Optimising Your Digital Wellbeing with Dr Kristy Goodwin

0:02 A listener production. Hey there, you're listening to Crappita Happy. I'm cast done. I'm a clinical and coaching psychologist, a mindfulness meditation teacher and author of the Crappita Happy books. In this show, I introduce you to interesting, inspiring, intelligent people who are experts in their fields, with the hope that the insights and experiences they share can help you to feel a whole lot less crappy and more happy. And today I am very excited to be talking to doctor Christy Goodwin, who is one of Australia's leading digital health, well being and productivity expert. She also happens to be a mum who knows full well what it's like to deal with kids techno tantrums. Christy is the author of Raising Your Child in a Digital World, and what I love about her is that she doesn't suggest that we ban the iPhone or offer other entirely unrealistic solutions. At a time when we are all working harder than ever to put limit on our screen time while also relying so heavily on our devices for our social connection and working from home, Christie's advice is more important than ever, and so I hope that you get as much out of this conversation as I did. I have been dying to talk to you for a long time, but especially now after the year that we have had so Christy, I think we've all become a lot more aware of the negative impacts of too much technology. You know, we've all been on that path of pulling back and having digital detoxes. But

1:33 now we're in this world where we're basically being forced onto our screens to live our lives. All of our socializing is online. Everybody's working from home and has to be online. What do you make of this, like this whole new world that we're living in. That's a very broad question, but look. I think we all agree that none of us are immune to the digital pool, whether you're a toddler, a teenager, or an adult. I think we would all, if we're really honest, admit that we're often tethered to technology. We find it so appealing, and that is for a whole host of reasons. You know, as you said, in this particular climate, our digital devices have been our portal for a leisure, they've been our portal for work, they've been our portal for connection and socialization, and all of us have relied on these digital devices for a plethora of reasons.

2:25 But these devices that we all rely on have been very deliberately and intentionally designed to be psychologically appealing and to hook us into wanting to use them. So I think we feel the tug. You know, we couldn't imagine doing lockdown without our digital appendages. But we also recognize that it's really hard to switch off and that they're often having, if we're really honest, a negative impact on many facets, you know, on our mental health, on our physical wellbeing. So I think what you described, I call it the digital dilemma. You know, you can't live it's hard to live with it, and it's hard to live without it. And how do we you know what. I'm actually someone that doesn't suggest digital detoxes. I think we've got to whether we love it or loughverit, the technology is here to stay. So we have to leverage the benefits it offers us and mitigate the potential pitfalls.

3:12 And that means we have to find the best ways to use it, not promote digital abstinence or amputation, especially if you've got kids. It just will not work. Yes, I definitely want to talk too specifically about kids and devices. I have a fourteen year old daughter, so she's very much super glued to her phone. But let's just go back. You said there are all of these potential negative consequences of too much time on our technology, and that they're designed to keep us hooked. Can you just dig in a little bit for. Us about what some of those negative effects are on our physical, mental, emotional well being. Absolutely so the research tells us. And obviously it depends on how we're using it and for how long and what platforms, so it's hard to make broad generalizations. But globally speaking, we know that if we are using whether we're adults or talking about children, if we're using technology excessively or at the wrong times of the day or in the wrong ways, it can have a negative impact on our physical health and mental well being.

4:13 So in physical physical health, we. Know, for example, rates of myopia so near sightedness has increased in the last ten years. A very substantial increase. Now, our initial reaction was to point the blame and so too much screen time, and there is definitely an element of that. But what new Australian research is suggesting that it's the displacement effect of our time on devices, and that is we're not getting enough time in natural sunlight, vitamin D. We know that vitamin D actually helps elongate the eyes and that can contribute to decreasing the likelihood of developing things like myopia. So often with technology, and this applies to all of the impacts, it's not necessarily the technology per se. Sometimes it can be, but it's often it's what it's superseding, what it's displacing. So, for example, when it comes to mental health, we know the particularly with young people, we have lots of media headlines decrying all the negative impacts that technology is having, and we blame social media and smartphones for the decline in young people's mental health.

5:17 In particular. There's studies that show that there's. Definitely a correlation between smartphone and social media use and poorer mental health outcomes, but that research is only correlational. We don't know which way the directional arrow points. Is it that young people with existing mental health issues gravitate to the online world because it fulfills some of their psychological needs, or is it the other way around, where technology is actually causing some of these poor mental health outcomes. The researcher is still in its infancy in this regard. But when it comes to mental health, I think it's what our digital devices are displacing that's having the negative impact. We know, for example, young people primary school, secondary school, and even adults, our sleep is diminishing both quantity and and a lot of that can be attributed to our tech habits. We're often, myself included, guilty of scrolling before we go to bed, and we can talk in a moment about why it's so hard.

6:11 To stop that scroll. There are some very clever design techniques that makes it near impossible. I don't know about ucas, but I'm often guilty of finding it impossible to stop that scroll late, not even though I'm tired, and even though I know I shouldn't be doing it, but there I am on Instagram, tapping and swiping away. So it's having a negative impact, particular in our sleep. It's having a very big impact on our interpersonal relationships, how we interact with other people. Numerous studies have shown that just the. Presence of your phone while you are having a conversation with somebody diminishes the quality and quantity of the conversation. Even if you don't pick it up. Just the mere digital presence impacts that we also know we are in leading incredibly sedentary lives, and now, especially if we're working from home or some hybrid model of working from home, we're often sitting down than we ever have and that decrease in physical activity means we're not making you know, the dopamine and serotonin that we often got from physical activity.

