When I read something disturbing, one of my first reactions is to share it with someone close to me (usually my wife). Depending on the context of it, I also stifle my desire to immediately respond. An excellent friend of mine once told me:
Hi, emotion equals low intelligence.
I wish I had known that earlier in my career. There were days as a young manager when my unfiltered and unreflected thoughts came rushing out of my mouth or out my fingertips in scathing diatribes against the offending people.
Fortunately, I was never very active on social media, so I think I avoided most of the gaffes that get people into trouble, but I have definitely had my share of troll-like moments on chat groups where someone said something that caused my blood pressure to rise.
There are two other sources of outrage, however, which do not automatically merit a response. The first is "the news." I often see articles posted online and hundreds (sometimes thousands) of comments. I wonder, is anyone reading all of these? I imagine some poor intern (but it's probably artificial intelligence now) scanning all the responses looking for clues on what to post next to draw a similar level of "engagement."
I can't ever remember adding my stick to the bonfire of opinions in that way. What would be the point?
Then there are the books. It's challenging to comment on a book. I suppose you can leave a review on Amazon or Audible. Does Libby support leaving comments and reviews? But this really is more about the book as a whole.
Yet, some concepts that rouse the most energy for me do tend to come from books. Human Compatible by Russell Stewart drew my concern over the narrow way we define intelligence (it is extremely deterministic). And most recently, Jonathan Haidt's book The Anxious Generation.
Haidt's book brings out into the open how smartphones and, in particular, some technology platforms are adversely affecting kids. As he describes it, the play-based childhood has been replaced with the phone-based childhood, and he has some pretty convincing data to support his claim that this is not good for kids, families, schools, or society.
Now, from my perspective, I noticed in myself a strong desire to shout this news from the rooftops. His message hit me so hard, probably because I am in the video games space, so I can see what he's talking about. Also, GameTruck deals predominantly with kids.
My whole mission was to create feelings of belonging through play. And, if done wisely, video games can help advance that mission. (But we also have games like Laser Tag, ZTAG, and Foam Parties in many markets.) Yet, Haidt's warnings opened my eyes to platforms like Roblox, which are using the same design methodology as Instagram and TikTok to hook users and monetize their attention.
Heck, if I did not know about this, and I am in the industry, what chance does a parent have who doesn't have time to play games or may not understand the risks these platforms pose to their children?
One reason it is hard for parents to assess the risk is that as a parent, your brain has largely finished forming. It takes until age 24 or 25 for the part of our brain that regulates distraction (the prefrontal cortex) to finish forming.
And as a friend and I observed last night, we parents have a hard time putting our phones down and breaking away from social media. Now imagine you literally had almost no ability to defend yourself from distraction. That's our kids. They are absolutely the most vulnerable to having their attention hacked. And now it happens continuously and daily.
The moment I understood that, I wanted to start screaming from the top of my lungs to everyone who would listen. Okay, I have never screamed, but I definitely started to engage in some intense conversations with parents. But does that help? Is it enough to just shout fire from the top of your lungs? And if you do, how does it help if there are no clearly marked fire exits?
If you go watch a movie, or enjoy a drink in a bar, the exits by law are clearly marked. If things get dangerous, people know where to go and what to do.
But what happens when the danger is in your pocket? Or worse, in your kids' pocket? Or even worse still, in their hands consuming their attention like a mental vacuum cleaner sucking their concentration away into a digital wasteland?
Where's the exit? How do you help people?
As a kid growing up in Michigan, when my parents moved to a neighborhood with better schools, I really struggled to make friends. That feeling of isolation and being left out haunted me through high school. It was not until I went to college that I started to get my footing on friendships and found my path.
Yet, all I have to do is see a kid at a GameTruck party, isolated and left out to go right back to those days in Farmington Hills, alone by myself. This is one reason we have a "no lone wolves" policy at GameTruck. Our coaches are trained to keep an eye out for disengaged, lonely kids and to get them into games. My belief is that if we play together, in person, we can create those magical feelings of belonging that increase someone's sense of self-worth, and self-acceptance.
Consequently, I tend to be very sensitive to anything that does the opposite. If a technology undermines a child's sense of belonging, or self-worth, to me, that is a big problem.
For the last few years, I've had a blind spot around what kinds of applications, platforms, and yes, games could pose a threat. Armed with better information, it is my mission to share this information with parents, educators, and anyone who cares about kids, but also to help identify solutions.
I believe there is value in being forewarned. If you don't know about the threat, what can you do about it? But just knowing about the threat is not enough. We need tools, resources, and best practices to help raise children to be healthy, happy, and joyful explorers of their future.
Because if we do not take action, we can see what is happening. We are watching a generation of kids succumb to mental illness, feeling timid, anxious, and in some cases, even suicidal.
No one wants that outcome. And it is preventable. And it all starts with knowing.
The heart of my keynote, Cheat Code, a parent's guide to stop fighting with your kids over video games, is rooted in understanding your child's frame of reference. Once you understand the experience your gamer is having, then the solutions become, if not self-evident, at least plausible and worth trying.
I have talked to dozens upon dozens of parents who tell me, after my keynote, they and their kids continued to have frank and productive conversations around video games. Sometimes their children even open up about their own fears about making friends, succeeding in school, or navigating the bizarre world of mediated social interaction. What is mediated social interaction? It is a situation where people only talk to each other using devices. Best-selling author and Harvard Professor Sherri Turkle has written extensively about this phenomenon.
While sad for their kids, the parents are nevertheless grateful to have a better connection with their children. I have not met a single parent who did not want to see their child grow up to achieve their potential. Yet sometimes, neither the parent nor the child knows what is needed.
It is my intention to find the most effective ways to help parents and kids get what they need to— well, if not put the genie back in the box, learn how to live with the genie in a way that the genie remains a beneficial servant. We definitely want to avoid the current path which seems to have set the technology up as some kind of perverse mechanistic overlord dominating children's unconscious behavior.
If you want to do your own research, there are at least two good places you can start. The first is reading The Anxious Generation by Jonathan Haidt, and the other is to read Reclaiming Conversation by Sherri Turkle. I will also continue to do my best to share what I learn and what I put into practice. I will also share what parents tell me is effective.
As they say, the struggle is real. However, I do have hope that together we can make it safe for kids to be online. I know that together, with intentionality, we can restore the play-based childhood.
