Latest / Dr Justin Coulson's Happy Families / #510 Calling Time on Tik Tok?

Transcript

#510 Calling Time on Tik Tok? · Dr Justin Coulson's Happy Families

• 0:03
  Speaker 1: It's the Happy Families podcast. It's the podcast for the.
• 0:07
  Speaker 2: Time poor parent who just wants answers now.
• 0:10
  Speaker 1: And I think that the issue really with TikTok comes
• 0:12
  Speaker 1: out of this. You're swimming in the sewer. That's really
• 0:15
  Speaker 1: what it comes down to. Until you've got the algorithm
• 0:17
  Speaker 1: well trained, you're swimming in the sewer.
• 0:20
  Speaker 2: And now here's the stars of our show, my mum
• 0:23
  Speaker 2: and dad.
• 0:24
  Speaker 1: Hello, this is doctor Justin Coulson, the founder of Happy
• 0:27
  Speaker 1: Families dot com dot I you. I'm having eyes made
• 0:29
  Speaker 1: at me by my wife and podcast partner, missus Happy Families,
• 0:33
  Speaker 1: Kylie I roll. Is it because because of my dashing
• 0:36
  Speaker 1: good looks and the smile I had when I said
• 0:39
  Speaker 1: hello and welcome to the podcast? Was at it?
• 0:40
  Speaker 3: No, it was because you said tell me when you're ready.
• 0:43
  Speaker 1: Then I started talking. You didn't give me a chance.
• 0:46
  Speaker 1: Here I am with tickets on myself, and it was
• 0:48
  Speaker 1: just because I was being annoying. We need to give
• 0:51
  Speaker 1: you a warning, mums and dads, as we dive into
• 0:54
  Speaker 1: this podcast. Today's content may well, we're not actually sure
• 0:57
  Speaker 1: where this is going to go precisely, but there is
• 0:59
  Speaker 1: a possibility that there may be some content that is
• 1:01
  Speaker 1: not suitable for young ears. We may delve into some areas,
• 1:06
  Speaker 1: some conversations that you may prefer to only be heard
• 1:09
  Speaker 1: by mature adults. Of course we may be wrong, but
• 1:14
  Speaker 1: that's where I think this is going, because our conversation
• 1:16
  Speaker 1: today is about TikTok.
• 1:17
  Speaker 3: What's wrong with TikTok?
• 1:20
  Speaker 1: But TikTok gets a pretty bad rap families.
• 1:22
  Speaker 3: Well, I know that you've put a post up recently
• 1:25
  Speaker 3: and it kind of went nuts on social media.
• 1:28
  Speaker 1: Well, and my one wasn't the big one. Two of
• 1:30
  Speaker 1: my friends Rebecca Sparrow and Michelle Mitchell, who were both
• 1:33
  Speaker 1: posting about the same thing, and their ones really went
• 1:35
  Speaker 1: crazy because they were They were pretty much saying, get
• 1:38
  Speaker 1: your kids off TikTok. It's horrendous, it's awful, it's horrible,
• 1:41
  Speaker 1: it's no good, it's very bad, and your children will
• 1:44
  Speaker 1: not have their lives improved by TikTok.
• 1:47
  Speaker 3: I think you could say that about most social media.
• 1:49
  Speaker 2: Absolutely you could. You can kind of improve any of
• 1:51
  Speaker 2: our lives. Really don't think TikTok is an island there.
• 1:54
  Speaker 2: But my post was about Channel ten a news report
• 1:58
  Speaker 2: that they had last week. Chanla ten reports that TikTok
• 2:02
  Speaker 2: could soon be used for school assessments.
• 2:04
  Speaker 1: Now that's a headline.
• 2:06
  Speaker 3: I was going to say. It sounds like a headline.
• 2:08
  Speaker 1: They're not going to bring TikTok into the classroom, Well,
• 2:10
  Speaker 1: at least I don't believe that's what's going to happen.
