Screen Addiction: The Silent Epidemic Affecting All of Us

[00:00:06] to keep me on tech so you don't have to Jay Harrison is with me welcome to the broadcast sir hey Sam has a go on fantastic it's a great tech day to be alive that's for sure and this

[00:00:33] broadcast is brought to you by network providers Inc.com I'm an IT consultant for network providers Jay's with me and Tech Watch Radio is the name of the show every weekend it's on your favorite

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[00:00:57] each week so check that out at NPITechGuys.com now this story is kind of chilling but I want to talk about it it kind of combines I don't know psychology psychiatry mental health

[00:01:10] tech all kind of mixed into one the epoch times is where I got this story Marina Zeng Z-H-A-N-G I think it's Zeng is how you say it anyway the deal is this the silent epidemic eating away

[00:01:29] Americans minds they say it's a sudden unprecedented change in mental disorders and it has scientists worried about what it all means Jay now here's the breakdown of what they say they say he was a bright 10 year old kid with two educated parents

[00:01:49] they were Ivy League he was book smart and got straight A's he lacked street smarts though he was also a poor sport he would frequently lie and cheat when playing board games or participating anyway so they recognized something needed to be done

[00:02:05] with this kid so they brought him to this doctor who's a psychiatrist specializing in here's the tech part you wondered what what the heck Sam specializing in screen use Jay now think about that specializing in screen use and basically listen the screen doctor I didn't know

[00:02:32] there was such a thing but there are psychologists and psychiatrists now that are known as screen doctors and after a four week screenfast prescribed by the doctor eliminated all TVs phones and video games billy's problems miraculously cleared up went away about that

[00:03:00] his parents were so pleased I guess they decided to maintain the fast for good Jay no I just find this fascinating um six months passed and his friends were no longer avoiding him and his sportsmanship improved dramatically so he decided to run for class president and deliver a

[00:03:26] speech something that previously would have terrified this kid but he got it done he's one of many doctor I think it's dunkleys is how you say the last name anyway doctor dunkleys many patients whose mental and behavioral problems disappeared once they eliminated or

[00:03:50] severely reduced screen time excessive screen use has become an epidemic silently eroding people's stability and mental health and they say over 60 of kids spend way too much time on the internet and it's getting worse screens can over stimulate our brains

[00:04:11] resulting in a perpetual highly stressed uh situations that makes us prone to meltdowns and all kinds of stuff it's it's a rising problem it's not just kids it's adults too though Jay let's show the initial link between screen time and poor mental health

[00:04:28] was spotted through quote generational studies by these psychologists one of them is at San Diego University um and he said hey you know what at first these changes were just kind of a

[00:04:41] little bit but now we're just seeing them go through the roof as continual screen use ratchets up around 2010 social media started to kind of roll out and it was followed by a major increase in depression and suicides and um they're saying that it's skyrocketing they say initially fewer

[00:05:07] teenagers are going outside and reading books while their time on social and internet is massively increasing and the ADHD epidemic they say believe it or not is probably tied to this more than anything

[00:05:25] else even if you have this they say people have been might misdiagnosed they believe you have a problem when you really don't you take away the screen use and the external factors and most of it reduces and or goes away what do you think of that Jay

[00:05:42] I think that there's a lot of validity to that um I've seen this also and it's not just teenagers or adults uh even in children young children um when they look at there's been studies done on

[00:05:54] cartoons and when they use really bright colors and a lot of screen changes like scene changes and you know high-pay super drama you know um that one of the examples that they use and I'm not

[00:06:08] picking on any cartoon in particular but was paw patrol uh with you know these dogs that are like emergency responders or whatever and there's yeah and all this stuff's going on and you compare

[00:06:17] that to other cartoons um like kipper is another example of one where it's really laid back there's really low backgrounds the colors are kind of muted there's not a there's not a lot fast-paced screen changes and um it it affects young children even and I'm talking about

[00:06:35] even one year olds um with anxiety and all this kind of stuff so I think I think it's the idea of a screen fast is a great idea and I would not be surprised to see people perform better

[00:06:47] because they are going to be going especially in sportsmanship and in literacy and things like this because they are going to be going outside they're going to be reading books more because um without the screen influence you know those are the things to do

[00:06:58] I find that fascinating this whole thing they say during the pandemic adolescent screen time doubled and um they're even starting these uh you know adult studies now whether it's like this is through the roof and it's a problem fast forward to the post-pandemic times teachers are reporting

