Laura Tierney, CEO of The Social Institute, joins the pod to discuss shifting the narrative from technology bans to intentional usage. Explore fresh data on student AI perceptions, the rise of private backchannels, and why tech leaders must act as "quarterbacks" in fostering student-centered social etiquette in an evolving digital world.

1. The Social Institute, organization equipping students, families, and educators with modern life skills to impact learning, well-being, and students' futures
2. Student Insights Report (2026), from The Social Institute, documenting how students are navigating social media, technology, and everyday life, both online and offline
3. Family Toolkit, from The Social Institute, includes expert tech tips, summaries of social media apps, and positive family huddle questions..
4. Resources for educators, from The Social Institute
5. “Clear is kind”, quote from Brene Brown and her book Dare to Lead
6. Brick, physical device and app that temporarily removes distracting apps and their notifications from your phone
7. Yondr, program creating phone-free spaces for artists, educators, organizations and individuals
8. The Philadelphia Eagles Playoff Loss

Matt, welcome to Talking technology with ATLIS,

the show that plugs you into the important topics and trends for

technology leaders all through a unique Independent School lens.

We'll hear stories from technology directors and other

special guests from the Independent School community,

and provide you with focused learning and deep dive topics.

And now please welcome your host. Christina Lewellen,

Hello everyone, and welcome back to

talking technology with ATLIS. I'm Christina Lewellen, the

President and CEO of the Association of technology

leaders in independent schools.

And I am Bill Stites, the Director of

Technology at Montclair Kimberly Academy in Montclair, New

Jersey, and

I'm Hiram Cuevas, the Director of Information

Systems and Academic Technology at Saint Christopher's school in

Richmond, Virginia.

Hello, gentlemen. Good morning. How are

you guys hanging in? It's cold. It is. It is cold here in

Virginia.

Now I know Bill is

disappointed in the birds, go birds, go birds,

but I am really happy for my son, because he loves the bears.

That was insane. Okay, so I can't even

believe that we're going to have this conversation right now, but

we're going to ask our listeners to indulge for just a minute. We

are recording on January 15. We just had a really interesting

football weekend, and what's interesting is that in the

beginning of this journey, Bill, I actually credit you with my

love for football, because you got me going on the new heights

podcast, yes, with the brothers. And then that whole thing

evolved. That was way before Taylor Swift entered the scene.

Any of that. Though I do love and appreciate I am a good

Swifty, but I'm telling you that that got me going. This whole

brotherly dynamic between the two of those idiots reminded me

a bit of you two, to be honest. So I started with the

footballing. It's become a family thing. And the problem

is, as you know, Bill, is that I root for like, six teams. But I

will say that this weekend, during this playoff stint here I

was in Florida with my aunts, who are fanatics about the

bills. Okay? And I was with them at their house in the villages

Florida, and all the Bills fans from their whole neighborhood

get together. And they have these traditions. They hang out

at my aunt's house, my aunt Diane, Aunt Jan's house, and

we're watching the bills. It was a crazy game. After the game,

they, like, went out in the streets, and they were playing

the shout song as they were, like, dancing down the street. I

put this on my Instagram. It's the funniest thing ever. But

they didn't have to grease the poles. No, they're not like

Philly. The bills mafia is a whole different vibe, indeed.

But what was crazy about it is, then, of course, my aunt is

like, saying, Okay, well, I was heading down to FETC in Orlando,

so I was saying, Okay, love you guys. See you later, and they're

like, you're gonna be back next weekend, right? And I go, What

are you talking about? I'm going home after FETC. And they're

like, You have to come back because you were here and the

bills won, so do what you got to do, and get your ass back on a

plane and get back down to Orlando to watch with my

extended family the bills mafia. But it was really fun. I did

feel very bad for the Eagles. I'm sorry about that, but the

bears, that was crazy.

My son has been a Bears fan since he was a little

boy. His aunt used to send him cubbies and bears paraphernalia

when she lived in Chicago, and he has been a die hard Bears fan

since he was about two or three years old, and he's lived a

really rough adolescence being a Bears fan, and he's just in

heaven right now. I just

want to point something out for the audience

who did not know this, okay? And I just want to point out,

because everyone thinks I'm the troublemaker, I'm the bad guy.

Okay, just before we got on, we were talking about trying to

keep us from going off the rails. And came into it like,

okay, you know, you guys have got to be good this time. And I

the last thing I said is, unless Hiram says something to set me

off, yep. And what's the first thing that he does is he brings

up the eagle's loss. I didn't say anything about the loss, so

he heard what you said, and just it totally went out, I know. And

Hiram jumped right in with that with both feet. And I had to sit

here and zip my lip and be the good little boy.

Are you sad? Yes, I'm sorry, you guys. I

mean, you have a good team. That's the problem too.

I know they just dumped the offensive

coordinator, so I'm happy about that. So let's move on and go

from there. We've got other things to talk about. This could

take the entire podcast, and God forbid I bring up the fact that

the 28 years later movie opens tomorrow, could take us down a

zombie path.

