Tag Archive for cell phone

A Challenge for More Family Time, Less Phone Time

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We often talk about the struggles of learning to manage technology in our lives. We know technology has its usefulness, but we also know it can take over our lives and isolate us from our families and friends. We have talked about the importance of setting limits on technology use and, more important, developing the character necessary to manage technology in our lives effectively. All in all, it has become a complex issue in our time. With that in mind, I ran across an interesting video (12 minutes & 24 seconds long) in which one man, Joey Odom, describes how technology impacted him in his role as a father and a solution he created to change that impact.

One of my favorite quotes from the video is: “If we don’t do something, this generation of kids…will die with more of other people’s memories than memories they create on their own.” Let that sink in. A family that interacts with technology through various social media apps more than they interact with one another will have “more of other people’s [family] memories than memories they create on their own.” That is sad…and frightening. The mere thought of that makes me want to find a way to better manage the technology in my life so that it does not rob me of my family relationships and memories. Joey Odom offers a solution (an app named Aro). I’ve not tried it, so I don’t know how effective it is. I do, however, like the idea of creating an environment that makes person-to-person interactions more rewarding than the technology of gaming or social media. Truth be told, most people do find that person-to-person interactions are naturally more rewarding than technology. The goal is to create a home environment in which your family can experience the rewards of loving person-to-person interactions on a daily basis. How you establish that in your family depends on you and your family. Some possibilities include:

  • Making dinner time a “technology-free zone.”
  • Establish other “technology-free” periods of time each day, like after 8pm or before 9am. The times would depend on your family schedule.
  • Taking technology vacations. These technology vacations can last a day, a weekend, a week, or even a month.
  • Don’t automatically pull out your phone when you’re bored. Instead, let your mind wander, strike up a conversation, or engage in some creative task.
  • Don’t use technology to occupy your children and “keep them out of your hair while you get things done.” Instead, involve your children in those tasks with you. Engage them in the process (even though it might take longer to get them done).
  • Enjoy time spent playing simple family games, indoor or outdoor games.
  • Cook together.
  • Develop family past times like biking, hiking, singing, baking…you pick the hobby that fits your family best. As you enjoy the activity, converse and have fun.
  • Remember, as a parent, you model the best way to utilize technology. So model the importance of person-to-person interaction over technology.

How you choose to keep technology from robbing you of precious family interactions and memories is up to you. But the best way to start is with yourself. Don’t expect your family to do what you don’t do. You model how to protect person-to-person interactions from the intrusion of technology. Begin today. Replace the overuse of technology with loving person-to-person interaction…and create beautiful family memories.

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“Ping…” “Zoom…” “Plop…”

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You can hear it wherever you go…ping, ping, ping. The group text messages pour in while discussing the current topic…ping, ping, ping. Emails, mostly spam and a few of import, arrive…ping, ping. Someone’s at the front door and your Ring notifies you…ping, ping, ping. Instagram, reels, ping, ping, ping.  Push notifications can constantly invade our lives.  In the process, we become conditions to feel an edge of excitement because “we got mail” or some other important, funny, nonsensical, interesting input. In fact, we feel the same pleasurable excitement that a person who gambles feels at the sight of a poker machine. And when the cell phone “pings,” our attention goes “zoom,” right out the window. The constant “pings” and pull of the cellphone distract us from whatever task we have at hand. Some studies even suggest that the average person checks their phone (ping, ping) around 85 times a day! That’s once every 15 minutes that our attention is distracted from the task at hand. Unfortunately, with the constant checking and pulling of the cellphone, our mood can go “plop.” Stress and “FOMO” (Fear Of Missing Out) increase as does our sense of sadness, loneliness, and depression.

Maybe we can just turn our phone on “silent.” Then we won’t hear the “ping, ping, ping.” Unfortunately, we remain conditioned to the expectation of a reward each time we look at our phone—a new reel to see, a new funny cat video, another email, an Instagram to catch our fancy, a tweet from a friend. The silent ping has caught our attention and, “zoom,” we find ourselves distracted, our mind wandering to the question, “Have I gotten another message?” “Zoom,” we set aside the task at hand and off we go to check our phone. It’s a powerful call isn’t it? You may even feel that call as you read this.

