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We Answer YOUR Questions! What do we think of Zelda? Can Minecraft improve tech literacy? What was our 'aha' moment? What's driving screen habits?
0 Playsin 11 hours
Celebrating 100 subscribers, we answer the questions you've sent in!
Andrew, a father of two and lifelong gamer, teams up with Brandon, a consumer psychologist and ex-pro video game coach, to cover video games, the way they are designed and how these design decisions impact the children that play them.
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Transcript
Introduction & Podcast Growth
00:00:07
Andrew Wilmot
Good morning, good day, good evening. Whenever you are, or welcome to the Dopamine Slot Machine, the podcast that discusses what you need to know about the video games that your children are playing. How are they designed to get your kids hooked?
00:00:19
Andrew Wilmot
How do they make money from your children? And what can you do to make sure that your child's relationship with video games is a positive one? My name is Andrew. I'm a dad of two and a lifelong gamer.
00:00:30
Bdizzle
And I'm Brandon, a consumer research psychologist and an ex-professional video game coach.
00:00:35
Andrew Wilmot
So this week, we are we're just answering your questions. To celebrate 100 subscribers, we thought we'd do this as a special episode. Although that said, as of recording, we're actually at 120 on Spotify and 43 on Apple Podcasts.
00:00:49
Andrew Wilmot
So rapidly bowing towards 200 subscribers, which if you can't tell, we are super excited about.
Parent Feedback on Video Gaming
00:00:55
Andrew Wilmot
Apart from questions as well, we've had loads of messages from parents saying that we've helped them make more positive choices about the video games their children are playing.
00:01:03
Andrew Wilmot
that that In a few instances, that they've actually changed what video games are available to their children just off the back of you know listening to us and then going and doing some more research themselves.
00:01:18
Andrew Wilmot
And to those parents, that's really why we're doing this. Evaluating video games and either positive or negative contribute contribution to your child is it's so difficult. Even when you've got the, in our case, literal decades of experience playing video games, as well as academic and professional knowledge on this, it's is still tough, right? So anything that we can do to make that easier for anybody out there is brilliant for us.
Zelda: Enriching or Addictive?
00:01:51
Andrew Wilmot
So first question here, nice simple one. It comes from Lisa, who asks us, what our take is on Zelda? Lisa and her hubby have different views, yet their 10-year-old loves it and is incredibly good at it.
00:02:06
Andrew Wilmot
It's restricted to weekends only. This is actually really well-timed. So I went back to Lisa and, because obviously Zelda is long-running franchise. There's dozens of games across world.
00:02:19
Andrew Wilmot
loads of different generations. It's Nintendo. It's a Nintendo IP. But I've just started Tears of the Kingdom, which is the latest one.
00:02:30
Andrew Wilmot
And so it's worth it's it's the sort of game that we talk about a lot in here, Brandon, isn't it? It's that narrative driven, single player experience, challenge, exploration and puzzle based.
00:02:45
Andrew Wilmot
if If you go onto YouTube and you look up video essays on video games, Zelda as a series will is one of the most commonly featured. When people talk about the potential of video games to be art or high art, then Zelda comes up again and again and again.
00:03:01
Andrew Wilmot
So yeah,
Minecraft: Creativity vs. Addiction
00:03:03
Bdizzle
Andrew, you know, we've got a soft spot for these types of video games, I think. And I think the best way to think about it is kind of drawing it parallel to video media.
00:03:14
Bdizzle
So if you compare TikTok and let's say longer form films, so like Lord your lord of the Rings of the world, just as an example. They're both moving video media. So you could you'd almost be in danger of putting them in the same bin, but they're in completely different experiences.
00:03:28
Bdizzle
So on one side, TikTok is very immediate gratification driven. It's very quick. You might have found, and I've spoken to quite a few people about this, that it almost like kind of shortens your attention span. It can take you outside of your control of your time, maybe, where you're doom scrolling for too long. It has all these effects where Lord of the Rings has got a very, very clear start and finish point.
