Are you addicted to your smartphone? Do you find yourself constantly checking your phone, even when you know there's nothing new to see? If so, you're not alone. In this episode of It Starts With Attraction, Kimberly Beam Holmes talks to Darren Whitehead, a pastor and author of The Digital Fast, about how to break free from smartphone addiction and live a more fulfilling life.
Darren shares his own personal experience with smartphone addiction and how he led his church through a digital fast. He also discusses the negative effects of smartphone use on relationships, mental health, and even brain development in toddlers.
If you're ready to take back control of your life from your smartphone, this episode is for you. Darren Whitehead will share practical tips on how to do a digital fast and create a healthier relationship with technology.
In this episode, you'll learn: • How to identify if you have a smartphone addiction • The negative effects of smartphone use on your life • How to do a digital fast • How to create a healthier relationship with technology • What are the four areas of attraction and how do they relate to your overall well-being? • How can you apply the principles of digital fasting to your own life?
Don't miss this episode! It could change your life.
Today's Guest: Darren Whitehead
Originally from Australia, Darren has lived in the United States for over 25 years. In 2013, he founded Church of the City, now with several locations across Nashville. He earned his Masters in Ministry from Wesley Seminary and his Doctorate from Capital Seminary and Graduate School, with his dissertation focus on Mil- lennials and the future of the Western church. Darren’s previous books include, Rumors of God (co-authored with Jon Tyson) and Holy Roar (co-authored with Chris Tomlin).
Darren lives with his wife, Brandy, and their three daughters in Franklin, Tennessee.
Your Host: Kimberly Beam Holmes, Expert in Self-Improvement and Relationships
Kimberly Beam Holmes has applied her master's degree in psychology for over ten years, acting as the CEO of Marriage Helper & CEO and Creator of PIES University, being a wife and mother herself, and researching how attraction affects relationships. Her videos, podcasts, and following reach over 500,000 people a month who are making changes and becoming the best they can be.
Are you addicted to your smartphone? Do you find yourself constantly checking your phone, even when you know there's nothing new to see? If so, you're not alone. In this episode of It Starts With Attraction, Kimberly Beam Holmes talks to Darren Whitehead, a pastor and author of The Digital Fast, about how to break free from smartphone addiction and live a more fulfilling life.
Darren shares his own personal experience with smartphone addiction and how he led his church through a digital fast. He also discusses the negative effects of smartphone use on relationships, mental health, and even brain development in toddlers.
If you're ready to take back control of your life from your smartphone, this episode is for you. Darren Whitehead will share practical tips on how to do a digital fast and create a healthier relationship with technology.
In this episode, you'll learn: • How to identify if you have a smartphone addiction • The negative effects of smartphone use on your life • How to do a digital fast • How to create a healthier relationship with technology • What are the four areas of attraction and how do they relate to your overall well-being? • How can you apply the principles of digital fasting to your own life?
Don't miss this episode! It could change your life.
Today's Guest: Darren Whitehead
Originally from Australia, Darren has lived in the United States for over 25 years. In 2013, he founded Church of the City, now with several locations across Nashville. He earned his Masters in Ministry from Wesley Seminary and his Doctorate from Capital Seminary and Graduate School, with his dissertation focus on Mil- lennials and the future of the Western church. Darren’s previous books include, Rumors of God (co-authored with Jon Tyson) and Holy Roar (co-authored with Chris Tomlin).
Darren lives with his wife, Brandy, and their three daughters in Franklin, Tennessee.
Your Host: Kimberly Beam Holmes, Expert in Self-Improvement and Relationships
Kimberly Beam Holmes has applied her master's degree in psychology for over ten years, acting as the CEO of Marriage Helper & CEO and Creator of PIES University, being a wife and mother herself, and researching how attraction affects relationships. Her videos, podcasts, and following reach over 500,000 people a month who are making changes and becoming the best they can be.
