Taking Back Your Home From the Phone

Okay, what habit of mine frustrates you the most? Oh, easy. And I know what you're going to say. Maybe I'm going to say something different. Okay, go for it. It's that you spend way too much time with your new best friend.

My new best friend is? Your phone. The thing in my left hand right now. Yes, this is our biggest argument. Welcome to Family Life Today, where we want to help you pursue the relationships that matter most. I'm Ann Wilson.

And I'm Dave Wilson. And you can find us at familylifetoday.com or on our Family Life app. This is Family Life Today. This is our biggest argument.

Your phone. Well, the good thing is today we've got help. Yes. We've got so grateful that we have help.

Yeah. And it's not you and it's not me. We've got Arlene Pelican with us today, who's an expert on screen time and digital world.

This little iPhone thing I've got my hand. Welcome to Family Life Today. I didn't know I was going to be doing an intervention. So this is good.

I mean, it's a counseling session. Excellent. This is excellent.

This is so that you're listening and you know, you are not alone. And you've written a book called Screen Kids, five skills every child needs in a tech driven world. Yeah, but the book I want my wife to read is the book you wrote called Thirty One Days to a Happy Husband. That's a good one, too. Now, what's that one all about?

Is that all about me or is that about Ann? That is for us as wives to consider our husbands again and dream about them again. So, you know, as the marriage goes on, you get busy with your career, with your kids, your husband. He's an adult. He can take care of himself. And so for thirty one days, you say, you know what, let me dream about him a little bit. Let me dote on him. Let me think about him.

Let me consider him. And it's just a good way to kind of rekindle that. So thirty one days to a happy husband.

Now, when Dave hears about a book like that, he gets it and reads it for himself to say just to make sure it's accurate. Yes. Yeah. But I'm going to get that and I'm going to hide it for him. And then I'll just start doing it for thirty one days. I'm telling you right now, our listeners need to get it. So we're going to put it on family life today dot com. Get that book in thirty one days.

Yeah. You're going to have a happy husband. And I have heard of a couple who bought two copies and one was for the wife and one was for the husband.

And the husband literally highlighted the parts that he wanted to look at, which I thought was very clever. Me, too. That's good. Well, here's another thing you do. You have the Happy Home podcast, as well as being a wife and a mother of three kids. So you've got a busy, crazy life. And I know on the Happy Home podcast, as well as your books, you talk a lot about screen time.

Yes. And we're living in a world of craziness with our screens. So talk to us a little bit. Like, first of all, how did you get into this?

Why this? You know, you can look around and you say, what's going on? Something is very different than it used to be. And you cannot get around technology. It is a part of every single family's life. And for most of us, I think it's a problem. And that's why I've been writing these books, because you see, this is an issue in the same way we joke about like, hey, why are you on your phone so much, you know, to your spouse? Kids are thinking that about their parents.

Parents are thinking that about their kids. And it's a whole different thing. You know, I love television.

So don't get me wrong. I'm an only child. And I remember coming home from school and watching Gilligan's Island and I Love Lucy and all these shows in a row. But that TV was different because that TV was in a central location. It was huge, like a chair.

You know, you couldn't just put it in my pocket and take it into my bedroom. And there was a set time that you watched it. It turned on. It turned off.

You went on with your life. That is not how screen time is now. It's individualized. So we don't all have to agree on what we watch as a family. Mom can watch something. Dad can watch something. Kids can watch something.

Even the kids are watching different things. So maybe you used to watch a show together and it would give you this common vocabulary, common characters you love, favorite enemies, you know, all those things. It was kind of bonding.

It was bonding. Right. But now it's something that's very individualized. And then because it's so mobile and now not just that you could bring a tablet somewhere, but it's a phone and it's in the car and it's in the school and it's in the cafeteria and it's in all these different places. And it's really a disruptor.

And the thing that's happening now is we're living in a generation that we can't look back to our parents and say, oh, what did you guys do about this? This is all new territory. And so I think your book is so helpful because we're all saying help.

Give us some guidance and instruction on how to do this. Yeah. Barna research showed that eight out of 10 parents say it's harder to parent now than in their parents' generation. And it's because of technology, because it's, you know, what do we do with this?

And I think there's also you have to be able to have that hope of, well, what could this be like? Because it's easy to fall into, well, this is just how it is. This is just how it is.

Kids are on phones. This is how it's going to be. This is how they communicate now. This is the new generation. But what could it be?

