Digital Addiction: What the Neuroscience Shows | thebereancall.org

Digital Addiction: What the Neuroscience Shows

September 6, 2023
Brad Huddleston

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Brad Huddleston is an internationally respected speaker, consultant, teacher, and author on important issues such as technology and culture. He has worked with universities, schools, churches, and law enforcement.

He has a degree in Computer Science and a Diploma of Biblical Studies. He is a frequent guest on radio and television and the author of: Digital Rehab: Learning to Live Again in the Real World; Digital Cocaine: A Journey Toward iBalance; and The Dark Side of Technology: Restoring Balance in the Digital Age.

Brad also hosts the international radio show Brad Huddleston’s Techwise. He and his wife, Beth, live in the beautiful Shenandoah Valley of Virginia in the United States.

Brad’s website: www.bradhuddleston.com

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Transcript:

Brad: Well, thank you everyone! I have just been absolutely thrilled. I was out here I think in June speaking at this church and came off of the stage after preaching on a Sunday morning, and Tom greeted me in the bathroom and we booked this whilst in the bathroom.

[audience laughs]

So that was the first time that has ever happened to me, and it’s very fitting!

Well, let me introduce Beth and me just a little bit more, so I’ll show you some pictures where I’m from. That’s not where I’m from, that’s actually the cover of one of my books. But we’ll get back to that. Beth is here–some of you probably saw her out at the table. We travel–we’re missionaries, so we took this picture at the tip of the bottom of Africa where the Indian and Atlantic Oceans meet. But we’re from Virginia, and we’re from the Blue Ridge Mountains. So I’m a “hillwilliam,” which is a high class hillbilly. 

[audience laughs]

But yeah, we’re from the Appalachian Mountains, but I always have to tell people, No, Beth is not my cousin okay? I just want to clear that up right away. 

[audience laughs]

So we are just–I have a very difficult message, and it can get pretty intense, because people are struggling with this addiction, literal addiction, all over the world. So I have no theological basis, Rob, for what I’m about to say, none whatsoever. It’s like the jokes we were telling about Peter checking people into heaven, he doesn’t really do that. But I really believe when I get too intense, the Lord plays jokes on me, and I can’t prove that, but it’s just what I think. For example, Beth and I were at this pizza buffet, and we’re standing in line, and I’m pretty mild-mannered and easygoing except when I have to stand in lines. And on the outside I’m a preacher, so I can fake it really well, but inside I’m thinking things like, Oh, would you please hurry…stop picking over the food and just take it! You ever done that? And I’m thinking, Don’t take that piece, that’s the one I wanted! Now, on the outside I’m, you know, maintaining, but in my boredom and angst I reach over and I grab her and I’m giving her a back massage and neck massage, and when I looked, it wasn’t Beth! 

[audience laughs]

And I went, “Ahh!!” It was the sweetest little lady, and I said, “Ma’am, I’m so sorry! I was not sexually harassing you.” And she looked at me and she goes, “It’s okay, honey! I was enjoying it!”

[audience laughs]

So if I fall off of this stage, it could be because I’m getting a little bit too intense.

So a little bit more about me, as we travel around the world, I make lots of stops to do research, and one of my stops, I’m part of the University of South Africa’s Bureau of Market Research in the consumer neuroscience laboratory. So I specialize in digital addiction in the brain. And so what I do is I organize, I identify trends for them. I’m not a neuroscientist, obviously I’ve come a long way and I’m able to come out and speak. But what I actually do is with thousands and thousands of kids and their parents in the years, Tom, and so what they’ve asked me to do is identify trends that I feel need to be studied for clarification. And so I make research proposals both to the National Youth Division of South Africa as well as the Bureau of Market Research in the consumer neuroscience laboratory. So I have a webinar coming up, I’ll put these details up tomorrow, that you’re welcome to attend. We’re gonna be talking about social media’s impact with inappropriate images or pornography with children. So that’s just some of the things that I do, and the people surrounding me are actually the smart people who actually help me gather these things.

So being in ministry, I get to travel all over the world and do a lot of speaking, and part of our lives have been spent in Australia since the year 2000, so I work with police there very closely, and going around in the police car for weeks at a time speaking in lots of schools, but they let us do research in there, and I’m just spending time with kids doing a lot of this. But I’ll tell you the reason why I really do what I do: this skill set that God has given me allows me to get into places that missionaries normally would not get into. And so I go there and in countries like this, I get along with the kids great. But the reason that I get along with them is because they are just as addicted to Netflix binging, pornography, video, social media, all of it as our kids here, and they’re concerned because those children have gotten away from the Qur’an, which I think is a good thing. And we are concerned that our children here have gotten away from Scripture. I mean, look at the ages of us in here today, and we need to be praying for a great awakening that that would be changed by God, amen?

So I spend time with them, and so I let my light shine in these places. But then there are places like this where I can just–this is in the jungles of Thailand, and these are the Lahu people. Don’t you love the smile of my translator? He’s just awesome.

So I preached at the indigenous church on a Sunday morning, and then I went out–they asked me to do a youth meeting and it was under–it’s Southeast Asia, so it’s incredibly hot. So we’re under this covered shelter and they had the first graders through the twelfth front to back, and my translator before we got started, I was setting up all my computer like we were just now, and he said to me, “Brad, should we take the iphones and ipads away from the first graders before we get started?” So we see this all over the world. The biggest thing we’re trying to figure out is they don’t have adequate food, they don’t have adequate clothing, they’re in the jungle, they’re up in the mountainous regions–how did they get them? He said, “The UN program.” And we don’t…we can’t…and same in Africa for those of you who go to Africa, you go to townships, dirt floors, inadequate everything, but they have really nice phones. The whole world has changed in a matter of 8 or 9 years. Completely changed. And I believe as a Christian that the enemy of our souls has saturated the earth with this, because the biblical worldview rates, even though they’re under our care in our Christian schools and under our churches and our youth groups are dismal. We’ll talk about that. And the digital has a lot to do with that.

So I think the people that I find probably the most favor with are doctors. So this is a very close friend of mine, he’s from South Africa, but God sent him to Australia as a missionary, and he’s in charge of the EDR, the emergency department at this hospital. So I get to speak, you know, in hospitals, and to talk to doctors about digital addiction and give them diagnostic criteria and screening questions and so forth. Tomorrow I’ll show you a testimony that the doctor there, my friend, just sent me after speaking here at this particular hospital. One of the nurses went home and detoxed her children and they have new children now. So they got them off the devices. So we’re going to look at some of this today, and I’m very privileged to be called upon in the media. These are…most of this is secular media. And I think the reason why they treat me well as opposed to most Christians that they don’t treat well is because their children are also suffering, and when it boils right down to it, the way I believe God has let me get into the secular folks heart is that the children are their children, and they love them like we love our children. That’s the common denominator. Of course, the solution that we would offer them would be Jesus.

