Welcome to Fit to Be Real and a little extra.
Are you looking at your phone right now?
I hope not.
Are your eyes locked on a screen?
We're talking.
Pay attention.
Well, let's talk about how much time you spend on your phone or on a tablet or on the computer
throughout your day and how much time over your lifetime.
That's what you're staring at.
Yeah.
All the life you're losing.
And then let's talk about how your kids are watching you do that.
Yeah.
And then we'll talk about how to fix it.
Plot twist.
We will try and help you.
We have to help ourselves first.
You don't know how true that statement is.
I think you're worse at it than I am.
Oh, I am horrendous.
Carly's like a what?
I was just saying a bug on her phone, but I'm not even sure what that meant.
A bug on her phone?
Yeah.
A bug on her phone.
It's otherwise known as addiction.
A bug on her phone.
Yes.
I would put.
Are you scrolling?
No, I'm working.
I'm not scrolling.
What are you working?
I think it's more of working less scrolling.
I mean, I do both, you know, by the amount of reels that I sent you.
They've died down a little.
Well, it depends on the week and we'll talk about that.
So let's just get into it.
I'm Victoria.
Hey guys, I'm Carly.
And today we're talking about screen time in adults.
So we could do episode after episode about screen time in kids and the negative effects
and all that stuff.
We're not we're talking adults today.
We'll do a little bit.
I'll give you some statistics on some kids, but it's mainly us.
We are the problem.
Statistics on some kids.
I'll give you some statistics on kids.
But it's it's an us problem.
It's an adult problem just as much as it is a kids problem.
Oh, yeah.
I see.
Well, mom says it all the time at like the baby classes with the moms watching.
So if there's a baby class at Carmel's Day in Studio is up to like three year old, a
two and a half, three, four year olds to kindergarten and you sit and you watch.
It's a 45 minute class.
It's ballet.
It's super cute.
And it's 45 minutes of your life.
And these parents, the majority of them just have their face in their phone.
They're not even watching like what's happening, watching their child, seeing how they learn,
seeing if they need a little bit more discipline and more focus or if they're doing a great
job, their faces are in their phones at all times.
And I have been guilty of watching my kids and also, you know, sneaking to watch my phone,
not watch anything, but like respond to emails because I'm like, oh, man, I get 45 minutes
to sit and I'm made to sit down.
So I'm not running around.
So this is some time that I can respond to some text messages or some emails.
And then I see my child, whichever one it is, is looking at me to see if I'm watching them.
Yeah.
And it's like, oh, God, put it down, put it down.
Like, I know I see it.
My mom yells at me all the time, our mom yells at me all the time, but I see it.
I'm aware of it.
She's your mom today.
All right.
Here we go.
We're going to start.
We've started.
I think we're in it.
So there's not, there aren't many studies on how much it affects adults as there is for
kids.
You weren't ready for that sentence.
Not even a little bit.
There's not as much research on adult screen time as there are for kids right now because
we're trying to fix the problem in the kids first.
What I am going on.
You're struggling hard.
Number one.
Number two, isn't it like a cycle?
Because I would say parents that are honed in on their own phones are just giving phones
to their children to keep them occupied so that they can do other things, i.e. look at
their own phone.
Yeah.
It's like a hamster wheel.
Right.
And kids do what they see.
Monkey see monkey do.
So if you're on it all day, your kid's going to be like, well, if you get to do it, why
can't I do it?
Yeah, sure.
I actually just was watching Watch What Happens Live with Andy Cohen.
And one of the questions I think he was asking one of the women was, you know, are you, how
is your screen time with your kids at home?
So you can learn stuff on Bravo.
But she said, well, it's hard because I work from my phone.
She was a newscaster and she said, I work from my phone 24 seven.
So how can I say to them?
You can't be on it, but I can when, you know, it's a hard thing to do.
But you could say, I'm not having fun.
Yeah, I'm just looking at my phone.
Not watching dog videos.
No, but that's the thing.
I'm not.
I'm not like at the end of the night is when I was called not doom scrolling.
Is that what it's called?
Yeah, you're preventing a healthy sleep cycle by wanting to zone out and get like your me
time in doom scrolling.
That's mostly when I do it is at night.
So same, same or in the morning when I first wake up, which I know is horrible or midday.
No, I mean, morning.
Yeah.
All right.
Any hour of the day, early evening.
So a few, I'm ignoring that a few years ago, the average now think about this, the average
amount an adult spent on a screen was 11 hours a day.
11 11 out of 24 a day where eight of them are sleeping.
Let's say in a perfect world.
So what?
So since COVID, the average now this is average.
So it's more to right.
Right.
19 hours a day.
People spend 11 hours was pre COVID 19 hours post COVID.
