Our Kids & Tech: Reclaiming Attention & Real-World Joy - A Conversation with Catherine Price

In this episode, Kristina and Heather talk with award-winning science journalist, speaker, and author Catherine Price for a timely conversation about childhood, technology, and mental well-being. Drawing from her New York Times bestselling book The Amazing Generation (co-authored with Jonathan Haidt), Catherine explains how technology is intentionally designed to capture attention—and why developing brains are especially vulnerable.

Together, they explore why play equals learning, how nature and human connection regulate the nervous system, and how families can move from power struggles around screens to shared understanding and empowerment. 

This hopeful, research-informed conversation invites parents, educators, and communities to reclaim joy, protect childhood, and take collective action toward healthier tech boundaries.

Gear Up! Adventures In Parenthood is recorded and edited by Dave Purnell and produced by Jen Plante Johnson for the ODC Network in Holland, Michigan.

The ODC Network is a non-profit organization that strives to advance outdoor education and conservation in West Michigan. 

Since 2000, The ODC Network has served over a million people through hands-on, outdoor learning experiences and conserved thousands of acres of native habitat through restoration and preservation projects.

The ODC Network’s vision is building a better community by connecting people, land and nature. To learn more and get involved go to: www.odcnetwork.org.

Transcript

Kristina Boersma 0:07

I'm Kristina Boersma.

Heather Bouwman 0:08

And I'm Heather Bouwman. We're clinical social workers for the ODC Network in Holland, Michigan.

Kristina Boersma 0:14

We've had the privilege of supporting parents and children for decades, and we're the co-hosts of Gear Up, Adventures in Parenthood Podcast.

Why Real Life Beats Screen Life

Heather Bouwman 0:23

We're all about helping parents connect with the joy of parenting.

Kristina Boersma 0:27

In this episode, we have a conversation with Catherine Price, co-author of The Amazing Generation with Jonathan Haidt.

Heather Bouwman 0:35

Catherine is a leading voice in the national conversation on how to create a healthy relationship with technology.

Kristina Boersma 0:42

Her ultimate goal is to help all of us scroll less, live more, and have fun.

Heather Bouwman 0:48

Thank you for being here with us today. We hope you enjoy this conversation as much as we did.

Kristina Boersma 0:55

Thank you for being here.

Catherine Price 0:56

Thank you for having me, and thank you to everyone who is here today live listening to our conversation.

Heather Bouwman 1:02

Catherine, I echo Kristina's words in reading and interacting with your texts and the two of your books. It's like you have been a friend of the ODC Network for a very long time. We are very much in the camp of less green, more green all day long. We're centered around everything being in nature. And you speak so clearly about the need for kids to have real life experiences, to engage in play, to be in the world with their friends alongside them, having meaningful relational experiences, and how we've gotten to this place where we we get away from that. Christina and I uh are social workers in two of our preschool settings. We have five schools within our early childhood network, and we get to witness every day the power of play and social emotional skill building with young children. And it's profound. And the impact that nature has on emotional, physical, and mental well-being. Can you speak to us a bit about that?

Catherine Price 2:23

Sure. I mean, I'm really excited to be here, and I do feel like we're old friends and definitely kindred spirits. And the more I learn about what you all are doing, the more excited I get. Because it is so important for our kids to have these real life experiences and to be out in nature, and also for us to have the same thing. There's just this increasing, I mean probably speaking, preaching to the choir here, but increasing body of research showing how important and beneficial it is to be out in nature and to have these real world experiences and to learn by doing, not just by staring at a screen or having someone lecture at you. So I feel entirely philosophically aligned and couldn't be more supportive of what you're doing. That's wonderful.

Nature’s Calming Effect Vs Screen Stress

Heather Bouwman 2:58

We love what we get to do. Um and you're so right, being in nature ourselves has a profound impact. Um, even in all weather. We're in West Michigan. We get it all sometimes in the same day, for sure, in the same week. And it regulates the central nervous system in a way that few things do. And screens actually agitate our central nervous system. Can you speak to that a bit?

Catherine Price 3:27

Uh sure. But you are also making me think of an example of how you can tell intuitively that nature makes a big difference. It's why all the doctors' offices all have like pictures of flowers in them, you know, or like you go to an airport and there's like trees on the walls. It just makes us feel better and it makes us feel more comfortable. In part because of this physiological response we have to nature. But when you're on screens all day, it's a really different experience. I've heard some people actually talk about email apnea. Has anyone heard that term? Oh my. It's like the idea that you kind of stop breathing when you're looking at your email and you're looking at a screen. Um, I don't think this is a scientific term per se, but I think it is very true. If you start to pay attention to how your body feels when you're in front of a screen and what you start doing in terms of your breathing and your physical posture, it's so different. You know, you end up sitting for a long period of time, you end up concentrating to the point where a lot of people are developing eye problems as a result of staring at screens for so long. There's an increasing body of research about dry eye becoming a condition in younger people, which is actually truly a horrible condition. It doesn't sound as bad as it is. But then also that children who spend a lot of time in front of screens are more nearsighted. I speak as someone who has like a negative eight prescription. So but anyway, there's it's very important to actually get your body away from a screen and into real life, ideally in nature.

