lot of families describe just like letting their kids take on more adult-like responsibilities, like helping helping them have first jobs, like babysitting in the neighborhood, mowing lawns.
00:41:32
Pascal-Emmanuel Gobry
Yeah.
00:41:37
Clare Morell
um For some families, it was like getting a pet that was like the child's responsibility to take care of.
00:41:41
Pascal-Emmanuel Gobry
and oh it's it's It's great.
00:41:43
Clare Morell
No, seriously, like these families were like, you can get the dog. we
00:41:48
Pascal-Emmanuel Gobry
I'm laughing because we have two dogs and two cats. So, you know, but we're not we're not going to get another one right away.
00:41:51
Clare Morell
Yeah. No, and like the parents –
00:41:54
Pascal-Emmanuel Gobry
Yeah.
00:41:56
Clare Morell
and And then another mom was explaining they like let their nine-year-old daughter like take over the weekly grocery ordering. Like it was her job to go through the pantry and fridge and write down the things they needed to replace.
00:42:08
Pascal-Emmanuel Gobry
Right. right
00:42:09
Clare Morell
And then it was her job to like do it. And so I think – And that felt really fun like to get to act more like an adult –
00:42:13
Pascal-Emmanuel Gobry
Right. Right. right right Yes.
00:42:17
Clare Morell
It was very – Yeah, and it's it's rewarding because then you you actually work hard at something and then you see the fruit of that and it incentivizes you to kind of keep doing those things.
00:42:17
Pascal-Emmanuel Gobry
Yes. You have more responsibilities. Right.
00:42:27
Clare Morell
um You know, and um another mom was saying like this is – I think you kind of have to embrace messy parenting. um if you're keeping your kids off screens. And by that, I mean, it's obviously easier to just like let them sit on a phone on the couch, but it has ah all these costs we're talking to.
00:42:38
Pascal-Emmanuel Gobry
Right,
00:42:42
Clare Morell
um But this mom said, you know, her daughter was interested in baking. And so she went to the library and like checked out all these baking cookbooks. And she was like, honestly, it was not like it was kind of a lot of a mess.
00:42:52
Clare Morell
Like she just took over the kitchen and there's like flour everywhere.
00:42:53
Pascal-Emmanuel Gobry
right, right, right, right. right
00:42:55
Clare Morell
But we're just like letting her experiment. And it's like really good for her. But I have to embrace a little bit more mess and chaos in my own house. And I think – so anyway, I would just encourage parents to try to like foster and fuel real life pursuits that your kids might be interested in and then particularly taking initiative, energy, time to allow your kids to really pursue real life socializing and whatever you can do as a parent to facilitate that.
00:43:26
Pascal-Emmanuel Gobry
That's, I mean, that's that that's great advice. um Okay, so A, more real-life socializing, and B, more responsibilities, and C, less helicopter parenting.
00:43:38
Clare Morell
Yeah.
00:43:40
Clare Morell
Yes.
00:43:41
Pascal-Emmanuel Gobry
Those sound like good advice regardless ah of ah the smartphone situation.
00:43:44
Clare Morell
Yeah, absolutely.
Policy Changes for Online Safety
00:43:47
Pascal-Emmanuel Gobry
All right, let's talk about policy now because your book does have a policy section ah at the end. ah So how many big tech CEOs do we need to hang um And are we doing it next week or the week after that?
00:44:05
Clare Morell
Oh my goodness. ah These are, I mean, yeah.
00:44:07
Pascal-Emmanuel Gobry
ah Sorry, Dean Vance is not yet president. Yeah.
00:44:13
Clare Morell
Oh, man. Yeah. I mean, i know it's a provocative question, but in all seriousness, these companies are terrible. I mean, they they have taken steps to protect kids they and they won't.
00:44:23
Pascal-Emmanuel Gobry
Yeah.
00:44:23
Clare Morell
They have no legal accountability to do so and it's against their business incentives. And that's what people have to realize.
00:44:28
Pascal-Emmanuel Gobry
yeah
00:44:29
Clare Morell
Like child protection is not in line with their business model, which is extract as much user time, attention, and data as possible.
00:44:36
Pascal-Emmanuel Gobry
Right. Yes. Yeah.
00:44:37
Clare Morell
They want to actually addict children because the younger you can get someone using your product, the longer you can profit off of them over the course of their lifetime. um And so the problem has been – I think it's difficult if you don't really understand all the laws, especially in the United States, of why this has been the case.
00:44:46
Pascal-Emmanuel Gobry
right
00:44:54
Clare Morell
but Most of the ways we hold businesses accountable in the US is through litigation. If you make a bad product that harms consumers, you're going to get sued for it.
00:45:00
Pascal-Emmanuel Gobry
yes
00:45:03
Clare Morell
And that threat of litigation compels companies to design their products with safety in mind.
