Right About Now with Ryan Alford - Cyber Monday Smashes Records, Ryan Declares War on Elf on the Shelf, and Social Media Crackdown for Teens!

Episode Date: December 6, 2024

In today’s Weekly Business News episode, host Ryan Alford and co-host Brianna Hall dive into a lively discussion about the holiday season, exploring family dynamics, traditions, and economic trends. They share personal stories, from the hilarity of navigating "Elf on the Shelf" antics to grappling with the rising costs of holiday preparations. Brianna opens up about her recent move from California to South Carolina, reflecting on the emotional challenges and positive changes it has brought.The duo also examines consumer behavior, noting record-breaking Cyber Monday spending and its broader implications for the economy. With humor and insight, the episode captures the relatable joys and stresses of the holiday season, offering listeners a thoughtful and entertaining take on this festive time of year.TAKEAWAYSDiscussion of holiday season experiences and traditionsPersonal anecdotes related to family life and moving to a new locationChallenges of holiday preparations and emotional distance from familyInsights into consumer behavior and economic implications of holiday spendingAnalysis of rising prices and spending trends during the holiday seasonDebate on the "Elf on the Shelf" tradition and its impact on parentsNostalgia surrounding childhood experiences and evolving family dynamicsExploration of social responsibility among wealthy entrepreneursExamination of economic disparities affecting lower-income consumersDiscussion on social media regulation for youth and its potential consequences If you enjoyed this episode and want to learn more, join Ryan’s newsletter https://ryanalford.com/newsletter/ to get Ferrari level advice daily for FREE.  Learn how to build a 7 figure business from your personal brand by signing up for a FREE introduction to personal branding https://ryanalford.com/personalbranding.  Learn more by visiting our website at www.ryanisright.comSubscribe to our YouTube channel  www.youtube.com/@RightAboutNowwithRyanAlford. 

This is Right About Now with Ryan Alford, a Radcast Network production. We are the number one business show on the planet with over 1 million downloads a month. Taking the BS out of business for over 6 years and over 400 episodes. You ready to start snapping necks and cashing checks? Well, it starts right about now. Welcome to December. It is right about now. It is Friday, December 6, 2024.

Ho, ho, ho. Brianna, what's up? Hey. No Chris today. Just us. A little under the weather. Hats off. Or a shout out.

Whatever you do to someone sick, get well soon, bud. Yeah, pat him on the back with a broom. Yeah, food poisoning's no fun. Our thoughts with Chris, just Breanna and I today here in G Vegas, that's Greenville, South Carolina, to anyone who doesn't know. Great place to be. Just come visit.

You don't have to stay though. We want you to visit. So for Brianna, we wanted her to stay. But, how's it been? Okay, you're almost six months, right? Five, six months. You have amnesia of timelines. It's almost five.

I round up. I mean, so five or six months, okay. Yep. What's up? Bri mean, so five or six months, okay. Yep. Brianna moved from California to South Carolina. So one of those migrators that- Transplant. Can't blame her.

Just saying. There's so many things that are amazing here, things that we didn't have in California, kind people, lack of homeless people, clean streets. You can walk down in the city and feel safe, and that's great. But yeah, I'm definitely getting used to it and ready to explore kind of more parts of the state. Do you think it's, I can imagine the family side of it,

missing family, support and all that. If you could extract that, do you feel like it's better? I do. And I think if you ask my husband, my husband's much less emotional and he loves it. He thinks it's so much better. I'm definitely struggling with the family piece. I really miss my family.

I really miss my mom. But I'm more emotional, you know that. Yeah, exactly. Women are more emotional, typically. Yeah. I've met some that aren't, but you know, my wife's not too emotional. I don't deal with emotion that well, most men don't.

Yeah. Unless I'm being emotional, you know, that's how it works for men, right? Yeah, yeah, totally. Yeah, so, you know, it is better, I think, in terms of certain things. I really like my kids' school. I like that they learn about Jesus

and that they have a relationship. My son is praying at the dinner table every night, and I love that. You know, we're just getting, we're still getting in the swing of things, though. Trying to figure out where everything's at. I was angry last weekend when we went to get a Christmas tree because there is just different here.