Kristina Boersma 4:41

I'm excited now. I'm gonna pay attention when I read my email today and pay attention to my body and my breathing. So it's one more thing to be aware of. So thank you for that. Another thing to do. You're well. Becoming very aware.

Catherine Price 4:52

Yeah.

Aligning Tech Rules With Family Values

Heather Bouwman 4:53

It is so true. Raising the awareness is such an important thing. And then what we do once we have that awareness, to your point about breaking up with a phone. We did two episodes on foundations and family values and really focusing on how do we want to raise children? What do we want our values to be? What do we want to model for our kids? And that is a huge part of screen use. Talk to us about how in our families we want to stay aligned with our kids and on the same side with them on tech versus this us against them place, because we just get further with kids when it's not this us against them.

The Amazing Generation: Empowering Kids

Catherine Price 5:40

Yeah. So I hear constantly from adults who are in battles with their kids over screen time, which makes sense. I mean, that's just how things have been. A couple things I would say first, I'm really glad you brought up values because I think it's important as parents to ground ourselves in our values and our family values and our community values, whatever other values you have. Um, a lot of times when I give talks at schools, I actually ask the schools to send me their values ahead of time so that we can actually look at them together on when I'm on stage. Because if you look at the values and you say that you value community or you value respect, or you know, all the other things that tend to be in mission statements, and then you consider what happens when we spend a lot of time on screens or on social media, those things often don't align. And I think it's helpful to actually consciously think of your values and really use them. You know, a mission statement is nothing if you don't live up to it, if you don't use anything. So that can be useful, I think, on a family level, of actually having a conversation, ideally with your kids, about what are your family values, what's important to you, and then putting them somewhere where you can actually see them. And then using that to start conversations. For the other part of your question about getting on the same side, or actually your actual question, because I just went on my own tangent, um, but getting on the same side as your kids. My most recent book, which I co-authored with Jonathan Haidt from the Anxious Generation Fame, is about that. It's written for kids. It's called The Amazing Generation, and it's all about helping kids understand how they're being manipulated by technology so that they can make a choice for themselves about what role they want these devices and platforms and games and apps to play in their own lives. Because in reality, it really shouldn't be uh us versus them between us and our kids. It should be all of us being very upset about how technology companies are manipulating all of us. And one of the most exciting pieces of feedback we've gotten so far about the amazing generation is that that message is resonating with young kids. Once they recognize what's happening, suddenly it takes the sheen off of a lot of these apps and these devices. And we've heard from a lot of kids saying, I actually don't, I don't want these things anymore. Uh, and from parents who are saying, I mean, it sounds like we paid kids to make these testimonials, I swear we did not, but kids actually saying to their parents, I'd like you to set limits on my own apps, or I don't actually want a smartphone until high school. I actually want to have a flip phone. And I think that's so wonderful and so important because if we are on the same side, it's so much easier. And I think the reason it's resonating with kids is that this is all true. The tech companies are lying to all of us. And so I think that it genuinely, it's not just like, let's be on the same side as our kids. We are on the same side as our kids. How to break with your phone is all about adults' relationships with their devices. Uh, and anyway, I remember reading an op-ed about that. I forgot who it was by, but it was about how the real divide should not be between kids and parents, but between kids and parents and the tech industry. And that really stood out to me when I was writing The Amazing Generation.

Kristina Boersma 8:31

So The Amazing Generation, I mean, this is incredible. It came out two weeks ago.

Catherine Price 8:35

Yep.

Kristina Boersma 8:35

Yep. You co-authored it with Jonathan Height. And it is so cool. It's part graphic novel. And my 16-year-old uh has read it, and she loves it. And she actually she was upstairs reading it, and she'd come down the stairs and say, Mom, see, this is I told you that privacy is really important. And and this is why it's really important. And having her initiate, you know, like I I want to learn more about photography, things that you can do. And she especially loves uh being outside and taking pictures outside. And I think it's beautiful. And that came from her. We were just talking the other day about how it seems like if a parent wants to give a consequence to a child, nowadays it's like you've lost your screen, you know, you're not gonna be able to have your screen tonight, or you're I'm gonna take your iPad for the week. Um it's it's like everything's about the tech. And that really pits us against our children. And yet we can be aware of our own tech use and and how much we're using it. It is the saddest thing to s go out to dinner and to see these tables full of families, everybody on their phone. Um it's it's sad. Those are opportunities to connect with each other and to have that beautiful fellowship, and instead they're scrolling on their phones.

When Screens Replace Shared Moments

Catherine Price 9:58

Yeah, I was actually just on a train uh back from New York on Monday, I guess. I live in Philadelphia, and it was right at sunset, and there was this gorgeous sunset. I had inadvertently sat on the bright side of the train where I could see the sky, and the whole sky was like blazing pink, and there was a family in front of me. I mean, also having ridden Hadback with your phone, I just can't help but notice all this stuff, which is like not actually fun because it's hard to enjoy things where I'm like noticing things like what I'm about to say. But there was a whole family where every kid was like six kids somehow. But yeah, there were a lot of kids. I don't know what the relationships were, but they all had their own iPads and they all were just on their iPads as this like beautiful. I mean, the whole sky was pink, and it just made me so sad. So it's not just about relationships, although that definitely is a main impact or main problem, but it's also just the enjoyment of our own lives. And I think that's true for all of us. I mean so true. I try to look out the window, like if I'm on a train or if I'm on uh when I take an Uber or a Lyft in Philadelphia, and I've had two separate drivers ask me if I'm okay. Isn't that interesting?

