Latest / Dr Justin Coulson's Happy Families / #1177 - The Tech Expert Who's Fighting Big Tech... For Our Kids

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#1177 - The Tech Expert Who's Fighting Big Tech... For Our Kids · Dr Justin Coulson's Happy Families

0:05
Speaker 1: Welcome to our special Saturday edition of a Happy Families podcast,
0:08
Speaker 1: Real Parenting Solutions every Day on Australia's most downloaded parenting podcast.
0:13
Speaker 1: Earlier in the week, Kylie and I had a chat
0:15
Speaker 1: about my discussion with Charlie Brown, and today you hear
0:20
Speaker 1: the conversation in full. From explaining the latest gadgets on
0:24
Speaker 1: Australia's TV screens to tackling one of modern parenting's biggest challenges,
0:29
Speaker 1: Charlie Brown has been at the forefront of helping Australians
0:31
Speaker 1: navigate the ever evolving world of technology. He's the creator
0:35
Speaker 1: and face of Cybershak TV, Australia's longest running tech TV show,
0:39
Speaker 1: and the voice behind Life and Technology, the well loved
0:43
Speaker 1: radio program. Charlie has spent over two decades making complex
0:47
Speaker 1: tech accessible to everyday Australians. He's a UNI of Western
0:51
Speaker 1: Sydney graduate with the background of marketing in it, but
0:54
Speaker 1: he does a whole lot more beyond the traditional media
0:56
Speaker 1: Stuff Today Show, Current Affair. But his company CBN has
1:02
Speaker 1: him working closely with leading tech companies to bridge the
1:04
Speaker 1: gap between innovative technology and consumer understanding. In twenty nineteen,
1:10
Speaker 1: Charlie took on what I think is his most significant
1:13
Speaker 1: challenge yet, that is addressing the growing concern around children's
1:17
Speaker 1: digital safety. I think it's fair to say that Charlie
1:19
Speaker 1: was ahead of the curve, and while I was still
1:21
Speaker 1: saying I'm not quite sure, but I think most of
1:23
Speaker 1: this is okay, but some of it's not, Charlie was
1:26
Speaker 1: saying exactly the opposite. It led to the creation of GM.
1:29
Speaker 1: It's a smart device designed to tackle the delicate balance
1:31
Speaker 1: between digital access and online safety, a project that emerged
1:35
Speaker 1: from his years of understanding both the potential and the
1:39
Speaker 1: pitfalls of our connected world. Okay, it's quite an intro,
1:43
Speaker 1: but I wanted to make sure that people know just
1:44
Speaker 1: what you've done. Charlie. Good to have you, good.
1:47
Speaker 2: To talk to you justin I've been watching your stuff
1:49
Speaker 2: for a long time and a big fan of your
1:52
Speaker 2: content as well, so it's good to have a chat
1:54
Speaker 2: to you and talk to you about all the things
1:56
Speaker 2: that are flowing around in this area.
1:57
Speaker 1: You swung by my house during the summerhole all days
2:00
Speaker 1: and dropped off a GM phone. I was thinking about
2:02
Speaker 1: giving it to my daughter. Since then, I've decided that
2:05
Speaker 1: she's only not even eleven yet, and she's homeschooled, she
2:07
Speaker 1: doesn't actually need it, so we're going to hold off
2:11
Speaker 1: on giving her that phone. But there are so many
2:14
Speaker 1: parents who are not in that position where they can say,
2:16
Speaker 1: we can hold off because our child is with us,
2:18
Speaker 1: the kids are going to school, the kids are out there,
2:20
Speaker 1: they're living their lives. Before you created g ME, what
2:25
Speaker 1: were the most common concerns that you heard from parents
2:27
Speaker 1: about kids and phones while you were being a tech commentator.
2:30
Speaker 1: I presume that the concerns that you heard led you
2:32
Speaker 1: to creating GM. So what was it that precipitator all
2:34
Speaker 1: of this, Well, I.
2:36
Speaker 2: Guess my job. I've spent a lot of time looking
2:39
Speaker 2: up the road at what's coming, or what I saw
2:41
Speaker 2: was the age of first adoption of phones was getting
2:45
Speaker 2: younger and younger. Phones were getting faster, that's the actual
2:49
Speaker 2: processing ability of each one. The screens are getting richer,
2:52
Speaker 2: the connectivity was getting faster, and all of that was
2:56
Speaker 2: sort of being melted in to this opportunit unity to
3:00
Speaker 2: give at some point phones to kids. And at the time,
3:07
Speaker 2: I think this was sort of mid twenty fifteens around there.
3:11
Speaker 2: And I then started seeing social media being blended in
3:16
Speaker 2: in a portable manner. I mean, we'd seen you know,
3:20
Speaker 2: the Instagrams and facebooks and all those kinds of things
3:22
Speaker 2: coming in, but they were then being used younger and
3:24
Speaker 2: younger and younger as well, and there was this sort
3:27
Speaker 2: of you know, alarm bells going off of Has anyone
3:31
Speaker 2: actually thought whether this is okay for the people who
3:35
Speaker 2: are going to be engaging with this content and with
3:38
Speaker 2: these devices. And the more I thought about it, the
3:42
Speaker 2: more worried I got. And as a father of three
3:45
Speaker 2: daughters myself, I knew that we were getting to that
3:48
Speaker 2: point in our own family. And the catalyst for Jamie
3:53
Speaker 2: was my wife said to me, Okay, well, when we
3:55
Speaker 2: were growing up, we had Sony Walkman's and those kinds
3:58
Speaker 2: of things. We had tapes and CD and then we
4:01
Speaker 2: played MP three files and all of that. And Rachel
4:04
Speaker 2: said to me, everything's streaming now, so how are our
4:07
Speaker 2: kids going to get their music? They've got Spotify, But
4:10
Speaker 2: every device out there has got a camera on it.
