Into the Digital Future: The Kids Are Alright with Dr. Michael Rich

In this episode, Jordan Shapirio and Laura Higgins sit down with Dr. Michael Rich, a pediatrician, adolescent medicine specialist, and author of The Mediatrician’s Guide: A Joyful Approach to Raising Healthy, Smart, Kind Kids in a Screen-Saturated World. Dr. Rich shares his insights on navigating the challenges and opportunities of parenting in the digital age, drawing from decades of research and clinical experience. They discuss the benefits and pitfalls of technology in family life, schools, and society at large, while exploring practical strategies like Dr. Rich’s “Five M’s” for fostering healthy relationships with screens. From rethinking “parental controls” to championing youth participation in designing the digital future, this conversation is full of actionable advice and thought-provoking ideas for parents, educators, and tech leaders alike. Tune in to learn how we can all collaborate to create a better, more balanced world for our kids—online and offline.

This transcript of the Into the Digital Future podcast has been edited for clarity. Please listen to the full episode here, and learn more about the season. 

 

Michael Rich: I’m Michael Rich. In order of importance, I’m a parent. A pediatrician, a child health researcher, and recently an author. I’m an associate professor of pediatrics at Harvard Medical School, and I practice adolescent medicine at Boston Children’s Hospital where we have both the Clinic for Interactive Media and Internet Disorders, and the Digital Wellness Lab.

Laura Higgins: Welcome to the show, Michael, we’re so pleased to have you here. Little disclaimer that Jordan and I have both worked with you in many different guises over the years. So we’re really happy to have you join us. I’m going to start off with the first question. I’m really excited. You mentioned the fact that you’re fairly recently became an author.

So let’s talk about your book, which came out this year. The Mediatrician’s Guide, tell us all about it. 

Michael Rich: For starters, I’ll give the subtitle as well, which is, “A Joyful Approach to Raising Healthy, Smart, Kind Kids in a Screen-Saturated World.” We have a lot of scare stories out there about how social media or smartphones are ruining a generation, causing mental health spike.

And what this book is about, I should show it to you is really that the kids are okay and they can be okay if we, Educate and empower them to lead into the future in ways that are consistent with what their desires are. Kids don’t want to go to dark places necessarily. Kids don’t want to be unhealthy.

But they are lured there. AWe in preparing this work at both of the Digital Wellness Lab and for this book it’s really about exactly what goes on with the child as she or he develops in a world with screens everywhere. And so the book is broken down into four parts. What. Which explores what the influence of screens are at every stage of development on development.

So what, where we talk about the risks, the things that people are worried about from their kid’s screen use. Now what, which is how to work our way into the future with generative AI and the metaverse, if it ever happens. And the final part is for those who are too busy or who can’t get to the whole book, it’s actually an ages and stages digital wellness primer.

So at each age and stage is saying, giving you the points to watch out for and what to do.  

Laura Higgins: I love that. 

Jordan Shapiro:  I want to ask you a bit let me start with a story if you don’t mind. I was just last night sitting at the dinner table, all four teenagers around me at the dinner table and I was telling them about how when I was their age, if I needed my father to pick me up somewhere, like I had to tell him it. 7 o’clock in the morning, and I had to be there at that time at 6 pm. And there was no way to call him, and if I called him, someone would be like, “I don’t know if we can disrupt him right now. Is it an emergency?” There was no texting. There was no, There was no there was no way to keep in contact in that ongoing way.

And in some ways, part of me is the dad going, “you all don’t know how good you have it.” And part of me is also thinking, “wow, it’s really amazing that my kids are able to keep in touch with me in a way that wouldn’t have worked in a way that’s not so disruptive all the time.”

All this is a long way to saying, as you just think about it, where are the things where grownups are being curmudgeonly about kids these days, and where are the things that we really should have concerns about?

Michael Rich: How much time do you have? I think one of the important things that you realize in that conversation with your kids is there are a lot of positive affordances of this. Technology that we don’t even think about, they probably looked at you going, Oh, my God, that’s ancient history, but the reality is that we have integrated this into our lives.

And one of the things that is both interesting and challenging as we move into more and more immersion with technology is really that we are Following three moving targets here, the first one being the developing human from infancy to toddlerhood to childhood to adolescence, the young adulthood and we know a little something about that.

We’ve been studying it for over 100 years, but we also have it happening in a constantly evolving, often rapidly evolving digital ecosystem that both. reflects and affects them. It reflects them because they’re posting all the time. It is, where they show themselves and represent themselves to the world, but it is also affecting them in a whole variety of ways, some of which can be harmful.

