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Speaker 1: It's the Happy Families podcast. It's the podcast for the

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Speaker 1: time poor parent who just wants answers.

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Speaker 2: Now, kids fighting at school. There's nothing new here. What

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Speaker 2: is new is that kids are organizing it, they're recording it,

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Speaker 2: and then they're putting it on social media so that

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Speaker 2: they can get more likes, so they can get more followers.

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Speaker 2: This stuff is scandalous and outrageous and that's what sells

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Speaker 2: on social media.

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Speaker 1: And now here's the stars of our show, my mum

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Speaker 1: and dad.

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Speaker 2: Hello, this is Justin and Kylie. We are so excited

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Speaker 2: for a brand new idea on the podcast. We've never

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Speaker 2: done this before, don't know if we'll ever do it again either,

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Speaker 2: but we're going to try it out today. Hopefully you

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Speaker 2: like it. I'm going to tell you all about what

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Speaker 2: we're doing in just a second, but first a big announcement.

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Speaker 2: It's Kylie's birthday today.

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Speaker 3: Happy birthday, Happy birthday, and everyone around the world is

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Speaker 3: led down by your big announcements.

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Speaker 2: I'm so sorry, I'm so excited that's your birthday. We're

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Speaker 2: going to finish the podcast, can't spend some time together,

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Speaker 2: have a pick. I'm not saying where we're going or

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Speaker 2: what we're doing, but we're gonna have a really nice

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Speaker 2: day while the kids are at school. It's gonna be good.

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Speaker 2: So happy birthday to you. Thank you, You're welcome. Okay,

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Speaker 2: let's introduce our brand new idea. Actually, just before I

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Speaker 2: do in this podcast episode today, in the latter half

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Speaker 2: of it, just a quick content warning. There will be

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Speaker 2: some brief discussion of suicide. If this is something that

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Speaker 2: triggers you or you have sensitivities around the topic, we

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Speaker 2: just wanted to give you a heads up and let

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Speaker 2: you know. Similarly, if you have young children and you're

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Speaker 2: a bit uncomfortable with it, we just wanted to let

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Speaker 2: you know ahead of time. So the idea for today's

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Speaker 2: podcast is really simple. I feel like I need to

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Speaker 2: put on my radio voice for this. Are you ready?

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Speaker 2: This week in parenting and let me try that again?

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Speaker 2: That was so bad this week in parenting on the

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Speaker 2: Happy Families podcast. So we've got four parenting stories, four

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Speaker 2: things that have been in the news that relate to children, families, parenting,

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Speaker 2: and just stuff that we as parents would have an

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Speaker 2: opinion about. Just before we share the first story, which

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Speaker 2: Kylie is going to introduce to us in just a

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Speaker 2: tick I want to highlight. There's no parent shaming here,

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Speaker 2: but we are going to highlight when things are going

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Speaker 2: right and when things are going wrong, things that can

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Speaker 2: be improved on. This is for constructive development. It's not

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Speaker 2: for shaming, okay, But every now and again we are

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Speaker 2: going to call someone out for doing things that are

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Speaker 2: not in their children's best interest. What's our first story.

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Speaker 3: Well, recently, Wollongong actually hosted the World's Road Cycling Championships.

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Speaker 2: Did I get right? It was a big deal and

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Speaker 2: I wasn't there, and let's not talk about that. Let's

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Speaker 2: just stay with the cycling because I'm going to be

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Speaker 2: sad otherwise.

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Speaker 3: But unfortunately it made the news for all the wrong reasons.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, let me play something from seven News.

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Speaker 4: A Dutch cyclist in Sydney for the Road World Championships

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Speaker 4: has been sensationally arrested. Matthew Vanderpole is accused of punching

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Speaker 4: one teenage girl to the floor and another into a

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Speaker 4: wall after they repeatedly knocked on his door at a

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Speaker 4: Brighton Lessan's hotel. In a bizarre turn of events, evander

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Speaker 4: Pole actually began today's race before withdrawing at Wollongong. His

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Speaker 4: passport has now been seized and he'll face Southerland Local

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Speaker 4: Court on Tuesday on assault charges.

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Speaker 3: So obviously, with all news reports, you're going to get

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Speaker 3: a variation of the story in every single publication that

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Speaker 3: you read.

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Speaker 2: Yeah. I read like ten different versions of that story,

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Speaker 2: and everyone's saying it a little bit differently.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, So I'm really interested in what your take.

