Santa Barbara Talks with Josh Molina

Santa Barbara Talks: Emily Zacarias Talks Social Media Bullying

osh Molina and Emily Zacarias talk bullying, smart phones and social media, in this hour-long podcast between two parents. Zacarias is a member of the Goleta Union School District Board of Education and a parent of two children. She is focused on the use of smart phones and social media among young people We also discuss bullying cases in recent months, including two tragic cases. Zacarias shares her views on social media restrictions, smart phone bans and how to prevent bullying. She also talks about her role on the Goleta Union School Board and the work the District is doing. Please watch this podcast and hit subscribe on YouTube. Josh Molina is a journalist and community college teacher. Please visit www.santabarbaratalks.com and consider a contribution to support these podcasts and please subscribe on YouTube.

Duration:: 1h 5m
Broadcast on:: 26 Jun 2024
Audio Format:: mp3

I'm going to have Emily Zacharias, Galita Union School District board member on the show. And we're going to talk about social media, smart phones, bullying and all the issues going on everywhere with the impacts of these devices and these behaviors on young people and children. And we're going to get her Galita Union School District perspective, her parenting perspective. And she's done a ton of research into this topic. So we're going to have a great conversation about that. If you're new to this podcast, please visit www.sanavarba.talks.com and consider making a financial contribution to support these podcasts. I do this podcast all on my own separate from my other work in the community. And I'm a journalist. I was born here. I grew up here. I've worked primarily my career in this community. And I like to facilitate great conversations around education, housing, transportation, culture, business, you know, all of the important issues of the day that we all have to deal with, that thread all of us throughout this community. Also, please hit subscribe on YouTube. And this podcast has about almost 1,300 subscribers and it's growing. So anything you can do to support it, whether it's subscribing, making a financial contribution, it helps me elevate everything, including some in-person podcasts, getting into a studio and just expanding my audience. So thank you so much. I appreciate everything you do, everyone who watches all the talk in the community. This podcast has a lot of reach and a lot of influence. And I thank all of you for watching and those of you who've been on the show to be part of it. Okay, so let's dive right in. You have Emily Zacharias with a great conversation on a lot of different topics related to bullying, social media, and smartphones. And we catch up with what's going on in Galita Union as well. Have a great day. Thank you. Welcome to Santa Barbara Talks with Josh Molina. I am here today with Emily Zacharias, a Galita Union school district board member. And I'm so happy to be able to talk to her because we haven't talked in what a year and a half or so when you were running for school board. And, you know, when we're talking in the context of an election, it's a different kind of conversation because you're sort of on point. You're wanting people to know why to vote for you. And, you know, it's an election interview. So I'm so happy now to be able to talk to you about a variety of topics. We're going to talk about bullying and social media and cell phone use in schools where both parents and journalists elected official. I think this is going to be a really engaging conversation about really serious topics today. Emily, thank you for agreeing to be on the show. I appreciate it. How are you doing today? Yeah, thanks for having me. I'm doing great on summer break and joining the weather. Getting ready for solstice tomorrow. Yeah. Yeah, I'm really glad you asked to talk about these issues because they're just so prevalent right now in not only the media, but just pervasive in our everyday lives. So there's some really good topics to get into. Exactly. And so I follow you on social media and, you know, I see that you share a lot of info about issues related to school bullying and social media overuse and cell phone use in schools. And so I thought, wow, this would be a really good conversation. I did a little bit of research myself. There've been some high profile examples of young people dying by suicide very sadly. And so I thought, you know, we could talk about that. But I wanted to read to you a statistic I found in one of these stories as sort of a baseline for some questions I'm going to ask you. This is an ABC news story and it's a story about a 10 year old who died by suicide. And there's a statistic here that says as many as 20% of students, ages 10, sorry, ages 12 to 18 in the United States experience bullying according to data shared by the US Department of Health and Human Services. And while suicide is rare in children younger than 10, it is the cause of more deaths among kids ages 10 to 24 years than any single medical illness according to the American Academy of Pediatrics. And so we hear about these things, but the statistics, the data, you know, really is very blunt and it's just right there. And so it's hard to ignore. Emily, this is an issue that you have been vocal about. Can you talk to me about what's on your mind? What are the concerns related to school bullying and how do we, you know, ultimately, how do we reduce this or stop this? Yeah, yeah, the case you mentioned about Sammy. He was a 10 year old boy from Indiana who was relentlessly bullied throughout the school year for his glasses or his teeth or just very, you know, things about his appearance. And, and it got to the point where he felt like he had no way out. And so he ended his life and it's absolutely heartbreaking. The parents had said they went to the school. They, you know, let them know, hey, he's being bullied and said that they weren't really responsive. And this seems to be sort of the trend for a lot of these cases as I was prepping for this interview. I was taking notes on a piece of paper of cases like these young children who died by suicide allegedly due to the constant bullying. And I like literally ran out of space on the paper because there was so many cases that kept popping up. And these are all recent in the last five years or so. Sammy's just was in May last month. So the other young girl Mallory who was 12 from New Jersey. Also died by suicide after relentless bullying. Izzy, a young girl in Utah who was 10. All same thing died by suicide floor, another girl in Nevada. And it's like you read these cases and the parents are all saying, you know, we told the school, we told the school and that no one was stepping up. No, who was looking out for her? We send our kids to school like thinking they're going to be safe. And, and there's all these like aggressive bullying, you know, things happening at school. And so two of these actually the case with Izzy and Mallory, they ended in a settlement. There was a lawsuit that basically claiming the school district was trying to protect the families and not protecting their children. And there was a settlement involved with that. And, you know, first tragic is these cases are, I mean, sometimes this is what it takes for actually like having some kind of legislation happening. There's been anti bullying measures that and mandates and legislation that have, you know, come to fruition because of these horrible