- All I wanna do is listen
to my crime podcasts and watch my true crime shows. - Tell you a scary story? - [Hannah] You are not
as good as Dateline. - Watch, let's dim the lights. (upbeat instrumental music) Hi, I'm Hannah and I'm the
world's OK-est mom and if-- Sorry. Okay. Hi, I'm Hannah and I'm
the world's OK-est mom, and if you're a parent
like me and living in this day and age,
technology is a big deal. I feel like I use screens
all the time as a crutch and as a babysitter for my kids. I got screens on screens on screens. So I wanna try something. For a whole week I'm gonna cut
the cord for my entire family and hopefully it brings
us closer together, maybe it'll drive us insane, but we'll see what
happens so wish me luck. So the rules in our house
were no TV, no internet, no use of phones, and no electronic games. As far as me and Matt, when we're at work, we're allowed to use our computers, we're allowed to keep our phones on in case of an emergency with the kids. We just weren't allowed to use anything for any other purpose
besides strictly work. So no browsing social
media, no scrolling through Buzzfeed articles to find
out which type of cake I am. We couldn't even use our phones to stream audio while we were driving. Oh, and one more thing,
obviously I need to use my camera on my phone to make this video, so that's something
that was also happening. They're up early and this is when I let them watch a little TV, but we're not gonna do that
so I'm gonna get up and play. They always wake up super restless, I feel like that's just
the thing with young kids, they wake up and they're
like, "Where are we going? "I wanna get dressed, I'm
hungry," they're always hungry. So I had to get up, too. Wyatt, we're not watching TV today. Wyatt. Don't turn it on. - [Jackson] Turn it on, Wyatt. - [Hannah] Don't do it. Don't be a bad influence. We're just gonna play today. - [Jackson] I thought
we were going outside. - Don't be mad. No, we're not gonna play
video games today, remember? Now, I thought that that
morning was the worst of it, but I didn't realize just how much we would have to detox throughout the day. Jackson, put it away! - Ah! - [Hannah] Put it away. Okay, I'm gonna count. Three, two, one. - [Jackson] You're such a no-no. - So I can't check my work email. I'm kinda dying and it's only been, like, half a day and
I'm kind of struggling. I know I check my work
email on the weekends and I know you shouldn't and I know that you're supposed to just
turn off when you go home, but I am super high-strung
and little bit obsessive. I think a lot of that stems
from being a working parent, I always worry that
things are falling between the cracks because I'm dividing my time. I want to call my mom and
we don't have a landline. The first casualty of this week was a plan that I had made to see
my mom the first day. I was gonna see her this weekend and so now I don't know what to do. There was no way for
me to get ahold of her to coordinate meeting
her so I didn't even know if it was worth driving
over because I could just show up and she wouldn't be home. Sorry, mom. She understands. No, she doesn't. However, one thing that didn't suffer this week in our house was the music. We're gonna say bye to Google. - [Wyatt] Bye, Doodle. - [Hannah] Any last words? - [Jackson] We're gonna miss you. - Well, 'cause we're unplugging her. Goodbye, Google. (Hannah laughing) We are luckily very hipster parents, we have an old record player, so we whipped that out
this week and just played a bunch of records and
it's always really fun. The kids get excited about that, too. Halfway through the first
day I was already so bored, I think we were all so bored, so what we ended up doing for a good few hours was just cleaning. I share a bathroom with three boys. Oh, man, look at that toilet. This is amazing, we even
cleaned the bathtub. I think the kids were so mad but I was really pleased at the end. So today, the kids are
getting a little restless so we're gonna get out of the house again. We're gonna go to a flea market. I love doing flea market
days because there's so much to see and so much to do and the kids get a lot of,
you know, walking and exercise and they have a really
fun time just checking out all the cool stuff that
they have to offer. One thing I did not think
of is, at the flea market, like, the whole point
of going is I try to get good deals on stuff and the way I do that is by Googling what it is and seeing how much it costs on other websites. So there are these super
cute leather boots, they're $50 and they fit me perfectly. They're so dang cute but I don't know if I'm getting a good deal. I don't know what to do. I got a few crystals
because I'm pretty savvy with what's a good deal on crystals. - And I got a lucky penny. - He found a lucky penny
and I didn't get the boots. I don't wanna risk it. You know, when you're a
family of four on a budget, you can't go spending 50 bucks on something that's not a
good deal so we'll see. $250. I could've gotten those boots for 50 bucks and they're $250 boots. Oh my gosh, that is so frustrating. I'm so mad right now. Monday was a holiday so
we just sucked it up, I packed everyone in the car, and we drove to my parent's house in hopes of finding my sister Stella. We are headed to the
park to exert some energy 'cause we need to get outside desperately. What better way to distract ourselves from no technology than
by going to the park? And this park doesn't even have service so I'm not tempted to use my phone. He's sleepy. And the park was really nice. Honestly, I really enjoy
