Hi there. I'm Jill Allen and this is find your fierce, the show designed for women to discover your fierce, unlock and unstoppable mindset. Build unbreakable courage and completely transform how you show up every single day. Each week I will bring ideas, methods and strategies that will inspire you to step into your greatness and live life on purpose. Let's be fit, fierce and unstoppable.
(00:34): Hey there, gang. Welcome to find your fierce. Love that you're with us. Once again, we are continuing the series called not my kid. I know that we've all been guilty of thinking that or even saying it, but being a mom of five kiddos, I have to tell you, we've learned to embrace this roller coaster ride when it comes to parenting. But before we kick off this episode, I have to thank you for your love and support and allowing me to be a part of your life. I just absolutely love it, not just in the podcast world, but also for snagging, a copy of my new books at free as it is now available on Amazon. And I just know you're going to love it. If you haven't grabbed one already, and I appreciate your feedback, your reviews, and I love that you share the message with your friends and family. And if you can keep on doing that, it helps reach more women and it impacts more lives as you are a part of this massive movement.
(01:24): And I just want you to know that you're truly appreciated. And I'm so loving the series. We have talked about respect and the lack of we talked about mental health and today we're going to dive into the social media, the phones and the electronic addict addiction. So you can see that we're having some discussions that are tough, real and raw. Maybe some that you don't even want to hear. As I know that we've all been affected or impacted, or we are living and all this stuff that comes with life and raising kids or odds are that we have been caught saying, or thinking not my kid. And so here we are. We're going to walk you through some of that stuff. Today. We have a guest with us, my friend, Jessica Jessica is a wife, a mom of two boys, a teacher, a coach, and a former director of a club sport.
(02:17): She's a mentor to all ages. She works with kids all over central Ohio with all different backgrounds, but one common thread. And that is their addiction to social media, their phones and electronics. So we're going to dive into all of that, but first I want you to meet my friend Jessica Stevenson. How are you girl? I'm doing well, Jill, thanks so much for asking me to be part of this. I really appreciate it. It's a pretty important topic. And as you mentioned, it's not one that a lot of people want to hear about. I know, I know nobody wants to hear about the phone addiction because I know as parents, we're probably guilty of it as well. We are. Yeah. So thank you for being that bold, that bold truth. I'm sure you're going to drop some truth here today. And I can't wait. I, I want to hear about it because I know our family.
(03:06): I can see it in our kids, the addiction. I'm just being real with everybody. And I know that my husband and I, we have our phones in our back pocket constantly. And I just think we need this wake up call. So, I mean, what do you, what do you see? What, why first and first of all, why are you passionate about this? Well, truly everything you just said, this isn't just impacting our kids. It's all of us. I feel the anxieties from constantly feeling like I've got to be connected to my devices, connected to people all the time, but I love kids. I always have, you know, as a teacher and a coach, I've worked with mostly girls cause I coached volleyball. So I've worked with so many girls over the past 10 years, especially, but really my whole adult life. And my degree is in special education with a minor in developmental psychology.
(03:56): So I have always had a fascination with developmental psychology and the way that adolescents are developing, I was really fascinated with developmental disorders, autism and other, other things, pervasive developmental disorders. When I was younger, it's kind of why I went that route. I've always had a heart for the kids who struggle and I love kids. I'd rather spend my time with kids than probably most adults, a lot of the time, but I was a volleyball player. Volleyball brought a lot of great things in my life. And I feel that as a coach and a mentor, it's something that I want to give back to these girls. And what I have seen, especially over the past 10 years has been pretty sad. I've had a lot of moms come into my living room and cry. Talk to me about issues. They're having with their girls, social issues that they're having with their teams, with their peers at school, you know, this is impacting a lot of people's lives and parents don't really know what they can do to help help their kids help themselves.
(04:52): And as you said, we're, we're guilty of all this stuff too. We see it with our own, with our own kids. So as a teacher coach, a club director, I was also an applied behavior analysis therapist when I was younger. It's ABA therapy for kids with autism. So I just, I love kids. I think psychology is amazing. I think the human brain is amazing and we've, we've clearly seen some issues come about in our society, much to do with our devices and social media. We can see, yeah, I did this thing where in one of our evenings, at our youth group, you know, we started a youth group in our home and I had each kid, I mean, we, one, we gave them the choice, right? I said, here's your basket. You can put your phones in this. If we could spend two hours together and connect, how great would that be?
