For More Info:

https://appstinence.org/

Hillary Wilkinson: (00:00)

My guest today is the Gen Z founder of Appstinence, a student organization of the Harvard Graduate School of Education for people, largely young people who want to opt out of the attention economy. So the attention economy, for anyone not familiar with that term, is an economic concept that treats human attention as a valuable and limited resource. Digital platforms using persuasive design vie for attention to keep users engaged. And this engagement then gets monetized through advertising, data collection and other things like in-app purchases. So members of Appstinence refrain from using social media and instead rely on calling and texting. Some also practice cell-ibacy that's spelled with two L's. So, or the practice of not having a smartphone. I'm really excited to get this Gen Z perspective and I'm so grateful to Welcome to Healthy Screen Habits. Gabriela Nguyen

Gabriela Nguyen: (01:26)

Hi Hillary. Thank you for having me. I'm excited to talk to you today.

Hillary Wilkinson: (01:30)

Yes. And I have to, um, I have to just let listeners know Gabriela is squeezing this in as she's moving out of her dorm. She's graduating the same week. It's like, I'm, I feel like so much is going on right now for you, and I could not appreciate your time more so . So I also feel like your generation gets both a lot of shade thrown at you as well as a lot of sympathy for being kind of first run Guinea pigs of the great Tech experiment. And what role did tech play in your life growing up?

Gabriela Nguyen: (02:10)

I am was born in, in the two thousands, born and raised in the Silicon Valley in particular. Um, and I think that's a, an important detail because that was also the time that the Silicon Valley was large, was becoming the Silicon Valley. I mean, you have a lot of the platforms that, that I grew up using, Snapchat, Instagram, they were, they were being developed at the time. Facebook came out 2004. So that was really the hot ticket time to, to be in the Silicon Valley if you were there for those things. Um, but I think also in part because I grew up there at that time, um, it didn't feel like anything at all. And I think that is the first, one of the first, um, points when the problem starts to appear is, um, you only obviously know as know, can address the problem insofar as you know, that it exists.

Gabriela Nguyen: (02:56)

And I think growing up, I was a child at the time that Facebook came out, um, a toddler actually. Um, and so I, you don't realize that. You don't really notice, uh, I mean, for as a kid you don't notice many things, but at the time in particular, I didn't notice that big tech was becoming big. So, uh, for example, I mean, as far as I noticed it, it was Oh, okay. Well, all I really remember was, you know, there was new devices that were going to come out and there was just this general buzz that everybody had. Um, and probably

Hillary Wilkinson: (03:28)

Could probably, because it was like their dad's thing coming out.

Gabriela Nguyen: (03:32)

Yeah, exactly. No,

Hillary Wilkinson: (03:33)

Exactly. Their their mom's project that was hitting big.

Gabriela Nguyen: (03:36)

Yeah, it's like a friend's, oh, it was a friend's parent. Just got a new job at, um, Netflix. Oh, that's a streaming service and that kind of stuff. So it was, it didn't seem like anything, it seemed like I would've as if I grew up in a a like maybe a, a town where a lot of people were, you know, worked in a local factory or something. It was sort of like everyone was kind of employed in this one thing. Um, and it didn't, it wasn't, didn't seem like anything at the time. And I, that was the necessary precursor for the about 10 years that I would be chronically online. I was your, I would say your sort of textbook, chronically online , um, Gen Z Girl. I got an iPod touch around the age of nine, eight or nine. Um, and then I had my first smartphone when I was, well, it came out, it was the iPhone5S.  I was 12, just about 12 at the time.

Gabriela Nguyen: (04:25)

Um, and then from there it was just the complete onslaught of all the different types of social media that teenagers still used today. But it was the, the nascent versions of them at the time. So it was okay. Instagram, Instagram pre-algorithm is, so the brown one, that's the one that I went through puberty on, uh, Uhhuh and so then and Snapchat as well. And then in my later teens is when, um, TikTok, uh, came out and was super, super popular. Then the pandemic hits, um, in my second semester of college and, you know, kind of obliterates my, a lot of my college time. And then, um, and then over time I kind of came to this conclusion of Appstinence, um, and which is where I am now. And, and the foundation of this, of this organization, which is this idea that walking away from the attention economy, I think there's a lot of this idea of like fighting over the digital space.

