Can New Parents be Digital Minimalists? | Deep Questions With Cal Newport
Chapters
0:0 Cal's intro0:58 Go easy on yourself
1:50 Kindle paperwhite
00:00:00.000 | And Danielle says, how can I stop my digital minimalism principles from going out the window
00:00:07.820 | after having a baby?
00:00:11.640 | So she talks about, I'm going to condense this some, um, she's on her phone a lot more
00:00:15.440 | because she's taking pictures to send to her family.
00:00:17.680 | And there's also useful things for her baby that she uses on the phone, like controlling
00:00:21.400 | the lights or the white noise in the room.
00:00:24.480 | And reading, she really emphasizes reading when you're doing those feedings in the middle
00:00:28.960 | of the night.
00:00:29.960 | And then she ends up, I'm quoting her, quoting her here, doom scrolling, the guardian online
00:00:34.840 | at 5:00 AM to check the latest COVID news, et cetera.
00:00:38.200 | All right.
00:00:39.840 | She says, uh, the bad phone habits have now set back in like rot.
00:00:44.200 | My phone seems like the most efficient way to stay occupied during this long feeds.
00:00:48.320 | I don't want to give myself too much of a hard time, but I don't want my son pretty
00:00:51.360 | much ever to see me on my phone.
00:00:52.600 | Once he's old enough to be able to recognize it, you know, what do I do?
00:00:57.120 | Well, Danielle, first you're right to go easy on yourself when you're in the infant stage.
00:01:00.240 | I mean, anything goes survival, not a time to be really on yourself about your phone
00:01:08.000 | habits on exercise and food on, are you properly socializing with people?
00:01:13.960 | It's a little bit of an all hands on deck, at least until you sleep train.
00:01:17.560 | And I do hope you sleep train Danielle, because you got to balance the needs of the baby with
00:01:21.600 | your own.
00:01:23.000 | One concrete thing I'll just offer from our own experience is when we had our first, my
00:01:27.920 | wife had the same issue with the phone reading during the late night feeds.
00:01:33.040 | So she bought a Kindle paperwhite.
00:01:34.600 | That's when the pin Kindle paperwhites first came into our lives.
00:01:37.440 | So you could read a book during the feeds and the paperwhite has its own built-in backlight
00:01:43.520 | that is not disturbing.
00:01:46.920 | It doesn't fill the room with light.
00:01:48.320 | It's not going to bother the baby.
00:01:49.840 | It doesn't change you into, Oh my God, it's daytime.
00:01:53.360 | And so the Kindle paperwhite is not a bad idea for distraction during late night feedings.
00:02:01.360 | That is not going to send you down a doom scrolling rabbit hole.
00:02:06.040 | The other thing she innovated in our household was also like the, uh, the go basket next
00:02:11.720 | to every place you might feed.
00:02:14.800 | It had all sorts of various things like snacks, water bottles.
00:02:17.880 | I'd read, I get, you know, fresh ice water and good insulated things before the night,
00:02:21.960 | um, towels, you know, for the mess.
00:02:24.120 | He had these go baskets next to all the places you would, you would feed and see if your
00:02:27.880 | paperwhite and all the stuff you need, you just got to make that as easy as you can.
00:02:32.520 | I like your idea by the way of not having your kids see you on the phone all the time.
00:02:35.760 | It doesn't matter with an infant.
00:02:37.360 | It doesn't matter even with a one year old or two year old.
00:02:39.800 | I do think it matters.
00:02:41.540 | We should talk about this more as a culture.
00:02:43.120 | When you're talking about a five year old, a seven year old, a 12 year old, they see
00:02:46.760 | you on your phone all the time.
00:02:47.840 | You can have a hard time convincing them they shouldn't do the same.
00:02:50.920 | [MUSIC PLAYING]
00:02:54.280 | (upbeat music)