We're Momming Today! w/Lauren Simonetti · FOX News Podcasts

Physician and Mom of 4 Explains Why Dumb Phones Are a Smart Decision for Parents

·31 min·2 clips

Dr. Gilboa distinguishes shame from stigma and says both still affect mental-health disclosure.

Lauren Simonetti opens the conversation with Dr. Gilboa, also known as Ask Dr. G, and frames it around what families are supposed to do with a technology problem that shows up as a mental health problem. She begins with the Surgeon General’s advisory and the warning that mental health is a major public-health issue affecting children, teenagers, and people of all ages. Dr. Gilboa says she does not take the warning as a full blame-social-media argument. She does see social media as a possible inflection point and a place to step in. Lauren pushes on the idea that the burden has landed on parents. Dr. Gilboa answers by widening the lens to isolation and the way technology can make people feel more cut off from one another. The discussion touches work-from-home culture. Lauren raises the claim that working from home can hurt people professionally and romantically, and Dr. Gilboa says that rings true for her. She says the college students she works with are not eager for their first jobs to be remote. They want to meet people and find mentors. She also works with corporations on organizational resilience, which gives her another angle on the same problem. Younger employees, she says, are looking for mentorship and development, and they do not separate professional development from personal development as sharply as older groups often do. She draws a contrast with many millennials, who are dealing with more isolation in their work lives and fewer durable relationships that carry from one job to the next. Gen Z comes off as different in a useful way. Dr. Gilboa describes them as highly critical of what they see online, not in a cynical way, but as a sign that they are paying attention and trying to navigate what is happening around them. The episode ends on a practical note: the bigger answer is not a single villain, but more mental health resources in prevention and treatment, along with a clearer sense of how constant connection affects people.

As heard by us

A steady look at how social media, isolation, and mental health keep colliding.

Lauren Simonetti pushes Dr. Gilboa toward a plain point: modern parenting now has to contend with social media, isolation, and the strain of treating a public problem as a private one.

Read the full review in PlayNext →

Why you'd press play

If you need a sanity check on how technology can feed isolation, start here.

Read the full recommendation in PlayNext →

Listen to the show on

Apple Podcasts Spotify

Play clips from this episode More from We're Momming Today! w/Lauren Simonetti