Heather Bouwman 11:00

Because it looks so markedly different from what they're used to.

Catherine Price 11:03

I don't know what my face looks like. Maybe I have a resting, depressed face. I don't know, but like I'll just look at I'm like, I'm looking at the clouds, and they've they've said, Are you all right? And you know, it's not if you're in silence with a driver, like that's kind of I must have looked really bad, I guess is what I'm saying. For them to have broken the silence to ask about my my state. But your well-being. Yeah.

Kristina Boersma 11:19

Actually, I'm great. I'm looking at the city. Yeah, I feel great.

Catherine Price 11:21

This is the most relaxed I've been all day.

Kristina Boersma 11:23

Yeah, for sure. Yep. Yeah. I I love um, and I we've said this already, but I have to say it again. Your approach in this book, The Amazing Generation. Um, it's not about rules, it's not about regulations. It really is so empowering. And like you said, you're hearing from kids who are saying, I don't want this in my life anymore. They are becoming aware that they're being manipulated, they're being taken advantage of. And I I don't know a teenager alive who likes being taken advantage of. No, mm-mm. Uh, and so empowering them to make decisions about their lives, it's really, really powerful. And I have to say, it's been out two weeks. Uh-huh. Number one on the New York Times bestseller list. I mean, that's astounding. Congratulations.

How Apps Hijack Dopamine

Catherine Price 12:10

Thank you. It's really exciting. But we were trying to figure out what is the approach that will get kids buy-in. And you just reminded me that one thing I had in my mind was a conversation I once had with a psychologist about anti-smoking campaigns. And they were saying that historically, you know, all the anti-smoking campaigns, it didn't really work to say to kids you're gonna get lung cancer because they're feeling immortal and they're just feeling like this is not gonna impact me. But what ended up being more effective was when they did campaigns saying the tobacco companies think you're dumb and they're trying to trick you and addict you. Yes. And then that sparked this kind of righteous outrage in young people that was way more effective than warning them about the dangers. And so that was something I kept in mind when we were trying to figure out how to structure the amazing generation. And also I think is important for all of us to keep in mind when you're trying to have conversations with people about this, is that we are being manipulated. So, you know, these companies think we're dumb enough to keep buying into it. Do you want to be a sucker, essentially? Basically, yeah.

Heather Bouwman 13:07

Can you talk more about that, how that manipulation is occurring, what they're intentionally doing?

Catherine Price 13:16

Yeah. So the basic idea is that the most problematic apps make money by getting us to spend more time and attention on them. Because the more time and attention we give to these apps, the more opportunities there are for them to show us ads. And their real customers are the advertisers who are paying them to show the ads. Video games have a number of other revenue streams, including more transactional things like buying things within the apps, but a lot of this has to do with detention. And so what the companies do is they they basically copy tricks from slot machines and from gambling and they put these features into their apps. So I alluded to this last night, but there's a brain chemical called dopamine, which a lot of people hear about and think it's associated with pleasure. It's really more about motivation and about establishing habits. So anytime you encounter something that triggers your brain to release dopamine, called the dopamine trigger appropriately, it's going to tell your brain that that was worth doing again and then motivate you to do it again in the future. So like if you come across raspberries in the forest and you taste one and it tastes good, you're gonna have a little burst of dopamine. It will make you pay attention to where raspberries are in the future and motivate you to find them. And so that's a good habit, right? Like eating raspberries, yay. Uh no one's gonna actually it's great. Nature, more time outdoors, you're just gonna want to take more walks. Um thank you, dopamine. But the makers of these apps know that you can actually hijack the brain's dopamine system to establish habits that are not good for us. And the way you do that is you just put dopamine triggers into your apps. And so if you look at the most problematic apps for most people, like social media or video games, or honestly for adults, the news, there are deliberate dopamine triggers in these things, like novelty. Anytime we encounter something new, it triggers release of dopamine, will make you want to seek out more new stuff. Unpredictability. It's you know, for example, if you're a sports fan, you probably don't want to know what the score is ahead of time. You don't want to know what the end of a movie is ahead of time, and that's all because our brains actually really love unpredictability and suspense. You have bright colors, so you have a lot of apps having these bright, vivid colors. You can actually do a side-by-side comparison of your phone screen, black and white and not, and it's amazing the visceral response. Incredible. And then rewards, you know, getting some kind of reward for your action, whether it's a new like or a comment or a new level in a video game. Um novelty itself can be a reward, but any in the case of gambling, literally money, but anytime you get a reward, something your brain perceives as a reward, even if it's not truly a valuable reward, your brain's gonna release dopamine. And anyway, the point being, every time you look at your phone, you encounter a dopamine trigger. The other thing they're really good at is triggering anxiety for the fear of missing out in your FOMO. And so you start to worry that if you don't check your phone constantly, then you're gonna miss out on something important, whether it's something on the phone itself or if it's something in in real life that's communicated via the phone. And so it's this cycle where you, you know, the anxiety feels bad, so what do you do to make the anxiety go away? You reach for your phone, you check your phone, what do you find on your phone by design? You find a dopamine trigger. That dopamine trigger releases dopamine in your brain, it reinforces the idea that checking your phone was worth doing and that you should do it again. So when I work with adults with how to break up with your phone, I really try to emphasize if you feel like you keep trying to change your habits and you fail, it's not your fault. It's because your brain has been hacked. Like that's actually a term the tech companies use, brain hacking. And so our brains are being hacked to do their bidding.

