Podcast Season 1 Ep. 5 - From Tech Overwhelm to Tech Intentional with Emily Cherkin

Emily Cherkin is a The Screentime Consultant. a writer, a parent, and a former teacher.

She helps families go from tech-overwhelmed to tech-intentional. She has worked with hundreds of parents, schools and organizations including Amazon and even the U.S. Military. Emily has also been featured in The New York Times, on Good Morning, America, and twice on The Today Show!

Her goal is to support as many parents as possible who want to improve the lives of their kids and make a positive impact on their communities. Emily wants to help us understand the role of technology in our lives and support us in modelling healthy choices for our children with some great tips and tools.

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Podcast Transcript

Hi, my name is Blue. And I'm the host of this new podcast, the 21st-Century Teacher with Live It Earth. And my job is to ensure that our teachers and students get the most out of our programs. This new podcast series is just one of the ways I'm going to be supporting our community of educators, through a monthly conversation with a special guest educator discussing a different aspect of 21st-century teaching and learning. 

Today, I'm talking with Emily Cherkin, who is a screentime consultant, a writer, a parent, and a former teacher. She helps families go from tech overwhelmed, to tech intentional. She has worked with hundreds of parents, schools, and organizations, including Amazon, and even the US military. Emily has also been featured in The New York Times, on Good Morning America, and twice on the Today Show. Her goal is to support as many parents as possible, who want to improve the lives of their kids and make a positive impact on their communities. 

Emily wants to help us understand the role of technology in our lives, and support us in modelling healthy choices for our children. And she's got some great tips and tools to share. So Emily, thank you so much for joining me on the show today. I'm really excited to talk about this topic.

Thank you so much for having me. I'm really excited to be here.

Yeah, it's very timely, because especially with COVID-19, we have all ended up on the screens, so much more than maybe we were before. And even the kids now, with schooling, so much of their schooling is sort of shifted over the last couple of years. And while I'm sure we're going to see more of that. So I want to jump straight in with the question. How does screen time negatively impact kids? And on that note, what's the difference between adults and kids in terms of developmental issues that might come up?

Yes, great question. To start with. I want to be really clear about one thing, which is that when we talk about screen time, my concern is excessive screen time. So I talk about being tech intentional, not anti-tech, because I do believe there are some pretty powerful things we can do with technology like this, for example. But when it comes to children, especially, it's excessive. 

And I know that the next question follow-up would be well, what is excessive mean? And how many hours is that? And I give a very unhelpful answer, which is a little bit is okay. And a lot is too much. And the reason I say that is because it's it is so child and family dependent. And I think age matters. I think developmental stage matters. I think, balance with everything else in a child's life. Are there other things happening? So a little bit's okay, you know, I know there are people on both ends of the view on this about like, Oh, it's fine. It's a free for all, they can manage themselves, I'm not worried. And parents who are like, my child will never see a screen until they're 18. And I land somewhere in the middle. I mean, again, I think family movies are a wonderful way to spend time with your family. I think, you know, checking email is a normal part of our life, maybe not for high schoolers, but other forms of digital communication do exist. So I don't want to deny that there are advantages. When you ask about the difference between adults and kids. I love talking about this, because so often parents and adults, in general, assume that children are just small adults, that they're just little versions of us. And the reality is, they're not at all. A child's brain looks nothing like an adult brain. 

And one of the things that I really like to talk to parents about and teachers and families is the brain itself, right. So the front part of our brain is called the prefrontal cortex. And it's like the boss of our brain. And in the prefrontal cortex is where we have all of our executive function skills. So these are things like time management, planning and prioritization, organization, emotion regulation, cognitive flexibility, all of those life skills that we layer into everything that we do. What is fascinating to me is that part of our brain is not fully developed until we're in our 20s or even our 30s. And it's the last part of our brain to develop. And so for children, executive function skills are the name of the game. And I taught middle school for 12 years. And I used to say, the most important part of my students' year was to help them do basic things like organizing their homework, using a paper planner, figuring out how to manage their time when they had a big assignment because all of those skills were going to matter to later success. It wasn't the content. Content I always say it's just a vehicle for skills. So when it comes to screen time, especially excessive screen time, what often happens is we displace a lot of that skill-building. And it's much harder to learn those things later. And so for adults, how many of us have spent hours doom scrolling or watching Netflix episodes, which is one more, just one more. And you know, it's three episodes later. The problem is, we have trouble as adults. And we do have these fully formed brains. For children. It's not even close to being the same thing. And I always say to parents, it's not a fair fight, because their brains are totally different.