7:09 And so there are a whole lot of cascading consequences because of our screen news. But again, demonizing technology of saying well, let's give it up is just completely unrealistic. So it's about it. Is it really is, and so it's about how do we find healthy boundaries, how do we use the technology but use it in ways that isn't going to have a negative impact on us. I wanted to pick up on something that you mentioned there about our distractability. I'm not sure that's the word that you used, but I went to grab my phone yesterday when I was doing some work and I needed to do some maths, and I went to pick up my phone to do a simple addition add up some numbers, and fifteen minutes later, somehow I was on Instagram reading messages then randomly googling something that I'd seen.

7:57 What is happening here? And we have a bit of a. Joke in our household that we've all become goldfish. We have about a four second attention span. Is that something that we're all experiencing because of our technology? Use absolutely what you described. Then I call it the digital rabbit hole. And it is so easy for us to go down that digital rabbit hole. And so one of the things, I mean, there's so many strategies we can put in place, and I'm sure we'll get to that, but just think the choice. The strategic color of the icons have been designed by psychologists to be psychologically appealing. When Steve Jobs released the first iPod Touch, in his press release, he said he wanted the icons to be so appealing that users wanted to lick this their devices.

8:44 So that tells you. About something about the intentional design. The fact that our notification bubble is usually red and has a number in it. You know that metric and color. Choice is some of the subtle ways, but very powerful ways that gets us hooked in to constantly checking the fact that we have alerts and notifications pinging and coming to us constantly tricks our brain into thinking that everything is urgent and important. We have a brain that is hardwired to seek novelty and always find new and interesting things, and when we are constantly being. Bombarded, our brain doesn't know. How to cope because we basically have ancient paleolithic brains that were designed to go out and forage and hunt for information. But now the exact opposite is happening. The information is coming to us constantly. And I often refer to this as infobesity. You know, we are literally drowning in information constantly.

9:38 That is such an interesting term, infobesity. You're so right, We're drowning in information. Yeah. The average adult now consumes the equivalent of three point four gigabytes of data every day, which is just mind blowing. And our brains have a finite as you know, a finite capacity. We've got a mental lobe that we can carry. And so when information is constantly bombarding us, and we have alerts and noteifications that ping and ding and trick our brain into thinking they're urgent and important, often we activate our sympathetic nervous system, and so we don't think logically about this. So we find ourselves picking up and scrolling. The fact that we never know, and one of the biggest reasons all of us, particularly kids, can get hooked on social media and virtual multiplayer video games, is because your phone and your digital devices that you love have been designed to be a little bit like a poker machine.

10:28 They offer what we call intermittent variable rewards. So when you dived into your Instagram inbox yesterday or DMS. And you work quite. Sure if there was going to be something interesting or a kind message, or something a little controversial, and so it's that unpredictable reward ratio that gets us hooked into constantly checking. But the biggest design technique, and this is where I find it hard to go down the digital rabbit hole myself, is that these devices are a bottomless bowl. There's no stopping cube, there's no endpoint. We enter what I call the state of insufficiency. We never ever feel done. And I mean think about when you refresh Instagram or your social media, you ever.

11:10 Get to the bottom of the if you can scroll and scroll and you never find the bottom. Yeah, it's like that, you know, those beautiful infinity pools that just seem to keep going and going and. Even just thig gesture. You know, when you refresh your social media feed, you pull down. It's the exact same action of pulling the lever on a poker machine. And so they are all these very subtle but very powerful techniques, and unfortunately a lot of our tech companies exploit these. You know, on YouTube now and most streaming services, the AutoPlay feature is the default setting, you know, how it rolls from one episode into another, and you plan to just watch one episode and before you know it, you're binge watching some trashy TV series.

11:53 These devices have been deployed that way. So it's a hard battle. And that dot rabbit hole is something so many of us experience. When we talk about how much information we're consuming or partially consuming, perhaps I'm really curious to know how much of that we're actually retaining and for us as well as our. Kids, you know, how, what about our. Capacity to actually retain information? So there's two things I want to talk about here. One is there's a it's a colloquial term, but there is research to substantiate it. We know that most of us adults and children are suffering from digital dementia. Our memory making capacity is diminishing. Cas do you know more than three phone numbers without picking up your contact list?

12:40 No? I do not. And remember when we were kids, we did. We remembered everybody's phone number off by heart. But now wouldn't have a clue. No, if I asked you to recall six steps to get to a particular location, would you be able to remember? You know, turn right here, go down about two hundred meters chuckle left. Like to think I could remember six steps. I haven't been tested lately because we have Google Maps for last exactly. And so what we're doing as humans, and this can be both a positive and a negative. We're offloading some of our memory making capacity to technology, and so we've got to figure out what is worthwhile offloading. You know, some of that redundant information.

