Ep 127 | What’s the impact of social media on kids’ brains?

SPEAKER_00 0:00

You need that social interaction, that give and take that only human interactions can give. And the term is children need laps, not apps.

SPEAKER_01 0:10

Ooh, sketchy.

SPEAKER_00 0:13

There you go.

SPEAKER_01 0:20

Welcome to the Voices United in Education podcast. Each week we showcase the teachers, administrators, and community members who go the extra mile to contribute to the success of every student in Escambia County. You'll meet the real people behind the titles and learn about the amazing resources to support every student's success. We can all agree that social media use to some extent is a vice. A vice we sheepishly admit to and shrug our shoulders to when our kids are glued to it. But what if our favorite scrolling pastime could be damaging our kids' brains, negatively impacting their educational development, and causing behavioral problems? My next guest is a neurologist at the Child Neurology Center of Northwest Florida, who is passionate about setting kids up for successful adulthood. Today he's going to share the impact that social media is having on childhood brain health and give us some practical strategies to live well without the tinfoil hats. Principled and pioneering, proud to be from Booker T, Dr. Ben Renfo. Thanks for doing this.

SPEAKER_00 1:27

Well, thank you. It's nice to be here.

SPEAKER_01 1:29

So your practice specializes in epilepsy, cerebral palsy, spasticity, dystonia. Why the interest in the impact of social media on brains?

SPEAKER_00 1:39

Well, neurodevelopment is everything. You know, and I am a father. I'm the product of an Escambia County school. I loved Booker T. My daughters went to Santa Rosa County schools. It's it matters. This is some information that's brand new. We really don't know what to do with it. We have a technology. When I was growing up, it was the TV, you know, how much how many hours in front of a TV? Whole different ball game, an exponential increase in the potential risks and impact on children and adults.

SPEAKER_01 2:13

Why is it different from television use?

SPEAKER_00 2:16

In TV, you and I, you're young, so you didn't. Did you even have a TV?

SPEAKER_01 2:21

Yes. I am older than you think. I remember getting a color television, in fact.

SPEAKER_00 2:26

There you go.

SPEAKER_01 2:27

So, and I didn't have social media until I was 26, 25.

SPEAKER_00 2:35

Right.

SPEAKER_01 2:35

And that was on a computer. Like it had cords and stuff.

SPEAKER_00 2:39

Right. And that's excellent. When I was growing up and we were watching TV, we had Art Link Letter, we had Red Skelton, we had Lucy. You sat with the family and interacted and watched and stopped and talked and had breaks, etc. The current social media formats are very isolationist, and that's a big problem. That's one of our major issues with children, is that it is so easy to go without social interaction. And social interaction is everything.

SPEAKER_01 3:13

I don't think most people would connect neurological development with social interaction within a household.

SPEAKER_00 3:21

Oh, remember the story of was it Romanian orphans that were isolated, that uh they took a bunch of kids, just put them in an orphanage with no social interaction. And there were physical changes in the brain, physical changes in development of certain aspects of the brain due to the social isolation. And we're essentially mimicking that to some extent. It can be extreme in some cases. What we have to remember is that people that listen to your podcast care. So we're preaching a bit to the choir. We're talking to a group that understands what we're trying to say. But it is the most important thing in a child's development is the parent. If we start at a young age, and you and I can discuss the age differences, but if we start at a young age, an infant needs eye contact with a parent, an infant needs interaction with a parent. There was a study that showed that a parent with a cell phone spends 27% of their time when the infant is present on their cell phone. That's astounding. And those are people that aren't trying. Those are people that are probably making a big effort to be part of the infant's life. You've got to realize that these devices draw us in. They have the protocols that create an environment where we want to stick with it. And when the infant needs constant eye contact and constant love, we're not providing it if we have a piece of electronics between us and them.

