On today's episode of WNYC's new popup advice show, tech writer Manoush Zomorodi, host of the NPR's Ted Radio Hour and author of Body Electric: The Hidden Health Costs of the Digital Age and New Science to Reclaim Your Well-Being leads a conversation about technology and how it can impact development in kids and teens, with Candice Odgers, adolescent developmental psychologist. Listeners call in with their questions, experiences and tips for raising kids with healthy relationships to technology.
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If you'd like to submit advice questions to be featured on the show, or topic suggestions for future shows, please use the form on our showpage at wnyc.org/advice
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Manoush Zomorodi: Welcome to Please Advise, a pop-up advice show from WNYC. I'm Manoush Zomorodi, host of NPR's TED Radio Hour and author of the book Body Electric. If we go way back, I used to host WNYC's tech show, Note to Self. It feels so good to be back in the building as your host this week for Please Advise. Thank you so much for joining us, joining me.
All right. All week, we are going to get down and dirty into my favorite topic, how we live with our technology and what it's doing to us, to our bodies, our brains, our relationships, our work and to our kids. We want your advice and questions about navigating this crazy accelerating world.
Tomorrow, we're going to talk health and tech. Should you wear an Oura Ring? What about asking ChatGPT for medical advice? Then on Wednesday, we're going to get into AI and work. I am actually not so sure that AI is going to take all our jobs, but maybe you completely disagree. We're going to discuss. We might even debate.
Now it is time for today's topic. Tech and young people, from screen time to social media to AI chatbots. Kids are living in a completely different era compared to us, their teachers, their parents. In fact, right now, representatives from Anthropic, OpenAI, Google, and Meta are testifying before the New York City Council about the dangers posed by artificial intelligence. It can feel like doom and fear about the future, and the future, specifically of technology, are just everywhere.
How do you talk to your kids about AI? What about social media? What role does it play in your kids' lives? Teachers, what are your classroom tech strategies, and how do you help kids navigate all the misinformation that is out there? Or maybe you need help. Maybe you need help figuring out screen time rules or whether ChatGPT should be talking to you in your car. Whatever you want to talk about, please call or text us. The lines are open at 212-433-WNYC. That is 212-433-9692. Questions, advice, we want it all.
Luckily, we have got someone amazing to help us with this at-times-fraught topic. Dr. Candice Odgers is a developmental psychologist and professor at the University of California, Irvine. Her research focuses on adolescent mental health and the impact of smartphones and social media. For decades now, she has been looking into what kids are actually doing on their phones. Candice, so glad you're here. Welcome to Please Advise on WNYC.
Candice: Thanks for having me on, Manoush. This is such an important conversation. Happy to be here.
Manoush Zomorodi: Excellent. Okay. Listeners, call in for advice or to give advice on kids and tech that could be smartphones, AI, Instagram, Snapchat, screen time, YouTube, Apple Watches, whatever has got you stressed or you're wondering about. We would love to hear from you. That number again is 212-433-WNYC. That's 212-433-9692.
Okay. Candice, while we wait for folks to call in, I want to ask you to explain, if you would, your research and your thoughts on the way that social media is shaping teenagers' lives. I mean, it might be surprising to some of the people listening. For example, you said in your recent TED Talk, social media is not the major driver of teen mental health problems for most adolescents today. Explain how you came to that conclusion and how it might differ from some of the headlines that many of us read every day.
Candice: Yes, that's a surprising conclusion, and I understand that because it actually surprised us when we first started looking into this. We've been studying adolescent mental health, the things that make young people sad or anxious, for about 20 years now.
In 2008, we did something a little bit different. We started with young people going onto their phones and having them report every day how they were feeling, what they were doing. We started to capture what they were doing online and their experiences offline to try and understand what were the impacts of all this screen time and later, social media on their developing bodies and brains.
Like many people, we expected to see these big effects because they were spending so much time in these spaces. That's actually not what we found. It was a shock to us that we didn't find the big signal that people expected, but it's an important thing to keep in mind as we think about how to respond to young people today.
Manoush Zomorodi: Yes. Listeners, what do you think about this? Is this a surprise to you that maybe social media doesn't have the impact that maybe you thought it did? Have you been taking that into account and looking at other things that are going on in your kid's life in addition to social media? Call us or text us or ask Candice your questions about parenting in an era when we do feel like social media has a lot-- makes a huge impression on kids. The number to call or text is 212-433-WNYC. That is 212-433-9692.
Okay. Talk to us, Candice, then. If people say, "I think it's terrible for my kids. I want them off their screens. I want them off social media. Absolutely not." How do you respond to a parent who thinks that this has been a really big problem in their kid's life?
