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Iraqi Army Launches Strike against Terrorist Group ISIS; Father Suspected of Intentionally Leaving Toddler Son in Car All Day to Die; Benghazi Terrorist Suspect Arrives in U.S.; President Urges Central American Parents to Not Send Children Alone to Immigrate to U.S.; Author Discusses Technology and Social Media Addiction; World Cup Continues in Brazil; CNN Hero Encourages Girls to Write Creatively

Aired June 28, 2014 - 10:00   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

CHRISTI PAUL, CNN ANCHOR: Breaking news in the case of the 22-month- old toddler who died after being left in that sweltering hot SUV. We're just learning this morning what his father has apparently admitted to police. And in just hours, that little boy is set to be buried.

VICTOR BLACKWELL, CNN ANCHOR: He's been on a slow boat to the US for two weeks. Now the alleged mastermind of of the Benghazi attack has arrived here in the US. He's now on US soil.

PAUL: And the terror group, ISIS, on a killing spree across Iraq, murdering soldiers, ransacking villages. Now the Iraqi government is turning to the US for help.

It is just about 10:00 o'clock on a Saturday morning. We're so grateful for your company. Thanks for being with us. I'm Christi Paul.

BLACKWELL: I'm Victor Blackwell. 7:00 out on the West Coast. You're in the CNN NEWSROOM.

We're beginning, this morning, with breaking news. We're learning new details surrounding the death of that Georgia toddler who died after being left in a hot SUV for seven hours.

PAUL: According to search warrants obtained by CNN, the boy's father told police that he recently did a web search for, quote, "child deaths inside vehicles," unquote. I want to get straight to CNN's Nick Valencia. He's in Tuscaloosa, Alabama, and that's where the child's funeral is being held today. Nick, I know you've had some time to go through these search warrants. What else do they say?

NICK VALENCIA, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Yes, three search warrants released in all. Good morning, Victor and Christi. One was for the search and seizure of his cellphone, the other for his house, and the last one for his car. And perhaps the most important detail in these search warrants is what you just mentioned, what I'm about to tell you here.

During an interview with Justin it says he stated that he recently researched through the Internet "child deaths inside vehicles" and what temperature it needs to be for that to occur. Justin stated that he was fearful that this could happen.

Now, we need to mention that we don't know the context in which this statement was given or if it was volunteered or revealed during interrogation. We should also note, Victor and Christi, that this week sources close to the investigation told HLN's Nancy Grace that on Justin Ross's computer was a search for animals and how long it takes for an animal to die in a hot car. We don't know who did that search either, but this police report goes a step further and says that Justin Ross Harris made a statement that he, himself, on the Internet researched child deaths in hot cars.

How he's being portrayed by law enforcement in Georgia is juxtaposed to what we're hearing here in his hometown of Tuscaloosa, Alabama. We've spoken at length about friends and family on and off camera, and they paint a much different picture of Justin Ross Harris. They call him a great father, a God-centered man, a man that would not be capable of something so horrific. That's not what police believe, and they clearly believe and have something that we don't know right now. They have not listed the motive in these search warrants, but they are charging him with murder and second-degree child cruelty. Victor, Christi?

BLACKWELL: Nick, the question some would have after hearing about this reported admission of this search is when, when, how long before the death of Cooper Harris did he say he searched for this, or did he say?

VALENCIA: He did not say. And, you know, it's not listed in this search warrant. There's so many questions that we still have. We thought we'd get the answers to those questions once the search warrants were released this morning. Still, those questions remain, Victor.

What is also noted in this search warrant, though, is timeline and where Justin Ross Harris was on his way to when he discovered that his 22 month old was in the back of that car. It says that he left the child at approximately 9:30 in the morning in the car only to discover his child about seven hours later at 4:20 in the afternoon as he was driving to meet with friends. That's when he made the discovery. He maintains that it was an accident, a fatal accident, but it wasn't murder. Police believe otherwise. Victor, Christi?

BLACKWELL: Nick Valencia there in Tuscaloosa, Alabama, Nick, thank you very much.

PAUL: And we are obviously not leaving this story with the developments this morning. And with the funeral that has yet to be held there in Tuscaloosa, so much more ahead, and we'll have that for you in just a few minutes with CNN legal analyst and criminal defense attorney Paul Callan.