We had to go to a tree farm, which we've never really done that before. We usually go and cut one down in the forest. People said you could. You can. You can. You might get shot. You might get shot. You gotta know whose land you're on.

Yeah. You know, we actually protect our land here in South Carolina. Yeah. So, well, we paid 10 times more for a Christmas tree here than we did last year. How much are Christmas? Yeah, this is a good economy question.

Yeah, so this is business. We're taking the BS out of business. How much are Christmas trees going for these days? You want a real, what did I get? How tall? A Frasier Fir. Frasier Fir, that's a real Christmas tree. Seven feet.

Seven feet, pretty tall. $120. Okay, that's about where they were, I feel like the last time I bought one was probably 10 years ago. I tell you what. I don't feel like they were much cheaper than that. You know what I paid for my Christmas tree last year?

Seven or eight feet tall, beautiful Doug fir. What? 10 bucks. What? Yes, 10 bucks. Yeah, but how much did you pay for gas? Well, okay, it was an hour drive to the national forest. And you buy it every day or every week.

Yep, oh yeah, $7 a gallon. Yeah, seven a gallon every other week or every week. I mean, geez. You go to the gas, think about this, back, and it's been a while, I'll admit, but like high school days where, you know, I might have five dollars to my name and, you know, that'd get me five gallons of gas. I mean, that's that's a couple of weeks of gas.

You're a Cali. You got five bucks in your pocket. That ain't getting you. And you got to drive pretty far around there, especially when you live, right? So pretty rural. It ain't getting you far. No, it used to cost, so in my SUV, it costs about 97 to $100 to fill it up once a week, and here it's like 35.

Yeah. So that's real nice. Yes. Yeah, the gas is supposed to be going down though. I think so, yeah. I think, I will say overall, and I read this before I came overall, and I read I read this before I came in, and I've certainly felt it. And just for

the record, my crypto is doing really well. And so the sentiment of the economy seems to be much higher. And I guess we're all in our own little bubbles. And so it's not that it's necessarily that there's been an impact to my wallet or the company's wallet yet. But it does seem like the sentiment about overall economy stuff next year seems a lot more positive.

I think so. And I think that in one of our articles that we're going to discuss today, that's reflected with the biggest US online shopping day for Cyber Monday, a record breaking 13 billion dollars spent from US consumers. So I think people are optimistic about what's coming next year because they're willing to spend and it's different for everybody for sure. And, you know, it's different for everybody for sure. But it sounds like... I mean, 7% is significant year over year.

Yeah. So that's definitely a sign of people taking money off the shelf, so to speak, and feeling confident that they are going to make it again. Yep. Exactly. That's kind of what happens. Like, I mean, definitely there's all levels to this. But sometimes people, I don't know that you could over-save.

So I don't want to say that they're over-saving. But they're much more judicial in what they purchase. I would say from July to November, people were really holding. Yeah, it seemed that way. And I think all the retail numbers sort of supported that. So now it just, everybody just let it go. Yeah, they really did.

They really did. They were like, Christmas shopping? Yeah. Let's go. I think my wife did. The packages hidden in the closet, under the bed, like I'm hoping in drawers. I went, literally last night Nicole was at her holiday party and I go into the laundry room and getting ahead on a little laundry. Hey, oh that kind of husband, you know

Selfishly just washing something I needed but Open the thing I opened the cabinet which is kind of high So it is a place for the kids wouldn't get. And I just, you know, doing those, you know, kind of turn to the side, open, and I crunch into like boxes. We've got boxes wrapped gifts already jammed up in this.

I'm like, what in the world is this? So the economy, the offered economy is definitely on, open back up. I love having little kids because my son doesn't like, he really thinks that, you know, everything's and it is, right? It is coming from the North Pole. What do you mean? What are you implying? I'm not implying anything.