And the third moving target which you were alluding to, is the change in all of our behavior because we have these devices at our fingertips. And one of the things that kids will often say to me when I ask them after their parents have left the room, what could your parents do better? And almost always, the first thing out of their mouths is “pay more attention to me, be present.” I think we’ve lost that in many ways when we mindlessly pick up our phones and check for that all-important email after hours.

Laura Higgins: Yeah, I think that’s very true. And I’m probably guilty of that a little bit myself. So thank you for that great piece of advice there. One of the things that where we’ve worked very closely together from Roblox point of view is with the Digital Wellness Lab. So that launched a couple of years ago, I believe and is led by Boston Children’s Hospital, Harvard Medical, and Roblox was very proudly one of the kind of first members to join one of the founding members, along with some of our other friends in the tech space.

Tell me a little bit about the goals and aspirations of the lab and the sorts of work that you’re doing. 

Michael Rich: The lab is built on the foundation of the Center on Media and Child Health, which for 20 years was essentially a more traditional academic center of excellence placed at Boston Children’s Hospital and Harvard Med School, where we did the research and we fed it back to the community.

Through more conventional ways, like writing journal articles, et cetera. And what we realized over time is 2 things. Number 1 is that kind of work is too slow to be really helpful to parents and teachers and anybody who interfaces with kids to be useful and. The second part of it is that after probably 10 years of our of being put on panels in meetings with someone from the tech space so they could watch us argue.

I called it intellectual cage fighting — two walk in, one walks out. 

Laura Higgins: Yep. 

Michael Rich: And. The stance I would take, interestingly, was not you’re doing terrible things to kids, but we’ve got to stop talking about internet safety. And they go what, what’s that about? I said, that’s because we can’t presume that the internet is unsafe.

This is a place that kids are going to need to live in, learn in, be productive in. We have to help them move toward Mastery not toward safety, right? And no kid wants to be controlled or overseen by their parents anyway. So I think words really matter. We talk about getting rid of the term parental controls because there’s no kid on the face of the earth who wants to be controlled by their parents.

Let’s talk about parental engagement tools. But after. A number of these meetings, I was talking with one of your colleagues in the tech industry who was saying, I wish you’d quit, beating us up over internet safety because it’s the one place where an industry, which is intensely competitive, intensely secretive and utterly convinced they are the smartest person in the room actually talk to each other because we have a shared risk.

And so I had a eureka moment and I said, why don’t we move beyond talking? Why don’t we actually work together? Let’s get a situation where we can put a pediatrician next to a software engineer, next to a neuroscientist, next to an educator, and see what comes of it, bringing our respective skill sets to bear on this issue.

And so that was the origin of the Digital Wellness Lab, where we do work that A, has fast turnaround, so it’s actually useful. And B, we’re feeding to both the industry and to consumers at the same time because we are cognizant of the fact that the industry will be the one who changes this ecosystem in the most effective way.

And that maybe legislation and litigation are not the right answers because we waste a lot of energy in conflict rather than working toward the better selves of us. 

Laura Higgins: Yeah, it’s so true and it really resonates with me because I’ve been working with you on some of this stuff and you know we have some really engaging conversations I’m seeing some really great collaboration amongst all of those different groups that you’ve talked about.

So a follow up for me. And this is my slightly cynical side coming out. As you said, this is a particular moment. In terms of scrutiny of platforms and algorithms and the sort of AI that we’re using, all of those sorts of things. It feels like there’s really big momentum of these platforms wanting to work with NGOs, not for profits what did child development experts, things like that.

For me, I’ve come from that background of charitable sector. And now work in the tech industry. So I’m really positive about it in one way, but the cynicism is like, how impactful do you think those conversations really are? Are we seeing, yes, they might turn up and sit at the table, but is it actually affecting change on the platforms?

Are they going away and doing what they say they’re going to do? 

Michael Rich: Some of them are, and I think the others are watching closely because the way we approach this is, tech is no longer the latest bright, shiny thing in our universe. They have to move from a concept of, grabbing that shiny thing to sustaining their business.

And when we have legislators. equating tech to big tobacco. We run the risk that we are going to throw the baby out with the bathwater here. And in trying to block it off, which frankly doesn’t work COPPA 1. 0 didn’t work because nobody enforced it and many people didn’t even know about it.

But I think that if we work together, it will work. And, I, Harken back to Margaret Mead’s statement. Never doubt the possibility of two or three people making change happen because indeed nothing else has ever made change happen. 

Jordan Shapiro:  I certainly agree with all of that. I want to switch gears. I want to, get to the move away from the industry for a second. I think you started to hint at it when you were talking about the last section of the book, which is, I think you have a way of talking about this that you don’t, that I don’t hear from almost anyone else, which is as everyone else talks about age-appropriate, everyone else thinks about what’s the direct right cutoff age.

