Latest / The Chuck ToddCast / Interview Only w/ Julie Scelfo - Inside the Movement To Save Childhood From Big Tech

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Interview Only w/ Julie Scelfo - Inside the Movement To Save Childhood From Big Tech · The Chuck ToddCast

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Speaker 1: Use that code so joining me today. Er of something
1:54
Speaker 1: called MAMA. That's the acronym. It is Mother's Against Media Addiction.
2:00
Speaker 1: The founder is Julia excuse me, Julie Shelfe. She's a
2:05
Speaker 1: former New York Times reporter has become a bit of
2:09
Speaker 1: I think a media ecologist of sorts. And look, as
2:15
Speaker 1: many of you know, many of my listeners here know
2:17
Speaker 1: that trying to figure out how we rebuild trust in
2:20
Speaker 1: the information ecosystem, how can we clean up the information ecosystem?
2:24
Speaker 1: And one of the more remarkable things in this polarized
2:27
Speaker 1: environment is that what's been interesting is that the only
2:30
Speaker 1: time we can find areas of agreement is when it
2:33
Speaker 1: is about protecting our kids online social media. And so
2:37
Speaker 1: as we try to figure out how big tech is
2:40
Speaker 1: going to build AI and will they do it safely
2:45
Speaker 1: or not? Given the experience with social media, I figured
2:50
Speaker 1: this would be a really good conversation because I want
2:52
Speaker 1: to learn more about mama. So, Julie, welcome to the podcast.
2:56
Speaker 2: Hi Chuck, thank you so much for having me. It's
2:58
Speaker 2: a pleasure to be here.
3:00
Speaker 1: Let's start with you know this, you know, look, I'm
3:04
Speaker 1: in I just got out of an hour long meeting
3:08
Speaker 1: in a nonprofit group I'm involved with called Trust in Media,
3:11
Speaker 1: and where it's just constantly like, what can we do
3:15
Speaker 1: to repair and rebuild trust in all sorts of institutions? Right,
3:20
Speaker 1: sort of the information ecosystem that was sort of at
3:22
Speaker 1: the at the heart of the What's interesting about this
3:24
Speaker 1: organization that I'm working with is that it includes folks
3:28
Speaker 1: in the national security space and folks in the business
3:32
Speaker 1: space and in health and in sports, as well as
3:35
Speaker 1: news and politics. And you're tackling this from a from
3:40
Speaker 1: a youth space, and as we transition from fearing social
3:44
Speaker 1: media to fearing AI. This is I think a pretty
3:47
Speaker 1: relevant conversation. So I want to start with what motivated
3:53
Speaker 1: you to do this? I think it's obvious in some cases,
3:57
Speaker 1: but are you pressed without quickly we actually have come
4:02
Speaker 1: together on the issue of at least our phones and schools.
4:07
Speaker 2: Well, okay, so there were like three questions.
4:10
Speaker 1: And that's what I did. Maybe that's why it's a podcast.
4:13
Speaker 2: I'm gonna I'm gonna work backwards. So so I was
4:18
Speaker 2: moved to start Mama for a couple reasons.
4:22
Speaker 1: One is that when did you start it?
4:24
Speaker 2: By the way, so I incorporated her in twenty twenty three.
4:29
Speaker 2: We only announced ourselves publicly early last year, so we're
4:32
Speaker 2: not even two years old yet. But a few years
4:36
Speaker 2: before that, I gave a TED talk because I was
4:40
Speaker 2: so deeply concerned about erosion of trust and information and
4:45
Speaker 2: what was happening in our media environments, and having spent
4:49
Speaker 2: my career in professional newsrooms, I was at the New
4:52
Speaker 2: York Times and before that, I was at Newsweek. I
4:55
Speaker 2: sort of watched the rise of digital media and how
4:59
Speaker 2: the legacy news organizations responded to it. And what was
5:03
Speaker 2: very clear to me, what was very unfortunate is that
5:06
Speaker 2: even though journalists are really good at understanding and vetting
5:11
Speaker 2: information quality, they weren't trained in media literacy, and they
5:15
Speaker 2: didn't understand how what they publish and how what they
5:19
Speaker 2: communicated communicated. But they were communicating online and on television
5:25
Speaker 2: was helping shape the information environment. And so you know,
5:28
Speaker 2: the question about regaining trust is a big one, and
5:31
Speaker 2: I hope we can talk about it more later in
5:33
Speaker 2: the show. But specifically for Mama, I was reporting a
5:37
Speaker 2: lot on youth mental health and suicide. And it was
5:41
Speaker 2: about a decade ago that we saw a terrible increase
5:45
Speaker 2: in suicide rates among American adolescents, and I reported on
5:49
Speaker 2: that and it was manifestly obvious that social media was
5:53
Speaker 2: at the heart of that problem. And then, as sad
5:56
Speaker 2: as that story was, we saw suicide rates go up
6:00
Speaker 2: not just in teens, but in tweens, which your children
6:03
Speaker 2: as young as nine to ten. Now I'm a mom.
6:05
Speaker 2: I have three sons, and reporting that story really shook
6:10
Speaker 2: me to my core. When you have nine year olds,
6:13
Speaker 2: ten year old children who want to die, something is
6:17
Speaker 2: profoundly messed up. Because I run mama. I won't use
6:21
Speaker 2: the crude language that's really in my head about that
6:23
Speaker 2: how messed up that is. But I realized something had
6:27
Speaker 2: to be done. And what has to be done is
6:29
Speaker 2: that this information environment has to be brought under control
6:33
Speaker 2: so that it's safe for children.
6:35
Speaker 1: And that's you know, I look at this movement right
6:39
Speaker 1: of what we've seen about trying to at least take
6:43
Speaker 1: bones out of classrooms, and you know, when I see
6:47
Speaker 1: how hard it is to get the left and the
6:49
Speaker 1: right to agree on anything, and it is the one thing,
6:51
Speaker 1: whether it's a super liberal state legislature, super conservative state legislature,
6:56
Speaker 1: this stuff has made it through. This is the one
6:58
Speaker 1: place it is made it through. I fear we're too
7:01
Speaker 1: late on social media, but maybe this gets us there
7:06
Speaker 1: on AI.
7:07
Speaker 2: So I don't think we're too late on social media
7:11
Speaker 2: because every day a child is growing up and being
7:16
Speaker 2: exposed to things through these platforms, and every day that
7:20
Speaker 2: we allow a handful of companies to share whatever they
7:25
Speaker 2: want with whoever they want, under any circumstances, with no regulation.
7:30
Speaker 2: Is a day that we are leaving our children vulnerable
7:34
Speaker 2: to terrible harms. When I was reporting my stories, we
7:38
Speaker 2: didn't have data about the amount of suicide and self
7:41
Speaker 2: harm content. Meta released data on it just last year,
7:45
Speaker 2: and according to Meta's own report, there were forty eight
7:49
Speaker 2: million separate pieces of suicide and self harm content on
7:53
Speaker 2: their platforms in the previous year. And that's just the
7:56
Speaker 2: pieces that they'll acknowledge. There's probably a lot more than that. So,
8:00
Speaker 2: you know, as long as we've had mass media, beginning
8:03
Speaker 2: in the nineteen thirties with radio, our government has regulated it.
8:07
Speaker 2: It has said there need to be limits, there need
8:09
Speaker 2: to be standards. It's not censoring free speech. It's just
8:13
Speaker 2: recognizing that not all content is appropriate in all places
8:18
Speaker 2: for all audiences. I don't think we want a world.
8:21
Speaker 2: You know, if we allowed every single course vulgar X
8:25
Speaker 2: rated activity on our regular television channels and on the radio,
8:31
Speaker 2: you know what kind of world would we have. So
8:33
Speaker 2: I'm not.
