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Brigid Bergin: This is All Of It. I'm Brigid Bergin, filling in for Allison Stewart. It's summer, the sun is shining, and on today's show, we're talking about the many things to do in and around New York, but in order to get out and do stuff, you have to stop doom-scrolling and spend some time away from the screen. A study last year by the app analytics firm App Annie reported that Americans spent as many as four hours a day on their phones in 2021. With summer activities in mind, to talk about our tech habits, I'm joined by Christopher Zara, senior editor from Fast Company. Christopher, welcome to All Of It.

Christopher Zara: Hi, thank you for having me on.

Brigid Bergin: And listeners, we want to hear from you. How do you disconnect from your phone and computer? What habits, tricks or apps have helped you minimize that screen time? How do you feel about the amount of time you spend online? Are you comfortable with it? Do you feel like it's too much? Call in to share your experience. Any tips that could help other people or people that they know limit their screen time? 212-433-9692. That's 212-433-WNYC. You can also text that number. Again, it's 212-433-9692. Or send us a message via social media @AllOfItWNYC. Chris, you wrote last month about a Harris poll which asked people to respond to the prompt, "I wish I could go back in time before everyone was plugged in."

Christopher Zara: Yes, that's correct.

Brigid Bergin: A majority of people, 77% overall agreed with that statement. With the mind this is just one poll and a very specific prompt, what was your overall take away from that result? Were you surprised?

Christopher Zara: I was surprised. That's why I wrote about it. It seemed like an overwhelming majority of people really yearned to go back to an era before we were “plugged in”. Now, what I found since then, because I've gotten so much feedback from that story, is that the term plugged in is subject to interpretation. What was really fascinating was when people wrote me and it got onto Reddit and some other really nuanced message boards about what people meant by returning to an era before we were plugged in.

A lot of people seemed to land on being plugged in is okay, the Internet is okay, but they really didn't like the whole social media constant connectivity era that we're in now. It was sort of like, don't take my Google away from me, don't take my Reddit away from me, but I could live without the constant smartphone pinging in my pocket every five minutes. I thought that was really an interesting bit of nuance to that survey.

Brigid Bergin: What was also I thought interesting was that the age group that felt most inclined to want to unplug, that 35 to 54. That's a group that comes just before, maybe with a little overlap to a group that we consider the digital natives, before 1980. I'm curious, what does that say to you, that it's this group of people that might be nostalgic for this time before we were all overwhelmed by these smartphones and social media?

Christopher Zara: Yes, a few things. One interesting thing was the older people in the survey, the Baby Boomers, didn't seem to feel this yearning as quite as strongly as the people in that mid-range that you just described, people who were like older Millennials and Generation X. I'm Gen X. My early life up until my mid-20s was pretty much a life of no Internet. I think I first got on email when I was in my mid-20s, so I can clearly remember both eras. I remember not having it, and I remember having it, and I remember all the progression. People in my age range definitely have a lot of strong feelings about this I think because we're so firmly rooted. Our lives are so firmly rooted in both eras. I think that that was probably reflected in that poll to some extent, that people who could remember the early internet or the pre-internet era had a sort of nostalgia for it.

Brigid Bergin: I wonder also, when I read that part of the story, I couldn't help but think of my parents who are Boomers who seem to love Facebook. It provides a source of connection that maybe those of us who are dealing with other things in our lives, we don't yearn for in the same way. I wonder if it drilled into, as you talked about the description of plugged in, did it drill into the ways people are plugged in, the ways people are using social media in different age groups?

Christopher Zara: It did a little bit. The survey talked a lot about the way different people use technology. I think in the case of the Baby Boomer generation, there is a lot of technology-- like you mentioned Facebook. There's a lot of technology use for the purpose of connecting with grandkids, connecting with family members, which is really, I think, probably its originally intended purpose and probably one of the best examples of what social media can be in a good way. That might be why the Baby Boomers in this particular poll seemed less eager to jump back in time to an earlier era.

But to answer your question, the second part of your question, the younger people in the poll also felt a strong desire to go back to a time when they couldn't even remember. It's not the first poll that shows Gen Z, the younger consumers are really yearning to put down their phones, and really they're the ones feeling the connectivity the most. I think it's probably because their entire lives have been shaped around it to some extent.

