Good Life Project - Walking in the Rain | Screen-time and Happiness.

Episode Date: January 25, 2018

Burned-out, overwhelmed? Try walking in the rain.We've all been there. That place where it feels like it's just too much. Too much work, too much stimulation, too much stress, too much expectation, too much to deliver in too little time, too much change, too much anger, vitriol, outrage. For many, it leads to overwhelm, stress, burnout and sadness.So, what do you do about that? Many things, and it's different for everyone. But, today, we're talking about something really simple. The power of solitude, nature and movement. And, just for the fun, there's even a little poetry mixed in.Good Life Science Update. Screen-time and happiness, oh my. This is one of those things we love to hear, and hate to hear. We all want science to back up our decision to rail against more screen-time. But, then, secretly, we don't really want to give up on our devices. Well, a new study that crunched the data from more than one-million teens revealed something pretty powerful.There is actually a specific amount of daily screen-time that serves as a "happiness threshold." Push past it, happiness plummets. Steer clear of it, happiness rules. That's we're talking about in this week's Good Life Science Update. And, as always, for those who want to go to the source, here's a link to the full study.-------------Have you discovered your Sparketype yet? Take the Sparketype Assessment™ now. IT’S FREE (https://sparketype.com/) and takes about 7-minutes to complete. At a minimum, it’ll open your eyes in a big way. It also just might change your life.If you enjoyed the show, please share it with a friend. Thank you to our super cool brand partners. If you like the show, please support them - they help make the podcast possible. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

So pretty safe bet that at some point in your life, you are going to face burnout. It could be from work, it could be personal, it could be political, societal, but it's going to weigh on you. And there's a really interesting relationship between, in my mind, between burnout and solitude and how they dance with each other. And it's something that I dance with on a regular basis. I move between those two states. And I wanted to kind of just share a recent experience with both of them with you in today's riff, along with that in our science update. Some really interesting new research on screen time happiness and, oh, those teenage years. But it's equally relevant to us grown-ups.

There's a remarkable threshold where screen time starts to make a really big incremental difference in your happiness. So that's where we're going today. I'm Jonathan Fields, and this is Good Life Project. The Apple Watch Series X is here. It has the biggest display ever. It's also the thinnest Apple Watch ever, making it even more comfortable on your wrist, whether you're running, swimming, or sleeping. And it's the fastest-charging Apple Watch,

getting you eight hours of charge in just 15 minutes. The Apple Watch Series X. Available for the first time in glossy jet black aluminum. Compared to previous generations, iPhone Xs are later required. Charge time and actual results will vary. So today, today, today, today, as I sit here and record this, it is a rainy day in New York City in the middle of winter. It's unseasonably warm outside. So what did I decide to do? I woke up, I did my morning meditation, and then instead of heading over to the gym today

or instead of diving into work, I grabbed an umbrella. I put on my winter boots, not because I needed them, but because they're the only thing that are waterproof. I threw on my jacket and grabbed an umbrella, and I went outside where it was ranging between light to pretty heavy rain. It's completely overcast and gray, but the temperature is really unseasonably warm. And I don't know about you, but there's something in me that is wired for rainy days, not on a persistent basis. That kind of destroys me. But the occasional really gray, rainy day does something kind of magical to me. And I found that it's a blend of, I don't know, atmosphere.

It's a blend of solitude. But I love to kind of go walking alone in the rain. And what's kind of funny is that I've noticed over the years my daughter is wired similarly. And we both have this weird inclination to grab an umbrella and go outside when it's raining out, even when it's pouring out. And I was thinking about this this morning as I was walking, because like many, it's January, and we're coming out of a year that for so many people, for so many

different reasons, has been filled with high levels of sustained overwhelm and stress and emotion. You know, a solid chunk of that has been sort of what's happening in society, what's happening in politics. For me, a solid chunk of that also was a bit of a reckoning with burnout, with the way that I had intended to blaze in 2018 and over the next few years. And it led me to make some really big differences in that too. And what I have found is that the thing that allows me to recognize things like burnout, stress, overwhelm, beyond my body falling apart and sending physiological signals that say, if you don't listen, we're going to shut you down until you do. That tends to be the unfortunate trigger for me to actually finally listen. But the ability to then turn forward and

