Deep Dive
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It's Live in the Bream with the host of Fox News Sunday, Shannon Bream. This week on Live in the Bream, we are starting into Lent. And if you observe it, I didn't growing up, but I really felt it'd be very helpful to me as an adult.
This is a conversation you need to have, but it doesn't have to just be around Lent. It can be if you feel like technology at any point, and if you're honest with yourself, has taken over your life, you are going to want to hear from our next guest and his book. Darren Whitehead, by the way, doctor and pastor Darren Whitehead, he pastors Church of the City in the Nashville region. And when Shell and I are there, that's where we go. It is a fantastic church.
He does so much else. He and his wife Brandy with foster children and reaching into the community and making a real difference in so many different ways. They're an amazing family. And he's got this fantastic new book, The Digital Fast, 40 Days to Detox Your Mind and Reclaim What Matters Most. Pastor, good to have you with us on Live in the Bream. Thank you so much, Shannon. It's always wonderful when you and Sheldon come visit us in Nashville. We love it.
We love it. The problem is we never want to leave. So just keep on showing up. Okay. So let's talk about this because this is something that the church has done before. And I know you're hoping other churches will also pick up this book and have these conversations, but let's start with why we need to detox. Are we being honest with ourselves as adults and looking at our kids about what technology is really doing to us? Because the,
The sell is that it's going to make our lives more efficient. We're going to have more downtime. It doesn't feel that way. Yeah, it's like these devices have seeped their way into our lives. You remember when you first had a smartphone, even the first iPhone, which came out in 2007, it didn't have an app store. It didn't have social media. So many of the things that we find ourselves scrolling on for hours,
uh the original iphone didn't have any of that and so with each different update and with each different evolution and version of the phone i think these things have become more and more addictive and if you ask someone how's your relationship with your digital device almost everyone's going to say you know i think i look at my phone more than i should
And that generally is coming at the expense of our families, our spouse if we're married, or even the impact on relationships. And so that's what we've been getting into. Yeah, and the book, again, is The Digital Fast. You can get it anywhere you enjoy shopping for books.
Early on in the book, you say this social scientists and anthropologists have observed that our fixation with digital devices has numbed us, sedated us and exhausted us, leaving us feeling lonelier and more disconnected. It has lulled us to sleep and left us not fully awake to life.
I mean, I do look nostalgically back at the 80s and 90s about, hey, if somebody had to find you, they had to really track you down. And if it was an emergency, they would. We got answering machines and you were so excited if you came home and maybe you had a blinking light, you had a message or two. And you start in the book. There's an intro to the book talking about when pagers showed up. OK, that's a great thing for a doctor or for somebody who really has an urgent situation.
So there are good things to technology, but what has happened to us is something entirely different. You mentioned addiction, and it seems like that's not by mistake. It feels like it's by design. Yeah, well, particularly the social media platforms, these social media companies, big tech, have consulted with those who created slot machines in casinos.
And they're basically using the same psychological addictive both algorithms and technology that get people just to continue to pull the arm on a slot machine. And it's actually called variable ratio schedule. And it's not that things are predictable, it's that things are unpredictable. And so the same refresh action that you do in social media
is the same idea of pulling an arm on a slot machine. You're waiting for the next thing and you're always asking yourself the question, is the next one going to be the one that is fulfilling me or in this case is often giving you a hit of dopamine. The technology is so sophisticated that it is designed to
particularly for the things that you are most likely to be addicted to, the things that you are interested in. And then it curates your own feed of things that are most likely to get you stuck just continuing to refresh over and over again. And so, yeah, these things are very, it's very addictive. And there's a lot of research that is proving it now. Yeah. And you write, life gives us plenty of things that can cause us to feel worried, anxious, and stressed to the limit.
So for a lot of us, I think that numbing or sedating is really the thing. I mean, you and I, you're younger than I am, but you and I can remember a time before all this technology. We've got young people now growing up who from the womb are better at this stuff and know how to work it in different ways than we do. But their whole existence has been at where maybe you have an uncomfortable experience or emotion. There's always somewhere to go to be distracted. It's in your pocket rather than talking it out with someone or going for a run.
