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Meta Settles Their 18 Billion Dollar Lawsuit · Millennial Mental Health Channel

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: The company behind Facebook and Instagram have reached a settlement
• 0:04
  Speaker 1: totaling nearly $ 18 billion to end a lawsuit centering on
• 0:07
  Speaker 1: the harms of social media to children. Now, the case
• 0:10
  Speaker 1: was brought by a group of 29 U.S. states alleging
• 0:13
  Speaker 1: that Matter intentionally designed platforms to get young people addicted
• 0:17
  Speaker 1: to them, harming their mental health.
• 0:22
  Speaker 2: Welcome to MMHC, your go-to mental health podcast.
• 0:26
  Speaker 3: I'm Eddie Carrillo, a licensed professional counselor.
• 0:28
  Speaker 2: And I'm Justin Romano, a board-certified child and adolescent psychiatrist.
• 0:33
  Speaker 3: We created MMHC to give listeners evidence-based information directly from
• 0:37
  Speaker 3: professionals who work in mental health.
• 0:38
  Speaker 2: We're not influencers. We're not trying to sell you anything.
• 0:42
  Speaker 2: We just want to bring love, empathy, and understanding of
• 0:44
  Speaker 2: mental health into this world.
• 0:46
  Speaker 3: And we really think that learning about mental health should
• 0:48
  Speaker 3: be fun, interesting, and most importantly, honest.
• 0:51
  Speaker 2: So thanks for tuning in. This is a show by
• 0:54
  Speaker 2: two millennials, but it is intended to be for everyone.
• 0:57
  Speaker 2: We hope you enjoy the show. Well, hello, and welcome
• 1:02
  Speaker 2: back to MMHC. We are very excited to have you here.
• 1:06
  Speaker 2: We got a pretty good episode for you today, something
• 1:09
  Speaker 2: that we feel very passionate about, and we've been filling
• 1:11
  Speaker 2: you in over time. But before we get started, I
• 1:16
  Speaker 2: want to do a quick rest in peace to RJ Mitty. Eddie,
• 1:19
  Speaker 2: did you hear about him passing away?
• 1:22
  Speaker 3: Was he the actor from Breaking Bad?
• 1:26
  Speaker 4: Yeah, from Breaking Bad.
• 1:28
  Speaker 3: Yeah, I did see that. Again, as someone who doesn't
• 1:30
  Speaker 3: watch a whole lot, I do still get the popular
• 1:32
  Speaker 3: culture references. Did he have... Am I making this up?
• 1:37
  Speaker 3: Did he have cerebral palsy?
• 1:39
  Speaker 4: He did have cerebral palsy.
• 1:41
  Speaker 2: He was such a great example of someone with a
• 1:44
  Speaker 2: disability portraying someone with a disability doing an excellent job
• 1:49
  Speaker 2: and Yeah, unfortunately, I think it was confirmed just recently
• 1:54
  Speaker 2: that he had died by suicide.
• 1:57
  Speaker 3: Oh, fuck, I didn't see that.
• 1:59
  Speaker 2: Yeah, he was so young and talented and just, man,
• 2:05
  Speaker 2: our hearts go out to him and his family and
• 2:07
  Speaker 2: everyone involved because, yeah, that's just always a tragedy.
• 2:11
  Speaker 3: I recently did at our school, we did like our
• 2:13
  Speaker 3: suicide prevention lessons. You know, we just recently had suicide.
• 2:17
  Speaker 3: prevention month. And it's just really hard. Like you do
• 2:20
  Speaker 3: your best and you hope for the best for people.
• 2:24
  Speaker 3: And sometimes these things happen.
• 2:26
  Speaker 4: So yes, rest in peace, my friend.
• 2:29
  Speaker 2: So today we are talking about tech and meta and
• 2:35
  Speaker 2: the recent lawsuit.
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  Speaker 4: We've been on this for a while.
• 2:40
  Speaker 2: Back in 2022, I did my TEDx talk for TEDx Omaha,
• 2:44
  Speaker 2: talking about how Screens and technology, especially cell phones, are
• 2:49
  Speaker 2: terrible for kids. Later that year, Jonathan Haidt released his
• 2:54
  Speaker 2: seminal book, The Anxious Generation.
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  Speaker 4: Did I beat him to the punch?
• 2:58
  Speaker 2: Yes.
• 3:01
  Speaker 4: Did he have a better overall product than me?
• 3:04
  Speaker 3: Yes. Hey, but for like, for two hours that his
• 3:07
  Speaker 3: book came out, I'm sure you were lapping him in numbers.
• 3:12
  Speaker 2: I was the man. But yeah, we've been following this
• 3:16
  Speaker 2: for a long time. And we've done multiple episodes on it.
• 3:19
  Speaker 2: I know we've talked about it. We've even talked about
• 3:20
  Speaker 2: this lawsuit, like when it was first starting. So it's
• 3:23
  Speaker 2: nice that there's finally some resolution.
• 3:26
  Speaker 3: Do you know how many views your video has? That's
• 3:28
  Speaker 3: what I was looking up before we started.
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  Speaker 4: It is almost 600,000, I believe. Yeah, right at 599,000.
• 3:35
  Speaker 3: I will watch it tonight until we hit 600,000.
• 3:39
  Speaker 2: Do I check it every couple of weeks? Yeah, of course.
• 3:43
  Speaker 4: I want to see how many views it has.
• 3:45
  Speaker 3: You're still getting comments most recently as a month ago. Wow.
• 3:54
  Speaker 3: There's still a lot. It's great work.
• 3:59
  Speaker 4: No bullshit.
• 4:01
  Speaker 3: No bullshit. I talked with one of my students yesterday.
• 4:03
  Speaker 3: They did a presentation on the topic covered in my
• 4:07
  Speaker 3: intro diagnosis class this week is anxiety. And I have
• 4:11
  Speaker 3: students do individual presentations. They can find any kind of article.
