I talk to parents, and they feel guilty. They feel like somehow they have failed when their child then accesses something. And I just try to encourage them: it's not on you. The phone is just designed to be inherently difficult for parents to oversee and effectively control. Welcome to Family Life Today, where we want to help you pursue the relationships that matter most.
I'm Dave Wilson, and I'm Ann Wilson, and you can find us at familylifetoday.com. This is Family Life Today. Today is going to be a great episode. I'm really excited for our listeners. You're going to love this.
I think this could change. Direction and legacy of a family. Yeah, I'm just telling you. Fasteners about you're going to get challenged and you're going to rethink some things. And I think we all need to rethink this this topic.
And we're going to give you some tools. We have Claire Morell with us. And so, Claire, before we even get into what you do and all of that, I have a question for you. Let's say you have two parents come up to you. They have four kids.
Who are teen and preteen, and their kids have just been badgering them to get a cell phone, a smartphone, all of them, because their friends have one, their peers, everybody's talking about it. They're all communicating in that way. They can't. And if you had one minute, because this is your passion and your expertise right now, yeah, to talk to the parents for one minute, what do you think you'd say to them? I would say, "Keep going." I know that the pressures culturally.
And socially, are very intense for parents. I just want to acknowledge that that it is countercultural to say no to smartphones for your tweens and teens, but is the best possible decision you can make for your family. And I'm sure we'll get into this more. But I've studied really extensively just the impact of screens, particularly these interactive screens, smartphones, social media, tablets, on kids' brains, their development, and the kinds of exposure to harmful content. Dangerous actors that these screens introduce, and so just really know that handing that child a smartphone is really the kind of end of their childhood.
And so, Claire, that's a good one minute right there. No, I mean, I get it, but I know parents right now are like, "But I can't. It's impossible." They are badgering. They, you know, you know, you know, you're a parent. Yeah, you know the world they're living in, and it is nonstop.
In terms of. My classmates have one. They have one. Everyone has one.
Well, even the teams communicate. Like coaches will communicate through text messages. Yeah.
So for let like tell us who you are. Oh yeah, yeah. I'm a mom and a wife, and so I'm married to my husband Caleb, who's a pastor. We have three young children, two boys who are almost six, and then four, and then a little girl who's two, and then we're expecting our fourth child. My professional expertise is I've spent really the last five to seven.
Just devoted to this issue of how do we protect our kids online from the dangers of smartphones, social media, online pornography, and have worked in the government and then the public policy space. But then this book was really kind of my passion project. Of I was getting asked by parents all the time for advice.
Okay, based on all the research you do of these harms, like what should we do? And I wanted a comprehensive, practical resource to encourage them that it's actually. Possible to resist giving smartphones and social media to our children and teenagers, and I wanted to offer parents a. Path forward for how do we do this in a culture that is so saturated with these technologies? There is a growing cultural recognition that these things are harmful, and we have research now that we didn't have ten years ago when a lot of these technologies were coming out that shows the negative impacts on a child's developing brain.
That shows the kind of causative factors affecting, especially teens' mental health, anxiety, depression, suicide, self harm, also the kind of younger and young. Age of exposure to things like online pornography, because of the ease of accessing that on a smartphone or social media, and so we just we have more research, and I think parents are more aware, but still kind of feel like they end up caught in what I call in the book this screen time trap because they recognize the harms, but they feel like it's impossible to resist giving these things to your kids, and so the kind of cultural strategies and really the ones pushed by the tech companies on Has been okay. Just put screen time limits in place, enable the parental controls, and you can kind of have both. You can give your child these screens so they stop bothering you. And badgering you for them, but you can also protect them from harms.
And the research I was staring at was showing me that really wasn't actually the case. That screen time limits are really no match when something is inherently addictive. And the more I studied the neuroscience, that these screens were having, that they were really activating the same reward pathways in the brain as addictive substances like alcohol or tobacco or drugs. And that other time, the brain scan images of people using social media started to resemble Those of drug addicts that he was having the same changes in the brain. Yeah, so I have gone really deep in the neuroscience because I felt like God has like designed our brains a particular way, and especially for children whose brains are still developing, we need to understand how their brains are impacted negatively by this, so we can understand what's best for their flourishing and how God has made us.
