00:06:49.460the reason why I don't subscribe to a huge number of podcasts is because I am constantly
00:06:54.780genre hopping and pursuing various rabbit holes through which to dive. And that being said,
00:07:02.980on the top of my subscribed podcast feed is Under the Influence with Joe Piazza.
00:07:10.280Jo is a best-selling author, journalist, and her take on how social media influences so much of our lives and how the commodification of every single aspect of our lives is driving everyone, but mostly women and mothers, a little insane is hilarious and, frankly, a little horrifying.
00:07:37.540So Jo is taking a minute away from her massively exciting book launch of The Sicilian Inheritance
00:07:45.120to chat about screens, social media, and the never-ending task of being a mom.
00:07:51.980Thank you so much for chatting with me, Jo.
00:08:06.840Well, I mean, you know, it's so funny. I think about this a lot because I started under the influence four years ago. And the goal of the podcast was really to do a deep dive on mom influencers. And that was it. I'm like, who are these women? How did this happen? And like, what does it mean for our lives? This will be eight episodes. I'm in, I'm out. And then I'll forget about it and move on to something else.
00:08:28.320and now four years later I think that social media social media is media now it's just it's
00:08:34.420just media and it has such a massive impact on almost every aspect of our lives that I now do
00:08:42.340two episodes a week and think about this all the time so we never know where life is going to lead
00:08:47.320us so when I started following under the influence you kind of had me at hello because
00:08:54.820i love that oh no because of your you you kind of peeled back the veil for me on these insta
00:09:06.140perfect lives like i don't know why but it had never occurred to me how people were getting
00:09:14.200pictures of their whole family with like the perfectly tousled hair and matching pajamas
00:09:20.280in bed or, you know, in the back of a vintage pickup truck, you know, it never occurred to me
00:09:27.460that like, how are these people getting pictures of themselves with their children? And you were
00:09:34.660the one that peeled back the veil for me on, oh, this is a business. This is a brand. And there's
00:09:45.660a particular um feed if you will yeah you mentioned kind of a bit um just because there's
00:09:54.120this interesting dialogue ongoing with you with trad wives which stands for traditional wife
00:10:01.140and which is different than a stay-at-home mom different than a stay-at-home mom yep you're
00:10:05.900also very clear in that can you break that down just so just so people understand yeah absolutely
00:10:13.180I mean, I've been writing a lot about Trad Wives lately because I write and I talk a
00:10:43.180And so, like, I think, therefore, the things that you are doing and selling as a media brand can be open to the same kind of scrutiny as, say, Nike.
00:10:53.480So we should be thinking about these properties as brands.
00:10:57.240And something that's been happening in a lot of the mom influencer accounts lately is hashtag tradwives.
00:11:04.220And it's a sort of false nostalgia for a 1950s that never existed, where women are very submissive to their husband, where they are solely focused on their roles in the home, but mostly have no agency over their lives.
00:12:00.780The brand has more than 8 million followers.
00:12:03.980They are a Utah family that is very rich because the husband is the heir to one of the founders of JetBlue.
00:12:10.880And yet they cosplay poverty on this farm as if they live in like Willy Wonka's Charlie and the Chocolate Factory's grandparents like house with a single bed for everyone to be sleeping in.
00:12:22.360And while they're selling you things like $89 sourdough starters or $49 bags of flour, because that is their brand, their brand is like, we're back to the earth. And, you know, we're independent people, you know, we're, we're just like you. And I'm like, you're nothing like that, like us.
00:12:41.900And so we should be pulling back the curtain on who that brand is, because one of the ways that social media is so nefarious is that we genuinely think that we're getting a window into people's actual lives when really we're just seeing what they want to show us.
00:12:58.640And they're not people. That's the other thing. I hesitate sometimes to talk about the Ballerina Farm account because I get a lot of anger coming at me being like, why are you so mean to this nice young Christian farmer lady? And I'm like, I could care less. I don't know her. But her brand has the influence over 8 million people. And that's a lot of power. And so we should talk about what they do.
