Meg (00:05.364)
I am extremely excited about this conversation today. I have invited Rachel Bau to join us today. She is a researcher at Georgetown University, and she will be joining us to talk about technology and little ones. And the reason I’m so excited is that this is a topic that mums and dads you ask me all the time.

because there’s a lot of new research about it, there’s a lot of noise about it and there’s a lot of guilt associated with it. And Rachel is gonna help us with all of those. So Rachel, thank you so much for joining us today.

Rachel Barr (00:46.044)
It’s a pleasure to be here.

Meg (00:48.182)
Really amazing. So Rachel, I guess a good place to start is why are you curious about parenting and technology and the effect of technology on little ones’ brains?

Rachel Barr (00:59.588)
i it really started when back in the nineties, when television s first became targeted to very young children and I was doing a study looking at babe

Babies learning in the home. And parents reported they copied their siblings, they copied cleaning, and they copied the Wiggles, which was a very famous Australian television show at that time. And so I started to look into it, and there was very little research at that time about whether or not babies could learn. And so one of my first studies was examining babies learning from television when they were between one and two years of age, and we found that they

could learn but that they found it harder to learn about 50% less learning from the screen than from in person and many different groups have looked at this over the past you know 25 years and we have a pretty good handle on that but we also know that there are ways that parents can support learning through media as well and so I think we’ll spend some time talking about that too.

Meg (02:13.122)
Very interesting. Well, I always think back to the nineties, which was when a young mom entrepreneur started Baby Einstein in America. And these were videos that I showed to my little children thinking that this was going to be something that made them super clever because it was called Baby Einstein. And of course the video series was eventually bought by Disney. And at that time a whole lot of research started to come out to actually look at whether or not

Rachel Barr (02:21.564)
Mm-hmm.

Meg (02:37.804)
The name Baby Einstein was in fact misleading. And of course, as you said, the learning was actually lower than if the child was engaging in the real world. And so at the time, it really ignited my interest in this field as well. So I’ve spent a lot of time over the last few years kind of conveying to parents some wisdom around technology. And what’s always come with that, Rachel, is a whole lot of guilt where moms look at me and go, Okay, so you’re telling me that I must not have my child on technology.

But the reality is that I am having to use it at some times and then I’m f ending up feeling guilty. And, you know, it just this all or nothing approach was just not working for parents. So what I loved about the conversation you and I had about a week ago is that you didn’t make it black and white. You talked about it really being shades of grey and that not everything is created equal. And I think that would probably be a good place for us to start today. Is all technology created equal? Or is there some that actually is better than others?

Rachel Barr (03:33.862)
Yeah, I in talking with parents and doing surveys and in experiments over time, I don’t think technology is all created equal. And in fact, families use technology for a lot of different reasons, and it can be very helpful

for in a number of cases. So for example, during the pandemic when things were the most challenging for young parents, we did a study called Zoomers and Boomers. And we looked at how parents and grandparents and grandbabies were able to do video chat. And video chat at that, particularly at that time, was very supportive.

for the parents, for the grandparents, and the babies really enjoyed it when the grandparents were engaged and had lots of different games. and so video chat is one way that can be really beneficial for all family members.

And part of that sort of what we’re calling the family media ecology. And so in the family media ecology, there’s things like video chat, which can be helpful. There’s good content that can be available. There’s shared engagement where we can have families can have fun, like viewing a film together or viewing a show, having a favorite character. So many children love Almo and connect to Almo, for example, or Peppa Big. You can think and generate your own thing.

About what’s helpful with technology in your family. And then other things can just be pragmatic, like we have a calendar or a family group chat, and it really takes a lot of burden off of families to use technology. Alexa, the smart speaker, can keep your shopping list, and that’s a really beneficial, helpful use of technology. Then there can be more negative.

Meg (05:21.25)
Yeah.

Rachel Barr (05:28.647)
Things. So you might be getting a hundred notifications a day, and every time you get that notification, you do this.

Meg (05:32.771)
Yeah.

Meg (05:38.262)
And I’ve lost you. Yeah.

Rachel Barr (05:39.768)
And exactly. And that when you’re having interactions with your child throughout the day, that interruption is called technoference and that can disrupt throughout the day. So it can be from notifications, from texts, from work, and then that can make people feel really pressured and pressured to stay connected throughout the day. And then by the end of the day, parents report that they’re quite exhausted by that. So that’s like

Meg (05:44.819)
Mm, mm.

