Episode 11: Look at Faces, Not Devices

Rosanna
Welcome to Episode 11. Look at faces, not devices. On this episode we will be using research to dive into discussion on technology and devices and the influence it has on our relationships, our health, and our day-to-day lives. We need to remember that our lives are what we pay attention to. So this episode is really all about challenging us to really look at how much are we paying attention to our devices and maybe not to what’s right in front of us as we live in an age with unregulated access to attention and the relevant information.

Jordan
Yeah, I think that screens slowly have infiltrated just our day to day business. So much, so that I mean for a number of years now a lot of people have requested from this, like, wait a minute, I want to pay attention to something other than a screen. And we realize how difficult that can be, because of all the the number of ways that we rely on them for work and for entertainment and for information. And so on.

Rosanna
I mean, I’m more than thankful for those things. I am able to grocery shop for my phone, sign up my kids for classes from my phone, conduct my business from my phone, I mean, it’s all there, making it very easy to access and to do those things at any time.

Jordan
That’s a double edged sword then it’s like, wait, I can do this at any time. That’s great. Oh, shoot, I am doing this now at any time and every time and there is plenty of perks to take advantage of. And I think down the road as well in the show, we should talk about some of those perks in a future episode, but I think there’s some things you know, one of our keywords is intentionality. And so one of these is definitely one of the areas where we have to be intentional with to make sure that we’re using them in the best ways, but avoiding the pitfalls as well.

Rosanna
Right. And when we talked about doing this episode with this title, with the intention of even looking at the way in which we use technology and the way in which perhaps we’re overusing, I felt really guilty, because I will confess that I am on my phone a lot. And sometimes it’s for good things. And other times it’s very mindless. And so now this past week, I have caught myself just paying greater attention to like, do I need to be on my phone right now? And if the answer is no, I’ve been leaving my phone like in a different room, just so I’m not tempted to just grab it and ideally scroll and see what the world is up to.

Jordan
Yeah, I think when the radio was invented, there was some pushback because now people 24/7 could have access to information from the airwaves and there was one person who criticized that – great now I now I can learn that so and so he named some like, distant personality now we can learn that so and so has the flu. And his point is they didn’t really need to know that this person what their health status was. So as we get into today’s episode, the format for today will be like this: Rosanna and I both decided to independently research some facts and figures related to screen use in the American household. And we’re going to share some of what we found with one another live right now. And we have some questions that we’ve paired with each of the research bits to challenge one another with as well. Speaking of challenges, at the end, the part we’re both nervous about is that we have each devised a challenge for us to embark on right after this episode. And so I’m going to share with Rosanna a challenge that will both do and she has another screen-related challenge that we’re both going to do as well. And I really nervous about hearing what you’re saying I’m nervous about just doing these challenges that I think will push us in the right direction, but maybe we’ll be the word challenge is maybe the appropriate word. So it’ll be hard to do.

Rosanna
Yeah. And hopefully this will challenge you to kind of maybe think your device and screen usage and come up with your own challenge or, you know, join us in our challenge of trying to kind of put some limitations on that so that you can be intentional with your time in better ways.

Jordan
All right. So I want to go first with my first facts and figure because I think it will pertain to all the rest. I did some original research for the show. And I went around and I counted how many screens we have in our house.

Rosanna
Okay, and did you break them up into category you just like –

Jordan
We could. Yeah, I just total number. Okay, off the top of your head, what’s your guess?

Rosanna
Oh, gosh. 2-4-6-8-12!

Jordan
Yeah, it’s 12. Yes. Did you know I just literally.

Rosanna
I was like, well, I just like okay, the two of these three of these I just saw it was a guess.

Jordan
Yeah. So I’ve never really counted them before. But there’s there’s only six of us. So we really have a two screen to person ratio in this household. And again, I don’t think that’s good. I don’t think that’s bad. But that’s something to be aware of. And how many screens do we use on a daily basis, so many screens that the kids using on a daily basis, I think that’s just one thing to be cognizant of.

Rosanna
Well, I’m just now I’m trying to figure out like, allocate that because I was like, the kids don’t have other than a Nintendo Switch. They don’t have a personal device.

