Latest / Dr Justin Coulson's Happy Families / #1036 - From the Doctor's Desk: Screen Use Bad, Green Space Good

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#1036 - From the Doctor's Desk: Screen Use Bad, Green Space Good · Dr Justin Coulson's Happy Families

• 0:02
  Speaker 1: It's the Happy Families Podcast.
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  Speaker 2: It's the podcast for the time poor parent who just
• 0:08
  Speaker 2: once answers mew.
• 0:13
  Speaker 1: Once each month on the Happy Families Podcast, we dive
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  Speaker 1: deep into the latest research, the scientific stuff that is
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  Speaker 1: going to help our families to be happier today. We
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  Speaker 1: have four studies to look at closely, and believe me,
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  Speaker 1: these are practical. You're going to walk away knowing stuff
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  Speaker 1: that you didn't know before that will help your family
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  Speaker 1: to thrive. Kylie, let's go through them. Four studies.
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  Speaker 2: What have we got our attention spans decreasing, the kids
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  Speaker 2: won't listen to me. We got to look at green
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  Speaker 2: space and the mental health benefits. And lastly, monkey see
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  Speaker 2: monkey do. The way we use our phones and screens
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  Speaker 2: has a direct impact on the way our children will
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  Speaker 2: do the same.
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  Speaker 1: All right, let's dive into this first one, attention span.
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  Speaker 1: There's a study that so normally we look at North
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  Speaker 1: American or Europea or Australian research. This one comes from
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  Speaker 1: the University of Mumbai and it's a really really interesting one.
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  Speaker 1: It's a fairly small study, about two hundred students in
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  Speaker 1: this study high school students. The researchers have basically given
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  Speaker 1: them a question there and said, how much are you
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  Speaker 1: spending time on short videos? So the short video platforms.
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  Speaker 2: Well, you're talking about TikTok and reels.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah, and YouTube shorts as well. They're the three main areas.
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  Speaker 1: The researchers were looking to correlate the extent to which
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  Speaker 1: people are spending time on short video watching and their
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  Speaker 1: exam scores in high school two hundred students, like I said,
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  Speaker 1: can I ask you to guess what do you think
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  Speaker 1: the outcome would be?
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  Speaker 2: Well, I'm assuming that attention spans decrease. I know when
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  Speaker 2: I am scrolling, my attention span with all of those
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  Speaker 2: videos doesn't last very long either.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah, that's right, like three seconds.
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  Speaker 2: Two seconds, I'm done.
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  Speaker 1: It's curious to say that. When I started to do
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  Speaker 1: some TikTok stuff for the team, they said I absolutely
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  Speaker 1: had to be on TikTok and I had to do
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  Speaker 1: this stuff. They pretty much said, if you don't say
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  Speaker 1: something that's capturing somebody within three seconds, they're gone, They're
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  Speaker 1: under the next video. We don't have great ways of
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  Speaker 1: measuring attention span. What we do know, though, the researcher
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  Speaker 1: called Gloria Mark. Gloria Mark is an organizational psychologist. She
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  Speaker 1: used to go into businesses and sit behind people they
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  Speaker 1: were working on their computer and just use a stopwatch
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  Speaker 1: and basically time how long people would spend on a
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  Speaker 1: task before they switched to another task. And they use
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  Speaker 1: that as their measurement of to what extend is this
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  Speaker 1: person able to sustain their attention? How long can they
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  Speaker 1: stay focused on one task before they moved to the
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  Speaker 1: next one.
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  Speaker 2: She's a bit of an unfair study to do. You're
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  Speaker 2: at work right. Look if she sat behind me while
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  Speaker 2: I was in my art studio, she would get a
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  Speaker 2: totally different outcome. I'm sitting at my desk at work.
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  Speaker 1: I love how you said the art studio. Your art studio,
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  Speaker 1: You mean the dining table is yes. Well, anyway, here's
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  Speaker 1: what she found in two thousand and four. The amount
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  Speaker 1: of time that people would stay on task. Let's say
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  Speaker 1: they're working on a word dock and then they get
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  Speaker 1: click away to email. Average amount of time two thousand
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  Speaker 1: and four to two and a half minutes. Twenty twelve,
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  Speaker 1: it had dropped to seventy five seconds a couple of
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  Speaker 1: years ago forty seven seconds. Forty seven seconds, So people
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  Speaker 1: like Gloria Marks would argue that attention spans are shrinking.
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  Speaker 1: Here's what mold as If and Sania Kazi found at
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  Speaker 1: Mumbai University.
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  Speaker 2: Has it really got more to do with TikTok reels
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  Speaker 2: or the fact that we're living are less fulfilling life
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  Speaker 2: than we've ever lived in the history of the world.