I'm saying it's coming from the North Pole. Oh, I thought you were implying that Santa Claus is around. All I'm saying. Clearly you haven't been in South Carolina long enough. All I'm saying is that moms across America are Santa Claus. But I have a whole table in the garage, right? And it's covered and nobody, nothing's wrapped yet because I haven't had any tape this week.

So I'm going to get some tape, but nothing's wrapped. But my kids are still young enough that I just have a blanket over all the boxes and they're, they don't know to look. Yeah. I do remember those days. It was a lot easier to hide them. Now it's like a little harder. At least my wife says it is. The cool thing about when your kids get older though is I feel like the presents get smaller. Well, let me tell you, it's not smaller. Another instance, this morning I went out because I had a package delivering that wasn't a gift for anyone except for me. And I about it was kind of still dark out in the morning, you know, it's pretty

early but I guess I don't know if it was really early this morning or last night or whatever. I go out and about tripped because like to your point there was a box about four feet high and three feet wide right on the front porch. And it was a certain gift. I don't think my kids listened to the show. But just in case, it was a large gift for them right on the front porch that daddy about fell over. I did not expect right at the,

again, just sort of walking. And yeah, so about fell over on that one. Oh my gosh, yeah. Well, I felt like, yeah, when they're little, right, they've got like these tracks and these train tables and all this stuff and like as they turn into teenagers and they want like little games and I don't know, they get more expensive but smaller.

Yes, so. Potentially, until they want a car, that's pretty big. Did you do any Black Friday shopping? I didn't, my husband shopping? I didn't. My husband did. I didn't. I did all my shopping in November. Well, in early November. Yeah.

My wife took the boys out. She went to the mall. I stayed home and did nothing. But I was like, you're crazy. They went to the mall at noon and came back two hours later and looked exhausted. And I'm like, yeah, that's what I'm telling you. I want to, but I just, this year was a big year for us.

We did a very expensive move, purchased a house, all sorts of stuff. So we're on a, the whole household is on a waiting till January kind of budget. Understood. And I see something, you know, this article will stay on the Cyber Monday, the the Black Friday theme here. I see an item on here that I would like to stranglehold the creator of that is exists in our house. And that would be the creator of Elf on the Shelf.

What? I freaking hate that creator. I would like to if I could go back in time and allow them not to think up that invention, I would do it. I love Elf on the Shelf. I'd like to choke that elf. Like, cause here's what it does. All it does is add stress to families.

Yeah. The kids might like it, but parents, you know how many times in the middle of the night I get broken up? Huh, huh, huh, I didn't hide the elf. You know, like worried because, you know, we still have an eight year old who, you know, loves that elf and is looking for him every morning.

I was gonna pull up, I have. I get waken up at least five times. You know, and my wife bought by these kids, the economy that's driven by health from the shelf. She buys the kids now with all the stuff every day. Talk about Iraq. I need to I'm going to create the right about now. Elf on the shelf package, little sweater, little. No, it's going to be a more like a noose.

You know, one of those one of those things you get in that's the The the old guillotine no, I'd be like elf on the shelf. I have a better idea. Yeah, it's a branded bills hot It's a branded bills sweater. It's elf size and it's a holding a plate of steak. Yes, and it's the Ryan all Special that fodger I'm telling you, I don't like him. I have- I punch him like secretly, and like when I'm,

I'm sort of joking, but I flick him in the face when I walk by, because you know you're not supposed to touch him or whatever. And when my kids aren't looking, I thump them right in the head. This is my calendar, that I have every day on my husband and I's shared calendar, Move the Elf.

See, that's what I'm saying. Stress, added stuff to do. This is not helpful, people. This is not the way it's supposed to be. One more thing to worry about. It's fun for one person only, or depending on how many kids you have. I mean, yeah.

It's just stress, added stress. That's all Elf of the Shelf creator did. Shame on you. You should be ashamed. Shame to yourself. I kinda like it. No. I'd like it if I didn't get woken up

or I'm worried, look, I got a flashlight about more guns, so you don't wanna come in my house. And let me say, my wife makes noise in the middle of the night that I didn't help. Then I have to have it out of that bed and ready to shoot somebody. And it's just, oh, I forgot the elf. Oh, Jesus, let me go back to sleep.

