from WXXI news.

This is connections I'm Evan Dawson.

Our connection this hour was made in a question for kids.

What would it take to get you off your phone and spend more time out in the real world?

The answer is not maybe as obvious as you might think.

Social psychologist Jonathan Haidt writes that there is a common explanation for why kids spend so much of their free time on screens these days.

It's because they're addicted.

Social media addicts, them online culture addicts.

Them tech has trained them to look at their screens instead of the outdoors.

And that's true to an extent.

But what height and his colleagues have discovered goes beyond that conventional wisdom height help design a survey that the Harris firm rolled out earlier this year, and he writes the following quote.

In March, the Harris Poll surveyed more than 500 children aged 8 to 12 across the United States, who were assured that their answers would remain private.

They offered unmistakable evidence that the phone based childhood is in full force.

A majority reported having smartphones, and about half of the 10 to 12 year olds said that most or all of their friends use social media.

This digital technology has given kids access to virtual worlds, where they are allowed to roam far more freely than they can in the real world.

About 75% of kids age 9 to 12 regularly play the online game of Roblox, where they can interact with friends and even strangers.

But most of the children in our survey said that they are not allowed to be out in public at all without an adult.

Fewer than half of the eight and nine year olds have gone down the grocery store aisle alone.

More than a quarter are not allowed to play unsupervised in their own front yard.

End quote.

Now, I want to emphasize some of those points.

Kids report having more freedom online than they do on their own front yards.

Kids can't walk to the store anymore without someone wondering if they should call police.

Kids can't play on a playground without a parent just a few feet away, but online kids are exposed to, for example, sex earlier than ever, often through porn because they're largely unsupervised.

Kids are exposed to violent imagery.

Kids can play video games and interact with total strangers, and parents have little or no contact with it.

The Harris survey asked kids to pick their favorite way to spend time with their friends, either unstructured play, such as shooting hoops and exploring their neighborhood, or participating in activities organized by adults like Little League, or doing ballet, or finally socializing online.

As hight notes, there was a clear winner.

45% of children prefer free, unstructured play, 30% want an organized activity, and only 25% want to be online.

Yet most are spending their time online, not outdoors.

And that's because, as I found out, kids can't get unstructured play time anymore.

Their parents and guardians are getting it backwards.

Kids need more freedom and autonomy in the real world, but instead they are over supervised.

In the real world.

They need more supervision online, but instead they're hardly supervised online at all.

Kids will go where the freedom and autonomy are high, writes, quote children want to meet up in person, no screens or supervision, but because so many parents restrict their ability to socialize in the real world on their own, kids resort to the one thing that allows them to hang out.

With no adults hovering their phones.

End quote.

And one reason that parents are making these choices comes down to fear.

And a lot of that is wildly misplaced or just wrong.

These numbers, I think, are amazing.

In a separate survey, Harris asked parents what they thought would happen if 210 year olds played in a local park without adults around 60% of the adults surveyed thought that the children were likely to get injured, and half thought they were likely to get abducted, half it's reasonable for parents to worry about their kids.

We want the best for our kids.

We will protect their safety at all costs, but we are losing touch badly with reality, Hite concludes.

Quote.

According to Warrick, Karen's the author of How to Live Dangerously Kidnaping in the United States is so rare that a child would have to be outside unsupervised for, on average, 750,000 years before being snatched by a stranger.

Parents know their neighborhoods best, of course, and should assess them carefully, but the tendency to overreact to risk comes with its own danger.

Without real world freedom, children don't get the chance to develop competence, confidence, and the ability to solve everyday problems.

Indeed, independent and unsupervised play are associated with positive mental health outcomes.

End quote.

So what do we do with this?

Let's talk about that this hour.

How can we return to a society where which kids can enjoy more freedom in autonomy in physical spaces, and will that really work in getting them off their phones?

My guest this hour include Doctor Michael Scharf, the Mark and more.

Maureen Davitt, Distinguished Professor in Child and adolescent psychiatry at the University of Rochester Medical Center and really one of the best in the field.

Doctor Scharf, great to have you back here.

Thank you for being here.

Thank you have and it's a pleasure to be here today.

No pressure on you.

Sorry.

You're one of the best in the field.

How are is on the on the line with us.

How is a 16 year old student at Edison Tech in Rochester.

How a great to have you.

How are you?

I'm good.

It's nice to be here with you guys.

It's great to be with you.

And how are you?

Do not have to speak for all teenagers this hour.

That's too much to ask of you.

You're just going to share your own experiences.

And there's a lot to talk about this hour.

And let me start in studio with Doctor Scharf and just ask you a little bit about, you know, this data survey is wild to me.

I mean, I would have suspected some of it, but, you know, to hear that 50% of parents were saying they think kids were abducted.

If you don't, you know, helicopter them in a park or, you know, they should just be online without supervision, whereas we're going to over place them in the real world.

These are pretty profound insights from kids and from parents.

What do you see?

Yeah, I agree, I think that it, I'm really pleased that this article has been published and that we're focusing on it and talking about it right now, because that distortion of of what the risk is, is, is really amazing.

And, you know, one of the authors you mentioned wrote a book called The Anxious Generation.

And yeah, the sort of highlights which generation is the anxious one, right?

Yeah, exactly.

This is it's a great point.

You know, I think that, seeing the numbers is impressive and it's worth checking in about it.