It's just so easy to reflexively go to this drug, essentially. That's right. Yeah. Anytime we have an unpleasant feeling, so you feel ashamed or you feel anxious or you're worried about something that is coming up, it is very easy just to mindlessly grab your device, and most of us always have them on us,
and without even consciously making a decision, just opening up your phone and looking at things that are going to distract you from how you're feeling. And generally what happens is we have a less awareness of how we're actually doing because we're covering this over with content that is just, it's almost like visual candy or fast food. It satisfies for a moment, it appeases for a moment, it chases that negative feeling away
But then afterwards, you sort of feel a sense of shame. It's almost instead of relief, it brings regret. And a lot of us are doing that these days. We'll have more Live in the Bream in a moment.
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We want to talk about how to get past that because I think if we can acknowledge it, which is for being honest and I am guilty, I don't like the pull that this technology has on me and I'm aware now of the truth of how much it runs my life.
And when I have those days when I say today, I'm not going to check it. If somebody's got to find me, they got to call me. You know, there's that antsiness about it. And so how do we break free? Let's talk through this 40 day detox. Again, the book is The Digital Fast by Darren Whitehead. There are four different phases you walk us through. Detach, discover, delight and determine. So
Let's start with Detach. How do we begin this breakup? Not permanent maybe, but with at least some of our technology.
Yeah, well, and so many of us are like, so what do we do about this? And a digital fast, a way of stepping back is something that we can actually do. And so in the book, as you said, Shannon, the first movement is to detach. And what I'm encouraging people to do is five things. Turn off all notifications on your phone, except for phone calls and maybe text if you need that. But turn off every other notification.
The second thing is to let your phone sleep in another room. Don't use it and don't have it by your bed. And what everyone says, well, I use it as an alarm clock. And I know this is a terribly difficult problem to solve, but maybe buy an alarm clock. So second thing, let your phone sleep in another room. The third thing is make your smartphone dumb. Now, what that is, is thinking about the apps on your phone through the lens of distraction versus utility.
All the distraction apps, get them off of your phone. Things like social media and email and news apps and games and web browsers and YouTube and Amazon. The things that you tend to when you pull up at the lights, you open your phone and you start scrolling, you want all of those off of your phone. And turn your phone into a utility device. So that is things like phone, text, calendar, building access, getting a building, a camera, the weather app.
GPS, right. So the things that are a utility, these are not things that you're going to find yourself doom scrolling on. You're not opening your calculator and spending hours looking at, you know, staring at your calculator. Let me just do some calculations. Exactly. For fun. Exactly.
So you want to make your smartphone dumb. And then the fourth thing is eliminate other screens. And so encouraging people to not be doing gaming for 40 days and Netflix and other television. And then the last one is to try to keep your technology consumption to be during work hours. And some people, of course, make their living from social media or some people make their living from being on TV. Obviously, you're going to be able to keep doing that.
But we want to encourage people not to be consuming it. So that is what it looks like to detach. That's the first 10 days. And then the next movement that we go to from there is to discover. And what generally happens is when you start detaching from your device, you do discover all kinds of feelings about yourself, about other people. You notice things about other people and you're a whole lot more present to even what God may be saying to you.
So you have a season of discovery and that's another 10 days. The next 10 days is to delight. And that is where you really start to realize that not having your head buried in a glowing rectangle all the time is it's better. It's a better life not having this thing, you know, as a black hole of your attention.
And so I remember when I did this the last time, my 13-year-old daughter wanted me to watch her jumping on the trampoline and I walked outside and I had bare feet and I could feel the grass under my feet and the sky was starting to, the sun was starting to set and there was colors and I could hear the birds. I could like, it was just a beautiful evening. And my daughter was giggling and squealing and saying, watch me, daddy. And I had this conscious thought, Shannon,
This is a better life. This is better than staring at a glowing screen.
And then the final movement is the movement that is called determine. And that is, as I come out of this, what am I going to be doing differently? And what I talk about in the book is that you need to think about it like Marie Kondo. Marie Kondo, when she is helping people clean out their closets, she asked the question on every item of clothing, you have to ask yourself the question, does this spark joy? And if the answer is yes, then you put it in. If the answer is no, then you throw it away.