So that’s a little bit about that, so I have authored three books. I’ve authored more, but on this particular subject on digital addiction, I wrote this book somewhere around 14-15 years ago. It’s out of print now, but the books that we do have, we have Digital Cocaine, we’ll talk about that today. It’s also available in Spanish. And then this is a clinical look at digital rehabilitation. And we have a DVD that is a seminar based on the Digital Cocaine book. Now, it’s not the entire book, obviously, but it hits the highlights, and it’s also available as an audiobook. All this is online streaming as well on our website, and this is probably the most important thing I’ve actually ever done, and this is on the subject of pornography. We had to film this in Africa. It’s five and a half hours worth of this subject, because it’s very difficult for pastors to allow us to talk about that in the churches in America, so we filmed it there. 

So I’ll put all this stuff up at the end. I have a radio show that runs all over the world, and a lot of Calvary Chapel networks across this country. It’s a 90-second tech feature every day, and we podcast it as well. So, again, I’ll put these things up a little bit later. 

But what I want to do right now is I want to tell you what my foundation is like every other speaker that’s been here, and thank God for it. The anchor of–we’re going to talk a lot about neuroscience, that’s the topic–but the anchor of my life is not that. The anchor of my life is the Word of God. I believe it is the infallible, inerrant, God-breathed Word straight from heaven, and it’s the final authority for all faith and conduct. And if you believe that, would you kindly say amen?

Audience: Amen!

Brad: Amen. So related to the issues of life that I believe would include technology, the Apostle Paul here writing says this under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit: “Everything is permissible for me.” So it’s okay that I have a computer science degree, and I do. The day I graduated, I graduated from Bible college, too. So the day I graduated, I had to go through with all the nerds and get that piece of paper. Then I had to quickly break line and run around with all the holy people and go through and get that one. So it’s okay that I have a computer science degree in addition to all this other stuff that I do, and I have a tablet that I’m using. “But not all things are beneficial. Everything is permissible for me, but I will not be enslaved… [and this is the issue, brothers and sisters]... I will not be enslaved by anything [which means to be brought under its power, allowing it to control me]”. That is the very definition of addiction. 

I want to introduce to you, to begin with, Dr. Nicholas Kardaras. He runs a detox clinic in Texas. At the time of the filming of this new story, he was in New York. You’ll hear various accents on my videos because we travel all over the world. But he was being interviewed in Australia on a news program. So at the beginning of this, you’re gonna see children who have had devices taken away from them, and you can imagine already what’s gonna happen, right? Then in the middle he’s gonna give a brief explanation on the dopaminergic effect and why this is happening. And then we’ll conclude with the first set of brain scans that I want to show you that are the reason why these children are having the meltdowns.

Man: What do you want?

Child: I want the iPad!

Man: Across the globe, frustrated parents are forcing kids to go cold turkey on technology.

[Children screaming and crying]

Man: Their reactions are not unlike the withdrawal symptoms of a drug addict.

Man: I know addiction when I see it, and I started seeing very clear signs of addiction in children, especially the withdrawal part. 

Child: Give it back!

Child: You won’t let me play with my iPad ever!

Man: The mood dysregulation, when an addict gets their drug of choice taken away from them…

Man: No iPad.

[child cries]

Man: …the temper tantrums, the violent outbursts, we started seeing more and more of those.

Man: How are you doing, Doctor?

Man: Dr. Kardaras runs an addiction clinic in New York. It was exclusively for drug addicts. Now he’s seeing more and more screen addicts. 

Man: As an addiction psychologist and as a parent, what shocked me the most was the realization that these devices were digital heroin. No different. They were affecting the brain the same as any opiate addiction. It does two things fundamentally: it’s hyperstimulating and hyperarousing, so it elevates our adrenal response.

[Music]

Man: It’s the same reward schedule as a slot machine. It keeps you playing and playing over and over again to get that dopamine tickle. The screen itself, the rapid screen cuts, the radiant light itself, the hyperimmersive effect is stimulating in a way that television never was. So what it does is it raises our dopamine levels in a way that we want to chase that dopamine effect. 

Woman: The sounds, it’s the achievement. Most of the games are aimed at feeling good when you actually get to the next level.

Man: That’s always the reward, you know?

Brad: See, I’m gonna pause it for just a moment. Gonna pause it for just a moment because I want to make a point: if you were to guess the average global age–if you were to combine all the countries of the world and guess the average global age of a video gamer, what would you think it is? Seven? Twelve? It’s 35. In America, depending on where you live, it’s 35-44. The reason, those are millennials. They were the first generation to be dubbed “digital natives.” So they were the first ones to grow up completely immersed in a digital world. Now they’re parents and they have children, and they’ve brought that into their marriages, and Beth and I minister to wives who are being abandoned while they still have their husband at home all over the world. Look at the age.

Man: Bright sparkly lights, happy sounds.

Woman: Yeah!

Man: This is a brainscan from a chronic heroin addict. Highlighted here is damage to the frontal cortex and surrounding area. It is the part of the brain that regulates behavior and impulse control. In heroin addicts, that part of the brain shrinks and becomes less dense. This is a brainscan from a teenager diagnosed with screen addiction. The damage and the effect on the brain is nearly identical. 

Brad: So the number one problem that I have, and people like me, is everyone looks at that, they see the children having the meltdowns, the dopamine explanations make perfect sense, so they agree. But the problem is they believe that they and their children are the exception. That’s why the numbers of addiction are off the charts. Brothers and sisters, there are no exceptions. Now, the reason why it’s so deceptive is because some people have more resilience than others. Some people have had trauma in their background so they’re more prone to addiction more quickly. Some people have an addictive personality, so they get there very quickly. But by and large, people get away with it for a period of time while the dopamine levels are doing the damage, and then all of a sudden, the symptoms hit. Does that make sense? So they’re getting by with it.

Now, ultimately what happens is that the more we stimulate the brain, we end up numbing the brain. So a condition, a medical condition called anhedonia used to just…it’s been known about for years, but it was only found in schizophrenics, people with severe major depressive disorders, and in drug addicts, severe drug addicts, meaning the more they stimulate themselves, the more they would shut down, and they lose empathy, they lose compassion, they lose emotional feeling, and so they would begin to neglect the children, the spouse, and the only thing they could concentrate on is getting the next fix. Now that condition is epidemic or pandemic in children whose parents use the devices as babysitters, because the devices are doing the exact same thing as heroin, you saw that, and cocaine, and sometimes combined. And I’ll show you more brain scans in just a few minutes. 

