The Smartphone Solution: How to Mindfully Introduce Phones to Kids (and Ourselves)

Dr Marianne Trent (: 00:00

We often hand kids a phone and just hope for the best. But what if that device is more like inviting an extra person into the family and a risky one at that? In this episode, I'm joined by Dr. Marta Kado to talk about her brand new book, the Smartphone Solution. Our chat today is packed full of great tips and advice about how to introduce smartphones mindfully to set boundaries that actually work and even think about our own relationship with our screen time too. Whether you are a parent, a teacher working in mental health or just someone who feels like their phone is running the show, this conversation will help you take back control. I hope you find it really useful if you do like and subscribe for more. Just want to welcome along to the podcast, Dr. Marta. Hi.

Dr Martha Deiros Collado (: 00:48

Hi.

Dr Marianne Trent (: 00:49

Thanks for being here. And today we're talking about a very exciting thing which is happening, which is the publication of your second book, which is about mindful introduction of phones and technology for children and young people, isn't it?

Dr Martha Deiros Collado (: 01:08

Yes, it's called the Smartphone Solution and for me it's a reassuring toolkit for parents. I think smartphones are such a hot topic at the moment. I think there's a lot of fear messaging around smartphones, and for me, fear isn't the best place to begin making good choices in any kind of situation. So I want to help parents have some awareness of the science and of what the good bits about smartphones as well as the things that are risks and maybe harmful too, and give them a toolkit to support themselves and building healthier habits with their smartphones, but also being able to delay smartphones for younger children in a way that's really effective. And if you've got an older children who already has a smartphone, teach them how to use it in a way that's safe and healthy so that we're not consumed by smartphone use, but instead they're tools that we use because they're useful.

Dr Marianne Trent (: 02:10

Yeah, such important messaging and it's actually about being more mindful about that, isn't it? And I watched your show well done on your Channel four show as well, which was about the great British phone swap I think it was called, wasn't it? And it was just, I think it really showed me how much scrolling people can do and it's just as a way of almost killing time. It's not always as socially connected as we might think that it is. And I really love the tip that you gave. It was like tell someone what you are doing when you pick up your phone and then you are more likely to only do that.

Dr Martha Deiros Collado (: 02:50

It's one of those things that we do, again, without thinking. And I think most of us who own a smartphone now, were never taught how to use it. Well, we might have learned how to use a particular app or something inside our phone, but we weren't taught about good behaviours, not so great behaviours. And we pick up our phones. I think the way that we pick up a novel, we read them in silence and they actually disrupt day-to-day interactions, day-to-day connections. We call it tech interference, which is, I love that word because it makes so much sense to me, technology interference. But I mean we know that it disrupts connection. I mean, within the scrolling is something that just happens because it's so engaging and so distracting and maybe you're distracting from an emotion. Maybe you're distracting from boredom, maybe you're procrastinating, maybe you're actually intentionally going online to do something.

(: 03:50

But as soon as you start to scroll mindlessly, you might lose half an hour, maybe an hour, and there's some kind of data saying something like five hours on your phone over the course of your life is something like 25 years of your time. And that kind of data has stayed with me because I just think, oh my God, imagine what you could do in 25 years. And for me, it's not about thinking that everything you do on your smartphone is bad or useless, but it's about really being very intentional about what you do so that there's times where you are not holding your phone, you haven't got it on you, you're not scrolling mindlessly, you've got your phone somewhere else so you can actually be with somebody or be with the TV even, or just be with yourself or just look around. There's so many things that I feel like we miss because phones are really good at training us to check on them all the time.

(: 04:50

And we don't have to. We can just be like, okay, you don't have to distract me. I've got control over you because we do. So that's one of the things I want to help people understand that we've got control. We are empowered as parents to take control of the habits that our children build with all technology, but particularly smartphones. And I really think it does begin with us kind of relearning, unlearning some bits, relearning some new bits and embedding healthy habits in our home. So it becomes normal rather than something you've got to be like, I need to think about putting my phone down. Actually, if you just embed it in ways that are actually much simpler than you think, you might not have to think about it anymore. It just becomes a habit.

