Latest / Dr Justin Coulson's Happy Families / #857 Navigating Apps & the Digital World with Katie Davis

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#857 Navigating Apps & the Digital World with Katie Davis · Dr Justin Coulson's Happy Families

• 0:03
  Speaker 1: It's the Happy Families Podcast. It's the podcast for the
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  Speaker 1: time poor parent who just wants answers Now.
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  Speaker 2: Hello, this is doctor Justin Colson, the founder of Happy
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  Speaker 2: Families dot com dot AU. Today on the Happy Families Podcast,
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  Speaker 2: a conversation about a brand new book that's just been
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  Speaker 2: published called Technologies Child Digital Media's role in the ages
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  Speaker 2: and stages of growing up.
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  Speaker 1: The author is Katie Davis.
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  Speaker 2: I'm going to tell you a bit about Katie, and
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  Speaker 2: then we're going to have a really important conversation for
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  Speaker 2: any parent of any child whoever uses technology, which would
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  Speaker 2: be all of them. Katie Davis is an associate professor
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  Speaker 2: at the University of Washington Information School, where she's a
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  Speaker 2: founding member and co director of the UW Digital Youth Lab.
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  Speaker 2: She's also the co author of the app Generation, How
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  Speaker 2: Today's youth Navigate identity, intimacy, imagination in a digital World
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  Speaker 2: with one of the all time gurus of psychology, a
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  Speaker 2: guy who has done more about intelligence in psychology than
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  Speaker 2: maybe anybody, Howard Gardner, and writers in the Secret Garden
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  Speaker 2: fan Fiction, Youth and New Forms of Mentoring, which she
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  Speaker 2: wrote with Cecilia aragon I. Might also mention that The
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  Speaker 2: book Technologies Child, which is the one we're going to
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  Speaker 2: be talking about today by Katie Davis, also has some
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  Speaker 2: pretty big what's the word like, there's some pretty big
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  Speaker 2: names behind this book. Adam Grant has just named this
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  Speaker 2: I Must read in his next Big Idea Club And
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  Speaker 2: if you get an endorsement from Adam Grant. I mean, Katie,
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  Speaker 2: did you just about cry when Adam Grant said you
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  Speaker 2: need to read this book?
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  Speaker 3: I was pretty excited. I have to say. Yes.
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  Speaker 2: So you're a mom to one, You've got a little guy.
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  Speaker 2: He is six years old.
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  Speaker 3: He is, Yeah, Oliver.
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  Speaker 2: The first question I have to ask before we even
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  Speaker 2: talk about your book is how do you go with
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  Speaker 2: Oliver and technology?
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  Speaker 1: Six years old?
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  Speaker 2: I'm sure that he wants to be I don't know,
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  Speaker 2: watching cartoons. He wants to play Pokemon or.
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  Speaker 1: Something like is he Pokemon?
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  Speaker 3: Yes?
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  Speaker 1: Is he at you all the time to be on
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  Speaker 1: his screen?
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  Speaker 3: Well, you know, we go in and out. So sometimes
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  Speaker 3: he's really really pushing to get on the screen and
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  Speaker 3: watch something. Right now, it is certainly Pokemon. But then
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  Speaker 3: other times he's pretty relaxed and more interested in doing
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  Speaker 3: things offline. It's hard to project, really, I think but
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  Speaker 3: that's what I have learned as a parent, is that
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  Speaker 3: children are often hard to predict.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, they're They're not quite the same as I
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  Speaker 2: don't know chemicals in a chemistry.
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  Speaker 1: Experiment, are they?
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  Speaker 3: This is no exactly A.
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  Speaker 1: Little bit more random.
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  Speaker 2: Okay, I want to dive into some of the things
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  Speaker 2: that you've written about in this book. I showed you
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  Speaker 2: my copy of your book, which has I was going
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  Speaker 2: to say thousands of pages doggied, but it's not a
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  Speaker 2: It's only two hundred and fifty pages long, but I've
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  Speaker 2: doggied almost every single page. Can we just talk about
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  Speaker 2: kids under the age of about well, let's start with
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  Speaker 2: our toddler is our infants? Now told children under about
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  Speaker 2: the age of three. When parents are giving their children screens.