13:21 You know, I really don't need to hold my grocery list in my head, so that is a perfect task for me to offload to technology. But other times there is really important information that I do need to recall. And given that my brain has a finite load or capacity, and we are drowning in this infobesity culture, we are diminishing our capacity to memorize things. The second thing. That we know because we are, as you described it, that continuous partial attention. We think we're multitasking, but we're not. Men. This is a global apology. You were right, women, We were wrong. Our brains simply cannot multitask. There has been such strong scientific evidence that tells us that multitasking is.

14:01 A myth, but we all do it, particularly our kids. Our kids are studying and they've got their phone pinging, They've probably got music playing through their headphones. The TV is on in the background, and they've got six WhatsApp conversations and playing a multiplay video game at the same time. And the reason that we find that stressful, and the reason we can't retain the information, is because when we multitask, a couple of things happen. First of all, we burn through glucose, which is the energy supply in our brains, so we get really tired. I don't know do you do this, Cass. I try and debunk this myth all the time and multitask, and I feel so exhausted and depleted at the end of it because our brain's. Busy doing nothing. Yes I'm always busy, but achieving not very much.

14:45 I'm ashamed to say. Wired and tired. Yes, yes, and so we are burning through glucose. The next thing that happens is we release cortisol, and cortisol's the stress hormone, and cortisole actually stops our neural pathways from forming. So when we are in a stress state, we can't actually retain information because our brain is just focused on dealing with the stress. The next thing that happens is that we send information to the wrong part of our brain instead of information going to our hip a campus, which is the memory center of our brain, when we multitask, we actually send information to a part of the brain called austriatum. Austriatum is good for short term procedural information, but if we want information to stick, if we want to be able to memorize it, it needs to go to the hip a campus, and it just does not go there when we multitask. So that's why our memory is diminishing. The information's coming at us thick and fast. I often liken it to a fire hydrant being sprayed, and we're standing there with our little memory with a plastic cup trying to catch this.

15:48 I think we're so accustomed to living this way though, that probably for most of us, we don't really recognize it as being necessarily stressful. It's our sort of our normal these days, this kind of always on, always a bit jumpy, a bit agitated, a bit distractable. Absolutely, I think we have accepted that this is our common denominator now. And I mean you only need to ask someone how are you, and most people's instantaneous response is busy or stressed or done or overwhelmed. And again we know part of this is that we have, as I said before, those ancient paleolithic brains, they were never designed to be plugged in, switched on twenty four to seven.

16:34 We need opportunities of digital disconnection. We need opportunities to what I call daydream. Neuroscientists call it the default mode of thinking, mind wandering. You know, when we used to. Stand at the bus stop and we didn't have our phone to pull out and scroll through, or you went for a run and you didn't decide to put your pods in and listen to a podcast. You just went for a run, So we had moments of white space. But now I think all of us, adults, kids included, we fill those pockets of white space with our digital appendages, so we never get that psychological rest. We also know that if we're trying. To navigate working from home arrangements or more flexible work arrangements, we often feel like we have to be constantly tethered to technology. There's a phenomenon I'm calling it digital presenteesm and it's this idea that.

17:23 I need my colleagues to see that. I'm on Slack or I'm replying instantly to their messages or emails, really so that I can be visible that I'm doing my job because I'm not in an office where people can actually see what I'm doing, and so many of us I think this is really amplified in recent months, that feeling of always feeling stressed and burnt out, and whether we just accept that this is the way things are or whether we want to make changes. Obviously it's contingent upon the individual, just when we. Talk about that distractability. Cal Newport, I've read both of his books, he wrote, Deep Work and Digital Minimalism, which he does take a pretty hardcore approach to the remove all technology for thirty days and then kind of introduce back in what is.

18:08 Really of value? I personally couldn't do that particularly not I run an online business, so there's that whole angle as well. But that idea of deep work is one that I find really interesting, That ability to sustain your attention on a task for a period of time, to engage in cognitively complex, challenging tasks and do work that's impactful. I feel like we're so busy with the shallow work of answering emails and whatever else. We're filling our times and reading five hundred word articles instead of reading books and listening to little bite sized bits of information, instead of immersing ourselves and really learning about a topic deeply. I think that's a huge problem.

18:55 That's a huge shame. Absolutely, I'm glad you brought I'm a fan girl of Thought's work, perhaps like you're. Not with his extreme measures. We know, for example, the work on any sort of detox but particularly detoxes, tells us that they don't often result in long term behavioral change. It can often create a binge and purge cycle. So many people say, you know, I'm going to have a weekend off technology, and they do, and they love it and they feel fantastic, but come Sunday night or come Monday morning, there's the you know, digital bombardment. You get the avalanche of emails that you've missed. There's all the social media notifications and we go through that binge and purge cycle. The other thing I wanted to say, and. You are exactly right, and the research is corroborating this.

19:37 We no longer have opportunities for deep work. A study by Rescue Time analyzed one hundred and eighty million hours worth of knowledge workers time online. So these are people who are working basically on computers for their work, so accountants, lawyers, you know, knowledge based workers. And they found that the average adult can now focus for just six minutes before a distraction. Hijacks their attention. Now this is you know, obviously putting a big dent in our productivity. But we have lost the art of doing deep work. So I often say to people one of my key strategies is to figure out what I call your chronotype. So your chronotype is your biological predisposition to be awake and alert. So most of us fit into three categories. We're either an owl, a lark, or a middle bird. And I think most of us intuitively know which category we fit in. So if you wake up really early, in the morning and that's your prime time.

