 So first of all it's to recognize and accept the fact that it is a struggle, it's not easy for us and the thing is the reason why it's so difficult is because we're the first generation going through it. You know I was just talking to my friend yesterday and you know and I said to him you know for my parents it seemed like it was easier because you know yeah they raised us you know they provided for us they were amazing parents but you know in the afternoon I would go out and play with friends and that was fine you know I would play soccer and hide and seek and you know go to friends place and they would come to our place and you know it was basically you know do whatever and you know that's how I learned empathy and that's how I learned how to negotiate and resolve conflict and such important life skills you don't develop those life skills when you're on social media you don't develop it when you're playing video games some of it you do but most of it you don't another very troubling study is about the levels of empathy among the young generation they've gone down and and again as a result of too much time on the screen not enough time playing in the sandbox together so today we're making it up as we go along and and and it is very so first of all as parents you know to be easier on ourselves first thing second just to put boundaries and you know the boundaries have to be whether it's around x number of hours in front of the screen and there are more and more programs today that can limit screen time you know from within the smartphone so utilize those and another thing and this I owe this to my to my brother-in-law you know when I talked to him about it and he said wow you know you sound like the you know the prophet of doom you're a happiness professor come on and and and then he said you know instead the way I think about it instead of of thinking about it in terms of what they don't do think about what they do do in other words create alternatives and what that means is that we need to put more time so okay so they won't be on the screen but what will they do instead will they play you know ball with their friends great if possible more challenging now in times of corona but maybe play a board game with their family and that means with you too and that means we can't use the screen as a babysitter we just need to become more involved and and you know the nice thing about it is that as we become more involved we also potentially find treasures of happiness the number one predictor of happiness is quality time we spend with people we care about and who care about us and many of us have forgotten that it is an incredibly important thing to remember and when I look into the future knowing that the next generation has less less empathy it terrifies me because I know how much and how important empathy has been for us to create what we have created for ourselves so it makes me a bit nervous in fact uh every time our producer gets somebody else who's wants to send books I always make sure that I get a physical copy because I'm so tired I stare at my screen enough and to be able to close my computer and go on the porch with a with a coffee and an open a book it is I look forward to those moments in in my day just talk about an island of sanity and serenity and for myself who grew up as Gen X normalcy you know having the computer open is is a work thing where kids now it's it's a mishmash of that's where they play that is where they're going to be working that's where they study uh that's an that's an incredibly it seems to me to be to be messy with all of those things connected to the same mechanism