This is, however, some other important news obviously that we want to get with you this morning about.

BLACKWELL: One of the big stories happening now, the suspected mastermind of the deadly 2012 attack on the American diplomatic mission in Benghazi is now on U.S. soil.

PAUL: Ahmed Abu Khattala arrived just about an hour ago in this caravan. You see it here at the federal courthouse in downtown Washington. He had spent most of the past two weeks being interrogated aboard the USS New York after American military commanders captured him in Libya.

BLACKWELL: Khattala has become the public face of the fiery attack that killed four Americans, including the U.S. ambassador to Libya, Chris Stevens.

PAUL: Justice Reporter Evan Perez is outside the U.S. district courthouse in Washington. Evan, what is next for Khattala?

EVAN PEREZ, CNN JUSTICE REPORTER: Victor, Christi, we expect that in the next few months we're going to have several hearings here at this courthouse in downtown Washington. We're just across from the U.S. capitol. This morning as Khattala was brought in, if he was sitting up he probably could have seen a view of the capital where his role in the Benghazi attacks would have, has been the center of a lot of controversy.

We expect that today, later today, there will be a court hearing where he'll be read the charges that he's facing. He was captured just over two weeks ago and has been held on a U.S. Navy ship, the USS New York, as they traveled across the Atlantic ocean, and then he was brought on to U.S. soil to bring, to face charges here today.

BLACKWELL: So give us an idea. We see the black SUVs. Give us an idea of security there now and for Khattala now and moving forward.

PEREZ: There was a very heavy police presence. There was police from not only from D.C. police, FBI, Homeland Security, U.S. marshals were here. There was a very police presence. There was a helicopter overhead as the convoy brought him in here. We are not sure exactly what we were seeing at first, but then were able to isolate the shots and we believe we have video of him as he was being brought inside the courthouse.

We know that this is going to be something that's going to attract a lot of attention, and, therefore, we know the -- FBI and the D.C. police are going to be giving a lot of protection here for the courthouse. We're right across from the U.S. capital, just down the street from the White House. So you know, this, in the middle of D.C. is going to be the scene of a lot of police presence in the next few months.

BLACKWELL: Absolutely. Evan Perez there, justice reporter, standing outside where we just saw Khattala be taken in. And, as you said, it could be his first appearance very soon. Evan, thank you very much.

Iraqi troops, tanks, fighter jets, they take on ISIS militants who want to turn Iraq into an Islamist state. The Iraqi military has launched a full scale offensive to flush ISIS out. But one fighter says this battle is far from over.

PAUL: An immigrant families saying stop separating us. They're making a stand and doing it across the country today.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BLACKWELL: New this morning, Iraqi troops and tanks and warplanes, they've launched a major offensive to drive Islamist militants out of the country.

PAUL: Claiming a key victory in the flashpoint city of tea Tikrit, mind you. Reports Iraqi forces have taken Saddam Hussein's hometown back from ISIS militants with the help apparently of tribal leaders there. But a fighter in the area says ISIS still has control of the city which fell to militants earlier this month. And there are clashing going on outside Tikrit and all around Iraq at this hour.

BLACKWELL: Now the country's military spokesman says that 125 militants have been killed in fighting today. There are also airstrikes in Iraq's second largest city of Mosul. And Iraqi senior military official tells CNN Iraq warplanes fired hellfire missiles at ISIS targets. A doctor says seven civilians killed when one air strike hit a house.

Armed American drones are now flying over Baghdad, sent to help protect U.S. military advisers now in that area, but not, at least at this point, to launch air strikes.

PAUL: Let's talk about this, and you know, the U.S. military role specifically in the Iraq crisis with retired U.S. Army Lieutenant General Mark Hertling. Lieutenant General, thank you so much for being us. We know he commanded U.S. task force Iron in northern Iraq in 2007 to 2009. So general, Iraqi security forces have launched this major offensive against ISIS. State media is reporting they have been taken to Tikrit where you were based, but that Baghdad is still in jeopardy. If you were there, how would you protect the capital city?

LT. GEN. MARK HERTLING, U.S. ARMY (RET): Well, I think you'd have to look first, Christi -- first of all, good morning to both you and Victor.