No zombies. We can't do that, we've got

to focus in. We're

going to dial it in. So here's what we're

going to do before we even allow this guest to introduce herself.

The first question you're going to be anonymous for a second.

Are you a football fan? No. So you don't have a team?

I root for the Eagles. Based on my home turf.

So I'm with Bill on this one. Yes, okay, but I don't feel your

pain as much.

Yeah, no, it's okay. We've got that as long as

it's not with honey. I'm it's fine.

You know what? I heard a stat about total playing

time in football, and ever since I heard that stat, that has

really made me second guess my football fandom.

I don't know the stat. What is the stat?

It's like the total playing time in a football

game, if you take out all the ads and stoppage plays and more,

is from what I heard, it's between like 10 to 14 minutes,

yeah?

Oh, that they're actually moving. Yeah, yeah. No,

it's absurd. That's a

lot of money for 15 minutes. Mind blowing.

All right, so here we go with spitting the facts before we

even allow our guest to introduce herself, Laura, thank

you for joining us on the pod. Let me actually just give you

the mic. Why don't you introduce yourself, tell everybody a

little bit about you and who you are, rather than me reading your

bio. Let's do this.

Thank you so much for having me. I am Laura

Tierney. I'm founder and CEO here at the social Institute.

It's an organization I started 10 years ago, we're in our 10th

year this year. Congratulations. Thank you. We have evolved so

much in those 10 years. What prompted me to start it I am a

digital native who got my first phone when I was 13 years old. I

got three out of my four jobs thanks to the world of social

media and technology, I cannot open My Computer without having

AI as one of the tabs that I go to, and I now lead a team and

thinking about how they're using AI and what they are versus

aren't doing on a day to day basis. So I can definitely

empathize with the ever evolving world that we are managing

today, with educators and professionals and more. I'm a

big believer in flipping the script and kind of swimming

upstream. So when the world is telling us maybe only the the

negatives of what come from AI or social media, like, how are

we still finding the positives? Because these technologies

aren't going away. So that is my passion, and I did not play

football. I played field hockey growing up, oh, like Kylie

Kelsea, yes, like Kylie. Oh my gosh, this is our, like, claim

to fame now that Kylie played, and my mom took me to a camp

when I was about 11 years old, and she told me it was going to

be a soccer camp. It was a field hockey camp, and she surprised

me, because she knew I wouldn't go to it. And I cried for a week

at this camp, and by the last day I remember, I fell in love

with the sport, and I went on to play at Duke. I was a four time

all American at Duke, and I played with Team USA. So I'm a

big believer in nature as much as nurture. With that story.

Wait a minute. So Laura, are you better

than Kylie Kelsea, are we throwing down here? Oh gosh,

well, if she is listening to this podcast, maybe

we will have to set something up in Philly. We'll send it over.

That's right, the positive power of social media. You never know.

I love it. I was listening to Kylie this

morning on my treadmill run. Yeah, she's great. So Laura, I

think a lot of people have heard of the social Institute, but

when I first came into the space, I just remember thinking,

Oh, so you're not like banishing social media and the use. You're

really putting boundaries around it and talking about using it

safely, wisely. It's here to stay, you know. So your vibe was

a little bit different, especially, I'm sure when you

started 10 years ago. Can you tell us a little bit about why

you started it, and you know what it was like back then?

Because ultimately, I'd like to know how that has changed over

time. But where did this come from that you decided to start

this organization?

Yeah, well, I was in the public school system up

through eighth grade and then transferred to an independent

school, and I remember being just one of those students in

the audience where, you know, school brings someone in and

they talk about technology, and you're kind of sitting there

questioning, like, how much do they use it themselves? Because

they're only talking about all the negatives, and it just like

the street cred was not high in I feel like who we were

listening to on stage, and it was often just done in such a

negative, cynical way. And I'm a pretty optimistic person, and I

feel like you can always find the good in something,

especially technology. And I feel like I lived that over the

years. I remember using social media to drive more attendance

to our high school games, and then college games, and then, of

course, you know, started connecting to follow mentors. I

started following. Us feel hockey teammates on social to

just learn what their lifestyle was like, because I wanted to be

like them one day. And so I thought it could be used for

good. I ended up working at ESPN in social media a few years

later, and I started carving out my vacation days to meet with

students in schools. And it was just paid time off taking PTO,

and I remember maxing out on PTO, and at that point, it was

kind of like, wow, I might be able to travel to schools and do

this and kind of follow my passion there. And the students

really appreciated the fact that you were using the platforms

that they were using, and you could really get down on their

level, and say that you were once in their shoes and lived it

yourself as a digital native. I watch a lot of Shark Tank. I

feel like there are two types of founders, the ones that like,

you know, just start something to flip it, and then the others

that really have lived the problem themselves. And I really

relate to that second founder.

So one of the things I think is really

interesting learning that we actually share in common is

probably more than 10 years ago, I used to manage a blog, a

website and some professional stuff called Ed social media.

