Hal and August Brice -- Victory Over Tech Addiction

 Today we’re devoting a full episode to a new topic – tech addiction.

We need this additional focus because all tech involves non-native EMF exposure – even on a wired computer. Much worse of course if your access involves a wireless connection. In either case you’re exposing yourself to nnEMF. 

If standing barefoot on the earth under the healing rays of the sun is life-giving, screen time on any device is the opposite. 

We can do many things to reduce personal radiation exposure while you’re using a computer, but what if we could reduce the amount of time spent on the computer – a double whammy – less time spent on a reduced EMF device.

And what’s tech doing to our brains? Our children’s and grandchildren’s brains? Is the damage reversible? 

In this interview we’re going to pop the hood on tech addiction and discuss the effects it’s having on our children – if you haven’t looked into this, I’m sorry to say it may be much worse than you’ve imagined, but that can change. The change begins with you. If you’re hearing my voice – you need to lead the change. For your sake, for the sake of your children and grandchildren.

I’ll put a link in the description on how you can access Tech Wellness products, including the Family Social Media Plan. We’ll also be talking about August Brice’s upcoming book introduction.

I'm proud to be an affiliate of Tech Wellness.  Here's the TechWellness site where you will find my favorite no EMF alarm clock the WiFi kill switch  the Family Social Media Plan and other products.

Transcript

Keith Cutter: 0:01

What if there was a simple tool, a framework, to help you reduce tech addiction, not just for your children, but for all members of the family? August and Hal Bryce, founders of Tech Wellness, join me for an important conversation. A simple but powerful tool for generational victory over tech addiction Coming up.

Gweneth: 0:40

EMF Remedy is dedicated to helping you understand which electromagnetic threats are present in your home and whether, in the context of your current home, one you're considering for purchase or building a new home with comprehensive protection designed in. Emf Remedy can help you reduce your family's exposure to harmful man-made electromagnetic radiation.

Keith Cutter: 1:02

man-made- electromagnetic radiation. Hi, this is Keith Cutter with emfremedycom, host of the EMF Remedy podcast, where we help you deal with electromagnetic poisoning in this upside-down reality where personal radiation exposure has become the norm. Personal radiation exposure has become the norm. Today we're devoting a full episode to a new topic tech addiction. We need this additional focus Because all tech involves non-native EMF exposure, even on a wired computer Much worse, of course, if your access involves a wireless connection. But in either case you're exposing yourself to non-native EMF. Let me put it this way If standing barefoot on the earth under the healing rays of the sun is life-giving, screen time on any device is the opposite. We can do many things to reduce personal radiation exposure while you're using a computer, but what if we could reduce the amount of time actually spent on the computer? That's what I would call a double whammy Less time spent on a reduced EMF device equals less personal radiation exposure. And what is tech doing to our brains, our children's and our grandchildren's brains? Is the damage reversible?

Keith Cutter: 3:02

In this interview we're going to pop the hood on tech addiction and discuss the effects it's having on our children. If you haven't looked into this, I'm sorry to say. It may be much worse than you've imagined, but that can change. The change begins with you. If you are hearing my voice, you need to lead that change for your sake, for the sake of your children and grandchildren. I'll put a link in the description on how you can access tech wellness products, including the Family Social Media Plan. We'll also be talking about August Bryce's upcoming book introduction an interview with August and Hal Bryce, founders of Tech Wellness. Here we go. My guests today are Hal and August Bryce. Together, they're owners of a unique business called Tech Wellness, where the company mission involves helping people live in balance with digital technology. August and Hal, welcome to the EMF Remedy Podcast.

August Brice: 4:31

Hello Keith. It's so exciting to be here with you. I just love what you do, your voice.

Hal Brice: 4:37

Listen. When I hear you, keith, I just calm right down. It's like I don't know I'll have to have caffeine after I listen to one, because it's just so relaxing. It's like you deliver the message in a very relaxing way, which I appreciate, and you have a lot of detail which I think most people don't get a chance to hear. So good for you.

August Brice: 4:55

We really appreciate what you're doing. It's so great to meet you.

Keith Cutter: 5:00

It's really a pleasure for me to meet you. I really like what you guys are up to with all that you're doing in the context of tech wellness. It's a multifaceted company. You've got a focus on internet addiction and you have a focus on non-native EMF blue light avoidance, privacy and security.

August Brice: 5:29

Have I missed anything? No, that's it. And blue light, just like you said, anything that comes or is associated with the screen. We like to talk about all the many reasons to either put the phone down or be careful with it. There's so many ways to get to the same point. We really need to get some balance with our technology, and that's really what tech wellness is about. You know, we have a platform of information on all those topics experts and then solutions to empower people to live in balance with technology, because you know, when I first got into this field 15 years ago, when I started talking about my EMF sensitivity, other people started coming along and it was really from a fear based perspective and I really wanted to help people understand that with just bite-sized pieces of information that are easy to understand, we can make small steps towards wellness.

Hal Brice: 6:32

Absolutely, and you know, I think, when you look at what August talks about and why she spent so much time recently studying gaming addiction because and there are a lot of books out there, obviously gaming addiction because and there are a lot of books out there, obviously there's one came out last week about this but you know the the way we hand off the world's most powerful tool ever created to children under the age of 10, oftentimes is very scary, and it's amazing that we do that. So that becomes part of the conversation at tech wellness too, because it's like you know, you wrote a guide with your daughter about how to introduce children to a smartphone and it's really awesome, so that's, I mean, I hope we can talk about that because that you guys did a great job on that.