20:36 You're you know, and I am. I'm a that's me. Yeah, I'm a lark. I'm sometimes embarrassed to admit it, but I'm a between four and four thirty am natural waker. Get me to do anything in our time and I'm almost like a zombie. So I get what we need to do is I say, we have to build a fortress around our focus during our mental prime time. So it's not about saying you turn off all all alerts and notifications and put your phone on do not disturb mode for the whole day. It's about reserving that mental prime time and saying, look for me. It's quite easy to do because no one's ringing me at four o'clock in the morning, but it's so easy to go down the digital rabbit hole. If I woke up and went in my inbox, it would be such a negative thing to do because that's not my deep work. So I really conscious about putting some strategies in place so that when it is my deep work time, when I'm going to power through the taxing, challenging work that I need to do, I make sure I have got as many digital and human distractions switched off so that I'm not getting constantly bombarded, and you know, you only need to see the ping. I don't know about you, but if you know, if you've got your email notification that just dances across the right hand side of your screen, even if you don't open it, even if you don't click on it. If you've just switched your eyes and you go back to the task that you're doing, you leave what we call attention residue.

21:58 So your thought is thinking, hang on, I saw that's from this client. I wonder if that's going to be a positive or a negative message. And so you may not open it, but your attention has been diverted. And just a quick study found that once our attention is diverted, So say we're doing deep focused work and it might have been chatty Cathy when we were back in the office, you know Kathy that comes along and has says, have. You got a quick sect to talk about this? Or maybe you're working at home with kids or your partner or a pet and someone comes in just when you're in that prime time when your attention is diverted. It doesn't matter how it's diverted. It takes the average adult twenty three minutes and fifteen seconds to get back into that deep focused state.

22:39 It's called the resumption lag. So you could imagine how many times that's happening in your day. If you've got the impact on productivity huge, Christy is out the same for kids. Yes, So the study that I mentioned before with the six minute focus time, a completely different study conducted by Professor Larry Rosen looked at secondary school students and he said to them, I'm going to come, I'm going to send researchers home with you and just observe you for fifteen minutes doing your homework. So these kids knew they were being scrutinized or watched. Just go about your business as usual homework. So they had some of them did it online, some of them had written homeworks, some of them had their phones nearby. The average and these were kids, I think they were aged thirteen to fifteen years could focus for just six minutes before they were distracted as well. So I mean, they were completely independent studies.

23:31 But the fact is, I love it. Because often I speak to parents and we're always the first to sort of wag our fingers. Oh, kids these. Days got a terrible attention span, and when I share the rescue time studies, hang on, we're not much better either. We're the goldfish. Christy. I'm really interested to go back to something you mentioned right at the beginning. This is a question that I think a lot of us as parents have about those links between social media use, especially for our kids. But I don't think it's just kids. And mental health issues depression, anxiety. I think for girls, particularly body image issues, and as you said, correlation doesn't necessarily equal causation.

24:18 What else do we know about that? I mean, should we be concerned about our kids potentially, you know, really suffering psychologically as a result of too much social media? Yes. Look, I think the biggest concern as it relates to mental health and our screen habits, particularly for young vulnerable people, is the displacement effect. So we know that, you know, the more time you're spending on your phone and on your social portals, the less time you are having often with real people in real time. So we know that we need real time into personal relationships with real people. We know our brain releases oxytocin, which is the social bonding hormone, when we're in close proximity and I think I think during the lockdown, many of us realized, particularly those who had adolescents, how desperately they were craving being with their peer group. Yes, you could have a zoom call, or you could talk on house party or zoom, but nothing beats that real connection that we are hardwired to have.

25:16 And this is. Why social media and multiplayer video games have become so popular for young people because they tap into our number one psychological driver as humans, and that is the need to be part of a tribe. We are hardwired for elational connection and this is why we as adults like email, why young people like social media and online games, because we get to be part of that group. We also get to experience autonomy in the online world, so we want to have some sort of control over what we're doing, and the online world gives our young people that perceived locus of control. Now, this can be both a positive and a negative. Thing, contingent upon what they're interacting and looking at. Now where it can be problematic, where for example, young people only ever need to look up one self harm video or one video that promotes negative body images, and thanks to the Google Recommendation algorithm, what populates their social media feed, their sponsored posts that come into their feed, content that is geared towards that. Now, this is a huge problem for young people because we know the brain has what we call mirror neurons, so we are hardwired to imitate and copy what we see. And so when our young people are seeing social media posts that promote negative body images or unhealthy body images, or in any other inappropriate content, maybe it's self harm content, then because they have.

26:44 Mirror neurons, it doesn't mean they'll necessarily. Imitate, but they are more likely to try and imitate some of those behaviors, particularly if they see their peer. Group being revered for doing so. So if they see one of their friends getting you know, accolades or all that, we call them social media vanity metrics, if they posts get lots of likes or comments, this can be hugely problematic. The other thing I think I touched on this earlier is we're more sedentary, so our young people aren't getting the physical activity that what they need. And there is a substantial body of research that says that poor sleep and poor physical movement are very strongly connected to poor mental health outcomes in young people. So it's hard to say, you know, how directly and if it is even causal or is it more correlational. Really, the research is in its infancy, but it's suffice to say I think it needs to be an issue that we need to monitor and be it intentional about how our young people use these platforms.

