Life of Love with Julie Hilsen

⛓️ Digital Slavery? How Screens Drain Us—and How to Get Free

• Julie Hilsen • Season 3 • Episode 30

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n this heart-forward convo, Julie and Emmy get real about our phones: powerful tools that can also hijack attention, drain our energy, and quietly erode creativity. We unpack the dopamine loop, subtle signs of dependence, and the feeling of digital slavery—and then share simple, compassionate ways to reclaim your focus, joy, and time.

What you’ll learn

  • How to reframe your phone as a tool (not your boss)
  • The dopamine loop and why endless scrolling leaves you anxious, dull, and depleted
  • Red flags you might be stuck in phone overuse—even if you think you’re fine
  • Practical micro-boundaries that restore energy and creativity
  • Why boredom equals creative spark and how to let your brain breathe
  • Language and rituals that make conscious tech feel loving, not punitive

Key takeaways

  • 📵 If it steals your presence, it’s too expensive.
  • ⏱️ Time is a non-renewable resource—budget your attention intentionally.
  • 🌱 Small edges (Do Not Disturb, app limits, leaving your phone in another room) create big calm.
  • 🎨 Creativity returns when consumption decreases—make more than you scroll.

Try these micro-habits

  • Set your Home Screen = tools only (calendar, maps, camera; move social to page two or beyond).
  • Turn on Downtime or Focus during creative or family hours.
  • Charge outside the bedroom and use an analog alarm.
  • Replace 10 minutes of scrolling with a walk, breath practice, or journal—daily.
  • Keep a Friction Box at the door: drop your phone in it when you enter.
  • Ask before tapping: What am I here to do? If you don’t know, don’t open.

Mentioned concepts

  • Dopamine loop and intermittent rewards
  • Digital slavery as compromised agency (choose sovereignty over autopilot)
  • Tool-first home screen design, Do Not Disturb or Focus modes, Screen Time and App Limits

If this served you
👉 Like, comment, and share with someone who’s ready to get their life back.
👉 Subscribe to Life of Love for soulful, practical tools that uplift your everyday.
💌 Learn more and connect: lifeofloveandjoy.com

Chapter markers (copy/paste)

0:00 Welcome and intention setting
 2:12 Meet Emmy — writer, mom, truth-teller
 5:14 Phone: helpful tool or subtle hijacker?
 9:12 Dopamine loops and why scrolling feels sticky
 13:48 Time slurp: how phones drink hours you meant to create with
 16:57 Red flags of phone overuse (even if you feel fine)
 20:12 Who profits from your attention and how to reclaim agency
 24:25 Digital slavery: language and sovereignty choices
 27:54 Micro-boundaries that actually work
 30:57 Creativity rebounds when you unplug (boredom becomes spark)
 36:07 Relearning real connection and presence
 39:49 Closing reflections and invitation

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I receive a small commission when you purchase from these links.

Julie Hilsen (00:

06) Hello dear friends and welcome to Life of Love where we gather each week to celebrate our life of love whether it's a beautiful, elegant, pink rose type of life of love day or if it's a, can't get off the floor and I'm just not having a good life of love and all of them are perfectly valid. So I'm holding space for all the ways you express your life of love and I hope you can come here for resource, inspiration and. and a community and that's what it's become. So thank you for sharing these episodes and thank you for being here. And yeah, if you think of someone when you're listening to this recording, please share and add to that grid of light that we're contributing to with our hearts and our minds and just trying to make this world into what we wanna be proud of and what we wanna pass on to our kids. So with that, I'm going to set our intention and introduce our special guest. our guest for this week's episode. So I invite you, if you're not driving, you can close your eyes, but if you are, just, you know, settle into your seat and just relax, take a deep breath. And I'm going to connect to my heart and I'm calling in, I'm calling in my creator and I'm asking him or her to work through me and for me to bring forth this episode for the highest good. Help me be in my ultimate timeline of service, of self care. And I ask my guides and my highest good angels and the Holy Spirit to work through us and for us to bring forth a message to help anyone who's willing to soften their hearts to a message of love, of caring, and of support as we bring forth practical ways to be present in your life and to be in command with intention and attention. And I have a feeling we're going to talk about that today. And I'm just asking, I'm asking our guides to come forward, Emmy's team and my team to collaborate as they see fit. And I'm just so honored and I thank you, thank you, thank you.

