Ep 219: Technology is here to stay, so how do we teach our kids to make better choices? with Aniko Hill, cofounder of DopaMind

In a podcast discussion, Aniko Hill, shares her insights into limiting technology use for children.  Aniko co-founded DopaMind, a nonprofit aimed at educating kids and parents about the effects of modern technology on mental well-being. Through schools and parent resources, DopaMind provides accessible, nonjudgmental education on making better tech choices. 

It's really incredible what DopaMind is doing to help educate parents and children about having a healthy relationship with technology!

Here's a 1 minute video describing DopaMind

Here's an example of DopaMind at an elementary school

Here's an example of DopaMind talking to adolescents

DopMind offers Online courses for parents and children and Youth Initiatives for families with older kids.

And check out the DopaMind website to see all that they offer!

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Transcript

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Hi everybody. Welcome back to your child is normal. I'm your host, Dr Jessica Hochman, my guest today is Annika Hill, co founder and executive director of dopamine, a nonprofit dedicated to helping kids and parents understand how modern technology affects developing brains without shame or fear. In our conversation, we talk about how many digital platforms out there are intentionally designed to trigger dopamine, the brain's reward chemical, and this keeps kids scrolling, clicking and coming back for more. And why that makes screen time so hard for parents to manage. Aniko also talks about dopamine and how it offers turnkey age appropriate programs for schools, parents and kids, making screen education practical and accessible. If you've ever wondered what healthy and realistic screen boundaries look like for kids. This episode is for you, and be sure and check out the show notes below for more information on dopamind and their resources. Now let's get started. Annika, I'm so looking forward to this conversation. Thank you for being here. Yeah. Thank you so much. I'm really excited to chat with you. So can you start off by telling us a bit about yourself, what was the work that you did initially, and what led you to start thinking differently about technology and children? Yeah, I've actually always limited tech in my family because I'm on the periphery of the tech industry. So I'm actually, ironically, a veteran social media marketer. I've been doing this since 2007 so I understand the psychology behind keeping people on their devices longer to sell ads. So this is just something that I've always known about. And then also, I am a former PTA president. I'm a college instructor, so education is also a really important part of where this all comes from. But I think most importantly, I'm a mom, so as we all do, I struggled with managing problematic tech use in my own household. So through working with mental health support our family therapist, I discovered that there really wasn't anything out there targeting kids that would teach them what's going on in their brain in a kid way. So I got together with my co founder, Bethany Barton, who's also a best selling children's book author, and she'd already been traveling the country science communicating to kids, because her books are all about STEM topics. And first, we started with a video to explain the concept of dopamine and how that works in a kid's brain as it relates to modern screen tech, and then it blossomed really quickly into turnkey programs for schools. So we have in class, teaching materials, courses and events. So what I find really interesting, as you're talking about your work, previously in the digital marketing space, and then now becoming a mom, there's a running theme that I noticed that people that are really immersed in the social media world and the tech world with their own children, they are very hesitant to give them full access. Yep, I think what you're referring to, I think most famously, Steve Jobs, right, the inventor of iPhones, iPads, he didn't give these technologies to his own kids. There's many others. I think Bill Gates didn't give his kids access till age 15. Many of the others have spoken out about limiting screen time for their kids, or not giving access to their own platforms to their kids. So I mean, I think there's two things. I think we all just know that this is inherently adult technology, and I'm talking mostly about social media and smartphones, we could get into the nuances of that. So I think that's the first thing, but I think the second thing is just we really understand the effects of how this works on our brains, and this is intentional by design, and so we know what these platforms are doing to adult brains. And so I think we all very naturally question, if we know what this is doing to adult brains, it must be even worse for kids with developing brains, and now we have lots of evidence to support that as well, but I think it's just what you said. I think when you know too much, when you know about it, it just becomes a no brainer to limit so I think it's probably as simple as that. We know it's adult technology, and because we understand the mechanics, it makes it really easy for us to make that choice. And as parents, I think we're in this stage of, well, we know, but now, what do we do about it? How do we get to that next phase? So especially when the habits have set in? Right? Yeah, I think you're right, and I think parents do know that it's not great time spent. But I think there are many reasons for this one. I think it keeps our kids busy. It keeps us from having to control fights. The kids are quiet, they're entertained. I think the kids are happy, or they seem happy. And I think also it's hard for us to battle with our kids. I think once the screens are off, they ask for them more and more, and it's much easier to give in than to say, No, sure. I think giving into technology becomes easier for us. Yeah, I think there's a lot of truth to all of what you said, but I would touch back on a couple points, the kids are happier. Well, maybe they're happier in the moment, but maybe I can get into some of the brains. Science a little bit, but we've all probably had that after screen meltdown, right? So are they really happier? I don't know they are happy in the moment, but I get it like we all use that as a babysitter, and I give parents a lot of grace. So what we focus on is, yeah, technology is here. It's not going anywhere. So just, how can we make better choices with that time, right? How can we pace the media, right, so that, hopefully we keep our kids, like happy and healthy and safe, right? We do try to focus on on that, because it's just not fair. It's not fair for it's not fair fight for any individual family to go up against 1000s of engineers on the other