4:12
Speaker 2: And then when I went looked at the devices that
4:14
Speaker 2: were out there, I didn't like any of them. I
4:18
Speaker 2: went and I went, I went everywhere. I didn't just
4:20
Speaker 2: go to Harvey Norman and JP Highway. I went to
4:23
Speaker 2: Alibarba dot com, right right into the belly of the
4:26
Speaker 2: beast of Chinese manufacturing. There was nothing and so that's
4:32
Speaker 2: that's where all of this sort of crashed together and
4:35
Speaker 2: I thought, well, someone's going to do something about it,
4:37
Speaker 2: it might as well be me.
4:39
Speaker 1: It's a really big call. As you talk about that,
4:41
Speaker 1: I remember walking down Crown Street in Wollongong, that's where
4:44
Speaker 1: we lived the time, and thinking to myself, I need
4:47
Speaker 1: to get a new phone. And I was so excited.
4:49
Speaker 1: I was enthralled because Facebook and Twitter and Instagram, the
4:54
Speaker 1: biggest social media platforms in that sort of twenty ten
4:57
Speaker 1: through to twenty fourteen stage, they were free. You got
5:02
Speaker 1: free data when you signed up for this plan or
5:04
Speaker 1: that plan, and I didn't since the insidiousness of it.
5:09
Speaker 1: It's not free because they want to give us something
5:12
Speaker 1: because it's nice. It's free because these platforms know that
5:15
Speaker 1: the more it's free, the more people will use it.
5:17
Speaker 1: The more people use it, the more they build their platforms,
5:19
Speaker 1: the more compelled we are to use it, the more
5:21
Speaker 1: it becomes ubiquitous. It's absolutely everywhere, and of course now
5:26
Speaker 1: we've seen where we've landed Charlie, listening to your story
5:33
Speaker 1: makes me wonder how your perspective on kids and tech
5:35
Speaker 1: has changed since you started this process. I mean, it
5:39
Speaker 1: seems to me like you looked down the road and
5:42
Speaker 1: saw something that a lot of other people were equivocating
5:45
Speaker 1: on or were actually embracing completely. Have you had any surprises?
5:50
Speaker 1: Has your perspective changed since you started this?
5:54
Speaker 2: So my perspective originally around kids in tech was sort
6:00
Speaker 2: of nothing, and then it became dead set fear in
6:03
Speaker 2: the early sort of twenty tens to fifteen through a
6:07
Speaker 2: number of examples of things that I was involved with
6:11
Speaker 2: because I was working in media, and I'll explain those
6:14
Speaker 2: to you in a second. And then it became once
6:17
Speaker 2: I actually got into the difficultness of creating a product,
6:22
Speaker 2: convincing people that it's worth looking at, and then seeing
6:27
Speaker 2: the world start to just spin a little bit differently
6:30
Speaker 2: in this area, becoming more positive about where we're going
6:36
Speaker 2: and where I think we're going. The first thing about
6:39
Speaker 2: the fear was that, you know, working in broadcast, I
6:42
Speaker 2: would get people in the community who had gone past
6:46
Speaker 2: that position of control and being completely out of control
6:50
Speaker 2: with their families, with their kids, with engagement with content
6:54
Speaker 2: and they would be nowhere near a solution and absolutely
7:00
Speaker 2: no understanding of what they could do to fix the problem.
7:03
Speaker 2: And they would come to me because they would see
7:05
Speaker 2: me as the public tech guy that well, he'll know.
7:09
Speaker 2: And I remember standing at the chiefest staff desk at
7:13
Speaker 2: nine News one day at about five forty pm and
7:16
Speaker 2: six o'clock news. It's still a major news bullet but
7:20
Speaker 2: back those days sort of twenty thirteen, this occurred. That
7:24
Speaker 2: was the key thing, that was the main news piece
7:27
Speaker 2: of the day. And there was a woman on the
7:28
Speaker 2: phone to me in absolute tears because her daughter, who
7:32
Speaker 2: was about sixteen, hadn't left her bedroom for the past
7:35
Speaker 2: four or five days because someone created a Facebook page
7:38
Speaker 2: about her, completely bullied, cyber bullying her in the worst
7:43
Speaker 2: possible way. So they morphed a face onto a naked body.
7:46
Speaker 2: They've done all of this terrible stuff. This girl hadn't
7:50
Speaker 2: left her room and a mum was worried because the kid,
7:55
Speaker 2: in mum's opinion, was suicidal. She's crying to me saying,
7:58
Speaker 2: and I could hear I could hear this girl opening
8:00
Speaker 2: the door and screaming at her mom down the hallway
8:04
Speaker 2: that it's you know that nothing is worth anything anymore,
8:08
Speaker 2: and this is wrong and it's worth as bad as
8:12
Speaker 2: you could you could imagine it. And I'm standing there
8:15
Speaker 2: on the phone to her, going, well, what's the problem.
8:18
Speaker 2: I mean, why is the page still lot? How long
8:20
Speaker 2: is the page? But she said, I've been up for
8:22
Speaker 2: three or four days. They keep flagging it. It doesn't
8:25
Speaker 2: get taken down. It was a Facebook page, mind you.
8:28
Speaker 2: And I said, okay, fine, just just just wait there.
8:32
Speaker 2: Let me see if I can make a phone call.