Jordan
No they do.

Rosanna
The kids each have a personal device

Jordan
They do.

Rosanna
They don’t each have like an iPad or a tablet.

Jordan
No, but they have a Chromebook from school. Yeah, but they don’t really use those. Right. Those are screens in the household, and at various times, they are used. So it did make the count.

Rosanna
But that’s two of four children because then two still don’t have a personal device.

Jordan
Goes into the total. Okay. Yeah. So I don’t have a question attached to that. But I think that’s one thing to keep in mind as we talk about some of the other things.

Rosanna
Well, let’s talk about what we have, though. Don’t you think people are interested? Okay, so we have two TVs, two, we have one in our family room where like we watch TV as like a family or the kids watch TV. We have made the choice to not have TVs in our bedrooms.

Jordan
Yeah. No TVs in the bedrooms, right? For the most part.

Rosanna
For the most part, okay, — So two TVs, and then we have one in the basement that we use for, for working for working out. So it’s people don’t go down there to watch TV. It’s more for working out. So we have two of those two cell phones. Two iPads.

Jordan
We have three.

Rosanna
How do we have three?

Jordan
I have one for work. We have your device and then we also have this one that we’re recording on right now.

Rosanna
Okay, all right. So three iPads, so two TVs, two cell phones, three iPads,

two Chromebooks and then you and I both have a laptop.

Jordan
Okay, does this count you also have a smartwatch I think that’s a screen. I think that counts. I think that moves the count up to 30.

Rosanna
Well, what about our Google Home hub then is that a screen?

Jordan
Oh, God, I forgot about that. That’s 14. You see how insidious these things are. So there’s, there’s so many of them. And we do have certain, I think, rules and barriers and precautions, like no TVs in the bedrooms, which I think is a great rule. But we also pretty easily violate that as well with our especially now that we just with with elearning. And the way we kind of set up our household during COVID. We’ve been spending I think a little bit more time with various screens, whether for work or for play in the bedroom.

Rosanna
Yeah, in rooms that we don’t usually use them or utilize them but need to because of needing privacy and quiet times. Alright.

Jordan
All right. So that’s my original research, I can type into some of the other things that we found.

Rosanna
Okay, so do you want me to go ahead and just share my first one? Yeah, there you go. All right. So this comes from National Geographic and the title was “Smartphones. revolution, revolutionize our lives, but at what cost?” And so I’m just going to read directly and then just there’s kind of two things to pull out at the end. So it says our use of smartphones has effectively changed the geography of our minds, creating a distractive off ramp for every thought we may have on our own. What I’ve seen in the last six to eight years is a massive paradigm, paradigm shift, much of the attentional resource that we devoted to our personal ecosystem has been shifted to what’s virtual. And that was, according to Larry Rosen, co author of the distracted mind, ancient brains in a high tech world. So basically, he sums it up by saying that means you are not attending to what’s in front of you. We see this in parenting, you’re not focusing on your kids. You’re not even focusing on what you’re watching on TV, because you’re second screening. It’s affecting every aspect of our lives.

Jordan
So we’re like on our phone while we’re watching TV.

Rosanna
We’re on our phone while we’re watching TV, right or we’re working on our personal laptop or our business laptop, while we’re watching TV. You know, so it’s in, right?

Jordan
This is there’s too many screens, we can’t even pay attention to one screen at a time.

Rosanna
To one screen at a time. So I wanted to kind of pull that out with parenting. It says you’re not focusing on your kids, because you constantly have a screen in front of you. And so I was like, what are the implications for our kids? If when they are talking to us, or when they do approach us, we’re we’re not even looking at or acknowledging them because we’re down looking at our screen. And so whether we’re conducting business on it, or we’re socializing with a friend, or we’re buying something on Amazon or placing a grocery order, what do you think that impact will have on our children over time? What does that teach them? What does that show them? What do they internalize from that if that’s what they see every time they come to us?