side of these platforms. Yes, it sounds like you are. You're coming at this from a realistic perspective and with realistic solutions. Yes, and I hope, and this is something that I get a lot of good feedback on all the time, is that we really try to strike a non judgmental tone, right? Because that, first of all, doesn't work. Second of all, we were all struggling, even those of us that are experts in this field are struggling. It's just not easy. So, yeah, I would just say to parents to definitely not beat up on themselves, and we all do it, but let's all maybe learn how to just make better choices for our kids, and that makes digital parenting easier when you do that as well. Yeah, yeah, and I agree this is definitely an uphill battle, and you alluded to the fact that there are evolutionary reasons why too much screen time can be habit forming and inevitably harmful for kids. So I'd love to ask you about dopamine, because this work gets thrown around a lot, and dopamine addiction and too much dopamine, can you give parents an easy explanation for what is dopamine and what does it do for our brain, and also, why is it so bad for the brain to have too much dopamine? Yeah, so I think you're right that it's one of those terms that has been thrown around and almost become scary or something that we worry about, right? But it's actually not a bad thing. It's actually a very good thing. But I think the simplest premise that we can start from is this idea that technology has just evolved faster than the human brain. So dopamine, it's been part of our wiring since our ancestors were hunting, gathering on the Savannah. So and you get it by accomplishing, learning, discovering something new, you get a little reward in your brain. So it's a survival mechanism. So before technology, our ancestors got dopamine from from survival things. So eating, drinking, water, socializing, so these were things that helped them to survive. And the other thing that's really important, and it's in all of our materials, to kids, to parents, is what's called the pleasure, pain balance. This is from Dr Anna lemke's work. She wrote dopamine nation, so we teach it to the kids as a feelings, teeter totter. So pleasure and pain work like a balance in our brain, and that balance wants to remain levels is homeostasis, right in the brain. So what happens, though, is when that balance tips really heavily towards the pleasure side. So that's what you described earlier, right? Like the kids are happy playing their iPad or whatever, so they're getting lots and lots of dopamine. They're feeling really good. But the problem is that after response is going to tip back to the pain side. So that's, you know, kind of your meltdowns. Also, they say, are kind of tied into the withdrawal aspect of it, but it's going to basically feel worse before it gets better again. If you do nothing, your teeter totter will level out naturally on its own. But what happens is, you know, we build up a tolerance, and then we need more and more of that activity to basically feel any good at all. And so that's where I think a lot of the struggle of the parents comes in, because that device, whatever it is they're doing, becomes the only thing that gives their kids enough dopamine to feel any good at all. And that's where the kids kind of want to stop doing anything else, right? They don't want to do sports, they definitely don't want to do homework, right? Those things require a lot more effort to get the dopamine. So it's just important to remember this is the way we're wired. There was a really good quote, we're cacti in the rainforest. I mean, you think about the metaphor of that. It's just so true. Everything in our modern world gives us lots and lots of dopamine, so we almost have to limit it ourselves to stay healthy. And I'm very willing to acknowledge myself. I feel very drawn and addicted. I want to use the word addicted lightly, but I feel, yeah, I feel basically addicted to my cell phone. When I wake up in the morning, I pick up my phone before I go to sleep at night, I look at my phone. And these are all habits that, admittedly, I really want to break and get better at, and I worry for my kids, because I didn't start having a cell phone and social media until fairly recently in my life. Yeah, where teenagers, their brains are developing the habits that they set now are going to likely be the habits that they want to do when they're older, and they're going to be harder and harder to break the more time they. Bent on them, the more habituated they are to picking up their phone. And I find that frightening. Yeah. Well, like you said, their brains are developing, and I've heard it likened before to a well worn path on hiking trail or train tracks, right? They're building those train tracks in that age. So if they're getting so much dopamine if they're doing so many short form videos, if they're playing so many video games, yeah, their brain does become wired, in that sense, to want to keep repeating those neural pathways, right? Those are getting well worn in that area. So it does make a huge difference whether you're an adult or when you're a kid in this and one of the things that bothers me is this conception that, well, kids should just learn to regulate, right? I mean, how can they learn to regulate when we can't even regulate? I mean, you brought that up yourself, not to mention their brain isn't fully formed, the prefrontal cortex, which is the part of the brain that forms last not until age 25 is the one that helps them pump the brakes on their actions, their behaviors, etc, realize consequences, right? So they they can't help themselves. And I argue this point all the time when I get the pushback of, well, they need to just figure out how to regulate. It's not fair. You know, fine for adults, but it's not fair for a kid that doesn't have a fully formed brain. So I just wanted to add that piece of it too. I hear all kinds of responses from parents when I talk about limiting cell phone use or social media use with their kids, sometimes they'll say, Well, they're still getting straight A's, or they still have friends, or they still go to school, but I still think deep down, they know that the amount of time they spend on their social media and how habituated they are to looking at their phone isn't healthy. But I do think you're right to your point earlier. I think all of us parents really know deep down that the amount that they are drawn to their screens and the amount that they want to be on their screens isn't healthy. Yeah. I mean, I hear that as well. They're doing fine, they're getting good grades, but the current statistic is American teens spend five hours a day just on social media, up to nine, if you add other screen time activities. So there is an immense opportunity cost there. Okay, maybe they're prioritizing grades, right? But what else are they missing out