Yikes.
And about 30% of adults say that they're online almost constantly all day long.
That's 30% are all the time online.
That's tragic.
It's like attached to their hand.
Yeah.
That's tragic.
I mean, you watch a lot of TV as we're talking about screen time.
I don't, but I do.
And Jason Bateman was on a talk show and he said, my kids have a hard time because they
can't be at a stoplight when we're in the car and not pick up their phone because they
don't know how to sit at a stoplight and not do anything.
Just look around and observe the world around you.
Yeah.
Isn't that crazy?
And he also said, and I have that problem too.
Yeah.
Because like think about it.
In the car, how many times at a stoplight do you pull out your phone and you just scroll
real quick until the green light or get beeped at because you didn't notice it turned green.
Exactly.
That just happened to me yesterday actually.
So it's a horrible, horrible problem.
And so there are clear guidelines for how much screen time kids should have, but there
are no guidelines for adults.
And they say the average that adults should be on or watching a screen, including work
time, the average should be six hours.
What do you mean, including work time?
Like people work on their computers.
You're looking at a screen.
That is screen time.
That counts as screen time.
Yes.
Yeah.
This is not primarily just an iPhone like on Instagram.
Right.
Like this is screen time.
We're going to talk about this, but it's so bad for your eyesight.
So the average that an adult should be on any type of technology is six hours a day.
And right now we're averaging 19.
So that, but then, but then that means there's only four hours.
I know.
Or five hours left.
I know.
Is that the sleeping time?
Yeah.
That means the whole day is on the phone from morning to night.
Oh my God.
No wonder.
But like no wonder.
It's hard to make connections with people.
Nobody does how to do that anywhere.
No.
Nobody does how to eye contact.
Well, that's because people just have relationships behind the phone and they're not real and
there's so many trolls out there.
And not the good kind with the gem in their belly button.
Okay.
The bad kind.
If you're a kid in the eighties and nineties, you know what kind of trolls I'm talking about.
But the gem in their belly button.
I love this thing.
So true.
We had many of them.
So there are so many negative effects of too much screen time.
So let's go over some of them that you might not have known was related to screen time.
This one, I hope you know, affects you a hundred percent.
And that's insomnia and poor sleep.
Yeah.
It'll keep you up to see what's going on out there or comparing to someone you think has
got it better than you or looks better or whatever the case may be.
The light from screen signals.
Just the light.
Don't even think about what you're looking at.
The light from the screen signals keeps your brain awake.
Yeah.
I say no more than an hour.
Like you should take yourself away from the screen an hour plus before you try to go to
sleep, like looking at your phone and then putting it down and rolling over is like the
worst thing you can do for your brain and your eyes and your nervous system to like
shut down.
Yeah.
And I do it every night.
That's like the last thing I do before I go to sleep.
It's such a bad habit.
I've gotten better.
But when I'm really tired, I found I'll do it when I'm like exhausted.
And you like lose your routine.
Oh, I'm sorry.
Can you say that again?
I should do it.
You lose your routine, I guess when you're tired.
I don't know.
But I've noticed that in my like extreme exhaustion, I can't stop looking at the phone.
Yeah.
That's an addiction.
That's when you cannot put it down.
Just think of any addiction that comes to mind.
When you cannot put it down, it's a problem.
I'm not saying just for you.
I'm just saying for many people.
Come at me, Carly.
Back off.
Step out.
The next negative effect is eye strain and headaches.
That's why I bought 27,000 pairs of blue light glasses in COVID.
Do you use them?
Yeah, you do.
They're right here.
And then I have one at Seafit and I have two in my room.
I enjoy them.
It makes me look smarter.
I feel smarter.
And I do, especially since COVID, I was on the screen a lot more with doing clients over
the phone.
I think everybody was, but that was new for me.
And my eyes would be so tired at the end of the day, which I thought was like a problem.
I was like, my God, I have COVID.
No, it's the glare of the screen.
But it was the blue light.
So I got these glasses and I really, really loved them.
And now I just look amazing.
But because I've been editing so much as well once we started this podcast, I really do wear
them anytime I open a screen and I wear it if I'm just sitting on my couch watching TV.
I know that's interesting.
They say the TV, just because you're far away from your TV, it doesn't mean anything.
Right.
Mom's getting surgery on her eyes because, well, because of the sun, apparently the
sun is what would not bring sun less is a big factor as to why the eyes started to deteriorate,
which they will as you age either way.
But I believe it's a big part with how much screen time you add into your aging eyes as
well.
I believe as well.
But um, folks, you heard it here first.
She is a lover of the Instagram reel and scrolling as well.
I don't know why we ever showed her Instagram.
Well, to be fair, we showed her when we learned it and then it took her years to bring it
up.