Jordan
So I actually have some similar research on this too, and I thought there might be some overlap. So I’m going to share this and then I think it’ll give us a little more to go off of what that. Alright, so you share the word second screening, I’m going to show with you the term techno-ference, okay? It’s like interference, but it’s technology interfering with like you’re saying like these, these human face-to-face interactions. So one thing I want to summarize is that there has been this study that’s been been out for some time, it actually was initiated in the 70s. But it’s been replicated with technology now. And it’s called the still face study. So you take an infant, and it’s interacting with this mother and the mother just goes still-faced, no expression, no interaction, it’s just a human face, but no human emotion in it. It creeps the baby out. As you can imagine, it creeps anybody out. This is actually replicated without us realizing it with our technology, because what kind of face do we have when we’re interacting with most of our technology? A still face. So when the child is looking at us having this expressionless kind of face as we’re scrolling through a phone or looking at a work laptop, they are equally creeped out and disconnected from their parents during those instances. All right. So that’s one thing that went to summarize. I’ll read this bit. And this was actually summarized in post. I found it on LinkedIn. It’s written by Arianna Huffington. And it’s part of a whole bunch of facts and figures that she shares, says in a large international survey of 6000 parents and children from countries and North America, South America, Asia, Europe, over half the children said their parents checked their devices too frequently. And 32% of children reported feeling unimportant as a result. That’s a huge percentage of kids and I think the I think our kids notice it and I think all children will notice this right, they want attention from their parents. And without even intending this to happen, we have so many screens that and they’re so addictive, like they just draw our eye and capture our attention, that without even realizing it, our kids are going to see us on these devices. So that really got me thinking like when one of our children walks into the room or when you walk into the room, what are you going to see me doing? Are you going to see me like looking at a screen or looking at a phone? Or if I’m already in the room with you is instead of paying attention to you or to one of the kids, am I going to take that out and let that absorb my attention? That’s been one of the questions on my mind as we’ve been researching this a little bit.

Rosanna
Yeah. And I think one of the things that stands out to amongst some of the research is that Gosh, I’m just completely drawing a blank… Let me just shift to the kids coming into a room and seeing us on devices. I think one of the things that really just has stood out is our daughter like walking into a room and like seeing the phone and saying, I wish I could have a phone like you. Right? She’s not saying I wish I could be a loving, caring mother like you are. I wish you know, it’s like, Oh, I wish I could have a phone like you because it becomes like this point of envy. Right, because she sees that it’s like important to me, and I have it with me. And now she wants to emulate that. And so it’s, that’s kind of like a scary, just a scary fact that like, because it’s with me all the time, she knows that and that’s now something that she wants to emulate and something that she wants.

Jordan
Yeah, I think that’s true with all of our kids. Like mom has a phone, Dad has a phone. These are obviously fun and important. I want that too. And I think that’s true, like whatever parents are doing that seems important, or it seems frequent, like kids are just gonna imitate that. And I see that with our particularly with our phone use, but even just screens, you know. It feels like if I’m working on a screen because I have something very, you know, adult and important that I need to attend to a moment. The kids don’t distinguish that in front them like Why can’t I go on a screen and they are emulating that behavior that we’re modeling for them?

Rosanna
Well, and I think sometimes I’ve read articles on Scarymommy.com they have all kinds of articles about Like parenting and like now we’re in the, like, overparenting generation where, like, when we were kids and even kids before us, like, you know, the kids would on a summer day like, you know, they’d have breakfast and they leave and they’d say, be home by be home by dark or be home by dinner. And the kids like had the autonomy just to like, be around town and on their bikes and with their friends. And now we’re a generation of parents, we’re like, we’re with our kids all the time. And we’re like, you know, helicopter parents and this and that. And parents are never given any kind of like release from their children because they’re too busy over parenting. And so there’s articles that will basically say, like, let the mom mindlessly scroll on her phone when she’s at the park because it’s the first time she’s had like time to kind of like sink back and withdraw and so if she withdraws on her phone, don’t judge her because she’s been with her kids all day. And, you know, she can’t be on top of her kids. And so just like let her shrink back. And so like I’ve kind of seen, like, putting technology and like using it as a way to escape or withdraw from like, overparenting right to recoil, because most of your day is spent like with your kids.