8:33
Speaker 2: And I rang. I won't say who, but somebody, very
8:37
Speaker 2: very senior at Facebook. It's now called Meta. And I said, okay, look,
8:41
Speaker 2: I'm standing over the desk from the cheaper staff. This
8:44
Speaker 2: is the story. It's running a story number three in
8:48
Speaker 2: twenty five minutes unless this page is taken down in
8:50
Speaker 2: three minutes. And they said, oh, we can't do it,
8:53
Speaker 2: and I said, okay, well, well i'll speak to you
8:56
Speaker 2: after after the story runs. Three minutes later, the page
9:00
Speaker 2: was taken down. So this page had been up for
9:02
Speaker 2: four days. This teenager was in the emotional state. She
9:07
Speaker 2: was in the mum was in a similar emotional state.
9:10
Speaker 2: And I'm listening to all of this, and then with
9:12
Speaker 2: a one phone call to one person less than three
9:15
Speaker 2: minutes the pages down, and I thought to myself, there
9:18
Speaker 2: is something very, very wrong with everything that is going
9:21
Speaker 2: on here. This is one example. Where are we going
9:26
Speaker 2: from here with this? And what is everyone else going
9:29
Speaker 2: to do that doesn't find a way to contact people
9:32
Speaker 2: like me who can actually help. And with all of
9:35
Speaker 2: that in the back of my mind, that was sort
9:36
Speaker 2: of one of the most extreme examples, and that really
9:39
Speaker 2: set things off and set me thinking about how bad
9:43
Speaker 2: the community was going to be for our children in
9:46
Speaker 2: the future. Once device has got more powerful, got faster,
9:50
Speaker 2: better connected, once more people got them younger ages, and
9:56
Speaker 2: that's where we That's where I went off from there,
9:59
Speaker 2: And I had mother smaller examples, all sorts, but that
10:05
Speaker 2: was sort of the most extreme one at the time,
10:08
Speaker 2: and I haven't I don't get those as many anymore.
10:12
Speaker 2: I don't get them like that anymore. I still get
10:14
Speaker 2: asked for help in various ways, but the reach for
10:17
Speaker 2: the solution is a much shorter one. It's not as
10:20
Speaker 2: extreme as that anymore. And that gives me a lot
10:22
Speaker 2: of confidence.
10:23
Speaker 1: Yeah, I reckon, there's a whole lot of people who
10:24
Speaker 1: are wishing that they had that same phone number of
10:27
Speaker 1: that same person and had the capacity to make that
10:30
Speaker 1: kind of a threat. I mean, it's just so hard
10:33
Speaker 1: to get action from those major tech companies no matter
10:36
Speaker 1: how much you report, the system is fundamentally broken. When
10:40
Speaker 1: you talk to parents today, Charlie, what's the general response
10:45
Speaker 1: what a parent's saying to you. Is it just I
10:47
Speaker 1: want my kids off the screen or I'm worried about
10:49
Speaker 1: their safety. What's the standard line that you hear from
10:52
Speaker 1: parents day in day out about kids in tech.
10:56
Speaker 2: Well, I think they think that everything's okay, right. I
10:59
Speaker 2: think that this feeling that everything's okay, and it comes
11:02
Speaker 2: from the behavior of the kids when you give them
11:06
Speaker 2: these devices, right. So, I honestly I don't have any
11:11
Speaker 2: ill feeling to parents about the challenges that kids are
11:15
Speaker 2: going through, the bad decisions that are being made about them.
11:18
Speaker 2: But one I look at parents today and we've got
11:21
Speaker 2: more of them in the family, more parents in the
11:24
Speaker 2: family working to pay the mortgage than ever before. So
11:27
Speaker 2: there's all of those kinds of financial challenges. They are
11:29
Speaker 2: being bombarded with this area of their life that they
11:34
Speaker 2: never experience growing up, and this is something that changes monthly.
11:38
Speaker 2: Like kick a platform, any platform you want Snapchat or
11:41
Speaker 2: Instagram or whatever it is. There is more change going
11:45
Speaker 2: on within that platform, not just the whole tech industry.
11:48
Speaker 2: Within that platform, then I have ever seen within a
11:53
Speaker 2: software program, Right, So Snapchatti do something one way and
12:00
Speaker 2: then you'll learn it, you'll understand it, you'll build rules
12:04
Speaker 2: around it. And these are the parents who are engaged.
12:08
Speaker 2: And then three months later they'll change it, well, adds something,
12:11
Speaker 2: and then the parents have got to go and learn
12:12
Speaker 2: it all over again. And they're trying to do for
12:15
Speaker 2: one child the same for the next child who's two
12:17
Speaker 2: years younger, the next child who's probably two years younger.
12:20
Speaker 2: But it's changed consistently through that entire life development of
12:25
Speaker 2: that product.
12:26
Speaker 1: I'm going to sound I'm going to sound so old
12:28
Speaker 1: saying this, Charlie. But even podcasts, whether you listen to
12:31
Speaker 1: Apple Podcasts or Spotify or wherever you listen to them,
12:33
Speaker 1: that the operating system keeps on changing. And I'm like,
12:36
Speaker 1: hang on, I just figured out how to listen to
12:38
Speaker 1: my podcast and the way it works for me, and
12:40
Speaker 1: now it's changed. Once you throw in the stuff that
12:42
Speaker 1: the adolescents are doing, what the teenagers are doing. Yeah,
12:45
Speaker 1: it's monumental and like you said, it's just this rolling, forward, moving,
12:51
Speaker 1: progressing thing that parents. I mean, the majority of parents
12:55
Speaker 1: that I speak to are worried about their kid's device usage.
12:59
Speaker 1: They're worried about what they're taking photos of or what
13:01
Speaker 1: they're accessing on their phones. But they're also kind of
13:06
Speaker 1: the kids become what's the word. They become fairly passive.
13:10
Speaker 1: They become pretty easy to deal with. You put a
13:12
Speaker 1: screen in front of their face, and all of a sudden,
13:15
Speaker 1: things are calm, things are quiet. Yeah, everything's taken care of.
