# Creative screen use is acceptable until it disrupts sleep

Markdown copy of https://realalpha.app/s/creative-screen-use-is-acceptable-until-it-disrupts-sleep/ on Real Alpha, the best minutes from long interviews with the people building AI. Cite and link the page, not this copy.

- Speaker: [Mark Zuckerberg](https://realalpha.app/builders/mark-zuckerberg/) · Mark Zuckerberg is chief executive of Meta Platforms Inc. · Launched Facebook at Harvard with his roommates in 2004, and co-founded the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative.
- Host: [Joe Rogan](https://realalpha.app/people/joe-rogan/) · Host, The Joe Rogan Experience
- Show: The Joe Rogan Experience
- Episode: [Joe Rogan Experience #2255 - Mark Zuckerberg](https://realalpha.app/v/7k1ehaE0bdU/), Jan 10, 2025
- Moment: 1:46:15 to 1:50:40 of the episode (4 min), playing on https://realalpha.app/s/creative-screen-use-is-acceptable-until-it-disrupts-sleep/; the episode from there: https://realalpha.app/v/7k1ehaE0bdU/?t=6375

## Quote

> “if she's doing **something that's creative**, that's maybe like a richer form of what she would have been doing physically.”
> — [Mark Zuckerberg](https://realalpha.app/builders/mark-zuckerberg/) at [1:47:19](https://realalpha.app/v/7k1ehaE0bdU/?t=6439) · The Joe Rogan Experience

## Takeaways

1. He treats building in Minecraft differently from passive screen use.
2. Waking early to use a tablet is a sign of too much screen time.
3. Meta’s teen controls give parents a say in account settings.

## About this segment

Mark Zuckerberg gives his children more room for creative screen activities, but steps in when they interfere with sleep. He also describes teen-account controls designed to give parents authority.

From “Joe Rogan Experience #2255 - Mark Zuckerberg”, Jan 10, 2025. [Watch the full episode](https://realalpha.app/v/7k1ehaE0bdU/)

## Transcript

Transcribed by machine (Whisper) from the episode’s audio, so a word may be off here and there.

[1:46:19](https://realalpha.app/v/7k1ehaE0bdU/?t=6379) So you're not interested in that? Or you're not involved in that, rather? Of course you're interested. I mean interested. I mean involved in that currently with them. I think that it's about to start getting a lot more complicated. I think, you know, the nine and seven year old. But I mean, just kind of deciding what technology they're going to use and what's good and what's not and all the dynamics around that.

[1:46:40](https://realalpha.app/v/7k1ehaE0bdU/?t=6400) it's um it's uh it's really complicated and look i mean i think every family has their own values and how they want to approach this right so from my perspective you know our we have one of my daughters just like loves building stuff so she clearly like takes after me in this way it's like every day she's just like creating some random thing it's like she's creating stuff with legos And, you know, it's like one day it's that or, you know, the next day it's Minecraft.

[1:47:10](https://realalpha.app/v/7k1ehaE0bdU/?t=6430) And from my perspective, it's like, OK, I don't know, Minecraft is actually kind of a cooler tool to build stuff than than Lego is a lot of the way. So it's, you know, it's am I going to say that there's going to there needs to be some kind of limit on on her screen time if she's doing something that's creative, that's maybe like a richer form of what she would have been doing physically. Right. In that case, probably not.

[1:47:31](https://realalpha.app/v/7k1ehaE0bdU/?t=6451) Now, there were times when she'd get so excited about what she was building in Minecraft or something that she was coding in Scratch that she'd wake up early to kind of get her tablet. And that was bad, right? Because then it's, like, starting to get in the way of her sleep. And I'm like, you know, August, you can't do that, right? It's like we're going to take your iPad away if you're doing that.

[1:47:53](https://realalpha.app/v/7k1ehaE0bdU/?t=6473) You little psycho. What are you doing? Getting up early? No, it's like August. I did that too. When I was a kid, but trust me, you're going to want to sleep. It's not going to lead to success, meanwhile, you're on a fucking island. One of the richest people in the world, you're like, what the fuck, dad? Didn't it work for you? Leave me alone on my iPad, trying to figure out how to build a mansion in Minecraft.

[1:48:20](https://realalpha.app/v/7k1ehaE0bdU/?t=6500) It's either going to work or it's going to end badly. But I feel like building stuff, i feel generally pretty good about i think communication i generally feel pretty good about the kids using i mean they use it to talk to their grandparents right our parents and cousins you know it's like that type of stuff is good the messenger kids the thing that we built it's basically like a messaging service that the parents can choose who can contact the kids and like just approve every contact that's much better than just having like an open texting service um but i don't know but there's a lot of stuff that's like pretty sketchy and i kind of think like different parents are going to have different lines on what they want their kids to be able to do and not um you know so some people might not even want their kids to be able to message even

[1:49:03](https://realalpha.app/v/7k1ehaE0bdU/?t=6543) with friends when they're nine and seven some people might say hey no minecraft that's just a game i don't think about that as building i think that is a game i want to limit the time that you're doing that i want you to go read books instead or whatever whatever the the values are that that family has so for meta what we've kind of come to is we want to be the most aligned with parents on giving parents the tools that they need to basically control how the experiences work for their kids now we don't even really except for like stuff like messenger kids we don't even have our services our apps generally available to people under the age of 13 at all so i mean our kids i haven't had to like have the conversation about when when they get instagram or facebook or any of that stuff but um but when they turn 13 we basically want parents to be able to have

[1:49:52](https://realalpha.app/v/7k1ehaE0bdU/?t=6592) complete control over the kids experience and that's you know we just rolled out this instagram teens thing which is it's a set of of controls where you know it's if you're an older teen we'll just default you into the private experience that way you're not getting like harassed or bombarded with stuff and um but if you're a younger teen then you have to get your parents permission and they actually have to like sign in and do all the stuff in order to make it so that you can connect with people who are beyond your network or if you want to kind of be a public figure, like all these different kinds of things. So I think that that's probably from a values perspective where we should be is just trying to like be an ally of parents. But it is complicated stuff. I mean, it's every family wants to do it differently. It is complicated. And there's also