All these interruptions can leave us with a mood “plop,” an increased feeling of stress and “FOMO.” They contribute to our procrastination and decrease our productivity. These constant interruptions distract from our family. “Plop”—increased stress, FOMO, more procrastination, less productivity, and distracted from family. So, what do we do? We have to learn to better manage our technology.

  • Turn off as many push notifications as you can. Rather than receiving notifications of every tweet, every text, every message, every Instagram, every…you get the idea…set aside 2-3 periods of time to check and respond to them during the day. Perhaps you can check once in the morning, once during lunch, and once before bed…you can determine the times that work best for you.
  • Put your phone on “Do Not Disturb” during sleep time. Only allow numbers you may need for emergencies open to notification through the night.
  • Train yourself to set aside your phone and focus on your work at hand. You may need to put your phone in a drawer to help you do this. If you worry about the messages you might miss (the “Fear Of Missing Out”), remember you will still view them later.

Don’t let the cell phone send you on a downward spiral of “Ping…Zoom…Plop.” Manage the technology in your life. In doing so, you’ll feel better. You will also model effective technology use to your children, which they may imitate in the long run and feel better as well.

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Use With Caution

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The cell phone, screen time, social media… we hear report after report about how each of these technologies impact our children. It’s a complicated issue…and a huge issue for anyone raising children today. So when I come across new information about the impact of technology on our children, both positive and negative, I like to pass it along to you. Recently, I found two studies published in early 2023 that I wanted to share with you.

First, a study out of the University of North Carolina recruited 169 middle school students and followed them for three years to assess the impact of three social media platforms—Facebook, Instagram, and Snapchat—on their sensitivity to feedback. At the start of the study, researchers asked each participant how often they checked the three social platforms. The answers ranged from once a day to over twenty times a day. (Other studies have shown 78% of teens report checking their social media sites at least hourly and 35% report using a social media site “almost constantly.”) Every year of the three-year study, participants underwent brain imaging sessions while completing a task to measure their brain activity when anticipating social feedback from peers.  This data revealed that children who grow up checking their social media more often become hypersensitive to feedback from their peers, their sensitivity to social rewards and punishment was altered. Becoming hypersensitive to peer feedback may increase a teen’s tendency to give in to peer pressure—whether negative or positive pressure.

A second longitudinal study looked at the data from 506 children in Singapore. Specifically, the parents of the children were asked to report the average amount of screen time their 12-month-old children consumed on weekdays and weekends. The children were then divided into four groups based on screen time: 1) less than one hour, 2) 1-2 hours, 3) 2-4 hours, and 4) more than 4 hours.  At 18-months, each child underwent an EEG to measure brain activity. In addition, each child completed various tests to measure attention span and executive functioning at 9-years-old. After comparing all the data collected, the research suggests that the more screen time a child was subjected to as an infant, the greater the altered brain activity and the more deficits were noted in the measures of attention span and executive functioning. These deficits may translate into difficulty controlling impulses, difficulty sustaining attention, difficulty following through with multi-step instructions, and difficulty persisting in hard tasks.

Our children and teens go through sensitive periods of brain development. How screen time and social media are used during those times can impact their brain development and, as a result, their behaviors. With this information in mind, our children will benefit from careful monitoring of their screen time and education on the healthy use of screens.

