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Licensed psychologist Dr. Jen McWaters, and wellness coach Kaitlin Reed, join forces to help women create an abundant life through holistic wellness practices, mindset shifts, and fostering a healthy relationship with food and their bodies. Join us as we take a deep dive and uncover the raw truth about mental health, nutrition, fitness, and beyond, offering insights and strategies for transformative growth.
Dr. Jen McWaters is a licensed psychologist and a holistic wellness coach for women. She is a Certified Integrative Mental Health Professional and is passionate about helping high-achieving women overcome their mental blocks, find freedom from anxiety, and create an abundant life inside and out. Find out more about her work at: awakeningholistichealth.com
Kaitlin Reed is a fitness, nutrition, and mental wellness coach on a mission to help women build the body and life they deserve and desire. She has BAs in Health Promotion and Wellness & Fitness Management, MA in Performance Psychology, currently pursuing her Ph.D. in Health Psychology. Her goal is to help women finally understand the science and strategy of nutrition and exercise so they can achieve their goals and live an empowered life. Head over to kaitlinreedwellness.com to learn more.
DISCLAIMER: This podcast is for educational purposes only and is not intended as medical advice. Please consult with your personal physician if you have any personal medical questions.
Welcome to the Counter Culture Health podcast. I'm doctor Jen McWaters. And I'm coach Kaitlin Reed. We're here to help high achieving women overcome mental blocks, find freedom from anxiety, create an abundant life, and build the body and life that they deserve and desire. In this weekly podcast, we'll uncover the raw truth about mental health, nutrition, fitness, and beyond. Let's get to it.
Kaitlin:Happy Thursday, friends. Thanks for joining us for another episode of Counter Culture Health. Today, we are going to talk about a topic that's, is pretty problematic today, I would think. And that is about the impact that social media is having on our younger generations, also adults, but our physical health, mental health, and just how screen time is impacting us in general. So, Jen, fill us in on.
Jen:Yeah. This is a great topic. All the info. Oh, I'm glad we picked this today. And the reason that we bring this up here on this podcast is because it is countercultural to not be heavily addicted to your phone or use it all the time.
Jen:Culture is continually moving us towards a more digitalized life, not just social media, but, right, all the things we do is mostly online. We work online. We do banking online. We socialize online. We capture our memories online.
Jen:Like, we do everything online, and some of those things are great. Like, the tech is wonderful. Like, I love being able to have these cool apps and tools where I can share family photos with my other family members in the different part of the US, but it comes at a cost. I always say that as as humans, we're really good at creating a solution, one solution, then creating, like, 5 downstream problems after that solution. I think tech is one of those things and particularly social media.
Jen:So we're gonna focus today on what are some of the concerns with social media usage or screen time usage in general. And then we'll wrap up with here's some tools to help you if you are listening to this today and you're like, oh, ding, ding, ding. I definitely have some of those issues or struggles, and I wanna work on checking my use and getting back to, like, a healthy level. We're gonna also talk about some ideas at the end of this, episode and how you can do that. So first, I wanna anchor us with some research.
Jen:We wanna be evidence based here. And so we'll talk about a few things, but on the more general level so we're talking about adults in particular, and this can also include teens, but adults, these are some of the impacts of social media usage, and these are based off of some studies in journals. So in 2019, the American Journal of Preventative Medicine found that there was an association between higher social media usage with increased risk of anxiety and depression. That specifically was among adolescents, but we can extrapolate, especially both of us who work with adults mostly now, that that is also the case for adults. Like, I only say that from a clinical anecdotal standpoint.
Jen:A lot of the issues we see, even among adults, there are correlations between their mood and how much they use social media. So that's one study. There's also studies that show the correlation between use of things like Instagram with higher levels of body dissatisfaction and higher levels of disordered eating behavior, particularly among young women. That was a study done in, the journal body image in 2016. And mostly because it's comparisons that people are comparing themselves to other people, and often again, we're comparing against things that are photoshopped and edited.
Jen:I know you'll talk more about that in a second. And so we are comparing ourselves to this unattainable level of perfection that's not even real. Right? I mean, when we all kinda do it, like, if we're gonna take no. We take 10 photos and we pick the best one and we post that at at minimum, right, at most or at the at the most egregious.
