Nicole Rawson: Digital Detoxing for Families

Today, we're tackling a topic that's become all too familiar: our obsession with screens. It used to be that baseball was America's favorite pastime. But now? It's all about those screens—video games, social media, and more. But are we going too far? Are we inadvertently hurting our kids by giving them free rein with technology?

Our guest today, Nicole Rawson, founder of Screentime Clinic, knows firsthand the damaging effects of technology overload. As a mom to two boys, she initially saw the appeal of technology—entertainment, education, you name it. But before long, she noticed troubling signs in her boys—withdrawal, mood swings, and so many others. It was then she realized her son was hooked, addicted to screens.

Nicole went on a mission to break her son free from the grip of addiction. And from that journey, Screentime Clinic was born—a lifeline for families grappling with the same issues. Through their innovative programs, Nicole helps families detox from excessive screen time and reclaim their lives.

BIO:
Nicole Rawson, founder of Screen Time Clinic®, the largest international network of certified digital wellness educators. 

Nicole Rawson is the founder of Screen Time Clinic®, the largest international network of certified digital wellness educators helping schools, corporations, and parents make smart choices about time online to flourish in the real world.

Featured in the WSJ, PBS, and other news outlets, Nicole shares a wealth of knowledge about this nichè area called "Digital Wellness" that impacts all areas of human mental and physical health as well as youth brain development.  She is the author of a children’s book, Screen Smart Sam, and mother of two young adults whose struggles with gaming and social media addiction inspired her career change from public school teacher to digital wellness expert.

Her children's book Screen Smart Sam inspires families with young children to prevent digital media overuse (DMO) which causes developmental delays and symptoms similar to those on the Autism spectrum. For adults, Nicole offers self-paced courses and live seminars to guide all ages about ways to prevent technology from eroding our essential human functions necessary for a healthy, happy, and productive life.

RESOURCES/ REFERENCES:

Company info: Screen Time Clinic, established in 2018,  https://screentimeclinic.com/

Contact Information: Nicole Rawson nicole@screentimeclinic.com

Social Media Tags:

https://www.instagram.com/screentimeclinic/

https://www.linkedin.com/in/nicolerawson/

Transcript

This Way Up - Episode 20 - Nicole Rawson 

[00:00:00] So we want to have our children steered towards balanced life where they will be given the tools to use technology as a tool, not as a coping mechanism, not as a substitute for going out and being entertained in the real world, the real way, because life is really hard. And games are really easy, so we want our children to figure out who they are and put these building blocks together of what am I doing with my time?

Why is that person doing that? How can I be a friend? 

Welcome to This Way Up. We are bringing you engaging, informative, and inspiring conversations surrounding all aspects of mental health from the perspective of us as parents and caregivers. I'm Andrea Nanigian. And I'm Emie Waters. When someone you care about is struggling with their mental health, this can be an incredibly stressful and challenging time.

So we're here to provide valuable resources to support you as you navigate this journey.

We have been waiting for a guest like this for almost every episode that we've done. Finally, we have a guest, Nicole Rawson, the owner of Screen Time Clinic, who's going to talk to us about digital detox. Yeah, we are so thankful to have somebody who could speak to digital detox and screen usage for our kids of any age.

Really, I would say if you have a child again of any age and you question whether they are on their device or computer too much. This episode is for you. If you wonder how to initiate a detox or a change in behavior for your child on games or whatnot, this episode is also for you. I think we all have something to gain from this one and we can't wait to introduce Nicole.

Our guest today is Nicole Rawson, a digital wellness expert. She is the founder of Screen Time Clinic, a company of international educators dedicated to helping schools, corporations, and parents make smart choices about time online to flourish in the real world. She is the author of a children's book, Screen Smart Sam, and a mother of two young adults who struggles with gaming and social media addiction inspired her career change from public school teacher to digital wellness warrior.

Welcome. Thank you so much for joining us this morning, Nicole. You are welcome. It's nice to be here. Yeah. Emie and I, uh, this is a huge topic of conversation for us and I know for almost everybody out there is this whole digital wellness and how do we make something that's so prevalent in our lives be not harmful to our lives, I guess is the best way to say it.

We would first love to hear why you started Screen Time Clinic. Well, like you said in the bio a little bit, I had a personal experience, mainly with my older son, who was really drawn to screens at an early age and started using screens. Um, my fault, of course, we didn't know any better. Like most parents don't intentionally want to cause harm, but I thought baby Einstein would make him super smart.