So anhedonia comes from two Greek words put together: an- meaning none and -hedonia is where we get our modern English word hedonism, which is the ongoing constant pursuit of pleasure, and that’s why people drink to excess, that’s why they do needles to excess, it’s because it’s ongoing. But what happened now is that the screens which have no cultural stigma against them, they’re very accepted, they’re promoted in schools, the churches have integrated everything, because there’s no social stigma, you can have ongoing constant pursuit of pleasure through doom scrolling and just going through social media, playing video games and Netflix binging with one series after another, and there’s just no stigma behind it like it would be if you were to tell someone, for example, if I were to tell a cocaine addict, “You know, you really should quit.” They wouldn’t get mad at me. Now, that doesn’t mean they would quit, but they would go, “Yeah, you’re right, I probably should.” Can you imagine what happens when video gamers come to me and describe their symptoms, and I say, “You should quit”? They get angry. They’ll say things like, “You don’t know what you’re talking about.” And the problem for them is that I do know what I’m talking about, and they’re speaking out of an addictive response.

Now, look, I’m not mad at them. I love them. That’s why I do what I do. But it’s a difficult ministry that we have, extremely difficult. 

So what I want to do is I’ve created some brain animations based on the work of Dr. Archibald Hart. For those of you that like things footnoted as, fair enough, we should. So I’m going to take these very complicated concepts from the brain and neurons and, really, what I want you to just sort of get your head around now, this is where the chemicals flow when the two parts of the neuron are coming together, and there’s a gap there called a synapse. And information flows–well, when it was up there, information flows down the top of it and at the bottom–yeah, right here–at the bottom of this the information is flowing down here. The chemicals–there’s electrical impulses, all kinds of things happening, lots of chemicals. But we’re going to limit our discussion to two: dopamine and serotonin. So at the bottom here, you will find receptors. We’re gonna call them dopamine receptors. They’re receiving other things, but we’re gonna call them dopamine receptors. So just keep that in mind.

So dopamine serves many functions. Gonna limit the discussion to just two of those functions for the sake of time. The one, it regulates and controls our joy and happiness response, and there’s nothing wrong with that. A good conversation–hopefully you enjoyed that last session with Jay. I thought it was outstanding. That was dopamine giving us the ability to enjoy that. 

So dopamine is also the education molecule. We need it–our children need it to learn math, English, history, and so forth. The problem is because it also gives us joy and pleasure, we like to chase that. So when the balance gets out of whack through overstimulation in the brain, so when the cocaine, the alcohol, and so forth, it’s dopamine that they’re feeling. And the screens are doing it at the same rate, as you saw, of heroin. So what ends up happening is they chase that and then all learning stops. That’s why the one-to-one laptop and tablet programs never solved the educational dilemma, especially during Covid. Our students have lost two years of education because technology was unable to solve that problem, and it didn’t take very long at all before they were screaming to get these kids back into the physical classroom. 

So the brain animations–what I’m gonna do is I wanna, because I speak to children, I’m gonna kind of give you a glimpse into how I handle this when I’m up in Thailand, or if I’m in a public school, or if I’m in a Christian school and I’m speaking to the little ones. And we speak to the little ones–you know, we, with the police, we have spoken in daycare centers because of parents using the tablets as babysitters in the prams or the strollers. 

So it’s…and it’s not uncommon to find smartphones in kindergarten, first grade, second grade as we discovered–even the impoverished places. So when I speak to them, I create, if there are doctors here, please know this is oversimplified. If I started talking about dopamine receptors and, you know, serotonin satiation, right, those children would eat me alive! So I’ve taken a bit different approach. I created these and ran it past some doctors and got the thumbs up: it’s close enough! Because we have to make it real for them.

So I’m gonna sort of go back and forth from the adult mode to the kid mode. Is that okay with you? So here’s what I’ll say in front of a whole, you know, auditorium full of kids: I’ll say, “Okay, boys and girls, does anybody have a brain?” “Yes, yes!” “That’s a good start!” I’ll say, “Well, put your hand where your brain is,” and they’ll all go like this, you know, and it just tickles me still to this day! So I’ll say, “All right, here’s the thing: we’re gonna pretend like our brain is a car. And if Mom or Dad are driving you, and they’re probably late dropping you off to school and they want the car to go faster, which pedal do they push?” “The gas pedal!” “That’s right, boys and girls! They push it really far!” “Yes!” And I’ll say, “Now, we’re gonna talk about this chemical called dopamine, but we’re gonna think of it as…well, you tell me! If Mom or Dad pushes the gas pedal, what liquid goes into the car?” “Gasoline!” Or if it’s Australia, “Petrol!” “That’s right! That’s what goes into the engine and makes it go really fast. And that’s sort of like when you’re playing video games and when you’re on TikTok, and you’re doing your little dances, it’s just like in your brain you’ve pushed the gas pedal of your brain, and all of this dopamine ‘petrol’ is going in there, and watch this, boys and girls! There it goes! And see it lighting up? I want to show you some brain x-rays in a few minutes,” and they’re not x-rays, but the kids understand that. They’re actually scans, but, you know, work with me here! “I’m gonna show it to you lighting up in just a little bit. So look, boys and girls, see that wall? That wall means that the brain is getting really stressed, or the car is going too fast, and it’s speeding now. And it wants to slow down, but we don’t like to slow down when we’re on TikTok, do we?” “Nooo!” “When you watch YouTube, do you want to watch another one?” “Yeees!” And on and on it goes. I say, “But that wall means that the brain is getting really stressed and it’s building a wall trying to push out all that extra dopamine, trying to get you and me to stop. But we don’t like to stop. So we do it more and more and more so that we can get a whole bunch of dopamine in there to get over that wall so that we keep feeling good.” 

So basically what’s happening here (back into adult mode now), the middle part of the brain is called the nucleus accumbens, and it’s in the middle of the reward circuit, and it’s called the reward circuit because when we do pleasurable things–some things sinful, some things not–that’s where we have that emotional response of joy and pleasure. Make sense? So the wall is actually the dopamine receptors building a little chemical barrier trying to…and it’s pushing out the extra dopamine trying to keep it from going in, and because we don’t want to stop feeling buzzed and high, we do the activity longer, harder, and more intensely to force it through. And in rehab circles and drugs, you know, clinical situations, you call that building up tolerance, or resistance to the drug, meaning you have to, just to feel it at the same level, you have to do more and more and more and more. Am I making sense?

So I say this now: “Boys and girls, here’s what happens now: the engine’s revving up and the brain’s trying to stop it. Do you see that in the middle it went gray? Pay attention, because now the brain has just quit. Not all of it, but the part that makes you feel good…” And I’ll go, “Boys and girls, have you ever told…your mom and dad ever say to you, ‘Go outside and play,’ or, ‘Go to Grandma and Grandad’s,’ and you say, ‘I’m bored, I’m bored’?” “Yeah, that’s boring!” “Well that’s why, it’s because you’ve done too much, and now you’re bored unless you’re playing a video game.” 

Now, am I making sense to you? It’s a very complicated thing, but in its simplest form, that’s exactly what is happening, and that’s where anhedonia has shut the brain down.