Gabriela Nguyen: (05:14)

But, but growing up in this Silicon Valley, I watched as a lot of, even the physical area in which I grew up was getting eaten up by these companies. And you realize that these, as you get older, and I look back on this time that these, there was no digital battleground. There's no battleground for me to reclaim. 'cause it was never made with my wellbeing in mind in the first place. There was nothing that I owned to be reclaimed. So if I walked away from them, it wasn't the sort of great sad resignation. It was just an an, it was admitting and being realistic that technologies that were made for your capture and made to hook you, especially from such a young age, are not something that I wanted to spend my time energy on and nor did I, I want to create as a norm, uh, perpetuate as a normal aspect of, of childhood, of adolescence, or even just in life in general.

Hillary Wilkinson: (06:05)

You speak of your early life and technology as it kind of being, you know, the water in which you swam because it was the area you were raised in, but yet somehow you did come to this awareness and this realization that, um, you were getting hooked this like persuasive design was happening. Was there, was there a triggering moment for you? Or like, how, how did you come to figure that out, is what I'm asking? Yeah. Like what, how did that realization emerge?

Gabriela Nguyen: (06:45)

Yeah, so for me, I actually didn't have a sort of like huge blowout event that, that I think, uh, you'll hear about a lot, like on, on the news, like girls getting committed to, you know, psychiatric wards or diagnosed with eating disorders, things like that, that are very important to talk about. But that wasn't actually my personal experience. I didn't have a sort of a very extreme event. Um, for me, I, like, I really wanted to do well in school. It was like sort of a simple basic responsibility, um, commitment that a young person makes to their lives. Um, and very simply, I could not focus. It got to a point, it was, um, very early on in high school, um, that I, I realized that I just simply couldn't focus. And it started off with a very sort of innocent organic observation, which was I keep using my phone instead of doing homework.

Gabriela Nguyen: (07:27)

It didn't, there was no intention at the time, like I didn't know Digital Minimalism, the book hadn't come out at that point. Mm-hmm . No one was talking about as far as I knew, talking about this idea that's very like chic and vogue now. It's, no one was talking about this at the time. It was just that very organic, that kind of seed of like, all right, something is not quite right. Like some, I just can't stay away from my phone. It sort of had this feeling that had this kind of like force behind it. Um, and then for several years I tried to do that kind of balance thing. And this is at the time that TikTok is taking off , um, and Be Real comes out too. And there's all this kind of other ways that social media's being played with. And I tried that.

Gabriela Nguyen: (08:01)

I was like, well, what if I just tried to minimize the harms of social media and then maximize the good parts of it? Um, and I tried that for a long time until it got to the point that I realized that I have a human capacity and there is only so much willpower, so much, um, sort of reconfiguration of my daily routines that I could handle, but technology can infinitely improve. It was kind of in that sense, rigged from the very beginning. And when I, when I realized that, and I realized actually stepping away from that was not a, um, uh, I wasn't bending the knee to anybody, let's say. It was really saying like, no, actually, I, I do, you know, I do have a mortal, a mortal limitation, but that's what makes me a human being. And, and perhaps it was like at the time I'm a teenager, so I'm increasing my ability to have abstract, higher level thinking. Maybe it's been part of that as well. But yeah,

Hillary Wilkinson: (08:49)

We can, well, I mean, certainly you can say all of that thing as far as developmental, but I think, uh, you must have been a very mature teen to even have recognized that level of limitation. I think most adults struggle with it. So, you know, , it's,

Gabriela Nguyen: (09:04)

It definitely takes a public conversation like the one that we're, that, that has been going on, um, quite publicly for the last year, um, to be able to push people in that direction to make that consideration. I think, like what I tell my story and I don't have a huge blowout moment. I think that's a lot of people, I would say that's like kind of the middle part of the bell curve, right? So it's a lot of people who are like, well, I didn't, I wasn't chronically bullied online and I I'm not diagnosed with an eating disorder and I'm not all these other things, then I can just keep living this way. And I think for me, it took me a while to realize like, hey, I didn't actually need to be pushed to the extreme to realize that this wasn't worth my time and my effort.