And, um, turns out baby Einstein has been sued. That's why we don't see it around anymore. But that was the beginning. Oh, I didn't even know that. Exactly. I didn't know that either. We were a huge baby Einstein. We were too. So turns out that's the start of the EdTech bamboozle that these educational platforms really have never been proven to cause any sort of advanced learning than the old fashioned pen and paper and toys.

And that still stands today, believe it or not, that early learning, whether it's reading or shape recognition, is best in person and it carries too many risks doing it 2D. Kids with their 2D recognition is not the same as 3D recognition, but I didn't know that I thought it would make them brilliant We did tummy time with baby Einstein.

I had nannies and told them to have him do baby Einstein I mean it was so out of control and then we got iPads for Christmas and angry birds Pretty much destroyed our family, but he was having fun. So, you know, hey, the kid's happy! And this is what we see even in Screen Time Clinic, that parents just like me, we want to see our kids happy.

And if this device is creating this happiness, like, far be it from us to be the joy killers, that now is my title that my kids call me. But, uh, my adult children,

joy killer, Nicole Rawson, professional joy killer. Um, but in all seriousness that, you know, just because it makes you happy, doesn't mean it's healthy. And there's so much misinformation around this. I certainly didn't know that, uh, 12 years ago. We still don't have accurate information online and through companies were told these games make them smarter, our creationism, all sorts of things, you know, that everybody's doing it and that it's part of growing up, that we need technology eventually.

I mean, I've been meaning to put a list on our website of all the reasons why that this is such a compelling platform but it's really harming our children and that's not mom shaming, that's not my opinion, that's pure fact, and it hasn't gotten out enough to parents yet so they can make informed decisions and really make big change.

Well, I don't know about you, Emie, but my heart's like tightening because, you know, we, that is what we've done. And I feel like we're so far down the, the path, it's like, you know, how do we reverse it? Right. I didn't have any support. I didn't know how to reverse it. And that's really what led me. to start Screen Time Clinic after I became my own expert through working with therapists and doctors and trying to help my son and figure out like, what is this thing called video game addiction and why are no interventions working?

Why isn't tutoring working? Why isn't therapy working? Why isn't he doing better as he's getting older? You know, all these questions I had to solve for myself and I had nobody, even therapists said, Oh, let him keep gaming. It's his only source of friends. So there was so much misinformation that when I finally, you know, figured out like, Hey, we need a break.

We need to take this all away and we need a total transformation here. He was 14 and we took all the screens away and he started other interests. He became a pilot, got his like real pilot license rather than sitting on a video game. Six hours a day. You know, it's it's my hope that in the classroom when I was teaching, it has to start at home.

And I saw that so clearly. And so I transitioned from being a teacher and helping one student at a time to helping many, many families because we really need our Children to be happy and healthy and really And well cared for at home without these digital distractions so they can learn in school and they can connect with their peers and they can have all these coming of age experiences in the real world that otherwise they're completely distracted and oblivious to.

Wow, so many questions in my brain right now, but I do want to stick with the fact that we just asked you about how you started with Screen Time Clinic and how that came about. Can you explain what services? You provide to the clinic who your clients are a little bit more about that. Yeah, we provide not only presentations and do educational outreach similar to this, but we also do one on one coaching consulting with families.

We've been in business since 2019. We have a whole network of worldwide educators that are dedicated just to this topic, you know, just like the stock market traders, they read the financial times every morning. We read the studies every day on Google news alerts come into our inbox and we know the latest in digital media and the latest research and best practices.

And this is our niche and we are experts in it. And we're educators. We're not doctors and we're not therapists. So an integrated treatment plan is really what we provide at Screen Time Clinic. We work with your other providers. We are there as part of your team to help you navigate the digital world and see how this impacts your child.

And so it's two pronged through education initiatives. We go in schools and podcasts and small groups and very, very large groups and both for families and like we're talking before for adults too, because this impacts all ages, but children's brains are physiologically different than adult brains. They are not just smaller brains.

They are structurally, physiologically different and digital media greatly, greatly impacts them and visual stimulation of any type of screen, whether it's cartoons or games, that really impacts them also. And so that's why we're seeing children being the most harmed and compounding that they don't have any sensibilities about themselves.

So they can't self identify that it's harming them like a 28 year old could. Right. Wow. So they definitely need the guidance of the parent. Otherwise they will just continue doing what harms them [00:10:00] because they don't know any different and they have no self awareness that that frontal lobe doesn't develop until age 26.

You know, you mentioned early on the, the 3D and being able to touch, we're taking away the kid's other four senses, right? They're just, they're just vision at this point. And so they're never fully developing any of those other sensory. So we see these kids that early on are having sensory disorders. I wonder if, you know, it's, it is somewhat caused early on by some of this, or at least it is.