Rachel Barr (06:08.123)
sort of on the negative side. And then there’s also content that’s just we know is not great for kids, like violence and and we’ve got 2,000 studies on that. So we can say there’s there’s content that’s not useful for young kids as well. So there’s definitely pros and cons. And families are just trying to navigate that with all the other demands that they’re facing. And so hopefully today we can talk a little bit about some practical ways

to think about what works and what doesn’t work for your family.

Meg (06:40.03)
Yeah, absolutely. Well, you’ve already been so helpful in that. one of the things that you mentioned there was technoference, which might be a new term for many of the mums who are listening to us. and for those of you who are not actually watching this on YouTube, what Rachel did in that moment is she picked up her phone, she glanced at the screen, and in a second I knew I’d lost her. and that is what a lot of our babies do experience because mums are using their phone around their babies. so what are the risks around parents using tech?

rather than focusing let’s I mean later on we will focus on what the r risks are with babies using tech, but what are the real risks around parents using ticks around their baby?

Rachel Barr (07:18.843)
Right. So technoference is really the the biggest risk. So this disruption to parent child interactions. and the reason why it can be problematic, it can be

By using the phone, it can also be when the TV is on in the background. And lots of families will have the TV on in the background, and this is going to disrupt the interaction with the baby. So let me give you an example. So the baby is playing with toys in the corner, they’re building blocks, the TV is on, and the parent is using their cell phone.

Meg (07:44.568)
Mm.

Rachel Barr (07:53.884)
So it’s really big work to learn to build a tower. and what happens is that all of a sudden this TV or the phone makes a noise and the baby looks up. Nothing exciting is happening because it’s a home cooking show and someone just banged the bowl. There’s nothing really understand understandable. The baby goes back to their blocks. But their bot block build building.

Sorry, their block building has been disrupted. And when we look at that in studies by Heather Kickorian, what we see is that the play is less complex when that background TV is on because the babies are disrupted in their play. They don’t watch the screen very much because it’s totally uninteresting to them. And then there’s a second risk when that TV is on the background or when the parent is on the phone for a long period of time, not for a short period of time, but

Meg (08:24.174)
Mm-hmm.

Rachel Barr (08:49.801)
For a long period of time. What happens is that the baby is trying to make that tower higher. The block won’t quite balance. They look up to the parent or caregiver and to try and get help.

But the parent will be absorbed in their own show or in the phone, and so it takes longer for the parent to respond. So not only is the child sort of distracted by the noise, they also are less likely to get the help when they need it in their play. And it just is not easy to see, right? because you are, you know, because the show is just on the background, the baby doesn’t care or

The baby is playing. and so this is the type of interference that parents are less likely to notice. and things that could be there are sort of ways that you can get around this, like so turning the TV off in the background for a short period of time, while the child is playing. So it doesn’t have to be absolute. This all or nothing is so hard for parents and it’s so guilt inducing to think, no, my baby has been but rather just

Meg (09:51.992)
Yes.

Rachel Barr (10:00.437)
20 minutes where the baby just has play time and the TV is off. If the radio is on, it’s completely fine actually. Because the baby doesn’t get distracted away by the image. So if you want the radio in the background, music in the background, that’s that works completely fine, just not TV in the background. And then for the cell phone, thinking about is there a way that I could put do not disturb on my phone.

Meg (10:09.164)
Wow.

Rachel Barr (10:30.357)
Phone again for 15 minutes. Oftentimes parents are juggling so many things, like there’s pickup of the other child, there’s work demands, even when you’re you know trying to do work at home and trying to care for your child. So just taking a 15-minute do-not disturb break and playing with the child, then this can be really helpful. So, again, not all or nothing, just

TV off, radio on, or do not disturb for 15 minutes. And this can be really helpful for the child.

Meg (11:05.802)
Yeah, and you know, again here, I think with technoference it’s not all things are created equal. So, you know, if if if I’m with my partner or my my husband or one of my kids and I know they’re dipping their head into their phone to look at a banking app or, you know, utility app at their calendar. I know they’ll return to me in a second. The problem comes when they’ve gone into TikTok because that algorithm has taken them into a social space that doesn’t include me.