00:03:50
Bdizzle
It's longer form, ageless maybe in the case of Lord of the Rings, a bit of a fan of that trilogy. and but but obviously it's still the same type of media and I think Zelda fits in more of the film based category than let's say your TikTok category which would be your faster paced games with faster paced gameplay that being said as always all things in moderation if you were just watching repeat repeat viewings of lord of the rings and refusing to socialize probably not a good thing you know but if you occasionally watch longer uh longer form videos or films on the weekends probably very very healthy and i think zelda fits in that kind of enrichment story driven uh space that can enrich your lives you know i know that
00:04:37
Bdizzle
Me personally, i'm sure I'm not sure you, Andrew, but growing up and playing some of the Zelda titles, I don't think I ever have a negative emotional piece of cognition about it. It's just a really, really fantastic example of world building and execution of the the i guess the media or video games in in a really safe, on the whole, safe and engaging way.
00:04:59
Andrew Wilmot
The only negative feeling that I have towards Zelda at all, to be honest, is thinking back to, I can't remember if it was Ocarina of Time or Majora's Mask, but like N64 era Zelda.
00:05:10
Andrew Wilmot
They had a couple of couple of monsters that get scared the bones out of me as a kid, right? like something about them, the way they were designed just, just got me. But, but no, apart from that, I think Zelda's art, I think it's a fantastic game. I think it's when we talk about making your childhood relationship with video games, a positive one, obviously, as you touch on, absolutely still need to be regulating the time because can, but they are still addictive in their own way. Being
00:05:43
Andrew Wilmot
you know Everything from jingles when you level up or find a new item to that sense of progression. But that doesn't mean that it's inherently bad. And I think Zelda is almost as good as it gets.
00:05:57
Andrew Wilmot
We've got to...
00:05:57
Bdizzle
Yeah, I couldn't agree more, Andrew.
00:05:59
Andrew Wilmot
We've got another question here from Andrew, who says he fully agrees with us on our views on Roblox and the issues with that, but he's struggling to see the benefits of Minecraft where he's heard from many other people that it's also very addictive with some of his relatives having banned their kids from playing it.
00:06:19
Andrew Wilmot
He also mentions that, uh, He's a bit confused when we've talked about technical literacy, digital literacy. Will Minecraft make you tech savvy?
00:06:31
Andrew Wilmot
Are there benefits to Minecraft here? well Well, just with how fast technology is moving, there any but benefit to getting kids into just a little bit of Minecraft, just to be left behind by the rapid pace that technology moves along with?
00:06:44
Andrew Wilmot
And yeah, this is this is interesting, right? Because... I mean, the first thing to touch on is, no, playing Minecraft will not make you tech literate. When we talk about the benefits of Minecraft, and digital literacy isn't one of them any more than, you know, just sort passively what you get from booting up and playing a game.
00:07:07
Andrew Wilmot
But, you know, Brandon, you're much better qualified to talk about what the benefits of Minecraft as a game.
00:07:14
Bdizzle
Okay, cool. So like when when it comes to tech literacy, and I completely agree with you, Andrew, there's it it really does define on what you mean by tech literacy. So if I had a choice between my young child, let's say being on like a tablet or a PC environment, in terms of growing tech li literacy, obviously you'd want them on a PC environment.
00:07:34
Bdizzle
There's elements to Minecraft where you can do commands in, let's say, like a console to spawn items, these types of things, if they're that way inclined or that they're taking they're approaching the game in that way.
00:07:45
Bdizzle
So you do have like so subtle elements to it, but they are subtle. you know I think the main benefit, to be honest with just familiarity and even like starting to understand how to download and install programs in in in a conventional like Windows or computer environment could be of benefit if it's on a PC. So you have...
