Really Good Conversations

What is one piece of wisdom you want to pass on to future generations?
In this special compilation episode, Amy shares how a family loss helped inspire Really Good Conversations and why it is so important to ask meaningful questions while we still have the opportunity.
Hear the varied responses from this year's podcast guests as they reflect on the lessons, values and advice they hope future generations will carry forward.
It may leave you considering the wisdom you have received, the stories you still want to hear and the answer you would give yourself.
Key takeaways:
Why meaningful questions can unlock stories that may otherwise go untold
The importance of learning from people across different generations
Wisdom and life lessons from this year's podcast guests
Why we should not wait to ask those closest to us about their experiences
A question to consider and share with your own friends and family
 
Guests include: 
Maz Farrelly
Isiah McKimmie
Jodie Whelan and Jodie de Vries
Andrew Sloan
Phillip di Bella 
Maku Fenaroli 
Kylee Dennis 
Dara Simkin
Nova Eden
 
Trancript: 
Amy
Welcome to the Really Good Conversations podcast.
Today, I'm going to invite you to consider one question:
What is one piece of wisdom you want to pass on to future generations?
It is a question from our first edition pack of Really Good Conversations cards, and one I have been asking all of our podcast guests this year.
It has been fascinating to hear the different answers people have shared, so in this special compilation episode, I'm bringing those responses together.
This is a shorter episode, but it is centred around a question that has been on my mind quite a lot recently.
I have seen a growing amount of content online, particularly on social media, where people stop strangers in the street and ask them questions such as what advice they would give to their younger selves, what they would do differently if they were in their twenties again, or whether they have any regrets.
It is amazing to hear the responses from people of different ages, backgrounds and walks of life.
Seeing these conversations has reminded me why we started Really Good Conversations in the first place.
Many of you will already know our story, but for those who do not, the idea began after Alex's grandad passed away in 2019.
He was in his nineties, from the north of England, lived in Leeds and had served during the war.
After he passed away, we found ourselves talking about how, when older generations are no longer with us, we lose the opportunity to ask them questions, hear their stories and learn from their experiences.
For Alex in particular, it raised the question of how much he had ever really asked his grandad.
It made us realise how easily we can move through life without having these deeper conversations with our friends and families.
At different stages of life, we naturally have different priorities.
When you are a teenager, you often want to spend most of your time with your friends rather than your parents or grandparents. Then, perhaps, you go to university, move away, travel or begin meeting people from different parts of the world.
We were fortunate enough to travel and meet people from all sorts of places. It was incredible to hear their stories and learn about their lives.
But sometimes, while we are busy learning about new people, we do not always take the opportunity to hear the stories of those closest to us.
My great-grandad started our family business in 1920, and I remember wondering what it must have been like to start a business at that time compared with today.
Why did he start it? What was he hoping to achieve?
I asked my dad, who has been involved in the business himself since he was ten years old, whether he had ever asked his grandad those questions.
He said no.
I think that is often the case. These conversations do not always arise naturally. Sometimes, we need to make a conscious effort to ask.
That is why I wanted to share this episode now, in the middle of the year, and bring together the wisdom our guests have shared so far.
It is clearly a topic that is resonating with a lot of people, and I would encourage you to ask this question of the older people in your own family.
But I would also invite you to consider your own answer.
What wisdom would you want to pass on?
Right now, we are in what is sometimes called the sandwich generation, with young children on one side and ageing parents on the other.
The reality is that we can learn from every generation around us, from young children through to those who have lived long and varied lives.
I hope you enjoy hearing how our guests answered this question, and I would love to know what your answer would be too.

Summary
What's disappearing from childhood & why children need an analogue childhood in a digital world
In this episode, Amy speaks with Nova Eden from One Collective Power and the Smartphone Free Childhood movement about how smartphones, social media, iPads, EdTech and AI are reshaping modern childhood.
They explore what children may be losing to screens, from boredom and play to imagination, attention and real-world connection, and share practical ways families can build healthier digital habits at home.
 
Guest
Nova Eden is a leadership and systems change advocate, founder of One Collective Power, and a campaigner with the Smartphone Free Childhood movement.
Her work focuses on children's wellbeing, digital habits, smartphone-free schools and parenting in the digital age.
Nova works with parents, schools, organisations and policymakers to help create healthier relationships with technology, and has presented her work in Parliament as part of the growing conversation around children, smartphones, social media and digital wellbeing.
Overview
Smartphones, social media and digital devices are now woven into childhood, family life and education. But did we move too quickly? In this conversation, Amy and Nova Eden explore the impact of screens on children's wellbeing, development, attention and relationships.
Nova shares the personal moment that led her into this work, why she believes children are living through a global digital experiment, and how parents, schools and policymakers can start to rethink the role technology plays in modern childhood.
The conversation covers smartphone-free schools, EdTech, early years screen use, social media safety, dopamine, sleep, boredom, analogue childhood and the emerging risks of AI.
It is a thoughtful and practical discussion for parents, educators and anyone interested in what children need to thrive in the digital age.
 
Key Outtakes
• Why children are living through a digital experiment
• What screens are replacing in childhood
• Why boredom, play and imagination still matter
• Why "digital literacy" isn't the same as digital wellbeing
• Simple ways families can build healthier screen habits
• Why AI may change the conversation again
More Information
Collective Power https://onecollectivepower.co.uk/
Smartphone Free Childhood https://www.smartphonefreechildhood.org/
 
