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We serve parents who want more for their family. Our show offers research-based parenting solutions to the most common family problems, real-life parenting stories, and authentic support. The host, Jordan Langdon, is a wife, mother, and Licensed Clinical Social Worker who validates what parents go through and offers practical actionable steps parents can implement today to transform their families in joy and unity. Guests are experts in their field of work and provide high-value material for parents and families.
The Families of Character Show
Ep. #169: How to Save Your Family from Digital Destruction with Dr. Johann D'Souza
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What if the greatest threat to your child's wellbeing isn't lurking outside your home, but sitting in their pocket? Clinical psychologist Dr. Johann D'Souza delivers a wake-up call about what he calls "digital destruction" - the devastating impact of smartphones and social media on young people's mental health, development, and happiness.
We discuss:
• Rates of anxiety, depression, and suicidality have doubled or tripled among youth in wealthy, English-speaking countries since 2010
• The average age of pornography exposure is now 10 years old, with approximately 85% of young men struggling with addiction
• Parents vastly overestimate physical dangers (like kidnapping) while underestimating digital dangers to children
• Children raised with healthy technology boundaries ultimately appreciate their parents' firm guidance
If you found this episode helpful, please share it with other parents and check out Dr. D'Souza's speaking services at valuesfirstcollective.com/about or listen to his Virtuous Leaders podcast.
Follow Dr. D'Souza on X: @drjohanndsouza
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Hey parents, welcome back to our show. If you feel like your family is at war with screens, or you feel like devices are stealing your kids' attention, their joy, maybe even your connection with them, you are not alone. Today's guest says you know, it doesn't have to be that way. In fact, he believes that, with the right approach, you can turn the tide and save your family from digital destruction. Yeah, that's the word he uses is digital destruction. Okay, so I want you to stay tuned with us to the end. I'm happy to be back here and to be in this position of being able to interview our guest.
Speaker 1:I was also on his show too, so Dr Johan D'Souza is a clinical psychologist with a very unique perspective.
Speaker 1:He's not only grounded in cutting edge mental health research, but he's also deeply rooted in something we value here at Families of Character, which is traditional family values. Now, dr D'Souza holds both a master's and a PhD in clinical psychology from the University of Houston and a bachelor's in theology from the good old University of Dallas, and his private practice, called Values First Therapy, really focuses on helping high achieving young people break free from anxiety and OCD. He's published over 20 peer-reviewed articles and is a research affiliate with Harvard's Human Flourishing Program. As if that weren't enough, he is also, like I said, the host of the Virtuous Leaders podcast, where he highlights people who embody both moral and professional excellence and, like I said, I've been super blessed to have been a guest on his show. So Dr DeSouza joins us today to talk about what he calls digital destruction something he's been speaking on for seven years and, more importantly, how we can protect our families from it. So welcome to the show, dr D'Souza.
Speaker 2:Thanks, jordan, it's great to be here and thanks for joining my show and thank you for the good work that you do, because you are one of the people I've seen who's helped young couples the most, so we need that. So keep up the good work there.
Speaker 1:Thank you so much. Thank you so much. It was a blessing to be on your show and just to talk about what we do at Families of Character and how we desire to help couples who are raising kids, in the busyness of family life, to really prioritize relationships, with their faith being the foundation and then their marriage being a high priority and then the relationship with their kids. So it was just a blessing to be able to speak on your show about that and honored that you would consider me a virtuous leader. I love that. It's so great. Let's jump right in and talk about this idea of digital destruction. You are out there speaking and this is a topic that you've done a lot of research on. So what do you mean when you talk about digital destruction? That's hurting our kids.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so I'm coming at this from two angles because, as you said, I have the professional background I'm a private practice specialist in anxiety and distraction so I see it from that angle. But then I also see it because I've invested many hours over the last 15 years in mentoring young men. So I've seen the families, I've seen them grow from being people I've seen in third grade and now they're graduating college, getting married and seeing the impact of technology on them. I believe that this is the single most important issue that young people face, and it's not just in my anecdotal experience, because then we look worldwide at this point, as if you would need research to support this, but we do have research supporting the destruction that young people are facing. So I'm going to give you one example.
Speaker 2:This is again worldwide research on happiness levels. So historically we've we've seen that the youngest people have had the highest degrees of life satisfaction. People in the middle of their have had the highest degrees of life satisfaction. People in the middle of their life have the lowest degrees of life satisfaction. They're stressed out, they're taking care of their kids, they're also taking care of their parents, they have a busy job. And then people in the last third of their life also have a high level of life satisfaction. So historically, the happiness curve has been like a U-shaped curve, with the youngest and the oldest being the same at the highest level. Now, in recent years, around 2010, this curve changed. One group went from being the most happy to being the least happy, and that's the youngest group the youngest group. Now the curve is not a U anymore, it's a straight line, with the youngest group reporting the lowest levels of happiness.
