Unplug to Recharge: The Surprising Power of Digital Downtime

[00:00:20] Happy to have you along my fellow tech enthusiasts. I'm Sam Bushman, consultant for NetworkProvidersInc.com. They are the sponsors of this broadcast. With me Jay Harrison, welcome sir. Hey Sam, how's it going? I was reading all about the hurricane seasons and I'm starting to freak out. They say it's gonna be an active one. It's gonna be an active one. They say, I don't know, 18 storms are predicted, nine will be hurricanes, Florida, is affected the most.

[00:00:48] We usually are. We're right in Hurricane Alley, I guess, you know? So our prayers are with those folks before they ever even get off the T. When does hurricane season start? June 1st, is that when it is? June 1st, yep. So they're kind of prepping us for it, but June's quickly closing in on us, so we'll keep an eye on that. You know, that's kind of a tech phenomenon that's interesting, tracking the weather and stuff like that. And they say that AI and some of these new weather models are just incredible. And they're way better than the old models.

[00:01:16] And, you know, that's, I mean, look, all these technologies can be used for good or bad. And in my opinion, you know, in this case, it would be for good if it's used wisely. Letting us know when storms come, how bad they're gonna be. Understanding the forecast and like in the mountains, if it snows a lot too much and then it thaws out too fast, you have flooding. Or, I mean, it goes on and on. Some of these fires and, you know, what the fire season is gonna look like so people can prepare. What the hurricane season is gonna look like so people can prepare.

[00:01:46] You know, any of the preparedness we can do, the better off we are, Jay. And I really love to see tech providing greater information or knowledge. And then, hey, what we do with it, we better be wise with it. A hundred percent. I agree. All right. I did a little clip on a topic that I want to get to, get Jay's opinion and more. Here it is. Happy to have you along, my fellow tech enthusiasts. I've got an interesting tidbit for you. When does tech meet low tech, right?

[00:02:15] That's the question to ask. I'll tell you that right now. There's an interesting survey that just got taken, a research study, if you will. A bunch of folks were given the opportunity to go ahead and download an app that prevented their smartphones from using the internet. Some did okay. Most did not do too well. It was a two-week study. So most folks can't even get off their phones and the internet for two weeks.

[00:02:41] Interesting, to say the least, how high tech we think we are. We're tied to this technology big time. It's an addiction, ladies and gentlemen. So this two-week study was interesting. A couple of people for work in the test had to use Google Maps or Apple Maps and a couple of things like that. They didn't have a choice. Or once in a while, use Zoom for a meeting. But for the most part, they stayed offline. A couple of the participants in the study made it all the way to the end.

[00:03:09] But the headline from the mainstream press now, after the research study from experts, say, to feel better, take the smart at a smartphone. A two-week break from mobile internet boosts mental well-being. Newser.com is the author, or I should say the publisher of this story, not the author. The researchers are the author. Average day screen time. Listen to this.

[00:03:39] The author's declined 50% from more than five hours to less than 2.5 hours. That's an interesting thing alone. I mean, five hours or two and a half hours online, you know, on screen time on your phone, even without the internet, there were two and a half hours a day. Wow. 71% reported better mental health. Wow, that's significant. 71% reported better mental health.

[00:04:08] 73% said better well-being. I'm not sure I understand what the difference is in mental health and well-being. There you have it. A group called PNAS Nexus did the study, and this is very, very significant. They say over 91% had some benefit in one of the categories in their personal lives.

[00:04:34] Researchers say the change in this attention availability literally related to like 10 years in aged type decline. So in other words, you're younger for much longer if you get off the internet all the time. What did they do? They said, okay, look, you're going to get off the internet when it comes to your phone, but you can go back to your house like the old days when you had a dial-up internet connection. You can go to your house and get on a desktop if you need to do some competing. No problem.

[00:05:01] You can still use the internet, so it's not complete internet takeaway. It's just phone, endless scrolling. Instant access everywhere you are. Constant attention to internet. Scrolling. Social media. The list goes on and on. Most surprising, they say, was a significant drop in antidepressant symptoms. I'm sorry, depressive symptoms. So it became an antidepressant. You don't need drugs for this.

