Minimizing Screen Time for Grown-Ups

We’re all addicted to our phones — but it turns out it’s not our fault! Author, journalist, and speaker Catherine Price joins hosts Lea Palmieri and Matt Stillo to walk us through why we’re so glued to our social media accounts, and what we can do to slowly put down the smartphone and get more out of life. From tips about nixing those notifications to taking up non-phone hobbies, we’ll have you relying on your phone less and less by the minute with this episode. You can read more about Catherine’s plan to get us off our phones and out into the world in her book, “How to Break Up With Your Phone: The 30-Day Plan to Take Back Your Life”.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:04):
Ruby.

Speaker 2 (00:08):
Hi, I'm Leah Palmery.

Speaker 3 (00:09):
And I'm Matt still a Welcome to grown up stuff.

Speaker 2 (00:14):
We are so glad you're here, even though you're probably
listening to this on your phone.

Speaker 3 (00:18):
Yeah that's right. But today we're going to help you
learn how to spend a whole lot less time on
your phone except for listening to the show of course.

Speaker 2 (00:26):
Oh the show is always the exception. But you and
I have spoken a lot about doing less social media, Matt,
and that's what we're tackling today with our guest Catherine Price,
who literally wrote the book How to Break Up with
Your Phone. She's going to walk us through some practical
steps to making it much harder to check our socials
and therefore live in the real world.

Speaker 3 (00:44):
That's where we should all be living. There's no world
like the real world.

Speaker 2 (00:48):
Well, there is the world that's just in my hand
at all times, and it sucks me in every day.

Speaker 3 (00:53):
That's true. Sometimes it does feel like more of a
real world in there.

Speaker 2 (00:57):
But Matt, what is your main social media? Are you
a TikTok addict, a threads fiend? What app has your
attention most?

Speaker 3 (01:05):
I refuse to download TikTok because I know that once
I do, it's over for me, like I won't have
a life anymore. My sister shows me videos all the
time and I'm like, this looks fantastic, and i just
can't do it because I'm on Reddit too much. Oh yeah,
the main thing for me is Reddit.

Speaker 1 (01:21):
What about you.

Speaker 2 (01:22):
I'm an instag girly for sure, but I avoided TikTok
for a while and then when it got me, it
got me, and I'm like so much that people need
to see this. I will screen record and send it
to the people who don't have TikTok, even though I
also judge them harshly because just get over here already.
But I also understand the addiction.

Speaker 3 (01:41):
If you could be my TikTok curator, that would be fantastic, Like,
just send me the best.

Speaker 2 (01:45):
Of the best, No curator, It's just all there and
you just gotta be there, so get on board.

Speaker 1 (01:51):
Okay.

Speaker 3 (01:52):
Well, well, Instagram, I'm sure misses you very much. Here
is Catherine with some more handy tips on how to
keep your hands off your phones.

Speaker 1 (02:01):
Well stuff.

Speaker 4 (02:05):
I'm Catherine Price. I'm a health and science journalist and
I've written a number of books about how to have
healthier relationships with technology, and how to feel more alive,
including most relevantly, how to break up with your phone,
and another one called The Power of Fun. And I'm
working on an upcoming book for kids that's called The
Amazing Generation with Jonathan Height from The Anxious Generation, and
that is our attempt to help the next generation of

(02:28):
kids have lives full of friendship and freedom and fun
that are not hijacked by screens.

Speaker 3 (02:34):
Your lips to God's ears, we.

Speaker 2 (02:36):
Need it so bad. But take us back a little bit. First,
walk us through the moment that you realized we're not
just using our phones too much, we are actually being
manipulated by them. They are controlling us more than we
even realize.

Speaker 4 (02:50):
Right, I mean, the idea that we're not just using
our phones, our phones are using us, I think is
really so important. And I think that for me it
was definitely a process, as it is for many people.
But there was one moment that really stands out in
my mind, which was that about ten years ago, my
daughter had just been born and I was up late
at night with her and I had this moment probably

(03:13):
was because of sleep deprivation, where I really could see
the scene as if I was on the outside looking in,
and there was this person holding a baby. The baby's
looking up at her mother, and then her mother's looking
down at her phone. And it really upset me because
I realized that was not what I wanted my daughter
to think about, a human relationship, littleone with her mom.
And also that wasn't how I wanted to be living
my own life. And so I remember having conversations with

(03:35):
my husband soon thereafter about smartphones and this was in
twenty sixteen, so quite a while ago, and saying, geez,
this is not okay. Look at how attached and dependent
everybody already is on these little machines. And you know,
I realized this isn't just something that I was struggling with.
It wasn't just something that my husband was struggling with.
Everyone around us was struggling with this problem. But at

(03:55):
that point, there wasn't a big conversation happening around the
issue of technology and our relationship with it. And I
like to joke that I've got a history of turning
my personal issues into professional projects, and so I thought, oh, well,
that's interesting. Maybe I could actually write a book about this,
and I could actually try to solve my own problem,
but also help other people at the same time. And
so that's what led to my book, How to Break

(04:17):
Up with Your Phone, because I really genuinely wanted to know,
you know, what is our screen time doing to us?
What's happening to our ability to think and be creative
and remember things and all these other things as a
result of our relationships with our phones. And then most importantly,
what can we do to change things? How can we
actually have a healthy relationship with technology.

Speaker 3 (04:36):
I think that a lot of people feel that way,
that this is a personal problem. They're on social media
and they're on their phone too much, and they're apologizing
a tenor sorr I should put this away, like we
feel like it's our problem, but it really isn't. As
you've discovered, entirely our faults. These phones are designed to
manipulate uniquely human traits. So could you talk a little
bit about like what exactly they are exploiting in us? Yeah?

Speaker 4 (04:58):
I think you make a really import point just to
emphasize that first, which is that this is not our fault.
A lot of times people blame themselves for spending so
much time on their phones or on particular apps, and
they feel guilty, and they feel ashamed, and then they
feel powerless. But the reality is that there's only one
of each of us, and there are thousands of people
working at technology companies to try to hook us on

(05:20):
their products because that's how they make money. They make
money from taking our time and our attention from us.
So it is not our fault. And the last thing
we want to do is feel guilty or ashamed of
what we're doing on these apps or on our phones.
Is that doesn't help anything. But I think to answer
your question about how are these things manipulating us, they're
designed to tap into very basic human needs for connection

(05:41):
and friendship. The promises that social media companies make, in particular,
if you read the mission statements on their websites, they
sound great.