Speaker 2:And now what we've seen also digging even further down into the research, is skyrocketing rates of anxiety, depression, suicidality in the youngest age group, starting at 2010. So there's a clear inflection point. If you look at the graphs there's it's kind of like slowly going up. Then at 2010, they call it like the hockey stick graph because it's like the handle of a hockey stick just shoots way up. We're talking about doubling or tripling rates of anxiety, depression and suicidality all around the world, primarily in secular, english-speaking, wealthy countries such as yes, us, canada, uk, australia, new Zealand, around the world.
Speaker 2:But the funny thing about it is it's specifically for young people, because we can compare it to other age groups who have been given the same surveys and their levels don't change. It's the youngest people. What happened in 2010? So that's the question popularized and the first social media for the smartphone was released, which is Instagram, which is basically a gateway drug into pornography. If you've ever been on Instagram, there are advertisements for pornography on it and if you scroll, you're going to hit it. So that's why this is a mental health crisis and the biggest challenge facing young people today.
Speaker 1:So that's why this is a mental health crisis and the biggest challenge facing young people today.
Speaker 1:Wow, that just gave me the shivers to think that, you know, young children years ago reported these high levels of happiness and then, all of a sudden, 15 years ago, they are, you know, depressed and anxious and reporting some of the lowest levels of happiness because of this technology, because of this invention and this pouring into social media and the digital addiction that started back then.
Speaker 1:Like that's heartbreaking and it was really helpful for you to talk about the U shape. And then, all of a sudden, this hockey stick with the rates of anxiety and mental health issues, you know, shooting up. It's like for it to go from and you imagine like, yeah, the young children, they have this natural innocence and they're playing and they know they're good and they know that the world is good and that inherently people are, you know, want good and beautiful and true things. And then for that to be crushed through the invention of this device that we have now become accustomed to using all the time and handing to our kids when we're strolling through the grocery store so they won't make a noise or they won't bother us, you know, when we're on the phone or whatever, that this has taken that innocence away from them and sort of hooked them and trapped them.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, that's exactly right and we see the. So the consequences are not just the anxiety and depression, suicidality, but it's also because you have to think about well what leads to those things. What's the mediating factors? And a huge one here is lack of sleep. So sleep is so important for physical and mental health. It's probably the single most important factor for physical and mental health. It's more important than food. You can survive longer without food than you can without sleep.
Speaker 2:There's on record a gentleman, angus, in the UK, who lived more than a year without eating food. Believe it or not, he lost hundreds of pounds, but you can't live I think the record is maybe like about 10 days, 12 days, something like that, without sleep. So the young people, when they're at the time in their lives when they need the most sleep, they're sleep because if the phone is in the room they're not sleeping. And then you have the social deficits, you have the distraction, you have the addiction, and we can get into each of those into more detail. But these are some of the consequences and mediating factors that lead to the anxiety, depression and ultimately suicide. Mediating factors that lead to the anxiety depression and ultimately suicide.
Speaker 1:Sleep you mentioned that as just one of the primary factors in flourishing or dying. Basically right, I mean you can't go without it. I used to work in a psychiatric hospital and that would be one of the primary reasons people would be admitted is because they had gone without sleep for three or four or five days. They're up either using substances or gaming for days on end and they become psychotic. They lose all sense of reality and they're not in touch and in tune with what's going on around them. And that same thing can be happening in your own child's bedroom. Right, they sneak their phone in there, they've got their tablet.
Speaker 1:You don't know because you're not keeping track of.
Speaker 1:You know where the devices are stored or docked at night, and all of a sudden you start noticing this. You know kid that looks like they have ADHD, that can't pay attention to things and you know is irritable and agitated, not performing well at school, right. And so those things, I think, catch our attention, that the teachers say they're distractible all the time. Maybe they need medication or it just seemed grumpy or whatever. But it's important, like you said, to drill down and instead of sort of slapping a band-aid on it, like you said, to drill down and instead of sort of slapping a bandaid on it where it's like, oh yeah, let's just kind of give them a stimulant or you know, take them to a therapist and, just, you know, check out for an hour every week while they do their thing with their therapist and hope that that works. I hear you kind of saying without saying, like what about technology? Just taking kind of an audit of technology in your own home and in bedrooms and places where it's important that your kids are getting quality sleep right.
Speaker 2:Yeah, absolutely, I mean. So you talked about ADHD. Well, adhd is two things it's distraction and or hyperactivity. So both of those things are a result of the lack of development of the prefrontal cortex, which is responsible for so-called executive function, inhibitive control, being able to control impulses, for example. So teenagers are at the stage where their prefrontal cortex is not developed yet. That doesn't finish developing until the mid-20s, and so, at the time when they are the most impulsive and most distractible, they're given a device that's designed to take advantage and increase impulsivity and distractibility.