cases. And, and the parents kind of say repeatedly, like, well, we don't, we, we want to be. We don't want their name in vain. Like we would just want to like go on with some, some change in activism. And so the parents end up becoming active as to getting signatures, putting the measures on ballots, like lobbying school boards and legislators. So there's a real momentum behind this. And the stat you read is, I mean, you cut it up any way you like. There's stats all over the place from the rise in ER visits, due to suicide attempts and girls and the rise in bullying cases and all over schools. And especially the number one thing is the cyber bullying because all like, it seems like all of the bullying, like the good old fashioned bullying. I shouldn't say good, but like, you know, where you like the bully pushes the kid into a mud puddle or something and all the kids laugh like. That's that those numbers of physical bullying is actually going down. It's the cyber bullying. It's the bullying that's taking place. Not even at school. It's like bleeding into the kids lives 24 seven on social media or these chat rooms. And so it's just so it's been so hard to like contain that from, you know, a school setting, like, you know, how to wear. Where are those lines? Where are the bound? Where are the boundaries for that? So, so yeah, that's what's on my mind right now. I mean, there's just cases like, like I just mentioned that are happening all over the United States for young kids younger. I mean, 10 and 12. Right. How do they even know how like, like, it's unfathomable as a parent to even think about how that could happen. Yeah, I mean, I remember when I was, you know, elementary school, junior high. Being bullied in many of those, like, you know, classic stereotypical ways, right? You know, teased, called names, pushed. Put in headlocks, you know, insulted for, you know, where you live, what you're wearing, you know, all those things. And, and those are horrible, right? Like they stay with you forever. But you raised a really good point, which is, you know, I remember those days when I was bullied, you know, I was chubby when I was young and then I got to high school and kind of started working out and it like overnight just kind of changed right. But I remember like, you could go home, like you could come home, you had a retreat, you know, and I grew up before the smartphone. And when you were home, it was like your parents, you know, like we're good to you and, you know, you were safe, right? And then you had to go back to school and you're like, oh my goodness, it's going to happen again for the next six hours. But now, right, you can't go home because you can get direct message. People can comment on social media. People can be involved in these, you know, text exchange where they're talking about you and then somebody will leak it to you and then you have to look at how people are talking about you. You know, it's so true that bullying appears to be 24/7. You can't escape to your bedroom anymore, because it's right there on your phone, you know, and it's, it's something you can never get away with, get away from. It's weird though, because we're so much more progressive than I was, you know, in the 90s, growing up, like it's, we're more aware, we're culturally aware, we're nicer to everyone, we're more understanding of classism, racism, sexism, genderism, all these things, but not really, right, so we're going backwards. So, so, talk to me like, why is this still happening when we're seem to be so aware in other areas of discrimination. Yeah, it's a good point. I was also thinking back to my sixth grade years of being bullied and being, you know, all kinds of, you know, body shaming, like I'm too skinny, like I remember they would pants you like they would pull down your pants. And, and that, and it was all peaked around six, seventh and eighth grade, which seems to be pretty stable, is that's when the bulk of the bullying incidents happen for kids between that like 12 to like 15. And so, you're right, you know, I think in the 90s or early generations parents were more like, oh, that's just part of life like bullying like you know it just sort of taken with the grain of salt like it builds character and toughen up and just ignore them. And in those days like you kind of could, because you're right, you have this safe haven at home, where it doesn't follow you on your like accounts like you're in chat rooms and like, and the way that the social media technology use has exponentially increased in our youth. There's, and parents are still like trying to catch up and like the restrictions they put and these like passwords and firewalls it's like the kids are just getting around them so parents aren't even able to really keep up. And there's sort of no agreed upon rules of like how much screen time is acceptable and like, you know, oh well like do your homework and then get this and that so so I do think there's, you know, a lot wrapped up into that social media but you're right these these bullying the cyber bullying takes place over over the phone is the smartphone and, and there's been researchers out that are really talking about this issue. The, like school district, second largest school district LA unified just their school board just passed a ban this week and so they got to figure out, you know, like the details to like how that they're going to do that because there's obviously a backlash of like, oh well, our, you know, kids need we need to be able to communicate with our kids and, but the school administrators and teachers I mean, you just anecdotally can say like the phones are changing their lives and, and they're vulnerable to all these, you know, predators and they're not really I mean you have my husband just told me this morning about this new term, sex stortion, where there's like, I guess this young man died by suicide he was on an NPR story that he, I guess they hold like pictures ransom like people in Nigeria and these like rooms where they're just trying to get money ransom, you know, and they they message young people and say I'm going to share these photos with you I have harming damaging photos if you don't, you know, give it give me money like I didn't that's now that's like not even local that's like it's coming from all over so how do we protect our children from this and it's like the only way I think people can really agree on is just ban it like I don't know where there's a happy medium because obviously the meta and all these companies they're not really doing much to like change their algorithms to stop, you know, directing certain, you know, like images to kids and then, you know that it's just it all bleeds into each other because of bullying the issues of suit child suicide the issue of mental health anxiety, you know, social media it's all wrapped up into just something that we as a generation are having as parents now trying to protect our kids from so with LA unified there's like no phone no smartphones on campus is that the proposal or is it just you can leave them in your backpack or something or I think they're there well the devil's in the details because new kids that say oh well you know or my kidney they check their diabetes their blood sugar on their phone or you know and obviously there's going to have to be exceptions written into like an IP or 504 plan for accommodations for, you know, those types of reasons but one of the school board members said is that they were doing a tour of one of the high