Jen:You could be seriously editing your you know, even changing the shape of your body and face, which is wild. So why don't you share a little bit more about that specific point there so people can just have this reality check when you are on social media. You wanna have this, say, like, metacognition awareness of thinking about what you're looking at, thinking about how you're feeling about that, and checking the facts on whether or not this is actually true.
Kaitlin:Yeah. Editing apps are crazy these days. Like, I sent you one last week just to kinda show you what's going on in the fitness world with these editing apps, and there's these AI tools where you can edit how your body looks. You know? People are bringing in their waist and, bringing out their hips or giving themselves bigger butts or, you know, making their arms spoonier or, their face slimmer.
Kaitlin:And it's just it's crazy because for me, you know, in in this world long enough, and I can I can tell what's real and what's not? But most people out there don't know. So they think whatever they see in is coming across their feed is real. So they see this, and they're like, I want to I want that. I want to look like that, but they don't even know that what they're looking at is fake and not, even realistic to achieve.
Kaitlin:So there's a lot of people send me stuff and ask, like, is this real? Is this edited? You know? And and trying to help them along the way of, being able to recognize that or, you know, not even comparing to that and changing the algorithm of their Instagram feed. So that's not what's coming across their feed all the time, so they're not looking at it, 247 or every time they open their phone.
Kaitlin:And I think that's the most helpful piece is changing your algorithm of what you're seeing. And and you have the power to do that based off of what you're looking at, what you're clicking at on. You know, as we talked before, social media like, some of these tools can be helpful. Like, you can learn a lot. You can, you know, come across some really helpful information, but then it also has the other side.
Kaitlin:So changing your algorithm for more helpful, positive things, things that don't make you feel bad or, you know, bring up harsh feelings about yourself. And so that's always my suggestion with people because, especially fitness pages and the fitness world is just flooded with edited, unrealistic fate stuff, and then it's it's really sad.
Jen:I agree. And especially for young women or adolescents who just don't have a fully developed brain yet. Right? So it takes roughly 25 years to get a fully developed brain. And so it is, I think, unrealistic sometimes where parents will give their kids access to a smartphone pretty early or just unfettered access to the Internet and expect their kids to have good self control.
Jen:Some do more than others, but in general, we're asking someone with a not fully developed frontal lobe to make pretty high level decisions and have good impulse control and be able to also discern what is healthy, not healthy for them to look at. And I think that's an unrealistic expectation. I think that's our job as adults and parents is to actually guide our kid in how to do that. And some of that is setting boundaries and limits and not just you know, because it's so much harder to go backwards. I've worked with so many families in my past job where they are so struggling with the social media usage and their kid is now on inappropriate sites or chatting with strangers or adults or getting just mixed into crazy stuff and exposed to so many more things that that would be that's beyond what's development appropriate, but then trying to rein it back in after you've given access to a kid is so hard.
Jen:Right? It's so hard to take back that versus it's easier to to give the freedom than to take it away. So I say you wanna actually lean on the side of being really cautious and conservative with it, and it's hard. Right? It's hard because the kids are gonna be like, well, my friend has so and so.
Jen:My friend has this app. And you have to be really strong to fight that for the good of your kid, and the hope is that they will thank you when they're older. And you're protecting them, and that is our job, I believe, as parents in particular and even as professionals and to encourage parents to be strong with that and to set those boundaries even if it's countercultural, which it will be, because it is in the best interest of your child's health, mental health, physical health, their sleep, and, really, their safety. Because one of the other areas that is, increasing because of social media usage is cyberbullying that is rampant today. Right?
Jen:Like, we all know bullying in school if you're part of our generation, but now there's cyberbullying. So and and I guess adults can have that too. But, you know, cyberbullying really impacts mental health, and social media facilitates this way to anonymously hurt someone with your words through commentary, through sharing stuff that shouldn't be shared, and that's a big problem in our youth today as well. So that is another reason why social media is can be really harmful. Another one is sleep disruption.
Jen:Oh, did you wanna make a comment on that one?
Kaitlin:I was just gonna say everything that I have read is says wait as long as possible.
Jen:Yes. Yes. I think, honestly, this be shocker, but I my hope is I can do wait until my son is 18. I think 18. Because that means at that point, they're probably going to college.
Jen:Right? So you can't really manage that anymore. But I think, like, senior in high school kinda thing. And and, again, if it's about, like, people say safety, I want my kid to have access to a phone. There are lots of other ways to give them safety.
