A quick note: I’m on vacation next week, so there will be no new post, but we’ll be back to our regularly scheduled programming on Monday, August 31.

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5 min read

I am so excited to welcome this month’s special guest, . Darby is a clinical psychologist (the best kind of psychologist!) and professor at the University of Southern California who studies the transition to parenthood, especially among fathers. Her new book, Dad Brain: The New Science of Fatherhood and How it Shapes Men’s Lives, is absolutely fascinating.

There are so many misconceptions about fatherhood—about how men are (or are not) “wired” for parenthood, about how fatherhood affects the brain and hormones (and “dad bod”!), about cultural differences in the role of fathers, and about how dads can find meaning in everyday parenthood.

Darby covers all of it in the book, and, as an added bonus, offers up an endless supply of surprising science facts—from the mating habits of marmoset monkeys (see below) to the presence of “sympathetic pregnancy symptoms” (cramps, nausea) in expectant fathers.

Correcting misconceptions, sharing research on an unstudied topic, and fun science facts? What more could you ask for in a book? Thank you to Darby for writing it and for being here to talk to us about it.

You can pick up your own copy of Dad Brain right here (and subscribe to Darby’s Substack !).

I’d love to start by hearing a bit about what brought you to this topic. Why study the science of fatherhood?

As a researcher, you’re always looking for gaps in the literature—what do we not know yet? What is left for there to discover?

I entered graduate school knowing that I was interested in studying family dynamics, and as I got immersed in the published research on parenting, I was consistently surprised by how few studies focused on fathers.

I talk about this in the book, but I was raised by a very involved dad who had to take on more parenting responsibilities after my parents got divorced and negotiated joint custody. He was the sole parent during the weeks that my brothers and I were with him. I also had a stepfather who frequently worked from home and did most of the cooking during the weeks we were at his house. So I had a somewhat unusual childhood for a 1980s kid, and that perspective colored my curiosity about the lack of research I was encountering and made me confident there was more to learn about dads.

What is one of the major misconceptions people have about fatherhood, and what does the research actually say?

I think both moms and dads often assume that moms will have an innate knack for infant care, either because they are “wired” for it or are primed to be transformed by motherhood, whereas dads are hapless bystanders who are fated to be clueless parents.

I went to a book club meeting recently to discuss my book, and one of the moms shared a story: She left her first baby alone with her husband for a short break when the child was just a few days old. Within about 10 minutes, her husband called to say, “You need to come back.” He’d been changing the baby’s diaper when she projectile-pooped all over the wall, and he had no idea what to do. As she told him, I have exactly as much baby care experience as you do! I don’t have any wall-cleaning secrets that you don’t have! But in his mind, she was the person who would know how to fix the situation.

On the flip side, you might have dads who are eager to bond with their babies, but their partners don’t fully trust them to be in charge of infant care.

It’s true that moms often do have a biological head start because pregnancy and birth come with many hormonal inputs that can resculpt the brain. But it’s also true that dads have a neurobiology that can adapt to parenthood and undergo transformations that support their sensitive parenting abilities, too.

You mention in the book that you’ve heard the claim that “parenting doesn’t come naturally to men because they lack the biology for it.” I have heard this, too. Tell us why this is wrong!

Perfect segue from the last question!

I have found in my lab, and through reading the studies of other scientists, that men do in fact have a biology that is ready to be reshaped as they gain parenting experience.

• This includes hormones like testosterone, oxytocin, and prolactin that are influenced by baby care experience.

• It also includes brains that change over men’s transition to parenthood, both at the level of structure (like how much grey matter volume they have) and also at the level of function (like how they respond to infant cues).

• If men lacked the biology for parenthood, you wouldn’t see these kinds of changes, many of which mirror the changes we observe in moms.

Indeed, I often say, there’s not just a ‘maternal brain’ or a ‘paternal brain.’ There’s a ‘parental brain.’ It may have different thresholds or timings for when it switches off and on in moms compared to dads. But when it does switch on, it does so in similar ways in both parents.

What’s one of the most interesting or surprising things you’ve uncovered in your research?

I have learned so many cool things from digging into the research on fatherhood, but one of my favorite fun facts is about marmoset monkeys, who are often born in twin pairs. Many marmosets are chimeric, which means that they have a mix of DNA from different fathers. Surprisingly, male marmosets actually seem to prefer chimeric babies. It might be because marmosets often use smell to distinguish who is related to them, and chimeric marmosets smell like more dads - upping the chances that males will pick up on a familial relationship.

This goes to show that sometimes a little uncertainty about paternity can serve a purpose, helping make more adults invested in helping with the infants in a community. Humans also have some paternity uncertainty because of our concealed ovulation (that is, it is not always obvious when a female human is fertile), which makes it harder for human males to know when they have caused a pregnancy. This human paternity uncertainty may contribute to our status as “cooperative breeders,” who raise children in community and often share or trade off care.

For more fascinating insights into the science of fatherhood, make sure to grab your own copy of Dad Brain right here (and subscribe to !).

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6 min read

The theme was superheroes.

There was a Superman cake. Spiderman plates and napkins. Superhero temporary tattoos. His gifts were a series of costumes—Superman, Spiderman, The Hulk, Batman—along with some themed t-shirts we hoped would be acceptable substitutes in the sweltering weather. A “Happy Birthday!” banner featuring the Justice League was stuck to the wall.

My oldest son was turning 5.

Except, that couldn’t be true. Wasn’t it just a couple months ago, maybe a year at the very most, that I was 9 months pregnant with him, crying to my mom because I was convinced there was no way I could do this? No way I could do something this hard? Give birth to a child? And then be its mom? It was terrifying. It seemed impossible.

And now, here we were, half a decade later. The morning of his fifth birthday. My son in his room, his body—no longer that of a preschooler or toddler, but of a real kid—reverberating with excitement. Me in the bathroom, groggily brushing my teeth, glancing up and nearly choking to find my husband at the door, fully clad in a Batman costume. Can you tie this for me? He asked, handing me some kind of black and gold sash.

The birthday went off without a hitch, from the surprise dad-as-Batman wakeup to the party and gifts and birthday banner. As my son sat on our porch, surrounded by the party aftermath of dirty plates and windblown tattoos and stray capes, flipping excitedly through his new superhero coloring books, he looked up at me with a big smile. This was the best birthday ever.

Only then did I notice the lingering hints of worry that had wiggled into my subconscious—that my son, on this day he’d been anticipating for months, would be disappointed, or overwhelmed, or upset. I found myself breathing a sigh of relief. The best birthday ever.

We did it, I thought.

****

The superhero birthday was just the latest installment in what can only be described as an obsession. My son is, at all times, in costume. When I drive him to camp, he insists on wearing Spiderman on the way there and back, so as not to miss a moment. He colors in DC Comics coloring books. When given blank paper (or, sometimes, blank walls), he draws the Avengers.

His knowledge is encyclopedic, and extends to the fringes of the superhero universes: Hawkeye. Red Hulk, Colossus. It’s rare that silence is not broken with a convoluted question: Hey Dad? [and it’s usually Dad, because he’s quickly learned I know nothing] Hey Dad? Hey Dad? Hey Dad? Who would win in a fight? Thor and Wolverine together, or Superman, but what if Superman could use his eyes to shoot lasers and—Hey Dad?—How does Thor’s hammer work? And so on.

I remember learning in my psychology classes that children’s magical thinking peaks between ages 2 to 7, during what developmental psychologist Jean Piaget called the preoperational stage. This is the time when their imaginations run wild, their fascination with characters and magical beings (Santa, the Tooth Fairy) is heightened, when the line between reality and fantasy is still fuzzy enough to make magic possible. It is the time when superheroes reign.

****

This belief in superheroes comes with benefits.

In a well-known 2017 study, psychologists named the so-called “Batman Effect.” Researchers asked four- and six-year-old kids to “be a good helper” by completing a boring, repetitive task. Kids who imagined themselves as a character who is “really good at working hard”—in some cases, given a cape and encouraged to think of themselves as Batman—did better. They persisted significantly longer on the task, resisting the urge to take a break and more successfully working toward a long term goal.

In a similar experiment, children were given a frustrating task (trying to open a box with a series of keys that did not work). Those who pretended to be a character like Batman were better able to manage their feelings, becoming less frustrated and upset. Pretending to be a character seemed especially helpful for kids who were already more vulnerable to feeling frustrated, including those who were younger or struggled to manage their emotions.

The preoperational stage, that magical time from ages 2 to 7, is a time of big feelings. It’s the time of tantrums and crying and unbridled excitement, not yet dampened by impulse control or emotion regulation skills.

In a big, unpredictable world, filled with unfamiliar summer camps and birthday parties and rules about which surfaces you can use your crayons on, a superhero cape can provide more than a costume. It can provide an identity: one who perseveres through challenges, who can manage big feelings. One who is brave.

****

Recently, we were in our kitchen, finishing up dinner. My five-year-old sat at the counter, in front of an empty plate. Looking at my husband, he started small: Hey Dad! Does Superman need his cape to fly? Soon, he was off to the races, questions coming rapid-fire, jumbling together with observations (I think Thanos is stronger than Ironman!) and arms waving excitedly. Then he became more serious.

Hey Dad? Is Superman indestructible?

My husband thought for a few seconds, and then offered his assessment: Superman is not indestructible. He’s very strong, but no one is totally indestructible, not even the strongest superhero.

But Dad, can Superman get hurt? I don’t think he can get hurt.

Again, my husband suggested that yes, Superman can get hurt, because everyone gets hurt sometimes, but he always recovers.

I was reminded of a few days earlier in the car, when my son had gone down a similar line of questions. Does Spiderman get scared? He’d asked. The psychologist in me couldn’t resist the opportunity—I insisted that Spiderman does get scared, but he is very brave, so he does things anyway, even when he’s feeling nervous about them. I’d then helped him peel off his costume, and dropped him off at camp.

Now in the kitchen, my son was getting more animated.

But Dad, no, I think Superman is indestructible! I don’t think he can get hurt!

He is at the age where tears come easily. Where, at a moment’s notice, he might burst into sobs over a broken toy or a broken promise. But for the first time now, I saw him trying to hold tears back. His face contorted slightly, his eyes glistening, fighting it.

My husband and I looked at each other, caught off guard. We launched into damage control mode. What makes you sad about that? We tried, then, Well, you can believe whatever you want to believe about Superman! And then, It’s okay, it’s okay!

Then my husband gave our son a hug and offered, perhaps, the only thing to say in this situation. Something along the lines of: I know you really wanted Superman to be indestructible. I can see how that would be disappointing.

Maybe we all want to believe that something exists outside this unpredictable world; something that can remove the pain, and fear, and disappointment that our children will inevitably face. We want to believe that these feelings can be avoided, that our children might go through the world as superheroes, impervious to life’s challenges, indestructible.

But we can never remove these feelings. Being a human in the world requires them. The best we can do is pull on our costumes, velcro on our capes, and tackle them head on. We all face things that seem terrifying in the moment. Things we believe will be too hard, that maybe even seem impossible.

Sometimes, those things turn out to be the very best things.

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3 min read

Last week, my husband and I took a short (childless!) vacation to Kennebunkport, Maine, and I returned home with a few observations.

First, we confirmed my husband’s “dog years” theory of childless vacations: every day spent away from one’s children feels like at least seven. We were gone for a few days and came back convinced that a full month had passed.

Second, Kennebunkport has really—and I mean really—leaned into the “lobster” theme. There were lobster rolls, lobster soups, lobster omelettes, and lobster pizza. On the non-edible side, there were lobster t-shirts, lobster stuffed animals, lobster mugs, and lobster decorative napkins. There was even an entire store called (what else?) The Lobstore. Never have I been so aware of my shellfish allergy.

Finally, the beaches were beautiful, and I was reminded that there is truly nothing better than reading on the beach. I alternated between listening to David Sedaris’ latest essay collection The Land and Its People, and reading ’s Inside the Box: How Constraints Make Us Better.1 I spent the remainder of the time excitedly reciting the facts I learned in Inside the Box to my husband (there were so many! I loved it!).

Judging by the number of Out of Office messages hitting my inbox recently, I would guess that many of you are also in vacation mode. So, if you find yourself looking for some beach reading, might I suggest a Techno Sapiens post you may have missed?

To get you started, here are our most popular posts of the summer. Happy reading!

