Shownotes Transcript
Would you let your teens use social media? At what age would you let them? Today we discuss. Welcome to The Bridge, enlightening conversations on world cultures, life, and everything in between. Hey everyone, this is Jason Smith, host of The Bridge podcast from sunny California. If you like the show, don't forget to subscribe. We love The Bridge. Yeah.
Hi everyone, I'm Jason Smith. I'm originally from sunny California, and now I'm living in beautiful Beijing. Today with me is Beibei. Hello Jason, how are you doing? And it's pretty sunny here in Beijing too. According to Pew Research Center, YouTube, TikTok, Instagram, and Snapchat remain widely used among U.S. teens. Some say they're on these sites almost constantly.
Constantly. Bebe, you have a daughter. At what age would you allow her to be on social media? We haven't really set an age because we kind of live just day by day. We don't plan much. You don't say at 15, we're going to let her have her own WeChat account. Yeah, that's not my philosophy of living my life. You know, we live in the moment. We see what's appropriate.
the present. But we did make huge changes when it comes to this. And I do have a lot to share with our listeners when it comes to social media use for teenagers. So my daughter just turned 10. And last year, so in September, we changed her school. And one of the most attractive thing about the new school she's in is that they banned, the word sounds vicious, huh? Banned? Banned.
But they just don't use electronics at school. And they don't. Well, I have a question. I already have a question. So what happens when a young person arrives at this school, at your daughter's school, and they have a cell phone, a smartphone with them? Does it get taken away and put in a box or something? Well, before you even get to the school, before your kid would become enrolled in the school, it's set. It's known by the parents that that's not allowed.
So, and it's not allowed. It's not allowed prior to high school. Like their high school, high schoolers, they use cell phone and maybe iPad, you know, for research and all that. But for kids under that, the younger kids, it's just, you know, you have to sign like a piece of paper. And not just that they're not used in school, they should not be used at home either. So it actually made it a lot easier for us because probably...
Prior to that, you know, when you tell your kids, OK, you shouldn't spend so much time on the iPad, right? Or you shouldn't be online so much. Like parents have limited authority. You can be a monster and, you know, reinforce your rules, but it gets a little ugly. But if the school is part of it, you know, I can show her on a piece of paper. See, your school said, right, no electronics allowed.
And also everybody else, it's the same for everybody else. It becomes easier because like kids, they're always testing the limit.
of what is allowed and what's not. And they will do things and they will live their lives at the edge, you know, between what's allowed and what's not allowed. They keep pushing the boundary. But once they are sure that there is a boundary, like it's just not allowed. Like once they lose hope of using any such products,
Exactly. Once it sets in, it becomes easier. It's when you are hanging on to a little bit of hope
then maybe mom won't see it. Or maybe dad will allow me to use the iPad for a while. Then your mind is, you know, always juggling between these options. But once you cut it clean... That's how I play. I think most kids play the mom versus dad game. So do you and dad sit down together when your daughter's not around and make like a plan how you're going to coordinate and what you're going to...
We both will agree that A, B, and C. Is that how you do it? You know, there's no like B or C. It's just A. No electronics. No.
For the kids. Your daughter has no cell phone or smartphone of any kind. No, no, no way. Cell phone for a 10-year-old? Are you kidding me? Well, she has... I used to be a kindergarten teacher and my kids at five would have their own smartphone sometimes. Yeah, you know what? In most cases, I hate to say this, but it's probably because of lazy parenting. It's so much easier, quote unquote easier, to raise your child if you just give them like an iPhone, a phone, whatever.
or an iPad, it just makes your life so much easier. It gives you so much more free time, but you are going to be dealing with the consequences of that. So I think one thing we have to... Well, let me, I want to give you another example though. I want to give you another example. You can tell me as a, you know, as a Chinese mother here in Beijing, what you think of this. I had a few students and one in particular, I remember he had a...
I have a smart watch, but mine's nothing like his. Mine just shows the time and my heart rate and stuff like that. But his could take pictures, and it could also take video, and it had a button, and it was the most important button on the phone. He could press it, and it would instantly do two things. It would call his mom's cell phone directly, and that's the only phone number it knew. And number two, it would automatically start signaling to his mom's
what his location was in real time. So anytime he wanted, like mom doesn't know where he is, he got lost, he's in the park, he's like, where's mom? He pushes this button, it calls mom and shows mom on WeChat which direction to walk to get back to him.
And so I thought that this was pretty interesting. And, you know, I agree with you that young children should not have access, unlimited access to the Internet. I also think it's very interesting that some kinds of technology exist to help protect children. What do you think about that? Well, we have one, too. Like, she has a watch. Oh, okay.
And there is this like pretty famous brand named Little Genius. So this watch, she can call some of her friends. Like it's a little complicated to add friends. You can't just add anybody. Like the parent has to get involved. And so sometimes I can hear her, you know, complaining about life. Yeah.
