Elaine Taylor-Klaus: Welcome back, everybody, to another conversation on the Parenting with Impact podcast. Today, we want to discuss a very relevant and important current issue. As most of you probably know by now, in June of this year, the Surgeon General issued a warning.

Diane Dempster: 2024.

Elaine Taylor-Klaus: Yes, 2024. Thank you. The Surgeon General not only called for labels on social media platforms but also published a significant op-ed in The New York Times addressing the impact of social media on our youth and the mental health challenges they are facing right now. This comes on the heels of a 2023 advisory on social media and youth mental health, which the Surgeon General released.

So, over the past couple of years, there has been a real effort to raise awareness in the public sphere about not just the benefits but also the threats posed to young people by this new form of media— a new way of being in the world that was introduced before we had the chance to fully understand its implications. Does that sound like a fair way to put it?

Diane Dempster: Yeah, that’s right. And I think, for those of you listening, the Surgeon General’s article and the call to put warning labels on some social media platforms doesn’t come as a surprise. We know this issue has been building for a while.

For example, we pulled up some data from a 2019 study that looked at social media and mental health. It found that adolescents and teens in that age group are twice as likely to experience anxiety and depression when they linked the amount of time spent on social media to the rates of anxiety and depression. That’s the simplified version.

Elaine Taylor-Klaus: So, specifically, the quote is that adolescents who spend three hours a day on social media are at double the risk of experiencing anxiety and depression symptoms. And in the summer of 2023, the average daily social media use for this age group was 4.8 hours.

Diane Dempster: And I know a lot of you are probably thinking about more than 4.8 hours. I mean, we’re recording this during the summer in the U.S., and I think schools are almost out in Europe. A lot of you are really concerned about the amount of time your kids are spending, not just on social media, but on technology in general. There are all kinds of battles, challenges, and issues related to your kids' executive function, their hyper-focus, and the family conflicts that arise. So, this is a really hot topic in our community, and it comes up all the time in our groups.

Elaine Taylor-Klaus: Yeah, well, I want to set the stage with a couple more pieces of data before we move into discussing the impact on us as parents. So, one of the other things he spoke about specifically was the way social media affects how young people feel about their bodies. Whether it’s in the context of gender identity, body dysmorphia, anorexia, bulimia, or other eating disorders, social media has a significant impact on body awareness and acceptance.

The other thing he mentioned in his article is that, a year ago, he released an advisory, and many of the changes that need to happen should occur on a larger, more macro level. He discussed recommendations for policymakers, the platforms themselves, and the public. He’s calling for legislation from Congress to shield young people from online harassment, abuse, and exploitation.

He’s also urging the platforms to protect sensitive data, limit the use of features like push notifications and infinite scrolling, and safeguard kids from the harmful effects of excessive use and the pull these features have. Additionally, he’s advocating for better protections against exposure to inappropriate material, which we’ll be discussing in several upcoming podcast episodes because it’s becoming such a critical issue in our community.

Diane Dempster: Yeah.

Elaine Taylor-Klaus: It looks like you were ready to jump in with some thoughts.

Diane Dempster: No, I want to wait for you to finish setting the backdrop here.

Elaine Taylor-Klaus: There’s a lot going on. So, he’s calling on society to make changes. He’s urging parents to talk to each other, collaborate, and set agreements within friend groups. He’s also calling for Congress to take action and for the platforms themselves to begin self-regulating.

It’s a big ask in a world where technology and social media have dominated so quickly, without us really slowing down to approach it intentionally. Instead, we’ve been in a constant reactive phase.

Diane Dempster: Around technology, even with the best intentions. I remember when my kids were little, there were rules like, "You have to be 13 to use this platform," and all these agreements and regulations. It was as good as it could get at the time, but things move so fast that it's hard to keep up.

Elaine Taylor-Klaus: Let me just add one more thing, because the irony isn't lost on me that I saw this on social media. But it’s a really fascinating piece that I’ll link to. It’s by the author of Sapiens, who says that we are living in a completely new era. For the first time in history, we have no idea what to expect 20 years from now. Our kids don’t know what to expect either.

We don’t even know what to teach them in school because we’re uncertain about what the world will look like in 20 years. And this is the first time in history that this has ever been the case.

Diane Dempster: Well, we could have a whole discussion about this—we need a glass of wine instead of a cup of coffee this morning! I love the idea of looking at this on a macro level. We could have conversations about what will and won’t happen with this. But ultimately, even the Surgeon General said that part of this change needs to happen at the local level.