SPEAKER_01 4:54

That's so interesting because you kind of get into that area where we start to attribute social media time with like a character flaw. But what I'm hearing you say is that it's kind of an evolutionary mismatch that our brains are acclimated or designed to like go towards things that give us reward because you know, back in our primitive days, we wouldn't know when the next reward, aka food or source of sugar or whatever reproduction opportunity would come about. So we had to take advantage of whatever was in front of us. And so then it becomes kind of like a a slot machine for our lizard brain.

SPEAKER_00 5:32

Let's go up to adolescence. The adolescent brain is highly geared towards reward and pleasure. And that is evolutionary. It's important. It's important that an adolescent takes risks. It's important that an adolescent extends themselves out there. The problem is that we know that an eighth grader is developing. An eighth grader tends to be insecure, really need feedback from peer groups, really need support from parents in developing their ego and their stability. Adolescents that do not use social media to a large extent develop independence vastly differently than adolescents who are chronically using social media. Social media is an instant feedback and instant dopamine release. The feedback depends on this give and take that's programmed into the apps and programmed into the media. And it does not give you the opportunity to socially interact and to socially realize that I don't care what Susie says about me. I'm really okay. And as adolescents develop up through senior in high school, we see their acceptance. I deal with developmentally challenged kids a lot of times. And I'll see in eighth grade, these kids are ostracized and they're embarrassed. People are embarrassed to be around them. But as they get older and as their peers get older, there's much more inclusion. The peers realize that this is uh I can love this person, you know. It's let's include them in the baseball team, let's include them on the basketball team. And our high schools in this Santa Rosa and Escambia County do a great job with that inclusion, but it's due to a maturity. And we're if you will definitely not develop that maturity if you're solely interacting with social media.

SPEAKER_01 7:30

I see maturity rather as like a form of grit. And again, it to me, it's in the character development bucket, not the neurological physical brain bucket. Am I wrong to separate those two things? Are they one and the same?

SPEAKER_00 7:47

They they absolutely are one and the same. You know, we know that what we would call our prefrontal cortex develops through about 25 years of age. And I have five daughters, two biologic daughters, three stepdaughters. And watching them develop from 14 through 25, 26 is fascinating. And there's a button that is pushed at about 24, 25, where all of a sudden they're making good decisions. They're not making decisions based on immediate reward. And that's a positive normal growth pattern. If we use the social media that teaches us immediate reward is everything, and it gives our brain the feedback immediately, then it alters that developmental pattern. There is a physical change neurologically to the brain. Behavior is neurologic. Everything is neurologic. It's all we are a product of our chemicals, our hormones, our neurotransmitters. And people who have neuropathology have alterations in those neurotransmitters and hormones and all of that. It's physics. That's what we are.

SPEAKER_01 8:58

So we talked about infants and the role the parents kind of play on infant development. But I also, before we kind of leave this category, I wanted to ask you about those tablets that have educational games on for toddlers, right? Because adolescents, you're talking about like 10 through 17-ish, right? Right. But when you talk about infants, that includes toddlers, I'm assuming. So aren't those educational games helpful?

SPEAKER_00 9:27

No. Oh, okay. There's one game that is helpful. It's called Bedtime Math.

SPEAKER_01 9:35

That sounds like a blast.

SPEAKER_00 9:36

It is. Well, it's interesting. And what it does, it's a novel. It is a not-for-profit organization. The app is free. You know, pull it up on your app store. And it is a short story that a parent reads with the child. It has numbers within it and problems within it. And at the end of reading the short story, the parent and the child interact and solve the math problem that's at the end. And they've done studies showing that children who use this program have a significant improvement in math scores later on. It's really helpful in people who have math anxiety, like me. I do not do well in math. You did not enjoy math growing up. And so you take this interactive program and you use a parent-child interaction to teach, and it's lovely. You know, it's it builds confidence, it builds communication. The problem with any other app, even if they say they're educational, there is no definition of an educational app now. Right. Educational, it is not. They are just games. The problem is there's no interaction. They're not doing a human interaction. And even if it uh is adding one plus one, the feedback is mechanical. Social exchange. That's the important aspect, is when a child interacts with a human, with a caregiver, they put something out there and they get feedback on it that's social. And when you're using an app to replace that, it is not social. It is just a black and white screen feedback. And so it is not healthy. Under 18, there's no no instance where a child should be on a screen. If you need to have a break from the child, which is a legitimate concern. If you say, okay, this kid's got colic. If I sit in front of that TV, I get to go have my coffee or my glass of wine, whatever I need, then that's okay. Let's accept that as something we're exchanging. But two hours in front of a TV for an infant or a toddler is not healthy. You need that social interaction, that give and take that only human interactions can give. And the term is children need laps, not apps.

