Eps 315: Ian’s Back Sharing Truths About His Screen Time

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Casey O'Roarty 0:00
Music. Hello, my friends. Welcome back to the joyful courage podcast, a place where we tease apart challenges and nuances of parenting through adolescence. I am your host. Casey o'rourdy, positive discipline trainer and adolescent lead at sproutable, a company that represents not only the growth of children, but also the journey and evolution that we all get to go on as parents. I am walking the path right next to you as I navigate the teen parenting with my own two kids here in the beautiful Pacific Northwest, joyful courage is all about grit growth on the parenting journey, relationships that provide a sense of connection and meaning and influential tools that support everyone in being their best selves. Today's show is a really vulnerable share. I'm letting you in on a real time conversation between myself and my 16 year old around screen time, I think there will be moments that will be very relatable. It's imperfect and messy and it's real life. There are some surprises thrown my way that I didn't see coming. And I'm sharing the conversation because I want to give you an example of how these conversations can sound between you and your teens, thank you for being here. We are over 1 million downloads and 300 plus episodes strong, and you have taken us to the top 1% of podcasts worldwide. I so appreciate you, and I really hope you enjoy this show.

Hey everybody. Welcome back to the pod. My guest today is my only son, my baby boy, my little baby. Ian. Ian, already, Hi, Ian.

Ian O’Roarty 1:57
Hello, Casey.

Casey O'Roarty 2:00
Ian's 16 years old. He's a sophomore in high school. He's a Scorpio. He loves driving basketball, hanging out with friends and enlightening the family on the current popular culture trends. Thanks for being on the podcast, Ian,

Ian O’Roarty 2:15
thank you for having me. Yeah, this

Casey O'Roarty 2:18
is your third time on the podcast. Do you realize that? Do you remember the first time we podcasted together with you and Rowan? Oh yeah, in the closet. Yeah, in the closet. And then, and a couple years ago, when you were 15, you just turned 15, or a guess, a year ago, and now you're back. And so here's what happened. About a month ago, I did a Facebook Live Q and A. And as it happens, whenever I invite parents to ask questions, there are always questions about screen time. Ian, I want you to know that I am capturing the video of this interview, so I will torture you with what you're doing right now in the video, listeners, I wish you could see it anyway, Q and A and screens always come up, and one of the parents said, Have you ever recorded the conversations you have with your kids about screen time and setting limits? And the answer at the time was no, because I hadn't and then you and I had been talking about adjusting some things that are happening with your screen time and offer you a bit more space about, you know, with navigating yourself. And I asked you if we could record the conversation for my listeners. And you said, yes. So thank you for that.

Ian O’Roarty 3:39
This is all true. Listeners, yeah,

Casey O'Roarty 3:41
we're not. There's no actors in this podcast. It's a real, live human boy. So will you tell everybody what your current limits are on your phone?

Ian O’Roarty 3:53
My downtime is every night at 10 until sometime in the morning, probably around seven, and then on the week, that's in the weekdays, and then on the weekends, it's 1130 to seven. And then my app limits are four and a half hours during the week, and really four and a half hours during the weekends and three hours and 30 minutes during the weekdays, which I usually don't do, go at that high I usually don't reach the limits that sometimes true. Sometimes it depends on what I'm doing, to be honest. Well, let's take a look. Or Okay, oh god, yeah,

Casey O'Roarty 4:39
I know. See, this is the beauty of family. Family plans on the iPhone.

Ian O’Roarty 4:47
Well, today I've had three hours and 45 minutes on my phone, but we also did not have school today,

Casey O'Roarty 4:53
right? I mean, three hours 45 minutes, that's great. Yesterday, an hour

Ian O’Roarty 4:58
playing Wordle, which. Is an intellectual game that makes your mind do things.

