This Is Woman's Work with Nicole Kalil - Is It Time For A Digital Detox? with Jennie Ketcham Crooks | 334

Episode Date: August 11, 2025

Feeling scattered, anxious, or like your brain’s been hijacked by push notifications and endless scrolling? You’re not alone.  This week, we’re diving into the digital chaos with anxiety and OCD specialist Jennie Ketcham Crooks, founder of the West Coast Anxiety Clinic, who’s helping us understand what our devices are doing to our minds… and what we can do to reclaim our focus, peace, and power. Jennie brings clinical expertise, research experience, and guest spots on everything from Oprah to The View — and offers a smart, practical path to digital detoxing that doesn’t involve tossing your phone in a lake or moving to a cabin in the woods. We unpack: How your phone is rewiring your brain (yes, really) Signs it’s time for a digital reset — and how to actually do it Why tech isn’t the enemy (but your habits might be) What boundaries actually work — and what makes them stick How to return to you — the you that exists offline This isn’t about demonizing tech. It’s about creating space — space to think clearly, feel deeply, and live intentionally. And if that’s not woman’s work, then what is? Connect with Jennie:  Website: https://westcoastanxiety.com/ IG: https://www.instagram.com/becomingjennie/ FB: https://www.facebook.com/jennie.ketcham Related Podcast Episodes: Digital Decluttering: How to Make Tech Your Assistant, Not Your Adversary with Amanda Jefferson | 312 Your Guide to a More Organized & Intentional Life with Shira Gill | 304 Women, Addiction and Recovery with Patti Clark | 324 Share the Love: If you found this episode insightful, please share it with a friend, tag us on social media, and leave a review on your favorite podcast platform! 🔗 Subscribe & Review:Apple Podcasts | Spotify | Amazon Music Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

I am Nicole Kalaill, and you're listening to the This Is Women's Work podcast, where we cover topics that actually matter to today's multifaceted woman. And today, we're talking about the detox we probably all need, the one that could save our mental health, our focus, and our sanity. As women, let's face it, we are a lot. already hear a lot about detoxes. Juice cleanses, sugar-free challenges, dry January. Some people even detox from coffee and swearing. And honestly, I just don't trust those people. But I'm not talking about those kinds of detoxes. I'm talking about a digital detox. Many of you know this about me, but a few years back, I went all in on social media. I hired experts, invested time, spent money, and grew my audience by the tens of thousands. And what did I learn? That it was a

an energy-draining, soul-sucking, time-wasting black hole. That? And that I am not, nor do I ever want to be a social media influencer. So I did what felt radical at the time. I stopped. No posting, except for the occasional funny meme in Instagram stories, because joy still matters. No content creation or team. And for the few times a week that I did log on, I set a strict timer so I didn't come out of my digital coma three hours later, wondering why I suddenly cared about some stranger's morning routine. Three months turned into over two years, and what I uncovered was this. Confidence does not live on social media, at least not for me. Now, do I still find myself mindlessly opening Instagram? Yes. Do I ever feel better

after scrolling? No. Did I delete my accounts? Also no, because after years of building my audience, the thought of closing those accounts makes me more nauseous than I care to admit. But even without posting, I'm still attached to my phone more than I'd like. And technology, despite hating me, remains something that I rely on on the daily, which is why we're going to learn about how we can each do our own digital detox. Joining me is Jenny Ketchum Krooks, founder of the West Coast Anxiety Clinic, a clinical licensed social worker and an anxiety and OCD specialist. Before starting her own clinic, she was the director of clinical education at Seattle Anxiety. specialist and the lead medical social worker at the Polyclinic. Jenny has been involved in research

at the University of Washington, guest lectured at Harvard, and appeared on shows like The View, Oprah, and Headline News. She knows exactly how our digital habits mess with our minds and how we can break free. Jenny, welcome to the show. And I'm going to dive right into the deep end of the pool with this sort of weird question and ask you to remind us and maybe even to scare us a little bit about how digital overuse is impacting our mental health, our loneliness, our relationships, all these sort of big things that I think sometimes we don't think about. Yeah, you know, I think it is easier to see in our kids, right? And I think that there's a huge movement going on right now aimed at getting kids off

of smartphones and off of the like tiny screens. And all of the stuff that is true for kids is also true for adults, right? where we know that increased phone time use decreases interpersonal connection opportunities, right? Like the more you're paying attention to your screen, the less you're paying attention to the person in front of you. The less likely you are to make eye contact with the person in front of you. The less likely you are to catch a little small, John Gottman calls them a bid for affection, right? Just a reaching out of the hand. If you're paying attention somewhere else, like your phone, you're going to miss the opportunities to connect with people in this real world.