Oh, my gosh. Yeah. I hate that guy. Anyway, I'm glad he was one of the top selling units. You know, that was that was toys, elf on the shelf dolls, Lego sets and Harry Potter figurines. Two of those three can go straight to you nowhere. I don't have any love for Harry Potter either. Probably get some hate mail for that.

I know a lot of people do. But I just got nothing for Harry. Harry Potter? Yeah. It's an American classic. He's a funky wizard. You know. They're gonna come for you.

That's all right. It's OK. I don't hate Harry Potter. It's just not my thing. I hate on the show. And hate's a strong word. I don't like to hate things. I don't hate many things. I'm pretty... But this I'm passionate about because I really do think it has caused more like issues

than solved. It has met... Joy should not come at the expense of others Yeah, my four-year-old is already asking way too many logistics questions with the elf. See there you go You got a lie. Yeah, it's lies This is I mean, this is not good for anything. You know what I do have to say though is I love for anything. You know what I do have to say though, is I love Christmas for the reason of it does feel like as Americans and I think in the world,

but definitely in America, we're so divided on so many things. But one thing that I absolutely love is how, for the most part, and I know there's outliers to this, but it does seem like for Christmas and the lie of Santa Claus and the elf on the shelf, we come together. We like unify to really.

You had me at Santa until you brought elf in. Nobody wants to lie about that fucker. They do, but they don't. Everybody acts like they like it, but they don't. There's some people listening right now, they're shaking their head. They know. They know I'm right. And I'm not humbug.

I love Christmas. I love a humbug. I love Christmas I love all the decoration. I love all the pageantry. I'm I am NOT a humbug, but that little elf The first thing that goes as soon as like Nash is too smart is that guy? Like when Nash figures it out done. We're gonna have a little exercise called a bonfire in the backyard What age what age is like the age for like the magic dies a little bit ten I Think it's getting pretty close there. I know the child, child may have four boys and it's been a little

different with each one. Clayton's my oldest. He's 15 going on 71. Very stoic, very smart, intelligent and no nonsense. And, you know, he played along because he's always

had the younger brother, you know, he played along, because he's always had the younger brother, you know, and, but the gig was up around nine or 10 for him. He played along. I knew when he knew, but he didn't tell me he knew, because he's very thoughtful. And he didn't, he didn't want, he knew that it mattered to the parents, to us, that he still believed. But I could tell he knew, you know what I'm saying?

But that's how he is. He wanted us to still enjoy it because he knew he had younger brothers. Yeah. So, but, uh, like Hogan, who's 13, um, turning 13, he's already, I mean already certainly in the know now. But he was late. I think I just don't think I think he wanted even when maybe he it was possible. He was like he didn't want to believe that it wasn't real. Yeah.

Clayton and Hudson pragmatic Nash is probably me like Hogan a little bit wanting to hang on. He's the baby. Yeah. So you never know. Yeah, I to hang on, because he's the baby. Yeah. So you never know. Yeah. I know, I'm like, four is too young, he's got to still like, believe in the full,

the full picture of all of the match. We're at a good time though, like, and it's fleeting, it's going fast. You know, we're at a good spot where we don't have all the bullshit you deal with, with three year olds, four year olds that you're going through. That's wonderful, but terrible. You know, you know what I'm talking about. Like just they're just young and you have to do a lot for them. So the mine are very

self-sufficient, but they have fun. They're still joy because of Nash and the others playing along. But like it's, it's getting to different phases, you know, and they're all fun. But I am having more nostalgia over it because I am. I, you know, I know these moments, you know, much so I don't like the elf. I like everything else. And I'll look back and go, man, because it it flies. Yeah, like I just remember the kids being, you know, two and four before Nash and then Nash comes along.