Candice: Yes. I think it's helpful to separate kind of two things. The first thing is what we want for our young people and most adults want less tech. They don't like social media. They don't like their kids on it. Those are perfectly legitimate values and norms. We want a different childhood. We want them outside more. We want them doing the kinds of things that we did. Those feelings are completely legitimate. Parents have all kinds of freedom to make those kinds of decisions.
The thing that we look at is what are the things that actually predict mental health among young people? What are the triggers of those symptoms of depression and anxiety? When we look at that, certainly, on a population level, what we find are the things that have always predicted, so stress at home and arguments with family, stress over school, pressure to do well at school. Those types of stressors are really the most frequent things that they report and are the most strongly related to their symptoms when they happen.
The signals for social media are actually mixed. They sometimes go in the opposite direction that you would expect. Lots of times, when young people are feeling down, depressed, or anxious, they go online looking for support and help. We don't want to miss those signals of young people going into these spaces looking for things that they might need to support their mental health.
It's a little more complicated. It does feel good to not like social media and to want it out of our children's lives, but if you look at the way that they're actually using it, you get a much more kind of nuanced story. It means that supporting them is going to be a little more complicated than shutting it off.
Manoush Zomorodi: Let's go to a call, see what people think. Khadijah from Morristown, New Jersey. I understand you have a 16-year-old. Kadesha, sorry.
Khadija: Yes, hi. My name is Khadija. Yes, that's fine. That's fine. I have a 16-year-old, and I'm doing with him-- I also have a 12-year-old. I'm doing with them something that one of my friends did with her daughters who are now in college. One of the best piece of advice that I've received, so I was hoping to share it with other parents. Hopefully, it's helpful for them.
What she did is she sat them down when they were about like 12, 13, probably younger now these days. Once her daughter started asking for phones and she sat them down, showed them all the signs of the mental health damages that it has, the negative effects and on your brain and all of that. Then she told them, "Okay, girls, so if you want a phone now, a smartphone, here it is. You can have it knowing that all these harms that it causes you, or you could delay getting a smartphone until you're 18." Then they agree upon whatever. They come up with whether it's a trip or money or whatever prize that they get when they turn 18.
Then so her daughters ended up waiting until they were 18 to get their smartphone. They just had like a dumb phone or like a flip phone until then, just because, practically, with sports and everything. Then when they turned 18, then they got their proper smartphone, and then whatever that prize was that they ended agreeing on. Then her daughters had her friends, like their friends were confiding in them and saying, like, "Man, I wish my parents would do this for me." Like, "I'm so addicted to my phone and all that." Now I'm doing that with my children, and it's working out wonderfully. Hopefully, it'll work for other parents as well.
Manoush Zomorodi: You have a plan in place until they're 18? How do they exist in the world right now then? Do they have an Apple Watch or like--? What's your strategy?
Khadija: Watches. What I have is there is something called like a pinwheel phone that you could get. It's a regular phone, but then there's like a pinwheel program on it. You could ban all the internet and all that. All they have is just a phone for texting, calling, and taking pictures. It looks like a normal phone, so you're not outcasted when someone looks at you. I'm not going to get them a flip phone. Also, they're hard to find, but they're perfectly fine with it.
Now my children are starting to see the differences between other kids. Our school just implemented something with no phones in the school, and the kids are like-- they can't pay attention in class. My kids are perfectly fine because they exist without it anyway. [chuckles].
Manoush Zomorodi: Fascinating. Thank you so much, Khadijah. Candice, what do you make of that? Listeners, you should know I have a 16-year-old and a 19-year-old, and I don't think that something magically happened when my 19-year-old turned 18 that he would have been able to handle a technology that he hadn't necessarily the day before. I hear a lot of parents saying, "Not until eighth grade" or, "When you're 16" or, what do you think about this idea of holding out?
Candice: Yes, I think it's interesting. Families make all kinds of decisions about a media plan that works for them. It sounds like, Khadijah, this is a plan that you were comfortable with and your children were eventually comfortable with. That's great. There's really not a one-size-fits-all. People will say, "What's the magic age at which I can give my child a phone?" That's going to be different for so many families.
I also have a 16-year-old and a 13-year-old. We made a decision, actually, to give our children phones a little bit earlier. At the age of 11, they're walking to school by themselves. They were still in elementary school, moving to a middle school the next year. We wanted to teach them how to safely use that device when we knew all of their friends in this little school before they hit the big middle school environment. We thought that in their environment, they'd have to navigate it. We, as parents, were comfortable with that.
We found a solution that worked for our family. I think the important thing is when we think about these solutions, there's been a lot of shame to different types of families for pressuring them to do one thing or the other. You can make all kinds of decisions based on technology, based on your norms and your values, but don't make them because you think the science says that this is the major cause or cause of depression or suicide or these horrible things that are at risk for our children. If we look at the science, that's actually not what it says.