People are starting to wonder whether these things are taking more from them than they're actually giving. There is just this sense of like yeah, these things are really problematic. I am not sure there has ever been a device invented that is more effective at stealing, killing and destroying. There wasn't research on the damage and the danger of these devices up until a few years ago. Adults don't know how to regulate their behavior on these devices. How the heck is a 14 year old going to be able to do it? You need to think very, very carefully. If your teenage daughter is in the years of going through puberty and has social media, I would do everything I could to remove that.
Speaker 2:
Have you ever felt like you needed to take a break from your phone? That maybe it wasn't giving as much life to you as you hoped that it would, that maybe this device that promises to make your life easier has made your life more confusing and more stressful? Today, I'm talking with Pastor Darren Whitehead. Pastor Darren is the pastor at a church in Nashville called Church of the City. He's originally from Australia, but has now lived in the US longer than he lived in Australia. He's been here about 25 years and he's recently written his newest book, called the Digital Fast.
Speaker 2:
In today's conversation, we go into what is a digital fast, why should we do it, and you're going to hear some pretty alarming stats about current smartphone usage for teenagers and for adults. Also, if you're a parent, you definitely don't want to miss this episode, because we talk about how to parent kids with smartphones and the detrimental effects that research is now showing that smartphones and social media can have on our kids. Let's dive into today's episode. Darren, thank you so much for joining me today. I'm excited to have you on and have this fascinating conversation.
Speaker 1:
Thank you so much for having me.
Speaker 2:
Would you say that one of the reasons that you decided to write this book, the Digital Fast, is because you realized that you had a I don't want to necessarily use the word addiction, but like a compulsion of use of technology?
Speaker 1:
daughters and several years ago I decided that I was going to take each of my daughters out for individual dates, date nights, and I felt like I had a pretty strong dad game. I'm very close with each of my girls and so I decided that on these date nights I was going to ask each girl the same two questions. The first question was what's dad doing well that he should do more of and what's dad doing badly that he should do less of? And I just wanted to see what kind of feedback that they would give me, like a report card of sorts, and I was feeling quietly confident, honestly. So I went in and each of my daughters said different things that they liked that I did well.
Speaker 1:
I handle the mornings, I get them ready for school. They like it when I cheer them up, they like it when I make them laugh All of these different things that they appreciated about me as their father. So they all said different things, but the negative thing, they all said the same thing. They said I wish you weren't on your phone so much. And those words were like a dagger in my heart when my little girls, in these precious years that I get to have them in the home before they launch, they're saying that I am squandering them, looking at a glowing rectangle, and it was honestly like a wake-up call for me.
Speaker 1:
I did not write the book for that reason, but I got intrigued in what does it look like to have a healthier relationship with my smartphone smartphone? And so I'm a pastor at a church and I decided to lead my church through a digital fast, a detox of sorts, and as a result of doing that and as a result of what happened in our church as we did this, a lot of other churches, a lot of people asked what we did and how we did it and how could we give them guidance on how to do it. And writing the book was my answer to helping other people do this after we did it, so that's why I wrote it.
Speaker 2:
In your book, which you have a free introduction and first chapter that people can get and we'll link to that online. They can go to thedigitalfastcom. But there's this smartphone compulsion test and there's several. Actually didn't count how many questions there were there's more than eight but four of the questions, just to give the listeners an idea, are such as this Do you feel ill at ease or uncomfortable when you accidentally leave your smartphone at home or in the car? When you eat meals, is your cell or smartphone always part of the table setting? Another question was when your cell phone or smartphone rings or buzzes or beeps, do you feel an urge to check? And then another question was do you find yourself mindlessly checking your cell phone many times a day, even when you know there's likely nothing new or important to see?
Speaker 2:
Now, these are just four of the several questions, but this smartphone compulsion test, which was created by a researcher the scoring of it is what really struck me where it was like well, one to two yeses to any of these questions. Your behavior is normal. Three to four, your behavior is leaning toward problematic or compulsive. Five or more, you have a compulsive smartphone use pattern. And then, eight or more, you might need to consider seeing a psychotherapist who specializes in behavioral addictions. And what struck me? These are just four and I could answer yes to every single one of these, which already I'm at 100% of the four that are here, which is saying you're leaning towards compulsive use and I'm sure that I did eight.
