Thinking Christian about Family and Technology Use: A Conversation with Krista Boan

The world is becoming increasingly proficient at telling stories that deny God. As such, we need thinking Christian to become as natural as breathing. Welcome to the Thinking Christian podcast. I'm Dr. James Spencer. Through calm, thoughtful theological discussions, Thinking Christian highlights the ways God is working in the world and questions the underlying social, cultural, and political assumptions that hinder Christians from becoming more like Christ. Now, on to today's episode of Thinking Christian. Hey, everyone. Welcome to this episode of Thinking Christian. I'm Dr. James Spencer, and I am joined today by my co-host, Maggie Hubbard. And I'm going to allow Maggie to introduce our special guest for today. So Maggie, go ahead. Yeah, welcome, everyone. Thanks for joining us. I have a good friend of mine, Krista, on today. She agreed to join us and talk about all of the amazing work that she does day in and day out with social media and helping parents navigate social media and just really getting in that space. And so as a mom of two young parents, she is a very reliable resource for me, someone that I feel like I could lean on for support. And then the content that she develops is really helpful to me as well. So I'm going to pass it over to Krista. Why don't you introduce yourself and kind of tell us how you got started in this space? And then, yeah, we can just kind of go from there. Okay, yeah. Thanks, Maggie. I'm glad that, you know, this is the problem we have today is that there is no wisdom kind of being handed down through the ages from, we can't call our moms or our aunts to say, how did you deal with Snapchat? You know, right? We are the first generation to have to kind of navigate what does it mean to parent through the digital age? And so I'm thankful that I'm able to kind of pass on things that I've been able to learn. I'm sorry, I'm giggling because my dog is now scratching at the door. But I'm grateful that I'm able to pass on a lot of the things that I've learned through interacting with other parents who have just been willing to share vulnerably with me the lessons oftentimes learned really hard ways about the accidents that they've encountered accidentally in the digital world. No parent ever hands their kid a device and says, gosh, I really hope you get banged up on this. And yet, parents, we only give our kids access to the digital world because we want good things for them. We want them to stay connected. We want them to learn. We want them to explore. And yet, so often we see that when kids are given access to the internet, especially at younger ages, without any kind of mentoring, that these accidents tend to pop up. So I'm thankful to be here. I'm thankful to be able to pass on knowledge that I've shared. I'd love to share a little bit of my story. Do you mind if I pause really quick to let the dog in? No, not at all. We are dog and family friendly around here. So it wouldn't surprise me if my two-year-old is not snuck in on my door. Oh my gosh. Constant. Well, that was the gift of technology in the pandemic, was that we used to kind of have to contain our personal lives and our professional lives. And now I feel like we're living in a world where we're a little bit more integrated and we can kind of just be a little bit more authentic, right? For better or worse. So, yeah, my background is that I was a middle school teacher and then stayed at home to raise my four kids. And my oldest now is a junior. My youngest is a fourth grader. And, oh my goodness, the dog. I'm so sorry. I'm going to have to pick him up. This is so embarrassing. Well, you might as well introduce him. Hey, this is Chip. So speaking of the pandemic, this is our pandemic puppy with lots of anxiety. He wants to be right next to us all the time. Cavalier, is that what he is? He is. He's a Cavalier. Yeah. Yeah. That's a whole journey. So I was a teacher and then whenever I was a teacher, it was probably, I mean, it's probably been 20 years that I was in the classroom. Phones were available, but we didn't allow them into the school building. We didn't allow them into the classroom. That just wasn't, we were starting to see some effects of kind of texting, but we, it wasn't as ubiquitous as it is today. And so when my fifth grader got to, when my oldest daughter got to fifth grade, you know, I was really kind of shocked to find that the hot gift for Christmas that year was a smartphone. And I kind of did what I've always done in parenthood, which is I started, you know, I wasn't really comfortable with that yet because I knew we hadn't talked about it yet, but I thought, okay, I'll go and I'll ask the moms one stage ahead of me, you know, just give me your tips, you know, and I kind of expected them to do the same thing that moms your age, Maggie, always do, which is just survive. These years are going to go by fast. It's going to be fine. You know, it doesn't really, you know, you'll make it. But instead I noticed a very different reaction than I'd always had on other parenting topics, which was, I don't, I actually don't have the answers for you on this one, but you know, if you can do something different, do it because it's not going well in our home. And so that kind of began a conversation around the Kansas city area, which is where I live with other families, just kind of coming together and saying, you know, what do you got for me? How do we do this differently? What is the wisdom we can create together? And so through that conversation, I was able to co-found a nonprofit called screen sanity that really provides resources trying to just kind of crowdsource and share out, like I said, this wisdom around how to gradually and intentionally introduce technology into your kids' lives. So we talk a lot about driver's ed and how you would never, you know, just when your kid turns 16, you don't just like, you know, throw him the keys. And say, good luck, right? Because the car is something that can kill you. It's a machine. And in the same way, we really encourage parents to think of introducing technology into your child's life in a very gradual process, right? When you, when you taught a kid to drive a car or when we were taught to drive cars, I've now taught two kids to drive cars. It's awful. It's like the worst, but you take them to a very limited space and you give them very limited freedom to test out a very simple skill and you practice and you practice and you sit right next to them and you coach them, right? And then once they've got that kind of competence, then you introduce another skill and then you give them even harder and more risky skills, right? But all this, all this time, it's this concept of a learner's permit, right? Like I'm going to give this to you, but I'm not going to give you free rein. I'm going to sit right next to you. And I'm going to point out the hazards. I'm going to point