And so it is. Emmy (02:

12) And so it is. My gosh, I want to come back and watch this beginning of this podcast every day. That was, I feel so charged up. That was so wonderful, Julie.

Julie Hilsen (02:

22) Yeah, I I noticed when I did it, I used to do it before I started recording and it helped me so much to get centered in the space and create a space. so I had guests yell at me like, why don't you make that part of the show? So I just laid out there and I'm like, this is what we're about. And I'm happy that it helps you get in your space. But yeah, it's something I have to do to have the courage to come forth because this isn't easy. I get sweaty palms every time.

Emmy (02:

47) a beautiful way to start anything and I'm so honored and delighted to be here with you today.

Julie Hilsen (02:

52) Oh, thank you, Emily. Emily Layborne is here today. And wow, she's she's had quite a life. And Emmy , just being on set and she's she was an actor. And she you might have seen the Mary Catherine movie superstar in 1999. She is her best friend, Mary Catherine's best friend. So cool.

Emmy (03:

13) Thank It was so fun.

Julie Hilsen (03:

17) It's so fun. mean, just that the cafeteria scene when you guys break into dance is just like, I love that scene. I think I could watch that every morning get charged up for my day. So thank you for that.

Emmy (03:

29) Well, I'll tell you something funny about that dance scene is that I, can see in the dance scene, if you watch again, this is the movie Superstar we're talking about. The dance scene is probably about halfway through. I think. There are all these professional dancers dancing behind us. And then I'm next to Will Ferrell and Molly Shannon, and they're both very good dancers. And my character is very geeky, and she's very awkward, and she's always sitting to the side like this, and she's just like a goofball. But I, Emmy Laybourne, am dancing as hard as I can. I am trying to dance really well, but because I'm not a professional dancer, it still looks like I'm dancing in character. But I want you to know when you watch it again that I am dancing to the best of my ability in that scene.

Julie Hilsen (04:

18) It's like you put your heart out there. It's so good. my gosh, was Will Ferrell so fun to be around?

Emmy (04:

24) Such a dreamy guy, so lovely, so generous, you know.

Julie Hilsen (04:

26) Yeah.

Emmy (04:

28) extras in the film would come up to us. He was in, he and Molly were on Saturday Night Live at that time, of course. But Will wasn't superstar famous yet. Emmy, he wasn't a superstar himself. He had, he hadn't done Elf yet. He hadn't sort of done his biggest film roles, but the extras knew him from Saturday Night Live and they would come up and sort of improvise with him. They would just start little scenes and he would always improvise and do these bits with everybody. He was in incredibly generous ⁓ actor and man person. Julie Hilsen (05:00) Hmm. Wow, it does come through, it does come through in his, in everything that he does.

no. Emmy (05:

06) I does, yeah. I interrupted you. were introducing me and I completely took you away with my superstar story.

Julie Hilsen (05:

14) Yeah, so, Emmy she's a mom and she's a writer and author and you know, you want to take your situation of hitting rock bottom and use it to help other people. And in your description, it was really pretty. was like you hit rock bottom with your phone use and came back swinging. So, this addictive behavior on the phone that you were called to share and Emmy (05:25) Yes.

Yeah Julie Hilsen (05:

43) and come at it from a scientific point of view. So I'm really excited to have you on, to share what you've learned and spiritually how our phones are affecting us and just how we can use them for our purposes, not let them steal our thunder.

Emmy (06:

00) Yes, well, I love the way you're phrasing that, bringing forward this message and that I was called to bring it forward because it's really true. I was an actor, as you said, then I actually went to film school in screenwriting when my children were really young. My daughter was three months old when I started at UCLA and she was three and I was pregnant with our second kid when I graduated. So I thought I was going to be a screenwriter, but then my husband wanted to go back to grad school in New York. So we wound up in this small town in New York state and I decided to write young adult novels instead of screenplays. And that's really what I've been doing for the last 15 years or so is I've been writing novels. Talking about phone addiction was nothing was not in my plan at all. This is not something I wanted to do and not something certainly not an area that I ever wanted to be an expert in was recovering from phone addiction. But I think like many people My phone just started to have a bigger and bigger role in my life, in my daily life. And I really had trouble with mobile gaming. So I was playing games on my phone. And what would happen is I would be like a little bit stressed out and I would think, let me just play a few games on my phone. That'll help me relax. And it would be 15 minutes the first day, 20 minutes the second day, and then cut to three weeks later. And I was playing games for four hours a day. Well, when you're a novelist and you're you have to make yourself sit down at your computer every day and work. That's how you make your living to have an addiction that was taking you four hours a day to feel like you were ready to work or you were unstressed. It was just it was just eating up my time. But then what happened is that I was in one of these cycles where I'd started spending more and more time on my phone and I had a perfectly lovely day with my daughter. We had brunch together, we got our ears pierced, my third holes, her fifth holes, her ears, and we got it.

