This is a continuation from the previous episode, looking at social media, and specifically what it means for parents.
Jamie: Hey everybody, this is Jamie Dew.
Joe: And this is Joe Fontenot.
Jamie: And once again we welcome you to the Towel & Basin Podcast.
Joe: And today is part two of our last episode. We're looking at is social media bad? But specifically here's my question, is social media neutral? And then the implications as a parent.
Jamie: Okay. Yeah. I especially want to talk about the parenting part of this because I've got little people going through all this right now and-
Joe: Me too.
Jamie: So the question of neutrality. I think a natural way to think about this is to say that modern technology specifically ... Okay, let me clarify because we got a little bit ahead on this and I should've clarified in the last episode. So what do we mean by technology? I mean there's a very real sense in which a shovel is technology, right?
Joe: Sure.
Jamie: There's a sense in which the cave man found a femur bone that was particularly helpful for him to dig with, and that's technology.
Joe: Right.
Jamie: What we're really talking about here is modern digital technology, phones, tablets, computers, all those types of things. And then all the platforms and venues that come from that, like social media. I think the natural way to think about that is just, "Hey man, it's neutral." And the reason is because there really are some benefits and then there are some potential dangers to it as well.
I think we have to be honest and recognize that there really is, while there's a sense in which it's neutral, there's also something unique about modern digital technology. The way it's wired, the way it functions, the way it's programed, that's not really neutral at all. I mean, our phones, specifically our phones are, as we were talking off the air and you mentioned, our phones are such that they're, and all the programming that comes with them, they're designed in such a way to keep you from looking away from them.
Joe: Absolutely. With the notifications and things and the dopamine in my brain.
Jamie: Right, everything. That's right. And then the rewards and all these types of things.
Joe: Right.
Jamie: And all of that stuff, we've all got to understand that from a neurological perspective and from a psychological perspective, things are happening in your brain. You've studied from a social media side, I've studied from the philosophical scientific side, brain plasticity. Our brains are wired in particular ways with neural pathways and those neural pathways are formed out of certain types of chemical reactions that take place. And when we get certain types of things that we really like versus certain types of things we don't really like, the brain is literally rewiring itself. And so when all that happens, there's an addictive tendency that comes with that. And so because of that, I think we've got to understand that there's something really distinct about this and therefore worthy of an extra set of caution.
So let me just mention if I can certain types of challenges or certain types of potential dangers with social media or with digital technology that come along with. So one thing, and I'll say these things, I think most of our listeners will immediately recognize a lot of this, there's what we would call a reality confusion with social media. So because we are so sucked in and locked in with it, our world, our reality, our frame of reference, the thing that we care about the most becomes the digital.
Joe: Yeah, yeah.
Jamie: So for example, a little girl posts something on Facebook or Instagram or something like that and she gets a lot of likes or little hearts and man that makes her feel good, that makes her feel her important.
Joe: Her self-worth.
Jamie: Right. And so there's a reward there and the brain starts to rewire. Then a couple of days later she posts something else that she thinks is going to get a bunch of likes or something and she doesn't get really any at all. She might get 10 or 12 or something like that, but for her, that's nothing like the 300 she got a couple of days before. And so now she's discouraged and down. And when that pattern and that cycle has run itself again and again and again, that ultimately the brain rewires and now there's a tendency to think that this is what's real, right?
Joe: Yeah.
Jamie: And think about it in our own denomination. Think about the wars that rage on Twitter about any issue. And everybody feels the need to run to Twitter and just begin, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom. And we fight and we spar and that's reality. And there's a lot of people that think that that represents everything in total about the convention right now.
Joe: And I think that's really important because from the point of view of the people who designed Twitter, who designed Instagram, well all these different social medias, theirs to increase engagement. From the point of view of the little girl, the little boy who are still forming who they are, their identities still, their brain is still developing. They are understanding this yes or no, I'm validated, I'm not, that's validated.
Jamie: That's right.
Joe: And they are not simply just coming back for more.
Jamie: Right.
Joe: They are defining who they are.
Jamie: Right. That's right. So their identity, their self-worth-
Joe: Self worth.