In case you missed it…

A short essay that somehow covers: a rock my 2-year-old gave my husband for Father’s Day, the nature of abstract thought, Forrest Gump, and whether AI could ever become conscious. A wild ride, even for me (and I’m the one who wrote it).

Our summer partnership with Light Phone! All about my experience “going Light,” the latest research on dumbphones, and how to make the right decision for you.

This post starts with a quick quiz, in which I describe a technology and you guess what it is. Here’s the description: “Kids are spending hours on this technology every day. A study of hundreds of 6- to 16-year-olds in the Journal of Pediatrics finds that many are addicted to it. There are also concerns about how this technology may interfere with social connection and the development of empathy, and may increase exposure to violence and sexual content. Some evidence links it to anxiety and other mental health problems, yet parents feel powerless to stop it. Got your answer?” That’s correct! It is…the household radio. Exactly what you guessed, right?

This recent study from Common Sense Media surveys over 1200 U.S. children (ages 9 to 17). They find that 86% of kids are using AI in some capacity, with nearly a quarter of them (24%) using it daily. I break down the findings and where we go from here.

And finally, if you’ve managed to pay attention this long, we’ve got our most popular post of the summer. Are our attention spans really shrinking? Are we doomed? And what’s that about goldfish potentially remembering information for months? It’s all here.

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Happy August, sapiens! Here’s a quick BTS (that’s “behind the scenes” for those of us in ~show business~)1 of how Techno Sapiens gets made:

I have an Apple Note that syncs across my phone and laptop. It is called Techno Sapiens Ideas. Throughout the week, I jot down research, news articles, ideas, and stories that I want to remember to share. Once they make it into the newsletter, I delete them. Sapiens, the Note is currently coming in at just under 10,000 words.2

So, today let’s make a small dent in that list and round up the latest news, notes, and research. And away we go!

ADHD and screens. What’s happening here?

This new study published in JAMA Network Open is making the rounds, including in this widely shared WaPo piece: “New study links ADHD symptoms in boys and addictive social media use.”

So, what’s the deal? This new paper is based on data from the Adolescent Brain Cognitive Development (ABCD) Study, an ongoing, nationwide project that’s been following thousands of kids over the past decade. For this particular paper, researchers analyzed data from over 112,000 kids across 5 years, starting when the kids were 10 or 11 years old. Kids completed measures of “addictive social media use” (e.g., having difficulty stopping use, feeling upset when they cannot use it). They and their parents also completed separate measures of the kids’ ADHD symptoms.

Here is precisely what they found:

• At times 4 and 5 only, higher levels of addictive social media use (compared to a kids’ typical use) were associated with later parent-reported ADHD symptoms.

• This seemed especially true for boys.

• At time 4 only, the reverse direction of effects (ADHD symptoms associated with later addictive social media use) was also present.

• All of these effects were small.

• The same pattern did not emerge when looking at kids’ own reports of their ADHD symptoms.

My take: Is it possible that excessive use of social media can contribute to worsening ADHD symptoms in kids? Of course. Is it possible that ADHD symptoms make it harder to regulate the use of screens? Definitely.

That said, the results of this study are not straightforward. Why would these associations only show up at certain time points? Why only in boys? Why only with parent-reported symptoms? In my opinion, there is likely some association between problematic media use and ADHD symptoms, and we should be aware of that. My concern is that the conversation around this study implies that too much social media use is causing children to develop ADHD—that’s neither accurate nor helpful for parents.

Why do teens talk to AI? Ask them!

I love this new report from Hopelab and Harvard’s Center for Digital Thriving, in which researchers interviewed young people about when and why they might use AI for emotional support. Reasons include: not wanting to burden friends, feeling that AI is less judgmental, and knowing that AI is always available.

Some fascinating quotes in here. For example:

Rising support for school phone bans

Wouldn’t be a roundup without a quick check-in with our friends at Pew, am I right?3 According to their new data, support for school cell phone bans has inched up over the past two years.

Now, 77% of U.S. adults “strongly” or “somewhat” support a ban that prevents middle and high school students from using cell phones during class, and 48% support a ban for the full school day (i.e., “bell-to-bell”).

Please Use AI

Not often that a piece about AI makes me tear up, but this one, titled Please Use AI, did the trick.

A brief excerpt:

And be sure to use AI when your next child

gets married, so that you can write them

the perfect toast or poem or speech or song

because no one wants to hear your

words, the actual poorly written words

of a parent (you) who changed

hundreds of diapers for said child or fed

them in the middle of the

night from your actual body. Or cried

when they were late home because

you were positive they were dead. We don’t

want those words—we’d prefer the sterile

words of a machine that never lived, never

had an original thought, never felt

the pain of miscarriage or broken

relationships or the joy of a friendship restored

or of seeing spring’s first

robin dancing on frost.”

Some (fun!) recent interviews I did

• Psychologists Off the Clock podcast. I got to team up with and to chat with host all about how parenting science is discussed in the media. From the summary: “If you’d appreciate a reassuring, reality-based sanity check on modern parenting so you can tune out the fear and focus on what actually works for your family, tune in.”

• “Parents know more than they think they do.” I talked to for the California Partners Project’s Substack all about parenting and tech. We talked about: how I got into this work, why kids’ beliefs about technology matter, and how to model healthy (not perfect!) tech habits.

• “High Resolution” video podcast. If you prefer to watch, rather than read, here’s my conversation with from the Byte Size Substack. From Rotem: “I got to hear from her about…what happens when chatbots replace real social friction, how to discuss AI use with your kids, and what we might be getting wrong in how we treat technology. According to Dr. Nesi, we still have much to be optimistic about.”

And finally….

A screenshot I discovered in that “Techno Sapiens Ideas” Apple Note. Truly, never know what I’ll find in there.

(Also, if you were the one who sent this email, please know that I know nothing about horses, but loved receiving it all the same.)

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As it so happens, this week Substack also announced its new “AI detection tool,” which allows you to scan any post (using, um, AI) for evidence that AI was used to write it. Here, for example, is what it looks like for this post:

Substack also now gives writers the option to create a “How I make this” statement. So, now seems a good time to share with you all that I make this newsletter by: sitting down at my laptop, thinking of an idea, and writing it down. This probably goes without saying, but I don’t use AI to do that. I sometimes use AI to help with research or proofreading, although, as my human editor (aka my husband) can confirm, I often ignore grammar and wording suggestions because I stubbornly insist I know better.

Anyway, I’m pleased to see the Substack-Pangram-AI gods have deemed my writing 100% human this time. Going forward, though, if those gods assign me a lower percentage, I do not plan to make edits to sound more human because: (1) that makes no sense, and (2) then the machines really have won.

Okay! Now back to our regularly scheduled programming. Thanks for being here and being human, sapiens.✌️

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6 min read

My two-year-old was thrilled with the Father’s Day craft he made in preschool this year. After carefully selecting a palm-sized rock, he washed off the dirt and painted it in overlapping pinks, yellows, and blues. On it, his teachers wrote in black Sharpie: “My dad rocks.”

When Father’s Day came around, he proudly unveiled his gift. Then, pointing to the Sharpie’d text, he announced: “My dad loves rocks!”

It has been over a month. The rock remains prominently displayed on the windowsill above our kitchen sink—now resting on a paper towel after an unfortunate discovery that the paint was washable. We have gently informed my son that it actually says “My dad rocks.” I’ve tried to explain that this is another way of saying “My dad is cool” or “My dad is great”—and also, it’s a real rock, so that’s kind of the joke?

My son then stares for a minute, eyebrows furrowed, eyes darting from my face to the rock and announces, again, My dad loves rocks!12

*****

At age two, children generally have not yet developed abstract thought. To be fair, it’s an advanced skill: the ability to understand concepts that we cannot physically experience, to see patterns and connect them to larger ideas, to understand that one thing can be a symbol for another.

My son can easily grasp the tangible concepts of: (1) a rock and (2) his dad. What his two-year-old brain cannot yet wrap itself around is the idea that a rock might represent something else: a play on words, and even more than that, a symbol of love for his dad.

Abstract thinking is such an advanced skill, in fact, that it is one of the very things that makes us human. It requires a particular cognitive architecture—some extra prefrontal cortex here, some more connectivity in the Default Mode Network there—that scientists think we evolved about 100,000 years ago and which separates us from our non-human ancestors.

One of the most powerful downstream effects of abstract thinking is something that you likely haven’t thought much about since roughly fifth grade, but which profoundly impacts our day-to-day experience of the world.

That something is the use of metaphor. I’ve been thinking a lot about metaphors lately3—yes, yes I know, my academia is showing, but stick with me—because I’ve come to believe they’re harming our relationship to technology.

*****

What is a metaphor? You likely learned in that fifth-grade writing lesson that it is a figure of speech comparing one thing to another. In psychology, though, the use of metaphor represents something bigger.

Metaphors allow us to take a concept that is totally abstract, something that exists only in our minds, and to understand that concept by relating it to something tangible. Take, for example, the most famous of all metaphors: Life is like a box of chocolates.4 This, even more so than Tom Hanks’ Forrest Gump accent, is actually an extraordinary human achievement.

To get there, we need to use our brains to conjure up an understanding of the vaguest of concepts (“life”) with enough complexity and detail to find a similarity in something concrete (“a box of chocolates”). We have never directly experienced a situation in which life is, in fact, a box of chocolates: it exists only in our heads. This requires imagination. It requires abstract thought. It requires being human.

And boy, do we humans love our metaphors. We don’t just strive for them in classic ‘90s movies that perfectly blend epic period drama with romantic tragedy—we rely on them instinctively to make sense of all kinds of abstract concepts. DNA is the body’s instruction manual, for example. Light is like a wave. Time is money.

Now, here’s the most important part: because metaphors are one of our primary tools for making sense of things we cannot directly observe, they profoundly shape our understanding of the world around us. They become the lens through which we see.

They exist only in our minds, but they quickly become our reality.

*****

New technologies are, by definition, tools we have never seen before. They are rife with abstract concepts requiring concrete analogies if we hope to make any sense of them. Our views of the Internet have ranged from an “information superhighway” to a highly interconnected “web” to a physical “cyberspace.” Now, with the ubiquity of AI, things have gotten even more complicated—and more personal.

Our most fundamental metaphor for AI is baked right into the name: intelligence. We imagine systems made up of neural networks, which have conversations with us, and when things go wrong, hallucinate. We tell the models to think harder, and they engage in deep learning—all human concepts our imagining brains have dreamed up as metaphors.

Our metaphors go the other way, too. Not just human to machine, but machine back to human. We describe our brains as computer systems—we process and encode and store information.

This is all, maybe, fine when we remember that these metaphors are an abstraction. The problem is when we start to see those abstractions as reality. When we start to believe our machines are just like us because, after all, they are intelligent, and can think, and can learn and, hey, we’re all just information-processing machines that happen to walk on two legs, right?

Our metaphors shape how we answer complex questions, and we’ve got some especially tricky ones coming down the pike. What are, actually, the differences between our brains and computers? Could AI models become conscious, or some version of it?

Are we humans really so different from the intelligent machines we’ve created?

Science writer Michael Pollan’s latest book A World Appears tackles the (highly abstract!) concept of consciousness. When asked whether AI could become conscious in a recent interview he said:

“I spent a lot of time looking at this question of could AI, artificial intelligence, become conscious? I’m from the Bay Area in California in the heart of Silicon Valley. And I have to tell you the consensus among people in Silicon Valley is that yes, either it will emerge spontaneously as these machines get more and more intelligent or it can be created. I think they’re wrong…The belief that AI can be conscious is based on a idea called computational functionalism that is essentially saying that the that the brain is a kind of computer…but it’s a faulty metaphor and it’s pretty easy to show that.”

He goes on to highlight some of the problems with the “brain as computer” metaphor. The most fundamental problem is that computers must differentiate between hardware and software, whereas brains inherently do not. The same computer software can be run interchangeably on various hardware systems. The brain’s hardware is its software.

Our brains are shaped by our experiences, and we cannot simply extract one brain’s software (in this case, consciousness) and run it on another processor. He notes, also, a long history of faulty brain metaphors, each lining up conspicuously with the latest technology of the day: looms, engines, calculators, control rooms, and more.

*****

Our ability to think abstractly, to dream up metaphors of all kinds, is fundamental to what makes us human. Isn’t it strange, then, that this same ability is what has led us to question who we really are in the face of new technology?

Most of us cannot see the inner workings of an AI model; we have only the roughest understanding of what truly makes up our machines. Same goes for our brains. So, we rely on a time-tested strategy: comparing that which we cannot see to something more tangible, more concrete.