Gabriela Nguyen: (09:39)

But it took me a long time to get to that conclusion because I think a lot of, for a lot of things in life, it's like, well, did I need to, you know, get some really troubling blood test results back to know I needed to shape up what I was eating? Right? It doesn't, I think there's a lot of other aspects of, of wellness and health that we wait until the last minute mm-hmm . And Digital technologies and our, our relationship with technology was moving also in that direction. Um, and now we've begun to course correct, but at the time, that really wasn't the thing to do, especially being where I was from. So, um, it really just took me having that really heightened like, level of stress of like, I really, it's two in the morning, I need to get this assignment done. It should have taken me 20, 30 minutes, but it's taken me hours already.

Gabriela Nguyen: (10:18)

And realizing just how unsustainable that was, just from a, a strategic thinking of like, okay, well if every assignment that is 30 minutes takes me four hours, then I can't. And I, there's only so many hours in the day, like, I can't do so many that the number of assignments I have, if it takes me that long because of this. It was very sort of that low kind of in some sense like kinda low level, I just need to get my homework done. This was not a grand like, kind of oh, perspective of like, oh, right, this needs to be some kind of greater life change I needed for personal development for self. No, no. This was like, I have a deadline, I have to get homework in and that's it. And then it started from there, and then that kind of sparked my individual journey.

Gabriela Nguyen: (10:53)

And along the way, um, a lot of things happened on the societal level. Um, Digital Minimalism, that kind of movement kind of kicked off. Um, I suppose like, um, you know, The Anxious Generation, the research on that to build that book started happening. And then it was obviously it was released last year. Um, and other kind of like, you know, uh, sense the sense that larger society was having, and I would say the Center for Humane Technology, their work started to, um, pick up quite a bit at that time, as, as I understand. Um, and so those societal factors, but I also was meeting people in my personal life and I was also going through transition at the time. I was, you know, graduated from preschool, I go off to college, um, and then the pandemic hits and there's so many different ways these kind of curve balls that are just being thrown.

Gabriela Nguyen: (11:33)

But looking back were these sort of necessary meaningful moments to reflect on, like, okay, how am I actually using technology or how's it using me rather, um, and then make, take the necessary steps instead of just coming to be in that perpetual state of pondering Oh yes. And then a utopian fantasy I could possibly, you know, not have social media not have, and actually like, oh wait, like I'm going to try this, it fail. And I have, there were like multiple times that I did the wrong thing and I was discouraged and I tried again and then, you know, and then now I have the five D method from

Hillary Wilkinson: (12:02)

That. Yes, yes.

Gabriela Nguyen: (12:04)

It was a struggle.

Hillary Wilkinson: (12:05)

Yes. So before we get into that, can you explain like what, uh, I mean, I kind of, in the intro, I kind of teased apart what Appstinence is a little bit, but I don't know that I did, I don't know that it did it justice , can you, can you explain what is Appstinence?

Gabriela Nguyen: (12:23)

So appstinence at its core is, is a lifestyle where you, um, and it's like of targeted for, for young people, but very quickly it's becoming something that is applicable to every single generation, which is reflected in our membership, for example. Um, but appstinence is purposely refraining from the use of any voluntary sort of personal social media accounts or otherwise operating on any social media, and instead using direct line communication like calling, texting, video, calling people. Um, so it still uses technology to keep in touch with people, but it ops out of the sort of main part of that attention economy. So the infinite scroll, the auto play, the, all of that kind of stuff, the stories, other features that of, of persuasive design. Um, of course, are there ways to get like sort of compulsively use, you know, group text messaging? Yes, of course there is.

Gabriela Nguyen: (13:09)

Um, but it's this general idea of moving away from these main big players, let's say. So like Instagram, Snapchat, TikTok, um, Reddit included as well mm-hmm . Um, and, you know, and ultimately from that point, use that as a necessary but insufficient sort of precursor to building a meaningful life, right? Because if you, um, if you just stop with the technology, you will, you, you're gonna kind of shortchange yourself if you, if you do yourself a disservice if you just stop there. But you do, you should start, I think starting with the technology is a really good place for most people, especially for young people today. Like what's your, uh, you know, what apps do you mostly go on? What do you use your smartphone for? What do you think social media is for? What do you use it for? And answer all of those kind of big questions we ask people at the beginning of the five D method.

Hillary Wilkinson: (13:53)

Excellent. So when we come back, let's get into that five D method and, um, learn more about appstinence and helping people get off of social media.