Speaker 5 (05:48):
You know.

Speaker 4 (05:48):
Snapchat says it's meant to help empower people to express
the full range of human emotions without pressure to be
popular or perfect.

Speaker 6 (05:56):
That seems a stretch, but okay, yeah, I know, right,
like okay, But you know, I think that there are
genuine reasons we reach for our phones.

Speaker 4 (06:04):
We don't like feeling bored, so we look for distractions.
We don't like feeling lonely, so we look for connection,
and we often feel overwhelmed by work, and so we
want to have a break.

Speaker 5 (06:13):
So all of it makes sense.

Speaker 4 (06:14):
The unfortunate reality is that many of those promises are lies,
and the quote connection you find if you turn to
social media is not going to feel anywhere near as
good as spending time with someone in real life, or
even having a virtual conversation like we're having now, you know,
with another real person is fundamentally different. So I think
they really do take advantage of our basic human needs
and kind of distort them for their own purposes, and

(06:35):
their own purpose, primarily is just to make more money.

Speaker 5 (06:37):
One thing that's absolutely essential.

Speaker 4 (06:38):
For all of us to know is that the way
that the app makers who make our most problematic apps
make money is by selling advertisements, by basically selling our
time and attention to companies that want to show us ads.
And what that essentially means is that if an app
is free, then you are actually not the customer of
that app. You're actually the product that's being sold, or

(06:59):
more specific, your time and attention are being sold, and
the real customers are other companies that are paying the
social media company to put ads for their products in
your feed and get you to look at them. So
that can be really eye opening for people when they
realize that, and something to keep an eye out for.
Because the goal of free apps social media being the
biggest culprit here is to keep us glued to our

(07:21):
screens for as long as possible, And so how do
you actually do that? Well, the easiest way to do
that is take advantage of our brains dopamine systems. And
dopamine is a brain chemical that helps us establish habits.
It helps our brains notice and remember things that are
important and then motivate us to do them again in
the future. So the example I always use is like
if you were walking in the woods and you came
across a raspberry bush, Well, the red of the raspberry

(07:42):
against the green leaf is a dopamine trigger. It will
get your brain to automatically release a little bit dopamine.
You might also have some vague memory that that type
of berry was sweet in the past, and all of
those things together will motivate you, often on a subconscious level,
to reach for that raspberry on the bush and eat it.
And then when you do that and you don't die,
and it tastes sweet and you're like, oh, it's a
raspberry your brain is going to release dopamine, and then

(08:03):
it's going to make it more likely that if you're
in the woods in the future, you're going to be
scanning for raspberry bushes, even if you don't realize you're
doing it, and if you come across one, you're going
to be even more compelled to reach for that berry
again in the future because of the dopamine habit loop
that you've established and that example, dopamine's doing a good thing.
You know, it's actually evolutionarily essential because it motivates us
to do things that are necessary for survival, like eat

(08:24):
and reproduce. Dopamine's released some response to sex as well.
But you can see how you can take advantage of
that system. Because your brain's not deciding to release dopamine,
it's automatic if you encounter a dopamine trigger. And so
something that product designers have recognized is that if you
want to create a product that hooks people, and if
you want to create a product that maximizes the amount

(08:44):
of time that people are going to spend on it
is very simple. All you need to do is put
dopamine triggers into your product, and then on a subconscious
biochemical level, people are going to establish the habit of
spending lots of time on your product. And the best
example of that type of device, a device that manipulates
our brain chemistry to keep us coming back, is the
slot machine. Slot machines are packed with dopamine triggers and

(09:05):
they're widely considered to be some of the most addictive
machines in the world. There's actually laws in many states
like preventing people under a certain age from even using
slot machines because they're so addictive. And that is very
concerning because there are so many similarities between smartphones and
apps and slot machines that some experts, including Tristan Harris,
who's a pretty well known advocate, actually call smartphones slot

(09:27):
machines that we keep in our pockets. So, again going
back to the idea that if you spend a lot
of time on your phone and you find yourself spending
more time than you want or realize on your phone,
please don't blame yourself. You have actually been brain hacked,
which is a term from the industry on a biochemical level,
into behaving in ways that benefit the companies and not you,
and you didn't even know what was happening, because again,

(09:49):
it's brain chemistry. It's this release of dopamine that's causing
you to behave in the way that you are. It's
very much like we're just conditioned lab raps.

Speaker 2 (09:56):
Honestly, I feel that because now I'm also hungry for Raspberry,
so I'm definitely falling right into that trap.

Speaker 4 (10:02):
I brainhacked you, did You got there just with my words?

Speaker 2 (10:05):
Yeah. Early in your book you present the idea of
just turning your phone off, completely putting it in another
room in a drawer. What does it say about me
if when you even just mention the fact of turning
it off, I got a wave of anxiety.

Speaker 4 (10:25):
I think that means you're a twenty first century human being.
When I get talks, I'll often say like, I challenged
you to turn your phone off for the next hour
or whatever when I'm giving a talk, and then I'm like,
if you even know how to turn your phone off?
Because they've made it very difficult. I think it started
with the iPhone eleven. I might not be entirely right,
but like, it's not easy, and so most of us
never turn them off. But just to clarify, in case

(10:47):
listeners are like, oh, who is this woman who's telling
people to turn off their phones? There was in the
context of encouraging people to do an experiment where you
take a twenty four hour break from devices, and that's
something that is often called a digital sabbath, and it's
I mean, I really recommend trying, even if it's just
one time. And then if you have the same reaction
that you had where you freak out upon even hearing
the idea, let alone trying it, that's an invitation for

(11:10):
self reflection to be like, oh, that's interesting, Like get
curious about it. Why did that make you panic? What
are you worried about? What is the root of that anxiety,
and what would it be like to try it? And
I will say that your reaction is extremely common, okay,
but many, many, many people who I've heard from over
the years who try that report back and say, oh
my god, that was so much easier than I thought

(11:30):
it would be and it was so wonderful. They don't
even want to turn their phones back on at the
end of the twenty four hours.

