For More Info: Offline Now

Get Eli's book on Amazon: Offline Now: A Practical Guide to a Healthy Digital Balance

Hillary Wilkinson: (00:02)

My guest today is a long time digital pioneer exploring how technology shapes our lives After building early social media strategies for places like the Museum of Modern Art, Coca-Cola and Ford, he's turned his efforts to building Offline.Now, A global platform and community for digital balance. While coaching and advising leaders, including neurodivergent professionals, he has also authored a book by the same name. Offline. Now welcome to Healthy Screen Habits, Eli Singer.

Eli Singer: (01:05)

Thanks so much for having me, Hillary.

Hillary Wilkinson: (01:07)

Mm. Thank you for being here. Eli, you, like I said, have been in this digital space for a really long time. What has changed? Why are you encouraging people to get offline now?

Eli Singer: (01:37)

You know, I think that's a really great question. Maybe it's not so much what's changed, but how we wanna change ourselves. The Internet's always doing it’s internet thing. It's trying to show us cool stuff and give us new ways to connect and, you know, collect some information and make a buck in the way or in the process. And I think people have realized that maybe they're just spending a little too much time connected. And so we're not about, like at offline now. We're not about breaking up with your tech or, you know, forgetting about your tech because we know that's not possible. It's more just about finding digital balance and what digital balance means can be something different for everybody. Depends on your family situation, your job, where you live, how you connect with the people in your lives. And so whatever a healthy digital balance means for you, we wanna help you get there.

Hillary Wilkinson: (02:32)

I love it. So, and it, it's funny 'cause you and I have never met, but mm-hmm . Until we started chatting and it, uh, chatting with you now, I can hear your voice in your book now because one of the things that came right out to me while reading your book was this method that is sort of this compassionate approach. And you talk about remembering that needing a digital reset doesn't mean that you're failing at life. Right. It means you're human. Right. So, I I just have to know, are you this kind with yourself?

Eli Singer: (03:13)

I try to be, I try to be, but I, you know, as a startup founder, I'm always pushing myself further. Um, and, you know, focused on self-improvement. My wife's a therapist. Both of us prior to these new careers were in communications, my children excellent verbal skills. There's a lot of talk and going on in this house. There's a lot of emotional discussion, but I am, I'm really thrilled to hear that you locked in on that tone. And that was, there was so much time spent on crafting the right tone of voice for this book because it was important to meet people where they're at. Mm. So many people that wanna change their relationships with their tech have tried before. You know, they've tried rules and, and, uh, timers and lockouts. And every time you have to unlock that or increase the timer or you fail one of your rules, there's just a little bit more of a sense of guilt and shame. And I can't do this. Or anytime you read in a newspaper, if you're like, if your kid uses Instagram for more than two hours a day, they're gonna turn into mush. So, you know, you just feel terrible. So let's just stop that. Let's just meet people where they're at and build their confidence and just help them achieve the goals that they want to achieve. 'cause they can do it.

Hillary Wilkinson: (04:35)

Do you have any tips for, um, like parents opening this conversation to kids with this same level of compassion I like the framework of keeping, keeping the emphasis on, um, you know, tech as a tool and something that's here to help, but I think it quickly overrides us. So how can parents sort of open this? It's

Eli Singer: (05:06)

Really hard as a parent for a lot of reasons. I mean, I know in my house there was a time where we were the police officers, which, which can harm the relationship a lot. Mm-hmm . Mm-hmm . Because it becomes more about policing than, you know, parenting. Um, also you have, if you wanna improve your relationship with technology, you have to have a desire to do that. And I think for a lot of people, adults, people in their mid twenties, after they leave university starting out in their careers, they have a sense of that change that they want to make in their lives. Younger children don't. Right. The tools are like addictive. They're fun to be on. It's where their friends are who doesn't wanna watch cartoons all day or play games all day. So if without that motivation, it's a challenge. But I'm gonna bring it back to the parent side of things, that the number one thing you can do as a parent is have good modeling. Hmm. And so this is not about blaming parents, but before one sets expectations around their, how their kids are gonna behave with technology. The parent should be doing their best to set the example because the kids are watching them all the time. Yeah. It's pretty hard to tell your kid, like, stop using your phone, let's hang out. When, when they're looking to hang out with you and you're just sticking on your phone. Yeah. Doom scrolling or working, I mean, it's, you know, what have you. Right. So that's the starting place. Yeah.