Dr Marianne Trent (: 05:34

And I think I am naturally a bit more boundaried about my phone. I am quite an annoying friend, but I'm happy to be, so I don't have notifications set up for my WhatsApp, so I pick it up when I have a free moment and where I can choose whether to respond or not respond, but it means that I will suddenly have a flurry of activity on a chat thread like responding, responding, responding. But then you won't hear from me for hours and people know, if you want me, you've got to call me or actually text me. I won't see it otherwise I don't have no certifications. And I think peer pressure is a big one, isn't it? For four kids, for Snapchat, for WhatsApp, for TikTok, the FOMO and the missing out on being in the moment. But I guess the message we want is it's okay. It's okay to do that.

Dr Martha Deiros Collado (: 06:31

It's okay to miss out a hundred percent. And it's also important to teach our children that thing you've learned. Actually Marianne is not something lots of adults have learned, right? That kind of overwhelmed from WhatsApp in particular. Group messaging, whatever chat you're using, the group messaging kind of, I dunno, culture because it exists and we're all on it, is something we should be teaching our children. So this is a little story and I've shared it a few times because it's really stayed with me, but I could share a thousand different ones. A young girl that's 13 came to see me in clinic and she was overwhelmed with anxiety, which wasn't about her phone. Just so we're clear. There were lots of things happening in her life. So the the core of our work was around anxiety, building coping tools, and also kind of learning to be with the feeling rather than avoid it or reject it.

(: 07:27

But part of the work that happened was that she had a phone, she had a smartphone, she probably still does, but her parents were really quite boundaried with it. And in the evening they were very clear that she had to hand it in at seven o'clock and then she got it back in the morning. But in the morning she told me every morning she had over 200 messages pop up and she did not want to go to school without reading every single one of them. For the reason you've just said, I don't want to miss out to her, missing out was such a huge sense of anxiety. But if we really think about this, she's 13, how is that okay to be living with anxiety from other places? Anxiety is just part of life. We shouldn't be afraid of it. I really feel like we need to learn to live with.

(: 08:18

But yes, anxiety can be overwhelming and stop us from functioning. And if one of the things that's stopping us from functioning well or stopping your child functioning well is social anxiety coming through a smartphone. We need to shift that now. For me, the solution with this young lady wasn't get rid of your phone, which it could be. There are alternatives which I think are better, healthier, safer until children learn skills that are going to keep them safer online and accessing unfiltered internet, for example, which are for me, mobile phones. I don't like calling them dumb phones or brick phones. They're just mobile phones are great, so I don't want to dumb them down. I dunno why we do that. They're not worse than a smartphone. They're different. They actually do the role that you are talking about, they connect, you can text, you can call, you can take photos, you can still socialise with your friends, but they don't allow group chats and they don't allow unfiltered access to the internet.

(: 09:17

And I think that's healthy. You can still teach your kid responsibility using a phone and good digital habits and cyber. There's so many things you can teach them with a phone. Anyway, this young girl kept her smartphone, but she chose to come off WhatsApp. That was her choice. But over the course of our work, she decided that WhatsApp was one of the things that was overwhelming her to the point where she couldn't do her homework anymore because she was like, I'm running out of time to read all the messages and in the morning I've got 200 more to read. I mean, that's not the way to socialise. So we need to help our children understand what is good socialisation, what does that look like? What does it feel like in person? First of all, can we develop good social skills with people because they translate into the digital world a hundred percent.

(: 10:09

And then we need to teach our children that when something doesn't feel good in the real world or online, you need to pause, reflect, and set up some boundaries because something isn't working. The same way that if you were always going to a friend's house and every time your child goes to that friend's house, they come out completely distressed. You'd be like, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait. Something's going on with this friend. We need to think about how you are feeling in relationship with this other child because something doesn't feel right. But that happens on our phones too. Kids are exposed to stuff that distresses them, that builds anxiety, that builds sadness, that builds anger in their bodies. And if they're not able to register it, because our brains do something very different when we're looking at tech than when we're looking at a person, the distance from the screen to another human means that we sometimes don't register what's happening in our bodies.

(: 11:05

And I really believe that that should be part of emotional regulation. That should be part of what we teach our children. How do you feel when you come off your screen? How does it feel that you are giving me your phone with this young girl? She felt I can't go to sleep. I know, I know that in the morning. I've mean just having that conversation with her parents was absolutely life-changing. I think for them as a family, because the parents were like, we thought we were setting a boundary that was going to help her rest, but actually she was stressing about all the messages that were going to appear before she even woke up. That's not a way to rest that she was just busing, even though her phone was nowhere near her. We need to understand that and be aware of it as parents so that we can adjust the boundaries, have open conversations with our kids.