They're six, four, one. It was, it goes fast. Yeah. And then it's going to, you know, it'll be a whole new season of college. Bunch of kids in college. That's right. And if you're watching college football, the playoffs are coming.

We won't talk about the game this past weekend. You know, the bad guys beat the good guys. It happens sometimes. So I'll come out and beat Clemson. I gave him credit. The old rivalry, they played better. They were the better team for at least a moment. They had the one better player. I think that's what it came down to. But Clemson could back door their way into the playoffs. That's what I came down to. But Clemson could back door their way into the playoffs. That's what I heard, yeah. On Saturday. So Sawyer and Brianna, Sawyer's our producer at our holiday party on Saturday night that was gonna be one thing. Now it's a football watching party. We'll still have all the other holiday stuff, but it will be on and I will be paying attention, at least partially. That's good. My husband will be there.

He'll like that. We'll see what happens. Clemson plays SMU for right to go to the college. So I don't feel like we've really earned it, but who's to say what earns. It's a weird year. A lot of strange things happening. A lot of money being handed around. I know that with the players and others, but speaking of a lot of money,

what's up with Tesla? Elon, let's see, I got to get down to it. Elon loses a bid to get $56 billion pay package. Who is making $56 billion? I do like double read that. And I see 56 billion pay back, what? Not a million? What kind of pay package is that? 56 billion.

Like, is that like over time or is that annual? Like, what? It says must, despite the legal setback, must net worth is surged by 43 billion since Donald Trump's election victory. Like, would you even notice if you had an additional $56 billion? It's getting to be a lot of zeros for me.

What could you even buy with that? It's not really the point at that point. It's sort of a, I don't know, what can't you buy? He bought Twitter for damn sake. It's true. So it sounds like there was one thing that I wanted to say on this, and that was that as a visionary, right, as the person who, you know, acquired Tesla built SpaceX has done all these different things. It's interesting to think that like you can be an entrepreneur and do all these amazing things. But, what is the line between your social responsibility

and like, you know, leveraging this money for yourself? I think it's a personal decision. If you make that money, you earn it, you innovate. I would have, me personally, I do a lot of good with that money. I, you know, I would feel, not even like it's my responsibility. I think I'd just be compelled personally.

And look, there's no telling how much Elon Musk gives away or does charities. You know he does. All those guys do. It's just he may not, just because he doesn't run headlines about it. And I know Bill Gates and all them, all you see is the headlines for how much charity they do.

I don't know that Elon Musk puts the PR releases out the way others do for every donation he gives. But I've seen certain remnants of that occasionally. And I think I'd be compelled to want to do it. So I know that I would give a lot away because you have, once you get to that level, but at the same time, it's a personal decision. While you're a free country. I mean, you know, if you want to put all that in a bank account and go live in a cave by yourself, it's your right to do so.

Yeah. It sounds like he gives away about 5.7 billion to charity each year, including 160 million to nonprofits, 55 million to St. Jude's Children's Hospital, and various different charities. Yeah, exactly. Do you ever see that in the headlines? No. I had to dig, I had to dig,

ask this question to Google twice. $5.6 billion a year, but he doesn't run PR releases on every one of them. So who's the better servant? The Bible would tell me one, you know, if you believe in that book. Yeah, it's definitely very interesting. Like why, depending on where you look and like what you type into Google, the answers that you'll get on Elon Musk. It's not, you're not saying it's slanted or you're not saying it's biased, right? I'm saying it definitely does not paint him in a positive light.

Yeah, of course it doesn't. But, you know, I saw one positive light that was a positive, non-positive light that surprised me on this next article, which is dollar stores struggling. What? What? I didn't make sense to me at first. Like, okay. But then I read further and it kind of does. The people most impacted.

