This Is Woman's Work with Nicole Kalil - Screen Time Isn’t the Problem—Your Attention Is (And Your Kids Know It) with Catherine Price | 414

Episode Date: May 27, 2026

Let’s cut the crap: this isn’t just about screen time. It’s about attention—yours, your kids’, and who (or what) is stealing it. In this brutally honest (and slightly uncomfortable) conversation, Nicole sits down with Catherine Price—award-winning journalist, author of How to Break Up with Your Phone, and co-author of The Amazing Generation—to unpack what screens are actually doing to our brains, our kids, and our relationships. We’re talking about: Why “screen time” is the wrong conversation—and what you should be focusing on instead How constant scrolling is literally rewiring attention spans (for you and your kids) The real cost of distraction: missed memories, weaker relationships, and a life half-lived Why your kids don’t need another app—they need your actual presence The difference between useful tech and attention-sucking garbage How to delay smartphones and social media without turning your house into a war zone What kids really notice about your phone habits (hint: everything) Practical ways to reset boundaries—even if you feel like you’ve already screwed it up This episode isn’t about perfection. It’s about awareness, intention, and making better choices—starting now. Because every time you pick up your phone, you’re choosing what (and who) gets your attention. Thank you to our sponsors! Visit Upwork.com right now and post your job for free! Families are better when they’re working together… go to myskylight.com/WOMANSWORK for $30 off your Skylight Calendar. Become a Fora Advisor today at Foratravel.com/woman  Connect with Catherine: Substack: https://substack.com/@catherineprice  Website: https://catherineprice.com/  Book: The Amazing Generation, co-authored with Jonathan Haidt. https://www.amazon.com/Amazing-Generation-Guide-Freedom-Screen-Filled/dp/B0F87C5F9G   Book: How to Break Up With Your Phone https://www.amazon.com/How-Break-Up-Your-Phone/dp/039958112X   IG: https://www.instagram.com/catherinepriceofficial/  YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@catherinepriceofficial  LI: http://linkedin.com/in/catherinepriceofficial  Related Podcast Episodes The Good Mother Myth with Nancy Reddy | 274 FACTS About Raising Emotionally Intelligent Kids with Alyssa Blask Campbell M.Ed | 345 How To Listen with Emily Kasriel | 321 Share the Love: If you found this episode insightful, please share it with a friend, tag us on social media, and leave a review on your favorite podcast platform! 🔗 Subscribe & Review:Apple Podcasts | Spotify | Amazon Music | YouTube Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Quick pause. We expanded to YouTube because we keep hearing, I needed this 20 years ago. And the next generation shouldn't have to wait. So tell the young women in your world who are scrolling and watching to subscribe to This Is Woman's Work on YouTube. I am Nicole Khalil and you're listening to the This Is Woman's Work podcast. We're together. We're redefining what it means, what it looks and feels like to be doing women's work in the world today. And on this show, we talk a lot about all the places redefining. women's work needs to happen in our careers, our relationships, our homes, from boardrooms to studios, kitchens, to coding dens, your street to Wall Street, right? But the truth is we're spending as much time, if not more, in a place that I didn't call out in our podcast description. And that's on our phones, our apps, and our feeds. And while I could go in a hundred different

directions with that, on today's episode, we're going to approach it as parents and how we limit screen time for our kids. Because I've yet to meet a single parent who's out there campaigning for more scrolling, more gaming, or more social media. We all know that our kids would be better off outside with friends, using their imaginations, reading, or being bored. Honestly, even eating dirt feels like a win compared to what's happening on their screens. And listen, I get it. We're raising kids in a world that is rapidly changing with tools we didn't grow up with. While trying to set boundaries that we're not exactly great at holding ourselves. Because the same parents saying less screen time are also the ones answering emails at dinner, scrolling in bed, and picking up

our phones just to check something only to resurface 20 minutes later without a clue as to what just happened. And yes, I'm absolutely including myself and all of that. On one hand, it could be argued that this is just modern life, that screens are helpful and necessary, that we should all loosen up because this is how kids connect now. But this isn't just about screen time. It's about attention. It's about what and who gets our focus, our energy, and our presence. And the uncomfortable truth, most of us aren't modeling what we say we want for our kids. And also, just to be clear, I'm not pretending that throwing our phones into the ocean and playing board games every night is a viable option either. So today we're getting honest about the role that screens are playing in our

lives and how to decide on purpose what we want that relationship to look like for our kids and for ourselves. Our guest is Catherine Price, award-winning health and science journalist, founder of Screen Life Balance, and best-selling author of many books, including How to Break Up with Your Phone, the Power of Fun, and the Amazing Generation. Her work has appeared in the New York Times, the Washington Post, and the best American science writing. And her TED Talk has been viewed more than five million times. Catherine's mission is simple but not easy to help us scroll less and live more. Catherine, thank you for being our guest.

