April 9, 2025 • 15 mins
Justin and Kylie dive into startling new data showing the positive effects of mobile phone bans in Australian schools. They explore statistics that reveal significant improvements in student learning, behaviour, and classroom engagement and reflect on the broader implications for parenting and screen time at home.
KEY POINTS:
-
The mobile phone ban in schools has led to
-
87% of students being less distracted
-
81% reporting improved learning
-
63% drop in critical incidents involving social media
-
54% reduction in behavioural issues
-
-
Government intervention in screen and phone use is proving effective.
-
Removing screens from classrooms and delaying smartphone access at home are strongly recommended.
-
Analogue tools outperform digital ones in fostering better learning outcomes.
-
Data from vaping bans also support the case for limiting access to harmful digital content.
QUOTE OF THE EPISODE:
“Kids don't need smartphones. They need smart parents, and smart parents give their kids dumb phones.” – Dr. Justin Coulson
KEY INSIGHTS FOR PARENTS:
-
Delaying your child's access to smartphones helps them focus, learn, and behave better.
-
School phone bans are effective, but more impact can be made at home and in broader digital habits.
-
Parents shouldn't rely on children to self-regulate in an adult digital world—protection and guidance are necessary.
-
Government restrictions, while imperfect, are valuable in safeguarding children.
RESOURCES:
-
Unplug Childhood [Join the village!]
- Kids Need Smart Parents, Not Smart Phones [Article]
ACTION STEPS FOR PARENTS:
-
Delay giving children smartphones as long as possible—opt for dumb phones with basic functionality.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:06):
A doctor's desk with a difference. Today, rather than looking
at recent scientific research, We're going to have a look
at a poll that is analyzing shocking new data trends
since the mobile phone ban came in around about a
year ago. Today, welcome to the Happy Families Podcast, Real
parenting solutions every day on Australia's most downloaded parenting podcast.
(00:30):
We are Justin and Kylie Coulson. Kylie, your initial thoughts
when the phone ban came in? Were you like in schools?
Were you for it? Were you against it? What were
you hearing? What was the general vibe?
Speaker 2 (00:43):
Totally for it, but I didn't hold much hope that
it would make a huge difference.
Speaker 1 (00:49):
So Grace Grace was the Education minister in Queensland when
Rebecca Sparrow, myself, Madonna King and a bunch of others
wrote an open letter and said, you said that you've
done some community consultation and we're not going to ban
phones in schools. You haven't consulted and you need to
ban them. And so we really put some pressure on,
got a lot of people behind it and there was
(01:10):
a backflip. There was a turnaround and phones were banned.
Let me share this with you. This is from a
news article that appeared mid feb I'm a little bit
behind the times here because there's been so much else
going on for us to talk about, but this one
needs to be emphasized. This is from news dot com
dot IU. Students across the country less distracted since mobile
(01:32):
phones were banned in classrooms, new research shows. A survey
from the New South Wales Department of Education revealed eighty
seven percent of students were less distracted in the classroom
since mobile phones were banned a year ago. There's more.
I know, I know you want to say something, but
there's more. The study, which surveyed the thousand public school principles,
(01:53):
showed eighty one percent of students have seen improved learning.
And the last thing, I know, you're on the edge
of your seat. I love doing this. I'm I'm so sorry.
Last thing, I've got to highlight this because this is big.
Out of South Australia, there's been a sixty three percent
decline in critical incidents involving social media and a fifty
four percent reduction in behavioral issues, according to Department for
(02:18):
Education of South Australia's survey data. Okay, I've said everything
I needed to say, Are you sure? Yeah, yeah, what
were you going to say?
Speaker 2 (02:26):
Tho's just they're massive numbers, right, massive numbers. We're not
talking about, you know, a handful of percentages here. This
is nearly one hundred percent. Really like eighty seven percent. Legit,
that's huge. So I predicted that this would happen. I
need to emphasize this does not mean that we are
at the end of school challenges. No. Well, in recent
(02:50):
weeks we've been dealing with some pretty significant challenges that
are still happening in the classroom. So just because we've
removed mobile phones does not mean that screens are not
still having a humongous impact.