00:08:03
Bdizzle
Like, that's the only real counter argument, but on the whole, Andrew, like, completely agree with you. In terms of Minecraft being dangerous, and and and the honest answer is, is yeah, it is and These games are are still designed to be highly engaging. that's why they're really, really successful, and it's more of the the context in which that's embedded and almost how malicious are they, like, taking advantage of things really maliciously in application to young children is where a lot of and my my pain points lie.
00:08:31
Bdizzle
The reason why, you know, I can say that without kind of putting red flags all over the place when it
Normalization of Gaming Addiction
00:08:36
Bdizzle
comes to Minecraft is that everything in life is kind of addictive, right? You see this manifest in ways, you know, people get addicted to, let's say, eating rocks, for example, things that you wouldn't even associate with being addictive. But that's because anything that engages your reward network and controlling that is is a life skill and something that we're constantly exposed to and constantly challenged by the world to kind of enact that type of self-control.
00:09:02
Bdizzle
And in terms of a battleground for that self-control, I'd say when it comes to video games, Minecraft's probably a good... area for that, you know, in in regards to it's the best of an inevitable bunch, not a bad bunch, because you can't escape the fact that these factors, these outside of entertainment, even just basic products, are there to kind of engage and make ourselves feel almost not artificially, but like they're designed to produce these types of responses from us.
00:09:31
Bdizzle
Everything from the way that you close a car door to the to the to the regular availability of coffee, right? All of these things can produce reward networks, can be addictive.
00:09:43
Bdizzle
so Although there is inherent dangers to it, I still feel that as entertainment media goes and it is very dependent on age, Minecraft is the best of that bunch because through all of those dangers, it's still a fantastic exercise and just creation and play and in an environment that can be regulated and is safe.
00:10:06
Bdizzle
And I guess...
00:10:06
Andrew Wilmot
if It really is like digital Lego, isn't it? You know, play playing with Lego isn't going to make you an architect, but it does engage in, it does engage you in creativity, engages you in patience.
00:10:09
Bdizzle
Correct, yes.
00:10:20
Andrew Wilmot
And as a digital environment goes, Minecraft does that. And also through Minecraft Realms, there's so many great tools to set up safe digital third spaces.
00:10:32
Andrew Wilmot
With our eldest, we did actually have some issues with, behaviour related to Minecraft and struggling to be told no with it.
00:10:43
Andrew Wilmot
And you know what? That's just something that we dealt with as parents. And I feel compared to so many other games on that are available that are popular amongst children, I'm glad that we don't we we tackled that as a parenting challenge with Minecraft, which is not predatorily designed.
00:11:05
Andrew Wilmot
rather than something like Roblox or Fortnite, which are.
00:11:08
Bdizzle
Yeah, i couldn't I couldn't agree more.
00:11:09
Andrew Wilmot
Yeah.
00:11:10
Bdizzle
even even it as While you're speaking, Aira, even the ability to, like, there's in Minecraft, there's always kind of a good time to log off. You know, it's not like a start stop.
00:11:18
Andrew Wilmot
yeah
00:11:20
Bdizzle
This is continuous journey. Whereas with Fortnite, it's like, oh, let me just play one more game. And then one game turns into another game to another game. Because there's this longevity that there's this longevity to the experience of Minecraft that it does.
00:11:33
Bdizzle
I think even from a time control perspective, there's a better platform to start instigating these things as well. Yeah, it's just a rabbit hole. lot The more I think about it, the more of a software I personally develop for it. Yeah. Back to you, Andrew.
00:11:47
Andrew Wilmot
So I've got another question here from Charlie, who, nice simple question, asks us, what our aha moment was when we realised that addictive design in video games was a problem?
00:11:59
Andrew Wilmot
Would you like to start with this one, Brandon?
00:12:02
Bdizzle
It's a tough one for me, Andrew, because you know I'm just so i so just covered in bias because only think about academic stuff. Yeah. yeah but You know, i I don't think I have a phenomenological or like a personal example to give with this.
