The Adam and Dr. Drew Show - #1749 Screen Zombies

Episode Date: July 24, 2023

Adam and Dr. Drew welcomes back childcare aficionado, Florence Anne. Today, kids and adults alike are a bunch of screen zombies. Dr. Drew recommends keeping kids off of screens and social media for as many years as possible, they touch on helicopter parenting, and advise that there are digital academies to help with online addictions. Finally, Adam has some advice on parenting, or lack thereof, and its impact on society.

Hey, this is Adam Parola. Let me tell you about my podcast. We do it every single day, so you can subscribe and there'll always be a fresh one waiting for you. It's about two hours of topics, topical topics, and news and guests and comedians and, of course, my own vitriolic take on just about everything that's going on in the world. Plus, we get a lot of really interesting, notable people who come in. We'll get politicians, we'll get tastemakers, we'll get stand-ups,

we'll get authors, we'll get pundits, we'll get... What did I say? Well, I think about covers of all celebrities as well, and we'll do some really interesting interviews with them. You can get The Adam Carolla Show wherever certified physician and addiction medicine specialist, Dr. Drew Pinsky.

You're listening to The Adam and Dr. Drew Show. Yeah, get it on. Got to get on. Dr. Drew, board certified physician, from New York City. Our old friend Florence Ann is back. She's an author and she's a child care activist as well. She's got a book out, Build Your Village, a guide to finding joy and community in every stage of life. Good to see you again, Florence Ann.

So happy to be back with you, gentlemen. So let's talk. I'm looking down at my cheat sheet here i think we can all agree that people kids and and people just need they need to get off that screen i i literally i'll have conversations with people that are just sort of staring at their phone while we're in the car together and stuff they're they're not i wouldn't call them 40 into the conversation they're in the car together and stuff. I wouldn't call them 40% into the conversation. They're in the mid-20s in terms of the conversation. They're just checked out.

It's literally, I now have a policy where I'll just go, look, I'm not trying to be rude, but I'm not going to keep talking while you look at your phone. I'll just stop talking. And then when you're done, then we can have a conversation. This thing where you think you can have a conversation and stare at your feed, not doable for most. I can kind of do it because I have a bizarre hypervigilance and I can kind of compartmentalize or multitask, but it's still very difficult for me.

It's also a weird thing, too, that it's not considered a social faux pas. Yeah, it's not true. I mean, it would be maddening back in the day, Drew, if you and I were just talking and I picked up a book and just held it in front of my face because that's what they're doing. Or just a telephone or something. that would be no a book a book i'm gonna pick up a book and i'm

gonna bury my nose in this book and you keep talking right you would go that's the rudest thing i've ever seen in my life right right good point yeah i'm gonna write that down you should actually try that in public instead of your phone take out a book and and just do a social experiment with that i would love to see people's reaction they probably would be horrified they'd be outright they would they wouldn't be with their phone not with their phone but that yes that would be so rude disrespectful. I think you should go out and do a little YouTube thing on this. It is interesting. It's also interesting that the phone doesn't even count as being on the phone anymore. In the sense that, remember back in the day, Drew and I are older than you, where you'd walk into someone's office, they'd be holding a phone receiver to their ear.

And you would immediately go, oh, you put your hands up and go, I'll be back and shut the door behind you. Right now, people are talking on the phone. I'll be talking on the phone. People come up, start talking to me. But it's the same as it was. It's just a different technology. All right. How do we get these kids off of these screens?

Or I should say, when I say kids, anyone under 40? Well, I'm going to say the unpopular thing. You know, we always talk about this. How do we get the kids off of the screen time, limit the screen time? We adults can't even follow our own rules. You know, it's like rules for thee, but not for me sort of thing. So we want these kids to be off their screens,

but we are so addicted to our phones. And so, you know, I think we have to lead by example in a lot of ways. I know a lot of families where the kids come home, they actually sit down and have a family dinner. Again, something that is a little extinct, I would say these days having family dinners. And the parents put their phones in a drawer and so do the kids.