I think we separate these things. Families make all kinds of decisions that's right for their family, and we want them to make those in ways that feel good for them and for their kids because when we talk to families, the number one fight they have in homes is screen times and phones. We have to negotiate that part of it. We don't want you making these decisions because you're afraid. We don't make good decisions as parents because-- when we're afraid.
Manoush Zomorodi: You are listening to Please Advise on WNYC. I'm Manoush Zomorodi, your host this week. Today, we are talking about your kids and their relationship with technology, and, hey, your relationship with technology. We can talk about that, too. You can call or text us. Any questions along those lines, 212-433-WNYC. That is 212-433-9692. We want to hear from you.
Are you trying to give your kids independence online and trying to manage [chuckles] your own anxiety at the same time? What is working, and where do you need help? Teachers, is there anything that you've learned from your students' life online that you think parents need to know, but maybe they don't ask? Please call, text us. 212-433-WNYC. That is 212-433-9692.
I'm just seeing a text here. One is saying that "Social medias must be behind--" Candice, your study. "It is impossible that phones don't lead to despair. Give a teen a phone, and they will eventually stare at the phone over everything else." Candice, where does the funding come from for your research? You're smiling right now at me on a Zoom call.
Candice: I am smiling because this is the number one thing that people go to, is it? When I go online, I will say something like the number one killer of children in America is actually guns or poverty or stress. People will say, "I must be funded by big tech." I am not funded by big tech. I'm funded by the National Institute for Mental Health and other foundations that invest in supporting young, healthy minds.
Meta does not pay for my research. I understand the reaction to that because this is the big message that people get about social media's impact on mental health, that it is the biggest factor, that it's a thing we need to shut off, that if we could just shut it off and take it away, we'd have happy children who, when they hit adolescence, want to spend all their time with us. That's just not the case, unfortunately. I wish it was. I have two [crosstalk]--
Manoush Zomorodi: [chuckles] What? You mean you don't want to spend all their time with us? What are you talking about, Candice? How is that possible?
Candice: I know.
Manoush Zomorodi: Let's go to Jackie. Jackie is driving very carefully in Old Bridge, New Jersey. Jackie, you have daughters. What are you thinking about with them and their phones?
Jackie: My daughters are in their 20s, but when they were in their teens, they were allowed to have the typical phone that all the teenagers had, but they weren't allowed to have the phones in their bedrooms after, when they went to bed. They were really good about it. They were angry at the time, but as they got older, they just appreciated it that they didn't have the technology in their bedrooms.
Manoush Zomorodi: Because they were well rested, Jackie? [laughs]
Jackie: Yes.
Manoush Zomorodi: We all feel better when we're well rested-
Jackie: Yes. [crosstalk]
Manoush Zomorodi: -I guess. I love this. Now, Jackie, I'm going to put you on the spot here. What about you? What are your phone rules for the bedroom?
Jackie: I really do, honest, with all my heart, I leave my phone in the kitchen-
Manoush Zomorodi: Okay. All right.
Speaker C: -because I see the phone-- Not that I don't have it up there, but when I go to bed at night, I have-- my brain is wired to put it in the kitchen. I just think the bedroom is a very sacred place. My candles are on. My books are on the nightstand. I don't want to get interrupted unless my girls are out. Then I will have my phone upstairs just in case they text or call. Other than that, it stays in the kitchen.
Manoush Zomorodi: Awesome. Thanks, Jackie. Candice, sleep, where does the conversation and social media and phones in the bedroom and screen time and all those things, where does sleep fit into this occasion? When I was researching, my book, Body Electric, which is about how technology impacts our physical health, one of the things that sleep researchers have backed away from is this idea that it's blue light that's disrupting our sleep. That is actually not the case, or what they believe is the cause right now. Can you explain?
Candice: Yes. First, Jackie, I appreciate the focus on sleep. It is critically important. Adolescents need so much of it. Mothers need a lot more of it maybe. The teens need it, and they're not getting it. That has been true long before we had smartphones to put in our bedroom. Our young teens are sleep-deprived, and that is not good for learning and for mental health. Anything we can do to make a better sleep environment, and anything you can do for your child to make a better sleep environment, if that means taking the phone out of the room, I think that's a wise choice.
Now, the research on whether or not sleep is to blame for our adolescents being groggy and sleep-deprived, it turns out that it's not that massive of an impact. Yes, it can be disruptive. Yes, for some young people, they can wake up and be on their phone all night, and you need to get that phone out. The big drivers of adolescent sleep are the fact that biologically, they're primed to stay up much more later.
