Savannah Guthrie and Hoda Kotb tease ‘special event’ on 'Today' as they discuss tackling 'severe' issue
NEW YORK CITY, NEW YORK: ‘Today’ hosts Savannah Guthrie and Hoda Kotb have recently teased a 'special event' scheduled to happen in the ‘Today’ studio next month.
The event will be dedicated to addressing various challenges that parents and their children encounter.
On Tuesday, September 26 ‘Today’ broadcast, the hosts shared a report by Senior National Correspondent, Kate Snow, who presented the results of a study conducted by Common Sense Media concerning children's interactions with their smartphones.
In her video report, Snow elaborated on the study's findings, which involved tracking the phone usage of 200 children aged 11 to 17.
The research unveiled some striking statistics, with 97% of children using their phones during school hours and 60% utilizing them between midnight and 5 am on school nights.
Additionally, it was disclosed that over 50% of these youngsters receive a staggering 237 or more notifications daily.
What is ‘Today’ special event about?
On Tuesday’s ‘Today’ broadcast, Hoda Kotb and Savannah Guthrie divulged an “eye-opening look at the hold smartphones have on kids.”
The morning show ladies welcomed NBC’s Kate Snow who shared her findings with the viewers and the hosts.
While discussing the issue, Guthrie and Kotb candidly expressed their concerns.
Guthrie said while talking about her six-year-old son, Charley, who’s begging to have a phone, “There's so much pressure… but once you give them the phone it's like it's over, you lost them."
Kotb chimed in adding, “Their brains are developing until they're in their 20s, so we're talking about a study on a child's brain because we don't know!"
Further adding, "It's almost like these are all experiments walking around staring at phones and many years later we're going to say, 'oh my gosh what happened to these kids?'"
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Toward the end of the segment, Guthrie expressed her concerns about the future.
Guthrie said, “It's pretty dramatic to say this but I have this feeling that in ten, 15 years, the science is going to show us that handing [kids] phones when they were ten, 11, 12, in their teenage years without access is like giving them a packet of cigarettes."
She said, "That it's as severe as that and as consequential as that."
She went on to offer a preview of the show's upcoming "special event," set to take place in October.
Guthrie said, "We're very, very focused on this issue. It's a topic we're going to keep focusing on, including next month when we're going to have a special event right in the studio."
"We're going to tackle all these issues facing parents and kids. Try to get us together to do our part, do the best we can,” she announced.
Savannah Guthrie opens up about setting boundaries
Meanwhile, Guthrie who shares two children, Charley and Vale, with her husband, Michael Feldman, once talked about her parenting style and the importance of setting boundaries on the 'Today' show.
She told ‘Today’ in April, “I've never subscribed to that old-fashioned notion of 'Wait until your father gets home.’”
Guthrie continued adding, “You're not parenting if your kid hasn't called you mean – that's how you know you're doing it right.”
"I don't like hearing it, but you have to have boundaries, you have to have those limits, and your kids won't like them. So sometimes you have to let them think that you're mean,” Guthrie concluded.