8:33
Speaker 1: Exacting the way that world does exist. It's the Internet.
8:36
Speaker 1: I mean, we've let this happen on the Internet, and
8:40
Speaker 1: nobody wanted this, right, Like, we know we don't like this,
8:46
Speaker 1: but we can't agree on how to stop this.
8:48
Speaker 2: Well, I think there is actually pretty wide consensus on
8:52
Speaker 2: how to stop it. I think we also are just
8:54
Speaker 2: facing an industry that has unlimited amounts of money and
8:59
Speaker 2: they are spending on godly amounts of money on lobbying.
9:04
Speaker 2: Our friends at an organization called Issue one have been
9:07
Speaker 2: tracking this and they have found that the tech big
9:11
Speaker 2: tech industry has one lobbyist for every two lawmakers in Washington,
9:16
Speaker 2: and Meta alone has one lobbyist for every seven lawmakers.
9:22
Speaker 2: So you know what's happening is, even though there's wide
9:25
Speaker 2: agreement among most lawmakers and most parents and most citizens,
9:31
Speaker 2: you have big tech spending on godly and holy amounts
9:35
Speaker 2: of money and getting just a few people who are
9:38
Speaker 2: really messing up legislation. I mean, one example is the
9:41
Speaker 2: Kids Online Safety Act, which passed last year in the
9:44
Speaker 2: Senate by a vote of ninety one to three, which like,
9:47
Speaker 2: when does that happen? And over in the House, Speaker
9:51
Speaker 2: Johnson refused to bring it for a vote. Steve Scalise
9:53
Speaker 2: says it wasn't good legislation. And nobody could understand why.
9:57
Speaker 2: And then it was announced that Meta is building a
10:00
Speaker 2: twenty eight billion dollar AI data processing plant in the
10:04
Speaker 2: state which you know, I don't know. Does that have
10:06
Speaker 2: something to.
10:06
Speaker 1: Do with it? Maybe in the state of I assume
10:09
Speaker 1: you mean state of Louisiana.
10:11
Speaker 2: The State of Louisiana.
10:12
Speaker 1: Yeah, Johnson and Scalise, Yeah.
10:14
Speaker 2: No.
10:14
Speaker 1: And we're seeing the same thing with AI. I mean,
10:17
Speaker 1: take the take the issue of this moratorium from states
10:23
Speaker 1: being able to regulate AI that I do think is
10:27
Speaker 1: become I think it's now too toxic to support. I
10:32
Speaker 1: think we'll find out.
10:33
Speaker 2: Right, I am, well, I hope you're right.
10:35
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean we're going to find out. And maybe
10:38
Speaker 1: unfortunately this gets can't tell you how many pieces of
10:41
Speaker 1: really harmful legislation gets snuck in in the month of December.
10:45
Speaker 1: It's historically because everybody's in holiday mode. It'll just can
10:50
Speaker 1: can sometimes get So I think we are in the
10:53
Speaker 1: month of December when we're taping this and when this
10:55
Speaker 1: is when people are listening to this, So there's always
10:58
Speaker 1: a chance this is something that get snuck in. But
11:01
Speaker 1: it does seem as if there's enough opposition. But I
11:05
Speaker 1: know you're working on this.
11:07
Speaker 2: I mean, our members have been sending thousands of letters.
11:10
Speaker 2: And for those of your listeners who aren't familiar with this,
11:14
Speaker 2: the tech industry is trying to get this sweetheart deal
11:19
Speaker 2: passed where they would pass a federal law saying there
11:22
Speaker 2: can be no state regulation of AI and this is
11:25
Speaker 2: such a profound violation of states' rights and their fundamental
11:29
Speaker 2: ability to keep their citizens safe that we had forty
11:33
Speaker 2: four I think attorneys general send a letter to the
11:37
Speaker 2: Senate when this was being considered earlier this year in
11:39
Speaker 2: the Big Beautiful Bill, saying this is outrageous. You can't
11:42
Speaker 2: do this. Hundreds of lawmakers of both parties, so you
11:45
Speaker 2: can't do this, And it came out of the Big
11:46
Speaker 2: Beautiful Bill. Now they're trying to sneak it back into
11:49
Speaker 2: the Defense Reauthorization Act. And we're also hearing there's the
11:53
Speaker 2: possibility of an executive order. So you know, the way
11:56
Speaker 2: the draft was worded, it's so vague. It would not
11:59
Speaker 2: only for it states from regulating AI, prohibit them from
12:02
Speaker 2: regulating social media. So nobody wants this, and it would
12:06
Speaker 2: just be a real boon to a handful of billionaires
12:08
Speaker 2: who own these companies.
12:10
Speaker 1: Well, I'm glad you brought up the executive order, because
12:13
Speaker 1: it does seem as if that was that was going
12:15
Speaker 1: to be the tech community's last resort, and that does
12:19
Speaker 1: look like that's going to happen, doesn't it.
12:21
Speaker 2: That's right, you know, I hope it doesn't. I do
12:24
Speaker 2: think even if it does happen, it's so problematic that
12:28
Speaker 2: it's unlikely to be enforced right away.
12:30
Speaker 1: But I mean, I don't think it's by the way,
12:32
Speaker 1: I don't think it's enforceable, and I think there'll be
12:34
Speaker 1: some states that basically like, let's go, we're going to
12:37
Speaker 1: we're going to do some regulate Let go ahead and
12:39
Speaker 1: try to stop us.
12:40
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, I mean, how like, in what other industry
12:44
Speaker 2: do we say, Okay, you can just do whatever you want.
12:46
Speaker 2: You know, we regulate our food to make sure it's safe.
12:48
Speaker 2: We regulate our vehicles to make sure they're safe. We
12:51
Speaker 2: don't want to live in a world where companies are
12:53
Speaker 2: not required to test cars and make sure the breaks
12:57
Speaker 2: work before you get them.
12:58
Speaker 1: Well, this gets a something that I think is one
13:02
Speaker 1: of those do you know. One of the ways the
13:07
Speaker 1: advocates of low regulation right now in AI, one of
13:10
Speaker 1: the arguments they make is, hey, we did this with
13:12
Speaker 1: the Internet. We had very little regulation, and my retort
13:15
Speaker 1: always is, and how did that go? Right? Like, we
13:19
Speaker 1: decided to have a hands off approach on social media
13:24
Speaker 1: and that turned out to be a colossal mistake. Now
13:27
Speaker 1: I happen to believe social media. I mean, here's the problem.
13:30
Speaker 1: I think this has been a disaster. I think it
13:33
Speaker 1: something that destroys the information ecosystem, that destroys trust, that
13:37
Speaker 1: breaks up families. This is not a successful business, and
13:41
Speaker 1: yet we want to create the same regulatory environment to
13:46
Speaker 1: allow AI to thrive. And we think that's going to
13:48
Speaker 1: be good because of the experience with social media. And
13:51
Speaker 1: I do think this is why there's more public and
13:55
Speaker 1: there's more bipartisan pushback on this because I think if
13:58
Speaker 1: you frame the question of do you want the tech
14:02
Speaker 1: companies to have this to use this same lack of
14:07
Speaker 1: rules of the game to build AI as they build
14:09
Speaker 1: social media? Do you trust the same people that build
14:11
Speaker 1: social media to build AI? I think the answer is no.