Keith Cutter: 7:12

That is so important to me and and that is that's really the heart of what I wanted to to talk about here today.

Keith Cutter: 7:20

you know, week in and week out, I am all about non-native EMF and how to reduce exposure in a way that's measurable for the individuals and for the family members. But what I have not yet spent a lot of time talking about is this uncomfortable topic of tech addiction, and I say uncomfortable because I think probably by now everybody suffers from some level of tech addiction or another, and I've spent August. You and I have something in common in that we've both realized that we're harmed by non-native or man-made EMF, and part of my journey was I spent years in the dark, literally in a home, darkened. I couldn't even have the electricity on.

Hal Brice: 8:19

So you were the model for the guy on Better Call Saul.

Keith Cutter: 8:21

I guess I'd never seen that show. Oh, you should watch that. People bring it up.

August Brice: 8:26

But I've been called it a lot.

Hal Brice: 8:27

Yeah, that's right, I've been called it a lot.

August Brice: 8:30

I've been called it a lot.

Keith Cutter: 8:32

That seems like a little social programming to me. It is.

Hal Brice: 8:36

It is the common reference, that's all.

Keith Cutter: 8:39

Yeah, yeah, but anyway, when you have to do that, when you're brought to a point where there's no work that you can do or whatever, and it's difficult to be in society because of their electromagnetic habits, you get a lot of time to think about things.

Keith Cutter: 9:00

And so I've really pondered this question of tech addiction and how what you just said was was beautiful about this most addictive device ever and we hand it to the children, and so I think about addiction in the abstract. You know, when you're, when you're smoking cigarettes and I'm not picking on cigarette smokers or certain drugs there's a stimulus, there's a stimulating quality that keeps people coming back. And when we rolled out the power grid across the world, so followed all the disease of modern civilization, and that was about, initially, convenience. So the last thing is, you know, streaming videos and whatnot. That's amusing, right? So you've got this tech addiction now fueled by, I think, convenience, amusement and stimulation. And if it was hard to get away from cigarette smoking or drug addiction or whatever, now you've got all three in one device, essentially that everybody is carrying around. What are your thoughts about this? Am I crazy?

August Brice: 10:19

No, because I had my sensitivity manifest early. Because I had my sensitivity manifest early, I was unable in the early days to even carry around a phone, and so I was able to see exactly what you started to contemplate. Wow, people are carrying these things around like they're attached, they are getting in bed like they can't go to sleep without them, and I know that's become fairly commonplace now. So I could see the incredible attraction. And we know now, you know from movies, like the social dilemma and all the research and you know the mental health studies. They're all showing us that, absolutely, these devices are built to get our attention, to keep it and to keep us wanting more and more and more, even when we're not on the device. And it all centers around dopamine and our dopamine stimulation, and there's a whole book about dopamine now. But it is absolutely true.

August Brice: 11:24

And when Hal said that we're giving this most powerful, what I like to call a little bomb to kids, you know, without so much as a driving lesson, what we're doing is even worse because there's a man, dr Afur Tarell from USC, who I've met with a few times and was early in the social media effect on the brain studies and he did a beautiful paper with other researchers and he divided the brain into the reward center and the control center, and basically this reward center is where all this dopamine happens, where we get a cue from something that we have a huge amount of desire for.

August Brice: 12:07

It can be something that excites us, something that we look forward to, something that gives us a euphoric feeling, and then that dopamine rises. We get a bit of dopamine released into our brain and our dopamine rises and causes us to have this motivation to want even more. So this device has all of the wonderful things, in gaming in particular, that stimulate this dopamine and continue to make us want more. And then we want more, we have more, and then all of a sudden it looks like an addiction, doesn't it? We're so drawn to it that at the very least on one end of the scale it looks like distraction, and then it goes to the other end of the pendulum and it's full on addiction. And, interestingly, I think somebody just mentioned cocaine, was it you?

August Brice: 13:04

No Was it, you no, was it you Keith. Yes, we were talking about it, but anyway. But the brains of people who look like they're addicted to social media or to games look a lot like the brains of people we know are addicted to alcohol and cocaine and, to be fair, researchers still can't conclude. Well, do you have that brain first and that's why you got addicted, or does it cause addiction?

Hal Brice: 13:32

But you know, I think it'd be really cool if you would explain that what happens as you continue to you know you're with dopagenetic right as you continue to stimulating and seek that little squirt of dopamine, it gets harder and harder for you to sort of live normally without it, right? It's like you get. Your dopamine level gets lower and lower.

August Brice: 13:53

Well, yes, you have a nice baseline level. You should have a baseline level, but the more you use, the lower your resources become and the more it takes to stimulate you. So you know a lot of different. Like Dr Amen says that, you know, it looks like an addiction to me. They're showing addictive qualities, of the brain becoming completely worn out. And that's where I want to get back to the kids.

August Brice: 14:18

So our children's control centers, which Dr Afford-Torrell likes to refer to, control centers, which Dr Fergeral likes to refer to, all of these things that our phones offer, the bright lights and the rewards we get just by somebody responding to our Instagram, and the thumbs up and a way to go and bing, I got a text. He likes to call those the cake. And the first woman that I worked with, dr Kimberly Young, who actually coined the term internet addiction really the pioneer of the whole field called for a digital diet that we need to control ourselves by looking at the really fun things in technology as the cake and the sugar. And Dr Terrell calls it the same thing the cake and the sugar. And so there's all this cake that kids are exposed to and they just want more and more and more.

