Hillary Wilkinson (4:02)

Well, thank you. I'm very grateful you're here. You mentioned the attention economy and Dayo is kind of an app that, as I understand it, and that's why you're here, is to tell me if I've got this right. But it's kind of an app designed for the age of attention.

Corey Sholobo (4:22)

Yes.

Hillary Wilkinson (4:22)

And I'm wondering if you can explain what, what does it do to motivate kids to stay off devices or platforms that have, had you mentioned the best and the brightest. I mean, we're talking the most brilliant brains who have designed them to, to extract as much attention as possible.

Corey Sholobo (4:43)

Yeah. I mean, obviously you, you guys are well versed in the subject matter, so I don't need to remind you that, you know, Jack Dorsey doesn't let his kid use Twitter. And, you know, they all know they built the bomb and they all don't keep their kids insulated from it. But don't keep your kids insulated from it. And it's based on dopamine hijacking Right. We're creating dopamine cycles with likes and comments and shares and infinite scrolling. And so we really looked at that as the primary issue. Not so much the tech, I mean, the technology itself, but the tech. What is the technology doing in the brain? What is it offering you? And it's in the form of the dopamine hit. So what would be a dopamine alternative? So for instance, if you want to quit drinking wine every night, like many of us did during COVID you know, you don't just stop drinking wine. You're like, I started buying sparkling water and drinking sparkling water instead. You find these substitutes that give you some sort of replacement dopamine, for lack of a better word. And it's a well established psychological technique. It's called contingency management. There's nothing rocket science about it. And it's also based on. It's something that you do every day. You fly the same airline, probably to get rewards from them. You maybe go to the same smoothie bar to get your free smoothie. At the end of the week, your insurance company will pay you to join a gym. This is a well established concept. So that's what I really wanted, to use their own technology essentially against them. But when you get to the root of what all of these dopamine cycles are, they're very often just money, right at the end of the day. That is a very obvious and clear dopamine response that most of us have. And then most of us go to work to earn money anyway. In a time management situation, we could argue the vaults of capitalism, but that's not really what I'm here to do. We live in a capitalist society and we learn, or we learned as older people, time, money management and how to do that. These kids are not being taught that because their time doesn't even exist. It's like in a vortex of nothingness. And they, you know, potentially have even harder time finding cash flow. Right. As jobs become difficult. I've been hearing from so many teens that they can't even get a summer job. I'm like, really? You can't get a summer job? I mean, I could get any summer job. They weren't great, but they were there. So we started out originally as trying to help people like you and I. And we created a marketplace of brands and services that would essentially offer you wholesale pricing and you would earn points towards discounts. And in the process of that, everyone was like, this is great and all, and I love this, but what about my kids? What about my kids? What about my kids. That's all I heard from every interviewer, every subject matter expert, every customer. And so we realized we could cut straight through this by cutting out a lot of the points and the nature and just let parents pay their kids. The example I give is when I was 8, my mother gave me $20 to quit sucking my thumb because she couldn't get me to quit sucking my thumb. This was probably 1985, by the way. So $20 is a little bit different. And it worked, right? And these things work. There was a study that recently came out where meth addicts were being paid $30 a week for clean urine. And it was proven to work at two times therapy alone. Right. So it's not to say that therapy isn't important. It's not to say that parenting is off the table. You still have to parent. What we're offering is like a break in the technology, something to help them get out of the space into the concept of changing their behavior to which you can then, you know, parent. And so ultimately you put cash rewards on, on the line. What we've found from teens is that they suddenly pay attention to their screen time. Right. So the main issue is that, by the way, your Apple phone, as we all know, can do this right now. It can send you an alert that tells you you set a limit for 20 minutes. No one listens to it. Everyone just scrolls through. And we're like, why? Because there's no carrot and there's no stick. And so we wanted to build both. And the way it works is the teen, let's say you have a deal with your teen for a week for 50 bucks every day. They have, let's say that you set the limit at two hours a day, every day. When they get to two hours, they get to choose to keep going. This is not a block and a ban. Teens will not be blocked and they will not be banned. And I think anyone trying to do that is going to lose the battle. And I think that's what we've been trying to do. Right. Take the kids model like the Barks for eight year olds. Yes. Push a button, close Instagram. You can't do that to a 16 year old. And even if you could, what have they learned? Are they learning how to self regulate? No. So to, to set that model. And then at the moment they're like, I have a choice to make now between earning money or continuing to scroll. If they keep scrolling, they lose the money and it goes back into the parent's wallet. And if they stop Scrolling, they keep the money. And so it's a very simple process of, of rewarding them for basically stopping paying attention to something we hear most of them want to do anyway and also don't find motivation to do it. So really we're just the motivation to something that we think human behavior is, is interested in. But the technology has stolen from us.