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  Speaker 2: I love how human you are in the book and
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  Speaker 2: saying sometimes you just have to because like you need
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  Speaker 2: a break, and it's okay for the kids to have
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  Speaker 2: some screens, But what are the risks that we are
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  Speaker 2: up against with children under the age of three? And
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  Speaker 2: they use all of screens, whether it's for TV or
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  Speaker 2: whether they're using apps.
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  Speaker 3: Right, So there are a number of things and as
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  Speaker 3: you mentioned, sometimes we need to give us ourselves a break.
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  Speaker 3: So I first want to preface what I'm about to
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  Speaker 3: say by urging parents to give themselves a break and
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  Speaker 3: not be too hard on themselves, because that's one thing
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  Speaker 3: that I talk about in this book is that there's
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  Speaker 3: just so much guilt and pressure associated with being a
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  Speaker 3: parent these days, and not just related to technology, but
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  Speaker 3: pretty much every aspect of your child's development. You're expected
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  Speaker 3: to set them up on the road to success. And
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  Speaker 3: so I want to just acknowledge that there's a lot
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  Speaker 3: of pressure. Sure, it's very much there when it comes
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  Speaker 3: to technology, and in fact, I talk about this idea
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  Speaker 3: in the book that I call the Good Enough Digital Parent,
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  Speaker 3: where the idea is that we are trying to do
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  Speaker 3: our best, of course, to steer our children towards positive,
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  Speaker 3: developmentally supportive technology experiences. But we're not going to be
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  Speaker 3: perfect at this all the time, and we're going to
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  Speaker 3: make mistakes. The key is that we are going to
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  Speaker 3: be keen observers of how our children are reacting as
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  Speaker 3: they're engaging with technology, and also after they've engaged with
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  Speaker 3: the technology, and depending on how they act, we will
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  Speaker 3: pivot and adjust accordingly, and you know, try and steer
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  Speaker 3: them towards the best possible experiences. But when it comes
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  Speaker 3: to children, the really young children, generally speaking, I would
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  Speaker 3: say it's fine, you know, occasionally to introduce your child
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  Speaker 3: to an app that is geared towards little kids, or
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  Speaker 3: perhaps watching a few TV shows, But the thing to
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  Speaker 3: be on the lookout for is noticing whether or not
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  Speaker 3: you're reaching for the tablet or the phone every single
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  Speaker 3: time you want to break or every single time your
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  Speaker 3: child is getting fussy, because if that starts to be
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  Speaker 3: the default move for you, that's not going to be
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  Speaker 3: good for your child or for you, because that's not
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  Speaker 3: going to help you support your child in managing their
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  Speaker 3: own emotions and learning how to regulate themselves. If they
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  Speaker 3: always know that you're going to put a screen in
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  Speaker 3: front of them to soothe them, they're not going to
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  Speaker 3: develop that emotion regulation and the resilience that is so
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  Speaker 3: important during those early years.
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  Speaker 2: This is a fascinating path that I want to just
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  Speaker 2: try a few more steps down, the relationship between emotion
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  Speaker 2: regulation and behavioral regulation and screen use. So I hear
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  Speaker 2: parents say this all the time. When my children are
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  Speaker 2: in front of a screen, they are so regulated like
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  Speaker 2: the screen does all of this regulation for them. They're calm,
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  Speaker 2: they're willing to eat their food, they're willing to get
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  Speaker 2: into their school uniforms, they're willing to do almost anything
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  Speaker 2: that I ask them to do. And yet when we
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  Speaker 2: turn off the screen, it's like they become like hashtag
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  Speaker 2: demon child.
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  Speaker 1: They just turn into this psycho child.
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  Speaker 2: And I wonder if you can talk about that emotional
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  Speaker 2: and behavioral regulation issue. And I guess this extends well
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  Speaker 2: beyond the toddally years. Now, why is it the TV
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  Speaker 2: is such an extraordinary regulator and why does that regulation
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  Speaker 2: dissipate so fast once the screen is off?
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  Speaker 3: Absolutely? So, first of all, it's important to recognize that
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  Speaker 3: in those early years each one, two, and three, one
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  Speaker 3: of the key developmental tasks for kids that age is
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  Speaker 3: to develop the ability to regulate their emotions, to regulate
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  Speaker 3: their behavior. In fact, so these constellations of skills that
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  Speaker 3: are called executive function, and it's probably the most important
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  Speaker 3: thing that they're developing, aside from language. And so when
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  Speaker 3: we put our kids in front of a TV, if
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  Speaker 3: we think about what sort of attention and now attention
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  Speaker 3: is really wrapped up in executive function and self regulation.