• 2:12
  Speaker 1: What they've basically said is that TikTok and Instagram posts
• 2:17
  Speaker 1: could make their way into the classroom, replacing the old
• 2:19
  Speaker 1: fashioned way of teaching. Deacon Uni has been given nearly
• 2:23
  Speaker 1: half a million bucks by the FEDS to discover a
• 2:26
  Speaker 1: new way of implementing digital writing into high school classrooms
• 2:30
  Speaker 1: across the nation. So while kids are learning to write
• 2:33
  Speaker 1: a thousand or two thousand or three thousand word essays,
• 2:35
  Speaker 1: which is great, what the English curriculum may be updated
• 2:39
  Speaker 1: to include is how to develop social media content, how
• 2:43
  Speaker 1: to get complicated concepts across on social media platforms in
• 2:49
  Speaker 1: sixty seconds or less. How to put together a video
• 2:51
  Speaker 1: or how to put together a meme or a blog
• 2:53
  Speaker 1: post or a podcast so that you can communicate a
• 2:56
  Speaker 1: complex idea in a simple way. And TikTok is one
• 2:58
  Speaker 1: of those different forms of media, one of those social
• 3:02
  Speaker 1: media platforms where people do precisely that, so it turned
• 3:06
  Speaker 1: into a big blow up, a big storm, people saying
• 3:08
  Speaker 1: I'm not going to send my kids to school, our
• 3:10
  Speaker 1: homeschool if TikTok becomes part of the curriculum. I don't
• 3:13
  Speaker 1: think TikTok will become part of the curriculum, and I
• 3:15
  Speaker 1: don't think any parent needs to worry about it.
• 3:17
  Speaker 3: Hopefully it won't be your famous last words. Yeah, Okay,
• 3:21
  Speaker 3: So I'm going to sound really really naive here because
• 3:23
  Speaker 3: I actually have never used TikTok.
• 3:26
  Speaker 1: Yeah, so let's talk about TikTok because the news story
• 3:28
  Speaker 1: is kind of like a peg for this conversation. But
• 3:31
  Speaker 1: a lot of parents are up in arms about TikTok,
• 3:33
  Speaker 1: including Michelle Mitchell, who was wonderful and I respect and
• 3:36
  Speaker 1: love her, and beck Sparrow, who is just the best.
• 3:39
  Speaker 1: But they're both saying, let's get away from it, and
• 3:41
  Speaker 1: that's your concern. Why is everyone so up in arms.
• 3:44
  Speaker 3: Because in my day it was VCRs my day.
• 3:47
  Speaker 1: I love how you said that.
• 3:48
  Speaker 3: And DVDs and magazines, and now we've just got a
• 3:52
  Speaker 3: whole new level of concern for our children. And I
• 3:56
  Speaker 3: recognize that social media and you know, technology in general,
• 4:02
  Speaker 3: is a live stream twenty four to seven. I get that,
• 4:06
  Speaker 3: But the reality is our parents had things to worry
• 4:08
  Speaker 3: about that were silacious.
• 4:10
  Speaker 1: Silacious is a good word to describe it. Do you
• 4:12
  Speaker 1: know what was silacious when I was in high school?
• 4:14
  Speaker 1: When I was just about finished high school. I don't
• 4:16
  Speaker 1: know if you remember this song here. This is one
• 4:19
  Speaker 1: of the big things that parents were worried about in
• 4:22
  Speaker 1: the early nineteen nineties. It was rage video hits. It
• 4:26
  Speaker 1: was music like this from Columi Bad that was really
• 4:30
  Speaker 1: getting parents worried about it. I'm kind of reliving my
• 4:34
  Speaker 1: DJ days right now, But do you remember this song
• 4:36
  Speaker 1: and how upset our parents got about this one? Come then,
• 4:39
  Speaker 1: scientific you're good, I'll make it fear. Do you remember
• 4:43
  Speaker 1: where this goes? Do you remember the words this?
• 4:46
  Speaker 3: Let's just say that all video music videos were banned
• 4:51
  Speaker 3: in my house.
• 4:52
  Speaker 1: I was not.
• 4:52
  Speaker 3: Allowed to watch them.
• 4:53
  Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, that's right because they had they had song
• 4:56
  Speaker 1: lyrics like this.
• 5:00
  Speaker 3: Young I don't think my mum was so worried about
• 5:03
  Speaker 3: the lyrics. She was very worried about that. I think
• 5:06
  Speaker 3: she was worried about the pictures.