And I want to kick us off by acknowledging that we keep talking about screen time, but you argue what we're really talking about, what we should be talking about is attention. So what are screens actually training our kids' attention to? or away from? Well, first of all, thank you so much for having me. I'm delighted to be with you today. Really appreciate it.

And you're really starting on a very good spot in terms of focusing on the effect that screens have on our attention. And I say that because when I was writing How to Break Up with Your Phone, which I wrote for myself, by the way, and The Amazing Generation, which I co-authored with Jonathan Haidt was a follow-up for kids.

But How to Break Over Your Phone was for me. When I was writing it, my biggest personal takeaway from that book is that our attention is our most valuable resource. because you only can pay attention to one thing at a time. We really can't multitask as much as we would like to convince ourselves that we can. And you're only going to remember what you pay attention to, and you're really only going to experience what you pay attention to.

So that really means that we're making a decision about how we're spending our lives every time we make a decision in the moment about what to pay attention to. And that's true for adults and for kids. So really everything we're going to talk about today is just as applicable to us as adults as it is to our kids, but the only real difference being that kids' brains are more rapidly developing than our adult brains are. And so anything that affects us as adults is going to affect them even more. So to answer your question, it's not so much what screen time as a broad category is doing to anyone's brains or anyone's lives. It's really the type of things we're doing

on screens and then how much time we're spending doing those things. So I think that fundamentally the biggest issue is just what I was alluding to, that you really can only pay attention. to one thing at a time. And so there's a huge opportunity cost that comes from paying attention to things that are online. And to give you a sense of how much time is currently being taken up, the average American teenager is spending about five hours a day, if not more, just on social media and YouTube. And that adds up to two and a half full months a year if you didn't even sleep, just two and a half full months a year, your whole summer break. It's an enormous amount of time that we're not spending on other things. And the average American adult is spending a lot

of time as well. But the other thing that's happening is a lot of what people are doing, especially young people online, is watching short form videos and content that is very fast-paced and that encourages you to rapidly switch between videos. And that's essentially training your brain to be very distractible and unable to focus. So one of the biggest effects that screen time or more specifically what people are doing on screens is having on our brains is to weaken our attention span. And I say that in part because, you know, over the years I've heard from thousands of people who read how to break up with your phone. And the number one complaint that adults tell me about themselves is that they feel like they can't focus on anything anymore and they feel exhausted

mentally all the time. And I believe a lot of that has to do with what all of us are doing on our screens and how we're constantly fragmenting our attention between content on the screens and between our screens in real life. Okay, so so many questions were triggered there. But I'm going to hone in on this one first. If our attention span or our kids' attention span is being weakened, if they can't focus, can't sit still, obviously those things aren't good. But my question is, what are they missing out on because of that? What is it costing them in their lives? Like, I know not being able to pay attention isn't a good thing, but I think sometimes we're not making the connection to, okay, but then what does that mean for them in their life, in their relationships,

and their future and their work and their education. I mean, the list goes on. So I guess my question is, what are some examples of really, real ways that this is negatively impacting or costing our kids? I think there's innumerable ways that this is costing our kids or ways in which is costing our kids. I mean, again, our attention is our most valuable resource.

I actually had a bracelet made for myself, trying to see if I have it. I took it off because I didn't want to jangle my brace. That's why we were talking. Yeah, but here you go. this little bracelet I got made says pay attention. And that was a reminder for myself of the value of attention. So I think the fundamental thing is that our kids are missing out on experiences

that they would treasure for their whole lives. If you can't pay attention to things, if you can't sustain attention, sustain focus, you're also not going to be able to learn any skills or acquire knowledge because you need to actually be able to focus in order to do so. You're not going to be able to build memories in general, both because you only remember what you pay attention to. but also a kind of a dorky level, when your brain is transferring short-term memories into

long-term storage, that requires the creation of new proteins in the brain, and that process is interrupted by a distraction. So quite literally, if you're constantly distracted, your brain is not going to be able to store long-term memories. So that's kind of a big deal. I tend to veer towards the existential whenever I think about this. So I will just anecdotally share that I've heard from so many young people who feel, when I say young people, like in their early 20s, late teens, who feel that they wasted their, quote, youth because they spent so much time, they spent so much of their attention on screens because they actually feel they don't have memories from their own teen years. You also have the effect, and this kind of seems like it goes