Cell phones, screen time, social media…they are not going away. But we must teach our children to manage this technology for their healthy development. With that in mind,

  • Become a good role model in managing screen time and social media use. Remember, the internet can be a risk and an opportunity for your child, depending on how you and your children manage it. How your children manage it begins with how you model managing it in your own life.
  • Rather than constantly fighting your teen over screen time, encourage their involvement in physical activities. For instance, they might join a sport team, go for a bike ride, enjoy a “pick up game” with peers, or start using a gym membership. Read Take Your Teen From Screen Time to “Exer-Time” for more details on how physical activity alters the impact of screen time.
  • Don’t use screens to distract your children. Instead, engage them in the restaurant while you wait for your food. Play games or talk in the car on trips (whether short trips to the store or long trips). Teach your children to find ways other than the use of screens to manage their boredom–things like card games, going for a walk, playing catch off a wall, playing music, writing, art, etc. Model ways of entertaining yourself that do not include screen time.

These three actions can start our children down a path of using technology in a healthy manner that will protect them for a lifetime.

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Don’t “Blow Up” Your Marriage

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None of us want to “blow up” our marriage. But too many of us do “blow up” our marriage before we even realize it. How? By spending too much time on our cell phones, getting too caught up in social media, spending too much time scrolling. The “technical” term for this is technoference. It sounds benign, but the time spent on social media distracts from potential time with our spouses and families. It can lead to disconnection…and disconnection can lead to the “blow up.” It’s a dangerous pattern: distraction “blowing up” into disconnection that may “blow up” into dissolution or divorce. In fact, one survey (See Opinion: The biggest weapon of mass distraction in marriage? Your cellphone) found 62% of respondents felt technoference was a problem in their family. 45% thought it a problem in their marriage. 48% of respondents wished their spouse spent less time on their cellphone and more time with their children. Cell phones and the related technoference are blowing up our marriages.

A study conducted by the Mental Health Research and Treatment Center at Ruhr-Universitat Bochum offers a remedy to combat the effects of technoference. They confirmed the effectiveness of this remedy in a study involving 642 volunteers randomly assigned to one of four groups:

  • Group one reduced social media consumption by 30 minutes a day for two weeks.
  • Group two increased physical activity by 30 minutes a day for two weeks.
  • Group three replaced 30 minutes a day of social media consumption with 30 minutes of physical activity.
  • Group four didn’t change a thing.

Before the two weeks, during the two weeks, and six months after the two weeks, participants responded to online surveys about social media use, physical activity, satisfaction with life, subjective feelings of happiness, depressive symptoms, and cigarette consumption.

The results? Immediately after the two weeks of changed behavior, the groups reducing social media use (group one) and the groups increasing physical activity (group two) showed a positive increase in a person’s sense of well-being. A positive result, but the group that replaced social media use with physical activity (group three) showed an even broader positive result. This group experienced an increase in satisfaction with life, an increase in feelings of happiness, and a reduction in symptoms of depression.  Even better, these effects were still present 6 months later!

Interestingly, 6 months after the two-week behavior change, participants still spent less time on social media. Those that either reduced social media use or increased physical activity had reduced their social media use by 30 minutes at the six-month point. Those who had replaced 30 minutes of social media use with physical activity spent 45 minutes less time on social media and an hour and 39 minutes more in physical activity than they had prior to the experiment.

What does that have to do with your marriage? Less time on social media means less opportunity to phub your spouse, less jealousy, and more quality time with your spouse. To receive the full benefit seen in this study, replace those 30 minutes of cell phone usage with 30 minutes of physical activity with your spouse—go for a walk together, jog together, ride your bike and have a picnic together—anything to get physically active…together. Then, after two weeks take a personal inventory about how you feel personally and in your relationship with your spouse. You might feel so good about yourself and your relationship that you’ll keep it up as a part of life. I hope so. So don’t let technoference “blow up” your marriage. Accept a two-week challenge to replace 30 minutes of cell phone usage with physical activity with your spouse and see how it impacts your marriage. ENJOY your marriage, not your phone.

