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What Is Screen Time Doing to Our Brains? | Dr Mark Williams | F*ck, I’m Nearly 50! · F*ck, I’m Nearly 50!

• 0:00
  Dom Hind: Hi, I'm Dom Hind, and fuck, I'm nearly 50.
• 0:03
  Dom Hind: Actually, I'm 48 now, and lately I've been thinking a lot about my brain.
• 0:09
  Dom Hind: Not in a dramatic way, just in that quiet, creeping way where you start to question things.
• 0:15
  Dom Hind: Like, why can't I remember simple things sometimes?
• 0:19
  Dom Hind: Why do I walk into a room and forget why I'm actually there?
• 0:23
  Dom Hind: Why does it feel harder to focus than it used to?
• 0:27
  Dom Hind: And then I start wondering, is it just age, hormones, life, or is it something else?
• 0:34
  Dom Hind: Because if I'm honest, I spend a lot of time on screens.
• 0:38
  Dom Hind: My laptop, my desktop, my phone, scrolling, working, switching between things constantly.
• 0:45
  Dom Hind: And I've started to genuinely question is my screen time making me a bit stupid?
• 0:51
  Dom Hind: Or at least a little less sharp, more distracted, and more forgetful.
• 0:57
  Dom Hind: And then I look at my kids and I think, what is this doing to them?
• 1:01
  Dom Hind: Their attention, their memory, their ability to sit with boredom, to think deeply, to just be.
• 1:07
  Dom Hind: Because this isn't something we grew up with.
• 1:10
  Dom Hind: This is new, and we're all just kind of figuring it out as we go, trying to set the rules, trying to find the balance, trying to not feel like we're getting it completely wrong.
• 1:22
  Dom Hind: And then on the flip side, I've been experimenting with things like creatine, and I actually feel like it's helping with my brain fog and with giving me some clarity, which makes me think even more curiously about what's really going on with our brains, what's helping, what's hurting, and what actually matters.
• 1:41
  Dom Hind: And one of the things that really hit me reading Mark's book was the idea that it's not just about screens, it's about what screens are replacing that space, that stillness, the boredom, the real connection.
• 1:55
  Dom Hind: Because when you actually step back, you realize how little space we give ourselves or our kids to just be, to sit, to think, to feel something fully.
• 2:06
  Dom Hind: We fill every gap with noise, scrolling, stimulation, and maybe that's part of the problem.
• 2:12
  Dom Hind: Because I don't want to overreact, but I also don't want to ignore something that could have a real impact on us, which is why today's conversation feels so important.
• 2:24
  Dom Hind: So let's get into it.
• 2:29
  Dr Mark Williams: Yay!
• 2:40
  Dom Hind: Dr.
• 2:41
  Dom Hind: Mark Williams is a neuroscientist, author, and one of Australia's leading voices on the impact of technology and screens on the brain.
• 2:49
  Dom Hind: His research focuses on how digital devices affect attention, memory, learning, and behavior, particularly in children and adolescents.
• 2:59
  Dom Hind: He spent years studying how constant screen exposure is changing the way our brains function and what that means for how we think, focus, and connect.
• 3:11
  Dom Hind: His book explores this in a way that both is confronting and incredibly practical.
• 3:18
  Dom Hind: And I can say it's incredibly practical because I've just finished reading it.
• 3:21
  Dom Hind: And it helped helps parents and individuals understand what's actually happening beneath the surface and what we can do about it.
• 3:28
  Dom Hind: Because this isn't just about kids, it's about all of us, our focus, our memory, our relationships, our ability to be present.
• 3:38
  Dom Hind: And the reality is most of us know something feels off.
• 3:43
  Dom Hind: We just don't fully understand why or what to do about it.
• 3:49
  Dom Hind: Dr.
• 3:50
  Dom Hind: Mark Williams, welcome to Fuck I'm Nearly 50.
• 3:53
  Dom Hind: To start, if someone was to if you were to introduce yourself at a dinner party, how would you introduce yourself?
• 4:05
  Dr Mark Williams: That's an interesting question because my job now has changed a lot over the last 10 years or so.
• 4:10
  Dr Mark Williams: So I was a professor of cognitive neuroscience.
• 4:13
  Dr Mark Williams: I still am a professor officially.
• 4:15
  Dr Mark Williams: Um, but during COVID, I actually took voluntary redundancy to start working more in the public because I wanted to spend more time getting out the message about our brains and how our brains actually work.
• 4:27
  Dr Mark Williams: So now I'm an author.
• 4:29
  Dr Mark Williams: Um I'm still an honorary professor of cognitive neuroscience, which means I studied the brain, yeah.
• 4:34
  Dr Mark Williams: Neuroimaging techniques.
• 4:36
  Dr Mark Williams: And I'm a speaker, so I go to a lot of schools and organizations talking about the brain and how we use it or how we're not using it in a good way.
• 4:44
  Dr Mark Williams: Yes.
• 4:44
  Dr Mark Williams: Um so yeah, it's sort of complicated.
• 4:47
  Dr Mark Williams: But that happens when you get older, right?
• 4:49
  Dr Mark Williams: It keeps evolving.
• 4:50
  Dr Mark Williams: Yeah, which where do I actually want to know that?
• 4:54
  Dom Hind: Um when you talk about screens, because I was just thinking about this.
• 4:57
  Dom Hind: What is a screen?
• 4:58
  Dom Hind: Is it just phone or is it TV, iPad?
• 5:01
  Dom Hind: Like what is the extent of a screen?
• 5:03
  Dr Mark Williams: Yeah, it depends on what you're talking about.
• 5:06
  Dr Mark Williams: So a screen really can be anything from a TV all the way through to just the phone, or even the smartwatches, which I don't wear.
• 5:13
  Dr Mark Williams: Yeah.
• 5:14
  Dr Mark Williams: Or a smartwatch.
• 5:15
  Dr Mark Williams: So it can be anything from those extremes, or even the glasses, of course.
• 5:18
  Dr Mark Williams: Now we've got the smart glasses now.
• 5:19
  Dr Mark Williams: So it constantly evolves.
• 5:21
  Dr Mark Williams: So it's really difficult to say which is which, which but but they all impact, but they impact in different ways.
• 5:28
  Dr Mark Williams: Yes.
• 5:28
  Dr Mark Williams: So that's what we've got to be careful of.
• 5:29
  Dr Mark Williams: And it's a lot more nuanced than just screens.
• 5:32
  Dom Hind: Yeah, okay, right.
• 5:33
  Dom Hind: Yeah, and everyone, every screen has its own uh positives and negatives.
• 5:38
  Dom Hind: Yeah.
• 5:39
  Dom Hind: I'm glad that you said that.
• 5:41
  Dom Hind: Um, let's start broad.
• 5:43
  Dom Hind: What are screens actually doing to our brains?
• 5:48
  Dr Mark Williams: So again, it depends on the screen, but if you're talking the mobile phones, which is what most people are really concerned about, um they're making us dumber, really, let's be honest.
• 5:58
  Dr Mark Williams: Yeah.
• 5:58
  Dr Mark Williams: We we know so there's been what we call the Flynn effect where our intelligence has been getting greater and greater with every generation.
• 6:06
  Dr Mark Williams: Uh and IQ tests have had to be tricked altered slightly to make them a little harder, because you need an average of 100.
• 6:12
  Dr Mark Williams: In the last 15 years, it's actually gone the opposite way.
• 6:15
  Dr Mark Williams: So we're actually getting dumber.
• 6:16
  Dr Mark Williams: And so it's a this is the first generation that will actually be dumber than their parents were, which is really, really scary.
• 6:23
  Dr Mark Williams: It's so scary.
• 6:24
  Dr Mark Williams: Really scary.
• 6:25
  Dr Mark Williams: And then we have you know attentional problems, we've got this huge increase in attentional problems, we've got a huge increase in uh our body mass, right?
• 6:34
  Dr Mark Williams: We we've got obesity is going through the roof, and we know also uh bone density is decreasing the next generation quite considerably, which is also really concerning.
• 6:44
  Dr Mark Williams: And then we've got a huge increase in Alzheimer's disease and these things, which can also be linked, especially in uh early onset Alzheimer's, which were uh what dementia, early onset dementia, which is affecting 35 to 45 year olds, which is really scary.
• 7:00
  Dr Mark Williams: And in two years we saw a 400% increase in those individuals, and and it's specific to those individuals who are the first group of people who have had devices for basically most of their lives, not all of their lives, but most of their lives, um, which is really scary.
• 7:16
  Dr Mark Williams: And you know, you can go on there's there's attentional problems, there's mental health issues.
• 7:20
  Dom Hind: Oh, yeah.
• 7:21
  Dom Hind: There there's so many issues, aren't there?
• 7:23
  Dom Hind: There are, there are, and we keep just turning back to it.
• 7:27
  Dr Mark Williams: Yeah, and I can it's so ubiquitous now in society, right?
• 7:32
  Dr Mark Williams: Everyone has one that I think it's become just part of life.
• 7:37
  Dr Mark Williams: Uh but I get really frustrated by people saying that's the way it is now.
• 7:40
  Dr Mark Williams: Yeah.
• 7:40
  Dr Mark Williams: And so let's just leave it.
• 7:42
  Dr Mark Williams: We when I was a kid, smoking was huge.
• 7:44
  Dr Mark Williams: I started smoking when I was 12.
• 7:46
  Dr Mark Williams: And uh in my high school they had a smoking room for the year 12 students.
• 7:50
  Dr Mark Williams: What?
• 7:50
  Dr Mark Williams: Which you wouldn't you wouldn't even imagine these days.
• 7:53
  Dr Mark Williams: Um and then the government realized this was a big problem, and several comp or several there were several lawsuits and so on.
• 8:01
  Dr Mark Williams: And so things changed.
• 8:03
  Dr Mark Williams: And and we banned, or we didn't ban the smokes, but those smokes were already banned, but they actually started doing something about it.
• 8:09
  Dr Mark Williams: Yeah.
• 8:10
  Dr Mark Williams: And I never gave up smoking until I was about 30, right?
• 8:12
  Dr Mark Williams: Right.
• 8:13
  Dr Mark Williams: But that was the next generation that never actually took up smoking.
• 8:17
  Dr Mark Williams: Um, and so I see it like that.
• 8:19
  Dr Mark Williams: We've got to this point where it is damaging, we know it's that significantly damaging.
• 8:24
  Dr Mark Williams: Um, and so we need to put in some sort of control so that the next generation won't be affected by it.
• 8:32
  Dom Hind: Yeah.
• 8:32
  Dom Hind: I th I think the because that that was one of the things in your book that when I read that the next generation are actually going to be dumber than us, it's actually really concerning because all we want is for our kids to be smarter, better, yes, and uh change the world or do something that we haven't been able to do.
• 8:50
  Dr Mark Williams: Yeah, and it's not just the smartphones, right?
• 8:52
  Dr Mark Williams: That's also the edutech, right?
• 8:54
  Dr Mark Williams: We've got all this educational technology in schools.
• 8:56
  Dr Mark Williams: We've got BYD, which is the craziest thing.
• 8:58
  Dr Mark Williams: Because I I've yet to find a an educational app which is actually resulting better education of the students than actually having a teacher in front of them.
• 9:09
  Dr Mark Williams: And yeah, we have these, and and we have more devices in schools than any other country in the world, yeah, which is just ridiculous.
• 9:15
  Dr Mark Williams: Yeah, and we have some we have the worst behavioural issues of any other country in the world.
• 9:19
  Dr Mark Williams: Um, and it's a result of the fact that we've got these devices in front of the kids, which increases cortisol, makes them more stressed, um, and they're not connecting with the teacher because they've got a screen between them, and so therefore they don't have a relationship, the same relationship with the teacher, and so therefore we have these behavioral issues, and we wonder why.
• 9:37
  Dr Mark Williams: And we have our students now when they leave school at the end of year 12 are equivalent to they're halfway through year uh year 11 from you know 10 years ago.
• 9:48
  Dr Mark Williams: They're a year and a half behind where they were 10-15 years ago, and all the data is showing that.
• 9:53
  Dr Mark Williams: So we have a big problem we've got to deal with.
• 9:56
  Dom Hind: It's a massive problem.
• 9:58
  Dom Hind: Um, which and you you were just talking about it before, you were involved in getting the you know, the age of social media lifted.
• 10:06
  Dom Hind: Yes.
• 10:07
  Dom Hind: And also now uh helping over in the UK as well.
• 10:11
  Dr Mark Williams: Yes.
• 10:12
  Dom Hind: What for you, what is the driver for you wanting to be involved with that?
• 10:18
  Dr Mark Williams: I I've seen the damage.
• 10:19
  Dr Mark Williams: When I was at Macquarie University full-time, I actually volunteered to go out to low SES schools.
• 10:24
  Dr Mark Williams: We uh got funding to do that, and I spent a lot of time, that was quite a few years ago, going to low SES schools.
• 10:31
  Dr Mark Williams: Uh and I saw the damage that was being caused in these areas, these were all in remote, remote areas and communities and so on.
• 10:37
  Dr Mark Williams: And and that really concerned me.
• 10:39
  Dr Mark Williams: And that's when I sort of started doing research.
• 10:40
  Dr Mark Williams: And also, my I had children who were in primary school, and their principal came to me and said, I'm thinking of uh doing BYRD, introducing BYD into primary school.
• 10:50
  Dr Mark Williams: BYD bring your own devices, bring your own devices into the primary school.
• 10:54
  Dr Mark Williams: And he'd seen me on um Catalyst, yes, um, and he in relation to something completely different, but in relation to the brain.
• 11:01
  Dr Mark Williams: So he wanted to chat to me.
• 11:02
  Dr Mark Williams: So we chatted, and I convinced him this wasn't a good idea, yeah, which meant he then went to his director, and the director was like, Well, what's going on here?
• 11:10
  Dr Mark Williams: This is what the department wants.
• 11:12
  Dr Mark Williams: Um, and then his director then chatted to me and was like, Can you talk to all my principals?