That really convinced me that just like other addictive substances, we. Don't try to limit them. We just eliminate them from childhood because of the level of harm and impact, especially on a developing brain. And so, I was studying the same things with social media and smartphones. That these are having the same addictive effects.
It's the same mechanism, kind of at work on the brain. And so, how do we then encourage parents toward a total opt out? Parents know more about the harms. You were asking me how the reception has been. I think it's largely positive.
Because they recognize the harms and they're really desperate for help, but they don't know how to do differently. Because again, it feels like every single person has given their child a smartphone, and so that's really why I wrote the book. Is I was actually trying to inspire parents to help them very practically on the front lines, but then also more broadly to cultural change. Where when we bond together as parents, it makes it easier on each individual parent to opt out. And so I really try to encourage parents.
To find each other, which for Christians, I think we have a very natural counter community in the church, and we're even prepared to live counterculturally. We understand that we're not going to look like the world in how we live and how we parent. Technology is another category for parents to kind of put in that box of this is a countercultural area where, to be faithful Christian parents, we have to recognize how screens are interfering not just with our child's brain development, how God's design. Their brains, but also even our goals as Christian parents that there are spiritual threats and harms from these technologies of undermining that parental influence in a child's life.
So that's why I wrote this book, and I'm really hoping we will see an impact. And I do see, like, slowly the tide is starting to change. I feel like I meet more and more parents, especially in my generation, more armed with the research who are saying we're not going to give smartphones to our teens. And I do think if you can make those commitments. Earlier in your child's life, and find those other parents earlier.
It will make it easier to resist. Dave and I said that after reading your book and listening to you. Yeah, we both said, "I don't think we could do it." How many parents? Do you know? I mean, statistically, aren't doing it, or how many are?
Like, is there an average age that the parent gives his phone to his kid?
Well, the average age nationally of the age of first smartphone is around eleven, and so it's got in younger and younger. Yes, and I'm hoping over time that's one of the metrics I'm hoping to track to see, like, is that age going to eventually kind of migrate higher, right, back closer to late adolescent? And you're saying they're giving an 11 year old a smartphone? Smartphone? Not dumb.
No, it's fully, fully smart. Access to the internet. Yes. 10, 11, 12 year olds. They may have some boundaries on it, but a lot of parents don't even think of that.
No, and I think well-meaning parents will say we feel like they have to have a phone to communicate with us or their friends. All their friends are on the smartphone, but they recognize, okay, there could be dangerous apps or bad actors or harmful things. On the phone that we want to prevent, and so they're kind of told just enable the parental controls, and then the phone will be safe. But I can just tell you story after story after story that it is just impossible to effectively lock down a smartphone. Tell us a story.
Yeah, in this app-based ecosystem, every single app actually has its own in-app browser, its own portal to the internet.
So if you install like a filter to filter out pornography websites, they often can't actually operate inside of the Apps or these in-app browsers. One mom said that she found out her son had actually accessed a pornography website through the parental control app she had installed on the phone to set time limits because he was able to go to the support tab inside the parental control app, which then brought him to an internet browser that then this separate kind of pornography filter she had installed couldn't access or block because it was all inside this app that was. A parental control app, and so he actually was aware of his struggle, and so he confessed it to his mom that he had done this, and actually was asking for her help to lock it down more because there's just hundreds of loopholes on these smart devices because they're app based. Every app has its own in-app browser. Most apps block third-party access, so if you install that parental control app.
It just can't access the things inside the app. The best kind of information you have as a parent, it just looks like your child spent thirty minutes to an hour on Snapchat. You have no idea that they were doing on a pornography website inside of that app, and so it's just inherently just challenging for parents to actually effectively lock it down or either see what their kids are doing. I mean, the the size and nature of it is so private and so secretive. It's all too easy for a child to be exposed to something dangerous.