out, you know, the reckless drivers. I'm going to, I'm going to just be here with you because guess what? We are heading somewhere with this process, which is, I want someday for you to be independent with this smartphone. Now, as adults, we know that that doesn't mean that they're not still going to stumble into trouble, right? Or fight their own addictions with technology someday. So like, we're still all susceptible as adults, but it does mean that we've at least given them the scaffolding or the template to try to kind of develop some of those healthy habits, right? That we would hope that that would help them to leverage technology for good for the rest of their lives. So that's, that's screen sanity and that, yeah, that's, that's the work I do is kind of helping equip families both around those healthy habits, but then also thinking through how do we disciple our kids throughout that process with, with the gospel at the center. So yeah, absolutely. Love all the work. Sorry. Yeah. When you talk about, so I totally, I'm teaching my daughter's how to drive. I taught my son how to drive. And I mean, and, and I definitely see the comparison between the car and the phone. I think one of the things I struggle with, and I'm just wondering what practical advice you give parents is it's, you use the word ubiquitous. I mean, it's become so ever present, not simply as an entertainment vehicle, right? Like we can watch things and stream things and all that kind of fun stuff, but also from a, just sort of what I'll call a bureaucratic perspective. Right. Like sports teams use it, right? The sports teams, my daughters are on, they use this to communicate. The school uses it right to communicate. And so, you know, we're beginning, we began to see very quickly that it was just going to be difficult to say, Hey, no social media, this is not good for anybody. We don't really need this even at this age, like to a point where we're like, okay, how do we, how do we do this? How do we manage this? Because once they're on it, they're just on it. Right. Any tips on that? You know, when you move from that safe space to something that's so ubiquitous and so ever-present and used so broadly, how do you counsel parents to help control that aspect of it? Well, I do think there is a reality that at the point that it does get introduced into your kid's life, that there's going to

To grab our attention, to hold our attention. We used to think of technology as kind of a blue sky opportunity where we could kind of go wherever we wanted to go. You know, the world was our oyster. And, you know, in the past several years, we've learned more and more about the secret sauce that, you know, Silicon Valley companies are putting into our devices in order to keep us glued. And so there is no way around that. If you are looking today for, you know, for somebody to tell you that there's a safe way to navigate or a healthy way to navigate the digital world, I think the reality is, is that, in my experience anyway, you've got kind of those early childhood years where you can kind of protect your kid against technology, but at the point that you introduce it, you are now in full on like prevention, or not prevention. What's my word? You're in full on preparation mode, right? And so I think helping your kids really start thinking more high level, not just about how to manage technology, but how to kind of think of it more broadly as this is something that is in the world, and it can be used for good and it can be used for bad. And so how do we kind of give nuance to this conversation? There's a lot of conversation now that is just like, hey, screen time is bad is not working, right? That kind of, like, before the pandemic, it was kind of like, screen time bad, right? And then all of a sudden it was like, nope, we have no options. And so it's like, back up. Like, hang on. Like, how can we start breaking down our, like you said, our type of usage into kind of three buckets. So like, it's times that we consume or that we like just digest, right? And entertain ourselves. There's times when we create, so we're writing, we're developing, we're editing, right? And then there's times when we're connecting. And so really, just even having that simple kind of framework, create, consume, connect, in your family conversations and being willing to narrate out loud the purpose that you are using your devices for through that lens, can really provide a lot of beneficial just thinking around helping your kids know that when it comes to those three buckets, we really want to create and connect more than we want to consume. Because something happens when we are actually using technology to connect, which is that it allows back and forth communication between somebody else. And that is what is closer to God's design for us as social creatures. So when we talk back and forth, when we're attuned to another person, right? This is like Dr. Kurt Thompson talks about how we all come into the world looking for somebody who's looking for us. Even as infants, that's one of our first things that we are looking for is this belonging. I'm going to see myself. I'm going to see my story through somebody else's eyes. And that never goes away. And so in these back and forth conversations, something happens in our brain, which is that we release this amazing chemical called oxytocin. And oxytocin is the... Let me ask you a serious question. If something triggered a major market drop in the coming months, would your retirement be ready or exposed? With inflation, market volatility, and ongoing global uncertainty, more families are taking a closer look at whether their retirement plan is truly built to hold up. And many are finding that adding a layer of protection makes a lot of sense. Sanctuary Metals is a Christian-owned company that helps families strengthen their retirement savings with physical gold and silver through a gold IRA. During uncertain times, many people look to precious metals as a way to add stability when other assets may be under pressure. 