SPEAKER_01 12:00

Ooh.

SPEAKER_00 12:01

I know, and that's catchy. There you go.

SPEAKER_01 12:03

Elementary age students are learning to read and developing more advanced language skills. I mean, you just said absolutely no, nothing is educational, but I can't help but think back to my 80s, 1980s, you know, experience. They weren't apps and I guess they weren't screens, but I had, oh my God, do you know what a speak and spell is? Do you remember that from your kids? I missed that one.

unknown 12:29

Okay.

SPEAKER_01 12:30

All my 80s and 90s listeners out there might remember speak and spell, but it helped me become an excellent speller. I was like top in my second grade class, not to brag or anything. Is there any benefit for that age? You know, we're outside of infant, we're just before adolescence, still a squishy brain, no prefrontal cortex that's fully developed. Is there potential for benefit there? Sure.

SPEAKER_00 12:54

You know, and I think that's very valid in a guided environment. As you said earlier, we can't wear our tinfoil hat around. We have to accept that a lot of kids are using these things. Part of the problem with the elementary age group is you're developing habits that will increase as they hit adolescence. So if I'm teaching a kid to app constantly, to be on a positive feedback loop with my electronics, that's going to become enhanced as they hit adolescence and it becomes more problematic. I would say there are certainly apps that are useful. The Florida virtual school system uses an electronic program, but you have supervision from a teacher, is my understanding. My children did use that growing up to advance. But they were going to do that anyway. And I would argue that you would probably have been the geek speller anyway. You know, it's not you you can say the app helped you prep a little bit, but um gamified it. Yeah, there you go. Good. And that's fun. So there's nothing negative with that in that age group.

SPEAKER_01 14:02

So we covered infants, elementary, adolescents. And then you kind of touched on like parents too. So talk more about parents because especially people who grew up in the 80s and the 90s, we have a very nostalgic idea of what the internet is and what screens are. And, you know, YouTube was, I've said this before on the show, was Charlie bit my finger. Like it was like the cute part of the internet and the the kittens that didn't look real, but they were and they're so cute. And so we're digitally naive about lots of things. And as you said in the very top of the show, there's a lot of research that we're just putting the pieces together. Unfortunately, we are in the experiment right now.

SPEAKER_00 14:43

We are absolutely. And when I read the literature on this, most of the researchers refuse to say how I can apply this because they don't know yet. You know, they have an idea, but they're not going to tell you that because it could be wrong. And they're trying to be correct and trying to make good decisions rather than advice. There's two terms in parental use of electronics and social media, and it's technopherce. Do you know the term? I've never heard it. Technoference and then fubbing.

SPEAKER_01 15:14

I never heard that either.

