At night, we would give her screen time and sometimes she would just turn into like different child.
I interpreted that behavior as like meaning she loved it so much.
I found something really surprising.
Dopamine isn't pleasure.
It's the do it again button in her brain.
All right, here's the story for this episode.
A week or two ago, I posted something on Instagram, something that I implemented with my kid based on reading this book Dopamine Kids by Michaelene Duclaff.
And here's what happened.
I just shared about how, on my subway ride with my son to basketball practice every weekend, we just got into this habit of doing New York Times games together on my phone.
Now, to be clear, I don't feel so guilty about that.
It's actually a fun thing to do together.
There's a lot worse things.
But I had this thought after reading this book.
I didn't choose this habit.
It wasn't a choice I made.
And so before the subway ride that day I just said to my son hey, I just want to let you know when we subway to basketball on Saturdays.
We're not going to be doing New York Times games anymore.
We're not going to be taking out my phone at all.
So you could bring a workbook, you could get a book, totally up to you.
And I kind of said it like that.
I had already convinced myself we were doing this, so I didn't really need his approval.
And probably not unrelated to that, he just said, okay, which doesn't always happen.
And he went to get a book and then he read the whole subway ride to and from basketball.
And it is a long subway ride.
It is so amazing to read something or have a framework that empowers you to do something that maybe fear or confusion has held you back from doing before.
And so many of you said, we want more about this.
Can you have that author on your podcast?
And so I reached out to Michael Eam.
And she's here.
I'm so excited for you to hear this conversation.
We're going to be talking about screens and dopamine and her way of explaining it.
I'm just going to tell you, it's unlike how we've thought about those two things ever before.
And it is so illuminating.
I'm Dr. Becky, and this is Good Inside.
I'm so glad you're here.
Dopamine isn't pleasure and it's not the molecule of happiness.
And this has been a myth and a misconception in neuroscience for like 50 years.
Dopamine and these products that we have in our lives create desire and wanting and craving.
It's the do it again button in our brain.
I wanna do it again.
I wanna do it again. but not so much for our pleasure.
And in fact data show us that over time, these things rob our children of pleasure and can make us feel worse afterwards than what we felt before we started.
I mean, I think social media is a really good example of that, right?
Kids go on social media to feel a sense of belonging, to feel connection.
But over time, a lot of the apps make kids feel lonelier.
So you describe screens and devices as magnets in your book.
And I can tell you that framework has already actually changed so much in my home.
Yeah.
Thinking about them as magnets, what do you mean?
Why is this word even helpful, you think?
Yeah, so I think it's helpful, and it's helpful for my little girl too, who's 10 now, because magnets pull us to things right.
They have this force on us.
And I think that as parents we need to recognize that screens.
A lot of foods out there too form these magnets.
And I call them dopamine magnets because that's the part of our brain, or the neurotransmitter in our brain, that creates this pull and pulls us to them.
So I'm a chemist.
I was trained as a chemist.
And so I'm always thinking about things kind of from molecules perspectives.
And I think of screens as like, if they're in the room, if they're in the car, if they're in our environment, if the kid knows they're there, they're gonna be the molecule that you go to, that you get pulled to like a magnet.
We would never blame our kid for being drawn to a magnet.
We'd be like, that just happened.
So how do you think about that?
Let's say this iPad is in their room.
It's not iPad time.
Why are you on the iPad?
Let's just jump in there.
So I think we have to be honest about the iPad and what's on the iPad.
We are parenting in a world that no generation has ever faced before.
We are in uncharted territory.
For the first time ever, kids have they're surrounded by things, products that are intentionally designed to pull them to them like magnets and hold them there for overuse.
Yes. apps, games, foods.
And the thing is, is like, It's not our fault that we can't handle them.
Like we're all struggling to handle them, right?
And it's none of our fault.
This is not, what's missing isn't a lack of effort or trying to fix a problem.
For me and what I realized.
What's missing is guidance that actually works for these particular products that we have.
Parents have never dealt before.