Julie Hilsen (08:

10) Ow!

Emmy (08:

12) And then we watched Love Island, we had dinner, it was like a really lovely day. we had an early dinner, because we'd started the day so early, and she went off to hang out with her friends. I went into my home office and played games on my phone for seven hours until three o'clock in the morning. And I went to bed, and when I woke up the next morning, I felt... I felt like I'd been kicked down the stairs. My brain wasn't working. I was foggy headed. I was filled with self-loathing for having done this thing off by myself, isolated, that I knew was bad for me. And then I realized that I had picked up my phone without even realizing it. I'd picked it up from the charger. because it's an extension of my body. And I looked at it and I thought, I think this device is doing damage to my brain. And it was like a revelatory flash of light. And I said, I've got to stop. Julie Hilsen(09:04) Mmm.

Emmy (09:

12) I have got to stop this right now. And so I went and I picked up a book that I had started reading six months ago, but I had stopped because when I was reading the book, I thought, if I read this book, I'm going to have to change and I'm not ready to change. I don't want to change. So I picked up the book. It's called Dopamine Nation by Dr. Anna Lemke. And I read the whole book in one sitting. just sat down and read it cover to cover. And over the next few days, I got this plan for myself of how I was going to kick my phone addiction. And because I'm a writer and I have lots of ideas, I'm used to taking an idea that comes in and weighing it and seeing how to flesh it out and running it by people. And I get their opinions. So I ran this idea past people. I did a bunch of research and in a very short amount of time, I created this program for myself to follow. I called it Analog April because it was March of 2024 when I did all of this. So I started Analog April, which was a total, I put a total seal on what I called the seal onto gaming and social media. So for 30 days, I did not look at social media or look at a game. If somebody was playing a game sitting next to me on the subway, I looked away. I was incredibly strict about it. I also reached out to friends and family. I journaled every day. I meditated every day. I did some chanting. did... I gave myself permission to do all of these things that I loved to do when I was a child that I hadn't done in years. And I gave myself permission. In fact, I gave myself the assignment of doing things that I loved that I no longer did because of my phone. So I read a lot. I went to dinner with friends. I went to a botanical garden. And the great thing is that at the end of this month, I felt so much better. My ideas came back. My brain was making connections again. I mean it was a really big change. It was a transformation. So after this happened, now I'm a novelist, right?

And I'm thinking, Julie Hilsen (11:

26) Hmm.

Emmy (11:

28) I don't want to write a book about this. I really was like, please, God and angels and forces of the universe, don't make me do something about this. I don't want to be an expert in phone addiction. I just want to be a novelist. But the more I lived my life and the more I saw people struggling and everywhere I looked at Julie Hilsen (11:38) you Right? 50) Honestly, I think this problem is worse in America than it is in other countries. I saw stressed out moms on their phones and I saw stressed out moms handing devices to babies and toddlers to keep them busy so that the moms could eat dinner or look at their own phones. And I just thought, I have got to help. I've got to try to help people because we're all in this predicament where We have this device that's now so integral to modern life. You can't go to the store without your phone as your wallet. You can't get anywhere because we navigate with our phones. So phones are really integral to our lives, but you don't have to be addicted to social media or mobile games. You just don't. So I want to share this message with people. And that is why I'm here. And thank you so much, Julie, for giving me this moment to speak to your audience and to share this story. to try to connect and help people.

Julie Hilsen (12:

52) well, I appreciate you generously sharing your angst because it takes a lot and you are a perfect person to share it because your job depended on you being sovereign of your thoughts and of your time. And I know I'm not a big writer, but I wrote this book and it takes a lot of focus.