What are they missing? And I think that's what we really want to talk about in Screen Kids and help parents to get back a childhood because kids only get one. Because parents are working from home. Yeah. Kids are doing school at home. And so when you're working, you're just saying to your kids, here, take the tablet and go, you know, give me some time that I can work.

Yeah. Dr. Jenny Radesky, a pediatrician, and she's a screen time expert. She was saying at the beginning of the pandemic, it was like, you know what, parents, it's OK. You know, there's a lot going on. This is really strange. You're at home.

You've got to work your kids at home. It's OK. Just be easy on yourself. But she didn't realize, of course, that it would take so long. This was, you know, a year ago in March. And so now, she writes, if I would have known what I know now, I would have said turn off the Wi-Fi after school hours so that your kids are not constantly tempted to go online.

Because the habits they form, the longer they form them, the harder it is for them to break those habits. And that's, I think, where we have to have this reality check where this is not meant to shame you or make you feel like a bad parent because these have been strange times and strenuous times. But this is a wonderful opportune moment to say from this day forward, you know, how can I help my child like be in a real world where it's not all video games and it's not all YouTube and it's not all social media?

How can I help them in that transition so that it won't be this shocking thing when they're not able to play video games all day, when they can't be on social media all day, when they really have to go to school in person and really look at one teacher's face for 40 minutes in a row? You know, how can we help that kid get there and to communicate with somebody face to face? Yes. Yeah. When we were in seminary in the 80s, there was a huge big box phone, you know, that you could like mobile take in your car. In fact, one of my biggest misses in an investment was I should have invested in the mobile digital world back then. But it was a big old phone.

You see old movies now and you see, you know, James Bond with this big old thing. But I remember thinking when that technology started, my thought, I don't know if I'm, you know, original in this idea, but it was like, oh, that'll be great because you can drive from work, get more work done. And then when you get home, you'll be home.

You're right. You'll get all the work done and you'll be home. You'll be present.

I had no idea that the opposite was going to happen. You will never stop looking at your phone. You'll never stop work. And you talk about early in your book the effects of screen time in the digital world, the tech world, which is awesome.

It's wonderful, unbelievable benefits. But you talk about the effects on relationships and we'll talk about this effects on your brain. But we joked at the beginning that she says, I have this new friend, my best friend. It has affected our marriage. And I don't want to admit it. I continually deny it. Oh, it's no big deal.

I don't look at it that much. And when your kids are saying, Dad, you walk in our house and you pull your phone out and you check email and you check text, it's like it's a problem. Yeah. So talk about that, especially whether it's in a marriage or as a parent.

How is this causing problems in our home? Eye contact. Right. So let's just think about that, that when you are with someone and they're looking at you, you feel like, OK, I am heard. I am understood.

This is great. But when they are distracted and looking down at something else, you're like, hello. You know, so just the simple thing of you see, oh, my loved ones, whether it's a parent or spouse, their attention is somewhere else. You know, they've done studies where they put two strangers together, but to have a conversation, but there's a phone present and they'll report that they feel like, oh, the person wasn't really listening very well because they're distracted by that phone.

Simply being present, not even being touched or just being present. They're not even on the phone. They're not even on the phone.

They're just it's just present. But they feel distracted because they know that the person's attention is divided. They're wondering, oh, did I get a text?

I really want to pick it up. I'd like to take a picture of this moment, you know, whatever it is. But the same situation without the phone, they'll say, oh, that felt really nice.

I felt I made a connection with that person, you know. So you just think about it that when a husband and wife are together, I forgot the statistic, but it was something like the iPhone user is unlocking their phone 80 times a day. So can you imagine if you tried to reach out to your spouse just eight times a day?

Right. And you just reach out, whether it's physically that you give your you're touching them or that you're asking like, hey, babe, how are you doing? Are you doing OK today?

Whatever it is, if you reached out to your spouse, can you imagine if you reached out to your spouse 80 times a day? No. You'd be like, yeah, you'd be like, what? It's wrong.

What's happening to you? Yeah, but we'll do that to our phones and our phones. They don't care. They they're not emotive. You know, they're not going to be like, oh, finally you've rescued me from my sleep.

You know, they don't care. And so instead of reaching for that phone, if we even said to ourselves, wait a minute, I'm going to reach out to my spouse and to even make the statement, my spouse is more interesting than my phone. We would say, well, of course. But then in reality, how do we act? Well, no, because our phone has constant news, has headlines that are very alluring.