27:46 That is really interesting what you just mentioned about the algorithm. Though I think most of us have watched the Social Dilemma recently. I assume you have Christy about how you only need to look at one thing or search for one thing and it will just feed you more of the same. And I think even where as adults are not really savvy to that because it's so insidious, but our kids clearly are not going to be switched on to that. Absolutely not. And this is a contentious topic, but sometimes you don't even need to search for a particular topic. It can be in conversation, depending on. The series, always listening and during.

28:26 This podcast recording, I have said particular things and Siri has popped up, so she's listening. She maybe doesn't want me talking about some of these ties. But that can be you know, that's a huge problem in and of itself, So I think that the fact that we're often unaware of this, and for our young people, given as they move from sort of their family unit as they're biologically meant to do as they hit adolescents and more towards their peer group. When they start seeing what their peer groups are posting that gets. You know, validation or notoriety online. Then because of those mirror neurons, they start to try and imitate that, and so it means many young people, I think one of the reasons we're seeing the increase in anxiety and depression is because they're succumbing to what I call the compare and to spare phenomenon.

29:16 I'm comparing my. Reality with the a roll highlight reel that my peers or other people are posting online, and so it's so easy to go down that rabbit hole of comparison. And because we have a negativity bias, we tend to see our reality is the inferior compared to what others are posting. And again all of us adults unimmune to that. But I just think that we at least better able to step back from that and critically kind of analyze that. Whereas I don't think kids everything that if it's on Google, it's true. If it's on the Internet, it's true. As far as my daughter's concerned.

29:58 That's right. And the thing with with adolescents in particular is that they're wired to like if their peer group is online, they're going to gravitate more towards that. So it is only natural that that holds more value in their eyes than what their parents or are their important significant others and suff. Of course, I think the other thing Christy, just on the teenager topic, is that you know, we have had Facebook for quite a while. Most of us are on Instagram now, they're on TikTok, Snapchat and all of these other things. And I think parents can get concerned about platforms that we are not necessarily familiar with. Well, I haven't even touched on there's been a couple of recent incidents, but the recent live streaming of somebody's suicide and even the terrorist attacking christ Church, which was live stream, Like, how do we protect our kids from that? I don't know if there's an answer, but as parents, I think are we being overly concerned about these platforms that we're not necessarily familiar with ourselves?

30:56 And do we need to be. My answer to that is that I often say to you know, in our defense, we are the very first generation of parents who are raising I call them screenages, raising screen ages in this completely digital world. So we've got no frame of reference. So for most of us, we had unplugged childhoods. We stared at the sky, not at a screen. We spent time with people, not with pixels. And so as humans, our natural tendency when anything is new or foreign. Is for it to be for us to be fearful of it. You know, when rock and roll music was introduced, we were told a whole generation of young people were going to become morally corrupt listening to this inappropriate music, and so we've sort of got this historical tendency for there to be moral panic.

31:37 But I think in this space. You know, given what the content is that our young people are often consuming, and often unbeknownst to their parents, then I think we. Do have a position to be concerned about. So my message always to parents is that you need to be the pilot, not the passenger, of the digital plane. Even that we know your young person doesn't have fully developed brain architecture to navigate the digital world, so they're much more likely to succumb to risks and the perils of the online world. So that means as the pilot that you help your child or your team. And I think there's three bs that you need to implement as a parent. The first one's boundaries, and I think for most parents we obsess over screen time and I encourage parents that is important, but it's not the only part of the equation. We have to have broader, more nuanced conversations and I think as you touched on CASS, I think focusing on what is more important. You need to know the digital playgrounds where your children are playing, and you need to know what the risks are. Our Australian e Safety Commissioners website and the US they have common Sense Media. They're great tools for parents to go to to sort of critically evaluate these playgrounds where their children are playing. But we need boundaries also around when you know, times of the day have a huge impact on physical and mental health. Where are they using it?

32:58 You know, do you have some no go t tex zones in your house? And how are they using it? Are they using it in ways that's not going to compromise you know, we've touched on their vision, but also they're hearing and muscular skeletal health. The second bee that parents have to implement is basic needs, making sure that their child or their screen age's time isn't diminishing some of their basic physical and psychological needs. And the third need and I know this one's counterintuitive, but our kids and us two as adults, if I'm honest, need boredom. We need opportunities to digitally disconnect. They're my three bees boundaries, basic needs and boredom. And I think if we can do that and focus less, I think, you know, to be honest, I think screen time is going to be a redundant concept in a few years because we've got wearable technologies, we've got artificial intelligence, virtual reality. Time to the world we live in, it is And so I think that's just such a narrow restrictive definition, and your child might hit I know a lot of parents say, you know, they only have an hour a day, but what have they spent with that hour? You know, what have they been doing? Is it helpful? Is it harmful?

