is phone addiction dumbing us down?
58:38 Share

There's no road trip like Missouri Route 66. Part freedom, part adventure. All American. There are no miles between each destination. It is the destination. Missouri Route 66 is roadside joy and the best parts of life. So on its 100th anniversary, make some new memories on the Mother Road in the one state where it's like no other. Get Motherland.

Moe's Stalgic on Missouri's Route 66. Start your road trip now at visitmoe.com. Discover the life-changing benefits of Meow Greens for your cat. Ever see your cat slowing down or having health issues and wonder, what can I do to make them better? Well, my friend, add Meow Greens to your cat's food for 90 days, and I guarantee you'll see changes that will amaze you. Greetings, I'm naturopathic doctor Dennis Black.

inventor of Meow Greens, and I invite you to take the Meow Greens 90-Day Challenge. In the first 30 days, you'll see shinier coats and increased energy. By day 60, your cat will have a stronger immune system, less shedding, improved joint function, all due to the live nutrients that you've added to their diet. And at 90 days, they're going to have better digestion, reduced inflammation, improved heart health, and you may even have reduced their cancer risk.

Fetch a free Jumpstart trial bag for your cat today. Go to trymeowgreens.com. Use promo code trymeow. That's try M-E-O-W. You discover the shipping. You don't have to change your cat's food to improve your cat's health. Just add a packet of Meow Greens. Hi, guys. Welcome back to the Growing Up Podcast with Keelan Moncrief. Sorry if you can hear the birds in the background. There's currently birds living in the vents of my apartment. Oh, my God. Living with the wildlife. But this is the most...

highly requested episode that I got. I'd asked him my story for four different subjects and this was definitely the most voted. So I'm going to be speaking on phone addiction and how the correlates to anti-intellectualism. For books on this, I really highly recommend Reading Logged Off by Adele Walton, who I will be interviewing in a few weeks time. So you'll get to hear a more insight into her processes of writing and the research that went into that. But it's less a self-help book, but more very...

well-researched, evidence-based insight and look into the world of social media and how it's designed to be addictive and the negative implications that come along with that. But anyway, I'm going to talk a little bit about how social media is no longer social, but is designed to just keep us on our phones and keep us in a spiral or loop of addiction and in a spiral loop of doom scrolling and how it leads to loads of things like

brain rot, laziness, lack of critical thinking and affects our relationships and everything else. I'm now very strongly against this. I would be of the persuasion of banning smartphones until my children are of age, until they're 18 and until their brains are nearly fully developed. They can practice critical thinking until that comes because before that, your brains are basically plastic and you're letting anything that they can

consume, mold their belief systems. So if it's not built up or strong enough, they can be easily persuaded by anything that they see online. So I will definitely not be allowing my children to have access to social media or smartphones. They can have a Blocky and Nokia, absolutely no problem. So they can contact me in an emergency or whatever. They can have an email that they can use on laptop, but there's no way in hell that I'm going to be letting my children

use social media and that will be explained in detail to them and I will teach them about the negative effects of social media. I only had access to social media once I turned, I think, 15 or 16, maybe a little bit younger, but Snapchat. But even at that, there wasn't the design that we see today that is...

makes it so addictive. So I feel like I did build up enough skills to manage it and create healthy boundaries with it. And I also read up a lot on how bad it is. So I'm very aware to not get too addicted to it. But even saying that at the same time, I can see myself sometimes

going in those toxic habits of constantly scrolling or using it as a comfort blanket or a security blanket or even as a self-soothing technique when I'm not feeling that great. And also that's something I would like to break out of. I'm not, guys, I'm not perfect either. These are all the things that I've learned. But anyway, this is how social media is designed to be addictive and to keep us on our phones. In case anyone doesn't know, the reason why they wanted to keep it

addictive and to keep us on our phones is that we continue to see advertisements online and that we continue buying things. That's the main reason for it. So the big owners, the CEOs, the top of the top of these places like Meta, TikTok and all these other places, they get paid more the more time we spend on our phones. So they will continue to want us to be on our phones for as long as possible. It's not designed to be social and so that we can contact each other and live a happy life. It is

It's fundamentally designed for us to just be addicted to it and spend as long as possible on our phones. Anyway, so number one is the obvious one is dopamine triggers. So notifications, messages, they all kind of give us a dopamine trigger. And if you don't know what dopamine is, it's a little chemical that goes off in your brain similar to serotonin where it's just like a little pleasure trigger.

It's like a little pleasure. So say if you eat a little bit of chocolate or if you watch a really funny TikTok, if you laugh a little bit as a joke, that releases dopamine in your head. But if your dopamine receptors get damaged, if you're using it too much or if it's an unreliable source of dopamine, for example, social media is an unreliable source of dopamine, exactly the same as slot machines because you'll put the coin in. Sometimes you might win one in 300 times that you use the slot machine, but just that once...

keeps up the hope and the momentum so they continue playing because you think that you're going to win every time. So it's the same design for notifications. So like if you get a really, really highly engaged with post, it's going to make you want to keep posting more so that you can get that sense of achievement again. So like, for example, on TikTok, when you have one in 10 video that goes really, really viral, it does that on purpose. And I haven't yet figured out fully how the algorithm works because

It seems sometimes a bit random what goes viral and what doesn't. But just that one viral video continues for you to keep posting and getting those followers and getting engagement and getting comments and likes. And it's designed to make us feel good about ourselves because it's also tied in with then social validation and how that makes us feel that we're not...

backing away from our tribe. It's like a primal instinct in us to want to keep our community or feel a part of something and feel accepted and feel loved. So again, it ties in with the social validation a little bit more. Next then is the infinite scroll. So like I said, when Instagram, for example, was first designed, you would get to the end of...

The feed, for example, it would only show you posts from people that you follow. And in those days, you were only really following people that you actually knew in real life. There wasn't a thing of influencers or like maybe a few celebrities, but like celebrities weren't posting back then as what they would now or the pressure to post now. And it's not it's not the same as the pressure that exists now.

