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The Mindset Mentor
Phone Addict? Start This Today
00:19:41
What if the thing stealing your life isn’t dramatic at all, but the phone you look at every single day? In this episode, I’m breaking down how our attention is being hijacked by screens, social media, and nonstop stimulation—and how it’s quietly disconnecting us from our relationships, purpose, peace, and even ourselves. I’ll also share practical ways to take your life back, reconnect with the people you love, and start living more intentionally before another year passes by looking down at a screen.
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Welcome to today's Epis of the Mindset Mentor podcast. I'm your host Rob Dial. If you have not yet done so, hit that subscribe button so you never miss another episode. And if you want to master your mornings, go to theperfectmorningroutine.com right now I created a free video and guide to help you create the perfect morning routine based on science for you. So it is theperfectmorningroutine.com today I want to talk to you about something that I genuinely believe is stealing people's lives in real time and not in like a dramatic villain movie type of way. Not in like someone that breaks into your house, ties you up, and steals 10 years of your life. It's something that is way sneakier than that. It steals your life while you're sitting on a porch in front of a beautiful sunset that you're not paying attention to. It steals your life while you're sitting on the couch next to someone that you love. It steals your life while your kid is trying to show you something that they've made and the whole time, it convinces you that you're not really losing anything. You're just checking your phone, or you're just scrolling for a second, or you're just responding to a message, or you're just watching one more video. And then one day, if we're not careful, we will all look up and realize that we have spent thousands of our precious hours staring at a glowing rectangle instead of living our lives in this ridiculously beautiful, magical world that we were born into. And I don't say that to shame you. I shame it because I'm in this with you as well. We're all in this. And these devices, these phones that we have, are designed by some of the smartest people on Earth to hijack the most primitive parts of your brain. So if you feel like your phone has this weird little tractor beam attached to your soul, you're not weak. You're human. And your nervous system has been basically hijacked and is hunted for attention. So I don't want this episode to scare the shit out of you, but I really, really hope that a wake up call for you. So let's go ahead and dive in. We used to think that money was the most valuable thing that you could have. Money matters. Sure. I'm not going to pretend that it doesn't. But today, there's something way more valuable than money, and it is your attention. Because your attention is your life. Where your attention goes is where your life goes. If your attention goes to your relationship, your relationship will grow. If your attention goes to your body, your health will grow. If your attention goes to your purpose, your purpose will grow. If your attention goes into nature or silence or prayer or journaling or friendships or laughter or your children or creativity or movement, all of those will make sure that your actual life will grow. But if your attention goes to a feed that never ends, your life starts to feel like this weird thing where you're technically alive and still breathing, but you're not, like, really here inside of your body. Like, you're breathing, you're functioning. You're paying the bills, you're answering emails, you're liking posts, you're sending memes. But are you really here? Like, really here? Or are you just living your life through a screen, watching other people pretend to live their life? So I want you to understand something. When you look at it. Your phone is not neutral. Social media is not neutral. The algorithm is not sitting here going, well, you know what'd be really good for Brittany today? Maybe she should call her mom and go outside and drink water and remember that she is a beautiful soul living inside of a meat suit, having a temporary human experience. That's not what it's doing, right? The algorithm has one job. To keep you there, to keep you addicted. It doesn't care if you're happy, doesn't care if you're healthy, doesn't care if your marriage is falling apart. It doesn't matter if your kids are trying to get your attention. It doesn't care if you go to bed anxious, you and wake up exhausted. It cares about one thing. Can we keep this person looking? Because the longer that you look, the more money that it makes off of you. You are the product. And that means that your attention and nervous system and dopamine and insecurities and curiosity and your loneliness and your outrage and compassion and boredom, all of those things become monetized. And that should piss you off a little bit. Not in, like, hey, hey, I'm helpless kind of way, but, like, oh, I forgot that I'm the one who gets to choose my life kind of way. And so I want to talk about what phones are doing to adults first. And then for those of you with children, I really need you to hear the studies that are coming up on kids and phones and screens. Because, you know, adults love to talk about their kids and their screen time and say, oh, you know, they need to get off their phone. Children are spending too much time on their phones. It's ruining their brain. And then they're checking their phone 197 times a day. You know, like, we're all sitting here like, oh, these kids are addicted nowadays. And then, you know, we're hiding in the pantry, scrolling on Instagram away from our children like an addict trying to hide their addiction from their family, right? Like, so if you look at that, if you look at an adult, what's it doing to us? It is fragmenting our attention. You cannot build a deep life with a shallow attention Spanish. You cannot build a deep, meaningful relationship when every quiet moment gets interrupted by a notification. You can't build a focused brain when your brain has been trained to need dopamine every 14 seconds. And you cannot build deep peace when the first thing you do in the morning is inject the entire world's panic into your nervous system. And then your nervous system is sitting there, and it's like, dude, we've been awake for 90 seconds. Can I, like, pee first? And this is why so many people in the world feel overwhelmed before their day even starts. And they're so anxious and depressed. Your brain has not evolved to hold the entire planet's problems in your mind, let alone in the first 90 seconds of waking up. And so one of the saddest things that's happened, like the biggest things that phone have stolen from us is this pause that we have in our life. This sacred little moments where you're, you're waiting in line or you're just sitting at a red light, or you're standing outside and being bored and like looking around and letting your mind wander and allowing it to just chill for a minute. Like those moments used to be where your brain would process your life. Like that's where your creativity and new ideas would pop up. That's where you heard the little whisper inside of your head. You know, the little whisper that said, like, man, I'm so unhappy at this job. Or you thought to yourself, like, man, I really miss my friends. Or like you thought to yourself, I should actually go after that dream and