without saying, but if you can't focus or pay attention, you can't do something like read a book. You know, you can't, you're not going to be able to fully lose yourself in anything. And there's many reasons that's a problem. Obviously reading books, that's good for you on many levels, not just because of learning and acquiring knowledge and doing well in school and all that, but just the joy of losing yourself in a book, that's not going to be possible. And I hear that from adults all the time, too, that they feel they no longer can read books. You really can't, I mean, you're not going to be present with your loved ones if you can't pay attention. We've all had the experience of being with someone who is only partially paying attention to us

because their attention is trained on their phone. Or they kind of are paying attention to us, but then a notification goes off and their focus shifts and you can feel that viscerally. There's actually a kind of silly term for that fubbing, which is short for phone snubbing. Happens all the time and we all do it. So the list goes on. I mean, our attention, I know I said this before,

but it is our most precious resource. So if we're allowing and encouraging our kids to give away their attention to essentially tech companies, and then we're also allowing them to get sucked into these products that are actively destroying their ability to pay attention. I mean, that's going to have a huge, impact, huge impact on their lives. I really don't think there's anything more important than be able to pay attention. And I'd also note just as, I don't know, I'd been giving a lot of talks

at schools recently to kids about this newest book, The Amazing Generation. And as part of that, I always ask kids, are there any examples? Have you ever felt hurt or ignored by your parents because of something that they do on their phones? And I'm not saying this to like shame or guilt anyone who's listening, but I think it's important for us to know every single time I ask that question, nearly every single hand goes up. So the way that we're spending our attention also impacts our kids and our relationships. Does that answer your question? I mean, it really, it could go on. It's just our attention is so important and it's so important for us to protect our own attention and to help protect our kids' attention because they actually don't have as many cognitive

resources available to them to control their attention because their brains are not full developed yet. No, you did exactly what I was hoping, which has made it both more important and scarier than I even thought it was. That's what we want to do, scare your listeners. No, but I mean, I think sometimes that's what we're motivated by, especially when it comes to our kids. We worry, we want the best for them. We, you know, and it is a scary world out there, and we do, I think, have the tendency to want to protect, and that really drives that point home. Now, you said earlier that screen time is a broad category, couldn't agree more. Where might we be getting it wrong by treating it all the same? When we talk about screen time, we're talking about watching TV or

video games or something educational or social media. I mean, the list is endless. I can't imagine they're all created equal. Any thoughts on how we should be segmenting or separating screen time in our minds? Yeah, I think that there's a tendency, as we're saying, to kind of lump it all together. but that would be the same as saying that all foods are equal when we all know that all foods are not equal. You know, there's foods that are just objectively horrible for us. There's foods that are just objectively horrible for us. And there's some stuff that's like, it's a good treat once in a while, but you don't want to overdo it. I guess I would answer that question by talking about two categories, first being adults and then second being kids. So for adults, I think that it's very important for us to think more critically about our own screen time and our own uses of technology and say, okay, which things are actually adding.

to our lives or making our lives better or helping us be more productive or efficient. And those things are fine. For example, I'm going to guess that a lot of people are listening to this podcast on their phone. If this is someone you're enjoying that you feel is helping you, you don't need to feel guilty about listening to the podcast on your phone. I wouldn't worry about the time you're spending on Google Maps or checking your banking app or like getting your plane tickets on the airline app. Like if it's a tool, if it's a tool, if it's, if it's it's like a Swiss arming knife-like tool, then that is actually a great use of technology. There's also times where you do want to zone out, and maybe that is by consuming mindlessly consuming

content, maybe that's by watching a show, whatever it is. I think the point is simply to be intentional about what you're doing so that you don't allow your time and attention to be hijacked by a company without your permission. So for adults, I'd recommend trying to sort what you're doing on your phone and other screens into categories and see how those things make you feel And then some of that stuff is probably just fine and you feel good about it. And some stuff you may think, oh, actually, I do want to change how I'm interacting with or using that. For kids, I do think it's slightly different in the sense that it's so important for them to have real world experiences. And it's so easy to get sucked into online worlds or into content consumption instead.