Heather Bouwman 16:30

And that happens child and adult. But the impact on a developing brain, I can only imagine, is far more significant for children.

Catherine Price 16:41

Yeah, our kids' brains are developing rapidly, especially in early adolescence, the biggest period of brain development since babyhood. And so anything that happens to adults is gonna happen even more to kids. And it's possibly gonna stick around till they're an adult. So I hear from so many adults about how they have no attention span anymore. Uh they can't even pay attention to, you know, frankly, like a commercial. I mean, who who really wants to, but like a you know, or a short show or something without checking their phone, can't read an article. And that is because we're spending so much time training our brains to be distractable. So if you think about it, like our brain's natural state is actually one of distractability because things that we call distractions now could be a threat. So our brains are actually trained to constantly be somewhat aware of things in our environment, and that's their natural state. My point being that you're taking our brain's natural preference of being distractable, and then you're exposing your brain to endless streams, hours a day, of distractions. So it's almost like you know, saying you want to, if you had a trainer for the gym, but instead of making you exercise, which you don't really want to do, they're like just lie around on the couch and eat Cheetos. Like that's what essentially these apps are doing. They're pushing us further into our natural state of distractability. And as you're alluding to, this is especially a problem for kids who haven't developed the skills that we adults have of extended concentration. It takes a lot of work to train your brain to be able to focus long enough to read a book. And our kids don't even have that skill yet, and we're pushing them even further into distractability.

Kristina Boersma 18:06

My daughter would say sometimes, it's it was too many words. I didn't read it because it was too many words, whatever it was. Yeah. It's like it's like, oh, those are good words. You should read those words, and you'll learn something, you'll experience something, but it's it's it's all gotta be so fast. It's all so fast.

Catherine Price 18:22

Yeah, and short form content is the worst. Like, really do keep your kids away, and honestly, yourself away from short form content like TikTok and like YouTube Shorts. That's the worst. Especially if you have the control to swipe it away. That's the worst stuff you can do to your brain.

Kristina Boersma 18:37

Oh my lands. There's so much to know about it, and the fact that it's so intentional by the tech companies, they know exactly what they're doing, and uh that it uh so many of us aren't aren't even aware of that. That it's designed to uh keep you hooked. My daughter, in reading the book, one of the things she thought was so powerful is that it's not about blaming, it's not about shaming, it's not about guilting anybody. It really explains why you're hooked. So that it's it's not you need to feel bad about that. It's hey, let's think about how you could usher in more joy, more connectedness, more fun in your life by choosing to do things other than being on technology. And um it's brilliant. It really is. Yeah.

Fill Life With Fun, Not Feeds

Catherine Price 19:28

Well, we thought it was really important to emphasize the other side of this. So I was alluding to this before in the talk last night, but when I wrote How to Break Up With Your Phone, I wrote that for myself and for others, but I was trying to change my own habits, and I did end up cutting back on my screen time. I was never into social media per se, but I was definitely on the news a lot. I was on email all the time. I got both of those apps off of my phone, which has been very helpful, and I've lived to tell the tale. Um, but I really didn't recognize that I was gonna open up this bigger issue of what to do with that reclaim time. And that can be a really upsetting, disturbing moment where you're like, oh wow, we what do I actually want to do? In my case, my life is words, and so I didn't really want to read a book. I know that a lot of people aspire to read more books. I was like, actually, I don't really want to do that in my leisure time. I'm alone all the time because I'm a freelancer and I'm engaging with words. Um, anyway, so it really made me cognizant of the fact that the real solution is to find stuff to fill our lives. And that the reason we're so tethered to the devices is not just that they're designed to hook us, which they are, but also because they're they're promising us that they're going to give us things that we actually do want and need, like having fun or human relationships. That's human relationships have such an impact on our health, our physical health, and our longevity. It's actually astonishing. The impact of loneliness and isolation is equivalent to, in many cases, smoking cigarettes. Like we're we are just a social species. So, anyway, to what you're saying, I felt it was really important for us to talk a lot about how do you actually fill your life with the good stuff because then you're not gonna have time for spending a lot of time on screens. And also you're not gonna want to. Yeah. Yeah.

Play Outside As Brain Building

Heather Bouwman 21:01

I want to speak for a minute about we talked about what happens in the brain and how it impacts a developing brain. Let's talk for parents and listeners about how we build a really healthy brain. We say oftentimes that we work really hard to fiercely protect childhood. So within um our settings at the ODC Network and the ODC Early Childhood Network, there are no screens for children. They don't have access to them. Our teachers have devices that they basically take attendance on and report certain things in, but it's very limited. They step away. And so they're outdoors for much of their time. Certainly for the first 60 minutes of their day and unstructured play, because to us, play equals learning. And we I think it's so important that the listener hear that that play equals learning. And I believe I read and One of your books, you stated very clearly like there's no app, no learning app, no anything digital that will be more powerful than a human-to-human interaction for children. And that so aligns with the work that we do and what we believe in, and just being in the outdoors. And we say the beyond. We have kids that'll go out and spend all day, um, their entire day out in the beyond in the forest or and nap and eat lunch out there. And those interactions are so central to brain development and brain growth. Um, and really that work that's done in that time, those social emotional skills of cooperation, of problem solving, um, all that they're learning lasts them the next 80 years. Yeah.