• 11:16
  Dr Mark Williams: Yeah, and so it sort of exploded from there.
• 11:19
  Dr Mark Williams: Yeah.
• 11:19
  Dr Mark Williams: Um, and it was like, maybe I can make a difference here.
• 11:22
  Dr Mark Williams: Yeah.
• 11:22
  Dr Mark Williams: And I realized that there's a lot of nonsense out there in relation to the brain as well, right?
• 11:28
  Dr Mark Williams: There's a lot of, yeah, really silly ideas that just aren't true.
• 11:32
  Dr Mark Williams: Okay.
• 11:32
  Dr Mark Williams: Um like watch one.
• 11:34
  Dr Mark Williams: Um the funniest one I've ever heard um is this idea that if you're I forget which eye it is, but if you look into one eye, someone will trust you more because of the way the babies which, if you had any knowledge of how the visual system actually works, which is it goes through the LGN and then it splits up.
• 11:55
  Dr Mark Williams: That just doesn't work out the way.
• 11:57
  Dr Mark Williams: There's no which is the funniest one I've heard, but there's a lot of other ones.
• 12:01
  Dom Hind: Yeah, yeah.
• 12:02
  Dom Hind: Okay, good.
• 12:03
  Dom Hind: So it was that you knew that you could actually make a difference, which is that's pretty amazing to get involved because you knew that even one voice can make a difference.
• 12:12
  Dr Mark Williams: Yeah, and that's what's been amazing.
• 12:14
  Dr Mark Williams: I when I was working in Macquarie and I was going out to schools, I would get uh after I've been doing it for a few years, I would actually get students arrive at Macquarie University and come to me and say, Hey, I saw you at this event, and I'd never thought of going to university before, and here I am.
• 12:30
  Dr Mark Williams: Oh, that's amazing.
• 12:30
  Dr Mark Williams: My you know, my siblings are also thinking now of going to university, even though we never have it.
• 12:35
  Dom Hind: And that that to me was like that's yeah, that is yeah, that makes you feel good.
• 12:41
  Dom Hind: Yeah, it does.
• 12:42
  Dr Mark Williams: And and yes, and from there on it was like, well, hang on, there is and it's there is hope.
• 12:46
  Dr Mark Williams: Yeah, there is hope.
• 12:47
  Dr Mark Williams: And I I do things and get lots of emails from people, and I'm just like, wow, that's which I love.
• 12:52
  Dr Mark Williams: And if I haven't replied to an email that you've sent me, I'm sorry.
• 12:55
  Dr Mark Williams: I do try to get to them all, but occasionally I get a little overwhelmed.
• 12:58
  Dom Hind: Okay, yeah, that you need to stay away from screens.
• 13:01
  Dom Hind: Um what struck me about reading your book is that it's not just about what screens are doing to us, it's about what we're losing in the process.
• 13:12
  Dom Hind: The connection, the living, just being the interpretation.
• 13:17
  Dom Hind: What like is that what you have if you buil boil it down to is that what you think is being is happening?
• 13:24
  Dr Mark Williams: Yeah, we we're missing missing out.
• 13:26
  Dr Mark Williams: Our bra our brains are use it or lose it paradigm, right?
• 13:29
  Dr Mark Williams: We've known that for a long time.
• 13:30
  Dr Mark Williams: Well, not that long, but a fairly long time now.
• 13:33
  Dr Mark Williams: And so the more you do, the better your brains become.
• 13:35
  Dr Mark Williams: Yeah.
• 13:36
  Dr Mark Williams: And and the less you do, the the worse your brains become, basically, which is why, you know, one of the great examples of that is nursing homes.
• 13:43
  Dr Mark Williams: You know, we used to put people in nursing homes and we put them in front of the TV and we'd feed them and we'd put them to bed and then we'd put them in front of the TV.
• 13:51
  Dr Mark Williams: And they would die much more quickly.
• 13:53
  Dr Mark Williams: And then we realized that wasn't great, and so we started organizing things for them to do and gave them choices over what they could eat and got people in to play musical, and we found that they'd live 10-15 years longer and they wouldn't get Alzheimer's disease and do neurodegenerative diseases so quickly and so on, right?
• 14:10
  Dr Mark Williams: Because they were using their brains, and so therefore it survived longer.
• 14:13
  Dr Mark Williams: And it's no different for any of us, really.
• 14:16
  Dr Mark Williams: And when you're on a device, you're not using your brain, you're defaulting to what's on the device.
• 14:20
  Dr Mark Williams: And so you're not exercising the things you need to be exercising, and you're missing out on a huge amount of time.
• 14:27
  Dr Mark Williams: And it's really sad.
• 14:28
  Dr Mark Williams: Like, I I did volunteer for a sh period of time um in my earlier years, uh, at a hospice, end-of-life hospice, and this was for people who were in the last two weeks before they passed away.
• 14:40
  Dr Mark Williams: And I volunteered there and worked with the family members and so on, and also with the people who are actually dying.
• 14:47
  Dr Mark Williams: And I don't think I ever heard somebody who was dying ever mention that they were upset that they hadn't spent enough time watching cat videos.
• 14:57
  Dr Mark Williams: Or right?
• 14:58
  Dr Mark Williams: It's not what they miss is their family, yeah, yeah, and the connection and the connection.
• 15:04
  Dr Mark Williams: Yeah, I wish I had spent more time with my family, I wish I had spent more time with this person, I wish I had got in touch with that person who I lost contact with.
• 15:11
  Dr Mark Williams: I wish I had spent more time with people.
• 15:15
  Dom Hind: It's really interesting, and it I I'm observing it a lot more where if I'm even before we came here, I had a cup of tea, I didn't look at my phone because I'm like, I just refuse to look at my phone when I've got a moment to myself.
• 15:28
  Dom Hind: And I love observing and watching, but everyone else is on their phones, and I think you know, to try and have a connection even with a stranger, if they're on their phone, it's so hard, so hard to do.
• 15:42
  Dr Mark Williams: It is, and and it it it impacts so many parts of our lives because we don't get to meet people.
• 15:48
  Dr Mark Williams: That's it, you know, and we don't get to talk to people, yeah, whether it's at work.
• 15:51
  Dr Mark Williams: I mean, work that we we have this huge problem now with people only staying within their employer with an employer for three or four years, right?
• 15:59
  Dom Hind: And then less in some industries.
• 16:01
  Dr Mark Williams: Yeah, much, much less.
• 16:02
  Dom Hind: Yeah.
• 16:02
  Dr Mark Williams: And and a lot of those because they have no connection to the workplace because they don't know who they work with because they're on their phones all the time.
• 16:09
  Dom Hind: Or remote or remote or yes.
• 16:12
  Dr Mark Williams: Yeah, so they don't have those relationships that we actually need.
• 16:14
  Dr Mark Williams: And then productivity's gone down.
• 16:16
  Dr Mark Williams: We know productivity is much worse now than it was 15, 20 years ago, which is because of the distractions and all those things.
• 16:21
  Dr Mark Williams: But it's also because we're not talking to each other about what we're doing, so we don't know who to go to or what's actually you know already been solved and trying to solve things ourselves rather than having people that we can actually talk to and so on.
• 16:33
  Dr Mark Williams: And that's both personal lives and at work.
• 16:35
  Dom Hind: Yeah, yeah.
• 16:36
  Dr Mark Williams: Everywhere in personal life, you need people to support you.
• 16:39
  Dr Mark Williams: And loneliness, we know, is now huge rates of loneliness, both in younger kids but also in adults, which is sad.
• 16:46
  Dr Mark Williams: And then the older we get, the more lonely.
• 16:49
  Dom Hind: Yeah, and I think in that middle age group as well is where you know kids have l leaving home, you've lost the connection with their schools.
• 16:56
  Dom Hind: And it is, you do get quite lonely in that age group if you don't have those connections that are there.
• 17:02
  Dr Mark Williams: That are already there.
• 17:03
  Dr Mark Williams: Yeah, and we need to have those connections before because it's gonna go bad, right?
• 17:06
  Dr Mark Williams: We're always gonna have hiccups.
• 17:08
  Dr Mark Williams: There's also always shits that's gonna happen.
• 17:10
  Dr Mark Williams: Sorry, I'm all at a second.
• 17:10
  Dr Mark Williams: No, yeah, you can't.
• 17:11
  Dr Mark Williams: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 17:13
  Dom Hind: There is fuck in the title.
• 17:16
  Dr Mark Williams: Um, yeah, it's gonna happen, right?
• 17:18
  Dr Mark Williams: We're gonna have bad periods.
• 17:19
  Dr Mark Williams: Yeah, and unless you've got it set up before that, yeah, then it's gonna be really hard.
• 17:24
  Dr Mark Williams: And if you have to have it set up before that, yeah, then it's not gonna be as hard because you're gonna have people who just support you.
• 17:28
  Dr Mark Williams: Yeah.
• 17:30
  Dom Hind: And also I was talking to someone yesterday about expanders.
• 17:33
  Dom Hind: So, you know, the the expanders are the people that do actually lift you up, and you know, you have a five-minute conversation with them and you feel good, great again.
• 17:40
  Dom Hind: And, you know, making sure that you do have those expanders in your life, because you're right, the shit gets real, and you do need someone who can actually lift you up as well.
• 17:49
  Dr Mark Williams: Yeah.
• 17:49
  Dr Mark Williams: And as long as you are as well, right?
• 17:51
  Dr Mark Williams: Absolutely.
• 17:51
  Dr Mark Williams: It's about giving back too.
• 17:53
  Dom Hind: Absolutely.
• 17:53
  Dom Hind: It can't just be one way.
• 17:55
  Dr Mark Williams: Yeah.
• 17:55
  Dr Mark Williams: Yeah.
• 17:55
  Dr Mark Williams: You take it from someone else and then you give it to someone else.
• 17:58
  Dr Mark Williams: Very much.
• 17:58
  Dr Mark Williams: Let's get communities going again where everyone supports each other.
• 18:02
  Dom Hind: Yeah.
• 18:02
  Dom Hind: You talk a lot in the book about creating the right conditions for brain health, not just removing the screens.
• 18:10
  Dom Hind: Can you explain what the conditions actually are?
• 18:15
  Dr Mark Williams: So, yeah, that's a great question.
• 18:17
  Dr Mark Williams: It's about boundaries, right?
• 18:19
  Dr Mark Williams: We've got to set boundaries for ourselves and we've got to set boundaries for our kids.
• 18:23
  Dr Mark Williams: And we've got to be demonstrating to them what we expect of them.
• 18:28
  Dr Mark Williams: Because kids, especially teenagers, I have two teenagers.
• 18:32
  Dr Mark Williams: Teenagers will uh listen to will do about 10% of you what you say, and they'll do about 90% of what you do, right?
• 18:40
  Dr Mark Williams: And they do copy us constantly.
• 18:43
  Dr Mark Williams: Yes.
• 18:43
  Dr Mark Williams: And it's through the mirror neuron system, but yeah.
• 18:46
  Dr Mark Williams: It is a a thing that happens, and so we need to be demonstrating that this is not a good thing.
• 18:51
  Dr Mark Williams: And so you can't be sitting there on your phone and telling your teenager to get off their phone.
• 18:56
  Dr Mark Williams: That's just and so you need to be demonstrating what you want from them.
• 18:59
  Dr Mark Williams: So setting up your house in a way that is best for you and for them to be doing things that are important for us, which is actually interacting with each other.
• 19:08
  Dr Mark Williams: Because we've got to remember that we our brains haven't changed in the last 35,000 years, right?
• 19:14
  Dr Mark Williams: It's not evol evolution doesn't happen in one or two generations.
• 19:18
  Dr Mark Williams: So our brains are the same as they were when we were hunter-gatherers, and that meant we were spending a lot of time with each other, supporting each other and communicating with each other, and we would work for four or five hours, and then the rest of the time we'd socialise.
• 19:30
  Dr Mark Williams: And that's what's really important for us.
• 19:32
  Dr Mark Williams: And if you look at the blue zones, right?
• 19:34
  Dr Mark Williams: The blue zones, the one thing consistent across all of those is the socialise.
• 19:38
  Dr Mark Williams: They spend time talking to each other, they spend time making dinner together, they spend time talking over dinner and spend a long time eating their food, right?
• 19:47
  Dr Mark Williams: Because they're talking to each other and they're interacting with each other.
• 19:50
  Dom Hind: Yeah, it's not like a 15-minute dinner and then you're out, like it is.
• 19:53
  Dr Mark Williams: It's especially not a 15-minute dinner while everyone's looking at their phones and then out or while the TV's on and then out, right?
• 20:00
  Dr Mark Williams: It's actual the conversation, real conversations.
• 20:03
  Dr Mark Williams: Nothing upsets me more than going to a cafe and seeing a couple there with their kids and kids are on the middle.
• 20:08
  Dom Hind: It's it's terrible.
• 20:10
  Dr Mark Williams: Very sad.
• 20:10
  Dr Mark Williams: Or a kid in a pram and the phone's in the phone.
• 20:12
  Dr Mark Williams: Oh, yeah, yeah, it's really, really sad.
• 20:14
  Dom Hind: Do you know after reading the books?
• 20:16
  Dom Hind: I've only just finished it.
• 20:18
  Dom Hind: So this Friday night we're actually having friends, fam, uh family friends, so the kids can actually bring one of their friends to dinner.
• 20:26
  Dom Hind: Oh, nice.
• 20:26
  Dom Hind: So every Friday night now is gonna be kids bring one of the dinner, they get the bus home, and then we all sit down and have dinner, and then they may actually make which is I'm gonna absolutely regret doing it, but letting them make the dessert.
• 20:40
  Dom Hind: Nice.
• 20:41
  Dom Hind: So, you know, like it because at least it's no screens, but it also made me realise that no phones at the table ever, like we're just not doing that.
• 20:51
  Dom Hind: But as soon as the kids get home, so that there is, I mean, the behaviour, that was something that really did hit me as well, is your behaviour they mirror rather than what you tell them.
