Speaker 1Hello and welcome to the How Not To Screw Up Your Kids podcast. So, pour yourself a cuppa, find a comfy seat and enjoy the conversation. Today's episode, Zombie Generation, I am joined by psychologist Dr Charlotte Armitage. This is an absolute must listen. It's a must listen if you've got a 13-year-old, it's a must listen if you've got a six-month-old, it's a must listen if you're even contemplating having children or you're someone who works with children in any shape or form, whether that's in terms of childcare or education. Charlotte's incredibly articulate at being able to communicate really effectively what are the challenges that we face currently as parents, as educators, when it comes to digital devices, smart technology and its impact on our children's development. As well as considering what might be the longer-term effect. Of course, they're incredibly powerful tools. And yet, if we are not intentional, not only with the decisions that we make in terms of our children's usage, but more importantly, being super intentional about how we use our devices, because children are much more likely to do what they see than what we say, then we're really storing up a whole host of issues. This is a really important issue. I feel so privileged and so honoured to have had Charlotte on. Now, if after you've listened to this podcast, you would like to go and buy Charlotte's book, there will be a link directly to that in the show notes. I would highly recommend it. I was very fortunate enough to have been gifted a copy. And it's packed full of really useful tips and strategies. But it's also written in a straightforward, non-judgmental, easy-to- access way. So, without further ado, here's Charlotte. Thank you very much for having me. Oh, it's an absolute pleasure. And I think such a topical subject, not only from the perspective of, I think, yet another school recently in the press this week saying that they're going to be banning devices at school, but actually also from the perspective of the conversations we're having about AI. So, I think if we sort of start in a sort of a context, first of all. Are you able just to give the listeners a bit of an idea about who you are and what you do? Yeah.
Speaker 2So, I'm a psychologist and psychotherapist. And I started my career specialising, or I've worked certainly for the last decade, specialising on working in the media. Now, my background and my training is in the psychodynamic modality predominantly and cognitive behavioural, which means that I look very much at how the early experiences and our childhood shapes who we become in adulthood. So, how does our relationship with the environment as a young child have an influence on the behaviours, the challenges, the successes that we go on to have later in life? And it's a very big predictor. A good predictor is when you analyse someone's childhood environment, you can normally see where the traits have come from and how they've evolved. And that's what led me into writing this book.
Speaker 1Which is beautifully written. And there's lots, what I will say is it's divided into sections in terms of the different ages. There are stages and stages of our children. There are case studies. And at the end of every single chapter, there's some really great bullet points in terms of takeaway. So, it's a really accessible, you don't have to read it in sequence. There's lots, there's lots there. What I would like to kind of start with, and it may not necessarily be the most obvious place to start, but you and I talked sort of off air before we started about how tech had changed just in these five years so drastically. So, if you're listening to this podcast with older teens, the landscape would have been very different to those who are listening with eight, nine, 10, 11-year-olds that they're navigating in that respect. So, when we think about what's exponentially happened in those five years, what are some of the things that you're picking up on?
Speaker 2Well, I'm glad you've mentioned this because this is a battle or a conversation that I seem to come up against quite a lot. People saying, oh, well, my children had devices and now they've gone off to use them. And I think that's a really good point. I think they've been to uni. Well, if they've been to uni already, this issue isn't about them really. I think they probably had a bit of a problem, but we had a bit of a relationship with tech, shall we say, but not in the same way that we have now. It's since COVID. And it's not because of COVID, although that is one of the contributing factors is the normalisation of it, the change in how we live our lives, such as working from home, children being on devices throughout COVID has normalised the use of devices. But it is the advancement of technology. Think about TikTok, that became huge during COVID. I'd never even heard of it before COVID, to be honest, a bit of a dinosaur, but I hadn't. And then in COVID, everyone was all over it, weren't they? So COVID really changed things from a perspective of being at home on tech. But then we saw an eruption of different apps, different technologies since that point. So more tech's come about because it's been designed to be a way for people to work from home and not be in the office, connecting from a distance rather than in person. So if you look at the book Generation Zombie and you read it, you need to read that as almost a prediction into the future. So we're looking at these case studies, look at the children who are nought to 10, maybe nought to 11, 12 now, how they've used devices in this, this, these last five years, especially through their developmental years. But last five to 10 years, really through their developmental years and the impact that that will have on them as they move forward through their lives. And that's what the case studies and what the book is showing. It's showing us that actually, if we have this intrusion, so I'm looking at it through a psychoanalytic lens and I'm saying, if we have, you know, so if you look at psychoanalysis, that field is very old and it doesn't take into account the modern world and the way that people live their lives now. And that's what I've tried to do. with the book is say, what's the biggest challenge and the biggest change in how we're having to parent our children now? And where does the field of psychoanalysis stand against this? And I said, actually, the biggest intrusion is the intrusion of this technology, because it's in our lives as adults, but it's in our children's lives. And then consequently, it's in the middle of our relationship between us and our children. And what impact does that disconnection or that barrier in the relationship have on the child's development? Because we don't know. We don't know. We don't know. We know that a child's development depends on the relationship that they have with their
Speaker 1primary caregiver. Yeah, and that's such a crucial piece. Can I, I'm just going to take the liberty to read a little quote, I think really is a pertinent one to then put in at this stage in your book, specifically around modelling. And this has really, I think is punchy and hits home particularly, is, I'm afraid that the problem with devices has started with us, not with our children. It is our generation who created social media. It is our generation who are unconsciously addicted to devices. It is our generation who are buying these devices and giving them to our children. It is our responsibility to stop this damage going any further. This starts with us making different choices regarding device use in our own homes in front of our children. And to me, that quote was not about chastising or beating parents up. But to me, this is where I can see so much of the connection between the fact that we're working from home so much more, and therefore modelling, even if we're being super, super careful, and we're not on social media, but we're working, is that our children are seeing us connected on devices considerably longer than we would have been and more than we would have been five years ago.