Jordan
Yeah, I feel like that’s true, although, maybe it’s important then to like distinguish between the two because some of the things that I was reading talked about how parents are often they’re, they’re more physically present with their kids, but it can be critiqued for only only really been half there. Having this divided attention where they’re sort of paying attention to interacting with their kids, but they’re not getting the same icontact not getting the same kind of emotional input because of the screens. So maybe that’s an important thing for us to think about is when we’re when we’re with our kids, if we want to try to make the most of that time is making sure that they do genuinely have our attention. And then when it’s time to relax or recoil or do some work or whatever we want to do with that we can maybe even do that more freely as well.

Rosanna
And I like that and I think that’s great for everyone to hear is that you don’t need to spend 12 hours a day with your child. Plenty of parents are dual income working families. So there’s not a mom or a dad that’s home all day every day with those kids. So even if you’re only with them for those four hours, then those four hours you’re all in. And then those other eight hours are like your work, your pleasure, your, you know, free time, your leisure, so that just be present when you’re there. And don’t let those distractions creep in.

Jordan
Okay. All right. So I had a few things related to kids into parenting. But I want to shift to something a little bit different on this, too. I read this. This comes from vox.com. And they this was an interesting article, because it’s summarize all kinds of research. And we’ll include links to all of these in our show notes. So one of the things that they ended up citing here was that they said, rather than using devices continually, we tend to check them throughout the day. On average, people open their phones – How many times a day what’s your guess?

Rosanna
100?

Jordan
Oh, no. 58 Okay, what’s the average, so I’m sure some people are far higher, some are far lower a lot of those times. So even during the work day, so when you’re at work like so I thought this was interesting too, because I find myself even like if my phone is in my pocket when I just have like a moment where I’m even quasi-liberated from paying strict attention to anything immediately around me my hand just gonna go to my pocket. I flick it open, and I don’t even know what I want from it. And I don’t know if any –

Rosanna
Comfort security, right, acknowledgement….

Jordan
It’s like I don’t actually need anything on this device right now. But yet, here it is. I flick it open. And it’s like my thumb is one step ahead of me, like it’s going to press on, you know, it’s gonna open my mail for the fiftieth time or it’s going to go to like social media or, you know, some other app that I have. And without really needing to and I think this you know, this bit that I found points to that. We’re constantly just opening these phones. There can’t possibly be 58 things that we have to do on our phone that require pressing attention throughout the day. It’s much more this this passive habit where it just comes out, we flick it open, and then sometimes just quickly flick it closed and move on. And I think that is going to drive you nuts. If you actually stopped to think about how many times you’re just looking at the screen, without really having intention to do anything. It’s like opening the pantry. And it’s like you’re not hungry. So you’re just passing by the pantry. I’m gonna open it up and see what’s in there, I’m not going to eat anything.

Rosanna
I’m kind of thinking, what did we used to do? Right? If we used to know if we flick on our phones 58 times during the day during idle moments. What did we use to fill those idle moments with? What like, do we use to walk over to the pantry? Right like what we do? Yeah. But I think that’s a good thing to think about. Like there’s all these idle minutes. And you know, a lot of people will say like, there’s not enough time in the day to accomplish all of your goals or your dreams or work towards something or have a side hustle and yet we’ve got all this time to know what Kim Kardashian is doing on Instagram. And you know, what’s the latest with Alex Tribec’s cancer, like all of these things that we don’t necessarily need to know we’re seeking out, but yet we’re wasting some of that valuable time. Dr. Suzanna Flores who is a clinical psychologist and an author of “Facehooked, how Facebook affects our emotions, relationships and lives” agrees that smartphones are useful in numerous ways, but can also cause friction in our lives. And she says, of course, there’s an addiction aspect. They’re always within arm’s reach. And there’s plenty of articles that I came across and it’s like cell phones are designed to be addicting. They’re designed to get you to take them out of your pocket and click on something and find something and like they’re designed that’s what we can’t help ourselves. We literally can’t help ourselves. So it’s that intentional knowing like I have this device in my pocket. You know, my this device that I spent $1,300 dollars on so my pocket, I don’t want to look at it, and we have this –

Jordan
This psychological attachment to it. Yeah. Have you ever been somewhere and you’ve suddenly realized you don’t know your phone?