Transcript 
Amy
Welcome to the Really Good Conversations podcast.
Today, I am joined by Nova Eden, who has been at the centre of one of the biggest conversations facing parents right now: children, technology and modern childhood. Through her work with One Collective Power and the Smartphone Free Childhood movement, Nova has been working with parents, schools and policymakers to rethink how and when children engage with smartphones, social media and digital life.
This isn't just about screen time. It's about what kind of childhood we're designing and what role we as adults, parents and educators need to play in that.
Welcome to the podcast, Nova.
Nova
Thank you so much, Amy. It's lovely to be here this morning.
Amy
Even before we've hit record, we have already been talking about so many elements of this.
It's been a busy year in the UK as well with this topic of conversation around social media, phones and bans. But what I first wanted to ask you was how you got into this space of digital awareness, digital wellness, education, and the use of devices for children and in education.
Nova
I've always worked with children, and my speciality has been children's mental health and wellbeing. A few years ago, my eldest son came to me and said, "Mum, everyone's getting a smartphone. I'm the only one without a phone."
Of course, like every parent, I felt that pressure to conform to the social norm of giving my son a smartphone. I was worried about him being socially isolated during that crucial stage of his development.
So I gave in to the peer pressure and realised very quickly I had made a mistake, because I saw him change. I saw that he didn't want to play anymore. All he wanted to do was look at his phone.
Around the same time, I was having conversations with parents and friends, and everybody kept saying, "These phones and kids, it's such a nightmare." I started hearing all these horror stories about this child sending this naked picture or that child being bullied. I started hearing one too many awful stories about what was happening with phones, with kids, online.
It was around the time when I read an article about a young girl called Molly Russell, who sadly and tragically took her own life because she was pushed harmful content into her newsfeed. So I realised that I wanted to do something about it and I really wanted to get involved. It was just when the Smartphone Free Childhood campaign first took off.
I was very aware that I wanted to make different decisions with my younger children, and I wanted to help other parents really understand what they were getting themselves in for. Years ago, when I first started campaigning, there wasn't the awareness that there is today. This wasn't a big national conversation.
So I was very passionate that I wanted to protect other parents and other children, and it snowballed. It became a big national campaign very quickly with Smartphone Free Childhood. It became a big conversation. I started working with head teachers and schools, and really trying to raise awareness.
I remember people telling me back then, "Nothing's going to change." I'm delighted to say they were wrong. Things have changed. I've presented my work in Parliament, in Scottish Parliament and with the Department for Education. People really are listening.
We now have legislation to make all schools smartphone-free here in the UK, and we are working towards raising the age for social media for under-16s, which is a fantastic step. There's still a lot of work to do, but we are definitely moving in the right direction.
Amy
Fantastic. Do you feel it is a bit like we've been living through, and still are in, a social experiment with all of this? Perhaps at the beginning, we adopted social media and phones before anyone really understood the consequences.
Nova
Absolutely. Our children and Gen Z are living through an experiment. I think it's time for us to advocate that our children are not the test subjects anymore. We now know the harm that's being done to children via smartphones, social media and excessive screen time.
It's time for meaningful, accelerated change. We need to start challenging these norms that are no longer serving our children, and we need to make real behaviour change. We need education. We need policymakers to step up and implement legislation.
Parents are struggling and children are suffering, and this can't continue. I think that not only is this now a big national conversation, it is a global movement.
Amy
Absolutely. As you know, I'm sitting here in Australia, originally from the UK. Australia went ahead with the social media ban. I think the jury is still out on the effectiveness of these things because, as we've touched on before, children are tech savvy these days and they sometimes find ways around these mechanics.
But when we talk about screen time, is it no longer actually just about screen time, but also what else these children are missing out on in their childhood?
Nova
Yes, that's exactly right. I think there has been some negative press about what Australia is doing not working. But actually, we do know that it's working. It's just going to take a long time to see the results. We know that five million children have come off social media. We know that book sales have increased, which is brilliant and exactly what we want. Of course, the tech companies are making it very easy for these children to get around it.
But what we really need to look at is not just the fact that these children are having excessive screen time, but what they're missing out on. We know they are no longer outside as much as they used to be. They're not socialising face to face as much as they used to be. It's the interactions and healthy activities that they need at this critical stage in their development.
I think if we are going to tackle screen time in our teenagers, we need to look at what's happening in the early years, because digital wellness and healthier digital habits need to start in those early years.
We've just had some recent government guidelines come out in the UK where they are saying that under-two-year-olds shouldn't have screen time, which I completely agree with. As little screen time as possible for under-fives, an hour a day, is what we should be aiming for. But I think it should be more than that. I think we should be advocating for no iPads for under-fives.
We now know that excessive interactive screen time in the early years is causing developmental delays and speech and language delays. We know that children who have excessive screen time in the early years often find it more difficult to regulate their emotions.
It's about what they're missing, because if a child has a choice between a toy and a screen, the screen will always win. What they need at that crucial stage in their development is free play, time, space, creativity and imagination. That's what we're really lacking.
There's been a sharp rise in children going to school not being able to read, and not having basic life skills. So we need to raise awareness. I think everybody knows about smartphones and social media now, but we need to really look at iPads. If Steve Jobs, who was instrumental in creating iPads, didn't give them to his own children, we need to reconsider why we are handing out iPads to our young children.
Amy
Absolutely. That totally hits a nerve when you hear that about Steve Jobs. Everything you're saying resonates because we've got a four-and-a-half-year-old and, in his life, we had at times succumbed to him having the phone here or there and watching things. At times, you could then see that change in behaviour. When you came to take the device off him, it would be like, right, we need to stamp this out.
One trick we did play, bless him, was when we did the long-haul flight back from the UK to Australia. Then we said, "The iPad doesn't work in Australia." That was the end of that. It was full cold turkey. We had been travelling around in the UK and having the device in the car.
It's not until we continue to hear from people like yourself, have these conversations, listen to some of the research coming out, and speak to people like a child psychologist I had on the podcast about a year ago, who equally highlighted that children under five really shouldn't be having any form of screen devices, that it becomes mind-blowing to hear.
I think a lot of people listening will also feel, "Crikey, we've all slipped into using them at one time or another." What's the thinking when we come into education? It's wild to think that when we were all at school, it was pen and paper, and now people obviously have devices. Is there the thinking that technology in education is automatically going to be better for learning?
Nova
I think we've been sold this idea that more technology equals better education, but EdTech is a billion-dollar industry which has crept into our schools. We now have over two decades of research to show that children actually learn better and retain information more when they are learning from books and paper rather than screens.
We know there is a connection between their brain and their hand. Handwriting activates thinking in ways that screens don't. So what we're losing is deep thinking and focused attention.
There is a massive problem with the attention economy at the moment, and children are having fragmented attention spans because of what they're watching and the type of content. So it's really important that we look at the quality of what our children are watching, but also what's happening with EdTech and what's happening to their attention spans.
We know that in one hour of a child being on a device, whether it's an iPad or a laptop for school purposes, up to 38 minutes will be spent off task. So we're losing that ability to learn deeply. We know that the best thing to prepare our children for a digital future is actually an analogue childhood.
Having that time to learn through pens and paper, human interaction and socialising: these are the key skills that screens can't teach them. More technology early on doesn't mean better education. We now have a significant amount of research and evidence to show that it's actually detrimental to their learning.
Amy
Yeah, gosh. Do you think we're going to be able to pull it back? Even for us adults, we're guilty of being on our phones, whether we're scrolling through content or having our attention spans hijacked. It's happening across all ages. But when we think about the analogue childhood, are we going to be able to go back in time almost? It's like we need to reset some of those human skills.
Nova
Well, I hope so. I hope that by raising awareness, which is now happening globally, with lots of people campaigning and supportive MPs, politicians and head teachers, we can. I think this is a societal problem and every single one of us has a part to play.
There's no one solution. We have to educate children. We have to educate parents around digital wellness and healthier digital habits, and we need to have stricter boundaries.
We need smartphone-free schools. We need to help parents who are struggling with the peer pressure to get those phones and social media at such a young age. I think it's going to take a long time, but implementing a minimum age for social media is a great place to start, because eventually it will become normal, just like we have a minimum age for smoking, drinking and driving.
It's not going to be an overnight fix. We need to hold these tech companies and platforms accountable. At the same time, we have to take a holistic approach and we all need to do it together as parents, as leaders and as educators to make real change for the next generation of children.
Amy
We are both parents ourselves and we're living through this. Across the ages of your children, you have quite the broad spectrum. You've seen this unfold at the different milestones and ages that children go through. What is the biggest misconception adults still have about children, smartphones and social media?
Nova
I think the fact that some adults think we can teach children how to use social media safely is one of the biggest misconceptions. At the moment, these platforms are not a safe place for children. They are adult products that have been designed for adults.
Whilst we know that tech companies are pushing dangerous and harmful content into our children's newsfeeds, and whilst we know they are creating dangerous algorithms for our children and pushing content that we as parents may not see, but these young teenagers are seeing, you cannot teach young children to use that safely.
So we have to delay as long as possible while these platforms are not safe. We have to delay smartphones. We have to delay social media. In the meantime, while our children are going through this stage of development in puberty, when they're worried about what everybody else is thinking, we have to make sure they are not feeling like their value and worth is based on what everybody else thinks about them.
That's what social media does. It's quantifying how popular you are, how pretty you are or how good your holiday is. You're never going to win on social media because there's always going to be someone who has more friends or who is more popular. It's an incredibly unhealthy environment and an unhealthy place for children to be.
So I think it's really about raising awareness that, at the moment, whilst these products are not safe, we can't teach children to use them safely. This isn't a balanced conversation where we're being too strict. We know it's a dangerous product. Delaying it and giving children more time in their childhood, where they're outside, playing and doing all the healthy activities they need, is the most important thing we can do.
Hopefully, eventually, once they're a little bit older, they will be able to handle these platforms and then we can start giving them education on how to use them, how to implement them and how to bring them into a family slowly, one stage at a time and one platform at a time.
An 11-year-old's brain is very different to a 16-year-old's. They still have a lot to learn because their prefrontal cortex, which is the part of the brain that helps to regulate emotions and make good decisions, doesn't fully develop until they're in their twenties. As you say, if we as adults are all struggling with our phones, which we are, if we're honest, then these young children with a prefrontal cortex that is not fully developed find it almost impossible to self-regulate.
Amy