(05:37): And it was so interesting to see which kids were willing to give up that phone. And then once we're captain, of course, I'm not ever going to force that. But before we did that, I had them pull out their phone and look at their screen time just to bring the awareness and, and, and how many pickups we had and their jaws literally hit the floor because we're talking it's a 40 hour workweek. Yeah. It was a full time job managing your social life. It's a full-time job. I mean, we're talking six to eight to nine hours a day. Yeah, sure. Okay. We can chalk it up and say, okay, they're listening to music. Okay. And we have that, but what about the rec stuff? I mean, this was so eyeopening. So wait, what did you, what are you saying? Well, I got to say hearing, you're talking about that it's summer now.
(06:29): Right? And I'm thinking, okay, here we go. But they don't have all the, you know, the, the homework to stay on top of, at the end of the day. And this is something that you really have to manage. So my husband and I worked on, we talked about this and this is something that I think could be a useful, a useful tool for parents maybe is to come up with the chart and just exactly what you said. We want our boys to see. I, you know, we've got boys, they're not, they're not into the social media, but they're into X-Box. They like watching YouTube videos, they like scrolling through it. So we created these little charts for each of them. And just for an example, we have on their X-Box time, tablet, time, you know, whatever sport they play, how much time are they contributing to maybe being better at soccer, soccer skills and all those things, obviously chores there, they have responsibilities around the house, reading self-improvement things that they can do to, you know, become better versions of themselves, I suppose, and then to just play or other.
(07:29): So I need that, that way, if you have that, send it, we can send out to everybody. Yeah. Then this, I mean, you know, it, people can personalize it however they want, depending on what goes on in each family's lives. But since we started this, I can tell you, my younger son, who's going into the fifth grade. That kid has been outside. He wants to be outside as much as possible. And he wants to rack up his playtime. He thinks that's a great idea. So, you know, as soon as you can kind of empower your own kids to recognize and see how much time they are actually spending on these things and where they're focusing their energy, what they're prioritizing. It is so awful to see how much time they're wasting on this stuff. Yeah. The days or something by, you know, I'm all about productivity, but at the same time, it's about enjoying life.
(08:17): And what we're missing out on when our face is seriously in a, in a screen or in a phone, there's nothing more that gets under my skin. When I look over and I see my kids with their phone in their face, and I'm like, ah, I mean, it's taking away. It's robbing people from a general satisfaction in life. And this is not how people were meant to live their lives. You know, this isn't it. So I will say one of the things I really appreciate you is your love of the outdoors and nature and an appreciation for life, all these neat things that are around us all the time. We don't see kids outside. We don't see kids walking the dog. We make our boys walk our dog now. I mean, now that they're home, that's going to be one thing they're doing. That's awesome.
(09:01): So, but it's, it's so hard to manage it and we're all in on it. I mean, we just, we have to figure out ways that we can support each other and manage. Yeah, absolutely. I love the word. I mean, okay. We talk about how, how we can manage it and I'm sure we're going to dive into that here in a little bit, but the word you used just fires me up and I absolutely love it is to empower our kids. I mean, I know, I don't know about you, but I don't even want to manage all that. I want the kids to feel empowered and yes, and to want more for their life. So what is it that let's talk about the effects first, because I think we need to get down below the surface and really realize what our, how is impacting our kids.
(09:45): And I know the moms are listening to this and I'm sure some dads too, we could also apply. I'm sure I'm positive of that. We can apply it to our own life as well, because I can think of, we can honestly say that we're all addicted and somehow to something, but w what are the effects that you see? I mean, I think the effects are huge. I don't think we need to even research look up statistics. It's everywhere. You can see it. I mean, I printed this out earlier this year. This was something that came out. So that suicide is now the leading cause of death for children ages 10 to 14 in Ohio. Wow. 10 to 14 years old. I mean, I have a 10 year old and a 14 year old. I can't even imagine this. I can't fathom that a child in that age group would even be thinking about these, these dark thoughts.