• 21:02
  Dr Mark Williams: Oh yes.
• 21:03
  Dom Hind: And I think if we are on our phones all the time, they're gonna think it's okay to do the same and do it.
• 21:10
  Dom Hind: So it is as soon as they're home, no phones.
• 21:13
  Dom Hind: Yeah, phones go away.
• 21:15
  Dr Mark Williams: And it I know some people say, but hang on, I've got to be on my phone for work or whatever.
• 21:19
  Dr Mark Williams: And that's fine as long as you're honest with whoever it is you're with.
• 21:22
  Dr Mark Williams: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 21:22
  Dr Mark Williams: Sorry, I've got to just check this email for work, da da da.
• 21:25
  Dr Mark Williams: It's not and then you expect that of them.
• 21:27
  Dr Mark Williams: Yes.
• 21:28
  Dr Mark Williams: And so if they pick up their phone, my son has a phone, 14, and he'll always say, Oh, sorry, dad, I've just got to check because so and so is gonna text me because we were gonna get it in the courts for think, right?
• 21:37
  Dr Mark Williams: Yeah, yeah.
• 21:38
  Dr Mark Williams: And I know what he's actually doing on his phone.
• 21:39
  Dr Mark Williams: Rather than just the default of I'm just gonna scroll scrolling away, whatever it happens to be.
• 21:45
  Dr Mark Williams: And yes, you may be working, which is fine, but make sure you everyone around you knows that.
• 21:49
  Dom Hind: Yeah, yeah.
• 21:50
  Dom Hind: And I think that that is a big thing because it then it shows that you've got respect about boundaries, this is what I'm doing, but I will be off soon.
• 21:58
  Dr Mark Williams: Yes, yeah, yeah.
• 21:59
  Dom Hind: What are some The other things like um the daily movement and this unstructured time.
• 22:05
  Dom Hind: I think unstructured time is a big one because we absolutely just load our kids up and also us up with so much stuff.
• 22:14
  Dom Hind: What's that doing to us?
• 22:18
  Dr Mark Williams: It's putting us on high stress constantly, right?
• 22:20
  Dr Mark Williams: We've got this high stress level which is releasing cortisol because cortisol is released when we're in stress, and stress and cortisol is actually really bad for our system for a long period of time.
• 22:28
  Dr Mark Williams: And so we we're in this constant state of stress because we're constantly, what's next?
• 22:32
  Dr Mark Williams: What's next?
• 22:33
  Dom Hind: Yeah, let's go, let's go, let's go.
• 22:34
  Dom Hind: Let's go.
• 22:35
  Dom Hind: What are we missing out on?
• 22:36
  Dr Mark Williams: Yeah.
• 22:36
  Dr Mark Williams: Plus, you've got to be bored to be innovative and creative, right?
• 22:40
  Dr Mark Williams: You've got to actually allow yourself to sit in the moment, which is really, really important.
• 22:44
  Dr Mark Williams: And also kids don't, I know I think kids these days have a lot of trouble working out what they want to be, right?
• 22:51
  Dr Mark Williams: Because they never actually get a chance to think about what they want to be.
• 22:54
  Dr Mark Williams: They're forced into all these different whatevers.
• 22:56
  Dr Mark Williams: And and then that's what they think is them, and that's what they should be.
• 23:02
  Dr Mark Williams: Whereas giving kids time to just be in themselves and play and do things like that, they'll work work out what they actually want to be and what they want to do rather than what you think they should be doing.
• 23:16
  Dom Hind: Yeah, uh, it's one of the things that I constantly get told is I'm bored.
• 23:21
  Dom Hind: And I'm like, there's no it's you can't be bored if you if you're not boring.
• 23:26
  Dom Hind: So go and find something to do.
• 23:27
  Dr Mark Williams: Yeah, I love that son.
• 23:28
  Dr Mark Williams: And and that's when the good stuff happens.
• 23:32
  Dom Hind: Well, absolutely.
• 23:33
  Dr Mark Williams: I remember as a teenager we used to yeah, pull our bikes apart and rebuild them to strange things and all those sorts of things.
• 23:39
  Dr Mark Williams: Because you were bored, which is great.
• 23:41
  Dr Mark Williams: Yeah, and you find stuff to do.
• 23:43
  Dr Mark Williams: Yeah, and sometimes it was silly, and sometimes you do something you probably shouldn't have done, but you were learning during that process.
• 23:49
  Dr Mark Williams: Absolutely.
• 23:51
  Dom Hind: Um, after reading your book, I've actually this term and I've got the tubwork and like the coloured tubs.
• 23:57
  Dom Hind: It's called the boredom box.
• 23:59
  Dom Hind: So I've actually filled it with like coupons, like you know, go for a walk or do whatever, as well as like a puzzle book and some colouring and pen, like just you know, the uh other stuff that they have to actually go through, look at it and go, okay, I don't I'm not gonna be bored, I'm actually gonna be doing something.
• 24:18
  Dom Hind: So rather than being watching a TV show or being on a screen, they can go to their boredom box and actually use their brain in that way, or give it some space anyway.
• 24:29
  Dr Mark Williams: Yeah, no, that's great.
• 24:30
  Dr Mark Williams: Yeah, and they're the best, right?
• 24:32
  Dr Mark Williams: You need a space where you've got all that stuff and board games and oh board games, absolutely, card games.
• 24:37
  Dr Mark Williams: I mean and there's some great board games and card games out there now.
• 24:39
  Dr Mark Williams: Oh, yeah, some really cool new ones, yeah.
• 24:42
  Dom Hind: Uh the card games are interesting.
• 24:44
  Dom Hind: My son will not go out to dinner without a pack of cards.
• 24:47
  Dom Hind: Awesome, yeah, which is great until he wants to play blackjack at the dinner table.
• 24:53
  Dom Hind: And I'm like, okay.
• 24:54
  Dom Hind: Oh um, why is having that unstructured time so critical for our development?
• 25:03
  Dr Mark Williams: Yeah, so uh there's what we've got um in our brains is basically we've got uh what we call a working memory, yes, yeah, which is sort of like your consciousness, what you're aware of at any one moment in time.
• 25:15
  Dr Mark Williams: And that's really limited.
• 25:16
  Dr Mark Williams: And people I don't think people realise how limited that is.
• 25:19
  Dr Mark Williams: And that's limited to what we call seven slots, plus or minus two, or used to be when we originally studied it.
• 25:27
  Dr Mark Williams: So phone numbers, for example, used to be limited to six numbers because you needed to use the six slots to remember the six numbers, and then you needed another slot to dial the phone.
• 25:37
  Dr Mark Williams: Whereas now they're not because we've got much one.
• 25:39
  Dr Mark Williams: We think that working memory has actually dropped down to about four slots now because we don't use it in the same room.
• 25:44
  Dr Mark Williams: But your attention determines what goes into that working memory, and your information in that working memory can either come from your long-term memory, which we know is completely unlimited, right?
• 25:53
  Dr Mark Williams: It's never actually no one's filled up their long-term memory.
• 25:55
  Dr Mark Williams: So that's amazing, much bigger than any computer we've got.
• 25:59
  Dr Mark Williams: And that holds all the stuff that we've ever done in our lives.
• 26:02
  Dr Mark Williams: If we've held it for long enough in our working memory to get transferred to a transfer store, so it can get transferred to that long-term memory when we're sleeping.
• 26:10
  Dr Mark Williams: Yeah.
• 26:11
  Dr Mark Williams: And you in your working memory, you can either pull stuff out of your long-term memory and use it and then stick it back in, or you can get information from the world.
• 26:18
  Dr Mark Williams: So we're talking to each other, so we're listening to each other and interpreting that information with our working memory.
• 26:24
  Dom Hind: Right.
• 26:25
  Dr Mark Williams: And that's why we're not noticing other things around us, yeah, because we're focusing on that.
• 26:29
  Dr Mark Williams: Um, but we need to be pulling it out of our long-term memory because that reinforces what's in our long-term memory as well.
• 26:35
  Dr Mark Williams: And that only happens when you're bored, right?
• 26:38
  Dr Mark Williams: Or when you're thinking about something, when you're sitting by yourself and you're thinking about something, or you're trying to come up with new ideas or whatever.
• 26:45
  Dr Mark Williams: That happens when you're, yeah, when you're doing that.
• 26:47
  Dr Mark Williams: Or if you're having right, we'd never have discussions with anybody anymore.
• 26:52
  Dr Mark Williams: Yeah.
• 26:52
  Dr Mark Williams: Because we look it up.
• 26:54
  Dr Mark Williams: Whereas what we need to do is just be going, you know, so and so won the I don't know, 100 meters Olympics in running, whatever, and you're like, no, they didn't, it was so-and-so.
• 27:02
  Dr Mark Williams: No, no, it wasn't, it was they were the year before.
• 27:04
  Dom Hind: And this this is the logic, this is the reason for it.
• 27:06
  Dr Mark Williams: Yeah, so this is the reasoning for it, this is right, and that's all bringing it out of your long-term memory.
• 27:10
  Dr Mark Williams: Whereas today, if someone says, Oh, so-and-so, and then you look it up and go, No, they didn't.
• 27:15
  Dom Hind: Yeah, yeah, that's true.
• 27:15
  Dr Mark Williams: And there's none of that.
• 27:16
  Dr Mark Williams: There's no yeah, so there's no reason for working out long-term memory, yeah, which needs to be done regularly.
• 27:21
  Dr Mark Williams: So we have a strong long-term memory.
• 27:23
  Dr Mark Williams: Because that's where innovation and creativity happens.
• 27:25
  Dr Mark Williams: Okay.
• 27:26
  Dr Mark Williams: Right?
• 27:26
  Dr Mark Williams: You can't be innovative and creative unless you've got lots of information in your long-term memory to connect different ideas and concepts together with.
• 27:34
  Dom Hind: So, and because we're always on, we're not getting that space.
• 27:37
  Dr Mark Williams: We never get that space.
• 27:38
  Dr Mark Williams: We never get that space to exercise our long-term memory.
• 27:41
  Dr Mark Williams: So we need to we need to do that much, much more slow, slow down.
• 27:46
  Dom Hind: Permission to pause, that's my favorite thing at the moment.
• 27:48
  Dom Hind: Permission to pause.
• 27:50
  Dr Mark Williams: Yeah, because we're really good at at innovation creativity, right?
• 27:54
  Dr Mark Williams: Computers don't do that.
• 27:55
  Dr Mark Williams: No, AI doesn't do that.
• 27:56
  Dr Mark Williams: AI is just regurgitating what's already out there, which is pretty dumb.
• 28:01
  Dr Mark Williams: Whereas we're really good at being innovative and creating, but we're slower at it.
• 28:05
  Dr Mark Williams: Yeah.
• 28:05
  Dr Mark Williams: And so we've got to slow down and allow ourselves to do that and then allow the computers to do the fast stuff away from us.
• 28:12
  Dom Hind: Yeah.
• 28:12
  Dr Mark Williams: Yeah.
• 28:12
  Dr Mark Williams: Rather than being on and trying to do the fast stuff all the time.
• 28:16
  Dom Hind: Yeah.
• 28:16
  Dom Hind: Um, I've honestly like I've genuinely started to wonder if I my own screen use is making me slower or have the my own brain fork.
• 28:29
  Dom Hind: Do you uh and I know that I'm getting older, but do you think it is like it it obviously is affecting adults just as much as it is affecting kids too?
• 28:40
  Dr Mark Williams: Yes.
• 28:40
  Dr Mark Williams: And and I hear I hear a lot of people say that, right?
• 28:43
  Dr Mark Williams: Oh but I'm getting older.
• 28:45
  Dr Mark Williams: Yeah.
• 28:45
  Dr Mark Williams: But getting older doesn't make your brain slow down.
• 28:47
  Dr Mark Williams: Getting older doesn't impact your brain negatively unless you've got a neurodegenerative disease, in which case you've got to go and see someone and get drugs for it.
• 28:56
  Dr Mark Williams: Um, and that's not most of us.
• 28:58
  Dr Mark Williams: Yeah.
• 28:58
  Dr Mark Williams: And so if you are do feel as though your brain's slowing down, then there's something you're not doing, which is causing that.
• 29:04
  Dr Mark Williams: Yeah.
• 29:05
  Dr Mark Williams: And what it probably is is not spending enough time in the real world.
• 29:07
  Dr Mark Williams: Because when you're on a device, you're not exercising your brain.
• 29:10
  Dr Mark Williams: Yeah.
• 29:10
  Dr Mark Williams: And you've got to exercise your brain to keep it healthy so that you don't get those neurodegenerative degenerative diseases later on.
• 29:17
  Dr Mark Williams: It's a mouthful.
• 29:18
  Dr Mark Williams: Um, and so yeah, if you feel like you're not concentrating as well and all those sorts of things, then it could be that.
• 29:24
  Dr Mark Williams: It also could be hormonal, right?
• 29:26
  Dr Mark Williams: Yeah, yeah.
• 29:26
  Dr Mark Williams: You do go through parametopause, um, and that can cause, but that's temporary, it's a short period of time, and then it should go away.
• 29:34
  Dr Mark Williams: Yeah, great.
• 29:34
  Dr Mark Williams: So it shouldn't be a long-term thing.
• 29:36
  Dr Mark Williams: So if it's been for a while, then it's probably due to the devices.
• 29:40
  Dr Mark Williams: Yeah.
• 29:40
  Dr Mark Williams: And also, even if it is due to the parameters, you want to be really careful that it you don't have it also impacted by the devices because that's going to cause an even bigger damage, right?
• 29:50
  Dr Mark Williams: You've got to do axes causing a much bigger issue for you.
• 29:54
  Dr Mark Williams: And so you need to consider that as well.
• 29:56
  Dom Hind: Okay, good.
• 29:57
  Dom Hind: Yeah, all right.
• 29:57
  Dom Hind: So I think the message out of that is pause.
• 30:00
  Dr Mark Williams: Pause.
• 30:01
  Dr Mark Williams: Yeah, everything.