We can't compete. There's shopping to be done. There's work to be accomplished.

There's a world to save. I mean, there's all these things happening on your phone. And then you think, well, of course, that's more interesting. And so I think we have to get to the point where we kind of can admit and say, OK, this is a problem. But also realize it's not your fault because that phone has been completely wired to get your attention.

So Tristan Harris, he is a former Google guy, ethicist, and he is all for ethical technology. And he'll say, you know, there are a thousand people on the other side of that screen. And that's why you're having such a hard problem, Dave, because there's a thousand people saying, how can we make this more pleasurable? How can we make the design better so it's more it gets you more? How can we do these headlines so that they will grab your attention?

How can we keep your attention? And it's brain scientists, it's psychologists, it's marketers, it's advertisers. And they're all on that other side of the screen trying to get you. And they've tested it over and over and over and over again. So here you are like, oh, let me just check this.

You don't know you're walking into this elaborately set trap to get your attention. Now, is it only me? You guys are acting like I'm the one with the problem. You two women never struggle.

I was going to say, I'm thinking Dave is so bad at this. He's spending all this time, but I am so much better. And then my time, my usage on my phone will come up. And it's higher than mine.

Yes, it is. I see her. She didn't know I see it on my screen, too. But I remember the first time it came up, I was shocked.

Like, what? I am the better one. But am I? Because I think it's better because I'm texting my friends. This is relational.

And I need to get that shopping done on Amazon. And what do you think I'm doing? I don't know. You're looking at sports the whole time. No, I'm not. But I'm kind of like texting with friends.

I mean, I do like a little bit of sports. But let me ask you this, because you already mentioned this. I've heard people say, when you're out for dinner or when you're with someone, literally get the phone off the table. I mean, because I used to think, turn it over. You know, I'll turn it upside down. I won't see it. And they've said, no, move it.

Don't have it accessible. And I think that is a doable, powerful boundary. Really? That you can say, we're going to leave this in my pocket, we're going to leave this in my purse, and we're going to have a conversation. And it's the same for your kids and for the kids, you know, for them to see you model it. So if the children, you know, parents were always like, put your phone away, put your phone away, put your phone away. But for them, they're thinking, well, you've got your phone at the dinner table. Why do I have to have my phone away when you've got your phone? Well, mine's important. I might get something from work, you know, and the kids like, that's not important. So if you're truly not an emergency worker and you really can put your phone away for the meal, I think that's an amazing way to start.

That it's not even a temptation. Remember when you had a baby and whenever that baby made a noise? Oh, yeah. You're just there. What does the baby need? What's the baby? That's how our phones are. It's like it made a noise. What does it need?

I haven't checked it for a while. Let me make sure it's OK. Let me dress the baby for the girls, right? Let me put it in a nice case. So we treat it like this baby and we're and we're and we're always have it, you know, just a few feet away from us. So if you can put the baby to bed and really have times in your day, mealtime would be one. And then I think when you first wake up in the morning and when you go to bed at night, again, if you're not an emergency worker and you can do this to have it in another room. So for your first moments, because so many of us roll out of bed, look at the phone, get into bed, look at the phone, close your eyes.

So those boundaries, I think, are really helpful. Let me ask you this. If I put my phone in another room and right now I'm feeling convicted, like maybe I should at night. Well, it's our alarm clocks, too. So you have to get an old fashioned alarm clock. You can.

And you can do this. Yeah, because I mean, one of those things that goes ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding. They still make those.

They still make those. No, here's my question. And I'm just going to confess. So I'll put my phone in another room, maybe turn it off, which I got to be honest, right now, I'm like, no way.

How could I live like that? There might be an emergency at three in the morning. But here's what I know. I've got my watch on. It's a digital watch. So it's going to go bzzz and I'm going to roll over and I'm going to still look at it. Do I get rid of the watch?

Do I eliminate digital screens for bedtime? And, you know, everyone is going to say this a little bit different. For some people, it might be, yeah, let's get rid of the watch and let's get a cling clang. I remember I had a Bugs Bunny alarm clock. It's time to get up, doc.

You know, go for it. So go get all the digital stuff out. But for others, you know, the watch is really not that tempting because when you see people, they're not like staring at their watch for hours, you know, because it's small and there's only limited things you can do. And after a while, you're like, OK, I'm done.