But it would just be like friends from school, your cousins or whatever. And on a Sunday, I remember everyone used to be posting like afternoon on a Sunday. It would be the best time to scroll. But you get to the end of it, you'd lock your phone, you'd put it away. Whereas now, for example, it's showing you posts from people you don't know, but also from you using your phone so much. The phone has picked up so much data. Now, I know I've made jokes about this before, where it was like people are concerned about like these big corporations selling our data to marketing places and advertisement places.

but I'm just like basically sitting on the toilet looking at fucking, I don't know, cleaning products on my phone. Whereas actually the data that it's picking up is like every single thing that you look at. So it knows for how long you look at a video. It knows how long that you hold down on a story. It knows what you've searched up on Safari. It knows what you've Googled. It knows what you've bought online. So it's gathering all

all of that information to cater the algorithm perfectly to suit you so that you want to keep scrolling and keep seeing stuff that they know that you will be really intrigued by and engaged with. So again, so it's constantly just like this insatiable feeling of more and more and more and more and more. I can't stop watching. And it's designed specifically for that purpose. And that's why selling your data to these advertisers or whatever is bad because it's designed to keep you on your phone for longer. Anyway.

Next then is push notifications and also with emails.

the design technology, so the UI or the UX is designed to feel rewarding and grab your attention. So for example, you know the way your phone vibrates if you get a text or if you get a notification? That vibration is designed specifically to make it feel urgent so that you have to check it straight away that something really important and if you don't do it, something bad will happen. Also the way the stuff is, like the lighting of things and the colors that are involved. With the way all of these apps are designed, it's very intentional in...

wanting to make you feel visually attracted to it to stay on it for longer. Next then is like the gamification of social media. So like follower counts and stuff that makes us feel as if it's successful or gives you a sense of achievement if you reach a certain milestone of like followers, a certain amount of likes, certain amount of engagement, FOMO and social validation. So if you're feeling a bit lonely,

I know for this is probably one of my biggest struggles at the moment with social media is if I'm feeling lonely or if I feel like I haven't got any social interaction in a long time, I will want to as a means of social or of

self-soothing. I'll like go online to make myself feel as if I'm a part of something when actually it's doing the complete opposite effect of that and making me feel like I'm missing out, making me feel like I'm not doing enough. And also because of the nature of my job, because I'm a content creator, on top of that FOMO and feeling left out or excluded, it also makes me want to post more because it makes me feel as if I'm not posting enough. So I can see how that would entice content creators and people who work online to

to make them feel like they're not doing enough and they need to post more. But anyway, I'm going to read a few of your contributions on phone addiction and how it's affecting your life. And then I'm going to go into the cognitive effects and the mental health impacts and the social consequences that social media and phone addictions have on our lives. I used to spend so much time on my phone and my relationship with being present in my actual life was so bad.

I was living through everybody on my phone and not actually living my own life. But having changed and being consciously aware of this, I've downloaded apps which banned me from my social media and has actually been super helpful and made me live my days differently. And I am actually more able to ground myself to life.

It's also interesting seeing how the phone and screen dependency is changing communication and face-to-face interactions. I just completed my dissertation and I interviewed primary school teachers on the impact of screen time on children's language. And it's so concerning the way things are going as these children are having much less lived experiences and are just sat on a screen when they come home.

but they are also just mirroring what they see their parents do as their parents are addicted to their phones as well. So it's all just concerning. Someone else said, I've always had a bad relationship with my phone. I'm really dependent on it, partly because of my ADHD. It's been a way to procrastinate

procrastinate and avoid things but it's also held me back I dropped out of school and I think social media played a huge part the bullying but also the addiction even now it affects my relationship my partner is worse than me with this phone and I feel ignored I get it but it's frustrating I even tried therapy but they didn't take it seriously I've tried everything app blockers deactivating accounts all of it I'm better now but it's still a struggle

Someone else said, I wish we all lived technology free on a commune where we all grew our own food and danced around the fire at night. I'm actually shocked at that. Now, there are a lot of conspiracies about this. I would love... Did Jenny Caffey do a podcast episode about this? Remember when there was an uprising in communes in the 70s and it was like the new thing and everybody loved the communes and they delved into it a little bit in that Once Upon a Time in Hollywood movie?

where they tried to turn us all away from communes by... Well, obviously a lot of them, they were like cult leaders and they were terrible. But then they tried to demonize communes by making them murderers. And it was like tied to the CIA. Am I going to get murdered now because I've said this? It was something to do with the CIA. I assure you.

I have no idea what I'm talking about. Anyway, I just think it's surprising that we haven't seen a repeat in the uprising of communes, especially as of recent, because people are yearning for that sense of connection to be a part of a community and also an easier, more affordable, slower paced way of living. But I haven't seen a correlation with that and also a popularization or even like...

a restarting culture of cults no that's not the right we're not cults sorry communes not cults not cults well even cults as well like I haven't heard about a cult in a long time like a like a like a modern contemporary cult but I mean more like a

communal type of living and there's obviously a reason for that like people are on survival mode worked to the bone and they still can't really afford anything and then even at that we are encouraged and conditioned to only look out for ourselves and more of an individualistic lifestyle we won't see any protections it's like we all have to kind of look out for ourselves so what's the point then in looking after the wider community when

we could barely look after ourselves. Does that make any... Am I talking shite now? But I'm surprised that I haven't seen sort of like even TikTok communities trying to organize themselves in making a sort of a commune. Do you know, because people are talking about this like, oh, I want a revolution. I want to live in a commune. And even with like

There has been, I know there's been an uprising in like trad wife content and easy live, I'm doing quotations, easy living content, which can be sort of a gateway into the alt-right pipeline. But it's kind of pushing this like,

far-right ideology but with a pink pretty ribbon on it for women because the far-right content that's produced for men is much more obvious. So they're trying to like...

skew it in a way where it seems really appealing and a sort of maybe anti-capitalist when actually it just wants to keep us in a place of submission. I'm surprised I haven't seen like an uprising in communes or even people trying to make a commune because people are, there's so many people that are satisfied with the way that we are living now. I would have thunk that there'd be like, let's start a commune because that's kind of what happened in the 70s. It was a time of huge political uproar and a huge time of protest and