[00:05:31] You just need to get off your dang cell phone is the takeaway. They say it was matched to or greater than even taking antidepressants. Incredible research, ladies and gentlemen. Significant in every way. This should be one of the top points made since a lot of Americans are on antidepressant drugs and medication at great expense. Incredible side effects. I can go on and on. All you got to do is get off the dang cell phone. Now, what do you think of that from a tech guy reporting low-tech solutions, right?

[00:06:00] Mental health and well-being scores remained at an improved level even after participants returned to using their phones like, and then I'm going to put this in quotes, quote, normal, quote, right? Wow. Think about that. Mental health and well-being scores even stayed lower. You kind of wonder why that would be, right? Why?

[00:06:22] Probably because of the activities that they spent their time on when not literally glued to their devices. They spent more time socializing with people face-to-face. Wow. They spent more time exercising. They spent more time being in nature. Oh, believe it or not, they spent more time sleeping. Wow. You got to like that, huh?

[00:06:44] Our big question was, are we adapted to constant, constant connections to everything all the time via the Internet? The researchers conclude and say, probably not. Ladies and gentlemen, I am a high-tech guy. I believe in tech big time, right? I understand tech. I like tech. I embrace tech. I think tech has some tremendous value for us.

[00:07:12] And the more tech we get, the more value it has. But here's the research. Here's the facts on one condition. What's that condition, you may ask? You got to learn to let tech serve you, not own you, right? You've got to put tech in its proper perspective and live an appropriate, balanced life. Yeah, what do I mean by balanced? You know, technology is great.

[00:07:39] But Internet at your fingertips every second is not great. Internet in your home. The ability to use Internet on occasion. So having it on your laptop or desktop when you sit down for a minute. Let me explain what I believe the difference the study shows. Now I'm leaving the study, the facts that they put out in the article. And now it's a Sam Bushmanism, if you will. It's a high-tech Sam Bushmanism. I keep an eye on tech so you don't have to, right? So the idea is this, in my humble opinion.

[00:08:07] When you instantly depend on the Internet as a crutch, as they fulfill your life from boredom, an always-on scenario. In other words, you've always got music playing. You've always got the Internet. You're always scrolling. You're always, you're always, you're always. Then your mind does not have a time to take a break. Like, your body, your heart, your soul, your psyche does not have a time to just chill out, to relax, to chillax, as the young generation says, right? Okay, you don't have the time to do those things.

[00:08:37] And your body and mind and heart and soul take a toll. Sometimes you need to just step back and have a little bit of quiet in your life. Sometimes you need to be out in nature and feel a connection to maybe not the Internet, maybe somebody greater than the Internet, like God Almighty, or maybe like family and loved ones and those who care about you. You need to spend time with silence. Sometimes they say silence is golden, especially if you're a blind person and you listen to a voice synthesizer.

[00:09:05] Sometimes, hey, shut that thing up. You press a key and it shuts up, right? What a blessing that is. So silence is golden. And our hearts and our mind need some silence, need some downtime, need a little bit of break. So is it really the technology, the scrolling on the Internet, on your phone that's the problem? I don't think so. I think it's that we never get a break from anything scenario that's the problem. So what you need is they talk about work-life balance all the time. You've heard of that, right? Oh, yeah, you got to, you know, not use your bedroom for the work, you know, spot.

[00:09:35] You got to, you know, have spaces for different things and your body can adapt and acclimate. Hey, don't use screens close to bedtime. All that advice is very wise. But I think it misses a little bit of the mark. I don't know that looking at a screen before bedtime is so vital, although there's a circadian rhythm component to that. So it does matter. But I think what matters more is that you give yourself a break from whatever it is. Have you ever heard the term moderation in all things? All right.

[00:10:05] Well, that's what I think really is the key here. Your body, your mind, your heart, it all needs some downtime. It all needs a break. You need to shift gears. That's why when you work, work, work, work, work, they say, you know what? You need to go on a sabbatical. Oh, we're in America. We don't do sabbaticals, right? Okay, fine. You need a long weekend. You need a day off. You need to just take a chill. Go take a break. You know what? Go visit your parents for a while. Go. And really, you see that in movies everywhere. And when you do, all of a sudden life changes. They meet somebody. Something awesome happens. You get a little break.