Speaker 2:
I'm sure that% of the four that are here, which is saying you're leaning towards compulsive use, and I'm sure that I did eight, I'm sure that I would check. Yes to all eight. How many people do you think that's true of? I mean, did you like lead your church through this? Did you put this up on the screen and have everyone kind of do it?
Speaker 1:
I didn't do the smartphone compulsion test, but I did something similar to it. 92% of Americans own a smartphone and I seem to have the same conversation with people over and over again. I'll say have you ever done a digital detox? Have you ever done a digital fast? Everyone says the same thing no, but I need to 100%. So I don't find anyone who says I feel like the way that I manage my screen time is really healthy and I'm really on top of it and I'm doing a great job.
Speaker 1:
I don't hear anyone say that From 14 to 80, people are saying I'm spending way too much time doom scrolling on unimportant things.
Speaker 2:
Absolutely.
Speaker 1:
So there is definitely like this collective awareness that is growing in our society right now, where people are starting to wonder whether these things are taking more from them than they're actually giving. And you know, I got an iPhone on the weekend. The iPhone was released, it was in June of 2007. And generally in society, no one thought there was anything negative. It was all upside. Everyone was just thinking these things are amazing, I'm carrying a computer around in my pocket, these things are incredible. But now, all these years later, 17 years later, from all of this there is just this sense of like yeah, these things are really problematic. And if you're raising children, there's a ton of research now that is showing that smartphones, social media there's not just a correlation with mental health problems, it's actually a causation. That has come from the latest research.
Speaker 2:
We just recorded an episode yesterday on eating disorders and how to help someone in your life who may be experiencing one, or if you personally have one, and one of the studies that we covered in that was the correlation the strong positive correlation, between social media, cell phone use and even eating disorders. I mean, it seems to be infiltrating so many things. How do you see it? You talk in your book about how it leads to loneliness and disconnection and God made us for connection. How do you see this affecting relationships?
Speaker 1:
Well, it used to be before smartphones came along. It used to be that a, you know, like a flip phone, a phone, a phone where you could text or call, actually helped facilitate connection for in-person gathering so. So texting used to be very difficult. Right, you have to if you want to press S. You got to press this number four times.
Speaker 2:
Exactly.
Speaker 1:
Yeah, so it's sort of like see you at the mall in an hour, is what you're saying. So these devices actually got used to help facilitate in-person embodied relational connection. A smartphone, the research shows, has done the opposite. It's caused isolation. So people find themselves, whether they are texting or whether they are on social media they are isolated and spending hours and hours and hours by themselves staring at this little device. General population the research is about five to seven hours a day of screen time. Teenagers, it's seven to nine hours a day of screen time.
Speaker 2:
This is average.
Speaker 1:
I know it's staggering, but lifetime seems to just evaporate when you're staring at these little devices and people grab them over and over again. Or there's a notification that grabs their attention and they grab it and they start looking at it and it just becomes a wormhole of distraction. So people are in instead of being out, with others, instead of but when it, when it comes to children, instead of developing social health and social intelligence, instead of developing the skills to converse with people and read people, they are instead spending a lion's share of their awake hours staring at these devices, and it's having a terrible impact on particularly the next generation.
Speaker 2:
And this isn't even including I mean, I don't know the screen time statistics that you've shared. Does it also include video games, tv, laptops, kindle, like all?
Speaker 1:
the screens. That does not include that. That is smartphone use use, and the research has found that a television and a smartphone are very, very different in terms of negative impact on brain function. No-transcript like I almost want to talk to the parents. I mean I don't, but the research now is showing that it is stunting brain development in toddlers because they've got this thing right at their face and they're playing with it. It's actually damaging brains of toddlers. It's not just to keep the kid quiet for a little bit. The research is finding that it's having like extraordinary impact, particularly on young children.
