Parental Tech Addiction Is Raising Your Kids

If this was, you know, in the 80s, you know, and you were a kid who was lucky enough to have an Atari game system, you didn't get to take it to school. No. You didn't put it in your backpack and go everywhere with it and pull it up. You had to, you could play Atari when your homework was done, when your chores were checked, and then you would, you have earned it. Exactly. Nowadays, there is this tech addiction by parents. And because the parents are addicted to tech, I mean, as soon as a kid can get an iPad, they throw an iPad in front of a kid to keep them, you know, occupied so they can play on their tech. Yeah. Okay. That's like a crack head giving their kid crack so they can do crack. There's no difference. So when we talk about tech discipline and tech hygiene, tech hygiene is making sure you're consuming the information online that is good for you, that is positive. You're not just falling prey to propaganda and you're causing yourself stress and anxiety. Now you're worried about 5,000 meter targets you'll never be able to hit and you are paralyzed. Your tech hygiene is screwed up if that's what's happening and it's actually creating a mental condition. It's huge. Now tech discipline means turn it off, go live in the physical domain, be with your family, go watch a movie, have dinner together. That's hygiene. You know, do we need to be on the phone all day long or you know what, can we just, I challenge everybody to turn off their phone and put it away during waking hours for two hours, for two hours. And if after about 15 minutes you start coming up with excuses, you need to turn your phone back on. That's a lot like addiction behavior. True. So be aware of it and start taking steps to change that because if you don't change that, you're not changing it for your family and you're actually conditioning them to pay attention and take direction from entities other than you as a parent. Someone else is raising your child because you're addicted to the tech. And it's everybody that people want to blame like all the kids nowadays and stuff. It's, it's everyone. It's everyone. This isn't about pointing fingers, it's about taking responsibility because it is everyone. There are people that do nothing but stay online and stay in fear of 5,000 meter targets. Meanwhile, where are their kids? Remember those old commercials? It's 10 o'clock at night. Where are your children? Yeah. Well, it's like you've been online for 10 hours. Where have your children been? Yeah. Because maybe they haven't been outside the house, but maybe they've been places online they shouldn't have been and you don't know about it. That is scary. Maybe even talking about like, let's say, you know, somebody, they work a regular job. You get up in the morning, maybe you, you know, read through some headlines. You're kind of aware. Maybe at lunch you check your messages to make sure the family is okay and everything's good. And then at night before you go to bed, kind of read through anything that I need to be aware of and then you're done. The rest of the time you're actually in the world, the physical domain, talking with people, being around people, being attuned to the environment you actually live in. That would be a great challenge. I think people's lives would be changed. And you'd like to dare, you know, like could you do it a week, could you do it one day? I love that. I know the best time of our life, you know, was living in Mexico and living in an orphanage. We didn't have phones and it was just all real world. Every word I heard came from a human, you know, and I tell you what, there was a peace and a calm to it that I envy, you know, now, you know, because our world gets so noisy and so distracting, you know, it's not the life that you would design on paper. Yes, find some calm, stop feeding your dopamine because you can't stand it. You know, I had an addiction to opiates for quite a long time and I remember the stress of, oh, I can't go away with my wife on this particular week because I have a refilled deal. That's addiction behavior. I remember the stress from, oh my gosh, I'm counting my pills going, I've taken too many I'm going to run out three days ahead of time so I'm going to have to detox for 72 hours. Let me get down to Walgreens and make sure I get enough Imodium AD and NyQuil and water and, you know, so I can deal with the detox. And then I also remember going to the VA and picking up those pills and challenging myself to not open the bottle before I got to the front door.