It really does. ⁓ Emmy (13:

06) ⁓ what a great word to use. that's hold it up so we can see the coverings better life ⁓ gosh I can't wait to buy that book and dig in that looks ⁓ please that was great no that's me in the stage and I'll send you one Julie Hilsen (13:18) Life of love. Well, I'll send one to you. Maybe not when you're in Europe. I'll send it to you when you get back to the States. You don't need something heavy to come back in your luggage either. I'll send you a copy. But yeah, I mean I know I had to sit my butt down and I had a time and it's like you've if you don't focus and have that time, it's just gone. And there's no one to tell you that you got to get back on it. You have to really it's a lot of self-discipline. So it makes it very poignant that Emmy(13:48) He is gone. Yeah. And there's nothing that will slurp up your time faster than a phone. I mean you open Instagram and two hours later, and it doesn't feel like you've spent time on it, but you have. That's two hours that phone just drank up. Yeah.

Julie Hilsen (14:

02) Mm-hmm. And we talk about boundaries with other people, but boundaries with ourselves and our time was what I wanted to explore with you on this because one, it's identification. What are signs from your research? What are signs that, yeah, this is out of hand, besides yourself saying, gosh, I spent way too much time? The little angel on your shoulder does tell you, boy, that was a of a waste of time there. Yeah, but what are some red flags that people can? Emmy (14:12) Hmm Great. Mm-hmm. Yeah. 39) can look at so we can just remind them.

Emmy (14:

40) Well, yes, I love that idea. You know, there are some great checklists about phone addiction there are some clinical addiction checklists that you can use, but here are some signs that you can use in your life. The first one is it's really easy. Are people in your life complaining that you're on your phone too much? So. RPR is your family members or your co-workers is anybody sort of looking at you and shooting you the stank eye that you're on your phone too much. That's a really easy one. If they are, you're on your phone too much.

Julie Hilsen (15:04) you Emmy (15:

17) You know, keeping track of your screen time is really helpful. A lot of people, some people don't know that your phone can tell you exactly how much time you're spending on certain apps. So the average American spends about four hours a day on their phone. Now, some of that time is for things you need, like navigating or... That's not really counting with listening to music or driving somewhere. That's counting time you're spending on messages and certainly games and apps that you use that are helpful, as well as apps you use that are wasting your time. So paying attention to your screen time. Are you over four hours a day? Are you at six or eight or 10 hours a day? I mean that's a really helpful sign. I think... It would be great to aim for under three hours a day. I think that would be great. Let's see. There are some other signs that you are spending too much time on your phone, but they're a little harder. They're a little trickier because they, think that we have gotten so accustomed to this kind of phone burnout that we think they're normal. But things like having a reduced tension span, that's one. So if you find that you can't really pay attention to things the way you used to, if you pick up a book and you used to be able to read for an hour at a time but now after 15 minutes you're checking your phone, that's a sign. If you find, if you have difficulty concentrating or coming up with creative ideas but you used to be a really creative person, if your sleep is fractured but you used to sleep really well, those are all things that Julie Hilsen (16:32) Hmm.

Emmy (16:

57) are indicative that you're spending too much time on your phone. And there's lots of work, but that's just a handful to start with.

Julie Hilsen (17:

00) Wow. Yeah. Yeah, I struggle with it. There's so many uses for my phone. It's like a utility knife. It's like I use it to wake up in the morning. I use it to keep myself running on time. I set reminders. That day I'm like, what am I missing? What am I supposed to be doing next? Emmy(17:10) No. 23) And then you go on it to check the weather, but then you get a pop-up from Instagram that somebody posted a vacation picture. And then you're like, oh, and so it's so easy to, they say, the squirrel moments. I struggle with it non-digitally, so the squirrel moments on my phone is like, I do relate to that feeling of fuzziness. What am I even thinking? What did I even come on my phone for?

Emmy (17:

37) Mm-hmm. Yeah. Mm-hmm.

Julie Hilsen (17:

52) And, you know, to have that space where you're like, okay, this is a, this is a tool. This is I'm not a slave to this.

Emmy (18:

00) Yeah, well, I've got a couple things to say about what you just said. One is that those notifications are really one of the most subversive tools that your phone, that apps have to try to get you to look at them. So if you stop thinking of your phone as your friend, that's really step one. Your phone is not your friend. Your phone is a little machine. Most apps on it are designed Julie Hilsen(18:03) Yeah. 27) to use up your attention and that's how they make money. So your phone, it's like, we think of it like you said, like a calculator, like a utility knife, it's so helpful and useful and it is, it truly, truly is. And then the notification from Instagram comes and that is an advertisement designed to get you to come to Instagram so they can sell your eyeballs to advertisers.