Absolutely. With all of this talk, I often think back to when I got a mobile phone. Back in those days it was just a Nokia with Snake on it, text messages and phone calls. I remember I got the phone because my mum wanted to get me off the house phone, because at that time you were on the phone at night. I think I could have been 14 or 15 at the time.
But I do remember at bedtime having the debate with Mum. I'd still be texting with friends and Mum was like, "Right, put it out in the hallway. Go to bed." I remember some of the arguments we would have about that, and it's almost embarrassing and cringe-inducing to think of it now.
When I think that all that phone had on it was the ability to send text messages, maybe play Snake and make phone calls, the thought of a child who is 14, 15 or younger having access to even more, whether it's interesting things, engaging things, other ways of communicating with real people or just content, until they're going to sleep at night, is a horrifying thought. I think about how I was myself and I was only texting.
Nova
Right, exactly. Sleep is the foundation of good, positive mental health. Not having screen time before you go to bed, and not having your phone as the last thing you see before you go to sleep, is so important.
Allowing children to have that time for slow dopamine, whether that's reading, playing or whatever it is, is what they need. What they're getting from their phones is this excessive amount of dopamine flooding their brains. Everything else in life becomes quite boring because, compared to what they're getting from their devices, whether it's their smartphone, social media, gaming or iPad, it becomes dull.
We need to make sure we are balancing out that dopamine. Tech companies are fishing for our kids, and they're using dopamine as bait. It's incredibly hard to manage.
Amy
Absolutely. For people listening, at times it can feel like we're in a bit of a losing battle. But it is amazing to hear that the research and information are coming out. For people listening, if they were to try to make one meaningful change in their household this week, where should they start?
Nova
I think digital wellbeing is engaging in deliberately slow practices. Whether that's walking, yoga, mindfulness, meditation or reading, it's about allowing yourself to have the ability to focus and pay attention, which is what we're all struggling with because our collective attention spans are diminishing as a society.
So really creating that in your daily life, whether it's five minutes or 20 minutes, is important. We all need to start training our attention and focusing our brains. When our brain and body are synchronised and calm, decision-making improves, creativity flows and we can function at peak efficiency.
So, no phones before you go to bed. Have that time and space. No phones first thing in the morning. Have a device station where you all charge your devices as a family, perhaps in the kitchen. First of all, we're role modelling, because that's the most important and powerful lesson we can give as adults.
Make sure there are no screens in the bedroom, no unrestricted access, and also have that time and space in the morning. That way, we're not starting with those stress responses if we're looking at the news or a busy work schedule, or if our children are looking at social media first thing in the morning.
I think this is not just about digital wellbeing. This is about family wellbeing, and we all need to do it together. We all need to slow down, build that healthy, intentional relationship with tech and take back control. At the moment, these tech companies are in control of us constantly checking our phones and getting these notifications.
One thing I always advocate for, which is really helpful in breaking phone addiction, is really simple: leave your phone in a different room. We know that the mere presence of a smartphone reduces students' cognitive capacity. That's why we have campaigned to get smartphones out of schools.
By leaving your phone in a different room, you naturally have that time and space to regulate. You don't feel distracted. You don't feel that urge to pick it up, and you can have that mental clarity. When we're in control of our tech use, we feel much better. I can't say it enough: it's about role modelling and showing our children what healthier digital habits and digital wellness look like.
Amy
Before we go into some of the extra questions I like to ask from Really Good Conversations, when we make the effort to reduce screen time and reduce the digital usage that we're all doing, what are we intentionally managing to put back into childhood that has been missing?
Nova
Boredom and space. These kids don't know how to be bored these days. They are so used to this constant dopamine. We're all so busy. We're rushing them from one structured activity to another. We need to give them that time and space to play and to be creative, but also to have meaningful social interactions.
Here in the UK, where it's really hard in the winter and we feel like we can't put our kids outside because it's cold or wet, just get those kids outside. It is hard, but it doesn't matter. They still love playing football and playing around, regardless of whether it's raining or not.
Putting on muddy boots and going for a walk, or taking that football up to the park, is something we need to create. We need to create play, sport and activity because that helps with the neurons in their developing brains. It helps them to focus and concentrate.
If we are taking away screen time and cutting back and reducing it, we need to allow them time to be bored, be creative, use their imagination and also be active. That's the part we need to play: get them outside and make sure they're moving, because movement is medicine.
Amy
I love that. While I don't want to bring in panic as such, if we don't course correct this and put the effort and energy in across the board, what concerns you the most about the adults of tomorrow?
Nova
It's so concerning. I feel that we are dumbing down a whole generation and we need to get a grip on this because AI is here and AI is coming. If we don't knuckle down and start getting this right now, it's going to be a catastrophe.
It's incredibly worrying because AI could actually be said to be more dangerous than social media. Social media is a race for attention, but AI is a race for attachment. These chatbots are creating relationships with young children. Children might start using them for homework in an innocent way, but they can create meaningful relationships that perhaps they don't have.
It's very worrying. We absolutely have to continue to advocate that our children are not the test subjects, and we have to get this right now. We need to make sure that we're giving them time for deep, meaningful thinking and critical thinking, so that when they do start using AI, hopefully when they're older, they will know the difference between using it as a tool and using it to do every part of their life, thinking, homework and business.
These products are made for adults. We need to remember that. That's why we have to keep our children away from them in these younger years, because it doesn't take into consideration that children don't know how to use these products.
Amy
At the moment of us recording this, I think one of the AI companies I read about this morning was valued at over a trillion dollars. I can't remember the exact figure, but we also have to stop and question it. Amazing technology can do this, but then when you question it, this is big, big business for some people who are making a lot of money out of an audience, and we are that audience.
There is so much we could talk about and continue to talk about on this topic. It is vast. It really is. We could go down so many rabbit holes. I think there are a lot of conversations for us all to keep having, and a lot of conversations for parents to be having with their children. Obviously, we are all about conversations, and I wanted to ask whether there has been a conversation, either through this journey or during your life, that has profoundly shaped or changed the direction of your life.
Nova
I think that just before I started campaigning, when I was having those real conversations with other adults and parents and hearing their struggles, I heard about a young child who sent a silly naked video to his girlfriend. Then they broke up. This was someone I knew quite well, and that video got sent around the whole year group at school.
When you hear things like that, you think something has to be done. I feel like that was one of the moments when I thought, these children need help. We can't continue to just hand out these devices because we know that children are too young to be able to navigate them. That was definitely a real moment for me where I thought, parents are struggling, children are suffering, and we need to make real change.
Amy
That's fantastic. Thank you for sharing. As I said before, if people like you don't stand up and do it, you look around and think, who else is going to? I will move on and ask you three questions from our pack of Really Good Conversations. I've actually done a mix. I've got some from our kids pack here and some from our yellow pack.
Question number one: if you could switch lives with any person for a day, who would it be and why?
Nova
That's interesting. Well, at the moment, with what I'm doing, I would probably like to switch lives with Keir Starmer so I could sort out this issue and protect children. I think that's really what I'd like to do, because they're dragging their feet and there are a lot of problems in the UK at the moment. I think we need some real leaders here to make meaningful change for the next generation of children.
Amy
Brilliant, thank you. And do you know what's weird? In my head, I knew that's who you were going to say. As soon as you were about to say your answer, that name popped into my head. That is so funny.
Question number two: what would you do if you were invisible?
Nova
I'd probably go to my children's school and spy on them. I'd love to see what they get up to, because our kids are generally well behaved when they're at school and then they come home tired, grumpy and hungry. Sometimes we don't always get the best of them in the afternoons, and we're the ones who have to make them do their homework.
I'd love to see them when they're happy, with their friends and at school. So, yes, I'd like to spy on them.
Amy
I love that. Equally, I love it when people say such nice compliments about our little one and you're like, that's so fantastic to hear. He's not always that polite at home, so great, I'm glad to hear he is on the outside.
Question number three: what is one piece of wisdom you want to pass on to future generations?
Nova
Practice mindfulness. It's so important. In a world where we are doing too much, everything is so fast, and we are bombarding our brains with a tsunami of information, we're not respecting our brain's capacity.
Start young. Start practising mindfulness and meditation. Learn to be slow and thoughtful with your actions, your thoughts and how you move through life. Be mindful. Find those moments where, when it comes to technology, you can stand in a queue and not look at your phone. You can wait at a bus stop or for the train and not look at your phone.
It's the little things that mindfulness teaches you which will lead on to digital wellness. I think that's something that is not just a luxury. It's absolutely essential for all of us these days.
Amy
It so is. The final question I love to ask all of our guests is: if you could ask someone a question, dead or alive, who would it be and what would you ask them?
Nova
That's a really good question. I think, because I've got my work hat on, I would like to sit down with one of the tech bros and just say, "What are you doing? What are you doing to the children in this world and the next generation, and why? Why are you doing this?"
Because they know what they're doing. I think I would really like to hear what they have to say, because we now have internal documents and research to show that they know the harm that they're doing. Yet they're not making the changes they need to make, which they could probably implement really easily and really quickly.
Amy
Wow. I would love to be invisible in those conversations as well, because it is always food for thought. These people behind these companies have children themselves and families themselves. You do think, is the only thing you're looking at the profit line and not the impact? At times, you wonder where it's all going to go. Is it just going to get switched off one day? Perhaps it just needs to have an outage.
Thank you so much, Nova, for everything you've shared today. Honestly, we really could keep going on lots of topics. I think what you've shared today is really thought-provoking for anyone listening and hopefully shared some new information they hadn't considered, or some tips they can take into their own world as well.
Please share with our listeners where they can find out a bit more about you, the work you're doing, and anything you've got on the horizon.
Nova
Thank you, Amy. Firstly, it's been so lovely to speak to you and meet you properly today.
In terms of support for children and parents, please do have a look at One Collective Power. We have created a fantastic website where, if you have any concerns as a parent, teacher, educator, child or teen, you can go to our website and find help, resources and support. So do have a look.
In terms of upcoming work, I've got some big stuff with the NHS, which is fantastic. I'm really looking forward to supporting the hardworking parents and carers at the NHS. I'm also working with some charities and doing lots of talks in corporates and schools, and all the normal stuff that I do, which I'm so passionate about. I'm very lucky to enjoy my job, help people and do a good thing at the same time.
So that's it, really. Have a look at our website, and if we can help you in any way, help your children, or offer any advice with parenting in the digital age, please reach out.
Amy
Fantastic. I will certainly be including all of those links. It's amazing that the work you and some of the fellow campaigners are doing is shining a light on this and educating people who are also in those roles of passing on education and information. Thank you so much again. Best of luck, and we'll speak again soon.
Nova
Thank you, Amy. Thank you so much. Take care.