We have those early school start times, which just lead to this sleep deficit all through the week. Sleep is a huge issue. We should be tackling it. Smartphones are probably part of this equation, and maybe more so for some kiddos, but we've always had this sleep problem with adolescents. We need to work hard to give it back to them.
Manoush Zomorodi: We just got a text in from Sheila in Poughkeepsie who writes, "I recently read The Anxious Generation by Jonathan Haidt, and it cited what seemed like ample studies pointing to social media as being very bad for kids' mental health. Can you discuss how your research, Candice, seems to contradict that?
Candice: Yes. What we do, and it's not just kind of my research that's showing this. There was actually a panel that was put together by the National Academies of Sciences. They put together an expert panel. They reviewed all the evidence around the time actually that The Anxious Generation came out. That came out a couple of months between each other.
What they concluded is that this cultural narrative that smartphones are, as Haidt says, rewiring adolescents' brains and leading to an epidemic of illness. When we look across all the meta-analyses, when we look across high-quality studies and longitudinal data, we don't see evidence that that's the case. In fact, they're these really small, and by small, we mean kind of tiny, explaining less than 1% of the variation in effects on mental health. There's a real gap between what the anxious generation, the story that they were telling and what the science says.
I know that's surprising because it is such a compelling story and it's scary and we're anxious as parents and it's easy to believe that narrative, but it's actually a much different story. If you look at all the evidence that's been collected to date. Interestingly now, if you look at the experimental work and that is new. Since that book came out, there have been a number of experimental studies that have tried to randomly assign people to shutting off social media or withdrawing them from time online. What we find there is on average the effect is close to zero-
Manoush Zomorodi: What is it?
Candice: -across these studies.
Manoush Zomorodi: What is giving--? We hear that teenagers are sadder, more anxious than ever. What is getting them down if it's not social media?
Candice: Manoush, actually teenage mental health is getting a little bit better. We've seen since 2020 improvements in adolescent mental health and teen suicide going down. We're seeing improvements in the last of couple years. Now, this isn't to say that there's nothing wrong in adolescent mental health. It's always been the case. I said I've been doing this for 20 years, that about one in five adolescents experiences a serious mental health disorder, and we need to invest and help and support them.
We did. We saw this increase between about 2008 and 2020. Then we've seen a decrease since then in some of these rates. That period between 2010 and 2020 is really interesting because people point to that, "Oh, that's when social media came online." Instagram came into being in 2010. The other thing that happened during that time that people don't talk about but they definitely should is between that period, the number of caregivers who died from firearms or overdoses actually doubled.
Manoush Zomorodi: Right. We're saying that it's the caretakers, the people looking after these kids who are suffering and that rubs off on them.
Candice: Yes. In the United States, adult suicide had been increasing since 1999. We lived through an opioid epidemic. We had a great recession. We've had adults under a severe amount of stress. We know that one of the most important predictors of how a young person does in life and in their mental health is the health of their caregivers.
Manoush Zomorodi: We're going to take a little break here. I'm Manoush Zomorodi and this is Please Advise on WNYC. We're going to take more of your calls, your texts, your questions, your advice on your kids' relationship to tech, your relationship to your tech when we come back.
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Manoush Zomorodi: You're listening to WNYC's pop-up show, Please Advise. I am your pop-up host, Manoush Zomorodi. Usually, you might hear me, I'm also the host of NPR's Ted Radio Hour. I used to host a show here at WNYC called Note to Self. It feels so good to be back in the chair talking about tech and our lives with Candice Odger. She is a developmental psychologist at UC Irvine, who actually-- Candice, you do something that many researchers do not do, which is you actually know what kids are doing on their phones, anonymized and with their permission, I should say, can you explain how you do your research?
Please, listeners, if you have questions or comments, like questions, because it's not often-- we can troubleshoot. You don't even have to say your name. We will ask what Candice thinks. You can call or text us at 212-433-WNYC. That's 212-433-9692. Meanwhile, Candice, talk a little bit more about how you track what kids are actually doing on their devices.
Candice: A lot of research on mental health goes into schools and we'll administer a survey, and they'll ask teenagers to report in the last 30 days or the last 6 months, "Explain if you've had these symptoms of depression" or, "Explain how much time you spend on average on your phone." That's where we get a lot of our information about screen time and social media and depression. There's problems with that. I don't remember what I had for breakfast [chuckles] but you're asking teens to recall across those 30 days. We're doing it at the same time, so we can't really figure out what comes first in terms of cause and effect.
We decided to do something different. What we do is we survey young people multiple times throughout the day on their devices, sometimes with their consent, install software where we capture what they're typing into their devices and their phone. We get the amount of app usage, their time online, and then we also have them wear wearable so we can capture how much they're sleeping and different metrics of their health.
