#251 Managing (& Modeling) Screen Time Usage & Addiction in Kids & Adults

Rachel Denning (00:10.286)
Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the Extranet Family Out podcast. We are your host, Greg and Rachel Denning. Today, we are going to dive into the very complex and perhaps quite complicated subject of screen and device usage. For children. For children, but I was going to say that, but then it's for us as well. And so maybe it's a whole family strategy. And I think we'll start out by saying, like, technology is here to stay.

And it's so useful. There's so many great things we can do. We, Rachel and I earn a lot of our income through technology, screens and devices. We do a lot of our work and our family does a lot of education through devices. So, well, especially as a traveling nomadic family. Yes. I mean, honestly, especially for our work, we spend, we

We probably spend the most time on devices because of our work, but having the convenience of an online curriculum for our kids while we're traveling, like last year at 2023, we did 17 countries. It's only possible for them to do their schooling when it's done on a device. So we are - Can you imagine carrying curriculum all over the planet? Exactly. It would be a challenge. And so we fully, upfront, we fully recognize the benefits of technology. We appreciate technology. It is literally -

given us the life we have. I mean, it's facilitated the life we have. But that being said, we also fully recognize its potential danger. Yeah, absolutely. It's a, you know, maybe we've heard, we have phrases in English, like it's a double edged sword or something. And I guess our core philosophy is that technology is a tool, not a toy. And I think that's a

fundamental way that we keep ourselves and our family in check. It is a tool to be used by mature people. And anytime any of us, including, you know, adults, if so, for example, if I were to abuse a technology or a tool or device, I would be the first to put myself in check and

Rachel Denning (02:34.542)
Well and remove it and years and years and years ago I made a commitment to myself just when when when phones were just starting to come out and maybe smartphones I remember Because I've been working with people who struggle with addiction for a long long time and I've seen the destructive force in their lives in their marriages and their families and I remember working with somebody and just making this commitment like you know what if If if it ever becomes a problem for me

And specifically in this instance, I was thinking about pornography, that if I had a problem of viewing pornography on a smartphone, I just made a commitment to myself, like I would get rid of the smartphone period. Or the computer or the computer. Like if, if pornography were a problem in my life, any access to pornography is gone. Like, and I'm not kidding. Like I would find a new career. I would find a new lifestyle, like whatever.

Devices are gone. They are out of my life. I am not messing around, period. And I mean that, and I live by those principles. So we want to answer a question we received today, but the underlying principle of what we want to talk about is this idea that it is meant to be a tool, not a toy, like you said. And if we ever become a slave to that tool, then yeah, we have to make changes. Because ultimately,

The well -being of the individual, the well -being of the relationships, of the family overall, that's way more important than anything else. So in the same breath that we're saying, hey, technology's here to stay, every one of us has to make decisions for ourselves and our family about how much we allow this technology into our life, dependent on different circumstances, because even though it's here to stay, it doesn't have to be fully integrated into our life unless it actually is a...

is a benefit for us instead of a hindrance. So I think a cool and interesting way to look at this is to view life in a pie chart. So see the whole pie and you start piecing in all the elements of life and you get to decide of the entire pie is technology like the frosting on the entire thing.

Rachel Denning (04:59.214)
and there's literally technology in every part of your life. Sometimes I do feel like that, honestly. Or is it just a sliver? You're like, if we're bringing this in percentages, then technology and time on screens is you each family gets to decide, is it 10 %? Is it 40 %? Like, where does that fit? I think we're in a very interesting time where many families are saying, well, technology is here. So we're just embracing it completely.

and it is taking over their lives. And we're starting to see these results and in their heads are like, well, this is just the new way of living. And, and, and they might call this old fashioned. What I'm about to say, it might say, Oh, it's old fashioned. You're going back in time. But I really truly believe in, in embrace the idea of having a large portion of your life. Have having no technology.

No devices. No nothing. It's time in nature time with animals time on projects Time with people You know, we just led this trip in up kill Majaro and everybody on the mountain like there was just no service Everyone the mountain was like this is so nice to just be with people to be unable To get messages or calls or text or check emails, you know The guys trying to run their business and doing their work and the youth

You know, they're constantly on their devices or even when they're together. We all see this, like they're together and you'll see a group of youth, a group of friends, they get together to hang out. It's not just youth anymore, it's all ages. Oh yeah, so okay, you get together with other people to hang out and what do you do? You like get on your phone and get on social media and like you're out. So it's interesting, but when they're forced to be... You're mentally disconnecting from what's happening in that shared space. So you physically get together and then mentally disconnect. Right.

It's interesting. And I've been thinking a lot about that too. I don't want to interrupt your thought, but I will. I think in some ways we've forgotten how or what we used to do before that. Because that's what people would call old fashioned. Yeah. Before that you would just, if there was a lull in the conversation, you would just kind of go with it and try to think of something else to talk about. But nowadays there's a lull and you're like, Oh, I'm going to pick up my phone and do something.

