Latest / Dr Justin Coulson's Happy Families / When Your Phone Gets Between You and Your Child

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When Your Phone Gets Between You and Your Child · Dr Justin Coulson's Happy Families

• 0:05
  Speaker 1: Today on the Happy Families podcast, it's a research roundup.
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  Speaker 1: Every Thursday, we like to look at the latest research,
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  Speaker 1: what's been happening in the scientific world that can help
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  Speaker 1: our families to do better. And we've got a couple
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  Speaker 1: of big ones for you today that I'm really excited
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  Speaker 1: to share with you. First up, students who rely heavily
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  Speaker 1: on AI chatbots for schoolwork. The results are in. How
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  Speaker 1: are they scoring in science and reading tests compared to
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  Speaker 1: their peers? We're going to fill you in on the
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  Speaker 1: latest there. Additionally, there's some brand new studies. that suggest
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  Speaker 1: that fubbing, that is snubbing someone in favor of your phone,
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  Speaker 1: can leave people feeling excluded. Now a new study asks,
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  Speaker 1: what happens when teens are fubbed by their parental figures?
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  Speaker 1: We'll find out since they do it to us so much. Oh,
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  Speaker 1: and one that's probably not very helpful, but kind of interesting,
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  Speaker 1: early puberty is linked to higher anxiety risk in girls.
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  Speaker 1: We'll talk more about what that means for us as
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  Speaker 1: parents and what we can do about it since we
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  Speaker 1: can't actually slow puberty down. Stay with us. All that
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  Speaker 1: and more next. Hello, welcome to the Happy Families podcast,
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  Speaker 1: real parenting solutions every day on Australia's most downloaded parenting podcast.
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  Speaker 1: We are Justin and Kylie Coulson. It's Thursday, 15th of October,
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  Speaker 1: and there is some parenting news and research and science
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  Speaker 1: going on, Kylie.
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  Speaker 2: Well, I'm trying to work out why you're making up
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  Speaker 2: for lost time.
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  Speaker 1: What do you mean?
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  Speaker 2: Well, we're usually going to talk about one, and you
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  Speaker 2: want to try and squeeze four in? I just.
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  Speaker 1: It's three. It's three. There's so much going on, and
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  Speaker 1: I couldn't select one. But we're going to go quickly,
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  Speaker 1: which means that we get to cover a whole bunch
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  Speaker 1: of stuff that's really useful and really important. All right.
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  Speaker 2: Well, shoot me. Let's go.
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  Speaker 1: I love how you said, shoot me, as opposed to
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  Speaker 1: just shoot. You've never really liked these ones, have you?
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  Speaker 1: Here's the first one, then. This was reported by Lucy
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  Speaker 1: Carroll in The Australian a couple of weeks back, and
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  Speaker 1: it's really concerning because AI is everywhere. You talk to teachers,
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  Speaker 1: you talk to university lecturers, talk to teachers in primary school,
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  Speaker 1: for goodness sakes, and kids are using it all over
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  Speaker 1: the place. We were recently spending some time with my
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  Speaker 1: parents and my mum is talking to ChatGPT like she's
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  Speaker 1: forgotten how to make decisions. She's 70 years old. She's
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  Speaker 1: managed to get through 70 years of life. Well, she's
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  Speaker 1: more than 70. She's managed to get through all these
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  Speaker 1: years of life and somehow, somehow, all of a sudden,
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  Speaker 1: Chat GPT is on the scene and my mum's capacity
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  Speaker 1: to make decisions without conferring with the computer have gone
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  Speaker 1: down the gurgler. It's called cognitive offloading and it's bad
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  Speaker 1: for our brains. Although we did eat at a really
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  Speaker 1: good restaurant because chat GPT sent us to exactly the
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  Speaker 1: right place.
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  Speaker 2: So it has its place.
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  Speaker 1: It does have its place. However, the place is not
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  Speaker 1: the classroom. Here's what Lucy Carroll reported. Students who rely
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  Speaker 1: heavily on AI chatbots for schoolwork scored about 30 points
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  Speaker 1: lower in science and reading tests than their peers who
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  Speaker 1: rarely use them. This is based on a new analysis
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  Speaker 1: of the PISA assessment, the Program for International Student Assessment.