Speaker 2:
That is one of the things that you mentioned in your book as well. For years, we tended to hear people say or I know that I have well, the technology, the smartphone, it's neutral, it's how you use it that can make it good or bad, but one of the things that you say in your book pretty I mean pretty straightforward is it's not neutral and there's damage that can come from believing that it is. Can you expand more on that?
Speaker 1:
Yeah, Well, as a Christian, I believe the Bible talks about the fact that Jesus says I've come to give you life, life to the full. And he says that the thief he's talking about the enemy, the evil forces in our world, or we identify him as Satan. In the Christian faith, Jesus says he comes to steal, kill and destroy. I am not sure there has ever been a device invented that is more effective at stealing, stealing, killing and destroying it is stealing intimacy, it's stealing people's time, it is destroying relationships, it's destroying sexuality and it is it is literally killing a generation.
Speaker 1:
Well, I mean, suicide rates and cutting is way off the charts. There was something that there was a collection of the social media CEOs recently had a Senate inquiry into the damage that their platforms are doing, particularly to the next generation, into the damage that their platforms are doing, particularly to the next generation, and there was a collection of parents who were holding up photographs of their children who had committed suicide. Because there is a new kind of crime called sextortion, and what this is is that someone will prey on a preteen or a young teenager and coerce them into sending lewd photographs or videos of themselves. Then they threaten to release them to everyone they know unless they send money. This is the extortion part of the sextortion. And what happens is these kids, out of fear and terror of all of this, they end up taking their own lives, and this has happened over and over again, so much so that there are these families holding up photographs of their kids. I mean, these devices have the power to be taking lives of the next generation. So, yeah, these devices are not neutral. They are very, very dangerous. And look, when it comes to parenting around this, I want to give parents a pass in as much as there wasn't research on the damage and the danger of these devices up until a few years ago, up until about 2020.
Speaker 1:
It was just inconclusive, and so a lot of parents did what I did, and that is when my daughter was old enough to do sleepovers at friends' houses or she's doing afterschool sports and I want to be able to get hold of her. Then I went to a junk drawer in my house and I found an old iPhone and I fired it up and I gave it to her. I didn't know that that was not a good thing to do. I'm actually handing the most powerful computer that humans have ever conceived as a consumable product and I'm giving it to a 14 year old. You know, like adults don't know how to regulate their behavior on these devices, how the heck is a 14 year old going to be able to do it, you know?
Speaker 1:
So a lot of parents did what I did and I gave my child a smartphone way too early, and there is research now, and I would be absolutely encouraging parents to do what Dr Jonathan Haidt suggests, and he had a book that released this week actually called the Anxious Generation, and he suggests that there should be no smartphones before high school as a rule. Parents should do this together. No social media before 16. These are two things that he is like trying to encourage based on the research, trying to encourage families to adopt this as a general rule, because none of us have any idea. You know, we're just sort of like feeling our way through this whole new technical world and most of the time the kids know how to use the devices better than the parents do anyway. So there is an emerging best practices, there's emerging best thought that is coming, and so I tell parents there's no need to feel shame, none of us really knew, but there is research and best practices now.
Speaker 2:
What do you say to the parent? I mean, how do you encourage the parent who has already done it? Like you said, there's not shame, but okay, maybe their kid is 15 and they have a smartphone and social media, Like what do you do then? What's the encouragement? Do you take it away and deal with the backlash and the possible resentment from the kid?
Speaker 1:
It's a challenge and I've talked a lot to a lot of parents about this. We use this phrase the ship has sailed. Right, the ship has sailed. But just to follow that metaphor. If we knew that the ship was going to sink, but just to follow that metaphor, if we knew that the ship was going to sink, we'd probably tell the ship to turn around Right.
Speaker 2:
True, the Titanic's right there at the iceberg. What are we going to do Exactly?
Speaker 1:
It's not like all right the ship is safe, we'll then turn the ship around. You know, yeah, so specific that a teenage girl or a girl going through puberty with social media is very, very dangerous. The research shows it is less dangerous after they've sort of got through those pubescent years. But if you are going through puberty and your body is changing and you're experiencing a lot of you know, the rush of hormones and all of this, with all of this comparison and the research says that Instagram is the worst. It's body images and it's so superficial. It is about makeup and skincare and body images Like it's very dangerous. Superficial, it is about makeup and skincare and body images. It's very dangerous.