And I was talking to Jason about this the other day, that so many, if you watch any like documentaries about musicians back in those days, because I recently watched the biopic, the Bob Dylan biopic, so many artists and musicians had political messaging and political ideas

and their political ideologies steeped in their art. It's very rare to have that now. Now we obviously have kneecap, now there's a bit of controversy there, I'm not going to go into it, but we all, we have kneecap who are like in the media at the moment and there's like total fucking uproar about it because they spoke about Palestine at Coachella. But like we don't see that many artists speaking up, whereas back in the 70s it was much more common. It was kind of like a given that artists would speak

display their political beliefs within their art and it would be threaded within their performances as well but we don't see that current day it's a lot more like conservative it's a lot more polished

And it's a lot more intentional with the way that they want to present themselves. So maybe it's so that they don't experience cancel culture. That's the only kind of thing I could think of. Or maybe they have so many people behind them, like PR team, labels and all managers, all these other people telling them what to do. It's probably a lot more difficult to speak out about things. I mean, I remember when it was a Taylor Swift said to go register to vote. And even at that, like saying to register to vote was like a huge political statement for

on the spectrum of what Taylor Swift usually speaks about, even though she's a self-proclaimed feminist. Again, this is a separate other episode. Okay, next. Let's see what else. Okay. My parents have a major issue with phone dependency, in my opinion, and I find it really isolating when we're all together and their boat just fixed to their online world.

I don't even know what they're looking at so intensely. It's a little bit heartbreaking to me, honestly, watching my parents live in constant distraction. I feel it speaks to the workings of their inner world and that makes me sad. Oh God. Someone else said, I live in very rural Donegal and at the start of the year, we lost power and all phone service for a week.

And I was actually ashamed of how useless I felt. I was constantly reaching for my phone and it was like I had a lost limb. I couldn't receive or send a text and I was miserable. I read a lot and I thought I would be completely fine and that people that struggle were just being dramatic. But I just kept staring at my phone waiting for it to work again. I'm fairly sure I actually cried of pure frustration. I swore as soon as my service came back that I would put limitations on myself and not become so enslaved to my devices. But if anything, I just actively ignored

nor how reliant I am. Okay, next is, it became very obvious over time, but whenever I find myself feeling overwhelmed...

anxious and rushed I realize it's when I'm compulsively unlocking my phone and going onto all my apps for no reason I can genuinely feel my heart rushing and aching whenever I reach for my phone in these times like that doom scrolling feeling I'm grateful I have the awareness now that whenever I'm feeling anxious and overwhelmed in life I need to consciously avoid my phone and do anything else and suddenly I'm much calmer and peaceful

It's a simple but life-changing realisation. I enjoy spending time with others because that's when I'm not interested in using my phone. But I've noticed, particularly with younger friends, that they are hooked to their phones even during conversations, which is frustrating as I'm the one trying to push conversation. But I need to understand as well that I'm no better than them and maybe some people find it harder to socialise. Next.

Last Monday, the 28th of April, Portugal and Spain had national-wide blackouts of electricity and there were loads of different experiences. Some people found joy in speaking to their neighbours and friends for hours in their gardens, while others were worried about having water or their relatives in the hospital.

I personally found it to be quite relaxing because I was home with my family and quite privileged to still have hot water, candles at home and a garden. We completed a puzzle, slept for hours and at night the lights were back on. But all this showed many people that life without a phone or internet was possible and enjoyable, but it took a national blackout for them to realise it. I saw a few comments about that earlier.

the electricity blackout being like this is what life is like without phones but also there were a few comments about it saying that this is what it's like when you don't have to work because I remember like for example if there was a snow day or something and you didn't have to go to work and everyone was home you would feel like

a sense of relief or it's like, you know, pulling a sickie from school and there's so many possibilities because you could do whatever you want with that day and it's an unexpected free day that you have. So I say that also was an element to it and not just the not having access to your phones because I feel like with

with the lockdowns people got a bit more creative with how they spent their time because it was an unexpected amount of free time that we had like loads of people were baking fucking sourdough breads and all so I'd say there's a few contributions to that and not just not having access to the electricity okay someone else said after feeling like I couldn't live without the thing

all throughout my teenage years. For the past while, I have felt completely detached from my phone. Of course, I still look at Reels and scroll, but I just can't seem to satisfy my brain with it anymore. In the past few years, I've felt a real craving for real interactions, not just with people, but with the world around me. But sometimes this gets in the way, like I will come home from somewhere...

Next then.

I find it very disingenuous and like it takes away from the real life experience that we are having by bringing social media into it. I recently visited a touristy tulip garden in Amsterdam and the whole place was full of people posing to try get the right photo. I wish we had film cameras like years ago and only had one chance to take a photo so we would live in the moment more. This is a really good take actually, to be honest, because I got, I just found my film camera again and I remember when I got them developed,

because it was from like the last I lost the camera like I fully didn't know where it was and I was thinking to myself I wonder what film is on it like is there going to be photos of my ex on it is there going to be photos of like people who aren't in my life anymore I was actually really scared to get it developed um like I wouldn't let Jason see what was on it because I was scared what was going to be on there but anyway I got it developed and what I found so

beautiful about them is because they were totally candid in the moment pictures and there's something about having a physical camera that you're not that worried about what it looks like because if you're on your phone it's like you're constantly trying to get the perfect image I suppose like this person said because the intention is to put it on social media whereas if you have a film camera it's much more

to capture the moment because each photo costs you money so you're very like intentional with what you put on it and I suppose with my film camera and I also recently just got a Polaroid camera as well which me and Bea were playing with this morning and she loves it but with that as well it's like

the film itself is so expensive so you're really intentional what you take the photos with and I suppose I've been trying to do that a little bit more with my phone guys I ate it up in Paris to be honest like I really indulged for the whole weekend but

But there wasn't a moment where I was like, I need to get a selfie right now. And I really felt like it took the pressure off because even if I'm on holidays or something, especially because I'm a content creator, I feel sometimes like it's a waste or if I'm wearing a nice outfit and I don't get a photo of it, like it's as if it doesn't exist, even though like,