Hillary Wilkinson: (06:43)

Yeah. And I think in, in, uh, modeling that, like you said, I think it's also important to, um, kind of almost subtitle what you're doing on your phone mm-hmm . With your, you know, when, when you do have to pull it out, just saying, I'm so sorry. I've got, you know, I'm sorry for this interruption. I have to do X, Y, Z. And that way it, it, it puts it in a different frame. It doesn't look like, oh, all she wants to do is scroll on Instagram or all she wants to, you know? Yep. Just keep with with friends.

Eli Singer: (07:19)

And I look to your, like you, the five things that you have on your website. Right. So like, if you're a parent, maybe you should have a bedtime for your phone. Maybe you should be, you know, like you just said, have the purpose while you're on your device. Maybe you shouldn't have your phone in your bedroom. Maybe you should put your phone on silent when you're sitting down for meals or like having family hangout time or, or at other cousin's houses like that. So, you know, living these. And, and this also prevents you from being caught in a double standard with like a really smart teen who's gonna be like, why are you making me do this when you're down doing it? How come I have to keep my phone outta my bedroom and you got it in your bedroom? Like, these are battlegrounds.

Hillary Wilkinson: (07:59)

Right. Right. Very true. And so I think for parents to start, thank you for referencing the five healthy screen habits. You got it by the way, , I'm on it. That I, I will, will also refer people to your place where I think is a really good place to start with a self-inventory. And it's gonna be a little bit tricky in an auditory format, but that I I believe in you, Eli, I know you can do this . Okay. Can you explain the offline now matrix in a way that kind of translates. Sorry.

Eli Singer: (08:37)

We wanted to create the most simple way that a person could like, figure out where they are on their personal phone habit journey. And the insight was, when it comes to behavior change, you have to start in the right place. Because if you don't start in the right place, the likelihood that you're gonna fail is high. Mm-hmm . For example, like, you wanna go to the gym, but you haven't been going, or you haven't ever gone before. Going every day for four hours and lifting as much as you can for a week is not sustainable. You'll probably hurt yourself. You'll, you'll, you might never want to go back after that. Right. And so what we wanted to do is figure out a way to get people to identify where they are in their journey so that they could find their starting place. So we, there are four types ready, overwhelmed, unconcerned, and stuck.

Eli Singer: (09:34)

And the way you find out is we ask you two questions. And you can do this on the book, and you can do this on our website. You can take the quiz. It's a motivation question, how motivated are you to change your relationship with your phone? Or motivated to go to bed earlier or stop gaming or stop online shopping or checking LinkedIn, fomo, how motivated are you? And then how self-confident are you in your ability to do that? And so it's the, so it's the combination of your scores of motivation and self-confidence that give you your type. Now, the number one type we're seeing 51% of people that come to the site is high motivation and low self-confidence. Oh.

Eli Singer: (10:18)

And that is overwhelmed. 30% of people are high motivation and high self-confidence. They're ready. So if you're overwhelmed, you have low self-confidence, you don't wanna start with something that's really challenging because you probably won't be able to execute on it. You don't have the self-belief. You wanna start with something that's really easy so that you can build your confidence. Your goal at the beginning is not to, you know, at the end of day four, achieve your dreams, whatever they are, your goal is to, by the end of day four to say, Hey, you know what? Like I can make a change. Like I'm capable. Maybe I'm gonna like start amping it up.