PAUL: Good morning.

HERTLING: I think you'd have to look first at was the objectives are of ISIS. And I'm not sure taking Baghdad is one of their objectives. They are very good. They're an evil, grotesque organization that is very good at killing people. They're not very good at governing. So to get intermingled within the 7 million people population of Baghdad would be extremely difficult for them.

I think they want to capture ground, maintain a safe haven, and grow from there, consolidate their wins. You also have a very, very large force of Iraqi security, army, and police in Baghdad that would prevent any kind of maneuver or action like we saw in Mosul, Tikrit, and some of the other places.

BLACKWELL: So let's talk about what we're seeing today. Iraqi military carrying out these airstrikes on four ISIS targets in Mosul. Is that an effective strategy? HERTLING: I don't think so. First of all, the Iraqi air force is

very limited in their capability. They have small, single wing and prop-driven airplanes. They don't have jets at their favor yet, and they also don't have ground controllers that would be bringing in those targeting. They have some helicopters, and as was reported yesterday, one of their helicopters was shot down in Tikrit. So to just fire indiscriminately within areas, possibly hoping to hit an ISIS target, is a very challenging and a lot more difficult than it appears.

PAUL: You mentioned that you think their main goal isn't about Baghdad, it's an taking land, necessarily. And we know that ISIS has said they're eyeing Jordan, which, of course, is a U.S. and Israeli ally. How fearful do you think people in this region are of a mass takeover of this region by ISIS? How likely is it?

HERTLING: Yes. The borders between Syria and Iraq are very porous, as has been reported before. There are tribal movements between those borders, and in fact some elements of some tribes live on both sides, which makes the flow between them very easy. ISIS has attempted to gain control of many of the border posts, Rabia, Al-Qaim, and others, to try and ease that flow the fighting in Syria and Iraq. It helps their logistical flow. It helps their movement of their fighters. They want to gain this kind of territory to establish this caliphate state. It's an ungoverned space. That's what we are very interested in, to make sure that they don't gain that. We're attempting to help the Iraqi security forces prevent them from doing that, because it's not only a threat on the Baghdad government, but it's also a threat for peaceful activity in Jordan and in other places.

BLACKWELL: You know, you spoke with one of our producers, and you said that you'd expect more bombings of religious sites by ISIS, these Shia mosques. Why?

HERTLING: I am surprised -- when I said was I was surprised they have not attempted that.

BLACKWELL: Yes.

HERTLING: I think they want to generate the fear between the Sunni and Shia. This is a way they did it in -- when they bombed the mosque in Samarra in the mid-2000s, and it was what caused the civil war. What you have to remember about this group of is, they do not like Shia. Shia do not like them, and they don't like some of the Sunni supporters. So this will quickly evolve into a sectarian and very gruesome war with atrocities on both sides to include atrocities, as Arwa has reported, from seemingly conducted by the Iraqi security forces. This is going to be a long, tough, brutal fight against a couple of evil groups facing off against each other.

One of the ways to generate more hatred and generate the killings they're interested in generating is by bombing mosques and religious sites, and there are several in the area in which they're entering. And this might give them attempts to get into Baghdad as well. I would suggest as we're looking at, will they flow into Baghdad? I would suggest they might have already cells within Baghdad executing some operations or planning some operations. It won't be the drive- through like you saw in Mosul or Tikrit, but there are certainly ISIS forces probably within the city now, small, but planning future operations.

BLACKWELL: The president, Congress, they've said no U.S. combat boots on the ground there in Iraq. But if this escalates, as you expect that it will, can this be stopped without sending troops in whether they're American troops or not?

HERTLING: Well, I'd much prefer the term troops as opposed to boots on the ground. You won't find a lot of soldiers that actually like the determine "boots on the ground."

BLACKWELL: Their term, not mine.

HERTLING: This is an Iraqi fight. This is something they have to determine the future of their government. We gave them that opportunity once before, and it was squandered a little bit. So I think what will happen in the next few weeks, months, in terms of not only their military but also their government is critically important to the future of a united Iraq.

PAUL: All righty, General Mark Hertling, thank you so much for your insights, and thank you for your service. We appreciate it.

BLACKWELL: Thank you, general.