(10:32): Right. But basically, I think people need to have an understanding of what goes on in their brain and in their body when it comes to addiction. And I am no expert on addiction. I'm not a doctor, I'm not a psychologist, but this is an area that I'm really fascinated in. I really think it's interesting. And if, if I can learn be a better mom, a better mentor and your research. Yeah. We've got to do it, but I'm sure people have heard of the chemical dopamine and anyone that has any type of addiction, whether it be at the slot machine and you're going to the penny slots. And every time you pull that lever, you're anticipating something exciting. And when you get something exciting, the bells rang and you get a dopamine release. That is the feel good chemical that is released in your body.
(11:19): People that have issues with eating, with food, food addiction, whether or not they, you know, they have drug dependencies, alcohol dependencies. It is something that is making them feel good. And what that is, is a release of this chemical. It is a chemical reaction in your body and it makes you feel good. So every time we get, we make a post and we get a like, and we get a comment on a picture or something that we shared. We want people natural. I mean, we, we all want to be appreciated and recognized and valued and light. And especially these kids, especially young girls, these teenage girls, I mean, they're always looking for approval. You know, how do you get, how many followers do I have? And so every time you get a new little life or a new day thing, it isn't, it's exciting. And it is, it is touching that pleasure part of your brain.
(12:13): And you get these releases of dopamine. There's no stopping that dopamine release. I mean, it's not like you have a cutoff, you get through all your dopamine in a day, it just keeps going, right. Yeah. Right. Increases the excitement level. Yes. And you're always craving more and more and more of it. But then on the flip side of that, there is the hormone called cortisol, which that is the one that is the stress hormone. And when these kids, maybe they make a post or, or send out a message or something on social media before they go to bed, they're stressed out that cortisol is released. It's, it's a hormone in their body. It is a legitimate thing. And they get anxious and they get stressed out and they can't stop checking their phone. They're not sleeping well. So throughout, you know, all day, every day, we're going on this wave, this rollercoaster ride of dopamine release.
(13:06): And then we're also getting hit on the back end with this cortisol of feeling stressed out. And it controls you. And it's exhausting at the end of the day, you're, you're exhausted. Cortisol would never release or drop, you know, I've done this studies, you know, and, and we did the research when it comes to like, just even cardio exercise and not addiction. I mean, our body needs it. It's a fight or flight hormone that we need that are to actually survive. Yes. But we don't get that drop. And we're always on that high, right. That's where that anxiety and the overwhelm and that stressed out feeling comes from yes. Even myself with the kids that I work with. I've got it, you know, again, and I don't really care how many people follow any of the volleyball training that I do, but I'm up to around 700 ish.
(13:51): And that's a lot for me. I'm one person and I'm a mom and I'm not doing this as my full-time job. I'm doing it because I love it. But it's a lot of people to manage. It's a lot of text messages, it's Facebook messenger messages. It's you know, comments on posts that I make through my Facebook page when I'm announcing information or opportunities, it's emails. I feel constantly glued to my phone, to communicate with people, my own, my own boys and their personal social lives. I mean, it's just, you feel this bombardment, at least I do as a mom of always feeling like I'm connected behind, behind these devices. And I hate it. So I personally, you know, I'm an adult. I can recognize this, this roller coaster of emotions. And at the end of the day, I am exhausted from it. And I'm sick of it.
(14:37): And I want to get off my phone or I want to go outside. So it's really hard to separate as an adult, but then think about how these kids feel they do not have this. Self-Awareness the, self-discipline the understanding of what they're feeling and what their emotions are. We can recognize that as adults. Yeah. We, we hope to, not everybody may be right, but something, I get really irritated if I'm on a device for too long, I just can't, I just get really irritated about it. But these poor kids, they don't even realize that this is taking place in their bodies and they just don't understand. They don't know. So they don't know how to manage it. Yeah. You know, I see, like when we see it in our child, the stress or the overwhelm, or the aggression, someone in erupts them, I'm just trying to think of some things to bring awareness, even as a parent, like, you know, what's wrong with these kids or why aren't they listening to me?