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The Value of a Wandering Mind

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People hate to be bored, especially children and teens. Adults, though, hate being bored as well. When boredom hits, people pull out the cell phone to play a game, check the mail, read an article…anything to escape the boredom. But a series of experiments suggest a different course of action may prove just as effective if not more effective than the cell phone. In this study a group of university students were asked to sit for 20 minutes in a room without their belongings. They could think about anything they wanted to think about, but were not to sleep, walk, exercise, look at a phone, or check the clock. Before they started, they predicted three things:

  1.  how much they might enjoy waiting and thinking,
  2. how interesting or boring it might be prove, and
  3. if they might be so engaged as to lose track of time.

After the 20 minutes of waiting and thinking, each participant was asked to report how engaging, pleasurable, interesting, or boring the experience actually was.

Interestingly, the participants reported being much more engaged and interested than they had predicted. They had underestimated the pleasure and value of waiting and thinking.

The researchers found similar results when students were asked to predict if waiting would be more enjoyable with or without computer access. Then they were randomly assigned to 20 minutes with or without computer access.

Although the students predicted that having computer access would prove more enjoyable, the groups enjoyed the experience equally, whether they had computer access or not. In other words, 20 minutes of mind wandering thought was as enjoyable as 20 minutes of computer access.

In a similar vein, previous studies have suggested that allowing your mind to wander actually improves mood, strengthens a sense of connection, enhances creativity, and strengthens goal setting.

What does this mean for you and your family? The next time you’re bored while waiting in line, waiting for the bus, waiting for a program to start, waiting… forget about your phone. Let your mind wander. Enjoy the opportunity to let your mind go free. Think about anything you like. You might just find you enjoy thinking.

Let me add one more thing. Share your thoughts with your spouse and family. It will likely stimulate some interesting conversation. More importantly, you will nurture your family intimacy with that conversation… and all starts with enjoying the thoughts of your wandering mind in the “boredom.”

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Take Charge of Your Smartphone Before It Takes Charge of You

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Smartphone users between 18- to 24-years-old check their devices 86 times per day and half of our teens say they are addicted to their smart phone. About 45% of 10–12-year-olds in the United States have a smartphone.

Prior to the COVID pandemic, 17% of 5- to10-year-olds, 23% of 11- to 13-year-olds, and 32% of 14- to 17-year-olds spent more than 4 hours a day on a screen device. In the midst of the COVID pandemic, those numbers have increased to 44%, 47% and 52%, respectively. (See Screen Time Statistics 2021: Your Smartphone is Hurting You and 40 Eye Catching Cell Phone Usage Statistics for more.)

You might ask, “So what?” Well…the more time our children spend engaged with a smartphone or other screen device, the less time they engage in imaginative play, other unstructured play, or face-to-face interactions. In addition, “smart phones are addictive,” they impair sleep, and they increase the risk for anxiety and depression in our children and teens. (For more on the risk of unbridled cell phone use, see Why Wait.)

The real question to ask is:” What can I do about it?” After all, smartphones are pervasive in our world and our children’s world. Somehow we have to take charge of our smartphone before they take charge of us. We need to model healthy “smartphone management” for our children and create an environment in which they can learn those “smart phone management” skills as well. Here are six tips to help you do that:

  • Turn off the notifications. Your smartphone calls for your attention with every buzz, ding, and flash. By turning the notifications off, it will call less often. You’ll be less distracted and better able to connect with those around you. And, just to be clear, the world will survive without us responding to every buzz, ding, and flash.
  • Turn it gray. The colors of the smartphone screen invite us to look at it as well. The little red dot screams for us to click and discover who texted, emailed, or left a message. Setting your screen to grayscale can help limit this call. Specifically, some studies suggest people are less drawn to and less distracted by the grayscale screen. Try it for a week and see what you discover. You might be pleasantly surprised.
  • Enjoy a family “unplugged day.” Set aside one day a week (or at least one evening starting at 5pm and lasting until the next morning) as a time to unplug. Turn off all smart phones and other screens. While you have no technology to interfere, enjoy family time. Play a game. Have a picnic. Go for a hike. Enjoy some technology-free-family-fun. (Read Unplug for a Family Fun Night to learn more.)
  • Enjoy some screen time together. Make some screen time a shared experience rather than allowing it all to remain an individual experience. Watch a movie together. Play a game together. Watch YouTube videos together. Doing so will help teach compromise and negotiation. It will also allow you the opportunity to have fun with your child as well as the opportunity to talk with them about messages communicated on-line.
  • Encourage a tech-free knowledge search. You know, go old school. Determine to search for knowledge on one topic each week without using Google, Alexi, Siri, or other internet service. Instead, go to the library. Use a book or encyclopedia. Go to the museum, science center, or aviary to gain the information. Make it a family outing. Going old school in a search for knowledge is like a treasure hunt. Have fun with it.
  • Finally, enjoy device free meals. Yes, put the smartphone aside while enjoying a family meal. Leave the phones in another room and commit to interacting with your family during mealtimes. Talk about the day. Talk about the food. Encourage one another. Compliment one another. Enjoy one another’s company. You will enjoy doing all this and more without the fear of an intrusion by way of your smartphone’s buzz, ding, or flash. Don’t worry, whoever calls, texts, messages, or continues a streak will still be there. You can enjoy the moment of face-to-face interaction with our family.

That’s six ways to take charge of your cell phone before it takes charge of you and teach your children to do the same. In full disclosure, I got these tips from the Wait Until 8th website under Best Practices. Check them out for at least 5 other tips you can use. Plus, they offer wonderful education, advice, and suggestions about managing smartphones in your family. A wonderful resource for you and your family.

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What Are We Teaching Our Children?

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I was speaking to a father in my office when his 2-year-old daughter brought him an Etch-A-Sketch from the toy shelf. Tapping the screen, she said, “I-pad broke, Daddy. I-pad broke.” We both smiled.

Perhaps you’ve seen a parent in a store or restaurant carting a somewhat fussy toddler. In frustration, they hand their toddler their cell phone and, voila, a calm toddler. Infant toddler media use is on the rise. Parents report that on average, children younger than 2-years-old spend about an hour a day of screen time. Children between 0- and 8-years-old read, or are read to, about half an hour a day while spending an average of an hour and 25 minutes engaged in screen time. Even more, 19% of the parents in the survey reported using media to regulate their children’s emotions “often” and 36% reported doing this “some of the time.” (Read more here.) What are we teaching our children with all this? Unfortunately, we may be teaching them to reach for their media devices when upset or bored, increasing the risk of a media addiction.  Another study found that toddlers were more likely to tantrum in response to frustration when their parents used media to help them stay calm.

“But my child can’t wait patiently at the restaurant… or sit in the car for a long drive… or get through a store without a screen. They’ll have a meltdown.” That’s good news. It means you have a great opportunity to teach your children better ways to regulate their emotion and their boredom. Here are some ways you can help.

  • Prepare ahead of time. Bring some simple activities to distract or engage your child. This might include small toys, dolls, picture books, or stickers. Be creative and bring whatever small thing might entertain your child. (For one idea read Teach Your Child the Art of Waiting.)
  • Accept and validate their emotions. I know I get bored on a long car ride. It’s easy to get frustrated at the supermarket. If we as adults have these experiences, our children probably do, too. Label their emotion for them. Empathize with them. Even comfort and soothe them.
  • Label their emotions when they get upset. Children benefit from gaining an “emotional vocabulary.” Having a word to use in expressing an emotion increases their ability to manage that emotion in a healthy way. (Learn 6 Ways to Make Your Children’s Emotions Your Friend.)
  • Engage your child’s help. Even 2-year-olds enjoy helping” Mommy and Daddy.” Set them on the lookout for the picture on their favorite cereal box. Talk through your decision between apples or oranges with them. Make the journey a mystery. “I wonder what we’ll find in this aisle?” Engage them in the activity through playful interactions, conversation, and simple decision-making.
  • In the process, enjoy time with your child. Children seem to have a “second sense” about whether their parents are upset, frustrated, or happy. And, younger children take their emotional cues from their parent. Whey you enjoy time with your child, it is more likely they’ll enjoy time with you.