So good job, mom.
You did it on your own because we all stopped trying to help.
The next one is the now, I think this is a huge one, addictive behaviors, social media
and smartphones.
You know, they've been around.
Listen to this.
They've been around for less than 20 years.
Yes.
Smartphones and social media to the pop general population 2004.
You've been around for less than 20 years and think about the people that need it and
constantly and that crave it.
That's an addiction.
Yeah.
Well, that's a drug.
It's a drug.
Plus created addiction within the last 20 years.
That's insane.
Yeah, that is insane.
And watching things on Instagram and TikTok, it dictates your mood.
Oh, yeah.
Addictions dictate your mood.
You have to have it.
You crave it.
You're not the type of person that you wouldn't normally do so that you're able to use this
drug of choice and this drug of choice being the phone or screen for the brain or not for
the brain.
That is the question.
I can't look at you with those glasses on because you're so blue.
Oh, this one's a big one.
Oh, as I sit up nice and tall, the next shoulder and back pain.
It's like, oh, I'm going to get over it.
When you finally notice and you sit up straight, you're like, oh my God, you grew like four
inches.
You're like my neck, my back.
Stop it right now.
Get out of my house.
Get yourself up off my couch and walk out.
I was sort of so excited to see this on my research because I was like, oh yeah, she's
going to hate this.
Oh my gosh.
You guys finish it.
My neck.
No.
Explicit.
Get out of here.
Anyway, you know the drill.
When you're hunched over your neck, your back, everything, it's out of line.
For lack of a better word, it's out of whack.
I'm going to punch you.
I'm crushing it today.
I'm going to punch you.
Does that involve or include, I should say, your thumb and your wrist?
I don't know.
It doesn't say that here, but I would say yes.
I was with somebody this weekend that is having joint pain in their thumb and she said, I
think it's from my scrolling.
It's called scrolling thumb.
Stop it.
I mean, that's what the doctor has said it for.
I'm pretty sure he told mom that and then I was told that when my carpal tunnel was
really acting up for many other worse reasons.
But like, I noticed it when I would hold my phone and then my carpal tunnel would make
my hand fall asleep and my thumb would cramp.
And it's because you hold it and the phones are so big now.
Yeah, and they're heavy.
Mine has my wallet on it.
Yeah.
Yes.
So that's a lot of weight and how long you're holding it up.
I don't rest my phone down on a table and type on it or scroll.
I'm holding it at all times.
So it's just not natural for the hand.
It's called scrolling thumb.
I did not know that.
You can strain it.
You can bruise it.
And then in turn, you can create carpal tunnel.
So jeez.
That's horrible.
There's no song about that, but there should be.
My thumb, my thumb, my wrist.
Don't finish it.
That's dirty.
Okay.
Next one.
Changes in cognition, which I think is primarily.
Oh, it hurts.
Now I'm pissed.
No, shut up.
We're already pissed.
I had to finish it.
I think it's primarily geared toward the younger generation because it can have to,
whoa, maybe it's for me too.
I don't know.
Maybe it's for 38 year olds.
You can experience developmental delays and changes in behavior and all of that kind of
stuff.
People, actually a 2020 study found that people have been diagnosed with smartphone addiction,
had problems with part of their brain responsible for transmitting messages and giving poorer
performance and testing.
Transmitting messages from understanding comprehension comprehension.
Because what are you just so used to doing?
Oh, what's X plus X?
I'll just go on my calculator, on my phone.
What's the answer to this question?
I don't know.
I'll just go Google it.
Hey, Mrs. Miller, when you told me there would be no calculators in her pocket at a
moment's notice in the grocery store, you were wrong.
I don't need a T89, but I got it.
I know, but isn't that a shame?
It's pretty horrible.
And that is affecting our brains that we can no longer do simple math or answer simple
questions.
I am very thankful for my phone when it comes to directions because we all know I'm directionally
challenged.
GPS is a magic thing.
But ask me how to read a map correctly and I don't know.
I would have to, it would take me a minute.
I haven't read a map in 20 years.
You know, so that's the problem with the younger generation is they're not figuring this out.
There was this comedy special, this comedian, she was a woman and she said, I bet my child.
I think I told you this before.
I bet my child a new smartphone that if he could tell me who was president during World
War II, I would buy him a new smartphone.
But he wasn't allowed to go on Google.
He had to find out.
So he went to the Tsarist, the dictionary or encyclopedia.
Wow, good.
You know those words.
I know them.
I just wanted to say all those people.
You're so smart.
And he went to the W's and she's like, oh my God, he's going to look up World War II
and I got to buy him a new smartphone.
Like I underestimated him.
He went to the word who he wanted to go to.