We fill in the details—and in doing so, in convincing ourselves we’re seeing things more clearly, we create new blindspots.

We are increasingly interconnected with our technologies. They’re in our pockets and our ears and our glasses. They’re our assistants, our employees, our confidants—and this interconnectedness is only accelerating. As we enter this new era of intelligent machines, and as we tackle the many tricky questions that come along with it, it’s worth revisiting our metaphors.

They can, by some miraculous evolution of our cognitive architecture, tell us what something is like. But they cannot tell us what that something, whether human or machine, really is.

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6 min read

If you’re here at Techno Sapiens, my guess is that you have spent at least a little bit of time thinking about how to raise kids in the age of AI. You’ve likely gathered that I spend a fair number (maybe too many) of my waking hours thinking about it, too. So, you can imagine how excited I was to see Dr. Dana Suskind’s new book: Human Raised: Nurturing Connection, Curiosity & Lifelong Learning in the Age of AI.

As I got to reading it, I was even more excited to share it with you all. It ticks all the Techno Sapiens boxes: a discussion of humans and technology! Non-alarmist, nuanced views of new tech! A call for imperfect parenting! A useful, four-part framework accompanied by—wait for it—an acronym! Sapiens, it’s like this book was written just for us.

Anyway, Dana was kind enough to give us a sneak peek into some of these ideas today (thank you, Dana!), but for more, make sure to grab your own copy of Human Raised right here.

Thanks for being here, Dana! Can you share a bit about your background and why you decided to write this book now?

I’m a pediatric cochlear implant surgeon and a social scientist, and for more than two decades now my work has focused on one central question: What do children need in order to reach their full potential? Through my clinical work and my research at the TMW Center for Early Learning + Public Health, I’ve come to understand that the answer is human connection. Children’s brains are literally built through relationships—through back-and-forth conversations, play, shared attention, and responsive caregiving.

So when generative AI started to enter childhood, I was fascinated by its potential, but also wary of what it might replace. I was also struck by how quickly the conversation focused on what AI can do for children—smart cribs, chatbot plushies, that kind of thing—rather than what we need to protect for children, so that they can thrive. Those are very different questions.

I wanted to write Human Raised to offer more guidance to parents than a binary “adopt AI” or “reject AI.” AI is one of the most powerful technologies humanity has ever created, and it will almost certainly improve our lives in countless ways. But every technological revolution changes us as well. My concern is that if we aren’t intentional, AI could slowly replace the human interactions I’ve spent the last few decades studying, the ones that science tells us are so critical because they build curiosity, empathy, resilience, and lifelong learning.

So my goal with this book is to help parents use AI thoughtfully, embracing its incredible benefits while protecting the childhood experiences that no technology can replace.

You propose the “HOPE” framework for helping parents evaluate how AI fits into their children’s lives. Could you tell us what this means?

I didn’t want to give parents a list of apps that are good or bad. Technology changes too quickly for that, and individual families’ needs and values vary too much for that. What I feel strongly that we need is a framework grounded in developmental science that helps us ask the right questions. That’s what I hope the HOPE framework can be.

• H is for Human Connection is Irreplaceable. AI can simulate conversation, but children build their brains through real relationships. The serve-and-return interactions between a child and a caring adult aren’t just nice to have, they’re biologically essential.

• O is for Own the Imperfections. AI promises lightning-fast answers, endless dialogue, even optimized parenting. But children don’t need perfect parents. They need real ones. They grow through watching us make and repair mistakes, struggle, laugh, and learn alongside them. Those imperfect moments teach resilience and emotional security.

• P is for Protect the Early Years. The first five years are a once-in-a-lifetime window of brain development. During that period, children need rich human interaction far more than they need sophisticated technology. AI should never replace the conversations, play, and caregiving that build the developing brain.

• E is for Enhance, Don’t Replace Adult-Child Interaction. AI can be an extraordinary tool, as long as it’s amplifying human capacities instead of substituting for them. If it helps a teacher spend more time connecting with students or frees a parent to be more present with their child, that’s technology serving humanity rather than replacing it.

Ultimately, HOPE is about making sure that as technology becomes more capable, we become even more intentional about protecting what makes us human.

I love that you write about combating “never enough” parenting. Please, Dana, tell us (me) how to do it! How do we resist the urge to always be optimizing as parents? How does AI play a role in this?

This is actually my favorite question! I meet so many parents who are exhausted by trying to optimize every moment of childhood. Every activity needs to be educational. Every decision feels like it carries lifelong consequences. AI has the potential to amplify that pressure by constantly offering better schedules, smarter lesson plans, personalized tutoring, instant answers to every parenting question.

But that approach misunderstands how children actually develop. The research is remarkably reassuring. Children don’t thrive because every interaction is perfect. They thrive because they experience thousands upon thousands of warm, responsive, ordinary moments with the people who love them. Reading together. Having a conversation in the car. Playing pretend. Solving a disagreement after an argument. These aren’t interruptions to learning; they are the learning.

One of the ideas I emphasize in the book is that we should optimize for connection, not perfection.

If AI reduces your mental load so you can spend more meaningful time with your family, wonderful. But if it convinces you that there’s always a better way to parent, another milestone to reach, another skill to accelerate, it risks pulling us away from the very thing children need most: a present, responsive, imperfect human being.

What is one concrete step parents can take today to support their children in the age of AI?

Prioritize one period each day when you’re fully present with your child—no multitasking, no phone in your hand, no AI between the two of you.

Even fifteen or twenty minutes of genuine back-and-forth interaction can be incredibly powerful. Follow your child’s lead. Ask open-ended questions. Read together. Build something. Cook dinner. Take a walk. Let them be bored enough to invent a game. The activity doesn’t matter as much as the quality of the interaction.

And I just want to emphasize that I hope parents feel empowered by this conversation, rather than overwhelmed. “Good enough” parenting is actually very beneficial to your child, developmentally. They need you to be imperfect. They need friction and little missteps. They need to see that humans can make mistakes and bounce back from them. They need to see that relationships can rupture and repair. That’s how they develop resilience and empathy and all sorts of important skills.

Ironically, as AI becomes increasingly capable, our greatest advantage won’t be acting more like machines. It will be becoming more deeply human. And that’s something every parent can begin nurturing today.

Make sure to grab your copy of Human Raised right here.

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Hi there, sapiens! How’s your summer going? Here at Techno Sapiens HQ we’re in the midst of a superhero-themed birthday week (month) for my now 5-year-old. We’re talking: superhero costumes, cake, balloons, napkins, temporary tattoos, coloring books, pajamas, shoes, and, of course, this “banner backdrop” I panic-ordered at midnight when I became convinced we didn’t have enough superhero accoutrements. It’s now hanging in our living room. Ah, the joys of parenting.

Anyway, I thought we could all use something short and sweet today, and I have just the thing. A few weeks ago, I sat down with Dr. Chloe Massey to answer some commonly asked questions about kids and screens for her readers.

Dr. Chloe is a child development specialist and parenting advisor who has helped hundreds of families navigate challenges—from sleep struggles, to tantrums, to picky eating, to school transitions—and find solutions that work for them. She is also, luckily for me, a good friend (and mom of three boys, so she knows her way around a superhero theme).

I thought our conversation offered a nice (succinct!) summary of some of my current thinking on these topics, and I’m excited to share it here.

You can check out Dr. Chloe’s work on her website, and follow her on Instagram @drchloemassey.

Chloe: What are parents getting wrong about kids and social media right now?

Jackie: So much of our parenting around screens and social media is driven by fear and guilt. We are constantly hearing about the dangers of technology—that it’s bad for kids’ mental health, development, social skills, learning, etc. From the research, we know that the truth is actually more complicated.

The analogy we so often hear for using screens is smoking, with the idea that it is simply bad for kids’ health, and there’s no safe or healthy way to do it. I think a better analogy is cars. Like screens, cars are part of our lives that are unlikely to go away anytime soon, and they have some benefits! Of course, they also have risks and can be incredibly dangerous. How they affect well-being depends on how we use them, and who is using them. The same is true for screens.

If we can step outside the scary headlines we so often see, we can approach screens in a way that is more thoughtful, with consideration for how they’re being used, how much, and how they may be impacting our individual children.

Chloe: If you could give parents one mindset shift around kids and social media, what would it be?

Jackie: When it comes to managing our kids’ technology use, I would encourage families to try shifting from the mindset of “me vs. you” to “us vs. them.” So often families get stuck in conflict, with me (the parent) fighting against you (the child), trying to set boundaries, hold limits, and arguing for why these technologies are bad.

As much as we can, I would try to shift the thinking toward “us” (parent and child together) versus “them,” meaning the challenges inherent in the technology itself. We can validate that it is really hard for all of us, parents and kids alike, to manage the draw of these technologies—they are designed in ways to make it hard! We can then be working together with our kids to figure out the best solutions for our families.

Chloe: What has surprised you most about raising kids in a digital world?

Jackie: One thing that has surprised me is the judgment that so many parents feel around their choices related to technology. This happens in all areas of parenting, but now being a parent myself, I can clearly see how the larger cultural conversations about smartphones, social media, and AI are really impacting parents’ emotional experiences with these tools day to day.

More and more, I feel that parents just don’t need more scare tactics or warnings about the dangers of these technologies. And they definitely do not need judgment! What they need is real support to manage these tools effectively in their homes, and to feel good about doing that based on their own values and preferences.

Chloe: What’s one tech habit you feel really good about in your home? What’s one you’re still working on?

Jackie: One principle that I really try to keep in mind for myself and my kids is “people first”—basically, the people in front of you should come before the screen.

For example, my 4-year-old has these long allergist appointments where he has to wait for an hour or more, so I’ll often let him watch a show on my phone while we’re waiting. I’ve tried to set the expectation, though, that anytime someone comes into the room, he has to pause the show, look them in the eye, and say hello.

For myself, I do try to be aware of when I’m on my phone around my kids, and not to have them feel like my phone is taking precedence over my connection to them. I’m obviously not perfect at this—and I think that’s okay!—but it’s something I definitely try to keep in mind.

Oh, and one other habit I swear by: I sleep with my phone outside of the bedroom! Sleep is so important, and I don’t want calls or texts (or late-night doomscrolling) to wake me up. I’ll leave that to my 2-year-old screaming “The Wheels on the Bus” at 5am instead. :)

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Check out the Light Phone!

6 min read

For most of high school, I had a flip phone. Its benefits were numerous: I could absentmindedly open and close it while waiting for the bus, I could use its tiny keyboard to send T9 texts1 to my friends and crushes, and, most importantly, I could dramatically snap it shut after an angsty phone call with my mom.

Those were the days!

In recent years, I’ve found myself getting curious about returning to that time. Not for the arguments about whether a mini jean skirt and baby polo tee2 were appropriate attire for winter—sorry, Mom—but for the experience of a more “minimalist” phone. What would it be like to go back to the days of dumbphones?

Sapiens, I decided to find out.

For the past month, I teamed up with Light, makers of the popular, intentionally minimal Light Phone. The Light Phone III has the following: calls, texts, maps, podcasts, music, camera, alarm, calendar, timer, notes, and hotspot. More important, though, is what it does not have: a web browser, email, social media, and all the other apps that tend to distract us.

I tested it out, a few of our fellow sapiens tested it out, and we all came together to talk about it last week. So, how’d it go?

But first, the research

It wouldn’t be Techno Sapiens without a little research, so let’s start there. What does the evidence say about “dumbphones” or “minimalist phones” like the Light Phone?

To understand this, we need to look at the larger research literature on “digital disconnection,” or reducing some aspect of our technology use to improve well-being. You may remember that earlier this year, we discussed a helpful framework for digital disconnection.

The takeaway? There is a spectrum of potential disconnection strategies—from brief screen time limits to full-scale digital detoxes—and what works depends on who’s doing it, when, and maybe most importantly, why.

So, what’s the deal with dumbphones?

Earlier this year, researchers at Stanford published the results of a study specifically examining Light Phone use among college students. As with any traditional randomized trial, they randomly assigned some students to use a Light Phone and others to use their smartphones as usual. But they did something a little different, too: they also recruited a group of students who opted-in to using a Light Phone. These “high-interest” users saw flyers advertising free Light Phones and jumped on the opportunity.3

Participants used their Light Phone (or smartphone as usual) for one week, filling out four surveys during that time.