Speaker 2:So, as you probably know, jordan, these apps, these devices, are purposely gamified to be addictive. So, for example, infinite scroll it just goes on forever, it doesn't stop, it's constantly changing, the colors are constantly changing, the pictures, the images are changing, the sounds are changing, and they're on. These apps are on what's called a variable reward schedule, which has been shown to be the most addictive type of way of rewarding people. It's how slot machines work. So the way slot machines work is they give you a reward you get. If you put in a dollar, you're going to get about 80 cents back over time. If you put in $100, you need about $80 back over time, but the when you get that money back is not predictable over time. But the when you get that money back is not predictable. It's random, which keeps us hooked, because each pull could be the one where we get the jackpot, where we get the money, and that's how. That's how the apps are designed to that it gives us a reward. In this case, the reward is basically other people viewing our content, and so the app controls how many people it shows the content to and therefore how many people view and like and subscribe and interact with our content. But it's on a variable reward, so we never know when we're going to get that affirmation, that hit, and it could be the next time, it could be the next time.
Speaker 2:And then you have these push notifications, which how difficult is it to resist not clicking when you see that red square with the number three notifications on? And the thing is, you and I are probably addicted. I mean, if we have smartphones, if we have social media, we're probably addicted. They're designed to be addictive. If adults are addicted to it, which they almost certainly are I personally believe that it's practically impossible to have a smartphone and not be addicted to it then how much more are the kids going to be addicted to it. And now the device is forming their brains because, keep in mind, their brains are more actively developing than ours are. Their brains are still being pruned, so the neuronal pruning, meaning that what they do gets more hardwired, what they don't do dies away. So these devices are actively shaping the formation of their brains. Jordan.
Speaker 1:What they don't do dies away.
Speaker 2:So the neuronal pruning yeah, I don't know if you're aware of it. This is fascinating. So from the ages of zero to three years old, there's something called neurogenesis or synaptogenesis, in which there's connections being formed between the neurons at a rate of hundreds of connections per second. It's pretty, it's incredible really. There's so many connections Now. So that's from the age of zero to three. So that's why little kids have the ability to learn every human language that exists. Any baby can learn that without even putting in the effort, they just absorb it right Now. That's called a critical period.
Speaker 2:Now, from the age of three onwards, the brain is no longer focusing on synaptogenesis, on creating connections. It's now focusing on pruning the connections. It's like pruning a tree. We're going to take away the things that are not being used in order to increase the efficiency of the pathways that are being used. So now we're no longer as able to learn a new language, but the things that we have learned. We can do it more easily and more quickly and more automatically. Think about how easy it is for us to walk, compared to a baby who has to think so deliberately about every single step. You know what that's like, but what that means is because of this neuronal pruning. It's literally use it or lose it.
Speaker 2:So what they are, the young people have been practicing. If they're practicing sports hobbies, drawing, socializing, talking with other people, doing chores around the house, studying, they're going to get better and better and better at those things. It's going to become more automatic, the things. Whereas if they're practicing eight hours of entertainment, screen time a day, which some young people report, literally a full time job of entertainment, 40 hours a week, eight hours a day so then that that's what they're going to get better at, and the other things that they're not practicing they're going to.
Speaker 2:They're losing the ability to practice it, which is why young people I don't know if you've noticed, as I have in my mentoring, that you meet people who they don't know how to socialize. They don't know how to look you in the eyes. They don't know how to shake your hand. I don't know where these people's fathers are. They don't know how to shake their hand, shake a man's hand. They don't know how to initiate a conversation. What they know how to do is look at their feet and take out their phone and avoid eye contact.
Speaker 1:That really hits, because I'm thinking too of that critical time period with young children and learning how to read, and to read good books and good literature, right, and how that skill dies off. If all you're doing is being entertained by YouTube shorts and games, right, that ping and ding and the colors all go off and on and the next time you could be the winner of this game or you could beat Joey, who's actually a bot but you think he's real, you know and like. If they're doing that and their brain is craving more of that, that's destroying these other parts of them, like the desire to read and the the ability to read and comprehend things and to be able to speak about something they've read or to have a Socratic dialogue with another person about that in the flesh right. So that just gives me the shivers Again. It's like we're trading our humanity for this addictive device. That's just destroying us.
Speaker 2:That's exactly it. I love the way you phrase that, jordan. We're trading our humanity for it. So the way that young people describe their experience these days is they feel hollow and vacant, like a robot without an operating system. They're dead on the inside their body's without a soul. They're empty, vacuous. There is no interior life, there is no spiritual life, and that's what happens when we experience addiction. So with addiction, our brain is now wired to feed the addiction. That is the highest priority. The resources of the brain are wired to satisfy that and everything else is in a second place, and what's basically ultimately sacrificed on the deepest level is intimate relationships. So people no longer have these intimate relationships. They're replacing their relationships with, with virtual interactions.
Speaker 2:And the biggest example of this, the single most destructive force for young men today pornography addiction. It is so rampant. Pornography addiction is so rampant. If a young man has a smartphone, he's seen pornography on it. The average age of exposure is 10 years old. And the amount of content that people are consuming. People don't realize that pornography companies make more than Netflix, for example. There's a single pornography company that makes more than Netflix and some other major companies combined.
