Welcome to Family Policy Matters, a weekly podcast and radio show produced by the North Carolina Family Policy Council. Hi, I'm John Rust and president of NCE Family, and each week on Family Policy Matters, we welcome experts and policy leaders to discuss topics that impact faith and family here in North Carolina. Our prayer is that this program will help encourage and equip you to be a voice of persuasion for family values in your community, state, and nation. Thank you for joining us this week for Family Policy Matters. I'm NC Family Vice President Mitch Prosser in for Tracy this week.
Today, finding yourself is considered a rite of passage for most young people and even some not so young people. But too many of us don't even know what it is that we are trying to find. Partly because technology has so negatively impacted our understanding of what it means to be human. This is the second episode of a two-part interview with our special guest today, Andy Crouch. Andy has written extensively on the intersection of technology and faith.
He's an accomplished author, musician, and public speaker, and he joins us to explore how we can form positive relationships with technology, both as individuals and as families, and why that effort is so important. This is the subject of his newest book, The Life We're Looking For, Reclaiming Relationship in a Technological World. Andy, thanks for joining us again on Family Policy Matters. Thank you very much. It's great to be here.
So there's a mom listening to you and I talk right now, and she has children that are older than 10. What she's thinking, well, we have... actually done some of these things. We put that phone in our toddler's hand or we got them an iPad when they were five or six so that they can play games and talk with their grandma and things like that. I think the question for them and maybe even for the guy talking to you right now is, is it too late to start implementing some of these things, these practices, these habits once bad habits have already been formed?
Oh, that's such an important question because, I mean, I want to say also our family was there in many ways at many points. We did pretty well, zero out of 10. But also, I want you to know in my book, The Techwise Family, which came out a few years ago, at the end of every chapter, I have this thing called Crouch Family Reality Check, where I basically talk about how. I struggled with these things and often made mistakes. And there were all kinds of behavior change that we needed to implement midstream.
And it's a constant learning process because, frankly, that's what family is about. Like we're all learning. It's not just the kids learning how to be human, it's the parents as well.
So there is zero like shame. And honestly, you know, regret is maybe natural if you realize you took a wrong turn. But like life is about changing direction and doing it together and realizing there's a better way.
So, you know, two things to say. One is, I would ask, how's it going? Maybe there is a certain level of access to devices. How are your own kids handling it? How do you feel about your relationship with them?
Do they seem to be growing in love for God, for you, for others? Growing in all the ways you want them to grow. If the answer is, gosh, actually, yes, then I wouldn't be too worried just because somebody on a podcast named Dan Crouch said, here's the rule. I mean, you know, your kids. But what I find honestly is most parents, when they're honest, they're like, No, it's not going so great.
And we don't see great patterns emerging. And we do feel like the phone is part of the problem, but what do we do? And here I have a wonderful word for you of good news, which is neuroplasticity. Yes. Retraining of neural highways.
This is the amazing capability of the human mind, mind, heart, soul, body complex. That even when we become very accustomed to and dependent on patterns in our life, if we intentionally change them with loving support, not because someone's really mad at us, not because someone induces guilt or fear or shame in us, but with loving support, we start to imagine a different way. I tell you what will happen. I promise there's three stages. The first is dysregulation.
That is, it gets worse before it gets better. If you decide as a family, we're actually going to have phones not sleep in the bedrooms anymore. The first week or so you do that, you will you will be amazed yourself if you've had the phone in your own bedroom as the parent. You'll be like sneaking in into your bedroom and you'll be, what in the world am I doing? Or you'll have an argument with your spouse or you will be really irritable.
And I promise your kids will say things like, I hate you, you're a terrible parent, whatever. Hang on, because there's a second stage and I sometimes call it like disorientation. There's this quiet that emerges on the other side of the detox where no one quite knows what to do. And you lie down in bed and usually you'd be checking your phone until you fall asleep and you're like, what do I do? I don't really know what to do.
And then there's rediscovery, the third phase. And I've seen this happen so many times. I see it happen when families do the really courageous thing of saying, hey, we're going to go on a family vacation. And for a week, no devices for anybody. First three days, we hate each other.
