Phone Detox

Cale Matthews, BTN Reporter: Hello guinea pigs! 

Thomas: Hello! 

Welcome, how are we? 

Thomas: We’re good, we’re good. 

Um, what we might do first of all, is I want to check everyone's screen time so we have like a baseline of where we’re going from. So we got our phones?  

Thomas: Done.  

I feel like I should go first. Mine's around five and a half hours every day. They're all laughing at me so I'm worried for what theirs is, but let's go around the circle, let's see if we can cut that down. Rough estimate? 

Olive: Two to three, I reckon. Just on the weekends.  

Emma: Mine is an hour and 56 minutes a day. 

Thomas: Mine is an hour and 22 minutes a day. 

So clearly mine’s the worst, alright, so we're gonna have to fix that.  

Thomas: Yeah! 

Not only is it the worst, it's more than three and a half hours above the Department of Health’s daily recommendations of screen time, and that's just my phone. It's a problem I share with more than 80 percent of Aussies under 18. And for a pretty long time we've known all of the impacts excessive screen time can have on our wellbeing. 

Alright, let’s lay down some ground rules for how it’s going to work. So, we'll start tomorrow morning. You're only allowed half an hour on your phone every day until we come back here next Thursday. Are we good?  

Thomas: We’re Good.  

Good. Should we do like a four-way handshake?  

Thomas: We should. 

Ready?  

Right, in case you missed it, here is what we're doing. Tom, Emma, Olive and I are all going to reduce our screen time to 30 minutes a day for the next week. Every day or so, we're going to record a video log and track how we're feeling.  

Not a great day of staying off my phone if I'm honest. Um, when you are on your phones, what are you doing on there? 

Emma: I like to text people and like be on Snapchat and I like Instagram as well. I'm on that quite a bit. 

Olive: Mainly games and sometimes talking to friends, but really just playing games. 

Thomas: Usually I’m using Snapchat or Instagram, practicing Japanese on Duolingo. 

Can you say something in Japanese for me? 

Thomas: I'll talk about a train going to Tokyo Station [Thomas speaking Japanese] that means should that train, should... 

Not all screentime is necessarily bad. For instance, using it to learn a new language could be pretty beneficial. While spending two hours scrolling on Instagram on a Sunday night isn't great, but even though I know it's bad for me, I still do it, and I reckon you do too. According to Headspace Australia, around one in three teens say they're addicted to social media, even though they know it's bad for them, and around one in two want to get off social media entirely but have a bit of FOMO about doing so. 

Emma: Yeah, I totally agree like I’ll want to get off my phone for the night and then like some group chats or some snaps will go off and then I have to reply to them because I don't want anyone to feel like I'm ignoring them or anything. 

Thomas: Yeah, kind of same with me. Like um, if I'm on, if I don't want to use it, but then I like I get snaps from people I'm going to reply to it because I know what they're talking about. 

Olive: I agree. I think a lot of kids like um, find comfort in their phone and they try to talk to people online when they can just talk to people around them.  

Day one, end of day one. My screen time when I got home from work was one minute. Recently, studies have come out that say limiting our social media and screen time use to 30 minutes a day, even just for a week can lead to significant improvements in wellbeing, feelings of loneliness, anxiety, and fear of missing out. So let's see how we go. 

Olive: I have not been using my phone. I've been tempted very, many times but managed to put my phone away. 

Thomas: So it’s been interesting um not having my phone today. I haven't actually worried about bringing it to school at all. I just left it on charge all day. So I haven't really thought about using it that much. 

Olive: I, I played a game with my family. It was fun. I feel a bit more connected to them as well which is fun. 

Thomas: While I'm filming me video diary, maybe I'll play a little bit of piano um, while I'm doing it. Three, four.... [Thomas plays piano] 

I'm a little bit worried for the weekend and we'll see how I sleep tonight and see if that's made any difference but so far so good. 

[Thomas singing] 

Thomas: That's all I've learned so far, so it's a bit long. 

Olive: I found today more difficult than yesterday, because I was a lot more bored. 

Emma: I have finished all my time on my phone, which is really annoying because I was kind of just like responding to everyone, and then it ended up running out of time, which kind of makes me feel like for the rest of the day, I'm not going to know what's happening.  

I’ve found that I don't, I care less about where my phone is throughout the day, which is cool. I may have slipped up a little bit on Saturday. 