And so I do think that there's some cases in which using screens is fine for kids. Like if you're having a family movie night, that's a shared experience. where it's not really about the screen or the movie, or it's not just about that. It's about the shared experience you're having together watching it as a family, provided no one is simultaneously scrolling on a device. That's different from everyone sitting in the same room playing video games on phones or something like that. I know that a lot of people, adults and kids, really enjoy video games. Like, maybe that's fine up to a certain point. But as adults, we have fully developed brains. We really need to be very proactive about making sure that our kids are not,

their time is not being dominated by screens. So I think that with kids, you have to be much more cautious. I think that we should be much more cautious about how we're using screens, quote, educationally with kids. There's not that much research showing that ed tech, as it's called, actually helps kids learn in the classroom context and a lot of so-called educational apps. Either don't really help kids learn or they're actually just mindless games in disguise. Yeah, and I think that there's really, I mean, personally, if you want my philosophy, I think it's important to try to minimize kids screen time when they're little for as long as we can, except for particular exceptions such as maybe FaceTiming with their grandparents,

something like that, or watching something together. That's different, again, from using a screen as a constant babysitter or as an alternative to encouraging our kids or allowing our kids to go out in person and play with their friends in person. And I'd also stress that while, yes, technology is very helpful in helping, us connect with other people. For example, we're obviously having this conversation over a computer. Nothing beats in person time. And so I think it's just really important for us to keep that in mind that if there's any way to help our kids have real-life playdates or real lifetime hanging out with their friends, that's always going to beat any kind of so-called connection that they can have

through a screen. Okay. So many good takeaways there. And I mentioned this before we hit record. I have a pre-teen daughter. And I remember as a teenager, my number one priority was talking to my friends. When I wasn't with them, I wanted to be talking to them. And I'm noticing that my daughter is using her iPad to basically FaceTime her friends and I want her to connect. I'd much rather her be with them, but she can't be with them all the time. So I bring that up to ask your thoughts. Is this kind of in that food example? It's maybe not the worst of the junk food. It just needs to be moderated a little bit. how are our kids using technology in a way that it is maintaining connection? Yeah, so that's a great example.

So that is the question we all should be asking about tech. Is it helping our kids connect? If your daughter's FaceTime and with her friends and feels good about it, and it's kind of the equivalent of the 1990s, like, you know, pull the phone into your room on the long cord, I think that's fine. I mean, is it better if she can go hang out in person? Yes, but of course, as you're saying, that's not always possible. I think that the caveat there, which I've heard from some parents, is that sometimes being on video calls all the time can, I mean, we've all experienced this as adults with Zoom. You start focusing on your own appearance. And so I've heard from people, especially parents of girls, who've noticed that their daughters are starting to focus a lot on their appearance because of the time they're spending on these video calls. So I don't think that there's anything inherently wrong with like doing video calls with your friends. I think that's far better than texting with your friends all the time or getting lost in group chats, let alone social media. So I think maybe it might be.

helpful if I take a step back and give a little roadmap for how I think about this. I have a now 11-year-old daughter myself, but in terms of a roadmap that parents might find useful for helping their kids navigate this. So when kids are really little, as I was saying, I'd recommend minimizing screens. They certainly should not have their own device. I would recommend not giving your kid an iPad when they're little because those are just kind of giant phones that don't actually make phone calls very well. It's kind of the worst there. But that doesn't mean you shouldn't have a way to contact family members. you can FaceTime off of your own phone with family members, or one thing I really love is the idea of getting a landline telephone,

even when your kids are really quite small. And people of my generation and our generation, we think of that as an expensive thing that you need like a contract with a phone provider for. You don't need that anymore. You can get a phone that works over your wireless internet. They're called voice over internet protocol or VoIP phones. And Uma is one that my husband and I have.

There's one for kids called Tin Can. And these are great, I think, things to have because then kids can use the phone quite freely to call their relatives when they're little. And then as they get older, when you start to have a kid who's like 8, 9, 10, or a tween or a teenager, they can call their friends on the phone and they can do so much more freely than using a smartphone. I've heard stories about kids asking their parents like, do I have to ask you before I call someone on my, you know, landline phone? And the parents like, no, you can just call them. And the kid's like, what? I have freedom to do something. So anyway, get a landline. And then we're,

what I would say is that when your kid starts to be old enough to start to do occasional things out of the house alone, if you feel like they need to have a phone for that, maybe they don't. Because remember, everyone in the world has a cell phone. If there's an emergency, your kid can literally talk to anybody around them and they will have a phone. But you could get a loaner phone, like a flip phone that doesn't belong to anybody, that your kid or kids borrow and then give back. Then when it's time for them to actually have their own independent device, because they're, I don't know, maybe they're walking to school alone more regularly or they have sports practice or you just want to give them more freedom but also want a way to be in touch, get a smartphone alternative. I think a lot of us tend

to think that it's an iPhone, it's no phone or an iPhone, but it's not that at all anymore. If you just do an internet search for smartphone alternatives or basic phones or dumb phones, which is a term I hate because they're actually quite smart, you'll find all of these brands that have basic phones, the key points being that they don't have unfettered internet access and they don't have social media on them and in many cases they have restrictions on games and that's basically a tool it's a communication device and so that's what i would recommend is that next step up before you give your kid an actual smartphone if you want to seriously delay the age of smartphones just have your kid have to pay for it like they won't have a smartphone until they're like 25 because they're so expensive but um i would