Casey O'Roarty 5:05
What about yesterday? Yesterday, you had six and a half. I

Ian O’Roarty 5:09
spent an hour on Indeed, jobs, looking filling out applications, yes. And then I also spent 30 minutes on Wordle, and then another 30 on safari, filling out applications,

Casey O'Roarty 5:21
right? And nearly two hours on Tiktok and an hour and a half on SNAP, I

Ian O’Roarty 5:25
was making tiktoks, though, so I was being creative, creative,

Casey O'Roarty 5:28
creative. Okay, so how do you feel about the limits that you have? Um,

Ian O’Roarty 5:35
I, I don't mind them when, because, I mean, I know that you only have the best intentions, but sometimes it's quite annoying. When I'm actually doing something productive, other than scrolling, and I get blocked by my limits or something, or on the weekends, when I'm staying in play and my phone shuts off, it's really annoying, yeah, and I don't like it. And also, in the mornings, it's quite frustrating having it not turn on till seven, because I wake up at five, oh,

Casey O'Roarty 6:12
when you get up to go to the gym. Yes, okay, so that's something to talk about. Yeah, it is earlier limits for gym days. I'm taking notes every day is every day is gym day. Every day is a gym day. So what's your experience stops? What is your experience of me around screen, limits and like our relationship and how we talk about it and stuff?

Ian O’Roarty 6:37
It used to be a lot of worse, because I couldn't see your perspective. But once I did, it became a lot easier to talk about it without getting mad at each other. Tell me

Casey O'Roarty 6:45
Well, tell me more about that that you couldn't see my perspective. What do you mean? Well,

Ian O’Roarty 6:50
I just wanted to spend all day on my phone. I didn't see anything wrong with it. And then you were like, No, and I was like, Yes. And then we would get mad at each other. And then I was afraid to be on my phone around you, because I thought you're gonna do something weird, like what I don't do things I don't know, I can't remember. That was like a really long time ago, but now I don't really care as much, because I guess it was a lot during the pandemic too. Since I didn't really have any other way to connect to my friends or really do anything. I mean, I didn't have stuff to do. But still, it was a lot harder to not have my phone now, with me having my license and being out of the pandemic, I guess ish, and it's been a lot easier to like, go my phone, having other things to do,

Casey O'Roarty 7:43
yeah, and you like to do other things. You like to be out in the world and hang with

Ian O’Roarty 7:46
your friends. Yeah, it was just like the one thing in my life that I can control, that I could control during like that time. So having you be, like, controlling it. I was like, back off, lady. Let me handle it. I So

Casey O'Roarty 8:00
the

limits are three and a half hours, school days, four and a half weekends, you spend more time you you know the workarounds? Yeah, right. And we were getting to a place where I was noticing like, and I just listened listeners. If you listened to last week to my interview with Emily, I talked about this that, you know, we had talked about things like Snapchat, like what you just said when you're not scrolling, and it's the end of the day and you just want to be talking to your friends. And the phone shuts off typically, because there had been a large portion of the time that you were spending scrolling. And so then it was like, Okay, now I just want to talk to my friends. And so I had asked you, like, Should we just put a limit on on tick tock? Because tick tock is the bottomless pit, right? Yes. And you said, Yeah, put an hour we'll put an hour limit on Tiktok, so we have a 45 minute limit. Oh, 45 minute limit on Tiktok, but like today or yesterday, you spent an hour and 50 minutes on Tiktok, so there's a workaround. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And would you rather watch Tiktok all day? Or do you want to be able to hang with and, like, talk to your friends? And

Ian O’Roarty 9:26
I mean, I'd rather talk to my friends or hang out with my friends, but if I can hang out with my friends, then you're scrolling to Tiktok, then I'm scrolling Tiktok on them lifting. Yeah,

Casey O'Roarty 9:39
okay, everyone. Ian really likes to go to the gym, and he is getting really muscular, and he wants to send that out to the world. So okay, good job. Good you. So I guess for me, there becomes this place where it's kind of the training ground, right for when you are like, Oh, I don't have any. Thing to do. I could look at Tik Tok for the next X amount of minutes, but in my mind, it makes sense for you to start learning like, well, do I want to watch tick like? Do am I going to hang out with my do I want to be able to talk to my friends later? Or do I want right now, to watch tick tock? And I want you to kind of learn to differentiate those things, right? Does that make sense to you? Yeah. So what do you feel like? Healthy screen use looks like like if you

Ian O’Roarty 10:31
Well, what I do, something that I do that helps me make healthy screen use or whatever, I turn my notifications off on Snapchat so they never pop up. And I'm always have Do Not Disturb on, which is sometimes not great, because you call me and I don't answer because I don't hear it vibrate. But I always have Do Not Disturb on, and I have my notifications off for pretty much everything. So that helps me, like, not check it as much I cannot hear it buzz and look at it and then get sucked in, because sometimes I just forget about my phone, and that helps. And then,

Casey O'Roarty 11:03
yeah, but you still, like, last Thursday, you still picked up your phone 224

Ian O’Roarty 11:09
times. That's not as much as you think.