Middle two days, we don't know what to do. Everyone's kind of bored. Last two or three days, best time we've ever had as a family because you rediscover the world, God, each other, your spouse.
So neuroplasticity. It's never too late to change. And this is true for actual chemical addictions, too. Like people survive, even chemical addictions are recovered. And our phones are not at this point chemical, but they are very deeply ingrained in us, and there's a way to grow out of it.
It's best if we do it together. It's best if it's not the parents making the kids do something, it's the family choosing a new rhythm together. And when it's that kind of thing done with loving support, I've just seen amazing things happen. That's excellent. Andy, you mentioned schools, that sort of thing a little while ago, and the need for connectivity, especially in a learning environment.
As we talk about why it's important to reclaim this territory and ground in the family, let's talk about the policy level for just a second. In addition to our homes, what ground needs to be recovered or reclaimed in regard to school policy and even governmental policy? Yeah, here's how I would frame it. I think there are three fundamental formative environments for human beings. The home is the first.
I actually would say church or religious community is the second, and school is the third. And these are the places where we're really shaped as human beings. And honestly, I do not know of any evidence that technology helps in these formative stages of life and the formative process that each of those kind of institutions, if you will, undertakes. And so let's just think about school specifically. A huge amount of technology has been introduced into our schools.
A huge reason a lot of kids have screens is many schools, even starting in the elementary years, require them. One child, one device kind of policies came in about 10 years ago. To summarize all the research and evidence from all across the world, the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, which is the organization of all the so-called rich countries of the world, has studied this extensively. I can summarize the research on the effectiveness of the billions of dollars that have been spent on technology in schools this way. It does not help and it does.
Doesn't hurt that much in terms of education, but it does not help. And most of that research was done before kids figured out how to hack their Chromebook to get on social media and do text messaging and play Roblox and all this other stuff, which they quickly figure out. They're very good at this stuff. There is no benefit. And we've spent billions of dollars because it was sold.
There were salespeople. I've talked to the head of sales for one, a large computer corporation you all have heard of in the eastern region of the US who sold into education markets. I met with his whole team a couple of years ago and they were saying, We realize we have created the problem. This is the people who have personally earned millions of dollars in commissions selling to school districts. And they said, We realize we've created a terrible problem.
And what do we do? And so, there is no benefit.
So, at a policy level, we should be active in encouraging, based on the evidence. This is not just based on, say, Christian values or family convictions. This is just based on the evidence. This stuff is very expensive. Its net effect is zero.
And it has all these side effects. They're not helpful. And then there's the personal device policy, which is frankly easy. I mean, schools now are very invested because, so I said a little bit ago, we give kids devices to solve adults' problems. A lot of why students have devices in schools is not to help students learn, it's to help teachers have an easier time.
So, we're solving the teachers' problems, not the kids.
Now, your teachers and the administrators who, to their credit, support them and want to resource them, are going to be very resistant to the idea that there should be no instructional technology because they're all very used to it now and they're all pretty dependent on it. The personal devices thing, though, is lower-hanging fruit. And we've already got governors of multiple states from both political parties who are, and this may be true in North Carolina as well. And we're getting close, I think, to a national consensus that personal devices just don't have a place. Ideally, from bell to bell, that is, beginning of school day to the end.
Kids should not have certainly any glowing rectangles. I can see a place for little smartwatches that are very limited in what you do. That's a great way to intervene in policy to the extent it's not already happening in your community or your state. Yeah, our governor signed a bill into law this past session that. basically gives the school district the purview to make a policy, but they have to create a policy.
And so some are doing bell-to-bell.
Some are doing only instructional time, but they have implemented a policy.
So that is a step in the right direction. And we're very grateful to our legislative body, the General Assembly, and the governor for signing that into law. I would just say then, as your school district is having the policy, as parents, go to your principals, your administrators and make the case for none at all because the hallways and lunchtime. I've heard some beautiful things from teachers who have seen these policies implemented that do take the kids' devices out of school. And they say, I love teaching again because the hallways are noisy again.