definitely recommend trying to delay smartphones until we say in the amazing generation at least high school but i'd actually say at least 16 that that was more just because it was a more practical goal at the time that we were writing this. And then as parents, when you do give your kid a smartphone, we really do need to put the work into activating parental controls. I mean, obviously, you should have lots of conversations with your kids before this point about smartphones and social media. That's why we wrote The Amazing Generation. But we as parents do need to put that work in. I also really want to stress something that I don't get to say as much as I would like to, which is this should not be just woman's work. This should be family work. So whoever you're living with,

whoever your partner is, whoever you're raising your kids with, like get them to take on some of this responsibility. It's a family thing. But we do have to put the work in to educate our kids about tech and then also protect them from some of the very dark things that are accessible to them online and some of the very nefarious people who are out there who could contact them once they get an actual smartphone. That's my spiel. Sorry, I just went on for quite a while there. No, I loved all of it. And anecdotally, when my daughter was, was young. We had moved and we had somebody come to set up our internet and also added a landline. And they came in and they were like, oh, I thought you were going to be a 70 year old woman because

the landline. Apparently, it's not very common. And I appreciate you saying how this is the work of parents, really, to have the conversations also to model it. I think it's so important that we know what we want for our kids. And I think there is a huge disconnect from what we we say we want and what we're demonstrating, emulating, practicing in our own lives. And I have a firm belief that people learn best by experience and observation. So we can tell them until we're blue in the face, but they're watching us and learning far greater what it is or isn't like to have a healthy relationship with screens. Yes. And kids can smell hypocrisy from a mile away. And that's why I was saying, like when I asked kids, have you ever felt ignored or hurt by a parent?

and all their hands go up. And I'm not saying that, again, to guilt or shame any of us. That's the last thing any parent needs. But I think it's important to know. And I'd also say it's not just modeling behaviors that we want our kids to emulate. It's modeling the behaviors we want for ourselves because we want to live fulfilling, meaningful, joyful lives, too. Like, we adult.

And so if you can almost flip it around in your mind, so it's your desires for your kids are almost an inspiration for you yourself to make changes. that help you live more and more joyful life. Like that's wonderful. I mean, it really should be, we should be trying to elevate all of us by changing our habits, you know? I often frame it that way for myself

because I can see it more clearly. I ask myself for myself, what would I want for JJ in this situation or what would I hope she would do? Not because I think I'm not worthy of on my own, but because it's more obvious to me when I think about it through what I would want for her because I only ever always want the best for her and it's not muddy for me. Oh no, we're getting

to therapy now. Yeah. Nicole deserves these things too. Okay. Okay. So I think off the therapy, we often do try to put this in a discipline area though, both self-discipline and disciplining our children. Is this a discipline thing or is there another way to look at it? Well, the word discipline, and the root of it comes from a word which means teach and lead. So it's not, you know, I think we get that wrong a little bit where we think of it more as like, wagging the fingers. Yeah, why finger wagging. I would say that finger wagging doesn't work.

Kids are sick of us finger wagging. I do think that we have to set boundaries. So in that sense, but I think that's different from disciplining them in the stereotypical sense of discipline. So I think that having clearly defined and firm boundaries is very important and having an etiquette within the family, for example, that no one's going to be on the phone at the dining room table or that you're just not getting a smartphone until whatever you decide or no, social media does not align with our family values. You know, have a conversation about what are your family values and then ask yourself as how most people interact with these devices and these apps. Does that align with our values as a

family? I've heard people talk about how you can have thousands of fights with your kids about screen time once you give them a phone or just one, which is like whether or not they're going to have access to these things. But I think far more effective than finger wagging in terms of the stereotype of discipline is to come at this from the same side, because ultimately we are actually on the same side as our kids. And that's something we tried to really convey in the amazing generation when Jonathan Haidt and I were writing it. And I think is one of the reasons that that book is resonating with kids of our target readership, which starts around nine years old, which is that if you understand how you're being manipulated, and if you understand how you're being taken advantage of, how you're being lied to by these tech companies, you actually end up not wanting to spend as much time on these apps and platforms. And as is true, with any kind of habit change, it's much easier to

change a habit if you're doing it from a place of wanting to change as opposed to being told that you should change or told that you shouldn't do something. So I would say that what I would suggest to parents, and again, this is why we wrote the book because we're third parties. We're not parents telling the kids we're, I mean, we are parents, but we're not those kids' parents. I've heard a lot of people get the amazing generation and leave it out and have their kid look at it because kids often do look at it. It's a book that has a graphic novel in it. It's very colorful. And what I always suggest is actually ask your kid to teach you something. You know, check out this book, teach me something. I want to work on my own screen habits. And I want to have a conversation with you

about this. I actually just came out with a family guide to screen life balance on my website that actually is kind of a structured way to do this as a family. But that's much more effective. And we've heard from readers, adult readers, say that for the first time, they feel like they're on the same side as their kids when it comes to conversations about tech. And it doesn't feel like a fight anymore. It feels like a productive conversation. And so to answer your question, I think that that is far more effective as an approach to kind of humble yourself a bit. Say, Like, as adults, we were taking advantage of, I mean, I literally wrote how to break up your phone.