SPEAKER_00 15:15

No, it's really good though. So the technoference came out 10 years ago with from a researcher talking about a parent who should be interacting with the world around them. How many times have you seen it? I have a vision in my head of a young lady walking her child in a stroller, holding her phone in front of her face rather than singing to the child, rather than interacting with the child, rather than watching for traffic. And that's technoference. Yes, letting that technology interfere with your life. And then fubing, as you know, when you're out to dinner and you see the couple that are obviously on a date and they're both looking at their phones. It's phone snubbing, you know, fobbing. And it is a significant problem. You see adolescents sitting on a wall somewhere would be talking and being obnoxious, and instead they're all just staring at their phone. And that's not healthy and not normal social interaction. How do we deal with that? I don't know. And when we're talking about the parents, it's so important that children, middle school, adolescents, young adults know that the parents feel that they are important, that the child is important, the young adult is important. And if we're showing them that we're on the phone rather than interacting socially, rather than being aware, rather than having eye contact, then we're showing them that they're not important. Do we really care about all those people on Facebook? You know, that's how often do we hear, well, that's how I keep in touch with my family from Nebraska? Do I care really? Um, is it I love my family from Nebraska? Let's see them at Thanksgiving. Nobody is free from the exposure to this. We just need to realize the impact on the developing brain is very real. There are changes in the developing brain that make becoming a young adult a different experience than if you're not overusing social media. It's the overuse that's the problem. And then the parents have got to put their phone down and interact with the children, show that the children are the most important thing in their lives, which they are. And we are sitting there on our cell phones. I remember going on a train in New York City with my daughter, who was 14 or 15, and she was looking at her cell phone. I said, There's the Statue of Liberty. And she didn't look up. You know, it's what we miss. It's really astounding. What is that phone replacing? What experience are we missing out on because of that phone?

SPEAKER_01 17:54

That's a really interesting top-down approach that, you know, monkey see monkey do a little bit. And it is hard for parents who really find escape, find catharsis in the scroll, in whatever it is that they're doing on the phone. And I will be the devil's advocate a little bit here to say also we have a lot of parents who are multitasking because of their situation. So, like the mom pushing the stroller outside when she's on her phone, maybe her daycare fell through and she has to take a work call, but she knows we need to get sunshine, vitamin D, you know, from the sun. And so she's like doing the best she can, but she's like video conferencing while she's, you know, pushing the stroller or stuff like that. But is it overreach or is it alarmism to say to parents who are maybe not in that situation, who are just simply struggling with the muscle memory of picking up your phone when there's a moment of nothing? Is it crazy to say that what's at risk for your children doing the same is that they will be less intelligent?

SPEAKER_00 19:04

I think that's valid. It's less intelligent. I don't know what that means anymore, by the way. I don't know what intelligence is. Okay. Because we um I am this. I am a doctor, I'm a neurologist, I'm a father, I am a business owner, I am a husband, I am many things, and I'm good at some of them, and I'm not so good at some of them. So I'm intelligent at some of them and not so intelligent at some. My wife is a teacher, and she's brilliant at that. You know, is so who's more intelligent? The measurement of intelligence is very arbitrary.

SPEAKER_01 19:43

But it matters to parents. And so I think that's kind of what I'm getting at is I feel like in order to make the change, that first mile of change is the hardest. You have to accept the fact that this matters because no one's like, you know what, my to-do list is looking mighty short these days. Let's add some more stuff to it. Let's add some more guilt to my already large pile of parental guilt that I'm feeling. Nobody is excited to enroll in that. But if it matters, then they're like, okay, whoa, this is important. And so I think that's what I'm getting at is like, how important is this? How critical is this?

SPEAKER_00 20:22

It's extraordinarily important for social interactions, is everything. And if we say intelligence, social intelligence is everything. If you have the ability to communicate and the ability to, no matter what you do in life, to express your needs, to support others' needs, to be part of society, it's extraordinarily important. And I think that's what we're going to find is impaired by overdoing the social media. What is overdoing? If you're touching your phone 12 times an hour, you're addicted. You know, it's you're you're way over the top. You've got to settle that down. And that's a huge number of people that are doing that, that are constantly, and you see kids. Do you have one of those watches?

SPEAKER_01 21:08

I'm temporarily wearing it because my trainer says I need to track my steps. But this is my husband's watch, which is why it is so large and obnoxious looking. But normally, I do not have any of these things. And it's not connected to any social apps or the phone.