Summary
Amy speaks with Dara Simkin about why adults forget how to play and what we lose when life becomes too focused on productivity, achievement and keeping up.
Dara explores play as a mindset, not just an activity, and shares why it can help us reconnect with curiosity, creativity, joy and each other.
 
Guest
Dara Simkin is the founder of Culture Hero and co-author of Full Stack Human.
Her work explores play, creativity and human connection, helping people and teams build the human skills that technology cannot replace.
 
Overview
From achievement syndrome and success amnesia to the pressure to always be doing, this conversation looks at why play is not childish, but deeply human.
Dara explains how small, low-stakes moments of play can help us feel more present, connected and alive in a world that often asks us to optimise everything.
Key Outtakes: 
*]:pointer-events-auto R6Vx5W_threadScrollVars scroll-mb-[calc(var(--scroll-root-safe-area-inset-bottom,0px)+var(--thread-response-height))] scroll-mt-[calc(var(--header-height)+min(200px,max(70px,20svh)))]" dir="auto" data-turn-id= "request-6a015108-756c-83ec-bb9b-91fabc1ac4c0-5" data-turn-id-container= "request-6a015108-756c-83ec-bb9b-91fabc1ac4c0-5" data-testid= "conversation-turn-60" data-scroll-anchor="false" data-turn= "assistant"> Why play is a mindset, not just something children do
How achievement can stop us enjoying the life we've built
Why adults need permission to be less serious
How play helps us reconnect with joy, curiosity and other people
Simple ways to bring play back without adding more to the to-do list




 







For more information:
Dara Simkin - https://www.culturehero.co/
The book Full Stack Human - https://www.culturehero.co/full-stack-human-book
 