figure out, okay, so I'm on my knees. Where do I go from here? That comes largely from a blend of contemplation, introspection, conversation with a small group of people who I really trust, and also solitude, going out into solitude. And what I found is that when I blend solitude with nature, something kind of magical happens. There's deep insight, there's wisdom that sort of becomes revealed to me. And when I blend deep solitude with nature and movement, it's kind of like the trifecta of revelation and awakening for me. So that's what I was up to this morning. So when I go outside, I grabbed my umbrella and picture I'm in a pre-war building in New York City. I go outside, everybody's looking at me a little bit weird because I'm sort of have this really happy,

chill look on my face as everybody's shoulders up, chins tucked, gazing down, walking quickly to try and get out of the rain in a winter day. And I'm kind of like sauntering, smiling softly, looking up, taking my time. And I'm heading over to Central Park, which is three blocks from me. And as soon as I hit the park, the sound of the cars and the traffic falls away. The park is somewhat sheltered, even though it's massive. The park, if you haven't been there before, by the way, is the size of a pretty decent sized town. It is a massive place. So you can kind of vanish into the middle of it. And I have been traversing the trails and the walks in Central Park for decades now. So I know them pretty well.

I know how to vanish. And the park on a busy day, on a sunny day, is wall-to-wall people. The park on a rainy winter day is pretty desolate. It's pretty isolated. And it's a little bit heavenly. So as I wandered in through the trails and got deeper into the woods and the trees, I found myself over by the lake in the middle of the park. And the lake is actually, it's been cold enough leading up to today so that it's entirely frozen over. So as you look out over it, the pouring rain is actually bouncing off of the ice and creating this hazy, misty thing that is drifting sideways with a gentle breeze over.

And as I walked over there, I just kind of climbed up onto a large rock outcropping. And I just stood with the umbrella, the sound of the rain pelting the umbrella, the sound of the rain pelting the icy covering of the lake and the mist kind of rolling alongside. And I could see my breath streaming out. And there's something so incredibly calming, stilling, renewing, when you decide to take just a little bit of time and step out of the mad rush of everything that's going on around you and allow yourself the space to walk into nature, especially at times where you're kind of surrounded by the thickness

of nature at its best and at its worst. So I was in a place in the middle of woods surrounded by water with very few people around in a rainstorm with gray, gray skies and a gentle breeze. And this was my happy place. And it gave me the solitude needed to just kind of breathe, to let the world drop away. And when emerging from a place of burnout or overwhelm or stress, this is the place that I have found it so nourishing to visit, not with the intention of deliberately trying to think things through or bringing a particular problem with me, but just knowing that there are questions, big questions that I have floating around in my head right now. There are plans that I need to make. There are problems that I need to solve. And those seeds are planted perpetually. My brain is working on them all the time.

And I know that when I create the space to move my body, to take me into nature, to take me into a natural experience where I'm surrounded by all the elements and in solitude at the same time, so not with large groups of people, there's something that happens in my brain that allows everything to drop away. And a certain healing and revelation and problem solving happens organically that I can't explain, but it is immensely empowering. I was exposed recently to the work of John O'Donohue, who was a poet. And he has a book that was all about blessings, which is really beautiful. And he wrote one particular poem slash blessing.

He wouldn't have called it a poem. In fact, in the intro to the book, he says these are not poems, they're actually blessings. This one is called For One Who Is Exhausted, A Blessing. And it starts out, the first stanza says, when the rhythm of the heart becomes hectic, time takes on the strain until it breaks. Then all the unattended stress falls in on the mind like an endless increasing weight. The light in the mind becomes dim. Things you could take in your stride before now become laborsome events of will.

Weariness invades your spirit. Gravity begins falling inside you, dragging down every bone. I think a lot of us have felt different elements of that, especially over the last year or so. And again, compounded by different reasons. And the poem goes on

or the blessing goes on. But as it wraps up, it ties into what I've been talking about. I want to read you a little bit from the end here as well. He continues, Become inclined to watch the way of rain when it falls slow and free. Imitate the habit of twilight, taking time to open the well of color that fostered the brightness of day. Draw alongside the silence of stone until its calmness can claim you. Be excessively gentle with yourself. Stay clear of those vexed in spirit learn to linger around someone of ease who feels they have all the time

