Don't be flowny. Here on seven hundred wlw's schools across America locking up, snatching up kids cell phones like their hot Contra band. So you got bell de Belle bands, you got the big mad Night of pousage. You got confiscation policies. Ohio, Kentucky, Indiana all requires school districts to implement policies banning those phones during instructional class time. And each state's so a little bit different than that every but largely most states have this conon policy. But here's the question.
You're ready for the question.
Here's the question no one's asking us. So new studies come out, and not just new, but preceding studies have come out. The shows teachers spend somewhere between twenty five and thirty something percent of their day, so between a quarter and a third of their instructional day trying to get kids to listen despite strict cell phone bands.
That hasn't changed.
So our phones the core problem or is it just a scapegoat?
On that?
Christine Miles, she's a psychologist and works with school systems across the country. Founder of the Listening Past. Christine, welcome, how are you?
I'm great I'm so glad we're talking about this, so thanks for having me on.
Yeah, you know, I was thinking about this before a conversation, and you know I was not. I don't know about you, but I was not part of the cell phone generation. Obviously. I had my mobile now and had it for a look for twenty thirty years. But I look back and go, wow, we didn't have this problem when I was a kid. As most parents and grandparents certainly say, things are different. Of course they're supposed to be different. That's how the
world this is, That's how America's designed. I guess this would be like what if I in school, if I were allowed to bring my TV with a cable on it and I could watch MTV. What that would do for my ability to learn? It's the same thing, right it really.
That's that's beautifully said. That's exactly what it is. We don't need it. We just don't need the cord.
Yeah.
So so, but I so appreciate the question because it is a big it is a big, big problem, and I'm so glad the school's are fine. We're taking a step. I mean, we know better, we do better. I mean, I remember I grew up when smoking was allowed in most places, but then we realized it was harmful for your health, so we took it outside and we made
smoking areas and things like that. So setting some limits is similar to that, because I think this is like that the ships sailed before we knew what the repercussions were. And I don't think it's the root cause. It's just that in gasoline to the already raging fire. In terms of the problem of kids struggling to listen, there's also some rebound effects here. So you take the phones out of the schools, and attention spans are still harder to come by because when if they're on their phones and
on devices, which the numbers are kind of staggering. You know, these are spending nine hours plus a day outside of school work. That's a lot of time. So it's not like your brain's going to recover just because you don't have it in school. But again we're still it's still not the root cause, in my opinion, is that we're told, not taught, and this is a problem since the documents since the nineteen fifties.
Yeah, I was making that case and this kind of a theme show today on this I had earlier we're talking about the social media liability trial. It's about to happen that social media and TikTok and snapchat and instant all those platforms are addictive by design and will ruin your kid's life. Yeah, if they go uncheck, if they're completely fear al online with no roadblocks up. But that's on the parent. I don't think that's on the company. Also made the case that the social is not the problem.
The phone itself is the problem. It is like literal, I mean, it's it's like bringing it's a handheld Damn casino is what it is. Right, It's like I've got everything out there. It's not social. It's I can message, I can look at videos, i can watch porn, I can check sports, I can bet online, I can I can do all of these things in the problem in my hand. That's really it's not social. It's the phone.
Well, it's it's all the things that are coming. It's the world coming at kids, not the world, you know, not kids exploring the world and what's finding them. You know. Again, there's could be a lot of debate about algorithms and how we're targeting, just because we could have debates our cigarette companies targeting the brain and making things addictive. So there's there's It's a very complex issue, and I think yes,
parental control is important. Schools taking these steps is important when again, when we know better, we do better, and we still need. One of the things taking this time away in schools is that it forces us to do something else. So you know, I've I've talked with parents as you know, a family therapist and one time a parents said to me, what if my child won't eat anything, drink anything but soda? And I said, well, if you take soda away in the house, they'll get thirsty eventually.
So you know they'll eventually drink water if water is all there is. So what will happen is kids will start to reacclimate towards socializing with each other more than they will to the phones when the phones aren't in front of them. But it's two attempting. So we need to remove those barriers. But then we also got to
give them the skills. I mean, we've been telling we've been telling people to listen kids starting with kids from like I said, this is a problem documented back to the nineteen fifties where we don't have formal listening, education and classrooms. So we tell them expecting the ears to do the work instead of building this as a skill, which is what it is.
Yeah, yeah, I mean I saw we should be addressing in stool. She's a schools that's Christine Mouse, psychologist. Let's back up a little bit. What goes on in the adolescent brain from a developmental psychology perspective, what's actually happening when their kids are always on their phone and you met you know, nine, ten, twelve or more hours a day.