on? Yeah, it was five hours that they're giving to big tech. So that is definitely a piece of it, too. Before the pandemic, I read the statistic that, after considering the time a child spends sleeping looking at a screen, is the activity that they spend the second most time on. Yeah, yeah. I mean, I believe it. The statistics are really staggering. One thing that I've been thinking a lot about lately too, is it's really important to me that my kids get their morals, get their values, get their context for the world from me, and I just question if a kid is spending five hours a day on social media well, and I really don't want to Sound judgmental when I say this, but I think kids are increasingly being raised on the internet, because what parent can spend five hours a day with their kid to combat the amount of time they're spending online? So what about family time? What about downtime? What about sleep? I mean, something is gonna give, and I would argue it's not their own time. It's time that they are giving to big tech. How many kids do you have, and how old are they? Out of curiosity, I have nine and 12, almost 13. Okay, yeah. So we have similar age kids. I have a 1012, and 15. And you don't have to answer this, but I'm curious, what do you do for tech with your kids? Have you given them phones? Do they have an iPad? Where in the tech world have you allowed your children to delve into Yeah, no, I'm happy to talk about it. I'm probably going to sound crazy, but I don't care. My kids have never had iPads, so it's not that I'm against iPads. I mean, first of all, they're a bigger iPhone, so let's just say that because it is, I understand it's better because it usually stays in the home and there's time limits. It's not the super computer in the pocket. But for me, I've never liked the wide open nature of iPads too much. Choice is stressful. And for me, I always say less is more, later is better. So I prefer technology that's a little bit more locked in, where iPad is just all over the place. You can go between different apps, you can download new apps, and also a couple more things to add. I do feel like even though they're less likely to leave the home, they do leave the home, and they do travel with the child from the living room to the bathroom, from the living room to the bedroom. And in addition to that, it's more individual screen time, as opposed to watching a TV show together with your sibling, where it might be a more bonding activity. That's right? Usually on the iPad, you're looking at it all by yourself, yeah, and that's one of my tips. And on the dopamine site, you'll find a free printable for parents. It's called media rules of thumb. So there's kind of like a good better best. So synchronous is always better than asynchronous. So in other words, a phone call. All is always or FaceTime is better than a text, right? Going back and forth, and then Collective is always better than individual. So if kids are watching a movie together or even playing video games together in the same room, that's always going to be better than a kid on their own. So just to clarify, when you say synchronous, you mean in real time. In real time, it's just more connective, right? So you and I are having a synchronous conversation. Yes, we're not in person, so we're not getting those nonverbal cues, and we're not getting the other kind of feel good chemicals that you might be get being in person, but we're having a synchronous interaction right now. So So yeah, I agree about your assessment of the iPad. So we've never done that, neither have phones. My son is not happy with me, but he's gotten used to it. He's in seventh grade now. He's definitely one of the last, if not the last. He does have an Apple Watch, so that is we did around age 12. I don't have a hard rule about when that happens, but I do have readiness signs, and I don't think that he would have been ready before age 12. And even that, honestly, is a pain to manage. I'll be completely honest, my daughter, she doesn't have any of it. If she does want to connect with somebody that is not somebody that lives in town or something, she can use my phone and do a FaceTime call, something like that. So in terms of devices, very, very minimal, and let's say we're going on a trip or something, and it's like a seven hour road trip, I will load like movies onto an iPad, because there's also media good, better, best, like on that spectrum, short form video being the worst, and then movies being the best, right? So you can navigate it that way as well. So even on, let's say, load movies for them on a trip. This is my work iPad. You're using it. So ownership is really important, because when a kid thinks it's theirs, they also think they can do whatever they want with it, and that you're not in charge of the rules. We've also limited so we don't do any during the week. We do like up to, like, an hour and a half on a weekend day. We also, for us, designated times work better. So one of my tips and my parent EDS, is, if you can, if you're still in control, try to save those high dopamine activities for later in the day. Because I always say it's like if you have ice cream for breakfast, you're not going to want to have broccoli for lunch, right? They're not going to want to do anything else after they play their video game or use their iPad. So that's always been a rule of ours, but we're definitely not Luddites, like we use technology, we just limit it and really try to keep it in its lane. And I try really hard to model using it as a tool. I understand we do use it for entertainment as well, but that goes back to our habits and kind of checking ourselves as parents, right? I can't limit their time, and that's not going to work if I'm on my phone all day constantly, or if I'm scrolling Tik Tok in a waiting room and again, no judgment to parents, but just kind of keeping in mind, if you do want to limit for your kids, it really makes a big difference that you for tech like you got to kind of lock yourself up first as much as possible before You can have your kids follow suit. So I think those are the main things. But the last thing I'll say is we've always paced it, which is super important, and even when my kids so I probably started letting them watch shows like around h2 so again, good, better, best, something that is single camera, that is slow. So I mean, I love Mr. Rogers. I know it's old school, but that's where we started, because it's slow, it's boring, it's single camera. Soon as you get into those quick cuts and bright colors. And I mean, that is dopamine doping dopamine as well. It's really harder to then go backwards, right? So you have to kind of condition them. And again, I give the metaphor of when your babies are born, right? You give them milk before you give them solid food, right? It's kind of the same thing. So if we start with the solid food, there's nowhere