Dr. Sanjay Gupta on Screen Time & the Holidays

This is a guest post from WWSG exclusive keynote speaker, Dr. Sanjay Gupta.

Last week, Australia banned access to social media on 10 platforms — including Instagram, Facebook and TikTok — for children under 16.

It’s a pretty bold move, one that is a good reminder for all of us to re-evaluate our own relationships with social media (and, frankly, screens) this holiday season.

I think we’ve all been in this situation at one point: You’re sitting at the dinner table, having a great conversation, and out of the corner of your eye, you see someone who’s just staring at their phone.

We’ve all been guilty of it, but we can also work to be more mindful of our screen time and social media use.

We know it can be bad for us and our kids. A Pew survey found that nearly half of teens said they think social media has a “mostly negative” effect on people their age, and 45% say they spend too much time on social media.

OK, so how do we all get better at limiting our time staring at screens?

I want to take you back to the season of our “Chasing Life” podcast that was all about social media, because what I took away is that it’s like a car — a powerful tool we need to learn how to use in a healthier way.

Catherine Price, author of the book How to Break Up With Your Phone: The 30-Day Plan to Take Back Your Life, suggested a simple exercise when I interviewed her for that season. Every time you pick up your phone, ask yourself: What for? Why now? What else?

From there, she says, “Sometimes, you actually will have a reason. Like it’s your friend’s birthday. You need to get a gift for them. Most of the time is going to be an emotional reason. It’s going to be like, ‘I was anxious, I had it, and I want it to be soothed. I was bored waiting on this line. I wanted a distraction. I felt lonely. I wanted to feel connected.’ So identify what your brain is actually after, and then you can move to the third step, the ‘what else.’ Which is to ask yourself, what else could you do in that moment to achieve the same result?”

I love this advice. Let’s all try to spend more time with our families instead of our phones this holiday.

Dr. Sanjay Gupta brings unparalleled credibility, experience, and clarity to the stage as one of the world’s most trusted voices in health and medicine. As CNN’s chief medical correspondent and a practicing neurosurgeon, he has reported on every major health crisis of the last two decades—from the frontlines of natural disasters and war zones to the global Covid-19 pandemic.

Event audiences benefit not only from his deep medical expertise, but also his unique ability to communicate complex topics with clarity, empathy, and relevance. Whether discussing brain health, crisis response, or the intersection of media and medicine, Dr. Gupta delivers insights that are timely, actionable, and deeply resonant for groups of all kinds. Contact WWSG to host him for a speaking opportunity.