14:15
Speaker 2: Well, Chuck, it's not a successful business for families, for society,
14:20
Speaker 2: for democracy, for children, but it is for shareholders and
14:23
Speaker 2: for a handful of people who own these companies. And
14:26
Speaker 2: what we're seeing, is this really unprecedented alliance between a
14:30
Speaker 2: few people at the highest levels of government and the
14:33
Speaker 2: folks who own these companies. Now, everybody who has children says,
14:39
Speaker 2: that's not what's most important. You know, I have no
14:41
Speaker 2: problem with people making money and building a successful company,
14:45
Speaker 2: but you should not be able to do it on
14:47
Speaker 2: the backs of children. So you know, that is why
14:49
Speaker 2: Mama is working. We started, you know, hoping that we
14:53
Speaker 2: could have six chapters by the end of the first year.
14:56
Speaker 2: We were sort of inspired by mothers against drunk driving
14:58
Speaker 2: and the way they had chapters around the country. Instead,
15:01
Speaker 2: we're up to nearly forty chapters in twenty two states.
15:05
Speaker 2: Our members are working in their homes and their communities,
15:08
Speaker 2: in their schools, and with policymakers to advance changes, just
15:14
Speaker 2: like we had to make big changes once we learned
15:16
Speaker 2: about the harms of big tobacco, saying Okay, it shouldn't
15:19
Speaker 2: be normative that we give this to young children. It
15:23
Speaker 2: shouldn't be okay that we load it full of chemicals
15:26
Speaker 2: that can cause cancer. And we have to ensure that
15:30
Speaker 2: we're both using it in a safe way and that
15:32
Speaker 2: the manufacturers of these products are held to basic safety standards.
15:38
Speaker 1: Glad you brought up tobacco. I was actually that was
15:40
Speaker 1: the next way I was going to ask, which is
15:41
Speaker 1: what lessons are there to take away from the essentially
15:48
Speaker 1: what was a thirty year fight, but it was the
15:50
Speaker 1: public one, right, tobacco. You know, it's not gone, but
15:55
Speaker 1: it is. It is now where it should be available
15:59
Speaker 1: to those who want it, for adults and adults only.
16:04
Speaker 2: It's a great example. And I think this fight is
16:07
Speaker 2: a lot like big tobacco in some ways, and there
16:10
Speaker 2: are a few differences. And what's similar is that big
16:15
Speaker 2: tech and social media products and technology in general is
16:18
Speaker 2: so embedded in our society that in order to shift
16:22
Speaker 2: how we use it, to shift how we regulate it,
16:24
Speaker 2: it's going to take change at multiple levels. So, just
16:28
Speaker 2: like with big tobacco, we need culture change. We need
16:31
Speaker 2: a lot of education so that people think about it differently.
16:35
Speaker 2: We had to go back to Hollywood, you know, whereas
16:38
Speaker 2: tobacco companies had paid them to write scripts where the
16:41
Speaker 2: sexy leading men and women were smokers. We had to
16:44
Speaker 2: convince them to make sure that the sexy men and
16:47
Speaker 2: women leading you know, stars were not smoking. We had
16:50
Speaker 2: to get rid of Joe camel, So there had to
16:53
Speaker 2: be a lot of public education. And then there were
16:55
Speaker 2: also lawsuits, and we're seeing with organizations like the Social
16:58
Speaker 2: Media Victims Law Center and other lawmakers where they are
17:02
Speaker 2: suing these companies because the companies are claiming it's not
17:05
Speaker 2: their fault that children are harmed. But now the courts
17:08
Speaker 2: are hearing cases where, for example, you know, and apologies
17:12
Speaker 2: to talk about a difficult subject in listeners, just like
17:15
Speaker 2: a kind of a trigger warning. But you know, I've
17:18
Speaker 2: met families whose children were sent affirmatively sent by Instagram
17:22
Speaker 2: of videos of someone hanging themselves and then their child replicated.
17:26
Speaker 2: We had a little girl in Pennsylvania who tried the
17:30
Speaker 2: choking challenge after the platform sent it to her, and
17:33
Speaker 2: so courts are now hearing that, and that's just like
17:35
Speaker 2: what happened with Big Tomay.
17:36
Speaker 1: Well, this is this whole thing was sexual section two thirty.
17:38
Speaker 1: You know, I've had this argument, I'm not a lawyer.
17:40
Speaker 1: I played one on I've played one on television. Was
17:44
Speaker 1: how I joked, And basically every reporter over time sort
17:47
Speaker 1: of starts to think like a lawyer at times, right,
17:50
Speaker 1: And I don't understand how Section two thirty even applies
17:55
Speaker 1: that once a tech company creates an algorithm, now a publisher.
18:01
Speaker 1: If they choose not to be a publisher, then they
18:03
Speaker 1: don't have any liability. But the minute they created an algorithm,
18:08
Speaker 1: as you point out they sent the video, they are
18:11
Speaker 1: It's no different than our old newspaper editors deciding what
18:15
Speaker 1: goes what goes on the above the fold that people
18:18
Speaker 1: can see in the news box where you you still
18:21
Speaker 1: when we're you still? Sorry for those of that don't
18:23
Speaker 1: remember this, we need to go and actually put a
18:25
Speaker 1: quarter in and get your newspaper out of a box.
18:28
Speaker 1: And when quote unquote below the fall, it's a choice,
18:32
Speaker 1: it's an algorithm, is a choice that the tech company makes.
18:35
Speaker 1: I don't see how Section two thirty applies at all.
18:38
Speaker 2: Well, I think instead of calling at social media, we
18:40
Speaker 2: should be calling at mass media publishing, because that's what
18:43
Speaker 2: it is. And so when you hear the tech lobby saying, well,
18:47
Speaker 2: this is you know, First Amendment. The First Amendment guarantees
18:51
Speaker 2: us the right to free speech. It doesn't guarantee you
18:54
Speaker 2: the right to publish speech. It doesn't guarantee you the
18:56
Speaker 2: right to broadcast speech, and it doesn't guarantee you the
18:59
Speaker 2: right to mak mediated speech. So for the last century
19:03
Speaker 2: we've had all kinds of laws and restrictions and accountability
19:07
Speaker 2: for publishers, for broadcasters, and we allow social media to
19:11
Speaker 2: come in and turn anybody and everybody into a publisher
19:15
Speaker 2: without any accountability. So, you know, in terms of your
19:18
Speaker 2: opening question about how do we get the information ecosystem
19:22
Speaker 2: back on track, I think that it's pretty simple. We
19:26
Speaker 2: have to pass some regulation that holds people accountable for
19:30
Speaker 2: what they publish. And again, advertisers supported speech is very
19:34
Speaker 2: different than First Amendment speech, and social media is supported
19:38
Speaker 2: by advertising, so that's another legal aspect of it that
19:42
Speaker 2: I think needs to be looked at.
19:45
Speaker 1: Having good life insurance is incredibly important. I know from
19:48
Speaker 1: personal experience. I was sixteen when my father passed away.