Speaker 3 (11:37):
So you've mentioned this sort of sabbath thing, but in
the book you developed this thirty day breakup plan that
starts with interestingly journaling rather than like immediately cutting the
screen time. So why doesn't cold Turkey necessarily work? Like,
what is the journaling of it all?

Speaker 4 (11:53):
Well, I think that cold Turkey isn't realistic for most
people because the reality is that there's many practical functions
of our phones. But to back up, one of the
things I think that makes the breakup plan that I
came up with stand apart from some of the other
advice I've seen about screen time is that most of
the screen time advice I've seen cuts immediately to things
like turning your phone to black and white, or turning

(12:13):
off notifications, or get your phone into your bedroom. Those
are all really important things to do, but they don't
address the fundamental question of why you want to change
your relationship with your phone to begin with. And if
you don't know why you're doing it, then it feels
like an arbitrary set of restrictions or changes. It's almost
like going on a diet, So you just feel like
you're constantly saying no to yourself, but you don't know

(12:33):
why you're doing it. So I really wanted to encourage
people to spend the initial phases of this breakup getting
curious about their own motivations and not saying, oh, I
just want to cut back on screen time because I
feel guilty or I feel ashamed or whatever, but more like,
I want to cut back on my screen time because
I want to spend more time on my passions or
with my kids or with my loved ones. Have a

(12:54):
positive goal. So I ended up including this exercise where
you actually write a breakup letter to your phone. And
I just love this idea, but it might sound like, well,
that's kind of out of left feel like why am
I writing a breakup letter to my phone? And I
would say a couple of reasons. One is that one
of the most interesting things I discovered when I was
writing How to Break Up with Your Phone in the
first place was that I never had to explain that
metaphor to people. No One was like, I don't understand

(13:16):
what you mean by breaking up with your phone. I
mean they might have thought I meant dumping it, like
getting rid of it entirely, and then I always had
to clarify that, No, I mean like breaking up with
it so you can create a better relationship. But they
got the relationship concept very quickly. And I think that's
something that makes our smartphones different from most, if not all,
other technologies, is that I don't feel like I have
a relationship with my laptop. I don't feel like I
have a relationship with the microphone I'm using to talk

(13:38):
to you guys, but I do have a relationship with
my phone. And so that led to me thinking, wouldn't
it be interesting to just ask people to write an
actual breakup note to their phone? And what I discovered
when people did that is they started, you know, with
this kind of playful tone, but often their notes got
very deep and vulnerable and profound really quickly. There was
something about fully embodying the idea that that you are

(14:00):
in a relationship with the phone and you need to
break up with it that led people to express themselves
in ways that I don't think that they would have
if I just said, give me a bullet pointed list
of five reasons you want to cut back on your
screen time. So anyway, all that is to say, for
anyone listening, if you just want to play around with
any of these ideas, you might want to just like,
instead of scrolling through your phone tonight before bed, put

(14:21):
it in the other room and then spend ten minutes
writing a breakup note to your phone and ask yourself
things like what do you love about your relationship with
your phone? Why did you get in a relationship with
your phone to begin with? When does it feel good?
But then also like what's annoying about your phone? What
makes you mad about your phone? What has your phone
done to you? Your phone hopefully will never read this letter,
so you don't have to worry about his feelings.

Speaker 3 (14:42):
But Tim Cook will, Yeah, exactly.

Speaker 4 (14:45):
You know, people would say like I'm furious that you
made me miss out on moments with my child, or
like I wasn't present at my own wedding or whatever
because I was worried about the images on social media,
Like you can express these feelings that you may not
even realize you have. Anyway, that's a very long answer,
but that was the idea behind that initial journaling prompt.

Speaker 3 (15:02):
No, I love that, and I think a lot of
what you're talking about speaks to mindfulness. For anything in life,
you do need a reason to do it. I mean,
if there's no reason to your point, it's arbitrary. But
if you actually have a very strong reason, like getting
more in touch with your family, Like, can't think of
a better reason to break up with your phone than that.
But one thing I am curious about sometimes I think
it's hard for people to think of their phone as

(15:22):
an addiction, but it very much can be, and you're
probably going to go through some withdrawal if you really
begin to remove it from your life. So do you
have any advice for people who are having difficulty with
that kind of situation? Yeah?

Speaker 4 (15:37):
So, technically, the American Psychiatric Association is not classified smartphone
or social media over use as an addiction, which is
interesting because gambling is the first ever behavior to be
classified as an addiction. And as we talked about, smartphones
are designed to mimxed lot machine. So I think it's
a matter of time. But just want to recognize this
is not officially a diagnosis yet. But the reality is

(15:57):
that the reason that these apps and our phone are
so hard to put down is because they're tapping into
the exact same brain systems, a dopamine system that's involved
in addiction. When you try to cut back in a
behavior or a substance you're addicted to, you're going to
go through withdrawal. So it doesn't really matter if we
call it a strict addiction or not. But if you
start to cut back, you might notice that you feel restless,

(16:18):
or that you feel kind of blah. Your anxiety might
go up, so you might start to see some of
these symptoms that actually are signs of withdrawal. It isn't
the same thing that happens when people cut back on
substances or addictive behaviors. And I would say, don't beat
yourself up for feeling bad. Instead be like, yes, this
is a sign that this is exactly what I need
to be doing right now, and that it's necessary. And

(16:40):
if you stick with it without judging yourself, without getting
mad at yourself. But if you're able to kind of
ride out those emotions and ride out your cravings almost
like you can imagine yourself as a surfer that's riding
out a wave, then those cravings and those feelings will
start to fade on their own. And research has shown
that on average, of people are able to take a
in this case of herdbreak from for example, social media

(17:01):
for about two weeks. That's when the symptoms start to
really wane. One of the crucial things, though, is to
find a replacement behavior, so say, if you start to
feel these bad things as a result of spending less
time on whatever your most problematic app is or your smartphone,
Like go back to that question. We've been talking about,
what do you want to do with your free time,
like even things to keep your hands busy, like knitting
or like a puzzle. I mean really just anything to

(17:24):
kind of give you a replacement activity and then try
to ride out this experience because things will get better,
but it might be rough for a while.