• 4:13
  Speaker 3: It doesn't have to be like a scholarly article. It
• 4:15
  Speaker 3: can be from the New York Times. It could be
• 4:19
  Speaker 3: something like local news, something related to the diagnoses we're
• 4:22
  Speaker 3: coming for the week. And this week is anxiety. And
• 4:25
  Speaker 3: my student found an article about digital anxiety and talked
• 4:28
  Speaker 3: about like kids and how much they struggle with like
• 4:31
  Speaker 3: The anxiety is almost like a separation anxiety from their
• 4:34
  Speaker 3: device and then their phone. So we talked about that,
• 4:37
  Speaker 3: and I did mention to them your TEDx talk. So
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  Speaker 3: we'll see if they check it out. But yeah, I
• 4:42
  Speaker 3: told them you talked all about it.
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  Speaker 4: Got to get up to 600,000, so that'll be a nice.
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  Speaker 3: I'll make my students watch it for an hour tomorrow
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  Speaker 3: when I have class.
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  Speaker 4: There you go. It's funny.
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  Speaker 2: Every once in a while, I'll let my three-year-old watch
• 4:59
  Speaker 2: some educational programming on YouTube. But the other day I
• 5:02
  Speaker 2: was at work and I saw that he had it
• 5:04
  Speaker 2: on while my wife was with him. And I can
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  Speaker 2: control the YouTube from my phone. So just randomly, I
• 5:09
  Speaker 2: put on my TED Talk.
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  Speaker 3: That's funny.
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  Speaker 4: While he was watching. And my wife was like, he
• 5:14
  Speaker 4: lost it.
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  Speaker 2: He thought it was so cool that his dad was
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  Speaker 2: on the TV.
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  Speaker 3: How do you do that?
• 5:19
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
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  Speaker 3: That's funny. Speaking of meta and all this stuff going on,
• 5:24
  Speaker 3: I will say, yeah, we've talked about it a lot.
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  Speaker 3: We've done episodes on it a lot. Justin and I,
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  Speaker 3: I think we end up just exchanging articles that have
• 5:30
  Speaker 3: popped up over the years. This is something that is...
• 5:33
  Speaker 3: important to us and something that we're following along with.
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  Speaker 3: And it's been definitely a topic of interest for us.
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  Speaker 3: So we're, I think, excited is a good word, or
• 5:41
  Speaker 3: at least we're looking forward to sharing some kind of
• 5:44
  Speaker 3: updates on what's happened recently with Meta, what was kind
• 5:46
  Speaker 3: of maybe in the background that we've talked about, really
• 5:48
  Speaker 3: bringing it back to the forefront. So yeah, anytime we
• 5:52
  Speaker 3: can talk about the big guy or the big companies,
• 5:56
  Speaker 3: the shit on the little guy, We're happy to do that.
• 5:58
  Speaker 3: We're happy to shit on the big guy for once.
• 6:01
  Speaker 2: I'd say we're always happy to shit on the big guy.
• 6:04
  Speaker 2: That's our style. But I've been doing a lot of
• 6:07
  Speaker 2: community discussions about this recently, doing even book studies on
• 6:12
  Speaker 2: the anxious generation. I'm talking to junior high kids, high
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  Speaker 2: school kids, parents. We've been doing a ton of stuff
• 6:19
  Speaker 2: around town in Cheyenne trying to get the word out
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  Speaker 2: about this, trying to get people to understand I still
• 6:27
  Speaker 2: see a lot of pushback from kids. Like when you
• 6:30
  Speaker 2: talk about this with kids, they don't want to change.
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  Speaker 2: They don't want to do anything different. They want to
• 6:35
  Speaker 2: scroll their phones all night. So I think if we
• 6:38
  Speaker 2: can do it as a whole, yeah. In the clinic setting,
• 6:41
  Speaker 2: when you're talking to them one-on-one, it's not going well.
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  Speaker 2: But I think if we can get them all together
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  Speaker 2: and thinking about this and talking about this together, that's
• 6:51
  Speaker 2: going to help.
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  Speaker 4: So that's the goal.
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  Speaker 3: I think too, I wonder how much like the way
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  Speaker 3: that is brought up is what immediately shuts off like
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  Speaker 3: a teen's openness to it. We've done the school, like
• 7:04
  Speaker 3: no phones in school. This is our second school year.
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  Speaker 3: Definitely a ton of pushback. Definitely a lot of upset,
• 7:09
  Speaker 3: you know, students and parents. And I think when you
• 7:11
  Speaker 3: roll it out that way, it's like a F you mom,
• 7:14
  Speaker 3: not their actual mom, but like F you mom to
• 7:16
  Speaker 3: the school or F you dad to the school. I'm
• 7:18
  Speaker 3: not doing what you tell me to do. And instead
• 7:20
  Speaker 3: of like bringing it together as like a, we're in
• 7:24
  Speaker 3: this together type of situation. Maybe that'd be a better approach.
• 7:27
  Speaker 3: But yeah, when you just do overall like bands of technology,
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  Speaker 3: it definitely leaves a bad taste in kids' mouths of like,
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  Speaker 3: they don't want to, they don't want to buy in
• 7:36
  Speaker 3: just because the man in charge or the woman in
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  Speaker 3: charge is telling them not to.
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  Speaker 2: I think I've made this comparison before, but when I
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  Speaker 2: talk to kids about their screen time, I get the
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  Speaker 2: same look that I used to get when talking to
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  Speaker 2: addicts and people who were struggling with addiction when we
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  Speaker 2: were telling them, hey, we're sending you to rehab or
• 7:54
  Speaker 2: we're taking your drugs away. Kids are addicted to this
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  Speaker 2: and they don't want to have it taken away from
• 8:01
  Speaker 2: them because it's most of their lives. Man, I've had
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  Speaker 2: kids this week averaging 11, 14 hours of screen time
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  Speaker 2: per day. 14 hours per day.
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  Speaker 3: That's like your whole waking time.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah. That's what I said. I was like, when are
• 8:18
  Speaker 2: you sleeping? Like you're also going to school, right? Like
• 8:21
  Speaker 2: when are you on your phone that much?
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  Speaker 3: Yeah.