19:52
Speaker 1: We didn't have any money. He didn't leave us in
19:54
Speaker 1: the best shape. My mother, single mother, now widow, myself
19:58
Speaker 1: sixteen trying to figureure out how am I going to
20:00
Speaker 1: pay for college and lo and behold, my dad had
20:04
Speaker 1: one life insurance policy that we found wasn't a lot,
20:07
Speaker 1: but it was important at the time, and it's why
20:10
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Speaker 1: insurance is something you should really think about, especially if
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Speaker 1: you've got a growing family. Oh, it used to drive
21:29
Speaker 1: me crazy during the during sort of when we were
21:33
Speaker 1: more talking about what when Facebook was trying to deny
21:35
Speaker 1: any culpability during the during the Russian influence operation, and
21:39
Speaker 1: it was sort of like or you know, putting up
21:41
Speaker 1: advertisements that were totally missing misleading. When I was at
21:45
Speaker 1: Meet the Press, if we aired an ad that we
21:48
Speaker 1: knew was misleading, we as the broadcaster, shared liability with
21:55
Speaker 1: the advertiser. In fact, in some ways we were we'd
21:58
Speaker 1: be held more liable than the appier themselves. That is
22:01
Speaker 1: not how it works on these platforms. Meta is you know,
22:05
Speaker 1: if somebody advertises on an in an Instagram with a
22:09
Speaker 1: with a misleading ad, you don't get to sue Meta
22:12
Speaker 1: for that. You only get to sue I guess the
22:14
Speaker 1: company itself if you want to do it. So there's
22:17
Speaker 1: that has to change. And I and it's one of
22:20
Speaker 1: those where I don't understand. I don't understand. As you said,
22:23
Speaker 1: the laws that are already on the book should already
22:25
Speaker 1: be applied like this idea, they have to be you know,
22:28
Speaker 1: they carved out this separate and I think that's the
22:30
Speaker 1: mistake that was made.
22:32
Speaker 2: I think that was a mistake that's made. I think
22:34
Speaker 2: that you know, when some of these technologies were introduced,
22:36
Speaker 2: there were folks in Congress who didn't quite understand it.
22:39
Speaker 2: You know. As you know, we haven't passed a single
22:41
Speaker 2: regulation federal regulation on social media since nineteen ninety eight,
22:45
Speaker 2: which is before social.
22:46
Speaker 1: Media was there was no social media.
22:48
Speaker 2: So you know, we are definitely behind and making sure
22:52
Speaker 2: these products are safe, and we're seeing other countries take
22:55
Speaker 2: the lead in protecting childhood, right, yep, So.
22:59
Speaker 1: Let's talk about the core goal of your group, right
23:02
Speaker 1: it's media addiction. And you know, I started out by
23:07
Speaker 1: sort of trying to be hopeful and noting that, hey, look,
23:10
Speaker 1: the one place where politicians seem to find agreement is
23:13
Speaker 1: on this issue, like how do we protect our children?
23:15
Speaker 1: And I've been heartened by all these laws passed in
23:18
Speaker 1: the States on self abandoned schools. But do you know
23:22
Speaker 1: what a lot of schools proactively do. I proactively give
23:27
Speaker 1: an iPad to every student that comes in the classroom.
23:30
Speaker 1: In fact, there is a movement in my neighborhood. It's
23:33
Speaker 1: a very small movement, but that's how these movements start,
23:37
Speaker 1: right neighbor to neighbor going, Hey, tell Arlington schools stop
23:41
Speaker 1: giving you know, teach out of books not iPads.
23:45
Speaker 2: It's not just in your district, Chuck. We're seeing this nationwide,
23:49
Speaker 2: you know. MAMA, Chapter leaders across the country have been
23:52
Speaker 2: among the most vocal in their community to say to teachers,
23:57
Speaker 2: say to schools, this is not what we want. Teachers
24:01
Speaker 2: and schools have sort of too quickly, I think, bought
24:05
Speaker 2: into this idea that if it's technological, it must be better.
24:09
Speaker 2: And we are now seeing the lowest reading in math
24:13
Speaker 2: scores in our lowest performing children than we've seen since
24:17
Speaker 2: the United States started measuring that back in the seventies.
24:20
Speaker 2: So there's just been a terrible decline in reading in
24:23
Speaker 2: math performance that matches up exactly to the introduction of
24:30
Speaker 2: tablets and laptops into classrooms. At MAMA, we're not anti tech.
24:35
Speaker 2: We think tech can be fun and tech can be helpful.
24:37
Speaker 2: We just don't think it should replace real life experiences
24:41
Speaker 2: and interaction. And there's actually centuries of evidence that show
24:44
Speaker 2: embodied learning experiences are critical for memory consolidation in the mind.
24:49
Speaker 2: That's how children learn by doing so. We know that
24:52
Speaker 2: physically holding a book is affecting the mind in a
24:55
Speaker 2: much different way than looking at it on a screen.
24:59
Speaker 2: So you I have a three part mission at Mama's
25:02
Speaker 2: Parent Education. It's getting phones out of school so children
25:05
Speaker 2: can learn, and it's demanding safeguards that our lawmakers act
25:08
Speaker 2: to ensure these products if they're going to be out there,
25:11
Speaker 2: that they're safer kids.
25:13
Speaker 1: You know. So, do you think there's a you know,
25:17
Speaker 1: you think there's a an age where you don't even
25:23
Speaker 1: you know, you say, okay, look because now you have
25:27
Speaker 1: these like smart boards instead of chalkboards right where you're
25:32
Speaker 1: able to do and that to me makes sense. You
25:35
Speaker 1: want to have these smart boards. And you know, the
25:38
Speaker 1: upside about having a textbook online is that it's always
25:41
Speaker 1: up to date, it's always current, right, it's never out
25:43
Speaker 1: of it's never now of date. You can quickly without
25:45
Speaker 1: having to buy new textbooks. So there are reasons school
25:49
Speaker 1: districts want to save money, right, which is to have
25:52
Speaker 1: some of this stuff available. What's the Is there a
25:56
Speaker 1: regulatory line we can create in legislation that says, okay,
26:00
Speaker 1: you know, we're not introducing any tech into classrooms until
26:04
Speaker 1: sixth grade? Is that? Is there enough studies to support
26:11
Speaker 1: a hard and fast line like that.
26:13
Speaker 2: Well, so, there's a lot of studies that support the
26:17
Speaker 2: delaying of technology and media for children as long as possible.
26:22
Speaker 2: The American Academy of Pediatric has for many, many years
26:25
Speaker 2: recommended the most minimal amount of screens for your infant
26:31
Speaker 2: and toddler as possible. If your child's under two, they
26:34
Speaker 2: should not be exposed to a screen. If every once
26:37
Speaker 2: in a while you let your toddler talk to their
26:39
Speaker 2: grandparents on FaceTime or Skype, I don't think it's such
26:42
Speaker 2: a big deal, but nobody should be parking their infant
26:46
Speaker 2: in front of a screen for entertainment because we know
26:49
Speaker 2: it affects their brain development. And there is a researcher
26:52
Speaker 2: who's been taking scans of preschoolers and finding that the
26:57
Speaker 2: ones who had screens have actual less white matter in
27:00
Speaker 2: their brains. In terms of whether we could make a rule,
27:04
Speaker 2: you know, we live in a country where education is
27:07
Speaker 2: decided state by state, and so every state does it differently.
27:11
Speaker 2: My recommendation, again would be to delay these things as
27:14
Speaker 2: long as possible. Now, there's a lot of parents out
27:17
Speaker 2: there saying we have to have our kids ready to
27:19
Speaker 2: compete in a technological world. And I agree with that.
27:23
Speaker 2: But the question I always ask is, you know, if
27:26
Speaker 2: you want your child to be a safe driver, for example,
27:29
Speaker 2: And we all agree that we want our children, once
27:32
Speaker 2: they learn to drive, to be safe on the roads.
27:34
Speaker 2: But none of us think they should start learning to
27:37
Speaker 2: drive at age seven, or age eight or age nine,
27:40
Speaker 2: because their brains and their bodies are not ready for that.
27:43
Speaker 2: And so for children, what we think is important is
27:45
Speaker 2: that the foundational skills they need to be competent learners
27:50
Speaker 2: are there before we introduce technology. And then we introduce
27:54
Speaker 2: technology in a limited way so that they can learn
27:57
Speaker 2: the skills they need, but that it doesn't overtake all
28:00
Speaker 2: of their other learning.
