Latest / Dr Justin Coulson's Happy Families / #243 Best Of - Are Your Kids Ready for Social Media?

Transcript

#243 Best Of - Are Your Kids Ready for Social Media? · Dr Justin Coulson's Happy Families

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  Speaker 1: It's the Happy Families podcast. It's the podcast for the
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  Speaker 1: time poor parent who just wants answers.
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  Speaker 2: Now, social media can re really beneficial and you can
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  Speaker 2: connect with a variety of people in different countries and
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  Speaker 2: learn things and all sorts of positives, but it's kind
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  Speaker 2: of a darker negative side, and when you're age eleven, twelve,
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  Speaker 2: thirteen again, you're just not ready to navigate kind of
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  Speaker 2: the mind field of social media by yourself.
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  Speaker 1: And now here's the stars of our show, my mom
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  Speaker 1: and daddy.
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  Speaker 3: This is doctor Justin Coulson, the dad to six kids,
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  Speaker 3: the author of six books, and the founder of Happy
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  Speaker 3: Families dot com dot au. School holidays around most of
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  Speaker 3: the country At the moment, Kylie and I are taking
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  Speaker 3: some time with our family. We hope that you're going
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  Speaker 3: to do the same thing for your family. Because it's holidays.
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  Speaker 3: We wanted to keep great content coming your way, even
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  Speaker 3: though we unfortunately can't be in the studio.
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  Speaker 4: Every day recording our podcast.
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  Speaker 3: I've had some fascinating conversations with people over the years,
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  Speaker 3: and because we've got so many new listeners, we've gone
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  Speaker 3: back through the archives and pulled out the very best
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  Speaker 3: discussions that we've had. One of my favorites was episode
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  Speaker 3: one hundred and twenty five. I spoke with Sarah Coyne,
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  Speaker 3: who's done a ton of research on how children and
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  Speaker 3: teenagers are using modern media. Sarah's based in Utah in
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  Speaker 3: the United States, and she's written over one hundred scholarly
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  Speaker 3: publications with her academic research work. I started asking Sarah
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  Speaker 3: why she's so interested in researching this stuff academically.
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  Speaker 2: I have studied the impact that media has on children
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  Speaker 2: and families for about the last twenty years, and it's
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  Speaker 2: been fascinating because media has changed so dramatically during that
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  Speaker 2: period of time. I have five children. They range from
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  Speaker 2: three years old up to fifteen years old, four boys
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  Speaker 2: and girl, and they definitely keep me on my toes
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  Speaker 2: for sure.
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  Speaker 4: Amazing.
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  Speaker 3: Now, now you mentioned with your research, media has changed
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  Speaker 3: in the last twenty years, can you describe a bit
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  Speaker 3: about what you've found from an evidence point of view?
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  Speaker 3: I mean, when I sit here and think about what
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  Speaker 3: I've seen happen, I feel like media has become coarser.
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  Speaker 3: I feel like there's a greater acceptance of what would
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  Speaker 3: have been in the nineteen nineties called vulgarity or course
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  Speaker 3: language or explicit material. And I think that the whole
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  Speaker 3: cable TV and Netflix and all that sort of thing
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  Speaker 3: has probably exacerbated that. But what else are you seeing
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  Speaker 3: in terms of the change in media? It's not just standards,
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  Speaker 3: obviously it's the Internet as well, but what's really stood
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  Speaker 3: out to you from an evidence point of view?
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  Speaker 2: So from a content standpoint, there's definitely evidence of reading's creep.
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  Speaker 2: So that's the idea that you can get more and
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  Speaker 2: more gritty content in say in America. It's like a
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  Speaker 2: PG or a PG thirteen movie that previously would have
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  Speaker 2: been rated from much older audience, And so we're seeing
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  Speaker 2: more violence, more sex, more vulgarity aim toward a younger audience.
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  Speaker 2: So in terms of content, right, it's changing. But then
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  Speaker 2: just in terms of like the devices that we use.
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  Speaker 2: I remember when I was like twenty one years old
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  Speaker 2: and I think my husband got me a cell phone
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  Speaker 2: and I said, why would I ever use this? Like,
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  Speaker 2: why would I ever need to text you? I'll just
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  Speaker 2: call you from my office phone, right, And he's like,
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  Speaker 2: come on, you study media? What is wrong with you? Right?