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And so we get into, like, overwhelm and information overload, all of these things that cause, actually, the cortisol in our bodies to raise, right? And so what we really want to do is start helping our kids think through, am I using technology right now for creating or connecting, or am I using it for consuming? I like that idea of connecting, and where my mind goes with it, just having read through a lot of the research, and even in your blog, you mentioned that the incidence of mental health problems has increased by 300% with the onset of the like button, right? And this is something, like Jonathan Haidt and a lot of other people have noticed that these, you know, short feedback mechanisms, right, where it's, I'm not getting the response that I want off of X post, Y post, or whatever. Would you, I'm assuming you wouldn't consider that a, when you talk about connection, you're not saying, let's get a bunch of likes, but there is a multiple different ways of connecting to people, like we're connecting right now. We're going to have a longer, more in-depth conversation where we kind of go back and forth. That to me is a normal connection versus the sort of sharing and feedback that we get on that sharing, which would, at the very least, be like sort of a weak tie connection of some sort. Like, how do you think about that? Yeah, I love that question. I tend to think of it just kind of like a tennis match. And so it's like, there's a ball moving back and forth between us, right? And in some of those weaker connections, the ball kind of gets stalled, or I'm not sure if you're like, or I might have, like there might've been like too many balls coming at me, and so like our connection is disrupted. And I do think the word connection is a curious thing to unpack because there's a whole lot of conversation around how we all just want to be connected. But I would maybe challenge that what we want is not actually to be connected, but to be known. And so I think when we are just loosely connected, right, that's helpful, I think, socially, right? It serves a certain purpose. But it's never going to fulfill the desire we have to actually be in that tennis match where somebody hears us, sees our story, responds to our story, allows us to tell our story through their eyes. And so I think the challenge that when we choose connection, like just as kind of our ultimate, right, we're actually choosing convenience at some level. And we're actually missing an opportunity for not only being known, but for formation, right? Because it's in these like really rich, I see you, I'm struggling, I'm vulnerable with you, that we're actually developing character. And so I've seen this play out with like an example of like one of my kiddos. She's on the cheer team. And as cheer teams go, there is sometimes drama. And in those moments where there's drama on the cheer team, we have a choice we can make. We can choose to go for easy connection and just solve the problem on GroupMe. And we're just going to, we're just going to put it out there by blasting the coach, you know, or asking a question that could have been asked privately. We're going to ask it publicly in front of all the people who are watching us on GroupMe, right? And so we're like, oh, I'm just, you know, I'm just staying connected. But what we sacrificed by choosing that instead of saying, hey, I'm actually going to pick up the phone and I'm going to call because this is, this is something really hard, is that we miss an opportunity to build character, right? And to say hard things and to give people safe spaces to actually say, yeah, I was wrong. I want to grow. Let me try this again. And so, yeah, I think I would challenge, I don't think that, I think that, I don't think there's enough nuance around the word connection. And I don't know that connection is actually what we ultimately desire. I think what we ultimately desire, especially as believers, is Christlikeness, right? And that comes through community. Very helpful. Thank you. Yeah. Yeah, so I'm going to, I'm going to kind of shift it to, to, you know, me as having younger kiddos, right? And I know we've had this discussion before, so I have a two and a half and almost five-year-old. And so we really try to limit, you know, screen time. And if we do do screen time, we do very, I will play like the shows I grew up watching. They're very...

Slow paced, not a lot of bright colors, like we just try to, we try to limit it. But, you know, they're going to be starting school eventually, and I know, you know, there's probably not a way, a lot of way around it. Like I even think kids get tablets in schools nowadays. I'm not sure. We might end up homeschooling anyways, but let's say that we send them, you know, what are some steps that parents like me with younger kids can really start implementing now and, you know, talking to our kids about, even at a very young age, right? Like, what would you tell me, you know, to do? Yeah, yeah. Well, first of all, I would just like, put so much grace over yourself, because this again is just something that no, no generation of parents has ever had to deal with this thing coming at them in such a, such a broad swath, such a tsunami. But I do think that if you can start thinking of those formative years as an opportunity to start building that, that internal understanding for them about what is mommy doing on her phone. You know, when we were kids, we, we knew when our dad was reading the paper that he was reading the paper. And we knew when mom was checking the calendar that she was walking to the calendar on the wall and checking the calendar. She was making a shopping list and we could see that by her writing it out. Today, we're doing all of that, as James pointed out, in one place. And as human beings, as little tiny people, it's easy to make meaning about um what activities are happening on the phone if I don't have visibility to it. It's easy for me to say, you know, she's choosing something on that phone over me. And as adults, like, yes, sometimes we're choosing things over our children and that's okay. But the gift you can give your kid is to start narrating out loud, um, your, your decisions that you're making instead of just kind of, and you can't do this all the time. It would be exhausting. We all know that we're exhausted by the amount of tasks that we are trying to engage with on our phones. But if you can start saying, you know, hey, I'm gonna, I'm gonna send this prescription for, I will be with you in just a minute and I'm gonna send this prescription for um for grandma because she's having, whatever, she needs help. Um also just being intentional about the times when you're gonna set down your phone. That's gonna be a skill that they're gonna need to start developing as well to know that, you know, maybe we're gonna have a phone free play five or something. Like mommy's gonna put down my phone for five minutes because I really just want to play with you. I want to be present with you. Um, and so just trying to build that understanding. The other thing is just really to um understand that there is so much grace in this conversation and there are gonna be times when you just need to use screen time to get through, you know, whatever it is, the task that you're that you're getting through or maybe it's, you know, going through target. And um you just need to get through target because you can't deal with the, with the meltdown. But just always being aware that that also comes at a cost. There is a cost, even though the convenience is so helpful that um sometimes we don't realize that we are giving things up. So in the example of um allowing our kids to kind of make it through a tantrum at, at Target, um I have a friend who helps direct the mental health center here in Kansas City. And um he shared, and I, and I