And I also, you know, can't help but think of how many of us would have really died without seatbelts or without a bike helmet.

I mean, we do take safety precautions for things that don't happen to everybody, and that's okay.

So the idea of, you know, people being sensitive to kids getting injured, that's okay.

But how to understand it in context and what type of restrictions to put in place are worth.

It is always important to examine.

And I think what this highlights is an unintended consequence of over supervising.

Now, I'm glad you bring up the anxious generation, because a lot of the implication is, well, kids, teenagers these days, they're really anxious, they're really struggling, they're online too much.

And yet when I talked to camp director, summer camp directors.

They tell me that the biggest complaints they get about not allowing cell phones during the camp weeks come from parents who are like, well, how am I supposed to be able to get in touch with my kid?

How do I follow up.

Like what am I not going to be in touch for like a week?

And the bigger complaints come from the parents who's more anxious.

And you know, I think that's a great point.

And obviously it's not universal.

Right.

It's not every parent.

Sure.

Oh sure.

But but yeah I mean that the article and the the description of these camp counselors that, that you're mentioning just emphasizes that kids will, prefer to do activities without, oversight, without the parents in their business all the time.

And the checking in is coming from the parent.

The need to check in is coming from the parents.

So as we go throughout this hour, we're going to talk a little bit more with Doctor Scharf about, you know, where to draw those boundaries or maybe redraw those boundaries and look, proactively for the right kind of leeway to give kids, you know, at different ages.

And there's probably not a perfect answer for everybody or for every age.

And Doctor Scharf, we'll talk about that.

But I think it's valuable to really try to ask ourselves why it's gone so far in one direction or another.

And one of the cliches, Doctor Scharf, is like, well, when you and I are grown up, you know, it'd be like, we see you after breakfast, mom, we'll see you at dinner time.

I mean, that might be an exaggeration, but in my neighborhood was sort of true.

I mean, I remember getting on a bike and not coming back until around dinnertime or playing in the creek and going out in the woods for a while.

And I do think that even though that's become the cliche, I think there's a lot of truth there.

What do you think?

I that that was my experience in childhood as well.

And I think the details do matter.

I mean, I remember so I actually I don't really remember a guidance of stay outside or, you know, anything declaring it, but it was absolutely.

I'll see you at dinner time or something like that.

And the, but but I also remember, guidance not to cross certain busy streets.

Right.

So there was sure, certain it wasn't zero direction.

Yeah, right.

It wasn't zero attempts at boundaries, but it was very different.

So let's bring in how here.

And listeners, if you want to weigh in on some of these subjects, whether it's what you think about, you know, what's going on with your family and your kids or what you hear from your kids.

You know, I would love to hear from you.

You can email the program connections@sky.org.

You can call the program toll free 844295 talk.

It's 84429582552636.

If you're in Rochester 2639994.

And again, if you're if you're online with us, if you're on your screens, if you're on YouTube, hello on the page you can join the chat there.

I also don't want anyone to feel overly judged.

I mean, we'll talk more about that too, with Doctor Scharf.

I'm probably as guilty of this stuff as anybody, and I, I know how hard this can be.

I mean, parenting is really hard.

I don't love the parenting wars.

I don't love the the judgment.

So there's probably a lot of judgment that it maybe feels like it's coming through as I read this data, but I want this to this conversation to happen in like with a spirit of solidarity and productivity here, not condemnation.

So, how a 16 year old student at Edison Tech in Rochester.

I'm going to start with this question.

I think the bell to Bell ban includes your school, right.

It's everybody in this state.

How you how is it going with a Bell to Bell cell phone ban in schools this year.

So far?

I think it's actually a good move as well as just it doesn't feel right for me personally, but I think it's a very good move.

Okay, so tell me a little more about that.

What doesn't feel right for you personally?

Just not having my phone on me, not being able like I usually text my people when I'm nervous or just having a rough time, but my phone is not there for me to do that.

So it's like, oh my God, who do I go to now?

Like, so it's just just general stuff like that everyday.

So that's a really interesting insight.

What do you do?

Are you learning?

I mean, it's early in the school year.

I understand how, but as you think about the fact that you can't text people during the day if you're nervous, maybe you got a test or maybe something's going on.

If you can't do that anymore, are you developing different strategies to think about how you're dealing with any anxiety or stress?

Yeah, it's just talking to my close friends, telling them, oh, we're like, I don't want to do this or I'm too scared to do this is just expressing my feelings.

Them well, what do you hear their doctor?

Sure.

Well, I a couple things.

So Howard, thank you for sharing and for being here today.

That, I certainly appreciate it.

I'm sure all the listeners do as well.

And, you know, saying that it doesn't feel right, but, you know, it's a good thing at the same time, I mean, I, I can certainly resonate with it.

And and actually, I don't know how profound it feels to you, however, but I think that might be one of the big take home messages is that it's not all or nothing.

There's pros and cons of everything, and the, you know, while talking about a cell phone, being at school is an absolute it's not a cell phone being for life.

Right.

And and the even as we we approach issues about whether how to limit and how to encourage people to go outside and decrease supervision, it's not absolute all or nothing.

You know, it needs to be thoughtful, approach.

So in that spirit, however, I want to ask you a little bit about what the survey found.

And again, you're 16 years old.

