Episode 17: Technology - Helpful or Harmful to Our Kids?

I want to talk to you about something that is in ALL of our lives. Our lives, and our kids’ lives and it’s not going away.

Technology!

In today’s episode, I talk about whether technology is helpful or harmful to our kids’ lives.

I think it’s both, and I’m going to let you know WHY I think that. I also share how we can make the best of technology and help our kids with it and not get eaten up by their screen time and technology around them.

The first iPhone came out in 2007. (Wow! That wasn’t long ago!) 

The Gen Z generation was raised with the iPhone and internet, and technology. They were born with phones in their back pockets so it’s just a way of life for them now.

So technology isn’t going away - which we don’t want it to! We aren’t trying to move backward!

One of the problems, however, is the addictiveness of it.  It’s always constant scrolling, scrolling, scrolling, or trying to get to the next level of the game. There’s a reason it’s hard to put the phone down. It’s called dopamine! Dopamine is a feel-good neurotransmitter. 

As our kids are getting more distracted from social media, and the internet, they are falling into the hands of corporate America. 

The algorithms used to learn about us, as people, meaning also our kids, who they are, what they like, where they like to hang out, what they will buy. So the advertisers and businesses are finding out what we like. 

The bottom line to this is MONEY!

Our kids' time online is just money for these companies. They’re not trying to hijack our brains. 

On the other hand, technology has kept us connected through the pandemic and being shut down, the schools being shut down. It’s kept schools running (for better or worse) It’s kept kids in touch with their friends, which is super important for teens.

I share in today’s episode the amounts of time that can affect kids and make them happy or unhappy/cause anxiety/depression.

There is such thing as too much time on a screen. Find out what you can do as parents in today’s episode!

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julie hatch