Transcript

American Family Radio thanks preborn for supporting pro life advocacy

Dr. Jessica Peck: We would like to take a moment to thank our sponsor, preborn. When a mother meets her baby on ultrasound and hears their heartbeat, it's a divine connection. And the majority of the time she will choose life. But they can't do it without our help. Preborn needs us, the pro life community, to come alongside them. One ultrasound is just $28. To donate, dial pound 250 and say the keyword BABY or visit preborn.com/AFR hello

 : and welcome to the Dr. Nurse Mama show prescribing hope for healthy families here on American Family Radio. Here's your host, professor, pediatric nurse practitioner and mom of four, Dr. Jessica Peck.

Every Friday we talk about a habit for healthy families

Dr. Jessica Peck: Well, hey there friends and welcome to my favorite time of day on my favorite day of the week. It is Friday.

Dr. Jessica Peck: Yay.

Dr. Jessica Peck: And I love a summer Friday. I don't know why, but the energy just feels different. And I hope that you're following along and changing the energy, the tech energy in your home. Now, if you've been following along since January, you know, every Friday we talk about a habit for healthy families. We started with four core spiritual disciplines, six rhythms, eight communication habits, and now we are right in the middle, in the heart of tech habits, which is such a ever present force around families. And we all have the best intentions and we all beat ourselves up because we all say, oh, we're going to stop scrolling, we're going to do better and we never do. So we're trying to break that down and make that power that really practical and powerful and helping change your family just one tiny little habit at a time. And over the last couple of weeks, we've talked specifically about having some tech free zones in your home and around your home, just in your family ecosystem. What are the tech free zones that you have? Every family of every life stage should have some zones that are technology free, that are free for relationships to flourish. Because that's where tech free times come in. Now we can take away the technology, but what are we replacing it with? We've got to give a compelling alternative and we've got to make time for relationship disconnection, relationship connection to counteract the disconnection that can happen with technology. And today we are going to talk about tracking our tech. So continuing and really in the heart of some of these practical things that we can do now, one of the best ways to make this happen in your home is to invite your kids to help you to be held accountable. So if you tell your kids, hey, we have this boundary in our house, we're going to do this, oh, Let me tell you, they would delight in being your conscience. Maybe that's your grandkids, maybe that's your spouse who will hold you accountable. Now, before you can change your technology habits, you gotta first understand that them and acknowledge the reality of what is. I think this is a big point of conflict in a lot of families because they'll say you're always on your phone. And people will say, I'm never on my phone. You're on your phone more than I'm on my phone. You're worse at it than I am. And all of these things. And we worry about the specific amount of time that we're spending on the phones and we kind of become really legalistic about it and looking at screen time and you know, I'm not on my phone right now, but you're on the phone. But what if the bigger issue isn't the hours, it's what do we do when we get off the phone like we talked about last week. And it's what about those interruptions that are invisible tethers that keep drawing you back to that technology? Now when we look a generation ago, even when my kids were growing up, which my kids are young adults now, communication happened in specific, specific designated moments. You got a phone call, you checked your mail. You like actually walked out to the mailbox and checked your mail. You watched the evening news, you sat down at a desktop computer. You didn't have a laptop, you took it with you everywhere. Technology was something that you went to. You even maybe had to have a dial up modem. Does anybody remember that? To have physical access to the Internet, it wasn't, we didn't even have WI fi. Can you imagine the days without WI fi? That's the first question now, when any guest walks in your home, what's the WI FI password?

The average smartphone user receives more than 100 notifications every single day

