Scott Schimmel (00:00.194)
It is not a good time to be a cell phone. Parents are waking up to the harmful impact that the constant presence of our phones is having on our kids development, not to mention social media. In this episode, Tyler and I get into three specific conversations that are relevant for every parent. We're going to talk about the harmful impact of our kids ability to focus distraction from our phones and what to do about it. We're going to talk about as parents, how we can model better behaviors
and learn to undo some of the addictive cycle even in us. And finally, we're going to talk about the psychological impact and harm that's happening to our kids by their friends, their peers having phones in their presence and what that does to a kid's identity development. So buckle up. Here we go. Welcome to the U school. We've worked with Gen Z. I think the newest generation is called Gen A, Gen Alpha. They're starting over, but we've worked with them for what? 20 years plus now.
I think before all this data came out, there was this trend on people that were working with that age group to say, well, this is just how it is. Students are more fragmented. They won't pay attention. And so you have to give it to them in 30 second sound bites. Their online life is just an extension of their real life. And so we should affirm that or press into that.
Now, especially because of this research that's coming out more and more every day, feel like actually that that's not a healthy approach. There's something that we need to get back to that idea that actually being able to stop and focus and do deep work on one topic for an extended period of time is really valuable and it will set them up well for the rest of their life. so I feel that tension having done this work for so long.
Uh, there's a tendency to say, I'll just meet them where they're at. They can only spend 30 seconds paying attention to anything. So, anyway, I don't know what, what, what are your thoughts on how do we essentially fix that? How do we help teens who are used to being fragmented and distracted to, to find the value of paying attention? Yeah. think what you're providing with that data point is we're not trying to say we want to be
Scott Schimmel (02:24.597)
old fashioned, fuddy -duddies. And we want to go back to our time before we had notifications and cell phones. We're actually saying research has discovered this just doesn't work. And I think what has worked throughout time is explaining why we put guardrails and boundaries up in place for kids. They might not like it, but to be able to say it's because I want you to learn, it's because I want you to focus. This is why we're going to do it. I mean, that's true for toddlers. I think it's certainly true for me.
When I'm in a meeting, I don't know why we're meeting. It just irritates me. So you, even if I don't like the meeting, but if you shared why I'm like, okay, I could buy into that. So I think that that helps kind of take a step back to know how to communicate these boundaries that we want to put in place and recognize there's going to be discomfort. To not have the notifications that dopamine, whatever that is for you, when you get the notification does something distracts you from this.
potentially boring, mundane moment and takes me to another place. but I want, I want my kids to learn how to be bored. And that's okay. Cause I think in boredom and the space that that creates, there's the potential to integrate thoughts you hadn't had before. I come up with new questions you hadn't considered and see things from different perspectives. But if you short circuit that you're going to miss out on when, as you said, the deep learning.
That's right. Bringing up the, you bring up like neuroscience and dopamine, that is helpful framing because I think at baseline, it's not that kids can't actually pay attention. It's that we've developed such a habit to not pay attention. And, and I'm just as guilty of that in an hour long meeting, like 10 minutes in, I'll think, Oh, I should probably just check my phone really quick. uh, and so what can we do? I think
start to create some of those rhythms to train ourselves to have a new habit, you know, and it might start if you're really addicted and our kids or adults can't go five minutes without checking something, maybe it's just, okay, I'm gonna set 30 minutes, I'm gonna take a walk and I'm not gonna have my phone. And you just start to very slowly build up your resilience and
Scott Schimmel (04:45.821)
Like you create a new habit, I think is one way to go. And then eventually you get to a place where you say, I can actually spend two full hours on this project that I really want to finish. And I wasn't distracted at all, but that might not, you might not be able to do that overnight. No, that's a great point to train yourself. I think that's a great, that's a great concept to train yourself to be able to handle that. There's an article that came out a couple of weeks ago about, I think it's young men, particularly, I don't know why.
but who are choosing to be technology free on flights. And people are posting later on, I just went three hours, all time PR, went three hours without reading a book, reading a magazine, watching a show, texting a friend. Other people are posting like I went all the way from LA to Japan without doing that. And people are just so shocked that you could do that. And I bet that's not the first time these guys did that. They built up the tolerance for that space, which is what we grew up in. I we had that.
for years and years, just sitting in the back seat of a car on a road trip with nothing to do except have your own thoughts, your own imagination. So what a goal. That should be something you and I do together, try to challenge each other, see how long, not just count our steps or calories, but to count how many minutes we can go without checking our phones. And they didn't even read a book, man. That's my go -to. I know. I can go a three hour flight with a paper book, but to just sit
Yeah, that'd be good. Another thought as you talk about what, notifications and the presence of the phone does to learning. There's an equal and similar impact it does to a relationship. I'm sure I've done this hundreds of times where I'm sitting to have lunch with a friend or coffee and either my phone is buzzing or it's on the table and I'll sometimes be polite and put it face down. Just want to communicate to you that I'm really present.
But then a hundred percent of the time it buzzes or makes a noise. I look at it and I know I've probably inadvertently done that, but I definitely know the friends who are like the frequent people that do that. I can tell that we're having a conversation, but you're not really here and you're looking at your phone. I'm not talking to you, Tyler. You would never do this. I don't think you've ever done this, but other people I know that I'm good friends with that they're just looking at their thing constantly. And I think it's, it's real. It's not even that subtle.
Scott Schimmel (07:09.911)
It feels really direct message to me. You're not, you're not my first priority. This is, I'm not really here. I'm not really present. what are your thoughts on how that impacts kids and their time if they're together face to face and they both have phones and they're flipping open their phones to look at something. What do you think happens? Yeah, I'm trying to think of some specific moments because that happens all the time in my house. And first, what is convicting for me is it actually turns to me as, as the, as a father.
my kids recognize when I'm on my phone and I'm distracted and they know that they don't have my full attention and I can tell and it like pains me later. But when they have to come and ask me the same question multiple times to get they really want my attention and I'm not giving it to them because I've gotten sucked in to responding to some notification. then I see that with
the friend groups that my kids are a part of where, I was just saying this the other day. I think if you went on to high school and junior high campuses these days, we as adults would be shocked at how silent the passing periods are because that's what they're, they're not engaging with each other. They're quickly on their phone. They're, sometimes they're texting themselves. it's like within the friend group, they're, they're putting posts on their group chat instead of actually just laughing and having fun together.
Yeah, I know you've experienced that too. What have you experienced? Yeah, it reminds me, I walk my dog in the neighborhood every morning and when it's a school day, there are two or three bus stops I'll go by and anywhere between seven to 15 kids per bus stop. And it's completely silent. Like, I don't know if I've ever seen kids talking to each other. It's 100 % of them are on their phones with earbuds
And they're not talking. And I've often wanted just to, I've never done it. I should be an interesting experiment, just to go up to them and kind of like slap their phones down. I mean, like, do you see the kid you're sitting next to? Because I think every single one of those kids carries these deeper psychological questions on the surface of, you see me? Am I okay? Am I wearing the right thing? Am I acceptable? Am I valuable? And the answer they get when you show
Scott Schimmel (09:30.912)
and a group of people and they're not even looking at you or acknowledging you. I think the answer all of them give to each other is no, you're not. You're not interesting, you're not worthy. I don't care about you. I don't even see you. And I think the deposits of that once or twice or three times, but every time, you know, that can't go well for somebody. That can't go well for anybody, especially when those questions are so ripe in life.