28:02
Speaker 1: You know, it's interesting. I had a I was at
28:04
Speaker 1: the Texas Tribune Festival a couple of weeks ago and
28:07
Speaker 1: saw a conversation with the new president of SMU, who
28:11
Speaker 1: used to be the president of ut Austin, and they
28:16
Speaker 1: were talking about, you know, over the last ten years,
28:18
Speaker 1: there had been this shift away from kids majoring in
28:21
Speaker 1: sort of the liberal arts right, majoring in English. In fact,
28:24
Speaker 1: you have universities dropping that as a major right that
28:27
Speaker 1: there's more specificity that students were leaning towards and his thesis,
28:33
Speaker 1: his theory and what he was going to bet on
28:36
Speaker 1: is that in the next ten years that we were
28:39
Speaker 1: going to see a turn back to the liberal arts.
28:42
Speaker 1: And in fact, he thinks his job's going to be
28:46
Speaker 1: how to help students when they come to college. That college,
28:51
Speaker 1: that college may turn into how to learn because we're
28:57
Speaker 1: in some ways, because our kids are being raised on screens.
29:01
Speaker 1: They know how, they know, they know where to find information,
29:05
Speaker 1: they don't know how to how to how to create
29:08
Speaker 1: the information right, they don't know how to confine the
29:11
Speaker 1: information if if the power goes out type of issue,
29:15
Speaker 1: and that that's in some ways that may be a
29:18
Speaker 1: role that undergraduate universities are going to be playing again.
29:21
Speaker 1: So that was an interesting thesis he had. What do
29:24
Speaker 1: you make of that?
29:25
Speaker 2: I mean, that is a very interesting thesis and it's
29:28
Speaker 2: something I think about all the time. You know, I worry,
29:32
Speaker 2: for example, when you see doctors using their phones to
29:36
Speaker 2: look up everything. You know, I want my surgeon if
29:39
Speaker 2: I'm going in for brain surgery, I want my surgeon
29:42
Speaker 2: to know how to do the surgery even if the
29:44
Speaker 2: power goes out. You know, you want you want our
29:49
Speaker 2: experts to have the skills and the training that they need.
29:52
Speaker 2: You know, it's an interesting hypothesis. I think that a
29:55
Speaker 2: lot of learning, though, happens in early childhood, and there
29:58
Speaker 2: are certain foundational building blocks. We know, if by a
30:01
Speaker 2: certain age you're not reading at a certain level, it's
30:05
Speaker 2: very unlikely that you'll get there in your twenties. Right.
30:07
Speaker 2: That is why in this country we long ago established
30:11
Speaker 2: had start in zero to three, because there was so
30:13
Speaker 2: much evidence that what happens during early childhood really affects
30:17
Speaker 2: your lifelong success in learning and even other things like
30:21
Speaker 2: your economic you know, status, your your job, you know, availability,
30:28
Speaker 2: all those kinds of things. So you know, we we're
30:32
Speaker 2: pushing to make sure. You know, Look, I'm an American.
30:36
Speaker 2: I want us to win the AI race, but we
30:40
Speaker 2: need to make sure that these technologies are developed in
30:43
Speaker 2: ways that are all so safe and responsible. And I
30:46
Speaker 2: have every confidence that our technology leaders can do both
30:50
Speaker 2: of those things.
30:50
Speaker 1: Right.
30:51
Speaker 2: There's no reason we need to just say, Okay, let's
30:53
Speaker 2: have no legislation and let's just let them do whatever
30:56
Speaker 2: they want. You know, we've already seen I don't know
31:00
Speaker 2: if you caught this in the news, but there was
31:01
Speaker 2: a Teddy Bear with AI in it that just had
31:03
Speaker 2: to be recalled because if a child asked the Teddy
31:07
Speaker 2: Bear would tell them where they could find knives matches.
31:10
Speaker 2: If you asked the teddy Bear a sex question, suddenly
31:13
Speaker 2: they lead you, and you know it would lead you
31:15
Speaker 2: into a conversation about like fringe. You know, sex spetishes
31:20
Speaker 2: like these are not products that are safe for kids,
31:22
Speaker 2: and we should not make them available to kids until
31:25
Speaker 2: we know they're safe.
31:27
Speaker 1: I'm curious what you thought of of mister Altman admitting
31:34
Speaker 1: that he was surprised at how many people chose to
31:37
Speaker 1: use these these in this case chatchebt as a sort
31:45
Speaker 1: of therapist, and that he didn't see that coming. And
31:49
Speaker 1: I'm thinking, in your we've put you in charge of
31:53
Speaker 1: building this.
31:55
Speaker 2: You know, I have the same feeling about him that
31:57
Speaker 2: I did about Mark Zuckerberg. I mean, I think that
32:01
Speaker 2: these guys didn't read enough poetry in college.
32:05
Speaker 1: I think I have a real cynical view of these guys.
32:08
Speaker 1: These guys were the people that never knew how to
32:10
Speaker 1: be friends in real life. They were constantly looking And
32:14
Speaker 1: you know, I joke that you know that Zuckerberg had
32:18
Speaker 1: a hard time meeting girls in college, so he thought
32:20
Speaker 1: he could hack his way into finding a computer algorithm
32:25
Speaker 1: to match him up with people that might be more
32:28
Speaker 1: interested in him.
32:29
Speaker 2: Well, that's how Facebook started, right. It was like a
32:31
Speaker 2: rate a girl if she's.
32:33
Speaker 1: Hot or not. That's what he was looking for. He
32:35
Speaker 1: was trying to meet girls. I mean, not an unusual
32:38
Speaker 1: thing for a nineteen year old. I'm not going to
32:41
Speaker 1: you know, a lot of nineteen year olds, boys and
32:43
Speaker 1: girls don't know how to do this. So I empathize
32:47
Speaker 1: in theory, but I do think the entire the leadership
32:52
Speaker 1: of Silicon Valley are some people that didn't grow up
32:57
Speaker 1: the way a lot of other people grew up.
32:59
Speaker 2: I'll give you one more example. Nome Shazir, who founded
33:04
Speaker 2: character Ai, was interviewed in a podcast a couple of
33:08
Speaker 2: years ago and they asked them about character ai and
33:12
Speaker 2: he said, well, I'll give you my humorous VC pitch.
33:15
Speaker 2: He said, you know, when child's out walking with their parents,
33:19
Speaker 2: they're holding hands, they're asking questions, and the parents giving
33:22
Speaker 2: the child a lot of information. But they're not just
33:25
Speaker 2: giving them facts. They're also you know, they're their friend,
33:28
Speaker 2: They're giving them emotional support. They said, that's what we
33:31
Speaker 2: want character ai to do. We don't want to replace Google.
33:34
Speaker 2: We want to replace your mom and he said.
33:37
Speaker 1: This, Oh my god.
33:39
Speaker 2: And then and then we've seen all of these lawsuits
33:42
Speaker 2: now because character AI, when people have turned to it
33:47
Speaker 2: for emotional support or because they are depressed or they
33:50
Speaker 2: are struggling, rather than direct them to get help, rather
33:54
Speaker 2: than stopping the AI program is providing detailed instructions and encouragement,
34:02
Speaker 2: in some cases for someone to end their own life.
34:05
Speaker 2: So I think to that company's credit, they have now
34:08
Speaker 2: announced that it should not be used by anyone under eighteen.