Transcript
Amy: Welcome to the Really Good Conversations podcast.
Today I'm joined by Dara Simkin, founder of Culture Hero and co-author of Full Stack Human: The Mindset Upgrade You Need to Stay Human in a World Ruled by Technology.
Dara's work explores the role of play, creativity and human connection in the way we live, work and lead. In this conversation, we'll explore why adults forget how to play, what we lose when everything becomes about productivity, and how play can help us connect, create and stay human in a fast-changing world.
Welcome to the podcast, Dara.
Dara: Hello, Amy.
Amy: Thank you so much for joining me today. You're regarded as one of Australia's leading voices in play at work. So before we get into why adults need to get back to playing, can you explain for our listeners what you actually mean by play?
Dara: I think when we often hear the word play, we think of something quite specific.
Let's have a little go, shall we? When you think of the word play, what immediately comes to mind?
Amy: Having fun.
Dara: Exactly. And I think that's a very universal idea of play, which it is. Play is absolutely about having fun.
But when we ask adults what they associate with play, they often say dogs, babies, kids, sports, board games and so on.
When we talk about play through the lens of serious play, intentional play or purposeful play, it's really about play as a mindset or a mode, rather than an activity.
It's about how we allow ourselves to get into a place where we feel more open, more relaxed and more capable of accessing dynamic thinking. We're able to be more generative in the way we think. We suspend judgement as best we can. We're open to failing, experimenting and giving things a go.
So when I think about play, it's really this capacity to arrive in our lives in a very different way to how we normally arrive: overwhelmed, rushed, up to our eyeballs in things to do, in fight or flight, going, going, getting things done.
I always liken it to those "aha" moments we have in the shower. We solve world hunger in the shower because it's probably the first time in our day where we're relaxed, in our body, by ourselves, and our mind is able to open because of those conditions.
Amy: Yes, I can totally relate to that.
It makes me think of previous roles I've had in other companies, where you're sitting at a desk all day and then you go into a meeting room and it's suddenly: "Right, we need to have a creative brainstorm. Everyone has to be creative now."
You've got a one-hour meeting in the diary where you have to crack creativity, and it can feel like the most forced environment. It's not what you've just described at all.
When you're in the shower, you remember things. You have ideas. You suddenly remember what you forgot to do.
When I was preparing for this podcast, I was reminded of that old phrase: "All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy." I looked it up and it was first recorded in print in 1659 in James Howell's Proverbs.
It's a saying we all know. We know it from films and popular culture, but I wonder whether we're really leaning into the meaning of it.
Do you think adults have forgotten how important play is?
Dara: One hundred per cent.
I think we've actually created a culture that is suspicious of play.
When we think back to the Puritan work ethic, which dates back 500 or 600 years, there's this idea that work is salvation, play is demonised, and productivity is a form of godliness.
I think most institutions have been created around that perception.
When you think about the Industrial Revolution and the point where we started replacing human labour with machines, we became cogs in a system. I don't think we've really been able to rectify that until now.
I think conversations are being had where we look around and realise so many people are depressed, anxious, overwhelmed, stressed, burnt out or on multiple medications. We are incredibly unwell.
I think we're realising more and more that the lifestyle that has been put upon us, around efficiency, getting a mortgage, having a nice car and this idea of success that's been sold to us, sucks.
Amy: Definitely. The amount of times I've said to Alex, my husband, "I'm not sure about all this adulting."
There's just such a long list of life admin to function as what we perceive to be an adult.
We've both got young children, and seeing them play, and seeing their curiosity, is amazing. It's definitely brought that back to me.
At what point do you think adults start to lose that natural instinct to play?
Dara: I think it starts in adolescence, to be honest.
When we start to gain more of a sense of individuality, identity and ego, we begin to compare ourselves to other people.
My son is only five, and he's already talking about how other kids' clothes are cooler than his. I'm thinking, "Where is he getting that from?" Because it certainly isn't me.
I'm astonished by this need to fit in and conform, but at the same time, it makes complete sense from an evolutionary perspective. We had to be part of a tribe. We had to belong and be included, otherwise we wouldn't survive.
A lot of Full Stack Human is about understanding our evolutionary wiring, the things we are biologically designed to do in order to survive, and how the culture we live in can distort and over-sensitise those things, especially when it comes to belonging.
We now understand so much about the brain, dopamine, reward and motivation. Brilliant people work in advertising and marketing, and when the message is "look like this, smell like this, wear this, buy this, do this, be this", that pressure starts from a very young age.
So not only are we trying to conform and belong when we're young, we're also put into classrooms where we're expected to sit down, be quiet and learn numeracy and literacy.
I've just been on a school tour for my son. He's five, so I was looking at what his primary school experience might be like. I asked the principal, "How much time do they have for imaginative play? How much time do they spend outside?"
He could tell me about morning tea, recess and lunch, but when it came to imaginative play in the classroom, he didn't really have an answer.
Amy: I absolutely feel you because we're in the exact same space right now.
I had the same thoughts when I went on school tours earlier this year. It all felt quite restrictive inside the classroom. I looked at some of the classrooms and thought, "This feels the same as when we were at school."
If we think about how we've evolved as adults, have we attached everything to having an outcome? Are we obsessed with everything needing some form of achievement?
You talk about achievement syndrome. What do you mean by that, and how does it affect our ability to play?
Dara: I came across this concept through a newsletter by a great researcher and writer called Michael Simmons, who is based in the States.
Achievement syndrome is also this idea of achievement addiction, and it's really the thing that happens before burnout.
As a society, especially in Western culture, we have a big obsession with burnout at the moment, and that's an important conversation to have. But based on the work and research I've done around achievement syndrome, the burnout conversation can be too late, because by then we're already at the end point.
Michael talks about going back to childhood, where we get gold stars for doing the right thing. We start to realise that when we are good, smart or achieve something, we get accolades, recognition and validation.
For many of us, especially those who had baby boomer parents, we didn't always get that validation at home. My parents had a hard time telling me they were proud of me, so we start to seek that out in other places, from teachers, sports coaches and so on.
We start to learn that our value is connected to an output or an achievement. That gets reinforced when we go to work, where we get raises and promotions. If you're in sales, maybe you get the trip to Hawaii or whatever it is.
So we double down on output. The more we do, the more we're recognised and revered. Then we start to optimise everything in order to do as much output as possible.
Eventually we reach a point of diminishing returns. The thing we were once passionate about, the thing we studied for, worked towards and felt excited about in our twenties, doesn't give us the same feeling anymore.
We get the raise. We get the promotion. But we're too exhausted to enjoy it or even recognise it.
I think a comorbidity of achievement syndrome is success amnesia, where we forget about our successes because we're already onto the next thing.
I speak from experience. As an entrepreneur, I have very much been on that hamster wheel of constantly doing, because it's endless. There's always more.
Amy: There's no finish line, really.
Dara: Exactly.
When it doesn't feel as good as it once did, we've already created this baseline of chaos in the way we operate and live our lives. We have a mortgage we may be in over our heads with, or children in schools that cost $20,000 a year, or whatever it might be. Then we're on a one-way ticket to burnout.
In the book, we talk about how if we want to stop sacrificing our humanity for success, we need to understand our relationship with success.
How do we define it for ourselves? What does it look like? Is it money? A big house? Fancy holidays? Or is it something else?
Amy: Let's talk a little bit about the book. It's called Full Stack Human. What does that phrase mean for our listeners?
Dara: To keep it simple, it comes from computer programming.
When you're a full stack developer, you can design a programme or an app from end to end. You understand the zeros and ones, the bits and bytes, the backend, and you can also design the shiny interface, the UX people interact with.
From a people perspective, it's about knowing your own programming. Understanding your relationship to success, how you navigate change, what your biases and assumptions are, and the things unconsciously driving the way you behave and act every day.
That's the backend concept of the first few chapters.
Then the shiny user interface is about mental health, how we show up at work and how we lead.
In the middle is what we call the five-layer stack, or the upgrade. That includes serious play, radical curiosity, embodied adaptability, intelligent optimism and strategic hope.
There's a word in front of each concept: serious, radical, embodied, intelligent, strategic, because we're interested in the idea of being active. How do you become an active participant in your own life?
I think we've created a society where we are so comfortable that we have a hard time being uncomfortable. We've created so many ways to maximise comfort, and I think that's doing us a massive disservice.
When we talk about embodied adaptability, for example, it's about understanding how your nervous system responds to challenge. How do you adapt in a way that allows your nervous system to stay regulated and grounded even when things are hard?
Strategic hope is about believing you can do it and that there is a way forward. There's agency in that. It's not just, "I hope this is going to be okay."
The same applies to optimism. Optimism can be blind positivity or "good vibes". Intelligent optimism is about seeking fact-based evidence that a better future can be built, rather than just doomscrolling and listening to sensationalised media.
Amy: And then filling your head with all the doom and gloom and coming offline in a panic.
You talk about the human operating system. What do you think we need to protect or strengthen in ourselves right now?
Dara: I think it starts with the responsibility to understand ourselves.
A concept that emerged for me while writing the book was this idea of intelligent self-compassion. We're able to have compassion for ourselves and our situation because we are educated and aware of how we operate.
I often say comprehension creates compassion.
When we understand that we have nearly 200 documented biases that help us navigate the world, it gives us context. When there's too much information, not enough meaning, or when we need to act quickly, we make assumptions about ourselves and the world. Those assumptions are also inherited from when we were young, from our parents, caregivers, religion, background or whatever else shaped us.
We also have an immunity to change. We are wired to evolve and not die at the same time. A lot of people don't realise that.
We have this need to learn, grow and become a better version of ourselves, but we're also wired not to take risks because we want to survive. There is a psychological tension inside us that most people are unaware of.
So when we try to change and have the best intentions, we sometimes can't do it and we don't know why. A lot of it has to do with our assumptions, and also our relationship to success.
In the book, we talk about creating a clear-eyed view of what's breaking us. A lot of it has to do with our resistance to change, our biases, our assumptions and the way we navigate success and achievement.
From an operating system upgrade perspective, we need to understand that as a baseline.
A lot of people who have read the book have said it freed them from thinking, "It's me. Why aren't I coping? Why can't I keep up? Why is this so hard? Why am I so overwhelmed?"
We berate ourselves as if it's a deficit of our own, when actually it's often society's pressure around technology, keeping up and all the expectations placed on us.
So I think it starts with getting a baseline understanding of how our brain works.
Amy: When people have that understanding, so much of it can feel like environmental factors. Whether it's your workplace or somewhere else, people might be listening and thinking, "That's great, but I can't really change how things operate at work. I don't make those decisions."
So for people listening who think, "Great, I can read the book and understand this, but what action can I actually take in my everyday life that doesn't feel like another thing on the to-do list?"
Dara: For me, it's about being an active participant.
It's easy to say, "I can't do this. I don't have control." And yes, if you work in a toxic culture and you don't have the luxury of finding a new job, I totally understand that.
But there are other environmental factors that affect your bandwidth and capacity that you do have control over.
Look at the people you spend time with. Are you hanging out with people who fill your cup, who make you feel good, who energise you?
Are you connecting with people physically, or are you just texting, calling, Facebooking or messaging?
We need physical connection as human beings. That fills our cup, and we are often disconnected from that because we don't prioritise it.
A great psychiatrist I follow, Ned Hallowell, calls it vitamin C: vitamin connect. We sometimes forget how important relationships are. Not just with our partner, child, mum, dad, brother or sister, but with friends and even colleagues.
If work is hard, having a person you can go for coffee with, have a chat with and vent to can lighten the load.
I also think we need to prioritise ourselves and prioritise play.
The way we approach play is often backwards. Play becomes a reward. It's the thing we get after everything else is done.
But everything is never done. It's endless.
So if we treat play as a reward, or book one holiday and then get sick because our nervous system finally has a chance to come out of stress mode, we're missing the point.
We need to prioritise small moments where we walk outside and notice where we are and what we're doing. We don't have headphones in. We don't have our face in our phone. Moments of wonder, awe and novelty.
We need to look at play as an on-ramp to living more sustainably, being more connected and being more joyful.
A lot of that comes down to thinking about what makes you feel good, and doing more of that. It's not rocket science.
Sometimes, with self-improvement and the wellness industry, there's so much stuff we get overloaded with. Don't overcook it.
What brings you joy?
And I don't mean alcohol or Netflix. I mean things where you are participating, using your hands, using your brain, creating new neural pathways and getting involved.
It could be going for a walk, seeing a friend, playing basketball or being present with your child while doing Lego. There are micro moments.
When people think, "How do I change? What do I need to do? I'm going to join the 5am club and go to the gym every day," it can become another source of pressure.
How can you do things that are low stakes, easy, accessible, doable and repeatable? Things that give you positive feedback, where you think, "That felt good. I want to do that again."
You don't need to enrol yourself in a 12-week clowning course unless you want to. That would be my thing, but not everyone's.
Go back to basics. What did you like doing as a kid? If you loved tinkering, go and do a woodworking workshop.
Amy: I love it.
So much of what you've said connects with other conversations I'm having, and with a lot of the wider narrative we're seeing online. It feels like we're in an era of waking up to how comfortable we've made life for ourselves, and all the technology we've brought into our lives.
Now we seem to be in a phase of having to teach ourselves how to be human again and take ourselves back to the basics.
All of the quick fixes or recommendations we see online, go do this, go do that, can end up giving us more layers.
Dara: Can I just say: fuck the hack.
For me, this idea of hacking anything is like, "Give me the quick shortcut. What do I have to do?"
Just pause. Take a breath.
Play is in all of us. We are biologically wired to play. It is part of our emotional system. It is as baked into our brain as fear, lust and seeking.
Play is a part of us. It's not something you have to learn. It's something you have to dig up. Something you have to remember, recall and reconnect to.
I'm not here for a play hack.
It's about saying, "I was playful at some point in my life. I have felt joy before. What was I doing? Where was I?"
Amy: If people listening are thinking, "I can't even remember how to play or what I used to find joy in," what could they start doing?
Dara: I don't believe you.
If you're listening and thinking that, I don't believe you. You just have to pause and give yourself a moment to remember.
This idea of "I don't remember how to play" or "I don't remember how to feel joy", you do. You just have to give yourself enough time and space to unravel a little and access that part of yourself.
Sometimes the best thing we can do in order to play is pause.
Sit on your couch for five minutes with a cup of tea and no distraction. Take a few breaths.
A lot of people turn their nose up at mindfulness and meditation, so let's call it the practice of nothingness.
Can you do that? Can you do absolutely nothing for a minute?
Amy: It's a struggle. I know when I try it, I immediately start thinking of all the things I need to get done. It takes time.
This has been fascinating. Obviously, we are all about conversations in our world, and I know you are too in a lot of the work you do.
I always ask: has there ever been a conversation that has profoundly shaped you or changed the direction of your life?
Dara: I feel like every therapy session I go to is a life-changing conversation.
But I think a conversation that really shaped me was with our friends Graham Panther and Honor Eastly, who are amazing mental health advocates. We interviewed them for the book.
They run an amazing community called the Big Feels Club, which is very much about community-based mental health support and normalising conversations around mental health.
When I was speaking with Honor, she talked about bandwidth, and the idea that we don't have a resilience problem, because resilience is really indicative of our bandwidth.
If we're having a really difficult time in life, we've lost a parent, we've been sick, work is hard, whatever it might be, our bandwidth is low.
So our ability to bounce back, which is often how people define resilience, becomes inaccessible. That's okay. It doesn't make us a non-resilient person. It means we need to fill our cup again. That might be through recovery, rest or something else.
For me, I have ADHD. I operate at a very different frequency to many people, and I can crash and burn. I don't really identify with burnout. I know that when my body starts telling me I'm not okay, I need to take the time to respond.
Having that language around bandwidth, and understanding that bandwidth is not infinite, changed things for me.
Each of us has a cup of a particular size depending on who we are and how we operate. We need to realise how our bandwidth expands and shrinks.
Once I started thinking about that in my own life, I thought, "Where am I putting my energy, and am I getting it back?"
A lot of the time, we put energy into things and don't get it back.
To have a real conversation, I'm 40 years old. I've been separated for three years. I have a five-year-old. My dating pool is small. I also have ADHD, which means rejection sensitivity, hyper-focus and dopamine seeking.
Dating for me takes a lot of bandwidth. Getting on apps and doing the whole thing was depleting me. I was suffering. I wasn't being present with my child. I had "boy brain", and it was taking away from the things that needed my focus, like my child and my business.
So I stopped. I went on a six-month hiatus to recalibrate.
That conversation around bandwidth changed the way I think about what I'm actually able to do.
Amy: It's such a good reminder. I know I'm guilty of cramming more and more things in and almost thinking they all have the same level of priority, when often they don't.
Thank you for sharing that. I think so many people can relate.
Now I'm going to ask you three questions on the spot from our pack of cards.
Question number one: if you came with a warning label, what would it say?
Dara: Can be incredibly hyperactive.
I'm late-diagnosis ADHD. I've had my diagnosis for a year, but I can connect to being this way my entire life.
I can be very high octane. As a younger person, I definitely put my foot in my mouth a lot. As an adult, I've learnt not to be as impulsive in that way.
While ADHD is a great way for me to think differently, be creative and do the amazing things I've done, it can also be really difficult.
So my warning label would be: can be hyperactive.
Amy: Question number two, which feels appropriate because we've been talking about play and childhood: what was there to do when you were a teenager?
Dara: Go to the mall.
There was a place I loved getting pretzels from called Auntie Anne's. We'd go to the movies and then hang outside after the movie.
Because I grew up in Miami, there were also these all-age clubs you could go to. They don't exist anymore, but I have a very distinct memory of being 15 with my best friend, Melissa.
My mum would never let me go, but my best friend's mum was super cool, so I would spend the weekend there. Her mum drove us to this club called Mad Max. We dressed up, went dancing and hung out, and her mum slept in the car park waiting for us to come back.
So I was clubbing and hitting the dance floor at a very young age, having grown up in Miami.
Amy: Brilliant. I love that.
 