Hillary Wilkinson (9:29)

My brain's kind of buzzing as you're talking to me. Last night I went and saw the AI documentary.

Corey Sholobo (9:35)

Yeah.

Hillary Wilkinson (9:35)

And one of the big topics being bandied about in the land of, you know, those who create AI, those who want to figure out how we live alongside the creation of this new technology is the importance of human agency, the importance of being able, you know, how to decide how you want your choice. Basically free will. And so this I'm, I'm hearing that it actually is rewarding kids for exercising agency, which I think that also is a, a marketing tool you might want to use.

Corey Sholobo (10:19)

Corey, a good line actually, you might

Hillary Wilkinson (10:23)

want to capitalize on. We have to teach our, ourselves and our kids how to embrace agency and embrace these, these ways of behaving. And this is a, this is a, a friendly way to start it out. On your website, there's something I, I just kind of poked around and there's like day o deals and there's. So are you setting like a set monetary amount? Can you just kind of.

Corey Sholobo (10:52)

Absolutely. How does it actually work? Yeah, so it's pretty simple. You have it's. We call them a deal because you're setting a deal. And I think as parents, you're making a deal. Right. You've made a deal your whole life. If you finish your dinner, you can have dessert. If you do your homework, you can go outside. You've been doing deals your whole life. You just maybe don't think about them as deals. You probably use the word, hey, I'll make you a deal. Right? So we're like, why wouldn't you make a deal on this? You know? Similarly, you don't mow the lawn for the good of the family. You do it for your allowance. Right. Or at least I did. I didn't do it because I felt like the lawn should look beautiful. I did it because I was getting an allowance. And so that's why we call it sort of allowance in the age of screen time. But the deals are fully customizable. So you decide how many minutes a day, how many hours a day you want your teen to use or not use or what the limit's going to be, how much money is the incentive, 20 bucks, 100 bucks, 200 bucks. What is going to incentivize your teen? The time limit is going to be a seven day challenge, a 30 day challenge. Ultimately, we hope people just set this as like a monthly allowance and sort of make this part of their parenting. And then you choose the apps as well. Very customizable. So it's not an all or nothing. Let's say you want your kid on the Khan Academy, the app, but not on YouTube. You can choose just YouTube and leave those apps open. And also a lot of kids need their phones for school or other reasons. So it's 100% customizable. It's a subscription based service. You set the deal, you send it to your team, your teen accepts the deal, proves that they have added those apps, which there's a, there's a proprietary system that checks that so that they can't cheat. It proves that they've selected those apps and now you and the teen are connected on those apps specifically. You don't see what they're scrolling. There's no spying, there's no. Because teens won't handle that either. It's just the overall time of the day. You'll see a bar that tells you, okay, you set two hours today and your teens at an hour and a half or an hour and it'll tell you there's a monthly calendar or that'll tell you whether they did well or poorly that day, which I actually really like because let's say one day they did do really badly, you know, they were over. Like maybe they went four hours over or something. You could then go and talk to them about it. You could then go and say, hey, you know, maybe they broke up with their girlfriend, maybe they're, they lost the play or something, I don't know. And now you kind of know, otherwise it's just like a vacuum. I don't know how much time they're on their phone. And so it's this transparent system. So there's no more argument. You know, you both know you made a deal. You both know what's going on. And you also don't have to argue if they go over right, they just lose the money. You've taken the agency out of you, yelling and saying, well, you, you didn't want the, a hundred bucks, it'll come back to my wallet. You as the parent can then do another deal next week, next month, take the money back out, buy something yourself in our marketplace. So it's a real two way system with both loss and reward. As the psychological techniques.