(: 11:54

How can we allow our children to stay connected? So she uses, hopefully still does Dunno, she might see this and message me. She uses WhatsApp on her parents' laptop, so she still has communication with her friends, but when she closes it, she's like, I'm not looking at this in the morning. I do this and then I go away. And she's also very clear about that boundary with some of her friends. She's gone off all the big groups. WhatsApp is, I know you said yours is no notifications, which I think is great. Hers is not on my phone. WhatsApp is something I do in a laptop intentionally. I'm sent it out after school and I'm going to chit chat to particular friends, but I'm not in my class group. For example, she realised she didn't have to hear everything from every kid in her year. She was like, why am I doing that? And the truth is, loads of teenagers do it for that reason. The fear of losing out and we need to help them learn. That's not what good social interaction looks like.

Dr Marianne Trent (: 12:57

Yeah, absolutely. And I had a very similar experience in our house. So my eldest had a phone, a smartphone, my old smartphone. I think this is the tricky thing is that I didn't necessarily buy it for him, but I'd got rid of it because the battery iPhones, it wasn't lasting. So I bought him a phone case charger thing, which then meant the battery was fine again. And I gave him that in around half term, October, half term, year six, he'd started to go out by himself. So it was more as a tracking device. But actually when he went to year seven, he's just about to start. Year eight, one Sunday afternoon, I could just hear this buzzing, buzzing, buzzing, buzzing. And I realised it was his phone and I, oh, it was strange he didn't have it with him. I think he was at a piano lesson or something. And during the space of about three hours, I went and looked at his phone. He had 1,157 WhatsApp notifications and it was just basically his year group just like spamming, just stupid stuff. And I think the difference with communication, if I sent you a message, I would send it all in one go. Whereas often they'll send it line by line, so it comes through as separate things, separate buzzes, separate notifications. And I was like,

Dr Martha Deiros Collado (: 14:12

I think that's something adults don't all understand. Teenagers don't communicate online, we communicate online. They do that sentence by sentence moment by moment. Also, if you've got a smartphone in your pocket, it's not the same as a tablet or a laptop because it's so readily accessible. So something happens or they see something, they'll pick it up, they take a photo, they send it to the group, it is that instant. It's that instant kind of messaging that really appeals to teenagers. Look what I'm seeing. It's like they're constantly talking to each other. They never have to be separate from each other. Which I remember as an adolescent really wanting, I'd been all day at school with my friends and I'd come home and I would go straight on my landline and be like calling my best friend. I remember my mom saying, what on earth have you got to say to her? You've been at school with her all day. And I was like, loads of stuff has happened.

(: 15:11

It's just what you do as a teenager. And I think as adults we need to understand that that pull is going to be there and it's normal. It's part of development, but we need to help our children connect well with their friends rather than connect all the time. Because when we do it all the time, it becomes meaningless. It basically is like white noise. It's not meaningful interaction anymore. It's just buzz and stress. It's sensory overwhelm is what I think it becomes, but it, it's not meaningful anymore because you can't, out of a thousand messages, which of those are the ones that your kid has to use discernment to go, these are the important ones I'm going to hold and respond to. These are all the ones I'm going to ignore. I mean, as an adult I find that overwhelming, let alone being a teenager who wants to respond to every single one of those messages.

(: 16:05

It's really tough. And we need to teach our children how to connect well, which is why I wrote my book because I think as adults we've not been aware that this is what happens when we offer our children a hand read down. We're trying to support them in staying connected with us. Like you said, being contactable, being safe, it all makes so much sense. But I think being aware that actually a smartphone doesn't do all of that, it does that and it has the potential to overwhelm, to stress, to overstimulate, to not allow your child a break, then you can start to think how do we give them connection and socialisation, but in a way that feels more boundaries, that feels maybe safer as well because the unfiltered internet is not safe. I mean, I'm not even sure it's safe for adults. So let alone kids who are really impulsive and will see something and be like, oh, what's that?