Well, so I will say that I can talk about this from the This is not my core expertise on a system's family therapist, but what I do know and what the research is, it's just it's a dopamine hit. It's a constant dopamine hit. It is. It is asking like a drug. Now we can talk about that from an adult perspective, and we know how difficult that is. You talked about family, you talked about form. These are things for adults that they struggle with in terms of
the time on the phone. When your brains developing, we're in a whole different round here, So we were not forming the pathways that need to be formed in early childhood and in adolescence, which is really why it's so dangerous, because we're changing those neual pathways we're getting they're having a hard time self soothing, They're having a hard time you know. This is why we know the mental health
issues are spiking, not just the attention issues. This is very well documented now in the in the literature.
Okay, but there's also a separation factor here. I guess, for lack of a better word, we're seeing some students are you know, they're experiencing genuine anxiety and panic attacks when they're separated from their phones during these bands. Is that a clinical concern we should take seriously or is that a warning for everyone else?
Well, I think it's a withdrawal issue. I think this is exactly you know what, Let's go back to something simple. You know, we give kids a pacifier because it helps them sue themselves. When when it's time, when the parents go, okay, it's time to now wean off of that. There's some fears that when we have to say goodbye to something that was helping us south just because it helps us
suit doesn't mean it's good for us. This is not how we want we want kids to regulates through a device and through having to have constant you know, attention coming at us, so that our constant stimulus. So we're we're not thinking, feeling, or even operating in the present, and that's the danger zone. So this is where but we've got to fill that gap so that they're not as anxious. Again, this is where the socialization is the answer. It's not just take it away. It's the only way
to stop the behavior to start a new one. So you take the phones away, now you have to replace it with more socialization. We're skill building around listening, which is why again teachers have been telling kids to listen in the classrooms for you know, decades, and this is a constant battle because it's hard to pay attention for eight hours a day, especially if you don't have the skill.
If I said, you go run a marathon, that you know how to run, but get into the get to the end of the race, you got to train, you gotta build the muscle. And so this is our opportunity is to finally solve this problem, which is what I'm committed to doing, is to is to provide education from elementary classrooms to corporations because it doesn't matter what age you are. You only, you know, a very small percentage, less than two percent have any formal listening trading.
Yeah, she is Christine Miles. She's a psychologist of what it's cost to you not to listen to the founder of the listening path or talking about school cell phone and then we have that in Ohio, Kentucky, Indiana to a large degree. But the question nobody's asking that I'm bringing in this morning is their studies are coming out and they're showing that teachers still spend a corner or more of their workday, of their instruction day, just trying to get kids to listen. Then that was before and
now after cell phone bands. So our cell phone is really the problem. They really wreck kids lives. I've also seen studies that pointed out earlier said that, you know, the extreme is if you spend all your time on the phone, it's really really bad for you. I mean, it's horrible for your development, all these things we're talking about.
That's absolutely true. But kids who do aren't on social or don't have phones, who don't use them aren't allowed to tend to also suffer some of those same symptoms. Maybe not the extreme we're talking about with over usage, but under usage. There's a sweet spot right in the middle. And when I hear that, I go, Okay, kids if they're exposed a little social media and able to congregate online with friends, because that's how kids socialized today. I was a kid where we'd socialized at the mall or
the arcade, and kids today do it digitally. So we have to lean into that. Is this just a lesson that we are woefully behind how we educate kids in America still today because we're teaching them like we did a couple hundred years ago. There's a you know, maybe it's instead of a blackboard, it's a whiteboard or a smartboard, but you're still at rote memorization. It's all these things
we've taught kids largely the same way. If phones and social media, Christine are changing kids' brains, shouldn't we be adopting the school curricula to meet the way kids learn now as opposed to how they did a couple hundred years ago.
Well, you're this is such a good point. I mean, we we know that just what we know about the neurodivergency and the way kids learn that. Look, we're you know you and I could go back and say, well, you know, if somebody was this lessacker, had genuinely had a d D or things like that, this wasn't necessarily talked about or diagnosed to the same degree. We once could argue that, you know, not everybody has add that,
but it is real. It is a real thing. So we just know that teachers have a lot of divergent learning needs and so it's really about meeting kids where they are, which is part of why the listening is hard too, because kids needs are different. Yes, which is why this is a this you're the point you're making is I think, which is where my heart and soul is is this is a systemic problem. We're not going
to fix this with one thing. Again, we know that phones that what we're trying to prevent is is keeping them off of engaging with each other, engaging with the future, and engaging with the with the core curriculum. Like you said, take the TV out of the classroom, that's just common sense. Right then, we have the issue of what we do at home and how we limit time. We know that past the screen time, the scrolling, the doom scrolling, that's
not super productive, and that can get that's very addictive. Well, you know, then there's some socialization. How can you mitigate that with socialization? And then you get to the But you take all that and you cure all that, you still have this learning problem and you still have this listening problem to systemic communication problem. We focus on speaking, telling, knowing, and test scores versus how we're learning. And that's what AI, in my opinion, is going to come in and change.
