Impact of Technology on Child Development

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Gambling problem call one eight hundred gambler Hello and welcome to the Gadget Show podcast. This week we are looking into the skyrocketing prices of all of our gadgets from smartphones to games consoles. Is it really AI driving those rising prices? and is there any sign that they're going to come back down again? Plus, we're joined by psychologist and psychotherapist doctor Charlate Armitage a fascinating conversation about the future of technology and its impact on all of us. It will be a really thought provoking discussion, I think, but before we get into it, a quick word from our friends at CX. Yes, with all this talk about gadgets getting more expensive, it can feel like upgrading your tech is becoming harder and harder to justify. Oh but there is another way That's the CXay. Whether you you're after a flagship smartphone, a games console, a laptop camera, smart watch or even a bit of retro tech. 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Now Jase, I wanted to talk about the price of tech. This is a story that we've been touching on over the last few podcasts, but over the last week, it feels like we've reached something of a tipping point, doesn't it? Because last week, Apple announced a price increase of up to twenty percent on some of its iPads and MacBooks. That's significant enough on its own alsoso the latest in a growing list of technology companies putting their prices up rather than bringing them down Over the past few months, we've seen Microsoft increase the price of Xbox Series X and S, Sony raise the cost of the PlayStation five, Nintendo announcer price increase for Switch two, and Valve launch its new steam machine at a much higher price than originally planned, as we have discussed. For years, we've all become used to the idea that technology gets cheaper over time flagship phone launches at over a thousand pounds but give it a year and you'll start to see discounts. Consoles eventually fall in price. Last year's laptop becomes this year's bargain, that kind of thing. But that seems to be changing. Yeah. So what's behind it? Well, almost every manufacturer is pointing to the same thing, AI, not the software itself, but the enormous investment going into AI infrastructure The data centers powering services like Chat GPT and other generative AI tools require vast quantities of memory chips and high speed storage They're buying those components in huge volumes, and because they're prepared to pay a premium to secure supply, manufacturers are prioritizing those orders. Now the result is that the very same memory and storage components used in our phones, tablets, laptops, and games consoles have risen dramatically in price. In fact Some parts of the industry have started calling the situation RAamageddon because the cost of RAM has more than doubled in a matter of months Now of course, AI isn't solely to blame inflation, supply chain pressures and wider geopolitical, and certainly, they're all playing their part as well And the consequences are already reaching consumers What was an occasional adjustment is beginning to look like an industry wide trend now. So where does this leave consumer technology? Because if the cost of building gadgets continues to rise, manufacturers really only have a handful of options. They can keep increasing the prices, they can absorb the costs themselves, which shareholders won't enjoy at all or greedy, or they can try to keep prices down by making compromises elsewhere. Now that could mean using cheaper materials removing features or slowing the pace of hardware improvements There is another possibility Rising costs actually force manufacturers to become more creative I mean, this may be coming from the heart now. For years we've become accustomed to annual smartphone launches where the improvements have often felt fairly iterative A slightly brighter screen, you know, just a slightly faster processor, a marginally better camera Perhaps those days are coming to an end now. if consumers are being asked to spend fif five hundred pounds on a smartphone or over a thousand pounds on a games console, simply telling them it's ten percent faster than last year's model. It's probably not going to be enough anymore Maybe this is exactly the pressure the industry needs. Maybe, manufacturers will have to focus on meaningful innovation instead of incremental upgrades Longer battery life, better repairability, longer software support. Whatever happens, it feels like we're entering a very different era for consumer technology at least. For decades. We've taken it for granted that tech would become cheaper faster and more powerful every year Yeah now. For for the first time in a long time, I think that assumption is being challenged. And the next few years could completely reshape the way technology is designed, marketed, ultimately the way all of us decide when it's time to upgrade. Now what do you think about that? It's a difficult one, isn't it? Yeah It is. I mean, that's why I said it might be a bit head heart really with you know, the innovation side of it. Yeah, someone will go down that route. I mean I think There is a bit of a kind of simple tech movement