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  Speaker 4: Um, so it's just, it's bad. It's out of control.
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  Speaker 2: And I saw a graphic recently that just said since
• 8:29
  Speaker 2: the pandemic, uh, just screen time for young people is
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  Speaker 2: just going up and up and up and it's not stopping.
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  Speaker 2: It's not plateauing. It's just going up more.
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  Speaker 3: I think too, to help make this too, not just like, um,
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  Speaker 3: the crucification of teens in their phones or like kids
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  Speaker 3: in their phones. I mean, adults too. I know adults
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  Speaker 3: struggle with it too. And what we're really going to
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  Speaker 3: talk about today is that these companies are taking advantage
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  Speaker 3: of the fact that teens and kids are so susceptible
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  Speaker 3: to this like technology addiction. It's not a mistake that
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  Speaker 3: these kids end up getting like hooked on Instagram and,
• 9:03
  Speaker 3: and Tik TOK. And it's, it's on purpose, not by them,
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  Speaker 3: but by the company. So it's not all their fault,
• 9:09
  Speaker 3: but I know for us, like it, we got to
• 9:11
  Speaker 3: start somewhere. And so it's just, it's hard to see,
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  Speaker 3: it's hard to see a kid and teen struggle with
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  Speaker 3: not being able to put away their phone and are
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  Speaker 3: just so stuck on, you know, to be on Instagram
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  Speaker 3: and constantly talking to their friends on Snapchat.
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  Speaker 2: And yeah, we both work with kids. We both see
• 9:25
  Speaker 2: that young people are the most affected by this. And
• 9:28
  Speaker 2: so I think that's why we focus on it the most.
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  Speaker 2: But yeah, I mean, I know tons of kids who
• 9:32
  Speaker 2: can't sit through like a 10 minute conversation without pulling
• 9:34
  Speaker 2: out their phone. And then every time you bring it up,
• 9:37
  Speaker 2: I'll be like, Hey, like, I noticed that you're on
• 9:39
  Speaker 2: your phone in the middle of.
• 9:40
  Speaker 4: Your doctor's visit. They're like, oh, I'm listening.
• 9:43
  Speaker 2: And as they're texting, you're like, you're clearly not. It's pervasive,
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  Speaker 2: and it's taking over young people's lives.
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  Speaker 3: Yeah. Hit them with a recap? What's going on?
• 9:54
  Speaker 4: Hit them with a recap.
• 9:56
  Speaker 2: So, if you haven't been following... as closely as we have,
• 10:02
  Speaker 2: so about 30 states led by Colorado, they sued Meta
• 10:06
  Speaker 2: saying that their platform intended to maximize usership among minors. So, yeah, Eddie,
• 10:14
  Speaker 2: tell me about Instagram Kids.
• 10:16
  Speaker 3: Yeah. So back, I think one of the first times
• 10:18
  Speaker 3: we talked about this, There was a whistleblower by the
• 10:21
  Speaker 3: name of Francis Hagen, and they reported that Instagram and Meta,
• 10:26
  Speaker 3: and essentially Meta, the parent company of Facebook and Instagram
• 10:30
  Speaker 3: and WhatsApp, has known for a long time that their app,
• 10:33
  Speaker 3: the algorithm they use, everything is essentially used to get
• 10:37
  Speaker 3: kids addicted to continue to use their social media platforms.
• 10:40
  Speaker 3: And so when the whistleblower came out, it also came
• 10:43
  Speaker 3: out that Meta was on the way to introducing Instagram Kids,
• 10:47
  Speaker 3: which was supposed to be a app only for kids
• 10:52
  Speaker 3: ages 10 to 12, supposed to be ad-free, according to
• 10:55
  Speaker 3: what they say, with heavy parental supervision controls. And their
• 10:59
  Speaker 3: reasoning was that it was aimed to capture a younger
• 11:01
  Speaker 3: demographic because most of them were already lying about their
• 11:06
  Speaker 3: age to get on Instagram in the first place. So
• 11:08
  Speaker 3: according to them, they thought, well, if we can at
• 11:11
  Speaker 3: least give them a safer one to use in their
• 11:14
  Speaker 3: younger age, then we should give them that, which sounds
• 11:17
  Speaker 3: like a whole bunch of bullshit to us. But again,
• 11:19
  Speaker 3: the leaker, the whistleblower, Francis, outed them. It was released
• 11:24
  Speaker 3: somewhere in, I think it was first leaked in March 2021,
• 11:28
  Speaker 3: when all that came about. Then, fast forward to September 2021,
• 11:32
  Speaker 3: the head of Instagram at the time, Adam Mosseri, announced
• 11:36
  Speaker 3: that they were putting a pause on it, and they
• 11:37
  Speaker 3: haven't gone through with it. What they did end up
• 11:40
  Speaker 3: doing was essentially moving to Instagram teen accounts, which have
• 11:44
  Speaker 3: some more restrictions and things like that. But ultimately, the
• 11:46
  Speaker 3: platform of Instagram kids aimed at the 10 to 12
• 11:50
  Speaker 3: age range was shut down and has not been brought
• 11:53
  Speaker 3: back since the whistleblower really out of them and saying
• 11:56
  Speaker 3: that Instagram, Meta, Facebook all know that their app, their
• 11:59
  Speaker 3: algorithm is essentially being used to get kids addicted so
• 12:02
  Speaker 3: that they keep using it.
• 12:04
  Speaker 2: That whistleblower coming out was the main reason why they
• 12:07
  Speaker 2: changed their name from Facebook to Meta. They were trying
• 12:10
  Speaker 2: to rebrand and trying to make people forget that they
• 12:13
  Speaker 2: were the ones who were trying to ruin children's mental health.
• 12:17
  Speaker 4: So, health, not hells.
• 12:20
  Speaker 3: That's not a word.
• 12:21
  Speaker 2: I'm a doctor, I promise. Yeah, part of this lawsuit
• 12:28
  Speaker 2: was accusing Meta of knowing that heavy Instagram use and
• 12:33
  Speaker 2: Facebook contributed to mental health issues that that Meta misrepresented
• 12:39
  Speaker 2: or minimized the risks publicly, saying like it's not as
• 12:42
  Speaker 2: bad as you think, and that Meta violated consumer protection
• 12:46
  Speaker 2: and child safety laws.