schools and you had a kids like six kids at a table at lunchtime sitting around on all on their cell phones texting each other instead of talking face to face they were they were communicating through their phones and for that board member that was sort of the turning point like hold on, because a lot of schools you know they're not there they don't allow cell phones in the class like they have to be put away and they're allowed to have them at you know during like recess and lunge nutrition and so forth so you know they're pulling them out at those times but then when they're in class they're constantly they're thinking about texting or they're thinking you know it's like that anxiety of like oh I got a tech so and so and so the school wide bands they're going to have to figure out how to do that I think you know there's more parents I think in favor of it there's yeah they have the support of a lot of a growing support of educators legislators parents and so there's you know the argument against that I've heard is just you know if there's God forbid a school shooting how am I going to communicate with my kid that's sort of the number one argument against it that I've heard which is a valid point and a whole other issue with school shootings and safety but I mean I think something's got to be done because it's just not enough so this is a crisis at this point the surgeon general and in fact just said that now is proposing to have warning labels on social media because I mean they have those like safety guardrails where like the kid has to be 13 to get an account but obviously there is a lot of that I mean you have some parents having accounts for their kids kids getting around those safety measures and it's just it's getting out of control I want to ask you a specific question you know your woman you have two daughters you know when I was bullied it was you know your you know this fat jokes it was Mexican jokes it was you know your dumb or you know you get your clothes it came or you know or seers and you know those are the kind of you know things you know if you're not running with the pack and you know they accuse you of you know they if they're homophobic jokes you know if you're like a shy person you know timid you know those are the kind of things I would be teased about but there are different types of bullying that I would face or that you know my son would face then then if you identify as female and so I'm wondering you know how tough is it for young girls to be in schools what are the issues that they face in terms of discrimination and I'm leading you a little bit because I just think of all the social media images and even in 2024 there's still this focus on appearance and looks you know and social media it's all right there but what kind of stuff do you instill in your daughters and you know what can you share about your own experience well I I try to keep them as far from possible as the from our phones at this point and just more it because I'm it's it's just sort of I don't survival mode right now because they're they're at that age where they're you know they're realizing you know the other other kids have phones and so I you're right the boat so an interesting stat that I read is that girls are I don't know what the percentage but way more likely to be bullied online cyber bullying whereas boys have less rates of the cyber bullying and and more of the like physical bullying although there's there is bullying that happens boys social media says looks a little different it looks more like these immersive gaming video games and stuff like that where they can get addicted to and chat rooms and stuff with like Fortnite and these active shooter you know games even to pornography actually at young ages but and then the girls is more focused on the social media the social comparison reputation the social exclusion there's you know social exclusion like it's not at some point kids most people would prefer to be pushed into a locker like physically and then actually socially excluded that's like and that's where I think these kids don't see the kids who die by suicide they have they feel like they have no other choice because they can't there's just no way there's no way to end that like repute like get your reputation back they feel like their life is over because bullies will you know exclude you and that in the brain like there's studies that show it's like shows pain the same way of physical pain excluded is not physical pain but it's showing up in the brain as if you were like hurt physically and so that's really powerful as a human being living in a society and trying to fit in and and and as your brain is growing in these like formative years where you know during puberty where it's already hard enough just to like wake up get ready for school and go to school and like manage schoolwork and extracurriculars and friends like so with girls I mean I think it all comes down to this is like maybe overly simplified but just kindness just keep going back to kindness this is how we treat people you know we this is how we're showing kindness showing accepting diversity and inclusiveness and just you know if someone looks different or talks different I mean that embrace that you're just like us and they are just as deserving of our respect and love and friendships as as any other kid the popular kid or whatever and so I think just teaching those lessons it really starts from home. You know at some point there's you know there's only so much school administrators can do when bullying is happening because you know these kids are learning really awful words you know racial slurs are you know and and it does happen as great as our community is it still does happen and it's a matter of like educating our families and talking about and you know what the repercussions are and restorative healing and justice and try to get you know the parties to come together to like understand but when you have kids that are so young like they don't even know what they're saying sometimes I feel like you know when you're a teenager like you know there's more intent more maliciousness but like when you're in like second third grade like what's going on there you know I was a kid that young learning words like this and using them at school and so it's it really comes down to starting at home with I like I say a culture of kindness and respect yeah yeah I think if you're too young and you're saying these things you're just hearing people in your own home say them and you're just repeating them and obviously that's how we learn language like we hear people say things and we repeat them and hopefully most of the time it's good things are repeating so I do get upset with judging some of these like second graders kindergarteners first graders third graders too much because they're just learning to use words and and and they need to be told what's the right word or what's a forbidden words but sometimes there's no like tent is there is there would be with an adult you know to hurt to hurt somebody you know I'm a parent I have a 10 year old and so much I've been 18 year old too but mostly it comes up these days with my 10 year old is you know we're doing whatever we're doing and I'm a journalist too and I have multiple social media accounts and I have a podcast as we were here to get on so I'm always sort of looking at like oh what's the engagement what are people saying right and so I have to be aware that every time I do this you know pull up my phone in front of my