Speaker 1 (03:02):
Right, kids are still doing the wrong thing on screens,
and they're also doing the wrong things on phones at home,
school buses, and because the phones aren't banned except during school.
So it's not a panacea. It doesn't fix everything. But
no one ever promised that it would. This initial data, though,
is really promising demonstrating that it was the right call.
Speaker 2 (03:22):
It was the right call. But for me, I feel
like as a parent, what it should actually suggest and
say is, and you've been saying this forever, but we
need to delay, delay, delay in giving our children access
to them.
Speaker 1 (03:38):
Well, I'm going to make an even more shocking and
provocative point, and that's this. We faced all of this
opposition in saying kids don't need mobile phones at schools.
But what I'm consistently saying is kids don't need mobile
phones if you get these kinds of reductions in the
school context. Imagine the kinds of reductions you would get
(04:01):
if you took phones out of kids' hands, or took
them away from social media in the home context, in
the school bus, school camp.
Speaker 2 (04:10):
In their friendships. It like just it's astounding.
Speaker 1 (04:14):
I don't think that there's any strong argument that you
can mount that children need smartphones. And I've said this,
I think I've been saying this since about twenty sixteen.
Kids don't need smartphones. They need smart parents, and smart
parents give their kids dumb phones. If you want to
know where your child is, if you want to be
able to text them, check in with them, make sure
they're okay. There are so many devices that they can
(04:35):
use that do not have the functionality of a full
blown supercomputer in their pocket. And again, I know that
I've just shared this, but these stats are stunning. An
eighty seven percent drop in student distraction, eighty one percent
of students have seen improved learning, a sixty three percent
(04:58):
decline in critical incidents, and a fifty four percent drop
in behavioral issues.
Speaker 2 (05:04):
When you think about the challenges that teachers, principles, and
students are dealing with on a day to day basis
in the classroom, to be able to tick all of
those boxes massive that it literally changes the environment our
children are in.
Speaker 1 (05:22):
Yeah, it does, I mean not enough. There's still more
to do. The federal government's going to bring in this
legislation we hope fingers crossed at the end of the
year where social media is banned for all kids under sixteen. Again,
that won't solve everything because they're still arguing over what
they're going to define social media as. Which apps will
be okay, which apps won't be okay? Is a messaging
(05:43):
app the same as a social media app? And also
kids will still be able to be on games and
they will still be able to communicate with their friends digitally,
and there still will be problems. So it doesn't solve everything,
but these restrictions are important, they're working, they were necessary
(06:03):
after the break. Three quick take home messages around how
we can keep our kids safe based on what we're
learning here. Okay, Kylie, this is the podcast with real
parenting solutions every day. Before we talk about the solutions,
(06:25):
I guess the take home messages, the standout ideas that
come from this data. I just want to highlight something else.
The federal government brought in a new series of laws
around vaping. It bans the sale of vapes in corner stores.
Came in around about I don't know, six or eight
months ago now, and data shows that the number of
(06:46):
teenagers fourteen to seventeen using vapes nationwide has declined since
those bands came in into force. Additionally, vaping rates have
dropped by a third in fifteen to twenty nine year
olds according to the South Australia Health, a medical research institute,
compared to data from twenty twenty four to twenty twenty three.
So what we're seeing, oh, in South Australian schools a
(07:08):
reduction of fifty percent in suspensions related to vaping since
the changes.
Speaker 2 (07:12):
So can I ask you a question, how reliable are
the numbers.
Speaker 1 (07:18):
As anybody there as good as any data that you
can get hold of for things like this. These are
surveys of principles. Principles do keep well, most schools do
keep reasonable statistics on what they're doing in terms of
suspensions and expulsions. They absolutely have data on critical incidents,
so researchers are collecting the data. The information is do
(07:39):
you know what, This is a really hard thing for
me to say as a social scientist, as someone with
a doctorate in psychology, Psychological data and even a lot
of health data is actually pretty rubbish. Like if you
go and do a chemistry experiment, the data is pure.