And for those, you know, 20 minutes or 30 minutes, they're actually sitting down together. No one can be on their phones. No one can be distracted. And one of the saddest things, I think, too, that we see happening today with kids, especially, things I think too, that we see happening today with kids, especially, um, I was actually with, um, a group of girls and their daughter said to their mom, to us all, you know, mom, you know, she doesn't really always watch me all the time because she's looking at her phone and she doesn't like to pick, she doesn't pay attention to me. And it was the most heartbreaking thing to hear. And she felt comfortable saying that in, you know, mixed company.

She didn't think anything of it. That's children, right? They're unedited. They just say, this is how I'm feeling. And they say it to you. But of course, the mother was horrified. She was so embarrassed by that because, you know, that made her look bad or feel shamed. And so I say that to kind of be the overarching kind of thesis of this whole thing is, you know, we can say this is what we're expecting you kids to do.

And these are the rules. But we also need to make sure that we're connecting with our children and limiting our time, too, so that we're present. caught up in working or whatever else that you're doing and having to multitask, but also not realizing how your child or young, you know, even teenagers are interpreting that. So, you know, those are all things to keep in mind when figuring out, you know, how to limit that. So a couple of things. One is I never really thought about the young child being raised by the 34-year-old mom who's just staring at her phone the entire time and what that would feel like. I could remember going to my daughter's volleyball game. And to be fair to me, it's not a volleyball game it's volleyball games in in perpetuity it's like it's it starts at 6 45 in the morning when you have to be in fucking orange county and then

you're staying until four in the afternoon and you shall watch 26 games of volleyball you're watching 26 games of volleyball i mean i could imagine pitching that to my parents you're gonna come out watch me play 11 hours of little league play like we're gonna play like 122 innings you just sit there but it's insane it's in goddamn thing it's by the, it's torture for the parents because you burned an entire Saturday. It's completely gone to waste. But... Well, at least it's right around the corner.

You just go, you know... It's always orange can. It's always far away. But here's the thing. She did at some point caught glimpses of me in the bleachers looking at my phone because... Sorry, it's nine hours of girls volleyball. At some point, I want to check my Twitter.

I cannot sit here focused for nine hours. But she saw me looking at the phone a couple of times in the course of the nine-hour marathon of volleyball and had thoughts about it. Like was not happy about it, you know. the course of the nine hour marathon of volleyball and, uh, and, and had thoughts about it. Like it was not happy about it, you know?

And I, I get it because my dad used to come to pop order football games and bring a book and he would sit on a folding chair on the sidelines, stare at a book the whole time. And I remember being out on the field, like looking at him sitting apart, reading a book and it bothered me. But that's when they happen to look over.

They happen to look over at the one or two times that you do it. You could be paying attention the 90% of the time. But again, it's more about the moderation of it, too. There's another layer to this green thing that people never talk about and I've been dealing with lately, which is that people your age, Florence Ann, and younger do not make phone calls. They text. And my friends and colleagues that are in their 30s actually get pissed when I call them because I freaking hate texting. I hate it. And that keeps your face in the phone. And I hate it because I was reared on a pager for 20 years where a pager, when something went off in my pocket, I had to jump to action. Whether it was morning or dinner, whatever it is, I run to the phone. And so I still have that reaction in my body. It's crazy. My heart rate goes up every time I get a freaking text, but that takes you back to the screen and they are recalcitrant on that front. Well, can we agree with you?

I mean, I, not me though. I like, I like to talk on the phone. I I'm the exception to the rule here, but I did do a poll on Instagram about that. And, uh, most people said, don't you do, don't you dare call me? And, you know, I like a phone call too. I do as well. I think, you know, I think it probably comes down to some habits. I personally never bring my phone inside of the studio, for instance. It's just a habit. It does not enter the studio. And then I always shut it off when I go to bed at night.

It's off. You can't. You turn it off completely, your cell phone? I'm actually shocked. Oh, my God. I am. I can't even put my phone on do not disturb at night because I'm too afraid.