Rachel Barr (11:24.936)
Yes.

Rachel Barr (11:29.841)
Yes. Yes, exactly. And it’s very hard to join, right? So it’s hard for the baby to join the the parent if they’re on TikTok. and it will, it doesn’t give you an easy off-ramp.

Meg (11:37.198)
Mm.

Rachel Barr (11:43.048)
So these algorithms are designed to keep you on the screen for as long as possible so that you can have more ads, and given to you, you can have more information given to you that the company wants, not necessarily that you want. and so when people think about it, this is sometimes where people’s guilt will come and they’ll say, well, I just checked one thing and then suddenly half an hour was gone. and so that that’s really challenging, but that’s more the algorithm than

Meg (11:43.224)
Yes.

Mm, mm.

Meg (12:12.227)
Yes.

Rachel Barr (12:12.991)
Than you, the person. but so then being intentional about it and saying afterwards, well, did I like that or did I not like that? can be a way to say, Well, yeah, I’ll just I’ll I’ll try putting it down, but not beating yourself up because the algorithm really is there designed to keep you and your child and everyone as long as possible on the screen.

Meg (12:14.648)
Yeah.

Meg (12:18.956)
Yeah.

Meg (12:24.546)
Yeah.

Meg (12:35.168)
Absolutely. And so I mean, just going back to the very first question that we we were ch chatting about is, you know, is all tech created equal? The reality is that when there’s an algorithm baked into a piece of technology that is intended to keep you there, which is unfortunately in YouTube and in many of the little cartoon shows that the little ones are watching as well, where there’s a little bit of a dopamine hit, I’m guessing, and so that keeps them there. And so I suppose as a parent it’s looking at things and going, just how engaging is this? How much, how hard is this piece of tech working?

to keep me there because that will take me out of real life.

Rachel Barr (13:10.063)
Yeah, and and it’s the the stuff about dopamine, there’s a lot about that. That evidence is not really all that strong. but it’s more that the design features that are built into that algorithm are designed such that they will test to make sure you don’t leave. So for example, Cocoa Melon, they’ll have a baby viewing and anytime the baby views away, they’ll add an extra, they’ll tweak it.

Meg (13:15.79)
Mm-hmm.

Okay.

Rachel Barr (13:38.468)
to add an extra sound effect to make it a little bit more likely that the child will stay for longer. The same with adults, the same with teen content. So it’s not necessarily the dopamine piece, it’s rather the on the other side the design features. On the other hand there are

apps that that are make it a little bit easier. So in the US things like PBS kids, there’s more of an up off ramp. It stops at the end of that episode. On Netflix, if you turn off autoplay, it can stop. And so it’s trying to sort of figure out those natural stopping points to help the child move away. or to find apps for for yourself that are just like one brief episode run

Meg (14:23.704)
Yeah.

Rachel Barr (14:26.933)
rather than the algorithm that will will keep you or shorts that will just keep you scrolling and that are really frictionless you know like you can go from one thing to the other that is very much by design

Meg (14:29.624)
Yeah.

Meg (14:36.534)
Yes, yes. Yeah, and actually that’s quite interesting because that’s what we’ve done in parent sense is that we only give you enough information just for that week. You can’t go down a rabbit hole of fifty articles on weaning your baby or even on technology on anything. It’s that it’s that article for the week and it’s that information. So and I loved it when you and I chatted. I’d never heard the word off ramp, and it really makes sense to me that you need an off ramp so that you can, you know, it’s and it also makes it easier for parents because I think one of the things parents navigate

Rachel Barr (14:48.797)
Mm-hmm.

Meg (15:04.694)
is tantrums, you know, first of all, tantrums when their child and they use technology to kind of placate their child, or a tantrum as their child is taken away from the TV. and so I think possibly let’s chat a little bit about tantrums because I think parents will experience it in both ways. Either the tantrum as they’re turning the TV off or taking the takeaway or are am I using technology to placate my child?

Rachel Barr (15:29.391)
Yeah, and this is such a challenging thing. If we think back in time when devices weren’t so easily easily available, what would happen is that you would sort of bribe your child with sweets or something and then which also was not helpful, but it’s a very similar sort of situation, right? And so the child then learns to expect that this is what’s gonna happen and of course they ask more and so we get into this cycle of of asking for more. The thing that’s really important

Meg (15:55.021)
Yeah.