for them to go. So I tell my kids all the time, I'm like, you're going to get to do all of it if I give it to you all now, where do we go from there? Right? So pacing is super important. It's just something we've always done, even when they were little, even before we knew. A lot of the research that has come out, I'd say, in the past few years. So because now there's a lot of data to support this as well, and I do agree the principle of delayed gratification is really important for kids, having something to look forward to psychologically is a good thing. I think you're right. If you give your kids everything it takes the the enjoyment out of getting something later from them. So nothing wrong with waiting. I do think it's very healthy to wait. It's healthy, and at the end of the day, I actually think it's easier. I know that sounds weird to say, but the more you give, the more you have to manage, right? So we always say, if you're going to give an app, make sure you download it and understand it, right? If you're going to give them a game, make sure you understand how the game works, right? And everything you give there's management that goes along with it. So my son now is able to group tax, which is not my favorite thing. It is a closed version of social media. There's tons of issues that arise from group tax, but part of the. Agreement of him getting the watch, which, by the way, is my watch that he uses. So that was an interesting distinction, is that I'm going to review it, so I'm going to look at it periodically and just make sure everything's good. Everybody knew going in. There's no privacy violation, because we said that ahead of time. But I will tell you just that alone is so much work scrolling through all those and checking for things and making sure it's good. And there's tools that will help you as well. We work with bark, so software is pretty good at catching, but it's more major things where I'm catching things that I think deserve conversations that are beyond kind of the really scary things. So that's just one example, but yeah, again, I would say pacing actually does make your life easier in the long run. One roadblock that I'm coming across with my kids, because I talk to them a lot about why I want to delay tech, and they understand that, however, the social component I find to be tricky, because my son, recently, he's been really asking for an iPhone. He's in seventh grade, and he knows it's something that I prefer to wait until eighth grade. I've told my kids I know Jonathan height recommends waiting until 16. Honestly, my preference is going to be to wait till they're out of the house. Tell their adults, yeah, because I find social media for many reasons, I do think it's not good time spent. So I'm going to encourage them to wait till they're older. But the tricky part is, my son wants to be social, and I want him to be social. I want him to be able to spend time with his friends, and they all connect on the iPhone. And he told me that, because a lot of his friends have iPads, and the friends of his that don't have phones yet, they do have iPads and they can text, but it's through an iCloud account. And so he wants to have an iPhone, because right now he has a flip phone that's not connected to Apple devices. Yeah, he wants to be part of the texting circle with his friends. He would either need an iPad or an iPhone, and I'm sympathetic to that. I understand that he wants to be connected to his friends and be part of the group chat. So I find it's tricky for us parents to navigate. I agree social exclusion is the number one reason that parents give in to any of this stuff before they're ready. So I completely feel you on that. And a practical bit of advice, we chose the Apple Watch for this reason. We had kept him off of it for so long he wasn't part of any group chats. And I said, look, use my phone as a family landline. And that's another tip you could do. I don't know if they would say yes to this, but I said, You can do this. And so he brought it to his friends, and they said no, which tells me, like they didn't want mom to be reading their text. But we said yes to the Apple Watch because we considered that versus like a bark phone or something for that reason, because, yes, if you do have a Samsung, they cannot pull them into group chats after the fact, and there is a stigma of the little green thought bubble on I message, right? So we said yesterday, Apple Watch, because we want to give him something of that inclusion that you were talking about. So I don't know if that's something that sounds like he would be interested in or that would work for you, and there's a lot of things I don't like about it, but his friends wouldn't even know that he doesn't have an iPhone, just based on the tech side of it. Do you know what I mean? Because it comes through as a blue chat and it has a lot of the same functionality in terms of chat. To be honest, he's unhappy with me because I'm firmly going to wait on his iPhone until he's in the eighth grade, and that's the students that I'm excited to let him have an iPhone. Yeah, but I feel guilty. You know, as you're saying, parents shouldn't feel guilt, but I do. I feel bad that I know he's missing out on those social interactions with his friends, but I still strongly believe that one day he will look back and he'll understand where I'm coming from and understand that I was doing it with his best interests in mind. He absolutely will. I hear this over and over again, and I also, as part of my work, we work with a lot of Gen Z activists that were the first generation to grow up with unbridled use. 100% of them say, I wish my mom would have put limits at the time. They didn't know. You know what I mean, it was techno optimism. We know so much more now. We're so much better equipped. But I hear usually, like junior senior in high school, kids start to say, thank you. I'll be honest for schools, they're dealing with the drama that comes in from the group tech. So there's cyber bullying, there's inappropriate content, there's sometimes threats. Sometimes it can translate into real world violence. So every once in a while, something like that will come up, where I get a little mini Thank you. I'm not expecting to get a full thank you until way later. But it's coming. I will say it's coming. And you talked about like, what is he missing out on? I would also reframe it as, what is he happily missing out on? Because social exclusion is hard when you don't have it. But from what I've talked to so many experts, so many parents about this, and the consensus seems to be it's actually harder once you get it, because you can see the group text you're left out of. If you're on social media, you can see the part. You weren't invited to in the form of photos and videos and likes coming in in real time. So you can't win either way, but I do think it's harder once you get