Wow, interesting. So what's happening then, if they're, you know, if they're watching, show after show, you know, what's happening there with them being able to function outside of that screen time, or they just they becoming ADD like it's encouraging that kind of behaviour?

It's such a good question. So ADHD is really interesting. Because if you look at the symptoms, and there's it depending on which measure, you use a lot of the symptoms of ADHD match the symptoms of excessive and overuse of screens. And so I think it's really fascinating to wonder, does excessive screentime exacerbate symptoms of ADHD? Or does ADHD lead us to spend more time on screens because it has a stimulative effect? I think it's both. And I'm not a clinical psychologist, but I know that there are elements to both. So for children and normal screentime is the same, right? So I like to talk to families about you know, if you're FaceTiming, with grandma, that is a totally different use of a screen, then scrolling through YouTube videos, or watching a documentary is totally different than playing a video game. And so it has a lot to do. There's a lot of ways in which it impacts our brains differently. And it depends on again, our developmental stages where we are in our childhood or even adulthood. But I think again, in general, if you're noticing behavioural issues from a child being on a screen, the question we have to ask ourselves is, is it too much, and what is not happening? 

So I actually have three questions. I like parents to ask, can I tell you what those are? Yeah, please. Okay, so when we choose to give a child a screen, I invite parents to think about this. First of all, what do we gain? Or what's the benefit? And oftentimes, it's convenient or a tool to communicate. And I mean, I'm gonna say, I've been there done that I want to get dinner made. And the iPad was the easiest thing at that moment. So we have to answer that question, honestly.

The second question, though, is what do we lose or replace, because teaching children how to cope with boredom is actually a really important skill. So when we go to a restaurant, and the default is, here's your iPad, while we wait. They're not getting the experience of learning, delayed gratification, how to interact with strangers, how to behave in a restaurant, these are actually really important skills that we don't want to displace. And so we have to own up to the fact that we might be bypassing some really important skill development. 

And then the third question is, what do we model? So as parents, when we are standing in line at the grocery store, and we pull our phones out? It's a lot harder for us to say to our kids, no, you can't look at your iPad, or no, you can't look at your phone. They're watching us. And we don't want to be telling them one thing and doing the other. So we have to look at what are we modelling about how we use screens in moments of boredom, to entertain as a tool.

That's great and actually reminds me of like, family time for us, is no phones. And I get called out as soon as my wife sometimes, but just make sure there are times within the day as a family that yeah, there's no screens. And it can be hard to do. But I want to build that in as they get older into teenage years as well. We'll see if I can see if I'm successful with that. So can screentime be addictive then? And impact mental health? What do we know about that?