Hillary Wilkinson (13:35)

Okay, when we come back, I'm going to ask Corey a few more things about Dayo and how to deal with kind of motivational burnout.

Podcast Announcer (13:43)

Diving into the world of smartphones can be a wild ride for kids and parents alike. Whether your child is getting their first smartphone or has had one for a while, chances are they're still figuring out the do's and don'ts of using a smartphone wisely. Our book is here to help. Healthy Screen Habits for Tweens and Teens A training workbook to help you use your phone wisely is the tool your child needs to navigate life in the digital world. From tackling poor phone etiquette to addressing social media anxieties and online safety concerns, we have your child covered. Written especially for adolescents, we've put together all the information, tips, hacks and rules to ensure that your child's phone is a useful tool that they control, not the other way around. We explain the whys behind the rules of phone use. We show your child the possible traps and dangers to watch out for, how to prevent them, and how to fix them if your child has made a mistake. We give your child the five core healthy screen habits to use daily, protecting them from some of the worst mistakes tweens and teens make while using their phones. This workbook will teach your child how to use their phone as a tool to help them do great things in their one amazing life. And it will make your life so much easier at the same time. Packed with colorful graphics and easy to read content, this resource is a game changer for kids. Don't miss out. Buy your copy of Healthy Screen Habits for Tweens and teens on Amazon.com today.

Hillary Wilkinson (15:16)

I'm speaking with Corey Sholobeau, the CEO of dao, an app that uses financial incentive to keep kids off of devices. So real life moment here where I ran the day o model past my teenage.

Corey Sholobo (15:32)

Yeah.

Hillary Wilkinson (15:32)

Their response was, so now you're just bribing kids to stay off of phones. Okay. And I gotta admit, I do. I did not have a ready response, but I was like, oh, I know who I'm going to talk to and maybe you can answer that question. Is this just bribery?

Corey Sholobo (15:47)

Well, I mean, I guess the question is what is bribery, right? I mean, are you bribing your kid? Do you, do you pay your kid an allowance to clean the room, to wash their dishes, to do chores around the house?

Hillary Wilkinson (15:58)

Oh, you asked me specifically. Yeah. No, we have kind of set groundwork of we're a team. We live here together. We take Care of common areas. And then we do have extra add ons. So if you have, you know, if you, if you clean the chicken coop, I will pay you.

Corey Sholobo (16:15)

So, so is that bribery? I guess that's my question, you know, are you bribing your kid to clean chicken coop? I get the point. And I and Fast Company actually covered us and actually wrote, you know, this teen is bribery. And I was like, they use the word bribery. But then a lot of people I was talking to were talking about how that's sort of clickable and kind of viral in a way that's interesting. I don't know. There's an argument here between parents and there's a lot of, what I hear is a lot of like, well if it's bribery, I don't want to participate. And like, well what do you, what's your game plan then? Like, so you're just going to keep going with this negative aspect or you're not going to try a technique that actually works because you feel sort of morally disaligned from it, which is totally fine. There's lots of different ways to parent. The majority of parents, I think don't have the time or the wherewithal to like go take a course or there's so many wonderful parent educators and influencers that are teaching 30 day courses, 13 day courses. They have these packages, these programs and I think a lot of parents don't have the time to do that. So I think it comes down to whether you consider allowance bribery. I think of it more like allowance. Anytime you would do a positive behavior, you could potentially get rewarded for it in my household at least. So, you know, I think it's up to every parent to decide. But I don't really think the word matters as much as does it work? Okay, would your teen do it and would it work for them?

Hillary Wilkinson (17:29)

So it's a semantics kind of a thing.