Amy: Question number three: what is one piece of wisdom you want to pass on to future generations?
Dara: I could try to say something really profound, but for me it's: never forget to play.
We play when we're young and we play when we age. What happens in that 40-year period in between?
Even children are playing less now because of technology and devices. I know in Scandinavia, GPs are prescribing play for children, which I think is devastating and really highlights what's happening in our world today.
But yes, don't forget to play. Do things that bring you joy.
Amy: And the last question I ask all of our guests is: if you could ask someone a question, dead or alive, who would it be and what would you ask them?
Dara: I took a bit of time to think about this, and I'm going to keep it on theme with play.
There's a quote attributed to Plato: "You can learn more about a person in an hour of play than in a year of conversation."
I'd love to have a cup of tea with Plato and say, "Where did that come from? What did you see? What were the Greeks doing that made you think that?"
I'd love to chat with Plato and ask, first of all, "Did you actually say that?" Because who knows when we're quoting Greek philosophers.
But I think it's brilliant and so true, and I'd love to unpack that with him.
Amy: Fantastic.
Dara, thank you for everything you've shared today. This has been a really thought-provoking episode, and I hope people listening take some of these ideas into their own lives and worlds.
As we wrap up, where can people find out more about you, Culture Hero and the book?
Dara: The book is available through most online retailers, so wherever you are in the world, you can get it on Amazon. You can also visit fullstackhumanbook.com for more information.
If you're in the professional world, you can find me on LinkedIn, where I share different insights.
My business is Culture Hero, and the website is culturehero.co.
If you're looking to engage your people in interesting and dynamic ways in the learning space, around developing human skills, that's my thing.
I like to say I design experiences that boost human capability around what algorithms can't replace.
So yes, hit me up.
Amy: Fantastic. I'll include all of those links as well. Thank you so much for joining me today.
Dara: Thanks, Amy. It was a really good conversation.
Amy: Thanks for listening. I hope you enjoyed the episode and that it's left you with something to reflect on or talk about beyond this conversation.
Be sure to check out the show notes for more information on today's guest. And if really good conversations are your thing, share this episode with a friend, hit subscribe and join us next time.