Rachel Barr (15:59.588)
to notice that some parents will say, I have no problems at all like that. That’s no problem. And that really is largely to do with the individual characteristics of the child. So some children are gonna find it harder

to calm themselves down, to learn those skills about calming themselves down. And those same children are also going to ha find it harder to leave, are going to need many more off ramps, like a timer or the show absolutely ending so that it doesn’t go on to the next one automatically. because some children just just find it harder to learn those skills. and having the device to calm down is not necessarily going to help them

Meg (16:38.413)
Mm.

Rachel Barr (16:43.928)
learn those skills. So if the child is having a tantrum

It’s really really hard. and again, this is not an absolute rule because sometimes you’re on a plane, you’re in the middle of you know, like a really crisis day or whatever, and and at that moment it may be necessary to use the device. but again, if you’re thinking about your own plan about using media, trying to think about is there another strategy that could help my child calm down? Like, is there breathing, is there distraction?

that is not in the form of media because those types of skills will actually develop over time and the child will learn to regulate over time. But it can be really hard to learn. And unfortunately it’s between two and five when they’re learning those skills.

Meg (17:29.548)
Mm, mm.

Rachel Barr (17:38.436)
And it turns out also that parents who tend to use media to calm themselves down also use media more to calm their children down. So again, thinking about your own patterns of use. Do I use it to take a break? Do I use it to calm down? Then I’m more likely to give it to my child. So are there other ways that we can support parents to learn to calm down themselves in different ways and then to support their children to calm down in different ways as well.

Meg (18:06.892)
Very interesting. So, you know, I used to find when my kids were little that they would get into a cycle. And I mean, I do think that I was fortunate in that my kids were born before an era when they’re when screens were just so endemic. I mean, we did have I mean, back in the day we had dumb phones and we had screens that were not very interesting to look at, like blackberries and you know that type of thing when my kids were very little. So we we kind of didn’t have this level of pressure. But even though that is true.

We also found that there were periods in which our kids would just be starting to increasingly use more and more TV in the afternoons. And anyway, once a year we would go away on holiday to a farm in the Bushfeld. This was in South Africa, Safari farm, and we would spend two or three weeks there as a family together. And we had a rule when we went there. And that rule was that all devices except one emergency phone was taken with us, but all other devices were left in the cubbyhole of the car, up at the clubhouse. And so we never had devices. It was like

completely device free time, which admittedly was easier at the time because we didn’t have iPads and screens, you know, which which are just everywhere. It’s, you know, it’s much more ubiquitous and part of life now. But even so, for the first three or four days of my children’s holiday, they would be grumpy, irritable, much more fractious, fight with each other, bicker, wouldn’t know how to access their imagination for a couple of days. And then they would ease into it and it would just be a completely different holiday. And you know, there would be this incredible and

unlock after that. D is that how technology behaves? Does it make it harder when it’s just always in their environment for actu us to actually break these cycles? And do things like tech detoxes work, or is that just not a possibility now?

Rachel Barr (19:47.13)
I think it’s it depends. which is always sort of an academic thing. So some of the some of the data suggests that, you know, there will be sort of behavior changes if media is taken away. But that’s for older children rather than younger children.

Meg (20:07.53)
True. Mm.

Rachel Barr (20:08.987)
Technical you know generally whenever anything is sort of completely restricted that tends to have rebound effects. So there’ll be a restriction period and then everything will just come back anyway. There’s other ways but but the sort of the planfulness that you’re talking about I really would like to hone in on. this idea of like, well what would be our family’s rules?

Meg (20:18.115)
Mm.

Meg (20:35.31)
Mm-hmm.

Rachel Barr (20:35.845)
What would be a really good thing? So when we go on holiday, our family you know, doesn’t take devices or only uses devices on in this place or that. Or in our family at night we have a place where the phones go. we don’t use phones during meal times, where there would be or also technoference during that meal time. we

Meg (20:43.374)
Mm.

Meg (20:47.139)
Mm.

Meg (20:58.284)
Hm, mm.