Who was the president of World War II?
Because you type that in because that's what you type into Google.
Who was the president of World War II?
And the answer comes up.
That's what he went to in the book, W for Who.
And that is the whole problem.
They don't even know how to look up things in a book.
So clearly he did not get the smartphone and she was in luck.
But that, yeah.
Well, there's a couple of factors in that.
I think retaining information is a no for the developmental part of children.
You can't read something and remember it because their attention spans are so short.
And then the process of if I A to get to B, then it'll equal C in terms of even just looking
up something that isn't mathematically related.
They don't have that.
We had all that, but we lost it.
We lost it.
Yeah.
So like, I think it's equal.
We're at equal playing field right now.
Yeah.
So we really have to tap into hold on, let me figure this out and like slow your mind.
You have to slow down.
Slow your roll.
Roll tide.
Yeah, no.
I'm just thinking of all things with roll.
Yeah.
Okay.
Mom does all math in her head still.
But see, we were never going to math.
So this isn't a smartphone problem.
Okay.
This is an OS problem.
The T189 or whatever number it was, I didn't know how to do simple math.
And I, you know, so kind of my fingers when I have to.
But yeah, she, some people just have a good math brain.
Yeah.
Some people are more grammar, you know, related, not me clearly.
I'm having great sentence structure today.
Oh no, you're drunk at all times.
Your thumbs are drunk.
Your mouth is drunk.
Oh my God.
I'm not that fat fingers because I cannot type.
But it's like not even, it's not even funny anymore.
It's like I won't respond to that because not one, there wasn't a direct object.
I don't understand where you're going with this.
None of the names are correct.
And you're not concerned.
She always texts me right back and says, make this make sense.
Say try it again, Carly.
Just try it again.
All right.
Before we get ahead of ourselves, our last one is reduced physical activity levels.
I mean, like you're on the phone.
So you're not moving.
Yes.
You're living a sedentary lifestyle.
You are sitting down.
You are working at the computer just to go home to sit on your phone.
Yeah.
I mean, it's negative all any way you look at it.
So as I said before, the experts, you know, they say there is no clear research on how
many hours we should be on it a day.
But they do suggest, this is this justice suggestion, that you only spend two hours on
your phone, not work related.
So free time, free time scrolling, but still to me, that sounds like a lot.
Two hours of free time scrolling in addition to your workday.
Yeah.
But maybe it's not sit down for two hours.
Maybe it's 10 minutes here, 10 minutes there adds up to two hours throughout your day.
Then it's not as two hour chunk.
Wait.
I forgot to tell you this.
And this was important for me when I read this.
There's an actual negative relation between the screen and your skin.
What?
Yeah.
From the blue light, it can change your DNA and cause inflammation and break down collagen
in your face.
From like the radiation in the phone?
From the blue light.
Yeah.
From the radiation from the prolonged exposure to the blue light and digital screens.
Yo.
I mean.
I'm not the problem.
My phone.
My phone is why I look like a 13 year old prepubescent.
Yeah.
Let's blame it on that.
That's actually alarming.
I know.
Well, to quote my boy, Albee.
Oh, Albee.
Let's bring him back.
He said, I feed and this is Albert Einstein.
Remember the time of Albert Einstein?
I always think he's in like the Renaissance time.
He's so old, but he's not.
He was around relatively recently.
Go Google it.
But before, go Google it.
But before any type of phone, smartphone, computer in the way we know them was made,
he said, I fear the day when the technology overlaps with our humanity.
The world would only have a generation of idiots.
Look at us now, Albee.
I know.
We're dumb.
We're dumb and now it's getting worse with AI because we don't know what's real and what's
fake.
We could do a whole other episode on that.
I hate.
I know.
AI.
I know.
In every capacity of AI.
And you know what's scary about that is that you can type in or say, write my essay on
this topic and a very well written generated essay.
And so these kids really will be learning nothing.
And how do the teachers know what's written by like a student who can do it well and what's
a computer generated?
Like, how do you grade that?
So we really will have a generation of idiots.
I mean, back in my day, we would just be nice to a kid that was really, really, really smart
and make them do our paper for them.
Carly did a lot of papers for people.
I was thinking the other way around.
Yeah, you're right.
Anyway, so let's talk about how we can fix it.
Throw our phones out.
Throw them in the river.
I wish.
Now, before we say this, I was with my nephew who is going to college next year.
And he said, wait for as long as you can before you give Melody a phone.
It's not even on my radar.
Like she just turned 10 and I was telling my class last night, she didn't ask for it.
She's still into stuffed animals.
She's a very young 10.
So phone is not really on her radar.
But he said, don't do it.
I wish I didn't have a phone in high school.
Yeah, I wish I had a phone to like call my parents or like call my friends.