Thomas: It was good to see that I can like spend days without having my phone. 

Emma: I also was in a public setting yesterday. I didn't bring my phone because I only had 30 minutes and I thought why waste it on one setting. I actually instead of just sitting on my phone, I was encouraged to go and talk to people more, and actually made some new friends and networked a lot more. 

Olive: I also wasn't looking to use my phone, which may be because of this experiment. It was a good day and I feel like I'm getting better sleep. 

We’ll see if the sleep gets better. Sleep hasn't gotten heaps better yet. 

I did find myself today like just subconsciously reaching for my phone like, if I was feeling fatigued from work or something like that I would just subconsciously reach for my phone. Is there science in that? I think I can research that. 

Okay, turns out I'm right. A lot of us unconsciously reach for our phones. In fact, research shows that only about 10 percent of interactions with our phone are prompted by notification. The rest of the time we're picking it up just ‘cause. We're also more likely to check our phones between different tasks. And on very busy days, we're more likely to check them to give our brains a break, so this must have been what I was feeling today.

Emma: So it is Wednesday afternoon and I finished my screen time instead of being on my phone, I found other things to do, such as do like some schoolwork, um you know practice like other things like sport and extra activities and all those things. So it's been really nice, you know, go for a walk. 

Olive: I can kind of tell now that um, why people get so attached to needing to know every single piece of information. 

Here’s one thing, I went to meet a friend after work just at the local pub, and I found I was there first so I was waiting for them, and I felt lost without my phone and just something to pull out and sit on and look at. How do you feel comfortable in public without your phone? I don't know. 

Thomas: I'm filming my final video diary today, not using my phone as much as actually made me think about like what I can do instead of using it. I was thinking maybe then this has made me think to not use my phone as much like in the mornings, so therefore I'm ready on time, rather than using my phone in the morning, probably using it less than like family time like watching TV, try to use my phone less then. 

Olive: I'm kind of excited to not be worried about looking at my phone, but even then I think I'm going to learn something from this and stop using it as much on the weekend ‘cause it just makes me itch for it more. 

Today was like not a great day of pinging off my phone. If I'm honest, I think a lot of my relationships and a lot of my like friendships, relationships, that sort of thing are built around social media and the interactions I have on social media, and so I think it's really hard to quickly draw back or pull out of going on socials. 

Cutting back on social media and screen time really drastically can be hard, so here are some quick tips to try and reduce it that worked for me. Move the apps off your home screen or you know, just delete them. You could spend an hour a week on a screen-free hobby like playing guitar. Leave your phone outside your bedroom when you sleep, or just keep it in your pocket when you see your friends. 

Olive: Anyway, this has been fun and I hope I learn from this. 

Hello everyone, welcome back. You can say hello back! 

Thomas: Hello, hello, hello. 

So, how do you think you went? 

Olive: Oh yeah I went pretty good. On the weekend I did want to have my phone all the time, I was really struggling with that. But, for the rest of the week I was pretty much okay yeah, I didn't need to use it so it was good.  

Emma: Think what I struggled with most was like after the 30 minutes, like you can't check your notifications and wondering who's snapped you or who texted you and wondering like if it's important or if everyone's having a conversation you're missing out on or if something's come up that you're missing out on and like, wanting to know what it is. It's more the want of what's happening, rather than like actually missing out. 

Thomas: If I had to say I struggled with something it'd probably be like just not being able to talk to my friends um, and like having to like put it away after like half an hour. But apart from that, I didn't really struggle to be honest so yep.   

Did you have a more productive week? 

Thomas: I did. I got my homework done. I don't usually do my math homework. 

Emma: Didn't leave everything ‘til the last minute and actually was like, ‘Well, what can I do now? I'll do some assignments. I'll do some work’ and then I got it all in early and then I had more free time.  

Do you think it’s changed you at all? Do you think you'll go back to normal screen time? 

Olive: I think I will reduce my screen time a bit, but I'm gonna use it on the weekend. 

Emma: If I see someone snap me, I might be like, ‘Oh, I'll reply to it later. I don't have to reply to it now. I'm doing something else.’ 

Thomas: I think I'd use it less like in the mornings and stuff because then I can be to school on time. Um, but I mean I'm gonna use it a bunch tonight, um ‘cause like I'm gonna make the most of it! 

Yeah!