13:17
Speaker 1: And when, like you said, when parents are facing the
13:20
Speaker 1: precious that they're already facing, sometimes that feels good. Again, not
13:23
Speaker 1: to bag up parents. I do it myself from time
13:25
Speaker 1: to time because I just need a break. Every now
13:26
Speaker 1: and again. I want to lay on the bed and read.
13:29
Speaker 1: Well again, I'm old school. I want to lay on
13:31
Speaker 1: the bed and read a book, and the kids more
13:33
Speaker 1: interested in watching something on Disney Plus. Let me ask
13:36
Speaker 1: you this, Let's talk about device management. You've developed a
13:40
Speaker 1: phone that is literally about device management to overcome many
13:44
Speaker 1: of the challenges that today's apps, platforms, and hardware the
13:49
Speaker 1: phones themselves put into our children's way. That is not
13:53
Speaker 1: always in their best interests. Tell us this is your
13:56
Speaker 1: opportunity for like a one and a half two minute
13:58
Speaker 1: add about your GM phone. What did you develop it?
14:01
Speaker 1: Why is it different? Because this is the thing that
14:04
Speaker 1: parents need to, I guess, get their head around in
14:07
Speaker 1: order to keep their kids safe.
14:09
Speaker 2: Yeah. I looked at the market and I sort of
14:12
Speaker 2: took twenty years of understanding and engaging with technology, and
14:16
Speaker 2: I was quite aghast at what was out there, and
14:19
Speaker 2: I found that solutions that sort of worked were quite
14:22
Speaker 2: expensive from a point of view. There was some commercial
14:26
Speaker 2: solutions out there that you pay five ten dollars a
14:29
Speaker 2: month and you could have this, and I thought that
14:31
Speaker 2: was a bit expensive for a service, and I sort
14:34
Speaker 2: of thought, well, I don't want something that is going
14:37
Speaker 2: to involve parents having to make big financial commitments to
14:41
Speaker 2: this area. It should just be something that is just
14:43
Speaker 2: you know, below this age, you get this, it's cost effective,
14:48
Speaker 2: you don't have to pay a lot of money for it,
14:49
Speaker 2: and then you know that you've got control of what
14:51
Speaker 2: your kids have seen. So that's the first thing. The
14:53
Speaker 2: second thing was that I went, well, what do kids need? Well,
14:57
Speaker 2: at the heart of everything was connectivity. Parents want to
15:00
Speaker 2: be connected to their kids, and the kids want to
15:02
Speaker 2: be connected to their parents and then also connected to
15:04
Speaker 2: their friends as well. How do you manage that? Well,
15:06
Speaker 2: I thought, well, you just got to give parents a
15:09
Speaker 2: very simple platform that they can remotely turn things on
15:13
Speaker 2: and turn things off. Trap kids manage who's calling them
15:16
Speaker 2: and texting them, and who they are calling and texting,
15:19
Speaker 2: and it's just got to be really simple for the
15:21
Speaker 2: parent to use. And we thought if we start with
15:24
Speaker 2: that and then we sit back and listen, then we're
15:28
Speaker 2: going to have parents start to tell us well, we
15:30
Speaker 2: like that, but we want that to do this as well.
15:33
Speaker 2: Oh and by the way, I found that when I
15:35
Speaker 2: did this, it didn't do what I wanted to I
15:37
Speaker 2: wanted to do this. Can you change that? And if
15:39
Speaker 2: you start listening to them and start tweaking it from there,
15:42
Speaker 2: you're going to get it. You're going to have the
15:44
Speaker 2: parents having something they want, the kids have something they want,
15:47
Speaker 2: they have the connectivity they can you can allow them
15:50
Speaker 2: games and you can. I mean one parent came to
15:52
Speaker 2: us and said, yeah, my kid uses your phone as
15:55
Speaker 2: the screen for displaying what he's drone is seeing as
15:58
Speaker 2: he's flying it around the backyard. I thought, great, So
16:01
Speaker 2: here's the technology. The kid wants a drone, the screen
16:05
Speaker 2: needs to be part of the drone experience, but the
16:07
Speaker 2: parent is able to manage that bit better because they're
16:10
Speaker 2: using our phone as that screen. Awesome. So we're enabling
16:14
Speaker 2: the technology, but we're not allowing the technology to have
16:18
Speaker 2: unfettered access to everything else. It's just the drone experience
16:21
Speaker 2: that the kids they would get. And then I thought
16:23
Speaker 2: about where they're going next. We'll parents want to makesh
16:25
Speaker 2: kids have got money, So we put an NFC chip
16:29
Speaker 2: onto the phone so you can tap and pay with
16:31
Speaker 2: your bank app and that kind of thing. There's different
16:34
Speaker 2: apps around. Spriggy, for example, has an app you can
16:38
Speaker 2: put on for pocket money and stuff, and you can
16:40
Speaker 2: use the tap and pay on that to tap and
16:41
Speaker 2: pay with the phone. And you were just thought, you know,
16:46
Speaker 2: no camera. I thought, God, if I see another fourteen
16:50
Speaker 2: year old or twelve year old taken selfies with their
16:54
Speaker 2: kids and filming each other doing stupid stuff, Well, if
16:59
Speaker 2: I take the or away, they can't do that. They
17:01
Speaker 2: can do the stupid stuff once they get a bit older.
17:04
Speaker 2: And that's and that was and then the other thing
17:06
Speaker 2: we thought about was, Okay, that's the extra handset. Just
17:09
Speaker 2: we thought, well, we've got to make this and make
17:11
Speaker 2: it available to everyone worldwide. It's not just an Australian thing.