• 12:48
  Speaker 3: Multiple internal documents of communications that showed Meta employees understood
• 12:51
  Speaker 3: that their platform features could negatively affect the mental health
• 12:55
  Speaker 3: of young people. So they knew exactly what they were doing.
• 12:57
  Speaker 3: And despite this, Meta continued to put engagement over mental
• 13:00
  Speaker 3: health and essentially is, I think, We can equate the
• 13:04
  Speaker 3: engagement over mental health to money over mental health, right?
• 13:07
  Speaker 3: The more people that are engaging, using the app, the
• 13:10
  Speaker 3: more ads they're running, they're charging people for the ads,
• 13:12
  Speaker 3: the people are exposed to the ads. It's all a
• 13:14
  Speaker 3: big money thing. And so ultimately, Meta was caught red-handed
• 13:19
  Speaker 3: and they've had to actually pay for it. We'll get
• 13:22
  Speaker 3: to that in a bit. But yeah, they've been caught.
• 13:24
  Speaker 3: And so this is where we're at kind of today.
• 13:26
  Speaker 2: Mark Zuckerberg famously said, go fast and break stuff. And
• 13:30
  Speaker 2: apparently that included our children, break our children and their
• 13:34
  Speaker 2: mental health in order to be the first, in order
• 13:37
  Speaker 2: to be the biggest. It was important to do that
• 13:39
  Speaker 2: for them. So they didn't care who they hurt along
• 13:42
  Speaker 2: the way. The attorney generals for the states had testimony
• 13:47
  Speaker 2: that coming from a former Meta employee, Arturo Bejar, and
• 13:52
  Speaker 2: he testified that Meta leadership was warned about harms to
• 13:56
  Speaker 2: young people. That they, Meta, had studied it and were
• 14:00
  Speaker 2: saying like, oh, this is terrible for young people. And
• 14:03
  Speaker 2: they told their higher-ups and that their leadership, including Mark Zuckerberg,
• 14:07
  Speaker 2: did not actually do anything to protect the young people
• 14:11
  Speaker 2: and their mental health. So they actually had a former
• 14:13
  Speaker 2: Meta employee explaining all that.
• 14:15
  Speaker 3: Some specific features that were essentially designed to be addictive.
• 14:19
  Speaker 3: Things like personalized algorithms that keep you coming back for
• 14:22
  Speaker 3: more and keep swiping. notifications, the endless scroll. I feel
• 14:26
  Speaker 3: like it used to be a time you would get
• 14:28
  Speaker 3: to the bottom of Instagram and that was it. There's
• 14:31
  Speaker 3: no more bottom of Instagram anymore. You're getting constantly, if
• 14:34
  Speaker 3: I pulled out my phone right now and went on
• 14:36
  Speaker 3: Instagram and started scrolling, it would continue to go even
• 14:39
  Speaker 3: after I've reached all the pictures that I needed to reach.
• 14:42
  Speaker 3: Things like social comparisons that people would get, not just
• 14:45
  Speaker 3: between their friends, but between celebrities and other people their
• 14:47
  Speaker 3: age and influencers. Things like beauty filters, all these things
• 14:51
  Speaker 3: designed to keep our kids and teens using the app
• 14:54
  Speaker 3: and getting them addicted to it. Again, it was very calculated.
• 14:59
  Speaker 3: It's been very calculated. It probably still continues to be
• 15:01
  Speaker 3: very calculated in the way that Meta moves in terms
• 15:04
  Speaker 3: of keeping our kids on these apps.
• 15:15
  Speaker 2: This lawsuit has actually been going on for years. I
• 15:18
  Speaker 2: think it was about a year ago. We had brought
• 15:20
  Speaker 2: this up and we're like, Hey, did anything happen with
• 15:22
  Speaker 2: that lawsuit? And we looked it up and we couldn't
• 15:23
  Speaker 2: find anything. So like, it's cool that it all just
• 15:26
  Speaker 2: kind of came to a head so quickly. Um, I
• 15:30
  Speaker 2: actually had spoke to the assistant to the attorney general
• 15:32
  Speaker 2: in Colorado, trying to give them an idea of what
• 15:35
  Speaker 2: I was seeing and ask if I could help in
• 15:38
  Speaker 2: any way, shape or form. They never, they never contacted
• 15:40
  Speaker 2: me again. So obviously I made a good impression. Um,
• 15:45
  Speaker 2: But apparently they didn't need me because the outcome was
• 15:50
  Speaker 2: Meta agreed to pay $ 17 billion or settle out of court.
• 15:57
  Speaker 2: And with that settlement, they did not have to admit
• 16:00
  Speaker 2: any wrongdoing. That's usually one of the big reasons why
• 16:02
  Speaker 2: people settle outside of court. The separate lawsuits filed by
• 16:08
  Speaker 2: families can still happen. So the one brought forward by
• 16:12
  Speaker 2: the states, that's over, it's done, but the individual ones
• 16:15
  Speaker 2: can still happen, which might end up being more money
• 16:18
  Speaker 2: in the long run.
• 16:19
  Speaker 3: Some changes that Meta's had to make since then, I'd
• 16:21
  Speaker 3: also pulled up another article off to the side, but
• 16:24
  Speaker 3: things like screen time limits. I think one of the
• 16:27
  Speaker 3: main ones was enforcing the default maximum of two-hour daily
• 16:30
  Speaker 3: limit for users under 18. We have here nighttime restrictions,
• 16:34
  Speaker 3: school time restrictions. Better enhanced age verification, which is very important,
• 16:40
  Speaker 3: especially on those apps. Expanded parental controls, less personalized feeds,
• 16:45
  Speaker 3: less social comparisons. I think other things that I've seen
• 16:48
  Speaker 3: was 15-minute scrolling pause prompts to kind of help encourage breaks.