Speaker 1:
So what I have said to parents specifically you need to think very, very carefully. If your teenage daughter is in the years of going through puberty and has social media, I would do everything I could to remove that. Now, the way I did it with my kids is I sat and my kids didn't have rampant social media, but they had some, they had something and I said to them what would you do if you were me and you learned that these things had a lot of damage impact on children? What would you do as a parent if you were me and I just tried to put them in a position where, like you're, only going to be in my home for a handful of more years before you're at college and all that kind of stuff my job is to protect you, provide for you, to guide you, to help you develop, to prepare you for life, and I've just learned that this thing has a really dangerous impact on your health and on your mental health. What would you do if you were me and the result was I was able to pull some of these things back?
Speaker 1:
The way I suggest that parents do it is do a digital fast right and do it as a family. So if your kids are given a lot of resistance, so what do you mean? I can't have Instagram anymore Say, listen, as an entire family, we're going to do a digital fast for 40 days and at the end of the 40 days, we'll have a discussion about what do we think should come back, and that's a good next step to allow people to start engaging that conversation.
Speaker 2:
That's a great segue into what is a digital fast and how do you actually do it. I'm sure you get questions here of well, how would I call people, how would I get to a place I don't know where it is? If I do a digital fast, what does that actually mean?
Speaker 1:
Yeah. So a digital fast is not throwing your smartphone away. It is thinking about your smartphone through the lens of the apps on your phone. Are they a distraction or are they a utility? So all apps are not created equal. Tiktok is not the same as the calculator app, right? Tiktok, by the way, is the most addictive app that there is. It is the most dangerous for you know. It's just like it's so toxic. Instagram is the worst in terms of the impact, but tiktok is the most addictive. So, um, what I suggest is a digital fast is to remove all of the distraction apps. So distraction apps include things like social media, games, news apps, shopping apps If you can remove email off of your phone so the things that become the wormhole for you when you pull up at the lights and you're tempted to open your phone and you just start scrolling on something.
Speaker 1:
You want to remove all of those things from your phone. The reality is, no one opens the Southwest app and starts doom scrolling. It's a utility app. No one plays with their calculator. It's a utility app. What you want to do is you want to remove the things that are the wormholes for you, remove anything that is a distraction and turn your smartphone back into a utility device Making calls, texting with someone, your GPS guidance, it is. Make your phone a utility device and then what happens is invariably people open their phone to look at something and they realize there's nothing cool to look at their phone anymore and they put it back down again. The suggestion is that you do that for a 40-day period.
Speaker 1:
It's made up of four 10-day movements. The first movement is to detach 10-day movements. The first movement is to detach and, like any habit or addiction, you generally have some sort of withdrawal effect when you start to pull away from something and so you want to detach, and sometimes that means you're putting your phone down at home and you're not carrying it around with you. Most of us carry them around with us all the time. Most of us have them by our bed and it's the last thing you look at before you go to sleep. It's the first thing that you look at. First thing in the morning you try to detach from your device. First 10 days. Second 10 days is. You discover all kinds of things. You discover things about yourself, you discover things about other people. I think you discover things about your faith and your spiritual life, if you are a believer and a person of faith, you actually discover you're so much more aware of things. The third movement is you then get into a season of delight. You realize this is actually a better life.
Speaker 1:
I remember, when I was doing a digital fast, my teenage daughter she's 13, she says Daddy, come watch me on the trampoline. And I went outside and it was about 70 degrees and the sun was about to set and I could hear the birds chirping. I could feel the grass under my feet and then I could hear the squeals and the giggles of my daughter as she's saying watch me, dad, watch me. And I had this conscious thought because I didn't have my phone with me. I had this conscious thought this is a better life being present and so it's delightful.