HERTLING: Thank you, Christi and Victor.

PAUL: Thank you.

BLACKWELL: Here at home a Texas man who prosecutors said tried to leave the U.S. to join ranks with ISIS in Syria has pleading guilty to terrorism charges. Police nabbed 23-year-old Michael Todd Wolfe at a Houston airport earlier this month. His wife told an undercover officer that Wolfe was ready to die for his religion. He now faces up to 15 years in prison.

PAUL: A Georgia dad tells police he did search, quote, "child deaths inside vehicles" on his computer before his son died in a hot car. What does it mean for his defense, this man who is now charged with murder?

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BLACKWELL: All right, at the top of this hour we told you about a new development in the case of the 22-month-old Georgia boy who died in a hot SUV.

PAUL: Yes, and we have learned this morning the father who has been charged with murder told police he had done internet searches for child deaths in hot cars. CNN legal analyst Paul Callan joins us. I want to point out that that quote is from a search warrant from the Cobb County Police Department. Paul, as a former prosecutor, when you hear this, and it was also stated in the search warrant that he searched that terminology because he feared that it could happen, what do you make of it?

PAUL CALLAN, CNN LEGAL ANALYST: Boy, I'll tell you, it's very, very strange. And, remember, this is something that he, the father, told to the police himself, that he had done this search on deaths of, you know, infants in hot cars before leaving his own child in the car. That certainly would be very, very strong evidence in a murder prosecution of planning if he was intending to commit this horrible crime.

But we can't jump to that conclusion too quickly because, obviously, with so many of these deaths taking place, and, you know, I was looking at some of the statistics. I think in 2013 there were over 30 of these deaths around the United States. It's I suppose theoretically possible he saw and article about it and he was just curious and researching it, and then the same thing happened to him. I mean, that's what the defense will claim.

But this is the first stone in proving and building the foundation of a case of premeditated murder. So -- and remember, the police chief said from the beginning here, this is not a case of simple negligence. There's more to this case than meets the eye. So I think this is our first kind of look at what police are investigating.

BLACKWELL: You know, Paul, when you say, this is the first stone in building that case of premeditated murder, that's not what he's been charged with. And if they knew that they had this before they filed those charges, you know, child cruelty, first-degree bumped down to second-degree and felony murder, so you've got to have the predicate felony. If they thought they had premeditated murder, wouldn't they have just charged him with murder?

CALLAN: Yes. You know something, they definitely would have, but so in truth, they looked at this and they decided they couldn't make the case for premeditated murder. But many cases are filed with a lower level of charge, and then the police continue to investigate and they make out the higher level. Now, I'm not saying that's going to happen here, because we don't know, but certainly this is a disturbing piece of evidence that they have.

What they've done, though, is, they've done something very unusual in the way this case was charged. Usually this would be charged as a cruelty to children case. But they charged it as a felony murder case. Now, they almost never do that in a case like this, where there's, what appears to be the accidental death of a child. So it looks like they're setting this up for a murder case in the long run.

PAUL: OK. So, Paul, how much evidence do you think they have that we don't know about yet? And how soon is that going to be made public, in your opinion?

CALLAN: Well, first, this case -- this case would be such a totally disturbing case that -- I can't even imagine what evidence that they would have to suggest a motive for why a father would choose to kill his child deliberately in a way that constitutes torture. He would have to be so twisted and mentally deranged that -- I can't even speculate as to what the motive might be. But -- and in terms of what we'll find out as the case goes on, a new set of charges can be filed if additional evidence is developed.

Now, I mean, obviously, there's one thing that I see happening here that surprised me a little bit, and that is, he wasn't even allowed to attend the funeral of his own baby. Now, obviously, a judge in Georgia has looked at his case and has decided this is a serious enough case that he's not going to be let out of prison. I'm going to set high bail on the case. So I have to believe that there's evidence here that hasn't been released publicly that at least a judge is thinking would support incarceration for a long period of time.

BLACKWELL: Paul, it just seems -- and I've covered this since it broke -- it just seems too neat in some ways. Why would he offer this in an interview? We had your prosecution had on. If we have you put your defense hat on. If he is working I.T. for a major company and he's a web designer, he knows these searches are retrievable. Is it possible that -- you know, this man is innocent until proven guilty, that he's left the child in the car before and found him in time and then said, oh, god. What if I had not found him? And then said, how long does it take for a child to die in a car?