Brigid Bergin: Listeners, we want to hear from you. How do you disconnect from your phone and your computer? Do you have any habits or tricks that have helped you minimize screen time? We'd love to hear your suggestions at 212-433-9692. That's 212-433-WNYC. Maybe you have a question about how you might go about setting some limits for yourself. We will do our best to offer suggestions and maybe we can do some crowdsourcing for folks about how others go about dealing with it, especially in the summer, so you can get out and do all the great stuff we were just talking about in Queens and in other places. Let's talk a little bit more about how people are using their phones and staying connected. Is it all social media or is it shopping? What did the survey tell us about how people are using it?

Christopher Zara: Well, we do a lot of reporting on technology at Fast Company. It's one of our major areas of topic coverage. I think there's been a huge shift now since the pandemic with what people are using technology for. Some of those shifts are permanent or seem to be semi or quasi-permanent, which is working from home is a big one. A lot more people now work from home three days a week. There's benefits to working from home, but the downside is you're constantly connected to work.

We have apps like Slack that allow us to basically have our entire workplace in our pocket. This creates all kinds of work-life balance issues. I feel them myself as someone who works in the news business, that I feel the pressure to be on all the time even when my shift is over. I think a lot of people probably feel this shift and so when we're talking about ways to put the phone down, it's not all because social media is sucking us into a vortex. A lot of it has to do with real workplace demands. Those demands are a lot blurrier now that we're in this world where people are working from home a good part of their week.

Brigid Bergin: Let's go to Bret in Brooklyn. Bret, thanks for calling All Of It.

Bret: Hi, thank you for having me. Hi, Chris, how are you doing?

Christopher Zara: Hey, Bret.

Bret: Hi, good talk to you. One way that I keep addictive apps at bay is to keep them on an older iPhone rather than my newest iPhone. While that might seem creepy, I guess, to some potential dates that I have like a second phone, but it really keeps it at arm's length and it's not an addictive thing in my life and that works for me. Just figured I'd mention that.

Brigid Bergin: I think Bret, that's a great suggestion. Chris, what do you think?

Christopher Zara: Yes, there's actually some good survey data now showing that a lot of younger consumers and tech users are not necessarily ditching their iPhones, but using some of these older flip phones. Part of it's nostalgia maybe, but part of it is there is a benefit and there's an appeal to having a phone that's not connected to the internet all day.

Brigid Bergin: Let's go to Rachel in Ridgewood. Rachel, thanks for calling All Of It.

Rachel: Hi. Yes, so this really sparked my interest because a couple of years ago, Instagram came out with a mute option for users. I ended up muting, I want to say 80% to 90% of the people that I follow on Instagram, which made it really boring. That- -quartered, maybe even eighthed my usage of Instagram.

Christopher Zara: That's interesting. You mute, but you are still technically connected to them on the network, but you just don't see their posts?

Rachel: Exactly and people don't post on their main feeds so much these days. There are times where I get on and there's not a single post from anyone that I haven't muted.

Christopher Zara: That's a good tip. Make it boring enough and we'll stop going to the app, right?

Brigid Bergin: Rachel, thank you so much for that suggestion. Let's go to Joan in Manhattan. Joan, welcome to All Of It.

Joan: Thank you very much. Yes, I'm a couple of years beyond Baby Boomers, but I have my own art and design business, and I joined Instagram about five years ago. I have found that I can tell Instagram I don't want to be on it for more than 20 minutes. Besides my business, I find it is rather addictive. Some of the reels are wonderful that come through and so I've told them that I'm not interested in being on for more than 20 minutes at a time and more than an hour a day.

They send me a message, “It's time, the 20 minutes are up and it's time for you to take a break.” I find that helpful. Sometimes I don't want to take a break, so sometimes I continue with it for another five minutes, but it's always a very good reminder because it can tend to be even for someone at my age rather addictive. I think that it's a good thing to do especially for kids who could spend a couple of hours on social media.

Brigid Bergin: Absolutely. Joan, those are great, great suggestions, and they’re similar to a text that we received, perhaps slightly gentler, but the suggestion we received over text was to limit your phone use, it's so easy, just go out and leave your phone at home, which is one way to disconnect. I think, Chris, one of the things that we're hearing and this is there is some differences from generation to generation in terms of how they interact with these technologies and how they make them a part of their lives. From your perspective reporting on this, do you see some of these changes in terms of how people use these technologies differently by generation?