August Brice: 15:08

And then I say it's even worse than cake. They layer on the candy with even you know the more exciting things. But the problem is that control center that I mentioned that steps in like sort of the brakes on the brain that says okay, hold off, take a step back. This isn't good for you, this is interfering with your beautiful life. It's well-rounded and perfect, and now you're just on your device and you're not moving. So let's stop that. Well, do you know that until you're 25 years old, that part of the brain is not fully developed? So we're sort of throwing our children to the lions.

Hal Brice: 15:48

Exactly, and you know the weird part about this, keith. Just let me add one more thing before we come back in. I think that it's pretty amazing that kids get swept up in this, because I think, primarily they don't understand what's happening. We interviewed, or August interviewed, this one kid who was a friend of our nephew's, who was 17 years old, and he totally understood it. He totally understood the distraction and everything that was going on with him.

Hal Brice: 16:11

But for the most part, we just put our kids into that universe and just let them. You know, just take it. You know, and if there's a, I always go to this quote. It was a guy named Victor Frankl who wrote a really important book and he says between stimulus and response there is a space. So if a thumbs up or a like or a, you know, something you do on a video game is the stimulus, there's a space there and in that space is our power to choose a response. And that is what our kids need to know. They need to know that they can make a choice and that it will benefit them later, and that's why we need to tell them you know, in certain terms, you know what you're going to screw your brain up buddy or young lady or whoever it is. I mean you're going to mess yourself up if you continue to do this without regard for what it's doing to your brain.

Keith Cutter: 16:57

Oh, I so much agree with, uh, with, with what you two are saying and really the focus should begin with the children.

Keith Cutter: 17:03

I'll tell you about something that happened last week, and then I'd love to get your comments on what was going on here. But my wife and I decided to go to lunch, so we went to a local family delicatessen and we were eating our lunch and looked around and there was a mother with her child and the child looked to be, oh, maybe four years old, and both of us noticed that the mom was scrolling on her device the entire time. We were there eating and the child was sitting quietly, not looking at anything, not doing anything. She was behaving well, I suppose, for the situation. But what's going on there for the mom? What's going on for the child? What are the EMF implications?

August Brice: 17:57

What are?

Keith Cutter: 17:57

the you know.

August Brice: 17:59

Can we start there with?

August Brice: 18:00

the EMF implications, because I and you you know this being sensitive, I can physically, physically feel what people, especially children, are going through when they're exposed, and it makes me almost like I'm seeing a fire and I want to run and put it out. So it's hard for me to see those situations, even with a mom who's got a, or a dad who has a baby in their arms and a phone as well at the same time. You know it's, it's it's very difficult physically, because I just know the feeling and it's that's one great thing to point out. And so, as far as that goes, I'm sure, yeah, there's a lot of exposure going on, but, more than anything, who do we learn?

Hal Brice: 18:52

from Well, yeah, you do. That's modeling right. I mean, it's the attention economy. So that little child is losing the battle in the attention economy and whatever Facebook or TikTok is winning as far as his mom is concerned or her mom is concerned.

August Brice: 19:06

And you know, keith, it's so interesting too in that situation because at some point, probably during that meal, I'd imagine mom, from what I've seen in these situations, once mom needs to just start eating or do something else, what do you see Usually? You see, Usually you see them hand them the phone right, and that's where I always just say a quick prayer in my head Please let that be on airplane. Not that that solves everything, but that's step one.

Hal Brice: 19:39

Right.

August Brice: 19:39

Yeah, that's the.

Hal Brice: 19:40

EMF part of it.

August Brice: 19:41

Right. And so, like Hal said, you know they are modeling the behavior that they will be seeing in their child eventually, which is really something that I do want parents to understand. When their kids become obsessed with their phone or their computer or their social media or their game, there's nothing wrong with their kids.

August Brice: 20:10

It is biologically normal and predictable because that control center, that thing that would even in any way help them, to yes, help them to even exercise the control if their mom and dad or their teachers explained it to them just really isn't completely on board. So when eventually the child does become obsessed or what looks like an addiction you hear a lot of people throw that word around and hopefully it's not, hopefully it's just the appeal.

Hal Brice: 20:48

You said it starts like an overuse right.

August Brice: 20:50

So it goes from normal, maladaptive overuse.

Hal Brice: 20:52

Maladaptive overuse. It's a normal term that people use every day and it's fun to say, but I think that there's a spectrum, just like everything else right, and so when they get far into the addictive side of the spectrum, that's when things start to fall apart, and then that's what makes it hard to recover from that. After a certain point, you can have people dealing with all kinds of addictions, but I think, beyond gambling or alcohol or smoking or pornography today, which is also empowered by our online world, the more you do it, the harder it is to stop it. Somebody told me over the weekend that they have this sort of addiction-breaking tool. It's called a theta machine. It's supposed to get your brain in theta state, and they said that the hardest addictions to break are like pornography and online gaming the hardest ones.

August Brice: 21:44

Well, and that's actually as far as I know about the gaming. That is absolutely true. It is the only condition that the World Health Organization has given a diagnostic code to meaning that insurance will pay for. Internationally, insurance will pay for medical care needed to break that disorder or to treat that disorder. It's in the DSM in other words, no, no, no, it's in the World Health.