Today, technology not only visits us, it really invades our life. Every buzz, every ding, every banner vibration, badge alert, notification, text, email, social media update, breaking news story, sports score, marketing message, app reminder. Do you hear this list? Every one of those things is competing for one thing. Your attention, the attention. Economy is alive and well and attention is one of the most valuable resources and gifts that God has given us. And we are squandering it. We are auctioning it, off to the highest bidder. The average smartphone user receives more than 100 notifications every single day. Now you think about that. You imagine, do you remember the days? Are you of the age where you would remember the days of coming back and checking your answering machine and you see a Little flashing number that would tell you how many messages you had. Did anybody ever have over a hundred messages in a day? Can you imagine getting 100 phone calls in a day? But we've normalized, getting 100 notifications. And research consistently shows that many people check their phones more than a hundred times a day. Between 100 and about 500 to pending it, depending on the user, often without even being consciously aware of it. You would probably vehemently deny that and say, oh, that's not me. Oh, I don't do that. And. But we do. And what once felt unusual has become normal to where we don't even notice it. We've just adapted to a culture of interruption. Now, the problem is that human relationships and spiritual formation and things like learning and creativity and imagination and emotional connection, all of these things require sustained attention. Notifications aren't simply consuming our time. They are fragmenting it. And they're creating what researchers call. This is a new term that I saw. It's called attention residue. Have you ever heard of this before? I hadn't heard of it. It's where part of your mind stays focused on what interrupted you rather than on the person or task in front of you. Now, we like to call this multitasking, but research shows that is actually mostly a myth. It is a lie that we have told ourselves because researchers have found that the brain cannot perform two cognitively demanding tasks at the same time. We cannot think hard about two things at once. You just rapidly switch between tasks, like very rapid micro movements here. And so what we call multitasking is actually rapid task switching. But every switch carries a mental cost. And studies show that interruptions and this task switching, it reduces efficiency and makes us less efficient, and it actually increases the time that is required to complete the task. So if you are watching shows while you're doing the dishes, guess what? It probably takes you longer to wash the dishes, but maybe it's just not as unpleasant. But really, research shows that task switching can reduce productivity by as much as 40% in some circumstances. And when people attempt to juggle multiple tasks, you have an increased risk of error. Now, the error that we can often make is that error in judging the relationship in the moment and thinking, oh, I missed this. I didn't hear you say that. Now I'm going to not be where I'm supposed to be, because I wasn't fully listening. The brain sacrifices accuracy for speed. That is a preference causing us to overlook the details. We make poor decisions, and we just plain forget information and give our kids the the impression that we don't care, that attention residue follows us because after moving to a new task, part of your brain stays stuck on the previous one. It means you're never fully present in either task. Now when we do this, learning and memory suffer this. We see this with our kids who are trying to study while they're texting saying, oh, I can do this mom. I can scroll social media media while I'm studying. I can monitor notifications while I'm having a conversation with my parents. And they retain less information because deep learning requires us to have a sustained attention. But the bad news is that social media has trained our brains for 30 second bytes of information on two times speed. That is not sustainable for relationships. We also see this constant switching keeps our brain in a heightened state of alertness. And that means we're more stressed and more frequent interaction interruptions make us more tired, more stressed out, more overwhelmed. And you know, who pays the price? Our relationships pay the price. I've talked before about fubbing phone snubbing. And that research, which is a technical research term, fubbing shows that even brief attention shifts toward a device. Like you're talking in a relationship, you're at the table, your phone is face up and a notification goes off. It reduces relationship satisfaction and it reduces the feelings of connection and it makes people feel disrespect for the person who is just ignoring them. People feel less valued when they perceive they're competing with a screen for someone's attention. And one of the clearest demonstrations of the dangers of multitasking, of course is distracted driving. Because people say, oh, I can be on my phone or even use a hands free technology. You see how that plays out now children learn what they see because parents who frequently divide their attention between their children and their devices or spouses, they are modeling that it's distracted. Living is okay. And children learn. Listen to this. Children learn which relationships deserve full respect and attention by watching the adults around them. Now, spiritually speaking, being distracted means that we don't have an opportunity for deep prayer, for Bible study, for worship, reflection, or just being quiet and listening to God's voice. This is, this is a problem because we're lying to ourselves about multitasking, saying, hey, it feels productive, but it's not. We lie because activity feels like accomplishment. Being busy just makes us feel like we're getting more done and the brain is mistaking that speed for effectiveness. Feeling like, like, oh, look at all this momentum. I've been thinking, I've been moving, but that doesn't really mean that we've been effective. And technology is rewarding that divided attention. You get the streak, the notification, all of those things. That's really hard. And so the simple truth is that multitasking makes us feel more productive than we actually are. And as the old saying goes, when you chase two rabbits, you catch neither one of them.

Dr. Jessica Peck: You.

Dr. Jessica Peck: Over time, I want you to imagine all of these notifications that you get and the thousands of tiny fractures and tiny micro disconnections that happen throughout the day. You glance at your phone during dinner. You check a quick email during a conversation. You see, I, feel the buzz of a text notification while you're praying. You see a social media alert while you're helping your kid with their homework. And individually, these moments seem insignificant. But collectively, these micro disconnections are shaping our lives. So today's healthy habit is really simple.