Rosanna
Yeah, I went to the eye doctor yesterday. So we Juliette and I had appointments, and I got in the car and we were waiting. And I was just like standing there and we were going to have to wait because the doctor was running late, whatever, like reach into my purse, I go to grab my phone… I’m like, it’s not here…

Jordan
You patted all your pockets. Shoot, where did I leave it? What am I going to do now? And I feel like sometimes you’d be like, Oh, well, it’s it’s fine. I guess I’ll just, you know, stand here and think…

Rosanna
think engage with someone. Yeah. Read something that’s not on a screen.

Jordan
But there there are – I didn’t end up but bringing in any research about this, but I have read in the past -that there are real withdrawal symptoms that people experience when separated from their screens.

Rosanna
But I think so I think we do need to be more cognizant of separating ourselves from our screens, but and replacing those idle behaviors that don’t produce anything and not saying that you have to like produce something. If you’re but like, like, why aren’t we like mindfully meditating? Or like, you know, taking a step back or just like thinking or breathing or like, right? Nothing that’s like going to like, calm us down. And it’s you know, we log on to Facebook and we you know get infuriated by a post someone leaves or like…

Jordan
Another vocab word I learned while researching: Doomscrolling. Just like what you said like there’s can be a lot of negativity on certain sources that that we look up and they can give rise to these negative emotions. And I don’t know if anyone’s standing around thinking, you know what, I haven’t been angry in the last hour. But we do tend to gravitate sometimes towards things that creates these negative emotions and sometimes even engaging with it ourselves. So that’s Doomscrolling is when you’re scrolling through things, usually on your smartphone, that are sort of feeding these negative emotions.

Rosanna
Alright, so kind of a piggyback with Doomscrolling. Let’s talk a little bit more about conflict. So Dr. Flores talks a little bit more about this. She says in many ways digital communication appears to be altering our comfort levels with direct and honest communication and conflict resolution. Doing so will inevitably negatively affect our relationships, since important discussion should be done in person, or at the very least over the phone so that misunderstandings could be minimized.

Jordan
Oh, texting compounds the problem.

Rosanna
And so I know you’re very like anti-text, you’re not on your phone a lot. And you often tell me, you should not be discussing this over text because now you’re misconstruing what she’s misconstruing what you’re saying. Now, you both are like, in separate spots, having animosity and these feelings, like why don’t you just talk? And it basically, you know, like, it’s just this inability to, like, want to, like have to, like resolve the conflict through someone like we’re hiding behind our screens. So not only are we using them, you know, to fill time and to distract us, but we’re hiding behind them a lot of the time, right. And I mean, that goes to, you know, in relation to like, you know, posting only your best self and all of that, but like we’re hiding behind our phone. There’s all of those, you know, naysayers and internet trolls that like, Oh, they can whip out their phone or their computer and leave a nasty review. Or you rag on somebody.

Jordan
The YouTube comment section is not where you go to get smarter, in most cases. Facebook can often just kind of breed these negative conversations where they’re so unproductive. I want people to share their thoughts and experiences and I read those and learn from them. But it just gets it’s often volatile so quickly.

Rosanna
It’s often polarizing comments. And we’ve lost all reason to just scroll past like, Oh, I don’t agree with that. I’m going to scroll past it. Oh, now I’m fired up and I’m gonna tear you to shreds. So it’s just interesting that like, yeah, we can communicate with each other on opposite ends of the world and make connections with people we would have never met which are great things, but then at the same time, we’re either you know, hiding behind things and trying to solve conflicts, not in-person not face-to-face. And it’s giving us this inability to like, do it because now we’re not forced to have to call somebody and say, Hey, you know, this is where I’m coming from. Like, we don’t do that anymore. We just kind of hide behind and become negative. And so I thought that was interesting.

Jordan
One little thing I’ve noticed too, is that like, sometimes when you wanted to call someone back in the day, you would just call them, right, you’d have their phone number, and you’d call him and then answer the phone. Now I find myself like setting up phone conversations. So like, Is it okay if I call you or they’ll call me now call me later. And like we always have to schedule in a phone conversation to so there’s this whole like text preamble, just to get to the voice conversation.

