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Speaker 1: Digital addiction is the growing but silent epidemic that's ravaging

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Speaker 1: too many of our kids' brains. We're not talking about

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Speaker 1: a fringe problem here. We're talking about a full blown

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Speaker 1: psychological assault when it comes to our children and their

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Speaker 1: internet gaming, internet gaming disorder and smartphone addiction. Something like

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Speaker 1: ten percent of Australian teens are getting their dope mean hits,

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Speaker 1: cheap dope mean hits from screens instead of life. It's

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Speaker 1: not just a status generation of kids that are being

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Speaker 1: rewired with cheap dope mean right underneath our noses, often

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Speaker 1: in our land rooms and in their bedrooms. And in

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Speaker 1: today's episode of The Happy Family's podcast, doctor Brad Marshall,

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Speaker 1: the Unplugged Psychologist is going to break down how technology

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Speaker 1: is hijacking our children's mental architecture and what the hell

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Speaker 1: we can do about it. Dtor Brad Marshall is a

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Speaker 1: returning guest to The Happy Family's podcast. Brad the Unplugged

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Speaker 1: Psychologist has spent over a decade at the cutting edge

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Speaker 1: of healthy screen use. He's an author, he's a researcher,

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Speaker 1: he's a speaker, he's a clinician. Brad, Welcome back to

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Speaker 1: the pod. So good to have you here.

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Speaker 2: Thank you justin appreciate it. And I should just clarify

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Speaker 2: there I'm not doctor yet. I've handed in my DHD thesis,

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Speaker 2: but I'm probably a couple of months off yet, but

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Speaker 2: I appreciate you using that tag early. Thank you.

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Speaker 1: I reckon if you've handed in the thesis and almost

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Speaker 1: doctor is close, but I take your point. I won't.

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Speaker 1: I won't push the point. So let's talk about this

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Speaker 1: paper that you've just published. This is not going to

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Speaker 1: get geeky any parent who's got a child who was

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Speaker 1: on screens and gaming too much. This is going to

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Speaker 1: be relevant for you. But we're going to geek out

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Speaker 1: for about one hundred and twenty seconds. Brad. You've just

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Speaker 1: published this study about Internet gaming disorder and smartphone addiction.

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Speaker 1: Obviously that's our topic today. Who was in the study?

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Speaker 1: What was the study about?

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Speaker 2: Yeah, so just top level stuff here. Basically, what we

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Speaker 2: did at Macquarie University, at the research lab i'm working

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Speaker 2: out is six hundred and eighty nine families joined our

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Speaker 2: study and they were kids that were from kindergarten to

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Speaker 2: year twelve. Now most of the kids were between year

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Speaker 2: four and year eight. That's who sort of volunteered, And

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Speaker 2: what we were asking them is is parents to volunteer

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Speaker 2: if you have tons around smartphone addiction or gaming video

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Speaker 2: game disorder, or just problematic usage. So parents signed up

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Speaker 2: six hundred and eighty nine of them, and what they

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Speaker 2: received in exchange for signing up was a whole bunch

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Speaker 2: of videos of myself chatting about all the different strategies

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Speaker 2: that I did in my first book, Detech Diet, and

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Speaker 2: we were offering them education on this stuff and strategies

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Speaker 2: of what you can do to put healthy boundaries around

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Speaker 2: this at home. Six weeks later, we asked them to

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Speaker 2: fill out a second survey. We had one hundred and

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Speaker 2: fifty three do that, and then we've crunched the numbers

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Speaker 2: on what happened with those one hundred and fifty three.

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Speaker 2: Now we'll just leave for a second the big dropout

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Speaker 2: rate then, because there is a big dropout rate and

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Speaker 2: we can explain that. But essentially what we found is

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Speaker 2: that sixty percent of these kids qualified for either smartphone

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Speaker 2: addiction or gaming disorder on bona fide tools that we

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Speaker 2: use at the start at baseline, so it was a

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Speaker 2: fairly clinical sample. Sixty percent of them were considered clinical

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Speaker 2: and by the end of it, sixty percent of the

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Speaker 2: kid that had gaining disorder didn't have it at six weeks,

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Speaker 2: and thirty two percent that had it at the smartphone

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Speaker 2: addiction didn't have it at the end. So what we're

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Speaker 2: talking about there is a parent only intervention trial. I

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Speaker 2: never met a single kid, in fact, justin I never

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Speaker 2: even met a single parent. It was just me on videos,

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Speaker 2: So there was no real therapeutic alliance there or holding

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Speaker 2: their hands. It was just information we're giving them. And

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Speaker 2: we feel that those top line results are pretty encouraging

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Speaker 2: that parents can have a huge impact on how their

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Speaker 2: kids do stuff online and the impacts there.