But as far as apps, don't do it.
It would have been such a different experience for me and I hate it.
And he's 20, but too.
He's 18.
Oh, he's 18.
He just graduated high school.
And we were with our friend this weekend and she said to her daughter, give me your
phone.
You're going to take a shower.
I want your phone.
I'm not going on the phone for the rest of the night.
And instead of getting mad at this girl's a freshman in high school, she gave her mom
her phone and said here.
Thank you.
Yeah, thanks.
Because sometimes you just need to be told like kids, they don't want to willingly give
it up, but they want you to give like give them the option.
Yeah.
You know, and that's just that was so sad to me because I'm like, man, these kids.
It's interesting because she knew that it was something she didn't want to be doing,
but like couldn't stop.
Couldn't stop.
You can't stop checking in on where your friends are because apparently you gotta share where
you are in the world and you can't stop checking in on what they're doing that you weren't invited
to.
And like it's just like this downward spiral of self deprecation.
Yeah.
So like I think there's a piece of that the kids are like, please someone take like take
this on my hand.
Help me.
Yeah.
So and so those two stories are the number one and two reason that Melody will not be
getting a phone in for social media.
Now I can't, I do want her to be able to call if she's in an emergency at some point.
So I don't know when we're going to give her the phone for that, but as far as apps and
everything, it's not, she's not getting them in high school.
They should make a preteen phone that is just a phone the way that we had it.
They do.
It's just a phone.
It's called a gab phone.
You know how my kids have gab watches?
Yes.
The next level is gab phone where they can just call their five contacts or 10 contacts
or whatever and texts.
So it'd be you, me, you know, family in need of emergency.
No Instagram, no Tik Tok, but they can't even text their friends.
If they're not on that list, it doesn't work.
It doesn't work.
So that is something we'll look into maybe when she gets older, but no, I'm, I'm 100%
you heard it first here.
There will be no Tik Tok Snapchat, Instagram, Facebook for my kids in high school and they
can, they can hate me.
You first, Carly.
You first.
Hey, listen, if it comes to that and she comes to me and says, then you have to get off of
it.
If I can't have it, you can't have it.
I will say let's do it together then because if that's what it takes for her to be okay
with it and me to get off it.
Melody, let's talk tomorrow.
I hate it so much.
I hate it.
Okay, let's talk about how to combat adult screen time or help ourselves, maybe use it
less, get off it all together because cold turkey is just not really a thing.
No.
I mean, we work on our phones.
How?
How is cold turkey going to work?
I prefer cold fish, but yeah, no, you're right.
I mean, just this morning, the amount of work I had to do on my phone, I was so mad that
I had to do it.
I was like, I want to be doing something else, just enjoying coffee without my phone in my
hand.
So I agree.
I know.
It's so hard.
So, oh, this is a good one.
Use the phone for video calls when you can because they say it's a lot better than reading
and texting and even up to your ear.
I don't put the phone up to my ear, but what do you mean video?
Like a face time?
If you're going to call or do long calls or do stuff like that, do it on FaceTime so it's
not close to your face.
It's not in your hands.
You can just put it in FaceTime, which I think, hey, listen, you're getting some human connection
there as well.
That's facial expressions.
They don't really look presentable at all times.
We know.
But I heard that.
But I agree with that because I actually heard the AirPods, earbuds, AirPods.
AirPods.
I don't know what they're called.
That has radiation in there too.
And I'm like, oh, well, I just have that in.
I don't have my phone up to my ear.
I'll just keep this in my ear as I walk for an hour and I do all this stuff.
But like, that's actually really bad for you too.
So bad.
So that's a good idea.
Andrew walks around the house listening to podcasts 24 hours a day.
And number one, I hate it because I have to say, did you hear me?
He'll be like, he'll take it out and be like, what?
I'm like, I hate that.
He wears them for a reason.
And two, because I think it's really bad.
I don't know the actual research on the radiation in an AirPods, but I know it's not good for
you.
It isn't good.
Okay, this is new for me.
Shocking.
Something to help you limit your time.
Stop fubbing.
Fubbing.
P-H-U-B-B-I-N-G.
Fubbing.
It's short for phone snubbing.
It's dismissing people because you're on your phone.
Occurs when one person is being ignored because the other person is on their phone.
How often do you fub?
I don't.
If I'm with somebody?
No, you do it and I do it.
When?
When we're out with people, you for a second look at your phone or you're texting somebody
back and then you're half listening to the conversation that you're in at the table, but
you're also being, and like you're laughing and you're like, yeah, yeah, yeah.
But you're also you're on the phone responding to a text message.
That is fubbing.
I only really do that to you.
If I'm meeting somebody new, I don't get my phone out.
