Adulting - Let's Talk About... Social Media Addiction

Episode Date: August 3, 2024

Hello and welcome to Adulting, and the fourth episode of Let’s Talk About… a broadening of Adulting... where that was about all of the things we never got taught in school, this is almost like seminars on life; where my audience (that's you!), get to chat anonymously about things they couldn't necessarily discuss over lunch with their friends, or feel like they don't have anyone to talk to about whatever it may be.  To get involved, follow me on Instagram @oenone, where every Tuesday we vote on a topic and every Wednesday we dig deep. Let’s Talk About… social media addiction. The submission read: Social media addiction. I def have it and hate this habit now that I’m a mom, SOS how to deal? Podcast episode mentioned: https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/the-ezra-klein-show/id1548604447?i=1000657387961Please do rate, review and subscribe, it helps others to find the podcast O x Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

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whatever it may be. To get involved follow me on Instagram at Anoni where every Tuesday we vote on a topic and every Wednesday we dig deep. This week let's talk about social media addiction. The submission read, social media addiction, I definitely have it and I hate this habit now that I'm a mum, SOS how to deal. I was weirdly pleasantly surprised by the open admissions from everyone about their extensive social media use. I feel that means we've turned a corner in some ways. I think that there was a time when we were too embarrassed to admit that we overuse social media or even just went on our phones or had a high screen time in general. There was a lot of shaming and people sort of boasting about

rarely using their phones. I think this was like the height of those kind of maybe it was when Apple first launched the screen time counter thing and then I don't know if it was like the pandemic or when the shift started but definitely I think it's kind of universal that we all have just noticed gradually that we're on our phones more there was a time when it was really like not cool and not okay to go on your phone in a public space. Whereas now I think if you're in a restaurant, it's not unusual to see a couple on their phones at dinner. And it's something that I always actively try not to do. But it is something that's just more and more commonplace. I think there's something good in the fact that we're all going, look, I'm on my phone too much. How do I deal with that?

Rather than it being this like secretive, shameful thing. Because then we're never really going to be able to attack it head on. I'm going to read some of the shortest submissions. So someone said, it's scary how much it's a part of my life. It feels so automatic and like I have no control. I know it makes me feel bad about myself but I can't stop scrolling and comparing myself to others. I literally check social media as soon as I open my eyes in the morning and I hate it. I hate how much time and attention I give it but also feel like I would be lonely without it. We're trapped. Unless you truly don't care, it's the only way to keep up and I know what everyone else is talking about, doing, wearing, etc. Unless we all give up, the FOMO will exist.

I think that last message is kind of the crux of all of it. I have to be on social media for work. There's ways that I could probably streamline it a bit more and try and be more efficient with my time. But I'm not really someone that like batch films content. A lot of my stuff is like off the hook or interactive with you guys and story stuff. So I actually have the most inefficient Instagram use compared to other content creators who maybe would film all of the content on a Monday

schedule it put it up to go up but I just don't work like that I mean I probably should and so I always kind of have to have social media on my phone although at Glastonbury I deleted it off my phone when I was there now that's really easy because you're at a festival and you're with loads of friends but the freedom that I felt to not either check or feel like I have to be uploading stuff I don't know if it's heightened for me or if it's the same for others but I do have this kind of almost twitch where I feel like oh my god I need to post this or I need to show this like pics or it didn't happen really feels true to me and maybe it is different because I'm a content creator but if I take pictures and don't post them like as and when it's happening I'm like maybe I'll never get time to post it because you know whatever so I do think that in the very few

times that I deleted social media and everyone has said this that's submitted as well you do feel a bit of a sense of calm but the difficulty is after a while it does feel like you're missing out on stuff and I also obviously it would be really un really not ideal for me if everyone deleted social media because that is how I make money so please don't all delete it and I do think there's really good parts to it and for instance like let's talk about I absolutely love I think it's interactive I think it's interesting I think it's educational I actually do love finding out about arts and culture and music through social media I love seeing what people are wearing how people are styling stuff

I follow lots of writers and journalists and I do think it can be an amazing fountain of information the thing that I find really difficult and I don't know if this is like generationally being aged out is sort of the really fast-paced quick quick content, the reels, which does feel like specifically kind of attention hacking. Another message read, I think it's affecting our attention spans in a big way. I've noticed myself that I struggled to stay focused for longer periods, but I've also noticed that younger people who I hire seem to struggle with retaining focus and getting tasks done on time. And I really think social media use has had a role to play in this. I wanted to recommend a podcast I listened to, which is actually hilarious what I'm about to say off the back of what we're talking about.