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Speaker 2: Is on it. Okay, here's my hot take. Don't chase

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Speaker 2: or scare or hurt kids, whether they're yours or someone else's,

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Speaker 2: just don't. So I love cycling. What has happened here

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Speaker 2: is absolutely devastating this guy. You can imagine. I want

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Speaker 2: to see the world through his frame of reference for

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Speaker 2: a sec. Tomorrow, I'm competing for the World Championship Tomorrow.

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Speaker 2: I'm the hot favorite to win the World Championship. It's

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Speaker 2: nine point thirty ten o'clock at night. Now there's this

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Speaker 2: thirteen year old on this fifteen year old kid, however old.

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Speaker 2: They are banging on my door, knock and run like

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Speaker 2: I would be furious. I would absolutely be furious. And

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Speaker 2: he did the wrong thing. Did if somebody and I

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Speaker 2: was thinking about it, when you and I were talking

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Speaker 2: about it, and my question to you, was if a

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Speaker 2: thirty year old or twenty eight year old guy, athletic, tall, strong,

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Speaker 2: big built ran out of his hotel room in his

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Speaker 2: undies and chased our daughters into our hotel room and

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Speaker 2: scared them and potentially physically assaulted them. Would I call

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Speaker 2: the cops and I reckon, I would like, it's just

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Speaker 2: not okay? Now? Should he have been charged? There's a

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Speaker 2: whole lot of other circumstances here that I think are

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Speaker 2: problematic and concerning from a paring point of view. I

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Speaker 2: have to ask where were the parents? And I want

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Speaker 2: to give the parents a benefit of the doubt, because

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Speaker 2: every now and again, you and I with our older children.

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Speaker 2: I'm a thirteen and fifteen that's old enough to live

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Speaker 2: in a hotel room on their own while we go

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Speaker 2: and have dinner or go for a walk along the beach.

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Speaker 2: The parents might have said, kids, stay in the room,

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Speaker 2: do the right thing. We'll be back in half an hour.

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Speaker 2: So that kind of thing is possible, and I want

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Speaker 2: to give the parents a benefit for the doubt. But

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Speaker 2: I got to ask where were the parents and what

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Speaker 2: made the kids think this was okay? Because I'll tell

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Speaker 2: you what if my kid if our kids were running

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Speaker 2: up and down a hotel corridor playing knock and run.

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Speaker 2: I would be not the calm, happy doctor justin Coulson's

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Speaker 2: Happy Families kind of guy. I'd be cranky, especially at

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Speaker 2: that hour of the night. Doesn't excuse what Vanda Pold did.

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Speaker 2: There's got to be a personal responsibility on both sides.

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Speaker 2: But that's my take on it. He did the wrong thing.

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Speaker 2: I don't know if he should have been charged. I

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Speaker 2: think a good scary conversation and a reminder this is

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Speaker 2: not okay was probably enough. I think it's devastating what

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Speaker 2: happened from a career point of view as a result

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Speaker 2: of this. But gosh, I mean parents, kids, A little

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Speaker 2: bit of personal responsibility matters here as well. Both sides

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Speaker 2: performed poorly. Vanda poul should have just called hotel reception,

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Speaker 2: or he should have called his team. He should have

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Speaker 2: called one of his managers. He should not have taken

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Speaker 2: matters into his own hands. Though, and ultimately, ultimately, I actually,

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Speaker 2: as much as I and it pains to say I

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Speaker 2: don't like this, I have to side with the fact

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Speaker 2: that he did the wrong thing.

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Speaker 3: As you were talking, the thing that kept jumping out

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Speaker 3: to me was your justism of high emotions, low intelligence.

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Speaker 3: His emotions are through the roof and his intelligence has

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Speaker 3: literally gone through the floor. And his response has been

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Speaker 3: completely and utterly inappropriate.

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Speaker 2: Totally suboptimalm when you're on the brink, make sure you

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Speaker 2: stop and think love it. Okay, what's the next one?

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Speaker 3: The next three stories are actually in relation to kids

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Speaker 3: and screens, and just for that trigger warning, one of

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Speaker 3: them will actually deal with suicide.

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Speaker 2: Okay.

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Speaker 3: So the first one, fight club, has come up a

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Speaker 3: lot in the news in the last few weeks.