The people I'm trying to impress, which are in person, is like Jason. And like he's seen me in my nice outfit and that's all that matters. And I feel comfortable and I feel nice rather than I'm looking for validation from other people online to say that my outfit looks nice. Did you know? Anyway, next one. As someone who's trying to enter the fashion industry, I really hate how dependent it is on social media. You can find some amazing things online and I completely understand why everything works differently.

how it does now but it makes it so difficult for me to stay off my phone I'd love to not have any social media but the industry obviously favors those that try and build themselves a platform it's so tiring I'm 100% addicted to my phone my partner points it out and I'm very jealous of how he doesn't have the same attachment as I do it has affected my attention span hugely and I know that the days I don't spend on my phone are always better yet that still isn't enough for me to get off it

I've done the whole turn off notifications and once I post to TikTok, I'll delete the platform until I next need it. But it's still not good enough. I still get sucked in and it's the thing I hate most about myself. Why on earth am I a slave to my phone when I know my life feels...

much more fulfilling when I'm off it. I know a lot of people can relate too. Kind regards, a 20 year old uni student trying to be more present. I was going to talk about the tips that I have for creating healthy boundaries with your phone because it did take me a lot of time as someone who does have an addictive nature, I suppose. Like I was a smoker for years and it took me ages to get...

off that and I still like dipped in and out of it even from that I've been addicted to loads of things so I feel like I have built up a few skills like that I can offer now when I quit smoking and these things can be related because sometimes I feel like I had to replace the addiction with something else now I've heard people who are addicts like are

like actually addicted to drugs and then once I got off at the office they got addicted to like learning things and I feel like that is just so fierce like how did you get addicted to learning like that sounds fucking perfect

I just wish I could have that addiction, you know? But you can get addicted to anything. And I do feel like the saying that you have a phone addiction is like sometimes it's not taken seriously, but it does seriously impact every aspect of your life. And it's one of the least sexy, the least sexy addictions, I would say. But it's also the most probably normalized because everybody is on their phones. And it's like we're constantly trying to make excuses for ourselves. You know, for example, being like, well, my friend has...

nine hours a day of screen time or like we're there on their phone and I have to work on my phone so there's not much I can do. But there's definitely better and healthier boundaries we could be putting in place that we're not as addicted to our phones and that we can prevent addiction from developing. So a few tips that I do have is you have to have someone who's going to hold you accountable. This is the easiest way that I can tackle anything. And I know that can be a bit more difficult if you aren't in a relationship.

because I found that I was on my phone so much more at the start of me and Jason's breakup. But then I was able to create healthy boundaries after that, but I'll go into that now in a second. So first of all, is to have someone who can hold you accountable, especially if you have a partner who you are witnessing maybe developing a phone addiction. And the reason why...

this actually, this first of all inspired me to make this podcast because I was listening to a segment on News Talk and they had a relationship therapist on and she said one of the main issues when she has clients coming into her now is phone addiction. Like that was the number one issue that couples were having and to be honest, I'm not surprised because there are so many couples I could see

who are out for dinner and they're both on their phones and it's just like I understand if you're in a long term relationship and you live with each other you can kind of run out of conversation like there's a lot of times when me and Jason would just bring a deck of cards because we actually have nothing to say to each other anymore especially when we're on holidays but

But there are definitely better ways for you to still communicate with each other without speaking or like still have a nice time with each other without both going on your phone. So I would say that and it does affect your sex life as well. I will say there was a study done as well or a horrible statistics that I heard that people, I think it was like

30% of people, no, I'm making that up. I need to look this up. But anyway, there was a percentage of people that check their phone during sex. And I did get a few contributions, listener contributions of people saying that, say straight after you've had sex, you go to the bathroom and you come back and your partner is on their phone. And I would find that really hurtful and really, really offensive because it's like, do you not want to indulge in this moment together or like have some bit of aftercare, like going straight on your phone immediately after sex is like,

you were kind of using me as a, I don't know, like a dopamine hit. And then there's no like cuddles afterwards, you know? Anyway, getting your partner to hold yourself accountable. I also think it's a really healthy way for you to broach this subject more

project with your partner if you think that they have a little bit of a phone addiction without any judgment because you're coming from a place of being like I think we should do this together rather than you being like you have a problem because people can get very defensive and very hurt if you come um if you say that to them or if you communicate in that way

So if you could just say, I think we could both work on our phone addictions and spending a little bit less time on our phone. So it's much easier to do, I think, in summertime because in the evenings now when Jason gets home from work, that would usually be the point in the day where I really want to go on my phone because it's like I'm with Bea all day, I'm overstimulated or like I've been running around all day doing stuff or maybe I might be stuck in the house for whatever reason. And I just want to like shut the brain off and not have to

look for things or clean or cook or whatever. So I want to go on my phone. But instead of that, me and Jason have been going on walks as soon as he gets home from work. And it also gives you a little bit of a rush of energy. I find that I'm much more lethargic and tired. Well, obviously you'd be more lethargic in the winter months anyway, because you're supposed to be kind of hibernating. But I find that I'm definitely much more lethargic. Laziness, for lack of a better word, it does probably, it does make me feel a little bit lazy the more time I spend on my phone because it's kind of like a self-indulgent act

you're getting those hits of dopamine and it's like a false sense of gratification from all the

hits dopamine that you're getting that but you would get a natural slower release of dopamine if you went on a walk or did some exercise and I would also be releasing a little bit of energy within you as well find what your weakest points are so for the evening for me and Jason it was the weakest points was after work so when you go home from work then you have to have a strict set of rules of phone free time or phone free zone so when we're going on those walks most of the time I won't bring my phone because he has his with

him I would always bring my phone with me if I'm out would be because I'm just scared of an emergency or I need to call someone or something happens you know like I might still can't leave my phone at home I also use it for like to pay for things for google maps and that sort of thing but if we're both going on a walk together I will leave my phone at home or he will leave his phone at home so we'll take turns and swap doing that another thing is set meal times um I we don't go on our phones at dinner and we would give out to each other if either of us are on our phone at dinner now obviously there's like emergencies if there's like a bit of family drama going on or someone calls or whatever

During dinner, we would take it. But there's no gong on phones during meal times whatsoever. We also don't go on our phones first thing in the morning. Yeah, we're turning off the alarms, but we're not scrolling. I also have this app called Opal. I've talked about it plenty of times before. And also Adele Walton, who wrote Logging Off.

raves about this app as well so it blocks your social media apps for certain hours of the day but you can take breaks and increments because if you're a content creator sometimes you have to post things or like for example I had to check the story replies for this particular podcast because there were a lot of listener contributions so I was able to take a five minute break or

to post to TikTok and then check my messages. But it also prevents you from doom scrolling because you do have a limited amount of time that you can go on these apps. So that's called Opal. I'm pretty sure you can do this within your phone as well. And I think it's called Screen Time for iOS and something else for Android. I can't remember what, but you could look it up.