Yes, and right. Yes. And yes. And right now, in the United States actually, there have been several congressional hearings going on where they're interviewing the heads of companies like Instagram, Facebook, Tik Tok Snapchat. And it's fascinating. I mean, some people binge watch NetFlix, I binge watch congressional hearings, because it's so revealing about what these companies are really doing. And one thing that I really want parents to understand, and most of us don't, there is a reason why you are binge-watching those Netflix episodes. It's not just because you like the show. And it's a very subtle design technique. And you may even remember before this technique happened, we used to have to click play the next episode. Now, it autoplays. That is a design technique. It's called persuasive design, or persuasive technologies and what that means if you were to distill it, I love this into a little math equation. persuasive design is psychology plus technology to change our behaviour. And what is real, if you want to get me really mad, it's when it is used on children. Because children don't recognize that that's what's happening. So when their videos auto loop or when their social media feed has no bottom, and they can scroll for hours, it is designed to hook and hold their attention. Because the longer they spend on the screen, the more their eyeballs can be exposed to advertising, which is how companies make money. So these companies don't have children's best interests at heart. They don't have adults’ best interests at heart either. But theoretically, we have the brain capacity to say, Oh, wait, I've been doing this for too long, I should stop. Children don't have that. And so the word addictive can be very loaded. So I'm always cautious about that. But it can produce addictive behaviour. And we've seen it you take the iPad away from a kid and they flip their lid and have a complete meltdown? Well, it's because their neural pathways have literally been hijacked by this persuasive design. So I always say to parents, this is not a fair fight. You're not fighting your kid, you're fighting neural pathways that have been manipulated by the design technique in the game or the social media app. And that is so not okay, I get so angry about this. So I do think parents need to understand that that's what's happening. And because if you can step back and say it was not my kid, being a bad kid, it's my kids being manipulated. And then you can teach your children about it, you actually can tell them that that's what's happening. And you can say, I see this is so hard for you. And you have to remember that was designed to make this hard for you. So we need to give you five minutes to cool down before we move into the next activity, for example. But that is a big part of it. And then, of course, algorithms themselves drive kids to content that's not kid-friendly. I recently made a fake Snapchat account pretending to be a 15-year-old because according to the testimony of the Snapchat executive, everything on their platform is for 13. Enough, it's appropriate for 13-year-olds, so I pretended to be 15. I went immediately to see what they push the content to me. And I don't know any parent, anybody who knows any child who would look at that content and say, Yeah, this is good for 13. It was pornographic. There were so many innuendos, it was aggressive. It was gendered, not in any sort of way id I think it was appropriate. And so I think it's a great exercise for parents to make a fake account, go check it out. It's really and then asks yourself, Is this okay? Is this what I want? Because of the algorithm then is going to continue to feed that content, if a teen girl is feeling low self-esteem about her body, and she looks up dieting apps, it's going to feed her more of that content, which reinforces her negative feelings about herself. So there's a lot of that out there right now because of these hearings. But it is because of persuasive design. I mean, I really, that is something I think parents just need to understand.

And so this is jumping me into thinking about in the classroom and teachers, yes to this. So before we jump into education and the role of technology with education, is there anything around we've just said that teachers could do with their class in educating and mentoring children about how to use many of them do? I mean, I don't know from what age most parents would give their kids a phone now, but it's getting younger and iPads, my kids had an iPad since he was five, so he can communicate with me? You know, a lot of those, those tools are going to come into the classroom. So what advice would you have there?

Absolutely, um, I know, in the States, one in five, eight-year-olds has their own iPhone, and that was a statistic pre COVID. I would imagine it's higher. If you excuse me, um, I, here's the thing about classroom teaching. In my teaching experience, I spent 12 years in the classroom, I went from very low digit, we had laptops for, you know, word processing, basically, that we used occasionally. And that was pretty much it for technology. The kids didn't even have phones at that point. By the time I left the classroom, 12 years later, 95% of my students had smartphones, this was you know, 12-year-olds. And we had gone to an online gradebook, an online learning management system. And instead of coming to me to talk about grades or missing assignments, the kids would go and look it up. And they would say, Oh, I looked it up on Schoology. I looked it up on class Google Classroom. And, to me, going back to those three questions, what a missed opportunity, because what I want them to do is, oh, gosh, I think I missed an assignment. I need to talk to my teacher, I need to figure out is there something I can do to make it up or how do I get ahead of this next time. Instead, everything was just outsourced. So for teachers, I just want to I would love for teachers to be super intentional about how they use technology. I'm not saying don't use it, I'm saying be intentional about it. There are some incredible tech-based things we can do in the classroom and think about graphic design or, you know, scientific videos or things that take you to parts of the world you would never get to explore. I mean, that piece of it is really, truly transformational. But it represents a very small amount of what tech can do. So too often schools rely on tech for tech's sake. I do not like Schoology, or Google classroom as a management system for anything under eighth grade because I feel like maybe high schoolers have a slightly better way to manage that. But the executive function isn't developed yet. Like they're not able to really use it as a tool the way we do as adults. And so we're instead of actually helping them we're displacing this opportunity for skill-building. So I really worry about that and would love for teachers to bring the paper planner back or the calendar, it's something that is tactile, three-dimensional, hands-on, those are the ways brains grow, especially for younger children. I think there is I think I mentioned this earlier than, you know, I see technology, and screens as a Swiss army knife and not a switchblade. It's not a one-trick thing. You know, it does multiple things. And so when we really think about it, is this a moment where tech enhances the learning experience? Or is this just a thing, because it's shiny and new, and our school invested in it, and we're supposed to use it. And I would love for teachers to push back and be really intentional about when and how they use i