And then the last thing I’ll tell the boys and girls, I’ll say, “Boys and girls, now the motor’s going really fast in our brains, you’ve got the gas pedal pushed all the way down, and all this dopamine gasoline’s going in there because you’re doing all this stuff online. And if Mom and Dad wants to stop the car–which pedal do they push?” “The brakes!” I say, “That’s right, boys and girls, the brake pedal! But here’s the problem, boys and girls: Mom or Dad have given you the phone or the tablet because they need to get their stuff done, and you will stare at that for as long as they’ll let you because it’s fun. But here’s the problem: you don’t have brakes. And you won’t until you’re about 25 years old. And when we can’t stop, and we have no brakes, that means we’re addicted. That’s what addiction means: I can’t stop!” So that’s how I’ll describe addiction to them. And they get it. 

Then I’ll go, “Boys and girls, would you like to know how to get that wall down and get that thing flashing again?” “Yes!” Now we can get somewhere. That’s right!

I want to say probably, as I’ve been sitting here, most of you are thinking of your children and your grandchildren, aren’t you, if you would just really be honest, and your heart’s breaking, because now the light’s going on, and you see now why they’re not interested in our God. They’re not interested in our Bible. They don’t want to come here because it’s boring, and it’s because they’ve been raised in the digital world. But this is what I want to say to you: there’s not one single parent or grandparent who has bought the stuff or principal who’s implemented one-to-one laptops and tablets around the world globally, not one of them did that on purpose to cause that effect. Do you understand? It’s…I’ve written three books about it. You’ll see me at the table and I’ll give you both of them that I have today. 

[Cell phone rings]

[Laughing] Oh, that’s classic. I love you! It’s okay. Your face now matches your red tie. It’s awesome! It’s okay, Rob, I’ll give you…well, I would say I was gonna hug him, but he’s so tall I’ll hug your navel later, okay? 

[audience laughs]

I’m so short my feet showed up on my passport photo! 

[audience laughs]

Isn’t that right, Mark? That’s another nephilim, right? I’m just kidding! Don’t you hit me, because I’m little!

It’s good to laugh, isn’t it? It’s like a medicine. 

I want to describe something to you with the serotonin. Serotonin serves many functions, but I want to just limit it to one. So the dopamine under normal circumstances, when we’re having a good lecture or good talks like we had today, and good seminars, and God’s here and His presence is here, and we’re being fed spiritually, or I’ve really enjoyed getting to talk to some of you out at the table. Basically, what’s happening is the dopamine is giving us joy and pleasure, and that’s a good thing. And if you look at it on a curve, normally what happens, it goes like this, because what happens is serotonin then comes in, and it makes us feel satiated. It makes us feel like we have accomplished something. It makes us feel…and then you don’t have to keep chasing the dopamine. So you can pause, you can put the brakes on. 

And then we have another one and the same thing happens, and you learn, because dopamine’s also the learning molecule, then serotonin comes in and gives you the feeling of satisfaction and satiation. With digital and with other drugs, because they’re doing the same thing, the dopamine goes up, but the serotonin gets blocked by that wall, and so you just keep chasing the dopamine. Does that help you to understand? Because you’re never satisfied. It’s never enough, so you keep going. So that’s another aspect of addiction.

Now, there’s hardly, you know, a time when I’m on tour that I don’t see arms and legs of children who have harmed themselves, mainly cutting. Self-harm. You’ve probably dealt with it too. Children cut their stomach, they will cut in places where the clothes will hide it. Most of those children are not suicidal. They’re trying to get relief. 

So let me show you a picture. These are seventh graders. I’m on the stage, Beth is taking the photo, and I had just asked them this question: I’ll say to them, “Look, I didn’t come here to embarrass you, I came here because we care about you. We love you. I don’t know you, but Jesus has called me to you, and He’s put love in my heart for you. So I didn’t come here to condemn you. But I want to ask you a question, and I don’t want you to answer for yourself, because I didn’t come here to put you on the spot, nor do I want you to answer the following question for any of your friends here. If you’re going to answer to the affirmative to this, I want you to put your hand up, but I want you to think of someone outside of the school. So here’s the question: how many of you know someone who cuts themselves.” And all over the world, that’s what happens, starting younger than that. And often the teachers are shocked, because they hide it very well. But it’s a coping mechanism around them. And I’m not their parent, so they always talk to me. They’ll show me. I’m sort of like their hillbilly uncle from Virginia, so they, you know, parents are going, “I’ve been telling them the same thing and they listen to you!” I’m like, “Just look, I’m their uncle sorta. You’re their parent! Just be thankful that somebody, they’ll listen to somebody.” 

Now what I want to do is I want to show you a picture of someone that I know who cuts, and because not everyone’s wired for this, I’m gonna count to three before I do it. I’m only gonna leave it up for two seconds, okay? And there will be no shame whatsoever if you shut your eyes for these two seconds, all right? Because they’re in the hospital, I think. You can…well, they are. You can see the blue cloth and everything, going to get these things. The mother of this child that I know gave me the picture to show, so I have permission. So I want to point something out, and I’m gonna count to three. Please don’t look at this if you don’t like medical things, all right? Now there are worse things on the Discovery Channel, so don’t get mad at me.

All right–one, two, three. I want you to notice the old wounds that are very small and are healed, and then the newer ones that are very deep and wide. 

Okay, you can open your eyes. 

Here’s what’s happening–they cut for many reasons, or they self-harm. I’ve run into children, one girl in particular, she was cutting–she was picking at wounds, and not allowing them to heal. So here’s what’s happening: whenever we injure ourselves, whether it’s accidental or on purpose, the brain doesn’t know if it’s accidental or on purpose. So what happens? The brain senses the injury, and to help us cope with the pain and give us a sense of peace because we’re in excruciating pain, this other hormone gets released, they’re called endorphins. And so the endorphins will rush and then give us a sense of peace to help us numb the pain. So this girl, for example, came up to me. She pulled up her sleeve, showed me the cuts, and I just looked at her and said, “Sweetheart, why did you do it?” And she goes, “Well, it makes me feel.” Now, she wasn’t talking about the cut that physically hurt. What she was talking about was the emotional response that came as a result of her being emotionally numb. Does that make sense? So here’s the problem–there’s two problems, actually. The endorphins, they dissipate quickly, so they cut…let’s say they’re a cutter. They cut, and the brain–it releases the endorphins, and they feel the peace, they feel in control again. But if it dissipates quickly and they want to keep feeling, what do they have to keep doing? Did you notice the cuts that were going up the arm? 