I remember one time I interviewed this Stanford behavioral psychologist.
Okay, so... hugely successful 40-year-old man with accolades, executive function in spades.
And he sat there and he listed off the five different apps he needed to block himself so he wouldn't look at the New York Times all day.
And when he was sitting there telling me that, I was like how am I going to give my daughter a phone and then go tell her to go do her homework if this man can't regulate himself?
And that was when I really started to dig in and figure out, okay, we need better tools here.
And I just love anything where it's not about like whose fault is it?
Like, is it the parent's fault?
Is the kid's fault?
Sometimes fault, I just like, let's put it on the shelf.
It's not that useful of a framework to motivate change, right?
And so we are parenting in a world That is unlike anything else.
In your language around it.
We are parenting in a world with magnets that are designed to draw our kids and ourselves to them for more time than is good for anyone, in a way that changes your relationship with everything else in the environment probably your frustration, tolerance too.
And...
There's no regulation.
Like this is a lot for parents.
And so just starting with that is different.
That has never been done before.
And that's really hard and a little unfair.
It's like unfair.
Oh to write this book.
I talked to engineers who admit their sole job is to get your child to watch YouTube for as long as possible.
I asked one of them, so you want children to watch it 24 hours a day?
Yeah, that's the goal.
So they have these very clear goals for our kids.
And I think that as parents, We need to stop and say, okay, well, what do we want?
And you can like slowly move to where you want to get.
I love that.
Okay.
We have this moment of screens are in the room.
These are magnets.
I just want to go to another moment, the crash.
Yeah.
What's wrong with my kid?
I said they could have the thing for this much time.
And then after, right, there's the crash.
There's all this.
Yeah.
What's going on?
Yeah.
So my little girl, Rosie...
I have to say, she's an amazing kid.
But at night we would give her screen time like an hour, maybe two hours, as you know, has been recommended.
Don't go over.
And each night would just be a horrible experience.
I'm sorry, but it was just a horrible experience to get her off.
I started talking about it as like the dismount, like in gymnastics, like somehow we had to like do a backflip.
And, you know, I was looking up strategies to get the kid off the screen.
And like, and sometimes she would just turn into like this Like a toddler.
Like it was like, it was a different child.
It was like the child when she was three or four years old.
And I interpreted that behavior as like meaning she loved it so much, right?
Oh, she just loved it so much she couldn't separate from it.
And so I didn't want to take it away from her, because who wants to be a parent that deprives kids of what they love, right?
And then, as I started studying dopamine and what motivates kids and what brings kids pleasure, I realize oh, what Rosie is feeling after I pull her off the screen isn't pure pleasure at all, but it's this intense motivation and desire to keep going.
The wanting part of our brain is somewhat separate from the pleasure we feel when we get what we want.
And I have to say this isn't wanting like oh, I want – I kind of want to go to my friend's house or I kind of want world peace.
Like this is of like a visceral need, right?
Like this is I want it now because it's going to help me survive feeling, right?
This is like a really intense part of our brain.
Like one neuroscientist told me like –
What does dopamine do?
It tells the rest of the brain what's going to happen.
This is a powerful part of our brain.
So the wanting for something that we need to survive is a little bit disconnected from the pleasure we feel when we get it.
They often work together.
We want what makes us feel good, but not always.
If you think about it, there's a lot of examples where we want things that don't make us feel good.
So yes drugs nicotine alcohol methamphetamine, these very hard drugs, split these two systems apart so that over time, You want something that's actually hurting you right.
What I'm trying to teach my little girl and what I taught myself and I'm learning myself and it really has helped me is to really figure out when I'm wanting something that doesn't make me feel good anymore, and realize that and be able to step away from it and find the things that do give me like like a genuine reward and pleasure.
And so why do our brains do that?
Why do we want things that don't end up making us feel good?
You know, so the dopamine system in this wanting system is super ancient.
It's in bumblebees.
It's in the chickens in my backyard.
Like, Like it's very primitive and it's clearly doing something right to have stuck around so long.
