Latest / Dr Justin Coulson's Happy Families / #1270 - Block the Internet, Boost Your Brain: The Research Parents Need to Know

Transcript

#1270 - Block the Internet, Boost Your Brain: The Research Parents Need to Know · Dr Justin Coulson's Happy Families

• 0:06
  Speaker 1: Of all the topics we discussed on the Happy Families podcast, Kylie,
• 0:08
  Speaker 1: which one would you say is probably taking more of
• 0:11
  Speaker 1: our time, focus and attention than any other screen?
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  Speaker 2: Screen screens.
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  Speaker 1: So today in our very special Doctor's Desk episode of
• 0:19
  Speaker 1: the Happy Families podcast, we're talking about a first of
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  Speaker 1: its kind study, a brand new study published just recently
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  Speaker 1: in the Proceedings for the National Academy of Science as
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  Speaker 1: an Oxford academic journal, in the last couple of months
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  Speaker 1: that grab my attention and it's fascinating and it just
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  Speaker 1: impacts so heavily on everything we're doing in our families
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  Speaker 1: when it comes to screens. Can't wait to talk to
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  Speaker 1: you about this one. Hello, Welcome to the Happy Families podcast,
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  Speaker 1: Real Parenting Solutions every day on Australia's most downloaded parenting podcast.
• 0:47
  Speaker 1: We are Justin and Kylie Coulson. Kylie, let's crack on
• 0:50
  Speaker 1: straight away. This one caught my attention and I can
• 0:53
  Speaker 1: see that you're sitting on the edge of your chair,
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  Speaker 1: riveted by what I'm about to say.
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  Speaker 2: Please share.
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  Speaker 1: Okay, So this was published, like I said, in p
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  Speaker 1: and As Nexus, just a couple of months ago. The
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  Speaker 1: title of the journal article is blocking mobile Internet on
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  Speaker 1: smartphones improves sustained attention, mental health, and subjective well being.
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  Speaker 1: So basically, here's what happens in their study. Researchers use
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  Speaker 1: a mobile phone app to block all mobile Internet access
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  Speaker 1: from participant smartphones for two weeks and then well, that
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  Speaker 1: way they can track compliance, like are you using a
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  Speaker 1: smartphone to access the Internet? No, because we've blocked it.
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  Speaker 1: It's only a two week intervention. It's specifically targeting the
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  Speaker 1: features of smartphones that make them smart. But they can
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  Speaker 1: still use their mobile phone for texts and calls, and
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  Speaker 1: they can still use non mobile internet, so they can
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  Speaker 1: still use their desktop or their laptop to get work
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  Speaker 1: done and even use social media if they want. And
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  Speaker 1: here's what they find. After two weeks of not being
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  Speaker 1: able to use your smart phone as a smartphone, but
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  Speaker 1: just using it literally like a brick, like a dumb phone,
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  Speaker 1: the intervention improved mental health, subjective well being, and objectively
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  Speaker 1: measured ability to sustain attention. Ninety one percent of participants
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  Speaker 1: improved on at least one of the outcomes. What they
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  Speaker 1: found was that when this study was carried out, people
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  Speaker 1: spent their time differently. When people didn't have access to
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  Speaker 1: mobile Internet. On the smartphone, they spent more time socializing
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  Speaker 1: in person, more time exercising, more time being in nature.
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  Speaker 1: So basically causal evidence. All the research that we've got
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  Speaker 1: is correlational. There are no randomized controlled trials. This is
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  Speaker 1: the first one that I'm aware of causal evidence. Blocking
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  Speaker 1: mobile internet improves psychological outcomes. And I think the broader
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  Speaker 1: point is this, whilever we maintain the status quo, whilever
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  Speaker 1: we continue to stay constantly connected to the Internet, it's
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  Speaker 1: going to be detrimental to our time use, to our
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  Speaker 1: cognitive functioning, to our ability to sustain attention, and most
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  Speaker 1: important of all, to our well being.
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  Speaker 2: We experienced the positive impact of removing our phones from
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  Speaker 2: our lives for a week when we went away recently,
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  Speaker 2: and it's amazing just how much lighter we felt. Freedom
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  Speaker 2: is the only word I had. I felt unshackled. I
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  Speaker 2: felt this capacity to think for myself and to think
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  Speaker 2: in a way that I don't usually think.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah. What stood out to me is that I didn't
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  Speaker 1: notice it while we were going without, but when we
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  Speaker 1: got back to it and we had access to it again,
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  Speaker 1: that's when I noticed it.
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  Speaker 2: The bombard moves.
