Speaker 1: What's going on. Thank you so much for listening to
this podcast. It is heard live every day from noon
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smartphone or tablet, and again, thank you so much for
your support. Last hour talking about the bill that the
state legislature is looking at to go after social media
platforms for allowing kids under the age of fourteen to
be on their sites, be able to sue them, they'll
be able to find them, and whatnot. There are also
other restrictions for fourteen and fifteen year olds. My view
on it is no smartphones for anybody under the age
of eighteen. Now, you know, lowercase libertarian, and so I'm
kind of uncomfortable with an outright like advocacy campaign for
gov CO to ban this stuff. But I'm hard pressed
to see a reason why anybody under the age of
eighteen needs a smartphone when they can have a phone
that has texting, that has you know, phone calls has
GPS on it, you know, a very limited, stripped down version,
so you don't have all of the social media apps.
So because just all of the evidence I've seen, it
just creates more harm and doesn't really provide any good whatsoever. Right,
So but again that like that it makes me uncomfortable
to say gov CO should mandate that. I don't know
where I'm and I don't really know where I stand
on like getting the government outright ban it. But okay, fine,
ban it. I'm convinced. No, I don't know. I wrestle
with this. I wrestle with it. You know, maybe there's
like a different level of phone you get at seventeen
and eighteen that has the ability to take pictures in video.
I don't know. I understand that people are going to
find ways around all of this stuff. Always. There'll be
black markets created, always, right, I don't know what the
fines would be or the penalties or whatever you catch
a kid who's sixteen with a you know, with a
black market adult phone or something. Yeah, I haven't thought
about any of that stuff. So, like right now, the
first thing is to like set as a standard for
the society with a penalty of you know, shame and
an enforcement mechanism of essentially peer pressure among parents to
not give the phones to the kids to make that
the abnormality. Also, legislation was filed in the State House
of represent Oh, hang on, before I get to that
the new legislation. Let me did up some messages here.
This was from Rayos who says, really appreciate your insight
into that topic. And screenstrong dot org is the website
no phone till eighteen, free more free play with friends. Yeah, like,
those are the things that you can do to help
combat the harms that social media has created. And it's
mainly social media. And I don't hate social media. I
just hate everybody on it. No, I'm kidding, but no,
the juice is not worth the squeeze for the for
the kids. It's it's just not seth says. I wonder
how many kids in therapy would quit using their smartphone
if the shrink told them that that's why they are said,
that's a that's a good question, and that there is
a connection. I don't know how many mental health professionals
advise their clients reduce your smartphone use. I try try
not to try to delete your social media apps. I mean,
I can't do it. I mean I could quit anytime
I wanted to, but I needed for my job. You see.
So I'm different. But I honestly I use Twitter now
differently than I did, probably even five years ago. I
engage with trolls at a far less frequency than I
used to. I would argue and mix it up with
the trolls and all this. I don't. I don't really
do that so much anymore. Okay, every now and again,
you know, just to kind of convince myself that, yeah,
still got so I you know, I'll take a bite
of that forbidden fruit every now and again. But mainly
I use it as as a wire service. What stories
are moving, what are people saying about stuff? And then
I bookmark stuff. In fact, I think probably using the
bookmarks in order to flag things. That's that's now become
my primary use of Twitter. I don't really use Facebook anymore.
I have the accounts. I have an Instagram account. I
think I've never posted because of what I do. I
go out and I reserve my names on the various
sites so nobody can take them. But I don't. I
don't pull. Yeah, I don't post on these on these
other apps because you spend what I spend way too
much time on them, and I have a justification for them,
because if I didn't have to do or if I
didn't have to keep up with almost literally everything going
on in the world at any given moment, you know,
you always have to kind of be I talk about
it like being on a treadmill. And you know, I
took Friday and Monday off. I went up to New
York and saw the parents. They're they're they're doing okay,
but you know, they're almost eighty, so they've got some
health issues going on. And so we went up there
for for a long weekend to see them and I
could and I was talking with them about this is
that whenever I go on a vacation, I'm really like,
if I take a week vacation, my vacation is really
only about half of that time because the first three
to four days I can completely unplug and I don't
look at any social media. I don't look at the
news or anything, because when I come back, nobody's really
expecting me to talk about a topic that popped in
the news and then went away almost immediately from a
week ago. So I can tune out at the beginning
of a week's vacation, but about halfway through, I now
need to start ramping up again. I have to get
back on the treadmill. I mean, I'm not gonna go
like running immediately. Oh you know, started at like a
level three. Just walk, you know, walk slowly, whatever, just
kind of touch base, see what's going on, scroll through
a little bit, and then put it away. But then
as I get closer to coming back on air, like
all like yesterday was, you know, going through the websites,
going through the show prep material like that, that's just
part of the routine. If I didn't have to do that,
I wouldn't do it. And that's why I guess there's
part of me. I don't understand why go on to
all of the social media for so long. I guess
maybe you're getting fed a lot of stuff all the
time that's of interest, But I don't, like, I don't know.