Hal Brice: 22:16

Organization, oh, the WHO, okay.

August Brice: 22:17

And the American Psychiatric Association has their DSM and it's listed as a condition to watch. It's a possible condition and as far as the percentage of kids that are addicted, a study came out recently that globally, 8% of kids are addicted to gaming, and so now they're taking a closer look at maybe making that, giving that disorder a designation, so children and adults in America can be treated for it.

Hal Brice: 22:58

I think both you guys are doing work that's helping to sort of raise awareness about this everywhere, and when I see things like Florida passing a couple of weeks ago, the uh, you can't have it on account unless you're over 14, and then your parents have to sign off on it and so it's I think that's so brilliant, like that's great. I mean, the surgeon general called they put out a paper that was similar to the one that came out years ago when smoking was finally determined to be a hazard. It was like an official alert saying that you know, children under 14 should not have social media accounts. And you know, I mean we heard about it for a few days but we haven't heard anything about it since. So it's like the idea, I think, is that you just have to keep talking about it.

August Brice: 23:37

Yeah, I don't know that the laws are actually ever going to be, you know, inactive and solidified before they're shot down. However, I love that they're a rallying call to people everywhere that this is very serious and there are so many reasons, like we said, to be careful with our technology and the way that the technology is changing our brains. Our white and gray matter is so completely believable. When you look at the research, when you see functional MRI scans and you see how different areas are now hyperactive or lighting up, or that there's less gray matter in certain areas that's linked to overuse, it's, I think, easier for people to understand that this is something very serious.

Hal Brice: 24:33

Can you tell us the difference? I think Keith would like to know what's the difference between gray matter and white matter and why that's important if you lose it.

August Brice: 24:39

Well, the gray matter. Do you want to know this, keith?

Keith Cutter: 24:43

Absolutely yeah.

Hal Brice: 24:46

Are we going down the wrong rabbit hole?

Keith Cutter: 24:48

No, we're going down the right rabbit hole. I'm just going to mention to people who are listening that you guys have come up with a solution and we're going to spend some time talking about that solution. But, yes, I want to explore this issue of this type of addiction and what all the ramifications are of it. So, yes, please.

August Brice: 25:07

Well, I think for a lot of people you know to know, because so much of the research says, ah, yeah, but it's okay, you know they're there, it's fine if they play a bit of games, and I love what Dr Durrell told me. I said, wait, wait, what about motor skills? Yeah, definitely, Games are great for motor skills. And he said yes, and I said so how much gaming should we do every day for motor skills? He said an hour and a half a week. Oh, so not too much.

August Brice: 25:37

Anyway, gray matter is that swirly, outermost surface that when you think of the brain, you see the brain and you see all those really cool folds and everything. That's the gray matter. And the gray matter contains all the neurons we love to talk about neurons, right, and so it's the body of the neurons. And then white matter. There's a lot more white matter and it's underneath that gray matter that's on top and it turns white because it has these little offshoots that actually communicate to different areas of the brain and they're covered with myelin sheaths that are actually white, and so that's gray matter, white matter. And white matter is more about the communication, so communicating from one area to the brain, to the other, and white matter goes, by the way, all the way through our nervous system and so down our spine. You know the entire. The brain is the top of the nervous system and then it goes throughout. So gray matter and white matter are definitely connected Gray matter, the neuron cell body, white matter the offshoots. So they're both extraordinarily important.

August Brice: 26:47

We first started seeing more research just in the oh, is there less volume of gray matter? Is there more volume? Because that's been an interesting thing to see is, you know, as we age we will lose gray matter, and less gray matter is definitely associated with things like Parkinson's and dementia and Alzheimer's. So we know that it's probably better to keep as much of it as possible. And white matter, on the other hand, with the connectivity, what they see, of the changes there, they see that different areas are lighting up differently than they quote unquote normally do. So that's the difference between white and gray matter. Did I make that easy?

Hal Brice: 27:29

or hard, but losing it through gaming is something that it's very difficult to get back, right.

August Brice: 27:36

Yeah, you know, up until a few years ago, we thought that once we lost those neurons right, you remember that, keith, where we people always told us oh, you lose your brain, your neurons, they don't come back.

Keith Cutter: 27:48

Yes, right.

August Brice: 27:49

Well, actually they're finding that they do, but not in the amazing billions of volumes that we're born with. So, yeah, they're seeing that maybe 1,500 neurons a day can come back, but that's. They're noticing it in deep rehabilitation that no one wants to go through. So they've looked at traumatic brain injury and they found a decrease in the gray matter and then they see that that indeed some of it does return through working the brain in certain ways, from taking care of our bodies and as far as the solutions go for the gray matter, I think, the more of it and then that we better take care of it. Besides just avoiding technology. There are some great things that we can do, and one of them is mindfulness meditation can do, and one of them is mindfulness meditation that actually has been shown to be very good and actually increase brain matter volume. Exercise there are stories about research about exercise helping that. Um, there's. Let me see what are some of the other.

Hal Brice: 29:01

What's great about that is you know if children or in fact anyone, if anyone, could visualize what's happening in their head, the more time they spend on social media or the more time they spend on gaming, that they are affecting the actual composition of their brain, which is clearly their most important organ. You know, then, I think you'd be able to sort of convince people. You know, one, not to overindulge in these things, and and and. Two, that you know there's an impact. All of our actions have an impact.

