Like everything, screens have benefits and downsides.

And maybe how we use them makes all the difference.

- I mostly use my phone for social media and playing games with my friends and family.

- And I mostly use my phone for talking to my friends, playing games, and watching videos on social media, also.

- Do you think you could go a whole weekend without it?

What if you had to share it with your entire family and had no apps?

- Me personally, I don’t think I could do that.

Or my sister.

But my parents, they are responsible adults, so I’m sure they can handle that.

But we’re going to find out exactly what that looks like within an entire family.

This is the “Flip Phone Challenge.” The Swain family has two parents, six kids and one grandkid.

They all agreed to spend a weekend with their phones locked away.

- And just one old flip phone to share among all of them.

Which, I’m not sure this is a phone.

I’m pretty sure this is just an ancient relic.

Yes.

I’m pretty sure this should belong in a museum.

- Check your pockets.

See?

I’ll check it.

Oh.

Oh, look I have the key.

Yeah.

Let’s see if that works.

Pop this out.

See here.

We have action!

Breaker breaker.

Oh.

It flips open.

I thought it was a walkie talkie.

- How do you even send a text, do you think, on this thing?

- I have no idea.

Do you think you can just imagine using these as one of your regular phones?

- Not really, but we won’t have to.

We’re gonna watch the Swain family trade their smartphones for this one.

Here is the Flip Phone Challenge.

- Hey.

I’m Jordan.

- Hello, I’m Kingston.

- Hi, I’m Armanie.

- And I’m Ailynn.

- I’m Daniel.

- I'm Troy.

- Hi, I'm Brenda.

- I'm Chase.

- And I'm Brandon.

- And we’re the Swain family.

- Here’s the box we’re gonna be putting our phone in.

- Oh, it’s a real lock box.

- OK.

It’s not bad.

- It’s a timer.

Two cameras.

Sorry.

OK, OK.

It’s not bad.

Uhh.

- That's the phone.

- Oh, the flip phone.

- Is that a camera on there?

- Yeah, it’s a camera.

- “Ready for a little challenge?

Give everyone a pad of paper and a pen.

Set the dial on the timer to two minutes.

You have until the timer goes off to write down any phone numbers you’ll need from your phone.

When the timer is done, everyone has to place their phones in the vault and lock it up.

On your mark.

Get set.

Go!” My phone.

It’s all the way over there.

- Oh shoot, I just called her, I just called her, I just called her.

I just called her.

- How are we even gonna text on the little phone?

- We can text on that.

You got to press the buttons.

- We got to learn how to text on that.

My mom.

I remember those days.

Dad.

- Who else?

Who else?

Who else?

- That’s crazy, because I call my dad all the time.

Now I got to look their number up.

- Thirty seconds.

What?

Hold on.

Nuh uh.

Yes it is.

It’s 30 seconds left?

Yes it is.

Why you lying?

Is anybody going to be hungry?

Oh.

Yeah, that’s a nice call.

- What about the Chinese place down the street?

- Oh, I’ll look them up.

I will look them up.

- That Brandon always calls.

- Yes.

- No.

- Five.

- No.

- Four.

- No.

- Three.

- Two.

- No.

- One.

- Oh my gosh.

Are you serious?

- I didn’t hear it.

- Pens down.

Pens down.

Pens down.

No, I didn’t.

- Goodbye phone.

- I’ll see you Sunday.

- My baby.

- Your baby?

- That’s your baby?

- That’s eight phones.

- I’ll hang on to this.

Now what?

- That mini challenge seemed stressful.

- It really did.

But, let’s ask a few questions to see how the family is feeling about it.

- What do you use your phone for the most?

- I use mine most for social media.

- Keep in contact with people.

Stay up with new trends.

Stuff like that.

- When the kids call me to pick them up and drop them off.

- Games.

- Probably just to stay in contact with people and make sure, I’m right where I’m supposed to be.

- Looking up the kids, seeing their location.

- Communication.

- Who is going to have the toughest time with this challenge?

Probably Troy.

- Probably Troy or Mom.

- I think Troy.

- My wife will.

- No.

No.

Not me.

- My mom don’t think about it, but she, she uses her phone for everything.

- Yeah she do.

- Looking up locations, seeing where we got to be, keeping the schedule right.

- I think Troy because he’s always out and about.

So, I’m pretty sure he needs his phone more than anyone.

- Is there anything you’re looking forward to this weekend?

- Spending time with my family, for real.

- Yeah, bonding time.

Bonding time.

- Undivided attention and some more family time.

- Peace.

It’ll be like a nice break.