Rachel Denning (07:22.99)
even in the name of productivity, even in the name of getting something else done, because I know I'm guilty of that. I'm like, oh, well, I'm going to be productive right now and do this thing that I need to do that's next on my checklist. And that's one of the pluses and minuses. It's that double -edged sword of technology is we can do that. We can be more productive. But what are we missing out on that we've forgotten that we're missing out on? And on the other side, what advantages are we getting that

that are awesome. That's why this is a complicated and complex subject because you're right. Like you're stuck in traffic and you can actually clear out your email box. That's a great thing. Or you could turn off the radio, sit in the car and whoever's in there with you, you have a conversation. Or let's say you're alone. You could do some deep thinking and reflection on your life because you don't have a device to turn to or you don't turn to it. So it is, it's complex and it's complicated, but

I want, I guess today's invitation is I want you to think about it really deeply, consider it and not just think about it because I think if we try to think about it, it won't be effective enough because we get caught in our, in our current thinking patterns and we get caught in our current reality. And so it's like being caught, you're stuck in a bowl and you're like, I want you to think about life and you know, environment and all you can, all you can think about is the bowl, right?

You're just in there and you and all you like think about your reality and your reality is is is fixed. It's that goldfish bowl. Yeah, exactly. And the goldfish bowl. So like, hey, you know, we're inviting this goldfish to think about its reality. And that's all I can see. Well, it's the the classic example of like you don't know you're in water when you're in. If you're a fish living in water, you don't know you're in water. Well, like C .S. Lewis said, he said, you don't know you're sleep when you're sleeping. It's when you wake up, you realize you've been sleeping. And so.

In thinking about it, this invitation to invite all of us to think about it, I also want you to purposely and deliberately go experiment. So go have some deliberate days, full days, with no devices, either in nature or with animals or on projects or you do a device fast. Just experiment all these different things and feel what it's like.

Rachel Denning (09:41.742)
Because initially you might think, well, it's a little old fashioned. I got to have access to my phone because I'm productive. Yeah. That sounds so boring and lame. We'd all go crazy and hate it. But I want you to experiment with it, deliberate, even if you're skeptical, experiment with it because you might all realize like that felt really good. And so when I'm breaking up my pie now, my life pie, yeah, you know what? I'm, we're going to carve out a good 25 to 30 % of

outside, outdoors, in nature, no devices, and we want that to be part of our life. So instead of having frosting all over the entire cake, there's a good chunk of it. So hey, no frosting allowed over here. Well, and I was thinking about that, actually, I wanted to say more about the frosting because, and that's the other challenge about why this is complex, because you were talking about how people are just embracing this and just like, oh, technology's in our life, like we're just going to use it all the time. And it's,

almost becomes, I think for a lot of people, an unconscious thing. They're not thinking about it and they're not very intentional about how they're using technology. So in a way, technology is using them. It's all the advertisers and all of those people who have agendas, they're sending you notifications and pop -ups and this and that and the other, and they are dictating how you use your time. And so you're fully frosting all over with the device in every part of your day, but...

It's an agenda that's not yours. Now on the flip side of that though, I think that in a lot of ways, you can still have a lot of frosting on your cake, right? Meaning you're using a device a lot, but it's a much more intentional process. For example, for myself and in our own family, you know, we do use devices a lot, but we're very intentional about everything that we are doing. We're using it to learn languages. We're using it to...

create content to inspire other people. We're using it to share with each other. You can watch YouTube videos of Jordan Peterson and you can listen to podcasts. There are endless things you can do that are contributing to your personal development that still to an outsider might look like, oh, you're just on your phone. And yet it's crazy that two people could be on the phone.

Rachel Denning (12:06.158)
their phone and be doing entirely different things. One is an agenda that they have chosen and two is just being used by someone else's agenda. And it looks the same from the outside but on the inside it's actually a very different thing. Absolutely. And one literally could be self -destruction and the other one could be building their life and making a loss themselves. Exactly. So it's complex in that way that...

And I'm constantly analyzing it in our own family, especially now that we have older teens, we have adult children. You know, I'm always kind of checking in even if they don't know it, like, oh, what are they doing on that device, right? Because they're spending more time on their devices, just like we spend more time on devices. But I must say that for the most part, I'm pleasantly pleased with the choices they do make on their devices because they are using them.

for development. Even the other day I saw my son and it was the middle of the day and he was watching The Office and I was kind of like, oh, he's watching The Office in the middle of the day. He was watching in Spanish because that's one of the goals we all have this year is to watch, this is a funny goal, we have goals to watch more movies in foreign languages in order to improve our language and he's gonna be doing some service work in a Spanish speaking country and so he's improving his Spanish by watching movies which.

is a great thing, right? Yeah, it's so strange. It is a proven method to improve your language skills. And especially for me, that one just, ooh, it just rubs me. Because in my mind, watching movies and shows endlessly is the epitome of a wasted life.

And yet you can't deny the fact that watching shows in a language you're trying to learn is just extremely effective. And so I guess where Rachel and I are landing is like, let's pick shows that teach great lessons, that are really good edifying, instructional, but in the other language. Let's see if we can do that and pull it off so we're not just wasting our lives away. So well, but that, sorry, cause this.

Rachel Denning (14:21.966)
This actually ties into the question we received that was specifically about, are you ready to move to that? Or do you want to finish? Go for it. OK. Because the question is basically like, I had my son who is six stop watching so many movies and cartoons, basically, because I know that it's not, you know, screen time's not great for them. But then. Agreed. Yes.