With her other, with her friends that I don't, that she. Oh my gosh. Too much math homework this weekend. That kind of thing. Yeah. Like, you know, complaining about her classmates and things like that. It's just her social time.
And it can take pictures, like these tiny little pictures, and it can, you know, make videos. But even that, you know, she only puts it on when she goes out by herself so that I can, you know, contact her. Otherwise, she does not use it all that much. See, one thing I want to share with parents is that it might sound monumental in this age to not give your child any kind of real, like, gadgets, electronic gadgets. But let me tell you, life goes on.
Things are fine. Things are better. You know, don't think of it as such a big deal. In the beginning, it might be a little hard.
Because trust me, we've tried everything. We as parents, we've dealt with this for years, right? In her previous school, she often had to use iPad, the iPad for like her homework. And she had to go online to do this and that. And guess what? Like two minutes, two minutes into supposedly doing her homework online, she goes off and do other things. And they are so quick.
with like locating apps, maybe, you know, they talk about this, what game is fun and what website to look at. And it's hopeless. No, it's like you can't, unless you can sit there and watch her for the entire duration of her using the electronic products, she will go off and do other things.
So in the end, we just gave up. We knew that it has to be a clean cut. And the funny thing is, like we've changed the password to the iPad so many times. Now, literally no one in the family can remember what the password is.
So I have some more questions. I have some more questions, though. I want to try to problematize. Problematize? This is a word. Yeah, we use this in academia. Problematize means to create a problem where one doesn't seem to exist, but we can make one. Okay, so. How bored are you? What about when she's doing homework that requires a computer? Do you allow her to use a computer or do you have to physically sit in her presence while she uses it? Well, in her new school, because it's like the whole curriculum.
is set against the condition that no electronics, no electronics is allowed for students under high school at all. At home. Yeah, it's a clean cut.
Because otherwise it does not work, Jason. Trust me, it does not work. But what about the idea of children should begin to learn, you know, get computer literacy skills? She knows. Oh, come on, Jason. You think it's going to take forever for kids to learn how to use the computer or the cell phone? I had a computer when I was her age. It takes them like five minutes.
They are so smart when it comes to this. Like, all these new things, don't worry about this. They will learn faster than you can. If I can learn to use the computer, if I can learn to, like, talk to chat GPT, they will do it in, like, a tenth of the time that it took me to do this. So, like...
Life will be fine without these electronic products for your kids. Trust me, they will find other interesting things to do and they'll spend more time with their like real people, real friends and outdoors and they will read more.
We allow her to watch a little bit of TV. What about? Just so that, you know, there's some noise. What about FOMO? Fear of missing out. She might get the impression by watching TV or movies or talking to friends from other schools that they're involved in this whole other life that she's currently not enjoying. When she meets other children of the same age who live a different kind of life, does she feel like she's missing out on something? Yeah, she complained to me about this once or twice. And I was just like, yeah, just deal with it.
I don't waste time, you know, getting too deep into things like that because they're going to be pushing your limit. They will have reasons to tell me, hey, mom, you know, I'm missing out on my social life. I have no idea what they're watching and all that. So what? They're...
areas to discover other interesting things to do even when she said like I'm bored I was like you know what boredom is part of life let's pivot a little let's pivot a little because your daughter is a bit younger than maybe a teen or a high school so you're saying when she enters freshman year of high school which is I don't know 12 or 13 years old I guess it's been a long time
She's going to then have access to social media of some kind. What kind of tools will you and the high school allow her to use? Well, her computer, right? She'll probably have a cell phone. And oh, gosh, I don't want to imagine what's going to happen. Like the first day.
That's exactly. Yeah. I mean, WeChat, I think, is pretty tame compared to Western apps like Instagram. There's so much crazy stuff on that. WeChat's actually much more family oriented and it's safer. But what about, will she have access to any of the Western toys? Well, you know, I haven't really thought about that. Facebook, Instagram. I think we will be monitoring things. Like her dad is pretty strict on this.
We've tried to be nice, Jason. We've tried to be lenient. And we've tried to give her as much room as possible.
without things harming her, you know, just polluting her mind. And it turned out it didn't work because they will always find a loophole. Right. And they will always find a way to get around things. So in the end, it's just like, you know what? We're just throwing the iPad aside. No one knows the password anyway. And cell phone, because like one thing is in our household,
No one plays games online. It's just not part of our world. And we maybe sometimes watch a little bit of video, but like, I'm not crazy on that. I read all the time. And she knows that she reads all the time. Like we have alternatives. Let me ask you another question. I have, I have another question. Okay. Okay. I want to try to think of, I'm trying to problematize this. Elon Musk, when he was 12 years old,
designed a video game that could be used on computers at that time and sold it to, I think it was IBM, for $500, making his first venture into what eventually propelled him to become the world's richest person.
So do you feel like coding or other kinds of complex skills like using AI are something that she should be learning when she enters into her freshman year of high school? Because I'm sure Elon probably, in order to program a game, he probably started learning coding like a seven or eight years old. Well, first of all, I'm not aiming to help my kid become another Elon Musk.