And with Ed social media, we used to go in and do similar

stuff, more on the operational sides, but just talking with

development offices, alumni offices, admissions offices, for

a lot of the things that you were talking about. And the one

thing that stuck with me that you just said was that at that

point, you were talking a lot about the positives in terms of

how you could use it. I mean, we had put together some guidelines

around social media and, like, you know, friending and

different things like that. But I think there were really

different conversations then than I think they are right now

that are going around on social media. I'm curious as to what

you think about that transition from like using it as a tool for

engagement with various constituencies, where it was

kind of a little bit more open ended to now, where it's like

between what you're reading and what you're seeing, it's not

that anymore. And I'm curious to your take on that.

Yeah, I liken the shift around social media to

like the shift you see in college athletics and like n i l

wasn't around 10 years ago, and it was a whole different

industry. And the same thing, if you took a social media manager

today and put them up against someone from 10 years ago, a

whole different industry, did you all by chance see the memo

that Instagram's CEO wrote at the end of 2025 it was

fascinating. He talked about how the feed is really dead on

social media anymore, and how the most activity they see is

really behind the scenes in direct messages and chats. And

so you also see an uptick in schools wanting to talk about

group chat drama or reputation damaging messages that you send

behind the scenes. And and so I feel like Long gone are the days

where you're talking to students about posting something publicly

embarrassing. It's much more of that back channel activity that

is happening now because of what has happened to the feed over

the last 10 years, with algorithms and more. And so I

thought that was a really interesting trend, you know,

just within the last month or two that they're really re

orchestrating how Instagram operates based on that user

behavior.

So what do you think that is going to mean? And

I think I'm getting too detailed here, but for privacy, just in

general, instead of it being out in public, I equate it to All

right, so we're going to have all the kids over, and we're

going to put them down in the bay. In the basement, and

they're gonna be doing stuff down in the basement that I

don't know, but that's okay, because they're here. How do you

think that DM readjustment is going to impact the

conversation?

I feel like some of these skills that we've been

talking to students about in some ways they're ever evolving,

and in some ways they are timeless. You know, teaching

students about privacy will always be important, but now

really drilling down into Hey, if you're messaging with

someone, you can't just screenshot that and send it

along to another friend and like, here's the psychology of

why you want to send it to that other friend, because you think

it might be playful or funny, but here's what that could

result in. And so I am fascinated teaching students

around the etiquette of living in a world where it's not just

public posts, but it is like what you might be messaging

people behind the scenes. I mean, Hiram, to your point, we

often talk to students about how, like, everything is

screenshottable and shareable, but you also need to have

people's backs and not be screenshotting something that is

between you and other people, so it feels like the skills are.

Still needed. It's just how we go about them to make sure it's

relevant to students is going to be really important, especially

around privacy,

because it's interesting is that the DM is

being one to one is very different than a conversation

when the comments are within a thread on that post and some of

the most profound conversations, some of the most caustic

conversations are found in those threads, but when they're behind

a wall, you don't get the benefit of being able to monitor

it and make sure that children are safe, yeah.

Which leads to another interesting question of

just like the world of monitoring and the importance of

that, though I'm a big believer of like Hudson and talking with

the students about these skills proactively, because, yeah, the

more they back channel those everyday tools of like go

guardian and how do they like they're not going to be able to

police and monitor devices, School devices, or, of course,

family or personal devices in the ways that students are using

them.

Yeah, they're back in the basement. That's all

right.

So if we could take a step back and let's

talk about what the social Institute does for the folks who

aren't necessarily familiar with it, I'd love to just kind of

hear a little bit about the work that you're doing. Why Do

schools call you? What is your involvement? And obviously where

we started was kind of where it was when you founded the

organization. But I would imagine that that has continued

to evolve over time. So what are some of the high level things

that the social Institute exists to do?

Yeah, well, when I started thinking about

founding an organization, I mean, the first question, right?

You think about, what are we going to call it? And I remember

a brainstorm with my family about, like, well, what if it's

the Social Media Institute? And the big insight was like, Let's

chop off the second word media and really think about it as

social skills in an evolving world of technology. And so, you

know, YouTube might not be around 15 years from now, 20

years from now, you know, back when I founded it, but the

concept of wanting to be social will, and it'll be some

different technology that we're going to be using to connect.