Speaker 2Absolutely, they are. And the thing is, we're not immune to the addictive mechanisms in these devices. They're very, very addictive, aren't they? So it's not easy to go without our phone or to leave our phone in different rooms or to set some boundaries. It's not. So our children are experiencing us as being absent because we are face down in our phone. And that's what they experience. It's the same experience as when you go out for a drink with somebody or a coffee or lunch, and they pick up their phone and they're just sat scrolling. I mean, you'd feel incredibly offended, wouldn't you? You'd be sort of, you'd as an example of if your friend picks up their phone, you're going to pick up your phone. That's what's going to happen with your child. If your child comes to you and you're on your phone, they're going to stop coming. You know, they're going to have to learn that they've got to work this out themselves, whatever it is that they're dealing with in their mind, in their body, whatever it is that they've come to you for, that's going to project back into them. And that's not going to be good for them. We won't see it whilst they're young. We'll see it as they get older. That's what happens.
Speaker 1Yeah, that's such an important piece. And I think we can all attest to the fact that we've been either in restaurants or we've been in pubs or coffee shops, and we have seen more and more young children at coffee tables, at restaurant tables, at playgrounds, on devices, and all adults going out for dinner. I've seen couples going out for dinner where they're both on their phone.
Speaker 2It's everywhere. It's everywhere you go now. I was driving back from the school run this morning. There were three boys waiting for the bus and all they're handing the phones. you know normally you'd see a group of boys just kicking around talking messing about playing no all three of them sat just looking at their phones it's just everywhere everywhere you go and it's really sad and we've all been guilty of it i've definitely been guilty of that with my daughter before i did all of this work and i realized what i now know about devices when she was smaller no i definitely was guilty of all of that and i think that's the key thing with this as well is that it isn't about bad parenting it isn't about conscious neglect it's about not having the information i don't think we've got enough information to make an informed choice we don't know that when we give our child a device at the dinner table or when we just sit them in front of an ipad that actually we're doing anything wrong you feel that you're doing something good or that it's useful and the problem with it is that the messages that come from tech companies are that use this app it's really good for your child you know it's they shouldn't really be saying that because there's no evidence for that so they'll be although using very specific research that they've commissioned themselves so it's biased evidence but you know you think so you think you're doing the right thing but you the inadvertently there are issues being caused that we we didn't know because no one told us about and that's what i want the book to do is to say look read this book just educate yourself it's an easy read isn't it educate yourself on the issues that these devices can cause and then you're going to be able to make a decision about whether you want to give them to your children and if you do how you're going to do it you know you've got the information then
Speaker 1yeah and of course as you say a lot of it is targeted at you know this will help your children with their numeracy or their literacy or it helps them with problem solving or it expands their knowledge of science and in lots of ways tech can afford us some wonderful opportunities it's just about being informed and then being intentional in our use of it i think so and and i think it's a
Speaker 2really good point and i think it's a really good point and i think the problem you know we now find is that we now have i started writing this book before ai was a thing and now well certainly before it is it was the beast that it is now and now ai is growing at a rapid rate we're dealing with a new set of issues now so we've got children having relationships with chatbots uh which is very dangerous we've already seen some worst case scenarios of children killing themselves because of these chatbots we're we're in a position now harder for us to say set the boundaries and monitor it i mean we can do that and as they get older but my advice really now more than ever is let your children grow up for as long as they possibly can without a smart device thing is people will say oh you know but they're going to need to use tech when they get older they're going to need to know that it is not going to be do you think an ipad is going to be around in five years no it won't it'll be something completely different ai today will be even in 12 months be a completely different thing it's moving that quickly so we don't need to learn to use any of these things in childhood you can learn to use them when you get older i mean think of our generation i didn't even have a computer when i was at school in i'm fully literate on computers and tech now as an adult so they're intuitive they're made for us to be able to use so what we ideally need to do is let the human grow and develop as a human being let them become a human being an adult human being for us to be able to use so what we ideally need to do is let the human grow first then introduce the tech into their world that's the safest thing we can do for our children as soon as you put tech in even tvs you know makes us more sedentary and that's just the telly you know so as soon as you start to introduce tech we we start to have an impact on that person's development and that's