And the other example I would mention is even these kind of educational games or apps where you know this mom just thought her daughter was on there learning a foreign language. They all have these social media components now. They've added these features where you can kind of find or add friends or exchange direct messages, and this is with complete strangers. And so she just thought her daughter was on this app learning Spanish, and come to find out, she's exchanging messages with all of these people online who could be adults, could be predators, not. In their geographic location, just her mom had no idea that she was, you know, using that component of the app.
I would just say to parents who think they can kind of give the smartphone. But put these parental controls in place to protect their kids, that the controls fall far short of being effective, and that you're just setting yourself up as a parent for a very frustrating and exhausting situation. Where I just try to talk to parents, and they feel guilty. They feel like somehow they have failed when their child then accesses something. And I just try to encourage them: it's not on you.
The phone is just designed to be inherently difficult for parents to oversee and effectively control. So it just get rid of it. You're saying to the parent, which we all are. Yeah, you got to understand what you're handing your son. That's exactly right.
I mean, that son that told his mom, "I went through pornography," is very rare. Most kids are never the don't mean lose. Gonna start. That's right. They're even gonna fight an addiction that's gonna become a secret.
Who knows where it's gonna lead? Yes. Wow! Yes, so I just I try to encourage parents like handing the child a smartphone is kind of. Acknowledging that there, you're basically handing them access to pornography.
Like it's not an if, but kind of a when. And you are setting them up to kind of enter adult life addicted to something. Like you're setting them up to be dependent on something because. And again, it's not that anything's wrong with your child. It is designed to hijack their brain and these brain vulnerabilities.
And you mentioned dopamine, and it gets talked about a lot. But I, I do. I think it's important for parents. Even you don't have to be a scientific expert to understand. It's this neurotransmitter that is released that incentivizes us to pursue a reward.
It motivates us. It gives you this little burst of energy, excitement, anticipation, and it feels good. Yeah, and it incentivizes you to keep going. But dopamine. Oh, this was designed by God to help us pursue natural rewards that are good for us.
Things like deep physical, social bonds with our family and our friends. Or the kind of feeling that you get when you work really hard and you're motivated, you're working hard, and then you experience the satisfaction of that hard work. Like you go on a hike and you reach the summit. Dopamine was meant to incentivize us to do things that were good for us biologically and for the survival of the human species. But with the online world, these kids are getting these artificially high dopamine hits, even in a short amount of time on an app.
Because I hear this from parents.
Well, they're just doing. The social media app fifteen minutes a day.
Well, in fifteen minutes, they're getting these constant dopamine hits every time they scroll, and it's a new short form video, or they get a new like, or a notification, a friend posts something new. It's this little burst of dopamine because, again, it was meant to incentivize this kind of pursuit of social bonds and social rewards. But with the online world, there's no real consummation of that reward. Dopamine doesn't produce any lasting satisfaction. Or pleasure, we don't experience that in the online world, and so instead, kids are just chasing dopamine after dopamine hit after dopamine hit, and they're in this endless kind of pursuit of this like wanting stage without ever experiencing real satisfaction or pleasure.
And over time, what happens to the brain? Is it becomes addicted to that particular stimulus? It starts to crave that specific kind of form of dopamine, and in this kind of dopamine flooding of the brain, over time desensitizes us to pleasures in the real world, and so kids kind of then are in this state of numbness. Where nothing in the real world feels good anymore, and I hear this from parents. They're like, if they're not on the screen, they don't want to do anything else, and it's actually true.
Their their body has become less able to experience pleasure and satisfaction in the real life goods that God has for us to pursue, and so they kind of lack motivation. They have this kind of numbness and this desensitization to pleasure because their brain has basically gone into this chronic dopamine. Deficit state.
So when I talk to teachers, that's what they talk about. Like the kids aren't motivated. I can't get them excited to do anything. Yep. There is this like.
Dullness in their eyes when I'm teaching; they don't seem hungry. Let me—is it different? Could that be why? No, 100. It's amazing.