We also know that there are increased levels of anxiety, of body dysmorphia, of depression, of social anxiety. I mean, the amount of issues that we end up having as a result of overuse of screens and overexposure to social media content downstream is really problematic. And I'm loving that as a nation, we're really starting to look at how it's impacting our children. and it doesn't quite seem like we're at the point where people are ready to be like, oh, actually me too. This is really messing me up too.

And so, you know, maybe we start with telling our kids not to smoke. And then we're like, oh, maybe I too shouldn't smoke. But, you know, I think now is the time to also consider the impact it has on you. Jenny, I love that you framed it that way because I often ask myself, what would I want for my daughter in this situation? because what I found is I always want the best for her, right? And whatever the answer is is definitely the same answer for myself, but I have a hard time thinking about it that way. So putting it on the lens of somebody that you love and care about

and what you would want for them, I think is a great way to think about it for ourselves. I love the phrase bid for affection because isn't that what's really happening? you know, we almost become addicted to the likes and the follows and the responses and we don't know what to do with ourselves when it doesn't happen. And back to thinking about a younger kid going through that, God, it just sounds and seems painful. So in my intro, I honed it in on the fact that you're an anxiety and OCD specialist. What are some of the surprising impacts or things that you've learned about digital overuse that contributes to those things? First, I'll differentiate really quickly between fear and anxiety, right? It can be a really

helpful place to start, and then I'll talk a little bit more about what ends up happening with the phone. So fear is this evolutionarily important, emotional experience. It's in response to an immediate threat. You're being attacked by a shark right now. You're going to experience fear, right? Anxiety is the cognitive, emotional, physiological, and urge. It's this sort of like cluster of private psychological events that happen inside of you. That happens in response to a perceived threat. You're standing on the beach, you look out in the ocean, you think, oh my God, what if there are sharks out there? I should not be swimming in the water. I am menstruating right now, right? Like immediately, you're like, I will die.

We're not getting in the water, right? So you'll experience a spark of fear, but it's in this bigger context of this story and this narrative that your mind is telling you about, right? And you also experience all of the somatic sensations of fear, right, that go with that. And the urge to run away, which is evolutionarily very important, right? Like we were selected for our ability to look out in the field, to see possible threats and to run back to the hut, right? Like the guy who didn't got eaten by a bear, but we made it back to the hut because we looked out there and were like, not a chance, sister. And so when we have our phones and when that is the primary vehicle for social connection, it's a really low bar, right? Like, you can say anything you want. So you can't

really accurately perceive the threat of whatever it is that you're saying or whatever it is that you're not saying, right? Like, it is rarely the circumstance that you're sitting at dinner with someone and they say something that is emotionally evocative, right? They, they discus. They, they, they disclose something to you that is powerful and that you just sit there and look away, right? But someone can send a text that is really emotionally evocative and the person on the other end doesn't see it or they see it and they don't know what to say. They don't respond, right? Whatever it is.

So the person that sends out this bid, this bid for affection, right? Like, see me, love me. I, you know, I'm trying to connect here. they send this out in that low bar context, right? They don't have to, like, sit down, work up the courage to say the hard thing to go to to that place where they're just like ripping their heart open. They just fire something off with their thumbs, right? The person on the other end gets it.

So both of these people are in this place and anxiety kicks up. On the person's end who is doing this vulnerable act, they're like, oh, my God, should I not have been vulnerable. That shoulds. I know you talk about shoulds a lot, right? Like, this should start popping up. Should I not have sent that? Like, was this a wrong thing to do?

Should I not be vulnerable? I knew I shouldn't have said that. Oh, my God. And it is really the case that we're like, oh, they're probably making dinner or they're probably doing something else, right? It always sort of defaults to this bias that we have about ourselves, right? Some sort of like underlying core fear that gets activated. Whereas the person on the other end who's receiving this text, who doesn't quite know what to

say or how to respond. they're like, oh, God, well, do I go in the water? Is it a shark? Is this not a shark? Should I be vulnerable? Should I, like, what should I say? Should I send a, I'm just going to send a crying emoji, right? And then what we know is that, like, firing off emojis actually changes the way that we experience emotions.