He has his problems, major problems, right? So I just want my daughter to be healthy, first of all, mentally and physically healthy. And to have in the future when she is an adult, to have a career that she loves, like to be doing things she enjoys doing, to be a normal person, you know, like Jason,
Like parents have been in this day and age, we have been so challenged with all kinds of new problems that by now all we want is can we just live a normal life? You know what I mean? Like a normal life where
You know, back in the 80s, when I was a kid, kids went out to play. Going out to play. You know, outdoor play, right? And you talk to people face-to-face, as you have some, at least have some, enough face-to-face time with other kids. Like, kids play with kids. And, you know, be more relaxed than most people are these days. Can we stop the rush? Like, what are we rushing toward? Like, what's the destination, guys? Why are we whipping our kids forward?
To what? In the end, you just want them to live a decent life, right? To be safe, to be healthy, to be relatively happy, to be resilient. You're listening to The Bridge.
But let's talk about immunity, right? You know, usually, and I get, maybe this is just my personal experience of being a sickly child. I don't know. When kids are between the ages of like one and 15, they get sick a lot, a lot more than adults do. They get the flu, they get the cold, they get a little cold, they get a cold. And you know, parents are just watching. Gosh, don't I know about that? Right, exactly. But we don't as much as adults. Hopefully, most of us, most of us who are healthy and have normal immune systems, we get
sick far less often than children do. And that's because we've developed our immune system. How do you feel about the idea that young people need to learn how to manage social media in some kind of way and know what to avoid in order to stay safer when they become older and are free to use social media at will? I think there are pros and cons to every choice we make. You gain a little and you give a little, right? Yeah.
So once we signed up for this school, we knew that, okay, she will be missing out on something. You know, maybe like online time, all the knowledge that's just boiling online. But we're okay with that. I think her mind is pretty full already. Like her mind is pretty stuffed with all the things she can read from books already. And she has some real friends, like real people she can play with, you know, after school, over the weekend. And I think that's good enough. If we're missing out on other things...
well, let us miss out. We're fine. And we want her to, to be like, grow up as a normal, real person in the real world and to be, to be stronger than she is right now. Cause that's something I think that's probably forefront in our mind instead of worrying about, oh, whether or not she will learn to use these new technology. We want her to, you know, grow, to be a strong person.
physically and to be stable mentally. So the other things, the things missing out, you know what? That's fine. And I think in this day and age, we really need to be okay with this. You're going to miss out on certain things and that's fine, right? You eat your meals every day. You get enough sleep. You go to work or you do whatever work, you know, to support yourself. You talk with family. You talk with friends. That's a lot. That's enough. You know, that's good enough. You got the basics covered.
And the extra things just, you know, you don't have to have everything. I think that's something we need to really start telling ourselves. Do you think that it might be possible that by not having access to it now and then having access to it later, there's a possibility that a young person might become so overconfident
overwhelmed and inundated with it that they might leap into it head first and be drowned by it. Whereas someone who grew up with like, this is your digital time and this is your book time. This is your outside at the park time might be able to balance those things more ably. What's your opinion? Obviously, I think we know your opinion. Well, but what do you what do you think? I think of this. First of all, the picture you painted.
It's so simplistic when it comes to parenting. Like you tell them this is your digital time, this is reading time, and this is outdoor time, as if they're going to listen to you. Now, having been a parent for the past 10 years, let me tell you, unless you have like a whip in hand or some other like, I don't know, like really scary stuff. Electrical shock collar. I was thinking of something like that.
Unless you have something that threat, that give them a threat, things are not going to happen according to your plan. Okay. There's going to be confrontation. There's going to be negotiating. There's going to be this tug of war. So it's not going to be a pretty picture. Yeah.
As you planned. I'm going to jump to a different question. Pew Research Center did release that study that I mentioned before, Teen Social Media and Technology 2024. And I want to look at the first graph in that. It says YouTube, TikTok, Instagram and Snapchat top the list for teens. And this I think this is normal for me, you know, guessing this is what I would have guessed.
95% in 2022 and in 2024, 90% of all teens in the U.S., between 13 and 17, were users of YouTube, frequent users of YouTube.
Now, based on what I understand from you, Bebe, is that the high school that your daughter will attend eventually here in China will allow her to use various social media apps around that time, around 13 to 17, in some sort of context, I guess, I don't know, with homework or whatever it is. But, you know, what do you think about applications like the Chinese versions of these apps? So...
WeChat or doing, or having access to that. Cause 90% of kids using YouTube indicates that at least 90% of kids are using social media of some kind. Like what kind of apps you will be using? Well, who knows? Maybe by time, by that time, YouTube will have gone out of style or the, the apps that we have today. Uh,
But there will always be something else. I imagine that once we give her, like allow her to use a cell phone, there will be a period of time where she'll just go crazy. She'll probably be online. Yeah, I'm sure it's over. You won't have any control anymore. Once she has a cell phone in her hand that is hers that she can... Oh yeah, you've lost control. But I think that will be temporary because real life will kick in. And also, I'm willing...