Another thing is we don't have our phones with us when we're watching TV or when we're watching movies and we have held each other very accountable when we're watching movies and if we're not enjoying a movie we'll just swap it. We won't just go on our phones while the other person is watching it because it's

Even watching telly together is a much more social act than both going on your phones next to each other. You're both watching the same thing. You can both comment on the same thing. You're both having a shared experience. Both going on two separate phones is not a shared experience. It's not socializing. It's not spending time together. Whereas watching telly is obviously it's not as good as communicating with each other or doing a board, a

playing a board game or playing card games or interaction with each other. But still watching TV is still a social act in comparison to going on social media next to each other. So I would say phone free times for watching telly. And that might seem shocking to some people because you already do that. But I know from these contributions that it's very common that people will go on their phone or nearly are incapable of not...

going on their phone while there's TV on as well. It's like having two stimulants at the same time. And it's like, it's sort of a self-soothing thing to have something on in the background while you're also on your phone to feel like there's people around you. When in actual fact, it's probably making you feel more lonely. You can set the boundaries that suit you. But my biggest tip is to have someone there who's holding you accountable. If you're still living at home, maybe ask your parents or someone around you. Ask your dog. I'm sure you don't know.

You don't know who's available there. But anyway, let me go back to reading your contributions. I deleted TikTok in February 2023 as I was spending nine plus hours a day on it. This then translated into doing the same on Instagram. But about a year ago, I sent a one hour timer on my Instagram.

And I have never been happier since getting off my phone in the way I used to be on it. It was really difficult at the start because it is an addiction and going from the constant dopamine hits to longer form content like movies or reading books again and quite literally touching grass was really hard mentally. But now that I've done it, I'd never go back to phone dependency or doom scrolling again. The difference in my mental health is second to none and I try speak about it to my friends, but they all seem to get quite defensive, similarly to when trying to speak is

to say an alcoholic. In brackets, I have several in my close circle. The defensiveness is crazy, but because that was me at one stage, I know it's because they know they're addicted and dependent deep down, but they don't want to come off it and live in the real world. I go through periods without Instagram and I swear I'd be thriving. I start journaling again. I draw. I write. I listen to music. I

All of these things make me feel so good and content and hopeful for my creativity going somewhere. And then in morning, like this morning, for example, I end up back on Instagram and get trapped for literally like hours at a time. What the fuck? I'm quite a self-aware person, but I swear when it comes to Instagram, I can't obey the little voice in my head telling me to get the fuck up. I just keep ignoring and keep scrolling. I hate it. I can't have TikTok because it's even worse. I will lose half a day at a time.

Now, again, like I said, these apps are designed to make you want to keep on your phone. So it's not like as if you have really, really bad willpower compared to everyone else and that you are subjected to a more addictive nature than everyone else. It's literally designed fundamentally to make you want to be on your phone for longer. So I wouldn't be too hard on yourself. But even just noticing that there's a problem is the first step into taking action.

And even when I downloaded the Opal app, for example, after Bea went to bed, like my free hours on the phone would have been 5pm till I think it was 10pm.

10 p.m. or maybe it was 12 p.m. So I had those hours in the day and what I found was it was like every minute I was trying to get in. Like Jason would pause the TV to go make tea and I'd be on my phone scrolling. Like quick, like a quick, like you know what I mean? As quick as possible, get it in, get it in. And I wasn't taking any time to like digest even what I, or process what I just watched in the movie or like start talking to him or going to the kitchen with him or asking what he thinks about it. It was like going straight on my phone. But I have changed my opal app

to now be the only free hours of the day I have are from 5pm to 8pm, which I think is a fair enough time.

uh, substitute and it has been working for me so far. And I can see the difference that it makes in my overall like dependency on my phone. I'm not picking it up as often and I'm not reaching for it as often. And it's not as if like I can go to the bathroom without bringing my phone in there because I'm like, what's the point? I'll have to do all these steps to fucking unlock the app and whatever. Cause it is a bit of an effort to unlock the app, to go onto the social media apps again. Um,

And I've been spending that free time, like instead of scrolling on my phone, if Bea has childcare or whatever, if she's at her nanny's house, I'm reading on the balcony instead. And I don't even care where my phone is. Like it doesn't have to be next to me at all times. But yeah, I wouldn't be so hard on yourself. Just know that these apps are literally designed so that you want to keep going on them. Okay, someone else said, for me, I'm definitely addicted in subtle ways and it's a massive safety net for me.

I find now the barriers with phones comes into my romantic relationships as when I meet people via online, I'm terrified to meet them in person unless I know them personally. As I've gotten older, I've reverted to meeting people in quotations organically, as I call it. I do feel my best friend is addicted to her phone. I find it hard when she chooses to pay attention to her phone rather than what I'm saying. And I find she doesn't listen deeply when a phone is involved.