Speaker 1obviously so let's strip it right back because the book is so beautifully structured in this way looking in terms of the ages and stages so if we go back to the earliest part of the book which is so what does check tech in the early years so there's lots that you know the princess of wales has done a huge amount in these early naught to five years being the really crucial years although if you're listening doesn't matter if you're listening with a six seven year old it's never too late is what does tech in those early naught to five years have what effect does that have on their brain and then their general development oh
Speaker 2it's a catastrophe on it when young children should just not be on on and when we say tech obviously tech's a massive field i'm talking smart devices okay get them away from the smart devices but you put yours down and get get the device away from the child an infant a baby learns through its relationship with its primary caregiver and that learning happens as soon as the baby's born the baby is put onto the skin it starts to develop the bond the connection it knows what it's doing goes straight for the boob doesn't it wants feeding now your infant understanding of its safety in the world is based on your responsiveness to its needs so if you look at certain psychoanalytic theories they basically talk about the boobs so we talk about the good breast bad breast so when i'm hungry and i cry as an infant mother or whoever brings me good breast and i feed from good breast when the breast goes away i feel a bit more vulnerable babies feel safer near the smell of milk that you smell of you and your milk when they're young because they're not going to be able to eat their milk when they're young because they can't fend for themselves you know there are powerful little uniter babies they can't fend for themselves but they have all this stuff and all these people running around after them and it's important that we have that connection and that bond because that baby wouldn't survive without us there doing all of these things for it now when we've got baby bonds when it's feeding so you're feeding baby whoever that may be you're looking into the baby's eyes the baby soaks you in it sees the shape of your face it's it learns about the smell of you the sound of your voice and it's going to feed you and it's going to feed you and it's going to feed you and the baby's learned about that through pregnancy and through its development in the womb as well and then we are looking into that baby baby's eyes we're learning about baby baby's learning about us now what we see now this happens from minute baby's born is that people aren't looking in the baby's eyes they're looking in their devices so they're looking and scrolling online while they're breastfeeding and that's okay every now and again i guess we you know it's hard and again it's this isn't about judgment this is just about saying this is what happens and you can make a decision with how what you do about it i know i would have liked to have known all this when i was having a baby i would have loved to have had all of that knowledge so i think that's what i want people to take from it now what happens is now if we're not giving the baby attention it's the baby struggles to attach that baby is going to want your attention so if you're constantly looking at your phone your baby's going to be more fussy you're likely to get more grumpy and annoyed because baby's fussy and won't settle but the baby's going to want your attention searching for connection so in the very very early years it can affect our attachment to our baby if we are spending too much time with our faces glued to a phone because we're not spending enough time looking at the baby mirroring the i mean a baby so if you have a small baby you know talking under six months and you're you make eye contact with them you smile you met you you learn they even learn about turn taking even that young if they babble you wait for them to finish you babble they babble back you know they learn about that and they love it because they feel that they have connected with that human and if we're not giving them that connection because we're spent spending time in our devices it is affecting that relationship that we're forming with the infant it then starts to get worse really because we see prams that have been designed with ipod holders on phone holders on for both baby and mom yes yeah it's shocking so you've got baby facing away from you in the pram watching an ipad not even looking at the world you know not even looking at the trees and the colors and the world's already highly stimulating for a baby we don't need to give it a flat device pixelated device which is bad for its eyes anyway so that we've got record numbers of short-sightedness in young children now and that's from spending too much time on these screens their pincer grip is because they're not picking up tangible objects anymore so the muscles in the hand are being impacted children just need to interact with caregivers and the world around them and others you know friends little other little friends that they go to at groups so the real world connection is more important for that young baby the problem with it is is we give the child a device quite young put it in the pram the average age of media interaction now is four months old so we've got young babies interacting knowing how to swipe knowing how to use a phone is that the brain gets very used to that dopamine so we're creating an addicted brain it's almost as if it was innate but it's not we've got this new baby whose brain is very plastic and it could be anything that we allow it to be in this world with the right nurturing but then we give it a device and we're wiring these highly addictive dopaminergic mechanisms in the brain and the brain learns to need that and want that and need that and by the time you know you're looking at two three four by the time they get to school they struggle to focus struggle sit still they've got too much energy it's because they're searching for dopamine all the