• 5:08
  Speaker 1: Yeah, well, that's right. I mean that was so, like
• 5:10
  Speaker 1: you said, so salacious because they said things like this.
• 5:15
  Speaker 1: I can't believe I played that. Do you remember that?
• 5:17
  Speaker 3: Yes, I do remember that.
• 5:19
  Speaker 1: So, Kyli, your point is exactly right. For decades, there's
• 5:23
  Speaker 1: been something in fact before that. I mean, in the
• 5:25
  Speaker 1: nineteen sixties it was rock and roll, and in the
• 5:28
  Speaker 1: nineteen twenties there were I'm.
• 5:30
  Speaker 3: Sure there were beetles for goodness.
• 5:31
  Speaker 1: Now, that was yeah, the nineteen sixties, nineteen twenties. Yeah,
• 5:34
  Speaker 1: but back in the eighteen hundreds, I've read some historical
• 5:36
  Speaker 1: stuff about what happened in novels, and novels were the
• 5:38
  Speaker 1: and there was so much stuff that people have been
• 5:42
  Speaker 1: worried about that our youth are going to be corrupted
• 5:44
  Speaker 1: by and there's evidence that our youth have been corrupted
• 5:46
  Speaker 1: by it in anyways. Right, So we're rights to be
• 5:49
  Speaker 1: concerned about many of these things.
• 5:50
  Speaker 3: Yeah, I'm not suggesting for a second we turn a
• 5:52
  Speaker 3: blind eye to it, but I am suggesting that we're
• 5:54
  Speaker 3: there has always been concerns. So, yes, why is there
• 5:57
  Speaker 3: so much concern about TikTok right now? Because what I
• 6:00
  Speaker 3: see of TikTok is my friends with their kids doing
• 6:03
  Speaker 3: a whole HYPERCUTSI dance moves.
• 6:05
  Speaker 1: Yes, well, well, there's a lot more on TikTok than
• 6:07
  Speaker 1: just that, okay, but in the same way that everybody
• 6:09
  Speaker 1: lost the plot when MySpace came out.
• 6:12
  Speaker 3: Well they lost the plot when Facebook.
• 6:13
  Speaker 1: Well that came out after MySpace and we said all
• 6:15
  Speaker 1: my Space was bad and up, and now we've got Facebook.
• 6:17
  Speaker 1: This thing's terrible. And then everyone lost it when Instagram
• 6:20
  Speaker 1: came out, and then everyone was up in arms about Snapchat.
• 6:24
  Speaker 1: I mean, Snapchat was the devil for such a long time.
• 6:27
  Speaker 3: So is it just that each time something new comes
• 6:29
  Speaker 3: on that the old devil just kind of goes pales
• 6:33
  Speaker 3: into insignificance because.
• 6:34
  Speaker 1: We're familiar with it, and what we're familiar with doesn't
• 6:36
  Speaker 1: scare us nearly as much. And there's Tumbler, and there's Twitter.
• 6:41
  Speaker 1: How much damage has been done by those websites, and
• 6:44
  Speaker 1: there's read It And now we're dealing with TikTok, and
• 6:47
  Speaker 1: there will be another one in another few years.
• 6:48
  Speaker 3: Becausetok's been around for a long time.
• 6:50
  Speaker 1: It has. It used to be music dot ly or musically,
• 6:53
  Speaker 1: but it's just sort of expanded and changed. It changed completely.
• 6:57
  Speaker 1: So there's a whole lot of things to be worried
• 6:58
  Speaker 1: about with TikTok, But those things are the same with
• 7:01
  Speaker 1: any other platform. When I did that Facebook post about
• 7:04
  Speaker 1: the Channel ten thing, I threw in a quick little
• 7:07
  Speaker 1: aside about TikTok, and I just said, this, TikTok is
• 7:10
  Speaker 1: absolutely not for everyone, just like Instagram or Facebook or
• 7:13
  Speaker 1: Twitter or tumble or Snapchat or Instagram or Reddit or
• 7:16
  Speaker 1: any of the other ones are not for everyone, and
• 7:19
  Speaker 1: I would advise a healthy amount of caution in its use,
• 7:22
  Speaker 1: especially for kids and younger teens. In other words, what
• 7:25
  Speaker 1: I'm saying is they shouldn't be on there, but they
• 7:26
  Speaker 1: shouldn't be on any social media platforms. But saying that
• 7:29
  Speaker 1: a social media platform is outright bad is kind of
• 7:32
  Speaker 1: like saying that visiting a particular country is bad. It
• 7:34
  Speaker 1: really depends on where you stay, who you hang out with,
• 7:36
  Speaker 1: and what you get up to while you're there. All
• 7:38
  Speaker 1: the TV is bad, then that's exactly right. And visiting
• 7:41
  Speaker 1: the local public library can be bad as well. Do
• 7:44
  Speaker 1: you know what I mean? You can pick anything and
• 7:46
  Speaker 1: you can find the bad in it. Way to school
• 7:49
  Speaker 1: to school is bad.
