I think we need to be blunt from the beginning, because we know right now the central truth big tech has relentlessly, ruthlessly pumped up profits by purposefully exploiting kids and parents pain.

Last week there was a big hearing on Capitol Hill about social media and its impact on children and their mental health. Lawmakers from both sides of the aisle took time to pitch various pieces of legislation that aim to protect children online. But it was especially striking to hear from one of the witnesses, Kristin Bride.

This is my son, Carson Bride with the beautiful blue eyes and amazing smile and great sense of humor. Who will be forever be 16 years old.

She told the panel about her teenage son, Carson. She said Carson took his own life after being relentlessly cyberbullied on Snapchat through apps that conceal users identities.

After his death, we discovered that Carson had received nearly 100 negative, harassing, sexually explicit and humiliating messages, including 40 in just one day.

She sued Snap and other companies for allegedly fostering the harassment, but said the class action lawsuit was dismissed after the company invoked Section 230. The Communications Decency Act, which is the big liability shield for the tech industry. The company said it is constantly evaluating how to make its products safer and pointed to its human moderators working to limit the spread of harmful content.

It should not take grieving parents filing lawsuits to hold this industry accountable for their dangerous and addictive product designs.

But social media is just one aspect of our digital lives. Screens and apps are everywhere. So how are they shaping us? My guest this week is CNN's chief medical correspondent Dr. Sanjay Gupta on the new season of his podcast, Chasing Life. He's diving deep into all of this screen time, social media, technology and the science of how it's impacting our brains, especially in young kids. We talk about the personal conversations he's had with his own family about this and what we can all do to have a healthier relationship with our phones from CNN. This is one thing. I'm David Rind.

So Sanjay is screen time. Social media phones, the Internet, that's like a huge, wide ranging topic. So like, how did you approach this reporting?

Well, you know, I think this is one of those topics that is is pretty universal. I think everyone deals with this and thinks about it. And I think especially if you're a parent, I'm a parent of three teenage daughters. Right. This is the the probably the biggest topic in our household, something we talk about every night. So I approached it by starting with the people who use it the most, you know, young people, and in this case, my young people, my own kids. And I realize that we talk a lot at our children about this issue. We talk a lot around our children at this issue, but sitting down and really talking to them, no distractions, really hearing their point of view on this. It's important. And frankly, it's pretty magical as well, because I think it's been a missing part of the equation for some time.

And so what did you learn from them when you talk to them? What did they tell you about this.

Over the summer my phone broke like it started to deteriorate from the inside out.

And so Sage is my 17 year old daughter. She's a senior in high school...

Tell me about what was what was the biggest challenge that week.

Not being able to talk to anyone for a week. I mean, I'd have to call them on my Alexa. I had to memorize my friend's phone numbers.

And she was the one who really kind of got at this idea that the world is changing so quickly that even between her and her sister, youngest sister, who's 13 years old, just four years younger, there have been significant changes.

I'll see like little kids with their own phones. And I'm kind of like, is that like really? Is that really how it is now?

Sky is 15 years old. She's a sophomore in high school, and she's probably the one who kind of uses social media the least. She's not as interested in it, but she was the one who made the point that, look, we probably would have liked the lifestyle of the Millennials more so than the I generation as they're being called.

Like, my biggest thing is I hate going out to dinner. Yeah. And being on your phone. Even if I'm with my friends, I would not do that.

But one of the big things that kept coming up over and over again was a reminder that this was the world we handed to our kids. This was not necessarily the world that they covered.

They didn't ask for this.

They didn't ask for this. And they're very self-aware that this is the world that's been handed to them and all the obligations that come with that. And even though they are, you know, squarely in the mix of it, it's not necessarily what they want.

And so what did the experts say about all the time we're spending on our phones, on social media, Like what is the problem as they see it?

I think that they look at this in terms of a worst case manifestation.

First, we can start with what the generational trends are, that it's really, really concerning.

And so I spoke to Jean Twenge, who probably first really got me interested in this because she had written this book called IGen IGeneration, and it it got my attention.

For example, teen depression rates of clinical depression among teens doubled between 2011 and 2019.

It scared me a little bit in terms of thinking what was this device, what was social media, what were these things going to do to my own children's brains?

And then you have to ask why? Why was there that stark increase right around that time about 2012 or so? Well, that is when the majority of Americans started using a smartphone.

Do you look at this as the device itself being, you know, the culprit, or is it the opportunity cost lost in terms of what you could have been doing instead of being on the device?

It's a lot of different factors. And I think it's really important to acknowledge that it's not really the device itself, it's how we use it.

No one is saying that you shouldn't use it at all. I don't think anyone is saying that. And they recognize that there's obviously important uses for it, you know, just to function in your daily life now. Right. And yet they're trying to trying to figure out what is a point where it's it's too much. And I think it's really hard it's very hard to sort of lump it all into two sort of one category. So, you know, you can't think of this as sort of a I'm addicted to my phone because an addict was.

I was going to ask, is is that a real medical thing, being addicted to your phone? Or is that just something that parents like to say because they see their kids buried in the phone all day?

Yeah, I think that people are using probably antiquated language and descriptors to think about this. It almost requires its own language to think about the use of social media, the use of the device. Another just sort of thing to put in your head is that, you know, we let our kids drive and when we let them drive, there's a lot of training that goes into that because it's sophisticated piece of machinery that can be harmful. A car, the phones, even though they're these hugely sophisticated pieces of machinery, we've treated them like toys more than the giving them the respect that they deserve.