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Speaker 2: This is blowing my mind, so we'll link to this

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Speaker 2: in the show notes. First off, a brutalless soul on

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Speaker 2: schoolgirls discusss New zeal And as video circulates on social media.

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Speaker 2: That was the first one. The second one was in

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Speaker 2: the Courier Mail and I was actually on the Today

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Speaker 2: Show on I think it was Tuesday morning, or maybe

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Speaker 2: it was Monday morning talking about this. I was Monday

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Speaker 2: morning on the public holiday. Secret fight clubs igniting violence

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Speaker 2: in Queensland schools. Parents have been warned, according to the

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Speaker 2: Courier Mail, of an underground fight club culture that's infiltrated

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Speaker 2: into Queensland schools with students using social media to promote

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Speaker 2: violence to gain notoriety. So both the New Zealand story

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Speaker 2: and this one of the same. And there was one

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Speaker 2: last week in the paper about what was happening in

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Speaker 2: Adelaide schools. Golden Grove High School was specifically mentioned. Confronting

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Speaker 2: Footage of male and female students involved in public and

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Speaker 2: on campus brawls with fellow students have emerged on TikTok

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Speaker 2: and Instagram in recent weeks. Some of the video includes

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Speaker 2: students wearing state school uniforms, while other brawls involving young

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Speaker 2: people were filmed at prominent shopping centers and bus stops.

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Speaker 3: So is this just the new sensationalizing a couple of

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Speaker 3: incidences or is this actually something that seems to be

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Speaker 3: gaining momentum.

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Speaker 2: So kids fighting at school will based you up behind

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Speaker 2: the toilets, that kind of thing that's always age old stone. Yeah, yeah,

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Speaker 2: there's nothing new here. What is new is that kids

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Speaker 2: are organizing it. They're showing up, they're pulling up their phones,

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Speaker 2: they're recording it, and then they're putting it on social

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Speaker 2: media so that they can gain status, notorieties, so that

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Speaker 2: they can get more likes. So they can get more followers.

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Speaker 2: This stuff is scandalous and outrageous, and that's what sells

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Speaker 2: on social media. And I don't know that we've got

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Speaker 2: data that can show that there's any increase in it,

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Speaker 2: but I think that it's a really worrying trend, this

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Speaker 2: glorification of violence. A quote here, yells of get him

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Speaker 2: and break his teeth were captured in the audience of

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Speaker 2: the footage, which prompted the police to launch an investigation.

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Speaker 2: So these stories are just brutal, absolutely absolutely awful, terrifying.

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Speaker 2: And if it was your kids, I mean, can you

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Speaker 2: imagine being dragged somewhere with a huge crowd screaming for

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Speaker 2: your blood, having people film it, and then living with

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Speaker 2: the indignity of having it posted throughout the community so

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Speaker 2: everyone gets to see you beaten up. These kids are

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Speaker 2: going to have long term anxiety challenges. They're going to

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Speaker 2: end up depressed. I wouldn't be surprised if a lot

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Speaker 2: of families end up moving to new communities and this

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Speaker 2: thing can still follow them as well. I think it's

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Speaker 2: absolutely horrendous and what can we do as parents, Well,

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Speaker 2: we've got to know where our kids are, We've got

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Speaker 2: to know how they're using their social media. The ongoing,

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Speaker 2: never rending discussion about social media and the way our

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Speaker 2: kids are using it and are affected by it is

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Speaker 2: becoming increasingly intense, and I think the stakes are getting higher.

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Speaker 3: I think about the conversations that we're having with our

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Speaker 3: children specifically, and you know, they often are rolling their

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Speaker 3: eyes at us, like why do we have to have

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Speaker 3: this conversation. This isn't pertinent to me, It does not

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Speaker 3: a problem, And yet as parents, we actually can't sit

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Speaker 3: back and hope that they'll work it out by themselves.

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Speaker 3: We actually have to have these kinds of conversations with

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Speaker 3: them and try to pre arm them to keep them safe.

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Speaker 2: And really that's what it's about. Its about cocooning them

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Speaker 2: while they don't have the age or the experience of

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Speaker 2: maturity to deal with it. It's about pre arming them as

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Speaker 2: they move to an age or a level of maturity

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Speaker 2: or where they start having these experiences or seeing them happen.