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  Speaker 2: So clearly we got on board with that one, and
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  Speaker 2: just the accessibility, the portability of media has just increased dramatically,
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  Speaker 2: and so we are living with computers in our pockets
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  Speaker 2: from a very young age. So the evidence suggests that
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  Speaker 2: first smartphone ownership is about age ten right now, so
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  Speaker 2: really really young age. We are living with these little
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  Speaker 2: devices and computers in our hand at almost all times.
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  Speaker 3: So when you say first smartphone ownership is around age ten,
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  Speaker 3: this to me because one of the most common questions
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  Speaker 3: that I get from people who are watching, following listening
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  Speaker 3: is what's the right age for my child to get
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  Speaker 3: a mobile phone? And I traditionally I've always said, well,
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  Speaker 3: kids don't need smartphones, they need smart parents, and smart
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  Speaker 3: parents get their kids dumb phones. But it's increasingly hard
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  Speaker 3: to buy a dumb phone. Every phone is a smartphone now,
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  Speaker 3: so that advice is kind of a little bit dated.
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  Speaker 3: I'm curious, though, what's your response when someone says the
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  Speaker 3: right age?
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  Speaker 2: Yeah. I get asked that question all the time as well,
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  Speaker 2: and I always say it depends on the child. Sure,
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  Speaker 2: So you can have a really responsible twelve thirteen year
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  Speaker 2: old that could handle some smartphone capacity pretty well, and
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  Speaker 2: then another twelve thirteen year old there would be an
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  Speaker 2: utter disaster.
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  Speaker 3: I know some adults to utter disasters with their smartphones.
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  Speaker 2: So right, yeah, exactly. So developmentally, a ten, eleven, twelve
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  Speaker 2: year old is simply not ready for a smartphone. They're
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  Speaker 2: not ready to have the power of unfettered access to
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  Speaker 2: the Internet in their hand. And so I already like,
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  Speaker 2: and this is what I do with my own children,
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  Speaker 2: right to start slow, you know, with an old phone
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  Speaker 2: that doesn't have much Internet capability, and then just gradually
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  Speaker 2: release some sort of restriction. And so by the time
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  Speaker 2: there's you know, seventeen or eighteen, they're kind of full
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  Speaker 2: fledged and then you launch them. But if you give
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  Speaker 2: them that responsibility empower at age ten, they're just not
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  Speaker 2: developmentally ready to handle it, and so you'll have a
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  Speaker 2: lot of errors, big problems, big conflict and so on.
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  Speaker 3: I was speaking with Professor Sarah Coin from Brigham Young
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  Speaker 3: University in Utah about kids and tech more. Right after this,
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  Speaker 3: it's the Happy Families podcast.
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  Speaker 5: Imagine a home where discipline got results without anyone having
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  Speaker 5: to feel bad or in trouble. The Dos and Don'ts
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  Speaker 5: of Discipline is a webinar to help parents set limits
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  Speaker 5: with love, compassion.
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  Speaker 4: And humanity.
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  Speaker 5: Find it now at Happy Families dot com dot Au,
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  Speaker 5: slash Shops.
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  Speaker 3: A Happy Families podcast, the podcast for the time poor
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  Speaker 3: parent who just one's answers Now and today it's all
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  Speaker 3: about our kids and their tech use. I'm speaking with
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  Speaker 3: Professor Sarah Coyn from Utah about her academic work looking
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  Speaker 3: at kids and technology.
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  Speaker 4: Let's continue that conversation now.
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  Speaker 3: We're not going to say that one thing is guaranteed
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  Speaker 3: to happen over another, but obviously you've got hesitation from
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  Speaker 3: the data that you're looking at in letting children have
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  Speaker 3: their phones at ten, eleven, twelve years of age or
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  Speaker 3: maybe even thirteen. What kinds of issues have you seen
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  Speaker 3: arise in your data that would make a parent want
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  Speaker 3: to pause and consider going a little slowly.
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  Speaker 2: There are so many different directions we could go with this.
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  Speaker 2: The thing that comes to mind is social media. So
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  Speaker 2: we use our phones for a lot of social media, right,
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  Speaker 2: and a lot of young kids are on social media.