it that is such a good point that it may be easier in the moment to say yes and to give in and to give them that social media and to give them that technological device, but you know that that path is going to lead to more opportunities to feel anxious in other ways. Yeah, you're gonna feel excluded. You're gonna start to waste time and feel drawn into more games, into gaming. You're gonna feel like you need to check your phone more and more. There's so many reasons why I agree wholeheartedly that it's best for your child to wait now, I do think it helps to hear the scary statistics that are out there. I don't want to scare parents, but I think a little bit of scaring is helpful because it sets us more firmly in our decision to wait. So do you have any statistics that you can share to parents about why tech for kids can be harmful? I mean, okay, so off the top my head, I think we can talk about porn. I think most kids have seen it by age 13, and I think it's 70 something percent of teenagers have seen it. So this is like having adult experiences or seeing adult things in no particular order. So porn is one of those things. It's also, frankly, very addictive. There is porn addiction. That is a thing. There's gambling addiction, there's food addiction, there's sex addiction. So for me, it's it's that piece of it too. When I read about the rates of pornography exposure with our kids, that's frightening to me, because when I was a kid, it used to be, maybe you'd stumble upon something in a magazine somewhere, but now you Google the wrong word, and there is tons and tons of pornography, which I believe is really harmful for a child's brain to be exposed to. Yeah, I mean, it's the addictive nature of it. It's not the way it used to be. It's It's potent, it's violent, it's obviously misogynist. And the other thing we're seeing is this is the way these kids are learning about what sex is, and it's not the way it is. So it's to me, something that really alarms me to learn about sex in that way, right? And I always prioritize real world experiences anyway. But Jonathan hate has said this, I think video games tap into boys, primal instinct for war, and then porn taps into boys, primal instinct to procreate. So between those two things, why would you go out and get rejected in the real world trying to get a girlfriend, right? And that part, I think the failure to launch piece probably worries me the most about porn, because it is so addictive, right? And it is so highly reinforcing in that way. And then, I guess, as we were talking, I thought of, I think, probably the most alarming statistic for me, because I focus on the mental health side of this, it's one in four kids is depressed and one in five kids is anxious. So that's incredibly high. And then I guess the last one, which may or may not be alarming, but it's alarming to me, is one that we've already talked about was just the amount of time that kids are spending on these technologies. So it's five hours for American teens on just social media up to nine if we add other screen activities. So I'm sure there's more that I'm not thinking of, but yeah, I mean, those are some big ones. And I mean, it's an easy thing to Google or to put into your chat, GPT, ironically, if parents want to get an overview. But there's some benefits, but a lot more harms, specifically for social media and not all tech is created equal, right? I really like how you phrase it, good better, best. I think that's a realistic way to think about it. And I think the time piece is so interesting because, yes, it takes it takes their attention away. And quite frankly, I think about how my oldest daughter is 15 now, and before I know what she's going to be out of the house. I hate to admit this out loud, but my time left with her in my house is limited, and I want the time with her. I don't wanna give it away to technology. I've said that very line so many times, yes, for sure, that matters. And it kind of goes back to you hope that you're raising your kids and not the internet. And I'm also just curious, you worked in the advertising tech world. Can you give us some insight into that? How do they make it so addictive for kids? Yeah, so I'll try to stay succinct here. But once tech came along, basically everything on computers, phones, TVs, gaming systems, they're actually designed to give us lots of dopamine, and that's what keeps us interested on our screens longer. And the reason they do that is they want to show us ads right. The longer on, the more ads they can show us, or in the case of those, free to play video games, they want to sell the in app purchases. Some of those are optimized for engagement as well. ROBLOX specifically, from what I understand, they have not been profit. Bowl. So a lot of the metrics they're going back to their investors on are engagement metrics. Like, how long do we keep kids on? Right? So it's that, plus the in app purchases and our attention is actually sold to advertisers as a commodities. So that is where that term attention economy comes from. So I think the best quote to me, and it's so simple, is from Tristan Harris, who is the founder for center for humane Technologies, a former Google engineer. He says, if you're not paying for the product, you're the product. So that kind of encompasses what this means, and that's like a really easy tip, by the way, that parents can do and we have this rule in our house, we don't do free to play, we don't do free apps, and that rules out a lot of bad stuff. So that could be helpful to parents as well. As you're saying this, I think you're right. Why would they make social media free? They're making it free because they want your attention for a reason. I'm sure they want to sell you something or they want to show you an ad. There's no such thing as a free lunch, right? Yeah. And I mean, even just like, from under the hood, when you're going in and putting in all the parameters for your ad, there's literally, like, one where you can say frequency, like, I want somebody to see this no more than two and a half times or three and a half times, right? And all of that is a science as well. But maybe also what would be helpful is to cover some of the addictive features that they use to hold your attention and keep you coming back. So even something simple, like the red notification icons and hearts, I've heard that likened to like our hunter gatherer days, like maybe finding like a beautiful sweet berry right in the wild, it's just like a little dopamine hit. Infinite scroll keeps us scrolling longer. I know if you're old enough to remember when social media started, but you got to the end of your feed, and it was at the time most of your friends, it would repeat, so you knew when to stop. It was also paginated, so you'd have to click page two, page three. It gave us markers for our brain, for when to stop, suggested videos. So this is