It definitely is. There's more, more and more studies that are focusing on the littles because we've never seen young kids be given devices as widely as they have since the pandemic. And it's been popularized years before that even. Um, so we can see a direct correlation between the sensory motor skills, um, and a rise in autism is actually connected to early use of screens.

And it is. proven to be causal, and it also is proven to be an extra risk factor. So not only is it causing these symptoms on the autism spectrum, those, and that's environmental, the genetic portion of autism is made worse. by time on screens. And that's something that many parents see their Children with autism are very good with screens.

It makes them happy. It satisfies them. But it's also causing a lot of neurological disruption that's making their challenges even greater. And parents do not know this. Because they've never done a screen detox and seen after 30 days, after 2 weeks, after 60 days, the difference in how their child functions because they have been using these screens for so long that it seems like It's not like unavoidable and we, we know it is avoidable and it does heal itself, especially the earlier intervention and the earlier you can do these digital detoxes to really see your child's neurological baseline without the interference of screens.

I still have so many thoughts going through my head all at once, so I just have to calm down, but pick one question at a time. You said earlier something about you offer treatment plans. So when you said treatment plans, I went, Oh, she is talking about an addiction that you have a treatment plan for an addiction.

I think it must be so hard for some parents to admit or recognize or understand. Their child of any age could potentially have an addiction to a screen because we do start off by saying this is good for them. They are their schools dictating the school might be dictating more screen time or it makes them so happy to get done with homework and they get an hour to play video games.

How does a parent know when there is a problem that warrants a treatment plan? Well, quite frankly, a child should have a take it or leave it attitude and they should not be exposed to screens before age eight is now our best recommendation because of those neurons that are really wiring up. And so if your child has early exposure to screens, and for some kids, even An hour a day, 30 minutes a day.

If they have curriculing diagnosis, any on the autism spectrum, any developmental delays, anything that's out of the normal, or if they have an obsession or more interest in screens, then take it or leave it. So if you take away the screens, if you turn it off, if they throw a fit. This is an addiction, and this is what you're seeing is the withdrawal and the um, over, over um, stimulation of their brain, and it's, it's not normal.

And that's the biggest thing we see when we do these digital detoxes, that the moms say, Oh my gosh, it's so much easier not having any screens right now, and not managing them, and not taking them away. The kids are completely different. The temperature in the family is completely different. It's way better.

Things are much more cohesive. The moms are less stressed out. The other siblings are less stressed out. It is amazing. And you know, nobody has taken a widespread initiative and undergone this yet, but we're hoping that will change soon because you know, screen time gets out of use for many, many reasons.

None of them intentional. Nobody wants their child to have be afflicted by screens or have a digital addiction or have this impact them for the rest of their life. They're not growing out of it. But, um, what we do want is to be able to back step to take a break to help them use technology mindfully and to really do a detox and say, okay, for 30 days, we are going to have a reset and we're going to see how we feel.

And we're going to assess how we're going to go forward from here. And that is just a smart decision, just like you would if you had a peanut allergy, if you had diabetes, if you had any sort of ailment going on, um, you would want to remove the agitator or that stimulus that's causing harm and see how you're feeling and then Um, reintroduce with careful intention.

Could you imagine if we all got together kind of like this is sort of silly example, but how people are saying, Oh, it's January. I'm doing dry January. I'm not drinking. If everybody in the country could do a whole detox month. Abstain from social media or their screens for a whole month. Could you even imagine, Andrea, what, what that would look like?

I can't even imagine. And the world goes on. I have done it, right, all the time. Nobody cares that you're not there. Your business doesn't crumble. Nothing, nothing happens. It's all in our mind that, you know, and, and social media in particular has become So fed to you. And that's the problem with our teenage girls that we're seeing all of this harm being done.

Not only are there so many predators on there, there's so much fake news on there. There's so many tentacles of this really extreme content that children should not have access to. Oh, for sure. Well, it's so manipulative. You know, I, I think that's, it's manipulating their little minds. And you know, when we were young, we had television, right?

But you had five channels, you had some commercials and you turned it off. It was always turned off at what, 11 o'clock. Do you guys remember like the funny screen that came on? You just didn't watch it all night. It was self limiting. Yeah. And it wasn't high intensity. Right. Right. It was, it was, yeah, you're right.

And it wasn't so, um, high intensity, not only in the topics, but even if you, I mean, have you guys watched movies or TV shows from before and you're like, oh my gosh, when are they going to get to the plot? Because now everything is just so in your face. And that's the focus stamina, you know, being able to sit through a long movie and get through that dull moment.