And that's why they talk about physics and chemistry and
(07:59):
even biology pure sciences. Things like psychology and social sciences
are consistently looked down on by the pure scientists because
there's so much noise in the data. But nurance and
that's right, and you can't measure everything. Yeah, but even
if it's not completely accurate, it's directional. And when you
get this level of number, Okay, so we've got eighty
(08:21):
seven percent, or we've got a reduction of fifty percent,
or we've got to drop in sixty seven percent, whatever
the numbers are. Maybe it's not that good. Maybe it's
forty three percent or twenty eight percent. But we're still
heading in that direction. Like when you get the numbers
this big, it's directional, and that tells us that we
are on the right path. We are heading in the
right direction. There is value in what we're doing. So
(08:43):
we can get caught up on being exactly precise, exactly right,
and I know that in our society we care a
lot about that, But sometimes it's better to just know
that what you're doing is useful even if you can't
be precise with it. And that's the way that I
tend to approach pretty much everything that I teach, all
of the psychological science stuff. We know that this is
usually useful most of the time for most people under
(09:03):
most circumstances, when things are normal, right, And that's the
best that we can do, and that is helpful. That
is useful even if it's not going to be perfectly
correct for everybody. You're unlikely to do harm when the
majority of the data points in this direction. That was
a long granser than you were looking for.
Speaker 2 (09:21):
No, not at all, Not at all. I guess the
concern is, from time to time we have these numbers
that feel great, but in reality are they and we're
kind of giving ourselves a pattern on the back for
achieving something that we may not have. But the understanding
that where data is directional is definitely helpful.
Speaker 1 (09:42):
Yeah, I think so. Ultimately, we know that since schools
have banned phones, there's less bullying, there are fewer critical incidents,
and children are learning more.
Speaker 2 (09:52):
Yeah, because even if the numbers weren't eighty seven and they.
Speaker 1 (09:54):
Were fifty four, I'll take that.
Speaker 2 (09:56):
It would take it that way, Yeah, exactly.
Speaker 1 (09:58):
And similarly with vapes, there's an improvement here. It's not
eradicating the problem. You're never going to eradicate the problem,
not in a society this big, in this complex, but
it's reducing it. It's directionally helpful, and we're seeing positive
outcomes as a result.
Speaker 2 (10:13):
Well, prevention is always going to be better than repair
in any society. So the fact that we have vapes
in our community, we're never going to get rid of them, Okay.
Speaker 1 (10:24):
And you could pick any problematic or challenging or unhealthy behavior,
and what we're trying to do is mitigate or minimize
kids access to those challenges. So here are three things
that I take from all of this data. Number one,
I kind of want to you know, when you see
little kids they put their thumb on their nose and
then they extend their fingers and whiggle them around and
they go no, no, no in it. I kind of
(10:46):
want to do a bit of an I told you so,
because there have been a number of critics who really
roused on me and said, you're being reactionary and banning
phones in schools won't make one jot of difference, and
kids have got to learn how to navigate a world
where they're surrounded by this stuff.
Speaker 2 (11:01):
This breaks my heart when I hear this. I had
a conversation with a friend the other day and it
was she had a conversation with her child's teacher, and
it was the same thing.
Speaker 1 (11:09):
I've been come following you.
Speaker 2 (11:10):
It's the same thing. Though. Our justification for allowing kids
to be exposed to an adult world is that they're
gonna have to learn. But my kid's six, or my
kid's nine, my kid's fourteen, they're not an adult, right
and they shouldn't have to be learning to navigate an
adults world at any stage of that childhood process.
Speaker 1 (11:34):
So this brings me to my second point, and that
is that I actually I still wish government would stay
out of our lives as much as possible. I really
don't want them intervening. But the reality is, and I
hesitate to say it because I hate throwing shade at parents,
but the reality is, too many parents are not up
to the task. They're not doing the job when it
comes to kids and screens, and therefore we need to
(11:57):
have government intervention to protect vulnerable people. So the government's intervening,
they're actually doing the right thing. We have government intervention
for things like gambling, for alcohol, for tobacco, for other drugs,
for driving, for I mean, pick whatever it is you want,
all of these things that we know can cause harm.