Jamie: ... is wrapped up in the yes or no that they're getting on a social media platform. And so then what that does, so there's the reality confusion, tied with that, we've already sort of brushed on this, the brain sort of re-engineering itself, rewiring itself to seek those rewards and avoid those discouragements. But then here's another danger that comes along with this. There's the ability here to have a secrecy and therefore an empowerment to sin.
So I said this to a group of college students a couple of days ago when I was in Georgia. When I was a kid, if somebody wanted to look at pornography, you had to have the courage to walk into a gas station, look the attendant in the eye and say, "Give me that magazine." And so then-
Joe: It's behind the counter.
Jamie: That's right.
Joe: Right.
Jamie: So there was a sort of a social threshold of what you were willing others to think about you if you wanted to do that type of stuff. Now there are no such barriers, right?
Joe: You can hide it.
Jamie: You can hide it, you can not only get it with easy access, but there are plenty of apps. Parents, if you don't know this, there are plenty of apps that can be disguised on a kid's phone. So it might look like a calculator. It might look like an app that's a game or something like that. But actually that's a portal into a sort of a buffet of things that the child or anybody really can hide within that thing that only they know the passwords to and things of that nature. And so there's the ability to keep it very, very secluded as well. Obviously that's a very, very dangerous thing.
The last thing I'd say about this, because of all of the secrecy and the and the rewiring, there's an incredible ability to manipulate the vulnerable and really manipulate any anybody. I mean, think about even the last presidential election, think about the way Facebook ads were used to shake people and to steer them.
Joe: Yeah, for sure.
Jamie: I mean statistically, this stuff has been proven that with certain types of campaigns on social media platforms, they can turn elections in certain parts of the country, at the county level and then up from there as well. But worse than that, I would say there's the ability to manipulate people that are emotionally vulnerable, right? You can bully, you can entice little girls into things or anybody really into things. So parents, this is what you're up against when you hand your child a phone and allow them to step into that portal. So there's a lot of concerns there we've got to keep our eye on.
Joe: So let me ask you this question kind of to round out this idea. I've got two little ones. They watch the iPad. What if I'm all of a sudden realizing, okay this is, it's ... I've crossed the line. They're not involved quote, "involved in anything," but it is too ingrained in their life.
Jamie: Sure, sure.
Joe: As a parent, what do I do? How do I pull that back? Because there's weeping and gnashing of teeth when I do.
Jamie: Yeah. But remember in every, in the parent child relationship, somebody has to be the adult. A parent, your job is not to be buddy. Your job is not to be friend. Your job is to be parent, which is the steward of their life up to this point. So when a child is handed to you as a little infant, there's coming a day when you handed them the last little bit of their life and they're fully, completely in charge of their life and completely stand on their own two feet. From birth to that moment, your job is to steward them, shepherd them, and piece by piece as they learn the responsibility and the ability to take care of themselves, hand them more and more and more of their life. That's the way I think that this is designed.
Let me just say a word really quickly first to those parents who haven't yet done too much or something like that. Look, I just going to say this, and I know this is unpopular and this might step on a lot of toes when I say this, but your six-year-old does not need a phone. Your eight-year-old does not need a phone.
Joe: Yeah, rest easy.
Jamie: I don't know where to draw that line. So I don't think that there's an actual age number, but I will just say this, I'm very concerned with how quickly children are given phones and given total access to their life. And so I would urge extreme caution about doing those things. Our children don't have phones yet or anything like. They're 12 and nine, I got two sets of twins. My children ask me on a regular basis, "When can I get a phone?" And I don't have a number in my mind. There are two guiding factors. Number one, when do they actually have to have it or need it for safety, traveling and such? And then two, when can I trust them? And I tell my children-
Joe: Which is an individual thing.
Jamie: Right. And I tell my children the same thing on dating, right? When you demonstrate to me I can trust you, then we'll talk about it. But every time it's clear you're doing things in secret, every time you're not clearly not letting me know what's going on in life. No, I'm sorry.
Joe: Trust goes down.
Jamie: Yeah, that trust goes down. And the more you give me reason to not trust you, the less inclined I'm going to be to hook you up with the things that you want. So I would say a couple of things though to answer your question. That was all before your question. What do you do?