Corey Sholobo (17:31)

I mean to me it is. If you have a moral, then this is not the right app for you. Right. And there's a, there's a, there's multiple groups of parents. You know, there's, as I've learned, you know, you've got different camps on both sides of this, but you also have different camps on like the Jonathan Haidt side of things. Like once I started meeting some other parent groups, they're like, oh, we don't subscribe to that. Like that is the doom and gloom scenario isn't even real. Read the project, the Harvard Project Zero Study. And you know, if you read the Harvard Project Zero study, there's a small percentage of teens, like 8% or something. That has no effect. They can use as much as they want and there's no psychological effect on them. This is not an all or nothing situation here. There's a broad spectrum. It's like you just said, one of your teens is motivated by money. One of them isn't. One technique for one, one technique for another. And so to me, this is just a tool that breaks the trance. These teens. When we talk to teens, the main thing we hear is that they were looking. They started looking at their screen time again because there was some reason to now, because there was some incentive on the table. What happens from there? This app does not proclaim to be the answer to a parenting solution to mental health problems. We don't tell you to go meditate. All we are is about getting your screen time down and, and using a proven technique to do it. From there, you then can parent and decide to go to the fair or go on hikes together or play family games together. That's not my job. My job is to get your teen to stop scrolling and pay attention and

Hillary Wilkinson (18:53)

even just build awareness. Because with awareness, then comes intention. So.

Corey Sholobo (18:57)

Yes.

Hillary Wilkinson (18:57)

Yeah, yeah. So the other thing that I like, when I just looked at it, my kind of putting on my motivational studies hat.

Corey Sholobo (19:06)

Yeah.

Hillary Wilkinson (19:07)

I feel like many parents and teachers at different points have employed what are called token systems for rewards and behavioral rewards. Whether it's like, you know, a sticker chart for keeping your room clean or, you know, popsicle sticks in a jar to tally how many books were read over summer. The coloring sheet. I mean, holy moly, even our dentist has a page for coloring in the nights that you floss. You know, there all these tracking devices. Right. And I, it's my experience that these all start out great.

Corey Sholobo (19:40)

Yep.

Hillary Wilkinson (19:40)

The challenge with token system management, if you, if you're focusing on extrinsic reward rather than intrinsic value, is that there's often this big upswell of compliance and enthusiasm and desired behavior at the start. But then the enthusiasm wears off and the novelty grows thin. So do you have like, is there anything that Dayo has that deals with this dwindling motivation?

Corey Sholobo (20:08)

Well, I mean, the psychologist that was quoted in Fast Company, which we did not employ, was talking about how this really will work. But there could be a long term need to up the ante. Right. So you might have to increase the rewards in order to make it seem more incentivized. I do think, though, with money, the cool thing about money is that it takes it out of all the extrinsic like stickers and all, that is great. And I think if we'd had an app that was just giving people gold stars, people like, oh, this is cool, nice and everything. But again, what's the long term adaptability? Are they going to stay with it? Your kid is going to need and want money forever. They're going to need to want to go to the movies, they're going to want to save for college. Maybe they want to invest. You know, we're building a fintech platform so that teens can really, this is just the opening gambit. But ultimately we want teens to learn time money management. We want them to learn how to invest, we want them to learn how to save for college, we want them to learn how to that that they're giving away all of this to these tech companies and getting nothing in return for it and you're getting rewarded for doing it. So, you know, I think that remains to be seen what those numbers are. And it will vary from person to person. Just like your teen may be at six hours a day on social media or screen time, you may need to start at five and a half and that may be a win. Or you might start at 2 and that may be a win. Like I don't know what's going on in your teen's life. So it's really, the idea is to make it as customizable as possible so that you can keep changing the reward structures. And there's a whole lot coming, challenges and leaderboards and maybe the teens get together and challenge each other as a group. We've talked a lot, A lot of teens have said have my parents doing it at the same time, which you can do at the same time. The parents can also use this app and reward themselves with, with our Dayo dollars. But maybe they, they had a swear jar idea like maybe that when the parents go over, they pay the kids even more. So you could create these really sticky synergistic systems in the home that hopefully in my dream, you sit down at dinner and your kid actually says, hey mom, I did 30 minutes better than you today, not the other way around.

Hillary Wilkinson (22:08)

And so just to be clear, and I think this does tag into what you're talking about with knowing your audience and who like what is going to motivate them. The can you do you have a specific age range that day is best designed for?