Speaker 1time my goodness me i had no idea about the prams and pushers being adapted now for these and we've all seen it we've all seen young children in that sort of that case and one of the startling bits of data that i'd stumbled on recently was that 20 percent of children who are starting school are being referred to speech and language therapy and is this in your view related to the role of speech and language therapy and is this in your view related to the to the fact that we're not i understand in lots of ways when when um i remember back when my children were younger were tiny tiny babies and you almost felt slightly self-conscious doing the whole having a conversation with this this little being that could really not really say anything but I knew because at that time I was doing my PhD all about language development I knew it was really important that even though they were saying nothing that this whole you know modeling and the turn-taking would have such a profound impact but do you see that connection between why we're getting so many young children starting school and being referred almost immediately to speech and language
Speaker 2therapy? Yes I do I think we've got two million people awaiting support for speech and language at the moment and the reason being is you know we talked about it a minute ago that we go to restaurants and children are put behind iPads we people do it at home as well children learn by listening to and engaging in language so they will learn by watching other people have conversation as I mentioned earlier just holding even a four five month old and it'll babble to you and you can babble back to it and then it will know to wait for you before it babbles back to you you know an infant will learn through engaging in all these processes and through being present when we put a child behind a device we're removing them from the real world the evidence is that they don't learn anything from a device under the age of two so as much as apps are marketed to these infants for speech and language development the evidence is that doesn't support that so the child needs to be present in the space with you to develop their speech and language so it's if you imagine that putting a child behind a device is kind of like locking them in a dark cupboard they may as well not even be there with you because you're not interacting with them they're not interacting with you they're not seeing anything that's going on in the world around them they're not able to learn from any of that anyway so it's it's that's the thing I think is really important and I think that's how it's how it's harming their their
Speaker 3development at Humana our Medicare Advantage plans are easy to understand and easy on your wallet like offering more benefits than you'd get from original Medicare alone and including dental vision and hearing coverage in every plan and the best part is every plan has a zero dollar or low monthly plan premium which makes it easier to save too so this Medicare planning season plan well with Humana learn more at gethumana.com Humana is a Medicare Advantage organization with a Medicare contract enrollment any Humana plan depends on contract renewal check engine abs or
Speaker 4maintenance light on take the guesswork out of your warning lights with O'Reilly Veriscan the service is free and provides a report with solutions verified by ASE certified master technicians and if you need help we could recommend a shop for you ask for O'Reilly Veriscan today yeah and I'm guessing what we're then seeing
Speaker 1if we're looking at it from this perspective of the dopamine if we're also looking at it from the perspective that they are created the applications the devices themselves to be very easy and intuitive to learn so young children are not taking very long at all to be able to understand the swiping mechanism and the addictive nature of the immediacy of the notifications and the responses do you think that that's why we're also seeing children's attention spans at school decreasing and decreasing and their ability to listen and focus is becoming more problematic I
Speaker 2do and I don't even think that's just with children I I do believe that we've the rise that we're seeing in difficulties with attentiveness across the lifespan is related to our addiction the addiction and withdrawal cycle to our devices so we've wired these addictive brains in these young young children young babies so we've given them lots of high volume of dopamine at a very young age which you wouldn't normally have that level of dopamine going into the brain that young so the brain's looking for dopamine now the dopamine on on a device comes quickly you know every 10 seconds if especially if you're on a social platform for example or youtube or something every 10 seconds you can swipe you get something new dopamine dopamine dopamine even if you're doing a mass challenge you do it so you get the dopamine you're you're searching for dopamine all the time now when that child goes to school you're not going to be getting dopamine that regularly but the brain is looking for the dopamine and when your brain's searching for dopamine it can't focus because it's looking for the dopamine everywhere so this is why our attention spans are waning we are now a point where children's struggle to focus for a whole episode of a tv show so that's even just a 24 minute tv show that's what the evidence says teachers tell me that they have to break down their lessons into 10 minute chunks because children can't sit still for long enough and this is the minute they get into school so there is one there will be that argument of people saying well they don't need to focus so you can use ai for everything now but you can't have a relationship or a friendship or anything meaningful without attentiveness you need to be able to focus on what someone's saying you need to be able to listen you need to be able to remember information about that person you know that your relationships are built like that and we are creating a world of jumping beans essentially who need constant stimulation or else they're looking for it everywhere