When should, what’s the age at which every person’s ready to have a cell phone. And and you’re, you really think about what that means at different ages for different people. And I wonder if you could elaborate on that, because I really don’t think that’s getting through yet to, to parents or educators or legislative or obviously legislators.

Michael Rich: Absolutely. Um, I have two issues with age appropriateness, which on a sidebar, the idea of moving toward age-appropriate design is absolutely on mark. The problems I have with age-appropriate design is “age” and “appropriate.” All children of the same age are not the same, have the same capabilities, the same vulnerabilities. You line up 13 13-year-olds, and they’re all going to be at a different stage. But parents know those kids better than anyone else, and it’s a matter of being an active parent in the digital space, a parent that observes with curiosity injects, creativity as opposed to reprimanding and scolding them.

The other word that I don’t like is appropriate because that’s a values-laden word. What’s appropriate in Massachusetts and what’s appropriate in Iowa or Texas are entirely different things. What we talk about is developmentally optimal. What is developmentally optimal for this child? And one of the reasons we say that is that the idea of age appropriateness, et cetera, is focused only on the so-called neurotypical kids. It excludes all the neurodiversity out there. I firmly believe from working with many kids, that we’re all neurodiverse, we’re all different in the ways we observe the world, synthesize the world, act on the world and in ways we should not be looking for what’s best for neurotypical, because frankly, that’s defined as someone like me, right?

“I am normal. The rest of the world is crazy.” So I think that we have to take a step back and really think about the way we talk about it. And e also have to talk about it as inevitable. In other words, we’re not going to get rid of smartphones until they’re superseded by something even better, more powerful, faster.

We’re not getting rid of social media. In fact, nobody can even define social media anymore. What we really need to do is look at the young person with curiosity and optimism and help them move toward their best selves, physically, mentally, and socially. 

Jordan Shapiro: Yeah I think everyone listening and you know that I agree with that. I want to ask a question in the opposite direction about this. You and I were having a conversation recently about the the research that shows how distracted kids can be in school by phones and how, whether it’s in their backpack, whether it’s anywhere in the building, they are thinking about what, where’s that notification.

And you said something I’ve been thinking about ever since, which was, what’s developmentally optimal, right? But to actually have the ability for the parent to constantly say, how did your quiz go? How did your test go? What’s going on in school is potentially problematic, right? Did I understand you, what you were saying? 

Michael Rich: Absolutely. And, again, under the rubric of words matter, I think we’ve got to stop talking about banning smartphones from schools for the simple reason that along with everyone else, when I hear the word ban, I push back against it.

Nobody bans anything from me, right? But we should be talking about how to best integrate these powerful tools in the task at hand at school. And there are two major tasks at hand. One is the didactic learning of math, science, literature, et cetera for which smartphones are largely a distraction, if not completely a distraction.

The second most important, and perhaps even more important, is what you just alluded to, is the social emotional learning of kids, that, school is the first place where young people get to be themselves, get to be an individual, not someone’s child, not someone’s relative, not someone’s student, but they get to define and invent themselves in this new society that they are building.

If mom is in their pocket asking how they did on that quiz and whether she should talk to the teacher or, they’re asking someone picking on you in the playground or whatever, they don’t get that opportunity. One of the most tragic things you’ll see is, go by an elementary or middle school or high school at break time, and they’re not talking to each other. They’re not playing with each other. They’re leaning against the wall, checking their phones. And I think we have to understand that these incredibly powerful tools can be used very effectively in schools, but the way they should be used in schools is to teach kids how to use them. And part of teaching them how to use them is knowing when it’s not the best tool for the job and putting it down. So I think we need to have a much more nuanced approach to this. A lot of people who want the absolutes are looking for a binary answer to a complex and nuanced question. 

Laura Higgins: Yeah, I think you raised some really good points. And actually, it’s quite sad to hear that kids aren’t sneaking off to the back of the bike sheds and planning and plotting in the corner of the field like they used to or 

Michael Rich: kissing under the bleachers.

Laura Higgins: Exactly. So I’m just thinking about, I know some of the stuff we’ve done together over the years has been about, support for parents and families, particularly. And you’ve raised a couple of really good points already, but then how do we manage that while respecting the rights of kids and teens, I think digital rights is so important now, there’s been a real change the UN rights the child now signed on by many countries around the world some still to follow.

But does respect this kind of, I know I’m not saying that but yeah, there’s just, access to technology and access to health advice online and all of those sorts of really important topics. So how do we juggle it? Where do we start and what kind of advice would you give that’s just this is how you could approach it as a parent.

Michael Rich: Well, a way that I synthesize it for the book and actually when I speak to people is to think of the five M’s. The first is to model the screen behavior you want to see in your kids because they listen to 1 percent of what we say, but 100 percent of what we do. So when you come home. Put the smartphone down and be present with them.