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Speaker 1: So here's my restate of this. Of one hundred and

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Speaker 1: fifty parents or thereabouts who filled in that second form,

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Speaker 1: you've got a one third two third improvement where you've

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Speaker 1: gone from disordered dysfunctional behavior to my child is now

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Speaker 1: back with it, living a functional, adaptive, healthy life. Again

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Speaker 1: in relation to the way their screen's going and the

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Speaker 1: intervention is they've watched a handful of videos with you

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Speaker 1: across a six week period and then implemented that at themselves.

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Speaker 1: Big big finding. Let's talk about this huge dropout because

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Speaker 1: you've lost what is it, four or five hundred people

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Speaker 1: from part one to part two?

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Speaker 2: Correct?

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Speaker 1: Why do you think so many dropped out? And what

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Speaker 1: does that say about how strong these findings are? By

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Speaker 1: the way, in a secon we're going to talk about

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Speaker 1: what the videos said, but let's just address this. Why

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Speaker 1: do you reckon so many people pulled out?

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Speaker 2: Yeah? I mean so there's a couple of different theories here,

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Speaker 2: but the dropout RATEY is seventy seven point eight percent, Okay,

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Speaker 2: so it's significant. It's a limitation of the study, and

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Speaker 2: as a good researcher, of course, you have to be

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Speaker 2: upfront about those limitations. We're not going to do some

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Speaker 2: selective reporting here and try and wash over that. What

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Speaker 2: I would say is there's a couple of different theories.

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Speaker 2: One theory would be that parents just got really burnt

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Speaker 2: out and didn't implement the strategies. The other theory would

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Speaker 2: be that of those parents that didn't turn up, really

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Speaker 2: there wasn't a whole lot of inputus. There wasn't a

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Speaker 2: whole lot of reward for them to fill out that

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Speaker 2: second survey. So what I mean by that is there

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Speaker 2: was no financial incentive for them to do it. Parents

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Speaker 2: are busy, they get this can survey, they've already got

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Speaker 2: the videos, which typically cost fifty or sixty bucks, they've

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Speaker 2: got them for free. And they've never met me. They've

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Speaker 2: never met Professor Warburton, who I work with, So there's

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Speaker 2: not really any I guess contract for them to actually

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Speaker 2: fill in that second survey. So I do think that's

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Speaker 2: a big part of it at a more likely scenario, Brad.

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Speaker 1: Thanks for explaining that there were five things that you

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Speaker 1: encourage parents to do as they worked with their kids

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Speaker 1: in terms of their gaming disorder or their screen addiction challenges.

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Speaker 1: I want to step through those five and I'd like

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Speaker 1: to ask you to just talk briefly about each of

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Speaker 1: those five things and to the degree you can, to

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Speaker 1: what extent did each of these things contribute to the

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Speaker 1: positive outcomes the reductions in dysfunctional behavior that you saw.

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Speaker 1: So the first one is one that I'm a really

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Speaker 1: big believer in managing the home Wi Fi with set limits.

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Speaker 1: How does that work and how does that contribute to

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Speaker 1: the positive outcomes?

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Speaker 2: Yeah, So basically there were five things that we measured

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Speaker 2: as what we call dosage variables here that we were measuring,

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Speaker 2: but there are seven steps in the Tech Diet for

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Speaker 2: your Child and Team book. We were just trying to

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Speaker 2: pick the five that were sort of objectively measured in

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Speaker 2: a research sense. So the first one is managing the

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Speaker 2: home Wi Fi and setting limits around that. That one,

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Speaker 2: and then strategy two and three. So strategy two is

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Speaker 2: placing limits on your child's data plan. So again both

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Speaker 2: of those you'll probably see you justin And this is

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Speaker 2: interesting for the recent social media band debate and everything. Essentially,

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Speaker 2: what we're acknowledging here from a clinical perspective is that

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Speaker 2: parents that are using parental controls on phones and devices

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Speaker 2: and apps and games, they're incredibly poor. They're poorly designed.