Speaker 1:
And then the last movement is determine, and you need to determine what is your long-term digital way of life going to be? And, uh, I I tend to use the, the marie kondo way of thinking. She, uh, she's famous, of course, for helping people simplify their lives and clean out their closets. And she asked the question you grab a piece of clothing and you ask yourself the question does this spark joy in me or not? And if it doesn't, then you don't put it, you don't keep it, you throw it out. And I would say the same thing with Instagram and Facebook and TikTok and Twitter and all of these things. Ask yourself, does putting Instagram back on my phone spark joy or not? And for me, I did not put social media back on my phone after I did the first digital fast. I became long-term. It doesn't mean I'm never on social media, but I don't do it on my phone, and so the frequency in which I interact in social media has greatly diminished because I'll do it on my laptop.
Speaker 2:
Now this is an interesting point because you are a pastor of a pretty large church and a pretty well-known pastor too. I'm sure that you have a decent following on the social media apps and things like that. Was there a fear in you of, if I don't go back, what does that do for my future and future book deals or different things like that? Like, was there a fear of not being present on it?
Speaker 1:
Yeah, I mean that that thought occurred to me, um, but it's not that I'm not present on them, it's. It's that like I will post something and then I won't go on the, the, the, uh, the platform again for another day. It's just not with me all the time. The proximity of having this device and having access to these things. I mean it's like having junk food around you all the time. And every time you get hungry, you're like I shouldn't really eat this, but I'm really hungry and I know it's not good for me, but I'm starving and so I'm going to eat this. It's the proximity to it all the time. And, by the way, when you find yourself spending 45 minutes doom scrolling cat videos on Instagram, and then you come up for air and you're like what am I doing? It's kind of like when you eat junk food. You feel terrible, you feel ashamed of yourself. You're like what is wrong with me? What am I doing? I'm just burning my life away looking at dumb things. So you actually have that same experience.
Speaker 1:
I'll tell you, the most difficult thing for me to take off my phone was email, and I was afraid that if I'm only checking email twice a day or something like that. I'm just going to have a thousand emails sitting in my inbox and I'm never going to. I felt like I have to keep doing this because I have to keep up with the traffic. That wasn't true. What happens is, instead of checking my inbox 65 times a day, I'm now checking it once or twice and we all get spam. We all get newsletters that we want to delete. We all get things that are like an FYI and we don't even need to respond to them. What happens is you kind of check those all at one time and delete them all at one time, instead of doing it throughout the day. It's actually far more efficient and that has also been a better way to live.
Speaker 2:
Yeah, it's a new habit in your life, a new way of doing life and the habits that you have. I can totally understand that. I'm thinking of even this morning where I woke up I went out like did my walk, was super grounded, came back, did my Bible study, drank my coffee, and then I knew I shouldn't have and I always know I shouldn't, but I do and I pick up the phone and I'm like, well, I'm just going to check email real quick and Slack real quick and play the New York times games real quick, like do my word, I'll do my and and by the end of that cycle and it taken 20, 30 minutes and I was like, what am I supposed to do today? It was like my brain was so foggy. Yeah, all of a sudden, when, 30 minutes before, I felt clear, I felt like I was focused, knew what I was supposed to do Definitely a problem, but we get in that habit.
Speaker 2:
And how do you break out of the habit? And what you're saying is take 40 days with four intentional focuses over 10 days over each of them and reset this relationship with the smartphone. And that's actually I'm glad you answered the way that you did, because you're not really demonizing any of the things. You're not demonizing social media or email or whatever. You're really not to say demonizing, but you're like. The focus is it's this smartphone, that's what we're focused on, not all the things in it, but the smartphone, and how can we become less addicted to that thing that holds so much information and power, and so on and so forth.
Speaker 1:
Yes, it's a constant point of distraction, and research has now found that the attention span of society is continuing to diminish and it is now down to about six seconds, and, by the way, a goldfish is seven seconds.
Speaker 2:
Oh, wow.
Speaker 1:
So we're losing the goldfish?