We're going to talk about tracking our tech. How often are we being distracted?

We're going to talk about tracking our tech. Not to feel guilty, not to shame yourself, but just to be honest, to do a gut check and say, what am I really spending my time on? How distracted am I? Because what M gets measured gets managed, and what gets attention shapes your life. Now, we were never designed to process information that's given to us in a continuous stream, but we live in an environment where we are reachable every moment of the day. So let's talk about how we got there. Because 25 years ago, phones stayed attached to the walls and email was only checked at work. Honestly, because you didn't have your work computer at home. Even most businesses closed at night. News came at scheduled times and family dinner was rarely interrupted unless the neighbor happened to come by. And today, the Internet is living in your pocket. Work is following you home. The boundary between work and home is almost non existent. Entertainment follows you everywhere. Social media is never sleeping. Notifications are coming 24. 7. The smartphone didn't simply give us new capabilities. It changed our expectations. Now you feel obligated to respond immediately. And the most effective marketing uses urgency because technology companies are competing for that, that dollar that that need. And every app is designed to encourage more engagement. Be on this more. Scroll more, check it more, return more, respond more. Those notifications are intentionally designed to trigger curiosity and feelings of urgency. And most alerts that you have are really actually not that important. It's just an invitation to connect with the platform and disconnect from the people in front of you. Now, if you're a fan of CS Lewis, as I am in the book the lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, which I recommend for summer movie night for a family or summer reading. But the character Edmund, a boy, he encounters the white witch. Now, I am amazed at how the wisdom of C.S. lewis is really relevant to what we're talking about today. And it's encouraging. And I'm going to tell you about it when we come back. Now we'll talk some more about how do we check our tech, how do we see how often am I being distracted? And I'll give you some practical guidelines for how to shut off, that notification stream that is distracting you from the work that, that really matters with the people you love. Don't go away. We'll have more when we come back after this break.

The work of Preborn Network clinics is more urgent than ever

It's been four years since the overturn of Roe, but tragically, abortions have continued to rise. Today, the abortion pill accounts for more than 60% of all abortions. And last year alone, over 1.1 million babies lost their lives. That's why the work of PreBorn Network clinics is more urgent than ever. Every day, mothers facing unplanned pregnancies walk through preborn's doors, searching for hope. Instead of pressure and fear, they're met with love. Through a free ultrasound, mothers meet their baby for the very first time. It was like the beginning of my healing journey. They do an ultrasound and that's when everything changed. Because when I saw my baby and when I heard her heartbeat, that was it. Just $28 sponsors one ultrasound. $140 helps rescue five babies. To donate, dial pound 250 and say baby, that's pound 250, baby or visit preborn.com/AFR, that's preborn.com/AFR right now, more mothers need that moment of Hope. Just $28 sponsors one ultrasound and $140 helps rescue five babies. Your generous, tax- deductible gift also helps provide mothers who choose life with loving support and care for up to two years. Please don't wait. Help surround mothers and babies with compassion, truth and hope today. To donate, dial pound 250 and say the keyword baby. That's pound 250, baby. Or visit preborn.com/AFR- that's preborn.com/AFR.

This Is My Father's World by The Worship Initiative: This is my father's world and to my listening ear all nature sings and round me rings the music of the spheres. This is my father's word I rest me in. The father of rocks and trees, of skies and seas is in the wonders.