CALLAN: Well, you know, Victor, this is absolutely a possibility. You know, we Google everything today, and we get instant answers to these questions. Even questions as, you know -- seemingly cruel as the question of, how long does it take for a human being to die in an overheated car.

So, yes, if I'm a defense attorney defending him I'm going to say, listen, this is a problem across the United States. He would have had a very, very good reason to look into it because he was thinking about the safety of his own child. And then on the day in question, he had this mental lapse and forgot about it.

But bear in mind police have also revealed other things that at least are mildly suspicious in the case. First, of course, it's a very long period of time to leave a baby in a car. A lot of times you hear about these cases, it's a mother returning into a grocery store and coming back out. You don't really see too many where a child has been left for this length of time.

And secondly, he came back out to the car at lunch time. Remember, he works for Home Depot. He goes to McDonald's in the morning, I think, or a fast food place, gets himself coffee, gets back in the car, drives to work. Comes out at lunch, opens the door of the car, places something in the car, then goes back inside and with the baby, you know, dying in the car. That's very, very odd behavior. Maybe there's a legitimate explanation for it. I really don't know.

And how, frankly, could he have forgotten his own baby over that period of time? I mean, why wasn't somebody asking, where's the baby? I mean, should the baby have been at daycare or with another relative? Why is it he didn't get phone calls about the baby throughout the day? There are a lot of things we don't know about it.

BLACKWELL: We reached out to the attorney. No response. And the family, as we know has not spoken with the media. Paul, thank you much. PAUL: Thank you, Paul.

BLACKWELL: And of course, you at home can read much more on the story on CNN.com.

PAUL: So unfathomable. I just cannot believe -- it's just unfathomable.

All righty, listen to this statement -- "Stop deporting our relatives." That is the message today as immigrants protest policies they say are tearing families apart.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BLACKWELL: Today is being touted as the national day to stop separating families. Immigrants and their advocates plan to hold demonstrations across the country to protest deportations that split up relatives.

PAUL: Meantime, the top Democrat in the House, Nancy Pelosi, is heading to south Texas today to talk with border officials about this recent wave of undocumented children, many of them who are coming across the border alone with no parents or even other family members.

BLACKWELL: And that crisis is growing, and pitting Democrats and Republicans against each other on how to solve it. Federal officials expect 60,000 undocumented children from Central America to pour across the border this year.

PAUL: There are security dangers here. There's not enough facilities to house, feed, and care for them. So President Obama is sending a stern message to the parents.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BARACK OBAMA, (D) PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: Our message absolutely is don't send your children unaccompanied on trains or through a bunch of smugglers. We don't even know how many of these kids don't make it and may have been waylaid into sex trafficking, or killed because they fell off a train. We have no way of tracking them. So that is our direct message to the families in Central America -- do not send your children to the borders. If they do make it, they'll get sent back. More importantly, they may not make it.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BLACKWELL: And joining us, good morning, Dan Restrepo, former National Security Council Director for the Western Hemisphere. Good morning to you, Dan. And the president's message is clear, stern. Do you think it makes a difference in Central America?

DAN RESTREPO, FORMER NATIONAL SECURITY DIRECTOR, WESTERN HEMISPHERE AFFAIRS: I think it will be part of managing this crisis. Part of what you need to do is convince these families that although the desperation they face at home, this journey is just too dangerous and not worth the risk. Part of that is sending this message and making sure the disinformation that's out there, that smugglers are trying to use to take advantage of folks gets clarified.

And also just the mere act of sending some of these kids back, even though that's a hard thing to do from a purely humanitarian standpoint, is a key piece of at least managing this flow and reducing this flow so you can deal with the ones who do get to the United States in a humanitarian way and a humane way, because right now our resources are pretty pressed in terms of dealing with these kids the way you need to deal with them.

PAUL: OK, speaking of resources, we know that Republicans, a lot of them are blaming the president for relaxed deportation policies. The president and his fellow Democrats blaming House Republicans for refusing to take up the Senate-passed immigration reform package. What is the biggest obstacle to bringing the government together in some sort of reform?

