NC moves to limit social media use among kids (04-01-2025--Hour2)

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[00:00:29] Should North Carolina, I ask you, should North Carolina ban social media accounts for kids under the age of 14? North Carolina lawmakers, that's what they're looking to do. It would require social media companies to delete any accounts belonging to minors under the age of 14. They would have a month to do so.

[00:00:58] So if this thing becomes law, all of the social media platforms would have to start kicking all of the kiddies off of their platforms. And I guess if like somebody, if a kid, you know, is able to create a profile, a fake profile or whatever, and then the social media company is alerted to that, they would have to then, you know, boot the kid at that point.

[00:01:24] And if they don't, then they could be fined $50,000 for every violation. I guess that's per kid. Okay. If state prosecutors believe social media companies are violating the ban, they would be authorized to bring legal action. And that includes the civil penalty. This is House Bill 301.

[00:01:48] It seeks to regulate the use of social media accounts by 14 and 15 year olds, requiring them to get consent from their parents or a guardian before making an account. This is according to the story at the Charlotte Observer by Avi Bajpai, who, you know, notes that there are here two different elements, right?

[00:02:10] You've got the ban for kids under the age of 14. But if you are 14 and 15, then you have to get parental consent. Most social media platforms currently do have policies in place that say users have to be at least 13 years old to create an account. That age restriction stems from a federal rule that was implemented in 2000.

[00:02:37] And that's why there are no kids on Instagram. Well, it's against the law. It also required certain commercial websites to obtain parental consent before collecting personal information from children under the age of 13. So I'm curious. Did you let your kids have an Instagram account or a Snapchat account? Did you let them have that stuff before they were 14 years old?

[00:03:07] 15? In addition, the Senate and the House voted by overwhelming margins in recent weeks to pass separate bills that would require the state's public schools to heavily restrict phone use during classes. Before being elected governor last year during his second term as attorney general,

[00:03:28] Josh Stein joined a bipartisan lawsuit with 41 other states against META, which is the parent company of the Facebook. And Instagram. Because Facebook bought Instagram in, I believe it was 2012. And that's coincidentally, I am sure, when all of the mental health problems skyrocketed among teenagers, particularly among teenage girls.

[00:03:58] The lawsuit that was brought against META alleged that the platforms were designed to be addictive. No! No! And they accused the company of misleading the public about the harms of social media for children. Like, there is a reason why people feel like they get addicted to the social media platforms.

[00:04:27] It's because the social media platforms are specifically designed to addict you. I don't know who needs to hear that. But that's why they put the little bells in there. Bing! And now you're like, where's my food dish? It's a Pavlovian response. It triggers tiny little micro doses of dopamine into your brain.

[00:04:56] Like seeing the little like button go off. Oh my gosh, I posted something and 12 people liked it. Yay! And then you get hooked on that. And then it actually, particularly if you are young and your brain is still developing, you're now juicing it with these micro doses of dopamine. And you get hooked. Yes. Yes. But then you also need larger hits in order to maintain that happy feeling that the dopamine provides you.

[00:05:26] The lawsuit was announced, by the way, back in October 2023. And it claimed that Metta collected data from kids under the age of 13 without their parents' consent in violation of the federal law. Here's what WRAL reported. That 14 and 15-year-olds would have to get parental permission to have a social media account and parents would be able to shut it down as well. That seems like a good idea, right? If your kid is bullying other kids on the Facebook. Okay, kids aren't on Facebook anymore.

[00:05:57] Which honestly, like, that to me seems like the way that this should go is like all of the parents and grandparents need to get on Instagram and start following all of the kids. And then the kids will migrate off. They'll get right off Instagram. Because they don't want to be on the same platform with their kids or with their parents. Social media companies who don't comply could get the $50,000 fine. They could also be sued by users.

[00:06:22] And all of the big sites are scooped up into this legislation. We're talking the commie app, TikTok, YouTube, Facebook, and Instagram. There's actually a committee hearing on this very issue beginning, well, about 10 minutes ago. So here's the thing. And I have talked about this for years. The research is in.