It pisses me off as I try to keep my phone away for our deep convos, but she doesn't feel the need. I feel like that is really, really hurtful. And I think we've all been in those situations ourselves when we might be doing that a little bit. I find that I was doing it loads when I broke up with Jason and I was doing it when I was with my mom.

oh and I feel so bad about it now if my mom was talking to me or my dad or whatever and I would just be on my phone the whole time like wondering you know just fucking stressed out of my head but what I did to combat that actually at that point because I noticed that it was becoming a problem and it's not that it was becoming a problem I think it was because it was affecting my mental health so much that I needed to create boundaries with my phone so what I was doing was um I was using B as my alarm clock and just keeping my phone up in the attic

throughout the day and I wasn't allowed to use it until like a certain hour of the afternoon. I think it was like 12 or one o'clock. So I was like having my breakfast, doing all this stuff. And then I was allowed to check my phone. It was something, this was before I even had the Opal app. So I was really, really strict on like, I can do this. And once it's like my second coffee of the day, then I can go on my phone and check it. And I was getting so much more done and I felt like the happiest I'd ever been. It was like, I had to get the 10,000 steps in before I could check my phone sort of thing.

and I feel like if it's like if you're using it as sort of a reward system with yourself I think that really helps too instead of like a punishment anyway okay next one

I am absolutely addicted to my phone. My whole day revolves around it. Now that I have a three-year-old, I try not to be on my phone when he's awake or around, but that means when he's gone to bed that I doom scroll and catch up on all my shit and spend hours doing nothing and feeling crap. My attention span is shocking. I love reading, but pick up my phone over a book. Very annoying. I also got very overwhelmed on my phone and messages. I love my phone for TikTok, Pinterest, etc., but to communicate with friends and family, I find that hard. If I have more than one open...

unopened message in my WhatsApp slash inbox, I find it so hard to respond because it's overwhelming.

I also feel that's a reflection from COVID time too, that my social skills went to shit and I became very introverted and socially awkward. But the phone doesn't help at all. What's crazy is I noticed this like two years and this is probably not a revolutionary observation or anything. And I'm probably not the first to see this or even talk about it. But I remember seeing the uprising or the trend even of particularly YouTube videos of this like sort of solo thing.

everything is solo, you know, like a solo date. And I was doing it as well. Like it was, if there's a social media trend, I'm most likely, I wasn't really thinking critically about it. I just noticed it as a trend, you know, but there was this whole thing of like solo date, introverted things, living alone. And that was really, really popular on YouTube, TikTok and Instagram. I don't think as much anymore. I think now what's popular is like

a huge display of wealth and that's probably a recession indicator but that could be another podcast episode as well because I love looking at recession indicators I think it's really really interesting and how it influences our like fashion choices and even the colours that we wear the hairstyles and even the way we speak to each other I find it really interesting so that could be a whole different episode

But yeah, I did notice that a couple of years ago, I think it was just after lockdown, Heather, was this whole new thing of like solo diaries and like introverted diaries and living alone. It was very much focused on like living an independent solo life. And I do think that was maybe heavily influenced with the effect that

lockdown had on our social skills and maybe we were using it and it was like coming out in sort of a creative way where it was masked as this sort of aesthetic or even attractive characteristic. It was like sort of glamorizing this sort of like individualistic lifestyle, even though I know some people do struggle with like

hanging out with people or whatever but it was very much a focus on like this is a good thing you know being alone and I'm listening to a book at the moment now in fairness it's absolute garbage but like I can't stop listening and

And it's funny that this podcast was supposed to be about anti-intellectualism because I find that I'm reaching for... No, in fairness, no, I did just read a Tesla Moschweg and I thought that that was very profound, the way she writes and the way she sees the world and everything. But I have been listening to them like chicklish sort of after that and I can feel my brain melting away. And even though it feels as if I'm getting this delayed gratification sort of sense of achievement from reading a book, I am listening to... The audiobooks that I'm listening in the car are in no way contributing to my intellect.

I would say at all. If anything, you're making me definitely dumber. But there's a book, I'm not going to name it because I've actually, I feel too bad, but because I'm kind of enjoying it, but I do think it's a piece of shit. So I'm not going to recommend it, but I'm listening to this book anyway. And there's like,

a depiction of a Gen Z person. And I swear the author like got this idea of a Gen Z person from TikTok and they've never spoken to someone who's Gen Z before. And then there's a vegan character. I don't understand how someone's diet preference, like, yes, fair enough. Sexuality, ethnicity, race is all very relevant to a person's character development and like the background and the type of person that they are. But sometimes I don't understand how someone's

diet is like relevant to their person especially in a book do you know what I mean well I understand kind of if someone's vegan it could be if it's for environmental issues it's showing that the person is very like active in um political issues or like animal welfare and that sort of thing but you could write that in a in a more eloquent way than just saying like a vegan person it's too much like especially in literature it's like you're supposed to

show not tell like you don't say like she was sad you have to say she felt her eyes welling up on the lump at the back of her throat like it's supposed to be descriptive and that's what makes you want to keep on reading and it's the reading experience and why it's so beautiful is because it's it makes it more imaginative in your head and it also encourages you to use your imagination and critical thinking skills in fiction novels whereas if they're now writing in a way that's so obvious and literally painting the picture for us we're not thinking as much when we're reading and

But maybe that's just my own opinion. But I find that if books are becoming less descriptive and more just like saying things as plainly how they are, like the vegan character was really... The vegan character started crying. You know, it's very just juvenile in the style that it's written. And it's not...

It's taking away from the reader's experience and also is dumbing down the literary experience. Does that make sense? Am I even talking? I'm talking to you. Okay. Okay. Let's keep going. Someone said,

my appearance, etc. Last summer was so different though as I worked in a summer camp in America, was only allowed to be on my phone for probably about an hour a day, I noticed that I was much less in tune with summer trends and what everyone was talking about on TikTok. Definitely made me so much happier and more content with myself and it is something I have tried to keep up with in the months since then. Spending quality time with new people and not having time

not having the clutch of being able to go on my phone if the conversation died down has definitely made me so much more confident. Next then, me and my partner recently broke up and looking back, their phone addiction played a big part in the unravelling of my connection to them. We won a trip to Zurich in a beautiful hotel. Did I say that right? Zurich.

In a beautiful hotel with an amazing breakfast paid for each day, I was so excited and felt so lucky to go. But every morning they would sit across from me in this beautiful place on TikTok and spent a lot of our time there on their phone in the hotel room. We both struggle with our mental health and I think a phone can act as a pacifier to shut out those feelings. But because it is expected for people in their 20s to be obsessed with their phones, it can be really hard to identify and get help.