And I think over our evolutionary time, like when we were hunter gatherers What we wanted.
It took some work and the cycle ran in the right way and what we wanted ended up being very pleasurable for us.
So I think a part of this to think about too is it's not just pleasure.
When you get something that you really need to survive and you've worked for it, it also is satisfaction, right?
You feel pleasure is the, ah, I have what I need, I'm done.
You don't want any more.
It's kind of the opposite.
And that's how this part of our brain evolved to work.
I'm hungry.
I want food.
I go, I find it.
I work for it.
I get it.
Ah, I feel good.
I feel satisfaction.
This part of the brain is called the hedonic hotspots, which I just love.
It's like, this is the pleasure, right?
These activities on screens and some of the foods we have.
They're not.
Our brain has never seen anything like that.
They are intentionally designed to tap into the wanting, increase the wanting, And it kind of causes things to short circuit.
And so I think our brain wasn't supposed to act this way.
And I think it's being exploited, this wanting system, to keep us our attention and to make money right.
I mean, the food industry still admits this.
They admit that they're creating foods that, we can't stop eating, right?
Or that make us eat when we're not hungry, right?
And so they are kind of splitting apart our brain in a way that it's not supposed to.
And understanding this, I think...
Like you said, it makes parenting easier, right?
Because it's like, wait a second, limiting this, limiting access.
I'm not saying take it all away.
That's a fantasy, right?
But limiting it and making room for other things in kids' lives other foods, other activities actually isn't depriving them of pleasure.
It's... reclaiming pleasure.
It's bringing more pleasure, more excitement, more fun back into our lives.
You know, this book is really about creating a culture where you're not just taking things away from kids, but you're helping them discover better things, more joyful things.
Definitely.
Okay.
Follow-up question that I just started thinking about.
Does the dopamine, does the wanting to pleasure ratio and that being kind of off in a way true question does that have anything to do with?
In this world now Supposed pleasure, at least satisfaction, or at least comfort, is available with so little effort like in ways that was never true in the past.
Like, is that at all responsible?
Like, one of the things I think about a lot is the difference between the circuit.
Maybe dope means the wrong word of, say, a kid with an iPad.
I get to sit here. let's be honest, do very little, kind of go bling, bling, bling.
And my brain's like, whee, I win.
Versus doing a puzzle or reading or having to go talk to a stranger and make friends.
The effort, the amount of time, it's so different.
And I just think about how different those circuits are.
Yes, I think that the speed and the time is in the work effort is a is a big part of it.
And I think one of the myths we have about kids is that they don't want to do work and that work isn't pleasurable to them.
They want to work.
They don't want to work too much and they don't want to do work.
That's boring, you know, but they want to work like that.
I'll tell you a story about my little girl.
She loves food.
She loves cookies and croissants, and she's very food-driven.
And so we'd be in the grocery store every time.
It's the same thing.
Mama, a box of cookies, a box of cookies, right?
And if she eats those cookies, yes, it's going to light up her brain with some pleasure, right?
But I said to her, knowing that dopamine is wanting and motivation to work—
I said to her okay Rosie, you can have the cookies, but you're going to go home and you're going to get to bake the cookies all by yourself.
You're going to get to use the oven and the mixer.
And I was going to let you do it all by yourself, right?
This is like, she went home, she did it.
And you know what?
She enjoyed this process of making the cookies, using the oven.
Way more than just sitting there eating the cookies, right?
Because you're right.
It's running her motivation system and her dopamine system in the way it's supposed to work.
Want, desire, work.
Then pleasure as you work.
But then also...
Dr. Becky, it's giving her all these other rewards.
She learns new skills.
She becomes purposeful in our family, right?
She learns to bake.
And the amazing thing that happened was that she didn't eat all the cookies.
She like ate one and then was like, these are too precious.
We cannot.
We have to keep these, right?
And so I'm taking a situation where I could have just said no, no cookies, totally valid, totally valid choice.
But I'm taking it and I'm saying no.
