A dive into how screens impact our daily lives.
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Welcome back to another episode of Inner Warmup, where your inner work begins. My name is Taylor Elyse Morrison, founder of Inner Workout. And you as always are our expert guest, thank you so much for being here today. For today's check in, just to get us set up before we kick things off, I want to encourage you just to take a few seconds to look up and look around, really take in the surroundings of wherever you're at. Right now I am looking outside of a window, I'm looking at the branches of this tree. And like the greens are so vivid, and I'm noticing the different shades of green that exists between the tree that's right in front of me versus the tree that's a little off to the side. So in a few seconds, I was able to see my surroundings in a new way. Curious to see or hear what comes up for you. If you want to share your observation, feel free to share it Inner Workout's community. But today we're here to answer the question, to discuss what's your relationship to screens?
It's kind of a loaded question, right? 2020 I feel like was the year of screens. Like screens, we already felt like we were on our screens too much. And then 2020 was like, Oh, just you wait, we can push it a little bit further. We had to use screens, many of us for working, being on zoom and video conferencing all the time. And then I don't know about you, but you're scrolling on Instagram, or whatever your app of choice is. And then you're watching TV and Netflix and all of those different things. Screens were all over the place. And there was so much happening in the world news wise that I found myself doing this thing that's also got really popular in 2020, called doom scrolling, where you're just looking and seeing all the bad news over and over and over. And it's not the best thing to do for yourself. But it also is highly addictive speaking from experience. So all that to be said, we kind of have this collective reckoning with screens in 2020. And to put some data behind that, we'll link to an article in the show notes. But apparently, Americans are spending a little over 17 hours looking at some type of screen, whether that's your computer, or your phone, or your TV, to extrapolate that over the course of the year -That's over 6000 hours, that you're spending on a screen, that we're spending on screens. That is wild and also makes a lot of sense.
I don't know if you have a phone that tells you screen time but my phone is also connected to my computer. So it's not just telling my phone screen time, which is relatively low, especially with some changes that I've made. But on my laptop, I'm on my laptop a lot, I work on my laptop, I play on my laptop. My relationship to screens, let's just say that it's complicated. And in exploring this relationship to screens, that's how Inner Workout's newest product came out. If you haven't heard of it, it's Instead and it's this card deck for scrolling less. The whole genesis of Instead was that I kept hearing from people that they didn't have time for self care. And I'd felt that too. And also, I was having conversations with my friends who were like, but I'm scrolling on Instagram so much. And I don't even feel good when I scroll on Instagram or Twitter or insert whatever your thing is...Reddit, I don't know, some secret message board for people who are super fans of whatever you're into.
We're scrolling a lot, we have time to scroll, but we don't have time for ourselves. And so my thought was, and this is before I knew the statistic, but my thought was what if we could take some of those 17 hours, or over 6000 hours over the course of a year and invest those in micro moments of self care instead. And as I was developing this deck and thinking about the concept, I had to do a lot of work personally on my relationship to screens. I realized I didn't love how I was relating, especially to Instagram. I felt like I was looking at it all the time, doing the things they want me to do, looking at it all the time. Even if I wasn't posting I wanted to know do I have a new notification? Did this happen? Did that happen? Did someone post something new? Is there a new thing like reels or functionality of the app that I have to learn how to do? And I just realized, like, what is this getting me? Not really anything. So I put some pretty, I keep wanting to say strict, but the word is supportive. I've put some really supportive boundaries around Instagram in 2021 that have helped me a lot. I put some really supportive boundaries around email that have helped me a lot. And then the story doesn't end with me being like, I put these boundaries and everything's perfect. No, no, no, what happened was, I was doing really well, feeling really supported. And then we launched the Kickstarter for Instead. And ironically, this product that I had made to help me and others scroll less was what got me into not the greatest relationship with screens.Because Kickstarter, I'm wanting to see, are we going to hit our goal? And then once we hit our goal and I'm like, how much are we going to surpass it by? Can we hit this next milestone?
Then from there, this is a little bit of insider information, we're going to be launching some more products over the course of the year. And I'm working with suppliers across time zones, both in the US and internationally. And so I found it really easy to start like well, let me just sneak a peek on my email because that person who's in a different timezone might have gotten back to me. And so right now, I actually don't feel like I have the healthiest relationships to my screens. When I think about where I was in, let's say January, February versus where I am now. I feel like I've taken some steps backwards. And I think that's really important to share. Because in the wellness space, it's so easy for people to speak from their place of okay, well, I have gotten to the mountaintop, I've reached this state of being. And now I'm just gonna look down at everyone else, and just pretend that I'm better than you, essentially. And I've been to the mountaintop some version of it, it was incredible. And right now I'm back in the valley, figuring out how I can better build better relationships. For me right now it's especially around email. How can I refine boundaries?
And I've already created the boundaries that are supportive for me, it's just how can I believe at a root level that those things are supportive, and not cross my own boundaries? Because essentially, when I'm crossing my boundaries, I'm believing that they're not actually going to protect me or or support me in the way that I thought that they would. And that's not true. I felt the most present and in the moment when I was leaning into all of my boundaries around screens, including with email. So that's where I'm at. That's my relationship to screens. I've been kind of on one beautiful extreme. Now I'm headed back into some less healthy behavior. Now it's your time to reflect and to share.
Before I pose a question to you, I want to let you know that we're actually doing a workshop on this. So if you want to like really deep dive into setting your boundaries and exploring your relationships to screens, check in the show notes. I'd love to have you join us on June 8. Okay, but for now, my turn to interview you, to ask you the question, to give you some time to reflect what is your relationship to screens?
Thank you so much for taking the time to reflect and to share. If you want to continue the conversation I encourage you to come hang out in our free online community. Thank you for your time and for your expertise. Take care.