daughter I'm basically modeling how she's going to treat me when she's 13 and older and so I'm aware of that and so I try to keep it in my pocket and not pull it out when we're engaged I don't have it on vibrate I don't I it's silent like the only way I would get alert is if I checked so I try to be aware obviously I'm imperfect in that regard because sometimes I will use it as a tool like some topic will come up we were talking she's in a camp with horses and I was like when how did horses get to America I can be like how about they make it up on your phone I pulled up on my phone you know the Spaniards brought European horses here you know Mexico and then you know they they kind of populated from there so that's but again that's that's a good tool but that easily could be used to isolate or separate you know so how do you deal as a parent like what are your phone rules around your children well in the context of advice for any parents yeah well in that situation I mean it would remember when we were young like we would go to the library and like look in an encyclopedia Britannica yeah yeah like with the full-on card catalog and like you know looking and I actually have really fond memories of libraries growing up and reading books and all that and so I think exposing kids to other mediums of information so like the radio you know like NPR books obviously and not using the phone as like a sort of knee jerk like impulsive addictive reaction of like oh I have all this information at my fingertips you know because it's super convenient like Google has changed our lives I mean the benefits of technology I think that's I mean you can debate if they outweigh the negative parts of it but but I think in the long run of the technology is is how we move forward as a society so I think it is useful how do I deal with it at home well I think I'm more I'm a little more strict with you know screen time I know when we see our pediatrician every year she's like are you limiting screen time to like under two hours which includes all forms of screen so that's like TV computer at school and so and obviously phone and so I think it's really great for pediatricians to be asking this you know and put and just putting that pressure on parents and having you know doctors in town that are part of like you know these like limited screen time you know mom and parent groups doctor groups to just keep that as like almost like a medical issue like you would show make sure you know are they getting enough sleep or exercise or are they eating the right foods like as a healthy balanced life so I think that's really important something that our doctors can do and talking about in the context of a medical checkup so and then at home it's you know yeah obviously I'm good I let my kids watch shows I mean that's something that is I you know gosh I was a turnkey baby kid and watched you know all the all the shows but I have the kids YouTube I don't let them watch adult YouTube I have filters on that what they can watch and I you know I'm constantly checking in we have rules around when they can use their little tablets I prefer watching shows on the big screen so that I can kind of be there and like hear what what the show is and they recently just watched this movie The Incredibles which I was surprised I had never seen that movie and there was like some pretty like violent scenes in there which I had no idea and I just assumed like oh it's Disney you know and usually they watch like the princess movies wish and frozen all that but there was like scenes of explosions where like you know that looked like the bad guy was getting blown up and and it was just really fast paced and I was like and afterwards they were all like discombobulated and like like kind of hyper and I was like oh gosh like it made me realize like I have to always be on my toes because just it's Disney and that's just pretty tame for most you know what a lot of kids are watching but my kids are young I mean five and eight so you just have to I was Mr. Incredible two years in a row for Halloween because my daughter loves that movie but yeah the whole there's a series of terrorist acts throughout the movie you know and it's I had no idea yeah it was you know I think the second one might be a little bit better but yeah it is shocking when you're watching I always think like if these were real actors and real people we would never be watching this show his cape like get stuck in the like propeller of the airplane the bad guy and he was being sucked into it and then the thing explodes and then you don't see him and I'm like whoa like I didn't realize that so yeah but the yeah I think also you know being in touch with you know if you you're your spouse or you know the other parent you're parenting together like making sure that you're both on the same page of like what's appropriate my husband's been known to do like he'll pull out like Snapchat and do the filters but like not you know and then some of the filters are like makeup and like making my five year old look like a like a scary Barbie and I'm like no no like you know I get if it's like the animal you know like a silly animal like that's that's fine but it's you have to be on your toes so much like I'm hearing at the like I'm a teacher so I work at schools and I thought like this thing Roblox like I thought Roblox was like Minecraft like something pretty innocent and like there's characters and it's a game like I don't know what it is I just hear about it and then like I see some examples of these characters and they're really scary and it can kind of go to like are rated and very quickly so I think as a parent it feels very unmanageable to where like it's almost a full-time job to be supervising media use with kids and so I can understand why some families are like just saying like no like no tablet time no screen no none of that because it's just easier in the long run but to try to like have go 50 50 well like well they can do this or that and it just it becomes this really hard boundary to enforce especially as the kids are getting older and their friends are going to be getting devices and it's it honestly it feels unwieldy yeah my wife someone told her about this website called Common Sense Media and it's it's like my son and I were always like oh no she's on Common Sense Media like it's Friday night and like we're gonna end up watching some G-rated movie because she's always looking at it and this website is pretty good it evaluates the show or the movie based off of violence, language, sexual you know situations it says whether there's nudity it talks about role models it talks about all the different things that parents would be interested in and so we use that as kind of a guide you know but sometimes it's frustrating because if you if you like follow it too closely you know you end up watching you know very very G type movies and so sometimes we're like well because they have a different type of rating system it's like the people who work at Common Sense Media will rate it and there's a parent rating and a kid rating so kids might say ten and under and the parents might say eight and under and then the Common Sense Media might say twelve and so you're like there's a little bit of a range but I do find that it is helpful right it is very helpful to guard against like hmm we're gonna put this movie on this is gonna work but it'll tell you there's a scene with smoking or there's a scene with this violent it'll specifically call it out so I find that to be