That's great. So yes, what I guess Yeah, so that sort of segues into what's the benefits of technology for education. With a platform like the one that we have you know, it's both we have a show, and then we have online challenges with all of the How-To Videos sort of linked, but the whole idea is then to get the kids away from the screen, and actually hands-on to complete some of those tasks and those projects.

Yes, absolutely. And to me, looking through your materials, that was what I noticed was that the goal was actually to get kids out that it was the launchpad for the learning that was going to happen. And so to me, that's a pretty tech intentional way of using it as a tool. I get a little bit like, I think what a great educator, you may not need tech, right? I mean, you let me say it this way, a great teacher can convey information without any technology, right? Like, doesn't matter what the topic is, can a teacher be in supported by technology? Sure. One thing I worry about is because schools used to be the only place where screens were not predominant in a child's day, I worry about that creep upwards of more tech in school, I mean, you've got kids spending 567 hours a day outside of school for screens, we're now looking at multiple hours a day in school, especially post-pandemic, and post remote learning, because they've invested all this money in tech, they're not going to just make these things go away. So I do really worry about that, you know, how do we contain that and be really intentional about it. And I do think, again, Launchpad, as a resource as a go-to, for a really specific thing isn't, is a great way to use tech. And, you know, I'm not going to suggest people throw everything, you know, it'll throw the baby out with the bathwater, so to speak. And there's a great resource I can recommend. It's not my own. There in the states here, there's a company called every school.org. And they have created something called the Ed Tech triangle. And it's a lot like the food pyramid, you know, which I know has been, you know, revised. But if you imagine that, that those moments of transformational tech are the like, tiny little thing at the top of the triangle, or the pyramid, like those are you know, the candy and the sugar that we're not supposed to eat too much of like a little bit fine, right? It's it goes back to what I was saying a little bit, okay, lots too much. And then what they actually do, they use research to back up all of their levels. And they just map it out. Like, here's where tech for a learning management system would fall. Here's tech, you know, if you use screens for, you know, reading, here's where that would fall. And the reality is because it's not all the same. A lot of it does fall into that low, it should be minimal, but it does fall into that bigger band. And unfortunately, I think a lot of schools rely heavily on all of it, right? And so if we can go and like kind of look at one of our lessons, how are we using in the classroom? And how does it match to this, this sort of pyramid of tech health, if you will, that is a great tool. That's a great way to assess the sort of like, are we kind of getting this right, are we on the right track with this? I would love for teachers to be honest about their own struggles with technology too. And I think especially young teachers who are coming up in the world where they had tech when they were in school and they had tech as high schoolers to talk about what that was like for them and to talk about how it's hard to get off of it or to not scroll through Instagram on their lunch break. I think that's really important and very valuable for children to hear that this is hard for adults too.

That's great. That's so much good information. Emily, really glad you've been able to come to the show. And yeah, shed some light on it. Yeah, it's just the awareness, I think, really, isn't it being aware of yet the good and the bad, and getting the right balance?

And absolutely, it's all about balance.

Great. Well, thank you so much. There are so many more questions I have, actually. And yeah, there's lots of maybe actually we'll share some resources in the notes as well. As you mentioned a couple of things there that I'll ya know, that we share.

I'd be happy to do that. And you know, I have a website. And The irony is not lost on me that I am on social media. So I do post resources, Instagram, Facebook, LinkedIn, you can find me there as well. And yeah, I love to hear from parents and teachers, because I want to know what is going on? What are the challenges and how can I help?

Great. Well, thank you so much, Emily.

Thank you so much. Thank you for having me.

Thanks for joining us on the 21st-Century teacher. And we look forward to seeing you next time. Please do subscribe so you don't miss out on the next show. And also don't forget to check out our fantastic online learning platform which is liveit.earth. Thanks again and we'll see you soon