Keith Cutter: 29:30

Right, right and and I'm going back to what you were saying earlier about these the dopamine driven dopamine driven response cycle really is what we're talking about, and that's sort of the hook in what makes social media and gaming addictive, in that you get this little bit of a reward and you get a little bit more reward, and I remember so many years ago I was involved in development of training in high tech and we were talking 30 years ago about you need to give students a reward occasionally.

Keith Cutter: 30:07

So clearly that's that's what's um been implemented here, right, that's the focus and you don't. You don't have to run to the pharmacy is is I guess the point that I'm trying to make is, for this reward, you just don't need to get a prescription filled and go get something and take it into your body that way, is that right? Does our brain make these neurotransmitters?

August Brice: 30:32

Yeah, you know what. And as far as the thing that really got me interested in looking at, well, what are some of the things that have been shown to increase or are correlated with more brain volume? More gray matter is because I learned very early in this then started looking at MRIs that it was the reward center of the brain that had less gray matter, and the problem with that was less gray matter required more dopamine to have that stimulation that you're talking about. So if it required more dopamine, then obviously we were going to be needing more reserves of it, right? So it's better to have more gray matter volume, so you need less dopamine to get that engine going. So that's why I thought, oh, this is really, this is something that we need to study, this is important, and so it was nice to see that sleep, exercise, meditation, learning another language being read to early in life. Even children who are breastfed longer have more gray matter volume. Isn't that interesting?

Keith Cutter: 31:47

Yeah, that's really interesting. I wonder how young you have to be to not be able to remember a time when families went out to eat at a restaurant as an exception rather than the rule, and it was a special time for the family and you had here's the word conversation. You know, having been sensitive, I kind of avoid the exposures that other people are embracing people are embracing, and so I've taken a particular interest in looking at how the dynamics in a family have just changed so much over the last 20 years, would you agree? And the fact that Go ahead.

August Brice: 32:36

A thousand percent, yes, and I think that, like you had said earlier, seeing the mom modeling the behavior, I think it's a. You know we talk about the kids, but it's happening to all of us. Everyone has become distracted by the you know the excitement in their hand, whatever it is, whatever is stimulating them. And you, for a moment before and I don't think I answered the question completely when you said could this be made without an outside force, not taking a chemical? What is it that you wanted to know about the natural dopaminergic pathways, what we can do to stimulate ourselves naturally, right? Is that what you were saying?

Keith Cutter: 33:20

Well, when you offer this bit of stimulation with a thumbs up or with a reward in a video game, I think, if I'm correct, that that triggers the actual production of dopamine within our brain, which is like the rat has its foot on the feeder pedal and instead of getting food, he's getting the stimulation which are also experiments that were done with rats and whatnot, and and, and you know, you keep pushing that lever and you get more dopamine, and you get more dopamine. And it doesn't just come from the thumbs up either, Does it no?

August Brice: 34:01

And you know, when I hear people talk about dopamine as though it's a bad thing, it's actually not a bad thing. It's the motivational neuromodulator. So what it does is it motivates us. So I think you know, god, probably you know put this in our brains way back for primal man, when he had to go hunting and maybe didn't really want to, because there's a lot of weird things with hunting right, it's not all great. They had to go out and find whatever they were hunting for and then kill it and then drag it back. But if they didn't, what would they eat, right? So something, something along the way and it's different for everyone stimulated primal land and, um, it could have been the adulation of the crowd, you know when. About the killback, it could have been eating the food, it could have been the thrill of the hunt, but we had things that stimulated our dopamine along the way throughout history. We had to have it, didn't? We just didn't start getting our dopamine stimulated because of, you know, technology. Food stimulates dopamine. Anything that you really desire and want will stimulate dopamine and, like I said, it's different for everyone.

August Brice: 35:27

But I imagine, for a musical virtuoso, that that sound motivated them to want to play more hitting the right notes. I'm not sure what motivated them, but something motivates this progression. And on a deeper level, keith, what I think is if we don't start getting back to the other things that can stimulate our motivation, where are our imaginations going to go? That's what I see the least of now for children. I am saddened by the lack of imaginative games that I see kids playing versus. Like when we were growing up and that's what we had to do. We got to play, we got to make up things.

Keith Cutter: 36:12

There's some dirt, Go play. Isn't that the truth? All my kids? They could be happy growing up outside with sticks and dirt.

Keith Cutter: 36:27

Cardboard box. Actually, that's a real thing. You know, when you got a refrigerator and they would say, can we keep the box? And they would invent um things around it. But I want to. I want to talk now about, um. Well, first of all, that the the last thing we discussed was this mother and this daughter in a restaurant having no interaction with each other and you know, it's sad because we think about how that little girl, when she grows up, how will she raise her daughter, and so on down the line. Are we getting towards more interaction with human down the line? Are we getting?

August Brice: 37:04

towards more interaction with human, I think, one of the skills that we see disappearing in the study. 12 years ago, ucla study was an empathy study and because they noticed right away that all day long and not jumping in and talking to other people?

August Brice: 37:31

What was going away on skills test, empathy? So they took children to the desert for five days and those empathy skills returned. So I think the answer always to all of these things, to all the problems that we're seeing, is the wonder and the amazing transitions that you can have from a digital detox.