00:12:17
Bdizzle
I think my my favorite
Parental Challenges in Gaming Addiction
00:12:18
Bdizzle
go-to one in terms of realizing how normalized this was in application to media anyway is two things. So one, there are big research departments for certain TV providers in America where they actually measure how much people sweat in response to adverts because that's a great reflection of like how engaged the word they use for it in an academic setting is what your emotional arousal is doing and if they can then trim down the advert so they can remove like the frames where you're basically bored so the advert gets smaller and its memorability and overall liking goes up and that was one moment for me
00:12:58
Bdizzle
And the other moment, and I'm sure Andrew, you're you've got load of thoughts on this, is the way that videos are edited to increase engagement. So if you look over the last 20 years, what we're finding is is if you watch your Marvel films in comparison to films that were shot, let's say back in the day,
00:13:14
Bdizzle
all the way to television shows, adverts, etc. is the amount of edits or cuts is basically through the roof. So what I mean by that is there'll be a scene like you'll be on someone's face and then it'll flip to someone else and then back to the person.
00:13:28
Bdizzle
And historically, this will be like seven or eight seconds. But nowadays, some of these pieces of media have got like that average, not not the shortest, the average is like three seconds.
00:13:38
Bdizzle
And it's designed to re-engage your brain. So you're like, oh, what's happening here? But that's all by design. that's something that they sat around in an editing room and being like, right, our target is we need to get this in shorter chunks as possible because we know it kind of artificially produces engagement.
00:13:54
Bdizzle
And those two things were when I realized that is like the gravity of how addiction and addiction like almost forced addiction through design exists but then you live in a world where you've got these billion dollar companies that their sole business model is extracting as much money from children as possible and it's completely unregulated almost which is almost laughable when you put it in that that context and i think that series of events was my big aha moment
00:14:22
Andrew Wilmot
for For me, and you you nearly talked about one of my aha moments there. For me, I'm going to cheat and talk about three here. I'll keep them brief for three of them. So the sort of first inkling I had was seeing a good childhood friend of mine basically fail his GCSE and A levels due to... MMO, which just stands for Massively Multiplayer Online Game Addiction.
00:14:47
Andrew Wilmot
I think it was World of Warcraft in particular, which is notable for that. And as i said as I've said before, I wasn't the most hardworking of students.
00:14:59
Andrew Wilmot
I sure created a lot of hard work for my teachers at the very least. And then few years on, we have we have our young up we have our oldest and one TV show that kept being recommended, something called Coco Melon.
00:15:16
Andrew Wilmot
Now, everything you described about shortcuts, et cetera, et cetera, of trimming down adverts to be as engaging as possible to really trim the fat.
00:15:27
Andrew Wilmot
Coco Melon, if you take all of that, all of those techniques, you package it up, And you turn it into something aimed at the under twos. And the the effect I saw that having on our daughter and her peers at this age was zombifying.
00:15:45
Andrew Wilmot
And the effect that it would have on their behavior was was actually really quite disconcerting. And then for me, the sort of final point, which was actually bit of a trigger a point to reach out to you, Branton, and and be like, hey, we should do a podcast, is was talking to a parent of one my daughter's friends, and Christmas was coming up, and asked the question, know, so what's he asked for for Christmas? What's he asked for from Father Christmas, if he still believes in him?
00:16:18
Andrew Wilmot
And... His mom was complaining that the only thing he wants as a gift is Robux, currency for Roblox, and V-Bucks, currency for Fortnite.
00:16:33
Andrew Wilmot
And basically saying that it's just got zero interest in toys or anything else outside of these platforms. And, you know, that it's the same age as my daughter and...
00:16:47
Andrew Wilmot
and My daughter plays video games as well. She's got a great interest in was just thinking, they are so young for that. That that can't be but can't be good. can't be what There's got to be something going on here.
00:16:59
Andrew Wilmot
And I don't say any of this as a sort of judgment call on on the parent themselves. It's because these platforms are so difficult to judge without this experience and knowledge that...