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  Speaker 3: My kids come home the thinks they come home from
• 7:52
  Speaker 3: the playground, Yeah, just conversations. They don't even have to
• 7:55
  Speaker 3: look at a screen.
• 7:56
  Speaker 1: Yeah, the Internet's bad. Everything is bad if you want
• 7:59
  Speaker 1: to look at that way. TikTok has its fair share
• 8:02
  Speaker 1: of difficulties. There's a whole lot of TikTok challenges, but
• 8:05
  Speaker 1: there's always been social media challenges. Facebook us to have them.
• 8:08
  Speaker 1: A whole lot of other people have had them as well,
• 8:09
  Speaker 1: and this is what we need to deal with. So
• 8:11
  Speaker 1: after the break, let's talk about what parents can do
• 8:13
  Speaker 1: to make the TikTok experience safer. Imagine a relationship where
• 8:21
  Speaker 1: you felt seen, heard and valued. One where as your
• 8:25
  Speaker 1: partner enters the front door, they see you and their
• 8:28
  Speaker 1: eyes light up. A relationship like that is a gift.
• 8:32
  Speaker 1: If you don't have it now you can. The Happy
• 8:35
  Speaker 1: Family's webinar Better Together gives you the insight, tools and
• 8:39
  Speaker 1: support you need to have a happier relationship, Available now
• 8:43
  Speaker 1: at the Happy Famili's webshop.
• 8:45
  Speaker 3: It's the Happy Families podcast, the podcast for the time
• 8:47
  Speaker 3: poor parent who just wants answers now and I'm wondering,
• 8:50
  Speaker 3: let's just answers. I'd really like some answers right now.
• 8:54
  Speaker 3: I don't actually understand what all the fuss is about.
• 8:57
  Speaker 1: It's about people being paranoid because the don't unders something,
• 9:00
  Speaker 1: and it's the reality is when you get onto TikTok,
• 9:03
  Speaker 1: it puts content in front of you that is popular,
• 9:06
  Speaker 1: and a lot of the popular content is coarse and
• 9:08
  Speaker 1: vulgar and explicit and hard to take. And the algorithm
• 9:12
  Speaker 1: is sophisticated in that what you like and what you dismiss,
• 9:15
  Speaker 1: it will learn what your tastes and preferences are and
• 9:18
  Speaker 1: it will bring that stuff in and exclude the other stuff.
• 9:21
  Speaker 1: So within a couple of weeks of using TikTok, Kylie,
• 9:24
  Speaker 1: your feed would probably be full of rainbows and unicorns and.
• 9:27
  Speaker 3: No, it would be full of interiors.
• 9:29
  Speaker 1: Interiors and flowers and all of the beautiful things that
• 9:32
  Speaker 1: like to. I mean, I jumped onto TikTok. Just the
• 9:35
  Speaker 1: other week, I was doing a presentation for five hundred
• 9:37
  Speaker 1: and fifty year eleven students at Mansfield State High School.