34:11
Speaker 2: But again the question remains, why didn't they consider this
34:15
Speaker 2: consequence when they created the product? And so again that
34:19
Speaker 2: is why, Mama, we're so focused right now in ensuring
34:24
Speaker 2: that our lawmakers take action to require these companies to
34:28
Speaker 2: be accountable for the products that they make, that there's
34:31
Speaker 2: transparency so we know what's happening at these companies, because
34:35
Speaker 2: unless you require them to provide this data, you know
34:38
Speaker 2: researchers can't even study it, and that there's responsibility and
34:41
Speaker 2: that when they design them in such a way that
34:44
Speaker 2: it's inflicting harm on our children at scale, that they
34:48
Speaker 2: are held responsible for that. And we are seeing multiple
34:51
Speaker 2: lawsuits now from school districts throughout the country who are saying,
34:55
Speaker 2: you know what, you have to reimburse us for the
34:57
Speaker 2: tens of millions of dollars. It's costing us for therapists,
35:01
Speaker 2: for emergency psychiatric beds, for all of these costs that
35:05
Speaker 2: have been borne by Americans and our communities that are
35:09
Speaker 2: really the cause that been caused by these tech company products.
35:14
Speaker 1: I want to go back to the school issue, you know,
35:18
Speaker 1: one of the fears, you know, I think about the
35:21
Speaker 1: following right with the advent of AI over the last
35:24
Speaker 1: twenty years, the focus among the many parents. My kids
35:29
Speaker 1: are now eighteen and twenty one, so I remember, and
35:32
Speaker 1: there was always, you know, every conversation with every parent
35:35
Speaker 1: of you know, in my cohort was always you know, hey,
35:40
Speaker 1: they got to learn coding, and oh but they better
35:42
Speaker 1: learn coding, and that's what's you know, and STEM and
35:45
Speaker 1: all of this stuff. And then all of a sudden
35:47
Speaker 1: we realize, oh, no, coding is not going to be
35:49
Speaker 1: a life skill. This isn't this isn't going to be
35:52
Speaker 1: something you need, and it isn't going to help you
35:55
Speaker 1: get another job. In fact, that is going to be
35:57
Speaker 1: replaced by a robot. So that's that's a that's a
36:02
Speaker 1: no longer necessary. That's like teaching somebody how to dig
36:06
Speaker 1: out an ice block. We don't. We don't refrigerate with
36:10
Speaker 1: ice blocks anymore. That is no longer an industry that
36:14
Speaker 1: is necessary. The biggest fear I have now moving from
36:18
Speaker 1: parent to grandparent. Right, I'm not there yet, but I have.
36:23
Speaker 1: I have nieces and nephews who are having kids now,
36:26
Speaker 1: and that is they don't you, And I thought, I
36:31
Speaker 1: think we have an idea of the world our kids
36:33
Speaker 1: are going to be living in. I think that's harder
36:37
Speaker 1: and harder to visualize, and I think it's paralyzing parents
36:41
Speaker 1: and trying to figure out what it is that they
36:44
Speaker 1: should be asking the schools to be teaching their kids
36:47
Speaker 1: to prepare them for the for for this next generation
36:51
Speaker 1: of jobs or this next generation of society, because I
36:54
Speaker 1: don't think any of us have the first clue of
36:57
Speaker 1: what it's going to look like. And I don't know
36:59
Speaker 1: how that factors into what you're working on, but it's
37:03
Speaker 1: to me part of the of the fear factor that
37:06
Speaker 1: has allowed so much technology into the school systems.
37:10
Speaker 2: So the way we describe our work at MAMA is
37:16
Speaker 2: that where a grassroots movement of parents and allies fighting
37:20
Speaker 2: back against media addiction and creating a world where real
37:23
Speaker 2: life experiences and interactions remain at the heart of a
37:27
Speaker 2: healthy childhood. And the reason for that is because tech
37:31
Speaker 2: is here. It's not going anywhere. We are going to
37:34
Speaker 2: have a lot of technology available to us, and it's
37:38
Speaker 2: going to help us solve a lot of problems. But
37:40
Speaker 2: there are many things about being human that we don't
37:44
Speaker 2: want to change, and it should always be part of
37:47
Speaker 2: being human. I don't want a robot to hold my
37:50
Speaker 2: toddler or my grand baby. I want to hold that child.
37:53
Speaker 2: And we don't think that we should just blindly say, okay,
37:56
Speaker 2: tech is going to replace everything. We know that, and
38:00
Speaker 2: there's abundant evidence about the role of parents and adults
38:04
Speaker 2: in children's lives and about the role of embodied experiences
38:08
Speaker 2: in children's learning. And we also know that there are many, many,
38:12
Speaker 2: many jobs that technology is not good for. I don't
38:15
Speaker 2: know if you saw that video that was making its
38:18
Speaker 2: way across social media last week, but there was a
38:22
Speaker 2: new AI robot. It was presented at a conference and
38:25
Speaker 2: as it got across the stage, you know it was
38:26
Speaker 2: it looked really cool until it fell down because they
38:29
Speaker 2: haven't even figured out balance yet. So, you know, over
38:32
Speaker 2: and over again, for more than a century, we've heard
38:36
Speaker 2: tech companies promise that their product is going to revolutionize everything,
38:41
Speaker 2: and some products do and they you know, a smartphone
38:44
Speaker 2: has changed a lot of things. Has it changed the
38:47
Speaker 2: way we eat food? Has it changed the way we
38:50
Speaker 2: nurture our babies, has it changed the way you know,
38:53
Speaker 2: our economy has run, not exactly. There are some changes
38:56
Speaker 2: in our payments, right, but absolutely everything is not going
39:00
Speaker 2: to change. So when it comes to thinking about the future,
39:03
Speaker 2: you know, what I want for my children is to
39:06
Speaker 2: have the same thing that my grandparents wanted for their kids.
39:10
Speaker 2: It's the same thing I want for my future grandchildren.
39:14
Speaker 2: I want them to grow up healthy. I want them
39:16
Speaker 2: to grow up confident and capable. I want them to
39:19
Speaker 2: have a set of skills so that they are resilient
39:22
Speaker 2: and can adapt. Because nobody knows exactly what the workplace
39:25
Speaker 2: is going to need, right, but we're always going to
39:29
Speaker 2: need trades, We're always going to need skilled workers, We're
39:33
Speaker 2: always going to need caretakers, and all of these professions
39:37
Speaker 2: that hold up what it means to have a society.
39:40
Speaker 2: The tech workers and the folks that the machines are
39:42
Speaker 2: a small part of that. And I think we also
39:45
Speaker 2: just don't want to give it all over to the machines.
39:48
Speaker 2: You know, the Luddites happened because those folks like didn't
39:51
Speaker 2: want to lose their jobs. And now we're at a
39:53
Speaker 2: point where many, many more types of work can be replaced,
39:56
Speaker 2: and we have to decide is that what we want?
39:58
Speaker 2: Do we want actors to not you have jobs anymore?
40:01
Speaker 2: Do we want everything to be robots? And I don't
40:05
Speaker 2: think we do. I don't think anybody wants to take
40:06
Speaker 2: their kindergartener to class and have them taught by a
40:09
Speaker 2: robot teacher.
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Speaker 1: forget that code. That's get sold dot Com promo code
41:28
Speaker 1: toodcast for thirty percent off. This is where I'm weirdly optimistic.
41:37
Speaker 1: You know, the human species is pretty adaptable and has
41:40
Speaker 1: survived quite a few challenges over the last few million years.
41:45
Speaker 1: I have a feeling we're not going to let ourselves
41:46
Speaker 1: be replaced by robots. I just wonder if we know
41:50
Speaker 1: we need it when we're ready to start fighting back.
41:53
Speaker 2: Well, it's time. I mean, the time is yere, right.
