0:00:01.018,0:00:03.875
So a few years ago I heard[br]an interesting rumor.

0:00:04.499,0:00:06.791
Apparently, the head[br]of a large pet food company

0:00:06.955,0:00:10.753
would into the annual shareholder's[br]meeting with can of dog food,

0:00:10.922,0:00:12.892
and he would eat the can of dog food,

0:00:13.053,0:00:15.530
and this was his way of convincing them[br]that if it was good enough for him,

0:00:15.663,0:00:17.185
it was good enough for their pets.

0:00:17.724,0:00:20.609
This strategy is now known as dogfooding,

0:00:20.751,0:00:22.675
and it's a common strategy[br]in the business world.

0:00:22.903,0:00:25.376
It doesn't mean everyone[br]goes in and eats dog food,

0:00:25.580,0:00:27.198
but business people[br]will use their own products

0:00:27.372,0:00:29.014
to demonstrate that they feel --

0:00:29.190,0:00:30.442
that they're confident in them.

0:00:30.780,0:00:32.876
This is a widespread practice,

0:00:33.055,0:00:36.185
but I think what's really interesting[br]is when you find exceptions to this rule.

0:00:36.348,0:00:38.528
When you find cases of businesses[br]or people in businesses

0:00:38.671,0:00:40.335
who don't use their own products.

0:00:40.534,0:00:43.932
Turns out there's one industry where[br]this happens in a common way --

0:00:44.095,0:00:45.078
in a pretty regular way --

0:00:45.238,0:00:47.470
and that is the screen-based[br]tech industry.

0:00:47.800,0:00:50.112
So, in 2010,

0:00:50.289,0:00:51.191
Steve Jobs,

0:00:51.359,0:00:52.732
when he was releasing the iPad,

0:00:52.909,0:00:56.584
described the iPad as a device[br]that was "extraordinary."

0:00:56.749,0:00:58.593
"The best browsing experience[br]you've ever had;

0:00:58.820,0:01:00.188
way better than a laptop,

0:01:00.351,0:01:01.580
way better than a smartphone ...

0:01:01.755,0:01:03.114
It's an incredible experience."

0:01:03.312,0:01:04.296
A couple of months later,

0:01:04.457,0:01:07.048
he was approached by a journalist[br]from The New York Times,

0:01:07.224,0:01:08.451
and they had a long phone call.

0:01:08.635,0:01:09.380
And at the end of the call,

0:01:09.546,0:01:12.569
the journalist threw in a question[br]that seemed like a sort of softball.

0:01:13.063,0:01:15.983
He said to him, "Your kids[br]must love the iPad."

0:01:16.963,0:01:18.196
And there's an obvious answer to this,

0:01:18.359,0:01:20.899
but what Jobs said really[br]staggered the journalist.

0:01:21.093,0:01:22.503
He was very surpsrised,

0:01:22.705,0:01:25.043
because he said, "They haven't used it.

0:01:25.237,0:01:27.713
We limit how much technology[br]our kids use at home."

0:01:28.066,0:01:31.398
This is a very common thing[br]in the tech world.

0:01:32.081,0:01:34.301
In fact there's a school[br]quite near Silicon Valley

0:01:34.500,0:01:36.582
called the Waldorf School[br]of the Penninsula,

0:01:36.815,0:01:39.805
and they don't introduce screens[br]until the eighth grade.

0:01:39.970,0:01:41.892
What's really interested about the school

0:01:42.055,0:01:43.398
is that 75 percent[br]of the kids who go there

0:01:43.608,0:01:46.708
have parents who are high-level[br]Silicon Valley tech execs.

0:01:47.522,0:01:48.450
So when I heard about this,

0:01:48.752,0:01:50.855
I thought it was interesting[br]and surprising,

0:01:51.018,0:01:53.572
and it pushed me to consider[br]what screens were doing to me

0:01:53.779,0:01:55.564
and to my family and the people I loved,

0:01:55.744,0:01:56.931
and to people at large.