Speaker 2:The fact is that you may think that your child is innocent and good, and then you give them a phone. Once they have that phone, they were innocent, but they're not anymore. I recently gave a talk in another city to a group of young men and I asked them hey, how many of your friends do you think are addicted to pornography? And I said, hey, is it more than 50 or less than 50%? More than 50. Is it more than 60? More than 60. Is it more than 70? More than 70. Is it more than 80? More than 80. Is it more than 70? More than 70? Is it more than 80? More than 80? Is it more than 90? And that's when we settled at 85 they said 85. I actually believe that it's probably higher. These were all really good kids, so probably there's their friends are, are definitely better than average.
Speaker 2:But from, yeah, from what I've seen and what I've when I've talked to in mentoring sessions, basically people say that like, unless you're, unless you're like an exceptional one in a million kid who I have met and personally worked with and they're amazing, then yeah, you're struggling with pornography. It doesn't matter how good your parents are, it doesn't matter how much Catholic doctrine you know, it doesn't matter that. You know it's wrong. That's the problem. It's an addiction. They know it's wrong. That's not the problem. That's trying to break it. They're trying to stop it. They can't. It's an addiction and it's going to last years and decades and it's going to affect their marriages. It's going to affect the way they look at women for the rest of their life. It's going to affect their happiness. It's going to affect their ability to concentrate at their job and maybe even not get fired because of the content that they're viewing. So this is a serious, serious problem that it's very hard to overestimate how big of a problem this is.
Speaker 1:What are you seeing in your mentoring, when you do counseling with teens and young adults who have high anxiety, addictions to devices and pornography and social media and that sort of thing, the ones that? Do you see many clients for anxiety that don't have smartphones? They have like a light phone or some other social media based or smartphone type of device. I guess. Do you see clients that have high anxiety that don't have that?
Speaker 2:That's a great question. So I mentioned these, this like kind of one in a million student, who's exceptional, who's very mature I think, more mature than I am, in some ways, definitely more mature than I was when I was their age and the highest performing, most impressive young man I've worked with, even in a volunteer mentoring context. They don't have smartphones, they don't even have phones. So I'm involved in a leadership program where I help some of the young men to help their friends. So so this is like a very, very select small group of people who I teach leadership to virtuous leadership, and at one point I was trying to get together like a group communication, like to organize an event, like let me try to put that, see if I can throw them on a group chat here, and what I realized is wait a second, none of these people have phones. I can't contact any of these people because they don't have phones.
Speaker 2:The ones who are the most mature, the ones who are the leaders is, not only do they not have smartphones, they don't even have phones. And those are the ones that have a sense of self-confidence and independence and not needing to be approved of and liked by the group. In fact, other people are the ones who are seeking their approval. So anxious moms worry about well, will my son be accepted, will my daughter be accepted if she doesn't have social media? Yeah, actually, she's gonna be a lot more confident if she doesn't have social media, because we know now that there's a bi directional relationship between social media use and loneliness.
Speaker 2:This was published in the association of psychological science, so that means that's, as you would expect, the more lonely someone is, the more social media they they use, but also the more social media they use, the more lonely they feel. So it's a classic vicious cycle that feeds on itself. Social media, smartphone, it's not giving your child confidence, it's weakening them, it's making them dependent. It's making them dependent on peer pressure and social expectations and it's basically replacing your parenting with a group of teenagers with no accountability, going to the lowest common denominator and being manipulated by multi-billion dollar companies who are trying to sell them products and, in some cases, intentionally destroy their souls, frankly, and they're doing a pretty good job they are doing a pretty good job.
Speaker 1:The statistics show that with, with the rates of suicide and, like you said, these children, these young teenagers, young adults walking around like a shell, a robot, no soul, no purpose, right, it just the likes and the shares and the hearts, and it's not enough. It's not enough to keep them going. Wow, okay, so I am. I've got a lot of thoughts going on right now and one of them is our son turned 13 in February and he really wanted a phone. And we said you know what? We think that the next best thing for you might be a bank account. Well, that has nothing to do with communication and me like talking to my friends and being able to see them on video chat and everything we said. We know, we know, we understand that, but there's a high price that comes with the responsibility of a phone and basically a computer in your pocket.
Speaker 2:And we know that, that's just not.
Speaker 1:We wouldn't leave the front door to our house open at night and allow anyone to just walk in and do whatever they wanted and expose themselves in whatever way they felt that they they desired, you know. And so we're not going to give you something in your pocket where you could open it up and anybody could expose you to anything they wanted not only one person, but just millions of people and it will be safer for you to leave your front door open at night than to do this on a smartphone?
Speaker 2:Totally, I firmly believe that, and looking at the statistical records of violent crime in the US backs that up. Actually, so a child would have to. If you wanted your child to be kidnapped, you'd have to live until they were 700,000 years old. That's how unlikely it is.
Speaker 1:Say more about that, because I listened to one of the podcast episodes that you did with a guest who was talking about that. Like parents fear of letting their kids out of the house to go to the neighborhood park across the street because they're telling themselves, well, they could get kidnapped. What are the chances, what are the likelihood of that, versus all this destruction that's happening online?