don't, I apologize, I don't remember the exact stats, but as you look at um kind of suicidal ideation or suicide um in the past, you know, 10 or 15 years, that the amount of time that especially young people have taken to make a decision out about um about suicide has gone from like, you know, two weeks you would start to see signs to like seven days you would start to see signs to, you know, like seven hours. And then I think it's even gone down to minutes, um, as we've started to kind of see the progression of, of social media and what it's done to us. And I just think when you are in those moments in Target, if you can make a choice that today, you know what, today I could do a tantrum, you are giving your kid a gift by allowing them to go through that emotional regulation process, to sit in discomfort, to find out that I don't have to have a device, I don't have to solve this in order to be okay, um, that on the other side, this won't feel as bad, right? You're, you're helping them develop like a little bit of impulse control and um a little bit of grit. And so those are the things that sometimes I think um we don't realize that even though convenience is nice, that sometimes we can, if we can pause and say, you know, oh, actually, like it's really painful when they're telling me that they're bored and like I, like this meltdown is going to kill me because like, I just want to stop and entertain them or I just want to take away the pain. Like this is like the boredom itself can just, it's just, it's awful to make it through that, you know, that tantrum about boredom. But if you can allow them to get through that discomfort and allow them to self-regulate, on the other side of that, oftentimes kids will go into deep play and deep creativity. And those are the exact types of activities um as children that will actually heal their anxiety. And so it's, it's just a funny thing, I think one of the challenges um with young families is that we want to use screens to kind of alleviate some of the tension. And this, it's like a pacifier, right? Um, oh man, that is so helpful sometimes. But in other ways, we hear from those, those uh kindergarten teachers that kids are coming in without any ability to emotionally regulate and um that the SEL crisis is skyrocketing as well. And so I would say grace and just thoughtfulness around the exchange that you're, that you make with screen time, that it's never without a cost. Um, sometimes you can choose to do that and you get to pay that price. And sometimes if you can give your kid the gift of saying, you know what, actually, I'm going to pause this moment to um narrate for you, to model for you, um, what to do with screens. That's probably so much more important than hitting your magic number of screen time minutes or making sure that they're always watching um Bluey instead of whatever other awful thing. No offense to Bluey. I just, no, I mean, but we all just love Bluey, right? I mean, can we ever? Yeah, yeah, the best. Yeah. I mean, just as you're talking there, I mean, one of the things that I think uh even adults are lacking in these conversations um is who do we want to be as humans? So what characteristics do we want to embody? How do we want our relationships to work? And what are we losing when we add technology into those relationships? It's not that we always lose, right? But um I had a friend who uses this analogy and I've kind of stolen it from her because I thought it was a really good one. But if you picture a baby mobile, right, you know, the thing you hang up above the baby's crib, it doesn't matter where you touch it. Any side you touch is going to have some effect on another aspect of that that you really can't predict. You know it's going to move, but you don't know how it's going to move, where it's going to move, what it's going to do in space. Like, there's probably some physicists who would disagree with that, but um just on an everyday level, like, we don't know how it's going to move and shift. And so if we don't have some sort of uh stable, stable pivot point, stable center, and really saying, look, I want my kid to be resilient. I want my kid to have grit. I want them to have a work ethic. I want them to have, you know, X, Y, and Z, like these sort of, this sort of list of character traits that they can obviously express in a number of different ways. But if we don't have clarity on those kind of things, it seems to me like we're gonna get sucked into convenience really easily. And I see that, um, I, I see it a lot, like I said with adults too. I mean, I look at it even on the, I, I like to lift weights and stuff and so in the fitness industry, um, steroid use, testosterone enhancements, uh all these kind of things, people are doing it younger and younger and it's starting to become this sort of very mainstream thing. And I'm just going, this seems like a really horrible idea and not just from a physiological, biological sort of what it's going to do to your body kind of perspective, but also put the work in. Like live within your limitations. That seems to me like something we should have learned at some point. But those kind of characteristics, you, do you, would you counsel parents to sort of sit down and really consider deeply, um, you know, beyond just Christlikeness, which I would agree with. We want our kids to be Christlike. What does that actually look like? What kind of characteristics are we trying to build? Yeah, for sure. Um it's like that, isn't there an old country song that if you don't stand for something, you'll fall for anything or something like that. But absolutely. I mean, I think starting with your, with your values, um actually becomes kind of the

Amazing. I'm sure you see this too, James, that we are living just in like reaction mode constantly, just trying to respond to all of the stuff coming at us in life. And so many families, when you sit down with them, they're like, you know, I actually haven't thought about what we actually do want out of life or what we do want for our kids. And so just pausing to write down, you know, a family motto or, you know, and it doesn't have to be a permanent family motto. It could just be for this season. This season, our goal is to just keep swimming. We're just surviving, you know? And so if that means that, right? If that means that we are watching, is it Coco, Coco? Cocomelon, yeah. Cocomelon instead of Bluey, then we're going to do it during this season. But yeah, absolutely. I think, yeah, evaluating your technology use through the lens of is this technology supporting my values or is it interfering with my values? Because that's pretty revealing. You know, you might think that health is a value of yours. Well, yeah, there are apps that show you which trails you can, you know, or there are apps that, you know, show you how your body mass is, you know, and all of that. And yet, if you evaluate maybe the amount of screen time that you are ingesting when you