• 30:02
  Dom Hind: Put the phone down, pause, put the phone down.
• 30:05
  Dr Mark Williams: It's actually really wonderful.
• 30:06
  Dom Hind: Yeah.
• 30:07
  Dr Mark Williams: There's some amazing stuff out there.
• 30:08
  Dr Mark Williams: Yeah.
• 30:09
  Dr Mark Williams: And it's really, it's much more relaxing.
• 30:11
  Dr Mark Williams: And it's really important for us.
• 30:13
  Dr Mark Williams: And let's put, I mean, there's very much very little on the devices, which is interesting.
• 30:19
  Dr Mark Williams: Yeah.
• 30:19
  Dr Mark Williams: Most of it's nonsense.
• 30:21
  Dr Mark Williams: Let's be honest.
• 30:22
  Dr Mark Williams: Sorry, I know you put this online and I don't.
• 30:26
  Dom Hind: I agree with you.
• 30:27
  Dr Mark Williams: There is some good stuff.
• 30:28
  Dom Hind: No, no, there is some good stuff.
• 30:29
  Dr Mark Williams: Most of it's AI.
• 30:30
  Dom Hind: It's it's interesting, even as you were saying that, like, just being in nature, being surrounded by amazing trees, like that it grounds me.
• 30:38
  Dom Hind: And I think that we have lost that ability to find something in the real world that does actually ground people because we think that we've got to be on the device for the 7,000 WhatsApp messages that really uh just Harry's lost his tie or Susan's lost something.
• 30:56
  Dom Hind: And you know, they take up that time, but it's really not important.
• 31:00
  Dr Mark Williams: No, and we do know that being in nature actually is is really good for our brains, right?
• 31:04
  Dr Mark Williams: We've there's lots of research now showing that it it increases your cognitive capacity, increases your attentional capacity, it uh increases your memory capacity, your ability to retain information, it improves your innovation creativity.
• 31:18
  Dr Mark Williams: And that's only like half an hour.
• 31:20
  Dr Mark Williams: After half an hour, they've shown that innovation creativity goes through the root, as long as you don't have a device on you.
• 31:25
  Dr Mark Williams: So they've actually shown what even in your pocket?
• 31:28
  Dom Hind: Yeah, even in your pocket.
• 31:29
  Dr Mark Williams: Really?
• 31:29
  Dr Mark Williams: Yeah, so they've shown that if you go for a walk in, you know, uh bushwalk, uh uh just for half an hour, it'll improve all those things that quickly, which is quite amazing.
• 31:39
  Dr Mark Williams: But if you've got a phone in your pocket cock pocket, it doesn't happen.
• 31:42
  Dr Mark Williams: Wow.
• 31:42
  Dr Mark Williams: Yeah.
• 31:43
  Dr Mark Williams: So we've got to leave the phones behind.
• 31:44
  Dom Hind: And what about if you've got your watch going, okay, how far?
• 31:47
  Dom Hind: It just is bad.
• 31:48
  Dr Mark Williams: So you've just got to turn it off and put it in your backpack, and that seems to get rid of the effects.
• 31:53
  Dom Hind: Yeah, wow.
• 31:54
  Dr Mark Williams: Yeah.
• 31:54
  Dom Hind: Okay, all right.
• 31:55
  Dom Hind: That's interesting to know.
• 31:56
  Dr Mark Williams: Yeah.
• 31:57
  Dom Hind: Okay, good.
• 31:57
  Dom Hind: That's something I need to do.
• 31:59
  Dom Hind: Um, what age, just going back to the kids, what age does this or do the screens have an impact, or is it just on use as soon as they start using them?
• 32:09
  Dr Mark Williams: Yeah, so it it is just use.
• 32:12
  Dr Mark Williams: There's horrendous data now showing that it um young children who uh are on a device or on a screen, they have abnormal development of their white matter tracts and frontal regions of their brain.
• 32:25
  Dr Mark Williams: So they're actual brain changes occurring, which is really scary because their brain's developing at that early age, and so they need to be off the devices and in the real world.
• 32:34
  Dr Mark Williams: Um, and then the more you're on a device, the more likely you are to have those brain changes as well as you get older.
• 32:41
  Dr Mark Williams: Because your brain, as I said, you use it or lose it throughout your whole life.
• 32:45
  Dr Mark Williams: And so there's those really important years from zero to twenty-five.
• 32:50
  Dr Mark Williams: Yeah.
• 32:50
  Dr Mark Williams: Because the brain doesn't stop changing until you're 25, where you're not going to develop these abilities because you're not using them.
• 32:58
  Dr Mark Williams: Um, but then after that, you can lose them because you're not constantly exercising them, right?
• 33:03
  Dr Mark Williams: It's no different to fitness.
• 33:04
  Dom Hind: No, no, no, exactly.
• 33:05
  Dr Mark Williams: So therefore, yeah, yeah, you've got to keep fit and you've got to eat well, and you've got to drink water and you've got to so share.
• 33:10
  Dom Hind: Just another another thing on the long list.
• 33:12
  Dom Hind: On the long list, yeah.
• 33:13
  Dom Hind: With the um and it I don't know, we we chatted before about, you know, seeing the kids in the prams with a screen, so many people will say, yeah, but it's just easy.
• 33:24
  Dom Hind: Like, is that what do you think when someone says it's just easy?
• 33:29
  Dr Mark Williams: Is that i i it is easy, but the problem is easy when they're young causes huge problems when they're old.
• 33:37
  Dr Mark Williams: I I work for the I do um volunteer work with Kakoda Foundation, they do a detailed detox program with teenagers, which is uh and I work with the parents when they do that, or do a session with the parents.
• 33:49
  Dr Mark Williams: And you know, seeing those teenagers, if if they had done it the hard stuff early, yeah, they wouldn't have that really, really hard stuff later on.
• 33:58
  Dr Mark Williams: And you know, there's downorexia in a basement, believing me in the SRI did a lot of research in that area, and that that was where I first got involved in the social media ban because of what was going on there.
• 34:09
  Dr Mark Williams: Um, you know, there's so many aspects to it that are causing problems.
• 34:13
  Dr Mark Williams: Um, and so yes, it's easy, but it's gonna cause much more problems and it's gonna be much harder later on.
• 34:20
  Dr Mark Williams: Whereas if you do what's slightly harder when they're young, and they're not young for long, I mean, I miss my kids being young.
• 34:26
  Dr Mark Williams: I mean, I love them as teenagers as well, but it was so quick, right?
• 34:30
  Dr Mark Williams: Yeah, it's so good.
• 34:31
  Dr Mark Williams: And so spending that time with them when they're young is gonna make it so much easier when they're older.
• 34:36
  Dom Hind: I think something you say in the book is the investment that you make, and and it you need to consider it to be an investment that you make in them early means that it pays off massively later in life.
• 34:49
  Dr Mark Williams: Yeah, yeah.
• 34:50
  Dom Hind: And it is it is it is it is hard at that and that early stage, but maybe yeah, the the investment needs to be there.
• 34:58
  Dr Mark Williams: Yes, and and even uh the investment there means that you know, you've I mean you've all probably seen it, right?
• 35:06
  Dr Mark Williams: Taking an iPad or off a young kid is really, really hard, right?
• 35:10
  Dr Mark Williams: Yeah.
• 35:11
  Dr Mark Williams: But if they never get there, you never have to take it.
• 35:13
  Dr Mark Williams: So don't give it to them, and then you won't have that struggle later on.
• 35:17
  Dr Mark Williams: And we also there's lots of evidence now that that devices are causing all um ADHD in a lot of kids, right?
• 35:25
  Dr Mark Williams: There is there's there's genetic form of ADHD, but there is, you know, another issue there, which is we've got this huge increase in ADHD, and we know that the younger a child's given a device, or the more time they spend on a device, the more likely they will end up being diagnosed with ADHD.
• 35:41
  Dom Hind: Yeah.
• 35:42
  Dr Mark Williams: So we need to be careful about that as well, right?
• 35:44
  Dom Hind: There is Well, I mean, the investments of time, or not even the time that you need to try and work out whether you treat or how you manage it, that's a lot more than that initial investment up front.
• 35:55
  Dr Mark Williams: And the expense.
• 35:58
  Dom Hind: Yes.
• 35:59
  Dom Hind: Um, what role does dopamine play in screen use and overuse?
• 36:04
  Dr Mark Williams: Yeah, dopamine we there's misunderstanding, I think, out there in the world.
• 36:10
  Dr Mark Williams: This is another misunderstanding around dopamine.
• 36:12
  Dr Mark Williams: Dopamine actually doesn't make us feel good, which is wrong.
• 36:16
  Dr Mark Williams: Dopamine actually makes us search for whatever it is that we just had because we want to actually have more of it, right?
• 36:23
  Dr Mark Williams: That's actually about search.
• 36:25
  Dr Mark Williams: And so, for example, the the reason it evolved basically was that you know you would have been walking around and you would have tried some berries, which would have tasted good.
• 36:32
  Dr Mark Williams: Yeah, and so dopamine be released, so you'd search for more of those berries because they're really good for you, so you'd eat more of them, and then you search for more and then you'd eat more of them, and then you get satiated, you get full, and so you'd move on, right?
• 36:44
  Dr Mark Williams: Whereas when you're on a device, you get a reward because you're on the device, right?
• 36:48
  Dr Mark Williams: They're very good at rewarding us for that, and dopamine's re-released to make a search for more of that, and so we search for more of it, and then we get more of it, more dopamine, which makes us search for more of it, and then that keeps going, but you never get satiated, right?
• 37:02
  Dr Mark Williams: You never get full of it, and so you're constantly wanting that and wanting that and wanting that.
• 37:07
  Dr Mark Williams: And the real world isn't like that, no, right?
• 37:10
  Dom Hind: The real world is that we occasionally get rewards, and when we do, we search for more of those until we get full, and then we stop, which doesn't happen when you're on a device, yeah, and the instant gratification like is like even just with my kids, I see the instant gratification, like I've got to get it now, and I'm like, No, no, no, you have to save.
• 37:27
  Dom Hind: You've got to save if you want something.
• 37:29
  Dom Hind: Yes.
• 37:30
  Dr Mark Williams: But that's what they're trained for, right?
• 37:32
  Dr Mark Williams: They're trained for this constant, and that's not the real world.
• 37:34
  Dr Mark Williams: Again, it's not what actually happens in the real world, and so we need to train them for the real world because that's where they're actually gonna live.
• 37:41
  Dom Hind: Yes, well, let's hope that they live in the real world, yes.
• 37:43
  Dom Hind: Um, are kids more vulnerable to this than adults?
• 37:49
  Dr Mark Williams: Yes, because they haven't yet developed the ability to inhibit it.
• 37:53
  Dr Mark Williams: So your frontal lobes don't fully develop until you're 25, plus or minus two years.
• 37:58
  Dr Mark Williams: Um and so you you don't fully develop your executive functions, which is your ability to hit inhibit response and make decisions about what you want, and also you haven't developed your full um character, right?
• 38:13
  Dr Mark Williams: Who you actually are and what you want to be and what's important to you and what's not important to you to you.
• 38:18
  Dr Mark Williams: And you learn all that during your first 25 years or so.
• 38:22
  Dr Mark Williams: It keeps we keep learning, of course, later on, but a lot of it's developed during those first 25 years, and that you learn through trial and error.
• 38:30
  Dr Mark Williams: I like hanging out with that person, or I don't like hanging out with that person.
• 38:34
  Dr Mark Williams: No, that person's phone, and uh, I like doing those things and I don't like doing those things, and that makes me feel a bit odd, and I'm gonna avoid that in the future.
• 38:42
  Dr Mark Williams: And if you're not doing all those things that we should be doing, and you're just on the device, then that's all you know, and so you're gonna develop this idea that that's what I want to be.
• 38:52
  Dr Mark Williams: Yeah, is this person who sits on a device all the time and does this all the time, and this is not actually good for us long term.
• 38:59
  Dr Mark Williams: And plus, what how what are you gonna do for a living if this is what you do?
• 39:03
  Dr Mark Williams: Yeah, there aren't any jobs controlling.
• 39:07
  Dom Hind: No.
• 39:07
  Dom Hind: There's there used to be game testers, and everyone wanted to be a game tester, but you know, I don't think they're they're very, very rare.
• 39:15
  Dr Mark Williams: Yeah, I I I saw a thing that there's also there's a lot of people now, well not now, there was for a little while, um, where schools were getting kids to also do um gaming because there was those gamers that were making big money being gamers on uh yeah, and it's it's supposed to be it's harder to become one of those than it is to become a professional golfer.
• 39:37
  Dr Mark Williams: It's like really difficult, crazy difficult.
• 39:41
  Dr Mark Williams: And we don't, yeah.
• 39:42
  Dom Hind: Yeah.
• 39:43
  Dr Mark Williams: So just don't do it.
• 39:44
  Dr Mark Williams: Just don't do it.
• 39:46
  Dom Hind: Um, I love some of the simple ideas in the book, like tech free times, home uh phones away at meals, going for walks together.
• 39:54
  Dom Hind: I love the going for walks together, um, or just creating small moments of connection.
• 40:01
  Dom Hind: What are some of the ones that you do in your life as small moments of connection with your family that you go, these are the best things that we can do?
• 40:10
  Dr Mark Williams: Yeah.
• 40:11
  Dr Mark Williams: So I I've got a I've got a teenage daughter and a teenage boy.
• 40:15
  Dr Mark Williams: Yep.
• 40:16
  Dr Mark Williams: And they're very different individuals.
• 40:18
  Dr Mark Williams: And so with my my my son loves playing basketball.
• 40:21
  Dr Mark Williams: Yeah, and so we'll often go down to some great courts near our house, which a government, the local government built, which is thank you, government because they're awesome.
• 40:30
  Dr Mark Williams: Um, and a lot of teenagers go there and play.
• 40:32
  Dr Mark Williams: And so I'll often go down there and play basketball with him, which is fantastic, because he'll chat to me while we're playing basketball, and we'll, you know, he'll rib me because I'm getting older and stuff.