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  Speaker 1: What they're basically saying is that we should be deeply
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  Speaker 1: concerned that school children are using chatbots because they're short-circuiting
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  Speaker 1: their learning and undermining their ability to think, retain thoughts.
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  Speaker 1: and recall core information. The cognitive offloading has arrived.
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  Speaker 2: So what are the specifics with this particular research?
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  Speaker 1: Yeah, okay. So this looked at Australian students who report
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  Speaker 1: the highest use for AI for schoolwork weekly or more.
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  Speaker 1: They scored 505 in the PISA in science compared with
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  Speaker 1: a score of 535 for those who rarely use it.
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  Speaker 1: those numbers don't mean anything. It's kind of like when
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  Speaker 1: you go over a bridge and they say, this is
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  Speaker 1: the flood level or the, you listen to the news
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  Speaker 1: and they're like the river flooded to 5.35 meters. You're like, well,
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  Speaker 1: how big is it normally? And it's 5.3. Like, what
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  Speaker 1: does that really mean? So a gap of 30 points,
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  Speaker 1: adjusted socioeconomic background basically says the heaviest AI users are
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  Speaker 1: about a year and a half of schooling behind those
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  Speaker 1: who use it the least. That's, What's the word for it? Oh, yeah, catastrophic.
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  Speaker 1: A year and a half behind. So the more you're
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  Speaker 1: using AI, the more likely it is that you'll be
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  Speaker 1: behind in school. And PISA, which looks specifically at kids
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  Speaker 1: in grade nine, 15-year-old kids, a year and a half
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  Speaker 1: behind if you're a heavy AI user. And Kylie, a
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  Speaker 1: similar gap was found in the reading test results. Students
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  Speaker 1: who report regular use of chatbots for schoolwork scoring 32
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  Speaker 1: points behind those who rarely or never use AI. Smaller
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  Speaker 1: gap in maths, only 14 points. But once again, we're
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  Speaker 1: talking about a year and a half, a year and
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  Speaker 1: a half. Now, there's one thing that I will chuck
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  Speaker 1: in here that I think is really important. We don't
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  Speaker 1: know where those kids were before they were using AI.
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  Speaker 1: So it might be that the kids who aren't doing
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  Speaker 1: well are using AI rather than the kids who are
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  Speaker 1: using AI not doing well. Do you know what I mean?
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  Speaker 1: Like directionality, causality here really, really matters. But what else
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  Speaker 1: matters is this, the way that children use chatbots matters.
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  Speaker 1: So pupils who rely on AI to draft texts for
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  Speaker 1: written assignments and to summarize a text, they perform way
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  Speaker 1: worse than those who are using a chatbot for something
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  Speaker 1: like do some preliminary research on a new topic or
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  Speaker 1: help me to learn. Much smaller score differences there. It
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  Speaker 1: really comes down to how you're using it. Worth also highlighting.
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  Speaker 1: In June, Norway put a blanket ban on AI in
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  Speaker 1: primary school classrooms so that they could combat these risks
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  Speaker 1: because they know that it's harming critical thinking and it's
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  Speaker 1: allowing students to skip fundamental steps in learning to read
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  Speaker 1: and write.
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  Speaker 2: So is there anything else in the PISA that was
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  Speaker 2: worth noting?
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  Speaker 1: Yeah, there's a couple of things that I've noted here.
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  Speaker 1: The first one, so PISA tested 15,000 kids last year
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  Speaker 1: in reading maths and science. They showed the teenagers have
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  Speaker 1: slipped two years behind where students were 20 years ago.
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  Speaker 1: I want to say that's catastrophic. Like two years behind,
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  Speaker 1: we're making school potentially a little bit easier. There's a
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  Speaker 1: whole lot more cognitive offloading. 20 years ago, let me
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  Speaker 1: just put this in context. 20 years ago, Kevin Rudd
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  Speaker 1: promised us an education revolution and said that we needed
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  Speaker 1: to get laptops and tablets in front of every student
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  Speaker 1: in every classroom in the country.
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  Speaker 2: I don't know.
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  Speaker 1: Can we put Kevin Rudd in as possibly the worst
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  Speaker 1: prime minister ever? Does that sound too political? In terms
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  Speaker 1: of the outcomes for our children's education, this has been
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  Speaker 1: a catastrophic decision.
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  Speaker 2: I don't see it that way.
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  Speaker 1: In what way? How can you say that when the
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  Speaker 1: numbers have gone so far down?