RESTREPO: Politics, in one word. The problem here is the politics in the House of Representatives and the politics in the country are differ. And particularly within the Republican conference in the House, you have districts that are very Republican. You have members of Congress who understand that they're constituents don't want to see reform, or that they'd be vulnerable to attacks from their right. You saw this a little bit in the Cantor loss in the primary recently.

So the dynamics around this and the difference in the local-level politics in the House versus the state-wide and the national politics, which are quite clearly in favor of reform, it's that tension that's going to require some more leadership to break down so we can move forward to fix this system.

PAUL: Right, but when you say politics, I mean, what -- is there one specific most pressing obstacle that they just cannot seem to get over? What do we need to do as a government to fix this?

RESTREPO: We need a system that works. Right? We've got a reform proposal, passed the Senate, bipartisan support. Republicans and Democrats came together in the Senate. Again, because their politics are a little different, they have to -- they respond to a broader group of voters than in the House. So -- and there's majority support in the House right now for the Senate bill. But you just can't get it to the floor.

So I think fundamentally what you need is the leadership to, like, put a yes or no vote in front of the House because I think we could actually put a proposal forward that begins to address the system. In the case of these kids in Central America, we also have to push very hard on Central American countries and societies to start dealing with the lack of economic development and the violence that's pervasive in their communities, and there the elites have really failed people. And we need to put pressure on those elites to start doing what they need to do so these kids aren't forced to pick a life of crime or incredibly dangerous journey to the United States.

BLACKWELL: I think it's hard for a lot of people, those who are parents and those who are not, to think that some parents would send their kids in their teens, some preteens, to head to America, and you've got to go through Mexico to get there. Help us understand what they're facing.

RESTREPO: The countries at the heart of this right now are what's called the northern triangle of Central America, Honduras, Guatemala, and El Salvador. They're three of the five most violent countries in the world. They are three of the poorest countries in the western hemisphere. Honduras is the second poorest after only Haiti. So you've got this real desperation.

I'm the parent of a nine-year-old. The thought you'd put a nine-year- old or a 10-year-old or even 11 or 12-year-old in the hands of a criminal syndicate to go on this 1,000-mile journey where you don't know what's going to happen to them on the journey. You don't know if the journey's going to be successful and you don't know if they'll get to stay in the end, it just underscores that these societies have failed these kids and have failed these families.

And so it's a level of desperation that's hard for us to understand here in the United States. But it underscores the kind of medium and long-term challenge we have here to help these countries be more receptive to their own populous.

PAUL: All righty, Dan Restrepo, thank you so much for the great conversation and the great explanation. We appreciate it.

RESTREPO: Thank you.

PAUL: And just to remind all of you, tomorrow night here on CNN, Pulitzer Prize winning journalist Jose Antonio Vargas is about to risk everything by coming forward and telling you his story. He's living here in the U.S. illegally, undocumented. So be sure to watch "Documented, A CNN Film" again, tomorrow at 9:00 eastern right here for you.

Well, we know technology has transformed the social media landscape, right? But what about the side effects?

BLACKWELL: Yes. We'll be joined by an author who says it may be ruining our personal relationships.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

PAUL: All right, we all have that friend, right, the one who's addicted to his or her smartphone. I don't know. Maybe it's you. Technology has changed the way that we spend our time. It's the way we communicate, the way we interact with other people.

BLACKWELL: Yes.

PAUL: All of it.

BLACKWELL: It's a problem. Our next guest goes so far as to say that social media is ruining our relationships. It's ruined one for me. Kim Stolz --

PAUL: Really?

BLACKWELL: Yes. An ex who would rather text than pick up the phone.

PAUL: Ex is more than a letter in the alphabet.

BLACKWELL: Yes. Let's bring in Kim. Kim Stolz, self-proclaimed digital addict. You might know her as a former contestant on "America's Next Top Model." I see you looking at, ah, now I remember. In her new book "Unfriending My Ex and Other Things I'll Never Do," she writes about what prompted here to disconnect for a full week, a full-on digital detox.

PAUL: OK, so Kim, first of all, how bad was your addiction? And what was that wake-up call?