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And now back to the show. But we don't have that pause anymore. Now it's just like there's a pause. Boom. We pick up our phones right and we don't let ourselves feel anything. We don't let ourselves heal anything. We don't let ourselves process anything. And then we wonder why we feel so disconnected from ourselves and from other people. Of course we do. You can't hear your soul whisper when your phone is screaming at you. You know, your fears will scream at you. Your inspiration will whisper. And if you're constantly overstimulated, you will never hear the whisper. So that's what's happening when you actually look at what's happening with adults. But if we talk about children, we really need to talk about children. This is super important for me as a father. Hopefully it's very Important for you if you are a parent or if you have nieces or nephews or whatever, grandchildren. Because this is where I really want parents to wake up. This is not shame. Parents are exhausted, they're overwhelmed, they're super unsupported. I understand. I get it. And sometimes the screen is the only reason why dinner gets made or why you get 10 minutes to breathe. Right. I get it. And it's not me saying that you're a bad parent. It's me saying this. We need to be really honest about what kids brains need. And a child's brain is not just a smaller adult brain. It is under construction. Their nervous system is being built. Their language is being built. Their emotional regulation is being built. Their attachment system is being built. Their sense of self is being built. And the building materials are not just good food and good quality sleep. The building materials are our eye contact and conversation and play and movement and nature and boredom in touching things and facial expressions of the people in front of them. Conflict repair of co regulation, like real world exploration they don't get from a screen. And kids learn emotional regulation by borrowing your nervous system. That's how they actually build their own. A screen cannot co regulate your child. A screen can distract them, it can numb them, it can entertain them, but it cannot look them into their eyes and say, I see you, you are safe. Let's breathe together. That is what children need. There was a study that was done by JAMA Pediatrics, more than 7,000 mother and child pairs. They started screen time with these children at age 1 and their developmental outcomes. They studied at ages 2 and ages 4. And what they found. There's a thing that's called the dose response relationship. More screen time at age 1 was associated with a greater risk of cognitive delays, especially in their communication and their problem solving. Children with four or more hours per day had much higher odds of communication. Delays like that should stop us in our tracks because communication is not built by passively watching something. Communication is built in the serve and return of human interaction. A baby makes a sound, the parent responds. A baby smiles, the parent smiles back, A baby points, the parent names that thing. That little back and forth is what creates the brain architecture for the child. It looks simple, it's not simple. It's literally building your child's brain. And when you're putting on these things like insane shifting and moving and switching every single second, I don't know anything about it, but I've definitely never put on for my son when I've seen other kids watch it it's like cocomelon where it's insane and it's one bright colors and things going from one every two seconds is shifting. That's training your child's nervous system, their attention span, right? So you have to start thinking about what you're putting your child's brain in front of, right? Then you look at like, it's not just children, it's teenagers as well. When they become teenagers now, the danger shifts. Right now we're just not talking about passive screen time, we're talking about social comparison, we're talking about body comparison. We're talking about likes and comments and exclusion and seeing everyone that's hanging out without you and the filters that make them compare themselves to someone who's put filters all over their face. And now they have beauty standards and these algorithmic rabbit holes that they can go on. And you have to understand the constant feeling that everyone else is better off and prettier and richer and happier and more successful and more wanted and more loved and more included. Do you remember being 13 years old, how hard that was like middle school, that you're already insecure, you're already hormonal, you're already trying to figure out who you are and then you're carrying around a device that gives you endless evidence that you're not enough. That's not a phone, that's a comparison machine for a child. Right. And the research shows that the all of this matters. Like it causes sleep disruption and negative self image and interpersonal trust. Right, interpersonal trust. That means social media can start shaping whether kids feel safe with other humans. That's terrifying because humans heal through humans. And if a child starts seeing other people as threats, as competitors or judges or audiences, they lose the very thing that they need the most. That's connection. And the scary part is that the teenage brain is also still developing, which means social media isn't just influencing how teens spend their time. It's not just like they're just wasting time on it. It's actively shaping how they see themselves and their self worth. There was a major study by JAMA Pediatrics as well, and they found that teenagers who spend time on social