So when I look at more of the negative implications of phone addiction, are you interested? Okay, here we go. Buckle up guys. So number one is cognitive effects. Obviously a shortened attention span. I think we say this a little bit too flippantly as well saying our attention spans are fucked, but we're not actually deeping it that much. And the reason why a short attention span is so damaging and so worrying is because it's

This can affect then our memory and also our critical thinking skills. If we're not going for long form content and a fully fledged, a fully formed opinion, a fully well researched opinion, we're constantly going to be getting used to this thing of getting to the point very fast. Whereas life is not that simple and we sometimes need a nuanced, well researched, evidence-based

explanation for something rather than just looking for the quick fix of like I have this one liner and that explains it perfectly because it lacks critical thinking skills and also it resists and stops us from

making your own opinions about something and thinking about something logically with reason. The constant scrolling trains your brain to crave quick hits of information, making it harder to focus on long form content like books, lectures or even full conversations. And because we outsource everything to our phones like birthdays, lists and like Googling things or even what I find really interesting is

Google Maps because I found that like I've lived here for over a year now and I had to at the start use Google Maps for everything but then I became really dependent on it to the point where like even a year later I was still using Google Maps to like go to the food do the food shop and when I should have definitely known the directions because because of that and I remember reading about a study

a few years ago about how London taxi drivers, the chemistry in their brain makeup is different to normal people because they have memorized so many directions to different places. And I find, sorry, not that I find, this is a fact. If you don't exercise, say, a specific connection in your brain often enough, we then lose that. It's like,

If you're not training a muscle, say if you stop working out, your muscle wouldn't be, what's the right word? It wouldn't be hard anymore. It would turn to flab or turn flabby. And the same thing happens in your brain. So if you're not exercising like your memory muscles, your ability to pay attention to things, your brain is going to think that that's not important anymore and it's not going to keep working on it. So reduce memory. And this is weakening our brains.

ability to refrain or retain information and what I found interesting about this because I read a lot of books after I gave birth and when I became pregnant about matrescence and

The brain chemistry changes in your head when you become pregnant because it's making the connections to help with obviously the bearing and the raising of a child. So your brain actually will get rid of things. And I found that my memory was really good for certain things, but really, really bad for other things. Like there are certain memories that Jason can remember that I have absolutely zero recollection of because the brain chemistry changed in my head because it made it...

the most optimal for raising a child. So for example, like if my mom had an illness 20 years ago or like somebody treated me with a random tea 15 years ago to treat some certain thing or like it's all very much about the raising of a person rather than like anecdotal sort of funny stories. I don't remember shit like that, but I will remember stuff that has to do with raising a child as best as possible. The same thing can happen if you're just training your brain to

take in short form information or stuff that's funny or stuff that's entertaining you're not training your brain to take in long form content you won't be able to listen to lectures as proficiently or as well as you used to and you won't be able to retain information that you read in books as well if you are only looking at short form content content

And then critical thinking takes a hit. So obviously there's a huge problem with AI, chat GPT. A lot of students, a lot of teachers have been talking about students using AI or chat GPT to help with their research or to help with writing essays. And you're not exercising that muscle. It's not that...

AI or chat GPT is necessarily a bad thing but if you're using it for absolutely everything in terms of your studies you're not necessarily learning anything because you're not using that part of your brain to properly think about the subject and how that you would write it

for yourself in your own words. So after you do that course, or like after you've done that assignment, if you use ChatGBT for the whole assignment, you wouldn't be able to regurgitate that information to someone else, meaning that you have not learned anything. You have not learned it properly because you literally use ChatGBT for the whole thing. So you're coming out of a degree actually not knowing anything. You might have passed, yeah, but you haven't

ingested any of that information which is literally why you go into education is to learn the thing you're not going into education to get a point to not get a certificate to not get a piece of paper it's to actually learn the thing and I really think we've lost that in the commodification of education because it costs so much money it's how you get a fucking good roles in the workforce etc etc but actually the fundamental

or the fundamental purpose of getting a degree or going into university is to learn about something in depth. It's not just to get a piece of paper, even though that does go into it. Anyway, and then obviously the mental health impact. So anxiety and stress

I think the constant pressure to stay connected, it gets us really overwhelmed. And then also comparing your life to other people on social media, when obviously that's not a very normal way to live. And just because it's a common thing to do doesn't mean that it is normal. I mean, our parents never had to deal with that. We're constantly looking at thousands of different people living thousands of different lives. And I think it opens up in our brain this possibility of all the different types of lives that we could be living. But realistically, that's not...

feasible for most people and I think if we really were realistic about the things that we can achieve it would be much more peaceful and much more

we'd have much more purpose in the direction that we're going in life but I think the fact that we have this illusion of so many options it does keep us sort of like in a choice paralysis sort of state where we don't know which direction we should take because we've had this false sense of hope that we could achieve anything when actually like there's a very limited amount of things that we're really down to our core interested in if we look

if we cut out the influence from other parties, like something that's going to make us loads of money or something that might make other people happy, we need to focus on stuff that we, to our core, are really interested in and we, to our core, are able to do. And then also sleep disruption, the blue light messes with the melatonin production and late nights growing keeps your brain too alert to rest properly. I do have a blue light thing in my glasses, which I really do think helps when you're watching telly at night time.

because I don't go on my phone at night. But you can also turn on night mode on your phone so that it kind of... Does it turn the screen red? I can't remember. It either turns your screen red so it's not as like attractive to look at your phone and also they can make it a bit darker for night time so it's not as...

stimulating for your brain and then the social consequences. This is the one I'm probably a bit more worried about, especially with growing, with raising a child around with social media. They get so used to communicating with each other via online that they forget how to communicate in person. And I felt the hit post lockdown on how my social skills weren't as developed or even the hit that I felt after I had a child and my social skills kind of

needed to be built back up again. So you can see the effects that this has on you from real life experiences, but we never take into consideration the effects that our phones are having on our social skills. I suppose because social is in the name that we expect it to help our social skills when actually it's doing the complete opposite.