So if the watch isn't a problem for you, then maybe that's the good solution that the phone goes out and the watch stays in. I was just thinking maybe you ask your spouse. Yeah, because I bet you, I don't know. She's already told me a million times. But then you can also ask her things. So we've opened the door for that as well.

That's true. But I would want to say, Ann, do you think I should put my phone away at night and my watch? That would totally make me feel loved. It would.

The fact that you would ask me that says a lot. We're going to edit this part of the show out. I don't want anybody to know we had this public conversation. But I need to put my phone away, too. Like if we move them out of the bedroom and I wouldn't care if you did your watch. Like, I don't think you're just going to be watching your watch at night. I feel like the watch would be an emergency. Like if something happened, I would get a.

Because when it buzzes at night, I don't look at it because it's just sort of weird unless I really think like, you know, there's a playoff game on or something. But here's the thing. You've talked about, you know, the screens affecting relationships. Are there other areas that the screens affect relationships? Or even the brain, because you talked about how it affects our brain. Talk about that a little bit.

Yeah. That is a huge thing for adults, but also even more importantly for kids. Because with an adult, you have this fully formed, lovely brain by about 25 years old.

So you can make these decisions. But for kids, like think of what we're doing right now. We're just talking about phone use and how it's so difficult just to kind of wean yourself off of it. And we are grown adults. Right. And so you put that kind of technology into the hand of a five year old, 10 year old, 15 year old. And you think like, good luck.

That's not going to work. Yeah. And so there is something definitely in the brain. And we are very alert when it comes to like drugs or smoking or alcohol.

We get that. That's bad for our kids. But this whole screen time thing, that's under the radar because that has a mix of good things. Online school, Skype and grandma with bad things, addiction, pornography, getting your identity from the wrong place. Just wasting a lot of time, obesity because you're sitting there the whole time.

So there's this huge mix of what could be good and what could be bad. So much to say about the brain when your child is playing video games, for instance, and a parent is wondering like, hello, I just called you to dinner 30 minutes ago. Why do you not respond?

You know, why do you not listen to me? I just need to get through this level. I can't stop now. You know, so when a child is playing a game, their body is thinking like I am running away. Like it is fight or flight. And we are flooded with these stress hormones and we are. But there's nowhere to go. So your body is just like, man, I'm stressed out, but there's nothing to do here. And then the blood flow goes instead of going to the prefrontal cortex of the brain, which is the front part. That's like the executive decision making center that's like, you know, you haven't gone to the bathroom for an hour. You should probably and you've really needed to.

You should probably get up. That part of the brain doesn't get any blood. And instead they're thinking survival.

Their body is putting all the blood into like the major organs. Keep that heart pumping. Let's keep this kid alive. This kid's in trouble. Stress hormones are raging.

Let's go. And so here's this kid in this constant state of stress and their prefrontal cortex is not getting a whole lot of blood. And if they spend a little bit of time like this, OK.

But if you spend hours of every day in the state, then you get to be 18, 20. And you wonder, why does my child? They can't seem to regulate their emotion. Their emotions are so crazy. They just freak out about things or they're either so angry or so depressed. And a lot of that has to do with that prefrontal cortex, that part that's been given by God to regulate our emotion, to help us with self-control.

That part's been starved their whole life by that blood not being there. And so the brain is a muscle and it's going to do what you've told it to do. And for too many kids, all the brain knows how to do is work in this digital world, but they don't know other things. So, you know, I remember when when we moved into our home, we did it to be close to my parents. And it was just dirt, you know, just new construction and dirt. My husband's saying, why in the world will they build something here?

I hope so. So here it is, dirt. And of course, now there's tons of roads that go everywhere I want to go. But can you imagine if those roads had never been built, we would be stuck in our house and be like, this was a bad decision. Well, for kids, their brains are just these dirt, just dirt.

And they make pathways. Oh, this is how you meet someone. This is how you comfort someone who is sick. This is how you press through math homework when you really don't even like math. This is how you get cut from a team.

This is how you ask for a girl on a date and get rejected. So, you know, there's these things and then there's pathways that show these are roads we know how to deal with this. But today's kids, they're not having pathways to reading, pathways to read the Bible, pathways to serving others, pathways to talking to their parents, to listening to people even when they don't feel like it, all those things, because all those pathways, it's like concrete.