It starts in schools, communities, and family groups. And I think that’s where we want to dive in today—what can we do about this? What’s our role in this process? Because it’s hard, and I know many of you listening are struggling with 20-year-olds who are on the internet at, like, 12 in the morning.

Elaine Taylor-Klaus: At four in the morning.

Diane Dempster: 24 hours a day. When they're not at work, they're online, or you've got a kid who wants to be online and you're afraid to let them, or there's just all this stuff going on. So, where do we jump in?

A lot of this is about figuring out your role as a parent, learning how to engage your child collaboratively, and understanding what the conversations need to be.

I mean, my brain just went linear on this, Elaine, but it’s like—what do I want, and what’s my intention, along with whoever I’m co-parenting with? What would I love to have happen? How do I involve my child in figuring that out collaboratively? And then, how do I communicate that with my kid?

Elaine Taylor-Klaus: Well, I love it because you’re thinking linearly, and you go, “Then what about me?” And I’m thinking more circular, asking, “What about the world?” So, yes, to those three steps. But then, what does it mean to be the parent who goes into the school and says, "What are we going to do about this?"—who’s advocating for change?

For some of us, the role is about how we navigate our relationship with our kid around this issue. And for others, it’s about recognizing that in order to be in a healthy relationship with our child, we might need to be doing something within our community. So, let’s start with us and our kid. How about that?

Diane Dempster: Yeah, and I love the public service announcement about being out there, connecting at the grassroots level. If we’ve got some links on that, I’m not sure if we do, but we can close with that. So, us and our kids— I think for many of us, we know what we don’t want. We can see our kids’ behavior.

We can see our spouse’s behavior, quite frankly. It might be our spouse, it might be us. We can identify the behaviors we don’t want and push against them, but it’s hard for us to figure out, “Okay, so we need the internet.” I mean, we’re on the computer right now recording this lovely podcast episode, right?

Elaine Taylor-Klaus: And I’m on via technology, right?

Diane Dempster: It’s sort of like, I’m on tech all the time. I’m paying attention, and I—I mean, post-pandemic, I spent some time really reflecting on where I’m spending my time. Am I spending it in a healthy way or not?

There’s this first question, which is: What do I want my relationship with technology to be? Knowing how vast, fabulous, and pervasive technology is, that’s where my brain starts, right?

Elaine Taylor-Klaus: Well, here’s what I hear you saying, and I really appreciate it and as we always say, everything starts with ourselves.

Diane Dempster: Right.

Elaine Taylor-Klaus: What you’re saying is that the first place to start is by paying attention to our own use of technology. Before we try to change our kids' behavior or even decide what we want for them, we need to focus on ourselves. I’ll share a story about myself.

A couple of weeks ago, my kids were in town, and we were watching a movie on the porch in the back of the house. I left my phone in the front of the house, and I noticed how often, during that movie, I reached for my phone and realized it wasn’t there.

Sometimes I was looking up trivia, or I’d think of something and want to send a text, or it wasn’t that I wanted to scroll through social media, but I became very aware of how many times in that two-hour span I reached for my phone and felt uncomfortable that it wasn’t there.

Diane Dempster: I totally relate to that. People in my circle actually call me "Google Dishes" because I’m always searching for something. I did the same thing recently at dinner.

We had the whole family over, and normally I’d be the one saying, “Oh, let’s look that up!” or, “Wait, what about this?” It’s this hunger for learning, this need for actual details instead of just speculation—especially when you're with family members who have different opinions. It’s like, “What are the actual facts here?” Right? It was funny. True story, we ended up switching to Alexa.

So, I started asking Alexa to search things for me since I couldn’t do it myself with my phone. But again, it’s a healthy way to engage with technology, yet it’s still this habit of being hungry for information.

Elaine Taylor-Klaus: It’s funny, because I remember when the internet first started. Seriously, I do. I remember a friend of mine saying, when we could first start looking things up, "Remember when we used to have conversations, and we’d get curious, but we’d have to really think about it? We’d have to remember and make connections.

We couldn’t just look it up and immediately get an answer. We actually had to process it." And in some ways, we’ve lost that form of engagement because everything is right at our fingertips. We don’t slow down and think about, "Who was that person in the movie?" or, "What else were they in?" or whatever the question is.