The survey that was done earlier this year was for kids aged 8 to 12.

And so a little bit different age range.

But a consistent finding was that kids in this country are saying that they would like unsupervised situations, but they'd rather be in spaces with friends where they don't have parents kind of hanging around or breathing down their neck all the time.

They can have a little privacy, they can have a little autonomy, they can have a little self-direction.

And what kids are also saying is it's just easier to find that on their screens than it is in the real world.

In physical spaces.

What's your experience with that?

However, I personally like to be around my friends because it's like peer to peer.

I'm right in front of their face.

I get to express my fear and you know, just face to face, but I it yeah, I you like to be around my friends but it's really hard to do that nowadays, you know, like.

Yeah.

So tell me a little bit more about why it's better if you're going to talk to your friends.

Why do you think it's better to be doing that face to face in-person, as opposed to through a screen or device of some kind?

Just this is the general fact that you get to see how the reaction is just to actually be there to communicate with them in real life, you know, online is like on the phone, but it's going to get hung up.

You know, it's like, it's not, it's not it doesn't feel real, but it's there talking on the phone.

But when I'm with you in real life, it's just I like expressing truly what needs to be expressed.

You know, it's like, yeah, like I could just like, for example, I could be on the phone already, like think like easily three.

I feel like you, you'd catch a lot easier like in person than online, you know, it's just general things like that, seeing how a person express their emotions, their face reactions, just simple stuff like that.

Oh, boy.

So much inside there.

What do you feel like?

You really I again, thank you.

I think you're really saying some profound things and just to to say the same thing from another angle, not only is it easier to catch a lie, but it's easier to say or perpetrate a lie, right?

It's easier to to roll your eyes to have one reaction.

Maybe, you know, edit your thoughts before you respond, which, you know, may have a place in some interactions.

Sure.

But as a, if that becomes your primary, your only interaction, it's limiting.

In a moment, I'll.

Mike in Rochester.

I'll take your call in a second, cause we're gonna get back to, observed and unobserved play and supervised play.

And so just hang there for one second.

I just kind of want to press a little bit on what?

How what is saying here?

What Doctor Scharf is saying.

I think about how difficult it is to have a contact in text as an adult.

Right.

My 13 year old son had an issue with a friend, not a big one, but an issue with a friend.

Over context in a in a forward text a few days ago and they had to sort it out, one of the kids thought it meant one thing, and one took it the entirely different way.

And for days they had this disconnect.

And finally I said to him, did you like, did you call him?

He's like, well, I haven't called him like, so you're understanding of what he was trying to tell you was totally different.

Yeah.

And so he did some repair work today.

But he's like boys, like it's sometimes like it's just easy to assume something in a text.

Well, that's what he was saying.

But that's not exclusive to kids.

And we we increasingly as a society rely on communication that is not face to face and is I think it's more easily misconstrued, don't you?

I absolutely do.

And, and, you know, people who spend a lot of time with me working clinically are very familiar.

I often will start meetings or start lectures saying, let's all make sure we're using the same words to mean the same things.

And this is this comes up in conversations and anything where there's, opportunity for conflict, it's more likely to happen.

And I think the technology just amplifies it and exaggerates it.

So is it reasonable to ask people directly, hey, you know, I'd rather talk in person.

I'd rather because most people I'm even in this category, I'd rather you just text me than sometimes than call me.

There's times I'm my, who's leaving a voicemail, you know, I'm like, I'm guilty of it myself.

Yeah, well, and it's it's really understandable.

Just as part of human nature, too.

Even if it's just managing your time.

Right.

Much less avoiding the awkward interpersonal conflict, though it's usually avoiding the awkwardness.

The, you know, it.

It's not intuitive always to say, wait, let's let's take this into real life or this is a meeting, not an email or.

Yeah, however you want to set that limit.

But but it is an an it is an important one to be thoughtful about in our own direct interactions.

If you're, you know, you describe being a parent and learning about peer interactions and suggesting, shouldn't you really talk to each other, you know, shouldn't it really be in real life?

I do think, and in the workplace, right.

I think a good supervisor or a good boss would interrupt a text or email conflict to say, let's have a live meeting or a live discussion about this.

I was thinking of, a guy who used to be viewed as kind of a philosopher king in a past life.

12 years ago, Louis C.K.

was on Conan O'Brien talking about the way that we struggle to just sit with our emotions.

And so one of the he was talking about whether his kids were going to get cell phones, and he said more often than not, now, people of all ages, when we start to feel sad, when we start to feel complex, negative emotions, or I don't even know if sadness is a negative life emotions, we chase it away by just opening up a screen or texting somebody or jumping on social media.

We want a dopamine hit.

We want to avoid that sadness.

And what he was saying was like he had come to view that sadness is part of life, and learning how to just sit with that and not try to chase it away on a screen is important because then you can experience real joy.

But social media and screens tend to try to limit our sadness, but also blunts real joy.

It kind of makes us more drones.

Is there something there?

Well, there's absolutely something there.

And but but the addition I would state again, is that there's pros and cons of everything.

And, you know, experiencing sadness and being able to recognize it can absolutely have adaptive and growth aspects.

And there's a big difference between sitting with your feelings for ten minutes or even an hour, and recognizing it versus being profoundly depressed for two weeks.

Right?

I so I think there can be too much of that.