I I wouldn't go there. I wouldn't do it if
I didn't have to. Now I can say that because,
you know, because I do have the justification for it,
So I know that I can say that, and you know,
but I do enjoy the detoxing. I do. Like when
I went up, I looked at it a little bit
at the airport and then that was it for the
first day. And usually on the weekends, I put it
away on like Saturday, and I don't. I try not
to look at my phone at all, you know, unless
i'm eating I'll pull it up, I'll look through something
and while I'm eating lunch or something, and then it
goes away. So I try to make an effort. And
that's you know, baby steps here people, baby steps, Okay,
Chris said Pete. I don't think any kid still in
junior high should have a smartphone or social media access.
I say ban both outright for anybody under fifteen between
fifteen and eighteen. Wait, so ban smartphones and social media
for anybody under the age of fifteen between fifteen and eighteen.
The high school years, they can have both, but comments
and likes or dislikes should be automatically disabled, so the
kids can post and view that they cannot receive any
comments or likes and dislikes on their posts at all.
Once they turn eighteen, then everything opens up like normal.
This seems pretty reasonable to me. That's from Chris. I mean,
that's an interesting idea. I don't know. Again. See, this
is where the industry itself would really do itself a favor,
really help itself out if it if they all got
together and said, this is what we are going to do.
We're going to set an industry standard. But they don't
want to do that because the whole point is to
get the kids hooked and to get their personal information,
to get all the data points they need about them
so they can market those kids. Because again, if the
service is free, then you are the product they are selling.
Always keep that in mind. You're the product they are
targeting you with the algorithms and the data points that
they're collecting on you. So when you watch that one video,
now they know, hey, let's send more videos like that
and let's sell some advertising targeting people who like to
watch those videos. That's how they make their money, all right.
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with Dean.
Speaker 2: Hello, Dean, Hi, Pete. How are you today?
Speaker 1: I am all right? How are you?
Speaker 2: Hey?
Speaker 1: Son?
Speaker 2: Really good?
Speaker 1: Well, I'm a good faker.
Speaker 2: Hey. You were just talking and I had been to
hear a lot of it that you were talking about
smartphones and controlling them, and you know, all the everything
you want is very good. But I just don't think that.
I think it's like trying to get the horses back
in the corral after the barn door has been open.
I just don't think it's going to happen. I don't
think there's a way to do it. People just trying
to field that way.
Speaker 1: Well, when the when the barn doors get open, the
horses go out into the corral. But then you can
you can bring them back into the You just oh,
bring them back into the barn because they're just in
the corral.
Speaker 2: Well, well, let let me let me clarify that. Then
I'm I'm interpreting the corral as the rest of the world.
Speaker 1: The uh, you know, and that would just be a
corral less barn. So the open the barn doors, the
horses get out, And so you're saying it'd be like
closing the barn doors after the horses have gotten out.
But I would submit not all the horses have gotten out.
I would submit that there are pregnant horses still in
the barn. They were not able to get out because
they were pregnant, and so that's the next generation.
Speaker 2: Ah wait a minute, I'm gonna have to consult with
I'm not well, you know, yes, that's that's probably true.
I can't I can't deny it.
Speaker 1: Right, there are other generations that are coming along, and
so if we take your approach, which is to say, well,
we screwed up on, you know, not closing the barn
door for those horses, so they're all now running wild
and we could never get them back, so we just
write them off. And so therefore we have to write
off every subsequent generation of horse to come. I don't
think that. I don't think that's logical.
