Dr. Richard Davidson

But we need, particularly in youth, to start early before they get their first phone.

Yeah, I don't think there's any hard data on that, but I think it's a great question.

I think it's actually empirically tractable.

I think it's really worth studying.

My conviction is yes, I think it would be helpful, but the data don't exist.

That would be cool.

I'd love to collaborate.

Yeah, there are good measures of impulsivity and actually with impulsivity there are measures that go beyond self-report measures.

There are behavioral measures of impulsivity which may have more validity and so it would be extremely interesting and with device use and with a person's consent you can actually get back-end data so you don't rely on self-report, so it can be really robust kind of evidence.

Absolutely.

One of the things in my own life that I'm very aware of is, and apropos not doing, is not taking out my phone.

And I'm very intentionally aware of that.

I actually do a little practice of feeling my phone in my pocket.

And I really will not take it out unless I actually need it.

I remind people when I have meetings at our center, you know, often it's just the cultural habit, particularly with young people, you know, they put their phone on the table.

And there are data showing that even if you have all your notifications turned off, the simple presence of the device is enough to impair the interaction in some way, to have a discernible impact.

That's a great question.

My very first meditation retreat in 1974, I just went into this cold and it was like meditation boot camp.

It was a kind of retreat where we were practicing for 16 hours a day and my body was on fire.

It was so painful physically.