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  Speaker 1: Let me tell you the results and then I'll tell
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  Speaker 1: you what I reckon's going on here. They found that
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  Speaker 1: there was a negative correlation between hours spent on short
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  Speaker 1: videos and exam scores. That is, as one goes up,
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  Speaker 1: the other one goes down. The longer you spend on
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  Speaker 1: reels and shorts and TikTok, the worst you do at
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  Speaker 1: school full.
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  Speaker 2: Stop because you're watching that or you're not doing your homework.
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  Speaker 1: It's kind of like the University of dur in some ways,
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  Speaker 1: like boh. Nevertheless, it's nice to have the data. The
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  Speaker 1: data matters. I don't know if it helps. When you're
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  Speaker 1: talking to a teenage you say, well, let me point
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  Speaker 1: to this search study. If they'd listened to you, well.
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  Speaker 2: I'm thinking back to my school days right when.
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  Speaker 1: See that was a long time ago.
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  Speaker 2: The cool thing was to take your cigy down to
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  Speaker 2: the dunny and have a drag.
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  Speaker 1: That just sounds so it sounds both so bogan and
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  Speaker 1: so old.
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  Speaker 2: Under the research was really clear back then, like cigarettes kill.
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  Speaker 1: You have a suck on a durry back on the
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  Speaker 1: dunny couple of you said that, yeah, and teenagers weren't
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  Speaker 1: exactly saying, well, let me soak up this research and
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  Speaker 1: make say for healthy decisions around tobacco use world.
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  Speaker 2: That's exactly right. So regardless of what we are now learning,
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  Speaker 2: I don't really see how this is going to benefit
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  Speaker 2: the kids in the short term.
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  Speaker 1: Well, when we get to our fourth study in this
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  Speaker 1: doctor's desk, I think that you'll see a little bit there.
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  Speaker 1: But fundamentally this helps us to recognize the value of
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  Speaker 1: it and talk to the kids about it the best
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  Speaker 1: that we can, and that later study will we'll get
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  Speaker 1: into that. Then I found this quote from Herbert Simon
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  Speaker 1: nineteen seventy seven, and he was a Nobel laureate back
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  Speaker 1: in the seventies. He said, a wealth of information creates
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  Speaker 1: a poverty of attention. A wealth of information creates a
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  Speaker 1: poverty of attention. I think what's really going on is
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  Speaker 1: that there was so much information available to us, and
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  Speaker 1: we can we try to have it all, and in
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  Speaker 1: trying to have it all, we end up minimizing our
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  Speaker 1: capacity to hold on to any of it. Fast paced
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  Speaker 1: lives maybe not as much purpose, especially for our kids,
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  Speaker 1: so much distraction and entertainment and a real belief that
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  Speaker 1: we can get through it all, increasing inattention, decreased attention spans,
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  Speaker 1: and worse life outcomes. I mean, if the kids don't
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  Speaker 1: do as well at school, they they're going to struggle
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  Speaker 1: with a range of other things as well. Potentially we
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  Speaker 1: really want them to do well academically. Let's look at
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  Speaker 1: study number two.
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  Speaker 2: So I know I introduced to this at the beginning
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  Speaker 2: of the podcast as the kids won't listen to me.
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  Speaker 2: It kind of is a little bit that, but it's
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  Speaker 2: the acknowledgment that when we're having a disagreement with someone,
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  Speaker 2: and often this is with our children, when they don't
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  Speaker 2: agree with us, there is an acknowledgment that they're not listening,
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  Speaker 2: as opposed to having an opinion counter to ours.
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  Speaker 1: A couple of researchers the University of Pennsylvania studied more
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  Speaker 1: than three thousand people, asking them to judge whether the
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  Speaker 1: person they were talking to was a good or a
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  Speaker 1: bad listener. So they've got this group of people, a
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  Speaker 1: group of students. They take part in a virtual meeting
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  Speaker 1: with another individual. They give their views about a topic
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  Speaker 1: related to life on campus, and the other person listens.
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  Speaker 1: But the listener is an actor, so they're nodding, they're
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  Speaker 1: making eye contact, they're saying okay, that makes sense. And
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  Speaker 1: then the participant that is the talker, is given a
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  Speaker 1: brief response form that had supposedly been completed by the listener.
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  Speaker 1: It was all made up. There were just two versions
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  Speaker 1: of the form. On one of the forms, the listener
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  Speaker 1: indicated that they understood and thought that the speaker was thoughtful,
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  Speaker 1: but on another version of the form they said I
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  Speaker 1: get what they've said, but I disagree. And then the
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  Speaker 1: person who's doing all the talking basically had to rate
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  Speaker 1: on a five point scale how attentive the listener had been,
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  Speaker 1: and the results showed that in general, participants thought that
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  Speaker 1: listeners listened well, particularly when they agreed with them, but
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  Speaker 1: if they didn't agree with them, it was kind of like, well,
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  Speaker 1: I don't think that they listened properly. They're not agreeing
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  Speaker 1: with me. Get this with the kids all the time, right,
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  Speaker 1: the kids make an argument about something they ask for something,
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  Speaker 1: They seek some sort of a privilege. If we say no,
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  Speaker 1: they're like, you don't understand, you're not listening to me.