- Finna win every board game, so.

- Yeah, we’re all competitive.

- Yeah.

Every board game.

- Stay in tune, stay in tune.

- Stay tuned.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Yeah.

- Well, I’m excited to see how this weekend goes.

- Let’s take a look.

- Say cheese.

It's not bad.

- No?

- It looks very vintage.

Put it on speaker.

You calling your girlfriend?

- How do you do that?

- Push the middle button.

- This your girlfriend?

- Call somebody.

- Oh, you got red buttoned.

- No, we finna call it again.

- No, you ain’t important.

- No, do not disturb, do not disturb.

- Second chance.

- Second chance.

- Ohhh!

- Oh.

She did text me.

- She texted you.

- She’s like, “Is that you, Brandon?” Hey, mom, it’s us.

- Hey grandma.

- Hey.

Hey grandma.

- What’s up, grandma?

- Hey, save this number if you need us.

- Alright, this your new number?

- Yeah, for the weekend.

- So they’ve got the TV cameras there?

- Yeah.

Yeah, mom.

I just wanted you to have the new number in case of anything.

- All right.

Thanks a lot.

- OK.

You’re welcome.

- Talk to you later.

- All right, grandma.

- First hour in.

Light work.

Piece of cake.

I’m finna breeze through this.

- Same.

- I’m already bored.

It only been an hour.

- I don’t want to do this no more.

- Challenge over.

- Why?

Why are we even doing this?

Why?

I’m drawing.

I don’t even draw.

I haven’t drawn since middle school.

I keep reaching for my phone in my pocket.

When I’m stressed, I clean.

So, I might do a little cleaning.

Or just, we might play board games or stuff.

- I thought you was good.

That’s game.

- Let’s go again, go again.

- Oh, I need that.

- It’s getting real, now!

Two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight.

One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight.

- That’s how you deal.

Two sets.

I’m hitting there.

- Oh my gosh she has a game plan.

- I’m hitting there.

I won.

- Oh my gosh.

- Me and Jordan are gonna try to get our phones out.

- Let’s try the card with it.

We just slide a card right here.

Watch now.

- Honestly, I feel like my phone is thin enough to come right out.

- If we get our phones out, y’all, we get to have them.

And do not tell our parents!

- It’s not coming out.

- It’s because, it’s because, it’s because this phone is right there.

If I, no, my phone is right there.

Oh.

- OK.

We tried.

We failed.

- Might try again tomorrow.

- We might if we get out of trouble.

Try to sneak.

- Day one actually is going, well went, pretty good.

This is going to be a walk in the cake as long as I stay busy.

So, I’m excited to see what happens tomorrow.

- Good morning, y’all.

Today should be interesting because we’re about to spend the whole day without a phone together.

I’m about to shower and do what I gotta do.

Right now, we just getting ready.

- To start the day.

- Trying to plan some stuff for today.

- Me too.

- Just to keep us occupied and busy.

And little, too.

Ailynn, too.

- Had my little midday walk to practice.

Didn’t have my phone either, so no AirPods, no music.

On the walk back, no phone, no AirPods, no music.

Then shoot around, it was boring.

No phone, no music.

So.

- Looking up a location so we can go eat.

Without our phones this is kind of difficult.

- This is crazy.

- See you when we get there.

- So, guys, we’re at the buffet.

We’re walking in with the family– whole fam.

See the box of phones.

- Box of phones right here.

- We walk on in.

You miss your phone?

- Having no phone really brings out your creativity.

We found a way how to play music off this.

- If this just fell, all of our phones are cooked.

- So, guys, we currently lost the phone.

- We about to drive to Brandon’s job to see if he has the phone, to see what time he get off of work.

So we was going to call his job to see what time he get off tonight.

We don’t know what time Brandon gets off for work tonight.

On our way to pick up Brandon from work.

Not sure what time he finishes because we don’t have a phone.

So yeah.

- Are we late?

- Yes.

- We didn’t have a phone to contact you.

- Oh, my gosh, you guys, it’s dark in there.

Do you have the flip phone?

- Yeah.

I didn’t know I had it.

- Oh, we found the bandit.

- I didn’t know.

- You left us at home with no phone.

- I didn’t know it was in my pocket.

- We was trying to call your job.

- We were gonna call your job.

- I told Troy 9.

- Where’s the phone?

Received it.

- It’s your go, Papa.

- One.

Two.

Three.

Four.

Five.

I needed a six to send you back home.

Two.

- One.

Two.

How are y’all doing?

- One.

Two.

Three.

Four.

Five.