• 40:41
  Dr Mark Williams: Um and nothing yeah, gets a teenage boy going more than being their dad, yeah.
• 40:48
  Dr Mark Williams: Um, which is fantastic.
• 40:49
  Dr Mark Williams: And so that's one of the things I love doing with him.
• 40:51
  Dr Mark Williams: And he doesn't take his phone, let me do that.
• 40:54
  Dr Mark Williams: And I'll take my phone and I'll leave it in the car.
• 40:56
  Dr Mark Williams: Yeah.
• 40:57
  Dr Mark Williams: Um, and then with my daughter, it's I usually usually the thing that works really well is going for a drive.
• 41:03
  Dr Mark Williams: Um, because you're not confronting then, right?
• 41:06
  Dr Mark Williams: So sit down with a teenager and try to talk like this is just impossible because you're facing them and they get very anxious about that.
• 41:16
  Dr Mark Williams: And yeah.
• 41:16
  Dr Mark Williams: And so going for a drive and putting she puts on the music that she likes to listen to.
• 41:20
  Dr Mark Williams: And we both love music, and uh I any genre I love listening to.
• 41:25
  Dr Mark Williams: And so we'll talk about the music, and because we're both looking forwards rather than looking at each other, we'll actually she'll really open up over that.
• 41:32
  Dr Mark Williams: Um, and that works really well.
• 41:33
  Dr Mark Williams: And now she's got her learners, or it's even better because I can sit in the I don't have to drive.
• 41:38
  Dr Mark Williams: And we can't does it work better though?
• 41:40
  Dom Hind: Like, don't you get stressed and go, Oh my gosh.
• 41:42
  Dr Mark Williams: No, she's pretty good.
• 41:43
  Dr Mark Williams: Well, most of the time she's pretty good.
• 41:45
  Dr Mark Williams: Um, sometimes, yeah, she starts singing along to something, and I'm like, don't joke stop, yeah.
• 41:49
  Dom Hind: Eyes on the road.
• 41:50
  Dom Hind: Eyes on the road, yeah.
• 41:51
  Dom Hind: Um, I think it is uh the yeah, in the book it actually made me realize that I do not have enough one-on-one time with my kids and like pure one-on-one, not with the two of them, just one-on-one.
• 42:05
  Dom Hind: And it's something that I spoke to them about over the holidays and said, Okay, we need to go and do something.
• 42:10
  Dom Hind: What do you want to go and do?
• 42:12
  Dom Hind: And it was great.
• 42:13
  Dom Hind: My son, because we love going on a bushwalk, and there's this beautiful tree behind us, which we call the brain tree.
• 42:20
  Dom Hind: So we're actually now gonna do just a loop of that once a week just to go for a walk and touch the brain tree and get back into nature.
• 42:28
  Dom Hind: Um, but it it it was a good reminder that you know having that one-on-one time is really important, particularly if you've got multiple kids.
• 42:37
  Dr Mark Williams: Yeah, it is, it's really important because you there's a there's always a competition between the kids, right?
• 42:41
  Dr Mark Williams: Always.
• 42:42
  Dr Mark Williams: And so you've got this set up and they'll nag at each other.
• 42:45
  Dr Mark Williams: And my my kids love each other, but that they have fired, like serious fights, and so trying to get them to be honest with me when the other one's there is really hard.
• 42:53
  Dom Hind: Oh, yeah.
• 42:53
  Dom Hind: Well, because then the other one will remember and get them later on and all the rest of it.
• 42:58
  Dr Mark Williams: So, yeah, one-on-one time is really important.
• 43:00
  Dom Hind: Um and what uh so with this, the biggest what is the biggest mistakes that adults are making with their screens?
• 43:13
  Dr Mark Williams: Number one is um uh treating the notifications as though they're more important than who's in front of you, right?
• 43:24
  Dr Mark Williams: I think the number one thing we've got to get back to, I don't know, I've been thinking about reading writing an etiquette book, because I think we need etiquette for the 21st century.
• 43:31
  Dr Mark Williams: Yeah, yeah.
• 43:32
  Dr Mark Williams: Yeah, there's just no, I just put that out there, didn't I?
• 43:35
  Dr Mark Williams: Someone else will write an etiquette.
• 43:36
  Dr Mark Williams: That's good.
• 43:37
  Dr Mark Williams: I don't have time to be honest.
• 43:38
  Dr Mark Williams: Someone else can write it.
• 43:39
  Dr Mark Williams: Um plus I'd be worried because my etiquette might be.
• 43:42
  Dr Mark Williams: Yeah, it'd be the same if cares.
• 43:44
  Dom Hind: At least it's a baseline.
• 43:45
  Dom Hind: Just give them a baseline.
• 43:47
  Dr Mark Williams: Yeah, but but that whole idea of the person in front of you, they're giving you your their time, right?
• 43:51
  Dr Mark Williams: And they're the most important person, not the text you just got through or the the like you just got, or whatever it happens to be.
• 43:57
  Dr Mark Williams: And so realizing that the devices are really cool.
• 43:59
  Dr Mark Williams: Because they can save that information for later on when you're by yourself.
• 44:03
  Dr Mark Williams: But if you're with someone, they're the most important person.
• 44:06
  Dr Mark Williams: And don't look at your phone, put your phone away, get rid of it.
• 44:08
  Dom Hind: I think it with that.
• 44:09
  Dom Hind: I've got my only notifications are my text messages.
• 44:13
  Dom Hind: I'm like, oh, and phone calls, obviously, but that's it.
• 44:16
  Dom Hind: Like any social, any WhatsApp, I just don't have them as a notification.
• 44:22
  Dom Hind: No, none of the new, like just I've turned everything off because it is such a distraction.
• 44:26
  Dom Hind: You're working, and then you know, we talk about multitasking, which is a croc.
• 44:31
  Dom Hind: And I think you've made it very clear in the book, it is an absolute croc.
• 44:36
  Dom Hind: It's not multitasking, it's switch switch tasking.
• 44:39
  Dom Hind: And you can't do one thing and then come back to it after uh an like you're not in that same mindset.
• 44:47
  Dom Hind: So the notifications, yeah, I think they've just got to come off.
• 44:50
  Dr Mark Williams: Yeah.
• 44:51
  Dr Mark Williams: Yeah, get rid of them all.
• 44:52
  Dr Mark Williams: There's no reason to have them.
• 44:53
  Dr Mark Williams: No.
• 44:54
  Dr Mark Williams: It's like the the only reason to have them is so that the companies can make more money.
• 44:57
  Dr Mark Williams: That's it.
• 44:57
  Dr Mark Williams: Because they want your attention on the phones.
• 44:59
  Dr Mark Williams: Yeah.
• 45:00
  Dr Mark Williams: And um, yeah, I do because I give a lot of community talks.
• 45:04
  Dr Mark Williams: Uh, and I often get people, parents, coming to me and saying, Well, I can't turn off all my notifications because that's one of the things I recommend.
• 45:09
  Dr Mark Williams: Yeah.
• 45:10
  Dr Mark Williams: I can't turn off all my notifications because at work I need them or da da da.
• 45:14
  Dr Mark Williams: And and I have a very good friend who's a surgeon and he has all his notifications turned off because he doesn't want to get distracted all the time.
• 45:22
  Dom Hind: Yeah.
• 45:22
  Dr Mark Williams: And if people need him, they call him.
• 45:24
  Dom Hind: That's it.
• 45:24
  Dr Mark Williams: Right?
• 45:25
  Dr Mark Williams: If there isn't actually an emergency, someone will call you.
• 45:27
  Dr Mark Williams: Yeah.
• 45:28
  Dom Hind: And they're finally after like 10 texts or yes, yeah.
• 45:32
  Dr Mark Williams: Right.
• 45:32
  Dr Mark Williams: If it is an emergency.
• 45:33
  Dr Mark Williams: Um, otherwise, you can check the text when you need to check the text, and that can be an hour later or two hours later or whatever it happens to be.
• 45:40
  Dr Mark Williams: Yeah.
• 45:41
  Dr Mark Williams: But yeah, if a surgeon doesn't need their notifications, I don't know who would.
• 45:44
  Dr Mark Williams: Really.
• 45:45
  Dom Hind: Oh, the one that drives me crazy is all the news notifications.
• 45:49
  Dom Hind: I'm just like, who cares?
• 45:50
  Dom Hind: Like you knew consume your news when you've got time, not when they're telling you it's time.
• 45:55
  Dom Hind: Yeah.
• 45:56
  Dr Mark Williams: Or trumps on something else.
• 45:57
  Dr Mark Williams: It's stupid.
• 45:58
  Dr Mark Williams: There's so much stupid stuff in the world.
• 46:00
  Dr Mark Williams: It's yeah, why do you need to know about it?
• 46:02
  Dr Mark Williams: It's great when you don't know about it.
• 46:04
  Dom Hind: Oh, I agree.
• 46:05
  Dr Mark Williams: Yeah.
• 46:05
  Dom Hind: Um, okay, so turn notifications off.
• 46:07
  Dom Hind: What else would you put in your etiquette book?
• 46:10
  Dr Mark Williams: Um, no phones anywhere, like no phones in the bathroom, no phones in the bedroom.
• 46:15
  Dr Mark Williams: I just find it bizarre that there are devices in either of those places.
• 46:18
  Dr Mark Williams: Because why do you need them in those places?
• 46:20
  Dr Mark Williams: And yeah, the only reasons you need them are for reasons to have them in those rooms, um, especially teenagers.
• 46:27
  Dr Mark Williams: Yeah.
• 46:27
  Dr Mark Williams: Um in my etiquette book, I I would also talk about like people uh being respectful towards each other that we've got to realise that we don't know what's going on in someone else's life.
• 46:39
  Dr Mark Williams: And so therefore, just slow down and don't.
• 46:42
  Dr Mark Williams: I mean, I saw it this morning when I was driving here, right?
• 46:44
  Dr Mark Williams: And the the one spot that the cars merge and need the the cars in front, a couple up in front wouldn't give to each other.
• 46:52
  Dr Mark Williams: And it's what's the point?
• 46:53
  Dr Mark Williams: Yeah, like yeah, and and aggressiveness in the driving, I think.
• 46:57
  Dr Mark Williams: Yeah, there's so there'd be yeah, a whole big chapter on driving, because I think and having a daughter who's doing her L having L plates on at the moment, the driving stuff has just been Yeah, I've been shocked at especially guys in youths, yeah, I guess.
• 47:12
  Dr Mark Williams: Because they see that it's a learner, yeah.
• 47:17
  Dr Mark Williams: Um, and caught you know, could cause an accident by doing that and being rude.
• 47:21
  Dr Mark Williams: And yeah, I think we just need to slow down and realize we're all actually just trying to do the best, the best we can.
• 47:28
  Dr Mark Williams: Yeah, and yeah, sometimes shit happens, but yeah, yeah.
• 47:31
  Dom Hind: So it comes back to the pause.
• 47:34
  Dr Mark Williams: Yeah, yeah.
• 47:34
  Dr Mark Williams: And you've got to slow down, pause, pause and slow down and actually just enjoy this ridiculous life that we're living.
• 47:41
  Dr Mark Williams: Yeah.
• 47:41
  Dr Mark Williams: Because I mean, yeah, I I I recently read it, read a thing on the fact that this is quite absurd, right?
• 47:48
  Dr Mark Williams: That we're on this rock in the middle of nowhere and we have the ability to think, right?
• 47:53
  Dr Mark Williams: And that's quite amazing that that actually happened, but it's completely random.
• 47:56
  Dr Mark Williams: Yeah, and so our lives are completely random.
• 47:58
  Dr Mark Williams: So we should just enjoy the the process we're here.
• 48:02
  Dr Mark Williams: Yeah, it's all absurd.
• 48:03
  Dr Mark Williams: Yeah, not be aggressive about it.
• 48:05
  Dom Hind: Yeah.
• 48:06
  Dom Hind: Um so beyond reducing screen time, what actually supports brain health?
• 48:15
  Dr Mark Williams: Uh so the number one thing is actually socializing in real life.
• 48:19
  Dom Hind: In real life.
• 48:20
  Dr Mark Williams: In real life, IRL.
• 48:21
  Dr Mark Williams: Yeah.
• 48:22
  Dr Mark Williams: So there's a Harvard study which is called the the Harvard study, because it's been going on at Harvard for 75 years.
• 48:29
  Dr Mark Williams: And about every five years they release huge amounts of data where they've been studying hundreds of thousands of people, um, and all the behavioural psychologists get really excited by it and analyse all the data.
• 48:41
  Dr Mark Williams: And and over the 75 years, the number one thing that's been shown to decrease the likelihood of you getting Alzheimer's, disease, and other neurodegenerative diseases, increase your lifespan by 10 to 15 years, increase your IQ, decrease uh cardiovascular problems, so you're less likely to have a heart attack.
• 48:59
  Dr Mark Williams: Yeah.
• 48:59
  Dr Mark Williams: Yeah, and you're actually physically healthier, decrease the likelihood of having mental health issues, uh, and decrease all of the stress and anxiety and all those issues as well, is just sitting down and chatting with someone you trust on a regular basis.
• 49:12
  Dr Mark Williams: Right?
• 49:13
  Dr Mark Williams: And that's all you've got to do.
• 49:15
  Dr Mark Williams: It's that's the best thing we can do for our brain.
• 49:17
  Dr Mark Williams: Yeah.
• 49:18
  Dr Mark Williams: And the reason for that is that we're social animals.
• 49:20
  Dr Mark Williams: Yeah.
• 49:20
  Dr Mark Williams: We're the most social animal, right?
• 49:23
  Dr Mark Williams: That's how we became this alpha species, right?
• 49:25
  Dr Mark Williams: Because we we connected and because we empathize with each other, and because we spend time with each other.
• 49:29
  Dr Mark Williams: And that's how our brains evolve was to spend time with each other and trust each other.
• 49:34
  Dr Mark Williams: And loneliness kills us, right?