[00:10:34] You come back refreshed. You sort out your life and decide that, man, maybe I want to go in a different direction. All kinds of wonderful things happen. Well, we've known this. This new internet research study is interesting to say the least. But yet, haven't we already known this? Haven't we already known that giving your heart and mind a break, turning to God, family, country, doing all these different things is good for you? The internet's a wonderful thing. Technology is phenomenal.

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[00:11:52] Get the Cyber Playbook today at networkprovidersinc.com slash cyber dash playbook or call 385-446-5500 now. Yes, sir. So, Sam, you're talking about taking a digital break and how it'll make you mentally stabler, make you younger even. And I totally agree with that. Absolutely. I do, too. Yeah, it's a great idea.

[00:12:22] I mean, people kind of poo-poo desktops or think, oh, you know, that's old stuff. And, no, I think that that's a great way to isolate. You know how they say compartmentalize. Exactly. How they say, like, with your office. If you work from home, you need to have an office space so that you can go do that and then kind of be away from it when you're not. And it's good to kind of do that with tech, too. And when you just have a phone and it's ubiquitous and it's always on you and it's always dinging, it's stressful. And I think it takes a toll on people.

[00:12:52] And so I actually like the desktop. I almost always use most Internet interaction on a desktop if I can help it. I mean, I have a laptop, too, for travel. And I definitely have a phone. But it's interesting because it relates to your eyes and your concentration, too. Let me give you an example. If you're going to book a hotel or a plane or a flight or, you know, whatever, a car, rental car, whatever, the details are endless. Do I got the right nights? Do I got the right people in the room?

[00:13:21] Do I got the right room? Is it non-smoking? Do I really got two queen beds? Do I are the dates right? It's so easy to have the dates wrong. If you anyway. And when you're doing that on a phone, it takes like super concentration. And it's so hard. You're working in a tiny little portal. When you do it on your desktop, you're just seeing this thing outright like, you know, like a page or whatever. And it's, you know, it's a lot easier to understand.

[00:13:44] So I'm just telling you right now that if you feel burned out at the end of the day, switch from a phone to a desktop for some of your work or more of your work. And you'll find that it's not quite as bad. It's like the equivalent. Segment your life to say, hey, you know what? I just finished work. I'm going to leave the computer for three hours. Then I might come back and book my flight to go somewhere and start the space out and compartmentalize your life. And anyway, I don't want to spend forever on this topic, Jay, but I thought it was really interesting.

[00:14:12] But at the same time, I mean, they could have called me and asked me, Jay. I could have told them all that. Right. Well, it's kind of like when you have if you're used to doing everything like planning a vacation or a trip or flights and stuff on a phone, going to a desktop is like, you know, going in the war room. You can lay it all out in front of you on the big screen. You know what's happening. You can especially if you have multi monitors and things. You can really. Yeah. You've got your hotel. You're about to book. And you've got your flight and your car rental up on each screen.

[00:14:40] So you can say, OK, we're getting the car at this time. We're doing this. We're doing that. And I'm just telling you, and I use a thing called Road Tripper, by the way, which is a very good online SaaS service that really helps you on road trips and stuff, too. I just can't imagine the mindset of some of the younger generation that have almost. It's that they never used a computer, but they almost never use anything bigger than a six inch screen that they're having. Well, the problem is they don't even have one. Right. Yeah.

[00:15:09] I mean, a lot of people don't have a laptop. They don't separately. They don't have a desktop. And their whole life is. Yeah, but at work, then they leave work and it's just the phone. The closest thing to a big screen they have is their TV, I guess. And that's more than close to a big screen. When I was a kid, man, believe it or not, nine inch TVs were small. Thirteen inch TVs were the average. And if you had 19 inch TVs, it was like, wow. Oh, yeah. And they were big old floor set down models. Took two guys to carry those big old cabinet units. CRT tubes.

[00:15:38] And now it's just like, man, I mean, what's the average TV in use right now? I don't know, but you can pick up something 70 inches, you know, from Walmart or Roku TV and it's four or five hundred bucks. It's incredible. It's the size of screen real estate you can buy for the price. You're right. Part of the problem with that screen real estate, though, Jay, is this. You know what? Unless you have a big enough room. It doesn't help me to put a hundred inch screen TV in my house, buddy. You can't get far enough back from that thing to make it make any sense. That's true.