So the brain—it actually structurally changes over time. It's trying to compensate for all these high dopamine hits that our body wasn't designed for. That are again divorced from these natural rewards that would produce real satisfaction.
So they're in this state of constant craving with no satisfaction, and their brains become sensitive. We see this in addiction towards that specific stimulus.
So it's like they're craving that screen constantly. It is a constant craving, and at the same time, the brain always wants to try to get back to homeostasis. And so its reaction to all these high dopamine hits is to decrease its own dopamine production and kind of go below baseline. And that's what that numbness is. It's this desensitization that their resting state is now this chronic.
Dopamine deficit state where nothing feels good. They have no desire or motivation to do anything other than crave that stimulus of the screen, and that's why I'm trying to explain to parents that the screen time limits don't work because even just 10 to 15 minutes each day—that's 10 to 15 minutes—we're in this they're in this state of getting constant dopamine hits, and then as soon as they leave the app, the brain just plunges into this deficit state, and they just constantly crave going back on. And parents will. Say yeah, that's my experience. Every time I say, "Oh, it's time to get off the screen," the child is like, "No, I want more time." And it's just they're in this state of constant craving.
The time limit will never be enough, and that daily use, even if it's limited, creates these negative cumulative impacts on the brain over time, where they still become desensitized to real world and it's exhausting for the parents.
So exhausting for the parents. One mom put it this way: she said, "It's like it's." Me standing between my underdeveloped child's brain and this drug dispensing machine—it's just—it's a losing battle. That's where I'm trying to make these analogies to say when we know something's addictive, like we don't put limits on cigarettes, like we just don't give kids cigarettes. But then, good things like Legos or riding your bike—like we don't have to limit those things because they're just naturally good for our kids. And so, I want parents to shift how they've been approaching screens, which I think have largely been kind of put in a category like sugar.
It's bad in in kind of excess, but it's okay in moderation. To say no, the way that the screen acts on the brain is more like digital fentanyl, and so we need to just say we cannot give this to our children in any amount. Because of that addictive effect that's just inherent in its design. Yeah, I speak often around the country at a men's conference and. We have workshops, you know, and I went to one of them, and I'm like, "What is this digital cocaine workshop?" Oh, it's called that.
Well, very fitting. And I just looked up who did it. It was Brad Huddleston. Yeah, and he literally pulls up brain scans. Yes, and says, "Okay, here's what a brain on cocaine looks like.
Here's what a brain and he says, 'You won't believe this, but here's a brain on social media looks the same, and it's the same.' And here's what he said, though. He goes, 'You can get off of cocaine.'" Cocaine in sixty days. Wow, you can't get off social media, brain-wise. Like they scan it. Like when's it coming back?
When's it coming back to normal? The two areas he said that take longer. You would know this. Guess what he said they were based on brain scans.
Social media, yep, and pornography. Yeah, yeah. He was like, pornography does to the brain. It's worse than drugs. It's like.
Oh my goodness! Yes, but let me ask you this: Is there a difference in a adolescent brain and an adult brain? Because I know this: I'm scrolling through Facebook, and the same thing's happening in my brain. I'm watching Nate Bargatze, and I'm watching him again, and I'm watching John Chris, and then I'm watching Catch in the NFL. And next thing I know, you know, it's hard to turn it off.
Yeah, but I think I can. But am I able to do it easier than a 13 year old? Yeah, so that is really it's critical that we do distinguish the two because I get asked that a lot.
Well, what's the difference? Children's brains are still developing, which makes them actually more affected by some of these vulnerabilities of the screen, mainly because an important part of the brain called our prefrontal cortex isn't fully developed until age twenty-five, and that's the part of our brain that's responsible for our self-control, our impulse control, our emotional regulation, and so what happens when. Kids are on screens. Is that part of the brain's not fully developed, and their reward system, this limbic system in the brain, is overstimulated, overactive by the screens, and it kind of takes over the brain, and that prefrontal cortex, which is supposed to be still developing, actually weakens. It's actually undermining kids' ability to develop the exact skill that they need to handle screens maturely, which is self control.