Do I have perfect phone habits? No, I don't. I still don't because it's very, very difficult. And I think it's important for our kids to see us actively working on this, actively struggling in a way, you know, being vulnerable with them and asking them for their observations. Ask your kid, how do you feel when I'm on my phone when we're together? Have you noticed me doing anything that makes you feel ignored or? you know, in danger, like, for example, texting while you're driving your kid somewhere,

that can be really effective. And then it becomes a productive conversation instead of a fight. And then it's not so much about discipline. It's about keeping boundaries. But it's not just boundaries for your kid. It's boundaries for the whole family, because that's how you've decided that you want to live. You kind of already answered this. I think you pretty much did. But I'm going to ask it anyway, just in case you have anything to add, if somebody's listening and they've been a little loosey-goosey up to this point. Or they went further in the past than they maybe wanted to. They got their kid a smartphone and now they're listening going,

oh, crap, I wish they didn't have it. Any tips outside of giving them the book to help them collaborate on what to do next? Any other tips about how to reset boundaries or create something new when you may have done something different already? Yeah, I would say first of all, do not blame yourself. Don't, please don't. Like, don't add this to a list of things to feel bad about as a parent. Like, you already have plenty. This is what I say. Parenting, at least in my experience, is constant course correcting and constantly adjusting on the fly. And I would say as a society, we are at a major moment of reckoning when it comes to devices and social media. I mean, you can see this in what's happening with the verdicts against meta and YouTube that came down a few weeks ago. You can see this with all. You can see this with all. all the phone-free school legislation that's been passed, it's been happening so fast. You can see this with the social media bans in Australia

and soon-to-be Indonesia, and there's lots of other countries considering similar things. We're in a big societal reckoning right now. And so I don't think we should look back and feel bad about what we've done in the past. We should be saying, okay, with the information and the knowledge that we have now,

now what do we want to do? And I think to answer your question, I want to really encourage parents to not feel, feel that you can't change. Like what you can say to your kids, I know that this is what we did in the past. I know we let you on TikTok or Snapchat or Instagram or whatever it is. I know that. I also have more information now than I did when we first made that choice. And I mean, I can go on at length about why those particular apps are extremely dangerous for kids in terms of

sexual predators, in terms of drug dealing, in terms of the type of content that is being served up to children and teenagers because of these algorithms. But it is inherently unsafe. And I really do want to emphasize that Jonathan Haidt says this all the time, but we really do overprotect our kids in real life right now and then underprotect them online. And your job as a parent is to keep your kids safe. And so I think that that's something you can communicate to your kids and say, that is my job. I now have information I didn't have before. We're going to be making changes to how we approach technology. I know that you might not like some of these changes, but we will get through it. We will get through this together. But again, that's where you have to be confident and yourself as a parent that you

are making an educated choice, the best decision you can make based on your knowledge in this moment, which may be different from the knowledge you had when you give your kid a smartphone. And that's okay. I know that this will lead, this can be extremely difficult, but I also say that I've never heard from an adult who said that, you know, there are adult children that I really regret that you didn't give me a smartphone until I was X age. It's always like, I wish I hadn't gotten the smartphone that young. I wish I hadn't spent that much time on social media. So even if your kids push back now really hard in the future, I think we need to hold on to the fact that they're likely to be grateful. And the last thing I would say there, just in terms of, I know that fear of missing out is a big thing

that parents struggle with, that children missing out on things. That's why it's so important for us to take action collectively as parents so that our kids aren't left out. You don't need to get everybody to not have a smartphone or roll back social media, but you need to get a core group of parents so that your kids do have friends who don't have these things. And it also encourage parents to switch what we're focusing on in terms of FOMO. There's a huge amount of fear of missing out in terms of what happens if our kids don't have access to smartphones and social media. What will they miss out on? And I really encourage everyone listening to flip that around and to think of the question of what will they miss out on if we do give them access to these things. And that, as we were

talking about at the top of our conversation, is the opportunity to have real life experiences, develop real life relationships and friendships and friendships and create memories of their own lives. I hear that a lot, as I was saying from people in their early 20s who feel that they really missed out on life. And that's not what we want for our kids. So to me, that's a helpful reframing that helps me feel more firm in my own decision. to not let my daughter on these things. Super helpful. And I can't let you go without asking,