[00:16:08] But it's immersive then, Sam. And then you've got to put the lights all around it that flow with the video so the whole room gets immersed in the TV. It's like a virtual experience. Your own holodeck right in front of you. Yeah. Anyway, I just find that very, very interesting. And it's a great concept. And I don't really want everybody to think we're just off tech. That's not it at all. But really, you've got to let tech serve you, not own you. Oh, this is a great way to use tech properly, I think.

[00:16:35] And just like the story before, give yourself some peace and some separation. I agree 100%. What do you think the average size of a TV you'd want to get, Jay, is? Where's the sweet spot? As big as you can afford. You know, anything in that $400, $500, $600. Even if you can't get back far enough to watch it? You know, I guess if you're in a really tiny room, there's going to be some limitations there. But generally, and especially as the older I get, the biggest TV you can fit.

[00:17:04] I literally, we took our TV as mounted outside of our entertainment center, kind of on the front of it, because it's bigger than it would traditionally fit inside of there. And it's probably like a 58-inch high sense. But, you know, if I could go with a 72 or something, I would just go with the biggest TV you can afford and reasonably mount that works. You're never going to be like, well, I mean, I guess you could, but you're rarely going to be like, oh, man, I wish I had bought a smaller TV.

[00:17:31] Like, you're always going to be like, wow, I could have got a bigger one for cheaper. And, you know, and then you can see better. All right, you're in the J for this? Yeah. I found an article on this that will highlight this. It's going to tell you the average size or what? Yeah. All right. The average size of screens for TVs in the United States went from 1997 to 2018. They doubled. I believe that. In fact, I'm shocked it's not bigger than that, really. Going from 23 on the average to 47 inches.

[00:18:01] And they say this trend is expected to continue with the average LCD TV screen size to eclipse 50 inches by 2021, the article says. So we're probably already past that. This is an old article. It might be, yeah. It did 1997 to 2018, right? But they say they basically doubled. And, you know, when I was a kid, like I say, I mean, you had even computer screens were, you know, 19 inches. Oh, yeah.

[00:18:28] I had a 19-inch CRT, and it was a mammoth for a computer screen. Yeah. It was unheard of. That and a 21-inch, I think, is the biggest CRT I ever had. And it was like one person could barely carry it. You know, you couldn't really put it on top of your computer. It was too heavy. And I know we're getting to the point where it's like, Sam, you're mixing TVs and computers here. And I am intentionally. And the reason that I am is because we're getting more and more and more to where, I mean, what is a TV? What is a smart TV? Can it be a monitor? A smart monitors, yeah.

[00:18:58] And a monitor, I mean, a smart TV, or a monitor, I'm sorry, is just a smart TV without the smarts. Right. Right? Yeah, 100%. I mean, the display technology, in fact, you can take most monitors or most TVs and just plug a computer into it. And then, I mean, if you're not watching TV on it. And most televisions now have the ports for it. I mean, now that we're especially going toward HDMI for everything. But most even have like VGA ports on them so that you could connect your computer. And that's been for decades now.

[00:19:27] Yeah, a lot of them are starting to let go of VGA ports, though. Of course. That's going away. But you're right, though, that more and more. So I don't distinguish the two because I think that the screen size is really the same for the most part between computers and TVs. And it used to be quite different. It used to be that your TV was way bigger than your computer. And it still is. I mean, your average right now sweet spot to purchase a monitor.

[00:19:53] To purchase a monitor for your computer, a desktop or something, or a laptop is like a 24, 27-inch monitor, right? Yeah. And the average TV screen is probably double that. 50, I would say, at least, or bigger. Yeah. The difference is you're sitting across the room from your TV, whereas your monitor, you're sitting two, three feet from it. Oh, for sure. I'm just telling you that I think they're going to start to become more and more one and the same. And I think the smart TVs are going to have to abandon their weird smart TV apps like they have those weird car apps.