could have been out on a walk or, you know, those kind of things, it kind of, yeah, I do think that that is a really critical piece, but it's kind of hard to sit down and actually say, this is actually the one or two big rocks that we're going for at the moment. It takes some intentionality for sure, especially in a digital environment that is designed to not provide any quiet or space for reflection or contemplation. So, yeah. What are your thoughts on, like, let's say, I'm trying to think of the apps on the phone, but like the learning apps, right? Like for kids. Like, I know, like on one of Levi's screens, there's like an ABC one, right? And it's like Disney characters and it'll teach him. Like, what do you think about that kind of stuff in small increments? Like, do you think that's okay as long as it's monitored and I'm like sitting with him and we're going through the ABCs together? Yeah. I mean, I think this is a question every family gets to answer for themselves. The one thing I would say about it, and this might not be the most, this might not be well thought out, so give it grace if it's not. It's just that a lot of those apps, a lot of the educational apps are still designed with the same addictive features, the delayed rewards, the, you know, the, I'm blanking on the interval or whatever. Like the instant gratification. Yeah, even the bright lights and the bright colors that you, the dings, all of those things. And so in a way, they're still a bit of a gateway drug. And so I think what I've tried to start thinking about, Maggie, and I'm really interested in this, I don't have enough hours in the day to actually develop it, but it's like, how do I find the organic aisle? Where's the wholesome section? So rather than kind of thinking about like what content is this actually teaching? So I have a 15-year-old who is getting away with a lot because he loves Duolingo. And he is learning Swedish. And I am like, okay. Right, right. Because he's like, Mom, I'm learning Swedish. And I'm thinking, when are you planning to actually use Swedish in the real world? And yet he is leveraging, like, it's education, Mom. And yet I am seeing that he is in this competition with his friends and they've got a streak going. And so I'm noticing every hour of the day, he's learning Swedish when he really should be folding his clothes and putting them away in his closet or practicing his piano or something like that. And so I think one of the things just to be aware of is that even though apps are branded as educational, get curious about the way that they are vying for your child's attention and look for ones that don't have any of those features. Like social media is the best way to kind of look at this because we're all familiar with that language. But social media, you know, one of the most risky things about it is what James mentioned earlier, the like button, right? The like button is a way for them to measure and then reward us, right? And that is what keeps us kind of addicted and coming back for more. And so anytime you can kind of look for apps that don't have advertisements, I think those tend to be a pretty good indicator that it's a more of an organic app. Does that make sense? Even if you have to pay $0.99 to get the non-ad version, that is probably just showing you that the money being made is not through somebody who's paying for your data. The money being made is through you purchasing that app. And so I don't know what to tell you. I think it's all. It's all messy. But that's kind of how I try to think about it is like, is this an app that is going to suck in my attention more? And to me, for our family, that's the priority. For our family. And that's probably because we're older. The content is still risky, but it's not as important as the long-term effects of having an addiction. I'll date myself a little bit here, but I mean, I'm 46, so I still remember when I didn't have any of this. Right. I mean, I'll tell my kids, I showed them, I pulled it up on Google the other day and showed them the word processor that I took to college. You know, I had this rectangular green screen and a printer hooked up to it. And I'm like, this is what I wrote like 15 page papers on, like this little, and they're like, what's the matter? You know, like, you're ancient. But I think one of the advantages of people my age and maybe even a little older is that we're bridging the analog age and the digital age. And so, you know, I can look back on my life and go, I survived a really long time without any of this. And if it were all to go away tomorrow, would things change? Yes. Like there'd be a lot of things we couldn't do, but it's survivable. Like everybody's going to be okay. And, you know, so to me, like, even when my kids were doing some of this stuff, like, and I'll give you maybe a tip for your son, but I, whenever my, whenever my kids were starting to learn languages, they wanted to hop on Duolingo. And so I took a look at it and I'm like, I'm not buying what they're selling. Like, I don't think this will actually help that much. Right. And so I had taught Hebrew in my previous life. And so one of the things I told him was, I said, one of the best ways to learn a language and really know that you know it is not to go from, like, in my case, Hebrew to English, but to go from English to Hebrew and actually write it. Right. Because then, you know, you know it. You have to get it right. Otherwise you're just wrong. Right. And so like even flashcards and stuff when my kids have been learning foreign languages, I'll be like, no, read the, don't go from the Hebrew word to the English word or the French word to the English word. Go from the English and say the French and then spell the French, write the French, like all that kind of stuff because it reinforces it in your brain differently. Yeah. And so there's a, there's a concept called haptics. Like, you know, when you read a physical book, right. As opposed to, and I have both, like I have my Kindle and I have my physical books, right. When you're reading a physical book, everything about that physical book is helping you remember what you're reading. The way you touch it, the, I mean, if, if Maggie, you might not be old enough to remember this, but like a old school library. Yeah. The Dewey Decimal system. Like we had to. Okay. All right. I couldn't, I didn't know when that went out of vogue, but I mean, I can remember really going down. Like if I think about it right now, I can smell the books. Yeah. Right. And so all of those aspects kind of help you remember. Yeah. And so it's not that I don't think online learning can happen. Obviously I've been in online education for a really long time. Like I did that. And I think it's good, but I also see the benefit of sitting back and going, Hey, some of these old school methods, we didn't actually have to get rid of. Like we didn't need to digitify flashcards. Flashcards were just fine. Right. You know, right. Language in particular is really funny because it's actually, it's a social skill. And so to develop it in isolation feels particularly like you're just, you're exchanging. It's the exchange. You're missing something. You're gaining something, but you are missing something richer and deeper and learning back and forth. Like I could actually talk, talk with somebody. And all those methods. I mean, it's almost the same thing we talked about with connection, right? Whenever we can, like, let's say listening to a language spoken, that's actually really helpful to understand how to read it, how to pronounce different things, those kinds of, those kind of aspects. And so, you know, in my day, they pulled that off with CDs. If anybody remembers what a CD is out there