Speaker 2: Oh no, anything's possible.
Speaker 1: No, I said logical.
Speaker 2: How can I deny the future and nobody knows what
it's going to be. I just say, if I was
going to be a betting man and I was going
to put money on it, I would bet I would
bet against it being reasonably controlled because there's there's just
I mean, there's too many incentives for people to work around.
Speaker 1: What are the incentives for parents to give their kid
a smartphone at the age of six?
Speaker 2: Oh, I agree with you totally, you know, but okay, So,
but you just threw parents into the conversation.
Speaker 1: I said. I included parents in most of the most
of my discussion about it. Last hour I talked mainly
about parents.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and how I agree with you. That's who would
have to take the initiative. Unfortunately, the parents are deteriorating
twenty years from now, families you know, who knows where
families will be. You can't say the family's gotten stronger
over the last twenty years or thirty years. There has
to be you know, Yes, anything can be stopped, but
somebody has to take the initiative to make it happen.
And I don't I don't see anyone actually making it happen,
maybe besides parents.
Speaker 1: So have you ever has anybody ever said to you,
Dean that you come across as a defeatist, as a pessimist.
Speaker 2: No, really, more like a no yeah he no believe me.
I was the biggest optimist in the world at thirty five.
You know, the harder I work, the more I did,
is they more involved you were? You could change things
and all that. That's true. I just think that that's
why the ignorance is bliss and it's not excited because
they don't know. And the more you know, the more
realistic you are.
Speaker 1: No. Realistic is not the opposite of ignorance, which is
not the opposite of being a pessimist. These are different things,
Like I can be a pessimist and a realist. You
but you like what you are advocating. And I don't
know if this is just like you working through a
thought or a position in real time. But what you
are saying is like nobody can make these changes. You
don't think anyone's going to make the changes, So what's
the point. That's a defeatist mentality because that says why
bother even trying if success is not assured?
Speaker 2: No, I think you should try. I think parents right,
So that's what we're doing. But that's what one off
kind of thing. I don't think you can legislate. Yeah,
I don't think success will legislate this or tree can.
Speaker 1: You can do some things, It just depends on what
they are. But you're rejecting all attempts at putting up
any kind of guardrail, which again is a kind of
defeatism because and I said this earlier as well, that
there are always going to be these kinds of trade offs,
and there are going to be people that make, you know,
end runs around the laws and such, and you've got
to talk about what kind of penalties that would incur
in all of that. But to say then that, well,
we just can't do it, that is again a that
is a defeatist mentality, is to say that, oh, there's
one hundred percent success is not on the table, so
therefore we shouldn't even try to do anything. And let's
just say it's the parent's job, right. But but parents
are asking for help because you're dealing with a societal
peer pressure campaign. And so government can actually help back
up parents on some of these things. For example, in
the schools, you can ban the cell phones in the schools, right,
That's something that governments can do that would help back
up the parents. So and that's why I bring the
topic forward, and that's why the lawmakers brought their proposal forward,
is to try to help support the parents who are saying,
I'm not so sure I want to do this, but
they're just under this relentless barrage of peer pressure from
their kids, from their kids friends, from their kids friends' parents, right,
everybody just constantly hammering away, and even the schools and
the football and soccer programs and whatever, and they're like, oh,
you got to be on the Facebook group or you
got to be plugged into this so I can get you,
your schedules and all that. Like, No, you don't need
to be on the smart phones to do this sort
of stuff in all cases, So Dean, I appreciate the call.
I try to look at the glasses half full. I try.
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Let's talk to Ray. Hello, Ray, welcome to the show.
Speaker 3: Hey Pete, how are you doing.
Speaker 1: Hey, I'm good, I'm doing all right.
Speaker 3: I just wanted to bounce off your I think it
was your last caller the where you made reference to
his defeatism.
Speaker 1: Yeah, Dean, this is okay.
Speaker 3: Yeah yeah, yeah. It sounds like he is a defeatist.
But I just wanted to give a little example. He
seemed to be saying, you know, we can't let this,
can't put the horseback in the barn whatever. But I
would I would say there was a time in our
history when there was no age limit on children smoking
or buying cigarettes and tobacco and alcohol and using that.