[00:20:21] We're going to need to get standards that work to where I can just literally use my computer on my TV screen. Let me tell you why it's going to become so critical. As we do more and more Zoom meetings and more and more meetings, I find myself wanting a Zoom meeting or a Microsoft Teams meeting or whatever on my TV screen. Oh, Sam, you can do that really easy. All you've got to do is cast it. I know. Yeah. But then the audio's not there. No, when you cast, usually the audio goes too. Well, usually. That's your problem. It's kind of like USB works usually. That's right. I agree. Exactly.

[00:20:49] Hey, man, my Bluetooth works great when it works. Usually. I get all that. I know all that. But I'm just telling you, they're going to need to get more and more that way to where, you know what? For example, if me and my wife are booking flights and doing travel, we're typically sitting together on the living room couch talking about a trip we're going on. And there might be even two or three other people in the room based on who's going with us or our kids need to know when we're leaving or whatever and all that. Okay. I would just love that to just be on the screen on the big TV. But it's hard to do. It's not impossible.

[00:21:19] It's just work. They got to get that to where it's not working. You got to be on the same Wi-Fi. You got to be able to cast using airplay. The TV has to be able to support it. There's a lot of things that go on. That's right. You got to have the right cable or it won't send the audio, right? Well, no, you don't use cable. It's all wireless. That's how we have it set up. Our TV. I know. So you can do wireless with Bluetooth like that and cast or you can use a cable too. Right. That's more stable. Again, everybody loves everything being Wi-Fi now and stuff like that.

[00:21:47] I don't like Wi-Fi for the most part of it. I get that it's convenient, but I also get that it's not near as good of a connection. Greater opportunity for a man in the middle. I can keep going, right? I mean, it's better than trying to get a cable everywhere. But at the same time, when you can use a cable, when you can hardwire, you're always better off doing so. Always. The killer case for that is, and this is how I explain it to people, is Wi-Fi. It doesn't matter how fast it is. It doesn't matter if you're on the latest Wi-Fi 6. Wi-Fi is always half duplex.

[00:22:14] It's always send and then sit back and receive and go back and forth. Whereas if you have a cable connection, a Cat 5 connection or 6 or whatever you're using, it's full duplex. So you're receiving and sending at the same time. So it's always going to be more stable. It's always going to be better connection, especially for things like voice over IP or anything that's gaming or anything that's latency specific. You're going to want a wired connection if you can get it. Yeah, as far as I understand that, what do they call this thing? Switch 2 is coming out, Jay?

[00:22:43] Yes, sir. The Switch for Nintendo, their new Switch is coming out. It's not going to be cheap, though. So they're going to start taking pre-orders. They acted like it was going to be cheap, but now the price is going up. They're calling it the Trump tax, right? Yeah. Well, it's going to be $450 when it comes out. Pre-orders set in April 19th or April 9th. I mean, you can take it, start laying down this. But they are a little bit worried about tariffs and things from the whole Trump thing. So we'll see how that comes out. It's got a bigger display.

[00:23:13] It's going to have NVIDIA processor in it. So it's got the DLSS. This is one of the newest things coming out with graphics cards and stuff. It's called Deep Learning Super Sampling and Ray Tracing, which allows it to up-sample games. They have to support it so it doesn't take legacy games and make them higher resolution. But it's going to come with 256 gigs of internal storage. It's going to have a micro SD card, so you can expand that up to 2 terabytes.

[00:23:40] The new redesigned Joy-Con 2 controllers will attach magnetically, so they're hopefully going to get away from that problem they've had with some of the controllers not connecting quite right. They're going to include a new C button that's dedicated to game chats. By the way, they're going to introduce interactive chats and screen share functions to connect gamers. To me, the key to that, Jay, is that a lot of people have used other systems, like Discord or I can't even remember the different ones, Team, whatever that thing is called.

[00:24:11] And now they're basically just doubling down on building chat right into the system. Exactly. Yeah, exactly. It's going to be supposed to be almost 100% compatible with the original Switch hardware, so good backwards compatibility. That's where I say be careful. Almost got me. I know, right? It usually works, Sam. Usually. There you go. Amen. Ladies and gentlemen, NetworkProvidersInc.com, MPITechGuys.com. Join us. Get involved. Spread the word. And make it a great tech day, will you? Hey, thanks.