Scott Schimmel (00:05.358)
Our oldest kid is now technically an adult. So in some ways we can celebrate that we made it. But if I could go back in time, there's one regret that I have as a parent. I let him have a phone too early. And I know if you're a parent listening to this, you probably share in that same regret if you've made the same mistakes I have. I wish we didn't give it to him so early. Now to be fair, it was during COVID, we wanted him to connect with his friends, but I'll never forget a key moment.
where after we took his phone away for a month, I don't remember why, for some reason, we were at breakfast table together and turned his phone back on and for like 10 minutes, the phone just sat while he's having cereal and it just buzzed and beeped for 10 straight minutes. Zzz, zzz, zzz, bing, bing, for 10 minutes. There were thousands of notifications that came through from his friends sending stupid emojis.
Other inane texts over the course of a month and he looked at me and just kept eating a cereal and said My generation is doomed You've probably seen the headlines lately the surgeon general the United States wants to urge Congress to Make a mandatory warning label similar to what they put on for cigarettes and smoking for the harms of social media and yes social media can
have its impact on kids in terms of their physiology. There's lots of problems that come with social media, but I don't think the problems that how it impacts their sleep or facilitate cyber bullying or even be exposed to harmful content. I don't think those are the major concerns. From my perspective, there's a much larger concern. Social media for our kids distorts reality.
And I think it threatens to undermine everything that we care about for our kids. Now, let me get into this. I think that social media offers and facilitates three fallacies about how life works. And as much as you try to train your kids and teach them your values, if they're exposed to social media over the course of years, they're going to be taught that the way that life works, especially if
Scott Schimmel (02:26.414)
You want to live a good life. You have to have one of three things you need to. Here's what social media teaches. You need to accumulate more resources. Then life will be good. You need to accomplish more for your resume. If you can do that, you'll be better off. You need to impress others to improve your reputation. Resources, resume and reputation. Those are the three lies of this world.
that's specifically facilitated by social media everywhere you go. Whether it's luxurious golf trips with a bunch of buddies, the course you love to play, speaking personally here. Maybe it's college acceptance videos on YouTube. Maybe it's job status updates on LinkedIn. No matter where your kid goes on social media, they're going to be taught that and reinforced that those three fallacies are the way that life works. But it threatens to undermine everything that you've taught your kids and everything
that wisdom has taught us through the ages, as well as research has proven that life does not work when you try to accumulate more, build more reputation, build more resources, or to build your resume. Instead, what we have discovered and learned from my over two decades of working with emerging adults of countless thousands of hours spent researching, not to mention the hundreds and thousands of years
of research says that everyone in order to live life well needs a well -grounded identity, an authentic, accepting community, and a sense that your life is going to be effective towards the greater good. Identity, purpose, and belonging are the three big things. Those are the big psychological needs that your kids have. And those psychological needs cannot be accomplished if you try to pursue
resume, resources, or reputation. In fact, you'll get the opposite. That will lead to, it will yield worse mental health, a whole host of problems. And you'll not only never reach your potential in terms of achievements, you'll also never be as fulfilled as you could be. These are the realities of life and research, in fact, and we know it deep down in our soul. So what do we do? We need to, as parents,
Scott Schimmel (04:44.334)
As people who care about kids learn to see social media for what it really is. It's a distortion and a distraction. We need to learn to help the kids that we care about reflect on what's really true. We need to teach them over and over and over again and tell them the same message that the value of your life is more than the resources that you accumulate or the lack thereof. Your resume does not paint an accurate picture of your potential. And regardless of your reputation, you are a unique person worth
knowing. That's what we need to tell our kids over and over and over again, even if it means we're over their shoulder as they scroll through social media. Yousco was born the same year that it became normal in our country for teenagers to have smartphones. And we grew up as the front facing camera of your phone turned on as the algorithm started to reinforce image and these distortions, these fallacies. And I remember saying years ago,
as I was asked to do parent workshops inside schools and kind of student organizations, I would say this, we know it's not good for our kids. We know that it's harming them. We just don't know how yet, but that yet is here. Between the work of Dr. Jean Twenge and Jonathan Height's anxious generation book, you've probably seen it on social media. If you haven't go buy the book. They've accumulated the research, put it together in a way that we can digest and understand. And the punchline is drum roll.
It's bad for our kids. That's why we believe it's now time for the youth school to put up our dukes and take a stand. After really years of consideration and months of intense research, we are putting together a course for parents called Tech Healthy Parenting. More on that to come. What we're going to do is summarize all the research that's out there in a way that's digestible and understandable. The most relevant research. We're the nerds back in the laboratory reading it.
making sure that you see what you need to see and hear and understand. And we want to put in front of you the resources that you need to have the conversations with your kids and the exercises so you can design a family life and a rhythm of life for your family and your kids that's healthy, that leads to their flourishing, not as a harm, but as a tool perhaps for their growth. Stay tuned for that. In the meantime, we have a parenting survey. We'd love to have you participate in it.
Scott Schimmel (07:12.686)
Probably takes you two minutes, it might take you five if you really think about it, but at less than five minutes, you can contribute to us shaping the future resources for tech healthy parenting. We wanna hear from you, what are your concerns? What do you need? How can we help? The link is down in the show notes. Please participate, share it with your friends, and let's join together to tell kids the message that no matter what they see, how few...
followers they have or likes or posts, whatever their ratio is between how many people follow them or they follow, no matter how little success they have in getting admitted to the biggest colleges, no matter what that they have value, they have worth and they have potential for a future. So let's join together in changing the story and writing a new narrative.