Legislative and Societal Solutions
00:17:12
Andrew Wilmot
Off the back of that, I really sort of deep dived into Roblox as a platform in particular and was absolutely horrified by what I saw. And so, yes, that's why that's why we're here speaking with you now.
00:17:25
Bdizzle
I like like me some Andrew origin stories.
00:17:30
Andrew Wilmot
ah ah it's not I've actually, I mean, our listeners won't know this, but Brandon, of course, you'll have experienced this. I'm infamous amongst our friends if if we've had a couple of beers of, of having a rant about Coco Melon and just how evil it is as a kid's TV show.
00:17:48
Andrew Wilmot
Oh God, he's talking about Coco Melon again. And that's been the case for years. we've got one last question, which comes from Nicole. And, oh, I think this is a good one for you, Brandon.
00:18:01
Andrew Wilmot
She asks, how significantly does lifestyle and society's current configuration affect parental moderation of children's screen and gaming time? Do parents or schools need better education as to the facts surrounding gaming use?
00:18:15
Andrew Wilmot
And how can we balance what we teach in this domain? So um'm I'm just going to run that through through a translation filter in my brain here. And I do apologize, Nicole, if I'm misinterpreting what what you're asking here. But I think there's a few underlying questions here. The first one being, how how does modern society impact the way that we moderate our children's screen time in terms of both duration and content?
00:18:48
Andrew Wilmot
And are parents and schools sufficiently up to speed enough about
00:18:57
Andrew Wilmot
gaming to be able to teach here. So again, making a further inference, you we talk on this podcast about how not all gaming screen time is the same. There's a big difference between playing an adventure game with your child and then spending multiple hours spinning that podcast name drop dopamine slot machine.
00:19:22
Andrew Wilmot
But yeah, to to you, Brandon.
00:19:25
Bdizzle
Yeah, well, this is this is a great question and it's in quite a few parts, which I love because it's how I like asking questions. So the first one, I think that's the biggest change is that the normalization of these platforms, because it's moving away from when me and you were growing up, Andrew, and you were, not everyone played video games all the time, right?
00:19:44
Bdizzle
You know, like I was very, very, i was on my PC a lot growing up, and but that almost put me in more of a minority than than than others, you know. and So I think that normalization is really important because instead of you having a discussion around, hey, I want to do this thing.
00:20:00
Bdizzle
bits all my friends are doing this thing why am i not allowed to and i think that that is a base social problem puts more pressure around any type of dialogue in the space and i think that's one of the main configuration factors in terms of society that's that's putting more attention on this space and that kind of uh has a knock-on effect to everything else that we talk about the second thing is that these are These companies are getting increasingly mature.
00:20:26
Bdizzle
So over the last 10, 15 years, this is now big money. So massive corporations, obviously huge amount of investment. And as a byproduct of that,
00:20:37
Bdizzle
They're getting more mature and they're getting more ruthless. And you combine those two things and you basically spit out Roblox, right? Basically. Or video games that are just absolutely designed to maximize attention, even at arguably...
00:20:52
Bdizzle
and to the point where it almost hinders the art form in a lot of way a lot of ways. And that's why microtractions exist. People who play video games, on average, don't like microtransactions. They don't think they enhance that entertainment genre, but they're there anyway, right?
00:21:10
Bdizzle
And I think that's like some really key factors when thinking about the type of elements that are moderating screen time and gaming time. The last question, and I'm going to put on my cynical hat here, Andrew, because I look we Me and Andrew sat down and watched a parliamentary debate on this. It was about 30 minutes of everyone agreeing these things.
00:21:30
Bdizzle
these This is awful, you know, it's affecting our children's sleep, academic performance, mental health problems. We're not going to do anything about it, though. And I think and that was genuinely almost the the result of that parliamentary debate.