This is an opportunity to give her some more pleasure in life, to help her start a new hobby that's going to fill her up right.
Instead of just kind of leaving her empty and leaving her wanting more.
I just think about something I've always said to my kids around their screen time, just to demystify it.
Like screens are designed, it's not your fault, to be a cup with a hole in the bottom.
Yeah.
Yes.
No matter how much water, time you pour in, It never feels like enough.
And the reason I'm telling you that is because when I tell you no more TV tonight, like you're not ungrateful or a bad kid, but you should know.
So you're not surprised.
No matter how much, whether it's one episode or 15 episodes, it's going to feel like it's not enough.
And it's just so interesting to hear you use the language.
And we say that what fills me up.
She was literally more filled up by something with this process that maybe inherently has a design to get to enoughness, where something by design never deliver enoughness.
That's right.
The thing, the cookies are designed, I mean, by companies to make her want more and more, you know?
And I think this, you're a metaphor of like a hole and it is so, so wonderful.
And I think what I also tell her is like it makes you feel like if you keep pouring the water in, you're gonna get it right.
Like social media for me, always made me feel like if I kept posting I was gonna stop feeling lonely.
And that's the trick, I think, is like it's always making you feel like you're making progress, right.
And that creates more dopamine.
When we feel like we're making progress, we work harder, right?
But I think telling kids this is important.
And I think, especially as they get older.
You know having conversations around like what is this product trying to do to you?
And how is it trying to manipulate you?
And just being really honest, you know you deserve an activity that leaves you feeling better afterwards than you do when you start, and not worse afterwards your brain, and you deserve that.
Like I never have to like hide the mixer so Rosie doesn't bake, right?
Like I never, right?
Like our lives are just, right?
It's easier.
Like, oh, bake as much as you want, you know?
And like-
I've never had to like regulate her.
And so it's like okay, when I set a limit on something, I'm going to use it as an opportunity to find something more exciting for her more interesting and it's going to make our lives better and her happier in the long run.
I mean, even pretty quickly, like little kids change so fast, you know, right?
Like, yeah.
So yeah.
Let's go there to the shifts.
And what I love about what you're saying is there's like, this isn't some huge project.
Like I know when I talked to parents, I was like, oh, please, I can't.
I can't.
Life is hard.
And I get it.
Life is hard.
And everyone's family is different.
And I think what you're presenting also is something that's a shift, it's not a transformation all of a sudden, and it's very possible.
So your five steps, how you think about it, let's talk about them.
Let's walk through it.
So the first thing I really think is important and it sounds I don't know at first, but it changed me is to, like I say, take the wheel and And I think it's similar to I was reading about your stuff, right.
You're like, be the pilot, right?
Yeah.
Yes, yes.
And I'm like, even before the plane gets off, sit down and take the wheel and like, figure out where you're flying this plane to.
You know, like, where are you going?
Because like I said, like these products know exactly where they want our kids to go.
Right.
And so they have like a North Star mission.
And so it's like they just think of one thing.
If you didn't have screens, you didn't have. fish crackers in your life.
Like, what do you want for your kids?
What do you want them to eat?
How would you want them to spend their time?
What is most valuable and matters most to your family?
And just write down a couple ideas.
Because this is what's going to hold you steady when the world gets turbulence out there, you know?
And I can see the way you're talking about those things.
Like for me... family board games.
I just, I love board games for us.
Like I love games.
I grew up playing a lot of games.
And so that matters.
And family dinner.
You know, I have a feeling I'm not as good of a cook as you, but we put one thing on the table, right.
And it's interesting.
Those are the two things I talk about to my friends as the best part of my week all the time.
But maybe it goes back to what you're saying.
They're just the things that are closest to my values and like what I care about, right?
Yes, absolutely.
Like it's a bigger thing than just like biking, right?
It's this idea of like loving adventure and loving outside.
And yes, so there's like these big kind of goals we have.
But I think behavioral psychology is really clear on this right.
Like you have to then pick something specific to do.
Like I say in the book, like you can't put on your Google calendar, love of nature.