Speaker 2 (17:31):
Surfing great replacement activity, as we mentioned.

Speaker 4 (17:35):
Yeah, and then also get a friend to do this
with you. It's so much easier if you've got a friend,
and then you'll build a stronger relationship and you'll have
support along the way.

Speaker 2 (17:44):
So we're going to embark on this thirty day challenge,
but we've sort of talked about like cold turkey is
probably not going to work. We've written the letter, what
are some realistic goals for less phone time? Like we
can't go from like one hundred to zero, so what
should we sort of be aiming for.

Speaker 4 (18:01):
I don't think there's a one specific goal in terms
of time that you need to be aiming for, but
I do recommend that people calculate how much time they're
spending and what it adds up to. I mean, if
you spend four hours a day on your phone, that's
about sixty.

Speaker 5 (18:14):
Full days a year.

Speaker 4 (18:15):
So that's a lot of time, right, I mean, you
can keep doing the math, it's like every hour adds
up to roughly fifteen days a year, and that's full
twenty four hour days. So if you're just talking about
your waking time like it's even more so that can
be very sobering for people. So I'd go for that
wake up call and then ask yourself, geez, like, what
could you do with that time if you hadn't spent
it on your phone. But I'd also really recommend again

(18:38):
do the breakup letter, but identify what do you want
to be spending your time on, because if you can
fill your time with more of those things, your screen
time will naturally decrease. If you have more time with
your real life friends, you're not going to be on
social media as much because that need for connection will
have been fulfilled by being with your friends, and you'll
just have fewer hours in the day because you just
spent them with your friend. You can't spend those hours

(18:59):
now on social media vice versa as well. I think
in terms of like practical steps people should take, ask yourself,
what do you like about your phone and want to
keep doing with it? And what do you not like
and want to spend less time on Because one of
the most difficult parts of this is that our phones
genuinely are useful tools.

Speaker 5 (19:17):
There's many reasons.

Speaker 4 (19:18):
We have them, right, but some apps are much more
problematic than others. And for many apps it's very clear,
like Google Maps not a problem for most people. Online banking,
I've never met anyone who's like.

Speaker 1 (19:30):
I can't stop.

Speaker 4 (19:30):
Yeah, exactly, I've spent six hours looking at my bank accounts. Yeah,
so that's not stuff to feel bad about, Like that's
actually making your life better, more efficient, more enjoyable in
some way. But then also identify your problem apps. They'll
probably be social media, they'll probably be the news, games, dating, shopping.
These are all slot machine apps. They're all designed to
hack our brains, dopamine system and get us to spend

(19:52):
more time on them. And if you can identify what
the biggest problems are for yourself, then you can focus
your attention on figuring out how to create better boundaries
on those apps and spend less time on them. So
once you kind of have this sense of good apps
versus bad, then you can start to take concrete steps
on your phone. Like one thing I always tell people
is that if an app is a huge problem for you,
don't keep it on your phone. Like if you were

(20:13):
trying to quit smoking, you would not hopefully carry cigarettes
around in your pocket, because everyone knows that would be
not very effective way to quit smoking. But if you
know that you've got a problem scrolling through the news
or Instagram or what have you, experiment with getting it
off your phone. I always say experiment instead of just
get it off your phone because people freak out if
they think, oh, I don't think I can do that.
You can do it for twenty four hours. Get Instagram

(20:34):
off your phone for the weekend. I actually haven't had
news apps on my phone since like twenty seventeen, and
I am not entirely uninformed. I just checked from a
desktop browser, you know. But like, get it off your phone,
don't keep it in your metaphorical or literal pocket if
it's a problem for you, And then I'd also recommend
that you read it is on your home screen and
your phone to just make it as boring as possible, because,

(20:55):
as we were just talking about, our phones are deliberately
packed with dopamine triggers to get us to want to
spend time on our phones. You can fight back by
doing things like adjust your settings so it's really easy
to toggle between black and white and color. You don't
want to have to go into the settings to do that.
You want to make it easy where you just hit
the side button three times and it will go back
and forth. Experiment with that for a couple days. It
is amazing how much less appealing the screen is if

(21:17):
it's in black and white. Also, clean up your home screen,
you know, like most people just have all their apps
on their home screen in the order in which they
were downloaded and in the order in which they just
happened to appear when you got your phone. You have
control over that. So my homescreen on my phone is
actually entirely empty.

Speaker 5 (21:33):
Wow.

Speaker 4 (21:34):
Yeah, I just have the app library, and then if
I want to open an app, I just pull down
the search bar and I search for the app. And
going back to Matt your point about mindfulness, it's because
I want to be intentional about using an app. I
want to open the app because I had a thought, Oh,
I want to do X on my phone, and so
I'm opening the app to do that. I don't want

(21:54):
to have it be Oh I just am kind of
like looking for something to do in this moment, and
I turned to my phone and there's the Instagram or
whatever it is. Make your phone boring is basically the
message here. And also make sure you reduce your notifications
because the notifications, which I call interruptions because that's really
what they're doing. They're interrupting you for something, and the
technology companies care about they're there to draw your attention

(22:14):
away from your present experience. So make sure that the
ones you allow are things you actually want to be
interrupted for. So if you take those steps just with
the phone itself, that'll make a big difference. And then
there's just things you can do with your physical environment
to just make it easier to do the things you
want to spend time on and harder to spend time
on your phone. So like if you establish you want
to read more books, or you want a journal more,
or you want to work on a craft project, or

(22:34):
you want to practice an instrument, like leave the guitar
out of its case, put a journal on your bedside
table along with a book, like make those things as
accessible as possible, but then also make it harder to
use your phone. So I charge my phone in a
closet at night.

Speaker 5 (22:48):
We have a voice.