Yeah. Yeah. Well, and it is crazy. This is one thing that I kind of wanted to touch on with like the American dream segment is the vast differences, right? Like we just talked about Elon Musk and a $56 billion dollar pay package. He's able to give away, you know,

$5 billion a year to charity. And then versus like certain, you know, people in a completely different living situation right now. You know, there's a lot of lower income shoppers that are about 60% of the dollar general sales coming from households that earn less than thirty thousand dollars a year. Yeah. And I don't know. I've gone to the stores. I feel like a couple of things have happened. One I don't like that because I like something in those places. But I feel like the packaging

has gotten smaller. Like me personally, I don't go to places. But I feel like the packaging's gotten smaller. Like me personally, I don't go to them anymore because I feel like the selection's gotten a little worse and the package has got smaller. I used to go in there and, hell, I get this shampoo, this deodorant, they've gotten wise. They've shrunk it down to like the miniature size. I'm like, okay, well, I mean,

I could buy that size at the drugstore for $1.50 and not have to drive over here to the middle of nowhere to get to it. Yeah. And in last year, I think it was 2023, the Dollar Tree, they raised their prices by 25%. Yeah, $1.25. You can't say, I mean, you gotta have a whole name change.

You can't be the Dollar Tree if you're $1.25. Yeah. You know? Exactly. Yeah, Dollar Quarter Tree doesn't ring as well. You know? I know, I know it doesn't. And it's like, you doesn't ring as well. I know. I know it doesn't. And you don't think about it being a lot, but I used to go to the dollar store

and I would buy a whole basket full of stuff for the kids and toys and different things just to make up an Easter basket or something like that. It'd be like $20 for a whole shopping cart full. And then they raised their prices by 25% and you're like, oh no, it's 40 bucks Yeah, why does it seem like it went up half 50%? Yeah, that's five five quarter tree I mean like none of these things I'm trying to come up with a name for them and none of them ring

25% too much and Look and go go lo and behold their sales are off 30% or whatever it is. Yeah. Well, poorly maintained stores, overworked employees. Yeah. I mean, you're not going to be successful. You're going to get shattered if you don't serve your demographic correctly. Yeah. And I think it'll be interesting like next year. OK, if the economy doesn't prove that these numbers go up. But I think they need to relook at the size of those packages for me,

because that box of cereal, you aren't full of me. You reduce the size of it. I know you did. I go to pour that cereal or whatever it is, and it doesn't even fills up like one bowl. I'm like, wait a second. This is hold it up to one of the cabinet. They're tricky. Those markers. They call it shrink flation. Yeah. Shrink flation. I'm telling you, go into one of those stores and go like take

a normal size item with you or something. Like a bar of soap or something. Everything's a little smaller now. Plus it's 25% more. You ain't fooling us, Dr. Albert. You ain't fooling us. All right, enough of that. I know we didn't even start there. What was our first article today? Oh yeah, you gotta talk about this one. Oh yeah, this one is good. Australia is banning social media

for people under 16 years of age. The question is, could this work elsewhere or will it even work there? This is a new social media ban passed by the Australian Parliament and it targets platforms like TikTok, Instagram and Snapchat and it goes into effect next year. So the purpose of the ban is to protect children from online harm including inappropriate content, social pressure, bullying, and mental health issues. I mean, I'm all for it.

Keep those kids off social media. But what do you think? This is a tricky one. Like with, as a father of four boys, I like the thought of this, but then I think a few things, how are they gonna enforce it? Is it just gonna create FOMO?

Thus, they're gonna seek it out and try to do it more, try to do it different, like in worse ways, like some of the behaviors, like in getting it. And then I think like, okay, what's their right, you know, with free expression, all these things. And I, you know, with free expression, all these things. And I, you know, as a teenager, I struggle with, you know, someone that believes heavily in free speech

and doing all that and having a show like this. But at the same time, you know, it's our job to protect our children. And 13, 14, 15 year olds are not adults yet. Yeah. And the behaviors that social media can lead to for that demographic have been proven to be negative in a lot of ways.

I think that if you look at some of the science, it's just as dangerous as smoking. It's just as dangerous as drinking alcohol. It's just as dangerous, right? So in terms of like the habits, the habitual nature of social media, how addicting it is, how it changes your brain. So in that aspect, I would agree with this ban,

but on the aspect of like them being able to have free speech, I mean, but they're not adults. So do they have the right to free speech? Yeah. I mean, I don't know. I don't know. Yeah, I think you, maybe, but not without oversight. Yeah.