Because it is really the case where we send off these, like, hysterical laughter emojis when we are laughing hysterically. Right? Like, I don't do that. I fire off an LOL and, like, go on with my day. Right. And so there are all of these circumstances where anxiety gets spiked up, which is fine. We're allowed to be anxious, right? But we never actually identify the threat and if it's a threat. We just sort of like live in this constant state of am I doing the right thing? Am I responding quickly enough? Am I saying the right thing? Should I not have been so vulnerable? And I know with a lot of the young adults that I work with, what ends up happening is that they end up playing these games with the people. that they're trying to date. Okay, well, no, it's been like, it's been four hours. So I can text back within four hours and they come up with these arbitrary, elaborate

rules to help them navigate this very uncertain context when really what we need to do is just like, just call the person that you're trying to talk to and be vulnerable. But that actually takes, that's a high bar for entry. And so people are not getting a chance to actually face the threats, which means that anxiety continues to percolate and be at this like exacerbated level. And we never realize that it's actually this and this sort of like continued way of interacting that's, that's keeping us totally engaged and on the hook. Okay. So everything you're saying speaks to my personal experience, both online and in dating. But the sort of light bulb that just went off

and my brain is almost like a deferred anxiousness or overthinking or fear or even courage or the good stuff. So if I'm going to have a difficult or vulnerable or challenge, whatever conversation, something that matters with somebody in real life, all of the fear and the doubt and the courage and all that stuff usually happens as a buildup. But when it's online, you kind of put it out there and all that stuff happens almost after the fact. It's the overthinking.

Should I have said this and this way? Should I not have? What are they thinking? What if this person, what if, you know, like it's in, and then you like are in this spin for so long. And also, like you said, on the person who's reading it, it's the not really knowing and maybe even making up, like I hesitate to say this, but sometimes I see people post things online and I make up that.

they're doing it for attention. Or I make up that it's fake. I mean, I'm sorry, but the crying with your ringlight on while you're recording and then posting it, it's just not for me. Same. I just, come on. And so, and it feels thirsty, this bid for affection to me. Okay. So I guess my next question is when we think about digital detoxing and these environments where we bid for affection in a way that may not be healthy or ultimately work for us, my brain goes immediately to social media. Are there other things that we're thinking about here when we think about a digital detox? Is it video games? Is it not being on your screen so much for work? When you are talking about a digital detox, what are the things that we're thinking about?

Yeah. When I'm talking about letting go of behavior, which is really what this is, right? like this idea of detox, we're talking about starting to examine the behaviors that are working for you and starting to let go of some of the behaviors that aren't working for you, right? And so it can be really helpful to look at the whole gamut of behavior that you're doing with your screens and to decide what is functional here, right? A lot of people that I work with with OCD, and I'll just use a sort of like stereotypical archetypal OCD presentation, right? They come in and they say, I'm washing my hands, like for, you know, I'm washing them,

like 200 times a day, you know, I get stuck at the sink, I'm washing them 35 times. That is dysfunctional. Like on the spectrum of function, that's in the dysfunctional realm. And so what we look to do is rein it back into function, right? Because you need to wash your hands, right? Like there's good science that says that that is actually quite helpful. And also, you do not need to wash them for 45 minutes. Like a 30 second happy birthday and you're out of there, right? But with our screen use, it can be really helpful to whittle down your behavior. to like what is actually functioning in a way that is helping me live the life I want, and what is just sucking the moments from my existence?

Where am I having the life, the vitality just removed from my body, right? And so I think that's really the place to start. So if you're on your screen all day for work and you're using it in a way that is functional, you're answering emails, you're doing things that are helping you live the life and be the professional human that you are, phenomenal. We don't need to change that, right? That's a totally functional behavior. If you are on the same screen and while you're at work, you also have in the background

Instagram or X, if that's in the background for you, how is that functioning, right? Like, is that a distraction? Is that taking you away from the kind of professional that you want to be? Is that leading you toward the life that you want when you're 90 and you're looking at, are you going to be really stoked that that's how you spent your time or are you going to look back with some regret, right? And so really the behavior that we're looking to let go of is the dysfunctional behavior. I don't know if this is the best place to go, but my brain keeps going to this idea of functional. And I think it's maybe more of a personal thing or when I get on, I tend to

rebel against things. That's a little bit of, you know, and so I'm a little bit in this space of social media sucks and I can't think of any reason that it's functional. Now that's crap, because I still go on it. But I'm thinking as you're talking, okay, why do I go on social media? At least in theory, it's for connection, but I almost never feel connected. Yeah. How do we create a functional space on social media for us? What are some of the questions we can be asking, like, what's the experience I'm looking for? And am I actually feeling that? I think examining, like, how does this thing function for you and how does it function for them is really helpful, right? For us, if we're looking at it as this vehicle for connection,