The second one is mentor. Mentor them with each new device, platform, application. Sit down next to them and play that game, no matter how much you hate that game or how stupid you think it is. What you’re doing then is you’re saying, I love you, I respect you, I want to see what engages you here. And then when you finally figure out all the moves it takes to steal a car in Grand Theft Auto, And you turn to your child and say, now, why would you want to practice this over and over again?

You’re coming from a very different place, a place of curiosity, a place of actually being their student in many ways. But this is a way of, moving into an open dialogue with them in the digital space, because parent is more importantly a verb than a noun, the third M and the one that gets pushed back against the most by both parents and the kids is be able to monitor them, have their usernames and passwords, the kid, the parents say, “Oh, my God, I don’t have the time. I can’t go everywhere she goes online.” And the kids say, “I want my privacy.” And we can respect their privacy, just as we respected their privacy in the written diary on the bedside stand. Because we can monitor their behavior and their actions online, they behave differently. It’s like random drug testing in the workplace, that they act in an environment where they know that you’re going to see it.

And I tell them to practice what I call the grandma rule, which is don’t post anything online you don’t want grandma to see, because she can. Now, the fourth and fifth M’s are the goodies we get. One is making memories. We don’t make memories of what we do online and what we do on a screen. We make memories of walks together of conversations with someone of playing ball with someone or making a mistake with someone, but doing that in real life and 1 on 1 or.

More as a group. These are the things that we make memories of and that we treasure into our later lives. And the final one is mastery of these tools. That is ultimately the goal. And mastery means knowing how these tools work, knowing what they work best for, how we can be our best selves on them, and how, when they’re not the best tool for the job, to put them down.

Jordan Shapiro: Yeah, it’s very concise. I like that. I agree with all of it. I might only say to the monitor point. I’ve always said, I don’t know why they should have privacy for me when they don’t have privacy from every single tech company. 

Michael Rich: You got it. Or the rest of the world. And to a 13-year-old– privacy means so mom and dad can’t see, but they’re completely oblivious to all those forces out there who are. Not as loving and caring and nurturing as their parents who are seeking to exploit them in ways large and small. 

Jordan Shapiro: Yeah, exactly. Let me ask you one final question and then we’ll wrap up, which is, where’s the frontier? What’s the question that that no one’s really put much work into yet. What are the questions we really still need to do work and think about start to collect data and research theorize. What’s there what is nobody asking yet that it’s, we’re all going to have to turn to at some point.

Michael Rich: No one is effectively asking the young people to lead us. And I think that’s where the future is. They know, they do know these devices to a certain degree. What they don’t have is the executive functions of impulse control, judgment, future thinking, and all of that. And that’s how we can interface with them and help them be there.

But we’re still, unfortunately, I think, in a mindset of we have to protect the poor, innocent kids. And They don’t like that paternalistic attitude. They don’t like to be, as I say, controlled. So I think that we need to shift our perspective a little bit and sit beside them both, literally when we’re introducing social media or a game or a device.

But also sit. Beside them figuratively in the sense of let’s work this together. Let’s not expend energy being fearful or guilty or all the things that seem to be happening now. A lot of energy is going into fighting with each other instead of recognizing we’re all in this together. Why can’t we bring?

All these skill sets to bear on how can we create a better world that is in fact a single digital physical environment that they move seamlessly between. 

Laura Higgins: I love that, Michael. And we did an amazing piece of work together last year where we brought together all these experts from academia, from health, from tech companies, regulators.

To hypothesize how we move the needle in making these safer, more civil online spaces. And we published a white paper, which I’m sure we can share the link on the transcript for this. But it was a really fascinating sort of deep dive into what technology we need, what policies we need and how we can help educate and raise awareness.

And the overarching thing that came out as the main thing that they really wanted tech companies and regulators to focus on was meaningful partition. Participation by youth, whether that be co creation, co design, youth boards, we need to get that voice in a proper, meaningful, embedded way to help us make the internet better and safer.

So hear more of that. 

Michael Rich: I will note for you that one of the two keynotes, one was the psychiatrist in chief at Boston Children’s Hospital and the other was an 18 year old patient of mine. Who were the keynote speakers that kicked off that event. And I think that’s the approach we need to bring.

We need to bring caring science to it, but we have to use these tools, which are great at giving kids voice. In fact their wonderful way to reach kids who historically were marginalized because they had disabilities, because they were LGBTQ whatever they were that they did not have. their people. They did not have their tribe in their immediate physical proximity, but online, they could find people who recognized them, who validated them, who cared for them, and frankly, who loved them.

And we don’t want to give that up. We shouldn’t give that up. These kids need this. But we also need to learn how to, be better, find the better angels of ourselves, as Abraham Lincoln said.