And so that was the concept is like staying at the cutting edge

of technology, but anchoring it in the social skills that

students need, and we blended a little bit of ESPN DNA in it

because we thought it'd be so cool, like, you know, the way

you stay up to date in sports. How could you stay up to date in

the world of technology? And so we've morphed a lot over the

years. We've always partnered with K 12 schools. We've

certainly grown. We started with independent schools, and now

we're serving larger and larger districts as well. A really

think of it as a trifecta. The Insight is, you know, rather

than buying maybe multiple vendors or speakers that don't

come from the same heartbeat, how could you have an all in one

solution for students, where students where students could

have these like interactive huddles. Families could huddle

with their children at home about what they're learning at

school. As a parent, that always resonates with me having two

little ones, and then, of course, the educators are

learning alongside the students. And I thought that Trifecta was

so beautiful, and we didn't have it built out 10 years ago, but

you know, year by year, we've built out the platform to

support those three groups, and it's just been such an amazing

ride. The biggest evolution, I'd say, though, is no longer really

focusing solely on social media, but really evolving with the

times, and so we focus even more on AI now, of course, and like

group chats and messages that happen directly misinformation

beyond, of course, the what do you post on social media? So the

content has evolved as much as the technology, which has been

exciting.

I want to ask about the etiquette of you

had mentioned, like, sort of the etiquette of social media, and

that's interesting, because it almost shifts the conversation,

like you said, from being aware of your public persona or your

digital twin into, well, this is a social space, and just like we

have to teach kids whose frontal lobes are not fully formed to

behave in the lunch room or in the dining hall. We also have to

model and train their etiquette in an online capacity too. So do

you use that concept of training etiquette quite a bit, and it

all ages too. Yeah.

And Christina, I love how you just described it,

too. It makes me think back to this has come so naturally, I

guess, over the years. So gosh, it's one of the first times I'm

really reflecting on it. But I remember when I was a student

athlete at Duke, and I credit our development coach, Leslie

Barnes, but she wouldn't really approach it as like, well, build

your personal brand, and it wasn't this kind of external

thing you should. It off to the world. It was more of like, Hey,

what are your values and what do you stand for and make sure your

actions reflect your values. And it wasn't about like putting on

a show and thinking about crafting your brand in this way.

It really was about like just playing to who you are. It just

feels like such a authentic, student friendly way to go about

it. I'll never forget when I was talking to a student once they

mentioned, you know, why do adults stick the word digital in

front of everything you know, digital footprint, digital

citizenship, like digital this? And you started to hear in a big

insight, which is like, wow, adults might be talking in ways

that students do not see the world that way, and so I think

that was as much inspiration for how we built this. How Could it

really be student centered, rather than using the jargon or

the personal brand more like, how could you just simplify how

you talk to students about this, but really, like you said,

Christina like anchored in that social skills piece. One of the

most interesting things though, about building a startup, it's

like, always get knocked down seven times get up eight like

we've learned so many things over the years about how schools

operate, where this education can fit into schools. One of the

biggest insights for independent schools was the aha moment we

had two years ago when an independent school leader said,

You know what? I think we're gonna move this education

around, social media and AI and more out of advisory and let's

put it where students show up expecting to learn, and that was

a breakthrough moment for us. And now the majority of our

partners now run this education in areas like social studies,

which is the word shows up again, like being social, right?

And English, you're using social skills when you communicate. So

it is fascinating to see. I mean, as much as technology is

evolving, how schools think about operating with this,

education is evolving as well.

I'm really glad you mentioned the word evolving,

because it speaks volumes of how TSI has actually been so dynamic

over the years. I mean, your content is so fresh, it's so

topical. And I just want to mention, perhaps you could go

into further detail on this, the benefit of the parent slash

family Toolkit, which our lower school families absolutely love.

They think that's one of the best resources out there.

Wow, thanks for sharing that. The toolkit I have

to credit an independent school queen in my world. I remember

Hudson with Doreen Kelly, former head of school at Ravenscroft,

and obviously Derek is leading Ravenscroft now and doing

amazing things there. But when Doreen was there, I remember her

telling me she's like, think of it like a three legged table,

and if one of the legs isn't there, the table's not going to

stand as firmly. And one of those legs, Laura, are families,

and you got to reach the families. And so we were talking

about, how do you architect you know, what would families want

to know about? And we talked about keeping them up to date on

the latest apps that students might be using, and not just

giving them a breakdown that they could find on Common Sense

Media. But how do you snicker test it with students and really

make sure this is how students are using these apps? So that

was important. And then we thought, How neat would it be

where, let's say, a student huddles about group chat drama

during their social studies class. Could they go home and

huddle with their parents and like, kind of coach up and coach

their families on what they learned? And the Insight was,

you know, there's no better way to learn something than to have

to coach it to others. And so this is, I feel like, one of the

rare topics where we are a bit behind the game compared to the

kids. And so it was, it was a really beautiful model behind

that tool kit. And we have big ideas for it moving forward. Of

like, you know, just how do you make notifications for families,

kind of like class, Dojo style of like, here's what your child

learned today. Huddle with them about it at home. So there's a

lot of exciting things

coming too. So the social Institute just

released some new data you have been in particular, looking at

how they are navigating. AI, can you tell us a little bit about

that and what you learned as you undertook that research project.