Jen:I mean, you and I grew up without a phone. You know, I didn't really have, but I think 12 or 16, 17, that was just a regular phone that could call and text.
Kaitlin:Yeah. Like, practically, like, it's fake.
Jen:Yeah. Totally. Yeah. Like, the most basic function, and it was amazing. Right?
Jen:But you can do that. You can buy those really analog ish phones today. There's, like, GPS watches, I believe, too for kids if you really wanna focus on tracking them or, again, I think they can at least maybe call or alert, like, a few numbers. There's, like, other ways to go about it. And, again, most of the kids still have, like, computers and stuff for school works.
Jen:It's not like they have zero connectivity to the Internet, but it's the phone usage that is so prevalent, addictive, and always with you. And that's usually where social media is accessed as well. It's really on the apps. So that's where it's it set some limits.
Kaitlin:That's something that I think about too is how it takes them away from being social, getting involved in activity, sports, because now they're just sitting in their rooms, scrolling on the screen, and missing out on really their life.
Jen:Right. And I would argue the same for adults. It can happen too. Yes. And it can also fuel if you already struggle with social anxiety, it can feel like a way to be social without having to deal with the discomfort of going out.
Jen:And to some degree, I think there are some benefits if that's where you are. Like, if you have agoraphobia, maybe that's where you start with teletherapy and online group therapy. Great. But it shouldn't end there. And sometimes it becomes a long standing crutch where people don't then take the next step in their exposure work to then go out in person and meet people and build relationships.
Jen:And so it kind of handicaps people from able to develop socially in kids too. And I worked again with kids, like, in the hospital setting who really were struggling socially, and some of that was because they had so little practice and all of their social interactions were online, which are not always a good representation of what it's actually like in person or in relationships. So there's that layer to it too. The next piece is sleep disruption. So a study in 2016 found that there was no surprise here, relationship between excess social media usage to, increased poor sleep quality.
Jen:So worse sleep with more social media usage, essentially, and more insomnia symptoms. And, this is especially before bedtime, which, you know, I've talked about sleep before in previous episodes, and that's such a big, saboteur of sleep, I would say, is the phone usage. And, again, adults do this too. Like, I mostly work with adults, and a most of my clients struggle with this. Like, the phone's the first thing they look at in the morning and the last thing they look at at night or it's next to them, and it's always on and connected, and they're getting alerts.
Jen:Or, again, they're just checking or they I've had people say, like, I fall asleep just scrolling. I'm like, no. No. Don't do that. It's just so disruptive because of the stimulation mentally, the content.
Jen:It's like, do you really want that to be the last thing your mind is thinking about at night? And then also the blue light. Right? The blue light and then how that creates a really disrupted melatonin cycle for the day and makes it harder to fall asleep and stay asleep.
Kaitlin:Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I think one of the best things to do is probably not be on that for at least an hour before bed, maybe maybe more. I often hear from my people is they're, you know, they're getting ready for bed, and then they are on their phone. And then next thing they know, it's an hour and a half later.
Kaitlin:And now they're not getting to bed on time, and then, you know, the next day is not how they wanted it to go. Because I would argue you know, we hear so much about the importance of morning routine and, setting yourself up in the morning, but I would argue that a nighttime routine is more important than a morning routine. Like, if you don't have a great nighttime more routine, you cannot have a good morning routine. So I think it all starts the night before, and and what you're doing then determines the next day.
Jen:I agree. And, again, it's funny because we we know this with kids intuitively. Like, there's no parent that puts a screen like an iPad in front of their kid at, like, 8 o'clock, and then 8:30 is like, okay. Let's go to bed. Fall asleep in 10 minutes.
Jen:You know, like, we we we don't expect that. We expect to have to wind our kids down and, you know, always be should be doing that. Winding them down with lights down, no screen time, quiet time, bath time, reading. And why do we think that we grow out of that as adults? We don't.
Jen:We need the same things. But so often, I see adults, like, turn on the TV or have a TV in the bedroom, which is a big no no, or scroll and then expect themselves to just conk out. Now could you conk out? Yes. If you're sleep deprived, etcetera.
Jen:But there's a lot of risk of how it's hurting your health mentally, physically. And again, that it's still disrupting your melatonin levels, and so it can just really throw things off. So it's just a really bad habit to break or it's important it's it's an important bad habit to break. And like you said, I encourage people to not have the phone in the room if they can. You can buy an analog alarm.