[00:06:45] Okay, like, I remember there was a time, lo, those many years ago, when people would have these debates and discussions about are smartphones bad for the kids? Or, you know, are they just tools? And the kids are like, oh, they're the most connected and they're learning to live with it. And they're going to be so much better at everything because they got all the smartphones and everything else. We, yeah, that didn't happen. It didn't happen. And we are past the point where we could get by without making changes to anything.

[00:07:16] And we could argue, well, we just, you know, we haven't had it long enough. We don't know what the long-term ramifications and impacts are yet. So we need to do more research. No, that's not the case anymore. We have done the research. And by we, I mean some other people, not me. But they've done the research. And the evidence is clear. Now, you can refuse to accept it. That's totally your prerogative. You can deny that these things are harming the kids.

[00:07:46] And it's just easier to, okay, here's the smartphone to my, you know, 11-year-old. I don't know why Janie's now cutting her arms up. That's so weird. But it's clear. If you have never heard of a guy named Jonathan Haidt, H-A-I-D-T, or Haidt, I think it's Haidt. But he has been investigating this stuff for, I don't know, now 15 years, I guess.

[00:08:14] And you type his name into any of the social media platforms where your kids can't go under this law. Like, you will find interviews, podcasts, all sorts of stuff that this guy has been doing. He's published. He's got a Substack newsletter that he does, jonathanheidt.substack.com. And they've been researching this now for approaching two decades.

[00:08:39] And some of the clearest evidence actually occurs in these areas, these regions, where, I think one of them was somewhere up in, maybe in Canada someplace, where they had no internet. And then they got internet. And this was after Instagram and the social media platforms existed. So it was like turning on a light switch, basically. And when they got the internet, and that meant everybody got onto the social media,

[00:09:06] and from that moment, the mental health issues skyrocket. And you see that repeated in various locations under similar circumstances. Like, that is as compelling evidence as you need that there is a correlation going on there, if not causation. I am convinced, me personally, from what I have seen and read about over the years, it is completely causal.

[00:09:35] And it makes sense to me. Because the platforms, the products, are designed to hook you. And the things that hook people, we already know and have known for, I don't know, 150 years. Fear is the big one. A lot of advertising relies on fear. Newspaper headlines rely on fear. Clickbait stuff. Right? And part of that is fear of missing out.

[00:10:02] And fear of being ostracized by your peers, especially among adolescents. And especially among adolescent girls. That's why the mental health issues are so prevalent in girls versus boys. But boys suffer from different types of impacts. Here's a great idea. How about making an escape to a really special and secluded getaway in western North Carolina, just a quick drive up the mountain. And Cabins of Asheville is your connection.

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[00:11:26] Or check out all there is to offer at cabinsofashville.com and make memories that'll last a lifetime. We're talking about the internet, but specifically the social media platforms. And I mentioned Jonathan Haidt. He's done so much of the research and the groundbreaking work,

[00:11:50] measuring and finding these patterns between usage of social media and smartphones, more generally, among young kids and the mental impacts. Because it's not all, it's not always, it doesn't always manifest itself as depression and anxiety. Now that is a huge component here, no doubt about it. And that's the most riskier aspects here.

[00:12:19] But there is also other ways that it impacts kids' brains. So, like essentially when you're a kid, you know, oh, the kids' brains are like sponges, right? They just pick everything up. Okay, why is that? It is because of a thing called neuroplasticity. You, when you're a kid, the brain wants to learn things.

[00:12:47] It's constantly sending these messages, these electrical impulses or pulses rather, you know, through the brain. And the more times it does something, it like creates a groove or a channel in the brain because it's just running over that same part repeatedly. And I learned this firsthand as a 40-something-year-old when I got vertigo. And it was just a cold virus.

[00:13:16] It landed on the vestibular nerve in my left ear. And it blew out like two of the three little parts of the little arms, whatever, that come off of that nerve. And one controls your x-axis when you're looking. And one controls your y-axis. You're up and down, left and right. And then the third one, which thankfully was not messed with, was the z-axis, moving forward and backwards, right?

[00:13:45] And so what that did was it prompted the messages that were being sent from the vestibular nerve in my left ear, which essentially acts as, you know, a construction level. You know, those things with a little bubble in it. And you use them to make sure things are all lined up straight. That's what that nerve does. It sends a message that, hey, you're looking left. Hey, you're looking up. You're looking or you're moving forward, whatever. And it sends that message to the brain. But your eyes are sending a different message to the brain.