Julie Hilsen (18:

53) Mm-hmm.

Emmy (18:

53) So when you make that little shift, that's really helpful. And if we're talking about boundaries, I have a tip for your audience, which is get really strict with your notifications. Only allow notifications that are helping you stay on time. And... I would, I go so far as to say remove, really remove all notifications because if you're like most people, I mean not, not the ones to keep you on time, your alarms totally valid. If you need a ping that's like, Hey, you're recording a podcast in 10 minutes. You need that on there, but you don't need the, you never need an Instagram notification. And, you know, you don't need any notifications from news agencies or Julie Hilsen (19:18) Mm-hmm. Okay.

Emmy (19:

40) Maybe you need them from your bank telling you that you've cashed a check, that's great. But most notifications can be turned off. And if you do that, the phone stops calling your attention so much and it helps you use it as a tool instead of getting sucked in to that squirrel mind. I think most people, when they pick up their phone, they check about five apps. They pick it up and they check messages, Gmail. I pick it up, I check messages, Gmail, WhatsApp. And then I sort of look at my phone and go, don't I have anything else I can check? But I've made my phone really boring because of these boundaries that I've set for myself. So I'm like, there's nothing else to look at, so I have to put my phone down. So there are some tips just off the cuff that might be helpful.

Julie Hilsen (20:

12) Yeah. It'd be nice if the companies paid us for having the apps. So if they're making money off of our eyeballs, why can't we have some system to say, well, you're going to pay for half of my phone if I'm going to have your apps on my phone. I would love that kind of situation. Let's bring an abundance around this.

Emmy (20:

43) I'm so excited. love that idea. Let's change our expectations of what the, know, Instagram should be paying you for sure. Yeah, it should pay for your, I love that idea.

Julie Hilsen (20:

54) Mm-hmm. Yeah. Let's hold space for that. Thank you, Abundance. So I have to ask you, and ever since I went on your website, I've been, I see this, and I want to know if anyone else has the same, because it's energetic for me. Your logo with your tiger. How did you come up with that? I want to hear the backstory of that, and then I'm going to tell you how it hits me and how it helps me.

Emmy (21:

00) you The I'm so glad you're mentioning the tiger. My daughter, who's 22 named the tiger kitty. So his name is kitty. He is a boy to me. I came up with the tiger. Part of what's been really fun actually in doing this business. The business is called fight your phone. And so that's the website you've gone to is fight your phone.com. And I am a novelist, as I said, an actor, former actor, but I love graphic design. I love writing. I love writing emails. So it's been a fun part of this project that I get to imagine the brand and what I want to say. so I did the design. I found the tiger. He's the work of a wonderful Russian artist whose name I cannot pronounce. I am sad to say I need to I need to learn how to pronounce her last name. She, she sold the tiger and a bunch of other tigers on a website called creative marketplace, where you can buy graphic design elements. And then I took the tiger and I found this picture of a 1980s cell phone, that big brick like phone that was like this. had to like hold it with both hands. It was so big. And I, and I put them together.

Julie Hilsen (22:

41) Yeah, they used to come with a suitcase. Those are so fun.

Emmy (22:

49) And you know, what often happens in creativity, it's when you put ideas together or images together that they become playful and powerful. So I took this wonderful Russian artists tiger and put it with this clunky eighties phone. And the tiger already had so much attitude and so much. He's like so sassy and funny. But then I got to make it in my imagination even funnier by putting in these phones. And then I also enjoyed drawing these pencil scratch marks. as if like the tiger had ripped it apart with his claws. so at first I was trying to create imagery that was very romantic actually. And it was, the name of it was always Fight Your Phone, but it was like, know, children with balloons and parks and bicycles. like, remember, I was trying to trigger a nostalgia for the time before we had phones. But. I do want people to come at this work with a really playful attitude. So I had fun trying to make the tiger, trying to make like visual jokes that I found funny. So tell me, what do you like about Kitty? Julie Hilsen (23:52) Mm-hmm. Yeah, Kitty, well Kitty is really funny. And then also, I found myself when I was going toward like wasting time, like the worst one is like Facebook or something. Like they know the post to send me that I'm like, that's just wrong and I want to say something. And I don't say anything. I'll type up a response and then delete it. Cause it's like, you know, I just have to get it off my chest.