But they seemed to have got that under control.
Speaker 1: Well to it, yeah, I mean smoking particularly, But it
wasn't simply you know, the government actions. There was also
you know, a pushback on the in the you know,
in civic life as well, right to get kids not
to start smoking at eleven years old, right to essentially
shame people into allowing their kids to smoke that early.
And then everybody becomes aware of this is a bad thing,
you shouldn't do that, and that creates sort of the
you know, a structure, a societal structure around what is
acceptable and what is not right.
Speaker 3: So that wouldn't that put that kind of in the
same category as the self Yeah.
Speaker 1: Phones, I mean I think so if you right. And
that's the thing is the more people that stand up
and say, yeah, you know what, we probably shouldn't be
letting the kids have access to these things until they're
eighteen years old, and we make we create a permission
structure for that, and that then supports more and more
families and parents that want to do the right thing,
want to do the thing that's going to be in
the best interest of their kids, that they will now
have more support for doing that versus all of society
saying no, no, no, give your kid the phone, give
your kid the phone, and if you don't, something's wrong
with you. You know. Now you go the other direction,
say no, something's wrong if you do give your kid
the phone.
Speaker 3: Can I can I ask you one other quick thing?
Speaker 1: Okay? Yeah?
Speaker 3: Maybe, okay sure. I was just always wondered. I never
could figure it out. If you could speak of just
a minute to this thing of why is there a
law that you can be drafted at eighteen and go
fight in a war, but you can't buy a beer?
Why is that? Do you know?
Speaker 1: Probably? What did they Because they raised the alcohol age
after because it used to be eighteen, and then they
raised it to twenty one. I don't remember the arguments
for raising it. I mean, I wasn't a lot. I don't.
I don't think I was alive. Did they tie it
to federal funding of the highways? Did they do that?
They say, like every state has to raise the drinking
age to twenty one or else you forfeit your you
forfeit the federal highway dollars?
Speaker 3: Yeah, well, yeah, I'm talking about the common sense behind it.
It doesn't make sense.
Speaker 1: It's the limit people drinking at twenty, you know, nineteen
years old that you know, are in college or not
in you know, in service, driving around drunk, making bad decisions,
driving drunk, causing accidents. Right, I assume that that was
the rationale.
Speaker 3: Well, thanks for answering that.
Speaker 1: I don't know if I answered. I'm just guessing. I'm
sure I think mothers against drunk driving may have been
behind the push too. Maybe I'm just guessing.
Speaker 3: Though, Okay, I appreciate it.
Speaker 1: Yeah, man, all right, Ray, I appreciate it. Good to
hear from me. Yeah, uh no, I think that's a
fair analogy with the cigarette smoking. Right. There are things
that you know, government can do. There are things that
government cannot. And that's why that's why I speak to
this issue of the smartphone use for the kids, because
I'm trying to support parents who want to, you know,
create a different norm for kids. And just because we
have messed up on one generation or two generations, doesn't
mean we have to keep making those same mistakes over
and over again. Right. As I said in the last hour,
the research now is in. We do not have to
wait anymore to find out what the long term impacts
of this sort of stuff. But we know they've made
the they've made the connections. It's very clear. So again
just my opinion, but I would like to see kids
enjoying childhood in a way that I don't think the
last two generations have been able to because of the
rise of the smartphones and the technological experience or experiment.
I should say that we ran. It turned out not
to be good. The outcomes were not good. Again, if
you can show me some net benefit that the kids
experience by being able to log in to snap Chat
and TikTok and Instagram, and that those that those benefits
outweigh the costs and the risks, I'm open to hear it.
But again, I've been reading a lot of this stuff
for about a decade on the research, and none of
it comes back saying that. None of the research comes
back saying, you know, on the whole, you know, having
a TikTok account is fantastic for the kids development. It
never comes out that way. So when do we say, okay,
you know what, it didn't work. That is not good.