Love of outside, right?
Love of board games.
Like you have to be like, okay, this is what I want.
So I'm going to make a little bit of space in my life and for my family's life for this.
And it can be like...
15 minutes a week, you could start.
And behavioral psychology tells us that too.
Start extremely small and just, but make it permanent, right.
Like, I think that is the key.
It's like, okay, we're gonna do this 15 minutes each week, but from now on.
So one of the things I did last summer was every time I got in the pool I was trying to swim more, and I would always try to swim like 50 laps and stuff.
It would never work.
But the thing I did last summer was like okay, every time I get in the pool I'm gonna swim one lap.
And then, and then after a week or two, I was like, okay, I'm swimming two laps.
Right.
And I swim more that summer than I ever have because it was like, I start really small.
So for us it was like okay, we're just going to pick Saturdays, and Saturdays are going to be screen free.
And that's it.
Just that, that.
That's where, I mean, it sounds like a lot, but you could start smaller.
You could just say Saturday evenings, right?
The key thing here is like you have to replace it with something.
The step three, which is so important, is the whole thing around activity offline is presented in this positive, fun way, celebratory way.
It is not a punishment.
It is not something she has to do.
This is something she gets to do.
And it's something that's going to bring joy to her life.
I think this is a big mistake I was making was I was talking about the activities online as these wonderful rewards and treats in life.
And the offline activities were like, oh, you have to do this now.
So when I reverse that, it was like magic.
It's like she started wanting to do it.
And she more quickly forgot the screens.
So celebrate.
That's what I call it.
Celebrate to habituate.
Behavioral psychology tells us that when we find pleasure in something and we think it's fun and other people enjoy it we see my mom enjoying it we will enjoy it and we will want to do it again.
And we will press that do it again button and that dopamine button.
So that's number three.
Celebrate.
If you want to make it a habit, celebrate it.
Language is really powerful in kids' lives.
And I think how we talk about it shapes what it means to them.
Well, I think, just to double down on so many things you're saying, you know, in general right, we don't respond to behavior.
We respond to the story we tell ourselves about behavior.
So we don't respond to the vegetable.
We respond to the story we tell ourselves.
And if someone's always telling a negative story, it gets implanted, right?
That's right.
And so...
I love that framing.
The last step and we kind of skipped over step four.
But this curate the cues is where it's going to help you, right.
And this is the idea that this comes back to the magnet, right?
Dopamine works... differently than what we talk about.
That dopamine hit that we're talking about actually happens beforehand.
So when a kid walks into his house after school, All the cues in his house so the time of day, his living room, the laptop that's in the drawer are triggering dopamine in his brain and saying this is time to play Roblox.
This is time to play Minecraft.
And that's the dopamine hint because that's the desire, the wanting.
And so then it's like a magnet.
Even if he can't see that laptop, it's pulling him towards it like a magnet.
And you're going to struggle to get him to do anything else unless you take away that magnet for a while.
Like it's gone.
It vanishes.
And this gets hard when kids have these things for school, right?
And we can talk a little bit about that.
But when you're younger, it's like you need to create times and places in their lives where these things the screen, the ultra-processed food is just not an option, so that they can make some space to create that dopamine hit for playing outside, for reading, for helping mom with dinner.
So, you know, like other things, right?
And then what happens is the dopamine starts working for you.
The kid walks into the house, the living room, the time of day, all these cues are saying oh, this is when I go over to my friend's house.
I think that part of your book is so powerful and hearing you articulate it.
It's just, it's so easy for, let's say, these iPads.
They just somehow sneak back onto the couch or onto the kitchen counter.
And I guess another framework for curating your cues is.
I often think about in general, setting my kid up for success.
Like I feel like that's my job, which doesn't mean definitely, doesn't mean I'm smoothing the road for them.
Part of actually setting my kid up for success long-term is making sure they struggle with certain things and it's not taken away but in a very minute way.
Like, I want my kid to come home and do homework and I'm going to have the iPad right there.
Like, that's not setting them up for success.