Let's see, I stopped letting my son six watch, but then we reintroduced watching things. As my husband said, if it's in a foreign language, it can be beneficial exposure to the language. That is true. But. Yeah, I was going to say there's a big but. There's a but, especially because the child is six. I'll keep going though. We limited it to an hour, but it was cartoons. And I feel like it was too stimulating and it affects his behavior. Yes and yes. It feels like.

that it is all he can think about sometimes. I haven't read much on it, but I think it's not good for their brains. It's too addictive. I think you guys said that you watch on Fridays as a family. So once a week, you have recommendations on what are good films for a six year old. So essentially, this is where it can get so challenging is because while what she said is true, it's also different from every age and every individual. And in fact, there are some 18 year olds perhaps that...

cannot even, especially if they haven't been taught, can't even control themselves. And so similar rules might apply to them as would apply to a six year old. But overall, this is the ideal we strive for, and I say strive because we don't live by this 100%, is that when children are young, and I've read, I'm currently listening to a book called Glow Kids, which I highly recommend. When children are young, and that's like 10 and younger,

device usage should be limited, like extremely limited, because children at that age should be kids. Kids in a real world, kids that are allowed to play and go outside and do things that kids do. Get dirty and fall down and climb trees. They will have the rest of their lives to have and be on devices. There is no need for them to have them...

Rachel Denning (16:47.693)
Don't worry about them being behind and don't worry about them missing out like they'll get on it So while what your husband is saying is true and accurate that watching him other languages is good There's also this other side of like well, but at that age in that brain development It your count you're at your counteracting you're taking That's like it's like you're taking this addictive substance

and saying, well, there's some good vitamins in this particular one. And so we want to get the vitamins. Are we willing to give the hit on drugs in order to induce, you know, inject the vitamins? Well, I've always laughed because a lot of the kids' vitamins on the market are literally basically just sugar pills. But you're giving your kids sugar in the name of giving them some vitamins. I'm like, just give them good, healthy food, right? They're going to get the vitamins without the sugar.

So let's take a step back. Well, I also wanted to say that it also depends on the child because I have children, you know, in full transparency here. Yeah, I will still allow my I currently have a seven and 10 year old as my youngest. And two nights ago, I let them watch a show in Portugal.

I will do that on occasion. Yeah, Friday night is our family movie night. That's generally when we watch movies. That's usually when we watch them in English, right? Because that's more about entertainment. It's for the fun. During the week, I will on occasion let them watch a movie in another language. Now, there are some of my kids who can handle that historically. I'm talking about my older kids now. And some of them who could not.

So that also comes into play. And in a case like this, when you feel like that's all the kid can think about, focus on, talk about is when they get their next hit of screen time. That, in my experience, is when it's best to just kind of remove it almost completely. You can still have a tactfully with tons of diplomacy and replacing it with something that's real life, that's more exciting and even better in order to help the kid kind of come back to the baseline.

Rachel Denning (19:00.269)
What's happening is like a cartoon or something for a six year old. For this example, the dopamine hits are off the charts and so it's moving his dopamine baseline. And then a cute little kid like that pretty soon doesn't even want to go outside and play. He used to like love playing with bugs and flowers and the dog and dirt and digging things and throwing things and building things and breaking things. And he's like, I don't want to go outside. And what happens is it's.

He's become addicted to the dopamine hits that come from a screen. Right. And that is actually proven in the, in that book, glow kids. It talks about that when you, when you have something that's so stimulating, like cartoons or like these apps where you get to do all these things, real life then becomes boring because the actual science behind it is like you said, you're getting these hits of dopamine from doing simple, easy things on a tablet or watching something on a computer or a TV.

And so then to go out and have to do something in the real world, so much harder. That's so long and so much work. Oh, the perfect example that he gave was, you know, a kid will watch something on a nature show and within a 15 minute period, there's like the the most exciting things that happen in nature happen within that 15 minute period. And then they go to a park or they go.

You know, we were on a safari. We were on a safari like two weeks ago or less. And in some ways, we loved the safari, it was amazing. But in some ways you can think, wow, this is boring because the lion's just sitting there. Why isn't it doing the whole thing like on the TV, you know? Right, when I pull up, it should start the hunt and I get to see the entire thing as it takes down a gazelle. Right. But the reality is the lion will sleep most of the day, every day.

And so the real world becomes so boring because it's not like we see on TV or not like in the apps or the games we're playing. And we think, what we don't think, we become conditioned to want more of the false reality because it's more exciting than real reality. I love thinking through that because instead of watching the documentary and seeing, because they play it, you know, let's say it's an hour long, they play it all out, but don't think in, in the context of the documentary.

Rachel Denning (21:23.629)
I think in the context of the videographer, he was there for a month, watching every day capturing, oh, they failed. Oh, they almost went for it. Oh, okay. They just laid down. He was there just video watching from sun up, sun down, sometimes through the night, hiding in trees, bugs. I mean, I've met videographers all around the world who do this. They're there for a long, long, long time to get that five minute clip that we get to watch.

And so think like the videographer be willing to go out and have real experiences and have that difference. What you were saying fits with where I kind of wanted to go. We take a step back and we try to look at brain development on a scale from birth to 25 years old and just look at how the brain develops. And then maybe there's a scale right next to it runs parallel is maturity.