(: 16:57

And suddenly they're diving into something they weren't even looking for. That happens all the time. It's curiosity and they're really curious. So I think for me, the reason why I wrote my book was to build awareness about all of this, but really to give parents a toolkit because I don't think awareness on its own is often motivational enough. I think people get stuck in the fear, which is what we have at the moment. And I really wanted people to feel unstuck. I wanted people to feel like, okay, I've got a toolkit and I can use it and I can embed some of these ideas in my family home, not just for my kids, but for me too. Role model what this looks like and try it out. For me, it's about doing it together. You and your child, you're on the same side and smartphones are not your whole world, your identity.

(: 17:49

They're just a tool. And even using them well for connection is something I don't think we're very good at because texts are the worst way to connect through a phone. Phone calls are so much better and video calls are even better. So I think if you have a smartphone, start video calling people or voice note people, which lots of people in my generation will not do, but it's so much better. It's the human essence of us and that's what builds connection, not words on a text that have no tone. You can misread them. I've met so many kids who are like, look, I mean loads of the kids I work with show me their phones, show me their texts. So much of their life happens online. But they'll show me a text and the way I interpret it is so different from the way they interpret it.

(: 18:34

I don't know who's right because it's a text. But that's very different if you have a phone message or a voice note. And that's something I'm learning because I've started to voice note a lot more, especially when I have something meaningful to say. If I want to say something caring to my friend because she's having a really tough time, she's sick, something's happened to her kids, I voice note, I want them to hear my voice. I want 'em to hear. And maybe we don't have to have, I don't have time for a to and for a conversation, which is what I think texting is about. I don't have time to call somebody. I just want to say something quickly. I hope you're okay. Let me know how your kid is doing. I get it. But if you do it on a voice note, it actually shares a little bit of humanness that is totally lacking in a text.

(: 19:25

And honestly, since I've been doing it, which is just before I started writing my book, and definitely since I've noticed something really interesting, which is every single time, every time my friends reply and say something like, oh my God, you made me really happy, or I cried. And I've said literally 32nd or maybe a minute message. But it's because they hear my voice and they're like, it's like you are here with me. And I'm like, yeah, that's what we should be using our phones for to feel like we're in the presence of others who are far away from us, not to be overwhelmed by text messages or noise or distressing videos.

Dr Marianne Trent (: 20:06

Definitely. I love a voice note. Not everyone does, but I do. My husband was like, please, can you never leave me a voice note again? Okay,

Dr Martha Deiros Collado (: 20:13

Why did you say that

Dr Marianne Trent (: 20:15

He doesn't? Because it takes me so long, takes ages to listen. I was like, well, you can click transcribe if you must.

Dr Martha Deiros Collado (: 20:21

I think that's so interesting. But I think that's just part of what's happening at the moment. There's this kind of speed in our society, we're scared to slow down. I don't slow me down. I can't listen to your voice note or don't call me. I don't have time. I'm like, actually building healthy habits with technology might actually give us space and time, which you don't even realise we're wasting when we're mindlessly scrolling and we think we're relaxing, but we're not. Because if we actually notice what's happening in our bodies a lot of the time we're not more relaxed when we put the phone down, we're more stressed because we've spent too long on it or we've looked at content that isn't uplifting or isn't making us feel good. So that is also in my book, I think learning to rest and teaching our children, this is critically important.

(: 21:16

I mean, we think about development. Development isn't just reading and riding and riding a bike. It's emotional. It's learning what does my body need, what does my brain need? What kind of social interaction makes me feel good? What kind of social interaction do I need a little bit less of? Because actually it's making me feel really bad by the time I get to bed. Those things matter. And I think if you've not learned them in childhood and you're then given a smartphone, I think it just disrupts all of it. I think it's really tricky and I think that's why lots of adults my age find the changing habits so challenging because they're so embedded now that it feels difficult.

Dr Marianne Trent (: 21:56

Do you think some of the slippery slopes started with these unlimited contracts? So when I was learning to use a phone, I had to pay 12 p per text. Maybe you did as well and you only had, I can't remember, can't you? And you only had a maximum of 200 or 300 minutes that you could use, and so you had to kind of metre your usage and you wouldn't just send something kind of vague or unrelated. It was a method of connecting and communication. But now you probably wouldn't dream of buying a phone contract that didn't have unlimited texts, that didn't have unlimited minutes. Now it's the data that might be more capped and that's the thing that you might think about. But I think definitely

Dr Martha Deiros Collado (: 22:38

I think's really interesting thought.