Hillary Wilkinson: (11:03)

My background's in education and particularly in, um, motivation, right? Mm-hmm . Like academic intrinsic motivation. Right. And it's a very quick step from overwhelm to apathy. 

Eli Singer: (11:23)

Mm-hmm.

Hillary Wilkinson: (11:23)

Right? That's right. Where it's just, it's this very quick step. And it's, it's challenging when you're trying to learn something because you, you want to learn, want to learn struggle, want to learn. But then at that point, when you hit that point of overwhelm, then it just becomes apathy. Yeah. And so I can see,

Eli Singer: (11:44)

Which is the stuck quadrant, right? Right. Which is the bottom, which is it's low motivation, low self-confidence. I've tried so many times, I haven't been able to do anything. I'll never be able to do anything. What's the point of trying? So when you're in the, when you're the stuck type, the goal is to both grow motivation and grow self-confidence. And so the book also talks about tactics for that. So on the motivation side, you might be thinking, when was, when was a time that I wasn't so used on my phone and what did that feel like? And do I want to get back there? Or what was something I really enjoyed doing that I don't do anymore? But I'd love to get back to that. Maybe playing guitar or drawing or doing stuff with friends. It could be what is something I'd really love to start doing. Maybe that's an aspirational goal. I can start turning that into motivation. And then you start building your self-confidence very slowly through like little tiny things. Right. Like, you know, I'll keep, I'll keep, uh, the drawing pens and, and coloring book, you know, that I, 'cause I want to be an illustrator by, uh, by the couch. And I'll just, I'll just turn off my phone for one minute and do a doodle and then pick my phone back up.

Hillary Wilkinson: (12:56)

Right. Very. And

Eli Singer: (12:57)

Say, I'll do it again. Maybe after a week I'm actually up to five minutes and I'm enjoying it. And it's more fun than being on the phone. So it's, it's, and you can go from stuck to ready. Right. It's not linear uhhuh, you can be like, I was stuck. But then I just, wow. I started drawing again and it's amazing. Like, I believe I can do this and you're off like a rocket.

Hillary Wilkinson: (13:20)

Great. We have to take a quick break, but when we come back, I'm going to ask Eli a little bit more about how to use that Offline.Now matrix to achieve some more of those self desired results. 

—-----------

Ad break: HSH small group talks

—------------

I'm speaking with Eli Singer, the creator of Offline Now a global community for healthier screen use. Now their website offline.now hosts a directory of experts, a chatbot coach, and a growing library of evidence-backed resources. So let's talk next about tracking usage. Mm-hmm . It's that whole, you can't manage what you don't measure thing. And what are some tried and true techniques to decode where we are spending our time that you recommend people can try to find?

Eli Singer: (16:45)

This is so interesting. I wasn't expecting that question. You know, I don't spend a lot of time thinking about measurement and tracking, being honest with you. Mm-hmm . Um, not that I disagree with what you just said, just there are a lot of tools and apps out there for it. Um, I find that the measurement piece leads you down the path of rules. Mm-hmm . I've used my phone for this many minutes and I gotta reduce it to that many minutes. And what I don't like about that or, or what, what, where I take a different point of view on that is that, um, once there's a rule, if you, if you break it, then you kind of feel a lot of shame and guilt mm-hmm . Um, or like, I, you know, like I just didn't make it. Um, so I think more about personal goals mm-hmm .

Eli Singer: (17:36)

And so the way we look at it is this. So like I said, people take their surveys online and we know which quadrant and we know time of day and day of week. We have lots of interesting data. So what we're seeing is Sunday is the highest ready day. People feel most ready during the week, five to 8:00 PM and a little bit in the morning at around around 11:00 AM in terms of overwhelmed, people feel most overwhelmed in the afternoons during the week, late in the evening, and then all day Friday. So for me, it kind of sets up windows, right? So if you're planning, so you sit down yourself, your partner, your family on Sunday and say, Hey, what are the experiments we wanna run this week? Mm-hmm . Right? And let's pick the times of day that are gonna make the most sense for when we're gonna be kind of working with our strengths.