And brain development is, you know, it's pretty consistent, but still on an individual basis, right? It's not at the exact timeline that every eight -year -old has the same developmental level. It's not. But especially, especially on the maturity scale. You'll have kids in their late teens, early 20s that their brain maturity, meaning their choices, their decisions, their exposure, their cognitive abilities,

could be super, super low or extremely developed depending on, ultimately depending on parenting and how well we did as parents and developing education. So you have these two scales, brain development, brain maturity. So please, please, please, please take that all into account when you're trying to make the decision of what technology do we introduce, how much, how controlled, when.

When matters, right? Like we've been talking about timing matters because we might argue like, Hey, this is good. Well, is it good here or here, or is it good before this time or after this time? After the age or the time of day, you're doing it first thing in the morning. I think it's stupid and doing it last thing in the night before bed. Really stupid. So,

Rachel Denning (23:44.845)
You see what I'm saying? There's all these factors. Yeah, exactly. So you're like, oh, no, well, it's not as harmful here. But man, if we're looking at blue lights and screen time and hitting all these things right before bed, we're actually disrupting sleep, which is extremely detrimental to your health and your well -being and brain development, especially for kids. But I mean, for everybody, but especially for kids, if your kids are hitting screen time right before bed, who knows what kind of damage we're doing to their

overall health and well -being and recovery and development. It's really important. So as you're contemplating all this and chewing on it and wrap your head around and trying to make decisions, don't just be a first level thinker and think, oh, it's good or bad. This is good. This is bad. And so I can give it. If it's good, it's always good. If it's bad, it's always right. And, and well, it works for this kid. So I'll give it to all the kids. Right? No way. I mean, if you have five kids, it's five different decisions.

and it's constantly being re -evaluated on their brain development, their brain maturity, their age, their timing, all that stuff. And then as technology develops, don't just assume like, well, hey, my kid played, you know, my older kids played Game Boy when he was little. So I'm going to let my other kid. So I'm going to let them play Fortnite. Right. Yeah. It's like, it's a totally different experience. Absolutely. Like we played a little bit of Pac -Man and Tetris. We were little. That is nothing like.

Minecraft and Which in the whatever is he actually talks a lot about? He he talks about Minecraft and about the violent video games and stuff I mean you I'm gonna tell you people I cannot summarize what this book covers. It's incredible. It will blow your mind It's a I think it's a must read for every parent boom so as a high priority. Let's let's emphasize that right now Let's let's give a couple resources, please please please

And okay, let me frame this up. Some of us are making decisions in our own ignorance. We're like, you know what? We don't know. Exactly. So we're like, well, this is what I'm going to do for my family with technology because this is what I think. And what we think in those decisions we're making are completely ignorant because we haven't done any research. We haven't done homework. We don't understand the topic enough to even be competent enough to make a decision. And because...

Rachel Denning (26:10.061)
We are literally the first humans in all of history to be dealing with this problem. There's no way any of us can think we know what's going to happen and what's going to be the long -term consequences of this much technology in our life. We just don't know. And one of the things he mentions is how it literally is rewiring brains. In fact, he talks about how even just 15 minutes of playing video games starts to show certain activity in the brain that...

over time, you know, produces these certain behavioral problems and issues and like all kinds of crazy stuff. He even goes into these. Of course, these are extreme cases. And so they're not the norm for everyone, but of extreme cases where kids and young teens get into not even being able to tell which reality they're in. Like they're like, are we still in the game? You know, he, they come into his office and they're like out of body. They don't even know where they are.

And that's of course the extreme examples of things that are happening. But the point is we have to look at every individual. And he also mentions that this is one of his major points that addiction is the same no matter what. Like if you look at the brain for addiction, it doesn't matter if it's sugar or if it's cocaine or if it's alcohol or if it's video games or anything. Addiction is the same. And so,

Ultimately, at some point, and I think that this is important to consider when you're deciding about device usage for your family, some people are just more prone to addiction than others. And when addiction is part of the problem, there's different actions and different things you have to do than if it's not. So if you have a kid that is addicted or has an addictive personality and is going to be, could be addicted to video games or technology,

They have to be treated in a different way than one that doesn't. And so that's what I was talking about before. Like, you know, all of my kids have been different. Some of them, they could play video games and then they get bored and they want to go outside and play. The others I've had some that. It doesn't matter how much, if it was allowed at all, that they just obsessed about it. And that's all they thought about. They couldn't think about anything else. That's all they wanted was in there was to do that game or to do that thing. And so.

Rachel Denning (28:30.669)
The responses or the actions I had to take varied depending on which personality I'm dealing with. Okay, so please, please, please get Glow Kids, either an audible list to it or get it and read it. Watch the movie Ready Player One and discuss it because it deals with...