Catherine Price 22:58

Yeah. I mean, it is funny because somehow we've equated having fun with being unproductive. Oh. You can't learn if you're having fun. You need to sit down and be quiet. Yeah. And listen. And if kids are out there running around the forest having the best time of their lives, then they can't possibly be learning. I don't think that you all actually believe this, but you know, this is the often the narrative the narrative. And also with adults, it's like when I do talks with like corporations about fun, it's like, how can you have fun at work? Like fun, if you're having fun, then you're not working. But we all know from our own personal experiences that our best memories are times when we had fun. And if you think back on your favorite teacher in school, probably there was an element of fun. They actually made it fun. I mean, the reason I was a middle school teacher is that I was tutoring Latin because I had and why did I didn't have any intrinsic interest in Latin when I was a child, but I had a teacher who made it fun, you know? So that's very important. But also, as you're saying, play is so important to human development and also to adults. We do not have enough opportunity to just do unstructured play with our own friends. Like one of my biggest choices when I can get together with other adults and just play music together with no purpose, like not trying to practice for something, just making music for the fun of it. Anyway, that's the premise of the whole Power of Fun book that I wrote.

Kristina Boersma 24:05

Yeah.

Catherine Price 24:06

But in the case of kids, having this time outside to play with their friends in nature, unstructured, not having adults tell them what to do is one of the most valuable experiences we could possibly be giving them. I mean, every child should be so lucky to have that experience. I truly believe that.

Kristina Boersma 24:21

Yeah.

Catherine Price 24:22

And I think that a lot of times we adults just kind of get in the way of what kids need. They need to figure out how to deal with those conflicts with their friends themselves. They need to figure out how they're gonna build the fort or build the slide or whatever they're doing in the woods, you know. They need to learn to listen to their bodies to say, Oh, I need to take a nap. I'm gonna go take a nap under a tree. Like that's all just so important. But when adults control kids' environments, whether it's in a traditional classroom or if it's through organized sports where you you don't have any opportunity to actually play, you're like playing a sport, but you're not really. You're competing. Anyway, all that is to say, yes, I I echo everything you're saying. It is so important. Yeah, and I really wish more kids had an opportunity to have that.

Let Kids Take Real-World Risks

Kristina Boersma 25:01

Amen. Yeah. One of the things that they get to do as well is they get to take risks, right? And figure out w how they feel about doing different things. So if they're gonna climb that tree, it's how how far can I climb that I feel comfortable with. Right. And so many times adults are coming in and saying, Oh no, no, no, oh be careful, oh be careful. Yeah, and that's not helpful. We've become really risk averse in our culture, and that's not great.

Catherine Price 25:26

Yeah.

Kristina Boersma 25:26

You know, as parents, oh, we talk about how comparison is the thief of joy. And it really is. And I I think as parents, at least this was true for a lot of people that I know, giving tech to their kids in an effort to make sure that they could get ahead. You know, this is this is so educational, and now my child knows so much about you know, whatever it might be. And that some of that comes out of the fear that we have as parents of our child falling behind, um, which is a fear that a lot of us have.

Heather Bouwman 26:03

I think academically and socially.

Catherine Price 26:05

Yeah, yeah.

Heather Bouwman 26:06

Like if they don't have that device, they're not gonna be connected in in the FOMO that you were speaking of. What advice do you have for parents who feel like my child's gonna be left out, my child will fall behind?

Rethinking FOMO And Falling Behind

Catherine Price 26:21

All right, comparison is the thief of joy, so not really suggesting that we get more into comparison. But if you were to be in that state of mind, I can tell you from working on this issue that the new trend is to pull ed tech educational technology out of schools because it was put there because the tech companies paid for it, and everyone kind of embraced it. It obviously got worse during COVID. But the new, if you really want to be like cutting-edge uh trend, it's getting it out of schools and going back to real life experiences and analog things like writing things down by hand. So if you want to compare yourself and feel superior, get the tech out of the classroom. Yeah. But I do think in terms of the fear of missing out, it is a real fear for kids who are in a situation where all their friends do have these devices and apps because they will be left out to a certain degree. Because the current state is that a lot of social plans or a lot of quote socialization, I'm not gonna say actual socialization, but a lot of socialization happens on these apps. But that is not a reason for us to say yes to our children because really what they're missing out on is real life. Like the kids who are spending five hours a day, which is the average American teenager, on YouTube and social media, that's five hours a day, they're not doing anything else. Yeah. You know, it adds up if you're talking about just waking hours to about four months a year. Four months. Four months a year. That you're on technology. Yeah, and when when kids find that out, so there's a page in The Amazing Generation where we do the math for them, and then we have a calendar that shows that it's essentially if you do 24-hour days, it's your full summer break. And that page seems to really be affecting kids. And then we have quotes from slightly older uh young adults and teenagers who say, I really regret the amount of time I spent scrolling because I wasn't present with my friends. We didn't make memories. That's another thing. No one remembers the time they spent scrolling. Yeah. Yeah. Remember the time you've climbed the tree and maybe fell out of it, you know, or the time that you you had this adventure with your friends.