Like the one time I do it, something's going to happen or a family number needs to hear this. I can't, oh God, I know I can't do it. That's an interesting. So this is kind of an interesting wiring point, which is I am wired. So I don't have Google alerts with my name on it or anything like that. Because if somebody, so there's two kinds of wiring. And this is interesting, and maybe we can get to the bottom of it.

And I'll circle back to the phone. If somebody says to me, did you hear what so-and-so was saying about you? My first impulse is, I don't want to hear it now they didn't say it was good and they didn't say it was bad I just said my impulse is I don't want to hear it and when the phone and I don't want to read articles about myself or see, I don't have alerts about me because I'm not interested. Now, the phone ringing in the middle of the night, you know, the news, your dad's in the hospital or something, something, something to me is burdensome. It's like, I don't want to wake up at 2.45 to hear my dad's in the ICU. I'll wake up

at 8.45 and go see him in the hospital if he hasn't perished by then. That's what I'll do. There's nothing there's no good for me in getting dressed at 3.30 in the morning and driving to the hospital.

And I cannot help him. What about your kids? I can't save them. My kids are like, they're in the house before I go to bed. So I'm, I'm pretty, you know, I'm assuming they're, they're taken care of. Uh, I just don't want the, even the option of the phone going off at four in the morning. Now, I keep the phone by my nightstand in case there's a situation or emergency or something. I got to wake up and call 911 or something like that. But my phone is not only not in this studio, my phone is turned off right now. I power it down. It doesn't even make sense, but I literally shut it off. I shut my phone off a lot. If I'm doing someone else's

show or podcast or something, I don't have it on silent or vibrate or whatever it is dead is powered off and I just I don't know maybe it's symbolic but I just do it a lot and if you can have sort of no phone zones where you just go I'm going into a movie theater I'm going to shut my phone and I'm going to leave it in the car and I'm going into a movie theater. I'm going to shut my phone and I'm going to leave it in the car. And I'm going into this movie theater. Like just start creating those kinds of habits. And if you start doing that, you will cut way down on your screen time. It's also a form of narcissism to think you're so fucking important that someone needs to get hold of you. The president's on line three but think about how cringeworthy it is what adam is saying people have a physical reaction to that that should tell us something

i even i do have a physical reaction to it because of course my mind's going down that rabbit hole of like oh my gosh something was wrong with my mom or, you know, something. I can even tell you most recently, my friend texted me at like one o'clock or maybe it was early in that, maybe like 1130 or something. I went to sleep early that night. He texted me and said his daughter, my goddaughter had gone to the hospital, had, you know, broken something. And, you know, and, and he was letting me know we were all leaving for a wedding the next day and this whole thing. And I was like, oh, gosh, the one time I put my phone on do not disturb. I didn't see that until the next day. Now, like to Adam's point, what would I have done in that moment?

I wasn't going to go to the hospital. She was already home. I wasn't going to call her and say, how are you feeling? But I felt guilty, Dr. Drew, not getting that information right away and being hours and hours going by. And I felt like I had been negligent or something as her godmother that I did not respond. And so maybe that's more about me or my guilt or whatever it might be. But see, I had a physical reaction and I thought about that right away. Or or maybe it has again, it's a symptom of how millennials sort of ended up the way they are with, with, you know, adults and

parents being so on top of them, you know, so, so, you know, hypervigilant about every moment. While back in Adam and my day, kid would be in the hospital for a few hours before the parents. Well, cause now you post it right now, you post that you're in the ER and, you know, it's on Instagram right away. And every information is, you know, like you said, you're it's it. There's no there's no gap in time. Generally, things are done in real time at this point now. And I'm guilty of it, too, in my own social media and stuff.