• 49:36
  Dr Mark Williams: Loneliness causes psychosis, loneliness does mean that we die many, many years earlier than we should.
• 49:43
  Dr Mark Williams: It causes a whole bunch of other diseases in our bodies because of the fact that we need to be social, we need to be with each other, and it needs to be in real life.
• 49:52
  Dr Mark Williams: And the reason it needs to be in real life is because when you're on a device, you get dopamine, as we talked about before, but you don't get the other really important neurotransmitters.
• 50:00
  Dr Mark Williams: So when we meet in real life, the first thing we do is touch each other.
• 50:05
  Dr Mark Williams: Yeah, yes.
• 50:06
  Dr Mark Williams: So, and touch releases oxytocin, which makes us more connected to the person we just touched, which is really, really important.
• 50:11
  Dr Mark Williams: And then you've got body language and prosody of the voice and facial expressions and um all of those things that would release serotonin, which make us more, yeah, happier and more joyful, right?
• 50:24
  Dr Mark Williams: It's more about yeah, being content where you are and actually spending time with that person.
• 50:29
  Dr Mark Williams: Um, so we get those two neurotransmitters plus dopamine because it's telling us to search for more of this because it's important.
• 50:36
  Dr Mark Williams: But we don't get those two really important neurotransmitters when we're online, but we need them because they activate lots of areas of our brain.
• 50:43
  Dr Mark Williams: And there's great studies now showing uh when you're online versus when you're face to face, showing that when you're face to face, all these other areas of your brain are active.
• 50:51
  Dr Mark Williams: Um, and again, it's use it or lose it.
• 50:52
  Dr Mark Williams: The most active thing you can do for your brain is to socialise.
• 50:58
  Dom Hind: Okay, good.
• 50:59
  Dr Mark Williams: Socialize.
• 50:59
  Dom Hind: Yep.
• 51:00
  Dr Mark Williams: Real life, yeah, with real people.
• 51:03
  Dom Hind: Real life, real people, doesn't matter what you're doing, just talking to someone.
• 51:06
  Dr Mark Williams: Yeah, yeah.
• 51:07
  Dr Mark Williams: And and social media is not social, right?
• 51:08
  Dr Mark Williams: No, it's social media advertising.
• 51:10
  Dom Hind: It is 100%.
• 51:12
  Dr Mark Williams: This whole idea that's out there that you know kids need to be on social media to stay social or to stay connected with their friends is complete nonsense.
• 51:20
  Dr Mark Williams: It's not true.
• 51:21
  Dr Mark Williams: It's just not true.
• 51:22
  Dr Mark Williams: The evidence is not there.
• 51:23
  Dom Hind: Yeah, okay, good.
• 51:24
  Dom Hind: And you're you're you've seen the evidence, so uh Yeah.
• 51:28
  Dr Mark Williams: Yeah, no, it's definitely not there.
• 51:30
  Dom Hind: Um, what role does sleep, movement, and recovery play in brain health?
• 51:36
  Dr Mark Williams: Oh, lots.
• 51:37
  Dr Mark Williams: They're also really important.
• 51:39
  Dr Mark Williams: And and that's a problem, right?
• 51:40
  Dr Mark Williams: The devices mean that we're not sleeping as much as you used to, which is really bad for uh our kids and for and for us as well, um, because of the blue light, but also because of the anxiety and cortisol.
• 51:51
  Dr Mark Williams: So just being on a screen causes release of cortisol, which increases stress levels.
• 51:55
  Dr Mark Williams: Just opening a device, doesn't matter what you're actually doing on them.
• 51:59
  Dom Hind: And so that's well, just even just opening a device.
• 52:02
  Dr Mark Williams: Yes, yeah.
• 52:03
  Dr Mark Williams: You get an automatic increase in cortisol in your system, right?
• 52:06
  Dr Mark Williams: Which is really bad for your system.
• 52:08
  Dr Mark Williams: So just yeah, opening it does that.
• 52:11
  Dr Mark Williams: And and the actual fact just having the phone on you increases your stress levels compared to not having it on you, and decreases your uh working memory and decreases your uh IQ, just having a price on you.
• 52:23
  Dr Mark Williams: So we're dumb with just by having them.
• 52:25
  Dr Mark Williams: If we put them away, we're get a little bit smarter just by putting them away.
• 52:28
  Dr Mark Williams: Um, but sleep is really important because we go through a whole we go through five different stages when we're sleeping, and some of those are about getting rid of the neurochemicals in our brain that are left over from the day.
• 52:40
  Dr Mark Williams: Yeah, yeah.
• 52:41
  Dr Mark Williams: And they can be toxic if we don't get rid of them.
• 52:43
  Dr Mark Williams: And then it's about rejigging our uh long-term memories so that we incorporate what we now know about the world into that, and so we're learning while we're actually sleeping.
• 52:55
  Dr Mark Williams: Uh, and then we go through um what we talk of as REM sleep or dream, yeah.
• 53:00
  Dr Mark Williams: But it's not actually dreaming, right?
• 53:02
  Dr Mark Williams: What you're actually doing is you're going through lots of scenarios about what you did that day and how you can do them better.
• 53:07
  Dr Mark Williams: So you're actually learning how to do things better, and that's where you become innovative and creative.
• 53:12
  Dr Mark Williams: So we're not in innovative and creative during the day, we are at night, which is why you get those light bulb moments.
• 53:18
  Dr Mark Williams: Yeah.
• 53:18
  Dr Mark Williams: It's because you dreamt about it a couple of days before, or weeks before, or months before.
• 53:22
  Dr Mark Williams: Because that all happens at night as well.
• 53:24
  Dr Mark Williams: And then you lay down new memories from that day from your temporary store.
• 53:29
  Dr Mark Williams: Yep.
• 53:29
  Dr Mark Williams: And you do that in reverse order, which is really interesting.
• 53:32
  Dr Mark Williams: So the last thing you did at night is the first thing that gets laid down in your long-term memory.
• 53:36
  Dr Mark Williams: Oh, wow.
• 53:37
  Dr Mark Williams: Yeah, which is really interesting.
• 53:39
  Dr Mark Williams: Which means the first things you did in the morning are the last things to get laid down in your long-term memory.
• 53:44
  Dr Mark Williams: So if you don't sleep enough, you don't lay down the stuff that you did in the morning.
• 53:48
  Dom Hind: Right.
• 53:49
  Dr Mark Williams: Which is always ironic because schools always do the hard stuff in the morning because they're more alert.
• 53:54
  Dr Mark Williams: But if they don't get enough sleep, then they're gonna lose all.
• 53:57
  Dom Hind: But it's also in the morning, you're set on you know, you wake up, you're feeling good, okay.
• 54:01
  Dom Hind: Yep, do the foundations, the basics, do all my habits, and then by the end of the day, you're like, oh my god, it's just look at a screen for a couple of hours, and yet that's what's gonna get laid down.
• 54:11
  Dom Hind: Yes.
• 54:12
  Dr Mark Williams: Which is probably why everyone's depressed because you're remembering all the stuff that you're doing.
• 54:17
  Dom Hind: All the bad stuff rather than getting up in the morning and going for a work.
• 54:21
  Dom Hind: Yeah.
• 54:21
  Dr Mark Williams: But that's all good too.
• 54:22
  Dr Mark Williams: You should be getting up in the morning and exercising, yeah, seeing the sun and all that sort of thing.
• 54:28
  Dom Hind: Seeing the sun.
• 54:28
  Dr Mark Williams: Yeah, which is really good.
• 54:29
  Dr Mark Williams: But you you all then need to actually sleep long enough so that you can lay down all your memories from the day.
• 54:37
  Dom Hind: Yeah, okay, good.
• 54:38
  Dom Hind: Um now I I said that I do have did do have a little bit of brain frog fog, but I have noticed improvements with having creatine.
• 54:48
  Dr Mark Williams: Yes.
• 54:49
  Dom Hind: What do you think about that?
• 54:51
  Dr Mark Williams: Yeah, so there's a big meta-analysis of all the studies on keratin.
• 54:56
  Dr Mark Williams: Yeah.
• 54:56
  Dr Mark Williams: Um and it showed there was benefits to um your memory and your attention level.
• 55:06
  Dr Mark Williams: Yes.
• 55:06
  Dr Mark Williams: Yeah.
• 55:07
  Dr Mark Williams: Um, and it seems to be if if you're lacking in in your diet or you've got changes going on which are causing a lack of it, then it actually is beneficial.
• 55:17
  Dr Mark Williams: But that's the same for any supplement.
• 55:19
  Dr Mark Williams: Yes.
• 55:20
  Dr Mark Williams: You've got to be lacking in it to begin with for the supplement to actually help.
• 55:23
  Dr Mark Williams: Yes.
• 55:23
  Dr Mark Williams: And it's really it's important for ATP, which is involved in uh creating energy, basically.
• 55:30
  Dr Mark Williams: And your brain uses 25% of the energy that you use every day.
• 55:34
  Dr Mark Williams: Yeah.
• 55:34
  Dr Mark Williams: And so it's really, it really needs a lot of energy, and and that seems to be where it's helping.
• 55:38
  Dr Mark Williams: It's helping with the ATP transformation, which helps with the energy in your brain.
• 55:43
  Dom Hind: Okay.
• 55:44
  Dr Mark Williams: And so, yeah, but it's probably it could be because of changes that are occurring.
• 55:49
  Dr Mark Williams: Yeah, yeah.
• 55:49
  Dr Mark Williams: Or it could be because of your diet's not sufficient.
• 55:52
  Dr Mark Williams: Yeah.
• 55:52
  Dr Mark Williams: But yeah, if you do need supplements, then it's usually because something's lacking.
• 55:57
  Dom Hind: Yeah.
• 55:57
  Dom Hind: Okay, good.
• 55:58
  Dr Mark Williams: But it is it is shown to be quite good for those two things.
• 56:01
  Dr Mark Williams: Yeah.
• 56:01
  Dr Mark Williams: Attention and memory.
• 56:02
  Dom Hind: Okay, good.
• 56:03
  Dom Hind: Well, I've I've found it helpful.
• 56:05
  Dr Mark Williams: Well, that's good.
• 56:07
  Dom Hind: Um, do you think we've normalized screen use so much that we've stopped questioning it?
• 56:14
  Dr Mark Williams: I think we've started questioning it again.
• 56:15
  Dr Mark Williams: Yeah, okay.
• 56:16
  Dr Mark Williams: Which is good.
• 56:17
  Dom Hind: Yeah.
• 56:17
  Dr Mark Williams: Um, I hope anyway.
• 56:18
  Dr Mark Williams: Maybe that's just too unmixed with.
• 56:20
  Dr Mark Williams: Maybe yeah.
• 56:21
  Dom Hind: Maybe it's yeah, your circle of importance.
• 56:23
  Dom Hind: Yeah.
• 56:24
  Dr Mark Williams: I mean seven, eight years ago when I used to post things on LinkedIn.
• 56:30
  Dr Mark Williams: Um, I used to get a lot of backlash from a lot of people.
• 56:34
  Dr Mark Williams: Really?
• 56:35
  Dr Mark Williams: Oh, yeah.
• 56:36
  Dr Mark Williams: You you've got to remember that that there was even when with the social media ban, there was a lot of people who were arguing against it, including including the e-safety commissioner, right?
• 56:45
  Dr Mark Williams: Yeah.
• 56:45
  Dr Mark Williams: She argued against it as well.
• 56:47
  Dom Hind: Well, she was the pockets were probably bang line.
• 56:49
  Dom Hind: Anyway, no.
• 56:50
  Dr Mark Williams: There's something going on, yeah.
• 56:52
  Dom Hind: Yeah.
• 56:53
  Dr Mark Williams: Who knows what?
• 56:53
  Dr Mark Williams: Um, and there's a lot of psychologists and a a lot of mental health groups that were actually arguing against mental health groups were arguing against it.
• 57:03
  Dr Mark Williams: Yeah, some, yeah.
• 57:04
  Dr Mark Williams: Um, but then if you actually look into it, a lot of those uh well, some of those were actually being funded by social media companies.
• 57:13
  Dr Mark Williams: And so and and that's one of the big problems also that's happened in the UK at the moment, is there's a lot of these groups that are actually arguing against it.
• 57:19
  Dr Mark Williams: But then if you actually look in the background, says they're getting funding from.
• 57:23
  Dr Mark Williams: Yeah, and and there's programs in schools that are funded by or receive funding from these social media groups, and so they promote it, right, rather than actually saying, actually, this is this is an issue.
• 57:34
  Dr Mark Williams: And so I think that's more people are aware of that, yeah, which is great.
• 57:39
  Dr Mark Williams: Yeah, which is changing that.
• 57:41
  Dr Mark Williams: Um and I think people are just yeah, just noticing the the breakdown of cohesion in society is really sad.
• 57:51
  Dr Mark Williams: Yeah and the political issues that we're having.
• 57:54
  Dr Mark Williams: Um, and you know, do you really want to be like some people that we see on and that crazy, right?
• 58:01
  Dom Hind: What the orange man over the other side of the world?
• 58:03
  Dr Mark Williams: Yeah, I mean the yeah.
• 58:05
  Dr Mark Williams: I mean, he I think he's been great because he's showing how crazy you can become.
• 58:10
  Dom Hind: Yeah.
• 58:10
  Dom Hind: If you spend way too much time on eating McDonald's, KFC, and on social media.
• 58:16
  Dom Hind: Um, are we being intentional with how we use technology or are we just reacting to it?
• 58:28
  Dr Mark Williams: I don't think we're reacting to it.
• 58:29
  Dr Mark Williams: I think uh it it's been set up in a way that means that it they're manipulating us.
• 58:36
  Dr Mark Williams: Yeah.
• 58:36
  Dr Mark Williams: Yeah, and and we need to come to terms with that.
• 58:39
  Dr Mark Williams: Um and we either need to change the way we use it or we need governments to change the way they're allowed to actually do it, right?