And I try to... Emmy (24:

04) Yeah. of the Midwest.

Julie Hilsen (24:

25) I try to take energy that doesn't serve humanity and transmute it for a higher purpose. And so sometimes I go in there and I sort of, but I wait, it's a lot of time and I have to be, know, so I've actually pictured Kitty in my mind and like, I'm done. I've got the fierceness. Like I am going to be a tiger against this oppression, the slavery.

Like it becomes slavery. ⁓ Emmy (24:

31) I love that. Yes. Yes. Yes, yes.

Julie Hilsen (24:

54) And so, yeah, he's been like my icon to say, okay, that's enough, and the power and the levity of him. So thank you for that image. And I hope people can go on there and just, Emmy , if nothing else, read what you have to say, sign up for the one hour phone detox information, ⁓ because just think of the hours that you'll save.

Emmy (25:

14) Yes. Yes.

Julie Hilsen (25:

21) not being a slave to something that's just lining someone else, some corporation's pocket. We all need to make money, but come on, like I said, give the people something back.

Emmy (25:

27) my gosh, yes. Yeah. Well, I think what's, what's interesting too, is that People turn to their phones, they turn to apps like Instagram and gaming apps and Facebook and TikTok because they feel good when you first open them up. You get a burst of dopamine and you're like, so it's like, I'm so stressed. I'm just, I'm upset. I just wanna look at my phone and veg out for a minute. Emmy , how many times have you heard your kids say that? How many times have we all fought that to ourselves? Like, I just need a break. I'm gonna look at my phone. But what we don't realize is that that dopamine burst that you get, it's not very long lasting. So then your brain wants more and more. So you keep scrolling this content, looking for another burst, another burst to make you feel good again. But the truth is that if you walked around the block, you would actually feel good. If you just got up and did 10, you know, push ups, I can't do 10 push ups, but if you could, and you did them, you'd feel great. Like the things that you used to do when you were a child, that gave you joy and pleasure are much better at restoring the balance of your brain. So the phone is sort of tricking us into thinking that it's going to make us feel better when it's actually just going to take from you. It's just taking from you. Yeah.

Julie Hilsen (26:

54) It's just taking, yep. Emmy (26:57) and gosh. 57) I know, I was just thinking like have your tiger do a Tai Chi move.

Emmy (27:

02) Yeah, love it. It's so fun. ⁓ Julie Hilsen (27:03) kitty. Meow. It's so good. you know, in all the, no shame to this because, you know, things are difficult and you can, if you get some dopamine, you know, it's like, there's no judgment to this, but know that movement and, you know, space and time and being out in fresh air gives you such a more healthy effect than a quick dopamine hit from an addictive device. 16) Hmm. Yeah. ⁓ Julie Hilsen(27:39) They know what they're doing. These apps are created knowing the way the brain works. And it's a cycle that is not easy to break. So I appreciate you offering resource and hope. This isn't something you have to live with. Yeah. 54) Yes, and I want to be really clear about something because I have a bunch of tips that I can give you I can give you ten tips that Will help that will help limit the time on your phone little things you can do to make little adjustments but those tips don't really get into that shame that you're talking about and I think that there's a lot of shame around phone use I think people feel like I know better than this. know. Like when I say, hey, you you're wasting your time. Check your screen time. Are you spending more than four hours on your phone a day? I can imagine your viewer going, yeah, I am. I know. I know it's bad. Stop telling me it's bad for me. And stop giving me little tips because my willpower to stand up to this device is depleted. I don't have any more willpower, right? And those tips all rely on willpower.

Julie Hilsen (28:

45) Mm-hmm. Right. Yeah.

Emmy (28:

50) So that is why this method that I've created is different. It's different from all of these tips. The New York Times had an article recently about tips. It was literally called like tips to spend less time on your phone. And because I'm working in this area, like 20 people sent it to me on email, by text. They're like, have you seen this? Have you seen this? I'm like, yeah, I know about the tips. The tips aren't helping us. So what you really need is a big transformational change. And you don't have to put down your phone forever. You still get to use your phone as a tool. But what I'm teaching people is a way to identify the apps that you're addicted to and then put a hard seal on them for 30 days.

Julie Hilsen (29:

17) Mm.