Heather Bouwman 28:07

That was staggering to me, the amount of kids in the book that said I missed out on my entire adolescent years.

Catherine Price 28:15

And I was sharing just we were chatting before this. I did a talk at in Houston in September at the University of Houston, and there was a young man in the audience, and I asked people, like, why are you here? Because it was like a random Tuesday at 4 30 and it was voluntary, so I was just curious as to why they chose to listen to me. And this young man raised his hand and he said, Well, I am, I mean, he was probably all of like 22 or 24. He's like, I am uh studying to be an educator, and the reason I want to go into education is I feel that I wasted my entire youth on my phone and I want to help other young people avoid the same fate.

Kristina Boersma 28:44

That's amazing. I've got goosebumps. I mean, really, that level of awareness and then the desire to help other people have a different experience. Yeah. Is it's a big deal. Yeah. I know that for myself, you talked about for adults, um, sometimes it can be the news. And I went through a whole period a couple of years ago of I it's like I just craved every new article to learn more and more and more and more. And I'm a social worker, right? I think it's important to be aware of what's happening in our world. However, I found that when um I put limits on that, I enjoyed life more.

Catherine Price 29:21

And I would guess that when you spent less time on the news yourself, that you didn't just enjoy your life more, but you probably had more energy to actually do your job, which is helping young people. Yes. Right? So I think that's something I think about a lot. There's this feeling that we, in order to be responsible adults, quote unquote, we need to be consuming the news nonstop. But we don't recognize the news is itself a slot machine app. Like they're making money by trying to get people to pay attention to the news. I'm a journalist, so I very much support the fact that people are out there trying to shed light on things and report stuff. But at the same time, you know, there's an adage in the news industry if it bleeds, it leads. Like if it's a violent story or something that makes people upset, that's what you put on the front page of the paper because that's what gets people to read it.

Kristina Boersma 30:02

Yep.

Regret, Memory, And Making Moments

Catherine Price 30:02

So we need to be aware of that and figure out what is the right balance for ourselves personally as young people or as adults for the healthy level of news where maybe you're you're tuned in enough that you have a sense of what's going on or what you need to know, but you're not allowing it to take over your life. Right. Because in reality, we don't have control over most of the things that are in the newspaper. And there's a great documentary about the Dalai Lama and Archbishop Desmond Tutu, if anyone's seen it, called Mission Joy. And you made me think of this because the two of them had this very mischievous, joyful, beautiful friendship. Both of them came from very hard backgrounds, and they are they also are from very different backgrounds, or they were from very different backgrounds in the case of Archbishop Desmond Tutu. But there's a part of this documentary where the Dalai Lama makes a comment about the news, and he says, if you look at the news, you would think that there is nothing good happening in the world, that it's all darkness. And he says, but there is so much light and there is so much joy, and we need to pay attention to that too. So that's the Dalai Lama, you don't have to listen to me. Yeah. And again, I mean he's coming from a position of being in exile and going through horrendous things through his life. Yeah, yeah.

Heather Bouwman 31:06

We've talked in several podcast episodes about how so often in life the little things are the big things, and how simple is so often greater than elaborate. And how do you think we encourage parents to get back to slowing down, finding a different pace? Because I feel like um technology in general, no matter what kind it is, revs us. And our engines kind of rev high, and our family life engines then rev high. And our kids feel that. Yeah. So what can families do?