If I'm in an experience, I want to be present.
Like I try to, I don't even like record things anymore.
Like at a concert.
Yeah.
I go into the Ben Platt, I took that one video for Dean.
Yeah, can I have it?
You never sent it to me.
Yeah, because I forgot about it because I wanted to just sit there and be there in the
moment.
So that's the only video I took for the whole concert.
So like I'm trying not to get the phone out, but like I'm with you all the time.
So like, you're not trying to fub.
No, I'm trying to fub you.
I fub you.
Well, they say that fubbing, those that are experienced it or exposed to it are more
apt for loneliness and psychological distress because what are you doing?
You're ignoring somebody or you're being ignored.
Right.
You've got all the kids that are like, mom, dad, dad, dad.
And then on the fourth time you answer and you look up from your phone.
Are you talking about your children?
Yes.
Yeah.
Like if Dean says my name five times, because sometimes I'm just blind to it because all
he does is talk.
So sometimes it's not my fault.
All right.
It's Dean's fault.
Okay.
It's a five year old's fault.
But other times I'm working and I'm emailing or I just need to send this text and I'm like,
what Dean?
But he felt he wasn't heard.
He had to say my name five times.
He is a product of fubbing.
Dean the Thubman.
So don't do that.
It says be more present.
Yeah.
Yeah, that's a good one.
I've never heard that term, but it's accurate.
The next one, turn off unneeded notifications.
I do that.
I don't have any notifications, which is why you all yell at me when you say I don't respond
to your texts or your phone calls.
Well, you don't put it on sound like ever.
That's a notification just to like, oh, my phone went off.
Let me go check it.
Great.
I turned that off.
That's not what that is.
It's the banners that come down when yours is like, tells you all the news.
First of all, get over yourself or Instagram.
Somebody like this, like I don't have that one.
I don't have that one or Facebook.
I don't even have Facebook on my phone or Messenger.
So those types of banners.
And when it asks like, oh, go into your settings, you download a new app, go into your settings
and put notifications.
Do the notifications.
I'm always like later because I will, I won't do it.
Yeah.
That would go off every five seconds.
I know.
Yeah.
No, I usually don't have those notifications or my sound on or my phone in a place where
I'm going to answer the phone.
So I don't do any of that.
So why do you have a phone to scroll?
No, I don't scroll all the time.
God.
Okay.
Set time limits for all your devices, including TV and electronic readers because while
e-readers are great like Kindle.
Yeah.
Pick up a real book.
I know.
100%.
Julia Finneo.
Julia on the shelf.
Wait, what's her Instagram handle?
Jules shelf.
Not Julia on the shelf.
Julia on the shelf.
Get your Julia on the shelf today.
She would tell you pick up a real book because even e-readers strain your eyes.
Come on.
They smell better anyway.
Especially a book from the library.
Yes.
With the cover on the front because they covered all their books to save them and you can hear
the crackle of the plastic.
Yes.
Oh, that's the best.
That is the best.
Establish a curfew for four devices.
So not only put them on a timer where they automatically turn off.
Establish a curfew.
I will not look at my phone past 10 p.m. if I go to bed at 11.
I will only look at my phone for 30 minutes at lunch.
Right.
You have to establish those just like you would any other routine.
Yeah.
You have to schedule them in so that you follow through like a workout or a meal plan
or making a lunch date.
Victoria is going to love this.
Don't eat while using your phone.
Mindfulness.
We haven't gotten to the point yet where we have to like take the kids phones during
dinner or while we're together because we don't just don't have any.
But Andrew and I are very good at when we eat dinner with the kids, the phones are off
the table.
Just put them off the table and then you won't have the, you know, want to look and see if
anybody texted you.
Just put them off the table and study.
You'll just go, hey, Google, tell us.
Okay.
Google is on there, but it creates conversation too.
It's true.
Skip screens in the bedroom all together.
Yeah.
I don't even have a TV in my room.
I do and I go to sleep to it, but I find this hard because in an emergency, what do you
need?
You need your phone.
They say don't put it by your bedside.
But if in an emergency, am I running across the room to get my phone?
Like, I don't, they make it so hard.
I know.
I, I do have it.
So I have a king size bed.
I tried to sleep in the center of it.
My dog ruins that, but I have it on the side of the phone.
So to me, it feels far away, but I can't not put it in the room with me.
I live by myself.
I know.
Like it just feels like it's a lifeline in some, in some ways.
Right.
So I, yeah, I don't know what to do with that.
Maybe on the bureau.
So like you do have to get up and out to like handle the phone and it'll make you second
guess whether or not you want to go check the phone to scroll.
But if someone's really needing you, like you're going to get yourself out of bed to
go check it.