Rachel Barr (21:02.011)
We try to use phones more or or media more in the morning than the afternoon. And the thing is that thinking through those plans just as you described, and then the other thing that you beautifully described there is noticing your children’s behavior and how it changes when there is and there isn’t media or where there is and there isn’t different types of media is a really, really, really

Meg (21:17.827)
Mm.

Rachel Barr (21:27.677)
Brilliant thing to do, especially when babies are are young and you’re kind of starting out with this plan. And luckily, the American Academy of Pediatrics has got a family media plan that’s a link that says, Okay, well, what age is your baby? what are you thinking about in your family? And it goes through and asks a set of questions to help sort of be planful and intentional around media in your family. And it might say things like, Well, what do you want to do on vacation? Do you want to take

Meg (21:31.565)
Mm.

Meg (21:53.272)
Wow.

Rachel Barr (21:57.574)
Take a break during vacation. what about when it’s a rainy day? maybe that’s a day when family meet movies work, but it when it’s a sunny day, maybe we don’t need the screen. So rather than just in the past, what would happen is that there were guidelines. There’s this amount of screen time, there’s that amount of screen time, it was very inflexible. And there’s a ban under this age and so on. It’s almost impossible for our parents to follow. In fact, in about 20 countries,

Meg (22:05.358)
Mm-hmm.

Meg (22:17.462)
Mm. Mm.

Rachel Barr (22:26.001)
75% of parents were not able to follow those recommendations for children under two. So just complete bans are really hard to follow, but plans are are are much more flexible because there could be that day where or even if I think back to the pandemic and the stress that families were under during the pandemic, once that stress was reduced, actually children’s behaviour improved.

Meg (22:31.65)
Mm. Mm.

Meg (22:46.765)
Mm.

Rachel Barr (22:55.537)
People were less reliant on screens, but under conditions of the heightened stress, people were more likely to use media. So having a plan are that then and then you might be saying to me, Well, things change from week to week, and you’re completely right, because the baby you’ve just got used to the baby doing one thing, and then suddenly they’re running around the house and they can grab the remote themselves or they can swipe the phone themselves. And so what happens with the plan is that then they say, Well, how old is your baby now? Do you want to update?

Meg (23:05.485)
Mm.

Meg (23:20.268)
Yeah.

Rachel Barr (23:25.551)
It. So it’s a thing that you sort of go back to and you think about how media is used in your house, with your family, by different family members. And it’s not just screen time and it’s not just I should or I shouldn’t do these things. It’s figuring out how it might work for your family. And you just gave the perfect example of a plan that you tried that worked for your family.

Meg (23:45.133)
Yeah.

Meg (23:52.077)
Yeah, absolutely. And look, it wasn’t always perfect because when we were back from the it’s never perfect. I mean, we’d get back from holiday and we’d say, right, we’re gonna make sure that there’s only one hour of TV after homework in the late afternoon. And within a few weeks we were up to like three hours in the evening because I was busy, you know. And so I think it’s really hard. I think one of the things, you know, and and this is where it’s so difficult, is I’m I’m involved in a lot of, you know, kind of preventative and parenting advice, and particularly for children under two years old. And so

Rachel Barr (23:55.141)
It’s a neighbor perfect, yeah.

Meg (24:20.576)
I have, admittedly, Rachel, had a blanket rule, as the AAP used to say, the American Academy of Pediatrics, which is absolutely no screens for children at least under one and potentially under two, like no screen time. But what I’m hearing you say here is that that’s not particularly helpful for mums because they are not gonna follow it. And if they’re not following it, then there’s gonna be the guilt associated with it.

Rachel Barr (24:43.075)
Yeah, and then what happens is it’s an all or none. So, okay, I they saw fifteen minutes today, okay, it’s an hour tomorrow. It doesn’t you know, it doesn’t really matter because I’ve broken the rule anyway. and so then instead thinking, Okay, well today ten minutes, you know, I just I there’s really no other way that or you know, or I can’t that I don’t have the bandwidth today to figure out another way to solve this problem.

Meg (24:46.798)
Mm.

Meg (24:52.968)
Mm, mm, mm, mm.

Meg (25:03.971)
Yeah.

