Dr. Faye Begetti

I've actually talked in my book about a time when I was in a waiting room myself.

And as a doctor, I see all these people in the waiting rooms using their phones, wondering what they might be doing, but I was about to undergo a procedure.

And I was waiting.

And you know what?

I texted a really good friend of mine because I was fearful.

And it really helped.

It really, really helped.

So I think, again, it's just about

seeing past the little device that people have in their hands and just wondering what are they doing and why they're doing it.

I would have managed even if I didn't have the ability to text my friend, but I actually made the whole experience so, so, so much better to be able to distract myself and have a little messaging chat and some jokes really helped calm my brain and put me in a better position.

That's a really good point.

So before we had mobile phones, we would have either magazine or laptops and there was certainly, you know, taking them out in certain situations would constitute

quite a big move or action.

One of the things that makes phones so sticky and so habit forming is that they have checking them has become a really small action.

And our brain has an autopilot system where we encode habits, things that we do automatically.

And those habits tend to be really, really small actions.

Things like, you know, the way we talk, the way we use our hands, washing our hands, covering our mouth when we cough.

These are all habits.

And our phones have sort of been integrated in this sort of habitual mechanism.

in the autopilot brain.