You know, how can they possibly sit through a meeting or be polite at the dinner table when somebody is talking about something that they're not interested in when they're constantly flicking through YouTube, Tiktok, Instagram. These video games are so fast paced and they're being Served the content.

Most of the time they are not choosing the content. This is not seeing what their peers are up to all the time. It's content that is served to them, not of their choosing that is engaging and really, um, keeping them on the platform much longer than they intend. Does the content or platform matter make a difference?

Because if we're talking about social media, you know, it's one thing to say, Oh, I'm going to Not engage in social media, but for me as adult as a professional to say I'm going to be off of a screen would be near to impossible, right? So where's the balance? What are where is the good? Where's the good place?

What's acceptable? What's what's worse? Well, that all comes down to, um, the age appropriateness of it and the symptoms also. So that's why we do the one on one consults and our tech express reset program, where we one on one guide parents through what is appropriate to take a break from and how much with this digital detox do we need.

So for adults, you know, just focusing on your work, singular focus, having one tab open, use time blocking. We really promote that, you know, to have a, I wish I had it in front of me here. Um, we have it on our website, but to time block your time and say, from this amount of time, I'm answering emails from this amount of time I'm doing website maintenance.

From this amount of time I'm working on the podcast editing, whatever these business tasks are to really focus on them and allow yourself the time to really get them done and then move on to another task and not be distracted. Certainly The, um, the leisure, social media, scrolling through [00:20:00] the news is very addictive too, especially for those that are of high intelligence, have information overload, um, susceptibility, that you're constantly consuming new information, which is hard on your brain.

And that contributes to not sleeping well at night, you know, headache, eye issues, just. Feeling of tech overwhelm, we call it so to really narrow down what's essential and take a break from what's not essential and fill that time with real things. But for kids, all of it needs to go when we're doing a digital detox because even looking at screens Really makes their mind get hyper Aroused and we want to have a calm Neurological baseline and we want them to work on the game of life video games Technology is so easy.

I want parents to hear this your kid does not need to be proficient at Technology Because grandmas, anybody can pick it up. I've seen kids come from different countries who have never had a computer before. And they are proficient in one day. So we don't need to have, this is another myth of proficiency.

Well, they need to use it someday. What about now? Well, that's like, they're going to drink someday. Why don't we give our two year old a shot of vodka? So it's a harmful substance and we need to delay it. And um, you know, wanting your kid to be a gamer and a coder that is such old school mentality now, those professions have huge health risks and the sedentary lifestyle and the way that they function in companies.

They're not making millions, most of them, and, um, it's a very unhealthy profession to have that be your whole life, so we want to have our children steered towards balanced life where they will be given the tools to use technology as a tool, not as a coping mechanism, not as a substitute for going out and being entertained in the real world, the real way, because life is really hard And games are really easy.

So we want our children to figure out who they are and put these building blocks together of what am I doing with my time? Why is that person doing that? How can I be a friend? How come I don't have friends? How do those people have friends? Like, you know, just looking at the whole world, we take so much for granted how we became who we are.

But it happens in real life, not online. So you've got a child who, let's just say, doesn't have the propensity to be addicted. Because I think, if I understand addiction correctly, is there is some component that's going to happen to some people, but it doesn't happen to everybody, right? Yeah. Not everybody could be addicted.

But you've got a child who doesn't show signs of addiction. And what is a reasonable limit? on uh, technology or is there any reasonable limit? Sure, sure. And that's the other thing when we're looking right now at the AAP and all of these recommendation sites, they are all unfortunately influenced by big tech.

Big tech is a huge, huge conglomerate that has a lot of influence with our Rules and all these reporting agencies. And so for, you know, currently it's one to two hours a day over two years old. Okay. Is it one hour a day or is it two hours a day? Because that's 100 percent increase in the amount of time you're exposing your child to this harmful platform.

Plus, why are we doing a daily allowance? We know from research information. everywhere that habits are formed. Harmful habits are formed in doing something even for 15 minutes on a repetitive basis. So why are we promoting a daily allowance on a platform that we know has been proven to cause neurological harm and saying, it's okay to do an hour or two a day.

So the best practice now is to do it occasionally, an hour. If it was my kid and I had a total redo, I would do it maybe 30 minutes once a week. Once a week. Why do they need more? Yeah. What if the kids have to be on a screen for school? I know a lot of schools are ipad based or even Computers. Yep, and that depends on the age of the child also But there's a lot of parents that are now Lobbying for no screens in elementary school because that's really when they're the most sensitive And if you can't get your school to change, we can issue a screen modification demand letter that says your child has neurosensitivities to electronic screen stimulation and should be given alternative learning methods and that's Super simple.