The government says, you know what, if you're an adult,
(12:17):
we're going to let you do this, because if you
choose that as an adult, that's on you. But we
need to protect vulnerable people, and children are among the
most vulnerable, especially when it comes to their interaction with screens.
The government has gotten this right. They're doing the right
thing with the Social Media band. I can't wait till
the end of the year for that to come in,
although again it's not going to be enough, and there's
(12:39):
going to be all sorts of holes that we could
probably poke in. It I wish that they would do
it about pornography. This is the elephant in the room,
and the government has been absolutely spineless in dealing with this,
and it is at the root of so many of
our challenges.
Speaker 2 (12:53):
It all comes down to money.
Speaker 1 (12:54):
I think that it does, and the loud voices that
are saying, you can't take away my civil liberties. Have
to identify myself so that I can click on that website.
Now you know too much about me, which is ludicrous
because look at what the tech companies know. The tech
companies know more than the governments will ever know giving
them all of our information. Last point, and we're out
of time, so I'm going to make this thirty seconds
or less. The more we get screens out of classrooms,
(13:19):
the better children's learning is.
Speaker 2 (13:21):
This is the better their relationships are, the better everything is.
Like everything.
Speaker 1 (13:25):
Yeah, it flies in the face of Kevin Rudd's two
thousand and seven two thousand and eight education revolution, where
every kid needs an iPad or a tablet or a laptop.
He got it completely wrong.
Speaker 2 (13:36):
He did get it completely wrong. But he's also dealing
with a brand new something that nobody understood. God, don't
stir in the room.
Speaker 1 (13:43):
I don't buy it. I think that it was a
terrible choice. I think that giving kids an iPad so
that they can learn more about technology and how to
navigate the digital world is like giving kids a Tonka
truck so that they can become a mechanic. It's just
I think he got it wrong. From the outset. Data
now is pointing to processing and learning being far better
with analog rather than digital learning tools, and the best
(14:07):
schools in Australia I'm talking about some of Australia's most
exclusive and elite schools are now starting to minimize and
even eliminate technology from classrooms and they're going analog. Our
kids live better with analog lives because they've got analog brains.
(14:27):
We're dealing with, as Scott Galloway says.
Speaker 2 (14:30):
Lazy learners.
Speaker 1 (14:32):
No, no, that's not what he says. We've got godlike technology,
but we're using paleolithic neural architecture to navigate it and
our brains just can't do it. It's not how we were designed.
So that's the Doctor's Desk episode today. Great chat, good
to see the data coming through and nice to feel
a little bit vindicated. But more than that, nice to
see that children are able to do better because we're
(14:54):
making these decisions on their behalf that are in their
best interests. The Happy Families podcast is produced by Justin
Rouland from Bridge Media. More information and more resources to
make your family happier are available at happy families dot com,
dot a u
A doctor's desk with a difference. Today, rather than looking
at recent scientific research, We're going to have a look
at a poll that is analyzing shocking new data trends
since the mobile phone ban came in around about a
year ago. Today, welcome to the Happy Families Podcast, Real
parenting solutions every day on Australia's most downloaded parenting podcast.
(00:30):
We are Justin and Kylie Coulson. Kylie, your initial thoughts
when the phone ban came in? Were you like in schools?
Were you for it? Were you against it? What were
you hearing? What was the general vibe?
Speaker 2 (00:43):
Totally for it, but I didn't hold much hope that
it would make a huge difference.
Speaker 1 (00:49):
So Grace Grace was the Education minister in Queensland when
Rebecca Sparrow, myself, Madonna King and a bunch of others
wrote an open letter and said, you said that you've
done some community consultation and we're not going to ban
phones in schools. You haven't consulted and you need to
ban them. And so we really put some pressure on,
got a lot of people behind it and there was
(01:10):
a backflip. There was a turnaround and phones were banned.
Let me share this with you. This is from a
news article that appeared mid feb I'm a little bit
behind the times here because there's been so much else
going on for us to talk about, but this one
needs to be emphasized. This is from news dot com
dot IU. Students across the country less distracted since mobile
(01:32):
phones were banned in classrooms, new research shows. A survey
from the New South Wales Department of Education revealed eighty
seven percent of students were less distracted in the classroom
since mobile phones were banned a year ago. There's more.