The thing is, I mean, I think looking into what access to the internet looked like in the early 2000s, you know, there were things that we did. There was this one, was it like, I don't know, it was some kind of chat roulette or something. And you would put in like age, sex location or something, ASL, you remember that? Yeah.

And then they would type in whatever. And you were totally chatting with strangers on the internet. Yeah, unsafe. Unsafe. MySpace, a little bit different. You're just like, you know, putting a song to your profile to tell people how you really feel and rating your friends

in order of importance. Yes, I do think it will be interesting the how this plays out. Yeah, and how much backlash versus enforcement and everything, like how are you going to keep them from bypassing it? Does it just create, does, do children trying to bypass it create more dangers than just allowing them to do it?

Well, yeah, it's such an interesting question. Because yeah, to your point, making something off limits drives the desire to want to do it. Two points that I have top of mind are, do you remember FinstaGram? It came out a couple years ago. Do you have a Finsta? And it was a fake Instagram.

So kids, all these kids, 13, 14, 15, they would have their real Instagram that their parents followed. And then they'd have a Finsta gram, which was their fake Instagram, which was like what their friends followed. So that was a thing like two, three years ago. And then the other thing that's top of mind for me

is Instagram recently released their updated terms and conditions for 2025. And in that terms and conditions, you cannot have an Instagram account if you are a registered sex offender. Well, I support that. Yeah, me too. Yeah, it's common sense.

I mean, I don't know how it's regulated, but. Yeah, I don't either, but I support that. Yeah, me too. Yeah, it's common sense. I mean, I don't know how it's regulated, but. Yeah, I don't either, but I support it. I will say we live in a global environment, though, in a global world, and America, you know, sort of has influence on a lot of the rest of the world. So again, in trying to shut this off, you know, 13, 14, 50 year olds in Australia, I would imagine, look to the US and sort of the trends there. And so if it's not turned off everywhere, again, I don't know how you're going to sort of dial this back, especially the demand and desire for it. And I think all

you're doing likely is pushing more traffic to YouTube. Yeah, because that's where they're going to go probably. It's just not, you know, it's not viewed as social media. It's just a ton of content. Yeah. So I think that attention will go somewhere and probably in attempts to get at it nefariously or whatever you want to call it, combined with other platforms. So I don't know.

It's complex. I'll just say that. Social media really is. And while it does connect to the world and on a global scale, it gives us access to each other. I don't know that that access is healthy. Yeah. I don't think so, to a certain. You're not supposed to know what everyone in the world is doing.

I think 16 and up at a controlled level is where it can. And it really depends on the child. It's not one size fits all. Because every child, I mean, I have four. I see the differences in them. And whether they're not, you know, it's not like a God given right if it's not right for where you are developmentally. Here's an idea, developers, put a little like 100 question quiz in the front of signing

up. Yeah, they can pass that. Then they can have it. You know, it means they're like socially responsible or have emotional intelligence. Yeah. Emotional intelligence test. Yeah. Or just intelligence in general. There. Yeah. Just intelligence in general.

Yeah. There's an idea. I think that's all we got today. Got to jump out. Got things to go. We got checks to cash. Next to snap. Whatever our intros.

Napping next to cash checks. Yeah. Yeah. That's what we're hoping you guys are doing that. So, well, you're welcome to December. Welcome to the holidays. Any final words, Brianna? Thanks guys. Have a great week. There you have it. Ryanisright.com. Find the highlight clips, go to YouTube, check out the YouTube. You want to see Brianna in person, you got to go check her out on the YouTube channel and we appreciate you. We'll see you next time or Right About Now.

This has been Right About Now with Ryan Ulford, a Radcast Network production. Visit Ryanisright.com for full audio and video versions of the show or to inquire about sponsorship opportunities. Thanks for listening.