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Speaker 2: Pre Arming them and talking about what would happen if

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Speaker 2: you were in a situation, what would you do, how

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Speaker 2: would you feel, how can we support you, and ultimately

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Speaker 2: helping them so that they're equipped for if and when

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Speaker 2: and this does happen. Hopefully, hopefully it won't happen, but

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Speaker 2: we've got to have these conversations with them.

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Speaker 3: And I think the only other thing that really stands

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Speaker 3: out to me is I think about again just the

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Speaker 3: different challenges we've had with our children over the years,

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Speaker 3: is when your child's behavior starts to change, there's something

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Speaker 3: going on in their world. Yeah, and as parents, instead

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Speaker 3: of us getting upset and angry at them for being

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Speaker 3: insolent or disobedient or any number of things that you

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Speaker 3: could label them with as teenagers, it really is a

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Speaker 3: time for us to get very curious because something is

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Speaker 3: going on in their life that is hurting them.

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Speaker 2: Worth pausing and acknowledging what the signals are. And this

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Speaker 2: is relevant for our next story as well about Molly

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Speaker 2: Russell the science. To look out for your child being

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Speaker 2: more aggressive than normal, your child back chatting or being withdrawn,

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Speaker 2: or your child withdrawing, not wanting to leave their room,

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Speaker 2: being at their screen, incessantly, being deceitful and hiding things

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Speaker 2: from you. These are the kinds of things to look

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Speaker 2: out for. And when it comes to things like fight Club,

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Speaker 2: you want to look for physical signs as well, like

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Speaker 2: are they showing up with muddle on their face, or

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Speaker 2: with torn buttons or a uniform ripped, or hair everywhere

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Speaker 2: because they've been in a tussle somewhere. Are they losing things?

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Speaker 2: These are the kinds of signs that you're looking out

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Speaker 2: for if you've got any concerns.

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Speaker 3: Are they eating dinner with you?

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Speaker 2: We had somebody just recently who's close to us. I

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Speaker 2: don't know if I even told you about this. Whose

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Speaker 2: son thirteen fourteen years old, grade eight, grade nine. A

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Speaker 2: bunch of boys in his grade at a state high

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Speaker 2: school in Queensland decided that he was dead. That was

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Speaker 2: their plan. They were going to bash him. They followed

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Speaker 2: him to shopping centers, they followed him on their bikes,

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Speaker 2: they followed him around the school yard. They taunted him

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Speaker 2: outside his house and the police had to be called

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Speaker 2: and eventually they beat up some other kid and they

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Speaker 2: got expelled from their school. But this sort of stuff

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Speaker 2: is it doesn't happen much, but when it happens to

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Speaker 2: you or your child, it is nothing short of terrifying,

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Speaker 2: nothing short of terrifying. As parents, we need to be

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Speaker 2: aware of this idea of fight club and we've got

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Speaker 2: to have these conversations with our kids and help them

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Speaker 2: to make safe choices.

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Speaker 3: So story number three, a UK core has just ruled

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Speaker 3: that social media was partly responsible for the death of

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Speaker 3: a fourteen year old girl by suicide in twenty seventeen.

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Speaker 2: So this is one of these things that keep on

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Speaker 2: coming up, and everyone says, when somebody dies by suicide,

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Speaker 2: it's complicated. There are lots and lots of factors. We

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Speaker 2: cannot blame anyone thing. My thinking on social media has

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Speaker 2: been evolving very very quickly, just in the last few months.

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Speaker 2: I've typically had the approach that as parents, we just

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Speaker 2: want to teach our kids, let them self determine, let

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Speaker 2: them self govern, but make sure we teach them the

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Speaker 2: right principles. That's been my general approach. You want to explore,

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Speaker 2: explain empower. Increasingly, as I see more and more of

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Speaker 2: what's going on behind the scenes with social media and

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Speaker 2: with gaming, I'm becoming I feel like there's an inner

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Speaker 2: tyrant inside me that just wants to scream, get off,

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Speaker 2: stay away, it's bad. And when you hear a story

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Speaker 2: like this, a judge has actually said, no, this suicide

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Speaker 2: would not have happened unless social media was designed the

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Speaker 2: way it is and doing what it does. I've got

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Speaker 2: a quote here, and what we've got here is Pinterest,

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Speaker 2: So Facebook and Instagram, or implicated Pinterest was as well.