(15:32): Or, you know, why are they not sleeping? Why are they not eating? You know, why are they depressed? Why is there no drive? You know, when it comes to their school and things like that, or this awareness is that aggression. And when it, when it comes down to that interruption, and the first thing I look at is like, how long have they been on their phone? What what's, what's that driving force? And, you know, and that's something again, to go to go for us, how do we help these kids? One thing that I would say hearing you talk about the aggression, because as I'm kind of commenting myself my own experience on a personal level, I start to feel a little bit anxious and something that I need to cope with reality with these devices and social media and technology, I got to get outside and I got to exercise.
(16:17): I got to blow off steam. And so, you know, when you think about parents, when you ask parents what they want for their kids, what do you want for your kid? Most parents will say they want them to be happy. They want their kids to be happy. And the reality is is that they're not always going to be happy. They're not, they're going to have times of feeling depressed. We all do. We all experience loss and grief and sadness and anxiousness, anxiety. If you're studying for an exam or a test, we all feel those things. Right? So something that I think is really important for parents to be aware of and pay attention to is teaching their kids how to cope with these emotions. And they've got to have some type of coping strategy. We can't bury ourselves and our, our Facebook feed or social media, or trying to make ourselves feel better by posting a picture.
(17:07): You have to have some type of a coping strategy to prevent yourself from going down that road of developing other addictive tendencies. You know, so I would say that is something, and it's important to talk to kids about, I mean, even my own son, who's 14. When he, we talked about this, you know, how are you going to cope? I can tell you're really mad. You're really upset. What are you going to do? You know, he's taken himself out. He makes a choice, goes for a walk in the neighborhood till he feels better. And so I would say that coping, because, you know, really Jill, we all struggle. I mean, so many people suffer with addiction, whether it's technology or other things, and they, we can come back to that whole word, that word, empower yourself with understanding how you can cope, figure out a way that you can cope with your stressors cope in a healthy way.
(17:59): I think that's really important in a healthy way. Exercise, go for a walk, maybe do some yoga. You know, people don't really like to do yoga and meditate sometimes, but it is such a, such a great play sport. I also think, and what I do with volleyball you know, we're, we've both been through our own athletic experiences as you know, teenagers and young adults and our kids like sports. But I think parents are desperate to have an outlet for their kids. And one of those outlets happens to be sports. And I even see a lot of over training with kids maybe who have had injuries, or they're just, they don't need the train all the time. There there's something to this resting. You need to take care of yourself and rest, pace yourself. But we're all looking for something to get our kids involved in.
(18:49): Right. So we can get them off of these devices. So that is one way I think parents are trying to try to cope themselves. Yeah. You know, I think about like, you know, the things that we do is like family forest fun day, you know, like, unfortunately it's like, Oh no, we're all going for a hike. It's family for sun. So we do those things because it's it's so just put the phone away and, but, but it becomes a battle. It's a battle. It's exhausting. Yeah. And I, so I kind of want to touch base on this too. Okay. We've talked a little bit about, you know, the tendencies what's happening to their bodies and what we can do about it. But because we are steering them in a different direction, there's a fight, it's a fight. And it's causing division in families and isolation and the arguing and the yelling and this constant battle.
(19:41): And of course he was like, well, okay, we're the parent, right? So we have the ability to just take the phone. And I'm assuming, I'm assuming we pay for parents pay for all of this stuff. And it's like running and joked about this. It's like, we're paying for the, I know we're paying hundreds of dollars a month to see our kids go down that route. And that's just devastating. So what, what can we do about the battle? Or what can you, what tips do you have for the parent? So that there, we could do this for peace and excitement. Well, that there's going to be a whole lot of peace that comes with it because we have to make some very difficult decisions that our parents didn't have to make. But this is a tough time to raise productive members of society and quality human beings.