Teachers accommodate all sorts of learning disabilities and learning ways that kids learn best and it does work and you know, we've seen that kids don't need a lot of homework. They need to be playing. They need to be outside. They need to be interacting with others. And until high school, it's okay for a parent to say, my child's not doing that homework at home on the computer, and he's not going to be working more on the computer at home, and we want less time or no time at school.

But there has to be a plan with it. You can't be letting him play video games and then saying he can't do the homework. or sending him to school for a digital detox at school, and he comes home and jumps on the computer at home. So it does have to be a true something that the family's taking seriously, that they plan to police also to make sure that it's happening and advocate for their child.

And, um, the old fashioned teacher, pen, paper, and with peers, that learning is the best, so. Yeah, pen and paper, that would be huge. But, of course, you know, in high school, in high school they need to write papers, in middle school, as long as they're actually using it as a tool. And it's so addictive and so distracting to get off focus, that that's why we need these.

monitoring software, put on computers that really limit what kids can do because they are in the risk taking and information seeking phase right now of their life. And so they want to, they want to push the buttons. They want to see where they can go. They want Their little minds want them to explore everything they possibly can and not do what they should.

That's just part of growing up and coming of age. So, to have software on computers that if you're spending an hour writing your paper, You're actually doing that. It's a good point though. That is a really good point. I know that they have got some restrictions on where you can go on the internet and such with some of it, but to actually keep them into specific, what is your task that you need to do that helps with focus?

Yep. Yep. Yeah. Focus stamina. 

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I think the school has a really interesting role here because, um, and I never really thought about that because a lot of the screen use does start. Yeah, I think a lot of it is starting in, in elementary school these days. So I have a little bit of hope, Emie, because my kids didn't have iPads when we were young and they didn't have phones when they were super young.

So we want to delay, delay, delay, just get them older and older and older. And this is why. We want, you know, age restrictions on these apps, social media. These video games are not kid video games. There are mostly adults playing them. Tons of predators on the video game apps, and they are 18 plus platforms, both social media and all these video games, and it should be enforced that way.

It shouldn't be parents against their kids and parents against parents. It should be a protection that we have as America to protect our youth like other countries do. And the platform should be responsible. So when we see these full page ads in the Wall Street Journal, in the New York Times saying, Medic came up with a new parental control feature.

It is not the parent's job. It is the platform's job to keep kids off their platform and keep them safe. It should not have kids commingling with adults on their platform. But kids are their most valuable users, they are their earliest users, and they will be their lifetime users. And so they want to hook them [00:30:00] when they're young.

Because if they do that, they have them for life. So it comes down to parents. You have to step up. You have to say, in our family, we don't do this. In our family. We do things differently and it might seem crazy, but this is, you know, what we're choosing right now to keep you safe and set you up for success in the future.

So you don't have to struggle with this as an adult. Yeah. But I think the open access is it is that's scary that that our kids are exposed to anything At any time it is So do you remember like a long time ago before our time about how they would like market cigarettes to kids? They had that camel joe camel or whatever and they and there were no no laws restricting the age of cigarettes and then I even think about still today, but like sugary cereals, those are marketed to those kids, getting them addicted to sugar early on.

And this is just along the same parallel. It is, it is. I'm glad you said that, you know, companies have a long history of lying to consumers and selling them things that they know are harmful. and denying it the entire time the tobacco industry increased the amount of tobacco as they're, you know, making filtered cigarettes.

And so that's what, uh, I laugh about now when you see these full page ads with, Oh, we have more parental controls and we care about kids safety. This is a filtered cigarette. They haven't done anything to make it safer. There are so many workarounds and for them to pretend like their platforms are safe and it's the parent's job to, um, curate their kid's experience.

I mean, this is, this is why we're doing the digital detoxes because it has not worked so far to have parental controls. If it had. We wouldn't be in this pickle with such a mental health crisis, and as parents, we cannot continue to sip the top of the beer as the tap is flowing into their cup. We need to cut it off, get our kids sober from screens, see how they're acting, and then see, okay, what are we going to serve them, and how are we going to keep them healthy?

Yeah. That was a great analogy, by the way. Haven't heard that one. Great visual. Nicole, what are some of the neurological effects to younger people? Um, what is some of the science behind what's happening to their brains when they're exposed? So all of these platforms when they're young, whether it's an educational platform or a gaming platform or a cartoon, it's all stimulating their primitive reward pathway.