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  Speaker 1: And yet research is indicating that there's some sort of
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  Speaker 1: psychological mechanism going on here where we think that if
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  Speaker 1: a person agrees with us that they're a good listener,
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  Speaker 1: if they disagree with us, they must be a terrible listener.
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  Speaker 2: That makes a lot of sense.
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  Speaker 1: I don't know if I agree with you on that. Yeah,
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  Speaker 1: you don't listen to me, Grey, I can't believe that
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  Speaker 1: you said that. All right, let's have a look at
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  Speaker 1: this study number three.
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  Speaker 2: I love this one. I am excited about this one.
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  Speaker 2: We're going to talk about green space, how this affects
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  Speaker 2: our mental.
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  Speaker 1: I really love this study. Some researchers put some eye
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  Speaker 1: tracking glasses on some participants. They sent one hundred and
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  Speaker 1: seventeen people into town on a guided forty five minute walk.
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  Speaker 1: The glasses that they're wearing have got this eye tracking software,
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  Speaker 1: so basically you can see where a person is looking
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  Speaker 1: literally identify what they're looking at. And they mixed up
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  Speaker 1: these one hundred and seventeen participants, so they had some
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  Speaker 1: of them look specifically at trees, plants, lawns, and flowers.
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  Speaker 1: They had others look specifically at man made structures, and
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  Speaker 1: then they had a group that looked at a combination
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  Speaker 1: of both man made structures and nature. And what they
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  Speaker 1: found was that the individuals who were guided to direct
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  Speaker 1: their gaze more frequently at green elements experienced a significant
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  Speaker 1: reduction in anxiety, and the nature that had the most
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  Speaker 1: positive effect on anxiety trees. So there's this really strong
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  Speaker 1: link between observing greenery, green elements in the environment and
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  Speaker 1: experiencing restorativeness. Even if you have brief interactions with nature,
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  Speaker 1: you get some mental health benefits. I love I love
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  Speaker 1: this study.
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  Speaker 2: So if you're living in an urban environment, which so
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  Speaker 2: many of us are now high rises.
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  Speaker 1: When I drive around major cities for different events, there
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  Speaker 1: are so many people who are living in either apartments
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  Speaker 1: or just no such thing as a tree lined street,
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  Speaker 1: It's hard to find green space in some places.
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  Speaker 2: It's very easy to see how your mental health goes
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  Speaker 2: downhill when all you're seeing is man made structures and
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  Speaker 2: concrete everywhere. Yeah, so does it benefit you to just
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  Speaker 2: have green plants in your house?
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  Speaker 1: I have got to do a quick google here and
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  Speaker 1: see what I can find International Journal of Environmental Research,
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  Speaker 1: Public Health. A study by Joe Song and Mirzaki says
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  Speaker 1: that they're physiological benefits of viewing nature. This is a
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  Speaker 1: systematic review of indoor experiments. What they've found thirty seven articles.
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  Speaker 1: I'm just reading this here presenting evidence of the physiological
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  Speaker 1: effects of viewing nature. The majority of the studies that
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  Speaker 1: use display stimuli such as photos, three D images, virtual reality,
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  Speaker 1: and videos of natural landscapes confirmed that viewing natural scenery
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  Speaker 1: led to more relaxed body responses than viewing the control
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  Speaker 1: studies that used real nature stimuli reported that visual contact
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  Speaker 1: with flowers, green plants, and wooden materials had positive effects
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  Speaker 1: on cerebral and autonomic nervous activities compared with the control.
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  Speaker 1: Accumulation of scientific evidence so the physiological relaxation associated with
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  Speaker 1: viewing elements of nature would be useful for preventive medicine,
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  Speaker 1: specifically nature therapy. So well done. I feel like I
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  Speaker 1: should call you, doctor Coulson. It seems like if you
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  Speaker 1: spend time either in nature or just looking at it,
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  Speaker 1: even if it's not the real thing, it can be
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  Speaker 1: restorative and reduce mental illness or at least increase mental
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  Speaker 1: health benefits. So that's study number three. Let's do the
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  Speaker 1: last one, study number four.
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  Speaker 2: Parent screen usage versus teen screen usage.
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  Speaker 1: Okay, this was published in Pediatric Research. It's a big journal.
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  Speaker 1: It's a pretty important one, just published on June five.