We there was a FDA hearing talking about, maternal health and, and the idea of treating depression in pregnancy.

And someone made an assertion very much like you just described that, you know, we're taking a bite by treating, depression during and immediately after pregnancy.

We're depriving people from experiencing the full emotions of womanhood.

I may have the phrasing wrong, but the and, you know, I'm sure that that came from a place similar to what you're describing with Louis C.K.

but again, when you look at real life suffering, that can become ridiculous quickly.

So I think both are true.

So there's a line somewhere.

I said it was easy to find that line.

Yeah, exactly.

Yeah.

And then and how I, I also want to ask you about this, you know, you talked about the importance of communicating directly with people even in person.

It at your age, you're 16 years old, you know, certainly we haven't eliminated bullying and things like that in schools, I understand that.

Do you think it is easier, however, to send a really something dark or hurtful, either in a text or in a t page on Instagram?

I don't know if that's still a thing or wherever people are, versus to actually say it to somebody in person.

I mean, do you think there's a difference?

Yes, I think there's a big difference.

I could do it like it's easier to do online.

There's a lot of cyberbullying.

I feel like it's worse online than in person.

You know, I feel like you could deal with the problem more efficient in person than online, you know, because that's not something you could be to meet forever.

It's always going to be there.

But in person it's like, oh yeah, I'm going to get over it.

You know?

It's like stuff like that for me especially, especially I bet you was 3 or 4 years ago that we talked about something that at the time, kids your age told us something called t pages or things like that on Instagram, which could be really hurtful and bullying, I don't know what.

Is there a common method that kids are using, teenagers are using on social media to to go about bullying that you're aware?

T pages Go.

Right.

Yeah.

Just people just postcards don't like just stuff like that.

I agree with that.

Okay.

And let me also ask you this.

Are you on TikTok a bit?

Yes, a lot of them are you and a lot of it.

So hey, just real talk here.

How how many hours a day do you think you're on TikTok or do you use, A lot like probably the whole day.

It's like a whole, like, it could be a lot.

Well, here's why I got TikTok.

This is part of that survey.

About half.

Now this is Gen Z.

So different age range.

I don't even know where the Gen Z limit is now.

It might be even older than how I think I don't know, how do you know what generation you're in, how you're 16?

I don't know if she's Gen Z or gender, but anyway, yeah, I'm Gen Gen Z.

Okay, so about half of Gen Z says they spend about four hours a day on social media, mostly TikTok, and the same number says they wish TikTok didn't exist.

So a huge number of of people in Gen Z say, I'm on TikTok all the time, and if it were up to me, I wish it were never invented.

Do you have any feeling like that?

How?

Like if you had the power to say snap my finger, TikTok was never invented.

Would you do it or would you keep it?

I would do it because there's a moment, right?

Twitter got banned for a little bit and everyone's going crazy.

I'm just like, it's okay.

Like it's actually going to be better.

Like, you guys are going to get more outdoor time.

You know?

It's just I feel like it's good.

I was really so frustrated about it because I really didn't care for it.

Both like, yeah, I spent all my time there, but I really wouldn't care much if it was gone, you know?

So that's my.

Yeah, that's like, oh, what do you hear there, doctor?

Sure.

That's remarkable.

Well, that is remarkable.

And, and, you know, again, I want to thank you for sharing it.

Howard, this is, it is remarkable.

So the and again, if we think about any of us thinks about our own life, we fill all sorts of time with whatever, you know, circumstance allows us to fill it with.

And so the, the idea of, the idea of calling it all addiction doesn't quite fit right, like it would.

You would I don't know how.

Well, maybe you want to speak to that when you talk about feeling that much of your time, does the word addiction make sense with that or not really.

Yes it does, it does.

Okay, well, I curious to hear a little more about that.

Yeah.

So if it is, if that is the right word, like do you feel like you can't not open TikTok or is it, is it just a habit.

Like how strong do you feel about it?

Like I wake up in the morning, the first thing I do is check social media.

Tick tick tick tick tock.

It's just stuff I get like I'm so used to doing it.

It's just so normal.

It's like, like, what else would I do if I didn't do that?

You know, I can't just.

Oh, wake up.

Silly morning.

Get up and just go outside.

You know, it's just I have to check my social media.

If I don't, I feel some type of way.

It's so crazy.

This is why Doctor Scharf, I thought the the the bell to Bell cell phone ban was a good idea.

How it is saying in one breath it's part of her routine.

It's like getting up and brushing your teeth and having breakfast and checking TikTok and being on TikTok.

But she also says during that brief time where it was banned earlier this year or late last year, whenever that was, she did not freak out.

She was kind of like, oh, this might be better.

But now that it's back, she's like, well, I'll go back and do it because it's part of the habit.

So I felt like with the cell phone ban, you know, people are going to freak out, but they will get used to it.

Is that too optimistic or do you think that's possible?

I think it's not only possible, I think it's likely.

And I really.

Yeah.

And I think there'll be a there'll be a number of people for whom it really is harder.

And, you know, I think we've used the word addiction and I think it even if we just that word, it's been used and has different, different ways, has different meanings to different people.

Having an unhealthy habit that you fill your time with when it's available.

Most people think of that as different from having a, a connection, a relationship with a substance or a behavior that, even if it's not available, you'll spend your energy to go seek it.

And so I think there's an opportunistic, use aspect of this.