or they've zoned out and that's what's happening at the moment and i do believe that the um the right you know and i know it sounds i'm talking about adhd there is obviously adhd which has a genetic component and that is a diagnosis of its own but there are a lot of people who i think are seeking the diagnosis for adhd whereas the it's not in the criteria yet to examine this but and i know some professionals are now looking at it but not all but people seeking a diagnosis for adhd when they haven't yet controlled the environment so they haven't yet said what in our environment may potentially be causing these traits which certainly look like adhd so all the category although all the trait criteria for adhd you can relate to time on devices and dopamine is the main neurotransmitter involved in the role in in adhd so i think we're seeing this um tsunami of people wanting diagnosis for adhd even successfully seeking a diagnosis for adhd because in some services it's very easy especially private to get a diagnosis you can even just get one via a zoom call and a couple of questionnaires and so it's all quite subjective so you can see how it can be quite easy you know if you i just want to explain what i mean there about the about adhd and how the phone contributes to that so if you're you spend a lot of time scrolling because the phone is addictive and that's say what you've learned to do you then feel don't feel quite right so you go online you search tiktok or whatever throws up some content about uh why am i feeling sad or why do i feel lethargic it throws up or why can't i focus it throws up some video content about uh why am i feeling sad videos on adhd we know that i think it's i can't remember what the stat is now but i think it's something like 50 of the top 100 adhd videos on tiktok so the most viewed are incorrect they're just so psychologists have analyzed this they are just describing the normal human experience they're not actually describing something that would be adhd so people are looking at these videos thinking they're describing adhd identifying with the symptoms because they're out of context as well they identify with the symptoms the algorithm picks that up that it's held your attention the um objective of these apps is to hold your attention as long as they can so they can sell to you that's how they make money from you so they push you more and more adhd content you then start to see more and more it becomes an echo chamber you start to identify with that you start to believe you've got adhd you then research more you start to you start to identify with these traits even more you then go to your doctor your assessment the waiting list is quite long you've then spent let's say eight months researching learning identifying with this label then you go for your assessment and when they ask you what the problems are you reel it off you are set you can reel off the list the nine traits easily because you can identify with them and then your clinician who we don't know who that clinician is and we we know that you have to have some training and you have to do you can do a fairly short course to be able to diagnose adhd you can do a fairly short course to be able to diagnose adhd you can do a even without having worked in mental health so that is very very worrying because if you think about psychology there's lots of different fields of psychology well any hcpc psychologist can do a two-day course and be able to diagnose which i think is terrifying because the context in the early years is really really important if someone's what we need to be looking at if this is an adult we're looking at we need to be sort of saying well how much time are you seeing your friends how much time are you how how are you your scrolling on your phone till 12 o'clock at night okay so then you don't sleep very well then you're tired the next day then you don't want to do anything we need to look at what can be changed in there first before we offer a diagnosis so so you can see how it easily ends up leading someone to a diagnosis is they go and have this assessment done they reel everything off there you go off you go diagnosis that these are the meds now the meds for adhd are very very strong so so it's a concern um cycle and i think some clinicians and are becoming aware of it i mean i know that in the nhs there some areas have closed their waiting list the problem is that the people who really need that diagnosis and really need that support and really need the meds can't get through because it's been this is a blockade of people who've watched too many tiktok videos and everybody thinks they've got adhd so i know there's an increasing awareness and i know there's a widening in the conceptualization of what is considered to say adhd or autism obviously different but i know that our understanding of neurodiversity has changed as well so there are many factors that contribute to it but with children especially it's a big issue i mean i work with a school a primary no an early years environment and they said to me that nearly everybody in that early years environment would have hit traits of either adhd or autism you is going on an entire environment of young children there's no way that's all adhd it's an adaption it's children being on the devices getting used to having too much dopamine when you take the device away then they struggle and then it presents like adhd it presents in traits like that and because no clinician is saying actually you need to put that device let's try and wean the child off the device then let's see if their behavior changes i've done this with people where we've weaned the device away at see what they're presenting with and their traits have but their symptoms have changed so they're not presenting with the same level of pathology as they thought they were presenting with prior to that and i know other clinicians who are refusing to give a diagnosis for say an autism or adhd until they've seen a dramatic reduction in the amount of time that that child especially children is spending on a device