00:13:26.960Yeah. No. And there are rules within the business world of advertising about false advertising,
00:13:35.440about false advertising. I understand your frustration with, um, people who make the
00:13:43.400work of motherhood look like, Oh, it was just something I just thought of. It was just easy.
00:13:50.580It was just easy. I just I'm just barefoot wearing white all the time. And yeah, and I don't I do think I genuinely believe that Instagram has flattened the work of motherhood in a lot of ways. It has flattened how we view the labor of motherhood. It makes it look like it is pretty and easy and joyous all of the time, which and when things are viewed that way, we don't think that we need to value them because it makes it look like it's just like we're
00:14:20.460we're just playing we're just playing on this farm with our chickens and our babies all the time
00:14:25.000and i love my freaking kids i've got three of them all under the age of six but it is work every day0.75
00:14:31.300and there are moments of joy in it and there are also moments that where it is a hellscape0.87
00:14:35.020and instagram has completely flattened that labor um and the view of the labor right chew on this
00:14:43.400bold question from dentine gum is it ever okay to compliment a millennial on their skinny jeans
00:14:51.140in 2026 dentine too bold now i do have to say what i kind of enjoy and maybe it's just my
00:15:02.320sense of humor but i do enjoy there are some like parody accounts oh yeah with you know where
00:15:09.660they're like, they start off with, Oh, my, my children wanted cereal today. So I, and they
00:15:16.060lead you through like a, you know, six hour process of baking cereal that basically is the
00:15:22.280same stuff that you could quite honestly pour out of a box. And, you know, and they look like they're
00:15:27.120having this, you know, euphoric experience while they're, while they're finally eating their
00:15:32.100finished product. But that those, I, I find kind of funny. I, like I said, I do know, I find,
00:15:39.200I find all of the parody accounts funny.
00:16:06.680I wish that these things didn't exist in our life.
00:16:08.660Right, right. And so that kind of like goes into. So like I said, you started with kind of you started under the influence with this fascination of Instagram parenting, basically. And you yourself experimented with how do I do this? How do I make a buck out of parenting?
00:16:35.320You know, and I was fascinated to follow your journey through that. And then there was kind of a turning point for you because it was interesting because for me, because I swim in the digital wellness pond, I was like, oh, gosh, like, oh, what are you doing? What are you doing? What are you doing?
00:16:57.280And then you kind of have this growth point where you're kind of like, wait a minute, kids are not content.
00:36:09.900What you know about social media supersedes what your kids want, you know, and you know
00:36:18.260what maybe your 10 year old is really intrigued with the wine you're drinking also and you know
00:36:25.400I mean and different families different cultures all of that aside you are probably not going to
00:36:32.260be pouring a full glass of wine every night and sticking it in front of them and you know with
00:36:38.920social media the equivalent would be you know serving it for breakfast lunch and dinner yep
00:36:43.260But I understand the concern about about social connection, because I mean, we are wired physically for social connection seeking at that developmental stage.
00:37:00.200What I can tell you is that social media actually undermines those connections.
00:37:04.700it is far more important for you to provide lots of experiences and ways for kids to connect
00:37:15.940with offline activities, whether that's through athletics, providing a screen-free adventure.
00:37:25.060You know, I mean, when you get what, this is why we have to sort of normalize this language with,
00:37:31.960with our friends. Not unlike if your kid was coming to my house, I would say, are you know,
00:37:41.780do you guys have any allergies, any dietary restrictions I need to know about? I need to be
00:37:47.480that open with just Oh, just so you know, we're a screen free house, I collect cell phones.