helpful when you're doing you know screen time and I read somewhere that shared screen time is much better than just you know when they veg out in their rooms or something on an iPad because it's your lease together when you're watching something like you're talking but you're laughing you're exchanging and so that that is definitely a highlight of that but have you seen inside out too yet I did yeah we spent less weekend yeah so so there's a there's a big and no spoilers here but there is a big scene where anxiety takes over Riley and I'm wondering if you could talk a little bit about your experience with you know your research and knowledge of anxiety because I know a lot of times people will say oh I have anxiety and then a reaction might be we all have anxiety come on and that's dismissive because some people have anxiety to the point where they may not bottle it up like you Josh you know like they experience it in a way that's different than you and it can be very disabling in certain moments and so can we talk about like like you know because that's that's the big introduction of that new emotion as she's entering her teenage years and so what is anxiety at least is defining the movie it's the fear of what could happen it's the fear of all the bad things that could happen whether they're actually real or not and so when we're talking about young people and these feelings of anxiety can you talk about sort of how do we manage that? I mean yeah I wish if I had the answer because the the level of anxiety that's reported in our youth has just grown so massively over the last several years and COVID obviously did not help because you had kids in a home where the parents were massively anxious about this like deadly disease that just all of a sudden showed up unexpectedly and kids grew up around that and so we're seeing the after effects of that and I do believe that we are still feeling those after effects of COVID you know from just level of anxiety then as far as you know and by the way that movie inside out if you haven't seen it I'm taking your kids it's it's a it's a really timely topic to really have this personification of anxiety I really enjoy that movie and I you know the scene well no spoiler alerts but it is it's a great portrayal of what going through puberty is like and having those hormones and just having you know the wanting to fit in which goes to kind of back to the need for that social acceptance and the fear of exclusion I think a lot of anxiety for the youth is the fear of being made fun of or cast aside or left out or excluded and that's where a lot of the anxiety comes from. I'm reading this really great book if you it's a super timely book as well it's called the anxious generation by a social psychologist Jonathan hate and he's been making the rounds on media to try to talk to you know anyone who will listen about you know why we're seeing this crisis and anxiety and depression mainly those two disorders in our youth that the numbers he argues that between 2010 and 2015 which corresponds exactly to the rise in these platforms like Instagram and Facebook and all these social media platforms really correlates with the rise in not I mean he doesn't just look at anxiety and depression he looks at all kinds of statistics like emergency room visits for you know youth who have tried to you know take their own lives. And that has shot up like it you know and the amount of time that kids are not spending face to face playing he calls it a play based childhood is like we were not really in those days anymore because you know kids kids aren't just so absorbed into their phones and so I think in his argument and I agree with him is that the moving kids social environment on to these platforms on to a phone and to this the digital world. It's not face to face and it's not a synchronous it's sort of like you're not like getting that reaction from the person in real time it's sort of like you comment on people's things you set any it just it really it's disembodied and it creates so much anxiety because as we said in the beginning, you know schools a place for that play that learning that face to face connection. And if you're bullied at school or if you have a bad day you can come home and like have that be a break from that but with you know if you have a device if you have a phone and you're allowed to use it to go on these platforms or chat with other you know friends that there's a lot of negative things that are happening. And the parents are not usually not aware, or they're not supervising the every move and these are in young kids and I can't really speak to you know my kids aren't in high school I'm on a school board that's K through six so you know I can't speak to the the level I would imagine it's more in middle and high school you know but but we do see it in our in younger grades so it's I think it's I do I really think the anxiety is coming from fear of exclusion and that's being played out with the cyber bullying. Yeah, and I think you know you mentioned it sooner to his parents is I get annoyed with other parents who disconnect from their kids experience you know whether it's my friends or peer groups. And I'm kind of the opposite, I mean anyone who knows me well and my personal life knows that would say that you know part Josh is probably like a helicopter parent like he's too involved you know but I'd rather arrow on that side, then oh they'll be fine they'll work it out. Why is she in a bad mood over there in the corner. Yeah she's just a kid I would never do that like I would literally be like I'd probably know why why already without even asking her, because I'm in tune with her but I would go talk to her if I couldn't be like, hey what's on your mind and I think parents need to also bear the burden of this because it is technology, we're always going to have this this battle but engaged present parents, who agree that there's more to parenting than a paycheck, then you're having a nice home if they're fortunate enough to have that or a car or vacations and trips that those are great but really matters is they don't want to reach for their phone, because they're just so happy to be with you know, whoever your parents are right they're just so happy to be there with you that the phone is secondary. And so I think parents need to step it up there too and not just think that it's kids being kids or it's all up to technology restrictions although I do think we should have restrictions and so I want to talk to you about that is there's some solutions here do we say you can't have a social media account until you're 18. How do we roll back the clock here because. And so everywhere you go right this weekend, everyone's going to have their phone and they're going to be recording and then they're going to be uploading. And it's really hard to roll that back but what sort of legal restrictions have you researched have you read about that we can actually address this problem in a way that might be meaningful to to helping young people. I believe there's some stuff in the works, just in our state with our state legislators and just in the last few days since LA unified made that vote to ban cell phones. Our governor Gavin Newsom came out and said that he's going to be investing more time and energy into banning. I don't know what that looks like if it's social media or, you know, cell phones or how do you, how do you even begin to do that because obviously parents can do whatever they want with their kids but I imagine