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Speaker 2: There's easy ways to get around them. And you know,

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Speaker 2: we can go into where the tech companies designed them

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Speaker 2: that way on purpose or not, but anyway, I think

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Speaker 2: they might have. Yeah, I mean I think i'd agree

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Speaker 2: with you, but anyway, so I just want to circumvent.

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Speaker 2: And these strategies are designed to be right. What fuels

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Speaker 2: all of these devices and their persuasive design and their

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Speaker 2: addictive nature and the dopamine is the Wi Fi. We

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Speaker 2: know that for a fact. So if the first two

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Speaker 2: steps control your Wi Fi and control the mobile data

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Speaker 2: actually had some of the biggest impact that we saw

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Speaker 2: when we broke down the different strategies and what was

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Speaker 2: the most effective. The third strategy of setting clear boundaries

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Speaker 2: around Wi Fi and bedtime was fairly effective as well.

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Speaker 2: And then we get into the last two strategies, which

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Speaker 2: weren't as effective. I mean, some of them had some significance,

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Speaker 2: it was pretty weak and it was approaching a bit vague.

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Speaker 2: And I should also mention for all five of these,

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Speaker 2: what we really stuck to in the research is just

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Speaker 2: the overall effect. Because some parents picked strategy one and

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Speaker 2: strategy five picked they all picked different ones, and that

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Speaker 2: was interesting to us is that they quite often didn't

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Speaker 2: apply all five strategies. They might have just picked two

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Speaker 2: or three, but it was about them picking the ones

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Speaker 2: that really were for their situation. So just circling back,

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Speaker 2: strategy four was to draw up an agreement for daily

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Speaker 2: screen use with their child, and strategy five was about

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Speaker 2: implementing consequences if they break set rules. And so four

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Speaker 2: and five were not used as much and they weren't

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Speaker 2: as effective as some of the other ones, but as

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Speaker 2: a whole, all five strategies were found to be extremely

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Speaker 2: effective for treating gaining disorder and smartphone pitch.

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Speaker 1: I'm going to go through these again because there was

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Speaker 1: a lot of information that you just shared and I

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Speaker 1: want it to be super accessible for parents who are

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Speaker 1: going I need this, I need more, I just need this.

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Speaker 1: So number one was managing the home Wi Fi with

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Speaker 1: set limits. When we get really practical about that. First

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Speaker 1: of all, every single one of these five elements is

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Speaker 1: going to have a conversational component. Right, We're going to

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Speaker 1: sit down with our child, We're going to have a discussion.

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Speaker 1: We're worried about this. We know that there's been a

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Speaker 1: lot of contention. There's a lot of discussion ongoing the

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Speaker 1: in the house, but we need to manage the home

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Speaker 1: WiFi would set limits so the conversation begins. Effectively, what

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Speaker 1: do parents do then? Do they start switching the Wi

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Speaker 1: Fi off? Is that pretty much it? The WiFi is

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Speaker 1: going to go off between i'd know eight thirty at

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Speaker 1: night and seven thirty in the morning. Is that how

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Speaker 1: that rolls? Or is there something more to it?

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Speaker 2: Yeah, so just around the conversation. So I think that's

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Speaker 2: a really important part. We always try to do this

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Speaker 2: in a clinical sense as a part of a conversation.

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Speaker 1: Of course with our teenagers, right.

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Speaker 2: But I should also just quantify here if you're a

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Speaker 2: parent at home listening to this, going, my child won't

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Speaker 2: even sit down and have that conversation with meep, then

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Speaker 2: for some of these strategies, these parents strategies are for

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Speaker 2: those parents as well. Where you say, well, I'm going

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Speaker 2: to have to go ahead and put these boundaries in place.

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Speaker 2: If you're not going to come to the table and discuss.

