Transcript for How to break up with your phone for the holidays
We’re back with Thanksgiving dinner. A good chance many people at your table perhaps will be staring at your phone while shoveling down the Turkey. Put it away. Not exactly what the pilgrims envisioned. There are ways to break up with your phone and talk to your family for a change. I took the challenge myself and as we first reported back in September, it was not easy. Hey, good morning, everybody. As an always on news anchor I feel like I have a particularly dysfunctional relationship with my phone. Enter Catherine price, science journalist, recovering tech addict and author of “How to break up with your phone.” Breaking up doesn’t mean getting rid of your phone but looking at it and figuring out what relationship would feel healthy for you. Reporter: She she had me take the test designed by a university of Connecticut psychiatrist answering with strongly agree or disagree to questions such as I spend more time texting, tweeting or emailing as opposed to talking to people in person enwhen a eat it’s always part of my place setting. It suggests I need psychiatric evaluations. She made radical changes and the charging station no longer in the bedroom but in the closet. I can’t believe “Good morning America” is in ply closet. She turned off all notifications and deleted social media. Like a little twitchy. That was just the beginning. She then put me on a seven-day phone breakup plan. Okay. Reporter: Day one we made my phone as boring as possible by turning the whole thing to black and white. I also got an alarm clock so the phone isn’t the first thing I reach for in the morning. Day two she had me wrap a rubber band around the phone so every time I went for it I was reminded myself to ask why. I’ll talk to other human beings on the set. Reporter: I recruited “Gma” viewer and mom Denise to do the phone breakup with me and her kids were ready for it. She’s usually on her phone for about eight hours doing her work. I always have it on me. Always in my back pocket. I know I’m doing the right thing by making this change a reality. Reporter: Midweek we checked in. Do you have a sense of whether it will make a lasting change in your life. I actually do think it’s going to have an impact. I will say that having an alarm clock is not anything that I ever thought that I would have. I went to dinner with my 3-year-old the other day and I had my phone with me but I only pulled it out once and that was to take a picture of him and I didn’t get sucked into email or anything like that. The positive feeling from that is not something I’m going to want to lose. Reporter: After seven days — I don’t know that I’ve broken all of my habits but I have most definitely become much more aware. Reporter: For me the breakup was hard but successful. I still use my phone, of course, but having a saner relationship with my device has freed up time for a much richer relationship with my family. Glad my son got a cameo there. Let me tell you the biggest thing is having a specific bed for the phone so that it’s always there. It’s not with me as I walk around our house. Your phone right now you have it on your screen saver. Black and white and it says do you really want to pick me up. You motivated me to delete Instagram and Facebook on mine. In case you want to break up — I’m working with it. We break up with our phones at dinnertime and have always done that and in talking to the kids it’s important. Eye contact. We’re getting there step by step. If you’re a parent, you got to model it. Our all-star Thanksgiving
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