Casey O'Roarty 11:13
Really seems like,

Ian O’Roarty 11:17
Well, okay, also sometimes that could just be me. And you're like, Yeah, go ahead. I could just be me every time, every time I'm done with the set in the gym, or I drink set or something, up my phone, skip a song, close it, or open it, turn the volume up, close it, and it's like, it's not necessarily I'm going on and spend like, 10 minutes on it. Usually it's just, like, to check something or like, do something like that, which is I get that it's me still interact with my phone, but like, you know, you know, saying

Casey O'Roarty 11:43
yeah, and you know what, I will be super transparent, and I will let you know that that same day, I had 103 pickups. That's awful. Yeah, I do not claim to be really good around phone limits myself. So, okay, so those are things that you do, but like, what do you imagine is healthy phone use? Like, what do you want?

Ian O’Roarty 12:11
Ideally, I have a flip phone, and I never spend time ever on my phone, but we all know that's not going to happen, and I don't want to do that, because we don't live in the 1920s anymore.

Casey O'Roarty 12:24
Well, there, yeah, well, nobody had a phone in 1920s I don't think so.

Ian O’Roarty 12:28
Exactly, um, ideally I don't spend that much time. I I don't have, ideally I wouldn't have Tiktok, but I want to enjoy my life, so I have it downloaded, and ideally, I'm not scrolling at all. I just use it to, like, talk to people, or kind of like or do get things done, and like productive things. That's like, the most ideal way to use my phone. But I'm a teenager and I'm a child, so well

Casey O'Roarty 12:57
in their design, I mean, they're designed to keep you engaged. They're designed to keep you engaged.

Ian O’Roarty 13:05
Limit has, like, made me more aware, like, self aware, of my use, yeah, but it's still, like, I still sometimes I think about it, I'm just like, I don't care. Yeah, I want to get sucked in, yeah?

Casey O'Roarty 13:19
Well, it's a slippery slope. So something that came up in my podcast last week, in the interview that I did, Ian was my guest, was talking about, there's something called persuasive design, and how, you know, Netflix and and all the apps, the social media apps, they've all worked with developmental psychologists around how to keep people engaged, right? Like, the fact that you can watch one show and another show will happen automatically without you even saying, like, yeah, I want to watch the next show, and then you are like, five shows in, right? Or how there's never a bottom, like, when you're looking at Instagram and you're or tick tock, then you're just, like, scrolling, scrolling. There's no bottom to get to, yeah, and that's designed that way because that's how those companies make money. Yes, smart, yeah, it is. And you know that my number one concern is just, what? What's my number one concern

Ian O’Roarty 14:12
endless scrolling?

Casey O'Roarty 14:14
No, yeah, it's concerning. The endless scrolling is concerning. But my number one concern is, I'm always just coming from a place of of health and well being right, starting with sleep, but also you, you know, paying attention in school and thinking about, what are you not doing? Like, what is it taking the place of, what could you be doing? But like you mentioned, too, you're an active kid. You have a healthy social life, and you like to lift weights and play sports and be out in the world, which I'm really grateful for. But I want to know like we're having a conversation too. I'm I'm not even looking at the goofy faces that you're making right now, just so you know, um. I want to know, because you have you want to change some things with your screens? Do you still want to change some things with the limits? Do not remember.

Ian O’Roarty 15:09
I don't remember that was so long ago. It's like a month ago. I don't really remember, and I don't really care anymore. Okay, well, one

Casey O'Roarty 15:17
of the things that we've kind of started to play with is, and I've come clean about this, so Ian does have his phone in his room at night, and it has, it's supposedly shut down, you know, at 10 to seven. But I started to notice that there, there's a workaround, and that's not okay like you. It's really, really important for mental health and well being, that kids get that full eight to 10 hours of sleep. So I invited you to start plugging your phone in in the hallway. How's that felt to you?