And just listening to it. Yeah. And I think some of those things, that's the challenge with like any internet-based sort of technology that's trying to teach you certain things, that even typing or, you know, typing in an answer or typing in an answer, depending on what generation you're in, really. It doesn't give you the same feel as when you're writing it. Right. And so we've got to, I think we've got to really help our kids also navigate the mix. You know, like, we've got wisdom at our disposal just because of the way we grew up. We weren't all, we weren't digital natives. Right. That doesn't mean that we've been outpaced. It just means that there's a new tool that's been added that we can add to the existing set of tools we already had. Yeah. And so it's a, it's a really important thing, I think, you know, we do have some tools that we can bring along with us, right? If we're really thinking about it. Yeah. So that's just been my experience with my kids. And I, I just, as you were talking, I think one of the questions I had for you, you know, to get kind of past that aspect is, you know, my concern is that my, like, my kids don't really write cursive. They don't, they don't sign their name. Like there's a whole different literacy that they've developed now. And I don't think cursive is anything magical, but that's part of it. I mean, we're, our kids are literate in a different way than we ever were. And so as they get literate in that way, I guess I'm wondering, what have you seen that we're leaving behind that maybe we shouldn't be? Maybe we should be pulling that forward, even as they develop these new literacies, what are some of the old things we really should keep up with? Yeah, I mean, that's a broad question. I have lots of thoughts. I mean, you go broad. Go for it. The broad, I love that question. And I wonder if it, you mentioned that you've studied AI, and actually you mentioned an article that you've read. I'm thinking of, I have a friend, Andy Crouch, who likes to talk about how technology, you know, like kind of places us on kind of like a, like a motorcycle, right? Like a machine that propels us beyond our natural human speed. Whereas a bicycle is actually connected to our body. We are, we are the one engine, we are the one powering it. And we are the ones who are able to travel at a speed in which we can still feel, feel the wind and notice the direction and kind of stay within our capacity and just what's lost when we, when we start jumping on supersonic speed, you know. devices. And for me, I'm hearing, I'm hearing you say, you know, some academics, some, some art is definitely lost. For me, the thing that I tend to think about a lot is social. I was talking with my junior age daughter last night and she was telling me about this, this, these friends who are going to prom together and they, they don't know each other and they've never really learned to have a conversation outside of texting. And so this is, this is really, really uncomfortable. And she's telling me about this and she's like, and I, I really want them to be able to just kind of like, what if she has a word for it? Chill. I don't know what she says. I just want them to be like natural and normal. And I go, Oh, do I get this? I go, I get this. This is what it was like in seventh grade for me. Right. Right. And she goes, seventh grade, you had to deal with this in seventh grade. And I go, Oh yeah, honey. Cause we didn't have the kind of the crutch of texting to kind of get us through those awkward years. We just had to like sit awkwardly next to people who we maybe liked and try to learn how to like, you know, say something to them. And, and by the time we were juniors, I think we were actually kind of like through it. But that, that junior class actually, they were, she was in seventh grade when the pandemic hit. And I said, you got, you got double whammied because you not only had this crutch of technology that was kind of, you know, blocking you off from these social friction opportunities. Yeah. You not only had technology, but you also had a pandemic where you missed out during these middle school years of the opportunity to navigate those social tensions. And if we, you know, if we don't recover from, from that, and I don't know that it's a, we don't ever recover from that. If it's just a delayed recovery from that, there's just a whole lot of life that you, that you miss because you're trying to do it. Let me ask you a serious question. If something triggered a major market drop in the coming months, would your retirement be ready or exposed? 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We'd hand them off. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And then the thing that, another thing that we've been talking about is, we're starting to learn how to feel sadness. And she's a junior. And I'm like, and maybe I'm sharing too much about her, but she didn't have to, she's been able to kind of click away from it. Right? And as she's learning to feel sadness, I'm like, no, it's okay. It's okay. Sadness is okay. Because you know what? You can't feel joy if you haven't felt sadness. So it's okay. This is the wholeness of life. And so those are the things that I tend to think towards is the social, emotional. But I think James, what, I'd be curious what you're noticing from even the, you mentioned an article about, about musicians. Yeah. So, yeah, there was a group of 200 musicians who got together and their concern is that music companies and platforms and those kinds of things are both platforming and using AI that's been trained on their music, their voices, their everything to create new music. And so, you know, there's part of me that's sort of like, I really do sympathize with them. Right? At the same time, I think the letter references sort of irresponsible and responsible use, which I have a little bit of a bone to pick with that. But that's for a different, you know, sort of story. What, what, one of the things that I think we could potentially lose, you know, artificial intelligence has the ability to create based on what it's seen, these fascinating pieces of art that are readily available. It's fast. I mean, it generates