happening. Definitely. There's a bit there's a bit of a pushback, isn't there? Yeah, there is. ands there's And that will ultimately lead to startups innovating new products that give maybe a more simple, more earthy kind of human interface experience that isn't tied to the latest graphics processor. U But it's it is it is problematic. I mean, some manufacturers are now restarting old manufacturing techniques so that they can make more affordable graphics cards, for example. But I just don't know what the what the answer is because we're in a kind of Well, we're in an arms race that we never really asked for, aren't we? It's China versus the US and Europe sort of lagging behind. I'm of course talking about the kind of race towards AGI artificial general intelligence. It feels like that's the goal. It's like a Manhattan project Um Again, that we have no power over whether it happens or not. and everything is being sucked into the black hole of AI I don't know where the positive spin is at the moment. No, I don't. And I think you know, how much But you just said, we can't do anything about it. I mean, It used to be that consumers did have some weight in sort of choosing what they what they bought. And I wonder now whether because people are in their own kind of ecosystem of technology that they're a little bit You get used to it and you get a bit stuck and you you just go for the same brand generally I wonder we know whether people will question that or not. I'm not asking for an answer. I just think it's a generally quite an interesting Fos right This summer, the heat isn't just outside. Borgatta Online is bringing even more excitement to every spin and every moment of play all summer long. Sign up for a Borgata Online account using bonus code NJPA Borgatta. Then choose between two exciting deposit bonus offers made to fit your play style. Plus, you'll get a shot to win up to one thousand bonus spins in your first week Turn up the fun with rain bacon Fuzu Bao Bao and enjoy sun soaked excitement with every spin. From weekend escapes to laid back nights in, the Borgatta Online app keeps summer playay going wherever you are. Download today. Visit borgatanline dot com for T's and C's, twenty one and over to Wager, New Jersey and Pennsylvania only, newew customers only promotions are subject to qualification and eligibility requirements. Rewards issued as non withdrawable site credit slash bonus bets unless otherwise provided in the applicable terms. Rewards subject to expiry. Gambling problem callall one eight hundred gambler Well interesting Susie, to your point about the kind of innovation that we might see as a result of not all the latest greatest hardware being available. I don't know, a bit of a stretch, but the team of Honor, you remember Honor, the phoneable. They' just sent to the Gadgetshire podcast a brand new Magic V six foldable. You should better see it on screen right now. Goes on say in the UK on the second of July. Um, I'm going to give you the bad news up front and then it should get a little bit more interesting recommended retail price one thousand nine hundred and ninety nine pounds. But at lunch It'll be available for one thousand four hundred and ninety nine. three selective retailers are Amazon, Curries, Argos and Ver which I think is terrible when you think that the top end Smartphones in every category are you know, often north of a thousand pounds. one thousand four hundred ninety nine. Let's just have a moment for it. That is very sexy. S shouldould probably tell you what it's all about, shouldn't that? Yeah. So the magic of sixix No, not at all. It's one of the thinnest foldable phones that we've ever seen Just eight point eight millimeters thick Susie when folded and Just four point one millimeters when you open it up and it weighs just two hundred and nineteen grams, which means it actually feels much closer a conventional flagship phone like you know, like a pro level iPhone. Th the chunky foldables that we were served up only recently actually by the Bkes of Samsung, et cetera Open it up Well actually, before you open it up, it's got a rather snazzy single screen on the outside. which is really impressive But let's open it up. You're greeted by a huge nine sorry, seven point nine five inch OLED display While the outer screen that I just referenced is a very usable six point five two inches So when it's folded, it behaves like a normal smartphone. You can watch a podcast on it if you want to. you can look at a bit of YouTube, but it's inside where I think the headlines, you know, the headline grabbing experien is. I mean, it's just beautiful fold. I don't know if we can Flex it on the screen now. The fold is virtually imperceivable When it's off You can see the fold, right? Yeah. When it's on, it's it's I means you can't see it And it's the black screen and that allows you to see the fold Susie. But when it's on All right, it's invisible. It's so nice. You can just about feel it when you run your finger over it. Inside, Susie, there's a CQall Com'satest Snap Dragon. It's the eight Elite processor. sixteen gig of RM, five hundred twelve gig of storage, notot bad a huge six thousand one hundred millionion p silicon carbon battery plus a triple camera system made up of a fifty megapixel main camera, a fifty