Here’s the second problem that I want to point out: endorphins are very addictive. So they build a barrier toward that, and as time goes on, they have to do it more intensely and harder, deeper, and wider. Does that make sense? So here’s what I’ve observed–I don’t have data for this, but this is what I have observed: there’s so many kids, and traveling all over the world, they’ve got a barrier (we know this) blocking out…all the digital has run its course. So they’ve got a wall, and they’ve become numb, so they’ve resorted to cutting. That’s not in dispute. What I think happens, because the suicide rates are off the charts, and people don’t like to deal with the things that I deal with, this is what I would say, this is my hypothesis: they’ve got a wall blocking this, now they’ve got a wall blocking this, and once that wall gets high, they can’t get any more endorphins in, they’re out of coping mechanisms, and what we do know is that there’s depression off the charts. So they get depressed, and then they have suicidal ideations. So my emergency room doctor who brings me in, the reason why he is such an encouragement to me and puts me in front of doctors and nurses and so forth, and the police do it as well, but for him, being in the emergency room, he sees that day in and day out. He sees the eating disorders as a result of social media, and on and on it goes. And the doctors themselves, the doctors that I showed you, they are actually the ones in residence. They all play video games. There’s a statistical correlation between video game addiction and pornography use. It’s up in the 90th percentile. So sending kids to doctors, you almost have to interview them these days. So I had a moral talk with them, an ethical talk with them. Do you see the difficulties that we’re facing with this? 

All right, so what I want to do is give you some of the symptoms of digital addiction. So…are you up here because my time is up? Oh, okay, because I noticed when Jay was up here and you came up here it was time to quit. And my clock is wrong, actually, but I do have a timer going. 

[unintelligible] 

Oh! Thank you! I love you! 

Okay, symptoms of digital addiction, this is the same diagnostic criteria that I give doctors. I mean, it’s not…you saw the video, right? It’s anger and then, as they get older, especially if they’re on the spectrum–if they’re autistic, as they get older they get extremely violent. So the big tussle now is that a psychologist and psychiatrist will actually prescribe an iPad, because it calms them. But now you know why it calms them. They’re not concentrating, and the cognition is not there, but it calms them. But then the problem is the wall goes up, and then as it goes up in all people though, the aggression is there. Anxiety and depression, we’ve talked about that, and irritability. Now, look, we all have these symptoms because we live life, amen? What we’re talking about is any addiction exacerbates this beyond control. 

Now, this is where we have really suffered because of all the medicine that’s doled out for ADHD. There’s a lady out at…well, I’m in Oregon, so down in UCLA, she is doing, her name is Dr. Victoria Dunckley. She’s done a lot of work in this area, and in many of the children that she detoxes (I just wrote a book called Digital Rehab on this), that usually just goes away, because the vast majority of it is being induced digitally. So you take the source away, and guess what? Their attention comes back.

Now, there’s good…when I say that, I didn’t lie. It’s true. It brings relief to some people, and angers others, because they think I’m trying to take their babysitter away. That’s what’s angering them. But I will never come into your house and do it. When I’m in the restaurants and I see the kids on the tablets or on the plane, I don’t go up and accost them. That’s not the way to start a good conversation: “Give me that thing, you bad parent, you!” I don’t do that! 

So they have these things, these devices in their bedroom, and then I’ve already spoken to you about the emotional numbness.

Now let me run down–give you a rundown of some other warning signs, and none of this is rocket science, it’s just brain science. It’s a lot easier. They lose track of time when on electronics. Now you know why: they get caught up–they’re high from dopamine. They become agitated when interrupted. You saw that. They prefer to spend time using electronics rather than playing, and, I might add, spending time with family. They do not follow time limits, because of a loss of interest in other activities. They seem restless when not using a device and preoccupied with getting back on. They avoid homework and chores because of spending too much time on electronics, and they sneak devices when no one is around, and they lie about it.

So may I ask my precious sweetheart, would you mind grabbing me something to drink, darling? Thank you. 

So these are spect scans. Anybody been in a CT scanner? I became very ill when I was in Australia last, and I’d come in from Thailand and I was very ill for weeks and eventually collapsed and was in and out of the hospital. And they’re still trying to figure out what’s wrong with me–you’re probably thinking, I’m sure they are!

[audience laughs]

But it was stomach and COVID related, I still have more tests to go. I’m very healthy except when I fall ill! But the next day I recover, I go to the gym, and I’m living life, and then it hits unexpected. It’s kind of crazy. Now I have this really weird eating pattern I have to–I don't even have to follow, I just can’t eat much and stuff. But anyway, I was in the CT scanner trying to figure out what’s wrong with…this is CT scans. But it’s with some–it’s for the brain, though, and it’s called a Single Photon Emission Computed Tomography scanner. So this is a baseline–in other words, it’s a known, healthy brain, of which you then compare what you think is a damaged brain to it, measure the deviation, and so on and so forth. So, first one I’ll show you is someone who smokes marijuana. So they process things slowly. They can’t think on their feet too quickly over time. And you can–can you see why? Now, their brain doesn’t physically look like that if you were to take it out of the skull. What that’s measuring is blood flow. So it is shutting down in those areas because of too much stimulation and addiction. So…

Thank you, sweetheart. Of all my wives…I’m just kidding!

[audience laughs]

But we’ve been married once, 32 years, and I love her with all my heart. 

[audience applauds]

So this is cocaine, and you can see there’s what it does to you–it just eats away. Personality changes, anger, aggression, all the things we’ve been talking about. The dopamine levels are just extremely high, and I want you to pay close attention to this: video gaming can be addictive in the same way as cocaine. Back to Dr. Nicholas Kardaras: “An ever increasing amount of clinical research correlates screen tech with psychiatric disorders like ADHD, addiction, anxiety, depression, increased aggression, and even psychosis. Perhaps the most shocking of all, recent brain imaging studies conclusively show that excessive screen exposure can neurologically damage a young person’s developing brain in the same way that cocaine.”

This is why we called my second book in the series Digital Cocaine. That wasn’t a metaphor, it comes from brain scans. And your children and grandchildren are not the exception. As a result of this, I say something that really causes a lot of, I think, angst and consternation in churches and in the secular environment. I say that you and your children should never, ever play video games ever, ever, in any amount, because you’re not the exception. 

Now, why do I do it? Not because I enjoy them getting angry at me. It’s because I love them. And I know there’s only one thing that will free them, because the solution is biblical: “You shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free.” And the point is freedom, but taking them through that truth.

I’m not Joel Osteen. I’m not a TED Talk person. I’m not a motivational coach. I’m a minister of the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ before everything. And if you like Joel Osteen, I don’t dislike him, I’m just saying, I have to deal with very difficult things, and that’s okay too. Do you understand where I’m coming from? I’m not here to say anything, you know, I just…I get compared. It’s like, “Do you have a positive message? Do you have a positive message?” And no, I don’t. 

[audience laughs]

I don’t! I don’t. Until you’re healed, and that’s doable. But very few people take me up on the offer to get that wall down and get the color back, because they think they’re the exception. There’s a…there’s two roads Jesus talked about. One is very wide and it goes through a gate and leads to everlasting destruction, and there’s a very narrow one that goes through a gate that…I mean, you know, it leads to everlasting life. And Jesus said most people are gonna get on the wide one. And with technology, I see that all the time. They’re not about to give it up. 