Speaker 2:Exactly so. There's a vast overestimation of physical danger and a vast underestimation of digital danger. So, again, going back to kidnap, and this is like. I've actually looked at the statistics and you don't have to take my word for it, you can Google it yourself and put together the graphs. So it's more likely for a child to be born as a conjoined twin than it is to be kidnapped. It's more likely for a child to be struck by lightning than it is to be kidnapped, whereas when you so in Childhood 2.0, which is a great documentary on the dangers of toxic screen use, so they did an experiment where they created a profile for a 14-year-old girl 12-year-old girl, something like that and within five minutes they had an adult predator exposing himself to this child, to this fictional child that they had created. So these digital dangers are, they are so real.
Speaker 2:I was talking to another teenager and he said and again, one of these guys who doesn't have a phone? And he said that, yeah, one of these guys who doesn't have a phone? And he said that, yeah, it's just, it's just normal for young people to just send nude photos of themselves. That's, that's normal. That's like considered now the first step of even not even dating, but of pre-dating and and that's so dark, that doesn't, that doesn't go away. They just have such a, they just have such a distorted sense of reality. You know that there's their, there's the evidence for the prefrontal cortex not not being developed.
Speaker 2:So you know, and I, you know, I, I sometimes wonder if this underestimation of physical sorry, the overestimation of physical danger is ultimately due to contraception, that because of contraception, parents are not having as many kids. So when you have eight kids, you're not worried about. Hey, I need to track my kid at all times, using my phone and their phone to track their physical location, which has never been done in the history of humanity until a few years ago, whereas when you only have one or two kids, you don't have anything else to do and you don't have any other older kids to help you in the task. So you see your job as just tracking where your child is all the time, and to the detriment of the child.
Speaker 2:The children are no longer able to experience independence and growth and real learning from the real world, and that's what they need and that's why I say that I think one of the biggest reasons why we're facing this digital destruction is parental anxiety. It's actually I don't think it's ignorance. It's parental anxiety that the parents aren't doing it for their kid, they're doing it for themselves. They want to feel more comfortable, they want to worry less, they want to think that they're being good parents and inadvertently, they're actually accomplishing the opposite. They're harming their kids more than just giving them freedom and independence would.
Speaker 1:Wow, parental anxiety? Yes, and it's so refreshing to talk to you, johan, because I'll just say that we need to be hearing more from people like you, who have done the research, you know the dangers, you have hundreds and thousands of case studies to back up what you're encouraging us to do, which is to say no to digital devices when everyone else is saying yes, and I'm just like cheering and clapping over here.
Speaker 1:I'm like yes yes, I have a 13 and a half year old who hasn't looked at a computer all summer. Not a single computer, a tablet, a phone. We've watched one hour of a music TV program at night, maybe three or four times per week as some fun little entertainment.
Speaker 2:God bless you. I just can't give enough praise and support to what you're doing with your family. I just give you all the encouragement in the world You're doing it the right way. Your child is going to be so, so grateful. Your child is going to love you for it and he's going to raise his children, your grandchildren, just like you raised him. And guess what? These parents who are spoiling other kids and giving them, giving into all their demands, not thinking of what's best for the kid, but caving to their own personal anxiety. I hate to say this, but their children are going to hate them for it. They're going to hate the fact that they no longer, they don't have self discipline and they're going to be adults acting like children, and they're going to blame it on their parents, as they should, frankly.
Speaker 1:Yes, and you've heard the saying as a parent, you're only as happy as your most unhappy child. Sometimes, if that's what it takes to motivate you to make some of these decisions thinking about yourself in retirement or, you know, towards the end of your life, like wanting to be happy and to be, you know, in a place where you're enjoying life then you got to make some hard decisions today.
Speaker 2:You got to be a freaking parent. You have to be an adult. This is something that so I talk about parental anxiety. The other element here is just weak men. Weak men like just grow up and be an adult, do what's best for your child, do what's best for your family. So why are you letting your child run the house? That's literally.
Speaker 2:What's happening is these households are being run by the emotions of a teenage girl. That's literally, without exaggeration. What's happening is these households are being run by the emotions of a teenage girl. That's literally, without exaggeration, what's happening. Because the emotions of the girl control the girl's actions and that controls usually it's oftentimes the mom's actions. And then the dad just caves into it. And I'm saying, because I see this in my therapy practice, where I'm sitting with mom, dad and child and I'm laying it out in a much, much more gentle, empathetic way than I'm doing it now when I'm on your show, I feel free to just kind of actually speak my mind. I'm so glad. So thank you. So I lay out the case in a very empathetic way and what happens is invariably the mom has this concerned, look on her face and the dad is nodding along like yes, yes, I told you. I told you we shouldn't have got into video games. And I'm thinking like dude, what's I mean come?
Speaker 1:on man Like. You're the man of the house, you're the head of the family.
Speaker 2:You knew this was wrong and you didn't stand up for it. Like, what is your role right now as a human being if you're not doing that? So I mean, let's man up. God has given you this authority as parents. Your children have been trusted to you, not to the school, not to the government, not to Apple, not to Instagram. Your children have been entrusted to you. You have the rightful authority. I like to tell parents trust your judgment, trust your parental instinct. If society is doing things one way, then probably you just do the opposite and you're going to end up in a much better place. So I want to give that message of encouragement.