Six.

- I forgot that I got a phone.

- One.

Two.

Three.

- It seems like the family still had a fun weekend without their phones.

- Yeah, but let’s ask them about their weekend before they get their phones back.

- What was the biggest surprise this weekend?

- I was around my family a little bit more.

- They started to, move into each other’s rooms and it was like one big slumber party.

- The biggest surprise I would say, is how it bring out each other’s creativity.

- What did you miss the most?

- I missed talking to my friends without my phone.

- Calling people and contacting people because me, I’m always on my phone.

I’m always socializing.

I’m always on the phone with somebody talking.

- When I go out in the mornings to do my runs or my errands, I don’t have my phone to do – to use the apps that we depend on nowadays.

- Did you have any nice moments without your phone?

- Everybody in the room at the same time getting along and just interacting with each other.

- Earlier today, we played a card game, got real competitive.

Even though I was winning for like, like always – but, got real competitive and I was just yeah, it was fun, fun time.

- Would you ever do this challenge again?

- I wouldn’t go another weekend without my phone.

- Me being me, no.

Like, I wouldn’t wanna do it.

But if I had to, yeah.

- This challenge kind of opened my mind up a little bit, and I feel like we should do it more often.

- I would go another weekend without it because I’ve missed everyone, everyone’s growing up, and it was fun being together.

So we had a lot of moments together.

- You all ready?

Flip phone in the box.

Lock the flip phone in there.

Oh, there we go.

“More childhood, please.™” Bye!

- High five.

High five.

- My eyeballs are going to come out!

- We hope you enjoyed that moment of childhood.

Now, let’s see how screens have become such a big part of our lives.

They’re how we stay in touch, connect with people, learn life skills, and even learn how to negotiate conflicts.

- We asked a group of teenage friends to make a movie.

- They didn’t have a lot of rules for this movie.

It just had to be a couple minutes long, needed a plot, characters, a setting, and not a whole lot else.

- And we have not watched this yet, so we’re going to watch it right now.

Ready?

- Ready.

This is the “Short Movie Challenge.” - All right, let’s watch it.

Let’s see.

- Bigfoot.

- Five-minute special.

OK.

Let’s see.

I think these are our main characters.

- Oh, that sounds fun.

- That does.

- That “Bet.

Adios!” - Ohhh.

Bigfoot.

OK, so we know Tyler and Jack.

It’s burning!

Take the marshmallow off!

It’s burning!

Oh.

- What’s that?

- I don’t think a squirrel sounds like that.

It said, “Aragh.” - He lost the marshmallow.

- It just fell into the ... - You lost your marshmallow to the fire.

- Oooh.

- That went missing.

That’s not good.

Oh!

Oh my God.

Oh!

- Oh, no!

- What?!

Very crazy storyline right now.

- Oh, no!

He just got taken, too.

Oh no.

Oh.

- He got caught!

- Oh, I think that’s Bigfoot.

- I think it is too.

It's one of one of those movies.

- Oh.

That’s so funny.

- Now they’re playing football.

Oh.

He don’t play.

Why’d he fall so dramatically?

Oh!

How many shots did that take?

- Yeah.

How many?

- I wonder how long that took to perfect that.

They’re going holiday shopping!

- So hilarious.

- They became best friends!

- They became best friends.

That’s so funny.

Should we watch the bloopers?

- Let’s do it.

How do we zoom this in?

Ahhh!

Jack lost his phone.

If only we had a leaf blower right now.

This phone brings friends together.

Team work.

Got it.

Lincoln found it.

Bang!

Bang!

Bigfoot knows the forest!

Bigfoot knows the forest!

I have an itch, guys.

Ayeee.

Hold up.

Do it again.

- We have Dr.

Michael Redovian and Dr.

Kristen Stefanski with us from Akron Children’s.

Welcome, doctors.

Would you mind telling us a little bit about yourselves and what you do for Akron Children’s?

- Sure.

So I’m Dr.

Stefanski, I’m a developmental behavioral pediatrician at Akron Children’s.

So that means I see kids when there’s a question about their development or learning or behavior.

- And I’m Dr.

Redovian.

I’m one of the child and adolescent psychiatrists.

Do you guys know what a psychiatrist is?

- Yeah.

- You do?

- It’s someone who sort of works with feelings a lot.

Yeah, feelings, worries, behaviors, that kind of stuff.

Whether that’s talking about it or sometimes even giving medicine for it.

- So, Dr.

Stefanski, since our episode today is all about screens, we wanted to know if you talk about them with your patients and families.

- Yeah, that’s a good question.