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Hillary Wilkinson:

I'm speaking with Gabriela Nguyen, a Gen Zer who has founded abstinence, an organization that helps people opt out of social media. Gabriela, so we were talking prior to the break, and I do wanna get into the five D method, but, um, I kind of would like to ask, what, what do people find to be the greatest challenges in kind of stepping out of social media? I know, you know, in my life as a mom, so many schools, like school communications, club communications, all of that stuff comes through social media feeds. So, I mean, for example, I need, I found I needed to join Facebook once my kids hit middle school. 'cause I kept missing school concert information. Like my son played cello, we needed to, really needed to be there, um, or various like PTA requests stuff that I wanted to be involved with. But I, I did not particularly love social media from the get-go, and I was not on it, but I found that as more and more organizations have turned to social media, like I had to get on it. But, so I'm wondering, what do you find people have the biggest challenges with in stepping away from it?

Gabriela Nguyen: (15:43)

I would say that it varies, quite a bit person to person. But I think when I, we work with clients, for example, or, or, or just amongst our different, the members of different generations in our membership, it seems to differ quite a bit along sort of generational lines, I would say, um, with the older generations. So let's say like, I don't know, perhaps, um, maybe Gen X and above, um, a lot of it, it's sort of, um, things like kind of what you're saying, it's like dealing with logistical issues. So sort of like, but I need this thing for my kid. And, you know, that kind of stuff. Um, and I would say for the younger generation, it's perhaps a a little more abstract in the sense it's imagining what your life would be like without it just imagining that is already difficult from the very beginning.

Gabriela Nguyen: (16:26)

And that's a big, I think that's one of the big differences between Gen Z and other generations is that, is that even the oldest part of Gen Z would say, but really millennial and above have a point of reference where they have concrete memories in a concrete length of time in which they remember being a fully operational person, without social media and for many, like a smartphone or at all. And not having that point of reference is very difficult because you don't have that sort of, the wire frames, let's say, to then reimagine what your life could be without it. And so you're really learning two things. You're learning kind of the technical aspect of like, okay, what exactly are these technologies? How are they designed to provide capture? And the other one is also just imagining how, how your life could look, um, how life can be.

Gabriela Nguyen: (17:12)

Um, that those two things together are really what we try to work on with the, with the more generation. Um, but even for myself, it was only after going through this experience, my, my own journey, do I have that point of reference, but I didn't up until recent years. Um, and but that's something that, you know, once you make it quote unquote to the other side, it becomes, it's sort of like, hey, like you're waving at, you're waving at them from across the bridge and you wanna say like, Hey, come over here. Like, it's, it's nice. Yeah. And it's very calm and um, and that's, so I'd say those are the main things. But even within that, there's like things that people who are in there who are older than Gen Z will struggle with that Gen Z does, or you know, the reverse is true as well. I think there's so much variability.

Hillary Wilkinson: (17:51)

So you have this method called your 5 D method. Can you take us through it?

Gabriela Nguyen: (17:59)

Yeah, sure. So the five D method is sort of a general high level, step-by-step program that a person who going from using, you know, having insane screen time going, using so much social media, just like basically existing on the internet as I did, um, can go from that to not having social media and highly recommended, um, also not using a smartphone as well, or at least say a traditional smartphone. Um, so there's five D's in this and the D's are interchangeable. Um, uh, which is a sort of a recent change that I've, I've implemented or made since I started meeting with more people. Um, but the first D is to decrease. And that's a general idea, like how do you actually decrease the amount of time you're spending and decrease the time, but also the stimulus you're getting, um, from these devices. So there's a myriad of ones, the main two things is the first one is actually changing the hardware of the technology you're using.

Gabriela Nguyen: (18:54)

So meaning like if you have a smartphone, it's a much easier thing to switch down to downgrading, to like a, a dumb phone, for example. Then try to keep a smartphone with all the bells and whistles and then constantly try to fight the erd like you maximizing your willpower in that respect. Um, but the other part of decrease outside of the technological changes, which could include, you know, sort of certain plugins and extensions and, um, reducing the number of, of devices at all that you use, um, is also increasing your participation in the real world and sort of doing a reverse displacement as we call it. So people talk about displacement in a sense of like, when I'm on, when I'm online for five hours a day on, you know, on Instagram for three hours and TikTok for two hours, it's displacing other things that I could do.