Dr. Jessica Peck: Welcome back, friends. That is this is My Father's World by the worship initiative. And this is our father's world. Even this world of technology. And before the break, I told you about a book by C.S. lewis, probably his most famous book. The lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe in the Chronicles of Narnia. And if you were remember, there's a boy character named Edmund who seems to get in trouble. And he encounters a character called the White Witch. And if you'll remember, she offers him something enchanted, a dessert, a food called Turkish Delight. And it tastes wonderful in the moment. But the more he eats, the more he wants. And what appears to be a gift is actually a trap. And this sweet treat blinds him to the witch's true intentions. And slowly gains control over his desires. And he starts to deny it to everyone around him. No, no, it's fine. This is good. This is why I remind you of a scripture from Ecclesiastes, chapter 1, written by Solomon, the wisest man who ever lived. Listen to the scripture. What has been will be again. What has been done will be done again. There is nothing new under the sun. This is so encouraging to me to see the timeless application of scripture, because there's nothing we will face in this world when fighting our families that God hasn't already equipped us to encounter. And I was struck and rereading the lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe this summer that that situation with Edmund and the Turkish Delight sounds like us. And smartphones and social media notifications. Technology works the same way. Every notification, every, like, every video, every doom scroll, every. It offers you a small reward in your brain. A little hint of novelty, entertainment, validation, dopamine. None of these things seem harmful on their own. In fact, it feels good for a moment. But when we continually consume them without awareness, we just find ourselves, like Edmund, craving more and more while becoming less attentive to what truly matters. And like Edmund, we convince ourselves, I'm in control of this because I am making the decisions. But over time, our attention, our relationships, our spiritual lives become captive to the very thing that we thought was serving us. And the lesson isn't that dessert or technology is inherently evil, but it's not neutral. We have to learn when something is becoming our master. Now, our culture increasingly assumes for families that you have to be constantly available. You have to have an immediate response. You have to have continuous entertainment. You can't be bored for a moment, and you have to have access to instant information. Nothing frustrates us more than seeing the buffering. Having no, no bars on your phone, trying to find an answer. And boredom becomes very rare. But boredom historically served a very important purpose because that's where imagination happened. That's where creativity happened. Reflection and prayer. In today's world, patience feels impossible. Silence is uncomfortable. Waiting feels unbearable. And one of the hidden consequences of smartphone culture is that it has completely changed our expectations around responsiveness. So used to if somebody called you, you'd call them back later that day, maybe the next day, that was normal. But today, because we're all carrying phones, you just feel guilty if you don't respond immediately. And there's no really acceptable social norm for how fast you're supposed to respond. If you leave a text unanswered for a few hours, it can be, oh, you can hurt somebody, it can feel rude. And if you don't email, answer an email by the end of the day, it can create anxiety and people are emailing again. Didn't you get my email? We have moved from availability to just expected. 24 hours, 24. 7. Accessibility and technology changed faster than our human capacity to be able to respond. Because just because someone can reach us instantly doesn't mean they are entitled to an instant response. And we need as families to be more intentional about establishing norms for when we are going to be reachable. Just being constantly reachable is not usually going to be the best thing for relationships. And sometimes the most respectful thing we can do is to give our full attention to the people who are in front of us before we respond to the people on our screens. Children learn what we value by watching what gets our attention. And when we constantly interrupt conversations, meal or playtime or bedtime to respond to a notification, we are teaching them that whatever person or entity on the screen is more important than the person who's in the room. What's on my phone can't wait. You can. You are less important. That's convicting. And, when we. But when we silence distractions, when we give kids our full attention, we put our phone face down, we put it on do not disturb, we put it away where we can't see it. What we're communicating to our family is you matter. You are worth my time. You are more important than this device. And I would ask you to think, how do, how often do you feel like you have to respond? What is your norm? Do you just take everyone in as it comes? And that can be stressful in its of itself, but are there micro disconnections where you're responding to notifications in the relationships that matter? It's not simply that technology is occupying our time, it's interrupting our relationships. And that that's death by a thousand interruptions. Because most families Aren't going to experience technology as one giant disruption. It's just all of these things. A glance, a buzz, a swipe, a quick check. These micro disconnections are shaping our family more than we realize that is happening. All of these. Like, just imagine this. This is so relatable. A kid starts telling you a story, you're distracted by something on your phone.

Research shows using screens too much can decrease sustained attention in relationships