okay, we'll put a pin in that. For them, it's an ad machine, right? And as someone who makes ads and posts them on social media, right, my page is an ad machine. I'm making ads for the clinic. I'm making ads for my podcast. I'm making ads to do. drive revenue to the clinic. I'm making ads in an attempt to spread mental health awareness and to promote things because I know that this is where people go to consume content, right? But it is not a place where I connect with people. Social media platforms are for ads in the same way that Google is primarily for search, but makes their money off of ad revenue. That's what they want. They put up ads. I buy paid search on Google. That's how they make money. I buy paid search

on Instagram. That's how Instagram makes money. They are not making money by us sending back and forth memes. Right. Right. And so really thinking about like, okay, what is the likelihood that I am going to be able to override the way that this thing was designed to function? Extraordinarily low. So do I want to use, it's like, okay, I want to use heroin to connect to my friend. Said no one ever. Right. I see this a lot with people who are looking to change their drinking behaviors. How will I ever, how will I ever make friends if I'm not socializing and drinking?

How will I go to shows? How will I like go to concerts? How will I ever like go to happy hour? Like, what will I do after work with people? Like you can drink water and do the exact same thing. It's not actually the alcohol. It's this, right? But our brain is so sneaky that it's like, oh, no, no, no.

It's the alcohol. That's the thing that kept you safe. That's the thing that connected you. And for social media and for our devices, it's like, oh, it's, no, it's the device that keeps you safe. No, the reason that you got to the place you went to is because you had your phone with you, not because you've been there 400 times, right? It's because you have your phone with you. But do you go places without your phone anymore?

I don't. It's scary. Yeah. It really is. It's a little scary when you forget your phone or you can't find it. It's like panic-inducing. And I have moments where I'm like, this should not be this big of a deal. Okay. So I have to imagine that every human listening in is like aware that there is some way or some aspect in which they want to reduce or detox from digital clutter or overwhelm. or addiction or whatever. So how do we begin to do that? I know you have a 30-day challenge. Talk to us about the steps, the how-to of doing a digital detox.

Yeah. So, of course, you can take my 30-day challenge. It's called Lookup. It's not as intense or aggressive as something like the whole 30, right? Like, you're not going without your phone for 30 days. I'm not a monster or unrealistic, right? So it's just a really gradual, stepped-down way of letting go of some of the behaviors that don't work. And it helps you really fine-tune your values so that you can make more informed, committed choices as you're moving through your life.

So that's what the digital detox 30-day challenge really is. If you're looking to decide whether or not you need to do something or whether or not you should let go of something, start experimenting. right like I would invite you to try to adopt this like data scientist curious witness of your behavior and start to see patterns right start to notice when you pick it up start to notice what it feels like if you try to leave the house without it start to notice if you're taking your phone to the bathroom with you right like start to notice if your phone is always within minds right here is it always within arms reach notice if there are pictures on the front of it that are beautiful and then like draw you to it right like right now i have my daughter and and i just look at it i'm like

i just want to look at it more right so start to notice if your phone is this really like appetitive tasty thing that sucks you toward it start to notice that pull right and then start to play with that start to see if you can ride the urge to reach for it start to see if you can leave it plugged in for the day. See what happens if you slide it onto a bookshelf and you leave it there as if it's a book all day, right? Like, and see what happens to your life, right? So if you're in this place where you're like, I don't know if I need to do a 30 day, that sounds a little aggressive, totally hear that, right? The, my intention with this isn't necessarily to revamp your whole life or get rid of your phone or get you on a dumb phone or anything unrealistic like that, right? It's to help you start to identify where

this behavior isn't serving you and where it's actually taking away. from the kind of life that you want to live. So start to play with a little bit of how you engage with it and change it, make little tiny tweaks and see how your body and mind respond to those tiny changes. I know I have a plethora of things that I could share, but I'm curious from your personal experience and with the people that you've worked with or anybody that you know who has done any sort of digital detoxing. What are the benefits? What do you or they, or they, see or experience as the reasons why continuing this makes sense? I ran a study when I first made the 30-day challenge.

I ran a study to make sure that the 30-day challenge actually does what I thought it would do, right? And fortunately, it does, right? And what I thought the 30-day challenge would do is not only reduce your screen time. That was the secondary thing. When I'm really looking, to do in this 30-day challenge is to help you clarify your values. So I want to know what is most important in your life? What are those north stars in your sky that you want to move toward? And what are little steps that you can take that align with that path, right? And so the 30-day challenge is really more about becoming more cognitively flexible in terms of how you think about your phone, how you behave with your phone, and how you connect with the

around you because what by and large people who've done the 30-day challenge report back is that when they put down their phone, they look up and they realize that there are these people in front of them that are wonderful that they have been missing, right? In the same way that you walk into the room and you see your kid on your phone and you feel that sense of like, all right, and you just sort of like go on, other people in your life are experiencing that with you, right? And so when you put down your phone, you look up and you see them again. And you realize they have been here waiting for you and wanting you to be with you.