Eli Singer: (18:32)

Right? You don't wanna set yourself a goal of something that's a challenge in the afternoon, if that's when you're always feeling most overwhelmed mm-hmm . Perhaps try in the morning or after dinner, but before bed when you're feeling really strong, uh, and, you know, pick some sort of an intervention that you think you can learn from. And if you're successful at it, great. And if you're not, why weren't you? And how might you adjust things next time? So I kind of like, you know, we kind of work within this framework of different times of day. If you're ready, if you're, if you're more advanced and you're in the ready type, then we might say, what are things that you're doing already? Why don't you push those 10 or 20%, right? Mm-hmm . And maybe push them into different times of day. That might be a little more of a challenge to see if you can like boost confidence there. Um, but we'll tell people like, give yourself Friday off if like, you're having challenges, you know, you've tried these experiments during the week, make Friday, like, uh, permission to like be overwhelmed Uhhuh. And, uh, Saturday's a recovery day and Sunday you plan for the next week.

Hillary Wilkinson: (19:47)

It's a much more fluid and gentle approach and it, it resonates with me for sure. I think, you know, within different personality types, you're, some people do very well with structure and hard edges and For sure. Yeah. But I, I can tell you, this resonates deeply with me. Like, you know, and, and, and just acknowledging that every day is not the same also.

Eli Singer: (20:17)

Yeah. And, and I believe there's multiple paths, I mean, we're a parent. We talked about, it's all parents. Like, I remember there were so many, like, there's so many different pieces of advice about how you put your kid to sleep. You gotta pet them, you gotta leave the room, you gotta let them cry. But, you know, not every style works with every parent. You can't listen to my kid cry. Right. You, you gotta find the one that works for you. Right. So this is just, this is just another of the many books and approaches out there.

Hillary Wilkinson: (20:44)

You had a term in your book that was new to me, and I'm always, that's always kind of fun to play with language. 

Eli Singer: (21:03)

I hope I remember this now.

Hillary Wilkinson: (21:05)

Oh, okay. I can remind you if you don't.

Eli Singer: (21:08)

That's what the edit's

Hillary Wilkinson: (21:09)

For. It's, uh, right, right. It's, um, app overlaps, and you say, be careful of app overlaps. And to me it translated to like what also is referred to as dual screening.

Eli Singer: (21:25)

Yeah. I mean, this is when you're, you're, you're dual screening. You go from one app to another, you're multitasking, you know, you go in to do one thing, and then you end up in three or four other apps. You're doing many things all at the same time. You know, you leak across them all.  I experience that pretty heavily in my own life. I love music. I have ADHD music turns my brain on, gets me going. And I like to listen to music like first 20, 30 minutes of the morning before I do anything just to get my day started. Right. But when my music comes from an app that's on my phone, the, the likelihood that I'm gonna check an email is high. So I bought a dedicated music player, a really good one, connected to great headphones so I can come down in the morning and boot something up that has everything I like to listen to on it. And I don't have to go anywhere near my phone until I'm ready. 

Hillary Wilkinson: (22:29)

I think that just speaks to the intentionality that you're trying to approach this life with digital devices and enjoying what they have to offer, but not allowing them to override your decision making.

Eli Singer: (22:46)

Yeah. And find out what works for you in your own life. Like, there's, there's so much out there, right?

Hillary Wilkinson: (23:54)

You know, I think the challenge comes in making those changes sustainable, right? Yeah.

Eli Singer: (23:59)

Yeah. This is, this is where the other part of offline now really kicks in.

Hillary Wilkinson: (24:05)

Okay. 