quickly. Right, right. But I'm not sure I've seen yet artificial intelligence take from a, to your point, a social, emotional, real life sort of people interaction experience and create something from that. And I think we're shorting it if we only become concerned with the product. Right. And we start to lose the process. Right. There's something to human creativity. I kind of use this analogy all the time. It's like when I used to be a personal trainer, I never invited a client and said, okay, today's workout is just to watch me lift. Just hang out in the corner. Watch me lift. That's your workout. Right. That's not how it works. Nobody gets in shape by watching workouts. Like you got to put the effort in. Right. And so I think as a culture, we're in danger of privileging the product as opposed to recognizing the process that goes into the, the creativity that goes into the frustration, the time, all of those different aspects and really allowing that to become part of what we appreciate about the product. The more shortcuts we take, I think the more problems we're going to have with really recognizing why it is that this product looks the same, isn't really the same. Right. Like there's all these indirect effects that I think we're losing. And so I would say, yeah, creativity, literature, you know, all of those different kinds of things. I think we're just losing them. But I think they're rooted in that social, emotional sort of

Contexts that you're talking about, they're downstream from that because as we no longer have to be human in those ways. Right. There's going to be these downstream effects that we're not really even thinking about right now. Right. Like, it's not our primary concern, even the letter from the musicians while they reference human creativity, their bigger concern is their ability to make a living. And that comes out pretty strongly. Right, right, right, right. Well, and I'm just like, yeah, I'm cross-applying it to even something like the microcosm of the family and prioritizing. I'm thinking of, like, Maggie, I think your generation, I feel so much for you as a young mom having to grow up with the pressures and the expectations of what you're seeing other young families do on Instagram. Right. I can log on right now and I can see the mom who's, like, pushing for her slower life, right? And I'm like, that's gorgeous. Also, who's doing all of your posting? Like, this is, like, what I mean. Or the mom who's, you know, only growing her organic vegetables in the garden and, you know, pureeing every single meal and would never touch, you know, red 40 or... And I can see, James, the application of what, even what you're sharing about prioritizing the product over the process. Like, when we start, even with marriages, part of the beauty and the gift of marriage is the process of dying to yourself and the process of, like, that conflict, that grit, that friction. And you can't experience that if you're always in performance mode. And that doesn't have to be even on the internet, but I think the way that it's forming us as humans, even if you're, like, logging off the internet or maybe logging off Instagram, and you're still under the expectation that I would, you know, meet a Christian guy in college who has never looked at porn, who, you know, I mean, who will never, you know, I will, I don't know, that we will serve through some mission greater than ourselves. I mean, just all of these things can form our expectations. And that's probably always been around. Why do we always go into family life and marriage with certain expectations? That certainly was the case for me and my husband, but the amount of exacerbation and magnification of those pressures and actually what you said was privileging the product over the hard conversations and the hard, yeah, the hard character formation that happens through human relationship. I think a lot of times what we're dealing with, just in my reading on technology, technology doesn't just emerge, right? It's not something we, like, tomorrow I could create a device that no one would care about, right? It has to come along through a reorientation of our own desires, our own sort of habits, our own ideas about what the good life is, our own goals. All those different things have to change in order for certain technologies to make sense. Right. And what I'm afraid we're seeing now, to your point, is this intensification of the source of technology you have available to us. We've been running toward efficiency for a really long time, right? Right, right, right. I mean, arguably, you know, the car, the assembly line. The wheel, right. Right, yeah, right. Like, all those different things are designed to, in some way, shape, or form, make our lives easier. Now, some of those, we could argue, are just basic functionality. Like, we actually needed them. Others are, you know, improving on these things to the point where maybe we won't even have to work. Like, the computers and the machines will just do everything for us. But it's driven by an underlying desire and sense. And I just think that as we're pursuing this sort of, quote unquote, progress, right, we may be shortening ourselves and leaving behind certain aspects of who we are that we don't want to leave behind. Right. But it is that intensification right now that I'm most concerned with. It's like, man, how do we, how do we escape it? Right. You know, and I think that's why we're seeing a renaissance of people saying, I need more rest. I need time away. I need silence. I need all those kind of things because we've immersed ourselves in this and we've realized, oh, wait, maybe I can't handle this intensity. Right. For sure. I'm operating outside my speed limit. Yeah. My body wasn't made for this. Right. Yeah. Yeah, so I know, I know we've worked with our kids on that as well. And we do, I would say our home life is more technology-centered probably than some people have heard me talk about it might think. But the reality is that my kids are constantly outside the house doing other activities. Right. They're, they play sports. They, you know, they're just doing a lot of other things. And so when they're at home, if they want to chill out on their device and that's how they want to spend their time, not that big a deal. You know, my son's never been real device-driven. He reads a lot and those kind of things. And so, you know, that has its own challenges. But I think ultimately we've, we've kind of figured out, like in this, to your point, stage of life, this works and it's okay. Right. You know, it's not a huge problem. And so it's like, we're settled in there, but I can envision other times where we're kind of like, I mean, we have a, we're adopting a three-year-old and we don't have any, she doesn't use a tablet. She doesn't use a phone. Like she just runs around and, you know, we let her bother people and. Uh-huh. Uh-huh. Uh-huh. Yeah. Yeah. That's good. My two-year-old bothers me a