[00:07:22] that the latest generation uh is just a serious problem when they can't even deal with emotional emotions in the classroom or anything else anymore um they're calling it screen addiction now Jay yeah specializing in screen addiction I didn't even know they had it really a term for this

[00:07:41] I knew this was the thing I just didn't realize it was as big and as bold and as researched and as far along in the knowledge set as it really is I guess that's to me the big takeaway

[00:07:52] okay they all these different screen activity offer escape for people um anything new or exciting the brain releases dopamine and anything that releases dopamine can become kind of addictive they say and uh so they say dopamine increase a feeling of pleasure while

[00:08:10] I drop in dopamine hey put you in a poor mood things aren't going that well street screen activities are designed to capture our attention by feeding us regular doses of dopamine and uh you know they encourage you to spend more time in the virtual world

[00:08:28] where there's less consequences video games are covered by microscopic rules and um they say the problem is your life isn't like that where there's just like limited rules sets for certain virtual realities like the rules for life are across the board and constant whereas

[00:08:48] if you switch games the rules change and so you get used to this kind of temporary rule set and when you go back to rules of life which aren't changing like that then people melt down

[00:08:57] because they're like why do I got to deal with it like this I don't like it like that I want to go into this world and and these micro rules can be a serious problem Jay yeah you get a deficit

[00:09:08] of attention anyway it's just fascinating they say although two hours is kind of the minimum they used to think if you had less than two hours it probably wasn't a problem now they're reducing that to 30 minutes Jay because they realize even less than two hours

[00:09:24] even 30 minutes a day can cause it I think most kids would um not like that idea of being limited to 30 minutes or less of screen time but they compare it to gamblers they've now you know

[00:09:35] moved gambling is all digital now too right well that's because now what's different to the gambling center in a video game and some of these other online they're learning to use the same principles of risk reward of loop will loop foxtra awards or what they're called you

[00:09:50] don't know when the next reward's gonna drop but you know that it's coming yeah but I think developers are to blame for a lot of this because I think a lot of them are specifically targeting

[00:10:00] this and looking to get that um that dopamine addiction cycle gambling kind of high from their video games especially these ones that are pay to play where you can play for free so to

[00:10:13] speak that gets you in but then you've got to buy your way into um whether it's new outfits or things or or uh you know level ups and things like that and you can buy your way that they call

[00:10:26] wallet warriors people that that have a lot of money and they dump into these games but even even when you don't you just have that that risk reward and that um kind of a gambling loot boxes

[00:10:36] and and all this kind of stuff that you can get really is specifically to design to hook people in that way and I think there's a lot of blame that can be put there I agree now

[00:10:48] there's also a fundamental change that I want to bring up that people need to understand in everything in life there's a beginning and end Jay so you go to a movie has an ending

[00:10:58] you read a book has an ending um you read a newspaper article you whatever okay you go to over to somebody's house or whatever you do there's an ending well when you deal with this social media stuff it's a rabbit hole with continual scroll and no end ever

[00:11:15] that's right also by design and that is a fundamental difference that I believe is probably one of the biggest problems now we got trained in the wrong direction on that we thought we could

[00:11:26] solve problems with a 30 minute TV show well the opposite of that is never ending so there's no solutions the truth is in the middle you know sometimes things take more than 30 minutes to

[00:11:36] resolve but they always do have an end or always do have at some point they go back to normalcy like it starts and then it ends or it resolves in this case nothing really ever

[00:11:45] I mean once you're in it the start's already passed and then there's just never ending kind of scenario the other point they make about this they say is when screen time needs into human time the social acceptability and pervasiveness of screens make it hard

[00:12:03] for people to realize their screen time may be getting out of control they just don't really realize so far no consistent criteria on what constitutes a quote screen addiction yet but there's increasing evidence that shows that Americans and many other cultures have out of

[00:12:20] control screen use Americans spend about seven hours a day behind screens on average excluding time spent at school or work j now that isn't I just can't comprehend that because by the time

[00:12:34] I do my work that day done I can't be spending seven hours on media there's no time left right I agree but they say this right now they don't have a solid when you're addicted screen wise or whatever

[00:12:48] because it went down from two hours to 30 minutes like I mentioned but the way they say this you know you have a problem when your screen use it's problematic when it starts to interfere

[00:12:57] with your human life okay for example you need you know eight hours of sleep per day the average working time is about eight and a half hours and so hey you need time to socialize