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  Speaker 3: It's really all about being able to manage your own attention.
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  Speaker 3: But when you're looking at a screen, the kind of
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  Speaker 3: attention that you're engaging in is what we call bottom
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  Speaker 3: up processes of attention. So you're kind of being led
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  Speaker 3: by the TV. You're not really having to do any
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  Speaker 3: sort of work. So, for your listeners who are thinking
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  Speaker 3: about an analogy for their experiences, if you think about
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  Speaker 3: when you're just scrolling through your social media feed, you're
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  Speaker 3: really not doing much of anything. You're not putting a
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  Speaker 3: lot of attention in it. You're just letting yourself be
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  Speaker 3: taken from one post to another. However, if you're composing
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  Speaker 3: a cover letter for a job or an application for something,
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  Speaker 3: that's when you're using top down processes of attention. So
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  Speaker 3: you're really very much focused and you're controlling your attention.
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  Speaker 3: You're putting a lot of thought into it. And that's
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  Speaker 3: the kind of attention that doesn't usually get engaged when
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  Speaker 3: you're watching TV. And so when when you notice that
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  Speaker 3: your child is sort of looking like a zombie in
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  Speaker 3: front of the screen, that's because they're not really putting
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  Speaker 3: much effort into their attention. It's being co opted in
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  Speaker 3: a way by the TV screen. But that's not to
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  Speaker 3: say that every single digital experience uses that kind of attention.
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  Speaker 3: There are certainly more interactive forms of digital experiences that
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  Speaker 3: require kids to engage in more of those effortful forms
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  Speaker 3: of attention, those top down processes. So some games, when
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  Speaker 3: you get into slightly older kids, schemes like Minecraft or Roadblocks,
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  Speaker 3: those are good examples of the types of digital experiences
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  Speaker 3: that require a different kind of attention that is more effortful,
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  Speaker 3: that might be a little bit more supportive of executive
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  Speaker 3: function skills.
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  Speaker 2: Okabe, there are a couple of different tangents that I
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  Speaker 2: want to go on as a result of what you've
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  Speaker 2: just said here, there's no way I'm going to get
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  Speaker 2: to the list of the bottom of my list of
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  Speaker 2: questions today. You've talked about educational apps. You highlight in
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  Speaker 2: Technology's Child that for the most part, educational apps are
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  Speaker 2: not particularly educational. Would you mind just fortunately, yeah, can
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  Speaker 2: you step through what the data shows us around that
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  Speaker 2: and the false promises that are made by these app
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  Speaker 2: developers who are really I guess what are they doing.
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  Speaker 2: They're trying to capitalize on our best intentions to give
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  Speaker 2: our children a head start and also give ourselves a
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  Speaker 2: break while using a screen. What's the real story behind
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  Speaker 2: educational apps?
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  Speaker 3: Well, the first story to keep in mind is that
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  Speaker 3: the vast majority of these apps have zero research behind them.
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  Speaker 3: So they're making a lot of claims about being educational
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  Speaker 3: without any sort of support or evidence that I would
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  Speaker 3: as a researcher consider rigorous. And so maybe they've tested
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  Speaker 3: out with a few kids or families, but not really
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  Speaker 3: rigorous peer reviewed research. So that's the first thing. Just
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  Speaker 3: beware of the claims that they're making. And then I
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  Speaker 3: think beyond that, it's really something that parents need to
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  Speaker 3: try out on a case by case basis, look at
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  Speaker 3: the app, see how their children are engaging with it,
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  Speaker 3: and again, what sort of attention is this app encouraging?