(20:26): It is it's hard, but, you know, I would say if parents could, could think of it, maybe in this way, what would you encourage your child to smoke? Would you encourage them to start smoking? Would you drop your kid off at the casino? I mean, how old do you have to be to go to a casino and gamble? You know, we are basically giving them, giving these kids. And as you said, we're paying a lot of money. These are destructive devices to our kids, not just our kids, but us too, to our social, mental, physical, emotional wellbeing. We are, we are doing this ourselves. And you know, my husband I've talked to you about this. He has, he's talked to a number of different parent groups, and he's tried to put information out about this. This is something he, he really cares about. He doesn't want to see these parents have have legal issues in the future with their children, with their kids or drug issues with their kids.
(21:18): But the reality is, is that the developers of these devices and this social media, they are so smart. They know the human psychology. They know how to tap into your brainstem. They know how to go after the males and females, they know exactly what they're doing and their goal is to keep you on your phone or your device as long as possible. So that's their goal. Why do we want to allow them to take that power from us? Why do parents want to allow them to take the power from their children? So they manipulate and they control what we see, what we hear, what we believe. And I think we can all agree to that. The internet is really not a great, it's not a great place anymore, right? I mean, what can you believe? You can, you know, confirmation bias, you can pretty much confirm any, any of your own bias.
(22:06): You can look up anything and confirm it. And for these kids, what is real and what is not. So why do we want to continue to sign up for this? When we know these developers of this stuff, know what they're doing? And we're giving them so much power over our general satisfaction in life. I'm going to play Nantucket here. It's like, but we need the phones we do because we got it. Right. So I'm assuming this is what P you know, parents who are listening to this. It's like, well, I need this. I need to know when to pick up my kid. Now, I always laugh because my, you know, we always said, when you get a phone in the middle of seventh grade, which they're always the last kid ever to get a phone. And so of course we always heard about it, but I'm like, but I, I went to school and went to basketball and I didn't even think anything of it's like, okay, yes, we do need to communicate.
(22:56): And things like that, what do we, what do you say to that? My son who just finished up eighth grade, he's getting ready to go into high school. He still does not have his own personal phone. However, he does have one of the iPad pros or the iPad air or whatever you want to call it. And he uses it all the time for school. He had an habit, especially through COVID. He he's used it all the time. He does have texting abilities which is great. He is, it's not like he's missing out on texting with some of his friends, but he is not on any social media. We're brutally honest, but he's a boy, you know, and boys don't have that burning desire to be as social as girls do. So I don't have to worry about those kinds of struggles with sons. But, you know, I would say that we had saved our son, a lot of headaches and frustration and just nonsense and time telling him, no, you're, you're not going to have social media on this.
(23:49): He doesn't have a phone. He doesn't even ask for a phone. So I'm sorry. Your question was well, yeah, just, I mean, the, the belief of, but my kids need this to help community. We all feel like we need them. I mean, at this point I need it. I feel bad. I'd love to be able to adopt my Facebook account, but I can't because that's where all of my people, my volleyball, people follow the information. I don't manage a website. So these are incredibly useful tools that we have access to and that we can use. They're very powerful, but you know, it's the responsibility and our kids able to manage that kind of a responsibility. I don't know. But one thing I will say, hearing you talk about that, you know, mom, I need a phone because when practices, or if I need to text you so you can come pick me up.
(24:30): So what happens there is that you're almost kind of, as a parent, you're giving your kid a phone because you want to always have access to them and always be able to text them and reach them and can communicate with them, which you are transferring your own anxiety and stress about your child. You're alleviating your own stress. And you're saying, okay, well, when practice is over, if it goes longer, if they end early, my child can, can contact me because he's got a phone. I feel better. Now as a mom, I feel better. I'm doing the right thing, right? But you're transferring so much anxiety and stress and nonsense to try to get yourself a little bit of peace of mind, but look at what you're doing to your child. You know, there nothing is free here. You know, all these, all this stuff can be free.
(25:15): The social media accounts, these apps, they're, they're free. There's a cost to everything. And so when we transfer that our safety net communicating with our kids over our kids, that's not, that's not free for them. That doesn't mean that they're going to be relieved of that responsibility and stress and anxiety and the wave of the hormone and chemical release in their bodies. And we can all start out and say, okay, this is going to be how we're going to manage it. And you know, you can only have one social media account. You can do this, you can do this. These are the rules, but Oh my gosh, it's technology. It just booms and changes. And we don't even pay attention to all this stuff that's coming out. And these kids know all of it. Oh, they do. And they know how to manipulate. They do all the parental controls.