Maybe I could try that.
Try it.
Let me know how it goes.
I'll pretend to break in and we can see the worst.
You're just silent.
You're the last person anyone's calling in an emergency, but think about this though.
I have the charger next to my bed that charges my work phone, my regular phone and my Apple
watch all radiation and it's right by my bed.
You got to move it.
I know.
Put it in the bathroom.
I know.
So your brain is shrinking.
But my phone is my alarm.
So I'm like, I'm, this is a work in progress.
I'm working it all out right now.
But technically they say to get an alarm that has like a simulation of the sun to wake you
up for your circadian rhythm, you know, you know what I'm talking about?
Circadian or circadian?
Circadian stop.
Oh, circranium.
No, I said it wrong.
You were being a brat and I continued with what I said.
And I believed you.
I know.
Circadian.
Thank you.
The, the rhythm of waking up.
I night you.
Circranium.
Oh my God.
I'm dying.
Circranium.
I totally would have believed you if you were like, no, you idiot.
It's circranium.
Yeah, mom.
I called her an idiot.
Circranium is not even what I said.
Moving on.
Okay.
You're supposed to have an alarm clock itself, like old school.
Yes, but it like puts the sunrise in your room and that's how you should naturally like
wake up type of thing.
So maybe we need to invest in just like a regular alarm clock so that the phone can
be in the room, but away.
Right.
And you wake up with something that's not going to emit radiation.
Right.
You know, it's not a, it's not a bad idea.
Yeah.
And you can try all these things.
It's never a perfect plan, but we got to get, I feel like we got to go back because
something's got to change.
It's getting worse and worse.
The last one is take a break from the screen every 30 minutes, even at work, if that means
get up to go to the bathroom, if that means to get up and get some water, if that means
to get up and take a walk around the office.
I mean, it's easier at home because you can get up and do whatever you can get up and
make yourself a snack, but they say every 30 minutes, give your eyes and your neck and
your back.
That's not the rhythm.
That wasn't the rhythm of the song.
So I approve.
Give it a break every 30 minutes.
So those are ways that you can slowly help yourself from getting out of this hellhole
of the iPhone or screen that we are in right now.
Having said that, researchers have said, and we will link the articles that we got all
this information from, because it was really, really interesting, that for the past 10 to
15 years, what's been challenging is limiting by, by limited, but I'm sorry, by going to
the phone more, we are limiting face to face contact, which is causing mental problems,
mental illness, all of that stuff.
Are you having a mental problem right now?
I'm having a cognitive problem.
That's mental.
Crushing it though.
But yeah, so that's been happening in the past 10 to 15 years.
Mental illness has skyrocketed for all the obvious reasons.
Yeah, it doesn't seem like rocket science.
No.
Social media.
I mean, come on.
One of the advice tips that they said to do is follow your friends.
Follow what they're doing.
Don't follow celebrities.
I know it's hard, but celebrities aren't real life.
So especially for the younger kids that don't know that that's not real life, they suggest
that they only follow their friends.
Celebrities aren't even in charge of their own Instagrams.
Right.
And influencers and stuff.
So if you have a child in their teens or younger or even for you, just follow people
that you know because they're posting.
Hopefully, I mean, everybody's posting fake stuff, but it's way less than celebrities.
No one's trying to sell you stuff and just have them follow people that they know.
Yeah.
And that's like a safety tip too.
Yeah.
Well, to quote my buddy, Princey P. Oh wait, hold on.
Prince.
It's from 1999.
Oh my God.
1999.
Ancient.
It's from the 1900s.
And it was when like right, 1999, we had computers, but it was like just the precipice of what
was about to happen in, you know, Y2K that we all thought we were going to die.
Ugh.
Stop.
And he said, one thing I wanted to say is don't be fooled by the internet.
It's cool to get on the computer, but don't let the computer get on you.
It's cool to use the computer.
Don't let the computer use you.
Y'all saw the matrix.
There's a war going on.
The battlefield's in the mind and the prize is the soul.
So just be careful.
Be very careful.
Yeah.
I mean, come on, Prince.
Yes.
He had some, he had some advice.
I mean, if you really, really think about that, it's so true.
Don't let the computer use you.
You use the computer.
It is an asset.
It is not life.
It is not a piece of you.
Yeah.
That eventually takes over.
It's every like robot movie where they end up taking over the world and humanity dies.
Like that's relic living in it in a small way and it's about to get a lot bigger, I think
with AI, but in any case, I think that we lived in a generation where we didn't have
it and now we have it.
This generation has only had it.
It's very different.
So it's scary too because they don't know life without it.
We know what it was like to not live with phones and computers.
We're the last generation.
Yeah.
Little did we know our childhood would be the last childhood of innocence.