lot too, so. Well, Christa, I mean, we're kind of coming up on time. I want to just let you share. I mean, if you had, like, sort of one piece, one real deep core advice to give to parents, what do you think it'd be? Like, just top of mind where you're, you've interacted with a lot of parents. You've seen a lot of this stuff. I mean, you were a junior high teacher. Yeah. What's, what's crucial here? You know, I think the, probably the number one thing I'd say is where you can disarm shame. I think shame is the number one enemy with technology. I think the enemy would like us to be isolated. He would like us to be alone. He would like us to hide the things that we're doing in the internet. He would like us to be in private spaces. And then he would like us to feel really, really bad and beat ourselves up, right? So that we kind of stay further and further in those isolated spaces. But I think if you can kind of establish in your home a baseline of, hey, we're on the same team and a lot of the stuff coming at us through these devices is, it's intentional. We're not going to be surprised by it. And we're going to operate like we are on your side. Nothing you can say is ever going to shock me. Yeah, nothing you can say is ever going to shock me. I'm your Google. If you have questions, don't Google them. Ask me. I know the answers. If you Google them, you might end up in spaces that you didn't intend to go. And just kind of establishing safety within your family to have hard, awkward conversations where you can reiterate, like, you are on each other's side. That you are not interested in kind of a family life that is, we're all doing battle against our own little addiction over here in this corner of our house. But that if we can all have kind of visibility to what's going on with each other. But the only way to do that is, is to kind of establish safety. You can tell me anything. I won't be shocked. Try me. And then, you know, repair when you, when you do overreact, right? Hey, I, I reacted. I was not safe for you. Can we try that again? I actually didn't show up the way I wanted to show up. And just kind of giving yourself the permission and the grace to say above all, we're going to prioritize our relationships with each other, our pursuit of Jesus. We're going to prioritize those things over our performance. How we're going to make mistakes. This thing's going to, this thing's going to give us trouble, but you know, Jesus kind of gave us a heads up with that, that in this world there will be trouble. And he also gave us the pathway out, which is we can, you know, we can repent and we can, we can have forgiveness and we can move forward. So I think disarming shame is probably the number one thing I would, I would. I love that. I think it, it connects with so many aspects of the conversation we've had and.

And in going back to the idea of Instagram and watching young families do what they do, there's a sense in which we can get to the point where we feel like we're not as good as we need to be. And we really just need to be comfortable in our own skin and allow God to use us where he's put us and not feel ashamed about any limitations that we might have, you know, just to continue growing, maybe grow past some of those limitations, but also just accept some of them, you know, just to continue growing, maybe grow past some of those limitations, but also just accept some of them, And be okay being limited creatures and trying to find others who can fill in the gaps for us. So I think that's a beautiful message. Yeah, I think one thing that has stood out to me this year, and actually I just released a newsletter about it yesterday, it's just this concept that in God's original act of making us, he made us with limits. Limits are not something that we need to apologize for or be ashamed of. They're not sin. They were a gift. They were a good gift that he created us with. And so to acknowledge that and to not crush ourselves under the metrics and the weight and the performance and the, like that that was never ours to hold. We aren't God. Like we're just human. Right. And so to reject the lie that technology makes you think you could be God, like you can't, that's not who you are. So it's good. God, God's good in that. So, yeah. Maggie, any last, any last questions for Christa you want to ask her? Not really any questions. I just, in one of your articles that you wrote, it just, this really stands out to me and I just, I pulled it up and I was just going to read through it. And you had said, because social media is a reality that's here to stay, there will come a time in your parenting journey when you will need to shift your mindset from protection to preparation to give safety goodbye as your top digital parenting goal. Why? Because safety on our own terms has never been a part of God's plan. Daniel was not safe in the lion's den. David was not safe with Goliath. Esther was not safe with Haman. God's people find safety in God alone. And I just, I love that, right? Like, and we need to be really focusing on our family. And like you said, our, you know, what is our family vision, our goal, right? We can't get around social media, you know, a whole lot. And it's, it's here to stay and it's only growing. So how can we put God at the center of it and, you know, really give it to him and, and let him protect our family. So I love that. I love that. And I believe that the gospel is true, even in the digital world. I just like, this is not a surprise to Jesus. Yep. Right. You're right. I love that. Awesome. Well, thanks for having me today. You guys. I really enjoyed our conversation. Yeah. Christa, thanks for being on. And we will, this is a great conversation. And so I think there's a million other ways we could have gone, but this was an excellent way to talk about these issues. And hopefully if anybody's out there who's got kids, works with kids, this will be a helpful conversation with them. And we'll post links to Christa's organization, her blog in the show notes. So everybody can get in touch with her. So thanks everybody for being here. Thank you, Maggie and Christa for being here. And thanks everybody for listening. We'll catch you on the next episode of Thinking Christian. I just want to take a second to thank the team at Life Audio for their partnership with us on the Thinking Christian podcast. If you go to lifeaudio.com, you'll find dozens of other faith-centered podcasts in their network. They've got shows about prayer, Bible study, parenting, and more. This is Chris Christensen. And back in 2006, I started a simple project. A project to try and introduce more people to the Bible through Bible study called the Bible Study Podcast. It's a simple name and a simple idea. Each week, every week, we study one chapter of the Bible, talk about what it says and what that might mean for us today. To listen now, go to lifeaudio.com or search for The Bible Study Podcast on your favorite podcast app.