00:45:03
Pascal-Emmanuel Gobry
yeah
00:45:09
Clare Morell
However, with the internet industry, Section 230, the law that governs the internet in the US, which the original purpose and intent of that law make kind of intuitive sense, you weren't yeah it means that the companies aren't liable
00:45:10
Pascal-Emmanuel Gobry
Right. Yes.
00:45:14
Pascal-Emmanuel Gobry
right
00:45:23
Pascal-Emmanuel Gobry
yeah
00:45:23
Clare Morell
for third-party content hosted on their platform. Well, it's been way over-expanded by the courts to essentially immunize these companies for anything that's even their own wrongdoing. Like your design features, your algorithms are causing these harms to kids and they've just basically had complete immunity.
00:45:42
Clare Morell
And with that immunity, then like the harms have only grown um and accelerated because there has been no accountability, no kind of checking force on there.
00:45:49
Pascal-Emmanuel Gobry
Right, right.
00:45:50
Clare Morell
ah
00:45:50
Pascal-Emmanuel Gobry
Yeah.
00:45:51
Clare Morell
behavior So that is why we have the current state of affairs that we do. So I've been very engaged on policy solutions um for a couple reasons. I mean, the first I mentioned is, unfortunately, not all the harms of social media are individual.
00:46:04
Clare Morell
it does create group-level harms.
00:46:06
Pascal-Emmanuel Gobry
yeah
00:46:06
Clare Morell
Jonathan Haidt calls these network effects where even a couple of teens using social media can really impact the social environment for all the kids. and um And that even just – it just changes the social dynamics and kids can even experience some of these mental health harms from social media like secondhand. It's almost like secondhand smoke. Like they can feel – left out lonely and depressed even if they're not on social media because of how it changes the group dynamics and so um and then the pressures that we mentioned towards individual parents to allow their kids on these things like this is a classic kind of collective action problem and laws can be really helpful and and schools can too we talked about you know schools going phone free that's a huge step to help parents but also there is a role for the law to play so what i've been engaged in in the united states the last
00:46:43
Pascal-Emmanuel Gobry
Yeah.
00:46:57
Clare Morell
for years is trying to help policy solutions that will back parents up on the front lines and serve to try to help protect all children at the federal level have been focused on bills that would just open these companies up to more legal liability um to say that they have to be responsible for mitigating certain objective harms to kids or else they can be sued.
00:47:17
Clare Morell
um And then on the state level, obviously, it's states on their own. it's kind of difficult to impact maybe that higher level change. But there's lots of things that states can do. And so a lot of these states have now passed parental consent laws for social media because, believe it or not, and the current status quo is just any kid anywhere can just check a box and enter a birth date and create a social media account.
00:47:39
Clare Morell
And so even if a parent is doing all they can to say you're not getting on social media, mean, they can borrow a friend's phone or computer and just um all too easily just enter a birth date.
00:47:39
Pascal-Emmanuel Gobry
Yeah.
00:47:49
Clare Morell
There's no age enforcement whatsoever.
00:47:51
Pascal-Emmanuel Gobry
Right, right, right.
00:47:51
Clare Morell
And then, you know, and they entered this whole host of terms and services um agreeing to all these things. the data collection, all this stuff just without a parent's involvement.
00:47:59
Pascal-Emmanuel Gobry
Right.
00:48:01
Clare Morell
And so that would just actually put parents back in the driver's seat over whether or not their kids get on social media. and And then the last thing I've worked on is is related to pornography websites, which is trying to have age verification for porn websites.
00:48:12
Pascal-Emmanuel Gobry
Right. Right.
00:48:16
Clare Morell
24 states have passed those laws. and And the United States, we just had a huge victory two weeks ago from the Supreme Court, which upheld the law at issue in that case, Texas's law as constitutional.
00:48:26
Pascal-Emmanuel Gobry
right
00:48:28
Clare Morell
And the court applied intermediate scrutiny, which was huge. And it basically just said states need more flexibility to be able to regulate in this area, to be able to write laws that ah fulfill their compelling government interest in protecting kids from online obscenity.
00:48:44
Clare Morell
and balance the free speech rights of adults. And so I think that actually opens up a lot more possibilities for how states can address, particularly protecting kids from online pornography um going forward. And so those are just a handful. But I think, you know, making sure that the porn sites themselves have to age restrict content.
00:49:01
Clare Morell
helps every parent because now some child can't just pull up a porn website on a smartphone and stick in my kid's face.
00:49:07
Pascal-Emmanuel Gobry
Yeah. Yeah.
00:49:08
Clare Morell
Like we need to have some common denominator, you know, solutions.