like a huge annoying thing, especially even for younger kids, like even for Netflix. I remember when my kids were little having to set my alarm for 22 minutes, because if I waited till 24 minutes and I went to the next Netflix show, it would be like a giant meltdown. So these are all on purpose. As you're explaining all of these reasons, I'm so guilty, the red button definitely works on me. If there's a heart like to see what the heart is about, you're right. Not having an end to the scrolling keeps me on there, and the suggested videos I can think of how I've clicked, so it makes me want to just put my phone away right now, I know that's not realistic. No, I know. And honestly, like, I know all this stuff, and I still had to remove Instagram from my phone because it was affecting my well being, like, I could feel myself not feeling good when I used it. So it's awareness is important, but we're still kind of powerless over it, right? I mean, I think a big one is no stopping point, right? So those open, free to play games, really hard to turn off, because when we grew up playing video games, they had levels. They had you could beat the game, right, and you knew you were done. It's not like that. Now, they're designed to be played much longer. And you can't just say, Okay, let's be done at the end of this level. Kids never know when they're done. I did not realize that I'm yeah, you know, I haven't really played video games since I was a kid. And you could beat Super Mario Brothers and that was the end. Yeah, and you're saying now it's not like that. A lot of them are not like that. No, especially the free to play ones. It's kind of like infinite. So it goes back to that thing we were talking about earlier with the iPads. I prefer tech that's a little bit more reined in the wide, open, infinite tech I find very problematic. And then I think I should explain curation, AI because social media platforms including YouTube, and I have to say that because YouTube is used very, very widely by kids that are very, very young, and parents like, don't even realize that it's social media, but it works the same way. So I was describing earlier where social media came from, right? Which was really a social network. You would connect with your friends, you'd get everything in a chronological order in your feed. You'd get the end it would repeat. You knew you were done, the algorithm, which everybody has heard that term, the algorithm. So this came about about 2012 is when meta, at the time Facebook became public, and they came out with this new algorithm that is closer to where we are now. So it optimizes for engagement. So we talked about engagement in the terms of keeping people on longer but what I mean by this is likes, comments, shares, views, so the stickiest content rises to the top. So it's no longer chronological, it's whatever is getting the most engagement. So unfortunately, this is the content that it's all. Also the most negative, and you've probably heard of rage bait and all these terms, right? And that's mostly because arguing is more engaging right in the comments than something that's just nice, and stuff that's more sexy, more outrageous, more angry, whatever it is is just going to get more views. It's just the way we're wired. And it's interesting because we teach this in our material as well. We are actually wired to pay attention to negative signals. Again, think hunter gatherers, those the people that paid attention to the negative signals, the animal sound of danger, like just cueing into those things. Those were the people that survived. So we still have this bias towards negative information. It doesn't make us bad, it's just the way we're wired. And again, I don't think these engineers set out to destroy humanity. I really don't. I just think when your business model is to optimize engagement and sell attention, it's just what's going to happen, because it's human nature, and I agree. I mean, I think your line that less is more, later is better, resonates with me so much when you think about how we are, in a way, powerless, because it's designed to tap into our wiring that will seek for arguments which we know that's not a healthy use of our attention. Yeah, sure. So. So I'm curious. You know, I find when I talk with parents about screen time and ways to limit screen time with their kids, they seem to get nervous. I think they're they're worried, honestly, that they won't be able to do it. So can you shed a light on kids brains and how they are adaptable? What are some positive things that families can do to shift screen habits in a positive direction? Yeah, so maybe I'll tackle the kids brains are adaptable thing first, and then we can maybe go over a few tips, because there's a lot of them. Is the good news, but yeah, I mean, it's never too late. The good news is it's called neuroplasticity. Our brains are incredibly plastic. They're incredibly flexible, especially younger kids. And I guess I would start by saying, you can always change your mind. It is okay to change your mind. So I think that's the first thing I would say. But what here? And this is just my own experience, too. When we take screen breaks in our house, which we do again, I know people are like, Oh my gosh, I could never do that. You can do it. I promise. The first few days are the hardest, and then after that, you'll actually see incredible improvements all the way around. So what I see, and what I've heard from others, this a lot, is just kind of less drama. It's just kind of a calmer tone in the house, the kids just play again. They figure out things to do, like even my 12 year old will figure out analog things to do. Want to Echo. Echo that advice that it's okay to change your mind. Many years ago, we took our kids on a long plane flight, and I was nervous about the long plane flight, and I thought, You know what, I'm gonna get them iPads for the trip. And I thought, let me get them iPads so that they're entertained. I want to make sure the flight goes as smoothly as possible. And so I did get them iPads. And then when we came home, they started to use the iPads because they were now in our home, and I did not like what I was seeing. They were upset when I would turn the iPads off, and I noticed it was causing a lot of fighting in our home. And so I ended up just taking the iPads away. I thought, What am I doing? This is not what I not what I want for my kids, so I literally just got rid of the iPads. And at first they were disappointed, but after a few days of the iPads being out of their sight, they didn't ask about them anymore. So it's a good lesson, and it's true that kids are adaptable. They are resilient. And not to mention, I say this all the time for the parents are like, I can't go back. Not only can you give yourself permission to but there's so much research out there where you can show something to your kid. You could