This TED Talk features psychologist Adam Alter, recorded live at TED 2017.

So a few years ago I heard an interesting rumor.

Apparently the head of a large pet food company would go into the annual shareholders' meeting with a can of dog food.

And he would eat the can of dog food.

And this was his way of convincing them that if it was

good enough for him, it was good enough for their pets. This strategy is now known as dog fooding,

and it's a common strategy in the business world. It doesn't mean everyone goes in and eats dog

food, but business people will use their own products to demonstrate that they feel that they're

confident in them.

Now, this is a widespread practice, but I think what's really interesting is when you find exceptions to this rule. When you find cases of businesses or people in businesses who don't

use their own products. Turns out there's one industry where this happens in a common way,

a pretty regular way, and that is the screen-based tech industry.

So in 2010, Steve Jobs, when he was releasing the iPad, described the iPad as a device that

was extraordinary. The best browsing experience you ever had, way better than a laptop,

way better than a smartphone. It's an incredible experience. Now, a couple of

months later, he was approached by a journalist from the New York Times, and they had a long

phone call. And at the end of the call, the journalist threw in a question that seemed like a sort

of softball. He said to him, your kids must love the iPad. And there's an obvious answer to this,

but what Job said really staggered the journalist.

He was very surprised because he said they haven't used it. We limit how much technology our kids use at home.

This is a very common thing in the tech world. In fact, there's a school quite near Silicon Valley called the Waldorf School of the Peninsula,

and they don't introduce screens until the eighth grade. Now, what Waldorf School of the Peninsula, and they don't

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