Here’s what they found:

• All Light Phone users spent less time on their phone and social media

• All Light Phone users also reported lower feelings of dependency on their phones, and greater agency or control over their use

• There was no effect on positive emotions, feelings of productivity, social connection, or depressive symptoms

• Only “high-interest” Light Phone users reported lower stress and higher life satisfaction

Here’s the takeaway: switching to a Light Phone had positive effects for all users, but it was most effective for those who wanted to do it.

It sounds obvious, but this is an important and consistent finding across the digital disconnection literature: we need to find strategies that work for us, personally. When we’re motivated to make a change—whether due to our preferences, values, or simply our capacity to try something new at the moment—it’s likely to be more effective.4

From research to real life

Maybe this research has you feeling motivated to make the switch to a dumbphone. If so, you might be wondering: is it actually possible? How do people survive in today’s world without a smartphone?

Well, thanks to our fearless fellow sapiens, who have tested it out and lived to tell the tale, we have some answers.

How’d they do it?

There were three basic approaches to using the Light Phone:

• Some users (like me!) opted to keep their smartphone with the same number, and to get a different phone number for their Light Phone. They could then pick and choose: (1) who to give their Light Phone number to, and (2) when to use which phone (e.g., Light Phone for nature walks and quality time with family; smartphone for workday).5

• Some users switched their number (and cell service) over entirely to the Light Phone. They kept their smartphone for emergencies—using Wi-Fi or the Light Phone’s hotspot when needed.

• Other users fully took the plunge: switching entirely to the Light Phone and forging bravely ahead into a smartphone-free existence.

And how’d it go?

As we’d expect from the research, this varied a bit by person. A few users were too daunted by the set-up (and, in one case, the unfortunate co-occurrence of a baby’s sleep regression) to successfully make the switch. Others felt they’d need longer than a few weeks to notice the true impact.

For many, though, it was powerful.

Here are some of the experiences they described after making the switch:

• Some felt freer, finally having the opportunity to separate themselves from their phones.

• They talked about feeling more “connected to reality” or “present in the world.”

• A few users described feeling good about the example they were setting for their children.

• Some felt they had a new opportunity to think about how they actually spend their time.

• One felt that, finally, they were “more present and engaged in real life as opposed to a screen.”

But what about…?

Another discovery from the experiment of “going light”? According to one tester, “it made me realize how the world wants you to have a smartphone.”

Smartphones are so embedded in our everyday experiences that living without one can take some creative problem solving.

I, for example, forgot that I rely almost entirely on Apple Pay, and a few times arrived at a coffee counter empty-handed.6 Luckily, this was easily solved by carrying a credit card or cash.

Here are a few other challenges and how users solved them:

• Electronic boarding passes and tickets. Print in advance.

• Live traffic updates while driving. According to one user, “I used my ears and eyes…and it worked.” Genius!

• Public transit passes. Ask for a physical pass.

• QR code menus. Ask for a physical menu, or ask a friend/family/stranger to look at the menu on their phone.

• Uber. Third-party services allow you to text or call for an Uber. Or get a taxi.

• Two-factor authentication. Use text authentication when possible. Ask your workplace if there are alternatives.

• Daycare check-in/check-out. Make alternative arrangements with the school.

• Other parent-school communication apps. Most can be accessed via web.

Feeling lighter

Ultimately, users were clear: not having a smartphone did create friction. They did not expect the transition to be seamless, and of course, it was not. For many, though, the inconvenience was worth it for the feelings of presence, connection, and having more time.

Many of us have gotten used to a near-frictionless world: where everything we want and need is available with the click of a button.

And in that world, sometimes creating friction—and the delightfully messy, real-world experiences it can bring—is, actually, the whole point.

Thank you again to Light for your support, to all the sapiens who experimented with “going light,” and to all of *you* for being here. Here’s to continuously trying to find the right balance of digital and real life, together.

If you’re interested in exploring the switch to a Light Phone, visit their website here.

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It’s summer! I hope you are spending lots of time enjoying the sunshine, going for walks, and, of course, on the phone with your pediatrician begging them to expedite your children’s camp health forms, or in your bedroom, door closed, hiding from your children as you try to send an email.1

In addition to those things, I’ve been doing my usual: reading studies, talking about research, and watching and listening to all things psychology-related. I hope you’ll find these things interesting, too!

What I’m reading

This new study on AI sycophancy.

We’ve talked before about how AI chatbots tend to be “sycophantic,” or excessively agreeable, validating, and affirming. For example, when I asked ChatGPT about strength exercises earlier this year, it responded:

Anyway, I’m increasingly fascinated by how this tendency might impact not just our strength training plans,2 but also our real-world relationships.

This latest study from researchers at Oxford and Stanford randomly assigned adults to talk about challenging personal situations (e.g., ending a friendship, using unhealthy coping strategies) with 3 types of AI models: sycophantic, neutral, or challenging, or no AI at all. Participants had four conversations with their assigned AI model per week over the course of three weeks.

At the end of it, those in the AI condition reported feeling less satisfied with their real-life human interactions. They were also more likely to say that, in the future, they’d seek advice from AI—in fact, they were almost as likely to say they’d go to AI as their close friends and family. Interestingly, participants reported this was more about feeling understood by the AI, rather than the quality of the advice per se.

My take: The most obvious takeaway from this study is that these models are incredibly effective at making us feel good—so much so that they may be negatively impacting (or displacing) our real-world relationships.

But I also keep thinking about the other side of the comparison—the human-to-human interactions—because it sounds like we need to work on these! We may never match the perfectly tuned sycophancy of a chatbot, but we could all probably do more to help those around us feel validated, listened to, and ultimately, understood. Note: this study is a pre-print and has not yet undergone peer review. Available on Arxiv.

What I’m still thinking about

My conversation with earlier this month.

Jay is a social psychologist and professor at NYU, who writes newsletter about how to work through divisions and help groups thrive (offline and online).

I loved hearing what Jay had to say on the debates about technology and mental health, as well as cutting-edge research happening in his lab. You can watch our full conversation below, but here are some of the highlights:

• We generally agreed on the state of the research on social media and adolescent mental health—it’s hard to argue that there is no impact, though effects are likely smaller than the headlines suggest.

• We discussed how polarized the debate about the topic can be, especially (ironically) when it plays out on social media. This happens to be Jay’s area of expertise, and he described how, once issues like this are seen through a moral lens, it increases black and white thinking.

• I suggested that the framing of “social media bans” may be increasing opposition to them. What if, instead of using the word “ban,” we described them in more neutral terms, like “raising the age of access from 13 to 16”?

• We talked about the challenges of “digital detox” studies, and Jay offered results from a more targeted intervention his lab developed: Unfollowing the 10 most extreme accounts on your feed, and following 10 uplifting accounts, reduces exposure to misinformation, decreases hostility toward other political groups, and increases positive emotions and well being. We should all probably do this. Today.

Here’s our full conversation, and make sure to subscribe to Jay’s newsletter: .

What I’m watching

This new TED Talk on teens and tech.

When Jonathan Haidt published The Anxious Generation in 2024, Candice Odgers wrote a widely-cited counterpoint via her book review in Nature. She’s a professor at UC Irvine and one of the world’s leading experts on adolescent mental health and technology use, and now she has a new TED Talk called “What We’re Getting Wrong about Teens and Tech.” Here’s an illustrative quote:

Technology companies need to be held accountable, improve safeguards, and work to protect all users, especially children, and it is also the case that social media does not emerge as the major driver of adolescent mental health problems for the vast majority of adolescents today.

I love the talk’s positive view of teens and resistance to the fear-based narratives we so often hear about technology and mental health. I don’t agree with everything—in particular, I’m more open to the idea of social media bans than I think Candice is—but this talk has a powerful and important message, and I highly encourage you to listen.

PS - if you’re interested in hearing more about how Candice Odgers’ and Jon Haidt’s views differ—and getting a sense of some of the core issues in this debate—check out this excellent conversation between them.

What I’m listening to

This new podcast on relationships and well-being.34

This one is fun! For those of us interested in the psychology behind our relationships—which is, dare I say, all of us?—I’ve got a new podcast. That Popular Podcast is about “the social stuff we all experience, why it happens, and what it tells us about ourselves” and is hosted by radio host Aaron Keck and acclaimed psychology professor (and my graduate advisor!) Mitch Prinstein.

I recently listened to the episode “That Table Where you Sat in the High School Cafeteria,” which is all about the “cliques” and “crowds” we tend to sort ourselves into, even as adults.

There is, as you might expect on a psychology podcast, much talk about nerds, which is (1) delightful and (2) reminded me of my own high school superlative: “Class Closet Nerd.” (Translation: very nerdy, but trying to hide it). Think I can safely say that, as an adult, I’ve proudly dropped the “closet” portion. See: this newsletter.

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5 min read

Let’s play a quick game. I am going to describe a technology, and you tell me what it is.

Kids are spending hours on this technology every day. A study of hundreds of 6- to 16-year-olds in the Journal of Pediatrics finds that many are addicted to it. There are also concerns about how this technology may interfere with social connection and the development of empathy, and may increase exposure to violence and sexual content. Some evidence links it to anxiety and other mental health problems, yet parents feel powerless to stop it.

Got your answer? That’s correct! It is…the household radio. Exactly what you guessed, right?

In the 1920s and 1930s, ownership of personal radios saw exponential growth. By the late 1930s, kids in New York, for example, were spending between 1 and 3 hours per day listening to them. That article in the Journal of Pediatrics? It was published in 1941.

Even more interesting, a near-identical description of the technology and society’s concerns about it could be applied to just about any new media you can imagine. Social media, of course, but also: the Internet, video games, television, and comic books. Even novels were blamed for “reading addiction” in the 18th century, and the act of writing itself was a source of concern in Ancient Greece.1

So, what’s going on here?

These examples come from an article by University of Cambridge psychologist Amy Orben.2 It was first published in 2020, but I think it’s worth revisiting today. The name of the article? The Sisyphean Cycle of Technology Panics.

I’m sorry…Sisyphean? Is that a disease?

It is not (as far as I know).

Those familiar with Greek mythology may remember the story of Sisyphus, who was condemned by Hades for all eternity to roll a heavy boulder up a hill. Each time Sisyphus got close to the top of the hill, the boulder would roll back down, and he’d be forced to start over again. Kind of a bummer!

So what does that have to do with technology?

Orben argues that “technology panics”—periods of intense societal concern about a new technology—operate according to a similarly problematic cycle. Each new technological advance raises remarkably similar worries and questions, which are then fed by public conversation, scientists, and policymakers, until a new technology comes around and the whole cycle starts again.

What is the cycle?

The cycle Orben describes proceeds in four steps. After the introduction and fast adoption of a new technology, the following steps take place:

1. Panic creation

Society becomes highly concerned about the effects of a given technology, especially on kids. Some of this can be attributed to “moral panic”—the perception that a person or thing is challenging societal norms and values3—though often technological panics are broader than that. Concerns4 fall into familiar categories:

• Loss of social connection

• Addiction, “mania,” or overuse

• Exposure to violence

• Exposure to sex

• Loss of empathy

2. Political outsourcing to science

Politicians take on the cause of “fighting” the new technology, in many cases boosting their public image—but also, potentially, deflecting from thornier issues (e.g., structural inequity, educational quality). As part of this, the work of finding solutions to the negative effects of the technology is outsourced to scientists.

3. Wheel reinvention

Scientists take up the challenge, and research follows a similar trajectory for each new technology. The research “starts from scratch” to investigate many of the same questions, beginning with broad, causal questions (“do smartphones cause depression?”) and moving toward more specific (“do certain uses of smartphones, among certain groups of children, cause depression?”). Ultimately, scientists do not reach consensus in part due to a lack of shared, underlying theory.

4. No progress; new panic

How does the panic end, if research never comes to a consensus and political debate continues?

The answer: a new technology emerges, and we all move on.

When it comes to social media, I believe we’re approaching step four. We have yet to come to a societal and academic consensus, and yet, it’s only a matter of time before we move on. Why? Because AI is here, and it is the latest target of our concern.

But isn’t this time different?

When people learn of this cycle of technology panics, they tend to fall into two camps.

On the one side, we have people who see the cycle as evidence that we’re all just overreacting. The technology in question is fine, there’s nothing to worry about, and can you believe we were so worried about the radio?! We turned out great!

On the other side, we have people who argue that this time really is different. We are seeing real problems related to the technology, and there are more coming in the future. This technology is unlike anything we’ve seen before, and we cannot dismiss the challenges it will bring.