Speaker 1yeah and i think that that's a really crucial aspect that you touch on there in terms of children and i think what then also happens is and we've seen this is that when you look at the i think the report maybe was last year about in countries where we were ranked in the uk we were one of the least active countries because what's happening is our children are not getting out and this is not about reminiscing i'm 56 i could do the whole when my day we used to be out all day on our bikes and only come in for lunch it's not about reminiscing it's just simply the practicalities of that that we have you know our children are inactive and that is that inactivity is happening earlier and earlier and when we think about ai in the progression of ai and we will look at what makes us unique as humans and the kind of the one determining factor in terms of our when we start looking at centenarians and we look at longevity is all to do with connection so i think that's a that's what makes us different from ai ai not is not going to be able to replicate that human connection that human eye contact and yet we've got more and more children who are just simply not exposed to that and therefore no wonder maybe they're more anxious and they're not finding those situations easy to cope with in outside in day-to-day life because they've not been exposed to it sufficiently to build that connection and that's what makes us different from ai muscle strength yeah
Speaker 2well i think that it really is exactly the premise of the book is that it's about our survival you know that our life longevity is linked to the depth and meaningfulness of the relationships that we have around us in order to have those relationships we need to have those complex interpersonal skills that teach us how to manage interpersonal difficulties differences conflicts how to manage the nuance in a relationship we need to have those skills and now the building blocks of those skills start very early in our early years i mean you you mentioned there about the kind of physical movement as well this is another thing that we're seeing as well as skyrocketing rates of obesity but an increase in musculoskeletal issues as well so technic for example physios or in young in children young children physios also say that they used to see people in their 40s for back problems it's now people in their 20s and it's because we're so sedentary so we we children are going to school now with they don't have dexterity they don't have the cordation and they don't have stamina and that's because when you're two three four years old you're you are should be getting up in an absolute pain for your parents getting up running around it's picking everything up exploring the world your babies and toddlers are so inquisitive they want to know what everything is but we're not seeing that you know if you put a child behind a device which is very very addictive they will just sit and stare at that screen for hours now as a parent it's great isn't it because you're you sort of go fantastic i don't have to worry about them putting their fingers in the plug socket they're just sat down they're out of harm's way they're on the sofa i can see that whilst i'm doing whatever i'm doing but unfortunately that child's muscles aren't developing they're not burning off the energy that they need to burn they're not developing that hand-eye coordination those muscle skills it's affecting all of that area of development so when they get to school they don't have the stamina to do sports in the way they did before they don't have the intellectual stamina to say sit down and listen listen in a class or to they don't have the stamina in their hands like their muscles they can't write for a very long period of time so we're seeing the the impact on this child as soon as they they go into the school environment from them being too sedentary and not having enough interaction with the world now that's then projected right through the lifespan because we spend time at home on an evening on a weekend we sit on a sofa we watch films we'll binge watch a netflix series we're not moving around so it's so what's happening is we've if you look at it from the 70s the obesogenic environment has grown and grown we've got i can't remember the exact stat now i think it's 190 million people worldwide suffering with obesity which has risen from i believe it's about 30 million in 1990 so we've just had this this rise of people children and adults who are more obese now that is because we are more sedentary than we were before because of the ease of life with technology um but also because of its convenience convenience food high ultra processed is making us fatter and more unhealthier you know convenience through sitting behind a laptop and not moving around is making us more unhealthy it's the it's that convenience of everything being so convenient that we're not having to work for anything anymore so our bodies are taking the hit for that so i we are seeing i think from that perspective of not moving around it impacts our body but it impacts our mind but it's impacting our relationships as well because we just don't see people anymore
Speaker 5everyone talks about how challenging it is to raise kids but what about protecting them outlet covers kitchen cabinet locks baby gates where do you even start well protecting your home and auto is a great place to start progressive offers customized coverage options so you can be sure you have the right coverage they're basically the baby gates of insurance get a quote at progressive.com progressive casualty insurance company affiliates and other insurers not available in all states no so let's
Speaker 1take because i want to make sure that every parent who's listening to this at every stage is getting something that they can tangibly use so let's say we've done the early years how that impacts in terms of the brain development when when super young children have got the use of tech from a very early stage let's now extrapolate that so we're now we've got a child at school they're then going through those tween years how does the impact of device use or that worst case scenario that we're looking at impact and then into their