• 58:47
  Dr Mark Williams: I I remember I during the social media um ban discussions, I spoke to a lot of different politicians and several of them, quite bizarrely, I thought, said to me after I talked to them about the social media and all the issues with it.
• 59:03
  Dr Mark Williams: They said, but if we legislate to control these issues, such as the the algorithms running in the background and the likes and all these things, which we should be legislating against because it changes our behaviour, um then these companies uh will probably go broke, right?
• 59:18
  Dr Mark Williams: They'll probably no longer exist.
• 59:20
  Dr Mark Williams: So and it's like if these companies are unethical the way they're actually practicing now, and if you stop them, if you make them be ethical, they go broke, then they shouldn't exist in the first place, surely, right?
• 59:32
  Dr Mark Williams: Yeah.
• 59:33
  Dr Mark Williams: Whereas they have this strange idea that we don't want these companies not to exist.
• 59:37
  Dr Mark Williams: I'm not sure why we don't want these companies not to exist if they are unethical.
• 59:40
  Dr Mark Williams: Because we could make ethical versions of these.
• 59:42
  Dom Hind: Yeah, yeah.
• 59:43
  Dom Hind: Well, I mean, there was a there was one that tried to, but that failed, unfortunately.
• 59:47
  Dr Mark Williams: Yeah, because it wasn't addictive.
• 59:48
  Dr Mark Williams: Yeah, exactly.
• 59:48
  Dr Mark Williams: And so if it's not addictive, then it's not gonna work, unless we get rid of all the addictive ones, and then we'll use the ones that aren't addictive in a positive way.
• 59:56
  Dr Mark Williams: Yeah, because it is, it's an amazing technology.
• 59:58
  Dr Mark Williams: Yeah, we could be using it for good if we wanted to, but it's currently we're using it to allow a couple of multinational companies to make huge amounts of money and manipulate everything from politics to our kids' education, yeah, which is really scary.
• 1:00:13
  Dom Hind: Yeah.
• 1:00:14
  Dom Hind: Do you I was just thinking, do you think we as adults don't allow ourselves to be bored as well, which is why we turn to the doctor?
• 1:00:22
  Dr Mark Williams: Oh, absolutely.
• 1:00:23
  Dr Mark Williams: Yeah, absolutely.
• 1:00:24
  Dr Mark Williams: And I and I think boredom, again, is really good for us, right?
• 1:00:28
  Dr Mark Williams: Yeah.
• 1:00:29
  Dr Mark Williams: And and just not even being bored, right?
• 1:00:31
  Dr Mark Williams: Read a book.
• 1:00:32
  Dr Mark Williams: Yeah.
• 1:00:32
  Dr Mark Williams: Sit down and actually read a book.
• 1:00:34
  Dr Mark Williams: I I have a lot of parents come to me after my presentations and say, uh, uh, how do I get my kids to read more books?
• 1:00:40
  Dr Mark Williams: Because I want them to read more books.
• 1:00:41
  Dr Mark Williams: Because we know that's the most, the most that they're gonna be more successful later on in life the more books they read when they're kids.
• 1:00:48
  Dr Mark Williams: Yeah.
• 1:00:49
  Dr Mark Williams: And my first question is, how many books do you read a year?
• 1:00:52
  Dr Mark Williams: Yes.
• 1:00:52
  Dr Mark Williams: And and straight, you know, most of the time they'll say, Oh, yeah.
• 1:00:55
  Dr Mark Williams: Well, I'll say I I read when I'm on holidays.
• 1:00:58
  Dr Mark Williams: Yeah.
• 1:00:59
  Dr Mark Williams: And it's like, well, you know, your kids are gonna do what you do.
• 1:01:02
  Dr Mark Williams: So if you're reading the book regularly, your kids will read a book regularly.
• 1:01:05
  Dr Mark Williams: I will read and sit on the couch and read, and often my son will come and sit beside me and read, or my daughter will come and sit beside me and read, right?
• 1:01:12
  Dr Mark Williams: Because the they don't turn on television because I'm reading, because that'd be just rude.
• 1:01:16
  Dr Mark Williams: Again, etiquette book, right?
• 1:01:17
  Dr Mark Williams: There's a there's a part of the etiquette book.
• 1:01:19
  Dr Mark Williams: Turn off your TV.
• 1:01:20
  Dom Hind: It's even without the read, so we do a reading club.
• 1:01:23
  Dom Hind: So, because the schools still say you have to read 25 minutes a night, not that anyone does, and our kids were not, or my kids were not doing it.
• 1:01:33
  Dom Hind: So we do a reading club now where before bed, I'll lay in my daughter's bed next to her, I'll be reading, she'll be reading, and same with my husband with my son.
• 1:01:42
  Dr Mark Williams: Yeah.
• 1:01:43
  Dom Hind: Because if you're doing it, they do it, they do it.
• 1:01:46
  Dr Mark Williams: Yeah.
• 1:01:46
  Dr Mark Williams: And it makes such a big difference later on.
• 1:01:48
  Dr Mark Williams: It yeah, yeah.
• 1:01:49
  Dr Mark Williams: Often, well, not anymore, but I used to often get asked to talk about uh uh uh uh with HSE students and stuff about how how to get into university and how to my first question's always, what do you think is the most important thing to be good at and to become a neuroscientist?
• 1:02:04
  Dr Mark Williams: And you always get, you know, mathematics or engineering and all these things.
• 1:02:07
  Dr Mark Williams: And I said no, it's actually being able to read because you get a big textbook that you'll have to read.
• 1:02:12
  Dr Mark Williams: It doesn't matter what subject you do, no, uh you're gonna get a textbook and you have to read it.
• 1:02:16
  Dr Mark Williams: It doesn't matter really what profession you're going to, you're probably gonna have to read and be good at reading.
• 1:02:21
  Dr Mark Williams: Even a plumber, right, has to be able to do quotes and all these things and understand how the stuff works and all the rest of it.
• 1:02:28
  Dr Mark Williams: And so yeah, reading is so important.
• 1:02:30
  Dr Mark Williams: Reading and so hard.
• 1:02:32
  Dom Hind: Yeah, well it is.
• 1:02:32
  Dom Hind: Which is why it's it is, yeah.
• 1:02:34
  Dom Hind: Like even with reading your book, I read it while I was on holidays and then read on the playbook, like just because it was the only time that I could actually sit down and do it.
• 1:02:43
  Dom Hind: But it's easy to read club.
• 1:02:45
  Dom Hind: It is, you know what, it it is a really easy book to read, which is why I got through it.
• 1:02:51
  Dom Hind: So thank you.
• 1:02:52
  Dom Hind: Yeah, um, how should we be thinking about things like AI and what's coming next?
• 1:03:02
  Dr Mark Williams: Yeah, what's coming next is a bigger problem than AI, I think.
• 1:03:06
  Dr Mark Williams: Um, AI isn't causing the problem that everyone's arguing that's causing.
• 1:03:10
  Dr Mark Williams: Yeah.
• 1:03:10
  Dr Mark Williams: Actually, I I was reading the other day and that they were talking about the um the top 500 companies in the world, and that uh they they surveyed the CEOs of those companies and found that the vast majority of them hadn't seen any redundancies as a result of AI, right?
• 1:03:26
  Dr Mark Williams: This whole idea that it's going to take over the world is just ridiculous.
• 1:03:30
  Dr Mark Williams: Um the only area that is taking over is actually programming, right?
• 1:03:33
  Dr Mark Williams: Yes.
• 1:03:34
  Dr Mark Williams: Which is ironic, right?
• 1:03:35
  Dr Mark Williams: Programmers actually made this thing, which is actually really good at doing what they do, and now they're all losing their jobs.
• 1:03:40
  Dr Mark Williams: But apart from tech area, it's actually not causing a problem.
• 1:03:44
  Dr Mark Williams: And the biggest growth area in it in um employment is health, right?
• 1:03:48
  Dr Mark Williams: So if if you want to make sure you've got a job in the future or your kids have a job in the future, get them to look at areas in health, whether it's OT or psychologist or jobs.
• 1:03:57
  Dom Hind: And trades or all of them.
• 1:03:58
  Dom Hind: Trades as well.
• 1:03:59
  Dom Hind: And trades, yeah.
• 1:04:00
  Dr Mark Williams: Yeah, oh, yeah, around here, definitely.
• 1:04:02
  Dr Mark Williams: Um and so they're things that you need to actually be really good at interacting with people, right?
• 1:04:08
  Dr Mark Williams: And talking to people, and whether it's trades or it's um health area.
• 1:04:13
  Dr Mark Williams: And so I don't see it making a huge difference in those areas.
• 1:04:17
  Dr Mark Williams: I do worry about things like the glasses, and that that's gonna even be more addictive and people are gonna be more cut off because of those things.
• 1:04:28
  Dom Hind: And well, because it's the constant barrier.
• 1:04:31
  Dom Hind: Yeah, between them, yeah.
• 1:04:34
  Dr Mark Williams: Yeah, and the safety concerns are around that too, because they're videoing everybody as they're walking around, and then the face detection, and they were really worried about yeah, safety of kids and all the rest of it.
• 1:04:46
  Dr Mark Williams: Um, that worries me, and um the the other wearables also worry me because they're going to have more and more data on us and what we like and what we don't like.
• 1:04:59
  Dr Mark Williams: I mean, you've got to so on social media, we know that instantly on Instagram, for example, if a girl, if a teenage girl deletes a photo of herself within 500 milliseconds, she'll start getting advertising from cosmetic companies.
• 1:05:14
  Dr Mark Williams: If she deletes a photo of somebody else, that doesn't happen.
• 1:05:17
  Dr Mark Williams: Yeah, right.
• 1:05:17
  Dr Mark Williams: And the reason for that is they realize that she's feeling bad about herself, about how she looks, and so they target her, right?
• 1:05:23
  Dr Mark Williams: And by having wearables, of course, we they're gonna be getting more data than that.
• 1:05:27
  Dr Mark Williams: Um, and so those things concern me more than the AI.
• 1:05:31
  Dr Mark Williams: Because AI isn't intelligent, right?
• 1:05:34
  Dr Mark Williams: It's artificial intelligence.
• 1:05:35
  Dr Mark Williams: Artificial means fake, right?
• 1:05:36
  Dr Mark Williams: So it's really fake intelligence.
• 1:05:38
  Dr Mark Williams: So it's pretending to be intelligent, but all it's doing is regurgitating information that's out there.
• 1:05:42
  Dr Mark Williams: Yeah.
• 1:05:42
  Dr Mark Williams: Which is why a lot of them had to be turned off, right?
• 1:05:45
  Dr Mark Williams: Because they were learning based on what was on the internet and what was in the internet now, majority of it's AI.
• 1:05:51
  Dr Mark Williams: And if you learn from yourself, then you get dumber.
• 1:05:53
  Dr Mark Williams: And so the AI started getting dumber, so they turned it off, right?
• 1:05:56
  Dr Mark Williams: Because it can't be.
• 1:05:59
  Dom Hind: Yeah.
• 1:05:59
  Dom Hind: We're all getting dumber.
• 1:06:01
  Dr Mark Williams: Yeah.
• 1:06:02
  Dr Mark Williams: So and the people who are going to throw up flourish in the future are those that are going to have really good communication skills.
• 1:06:09
  Dr Mark Williams: It's about being a human.
• 1:06:11
  Dom Hind: Like it is like it is all about everyone will flourish if you're a human.
• 1:06:15
  Dr Mark Williams: If you're real.
• 1:06:16
  Dom Hind: If you're real, if you're authentic, if you can have a conversation, if you can read people, if you can present, if you can sell, if you can, all those things.
• 1:06:24
  Dr Mark Williams: But that that'll never go away.
• 1:06:26
  Dom Hind: No, never.
• 1:06:27
  Dom Hind: Um, what does using technology well actually look like?
• 1:06:33
  Dr Mark Williams: Yeah, you're using it to benefit you rather than to benefit the tech companies, right?
• 1:06:38
  Dr Mark Williams: They make money when you're looking at the device.
• 1:06:41
  Dr Mark Williams: That's when they make money because of cell advertising.
• 1:06:43
  Dr Mark Williams: So what they want is you're looking at the device.
• 1:06:45
  Dr Mark Williams: And you know, productivity apps, most of them make you less productive.
• 1:06:48
  Dr Mark Williams: Yeah, right.
• 1:06:49
  Dr Mark Williams: Um, the we know the step counters, if you get a step counter, you're more likely to put on weight afterwards because you do the 10,000 steps, which there's no evidence 10,000 steps is what you need to do, and then you reward yourself, and so you end up putting on weight because you're not doing as much as you should.
• 1:07:05
  Dr Mark Williams: Um there isn't really any of those things that actually help us.
• 1:07:10
  Dr Mark Williams: Social media is not social, right?
• 1:07:12
  Dr Mark Williams: Yeah, if it says it does one thing, then it probably does the other.
• 1:07:14
  Dr Mark Williams: Something else, yeah, yeah.
• 1:07:16
  Dr Mark Williams: And so think about what actually benefits you.
• 1:07:19
  Dr Mark Williams: And so for me, my device is I I have a phone, and it's great if somebody wants to contact me, because you know, we'll do this.
• 1:07:27
  Dr Mark Williams: I haven't touched my phone since I knocked at the door downstairs, and I won't touch it again until I leave.
• 1:07:33
  Dr Mark Williams: And when I get back to my car, I'll check to see if I've got emails and all those sorts of things.
• 1:07:37
  Dr Mark Williams: And if I don't, that's great.
• 1:07:38
  Dr Mark Williams: And if I do, I can reply to them, and then I'll put it away again and I'll do another couple of hours of being the real world.
• 1:07:44
  Dr Mark Williams: Yeah, and then I'll check it again.
• 1:07:46
  Dr Mark Williams: And that's what it's really good at.
• 1:07:47
  Dr Mark Williams: It's a good at saving stuff.
• 1:07:48
  Dom Hind: Yeah.
• 1:07:49
  Dr Mark Williams: Um, and so yeah, putting it in a place where it's it's good at what it does.