Jen:If it has to be in the room, you know, try to have it across the room so you don't have easy access. So just grab it and look at it. Put it in airplane mode at minimum. Turn it off if you can. So but we'll get more into solutions, but sleep disruption is a big problem.
Kaitlin:Huge.
Jen:And then, we talked about body image, but self esteem kinda goes with that because of comparisons, which is you comparing yourself to other people who maybe are more successful or attractive. And there are studies showing that, again, the more that you use social media, they have less they have lowered self esteem, especially I think true for young ones, but adults too, and especially women, have a lot of clients who struggle because they're seeing these beautiful photoshopped highlight reels and pictures of even just friends and family or people they know who seemingly have it all together, and they feel like they don't because of that comparison trap.
Kaitlin:Yep. Yep. I think yeah. Most people struggle with that. Absolutely.
Kaitlin:Oh, we'll get into I was gonna offer suggestion there, but we can get in that.
Jen:Let's save it. Let's yeah. Yeah. We'll save that one, but hold on to it. And then addictive behavior.
Jen:So that's let's talk about this for a minute here because there is definitely an addictive component. I'm sure we're all aware of this. Just intuitively, there is this release of dopamine when we are on social media, particularly when we get, like, a like or comment or a follow or something, there's a dopamine hit in the brain. And the dopamine is the same neuromyl cold that gets released with things like drugs or gambling or overshopping or disordered eating behavior too. There's a dopamine release, which is what keeps us hooked into that behavior and in that cycle.
Jen:So Amy, do you wanna speak a little bit more about that, of, like, how you see that play out for people or any other thoughts on the addictive component with that?
Kaitlin:Yeah. I mean and I think that's just where it's it starts. You know? The more you do that, you just you're seeking more and more and more and more to try to get that same eye or feeling. Yes.
Kaitlin:And so you that you're constantly, maybe posting more or, you know, it changes your algorithms. You're you're looking at more intense stuff too. So to always chase that that next high or try to get that same feeling. But something that's interesting to me too is how it could be used as, like, an escape from life. Like, you're just checked out, whether you're overstressed, overwhelmed, or whatever, and you're just kinda checked out and escaping from something.
Kaitlin:What are your thoughts on that?
Jen:Yeah. I mean, that's often what social media is about. Right? It's can be, like, a time filler. It's honestly a big time suck, but it can be like a time filler.
Jen:Like, I have nothing else to do while I'm in line here at the store or in the elevator, and I'm guilty of this too because I definitely do it. I'm aware that I do it, but we just need to, like, numb out sometimes. Or if we're overwhelmed, people say, well, it's how I de stress. I've heard clients say that's how I de stress.
Kaitlin:I find less stuff.
Jen:Yes. Yeah. Yep. And, you know, maybe there's a piece of that because I think historically people would use TV to de stress. But there's something about the potency of social media and, like, the, like, the scrolling, like, the how fast information's coming in, how stimulating it is, that I see it as worse than TV.
Jen:I can't back that up right now with with, any hard evidence, but I feel like I've come across some of that. Like, it's more destructive than TV and be partly because it's so addictive. It has that dopamine hit, and it's, it feels good in the moment. And then it's also a way to not feel the things you don't wanna feel. So it becomes an avoidance strategy, which is kinda what you're talking about.
Kaitlin:Yes. Something that I've also discussed with other people too is it it can be a contributor to shame, because they get stuck in scrolling or being on their phone, and then pretty soon hours went by. And now they're mad at themselves, and they hate themselves for it. And so it starts the shame cycle too of, like, I had other things to do. I wanted to work out.
Kaitlin:I wanted to meal prep or whatever. And instead, I'm on my phone, and now now everything's chaos, and I hate myself for it. And so it can really be a contributor to that shame cycle and feeling bad about yourself too.
Jen:That's a good point. Yeah. Because, again, it's it's it's meant it's created to be addictive like that. Like, they there's people, like, that are hired by these companies, legit positions that are all about keeping people on their app longer because that's how they make money. Right?
Jen:The longer you're on there, the more ads you see, the more money the company makes, the more money the businesses you advertise make. Like, I love that I've heard someone say that somewhere where it was like, you know, you think you're using all these things for free, but it's not. You're paying with your time. You're paying with your energy. You're paying with your data.
Jen:That's a whole another conversation. Right? But they're getting data on you, what you like, what you don't like. Right? Your phone's always listening.
