The Drug In Our Pocket: What Smartphones Are Doing to Our Kids, with Anne Sundberg

Smartphones were designed to connect us, so why are so many kids and teens more anxious, distracted, and lonely than ever? I sat down with the team behind The Drug In Our Pocket, a new documentary about how smartphones and social media have reshaped childhood, adolescence, and teen mental health. Director and producer Anne Sundberg, producer Beth Kojima, co-founder of GTY Productions, and Kathy Thomas, whose daughter Karina shares her story in the film, joined me in New York just before its world premiere at the Hamptons International Film Festival to talk about screen time, attention, digital wellness, and what parents can actually do about the phone in every kid’s pocket.

We get into what the research is showing about our kids’ attention and learning, Karina’s experience and why having one trusted adult to turn to can change everything, what the court cases against Meta and other platforms have revealed about how these products are designed, what other countries are doing to protect young people, and the small, doable changes the filmmakers hope every family will try.

Chapters

(00:00:00) Introduction

(00:01:40) Why they made The Drug In Our Pocket

(00:05:40) The numbers: kids, phones, and 30 years on a device

(00:09:01) Phones in schools and what's happening to learning

(00:12:04) Karina's story

(00:15:00) Why every kid needs someone to turn to

(00:18:51) Pick three: small changes with a big impact

(00:21:00) What the court cases against Meta are revealing

(00:32:57) Why it's so hard to put the phone down