As I'm talking, I'm realizing I'm not sure we even have the right language for for what we're describing.

But you know how you're describing habits that seem like addiction, but you're also saying that when it was interrupted, you didn't try to seek it out, work around, you never really get it.

Yeah.

It wasn't desperate to go find it.

And I don't want to speak for you.

If there if if you want to have anything to add than that.

I sure love to hear that, too.

But it, you know, that that that difference between filling your time when it's available versus, you know, going out of your way to go seek it because of your relationship with it.

We could probably I mean, just audience members could think about their relationships with alcohol or maybe nowadays, well, caffeine.

Sure.

We do other things like, yeah, you know, if if it's there, do you use it?

You know, if you're at a party and there's an open bar to your drink, but if there wasn't a would it matter?

It's a huge difference.

I really appreciate the distinction you're making, and it gives me some hope.

Yeah, not for me.

My own media usage and for kids who feel like who might think that they're addicted.

But it turns out if you take it away, they might be okay.

That's a big difference.

Yes, yes.

So how?

Well, we're not trying to speak for you.

We're just we're very optimistic that you could be okay without TikTok.

Like you weren't for that brief time.

It was banned.

I understood you guys.

I mean, you you guys, I mean, you guys are telling the truth.

I mean, yeah, well, maybe the kids will be all right with that.

Hey, so Mike's been waiting.

Let me do this.

Let's grab a phone call from Mike.

Listeners, if you want to weigh in on these topics as we talk about the impact of, screens, not only screens on kids, but also where kids have freedom, where they don't, that's going to be a big focus for the rest of this program.

And and what we do about that.

And that's where Mike wants to take us here.

So Mike in Rochester, go ahead.

Well thank you.

So I'm an old guy.

I grew up in the 70s.

I was a kid during the 70s.

And I find it interesting because even though the argument is we had more freedom, we had more freedom in a confined space.

Your parents told you where to play, not just a lifelong city resident grew up in the city.

I had boundaries be between here, here and here.

This period of time, if I come out the door and I yell for you, you better be coming back to the house.

Okay, so.

So you have freedom.

But but even though I had free time, I was never.

I might have been.

I might have been unsupervised, but I was never.

I was also never unobserved.

So within the confines of that stay within the range of my voice.

I lived in a neighborhood where everybody knew me, so if I was doing something I wasn't supposed to do, well, mom knew about it.

Before I got back to the house and there was heck to pay.

So you you allegedly had more freedom.

You had.

I would argue on some level, you had the illusion of freedom, you know?

Yeah, go out there and do what you want to do.

But at the same time, everybody knew whose kid you were.

And if you were doing something you weren't supposed to do, the community would tell you.

That's a powerful point.

It is.

It's a really, really powerful point, because I don't know if neighborhoods are as connected as they used to be.

I don't know, just listeners.

Wherever you live, two think two houses down, two apartments down.

Do you know the people two doors down.

You know the people three doors down.

So Mike is is painting a different picture.

And I think it's important.

But I also want to ask you, Doctor Scharf, to me, he still is describing more freedom, you know, because you've got some space to work with the person.

Not like right over your shoulder.

Right.

Yeah.

So I guess my first reaction those I wouldn't have introduced myself as an old guy, but I was also a child in the 70s.

I guess I'll have to take that, Mike.

But the the, Yeah.

So it's so part of it's about the reality like I did you have boundaries that you were in and it didn't occur to you to leave.

And is that not total freedom?

Absolutely.

It's not total freedom.

But it's also what is the experience like?

Did you feel free?

Did you think you were free?

Some of those apartments or houses, was there no adult there and one of your friends would let you in?

So you do have moments, where there was opportunities for more freedom.

And, you know, a lot of that really is about what the what the individual child is experiencing.

If you feel like you're watched all the time, even if there's opportunities to not be watched, then how we're talking about it right now, then your watch or supervised.

And again, I go back to part of what the new data says, which is fewer than half of eight and nine year olds have gone down in grocery store aisle alone.

And more than a quarter are not allowed to play unsupervised, even in their own front yard.

So that's a big I appreciate Mike's point, and those are really good points, Mike, and I'm glad you called, but I still think there's a big difference between, hey, I've got to be able to to use my belt in voice, I'm going to scream.

And if I can, if you can hear me, you you're you're good.

You got to be within the sound of my voice.

Might be three streets over.

Might be wherever however far you can get.

But I don't, you know, I have to be within sight necessarily.

You just got to be able to hear me.

And if you step out, the neighbors might tell me, step out of line.

The neighbors might tell me.

Versus you can't even go in the front yard without me standing over your shoulder.

That's a big difference.

A, you know, it is a big difference.

And I think part of this is the the ability to have initiative about it.

Right.

Mike didn't describe getting kicked out of his house to go outside in the neighborhood or even where he goes in the neighborhood.

But this idea that, like, you know, that's being described in the survey, if you can't play in the front yard without supervision, the very idea of, like, I have to get approval, I have to, you know, have, designation of supervision.

The presumption is no, unless the situation is right, as opposed to the presumption is I just go outside and do whatever unless there's some reason not to, unless I cross that street.

That's what's kind of turned around.

That's what's turned around.

And it is different.

Right?

If you if you have this idea that it's special to go outside and play in the front yard, I mean, how that's different, how how far can you go?