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  Speaker 2: Because I look at the pressure that our kids are
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  Speaker 2: under to perform and based on the pathway that we've
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  Speaker 2: chosen for our younger children, I'm not so worried about
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  Speaker 2: when they learn. I'm just worried about how they're learning.
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  Speaker 2: And if that means that they are learning at a
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  Speaker 2: slightly slower rate than they did 20 years ago, I
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  Speaker 2: don't see that as problematic at all.
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  Speaker 1: Given that I'm very, very, very outspoken on school issues,
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  Speaker 1: it's really hard for me to argue with your points
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  Speaker 1: because I totally agree with you. But when I look
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  Speaker 1: at the numbers, what I would say is our education
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  Speaker 1: system is not working. The kids are disengaging. They're stepping away.
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  Speaker 1: They're cognitively uploading.
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  Speaker 2: Yes, because the way the education system is designed is
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  Speaker 2: designed to disengage kids. It hasn't been designed to engage them.
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  Speaker 1: Yes, and my comments aren't about the kids. It's actually
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  Speaker 1: about the system. And most teachers that you talk to
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  Speaker 1: will say the same thing. There was one other stat
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  Speaker 1: that's worth highlighting, Kylie. Australian teenagers are among the heaviest
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  Speaker 1: users of digital devices at school, averaging about 2.6 hours
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  Speaker 1: each day, and half of students are using chatbots weekly
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  Speaker 1: to help them learn. These are important stats. I wanted
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  Speaker 1: to share them. The OECD blames smartphones and chatbots for
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  Speaker 1: fast-tracking and global educational decline, stripping students' ability to concentrate,
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  Speaker 1: interpret and reason.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah, so I think that that's the bigger issue.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah, I also think though, Kylie, and this is the
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  Speaker 1: critical thing that you've just pinpointed, it's not just the tech.
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  Speaker 1: It's about kids' focus. It's about their purpose. It's about
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  Speaker 1: their desire to be at school. It's about the curriculum
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  Speaker 1: working for them. Is school even an environment that students
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  Speaker 1: wish to be in? Last thing that I wanted to mention,
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  Speaker 1: Chris Bradbury, who is the principal at Radford College in Canberra,
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  Speaker 1: where I've done some work over the years, said that
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  Speaker 1: his school has banned AI for students in the junior school.
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  Speaker 1: He says the negatives are clear. The most serious issue
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  Speaker 1: is students bypassing cognitive struggle. When a chatbot gives answers
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  Speaker 1: too quickly, students spend less time solving a problem for themselves.
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  Speaker 1: So that's our first story. We have two others to
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  Speaker 1: get through. They're coming up right after the break. We're back.
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  Speaker 1: This is the Happy Families podcast, Doctor's Desk episode, and
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  Speaker 1: a massive research roundup.
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  Speaker 2: So our next research finding is the correlation between anxiety
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  Speaker 2: and early puberty.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah, so I haven't talked to you much about this,
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  Speaker 1: but you told me that you didn't want me to
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  Speaker 1: include it because as a parent, when you hear this,
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  Speaker 1: you realize that there's pretty much nothing that you can
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  Speaker 1: do about it, right? The data shows, this is the
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  Speaker 1: analysis of the Danish National Birth Cohort, found that an
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  Speaker 1: earlier start... and a faster tempo of puberty in girls
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  Speaker 1: were associated with a higher risk of an anxiety disorder
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  Speaker 1: and social anxiety disorder symptoms. On the other hand, a
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  Speaker 1: later start to puberty and a slower tempo of puberty
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  Speaker 1: were associated with a lower risk of social anxiety symptoms
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  Speaker 1: compared with girls who developed at an average rate. The
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  Speaker 1: paper was published in the Journal of Affective Disorders.
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  Speaker 2: So you're exactly right. As a parent, I'm sitting here going, well,
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  Speaker 2: how does this help me at all? Because I don't
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  Speaker 2: have any say or control over when my child starts puberty.
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  Speaker 1: You're exactly right, which makes it horrible to hear, right?
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  Speaker 1: Because like, well, hang on, my daughter's starting puberty at
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  Speaker 1: nine instead of 13 or 11. And what do I
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  Speaker 1: do about that now?