33:59 Is it a appropriate? So yeah, I think we need to assume an active role and be that pilot where we can. The approach that I tend to take you know, as you said, we're all just winging it, really, But I have conversations with my daughter about screen time, but as you say, particularly about what apps she's spending time on, because her screen time might show a really high number, but a lot of that is listening to music and it's all counted in her screen time. So we've had conversations about breaking it down by which apps and what she's spending time on. And I personally find I don't go head to head with her. We just have conversations about how else she could be spending time. Or she's spending time on snapchat talking to her friends, but you know, at what costs? As you said, what else is she not doing while she's doing that? And I have found that she is pretty good. She comes to her own kind of conclusions. And she has just said to me this week that she's reduced her screen time on her phone of her own accord, bless her. And again we had the conversation about, well, you know, music's probably okay, but what could you be spending less time on and we were able to have that conversation together. I am aware that I'm in a very fortunate position there and other parents are tearing their hair out with trying to enforce boundaries. So what advice do you have for those parents whose kids are really really objecting. You know that kids are having tantrums. I know I should add that I did have a phase my daughter when she was

35:29 about nine. She was we use the word addicted. I think she was quite addicted to Minecraft. She would get very upset if we tried to limit her her time on Minecraft, and again she came to her own conclusion and ditch that herself. But what about when they don't want to and it's up to us parents to enforce those limits. So I'm going to be really honest and say that if you're going to try and make changes, it will likely get worse. Before it gets better. I think you need to go in with realistic expectations because we know that for our young people, their time online is pleasurable. So their brain is literally releasing dopamine and often other pleasurable neurotransmitters. So to take that out of their life can often result in really sometimes you know, physically aggressive behavior. You can get the moody, broody, sulky behavior, depending on your child. So I think understanding what we can do, but also having realistic expectations is important. So often say to parents, when you're trying to adjust your rules and habits around your kids' screen time, gets as you've suggested, cass, get their buy in, get them you know, pick your time of your day. Don't have this conversation at night because it will be met with no success.

36:43 We know at nighttime we turn off our prefrontal cortex, so the logical part of the brain turns off and our amigdala, which is our emotional hub, fires up. This is why we have more arguments with our spouse or our kids at night. So next time I can say, next time your partner's picking a fight, just say, honey, my prefront cortex is off and mynig delary is firing, and they'll be so impressed with your fancy vocabulary. So I'll leave you alone, but with your kids, pick. Your time of the day to have this conversation. Have it in neutral territory. Get there, buy in. I have found I've worked with thousands of kids talking to them about digital well being, and it's a topic they obviously have a vested interest in, but they also have some really powerful and clever insights, So I think we need to be receptive to those. Then I often say, make incremental changes and try and crowd out their unhealthy habits with some other habits. I'm a big fan of James Clear's Atomic Habits book, and he talks about how we can form how any habit is formed, but he often talks about having a queue and having a reward and trying to make incremental changes that way. The reason when we talk about techno tantrums is these are some really practical, mum tested strategies to avoid the techno tantrum when you want your child to switch off. Rather than just going in and say turn it off, and let's be honest, they ignore you, and you go a few deserbelves higher, and then you're in there trying to wrestle it out from their grip. We need to call it's called priming or warn them, so saying to them, when you've sent

38:15 this message, when this episode ends, when you've had this. Battle, I'd like you to turn it off. And it sounds really trivial, but just the act of them powering it down or switching it off gives them that perceived sense of autonomy. Or control. Then we need to have an appealing transition activity. So do not say to your son, you know, turn off Fortnite and go and do your math's homework. Don't tell your daughter to put a phone away and go and tidy her bedroom. They're not appealing transition activity. So choice of. Two two things you know that they like doing, and bonus points if it involves some sort of physical activity, because that will give them that, you know, surge in dopamine and serotonin. I think we need to give them cut off or transition points. For kids under eight, I often say don't give them an amount of time because most kids don't have a sexual understanding of what time is until they're somewhere between sort of eight and ten.

39:03 Years of age. So instead give them quantities or episodes or battles that they can have online. Then I think encouraging them when they're coming off and they're combusting and they're declaring that you're the worst parent in the world because you won't let them have another four hours on their device. If you can, you. Might need to duck and weave see if you can touch them literally, you know, stroke their arms or cuddle them because you're giving them a head of dope. Sorry, oxytocin, you're giving them that pleasure neurotransmitter. So there's simple things we can put in place. Doesn't mean they're always easy, but I think over time, if we can have those firm boundaries, our kids are much more likely to adhere to them and make those changes.

39:44 But don't go in and make radical changes. I think take small bites and roll those changes out over time with your child's involvement, and you're much more likely to have success. I think that's really good advice. I do hear sometimes of parents who or you know, my daughter will tell me about a friend of hers who doesn't have her phone this week because her phone's been removed for some reason, like as a consequence. And you know, it's not for me to judge anybody else's parenting, but I think, oh gosh, I don't think I could. I could. I don't think I could do that. I never should on parents. I think parents get shout on all the time. So I like you, I think you know, once you're a parent, you need to make educated decisions. So I'm not for a moment telling any parent what you should be doing, but what the research tells us is that if there's any perceived threat of digital amputation, our kids.