Then we do something that other teams don't. We follow them prospectively over time, really intensively. We use each adolescent as their own control because parents are hearing these headlines that are about on average or we think this is happening to all kids or a certain type of kid. I'm a parent. I want to know if my son spends too much time gaming late at night. Does that affect his sleep on his WHOOP? We were talking about that this morning actually, or on his Oura Ring. I want to know for him, is that something that's disruptive?
What we do is we use each adolescent as their own control, and we capture when their screen time or their social media goes up or down. Do their mental health symptoms change? Does their sleep change? Compared to them usually. That's a pretty strong test of whether something might be influencing or triggering these symptoms.
That's where we found a lot of this research that kind of goes against the common thinking about this, which is the kinds of stressors I talked about before, like pressure to do well at school and academic stress and family stress. All those things predict kids' symptoms bouncing around day to day as we follow them. Social media and screen time doesn't and it's--
Manoush Zomorodi: Fascinating, because it's really not the message we've been getting. I think what you're saying is, like, "It's really complicated. It has to do with--" Are there mental health counselors at school? Does a child have healthy caretakers at home? What is their financial situation? Are they predisposed potentially genetically to depression or anxiety? All of those things. Then you add in social media, and it's going to be different for every kid. The blanket statement that social media is bad for children, it's just not that simple, I think, is what you're saying.
Candice: Yes, it's not that simple. I don't want to come across as saying there are no harms online. Every place or every setting where there is a young person and there are adults or strangers or people that they know in those settings, children are harmed. That happens online also. One of the things we find with that issue is that we follow people over time, young people that have a history of being victimized at home or bullied at school and have these victimization experiences, they are more likely to experience victimization online also.
When we follow them through, it's really those offline victimization experiences that predict their mental health. These two things, it's not to say that the online harms aren't important and we need to shut them down and get big tech to do better, but we can't understand the harms that happen online without understanding where these young people come from and what kind of harms and experiences they're bringing in with them.
Manoush Zomorodi: I want to change, switch the topic from social media to AI because that is definitely in the news. Listeners, I would love to hear your questions and advice on that could be chatbots or potentially using AI to do homework. Whatever is popping up in your life, please give us a call. 212-433-WNYC. That's 212-433-9692.
There is a text that we got here which is saying that "Yes, we've been talking about the impact on mental health, but can we talk about how kids learn and process information in this era of AI? " Tell me, Candice, how you're looking at AI and what you feel needs to be researched and where things are right now?
Candice: It's moving quickly. We had a grant from the National Science Foundation to get out in the field right as ChatGPT was being released for general use and understanding how parents and teachers and young people were using it. It was really eye-opening, the unique ways in which young people are using these technologies at the moment and adopting them at a much quicker rate than the adults around them to solve some of their issues.
There's two things that I look at, and I think, "Okay, we know this going in. We know that the young people are going to be there first. They're going to be enthusiastic adopters, and they're going to be using these technologies in ways that we wouldn't predict just based on our own behavior, because adult tech use often looks so, so different.
Then the second one, and this relates to our social media discussion. Everyone is saying, "Oh, this is just like social media. We need to act now in these same ways to prevent harm or act more quickly." AI is very different than social media, very different. Social media, especially the social media today, has become what Danah Boyd calls a parasocial relationship. Very few people create content. It's really a small number of accounts that are producing the majority of content that people are consuming it like television. Young people aren't engaging on the public platforms in the same way that they're--
Manoush Zomorodi: Interesting. This is switching. This social media-
Candice: It's switching.
Manoush Zomorodi: -thing is like yesterday's news, basically, is what you're saying?
Candice: Yes. I mean, it's changed. It's like the television with the poorly regulated television of today for young people, but most of the action and the things that we're concerned about as parents or psychologists happens in the offline or in the online chat groups or Discord or those kinds of servers versus on the main platforms.
The other thing is it's a very passive activity right now, social media. Whereas, AI and generative AI, is a very active interaction. People are going there with a purpose. They want something. They need to solve something or fix something, and they need help with something. It talks back. It talks back in a very personal and directive way. I think we can't just sit back and assume, "Oh, this is just like social media." We need-
Manoush Zomorodi: No.
Candice: -to regulate it in the same way. We need to understand. We need to go into these spaces with young people and figure out how they're using it. I think the thing we are learning, though, is we can't easily shut it off, just like we couldn't easily shut off social media. They will find a way around it.
Manoush Zomorodi: I'd love to hear from any listeners who are really talking about AI with their kids. What is the conversation that you're having? Are you thinking that-- maybe you do use Alexa and you think that you need to talk to Alexa so your kids know what it's like to use ambient technology like this, so they see it, or maybe you have a rule in your household that absolutely not. No one is on ChatGPT or Claude or these LLMs. I would really love to hear from someone who can share how they're doing this or if they're just trying to figure it out. Please call or text 212-433-WNYC. That's 212-433-9692.