Speaker 4 (22:49):
Over internet phone like a landline that we use so
that if there were an emergency, people could call the
quote unquote landline, which, by the way, some of those
landlines are actually free once you set them up, or
it's a very very low monthly rate. It's very easy
to get a landline these days. And then also keeping
your phone out of your bedroom and getting a standalone
alarm clock, very simple advice that people know, they often

(23:09):
don't do, but when they do it. I cannot even
tell you how many grown adults have said to me
getting an alarm clock.

Speaker 5 (23:17):
Yeah, I getting my phone out of my bedroom has
quote changed my life.

Speaker 4 (23:21):
And I was like, God, if I knew that, I
didn't have to write the book, I just had to
sell alarm clocks.

Speaker 5 (23:24):
Like that would have been so much easier.

Speaker 2 (23:26):
Did you get one of those alarm clocks that have
the weather on it too? Because I feel like one
of those would probably solve my entire life.

Speaker 5 (23:32):
You know, I actually just have a child as my alarm.

Speaker 6 (23:34):
Okay, I actually haven't used an alarm clock in years
unless I'm traveling because she gets up very regularly or
my husband gets up. But yeah, Like, you make a
really good point, which is basically, identify what your needs
are and then problem solve to figure out how to
do it without your phone. The point is that if
your phone is your alarm clock, you have to touch
the alarm to silence the alarm, right, So it guarantees

(23:57):
that the first thing you interact with in the morning,
literally the first thing is going to be your phone.
And once people realize that, they're like, oh right, I
don't want that. And the amount of time people get
back just by having the phone out of the bedroom
at night so you can fall asleep and you can
read journal whatever before bed instead of scrolling, and then
starting the day on your own terms, and then also
not getting distracted if you get up in the middle

(24:18):
of the night to use the bathroom and then you
look at your phone, right, you get like twelve hours
of time.

Speaker 5 (24:24):
It's amazing. So I really suggest doing that.

Speaker 3 (24:26):
That's been the biggest thing for me and kind of
like dovetails into like why I was so excited to
talk to you because it's something I've been experimenting or
telling anyone who will listen to me talk how much
this has changed my life. I fully sleep with my
phone in the other room now, and I had a why,
which was I wanted to read more. I love reading,
and I was not reading at all unless Instagram and

(24:47):
Reddit counts as reading, which it doesn't. And it's been
such a huge just peace of mind shifted, like it
actually has made my bedroom a more like sanctuary space
where I'm actually getting more sleep because reading a book
on my kindle is far more boring than reading anything
on the slot machine that is my phone, to your point,
and it's made me think about other ways that I
can do this and actually thank you for saying that

(25:07):
thing about the notifications. It's true, like I don't need
to know in the middle of dinner what is going
on in the world, because the terrible thing's going on
in the world, and if I want to read about it,
I can open up a browser and go to wherever
I like to get my news and do that intentionally
when I want to.

Speaker 4 (25:24):
Just one thing in response to that, because news is
a huge problem for people you know, across the political spectrum,
and I would just say one thing that made a
real difference for me is realizing that my phone is
kind of a Pandora's box of emotions, and once you
open it, you can't shove those emotions back in. There's
just a lot of stuff happening right now, and many
people are very upset by it. And so if you

(25:44):
know that, I would encourage people to have a conversation
with themselves about what they want their relationship with the
news to be and then try to figure out specific
times where you're going to open that box for yourself.
But just as you're saying, Matt, do not have that
be all the time whenever a news app decides to
send you a notification. So many people are living in

(26:04):
such a state of anxiety right now and also exhaustion
and burnout. I think in large part because of this
constant onslaught of news. And keep in mind that while
as a journalist I believe strongly in the need to
have journalists and press, most news organizations actually also make
their money off of advertising, and so they're going to

(26:25):
show you stuff that upsets you because that increases their engagement.
So while I think it's absolutely essential that we support journalism.
Do recognize that you can stay informed without going nuts,
I guess is what I'm saying. Or maybe you can't
I don't know, but you can at least try to
minimize your emotions by saying, Okay, I'm going to check
it from my desktop, or some people I know even
have gone back to paper newspapers, yeah right, Or I'm

(26:46):
going to listen to this show during this time and
then I'm not going to listen to it. So all
that is to say, I think that it's a really
important kind of self reflection to determine what you want
to learn about, when you want to learn about, and
how you're going to create boundaries around it so you
can feel as informed as you feel you need to
be without having a negative impact on your own mental health,
because I think a lot of us think that staying

(27:07):
informed is helping other people. It's helping, but in reality,
how much is it helping other people versus getting you
worked up?

Speaker 5 (27:15):
And personally?

Speaker 4 (27:16):
I believe like you have to take care of yourself
in order to be able to be a positive force
in the world. And so if you're allowing your own
anxiety levels and stress levels to get so high that
you feel paralyzed. It's actually hurting your ability to make
a positive change in the way that you might want
to if you're finding that, despite your best intentions, you can't. Again,
not your fault, but part of my issue with technology

(27:38):
companies is they don't give us built in tools that
actually help us create healthy relationships with their devices.

Speaker 5 (27:43):
And so for example, Apple's.

Speaker 4 (27:44):
Screen time feature great idea, but that stupid little hourglass
that pops up if you exceed your limit on an
app doesn't actually block you out of the app. It
just asks if you want to extend the time, and
then you feel guilty about yourself because you hit, you know,
fifteen minutes more. There are a number of app blockers
on the market, and they're both actual apps but also
physical gadgets that you can use to set limits on

(28:06):
your own screen time in particular categories of apps, and
even set schedules for yourself that truly do block you
out of the apps during the times that you specified,
and I highly recommend that people look into those. Some
of the ones I hear people talk about a lot
are Freedom is a great app. I use that myself,
opal screen Zen, These are apps you can use. There's

(28:26):
a fantastic physical gadget called the Brick.

Speaker 2 (28:28):
Matt is the bricks number one fan, So Matt has
you're just spreading the gospel of bricks.

Speaker 3 (28:35):
So just say, you know, yeah, the brick is great.

Speaker 5 (28:37):
Oh okay, so people know.