40:37 From digital amputation. I love that, but continue, well, if. You're going to confiscate the iPad or the phone, our kids do not come to us when there is a problem. So overwhelmingly despite the wonderful programs rolled out in schools right through from prep to secondary school, where kids are told when you're a victim of cyber bullying, when you've seen something inappropriate, when someone is you know, sending you in appropriate content, when an online predator has approached you, go and tell a trusted adult. Kids will parrot that back to you. But in about eighty two percent of cyber bullying cases, young people do not go and tell a trusted adult because of the perceived threat that you're going to take away my technology.

41:18 That's a really interesting oxygen. Supply, So they won't come to us. And so this is a one. This is a strategy often sharing parents seminars and I have parents flocking at the end of. The night saying, but I do that. I didn't know that was the wrong thing, and I live I love mayor Angelos saying when you know better, you do better. And so this is not to you. Know, cast dispersions or to make anyone feel riddled with guilt. But I think kids need boundaries. They certainly need boundaries, and we need consequences. But removal of devices will often only fracture the relationship with your kids. And Christy, we haven't even talked about this. Cyber bullying. Is that a whole other conversation. I mean, how do we monitor that we can ask them or they, as you say, they're not going.

42:01 To tell us. Do we get in and hack in and read their messages? What do we do about that possibility? So as the pilot of the plane of the digital plane talking having ongoing conversations. So often parents say, oh, I've had the cyber safety talk, you know, a bit like when your parents, so I've had the sex talk. You sort of tick the box and go a few. Of that's done. This isn't like, this is an ongoing dialogue that you need to have with your kids. So reminding them if there is a problem, you know, come and talk to me. I'm here to help you. When they do come to you for a problem, try and conceal. This is why if you have botox that can work in your favor, try and conceal your shock or. Your horror or your dismay. When they present to you what the problem is, reassure them that you'll find solutions, particularly if it's related to cyber bullying. One of the worst things we can do is be dismissive. You know, I'll just turn your phone off or just ignore it because they can't. That's you know, completely unrealistic advice. The problem with cyber bullying, one of the men problems is that it's often hard to have identifying characteristics because often the characteristics or the signs, the warning signs of cyber bullying are very much congruent with what we would consider normal adolescent development. So if they become withdrawn normal stage of adolescent development, if they become less interested in aspects of their life they once showed an interest in, could be a normal stage of development.

43:26 If there's changes in their sleep habits, or refusal to go to school, these can all be red flags for cyber bullying, but they can also be normal stages of development, so they're hard to sometimes disentangle. So I think it's again that ongoing relationship in regards to do I go and do a snoop, My thoughts on this are no for two reasons. One, I think we need to do definitely do I call them screen audits with your children, So sitting down with them and saying, hey, show me what's happening on Instagram now, They're not going to love it. I'm going to be honest, And I often say to parents when they quit, why are you're doing it? You say to them, if you've got nothing to hide, you've got nothing to hide. And the idea is over time. I've got three boys.

44:08 I do not want to be going through their phones when they're sixteen, because I'm sure there will eventually be things on there that a mother just does not want to see. But in those initial stages, I think, particularly when we give kids access to technology early on, we have to have a hands on role. So doing the audit with them and talking to them. You know, how do you think that friend's message could have been misconstrued? You know? Is that a flattering photo to share of one of your friends. That's really important. What you won't see because of live streamed video now is what content your child has consumed. So many parents, how I do an audit with my child and I see what's in their dms, and I see what they're posting, and I see what they're commenting on, and I'm friends with them. What you've got no control over is what content they've consumed. I've had parents, you know, in the recent death by suicide that was streamed, parents of eight and ten year olds who were horrified to learn that their child had watched that video because they were on TikTok. So be that pilot.

45:03 Do those audits with them. And the other reason I say that you should do the audits with them is because chances are your child or teen has installed an app that will silently. Take a screenshot. So it uses the forward facing camera, so any incorrect past codes that are entered, it will use the camera and it will take a photo and it hides it in a vault at So chances are if you've been doing the snoop while they're having a shower, if they leave their phone at home one day and you think I'm just going to do a quick check, chances are there's a whole lot of photos in the gallery. Of you with your you know, we all do the scrunched up. I'm not letting my daughter listen to this episode because if she wasn't aware of that. I don't want her to become aware of it.

45:44 I just wanted to add in there that the best advice I ever got regarding that communication with my daughter was Bex Sparrow's Mother Daughter Journal, And it can be mother son journal, can be whatever journal, but the mother Daughter Journal we implemented after learning about it from Rebecca Sparrow, and it continues to this day. So we've had that going for three or four years, where anytime she has got something she wants to talk to me about or share with me, or a question she wants to ask me, she's not sure if I'm going to say no, she will write it in that diary and she'll just leave it on my bed or next to the bed or something, and then I read it. And the rule is that what's in the diary stays in the diary. We don't discuss it, so but then I can write back to her and then sometimes we will have a conversation. But I really really have come to rely on that, and she she has said too, you know that if there was anything that, yeah, she would probably wouldn't talk to me, but she would put it in the mother daughter diary.

