More Mini-Moments: HABITS

Your first speaker under the Habits Pillar is Katherine Price.

Her session is How to Break Up with Your Phone So Your Kids Can Too.

People who design these social media apps actually studied some of those techniques, and they looked at what are known as dopamine triggers, these things that slot machine makers in particular are experts at building into their machines that get our brains to release this chemical called dopamine, which helps us establish this habit and this compulsion to stay active in that case at the slot machine, playing.

If you put dopamine triggers into an app, then you'll have the same response in our brains.

You'll end up in a situation where you find yourself continuing to use the app, continuing to refresh the screen to see if there's something new, very much like how you wait to see if the the icons line up in a slot machine for way longer than you intend in contexts you don't mean to use your phone in.

You know, that might be just interrupting your relationship, say, with your kid.

You're like, why am I actually on Instagram when I'm spending time with my kid? Or it can be downright dangerous, like, when you're in the car.

So all that is to say that the issue is that Even though our phones are amazing tools that have these fantastic apps that really do make life easier or better, that same device is also packed with all these apps that have been designed without our best interests in mind.

These problematic apps have been designed to help the companies that make those apps make money, and they make money by getting us to spend the maximum amount of time and attention on the apps.

The reason I got into music is because I broke up with my phone.

I had more free time, and I asked myself this question everyone should ask themselves, which is, what's something you say you want to do but supposedly don't have time for? Because we're spending a lot of time on our phones.

And mine was to learn to play the guitar.

And fast forward, jeez, I think it's been nine years now, and I have... met an entire community of people I've learned you know I can hold my own at a campfire sing along like I'm now in a band I've just it has opened up my adult world in ways I never would have thought possible that has made me so much happier and just so much more I was gonna say so much more better So much more better in all aspects of my life.

You know, whether it's having the energy to be able to be a good spouse or a good parent.

You know, I just think we need to fill our own cups up before we can really take care of other people.

And so I just want to put that out there because I think moms especially can feel like our own fun is frivolous and that everyone else's needs come first.

And just I can...

I can go in that direction too.

And I think we all just need to remember, no, no, no, no.

We deserve to enjoy our own lives.

And honestly, the more we're taking care of ourselves, the more we will have to give.