41:55
Speaker 1: And that's where I want to get to. So okay,
41:58
Speaker 1: So you're you are trying to essentially become a political force,
42:04
Speaker 1: not left or right, just a force. You know, we're
42:07
Speaker 1: not exactly advocating an advocacy. What are you working on
42:13
Speaker 1: in the next six months? I know in the federal
42:15
Speaker 1: level we talked a little bit about it. It's the
42:18
Speaker 1: stopping this uh AI moratorium, Ai regulatory moratorium. What are
42:24
Speaker 1: some near term activities in the States that you're working
42:28
Speaker 1: on as well? And are you going to, you know,
42:32
Speaker 1: try to do candidate questionnaires or try to do things
42:37
Speaker 1: like that or are you not in that that space
42:40
Speaker 1: just yet.
42:41
Speaker 2: So we're not in that space just yet. We're a
42:42
Speaker 2: five at one C three, we're not a C four.
42:45
Speaker 2: You know. Working on demanding safeguards is one small part
42:49
Speaker 2: of what we do. We also work really hard on
42:52
Speaker 2: our communities to educate parents on why they don't have
42:57
Speaker 2: to rush to give their kids a phone are wonderful
43:00
Speaker 2: chapter leader in Pittsburgh, you know, talked with the members
43:05
Speaker 2: of that chapter and they really wanted their children to
43:08
Speaker 2: be able to go to school without phones. But some
43:10
Speaker 2: parents were worried, what about an emergency And they went
43:13
Speaker 2: and they talked to local shop owners and they said,
43:16
Speaker 2: you know, in an emergency, can my child come in
43:18
Speaker 2: and use the phone? And the store owners were like,
43:20
Speaker 2: of course, and they put little stickers in the window
43:23
Speaker 2: so the kids would even know they were welcome there. Right.
43:25
Speaker 2: So Mama works in communities, and then we also work
43:29
Speaker 2: with schools because this is a huge issue now, not
43:33
Speaker 2: just the phones, but what people are calling ed tech,
43:36
Speaker 2: so that is the giving of tablets to kindergarteners, the
43:40
Speaker 2: giving of laptop to first graders, and all over the
43:43
Speaker 2: country we're hearing from parents that they're at war with
43:46
Speaker 2: their schools because they don't want their children to come
43:48
Speaker 2: home and have these devices. They don't want their children
43:51
Speaker 2: to have access to YouTube where they're going to be
43:53
Speaker 2: watching videos over and over, and the platform is designed
43:56
Speaker 2: to keep them on there as long as possible. And
43:58
Speaker 2: then in terms of legislation, we are very excited about
44:03
Speaker 2: all of the lawmakers that introduce bills to try to
44:05
Speaker 2: require products to be safer. In the last legislative session,
44:09
Speaker 2: we saw close to four hundred bills introduced. There were
44:13
Speaker 2: a lot, but we've seen success in everything from bell
44:17
Speaker 2: to bell phone bands to social media warning labels pass.
44:20
Speaker 2: And we're most excited about legislation like something called the
44:24
Speaker 2: Age Appropriate Design Code or the Kid's Code. And this
44:27
Speaker 2: is law that requires companies that make digital products to
44:32
Speaker 2: be used by children to show what's called a duty
44:35
Speaker 2: of care to children in making them safe by design.
44:39
Speaker 2: So if the if a kid's going to go on there,
44:41
Speaker 2: then it should be designed in a safe way. And
44:43
Speaker 2: that means doing things like putting privacy settings at the
44:46
Speaker 2: highest by default, not the lowest, so that every American
44:49
Speaker 2: parent doesn't have to go in there and figure out
44:51
Speaker 2: how to make sure a stranger can't contact their child.
44:54
Speaker 2: But it's set that way from the beginning. So Nebraska
44:57
Speaker 2: and Vermont, for example, this year passed the Age Appropriate
44:59
Speaker 2: Design Code.
45:00
Speaker 1: By the way, that just shows you the ideological breadth
45:05
Speaker 1: if you will, that's there, right, you know Vermont's Vermont,
45:08
Speaker 1: the homer Bernie Sanders. Well, guess what Nebraska is. They
45:13
Speaker 1: root for a team they call Big Red. And it
45:15
Speaker 1: isn't just because Nebraska's colors are red.
45:18
Speaker 2: Yep. And you know, we're also seeing some interesting legislation
45:22
Speaker 2: now being introduced about AI. So in October, Senators Mark
45:28
Speaker 2: Warner from Virginia, Josh Hawley from Missouri, Dick Blumenthal from Connecticut,
45:33
Speaker 2: Chris Murphy from Connecticut, and Katie Brett from Alabama introduced
45:37
Speaker 2: this bipartisan bill that would ban minors from using AI
45:41
Speaker 2: chatbot companions. And it would have an incredible impact on
45:44
Speaker 2: the safety of our children. So, you know, that's the
45:47
Speaker 2: kind of thing. I mean, who wouldn't support that? I
45:50
Speaker 2: mean you have to ask who wouldn't support keeping kids safe?
45:54
Speaker 1: Do you? You know, do you plan on having sort of
45:56
Speaker 1: Mama Seal of approvals? You know, meaning like if you
45:59
Speaker 1: want to see what are what are? What are? You know?
46:03
Speaker 1: Could I, you know, maybe this a little early my
46:07
Speaker 1: next holiday season, will I go on Mama's website and
46:10
Speaker 1: be able to see these are products that you should
46:13
Speaker 1: feel comfortable that have some tech in him, that are
46:17
Speaker 1: that are safe check.
46:19
Speaker 2: I don't want to promise that to your listeners, it's
46:22
Speaker 2: definitely on our to do list. We're moving as quickly
46:24
Speaker 2: as we can. As I mentioned, you know, we had
46:28
Speaker 2: this ambitious goal of having six chapters, and the demand
46:32
Speaker 2: is just completely overwhelming. Right after we launched, we got
46:34
Speaker 2: requests from all fifty states and all over the globe,
46:37
Speaker 2: like every continent except Antarctica. So you know, we are
46:42
Speaker 2: very grateful that we receive some funding this year from
46:45
Speaker 2: the Rockefeller Foundation, and we are primarily uh funded by
46:51
Speaker 2: individual donors and family foundations. There's a lot of folks
46:54
Speaker 2: who've come together to make this work happen, and we're
46:56
Speaker 2: growing as quickly as we can. But yes, I do
46:59
Speaker 2: think eventually that is something we would like to provide.
47:02
Speaker 1: You know, it's interesting you just talked about the world.
47:04
Speaker 1: I heard a stat and I wonder if you guys
47:07
Speaker 1: are now a clearinghouse for some of these studies that
47:10
Speaker 1: there has not been a study around the world on
47:14
Speaker 1: social media usage or early phone usage that it hasn't
47:17
Speaker 1: mattered whether it's a rich country a poor country, It
47:22
Speaker 1: hasn't mattered what ethnicity or if it's a you know,
47:26
Speaker 1: homogeneous society or a multi ethnic society that this is
47:30
Speaker 1: it is so clear that this this tech at a
47:35
Speaker 1: young age, has been harmful hardstop.
47:38
Speaker 2: You know, social media doesn't discriminate, and we have definitely
47:43
Speaker 2: seen that. You know, with the National Emergency and Youth
47:47
Speaker 2: Mental Health, it cuts across race, class, gender, geography, you
47:52
Speaker 2: name it. There is additional concerns for vulnerable communities. We
47:58
Speaker 2: have seen unfortunate the increase in suicide rates among Hispanic
48:03
Speaker 2: adolescents is even higher than in its white counterparts. The
48:07
Speaker 2: rate of increase in Black youth is high. So I
48:11
Speaker 2: think we're beginning to see a different kind of digital
48:14
Speaker 2: divide where low income families. And in part it might
48:19
Speaker 2: be because childcare is so expensive.