Dr Marianne Trent (: 22:40

I've definitely picked up my phone more. I remember when my friend Nikki at uni, I think we left uni and she was one of the first ones to get like 500 text messages a month as part of her contract. And I thought, amazing. I'll hear from her all the time because she's going to have so many messages, but I didn't hear from any more than I used to. And then when I got my own 500 contract, I just started to use it more in the way that I do now. And then iMessage just started and then that doesn't even count towards your message date. I think it's just, it almost caught us unawares. I think they gave us more of what they thought we wanted and maybe we never needed it to begin with.

Dr Martha Deiros Collado (: 23:25

I think they gave us more of what keeps us online for more. And we need to be aware that that's what brings money to these companies, to these apps. The more time we spend online, the more money they make. Fact we're losing out. I mean, we're definitely losing out. We're losing out on time. We're losing out on our wellbeing. I really believe that we're losing out on our presence. We're losing out on the ability to just be, but they're gaining. Everything you're talking about makes complete sense to me. I hadn't thought about the unlimited stuff, but a hundred percent. That's just for me, that's just another trick to keep us online for longer. And I think it's about us making a decision. We live in a consumerist society and it's not just smartphones. There's lots of things that around us make us spend more money.

(: 24:17

Marketing is that's what it's for, right? Capitalism, that's what it is. So I think we need to be discerning and thoughtful about, we put, I mean, everyone I know works really hard to earn the money that they earn and we need to start to think where do I want to spend my money? But also where do I want to put my energy? I think we need to start putting value to our time and our energy when we're not at work in the same way that we do when we're at work. Because I often think about that with my kids. I think about, it's really confronting. It makes me emotional. I know I fall into this track and it is in my book and I couch it in so much empathy because I know I do this too. But our phones have definitely trained us to keep them on us and to keep checking them a bit. I think of it a bit like a pet or something. You got to keep alive. Are you okay? Yeah, you're fine. Are you

Dr Marianne Trent (: 25:17

Okay? The Tamagotchi effect.

Dr Martha Deiros Collado (: 25:20

It's the Tamagotchi. A hundred percent. And you said about your first phone. I got my,

Dr Marianne Trent (: 25:25

We know how annoying those tamagotchis were, right?

Dr Martha Deiros Collado (: 25:28

I never had one because I just couldn't't

Dr Marianne Trent (: 25:31

They themselves. They needed feeding. They'd bleep at you in the middle of the night. I've seen them. I basically basically got Tamagotchis that we carry around constantly. A hundred

Dr Martha Deiros Collado (: 25:41

Percent. I think about that all the time. Honestly, I think that's actually my analogy, but genuinely it's that a thousand percent. And I remember my first phone, I got it when I went to university. My parents bought it for me in a Vodafone shop. It was like a brick and I never took it with me. I left it in my room all the time and I remember my mom going, every time I call you, you don't pick up. And I'm like, I don't carry it with me. It was a mobile phone that I was like a landline. And then as they got smaller, I moved from that. It was massive. It was an Erickson, literally it was the size of my head. It was so big. I moved from that to a tiny Nokia, I dunno if you remember them. And it used to fit in my denim jacket.

(: 26:26

So then I used to take it everywhere and that's where it started for me for sure that it fit on me. And it used to buzz. You could put it on buzz, which wasn't silent, but rather than the ring or whatever it used to do, it used to buzz at me. And so I ended up always having it on me so I could feel it but not hear it. I think that's a problem. I think that's for me where it all began that kind of training, the tamagotchi training of I'm buzzing, so you need to care for me, you need to look, you need to stop whatever you are doing and go into this digital kind of world. I actually talk about thinking of your screen like a front door. And every time you open it, you're going into another world because you are disengaging from whatever you are doing.

(: 27:14

And for me, that's a really helpful metaphor that I use for myself because when I'm with other people and they pick up their phones and I'm talking to them, it's so grating. But we do it to all I do it, you probably do it. You get it done to you. And it's so offensive. Like my toddler being like, mama, mama, which she does all day, mama, mama, mama, mama. I'm talking to your dad and I'm trying to teach her patience right now. Hold my hand. I'm just going to finish. And I do it very quick. I don't even really finish my sentence, but I try and model that I'm having a conversation and now I turn to you. But we don't do that with our phones. We don't do that with our phones. They buzz. We just pick 'em up. Oh, sorry. No, I just wanted to see. No. Why is that buzzing more important than this conversation we're having or more important than this essay you are writing or whatever, whatever you're doing, the film you are watching, are you sure it's that important or is it just that you've been trained and if you've been trained, you can untrain yourself?

