Navigating Screen Time in Motherhood, Mindful with Media

Links from this Episode:

• Mindful with Media Website
• Mindful with Media on Instagram  
• Mindful with Media Podcast on Spotify 
• Mindful with Media Podcast on Apple Podcasts  
• Episode: How I Stopped Wasting Time on Addictive Apps  
• Episode: You’re Not Alone in Your Mental Health Struggles with Anna
• Olive and June Affiliate Link 

Meet the Host

Alex Fales, the host, describes the show like this. As a young mom, I know what it’s like to turn to your phone without thinking or get sucked into scrolling. It can feel overwhelming to navigate this screen time saturated society. Listen along to the Mindful With Media podcast to feel validated. Find solutions to stop wasting time on your phone and start living a more fulfilling life.

The length of each episode is 15 to 30 minutes. The series is ongoing with new episodes available on Wednesdays. Before we learn more about the vibe of the show, we’re going to take a quick break to talk about Olive and June nail polish. 

Olive and June

I love having nail polish on, but I don’t handle it well when my nail polish starts to chip a day or two after I paint my nails. That is where Olive and June comes in. I use their mani system and my nail polish will stay on for a week with no chipping. It brings me so much joy every time I look at my nails with these fun colors. I want you to have that joy too. You can get 20% off a mani or pedi system by using the affiliate link in the show notes.

Screen Time and Motherhood

I’m Alex and I have two kids that are almost exactly 18 months apart. I have a little boy and a little girl. My son is two and my little girl is six months old. I am a stay-at-home mom. I also started this business Mindful with Media. I have a passion for screens and the impact of screen time and media.

I think podcasts are an awesome platform to share information, but really it’s the information that I’m passionate about. I got a smartphone when I was in high school. I’m sure that it had negative impacts on me, but I didn’t really notice them until I got to college. I was living on my own and all of a sudden I had to figure out life. I spent a lot of time scrolling social media and just wasting a lot of time on my phone. 

Now that I’ve started this business, I know that that’s normal. At the time I felt really dumb about it. I was a disciplined person and I did really well in school. I was a cross country runner and I saw myself as a very disciplined person. But all of a sudden I could not control my phone use. I was spending way more time on there than I wanted to and just feeling blah.  

Screen Time to Unwind

I would turn to my phone whenever I felt anything uncomfortable. If couldn’t sleep at night, I’d just scroll on my phone. If I liked a guy, but he didn’t like me and I felt awkward about it, I’d scroll on my phone. There were times when I was supposed to be doing this assignment, but it was really hard, so I’d just scroll on my phone. I wasted a lot of time on my phone. That was my reality. Then I tried a lot to stop wasting so much time on there because it wasn’t serving me well. I considered deleting all my social media accounts and I even considered getting a dumb phone. That was where I was at. 

Social Media Boundaries

I got a job teaching missionaries from the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. This was during Covid so all of a sudden these missionaries were all stuck at home like the rest of the world. They had no way to teach people about Jesus Christ except for through social media.

My job was to figure out and teach these missionaries effective ways to do that. I thought the job was going to be mostly teaching them social media marketing and strategies. A lot of it was that, but once I started training and coaching these missionaries a huge portion of my time was spent helping the missionaries create and maintain healthy phone boundaries.

I remember being in a lot of these training sessions and realized this is what I needed. I needed to have healthy phone boundaries. It was around the time I started teaching them this I had this idea that I needed to start this conversation somewhere.

I put it off for a long time until my son was about six months old. Then I decided that I needed to start this. I started posting things on Instagram and it’s gradually grown. I just released my first podcast episodes last week. So that’s why I started my podcast.

Navigating Screen Time is Hard 

I want people to feel validated. I want them to feel like managing screen time for ourselves and for our kids is not easy. It can be hard.

I also want people to feel hope because a lot of the messages that I hear and see about screens are really scary. It scares me for myself and it also scares me for my kids. It just kinda freaks me out. Luckily, the more research that I’ve done and the more books that I’ve read and the more podcasts that I’ve listened to, show that there’s a lot of hope and a lot of good things that come from technology.

I really want people to learn ways to have technology and screens serve them. Screens can help them and their family thrive and be better. 

Bringing Hope to Moms

I think it’s a hopeful podcast. I feel like this is such a cliche word these days, but also genuine. I try to share personal experiences with how I’m navigating my phone use. I share mistakes I’m making with my mental health and how that’s played a role in all of this. I really like it to be a place of vulnerability.

I would say vulnerable and hopeful and exciting. There’s so much good and fun and awesome things that can come from screens.

Follow Along on Instagram

The only social media platform I’m on is Instagram so if you want to follow me on social media that’s where I’m at. I host monthly workshops and this month we are talking about mental health and screens. If you get on my email list from my website, then you’ll hear about those workshops. That’s the best place to hang out with me and to find me. 

Ditching Addictive Apps

I have it easy since I only have a few episodes to choose from. But I would say, how I stopped wasting time on addictive apps is one of my favorite episodes. I really like that one because it just shows that I’m a real person and I’m still working through this.

One of the biggest things that I try to focus on in that episode is that when we’re using our phone, and we are scrolling more than we’d like, or we are wasting time, instead of feeling shameful about that, it is a really exciting opportunity to learn about ourselves and learn how we can improve.

I also just did an interview last night with someone I know about her mental health journey and how screens have played a role in that. I’m really excited for that one as well. 

Listening Around Kids 

I would say, generally speaking, it’s fine for little kids to listen to this podcast. I’m really careful with what I let my son hear. He’s super aware and asks about anything and everything. In the interview I did last night, it was about mental health so it did get into topics like self-harm or so thoughts of suicide and things like that.