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Speaker 1: It, I've got to jump in here. Because anyone who's

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Speaker 1: been listening to the Happy Families podcast for a while

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Speaker 1: or following the work that I've done, read it in

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Speaker 1: my books, they will know that as soon as you

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Speaker 1: say that, and parents will do this as well, whether

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Speaker 1: they've listened to me or not. I guess a lot

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Speaker 1: of parents are just going to chafe and say no, no, no,

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Speaker 1: that's not the way, not the way you're supposed to

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Speaker 1: do it. But can I tell as much as I

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Speaker 1: hate it, I absolutely agree with you. There are some

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Speaker 1: times where I, as the parenting expert, quote unquote, sometimes

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Speaker 1: I just say to my kids, We've tried to have

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Speaker 1: the conversation about this four or five times and we're

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Speaker 1: spinning our wheels. I'm the one with the prefrontal cortex

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Speaker 1: that's operational, and I'm going to implement this even though

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Speaker 1: you hate me, and you hate it, why because you

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Speaker 1: know that I'm older and you know that I'm wiser,

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Speaker 1: and you hate me for it. But that's just the

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Speaker 1: way it's got to be. Doesn't happen very often, but

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Speaker 1: from time to time, as a parent, you've just got

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Speaker 1: to be the parent. And I hate saying it, but

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Speaker 1: you're dead right. And I love the fact that this

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Speaker 1: managing the home Wi Fi would set limits and placing

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Speaker 1: limits on the mobile phone conversations first where possible. I

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Speaker 1: love that you've highlighted these seem to be the most

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Speaker 1: effective things for breaking the addiction.

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Speaker 2: And what you find is that in a clinical sense

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Speaker 2: and in this research as well, we found the same thing.

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Speaker 2: When you do strategy one and two that we've just

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Speaker 2: talked about, quite often, what you'll have is that that

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Speaker 2: will then open the door door conversation. Then they'll back

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Speaker 2: to the bargaining table and kind of Okay, well I'm

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Speaker 2: pissed off about this, can you tell me why? But

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Speaker 2: so for many families at home don't feel like you

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Speaker 2: can't do the perfect conversation first. Sometimes that's become second.

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Speaker 2: But to come back to your question justin about how

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Speaker 2: do parents practically do that, well, there's no perfect way.

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Speaker 2: But for setting Wi Fi limits, typically, what I talk

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Speaker 2: about is using something called a mesh router system which

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Speaker 2: allows you to and again I'm not going to recommend

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Speaker 2: specific ones, but it allows you to turn on and

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Speaker 2: off certain devices at a macro level without having to

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Speaker 2: turn the entire Wi Fi off if you don't want to.

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Speaker 2: For strategy too, of placing limits on your mobile data,

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Speaker 2: there's two different ways to do this, and so the

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Speaker 2: first way is at a macro level, you can just

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Speaker 2: go to the telco and reduce the data to something

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Speaker 2: like five to ten gigabytes. But the reason that we feel,

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Speaker 2: and we've gone into this in the paper, but for

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Speaker 2: those at home, thirty two percent of kids got better

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Speaker 2: with smartphone addiction. Now, the reason that I feel that's

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Speaker 2: actually a little bit lower than the gaining the sort

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Speaker 2: of one is probably because it takes a while to

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Speaker 2: do that. If you're a parent going away and changing

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Speaker 2: a mobile plan, that could take one two three months,

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Speaker 2: and we follow them up in six weeks. So I

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Speaker 2: feel like if we actually had a followed up twelve

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Speaker 2: or sixteen weeks, that probably would have gotten better. But

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Speaker 2: just a theory. The other way that parents can do

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Speaker 2: that one is there are new smartphones coming on the market,

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Speaker 2: things like GMG dash Mee. I have no financial affiliation

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Speaker 2: with GMI, by the way, they're an Australian smartphone for

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Speaker 2: kids where essentially they allow you to put limits on

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Speaker 2: this stuff at a hardware level, which is much different

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Speaker 2: than the software that parents have been trying to use.

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Speaker 1: Hardware is the way to go. I'm convinced of that.

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Speaker 1: Number three. Setting clear boundaries around Wi Fi being turned

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Speaker 1: off at bedtime, that doesn't feel like one that we

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Speaker 1: need to go into in detail. It's again the conversation,

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Speaker 1: we're turning off the Wi Fi when it's time for

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Speaker 1: bed so that you can get some sleep. I would

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Speaker 1: have imagined, well, it's not one of your strategies that

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Speaker 1: I mean, there are still going to be some kids

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Speaker 1: who will find a way to get access to the

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Speaker 1: four G five G network. Just removing devices from bedrooms

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Speaker 1: is I think the ultimate way to deal with that.

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Speaker 1: But your last two drawing up an agreement with the

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Speaker 1: child about daily screen limits. I found it really interesting

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Speaker 1: in your paper that that was not one of the

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Speaker 1: more effective strategies. I have my hypotheses, but why did

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Speaker 1: you determine that that was not always particularly effective? Obviously

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Speaker 1: it does work for some, by the way, but not

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Speaker 1: particularly effective.