I'm willing to push that as far back as possible. You know what I mean? Like, even though that might be a possibility. I mean, look at the adults, Jason. Look at the adults these days. Like, can they control themselves? You think adults are very self-disciplined when it comes to cell phone usage or being online? No. They're not. No. Yeah, so I'm not going to think that, okay, if I give her enough time now, she will wane from it.
by herself later on. I don't really consider that a likely possibility. I would say this. Let's switch it around. Let's talk about elderly people real fast, okay? Because we've done shows about their susceptibility of elderly people to scams. For example, there was a comedian, a very famous Malaysian-American comedian. He just did a routine a few weeks ago, went viral all over the internet. He was saying that elderly
people are like babies in a kitchen that are alone. They're running their hands over the counter. Who knows what's going to fall on them? Could be knives, could be, you know, whatever. And that's what elderly people on the internet are like. They have no immunity. This is his joke. Like, you know, they're like, oh, look what your doctor isn't telling you. Let me click on that because it's an obvious, obviously it's a scam, right? So
teens, especially teens who have never used the internet much before on their own, who are 13 coming into...
YouTube and TikTok, Instagram, Snapchat, Facebook, WhatsApp, X, Reddit, Threads, Douyin, all this stuff. Suddenly they're going to just they can click on anything. Will they know what not to click on? I have a question about your high school. Putting this in context, are they going to teach digital literacy like what not to click on? Like what is not safe? Well, what does it really matter?
Like whether or not you teach it. Oh, it matters. Oh, I think we should be teaching it. The thing is, I think people like adults, at least most adults know what they should or should not do. It's the lack of self-discipline. Like they just can't control it. And even if I think even if you teach them about it,
like at an earlier age, I don't think it's going to help a lot when it really hits them. Like when my daughter start using the cell phone, I expect there will be a period of time when she just, she'll be totally immersed in it, but she's going to come out from that. And we, of course we won't just be like, you know, here is a cell phone 24 hours a day. There will still be some control.
But I don't want to think about this to a fart ahead of time, because what we are, I guess what we're thinking is that we can't just talk about let's cut this off without giving them an alternative. Right. And let's admit it. It's an addiction.
It's a form of digital addiction. It's mild to hear that, oh, she's using her cell phone. That sounds okay. But in fact, when we look at it face to face, a lot of people suffer from social media addiction. It's almost like a mental drug in a way. And we need to take it seriously. And one thing we need to do is to offer alternatives. Like if I don't, if I'm not on my cell phone, if I can't watch TV, what can I do?
Right. So as parents, we need to offer them other guidances, like other interests and habits. Like my daughter, she loves to read and she loves to draw. She loves to write stuff. So she's busy. If I take, you know, say, take the cell phone away, iPad away, she'll find other things to do right away. No, she'll keep herself busy. Or I think sports is really good. Right. Kids actually love spending time outdoors if they have the opportunity, if they have friends to play with.
Like my daughter would really prefer to play with her friends than sitting at home and, you know, using a cell phone. If she has the opportunity to play with other kids, she's off in a second. So I think that's something we need to remind ourselves. It's sometimes they're just, they're just bored and say that. Well, I want to, I want to flip it around and took a look at, let's look at the opposite of what you're saying. Even more strict than what you're saying. Cause you're saying when she turns, I don't know, a freshman, she's going to have some access at least in, you know,
to social media. This is a new law that's coming into effect in Florida. Florida law limiting social media access for younger teens takes effect. This is January 2nd by David Cohen. And it indicates that you must be 16 years of age in the state of Florida to create an account on Facebook, Instagram, and TikTok. So for them, at least in Florida, starting from January 2nd, at least,
Kids younger than 16 years old cannot access those accounts because without without an account on Instagram, you can't look at Instagram. Oh, so you wouldn't be able to use it at all whatsoever. Any at all. If you're 15 years old, 14 years old, 13 years old. So they're even sad. They sound even more strict than you're going to be. What do you think about that?
Good luck. There are still other things they can look at. I mean, this thing is complicated. You know, we don't need to just like drill down at this one problem. As I said, we need to provide alternatives. Let's say if we don't allow kids to use these electronic products, if we don't allow them to have accounts, what do they do? Do we have other options?
that they're going to be okay with? Like, do they have a social circle like with real people? Maybe they have enough clubs or sports teams that they can enjoy. Or maybe you have, you know, spend more time with your own child, have like a parental, healthy parental bond so that you guys can spend time together. Or do they have any other hobbies that, you know, they'll be happy doing instead of just looking at a cell phone all the time? Mm-hmm.