The conversation pauses, the child lose momentum, and then all of a sudden, never mind, it's not that important. They get frustrated, and they just stop. When what seemed like an unimportant story was actually an opportunity for connection. Now, nothing dramatic happened. There was no argument, no conflict, Just a tiny little moment of disconnection. But healthy relationships are built through thousands of moments of connection. And likewise, they can weaken through those thousands of moments of disconnection. And research actually shows this association between using our screens too much and having increased anxiety and stress in our relationships and reduced sustained attention. We can't pay attention for a long time. Our sleep isn't good. And many people are no longer resting mentally because your brain, you've trained your brain to be in this constant state of alertness. And every notification creates a potential stress response. The brain asks, what is that? Is it urgent? Do I need to respond? Is there a bill? Do. Did I forget something? Am I missing something? Is this important? That vigilance is exhausting. And we wonder why we feel so burned out. And it affects our bodies because we don't sleep as well because the phone's by our bed and we hear it buzzing for a notification. We're not moving our bodies as much because we're stayed in one place looking at the notifications. We even have have something called a medical diagnosis like texting neck, or we have back strain or our, physical impacts of muscle strain from being hunched over our phone. Our eyes are fatigued, our stress hormones are elevated, and we're waking up tired because this technology has stimulated our brain till the moment we went to sleep. And this is so deeply spiritual because God speaks to us through stillness and silence and reflection and meditation and prayer. But notification culture is opposite of that. We're talking noise, speed, reactivity, constant stimulation. That is the awareness of that, that it's happening in our homes, that it's happening more than we like it to, and that we want to change it. That is 90% of the battle. And thankfully, the good news is most families already have the tools that you need to start making some meaningful changes. And the first step is to track what is really happening. So I'm Going to give you a challenge for your. Because most people, when, you look at research, it is not surprising at all. Most people severely underestimate their phone time. They think, oh, I'm not on my phone. As much as that. They underestimate the number of notifications they have. They underestimate the number of times they pick up their phone in a day. So this week, don't change anything yet. You don't have to change anything. Just measure it. Do a family tech audit. Now, you can even go old school if you want. You can get a poster board. You can have a contest on this. Now, this is not about shaming. This is just about awareness. And oftentimes you'll see that mom and dad are the worst offenders in the family while we're sitting there griping at our kids nonstop. So here's how you do it. First thing, do you do check your screen time? Now, most phones, if you have a smartphone, you have some sort of screen tracking, Apple screen time, Android digital. Well, being, you have some sort of ability to track your screen time. If you don't know how to do it, ask your kids or grandkids, they'll probably tell you. And, and just ask how many hours per day am I on my phone? Which apps are consuming the most time? What are the top three apps or websites, the top three things that I'm on and what time of day am I using it the most? Just answer those three things. Give your family a challenge. You can even do this among your extended family. You can do it among adult siblings. Have a contest. Most people discover that social media, videos, gaming, shopping, messaging, it takes a lot more time than you think. So that's, number one, track your screen time. Actually look at it. Instead of doing what I do, sometimes it's looking at the screen time and then turning it off as fast as I can thinking, oh, no, I said this week was going to be better. I'm going to be doing this with you. Step two is count the notifications. Take one day and just literally count how many times your phone gives you a notification. Then look at what apps are sending the most alerts and really you can start to separate the sheep from the goats here. You know, you can see what's actually helpful, what's useful and what is leading me to temptation here. What is making, you know, the delivery man come to my door and you know, my husband is looking at the ring camera saying, what did you order? Wait, is this just me? I don't think this is just me, but step one came Count. Track your screen time. Step two, count the notifications and really be thoughtful about it. Think did I request this? Did this just come by default? Did I intentionally set this notification? Did it really require my immediate notification? Could I reset this in my app? And if you don't need it, figure out how to disable it or delete it. Step three, start unsubscribing. Aggressively unsubscribe from that promotional email that company you signed up for because you just wanted the one time discount code to order something you're never going to order again. But somehow you still get the emails in there. Leave any text lists that are unused. Remove any apps that are unnecessary. Delete any accounts that you no longer use. Every removed notification is one less interruption.