46:40 So that's a great tip. If anybody hasn't listened to that prior episode with Beck Sparrow, it's a good one. Yeah. And I like that because often kids will say to me, you know, I'm too nervous to ask for this app because I think my mum or dad will say no, so I'll just install it anyway. And so often I say to parents when. Your child does ask you, you know, maybe it's when can I have my first smart phone? Or when do I get my gaming console? And if it is a no, I think giving them a no for your reasons is really important, but also telling them it's just a no for now. You know, this is not a tattoo, this is not a permanent decision. Let's reevaluate now. That can open the doors because your child will think, Okay, I'll ask again tomorrow and again the next day, and I'll use pester. Power to win mum or dad over.

47:21 But I think if they could write it down, that would be a great way for them to broach a topic that they would perhaps be tentative about and perhaps go behind closed doors to find a solution. And I think it also as for us as parents, it gives us a minute to process before we respond when we might normally be a bit reactive or just busy and distracted or whatever. So it's great for a lot of reasons, Christy, are there any while our kids are on their phones? And even as adults while we're on our phones, are there any apps that we should be downloading? Like that we can put things in place so that we're using our technology more effectively.

48:06 Absolutely, I'm a huge advocate for actually using technology. Relying on willpower alone to limit or restrict your use is not going to be very successful because, as we've talked about, these technologies have been engineered to be really appealing. So I think actually relying ironically on the technologies to help us restrict. And limit our use. So a direct or an obvious one, I think is depending on whether you're an Android or an iOS user downloading screen time. So for iOS it's screen time. For Android people, it's called digital wellbeing. But it lets you set reminders limits just and yes, they're very easy to override and you don't have to strictly adhere to them.

48:48 They're not a very strict prohibition. Tool, but they can be enough of a psychological job, like a bit of jolt of guilt. Hang on, you know you've had your three hours that you said on Instagram today, and so it can be a try get to change behavior. Another app that I absolutely love and I recommend this to students, and I recommend it to a whole lot of employees and executives, some of them. In very big roles. And the feedback I get on this app is that everybody loves it. It's called Forest, and so Forest works on both platforms, but it allows you to set an amount of time that you're going to stay focused for and if you are successful in not picking up your phone during that focused period, you grow.

49:29 A little digital plant. And if you're unsuccessful, that plant shrivels up and dies. And it's such a trivial, simple thing, but it is so effective because you really don't want to kill it withers in a really dramatic way when you pick up your phone. Another app that I really love is called Pocket. And we're talking before you know how, you're saying, we're reading all these short blog posts and consuming little bite sized bits of information. What often happens is we get an email and it's a link to an article or a blog post and we really want to read it, but maybe this this is our deep work time and we shouldn't be going down that rabbit hole. With Pocket, you can basically curate any written content, any audio or video content. And what it allows you to do it curates it all for you, and you go into Pocket at a time that's convenient to you and you can consume all of that content in what caw Newport would call perhaps your shallow time. The benefit of this is that it will actually read back any written content, so blog posts, articles, news stories, if there is a written aspect to it, it will actually read it back to you, which works really well.

50:35 Wow, it's a clever one. Saves lots and lots of time and allows you to sort of I'm not going to say binge, but sort of batch the content. Batch, yeah, exactly. And on batching. Another really simple strategy, and it's again an embedded tech tool, is disable your non essential alerts and notifications. Once you've disabled those pesky ones and on your device as well, not just your smartphone, once you have got just the essential notifications and alerts left, what you can do on most operating platforms now is you can batch or bundle, so those notifications come. To you at a convenient time. It's a relatively new function and it really depends on your operating system as to how you do it. But the good thing with this, I know for a lot of adolescents they say, you know, I get notifications from the people I subscribe to on YouTube, and they come at me all day in class and I sort of can't resist, and I'm in the bathroom watching YouTube because you know it's important. Whereas that student could have had that notification come to them so that maybe it comes to them while they're on the bus on the way home, or maybe they get it so that it they even better would be that they can watch it after they've done all their homework or study. And this is where I was talking earlier about putting a fortress around our focus.

51:45 You could say, look, maybe I'm you're an owl and you're going to get some deep work done at night. You don't want to have all the WhatsApp and social media notifications pinging at you, so you might want to batch or bundle them for earlier in the afternoon. I have definitely disabled them most notifications, but there's some really good advice there about more effectively managing that, so that's fantastic. Thank you, Christy. This has been a really really great conversation, really relevant and I really appreciate the amount of practical tips and advice that you have shared with us today. Thank you so much for your. Time, my pleasure, Cas, Thank you.

52:26 Thank you for tuning into this fabulous chat with doctor Christy Goodwin. So much practical advice in there. If you would like to find out how you can get her to come to talk to your school or your workplace, you can find out all about how to do that at her website, Doctor Christigodwin dot com. Of course, you can get in touch with me at Hello at castdone dot com, come and follow me on Instagram. Cast Done Underscore XO. Just a reminder that the third Crappy to Happy book, Crappy to Happy Love who You're With, is now available for pre order and as always, if you enjoy this show, please don't forget to leave us a rating and a review. I can't wait to chat with you on the next episode of Crappy to Happy. Crappy to Happy is presented by Cast Dunn, produced by Davis Lensky, Audio production by Darcy Thompson.

53:15 Listener