And this is the first thing to be developed. It's the most basic of functions and it creates all these hormones of excitement, dopamine, and just the whole gamut of hormones. is what it's stimulating. That's why you can just hold a blank phone up to a toddler and a toddler wants it because it's stimulating that reward pathway of their brain through visual stimulation.

As they get older, dopamine decreases 10 percent every 10 years. That's why we're not so excited about anything anymore. Oh, I never knew that. I didn't know it either. Just wait 10 years. You won't even want to check your social media anymore.

Well, but you, that brings up a good point because they've got so much more dopamine. So that's another reason why there, if, if that's. Yeah, that would make sense. Yes. So they're so highly sensitive to it that we just want them, their neurons to be less sensitive, you know, from age zero to seven, this is when all the neurons are connecting.

And then after age seven, they're pruning. So this is why we're, you know, the best practice is eight minutes under eight years old right now because we want them bonding with their parents, not bonding with devices. We want them out in the real world making these real connections with real things.

understanding how little things work, how big things work, who they are, um, how they fit into their community, how they fit into their family. And so the brain, that, that primitive pathway is not the learning pathway. It's not anything that's helping them. So that is being overstimulated and it's taking blood flow away from the other parts of the brain.

And so we're seeing in brain scans. That early exposure to screens and excessive exposure to screens is shown as the same as trauma. So, we really want to protect their brain development because it's causing physiological changes in their brain that can last a lifetime. Gosh, I still to this day see so many young, young kids.

almost babies with, with screens so that the parents can go shopping or go to the restaurants and then, you know, it just progresses from there. So let's say you had the best intentions as a parent and, or, you know, I just think my, our own example of raising our kids on baby Einstein. So we, we had good intentions.

We thought we were helping. Yeah. Let's say your kid grows up and now it looks worse. It looks like intense gaming hours and things. What hope is there? What do you do? You have to do a digital detox. To do a neurological reset is not as painful as people think. It takes three days until you can see a change in your child.

Any parent can white knuckle it through three days. But what we provide is the pre planning and the support and all the documentation to really reimagine life, to keep them on track, to give yourself support while you're guiding your family. And to, um, be aware of all these benchmarks and to have the right resources to get through a full 30 days, sometimes 60 days, if it's an intense gaming situation, they need 90 days for a full neurological reset, but I, it is not that difficult.

And children's brains are very neuroplastic. And so there is hope and it does make a big difference. I would imagine that in order to be really effective, it would almost have to be a family detox. Yes, you're correct about that. Absolutely. Absolutely. And we see then that the other members of the family that you don't even think are that impacted have all sorts of wonderful results also.

It also seems like it would be great to do as a group, like with other families, especially if you got a bunch of kids that are connected by games. Yes. Right. They're not missing out and their kids, the other kids aren't doing something that they don't get to do. It would be cool if a. It's multiples. Yeah, joined in and did that.

It would be great. It's um, unfortunately, a lot of parents can't wrap their mind around it. So if you can convince other other moms to do it great. If not, you need to do it yourself. Do not wait for the neighborhood to get on it. If your kid has all gamer friends, and these are his only friends. I guarantee you, moms, you want your kid to have other Yeah.

Friends than gamers. These are not going to be beneficial friends in his life. This is like alcoholics hanging out with other alcoholics and drug users. You want them to have a broad friend base and you want them to have friends that have varied interests. So you mentioned just now that, that boys, is it, um, you met, you said the word boy and it made me think, I don't hear of girls being gamers or being addicted, but are they then addicted to the social media?

Do they, is there a greater propensity because of the way that it's marketed or is it, is it something in, in their, you know, biology that makes them more susceptible? Both. So boys, um, with their biology are three times more likely to be addicted to substances overall. So that is a genetic factor that why boys are easily addicted to video games.

And some boys are not. Many, many. Boys are and that's a genetic factor, but we do see a lot of girls gaming now also and it's just so habitual and so addictive. that it's really, it's really too bad. And then social media, you are asking a social media with girls comes with its own set of problems and that the self comparison, self commodification, self objectification, those are all very well researched in psychological studies and it really harms the psyche and it is.

Very, very harmful for young girls to be comparing themselves to others at such a young age and forming those building blocks of their self identity and who they want to be in the virtual world when they should be relying on their family. And those in their community and a very curated, careful, uh, circle around them, uh, until their brain is fully developed and they can make more choices and see, you know, read into what they're seeing online.