Gabriela Nguyen: (19:37)

But the reverse is also true. If you've ever like hung out with friends, you're like, oh gosh, it's seven 30 already. How did the time pass? We met at noon, right? The reverse is true, like how do you build such a meaningful life that it's not just you use it to escape social media, but you've made it obsolete? Because social media does serve a purpose in people's lives, but if you are having such an amazing day hanging out with your friends or doing some engaging, meaningful creative activity, it will displace the desire that you use to scroll on social media. That's sort of the reverse thing. The second step is to deactivate. So the whole thing about the five D method is actually getting people all the way to the point of abstinence. Um, and they can obviously get off the train at any point, but to get them to the, to abstinence.

Gabriela Nguyen: (20:14)

So the second one is to actually deactivate your account. So for the main like sort of players Instagram TikTok, as far as I know that perhaps they've changed it in recent, but, um, you can't immediately delete your account. Um, I believe only for one of those. You can, but otherwise you can deactivate it and then you have 30 days before it quote unquote deletes. So in those 30 days, you can always put in your login information, it'll reactivate the account as if you never left. Um, that 30 days also happens to match the recommendation of Dr. Anna Lemke, who wrote Dopamine Nation mm-hmm . Um, to actually reset the brain, uh, reward pathways is that 30 days as well. So I've modeled it after that. Um, so what you can do in those 30 days, you keep doing the decrease in that 30 days, but you've deactivated the account that you use the least.

Gabriela Nguyen: (20:56)

You might not notice it. You might be like, well, that account, I rarely ever look at it. But the idea is to slowly progress towards reducing the number of millions of places. Either it's devices or apps that are giving you that sort of a whack-a-mole. You don't wanna play whack-a-mole where you're just like, okay, well if I use, I, I don't use Netflix anymore, but I have HBO, but then I don't use HBO, then I have Disney plus, and like, you're just kind of being chased around. So actually just decrease. So it simplify. Um, and then after those 30 days, you actually is the third D is to delete. So after those 30 days, you're one that one account that you deactivated will delete and you keep going about your life ideal. In an ideal situation, you're so distracted by hanging out with your friends, engaging other things, you don't really notice that it's fine, you probably won't.

Gabriela Nguyen: (21:35)

Um, and then the fourth one is to downgrade, um, downgrading your phone largely, um, I hope one day that will be sort of dumb phone laptops. So right now, um, it's really to downgrade your, your smartphone to a dumb phone. There's, as you know, there's many different types out on the market mm-hmm . Um, even though overall the market relatively is, is is small, but um, I have a lot of hope in it, um, is to downgrade your phone. And that will really kind of push you, give you that extra step to push you into like, alright, I'm really committed to this lifestyle, which is another reason why the D's are interchangeable. You can also do this at the very beginning. I've also recommended, um, sort of for example, the Cat S 22, which is, um, a transition phone.

Gabriela Nguyen: (22:18)

Uh, so you can what's the, what's the, what's the type of the phone? It's called the Cat S 22. It's made by Cat Construction. It's a construction phone. It's, uh, for contractors? Yeah. Oh, okay. So it's, I it's a phone I used, it was my first, I guess like tradition phone, um mm-hmm . I, yeah, well I kinda switched around to different ones, but, so then, anyway, so downgrading is at four D and the last step is not, uh, uh, an action necessarily, but it's to depart. It's when you kind of feel like you've kind of arrived at that place, that sort of threshold that you pass and you feel that kind of distance between you and the digital world. And for me personally, um, it's now for example, how I know I, I reached that was, I have, for example, on my laptop, I have YouTube, uh, with an extension that removes all the recommendations, all the comments, all the shorts is just basically a video search engine.

Gabriela Nguyen: (23:05)

Um, but now when I see a regular YouTube page without any all the things plugged into it, I'm like, whoa. And I do not wanna look at it. It's so stimulating to me. And that's how I know that there's kind of a distance and I'm not kind of so sucked into it where I feel compelled. Um, and you also notice it when you go out and about. You see how many people are on their smartphones and how much, how often people pull them out when, when they're eating or sharing time with you or spending time with you. Um, that's how, you know, you kinda have these like little things that build over time. Um, and you've kind of arrived on the kind of other side. Um, but the thing about the five D method is that it's really necessary to take your time. There's no deadline.