00:21:42
Bdizzle
And I think that there's when we think about parents or schools engaging in these topics. and There's only so much that you can do. Everyone's kind of, I think at this point, aware that spending really incredibly prolonged periods of time on a video game is bad.
00:21:57
Bdizzle
But maybe it's not, and on a school perspective, it's it's so deeply ingrained that it's not maybe the school's job. So a really great example of this is that, yeah is it the school's job to reduce smoking rates?
00:22:11
Bdizzle
And I think that if it was just the school's job without extensive regulation and taxation and broader public awareness schemes, it's just not not enough. You know, I think it's genuinely at a point where that although there's pressure from schools, we know this is probably not a net good for society. There's pressure from academics. We're missing tenable action.
00:22:31
Bdizzle
from regulators to the point where it's almost, from from my perspective, satire. So i'd like to that that's always where my brain kind of goes to when it comes to parent schools or institutions in itself.
00:22:44
Bdizzle
When it comes to parenting, it's It's this horrible situation where you're, instead of fighting something, you're you're almost offside, right? You have to fight something that's unfortunately very clearly damaging when taken to excess when you're doing it for hours and hours and hours a day.
00:23:01
Bdizzle
And it's been normalized. And it's a real challenge for young parents nowadays or... to to almost have this requirement to have this constant debate. You know, that's a real challenge and my heart really goes out to parents, to be honest, to other parents, to be honest with you, because it's in my mind, it's our basically government structures and regulators that have just failed an entire generation.
00:23:26
Bdizzle
Arguably, well, arguably it will be multiple generations before we can actually get this fixed. And that's kind of where my my thoughts go answering this question. I'm not sure if you have anything to add, Andrew.
00:23:36
Andrew Wilmot
I think for me is, talk about societal structure and it this influence on this, is yes, addictive design has a huge pull factor, but there's push factors as well.
00:23:50
Andrew Wilmot
Deteriorating playgrounds, poor wraparound care access, poor public transportation, on-street parking, precarious employment, all of these feed into the reasons that these digital third spaces have become such a prominent part of children's lives. we I mean, we talked in our last episode about the decline of youth clubs and the impact that has.
00:24:14
Andrew Wilmot
So, yeah, I think absolutely it's it so says so multifaceted. And Again, it's all very well talking, you know, education. We need to educate parents on the risks and how to manage it.
00:24:29
Andrew Wilmot
if you If you're a single parent looking after three kids working full time, which very significant portion of single parents are, do you, one, have the prerequisite knowledge, because a lot of parents don't, to be able to properly manage this?
00:24:48
Andrew Wilmot
do you have do then have the time? And even if you, in theory, have the time, do you have the energy to be fighting that battle? Because, again, we are two working parents, and we're exhausted.
00:25:01
Andrew Wilmot
I could not imagine how difficult this is to do as a single working parent. So wouldn't we when we talk about... I i saw some interesting stats recently which were saying that the...
00:25:16
Andrew Wilmot
children from the the poorest strata in society have on average twice as much screen time as the children of the richest strata in society. And it doesn't go into the different types of screen time.
00:25:29
Andrew Wilmot
It's not that sort of nuance, but just about those very high level usage stats. It's, it doesn't surprise me at all.
00:25:39
Bdizzle
i can't I can't stress how much that that that scares me, Andrew, to honest with you.
00:25:40
Andrew Wilmot
I've,
00:25:47
Bdizzle
Some other stats is that you can draw on a linear regression or a line graph. I think I might mentioned this on like a previous episode. Screen time between academic performance. So if we we we kind of take away all these tools for young families or single parents to deal with these problems through things like not investing in infrastructure, so social groups, et cetera, et cetera, it just paints a very, very, very bleak picture.