48:21
Speaker 1: And I'm just going to say, is that child is
48:23
Speaker 1: basically unfortunately we have tech nannies, right. You know, I
48:26
Speaker 1: was a latch key kid. First thing I did when
48:29
Speaker 1: I had to get home was I had to call
48:30
Speaker 1: my mom at work to let her know.
48:31
Speaker 2: I got in the house, right, And you probably watched
48:33
Speaker 2: TV and that was fine though, you know, I did.
48:36
Speaker 1: Turn on TV. But what would happen now? Right? You
48:38
Speaker 1: whip on? You probably you know, put the device on, right.
48:42
Speaker 2: I mean, I watched more Love Boat than any ten
48:44
Speaker 2: year old should have. But there was a limit to
48:47
Speaker 2: what kinds of things.
48:48
Speaker 1: My parents did wearing crazy about me watching love Boat
48:50
Speaker 1: or Three's Company. I remember exactly.
48:54
Speaker 2: We didn't even know.
48:55
Speaker 1: I'll see an old rerunning go oh my god, like
48:59
Speaker 1: what that is? I can't believe they let that on television?
49:02
Speaker 2: Right well now, the average age of first exposure to
49:05
Speaker 2: pornography is twelve. Okay, check twelve, like you know, and
49:09
Speaker 2: look like I think as a parent, you know, I
49:13
Speaker 2: don't have crazy conservative ideas. I know that at some
49:17
Speaker 2: point my sons will probably be exposed to pornography in
49:20
Speaker 2: high school, but I don't think it should be mainline
49:23
Speaker 2: to them by a couple of companies that are making
49:26
Speaker 2: gobs of profit if they can get people to stay
49:29
Speaker 2: on their platform longer.
49:31
Speaker 1: There's certain things that should be hard to come by,
49:33
Speaker 1: and they have to. Frankly, in some ways you should
49:37
Speaker 1: feel a little bit of shame, because that's actually a
49:40
Speaker 1: good thing to have through life.
49:43
Speaker 2: Yeah, well, you know, look, I don't think anybody would
49:45
Speaker 2: support allowing pornography at the checkout register at the supermarket,
49:52
Speaker 2: but we didn't. We don't have a law that forces
49:55
Speaker 2: people to you know, put it high up behind the
49:58
Speaker 2: counter or wrap it in paper bags, you know. So
50:01
Speaker 2: custom is part of this and part of what's challenging
50:04
Speaker 2: in the digital eras that we're you know, these companies, we're.
50:08
Speaker 1: Still making the customs. We don't really have it making
50:11
Speaker 1: the customs right, And I think that that's been that's
50:14
Speaker 1: what makes this feel so challenging. And because I think
50:18
Speaker 1: we all agree we've got to figure out how to
50:21
Speaker 1: slow down the adapt the adaptation of tech in kids' lives.
50:26
Speaker 1: But my god, is the toothpaste already out of the tube.
50:30
Speaker 2: Well, we have Mama's House Rules. If you go to
50:33
Speaker 2: we are Mama dot org and you click on learn,
50:36
Speaker 2: you can scroll down and Mama's House Rules give you
50:39
Speaker 2: some ideas of how as a family you can manage it,
50:42
Speaker 2: limit it, put it in a container. Again, we're not
50:47
Speaker 2: saying there's going to be no tech in your life,
50:49
Speaker 2: but we're just saying, how do you have a life
50:52
Speaker 2: that's based on real life experiences and interaction, because once
50:56
Speaker 2: you or your child are spending too much time online,
51:00
Speaker 2: it just becomes so unhealthy. And you know we're all
51:04
Speaker 2: media addicted, right, it's not just our children, and what
51:06
Speaker 2: we model has a huge huge impact on them.
51:11
Speaker 1: Well, if I just went on your site, we are
51:14
Speaker 1: Mama dot org, so that's the fairly quick and easy place.
51:18
Speaker 1: You mentioned one other thing about tobacco about how those
51:23
Speaker 1: that were advocating against it had a went to Hollywood
51:26
Speaker 1: and said, hey, we need to redo this. Are you
51:29
Speaker 1: trying to do the same thing with Hollywood with tech?
51:32
Speaker 1: You know, you say, hey, you know, bo make it
51:35
Speaker 1: so that you know, everything that happens online is bad,
51:39
Speaker 1: the cool stuff is in person, or something like that.
51:42
Speaker 1: How are you trying to influence culture in that front?
51:45
Speaker 2: So, you know, we've had some conversations with some people
51:49
Speaker 2: in the space. I think other you know, Joe Gordon
51:52
Speaker 2: Levitt has been a tremendous voice for healthy human relationships.
51:58
Speaker 2: I know he's a dad and he again he's not
52:01
Speaker 2: anti tech. He just thinks like tech should be safe
52:05
Speaker 2: and that we shouldn't. He has a wonderful ted talk
52:08
Speaker 2: that you could check out about his own experience with
52:10
Speaker 2: social media and what he learned is unhealthy about it.
52:14
Speaker 2: I think that more and more people in Hollywood are
52:16
Speaker 2: waking up to this, especially after the actors the sag
52:21
Speaker 2: after strike last year. You know, so many studios had
52:25
Speaker 2: sort of suggested that they just pay actors once and
52:29
Speaker 2: don't hire him again, and then they can just make
52:31
Speaker 2: an AI likeness. And I don't think anybody likes the
52:33
Speaker 2: idea of never working again, because you know, pixels can
52:39
Speaker 2: just replace them. And then I think Pixar in the
52:41
Speaker 2: Last Toy Story movie, I think they actually had a
52:45
Speaker 2: digital device kind of be one of the negative characters.
52:48
Speaker 2: So maybe somebody over there is getting the message.
52:50
Speaker 1: Interesting, Julie, I am, you know, cheering you on. I'm
52:56
Speaker 1: glad to give you a platform. I want to stay
52:59
Speaker 1: in touch, want to continue to help spread the word.
53:02
Speaker 1: I mean, I think I think generally everybody gets it.
53:06
Speaker 1: I think there's a lot of paralysis out there, and
53:09
Speaker 1: I think what you've shown is that hey, you're not alone.
53:13
Speaker 2: You're not alone. And it's just been so moving and
53:16
Speaker 2: inspiring to see all these parents come forward. We're looking
53:20
Speaker 2: for more chapter leaders and a couple of specific states.
53:25
Speaker 2: So if you have any listeners in Wisconsin or Tennessee
53:29
Speaker 2: or Kentucky.
53:31
Speaker 1: Okay, here you go and challenge accept it. Here we go.
53:35
Speaker 1: Come on, Kentucky and Tennessee and Wisconsin. I got listeners
53:38
Speaker 1: in all those states. We know this. Let's go, let's
53:41
Speaker 1: get this done. And I'd like to see you know
53:44
Speaker 1: who the best advocates for this could be today's college students.
53:48
Speaker 1: You know, I'd love to see you get college chapters.
53:51
Speaker 1: That was look, that was a big part of Matt.
53:55
Speaker 1: They got some college chapters and that helped absolutely.
53:58
Speaker 2: We work with some youth led groups now that are
54:00
Speaker 2: just truly wonderful, and you know, I am both grateful
54:05
Speaker 2: for their advocacy and it breaks my heart that we
54:08
Speaker 2: have put kids in a situation where children have to
54:12
Speaker 2: go to Congress and testify about what happened to them
54:15
Speaker 2: and how they were groomed online or received eating disorder encouragement.
54:20
Speaker 2: You know, we're the parents. We have to make it
54:23
Speaker 2: safe for our kids.
54:25
Speaker 1: Julie so much, so grateful to talk with you.
54:27
Speaker 2: Thank you you too, pleasure. Thanks