KIM STOLZ, AUTHOR, "UNFRIENDING MY EX": You know, I mean, I have to say a few things. My addiction got so bad that my friends started asking me not to have dinner with them. I would say, hey guys, let's have dinner. And they were like, we'll have dinner with you, but only if we can hold your phone the entire time. But that was the first sign when the people around me started really reacting negatively to my addiction.

And then I think what kind of, the nail in the coffin for me was that I had two separate relationships end because of my inability to kind of control my impulses on social media and stay loyal in the face of all of my exes that were all over my social media. So that was kind of a wake-up call for me.

BLACKWELL: All right, so what did you learn during this unplugged week?

STOLZ: Well, you know, it's funny. The first -- I never expected to call it a detox. But the first couple of days I felt all of those sort of signs of real like substance abuse withdrawal. I've never actually been through it myself, but I have had friends who have, and I talked to psychologists and behavioral specialists. And I would start to see a blinking light somewhere, I thought it was a new text. And I would go a try and grab it and my phone wouldn't be there. I'd get really anxious. I even got the shakes a couple of times. It was that serious for me.

PAUL: Seriously?

STOLZ: You should try it. You might be surprised. But then over the next few days I started calming down, absorbing the world around me, having real conversations with people and having general emotions to the stimulus I was receiving. And kind of got to the point where I recognized that it wasn't so much that I needed to reject social media altogether. I just needed to find a way to use it without letting it kind of use me, if that makes sense.

PAUL: This is interesting. This is something I think about and I think a lot of parents do, too. We're raising a generation of kids that doesn't know life without social media, and you just said something that resonated with a lot of us is that you found when you gave it up for a while, you got an authenticity back in your relationships and you started noticing things. Do you really think that it dulls our senses that much?

STOLZ: I do. I think the over-stimulus of our news feeds on Facebook of Twitter, of these sort of quick little pings of dopamine we get every time we get a text, I think that started to numb our genuine ability to experience emotion in a way that we probably have in the past, a little bit more efficiently and genuinely, like I said.

I think that there is -- I don't think humans are really meant to multi-task, which is the same reason your parents told you not to do your homework watching television or why you can't text and drive. We think we are, but we're actually not able to do that. And so when we have so much stimulus coming into our lives we stop absorbing what we should be abs absorbing.

BLACKWELL: You took your week unplugged with this digital detox, and now are you less reliant upon these devices?

STOLZ: I think I had higher hopes for myself than I maybe am acting now, but I will say that I do think about things differently. There are small kind of ways I've changed my life to make me less addicted, to allow my friendships and relationships to flourish and to not make the same mistakes I made before.

I think it's really interesting what you said about younger generations, the digital natives, if you will, that have never experienced life without this. And I think a lot of parents who have read my book come to me and said this is great because I can now kind of have like a microscope into my kid's life and understand what they're going through. So I think a parent's role in a kid's addiction to social media, especially in the teenage formative years, is really important.

PAUL: OK, so that's what I want to ask you real quickly, because we only a couple minutes left here, a couple seconds, but from a parental standpoint, then, how do you guide your children to make sure that they recognize that everything in that little, you know, box that they're looking at on their screen is not the real world and make sure that they don't disengage from the authenticity around them?

STOLZ: Sure. I mean, I think -- look, it's a very personal decision how you want to handle it. I think one of the best things to do is before you give your kid a cell phone, before you kind of let them on Facebook and sort of experience social media and have it all shower on them, I think one thing you can do, have a conversation with them about rules and expectations. I mean, the thing with social media and why it's so easy for people to cheat, why it's so easy for people to make mistakes, is that it's such a gray area. The whole thing is just one big gray area with so many different facets.

So having that conversation before your child is sort of launched into social media and being very clear about what makes sense, what doesn't. What to be careful of, what not to be careful of, but giving them the responsibility, I think that makes a lot of sense. I also think, you know, there are rules that you can set in your household. Like, you know what, I get it. You're into your phone. I'm into my phone. But every Tuesday and Thursday nights during dinner, our phones are locked in a drawer. You have to have the moments and those genuine interactions to keep your relationship alive.

PAUL: I'm laughing because I'm thinking every night. Not every Tuesday and Thursday, but every night.