So I think that we jump out of the problem to look at it, you know, keep some distance from it and see the other things that have to be in place. It's just like, you know, people quitting smoke, people quitting smoking. Sometimes, especially at the initial period, they need something to take that place. You know, when you want to change a bad habit, you need a good habit to take its place so that when you have the urge to smoke,
maybe, I don't know, eat a banana every time you want to smoke. I'm not too sure, but something so that they're not just sitting there twirling their thumbs and thinking, oh, I suffer because I can't smoke. You know, their mind should be on something else. And after a while, this habit change, you know, this change of habit
can take place. It's the same for people quitting electronic products. And for me, I have to share my own personal experience. So I, like back in 2023, I was still spending some time, quite a bit of time on the Chinese version of TikTok, like Douyin. And I was buying so much fruit, other like, I don't know, tissue paper, like a detergent. That doesn't sound bad. Yeah.
But then I ended up buying so much that I finally realized that I just can't consume this much because things were, they seem so cheap, right? And the products are so good. So one day I was just like, you know what? I'm just going to delete this app and see what happens. And I did. And guess what? My cell phone didn't explode. My mind didn't explode. Life went on. And over the weeks and months following that, I start to feel that I just somehow time...
time emerged because prior to that, when, you know, I was online a lot, I couldn't sleep as well. And I always felt like I was in a rush to do things. But in the over the past year, I feel like I have more and more free time. Somehow they just emerged from nowhere.
And even like by the past few months, I even feel the word leisure coming back to my life. And that's like an almost like a foreign word for me for decades. You know, and I think maybe it's been a foreign concept for a lot of people for decades in this day and age. But ever since I got rid of the most popular like video app, the social app, life really started changing. And I slept, I've been sleeping so much better.
So sometimes I think we just need to, you know, take a brave step forward and just try it. I want to ask you some more questions. I have an article here. This is psychologytoday.com, three tech trends impacting teens in 2025. But I want to talk about it in the context of adults real fast.
It keeps mentioning YouTube is the most popular app. And that's also the same here, just like in the above article by Pew Research Center. And I was talking to some experts on YouTube recently, and they were explaining that YouTube is actually primarily used for music.
And secondarily, it's used to learn how to do things like learn how to fix your computer, fix a refrigerator or do, you know, paper mache, whatever it is. So it's, it's a, it's a useful tool. I use YouTube a lot, for example, to learn how to use Linux and all the cameras. And it's actually a useful tool for learning. So I wanted to kind of ask you, uh,
As a person living in China, you said you deleted your Douyin app, but I presume you have access to other applications here in China. What are the, and I think a lot of people in America would like to know this. What are the top three or four apps that you use and what do you use them for? I think in place of YouTube, I use Bilibili because Bilibili. So it's like a learning applications? Bilibili is for longer videos. Like if you really want to get into a topic.
For example, I listen to a lot of interviews on U.S.-China relations and both in Chinese and in English. And if you want to learn something like, let's say my husband, he watches videos on, you
you know, how to take apart a cell phone. I mean, I don't think that's the goal, but like they take it apart. They just dissect it. And he, when he wants to learn about photography, like the newest camera and things like that, you'll be watching these long, boring quote, like for me, boring videos, but they, it goes into super like professional details or even about like tires. I mean, like who watches videos about tires, right? But,
But apparently people like my husband, they can watch it for who have tired. I mean, like they find it. I don't know. They probably find it sexy. I don't know. So,
So, Billy Billy. So, Billy Billy is a... I'm guessing there's videos for entertainment as well, but it can also be used as a tool for learning. Yeah, definitely. So, that is kind of like the YouTube that is popular in China. What other applications exist in China that you use frequently, and what are they there for? Well, okay. So, the app that I deleted, the Chinese version of TikTok, Douyin, I have to admit that I learned a lot from it. Like, it was where I got to know a lot of professors, a lot of...
a lot of professionals who would give interviews on, say, Sino-U.S. relations or just geopolitics and things like that. So I benefited a lot from watching a lot of these videos. It
It just then, for a while, I felt like it just took too long. You know, I was online for two longer periods of time. So I deleted that. Nowadays, in the place of Douyin, I sometimes use Xiaohongshu or The Little Red Book. And it's funny. The reason I use it, it's not as interesting as Douyin.
So that, like, I'm fully conscious. I'm fully conscious of the fact that it's not as stimulating, but it provides a mild dose of stimulation when I'm tired from, let's say, editing or from other work. Then I go relax for maybe 10 minutes or that on Litter-Up. And then you get bored and think, well, this isn't very good. Yeah.
Exactly. And then I get a little bored and then I go back. But it provided the rest that I needed without drawing me too deep into it. And also, I personally use it. Like I post videos and I do live reading on it.