In my career thus far, I’ve spent time operating somewhere between both camps, as I’d imagine many of us have. How do we make sense of these different views? When it comes to AI’s effects on our well-being, and that of our kids, is this all just one giant overreaction? Or do we really have something to worry about?

My current view is that, strange as it sounds, both are true.

On the one hand, we need to understand how we fall into familiar patterns of fear and overreaction. It’s important to investigate what these cycles of concern say about us, as much as the technology, so we can rightsize those fears in the context of everything else impacting our lives.

At the same time, it would be ridiculous to dismiss all concerns about new technologies—and AI is no exception. New technologies often do have serious problems that need to be addressed. They are transformative. They have, and will, change our lives, and those of our children.

When it comes to AI, I’m starting to believe that everything will be different this time…just like it always is.

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7 min read

Have you ever had the experience of eating outside, maybe at the beach, or in the park, and you get all settled, pull your sandwich out, prepare to take a nice, big bite—and then your napkin starts to blow away? And you try to grab it, but you just miss it? So then you get up to chase after it, and you reach down for it, but before you can snatch it, it tumbles a few more feet away? And soon you’re in a full-blown sprint, lunging and stomping, and each time you think you finally have the napkin in your grasp, it happily floats away just a little bit farther?2

This is sometimes how I feel about data on kids and AI. [I know, I know. Stick with me, here.]

AI tools like ChatGPT and Gemini are quickly embedding themselves into kids’ everyday lives. Yet each time we gather data about how and when they’re using these tools, the data is quickly outdated, moving just beyond our grasp, again.

But I have good news! Today we’ve got the newest national survey data on teens’ and tweens’ AI use from Common Sense Media.3 Data was collected in late March, and the report came out just last week. Even better news? This survey is the first in a series that will take place over the next few years, so we can track changes in kids’ AI use over time—and always stay up to date.

So, grab your sandwich, hang on to those napkins, and let’s take a big, old bite out of the latest data. [I’m sorry, I can’t help myself.]

Note: I was lucky enough to be an adviser on this report, but all opinions and terrible metaphors contained here are my own.4

What are we looking at?

A nationally-representative sample of 1,204 children (ages 9 to 17) across the U.S. answered survey questions about their use of AI.

Researchers gave these children a long definition of AI so they knew what they were answering questions about:

“AI is a kind of computer program that learns from a lot of information. It can answer questions, create things, and help with tasks. For example, AI can chat with people, write text, make pictures or videos, and create sounds or music, among other things.” They also provided examples of AI as part of the definition, including chatbots (e.g., ChatGPT, Gemini), AI-generated summaries on Google, AI image or video generators, AI-powered learning tools (e.g., Gauth AI, Khanmigo), and AI writing assistants (e.g., Grammarly).

How many kids are using AI?

Most of them! Among kids ages 9 to 17, 86% said they had used or interacted with AI.

Here’s the full breakdown of how much they’re using it:

What are they using it for?

The most common use of AI is for “entertainment or just for fun.” Among AI users, 89% said they use AI for this purpose.

Close behind is “help with schoolwork or homework,” with 85% of AI users saying they use it for this. Notably, 1 in 5 AI users (21%) say they use AI for schoolwork or homework every day.

Many kids (75% of AI users) are also using it to create things like images or videos, and the majority (57% of AI users) are using it to get information or advice about their health or bodies.

It’s relatively common for kids to take other personal topics to AI, too. Among AI users:

• 49% have used it to get advice on decisions about their future or goals

• 40% to practice conversations and social skills

• 37% to discuss feelings or personal problems

However, kids are still much more likely to say they’d go to a trusted adult, rather than AI, for questions about their health or body. Among all kids surveyed, 73% said they’d go to an adult first, versus 12% who said they’d go to an AI chatbot first.

Are kids also talking to adults about AI?

So, kids generally say they’d go to an adult over an AI chatbot with questions about their health. But what about when they have questions about AI itself? This is more of a mixed bag.

In total, 56% of children have had a conversation with an adult (parent or teacher) about how to use AI safely. This leaves 44% of kids who have never had a conversation like this.5

Relatedly, 17% of kids say they’ve seen something inappropriate when using AI (i.e., something they “felt was not okay or wasn’t meant for someone [their] age”). Among those, only 1 in 3 (33%) say they told a trusted adult about it.

Are some kids more likely to face challenges with their AI use?

Yes. This survey identifies two at-risk groups of children when it comes to AI, though there are certainly others not covered in this report.

(1) Kids who are having a tough time in school. Here’s the percentage of kids in different groups who say they use AI for schoolwork at least once a week:

• 56% of kids who have a hard time staying focused (vs. 45% who do not struggle with focus)

• 55% of kids who find it hard to learn math skills (vs. 46% who do not)

• 53% of kids who find it hard to write essays (vs. 46% who do not)

• 55% of kids who find it hard to keep working on something challenging when they want to stop (vs. 45% who do not)

(2) Kids who are feeling lonely or struggling socially.

Kids who say it is hard for them to make friends (versus not hard to make friends) are more likely to say they use AI to discuss their feelings and personal problems (48% vs. 31%), and more likely to say that AI understands them better than most people (22% vs. 8%).

And among kids who report feeling lonely at least some of the time:

• 54% use AI daily

• 46% use AI to practice conversations or social skills (only 36% of non-lonely kids do this)

• 45% use AI to discuss feelings or personal problems (only 31% of non-lonely kids do this)

Summing up

For me, there are two major takeaways from this survey.

First, most kids are using AI. In this sample, it’s 86% of 9 to 17 year olds. Some of these uses are purposeful—kids are actively going to ChatGPT or Gemini for homework help or entertainment. Some of these uses are simply built into their existing tech habits, with AI summaries, for example, embedded in Google search. And we should expect that this number will only increase with the next survey.

Second, I think we are starting to see a similar pattern here to what we’ve seen with other digital technologies: kids who are already vulnerable are most likely to run into challenges with AI. In this survey, we see that kids who are already struggling in school, whether with focus, reading, math, or persistence in learning, are also the ones using AI more frequently for their schoolwork. Kids who are lonely or having difficulty making friends are more likely to turn to AI for support, and in some cases, to say that AI understands them better than most people.

Now, it’s tempting to look at this and conclude that AI, and other technologies, are simply a mirror—same problems, just in a new (virtual) location. But I don’t think that quite captures what’s going on, either. In my academic life, I’ve written about what I call the “transformation framework” of technology: basically, experiences don’t just happen the same way they always have in the context of technology. The features of the technology actually transform those experiences into something new and different.

In the case of AI, what I think we are seeing is an amplification of existing experiences. If I’m a child who has always struggled academically, for example, most current AI tools are going to magnify that experience. I have an ever-present, incredibly tempting shortcut at my fingertips, and the more I use it, the farther behind I may fall. This is why the features of the technology matter. Ideally, the tools should be built not to magnify shortcuts, but instead, to magnify learning—to help struggling students make progress, instead of pushing them farther behind.

Ultimately, this pattern—of kids who are already vulnerable also being most vulnerable to AI’s challenges—reminds us of the need to be incredibly thoughtful in how we approach new technologies. We need to understand the ways that children differ from one another, and think carefully about how we can support their individual needs. We need to address the root causes of certain online challenges, like loneliness, emotional struggles, and academic difficulties, and we need to consider how the features of our technology are amplifying children’s experiences, for better and for worse.

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6 min read

I will admit: for most of my life, I didn’t spend my day-to-day considering the principles of economics. I would guess that you, too, do not generally ponder utility functions while doing the dishes or consumption smoothing while ordering groceries. Well, I have good news! Today’s special guest is about to change that, and I have a feeling your life, like mine, will be better as a result.

is an economist and professor at Wharton who studies the economics of women’s lives. I stumbled on her first book, Having it All: What Data Tells Us About Women’s Lives and Getting the Most Out of Yours in my Spotify audiobook library a couple months ago. I have a distinct memory of walking around my neighborhood, Corinne’s voice in my ears discussing the impossible demands of working motherhood and advice for navigating it. I am not sure I’ve ever felt so validated by a book. Most of that walk was spent trying to stop myself from fist pumping, shouting YES! Exactly!, and generally scaring the neighbors.

When I came back from that walk, I reached out to Corinne and asked her to share her insights with all of us. Whether you are a mom or not, there’s something in here for everyone. So please, enjoy—and feel free to sneak in a fist pump or two while you’re at it.

Thanks for being here, Corinne!

Having it All is an Amazon best nonfiction book of the year, and you can grab you own copy right here. Make sure to also subscribe to Corinne’s newsletter Femonomics!

One of the goals of your book is to help readers maximize their "personal utility function." Could you talk about what that means?

Oh yes!!

Your utility function measures the sum total of your joy, fulfillment, and meaning over your lifetime. It’s what economists think of as what you as an individual are maximizing when you make decisions, the same way a firm maximizes profit. But, while any accountant could look at a firm’s balance sheet and say, this was your profit, no one can say what your utility is, because it’s unique to you and what you value.

Another way to think of it is like your personal video game score in life, over your entire lifetime, but only you know what gives you points and how many! And when we’re talking about those points, it’s the things your 80 year old self would look back on and say, that was a life well lived. Not the momentary fizzy spark of, like, looking at our phone for the hundredth time.

I think the concept of utility is so useful, because while it’s become trendy to talk about maximizing happiness or joy, utility is a richer concept—it includes serving our values. Spending time giving back to our communities, or sitting by the side of a dying family member, something that doesn’t make you happy exactly, but we can all agree is one of the most meaningful possible uses of time.

Your utility function is your guide to how to invest both your money and your time wisely. It reframes success—it’s not just about making as much money as possible or getting that big promotion, it’s about getting the most utility. So, a promotion that takes all your time in exchange for the extra money, might not be a good deal utility-wise, because your time is so important for making utility!

Using utility as a measure for success also does something else very important: it frees us from comparison. Because we understand that if someone has a faster moving career, a nicer house, or more followers, they might be maximizing a different utility function than us.

So, say it with me, don’t compare yourself to someone with a different utility function than yours!

What other economics principles might be helpful to the average person (i.e., non-economists!) in thinking about how to organize and manage our lives?

A key part of my philosophy is thinking about the opportunity cost of your time, not just money.

• Opportunity cost means that when we use a scarce resource, we have to think about not just the benefit of what we’re doing, but the cost of foregoing what we could have done instead.

• This provides a reframe when we want to say yes to our kids wanting to do an activity across town—what are we giving up? This is a broader perspective parents can take that kids often miss, and it’s so important in making decisions, because one of the biggest ways I see parents getting squeezed is just being way over-scheduled and then everyone is crazed and no one is actually having any fun.

And then when thinking about investing your time and money over the lifecycle, I think the economics concept of permanent income is really helpful (a little less mainstream than opportunity cost, which most b-school types are familiar with).

• Permanent income is the idea of thinking about your total lifetime earning capacity when making decisions.

• So, if really going all-in on my job for the next year gets me a promotion that raises my income for my entire lifetime, that’s worth a lot more than just the extra $5,000 salary bump in the moment.

But that also means that economists recommend something called consumption smoothing—that it makes no sense to live like a pauper in your 30s and a prince in your 60s once you’ve earned all that lifetime income.

• So, if there are ways you can make your life easier without going into high-interest debt when you’re in career crunch periods, you should do it!

• In my book I refer to this slightly ridiculous New York Times article about two young economists outsourcing everything (“They even hired someone to spend hours going through thousands of old family photographs to figure out which are the ‘good ones.’”) to make the point that when we’re in what I call “the squeeze”—the period when we have young kids and young careers and everything feels hard—spending a little money to make time can be very rational.

• What I don’t want you to do is get into high-interest consumer debt or forego an employer-sponsored 401K match—that just has way too high a cost—but if it’s the difference between extra savings, or financing something like a car or house to spend a little more to make your life easier, I vote spend a little more right now.

What is one of the most surprising things you've learned in your research?

I think how difficult it is to overcome gender roles in the division of household labor. I see that men’s time doing household labor is very non-responsive to the portion of household income they earn—so a man earning 20% of the household income does about the same around the house as a man earning 80%. This means if women are breadwinners, they end up “winning the bread and baking it too,” which can lead to a lot of grumpiness and feeling time-starved.