Summary
"We touch our phones more than our loved ones." It's a jarring statement from scientist and broadcaster Dr. Niraj Lal, but the data backs it up. 
In this episode, we go "Behind the Screens" to understand why our biology is no match for the modern algorithm. From the "junk food" of digital connection to the looming challenges of AI and deepfakes, we explore how to build guardrails that protect our attention, our children, and our human relationships.
 
Guest
Dr. Niraj Lal is a scientist, ABC presenter, and host of the Imagine This podcast, which has reached over 16 million listeners. 
With a background in solar cell physics and science communication, Niraj is dedicated to sparking critical thinking in the next generation. 
His new book, Behind the Screens, serves as a guide for young people (and adults) to navigate the ones and zeros of our digital world.
 
 
Overview
Why do we find it so hard to put our phones down, even when we know the content we're consuming isn't good for us?
Dr. Niraj Lal joins Amy to pull back the curtain on the economic and biological structures that keep us hooked.
We dive into the "Awareness Trap"; the idea that simply knowing how an algorithm works isn't enough to change our behavior because these platforms are designed to hijack our most basic social needs for validation and connection. Niraj explains the "frictionless" design of the internet and why we need to move beyond simple screen-time limits toward true digital agency.
As global conversations ramp up around social media bans for children, Niraj offers a timely perspective on how to prepare the next generation.
We discuss the rise of AI, the death of "seeing is believing," and why, in an increasingly automated world, the most valuable thing we can hold onto is the direct evidence of our human relationships.
Key Outtakes 
The 2,000-Touch Reality: Why we touch our phones more than our loved ones and how to reset that balance
The Awareness Trap: Why simply "knowing" how algorithms work isn't enough to stop the scroll
Digital Junk Food: How to identify "low-nutrition" content that hijacks your social needs
Beyond the Ban: Practical "guardrails" for kids that go deeper than just setting screen-time limits
How to navigate a world of AI, deepfakes, and computer-generated truth
The Ultimate Happiness Hack: Why scientific data proves human connection is still our greatest currency


For more information:
Dr. Niraj Lal website https://nirajlal.org/
The book 'Behind the Screens' https://www.uqp.com.au/books/behind-the-screens
 