Emmy (29:

42) So you mentioned my program, The One Hour Phone Fight, and The One Hour Phone Fight is a master class that I teach. It will not surprise you if I say that it is one hour long, because it's in the name. In that one hour, I lay forward how to identify the apps that you're addicted to. how to put a hard seal on them so that you will not look at them for 30 days, how to get a team behind you so that you have the support you need to do this, and then ways to... schedule yourself for fun and for activities that regenerate your brain and bring your brain back together that feel amazing. And I give a bunch of resources for how to do this. And that is one hour long. And then if students want to, if they want more support, I offer something called the five week phone fight, which is an online course that lays out the same program. still the same one month abstinence period, but it takes you through it day by day and it holds your hand and it's really lovely. It's filled with uplifting messages and fun exercises. And at the end of it, what's great is that Julie Hilsen (30:43) Mm-hmm.

Emmy (30:

57) you feel so much better because your brain is working better. You've given yourself back the way to really find joy. You've examined, you know, what happens when you put your phone down is often you discover that there's something that you're trying to run from, something that hurts you. Now you're escaping. So when you put it down, you've come face to face with that.

Julie Hilsen (31:14) It's escapism, Emmy (31:

21) pain or anxiety or emotion, whatever it is that's there that you've been trying to run from. But when you face it and get tools and get help to face it, it's really becomes manageable, is what I found and what my students are reporting back. So then at the end of this month of detox that you've done, this month long abstinence period just from the apps that you identified, You feel so much better that going back to them, it's really not that appealing.⁓ now it's now been more than a year after I did analog April, the first five week phone fight, and I've not played a single game. I still don't look at games and I, I use social media now as a creator in a very intentional way. So I go on it about five minutes a week.

Julie Hilsen (31:

50) Mm-hmm.

Emmy (32:

12) I go on, I post something, I get off. don't scroll. don't consume it at all. And I wouldn't want to. I don't want to. So if you are willing and ready to transform and really make a break from your phone, you see these huge, huge dividends. And if you're not ready, I got lots of tips. still think, you know, every hour that you can stay off your phone is an hour that you're giving your brain. And those tips are, they work. great. Tips are great. But lasting transformational change is, that is magic really. Julie Hilsen (32:48) Mm-hmm. Yeah, so I just have to ask you because what comes up to me is like Used to be you got the newspaper and you knew I mean I'm just gonna get a little morbid like I wouldn't know that somebody has passed away Unless I see it on my Facebook feed or someone calls me so it's like that's just one example, but like the sense of community that Emmy (32:59) Yes.

Mm. Julie Hilsen (33:

13) you know what's going on in your friends' lives. can call them and say, hey, I saw your post. Are you OK?⁓ How do you replace that sense of community that's been mostly, I mean for my generation, it's mostly Facebook. It's not so much on Instagram. But that sense of community and connection on Facebook that you know what's going on in people's, like people you went to college with or people from your hometown. Not everyone lives in the same hometown anymore. Emmy (33:19) Mm-hmm.

Julie Hilsen (33:

39) How do you replace that sense of community? And can you give any insight into that? Because I think that's what some people are looking for this connection. And is it real? Is it real on Facebook? I want to explore that too. But yeah, I wouldn't have known my friend's father passed away unless I had seen her posted on Facebook. So how do we navigate that and feel connected?

Emmy (34:

01) That is such a great question, Julie. And I think that is a question that a lot of people who use Facebook for nurturing others, for connection, that they have. It's a sincere concern and I really understand it. The short answer, I the practical answer is that you say to your friends and you post on Facebook, beloved friends, I am not gonna be on Facebook much anymore.

Julie Hilsen (34:

16) Mm-hmm.

Emmy (34:

29) I've come to realize it has too big a role in my life. This doesn't mean that I don't want to connect with you, that I don't want to hear about what's going on in your life. I just don't want to get this from Facebook anymore. So I'm going to be reaching out to you more. And if something happens or if something happens to a friend of ours that you think I want to know about, would you please text me? Would you please give me ring?

Yeah, because you're Julie Hilsen (34:

51) I love that. Yeah.

Emmy (34:

56) You're right that Facebook is really an illusion of connection. It scratches the itch in the part of the brain that says, I wanna know about everyone and I wanna give love to people. So you think it kind of tricks part of your brain into going, I've done so, I've given my love to someone. But then if you call them, Julie Hilsen(35:00) Mm-hmm.