It's just all it's all being set towards where? Video games, YouTube, being entertained. So their amusement muscle is really strong for the brain, but they're relating with people muscle, the love one another, serve one another, all those muscles super atrophied or nonexistent. And that's, I think, for parents to realize this is a brain issue.

What kind of pathways is my child going to have as they grow up? And if they miss it, they kind of miss it in those early years. And that's really kind of frightening. Especially when you're seeing toddlers on their devices all the time because they, you know, it just becomes a habit. It's easier. And so you're saying they're doing the same thing.

Yeah, absolutely. It used to be that kids in the 70s would start watching TV when they're about four years old. And today they say it's four months.

Four months? That's a big difference. And so if you're listening and you've got a baby or a grandbaby, then just take this as your friendly reminder. You know, no screens before they're two.

The American Academy of Pediatrics still stands by that. Does that include a TV? Yeah, they would say not not having a TV so that that child can be looking at real objects and getting used to and faces.

Right. Connecting with people that that's so important. They say that like the video chatting is OK. So they're looking at a phone and they're looking at grandma or grandpa. That's OK. But other than that, they say not to use screens. Wow. I know for me as a dad and as a husband, you know, this new term in the last year, social distancing. I don't remember hearing that term before the pandemic.

That's right. You know, you think about we've learned to be six feet apart and it's safer. The phone has social distance us when I'm looking at my phone is usually me alone. And again, there's a lot of great and good and benefits, but often your mind is just mindless.

You're wasting time. I think of Philippians four. A lot of us know this verse, Philippians four eight. I'll read it to you where Paul says, finally, brothers, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is commendable, if there's any excellence, if there's anything worthy of praise, think about these things. And rarely do I look at a phone and think about those things. And you can.

There's the YouVersion Bible app and I have a Bible plan every day and it's awesome. But that's like 10 percent. The rest of 90 is like, I'm sort of wasting time here. This wasn't very lovely. What honorable. And I'm pulled away from my wife and kids. I'm pulled away from people. And I can remember meetings as a pastor at our church where we all sat at a table and looked at each other. And meetings now where there's a screen in front of everybody and they have to force their eyes up to look at one another.

You know, I thought, wow, this is an awesome benefit and beauty from God. But you're helping us think, boy, oh boy, we've got to be vigilant. Yeah. I want to say to any parent listening and it's myself in the mirror, take back your home.

Yeah. It can be on you to say, I'm going to lead my family. Well, we're going to talk about screen time.

We're going to put boundaries in place. And by the way, I've got to be number one model and show this. So I would challenge any mom or dad not only to pick up your book and learn because, man, just reading your book is like, wow, I had no idea. You are one of the experts.

And it's not like somebody in a room or at a college professor. You're a mom and a wife living this out. So I'd say pick up your book and take back your home. There is no denying that the four inch screen we carry around with us, the ever present wireless connectivity that we have with the Internet, this is a game changer in how life is lived. And it does affect relationships. And for kids who are growing up with this as normal, it is setting patterns and habits that will be with them for the rest of their lives. That's why this subject is so important and why David and Wilson are encouraging all of us to get a copy of Arlene Pelican's book Screen Kids, where she examines the relational skills children need in a tech driven world. We are making Arlene's book available this week to those of you who can help support the Ministry of Family Life with a donation. We think this is an essential subject for moms and dads to be aware of, to be on top of and to be intentional.

The book is called Screen Kids. It's our thank you gift to you when you help support the ongoing work of family life today. What you're actually doing when you support family life is you're helping to build stronger marriages and families.

There are hundreds of thousands of people who tune in each day to hear these conversations so that they can be equipped and discipled and mentored in subjects like this to help us think biblically about these things. You can donate to family life today online at familylifetoday.com or you can call to donate. The number is 1-800-FL-TODAY. Again, the website is familylifetoday.com or call to donate 1-800-358-6329.

That's 1-800-F as in family, L as in life, and then the word today. Be sure to ask for your copy of Arlene Pelican's book Screen Kids when you get in touch with us. Now tomorrow we're going to talk about whether it's actually possible to become addicted to your device because it sure feels that way sometimes, right?

We just instinctively habitually grab for the device. Arlene Pelican will be back tomorrow to talk about this. Hope you can be back with us as well. On behalf of our hosts, Dave and Ann Wilson, I'm Bob Lapine. We'll see you tomorrow for another edition of Family Life Today. Family Life Today is a production of Family Life, a crew ministry, helping you pursue the relationships that matter most.