I think it's going to be a two-part question, but this idea, I think, of perfectionism can be really permeating as a parent. And you said, even with all your knowledge, writing these books, that sometimes you struggle with your phone. And it's funny recently, I felt like I was doing pretty well for a while there, but recently in the last few months,

I found myself defaulting again or picking up my phone and being like, how did I get here? And so I've started looking into things like brick or the Bark app for kids. I'm just kind of in the search of tools that help not replace, but support decisions to try to be more intentional about where we're spending our time and our attention. Any thoughts on those? And then I have a follow-up question. Yes, so I think that you've hit on something really important, which is that there are tools that can help us. When I first wrote how to pick up with your phone in 2018, there were not as many tools available.

But now there's a number of really great app blockers, which can be used not just for kids. Like Bark is designed for kids, but for adults to create healthier boundaries with our phones and our other devices, which is especially important, you know, when it feels like there's so much news happening all the time and much of it is just really stressful. Like, you never check the news and they tell you there's more puppies. you know, it's like not that. So I highly recommend checking out some of these solutions. There's the brick, as you mentioned, which is a great app blocker. It's a physical device that you can leave at home if you really want to get serious about it. And it actually blocks things. It's not that stupid like hourglass on Apple, the screen time thing that just asks you if you want

to override your own intentions. It actually blocks things. There's Opal, which does the same thing. Freedom is another great one. I've heard good things about screens in. I haven't tried that myself. So I definitely recommend those. And then there are also a, a number of gadgets and things for kids, like the Yodo is a screen-free music player and podcast player that can be very helpful if you want your kid to have more independence listening to music, but you don't want to get them a phone to do that on. So there's screen-free cameras and camp snap or something like that.

So there's more and more products that we can turn to as adults for ourselves and also as parents to help us and our kids take advantage of the good parts of technology without getting sucked into it. And obviously all those smartphone alternatives that I mentioned before are really good. But yeah, I love the brick. I love Obole. I love freedom. I love all those apps.

And I think that there's no reason not to use technology to help us create better boundaries with technology. Because until Apple and, you know, Android, until they actually build better solutions in themselves, let alone social media companies, which never will, let's be honest. Like, we have to take this into our own hands. So I highly, I highly endorse those. Yeah, I feel like the hill that I'm willing to die on as a parent is to delay social media. as long as humanly possible. Like, my daughter might be 28. I mean, you know, she'll figure that out.

I think the important thing there is that, sorry to interrupt you, but like one of the key things in the amazing generation that we talk about is freedom, friendship, and fun, and how to fill your life with real friendship, real freedom, and real fun. And the idea being, which is true, is that tech companies promise us that we will have connections with our friends more fun and more freedom if we use their devices and if we use social media.

but those are lies. And so we really try to, I guess what I'm saying is that it's completely developmentally appropriate that our children would want to have more freedom and more fun and more time with their friends. And I think what we as parents should be doing is saying, I totally hear that and I get that and that's good for you, but we're going to help you do that in real life. And I think that framing can be very helpful. It is very helpful. And for us as adults, too, which leads to my very last question, I think we often think that our kids don't notice as much as they do. You said this a couple times that every kid almost raised their hand when you asked if they'd felt hurt by something their parents did on their phone. So my question is, what are you

hearing and seeing that kids notice about our screen habits that isn't working or that we think that we're hiding, but we're not? What are the most harmful things we're doing as it relates to screens for our kids? Oh, man. There's so many stories these kids tell me it turns into this confessions. very quickly. And numerous teachers have said to me after these encounters, I can't believe that particular kid raised their hand and told you that story. That's not something I would have anticipated them being vulnerable about in front of their peers. But, you know, it's like a lot of it comes down to, God, I mean, it's kind of heartbreaking. A lot of it comes down to just moments where our children are vying for our attention. They desperately want to tell us something or they want to

connect with us or they want to show us something and we act like we're paying attention, but we're not really. And they can feel it. And none of us want that as parents. That's why it breaks my heart. So it'll be like, one little boy is like, you know, I'll say to my dad, I really want to show you something. And they'll say, oh, yeah, I see it. And then the boy said, I know he didn't see it because he was looking at his phone. Or another kid told me, you know, my mom will say that she's going to go take a nap and she needs to go take a nap, but then I go upstairs and she's actually just scrolling on her phone. Or my father went upstairs in the middle of dinner to, I don't know, go to the bathroom or something. And then I found him in the other room just on his phone.

me told us that he had something important to do, but I could see what he was doing. He was just scrolling. Or another little girl told me, you know, my mother's using Duolingo. And every time I try to talk to her when she's using it, she just puts up a finger and she just says, hold on a minute. And so I just sit there and wait, but she never actually listens to me. So I think that we're destroying, I mean, if you want me to end us on a depressing note, that's like we really are, I don't know, we're really harming that what all of us, I think would probably say is one of the most important precious relationships of our lives, which is our relationship with our children. And it's during a time that's so temporary and so precious and so fleeting.