megapixel ultra wide, and get this A sixty four megapixel periscope telephoto with three times optical zoom I can hear John Benly will be loving that. Yeah, just getting very enthusiastic. now. The interesting thing is The timing So it's pretty clear But One Susie Perry, who has predicted the rise of Apple's own entry into the foldable market is happening very soon Only a few weeks away really at the end of the summer And most analysts expect Apple's first foldable phone to be the center of you know their main event comees sort of September time You know, which is key because honor have had several generations to refine this form formula. And if Apple is asking the same sort of money, let's say that top price of two thousand pounds Well, it's going have to be good in it It's going to have to be good Because this from honor is absolutely exceptional. othertherwise Apple pricing themselves out of a market, they're only just entering a little bit like, you know, the kind of Well I have to admit it, that the vision Pro, which know I'm a huge fan of, but Just this week I was reading about how little revenue it's producing no one's buying the vision pro basically. ' allay Well, that's true. For the honour though, our first impressions are incredibly positive and If this is the direction premium smartphones are heading It's going to be one of the directions. I'm not going to say the direction because I'm still I'm still a bit on the fence. You've definitely sold me on this, Susie The issue is one of practicality, right? which is, you know, when I grab my smartphone, I whack it in my back pocket, shoot off down the hill on my skateboard in Nuki to go to the coffee shop And sometimes I'm aware of it sort of wobbling around in a back pocket. I don't really even think about that. You know, could I Could I ha it pututting a double a two thousand pound or fifteen hundred quid folded heavier thing in my back pocket. I've just had a quick look And okay, so the iPhone sixteen Pro weighs one hundred and ninety nine grams. So that that's, you know, that's the wayPone. you're not going to notice that And the magic V six for honor is just two hundred and nineteen grams. so it's only twenty grams Heavier for a considerably much bigger viewing experience And all the other cool functionality that you get from not not a double screen actually Three screens because you've got the front screen and then you've got the one two that make a double when you fold it out. It's a no brainer telling you folder balls, no brainers Okay, look I think S's, I think Sue', you know what? Are you on some commission? No, but just I just always love the idea of it. Just send it to me so I can trial it for a week and then I'll try and give you an honest opinion without being biased I think that's a good idea. Hs A bit of hands on is what's required Yeah Okay, quick question. if I handed you five thousand pounds right now and dropped you into a CX, what would you buy Because one of our Patreon supporters is about to find out. That's right, we're giving one lucky supporter five thousand pounds to spend at CX And if you're wondering what that actually looks like. Here's some footage of our previous winner, Richard Weykes spending his haul Thank you, Gadgeto A thousand pounds at CX, it goes a very long way. You could pick almost anything from your tech dreams, like a gaming PC, a PlayStation five Pro, an Xbox Series X, a Nintendo Switch two, a giant OleEg TV, a premium sandbar, a four K bllu ray player, a MacBook Pro, an iPhone, an iPad, an Apple Watch, AirPods Pro, a flagship Android phone, a powerful laptop A DSLR camera, a couple of lenses, a drone, an action camera, a smart watch, noise cancelling headphone, a VR headset, a tablet. A dreamcast, a game cube, a Nintendo sixty four, a PlaySation two, a stack of retro games, a racing wheel. 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Borgatta Online is bringing even more excitement to every spin and every moment of play all summer long. Sign up for a Borgatta online account using bonus code NJPA Borgatta. Then choose between two exciting deposit bonus offers made to fit your play style. Plus, you'll get a shot to win up to one thousand bonus spins in your first week. Then turn up the fun with Rakin bacon Fuzu Bao Ba And enjoy sun soaked excitement with every spin. From weekend escapes to laid back nights in, the Borgatta Online app keeps summerplay going wherever you are. Download today. Visit borgatta online dot com for T's and C's twenty one and over to Wager, New Jersey and Pennsylvania only. newew customers only. All promotions are subject to qualification and eligibility requirements Rewards issued as non withdrawable site credit slash bonus bets unless otherwise provided in the applicable terms. Rewards subject to expiry. Gambling problem callall one eight hundred gambler Now over the last few weeks on the podcast, we found ourselves talking more and more about the impact that technology is having on our lives. So we thought it was about time, we spoke to someone who understands not just technology, but what it's doing to us. doctor Charlotte Armitage is a psychologist and psychotherapist who specializes in media psychology helping people understand the relationship between technology, social