Speaker 4 (28:38):
But the brick you scan your phone over it as
if you're paying for something with a credit card on
your phone, and it will actually block your chosen apps
so that you only have the ones you chose to
be allowed.

Speaker 3 (28:47):
Yeah.

Speaker 4 (28:47):
Point being like on a weekend or when you're on vacation,
what I do. I'm like, I only want to have
access to my camera and the actual phone and the
map app yep, maybe a couple other things, right, like
the tickets for the plane, and I block everything else.
And then suddenly your smartphone turns into this not a
temptation but a tool, and you can actually keep it
with you and use it just for those things, and
it's beautiful, and the reduction and anxiety and the ability

(29:08):
to truly take a break, it's astonishing. So please use
app blockers people. Until the phone companies get the message
that they should build these features into their actual products,
you couldn't agree.

Speaker 2 (29:17):
More, we'll be right back after a quick break.

Speaker 1 (29:28):
And we're back with more grown up stuff. How do
I don't.

Speaker 3 (29:35):
So we've talked a lot about blocking and removing these distractions,
which are really really important. But I think that people
have this question on the other side of that coin,
which is like you've got all this like free time,
and maybe you're a little bored now, Like I'm curious
kind of like how you think about the situations, like
what do we do now stare at the ceiling, talk
to a neighbor. What is a good way to bring
some good stuff into your life? Or is boredom in

(29:56):
and of itself good?

Speaker 4 (29:57):
I mean both the suggestions, the worst ones. Definitely talk
to your neighbors. That's how you build community and feel
less alone. It will be actually much for a rewarding
than spending that same time scrolling through social media. Even
if you find your neighbor annoying, it's human connection. I
don't think there's anything wrong with stereoto ceiling to think
that boredom and space is incredibly important for us to have,
because our brands can't come up with creative and new

(30:19):
thoughts if we're constantly filling them with information from content
on our phone. So I'm a big fan of boredom.
But I also would say, like, prepare to feel a
little bit lost if you've been spending a ton of
time on your phone.

Speaker 5 (30:29):
This happened to me.

Speaker 4 (30:29):
I wasn't even spending that much time on it, but
during one of those digital sabbaths where my husband and
I weren't using screens at all, and I had this
quiet hour all to myself. You know, my daughter was nappy,
and it should have been this like glorious moment in
early parenthood, and I freaked out because I thought, oh
my god, I actually don't know what I want to do,
Like my whole life is word So the last thing
I wanted to do actually was read a book.

Speaker 5 (30:49):
We weren't using TV.

Speaker 4 (30:50):
I don't really like TV anyway, but I really had
this kind of existential moment. So don't worry, like it
might get darker before it gets better, but it's an
invitation to get curious about, like what's going on there?

Speaker 5 (31:00):
What's that feeling.

Speaker 4 (31:01):
One thing I asked people when I was writing the
original How to Break Up with Your Phone that helped
me personally was what's something that you say you want
to do but you supposedly don't have time for because
if you cut back on your phone time, you will
end up with more time. And the answer is different
for everybody, but for me, I remember thinking, oh, I
really want to learn how to play the guitar, Like
I have a guitar, I've never learned to play it,
And I ended up signing up for a class. And

(31:23):
I would say classes are wonderful if you've got a
curiosity about something and you can take a class, do it,
and just know that it's harder to leave your house
and go to a class than it is to sit
at home and scroll on your phone, but you should
do it, because I ended up having this kind of
joyful feeling in this class, just other adults, like learning
to play guitar for no purpose other than the fun
of it. And then I ended up writing an entire
book about the feeling I was having, which I realized

(31:43):
was fun. But I would say, don't be worried if
you freak out, that's part of it. If you feel
empty and confused and like you don't know what to do,
but just start keeping a list of like, what are
things that you're vaguely curious about? What are things you're
interested in doing or trying. They don't have to be huge.
It could be like even a place in your city
or town you've never visited before, or a new restaurant
you want to try, or that book that you kind

(32:05):
of were interested in reading, or you always kind of
wanted to learn a new language or an instrument, and
don't be afraid to use technology to help you with
some of those, like in person is always going to
be better. But you know, once I got into guitar,
I realized there's an app called guitar Tabs that has
the chords for any song you could possibly ever want
to play. And so now if I get together with friends,
we use that app to create more of a sense

(32:25):
of connection between us because we can now play any song.
I mean, that's an amazing use of technology to immediately
be able to be like, Okay, let's all play this
song anyway. This is some ideas, but I would just
start keeping a running list and then make it a
subject of conversation with your friends. Just have conversations about
what are things you're interested in doing or trying, And
it's kind of a fun way to connect with people.
And then you might end up with some curiosity that

(32:46):
leads to a passion that you never knew you would have.
Whatever you do, honestly is going to be better than
sitting in home scrolling on your phone.

Speaker 5 (32:52):
So that's also like bar is low, people, very very
very low.

Speaker 3 (32:56):
Yeah, my advice is just leave your phone at home,
go on a walk, and check in with yourself. I
used to work this awful job where I was working
about twelve hours a day. I had no time to
even think about what I was going to eat, much
less like prep and plan a meal and cook it.
And so I just started out of necessity. On Friday,
I would literally walk all the way home. It was
like a two hour walk home just to like ask myself,
like are you okay?

Speaker 1 (33:17):
Like what's going on with you?

Speaker 3 (33:19):
And that ended up like changing my life in a
big way because I realized like what I needed to
do and have us take care of myself and how
to kind of like reclaim a little bit of my
life back.

Speaker 1 (33:27):
And so that's the.

Speaker 3 (33:28):
Advice I would have for anyone. If your phone is
off or brick or whatever it is, and you're a
little board man, go on a walk and check in
with yourself.

Speaker 4 (33:35):
Yeah, And that could be scary, right, Like that space
and that emptiness can feel scary, but it's so necessary.
I think that's what we chase away when we're constantly scrolling.
Is that discomfort that comes from having to think like,
oh is my life what I wanted to be? Or
am I living up to who I want to be?

Speaker 5 (33:49):
Like?

Speaker 4 (33:49):
That's very uncomfortable, So we just push it away just
by being busy and scrolling. But maybe necessary if you actually, yeah,
you want to be fulfilled.