So it's just convenient. But so the reason why I deleted Doim was because it was just too interesting. You could go on forever on TikTok on Doim, but it has its benefits. I did learn a lot from it. So for the shorter videos, I use Little Red Book in place of Doim. And for the longer ones, like when I go for a walk, I would pick a video on Bilibili and they can go from like a half an hour to an hour or even longer. And I listen to it.
right while I take the walk what about podcasting platforms in China what podcasting platforms are popular I'm not too
not too sure about that because I don't listen to them as much. I usually just go to Billy Billy like they have because they have long videos and you listen. Yeah, I listen to YouTube a lot also, but I'm a big user of Spotify increasingly lately. I think you have Apple podcast China is like a China specific podcasting platform. Yeah, something like that. We're on Apple podcast in China. So you can you can subscribe to us there if you're listening in China right now. Yeah, but I don't want to listen to our shows.
Not because it's not interesting. It's just, you know. You already did. You already did that. I already know what we talked about. Yeah. But overall, like I'm not, I feel liberated over the past year. Ever since I deleted Chinese TikTok, like Douyin, I just feel so liberated. Like I have more time. My mind is calmer, like quieter. Life is different. Oh yeah.
You're listening to The Bridge.
This is related, but it's new, so it's difficult. It's not really social media as much as it's something else. But AI platforms are popping up all over the world. We have ChatGPT and Grok and all these other ones. Do you have a Chinese AI that you use? I actually just tried ChatGPT. It was a little bit complicated for me, technically speaking. But you know what?
This sounds really silly. I didn't really know what to say to it. Like, I suppose I could come up. I asked it about the Belt and Road Initiative. I asked, you know, about some Buddhist questions. I think I need to become better at asking questions.
I was thinking about asking ChatGPT to design like an itinerary for a trip, maybe a trip to Japan over the winter holiday. I haven't got to it yet. So, yeah, I did try it. And it was a big pat on the back for me. At least I tried it.
Even though I'm not super interested. My husband uses it a lot. Like he uses Chachapiti. Are you aware that Baidu, the Chinese Baidu company, they also have their own AI that you can use for free online that speaks English and Chinese. Well, I'm not surprised to know. You can have a conversation with it. See, I don't talk much.
I'm this hermit. I'm this hermit at home who, yeah, I do record podcasts. So I talk for like, you know, an hour. But otherwise, outside work, I don't really talk much. Like, I'm a very content person. Like, I feel like I don't have to be like an octopus with tentacles reaching out everywhere. I'm just happy to stay in the head of the octopus. Yeah.
I'm happy with life the way it is. I don't need to know all that much. I don't need to, you know, catch up with everything that's going on. As long as I'm healthy mentally and physically and I'm content, I don't think I need to do a lot of crazy things to make my life bubbly. But people are at different stages of their lives. Younger people, they have more of an urge to
to connect, right, to catch up with the latest and this and that. But, you know, I'm going to take my time and I'm totally fine with it. Yeah. I want to switch back to teens real quick, because I also found after I found the article about Florida teens apparently not able to use certain social media applications until they are 16. I found this article on Tovima.com about Australia. Oh, sorry.
Yeah, about Australian teens are no longer able to access social media under the age of 16 as well. And apparently this is also true in Greek under the age of...
Sorry, in Greece under the age of 15. So it looks like increasingly governments around the world are starting to say, OK, this is about where kids should be able to start accessing social media around the age of 15 or 16, but not before, because these governments are essentially making it illegal for kids.
children under those ages to register and create accounts in those countries. In addition to the fact that it's interesting that this is the age that governments around the world are choosing, I also am wondering what social media companies might do because they're going to lose a certain percentage of their user base.
and not be able to access kids under these ages and lure them into using their application for hours on end, days, weeks, months, years. It's great that you mentioned this because I think as parents, we need to realize that
kids are also young adults. They are targets of this media, social media companies as a way of generating income. And once you realize that, like you are like your kids attention,
And time is being manipulated by these social media companies so that they can sell more, so that they can make money from gaming and all that. And once you are very clear on that, I think it puts, it offers parents more strength to actually do something, right? Oh, yeah. And in one of the, in this popular book that just came out last year, it's called The Anxious Generation.
by Jonathan Haidt. H-A-I-D-T. So he's a really famous social psychologist. He's also known for his work called Happiness Hypothesis. Have you heard of Jonathan Haidt? I haven't. So this book is all about the effects of using social media, this new age, on young people. Especially it shows how smartphones, social media,
And also helicopter parenting have led to a decline in young people's mental health and also offers actionable solutions to help our kids and ourselves to become more mature and emotionally stable adults. And one of the suggestions offered and one of the fundamental reforms
that Jonathan Haidt, I hope I'm saying it right, offered in the book is to allow no cell phones before high school. So same as what you just mentioned, like it's okay to give them these basic, you know, like the cell phones that we used to use 20 years ago, you can use to make a cell phone
Yeah, like text and call only, you know. Oh, you would just to make calls. He says we should give our kids basic text and call phones until they're like 14 or high school age and no social media before 16. That's the second tip. And also phone free schools. It's so much easier if the school does not allow it.