say, Hey, I didn't know this before, but I listened to this podcast and I learned new information, and I'm sorry I made a mistake, and you're modeling like, what it looks like to make a mistake, right? And I think all of that is super important when it comes to parenting in general, but for tech parenting specifically. So yeah, I mean, it's, uh, I think the first kind of ripping off the band aid feels maybe the hardest. But I would say, I I've read different things, but like from in my experience, three to four days in you start to if you can get through that first three to four days, you'll start to to notice changes for the better, I will say. And this is again from Dr lemke's work, 30 days is actually how long it takes for dopamine levels to reset. So I know that sounds crazy and impossible. We have done that in our house now, keeping in mind, we have kept it low and reigned in the whole time. So I would just throw out to be careful with that. If you feel like your kids are really dependent on it, because it can be actually dangerous to rip it away. So in that case, I would definitely engage a therapist to help you. But as long as it's run of the mill issues, then taking a break is hell. Fee and something that works, and you don't have to take a full on screen break. You can also just replace the media or, you know, if you've introduced something, an app that doesn't work, just pull that app like there's incremental changes too that make a big difference. I think that's an important reminder that it doesn't have to be all or none. And when I hear you talk about how it could take three, four days or maybe 30 days, it shines a light on how she really is an addictive quality to screens. Yeah. I mean, I try not to use that word for a couple of reasons. I think it's scary. And one of our contributing experts, she calls it digital media overuse treatment. So she specifically avoids addiction. And I know addiction is incredibly tricky to diagnose in kids, but what we can say is that they are designed to be addictive, which we know for a fact, and an attention stealer, yeah, for sure, but the science is the same, right? It's elevating dopamine, just like other potentially addictive substances. So I talk a lot with my experts about this idea of like, why are we okay with our kids using addictive technology, but we're not okay with them gambling or smoking or drinking, right? So that's a complicated question. It goes back to regulation. I mean, the iPhone came out in 2007 it feels like a long time ago, and I think most of us can't remember our lives without it, but in the context of time, it's nothing. And I think it took 20 some years to regulate cigarettes, 20 some years to regulate cars, because when cars came out, they also didn't have seat belts or lines on the road and and all that. So we're in just this really weird place, I think really hasn't been that long. When my kids asked me for the story about how I met my husband, I tell them about how he got my number and he had to memorize the number. We didn't have an iPhone to to input a phone number, he had to memorize the numbers. And they're like, yeah, that concept is so foreign to them. And it feels like it must have been the stone ages, but it really was about 20 years ago, which isn't that long ago. It's not that long ago. But I get it, like, when you grow up and that's all you know, might as well be describing like before electricity, you know. So I get that too. Yes, all they know. It's true for parents that have been listening and now feel overwhelmed or may feel a little guilty about their child's screen time use. What is a message that you would want them to hear? I think the number one thing I would say is it's not your fault. It's just not your fault. It's not individual's fault or the kid's fault. It's not your fault as a parent, it's not school's fault. It's none of it, and it's again, one kid, one person, against 1000s of the smartest engineers in the world on the other side. So it's just not a fair fight. And you can see what's going on in your own family. You can see how your kids are reacting to it. I think we all have a gut that this is something that's not serving their kids, right? It's not serving their mental health for sure, or their safety. And we talked about this already, but kids don't have that prefrontal cortex and can't control themselves. So we need to help. We need to set those boundaries as parents. So it's bigger than all of us. It's bigger than all of us. And don't beat yourself up again. I think we covered this too, but we all use it as babysitter. I do that too. I love screen time because I can go have an hour, hour and a half of getting things done. I get it. But I also think just remember it's important to zoom out, because I do tend to focus on tech, but these issues are much bigger than tech as well, and actually do have a couple statistics on this, which didn't make sense before, but I think makes sense now. Mothers spend, I think it's 40% more time with their kids than they did in 1985 fathers spend 154% more. So what that means is we're exhausted as parents like in just the last generation millennials, maybe, but definitely Gen X. I'm Gen X at the time, we were expected to go out and play and then come home when it got dark, right? Probably more so in the previous generation, by Gen X millennials, that started to taper off. It's incredibly demanding being a modern parent. It's a time we spend. It's the elite sports. It's running them around to activities and then the digital parenting, I would add that, because that is a workload, right? So, um, so I guess don't beat yourself up for doing that too. And I guess the last thing I would say is it kind of goes back to this misconception that kids need the skills that tech is going to give them. I hear this argument a lot, especially in schools. But if you listen to tech leaders, if you listen to people that are actually designing these technologies, including AI So Sam Altman, CEO of OpenAI, is part of this. They're all saying the same thing, which is, yes, at some point they will need to be good with AI tools. But what's really going to set them apart are the human skills so adaptable, empathetic, resilient, able to think critically. And unfortunately, these are the things that these devices are actually hindering. So don't be afraid to. To hold back our pushback for that reason, because it's just not true. When people talk about AI and how they may take our jobs in the future, the one thing that AI cannot replicate is actual human connection, actual human social interaction. So you're right. That's another reason why we don't want to take that away from our kids, for sure, and everybody's struggling, even us experts are struggling at home. And one thing that I discovered really early on when I started thinking about dopamine is it's everybody's dirty little secret. Not so much