00:37:53.400If you or we park cell phones, your child can have access to their cell phone to use it for
00:37:59.280a communication tool if needed the same way parents did forever like you know just ever
00:38:04.200you can find me yeah right yeah right and and providing a lot of different experiences
00:38:13.940for kids to connect one-on-one in in offline type activities will actually insulate your child
00:38:22.960from the effects of social media greatly and it gives them tools to bounce back from you know
00:38:31.500having your feelings hurt or I mean when we are relying on social media as our only form of
00:38:40.320connection chances are your phone is going to be the tool that you're also relying on for when
00:38:47.060you're feeling down you're gonna you're gonna be seeking that little dopamine hit that I was
00:38:52.580talking about to make you feel better. Right. Well, when the thing that you're searching for
00:38:59.160to make you feel better has become the thing of greatest pain, you are now entering that land of
00:39:06.000betrayal, which betrayal when you rank emotions is, you know, the top of the list as, as far as
00:39:15.340impact. So it's, I, I think you just, you stand strong, recognize that social media was never
00:39:25.900developed for children and even teens. It was developed for young adults. And so many of the
00:39:35.320platforms rely on the age 13 and parents misinterpret that as a rating, like what we would
00:39:44.840see in TV or movies where we've got like PG-13. And so parents quite understandably think that
00:39:52.98013 is a rating. The age 13 goes back to in 1998, the Children's Online Privacy and Protection Act
00:40:05.080was passed. I want you to remember what our online world looked like in 1998. It was
00:40:14.880nothing. It was really nice. I want to set all of my books in 1998 because it's pre-smartphone.
00:40:21.260There you go. I'm like, you could maybe Netscape something, but you're not going to find a real
00:40:26.000answer and it's going to take you 25 minutes. Exactly. And the graphics will be so horrible.
00:40:30.980you have no incentive to stay on. So shitty, so shitty. You don't want to stay on here. No,0.99
00:40:35.640you don't. Exactly. So that is, that is, you were talking about working on policy and that is a
00:40:43.060policy that is currently looking to be updated with the short name for that act is called COPPA
00:40:49.520and they're working on COPPA 2.0. But it was set to, legally, companies cannot collect data from
00:40:58.840children under the age of 13. And nor should they. Exactly, exactly. But that is the reason for 13.
00:41:07.880Oh, and it's not just because, oh, they're fine now. No, it's not a developmental rating.
00:41:14.200But understandably, people misinterpret it. So the developmental rating more and more is age 16
00:41:24.380for social media and so and that's a hard fight i can tell you i have i have been there i mean
00:41:31.980of the the current recommendations at healthy screen habits is to delay smartphone acquisition
00:41:42.580until until 13 ish so delay that it's we follow the wait until eighth meaning wait until eighth
00:41:52.360grade, meaning after eighth grade, because guess what? All that drama around junior high, around
00:42:03.000what we now call middle school. I'm totally dating myself and calling it junior high.
00:42:06.900But guess what? All of that swirl happens for a reason. We are supposed to be going through
00:42:14.260all of those just really difficult social interactions, learning how to read. I mean,
00:42:20.380When they're experimenting with humor, they've got different forms, you know, like, oh, if I'm sarcastic, how does this feel? Oh, if I'm, you know, self-deprecating, what is this like? And so you see this, that's why middle schoolers are every time you see them, you don't know who you're going to get.
00:42:38.880And that's why it makes it tricky, but recognize that it's actually a very beautiful transformation that's happening. It's like the gooey part of the chrysalis when the butterfly, you know, the caterpillar goes along and then he makes this chrysalis and then there's this whole mushy stage. That's what's happening in middle school. It's supposed to be mushy.
00:42:59.420And when we, when we deprive our kids of the goo, when we take them out and, and stick a screen in front of them, the butterfly that hatches is not going to be as well.
00:49:44.900Well, that is an excellent way of pairing, like pairing two tasks, which happiness studies
00:49:52.980have shown that that's one of the best ways to create a new habit is to pair it with something.
00:49:57.760So if you're, it's kind of like giving yourself a little treat at the end.
00:50:00.620And the other thing is that the brain health for aspect of reading versus scrolling, I mean, is huge. I mean, reading actually provides this really like kind of active workout for the brain.
00:50:18.000When you're thinking about the language centers that are being accessed and then the visualizations that are being happening, and then when you share what you're reading with other people in, say, a planned social setting, that has mental health benefits as well, like a book club.
00:50:34.720And that is where I'm like, I just think the Sicilian inheritance can be this great launch pad for the best food and gatherings and read of the season.
00:50:50.320As always, you can find a complete transcript of this show and a link to any resources discussed, including the Sicilian inheritance by visiting the show notes for this episode.
00:51:00.280Do this by going to healthyscreenhabits.org, click the podcast button and find this episode.