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  Speaker 2: And then I see a whole heap of parents whose
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  Speaker 2: anxiety levels are going through the roof because their 11-year-old
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  Speaker 2: has started puberty. They're thinking about all of the possibilities
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  Speaker 2: that would accompany that early start.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah, and let me just add to what you've highlighted
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  Speaker 1: and highlight how unfair this is. The results in the
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  Speaker 1: study showed that children with earlier pubertal development, particularly girls,
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  Speaker 1: tended to have parents with lower socioeconomic status who were
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  Speaker 1: less likely to live together when the children were seven
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  Speaker 1: years of age. The mothers tended to have their menache,
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  Speaker 1: which is their first menstrual period, at an earlier age
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  Speaker 1: compared with their peers and were more likely to have
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  Speaker 1: experienced a psychiatric disorder during the first trimester of pregnancy
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  Speaker 1: than These children were also more often bullied at seven
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  Speaker 1: years of age compared with children with average pubertal timing.
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  Speaker 1: Adolescents with later puberty tended to show the opposite pattern.
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  Speaker 1: So all of this pushes together and basically says, if
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  Speaker 1: you're in a family that is struggling, if you've got
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  Speaker 1: a mum who had some challenges, it's like this confluence
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  Speaker 1: of factors that are all crushing in, and the kids
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  Speaker 1: who have the fewest protective factors in their lives are
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  Speaker 1: the ones who are most likely to struggle here. Exactly.
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  Speaker 1: It feels unfair.
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  Speaker 2: So did the research give us any hope or suggestions
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  Speaker 2: on how we might, I guess, add some protective layers
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  Speaker 2: to these children who are at most risk?
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  Speaker 1: No, that's not the point of this kind of research.
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  Speaker 1: It's literally, the study essentially looks at understanding the links
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  Speaker 1: between pubertal development and mental health. The design of the study,
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  Speaker 1: it's not there so that we can work out what's
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  Speaker 1: protective and what's not. It's not there to find any
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  Speaker 1: definitive causal inferences. It's literally saying, here's what we're finding.
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  Speaker 1: We're finding this correlation, that association, this relationship. And therefore,
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  Speaker 1: once you have that information, then you go out and
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  Speaker 1: do studies and work out, well, how can we bring
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  Speaker 1: in more protective factors? How can we help these kids
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  Speaker 1: who are going through it? So my response to that
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  Speaker 1: would be, if you are a parent who has a child,
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  Speaker 1: particularly a daughter who is going through early puberty or
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  Speaker 1: fast-paced puberty, a bit younger than her peers, She needs
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  Speaker 1: protective factors in her life. Those protective factors include things
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  Speaker 1: like really supportive relationships, good role models, good relationship with mothers, fathers, uncles, grandparents,
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  Speaker 1: needs to be in a supportive environment. And by creating
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  Speaker 1: that environment, you're going to reduce the risk that these
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  Speaker 1: challenges will exist.
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  Speaker 2: And what's the last article you wanted to discuss today?
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  Speaker 1: The last one is a new study that asks what
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  Speaker 1: happens when teens are fubbed by their parental figures.
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  Speaker 2: Fubbed. Fubbed.
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  Speaker 1: Fubbing, snubbing someone in favor of your phone. It's what
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  Speaker 1: happens when we walk into the room and we've got
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  Speaker 1: three kids sitting on the couch all staring at their
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  Speaker 1: phones and they don't even look up. Fubbing.
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  Speaker 2: Why do we have to define everything with a name?
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  Speaker 1: It's a fabulous portmanteau of snubbing and phone use. I
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  Speaker 1: think it's exactly right.
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  Speaker 2: Seriously.
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  Speaker 1: Would you like to know what happened?
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  Speaker 2: No, but carry on.
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  Speaker 1: You're so funny. Well, to find out whether phone use
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  Speaker 1: is linked to the way that adolescents relate to their
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  Speaker 1: parents or guardians, the team surveyed 600 young people aged
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  Speaker 1: from 12 to 17, asked them about their relationship with
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  Speaker 1: a primary caregiver. They reported how often they experienced situations
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  Speaker 1: like being ignored while a caregiver was on their phone,
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  Speaker 1: feeling that device use got in the way of spending
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  Speaker 1: time together, or feeling unimportant when a caregiver wouldn't put
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  Speaker 1: their device away. They also, and this is important, completed
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  Speaker 1: a well-established measure of attachment, which allows researchers to assess
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  Speaker 1: whether young people who reported more phone-related interruptions were also
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  Speaker 1: more likely to report anxious attachment, which is when you
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  Speaker 1: worry about being rejected or abandoned, or avoidant attachment, which
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  Speaker 1: is where you keep emotional distance from a caregiver because
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  Speaker 1: you fear that you may be rejected or abandoned. That
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  Speaker 1: kind of thing. So you've got a void and an
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  Speaker 1: anxious attachment in addition to a secure attachment. Have a
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  Speaker 1: guess what the results were, Kylie.