SPEAKER_00 21:23

There you go. Okay. You but you see people that you're talking to at a grocery store and they're constantly looking at their wrist. Oh, during conversation. During conversations because it just buzzed. You can't carry on that way. That is wrong. That is disrespectful. There's a thousand problems with that. And the brain, you've your interaction with the person became much more shallow because you have something pecking on you constantly. So it is extraordinarily important to allow these people with the brains that are developing to have their brain develop seeking good social interaction. Their dopamine source rather than seeking phone interaction as their dopamine source. It's a huge difference. And the people that are successful, and that's probably better term than intelligence, people that are successful have a good self-esteem, have know who they are, um, have good social interactions, um, people that are not successful isolate themselves, um, have poor communication skills, and that's what we're breeding with the overuse of social media.

SPEAKER_01 22:32

It would be hard to get a job if those are the areas of life you're struggling in.

SPEAKER_00 22:37

It certainly makes the job a more narrow search. You know, what are we going to do, though, when 80% of the people have this impaired social reciprocity? When the majority of people that we work with have learned to interact through social media and aren't looking for you and me who enjoy human interaction. So are we giving our children a disadvantage by being good parents? Perhaps, but I'd rather them be kind, loving people and who learn to interact normally, who learn to protect themselves normally.

SPEAKER_01 23:15

Yeah. This is so interesting. I really didn't expect our conversation to go in a societal direction, but now that we've talked more, I'm starting to understand the it's like spaghetti, not waffles, right? Like the neurological health is a spaghetti noodle in the plate of spaghetti of society that includes social skills, loving relationships, et cetera. I know we're running out of time. So I want to transition for our last few minutes together with tips for parents. And my first question in kind of the tips department is are there any successful protocols to reverse this damage in children? So say a parent is listening to this, they're like, oh yeah, my kids, you know, I can observe the difference from when they're allowed to have their devices versus when they are not. What do I do about this?

SPEAKER_00 24:12

Good luck. I don't I mean, raising children is tough. It's just tough. And it's gonna take a hard conversation. There's the American Academy of Pediatrics has a um website, the Center for Excellence on social media and youth mental health. And it has a lot of resources that are age-based, which is really kind of fun. So you can click a third grader and what's important to a third grader. And the fascinating things that you see are with a third grader, they start to interact with other kids, they start to get social norms and to understand when somebody's different. And it talks about your footprints on social media. And I think that's such a lovely term that you're leaving your footprints wherever you go, and you need to understand that. So if you say something on social media, it's there and it will be there. And they need to learn that at about that age. So there are age-appropriate lessons to learn that parents could really be helped for. And if you could go to this website, they have a very nice discussion of that that's age-based. They talk about the five C's, which is child, what's your child's personality? Are they stressed by the social media? Are they using it then putting it down? Do they have a good balance? What's the content of the social media that they're seeing? Is it a positive experience or are they coming away upset? Is somebody pinging them? Is somebody bullying them? How calm are they on social media? Some people, like you said, the need that hit, that dopamine to settle down. What are you crowding out with the social media? What is the child missing because he's using the social media? And then communication. You've got to communicate with your child, tell them your concerns very openly. I'm concerned you're using so much social media. I don't think you're with friends enough. I think you're, oh, my friends are all online. That's not friends. That's not normal interactions. You know, let's go play baseball, let's go do stupid things, let's go roller skating. Those are so much more valuable.

SPEAKER_01 26:14

So maybe by the parent initiating the alternative instead of just going, no, with a hand slap, you're doing this too much. And then the child, you're going to get the eye roll, like, okay, boomer, you know, of course you think I'm doing this too much. You don't understand. Roadblocks is great with my friends. But so maybe in lieu of that just prohibition on it, okay, we're going to go roller skating today.

SPEAKER_00 26:40

Right. And leave your phone.

SPEAKER_01 26:42

Or we're all going to leave our phones. Right. Since you talked about parental example.

SPEAKER_00 26:46

And that's very valid. It's the parent has to disengage from the media more so than the child. I think that's more important. The child starts mirroring the parent's behavior very young. And if the parent has been on social media, it's the norm. You know, we've got to realize what we're doing to our kids. I know it's tough to try to get people to stop doing something that is so much ingrained in our culture, but it's a problem.