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  Speaker 1: Yep, Yeah, constantly curiously. In this particular study, what they
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  Speaker 1: found was they had to look at how much smartphone
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  Speaker 1: usage was happening. The intervention significantly reduced smartphone use. Average
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  Speaker 1: screen time decreased in the intervention group from three hundred
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  Speaker 1: and fourteen minutes at time one to one hundred and
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  Speaker 1: sixty one minutes at time too, and then it rebounded
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  Speaker 1: back to two hundred and sixty five minutes at time three,
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  Speaker 1: Whereas for the other group, what they found was it
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  Speaker 1: went from three hundred and thirty six minutes to just
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  Speaker 1: three hundred and twenty two minutes, and then finally when
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  Speaker 1: they got to do the intervention later, it dropped to
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  Speaker 1: one hundred and ninety minutes. So fundamentally, when you don't
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  Speaker 1: have access to the smart content, the smart functionality, you
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  Speaker 1: just use the device a whole lot less and you
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  Speaker 1: feel better about it. They've got data on psychological functioning
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  Speaker 1: which changes as well. Like the word that you used,
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  Speaker 1: you felt free, You felt freer. I don't know that
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  Speaker 1: I've ever thought about it like this until the very
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  Speaker 1: moment we're having this conversation. This wasn't planned, but in
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  Speaker 1: some ways we are prisoners to our devices. They hold
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  Speaker 1: as captive because.
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  Speaker 2: Even as a mature aged adult who understands and knows
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  Speaker 2: the implications of smartphones and what they can and do
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  Speaker 2: do to us, get literally.
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  Speaker 1: After the break, we'll talk about how you can unhook
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  Speaker 1: your kids and yourself from the barb that captures you
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  Speaker 1: and holds you captive. Okay, Kylie, everybody knows about Jonathan Hate.
• 5:18
  Speaker 1: We've been talking about him on the podcast. Well it's
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  Speaker 1: not because we've been talking about him, but we have
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  Speaker 1: been talking about him. He's a global phenomenon. He wrote
• 5:24
  Speaker 1: The Anxious Generation, and he said this recently in an
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  Speaker 1: interview with Ezra Kline on his podcast. Just want to
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  Speaker 1: share this because it highlights just how important is that
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  Speaker 1: we get this right, and also how much he actually
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  Speaker 1: got something wrong in his book In.
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  Speaker 3: The Anxious Generation, I think I grossly underestimated the harm
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  Speaker 3: that's happening because I focused on mental illness. But the
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  Speaker 3: bigger damage, I think is the destruction of human attention
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  Speaker 3: in millions, possibly tens or hundreds of millions of kids
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  Speaker 3: around the world. When you talk to pre tech teachers,
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  Speaker 3: they seem the kids are coming with language delays, social
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  Speaker 3: problems because raised on iPads. So let me give a
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  Speaker 3: suggestion to parents like you with your young kids. I
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  Speaker 3: wish I'd understood this when my kids were young. Let's
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  Speaker 3: distinguish between a pretty good use of screens and a
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  Speaker 3: really really bad use of screens. So pretty good use
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  Speaker 3: of screens is to put on a long movie like
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  Speaker 3: ninety minutes more, you know, a long movie. They're going
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  Speaker 3: to pay attention to a long movie about characters in
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  Speaker 3: a moral universe. So there's issues of good and bad
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  Speaker 3: and norms and betrayal, and it's part of their moral training,
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  Speaker 3: their moral formation. And they're watching it with another person.
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  Speaker 3: Now that can be you, ideally, but it's okay if
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  Speaker 3: it's a sibling or a friend, because it's social. Here's
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  Speaker 3: what's really really bad, iPad time by yourself, because that's
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  Speaker 3: exactly the opposite. It's solitary. It's not stories. And if
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  Speaker 3: they are stories, there are fifteen second stories that are
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  Speaker 3: a moral or really immoral, really disgusting, degrading things and
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  Speaker 3: terrible things, people doing terrible things to each others. And
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  Speaker 3: then the other thing that I really want parents to
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  Speaker 3: understand is that this is not TV. TV is a
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  Speaker 3: good way of entertainment. TV puts out a story but
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  Speaker 3: a touch screen is a behavioral behaviorist training device. A
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  Speaker 3: touch screen, you get a stimulus, you make a response,
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  Speaker 3: and then you get a reward which gives you a
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  Speaker 3: little bit of dopamine, which makes you want to do
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  Speaker 3: it again and again and again. So a touchscreen can
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  Speaker 3: train your child the way a circus trainer can train
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  Speaker 3: an animal. TV isn't like that. So iPad time iPhone
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  Speaker 3: time for your three four five year old is just
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  Speaker 3: not a good thing.