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  Speaker 3: Is it just sort of leading them down one path
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  Speaker 3: without really thinking, or is it actually getting them to think. So,
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  Speaker 3: for young kids, there are a lot of apps that
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  Speaker 3: are focused on literacy development or numeracy development, and some
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  Speaker 3: of those can be quite good, provided they're not including
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  Speaker 3: all too many bells and whistles. So you have to
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  Speaker 3: keep in mind that for little kids, they have limited
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  Speaker 3: information processing abilities, so they're still developing those tools and
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  Speaker 3: the amount of information that's coming at them, if it's
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  Speaker 3: too much, if there's too many songs, or if there's
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  Speaker 3: too many visuals on the screen that might overwhelm their
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  Speaker 3: information processing capacity. So in fact, you want to look
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  Speaker 3: for apps that are pretty minimal and that don't have
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  Speaker 3: a lot of bells and whistles, that they're not really busy,
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  Speaker 3: because the busier they are, the more overwhelming it's going
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  Speaker 3: to be for your child, and the more taxing, and
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  Speaker 3: they're probably less likely to get out of it the
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  Speaker 3: core educational objective. So whether that's to count or learning
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  Speaker 3: your ABC's, if there's a lot of other characters, you know,
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  Speaker 3: getting really excited and all these different things going on,
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  Speaker 3: that should be a warning sign that maybe it's a
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  Speaker 3: little too much for your child.
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  Speaker 2: When I look at the apps that my children want
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  Speaker 2: to play, they tend to not be oriented towards anything
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  Speaker 2: other than time wasting. And I guess I have my
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  Speaker 2: own theories about this, and I suspect that yours and
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  Speaker 2: mind will. I've lap quite a lot here, but I'd
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  Speaker 2: love to get your perspective on this. Why are children
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  Speaker 2: so drawn in by screens? What is it about that
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  Speaker 2: makes screens so compelling?
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  Speaker 3: Well, it's kind of what draws us in these screens,
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  Speaker 3: and the importantly, the applications that are running on the
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  Speaker 3: screens have been specifically designed with psychological theories that are
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  Speaker 3: known to hold and keep our attention. And so children
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  Speaker 3: are very susceptible to having their attention co opt in
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  Speaker 3: a way when they're confronted with very compelling content. And
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  Speaker 3: the developers of these different apps and TV shows, they
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  Speaker 3: know exactly what they're doing. They kind of have the
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  Speaker 3: formula down path to hold our attention, our attention as adults,
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  Speaker 3: but also our children's attention, and that's kind of the
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  Speaker 3: business model. The more they can hold our attention, the
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  Speaker 3: better their bottom line does. And so that, yeah, it
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  Speaker 3: really can sometimes go against what's best for a child's development.
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  Speaker 3: And so in the book, I really encourage parents to
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  Speaker 3: when they're looking at their children interacting with a particular
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  Speaker 3: digital device or application and they're trying to figure out
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  Speaker 3: is this good for my child? Is it not? But
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  Speaker 3: how do I even know? There are two questions that
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  Speaker 3: I encourage parents to ask themselves, And these are questions
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  Speaker 3: that I ask myself every day when I'm considering what
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  Speaker 3: sort of technology is okay for Oliver to have? For
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  Speaker 3: that day and for how long. I ask myself first,
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  Speaker 3: is this self directed? And so by self directed, I
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  Speaker 3: mean experiences where your child is really in the driver's seat.
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  Speaker 3: The agency is with your child, it's not with the technology.
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  Speaker 3: And so going back to our conversation about having attention
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  Speaker 3: being co opted, when that happens, your child is no
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  Speaker 3: longer in the driver's seat of their digital interaction. So
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  Speaker 3: you really want to be thinking about to what extent
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  Speaker 3: is my child kind of there and in control, Recognizing
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  Speaker 3: not all experiences are going to allow children to be
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  Speaker 3: equally in control of their digital experiences. So, but you
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  Speaker 3: do want to at least try as much as possible
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  Speaker 3: to steer them towards experiences that they're really in the
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  Speaker 3: driver's seat. The second question that I'm asking myself every
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  Speaker 3: day is is this experienced community supported? And by that,
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  Speaker 3: I mean who's are involved either during the experience or
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  Speaker 3: surrounding the experience that can actually support my child. So
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  Speaker 3: with little kids, this tends to be parents or sometimes
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  Speaker 3: older siblings who are on hand to help the child
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  Speaker 3: interact with a particular app or device, maybe engage with them.
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  Speaker 3: So joint media engagement is actually been shown to be
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  Speaker 3: really supportive of kids development, so their literacy development, their
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  Speaker 3: numeracy development, and so on. So thinking about what opportunities
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  Speaker 3: does this digital experience provide in terms of involving other people.