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  Speaker 1: So this is ver hot off the press sort of stuff.
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  Speaker 1: Associations between media parenting practices and early adolescent screen use. Basically,
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  Speaker 1: researchers looking at ten thousand and forty eight adolescents and
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  Speaker 1: their parents, how to look at what parents are doing
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  Speaker 1: in terms of screen news sug just a little study. Yeah,
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  Speaker 1: it's a really good one. Family meal time, screen use
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  Speaker 1: and bedroom screen news. What they've basically found is that
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  Speaker 1: when parents are on their screens more, when screens are
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  Speaker 1: allowed during family meal time, and when screens are used
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  Speaker 1: in bedrooms, you're much more likely to experience adolescent screen
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  Speaker 1: time problems. Problematics, social media use, video game and mobile
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  Speaker 1: phone use are all up as well. When they looked
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  Speaker 1: at what parents are doing to control kids screen news,
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  Speaker 1: here's what they found, and this is fascinating. Parental use
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  Speaker 1: of screens to control be gave you through rewards and
• 12:01
  Speaker 1: punishments was associated with higher screen time and greater problematic
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  Speaker 1: video game use. And this is why the three is
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  Speaker 1: that I'm always talking about matters so much, because when
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  Speaker 1: we move away from rewards and punishments and step into
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  Speaker 1: conversations with our kids, we just get better outcomes. Rewards
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  Speaker 1: and punishment actually make the focus like a reward of punishment.
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  Speaker 1: You're basically saying, if you do this, you'll get that.
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  Speaker 1: There's a nice version, there's a nasty version. Do this,
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  Speaker 1: you'll get that that's the reward version. Do this, and
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  Speaker 1: you'll get that that's the punishment version. And what you're
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  Speaker 1: really teaching your kids to do is not focus on this,
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  Speaker 1: but focus on that. They're not focusing on the stuff
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  Speaker 1: that you want them to learn. Researchers in this study
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  Speaker 1: found that parental monitoring of screens was associated with less
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  Speaker 1: screen time and less problematic social media and mobile phone news,
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  Speaker 1: so monitoring matters. They also found that parental limits setting
• 12:53
  Speaker 1: of screens was associated with lower screen time and less
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  Speaker 1: problematic social media, video game and mobile phone news. So
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  Speaker 1: it seems like if we're using our screens too much ourselves,
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  Speaker 1: or if we're using punishments and rewards around screens, we
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  Speaker 1: get lousy results. But if we're setting a good example
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  Speaker 1: ourselves and working on ways forward with our kids, we
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  Speaker 1: get better outcomes. So if we go full circle back
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  Speaker 1: to our first study with the kids who are watching
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  Speaker 1: too many short videos and their exam results are suffering.
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  Speaker 1: This is not about saying, if you don't get to
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  Speaker 1: get better results, I'm taking a screen off you. This
• 13:32
  Speaker 1: is about saying, let's sit down and work out what's
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  Speaker 1: going on. I know you don't care about the research.
• 13:36
  Speaker 1: I know that if I talked to about research, your
• 13:38
  Speaker 1: eyes are going to glaze over. But studies are showing
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  Speaker 1: that the more you do this, the worst things are
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  Speaker 1: for you. And then you hand it over to the kids.
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  Speaker 1: How do you reckon we can resolve this? Where do
• 13:47
  Speaker 1: we go from here? That's the process.
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  Speaker 2: Did the study include relationship benefits, whether or not those
• 13:57
  Speaker 2: correlated with parentalis.
• 14:00
  Speaker 1: So they didn't do that. But we've got a little
• 14:03
  Speaker 1: bit of research that shows that depending on how you
• 14:05
  Speaker 1: set this up, the relationship will go better or go worse.
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  Speaker 1: It did show that punishments and rewards lead to lousy
• 14:11
  Speaker 1: outcomes with screens, and that's probably because it also leads
• 14:14
  Speaker 1: to lousy relationship outcomes. That is the doctor's desk for today.
• 14:18
  Speaker 1: We will link to all of those studies in the
• 14:19
  Speaker 1: show notes to some really really interesting stuff there. Thank
• 14:21
  Speaker 1: you so much for listening to the Happy Families podcast.
• 14:24
  Speaker 1: For more information, visit us on our social media pages.
• 14:28
  Speaker 1: But it's spend too long there because it's not good
• 14:30
  Speaker 1: for you to spend a long time on social media
• 14:32
  Speaker 1: and it models bad stuff to the kids. You can
• 14:35
  Speaker 1: also visit us actually, go and hug a tree right,
• 14:39
  Speaker 1: go and stairs something green. After you've looked at the internet,
• 14:42
  Speaker 1: visit us at happy families dot com dot au for
• 14:43
  Speaker 1: more