What's coming? What's coming and it's already arriving here. What was that? What was it called? The social dilemma that documentary and then watch the social dilemma documentary on on kind of what's happening behind the scenes with with social media and also be aware that and I don't know this necessarily malicious. Nevertheless, there are entire teams who've been hired by their companies.

to get you and me to engage with apps, websites, their content, their content, whatever, as much as possible. They're literally strategizing to keep us addicted. And I don't know if they're like, we're hiring you to be the chief of the addition. I don't know that they're strategizing for addiction. They're just strategizing for.

engagement and trying to keep our attention. They're trying, they're, they're becoming, they're taking brilliant, absolutely brilliant people and paying them big salaries to say, how can we get the most amount of people to stick to our agenda? Use psychology, use physiology, use whatever you have to do to get them in. And it works like,

I will be the first to admit that I use Instagram for my business and I try to not get on Instagram very often because I know when I get on Instagram, they have content on there that I love. Like they know what I like and so they show me the things that I like and as soon as I open it, there's some reals and I'm like, oh my gosh, this is so good and I wanna share it and I want, you know.

Rachel Denning (30:49.773)
And so they've got me hooked right away. And I'm at least aware enough to know what's happening, right? For a kid or a young teen or even an older teen, like unless you are aware, you're basically defenseless. They are hooking you with the content you love and you are, you're hooked. And so I have to consciously pull myself away and say, oh, wait, I didn't get on here to watch all these amazing reels that I love.

I got on here to do something else. And so I have to make myself go do that thing and then get off the app because otherwise I could spend hours like many people do just scrolling through all the incredible content. Here's, here's something else. And there is, I don't know why it happened. I see it as malice. Um, and I showed Rachel, but a while ago on Instagram, whenever I hit the little, um,

What is that thing magnifying glass? The little explore little search thing. I didn't have to search anything. I didn't have to type in anything. As soon as I hit that button, the vast majority of the pictures on my screen were women in bikinis. And that was just happening. I'm sure because I'm a man and whether it's algorithms or humans, they're like, Oh, male.

Let's show them these things, right? Cause that's going to work. That's going to get them to engage in more of our content. And, and I didn't go looking for it. I didn't click on that crap, but it was just there. The only reason it's when it's gone away now, it doesn't, it doesn't pop up anymore is cause I would, I was just constantly clicking on anything else that tracks and well, defenders. I love Landover defenders.

So I hit on every defendant. Yeah. I'm just looking for all this manly stuff. So now if you pick up my phone right now and you click on it, what's going to show up is there's going to be like 10 pictures of Land Rover defenders and then like one little reel from some crazy accident or something happening, some weird thing happening around the world. So the women are gone because you've trained the algorithm because the algorithms like this guy doesn't even like.

Rachel Denning (33:02.861)
Yeah, this must be a gay guy. Let's show him trucks. Yeah. But but I think it was fascinating and scary that without me seeking it out, it said, oh, male, let's go ahead and show them a whole bunch of scantily clad women. Right. And that's we need to know that our our young men are being exposed to that.

But it's happening for all of us. Husbands are being exposed to that. This is, it's crazy and dangerous. And we've got to be aware that yes, it's a tool, but man, it's a weapon. It is absolutely a weapon and technology, devices, social media, screens, whatever can turn on us and.

literally destroy our minds, our souls, our lives, our relationships, our marriages, our families, our lifestyle. It can warp and distort and rest, W -R -E -S -T, which means to twist and distort. It can rest our perspective so severely that we can't even think straight. You can't wrap your head around life.

and ideas and success and meaning and purpose and fulfillment. You can't even think straight because when you get so rested like that, you become like the addict or like whatever and you just think, well, what's happiness to you? I just, I just, I just gotta, I gotta do my thing. Well, what's meaningful to you? Just playing my game. Just watching my thing. Like, well, what do you wanna do with your life? I just, I just wanna, like, it gets so out of whack.

You can't think and until you have this massive detox and get it out of your system and let your brain rewire, you wouldn't even come up with the right answers. So even a great question, right? Does it does you know good? Cause you can't come up with the right answers. Cause you don't even know there are any other answers. And that, and I was actually going to add to that or say that because.

Rachel Denning (35:15.629)
That's what's happening on RN. So there's the algorithm of Instagram or whatever, YouTube, they all have algorithms that are giving us the things we want. But in our own heads, we also have this kind of algorithm going on of the rewiring of our brains. Our brains are being rewired. I'm working on - I love that. We have our own personal mental algorithm. Yeah. But it's being, unless we're intentional, it's being controlled by what we are receiving from our device.

I've been working on my memoir, my first book in a series, and it's incredible in my journal how many times I talk about input determines output, because that was so important to us in our early days of marriage. Like that was something we said all the time, we talked about all the time, I wrote about it all the time. Input determines output. Whatever you put into your mind is literally wiring your brain, and it's going to determine what you get out in your life.

And so we have to be more intentional about the input we are putting into our minds and that our children are putting into their minds because it's determining how their brains are wired, which then determines how they think, how they behave and what they do with themselves. And so if we think it's not having an effect, we are like severely mistaken. It's having a huge effect, a huge impact. Which isn't always visible and that's what's so dangerous about it. It's not always visible.

until down the road when you have some sort of issue and you're like, oh, if not the cause, it's definitely a major contributor to this issue. The neural pathways are being created and because we can't visually see the brain or look in there and check out, we're like, oh my goodness. Oh, look at that wiring. It's a mess. Look at that. That's a freeway. He's got a neural freeway there going in the wrong direction. And this teeny little single track trail going in the right direction. But when that keeps getting

fed and nourished and reinforced, it's possible to get down the road to a point where it's really hard if not impossible to come back. Yeah. So this is a gigantic warning to all of us that and here's my personal take on it. I think it needs to be restricted. I think it needs to be only a part of our life.