And it's so normalized that we haven't done anything to combat it. Now, there's loads of now, there's a huge movement with like in-person events, in-person connections that don't revolve around alcohol. I think that's absolutely fantastic. And the way that we can access those events is usually via social media, which I do think is a great thing and what we should be using social media for in the first place. But even the fact that posts with writing on the images don't do as well in the algorithm is so telling

about how they don't actually want us to be meeting up in real life. Like they just want us to keep on or stay on our phones and to feel as if that we're socializing, even though we're not. But again, your social skills, like I said, with the brain connections,

If you're not exercising that muscle, you're going to lose it and your head, your brain is going to think that you don't need it anymore if you're not working on it and that it's not important. So it's definitely really, really imperative that you integrate real life human connection and social skills into your life. If you don't feel like you're good at it now, it's something that you can work on. I mean, a lot of people, it's like I always use the example of singing.

like some people are born with the abilities of to sing and now obviously this is excluding people who are tone deaf but the actual realistic statistic of people who are actually tone deaf is way lower than what we think um and we get we conflate the two like not being able to sing to tone deaf when actually they're not really the same thing so people sometimes are born with the ability to sing but if someone was given the opportunities to get singing lessons and worked on their singing

you can see the huge improvement that they could make over time and can become someone who can sing really, really well. Now, you can't use instruments with the same ability because there's all like notes and stuff and the ability to play, but singing is seen as like an inherent or innate skill

skill that you can have which is the truth but it's like some people are at an advantage with where they're born with the ability to sing but you can work on that thing to actually become a better singer than the person with the innate ability to sing so it's the same with social skills I do think sometimes people are a bit more shy than others and we can have influences from our environment like our parents and where we grew up but it's something that you can work on and confidence is something that you can work on it's like a muscle strength

sort of that has to be exercised. So social skills are something that you build upon and it's not like you were at an eternal disadvantage from everybody else and it's like that's not an excuse you can make for yourself because you can work in it and there are ways that you can do that. Now next negative impact is productivity and time management. So we've seen now, I know it came out recently, like there's constantly updated statistics on this about how many hours that we're wasting on our phone and it's like years of our lives that we're wasting on our phone and really if you

think about it for a long time it is really quite disturbing and one of the things I get really disturbed about because I suppose because I'm filming my life I'm very conscious of the fact that I'm not really hashtag living in the moment and there are it's really hard for me to create boundaries of when it is appropriate for me to hashtag live in the moment because it is my job it's like I'm sort of not it's like yeah it'd be better for my mental health and actually being more present and

in the day, but also at the same time, I have to film myself to make a living. I am working at the moment in my life against that, but for the moment, that's kind of my reality, you know? So I do have to kind of pick and choose when I'm supposed to hashtag live in the moment and not a phone on site or when I have to, you know, make,

make it into content. The commodification of my own life. Anyway, and also reduced work quality. So multitasking between apps and tasks decreases performance even though we think we're being efficient. And I know a lot of people sent in contributions about how they're in work and they'll constantly be picking up their phones. And

One of my issues as well when before I had the Opal app is I pick up my phone to do something. It's like when you know when you walk into a room and you're forgetting what you've walked in there for. You pick up your phone and you're like you were going to send an email or reply to a text but you find that you're scrolling and then the

the texts and the emails are constantly building up because you feel bad that you've wasted so much time on your phone doom scrolling so you don't want to be on your phone anymore but you're constantly then pushing back and back the communication that you have with the people that are important in your life so then it builds up all these messages and the overwhelm that you feel for replying to people because you've prioritized doom scrolling over replying to people and you know yourself that that's a bad trait to have and a bad quality so you're constantly

in this perpetual cycle of shame. And I do think that's why people are getting worse at replying to each other, but also feeling this like,

anxiety over replying to people, even though what we thought was the first intention of social media was to be social. But now we're not even being social anymore. OK, and then the wider implications is the erosion of shared knowledge. Everyone is getting their news from memes and TikToks that lack nuance and critical thinking skills. So we've lost a collective understanding of complex issues. And then also,

anti-intellectualism I think that this might have to be a separate episode because I've already been talking for over an hour so anti-intellectualism might have to be a completely different episode but to just briefly speak about it phones are fed as short sensational content so there's less incentive to engage with like books journalism or long form learning and it's easier to go viral than to be accurate and the reason why

why people are enjoying more like short form content is because it's easy to understand, it's digestible, accessible, it's not challenging. And I suppose that people are using their phones as a form of escapism. And I know this is kind of like the premise of the book Brave New World. And I think there's a bit of overlap between 1984 and Brave New World and how the two of them kind of correlate with each other. And that's kind of

what we're living with now because we're constantly fed this. We're in an oligarchy. Well, the US are in an oligarchy. I don't know. It's probably trickling down into Ireland because when the US sneezes, everyone catches a cold. But they're controlling what we're seeing. But also we're in the state of consuming so much entertainment and amusement that we've become docile and meek and fucking in a daze where we can't speak up for ourselves. And there's such an overwhelming amount of information

and shocking content that we've almost become desensitized not even almost we have become desensitized I mean we've been watching a genocide literally broadcasted to us and because it's so heavy people have like kind of turned away from it and now it is sort of in a cognitive dissonance way the same with climate change

I myself am guilty of this. It's like it's so overwhelming and so horrible that you kind of feel like you're powerless. And what's the point? Whereas that's exactly how they want. That is the sweet spot. And it's how they want you to be feeling. And I mean, they isn't like the top one percent of billionaires in the world that are like controlling everything. They want you to keep you in the state of like dazed and confused. Right.

so that you aren't able to speak up for yourself or speak about anything because you're just in a fucking trance the whole time. And that's basically the premise of Brave New World. Like we watched that being disturbed. I'm like, that is actually like what is literally happening right now. My next episode is going to have to be on anti-intellectualism because I didn't realize this was going to be such a long, shy talk for me.

Don't miss the biggest Maytag sale of the year at Lowe's. You'll find the Maytag appliances you need, when you need them, at a great price. Plus, when you buy two select laundry appliances, you'll get up to a $100 bonus via instant rebate. Shop Maytag at Lowe's. We help. You save. Offer valid through 531. See store for pricing and offer details. Advertise savings on all major Maytag appliances through Maytag.com and participating retailers. Prices may vary. Additional terms and conditions apply.

They said that since I worked full-time, I wouldn't be able to go to school. But with WGU, I was able to do my classes on my own time and take all my tests online when it suited me best. Learn more at wgu.edu.