• 16:54
  Speaker 3: Trying to disable things like likes, reaction numbers, autoplay by default.
• 16:58
  Speaker 3: Banning specific bans has been helpful. trying to be more
• 17:03
  Speaker 3: on the non-algorithmic side is what they're supposed to be doing.
• 17:06
  Speaker 3: But some of this feels a little too, a little
• 17:09
  Speaker 3: too late, but you know, it's, they've at least had
• 17:11
  Speaker 3: to do something. So that at least puts us in
• 17:13
  Speaker 3: a better, in a better place than we were even
• 17:16
  Speaker 3: five years ago.
• 17:17
  Speaker 2: You know, I was following this as it was happening
• 17:20
  Speaker 2: and the lawsuit really started in August. The court hearing
• 17:26
  Speaker 2: started in August and the, From what I was hearing
• 17:29
  Speaker 2: and reading and listening to, it was expected to go
• 17:31
  Speaker 2: on for months. There were supposed to be multiple witnesses,
• 17:34
  Speaker 2: a lot of information coming.
• 17:36
  Speaker 4: Out about Meta, about what they were doing.
• 17:39
  Speaker 2: I think they settled early just to try and keep
• 17:42
  Speaker 2: all that hush, to try and make sure that it
• 17:45
  Speaker 2: did not get out and more people didn't.
• 17:47
  Speaker 4: Know about it.
• 17:47
  Speaker 2: So that's why we wanted to talk about it.
• 17:50
  Speaker 4: To make sure that.
• 17:51
  Speaker 2: People know what really was going on at Meta and
• 17:56
  Speaker 2: how they did not do anything to protect the mental
• 17:59
  Speaker 2: health of young people. And I thought it was so interesting.
• 18:02
  Speaker 2: The day that it was announced that they settled outside
• 18:05
  Speaker 2: of court for the $ 17 billion, I saw a notification
• 18:09
  Speaker 2: on my Instagram feed that was like, hey, TikTok and YouTube,
• 18:13
  Speaker 2: let's put children's mental health first.
• 18:16
  Speaker 3: Yeah. Fuck you.
• 18:18
  Speaker 2: It's like, come on. You only are doing that because
• 18:21
  Speaker 2: you just got caught.
• 18:23
  Speaker 4: Like, it was so pathetic. Like, really?
• 18:26
  Speaker 2: You're going to fake like you really care about children's.
• 18:30
  Speaker 4: Mental health now? Like, come on.
• 18:32
  Speaker 3: Yeah, that's such BS.
• 18:35
  Speaker 4: For real.
• 18:38
  Speaker 2: You know, I want to know, because I always love
• 18:39
  Speaker 2: getting your input, especially being in the schools. you mentioned
• 18:44
  Speaker 2: a little bit earlier with the cell phone ban, is
• 18:46
  Speaker 2: it holding up?
• 18:47
  Speaker 4: Is it working?
• 18:48
  Speaker 2: What are, what are you seeing in terms of kids'
• 18:50
  Speaker 2: lives and their cell phones these days?
• 18:53
  Speaker 3: Yeah. Boots on the ground for sure. Being in the school. Um, I,
• 18:58
  Speaker 3: I think, I think it's going well. Uh, this is
• 19:00
  Speaker 3: year two of having, uh, the cell phone ban, uh,
• 19:03
  Speaker 3: that governor Tina Kotek put into effect. Um, I believe
• 19:06
  Speaker 3: she put it, uh, the executive order was signed somewhere
• 19:10
  Speaker 3: during the legislative legislative session, like, towards the ending of
• 19:13
  Speaker 3: spring 2025? Yeah, 2025. I believe her executive order was essentially,
• 19:20
  Speaker 3: you have until the 2026, 2027 school year to come
• 19:24
  Speaker 3: up with something to have cell phone bans. I could
• 19:27
  Speaker 3: be wrong on the years and the dates, but she
• 19:29
  Speaker 3: did give schools a runway of time to do this. Ultimately,
• 19:32
  Speaker 3: I think what was helpful is that she decided school
• 19:35
  Speaker 3: districts can do whatever they want to do in terms
• 19:38
  Speaker 3: of how they uphold the ban, Uh, so like some
• 19:42
  Speaker 3: school districts have done like the yonder pouches, right? Where
• 19:44
  Speaker 3: the super strong magnet phone goes in, kids can't access
• 19:48
  Speaker 3: it until they have access to the magnet later. Our
• 19:50
  Speaker 3: school and our school district specifically is essentially it's the
• 19:53
  Speaker 3: away away. We don't see it. If we do see it,
• 19:56
  Speaker 3: it gets taken away. parents have to come pick it up,
• 19:58
  Speaker 3: if you want the phone back, if your parents are
• 20:00
  Speaker 3: not able to come pick it up, you can get
• 20:02
  Speaker 3: it at the end of the next school day, so
• 20:04
  Speaker 3: it's really like, it's a pretty big punishment, and especially
• 20:07
  Speaker 3: with how many kids, and how much kids need to
• 20:10
  Speaker 3: use their phone more, for things like work, and stuff
• 20:13
  Speaker 3: like that, it can be a pretty big punishment, and
• 20:15
  Speaker 3: I think the parents feel it too, so I think
• 20:17
  Speaker 3: it helps really tell the parents, like, we need help
• 20:20
  Speaker 3: on this, and we need everyone to be in on this,
• 20:22
  Speaker 3: I think from an anecdotal perspective, like, a lot more conversations.
• 20:26
  Speaker 3: It seems like it's a lot louder in the halls
• 20:28
  Speaker 3: because kids are talking to each other and not just
• 20:30
  Speaker 3: like staring at their phone. Um, so I think that's great.
• 20:32
  Speaker 3: I think the other cool thing has been, um, we
• 20:35
  Speaker 3: have like office aides and teacher's assistants in the counseling
• 20:38
  Speaker 3: office or counseling center aides. Uh, and they're like doing
• 20:41
  Speaker 3: their homework in between running notes for us or they're
• 20:43
  Speaker 3: playing card games. And even at lunch we have a
• 20:46
  Speaker 3: cart that comes out with a bunch of like board
• 20:48
  Speaker 3: games and stuff on it. The kids want to engage
• 20:50
  Speaker 3: in that and do that. And, So that's pretty cool.