Ian O’Roarty 15:50
Um, it's good on the nights where I go to bed at the times of the normal human being around like 10, but when I'm going to the gym the next day and I go to bed at like, eight, I don't really see the point, because I'm motivated to go to sleep because so I can wake up early and the other days, like on the weekends, to make sense to me, yeah? So because I also, I also like to listen to music while I fall asleep. So

Casey O'Roarty 16:20
yeah, but we can. You can use a speaker to do that, yeah. Why? Why not?

Ian O’Roarty 16:25
Because speakers are too loud.

Casey O'Roarty 16:28
You can turn the volume down. You can make it however you want to make

Ian O’Roarty 16:31
it. I don't know if you viewers want to hear us argue about this, but the lowest volume on the speaker is still too loud. I like it very quiet to where I can't really hear it.

Casey O'Roarty 16:42
Um, and I noticed that when the phone isn't in your room, there aren't pickups throughout the night. Yeah, there's no temptation there to kind of check Snapchat. And, you know, I wish. I don't know how you do that me either when it's downtime. Yeah, I don't know. You know? No, I don't. I don't believe you. I think you know, and you're just keeping it quiet, keeping it hush hush for all the other teenagers, something that I really appreciate, Ian, is that you're willing to talk to me about screens. Yeah, you know, there's a lot of because there's a lot of families where, if the parents even bring up, hey, let's put a limit on this, or let's talk about this. The kids really freak out.

Ian O’Roarty 17:23
Yeah, well, you like I used to when I was, like, during the peak pandemic, like when you guys were living in Seattle, like, whenever you would bring up screen times my heart would start racing, like five times the speed.

Casey O'Roarty 17:37
Well, was that because you secretly knew the passcode. And you

Ian O’Roarty 17:43
know, that was before that, and it was something else. What Tell me about

Casey O'Roarty 17:47
that? So I would bring it so listeners, Ian's referencing a period of time when his dad was real sick over the pandemic. He had cancer, and had, we had to live in Seattle for a couple months to do treatment, and the kids were up here just being amazing and living on their own, pretty much. And so when I brought it up, then you didn't like it.

Ian O’Roarty 18:10
No, I was scared. What were you scared of? I was scared that you would find out that I had a trap phone. What's a trap phone? It's like a second phone.

Casey O'Roarty 18:22
You had a second phone? Yeah, I think you are making stuff up right now.

Ian O’Roarty 18:27
I had an iPod that I would use at nighttime, really. Yeah, about that until right now. Viewers, are you listening?

Casey O'Roarty 18:36
Where is it? I don't I think you're making it away.

Ian O’Roarty 18:40
I threw to us. Swear to god, did

Casey O'Roarty 18:42
Rowan know about it? She can she confirm? Yeah? No way, yep. So you had your phone. Look at me. So listeners, listen, I'm thinking to myself, like, you know, I have this great relationship with my kid, and they don't lie to me mostly. And we really got the phone time thing down, and now it's all coming out.

Ian O’Roarty 19:03
Well, okay, I had it for like two months, and then Where'd you get it? A friend sold it to me.

Casey O'Roarty 19:12
Who sold it to you? I

Ian O’Roarty 19:13
don't want to wrap them out.

Casey O'Roarty 19:15
Okay, I guess there's worse things people can be selling you. So, yeah, like crap. So, yeah, well, so you got this and did you seek it out? Were you like, how could I be on and what would you so you'd be on the phone, like, talking to people or doing what?

Ian O’Roarty 19:31
Well, um, okay, so I was like, just use, like, a regular phone. So I was signed into my Apple ID. So I was like, I could FaceTime. I could do anything. I snapped and had Tiktok. And remember those nights where you would come into my room and I pretend to be sleep, talking, yes, and I was on the phone with someone talking like, whisper, talking like, FaceTime with

Casey O'Roarty 19:54
this other device, yeah,

Ian O’Roarty 19:56
and I would, like, hide it underneath me, and I was so scared.

Casey O'Roarty 19:59
No. Leaky little

Ian O’Roarty 20:05
but I threw it away. I knew it wasn't good for me, and I threw it away.