[00:14:14] And it creates this error message. And that's when you end up with like the spins. This is not the same thing that people get with the crystals in their ears, sitting on the little hairs and stuff like that, where you can like lean back and turn your head, do the Epley maneuver and all that. They ruled that out for me. I had what they called true vertigo. And I had about three straight days where I couldn't open my eyes or I would get sick. I would fall over. Anything couldn't stand up, nothing.

[00:14:44] And then I had about two weeks, two weeks to do all of these like physical therapy, they called it, or yeah, where like I'm looking at like a checkerboard with a dot in the middle and I'm turning my head, keeping my eyes focused. And I'm basically re-coding my brain, trying to send as many electrical impulses through

[00:15:08] the brain as possible in order to carve a new route to tell my brain to ignore the error messages that are coming from that vestibular nerve. Because after two weeks, you're done. Like that's about it at my age. They said the good news is that, you know, you weren't 80. Like if you were 80, the brain is not able to recover. The brain is not able to carve these new pathways into the brain.

[00:15:38] And so you would probably have to be on some sort of like meds or whatever for the rest of your life in order to, to deaden that, those impulses. They said the bad news, like if it had happened when you were really young, you would have recovered no problem. But better to have happened, you know, in my forties than in my eighties, if I even live that long.

[00:16:00] So this kind of thing is at play with 13, 12, 11 year old, and even 15, 16, 17 year old brains. And even among adults, you're, you're cutting new neurological pathways in your brain. And that's why getting hooked on these things as a kid becomes way more difficult to break 10, 15 years down the road.

[00:16:26] Because you carve these pathways in, you know, soft tissue at a time when it was super easy to do it. And now trying to get a different pathway cut is harder. This was a massive global experiment. Nobody knew what they were doing. We are seeing the results.

[00:16:52] Question is, like, does the society have the wherewithal to say, no, this is, this is not by and large worth it. You being able to doom scroll on TikTok and watch some dance videos and call your classmates names. That is not worth it. The juice is not worth the squeeze. All right. If you're listening to this show, you know, I try to keep up with all sorts of current events. And I know you do too.

[00:17:19] And you've probably heard me say, get your news from multiple sources. Why? Well, because it's how you detect media bias, which is why I've been so impressed with Ground News. It's an app and it's a website and it combines news from around the world in one place. So you can compare coverage and verify information. You can check it out at check.ground.news slash Pete. I put the link in the podcast description too.

[00:17:45] I started using Ground News a few months ago and more recently chose to work with them as an affiliate because it lets me see clearly how stories get covered and by whom. The Blind Spot feature shows you which stories get ignored by the left and the right. See for yourself. Check.ground.news slash Pete. Subscribe through that link and you'll get 15% off any subscription. I use the Vantage plan to get unlimited access to every feature.

[00:18:11] Your subscription then not only helps my podcast, but it also supports Ground News as they make the media landscape more transparent. Got a message on Twitter from It's All a Distraction. It's a Pete tweet. She says, I believe many of the one upping of evil deeds comes from social media sites like TikTok. It seems everybody wants to be more badass than the previous person, which has been not good for our society as a whole. Yeah.

[00:18:40] It's the I started using this term 20 years ago, the Salem witchification of America. And it has gotten worse and worse and worse as social contagions do before they eventually burn out somehow. That's not a pun on the Salem witch trials. But the social media platforms and particularly the ones controlled by communists that hate

[00:19:06] us and want to destabilize our society like TikTok, they amplify through algorithms. Right. And an algorithm. More often than not, I will say, does not know if something is quality content or destructive content. All it knows is engagement activity. Oh, look at this. People are commenting. People are sharing. People are watching whatever. Whatever.

[00:19:35] And then it feeds you more of whatever that video content was. Oh, look at that. This person looked at, you know, some some school fight. So I'm going to keep their timelines filled with videos of fights from high schools. That kind of thing. It's been. This is a piece by Jean Twang. Over at Jonathan Heights Substack.