17:13
Speaker 2: This is a global problem. So we have to make
17:16
Speaker 2: it available in all the big developed countries, and then
17:19
Speaker 2: we have to go with further than that. So we're
17:21
Speaker 2: selling in the UK, Europe, USA, Australia. We get people
17:25
Speaker 2: from outside of those countries buying from the online marketplaces
17:30
Speaker 2: that are selling them in those countries like the Middle East,
17:32
Speaker 2: for example, we sell a lot of phones out of
17:34
Speaker 2: Europe into the Middle East, and then this year and
17:38
Speaker 2: next year we'll go even further places like India and
17:41
Speaker 2: Mexico and those kinds of places where there's a lot
17:44
Speaker 2: of kids, and there's when you actually look at the
17:47
Speaker 2: issues around parents and kids and looking at the wrong
17:53
Speaker 2: content and all that kind of those issues are in
17:56
Speaker 2: those countries, and in my opinion, just because you're not
17:58
Speaker 2: living in a wealthy country, it doesn't mean that your
18:00
Speaker 2: kids should have access to the wrong kind of content
18:03
Speaker 2: if you choose them not to. So we're making sure
18:06
Speaker 2: GMI is available as soon as we can in those
18:08
Speaker 2: countries too.
18:09
Speaker 1: Okay, so you've got a phone that doesn't have a camera,
18:11
Speaker 1: it has access to apps out of the Google Play Store,
18:14
Speaker 1: but those are all going to be monitored via the
18:16
Speaker 1: app on the parent's phone to make sure that they've
18:18
Speaker 1: got access to the stuff that's okay, and they don't
18:20
Speaker 1: have access to the stuff that parents are judging to
18:22
Speaker 1: be not satisfactory. And their phone is essentially controlled from
18:27
Speaker 1: the parents app on their phone. Am I getting that right?
18:30
Speaker 2: Correct? Correct? And the other thing is when you deep
18:33
Speaker 2: dive into all these parental controls on all these other platforms,
18:36
Speaker 2: Like Apple's got a really good one with the screen
18:38
Speaker 2: screen time, but you've got to have an Apple iPhone
18:41
Speaker 2: or iPad to manage it, right.
18:43
Speaker 1: So, yeah, and the kids still do get around.
18:45
Speaker 2: It, they still get around it. And then with the
18:47
Speaker 2: Android system, guess what if you're running the family Link
18:50
Speaker 2: system at the age of thirteen, yes, singing a happy
18:54
Speaker 2: birthday to your kid, and this happened in our family,
18:57
Speaker 2: you get this a little lord that says Family Link
18:59
Speaker 2: has been discontinued on this device. You know a second,
19:02
Speaker 2: I didn't want that to happen. No, at thirteen, the
19:05
Speaker 2: kid could turn family Link off. So with our system,
19:08
Speaker 2: you canna have an iPhone. You're gonna have an Android
19:10
Speaker 2: as a parent, and there's no auto age conclusion to
19:15
Speaker 2: the service. You as the parent, decide when it's turned off.
19:18
Speaker 2: You can have a running till they're sixteen or seventeen
19:20
Speaker 2: if you choose to. It's really acute. And in the
19:22
Speaker 2: United States, we've got families over there who have been
19:25
Speaker 2: testing our advice. Is one of them. The kid has
19:28
Speaker 2: got the kid's got massive anxiety issues and the mummy
19:32
Speaker 2: Mulmyn said, she's just gone off to college. She would
19:35
Speaker 2: never have gone to college if it wasn't for your
19:38
Speaker 2: phone and all of micro steps that she took in
19:41
Speaker 2: leaving the house with your phone, knowing that we were
19:44
Speaker 2: a phone call away and we could track her and
19:46
Speaker 2: we could we could go pick her up if something happened.
19:49
Speaker 2: But all of these life development skills that this kid
19:53
Speaker 2: has learned, she did it with our phone in her pocket,
19:56
Speaker 2: and the parents were able to remotely support that digital experience.
20:02
Speaker 2: And now she's gone off to college and you're sitting
20:04
Speaker 2: there thinking we helped enable that, right, Like, what would
20:10
Speaker 2: that kid have done? With that kid and I'd have
20:11
Speaker 2: got through college. Maybe they're going they would have gone,
20:14
Speaker 2: maybe not as early as they would have wanted, but
20:17
Speaker 2: we helped enable that and that's really cool.
20:19
Speaker 1: Yeah, it really is. We'll link to the GME phone
20:21
Speaker 1: in our show notes to the people who want to
20:22
Speaker 1: know more about the device can five links and check
20:26
Speaker 1: that out, Charlie, Beyond just managing the device, which is
20:36
Speaker 1: really what that conversation was, what do you think of
20:38
Speaker 1: the key conversations that parents need to have with their
20:40
Speaker 1: kids so that the kids can be safe online and
20:43
Speaker 1: have the digital literacy that we're always banging on about.
20:47
Speaker 2: Well, and that's the challenge, right. We keep sticking more
20:50
Speaker 2: devices in front of them, like laptops for schools and
20:52
Speaker 2: all these kinds of things, and then at the same
20:54
Speaker 2: time we're saying, oh, yeah, keep using these devices. By
20:58
Speaker 2: by the way, there's a lot of danger in them.