Speaker 1:Thank you. I love that. I saw your animation and you come to life when you were talking about like men, let's go man up, make the decision. And over here, as a wife I'm thinking ladies, step aside. Allow your husband to lead, even if it's going to be hard, or your daughter's going to have a meltdown because dad said you're not leaving in that skirt.
Speaker 2:You're going to go put some shorts on right Ladies, let them lead right.
Speaker 1:So often we sideline our spouse or stick them in the trunk and go. Just trust me, all the girls are dressing like this, so it's not a big deal. People are used to this. No, people are not used to this. Nobody's ever going to be used to the short skirt. Everybody looks. It's a total distraction. It causes men to think in a certain way about your daughter and about other things that are impure and unhealthy for you. So it's okay to be the one that says let's go through your dresser drawers, try this stuff on. If it doesn't hit around the knee, then let's just. Let's donate it to somebody that's younger than you are Right and do the hard thing. You are swimming upstream folks If you're listening to this and going like, oh, these two they're. They're telling us to do things. No one in our neighborhood is doing. Yes, that's right, you're hearing correctly.
Speaker 1:They're telling you to go against the culture because the culture is in a bad way.
Speaker 2:A majority of people are not living holy lives where they understand the value of themselves as a human being, and it's always been like that I don't know if your audience has ever just read through the historical books of sacred scripture, it's fascinating, it's surprisingly dark, and what it shows is that it's always been this way. It's always been a small group of God's faithful people being persecuted by an evil empire with immense resources, and whether it's the Assyrians or the Babylonians or the Romans or the Greeks or the US empire or the British empire, it's literally always been like that and it will always be like that until the end of time. So yeah, if you're going to be a Christian, that means being countercultural.
Speaker 1:Yes, thank you for that reminder, because you're so right. And there's that passage in scripture that talks about the narrow gate, right, like that's what we're going for people, the narrow gate, we're not going for the wide, open road that everybody's wandering around on. That's like I don't know. Maybe it's this, maybe it's that. No, there are a select few critical, few things that we're called to as Christians.
Speaker 1:Right, and it's a beautiful life when you say no to the things that don't move you towards heaven and don't move you closer to your family and your spouse. It really is. Don't move you towards heaven and don't move you closer to your family and your spouse. It really is. And I guess, if you're not, if you feel like you're living sort of this cultural lifestyle where your kids already have phones or tablets, you're not even sure how many devices are running around your household, it's okay to just kind of push pause on everything and start there. Start by collecting these devices right and having a conversation with your spouse or a trusted friend and saying, like we have a problem here. We have a problem.
Speaker 1:We've become highly aware of this after listening to the show or just a multitude of different messages that have come at us, and we want to do something different. Will you help us? Will you help us to get rid of some of these? Put protective software on this stuff, to say no to this digital destruction, because you only get one shot at parenting. You know we don't get any do-overs and these are humans. We're raising adults that we want to be able to, you know, live out their vocation and be full of joy and to really radiate the love of God to people and they're unable to do that if they have been addicted and anxious and had this sort of empty childhood because it's been fed with digital devices, right?
Speaker 2:You said it, jordan. That's absolutely right, and parents often think that this is a complicated issue. This is a difficult issue. This is a complex issue. How many different devices and apps and there's a different, something different coming out every day and these filters, and how do I track this or that? Look, this is not a complicated issue. This is a simple issue. It's very simple. Never give your kid a smartphone. It's that simple. Never give your kid a smartphone. That's all you have to do. And parents just make it harder on themselves by setting up these expectations of oh you know, maybe if you're a little bit more mature, maybe when you're a little bit older, maybe when you're 16, maybe when you're this, maybe when you're that, because they don't have any personal conviction, they don't understand what they're doing. They're flying by the seat of their pants, which I get. But make it easy on yourself. Never give your kid a smartphone. That's the simplest decision that will have the biggest positive impact on your life and the life of your child.
Speaker 1:Dr DeSuta, you gave it to us just simply. Again, if this is hard for you to hear, you want to push, stop and go. This is craziness, that's okay, that's all right. But some of us are tuning in and going. I'm willing to make these choices, even if it's against the grain, because I know that, like you said, I have been entrusted to raise these children and this is a gift that I've been given and I've got to steward it well, you know. So you just convinced me. I had earlier on the show I can't remember the episode number, but I interviewed Joe Hollier and he is a co-founder of the Light.
Speaker 2:Phone, oh cool.
Speaker 1:And this phone has no social media. It has no internet browser. It is talking, is texting. It has the ability to take photos. I'm not sure you can even send the photo to anyone through a text and navigation a way to get you around if you needed to. But they've been testing this in schools and there have been schools that have committed to only allowing students to have light phones and they've done different research with these schools and kids hate them at first, like this is ridiculous. We miss our smartphone or whatever. And then they feel free, they feel the sense of freedom to engage their friends in person and to enjoy. All of a sudden they have all this time back that they used to not even realize that they were spending scrolling and checking, you know, every app and every notification all the time, and now they, like after a detox period, they've come alive and they've they experience more joy. Their happiness meter is like going off the charts. So there's also other alternatives.