Rachel Barr (25:11.985)
Tomorrow I might have more bandwidth, but my intention is to try to limit it, you know, to have some boundaries, right? We have boundaries about everything. We have boundaries about food, we have boundaries about sleep. We’re, you know, as parents, we’re always trying to do the best we can. but so trying to have thinking you think a lot about sleep, you think a lot about food, you think a lot about play. So just sort of having thinking about how media works within that, just because we

Meg (25:21.09)
Mm. Yeah.

Meg (25:30.275)
Yeah.

Rachel Barr (25:41.862)
We’re so saturated now. in the past it was just like, okay, turn the TV off and it’ll be fine. but but you know, like this is this world now is a lot more complicated and and people’s work lives are a lot more complicated than they were. And there’s a lot of pressure on people to stay more connected.

Meg (25:48.941)
Yeah.

Rachel Barr (26:00.707)
for work and so on as well. So really thinking about your own media use and if there are windows of time where you can take a break from media as well or from the pressures and demands of notifications is another thing to sort of think about. And then to think to yourself, okay, well

Meg (26:02.67)
Mm. Mm-hmm.

Meg (26:10.958)
Mm.

Rachel Barr (26:18.557)
How was it like you described, how was it when my child had this media or had a short period of media and then was able to play or had a good off ramp and knew that there would be a stopping point and it was easier for them to leave, versus it just sort of being just sort of organized chaos. Which is often what parenting can feel like, right?

Meg (26:20.014)
Mm.

Meg (26:42.978)
Can feel like yeah, absolutely. So I mean, everything I’m hearing you say there is about being conscious and being mindful. So thinking about the parameters doesn’t have to be black and white, but let’s put in some guidelines at work for our family on these days in these situations. I do want to ask you, so mmm, mmm.

Rachel Barr (26:58.545)
Well c can I s say one more thing? So oftentimes what we do is we say, okay, for the child child under two, but oftentimes there are siblings.

Meg (27:06.317)
Yes.

Meg (27:09.932)
Yes. yes. Yes.

Rachel Barr (27:09.957)
And so then that becomes even more of a balancing act, right? So your child under two is supposed to see nothing. Your child two to four is allowed to see some. But you know, you can try and go around naps and so on, but it’s it’s again, that’s why sometimes a little bit of flexibility and a little bit of grace can go a long way.

Meg (27:18.616)
Mm-hmm.

Meg (27:28.11)
I love that word, grace. I think that that’s a like a key word in most of parenting is you know, cut yourself some slack and give yourself some grace. one of the other things that makes me think about is there are definitely risks inherent in technology. You’ve touched on that at the beginning, and one of the ones that people are always hearing about, and certainly the one that I think has been almost the most proven out, is the language connection. you know, tech use being correlated with with language development.

But there are ways that we can mitigate that risk. And I think it would be useful for parents to understand if you are going to be using technology with your children, is there technology that is better for language than worse? And are there things you can do when the tech is on that’s better for language or worse?

Rachel Barr (28:11.631)
Absolutely. so if it so what we call it is joint media engagement.

and it’s almost it’s exactly as it sounds. But I think the easiest way to think about it is when you are reading a storybook to a child, you don’t just give them the storybook and hope for the best. You take the story, you point out different objects, you talk about, yeah, that’s like when we went to the beach, or that’s like when we went to the park. there’s a cat, it’s just like our cat. or let’s just see what happens on the next page, or what happens.

Meg (28:47.765)
Mm. Mm.

Rachel Barr (28:48.282)
And before.

Isn’t this your favorite story? Do you want to read the story again? So all of that, what’s that’s called is is extra language around the storybook. And this is exactly what helps in extra language around the content of the media. Because the thing is that we sort of assume that it’s really easy for children to understand what is going on in that screen because there’s music, there’s audio, there’s visual, but it’s really hard. Going back to what I said right at the beginning.

They learn about 50% less, not because it’s just on a screen, but because they’re trying to connect the dots between the screen and the real world. And the parent can act as the bridge or the caregiver acts as the bridge.

between the screen and the real world. So you read a book, you see a story, and then you say, now let’s go to the park ourselves. Or did you see those red blocks? I think you’ve got some red blocks. Let’s go and see what the red blocks are. And so you’re really just as that parent helping that child navigate that world and and make the connections between this sort of visual moving noisy thing

and and the actual world. And back to baby Einstein. We actually did that with Baby Einstein and parents could be really engaged and really responsive. And I just need to tell you one thing that to to sort of demonstrate that this really works. We had parents show children how to do a touch screen game. And it was hard for them. They learned 50% less.