in the world, gradually you will return to yourself, having learned a new respect for your heart and the joy that dwells far within slow time. So for me, that slowed time, that returning to myself, it happens when I take that blend of moving into solitude, surrounded by nature, very often not light, beautiful, open nature, but nature in its stillest, grayest, most extreme. And I just kind of want to share that with you today because I think a lot of us try and find our way out of overwhelmed, burnout, exhaustion by working our way out of it or intensely trying to problem solve. And sometimes the answer is actually to let go of all that,

to dwell far within, slow time, to return to yourself, and to do that, as O'Donohue said, by watching the way of rain. That's what I'm thinking about. I am also very excited to share with you something which is kind of, in an interesting way, a complementary science update, where we'll be talking about screen time and how it's affecting people and their happiness, which is a little bit opposite of watching the way of the rain. The Apple Watch Series 10 is here. It has the biggest display ever. It's also the thinnest Apple Watch ever,

making it even more comfortable on your wrist, whether you're running, swimming, or sleeping. And it's the fastest-charging Apple Watch, getting you eight hours of charge in just 15 minutes. The Apple Watch Series X. Available for the first time in glossy jet black aluminum. Compared to previous generations, iPhone Xs are later required. Charge time and actual results will vary. Mayday, mayday. We've been compromised. The pilot's a hitman. I knew you were going to be fun. January 24th. Tell me how to fly this thing. Mark Wahlberg. You know

what the difference between me and you is? You're going to die. Don't shoot him, we need him. Y'all need a pilot. Flight risk. And we're back with today's good life science update for those new to the podcast. These are segments where I share my complete and utter science geekery with you. Not that I am a primary researcher, but I love to devour research from all walks of life, especially research that affects our ability to live well on the planet. And as always, I'm going to just share something that I stumbled upon actually today. And we will always include a link to the actual scientific, the research, the research report. So fellow geeks can dive into the research protocols and the observations and the conclusions

in more detail, if that's you. Today, what are we talking about? You know, I have talked over the years about the relationship between technology, screen time, and happiness, compassion, empathy, all this different stuff. We have had certain guests on the show in the past. Sherry Turkle comes to mind immediately, who's done extensive research on how screen time affects our happiness. There's a new study that's out from researchers at San Diego State University, led by Professor of Psychology, Jean Twenge. And it explored the relationship between happiness and screen time. And they were looking particularly at teens, eighth, 10th, and 12th graders. But you have got to imagine it's really easy to extrapolate

their conclusions here to your average adult, because we're all people with brains, and we all feel, and we all increasingly spend ridiculous amounts of time on screens. So in this particular study, here's what happened. The research team actually did a whole bunch of massive data analysis and crunching from a study called a longitudinal study called Monitoring the Future. And that is a national survey of over a million different people. They were 8th, 10th, and 12th graders. And it was survey-driven. And what this study did was they asked these 8th, 10th, and 12th graders a series of questions. They asked them how much time they spent on their phones, on other screens, on computers, on tablets, on other devices over the course of any given day.

And they also asked a whole bunch of other questions about social interactions, outside activities, and then their overall happiness. this team was take that data and crunch it in a really interesting way where they could correlate the amount of time that teens spent on screens with overall happiness and also contrast that with the amount of time that they spent in non-screen activities, things like athletics, exercise, reading, and actually, wait for it, hanging out face-to-face with other people. So we have talked about various aspects of this, but this is really interesting because a lot of social psychology experiments like this are done on small data sets, small groups of people. What's fascinating to me is that this was done on a pretty massive data set, something like a million different people. So you get a much broader look and you can draw

conclusions that are sort of more robust by doing this. So here's what they found. There's actually a threshold that people hit. And when you go over that threshold, your happiness starts to plummet. When you stay under that threshold, you actually end up sort of optimally happy. And what they found was that the kids who were on screen time, a total, we're talking all screens here, not just a phone, but a total of less than an hour a day were the happiest teens in the entire study. Once you tipped over an hour a day, literally every minute over that, for every amount of time that you spent over that on a screen, your unhappiness rose in a sort of pretty linear fashion with that. So if you're on a screen for two hours a day, your unhappiness is going to drop. If you're on a screen for three hours a day, it's going to drop more. If you're on a screen for four hours a day, it's going to drop a lot.