00:49:09
Pascal-Emmanuel Gobry
yeah
00:49:12
Clare Morell
And so that is what I'm trying to do on the policy front is ah open up more litigation against these bad companies, put parents back in the driver's seat, other their children's online experiences.
00:49:23
Clare Morell
um And then, yeah, age restrict the really bad stuff like pornography websites. And my next battle is I'm really trying to age restrict social media. Completely out of childhood as well. I think similar like Australia has now banned social media for ages 16 and under.
00:49:38
Clare Morell
Just trying to put a little bit higher of a ceiling for like when you get on just to to again solve for that collective action problem.
00:49:39
Pascal-Emmanuel Gobry
Right. Right.
00:49:47
Clare Morell
You know, now parents don't fight a battle in Australia. It's just oh this is a non-option. um until you're 16. And the same way we've age-restricted other technologies that are dangerous for kids to operate, like motor vehicles or firearms, um or if you treat it like the dangerous substance it is, we have restrictions on alcohol, tobacco, trying to similarly advocate for raising the age of social media.
00:50:00
Pascal-Emmanuel Gobry
right right
00:50:08
Pascal-Emmanuel Gobry
right
00:50:10
Clare Morell
um So those are the policy things I'm working on.
00:50:13
Pascal-Emmanuel Gobry
That's cool. ah i i So i on PolicySphere, which is the the the policy news website associated with this podcast, um we have a series called mo Modest Proposals, which is totally unrealistic policy proposals.
00:50:25
Clare Morell
Yeah.
00:50:33
Pascal-Emmanuel Gobry
Yeah.
00:50:35
Clare Morell
I love it.
00:50:36
Pascal-Emmanuel Gobry
And one of the modest proposals was essentially to have a separate internet for every age group. And so after we passed this law, which we'll do any day now, ah basically every internet connected device sold in the United States would be connected to one specific internet at the hardware level.
00:51:03
Clare Morell
Oh, that's interesting.
00:51:03
Pascal-Emmanuel Gobry
And so if you're, and so, you know, there's one internet for, let's say ages eight to 10, then there's another one for 10 to 13, and then there's another one for 13 to 16, and then there's another one for 16 to 18, and then there's one for 18 and everybody else.
00:51:04
Clare Morell
Yeah. Yeah.
00:51:19
Pascal-Emmanuel Gobry
And so the devices would be different, the services would be different, the websites would be different, the the information would be different, everyone would have like a different Wikipedia. ah the so the the the the there would be no you know You wouldn't have to worry about some creep on the internet you know if if an adult wants to access.
00:51:42
Pascal-Emmanuel Gobry
age-restricted internet, there has to be like a special reason, like he's an educator, every keystroke is logged. um and you know Actually, it would be a pretty good proposal. and and you know One of the arguments is they would create lots of business opportunities because you know ah people would start to design devices specifically for certain ages.
00:52:05
Pascal-Emmanuel Gobry
They would design you know websites for specific ages. you know you look at There are social networks for kids and so on and so forth, and they have like a pedophile scandal every six months. And so this is, this is obviously not good for business.
00:52:20
Pascal-Emmanuel Gobry
Uh, but there are, you know, like in theory, if it was safe, it was designed for, for them, you know, some sort of like online age appropriate game that kids can play. That's not a bad thing.
00:52:34
Pascal-Emmanuel Gobry
Um, so anyway, that's, that's the, that's our modest proposal. You can, you know, you can, uh, you can talk, you can talk to it or you can talk about it with your congressman. Um,
00:52:44
Clare Morell
Yeah, no, thank you for flagging that. I think these are good creative ideas and I just, I think we need more thinking. along those lines in this space, even if it seems like maybe not immediately achievable of like what the end goal should be.
00:52:59
Clare Morell
And I like what you're describing because I do think the current state of affairs is just here's this totally adult internet that we just throw kids into and then try to cut off certain things.
00:53:08
Pascal-Emmanuel Gobry
yeah yeah yes yeah and it doesn't work yeah yeah um yeah i mean another thing along those lines is i'm a huge fan of e-paper technology and it's gotten really really good and and this is not even for kids this is for adults like i i wish you know
00:53:10
Clare Morell
And it's just, it's like the wild west. So it doesn't work.
00:53:22
Clare Morell
and huh
00:53:30
Pascal-Emmanuel Gobry
For work, for example, like, if you're working, like, you don't need video 99% of the time. You don't need things like that. Like, you can you can work on an e-paper screen.
00:53:41
Pascal-Emmanuel Gobry
Like, you can show spreadsheets and websites and and and and email.
00:53:42
Clare Morell
Yes.
00:53:46
Clare Morell
Yes.
00:53:47
Pascal-Emmanuel Gobry
ah And, like, the eight, you know, eight hours a day staring at a screen for adults is also not good. Like, the brains are fully formed, so it's different.