Speaker 2:
Yes, what about? For I'm picturing the people I may be one of them who says, okay, I can do this, I can take off all of the distractions from my phone, but then the heart, because the heart of it is is you know, take off the distractions and then take the time to, to connect with yourself, your family, god. But what about the people who are like, but then I'm just going to replace it with you know, I'm still going to try and get my YouTube in just on TV, or I'm still going to try and get all of these other things in by just being on my laptop. What? What do you say to people who try and find the loopholes?
Speaker 1:
Well, people can cheat however they want. You know, I mean no one. No one is policing this. The real benefit, honestly, is to be bringing this conversation to the forefront. For people to actually be conscious of their screen time is really helpful.
Speaker 1:
Smartphone addiction is known as what socialists call a collective action problem. What that means is we all know that we're doing something that's having a detrimental impact on our mental health, and yet none of us want to pull back from it because of FOMO, the fear of missing out. I'm going to miss out on all these things if I pull back from it. So what we need to do to address this is we need collective action.
Speaker 1:
Another way of describing it is like if there was a um a lake and people were overfishing the lake, um. If one fisherman said, all right, well, now I'm not gonna fish anymore, but none of the others do, then all he's doing is making no money, but he's not really making an impact. What you have to do is you have to say, all right, all of us need to step back from the amount that we are fishing to allow the lake to regenerate with fish. It's collected action. So a church is actually an ideal place to do this because you're not doing this on your own, this on your own. You're doing it with your spouse and your children, and your small group and your kids' friends, and you're all doing it together. So, instead of you being the only person that is missing out because of what's going on on Facebook or Instagram, you're actually all stepping back at the same time. You're almost gamifying the entire experience, and it's a much more effective way of actually doing that, because you're all stepping back together.
Speaker 2:
I love that. I assume a company could do it too.
Speaker 1:
A company could do it. I hope that schools end up doing it as well. Jonathan Haidt end up doing it as well. Jonathan Haidt, the researcher I was just citing earlier. He also is suggesting that schools, all schools, need to go phone-free and give kids a break for eight hours a day. They can drop their phone off in their locker or put it in a pouch or something and then when the school bell rings at the end of the day, they can pick it up again. But instead of cafeterias and lunchrooms, kids just being by themselves looking at a phone, they need to be developing social skills by interacting with one another.
Speaker 2:
Kids are allowed to have phones at school.
Speaker 1:
Yes.
Speaker 2:
What that?
Speaker 1:
was not allowed in my school. Right, well, and there's few exceptions. I know of one school in the area that says you can't.
Speaker 2:
Wow, yeah, I can. I can now understand a little bit more by how teenagers can be on for nine hours a day.
Speaker 1:
Um, that's right, that's right.
Speaker 2:
So what would you say to someone thinking like, okay, I want to do this digital fast, but is that this might be a little bit of a convoluted question, darren? So fasting in general is something that's mentioned in the Bible, but not really prescriptively Like there's at least from what I have seen. There's not Jesus or anyone in there saying start here, end here, this is exactly what you fast from, and so the digital fast is a type of fast, but how does it compare to other fasting and how do you interpret fasting in general when it comes to how the Bible talks about it?
Speaker 1:
Yeah, so the Bible is descriptive about it rather than being prescriptive, with the exception of in the Sermon on the Mount, jesus says when you give, when you pray and when you fast, so there is an assumption that he's doing that. He's also speaking to a religious Jewish audience who is regularly doing. You know a lot of these spiritual practices. I think fasting from food is the most neglected spiritual practice in the modern world and it may be more important than ever before because we have so much access to comfort all the time. When we're cold, we can change the thermostat. When we're hungry, we can go to the fridge. So digital fasting is clearly not the same thing as fasting from food.
Speaker 1:
But what is interesting is that these devices have done something to us like food, and that is when we feel anxious. That is when we feel anxious, when we feel afraid, when we feel shame. We've often hovered over these emotions by going to the fridge and eating something that tastes good. Right, and a lot of us don't do that as much anymore. We've moved from food to phone, and so you grab your phone when you feel an unpleasant emotion, when you feel something that is uncomfortable, and then you distract yourself with some mind-numbing content so you don't have to feel that unpleasant feeling.