media, and our mental well being Charlotte, welcome to the Gadget Sh podcast. Thank you, Thankks for having me So I can see a book behind you, Generation Zombie. And no I'm interested. is there such a thing as a tech zombie? I think we're heading there. But mainly so I think the thing is this whole conversation is really quite nuanced. It's not as simple as tech bad, you know no tech is good. know it's not actually it's complicated world of technology and some of that is incredibly useful and helpful for our lives. My biggest concern is when there's an integration of technology into the life of of a child to the younger that children get tech, smartphones mainly and iPads, the poorer the outcomes on mental health. and it's when that technology infiltrates the parent child relationship as well becausecause children learn with they're with the interaction with the world and anything that has an impact on their ability to interact with the real world can have an impact on their development. And that's where I think if we don't get it right in the early years We're going to end up seeing this kind of generation zombie as they get older. I'm very grumpy about smart glasses. Jason, not so much. We've talked a lot about them on the podcast and it feels like everybody's talking about them. Every time I see anything, people are talking about smart glasses Do you think? that will eventually become comfortable with smart glasses like we have done with smartphones. I don't know. You know there's such an invasion, aren't there? We're already at a point where we can't live anymore as we want to live because we have to filter everything, don't we? thinkink about when we were young, I don't know what you were doing I'm just very glad that it wasn't being recorded. And we don't have that opportunity for younger people anymore to make mistakes, but we almost can't make mistakes either if someone gets a photo of us or a video of us doing, I don't know what we want to do in our free time, but that doesn sort of isn't congruent with how we present ourselves for work. That could have an impact on our careers We're already at that point where we're having to filter anyway. Young people don't get to live, they can't make mistakes. These glasses are another layer of that Everything's going to be captured, isn't it through them? So we are eroding privacy. I think there I hope we don't get used to them, but it's the drift. It's that sort of drift of perception where we Charlotte, can I ask you a very specific question to what you do regarding glasses? becausecause a lot of the pushback I get when I get on a soapbox about glasses and I feel like I get a lot of backing, but you never know which way things are going because it depends who you're talking to, of course, and algorithms, etca But people say to me, well, what's the difference between a smartphone being pointed at you and someone wearing glasses with a camera in. Psychologically, what is the difference between the two? Well, it's surreptictitious isn't it? I do think the glasses are almost covert. You can be wearing them, people don't know wearing them I had a friend who took their newborn to a shoot And you know, they do these little newborn shoes took all the kids and the husband noticed the man who was doing the shoe was wearing these glasses So whilst the baby's been changed and you know, into these different outfits and nappies being changed, these glasses being worn. So they did raise it and said I'm not comfortable. You didn't tell us you were wearing these glasses. these are children that are here and he just explained it so, Oh well always make a cool video from the shoot with the glasses afterwards. but they didn't know that he was wearing it. So if we got to a point where it was glaringly obvious and everybody knew and it was consent. but when do you get to a point where you're wearing those and people go, o I'm not going to talk to you,'t care what I say. you know it's filter it's a natural barrier between you and the world that surround you Yeah, I actually a horreous story that you've just told us there I mean, I don't think anybody can push back on that And I think Charl, you know, we're living in a world where everything's a day to grab now and it's hard always to put the gennie back in the bottle I mean, Jace, you and I are polar opposite on these. I would like cameras to be banned from them. I know you're completely opposite to me with that and I'm actually I'm aligned, but I'm just in a different part of the spectrum. I'd like the government to stop surveilling me wherever I go Charlotte, obviously there's been a lot of talk about the social media ban for under sixteenens in the UK. What are your thoughts on that? Do they work? It's a line in the sand, it sets the precedents. It's the same as the smoking ran. you know if you think about Ye years ago when I was younger you'd smoke in pubs didn't you? Now you can't do that. So I'm glad for it, honestly. and you know, the thing with social media is, you know, yes, there's an there's a world of horror online, but even if you forget about that Even if you look at there The lightest end of the spectrum there are still huge amounts of problems with children spending and it is seven, eight, nine hours plus a day sat on a