Speaker 2teen years yeah so if if you take say we've got the child who was on the devices when they were quite young so we've already got a child that's not their interpersonal skills are not what we'd want them to be their intrapersonal skills so their feelings of self-worth their confidence their identity is also not where we would expect it to be developmentally because they spent a lot of time consumed by what's online maybe the relationships in the household aren't as strong as they would be without devices i think we can all say that if we didn't have devices our relationships in the household would be stronger because we'd be relating to each other more you then give this child a device a smartphone with social media on it you have now have a child that's slightly more vulnerable not than anybody else because if everybody else's children are doing the same but slightly more vulnerable and easier to exploit and manipulate then we're giving them a device which has the entire world on it it has everybody's opinion it has a huge amount of misinformation and a lot of incorrect information on there as well people giving advice they don't know what they're talking about there's a lot going on then it's overwhelming even as an adult you know you can't do anything anymore everything seems to be bad for you it's sort of like what's what can we eat what can we not we can't drink tap water we can't drink bottled water we can't learn a young person it's too much information for their brains to assimilate to work through what should i do who should i be we should be influenced and our identity should form based on who our parents are, our family unit, our school environment, the culture that we're from, and any other activities that we do. That's how our identity should develop. But what's happening now is our identity is forming based on millions of people on the internet and their curated versions of themselves, which aren't even real. Young people are seeing that and being influenced by that, and it's very confusing for them. Not only that, they're becoming addicted to these devices quite young. So they come home from school, they sit on their device. I worked with a school recently who told me that one, children were falling asleep during their GCSEs because they were up really late on the devices and not getting enough sleep. Sleep deprivation is something that schools across the country say they are seeing in their children and teenagers every single day. Kids aren't getting enough sleep. You can't function without sleep. You can't grow without sleep. The brain needs sleep to grow and develop. It's absolutely crucial, as crucial as food and water. So that is a big issue. So they're not sleeping properly. The brain isn't getting enough rest, so then they don't function as well at school the next day. They don't relate to their peers in the same way. Their attention span is being compromised also because they're tired. They're more impulsive, they're more groggy, and they're in a worse mood. So then they don't want to go and do the things that they could do the next day. So their activities, their swimming, or their musical instruments, or crocheting, or drawing, painting, football, they don't want to do those things. They don't have the energy to do it because they're tired. So they sit and scroll. Then they feel more lethargic, and then they feel more guilty. And this comes from the teenagers that I've worked with in school telling me this is how they feel. They feel guilty. And because they are young, and we've given them these devices, they don't know any different. You can't say to them, well, put it down, because they're still thinking, you know, that's all they've known. We need to be the ones to say, actually, no, you don't take a device to the bedroom. You can use it for an hour after school, if that. You need to go outside, see your friends in person. So a lot of the kids I work with will say, well, we just do it via phone because, you know, we didn't realize we could go and see our friends. But we prefer being with our friends in person. We prefer to do that than being on the phone. So that's how it starts to impact in the teenagers. And that's just the tip of the iceberg. You've got to look at all the constant stream of messages, the overwhelm, the fact that they never get the chance to switch off, the fact that you've got all of the malevolent side of the internet as well. So people trying to groom and exploit. You've got all of that going on. AI is just a whole another layer on top of it. We're isolating kids even more now because children are a huge part of it. And we've got a lot of these relationships with chatbots that tell them everything they want to hear. They never, ever put up a fight against them. They never challenge them. They never disagree. That's seductive in a way, isn't it? It's sort of like, wow, this is brilliant. You're really easy to get on with because you're fake. So they're not even developing real interpersonal skills, but they're developing feelings. Kids are developing feelings for these chatbots. It is really, really scary. And it's a step removed. And if you wanted to take a bird's egg, you had to take a bird's egg. And our brain has been hijacked by these devices.
Speaker 1Yeah. And this idea of this sort of increasing isolation in lots of ways. I mean, we haven't got time to really go in depth in terms of AI, but that when we're looking at the impact that AI is going to have and how amazing it's meant to be and how we're going to be able to ask it all these questions and it's going to perform all of these tasks. What it does is it removes us. If we allow it, it removes us further and more, diminishing that human essence of who we are, which are communal animals who thrive on connection and relationships.