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Speaker 2: Pinterest has apologized for the content it promoted to Molly

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Speaker 2: via email, including quote ten depression pins you might like

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Speaker 2: and Depression Recovery, Depressed Girl and more pins trending on Pinterest.

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Speaker 2: The way that social media is designed is it keeps

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Speaker 2: feeding you more and more of the outrageous, scandalous stuff

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Speaker 2: that takes you deeper and deeper into the rabbit hole

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Speaker 2: of what you're already looking at. And this Paul, fourteen

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Speaker 2: year old girl who's already struggling, has had social media

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Speaker 2: platforms feeding her content of a concerning nature. Social media,

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Speaker 2: according to news dot com, dou and video sharing platforms,

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Speaker 2: contained content showing suicidal ideation, self harm material, and general

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Speaker 2: reflections on depression. According to the UK's National Society for

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Speaker 2: the Prevention of Cruelty to Children, a teenager may view

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Speaker 2: that kind of content on top of more mainstream material

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Speaker 2: featuring videos and images of their peers as well as

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Speaker 2: influencers and models, which may prompt young users to make

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Speaker 2: flawed comparisons between themselves and the material they view online.

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Speaker 2: So in the last month or so in my presentations,

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Speaker 2: I've been saying to parents, the government needs to do more.

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Speaker 2: The government regulates children's access to alcohol. The government regulates well, apparently,

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Speaker 2: regulates children's access to explicit content online. Not online, but

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Speaker 2: to pornography or to sex clubs. The government regulates children's

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Speaker 2: access to things like tattoos. The government needs to do more.

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Speaker 2: I actually don't think the government cares, but the government

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Speaker 2: needs to do more to keep our kids safe online

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Speaker 2: and to literally get in the faces of these social

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Speaker 2: media platforms and make them safer places for our kids.

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Speaker 3: It's just so devastating to me to think that there

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Speaker 3: are people out there who are actually more concerned about

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Speaker 3: the money that they can earn from exposing our children

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Speaker 3: to such harmful things. It breaks my heart to think

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Speaker 3: that that's the kind of world we live in. The

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Speaker 3: last story is actually a New New York Times piece

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Speaker 3: written by a games designer who has said that he

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Speaker 3: actually refuses to let his children play games because he

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Speaker 3: knows how they're made and why they're made.

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Speaker 2: This story blew my mind. So the guy's name is

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Speaker 2: William Sue. He's the founder of Storm eight gaming company,

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Speaker 2: and in this New York Times piece, he basically says,

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Speaker 2: I don't want my kids play games. And let me

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Speaker 2: share with you a couple of quotes from this article, Kylie,

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Speaker 2: and tell me what you think. He says this in

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Speaker 2: two thousand and nine, I co founded Storm eight, a

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Speaker 2: video game developer. I have launched more than fifty mobile games.

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Speaker 2: These have been downloaded more than a billion times and

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Speaker 2: have generated more than a billion dollars in sales. So

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Speaker 2: I don't think that this guys a try hard. I

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Speaker 2: think this guy's actually done it. I'm very familiar with

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Speaker 2: game addiction, as that's what I thought about every day

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Speaker 2: for more than a decade. We sold the company in

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Speaker 2: twenty twenty. He says, I hired product managers and engineers

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Speaker 2: to track everything players did and analyze their behavior. Using

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Speaker 2: the data we collected, we experiment with every feature of

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Speaker 2: our games to see which versions allowed us to extract

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Speaker 2: the most time and money from our players. For us,

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Speaker 2: game addiction was by design. It meant success for our business.

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Speaker 2: Let me read two more paragraphs really quickly, because this

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Speaker 2: is so compelling. He says, Here's an example of how

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Speaker 2: addiction is cultivated in gaming. If you've played mobile games

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Speaker 2: like Candy Crush Saga, you're familiar with the concept of lives.

