Welcome to Now I Get It with Dr. Andy. In this episode, I sit down with Angela MacEwen, a lifelong child development expert and former site supervisor at Friends of St. Francis — a distinguished San Francisco preschool specializing in the care of traumatized children. Angela made headlines during the COVID-19 pandemic when her plan for safely reopening childcare for essential workers became the citywide model. Today, she's bringing an even more urgent message: after decades of working with young children, she has never seen anything like what's happening right now. For the first time in her career, not a single one of the 38 children at her school can summarize a story that has just been read to them. Not one.
Angela and I explore what twenty years of unchecked screen exposure has done to children's developing brains — from the erosion of the critical cognitive \"pause,\" to the collapse of both auditory and visual processing, to kids who can decode words on a page but have no idea what those words mean. We also discuss why this generation's problems are showing up even in children born after the pandemic, what the looming rise of AI means for kids who are already struggling, and the surprising solution some schools are already using to fight back. If you are a parent, educator, or anyone who cares about the next generation, this conversation is one you simply cannot afford to miss.
In this episode, you will learn:
(01:53) Why screens can't replace real-world sensory input for developing brains
(03:35) How the disappearance of the cognitive \"pause\" set the stage for today's focus crisis
(08:03) The \"Goldilocks test\" — and why zero out of 38 preschoolers could pass it
(12:34) Why both auditory and visual processing are now being affected
(13:08) What toddlers mimicking phone behavior tells us about screen culture
(16:55) Why kids are learning to read words without understanding them
(18:51) What embodied intelligence is and why screens can't replicate it
(22:08) Why the solution isn't eliminating technology — it's protecting kids until their brains are ready
Let’s connect!
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