How Smartphones and Endless Scrolling Affect Young Minds

0:00 Speaker 1 With us today is Lynn Shaw, otherwise known as Lynn’s Warriors. And she’s out to defend our kids, to make sure our kids, well, have a better lifestyle and better life. Lynn, what’s on the agenda today?

0:14 Speaker 2 Good morning, John. You know, you really got me going last week because you sent me a text about how smartphones are mirroring, you know, cocaine in the brain for kids, you know, the dopamine levels. So this week, I thought, you know what, we are going to talk about it. Look, phones, we have put something extraordinarily powerful into the hands of

0:33 our children. We can all agree that these smartphones, you know, connects everybody to the world, the kids to the world, educates them, entertains them. It lets the parents, you know, reach their kids instantly. But at the same time, This little device, this world we hand them, in their hand, contains games, notifications, endless scrolling, social media approval, TikTok challenges,

0:58 you know, these dangerous algorithms we always talk about, and also the predators. They’re all on the phones. But we have to remember, kids are not simply little adults. The brains are still developing. They have kids, this impulse. They can’t resist impulses. You know, they’re developing. Their judgment is developing.

1:18 So the technology, John, is too much for them. So we’re asking a very simple question here at the Warriors and today on the Cats Roundtable. What are the phones actually really doing to our kids and their brains? There are plenty of studies that tell us a teen, young teen, 13, 14, 15, the phones act just like dopamine, hitting, you know, similar

1:40 to a cocaine high, right, because the kids are endlessly scrolling and they’re looking and the colors and the flashes and all that. So we have to be very precise about this. A smartphone is not cocaine. I think everybody knows that. Cocaine is a drug that directly interferes with the dopamine transport in the brain, okay, and creates this

2:01 kind of artificial chemical response. But there’s an important connection here. Kids who live their lives now, John, on the likes, the sharing of the videos, notifications, messages from friends, social approval, And this anticipation of what’s coming next, same kind of thing.

2:19 It activates the brain’s reward circuitry. That’s what we want to talk about. So, look, these platforms can repeatedly stimulate this reward machinery we talk about that teaches the brain, you know what, that felt good. So I’m going to keep doing it, or I’m going to check again on a video.

2:36 Speaker 1 No, you’ve got to keep your eyes open. I think we had one of the doctors on last week, and he did a report on it, and he’s very, very much concerned on it. And if I have a copy of that report, I will send it to you.

2:51 Speaker 2 I hope you will. And I also want to mention I have been invited by HHS, the Maha Institute, October 21st in Washington. I’ll be moderating a panel. or they just told me to, perhaps, about all of this. HHS is beginning to really take this subject on about the screens and about the phones and about the brains. But, again,

3:10 not just, you know, okay, phones are bad, whatever. It’s about the brain, what it actually scientifically does to this brain. So, look, we also have to ask, John, you know, are technology companies deliberately making these products? Difficult to put down. We have plenty of studies. We’ve got the whistleblowers. We’ve got internal memos now. We have so much more than we

3:29 had even two years ago. Yes, because their bottom line is they want profit. And what’s the best thing? You hook a kid. And then you have somebody for their entire lives. Okay, you have a customer for their entire lives. So, look, we can say not every child gets damaged their brain from a phone, but we’ve got to look at the science.

3:49 We know the phones are causing lots of problems. We know kids need sleep and exercise and reading and schoolwork. And, yes, I sound very old-fashioned, but I don’t care, John. Kids need face-to-face conversation. You know what they need? They need boredom.

4:03 Because kids, and, again, there are studies to back up everything I’m saying, kids, they may scream and yell because no phones, no devices. You’ve got to sit still and figure out something to do. Studies prove they will find something to do, and that stimulates the critical thinking, like, oh, what should I be doing? What can I do? So

4:19 we need to let kids be bored. So a child sitting quietly will be imagining something or creating something in their brain or figuring out what to do next. That is part of developing their brain skills. So we don’t need to keep giving our kids devices that’s going to fill up every single second for them. And we’ve got

4:36 to let our kids sleep. Kids are up to nine hours a day on these devices. They’re bringing them into the bedrooms. Number one tip, keep devices out of the bedrooms. Kids need their rest. And things just happen at night, and they’re just scrolling. They would do things they ordinarily wouldn’t do, John, you know, like during the day. But, again,

4:54 sleep is fundamental to their physical health, their brain health, their emotional regulation, their learning. So we have work to do, but you know what, John? It starts here, that we talk about it. We talk about it on the Cats Roundtable.

5:06 We say, here are some resources, and here’s what to do. You can always go to lynnswarriors.org. We have all of this information. And keep talking to your children, your friends, your family members, because we need to become the leaders in all of this, not these strangers online telling kids what to do.

5:24 Speaker 1 Well, Lynn Shaw, you’re exactly right and right. Let’s keep defending our kids because that’s the future of America, and we’ll catch up with you again real soon.

5:34 Speaker 2 Thank you, John. Thank you.