• 9:39
  Speaker 1: We were talking about anxiety. Now, the reality is that
• 9:41
  Speaker 1: probably about one hundred of those kids in that room
• 9:45
  Speaker 1: would have found what I was talking about specific to
• 9:47
  Speaker 1: them and their needs. Most kids at that age and
• 9:50
  Speaker 1: not dealing with any major anxiety issues. But that was
• 9:52
  Speaker 1: the topic I was given, and that's what they wanted
• 9:54
  Speaker 1: to hear about. So when I did that presentation, I
• 9:57
  Speaker 1: needed to find a way to make it relevant, and
• 9:59
  Speaker 1: I got on a tick and I found some amazingly
• 10:01
  Speaker 1: great content around mental health, wellbeing, anxiety. And as soon
• 10:05
  Speaker 1: as I played those tiktoks, great content communicated concisely in
• 10:10
  Speaker 1: a fun and creative way by the content creators, And
• 10:13
  Speaker 1: those year eleven students loved what I was sharing because
• 10:16
  Speaker 1: it came from TikTok. Like they were just so in know,
• 10:18
  Speaker 1: they really really enjoyed it. TikTok's full of amazing content,
• 10:21
  Speaker 1: but I'm not going to be a defender of it.
• 10:23
  Speaker 1: It's also full of filth, like literally stuff not just
• 10:27
  Speaker 1: it's not just not for kids, it's not for human
• 10:29
  Speaker 1: consumption some of the stuff. And I can't believe that
• 10:31
  Speaker 1: people really create it. So if you're a parent and
• 10:34
  Speaker 1: your kids want to be on TikTok, here are my
• 10:37
  Speaker 1: main ideas.
• 10:39
  Speaker 3: Did these ideas flow over into any social media platform?
• 10:43
  Speaker 1: They do? Yeah, they're not TikTok specific, because TikTok isn't
• 10:47
  Speaker 1: really anything particularly new or particularly different. It's just a
• 10:51
  Speaker 1: new way of doing social media.
• 10:53
  Speaker 3: So obviously having children for quite some time now and
• 10:57
  Speaker 3: having them go through different stages. Yes, there has different
• 11:00
  Speaker 3: social media platforms available and popular at different stages of
• 11:06
  Speaker 3: each of our children's lives. And we've had to go
• 11:09
  Speaker 3: through this process and number of times.
• 11:11
  Speaker 1: It's exhausting.
• 11:12
  Speaker 3: It is so exhausting. So how do we as parents
• 11:16
  Speaker 3: help our children to navigate this safely because the reality
• 11:19
  Speaker 3: is we are not going to be looking over their
• 11:21
  Speaker 3: shoulder twenty four to seven.
• 11:22
  Speaker 1: No, No, that's right. And by the way, there are
• 11:24
  Speaker 1: a lot of parents who say, oh, I'm just not
• 11:25
  Speaker 1: going to let to use it, and with kindness, my
• 11:29
  Speaker 1: response is, good luck with that, because you might not
• 11:32
  Speaker 1: let them use it, but they'll still find a way
• 11:33
  Speaker 1: to download it onto their device and then they'll delete
• 11:36
  Speaker 1: it before they come home, and then they'll download it
• 11:38
  Speaker 1: again to morrow and delete it. That that's the daily
• 11:40
  Speaker 1: thing that they'll do. And if you've got a way
• 11:42
  Speaker 1: of getting around that, they'll watch it on their friend's device,
• 11:44
  Speaker 1: or they'll have an account somewhere else, or they'll have
• 11:46
  Speaker 1: the account that you see and then the account that
• 11:48
  Speaker 1: they've really got. These are not high tech, sophisticated ways
• 11:51
  Speaker 1: of getting around it. That's just what they do. So
• 11:52
  Speaker 1: here's what we need to do. Number One, no social
• 11:55
  Speaker 1: media for kids that are underage now, and I've just
• 11:57
  Speaker 1: said that they'll find a way and if they really
• 11:59
  Speaker 1: want to, they will. But the good news is while
• 12:01
  Speaker 1: your kids are under about twelve or thirteen, they usually
• 12:03
  Speaker 1: tend to be pretty compliant. They're usually pretty willing to
• 12:05
  Speaker 1: go along with what you say as a parent. They're
• 12:07
  Speaker 1: usually willing, reasonably willing to toe the line. They are
• 12:11
  Speaker 1: still scared of mum or dad or parent or caregivers
• 12:14
  Speaker 1: saying that's it. I've had enough, that's not allowed and
• 12:17
  Speaker 1: I won't accept it. They kind of toe the line.