Rachel Denning (37:40.845)
It's a tool we use, we deliberately bring it in and use it. And there has to be segments of our lives where it's just not a part of our existence at all, period. It's just not. I spend a lot of time, I love being outside. Whether it's hiking or running or working out, training my dogs, playing with my kids, working on projects. I spend a significant amount of time with no device. And it keeps me grounded.

do life and relationships and myself and as much as I absolutely love audio books and podcasts and all the cool things we can learn. Even when I'm doing a project, I'll look up videos of how to do it, but we're keeping it at bay. And to me that feels so good. Wow, unessential. Where our family, you know, and again, like results don't lie.

And so you might think, well, I don't know, that's arguable. You know, these are, these other family using it all the time. And I keep hearing things like, well, they use it all the time and they're okay. They seem all right or, you know, things turned out okay. And I'm not interested in okay. I'm interested in genuinely happy and healthy. And we don't have any psychological, emotional issues in our family. None.

and we're super happy. Now, some of you might immediately think, well, you guys are just lucky. You just lucked out. You didn't get any stuff. And not true. Not true. We were exposed in many ways, like most of you. I mean, again, there's a few small exceptions. None of our children have autism or Down syndrome or something like that. But where the vast majority of us, 98 % of us fall in the same category,

we're there too. And what I'm saying is this is deliberate and it has to do with food. It has to do with sleep. It has to do with lifestyle choices, deliberate screen usage, how we're using technology and we have the results to back it up. I'm not, we're not bragging. I'm just telling you like we, we've come to these conclusions with results and results don't lie. So we're not, you know, we're not just pontificating here and kind of sharing this is what we think.

Rachel Denning (40:07.117)
And we don't have the results to back it up. We do have the results to back it up. And I think there's a lot of wisdom for us to keep technology in check so that we use it and it does not use us. Well, I think especially because there were cro - I think there's always crossroads, right? In your life. And there were definitely crossroads in our life where things could have gone in the wrong direction. I know for sure. One sun.

when he was three or four, he had that addictive personality. He, maybe he was five, I don't know, but like he was obsessed with games. And I'm talking about these are the little kiddy preschool, quote unquote, educational games. Like he wasn't playing, this was way before Minecraft or whatever. He had that addictive personality. And somehow I knew instinctively at that time, I'm like, if I don't do something about this, this will be a problem. And I know.

Like without a shadow of a doubt, I know if I had not done anything about it and intervened in this kid's life with device usage, he would now be an addict. He would be a gamer. I can say that without a doubt. Instead, this kid uses his device a lot, but he's literally watching Jordan Peterson or The Office in Spanish or listening to podcasts.

or studying scripture or like everything he is doing is something that makes me proud and spends no time of his own choice on games. It's all self -governed now. Yeah, our older kids really from, you know, she's not just turned 17. So 17 up, they are all self -governed. They just, they use their devices. They regulate themselves and they make good choices. Now they deal with the normal.

you know, temptations that we deal with, like I explained with Instagram, like they're on Instagram too, but they're controlling it, they're aware of it. And this was something else I wanted to bring up because this has to be a part of the conversation. You have to have these conversations with your kids. So it's not like, hey, you have a six year old and you just take it away and you're like, no, that's it. You don't get it. We talk about it. Even with our young kids, we explain, hey, I noticed that when I let you do this thing, you obsess about it and that's all you want to do.

Rachel Denning (42:33.453)
And I told my son when he was young, I'm like, I can't let you play games because that's all you want to do. You don't think about anything else. You don't want to do anything else. And he's the kid that went out it when I took away the devices, at least the gaming, because he would still, we would use it for school or whatever, but the games, he's the one, you know, drawing and making things up. He's very creative and doing all sorts of other creative activities. But whenever the games were ending,

And I'm saying that, you know, this was an ongoing experiment because later in life we experiment with Minecraft because, oh, it's educational, it's learning, blah, blah, blah. They said this to me, when we play Minecraft, that's all we can think about. We don't want to do it. Like almost in tears, my kids came to me one time saying, we used to go outside and play and we used to play with clay and now all we can think about is Minecraft. That's all we want to do. We just want to get our studies done so we can do Minecraft. And it like took over their life.

to the point where we're like, okay, we're cutting it out again, it's gone. And so we've, I guess the point is, results don't lie, but it's been something we've had to be intentional about again and again and again, and could have gone in the other direction where we could be the ones with the gamers. Or addicts. And the addicts. We could be dealing with a nasty porn addiction with her boys. Oh, absolutely, 100%. Or even to a drug addiction or gaming addiction, whatever.

that could have been us. Now this same son who had those tendencies, because we took it away from him, he leaned into art and music. He drew something this week that just blew my mind. I shared it on my Instagram yesterday. He has become a very talented artist and musician. He's just singing these songs around the house all day. And he's just a rock, solid young man. Well, that's true for all of our kids because that is the other...