Number one, I said this on the last podcast, exercise incarnational living. Put your phones down. There has to be a time in your family's life, in your life as a human person, when you put your cell phone down and you're just with people.
Joe: So this is a lead by example kind of thing.
Jamie: Right.
Joe: Hard day after work, all that kind of stuff. Don't pull out the phone.
Jamie: That's right. All right, for me personally, I don't ... I'm not always able to do this given my work responsibilities, but to the best of my ability when I go home, I put my cell phone down and I'm not jumping back on and answering texts and doing stuff like that until the next morning. And does that frustrate people waiting on me? Yep, sure does.
Joe: Sure it does.
Jamie: But I'm sorry, I've got real humans in my life that I have to interact with and I have to lead and I have a stewardship issue in my children, so I've got to do that. So exercise incarnational living as much as you can. Go back to connect this to the first podcast. Remember that dominion motif?
Joe: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Jamie: We bring forth stuff, but we must maintain dominion over it. I think we've got to ask the question, does this control me or do I control it? If we can't put it down, then something's wrong. If I'm constantly geared towards engagement there, eh, that worries me a little bit. So maintained dominion over it, not it over you because we need to be lords over it.
Joe: Right, which is the whole idea of parenting.
Jamie: Right. That's right. From a parenting perspective, and this is what I would say, exercise wisdom and prudence. Again, don't just throw your kid a phone when they're little, be cautious about this. And by the way, I don't have the numbers on this, but there's quite a bit of empirical data suggesting that the neurological damage that we're doing to children early in their lives when we're putting them in front of a lot of screens.
Joe: Changing them.
Jamie: Yeah, it's changing them around. And this is, it's literally rewiring their brains and so we've got to be careful with that. And the last thing I'd say on this is just walk with your children through this. To illustrate, you would never ... imagine your children have some kind of medical situation, they're a diabetic or they've got some kind of autoimmune disease or something like that that requires them to be on a medication the rest of their life. I doubt that there's any parents out there that would just start their pills to their kids and say, "Good luck figuring this out. Right?
Joe: Right.
Jamie: You'd never do that with a child. Same thing with a car. Especially here in New Orleans, you would never just throw your kid a set of keys and say, "Go have fun, drive, have a blast." You'd never do that. What do you do? In both of those cases, you walk with your children through it. You teach them how to do it. You sit beside them for a long season of their life as they learn to do that, and then you hold them accountable to it. So don't just throw, if you're ... when the time comes, and parents, I understand that's your call.
Joe: True.
Jamie: And every one of us are probably going to answer that question a little bit differently. So that's just the way it is and we need to do it that way. But when that time comes to give them a phone, walk with them for an extended season of life, right? They're going to gripe that you're not giving them privacy. So what? You're their parents.
Joe: Right.
Jamie: And the degree to which they demonstrate trust, you can give them privacy. The degree to which they don't, you don't, you stay involved because you're ... they have an adversary that's trying to destroy them. I mean, look, I was introduced to pornographic images when I was a little boy. I mean seven years old, I see this stuff for the first time. And now they say that it's even easier. Well, it's obviously very easy, much easier for a child to have access to those things, especially if you give him a phone at night in their room. Walk with them for a season of time to make sure that they're doing well.
Joe: That's really helpful. I think the part that hits home to me the most, having a four and a six-year-old at home right now, is there is an adversary who is trying to destroy them.
Jamie: That's right.
Joe: I don't often think about that to be honest with you.
Jamie: That's right.
Joe: I think even though it might not be the maker of iPod that is trying to destroy them, right? It is a tool that is being used.
Jamie: That's right. That's right.
Joe: And so I think that's really helpful and I think we should talk about this more in the future.
Jamie: Amen.
Jamie: Hey everybody, this is Jamie and Joe. Again.
Joe: If you liked this podcast, would you leave us a rating and review wherever you listen to podcasts? That helps other people find it.
Jamie: And if you have any questions, we'd love to hear about them. Just go to Jamiedew.com/questions and send them in that way and we'll take a look at the most frequently asked questions and give them a shot.