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  Speaker 2: This was the clip that I was telling you about
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  Speaker 2: a couple of weeks ago on the podcast. Yeah, listening
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  Speaker 2: to him, he's not saying we have to eradicate screens
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  Speaker 2: from our lives. The reality is we live in a
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  Speaker 2: world off screens and technology. We can't get away from it.
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  Speaker 1: Well, I was going to pick him up on that
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  Speaker 1: and say it would be better if you weren't watching
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  Speaker 1: the screen at all, But he's choosing between the lesser
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  Speaker 1: of two evils. His screen's there. Then ABC Kids, Bluey
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  Speaker 1: a movie. That kind of thing is way better.
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  Speaker 2: And in some ways I think parents can kind of
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  Speaker 2: just relax a little bit when it comes to this.
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  Speaker 2: We've had so many conversations about you know, you can
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  Speaker 2: only watch this much time each day on a screen,
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  Speaker 2: but understanding and annoying. If I had to choose between
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  Speaker 2: letting my kids scroll even for thirty minutes and just
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  Speaker 2: you know, see TikTok videos or reels compared to spending
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  Speaker 2: an hour watching a movie, that that's actually the better option.
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  Speaker 2: It's not so much about a time thing. It's about
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  Speaker 2: what they're doing with that.
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  Speaker 1: Time central thing. That stood up to me when he
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  Speaker 1: said I have grossly underestimated it.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah, I actually wrote those words the impact, Yeah, yeah.
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  Speaker 1: And the screens are literally training our kids. They have
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  Speaker 1: been set up by the world's smartest people who understand
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  Speaker 1: neurology and neuroscience and how our brains work better than
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  Speaker 1: anyone on the planet, and not just one or two people,
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  Speaker 1: like thousands of people have sat down. They do so
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  Speaker 1: much to capture our children. Recent conversations that I have
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  Speaker 1: had with Brad Marshall, Doctor Brad Marshall, and also Withfessor
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  Speaker 1: Wayne Warburton. Both of those conversations coming up on the
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  Speaker 1: podcast in the next few weeks, highlight new data that
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  Speaker 1: is indicating that problematic gaming is actually more harmful than
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  Speaker 1: we always thought, and that our kids are being hooked
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  Speaker 1: by these addiction machines. I want to read this quote
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  Speaker 1: to you. This is something that I quoted in The
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  Speaker 1: Parenting Revolution in my book The Pairing Revolution, from a
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  Speaker 1: New York Times essay by a guy called William Sue.
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  Speaker 1: Williams Sue is a former game developer and founder of
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  Speaker 1: Storm eight. He's launched more than fifty mobile games. Collectively,
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  Speaker 1: they've been download or over a billion times. He's also
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  Speaker 1: generated more than a billion dollars in sales. So this
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  Speaker 1: guy knows what he's talking about when he describes how
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  Speaker 1: this all works, Kylie word perfect. This is his quote
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  Speaker 1: out of the New York Times. I am very familiar
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  Speaker 1: with game addiction, as that's what I thought about every
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  Speaker 1: day for more than a decade. I hired product managers
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  Speaker 1: and engineers to track everything players did and analyze their behavior.
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  Speaker 1: Using the data we collected, we experimented with every feature
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  Speaker 1: our games to see which versions allowed us to extract
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  Speaker 1: the most time and money from our players. For us,
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  Speaker 1: game addiction was by design. It meant success for our business.
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  Speaker 1: And then he adds this compelling statement, that's the ultimate
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  Speaker 1: goal to build habit forming games that have players coming
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  Speaker 1: back every day. In other words, it takes away the
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  Speaker 1: decision making. We wanted people to reach for their phones
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  Speaker 1: first thing in the morning and jump right into our games,
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  Speaker 1: just as they check their social media and emails. The
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  Speaker 1: smartest people in the world are trying to literally addict
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  Speaker 1: our children. And the same parts of the brain that
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  Speaker 1: light up when you gamble or when you take drugs,
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  Speaker 1: the same parts of your brain that light up when
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  Speaker 1: you get onto social media or when you get onto
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  Speaker 1: an online game. The most recent research that captured my
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  Speaker 1: attention was participants were put into a relaxation state in
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  Speaker 1: this study, sitting there, they're relaxing, they're breathing, and then
• 11:03
  Speaker 1: their mobile phone pings about six minutes into their relaxation,
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  Speaker 1: just thing notification, text message. It's been sent by the experimenters.
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  Speaker 1: It's just that the people didn't know that they were
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  Speaker 1: going to get a text message. Their brain's being monitored.