Rachel Barr (30:26.343)
But when the parents got involved and started saying, this one, this screen is like this object. that’s a cat. I see that you’re really interested in this. What are you looking at? Whenever the parent was engaged, the child was 19 times more likely to solve the problem that we’d built into the touchscreen app. So it really is an extremely powerful thing. It helps with vocabulary, it helps with engagement.

Meg (30:38.478)
Mm.

Rachel Barr (30:55.387)
It helps you know what the content is like and whether or not the child likes it. And again, this is not a hundred percent rule, right? It’s not a hundred percent of the time that you have to watch every single episode all the time, but you’re checking in, you’re finding what the child likes, you’re pointing out and helping make them connect the dots, just like a moving storybook. And then the other one that’s really good for language is video chat. And the reason is like we’ve been having this back and forth.

We can ask questions back and forth. you can show things in the environment. So I can see a pot plant behind you, Meg. And that we saw with with during the pandemic that’s what grandparents were great at doing. They helped the child sort of navigate between the two different screens. They did scavenger hunts, they they played games, they had meals together, like there’s because and it was so much back and forth and so rich.

Meg (31:44.888)
Mm.

Rachel Barr (31:52.632)
in those conversations that that’s what can support language. so talking, scaffolding, whatever you want to call it, joint media engagement, treating it like a picture book, all of those things can really mitigate the negative effects on language. And we’ve done studies too.

Meg (32:11.468)
I love that, Rachel. there’s a researcher in the UK called Lynn Murray. You might have come across her work, and she speaks about book sharing. And I went to one of her lectures on it, and you know, she was saying you when you read a book to your child in bed, and many of us do this, it can be quite a lazy time of day. You’re so tired that you, you know, you it’s so automated. We can all read just about with our eyes closed, you know, you it it and just go through. And she said, but if you stop for a moment and don’t read the words.

But tell the story through the pictures, it becomes such a much more rich learning experience for the children. And so she actually advocates for little babies books without words, the Helen Oxbury books and and so on, where the mum has to work and actually tell the story and how much richer that is. And I really love what you’ve spoken about here today, because in some ways it does free us up. We get onto an aeroplane, we’ve got to entertain an 18 month old for a five hour flight. How do you do it without a screen?

Rachel Barr (32:48.627)
Mm-hmm.

Meg (33:06.665)
but of course what you can do is do it with a screen where you’re involved. and so I really do love that middle ground that you’ve mentioned there.

Rachel Barr (33:13.639)
Yeah. Yeah, and and kids kids do respond and then they’ll and then you’ll find out sort of more what they like. there’s one other thing that I wanna mention that

that sometimes parents are surprised about. So, when you talked about the book reading, sometimes the child will s pick the same book and the same video over and over. And you’re like, why? Why do I have to watch the same episode or pick a p peppa pig? And I just want to go back to that is the child trying to figure out the story and trying to understand the story. And then once they do understand the story in the book or the screen, they’ll they can anticipate what’s going to happen next. And that’s really

Meg (33:30.735)
Yes.

Mm. Mm, mm, mm.

Meg (33:45.326)
Mm.

Rachel Barr (33:54.816)
something that they really enjoy. They’re learning that sequence, they’re learning to predict, they’re learning that stories have this sort of arc. And so looking for content that has those stories, sharing the stories with them as you described, and then repeating them is fine. And then after a certain period of time, you may just check in with them occasionally. they might be reading the book

Meg (34:03.383)
Mm.

Rachel Barr (34:19.705)
reading, you know, like pretending themselves over time. But that repetition is really important because it’s hard. Screens are hard for the for young ch children. So repetition and scaffolding are critical to help them understand that digital world and you can help them navigate.

Meg (34:21.133)
Yeah, yeah.

Meg (34:26.702)
Yeah.

Meg (34:35.641)
So interesting. It’s amazing. And you know, one of the principles we have, and I think is a good principle for little ones and for teenagers, is if you don’t want to watch it, it probably doesn’t hold a lot of sense for them either. And we certainly have seen that. You know, there’s been TV programs when my kids were little like the telly tubbies that made no sense to me. But back in those days, Barney really made sense. You know, he he was he he there was great language, there was involvement, there was engagement, and so

That became something that I leaned into. And that for parents, if you’re not loving it, if it makes no sense to you, if the images are moving too fast for you, it’s probably exactly the same for your little one as well. So curate the content.