And I think any Christian parent will tell you, you're always trying to help your child exercise that. Muscle of self-control and screens are just inherently undermining it.
Now, on the positive side, kids' brains are still developing; they are more plastic. It's neuroplasticity; it's highly adaptable. And so, on the positive side, what I talk about in the book is doing a digital detox. If you've already given these screens, it's not too late to reverse course. It's not too late for anyone.
I mean, adults benefit from digital detoxes, but particularly for kids, we can actually reverse some. These brain impacts, where after doing thirty days off of the screens, their brain actually can come out of that chronic dopamine deficit state, and they they start to experience pleasure in real life again. They can reverse that desensitization, and so that is what has been encouraging to me is to say, you know, parents, it's really never too late. If you've already given these things to your kids, their brains are still plastic, and this is the best time. Like honestly, the best time to reverse.
Because their brains again can come out of that dopamine deficit state, and they start to then enjoy real life pleasures again. It was it was interesting at this digital cocaine workshop. He showed a video of probably a ten or eleven year old boy in a fit at the dinner table when his mom said, "I'm taking the phone away." Yeah, and he's like. He's like angry. It's like crazy angry.
Yes, you know. And so Brad showed this and said, "So guess what? This mom actually went into a detox and said, 'We're done with this.' Yeah. He goes, 'Here's the kid.' Six weeks later. That's right.
You have to push through that short term life. He was like. A normal kid, you're like this. Kid has not looked at a screen in six weeks, and it's changed who this kid is. It's one hundred percent because also that prefrontal cortex in the brain is responsible for our personality development, and so it's part of why these kids addicted to these screens seem so flat and kind of numb.
Is it really is inhibiting their personality? But you take the screen away, and I always tell parents you have to really commit to doing the thirty days because you're going to get a few days in, and you're. Thinking this is impossible. My kid is begging for the screen back all the time, but it's just like breaking any bad habit. I mean, it is addictive.
They will be kind of experiencing the irritability of withdrawal symptoms, really, and so you have to push through that pain point. And what these parents said is, we kept going. We made it to two weeks, and then we realized our kids are not asking for the screens anymore. They're starting to play with each other. They're starting to play outside.
Their kind of creativity and imagination is coming. Back their ability to play independently, and so I always tell parents I recognize there are short term costs. You really have to gear yourself up as a parent, but keep going because then you get to thirty days or six weeks, and you see these changes in your child that I think most parents would say, "I never thought that would be possible. I couldn't imagine dealing with this child without the screen because it does. It has this calming, numbing effect, and so in the moment it just feels so easy to give the iPad back to the kids so that they'll be quiet.
Yeah.
And it gives the parents a break, and so I just tell parents like, embrace those short-term costs for these long-term gains and benefits that you will see. Develop in your child. The sooner, the better that you can start a detox and reverse course. But don't give up when it gets hard. That is normal.
Like there's nothing wrong. That is just the detox having its effect. The screens' effects are working their way out of that child's brain. But keep going, and you'll experience these results where you're like, I just didn't even know these things about my kid. Like they have these interests, this personality.
It really improves the parent-child relationship. I mean, I'm thinking parents right now are like, okay, okay, I'm. Yes, where I get the book. You can get her book, "The Tech Exit: A Practical Guide to Freeing Kids and Teens from Smartphones." And again, her name's Claire Morell. You can just go to familylifetoday.
dot com and click the link in the show notes. We meet a ton of couples who say Family Life helped them when they needed it the most, and that's what being a Family Life partner is all about: helping others find that same encouragement and tools that you found right here. And we'd love for you to join us.
So click. The donate button at familylife.today.com and become a partner today. And let me just say this: if you need parenting help, we would love to help you. We have a site just for you: familylife.com/slash/parenting-help. Family Life Today is a donor-supported production of Family Life, a crew ministry, 50 years of helping you pursue the relationships that matter most.