You're 16 years old now as you as you have grown up.

You know, what have the rules been on, been with your friends.

Oh, geez.

Okay, so we it's.

You have to totally agree.

Yeah.

Okay, so I have a lot of rules, right?

But for my siblings, my younger siblings, it's like they in the backyard situation is the same.

My mother, she's like, oh my God, you don't have to stay in one place like or like she'll be.

She has so much exactly like I think you guys are.

But like, my little brother is is like, okay, like you guys into this, let me know.

You could go ahead and do it.

You know, it's like I feel like it just depends on the age difference, really.

But for me, it's a lot of security I'm going to like, yeah, I have to tell you a friend.

I have to tell you different mother.

You know, the whole nine yards like it's it's a lie.

Yeah.

Margaret, I'll take your call in just a second here, and.

Well, here's what I want to ask Doctor Scharf, just to kind of one more point on what autonomy actually means for kids because they don't think it means no rules at all.

I don't want people to misinterpret.

Right.

Especially the introduction of this program.

Meaning what kids want is no one's near them.

There's no rules.

If they want to get on a train and go anywhere they can, it's like, no, that's not exactly what we mean by autonomy, right?

And so can you describe that?

Then what we'll do is we'll take a break.

The only break of the hour we're going to take Margaret's call.

I've got a pile of great emails.

We should have spent two hours on this.

Go ahead.

Damn.

Well, yeah.

So autonomy really captures the idea of being able to initiate and have some control over what you do.

So again, it doesn't have to be total like you're describing.

There should still be boundaries.

You can still be rules.

And in fact, even if no one tells them to.

Yeah, most of us are.

We have rules even if we don't think about them a lot.

You know, like it wouldn't occur to us to be violent.

This is, that that's a rule.

Even if we don't think about it like that.

Even no one says that as you're leaving the house.

So it doesn't have to be total freedom, but the idea of being able to choose what you do to initiate it and to own it is really the idea.

And probably coupled with that is this idea that a lot of parents have, that if I give that autonomy, something bad will happen.

That's what the surveys of parents keep finding.

Parents are convinced that a kid is going to get badly injured or even abducted.

If I just give them that, that extra space, I, I can empathize with those feelings because I also remember, you know, so I grew up in the 70s and I have four kids, and I remember, like, you know, you get separated from a kid and if someone finds them in the department store or the grocery store, there's a considerable amount of shaming of like, how did your kid get off on their own?

You know, and even if that only happens once, you're going to remember it forever.

So and I, you know, again, I mentioned seatbelts and bike helmets.

Like, I remember what it was like when my relatives made fun of the idea.

My older relatives made fun of the idea of wearing seatbelts and and how to get around it.

And the and even now there's, like, a backtrack of of bike helmets with all the, the, the bikes in the city that you can just pick up and and ride.

But the so we have got messages about, you know, restrict your freedom in order to have more safety.

And sometimes it's a good deal.

I, I'm confident seatbelts and bike helmets are a good deal and sometimes it's not a good deal.

And what we're talking about today with, you know, where someone doesn't feel like they can initiate going outside, that's not a good deal.

So let's take this very short break and come back to more of your phone calls and email feedback as we talk in our remaining minutes about what to do about all of this.

I mean, as the authors of the study note, it's not easy.

I mean, I'm trying to find what height said about parents who are feeling like, well, change is going to be hard.

Change is definitely going to be hard.

He writes, quote, we certainly don't blame parents for struggling to change the social norms.

Communities, infrastructure and institutions that once facilitated free play have eroded.

Telling children to just go outside doesn't work.

So well when no one else's kids are outside.

End quote.

So let's take that break.

Come right back on connections.

Coming up in our second hour, a local real estate broker says right now, the market is a tale of two Rochester's luxury home buyers and sellers.

They're doing great.

Everyone else not so much.

And one really stark statistic is the average age of a first time home buyer in our market, and how much that has changed in the last 30 years.

We're going to talk about why we're going to talk about the market.

We'll take your feedback on buying and selling homes next.

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This is connections.

I'm Evan Dawson on the phone next is I think this is Margaret in Rochester.

Yes it is.

Hey, Margaret.

Go ahead.

Hey, I just wanted to say that there's kind of like, you have two minds about this issue.

If you're somebody who's in my position as a parent and an educator.

So as an educator, I think that having systems in place to be able to help kids not be on their phone is important, because it's impossible to engage in education without some kind of help.

In terms of like how cell phones actually operate in schools, handling it on a classroom basis is really, really tough.

And kind of the way that your, guest was talking about phone addiction.

Like, we talk about phone addiction in this way.

That's kind of a systemic sometimes it's like heroin doesn't have a marketing team and they don't have a mechanism.

It doesn't have a mechanism to, like, alert you and beckon you back to it that like things and demands your attention.

And it didn't have a team of people who used your psychology against you.

It's a chemical thing.

Phone addiction has all of those same chemical components, and it is a product that is designed to be impossible to stop using.

And so to expect individual teenagers or individual teachers to handle that without some sort of structural adjustment, I think is a lot.

And and then like on the flip side of this, as a parent trying to navigate this idea of like autonomy versus interconnection with in terms of phones and kids is really tough because I think kids want to socialize in the ways that they can.

There are these changing norms.