So I talked about the brakes, the prefrontal cortex. Let me show you what happens when adults get addicted. Their prefrontal cortex is eaten away too, so they have no brakes either. Does that make sense? The prefrontal cortex is responsible for impulse control–we’ve already talked about that–and judgment, or the brakes. And it is intended to keep the brains’ drivers in check. It acts as the brain’s brake, making you think twice before doing something you might regret. In the addicted brain, the PFC is weakened, allowing the drive systems to take control. 

So the cocaine brain, these drugs–that’s meth, obviously–they affect the brain similarly, just in different regions. That’s the normal brain, and then there’s heroin. That went in through a needle. That’s the porn brain, and that went in through a screen. Clinicians will tell you it’s more difficult to detox a porn addict than it is a heroin addict, and you don’t need to be a neuro person to see why. Just look at the scan. Can you see that? Pornography acts as a polydrug effect. So what that basically means is sort of like a speed ball, if any of you have ever dealt with that before, it’s when normally they’ll take cocaine to get high, then they’ll use heroin to come down. Well, when that stops working, they mix it, and it’s extremely toxic, and that’s what that is. Porn is very, very vicious. It’s why Jesus said it would be better for us to gouge our eye out, cut your hand off. It would be better for us to lose one part of the body than to have the whole body thrown into hell. Verses like that don’t go over well, but when I speak, and I speak at a lot of men’s conferences, I quote it anyway. I told y’all, the solution’s biblical. I just tell them, “Do you really think Jesus wants you to cut your eye out? No! So quit porn!” Amen? I mean, not in three years, like, now! You do whatever…so that’s a different talk.

Is there hope? Of course there is. 

So Dr. Daniel Amen, where I sourced these–his clinics, got these scans from, he provides treatment. So what did he do? Well, it’s not overly complicated. It’s not really–you know, no psychiatric drugs for the most part. He just made them quit, because you can’t keep taking the drug and get over the addiction. So you have to stop, and then you have to put the brain in a very healthy atmosphere. You have to eat right, you have to sleep at night, you have to exercise. And then just like if you were to accidentally cut yourself, you wash it, leave it alone. We are fearfully and wonderfully made. Over time it will heal itself, because God built that in. Well, the good news is there is a point of irreparable damage, but for the most part, those holes start to fill in. Isn’t that good? And that’s why I came here to tell you that, not to condemn you. 

Now, we’ve been here before. This is an advertisement for Camel Cigarettes from 1942. We laugh, but this was serious. It ran all over the world. I had an elderly gentleman in Australia: “Mate, I remember that.” 

“More doctors smoke Camels than any other cigarette!” And they were prescribing cigarettes to pregnant ladies to alleviate the morning sickness–not to alleviate the morning sickness, but the stress and the pain of it, because the tar in the nicotine generates–guess which chemical in the brain to be released? Dopamine, thus relieving the stress. And this went on for the longest time. And they would actually go on camera themselves to show the efficacy.

Man: You know, if you were to follow a busy doctor as he makes his daily round the hall, you’d find yourself having a mighty busy time keeping up with him! Time out for many men of medicine usually means just long enough to enjoy a cigarette. And because they know what a pleasure it is to smoke a mild, good tasting cigarette, they’re particular about the brand they choose. In a repeated national survey, doctors in all branches of medicine, doctors in all parts of the country were asked, “What cigarette do you smoke, Doctor?” Once again, the brand named most was Camel. Yes, according to this repeated nationwide survey, more doctors smoke Camels than any other cigarette.

Brad: So this went on for the longest time, and then they started to have unintended consequences: cancer. And then they began to ask these questions: Is there a correlation between all this smoking and all this new cancer that’s come out? And of course they denied it. And then one night a guy by the name of Jeffrey Wigand who worked for the tobacco industry went on 60 Minutes, took the research that the industry had done, and blew the whistle. The movie’s called The Insider. Russell Crowe played the part of Jeffrey Wigand. It’s an interesting watch. You should watch it on a screen! It won’t kill you. 

[audience laughs, unintelligible]

I think you should just go for it anyway! Don’t you hit me! I am little!

Now, we know the rest of that story. Doctors then started telling us to stop smoking. This is not the first time that very intelligent people with PhDs, medical degrees, EDD, and all that were telling us something was good for us when it was not. 

So now I was in Cambodia–you’ll see the writing up there–but this is how they advertise cigarettes overseas: they’re trying to get pregnant mothers to stop smoking because all of that passes from the mother into the infant. Am I making sense, brothers and sisters? Well, where we are right now, we have a parallel with technology. We’ve had people back when I had, you know, when I was getting my computer science degree, it was mainframes and mini computers, and there was no GUIs (or graphical user interfaces) and mice and all this. It was coding. And then it wasn’t long after that that Apple came out with a GUI and things got really simple. They made them very simple. The schools adopted them, and so educators with degrees, PhDs, were saying, “We’ve got to get this into the hands of children at the earliest age possible, otherwise they’re not going to be able to cope. We’ve got to teach them how to multitask,” which has now been shown nobody on earth can do it. And it’s in the curriculum and all this sort of stuff, and the unintended consequences are now here in the form of all those things I just showed–the anger, the aggression, the Attention Deficit Disorders, all this sort of…the psychoses, the cutting has all been directly related to technology, just like the cancer was to smoking. And this is what God has asked me to deal with. And I said “yes” before I realized what He was asking me to do. There are days I weep, because I feel like I’m beating people up, and I’ve tried to do nothing but love you here today, because I know what it’s doing. Some of you grandparents have bought the things because you love your grandchildren. You’ve given it to them for Christmas presents. And I’ll give you a big hug afterwards. I am not in any way trying to put you down today or make you feel bad or condemn you. I’m trying to throw lifelines in here. That’s all I’m trying to do, because that’s what Jesus’s motive is. When He confronts us, He loves us, doesn’t He? 

So let me take your temperature: are you bored?

Audience: No!

Brad: See, you really don’t look bored, but I told Jay, if you want to go overtime, you’re welcome to! You’re not going to offend me. I’ll go shorter! 

All right, let’s look at biblical worldview. This is what is–this is where we are. By the way, the Barna Research Group and Impact 360, these are Christian research companies. So whilst they’re under our care and our Christian schools, that awesome thing that God has done through Calvary Chapel all these years through Pastor Chuck, the Line Upon Line, there’s been a disconnect between our generation and the ones underneath of us. But it’s not our fault I don’t think. We inadvertently let the enemy, well-meaning, we let the enemy in with the phones not knowing what it was going to end up doing, like the cigarettes. Am I making sense to you? Now we’ve got to very quickly and rapidly reverse out of this, or back out of this. It’s not going over well. That’s why I’m so honored to be here. When Tom invited me, I know this is God, because I know people don’t like to hear me speak. I just don’t feel like I fit in very many places with a message like this. It is so counterculture, and the culture runs everything, including the church in America. And it’s just difficult for me to do this. I…you have no idea–if I weren’t sick, I’d be in Africa right now. After the things they suffer, a message like this is nothing to them! So they’re like, “Have a go! It’s fine!” And then all these people show up. But here it’s a different kettle of fish. But you’re here, and I appreciate you. 