it would mean, you know, within public school system, you know, having some some guardrails and some policies on that. So if that's going to happen top down at the executive branch of our state, or legislatively or if it's going to have to happen at the individual school board level, which is obviously where I'm kind of tuned into and and that, that decision from LA unified school, I went to a unified school I worked as a teacher there for several years and I mean that's a big school district that I mean it's the second largest in the nation back when I worked there, it was 750,000 kids. So, and that's it's gone down a little bit but what a monumental task that must be, you know, and I think teachers are going to find some relief because if they, if it's a, you know, teachers have been in this position where. They see kids in the back row they're trying to do a lesson and the kids looking down at the phone, and they can't take it away, you know, they don't, there's been fights document where like students attack teachers for taking their phones like teachers are not paid enough to like get involved in that fight so it really has to come from the leadership, and I don't know how that gets legislated the the book that I just mentioned the author, Dr hate said, you know he had four rules one of them was like not to introduce social media to your kid under the age of like 14 and under social media use, and then flip phones only, you know, I've seen parents which is kind of cool. Their kids are going into like junior high and they get like an eye watch that doesn't have like internet it just has the ability to like text, and then like the GPS, you know, obviously we're all helicopter parents we want to know where our kids are. And not having the access to any internet so I think that's a really good, you know, kind of first step, because that would just allow you to, you know, be able to communicate with your kid but they couldn't go on social media but and then the other rules I mean yeah like school boards have to decide if they want to make a policy, and you know we don't allow cell phones in our schools but it's like it's like they can bring them but they have to keep them away. Now you can't if you see a kid I mean they can sneak and hide it or they can bring it out, you know, at recess and they, you know we do have policies if it's getting a distraction I mean they can be confiscated some districts have gotten those little and they're like locked pouches. I think these companies are cropping out they're making a killing because they're, they're these like magnetic pouches that are somehow like a lock box or like a whole box for everybody's phone and that's where the phone in when they get into class. But I mean I honestly feel like it, you know, we were sort of this is like test phase right here like how how are we going to do this I don't have all the answers but I can tell you like what's happening now is just it's not working. It's not just here in our community but just across the nation and actually world right why these numbers are for other cultures other other countries as well with the rates of anxiety and depression, corresponding to the increase in gaming and social media use So, yeah, I don't, I mean the other way is through the courts I was going to mention there's a class action lawsuit that are we're trying our district has joined on we're waiting to see like where we're at it's kind of in the works these things take time but the plaintiffs are school districts from across the nation and it's a it's a big lawsuit against meta tick talk Google Microsoft for basically, you know damages to the to like harming our youth based on the algorithms that are, you know, addict getting our children addicted and that they're like actively like this one story I read it was a girl she was about 13 she ended up. I don't know if I can't remember if there was a bunch of cases but she got in really bad with anorexia because all she wanted to do was like she just like typed in search like healthy recipes. But started, and, and her mom was like oh look she's being helped like she's learning how to like make a salad or just have like because she, you know, I guess wanted to lose weight I don't know but apparently that like snowballed into like just flooding her like feed with images really skinny like anorexic scary like unhealthy girls and body images that just like messed with her pubescent mind and created this like situation where she was in the hospital because of her, you know, taking it too far and so that's the kind of thing that these lawsuits are aiming to address and have these these corporate entities, you know be accountable for what they're doing and remember a couple years ago that whistle blower from Facebook I forget her name. She came out saying that these they knew they know the algorithms are like targeting children in nefarious ways and, and so, you know, but what's it to face to meta they're going to pay it's probably doing business right they're just going to pay the fines. So we'll see if we can legislate through court action litigation for these companies. Because it should be their responsibility, you know they say it's the parents responsibility but it's like. Parent there's a lot of smart parents out there that are really trying to do the right thing and they're still ending up with children who are suffering really severely from from these mental illnesses. I think that we're seeing that too even in journalism in my world with these this state legislation to get these big tech companies to share some of their advertising revenue with newspapers because they have over the years with the rise in popularity have taken traffic website traffic from these news agencies and particularly now with AI, like if you Google, you know, go lead a school board or something, you know, maybe a story will come up by local media, but you might also get a summary of local media stories and you never even have to click on the actual journalist's work who wrote that story. And that's just an example of how our attention spans are shorter. We don't spend as much time as we used to actually engaging in the world. And this happens with with adults. You know, I have students in my journalism classes who want to be journalists but they don't read. You know, it's like, well, why don't you read? It's like, well, I get all my news from social media. It's like, well, you know, Instagram and Facebook, they don't employ reporters. You're getting a headline of somebody sharing a link, but you need to actually read the stories and look at the original sourcing. And so you see these tech companies profiting off the fact that people are, I don't want to say becoming less smart, but they're not, they're not doing what they used to do, which is thoroughly jumping into the deep end of the pool to understand these issues. And if we're now starting that with children. You know, it's just so, so sad and unfortunate. So I think the smartphone contributes to our media, low media literacy rates to, you know, and we're so looking, people look at the visuals now. The headline, the headline, you know, or the photo or, you know, they don't bother to go beyond that. They don't want to get beyond the paywall and people don't see, you know, journalism, good journalism as, you know, something, a value to pay to have factual information, and which is, I totally want to hear you that AI thing is really disturbing, because you know it's good, it's going to kill journalism. And