And so as you are coming out of the digital fast and you're considering what distraction apps am I going to put back on my phone? Does Instagram spark joy or not? And if the answer is no, then don't put it back on your phone. And one of the long-term things that I have adopted is I don't have social media on my phone anymore.
And I don't miss it. You know, I encourage people to not be ruled by FOMO, the fear of missing out. I'm encouraging people to have JOMO. And that is the joy of missing out.
I love that, by the way. I'm one of these people who if somebody calls at the last minute, say like, oh, we can't make it tonight. I'm like, yes. I'm one of these people who like less is more. Not that I don't like to be with people, but I feel like our lives are so jam-packed.
mentally, physically. I mean, we really, and there's so much mental crowding by all of these different things that you explain and dig into that are not just utilitarian. As you said, it really should be making our phones work for us. Help me with a map, help me with, you know, making a phone call, whatever. Not that we're working for the phone. I mean, that we are dragged into things that are going to eat up our time and
maybe make us more dissatisfied with the world. I was talking to a friend the other day who's really struggling with some things and she said, it's so hard for me to go on social media because everybody's life looks so great. And then it just keeps scrolling and scrolling to see is there anybody on here who has problems like I do? And I'm like, you know that we all have problems.
But social media is not where we post them like, "Oh, I just had a horrible fight with my kids or my husband," or "I just got fired and I'm posting." I mean, it's, you know, we put our best foot forward, most of us,
on social media. And so it tends to feed this dissatisfaction or this feeling of isolation or failure. So again, we have more connections going out into the universe to anybody who can communicate with us on this planet. And yet we've talked about this. There's this epidemic of loneliness. These things leave us feeling worse after than before we clicked into them.
Yeah, well, the psychologists are saying that there's a new OCD now and it is obsessive comparison disorder. And what happens is you're exactly right, Shannon. We have an impression that everyone else in the world is doing wonderful things and we're missing out on it. And you compare a highlight reel of their lives with the reality of your life and my life, our own lives. And we have problems and we have anxiety and we have...
Things that are unresolved and we can't see any of that on social media. And it's now proven that this is causing depression in people and the absolute worst demographic affected by this are teenage girls.
disproportionately teenage girls are feeling the effects of social media. And it's caused escalation in depression and things like cutting and suicide. And it's very, very serious. It is. And let's talk about kids here, because like I said, you and I have a remembrance of times before smartphones.
and kind of the lost feeling of freedom that we had, that you could actually disappear a little bit here and there when you needed to clear your head or have some downtime, and it seems almost impossible now. But for young people, this is community for many of them. This is where they communicate with their friends. This is where they connect with the world. And I don't have teenagers in my house. I know you do, three precious daughters, and I wonder...
How in the world for parents out there are going to say, oh, I think this is a good idea, but there's no way short of starting World War III, I'm going to get this stuff away from my kids. As a dad and as a pastor, what's your advice?
Well, I would say this. I would, first of all, not shame parents because this technology is coming in real time and there hasn't been research. So all of us who have teenagers, especially, are feeling our way through this. We're trying to be wise and we're trying to do the best we can. And there has not been data. There's not been research. Up until about 2020, there really has been no research.
incredible research on the impact of digital devices and social media. But there is now, there is real research that is showing that particularly if a teenage girl, it's true for boys too, but it's disproportionate for girls. If a teenage girl goes through puberty with social media, it is very, very dangerous. So that's what a lot of the research is showing. And I've been
I've been influenced a lot by some of the work of Dr. Jonathan Haidt.
And he talks about the fact that there are four norms that we should adopt as we are starting to be informed by the research now. The first one is that there should be no smartphones before high school. So that's age 14. If you want your kids to have a phone, then buy them a dumb phone, buy them a flip phone, buy them something that is not the most powerful piece of technology ever invented, right? A flip phone. The second thing...