The Gen Z, the Millennials, 4 percent biblical worldview. That’s it. Let’s reverse that: 96 percent don’t have one. Look at the grandparents: 7 percent. The great-grandparents–grandparents and great-grandparents–10 percent. Arizona Christian University’s Culture Research Center in May 2022 released this: 37 percent of our American pastors now–only 37 percent–possess a biblical worldview. Aren’t you thankful that you’re part of Berean Call? Don’t you wish, and shouldn’t our prayer be, that this… next year is full of Millennials and Gen Zers? But you know what’s keeping them from here? This is boring, and now you know why. It’s because they’re in the bedroom with their door shut. 

One in six Gen Zers identify as LGBTQ now. Terms like “ally,” ask them if they’re an ally. Many of you will be shocked what some of them will tell you: that’s a Marxist term that’s being taught to them on TikTok. 

So I’m writing a book–I was out here…the reason I’m at this conference is because a pastor in Klamath Falls, Pastor Mike Voight graciously loaned me his cabin near here to do some writing, and I wrote–I’m halfway through a book on gender dysphoria to highschoolers, and it’s on their identity, and all that sort of thing. But this is what happened–is that my cue to quit? Because I’m watching my clock.

I want to show you one more thing and give you a few solutions and take a couple of questions. I did some surveys at a very, very large school in Florida. They have me regularly, and they’re very equipped. Very few American schools will let me do this, but they did. And I’m going back down in April, and they’re gonna let me do surveys on a bunch of classes so that I know what I’m walking into when I go. And that’s a big Christian school, but you know…do you know that you can’t pay the Christian school to raise your children and put a biblical worldview…? In Deuteronomy 6 says that’s reserved for parents and grandparents to do that. And then we as educators help them. But you can’t pay somebody to do that for you. God won’t let you do that. They’ll be just as carnal as can be if you try to pay somebody else to do that. And they are carnal.

So great school. This is not a reflection on the school, it’s a reflection of the home. So I surveyed them and asked, “What is your favorite app?” So these are the top two, no shock: TikTok and Roblox, both of which I recommend you get completely rid of. 

Tomorrow I’m going to deal with the intimacy issue on Snapchat with artificial intelligence. It’s a big issue right now, and I’ve written for Globe Ethics out of Geneva. I did an essay in their latest book on artificial intelligence and higher education, and I wrote about the lower grades as well. 

So I asked them, “How many of you have chatted online with people you don’t know?” It’s sixth graders. Now, with my work with the police, I will tell you a lot of these people are pedophiles. And I could tell you horror stories. That’s not the subject of this one. 

So the thing about this is those children’s brain scans would most likely show post-traumatic stress disorder just like a soldier. And then I asked them about age restrictions. Are you aware of the age restrictions? And basically what that means is they’re lying. That’s a biblical worldview issue. We should be teaching our children not to lie. Amen? 

So we just did a mashup of this. I asked them “Your favorite Netflix series?” Some of the stuff was innocuous, some of the stuff is foul. And this is what they’re feasting on night after night. And I asked them who their favorite social media influencers are, and this is what happens: some of this is just…it’s awful. I ask them their favorite YouTube channels–even worse. Favorite video game channels–even worse. 

So I want to show you a quick video clip. I was out in Rialto or…I’m in Oregon, down in Rialto. I say “over there” because I’m usually on the East Coast, not always, but, um… So it’s Calvary Chapel Rialto. It’s a big church, big school, and I’ve ministered there a bit, and been to the school a couple times, and it’s a great school. And the principal filmed something and gave it to me to show. So I was going over these stats. Now, this is leading into tomorrow’s message–I want to talk about intimacy, okay? So this is the last thing I’ll show you. I’ll give you a few solutions. This is the bridge to tomorrow.

So I want you to look at the reaction. When I was talking about spiritual things, they weren’t rude, but it was flatline. No pulse. “Beeeeeep.” The minute I started going over what I just showed you, this is what happened:

Video: How about the social media?

[children laughing and talking over each other]

Brad: So what I did is I triggered dopamine by putting the social media influencers up there, the video games, and they got excited. That’s where their hearts are. And I feel the weight of that in every single school I go into. They don’t love our Jesus. There are a handful who do. Do you understand I’m not putting these children down? They’re held captive, and our job is to pray and to fast and to watch God do miracles. Do you believe He still works miracles and signs and wonders? I do. And we need them.

There’s two kinds: the kind that Dave Hunt, rightfully so, deals with, but we shouldn’t be afraid of Jesus when He wants to intervene and do miraculous things with and for us. Can I get an amen on that? Jesus made a public spectacle of Satan, triumphing over him by the cross. 

I do want to show you one other thing, if I may. My friend Nigel Dalton, the police officer I showed you, these are the sort of things that you deal with that makes things very difficult. He’s on his way home, he sent these pictures to me right after one of our tours, and it’s five o’clock. He’s off work, but he’s in the police car driving home. Call comes on the radio, “Hey, there’s a nine-year-old kid trashing the house at a certain location. Anybody near it?” So he looked and yes, and he radioed in and said, “I’m near it. I’ll take the call.” They said, “We’re sending backup.” And he goes, “Look, it’s a nine-year-old, I’ll be fine.” And he’s about your size, Nigel is. So Nigel’s a wonderful Christian man, and I’m so privileged to work under the Crime Prevention Unit with him. And so when he got to the house, the wooden door was open, the screen door was shut, but he could see into the house, and basically, this is what he saw: he looked down the hallway, and there was a bathtub down there with water running, it had been stopped, and all this water’s flowing. Same with the sink over here. And he went in the house and he was trying to find this nine-year-old, and the nine-year-old saw him and took off running and hid. And as he was trying to find him, this is what he did to the closet. These are beds overturned. He had a screwdriver and he was tearing at the plasterboard–we call it drywall here–and he was just tearing it out. And he took off running. Nigel went looking for him, and he had turned over all the desks–the whole house looked like this. He’s nine years old. And eventually, Nigel found his mother and the little sister, and the sister was traumatized. And he asked the mother, “What’s going on?” She said, “Well, every evening he goes over to his friends house and plays Minecraft,” which is a very deadly game for the brain, and she said…this is a government subsidized house, so they don’t have a lot of money. So he goes to a friend’s house that has Wifi, and they play video games. But she said, “I make him…he goes there after school and from 3 hours…from 3-6 every evening he plays, and then he has to come home before dark. On this particular night he wanted to finish his game, and when I got home he was demanding Wifi, but we don’t have it because I can’t afford it.” and he had withdrawals, that anger I was telling you about. He just started trashing the house. Nigel found him up in this cupboard, and he went and said, “Look, mate,” he said, “if you will just come down,” he said, “I’ll watch TV with you.” And the reason why he said that is because he works with me. And it doesn’t matter what’s on that screen, just put him in front of the screen and it’ll calm him, and you know why now. He’ll get shots of dopamine. Never mind that he had just done that to the house and traumatized his sister and his mother. He said, “Yeah, I’ll watch television!” Right in the middle of all that. So Nigel helps him down, puts him in front of this big widescreen…now, they didn’t have much money, but they had a widescreen TV, and plops him down and turns the television on, and he just…and this television show Friends was on, cognitively he had no idea what they were talking about, but that’s not the point. Get his eyes locked onto that screen. Now, that’s not the actual way to fix it, but he had threatened suicide. So now the ambulance came. Nigel says, “Look, I’m not a doctor, but he wasn’t able to finish his video game and he’s threatened suicide,” and the ambulance driver said, “Yeah, well, this is common. We see this all the time.”