Dr Marianne Trent (: 28:20

I think many of us have become less offended. I remember the first time I ever went out for dinner with one of my friends at the time, she's still my good friend actually, Dr. Karara, and she put her phone on the table. Probably wasn't the first time we've been out for dinner. This was the first time this had happened. And I remember feeling a bit offended, are you going to get a better offer than what we are doing right now? Whereas now it's so common that we will have our phone on the table. Not for my family dinners. I don't do that for family dinners. We have a zero phone policy for family dinners. But it's so common when you go out for dinner at a restaurant that you will have your phone on the table and maybe we need to start being more offended by that. Again,

Dr Martha Deiros Collado (: 29:09

I think it's just become normalised, hasn't it? It's just become the status quo. And I think, I dunno about getting more offended. I believe in communicating better with each other. And I give scripts for this in my book because I think it's really easy to snap at somebody. And actually when we do that, it doesn't teach them anything other than go, oh, you made me feel bad. I wasn't, oh sorry. That's not what I want in my relationships, for example. But I do want to help people understand that actually doing that when I'm being present in a restaurant, that example is lovely, right? When I'm in a restaurant, it's about being able to communicate what feels right for you in that moment with a friend, with a partner, with your child, if they've got a smartphone or you've got one. That open dialogue is so important, which might sound more like, oh, I'm a bit uncomfortable.

(: 30:06

Your phone is here. It's like there's three of us at the table. Would you mind putting it away while we're eating? And maybe if you're waiting for something important, could you put it on ring? Can we all accept that actually when our phones ring, maybe somebody really wants to get to us and that's important. So put it on ring and if it rings and you're like, I really need to check it's work, of course I'm going to let you pick it up and I'm not going to get offended. But a bit like you're saying, maybe if it's on the table, then there's three of us at the table and I'm not going to be able to have an interaction with a third one because it's your phone. That is a personal relationship I'm not even a part of. And I think we need to have that conversation as well as set good healthy limits and boundaries in our homes with our family, but maybe also our visitors, grandparents, friends who come to visit.

(: 31:00

I believe in phone free zones in your home. I think they're so important and when they're clear for everyone, you are embedding something. There are certain areas in your home where your phone should just not show up, shouldn't be there, shouldn't exist, doesn't need to. You're not going to sit in this place for hours that something really important's going to happen and you're going to miss it. You might miss it, but you can always pick it up again. A bit like people who knock on your front door. So when I have dinner, if there's a delivery, unless I know exactly what it is, we will not get up. We don't get up. We're just like, they'll leave it on the porch, they'll leave it. Of course they will.

(: 31:43

You don't pick it up, you just leave it. And it's a bit with our phones, we could be like, I'll pick up that message later. It's not an urgent message. I think it's interesting that notifications are called alerts. When you alert something, it's important. Our phones are training us through their language, through their noises, through the colours that they have to make them really important. But I think we can switch that off. Once you are aware of the tricks, you can take control a hundred percent. I believe that once you're like, oh yeah, that does happen to me. That's not helpful. You can switch it off. You can switch off notifications for things that don't work for you. You can put it on ring. I'm always curious how many people switch off their phones ever completely. Unless they're on a plane. It's one of my questions in my book, think about it.

(: 32:34

But there's so many times where you could just switch it off. Do not a film at home, not even in a cinema. You do not have to have your phone on. Nothing's going to happen in two hours that you need to know about. Switch it off. And I think when you need to put it on a ringtone, find a ringtone you like or a retro one or a song. Do you remember when we used to buy a phone ring? Tones, that's gone. I used to pay for mine. I want my phone to have this two pound 60. Well that's really expensive. I'll go for this one. That's 99 p. I mean, we don't do that anymore because nobody needs their phone to ring. I disagree with that. I think we need our phones to ring. I think we need to have them in a separate room and they need to ring a little bit like a landline so that we are aware, oh, something's happening and maybe I can pick up that message later. Or no, it's ringing continuously. Something important is going on that is very different to checking mindlessly checking. Oh no, it's just the weather. Oh no, it's the news. Oh no, I just don't think that's helpful. And that's also impacting our nervous system because we're overstimulated by the buzzing all the

Dr Marianne Trent (: 33:43

Time. That's so important. And I love the idea of thinking about it as a third person. And actually I'm just back from holiday and I kept my phone mainly in the safe when I was away because I just wanted to just obviously be present, but also read more and play in the pool and do all of those things. But yeah, I love that idea. And if I still had my ringtone that I'd paid money for, I would be having the just in Timberlake hook of it feels like something heating up. Get it back, Marianne, get it back on. I love it. I told you that's what would be happening.