• 12:19
  Speaker 1: But once they get into their early teens high school,
• 12:22
  Speaker 1: you lose that leverage. So second thing is be involved,
• 12:27
  Speaker 1: actively involved, have the conversations, monitor converse. The other day,
• 12:32
  Speaker 1: I did this thing with our sorry, our fourteen year
• 12:36
  Speaker 1: old and our eighteen year old. I invited them into
• 12:39
  Speaker 1: the bedroom one at a time and said, hey, next
• 12:41
  Speaker 1: thirty minutes, ask me anything. Like on Instagram they do
• 12:44
  Speaker 1: a lot of people will do and ask me anything,
• 12:46
  Speaker 1: or on Facebook they just say hey, I'm here, I'm
• 12:47
  Speaker 1: doing a live ask me anything, and then they reply
• 12:50
  Speaker 1: to all the comments or they do a story or
• 12:52
  Speaker 1: whatever it is. As a result, of it, but I
• 12:53
  Speaker 1: decided to do a face to face ask me anything
• 12:55
  Speaker 1: with the kids one on one, And this is an
• 12:57
  Speaker 1: opportunity because they ask me anything about social media, ask
• 12:59
  Speaker 1: me anything about morality or alcohol and other drugs, or
• 13:02
  Speaker 1: ask me anything about this or that, and it was great.
• 13:05
  Speaker 1: Just haven't asked me anything with them and let them
• 13:08
  Speaker 1: ask those questions. Be involved though, by monitoring, by looking
• 13:11
  Speaker 1: over their shoulder, by having the conversations and saying, hey,
• 13:14
  Speaker 1: guess what. I know that you're fifteen, but TikTok is
• 13:18
  Speaker 1: a place that has real concerns for me, and so
• 13:22
  Speaker 1: as a result, what can I do to make sure
• 13:24
  Speaker 1: that you're safe? How are we going to work out
• 13:25
  Speaker 1: a way that I can be actively involved in the
• 13:27
  Speaker 1: monitoring of your account from time to time so that
• 13:30
  Speaker 1: I know that you're not listening to song lyrics that
• 13:33
  Speaker 1: talk about I'm not going to directly quote this, but
• 13:36
  Speaker 1: for parents who do not know these soundtracks that people
• 13:39
  Speaker 1: put over their tiktoks and over their Instagram reels and
• 13:42
  Speaker 1: over their Facebook reels, there are songs about oral sex.
• 13:45
  Speaker 1: There are songs about all kinds of explicit intimate penetration
• 13:49
  Speaker 1: that just don't belong in the minds of children, full stop.
• 13:52
  Speaker 1: End of story. And so as parents we've got to
• 13:54
  Speaker 1: be monitoring and be involved and me having the conversations
• 13:56
  Speaker 1: and going over that. My third thing is that set
• 13:59
  Speaker 1: the set the settings to private. TikTok is known as
• 14:03
  Speaker 1: soon as you open up an account to have a
• 14:05
  Speaker 1: default that everything is public, everything goes out to the public.
• 14:08
  Speaker 1: So change that default setting to private. Contact from strangers
• 14:12
  Speaker 1: is common on TikTok, and you've got to change those
• 14:15
  Speaker 1: settings there. Like I said, talk to your kids about
• 14:18
  Speaker 1: explicit content, talk to them about taking risks. So there's
• 14:20
  Speaker 1: a lot of challenges that happen on TikTok. Challenges are
• 14:23
  Speaker 1: all the go you talked about the dances. The dancers
• 14:25
  Speaker 1: are kind of a challenge. There are other challenges as well,
• 14:27
  Speaker 1: some recent ones that I have either seen or heard of.
• 14:31
  Speaker 1: There was one that was called the back cracking challenge,
• 14:34
  Speaker 1: where they just film each other cracking the back of
• 14:36
  Speaker 1: their friend like they've got no training, they've got no
• 14:38
  Speaker 1: way of knowing if they're going to do any kind
• 14:40
  Speaker 1: of significant harm, but they just grab their friend and
• 14:42
  Speaker 1: crack their back just because they're so strong, because it's
• 14:45
  Speaker 1: so funny. Not a great idea of there's the nutmeg challenge.
• 14:50
  Speaker 3: I'm guessing they've got to eat a spoonful of nutmeat.