Speaker 1:
So when you remove that in the same way that when you are fasting from food, you feel hungry, you feel uncomfortable, you may even feel irritable you are then invited to turn towards the Lord and to say, in the void that I'm feeling right now, I open myself up to you as my source, as the source of life, would you fill me? This is how Jesus began his ministry 40 days in the wilderness, fasting, before he actually started his ministry. Well, a digital fast actually does something similar, because you are covering over all of these emotions and all of this discomfort with this technology. And when you remove that, you are actually forced to confront some of the feelings that you have and invite the spirit of God to come and bring healing or bring guidance or speak to you. It's difficult to hear the voice of God when every discretionary moment of your life is filled with staring at a phone of your life is filled with staring at a phone.
Speaker 2:
It's definitely no secret that smartphones have become a major part of our lives, even to the point where they're much of the time described as just an extension of a person's arm or a person's body. I believe that today's conversation was timely, especially for me, but hopefully for you as well. At the time of recording this, I'm actually a week and a half away from going on sabbatical for a couple of months, and it has allowed me just even thinking and preparing to go away on sabbatical, to think through what do I want my day-to-day life to look like when I'm going through this intentional time of resting? Day-to-day life to look like when I'm going through this intentional time of resting, resetting and wanting to hear from God about what the future holds, about the vision for the future of Marriage Helper and different things that I have going on in my life which I am coming back to in case anyone was wondering. But today's episode was very timely for that, because it allows me to really think through how I intentionally want to engage with my phone, with my computer, during this time of intentional rest and refocus. Here's my first key takeaway for myself and hopefully for you from today's episode Use your phone for at least 40 days for the utility of it, not the distraction of it. I am going to go through my phone I was already kind of planning on doing this but I will go through and delete email, slack, social media, at least for 40 days of the time that I'm on sabbatical, and I'm actually kind of looking forward to this. Honestly, I may have to delete the Southwest app, even though he was talking about how it's utilitarian. I'm pretty sure if everything else has gone from my phone and I find myself bored, I will likely start looking at places that I can fly to in the Southwest lineup. So I may even have to delete that Amazon, timu, any of those things that I can just end up passing a ton of time on, and I'm kind of looking forward to that, even though I also know it's going to be really hard to deal with the withdrawal.
Speaker 2:
My second key takeaway is exactly that Darren broke down for us that there are four phases that we can kind of use as a guide post through this, and we can see those in his book, the Digital Fast. And, by the way, if you want a copy of the introduction in the first chapter, free copy of it. Just go to his website, thedigitalfastcom. It'll also be in the show notes and you can get that. But, as he broke it down, that first phase is detachment 10 days of going through withdrawal, which will allow us to go through the second 10 days of discovery discovering what is different about our lives without incessant smartphone usage.
Speaker 2:
The third phase is delight finding that this is a better way to live and then the final 10 days being to determine what is the interaction and the relationship with our phones, with email, slack, social media, any of those things. What is it going to be after going back to using a phone more, and maybe there might be the decision to not, and there's even been part of me that has thought maybe, for this period of my sabbatical or for this digital fast, I go back to our flip phone. We still have both of us actually still have one. Maybe that's something to do. Actually, though, providers are making this harder. Total side note a lot of them don't support flip phones on their plans anymore, which is kind of frustrating when you think about it. We're kind of being forced into using smartphones if we want any kind of cell phone, but where there's a will, there is a way.
Speaker 2:
My third key takeaway was thinking through how Jesus started his ministry with 40 days in the wilderness, fasting. He began a season of his life with intentional time set aside to spend with God. He didn't wait until he got burnt out. He didn't wait until the time was right. He didn't wait until the kids were grown up. He was intentional that at the beginning of what he did, he set that intentional time with God. What does that mean for you in your life right now? What is a season that you're maybe entering into that you're wanting to rush through and to get started because you're excited for the opportunity, but maybe what you need to do first is spend some time with God.
Speaker 2:
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