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  Speaker 3: When you get into older kids and they're starting to
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  Speaker 3: participate in online communities, sometimes the support can actually come
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  Speaker 3: from within the platform, where there's an actual community online
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  Speaker 3: that can support kids and help them have an enriching
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  Speaker 3: experience online. The opposite is also true. Sometimes you can
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  Speaker 3: have an experience that is actually not very community supportive.
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  Speaker 3: For instance, if your child is experiencing bullying online, that's
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  Speaker 3: sort of the opposite of community support. So it's really
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  Speaker 3: those two questions that I'm asking myself every day as
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  Speaker 3: a parent. Is this self directed? Is it community supported?
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  Speaker 3: Recognizing that not everything is going to be amazingly great
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  Speaker 3: when it comes to those two questions, but I'm at
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  Speaker 3: least striving for making them as good as possible.
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  Speaker 2: Katie, when you describe that, I think about my Facebook use.
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  Speaker 2: What I've found is that I have no sense of agency.
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  Speaker 2: Once I get into Facebook. It takes away my capacity
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  Speaker 2: to choose. And so what I've done with Facebook, I've
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  Speaker 2: had my wife put a screen time password with a
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  Speaker 2: screen limit of fifteen minutes per day on that particular app,
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  Speaker 2: I don't like being on there. I don't feel good
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  Speaker 2: when I'm on there, and I'm not using it for
• 17:10
  Speaker 2: high quality interactions. I'm just scrolling through the garbage that
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  Speaker 2: it feeds me. And yes, the garbage that it feeds
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  Speaker 2: me is all the stuff that I'm interested in, like
• 17:19
  Speaker 2: the surfing and the bike riding and all the other
• 17:21
  Speaker 2: stuff that I'm really passionate about in my life. But
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  Speaker 2: it's such unproductive time and I never get off a
• 17:27
  Speaker 2: fifteen minute Facebook session. I think, oh, that was so good.
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  Speaker 2: I feel so fulfilled now. And I guess when I
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  Speaker 2: hear you describe those two things, the importance of agency
• 17:36
  Speaker 2: or autonomy, the self direction, and also the level of
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  Speaker 2: community support, those two things are distinctly lacking in my
• 17:43
  Speaker 2: social media use. Ironically, it's called social media, and yet
• 17:46
  Speaker 2: I'm not particularly using it in a very social way.
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  Speaker 2: And I can see the value, I can see the
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  Speaker 2: wisdom in what you've shared. Our time is up already.
• 17:57
  Speaker 2: I feel like we've barely started. I feel like we've
• 17:59
  Speaker 2: talked about two of the things that are in my
• 18:02
  Speaker 2: notes that I want to talk about. Do you think
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  Speaker 2: that we could continue this conversation tomorrow on.
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  Speaker 3: The podcast, Absolutely, I would love to.
• 18:09
  Speaker 2: I'm speaking with Katie Davis, an associate professor at the
• 18:11
  Speaker 2: University of Washington, about her book, recommended highly by Adam
• 18:16
  Speaker 2: Grant's Next Big Idea Club as a must read. The
• 18:18
  Speaker 2: book is called Technologies Child, Digital Media's role in the
• 18:22
  Speaker 2: Ages and Stages of growing Up. Tomorrow, when we return,
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  Speaker 2: we're going to continue this conversation by diving into some
• 18:28
  Speaker 2: of the technology challenges that we have with.
• 18:30
  Speaker 1: Bigger kids and our teens.
• 18:33
  Speaker 2: It's The Happy Family's podcast, produced by Justin Roland from
• 18:35
  Speaker 2: Bridge Media.
• 18:35
  Speaker 1: Craig Bruce is our executive producer.
• 18:37
  Speaker 2: For more information about Technology's Child, you can see the
• 18:40
  Speaker 2: show notes and also check out Katie's website katiedavisresearch dot com.
• 18:45
  Speaker 2: If you go there and sign up for Katie's newsletter,
• 18:47
  Speaker 2: she'll be able to send you a weekly tidbit of
• 18:51
  Speaker 2: research and ideas for how you can manage tech better
• 18:54
  Speaker 2: in your home with your kids. That's Katie Davisresearch dot com.
• 18:58
  Speaker 1: Sign up for her newsletter, then