I know, I know you want to say something, but
there's more. The study, which surveyed the thousand public school principles,
(01:53):
showed eighty one percent of students have seen improved learning.
And the last thing, I know, you're on the edge
of your seat. I love doing this. I'm I'm so sorry.
Last thing, I've got to highlight this because this is big.
Out of South Australia, there's been a sixty three percent
decline in critical incidents involving social media and a fifty
four percent reduction in behavioral issues, according to Department for
(02:18):
Education of South Australia's survey data. Okay, I've said everything
I needed to say, Are you sure? Yeah, yeah, what
were you going to say?
Speaker 2 (02:26):
Tho's just they're massive numbers, right, massive numbers. We're not
talking about, you know, a handful of percentages here. This
is nearly one hundred percent. Really like eighty seven percent. Legit,
that's huge. So I predicted that this would happen. I
need to emphasize this does not mean that we are
at the end of school challenges. No. Well, in recent
(02:50):
weeks we've been dealing with some pretty significant challenges that
are still happening in the classroom. So just because we've
removed mobile phones does not mean that screens are not
still having a humongous impact.
Speaker 1 (03:02):
Right, kids are still doing the wrong thing on screens,
and they're also doing the wrong things on phones at home,
school buses, and because the phones aren't banned except during school.
So it's not a panacea. It doesn't fix everything. But
no one ever promised that it would. This initial data, though,
is really promising demonstrating that it was the right call.
Speaker 2 (03:22):
It was the right call. But for me, I feel
like as a parent, what it should actually suggest and
say is, and you've been saying this forever, but we
need to delay, delay, delay in giving our children access
to them.
Speaker 1 (03:38):
Well, I'm going to make an even more shocking and
provocative point, and that's this. We faced all of this
opposition in saying kids don't need mobile phones at schools.
But what I'm consistently saying is kids don't need mobile
phones if you get these kinds of reductions in the
school context. Imagine the kinds of reductions you would get
(04:01):
if you took phones out of kids' hands, or took
them away from social media in the home context, in
the school bus, school camp.
Speaker 2 (04:10):
In their friendships. It like just it's astounding.
Speaker 1 (04:14):
I don't think that there's any strong argument that you
can mount that children need smartphones. And I've said this,
I think I've been saying this since about twenty sixteen.
Kids don't need smartphones. They need smart parents, and smart
parents give their kids dumb phones. If you want to
know where your child is, if you want to be
able to text them, check in with them, make sure
they're okay. There are so many devices that they can
(04:35):
use that do not have the functionality of a full
blown supercomputer in their pocket. And again, I know that
I've just shared this, but these stats are stunning. An
eighty seven percent drop in student distraction, eighty one percent
of students have seen improved learning, a sixty three percent
(04:58):
decline in critical incidents, and a fifty four percent drop
in behavioral issues.
Speaker 2 (05:04):
When you think about the challenges that teachers, principles, and
students are dealing with on a day to day basis
in the classroom, to be able to tick all of
those boxes massive that it literally changes the environment our
children are in.
Speaker 1 (05:22):
Yeah, it does, I mean not enough. There's still more
to do. The federal government's going to bring in this
legislation we hope fingers crossed at the end of the
year where social media is banned for all kids under sixteen. Again,
that won't solve everything because they're still arguing over what
they're going to define social media as. Which apps will
be okay, which apps won't be okay? Is a messaging
(05:43):
app the same as a social media app? And also
kids will still be able to be on games and
they will still be able to communicate with their friends digitally,
and there still will be problems. So it doesn't solve everything,
but these restrictions are important, they're working, they were necessary
(06:03):
after the break. Three quick take home messages around how
we can keep our kids safe based on what we're
learning here. Okay, Kylie, this is the podcast with real
parenting solutions every day. Before we talk about the solutions,
(06:25):
I guess the take home messages, the standout ideas that
come from this data. I just want to highlight something else.