Rosanna
And then like, so people are mentally preparing to have to have a conversation with you because I’d rather just text you like, oh, now they have to be kind and cordial, or they have to, like anticipate this conversation that you want to have. And it’s like, we’re putting like, more distance, you know, between people. No, it’s kind of like this podcast, we just turn on the mic. We turn on the screens. If we fumble if we forget something like I don’t have we don’t have a script here. Occasionally we’ll read something. We’re just we’re just talking. And it’s, is the art of talking gone? Is the art of having a conversation, sharing your feelings. Even just acknowledging someone else’s perspective, like, is this part of it? Like, is this shift in technology? Is this where the disconnect is happening? And is this why it’s more important than ever to invite people into your home to share where you’re coming from your experiences to, like engage in that because we’re leaving it to texting and, you know, internet trolls to, you know, where we get our feedback and our information and that’s, that’s not what life is about.

Jordan
I agree. I don’t think it’s the end of conversation. And I can think of, you know, the I say, everybody that I know, is really engaging to speak with. I think the problem is we maybe just don’t do it as often as we used to, like, before we have on the screens in technology. And even like we had, like we had television and video games growing up, but I think the hidden factor is the portability of all of that now. Like wherever we go, and anytime we want them, we can use them, in addition to our smartphones and tablets and laptops and those kinds of things.

Rosanna
Well do you remember when we told the kids that like, we were not bringing the Nintendo Switch on our two week road trip? They were like, wait? Or when we showed up to our friend’s house in Colorado, and their children wanted screen time, and they said, well, will your kids be having screen time? And we said, well, we didn’t bring screens for them. And they were like, you didn’t bring screens for them? No, we didn’t bring personal screens for everybody. The Chromebooks are at home. You know, we brought one iPad that attached to the back of the headrest in the car for movies, but we still made them wait like eight hours before we turned anything.,

Jordan
Look out the window, the original drive-by movie?

Rosanna
So it’s just interesting that you’re right because of portability. We can take them anywhere.

Jordan
Yeah. Right, who went last without research?

Rosanna
I don’t know. I just ended with that digital communication and like the in person and not being able to resolve conflict. So maybe you, you, it’s your turn to go.

Jordan
Okay, I have one more and then we can get into our challenges. All right, here’s this one. Sleep is the category.

Rosanna
My last one has to do with sleep too.

Jordan
Okay. All right. Let’s, let’s talk about it. Are we like reading each other’s minds here? We have pretty much research related to the same couple domains.

Rosanna
We’ve been together 22 years married 14, I – you know, there’s some overlap.

Jordan
There’s a little overlap. All right. All right. So this, this is going to amble into a few different areas. The first and I got this from a couple of different sources, one of which is sleep.org. I believe.

Rosanna
That’s where mine comes from. Okay, the content created by the National Sleep Foundation, but it was on sleep.org

Jordan
So the first thing that I found was that is that when your phone is when it When your phone is within arm’s reach, you’ll be tempted to check news outlets think about the current crisis, which will cause more stress because you have, again, like 24/7 access to things that can to information that can be more stressful than accessing it on a lighter schedule. 90% of people in the US admit to using a tech device during the hour before they go to bed. And this can negatively affect your sleep in a number of ways. They they list a few but it’s physiologically and psychologically stimulating so that it can be harder to fall asleep. And they’re not discriminating here between different kinds of screens. It could be you know, TV, video games, phone, work, whatever. But all of that is a type of stimulation that does not really allow your body to or your mind to fully get into sleep. So we’re losing out on uninterrupted sleep, or losing out on deep sleep, we’re losing out on just hours of sleep and how many times you crawl into bed thinking, I’m just going to look at this and then a whole hour goes by right? Where you could have been sleeping. So there’s a bunch of research out there about how using TVs, tablets, smartphones, laptops, any other device before bed delays your body’s internal clock, suppresses the release of the sleep inducing hormone, melatonin and makes sleep more difficult. So are we, you and I like are we losing out on some of the health benefits of good sleep because of the intrusion of screens?