the days that we go there and just spend the day and have a blast. It was nice to be able to see my sister. Overall, Monday was a great day and I didn't even Instagram about it, so technically it never happened. So Tuesday, first day at
work with no technology and right off the bat I knew
this was gonna be a rough week. My roundtrip commute is around three hours so that's my time that I
really utilize podcasts, but without using my phone
and plugging it into my car, I really had nothing to listen to. I'm not gonna listen to the radio because, let's be real, the radio
doesn't even play music anymore. So my solution-- Remember these? I love Borns. Borns, if you're watching this, my birthday's in July
and I would really love a private concert if you're available. And I also really love Kate Bush, for anyone who is as old as I am. So I've got those two CDs and I felt like I was pretty set for the week. I know I was so excited to find two CDs and purchase them for my car, but of those two CDs there are only about seven songs that I like
so for the past week I've just been listening to those seven songs over and over and over. So now I've resorted to
driving to work in silence. Jackson had a little bit of a hard time letting go of his technology. Ah, ah, ah, put that away. Are you guilty? You surrender? How was tonight with no TV? - Good. - Are you okay that I took away your game? I love you. - I love you, too. - One thing didn't even dawn on me, that I didn't realize until that night. You know what else I realized? We never text. We can't text during the day. Did you even notice? - Yeah. - No, you didn't. I didn't even notice I wasn't texting. I have no one to text. (Hannah and Matt laughing) If people aren't texting about my kids, there's no one for me to text. When Jackson gets a phone
I'll have someone to text. Now, Wednesday for me was
a really busy day at work, but it was a different kind of busy. I was actually in an all day long workshop from 9 AM to 6 PM. All day long. By Wednesday, I was flat out struggling, which I didn't think
was gonna be the case. I thought it would be the kids having the hard time and me doing okay, but the kids seemed to be doing just fine. And, in fact, they surprised me. Jackson, all on his own, got out a book and just started reading while I cook. How cool is that? Jackson, you're doing awesome! What activity do you wanna do? Stamps? - Yeah. - Okay, let's do it! So Thursday was Wyatt's turn to kind of have a hard time and melt down. What do you want? Wyatt, Google's not on right now. Whenever I said no, he
couldn't take it anymore. (Wyatt crying) At one point he actually said to me-- Stop taking your stuff away? I felt his pain, he was very inconsolable and he was very upset and I wholeheartedly understood where he was coming from. It's tough, I know. Today is the last day, it's the last day. It's okay, it's okay, it's okay. So by Friday, we were all
just really sick of each other and really sick of this experiment, and that's when expletive
literally hit the fan. I am in the bathroom
trying to fix my hair, I leave Wyatt out there
unattended for all of five minutes and he rushes in here
presenting me with a giant expletive in his diaper that
he's ripped off of his butt. And this is why I need cartoons. At this point, I will take
Caillou, I will take anything. I need him to watch
something for five minutes so I can do my hair. There's no one to blame but me. But the silver lining was something really special that happened. You guys will never
believe what I just found. Boom! Most of you probably don't
even know what this is, but it is a CD holder
for all my burned CDs and I am so excited. I feel like I just struck
gold, I hit the jackpot here. Okay, I don't have too much to work with, but I am really curious
to try this Camp CD out. It doesn't even look too scratched, so I'll give it a couple-- Okay, right off the bat, it's Clay Aiken. Maybe this is why I
didn't have any friends. What did I learn from this week? A whole lot. First and foremost, I
learned that while we're not the worst at utilizing technology and social media and screen time, there's a lot that we can
cut out of our daily routine. Two, I learned that I need to step back from work a little more. As a working mom I know that I feel two steps behind everybody else. I have so much that I'm responsible for and so much that I'm keeping track of that I'm always utilizing
my time away from work to catch up on anything I missed, but I need to remind myself that that time away from work is my time, and that time is important. It's important to just take the time away. And third, while there is a lot of technology that's a little excessive, I think that there's a health balance and there's a lot of technology that we use that enriches our lives. For example, calling my mom in the morning and calling a friend
who lives out of state. It keeps you connected to the people who you don't see on a daily basis, and if you're not overdoing
it I think it's just super useful and important to maintain. And fourth, I learned that I was a weird kid with horrible taste in music, and I'm kind of proud of it. So that's all I got for today. I'm Hannah and I have to know, have you tried something like this? Have you reduced your screen time or even for your whole family? Let me know in the comments,
tell me how it went, or you can text me. This is a real number and I
do read every single message. I don't always respond to
them all 'cause I get a lot, but I love to hear what
you guys have to say. Now, if you'll please excuse me, I only have about 50 hours of podcasts to catch up on on my ride home, so I will see you guys later. 'Til next time! Oh, don't need these anymore. (upbeat instrumental music) You guys are cute.