Dr Martha Deiros Collado (: 34:18

So I've still got mine, so it's still ringing. What's it called? Oh my god, I have to look it up now. I want to tell you, it's a ringtone that we all got obsessed by, but when we went on a ski trip in Austria, oh, oh no. It's on the tip of my tongue now. I'm going to have to find it, but it's still there. So I've started to use it a bit more, but now I can't remember Barbara Streisand. It's bad, but it brings me such happy feelings.

Dr Marianne Trent (: 34:52

I know what you mean, yeah.

Dr Martha Deiros Collado (: 34:55

Oh, you'll have to just listen. It's called Barbara, Barbara Streisand.

Dr Marianne Trent (: 34:58

Yes,

Dr Martha Deiros Collado (: 34:58

That one.

Dr Marianne Trent (: 34:59

Yeah, I know what you mean.

Dr Martha Deiros Collado (: 35:00

It brings me such joy when I hear it anywhere because it reminds me of that insane ski holiday with there was 24 of us. It was insane. It was lovely. And it was on every night. It was like the song of the moment, but that's my ringtone, so I still have it, but I hadn't used it for ages. And then I think the process of writing my book, I wrote it for parents, but I definitely wrote it for me too because I think some of the questions I was considering or being asked or thinking about, I was like, these apply to me and I can't tell people to do something that I'm not willing to do for myself in my home with my family. So much of this book is for me too. And one of the things I have done for sure, I mean it's got a tick on Barbara's, right?

(: 35:48

That's what I found it because it's there. I put my phone on ring, I do all these things I talk about they are possible to do. I haven't asked for massive changes. And I think it's about picking and choosing the things you want to try out. I always say with habits, you need to start teeny tiny and hold it and be really consistent. And then when it starts to feel really natural and comfortable and you're like, don't even think about it anymore, then you can introduce something else you don't have to introduce and should it introduce 20 changes at once because it's not going to work. Teeny tiny tweaks can make such a difference, like putting your phone in a different room, just as I said, mealtimes or in those phone free zones in your house. Oh no, my phone's not allowed in this room, so I'll put it on ring and it's on a shelf and just that tiny thing can suddenly go, oh my god, there's so much space in my house and it's so quiet and I feel so much calmer. And I didn't realise that carrying my phone and was actually overstimulating me. But it is. It's like a toddler interrupting you every few minutes. And if you've got a toddler, it's an extra one.

Dr Marianne Trent (: 37:01

Yeah, my phone even likes to be present when I'm brushing my teeth. So I've got an oral B toothbrush that guides you. It's very handy, very. But yeah, it likes to be in the bathroom with me. And so yeah, this is really going to make me think about my phone. Free zones.

Dr Martha Deiros Collado (: 37:16

Yeah, so I have that too, but I don't take it with me. I don't use it anymore. I think it's great for learning that will all be up. Learning to brush your teeth well for the right amount of,

Dr Marianne Trent (: 37:27

I still use it because when I don't, I do get a bit lazier and I will talk or multitask. It actually keeps me mindful when I'm brushing my teeth so that I don't do something else. Got a smile to maintain.

Dr Martha Deiros Collado (: 37:43

But you know that my phone helps me be mindful to do this one, do it. That's not interrupting,

Dr Marianne Trent (: 37:49

Distracting, but don't sit and scroll on the toilet with it. A different thing's all we need. But also,

Dr Martha Deiros Collado (: 37:55

Well, I dunno, I think some people might be like on a toilet, I like to be distracted. I can't read on a toilet, but I know people who like to read on a toilet. If that's you, I would say there's nothing wrong with it. That's the thing with the smartphone conversation, it feels like some things are bad and some things are good and I'm like, but it's different for everyone. It's unique. And I think you need to find your balance, especially if you've got kids. You need to find your family balance what works for you, if that works for you with your teeth, keep doing it. Fact, we listen to, Hey Dougie, the toothbrush song with my kids every night. So the phone also comes with us with the toothbrushing, but we don't look at it, but we use it because it's so handy. The song is on our phone, we play it. We know what two minutes sounds like they both love the song. Great. Why would I stop doing that? It's not disrupting anything, it's facilitating something. But maybe like I was saying, maybe you don't need it on. You don't need to scroll while you're watching a film. Are you watching a film or are you scrolling? Make a decision. That's the difference. Find your moments.