And this actually correlates with earlier data. One of the big questions with a study like this, of course, is because we can't show causation, is the fact that kids are generally getting unhappier, which actually there is some interesting data showing now. Does unhappiness lead to more screen time or does more screen time lead to unhappiness? And the researchers sort of like took on this question pretty squarely because they were sort of pretty interested in it as well. So I'm quoting now, the key to digital media use and happiness is limited use. So Twenge, aim to spend no more than two hours a day on digital media. Try to increase the amount of time you spend seeing friends, face-to-face exercising, to activities reliably. And with regard to which may cause which, adding,

although this study can't show causation, several other studies have shown that more social media use leads to unhappiness, but unhappiness does not lead to more social media use. Now, what's really fascinating about this too, is that the researchers cite other studies that show that since the 1990s, there has been a sort of a precipitous drop-off in happiness and teen and life satisfaction, self-esteem and happiness. But there's one particular year where everything kind of like fell off dramatically, and that was 2012. In 2012, the research showed there was a plummeting of self-esteem, happiness, and life satisfaction in teens. And that also happens to be the year, as they say, that the percentage of Americans who owned a smartphone hit 50%.

But here's something kind of interesting too, which is not in the study, but it's an observation of mine, especially as a father of a teen. And that is that 2012 also represented something else. Snapchat, the app where a huge percentage of socialization and conversation goes on in teens and adolescents now,

that was actually launched in 2011, but it actually started to really take off in 2012. And it became massively popular and started to grow exponentially. Similarly, Instagram, where a huge amount of comparison living, and hey, here's my shiny happy life, was actually launched in 2010. Between 2010 and 2012, it grew rapidly to about 30 million people, but it still wasn't super mainstream, and it was still more sort of grown-up oriented. Then it was acquired by Facebook, and it exploded massively and had mass uptake and adoption in. Mayday, mayday. We've been compromised. The pilot's a hitman. I knew you were going to be fun. January 24th. Tell me how to fly this thing. Mark Wahlberg. You know what the difference between

me and you is? You're going to die. Don't shoot if we need them. Y'all need a pilot. Flight risk. The Apple Watch Series 10 is here. It has the biggest display ever. It's also the thinnest Apple Watch ever, making it even more comfortable on your wrist, whether you're running, swimming, or sleeping. And it's the fastest-charging Apple Watch, getting you 8 hours of charge in just 15 minutes.

The Apple Watch Series 10. Available for the first time in glossy jet black aluminum. Compared to previous generations, iPhone Xs are later required. Charge time and actual results will vary. Teens and adolescents, then they added different functionality, especially stories, which made it sort of the de facto place to compare life and see what everybody else is doing, which if you're not doing those same things can be somewhat destructive. So there's this really interesting coincidence, not just in screen time, but in apps that sort of let you compare, you know, how shiny and happy your life is in real time to others, knowing that

this, of course, is all an illusion that people are creating and fabricating and presenting across these different apps. So really interesting. What's even more interesting, one last sort of fact here, is that the researchers showed that zero screen time does not negate the unhappiness. Actually, unhappiness rises when you drop to zero screen time too. So there seems to be this sweet spot of somewhere around an hour, like a half an hour to an hour, where you're sort of having the optimal blend of screen versus real face-to-face.

And when you teeter on the other side of that, unhappiness rises. Something interesting to think about, because we are talking about this in the context of teens, but I am pretty confident that we can extrapolate a lot of this to grownups too, who increasingly are living more of their lives and finding more socialization through screen time. And as we engage in more screen time, we are engaging less and less in exercise, in activity, and in direct face-to-face socialization, which we know through a mountain of research

makes us more satisfied and happier in life. So something to think about, something to think about if you're a parent, but also something to think about as a grownup, how far past that one hour a day threshold are you? Because I guarantee the vast majority of us are past that. And I'm raising my hand here and I'm thinking about how I can rewire some of the way I live to actually pull myself back in. As always, we will include a link to the study report in the show notes. I hope you found this useful and enjoyable. I'm Jonathan Fields signing off for Good Life Project. Hey, thanks so much for listening. And thanks also to our fantastic sponsors for Good Life Project love with friends. Because when ideas become conversations that lead to action, that's when real change takes hold. See you next time. The Apple Watch Series 10 is here. It has the biggest display ever.

It's also the thinnest Apple Watch ever, making it even more comfortable on your wrist, whether you're running, swimming, or sleeping. And it's the fastest-charging Apple Watch, getting you eight hours of charge in just 15 minutes. The Apple Watch Series X, available for the first time in glossy jet black aluminum. Compared to previous generations, iPhone Xs are later required. Charge time and actual results will vary.