I love talking about the data because I love

championing student voice and what students are learning. So

the data was from our polling from 53,000 students across

third through 12th grade and the. Questions we asked them

about really like you said, it ranged from AI to screen time to

popular app use on social media and more. The AI findings were

very interesting. One of the data points that really I

focused on was how only 10% of students report that their

schools have clear guidelines, or they feel like they are clear

guidelines. That was eye opening. Because even if, of

course, if US adults think they're clear, how do the

students feel about that? And so it feels like that is a

question, gosh, if we could be asking our students on a

quarterly basis, you know, what do you think about this now that

we've updated the AI policy? But that one was really interesting.

So in other words, like some of these

schools may have policies, but the kids don't understand them.

Is that what you mean? Yes. So they're just not clear on those

guidelines, not clear.

And we've heard from a wide range of schools.

You know, I was working with a school the other week where they

have not put anything in writing yet, because they're worried

about, when we do put something in writing, what are the

families going to think? And so they're going very slowly, and

you're trying to help them think through how they could shape

something sooner, to help provide clarity. I'm sure y'all

are familiar with Brene Brown's phrase, but like, clear is kind

and I think with AI right now, there's a lot of ambiguity

around it, which is an exciting opportunity for school leaders.

It's really interesting, right guys.

Because, like, I think a lot of schools say, Well, we have a

policy, so check we're good. But what Laura is saying is that

this data is showing that the kids are not clear. You may have

a policy, you might have words on paper, but they're still not

really sure what the swim lanes are. That's interesting.

We have a committee that we've been exploring this

for a while. I think some of the things that we suffer from is,

have we worked on and tried to develop a policy? Yes. How easy

is it to navigate, and who is it directed for, in terms of who's

the audience? Is it for teachers so that they understand how to

use it, or is it for students and how they understand to use

it? So there's definitely that piece of it. One of the things

that we simply struggle with is, where do you find it? How have

you gotten it out? Like, what type of professional development

work have you done around it so that people understand what it

means, and where do they go when they have questions? Because I

think one of the things that everyone can relate to is that

time is a hot commodity in schools, and to find the time to

invest to do that is something that's often very difficult. But

I think one of the other things, and you've kind of alluded to

this in terms of how slowly people are moving with a lot of

this is because the footing. It reminds me of the old.com

bubble, where every day there's a different tool coming out

that's like, hey, use this AI tool with your students, or use

this AI thing in this way, in that way. And I don't think

anyone really feels like they're standing firmly on any footing

to put anything out in a definitive sense. And there is a

hesitation. If it can't be complete, if it can't answer

every question, we're just not going to do it at all. And I

don't think that's where we can be right now.

Yeah, yeah. Great points that committee you

mentioned, how often will they huddle about ongoing

developments or feedback?

Probably not enough, exactly, but I'd

probably say, like, at least every other month we're getting

together. That's great. There's a good back and forth with

email. And then there's everything that goes on in

between that you know in terms of how those different things

are playing out. So for myself and for our director of Ed Tech,

we might be reaching out to different people. We're trying

to bring things back to that group. So it's almost as much of

what are we doing inside of school, but also, how are we

looking at what others are doing, and how are we leveraging

that? Because to reinvent the wheel with this is a complete

waste of time, beg, borrow and steal from as many people as you

can to get this out in front of people in ways in which they

could actually find something useful from the information.

And Laura, I think one of the interesting

challenges that independent schools face, it's reminiscent

of covid when everybody was giving stuff out for free, and

all of these schools were struggling with policies about

vetting applications. Now, the latest conversation that at

least that Bill and I have had, along with a couple of other

tech directors is, how do we handle all the extensions and

all of these ancillary tools that now have incorporated AI

into them. It's no longer just the application. Now it's the

application of AI within this application. So it's a little

bit overwhelming, considering that most independent schools

don't have a cyber arm.

Yeah. I mean, even in the last few, gosh, the

last few days with i. Apple launching what they're going to

be doing with Gemini. And then you have, like, Microsoft co

pilot, just within the last 30 days, like the updates about AI

in tools that we use on a day to day basis.

Well, the chat GPT announcement for schools, chat

GPT for teachers. Yes. I mean, nobody was ready for people were

trying to figure things out, and what we noticed almost

immediately, there was no terms of service for students.

Even with that, Hiram, it's free for now, but

we're probably going to end up charging you for it in two

years.

Here's your gateway drug, exactly. Yeah.

So to go back to some of the other

findings in this research that you've done, you mentioned is

part of your preamble that you had a cell phone at a relatively

young age, so you're, of course, tracking that is that averaging

younger over time. Have you found Yes?

In previous studies, we found that it years

ago, was hovering more around 12 or 13. Our latest report showed

that nearly half of students are getting a smartphone by age 11.

And when you think about a smartphone and education around

social media, a parent might you know, well, I don't allow them

on apps yet, but it's like they're building all of those

fundamental habits around screen time. And was interesting was

FaceTime and calling and messaging are right up at the

top for students, YouTube, though, definitely takes the

lead this year again as the most commonly used app across all

divisions. So lower middle and high are all using YouTube most

commonly on a weekly basis. And then, when we ask students,

though, well, when you think about use of different apps,

what are the biggest challenges that you experience? And just

about half of height of Upper School students, 51% and 35% of

middle schoolers just talk about time spent on technology. So

screen time, I think, continues to be the leading question mark

for families of how do we deal with this? But the interesting

thing is that students definitely see it themselves as

a top challenge. So I think the more that we help families

during the school day, we help think about really intentional

screen time use. Not just banning screen time, but having

it be intentional is so important.