Keith Cutter: 37:55

Even if it's.

August Brice: 37:56

I'm a huge fan of a daily digital detox. An hour a day fan of a daily digital detox. An hour a day, 15 minutes a day however, you need to start will give you so much perspective on real life that can be taken away by popping up instead and looking at the phone, or looking at the phone anytime during the day that instead you choose to get off of it and just reflect and be and see what's happening in all the human connections when I tell people I think we do it daily at night because we've never had a TV in our bedroom, which is great.

Hal Brice: 38:40

We don't charge our phones or go on the internet in our bedroom great, we have never. We don't charge our phones or go on the internet in our bedroom, and so that's. That is a really seriously important daily digital detox for us. Because when I tell people that you know there's no phones in our bedroom, they look at me like I'm crazy, like how do you wake up? Well, we have an alarm clock. It rings, you know, or we just wake up, you know. But people are so used to now leaving that EMF producing machine right next to them, right next to their heads of all things. I mean, they're not detoxing at all, they're not sleeping well at all. Yeah, I really agree.

Keith Cutter: 39:16

I really agree with that.

Keith Cutter: 39:17

By the way, for anybody listening, that clock Tech Wellness has a wonderful clock.

Keith Cutter: 39:21

That clock Tech Wellness has a wonderful clock I just bought about two months ago and I'm loving it because it's analog, it's not digital, which I really enjoy, and it has a tiny little light that's not going to upset your melatonin production at night.

Keith Cutter: 39:40

So I'm just going to throw that in there for people to think about. But I want to mention something hopeful, because the whole theme of my work is that we have way too much fear in our society and we don't need any more fear. But I'd like to replace that fear with knowledge and a plan. So we've been talking about some things to help people with their knowledge and we're going to talk in a minute about the family social media plan. But before we do that, I want to give a hopeful vision to contrast that mother and her daughter in the delicatessen that we just talked about, and it's exactly along the lines of August which you were talking about, which is how little time it might take to get something significant back. So I'll try to briefly describe this. We have a dear friend who is a teacher at a classical education cooperative.

Keith Cutter: 40:37

And this story is not about public school versus a different model, not about public school versus a different model. But here's a group of teenagers and they don't have a prom like a senior prom or a junior ball. They have something they call protocol and it is the opportunity for young men and young ladies, under supervision, to learn what's the appropriate protocol for. For you know, engaging in conversation and keeping company with people, the opposite sex, and you know all that kind of thing at pulling, pulling the chairs out for the young ladies and whatnot. My gosh.

Hal Brice: 41:19

And so it was called cotillion. Ah, okay.

Keith Cutter: 41:23

Same thing. I love that. That's so great. So here's what happened this week is I learned that this event was. I guess it was the event was actually last week. I heard about it this week went to a very fancy restaurant nearby and the ladies had ball gowns and the gentlemen were all dressed up, and maybe some of them were wearing their dad's shoes, but that didn't matter. And what transpired?

Keith Cutter: 42:03

oh and no digital devices were allowed period, Of course, and for two hours these young ladies and young men enjoyed one another's conversation and I would have given anything to have been there, but this person that relayed this to me. It was just such a hopeful, such a wonderful thing. She told me that at the end of the evening, one of the servers came over with mouth agape and said I have never seen anything like this and I was just amazed that these children were conversing with one another and they were enjoying one another's company and whatnot, without any, you know, hang on, I got to check my text and see what my last posting got, or anything like that I love that and you know what?

Hal Brice: 42:52

Right, because they're smart If we don't have this phone, you know, as part of their…. It's an easy option, right? So it's easier to look down than it is to look up into someone's eyes and try and really connect with them. You know what I mean.

August Brice: 43:08

But once they do, it feels good and they can do it.

Hal Brice: 43:11

You mentioned a little bit ago August. I think you were referring to All it Takes. It's an organization that's based here and they work with middle school kids.

August Brice: 43:26

This is Lori Woodley's foundation, all it Takes, and they have leadership training camps and we have a video that I'll share with you. That's so great of what happens when the kids have to turn in their phones for three or five days, and then what happens when they get to pick them up.

Hal Brice: 43:41

They don't even want them for three or four days. But when they drop them off it's like no, I have to keep this. Can I just come and look at it every once in a while? They negotiate right away. It's like the five stages of grief or something of trauma. But once they start to realize that they can look at other people and develop emotional intelligence, and how much more rewarding that is than looking down at a screen, they don't even care about their phones afterwards. It's a very short period. It's three days, the three-day camp.

Keith Cutter: 44:08

And so.

Hal Brice: 44:09

I mean, more people should do that, obviously. But yeah, that's a great program.

Keith Cutter: 44:13

That's so hopeful, because not only are you not getting the harm associated with the non-native EMF on a wireless device, but you're allowing your brain to recover and your behaviors to recover, and so there is hope. There is not a point where you just say, well, yeah, this is the way it is. No, it can change. But you know what it's not going to change without moms and dads yes and grandparents taking it seriously and offering some leadership. Is that what you had in mind with the family social media, exactly.