It's hard enough for adults to decipher what's real and what's not and [00:40:00] having all this curated content and. The constant self comparison is where we're seeing the most mental health harm, suicides, and just so much harm, it's not worth allowing your kids to access the platform. Yeah, and I don't even think that's age specific.

I know I think it's detrimental even for me to get on social media and see What other people are doing and it's hard not to make the comparison. So I totally get that Um a little bit ago you made a comment about when you do a detox a digital detox You said something about introducing other activities and even other dopamine inducing activities Got my attention.

How does that work? If we're trying to get them down a little bit. Yeah, it's just like, um, replacing cookies with fruits and vegetables, you know, like we want to be able to replace what they're missing with something healthy and their dopamine level is naturally going to come down from this artificial very high that time online creates.

and there's no way that any sort of in life activity replaces what they see online and how they're feeling online, but it's still giving them the sense of like, this is, this should make me happy, like this sort of stuff should make my body feel better, and just being exposed to different things to see that, you know, I have a choice of these other activities and And once that dopamine is lower, then they are interested more in these other activities, but it's not an immediate switch, of course.

So the first two weeks is the hardest because there's a lot of naysaying and feeling sorry for yourself and feeling lost, um, because they are, it is a true like withdrawal symptom. Um, and it's so habitual. It's like a smoker with gum. You know, you always had a cigarette after you finished, uh, dinner. Okay.

Now, every time after dinner, you're like, Oh, I wish I had that cigarette. So, you know, the feeling might not ever go away for these kids, but that's something as adults we grapple with every day, I mean, Certainly, I'd like to have a glass of wine right now, but I can't.

I was listening to another podcast that was talking about just to give parents hope out there is that your dopamine levels can be adjusted over time. So even if you have these kids that have increased their expectation of what their baseline dopamine is, is it eventually that will that will come down to where they're going to experience pleasure again at a lower dopamine level.

Yes, exactly. And it does take, depending on the age and the severity of their exposure, it can take 90 days for a full dopamine reset, but you, you know, you're going to. See such big improvements in your child in three days to seven days. Huge improvement in three weeks that you're gonna want to see this through to the 90 days.

So it's totally doable and it's totally worthwhile. But, um, we have a great formula at screen time clinic, uh, a great program that. make sure that it's successful and gives the parents the support that they really need because parents are busy and they're overwhelmed and you know they don't have time to figure it all out and be experts themselves so when we can guide you one on one and say this is going to work this is how you're going to do it this is what you're going to replace the time with this is how this is a script you're going to use when they object to things you know there's so much psychology involved in guiding Through a digital detox to make it a lot easier and pleasurable that that's really our value proposition is that you're going to succeed and you're going to love it and you're going to have a new plan at the end of it.

Yeah, I think having a plan and having support for the parents is incredibly important because it's like going on a severe diet. You have to really want this. You have to really want this and you have to be committed. And I think, you know, probably a small portion of the time A child or a teenager really wants it for themselves and they have full buy in But I can only imagine more times than not It's a parent that finally buys in and now they're confronted with I have to inflict harm on my kid.

I have to be the joy killer, right? That is That would be so hard. I can't think of a number of families I know right now that I don't know if they could do it because they would feel like they were inflicting pain on their child Right. Right. So we have the way of delivering it and actually they blame me and say, you know, we're working with a specialist and we are convinced that this is going to help you, you know, the way that you frame it and deliver it has a big impact on the pushback and, um, and the compliance of the kids.

Yeah. Nicole, earlier you had mentioned, well, let me, let me take a step back. So technology. is all around us, and it plays an important role in our adult life. Earlier, you had mentioned something about reintroducing it because it does, we can't completely abstain from it for the rest of your life. What are, um, without getting into the deep plans, how do you reintroduce it without then triggering it so that they go back into the, yeah, like a relapse, right?

Well, it depends on the child, and this is why it's It's so important to have a really personalized plan. And just like if you had a child with a peanut allergy, the whole family would not be consuming peanuts. So you modify your whole family's longterm diet, um, based on the most sensitive child. And if it's figured out after the digital detox that this does have a severe impact And they were having severe problems prior and moderation is not likely to be possible.

You know, these games are so addictive that even an hour or 30 minutes on a Saturday is likely to cause a lot of conflict and a lot of bad feelings. And then, you know, if you're susceptible to the addiction, You really need to abstain. You cannot be a gamer. And so that's a conversation that parents have to have and say, you know, from your previous exposure to it, what we've noticed and how far you've come.