And so in doing this 30-day challenge, every single person that I have talked to who's done it, and I've used psychometrically validated skills to actually test this as well, every single person that I've talked to who has done the whole 30-day challenge reports clear, values, more committed action. Someone even one person reported that they felt like they were at high school again. Like they were living this like really vibrant big life without this like thing that sucked it in. Like they were just living. Yeah, I would add to in my experience is one of my default excuses is that I don't have the time. And it was usually things that were important to just me, you know, like doing things that really made me feel better or good.

I'd be like, oh, I don't have the time for it. And the amount of time I had spent unconsciously saved me hours, but even consciously, like when I was using it for business purposes, I was probably spending about 10 hours a week on content creation, on writing copy and blah, blah, blah. And it created time. It eliminated some distractions, as you mentioned earlier. the amount of times I recognized that I was having conversations with my daughter and my husband where I was maybe at best half engaged or half listening, whereas when the phone

wasn't around, I could actually be in the conversation fully. And I noticed a difference, and I'm certain they noticed a difference. And I would also add increased time of curiosity and creativity. My brain had more space for what was really going on versus all the made-up bullshit that didn't actually matter that I got sucked into other people's stuff. I don't know if that speaks at all to your experience or whatever, but those are just some things that I've noticed. And the primary reason that three-month sort of test became a two-and-a-half-year commitment.

Like I just don't ever see myself going back and never say never, but I don't see it happening. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, it's in the same way that like I stopped drinking. I'm, oh gosh, I stopped drinking 2012. So I'm over 13 years sober. And I maybe I go back to drinking highly unlikely, right? Like that is a behavior that doesn't necessarily serve me.

It doesn't move me on the life that I want. It doesn't let me connect with people in the way that I actually want to connect. Even though it can look like I am, it's not an actual genuine, authentic connection. Right. And so what I really appreciate about what you're sharing is that what you're talking about is where you pay attention, right? And when we pay attention to here and now, we get so much more out of our life. Here and now is where the vitality is. Here and now is where the intimate and vulnerable connection is. Here and now is where we are these bodies. This is where our partners are. This is where our kids are. This is where our boss and our colleagues are. Like here and now, when we are sucked into there and then, when our attention is in the future or in the past, there's a lot of anxiety when we're in the future, right? All of these, I call her Brenda, my storytelling mind. She is this unhelpful secretary.

She's very, very catastrophic and sort of like not great at filing things. But she does her best, right? We love Brenda. But when she is driving the ship, we are only paying attention to all of the horrors. of the potential future and all of the missteps of my past, right? That's what's in then and there is this like endless performance review cycle, right? And like my performance improvement plan, that's what that is, right? But here and now, I can just be, right?

And when I can just be here, that's where I actually get to touch the things that matter to me. So well said, and I think we all have our own version of a Brenda, right? she means well but she's kind of a crazy bitch she's doing the best she can anyways okay I know people are going to want to learn more about you Jenny so the website is west coast anxiety dot com and is that where the 30 day challenge

digital detox challenge lives yeah so you can buy the book look up on the website it'll just direct you to Amazon you can also buy it on Amazon so it's easy to get just look up amazing look up. And then westcoastanxiety.com is the website. Jenny, thank you so much for this conversation and something that I think is pretty necessary, if not wildly important for all of us to consider. So thank you. Yeah, thanks for having me, Nicole. My pleasure. Okay. Friend, here's the thing.

We're not going to wake up tomorrow in a world without technology. Our phones aren't going to suddenly stop buzzing, and not all of it is bad. What can change, though, is how we engage. with our technology. We get to decide how much space it takes up in our lives. We get to set boundaries. And what better way to practice setting boundaries than with something that doesn't care or get upset with you? We get to step back and ask, is this actually making me feel better? For me, the answer was clear. Less time online meant more time for more important things, more presence, more clarity, more confidence, not the kind that comes from likes and follows, because by the way, confidence will never come from likes and follows, but the kind that's built in the real world

through real experiences with real people. So if you've been feeling scattered, overwhelmed, or just off, maybe the solution isn't another self-help book, a juice cleanse, or a productivity hack. Maybe, just maybe, the answer is as simple as stepping away from the screen and stepping back into your life. Because here's what I know for sure. Your worth isn't measured in clicks, comments, or curated feeds. It's in the way you show up for yourself and the people you love. It's in the moments that often don't get documented. It's in the life you create when you're not looking down at your screen.

Look up because that is woman's work.