August Brice: 44:53

And with the upcoming book, I want parents to have the knowledge, to be empowered, because I think once they have the knowledge and I know I get scientific with the gray matter and white matter but I just want them to know they're 100% right when they say and for so many different reasons, whether it's driving, texting and driving, or whether it's just they're on that game console too long they're 100% right in their decision to say no, even if it feels uncomfortable, because they're definitely going to be benefiting that child and their future. And so what we wanted to do, my daughter and I, with the social media family plan, was make it really easy for parents of kids any age. They can be seven years old, because, like that little girl that saw her mom scrolling, I'm sure she's aware that she's probably doing some social media, you know, from time to time. And we focused in on social media because the Surgeon General, you know, said that kids should be waiting until they're 14, which I would even say 16. It's a scary place actually, social media, but it's a powerful place, full of wonderful opportunities. It's a powerful place full of wonderful opportunities, right, as long as you can handle those opportunities.

August Brice: 46:10

So the plan starts with information. You know, here's the realities behind all the good things that social media can enhance. And then all the things that we need to be aware of. You know the pros and cons. And then we talk about some of the things that we know from tech wellness, about safety and privacy and just very simply the settings that we should just as as our default should have on our devices just to protect us and our children. And then we talk a little bit about obsession and addiction and how to know the difference.

August Brice: 46:47

Then here's my favorite part, keith we have a section where we ask you to scroll.

August Brice: 46:53

Even if you've got a 15 year old, you say, hey, let's just show me, show me what you're looking at at TikTok, what do you see? And then to evaluate how that makes them feel, and then and to do this for like a good hour, you know go to the different places, the different things that that their friends are looking at, look at their friends feeds, and then look at general feeds Like there's always some good stuff out there that we can learn from and to really think about how does that make us feel? Was that a good use of time? How much time did we spend? That's always an eye opener and what are some of the feelings that are associated with it, because that's where we really need to empower our children to know what those feelings mean. Like one of my very, very first tech wellness ways was your phone was designed to make your life better and easier. When it stops feeling that way, put it down and so it encompasses you know all the feelings that you might get scrolling through social media, especially as a child.

Hal Brice: 48:12

You know I can tell you, underlying all this and I don't think you were really thinking about this when you wrote this it's more in your book, that's upcoming, but we're just, I think August really just wants to empower parents to walk in there and take some control, because I mean, think about it, when you're pregnant with your first child or the second child and you're you know, you're looking, uh, you know the all the pregnancy books, you're like studying it intently, you're super focused, right. And then the kids get a little bit older and you're tired. Quite frankly, you are just tired, especially we have more than one. And then, and so it's like, yeah, have a phone phone, okay, good, all right, can I text you at school? Okay, fine, that's all they care about, right? So I don't think most parents I know I was kind of like this too when we first gave our daughter a phone- it's like I don't want to let them play games.

Hal Brice: 48:58

But it's like you don't almost want to know what they're doing. It's much easier not to think about it because you know what's out there, and it's just easier. But look, the school isn't going to do it, the government isn't going to do it, your neighbor isn't going to do it they're the kids aren't going to do it. You, as the parent, have to be the responsible adult in the, in the relationship, and you have to take control and you have to set boundaries. Even if it pisses people off, you have to be the one who steps in and says here's what we're going to do and there will be boundaries, right? Maybe I'm a little bit too adamant about that.

Hal Brice: 49:30

I was going to be like you're crazy, but I think. I think if parents don't do that, they wind up being in a, their kids wind up being in a place that we were talking about earlier. Right, and and so it's, it's, it's fine. Kids like boundaries, they like rules, they want it, and it's not like you're running a concentration camp. You're just saying no, no, we're not going to be on that site, we're not going to post over there and we're not going to use it during these hours, and if you do, you're going to lose the device. It's very easy.

August Brice: 49:58

Oh no, the family plan is not threatening in any way, no, just threatening, it just sets up a nice. It's a format, yeah, it's a format that everyone in the family agrees to. So then we have these four pages that you cut out and put on your refrigerator or whatever. Your central space in the family is where you all gather and see things that we'd agree to, like what are we actually going to be looking at? You know why are we doing this? How much time? Where do we not do this? At the dinner table, you know, before bed. So just that everybody goes in eyes wide open and can have a great understanding.

Hal Brice: 50:41

And this is to your earlier scenario with the delicatessen, with the mom and the child and the delicatessen. One of the things you talk about, which I think is brilliant, is that the parents have to adhere to these rules too. So if the rule is, we're not during meals, we are not going to be on social media, or anything for that matter, then the parents have to step up and agree and they sign the document as well. This is our plan and your plan.

Keith Cutter: 51:07

That is so important. Yeah, that is just critically important, I think, because you want to model the behavior, and they should be able. They're going to listen. They're going to pay less attention to what you say than what you do, so I love the fact that that's sort of a bilateral agreement. Here's what we're all going to do. All going to do.

August Brice: 51:24

And it's just going to be a happier, you know place. It's funny too, because I I have this one woman who called with a uh, did a video testimonial for me and sent it to me. It said, and almost in tears, said oh my gosh, this, this isn't really just for kids, this is for adults. It just made me think so much of things that like I'm doing and I thought, oh, that's so great and I just I just feel so much better now we should put that up, absolutely so. Anyway, I hope that that that that did let you know that we are really definitely about the solutions, because that's definitely the place that we come from, and not having fear.