Casey O'Roarty 20:07
How did you know it wasn't good for you? What what came up for you? I

Ian O’Roarty 20:11
would well, I mean, sleep didn't really matter, because it was online, everything. So I didn't really have anything to do. But I would like I was staying up so late, and then also dad got mad at me, so he made me throw away.

Casey O'Roarty 20:25
Dad found it Yeah,

Ian O’Roarty 20:28
he knew how. He never told me. He threw it away.

Casey O'Roarty 20:31
Oh my gosh.

Ian O’Roarty 20:41
Don't get mad at dad.

Casey O'Roarty 20:43
No, I won't. I won't. I think this is fascinating, and I think it's really real. I mean, I'm sure there are people listening right now. Ian, probably

Ian O’Roarty 20:51
I've been waiting to tell you this. I was debating if I should or not.

Casey O'Roarty 20:55
Well, people that are listening are like, yes, thank you, because, you know, I have a friend who's, like, there's all sorts of things kids do to go around the limits. And what I really, really appreciate you saying earlier on, is, like, is, is that you understand where I'm coming from, like, you it's, I don't want to control you. Like, it's not about controlling, you know,

Ian O’Roarty 21:18
it's about the best interests. Yeah,

Casey O'Roarty 21:21
it's about your health and well being right? And do you see people like, kids that you know who are really sucked into the phone stuff and it's making an impact on their

Ian O’Roarty 21:31
life? Yeah? Well, I mean, what do you see? I've seen people with limits that are so bad that it's, like, more strict. You mean, how do you live? Like, yeah, like, world that I know is like, she can only have, she can't have her phone upstairs. She like, if she has, like, Well, her parents also really strict. Like, she has friends over, she has to introduce them all, which is obvious, but like, yeah, door can't be closed, anything. Um, she can't, like, there's just so many, so many restrictions, and it's like, like, her parents just don't trust her, which that sucks for her.

Casey O'Roarty 22:08
Do you feel like I trust you? Yeah, because, I

Ian O’Roarty 22:12
mean, I don't really do anything bad, other than have two phones. Yeah,

Casey O'Roarty 22:17
you weren't, like, watching porn or anything. Were you? Don't answer that question.

Ian O’Roarty 22:21
I just said, Nim is now, okay, um, I don't mess with porn people, yay.

Casey O'Roarty 22:27
So, so you feel like we trust you, and you feel like you trust yourself, yeah, and I'm not the strictest parent, but I'm not the loosest parent either, huh? No, definitely not so. And it's interesting too. Here's the weird thing about all of it, Ian is, like, this is so new, like, it's normal. It's like, what, you know, you watched your sister go through it, and everybody has a phone. And when I was your age, we had the home phone, right? And if it rang after nine, I would get in trouble, like people could not call my house after 9pm or Julie, Nana would get all bugged about that. And, you know, and we would just watch, maybe watch a show together. If it was Thursday night we were watching 902 and now or not, we'd watch, you know, maybe watch some TV, and then nine o'clock would roll around and it was like, Okay, going to bed. And what I had in my room, no screens, no computers. I had a tape deck. I didn't even have, it wasn't even there weren't even CDs. I had a tape deck, and I'd play music before I went to bed. But, you know, it's one of those things for parents where there's nothing, like, Okay, let me think about how this was when I was a kid. It's so new and it's scary because, you know, I mean, there's the limits and just like sleep deprivation, but then there's, you know, there's some scary stuff that you guys find. How do you keep yourself safe? I mean, do you what kind of stuff do you like to look at when you're on your phone? Like, what kind of videos and stuff do you watch? And who do you follow? All

Ian O’Roarty 24:09
right? Well, on tick tock, it's mostly buff guys giving workout advice, workout montages, cars or ladies. But it's not like that bad. It's just like, there's traps.

Casey O'Roarty 24:24
First trap, tell everybody what a thirst trap is. I don't want to assume everybody knows what a mother's trap is.