Gabriela Nguyen: (23:40)

There's no rush. Um, I also totally realized I skipped o over the first, the reflection part at the beginning. 'cause I got so excited about talking about the Ds, there's a reflection part at the beginning. It's fairly brief, but, um, it's basically where you answer like, who's, who's worth keeping in touch with your, who you know of your family, of your friends, um, and be, take a very honest accounting of this. Not the people you would like in an ideal situation to keep in touch with the people. You don't hear from them a little bit. You're like, Hey, what's going on? Um, those people also, like, what are the realistic hobbies that you could, or realistic ways you can spend your time. It doesn't necessarily need to be a hobby, ne should be included in there, but realistic ways time could be spent in your life in general.

Gabriela Nguyen: (24:20)

So, and be realistic about it. So you could say like, okay, well in my dream version myself, I'm rock climbing three days a week, but you're suddenly rock climbing three days a week. And maybe not quite, not quite yet. That's maybe that's a little bit of at a later stage. Um, but realizing things like sort of, you know, going for more walks, reading more, and doesn't necessarily have to be a hobby either. It could just be, which was in my experience, just having more time to do what you were already doing. So for example, instead of having to listen to a lecture and do my laundry, I could just listen lecture, do laundry, like it, it's, it's a slower pace of living. Um, so that's the other one. And then, you know, sort of asking yourself what are the old, the last question would be, what are your sort of ultimate goals or what's the most important things to you?

Gabriela Nguyen: (25:00)

So we had a client, for example, who he said his was, his first was his faith, the second was his family. The third was, uh, physical fitness. And then the 5D method as I'm giving recommendations of how to use the 5D method, build those three, the whatever number of values or are things you prioritize into your life to displace the time you would've spent scrolling on the news or on social media or video games or whatever the, the media stimulus is. This is the general idea of what the 5 D method is. It's meant to be highly personalizable. You could be on the first D for a year, you could be on this is, and this is new to we're developing it live right now. Or some people go through it really fast actually and are pleasantly surprised with how, uh, easy this process can be. And others are like, this is actually way harder than I thought it was going to teach them.

Hillary Wilkinson: (25:47)

Yeah. I would think that that first part, that reflective part is really, um, you know, it's kind of like a personal inventory of values and time and all of those things of what you want to be invested in to live your, live your best life, so to speak. And so I would think that probably like the amount of effort and energy that gets spent on that first time is directly correlational to the success of following through with the five Ds, you know?

Gabriela Nguyen: (26:23)

Yeah, exactly. I think if you don't have the necessary reflection in the beginning, um, you're just jumping straight into the deep end. And I think that's, this is something especially true for, for Gen Z but for younger generation is if you don't have a point of reference, you need to answer those questions. 'cause at the same time, another thing I've, I've noticed is that well also when you're at the quote unquote the beginning of your life, there's a lot of these questions that you haven't asked. Sure. Sort of like, who it is that I care about, what is I care about? Sure. How do I wanna spend my time? What is time? All these questions, right? You kind of don't really, you haven't answered them explicitly. So it is can be uncomfortable to answer these questions, and it should be, I mean, to some extent, like it, it'll reveal certain truths about your life.

Gabriela Nguyen: (27:02)

Um, but the truth sets you free. And then, um, it'll, it'll, it's the necessary first step to, to go on a very what, what we, what Appstinence at our, in our coaching program really tries to make a meaningful journey for people as opposed to just sort of like, oh, I have to check this off my list. I have to kick this habit. It's like, Hey, I actually, it's so ingrained in your life once you remove it, you actually have a lot of opportunities for other things to not just maintain certain relationships, but to actively nurture some, to not just be able to focus more on, on the task at hand, but to understand the importance of focus, right? There's like this extra level of, of, of, um, gain that can be, can be had through this process that we're really trying to make even more robust in, in the 5D method for people to use.

Hillary Wilkinson: (27:40)

For sure. For sure. And I also appreciate how abstinence is like healthy screen habits. It's not an anti-tech organization. I mean, we, our theory is we believe in the intentional use of technology to supplement our lives. Mm-hmm . So it sounds like that's very, very, uh, much baked into appstinence as well. So we have to take a short break, but when we come back, I am going to ask Gabriela Nguyen, for her healthy screen habit, and I'll just keep us going right through. Okay. 