Speaker 2Absolutely. And, you know, it's if you I wanted to start writing my next book about AI and it scared me that much that I've had to put down tools and I've been spending a lot of time outdoors because I thought this is terrifying. AI, you are essentially taking your brain out of your head and outsourcing it to an artificial machine. Now, as soon as you've outsourced your brain, you're not doing anything. Your brain's not doing anything before long where our attention span is going to be minimal. We're talking 10, 15 seconds. And the book Generation Zombie will be more relevant probably in 10 years time when we've seen the impact that using these devices, using AI in the early years is having. There's one thing using AI for work when you've evolved and you've developed your brain has learned to think and you've got a memory. But if you start using AI at eight years old to do your homework, and I've seen that happening, you're not learning to think your brain isn't learning to do the things that it needs to do because you're just outsourcing it to something artificial. So as the tech's getting smarter, we're getting dumber. And that puts us in a very dangerous position because this tech has no empathy and it has no guilt. And that's effectively a psychopath. So, you know, what? You know, in rudimentary terms, what will it do? It will have the power to do anything. And we won't really have, we already don't have the intelligence to stop it. How do we protect ourselves for it? Do we end up becoming slaves to AI? It's quite a scary world when you start looking into all of that. And I think, you know, my takeaway really for people is if they can keep their children away from smart devices for as long as possible, there is no argument for them having it. They don't need to learn to use it. If you have a 3, 4, 5, 6 year old now, an iPad and a phone won't even exist by the time they're legally allowed to buy one themselves or can afford to buy one themselves. So don't worry about it. The most important thing is that our kids are allowed to remain humans. As soon as we start meshing with the tech, we're losing the elements of us that make us human, as you just said there. So we need to focus on, especially when it comes to AI, on what makes us uniquely human. And it's those very, very deep into personal skills that eye contact, the ability to have a conversation, the ability to relate to another person, communication skills. It's all of that that makes us uniquely human that AI will never be able to replicate. As much as you might think you're getting empathy from your chatbot, it's a fact. Similarly, it's not. You need to be able to, you know, we need to be able to sort of distance ourselves and especially our young kids from that, allow our interpersonal skills to grow to the best that they can. And when they're older, then if you want, you introduce tech at that point, especially now with AI being as advanced as it is.
Speaker 1Yeah, definitely. Because unfortunately, otherwise, we're doing it when they're younger, we're in essence de-skilling them, not up-skilling them. And I think what I would say for anyone who's listening to this, who is concerned, there is lots of incredibly useful content in your book. I highly recommend it. And we will have the link in the show notes. And particularly, there is a whole section right near the back that is about creating your own device management plan. And there are a, I don't know, I think it's probably over 30. No, there are 30 ways that you can then begin to create that. And they're all super easy to implement, easy to access. It's just simply looking and then adopting and thinking, okay, what are the things that are really straightforward, for me to go ahead and action. So I would, I would recommend that. I mean, it's, the whole book is amazing. But there's some real practical things in that creating that plan, which will be bespoke for every single family. We'll all have slightly different things that we will implement within that. Charlotte, I want to thank you so much for your time. I mean, that has been, I mean, we could talk for probably a whole other hour about a whole many other things. But thank you so much. The book is beautifully written, easily accessible. And I would also say, I mean, I know, obviously, Charlotte, you've probably written it for parents. But is it, I'm guessing, our young children could be reading some of these, our eight year old, nine year old, 10 year olds upwards?
Speaker 2Yeah, absolutely. I mean, if you think your, your child's ready to read that, and to have that information, let them read it. I don't think there's anything in there that would be too inappropriate. I think as a parent, have a read, see what you think. I have written it to be very accessible. And it is a, I think it's quite an easy book to read. You know, it's not full of lots of jargon or anything like that. And it just explains psychoanalytical concepts in, I think, really quite simple ways. That's what I've tried to do. So that you can understand it. And I think as soon as you read it, you, it makes sense. It's, I think people, no one reads it and says, oh, no, that doesn't happen. They sort of go, oh, yeah, that makes, that actually makes quite, quite a lot of sense there. And then you can make the decisions. And as you said, there is the, section for the device management plan and how to reduce time for your, say, if your teenagers are it how do we reduce the amount of time they're on so there are plans in the back to help people reduce how much time they're using these devices and every family will be different the key thing is to just become really consciously aware of how you're using them like you said earlier you said about being intentional and i think that's it because at the moment we're just using them without consciously being aware of the impact it's having or how much we're using them or how it's how much they've invaded you know they've invaded our homes and i don't think we've maybe sat up and realized how much it's invaded our homes because you know you've got grandparents everybody from the grandparent to your four month old using them so we're all face down in it which is why no one's questioning it so i'm just saying question it a little bit have a think about whether you feel you might be using it a bit too much try to reduce it key periods of time which i'll say is at the dinner table don't have any devices in the bedroom if you can just do one thing take your devices out the bedroom charge them all downstairs create some device free zones as in that might be a place in the home or it might be periods of time in the day or the week um and no devices at the dinner table and just doing those four things will dramatically reduce the risk that these devices pose to your relationships and to our development yeah
Speaker 1and they're all easy and accessible to do charlotte thank you so much and we look forward to seeing you next time i'm looking forward to you know i really recommend you read the book and i'm looking forward to the next one coming out as and when you feel able to do the aai one thank you thank you ever so much for having me
PodcastTranscript AI