Rosanna
I would say yes, and we change our habits. I think we do. I know you’re really good about that. Really. One of the last things you do before you go to bed is you always read and for you, sometimes it’s a sentence and you’re asleep. So I think that’s good because your mind it is it’s like under winding it’s coming down very naturally. And sometimes you read for a while. But something you’ve done more of most recently, which kind of boggles my mind is like that you’re listening to like podcasts and YouTube things. And you’re like drifting off to sleep with these people’s like voices and whatnot in your head and with earphones in and the phone right there. Like that can’t be good that that can’t be healthy. So but I’m just as guilty, because the very last thing that I’m always looking at is my phone, right? I’m scrolling Instagram one last time or I’m on Facebook one last time or I’m texting a girlfriend about something right. So I am not without faults and nor should I throw stones at anybody but you know, I think part of the whole phone thing is its proximity. And so there are other studies out there that say even if you’re not looking at your phone in that hour before bed, the fact of having devices in your bedroom also disturbs like your sleep and your sleep cycles. And like there’s, I can’t quote for you any specific piece of research about it. But it’s like other people are pushing for not even having those devices in your room. They’re saying get an old fashioned alarm clock, like leave the phones out of the room. Don’t let them be a part of your sleep cycle.

Jordan
I’ve heard about that with education, like students who have a phone, on their desk, or even in their bag are remotely aware of its presence. And so if it is across the room, or if it is outside of the classroom that helps this bigger feeling of release and greater attention. I’ve heard that even with parenting, where they if your children have phones that you charge it in your room, so your children, your child doesn’t have it in their room. But I did, really, for the first time, as far as like just adults personal habits go like read over the last week we were preparing for this, that the same thing that even just having it around you when you’re trying to sleep or at any other time, it has the same impacts and the more you can physically distance yourself, the more detachment you’ll be able to enjoy.

Rosanna
Yeah. So I think one of the questions to really look at at this point is we reach for our phones because we’re either bored, uncomfortable, stressed, lonely, or restless or overwhelmed. So like, the question to ask yourself is like –

Jordan
Can I add one more to them? I would say that we are increasingly uncomfortable with our own the sound of our own voice.

Rosanna
So like, so you’re talking about the sound of our own voice, like the thoughts in your head.

Jordan
Our own internal monologue. Ever since entertainment, and I think of the iPod, where it’s like portable music, you can you can entertain yourself with this anywhere. I think it’s very easy to tune into these kinds of things that we have access to anywhere. And it just tunes out any opportunity for us to be thinking. And when we are alone with our thoughts. Now I’ve read like one philosopher, that I like says a man who finds himself it alone is in good company. Meaning that like you can be alone with your own thoughts, that can be a really good thing. But how often are we ever alone with our thoughts?

Rosanna
Right? How often do we create space where we go out and say, like, I’m going to, I’m going to take a run right now. And I’m not going to fill my ears with a podcast or music or I’m going to go for a walk, or I’m gonna go find a tree driving the car, and then sit and just sit around the house. Just think like, let my thoughts take me to where I need to go or let me tune into like maybe what my, my heart is telling me or where I’m feeling led. And we don’t create, we don’t create those scenarios. Therefore, oftentimes, we feel lost. Yeah. And when we feel lost, we turn to these devices to fill us with something, even if it’s meaningless.

Jordan
So hopefully, if you are listening to this, those times you’re being filled with great meaning and value. But at the same time, I think like what we’re saying is that there’s something to be intentional about, find the things that are very valuable to tune into, but also find the time to let your thoughts be your thoughts and engage with them, even if they are negative or uncomfortable, so that you can I think fully just experience and kind of roll through whatever kind of emotional or thoughtful process your mind needs to.

Rosanna
Alright. Yeah, I mean, what I was gonna finish that with is like, ask yourself, what do you really need at this moment? You know, so if you’re feeling bored, uncomfortable, stressed, lonely, restless, confused, what is it that you really need? Do you need more Facebook? Probably not. Maybe you need a walk. Maybe you need a glass of water. Maybe you need some time to yourself, like what is it that you need?