phone. It's what are they missing out on. So the social media is the mechanism that holds attention and it holds the child to the phone because of the addicted algorithms, the damage is caused by what they're not doing in the real world when they're doing that But the question here probably is how do you use it in moderation. how and is it possible to use it in moderation? They're addictive, they are designed to be addictive. you know these companies have spent a fortune in turning these algorithms to be highly addictive. You've just said it there, you struggle with it. I struggle with it. Most adults would say that they do once they pick up that phone, they're lost in a whole world of everything that's going on there and that they would probably struggle to be without the device for whatever reason that is now I mean, you could argue that some addictions are habitual as well. You know you ask someone who's dying of smoking, they're still stood outside of a hospital taking their last breath a cigarette, aren't they? And they're about to you know die because of how much they've smoked over their lives. It's habits so they can't get away for obxy, you know there's a physical addiction to smoking, but there also is to a device as well, the amount of dopamine that's been released into the brain You know, I do think that this very steep rise in the number of people who think they've got ADHD is actually related to withdrawal from the device rather than actual But not everybody I think that withdrawal from a device presents in symptoms that mimic ADHD but are not actually the diagnosis of ADHD I just feel that in general U many people and it's not their fault.'s, you know, it's the social economic situation that people find themselves in, you know, life has become more toxic, both in terms of consumption of pharmaceuticals, just the easy way that we can get this pop of pillia and the poor quality of a lot of food. and and yes begrudgingly You do make a very convincing argument in terms of the seditary nature of a lot of our interaction with technology. you know Ironically though the phone being almost for me, the worst example though, because it's the one that enables you to get out and about and take photographs and, you know, just interact with the world a little bit. but yeah Charlotte, why are we so lazy? What makes us lazy. Why are we We are lazy bastards. We are now. I look back I was born in nineteen seventy, just let me say, I'm fifty six years old. G grew up and had a fantastic show up. I had an absolutely fantastic childhood. It was out there. It's like all the Instagram posts show you, camping, making fires, out on the bikes, coming back when it went dark, etcet. That was my childhood. It was absolutely bloody, brilliant And now it's completely changed and I'm not saying all children are lazy. I'm not because I'm an advocate of sport and I see lots of kids doing great sport and teamwork and it's wonderful And I really think everybody should be pushing that side of life to get out there and do that. But inherently it's not happening, not happening. It's like really pushing something heavy to get people out and do sport. Why inherently, are we lazy? Is it because it's easier? Path of least resistance? Absolutely. It's easier. You know, we're humans at the end of the day I think were humans we' going to do naturally innately, we are going to do what's easiest to get, have our needs met. Even though we know it's unhealthy, even though we know we're going to put weight on and we're going to you know get ultimately problems with diabetes and heart and Alzheimer's and things like that, if we don't look after our bodies properly, we know that We're not stupid, are we? We do know that. So why don't we push through and set ourselves targets and boundaries? That takes effort and you know naturally we're going to do what's easier and what feels good. And that is the problem with introducing huge amounts of dopamine into the world of children, whether that's through sugar or devices, is that we are actually wiring them to just expect this gratification of dopamine for not doing very much. There was a study done years ago, it's an old study where an intacranial electrode was put into the brain of a rat. innately animals will, you know females have babies and their job is to nurture those babies until they can go look after themselves This rat could press a lever and have dopamine released into its brain as often as it wanted to. and it just sat there pressing the lever to the point that its babies died. So it hijat its biological systems to look after its own children. That's what happens. So something feels good We're going to want to keep on doing it. That's what we are like as humans. So yeah, I think that's where it comes from Can I ask you then Charlotte, to predict what you're talking about here? So you're talking about young, let's say you have a baby now and it's how technology changes the way that that child will develop the brain and the body and the health, everything, every part of that child How will that affect the child then? Muscle strength and development, coordination. So you have children' ding school now that can't hold a pen? properly they can't hold knife and fork becausecause they don't do that They do that