So Laura, looking towards, I say, the future, but

I know it's got to be 612, months. We're not talking years.

When Google Glasses first came out, that was pretty remarkable,

but now with the Met a glasses that are out there. How are you

all as an organization, taking that an augmented reality and VR

and all that kind of stuff into play?

There was a report I came across recently

that really caught my attention, and it was about the evolution

of collaborative AI, and I am very excited to see how

technology gets more collaborative. Because I think

you know your quintessential image is of a classroom, and

students are looking at a screen, and when you think of it

that way, you know it's like, well, this isn't great. Like

schools are the most social setting possible for a child to

be in. So when they're looking straight at a screen, how are

they building their social skills and collaboration skills,

communication skills that way, in addition, of course, to what

they're learning. So I'm very excited about how we will see

technology be even more collaborative. That's been a

driving inspiration for our work at the social Institute. You

know, we don't want kids looking at their screens during a huddle

80% of the time. We want their eyes up and we want to be

thinking what we could do to minimize screen time. I always

joke, I think like we're the only tech company that I know

where we're trying to limit screen time as an ed tech

company, but I think we need more of that, and it's very

intentional screen time use, and So gone are the days where

students are just looking at a screen for that. I'm just call

it like siloed, isolated, one to one experience. But how can you

connect a classroom more collaboratively and limit screen

time while using it for good.

So one of the quick questions I have based on some

of the data that we were looking at based on the report, was

where you had said, and this makes me chuckle, only because I

can't get the people that I work with to pick up a phone to make

a call. You had said that 69% of high school students report

making weekly phone calls matching their text usage. Is it

the pick up the phone and literally call the name, or are

you including things like video chatting, what counts as a phone

call now, as compared to what I'm used to, which is picking up

the rotary phone and making it spin around the dial the entire

time? Yeah.

In that survey, we did ask them about the

calling app and how often are they using that? That does

count, though, for, of course, receiving calls too. So I don't

want to fully put it on the students that it's just outbound

calls that they are making, but they're also picking up the

phone in that way. But we are seeing an uptick also in just

like voice messages as well, and from adults too, not just older

students, but we're seeing that habit face time is continues to

be the leader for the middle school students and elementary

students compared to the high school students. But yeah, that

stat was interesting, nearly seven out of 10.

It's not very interesting if you've got

20 somethings in your house, because they call me non stop.

And I'm not kidding you, all four of them do it, and I'm a

solid Gen Xer where I'm like, can you just text me? I am in

the middle of something. Stop calling me. They call me all the

time.

I would be grateful for that, because you

know what, I call my kids, they don't pick up. I text my kids.

They're not texting either.

Okay, I don't know. Maybe it's just me.

They call when they're walking between classes at college. They

call to tell me about their day. They miss you, they miss mom.

They call to ask if they can microwave frozen chicken. I

don't know what to tell you,

Bill, I know what we've got to start doing to

Christina, calling her more. Just start calling

her more. Yeah, I can do that. I know how

to block numbers y'all, yeah. But it is interesting, because I

think there's also this little dynamic, and maybe this is not

widespread yet, but you do see that there are, at least in

college circles, which is where I have more experience at the

moment, they're doing no phone nights. They're putting their

phones away to go to the bar. There's actually classes, no

phone classes, where they're just meant to engage with each

other. And it's the kids driving this, the young people driving

this. It's not the professor saying I banish it's that the

kids who are actually engaged, they just want to put it away.

They want to break it's really interesting. I think that there

is a little pendulum swing happening in some pockets.

That happened actually a few years back. I

know my son's friends, when they would go to restaurants, they'd

stack their phones in the center of the table, and whoever picked

up their phone first paid for a larger percentage of the bill.

Does the data support that? Obviously, we

all have older kids, Laura, so we're coming from a certain

vantage point, but does the data show that kids are trying to

dial it back? Well, the biggest connection

that I've seen in the data is that's the biggest challenge

that they report having is just screen time and amount of time

spent wanting to look at our devices. So I think there's an

interesting connection to that. If, like, the majority of

students are seeing that challenge, definitely no

surprise that you're seeing an uptick in I know we joke about,

like, you know, burner phones helping you kind of get around

phone bands, but I just got a flip phone a few months ago, and

I sleep next to that, and I keep my iPhone downstairs in the

kitchen to, you know, practice what you preach, and I've gotten

a whole lot better sleep since doing that. Have you all used

the brick?

Yeah, what's that?