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  Speaker 2: And social media can re really beneficial and you can
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  Speaker 2: connect with a variety of people in different countries and
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  Speaker 2: learn things and all sorts of positives. But there's a
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  Speaker 2: lot there's kind of a darker negative side, right, So
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  Speaker 2: you can have high cyberbullying high social comparisons, high levels
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  Speaker 2: of feeling like you're invisible or you're constantly excluded, and
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  Speaker 2: when you're age eleven, twelve thirteen, again you're just not
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  Speaker 2: ready to navigate kind of the mind field of social
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  Speaker 2: media by yourself. Even in an adulthood, we still have
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  Speaker 2: trouble right with social media and certain activities. And so
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  Speaker 2: it's really about scaffolding how to use social media and
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  Speaker 2: phones in general to make them work for you as
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  Speaker 2: opposed to your basically being a slave.
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  Speaker 3: To them, right, And when you've got a twelve year old,
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  Speaker 3: it's just all about the phone. And what I've noticed
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  Speaker 3: with my children is when they've got their device on them,
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  Speaker 3: and we've taken a very slowly slowly approach. We have
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  Speaker 3: one phone that we call the family phone, and all
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  Speaker 3: of the children get to share that on an as
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  Speaker 3: needs basis until they're old enough to pay for their
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  Speaker 3: own fund. My advice to parents is always been, if
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  Speaker 3: your kids want a smartphone, they can have one when
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  Speaker 3: they can afford it themselves. And so as my kids
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  Speaker 3: have gotten older and they've gone and gotten jobs, you know,
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  Speaker 3: age fifteen, sixteen seventeen, that's when they've gone and purchased
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  Speaker 3: their own devices, and they're primarily responsible for them in
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  Speaker 3: accordance with the way we operate devices in our home
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  Speaker 3: according to our family principles and rules, and that's worked
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  Speaker 3: very very well for us. But what I watch is
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  Speaker 3: when these younger kids have got the family phone, if
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  Speaker 3: it goes dingy, they run for it. You know, it's like,
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  Speaker 3: oh my goodness, somebody's sent a message. It's so rewarding
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  Speaker 3: to get that message. And then there's an instant compulsion,
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  Speaker 3: an absolute need to respond immediately responses. You can't go
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  Speaker 3: to somebody, you can't let it take five minutes or
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  Speaker 3: ten minutes or a day before you get back to them.
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  Speaker 3: You've got to get back to them right away so
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  Speaker 3: that they know that the relationship is intact. And then
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  Speaker 3: all of a sudden, there's this snowball effect where they
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  Speaker 3: can't get off and they've got to check this and
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  Speaker 3: they've got to check that. I mean, even even adults
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  Speaker 3: go down that particular rabbit hole, really compulsive sense that
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  Speaker 3: they have where they feel like they need to be.
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  Speaker 4: On that device.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah. So something that I study quite intently is media addiction,
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  Speaker 2: and so that could be a video game addiction or
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  Speaker 2: social media addiction or cell phone addiction or the three
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  Speaker 2: that are most predominantly studied. And most people are okay
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  Speaker 2: and they don't develop addiction, but about eight to ten
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  Speaker 2: percent video gamers or users of social media or fill
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  Speaker 2: in the blank develop this pathological relationship with media where you're,
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  Speaker 2: like you said, right, it's this compulsion I have to
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  Speaker 2: check it, I have to be on it. I'm sitting here,
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  Speaker 2: I'm thinking about the next time I can play my
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  Speaker 2: game or I can get on Twitter or whatever, and
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  Speaker 2: something that our lab is doing right now. And I
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  Speaker 2: wish I had the answer for you. But we're trying
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  Speaker 2: to find out the root of a media addiction. Historically,
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  Speaker 2: research has just examined it once it's already present, and
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  Speaker 2: so we're starting from a very young age actually like
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  Speaker 2: birth right and following kids or time to try to
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  Speaker 2: figure out what is our relationship early on in the
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  Speaker 2: you know, in middle childhood and early childhood and that
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  Speaker 2: early adolescence that then shapes your relationship with media over time.