It just makes parents' job much easier to enforce it both ways. And that's the only way, it says in the book, to free up their attention for each other and for their teachers.
Imagine that their mind is drawn to this show they were watching, to this game they were playing. You know, you expect them to suddenly switch their attention onto their teachers in the classrooms. Their mind is elsewhere. So give them like a free phone zone in school so that they give up hope and they're so bored that they have to listen to their teachers. And also, and the other tip is to
offer more unsupervised playtime and childhood independence. Because he's saying that, you know, the biggest mistakes we're making these days is to allow too little freedom in the real world, but too much freedom online for our kids. Well, I wanted to ask you about that because you're talking about helicopter parenting and freedom. Because I wanted to ask specifically, and you don't have this problem yet, but you will. Mm-hmm.
I am not a parent, so I don't know what parenting is like, and I could be completely off base on everything I say. But if I had a 15-year-old son or daughter, I would take their phone and check what they were doing periodically. I would take their phone away from them and open it up and look at the messages that they're sending to make sure that they're not messaging some older person or some weirdo. I would actually want to make sure physically by taking away their –
smartphone and checking it to make sure that they're not engaged in dangerous online activities. So, I mean, you say about freedom, let them have freedom. But what about checking their calls? I mean, to me, legally, a child is your you are their guardian until they are 18 in the United States. So for me, if someone is 17 years old, you are perfectly legally within your right to take away their cell phone and check to make sure that what they're doing online is safe.
Because it's, and so I would take advantage of that as a parent and say, yes, I'm going to check your phone and make sure you're not messaging some creepy weirdos, you know, like, and then you're 18, you can message all the creepy weirdos you want. That's not my, you're not my problem anymore. And your daughter will be like, hey, all the crazy weirdos, wait till my 18th birthday. Oh,
All lined up outside the house. So how do you feel about that? Once you're, you mentioned earlier that when your daughter enters high school, you're going to give her a smartphone sometimes. So when it's not sometimes, it's in your possession, right? Are you going to check up and make sure that she's being safe online? I think I will let her know that I have the right to check it, that I will be checking it. Maybe not on like an hourly basis. That's not possible. But once they know that you are supervising, they will be careful. But the thing is, Jason, like if by the time
the time, my daughter is 18, 17, 18, and I still need to do that.
I will be very worried. Okay. It means that my parenting prior to that has failed because by that time, they should have enough positive habits in their lives. They should have a certain set of values as to what's good or bad for me, you know, by themselves. If I still have to be helicoptering my daughter at that age, maybe it's a little too late.
So I don't expect things to, you know, drag on. Like I would have to do things now. Let's talk about helicopter parenting in Chinese culture, because I understand the point you're making. But from what I understand about Chinese culture and you're I'm not Chinese and you are. So you can tell me why I'm wrong or right. Doesn't matter. Just tell you, give us your opinion. Helicopter parenting exists now.
All the way up until the day after Gaokao. Is that not correct? So there's a huge, for people who don't know what I'm talking about, there's a huge test that determines what college kids go to. Yeah. And parents are like stuffing in violin practice and English practice and math classes and everything they can into their kid's brain as hard as they can until after this test. And then it's like, oh, you made it into Tsinghua University. Do whatever you want. Go. Well. Am I not right? Oh.
It really depends on the family. There are a lot of families like that. And parents have to devote a lot of time. If you want to be a helicopter parent, I mean, you literally sacrifice most of your free time. So it's hard. It's difficult being a helicopter parent. And there are pros and cons, right? And usually, I think there are a lot of pros. You will keep your child at a safer distance from harmful influences, which will influence how their brain develops.
influence their values and, you know, their state of health, both mentally and physically. But it could get a little like the relationship could get a little, you know, strained. I'm not really a helicopter parent. Like the only thing I worried about is her math sometimes because she just doesn't like it. But the other things, as long as she's like healthy, I care about what she eats and that's pretty much it. But it's...
It's a decision that me, I, my husband made, you know, we're going to let some things go. For example, her grades. Okay. I don't think she will be aiming for Tsinghua. Okay. That's like, you know, the MIT in the States. So I don't think that's right for my child. I'm sorry. So we're not betting on, you know, such high standards. She'll probably get into like a really good art school or something like that.
So we are a lot more relaxed when it comes to this. And we've got our goals pretty clear. We want her to be healthy, to be, you know, just normal, stay normal and to be healthy mentally and physically. And in place of that, you give up some of the more, the other standards that you're going to set. So we decided not to be helicopter parents. And but we're going to be
Like we're responsible, very responsible in other ways. Like the people she deals with, right? So that we don't have to fend off creepy guys hiding, lurking behind trees in the park when she's 18. It's a really complicated job, like parenting. I really can't paint any rosy colors to this job. It
It requires a lot of time and a lot of thoughtful thinking and deliberation and actions on the part of parents to make sure that your kids turn out OK. And I'm not even talking about like to turn out as someone, you know, with super high moral standards, a big success and a lot of good habits. I think parents these days struggle just to produce, quote unquote, like normal kids,
You know what I mean? Like we have to go against the current a lot of times to fend off things instead of cultivate positive things. Back in the days, like when we were little, there were so many things to fend off. Like at least in China back in the 80s, we didn't have to deal with electronic products, right? And the TV programs were really simple and they were safe. And I didn't have to fend off all kinds of junk food.