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  Speaker 2: We don't have time for my guessing. Just tell us it.
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  Speaker 1: Right. Oh, the apathy.
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  Speaker 2: Oh, the motivation.
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  Speaker 1: The results were clear. Teenagers who felt that the caregiver's
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  Speaker 1: phone got in the way of their relationship were also
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  Speaker 1: significantly more likely to report insecure attachment to that caregiver.
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  Speaker 1: It didn't matter whether that took the form of worrying
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  Speaker 1: about rejection or or keeping emotional distance, the same pattern
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  Speaker 1: emerged whether the primary caregiver was a mother or father figure,
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  Speaker 1: and it included biological adoptive step and grandparent figures, suggesting
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  Speaker 1: that the findings weren't unique to one kind of family
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  Speaker 1: or parental figure. In other words, in other words, if
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  Speaker 1: you are staring at your phone and your kids want
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  Speaker 1: your attention, Ultimately, that may have some relationship to the
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  Speaker 1: way that they attach to you. And of course, attachment
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  Speaker 1: patterns often persist in adulthood, which means that this might
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  Speaker 1: also influence how your children experience close relationships later in life.
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  Speaker 1: We're ruining our children when we're looking at our phones.
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  Speaker 1: That's the upshot.
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  Speaker 2: Did they do the upshot on the other side of
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  Speaker 2: the coin? How our children are fubbing us and how
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  Speaker 2: that impacts their relationship?
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  Speaker 1: We seem to get over it way better as adults.
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  Speaker 1: We don't like it. It annoys us.
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  Speaker 2: No, I'm not suggesting... the impact it has on us,
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  Speaker 2: the impact it has on their relationship.
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  Speaker 1: Well, yes, that's what the whole study is, like their
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  Speaker 1: relationship with us.
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  Speaker 2: No, but it's focused on us fubbing them as opposed
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  Speaker 2: to them fubbing us. There's a difference between a parent
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  Speaker 2: making a bid for connection or a child making a
• 15:34
  Speaker 2: bid for connection.
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  Speaker 1: I've just understood your question. And no, they didn't research that,
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  Speaker 1: but I think that we could safely hypothesize. that it's
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  Speaker 1: not good for anybody when we're on our phones.
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  Speaker 2: No, but my point is when you have research like this,
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  Speaker 2: it's very easy for kids to blame the other person
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  Speaker 2: instead of taking accountability for their actions. That's my only
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  Speaker 2: take on that.
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  Speaker 1: That's the end of the Doctor's Desk episode for today.
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  Speaker 1: Thanks for pushing through it, Kylie. You've done very well.
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  Speaker 2: It's been a long day. The whole 20 minutes of it.
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  Speaker 2: How long did it go for?
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  Speaker 1: Oh, well, there's some editing that JR has to do. JR,
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  Speaker 1: can you pull this back to like 15? Thank you
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  Speaker 1: for pushing yourself through it, Kylie. I hope that it's been.
• 16:17
  Speaker 1: I hope that it was better for everyone else than
• 16:18
  Speaker 1: it was for you.
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  Speaker 2: So do I.
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  Speaker 1: You're so harsh. I love these podcasts. I just think
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  Speaker 1: this stuff matters so much. We'll have some more research
• 16:28
  Speaker 1: to round up next week or the week after or
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  Speaker 1: something like that. Tomorrow on the Happy Families podcast, I
• 16:35
  Speaker 1: won an award. I won an award. And we're going
• 16:37
  Speaker 1: to talk about what that award is and why it's important.
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  Speaker 2: Plus.
• 16:41
  Speaker 1: Oh my goodness, one of our daughters has left home.
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  Speaker 1: That and more on the Happy Families podcast tomorrow. Talk
• 16:48
  Speaker 1: to you then.