You know, I'm like, gosh, why did I post that right away? Like, you know, again, is that the narcissism, Adam? You know, that you think you're so important. It's all narcissism. Everything is narcissism. And that you know, that comes out that you think you're so important. It's all narcissism. Everything is narcissism. And that's been perpetuated, though. Now even more so. It's been fostered. It's been

nurtured and fostered. But back to the screen time with kids. But that's all this is. That's all this phone is, is narcissism. It's literally just a brick of narcissism. and they're pushed they're algorithmically pushing narcissism yeah from this device that's what they're tapping into

they make careers out of it adam all these influencers and all that make all this money and spend it all this time on their phones you know they you know it's you know how do you get away from it at this point? Now, now here's a back to kids, my, my friends that are psychologists and specialize in this allow their kids one hour a day, period. Otherwise they are not allowed access to a screen. Now, outside of homework, Dr. Drew, may I ask like outside of them having to do school work?

I don't't they may get access to a computer but not a phone okay well i you know i don't you know it's all constructive but the point is you can't it's almost impossible to pull that off unless back to your village point florence am unless all the parents in that class or at that school all agree, we're only going to give allow our kids an hour. Otherwise, your kid is being left out of their social life, as you say, their homework and everything. While if all the parents signed an agreement, we are going to limit our thing to one hour

a day. There'd be no problem because no one would be being left out of anything. I would be the healthiest possible thing. Well, let's explore that because I have alternative thoughts. We'll take a quick break. We'll come right back and explore that right after this. Join Adam Carolla and his pal Jay Leno this October, along with fellow comics Alonzo Bowden, Harland Williams, Carol Leaver, and Caroline Ray,

together with some of the best writers from TV shows like Seinfeld, Friends, The Tim Allen Show, King of Queens, Two Broke Girls, and more. For a one-of-a-kind experience for aspiring comedians, comedy writers, and everyone interested in comedy. Hey, it's Adam Carolla here, and I'm excited to announce our first ever Comedy Fantasy Camp. Thursday through Sunday, October 12th through the 15th in Hollywood, California. We're going to cover stand-up improv, writing, podcasting, and more, plus a live performance of the famous Hollywood Improv on the final day of camp. So get your chops ready. Spend four days with me and some of the most successful people in the

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with Adam Carolla, Jay Leno and a host of comedy stars and TV writers. All right. On with Lauren Sand, Dr. Drew in New York City. Build your bridge. All right. Sorry. Build your village. Always thinking like a mechanical engineer, Drew.

Build Your Village is the name of her book, and you can get it wherever you find her books. Now, I am going to push back a little, Drew, on what you just said because – and I'll use another metaphor outside of phones and electronics and stuff like that. My son is kind of wired like I am. And his greatest joy is taking two-hour marathon walks every night and every day. He just walks the entire neighborhood, which I always think leads to a more even keeled person, a person that walks a lot, goes on a lot of walks and he gets a lot of satisfaction out of it.

He he's religious about it. He's gone every day. It's like, I'm walking the neighborhood. He'll be gone for two hours. He's got his phone and he's listening to some podcast or some music or something. And he's just walking. And I'm like, and he's also very even and kind of centered and mellow and is not agitated.

He probably just has my sort of low-grade wiring that I have. wiring that I have. But the metaphor that I was thinking about is I grew up with a health food mom and a kind of semi-health food sort of apathetic dad who didn't really care for food. I got the worst hand dealt to me ever, food-wise, for a kid i i achieved the triple crown of being ravenously hungry all the time and there's a thing it's like some kids just eat a lot they just eat a lot and i ate a lot i ran in circles all day that's all I did was run around the neighborhood. And then I was starving like all the time. I ate way more than than my friends did. But I had a health food mom and a dad who didn't go out to dinner or make a steak or order a pizza or anything. He just, you know, he'd eat cottage cheese and raisins for dinner, you know, and I was denied the worst, the worst, the worst.

I was denied food and I was constantly hungry. And when I showed up at some kid's house and they had breakfast cereal, you know, Cocoa Puffs or something like that, I could remember making bowls of instant pudding at kids' houses, you know, three in the afternoon. I'd open the pantry. I'd be like, you got all this chocolate instant pudding here.