Kids are talking. I don't think many of us understand, unless you've actually visited and seen a school where devices are endemic, how much it completely disrupts relationships between kids. Kids are sitting at lunch just staring at their device for 20 minutes or however long they have lunch because it's hard to be a person. It's hard to form friendships. It's awkward.
But it's such an important part of. life. And so give your administration some backup for a pretty restrictive policy. It will pay off so much in the long run. That's a great word of advice.
It does not seem like technology is slowing down in its proliferation. As it continues to proliferate, how can we make technology and our interaction with it more humanized in nature? And why do you think this is so vital for us to do as we commit our lives, our families to preserving this idea of humanity? Yeah, well, I don't think all technology is created equal in terms of what it does to us as people. And in fact, I would suggest there's a difference between what I'd call devices, which let's just think of devices as all the technology that just kind of does things for us.
But think about another kind of technology, on the other hand, which is instruments.
So think about medical instruments.
So we're so grateful for many aspects of modern medicine and a lot of it's very high tech. Think about scientific instruments. I'm actually married to a scientist, a research physicist, my wife, Catherine. And when I go into her lab, which there's all these lasers and there's like bubbling cauldrons of like low temperature stuff, and it's quite impressive. And it's all technology, but these are instruments.
And the difference between a device and an instrument is that an instrument fully involves a human being in kind of extending their capabilities in the world.
So that surgeon who uses, say, what we sometimes call a surgical robot, but it's actually just an augmentation system for the surgeon. That surgeon is still present as a person. That surgeon still needs a relationship with the patient. That surgeon still needs character and virtue and lots of things besides just technical ability that the robot can help with. My wife, when she goes into the lab, still needs to exert herself, her mind, her ability to relate to other researchers, like heart, soul, mind, strength, are all there.
It's just the technology actually kind of takes it further. And I would say whenever technology is actually serving as an instrument, it's actually getting us more engaged in the world and with each other.
So you and I are conducting this interview over Zoom, but you and I are using. This is to have a meaningful conversation that we want to share with other people through technology. Are we becoming less human because of that? I don't think so. I think we're actually using it the way it was meant to.
Now, we're able to do that because we had years and years of formation that weren't technological and weren't just screen-based connection. But now that we're at this stage in our lives and now that this technology is available, we're able to extend ourselves.
So, we really should be asking about everything we bring into our lives, especially the formative environments of home, church, and school. Is this a device that's just replacing us and leaving us with nothing meaningful to do or distracting us and kind of preventing us from developing our capacities? Or is it an instrument? And if it's an instrument that is, I'm more connected to other people, truly, I have deeper relationships, I'm able to do more, I'm learning more, then I'm all for it. And so, I'm not even against technology in educational environments.
When kids get to the age that they can use scientific instruments, that they can learn to program computers, bring it on. I taught my son to code when he was 12 years old. It's just first wait until we're formed. And then don't let it ever become just a device that takes over. And that's going to be more and more something we're going to have to think about as AI and other things permeate our world.
But they can be instruments rather than devices. That's really good.
Well, Andy, as we round out our time on this week's show, where can listeners go to get a copy of your books? And where can they follow what you're doing and the work that you're so wonderfully giving us? I love the work we're doing at Praxis, which is the organization I work for, Praxis.co. And hey, where to find the book? I mean, I could send you to the big name online, but walk into a bookstore near you.
There you go. And they'll order it. If it's not already on the shelf, they know how to order it. It's all in print. That's how I would find it.
I love that.
Well, Andy, thank you so much for being on Family Policy Matters. Thank you for the work that you're doing. Go visit Andy's website, practice.co, to learn more about what he's doing and how you can help your family. Andy, thank you so much for being on Family Policy Matters. Thank you, man.
It's great to be here.
This has been part two of a two-part interview with Andy Crouch. If you missed part one, you can listen to it online at ncfamly.org. or on your favorite podcast app. Thank you for listening to Family Policy Matters. If you enjoyed this episode, please subscribe to the show and leave us a review.
To learn more about NC Family and the work we do to promote and preserve faith and family in North Carolina, visit our website at ncfamily.org. That's ncfamily.org. And check us out on social media at NC Family Policy. Thanks and may God bless you and your family.