0:01:57.388,0:01:59.313
So for the last five years,

0:01:59.477,0:02:01.223
as a professor of business and psychology,

0:02:01.350,0:02:02.977
I've been studying the effect[br]of screens on our lives.

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
I want to start by just focusing[br]on how much time they take from us,

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
and then we can talk about[br]what that time looks like.

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
So what I'm showing you here[br]is the average 24-hour workday

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
at three different points in history:

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
2007 --

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
10 years ago --

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
2015,

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
and then data that I collected[br]actually only last week.

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
And a lot of things haven't[br]changed all that much.

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
So we sleep roughly seven-and-a-half[br]to eight hours a day,

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
some people say that's declined slightly,

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
but it hasn't changed much.

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
We work eight-and-a-half[br]to nine hours a day.

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
We engage in survival activities,

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
these include eating and bathing[br]and looking after kids,

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
about three hours a day.

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
And that leaves this white space.

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
That's our personal time.

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
That space is incredibly important to us.

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
That's the space where we do things[br]that makes us individuals.

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
That's where hobbies happen,

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
where we have close relationships,

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
where we really think about our lives,

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
where we get creative,

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
where we zoom back and try to work out[br]whether our lives have been meaningful.

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
And of course we get some[br]of that from work as well,

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
but when people look back on their lives

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
and they wonder what their[br]lives have been like

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
at the end of their lives,

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
you look at the last things they say --

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
they are talking about those moments[br]that happen in that white personal space.

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
So it's sacred;

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
it's important to us.

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
Now what I'm going to do is show you

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
how much of that space[br]is taken up by screens across time.

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
In 2007,

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
this much.

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
That was the year Apple[br]introduced the first iPhone.

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
Eight years later,

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
this much.

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
Now, this much.

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
That's how much time we spend[br]of our free time in front of our screens.

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
This yellow area,

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
this thing sliver,

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
is where the magic happens.

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
That's where your humanity lives.

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
And right now,

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
it's in a very small box.

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
So what do we do about this?

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
Well, the first question is,

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
what does that red space look like?

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
Of course screens are miraculous[br]in a lot of ways.

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
I live in New York,

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
a lot of my family lives in Australia,

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
and I have a one-year-old son.

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
The way I've been able to introduce[br]him to them is with screens.

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
I couldn't have done that 15[br]or 20 years ago in quite the same way.

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
So there's a lot of good[br]that comes from them.

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
One thing you can do is[br]you can ask yourself,

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
what goes on during that time?

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
How enriching are the apps[br]that we're using?

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
And some are enriching.

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
If you stop people while[br]they're using them and say,

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
"Tell us how do you feel right now,"

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
they say the feel pretty good[br]about these apps.

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
Those that focus on relaxation,

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
exercise,

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
weather,

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
reading,

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
education and health.

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
They spend an average of nine[br]minutes a day on these.

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
These apps make them much less happy.

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
About half the people,

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
when you interrupt them[br]and say, "How do you feel?"

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
say they don't feel good about using them.

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
Now what's interesting about these --

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
dating, social networking, gaming,[br]entertainment, news,

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
web browsing --

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
people spend 27 minutes a day[br]on each of these.

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
We're spending three times longer[br]on the apps that don't make us happy.

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
That doesn't seem very wise.

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
One of the reasons we spend so much[br]time on these apps that make us unhappy

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
is that they rob us of stopping cues.

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
Stopping cues were everywhere[br]in the 20th century.

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
They were baked into everything we did.

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
A stopping cue is basically a signal[br]that it's time to move on,

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
to do something new,

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
to do something different.

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
Think about newspapers,

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
eventually you get to the end,

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
you fold the newspaper away,

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
you put it aside.

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
The same with magazines,

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
books, you get to the end of a chapter,

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
prompts you to consider whether[br]you want to continue.

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
You watched a show on TV,

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
eventually the show would end

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
and you'd have a week[br]until the next one came.

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
So there were stopping cues everywhere.

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
But the way we consume media today[br]is such that there are no stopping cues.

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
The newsfeed just rolls on,

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
and everything's bottomless.