• 1:07:53
  Dom Hind: I always say that my mobile phone is for my convenience, not yours.
• 1:07:57
  Dr Mark Williams: Yeah, and that's another one of those etiquette things, right?
• 1:08:00
  Dr Mark Williams: Is getting away from this idea that everybody needs to be contactable all the time.
• 1:08:04
  Dom Hind: Yeah.
• 1:08:04
  Dr Mark Williams: Because we don't.
• 1:08:05
  Dom Hind: I'm not I'm not saving lives, so like I don't like it.
• 1:08:08
  Dr Mark Williams: Yeah, exactly.
• 1:08:09
  Dr Mark Williams: I don't need to, I don't need to be bothered all the time by people.
• 1:08:14
  Dr Mark Williams: I and and we need to move away from that.
• 1:08:16
  Dr Mark Williams: Yeah.
• 1:08:16
  Dr Mark Williams: Yeah.
• 1:08:16
  Dr Mark Williams: And it's one of the things that did frustrate me when I was at the university, because I used to have a thousand over a thousand students in my first year neuroscience course.
• 1:08:24
  Dr Mark Williams: And a lot of them would expect me to respond within, you know, an hour or two.
• 1:08:29
  Dr Mark Williams: And so I would say I respond once a week during this period of time.
• 1:08:33
  Dr Mark Williams: That's it.
• 1:08:34
  Dom Hind: Yeah.
• 1:08:35
  Dr Mark Williams: And I wouldn't respond everyone.
• 1:08:36
  Dom Hind: But you're managing their expectations, yeah, exactly.
• 1:08:38
  Dr Mark Williams: And they'd solve things themselves.
• 1:08:39
  Dr Mark Williams: I got a lot less emails knowing that I was only because they went, Oh, I better work out if I can fix it myself.
• 1:08:46
  Dr Mark Williams: Yeah.
• 1:08:46
  Dr Mark Williams: Up until that time.
• 1:08:48
  Dr Mark Williams: Yeah.
• 1:08:48
  Dr Mark Williams: And they do.
• 1:08:49
  Dr Mark Williams: Yeah.
• 1:08:49
  Dr Mark Williams: And even teenagers, a lot of people say to me, How do you let your teenagers like out and doing their own thing and all the rest of it?
• 1:08:55
  Dr Mark Williams: And it's like, because they solve the problems, you know.
• 1:08:57
  Dr Mark Williams: Yeah, occasionally the bus doesn't turn up, so they've got to wait for another one, or they've got to find another one.
• 1:09:01
  Dr Mark Williams: Or yeah, they didn't get the lift that they thought they were gonna get in the lift from a friend's parents, and so they have to work out another way to do it.
• 1:09:07
  Dr Mark Williams: And it's good for them.
• 1:09:08
  Dom Hind: Oh, it is it it is okay.
• 1:09:10
  Dom Hind: Rapid fire round.
• 1:09:12
  Dom Hind: One myth about screens that needs to go.
• 1:09:19
  Dr Mark Williams: Uh just one.
• 1:09:21
  Dom Hind: Yeah.
• 1:09:22
  Dom Hind: You're gonna have so I'm sure you've got 20, but you know, the top one.
• 1:09:26
  Dr Mark Williams: The top one would be that social media is social.
• 1:09:28
  Dom Hind: Yeah, okay.
• 1:09:28
  Dom Hind: I think that's a good one.
• 1:09:29
  Dom Hind: Yeah, it's yeah.
• 1:09:31
  Dr Mark Williams: Not at all.
• 1:09:32
  Dom Hind: One thing parents get wrong about screen time.
• 1:09:41
  Dr Mark Williams: I I hear a lot that screen time that that kids need to learn how to be on devices for their futures, right?
• 1:09:47
  Dr Mark Williams: Yeah.
• 1:09:47
  Dr Mark Williams: Yeah.
• 1:09:48
  Dr Mark Williams: And that's not true.
• 1:09:49
  Dr Mark Williams: Because screens uh they're ubiquitous because they're so easy to use.
• 1:09:53
  Dr Mark Williams: And so you don't need to learn how to use them.
• 1:09:55
  Dr Mark Williams: They just I don't know a five-year-old that can't use it like that.
• 1:09:58
  Dr Mark Williams: That's just nice.
• 1:09:59
  Dr Mark Williams: They're not.
• 1:10:00
  Dr Mark Williams: You don't need to learn how to use a screen.
• 1:10:02
  Dr Mark Williams: Sorry.
• 1:10:04
  Dom Hind: Okay, good.
• 1:10:04
  Dom Hind: One simple rule every family should have.
• 1:10:08
  Dr Mark Williams: Uh no phones in bedroom, bathroom, or at the dinner table.
• 1:10:12
  Dom Hind: Okay, good one.
• 1:10:13
  Dr Mark Williams: Well, no devices.
• 1:10:14
  Dr Mark Williams: No devices, yeah, yeah.
• 1:10:15
  Dr Mark Williams: No, there's lots of things.
• 1:10:17
  Dom Hind: Yeah, one habit that improves focus quickly.
• 1:10:20
  Dr Mark Williams: Uh turn off all your notifications so you're not being distracted.
• 1:10:23
  Dr Mark Williams: Okay, I like that.
• 1:10:24
  Dr Mark Williams: And it improves mental health as well within the city.
• 1:10:26
  Dom Hind: Oh, yes, I agree.
• 1:10:28
  Dom Hind: Yes.
• 1:10:28
  Dom Hind: Your mood in one word right now.
• 1:10:35
  Dr Mark Williams: Energetic at the moment.
• 1:10:36
  Dr Mark Williams: Yeah, good.
• 1:10:37
  Dr Mark Williams: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 1:10:38
  Dom Hind: Well, and is that just because you are inspired by doing stuff that matters?
• 1:10:46
  Dr Mark Williams: Yeah, I suppose so.
• 1:10:48
  Dr Mark Williams: Yeah.
• 1:10:48
  Dr Mark Williams: Yeah.
• 1:10:49
  Dr Mark Williams: Good.
• 1:10:50
  Dr Mark Williams: Yeah.
• 1:10:50
  Dr Mark Williams: Someone asked me um what what's your end goal?
• 1:10:53
  Dr Mark Williams: And and I said, My end goal would be that I don't have to do this anymore, so that I can just write books.
• 1:11:00
  Dr Mark Williams: Your etiquette.
• 1:11:01
  Dr Mark Williams: Yeah, yeah.
• 1:11:01
  Dr Mark Williams: So it gets to the point where you know there isn't this problem anymore.
• 1:11:04
  Dr Mark Williams: So I'm out of a job.
• 1:11:06
  Dr Mark Williams: That'd be fantastic.
• 1:11:07
  Dr Mark Williams: Okay.
• 1:11:07
  Dr Mark Williams: Yeah.
• 1:11:08
  Dr Mark Williams: I'd love to retire.
• 1:11:09
  Dom Hind: Yeah.
• 1:11:10
  Dom Hind: Um, what's one truth about screens and the brain that we're all ignoring?
• 1:11:17
  Dr Mark Williams: That it is actually causing brain damage, that is actually changing our brains in a negative way.
• 1:11:22
  Dr Mark Williams: That is going to be a big issue in coming decades.
• 1:11:27
  Dr Mark Williams: Because we're going to see the result of it when people get a little older.
• 1:11:32
  Dom Hind: Okay, good.
• 1:11:32
  Dom Hind: And then last question.
• 1:11:34
  Dom Hind: Um, I'm 50 in under two years now.
• 1:11:38
  Dom Hind: Um, what is one thing that you recommend that may push me that I should try before I do turn 50?
• 1:11:46
  Dr Mark Williams: Oh.
• 1:11:46
  Dr Mark Williams: Um do you surf?
• 1:11:52
  Dom Hind: Uh I grew up in loose, but I'm not very good at surfing.
• 1:11:55
  Dom Hind: Yeah.
• 1:11:56
  Dom Hind: And the sharks at the moment.
• 1:11:58
  Dom Hind: Like, come on.
• 1:12:00
  Dr Mark Williams: No, dude.
• 1:12:00
  Dr Mark Williams: So uh I'll clear that.
• 1:12:02
  Dr Mark Williams: Um thing you should try.
• 1:12:06
  Dr Mark Williams: Yeah.
• 1:12:06
  Dr Mark Williams: I think everybody should volunteer.
• 1:12:09
  Dr Mark Williams: So that's one thing I think is really, really important.
• 1:12:11
  Dr Mark Williams: I'm a surf-ly saver, um, but also do a whole bunch of other volunteering stuff.
• 1:12:15
  Dr Mark Williams: Yeah, volunteering I think is really, really important.
• 1:12:18
  Dr Mark Williams: So if you don't volunteer, you probably do volunteer, but if you don't, yeah, I don't know.
• 1:12:21
  Dr Mark Williams: You already do volunteer.
• 1:12:21
  Dr Mark Williams: So I don't know enough about you.
• 1:12:23
  Dom Hind: I I volunteer enough at school, um, but I think it's in the community that I probably need to be com volunteering more.
• 1:12:31
  Dr Mark Williams: Yeah, yeah.
• 1:12:31
  Dr Mark Williams: Volunteer to do something in the community that helps other people.
• 1:12:35
  Dr Mark Williams: Yeah, I think is really, really important.
• 1:12:37
  Dr Mark Williams: And it's decreasing society dramatically over the recent years.
• 1:12:42
  Dr Mark Williams: Yeah.
• 1:12:42
  Dr Mark Williams: And and it's it benefits the person who's volunteering.
• 1:12:45
  Dr Mark Williams: Yeah, it does the people that you're actually helping.
• 1:12:47
  Dr Mark Williams: Yeah.
• 1:12:47
  Dr Mark Williams: It really does.
• 1:12:48
  Dr Mark Williams: And there's lots of evidence for that.
• 1:12:50
  Dr Mark Williams: And you feel part of the community.
• 1:12:51
  Dr Mark Williams: You do.
• 1:12:52
  Dr Mark Williams: Yeah.
• 1:12:52
  Dr Mark Williams: And like my my son gets upset because when we walk around our area, everyone stops and talks to me.
• 1:12:58
  Dr Mark Williams: Yeah.
• 1:12:58
  Dr Mark Williams: I know everybody.
• 1:13:00
  Dr Mark Williams: But isn't that a good point?
• 1:13:01
  Dr Mark Williams: But he loves it though.
• 1:13:02
  Dr Mark Williams: He tears a joke about it, but he's he's as social as I am.
• 1:13:05
  Dom Hind: So I don't I get in trouble for gas bagging all the time.
• 1:13:08
  Dom Hind: I'm like, what?
• 1:13:09
  Dom Hind: I'm just checking in.
• 1:13:10
  Dom Hind: Like, as you said, it's the number one thing to make me live longer.
• 1:13:14
  Dom Hind: Yeah.
• 1:13:15
  Dr Mark Williams: Yeah, it's you're ticking it off, right?
• 1:13:17
  Dr Mark Williams: You won't have as many mental health issues later on.
• 1:13:20
  Dr Mark Williams: Yeah, true.
• 1:13:20
  Dr Mark Williams: This is so good.
• 1:13:21
  Dr Mark Williams: Yeah, okay.
• 1:13:21
  Dr Mark Williams: Save you a fortune.
• 1:13:23
  Dom Hind: Yeah, keep gas bagging.
• 1:13:24
  Dom Hind: That's what my uh that's what I can go back to my kids now and saying.
• 1:13:27
  Dom Hind: Okay, Dr.
• 1:13:28
  Dom Hind: Mark, thank you.
• 1:13:29
  Dom Hind: Thank you.
• 1:13:30
  Dom Hind: Thank you very much for this conversation.
• 1:13:32
  Dom Hind: Um because your work, it really is important, and it really does highlight that it's not just about limiting screens, it's about building better conditions for our brain and making sure that our brain is healthy for the long term for not only ourselves, but also for our kids.
• 1:13:55
  Dom Hind: And that sleep, movement, connection, being social, stillness, pausing, real-world connections are supposed to be lived, and how we do actually live a better life together.
• 1:14:12
  Dom Hind: And we live that through all five centers.
• 1:14:15
  Dom Hind: So, as you said before, it's the touch, the smell, it's the just being in a room, it is being present.
• 1:14:20
  Dom Hind: Because if we don't have that, we don't really have much else to go on.
• 1:14:26
  Dom Hind: And I think that uh what really stayed with me from your book is that when we choose presence over distraction, connection over convenience, we're not just managing screen time.
• 1:14:42
  Dom Hind: We're shaping how our kids see us, how they will behave, and how hopefully they will teach people beyond them to behave as well.
• 1:14:52
  Dom Hind: And we're shaping how they think, how they feel, and hopefully how the next generations will be.
• 1:14:58
  Dom Hind: And it feels like something that is definitely worth that investment and in getting it right.
• 1:15:04
  Dom Hind: So, Dr.
• 1:15:06
  Dom Hind: Mark Williams.
• 1:15:07
  Dom Hind: Thank you again for helping us understand what's really going on with our brain, with screens and how we can change our habits into making them good habits and good technology use.
• 1:15:19
  Dom Hind: And if anyone wants to learn anything else around Dr.
• 1:15:23
  Dom Hind: Mark's work, I will put everything in the show notes, link to everything.
• 1:15:27
  Dom Hind: Um, we didn't talk about Brain Camp.
• 1:15:29
  Dom Hind: Oh, I saw Brain Camp and was like, that's an amazing thing.
• 1:15:33
  Dom Hind: I want to know more.
• 1:15:34
  Dom Hind: So I'll put that in the uh show notes as well.
• 1:15:37
  Dom Hind: And if this episode has made you think about how you use your screen, has made you think about how you get your kids to use their screens or trying to stop them using them and be present in real life, please share it with anyone.
• 1:15:50
  Dom Hind: Because I think it's a conversation we need to have, not only with ourselves but with the kids.
• 1:15:55
  Dom Hind: So thank you.
• 1:15:57
  Dom Hind: And fuck, I'm nearly 50, and isn't it amazing?