One of the things that I'm concerned about is distracted parents

And you could talk with your family about creating some notification to your what requires my immediate attention? Be really intentional about it? My spouse, my children, maybe that's my parents. If you're caregiving, what is your situation? Who is your emergency contact? Who is always I, tell you I will respond immediately. What's important but not urgent is that school messages? Is that church communications? Is that work messages? And what is turn off until I intentionally go back to it. Shopping alerts or social media alerts? App promotions, News alerts. Maybe it's the sports app notification. I tread very carefully because I know there is an emotional attachment there. Oftentimes there can be. But just what are the family checkpoints that you have? You can talk about this at dinner. How's everybody's screen time going? The goal is awareness, not shame. Then go back and create your tech free zones. Create your tech free times. But my challenge to you is to count your screen time and count your notifications and talk about it with your family. Technology is not just shaping what we do, it's shaping what we notice. It's shaping what we value, what we think about. And ultimately, honestly, the people who we become. This week's healthy habit. Again, this is not anti tech. It's about being intentional with our tech. Because every notification is asking you a question. What deserves your attention right now? And every family's got to decide whether technology will manage their attention or whether they will steward it wisely. Those are things that you can look at and we, we know that. You know, when I look at this, I see that, one of the things that I'm really concerned about is distracted parents. And I wrote an article for the Stand magazine about distracted dads. But it definitely is distracted moms. Moms are just as distracted, but dads have such a unique leadership role in the home. And we see that the landscape of fatherhood has really changed dramatically over the last century. Far from the days of Father knows best, the 1950s TV show, today's fathers and grandfathers are struggling to guide their children through these lightning speed changes of the digital age. And I see modern dads feel really a lot of pressure to become tech experts to guide their children. But it's frustration, it's frustrating because, because we don't know as much as our kids. So we just kind of disengage or maybe we feel defeated and that is important. One of my favorite movies of all time is It's a Wonderful Life. And I remember the part where a young George Bailey, he encounters this dilemma. He doesn't know what to do and he's looking around his environment and he sees this marketing sign that says ask dad. He knows. And he runs to interrupt his father's important business meeting for help. But today days kids are indoctrinated that dads are old and out of touch and they can't understand today's tech realities. And so kids are increasingly going to AI chatbots as a primary source of advice. And we see that AI is ever present, ever ready, ever attentive, not distracted by notifications like real moms and dads are. And that is a preferable user experience for kids who want to engage with something that's going to or someone who's going to give them their attention instead of battling against these relational micro disconnections and checking work emails. Or look at the at the push notifications from the app. That is really tough. But the truth is that an engaged father's presence is an incredibly powerful force that is no match for any tech threat. If you're physically present, mentally engaged, emotionally responsive and spiritually strong, you will raise confident, resilient kids prepared to face the challenges of tech saturated life. When we come back, I'll give you some questions you can ask yourself and we'll talk about homefront headlines related to this. I'll see you on the other side of this break.

 : America's 250th birthday. It's a great excuse to have some extra cake and ice cream, but we can help your celebration go well beyond that. Show your patriotism with America 250 apparel that will become a memento of this special year. We also have special episodes on AFA Stream to help underscore that America is a Christian nation and help you find God in the Constitution. Find all of this and more more in one place. afa.net/topics/250

Have Your Way by Katy Nichole : I've, crawled through the valley of the shadow of death? Somehow I walked out alive? I've run from my father? I've run back again? Time after time after time? One thing I have found I rise when I lay it down? Lord, have your way in my life, in my heart, in my soul, in my mind? Lord, have your way every time. Cause I know that your plans are better than mine? I lift up my hands and I fall on my knees surrendering. I'll sing it. Lord, have your way.

Dr. Jessica Peck: Welcome m back friends. That is have your way by Katy Nichole. And that is one of those lyrics that you can sing that just feels like, oh, have your way in me Lord.

One of the greatest challenges facing families today is distraction by technology

But really, when we talk about it, the things that we struggle with. What if God had his way in your life and your family's technology life? This is one of the greatest challenges facing families today. And before the break, I was sharing in this week's healthy habit, talking about checking your tech. And I was really encouraging you in light of Father's Day being this week and especially a message for fathers who have so much potential for powerful presence and leadership in their homes. And as I said, before, the engaged father's presence presence is an incredibly powerful force that is no match for any tech threat. And you've got to strive. It's hard. But being physically present, mentally engaged, emotionally responsive, those three things, the biggest battle against those is going to be distraction by technology because it takes you away as you walk away with your device. It takes you away physically. It takes you away mentally as you're micro switching between two things, two conversations that are happening at once, once. And it decreases our ability to be emotionally responsive because we miss the emotions of our kids. The kids do not need a perfect parent. They really need a present and faithful leader who models responsible digital citizenship and who wields authority not as a measure of control, but protection and guidance. And who is engaged. So let me ask these questions. I wrote these questions for dads, but they could easily be asked for moms. Let's do a little self reflection here. Here. And ask yourself. Is your first instinct when you come home to check your tech or to connect with your family, to be intentional about connecting with your family? How often do you check your phone when your kids are talking to you? Ask your kids if you want to know. They'll tell you the truth. And if you limit screen time, if you tell your kids, no more screen time, Screen time's done. Are you providing in that moment an opportunity for in person, real life relational engagement. Instead, ask yourself how often are you creating moments that your kids want to choose with time with you over screen time? Are you engaged in your kids online lives, familiar with the platforms they use, the influencers they follow, and the ways that they engage with the digital world? And are you talking to them about that? Do you have tech free zones in your home that are protected spaces from digital distraction designed to foster engagement and connection? Is there a big lumpy couch that everybody can get on? Is there a closet, full of maybe old board games or something that you can engage together? Do you have tech free times built into your family rhythms where your kids can count on having your full attention and not feel the need to compete with your fun own? Are you modeling the kind of tech habits that you want your family to have? And where is technology helping your family and where is it harming you? And listen, these are things that I struggle with on a daily basis. There's no parent, there's no person who doesn't. But we have got to wake up and be intentional. We have such an incredible opportunity to limit the distractions that we have to really track our tech, limit those distractions and be intentional. To practice. Replace AI artificial intelligence with real authentic relationships. And it's never too late to reset with three simple steps. Apologize for where you got it wrong, intentionally reconnect and recommit to a, different way. Going forward, it is that your legacy and your family is not going to be set by screen time, but in real time invested. And I believe in a distracted world, a present and caring parent is an incredibly God designed countercultural force with eternal impact that is no match for any technology trials in the modern world.