I think if you want to swim upstream of those gender roles, you really need to over-compensate—assign a disproportionate amount of the visible tasks to him, because women so often end up doing the invisible work. I liken it to an iceberg, where men are doing half of what they see, the tip of the iceberg, but women are doing the whole iceberg under the surface.

If you want to rebalance things with your partner, I offer a free time-tracking spreadsheet that lets you get graphs of how you and your partner spend your time, so you can make some of that invisible work visible!

What is one thing each of us can do today to maximize our "personal utility functions"?

Realign your time with what brings you the most utility.

• This means saying no to stuff that we said yes to for that phone-scroll dopamine effect—someone being happy with us is just as powerful—and getting your time back for your actual priorities.

• It means rebalancing the load with your partner (see above) and pruning your kid-bligations to what investments you really want to make in their growth and your time together as a family, not the aesthetic trappings of “good parenting” that Instagram is feeding you.

• It means outsourcing if you can, and viewing it as an investment in your career or your sanity, and not an unaffordable luxury (is getting your car an oil change an unaffordable luxury? Where is our guilt-laden conversation about that? Oh, it’s because it’s a task men would be more likely to take on if we didn’t outsource it…).

• It means leaning on your community, and sometimes making big changes in your life so you have that support if you don’t, or so you eliminate the tradeoff making all of this seem impossible right now (wrong city, wrong job, sometimes, eek, wrong partner).

But the easiest thing you can do is to literally just invest some of your time in making utility by choosing something you love doing, putting it on your calendar, and doing it. The utility model lets us reframe leisure time as productive, because you can make the same amount of utility by using your time to do something you love as you can by working for an hour to make money to buy something you enjoy.

So you can be rich in utility right now if you carve out that time, and protect it on your calendar the way you would a meeting with your boss, and let everything else claim the scraps of your time, instead of leaving them for your biggest priorities.

Are you ready to do this? What’s something that you love? When can you next do it? Put it on your calendar! Now do it! You’re so productive.

Grab your copy of Having it All here and sign up for Corinne’s newsletter here.

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6 min read

“You now have a shorter attention span than a goldfish” - A 2015 TIME headline

When it comes to technology, concerns about declining attention spans are common. Many of us worry that our devices are destroying our, or our children’s, ability to pay attention. We notice we have more trouble focusing than we used to. We hear that kids don’t read books anymore. We fear that humans’ attention abilities are shrinking, making us no better than goldfish.

But what’s actually going on here? Are we doomed?

So, I have good news and bad news. Bad news first: yes, we are (very) distracted. The average adult checks their phone 200 times per day, and the average teen 100 times per day. The source of that goldfish statistic (a Microsoft report) suggests that in 2013, we were already switching our attention across work tasks roughly every 8 seconds.1 This frequent switching between email, short-form videos, and the like, results in more boredom, worse memory, and less productivity.

But the good news? We are not doomed!

A new feature article in Nature summarizes the evidence on attention spans, and here is the takeaway:

What even is an “attention span”?

The ability to pay attention actually involves a few different skills:

• Sustained attention, or the ability to stick with a task over time

• Selective attention, or the ability to prioritize certain information over other information

• Executive control, or the ability to pay attention to what’s important and tune out distractions

Lab studies tend to measure sustained and selective attention. They typically do this through (boring) tasks, like the “d2 Test of Attention.” For this task, participants stare at a long list of letters like this:

They then have to cross off only the letter “d” when it appears with two lines above or below it. They have a certain number of seconds to complete each section. This goes on for about 10 minutes. Fun!2

And what does the evidence say?

A 2024 meta-analysis examining 287 studies of the d2 test, spanning over 31 years (1990-2021) shows no change in attention abilities over that time. In fact, adults got a little better at it.

When it comes to studies outside of the lab, research (unsurprisingly) shows that the frequency with which people switch tasks during the work or school day, for example, has increased over time. We are surrounded by distractions! We spend a whole lot of time quickly toggling between email, social media, documents, Substack, and so on. Young people spend a lot of time doing the same (maybe without the Substack). But this doesn’t mean our fundamental capacity to pay attention has changed.

Correlational research shows that people who frequently switch tasks, as well as those with poorer sustained attention abilities, show differences in grey matter volume in the prefrontal cortex of the brain. We do not know, though, whether this is causal. It may just be that people who already have lower gray matter in these areas are worse at sustaining attention.

Taken together: we do not have good evidence that raw attentional abilities have decreased over time, or that our frequent task-switching is causing some sort of long term brain damage.

But there’s a but

Of course there’s a but.

Here’s a good rule of thumb: our brains shape everything we do, and everything we do shapes our brains. So, does the time we spend task-switching on screens have some sort of impact on our brains? Probably! Likely in ways that are both good and bad. But is it causing irreversible brain rot and irreparable declines in attentional abilities? Most likely, no.

It is also very likely that, although our actual abilities to pay attention have not declined, it feels like they have because we are stuck in a habitual cycle of constant distraction. We’ve gotten used to the fact that, at the slightest hint of boredom or discomfort, we can reach for an app or an email refresh or a ChatGPT prompt. Many of our apps are designed to feed into this impulse.

But we can change this! We can reclaim our attention.

Our species’ attentional abilities have not declined, and we do not have evidence of long term brain damage, but that does not mean we should just happily carry on this way. We need to be very intentional about how we structure our environments to reduce distractions for ourselves and our kids—and, ideally, the tech companies designing these products would help us with this.

Whoops, I got distracted. What’s the takeaway?

When it comes to our relationship to technology, there is a common pattern here. We notice an issue in ourselves or our children, and we magnify it. We see it as evidence of a larger, irreversible trend, or of an inherent trait brought on by our technology and its brain-harming effects. Feeling down after scrolling Instagram becomes evidence of a population-wide surge in depression. A child uncomfortable in social situations becomes evidence of a generational absence of social skills. Difficulty reading with a nearby phone pinging becomes evidence of large-scale declines in attention spans.

It’s not that our technologies are not causing us problems. They are. Often, though, fixing those problems is more in our control than we think.

Check out the full article in Nature (republished in Scientific American).

How to fix your attention span

As with most things, there is no “one-size-fits-all” solution to reclaiming attention. Some of us may find success in smaller tweaks. Others (maybe most of us) will need larger-scale overhauls of our tech habits. Here are some suggestions:

Technical strategies

• Turn off phone notifications entirely. I turn off everything except texts and calls (and, if I’m very hungry, DoorDash).

• Delete distracting apps (social media, news) and block distracting websites

• Use apps like Freedom, one sec, and StayFocused on both phones and desktops to block distractions

• On desktop, use “full screen” mode when working, so your current task takes up the full screen. No more tempting email or text messages peaking out on the edges!

• Switch to a minimal smartphone (like Light Phone), or a dumb phone (e.g., flip phone). You do not have to do this permanently, but can consider using it at certain times, while keeping your smartphone.

• Try tools like Brick to block distractions

Behavioral strategies

• Create friction. Leave your phone in another room, in your bag, or generally out of sight. Simple but effective!

• Process email in batches. Check it at certain times, rather than scanning it throughout the day.3

• Change your physical setting. Our contexts can trigger habitual behaviors (like checking phones or websites), so try working from a new location, or using a different device.

• Try the Pomodoro technique. Do focused work for 25 minutes, followed by a 5-minute break. You can also start smaller (5 to 10 minutes), and work your way up to longer focus times.

• Take movement breaks. Get up and get moving! Even better if it’s outside. This helps restore focus and increase energy. (For inspiration, read the excellent book Body Electric by Manoush Zomorodi of ).

• “Digital detox.” As previously mentioned, I do not love the term “detox.” However, sometimes a dramatic change can help use rethink and reset our habits.

Emotional strategies

• Try “urge surfing.” When you sense an urge (to check your phone, to scan your email), take a moment to stop. Notice how you feel (bored? stuck?). Sit with that emotion for a minute, and watch as the urge slowly subsides.

• Give yourself grace! Breaking old habits and building new ones is hard. It takes time and effort. Remind yourself that your brain is not broken. You can do this!

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This post is about the U.S. Surgeon General’s advisory on screen time that came out last week. The substantive analysis is available to everyone. Below the paywall, you’ll find additional musings about some parts of the report that I found puzzling.

Thanks for being here, sapiens!

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5 min read

On Wednesday, May 20, the U.S. Office of the Surgeon General issued an advisory on the dangers of screen use for children and adolescents. It looks like this:

A Surgeon General’s Advisory is a “public statement that calls the American people’s attention to an urgent public health issue and provides recommendations for how it should be addressed.” Recent advisories, for example, have included warnings about: firearm violence (2024), parental stress and burnout (2024), loneliness and isolation (2024), and social media and youth mental health (2023).1

So what should we make of this one? Let’s take a look.

The good

The advisory calls attention to many of the challenges we talk about here at Techno Sapiens: the problematic design of many platforms made for children, excessive use of screens that interferes with children’s other activities, and disruption of youth sleep due to screen use.

The advisory also nicely summarizes a key takeaway from the research: that the effects of screens “depend on multiple factors, such as a child’s age, the types of screen use, the content viewed, the context of intended purpose, and what screen time may displace.”

And it notes that there are gaps in the research, with much of the existing work being correlational and relying on a range of different “screen time” measures.

Many of the recommendations in the report are common sense, reasonable guidelines that align with guidance from organizations like the American Academy of Pediatrics, American Psychological Association, and Common Sense Media. For example:

• For parents: create a family media plan, model healthy screen use for your kids, practice screen-free times at home.

• For policymakers: enact laws to protect child safety and privacy protection, fund research, and support access to public spaces like parks, playgrounds, after school programs, and libraries.

• For schools: consider cell phone policies and teach digital literacy. There is also a handy checklist in the Toolkit for helping schools think through questions related to their phone policies.2

The bad

Despite initial statements about how the effects of screens depend on context (good!), the advisory then goes on to a 4-page bulleted list of “Negative Impacts of Screen Use,” with most of those impacts overstated, lacking nuance, or relying on cross-sectional research (not good!).

The report is also imprecise in how it discusses “harmful screen use.” At times, it is specific, suggesting that screen use becomes “harmful” when it is excessive, difficult to control, or involves exposure to problematic content (good!). Other times, though, it seems to suggest that any and all screen use is harmful (not good!).

Beyond this lack of precision, I also found some inaccuracies. For example, in a large graphic, the report cites a study saying that nearly 5 out of 10 teenagers have experienced cyberbullying. This statistic does not appear in the paper cited. That paper uses data from the 2023 Youth Risk Behavior Survey (YRBS). According to the 2023 YRBS, 16% of high school students reported being “electronically bullied” in the past year.

Overall, between the report’s list of negative impacts, the title (“Warning on the Harms of Screen Use”), and even the ominous-looking cover image, my concern is that this advisory will only amplify the anxiety and guilt that so many of us feel when it comes to kids’ screen use. No one makes their best decisions when they’re in the midst of hysteria—that includes parents, children, and policymakers.

I do not think we need another dire warning about screens. I think we need action to create an environment—in our homes, schools, and communities—where children can find a healthy balance of on- and off-screen activities, and where the adults in their lives have the resources and support to make that possible.

The weird

Alright, now I need to be honest. There is some weird stuff in this advisory. I have read the news coverage, and have seen no mention of this weirdness. I assume this is because other outlets are ~very serious news organizations~ and have more important things to worry about than odd grammatical and stylistic choices.

But sapiens, we are (thankfully) not a serious news organization, so we’re going to get into it.

Read more

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6 min read

Happy Monday, sapiens! It’s time for this month’s Q&A, and I could not be more excited to introduce our guest, , author of the incredible new book The New Fatherhood: Why Everything They Told You About Being A Dad is Wrong, and How Embracing It Will Transform Your Life.

I first found Kevin through his Substack The New Fatherhood, of which I’ve been a regular and enthusiastic reader for [according to a quick search of my Gmail] nearly 5 years. In other words, Kevin—without his knowledge—has been a constant companion through my entire parenting journey thus far. And for that I am very grateful.

I am not, you may have noticed, a father—but I love Kevin’s writing all the same. It is honest, funny, beautifully-crafted, and genuinely helpful to all parents. Whether or not you’re a dad yourself, I think you’ll agree.

You can grab your own copy of the book right here.

Finally, a book for dads! It seems like a lot of the parenting books out there are (either explicitly or implicitly) written for moms. I’m wondering — what inspired you to write this book? And did you get any pushback (from publishers or others) about writing a “fatherhood” book?