Can we talk about--? You talked about shame. There's a texter here that's saying it's really hard to get your kid off YouTube without shaming them. They use them. It feels like they use them when they don't even want to. What about this--? I can understand that maybe some kids are turning to chatbots because they have a problem. One of the reasons why they turn to social media is because they have a problem that they want to find help or support from. These chatbots must be extremely alluring to them.
I'm not going to lie. I talk to ChatGPT about business decisions, and it's gotten to know me to the point where it will say, like, "I don't think that's a good choice for you based on what you've told me in the past." It's not wrong. Candice, [laughs] so what are you seeing in terms of kids needing support and finding it in chatbots?
Candice: Similar to adults, there is a new study that just came out that one in four young people are-- these teenagers are asking chatbots for advice on mental health. That can sound alarming or it can sound like an opportunity to get in there and understand what they're asking for. It's alarming because the companies have not set up the guardrails. They have gotten the big F . They have failed. They are not thinking about this, and they need to do better.
The fact that we now know, and we should have been able to predict that young people are going to go into these spaces. They have questions. They have problems that they don't necessarily want to talk to an adult about that could be better served in a private setting, but the guardrails have not been in place, and that has been inexcusable.
We're at this moment right now where we know young people are there. They're going to continue to do this. We can't expect that to change, but we can expect the companies to do better in terms of getting people who have clinical expertise involved, security involved, people who are able to route young people to offline supports when and where they need it.
That's, I think, the real kind of five-alarm fire drill that's happening right now is like we know they're there. We know that they're talking about and asking for help. Where are we adults? Are we going to sit here having a conversation that says, "Oh, let's just figure out how to ban them," or are we going to organize and actually go to the spaces where they are and where they're asking for help and figure it out?
Manoush Zomorodi: Let's go to Alan, who is calling from Poughkeepsie, New York. Hi, Alan.
Alan: Hi there. This is a fantastic topic. I'm really glad that we are having this conversation. One of the things that I'm noticing in my teenager when they were in high school, now that they're off to college, and many of their peers is that they're incredibly resistant to using AI systems and chatbots. I come from the tech industry. I've been working with this technology for years.
On one hand, I understand their reluctance, and I'm kind of glad about their skepticism. On the other hand, I almost wish they would embrace it more and more appropriately. For example, my kid was writing a job application, a cover letter, and they would write it and give it to me to look over. I said, "Okay, let's give it to one of the chatbots for them to see what they say." They would say, "No, I don't want you to."
I feel like this is an appropriate use case. It's not "Write this letter for me." It's "Here's a letter that I wrote. Tell me how I can make it better. How can I tweak this? Give me some feedback," and maybe teaching them how to evaluate that feedback. I feel like a lot of kids are just outright rejecting it.
Manoush Zomorodi: That's really interesting, Alan, because my daughter is 16, and anytime she sees me on ChatGPT, she's like, "Great. Thanks for ruining my generation's future with all your energy usage." She's not wrong. AI does use a lot of energy.
Candice, there is definitely a young person backlash against AI and yet, they may not even realize that they're using AI because it's now embedded in all the tools we use, tech tools we use, whether that is checking the weather to seeing what our schedule is and running a lot of coursework online as well. How do we balance this sort of knee-jerk reaction? Which that's what young people do. They take a stand and we want them to do that. On the other hand, we need their help to figure out the best way to use these tools in constructive and productive ways.
Candice: The tech lash is real. It's everywhere. It's among adults. It's among young people. There's often a distance, though, between-- we see this with adults and social media, how we talk about our views on social media and our dislike of it, but then our behavior of what we do. I think it's helpful to separate those two things. It's our moral stance on it and that's how our everyday behavior, if I'm being honest, what I actually-- how much time I spend on my phone or if I take my phone to bed or if I'm-- all of these things.
I think that it's helpful to kind of figure that out. With young people, there is a strong sentiment among some young people that this really is bad for all these reasons. I can get behind them on this with the data centers and the environmental costs, costs, but then the reality of the workforce and education and their life is that AI and these tools are going to be embedded into most of the things that they, they open up in a day. It's going to be really hard, unfortunately, to keep those convictions true.
I love the point about the appropriate use case that was brought up because I think that's what we're not doing a good job of right now and what young people are saying that they're confused. In some setting, and some teachers where they're able to use generative AI as a thought partner, and it's appropriate to use to brainstorm or encoding. Then in another setting, they'll get accused of cheating, or yet in another setting, they'll get shame.