And the truth of the matter is that if you look at part of the great crime decline since the 90s, a big part of the reason that juvenile delinquency has gone down among, in the United States is it kids spend less unsupervised time with their peers, there's less getting in trouble.

The question is, what do we lose from that?

Which is, I think part of what your study is asking is like, what experiences are kids losing through this?

They're losing delinquency, which is good, but they're also losing some of these, like risk taking experiences and, and experiences of gaining autonomy and threading the needle of those things as a parent is really, really difficult because what you get told is that you're wrong in any direction.

If you over supervise your children, you're wrong.

If you under supervise your children, you're wrong.

And again, there's not a lot of, sort of structural support to navigate this.

Everybody's trying to sort of piece it out on their own.

Does that make sense?

Yeah.

What do you make of the bell to Bell ban then?

It sounds to me like you think that is a structural change as opposed to a like an ad hoc one at a time.

Yeah.

I actually I'm in support of the bell to bell Dan.

And one of the things that I think is, is actually like one of the most grim things that I see on a daily basis is that in my sort of social circles, social media circles.

Right.

Because this is the other irony of all of this, is that a bunch of adults that are addicted to their phones.

Yeah.

Exactly.

Right.

But so like, I'm, you know, as guilty of all of this as anyone is in a lot of the arguments that I see about the bell to bell ban aren't about the impact that it has on education, or because it's almost undeniable that it's going to be it's like if there's a school shooting, my kid can't call me, which is the saddest thing in the world, right?

And I think begs a completely different kind of structural thing.

And my child's mental health is so fragile that I don't like the idea of them.

Not being able to reach me, which again, I think is a very sad state of affairs and and speaks to some larger structural gaps that we have that are separate from this education in question.

But if our biggest I am in support of the belts ban because of our biggest criticism of this, is I want my kid to be able to say goodbye if there's a school shooting or my or my child is so is in such a in such terrible mental health that they have to reach me constantly.

I think we have much bigger problems and much different problems that demand our attention.

Such really powerful points.

Thank you, Margaret, for that.

I'm going to ask Doctor Scharf to talk about that last point in particular, because I think it's so important.

But let me before that, let me just say about the question on school shootings, I can empathize with anybody who feels like I agree with the bell to Bell ban, except for what if?

And that's an awful thing to feel, and it's an awful thing to fear for a parent, for a kid.

And I get it.

I don't want to.

I don't want to harp on math too much.

I don't want to be the guy who's like, mathematically, it's still extremely unlikely that your kid is going to be in a school where there's a shooting.

That is true, and it's important for us to understand that.

But the number is also not zero when it should be zero.

We shouldn't be accepting of anything other than zero.

So I understand the anxiety and we're not going to, you know, we're not good at math when we're feeling a lot of emotions about our kids.

And the second part of that, Doctor Scharf, when she says, you know, parents feel like my child needs to be in touch just for mental health reasons, even all throughout the day.

That's a powerful thing to be concerned about.

Two how do you start to address that?

Well, it is a powerful statement, and I think you ask, how do you start to address it?

And I think committing to starting to address it is actually the most important part.

The, I guess I also want to restate the idea that most just like we're talking about math, most kids will not have a school shooting, right?

And even though it's unacceptable that there's any we need, we shouldn't be complacent with anything less than zero.

Most kids will not have a severe, you know, negative mental health or panic reaction to not having the phone during the day.

But it's not it's also not zero.

Okay.

And so if you happen to be one of the parents or your kid happens to be one of the ones where it's, more challenging, that is more complicated.

And, and you may need to make an individualized plan, but one of the guiding principles should be if it's entirely comfortable, then anxiety's never going to get better, and you're not really going to change behavior if you're now.

The trick is, and this is why I said, the most important part is getting started is introducing an adaptive or a functional or maybe tolerable amount of distress.

Not overwhelming.

If it's overwhelming, then it's that's like some challenge, some distress is okay for you.

But in fact, I mean, just from a development perspective, none of us would have learned to walk if it wasn't for distress, right?

None of us would learn to feed ourselves.

But, you know, that can be taken to a silly extreme to of course, but the the idea of tolerating and introducing some distress, some anxiety for both the parents and for the kids, is how you start.

Mark writes in.

Thank you, Margaret.

Mark writes in to ask, do phones contribute to ADHD in kids?

Well, that is a fantastic question that there's not a simple yes or no answer to right now.

There's there's no question that we've seen correlations, right, of things getting worse as the the quantity of time people spend with the devices, get worse.

We see, more diagnoses of, of ADHD.

But it's not a simple relationship.

There's other things that, contribute even the structure of what we expect for behavior in the classroom and what we call pathology versus normative and maybe not a good fit for our expectations is part of that as well.

So there's not a simple answer.

And if, you know, a child with ADHD may be more drawn to the, the flashier, more dopamine hit, type of activities and may have a harder time breaking those habits.

Briefly.

How do you feel like you can concentrate long enough to sit down for an hour at a time, two hours at a time, and just read a book without stopping?

No, I, I like to stop a lie.

Do you stop to check your phone?

Yeah.

Sometimes I don't even read the book.

It's just.

I just get on my phone, okay.

Yeah.

And so, I mean, I appreciate the honesty there.

I mean, like, that's that's another part of the challenge.

Yeah, I do too.

I, I really appreciate the honesty.