The first round of feedback from publishers was eerily consistent: dads don’t read books. With my focus group of one, I knew that wasn’t the case. And thanks to the 22,000 dads who read my newsletter every week, I know I had the stats to back me up. When I talk to dads about their reading habits, they share artefacts that have helped them navigate the trials and tribulations life throws their way: Atomic Habits, The Daily Stoic, Why Buddhism is True, Four Thousand Weeks; books all written by men after becoming dads.

But walking into a store, great dad books are an anomaly. The right book at the right moment can change who you think you can be. Fatherhood is exactly that moment, a time when we need all the help we can get. So the issue was never that dads don’t read: it’s that most fatherhood books aren’t worth their time, caught between dry how-to books and “survival guides” written in a tone that treats fatherhood as something that should by endured, not enjoyed.

(Sidenote: there is no shortage of great books by and for moms! I often tell dads reading a great motherhood memoir is akin to a cheat code to understanding the person you live with. Some of my favourites are Jacqueline Rose’s Mothers, Rachel Cusk’s A Life’s Work or Jessi Klein’s I’ll Show Myself Out.)

Dads deserve better than what’s available. So I wrote the book I wish someone would have handed me a decade ago.

Are there any common misconceptions people have about modern fatherhood?

The biggest one I hear constantly, including from dads themselves, is that the role of the dad is to simply support mom.

There has been a lot written in the last few years on the idea of weaponised incompetence: dads playing dumb to avoid the work. But even for dads who are genuinely trying to lean in and co-parent more equally, being relegated to a role of support sets a dangerous precedent.

Yes, men can be guilty of worshipping at the altar of untouchable motherhood, providing the convenient side effect of abdicating responsibility. But with this vicious cycle—less involvement leads to less confidence, less confidence brings less competence, less competence justifies less involvement—ultimately all roads lead away from richer relationships with your children.

Dads need to be given the space to step up, even if that means getting things wrong. When a father’s parenting approach differs from a mother’s—as it inevitably will—he may be corrected, critiqued, or simply nudged aside. “Don’t do it like that” can become a steady drumbeat in those early months, and while not malicious—rather deeply rooted in the pressure mothers face to get everything right—the impact can be profound, and sometimes irreversible.

There are only so many times you can be told you’re doing something wrong before you’ll stop trying to do it right, retreating into a peripheral role—the fun dad, the disciplinarian, the fixer-upper—reinforcing the very dynamics we are working to escape.

The research is now unambiguous that engaged fathering shapes children’s emotional regulation, academic outcomes, and long-term mental health—but in order to do that, dads need to be treated as primary attachment figures, not auxiliary ones.

What was the most surprising thing you learned while writing the book?

That the scientific research on fatherhood remains so thin on the ground. There are 259 citations in the back of this book, and when I wrote about adjacent topics—psychedelics, mindfulness, life fulfillment—there was a robust base of knowledge to draw on. But when the lens turns to how men are actually navigating modern fatherhood, the science hasn’t caught up yet with the stories I was hearing from the dads in my orbit.

Paternal Postpartum Depression (PPD) is the clearest example. I dealt with it myself after my son was born in 2019, and when I couldn’t find the help I needed, I started writing so that other dads might find it in the future. Five years and thousands of dad-emails later, I’m still hearing from new fathers who’ve never once been asked about their mental health, and the research echoes this.

When I first started writing about the topic, it was suggested anywhere between 4-25% of new dads would experience an episode—a frustratingly wide range, driven by the fact that medical professionals weren’t screening for it the way they do for new mothers, paired with the particular male urge to avoid the doctor wherever possible and a reluctance to open up when asked how they were doing. A meta-analysis later put the overall figure at roughly 10%, broadly comparable to the rate in new mothers.

But even those numbers are suspect, because the way we screen dads remains stuck in the past. The Edinburgh Postnatal Depression Scale was built for mothers, and men more often mask their distress through irritability, rage, or compulsive overworking than through typical sadness, so even when fathers are screened, the wrong instrument is often being used.

With such a lack of resources, for the publication of the book I partnered with a team of therapists and counsellors to create a check-up tool for new dads, drawing on the latest research.

The most surprising thing isn’t a single fact I discovered in my research, it’s how much we still don’t know, and how many dads out there are silently struggling whilst we try to find it out.

Being a parent is hard! What is one practical takeaway dads (and moms!) might put into practice right away to make things a little easier?

I wanted the book to be useful to every dad—whether they’ve been doing it for ten days or ten years. And one thing that has come up consistently, that I’ve had repeated back to me over the five years of writing the newsletter, is to be armed with a personal parenting mantra that you can reach to in a time of need. This might mean the difference between losing your temper and finding a capacity for empathy and understanding that you didn’t even know was there.

These are the three that I return to most regularly:

1. “This too shall pass.” Whatever stage you’re in—the sleep regression, the won’t-put-my-shoes-on morning meltdown, the fact your eldest is developing selective deafness every time you ask them to clean up after themselves—just remember, this won’t last forever.

2. The Last Time Meditation. This one is from philosophy professor William B. Irvine, who suggested: “When you’re doing something, you should reflect on the possibility that this might be the last time you do it.” For parents, this takes on another dimension: there will be a last time you’ll carry a sleeping kid out of the car and into their bed. A last time they’ll go up on your shoulders. A last time they’ll grab your hand crossing the street. And you’ll have no idea when the last time will be. I used to get so frustrated combing the knots out of my daughter’s hair, and I never would have thought that I’d look back and wish I could still do it.

3. “They’re not giving you a hard time, they’re having a hard time.” I use this one every week. When your kid is melting down, the easiest thing to do is pour fuel on the fire. And, especially for dads who don’t consider empathy as the strongest tool in their emotional utility belt, we can strive to stop a meltdown, rather than understand it. So this mantra becomes a reframe that provides an instant shot of compassion to the heart.

You can grab your own copy of The New Fatherhood here and sign up for the newsletter here!

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Hello, sapiens! Maycember1 has arrived!

We’ve got graduations. We’ve got proms. We’ve got sports practices and exams and school talent shows and end-of-year parties. We’ve got baking cookies for the bake sale and tracking down “festive socks” for school spirit week and buying teacher gifts and shuttling between baseball games and birthday parties and spring carnivals and—Are you not entertained?!2

Anyway, we’ve all got a lot on our plates, so let’s hit the highlights today: a roundup of important new studies.

1. School phone bans are…working? Kind of?

This study has been everywhere and depending where you read about it, it either proves that school phone bans have been a total failure or a major success. So let’s take a look!

Researchers from the National Bureau of Economic Research partnered with Yondr, a company that sells lockable pouches for phones, which many schools use to implement phones bans. This was a “quasi-experimental” study. This means that, even though schools were not randomly assigned to use Yondr or not, researchers were able to compare schools that used Yondr pouches with very similar schools that did not. They looked at data from thousands of schools from 2018 to 2025 (excluding pandemic years 2020 and 2021) and found:

• Yondr pouches did decrease phone use, according to GPS data that tracked device activity.

• In surveys, teachers and parents were generally supportive of Yondr pouches; students were not.

• In the first year after Yondr pouch adoption, disciplinary incidents increased (according to school records), including 16% more suspensions. This effect faded in future years.

• In the first year after Yondr pouch adoption, student well-being declined, then rebounded and actually improved by the end of the second year.

• Yondr pouches had zero effect on test scores over the first 3 years after Yondr pouch adoption.

• They also had basically no effect on: attendance, students’ perceptions of how often online bullying was happening, and students’ self-reported classroom attention.

My take: This is an extremely impressive study—so many schools! So many datasets! GPS tracking, school records, surveys, test scores! These are the types of studies we need to start getting real answers on the effects of our tech-related policies. That said, as usual, I think the headlines around this study (“School cell phone bans don’t work!”) are missing some context.

First of all, this study does not look at state or school district-wide policy changes. It does not tell us whether these laws are or are not effective. Second, it looks at a very specific type of phone “ban” (Yondr pouches), so we don’t know about other types of bans. Third, we only have data for about 3 years post-adoption of Yondr pouches which, when it comes to changing things like test scores, is not very long.

Ultimately, I believe phone bans are generally a good idea. I also do not think they are going to solve everything. To me, this study—in combination with all the other research we have on phones in schools—supports that conclusion.3 NBER.

2. Some good news on youth mental health

We see a lot of news about rising rates of mental health concerns in young people, so it’s also important to pay attention when trends might be moving in the other direction.

For many years, the U.S. had a 10-digit phone number people could call when they were facing a suicide-related crisis. But in July 2022, the country launched the “988 Suicide and Crisis Lifeline,” allowing people to simply dial “988.” Alongside this, $1.5 billion dollars were spent to expand the capacity of these crisis centers.

This study used the National Vital Statistics System, a registry of all U.S. death certificates, to track rates of suicide deaths among people ages 15 to 34 from 1999 to 2024. From July 2022 (the launch of 988) to December 2024, the rate of suicide deaths decreased 11% (i.e., 4,372 fewer suicides) below expected numbers. And this rate was highest in states that had the highest uptake of 988 use.

My take: I find this data to be really encouraging. The launch of 988 was a massive endeavor—financially and logistically—and this study offers some evidence that it is working. It’s especially encouraging to see that the states with the greatest decline in suicide rates were those with the strongest uptake of 988. It’s always nice to learn that our interventions are actually working and, in this case, even saving lives! JAMA.

3. Who are all these “health experts” on social media?

On a lighter note, we’ve got some interesting new data from Pew Research Center on the landscape of “health and wellness influencers” in the U.S.

First, the Pew team analyzed 12,800 social media accounts belonging to 6,828 influencers with over 100,000 followers on YouTube, Instagram, or TikTok. Then they surveyed over 10,000 U.S. adults about their experiences with these types of influencers.

Who are these influencers? According to their bios, 17% are conventional medical professionals (doctors, dentists, nurses), 7% are allied health professionals (physical therapists, pharmacists), 31% are “coaches,” 28% are “entrepreneurs,” and 16% have no credentials listed. Two-thirds (64%) are women.

And how much are we all turning to them for health and wellness information? A lot! 40% of all U.S. adults say they get information from these influencers or podcasts, and this is especially common among those under 50.

There are many reasons why we follow these people, but most people cite a desire to make a change to their lifestyle:

My take: First of all, I just love the idea of Pew researchers spending thousands of hours combing the bios of influencers.4 More importantly, their survey data suggests a wide range in how much trust people are putting in the health information they get from influencers: 10% say they trust “all or most” of the information, 65% say they trust “some” of it, and 24% say they trust “not too much or none.” I’d love to see the follow-up on that “some”—what types of information are we more likely to trust? When is this trust helpful, and when does it lead us astray? Pew Research Center.

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6 min read

This week, I went to a presentation in my local high school auditorium called “Social Media and Your Kids.” It was open to all parents in the community and involved a speaker sharing information on the risks of social media and strategies to navigate it.

Sapiens: I felt like a spy.1 I spent half the time sinking into my chair, furtively glancing around, waiting, I guess, for someone to yell she doesn’t even go here! and escort me out. I did almost blow my cover when the presenter shared the results of a cross-sectional study, and I nearly grabbed the microphone to start lecturing about correlation and causation and the inherent limitations of observational research.2

I resisted that impulse, and made it out with some new ideas, an appreciation for much of what the presenter shared, and, as far as I can tell, an intact reputation as NOT the crazy lady who interrupts presentations in my community.3 Success!

However, there was one part of the presentation that concerned me: the use of the word “addiction.”4

Ah, here she goes again

In our discussion of the social media trial verdict, I shared the following:

There is…much debate in psychology about whether social media use (or, really, any non-substance using behavior outside of gambling) can be called an “addiction.”

Here’s my current take. Are there a small number of people whose social media use is so extreme that it causes significant impairment in their lives, and they are unable to stop using it despite that impairment? Yes. And for those people, maybe addiction is the right word, maybe it’s not, but maybe, it doesn’t matter because it’s still a big problem.

For the vast majority of people (and kids) using social media, though, I do not think addiction is the right word to use. And I worry that by labeling the average kid’s use “addiction,” we are: (1) ignoring the many different activities they might be doing on social media; (2) removing agency by suggesting that they are incapable of managing social media use, and (3) pathologizing a behavior, rather than implementing reasonable measures—in our homes, schools, and the products themselves—to address it.

So, you’re aware that I have mixed feelings about the use of this word. Today, I want to share a new study that, I believe, supports some of my concerns.