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Speaker 2: I think when we drilled down into exactly which strategy

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Speaker 2: was working for gaming, was working for smartphone, was working

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Speaker 2: on improving developmental impacts which we measured as well, it

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Speaker 2: gets a little bit muddled because some of them were

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Speaker 2: using strategy one and three and five and others were

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Speaker 2: using four of it. And so what happened is that

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Speaker 2: when we got the one hundred and fifty three and

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Speaker 2: we started to break it down into smaller groups like that,

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Speaker 2: you ended up with smaller samples of maybe fifteen twenty

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Speaker 2: and so we should read too much into those individual ones.

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Speaker 2: But yes, as a global statement, I think it's correct

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Speaker 2: in saying that this data indicates that strategy one, two

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Speaker 2: and three that we've just talked about was perhaps more

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Speaker 2: effective than getting into the nitty gritty of consequences and

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Speaker 2: things like that.

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Speaker 1: And the last one is that having consequences no surprise

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Speaker 1: to you to hear me say that I'm not surprised

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Speaker 1: that didn't work very well, because kids just the more

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Speaker 1: heavy handed you are, the more that it damages the relationship,

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Speaker 1: and the more they just push us that unwanted behavior

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Speaker 1: under ground. Those first three they are about conversations, they're

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Speaker 1: about working together, and it just makes sense that they work. Brad.

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Speaker 1: I love the work that you do. I think you

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Speaker 1: do such an important job for parents who are really

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Speaker 1: struggling with this a question. Without notice, something's popped into

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Speaker 1: my head as we've been discussing, Brad. A couple of

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Speaker 1: months ago, federal government, with the opposition support, rushed through

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Speaker 1: some legislation that's going to kick off towards the end

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Speaker 1: of this year that will effectively ban kids from social

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Speaker 1: media under the age of sixteen. Obviously, a lot of

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Speaker 1: details still to come to light, there's a lot of

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Speaker 1: work to be done before they're ready to roll this out. Brad,

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Speaker 1: Do you think this is a good thing?

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Speaker 2: Yeah? I mean so. I gave testimony at the end

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Speaker 2: of last year at the Senate and the Joint Select

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Speaker 2: Committee inquiries in Canberra. I'm on the record as saying

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Speaker 2: that I do believe this is the right path to go.

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Speaker 2: But what I also said in Canberra to the politicians

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Speaker 2: was that even if we didn't do that, even if

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Speaker 2: all we did was actually forced the tech companies to

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Speaker 2: give our parents parental software that works, that would be

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Speaker 2: a fantastic start as well. So broadly speaking, I am

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Speaker 2: in favor of this because I do believe that we

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Speaker 2: have to send a clear message to parents that there

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Speaker 2: are harms.

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Speaker 1: Doctor Brad Marshall is the unplugged psychologist. He spent over

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Speaker 1: a day. Oh sorry, I said, Doctor Brad Marshall. That

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Speaker 1: doesn't I'm just gonna let it go, Brad, because any

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Speaker 1: day now you're going to be doctor Brad Marshall.

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Speaker 2: Soon be as long as as long as aprodotcumsa, we'll

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Speaker 2: be okay, I reckon, We're safe here.

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Speaker 1: The soon to be doctor Brad Marshall, clinician, researcher, author,

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Speaker 1: speaker and all round tech guy expert, really appreciate you

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Speaker 1: being on the pod.

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Speaker 2: Thanks Justin, great to be here.

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Speaker 1: The Happy Families podcast is produced by Justin Rulan from

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Speaker 1: Bridge Media. If you want more details about how you

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Speaker 1: can help break your kids screen or gaming addiction and

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Speaker 1: disorder and dysfunction, check out Brad's website, we'll link to

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Speaker 1: it in the show notes, or just google Brad Marshall

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Speaker 1: Unplugged Psychologist, a couple of great books with really useful ideas.

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Speaker 1: We will also link to the paper that we've been discussing,

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Speaker 1: so that for those of you who are more academically inclined,

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Speaker 1: you can have a look at the breakdown of how

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Speaker 1: that worked, and if you would like more information generally

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Speaker 1: about making your family happier and how to have those conversations,

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Speaker 1: check out happy families dot com, dot a