It is part of the challenge, you know, the, the change in people's, attention span and concentration.

And I even see it in physician trainees that like asking people to read, a paper or a textbook chapter, like how many are really going to read it?

How do they read it?

Do they use, tools or tech to shortcut reading it?

I mean, that, has happened at a population level and that is different than ADHD.

All right.

That's a that's a different phenomenon.

But it is, you know, there's if we're if we're moving to talking about changing it, I would say the same thing if you want to if you want to build your concentration, don't go right from 0 to 2 hours of reading.

Do it in smaller increments, you know, and a little bit of distress, not an overwhelming amount of distress.

Ellen writes to the show that says, I'm a mom of three kids living in Rochester, two young teenage boys and a toddler girl.

I have seen screen time change over the years, and this is our generation of parents biggest challenge.

It is daunting.

I've seen it change immensely, even in the ten years between our older kids and our young daughter.

We have tried anything and everything over the years and it is constantly changing.

As a set of to do's.

I am excited to hear the results of this study as it confirms what we have been thinking.

As parents, we have allowed our kids to walk or bike in the neighborhood to school, to the nearby park, or to the corner store for years.

They know how to be safe when crossing roads and interacting with strangers.

We also try to be open to our kids friends coming over to our house as much as possible.

While while it doesn't solve all of our screen time issues, it helps to give as much opportunities as possible for our kids to get outside and interact face to face.

That's from Ellen.

I appreciate that, Ellen.

But maybe on the flip side of that is Greg.

Greg called from San Diego.

And Greg, just because I'm getting tight on time, I'm going to summarize Greg's point.

He says he noticed kids on the school bus after school is out.

He sees kids on the bus, and he says more often than not, they are.

They have their phones out and they're interacting with people through their phones.

Instead of talking to the kids on the bus.

And so part of Greg's point is, even if we put kids more out into the physical spaces, if they've got their phones with them, they may still bring those habits of interaction and not interact with people face to face.

However, as a 16 year old, do you are you ever with a group of people in real life and most of them are just on their phones anyway, not talking to each other?

Yeah.

I mean, what do you think about that?

It's so I'm so used to it.

So first, like, I don't really think much of it, but me and being with my friends, we talk a lot.

So we talk to each other more than on phones all the time.

Unless it's like there's nothing to talk about.

Yeah.

So similar to the double band strategy wise for parents, it's one thing to say, hey, we're going to do our best to try to give a little more, even for parental discomfort.

Okay?

You can have a little more autonomy here, but when you go out, as long as you know you're not going towns away and I can't find you, maybe leave your phone inside.

Is that wise?

I think it is.

And I think, you know, again, with, it's okay to take baby steps.

You don't do everything.

Oh, sure, sure.

With that caveat, but, what you described on the bus, what with the, you know, people write in their phones.

There's lots of factors in that, right?

People might be on the phone talking to their best friend, and they don't identify anyone who's on the bus.

Sure, currently is their friend.

And they would, it say, is helping isolation in the moment.

So, I guess I mentioned that and mostly that I don't think today, moving forward, parents should spend a lot of time criticizing themselves or their kids.

If it's hard, it's going to be hard and take small steps and take small steps.

Yeah.

And but if you if you have the opportunity to only talk to your friends through the device and you're dropped in a group of same age strangers, it's going to be more comfortable to talk to your friends through the device.

Yeah.

So there does have to be, you know, the leave the phone at home.

A little pressure to, to make that interaction happen.

And for the family that won't let a kid play even in the front yard unsupervised, it's a lot to expect them to say, hey, I'll see you at dinner time.

Just go outside, take those small steps at a time.

Yeah, absolutely.

So, I mean, if your household is literally at the point of don't play outside in the front yard, encourage them to go outside in the front yard and you stay in the house, start there.

Right.

And if you need to look out every once in a while to reduce your own anxiety, try to do it in a way where the kid doesn't see it.

And a good point, you know, and with the goal of not doing that forever.

Yeah, getting to the point where you don't need to do that.

But but it really does.

A lot of the things that have been said come back to the point I summed up is whether or not something's a good deal.

And I do think this article and I think the show has really been about kind of raising our awareness.

And I would I would be happy if parents felt like they were.

Well, the autonomy for parents to their parents felt like they were making choices about it rather than constantly reacting, catching up and or having these things done to them.

What a great point and how I, I want to thank you as well.

By the way, do you want more freedom in your life somewhere?

Do you feel like you have enough freedom in your life?

However, not yet, but I personally think about it.

Okay?

Okay love.

Right now you know, well, you're 16 years old and I want to say that it has been you've been very impressive.

You've been very honest.

And I think your insight, this program would have been a lot less without your voice.

Thank you.

How, Ali, for taking the time for us.

Good luck this year at Edison Tech and Rochester.

Have a great school year.

We'll talk to you again.

Thank you.

Outstanding.

Talking to Howa and Doctor Michael Scharf, professor in child and adolescent psychiatry at the University of Rochester Medical Center.

That's always great to have you all.

Thank you.

Thank you very much.

Pleasure.

And thank you for the reminders, by the way, not to be too hard on ourselves.

This it's hard, isn't it?

It is hard.

Parenting is hard.

It is hard.

Parenting is hard.

We all know and if we're going to learn from this, it's got to get a little harder.

Okay.

More connections coming up in a minute.

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