Chinese robotics company has opened pre sales for humanoid companion robots

And in the modern world we have all of these headlines that are dominating the news. It's time for Homefront headlines. These. I have four headlines today that every parent should be paying attention to when we look at the competition for real life relationship. One headline that caught my eye is a robotics company in China that has opened pre sales for full sized humanoid companion robots. Now right now we see AI that is really just kind of a pen pal almost online. But these are robots that are called emotional AI models that are meant to bring that electronic pen pal to life. Now these AI models, I looked at them online, it was really creepy to me, honestly. They have facial expressions, they can wince, they can blink, they can, they can smile, they have conversational capabilities, they have memory functions and they're specifically marketed for interaction within the home. And thousands of Reservations were reportedly placed after these pre sales open. Now, AI is moving beyond our phones and computers into embodied relational technology that is living alongside family. So the question is, no longer will children interact with AI it's what kind of relationships will they have with AI? Now, children naturally anthropomorphize objects, like they name their stuffed animals, they talk to dolls. So it is not that big of a leap. To think that that's a normal part of childhood is to have a relationship with a humanoid robot that is designed to remember what kids like, to show them empathy and respond emotionally. And we have a real blurred line between authentic human relationships and artificial companionships that parents need to speak into. So we need to understand that a machine may be able to imitate connection, but there's no empathy or morality or wisdom or a soul. And that danger isn't just a technological danger, it's a relational danger. Now, we shouldn't panic, but we've got to teach discernment, help kids understand. AI simulates human emotions. AI is a robot that doesn't care about you. Technology can be useful, but it cannot replace relationships. Human beings are created uniquely in the image of God and genuine person to person relationships require mutual sacrifice and accountability and love. And it's a wonderful opportunity to reinforce that, reinforce that people are not interchangeable with M machines. So what can a robot do? Is the question you should ask your family. And what can only a human being do?

People are turning to AI not for just information, but for emotional support

Now, talking about AI, another headline I saw. Recent survey of more than 1200 psychologists found that 77% of them reported patients saying, yes, I use AI for emotional support. I, want you to think about that. 1200 psychologists said that more than 3/4 of their patients are going to AI for emotional support for a mental health diagnosis, for companionship or mental health guidance. Now, 35% reported that their patients use AI as an additional mental health professional to fill in the gaps between when they're seeing the real life person. And 39% say that patients are using AI for self diagnosis. You shouldn't do this. This is not safe territory. And some psychologists are reporting concern about signs of dependency on chatbots and distorted thinking. Because AI can hallucinate, it is not designed to be a safe mental health care provider. That's just not the case. And this reveals a growing cultural shift. People are turning to AI not for just information, but for emotional support. Why are they doing this? Well, because AI is available 24, 7. AI doesn't judge them. It's instant feedback. It's convenient, it's always responsive. These are things that humans can't compete with. But healing is not just an information exchange. It requires wisdom and relationship and accountability and context for the situation and professional parameters for care. And we have many children and teens who are growing up in a world where they seek emotional support first, primarily from an algorithm, before they seek it from a parent or a pastor or a mentor or a teacher or a counselor. That's cause for concern. So AI can be a tool. It is not a therapist. It can provide information. It cannot replace human wisdom. AI cannot know a person fully, it cannot provide genuine relationships. So make a culture in your family that when I struggle, I go to people first, not pixels. I don't go to machines first or robots. I go to people when I'm struggling. God designed healing to happen in relationships. So talk about in your family, who do you turn to first when you're hurting? Who is the person that you go to? Who is someone who can give you wise counsel? you can always talk to me about anything. I tell my kids that all the time. You can always talk to me about anything. We can get through anything together. There's nothing that you can't bring to me that we can't work through together.