A flip phone, right? Bring them back. Listen, I do know some people who've done that. And they're like, man, I actually like I had some serious jitters of detox, but now I won't go back. That's right. I know. I know people like that, too. So the first one is no smartphones before high school. The second is no social media before 16. And that's the research is showing the impact on brain development and anxiety and depression. I mean, it
And social media can be destructive after 16 as well, of course. But under 16, there's no reason these kids should be on this platform. The third norm that Dr. Jonathan Haidt is suggesting is phone-free schools. Like give kids a break for eight hours a day to be away from these devices. Research is showing that kids are on them up to nine hours a day. So give them a break.
And then the fourth one is that there needs to be more free play and independence outside. Kids need to, you need to be getting kids off of screens and getting them outside. This is a, this is what's known as a collective action problem. And what that means is that, is that we all kind of know that this is destructive and yet we're all stuck because these devices are so interwoven into our lives.
And the way to solve collective action problems is with collective action. And so a church is a perfect space to be able to engage and exercise like a digital fast because your kids, your kids' friends, the parents, you're all kind of doing it together.
And, you know, most people when I ask, have you ever done a digital fast or a digital detox? Almost everyone says this, Shannon. No, but I need to. And so I feel like when a church does it together, it's kind of like, if not now, when? Like, let's do it now. Let's do it together. And so I would say to parents, if you have kids that are under 16 and they already have social media, I don't want to shame you.
But maybe you would have a conversation with your child and you would talk about what if we take a break, and I'm encouraging the families in our church, teenagers, even with social media, take a break. Let's take 40 days together and then let's have a discussion on the other side of the 40 days about what does it look like moving forward. We're talking with Darren Whitehead. The book is The Digital Fast, 40 Days to Detox Your Mind and Reclaim What Matters Most.
I love too that the book actually has something every day for 40 days. So whether you do this collectively, which I agree with you, I think it's so much easier to do this in community. Or you say, you know what, for right now, I'm tackling this myself. Every day of those 40 days, there are thoughts and readings and prompts to get you through each day of this detox.
As you prepare to come out the other side and see what has cleared, what has been helpful, what you do want to add back, what you don't want to add back. So you can get the book everywhere. And I do agree doing it with a group is going to be easier. So Sheldon and I, we're going to have to con ourselves into getting serious about this. I told you what he gave up for Len. He has given up reels. But finding that balance, as you said, for people who
work requires you to be attached to some kind of media. That's kind of my first excuse, but at the same time, it doesn't require you to, you know, play trivia star or any of that other stuff. So we can be honest with ourselves about where we can cut back and what is absolutely critical and crucial to our lives, but such good, important conversations to spark with family, with friends within the church and without, um,
Darren, final word from you on where they can find this book, the resources and encouraging people because you're now in phase one of this. Detach.
That's right. I'm in detach. And it can be a little unpleasant, Shannon. You've got to prepare yourself. Just like anything that you are withdrawing from. Yesterday was the first day and it was funny. I kept grabbing my phone and looking at it and realizing there was nothing cool to look at on it. And I put my phone in grayscale as well. So my phone is gray.
And it reminds me, Shannon, that the world is in color and my phone is gray. The world is in color. The world is real and beautiful. My phone is not real. It is not what the real world is. So if you want to go to thedigitalfast.com, we have a bunch of resources there. You can read about the book. You can download a sample chapter or you can link to buy the book as well.
And yes, as you said, this is not just about putting something down. It's picking something up as well. And I hope that as people clear some of the distraction from their lives, they're able to turn up the voice of God. And particularly for this Lent period, that they would be more aware of God's presence, invite God into some of the anxieties or the fear or the shame or the joy that you are experiencing and be far more aware of his presence in your life.
Yeah. And like you said, when we get our eyes off of it, what has turned into a grayscale, one-dimensional phone makes it much easier to see the life that is all around us. And that sense of wonder and awe about Him, about His creation, about His power to intercede in our lives and our problems only becomes more heightened. So, Pastor Dr. Darren Whitehead, thank you very much for joining us on Live in the Bream.
Let the digital fast begin. Thank you so much, Shannon. And blessings on you and Sheldon as you do this together. Listen ad-free with the Fox News Podcast plus subscription on Apple Podcasts. And Amazon Prime members can listen to this show ad-free on the Amazon Music app.
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