Diane Dempster: Well, and here's what I want to add to that because you and I are both in the generation of people who remember the world before the Internet. I mean, there are a lot of people even listening that don't remember the world before the Internet.

And so there's this tendency we have as humans to go to reminisce as if the good old days were better, as opposed to the good old days being different. Right. And I think that's the piece that I want to speak to just for a second is like, doing it that way was great at the time. Let's not make the way we do it today wrong. It's just different. Right?

Elaine Taylor-Klaus: I'm not, I don't mean to make it wrong. What I'm saying is that there's a whole way of engaging with thought and information and connections that's different, that we no longer lean into. It's a whole way of thinking and communicating that it's kind of a lost art.

Diane Dempster: Well, and I think that that's part of what we as parents struggle with, right? Because we want our kids to be doing things that we did. Parents are always like, "Well, I didn't..." I was out playing, I was out doing this. It’s like this sort of...

Elaine Taylor-Klaus: I had conversations with...

Diane Dempster: And the world is different now. And so then the second step is, what do you want for yourself? And the second one, honestly, I'd like to invite us to a reality check because, yes, we want our kids to be physically active. Yes, we want our kids to be focused on learning. I remember when my kids were younger, we had this thing where it’s like you needed to be physical at least once a day, but you could use the internet to do it.

So, you could do an online yoga class, or you could do... whatever it was. It’s just sort of... so you're, instead of saying, "I want you to have time off technology," it was this sort of, how do you help your kids to have—how do you acknowledge the fact that we're attached to our technology and probably will be more so honestly in the next ten to 15 years—and have them have, like, what does Randy Coleman say, a healthy diet of tech? Right.

Elaine Taylor-Klaus: Okay, let's pause there, take a break, and come back. So right now, we've kind of set the stage and we've talked about calling upon all of us as adults to examine our own usage and our own relationship with technology and be thoughtful and mindful about that before we move into how do we want to be with our kids? Do you want to take a break here and come back and talk about how we want to be with our kids?

Diane Dempster: Yes.

[After Break]

Elaine Taylor-Klaus: Welcome back, everybody. Diane and I are in a philosophical slash, I don't know what to call it, conversation about technology and the surgeon general's warning about social media platforms and the mental health of our kids. Yeah. Yeah. So let's talk about our kids.

Diane Dempster: Well, I love that we're starting with our own relationship, and I think some of you will be going, "Yeah, but I'm a grown-up." Yeah, but... it's sort of, what is our role with regard to our kids? And I think that the surgeon general's warning... right, this is a warning.

Elaine Taylor-Klaus: Right.

Diane Dempster: It's the same sort of thing. It's a sort of, kids who spend more than a certain amount of time are more likely to struggle with anxiety and depression. Right. That's the bottom line for me out of that. And so as parents, we have to step closer, is the language I would use, to our kids' technology use, not necessarily just to limit.

And this is what I would advocate for. It may not just be about the number of hours, but it's about how are they using it and what are they getting from it. And part of it is having conversations with our kids about what they are observing on social media if they're seeing stuff.

And I don't know whether this is... I remember, I know we're doing the whole series on Internet porn, but I remember really distinctly the first time my kid came across something that I really would rather them not have come across on the Internet. It was, okay, we got to talk about it. Show me what you said. Tell me what you saw. What was it like for you? How did it feel? What do you think that was like for that female in his picture? It was like that sort of, like, we talked about it, and so the first step is like, how do we step closer as parents?

And for most of us, closer is not, let's put the foot down, although that's the part that we're gonna be interested in doing because it's like, oh, my gosh, I got to put the foot down. Ultimately, what we're trying to do is to have our kids develop healthy relationships with the Internet, with social media over their lifetime, because they're gonna be with social media much longer than we ever were.

And so it's not about restriction as much as it is about understanding and engaging and making healthier choices. Now, I don't know where you would go with that, but that's...

Elaine Taylor-Klaus: Well, so here's what's coming up, okay, is in March of 2020, you guys might remember that month, Diane and I were doing a digital sanity summit. We did a really cool summit interviewing some of the leading experts in the world on technology and kids. Right. And that summit is still available. And it's fascinating to me how relevant it still is.

Diane Dempster: Yeah.

Elaine Taylor-Klaus: And one of the themes that came up again and again and again in all of those conversations was exactly what you just pointed to. The goal is not to eliminate technology to get them off technology.