Fitbit launches new platform to help families track health information

Now when we look at the boundaries of tech and talking about tech tracking, another, another headline that caught my attention is the co founders of Fitbit have launched a new new platform that's designed to help families track health information. Now this is for children, for parents, for grandparents, all in the same ecosystem, even some capabilities for pet health tracking. Now the platform uses AI to mon, monitor patterns or organize health information, alert caregivers to any changes. The goal is to create this centralized family care system. Now we've seen an increase in wearable tech tracking for, for health tracking and it's one of the, it really highlights attention of technology. It can be helpful. It can also become obsessive because when you are constantly tracking health metrics, it can increase your awareness, it can support aging family members, it can help you, alert you to a problem that you don't see before. But if you have this constant monitoring, it can also create feelings of anxiety and hypervigilance. And when you go looking for something, you worry about every little aberration. And it can really take you into a place of, of really worrying about something that shouldn't be there. And it's really interesting to see there's some new terms that are coming along with this to describe a kind of hypochondria that comes from constantly monitoring your, just monitoring your Tech by your health, by the numbers only, looking at it not based on holist, how you feel and numbers matter, but you think, oh, if my pulse is off then something is desperately wrong. But you gotta look at the quality of your sleep and your relationships and your purpose and your spiritual well being and a bunch of other things. So we can use technology to support stewardship, but not to control our every movement. So you can ask yourself, is this technology helping us to care for one another better or is it just making me anxious? Am I monitoring health or am I really obsessing over it? It's my new part time job. Because technology works best when it serves your relationships rather than replacing them. So a smart, smartwatch may tell you your heart rate and that may be really helpful. There's some really amazing advances in technology that can pick up heart problems, but it can't tell you how your heart is doing spiritually. It can tell you about your relationship with God, it can't tell you about the quality of your prayer life. It can't tell you about how your kids feel about you.

Dr. Jessica Peck: You.

Dr. Jessica Peck: And so you need to ask your family, are you using this information wisely or are you just worrying more because you have it? Now? When we look at tracking, we can track so many more things than we, than we used to be able to. So not only can we track our health, which can be helpful, it also can be harmful. We're also tracking our kids. And one of the greatest marketing increases we're seeing is GPS tracking devices for kids. Now I grew up in the generation of get outside as soon as you get up and get your, your bed made and your room cleaned and don't come back till the street lights come on. And my parents didn't know where we were. There was no tracking other than the community of neighborhood watchdog moms who would call from mom to mom, you know, are they in your yard? Are they. No, I saw them in so and so's yard. And you may have that kind of tracking, but we have next level tracking. And you know, I teach college students and I hear a lot of college students who are really stressed by the constant monitoring and where are you and why are you there and why did you drive there? And re. Recent headlines show that consumer Reports recently evaluated some of these GPS trackers. Now that can be a smartwatch, it can be a wearable device, it can be in your phone. And they found some major differences in privacy and security. Now these devices, while they do provide location tracking, they can also collect some pretty sensitive information about children, including location data, movement patterns, messages, personal information so they can increase safety in one sense of physical safety, but also create privacy concerns and safety concerns on the, on the technological side. So how do we keep our kids safe? How do we track them while also helping them to become independent? And it's great because we can know where our children are, where they've been, who they've been communicating with. And you can see all kinds of news stories that will talk about life saving capacity of this, but parenting. What we have to remember is that parenting ultimately isn't about surveillance violence, it's about discipleship. And kids need protection and opportunities to develop judgment and responsibility and trustworthiness. So we should use tracking as a bridge, not as just the destination. We don't want to raise kids who are constantly monitored. We want to raise kids who are trustworthy and wise. So, and you, if you're using tracking technology, be transparent about it, discuss the expectations about it, openly accept, explain why it exists and reevaluate it as your kids grow and just say okay. Are we helping our kids to become trustworthy and independent? Technology is increasingly moving into spaces that were once solely reserved for human relationship. But the faithful response is not fear, it's discernment. Ask continually, does this technology help us love God and people more faithfully? Or is it replacing the relationships that we're saying it's supporting? Hey, I'm right there with you. As you struggle with this, I struggle too. I pray the Lord will bless you and keep you. I'll see you right back here on Monday.

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Jeff Chamblee: opinions expressed in this broadcast may not necessarily reflect those of the American Family association or American Family Radio.