They'd be like, yeah. What are we doing with it? You know, and they'd be like, I don't know. Let's go play outside. I'm like, hell no. Let's make some pudding. You know, I'd be like, seems bizarre. And I would, you know, eat it right out of the bowl

because I had this horrible relationship with this stuff. These other kids lived in a house that had these treats in it eat it right out of the bowl because I had this horrible relationship with this stuff. These other kids lived in a house that had these treats in it and they would walk right past the pantry and not even look at it. So, Drew, whose line is frozen up again, are we in danger of creating that with the phone? danger of creating that with the phone you know like like i now i like my son's relationship with his phone because he doesn't it's not that into it he's just he kind of uses it to look up stuff or listen to podcasts good fine um i'm happy about that but are we possibly creating a version of me with sitting in a kitchen eating pudding? Yes. I only have, again, my friends that do that as the measure against which to sort of assess that.

And this particular one woman I know runs DCAKids.org. It's a digital academy, literally a place to help with kids with their digital problems. And she says that they get over it pretty quickly. And then they get thankful when some of their friends are sort of preoccupied with this stuff. Now, that's one family. Certainly other kids may be like you, Adam. Maybe they get desperate for that connection to social media. I don't know. It's an interesting question. And because it happens so rarely, it's a hard thing to look at. Well, what do you do? Can I ask Dr. Drew about social media? You know, this is a big thing,

too. There was a whole article about social media. How soon should you let your children on it? What age would you let your children on it? The same way, do you allow sleepovers in your house? That's a whole thing, too. Do you think, Dr. Drew, there's a specific age, regardless of what Facebook or Instagram says legally, you have to be a certain age to be on it? There are certain families that they have kept them off of it and will continue to keep them off of it until they, you know, they can at the very last minute. Um, but that is ideal to keep them off as long as possible, but I don't know how you do it past 12. I don't know how you do it. Right. How they, they'll come to you kids and I've seen it, you know, but this is how I talk to my friends. And also, this is also very, you know, unpopular thing to say, but they'll be like, I don't

want to look weird. I don't want to look like I'm the weird kid that doesn't have social media. I don't want to stand out because kids, the worst thing in the world is you could stand out for the wrong reasons. Yeah. So, you know, I see the pressure from parents and caretakers when they're like, well, I don't want it. If they're all doing it, you're screwed.

You will be left out and they will have consequences that are problematic. Right. Well, my approach, I think, or my head on this is sort of like. Sadly, we're living in a society, you know, I would sort of take getting back to kind of the junk food metaphor. It's going to be really hard to police junk food and like your kids. I mean, meaning, meaning everyone is going to have to become their own custodian pretty quick because junk food is ubiquitous. It's almost free. I mean, monetarily, it's almost free to to anybody who's gainfully employed. It's essentially free it's it's not I know it's three dollars or six dollars but it's essentially free

to anyone who has a decent job or a full-time job or it's just it's not about money I mean in when we were younger Drew it was about money I mean you you wanted to go to McDonald's but you didn't have any money so to kind of wait you know it was like a like a treat. It's ubiquitous. It's free. It's open Sundays. It's open till midnight. It's open 24 hours. There's a drive through. It's just here. Now you are going to have to be your own sheriff. Yeah, you're going to have to decide how much of that you eat and you're going to have to decide how much porno you watch for free on your phone and how much exercise you get and how much screen time and how much everything now because it's how much pot you smoke pots everywhere it's ubiquitous it doesn't really it's powerful

doesn't really cost anything you know there's a there's a different fortified lemonade on every rack and every liquor store. There's booze everywhere, food everywhere, pot everywhere, porno everywhere. You're persuading me that that's the challenge after all, which is what you have always called the zero gravity world where everything is just right there. How do people regulate themselves in the face of that? And that's back to Florence Ann's thing about connection. People have to really be coached up about connectivity and relationships. And that becomes the parenting challenge.