It's also, by the way, setting me up to end up yelling at my kid.
I don't want that.
That's not good for anyone.
Right.
It's not setting up for you as success as a parent, right?
Like it's just making your life hard.
Yes.
No, if I you know like I'm not going to have my kids sit in a candy store all day and then be like I saw you have candy.
Like I just shouldn't have brought them to the candy store.
Right.
Right.
So I think I just want to say from personal experience I have been so diligent about where the iPads are.
And, by the way, also because this is the other thing and then I want to talk about something realistic that happens.
Because I know everyone's like, my kid's going to whine.
My kid's going to tantrum.
You bet they are.
100% they are because they're normal people.
But I have been like a boss.
Starting tomorrow, you will not see the iPad for any moment besides the exact time that we've talked about you doing it.
Here's what I've learned.
I always tell my kids, Parenting is hard.
I'm always learning.
I'm going to share with you what I learn.
And so if I make a change, it's just because I continue to learn something that helps me do the best I can with the information I have in that moment.
And so here's a change you're going to notice.
And then I own the next part.
I have a feeling when you get home from school, it might be...
I anticipated a little, not mocking, but just with like, it's fun.
And that's okay.
I'm ready for it.
We're going to get through it.
And I know after a day or two, we're just going to start a new habit.
The first, I hear my, I feel my heart race.
Oh gosh.
Okay.
You know, but it's kind of, oh my God, Michaelene.
I was like, this is scary, but fun.
Okay.
In my own body.
And then it's like, it was crazy.
Did it work?
Of course it worked.
Of course it worked.
And I feel like I've been pretty...
I'm pretty not scared of my kids whining or tantruming.
So in the past, it was more like, why are you on that?
I'll remove it.
But I was like you know what's better than not being scared of the whining and tantruming when I say no iPad and moving it away then
Just avoiding that whole situation.
Yes.
Every day.
It was such an epiphany.
Every day.
And so it does require work for me, because I always am like, before I go to bed I'm like where are they?
Are they away?
Are they away from where you can see?
My kids don't know where I am.
That's amazing.
It's such a big difference because when I think about them as magnets, it just again it brings me back to a value I have of doing things for my kids, helping them be the kind of adults they want to be, having us have the environment they want.
And I was like, this is something where I wasn't setting them up for success.
But you know what?
You're also... Which I think gets lost in the conversation.
You're also teaching them Because okay, having the iPad there tempting them all the time is like psychology tells us it doesn't work on the long run.
You're just exhausting yourself.
But you're teaching them this, a different skill.
You're teaching them to set up their own environment so they're not tempting themselves.
And I think eventually that's what kids have to learn, right?
Like Like Zadie Smith, the writer, the famous writer, she uses an app to block all her websites while she writes.
She's setting up her environment so she can succeed, right?
And this is the skill.
I mean, I do it too because I can't handle it.
But this is the skill I want to teach Rosie, right?
Is not to keep...
And not to learn how to resist temptation in front of you, but to learn how to like just set up your life so you don't have temptation.
This is what is the ticket to a good life.
I love the way we ended.
Just thinking about something small and remember.
It might not be small enough.
Maybe take your small thing and divide it by four.
And then just trying a new experiment.
It's so hopeful and so possible.
Now, something I feel like I owe you is sometimes these new moments are a little easier if you have something to kind of open the door.
I think that's what a script is.
I don't think scripts are the answer for parenting, but sometimes they allow us kind of open the door to a new room.
And then once we're in there, we can kind of handle some of the rest.
So I'm going to put up a script for how to tell your kid you're removing iPads from the living room or the public spaces.
And I'm going to do the other thing we all need.
I'm going to share a script for how to handle their whining, their protest, and their tantrum.
Because if you have strong-willed or deeply feeling kids, like I do, we're going to need those things.
You can find it via link in the show notes.
All right, let's end.
Place your feet on the ground.
Place a hand on your heart.
And let's remind ourselves, even as we struggle on the outside, we remain good inside.
I'll see you soon.