Jen:So is it creepy and you, like, think about or talk about something, and then you see the ad the next day on your phone or Instagram, like, what? So Right? Creepy. So we're paying with, like, our privacy. So there's there's a cost to this.
Jen:So it's just being aware of that. Again, we're not trying to say it's all bad or demonize it. Like, you and I both use it for business. So I'm on it more than I actually wanna be because of that fact. So you have to have some really good boundaries in place to make sure you're not crossing into an overuse where then, like you said, you might activate a shame cycle or have lowered self esteem or trigger disordered eating behavior or just feel, you know, more ick.
Jen:Like, you just feel more ick when you're on your screen for too long. Right? And you're sitting down sedentary and your posture is wrong as your brother shared with us last And I was pinching our shoulder blades. Yeah. Upper cross syndrome.
Jen:Right? Like, all those things. Like, there's just a lot of cost to it. So we wanna be really mindful and be really aware when we're using it and why we're using it and not do the mindless use. That's usually where the risk is.
Jen:And then let me go ahead.
Kaitlin:Oh, sorry. Attention span. What do you think it's doing to people's attention right now?
Jen:Yeah. That's good because I was gonna talk a little bit more about kids. And, I know I don't have it in front of me. Wish I'd pulled one up, but there are studies that suggest there's definitely a lowered attention span right now in general, I think adults and kids, because of the use, because of this the rapidity of the information. And we need things that are faster, quicker, brighter, fancier, flashier to get our attention now.
Jen:And it's like that's the whole thing what culture is about is, like, capturing attention, and it needs to get bigger and better to capture our attention because we are so used to so much stimulation, and social media is a part of that. Is that what you're kinda thinking, referencing?
Kaitlin:Yeah. And I'm just thinking, like, how we experience that in in business and, you know, longer clips that are just talking with, no visual or, you know, they're longer than 10 seconds. They'll do as well as something that's flashy and and visual and quick, you know, that people wanna see or it's like, oh, that's a minute and a half long. That's way too long onto the next thing. So it's just it's crazy.
Jen:Yeah. That's true. Yeah. That shows up in business for sure too, which is hard because it's like we wanna pro provide educational helpful content, but then sometimes what the algorithm wants is a 10 second, you know, sound bite. And you're like, how do I just still listen to 10 seconds and it just decreases the quality?
Jen:Right? It's all about that rather than the quality sometimes. And and then again for kids, that's a concern because we have a really rampant rise in ADHD diagnoses and those kinds of things, and we know that screen usage, especially things like video games, play a role in that. But then also, there was a study done, by the NIH, and this was done over a 10 year period. They studied more than 11,000 kids, so that's a really good n in the scientific, kinda realm to measure things.
Jen:And these are the preliminary findings. So these are adolescents. They had, those who spent more than 2 hours each day on screens scored lower on cognitive and language tests. And MRIs found significant differences in the brains of some kids who use smartphones, tablets, and video games more than 7 hours a day, which sounds like a lot, but actually there's many kids who use screen because if you think about like phone usage during the school day, and then the evening time, and then before bed, you could easily get to 7 hours for a lot of kids. So those kids had a thinner frontal cortex, a premature thinning of their frontal cortex, which is really scary to think about.
Jen:Right? And then that's where your executive functioning happens, right, your impulse control, decision making. So they had a thinner frontal cortex. That's a pretty big scary brain change. And then there is also, lower crystallized intelligence, which is associated with the thinning in the cortex, which is basically, like, general knowledge acquired before learning, and they measure that through, like, vocabulary and reading comprehension.
Jen:And they just had lower ability to comprehend an intelligence in that area. So that's a big deal. Right? So if that's happening to kids, yes, their brain's still developing, but we could imagine lower level changes and impacts for us as adults. And, you know, I don't wanna be again alarmist, but I think we should be alarmed as parents and take this stuff seriously because it's impacting future generations and impacting our kids in so many different ways.
Jen:And as parents, we are role models. And even just adults, right, even if you just have an niece or nephew, we work with kids. Like, we're role models as adults, and they're they're seeing it from us. Right? And then and, again, I'm guilty too of using my phone in front of my kid.
Jen:Like so we wanna be role modeling healthy phone use and behavior. So maybe let's talk about that. Let's talk about some solutions. So as a parent, again, I wanna be thinking about how much time I'm on my phone or screens in front of my kid when I'm modeling. So especially, like, no phones at the table, no phones while someone's talking to you, trying to give them your full and divided attention, being present and mindful.