The goal is to help them see that they are in a relationship with technology and to help them become conscious of how they want to be in a relationship and to be able to use it as a tool to support them in their lives instead of something that is controlling or dominating their lives or that they're using to avoid their lives, which is what very often happens in our community.

And so what you're speaking to, I think that's so important, is if we talk about how we step closer, it goes back to the same thing we always come back to, which is we step into a relationship, we get curious.

Diane Dempster: Right. I just had this visual of a kid going down the slide at the playground. So, like, this is gonna be different depending on the age of your child. So let's start with that premise, because those of you who have younger kids are in a situation where, you might say, we need to shut some of this down, or we need to have some more controls and agreements and rules and things like that. And as your kids get older, it's harder to do that.

So I had this visual of a kid going down the slide about like, we don't just go to the big, the park with the big giant slide and let our kids go down the slide for themselves for the first time. It's just sort of, we're gonna help them down, we're gonna be engaged with them. We're gonna make sure they feel safe and confident and are not doing something stupid like hanging over the edge of the slide or whatever it is.

Right. It's just sort of, again, it's that stepping closer rather than, okay, no slides for you. We help our kids to figure out how to use the slide in a healthy manner. So hopefully that analogy is helpful for you.

Elaine Taylor-Klaus: Great. So one of the podcast episodes with John Paul Simon, which we'll link to, talks about that issue, the prevention piece of how do we put rules and parameters and expectations in place? And it's akin to teaching a kid to cross the street. You want to teach your kid about technology.

So for those of you with younger kids, the surgeon general's warning is really a call for prevention and for a more conscious way to bring your kids into a relationship, to start that relationship consciously from a very, very early age, whatever that age is, to not just hand them the phone, but to make sure that when you're engaging with them, you're helping them understand the rules of engagement and how to use it. Right.

Diane Dempster: Yeah. Well, the other podcast that just popped in that we probably should connect to is Effective Agreements. And so that's the next kind of phase is. Yes, for rules when our kids are younger, more for agreements when our kids are preteens, teens, young adults, even this sort of.

Well, what, I remember distinctly, I always tell stories on myself, but having a conversation with my kid who's like, everybody's always using their phones and they, like, don't have any restrictions at all. And it was like, well, you know.

The rule can't be unlimited technology. Right. So what should the agreement be? What feels healthy, what feels safe, what feels, and to really just have that dialogue about if they're held to, how do I make this safe? Because I know there's scary stuff out there or stuff that's not appropriate or stuff that's whatever for me as a young teen, how do I even think about the fact that it shouldn't just be wide open?

Elaine Taylor-Klaus: Right. Well, you're telling stories about yourself, so I'll share one about myself. I think that because my husband came from the tech world, we were too permissive early on, and we didn’t set enough boundaries. I assumed that because my kids are smart, they would know better or somehow manage on their own.

I’m not sure what assumptions I was making, but I don’t think they were good ones. I also don't think I handled it as consciously or as well as I hope I would today. It's interesting, though, because now that my kids are young adults, I have much better conversations with them about technology than I did when they were teenagers.

They’re old enough now to see the challenges and limitations of technology, and they all consciously choose to put their phones down or take a break from being "on the grid" because they’re making that decision themselves.

Diane Dempster: That’s an important point to highlight, especially for parents. I know a lot of parents, particularly those with kids who game or use tech extensively, say things like, “My kid would game 24 hours a day.” For me, it wasn’t until my kids started feeling the effects of gaming more than they wanted to that they realized, "Okay, wait a second.

Maybe I need to adjust my relationship with my computer." But it takes them reaching that realization on their own. We always say that it has to be their agenda in some way to get their full buy-in, much like in school.

Elaine Taylor-Klaus: Yes, exactly. It has to be their agenda. We discussed this in a group coaching call this week, and it was really powerful. Just because we want them to lead their life according to their own agenda doesn’t mean we can’t have an agenda or expectations ourselves. It’s about how we involve them and bring them into those conversations.

It's about building enough trust to have those discussions. I was speaking with a group of parents of young adults, and it’s not that you can’t expect your child to eventually get a job and move out, but you have to work with them on their agenda to achieve that. It’s still fair and reasonable to say, "My expectation is that you're not going to live here for the next 20 years." That’s a reasonable expectation.