Corey Sholobo (22:25)

We believe that this picks up and again, we're learning as well. We believe this picks up where the blocking apps stop. Right. So let's say you're probably the day your kid gets a smartphone is one of the first ones. I think when your kid gets social media, which is another argument. Right. Some people are 11, 13, 16, never don't give your kid a phone, et cetera. So this is all different for parents. So. But most kids are getting a phone around 11:12. Most of them are getting on social media pretty closely around that time. We've also seen from Australia for instance that the bands didn't really, they're not really working. I think they're great as a concept but kids are finding their way around it, et cetera. Again, you can't ban your way out of it. You've got to get them buy in from the team teens. So we consider this to be a post adolescent, you know, preteen to teen app that sort of takes the kids from I would say 13 to 18 just from a marketing perspective. But it could be as young as 11. I have seen a lot of parents using it with the iPad. So I have seen parents using it for 10 and 11 year olds. It's actually easier because the money's a lot less. They think $20 is a lot of money when they're 10. But I, I think this is a teen app.

Hillary Wilkinson (23:33)

Okay. Okay. And just to be totally clear, and I don't know where Dayo stands, but Healthy Screen Habits recommends putting off smartphone Internet connected devices till at least 13. And we recommend putting off social media until 16. Like think of it.

Corey Sholobo (23:48)

Totally, totally agree.

Hillary Wilkinson (23:49)

And so yeah, and I, I, I understand and I have read those same studies about the Australia ban struggling but I think the power of public messaging.

Corey Sholobo (24:01)

Yes.

Hillary Wilkinson (24:01)

Is one that we can't ignore and that one that like parents have a platform to, it's kind of like PG13 movies. Right. And so it's at least something that gives parents guidance as well as teeth, so.

Corey Sholobo (24:17)

Oh, I absolutely agree. I just think if parents are thinking it's going to save them, it's, it's. You got more. You're going to be surprised.

Hillary Wilkinson (24:24)

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. So that actually leads right into my next question which was I was going to ask can DEO take the place of parental controls?

Corey Sholobo (24:36)

I mean, I think it does at a teen level. I mean this is a question for parents, right. At what point is your teen no longer going to tolerate you controlling their phone? And I think that's a parental conversation. Some teens it's early, some teens it's later, you know, around 16. If they're driving around, are you really telling them how long they can be on Instagram and controlling their phone from your phone. Parental controls. I think all of this is a personal question for parents, and I don't presume to know what's right for any parent or teen. All I'm trying to do is offer a tool for those who are struggling or who want to layer this into their own parenting model. So to me, if you're cool with your kid having a phone at 13 and you want to then layer this on top of it so you can have an incentive structure to teach them time money management, great. If you want to do this at 16, then do it at 16, because you didn't give your kid a phone till they were 16 or didn't give your kid social media till they were 16. Again, while we support all of these measures and methods, we're kind of agnostic to which one works for your family. I'm just a tool. I'm hoping to help you do what you want to do and how you want to parent better.

Hillary Wilkinson (25:45)

Gotcha. So we have to take another short break, but when we come back, I'm going to ask Corey Sholobo for his Healthy Screen Habit.

Podcast Announcer (25:54)

At what age should I give my child a smartphone? How much screen time should I allow each day? What are the best filters to use on my family's devices? Sound familiar? These questions and more are answered at the Healthy Screen Habits website. We've curated the best articles, books, videos, and many other resources to help you figure out how you want to use technology in your life. Click on the Awareness section to learn about the issues and dangers surrounding screen use. Then click on the Tools button page to download printables you can use with your family today, including the Healthy Screen Habits Family technology Plan. Visit our website at www.healthyscreenhabits.org for the resources and tools you need to get started.

Hillary Wilkinson (26:43)

I'm speaking with Corey Sholibo from Dayo, the app for families who want to build better digital habits without consciousness. Constant conflict. So, Corey, on every episode of the Healthy Screen Habits podcast, I ask for a healthy screen habit. And this is going to be a tip or takeaway that listeners can put into practice nearly immediately into their own home. What's yours?