Dr Marianne Trent (: 39:02

This is going to stay with me and I'm going to get your book as soon as it's available. And I'm aware that by the time this is released, it should be available. Tell us us when it's published, tell us where we can get it and just remind us what it's called. Dr. Mata.

Dr Martha Deiros Collado (: 39:15

So it's called the Smartphone Solution, when and how to give your child a phone. And it's out on the 28th of August in all good bookshops your Waterstones. We'll have copies of it. And if you have a local bookshop, which I always like to promote and tell people about, you can go in and if they don't have a copy, they can order it in for you. I really believe in shopping small and supporting books and authors. People often ask me, where would you prefer us to buy your book? And I'm like, honestly, your local bookshop would it pleases me when local bookshops kind of get that income. I think it's lovely, but all the water stones will have it. So that's somewhere I would say. And of course you can also get it online, so it should be in most places, I think.

Dr Marianne Trent (: 40:06

Amazing. And you are also on social media. I think that Instagram is the best place to follow you if anyone's listening to this as a podcast. Dr. Marta is spelled Martha, so M-A-R-T-H-A. So you are on Instagram as Dr. Marta

Dr Martha Deiros Collado (: 40:23

Psychologist,

Dr Marianne Trent (: 40:25

Right?

Dr Martha Deiros Collado (: 40:26

So

Dr Marianne Trent (: 40:26

Tell us

Dr Martha Deiros Collado (: 40:27

Dr. Marta, psychologist. The reason being, I'm not a medical doctor and I'm very proud of being a psychologist. That's my career. There's nothing wrong with it. So yeah, if I just call myself Dr. Marta, I always worried that people would think I was a medical doctor and I am not. So I am Dr. Marta Martha psychologist.

Dr Marianne Trent (: 40:47

Thank you for the clarification. It's been wonderful chatting with you. And I hope that the book really gets digested and implemented because I think something needs to change, doesn't it? And yeah, I can't wait to read it and well done to you in advance.

Dr Martha Deiros Collado (: 41:05

Thank you.

Dr Marianne Trent (: 41:07

And to anyone who's interested in learning more about Dr. Marta and her career, we've got another episode coming up to celebrate our 200 episode series where you can learn more about how Dr. Marta became the psychologist she is before us, so thank you for your time, Dr. Marta, and we'll see you again very soon.

Dr Martha Deiros Collado (: 41:23

See you soon.

Dr Marianne Trent (: 41:24

Thank you so much for Dr. Marta Deros CAO's time. What a wonderful episode. Please do let me know in the comments what this has resonated with you. Has it set any ideas about how you might think about introducing phone time or maybe even going into drawing up more boundaried use of phone and screen time for your children or children in your family, or even children you might be working with if you are in a children and young people service such as cams? I'm doing this episode on a different day than when I recorded with Dr. Muta and I'm wearing the same top. So you didn't notice. Did you notice? Could you tell? My hair was slightly different? But yeah, I have really found that it's resonated with me and made me think about being more intentional and more mindful with my phone use. So yeah, the evening that I did it, I decided actually when I'm watching TV with my husband, I don't use my phone anyway, but I'm going to keep it in a separate room.

(: 42:26

And then when he goes up to use the bathroom and stuff in the evening, I would often sit and scroll and check what I'd missed on WhatsApp. But I haven't done it. It can wait. It can wait. I can get to it in the morning. So yeah, let me know in the comments what you are having as your take home messages from this episode. There will be a link in the description and in the show notes for you to grab a copy of Dr. Marty's book, the Smartphone Solution. Please, if you do buy it and you enjoy it, please do leave Marta a review because it really does help people to demonstrate that their book is well worth reading. And books that are well reviewed are shown higher up listings by booksellers, so it really does help them. And the author too,

Jingle Guy (: 43:12

If you're looking to become a psychologist.