Yeah.
That is so sad to think of too.
And it's also, it should catapult you into trying to figure out how to get some of that
back, not only for you, but for, you know, for the next generation and for the kids.
I think that there are more people that think the way we think.
It's just very hard to act on it.
Yeah.
You know?
Well, because if you don't and you quote unquote go off the grid a little bit more than the
norm, you're out of the loop.
Right.
You're out of the loop.
You miss things.
You are not obviously in with like what's going on in the world and you're kind of looked
down upon because you're now weird.
Right.
And you have to have a strong mind to go against that and not care and go against the grain.
And I think there are a lot of people that do do that, but do do.
But there's definitely a piece of societal pressure.
Yes.
Especially on kids too.
I feel like I could go off of it and it wouldn't be a big deal.
If kids go off of it just like, you know, my nephew who's going to college, it's like
he's out of the loop.
That's why he needs it.
But you don't need it.
But you need to be in the loop.
No, but as a 15, 16 year old or you feel like you do.
Well, the world is very small at that time.
So I get, I mean, I can understand it looking out of that.
It doesn't matter.
You'll be fine.
Right.
We walked home from school and we said goodbye to our friends.
And if we were having a rough day at school with the girls, because girls stink at like
fifth, sixth, seventh grade.
We got to not think about it from three o'clock on.
But like now it follows them home.
These mean girls are in their bedroom because they're on the phone.
You know, so it's very hard and just like him, he was like, I wish I didn't have it.
And that's like, they don't want it.
So just like, I'm going to try to just not give it to her and see, see how long I can
stand it or how long she can stand it.
Keep their childhoods, a childhood as long as you can.
So we're going to leave you with this.
It's a little bit scary and depressing, but I it's very important.
It's a little bit funny.
In 2016, this was pre pandemic, right?
Pre pandemic 2016.
A U.S. study found that people who spend more than seven hours per day on screens are four
times as likely to be diagnosed with depression.
That was in 2016.
And that was seven hours a day diagnosed with depression.
Look where we are now.
I know.
Yeah.
In two majors, a study found that the suicide rate went up 56 percent.
56 percent.
Mm hmm.
In 2022.
Yo, 56 percent.
56 percent.
Because what are they doing?
They're online.
They're looking at things.
They're figuring out how to do it.
Number one, if I were a kid at that time, I wouldn't even had to know.
Like I wouldn't have had the ability or awareness to know how or what suicide was.
I didn't know what that word was because we didn't have to look at it on our phone.
But now people are giving tips and tricks on how to do it.
Yeah.
There's a trick to do anything and everything in this world.
So 56 percent rise.
So that it's just so sad.
And that just I'm just pointing that out there.
I hate to leave you with such a depressing thing, but that's how serious it is.
But it's yeah, it's very it's real.
So it's it's not only real.
It is imperative that the small change you can make in your own household with your unit
needs to be done because one house at a time can can definitely help that statistic, hopefully
lower.
Yeah.
Oh, that's horrible.
I know.
It made me sad when I read it.
I was just like, this isn't what I want for the kids.
This isn't what I want for anybody's kids, not just mine.
You have feelings.
I do have feelings.
This is what I want for myself, either.
I don't want to be scrolling.
I don't want to be looking me scrolling.
They hated.
Right in dirt.
I don't know the middle part, but trolling.
But I like the pause that you took because I didn't know that.
Right in dirt.
Do you notice how low how much lower our voices got?
They see me rolling.
You can't do it up here.
Oh, well, we hope you've learned something.
You were shocked and alarmed and really passionate enough to make some sort of difference in
your own phone and habit.
So yeah, there's really nothing else we can say about this.
Take this in.
Do one of the things that we suggested and see if that makes your day a little bit lighter
with, I feel like, bogged down on the phone.
Maybe that's what you meant, bugged out or bugged down on the phone.
That was a long time ago.
I know.
That's the first thing you said.
I think bogged down by the phone.
You are not a slave to your phone.
You are not a slave to the computer.
So take back your control.
I'm going to try and do that too because I don't want my kids to think that the phone
is more important than them.
Yeah.
I think that's the most important thing.
I'm going, my thing is going to be buying an alarm clock, putting my phone on my bureau
away from my head and hoping that I said alarms correctly.
So with that said, per usual, we hope that you remember you are always fit to be real
and always allowed to be a little extra.
For legal reasons, we have to tell you that this podcast is meant for entertainment and
educational purposes only.
We are not healthcare professionals.
For all of your health, wellness, fitness and self-care needs, please refer to the medical
professional in your life, your primary care physician, your therapist, a certified coach,
whoever it may be.
And then let us know what they say because I guarantee we need to know it too.
Okay?