Emmy (35:

14) That is, you you call them and they burst into tears and they say, my gosh, thank you so much for calling. I've really been struggling. You know, my father passed away and I'm so sad. I'm so alone. Thank you so much for calling. And that.

Julie Hilsen (35:15) you Emmy (35:

33) is the real connection. And in fact saying, darling, my heart is with you. Your father was such a wonderful soul. It does help a tiny bit, but nothing near. Julie Hilsen (35:35) Mm.

Emmy (35:

44) the real connection of reaching out. So that is the practical solution to that. But what's the big problem is that now as a society, we're relying on Facebook to do emotional labor for us and to connect us and to be our, it's sort of like the town crier that tells you what's going on in your town. So that is a bigger problem because we've stopped. Julie Hilsen (36:02) Okay.

Emmy (36:

07) talking to each other the way we used to. I I remember my mother telling stories about my grandmother who would spend at least an hour on the phone every afternoon calling her friends to say, how are you? What happened today? And I remember as a teenager, you and me are Gen X. Emmy , we talked on the phone for like... Julie Hilsen (36:21) Yeah.

⁓ Emmy (36:

27) Literally six hours. You just talk to friend and talk and we're social animals. We need society. But Facebook is serving up a really Julie Hilsen (36:29) yeah.

Emmy (36:

36) a distorted kind of society now, especially these days with the amount of truthiness that's on there and the amount of disinformation that's on there. So you can't trust any of those posts and it's not really your friends that you're talking to. I think there are ways to, once you stop relying on Facebook for connection with friends and family, your life actually gets a lot richer. That's the end.

Julie Hilsen (37:

01) And I love that because how many times have you picked up the phone and the person's like, I was just thinking about you. That happens all the time. So when you get quiet, your intuition can tell you who you need to reach out to, like the energetics of it.

Emmy (37:

10) Well, the I think that's really, really smart. That's really smart. And the other part is, you know, if we go back to thinking about what life was like 50 years ago or 80 years ago for human beings before phones, before cell phones and smartphones certainly started disrupting the way we communicate, you don't really need to know everything.

Julie Hilsen (37:

18) Mm-hmm.

Emmy (37:

36) We don't need to know the news to this level of detail. We don't need to know, you know, if you didn't know that your friend's father had passed away and then you saw her in two years from now and you said, how's your dad? How are your mom and dad? said, honey, my dad passed away two years ago. You could still have that moment of connection then at a time that is determined by nature that just Look, you don't need to know right now on many things. Granted, there are exceptions to this, of course. But I think that once you start questioning all of your assumptions about social media, it starts to become clear that the animal part of your brain really wants it. It wants it. It wants the gossip, too. Julie Hilsen (38:18) Mm-hmm. Okay.

Emmy (38:

27) I know that you think a lot about dark motivation, dark forces, and turning those intentions into light, turning them into goodness. I think cell phone behaviors are driven by a lot of darkness that, or there's a lot of darkness behind them, the way they're manipulating us into. being audiences and ads, we're consuming so many ads for products. All of that feels really sticky and gross to me.

Julie Hilsen (38:

55) Mm-hmm. I love that. And what about, okay, so the time you'd spend on Facebook, maybe you just get in prayer and you shower the people you love with blessings and love. And God, please send your love and the Holy Spirit's support to anyone who's struggling. I might not know who they are, but get quiet and say, anyone who's associated with you who needs this, I'm praying for you. Like, maybe it's a blanket prayer over all your community. How lovely is that and empowering. Emmy(39:06) Yeah. I could not agree more. I could not agree more. I think in general with social media, just get on and do what you need to do and get off. So don't consume. So if you wanna go on to check everyone, to say happy birthday and to say, Maria, I see you're in trouble. I love you. I'm sending you my love and get off, great, perfect. That should take you five minutes, maybe 10 minutes. So I'm all for that.

Julie Hilsen (39:

49) love it. Thank you, thank you. This has been so enlightening and fun and I just have enjoyed. know it's just been a great, great connection. Emmy (39:56) I love it. Yes. Thank you so much, Julie. Your big heart is just shining through this podcast. And I know that everyone who watches this is going to feel touched by how much of yourself you're sharing. Thank you. Thank you for sharing. Julie Hilsen (40:10) and thank you for sharing. It takes a community and you are part of it, dear sister. Yes. Thank you.

Emmy (40:

14) Thank you, Julie. Thank you. And thanks to everyone who's watching today.