• 20:53
  Speaker 3: I will say we still, I know this is true,
• 20:55
  Speaker 3: but we get kids who maybe have a car on campus.
• 20:58
  Speaker 3: If they park in the parking lot, they just go
• 20:59
  Speaker 3: to the parking lot and they get on their phone,
• 21:01
  Speaker 3: which it is what it is. Lunch is 30 minutes.
• 21:03
  Speaker 3: It's not that big of a deal if they really
• 21:05
  Speaker 3: want to check it during that time. But it's only
• 21:06
  Speaker 3: 30 minutes compared to these other times, right, during the
• 21:09
  Speaker 3: school day. So I think it's gone well. I think,
• 21:12
  Speaker 3: you know, we'll get numbers like our dean of students,
• 21:14
  Speaker 3: shout out to Ann. She will send us numbers every
• 21:17
  Speaker 3: week of how many phones were taken away. And I've
• 21:20
  Speaker 3: seen some as low as zero in the day, like
• 21:22
  Speaker 3: zero phones taken away. I've seen as high as like,
• 21:25
  Speaker 3: I think our first day last year was like, I
• 21:29
  Speaker 3: could be exaggerating. It was like 40 phones got taken away.
• 21:31
  Speaker 3: And so, yeah, I think it's gone well. I think,
• 21:34
  Speaker 3: I don't know if the kids will admit that it's
• 21:37
  Speaker 3: gone well or that they like it. I totally get
• 21:39
  Speaker 3: if they don't. But it feels like it's kind of
• 21:41
  Speaker 3: back to maybe when you and I were in school.
• 21:44
  Speaker 3: I think at that time, it was essentially if someone
• 21:46
  Speaker 3: sees you with their cell phone, they're taking it away, right?
• 21:49
  Speaker 3: No phones in school. So we got good at texting
• 21:51
  Speaker 3: on T9 word with our phone in our pocket or
• 21:54
  Speaker 3: whatever it was. But I get it. Kids probably still
• 21:57
  Speaker 3: go to the bathroom and use their phone, but it's
• 21:58
  Speaker 3: a lot less pervasive than it was before. So I
• 22:01
  Speaker 3: think that's good. I think it's been helpful for the kids.
• 22:03
  Speaker 3: I know for staff members, we're not on our phones
• 22:06
  Speaker 3: as much. I'm out in the hallways a bunch. I
• 22:08
  Speaker 3: can't have my phone out there because the kids can't.
• 22:10
  Speaker 3: So it makes me get off my phone more. And
• 22:13
  Speaker 3: so Yeah, I think it's gone well. I'm hopeful that
• 22:16
  Speaker 3: we keep it going. This year, we expanded it a
• 22:18
  Speaker 3: little more to no personal devices, so no personal computers,
• 22:23
  Speaker 3: no tablets, things like that. What a lot of kids did,
• 22:26
  Speaker 3: especially in a community that maybe has more middle to
• 22:29
  Speaker 3: middle upper class, a lot of kids who had iPads
• 22:32
  Speaker 3: or newer MacBooks that have the feature where you can
• 22:35
  Speaker 3: just use your phone on the MacBook. It unlocks your
• 22:38
  Speaker 3: phone and stuff, and you can text and all that. Um,
• 22:41
  Speaker 3: so we've gone away with that. Every student is issued
• 22:43
  Speaker 3: a Chromebook to you, so you don't need your own computer.
• 22:46
  Speaker 3: So that was a little bit of a growing pain too,
• 22:47
  Speaker 3: but I think overall, um, it's gone, it's gone pretty well. My,
• 22:51
  Speaker 3: my very long winded answer to say that I think
• 22:53
  Speaker 3: it's gone well and I'm, I'm happy with it.
• 22:55
  Speaker 2: It sounds like there's some, some serious benefits to the
• 22:57
  Speaker 2: students and they're interacting more. They're doing less screen time overall.
• 23:03
  Speaker 4: It's less of a distraction. So that's always good, good
• 23:05
  Speaker 4: things to hear.
• 23:06
  Speaker 3: A lot less, too. We used to get a bunch
• 23:08
  Speaker 3: of kids that would just plug their phone in in
• 23:10
  Speaker 3: the classroom during school. Just things like that. You don't
• 23:13
  Speaker 3: need to charge your phone if you're not using it,
• 23:15
  Speaker 3: which is good. Sometimes we'll get kids like, hey, I
• 23:19
  Speaker 3: forgot to charge my phone last night. Can I please
• 23:21
  Speaker 3: charge it in here for a little bit? I'm like,
• 23:23
  Speaker 3: that's fine. That's not a big deal at all. It's
• 23:28
  Speaker 3: just nice. It's helpful. We may move to the AirPods
• 23:31
  Speaker 3: next because kids always have their AirPods in. That's a
• 23:35
  Speaker 3: problem for for later, but I think it's gone well overall.
• 23:39
  Speaker 2: I know in my clinic and the people that I
• 23:42
  Speaker 2: work with, it seems like more and more parents are
• 23:44
  Speaker 2: bringing this up with me. Like I'm driving the conversation less,
• 23:49
  Speaker 2: but parents are being like, they're on their phones a
• 23:51
  Speaker 2: lot and it's taking up a lot of their time.
• 23:56
  Speaker 2: And yeah, I know I mentioned it, but I had
• 23:59
  Speaker 2: so many kids over the summer who they didn't do anything.
• 24:03
  Speaker 2: They didn't hang out with their friends. They sat in
• 24:05
  Speaker 2: their rooms and the entire summer on their phones and
• 24:08
  Speaker 2: did absolutely nothing. And they get back into school, they're anxious,
• 24:12
  Speaker 2: they're nervous, they don't have any sort of social skills
• 24:16
  Speaker 2: anymore because they didn't interact with anyone over the summer.