Ian O’Roarty 24:30
Trying to look hot so that they can get followers. But like, I don't even I don't like there's

Casey O'Roarty 24:36
boys and there's girls that are thirst traps. It's not just the ladies. Guys

Ian O’Roarty 24:39
are so bad. Oh, my God, stupid. But um, yeah. And then on YouTube, it's like, I watched Cody CO which is this comedian guy, and then Danny Duncan, who just does whatever he wants and just messes with people. And

Casey O'Roarty 24:58
it's a dancing. The wise personalities, like people that are funny.

Ian O’Roarty 25:03
I don't search the dark web.

Casey O'Roarty 25:04
Thank God. Thank God. So okay, so I thought we were gonna get on this podcast, Ian, and that we were gonna work out some different limits on your phone. But you're feeling you're feeling pretty good with how they are,

Ian O’Roarty 25:17
yeah, just don't make me put my phone outside

Casey O'Roarty 25:21
on on nights that you are working out the next day. Yeah, so I can do that, but I here's, here's. My problem is when I look, when I check your screen, and I see the little, you know, the little indicator that you've been on your phone through through midnight and beyond, and it's a school night. Yeah, I'm

Ian O’Roarty 25:41
not going to do that if I'm going to the gym the next day, though, because I want to sleep. So, okay,

Casey O'Roarty 25:45
what about the other days? What about the other days?

Ian O’Roarty 25:48
Then I'll plug my phone aside. Okay, okay, that feels good

Casey O'Roarty 25:52
to me. What about this Tiktok limit that I've set and that you've worked around? Do you want to is it or is it just useful to know? Like, because it gives you a little indicator, like, Whoa, dude, it's been 45 minutes, right? Yeah, we should just keep that, keep it how it is, yeah, keep

Ian O’Roarty 26:07
everything how it is, except that phone outside. However,

Casey O'Roarty 26:11
when you've reached your limit, is there a workaround then to get onto Snapchat and onto the things after that three and a half hour has been up there is, right? I don't know you do too.

Ian O’Roarty 26:28
I You have Snapchat,

Casey O'Roarty 26:33
because rarely is it a day where you have a three and a half hour screen type. It's usually closer to four and a half five hours, which sounds crazy to say out loud.

Ian O’Roarty 26:46
Well, also, like, some of it, like, I'll put my phone in my pocket during class and then take it out 45 minutes later, and it's open. Like, sometimes, like, just also, like, it's a dead activity, like, where I'm not using my phone too sometimes.

Casey O'Roarty 27:01
Okay, so maybe this week, this school week, could you work on making sure that your like, your phone is really shut down when you put it away during class time, so that you're not in crewing those that extra time and then it's a more accurate readout each day? Can we really work on that? Yeah, cool. I'm going to do the same thing. I'm going to give myself the same limits that you have on your phone, and you can pick the passcode. Do you want to do that? No, why?

Ian O’Roarty 27:35
Because,

Casey O'Roarty 27:38
so it's time to wrap it. Wrap it up, yes, okay, sounds good to me. I love you. I'm not really sure what we've agreed to, other than just to carry on with what we've got going. Yeah, yeah. Okay, well, this sounds good. Thanks for spending time with me. I love you.

Ian O’Roarty 27:56
Yeah, love you too. Okay, bye, bye, bye, bye, bye.

Casey O'Roarty 28:07
Well, what'd you think about that? Parent educators, they're just like you. Children of parent educators are just like your kids, right? Thank you for listening. I hope that you found that conversation relatable and entertaining and inspiring. I really do adore this community. I'm so happy to bring you conversations that matter to you. There are exciting things that continue to happen over at sproutable, and I can't wait to share them, so stay tuned. Are you on my email list? If not, go to besproutable.com/teens and get signed up. Now, something you can do on that page is sign up for the seven tips over seven days email support. It is all about nurturing stronger connection with your tweens and teens, and you can get that for free at besproutable.com/teens if you feel inspired and you haven't already, please do me a favor and head over to Apple podcasts. Leave a review. We're working hard to stand out and make a huge impact on families around the globe, and your review really matters. It really helps the podcast to be seen by evermore parents. Thank you to the team at sproutable for your back end help, and for Chris [email protected] for your stellar editing. I am so honored that all of you listen each week. We're all doing the best we can in the moment, people. That includes you. Have a beautiful, beautiful day, and I'll see you on Thursday with the final episode of the becoming sproutable limited series. Love you. Bye.

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