Speaker 2:so I think that's important to say is that you know you can live without a phone and there's an assumption now that, okay, what kind of phone do I need to get my kid? So the assumption is my kid has to have a phone. That's an assumption. Your child does not have to have a phone. This is a recent phenomenon. This is out of all of human history. This is 15 years old, right? Your child does not even need a phone at all and probably their lives will be much better without it.
Speaker 2:Because you got these toxic group texts and any teenager on a group text. It goes to the lowest common denominator. It's horrible. Just if you don't believe me, just check out your child's group text sending photos. Yeah, that's, that's a recipe for a disaster. So it's not just about the social media and the video games, but even just the texting and just giving them a chance to be a child, to not have to worry about responding right away, to not have to worry about constantly checking this thing. I mean you and I as adults, I'm sure we feel I know I often do like man. Wouldn't it be great if we just kind of like, were able to frolic in the woods and not have to check technology at all. And because of our obligations maybe that's not possible for us, but it is possible for your child. Your child does not have to be connected. And what a gift, that gift of childhood, which they only have once in their life and you can give that to them now and they can have true friendships and true relationships and true adventure.
Speaker 1:Thank you. Thank you for instilling that hope and reminding us that it's possible and that you know this, because you're working with these people and these families all the time in your private practice. So this isn't made up. This is truly happening. I will say, too, from our standpoint. We started our oldest son at a high school and within two weeks of him being on the football team, he said well, mom, I got to have Snapchat. And we said oh no, we're never having Snapchat. Well, I have to because that's how I have to communicate with the team. That's what the coaches said no problem, this is like you're going to have to do the hard thing and ask them for their phone number. Oh, no, no, no, I can't do that. There's so much anxiety around this. Month after month. In that first semester, things just started unraveling and we knew this was not going to be a good fit and we transferred him to a different school.
Speaker 2:Guess what Good for you.
Speaker 1:No technology at the school? Okay, great, you just took that off the table. That's not even an issue he has to worry about. You did the right thing. We've also done homeschooling, man. There's just, there is options.
Speaker 1:If you're thinking that doesn't work for me. Jordan must have this wealth that she can afford these resources, but we can't, no, stop telling yourself that right, I mean, we've made sacrifices in our lives as parents in order to do the hard thing for our kids and we have challenged each other, as husband and wife, to step up and take a stand, even when it's hard and even when your kids are crying on the step because another friend got another phone and they're the last one of the entire group. Right that we say? I know this is really hard. I can only imagine everybody having all these things and you feeling left out. You know, just aligning with them, just affirming them and and then showing them, introducing them into things that are actually more beautiful and more high quality for them. Like I took my son to the coffee shop because I had a Zoom interview yesterday and guess what? I put in his hand A book off the shelf called Huckleberry Finn. I read it from start to finish in two hours and was like Mom.
Speaker 1:This is awesome. Whoa, not necessarily a reader, but because I took a little extra time and put something in his hand that I knew a 13 year old boy would be interested in he ate it up. I woke up this morning Johan, no kidding, my, my kids were up and I said they said, shh, we're doing something. I said, what, what are you doing? And they each held up a book that the boxcar children books in their hands and they were doing a read aloud and they're like we've already read 62 pages. It's only 930.
Speaker 2:I'm like people who know me, Johan in.
Speaker 1:Denver are like I would have never guessed, jordan. Like you have blonde hair and you get your nails done and you like you look like you kind of fit in in culture and I'm like I do, because I'm living in the world, but we're also making decisions in our home that are different. And it's OK, you can do this too, right, right?
Speaker 2:I just want to give a witness to you, jordan. I knew you were good and a good parent, but I didn't know how good a parent you were until this conversation, and God bless you for what you're doing. You're doing it exactly the right way. What a gift you're giving to your children and they're going to be truly happy and you already have a happy family and that's the highest good, human good on earth. It's heaven on earth, right there. So your children are getting a little foretaste of heaven, and that is a witness to the rest of society. What's going to convert? We need another Pentecost, we need a renewal, especially in Denver. And what's going to convert those people? It's not bashing them upside the head with the Bible as much as we feel like you probably don't feel like doing that, but maybe some other people do. And what's going to convert them is not just the intellectual argument. What's going to convert them is the heart of seeing a beautiful, loving, happy family, and then they'll realize I want it. I don't know what it is, but I want this.
Speaker 1:Thank you. Thank you for just sharing that with me. I'm going to absorb that and it gives me fuel to keep doing what's right. Ultimately, at the end of this life, I am the one that has to do an accounting before God of the decisions that I've made, and so that also my belief in that, you know, helps fuel the decisions that I make, and sometimes I have to tell my kids that, listen, I got to account for all this before our Lord. Can you imagine sitting before the?