Speaker 2 (33:58):
Well, before we get to our exercise crisis, we're not there,
all right, I mean, well I've been there, But in
this personal conversation, just in this specific one that we're having,
I do want to get to the book that you're
working on, because I do think a big part of
this as well, is how do we prevent the children
in our lives from reaching their existential crisis by the
time they hit kindergarten because they are also addicted to

(34:21):
scrolling and that's something that already sort of consumes their world.
So what should we be doing or not doing to
ensure that future generations aren't really succumbing to what we
are experiencing with our addictions to social media?

Speaker 5 (34:37):
Now?

Speaker 4 (34:37):
Yeah, thank you for asking that, because that's one of
my biggest passions now to my own daughters tend so
this is like.

Speaker 5 (34:43):
Very top of mine.

Speaker 4 (34:44):
So I actually started teaming up with Jonathan Height, who's
a social psychologist, and he wrote this mega bestseller of
The Anxious Generation, which if the parents listening, we probably
have heard of it, and if you haven't, you should
run and get a copy immediately. But it's about what
smartphones and social media and other addictive technologies have done
to Gen Z in particular. And John and I are
now teamed up and we're writing a new book called

(35:06):
The Amazing Generation, which is a book that draws on
both of our areas of expertise and writings. That basically
is our attempt to inoculate the next generation of kids
against the siren songs of screens and technology and show
them the things we've been talking about that you know,
actually social media companies are not out there to connect us,
they're out there to make money from us, and that
you're actually a product, and that the best things in

(35:27):
life usually happen off screens. So that book is geared
towards like fourth through sixth or seventh grader's ish relevant
whether or not they have smartphones or social media already,
and that's coming out December thirtieth, So I'm incredibly excited
about it, and hopefully, you know, just try and say
my daughter's generations like, no big deal, really doesn't keep

(35:48):
me up at night or anything, no pressure.

Speaker 1 (35:49):
I do worry about it.

Speaker 3 (35:50):
Yeah. I have a friend who has a kid, and
the kid came over one day and the kid was
playing a video game while listening to a podcast while
watching a YouTube video at the same time, and I
was like, nope, no, no, no, no, Like, how could
you focus on anything when that's going on all of them?

Speaker 5 (36:05):
You can't.

Speaker 4 (36:06):
I mean, that stuff literally does keep me up at night.
And I would say for any parents listening. You know,
obviously depends what age your kids are, but I would
say in general, kids do not need screens as much
as we seem to think they do. They are able
to entertain themselves, Like the human brain is incredibly creative
if we give our brain space. So if you've got
a young child at home and you haven't gotten into

(36:27):
the habit of using a screen as a I mean babysitter.
I don't mean to sound judgmental, but that is how
many of us use it right, because it's very effective.
It's a great babysitter. But if you haven't, don't get
into that habit. Like I remember my husband and I
used to kind of have a go bag of stuff
if we were going out to a restaurant with our daughter,
and it'd like crayons or like toys, like depending how
old she was, but something that could keep her entertained

(36:47):
that wasn't a screen, and then also try to engage
her in conversation. Little babies like they look at the
world around them, that's how they learn. I think we
really are harming brain development when we put screens in
front of kids at young ages. And I think also
modeling good tech habits ourselves is extremely important for adults.
And also to realize this is a really serious issue
and that your fears about your kid getting left out

(37:10):
are totally justified at the moment because so many kids
do have social media and smartphones at a young age.
But it is much more important to focus on what
your kids will miss out on if you do give
them access to these things, which is the ability to
live and engaging and fulfilling real life with real relationships
in the real world. And I also think parents need
to educate themselves on how dangerous social media is for

(37:34):
kids and smartphones and unfettered internet access. I could go
on about that, but I think parents need to understand
that it is far more dangerous to allow your kid
to be alone on a screen, chatting with strangers or
doing whatever with unfettered Internet access than it is to
let them go do something on their own in real
life and the majority of circumstances. So adults take this seriously.
Social media is not safe for kids. It should not

(37:55):
be given to kids. You should not give your kid
until they are at least sixteen access to anything guarding
social media. And if you give them a smartphone, they
will have access to social media and they will have
access to the entire Internet. There are a lot of
smartphone alternatives out there you can get your kid that
will allow them to communicate with friends and stay in
touch with people without giving them access to those things.
So look into what your kid needs, for example, a

(38:19):
way to contact you out of the house, or a
way to talk with their friends, and there's a way
to give them that without giving them access to the
entire Internet, and without giving the entire internet access to
your child.

Speaker 3 (38:28):
And also you can you can look up interviews with
people who create these apps. You know, people who've worked
at Facebook and metter Like they don't let their kids
use this stuff because they know how bad it is.

Speaker 4 (38:36):
Yes, thank you for bringing that up. That's great, great irony.

Speaker 1 (38:39):
Right.

Speaker 4 (38:39):
It's like the CEO of TikTok is on the record
sayne he doesn't let hiss kids use TikTok, Like, it's interesting,
I'll let their own children use their products.

Speaker 5 (38:46):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (38:47):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (38:48):
Is there anything else that we didn't touch on yet, Catherine,
that you feel is important for people to know as
they embark on this journey of less screen time.

Speaker 4 (38:56):
I think the only thing I would say in that
regard is one of the most inspiring pieces of feedback
I've gotten from people who have read How to Break
Up with Your Phone and gone through the plan is
that their lives improved dramatically, very quickly. So if you
actually take the step to reevaluate your relationship with your phone,
you may be surprised by how quickly you begin to
experience positive effects, even within a couple of days. And

(39:20):
as soon as that starts to happen, you'll realize, oh, yeah,
this is going to be challenging because these devices are
designed to addict us, but the benefits are so great
and the moment you kind of get a taste of
what life is like on the other side, it's going
to get a whole lot easier. And so just have faith, like,
take that first step, and you may be pleasantly surprised
by how it's not as hard as you thought and
how much better you feel. You also may go through

(39:42):
a pit of existential despair, but your life will be
better in addition to the one I'm already in right now.

Speaker 5 (39:47):
So yeah, I know, right, yeah, exactly.