SPEAKER_01 27:14

I heard one expert on a podcast to say, because we use our phones as adults for so many things, we're checking the weather. I meal plan on my phone. I make my grocery list. I check my calendar. I read academic articles, you know, to tell your child, okay, I'm gonna sit down and mommy's gonna check her email. If you need something though, you just let me know. And so it's like communicating the difference. Mommy's reading the newspaper because there's no physical newspaper. Do you think that matters? Or because children still have squishy brains, it's all the same and it really doesn't do anything. What's your take on that?

SPEAKER_00 27:52

I think it personally, I think it matters. And my wife and I have this discussion constantly. She says, You're on your phone all the time. Well, I'm a doctor.

SPEAKER_01 28:00

Right, right.

SPEAKER_00 28:01

I'm looking at records, I'm signing off, I'm doing things. You know, is is is that different than being on TikTok? Absolutely. Okay. Yeah. You know, and I think the communication, as you said, is was is a great idea for the parent to say, I've got to sit down and work for a little bit in front of my iPad. And, you know, why don't you come over here with me, or why don't you grab a book, or why don't you get yours and let's do this game together? You know, communication is everything.

SPEAKER_01 28:27

What's your take on parents using screen time as reward and punishment?

SPEAKER_00 28:34

Bad idea. Just to it's again, let's not teach people that screen time is the goal. Um I I think it's very, very important that, you know, reward and punishment is you're doing a great job. Or wow, you disappointed me. You know, what were you thinking? Let's talk about that. Don't barter with them. Now I was told by a psychologist, though, that we work for pay. And so you do need reward, and it's reasonable to get a substantive reward, but it's that's a tough one. I don't think you should use social media as a reward punishment. You can say you've earned a right, you've shown me you're mature enough, etc. You've heard the Australian approach right now is to block 16 and under, which won't go through, but that's extreme. That's extreme, and that's probably over the top unhealthy. But when should your kid get a phone? What would you say?

SPEAKER_01 29:35

I don't know. I'm not a parent. So my input on that, it really doesn't land great.

SPEAKER_00 29:40

Well, when did you need a phone?

SPEAKER_01 29:42

I didn't have a phone until I was 19. Wow.

SPEAKER_00 29:47

Good. And and you're a social person. You have eye contact, you're beautiful, you're eloquent. Communication skills are wonderful. That's what you do for a living.

SPEAKER_01 29:57

Right.

SPEAKER_00 29:57

Whereas if you had been on social media, you'd be a whole different person.

SPEAKER_01 30:02

Mm-hmm. Yeah, it's interesting because I also spent lots of time alone as a teenager. It was just been my it was my preference. And so I was alone, but I was not on social media. Maybe I need to be in an experiment. Maybe I should enter myself as a lab rat. I I'm so sad that we were out of time because I could talk to you for hours. Are there any other resources other the ones that you just mentioned, which I will link in the show notes, that you want parents to be sure to know about, whether they're at Namor's or elsewhere?

SPEAKER_00 30:30

I think the American Academy of Pediatrics website has really some very nice tools. I I think I sent you a few other that you could put in the show notes. There's some really excellent podcasts. My take on it, having gone through a bunch of this over the past couple of days to prepare for this discussion, is there's a lot of politics involved. And I think it's okay for a parent to say, I understand that that group is trying to make everybody happy. It's not my job to make everybody happy. It's my job to love my child and raise them in a loving, stable, safe, encouraging environment.

SPEAKER_01 31:08

So parents should trust their parental instincts.

SPEAKER_00 31:11

Absolutely. And that and it is an instinct. We all think our baby is the prettiest thing in the world, and we all want our children to be successful.

SPEAKER_01 31:20

Well, thank you so much. This has been such an eye opening discussion.

SPEAKER_00 31:24

Well, thank you. It's a great opportunity. I enjoyed it.

SPEAKER_01 31:28

Thanks for listening. Be sure to subscribe and share. Voices United in Education is a production of Escandie County Public Schools.