Eli Singer: (24:06)

The, the matrix is really good at bringing in everyday people that, you know, wanna figure out where they're at and start their journey. But I think it's, it's, it's, in some ways it's just not fair it to expect people to do this on their own. People have such intimate relationships with their devices. Mm-hmm . They're sleeping with them, they're using them on the toilet, they're like using them in the commute for hours a day for years and years and years and years. And then all of a sudden like, don't worry, we're gonna make like smart choices and all of a sudden we're gonna change all of our behaviors. Like good luck. Um, and then it's very specific into people's lives. Mm-hmm . Right? Like parents, teens, kids, different ages, different life stages. It could be about work, it could be about body image issues. It could be about gaming, it could be about online pornography or dating under LinkedIn, what have you.

Eli Singer: (24:55)

So the website, what we're looking to do is build the largest directory of coaches, therapists, social workers. We've got dieticians, kinesiologists, people are joining the site, they're choosing from over a hundred different areas of expertise. Very niche, very specific. So someone can come to the site and say like, I'd like to talk to somebody about relationship stress, parenting about, you know, online body image. And, you know, it could be a clinical conversation around depression, anxiety, OCD and screens, what have you. It could be a more coaching oriented conversation around executive function and routines and ADHD. Um, but you can find somebody that is really skilled mm-hmm . And qualified and certified, and you can reach out and book a meeting with that person.

Hillary Wilkinson: (25:48)

Yeah. Yeah. Great. It's a one-stop shop.

Eli Singer: (25:51)

Yeah. Well it's kind of like, you know, it's one of these things where it's like really simple at the beginning, but then it becomes incredibly complex. Sure. And to think that any book or any one individual could help every person. No, like people wanna find really personal custom help that they can identify with.

Hillary Wilkinson: (26:11)

Right, right. And it is, yeah. I mean, every family is different. Every person is different with their needs. And yeah. I think having that individualized approach is, is key. So again, we have to take a short break, but we come back. I'm going to ask Eli Singer for his healthy screen habit.

—-----------------

Ad break: HSH Workbook

—----------------

I'm speaking with Eli Singer, and as you know, on every episode of the Healthy Screen Habits podcast, I ask for a healthy screen habit. This is going to be a tip or takeaway that listeners can put into practice in their own home. Before you share yours, I do want to reference in the back of your book on page 61, there are 100 ideas to try mm-hmm . Instead of scrolling. And the first one, I, I love it because there, there, I feel like, like any single one of these could be your healthy screen habit. I mean, as it's come as simple as sit by a window and do nothing for five minutes or prep a meal from scratch with no devices nearby, that would be very difficult for me. I listen to comedy every night when I cook. 

Eli Singer: (28:19)

Well, I'll, I'll take you up on that , because number two is my favorite on the whole list. And that can be my healthy screen habit, which is like, hum. Or sing through your favorite album from memory Start to finish. Oh. And the track's gotta be in order. So give that a go. I

Hillary Wilkinson: (28:34)

Is there any other healthy lifestyle, screen, habit, et cetera, right, that you'd like to add?

Eli Singer: (28:51)

I, you know, like we were saying earlier, I just have fun with your phone. Like you're using it, you're on it for a reason, have fun with it. And when you realize you're not, for whatever reason, just think for a second. Like, Hey, just notice that. Like, huh, this isn't feeling so great right now. I'm not gonna stop because I'm like in a loop right now. But just remember that, think about why. And maybe next time you'll like, maybe not pick up the phone when that happens as much and you'll feel good about doing something different.

Hillary Wilkinson: (29:22)

Excellent. As always, you can find a complete transcript of this show by visiting the show notes for this episode, as well as a link to the offline Do Now website. And a link for how to purchase the book 

Offline.Now, you do this by going to healthyscreenhabits.org. Click the podcast button and find this episode. Eli, thank you so much for your time. This is just a delightful conversation. It's

Eli Singer: (29:50)

A real pleasure. Thank you.

Hillary Wilkinson: (29:51)

Thank you. I feel like it applies to all levels of life, not just parents to children or anything else. It's all of us who are living in this digital age. Mm-hmm

Eli Singer: (30:01)

Yeah. Well, I, uh, look forward to continuing the conversation and, uh, thanks for the time.