• 14:53
  Speaker 1: Yeah yeah, you stick a whole lot of nutmeke down
• 14:55
  Speaker 1: your gobs, swallow it. I mean it's been shown to
• 14:58
  Speaker 1: affect the nervous system, cause hallucinations, It can cause dizziness
• 15:02
  Speaker 1: and nausea and dry mouth obviously. Can you imagine eating
• 15:06
  Speaker 1: all that nutmeg? And it can even cause seizures and confusion.
• 15:10
  Speaker 1: So it's a really dangerous thing. But it was a
• 15:11
  Speaker 1: challenge that was done on TikTok and so there are
• 15:13
  Speaker 1: real safety issues. There was the full wax I got
• 15:16
  Speaker 1: that wrong, the full face wax. It's the word, the
• 15:18
  Speaker 1: full face wax challenge.
• 15:20
  Speaker 3: Oh I did see that one. Yes, was that actually
• 15:22
  Speaker 3: a thing? Yeah?
• 15:23
  Speaker 1: Yeah, that was a challenge. So they put it on
• 15:25
  Speaker 1: there as a skincare routine where they cover their entire
• 15:28
  Speaker 1: face with wax, and I mean there's real risks associated
• 15:34
  Speaker 1: with that, not to mention the pain that it can inflict.
• 15:36
  Speaker 1: Can you imagine waxing your off now?
• 15:38
  Speaker 3: I watched this guy who had.
• 15:41
  Speaker 1: That's nut and there's a whole lot of other challenges
• 15:44
  Speaker 1: as well that happened as well, So you want to
• 15:45
  Speaker 1: talk to your kids about risk taking and reporting. They
• 15:47
  Speaker 1: need to know how to report stuff that's unsafe, bullying, harassment,
• 15:52
  Speaker 1: sexual explicit, all that sort of stuff, and most people don't.
• 15:55
  Speaker 1: Most people think that it's par for the course. And
• 15:57
  Speaker 1: I think that the issue really with TikTok comes out
• 15:59
  Speaker 1: of this. You're swimming in the sewer. That's really what
• 16:03
  Speaker 1: it comes down to. Until you've got the algorithm well trained,
• 16:05
  Speaker 1: you're swimming in the sewer. And it takes a couple
• 16:09
  Speaker 1: of weeks to train the algorithm, a couple of weeks
• 16:11
  Speaker 1: of an hour a day using it. There are some
• 16:13
  Speaker 1: people who use it more than that and still don't
• 16:15
  Speaker 1: get the algorithm trained completely because the algorithm always throws
• 16:18
  Speaker 1: something up as a curveball, just to check are you
• 16:20
  Speaker 1: interested in this? This is hot, This is popular right now,
• 16:23
  Speaker 1: and sometimes the most hot, most popular stuff is really coarse,
• 16:25
  Speaker 1: really explicit, really vulgar, and yet it still pops up
• 16:28
  Speaker 1: because even if you don't have anything like that in
• 16:31
  Speaker 1: your feed, it's hot and popular. So we just wanted
• 16:33
  Speaker 1: to check.
• 16:34
  Speaker 3: So what I'm really hearing from you is just the
• 16:38
  Speaker 3: same conversation that we have over and over again, we
• 16:40
  Speaker 3: need to be in our children's lives. We need to
• 16:43
  Speaker 3: be having those conversations with them, and we need to
• 16:45
  Speaker 3: be kind of checking out.
• 16:47
  Speaker 1: Basically, it's the same conversation that we were having in
• 16:49
  Speaker 1: the nineteen eighties and nineteen nineties about what the kids
• 16:52
  Speaker 1: were watching on their VCR yeah, or on video hits.
• 16:55
  Speaker 1: It's the same conversation we were having when Facebook was
• 16:57
  Speaker 1: a thing and no parents were using it, only the
• 16:59
  Speaker 1: kids were using it. It's the same conversation we were
• 17:01
  Speaker 1: having when only children were using Snapchat and Instagram and
• 17:04
  Speaker 1: adults weren't. And what happens is all of the adults
• 17:07
  Speaker 1: get used to it and start to use it, and
• 17:10
  Speaker 1: the kids like, hey, we don't want to be here.