The federal government brought in a new series of laws
around vaping. It bans the sale of vapes in corner stores.
Came in around about I don't know, six or eight
months ago now, and data shows that the number of
(06:46):
teenagers fourteen to seventeen using vapes nationwide has declined since
those bands came in into force. Additionally, vaping rates have
dropped by a third in fifteen to twenty nine year
olds according to the South Australia Health, a medical research institute,
compared to data from twenty twenty four to twenty twenty three.
So what we're seeing, oh, in South Australian schools a
(07:08):
reduction of fifty percent in suspensions related to vaping since
the changes.
Speaker 2 (07:12):
So can I ask you a question, how reliable are
the numbers.
Speaker 1 (07:18):
As anybody there as good as any data that you
can get hold of for things like this. These are
surveys of principles. Principles do keep well, most schools do
keep reasonable statistics on what they're doing in terms of
suspensions and expulsions. They absolutely have data on critical incidents,
so researchers are collecting the data. The information is do
(07:39):
you know what, This is a really hard thing for
me to say as a social scientist, as someone with
a doctorate in psychology, Psychological data and even a lot
of health data is actually pretty rubbish. Like if you
go and do a chemistry experiment, the data is pure.
And that's why they talk about physics and chemistry and
(07:59):
even biology pure sciences. Things like psychology and social sciences
are consistently looked down on by the pure scientists because
there's so much noise in the data. But nurance and
that's right, and you can't measure everything. Yeah, but even
if it's not completely accurate, it's directional. And when you
get this level of number, Okay, so we've got eighty
(08:21):
seven percent, or we've got a reduction of fifty percent,
or we've got to drop in sixty seven percent, whatever
the numbers are. Maybe it's not that good. Maybe it's
forty three percent or twenty eight percent. But we're still
heading in that direction. Like when you get the numbers
this big, it's directional, and that tells us that we
are on the right path. We are heading in the
right direction. There is value in what we're doing. So
(08:43):
we can get caught up on being exactly precise, exactly right,
and I know that in our society we care a
lot about that, But sometimes it's better to just know
that what you're doing is useful even if you can't
be precise with it. And that's the way that I
tend to approach pretty much everything that I teach, all
of the psychological science stuff. We know that this is
usually useful most of the time for most people under
(09:03):
most circumstances, when things are normal, right, And that's the
best that we can do, and that is helpful. That
is useful even if it's not going to be perfectly
correct for everybody. You're unlikely to do harm when the
majority of the data points in this direction. That was
a long granser than you were looking for.
Speaker 2 (09:21):
No, not at all, Not at all. I guess the
concern is, from time to time we have these numbers
that feel great, but in reality are they and we're
kind of giving ourselves a pattern on the back for
achieving something that we may not have. But the understanding
that where data is directional is definitely helpful.
Speaker 1 (09:42):
Yeah, I think so. Ultimately, we know that since schools
have banned phones, there's less bullying, there are fewer critical incidents,
and children are learning more.
Speaker 2 (09:52):
Yeah, because even if the numbers weren't eighty seven and they.
Speaker 1 (09:54):
Were fifty four, I'll take that.
Speaker 2 (09:56):
It would take it that way, Yeah, exactly.
Speaker 1 (09:58):
And similarly with vapes, there's an improvement here. It's not
eradicating the problem. You're never going to eradicate the problem,
not in a society this big, in this complex, but
it's reducing it. It's directionally helpful, and we're seeing positive
outcomes as a result.
Speaker 2 (10:13):
Well, prevention is always going to be better than repair
in any society. So the fact that we have vapes
in our community, we're never going to get rid of them, Okay.
Speaker 1 (10:24):
And you could pick any problematic or challenging or unhealthy behavior,
and what we're trying to do is mitigate or minimize
kids access to those challenges. So here are three things
that I take from all of this data. Number one,
I kind of want to you know, when you see
little kids they put their thumb on their nose and
then they extend their fingers and whiggle them around and
they go no, no, no in it. I kind of
(10:46):
want to do a bit of an I told you so,
because there have been a number of critics who really
roused on me and said, you're being reactionary and banning
phones in schools won't make one jot of difference, and
kids have got to learn how to navigate a world
where they're surrounded by this stuff.
