How Screen-Time Affects the Brain
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It is so easy when I'm on the phone to not realize how much time has ticked away while I've been talking or scrolling. There's something that happens. Brain and time and phones, it becomes kind of a mishmash. I'm John Fuller along with Dr. Danny Huerta who leads our parenting team.

It's really clear to me that I have got to set a good standard for using screens in the home. We've had a child one time on the phone and I said, hey, it's nine, put it on the kitchen counter. It's like, why? I said, because we don't use phones after nine.

And there was a little bait thing that went on like, oh, I wish you would text my sibling about this because my phone's over there and I'm not supposed to use it, but you can use yours, dad. And I said, no, I can't use mine. It's after nine. I'm not going to do it. He was pushing me. He wanted to see if I was going to do what I was making him do. It's critical for us. It's critical for us to pay attention, isn't it? Oh, it is. It is. And

The most common complaint from kids about parents' phone use time is while they're driving. That's number one. So the kids are saying, my parents are on the phone while they're driving? While they're driving, yeah. Just an appointment or something comes up. I can steer with my knees fine. What's the problem? That's right. They're trying to manage all those different things that are coming at them. And now we can be reached on the phone. And so that's a complaint that comes often. Another one is dinner.

And the parents get interrupted. And this is grandparents and parents. I'm hearing this. The kids are saying, well, they're on their phone. Why can't I have my phone? And over time, some of the kids start pulling out their phones. And my dad was on the phone. My mom was on the phone. Oh, dad's on the phone. I think I'll just pull mine out. Yeah, pull mine out. Everybody's distracted. The other one's bedtime. Bedtime.

Parents sometimes will try to catch up with certain things or have some downtime with their phone. And so the kids will say, why can't I do that? That's my downtime. I'd like to have my phone as an alarm. I won't use it at night. But I need it a little just to calm down and scroll a little bit. And they say, well, my parents do it. So why can't I do it? Does scrolling actually help me calm down, Danny? Physiologically? Absolutely not. No, the brain wakes up.

There is no calming down. What you're doing is actually delaying your sleep cycle and you're reawakening your brain. And so many people actually that have that habit wake up more tired in the morning because

Because what they're doing is they are tricking their brain to think that it's still daytime. There's all this data going in. And so the brain wakes up. So my wife is right, basically. And I've believed her. That's why the nine o'clock rule. So yeah, read a book. It's just easy to say.

Well, let's go ahead and hear from Arlene Pelican. She has three wonderful kids, and she talked with Focus president Jim Daley on his show about how screen addiction is a real thing and can really affect us. You know, when you look at it, I think the basic question is why?

what is the draw? Why do we so naturally gravitate, both kids and adults, if we're honest. We all are into it. We're all using screens. It's efficient, effective. I mean, those are all the adult rationalizations. We're productive. We can work from anywhere. But what is it that drops our guard? We don't really pay attention to what it's doing to us. Is it just that much entertainment value for us? Yeah. Something happened in 2013.

So that before there was a phone and it was like a Swiss army knife and you could do maps and you could do music. But what happened in 2013 is they saw all this, all the research shows that depression goes up and anxiety goes up and mental health goes down. Why? Well, we started getting these social media things where we shared and we liked, you know, the like button came and we shared things and we had the front facing camera where we took pictures of ourselves. So we became all of a sudden empathetic.

instead of just using it to connect to a few people that we knew in real life, it became like, let's broadcast ourselves. So communication one to many people instead of one to one or one to a few that you know. And that shift makes it so that we can

Yeah.

Like big tech has really studied you. They know like, oh, you want to look at golf and you want to look at shoes. How'd you know? And you really care about the news and this is your hot button. And so to understand that, wait a minute, this device has been engineered. And we know this. We've heard this. To keep us on because it's bottomless. It doesn't end.

It's super entertaining. Totally. And it's like, oh, what was that? And then you have to know. You have to complete the loop. What was that notification about? I must know. And we're there. And then we look around us and everyone else is doing it. So it further reinforces that, oh, this must be okay. This must be the norm. Yeah. You know, my family and I, we just returned from a trip to Italy. And of course, we hit all the museums, the Sistine Chapel and all. The thing that caught my attention the most was how many young girls...