I am speaking with Gabriela Nguyen,, the founder of Abstinence, Gabriela, on every episode of the Healthy Screen Habits podcast, I ask for a healthy screen habit. And this is gonna be a tip or takeaway that listeners can put into practice into their own homes. What's yours?

Gabriela Nguyen: (28:37)

Mine is something that I wish I started doing quite a bit earlier compared, you know, and is relatively late, considering the other good habits that I've adopted in my life, really as it relates to technology. Um, but it's asking people to, to eat with me. Um, just saying like, Hey, do you wanna get lunch? Or not even, actually, I don't say go out and get lunch. I say, do you wanna just eat lunch together? Uhhuh . So it, so I think, and the way I phrase that question I've noticed is important because I mean, not everyone wants to necessarily eat out at 2:00 PM on a Wednesday, right? They might wanna just eat their packed lunch or whatever. We say, Hey, do you wanna just eat lunch together? Emphasize that it's really like, Hey, I, I'm asking you not to have someone to go buy food with me, but just to have someone to spend time with me while I eat.

Gabriela Nguyen: (29:18)

Um, and just doing that purposefully and, and having that be part of the way that I, uh, you know, in reflecting on how I've socialized in that day, it's like, did I eat meals with other people today? Um, because I think it's very common, um, to just, you know, watch TV while you eat or do other things, um, or distract yourself with technology otherwise. But when you're sitting with someone, I think there's also a little bit of that social pressure of the etiquette as well. You don't wanna be on your phone while you're engaging in a conversation, especially you invited that person to meet with you, right? There's like a kind of, there's a role of that sort of social pressure to, to, to a to a good end. Um, and I'm in a university setting right now, so it's, it's easier to do that.

Gabriela Nguyen: (29:53)

Um, but definitely when I'm home, um, like they living with my parents when they're away at work and stuff like that, it is obviously considerably more difficult. And so in that, in that, um, sense, when I don't have people around me to invite to eat, um, which I now actively seek them out, I will at the very least try to be in a space where there are other people around. So if I go to a cafe to do work, I'll try to eat my meal there. So at least there's like a, the chatter and kind of buzz of people around me, and I'm getting that stimulus from somewhere else other than sitting by, by myself and, and watching a video, which still happens sometimes. I mean, like, the truth of the matter is, um, it's not a perfect, like, you know, appstinence is not, the perfectionism is not going to serve anybody here. The

Hillary Wilkinson: (30:33)

Idea,

Gabriela Nguyen: (30:33)

Right? How do you bring people back into your life? And sometimes it just, you just have to ask no one, I mean, very few people, unless they're, you know, unless they're busy, will say like, I prefer to just eat my meal by myself. I think it's, I've never been told that in the many times I've asked people to eat. And, um, and yeah, just really, uh, you know, no one, there's a, there's a lot of people who, who would like to share a meal with you, but

Hillary Wilkinson: (30:55)

Yeah, and I mean, and you're touching on, you're touching on our other, you know, huge concern of the time, which is the loneliness epidemic. And I think that, I think that it's hard for us to break through those social walls of, 'cause I, I mean, even when you're, when you walk in to say a cafeteria or restaurant, whatever, you see somebody you know, but if they are on their phone, you don't wanna interrupt what they're doing, you know, so mm-hmm . I, I think you sitting there, device free and eating is an invitation, you know, it's for others. So I love that. Yeah. As always, you can find a complete transcript of this show and a link to appstinence.org by by visiting the show notes for this episode. You do this by going to healthy screen habits.org. Click the podcast button and find this episode. Gabriela, thank you for being here today for giving us an amazing tool set to dial back our social media use and step away from attention economy as, as, you know, sought after. And I feel like we would, we would all benefit from doing that reflective component of what are, you know, what are the important parts of my life? And, um, just reclaiming our time and focus so that we can all live with intention.

Gabriela Nguyen: (32:28)

Thank you, Hillary, and, uh, for your commitment to this work. And for all the listeners who are, as you've told me, are, are loving moms who just want to do, do right by their children. Um, thank you for the time and, and the love, and I look forward to this movement, movement gaining steam and, and all the, the things that we'll discover together.