“Overestimates of social media addiction are common but costly”

How’s that for a paper title? Gets right to the point! Let’s talk about what the researchers found.

Scientists at California Institute of Technology and University of Southern California5 ran two studies with adults.

Study 1

In the first study, an online sample of 380 adult Instagram users answered questions about their use of Instagram.

• One measure assessed clinical criteria for Instagram “addiction,” like whether participants faced negative consequences because of their use, or had tried unsuccessfully to cut down.

• Another measure assessed people’s own beliefs about whether they were “addicted,” i.e., Right now, I feel addicted to Instagram.

• Only 2% of users met the criteria for addiction,6 but 18% believed they were at least somewhat addicted.

• Importantly, people who believed they were addicted also believed they had less control over their use and blamed themselves for using it too often.

Study 2

The second study took it a step farther. In an online experiment, participants answered questions about their Instagram use. All participants then received the following warning, using language from the Surgeon General’s 2023 report:

You have just completed a series of questions that identify different types of Instagram users. Your responses indicate that you use Instagram often. The U.S. Surgeon General has warned that frequent, excessive social media use is addictive. It can be harmful to your mental health and well-being.

They were then asked to write 2 to 3 sentences describing a time they felt addicted to Instagram, which caused them to spend a little time reflecting on their “Instagram addiction.”

Some participants did this exercise before answering more follow-up questions about their use, and others did it after.

When participants did this exercise before answering more questions—effectively prompting them to believe they were addicted to Instagram—they were more likely to say that:

1. They are not able to control their use or reduce it when they want to, and

2. They are to blame for their failure to control their use.7

In other words, participants tended to overestimate their addiction to social media, and when they did, it seemed to have negative consequences: blaming themselves and believing they were less able to control their use.

Summing up

Let me be clear: I am in no way saying that social media and our phones have no problems. Should they be designed to maximize our, and our children’s, attention and engagement at the expense of everything else? No!

I am also not saying that there are not some people out there who are using them in highly problematic ways. A small percentage of adults, and children, are likely seriously impaired by their use of social media—it’s causing serious problems in their relationships, maybe it’s getting in the way of basic functions like8 eating and hygiene, it’s destroying their ability to work or attend school. In these cases, the “addiction” label may be appropriate and, either way, this requires clinical treatment.

This study achieved that with a two-minute reflection exercise. Now, imagine what might happen with an entire ecosystem—news headlines, school presentations, “experts” and social media posts and even official government reports—telling us and our children that we are addicted.

This recent study draws a distinction between two types of labels: addiction versus habit. When people described their use as a habit, they did not show the same tendency toward self-blame and perception of lack of control. Maybe this is a hint toward what might actually work.

We can be specific about the problems with our technologies, with the ways they are designed, and with the ways that we use them. We can advocate for change to these products. We can be clear when our patterns of use have become a bad habit. And we can remind ourselves, and our children, that we have agency in choosing how to use them.

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4 min read

April is Earth Month,1 and we’ve been celebrating around here.

Just last week, my 4-year-old had a nature-themed show-and-tell for which he grabbed two fistfuls of grass from our lawn and dutifully stuffed them into a bag. My 2-year-old developed a new passion for birdwatching, stopping on our walks to point to each bird and note “I fink it’s a robin.”2 And my baby had her first taste of the beach, which mostly involved sleeping and an adorable, tiny sunhat.

A successful month!

But you know what they say3: it’s not a celebration without some research and a detailed list of suggestions, right? (Right?)

So, in honor of Earth Month, let’s talk about getting outside. We’ll keep it short and sweet.4

Research and nature? Have I died and gone to heaven?

Many of us have anecdotal, positive experiences of going outside.5 We may have felt relaxed and clearheaded after a walk in the woods. Or we may have found that taking our cranky young kids outside was the equivalent of pressing the reset button.

But did you know that the evidence is on our side?

Here are some good things that exposure to nature has been found to promote:

• Reduced stress

• More physical activity

• Better mental health

• Improved cognitive functioning (e.g., attention, memory)

• Social cohesion (e.g., through neighborhood parks)

For kids and teens, we have hundreds of studies, summarized in a 2023 overview of 36 systematic reviews on this topic. For example, one review of six “schoolyard greening” interventions finds positive impacts on students’ activity and socio-emotional health, and another systematic review of nature exposure studies finds that, when it comes to emotional and behavioral health, all 5 RCTs point to positive outcomes (higher well-being, reduced stress, etc.).

Similar results show up in adults, too. For example, a 2022 meta-analysis suggests that “nature walks” (compared to walks in urban areas, for instance) may help to reduce symptoms of depression and/or anxiety. And, as we learned last week, a meta-analysis from earlier this year found walking outside to be an effective strategy for promoting well-being.6

Alright, I’m convinced. Now what?

Here are some ideas for getting our kids (and ourselves) outside. This will, of course, depend on what is accessible near you. For a long, possibly too comprehensive list of screen-free activities for kids, check out this post.

1. Go for a walk or hike. You can turn this into a scavenger hunt by creating a quick “bingo card” with things like trees, birds, mushrooms, pinecones, flowers, etc., or play “I spy” as you go. For little nature explorers, bring along a magnifying glass and a box or bag to collect “treasures.” For older kids, disposable cameras (for documenting nature) can be a fun addition.

2. Get moving. Bikes, scooters, roller blades, plasma cars, skateboards—whatever gets your kids going.

3. Find space. Head to a local park, playground, open field, beach, empty parking lot, or other available space.

4. Play the ID game. Use the beloved (by me) Merlin Bird ID app to identify birds by their calls, or iNaturalist to identify plants, animals and insects (and contribute to science!). Consider a bird feeder, too.7

5. Get outside at night. Go stargazing, watch for the International Space Station, or just head out for a walk with a flashlight or headlamp.

6. Find a park. State parks, national parks, city parks—parks are the best! The National parks also have a Junior Ranger program for kids.

7. Water play. I cannot believe how much my kids love playing with water. They love a mud kitchen, but a big bin with water and some toys works great, too. Sprinklers and baby pools (with supervision!) are fun when the weather is warmer. I also love these ideas for an outdoor “Tinkerspace” from .

8. Gardening. If you have the space, a simple garden can be fun for planting, watering, and watching things grow. In our case, a potted cherry tomato plant on the patio gets the job done.

9. Have an outdoor picnic. Bring a meal or snack outside with a big blanket.

10. Outdoor art. Sidewalk chalk is always a hit. Paintbrushes and spray bottles (with water) are also a great way to “paint” concrete surfaces.

11. Go camping. I have yet to attempt this with my kids (if you have, please share advice!), but as a first step, I plan to set up a tent in the yard for some afternoon “camping.” With s’mores, obviously.

12. Follow your child’s interests. There is, of course, a never ending array of activities that can happen outside, so let your child’s interests lead the way. Sports, flying kites, sandcastles, lemonade stands, climbing trees, digging holes, pretending to be an acorn-collecting squirrel name Squirrely.8 There are lots of ways to enjoy nature, so it never hurts to just get outside and see what unfolds.

What are your (and your kids’) favorite outdoor activities? Please share in the comments!

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Hi there, sapiens! Happy day-after-spring-break to all who celebrate. Our week took a surprising turn when a virus downed every last man, woman, and child in our house. However, we have finally emerged from our sickbeds, my 4-year-old has once again donned his superman costume,1 and I have returned to my laptop to ease my ailing body and mind with…a good, old research roundup.

Today, we’ve got the latest on:

• Do screens cause brain damage that can be reduced with a digital detox? (Hint: No.)

• The simplest habit to improve well-being

• How teens use Instagram, Snapchat, and TikTok differently

• Links between youth AI use and human relationships

Happy spring and (I hope with every fiber of my being) end of flu season to you all!

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1. No, digital detoxes do not reverse brain damage

This is actually the opposite of new research, but feels important to mention. If you, like me, pay attention to these kinds of things, you probably saw last week’s Washington Post headline: “This detox may erase 10 years of social media brain damage, researchers say: Studies show that taking even short breaks could reverse measures of cognitive decline.”

So, what was this groundbreaking new study? Surely it involved fMRI scans of the brain before and after a “digital detox”? And surely it provided new evidence for “cognitive decline” caused by too much screen use?

Surprise! This study does not exist. The article mentions a few studies, none of which involve direct measures of brain activity, and none of which provide any evidence for screen-based “brain damage.” In fact, the main study cited in the article is this one, which I wrote about a year ago right here. It’s a good study! And it did find that a “digital detox” improved self-reported and task-based measures of mental health, attention, and memory.

But c’mon. “10 years of social media brain damage”?!2 This is a pretty egregious example of clickbait, and I am sorry to say that the fish (i.e., me) were biting. Original study in PNAS Nexus; Techno Sapiens write-up; Washington Post article.

2. A simple habit to improve well-being

Next up: a little palate cleanser because we deserve it!!!

So, we know researchers have come up with many interventions to improve well-being. Some of those are psychological ones (like mindfulness, self-compassion, gratitude practices, acts of kindness), and some are physical (like exercise, yoga, and nature programs). Many of these have been tested in randomized controlled trials (RCTs) to see how well they work.

This study took all those prior RCTs and combined them into one, giant meta-analysis to see which intervention worked best. Kind of like an epic, winner-take-all battle for happiness.

The winner? “Combined exercise-psychological interventions.” In other words, interventions that combined physical exercise (in this case, walking) with some kind of mental exercise, like “awe” (practicing wonder and appreciation for the things around you) or meditation.

My take: A few years ago, there was a TikTok trend called “Hot Girl Walks.” The idea was to go outside for a walk while thinking positive affirmations (and, of course, documenting it for social media). And now, at last, science has confirmed that Hot Girl Walks are more effective than basically any other well-being intervention out there. In sum: go for a walk, look at nature, feel better (and, maybe, hotter).3 Nature Hum Beh.

3. Snapchat is for messaging, TikTok is for entertainment

Our friends at the Pew Research Center are at it again! You know how people like me are always complaining about how “social media” involves so many different activities and platforms, so it’s not always useful to talk about it as if it’s one entity?

Well, Pew has done us a favor by separately investigating how teens use the three most popular social media platforms: TikTok, Instagram, and Snapchat.

Key findings from their nationally-representative sample of over 1,400 teens (ages 13-17):

• The majority of teens say they use Instagram (84%) and Snapchat (86%) to keep up with family and friends. Only 66% say this about TikTok.

• For news, they’re most likely to turn to TikTok (45%), followed by Instagram (39%), and less commonly, Snapchat (26%)

• 57% of teen Snapchat users message people directly everyday on the platform. Only 34% of Instagram users and 24% of TikTok users say the same.

• Teens are not posting or sharing much on any platform! 28% post daily on Snapchat, and only 16% on Instagram and 19% on TikTok.

• Very few teens believe any platform has hurt their mental health. Only 11% say this of Instagram, and 9% of TikTok and Snapchat.

My take: A pattern emerges from this data that fits with my own work with teens (and that you could probably also get by talking to any teen in your life): Snapchat is for messaging and keeping up with friends, TikTok is for entertainment, Instagram is somewhere in the middle. Posting on any platform is uncommon. A lot of what is happening, on TikTok and Instagram especially, is just passive scrolling. Also, as we’ve seen before: many teens think social media is bad for people their age—just not for them, personally. Pew Research Center.

4. Who struggles with AI use?

Another nationally-representative survey on young people and tech?! It’s my lucky week! This one is from , involves over 2,300 participants (ages 13-24) and is all about AI and human relationships. Some interesting tidbits:

• 28% of youth say they “infrequently” or “never” use AI. These non-users, compared to those who use it more often, actually show the lowest levels of belonging, connection, and well-being

• 50% say that parents know “little to nothing” about their AI use, and 61% say parents “never” or “rarely” talk to them about AI

• Youth who struggle the most with AI are those who feel like a burden in their lives, or like they have no one to turn to. These youth are more likely to report AI dependence, emotional attachment to AI, and turning to AI instead of humans for support.

My take: The intersection of AI use and offline relationships is complex. It’s not simply that youth who use AI more are showing worse “IRL” outcomes, or vice versa. On one hand, we’re seeing that youth who are already struggling offline are showing more problematic uses of AI. On the other, kids who don’t use AI at all were actually worst off. I doubt this is directly related to their (lack of) AI use—likely, it reflects larger challenges faced by this group of non-users (i.e., lower socioeconomic status). We’ll need more research to further tease this apart. The Rithm Project.

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