We're just posing for a selfie with the sticks. So we're just into it. So it's like, okay, the primary reason of buying a ticket and going all the way to Italy was so that I could do this really cool thing on my social media feed. Right. Right. Instead of, wow, I got to see this for myself. So, so good. Um, it also, you in the book talk about how social media and screens rewire our brain. This is the dopamine issue and all that, but what,

How does it rewire our brain? And this is where I think as parents we tend to not really understand the battlefield of

And your kid's overindulging in what actually is happening to them physiologically as well as emotionally and mentally. Let's go back to that Sistine Chapel, that beauty, right? So from birth to five, your child's brain is just exploding. They're painting the canvas of the Sistine Chapel. They're having all these neural pathways. They're learning how to walk, how to talk, how to relate to people. It's hugely important. So zero to five.

is amazingly important for the brain to develop. And that's the brain your child will have for life. So you're listening and you have a two-year-old, you have a four-year-old. I mean, right now, statistically, half,

of two to four year olds have their own smartphone or their tablet and two thirds of five to eight year olds have their own. And you can see it's because the mom or dad is tired of, "Give me that, give me that, give me that," right? And they're like, "Well, let's just get you your own," right? So from birth to five is really important. - I was just gonna say as a parent, I mean, it's very easy to let the kids have that because then they're engaged and you don't have to follow them around the house, make sure they don't stick a screwdriver in the electrical socket and all that stuff. They're just engaged.

But there's a price to pay. You've got to pay the man. So then all of a sudden, that brain doesn't know how to do things, whether it's reading, relating to people, motor skills, right? Jumping, playing, running. These are all things that come very naturally to kids.

So, birth to five thinks Sistine Chapel, I really need my kid to be very limited on screens so their brain can develop. And then they get another Sistine Chapel burst at puberty. So, my goodness. So, the Lord wired it so that during puberty you get more brain cells and that whatever's being used is kept and whatever is not being used is pruned away. So,

So if your child is reading, relating to people, fishing, playing soccer, adventuring, pretending, being an astronaut, doing all these things, that's the brain they're going to get to keep. But if they are watching TV, sitting watching Netflix, playing video games, doing their social media feed, those are the brain cells that live and the other ones die.

All right, Danny, somebody might have heard Arlene there and thinks, I want to do a screen fast. How do I get my family to buy into that? You know, mom or dad walks in and says, all right, we're going to take a fast from all the phones. That'll go over like a lead balloon. Yeah.

Yes, and it will happen actually. Kids will push back on this one because you're taking away something that they feel is either socially important for them, I mean crucial potentially, you're taking away the opportunity to escape the stress of boredom.

You're taking away something that is very fun and entertaining to them. I mean, the list could go on of what you're taking away. And they all alone are good things. Social connection, entertainment, fun, those are good things. It's letting the kids know on this detox, letting them know, I love you and I would die for you. And so I'm willing to go through this conflict to get to a healthy place. We just need to get to healthy places.

And right now we're unhealthy and I need to balance it out. That's what a parent does. And I know this is going to make you unhappy. I can see it. This really wasn't intended to make you happy. It was really intended to bring our family into the right place so that we can find contentment, so that we can find satisfaction, so we can be balanced to do what God has created us to do. And so we're going to rebalance this out and let's see how long it takes.

Let's do it as a family. Yeah. And let's celebrate along the way. Set some moments, some mile markers of celebration as a family where you enjoy maybe some, like a game together or you go to a restaurant that you normally wouldn't go to to celebrate the fact that you're breaking free from screens. And I'll tell you this, parents, when you do the detox,

Two weeks out is generally kind of the magic number where you'll see a shift physiologically in your kids and you'll have less pushback. And that's research backed. You'll see tantrums. You might see physical evidence of just anger and maybe angry words coming at you. Be patient with it. Those will go down. Most kids at the end of the two weeks say, man, thank you for doing this. I see the difference. I feel it.

But make sure you're finding those other things we talked about in the previous episode, fun things that you can do to replace that time. Have your kids contribute to the list so that they look forward to those things that you can do as a family or they get to do individually now that you've created this margin of time. Yeah, so declarations probably aren't as good as invitations, if I can put it kind of in a summary form. Yeah, that's good.

Well, good stuff. And go ahead and learn more about the fast and other ways to approach these screen things that are around and always will be now for the rest of our lives. Get a copy of the great book from Arlene Pelican. It's called Screen Kids, Five Relational Skills Every Child Needs in a Tech-Driven World. She co-authored the book with Dr. Gary Chapman. It is excellent.

And when you make a donation today of any amount to Focus on the Family, we'll send that book to you. And John, we have some great resources through our PluggedIn team. One of them being how to do this screen fast. Very practical. It's a great download. We'll put that in the show notes for you. But again, the PluggedIn team, check out that tool in itself on entertainment. But it also...

Ironically so, John, is that there's an emphasis from the team on having screen fast so you can reset. Pressing the reset button on this technology and entertainment. Excellent. Yeah. So basically the show notes. That's where you go next to follow up on this great content. And for now, on behalf of Dr. Danny Huerta and the entire team, thanks for joining us for the Focus on the Family Parenting Podcast.

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