[00:13:12] you know time to exercise time to eat time to relax time to and and this is encroaching to the point where hey it's a big problem there's even a 12 week program now people have put together to help

[00:13:24] college students limit social media time they say this believe it or not and I don't understand the statistic but they say that if you get your screen time under control you'll just

[00:13:38] have like years of your life available that you didn't have and what people do with the remaining time will quite literally determine the kind of person you become it's that pervasive I don't

[00:13:53] understand it Jay yeah I wonder if we should call it anti social media well that's really the case because that's the effect now one of the things that I find interesting about this Jay is

[00:14:08] all you need to do is put a few guidelines in place and let me give you an example um people have wanted me to get uh air pods and I finally got some air pods

[00:14:18] and I've been fighting this forever yeah what version did you like I know just the regular ones not the pros okay and I know people are kind of saying Sam you're so late to this party

[00:14:28] oh my gosh would he use some kind of neanderthal no listen I'm a totally blind person and I don't really want something in my ear interfering with my hearing and stuff all the time and so that was my

[00:14:38] initial hesitation but what it came down to was now I use it but I've determined that what happens is people are just on their phone unless they're asked not to be but they're on their phone like

[00:14:53] the default unless something oh you need to eat now okay get off your phone to eat then go back to your phone hey someone's at the door get off your phone get deal with the door go back to your

[00:15:02] phone what people need to think about is the other way I'm not going to just be on my phone listening to music and you know scrolling on social media and all this kind of stuff

[00:15:14] what I'm going to do is I'm going to say I'm off my phone that's my default I'm off electronics that's my default now I'm going to go to an electronic device to accomplish a task

[00:15:23] hey I need to call Jay and tell him this I need to text Jay and tell him this so I'll grab my phone call or text Jay and then when I'm done I'm off my phone Jay right because do I have another task

[00:15:36] that I need to be on my phone for no the task is just like that point is you got a schedule time for these things rather than just let it go from one to the next to the to the never ending

[00:15:46] kind of thing your tasks though on it doesn't matter even on the digital device is just like that ever scrolling news feed or social media feed they just never and you know like emails

[00:15:58] you can I know personally myself but you can deal with 100 emails and there's a thousand more after that that's right that's right anyway I just find it interesting ladies and gentlemen it's serious um and they've even created movies about this where kids are all tied up on their

[00:16:19] phones and then they somehow get out in the country with mom and dad at first they just riot and before you know they love it and this social media and internet scrolling

[00:16:29] is a problem not only is your attention totally locked up in it but your drug from one topic to the next to the next to the next to the next rambling um this overstimulation on your screens

[00:16:39] they say um basically creates the uh it activates the flight or the fight or flight response um and causes adrenaline to be released and so people are kind of in a fight and fight mode all

[00:16:54] the time crank them up on caffeine get them on screens and no wonder you got a problem yeah anyway the brain's like a muscle they say and it can be trained and it can be trained to just

[00:17:08] be you know technology highly distracting oftentimes what you've got to do is you've got a slow life down they say pro-life or I'm sorry prolonged screen usage is also tied to thinning of the frontal cortex J which is critical for compulsion control

[00:17:31] and logical thinking so this is actually changing our brains think about that it's literally changing your brain now they finally say screen time is isolating while a person's engaging with games social media and the internet oftentimes they're isolated

[00:17:53] yeah they're in the realm of the game with these unique suspended kind of rules but you're not as parents able to build connections with your children so connections fall away and the only connections they have are related to those you know altarspheres is what I would call them

[00:18:10] okay avoiding screens is like drinking water you've got to get this done you've got to work at it you got to be cognizant of it it's not just for children it's for adults as well

[00:18:23] get this topic to death but I really want people to understand the big takeaway for me I knew this was the case I just didn't know how pervasive and how holistic and how much

[00:18:34] research has really been done on this stuff we're beyond this thing they say this final tidbit when asked if people can recover from screen addiction they say the most crucial factor is having a loving family that's willing to do everything possible to get the person better

[00:18:57] yeah so they say what about the family that's addicted to the screens and don't see their child's use is too much of a problem that's not a situation a psychoanalyst or psychologist can help with why because if you're not very careful they're going to be undermining the

[00:19:11] whole thing right so anyway how do you deal with your screen time and still get things done right I mean you can automate things you can do all kinds of different things to make your you know

[00:19:29] online time more productive but at the end of the day Jay there's not any real way except for to have a mindset that says I'm on screens for a purpose otherwise I'm not on screens as opposed