Right-Sizing News For Mental Health

Catherine Price 31:54

Well, I think that adults need to model the behaviors we want our kids to have. And so breaking up with your own phone is really important. I don't mean dumping your phone or throwing it into a river or the lake or something, but just Or you could. Or you could. You could actually met someone who was on the book signing line last night who showed me her light phone that she'd downgraded to, or not even downgraded, that's an insult to the light phone. She had switched over to the light phone so that she could have more time on her actual life. So I think that as adults, it's really important for us to look in the mirror and see what we're doing. But then some concrete strategies that you can try on your own or with your family. One is to have tech-free times. So I strongly believe that dinners should be device-free for everybody. You can't tell your kid not to be on their device and then someone's checking work email or sports scores under the table. Yes. It's not does not work. Um It also can be very nice to have a like a digital Sabbath. So you could do a whole 24 hours. I always suggest people actually try this as an experiment to go 24 hours with no screens. Friday to Saturday is often a nice time to do that. Again, make sure you plan stuff to fill that time. Yes. Um, if that sounds too daunting, start with a night without screens or a night into the morning without screens, and then you can build up from there. And then in terms of slowing down and proverbally and literally smelling the roses, there's a practice of noticing delight that I got from a poet named Ross Gay, if anyone's read his books. He read The Book of Delights, the Book of More Delights, another one called Inciting Joy. He's this beautiful writer and beautiful human being. But the Book of Delights is a book in which he wrote an essay every single day for a year about something that delighted him. Oh, I love this. I'm not suggesting you need to do that. I freaked out in my writerly self when I heard that, but it inspired me and my family and some friends to start a practice in which we make a point of noticing delights. Just anything that delights you and so lights you up a little bit that you find amusing. Doesn't need to be deep or profound. Uh like that sunset on the train, that was a delight for me. Or like does it sound mean, but watching my poor dog try to walk around in snow boots the other night for the first time. That's kind of a delirious. Yeah, it was hilarious, right? So what Ross encourages you to do, and it's actually backed up by scientific evidence, is that if you if you start to notice delights, you actually put a finger in the air and you say out loud, delight when it happens. So I've had whole rooms, like when I give talks about fun, I get I get whole rooms of people to go, delight altogether. Actually, can we just do that for some? I'm gonna count to three, and you're gonna feel silly, but let's just do it together. So we're gonna go on the count of three, you'll put your finger in the air and say delight. So one, two, three, delight! Yay! And that was a delight. So the point being that there's actually research showing that making a point of noticing positive things has an impact on us. Because, like I said, where brains are naturally gonna gravitate towards things that stoke anxiety and fear. So it's not Pollyanna-ish, it's actually training your brain to notice the other stuff. But then giving it a name, so like in this case delight, saying it out loud, and accompanying it by a physical gesture are all ways to make that practice more effective for your mental health. And then the especially effective thing to do is to share the positive experience. But like in my half house, we have a delight jar and we write down delights on scraps of paper, put them in the jar. We do this with our daughter who's now 10, but we've been doing it for about three years with her, where she'll point out delights to us, we point out delights to her. Um, and then we do it with friends where, and I think this is a good use of technology. Like I have several text chains with friends I don't see often where we send each other photos and then just little delights. So that's a way you can kind of do a practical thing to slow down. I love that.

Slow The Pace: Rituals And “Delight”

Kristina Boersma 35:17

Yeah, we our staff at our um preschool we share um nature glimmers. And they're times when we're struck by the wonder and are in awe of of what's around us, and so then we share those with each other. Nice but I love this delight.

Heather Bouwman 35:32

And they very much teach the children when they're out on hike and they see something wonderful and it's in the snow, they will take a stick and circle it for all the future hikers to see. Oh, yeah, exactly. Um they are trained observers, our little people. It's it's wonderful. My daughter uh went to um Little Hawks, which is where I'm currently at now, and it's the original preschool for the ODC network, and she notices everything. There's an owl on a stop sign, she sees it. There's seven deer, and like she just notices so much. And it is so true that it's taught, right? It's behavior, she's intentionally been taught. It's having the time in nature and the time away from that screen.

Kristina Boersma 36:18

So we've talked a lot about what families can do, what parents can do, raising our own awareness about tech use, but we recognize that it's it goes well beyond the family, that we can't do this in isolation. It's important to do it on the small level, right, with your family, but then there has to be a cultural shift, and this is important. So, what do you think as schools, as communities, as a culture, we need to be doing?

Catherine Price 36:49

I think that's exactly right that this is a community problem and a collection act collective action problem. We all do need to be joining together, whether it's parents with their friends, um, or kids joining together, or adults and kids engaging with legislators to try to get some policies passed. So one really important one is phone-free schools. And I understand that just last night, Michigan advanced a bill that would get phones out of schools at least for instructional times, which is pretty amazing. Yeah. That just happened. First step. First step. And so I think the next step is to join together as parents, as communities, and make sure that this actually is a bell-to-bell ban. I actually don't like using the word ban because that sounds negative. It really is a matter of making schools phone-free from bell to bell, meaning get them out of the lunchroom, get them out of recess, and get them out of the interstitial moments between classes. Because those are the times when kids actually get to have friendships and engage with their friends. I've heard from a lot of school leaders who say that when they get the phones out of schools, they're amazed by how loud the lunchroom is and how loud the hallway is because kids are laughing and talking to their friends. I've heard really poignant stories about how, in some cases, kids are actually eating more because they were worried about being filmed during lunch. Yes.

Kristina Boersma 38:05

Yeah.

Catherine Price 38:06

And I think the other thing on a very practical level, why it's so important to get phones out of schools from bell to bell, is that for the teachers, it's going to be a battle every single class period to get the kids to put the phones away if it's just during instructional periods. So you're taking away five minutes at least in the beginning of classes just to have the teachers have to police kids about the phones.

Kristina Boersma 38:26

Over and over and over. That's a way to really keep the fight going. Exactly.

Catherine Price 38:29

And the kids are going to be thinking during class time about what will be on their phone during the break. So it actually is a good first step, but it's not enough. So to answer your question, I would say that you should applaud your uh lawmakers for getting this far and then band together to make sure this goes further, whether it's by actually getting official legislation that says that or by taking advantage of the freedom that I believe the bill contains for individual schools and school districts to go further with it to make it bell-to-bell. But that's an important thing to do, that would be a community collective action.

From Families To Culture Change

Kristina Boersma 38:58

I think it's so fascinating that much of the pushback when schools are talking about doing something like that, it's from the parents who want constant access to their children. And that's where Jonathan Haidt's book, The Anxious Generation, is a very important read, too. I love that the two of you wrote this latest book together.