STOLZ: You think so, but --

BLACKWELL: Thank you so much. Again, the book is "Unfriending My Ex and Other Things I'll Never Do." Thank you so much, Kim.

PAUL: Thanks, Kim.

STOLZ: Thank you.

BLACKWELL: You know, the problem, I think in some of the Facebook posts and the Tweets and the texts, no inflection.

PAUL: Right.

BLACKWELL: There's no inflection.

PAUL: There's no tone and you don't know how to take something all the time. I mean, they say it. You read it one way but that might not about what they meant.

BLACKWELL: I can't tell you how many arguments have been started by something I texted. I thought was witty, but it was not received that way.

(LAUGHTER)

PAUL: You know what, you cannot miss what's happening in Brazil. I mean, they're either going to win, they're going to lose.

BLACKWELL: But you're going to watch.

PAUL: There's no misinterpretations here. Brazil is where it's going to be. We're going to the World Cup fan zone. CNN's Amanda Davies has been hanging out with some pretty wild soccer fans there. Hi, Amanda.

AMANDA DAVIES, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Hi. Yes, it is a real South American Saturday here at the World Cup, and Copacabana is throwing one heck of a beach party. I'll be here with a live update from Brazil and the World Cup in just a couple of minutes. Don't go anywhere.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BLACKWELL: You probably love where you live, and it's probably a beautiful place, but look at this. Come on, Copacabana Beach, beautiful, 81 degrees. This shot coming to us from Earth Cam.

PAUL: Of course, the host nation of this year's World Cup, Brazil.

BLACKWELL: Two big games on the schedule --

PAUL: I'd go.

BLACKWELL: I'd go, too -- on the schedule for today.

PAUL: In about an hour, host nation Brazil takes on Chile. Then at 4:00 p.m. Columbia faces off with Uruguay.

BLACKWELL: Let's go to CNN's Amanda Davies, who is with some wild fans there in the fan zone in Rio. Amanda, I can hear the excitement level, but take me there.

DAVIES: It is absolutely fantastic here today. Every single person it seems on the streets of Rio has some kind of football shirt, be it a Brazilian shirt or a Chilean shirt or Columbian Uruguayan, Mexican, American, every World Cup country is represented today. On my right, there are thousands of fans here streaming into the fan-fest for the first game which, as you said, kicks off in about an hour's time, the host Brazil against Chile. To my left, I have the beach and the sea and another few thousand people, all with their football shirts on, but grabbing a few rays before the action gets underway. There really is only one thing to be doing in this town today, and that is to be out on the beach watching a football game.

BLACKWELL: Sounds great. Amanda Davies, thank you so much. And we'll be right back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

PAUL: Getting girls on the right path through the power of the pen.

BLACKWELL: Meet this week's CNN Hero Karen Taylor.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I blossom with each pen mark.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I found myself in the words.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Every girl has a story to tell.

KAREN TAYLOR, CNN HERO: Some of our girls are facing some of the greatest challenges teenagers could ever face. They need to be inspired about their own voice.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Life in the light can be so bright. Nothing can be so pure.

TAYLOR: Writing and self-expression can give them a tool for moving forward.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Say something that nobody else has said before, because you have your own way of saying things.

TAYLOR: We match underserved girls with professional women writers for mentoring and group workshops.

I want to match you, Christa, with Kristy. The moment you ask a young person, tell me about something you're

passionate about, the writing and the ideas just flow.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Their senses are diluted by the sparkly things across their eye. Thank you.

TAYLOR: We need to help girls see that their voice matters.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: We've got a lot of good stuff here, and what I would like to hear more about is you.

TAYLOR: To give a girl the tools to be able to be positive, and thrive, and rise above whatever challenges she's facing. What's better than that?

CROWD: Never underestimate the power of a girl and her pen!

(APPLAUSE)

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BLACKWELL: All right, if you know someone as remarkable as Karen Taylor, we'd love to hear about them. Just go to CNNHeroes.com to nominate them.

PAUL: And you know what, we know hope you just go out there are make some really good memories today.

BLACKWELL: Yes, make it a good day. Thanks for watching. Keep it right here, though. More CNN Newsroom straight ahead.

PAUL: We have to turn it over to our colleague Fred Whitfield.

BLACKWELL: Fred.