00:53:54
Clare Morell
It's not good.
00:53:56
Pascal-Emmanuel Gobry
And, you know, you're... you But... ah like having you know having work computers use e-paper screens um you know I think would be a massive change. Yes. Yes.
00:54:10
Pascal-Emmanuel Gobry
Yes. it it
00:54:12
Clare Morell
I love that. Oh, it would be much better for our bodies using e-paper screens for sure.
00:54:15
Pascal-Emmanuel Gobry
yes
00:54:17
Clare Morell
Yeah, no, I'm i'm hoping even the conversation around kids leads to better solutions as well for adult use because ah we're not completely immune from the harmful impacts of these things as well.
00:54:18
Pascal-Emmanuel Gobry
yeah
00:54:24
Pascal-Emmanuel Gobry
yeah
00:54:28
Clare Morell
So, yeah.
00:54:29
Pascal-Emmanuel Gobry
Yeah. All right. Well, thank you very much. this was This was a lot of fun. I learned a lot. I was ah somewhat skeptical going in, but you've done a really good job convincing me. I'm i'm just i'm going to go and smash all of my children's devices. They're going to love it.
00:54:51
Pascal-Emmanuel Gobry
um Okay, so we end every podcast with a traditional question, um and that question is, recommend a book. It can be any book, fiction, nonfiction, contemporary, old, but it can't be a book in your area of expertise.
00:55:14
Clare Morell
Yep. Okay. Just a book to read.
00:55:17
Pascal-Emmanuel Gobry
Yes. Okay.
00:55:18
Clare Morell
Okay. All right.
Recommendations and Closing Thoughts
00:55:20
Clare Morell
I know you're No, I was like, wow, okay.
00:55:20
Pascal-Emmanuel Gobry
Any book, but can't be about about big tech. It can't be about, you know, no Jonathan Haidt. I know you were going to go there. No.
00:55:30
Clare Morell
I've got a lot of books in the tech space that I read. um Just a book to recommend.
00:55:34
Pascal-Emmanuel Gobry
Yeah, that's why it's interesting because otherwise people will just recommend a book on what they're working on. But something else, anything, but something else.
00:55:43
Clare Morell
Okay. um This is actually – it's a kind of a business-related book. it's It's written by a business professor. It's called The Catalyst, How to Change Anyone's Mind.
00:55:51
Pascal-Emmanuel Gobry
Okay.
00:55:54
Clare Morell
It is fascinating.
00:55:54
Pascal-Emmanuel Gobry
Okay.
00:55:55
Clare Morell
And it's it's basically like how do you get people to change what they're doing or what they think? And um I read this book because i in writing my book, I am trying to change people's mind.
00:56:10
Clare Morell
But this is not a book about the tech space.
00:56:10
Pascal-Emmanuel Gobry
Right.
00:56:11
Clare Morell
This is just ah a business professor.
00:56:12
Pascal-Emmanuel Gobry
whatever Right. Right.
00:56:14
Clare Morell
and it's it's actually, it's really fascinating of kind of how you can convince someone to change what they're doing or to change their opinion on something. And so it's kind of like five strategies.
00:56:23
Pascal-Emmanuel Gobry
That is very interesting.
00:56:26
Clare Morell
fascinating book to read, very filled with examples. It's very interesting. A lot of it is like business products, like how do you get ah consumers to switch products, but then also like examples of hostage negotiators. Like how do you get this person to like give up the hostages? So there's a lot of, it's kind of, I think a little bit of behavioral science um and in kind of business principles, but I find it really relevant even for my work in policy um where I'm engaged in a lot of debates, trying to get people to change their mind on something.
00:56:58
Clare Morell
And then right now in my work with parents, trying to convince parents to change what they're doing on tech. So I think it's applicable to a lot of areas of life, but I learned a lot and I found it a fascinating, really quick read, honestly, um because it was super interesting. So it's, um I'm trying to remember the author's name right now. I have it on my shelf, but it's called The Catalyst. It's by a business professor at University of Pennsylvania.
00:57:22
Clare Morell
um I think it's
00:57:23
Pascal-Emmanuel Gobry
I'm sure people can find it.
00:57:25
Clare Morell
Yeah. Okay. Well, there you go. that's my that's my recommendation.
00:57:27
Pascal-Emmanuel Gobry
Yeah, no, great answer. Very original. That's exactly why I asked this question. I always get interesting answers. All right. Claire Morrell, thank you very much. Your book is The Tech Exit, A Practical Guide to Freeing Kids and and Teens from Smartphones.
00:57:44
Pascal-Emmanuel Gobry
I highly recommend. It will blow your mind and get you to rethink some of your life choices, unfortunately. ah Thank you very much. This was very interesting. Have a nice day.