Catherine Price 39:19

And parents, we should say, you know, it's okay to not be in contact with your kids for the whole school day. We're actually distracting them when we're texting them during school hours. And it's another situation where taking a step back and thinking, what do we used to do for this? You know, just as uh we were talking last night about how we used to communicate just using a house telephone, and you actually still can get house telephones and landlines that use your internet connection to make calls, so they're actually cheaper than traditional phone lines and certainly cheaper than a data plan. So you can get a wireless uh voiceover internet protocol, a VoIP phone for your family. But in the case of schools, I remember there was just a bulletin board, and if your parent needed to leave a message, they'd call the office and the office would put a note with your name on it on the bulletin board. Yep. That's pretty easy. Yeah. And it's also worth pointing out in the case of a true emergency, if there's a situation where, heaven forbid, there's like a shooter in a school, is it really going to help anybody to have all of the kids on their smartphones? Yeah. And for you to be calling the school, that's the last thing that security experts say should be happening. Right. Not just because it will be distracting to the kids, potentially alert a person to the kids' location. It can jam up the cell communication in the area and get in the way of first responders being able to reach the school. And also, I've heard from a lot of school leaders that a lot of the problems they're seeing, a lot of the things that make schools unsafe on a much more day-to-day basis, is just fights that happen. Where kids don't feel safe in school because they're being bullied, or there's actually physical fights that are happening because of stuff that's happening online. So a lot of schools say that when they get phones out of school, they actually see a huge reduction in disciplinary issues in the school. It actually becomes a safer place in the day-to-day for the majority of kids. Yeah.

Phone-Free Schools And Policy Momentum

Heather Bouwman 41:01

So we've still got some work to do. You and I c an do it. Yes, we can absolutely do it. And we will continue to do the work. Um, disrupting is something that this organization has a bit of a history in and challenging education systems and as far as getting kids out of the classroom and into the outdoors and engaging all of their senses, which is how we know kids learn best. Yeah. And so we have more work to do. When you and I were driving in this morning, you were asking me specifically about Holland, and um I was speaking to you about how this community is very unique in a couple of ways. And one is that they love their children and they invest in the future of their children. They also um love this beautiful area and are a very outdoor community, partly because of the work that this amazing organization has done and continues to do and pushing and having beautifully preserved spaces and free accessibility to all to use those spaces, but we have more to do. And so if you could tie that up in a bow with how we need to really have great encouragement. You had a point in your talk last night that you call kind of a dark place, right? The pit of existential despair. Yeah, that's it. The pit of despair. And I think you had asked me if it felt like too much, and I said, it's a hard place to go to. You took really good care of the listener, but we must paint the picture of the risk to the children, to all of us, to mental health in general. So I guess I want to wrap it up by saying we went there, we have to continue going there and being honest and open about the risks that exist, and then working hard to do better, right? Once we know better, we can do better.

Catherine Price 43:12

Exactly. We we now know these platforms are just not safe for children on a very fundamental level for their physical safety in many cases, in addition to their mental well-being. But the good news is that there is a solution that is honestly, if everybody acts together, it's quite easy. The only reason it's hard is because not everybody has been on the same page. I can tell you that having worked in this space for almost a decade now, the acceleration, especially since John's book, The Anxious Generation, came out, I mean, it's astonishing. It gives me so much hope. There's been so much positive movement. I mean, it's amazing that that literally, as we were like all talking last night about phones and schools, that there was legislation being passed. That's amazing. It's a sign of what's happening on a much broader level. Australia just banned social media for kids under 16, and now all these other countries are looking at what's happening there. And considering doing the same. Does it mean that no kid in uh Australia is ever gonna figure out how to get on, use a VPN and get onto uh you know TikTok? No, but it's an enormous first step, and it also is a example of collective action at a nationwide level that makes it so much easier for individual families to then join together and take action because it's a cultural norm that's shifting. So I'm enormously hopeful and I'm grateful for all that you're doing.

Kristina Boersma 44:23

Thank you so much for leading us.

Heather Bouwman 44:25

Thank you -

Kristina Boersma 44:25

And teaching us for being here and sharing. It's it's powerful. You put up a map last night of the United States and showing all of the states that are taking action. And so we're not alone in this. It is a growing movement.

Catherine Price 44:41

Yes, and it's very bipartisan, which is so refreshing these days. It's really wonderful.

Heather Bouwman 44:45

But we are a little behind Michigan, so here we go.

Catherine Price 44:49

The comparison is the thief of joy. That's right. But comparison also motivates legislation. That's right.

Heather Bouwman 44:56

Thank you, Catherine. It's been a joy to be with you. Yes, and we've learned so much.

Hope, Collective Action, Next Steps

Credits And ODC Network Mission

Catherine Price 45:00

Thank you so much.

Heather Bouwman 45:04

This project is made possible by the ODC Network, an amazing nonprofit organization based in Holland, Michigan, where we get to work supporting preschool age students, their teachers, and their parents.

Kristina Boersma 45:16

The ODC Network is all about nurturing the community and the next generation through a wide variety of innovative, nature based initiatives.

Heather Bouwman 45:24

Please visit www.odcnetwork.org to learn more about the ODC Network's mission and impact.