• 24:19
  Speaker 2: So I see that a lot. I'm always asking kids
• 24:22
  Speaker 2: about their screen time and their daily average. And yeah,
• 24:26
  Speaker 2: I just got, I think a new record was average
• 24:28
  Speaker 2: of 14 hours per day. Those types of kids, they
• 24:32
  Speaker 2: just don't have much life in them. They just look
• 24:35
  Speaker 2: like they're not happy. They're not really energetic. They just
• 24:39
  Speaker 2: look like their shine has been taken away. And so, yeah,
• 24:44
  Speaker 2: it just seems like it's becoming more and more of
• 24:47
  Speaker 2: a problem. Parents are noticing it. So I'm always trying
• 24:51
  Speaker 2: to help people understand why this is a problem and
• 24:55
  Speaker 2: then come up with different ways to make it better.
• 24:58
  Speaker 2: I just did a whole presentation on sleep and how
• 25:02
  Speaker 2: sleep over these past couple years, and he mentioned it
• 25:05
  Speaker 2: in The Anxious Generation, the author did in our favorite book,
• 25:08
  Speaker 2: he mentioned it, that sleep, since the cell phone, the
• 25:11
  Speaker 2: smartphone came out, has just tanked. This younger generation, there
• 25:15
  Speaker 2: was a really good study from JAMA Pediatrics that said
• 25:19
  Speaker 2: over 50% of teenagers are losing critical sleep because they're
• 25:24
  Speaker 2: on their phones from midnight to 4 a.m., like, over 50%.
• 25:28
  Speaker 4: Like it's a huge problem.
• 25:31
  Speaker 2: And that lack of sleep changes behavior. It changes brain development.
• 25:36
  Speaker 2: It changes mental health. I talked to lots of teenagers
• 25:39
  Speaker 2: who tell me they're getting four to six hours of
• 25:41
  Speaker 2: sleep per night because they're on their phones so much.
• 25:43
  Speaker 2: And it's like, I'm not, I don't want to prescribe
• 25:46
  Speaker 2: you any medicines until you fix your sleep.
• 25:48
  Speaker 4: Like that will probably.
• 25:49
  Speaker 2: Fix your problems if you, if you get better sleep.
• 25:51
  Speaker 4: So Yeah, it's.
• 25:54
  Speaker 2: Completely changed childhood and it's completely changed the childhood experience
• 26:00
  Speaker 2: in a bad way. So, you know, that's what I'm
• 26:03
  Speaker 2: seeing a lot of in clinic and boots on the ground,
• 26:05
  Speaker 2: working with people. People are seeing it more and more.
• 26:08
  Speaker 3: I get a ton of kids first thing in the
• 26:11
  Speaker 3: morning who are just, I'm exhausted, I'm tired.
• 26:13
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 26:14
  Speaker 3: I always ask, well, what time did you go to sleep? Oh,
• 26:16
  Speaker 3: I was in bed at like nine. Oh, that's really good.
• 26:19
  Speaker 3: But I didn't fall asleep until 11, 11.30. I was
• 26:22
  Speaker 3: on my phone. Yeah, not good. Not helpful.
• 26:27
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 26:27
  Speaker 3: It's hard.
• 26:29
  Speaker 2: Especially that scrolling and doom scrolling in bed. It teaches
• 26:33
  Speaker 2: your brain that you need to be active and you
• 26:37
  Speaker 2: need to be awake and you need to be waiting
• 26:39
  Speaker 2: for notifications. So that when you're asleep, your brain's like, oh, wait,
• 26:43
  Speaker 2: we're in bed. You should be waiting for notifications. And
• 26:45
  Speaker 2: it makes it really hard. to get good quality of
• 26:48
  Speaker 2: sleep too, let alone it takes away sleep time and
• 26:51
  Speaker 2: sleep quality. So that's one of my biggest recommendations for
• 26:54
  Speaker 2: sleep hygiene is only use your bed for sleep. Like
• 26:58
  Speaker 2: do not sit in your bed and scroll on your phone.
• 27:00
  Speaker 2: Do not do homework in there. Do not watch videos
• 27:02
  Speaker 2: in there. Only use your bed for sleep.
• 27:04
  Speaker 4: And that helps.
• 27:05
  Speaker 3: There's something about too, like the, again, the, the never
• 27:08
  Speaker 3: ending scrolling is, That kind of just shuts off your,
• 27:11
  Speaker 3: I mean, I'm, I'm victim to it too, but it
• 27:13
  Speaker 3: just kind of shuts off your ability to like tell
• 27:16
  Speaker 3: time for a little bit. Yeah. It's 10 o'clock at night. Oh,
• 27:20
  Speaker 3: I'll just scroll for a little bit. Next thing I
• 27:21
  Speaker 3: know it's 1040. I'm like, what the fuck? How did
• 27:23
  Speaker 3: I get to this point? It still gets me and
• 27:26
  Speaker 3: I'm a professional and I should know much better, but
• 27:29
  Speaker 3: it still gets me. So I, again, these kids are
• 27:31
  Speaker 3: facing a losing battle when it comes to trying to
• 27:33
  Speaker 3: get off their phones when, you know, these companies know
• 27:36
  Speaker 3: what they're doing to keep them on their phones.
• 27:38
  Speaker 2: What chance do kids have if adults can't even resist it?
• 27:42
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 27:43
  Speaker 2: There are some good documentaries out there. If you want
• 27:45
  Speaker 2: to show these to your teenagers, these are the ones
• 27:48
  Speaker 2: that are generally recommended. The Social Dilemma I know is
• 27:51
  Speaker 2: very eye-opening for me. Screenagers is the one I hear.
• 27:54
  Speaker 2: I actually have not seen that one yet, but I
• 27:56
  Speaker 2: need to watch it. But Screenagers and Childhood 2.0. Those
• 28:00
  Speaker 2: are the big documentaries out there to help kids understand...