Jordan
Or just focus and attention on what you are doing at that moment.

Rosanna
Really, it was that same kind of chunk of information that I had from sleep.org. But do you want to go into challenges? Do you think it’s an appropriate time or is there something you want to add?

Jordan
No, let’s let’s dive into it. We have our challenges. This is the moment I’ve been somewhat looking forward to and somewhat dreading. Do you want to go first?

Rosanna
I don’t know that mine is it’s not earth shattering but for me it’s just it has more to do with intentionality and so it’s this: I want to engage in a life that isn’t focused on FOMO which is fear of missing out right – like I’m checking these feeds social media what people are posting what people are commenting on my post what they’re saying, right because I have a fear of missing out so I want to know it all.

Jordan
I want to see it right away and yeah –

Rosanna
Okay. I no longer want to have JOMO, joy of missing out. I want to enjoy my life.

Jordan
I haven’t heard that before. So all right, so you want JOMO

Rosanna
Yeah, life without recording, documenting every moment not having my phone super handy are with me all the time so that in an idle moment, I can check it. But we’ve talked about this “These Are the Days” being present in my day, when I’m with my kids. I’m with my kids. When I’m working. I’m working You know, I’m not, you know, looking at leisure stuff when I should be working, focusing on what’s in front of me at that moment, taking the time to plan for the future, so and not missing out on the joy that’s right in front of me because I am more comfortable taking something out and looking at it.

Jordan
All right. So what’s the challenge?

Rosanna
So the challenge is for me to physically, we’ve been physically distancing right from people and places and things. It’s time for me to physically distance myself from my phone. I know you’re laughing!

Jordan
I think that’s good. Just in putting like, I’m gonna social distance from my phone right now. Yeah, we just need to sit down, have a conversation with their phone and say, Hey, just so you know, I my challenge actually goes along with that too. So maybe we’ll have more like one challenge and I tried to frame mine a little bit more specific. So this is maybe one way to pursue JOMO. Alright, so I think that the challenge for both of us I’d like to put on the table is no being on screens when someone else is in the room. Okay? So what I mean by that is like if I’m, if I have work I need to do, I’m going to excuse myself to where we have our desk setup, I’m going to do work that during a specific amount of time in a specific place. And if someone walks in during that, like, I can’t help that they’re walking in and waiting so often, if I’m in the kitchen, for example, and we’re hanging out making breakfast, no phone, no work, no screen. So really, if we’re going to access screen time, I think there are, like two circumstances. One is if it’s agreed that that’s what we’re doing together. So like, if we’re going to watch something together, I would say that that’s okay. And I would say the other thing is that it would otherwise it’s got to be separate and intentional. So I’ve got to have like a set aside time where like, I gotta go do this on the screen. I’m going to do it for this amount of time, but then I’m going to go back to other people without the screen with me.

Okay, all right, so we got that out of the bag. We’re gonna what’s the what are the what we’re gonna do this for one week? Let’s do it for one week. Here’s my proposal. We’ll do this for one week, we will compose kind of a blog post each to summarize our experiences.

Rosanna
Okay, I think that’s fair.

Jordan
And then we’ll we’ll put that out there for everyone to read and to comment on if you’re listening to this, feel free to take up the same challenge as well. Or maybe you want to challenge yourself or a significant other with something that is more pertinent to you guys. So we laid out a few bits of research, I think we gained a lot even just from that process of researching, and we encourage you to maybe look up some facts and figures related to screentime related to phone use for yourself and for your family, and see what kind of takeaways you might be able to have. And we’d love for you to comment on this and share with us some of your experiences related to screens. If you haven’t yet. Please feel free to visit TheRelentlessPursuitPodcast.com where you can see more of our posts, you can read show notes and get links from everything that we’ve mentioned today and leave your own comments and feedback for us. And also, if you haven’t yet, please leave us a five star rating and a raving review. That makes us feel pretty darn good and helps other folks find us as well. So thanks for tuning in to Episode 11. And next week is so 12. It’s our last episode of season one. We’re looking forward to you guys as well. So thanks for listening. We hope you have a great rest of your day.