we've seen the demise of newspapers over the last like two decades but it's yeah it's really scary. What, what could happen. And, and, you know, I think about, you know, what something like, you know, having it be like a public, almost like a public utility like NPR it's like supported publicly. To sort of have this ability, like that should be a basic human right is the access to impartial factual objective news media which in this day and age feels like a pipe dream. You know, which is it's that's a whole other issue in and of itself, but, but you're right, having, having, you know, this at your fingertips to look something up. I do it all the time. We're all we're all guilty of it. And it's sort of being mindful of how much we rely on it having, you know, family rules and, you know, we know cell phones from seven to eight o'clock at night or just put them away and I've seen some families do that. Or heard of it. And I think those ideas. Another thing I will, I will add that I think is important is that you have the support of the parents in your, your children's group that are also on board. And I've been thinking of ways, how can I as a parent band together with other like minded parents to say collectively like we're not going to let our kids have a cell phone or social media before a certain age and sort of organize that as a way of like a grassroots community to make sure we're all in this together because as soon as little Bobby gets his phone, all of them the kids will Bobby has it, you know, and then it's like, Oh, well, okay, then they all cave. And there's like their strength and numbers so I feel like if if you can find parent groups. You know, with that are like minded that are willing to also abide by this collective rule of like restricting or putting up some boundaries around cell phone use, or just even, you know, providing their kids with a cell phone past a certain age. I think that's a good place to start and at something I am like going to be interested in like going forward and talking to like other parents like PTA groups and, and bringing it up and you know at the school board level I know it's on the radar we have a new superintendent starting July 1 Dr Mary con and we've talked about this and so it's, it's on our radar. And I, and I hope that the tides are turning and that we can protect my children's generation I feel like Gen Z really got really got screwed because of the way the COVID hit and then the social media and it's like maybe we can have the pendulum can swing back the other way, where we can get a handle on it so that these rates of mental illness and our youth do not happen to the newest generation of kids that are like, you know, young under 10 right now. Yeah, and Mary cons great she's been around the district forever which reminds me I need to call her and do a profile on her because she's she's great. I remember I probably shouldn't say this on air, but it's not a big deal I used to coach a YSO soccer and my, you know, I live right by Ivy school and my kid. I'm like, I'd love to be able to practice soccer there it's just so convenient and there's, you know, field space, rec field space is such an amazing place. You know, and I was like, Mary. And I think at the time she was the principal violence school and like it's an hour, you know, they're a promise you there'll be no problems, you know, she's like, you can do it and I played my card because I went to Ivy elementary. And so she was like, fine Josh, but if there's any problems. And if anyone else tries to do it, you're going to like, I don't want a whole bunch of people requesting it, you know, which he was so nice, because after school programming is so important at Ivy, you know, and so they need that space too. And it all worked out great and everyone was happy, but let's, as we wrap up here, you know, 10, 15 more minutes or so like, let's talk about greedy unified and, you know, you were elected as a school board member. And how's it been? I mean, what are some of the highlights, some of the things that you've been proud of, successes at Galita Union. And then the daughter goes dive elementary and we love it. And I was like, we're so happy with the teachers and the staff and it's just a great experience for us as a family but talk to you about what's going on with lady unified from your perspective. Yeah, no, that's good to hear. And it's, it's go lead a union unified. Yeah, yeah, I said that a bunch too but we're just a TK through sixth grade but yeah it's been, I'm really proud, you know, to, to be overseeing a school district that is doing so many things right. And obviously no district is perfect it's public education. I mean, we, we get per, you know, per student I was looking at the numbers is like, $23,000 per student. And then I was like curious what like they said, like for inmates it's like 123,000 that's like a whole other issue. But for the amount of money that we're given to provide a public education and obviously we're a basic a district so we also get the majority of our funding from property taxes, which we're very lucky. Because our area provides above and beyond what we would get otherwise. So, let's see, well, we do the one thing I want to, you know, that has been really exciting to watch is that the measure and bond. We voters approved I think it was like a $76 million bond several years ago on it was on the ballot and it's for basically upgrading our infrastructure new roofs. We leaky roofs, you know new roofs new asphalt new playgrounds new HVAC new furniture for all the classrooms. I mean, this has been really exciting as to watch it roll out and as the new playgrounds pop up to go visit them and check it out they're all inclusive. Like by you know wheelchair like no wood chips no lip around it you can't like get any wheelchair over either super accessible they're fun. I mean just have I mean for a teacher to get new furniture. It's like, I mean that's, I'm excited like for that. And so, that's, that's, you know, an example of one really success story is that, you know, we have the support of our community that says like this is important we're going to pay an extra tax on our properties to provide for this bond. And so we're in the middle of rolling that out and I think everything will be completed by 26 so that's exciting. Some of the other things well I mentioned the the the class action lawsuit I that was something I was really like really wanted to for us to join that because to you know to hold these entities accountable. And we did we completed some successful bargaining with with our contracts over both of our unions, the teachers union and the classified union and that with no no hitch our bargain, you know, credit to like the bargaining teams for being able to you know just just hash it out and we were able to give a little raise even despite a lot of budget cuts we did like two and a half million and budget cuts which is obviously painful. But we still wanted to give, you know, give our employees a little cost of living adjustment and so I felt like that we were really proud to, you know, do that. We had, we've been rolling out transitional kindergarten, which is mandated by this day we don't get any money for that. So, you know, we, we now have TKs that all transitional kindergarten is basically like preschool free preschool. My daughter's in TK and we've just, she has brought she's like almost like beginning reading skills like she's going to enter kindergarten. So this is something that I think is, they talk