20:59
Speaker 2: If you, I mean, if you're a ten year obviousitting
21:01
Speaker 2: and they go, well, hang on a second, is it's
21:03
Speaker 2: dangerous or should I be using it? I think at
21:06
Speaker 2: the end of the day, what we want parents to
21:08
Speaker 2: do is to use some kind of parental control, like
21:12
Speaker 2: using our phone or not somebody else's phone or an
21:16
Speaker 2: Apple or good or whatever. Use it and understand it
21:19
Speaker 2: as best as you can do, not ever let them
21:21
Speaker 2: have unfettered access to the Internet on any device at
21:25
Speaker 2: all ever, Right, that's the first thing. Second to that,
21:29
Speaker 2: you've got to sit down and make the time to
21:31
Speaker 2: talk to them about this kind of stuff. You've got
21:34
Speaker 2: to get your kids to a position where they can
21:36
Speaker 2: come and talk to you, good or bad about what's
21:39
Speaker 2: going on in their digital life, and they have that
21:43
Speaker 2: level of trust where they can come and talk to
21:45
Speaker 2: you in the same way as anything else bad or
21:47
Speaker 2: good that's happening in their life. They can sit there
21:49
Speaker 2: and talk to you about this as well, because you
21:52
Speaker 2: will learn from those conversations what they're interested in in,
21:55
Speaker 2: what they're doing, and what you're comfortable with and what
21:58
Speaker 2: you're not comfortable with. Things that get through those cracks
22:01
Speaker 2: that you have put in place, you will learn about it.
22:04
Speaker 2: You'll also learn what other kids and other parents are
22:08
Speaker 2: doing in this space. Some of it that I learned
22:12
Speaker 2: about absolutely horrifies me, and other bits that I learn
22:16
Speaker 2: about these are through my own family connections and my
22:18
Speaker 2: own children's experiences. I'm really pleased to hear parents out
22:23
Speaker 2: there are taking initiative and making these hard decisions, but
22:28
Speaker 2: you will learn what they are the catalyst for us,
22:32
Speaker 2: for Chela and I was probably six nine months ago.
22:35
Speaker 2: Our sixteen year old we're talking about parental controls and
22:39
Speaker 2: not letting our eleven year old and thirteen year old
22:42
Speaker 2: do certain things. And the sixteen year old this was
22:45
Speaker 2: in the car. Family five are in the car. Sixteen
22:47
Speaker 2: year old turns the eleven and twelve and the thirteen
22:50
Speaker 2: year old who are complaining about the parental controls and
22:52
Speaker 2: not being allowed to access this, and she said, look,
22:55
Speaker 2: it's really annoying what dad's job is. But you get
22:58
Speaker 2: to my age and you look back on when I
23:02
Speaker 2: was at your age and you actually think, yeah, there's
23:05
Speaker 2: a lot of merit in what mum and dad was saying,
23:07
Speaker 2: and I'm better off for it.
23:09
Speaker 1: Was yeah, voice of experience, love it, sixteen year old.
23:12
Speaker 1: My olders took a little bit longer to get there,
23:14
Speaker 1: but it's pretty it's pretty reassuring, it's pretty nice when
23:17
Speaker 1: it happens. All right, Charlie, I'd like to do a
23:19
Speaker 1: lightning round with your. Lightning rounds are fun, very very
23:22
Speaker 1: short answers, just quick questions, and feel free to fire
23:25
Speaker 1: anything at me as well. I'm going to give away
23:29
Speaker 1: my answer to the first one. First The very first
23:31
Speaker 1: ever mobile phone that I owned was an NEC Fire
23:36
Speaker 1: though I don't know if you remember that phone. It
23:38
Speaker 1: was a tiny, little brick phone. What was your first
23:40
Speaker 1: ever mobile phone?
23:42
Speaker 2: Nokier Thirshy something I don't even remember.
23:46
Speaker 1: It sounds like it was a precursor of the Noocky
23:48
Speaker 1: fifty one to ten brick that everyone laughs about.
23:51
Speaker 2: Yeah, it was. It was very very early, very early.
23:55
Speaker 1: What's the longest you've ever gone without checking your phone?
23:58
Speaker 2: I'd put my phone away. When I'm not wanting to
24:01
Speaker 2: be around my phone, I put it away. I have
24:04
Speaker 2: a box, so I'd say six hours probably. When I
24:08
Speaker 2: don't want my phone to interrupt me, I'll put it
24:10
Speaker 2: in a box with the other kids phones and we
24:13
Speaker 2: leave it there. What's hours?
24:15
Speaker 1: What's the most embarrassing tech failed that you've had while
24:20
Speaker 1: you're doing a live TV segment? Has anything just gone
24:23
Speaker 1: the bottom fallen out on Telly?
24:25
Speaker 2: Yes? The worst one. We were doing a robot lawnmower
24:30
Speaker 2: and we set this thing up in the studio at
24:32
Speaker 2: the Today Show and it was just mowing this synthetic
24:36
Speaker 2: grass area, and we'd set it all up the way
24:39
Speaker 2: we were told to set it up, but the robot
24:41
Speaker 2: lawnmer kept wanting to run out of the pen that
24:43
Speaker 2: we'd set up. And I'm talking with Ben Fordham and
24:47
Speaker 2: talking about this robot lawnmower and it's running towards his
24:50
Speaker 2: foot and it would have run over his foot had
24:54
Speaker 2: he not stomped on the emergency stop button. And this
24:58
Speaker 2: is all on live TV, and I was looking at it,
25:00
Speaker 2: just going I almost I almost took Ben's foot today.
25:05
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, probably not going to sell so many of
25:07
Speaker 1: those robot lawnmllers if that had to happen.
25:09
Speaker 2: They're much better today than they were ten years ago.
25:12
Speaker 2: I'll leave it at that.
25:13
Speaker 1: What app would you permanently delete from existence if you could?