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
Twitter,

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
Facebook,

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
Instagram,

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
email,

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
text messaging,

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
the news.

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
And when you do check all sorts[br]of other sources,

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
you can just keep going,

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
on and on and on.

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
So we can get a cue about what to do[br]from Western Europe,

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
where they seem to have a number[br]of pretty good ideas in the workplace.

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
Here's one example.

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
This is a Dutch design firm.

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
And what they've done is they've[br]rigged the desks to the celing.

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
At 6pm everyday,

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
it doesn't matter who you're emailing[br]or what you're doing,

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
the desks rise to the ceiling.

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
(Laughter)

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
(Applause)

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
Four days a week the space[br]turns into a yoga studio.

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
One day a week,

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
into a dance club.

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
It's really up to you which ones[br]you stick around for.

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
But this is a great stopping rule,

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
because it means at the end of the day,

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
everything stops.

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
There's no way to work.

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
At Daimler,

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
the German car company,

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
they've got another great strategy.

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
When you go on vacation,

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
instead of saying, "This[br]person's on vacation,

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
they'll get back to you eventually,"

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
they say, "This person's on vacation,[br]so we've deleted your email."

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
This person will never see[br]the email you just sent.

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
(Laughter)

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
You can email back in a couple of weeks,

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
or you can email someone else.

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
(Laughter)

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
(Applause)

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
You can imagine what that's like.

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
You go on vacation and you're[br]actually on vacation.

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
The people who work[br]at this company feel

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
that they actually get a break from work.

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
But of course that doesn't tell us much

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
about what we should do at home[br]in our own lives,

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
and so I want to make some suggestions.

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
It's easy to say between say,[br]five and six pm

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
I'm going to not use my phone.

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
The problem is five and six pm[br]looks different on different days.

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
I think a far better strategy is to say,

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
I do certain things every day,

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
there are certain occasions[br]that happen every day,

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
like eating dinner.

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
Sometimes I'll be alone,

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
sometimes with other people,

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
sometimes in a restaurant,

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
sometimes at home,

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
but the rule that I've adopted is[br]I will never use my phone at the table.

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
It's far away.

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
As a far a way as possible.

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
Because we're really bad[br]at resisting temptation,

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
but when you have a stopping cue

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
that every time dinner begins,

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
my phone goes far away,

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
you avoid temptation all together.

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
At first it hurts.

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
I had massive FOMO.

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
I struggled.

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
But what happens is you get used to it.

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
You overcome the withdrawl the same[br]way you would from a drug,

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
and what happens is life[br]becomes more colorful,

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
richer,

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
more interesting --

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
you have better conversations.

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
You really connect with the people[br]who are there with you.

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
I think it's a fantastic strategy,

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
and we know it works,

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
because when people do this,

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
and I've tracked a whole lot of people[br]who have tried this,

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
it expands.

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
They feels so good about it

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
that they start doing it for the first[br]hour of the day in the morning.

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
They start putting their phones[br]on airplane mode on the weekend.

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
That way your phone remains a camera,

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
but it's no longer a phone.

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
It's a really poweful idea,

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
and we know people feel much better[br]about their lives when they do this.

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
So what's the take-home here?

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
Screens are miraculous.

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
I've already said that,

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
and I feel that it's true.

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
But the way we use them is a lot like[br]driving down a really fast, long road,

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
and you're in a car where the accelerator[br]is mashed to the floor,

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
it's kind of hard[br]to reach the brake pedal.

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
You've got a choice.

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
You can either glide by,

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
past the beautiful ocean scenes[br]and take snaps out the window --

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
and that's the easy thing to do --

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
or you can go out of your way[br]to move the car to the side of the road

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
to push that brake pedal,

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
to get out,

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
take off your shoes and socks,

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
take a couple of steps onto the sand,

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
feel what the sand feels like[br]under your feet,

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
walk to the ocean

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
and let the ocean lap at your ankles.

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
Your life will be richer[br]and more meaningful

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
because you breathe in that experience,

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
and because you've[br]left your phone in the car.

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
Thank you.

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
(Applause)