Corey Sholobo (27:08)

Well, obviously I use deo, but the thing that works for me because I, you know, I, I built this product originally for me because I'm addicted as anyone else. Like, I've got on TikTok finally, and it's, it's just crazy. Like, I want to look at it all day. For me, I have to delete the Apps. I mean, it's not, it's. I know it's sort of obvious, I'm sure people say it, but I have to delete them. Even if I have to download them again later for work purposes, if I really truly want to. Sometimes I can brick them in my house. I use brick sometimes. I think that's a good tool. But I have to just delete TikTok. If I delete TikTok and Instagram from my phone, I just don't look at them as much. It's quite proven that we do it on the phone differently than we do it on the screen. And if you read like the stolen Focus he suggests, like if you want to look at Instagram, great, fire up your computer and look at Instagram. You won't make it more than 20 or 30 minutes. So to me it's about deleting the apps and, and it's really difficult because we're in a company where we're trying to tell the story and we're having to use the inter webs to do it. And so I'm actually sometimes on my phone more than I was because I'm telling the story through social media. We always say we might have to go to the bar to get the drunks out of the bar, which we do. So it's a real struggle because it's hard to delete TikTok and get back on your account and, and it's like login issues and so on. So I don't know, I think just delete it, like just stop is my technique, but that's not for everybody.

Hillary Wilkinson (28:30)

Yeah, yeah. Building in some friction, like really helps.

Corey Sholobo (28:33)

Building in friction, any friction is good and that's what we're based on. But yeah, I think any of these tools, I think all of these tools need to be used to get together, frankly, as much friction as possible. We live in a too frictionless world.

Hillary Wilkinson (28:43)

Yeah, I agree. And then when I try and instill some friction into my life, I don't like it. As it turns out, I'm a big wimp.

Corey Sholobo (28:54)

Yeah. And it's hard because, you know, parents have so much friction. Anyway, it's, it's like my issue with Amazon or using Amazon, I'm like, well, they're like, well, it's so easy and I'm so busy and I'm like, I get it, man. You don't maybe have the time to go to D2C websites for six different things. And I do maybe sometimes do, but you know, we decide what our, what our, what is worth that time and whether we can do it. And I think, you know, this is a place where we have to put friction in.

Hillary Wilkinson (29:19)

Yeah.

Corey Sholobo (29:19)

There isn't going to be a quick fix to this problem.

Hillary Wilkinson (29:22)

Yeah. And great. Did you want to talk about the offer you were going to offer listeners?

Corey Sholobo (29:27)

Yes.

Hillary Wilkinson (29:27)

Having made it all the way through

Corey Sholobo (29:29)

the episode, if you've made it all the way through this episode, we're going to offer your listeners a free month. It's a seven day trial, free trial for anyone who wants to try it right now. But we'll give you a code which is HSH and you just go into Dale and when you're ready to do the subscribe button which will ask you to do if for the deal, just put in code HSH and you will be able to get a free month.

Hillary Wilkinson (29:50)

Wonderful. I'll include that link in the show notes and as always, you can find a complete transcript of this show if you would like to revisit it and as well as that link for more info about DEO and the code. So you do all, all of that by going to healthyscreenhabits.org, click the podcast button and find this episode. Corey, thank you very much for being here today and for the work that you do and have done in all kinds of problem solving.

Corey Sholobo (30:23)

Thank you for having me. And for all your listeners, we see you, we hear you, we're working to help you if we can find solutions.

Hillary Wilkinson (30:32)

For more information, you can find us on Instagram and Facebook at Healthy Screen Habits. Make sure to Visit our website, healthyscreenhabits.org where you can subscribe to the show on Apple Podcasts or via RSS so you'll never miss an episode. It's free, it's fun, and you get a healthy new screen habit each week while you're at it. If you found value in this show, we'd appreciate you giving us a quick rating. It really does help other people find us and spread the word of healthy screen habits. Or if you'd simply like to tell a friend, we'd love that too. I so appreciate you spending your time with me this week and I look forward to learning more healthy habits together.