about evening the playing field in terms of equity of our literacy rates and stuff like that so we're proud of that. And then our science of reading initiative, we're still, you know, with Mary con coming on. She was our former assistant superintendent of instruction and curriculum so we have that continuity where these initiatives can just keep rolling and we're seeing already like little glimmers of hope in our test scores that are going up in that. You know, these changes and some of the strategies that we're doing to teach kids reading is really actually paying off and, you know, might take a couple years to see even more benefits but these are some, some things that we're really excited about. You know, this year and, and moving forward in the next few years I have this election I'm not up for reelection this year. We have two board seats up. So, I'll, I'll be up in 2026 and. Yeah, it's, it's so far, it's, it's been great. I mean, I, I enjoyed I love talking about any kind of education policy and helping out the community and being involved so. And I always ask my daughter and like, could you sit with the lunch would you do recess these times outside of the classroom. To, you know, I'm just like being social but in my head I'm like, I want to make sure you're like not alone I want to make sure that your friend group is, you know, the same as it was yesterday or if there's it's a way to facilitate if there's been any changes. And that sort of thing and she tells me you know that this is swear these are exactly where she says you know dad kids are a lot nicer now than they were when you were growing up. And because she's like smart she's like kitty because I'm always like who'd you sit with, you know, and that sort of thing. And then she will tell me like other other kids don't have anyone to sit with sometimes and the, the aides will sit with them, you know, or play with them and so I'm like again that's fantastic. You know, like that exists that there's awareness of like this kid maybe does not have this friend group so we're going to make sure that they're not alone or we're going to bring these kids together so they can meet each other and talk. So I am pleased at the successes and growth that we have had in some regards in terms of that those social pressures. You know I'm terrified of junior high though we'll see how that goes you know but I got a few more couple more years before have to deal with that. Well, how does kalita union how they address the issue of bullying and social emotional awareness. You know it would no specific names of kids or incidents but just big picture. Yeah, so it's it's it's all about preventing to try to prevent it we have a curriculum called second step, which has lessons. From K to six like recognizing bullying reporting bullying about you know what is a bystander and can you just you know bystanders have power so if you see something kind of say something and. You know each school has their own positive behaviors support and intervention like plan about you know what are the expectations and this like I said in the beginning creating a culture of kindness. You know, like rewards for like being kind of like reinforcing that behavior. And, and then having like policies in place obviously we have all these you know board policies and regulations of like what what to do if if the kids harassing or or do you know these types of bullying behavior. And then making sure that you know the incidents are reportable if you if you suspect that your child is bullying or if you see it we have it's a bullying harassment complaint form. You can find this on our website I don't know if you can see it but it just has you know just basically documenting what either your child told you or what you saw teachers can fill it out if they see something. And just making sure that it gets documented and that will be investigated and be handled by the appropriate either the principal or an administrator or the teacher. And if there's a chance for a restorative justice type situation where that can be ameliorated in that way. And if as a board member like my job is to oversee and make sure this is happening I mean I'm not going to say there's no bullying incidents I do hear of them and obviously for privacy reasons I can't share those with you but I'm concerned about them. I mean please reach out to me if you feel like your complaint has not been addressed because as a board member I would want to know if parents are unhappy with the way you know their kids being treated or what the outcome was I know sometimes parents get upset but obviously laws you can't always say who it was or what happened or what their punishment was or consequence or whatever. But I think at the bare minimum you want to have parents involved because they need to know what's happening and so that you know some of these cases we mentioned in the beginning with the the children who took their own lives is that you know the parents are saying it's like no comment no comment we're not going to comment on this and know the police are investigating these horrible incidents. And the parents are feeling like nobody listened to them nobody was looking out for their kid and that is like any human beings like worst nightmare that a kid is going to be sent to school and be become so vulnerable and bullied and harassed on a daily basis that they feel like their life is no longer worth living and that is heartbreaking and that is something we need to at all costs like prevent. And so all this stuff we talked about with the social media might seem ten gentle to some people but really it's like it's at the crux of the issue so we as a district. And like I said we're trying to prevent it we have you know cultures of kindness we have the policies we have the form to fill out being staying in touch with the parents and the teachers and just trainings being aware. I think it's a multi pronged approach right because you know the upbringing and the education of our youth, both academically socially, emotionally. And as a community as a society I can't think of anything that's more important that's my opinion, you know that's our future right there. Well that's great. It's so cool that you're involved in these issues you care about these issues and you know you're a teacher you're also looking at it from the board perspective and a parent, a helicopter parent like me. And seeing you at the Gellita library and, you know, see you around town doing anything with your kids so this great I really appreciate your time and everything that you were able to share, and all the work that that you're doing. And yeah, eventually I'll get over to go lead a school board member and you know start writing about some of those issues, hopefully before election time and we journalists we parachute in during the election years and then we don't go for the day to day stuff. That's, you know, we do have what we can you know small small news organizations. Yeah, I hear you, you spread them, you got your journal I give you props man I mean a journalist in this day I mean you, it's, it's, it's hard to eat out of living as a journalist so I really respect you having this podcast and having local people on I watch, you know, try to watch as many as I can and I think they're really great conversations and staying informed on the local issues is that's it's where it all happens. Yeah, great Emily Zacharias thanks again. Appreciate your time and we'll talk again soon take care. Take care. Thank you. You You You