00:26:13
Bdizzle
you know it's It's almost like we have a habit of focusing on awareness and forgetting about action. And I think that's most, like the the most obvious example of that is mental health awareness to a certain degree where we we spend an extortionate amount of time talking about awareness and these kind of broader social campaigns but we we don't spend a lot of time uh talking about you know a broader demand for better services lower wait times etc etc and i i i worry that
00:26:46
Bdizzle
with with with like mental health problems, all of these issues progressively getting worse, that we we shouldn't fall into this trap of just talking about awareness. I think we should demand regulation in in application to to these spaces so that we can help protect and basically a vulnerable demographic, which our children, all children are.
00:27:06
Andrew Wilmot
This is what so infuriated me about David Buzuki, Roblox CEO, his comments just telling parents so if you're worried, don't let your kids play it. too One, just reverse psychology PR.
00:27:17
Andrew Wilmot
But two, that doesn't help the parents who either do not have the energy and will resources to do better or do not have the knowledge to do better or you did it doesn't help the the parents or the children who perhaps were exposed to it at a sleepover or around a play date and you know, some of the many, many horror games on there, which are rated, uh, for all ages, five and up.
00:27:46
Andrew Wilmot
And again, an adult girl looks, it they'll look very silly, silly and childish, but to a child, this can be scary content, right? it doesn't help them. it's It's just an absolute cop out to say, oh, if you don't like it, don't let your kids play with it because they don't exist in a bubble.
00:28:00
Bdizzle
like
00:28:01
Andrew Wilmot
Uh,
00:28:01
Bdizzle
I couldn't agree more. Well, what it is, is it's and it's even bad business from their part, is an open invitation, which is they're openly saying, we will not stop unless a government tells us to do so.
00:28:14
Bdizzle
like just in a sentence, right? Which is, we will keep doing this until the market changes, which it won't, because it's basically instant gratification on young kids, right?
00:28:27
Bdizzle
Or it becomes illegal to do so. And although that's a massive upheaval, I think that's in terms of what how you could potentially implement these fail safes, that the only way I see this not becoming an exponential problem is is through that, because...
00:28:43
Bdizzle
in terms of it's just the the arrogance of it and truth amazing because it really is just saying i i will i will keep designing a malicious platform all the way until i can't you know
00:28:59
Andrew Wilmot
Yeah, so to to directly answer the question of do parents or schools need better education and facts surrounding gaming use and how we can balance this, I always want to say no. No, what parents and schools need is for our legislators to take a stand on this.
00:29:15
Andrew Wilmot
That's what we need. And it says it's fine, like individual schools saying that they're going to pursue a smartphone ban, not allow smartphones in the school. That's great for the pupils who are in that school.
00:29:25
Andrew Wilmot
And it's all right. like Again, the work smartphone free childhood has been doing is tremendous. The that tens of thousands, maybe hundreds of thousands at this point of parents who have signed the smartphone pact to delay their children getting smartphones until an appropriate age.
00:29:42
Andrew Wilmot
That is amazing work. And the children of those parents who are signed up to that will benefit tremendously. But it is still a minority of children. what What children, parents and schools need is real legislative action from from our politicians, right?
00:30:01
Andrew Wilmot
Not education.
00:30:05
Andrew Wilmot
And
Conclusion & Teaser for Next Episode
00:30:06
Andrew Wilmot
that was actually our last question. So, yeah. So don't forget that if you've got any more questions for us, as you can probably tell, we love answering them.
00:30:16
Andrew Wilmot
Or if your your children have been impacted by the issues we discussed today, you can get in touch with us on our website, thedopamineslopmachine.co.uk, or find us on the Dopamine Slop Machine Discussion Corner Facebook group.
00:30:27
Andrew Wilmot
All links can be found in our artist profile, but for now, that is all we've got time for today. Thank you so much for giving us your attention rather than giving it to TikTok, Facebook, or Instagram.
00:30:38
Andrew Wilmot
We'd love to have you here with us again in next week's episode where we're going to be covering the game Among Us, Harmless Kids Game or Murder Simulator. Join us next week and find out.
00:30:51
Andrew Wilmot
This has been the Dopamine Slot Machine. Thank you and see you soon.