25:18
Speaker 2: TikTok? Absolutely no question of that. I would get rid
25:23
Speaker 2: of TikTok so fast. I would burn the server farm
25:28
Speaker 2: down forever if I had the choice. I think that
25:31
Speaker 2: app is the worst app for so many reasons, across
25:37
Speaker 2: so many different areas of analysis and discussion, from privacy settings,
25:44
Speaker 2: from the general happiness of people who use it and
25:48
Speaker 2: how it can go wrong for them. It is just
25:51
Speaker 2: it is. So We're in the United States where they
25:53
Speaker 2: just last couple of weeks and they shut TikTok off
25:56
Speaker 2: for a day old. Yeah, yeah, well that's it. My
26:01
Speaker 2: sixteen year old who begrudgingly she uses it and I
26:05
Speaker 2: don't want it to but she's sixteen so she can
26:08
Speaker 2: use it. She says to me, Dad, I've got an
26:10
Speaker 2: Australian TikTok account, but I'm off I've been turned off
26:13
Speaker 2: when Yeah, so you know that TikTok knows exactly where
26:16
Speaker 2: in the world you are at any one time, don't you.
26:18
Speaker 2: And she was just like right, and I was like, yeah,
26:21
Speaker 2: well I know your location, that's not all I know
26:23
Speaker 2: about you. That's one example. That's why TikTok's not working now.
26:27
Speaker 2: So that's it. That's the probably too long an answer
26:31
Speaker 2: for what you're looking for. But I would permanently get
26:34
Speaker 2: rid of TikTok.
26:35
Speaker 1: Yeah.
26:35
Speaker 2: For me.
26:35
Speaker 1: The biggest concern about TikTok, and that's the one that
26:37
Speaker 1: I would get rid of as well, is the socio
26:39
Speaker 1: political ramifications of having this thing. So if the CCP
26:42
Speaker 1: wants something to happen, they just escalated into the algorithm
26:46
Speaker 1: and all of a sudden, everybody's on that side because
26:48
Speaker 1: there's so much material. It's just it's a propaganda machine.
26:51
Speaker 1: Designed by the CCP for China's ends. If China decides
26:54
Speaker 1: that they want to invade Taiwan, I would imagine that
26:56
Speaker 1: they would start to put a whole lot of propaganda
26:59
Speaker 1: out on TikTok, and when the young generation is flooded
27:03
Speaker 1: with it, they start to believe it. I just think
27:05
Speaker 1: it's a devastating and dangerous app. From a socio political perspective.
27:09
Speaker 2: TikTok is not good for so many different reasons, and
27:13
Speaker 2: that's one of them.
27:14
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's a lightning red And I know this is
27:15
Speaker 1: a parenting podcast, not a political podcast. But if they
27:17
Speaker 1: can do that when it comes to the politics of
27:21
Speaker 1: the world, global politics, it's no surprise that they can
27:25
Speaker 1: do all sorts of things and do allow all sorts
27:27
Speaker 1: all sorts of things when it comes to our young
27:29
Speaker 1: people and their well being or lack thereof. Last one
27:32
Speaker 1: for you in the lightning round, before we get back
27:33
Speaker 1: to a couple more serious questions and wrap things up, Charlie,
27:36
Speaker 1: if you could use only We're going to go in
27:37
Speaker 1: the other direction now. If you could use only one
27:39
Speaker 1: app for the rest of your life, what would it be?
27:41
Speaker 1: What is your favorite app?
27:43
Speaker 2: The one that I use all the time is maps.
27:47
Speaker 2: I use maps all the time, and I use it
27:51
Speaker 2: to get places faster, and I use it to get
27:54
Speaker 2: places on public transport because I love public transport. And
27:58
Speaker 2: I use it for learning about businesses and little small
28:02
Speaker 2: businesses that I can try and give business to, like
28:05
Speaker 2: cafes and restaurants and all those kinds of things. And
28:08
Speaker 2: I use it for exploring the world, Like I'll be
28:10
Speaker 2: sitting on a bus and I'll be like, going, where's
28:12
Speaker 2: a good place north of Sydney that's got a beautiful
28:16
Speaker 2: beach that allows me to camp in the woods nearby?
28:20
Speaker 2: And all that maps Google Maps.
28:23
Speaker 1: You know what I hadn't thought about the incredible amount
28:25
Speaker 1: of time that I use maps for. I'm in the
28:28
Speaker 1: process sometime this month. I'm supposed to get my new phone,
28:31
Speaker 1: the light Phone three, because I'm really trying to reduce
28:34
Speaker 1: my reliance on technology. But one of the essential things
28:38
Speaker 1: that it had to have was access to maps. If
28:40
Speaker 1: I can't get maps, then a phone is useless to me.
28:43
Speaker 1: So I hear what you're saying there, Okay, last couple
28:46
Speaker 1: of questions for you, looking ahead, let's say five years,
28:50
Speaker 1: maybe even ten years, what challenges do you think parents
28:54
Speaker 1: are going to be facing with tech that we might
28:56
Speaker 1: not be considering today, or would you say that it's
28:58
Speaker 1: just going to be more of the same.
29:00
Speaker 2: I think the ramifications of the poor decisions that we've
29:06
Speaker 2: been making and the poor allowances that we've been making
29:10
Speaker 2: are going to be much more present, and that is
29:16
Speaker 2: the impact of these products on our kids is going
29:21
Speaker 2: to be much more present. So the fifteen year olds
29:23
Speaker 2: will be twenty and twenty five, for example, five teen
29:27
Speaker 2: years we're going to really really see what those impacts are.
29:31
Speaker 2: I don't think we've really got an understanding of what
29:33
Speaker 2: they are yet. People like yourself obviously much more across
29:36
Speaker 2: what the likelihoods of those things are going to be
29:39
Speaker 2: than I am. That's the first thing I think. I
29:42
Speaker 2: actually do think the world is getting to the point
29:45
Speaker 2: where we're turning around to tech as parents and saying
29:49
Speaker 2: we'll make the decisions here, not you. And you know,
29:53
Speaker 2: we've seen Norway bring in these laws. They haven't enacted
29:56
Speaker 2: them yet about social media. Australia second, we haven't enacted
29:59
Speaker 2: them yet, but they're there. I think we're going to
30:02
Speaker 2: see country after country after country dropping those similar kinds
30:06
Speaker 2: of rules on their population. And I think as a
30:10
Speaker 2: group of people, we will be turning to big tech
30:13
Speaker 2: and saying, look, mate, we will make the decisions. Thank you.