Jen:And if I do need to be on something, I'll try to explain that to my son. Like, you know, I'm texting back so and so to coordinate this tomorrow. So let me just finish this and then let's do x y z. I try to be, like, telling him a little bit more now that he's older, like, what I'm doing and why, and try to minimize unnecessary use in front of your kid. I think that's really helpful.
Jen:And then, you you know, again, with kids, there's so many resources. I'll just put out so some of the things I read today studies wise were was referenced on this website called screenstrong.org. That's screen, s c r e e n s t r o n g, screenstrong.org. It's a really amazing, organization that helps support families and parents in being strong against, screen time with their kids. They give you ideas.
Jen:They give you research articles. They give you ways to, you know, deal with culture's pressure for screens and how you can help your kids have a more screen feed childhood and ultimately protect their development. So that's a great resource as a parent. So I'll just leave that for parents there. And then maybe you wanna share some of the adult tools that we have, for us who struggle with screen usage.
Kaitlin:Yeah. Like I mentioned earlier, changing the algorithm in your social media feed, you know, by unfollowing and getting rid of all the things that are not helpful or, make you feel some type of way about yourself or impact your your body image or self esteem or the way you think about yourself, and just following, you know, positive and encouraging and educational, you know, things that are going to benefit you rather than have a negative impact on you. So that would be a good place to start. And then, also, setting, like, do not disturb, you can set up a schedule, a do not disturb schedule. So your all the notifications in your phone goes off at 8 PM, and then they don't come through again until 8 AM or something like that.
Kaitlin:You know? Pick a schedule that works for you. So, and it will notify you, like, it's bedtime or whatever. It's time to put your phone away. And, you know, having some self discipline and not pushing the ignore button and actually listening to the message your phone is sending you and putting it away, when it's time.
Kaitlin:And then there's also ways on the iPhone to set time limits on certain apps. So you can go into was it going to settings?
Jen:Settings and screen time. There's the tab for screen time, and then there's a way there to change your, like, activity there, and you can set limits on how long you're on an app. So you could say, I don't wanna spend more than 20 minutes a day on Instagram. And so once you're on Instagram, open the app, the timer starts, and then it'll give you notification at the 20 minute mark. And then, to Caitlin's point, you have to listen to that and click out or else it does not really work, but it's a good way to build awareness.
Jen:And then, that also looks like it generates reports, like a weekly report. So you can I would recommend people at least do that if you're not sure and track so that your phone can tell you, hey, look, you're spending this many hours on YouTube or Instagram or Facebook or what have you, and give you just awareness, which is a good place to start, on how much you're using because it might be more more than what you think it is, and then you can make some changes there and cut back and set some of these limits in place?
Kaitlin:Yeah. And I think it's important too to like, we can't just take something away from ourselves without replacing it with something different. So I think it's important to you to think about what you can replace that time with that you are spending on your phone. So maybe it's now you have time to go work out because you're not spending however many hours on your phone, going for a walk, reading a real book. Meditating.
Kaitlin:Yes. Baking. I don't know. Going out with your friends, being with your family more. You know, something.
Kaitlin:Pick something too positive to fill that time with.
Jen:Agreed. Yeah. And then for sleep, like we mentioned, making sure you're not using your phone as an alarm. Or, again, if you have to use it for whatever reason, then making sure it's across the room, making sure it's on airplane mode. That's just good for a safety and health standpoint anyway because of just EMF radiation from your phone.
Jen:But trying to go, you know, more analog with that, get a regular alarm clock, ideally keep your phone out of your room. I think, yes. There was a study I came across that talked about how people sleep better if their phone's not in their room. Just the physical presence of the phone is enough to disrupt your sleep. It's like your brain knows this thing is there and could alert me to something or what have you.
Jen:Even I think if the phone was off, they found they still it still disrupted sleep. So keeping your phone out of your room and plugged in somewhere else would be ideal there. And I also, again, am a proponent of no TVs in the bedroom, so that's a good thing to do is take it out of the bedroom. And like you said, making sure you have minimum an hour, but I find that most people need about 90 minutes, sometimes 2 hours of screen free time to effectively wind down for the night and get good sleep without getting disrupted. I'm a 90 minute person, so I really stick to that, and that definitely helped my sleep is making sure that screen all screens are off by that time.
