– I feel I waste a lot of time, especially on social media, says Sven Bisgaard Sundet.
The presenter, known from the Heia Fotball podcast, has, according to himself, a screen time of between five and six hours on his mobile phone. In addition, he sits all day at work in front of the PC and in the evening he watches series or plays on the games console.
– No, so it’s a screen all day and night. I hardly do anything other than being on screen, says the father of two.
MOBILE GAMES: Sven Bisgaard Sundet with his favorite mobile game in the period before the logout starts.
Photo: Chris Veløy
The idea to do something drastic with his screen use came to Sven one day when he saw himself from outside in the playground.
– Two- or three-year-olds just run up to a person they’ve never met before and say “hey, do you want to play”, but then I notice that we adults, we picked up the phone and could stand and hide behind it.
It is also the children who got their friend Mike Stilson on the trail to ditch the smartphone.
– I noticed that in every empty space in everyday life I could pick up the phone almost unconsciously. And then the magical moment happens with the kids, but shit, they see dad sitting on a screen. I notice that I am removing myself from the situation that I really want to be in and that they need me to be in, says Mike Stilson, former football pro and now author of youth books.
LAST SELFIE: Mike takes a picture of an exhausted Sven after the running test.
Photo: Chris Veløy
They are not alone in being annoyed by their screen use.
In a survey conducted by Kantar for the Digitox project at the University of Oslo, 88 percent of those under 30 answered that they spend too much time online. An increase of 10 percent from 2018.
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For the general population, 67 percent said they spend too much time online. Up 14 percent in five years.
Concerns about brain changes in young children, the rebellion against screen use in school, the importance of sleep and social media’s connection with psychological problems are topics the two friends will investigate as part of the project.
– I feel that there are a lot of indicators that you don’t have an answer to. That both myself and society really should get some answers as soon as possible so we can do things right, says Sven.
What they find out is planned to be presented on nrk.no during the year before a finished series comes on NRK TV in just over a year.
The logout rules from the start are simple: No screen use at all.
– It is brutal and difficult for them to carry out professionally. Then we’ll see how they handle it. In any case, they will not be allowed to be on any social media or smartphones for the next year, says Lars O. Skjønberg, who is the director of the series Avlogga.
They are both excited about how they will manage without their smartphone in everyday life.
– I love my smartphone as much as most people. That’s bullshit. Now when we are about to leave, I know that it is absolutely terrible to think about how cumbersome it will be, but then there is a curiosity that is connected to whether it is only good that everything will be easier, says Mike.
Facsimile: svensund / Instagram
– How are you going to get on the bus? How will you get the bank to check? How will you get your bills paid? That’s exactly what we kind of want to challenge a little then. It goes without saying, it will be stressful, says Sven.
Most of all, Sven is excited about how it will be without access to his friends on Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp.
– They are actually quite social on social media then. So I wonder if I won’t be able to attend social events. That I simply become a bit isolated, and that would be sad because that is something I think we should be able to achieve, to be able to be social even if you don’t have a phone.
As a prelude to the experiment, Sven and Mike have been guinea pigs for a class at high school. Snap streaks and posting in all possible situations and at all times of the day have been among the challenges the two have had to bring their mobile use up to the level of 17-year-olds.
SCREEN TIME AS A 17-YEAR-OLD: Sven increased his screen time to almost 11 hours by cutting back on sleep.
Facsimile: svensund / Instagram
Along the way, the two have brought brain researchers and scientists who will measure bodily changes such as stress and sleep during a year completely free from notifications and reminders from the mobile phone.
According to the plan, what they find out will be available on nrk.no during the project before a complete documentary series comes out in just over a year.
TRAINING WATCHES: They should not be completely screen-free, because training watches must measure activity and sleep.
Photo: Chris Veløy
– One thing is what we experience individually, but the idea is to investigate what happens to us physiologically, psychologically, socially and relationally, how it affects us, says Mike.
– Why do you have to log out for a year to find out?
– Heh, heh. I think there are many people who do a digital detox where they log off for a weekend or a week or six, and you certainly get an effect from that. But you go straight back and it becomes a gimmick, something that’s cool to talk about, Mike replies.
– And then it may happen that we find out that it doesn’t matter, but I don’t think so, he adds.
AT THE BRAIN RESEARCHER: Audrey van der Meer prepares Mike for examination.
Photo: Vegard T. Blakstad/NRK
– Could it be that what you find out does not match what you thought?
– Absolutely, replies Sven.
– I notice that a lot of people are skeptical about screens in school. And the same with the fact that many people say that screen time is dangerous or negative. And I don’t think it necessarily needs to be, so I’m excited to get good answers, says journalist Sven.
As a writer, Mike is aware that he can quickly be perceived as incompetent in his commitment to screen use.
– It is clear that my entire livelihood depends on people reading books and there are many indications that the screen is now the main competitor to the book. The best thing for me is that we find out that screen is something shit. And it’s dangerous to be on it, says Mike with a smile.
Photo: Vegard T. Blakstad
2023-09-19 10:28:50
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