Rachel Barr (35:14.235)
Yeah, so looking for slow, slow content has been has been one thing. So but also story.

based right so often you know baby einstein was sort of basically screensavers teletubby actually does have really short stories and it doesn’t have words and so you can sort of narrate those and it is slow but or into the night garden or whatever it is but again just sort of looking to see does this have a story is there a sequence and also is that relatable to the young child because that’s the other thing

Meg (35:22.607)
Mm, mm.

Meg (35:40.533)
Mm, yes.

Rachel Barr (35:51.848)
Does it have any connection to their world? And so things that are too fantastical, like SpongeBob was one of them.

Meg (35:54.531)
Yeah.

Meg (35:59.694)
Yes.

Rachel Barr (36:00.712)
There’s lots of them. Things that are sort of too fantastical, it’s hard to make sense of. But if you can see that it relates to the child’s world, it’s slow enough that you can be talking along and telling the story, then that’s likely to be more effective for young children. And again, if you don’t wanna if you wanna just do something like go to C BBs or go to PBS Kids or there’s Swedish in Sweden there’s the children’s television, the barn network. So the other way is to sort of

Meg (36:13.06)
Yeah.

Meg (36:18.187)
Mm.

Meg (36:22.35)
Mm.

Rachel Barr (36:30.655)
go to those set stations and then you’ll know that somebody else who’s got a research background and so on has actually been planning it f for young children as well.

Meg (36:42.531)
that’s lovely. I must say I would love a list of those curated. you know, kind of the the the lesser of the evils would be wonderful. I always get asked about cocoa melon.

Rachel Barr (36:52.069)
Yeah, I mean coconut the the problem with it is that oftentimes it’s packaged in these really, really long

sequences right and so it’s hard to to do that transition away also it’s sort of quite saturated and so it’s very there’s a lot of colour a lot of information being presented to the child sort of like a perceptual cheesecake if you like so sometimes looking for those simpler ones that there’s

Meg (37:02.383)
Mm-hmm.

Meg (37:06.287)
Mm-hmm.

Meg (37:17.837)
Hm. Yeah.

Rachel Barr (37:24.515)
less information is actually more and there’s lots of studies done that children learn better if sort of the information is is less dense, slower, because they’re really they’re processing at a different speed.

Meg (37:26.159)
Mm-hmm.

Meg (37:39.159)
Yeah. Yeah. Amazing. we’ve gone way over time, but I have loved this conversation. I love it. It’s so fascinating. So I have a feeling that there’s going to be a word in this question, my final question, that actually won’t sit well with you, and that’s the word rule, because I from everything I’ve learnt about you today, you don’t have set rules. But if you could give every new parent just one, let’s say guideline, not rule, about technology for the first thousand days, what would it be?

Rachel Barr (37:42.269)
Sorry.

Rachel Barr (37:54.396)
Mm-hmm.

Rachel Barr (38:07.687)
my rule th there I think this actually is a rule. My rule is to be mindful, like make a plan. because we make a plan about so many other things. and for the longest time, there there was no sort of setting a rule

Meg (38:14.819)
Hm.

Meg (38:18.287)
Mm.

Rachel Barr (38:24.507)
for your family around media. So I I would say my rule would be make a plan and revisit it. So if it turns out it’s not working like then then you can revisit that plan. But but try to be mindful about media just as you’re mindful about lots of other things around parenting.

Meg (38:32.663)
Mm.

Meg (38:44.943)
I love it, Rachel. What an incredible episode. I think our mums are gonna love this. I think it’s a little bit of a breath of fresh air because there’s a huge amount of guilt provoking noise, particularly on social media, about technology and parents don’t know where to turn. So thank you for being here with us today. I really do appreciate it.

Rachel Barr (39:03.033)
I absolutely my pre pleasure. And I I really just have to say, I mean, this information has come from working with parents for the and their babies for the last twenty five years. So this is this is just really based on all of the information that parents have provided over time, and and with the generosity of their babies as well.