You know, we had the calculator. Now we have something that could do the formulators, but that formulas, But how can you explain it? How can you make sense out of it? How can you show up as a person that knows how to collaborate? And these are all the skills that are at the core of what's going to make somebody successful in the future. Starting we got to start teaching that at a very early age, as early
as first grade, so that they're ready. And this is where we have to fix this systemically, so that we're teaching the skills so everybody is a common language. Is how you listen so they can understand.
So there's another factor here in my mind that this whole thing and I get it, there's a lot of talk about phones descrying attention spans, and the argument is whether the phone is the cause or just the most convenient delivery system for a culture that's already dopamine driven and overstimulate. I mean, you know, parents are were upset with the cell phone bands because they want to be able to get a hold of their kid instantly at
any time during an emergency. But as an excuse to go, I can text you during class because parents are also anxious all the time. Well, and it trickles down that we're all anxiously all the time. But I think it's interesting, is that. So the way to beat this whole thing is to simply use AI and use the algorithms for
good as opposed to evil. If you want to call social media evil, and that is educators and the system should be creating platforms much like TikTok and snapchat and install that feed that that feeds a student a steady diet of what they're interested in to learn that continues to push stuff towards them and challenge them and learn what their likes and dislikes are and try and strengthen those dislikes and make everything better. Use use the technology
for good instead of social media. But the problem with that is now you're going to replace all of these teachers and all these administrators in the schools with something that's digital. That means now that threatens the teachers unions, that threatens the administrators and the whole construct of schools in general, because guess what if I can do this with my phone, much like we've seen you know, broadcast TV,
go away radio, everything else, newspaper press for example. Because of the digital age, that now threatens the livelihood of the education class. And we can't have that in America. And so what winds up happening is this distonect between the kids in the classroom. Am I wrong?
Well, here's what I think. I so, you know, I yes. Again, the it's just like we could be saying the same thing about corporate America, the road. The road things can be replaced, well, can't be replaced by the human skills.
And that's one of the things that I think teachers are getting away from, and not by the doing because there's so much pressure to teach to these core ideas and curriculum and the standards, is that they're getting away from the human part of the job, which is really how we develop kids, how we nurture kids, and so this is going to be the heart of what happens in the school and what teachers love to do and
why most teachers get into the work. So I think it's not that they'll be replaced as to what the emphasis is that needs to change. And that's the same thing that I see on the corporate side that if you want to you have to drive that value as a what in your job because some of the redundancies can be replaced. And so the answer isn't more time
on screen. The answer is more connection in terms of how we raise the kids and how we teach them and how we help them connect through language and through interaction, so that everything they learn in this kind of this fast paced digital world and what's coming at them, they can manage their emotions, They can manage the emotions of others, they can develop empathy. They have the things that the
AI and the machines don't have. And that's the risk is that we're tipping over into too much of the screen time.
Right. She is Christine Miles psychologist. Her book is What Is Costing You Not to Listen? Founder of the Listening Past, Christine miles. Thanks of the time.
I appreciate it, appreciate the conversation. It's really really helpful.
I think I just made the case here teachers can be replaced. This is not believe me, this is like, this is dangerous territory. If you could come up with an algorithm, and it's easy to do because we've seen this replicated Tom and Tom again, that would teach kids on their level, meaning it feeds them a steady die.
The algorithm feeds them a steady die of things they're interested in and expands their knowledge base in learning and kind of sort of tricks them into learning where it becomes fun and engaging on a personal level, just like social media is. And now they're hooked on this, and you put that in the classroom and ban the phone and give them a device that is the alternate to social media and all the stuff coming at you. And that's how kids learn today. They learn on social media,
they learn through digital interaction. If you do that in the classroom, kids now become smarter, more engaged, more learned. But what happens to the educational system the computer replaces the teacher. Can't have that in America?
Can we?
Because of what's at stake? There's also the is she mentioned important too? The social interaction thing? But is this like the it's like clickbait right, This is what the educational system doesn't want you to know, This one weird old trick for saving us a lot of money and getting a better student Thoughts afternoons here Scontzerland continues on seven hundred ww