There's a lot of confusing messages that young people are getting about, like whether this is okay to use, when it's okay to use. If I wanted to use it appropriately, how would I actually do that? This is a technology that obviously has all these strengths. How would I use it to teach me algebra one content versus just giving me the answers?
Manoush Zomorodi: We just got a text from Waldo in New Jersey who says, "ChatGPT and the like is a tool. It's a tool like any other. You can use it for good, or it can be harmful. We definitely use ChatGPT with our kids to teach them best practices just like we will teach them how to drive on the right side of the road or to not stick their hand in the blender. We'll teach them to use ChatGPT to learn, not to cheat on homework." We need to take another quick break. I'm Manoush Zomorodi and this is Please Advise on WNYC more of your calls and texts and Developmental Psychologist Candice Odgers about our kids relationship with technology when we're back.
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Manoush Zomorodi: You're listening to WNYC's pop-up show, Please Advise. I am your host this week, Manoush Zomorodi, and I am talking to Developmental Psychologist Candice Odgers about kids and tech. Let's go to Philip in Manhattan. Philip, I understand you are a child and adolescent psychoanalyst. What is your take on this conversation?
Philip: My take is that parents, of course, want to protect their children, and parents, of course, feel more threatened by new things that they do not understand. From time immemorial, parents have been worried about new things. Plato was worried about writing. He thought it was going to ruin the memories of young people, comic books, dancing, bicycling, all of these things at one time or another were considered to be threatening. They often had to do with the threat of burgeoning sexuality in the adolescent, and the parent feels that they've got to control it in one way or another.
Like the caller who said they're trying to teach their kids how to use these tools responsibly, I think that's what has to be done rather than wholesale outlawing it. I can imagine that 200,000 years ago when the bow and arrow came in, there were some parents who said, "Wait a second. What's wrong with spears? We've been using spears forever. This is going to ruin people." It's just part of development, development of the family, and development of society and culture. There's always this tug back and forth.
Manoush Zomorodi: Philip, thank you so much. Candice, I mean that's what some people will say. They'll be hearing your take, Philip's take, and say, "Oh--" This is not just the moral panic. This is something very different that is happening here. In fact, I can read some of these texts which are saying, "Absolutely not. I completely disagree with this. I have seen what is going on with my kids and tech. This is just awful. I'm not listening to this."
Another person is saying, "What about cyberbullying?" Oh, we just got a text where they're actually bullying me, so there's that. Obviously, people feel [chuckles] a lot of emotions when it comes to technology and kids. I am laughing not because it's funny, but because, oh, my gosh, how do we even begin to talk about this stuff? When people say to you, Candice, "Oh, this is not just the latest moral panic," how do you explain that you actually are, I think, trying to explain the nuance and how each child is different, I think is what you're saying, too.
Candice: Yes. I'm not saying that there's nothing at all to be worried about. We're parents, and we're going to worry about everything, but if we worry about everything, we are going to exhaust ourselves and really not make great decisions as a parent. The task really is figuring out what are the issues that I'm going to focus my attention on and really invest in, and what are the issues that maybe aren't posing as big of a threat to my young person or that might be an opportunity to support them in this space.
Every time a new technology comes in, it does feel scary, and it feels like this time it's different. When I was a kid, it was Pac-Man, and the Surgeon General called it out, and Congress convened to set a Pac-Man addiction and an age limit on it. They felt that. They felt like this was going to destroy them then, and it feels like it's going to destroy us now in some ways.
I think that there are real threats in this space. As parents, we have to take those seriously but we also have to understand if we're thinking about protecting our young people, the vast majority of young people, when they are harmed, they are harmed in person, in their homes, in their schools, by people that they know and that they should trust. Those are the types of things that we have to be aware of and remain vigilant now. If we only have a conversation about social media and smartphones, we're going to miss seeing what some of the real threats are, and we're going to miss seeing some of the real opportunities.
I understand the anxiety. I have young teenagers. Study after study tells us that parental anxiety peaks at exactly this time as our children are changing and moving a little bit further away from us. Their bodies are changing, their brains are changing, their social worlds are changing. It is a really tough time to be a parent. It would be really great to have a villain like social media to blame and shut off and make it all just a little bit easier but it's complicated.
Manoush Zomorodi: It's complicated. We have a question. How do we teach our kids, what are some of the best ways that they can use AI tools appropriately? How do we evaluate the results? What can we do?
Candice: I think some of it we're learning together where this is a pretty rapidly moving technology, and I think as adults, we're learning how to use this technology. I think, Manoush, you probably had to learn how to prompt in the right way to get it to tailor your action. We're going to have to sit down and do some of this with our kids, and they will show us some interesting things.