• 28:04
  Speaker 2: how bad their phones are for them to get them
• 28:06
  Speaker 2: to buy in. And I've heard good things about, yeah,
• 28:08
  Speaker 2: screenagers and childhood 2.0 in terms of actually helping kids
• 28:12
  Speaker 2: realize like, okay, I'm going to get on board with
• 28:14
  Speaker 2: this too. It's not just my parents implementing a bunch
• 28:16
  Speaker 2: of restrictions for me.
• 28:18
  Speaker 3: You know, it's wild about screenagers. This came out in 2016. Yeah.
• 28:22
  Speaker 4: It's 10 years old now, right?
• 28:23
  Speaker 3: It's been, I mean, it's been an issue since then.
• 28:26
  Speaker 3: Like that's, man. Yeah.
• 28:28
  Speaker 2: The hints were always there, but I feel like as
• 28:31
  Speaker 2: a society, we didn't really see it until COVID.
• 28:33
  Speaker 3: In terms of books, you can read our favorite one,
• 28:35
  Speaker 3: The Anxious Generation. Oh, yeah. Or, I'm not familiar with
• 28:39
  Speaker 3: this one. This one's new to me. I'm looking at
• 28:41
  Speaker 3: it right now. The Amazing Generation, which, oh, it's by,
• 28:43
  Speaker 3: did you know it's by our boy?
• 28:46
  Speaker 4: It's by Jonathan High? I didn't know that.
• 28:49
  Speaker 2: Oh, shit.
• 28:49
  Speaker 3: Oh, I got to read that then. Okay. Yeah.
• 28:52
  Speaker 2: It's like a comic book version to teach kids about
• 28:56
  Speaker 2: screen time and healthy screen time and why it's important
• 28:59
  Speaker 2: and how it impacts sleep and all that stuff. Yeah. Yeah,
• 29:02
  Speaker 2: I actually got a couple copies through work, and so
• 29:05
  Speaker 2: I've been giving them to kids recently. So yeah, if
• 29:08
  Speaker 2: your kids are interested and want this, yeah, check out
• 29:10
  Speaker 2: The Amazing Generation.
• 29:12
  Speaker 3: Okay, Jonathan, get your bag. Atta boy. Get that cash.
• 29:15
  Speaker 4: I know, right?
• 29:16
  Speaker 3: Yeah, he's probably doing okay for himself. That's super cool.
• 29:20
  Speaker 3: I'm looking it up right now. I'm going to have
• 29:21
  Speaker 3: to do it.
• 29:22
  Speaker 4: Get a copy and check it out. I should. Get
• 29:25
  Speaker 4: the school to pay for copies and then just keep
• 29:27
  Speaker 4: them in your office.
• 29:28
  Speaker 3: Oh, that's smart. Okay, I'm going to do that. I
• 29:31
  Speaker 3: am going to do that. Let's go. Okay. Let's go.
• 29:34
  Speaker 4: Let's do it.
• 29:34
  Speaker 3: Man, I like it. Let's go. I'm inspired.
• 29:39
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 29:39
  Speaker 2: Compared to where we were six years ago, like, or,
• 29:43
  Speaker 2: or four years ago when I did my Ted talk,
• 29:45
  Speaker 2: society is finally waking up. Society is finally doing something
• 29:50
  Speaker 2: about this.
• 29:50
  Speaker 4: So I'm pumped.
• 29:52
  Speaker 2: I'm, I'm glad that finally we're turning this around.
• 29:55
  Speaker 3: Maybe I will. Maybe the way I can, um, convince
• 29:59
  Speaker 3: our school to get this if i get a copy
• 30:02
  Speaker 3: for myself i read it and then if i enjoy
• 30:04
  Speaker 3: it i will yeah maybe we can have some or
• 30:06
  Speaker 3: i don't know i'll have to check i like this
• 30:09
  Speaker 3: yeah things are happening things are changing it's not perfect
• 30:11
  Speaker 3: but we're getting there we're getting there we got to
• 30:14
  Speaker 3: get jonathan on the show oh.
• 30:16
  Speaker 4: Man yeah.
• 30:20
  Speaker 2: I actually have like reached out to his people about
• 30:23
  Speaker 2: like being a part of the movement. Um, and so, yeah,
• 30:27
  Speaker 2: I might be able to send him an email and
• 30:29
  Speaker 2: say like, yeah, would you be interested? Yeah.
• 30:32
  Speaker 3: I like that. We're fans, big fans.
• 30:36
  Speaker 2: I'd say it's the most influential book of the 21st century. Like,
• 30:39
  Speaker 2: cause it's the thing I think impacts life the most.
• 30:43
  Speaker 2: And it's hopefully helping us turn the corner on screen addiction.
• 30:47
  Speaker 3: I feel like it definitely felt like, uh, impactful when
• 30:51
  Speaker 3: one of my teacher co-workers recommended it to me so
• 30:54
  Speaker 3: like obviously our worlds interact through being co-workers but like
• 30:58
  Speaker 3: that was like a kind of crossover i'm like oh
• 31:00
  Speaker 3: okay like this an english teacher is thinking about this
• 31:03
  Speaker 3: like i need to think about this too like that's.
• 31:06
  Speaker 4: Yeah all right my friend play us out we.
• 31:08
  Speaker 3: Did it all right thank you everyone for being here
• 31:11
  Speaker 3: you already know what to do uh at millennial mhc
• 31:14
  Speaker 3: all social media at miller www.millennialmhc.com I got a notification
• 31:19
  Speaker 3: the other day. We're getting a ton of traffic on
• 31:21
  Speaker 3: our website, so that's cool.
• 31:23
  Speaker 4: Yeah, I saw that too.
• 31:24
  Speaker 3: It's like shot up like 100-some percent. Apple Podcasts, Spotify,
• 31:28
  Speaker 3: whatever it is, leave us a comment. Leave us a
• 31:30
  Speaker 3: five-star review. We'd appreciate it. We will have Dr. Jonathan
• 31:33
  Speaker 3: Haidt at some point, I believe in that. And thank
• 31:36
  Speaker 3: you all. And remember, take care of your own mentals.
• 31:39
  Speaker 3: Thank you. Thank you.