You know, I just always have that cat's cradle song in my head. Or it's like you're going to grow up to be just like me, Dad, you know, because it's like, our kids are desperately trying to connect with us. They're desperately trying to show us things. They want our attention. They want our affection. And here we are giving it to a phone, you know? Yeah.

And we're going to wake up and they're going to be 17. And what are they going to be? It will literally be like that song. We should just use that as the theme song for this episode. we'll be trying to connect with them and they'll be like, yeah, they'll put putting their finger up and saying, oh, I just, I have one more thing on like Instagram. So I think that's, oh, man, that's so depressing. But I do think that that's what at stake. It is depressing, but it's also direct and necessary. And I believe that the highest form of care is telling people things they need to know that they don't necessarily want to hear. Getting uncomfortable for somebody else's sake, I think is pretty special. So thank you. Okay, anyone else ready to cry? I could end on a positive. I will, can I give one positive message? I would say that, you know, I do stay up at night worrying about these things. And there are very daunting challenges that we're facing AI. We haven't even talked about that, but huge challenges. I will also

say that I have been amazed, and I alluded to this earlier, but I've been amazed by how fast things are shifting. And I've been amazed by how people are standing up and taking action. I think that, for example, the phone-free school movement is going to have societal effects, like way beyond schools. We're basically now raising a generation of children who are learning that there are times during which it's inappropriate to have a smartphone out, which is something that honestly adults have not learned. So they actually are getting used to the idea of having eight hours a day where they're not constantly checking a device.

That's wonderful. And I think that you see these laws like the social media ban in Australia coming to pass. Is that going to make sure? I mean, is no kid in Australia ever going to check social media? No, of course not. But it's a societal message that these things are not safe or okay for kids or to have these companies be hauled into court in front of a jury. I mean, that is a huge deal.

It's a huge deal. So I think that it is a solvable problem, even though it feels really daunting. And it really just requires us all to stand up together and make some very simple changes. You know, if most people in your friend network decided together not to give their kids social media accounts until they're 28, Like, that's a very simple thing. It might be hard, but it's also simple, if that makes sense. So I think that there's things that each of us can do in this case that will have a real effect, a positive effect for our kids in a way that we don't, we can't with most things in the news. Most things that are facing humanity today, individually, we don't have much control over.

This is a situation in which we do have control, and we can do stuff starting today, like right now to make a difference for our kids. And so that is what I would leave people with. Well, if you're listening and you're anything like me where you love a healthy dose of truth along with some inspiration, then I'm going to encourage you to get Catherine's book, How to Break Up with Your Phone for you, and the amazing generation for your kid, and then ask them to teach you something they learn from the book. And of course, I'm going to encourage you to sign up for Catherine's newsletter on Substack. So you can look for Catherine Price, how to feel alive, definitely subscribe. this is something that we need to work on individually

so that we can have the impact collectively. Catherine, thank you so much for being here for your amazing work and for telling us the truth and inspiring us at the same time. Thank you so much for having me. My pleasure. All right, friend, I don't think any of us need any more reminders that this matters.

We already feel it every time we look up from our phones and realize what we missed. We already know it's what's best for our kids, which means we also know, even if it's unconsciously, that it's what's best for us, too. And the goal isn't perfection or less screen time just for the sake of it. The goal is to create the time, the space, the attention, the opportunity for more life, more presence, more of the things that matter most. I'm going to remind us all, myself included that no app, no setting, no rule will

ever be stronger than what we model, which leaves us with the hard but necessary choice to reclaim our attention and give it to what and who matters most because they won't learn it from what we say. They'll learn it from what we do. And modeling a life that you're excited to live, well, that's not just woman's work. That's everyone's work. Hey, y'all, it's Kelly Clarkson with Wayfair. Ever order furniture online and wonder what if? Like, what if it doesn't hold up? That sofa was four days old. You should have ordered from Wayfair. With Wayfair, there's no what if. Just style you can trust. Visit Wayfair.ca. Wayfair, every style, every home.