Speaker 2 (39:50):
Well, for people that are ready to accept the challenge,
your book is called How to Break Up with Your Phone,
and remind us the name of the book that comes
out at the end of the year as well.

Speaker 4 (39:58):
So the book that comes out at the end of
the year is called The Amazing Generation. And the place
that I like writing the most is on Substack, And
I have a Substack newsletter called how to Feel Alive.
So if people want to look for me there, that's
where I get my creative fix. Yes, and I write
about things related to screen life, balance and phones and
fun and connection and community and basically, you know, as
we're talking about, it's where I work out my personal

(40:19):
issues with hopes of helping other people.

Speaker 2 (40:21):
So that's where we can read about your existential crisis
on your substack.

Speaker 5 (40:25):
Yeah, hopefully I'll make it funny.

Speaker 2 (40:26):
Okay, great, well, Katherin, thank you so much for this.
I mean, I'm going to go look at my phone
after this, but I'm not gonna like it, but I
am going to feel better about I for the record,
even though turning it off makes me anxious. A lot
of times, I will take breaks on the weekends just
from social media completely. So everything you say is correct,
because truly, by the end of Sunday night, I am

(40:47):
like I don't even care what's on there anymore.

Speaker 5 (40:49):
Like I'm good.

Speaker 2 (40:49):
But thank you for reinforcing all of that. I loved
your book and I loved this conversation today because it
was very enlightening and very motivating.

Speaker 5 (40:56):
Let's go, let's go.

Speaker 4 (40:57):
Thank you both so much for the opportunity to share
this stuff, and hopefully our conversation will help inspire some
other people.

Speaker 2 (41:02):
Yes, you could do it ride the wave, so yeah.

Speaker 5 (41:06):
Yeah, all right, thank you, Catherine.

Speaker 2 (41:14):
Okay, Matt, which of these ideas have you already put
into motion when it comes to your social media usage.

Speaker 3 (41:19):
So the coolest thing that has happened since this episode
aired is that the brick app now actually does what
Katherine was talking about with the schedule. So essentially, you
could break your phone, and the only way to unbrick
it was to like find the little physical device and
like tap your phone to it. But now you can
do a schedule. So what I've done is I basically
at nine point thirty my phone automatically just oh, I

(41:42):
can't use it at all. It's fully like non functional.

Speaker 2 (41:46):
What if you're at like a concert or something though
you got to get home.

Speaker 3 (41:49):
Well, that's true, and you have to be preemptive about
unbricking before you leave if you were going to be
out for a night. So call me when I'm like,
I can't get anoop to in the morning because I
break myself. But then it goes back on at seven
but it doesn't have the social media apps.

Speaker 2 (42:04):
Oh I love that.

Speaker 3 (42:05):
So I'm working right, So that's for the working hours,
and then like around seven pm, I'll allow the social
apps to come on for two hours and I'm typically
like having dinner at that time or whatever, so I'm
probably not I'm cooking or something. Yeah, and then it
goes back off at nine thirty again, and it's been amazing.
I love not having to constantly brick around. But it's
kind of like I've scheduled time for myself to do

(42:26):
the things when it's helpful and not when it's not,
and I just love it. So that's a big, big
change on the brick app is scheduling. Way to go, guys,
that is huge.

Speaker 2 (42:35):
Good job, proud of you. That is so good.

Speaker 3 (42:37):
Another thing that I've tried after talking to Catherine is
I didn't realize it, but when she was talking about
how you can modify your home screen to be as
boring as possible, I went back and I was listening
to that, and I was thinking, like, you know what
I do a lot, which kind of like bodes with
the slot machine. Thing she was talking about is I'll
just look at my apps. I'm just scrawling through them. Yeah,
I'm like, which one should I look at? And I

(43:00):
don't need to look at any of them. And I
liked what she said about like she has nothing on
her homescreen if she needs to use an app it's
because she needs to use it and she'll like type
it into search for it. And so I did this
literally yesterday. I just deleted everything from my homescreen. I
made it black and white.

Speaker 2 (43:16):
Wow.

Speaker 3 (43:16):
I added a picture of my loving wife. And so
now I can't scroll through the apps anymore. There's nothing
to scroll through. I've been like just typing in everything
if I need to do something, and it's like I
love that. Wow, it's so cool.

Speaker 2 (43:29):
This gives me anxiety, but I am so proud of you.

Speaker 3 (43:34):
I'll update you the next time we see show Yes
do it's only been like twelve hours.

Speaker 2 (43:38):
Make sure I take my beta blocker before you tell
me about it.

Speaker 3 (43:43):
But what about you?

Speaker 2 (43:45):
I don't have any notifications except you know who has
been notifying me du a lingo and they are so
aggressive sometimes.

Speaker 3 (43:53):
They really are. That little parent is like just won't
shut up.

Speaker 2 (43:55):
But I feel like that's a good notification because it's like, okay,
I'm learning. So I'll accept that one. But the rest
are called will allow Yeah, I'll allow that one. The
rest are gone.

Speaker 3 (44:04):
The rest are gone, They're gone. I feel very free, amazing.
So news apps like oh.

Speaker 2 (44:08):
No news, no news, no, somebody liked your post. No,
somebody commented on your post, none of that. So when
I do go to a social media app and I
open it up and somebody has commented or liked or
slid into those dms, it's a fun surprise for me.

Speaker 3 (44:23):
Well, I am going to add one more notification back
into your life, which is a notification that we'll be
back in two weeks with another episode.

Speaker 2 (44:30):
That's a good one. I'll accept that notification. I'm very
excited for that, and so until next time, good luck
being a grown up.

Speaker 3 (44:38):
This is a production of Ruby Studio from iHeartMedia. Our
executive producers are Leapel, Mary and Matt Stillo.

Speaker 2 (44:44):
This episode was edited and engineered by Sierra

Speaker 3 (44:47):
Spreen and we'd like to thank our teammates at Ruby Studio,
including Sarah you, Ethan Fixel, Rageiswan krasnov Lydia Kim, Abby Aguilar, Harper, Wayne,
Deborah Garrett, and Andy Kelly.