• 17:11
  Speaker 1: This were all the grownups, huh. So they go to
• 17:13
  Speaker 1: the next thing. That's all that's happening, and TikTok is
• 17:16
  Speaker 1: the next thing, And of course the developers of these
• 17:19
  Speaker 1: apps keep on coming up with something unique, something a
• 17:21
  Speaker 1: little bit different, just a little bit of a tweak
• 17:23
  Speaker 1: on the last thing to make this new novel hot, cool, fun, interesting,
• 17:28
  Speaker 1: And that's where the kids go, and all the grown
• 17:29
  Speaker 1: up sit here and say, oh, my goodness, is terrible
• 17:31
  Speaker 1: so this is that, and you know what, they're right
• 17:33
  Speaker 1: every single time, Like those music clips, the song that
• 17:36
  Speaker 1: I played before, it's explicit, it's not content that's for kids.
• 17:40
  Speaker 1: In fact, often it's not even content that's for teenagers.
• 17:43
  Speaker 1: And it's the same with MySpace and Facebook and Instagram,
• 17:45
  Speaker 1: and we can go through the whole social media history.
• 17:48
  Speaker 1: The stuff that's there is not for kids, and TikTok
• 17:50
  Speaker 1: is no different. Our job as parents therefore is to
• 17:53
  Speaker 1: work with our kids to keep them safe. That's the
• 17:55
  Speaker 1: take home message, full stop. End of story. And by
• 17:57
  Speaker 1: the way, there'll be another new app just in time
• 17:59
  Speaker 1: for our next daughter, who is currently eight, to enter
• 18:01
  Speaker 1: her team, so that we can freak out about that
• 18:03
  Speaker 1: one as well.
• 18:03
  Speaker 3: Well. I'm not sure if everyone's gonna have any warm
• 18:07
  Speaker 3: fuzzies after Today's not.
• 18:10
  Speaker 1: A comforting conversation, Like I'm actually getting.
• 18:13
  Speaker 3: A little bit a little bit, I'm feeling your heat
• 18:16
  Speaker 3: right now.
• 18:17
  Speaker 1: It's not a comfortable conversation. But I can't say this
• 18:20
  Speaker 1: clearly enough. Banning it won't work.
• 18:22
  Speaker 3: The kids will just get sacree the whole hard they will.
• 18:25
  Speaker 1: Now, Now, we do ban our kids from it until
• 18:29
  Speaker 1: they get to a certain age, and once they get
• 18:31
  Speaker 1: to that age, we say, you know what, We've asked
• 18:32
  Speaker 1: you not to do it for this long. We now
• 18:34
  Speaker 1: know that you're at a point where you can do
• 18:35
  Speaker 1: whatever you want without us knowing, and therefore let's have
• 18:39
  Speaker 1: the conversation. We still want to discourage it. We don't
• 18:42
  Speaker 1: want you to do it. We're going to keep you
• 18:43
  Speaker 1: away from it for as long as we can. But
• 18:45
  Speaker 1: if you're going to have it, we've got to have
• 18:47
  Speaker 1: the conversation. And that's where parents ultimately have to get to.
• 18:50
  Speaker 3: Well, hopefully you found something that's been helpful well out
• 18:54
  Speaker 3: of today's conversation.
• 18:55
  Speaker 1: Yeah, helpful, probably discouraging, but helpful. That's the aim of
• 18:59
  Speaker 1: the conversation. Kyli. Thanks for asking the questions and thanks
• 19:02
  Speaker 1: for admitting that you don't know much about it. I'm
• 19:03
  Speaker 1: kind of glad that you don't, because life's better than TikTok,
• 19:07
  Speaker 1: let's be honest. The Happy Families podcast is produced by
• 19:10
  Speaker 1: Justin rolland from Bridge Media. Craig Bruce is our executive
• 19:12
  Speaker 1: producer and Tomorrow I'll do better Tomorrow. It's the podcast
• 19:16
  Speaker 1: where we dive into the week that was and find
• 19:19
  Speaker 1: what worked and what didn't. We really look forward to
• 19:21
  Speaker 1: your joining us tomorrow for that conversation on the Happy
• 19:24
  Speaker 1: Families podcast.