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  Speaker 1: It's an EEG. It's an electro and cephalogram and it
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  Speaker 1: just measures brain waves and as soon as this text
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  Speaker 1: message goes ding, their brain goes crazy. All the reward
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  Speaker 1: surgery in the brain's like what is it? It's like this, Yes,
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  Speaker 1: somebody's thinking of me. Somebody wants to talk to me.
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  Speaker 1: It's so profoundly impactful, and it hits our kids. I
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  Speaker 1: mean it hits all of our brains hard, but it
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  Speaker 1: hits our kids' brains such a sensitive period in their development.
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  Speaker 1: Let's go back to the study because we need to
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  Speaker 1: wrap this up. We've talked for way too long, Kylie,
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  Speaker 1: the randomized controlled trial. First of it's kind that I'm
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  Speaker 1: aware of blocking all usage of the phone, all Internet
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  Speaker 1: connected usage of the phone. It's just text messages and
• 12:00
  Speaker 1: telephone calls, and people are going, hmm, yeah, I'm happier.
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  Speaker 1: I can sustain attention.
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  Speaker 2: Where do I get this app?
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  Speaker 1: Yeah, it's called a dumb phone? Like literally it's called
• 12:10
  Speaker 1: But how.
• 12:11
  Speaker 2: Hard is it to get a dumb phone these days?
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  Speaker 2: Like it's almost non existent.
• 12:14
  Speaker 1: Mine's almost here. I've been waiting for so long. I've
• 12:17
  Speaker 1: ordered this thing called the light Phone three, and it's
• 12:20
  Speaker 1: going to be here in the next month, and then
• 12:21
  Speaker 1: we'll find out how viable it is to use one
• 12:25
  Speaker 1: if it works for me. Though, I can't wait. I
• 12:28
  Speaker 1: just can't wait.
• 12:29
  Speaker 2: Do they even print refordexes anymore?
• 12:34
  Speaker 1: For those of you who are not familiar with the refidees,
• 12:35
  Speaker 1: it's also known as a UbD or a melwase. That's
• 12:38
  Speaker 1: the that's the map that you use to buy and read.
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  Speaker 1: Do you reckon our kids? W know how to do that?
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  Speaker 2: No? Not in a billionaires.
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  Speaker 1: Good luck doing this in your home. Here are our tips.
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  Speaker 1: Minimize screen us, particularly minimize smart device access. If you
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  Speaker 1: can reduce your Internet usage on your smart phone, you
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  Speaker 1: can still use the Internet, just don't use it on
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  Speaker 1: the phone, and you'll find that you usage you go down,
• 13:00
  Speaker 1: your physical activity will go up, your time in nature
• 13:02
  Speaker 1: will go up, and your socializing time will go up.
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  Speaker 1: All of those things are associated with better outcomes for
• 13:07
  Speaker 1: you and for your family, and we think it'll make
• 13:10
  Speaker 1: your family flourish. I know we keep on hammering this point,
• 13:13
  Speaker 1: but I think that we're losing more human potential today
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  Speaker 1: because of what we're doing with smartphones than at any
• 13:18
  Speaker 1: time in human history. It's just devastating. Here's my provocative
• 13:22
  Speaker 1: take for today. I know that there have been awful
• 13:25
  Speaker 1: war criminals that have created catastrophic damage and harm, and
• 13:30
  Speaker 1: so I'm mindful that what I'm about to say could
• 13:32
  Speaker 1: be taken the wrong way. I don't know if I'm
• 13:34
  Speaker 1: putting it to that level, but I reckon. We're pretty close.
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  Speaker 1: I reckon people like Mark Zuckerberg and those who run
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  Speaker 1: the biggest platforms and create these devices are responsible for
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  Speaker 1: more human misery, suffering, misfortune, and unhappiness than almost anybody
• 13:52
  Speaker 1: who has ever walked the face.
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  Speaker 2: Of the earth. Well, after that Debbie downer over comment,
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  Speaker 2: I think I need to go watch if your Real
• 14:00
  Speaker 2: was just still lighted.
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  Speaker 1: I still have some work to do, obviously. We will
• 14:06
  Speaker 1: link to the study in the show notes. Thanks so
• 14:07
  Speaker 1: much for listening. We are so glad that you love
• 14:09
  Speaker 1: the podcast and we hope that it makes you family happier.
• 14:11
  Speaker 1: The Happy Family podcast is produced by Justin Roland from
• 14:13
  Speaker 1: Bridge Media, and if you'd like more and feel about
• 14:16
  Speaker 1: making your family happier, please visit this at happy families
• 14:18
  Speaker 1: dot com dot au.