The same goes for technology—I'm not telling you how to do this, but I do think it’s fair and reasonable, whether your child is 12, 15, or 17, to have agreements about how they engage with technology and what is or isn’t a good choice for them. I want you to be part of creating those agreements. It’s not about imposing rules, but about enrolling them in that conscious, thoughtful decision-making process.

Diane Dempster: I’m laughing because so many parents say, "My kid won’t even talk to me. How can I get them into a conversation like that?" I can imagine myself ten years ago when my kids were younger thinking, “Well, we can either talk about it, and I can get your input, or I can just set the rule. Which would you rather happen?”

Elaine Taylor-Klaus: Or, if you want a smartphone, that’s great. But if you don’t want to have this conversation, then you can just stick with a good old-fashioned phone. I’m fine with that.

Diane Dempster: They still have those, don’t they?

Elaine Taylor-Klaus: They do. In fact, they're coming back. People are choosing them again as a way to regulate their social media use. But notice how both of us said that from a place of nonjudgment. It's just matter-of-fact: you can do this or that. We weren’t saying, “You have to do this.” We need to keep our snark out of it, though, and that can be hard for us to do.

Diane Dempster: Exactly. And I think another important part of it is really honoring and hearing their perspective. It's about taking the time to listen, not doing it from a place of "Oh, you're wrong." It’s more about understanding where they’re coming from.

A lot of times, they don’t see what we see, and it’s hard to collaborate with someone if they see things completely differently. There’s real value in understanding how they see it. And I promise you, most of them aren’t going to say, “It’s fine for me to be on whatever I want for 24 hours a day.”

If you’re in a fight with them, sure, maybe. But if you're sitting down and having a creative, collaborative...

Elaine Taylor-Klaus: Yeah, avoid the word “sit down,” though. Do it standing at the kitchen counter or whatever, or while driving in the car.

Diane Dempster: Right.

Elaine Taylor-Klaus: So, here’s what’s coming up because we need to start wrapping up this conversation. What I’m aware of as we’re talking is that, first of all, there are a lot of amazing resources in the show notes today. So, really take the time to check them out. I encourage you, if you haven’t yet, to read the Surgeon General’s advisory from 2023. It’s not that long, and it’s fascinating.

Start having those breadcrumb conversations with your older kids, and with younger ones, think about how you want to begin teaching them. With the older kids, it’s about how you can start dropping some breadcrumbs. You could bring up the Surgeon General’s advisory and ask their opinion about it to invite them into some constructive conversations.

Again, it’s not about telling them what to do, but about raising the topic. For example, when I had that awareness about the movie night, I went to my family the next day and said, “Guys, this is what I noticed happened last night.”

Diane Dempster: Yeah, so talking about third-party or second-party conversations, as I would call them, is about outing yourself and your own challenges. It’s like, “Hey, this is what I’m noticing about myself,” or, “Hey, the article said something about anxiety and depression in adolescents who use a lot of technology. What do you know about that? What have you noticed with your friends? Do you have any friends who are experiencing this?”

These kinds of third-party conversations can be really effective because they’re more open and non-judgmental, which helps keep the temperature lower.

Elaine Taylor-Klaus: Right. Yeah. The other thing I want to reinforce, which you alluded to earlier, is that our kids use social media in many different ways, and how they use it is really important.

Another link we’ll include in the show notes is a conversation we had after the international ADHD conference about the technology presentations we attended, where we discussed whether it’s truly an addiction or not.

So, we’ll reference that here. Some of our kids rely heavily on their social lives online. This isn’t about shutting down their social connections—it’s about finding a healthy balance of where and how they make those connections in their lives, and being thoughtful and intentional about it.

Diane Dempster: So, we could talk about this all day, but we...

Elaine Taylor-Klaus: Oh my gosh, this was so good. Thank you for taking the time to do this with me, Diane. I think this is such an important conversation. As Diane mentioned, we’ve had many other conversations on this topic in the podcast.

Again, I invite you to check the show notes today. Take some time—if this episode is coming out during the summer, give yourself a little homework during your downtime to think about it and get ready for the upcoming school year. It’s a great way to prep as we head back to school in a month or so for some of us. Anything else, Diane?

Diane Dempster: No, that's it.

Elaine Taylor-Klaus: I just want to say, as always, thank you guys for tuning in. Thank you for listening. What you're doing for yourself and your kids makes a difference. Your engagement, thoughtfulness, and attention matter.

Diane Dempster: Take care, y’all. See you soon.