I haven't used it, but I've definitely

heard about it, and some people are all about it you lock up

your phone,

yeah, so it's like a device that you could

leave on your bedside table or somewhere else. The problem

statement is that people need their phones as like an alarm

clock or in an emergency, you got to call someone at night or

someplace else. So they don't want to get rid of it, but they

don't like that. All the apps are there in front of them. And

so what the brick does is, the moment you put your phone up to

this little two by two square of a device, it disables all your

apps. And so that way you could sleep with your phone next to

you, or be with your phone somewhere else, but it disables

all your apps so you can't use it. So it reminds me of the

article that was all over the New York Times this week, Angela

Duckworth saying, you know, it's not really a matter of

willpower. It's just a matter of putting yourself in situations

that don't require a lot of willpower because of how you set

up that situation, right? And I think about that, it's like, why

tempt yourself if you don't have to?

It's also interesting that the data that

you have show that kids are going to YouTube. We've been

hearing and understanding that for some time, but you would

think that the immediate gratification and the dopamine

hit of reels and Tiktok that that's where the usage would be

going, but you're still seeing such large numbers on YouTube.

I know it's like you could still pack as much

video as you want into these other apps, but the user

interface, the recommendations, the algorithm on YouTube, just

like the amount of content that you could get there, is just so

good that is the. Number one setting, though I recommend to

parents in our sessions, I was like, this is a given. You got

to disable auto play. You know, I don't care if your child is

two years old or 20 years old. It's one of the best things that

a family could do. Is when you get Hulu, prime Netflix,

YouTube, disable auto play the moment you log in. So that would

be my tip to anyone listening,

so you can make that conscious decision

about actually opting for what's next. So I'm sure that a lot of

schools are calling you now about AI. You know not that

social media is no longer an issue. It still is, of course,

but AI is a different type of social media, and there's some

obviously very concerning aspects of AI in bots that are

coming down at the kids really fast. So let's set aside just

the whole future of education and the future of the workplace

component from the social lens. Talk to us a little bit about

how you are thinking about AI, and what are schools and parents

coming to you concerned about?

We're certainly hearing a lot that schools are

very worried about over reliance on AI in class outside of class,

and so we're certainly hearing schools move away from having,

you know, one to one devices or tech time, and instead they're

really challenging, like writing skills more by having just old

school pen and paper and kind of writing out what you're

thinking. We heard that a lot at the beginning of the school year

to get a sense of students writing abilities, not as much

halfway through the school year, but I thought that was really

interesting. And then I'm hearing more from independent

school leaders really thinking about, like, Okay, we feel like

the phase has hit about how negative this could be. What

skills do we really want our kids graduating with here. You

know, how good are they at prompt engineering? How good are

they at Context engineering? And some people are like, What even

is context engineering and like just the ability to build the

ecosystem of your AI to give you what you want. It's more than

just a prompt. It's like thinking about how you organize

all of your prompts on the left hand side and how you access

those prompts quickly, so the overall machine that you create

to help you be efficient about what you want to do, I'm very

excited about that. I think I'm hopeful that we'll get over this

hump about being overwhelmed by all the updates and how scary it

could be, and there will always be those pitfalls that we got to

teach our students to avoid. But it is energizing to just pause

and think, what are the top 10 skills that a graduate student

at our school can leave with by the time they move on. I'm

excited to hear what schools come up with. What is your

current opinion then on agentic AI, as it

becomes more prevalent in the business world and also starts

to trickle down into higher ed and even perhaps for our own

kids that are starting to develop their own chat bots,

I think Hiram what she was just saying

about how you disable The Auto Play on YouTube, there's a

certain auto play that's happening with agentic AI,

right? Because it is now, whether it's actually taking

those steps for you or prompting you of what you should be doing

next, there is a certain auto play component. So I think

that's a good question, because obviously it's moving down that

path of how much of the thinking do we take out of it? Yeah, with

the

AI that our company uses, you know, one of

the first steps that we had people do is, of course, like,

update the setting of like, does this feed the larger model? We

had everyone do it. We were all in a session together. And when

it comes to concerns, your questions, certainly teaching

students where's the line when it comes to sensitive

information and what's confidential and you know what

you share, teaching students, when are those moments where

doing something on your own might build a really helpful

skill. Teaching them knowing when to go to a person when you

need help with something is, I think, one of the top skills we

could teach students right now. I mean, the research shows that

most people are using AI for therapy or advice, and how

that's trickling down to students is a bit scary if they

don't know the line of when to talk to an adult because you're

dealing with some heavy stuff versus, you know, what can you

ask an AI about? And so we're actually working on a lesson

right now about it, because you don't want to say, hey, avoid AI

altogether, but you also don't want to encourage it if they're

dealing with some really intense things. I think that's.

Definitely a skill that every school, I think, should be

talking to their students about.

Are there things that you're seeing right

now in the realm of independent schools specifically that we

should be thinking about? So that's one really great example.

But are there other things that are on your mind that not all

schools are tracking right now? What are you seeing in terms of

what's on the horizon that we need to pay attention to.