(26:04): Then down that route, we find, you know, you try to do those things. And it's like, like, how did you do this? Or, you know, they teach us things. And so I, and I love the fact that you said there's so much power and there's so much good in this, but there's on the flip side. It can go above it. It could go down a very dark path and people's perspective their goals, their aspirations. And you can get sucked in to that social media. And it's not, that's not even the real life. That is exactly right. So I don't pretend to have any answers again. I am definitely not an expert on any of this, but this is something, this is an that's very, it's an it's of interest to me because of my own kids, being a mom and I work with so many girls that I see struggling.
(26:51): And again, the parents, a number of parents have come to me and asked for advice. I don't really know what to say, but, you know, look around how many, I mean, it didn't, children's hospital just build a big mental health wing of their hospital. You know, the timing is not a coincidence. This is a big problem. And so we don't need to say statistics. It's mind boggling to me that, you know, we see all these things and we recognize what's going on here. And yet we don't say no, we continue to make these same mistakes, but everything is tied to these phones. Even I don't want to be on Instagram, but through my voice, sports is in a, some of the coaches and the schools they communicate with Instagram. And so then you experienced as the parents, especially the fear of missing out. And that FOMO is no joke.
(27:43): The fear of missing out is, is no joke that in itself is going to be a big cortisol release for us because you're constantly feeling stressed out at all, missing something. So even, you know, I've got a number of my volleyball moms that I've come to know, and they've become my friends and they don't want to miss it. If I make a post for, you know, summer camps, they don't want to miss it. It's a fear of missing out. So then they they're connected constantly to Facebook to make sure they don't miss. When I make a post, I do offer, you know, I email people I'll send out emails because if somebody doesn't want to be on Facebook, I don't want them to have to be right. So I don't want them to experience the fear of missing out. Sure. I'll give you an email.
(28:24): I'll send you an email, but we all feel anymore. Well, if I'm not on Instagram that I'm going to miss out on the school's posts, I'm going to miss out on, you know, the, the football coach, making a post about, you know, something that's coming up. And so we're literally living through this life. We were not supposed to live this way. We are constantly on a roller coaster ride of emotions, ups and downs. Much of it is because of these chemicals that are released in our bodies that we don't even know about. And it's very unfortunate. Yeah. The addiction is real. The fear is real, but yet we have the ability to shut it down and create these boundaries that I know that I know that we all need to do. And for someone who's work, who works through social media, I run my business through social media.
(29:13): This is so eye-opening, but we have to have the ability to shut it down and put that phone away and actually get back to connecting with people. Face-To-Face Jill, what you do is amazing. What you do is amazing for people and you're helping so many people, and you're using this social media and this technology as a useful tool. I mean, just as I am, you know, I created my volleyball training through Facebook. It's a, it's a useful tool, right? And so there are so many great blessings and great things that come from this, but there's a cost to everything. And we see it. And I can't think of anything more important than our, our kids. Right. But the reality is, is that what they're experiencing with this addiction to technology, it will predispose them for future issues with addiction and the future. And it, we were there growing up in this world of instant gratification.
(30:09): If something isn't delivered, you know, maybe some people will listen to this for the first two or three minutes. And then that's all their attention span will hold. I don't know. Even myself. I'm like, okay, you know, some of this stuff, I follow alternative, you know, news outlets. I'm like, okay, get to the point. And so our attention spans have shortened. We're not as productive. You know, if I'm working or somebody who's working in, they check their phone, it takes them 25 minutes to get back to the original focus they had before they check their phone. Wow. Think about kids doing homework at the end of the day, late at night, they're sitting in their rooms and they're focusing or they're studying. And then they get a dang, they get a message and they got to see who that is. And then they got to respond to it.