[00:20:04] And this was from over a year ago. In March of 2023, the CDC announced that 30 percent of American teenage girls considered attempting suicide. 30 percent. Considered attempting suicide in 2021. That is up from 19 percent 10 years prior. So 10 percent in 10 years. It went up.

[00:20:32] As well as persistent feelings of sadness or hopelessness. Also, it increased among both girls and boys. Then in May. The Surgeon General's Office released its report on social media and youth mental health. And the Surgeon General said there is growing evidence that social media use is associated with harm to young people's mental health. Teen depression rates.

[00:20:58] Began to rise in the early 2010s right as smartphones and social media became ubiquitous. The more hours a day a teen spends on social media, the more likely he or she will be depressed. There's growing evidence that social media use causes the depression. Not just that it is correlated. They go on to say at the end of this piece, it's a lengthy piece. Like I said, it's from 2023.

[00:21:25] It's called, Yes, We Do Know Social Media Is Not Safe for Kids. They point out, though, that there is a risk-benefit equation here that nobody ever talks about. Or as I like to call it, is the juice worth the squeeze? What is the risk in restricting social media among those, say, 15 years and younger? What is the risk involved there?

[00:21:54] I would submit zero. There is no risk. There is no risk to say you can't be on social media if you're under the age of 15. What about free speech? Nope. Doesn't apply. Not even close. We age-restrict all sorts of things that are not healthy for developing human beings.

[00:22:20] But now what is the risk of doing nothing as more kids become depressed and harm themselves, become addicted, engage in antisocial behavior? Well, that's pretty high, right? The risks of ruining multiple generations with this kind of addiction and ways of thinking, those risks are really high.

[00:22:45] So from a simple risk-benefit equation, it seems pretty obvious what the answer should be here. There is no argument here either. If you're just talking about social media platform access, there isn't any kind of, quote, safety concern involved. Your kid does not need to be on Instagram at age 12 just in case a school shooter shows up. Like, that argument doesn't fly because that's the argument you hear on the smartphones,

[00:23:14] and I don't buy that either, but that's the argument you hear about smartphones. But that argument does not hold water at all when it comes to the social media platforms. They can get by with more technology than I had as a kid, which is texting, phone calls, and GPS location on a quote-unquote dumb phone,

[00:23:42] which are all over the place. You can find them all over the place, right? You can get your kid a phone so they can make calls in and out. They can send text messages, and it'll have a GPS location on it. I've got one. I think it's a company called Gabby made one. That's one that I know of right off the top of my head. So the technology is there, right?

[00:24:11] The issue is whether parents will be able to do this for their kids while the kids are clamoring, no, mom, I want to go to the R-rated movie. I'm sorry. I want to get the smartphone. It'll have a calculator on it. Don't worry. They can still use it for their schoolwork. And by the way, schools, they need to wean themselves off of the smartphone access to curricula and all that other stuff.

[00:24:40] You need to break that bond. Every single time I read anything new about this stuff, it becomes more and more apparent. Smartphones are too destructive in the hands of children. I would say 18 years old. That's when you can get a smartphone. But that's just me. I'm just a little old radio host. What do I know? All right. So spring is here, a time of renewal and celebrations.

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[00:26:02] Get all the details at createavideo.com. Let me give you a website. ScreenStrong.org. I've interviewed the head of this organization. She is local here in Charlotte. ScreenStrong.org. You will get helpful guidance and tips. For example, this is where I learned about the phone. And I messed it up. I said Gabby.

[00:26:31] It's called Gab. G-A-B-B. Gab. Talk and text. No internet. It is a phone and a watch. There's also a canopy safeguard filter for all screens that you can get information about. They have all these different tools. They give advice as well.

[00:26:57] Limit television and co-view when possible. No tablets for toddlers. Right? So watch television with your kids. Um, if you've got a computer, don't let them have it in their room alone. You keep the computer in the living room or dining room, whatever, somewhere in this space

[00:27:23] where everybody comes through and sees what they're looking at. Um, they do have also personal smartphones with safeguards after high school as well. But here's the thing, too, is that people who grow up without these smartphones, they have a different relationship with the technology than the people who grow up with them. Um, some other things.

[00:27:53] Screen strong parent strategies. Uh, first off, some warning signs that your kid might be addicted. Meltdowns when forced to unplug. Do you ever have that happen? Like, okay, you've been on there for three hours. It's time to get off. No, I just need this one thing. And then they get irritated. They get agitated. And then they just go full-on meltdown.