[00:19:41] to the other way around that's the biggest takeaway yeah interesting thing that I read recently um and we talked about Elon Musk in a previous episode but one of the things he said was

[00:19:55] and it's interesting as I've thought about and asked a few people um he said that you know as much as people spend 24 seven on their phones and on these small screens and stuff whenever they dream

[00:20:04] they never you never dream about being on your phone you always dream about interacting with other people and in whatever you dream about but it's never on your small screen you're you're scrolling or you're doing whatever and it's amazing that to think about that and everybody I've asked

[00:20:19] they're just like yeah you know you're right I've never dreamed about being on my phone um and it's you know whatever the implication is wherever you take away from that it is interesting

[00:20:27] though the we dream about interactions with people kind of in the the real world of a dream we never dream about being on our screen or being on our phone or being on our laptop

[00:20:37] um those are always portals or tools to to get what we're trying to get done it's interesting to think about I've never heard anybody else point that out and everybody that

[00:20:48] I've talked to a few people that I've mentioned that to agrees with it and myself included I you know I've never dreamed about being on my phone for example well and that just goes to show

[00:20:59] look we are creatures meant to be in the real world and yes once in a while an escape if it's short periods of time to get a kind of a break a reset and everything else I think has its

[00:21:08] validity I think some entertainment has legitimate validity but I think we've taken it way way too far in fact if you take screens away at first people don't even know how to behave they don't

[00:21:18] know what to do they're like well what do I do now I mean are you kidding me right now what am I supposed to do and it doesn't take long where people start to do puzzles people start

[00:21:26] to read books people start to go outside and tinker with a project people start to you know bake or make something in the kitchen or people decide oh my gosh this you know these photos that

[00:21:37] I've had in my whatever I'm going to put them in frames and put them up on the wall and it's a project I've never been able to get to and I mean people's lives just start to come back and

[00:21:44] very meaningful ways and I know at first you're going to say why would you guys take this on on Tech Watch Radio aren't you guys supposed to encourage technology we keep an eye on tech

[00:21:52] so you don't have to so we're letting you know about this we also believe that tech should not own you tech should serve you and that's the mentality that we come from on this I love

[00:22:01] tech as much as the next guy but the biggest reason I didn't want these air pods is because I don't want something in my ear all the time creating this I'm on my phone literally 24-7

[00:22:10] because you know hey the earpiece is in yeah they read your text and I need to have music and the text comes in and somebody calls and that becomes my default world and I have to stop

[00:22:22] that world to deal even with my family that's sitting right there and so the big key is to say I'm going to pick up my device to do something and then I'm immediately off it again and you can tell

[00:22:34] how addicted you are when you think that way and kind of work through that it's like oh my gosh I'm trying to think of reasons to pick up my phone do you really need reasons to pick up your

[00:22:44] phone what about reasons to you know communicate with somebody else personally or go outside or take a walk or take on a new project or a new hobby or as opposed to reasons to be on your phone

[00:22:55] all the time anyway I don't mean to beat it to death but I do think it's a very serious serious topic for society at large and when we literally have people completely depressed or people isolated

[00:23:05] or people committing suicide or people that are you know they think they have ADHD and they really don't have this kid literally couldn't even function that I started out this this article discussing he couldn't even hardly function his parents were highly educated

[00:23:17] collegiate educated kind of people he was super smart but man screens ruin his life and when you got this psychologist that realized this connected the two got him off the screens his life came back

[00:23:28] that is not insignificant I mean that is something huge and now the research shows this relates to all of us Jay we may not be as badly addicted or as I'm trying to think of the

[00:23:43] right word that you'd say for this thing interrupted in our functioning as this kid was but how much are we interrupted in our lives and our functioning and how much more could we get out

[00:23:51] of life if we would break this cycle right in our own lives and I think another important question is is how do you get a loved one whether it's your child your spouse whatever how do you get

[00:24:03] them to see this and voluntary voluntarily agree to that screen fast or that that break from screens I don't know the answer I think in in non-addicted families it's easier because you've

[00:24:17] only got one person you can bring them into your sphere of support family like they were saying when you don't have that it's almost impossible that's the problem but I think the first step

[00:24:26] is to realize the problem and then to work on solving the problem hopefully we've provided some educational and informative information that can help you do just that network providers

[00:24:35] link dot com npi tech guys dot com thanks so much we keep an eye on tech so you don't have to share and spread the news about the show will you please and make it a great tech day will you hey thanks