As you said, walking, spending time, you know, listening to podcasts if you want, but ultimately learning how to do things with other humans. That's, that's the, that's the deal. And giving people the tools then to be able to, like you said, Adam, be their own custodian, to manage themselves. Like you said, you know, Dr. Drew, you, you hope as a parent or a caretaker in whatever form that you are, that you're instilling the values or the tools that they need to make the decisions that they're going to have to make in life. Because you're not going to be able to helicopter them all life. You're not going to be able to manage them.

There's going to be so much that's out of your control. If they're not getting the junk food at your house, Adam, they're getting it somewhere else. Like you said, you know, if they're not on social media at your house, they're going to someone else's house and they could be getting into all sorts of the trouble on the internet. I don't say it to scare parents, but this is the, the reality of life. You know, you're not going to be able to control everything, but what you hope you can do is create, you know, raise your children to, um, be kind and tolerant and all these other things that you want them to be and make good decisions for themselves, make healthy decisions, whatever health means regarding whatever situation that is. Where does the trust come? Eventually, the trust has to come at some point where you're just going to have to say,

I'm going to trust them to hopefully make the right decision. And that's so hard to do, to trust yourself, trust others, trust your children. And then again, the people, Trust yourself, trust others, trust your children. And then again, the people, the company you keep, who are your influences in your life? That is a huge factor in the decisions that we make, too. Well, you know, we're kind of talking micro and macro at the same time here. I've always preached this as well. Like, you know, you said last time we were in Florentine,

you said friendship too. That's a, that's another feature. Super important. And yeah, you are, you are definitely shaped by your peers, you know, for good and for bad. And, you know, it's sort of like, do we need more cops? I would argue we need more dads who stick around and raise their kids. Because whenever you hear these stories of like, oh, this kid got shot, shot by a cop. It was in Chicago. It was 3 a.m. and he's 13 years old and he's running around. It's like, yeah, OK, it's tragic. But where's the dad? What's going on at the home?

You know what I mean? Like, yeah, more cops, more training for cops. But here's another novel idea. How about less criminals? Like, wouldn't that work too? Wouldn't that be more effective than more cops? Like, my thing is, like, can we get into some sort of family self-policing here? Can people stick around, raise their kids,

create good citizens, and then we could defund the police because they would be unnecessary because we would have a bunch of good citizens. Like if we have parents hang out and provide a stable environment and sort of, you know, give the kids a certain amount of autonomy

and respect and do the right thing and that kind of stuff, then we could trust them to have their phones. But what happens, I'm going to, again, push it back on it a little bit just to play devil's advocate. What happens if there is a mom and a dad and there is a traditional dynamic of that family, but the mom and the dad have their own issues, whether it's addiction or mental health or whatever it might be. And those children are not growing up in a really stable environment, but they have both parents, but it's toxic. And so, you know, who are where are their influences that, you know, where are they going to learn the things that their parents can't teach them? Well, what I'm describing is a sort of a statistically better or more hopeful shot at the kid coming out correctly.

And the part where you go, well, maybe both parents are junkies, but they're still together, exists. But statistically, it's still better to have two parents at home raising the kids. I understand what you're saying. I can't account for all the success stories of the single parent and the child that did great. And I can't account for all the non-success stories with the parents that were together.

I'm just saying statistically as a society, we stand a better shot if the parents hang out and raise the kids. Or at least if the dad is really present in that job, the parents stay together or not. That dad needs to be not just coming around on birthdays and holidays. Right. Which is a lot of the problems we're having in society right now. The book build your village,

a guide to finding joy and community in every stage of life is the name of it. You can get it wherever you find finer books and the website, Florence and.com is where you can go as well. Florence. Thank you so much. Thank you, Jen. Always a pleasure.

And until next time, Adam Crow for Florence and, and Dr. Drew saying mahalo. Stream the biggest blockbusters this summer with Popcorn Summer Movies on Pluto TV. Experience nonstop action with the first four Mission Impossible movies and Top Gun. Laugh out loud to comedies like Anchorman, The Legend of Ron Bergen, and The Backup Plan. With thousands of free movies, Pluto TV has something for everyone. Available on live TV and on demand. Download Pluto TV on all your favorite devices and start streaming now.