[00:28:22] Increased use over time that they can't cut it back on their own. Um, the only thing that puts them in a good mood is to get on their screens. That's the dopamine hit. By the way, there is a reason why the tech company leaders don't let their own kids use the tech. Because they know most what the tech does to hook the kids.

[00:28:52] Sneaking and lying about their own, about their screen time use. Using screen time as an escape. And when it negatively impacts relationships and school. So those are the signs of addiction. Some strategies. Um, think like a coach. Commit to being your child's life coach, not their best friend. Foster a close team mentality in your home. Also, intervene early. Learn to recognize the warning signs of overuse.

[00:29:21] Early intervention will prevent more significant issues. Restrict access. Prevent toxic screen use. Video games and social media are not necessary for healthy childhood development. They are not. They are not necessary. Build grit. Work hard and play hard. Replace screen time with challenging, non-addictive hobbies and activities. Set high standards and clear expectations for your family.

[00:29:52] Create community. Help others get educated with you on the screen strong approach. Learning with others will only help you stay the course. This is, um, I have a family member who's, they have young kids. And, um, they were, uh, talking about, this was a couple years ago, that, uh, they do not allow their kids to have cell phones. But, uh, they do not allow their kids to have cell phones.

[00:30:20] But, as their kids have gotten older, their kids' friends have them. And, um, they would take their daughter to school and they would pick up their friend, the girl's friend. And so, the girl, the friend would jump in the car. And, as soon as she got that phone, there was no more conversation in the car. And it used to always be, they would get in the car and the two girls would just, you know, jibber jabber away, talking about all of the stuff.

[00:30:49] And mom would be able to hear what's going on, but she would also be able to participate or whatever. And as soon as that friend got the smartphone, the car ride was quiet. They didn't talk to each other anymore. And that's sad. Focus on life skills. Prioritize teaching life skills in your home every day. This creates confident and resilient kids. Right? Resiliency. Jonathan Haidt also talks a lot about this too.

[00:31:18] This gets into sort of the free-range parenting thing where parents have become too protective of the kids. And then the kids then literally don't know how to overcome any obstacle. Because you need the challenges and the risk of failure. And, yes, even to be injured. Not life-threatening. I'm not saying, you know, hurt your kids. I'm not saying that. But that always has to be part of growing up. It was for literally every human generation.

[00:31:48] Right? Yes, you try to protect your kid from the most dangerous things. But, you know, falling off the monkey bars and breaking an arm, as long as it's not permanently damaged. You know, I'm not saying that. But these, you know, the scrapes and bruises and the eating of the dirt. Like, that's part of growing up and it builds resiliency. You overcome this stuff. Also, Jordan Peterson talks a lot about this.

[00:32:16] Kids, you know, before they learn how to interact with other kids usually, right? They're completely egocentric. Everything is about what they want. And then at some point, the parent has to then start peeling that away, right? And start breaking that down. Because, yes, for the first two years of that kid's life, you know, it depended on you for every single thing.

[00:32:37] But now as the kid is getting older and he wants to play and he has a friend come over, if the kid is going to act like an egomaniac and a jerk, no one's going to want to play with the kid. And what is it you're trying to do for your kid? Is to try to make that kid somebody that as an adult people want to hang around with. Otherwise, your kid's going to be lonely as an adult. And you don't want that for the kid, right? So you want the kid to be able to get along with other kids, with other humans. How do they do that?

[00:33:06] They have to learn to check the ego. They have to learn that other people have feelings too. And then they have to try to negotiate these things during play. And this is why, like Jonathan Haidt and others, talk about the value of free play. Let the kids just play. Don't structure the play date around everything. Just let them be and let them navigate and negotiate these things on their own. They'll be better off for it in the long run. All right, that'll do it for this episode. Thank you so much for listening.

[00:33:36] I could not do the show without your support and the support of the businesses that advertise on the podcast. So if you'd like, please support them too and tell them you heard it here. You can also become a patron at my Patreon page or go to thepcalendarshow.com. Again, thank you so much for listening. And don't break anything while I'm gone.