anymore. I think people are starting to talk about it, but when I started to talk to other moms, they're like, oh my gosh, you're struggling with this too, or that's going on in your house. It's all of us. So now I would love for you to tell me about dopamind. First of all, I'm so proud of you for being proactive and trying to find solutions to this tremendous battle that we're all fighting. So what is dopamind, and what do you want parents to know about it? Yeah, so Dopamine is a nonprofit organization. We're 501, c3, and our mission is teaching primarily kids, super important, because we want the kids to understand what's going on, but also their caregivers, parents, even teachers about how to navigate modern technology, and I think most importantly, to empower them to make their own brain healthy media choices. So we've created turnkey programs. So we work inside of schools, for example, where we have like turnkey courses and teaching materials, but also events. So for schools, we usually do, like a kids assembly, a parent Ed panel event, for example. And I think what makes us different, because there's so many other orgs doing great work in this space is that we are rooted in that easy to understand brain science and the social emotional learning so your kids will learn all the stuff that we covered just very briefly today, we go over the evolutionary aspects. We go over the dopamine and kind of how all that works in your body, and we want them. Our focus is understanding the relationship between tech and mental well being. So there's a lot of orgs doing great work in digital citizenship and media literacy, things like that. Our sweet spot is really on the feelings. Why do I feel not good when my mom takes my iPad? That's what we really want kids to understand. And then we also really want them to be good critical thinkers about tech, we always try to say that tech is not bad, but are you in charge of the tech, or is the tech in charge of you right now? And there's really brilliant ways we can do that, because my co founder is the one that really brings a lot of this to the table, which is through analogies we use, like the food metaphor a lot. You know, we talk about sugar being like sometimes food, but you're not going to feel great if you have sugar all day. So we're pretty good at communicating to kids in a way that is accessible but also fun. And then the last piece of it is just putting out content for parents. And I know it's really ironic that I'm saying this, but through social media, because that is where people are. They can get tips, they can get the latest research, they can get interviews with other experts, and maybe tech news, things like that. And we kind of think of ourselves in that sense, as curators of that could because there's so much information, it's complicated, it's conflicting, it's overwhelming, so we try to stay pretty neutral, like I've given some of my opinions today, but like dopamine in general, we really try to keep it straightforward in tone, and you have resources for all ages and families and schools, correct? Yeah. So if the website is dopaminekits.org I think that's a good place to start. So social, we absolutely do not post content targeting kids or teens at all, so social will just be for the parents and the teachers. So that's at dopamine kids. We do have online courses. So if you're a parent and you just kind of want to get a handle on digital parenting, we have elementary right now, but hopefully Middle and High coming, you can take it'll take you no more than 30 minutes, and it's just a couple minute videos at a time. We're teaching them about the dopamine. We're teaching about the pleasure, pain balance. We're teaching them why kids need to play in person, why boredom is good, why light, how light plays into it, right? So it's much more, I guess. I don't want to say straightforward. It's really just giving them a foundation of knowledge, rather than scaring because I think, like, there's plenty of other resources if you want to be scared, right? So that's really more for the parents, but for the kids, I liken it to like teaching them the food groups. You're not telling them what to eat, right? You're kind of telling them how it works, or, if they're older, like to sex ed, right? Like, we want to kind of teach them the mechanics of how all that works, you know, hopefully before they embark on it themselves. So it's so true, because one thing that I think is that we all inherently want to be healthy. And it's true as we teach your kids about why you don't want to have sweets all the time. If you educate them, they, on their own, want to make better. Choices. Yeah, empowering kids is number one. Kids are smart. If you give them the information, they will know exactly what to do with it. Is there anything else about dopamine that you want to plug? I would just say, like, let's say you want to do something right. You want this in your community. For kids, you can bring us to your school. There's like, a one click click button on our links and resources page so pop up an email to introduce us. You can take our online courses again. They're super fun. There's some for parents and some for kids. So let's say you want to educate your kid before you say yes to the iPad, before you say yes to the the phone, whatever it is, they can take that. They're super fun and easy. And we just really think it's super important that they hear it from a third party and not from mom, right? So if it's coming from their school, it makes a huge difference. And then for parents, we'll do like a private event. So you can host a private event or a parent ed or panel at your school. So I mean, those are the main things, because people always say, Well, what can I do? You got to kind of step up and either make an introduction or rally your friend group around collective action, because you said earlier to kind of bring it all the way to the beginning, how the biggest problem is going at this alone, where, if we can get kind of a group of parents together, we're in charge, we're 100% in charge, we can make a big difference and minimize that social exclusion for our kids. So I'm so thankful for the work that you're doing. You know, so many of us, we can complain about it, we can see the potential ill effects of screen time, but you're actually taking action and in a big way. So thank you very much. I'm really impressed. I'm really proud, and I hope for all of us that dopamine continues to grow and grow and grow. So thank you. Thank you so much. I appreciate it. Thank you for listening, and I hope you enjoyed this week's episode of your child is normal. Also, if you could take a moment and leave a five star review, wherever it is you listen to podcasts, I would greatly appreciate it. It really makes a difference to help this podcast grow. You can also follow me on Instagram at ask Dr Jessica. See you in.