 
Transcript: "We Touch Our Phones More Than Our Loved Ones"
Amy: 
Today I'm joined by Dr. Niraj Lal, scientist, ABC presenter, and host of the Imagine This podcast, which has gained over 16 million listens. His new book, Behind the Screens, helps young people understand how the digital world really works. It covers everything from algorithms and AI to social media, gaming, and online behavior.
This conversation isn't just about kids and screens. It's about how all of us are learning to live, think, and connect in a world shaped by technology. Welcome to the podcast, Niraj.
Dr. Niraj Lal: You can call me Nidge, Amy, if you'd like! But yeah, great to be with you. Thanks for having me.
Amy: Fantastic. Now, I have your recent book here, Behind the Screens. It feels like such a topical book right now. There is a lot of talk around the world about social media bans and kids' use of technology, and also our own use as adults. I'm really keen to dive into this topic with you. But firstly, you come from a scientific background. What drew you to understanding how things work, from your science work right through to the digital world we're living in?
Dr. Niraj Lal: Well, I think I was always just asking questions. I probably was an annoying kid, but I just try to figure out how the world works and the things that matter to all of us. I studied science and art at university: physics, maths, politics, and philosophy. Then I concentrated on physics to figure out how to make the world work for all of us.
My background is in solar cell physics, trying to make solar panels more efficient. I still work in that field, but I increasingly do science communication for young ones. The aim is not just to teach facts, but to spark the skills of creative and critical thinking. It is about learning how to distinguish true information from everything else. This book stems from that: helping a young generation navigate the internet and learn what's going on "behind the screens" so they can make it work in their best interests.
Amy: So many of us are walking around and we don't even question how things work or the technology we're using. When was the moment you thought, "Actually, I need to dig deeper on this"?
Dr. Niraj Lal: It went by degrees. You just look at adults today: catching public transport or anywhere you are, we're all really plugged into our devices. The average adult in the Western world checks their phone more than 85 times a day. That's every 10 minutes during waking hours. We touch our devices more than 2,000 times a day. We touch them more than anything else: more than our loved ones, and more than we touch ourselves.
We're all a little bit hooked. Seeing the impact this has on our society and our civic conversations, how we speak to each other and see the best side of someone else's viewpoint, it's becoming harder. We're getting more polarized. There was a wonderful documentary, The Social Dilemma, that talked to tech executives who knew exactly what drives engagement. It's not always true information, and it's not always in our best interests. I wondered if we could teach that to kids before they get a phone, to give them a bit of armor before they go online.
Amy: We put a lot of focus on kids, but as you highlighted, as adults, we're all doing it. What do you think most people misunderstand about how the internet actually works?
Dr. Niraj Lal: It's designed to be incredibly seamless. It's like, "How does a fish recognise water?" It's just around us.
That frictionless design is intentional. I think it's helpful to be aware of what happens when your device sends something online: what metadata is, how it's used to create a profile of you, and how that's used to figure out which ads to show you. Nothing is "evil" there; it's just how it works. If we're aware of it, it helps. I think the same thing will happen for AI.
Amy: You've touched on metadata and algorithms. Why is it that as humans, we might understand this intellectually, but our behavior doesn't actually shift?
Dr. Niraj Lal: Because we're human. Our brains evolved as social creatures on the savanna with an almost infinite capacity for being liked and connected. App developers have found a way to hijack that for profit. It's a bit like junk food; we know it's bad for us, but we still eat it. The difference is there's a physical limit to how much junk food you can eat before you feel sick, but I don't know if there's the same limit to feeling validated or connected.
Amy: In your view, are we dealing with a technology problem or a human behavior problem?
Dr. Niraj Lal: I don't know if it's a problem so much as an outcome of who we are as biological organisms and how our society is structured around profit-making. We're usually catching up with technology, and we're trying to catch up now with legislative changes. The first step is awareness.
Amy: Is it too late? Are we so far into it that we can't go back?
Dr. Niraj Lal: I don't think we're too late. It is tricky for the generations that have already slipped through. I don't know if we did right by the young people who were online before these social media bans. But every other technological revolution has found ways to have appropriate guardrails, and we can do the same here. It's up to us to say, "Hey, we want this to work in our best interest."
Amy: I'm conscious of my phone use around my son. What are kids really learning from watching adults use technology?
Dr. Niraj Lal: It's absolutely critical. "Monkey see, monkey do." It's hard to be those role models when we feel so time-pressured with work and life admin. Kids are observing how we do it well and how we don't. But the kids I spoke with for the book are actually quite savvy. They can see what's going on and they want to make it work for them.
Amy: What is the one conversation parents should have before giving a child a phone?
Dr. Niraj Lal: My tip is that it doesn't have to go from zero to 100%. It can be a gradual process. "Here's a device with messages and a phone; we'll talk about adding more apps over time." Keep the conversation as open as possible. Let them know: "If you see something that makes you feel weird or yuck, that's totally okay and you can talk to me." Make sure they have a safety network. If they're gaming, join them. If they're scrolling, do it together sometimes. Keeping that connection open is the most important part.
Amy: We are now in this world of AI, and you talk about the difficulty of knowing what's "real." Are we moving toward a world where truth is about trust rather than facts?
Dr. Niraj Lal: We're certainly in an age where any image or video has a real possibility of being computer-generated. Trust, independent verification, and being aware of your media sources will become vital. I think face-to-face, in-person experiences will become even more important: the things we can learn through direct evidence.
Amy: What concerns you most about this shift?
Dr. Niraj Lal: The conversation is accelerating so quickly. It's helpful to look under the hood of what a Large Language Model actually is, because that gives us agency. We shouldn't assume that just because an AI can converse in a personable manner, it carries the same empathy, value judgments, and ethical frameworks that we take for granted as humans.
Amy: I've got some quick "Mythbuster" questions for you. Answer "Myth," "Truth," or "Somewhere in between." Number one: Kids understand technology better than adults.
Dr. Niraj Lal: Somewhere in between. Kids are better at fixing the aerial or the video player, but they don't always have the healthy skepticism or that gut sense that something smells fishy.
Amy: Number two: If you understand algorithms, you're less influenced.
Dr. Niraj Lal: True. If you're aware of what's being put in front of you to keep you engaged, it helps you seek out opposing views.
Amy: Number three: Screen time is the main problem.
Dr. Niraj Lal: False. Screen time is a symptom. The problem is that we've created economic structures where we don't value social spaces or natural environments enough. We've outsourced parenting to digital devices because they are free and engaging. But when something is free, you or your kids are the product.
Amy: Number four: AI will make it impossible to know what's real.
Dr. Niraj Lal: False. I believe in our ability to figure out frameworks to verify information. It will be harder, but humans will always have the capability to understand what's real through direct evidence and the scientific process.
Amy: What's something you're still figuring out yourself?
Dr. Niraj Lal: All of it! All the theory in the world doesn't help when you find yourself doom-scrolling. I'm figuring out effective ways to stay healthy with it, just like everyone else.
Amy: Has there ever been a conversation that profoundly shaped you?
Dr. Niraj Lal: So many. My grandparents, primarily. I remember asking my grandma for advice and she just said, "Just be happy." At the time, I expected something more complex, but over time I realized that most people are about as happy as they make up their minds to be.
Amy: I love that. Simplicity is often the answer. Now, three quick questions from our Really Good Conversations pack.
Number one: If you were a superhero, what would your superpower be?
Dr. Niraj Lal: Flying! Easy one. And without carbon emissions, that'd be pretty cool, wouldn't it?
Amy: Question two: What was your biggest highlight from last year?
Dr. Niraj Lal: Going fishing with my kids and seeing them catch a bunch of fish. I'm getting into spear-fishing too, finding "flow" in the ocean.
Amy: And question three: What is one piece of wisdom you want to pass on?
Dr. Niraj Lal: The insight from the long-running Harvard study on happiness: human relationships, more than money or fame, are what lead to happier, healthier, longer lives. Value those close personal connections above all the noise.
Amy: If you could ask anyone, dead or alive, a question, who would it be?
Dr. Niraj Lal: My dad, who passed away in 2021. I'd love to have more conversations with him. Professionally, Carl Sagan. I'd love to hear his thoughts on how we can communicate the wonders of the natural world to young people today to help us with the challenges we face as a society.
Amy: Fantastic answers. Thank you so much for sharing. I feel like we've only scratched the surface! I hope our listeners leave with some reflection on their own habits. Where can they find out more about you and your book?
Dr. Niraj Lal: Thanks for having me, Amy. This was a beautiful thing. People can find me at nirajlal.org, and Behind the Screens is available wherever you get your books.
Amy: Thank you, Nidge. And thank you for the work you're doing to help us navigate this world.
Thanks for listening,join us next time for another Really Good Conversation.

Summary
Scams are no longer just about dodgy messages or obvious red flags. In this episode, Amy talks to scam investigator Kylee Dennis about the human side of online deception; how trust gets built, why loneliness can make people more vulnerable, and how AI is changing what feels believable online.
From romance scams to voice cloning, this is a timely conversation about manipulation, digital safety and the conversations families need to be having now.
 
 
Overview
Kylee Dennis is the founder of Two Face Investigations and Scam Prevention Australia. With 14 years in law enforcement behind her, she was drawn into this work after her own mum became the victim of a romance scam.
In this conversation, Kylee shares what that experience revealed, how scammers use persuasive language to build trust, why intelligent people still get caught out, and what all of us should be more aware of in a world shaped by loneliness, technology and AI.
 
 
Guest
Kylee Dennis is a scam investigator and digital safety specialist, and the founder of Two Face Investigations and Scam Prevention Australia.
Her work focuses on exposing online deception, supporting victims, and helping people better understand how scams really work; from romance scams and sextortion through to emerging AI threats.
 
 
Key Outtakes
Scams are often less about technology and more about trust, timing and emotional vulnerability

Persuasive language is one of the biggest tools scammers use to create connection quickly

Loneliness and isolation can make people far more vulnerable than many realise

AI is making scams more convincing, with voice cloning and deepfake video adding new risks

One of Kylee's clearest messages

 
For more inofrmation: 
Two Face Investigations www.twofaceinvestigations.au