I think one of the biggest trends is certainly,

I feel like you can't go a week without hearing about some other

state requiring phone bans or device bans, and parents are

forming groups, you know, to help schools think about banning

phones, and the wait till eighth movement is on the rise, and

let's invest in yonder pouches. Meanwhile, the students are on

Reddit trying to think about work arounds to circumvent this.

I am excited for schools to continue to think about

intentional tech. Time technology, it's so essential,

you know, to the real world, you can't go like, an hour or two

without interacting with it in an internship or a career that

doesn't apply to every job out there, but it is important. So I

think making sure that we are very intentional about the ways

we help students master technology will be huge, and I'm

excited to continue to learn from the amazing independent

schools out there that are thinking about that instead of

just like, well, let's just ban it and do away with it and make

the parents happy. But like, what's the service that we're

doing our kids? So I feel like the role of a technology

director is so central. It's like the quarterback of our

time. Because it's so easy to just say, let's get rid of these

devices, but they are central to the lives that these kids are

going to be living years from now. Did you guys

hear that you're the quarterback? Which

quarterback Are you? I know what Bill will say,

because I'm old and probably out of date. I'm going

Ron Jaworski. I'm going way back in Eagle's lore, back in the

day. I'm going back to jaws. Oh.

Ron Jaworski, nice, wow. I'm just gonna be

because I have to be nimble, and he shows it time and time again.

I'm going to be Caleb calele Williams,

all right. Well, there you go. We'll see,

look at that full circle.

So one of the questions that I have with all

the work that you're doing with the teachers, with the schools,

with the parents, all that stuff, I'm going to go back to

the beginning, where I said I was involved with the ED social

media piece, and where we focused. Are you doing any work?

Because I think about like, across the hall from me is my

communications office. Across the hall and around the corner

is my main admissions office. You know, I go downstairs, I've

got my Development and Alumni Office. Is the work that you're

doing there purely focused on conversations with the teachers,

the students and the parents, or is it broadening out, at least

in the Independent School world, into those other operational

areas about how they're thinking about the uses of all of the

things that we've been talking about within the context of what

we do as a school?

Yeah, we've started this in the last year or

so. Next week, I'm going to an independent school down in

Georgia, and they're bringing their AI committee together,

which includes communications, which includes student leaders,

and we're facilitating a discussion about how they're

ever evolving their policies as they reflect on the first half

of the year. So I think this time of year is a wonderful time

to do that, and you don't need an outside partner to do that. I

think technology leaders could be really helping facilitate

that conversation and just really think of it as always

plus saying, you know, always plusing. How could we make this

better? Like you said, it's a team effort communicating AI, as

much as building the policy.

Yeah, it's one of those things whenever we talk

about this like the conversations that we're in,

often it will be talking about faculty and like, it'll be

faculty, and we need to talk about this from like our

employees, because so much of the policy, the frameworks, a

lot of the things, rightly so we're directed at the students,

because that is first and foremost, our biggest area of

concern. But I think, you know, we need just to be mindful that

people are asking these questions in all areas of what

we do. I'm glad to hear that you're taking that step and

helping schools figure that out, because, believe me, we all need

it.

Laura, you know, before we wind this down

and let you go back to your day, I'm really interested to know

you mentioned that you have, obviously, the student athlete

background. So I'd like you to just tell us a little bit about

your perception of kids being involved in sports, being a part

of a team, or whether it's any organized activity. But is that

an antidote to some of this technology stuff? I mean, I

would imagine that you have found an interesting combination

of your world, a collision, perhaps, of your. Worlds of

talking about technology and regulation, and at the same time

you were an athlete, and so tell me a little bit

about that. Yeah. I mean, I like to think that my

interviews with the local media when I played high school gave

me the skills to do what I'm doing right now, and being able

to speak with y'all comfortably and confidently. And I'm so

grateful that my family did keep me in sports at a time when I

could have been playing on my n 64 with my younger brother. So

absolutely, I think there's no doubt, and the research shows

from Ernst and Young I feel like they've come out with so much

research over the years that we published at ESPN that sports

build these timeless social skills in life that allow you to

do some of the great things I've been able to do in my career.

But I also think I couldn't have done what I've done either

without technology. So I think it's a both and not an either or

very grateful for the time on the field.

I love it. Bill.

She dated us n 64 as her gaming console.

Yeah, not the Atari. Hiram

Atari, 2600 Hong, the trash 80

some good Mario Kart. Anyone. There you go. Love

it.

Well, guys, we started with sports. We are

ending with sports. Laura, I want to thank you for joining us

today. This has been such a really great conversation. I'm

so glad to get caught up on the social Institute. It's been a

while, and I'm not surprised to see that you're still doing

incredible work. We will drop all sorts of links in the show

notes so folks can connect with you. But I want to thank you for

your time and thanks for joining us. Thanks for having me.

This has been talking technology with ATLIS,

produced by the Association of technology leaders in

independent schools. For more information about Atlas and

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