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Speaker 2: You're given five lives a day. Each time you lose

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Speaker 2: a game, you lose a life, run out of lives,

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Speaker 2: and you can't play again until your supply is replenished. Why,

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Speaker 2: you might ask, would someone get addicted if the developers

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Speaker 2: prevent players from gaming as much as they like. I've

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Speaker 2: used the same mechanic in my own games, and this

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Speaker 2: is how I explained it to my engineering team. Say

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Speaker 2: I have a delicious chocolate cake. If I give you

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Speaker 2: the entire cake, you might eat the whole thing in

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Speaker 2: one go because of the best cake you've ever had,

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Speaker 2: But you're likely overdose and may not want to touch

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Speaker 2: chocolate cake again. What if instead I gave you a

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Speaker 2: tiny slash each day, gradually develop a daily habit, and

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Speaker 2: you might end up buying ten cakes from me. That's

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Speaker 2: the ultimate goal, to build habit, forming games that have

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Speaker 2: players coming back every day. In other words, it takes

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Speaker 2: away their ability to make decisions. We wanted people to

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Speaker 2: reach for their phones first thing in the morning and

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Speaker 2: jump right into our games, just as they check their

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Speaker 2: social media and emails. This is from the guy that

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Speaker 2: did it, and he's basically said, I've got three and

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Speaker 2: four year old daughters and I have yet to show

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Speaker 2: them any of the games that I've designed, and I

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Speaker 2: don't want my kids playing games like Compelling, Right, Obviously.

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Speaker 3: The enormity of revenue that one is receiving at this end,

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Speaker 3: billions of dollars, And yet I'm looking at you know,

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Speaker 3: card games like you know that have been around forever.

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Speaker 3: There's something that we love to play. Get a group

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Speaker 3: of people together and you enjoy, but there's no addiction

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Speaker 3: level to it. And yet it has sustained itself for

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Speaker 3: how many years?

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Speaker 2: Like how old is you know? What was the Oh yeah,

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Speaker 2: since we were kids. But let's be clear, not everyone

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Speaker 2: who plays a game, just like not everyone who gets

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Speaker 2: onto social media is going to experience addiction or the

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Speaker 2: catastrophic outcomes that we saw in the case of Molly Russell.

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Speaker 2: What we do know, though, is that a percentage, and

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Speaker 2: it's a surprisingly high percentage, somewhere between five and ten

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Speaker 2: percent depending on which stats you read of people will

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Speaker 2: form that kind of an addiction and.

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Speaker 3: Across all age groups too, which is astounding, Right.

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Speaker 2: It's enormous it's enormous. So from a parenting point of view,

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Speaker 2: because we do need to wrap up this week in parenting,

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Speaker 2: we've gone way too long. A couple of things. First off,

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Speaker 2: parents need to know that this is the intention behind

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Speaker 2: the games, the intention behind the screens, the intention behind

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Speaker 2: the social media, the intention behind everything that's designed digitally.

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Speaker 2: It's designed to have addictive qualities. It's designed to get

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Speaker 2: our attention. If you haven't read the book Stolen Focus

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Speaker 2: by Johann Hari, read it. Just read that book and

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Speaker 2: ask yourself whether or not you really really have control

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Speaker 2: of your attention and whether your kids do as well.

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Speaker 2: We need to be better gatekeepers.

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Speaker 3: And when you think about the response that our children have,

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Speaker 3: even some of our friends and adults have when the

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Speaker 3: screen is taken away from them or they're asked to

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Speaker 3: turn it off, it's that withdrawal. You can see it

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Speaker 3: as everybody kind of puts their defenses up and fights

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Speaker 3: for another five minutes.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, that's it. So that's this week and pairing.

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Speaker 2: I mean, we could keep on talking, but that's enough

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Speaker 2: for now. If you've got feedback on any of these

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Speaker 2: stories or on the podcast episode itself, we would love

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Speaker 2: to hear about it. Any news stories that you'd like

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Speaker 2: us to discuss as well, you can let us know

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Speaker 2: Podcasts at Happy Families dot com do you. Because of

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Speaker 2: the nature of the way we do the podcast, we

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Speaker 2: may be a little slow reporting back with feedback, but

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Speaker 2: we do want to hear from you and we do

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Speaker 2: want to share your voice. We love your voice memos,

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Speaker 2: we'd love to put them on the podcast as well,

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Speaker 2: So Podcasts at Happyfamilies dot com dot Au. The podcast

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Speaker 2: as always produced by Justin Rawlan from Bridge Media. Craig

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Speaker 2: Bruce is our executive producer. And if you'd like to

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Speaker 2: wish Kylie a happy birthday Podcasts and I'm just kidding.

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Speaker 2: I'm just kidding. Happy birthday, Kylie. Have a wonderful day

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Speaker 2: and we will be back tomorrow with I'll do Better

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Speaker 2: Tomorrow on the Happy Families Podcasts