When I was little, like while we ate, we're healthy, we're natural, organic. Nowadays, you just have to spend so much time to make sure that their bodies and minds are not contaminated, you know, when they're still little kids. And that's exhausting. So I think for us, what we realized is that don't aim too high, you know, get the basics, get the basics covered and don't think that you can get everything.
So it's more paced for us. I want to put out some information which supports what you're saying. This is according to Forbes.com. Social media platforms keep kids online despite mental health harms. And just a couple of things I want to read here. I don't want to bore people too much.
But it mentions that, according to studies, that kids who use social media for more than three hours a day had two and a half times the risk of anxiety, depression, and loneliness. So that is a study. But if you go down in the- Three hours a day? Yeah. So they would have two and a half times-
the issues of anxiety, depression, and loneliness. And then according to the same article, it says TikTok and Meta knew, so Meta is everything, Instagram, Facebook, knew that their platforms were harmful. And so it goes on to talk about what you mentioned at the beginning of our show about addiction, that Facebook, for example, has known for more than a decade that they're not just known, they deliberately...
created Facebook to be addictive and to give people incentives to remain on the platform the maximum amount of time possible, trying to get users to stay on their website for as long as possible. Oftentimes, algorithms, which predict your behavior, will punish people who do posts who have links to some other page. They won't like that person. They won't let them grow because they don't want people to click on
off of their page to go to a different social media application. So Facebook and Instagram and all of these kinds of platforms, they want you on their platform as long as it is possible. And they want children on there too, as long as possible, despite them knowing that this was bad for children. I think we really, as parents, we really need to give up some of these illusions.
OK, like to have we need to give up the hope that these social media companies will be thinking in the benefit of our children. OK, they will be thinking about their profits, period. Yes. And we have to give up the illusion that our kids will have the self-discipline to control themselves because, guys, look at yourself. Hey, how many hours are you spending?
you know, time on your cell phone. If you can't even control yourself or the other adults you see around you, they're walking and reading off their cell phone at the same time. I've seen people driving like, you know, on their electric bikes on the highway. Oh yeah. It's so scary. Scrolling, scrolling on their cell phones. It's insane. They act like they're busier than like presidents of countries.
And they're not. So give up the illusion that kids have enough sense in them to control themselves. We as parents, we have to. We have to take actions. And it's not as difficult as it sounds. Like for us, we did it. We just said no. No, no, no. You say it enough times, you take the iPad away, the cell phone away, the whatever other things, you take them away.
Until they completely lose hope in regaining them. And then you enter a new stage where it's, you know, they start to detox from, you know, the thinking that they can still be playing games or doing other things. I just like the idea that Bebe's parenting is centered around creating and instilling hopelessness. Yeah.
Because even if they see a slither, okay, like a tiny speck of hope, they will think of whatever they can. They will use their intelligence to this one point.
and to get back their electronics or whatever other things that you forbid them to use. So you have to make it really clear. Give up. Just give up the illusions that things will work out on their own. You have to take your action. And also, I have to remind our parents because my daughter is already 10 and I know that she's quickly growing up and the tug of war between parent and child will get even harder just
just later on. So do not wait. Do not wait until your child is 12, 13 or 16 or 18 to set the rules, to implement the rules. Yeah. By that time, it's you who will be losing hope because
Because your child will be gaining authority. They will be gaining independence. And there will be a lot more friction when you try to control their environment. So do it when they're younger. It sounds kind of harsh. As I said, let's get out of the illusion, okay? And face the reality. We are parents. We have our responsibility. This is responsibility. This is not about being a tyrant. Absolutely.
You want things to turn out well for your kids. There are certain things you got to do and don't go soft because they can sense it. We want to hear from the listeners. We're out of time. If you want to message us and tell us why you think hopelessness is
wonderful for your children or what you, what you do in your country with social media, we would actually really be delighted wherever you're from the United States, China, Afghanistan, Kenya, wherever you are. We want to know what you do with your children and social media. Please email us at we love the bridge at gmail.com. And we would be delighted to read your comments on the air. Thank you so much for your time listeners. Thank you so much for your time. Let me just add one more thing. Like I might sound like a monster parent, but,
but I love my daughter like whenever I can. So she knows what she knows that when I'm being stern, when I'm being like a tiger mom or monster mom, I'm not a tiger mom. She knows that it's for a purpose and all the other times I'm, you know, fun to be with and I shower her with love. So we've got both. All right. Thank you guys. Thank you, Jason. We'll see you guys next time. Bye. Bye.
Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah.