338: Is Big Tech the New Big Tobacco? with Maya Sulkin and Frannie Block

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[00:00:02] Maya Sulkin: these are not people that had no idea what was going on with their kid, and they’re locking themselves in their room. It’s like they’re going to school, they have friends, they’re eating family dinners, they’re going to church with them on Sundays. But there’s this kind of whole other life that they’re living online that their parents really cannot get in on. 

[00:00:18] Narrator: Anyone who’s ever caught themselves scrolling for too long, especially on reels, knows that social media is designed to draw you in and keep you hooked. Imagine what that does to a kid’s developing brain. 

[00:00:28] Frannie Block: So there’s actually a trial ongoing right now in California. It’s seen as, they’re calling it the bellwether case. So like I said, there’s literally thousands of people who have filed some form of like a personal injury lawsuit essentially against these social media companies. 

[00:00:45] In their article is social media. The new big tobacco reporters Maya Sulkin and Frannie Block reveal how big tech companies rake in profits by deliberately targeting our kids.

[00:00:54] Maya Sulkin: What these documents reveal however, is not only that they knew that people were suffering mental health issues because of use on the platforms, their own internal studies show that especially for young people, there’s a lot of negative mental health side effects. 

[00:01:10] Randi Rubenstein: My name is Randi Rubenstein, and welcome to the Mastermind Parenting Podcast. At Mastermind Parenting, we’re on a mission to support strong-willed kids and the families that love them. 

[00:01:20] Maya Frannie. Same ages as my oldest two children wrote this amazing article in the Free Press, “Is Social Media, the New Big Tobacco,” and I wanna know after investigating and then writing this article as Gen Zers. Did anything change for you guys personally after investigating and writing this article?

[00:01:46] Frannie Block: So obviously Maya and I were young women we’re both in our mid twenties and we were probably among the first generation of kids to grow up with screens being so prevalent in our lives. We may not have been iPad babies, but we definitely had access to screens and to social media really young. 

[00:02:06] I remember actually 13 years old, begging my mom to let me get a Facebook account, and she did. ‘Cause at the time, that was the age limit, 13 and I got on Facebook. And so growing up in that generation, I definitely do feel this attachment to my phone, especially now being a journalist, I think that attachment’s even stronger. 

[00:02:24] And I’ve always known that I’ve had this addiction to my phone, but I think digging into the court documents here in these cases, and, just for context for the listeners, there’s over 1600 cases filed against these big social media companies. You have Meta, which is Facebook and Instagram, YouTube, you have also TikTok and Snapchat, Snap the parent company. So over 1600 cases filed against these companies alleging that they’ve caused essentially irreparable harm, not just to the mental health of young people, but to their physical health and wellbeing as well.

[00:03:02] And so once we started digging more into the evidence behind these cases, I have to say I found it pretty shocking to realize, especially the internal conversations that were happening behind the scenes at these companies in which they were acknowledging that they knew that their algorithms, that their products were likely hurting young kids.

[00:03:21] Maya Sulkin: Yeah, and I think I would just add, anyone who, you don’t have to be a young person. Anyone who spends time on social media anecdotally, probably would say, I don’t feel, I feel worse the more time I spend on this app. And I think we’ve known that culturally for a long time. What these documents reveal however, is not only that they knew that people were suffering mental health issues because of use on the platforms, their own internal studies show that especially for young people, there’s a lot of negative mental health side effects. 

[00:03:58] What was really startling in the reporting is just how those concerns were weighed against just time spent in the app, because that means revenue. And so watching or reading those internal conversations, it’s like vindicating in a way because you realize, wow, I’m not crazy that this makes me feel worse the longer I’m on it. It’s actually the experience of most people and the people that created these platforms knew that was the case.

[00:04:25] Randi Rubenstein: I. pulled a little excerpt that I would love to read, also for some context, and then maybe you guys can even weigh in further. 

[00:04:37] “The explosive core allegation is that TikTok, Meta’s Facebook and Instagram, Snapchat, and Google’s YouTube not only knew that they were deliberately exploiting children’s attention for profit, but that they, but that their business strategy,” right, ROI “fueled a mental health crisis and destabilized schools. 

[00:04:58] This might not seem surprising at all to parents who have seen their children disappear into smartphones, swiping for hours, never sated, but it has never been proven in court. The companies are trying to get the case thrown out before it goes to trial. Both sides will fight it out at an at a crucial hearing next month. 

[00:05:16] ‘I think parents really should just give their kids cigarettes instead of social media,’ said Matthew Bergman, founder of the Social Media Victims Law Center.”

[00:05:24] That is something that for years and years, I have coached parents, and, and while battling, my kids are your kids’ ages and, have, did y’all, have y’all studied anything by Jonathan Haidt? Yeah, so Anxious Generation, he says y’all are the ages, if you came into adolescence after 2012, I think is when it was, which is exactly when you guys came, right? Like that’s pretty much when it’s when it happened for you guys. My kids too, like, that you’re the most screwed. 

[00:06:04] You’re, and I tell my kids, I’m like, this is, and we, it was the wild west, and so I was seeing it, and I had to hear from my daughter. I’m the only girl in all of middle school who doesn’t have Snapchat. Who doesn’t have Snapchat. Everybody’s on Snapchat. And I had already made mistakes with my older son who’s Frannie’s age. So I was like, with each kid, I was like, we’re gonna make even less mistakes. But it was such a battle. 

[00:06:32] And then by eighth grade, I finally broke down and I let her have Instagram, ’cause I was like, maybe Instagram’s not as bad as, ’cause I know the guy who, I had read the stories about Snapchat really being an app that was all about like getting nudes from girls. And so I was like, that’s a bad dude. So, Instagram maybe is a little more wholesome. 

[00:06:54] Not realizing that she was going into her bedroom on the phone. She was, the algorithm was feeding her my daughter, who had been like, a tomboy her whole life, never really like, really not, I almost called her like the feral child. Like she was just, just playing and wild and all of a sudden the algorithm was feeding her Victoria’s Secrets models, Victoria’s Secrets models, and, she, it completely affected her body image. And and she, at the time she couldn’t tell me those things. 

[00:07:31] And so I was telling parents forever as I was going through it, I was like, we are literally handing our kids a pack of cigarettes and saying, smoke it up. And as a former smoker who had a really hard time getting that monkey off my back, like, what the fuck are we doing? And and also like battling it and not knowing how to stop it in my own home. It was such an impossible time.

[00:07:57] Maya Sulkin: Yeah, I think it’s such an interesting question right now in the age of tracking your kids and they, you have their locations. You, we know where your kids are all the time. You’re constantly texting them. The question is like, can you ever really fully protect them? And a lot of the parents you’ve spoken to, like, like your, like with your kid, they’re in their homes, they’re safe, they’re in their bedrooms, but they’re encapsulated by this world that their parents have really no entry point into. 

[00:08:27] And speaking especially about like the Victoria Secret model ads and all this stuff, Frannie and I have done a few follow-up stories, one of them being about eating disorder content, and how harmful it is for young girls and how young women get trapped in like what they call an eating disorder bubble, and it’s an algorithm, and how that has significantly impacted young women. And it doesn’t take more than a few minutes on the app to get hit by these ads.

[00:08:57] Frannie Block: And I’ll also say the story we most recently published specifically about this eating disorder content. We spoke with a mom who told her daughter’s story. I think really showcases how this algorithm works, how you can get drawn and sucked into this bubble. 

[00:09:13] So she said during the COVID-19 pandemic, her daughter, who was about 15 years old at the time, she was an athlete and they’d all been sent home. And so she was looking on Instagram, at home workouts, healthy meals, things like that, that she wanted to, do a 20 minute HIIT workout at home. While she was at home during COVID because she was missing the sports season. 

[00:09:34] And from there, just within a few months, this mom told me that her daughter got sucked in to then seeing this content about what I eat in a day, which turned into how to eat less than 500 calories in a day. She was seeing content about instagram challenges that people who were really skinny would try to fit into swings that were made for babies in the park. And that was an Instagram challenge, and it was supposed to be something laudable if you could fit in that swing. 

[00:10:02] And from there, her daughter got sucked into this bubble and within a few months was in an eating disorder clinic fighting for her life. Like she, she had, she had serious health problems and her mom said, we really didn’t know if she was gonna make it. 

[00:10:17] Maya Sulkin: A And one. 

[00:10:17] Frannie Block: She has, but the family’s now joined these groups in ensuing social media companies alleging this harm.

[00:10:24] Maya Sulkin: One thing that’s so striking also in talking to these parents is like, in many cases they’re not, they’re parents that are not isolated from their kids. They’re very close to them. Like they say, I thought I was having all of the right conversations. I thought that I was like getting between my kid and whatever harmful content there was online. You think about cyber bullying or porn or drug deals, whatever it is, but there was really no protecting your kid from what they get served on a platform like Instagram.

[00:10:53] And so, to the parenting question, it’s like, again, these are not people that had no idea what was going on with their kid, and they’re locking themselves in their room. It’s like they’re going to school, they have friends, they’re eating family dinners, they’re going to church with them on Sundays. but there’s this kind of whole other life that they’re living online that their parents really cannot, arbitrate or like get in on.

[00:11:17] Randi Rubenstein: I’ve lived it, so, and as you guys have, and I’m sure your parents have, and it, I just am so happy that articles like yours are coming out and, books like The Anxious Generation and all the press that Jonathan Haidt is doing, because I like, what is it gonna take, to finally hold these companies accountable?

[00:11:43] And the whole thing about it being free speech, and I even saw in some of the comments from your article, a couple of people talking, this is a parenting issue. This is, and it’s like, well, if you are saying that, you haven’t walked this walk like this. 

[00:12:01] Because I’ve been here, I’m even a parenting professional and I have a kid, my, my, sophomore in college son, he has been on a flip phone. He’s, we’re calling it the flip phone experiment since the summer because he’s trying so hard to reprogram his brain because, he hasn’t had TikTok in years, but he’s like, but then I just replaced it with Instagram reels, and it’s that short form content that just freaking hooks you. 

[00:12:31] Maya Sulkin: Yeah, and all of these stuck. All of these studies are now coming out that basically say like the, those short to short form videos, the way that they basically just completely warp your attention span is really concerning. 

[00:12:44] And the one thing I’ll say that I, think is one of the best things to come out of the Haidt movement, in addition, just to like, the recognition is that, like you said with your daughter, it’s really hard to say to your kid when all of their friends have Instagrams, no, you can’t have an Instagram because they feel left out and they feel like they’re not part of something and they feel excluded. 

[00:13:04] And what Jonathan Haidt has done with his Anxious Generation movement is basically empower parents to create these pods, where they agree with other parents and with their kids. You know what, like whatever, these five girls, they don’t have phones. And when they wanna hang out, they’re gonna meet at the park at this time and we’re all gonna drive them and I’ll pick them up. 

[00:13:27] Because again, it’s really hard to be a young girl, especially, and feel like all my friends are doing this thing that I’m not. And so the ability to empower people to create these like little worlds for themselves where they’re not just on their screens all day is a huge part of this.

[00:13:42] Randi Rubenstein: Yeah. No, it’s so true and I’ve loved when I’ve heard him say the same thing about pods and validate the fact that it’s pretty much impossible to do it in a silo of one.

[00:13:55] Maya Sulkin: Yeah.

[00:13:56] Randi Rubenstein: Right, and especially during adolescence. Like it’s hard enough to be an adolescent kid and especially an adolescent girl. And then to say, oh, and now I’m gonna give you this, here is a really tangible reason why you’re gonna feel like you don’t fit in and you don’t belong. Like, that’s such a hard choice to make as a parent, to know that your kid’s going through the, one of the hardest times in their life or, during their childhood, one of the hardest times of childhood is adolescence. And to say, and I’m gonna make it even harder, right? It feels impossible. 

[00:14:34] And I think that is why I broke down and finally said, well, I guess Instagram’s better than Snapchat. And, but it had harmful effects. And and so, so we’re, I think in the article you guys, ’cause this article was in December, you said that in a month there was gonna be some big hearing. Do y’all know how that turned out?

[00:14:57] Frannie Block: So there’s actually a trial ongoing right now in California. It’s seen as, they’re calling it the bellwether case. So like I said, there’s literally thousands of people who have filed some form of like a personal injury lawsuit essentially against these social media companies. This is the first one to go to trial, and we’ve already seen testimony from Adam Mosseri, who’s the head of Instagram. Mark Zuckerberg has testified, the CEO of YouTube is also expected to testify. Actually TikTok and Snap, they settled before trial. But like I said, there’s many other cases down the line, so it’s very likely we’ll see 

[00:15:34] Maya Sulkin: And there’s also a federal case that will likely go to trial in the early summer.

[00:15:39] Randi Rubenstein: And so right now it’s, are we, like, what do you think the best case scenario is? Like what, what would be the best case scenario from this trial? Because laws aren’t gonna come directly from this trial, so, yeah.

[00:15:56] Maya Sulkin: Well, I think there’s like a, the, you look to places like Australia or Indonesia, France, Spain, Netherlands, they’re starting to enact these nationwide age limits. That is a really great first step. The question of these trials is basically, do they knowingly cause harm? And if so, are they liable? And so that, that’s the core of the legal question. And we don’t really know what comes of that. 

[00:16:23] As the trials unfolded, Meta has, Meta specifically has released new, like product implementations, like enhanced teen accounts and things like this. You can see them actively trying to combat this as the trial is unfolding. But age limits are possible. Other places have done them and I think that’s a pretty reasonable place to start.

[00:16:46] Randi Rubenstein: Age limits. And I think I heard Jonathan say like he, it was Australia in 2025 that instituted the age limits. He’s already got, I think another five countries or so. And he said by the end of 2026, I think he’s hoping for 15 countries. So, yeah, I guess this puts pressure on putting those age limits in place.

[00:17:13] Frannie Block: I also wanna point out one aspect of this trial that’s really unique and why it’s such a big deal is that previously these social media companies have been able to avoid liability for the content on their platforms. And they’ve done this by invoking section 230 of the Communications Decency Act, which basically a allows them to skirt liability by saying, you know what? Like, we haven’t created this content. We’re basically just acting as the public square, and you’re not gonna, you, you can’t hold us liable for content that essentially we didn’t create. 

[00:17:46] But what’s really novel about these lawsuits that are starting to go on now is that the plaintiffs in the suits are arguing, we’re not talking about the content, we’re actually talking about the products. You created your algorithm, and they’re arguing that these social media companies intentionally created an algorithm that is one, addictive. We talked about, the scroll, the infinite scroll, they call it the slot machine effect. Like it gives you that little saturation of, joy, but then you’re not always satisfied and you wanna keep scrolling. 

[00:18:16] But two, not just that it’s addictive, but that it’s harmful and that these companies knew it was harmful. And that’s where the liability is, that they continued to target young people even though they knew that it was bad for them.

[00:18:28] So again, I, that’s another really important aspect of why these cases are such a big deal and why it actually has the potential to have really large downstream effects. Because prior to this, these social media companies, they haven’t been able to be held liable for anything that’s happened on their platforms really.

[00:18:46] Randi Rubenstein: Yeah, no, and I was talking after I read your article, I was talking with my son who’s doing the flip phone experiment and ’cause of course I’ve been sending him all, the articles, all the things, which mostly he’s like, I know, and so then I have to just give him the Cliff Notes. I’m sure you guys can relate. 

[00:19:06] And, and we were, I always said, there’s something in this article that talks about how the social media companies supposedly do have some things in place and he, and maybe you guys can clarify this, ’cause this was a few months ago, but he said something about the Snapchat streak. He, the thing that they say they, the protection they have put in place, corey said, that’s bullshit. Because if you want to pause the streak, like they say you can do, then you have to pay. Like it’s behind a paywall or I don’t know if, y’all can explain it better than I can.

[00:19:50] Frannie Block: So I’m not as familiar with the specific fix or whatever that is on Snapchat. I will say that a lot of these companies have tried to implement, as Maya said, some sort of a teen safety function, whether that’s. Teen accounts on meta, on Instagram, Facebook, whether that’s, on Snapchat I heard that there may be implementing, like you said, you could pause your streaks so that kids don’t feel as addicted and obsessed with keeping them alive every single day.

[00:20:17] With that being said, I’ve spoken to parents who are like, say, had the same reaction as your son. Like, this is absolute bullshit. My kid is smart enough to figure out how to get around these things. And when it comes to the teen accounts on Instagram, for example, that were just announced last week as this trial’s ongoing, a mom basically told me like, I have to buy into the teen account, but so does my kid.

[00:20:39] That’s actually a really, hard thing to do as well as to get your kid to agree to essentially allow their parents to monitor their entire existence online as well. That’s a weird privacy breach for the kid, from their perspective, and they may not wanna agree to that.

[00:20:54] Maya Sulkin: A and also streaks is a really interesting one because these documents basically show, like as far back as 2018, the Snapchat CEO, his name’s Evan Spiegel, basically wrote to, to senior product managers and asked to kill the, the streak feature, which as basically requires daily use to keep up this number. And, he said within the lawsuit that it was like the right thing to do. And, the kind, the, product team writes back that, the streak feature was an accidentally addictive, somewhat unhealthy feature that gamifies friendship in a weird way, that’s a direct quote, but they decide to continue promoting the streak feature because it was a main driver of engagement. 

[00:21:36] And so we went to Snapchat and asked about this, and they gave the same comment that your son was responding to, which was, these streaks are only visible between friends. We don’t want them to feel pressure to maintain them. We’ve made it easy to break and restore them. 

[00:21:49] But what they don’t say and what Meta will not say when we respond to comment is like, but also it costs money to do that. Or, but also you can lie about your age or, but also your parent has to opt in and I don’t know any 16-year-old that is opting their parents in to an Instagram teen account.

[00:22:05] Randi Rubenstein: Exactly. Yeah. And the whole, it costs money to opt in. It’s like they, it’s almost like you can imagine they’re like, okay, we’ll make ’em think that we’re putting these parameters in place to keep the kids safe. But really, there’s a big ROI on, on our end. Like, like that in and of itself is like, that’s, I was 

[00:22:34] Maya Sulkin: It’s really clear just from these internal communications. Like, you have to remember these are publicly traded companies that their ultimate loyalty are to their shareholders and to the stock price. And so when confronted with these kinds of decisions, like maintaining the time people spend on the app versus, mitigating harm, like the calculus for them is. How do we make money? and you make money by having people on the app for as long as possible, serving them as many ads as possible. 

[00:23:07] And so part of this is just like these weren’t created to be like wellness spaces. These are huge businesses. 

[00:23:16] Randi Rubenstein: These are huge businesses and there was a lot of psychology and strategy. Like, I mean on the, on all of these different companies teams, like they came up with the whole slot machine effect and what do we need to do to keep people on the platform as much as possible? So, that’s baked into their business model. Am I.

[00:23:44] Maya Sulkin: Yeah, one really, like gut wrenching quote from, the, these, documents is from Aza Raskin and he invented the infinite scroll. And he basically said like, watching people be on a bus or in a classroom and flick through because of invention that I made. He said something to the tune of like, I have a, pit in my stomach. and it’s like pretty hard to live with. And this is like a product engineer at YouTube. 

[00:24:16] And I think, the, most generous read is like, these people in the moment did not understand what they were building. This guy is clearly expressing regrets, but at a certain point, okay, you know what you’ve built, you understand the harms. And so these lawsuits are really important because they’re asking, and what are the repercussions, if any?

[00:24:37] Frannie Block: I’ll also add to that again, as part of these lawsuits, one of the things we’re getting for the first time is this inside look into internal communications between employees at these companies. And some of them are really concerning, where, they almost are very lighthearted about the impact of the product that they’re making as they’re realizing how bad it is for young people.

[00:25:00] And there’s this one communication from inside Meta, where somebody goes, oh, good, like we’re going after people who are under 13 years old now? And somebody said, yeah, Zuckerberg’s been talking about that for a while. And somebody said, yeah, that, that was gross when he mentioned that. Like, that’s the level that they’re talking about it, where they’re like, yeah, that’s gross. Moving on. 

[00:25:20] Meanwhile you have these data teams inside these companies creating these reports that are showing that kids are more anxious, more depressed, the longer that they spend on these apps. And then you see communications where they go, okay, but our ultimate goal is increasing time span on the app.

[00:25:36] So it’s this cycle where there’s this acknowledgement not really sitting with the gravity of what, they’ve found. And then on the other end, they’re implementing more ways to try to make kids spend more time on these apps.

[00:25:51] Randi Rubenstein: Yeah, and I think, I think. The generous lens that Maya just pointed out of like, people are, like that, developer, he has a pit in his stomach now seeing the ramifications of what he invented. And I think a lot of times it’s why moms start movements. Because if you think about it, it’s like if this is harming kids and 13 year olds, well maybe a lot of the developers are far away from when they were 13 and they’re not thinking of, they’re thinking still as a 13-year-old, you think you’re invincible. You’re not thinking, oh, this is, this could really harm me in years to come. Right. 

[00:26:37] And maybe you’re not yet a parent or maybe you’re a parent of a very young child and you don’t have a 13-year-old, you haven’t entered into the, can I have a phone? Can I have a phone? All my friends have phones. Right. So you haven’t entered into that, or you haven’t entered into your kids not knowing how to play and entertain themselves? 

[00:26:59] I’m going, I, go through tech detoxes with my families that I’ve worked with all the time. And, and the first three weeks are, hell. I have a couple I met with yesterday whose daughter is, she’s neurodivergent. Very high functioning, and they, she’s nine and a half and they just decided to homeschool her. ’cause she had a teacher that like really didn’t get her, and, and it was harmful. 

[00:27:29] So they’re like, okay, we’ll pull her out. We’ll, homeschool her, but now she’s not, to get her to sit down and do her work, all she wants to do is be on her iPad. And, and they were pretty loose with, they’re like, she mostly likes to watch educational things on YouTube. Short form educational things on YouTube, and so they didn’t really think it was that big of a deal. She was going to school, she does other things, whatever. She was on her iPad, they didn’t really keep track, and now all of a sudden she’s home all day. And, and so there’s a lot of resistance. 

[00:28:05] And so we’re putting some parameters around it. And they’re both anticipating, oh God, she’s gonna be really upset about this. And they know how hard, because then they have to deal with the tantrum. They have to deal with the meltdown and the aftermath. And I think a lot of times people working in these companies, if you’re not at that stage of life, and if you’re not dealing with that struggle in your own home, I think a lot of times it can be hard to really understand or empathize with the people who are in that situation.

[00:28:39] Maya Sulkin: Yeah, I also think there’s a reason everyone says these, like tech CEOs don’t give their kids phones, or they have like 15 minutes of screen time a week. It’s like these are the people that understand most fundamentally and thoroughly what these products do. And they are not giving them their kids in the way that the rest of us are. 

[00:29:00] Randi Rubenstein: I’ve read, I’ve read that, that a lot of them, and I don’t know, this could just be hearsay, make their nannies like, sign, sign all kinds of things, saying that the kids are not even allowed, like the nanny isn’t allowed to be on their phone, and the kids are definitely not allowed to. They, don’t want a screen around their kids. 

[00:29:23] So yeah, they’re putting, they’re, making sure that they can put their kids in a bubble, but then they’re like, yeah, and screw the rest of you. ’cause we can afford a nanny perk child and we can make sure that, and they send their kids to the Waldorf School, which is like this very holistic, all in nature. so they are protecting sort of old school childhood for their kids. Now all of the rest of us are out here trying so hard to just like, help kids lean into the boredom, learn how to play again. 

[00:30:00] And I’ve said this many times, I’m like, what kid is gonna be like, oh, I think I’ll go climb a tree or look for tadpoles, when you can have cocaine level highs right here and you don’t have to leave your couch. It’s, I just think it’s human nature to quite often just go to the screen if it’s available. 

[00:30:22] Frannie Block: It’s that quick dopamine hit right in front of you. It’s almost too easy.

[00:30:27] Maya Sulkin: And it’s also like surpassed even just the kids. Like in my reporting, like when I talk to young people, a lot of them say like, it’s really frustrating my parents telling me to get off my phone when I’m at dinner, and they’re on their phone the whole time. Like, so I think there’s also a certain level of like, So you’re mature enough or old enough that you can be on your Instagram or on your Facebook all day, but I can’t. and so, yeah. 

[00:30:56] Randi Rubenstein: they do. They kids are, very reasonable. And when you show up with hypocrisy, kids are the ultimate whistleblowers. My kid did it to me. My youngest did it to me in, when he was in fourth grade. And and I was like, on my phone, I don’t know what, whatever we were doing. 

[00:31:21] And he was just like, why are you on that phone when you’re with me? And I was like, well, I’m running a business a lot of the time from this thing. He was like, okay, well then you don’t have to be with me. Go work. Like he was basically saying like have a little work life balance, before he knew that language, but he totally called me out on it and I was like, you are so right.

[00:31:44] If I wanna teach my kids that people comes before tech. Right. So let’s have experiences. Let’s feel alive. Let’s connect with other human beings. But then when I’m with you, I’m constantly on my device. Like that is so hypocritical. And my kid was like, yeah, no. 

[00:32:02] And I’m so glad that he did it because he, it was all, I had been a stay at home mom and I just started this business and I was, I really wanted to be working on my business all the time. I was so excited by it. Right. And so, just hanging out, finding out about my kids’ day, no, I really wanted to be working, but he was okay, so go do that. 

[00:32:27] Maya Sulkin: Just the being for anyone, just always reachable. like I was laughing with a coworker the other day, maybe it was you Frannie, I was like, there’s no such thing as like, like you used to be able to like, have a sick day and you could like watch bad TV and like you, you didn’t have to like go to a meeting. Now it’s like, no, you have to go to the Zoom meeting. And like

[00:32:47] Frannie Block: Or Zoom snow days.

[00:32:48] Maya Sulkin: Yeah. Yeah. And the idea that like, you’re at dinner with friends or, I have this all the time because I my life, I live my life according to the news cycle, which I don’t recommend for anyone trying to wean off technology. But like, I’ve had my own friends say to me like, we’re at dinner right now and like, I left work early and got a train to meet you. Like I don’t wanna sit and watch you like Slack your coworkers. 

[00:33:12] And I think like when people out of love and just because they want your attention and time, say that to you, it is really grounding because it’s like, yeah, wow. I’ve been on the other side of the table where I’m like, this isn’t fun for me to watch you text someone. But we’ve just been made to be always reachable, and that’s expected of everyone. 

[00:33:30] And so, like you’re saying, I think just making a pact with yourself, your family, whoever it is, like I’m actually not, I’m at dinner right now for an hour. Like I’ll respond to you in an hour. That’s really hard.

[00:33:42] Frannie Block: I think also there’s this trend that went viral maybe like a year and a half ago, and it was young people like our age would go out to dinner with their friends and place all of their phones in the middle of the table, and whoever reached for their phone first had to pay for everybody’s dinner that night. And in that trend, I think was a kind of sad kernel of truth, which is that our generation is so addicted, so obsessed with these devices that we literally may not be able to get through a dinner without looking at them unless we physically remove ourselves. 

[00:34:16] Maya Sulkin: Yeah. At dinner where you’re like, with the people that like you’re normally texting, it’s like you’re not even by yourself. You’re like with your friends.

[00:34:23] Frannie Block: Yeah, exactly.

[00:34:24] Maya Sulkin: it’s, yeah.

[00:34:25] Randi Rubenstein: Right. Or with your parents, right. Yeah, so just starting with, having some rules in place of, there’s, yeah, there’s not gonna be screens at the dinner table. it’s, I think it sounds crazy that would seem like such a big deal, but it’s not even on a lot of people’s radars. And so I think, starting with things like that. 

[00:34:51] Okay. Well, ladies. Keep fighting the good fight and reporting and, yeah, I was just so thrilled and I loved the name of your article. It just spoke to me that I was like, I gotta, we gotta talk more about this. And, yeah. Do you have any final thoughts or anywhere you would like to direct the listeners if they’re listening to this and they’re just like, Ugh, where do we go from here? I would love to hear.

[00:35:21] Frannie Block: So you brought up that the title of our article, “Is Social Media the New Big Tobacco?” I guess one of the things I would leave listeners with is that there’s actually really clear evidence that it is. And that even if you look at the legal teams who are taking these lawsuits to court right now, you’re actually seeing some of the same lawyers that have argued big tobacco cases, argued cases against, pharmaceutical companies with respect to opiates. You’re seeing these same lawyers now coming forward to help these families try to fight for justice and fight for, for their kids who’ve been, harmed by these apps. 

[00:35:56] So in terms of the question is social media the new to Big Tobacco, you are seeing, a lot of similarities between what happened 50 years ago with these companies that knew that they were marketing this product that was bad for people and they continue to do so. You’re seeing a lot of those same similar arguments now coming to court today, and the same lawyers are bringing those arguments forward.

[00:36:15] Maya Sulkin: Yeah. I would also just add, I think, I talk to young people and I also talk to parents all day, and a lot of them say like, they just feel really alone. Either it’s young people saying like, I can’t get off my phone, and like, I don’t know what to do and I feel like I’m the only one going through this. Or parents say like, I have a great kid, and like they have their head screwed on straight, but like, something has changed in them and I don’t know what I’m doing wrong. 

[00:36:42] And I think one thing that these trials have made really clear, given there are over a thousand of them, is that this is, a national, global problem. You are not alone. And it’s gonna take a lot of effort and, collaboration to fix, but I think that the fact that we’re even reckoning with these questions in a legal and serious way, is a huge start. That, even though reading through these court documents can make you pretty nihilistic, I actually have a lot of optimism, because the parents in these cases are just heroes. And, there is just so much energy and power, being put at, solving this problem.

[00:37:24] Randi Rubenstein: That’s a perfect place to end. Thanks so much for being here, and I know this was so helpful for so many people. Yeah, thanks. Thanks for being here.

[00:37:34] Maya Sulkin: Thank you for having us.

[00:37:36] Randi Rubenstein: Bye everyone. I. 

[00:37:37] Thanks for listening today, guys. I hope you picked up some tips, tools, maybe some baby steps for creating more balance and boundaries in your life. And I just wanted to let you know, if you want to continue moving the needle forward in creating this for yourself, having a happier household, I want you to go to my website and check out mastermindparenting.com. We have three beginning programs, and if you need some accountability and more support then please look for the one that would be a good fit for you.

[00:38:11] And, as always, we’re on all the social channels under Mastermind Parenting, on Instagram it’s mastermind_parenting. And, you know, periodically I do pop up on different Instagram lives, Facebook lives where I give you teaching and coaching and I love engaging with you live to help you help your strong-willed kids so that they can feel better, because when they feel better they do better, and I love, getting to know you guys. 

[00:38:45] So thanks for listening. If you like this podcast, please don’t forget to subscribe, rate and review. Super, appreciative.