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  Speaker 3: So that sounds like it'd be like what a fifteen
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  Speaker 3: eighteen year study that you'll in process of collecting data,
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  Speaker 3: what kinds of things would you have to be looking
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  Speaker 3: at to work that out of you, looking at the
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  Speaker 3: way parents are engaging with their children, how much media
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  Speaker 3: is available in the home, their environment, what kinds of
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  Speaker 3: things is sort of the variables of interest.
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  Speaker 2: So many different things that we're looking at the study.
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  Speaker 2: We're on the way four right now, and something that
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  Speaker 2: I'm really excited about looking at is we call it
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  Speaker 2: media emotion regulation. So, and you've seen it before and
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  Speaker 2: you've probably done it before. It is some capacity. Right,
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  Speaker 2: You've got a kid, they're at the grocery store, they're
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  Speaker 2: flipping out, they're tantruming, and you're like, oh my gosh,
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  Speaker 2: just stop, here's a phone, right, Or you're at a
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  Speaker 2: restaurant or anywhere. And our hypothesis is that when parents
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  Speaker 2: are regularly regulating their children's emotions for them with the device,
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  Speaker 2: kids struggled to learn how to cope with strong feelings
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  Speaker 2: in the real world without the help of media. So
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  Speaker 2: they're really relying on media as a coping mechanism, which
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  Speaker 2: then could lead to perhaps addiction later on. So that's
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  Speaker 2: something that we're exploring right now. Again, I don't have
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  Speaker 2: any results for you because we're only on way four,
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  Speaker 2: but you know, anecdotically and theoretically, you'd expect that to
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  Speaker 2: be related.
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  Speaker 3: Wow, So if a child is not able to regulate
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  Speaker 3: for themselves, they're relying on that external contingency of having
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  Speaker 3: the device in their hand to sue them and take
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  Speaker 3: their mind away from the big emotions that are welling
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  Speaker 3: up inside them. It seems like that leads them to
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  Speaker 3: rely on tech as a coping mechanism or perhaps as
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  Speaker 3: an escape once they're in their adolescent years.
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  Speaker 4: They just gravitate to it.
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  Speaker 3: It's where they get their peace, it's where they get
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  Speaker 3: their soothing, it's where they feel calm and back in control.
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  Speaker 4: They feel a sense of relatedness to.
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  Speaker 3: Whoever they're gaming with or connecting with, and that solves
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  Speaker 3: their problem in the short term.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah, And in fact, those types of items are on
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  Speaker 2: media addiction measures in adolescents and adulthood, and so we're
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  Speaker 2: trying to see if there's kind of a childhood route
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  Speaker 2: to some of use.
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  Speaker 3: That's Professor Sarah Coyn. You can hear the full interview
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  Speaker 3: on episode one hundred and twenty five of the Parenting
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  Speaker 3: and Perspective podcast series right here on the Happy Families podcast.
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  Speaker 3: Just scroll back through your app until you get to
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  Speaker 3: episode one twenty five and have listen.
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  Speaker 4: It's a fascinating conversation.
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  Speaker 3: Looking forward to another Happy Families podcast tomorrow with Kylie.
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  Speaker 3: This is Happy Families and we're looking forward to firing
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  Speaker 3: up a whole lot of brand new podcasts, brand new topics,
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  Speaker 3: and a whole lot of new content for you as
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  Speaker 3: soon as the school holidays are done. In the meantime,
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  Speaker 3: if you're enjoying the podcast, we'd love it if you
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  Speaker 3: jump onto Apple Podcasts and leave us a five star.
• 13:00
  Speaker 4: Rating and review.
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  Speaker 3: Those ratings and reviews are what Apple uses to decide
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  Speaker 3: whether or not it's going to stick our podcast in
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  Speaker 3: front of other people so that they can find out
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  Speaker 3: about it and make their family happier.
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  Speaker 4: So please jump on there. We really appreciate it when
• 13:12
  Speaker 4: you get to do that.
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  Speaker 3: The Happy Families podcast is produced by Justin Ruhland from
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  Speaker 3: Bridge Media. Our executive producer is Craig Bruce and if
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  Speaker 3: you'd like more info about making your family happier, you
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  Speaker 3: can get everything you need at Happy families dot com
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  Speaker 3: dot au.