Christopher Zara: I do. I think that there is just a lot of good survey data around this. I also would say to counter that somewhat is when you just observe people in a public setting, a public forum, the subway is a great example of this. Pretty much everyone is glued to their phones on a subway. It doesn't matter the age group of the person. Really, it doesn't matter anymore. You can see older people, you see younger people on their phones. You go out to a restaurant you'll see entire families sitting around on their phones. Often the kids will each have a phone and the parents will have phones. There might be even a grandparent at the table with a phone.

I do think it's a cross-generational issue in that respect. I think probably the generational differences maybe come about with the types of things that people are using on their phones. I certainly would expect if I were to talk to someone who's 20, 25 years younger than me, I'm Gen X, if I were to talk to a Gen Z person, I’d bet that they have a lot of apps that they use that I have never heard of and are probably that way for a reason because they want the older people off the apps.

Brigid Bergin: Let's talk quickly. Earlier this month you wrote about Threads, Meta, Instagram's new Twitter competitor, and how if you sign up for an account, you can only delete it by also deleting your Instagram account. Is that still the case?

Christopher Zara: Yes, I believe so, yes. That was a bit of a surprise to people. It felt like a bait and switch. When you sign up for Threads, it's tied to your Instagram account. I believe Meta, the parent company of Facebook and Instagram has said that they're going to address that and fix it at some point, but as of right now, you're stuck with it. You can deactivate the Threads account and essentially keep it quiet and invisible, but the data will still exist.

Brigid Bergin: Does that raise any questions for you when we think about how the interconnectedness of some of these platforms and companies, where is that leading us in terms of social media? Is it going to change our tech habits if you have to make a choice like either have threads or delete an account and it deletes all your other platform accounts?

Christopher Zara: Yes, I think so. I think it's going to change the way we look at our phones in terms of like-- There's really an order preference here. With Threads, it's a lot like Twitter. If you're using both of them, now you're just toggling back and forth. I think there's a wait-and-see approach here to see which-- We've all seen that Elon Musk is doing a lot of things to Twitter. Even just this week they changed the branding to X, so it's not even technically Twitter anymore.

For months and months, there's been these upstart platforms that have tried to replace what Twitter was able to create and that hasn't really happened yet. I think with Threads it's going to be another situation where it'll be either the new Twitter or it will probably fade from our collective consciousness pretty quickly.

Brigid Bergin: Let's go to John-Mark in Manhattan. Welcome to WNYC. Thanks for calling All Of It.

John-Mark: Thanks, enjoying the discussion. Just wanted to add something briefly. My friend and I recently went back to old-fashioned alarm clocks and made a commitment to keep the phone out of reach when we're in the bed, which has been terrific because we used to refer to, and I just want to share this because I think it's an appropriate description. We used to refer to waking up in the night unable to sleep and then grabbing the Instagram feed and scrolling through the reels as climbing the waterfall. You keep reaching up, you pull down, but you get absolutely nowhere.

Brigid Bergin: Oh, John-Mark, thank you so much for that call and suggestion. I think that's something that we hear frequently, keeping your phone as far from your bed as possible. In our last minute or so, any suggestions that you have, Christopher, how to disconnect things that you're doing to try to keep technology within boundaries in your life?

Christopher Zara: I keep almost all my notifications turned off. The first thing I do when I sign up to an app is turn off any notification and make sure they're not going to start emailing me and any other-- those little tiny distractions that are not essential to the core experience. I turn that stuff off because distraction is really what I think is the biggest issue here.

Brigid Bergin: I 100% agree. In our home, we do not allow cell phones anywhere near tables when we're eating.

Christopher Zara: Same with us. Yes, we have phones down at dinnertime. My wife and I have that rule, yes.

Brigid Bergin: Thank you so much. We have been talking about how to unplug so you can do more stuff. I have been speaking with Christopher Zara, he's senior editor at Fast Company. Thank you so much for joining me. This has been a lot of fun.

Christopher Zara: Thanks for having me on.

Brigid Bergin: Coming up, one way to enjoy summer in the city is the abundance of fun day trips in our area, whether on Long Island, or Upstate New York, or all over New Jersey. We're going to be joined by Lonely Planet Executive Editor, Nitya Chambers to go through some of her favorite day trips and take your calls.

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