Sure enough, we were giving a lecture, and I was at the hospital, one of the hospitals there in this city. And a male nurse came that night and said in a particular period of time, of the 120 plus calls in some period of time, 50 of them were video game related, that the ambulance had to go out. Now do you understand why I say no video games in any form?

All right, let me give you a quick list… there’s so much more that we could go over. I just want to give you a very quick list of things that you can do to mitigate, and I’m not…I can’t give you all of them, because I’m running out of time. I’m just gonna give you some of them. So no video games. These are fourth graders–I had just asked these fourth graders, “How many of you have internet connected devices in your bedroom overnight?” This is how many hands go up starting with third grade all over the world. And in Australia, we survey them: What do you have? Well, duh, phones, tablets, PlayStations, you name it. So that night, about 500 of the parents showed up to the parent meeting, and at about this point of the presentation, I said, “How many of you parents allow your children to have internet connected devices in the bedroom overnight?” And out of 500 I counted–seven hands went up. I said, “Funny that, let’s look at how your children answered that this morning.” And this embarrassing gasp went throughout the audience. And I said, “Now let’s try this again with no lying this time.” And sheepishly all the hands went up. Remove all technology from bedrooms. Eighty percent of what I’ve been talking to you about today happens in the bedroom with the door shut. 

I want to give you some parenting advice and then I’ll take a couple of questions, and I’ll be finished, from Silicon Valley. It’s the only time the New York Times will bless you. Okay. A Silicon Valley school that doesn’t compute…I wondered years ago how the folks in Silicon Valley raise their children. I assumed they’d have, you know, next year’s technology early. But couldn’t have been further from the truth. The chief technology officer of eBay sends his children to a nine classroom school here. So do employees of Silicon Valley giants like Google, Apple, Yahoo, and Hewlett Packard. But the school’s chief teaching tools are anything but high tech: pens and paper, knitting needles, and occasionally mud. Not a computer to be found, no screens at all. They’re not allowed in the classroom, and the school even frowns on their use at home. These are Steiner schools. I’ve spoken at one. They don’t have technology until they’re about 12-14, and only then just the stuff that will get them a job. Steve Jobs was a low-tech parent. “So your kids must love the iPad,” I asked Mr. Jobs, trying to change the subject. “They haven’t used it.” He told me, “We limit how much technology our kids use at home.” I never asked Mr. Jobs what his children did instead of using the gadgets he built, so I reached out to Walter Isaacs and the author of Steve Jobs who spent a lot of time at their home. Every evening Steve made a point of having dinner at the big long table in their kitchen discussing books and history and a variety of things. He said, “No one ever pulled out an iPad or computer. The kids did not seem addicted at all to devices.”

Is that good advice? 

All right, a couple questions, and we’ll have dinner. Any…? Yes sir?

Audience member: Could you define a video game or computer game that’s acting…[unintelligible]?

Brad: Fortnite…define it. Any interactivity with a game, which would be, you know, stuff on your phone, any of those innocuous games that are not even immoral. Anything that’s interactive with a video game that…basically what Dr. Karadaras said: If you’re getting points for anything you’re doing, that’s what’s causing it.

Yes?

Audience member: [unintelligible]…feel led to use that as a ministry or as a witness so I’ve got that screen on all the time and I’ve noticed that I am looking at more YouTube stuff, it’s not bad stuff but that doesn’t matter... What do you say about adults like us? 

Brad: Yeah, you saw the prefrontal cortex. That’s what happens. So witness differently. Yep.

Yes?

Audience member: Would you include Kindle books?

Brad: Yes. There’s reams of research on that that if you read both fiction and nonfiction, I’ll just quote the one that’s nonfiction, because students–schools are using Chromebooks and tablets: they did a macrostudy of 33 studies of reading academic material on paper and the same on the screen, and the paper scored way higher every single time. And note taking, too. So for those who type, you look really cool and slick, but you’re dumb as a stump. 

[audience laughs]

Okay, that’s just a Southern thing and I’m glad you laughed, because outside of the South people don’t always get our humor, so don’t hit me! 

Yes, ma’am?

Woman: We’re told to renew our mind by the washing of the Word…

Brad: Are you preaching or asking a question?

Woman: I’m just telling you that…

Brad: No, I like women preachers.

Woman: [unintelligible]

Brad: Yeah. Romans:12:2.

Woman: Yeah.

Brad: Go  ahead and quote it. 

Woman: [unintelligible]

Brad: “Be transformed by the renewing of your mind.” Yeah.

Woman: [unintelligible]

Brad: Yeah. Well, let me pray for you, okay? Let’s pray. 

Father, thank you for such an attentive audience and another platform. And God, as I always ask you, please, Jesus, don’t allow a spirit of fear or condemnation to come on my family here today. God, as we continue this journey tomorrow, remind them tonight that there is therefore now no condemnation to those who are in Christ, and that the wall can certainly come down and the color come back as we continue this journey. 

Heads bowed and eyes closed, how many of you would like to close, and you can pray silently to Jesus, just an uplifted hand. Why don’t you lift, symbolically, your grandchildren and your children to the Lord, and let’s just close that way. I feel to pray with you in agreement that God will touch them, because I know He will. He’s a good God, yeah. 

Father, we just lift our family members before you that we’re burdened for, that we’re thinking of. I’m lifting mine too, Lord. We thank You, Jesus, that You still work today, that Your power is still greater than Satan’s. It’s greater than deception. And that You break yokes of bondage and You love us with an everlasting love, and you visit us even in our dreams. Do that for our family members and release them from this horrible grip. And give wisdom on how to, to my family here, on how to take what they’ve heard today and transmit this into their families. It’s complicated, it’s difficult, but you are a God of miracles, and we thank you for it. (You can put your hands down.)

In Jesus’ name, amen.

All right, love y’all! Thank you!

[audience applauds]

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