Speaker 2 (11:01):
This breaks my heart when I hear this. I had
a conversation with a friend the other day and it
was she had a conversation with her child's teacher, and
it was the same thing.
Speaker 1 (11:09):
I've been come following you.
Speaker 2 (11:10):
It's the same thing. Though. Our justification for allowing kids
to be exposed to an adult world is that they're
gonna have to learn. But my kid's six, or my
kid's nine, my kid's fourteen, they're not an adult, right
and they shouldn't have to be learning to navigate an
adults world at any stage of that childhood process.
Speaker 1 (11:34):
So this brings me to my second point, and that
is that I actually I still wish government would stay
out of our lives as much as possible. I really
don't want them intervening. But the reality is, and I
hesitate to say it because I hate throwing shade at parents,
but the reality is, too many parents are not up
to the task. They're not doing the job when it
comes to kids and screens, and therefore we need to
(11:57):
have government intervention to protect vulnerable people. So the government's intervening,
they're actually doing the right thing. We have government intervention
for things like gambling, for alcohol, for tobacco, for other drugs,
for driving, for I mean, pick whatever it is you want,
all of these things that we know can cause harm.
The government says, you know what, if you're an adult,
(12:17):
we're going to let you do this, because if you
choose that as an adult, that's on you. But we
need to protect vulnerable people, and children are among the
most vulnerable, especially when it comes to their interaction with screens.
The government has gotten this right. They're doing the right
thing with the Social Media band. I can't wait till
the end of the year for that to come in,
although again it's not going to be enough, and there's
(12:39):
going to be all sorts of holes that we could
probably poke in. It I wish that they would do
it about pornography. This is the elephant in the room,
and the government has been absolutely spineless in dealing with this,
and it is at the root of so many of
our challenges.
Speaker 2 (12:53):
It all comes down to money.
Speaker 1 (12:54):
I think that it does, and the loud voices that
are saying, you can't take away my civil liberties. Have
to identify myself so that I can click on that website.
Now you know too much about me, which is ludicrous
because look at what the tech companies know. The tech
companies know more than the governments will ever know giving
them all of our information. Last point, and we're out
of time, so I'm going to make this thirty seconds
or less. The more we get screens out of classrooms,
(13:19):
the better children's learning is.
Speaker 2 (13:21):
This is the better their relationships are, the better everything is.
Like everything.
Speaker 1 (13:25):
Yeah, it flies in the face of Kevin Rudd's two
thousand and seven two thousand and eight education revolution, where
every kid needs an iPad or a tablet or a laptop.
He got it completely wrong.
Speaker 2 (13:36):
He did get it completely wrong. But he's also dealing
with a brand new something that nobody understood. God, don't
stir in the room.
Speaker 1 (13:43):
I don't buy it. I think that it was a
terrible choice. I think that giving kids an iPad so
that they can learn more about technology and how to
navigate the digital world is like giving kids a Tonka
truck so that they can become a mechanic. It's just
I think he got it wrong. From the outset. Data
now is pointing to processing and learning being far better
with analog rather than digital learning tools, and the best
(14:07):
schools in Australia I'm talking about some of Australia's most
exclusive and elite schools are now starting to minimize and
even eliminate technology from classrooms and they're going analog. Our
kids live better with analog lives because they've got analog brains.
(14:27):
We're dealing with, as Scott Galloway says.
Speaker 2 (14:30):
Lazy learners.
Speaker 1 (14:32):
No, no, that's not what he says. We've got godlike technology,
but we're using paleolithic neural architecture to navigate it and
our brains just can't do it. It's not how we were designed.
So that's the Doctor's Desk episode today. Great chat, good
to see the data coming through and nice to feel
a little bit vindicated. But more than that, nice to
see that children are able to do better because we're
(14:54):
making these decisions on their behalf that are in their
best interests. The Happy Families podcast is produced by Justin
Rouland from Bridge Media. More information and more resources to
make your family happier are available at happy families dot com,
dot a u
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