That's one of the things that we don't always think about is when your time and attention and energy is diverted, distracted by being on a device, like you're scrolling on Instagram or you're playing a video game. You know, for me, that's one of the things like why, why are video games quote unquote bad? Well, for no, maybe for no other reason besides what else could you be doing with that time? Exactly. You could be learning how to paint. You could be learning how to sing. You could be learning how to draw or create something or ride a horse.

Rachel Denning (44:56.301)
There's so many other things you could do rather than playing a game. And so that's one of the side benefits of reducing technology in your life is that you actually have time to develop talents. Well, it's a little bit more meaningful, fulfilling, contributing life. Exactly. You just struck something that I want to add in this whole, the visual of the life pie.

If we step back to other places or times, we go across time and space, what percentage of that pie would be game?

entertainment. Very small. Very small, right? Across time and space. It'd be very, very small. And yet people didn't have time for games when you had to literally work to support, to live, to eat, to survive. And then even when they became wealthy or they had hired help or slaves, even in that time period, whatever.

they would you, uh, generally you'd be participating in some kind of game. Your entertainment was you'd go play a sport or go hunting or something or develop a skill or a weird time we live in where a massive chunk of the life pie is game or some form of entertainment. I mean, I think there's more entertainment now. If we just divide up the PIB or percentages that,

The entertainment pie is way, way bigger than perhaps it's ever been. Oh, absolutely. And like when you take a look at a life, you compare lives from around the world and you say, wow, you bulk of your life has been entertaining yourself. And I think we've slipped into this phase where we're literally we're entertaining ourselves to death. Yeah. It's bread and circuses. It's an unending stream of visual trash.

Rachel Denning (46:55.277)
And what's weird about it now is it's very sedentary. You're literally sitting on the couch or lying in bed. You're not physically doing anything. Which is contributing to the depression epidemic. Yes. And the anxiety and then all the other crap and the poor health. I mean, okay. And I, you know, in no way am condoning like the Roman empire and all their bread and circuses and their entertainment. But good night. Even you had to

walk down to the Coliseum and walk up the stairs and go get your water and watch, watch the event, which was horrendous, but like you had to move your body at least. What a time period, right? Across time and space is big, big picture thinking. We just sit here and look at this little piece of glass. That's like, you know, two and a half inches by five inches. And we just stare at it and our bodies don't move at all.

and we're being almost falsely entertained. We're watching pixels move. Yeah. It's so crazy. And so I, again, the invitation is live, young, live, live a great story. Read, read the book called A Million Miles in a Thousand Years by Donald Miller, A Million Miles in a Thousand Years. And he talks about that. Like the same things that make a great story or a great book are the same things that make a great life. And that has to include adventure.

and challenge and risk and doing difficult things and actually getting out and living actual living. And I think especially for young children, like we should all make a commitment that while our children are small, we allow them to just be children and to live in the world as it really is and know that when the time comes and they have to learn how to use devices, they'll learn how they're not going to. In the physical world.

Let them be in the physical world. Exactly. And would you say, I know you and I were talking about this recently, would you say like under 10? Yeah, under 10. Under 10, ideally. And even after 10, just slowly introduce it. Like let's let them live in the physical world and get back to this like crazy fascination with leaves and bugs and dirt and sand and shells. I mean, and again, we're telling you from personal experience, this is something that's an on...

Rachel Denning (49:21.133)
It's an ongoing challenge and it will be an ongoing challenge for all of us, I think. And for the African Safari we just did, my own personal experiences, I'm on Instagram, right? That's part of my business is I share content on Instagram. I also personally love photography and videography and I love to share, record and share content. But while we were on the African Safari, my daughter has...

a family phone that her sister had left that she'd been using to listen to audiobooks. And the first day of the safari, she had it and she was there with her device out recording the safari. And I was watching this. Let's put this out. As soon as we'd see something amazing, we'd see a lion or a gazelle or something. This is a sweet little 10 -year -old girl. Her first thought now is...

grab my phone so I can take videos and pictures of this. Which I realized was entirely my fault because that's what I do. And so I watched her doing this and I just was, I practically felt sick. Really. I felt sick because I'm like, this is not what it should be like. We should be enjoying the safari. We should be enjoying looking at things. Right. So she was, she was getting, she was getting all into it and almost obsessed like quick.

Quick, give me the phone so I can get a picture. And we were like, what in the world? Where her little sister didn't worry at all about any kind of camera, picture, anything. She wanted the binoculars so she could see it up close. She wanted to capture the moment and see it with her eyes. But our 10 -year -old's already caught on to, oh, there's something cool. Because I've got to see it through my phone. That's what mom does. Right? And that was a great example, because we're like, oh, crazy. What are we doing, right? And so I intentionally.

made the choice, the next day, first of all, I left the family phone at the hotel. I was like, we're not even bringing this. And then I made a conscious decision that like, okay, I'm not gonna, when I see something, my first response is not gonna be, oh, get out my phone so I can record it for Instagram.

Rachel Denning (51:34.925)
I can't do that. I have to enjoy real life and not just think about how it's gonna go on my Instagram account and be content, right? First response needs to be, this is so special. I'm just gonna be here in this moment. Exactly. Right. I did that, you guys, we went to this hippo pond. I really, really, really wanted to see hippos. That was kind of my big thing. I wanna see hippos and we'd only...