August Brice: 52:09

And one of my favorite things that I found out along the way that I've talked about a lot, is this big distraction study, because that's like I said the very beginning of it, that we're distracted by this technology and that at UT Austin they had 800 kids come in and they did these little cognition tests and skills and their phones were all off and turned over, by the way, but they did the test with the phones in three different places on their desk, in front of them, in a bag or a backpack, or in another room in a safe place but they couldn't see the bag or the backpack. And when the phone was turned off but on their desk, they found especially with the kids that really enjoyed using their phones that it could take up to 50% of their cognitive capacity. It was distracting them.

Hal Brice: 53:09

Just the presence of it.

August Brice: 53:10

Just the mere presence of it being there.

Hal Brice: 53:13

Visual stimulation like that is powerful. We saw in marketing that I mean you know the old Lee Iacocca study where he put a Mustang on a page and then he put a pretty girl in front of the Mustang and the people who rated it as a great advertising advertised one of the 75% right. And we also found that if you're asking people to say how much is this product worth and there is like a credit card logo on the table not a credit, not a credit, didn't say anything about it, just sitting there they will value the product higher. So that kind of nudge that you can get from just a stimulus, even if you're not using it, is profound right. Even if you're not using it is profound right. And I think I actually thought there was another distraction thing you're going to talk about the uh, the joy of life thing.

August Brice: 53:51

Oh, that's really I don't know if we have time for together. That's in the book and it's amazing, but, um, just what happened when kids started? This is the study started in 2012 and went through 2017 and just the things that happened as they started using internet more, going on phones more, going online more and just how one particular one of the satisfaction measurements that just broke my heart was it feels good to be alive.

August Brice: 54:26

How that just correlated down as use went up and we're not even talking, keith, a lot of use. By the way, this was back in the day when it had only increased about a half an hour a year. So it wasn't it didn't. The study ended in 2017, but it was just really the sign of the times to come. And now the studies that we're seeing from young people who would have been in this study not the exact people, but young people who would have been in this study, the same age group they're just really struggling with mental health.

Hal Brice: 55:02

It's hard. You've got increasing usage, less joy of living, more problems, bullying. The negative stuff is all there, but we know how we can turn that around.

August Brice: 55:14

I just want to talk real quickly about how easy it is to maybe taper the distractibility of the phone. Okay, so I do have some solutions for that, and one of my favorites is going grayscale. Have you ever done that Grayscale? Yeah, so it's easy. It's just a setting on the phone and so when you look at your phone it's all black and white and all of a sudden it takes on a whole new presence. That just isn't that much fun.

Keith Cutter: 55:41

So that's one thing.

August Brice: 55:44

You can still go on Instagram, you can still go on TikTok, but it gives you some perspective. And then another thing is to clear your home screen. Another great thing is to turn off notifications that you don't absolutely need. I love the airplane mode idea. I love putting the phone in another room. You know, let's just start with little baby steps that can really work toward being more present and being less distracted.

Keith Cutter: 56:12

That's fantastic and, yeah, I think the big message is there are things that you can do and they're not terribly difficult things to do and it's not going to cost you a lot of money to do these things, but they won't happen by themselves. So, moms, dads, grandma, grandpa you need to take some leadership and I think this family social media plan is just a great framework for being able to put something in place where you can all become less a part of the machine and more a part of day-to-day family interactions, you know, for the sake of this generation and the generations to come. So, yeah, I'm just really happy that you and your daughter put that, put that together, and I would just really encourage people to to look into that family social media plan and the upcoming book. Do you have a an idea of when that might be coming out?

August Brice: 57:20

I'm going to say I'm going to be. I'm going to put it out there, Keith, it's, it's going to be September.

Hal Brice: 57:24

Okay, September, I'm just loving I'm just loving put it out there, keith, it's going to be September. Okay, okay, I'm going to write that down. September.

August Brice: 57:30

I'm just loving writing it, I love it.

Hal Brice: 57:32

So anyway, we have not gone a lot of places because she's been writing, she's been very deep into it, you know it's been very interesting to watch. It's going to be amazing. I mean the stuff I've read of it. The parts I've read so far are really detailed and really interesting. It's good.

Keith Cutter: 57:49

I'm going to be excited to read that as well. So how can people get in touch with you and your work?

August Brice: 57:57

Well, we're at techwellnesscom. We have a YouTube channel, tech Wellness, and an Instagram where I do focus on just small bits of information. Like I was saying before, no-transcript, that's my hope for that. So we're tech wellness in any channel Twitter threads, instagram, tech wellness.

Keith Cutter: 58:40

All right, fantastic. I want to thank you so much, but is there anything else you wanted to?

August Brice: 58:45

No, I wanted to thank you so much. Is there anything else you wanted to?

Keith Cutter: 58:47

No, I wanted to thank you first. Well, I so much appreciate having both of you on the podcast, what you guys are about and the work that you are putting out there and all of the different things that you're looking at, so thank you so much for being a part of this podcast.

August Brice: 59:04

Thank you, keith. I'm going to keep following you. Be well, all right being a part of this podcast.

Keith Cutter: 59:07

Thank you, keith. I'm going to keep following you. Be well, all right, thanks.

Gweneth: 59:09

Keith, the EMF Remedy Podcast is a project of EMF Remedy LLC. We'd like to be your trusted guide for achieving a better EMF environment in your home. The contents on this podcast are provided for informational purposes only and are not intended to substitute for the advice provided by your doctor or other healthcare professional. It is not intended to be, nor does it constitute, healthcare or medical advice. Opinions of guests on this podcast do not necessarily reflect the opinions of the EMF Remedy Podcast.