This happened to me on the weekend where I was trying to have a conversation with my daughter. We get these reports on Schoology of what assignments might be missing, and every parent blows up on the weekend when they realize their kid is not handing things in. She just said, "Oh, I took pictures of it. I fed it into Chat. We have a plan for getting this back on track."
I have a decision. I have a decision to say, "That is completely irresponsible. Do not feed stuff into chat. Why aren't you talking to me about this?" She independently went through her gradebook, tried to get some help in terms of how she should prioritize getting the assignments done. I thought I chose to see the good parts of that because this is the period where we're trying to teach them how to figure out a way to get themselves organized, to get all the things done that they have to get done in a day.
I think part of it is not assuming that we have all the knowledge that's just there that we can teach them, that we're going to learn a little bit with them about what works and we can try and guide them in terms of what would be inappropriate uses of the technology as we learn about that, and what are going to be the most helpful given their set of problems or issues.
Manoush Zomorodi: Back to social media. We have a couple questions. I am witnessing my child struggle with getting off of social media. Another person is talking about "You can't compare Pac-Man to a young girl being fed pro-anorexic posts on TikTok." How do you address those concerns and what they're seeing with their own eyes, some of the awfulness that is online?
Candice: There are awful, awful things that happen in online spaces. I'm kind of the first and have been for a long time of saying that companies need to do better on content moderation, on the algorithmic feeds, on policing what happens in terms of contact with young people. All of those things are true. I'm not saying that any of that is great or that your children should be spending more time online.
What I'm saying is that in those situations where young people are struggling with really serious mental health issues, including anorexia, this is often one part of a very complicated story. If we reduce it all to social media being to blame, we're not going to be able to fully support young people in this. Yes, Pac-Man probably felt the same way that AI feels now to adults, every--
Manoush Zomorodi: Do you think, though, Candice? Definitely, Pac-Man didn't talk back to me. That's for sure or make suggestions as to how to live a better life.
Candice: That's true. I would be lying to say if I said that I did not have anxiety about artificial intelligence. I often ask myself, "Is that my age that's talking? I've become one of these adults that's afraid of everything that I didn't grow up with. Is it because the tech leaders are feeding this information about they've created this super intelligent being so that they can capture all the regulation around it? Was it our IPOs come up?" I don't know. When people tell me a scary story, the first question I have is, "What are they trying to sell me or what are they trying to sell with it?" Then I back up and I try and do what's the actual real risk appraisal on this.
Manoush Zomorodi: I think what you're actually talking about also and to people who are saying, "How do we talk to our kids?" I think it's talking about the fact that we don't know rather than being top down in a lot of ways, as opposed to like, "Here are the rules. These things are dangerous." It's a conversation that is nuanced but I feel like kids today know so much more than I did as a teenager and we need to--
They're aware of the political situation. They are aware of all these debates that we're having and they have opinions themselves. Being able to have that conversation, wow. It's not easy. Those of us who can have those conversations, take a deep breath. You have said before in the past, one of the things that parents can do is look at their kid and not just at their phone.
Candice: I think if we get too fixated on the technology and it's easy to do that because it's the headline all the time and it's something that's consuming all of us, we miss seeing what our kids really need from us. That's the thing that I worry most about. The technology will change. The thing that we're worried about as parents will change but this kid in front of us has needs today. If all we can see is the AI or the phone or the social media and continue to have these arguments over that technology versus thinking, "Why are they going to this space? What are they looking for? Is there a reason they can't get it from me or from school? Is there something I could be doing to--?"
I think that the caller who talked about not wanting to get their child off social media and spend less time, that is a common, common thing that happens. The question that I often ask is go through the other things before you get to the social media. Is my child sleeping? Are they doing well? Are they enjoying school? Do they have something else in their life, extracurricular or sports or drama, something that they like that they're interested in? Often, young people are going to the phone, and we're seeing them there at the end of a very long day where they've actually accomplished quite a bit.
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Manoush Zomorodi: They've accomplished quite a bit. Instead of telling them not to do something, ask them what they did do that day. Candice Odgers, thank you so much. Dr. Candice Odgers is a psychologist at University of California, Irvine. Thank you, listeners. I think this ended up being more of a debate rather than a call and advice show, but, hey, that's part of figuring out how we move forward. Maybe we don't know how to do this going forward and we got to talk about it, so I appreciate that so much.
Coming up tomorrow, Dr. Dhruv Khullar. He is a physician. He is a health policy researcher and a writer for New York Magazine. He will be here to help us navigate health trends and the latest in medical technology and misinformation. You can call in tomorrow or submit your questions online in advance at WNYC.org/advise. I'm Manoush Zomorodi, host of NPR's TED Radio Hour and your host this week on Please Advise on WNYC. Thank you so much.
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