30:17
Speaker 2: Thank you for giving me the opportunity to upload every
30:20
Speaker 2: single photo I've ever taken and tell me who's in
30:23
Speaker 2: them and who I should connect them with and all this.
30:26
Speaker 2: Thank you for all of these services. But I'm going
30:29
Speaker 2: to start making a few more decisions around what's right
30:32
Speaker 2: for me. And I'll give you one example. Right, So,
30:35
Speaker 2: for people who have who look at their screens too often,
30:39
Speaker 2: the hardest bit of pulling your screen away from your
30:42
Speaker 2: face is immediately when you do it. But I guarantee
30:46
Speaker 2: you in the hours and days leading from that point
30:50
Speaker 2: of reducing your screen time, you will feel better. You'll
30:57
Speaker 2: feel better, and parents should be done doing this, and
31:00
Speaker 2: kids should be doing this, and everyone in the everyone
31:02
Speaker 2: in the community should be doing it because you will
31:05
Speaker 2: feel better and you will have, in my view, a
31:08
Speaker 2: happier life from doing it.
31:09
Speaker 1: Yeah, well, said Charlie. Let's wrap this up. If there
31:13
Speaker 1: was just one thing something we would really concentrate on
31:16
Speaker 1: in the Family's podcast is as much as there's so
31:19
Speaker 1: much information out there, we can have a nice lengthy
31:23
Speaker 1: conversation like this and explore and unpack and play with ideas,
31:27
Speaker 1: but sometimes it's nice to distill it down to just
31:29
Speaker 1: the one thing. If there was just the one thing,
31:32
Speaker 1: the most valuable piece of advice that you could give
31:37
Speaker 1: to parents who are struggling with their kids in tech.
31:39
Speaker 1: Maybe it's something that a parent has said to you,
31:41
Speaker 1: maybe it's your own advice. What would that one thing
31:44
Speaker 1: be to give them some hope, some reassurance, or some
31:47
Speaker 1: direction as they grapple with the never ending creep of
31:51
Speaker 1: tech into our families lives.
31:54
Speaker 2: I think the thing is as hard as this is
31:56
Speaker 2: for you as the parent, just remember it's even harder
31:59
Speaker 2: for the kid who's going through it, because this desire
32:04
Speaker 2: to be using all this technology and apps and services
32:08
Speaker 2: is part of them wanting to part of them going
32:13
Speaker 2: through that transition of engagement and positive responses from their
32:20
Speaker 2: parents to engagement positive responses from their peers. It's right,
32:23
Speaker 2: So they're going through that transition. This is bundled in
32:26
Speaker 2: with that right, and it makes it really hard for
32:30
Speaker 2: them to do things that are different from what everybody
32:34
Speaker 2: else is doing. And I think you when you start
32:37
Speaker 2: with that understanding, everything that flows on from there will
32:43
Speaker 2: allow you to have the humility and the positivity towards
32:49
Speaker 2: working with them versus sitting there and telling them you
32:55
Speaker 2: know that what they're doing is like a bad thing,
32:59
Speaker 2: and that right sort of instead of scolding them, you're
33:01
Speaker 2: working with them. You're trying to work and engage with
33:04
Speaker 2: them and support them. And the more you do that
33:08
Speaker 2: with them, the better you will be and the better
33:11
Speaker 2: that they will be and when you come out of it,
33:12
Speaker 2: because it's only a team thing. Really, it is only
33:15
Speaker 2: a team thing in the level of concentration that we've had.
33:17
Speaker 2: By the time they get to the end of high
33:18
Speaker 2: school and into UNI or not UNI or whatever, that
33:22
Speaker 2: so many of them drop off this. And I can
33:24
Speaker 2: have another conversation with you about why the tech companies
33:26
Speaker 2: are scared stiff of these laws of no social media
33:29
Speaker 2: to under sixteens, for example, because they know they know
33:32
Speaker 2: as soon as they miss the engagement at that age,
33:34
Speaker 2: they're not getting them at a later age, and that's
33:36
Speaker 2: a loss of income. But getting through this stage with
33:40
Speaker 2: them and working with them, you will be happier and
33:44
Speaker 2: so will they. But by doing it collaboratively and positively
33:48
Speaker 2: with them, you'll be better off for it, and you
33:53
Speaker 2: will get through it.
33:55
Speaker 1: Really appreciate your time, Charlie. Charlie Brown has built a
33:58
Speaker 1: career around technology and its impact on families. He's worked
34:02
Speaker 1: with Channel nine and now he runs GME Phones. He's
34:07
Speaker 1: developed GME phones we'll linked to them in the show notes,
34:10
Speaker 1: aiming to balance children's access to technology with parental peace
34:14
Speaker 1: of mind. Charlie, wish you all the best with the phones,
34:17
Speaker 1: and thanks so much of the conversation.
34:19
Speaker 2: Great to talk to you justin. Look forward to talking
34:22
Speaker 2: to you again mate, and appreciate you having me on
34:24
Speaker 2: the podcast.
34:24
Speaker 1: Pretty sober in conversation and a lot to think about.
34:27
Speaker 1: Hopefully it's been helpful for you and the decisions that
34:29
Speaker 1: you're making around tech and your family. The Happy Families
34:32
Speaker 1: podcast produced by Justin Rouland from Bridge Media. If you
34:34
Speaker 1: would like more information about the stuff we've talked about,
34:37
Speaker 1: check the show notes and visit Happyfamilies dot com dot au.