Right so I'm gonna give my four year old here's an iPad, go nuts for a few hours and you'll be quiet.

Right. Right. I mean, if you say, hey, look, I'm going to give my child an iPad from time to time, but I'm treating it as a very, very important piece of equipment that can be wildly useful but can also be detrimental, just like a car. The reason I started thinking about technology was because of you and your sisters and wondering how technology is going to affect your lives. What do you think about that?

I think that it already has probably affected our lives a lot. And like, it's just like how human evolution is going to go on.

By the way, Soleil, 13, I didn't mention earlier, we had a very interesting discussion because I said, do you anticipate when you're in your twenties or your thirties that you would use the devices in social media as much as you do now? Do you think the United States as a country would be using it more then than they do now?

Like people say that adults are on their phone as much, but I feel like when we become adults we'll be on our phones more than adults now.

And her answer was, Yes, of course. And I asked her, I said, is this a good thing or a bad thing?

I don't think it's a good or bad thing. Like there's plus or minuses.

And this is when teenage girls can be it can be intimidating and humbling, you know. She said, you know, dad, I kind of feel like you're missing the point here a little bit. It's not that it's a good thing or a bad thing. It's a thing. It's just it's the way the world is evolving.

It's just the thing is going to get worse as we go on or better as we go on just depends on how you look like.

You're super smart. You know, I can't. 13 years old. Have you thought about this issue a lot?

Yeah.

So, Sanjay, before the break, you were saying how your daughter was telling you that all this time we're spending on our devices is not necessarily a good thing or a bad thing. It's just a thing. It's the way we live now, like it or not. So assuming that's the case, how can we be smarter about our screen time? Like, are there any tips out there beyond, you know, just locking my phone away?

Yeah, I mean, there's really interesting tips out there that I think are maybe a little counterintuitive in the sense that, you know, people they generally think that they can stop using social media or at least lessen the amount of time they can not use their devices as much. But sometimes you just have to break up the cycle of of mindless scrolling, mindless utilization of the device.

You're trying to quit smoking. It would be really dumb to keep cigarets in your pocket. So if you know one app is a problem for you and it's not actually benefiting you, then get it off your phone.

Katherine Price wrote this great book called "How to Break Up With Your Phone." And I think there's so many tips out there in terms of trying to decrease your device usage. But I think Catherine's tips, they make a lot of sense.

Do something to help you become more aware of your phone checks in the moment. Because the thing about the design of many of our most problematic apps is that they're designed to hijack our brain circuitry so that we end up checking them without even realizing what we're doing. And then we end up spending way longer than we wanted to on them.

If you put food further away, you make it harder to access. Think about the phone the same way. Katherine Price, for example, says Doing something as simple as just putting a rubber band on your phone so that every time you're going to use it, you have to just sort of peel the rubber band.

Like a physical impediment.

Yes, exactly.

And the idea is that when you reach for your phone on autopilot, you have the split second of being. Why the heck is there a rubber band on my phone? And then you can say, oh, I just picked up my phone. What am I doing?

We spent a lot of time using the device at the wrong time, meaning at night when we should be sleeping at the dinner table. And I think you have to have some some rules that you just place with yourself, with your family, to get the phone out of the bedroom, to not have it at the dinner table, things like that. That can make a huge difference.

You know, you can be in the same room with someone, quote, spending time with them. But if you're not paying attention, if you're if you're just scrolling on your phones, like, were you really together?

So in talking to all these experts and your own daughters, how do you feel about yourself as a parent who has been dealing with these issues?

You know, honestly, I no one gave me a parenting book. You know, leave aside devices and social media. The only sort of lessons I had on parenting really came from my own parents. And and that happened at a time when none of these technologies existed. I spent a lot of time trying to keep my kids safe, but I don't think that I fully appreciated both the benefits and the dangers that these devices and social media can provide. I think my wife was probably a lot more systematic and thoughtful about this. We we decided to wait a while till we gave our kids phones later than certainly they would have liked and later than most of their when their friends got phones. What did you think of the idea that we waited to get you guys phones?

I really like that. Yeah, I really like how we waited until middle school.

When I have kids of my own. If I don't think I want to let them be on social media as early as I was.

But my kids have said to me that they probably would wait even longer than we waited before they would give their kids access to social media. Wow.

I just want to, like, teach them to be a little bit more responsible with their amount of usage, not what they view, but how much they view. Because I, I think I'm a lot better with it now. But I think when I was a little younger, I was on my phone a lot.

They've learned and and it's now the young people who are who are basically saying look, we're the ones most affected by this and here's what we think should be done.

Certainly positive to think that they're thinking about this in that way. Yeah. Again, the podcast is Chasing Life. The first episode of the new season is out right now. Thanks so much, Dr. Gupta.

You got it. Thanks.

One Thing is a production of CNN Audio. This episode was produced by Paola Ortiz and me. David Rind. Matt Dempsey is our production manager. Faiz Jamil is our senior producer. Greg Peppers is our supervising producer. And Abbie Fentress-Swanson is the executive producer of CNN Audio. Special thanks to Amanda Sealey, Ben Tinker, Jocelyn Hargrove and Hayley Thomas. Thanks for listening. We'll be back next Sunday. Talk to you then.