So when I’m talking with kids, I’m asking about how much time they’re spending on their screens.

What type of content they’re seeing on screens, and also where they’re viewing that content.

Because even though there are lots of fun things that, that we access on screens, we also know that if it’s too much or if there’s certain content that’s not the right type of content, that could potentially have a negative impact on things like development or sleep, as well.

- What’s a safe age for kids to start using screens and why that age?

- Generally we think that around age 2 is when it’s OK to start introducing kind of a limited amount of screen time.

And that’s because, kids under 2, particularly kids under 18 months of age, really don’t understand screens and can’t understand what they’re seeing.

So starting around age 2, a limited amount of high-quality, educationally focused content is OK and is best when viewed together with a parent.

- As kids get older, you can start introducing a little bit more screen time.

So, you know, let’s say around age 6 or so, we would start saying, hey, about an hour a day, you know, maybe up to two hours as they start getting closer to being a teenager.

And it’s important to remember that that’s not necessarily schoolwork, right?

Because we know that you guys have to do work on the computer and that kind of thing.

And we don’t want that to count as screen time, per se.

That being said, you know, sometimes you guys are on screens all day and then you come home and you want to be on more screens, and that can kind of get a little overwhelming for all parties involved.

So we just want to make sure that it’s not becoming a problem, and that it’s not kind of taking over your whole day.

- What were some positive moments that stood out to you in our first challenge, where we let the family share one flip phone?

- Just seeing them kind of come together and start doing things together as a family, I mean, it was almost immediate.

They, they realized, “Hey, we don’t have our phones, so we got to do something,” and they started playing a board game.

And they were just able to kind of connect as a family again, which is so important for kids, adults, all parties.

- Yeah, I agree with Dr.

Redovian.

So they did a lot of things that forced them to be more creative with their time, right.

We know that when you aren’t spending as much time on screens, that even if it feels boring at first, it really forces you to be more creative.

Maybe try something new, stretch your brain in different ways than you would otherwise.

- What positive things do you see about how screens were used in the Short Movie Challenge?

- They had to use their, their screens to shoot that movie.

They had to do, you know, to, to talk to each other and, and collaborate to really create something that was really cool.

So I think that the use of these, of screens, can be helpful if they’re used in a positive way.

- What advice do you have for kids and parents watching this show?

- Yeah.

So I think some general rules of thumb are that, you know, spending time on screens isn’t a bad thing.

But we want to make sure that it’s never interfering with things that are even more important than that.

So we want to make sure that screen time isn’t getting in the way of interacting with family and friends.

We want to make sure it’s not interfering with sleep.

And also we want to make sure it’s not keeping kids from being outside and being active and moving their bodies around, because those are really important things too.

- So now, we have a very important question for you both.

It’s, “Would you rather?” - Uh oh.

- So would you rather give up your phone for two days or scroll on social media for two days straight?

- Oh, I would for sure give up my phone.

- Yeah.

Hard same.

That phone is going into a safe, into a closet, out the window.

We’re giving up the phone.

- Not out the window.

- Well, it’s in a safe.

It’s fine.

- Would you rather film yourself trying a crazy recipe or a dance from social media?

- I would do the recipe because I like to cook more than I like to dance, and I’m a little awkward, so.

- I’m going to give the dance a try.

I’m gonna be brave and give it a try.

Yeah.

- Well, would you rather be part of a social media celebrity family or live like a pioneer with no internet?

- I would not do well with being filmed all the time, I don’t think.

So I would be a, I would try my best at being a pioneer.

- I would do poorly at both things.

But, if I had to pick one of them, I would probably go with the pioneer thing, even though I’d probably not do all that hot.

- Okay.

Well, I think we covered a lot of helpful topics for parents and kids.

- Thank you, doctors, for joining us today and sharing with our viewers.

- Thank you for having us.

- Thank you so much for having us.

- We’ll be right back, after a quick dance break.

We had a great time today talking about how we use our screens in our daily lives.

- There are lots of benefits to using phones and screens, but we also have to find a balance in how much we use them and what we use them for.

- Right.

We still need in-person interactions and times away from our phone too.

If you have any ideas on how to use your phone less and spend more time with your family and friends, or other challenges you’d like to see, message us now on Facebook and Instagram.

Thanks for watching today.

We’ll see you on the next episode.

- Bye.

- Bye.

- You want to play with those cameras?

- Yeah.

Yeah.

OK.

Oh, yeah.

It’s got some action right here.

Hello.

Smile.

Smile for the camera.

You’re on video.

Hello, everyone.