Jen:So just 90 minutes from when you wanna be asleep, just go backwards. That is your cutoff time for anything screen related. Is there anything else?
Kaitlin:Well, something we didn't really talk about is how it impacts your productivity during the day, too. So I think it's a good practice to put your phone in a drawer or, turn on airplane mode or whatever for, like, a couple hours at a time, so that you can have times of being uninterrupted or not distracted, because I would love to see the statistics on how this has impacted people's productivity. I mean, it's a huge disruptor. Like, I mean, you can hours or what minutes going by, and instead of doing the work.
Jen:I can only imagine for kids in school who have access to their phones. Like, how are they even learning with I mean, I I can imagine me learning with a phone like that in my backpack or pocket when I was a kid and just having that, you know, stimulation all day long and
Kaitlin:Yeah.
Jen:Getting those hits of dopamine.
Kaitlin:Honestly, I'm so glad I grew up without that.
Jen:Me too. And so, again, as adults, we it's our responsibility, I think, to help our generate younger generation because we're the generation that created those things.
Kaitlin:Mhmm.
Jen:Just saying, like, it's us. You know? Mark Zuckerberg's not it's like he's in our age range. Like, these are the people that created it. We created this problem for them.
Jen:So I think we have the responsibility to model appropriate use and to set limits with it and to keep creating tools like this that will help bring awareness. And then ultimately, sometimes you have to be the not fun adult or parent and say no. Like, we're not gonna use this, or you're not gonna get this phone until x, y, z time frame. Right? I think, sometimes we just have to be really strong in that way and be willing to be against the grain and do it differently.
Kaitlin:I always wonder if they knew the impact that it would have on people today in their brains. If they knew that information, would they have created something like this?
Jen:Well, we could talk about, like, lots of different things in that regard. Right? Like philosophically thinking about, like, agriculture and food and the things that are in the supermarket. Yep. Right?
Jen:I would argue, I think there's I know wonderful people that work at those companies, and I think a lot of it is not malicious. But end of the day, money, it's where it's about the money and it's greed. And so, ultimately, that's what trumps everything and wins is what's gonna make the most money. And then often, when there's enough backlash and people protesting and voting with their dollar, then they backtrack like, oh, okay. Maybe this won't make us money.
Jen:Maybe we need to have these safeguards. Maybe we can't put all these artificial dyes and things and have people still spend the money on this box of cereal. So I encourage people to vote with their dollar and with where they spend their time and their energy. So all of us, you know, nonpart of the problem, spending all this time on these social media apps gives them more money and grows the problem. Mhmm.
Jen:So the more that we keep it in check and but with our dollar and but with our time, it will help shape things in the direction we wanna go. But, yeah, I think it's it's a mixture of probably just not knowing initially or not wanting to know and greed. A lot a lot of greed involved. Yeah. That's a whole another rabbit hole that could go down.
Jen:Yeah.
Kaitlin:But I think in the end, it comes down to, you know, spend your time in a way that you're proud of, and spend your time in a way that leads you closer to where you want to go and to where you want to get. And I'm not so sure that spending a bunch of time on, social media does that for for most people. So I think that's always a a good, question to ask yourself of, is this getting me closer to where I want to be? Is this something that I feel good about and and proud of with how I'm spending my time?
Jen:I love that. Yeah. Just it's mindful awareness when you're using to your point whether it's is it moving you closer to your values, and how do you feel when you're on it? That's your biggest gauge. So if you're feeling more guilty, ashamed, anxious, that's your mind and body telling you that you need to change course.
Jen:Yep. Listen to that. Absolutely.
Kaitlin:Yeah. Well, great topic today. Glad we covered that. So everyone set your do not disturb and set your time limits on your social media and spend your time in a way that you're proud of and that you feel good about, and go live real
Jen:life. In a way that you value. Yes.
Kaitlin:We'll see you next week.
Jen:Thanks for joining us on the Counter Culture Health podcast. To support this show, please rate, review, and share with your friends and family. If you wanna be reminded of new episodes, click the subscribe button on your preferred podcast player. You can find me, Jen at awaken.holistic.healthandatawakeningholistichealth.com.
Kaitlin:And me, kaitlin@caitlinreed wellness and kaitlinreed wellness dot com. The content of the show is for educational and informational purposes only. As always, talk to your doctor and health team. See you next time.