Let's not keep doing that, Let's change course. All right,
If you're listening to this show. You know I try
to keep up with all sorts of current events, and
I know you do too. And you've probably heard me
say get your news from multiple sources. Why Well, because
it's how you detect media bias, which is why I've
been so impressed with ground News. It's an app, and
it's a website, and it combines news from around the
world in one place so you can compare coverage and
verify information. You can check it out at check dot ground,
dot news slash pete. I put the link in the
podcast description too. I started using ground News a few
months ago and more recently chose to work with them
as an affiliate because it lets me see clearly how
stories get covered and by whom. The blind spot feature
shows you which stories get ignored by the left and
the right. See for yourself check dot ground, dot news
slash pete. Subscribe through that link and you'll get fifteen
percent off any subscription. I use the Vantage plan to
get unlimited access to every feature. Your subscription then not
only helps my podcast, but it also supports ground News
as they make the media landscape more transparent. Legislation filed
Monday in the North Carolina House of representatives aims to
enhance parental oversight in health and sex ad also to
ensure age appropriate instruction, and to regulate access to material
in schools and libraries. Standard disclaimer here, leftist educators, you
did this to yourselves. Okay, yeah, because the other team
politically speaking, right, the other side, And I guess in
this case it means like like most normal people, not
the leftist activist they are a part of public education too. See,
that's the whole thing. Public education doesn't mean controlled by you.
It means public education, and that means the public gets
to help decide what the curriculum is and who has
access to what materials, what's appropriate, what's not right. If
you don't like that system, then I'm perfectly willing to
entertain a discussion about how to get rid of the
public education system. But if your only complaint is that
you don't control all of the levers of power inside
the public education system, well then I don't care. It
doesn't matter to me. Your arguments don't matter. It's just
all cover story for you wanting control so you can
advance particular agenda. Right, because the other side gets an
that turn at bat here, it's a public entity, they
get to weigh in, they get to run candidates, and
if they win control, then they get to do what
they want to do. And they turned it over to
you guys for a very long time, and now nobody
knows how to read. So you did this to yourselves.
House Bill four ninety five Parental Rights for Curriculum and Books.
That's the name of the bill. It is filed by
Representatives John Torbett from Gaston County Republican and Hugh Blackwell,
Republican from Burke. It provides changes to the standard course
of study in health education. It ensures age appropriate instruction.
It establishes processes for selecting library books and health safety materials.
It requires instructional material repositories so people can go look
at what it is that you're teaching their kids. And
it restricts public library access for minors to materials that
are harmful to miners, so age appropriate restrictions. You can
read more on this at the Carolina Journal Carolina Journal
dot com. The bill prohibits instruction on gender identity, sexual activity,
or sexuality from kindergarten through sixth grade, whether it's via
school personnel or third parties. You don't get to bring
in some activist group. It's like, well, it wasn't those
teachers that were doing it for grade seven through twelve.
School instruction in such topics will require parental consent, without
consent mechanisms to be or sorry, with annual consent mechanisms
to be established by the local school boards, so you'd
have to read up it every year. There will also
be a program for four and fifth graders focusing on
puberty and biological changes. The section would be taught in
single sex groups with no gender identity or sexuality content,
and it would require parental consent for participation. That's what
my school did lo those many years ago. He came
in after school. It's like an evening thing on like
a Thursday and a Friday. You picked one night to
come in with you know, a parent, and you sat
through a very uncomfortable film with mom or dad, and
then you went home for a even more uncomfortable conversation.
That's how we did it my day. Let me see,
I got a message from Brandon on Twitter who says
we spend an obscene amount of time explaining to people
why our twelve year old does not need a phone,
And Russ said navigating phones and social media as a nightmare.
Our oldest got his first phone after age fourteen, years
after most of his peers. As cautious and tech savvy
as I am, I realized the hardware and the apps
are designed not to be able to really filter or
restrict anything for the younger one. We tried a dumbflip phone,
good luck finding that finding one that doesn't have a
built in browser, thus access to everything. We looked at
GABB and others and ended up with two. Sorry, true
me troom I. It's been okay, just okay. There really
aren't any solutions, only trade offs. Probably the best option
is not having a smartphone at all. All right, that'll
do it for this episode. Thank you so much for listening.
I could not do the show without your support and
the support of the businesses that advertise on the podcast,
so if you'd like, please support them too and tell
them you heard it here. You can also become a
patron at my Patreon page or go to vpetecallnershow dot com. Again,
thank you so much for listening, and don't break anything
while I'm gone.