This is something that you're more susceptible to, and unfortunately, you're going to have to be very careful to avoid it, probably for your whole life. While you're still a minor in our household, we are not going to allow it because it's not worth the harm that it causes you and the risk that you will become hooked on it again.

And because even a little bit still causes that neurological dysfunction. So even if it's not an addiction, we still don't want a little bit of it, but then we can see, okay, no video games, no social media. Can we, um, do homework for an hour on the computer? And be focused and be able to use a computer as a tool.

And honestly, kids should only be using technology as a tool until they're 18 anyway, because it is so potentially harmful. So that's the reintroduction of, okay. That's a big distinction. Yes, yes, that this is not a rite of passage. Kids do not have to have social media and video games. It does not impact them negatively.

It has no negative impact on their friends, their social life. In fact, the kids that don't have social media and gaming are way above the rest. in their social skills and their social emotional skills, which is a big, big plus, um, for employers and for their choice of jobs in the future and how well they do in school and college.

So that's something that overwhelmingly supports cost benefit analysis of not having it are the benefits. I think there's also a perceived benefit. That's funny that you just said that because I was thinking about these families that I know whose teenagers decided to put all of their emphasis on gaming at a high level where they enter tournaments.

They've left their baseball teams. And I had a conversation with the parent going, You know, it didn't feel right in the beginning, but they're so happy. They're having so much success. And now they're winning money, big cash prizes for these teenage level gaming tournaments. Have you seen that? It's bananas.

I have seen that. I have seen that. And unfortunately, um, it has really dire consequences. So the couple of families that I have seen that That the parents are just totally in denial. And I mean, I even did that with my son. If you can't beat him, join him. Like, all right, make money. Like, let's see you be great at this.

Be the best. Let's go. And I quickly realized like, okay, this is not. You wouldn't want your kid smoking weed making money as a drug dealer because it's harming his brain. So the fact that they are able to make money at it at a young age does not qualify that they should [00:50:00] be doing it. And the neurological impact of it is so severe.

The argument of my child's making money and it makes them happy. Is really, uh, really sad one, but that comes from a lack of knowing the real neuroscience behind it and not seeing the future consequences clearly because it's again, cost benefit analysis is not worth the risk to allow your child to excel in this area of online creationism.

Well, Nicole, you're really a pioneer in all of this. Just because it's legal doesn't mean that it's good for the kids. And you have taken a step forward and made some bold statements that I'm sure get a lot of resistance still. You know, I can, I can imagine. They do. They do. You know, I used to post. in, in Facebook groups and mom groups.

When I first started this, I used to post and oh my gosh, the mom shaming and the don't tell me what to do with my kid. And we, you know, there's, and this just contributes to the confusion around it too. And you wouldn't say that with, you know, kids smoking cigarettes and they used to kids used to smoke cigarettes all the time and seatbelts, you know, it takes 17 years from something to move from being.

Um, mainstream to being taboo to be made fun of to actually be taken as a serious problem, you know, versus calling people drunks and laughing at them versus alcoholism. And this is a serious affliction that we need to have, um, widespread support about. So it's not funny anymore. Well, I think what's going to move the needle eventually, just when you make the comparison about cigarettes, um, drinking seatbelts, inevitably moves the needle is more information to come out as to, um, the negative effects, the unintended consequences, things that are quantifiable things that we can study things we could see in a brain scan.

And we're just now getting to that point because unfortunately our kids were kind of like the beta test group. So I think once that information comes out. Once a parent, a well meaning parent knows better, they do better. It's just like that Maya Angelou quote, which I love, do the, do the best you can until you know better than when you know better, do better.

So you don't have to go, Oh, shame on me. If you didn't know until now, now is your day one. Now is your day one. Exactly. Exactly. And that's what, you know, it's never been harder in the digital age parenting because there's so much misinformation. And we really want parents to, to do better and just whatever capacity they can to really help their kids, because we only have 17, 18 years.

And then, I mean, that is just a fraction of their life. We want to send them into the world with real skills and real sense of self and really be able to rely on their family and this foundation of their family, not what kids are seeing online. Mm hmm. Yeah. Thank you for that. Nicole, thank you for everything that you do and really taking a bold step in this direction.

We appreciate it. And I hope our listeners listen to this and start implementing some changes into the, into their lives as well. We will have. All of your information in the show notes, by the way, so where to get to, where to reach you and, um, connect with your organization. We'll have all of that in the show notes.

Thank you for tuning in to today's conversation. To join our community and access more valuable resources, please visit our website at this way up podcast.com. Don't forget to hit that subscribe button and share this with a friend, and to stay connected, follow us on Facebook and Instagram at listen to this way up.