(30:49): And then it takes them. Studies have shown, it can take you up to 25 minutes to then refocus your energy and your thoughts and your brain back to what you were focusing on. So it's crazy. You know, one of the things here that I wanted to mention about the dopamine, the dopamine is the pleasure reward, right? And something that we all we all look forward to. And part of the problem is we constantly need more and more dopamine to get to the point where we're feeling, feeling good. As you mentioned, maybe kids don't want to study as much. They're not as attentive of their schoolwork. A lot of kids, I hate to say it. It's not just kids. It's people in general, we've become a little lazier. You neglect family. You don't want us to have that. You know, you're having to force your family to do family things together.
(31:31): And friends work in school. You develop withdrawal symptoms when you take away a kid's phone. Oh my, especially after they've made a post recently and you take it away, they have symptoms. Oh yeah. The streets. Anything. Yeah. That is addiction. That is addiction. So it's, I mean, parents, would you, would you give your child, I mean, how much these phones cost? How much do their phones cost? How much do we pay a month? Yeah. So would you give that money to them to go to the penny slots? Right. People have addiction, you know, all kinds of addictions. So, so I think the biggest thing is this wake-up call. I mean, we're not here today for solutions or any judgment. I think I want to make that very, very clear because I think we're all in the same boat. And like I said, that's not my kid.
(32:20): We always talk about how as parents, we are in this together. And I think just having that wake up call, and then if we can join forces for solutions, I think that's, that's the next step on all of this is one we need to wake up. And two, what can we do together as parents for solutions? And I think, you know, both you and I are probably and willing for these ideas. And I hope people reach out for that. I know you do meetings and share all of this will definitely add, well, either your social media or your email for people to reach out. And I, I know we need a part two. I know we need to like do this or a follow-up on it because this is, this is never ending. This is going to be the phones, right with us and for a very, very long time.
(33:07): And so we definitely need to follow up on this. I cannot thank you enough for being here and sharing your heart and speaking truth and hoping I'm on this mission and this movement to wake people up. Yeah. It's a struggle. It's a struggle parenting through this. But even like we said, we use the social media, we use the technology, we use our phones all the time ourselves, and it's exhausting for me. Yeah. It's, it's hard to keep up with. So I, you know, I think we got to continue the conversation, as you said, try to get people. Ignorance is bliss, but knowledge is power. And if you can learn a little bit about your own body and the chemical release of that dopamine and what happens and the psychology behind the addiction with the technology, it is, it is no joke. And it's, it is eyeopening.
(33:55): There's no judgment. There is absolutely no judgment. This is, you know, a lot of people have talked to my brother about this and you know, he's, he's said that many times, like listen to, since we are kids need to be fluent with these devices and with this technology, because this is the way of the future. Sure. Right. Yeah. You were not sitting here with Rose colored glasses thinking like, Oh, just wipe the phones out, things like that. You said it, knowledge is power. And so we need to be able to even pass this along to our kids so we can power them. Absolutely. I mean, empower them, talk to them about when they're stressed, when they're feeling emotional, when they're side, don't just put your face on your phone or your social media. It's just going to probably make it worse. Have some coping strategies, figure out ways that you can help yourself to relieve stress, anxiety, sadness that doesn't involve your technology. Talk to each other. This is, this is a tough one. And sadly, it's not one that we all want to really pay attention to because it's constantly in our faces. We just need to get out of denial and understand that it is our kids. It's not our kids. It's the, it's the real thing.
(35:08): So I, yeah, I cannot thank you enough for being here and yeah. Passing along this message for that. So thanks so much. Absolutely. Jill, I'm happy to help. I know shifting gears here for a second here. I know I mentioned at the beginning, but I have to tell you again, that my book set free is a woman's guide to freedom from confusion, control, worry, fear, and stress by letting go and saying yes to God's endless love it is now available on Amazon. So check that out and join us for the set free book club. As we walk through that journey together, you can find that link at Joe Allen, coaching.com. And I tell you what we are going to continue to, not my concern.
(35:44): So be sure to check that out next week. Thanks so much for joining us today. And if you're on iTunes, please leave a review. Love, hearing your feedback. Also subscribe, share this episode, link on your social media. If you felt encouraged or inspired, as we all know, someone that can benefit, talk with you next time, beef it eat, bears the unstoppable. See ya.
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