media and screens showed significantly higher rates of depression and anxiety and emotional dysregulation and lower self worth over time. So this isn't just like, hey, let them have a phone because their friends do. This requires more of us looking at this and saying, what type of adult do I want to raise? And does a phone support or hinder that? It's that kind of thing. And so the question I really want us all to sit with is like, what is our phone costing us? Like really think about that. I don't mean like financially, I mean like spiritually, emotionally, intellectually, creatively. What's it costing, you know, your marriage, your relationships, your relationship with your children? What's it costing your kids? What's it costing your dreams? What is it costing your sleep? What's it costing your peace? What is it costing in your ability to hear your own intuition and your own wisdom? Because the bill always comes due. And the scariest thing is that we might not notice the cost of all of these things until years have passed and we become fully addicted to these things or our children have become fully addicted to these things. You don't notice it until you're kids don't want to talk to you anymore, or your marriage feels like you're just roommates living in the same house, or your body feels like shit, or your dreams feel so far away or you realize that you spent most of your alive years watching other people's lives on a phone. And so what do we do? Like, what do we do? I'm not, once again, I'm not trying to scare the shit out of you. I really just want you to wake up to this. Especially if you have children. Start actually really thinking about this. You don't have to be perfect. We need more intention with this, right? So let me give you like a practical reset. The first thing I think is super important, I say this all of the time, is make sure that you do not use your phone for at least, at least the first 30 minutes of your day. I would recommend 60 to 90, but at least the first 30 minutes a day, right? Do not let the world enter your nervous system before you enter your own life. Wake up, breathe, drink water, go outside, journal, move, be a human before you become a consumer. Okay? Another thing that I would recommend that's just a standard thing that's important for you that we have here in my house is no phone at meals, right? Food is connection with other people. Dinner is not just calories. It's where families attach. It's where friends will bond. It's where your nervous system remembers, like, oh yeah, I. I belong here. Like I belong to these people. Next thing that I recommend is replace scrolling with walking. If you're someone who does feel like you're addicted to your phone, when you want to scroll, I recommend walk. Even if it's just for five minutes. Especially outside if you can't go outside. If it's snowing, you got a treadmill. It's a rainy day. Whatever it is, get on the treadmill if you need to. Right? Just five minutes, at least. Train your body to seek regulation in movement instead of digital sedation. Okay? Next thing I recommend is have hardcore like, phone bedtimes times where your phone is not allowed to be used, right? And so, you know, like maybe you say at seven o', clock, you know, I come home, I'm usually home by 6:30, 7:00', clock, my phone is done for the day, right? Put it in a different room if possible. Because your sleep is not like an optional thing. Your sleep should be one of the most important things that you put protect. Okay? So have some like, phone bedtimes. Next thing is, please, you have to understand, you need to give your kids boredom. Let your children be bored. Boredom is not a problem to solve. I'm gonna say that again because I think it's really. People think it's a problem. Boredom is not a problem to solve. Boredom is one of the most incredible doorways to imagination and creativity and ideas. It is necessary for your brain to have moments of just boredom and nothing going on. Okay? And then the last thing that I'll say, start focusing on building a life that you don't want to escape from. Like, this is a really big one because sometimes we're not addicted to our phones. We're addicted to not feeling our lives. Hmm. Think about that. Sometimes we're trying to escape the fact that we don't like the life that we've built. We don't. Ah, it's too hard to change, right? It isn't too hard to change, but it feels like a lot. So you gotta ask yourself, like, what am I avoiding? What do I need to face? What do I need to build? Who do I need to call? You know, like, what dream needs my attention? Because one day we will die. Super light ending, right? Whoa. Super light wanted to really hammer it home with you. But seriously, right, One day, this whole thing ends. This body, this meat suit, this wild human experience, it ends. And when that day comes, I don't think that you're going to care how many likes you got. I don't think you're going to care how many videos you watch. I don't think you're going to care about the comment section. I think you're going to care about whether you lived or not, whether you loved, whether you paid attention, whether you felt the sun on your face, whether you had experiences, whether you looked people in their eyes and had meaningful connection. Whether you built something meaningful in your life, if you followed your dreams, like whether you actually live this life that you had. So please find some more moments. Put your phone down, go outside, you know, look at the sky, Touch grass, like, literally. I know a lot of people say that, like, as an insult now, but touch grass is one of the best advices that you can get on the Internet. Touch grass, hold your children. Like, look at them. Look at those beautiful little eyes and that little face, those chubby little cheeks. Hold your children, kiss your partner, take the walk, have a conversation, build a life. Because this world is way too beautiful to miss just because you're looking down. So that's what I got for you for today's episode. If you love this episode, please share it on Instagram. Stories tag me obdial jr r o
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b D I A L J R
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and if you want to create the perfect morning routine once again, you can go to theperfectmorningroutine.com right now and get it for free. And with that, I'm going to leave you the same way I leave you every single episode. Make it your mission to make somebody else's day better. I appreciate you and I hope that you have an amazing day.
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