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Reach Out and Touch Someone

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Remember the commercials that encouraged us to “reach out and touch someone” with a phone call? Their motto bounced around in our heads long before cell phones and texting. Now it’s even easier to “reach out and touch someone,” right? Just send a quick text or message them on Facebook. So much easier… or is it? Is texting enough to “reach out and touch someone”? Is it enough to keep a relationship strong and healthy? A study published in 2020 sought to answer that question.

In this study, participants predicted how awkward or enjoyable it would be to contact a friend with whom they had not interacted for two years. They also predicted how close they would feel after the contact. They made these predictions for both phone contact and email contact. Then they were randomly assigned to contact their friend by phone or email.

Most participants thought phone contact would make them more uncomfortable than email contact. However, this did not prove true. Those who made phone contact felt no more discomfort than those who made email contact, even if they had said they preferred to email. On the other hand, those who called were happier with the interaction and felt closer to the person they called than those who simply emailed.

In a second part of this study (following the same procedures as the first part), participants were randomly assigned to a voice chat, a video chat, or a text chat. Similarly, the voice chat and video chat resulted in feeling significantly closer to the other person than those who engaged in a text chat. Video chat and voice chat, on the other hand, revealed similar outcomes in satisfaction and sense of closeness. These results suggest that our voices are particularly powerful for increasing intimacy.

When I think about that, it makes sense. From the time we were babies, and even in utero, we have responded to and discriminated between voices. When we are stressed or upset, the voice of loved one, a spouse, or a parent can calm and soothe us. And how many of us would love to hear the voice of a loved one “just one more time” after they pass away?

What does this have to do with family? If you want to increase intimacy with your family, text a little less and call a little more. If you want to maintain closeness with your spouse and children even when you disagree, give them a call because it promotes greater understanding when we hear one another’s voice than when we read their text. In fact, hearing the voice of a family member may be the the medicine to cure what ails you. So, increase the intimacy in your family. Close the texting or messaging app. Dial the number and reach out to touch your family with a phone call or video chat. You’ll both be glad you did.

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Don’t Post Alone for a Happier Marriage

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Social media is a wonderful way to share information with family and friends. You can also communicate love and adoration for your spouse through social media. But, studies have shown that sharing information online can also harm your marriage. Too much time spent on social media, becoming overly involved with a person other than your spouse, or sharing intimate information with others online can all have a negative impact on your marriage. What can you do to protect your marriage from the dangers of social media? One option is to open a joint account rather than an individual account. With a joint account, you both share information and have an open awareness of what each person posts.

Another option was recently discussed in a series of five studies completed by Carnegie Mellon University and University of Kansas. Briefly, the first study revealed that on-line self-disclosure lead to a romantic partner reporting less intimacy in their marriage. It confirmed the dangers to a marriage when one partner uses social media to share personal and emotional information.

The second study suggested that attachment style also impacts how a person responds to on-line self-disclosure. Specifically, people who naturally struggle to connect emotionally and experience difficulty building trust (those with an avoidant attachment style) reported less intimacy and lower marital satisfaction as their spouse disclosed a greater quantity of intimate information on line. The third study suggested that people report lower intimacy and lower marital satisfaction when they perceive their partner’s self-disclosure as more self-revealing, more personal or more emotional.

The fourth study found that people felt lower intimacy and lower marital satisfaction when their partner posted emotional or personal information to greater numbers of people versus just to them (and maybe one other person).

In summary, these four studies suggest that revealing emotional, personal information online leads to less intimacy and less marital satisfaction. Their partner may feel left out, unimportant, or insecure. The fifth study in this series, however, suggested that including your partner in posts can change all this and contribute to higher marital intimacy and satisfaction. In other words, if you are not going to have a joint account, be sure to include your partner in your posts. The takeaway of all this? Don’t post alone. Include your spouse in your posts. It will increase intimacy in your marriage and make you both feel a greater sense of satisfaction in your marriage.

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