Speaker 2:judgment seat and saying hey, but everyone else was doing it.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that does not go well, that does not end well it's not gonna cut it. Yes, he says what about me? I gave you the instructions, I gave you a very clear idea of how to live your life and I gave you free will to choose other things or to choose me, and it may seem hard to make these choices that we've talked about today, and I get it. I still struggle and we are going to continue to struggle with these things. We do not have it perfect down here in Denver.
Speaker 1:Team Langdon, we're bouncing off the wall sometimes, and we're constantly working to get better, but it is worth it. It may be the hardest thing you have to do, but it is the most worth it thing to just keep your eyes focused on the critical few things that are going to elevate your marriage, help your family feel unified and truly connected in a culture where they, at the end of the day, say man, I know, I was loved, I felt it, I felt every bit of it growing up.
Speaker 2:I'm going to add a witness here. I just I mentored a guy who's going off to college and he's in one of these families like yours I described and he said you know, my parents were really tough on me, but they always explained why they were doing what they were doing. And now I understand and I'm so grateful. So it is all worth it.
Speaker 1:And that, if you needed to hear that, just replay that part right there, because down the road your child will appreciate this type of formation. They will see the benefits because they are going to witness their peers go through divorces, check into rehab facilities, lose jobs, be under the bridge, just it's. It's not a matter of you know when. It's just going to happen. They're going to witness that and and they're going to go back and go. What's different about me? You know, how was I raised versus how they were raised? And they're going to see, they're going to see on both sides of it versus how they were raised and they're going to see, they're going to see on both sides of it. So I think, yeah, we have a duty to do our best as parents and to focus on what really matters, and that means making tough decisions and it also means a lot of joy and happiness in our later lives when we get to delight in our children living out their vocations with joy and freedom like other people may not experience ever in their lifetime.
Speaker 2:Exactly right, Jordan.
Speaker 1:So good, dr Johan de Souza. Man, this has been a wonderful conversation I have. If you found yourself sort of nodding along and feeling that nudge to do something different, it's really time to take action to protect your family from digital destruction. And if you feel like a hypocrite oh, I don't know, because I'm in my phone all the time Take this step downgrade your phone to something light that is just literally you know, something simple as a bridge to get you off of apps and social media and everything, and then share that journey with your kids. You know, model for them what it's like. It's hard. You've had to do something different. You've had to retool how you work your business or whatever, but journey alongside them so that they can witness you making healthy choices for yourself and then get on board with saying no to all these digital devices for your kids too.
Speaker 1:Guys, dr D'Souza, he's not just a gifted clinician and researcher, but he's also a dynamic speaker who really brings clarity, conviction and compassion to this topic of saving your family from digital destruction. I'm sure you felt that in today's conversation and what I love is that you're not worried about kind of mincing work Like you're. Just, I feel like there's something about you that feels this pressure. Like, if not now, then when. Like you parents need to hear it, even if it hurts a little bit. You parents and you school administrators and moms groups. Like, if you truly want to know how to raise happy, healthy, successful kids, then I'm just going to like cut to the chase and deliver the message in a straightforward manner, right?
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, and I haven't always been like this, but I've realized through experience that we're in a straightforward manner, right, yeah, yeah, and I haven't always been like this, but I've realized through experience that we're in a war and we're not winning the war right now, and we need this message.
Speaker 1:Yes, amen to that. Well, make sure that you reach out. And if you are connected to a school, a mom's group, your local church and you found this message helpful and would like to bring Dr D'Souza into your space, he speaks, he travels and speaks, so what you can do is contact him directly at valuesfirstcollectivecom. Forward slash about that link is in our show notes below, so if you just click that link you can send a message, get a conversation started about hiring for him to speak at an event. Have I missed anything? Is that the best way for them to find you?
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's great. I appreciate that, Jordan. I really do love speaking and I'm happy to spread the word.
Speaker 1:And thank you for not just putting the message out there and saying here's all the research. I'm just going to scare you off. You come with that. That, that follow-up that's so important, that call to action that's saying and here's what I'm asking you to do to save your family, don't do the smartphones, say no when everyone's saying yes and you have confidence in us that we can make that work and that it'll be worth it. So that is awesome, guys. Check out his podcast, virtuous Leaders Podcast. Great episodes with other professionals and researchers, psychologists. So if you like what you heard here, check out his podcast as well. That is linked in our show notes. Any final words, dr D'Souza, before we let you go.
Speaker 2:Being a parent is really a privilege and it goes by very quickly and what a blessing it is, and you see the reward as your child gets older and has their own kids as well. So it's worth it and the challenge is part of the fun, so enjoy the journey.
Speaker 1:Thank you so so much. Guys, if you enjoyed this message or you are thinking about someone in particular that could benefit from this message, please text this on to them, send it to them in an email, direct their attention to this episode and share it far and wide. There are many more messages like this than you even know about, which is such a blessing. It's a beautiful thing to really feel the tide turning and understand that we are part of a community that really wants the best for our families, and that means listening to these kind of messages and taking action on those. So share our podcast with people in your network and, if you want to check out this video version, jump over to YouTube and you can catch the episode there on the Families of Character show. Ok, we'll catch you on another episode real soon. Stay tuned.