And we'd only seen a couple from a distance didn't come out for the water anything and And finally the last of the day is sunsetting we go to this pond and this it wasn't a very big pond and it was packed it's chock full of hippos and they were like making their noises and flipping their poop everywhere and You know doing all their thing blowing bubbles and I left I don't even know where my phone was I have no idea where my phone was I just went down there

Just the whole setting was spectacular. We're in the Goro Goro crater, sun setting, the hippos are there. It was amazing. It was maybe 30, 45 minutes. It was awesome just being present in that moment, knowing that this would be one of those days you never forget. And that's kind of the epitome of what we're talking about here. It is.

But I also want to say too, because circling back maybe to how we started is while there are real dangers here and there's so much power and benefit in experiencing real life and being in the moment and all that, that is all important. But that doesn't mean that we also can't continue to use technology as a tool. Because you were on the mountain in Kilimanjaro. I was at a lodge.

with the two youngest girls and I did have internet but it was sometimes very limited in fact one day because the Tanzanian government does this there was no power all day long no bear and I Did I got bored? I'm not gonna lie like we had no power. We walked around the property This is the point. I think we had a great time. We walked around the property We looked at the animals. We watched the scrolls playing like all of those were great things but there's

Rachel Denning (54:02.253)
This is another thing I keep thinking is like there are a lot of hours in the day. So if you're intentional, you can have time every single day where you're in nature, you're living in the moment, you're enjoying life. And you can also have time where you're watching a movie in another language or you're learning a language, you're Duolingo or you're, you know, creating content to inspire people or you're like, there's a lot of different things. And so we don't have to feel bad that we do those things. We just need to make sure they're not.

literally taking over our life. There needs to be balance. And there's a lot we can do, a lot of good we can do, a lot of productivity we can have using our devices intentionally. But that's the point. It needs to be intentional and not be using us. Where it is a small part of your life instead of life itself. Exactly. And what's interesting is it's very easy to become.

Clueless about how consuming it is even some of you listening. I'm like, well, I don't use it that much we I was working with a coaching client and we're like, let's let's just really watch closely It's kind of measure and it was cool It was insightful that she shared that she realized that every time she picked up her phone for whatever reason it was to Oh to look up this recipe or or send a quick message or whatever she realized she as soon as she picked up her phone she ended up being on it for a minimum of 30 minutes and Think how many times you pick up your phone during the day?

It ended up like she didn't realize it. She's like, wow, this is consuming hours of my day without really being cognizant of what's going on. So the intentionality makes a huge difference. So yes, thanks. Thanks for listening. Thanks for caring. Thanks for caring about this and striving to be great humans and great parents. We do a lot of this coaching and strategizing for having creating and maintaining an extraordinary family life and.

We want to share these tools and strategies. So moms get in Rachel's 20 day challenge and get access to more of these tools and strategies. And we break that down inside the challenges. There's more tools and resources in there like how to do it. Right. I was going to actually mention that and I forgot. I'm glad you remembered because we have some very specific, very specific strategies for how to do this effectively with your kids, how to control the devices using past time. You know,

Rachel Denning (56:23.085)
screen time passwords and different things like that so that it doesn't become a battle. Because everything we've said, it's rarely been a battle. I wouldn't say never because on occasion it has been, but rarely or over the long term, it's not a battle. Our children are choosing to do things in a positive way and we've taught them how while they're younger using specific strategies. But yeah. It makes sense to them. It does make sense to them, but that is all laid out in...

both my family systems and charts and in my 28th challenge, like all the specifics about those things, because that could be a whole other hour long process. Exactly. Even today where you're just like, OK, that's it. I want to do it. And you're like, wow. How do I do it? What's in there? And same with the Be the Man Tribe. We talk about these things all the time. In the master class, I go over as men. Gentlemen. You have to lead out. We especially. Well, not only that. Yeah. Be the king in your kingdom. It is.

It is our responsibility as men to lead out, set this example. But it's also a gigantic burden and temptation as men to avoid pornography. And it is such a destructive force. And it will come at us from every angle and at our boys as well. And so we have to lead on that. We have to keep our crap together. And men as men, you know, we want to wind down or...

Relax or you kind of decompress decompress whatever it is. We say all these things and we end up on YouTube or Facebook or Instagram Or somewhere like that or or even in our email inbox. We're just constantly in there doing something whatever it is and One of the most common problems in society today is disengaged dads. Mm -hmm. It's sick and it's sad

And gentlemen, we have to be a part of the solution and stop being a part of the problem. And so having the camaraderie of the tribe and that brotherhood and coaching and the tools and tactics in there is absolutely priceless. Worth everything to make sure we're staying on our game. So if you're ready, well, be ready. Be ready. This stuff is dead serious.

Rachel Denning (58:43.693)
We're not messing around here. These are choices and decisions and lifestyle things and habits that either wreck families or build extraordinary lives. This stuff is not something to be dismissed or procrastinated or, you know, we'll get to that later. It's not that big of a deal. Everybody's doing, everybody's using technology. And if you brush this stuff off, then it goes into the monster games of the Valor game. This stuff matters so much. Anyways, love you guys.

Thanks for listening, thanks for being here, being great humans. Love you guys, peace out.

Rachel Denning (59:27.757)
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Rachel Denning (59:38.029)
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