But I listened to this podcast called Your Mind is Being Fracked, and it was on the Ezra Klein show. Hilariously, I actually found it quite hard to concentrate and listen because it is I didn't find it like the most engaging or stimulating conversation even though it was really interesting quite intellectually stimulating I don't know if it's just I don't listen to a lot of these kind of like American men led podcasts and that's no it's like against them it's just there's a really specific tone and way of speaking that makes me feel a bit soporific it's kind of like you know in adam buxton when he does his squarespace adverts or he pretends to be one of these like american podcasters it's really that kind of voice and

intonation and so i do find it kind of almost like white noise but i did try to engage and the blab of the episode reads the steady dings of notifications the 40 tabs that greet you when you open your computer in the morning the hundreds of unread emails most of them span with subject lines pleading or screaming for you to click our attention is under assault these days and most of us are familiar with the feeling that that gives us fractured irritated overwhelmed d graham bernett calls the attention economy an example of human fracking. With our attention in shorter and shorter supply, companies are going to even greater lengths to extract this precious resource from us. And he argues that it's now reached a point that calls for a kind

of revolution. This is creating conditions that are at odds with human flourishing. We know this, he tells me, and we need to mount new forms of resistance. So I'll link that episode in the show notes. But what was so interesting is right at the beginning, they try and define like kind of what attention is. And there was two kind of arguments that he highlighted in the episode, one from the quite famous book, Attention Economy. And the definition given in that book was, attention is what triggers or catalyzes awareness into action and then he offers a different countering argument which is attention is waiting and basically the point of those two things saying how we've come to redefine what attention kind of means is it a call to action or is it a moment of

pause i'm probably not explaining that really well so you need to listen to the episode but i found it super interesting because this is what i find with certain types of content now. I think it might be an age thing, but I really like long form captions and carousels. And I can get really sucked into reels, but that does leave me feeling kind of a bit spent and a bit, almost like a bit dirty, a bit unclean. I'm like, God god I've just actually sort of like taken in all of this really fast-paced content and it does feel a bit like a waste of my time and as much as sometimes if you're really hung over and you can't move from the sofa on a Sunday it is the only thing that will kind of quiet the nausea that you're feeling when you're

lying horizontal sometimes I do think that the way that our attention needs to be grabbed so quickly and the way that then we can kind of be almost stunned into mindlessly absorbing this content freaks me out a bit. And I do notice that, for instance, I'm definitely way worse at reading than I used to be once I get into a book I really enjoy it but the temptation to pick up my phone instead of actually starting a new book is is so great and I kind of I hate that about myself and I want to work on it more and it's you can train yourself not to do it but that's why I think this conversation is actually really good because I think a lot of the time we look around and we're like well everyone else is doing it so it's kind of fine but they always say and he talks about this in this episode that reading is one of the

greatest precursors to success in future life not necessarily like success monetarily or success in certain areas but if you read a lot as a child and you carry on to read it's just one of the best things you can do and reading can be quite accessible you know you can go to libraries and get books out and it's a great way to learn I think it's a great way to try and harness your attention and try and take control over having more longer form attention span because when you got really into a really good book you know your brain is working in a different way you can't double screen I'm terrible if I'm watching something by myself I often want to be able to watch something where I can go on my phone as well and then now I know that Netflix are now creating TV shows with that in mind so

that people can do that double screen thing. And it's just, it feels so wrong. And the great thing about reading is you cannot really do anything else. You just have to be absorbed in the book. You're imagining a whole other world. You're literally, there's something about reading, which I think is quite magical. And I think it might be the antidote to us having our attention being fracked. Another message reads, honestly this is something I've struggled with big time over the past couple of years now. Since moving in alone two years ago my screen time is through the roof. It's something like eight hours a day. Majority of it is TikTok, Insta and Reddit. The quick videos have completely destroyed my attention span and I don't concentrate

on anything for very long anymore. I'm always picking up my phone even if nothing has happened. I really hate it. Wondering if the pandemic when we had nothing to do was a big catalyst. So I have spoken about this before but I don't have TikTok on my phone which much to like agents have had in the past chagrin because it's really good that's a really good platform for content creators it's a really great way to grow it's still kind of like a new platform you can go more viral and you know there's a lot of advertising spend to be used on TikTok but I made the decision because when I go onto that app I find it very overwhelming the sheer amount of content the amount of videos being fed to you the fact that it's like a continuous loop I will randomly download it if there's a video I want to watch but normally I just don't

because that to me is just a surefire way to be sucked into your phone for hours and hours like there was one time when I got really obsessed with those Korean food mukbang videos and I would be up to like two in the morning watching them. And so I think what we have to remember is we're not weak. This is by design. The short edit cuts, the way that your eyes are like continuously blinking, the jumping, the lack of pauses, it's all designed to keep us just engaged. Everything is so fast. I am by nature a long form person. It's why I've always loved podcasts. And it's taken me honestly years to understand how to make a reel in 11 seconds and understand that people really aren't going to watch something if it's too long, unless it's super engaging, unless it's super

personal, you know, like those kind of those videos where people tell a story and it feels like it's going to be really dramatic, but they're actually just exaggerating the whole way through. And it's really kind of like a letdown when you get to the end everything is about attention grabbing everything is about design and that's not to say that creators are at fault but everyone is vying for your attention like that book called the attention economy attention is such a valuable resource and so it's not our fault but I do think that we have to be able to put up boundaries around how much we're willing to give our attention to some of these platforms. And as I wrote in my book, Bad Influence, if you haven't read it yet, it's called Bad Influence Reflections on a Life Lived Online.

And some of it is about the way that there are such great things about these platforms, but there is also so much bad stuff. And some of that bad stuff is just simply the time that we waste watching other people's lives rather than carrying on getting on with our own and it does feel slightly dystopian I even find it kind of like the and in my book I guess I do kind of show how the sausage is made in terms of like how content works and why it works but a lot of the time now you're seeing massive creators getting really big because they're teaching people how to hack the algorithm how to create content in the most attention-grabbing way it can feel a little bit like a snake eating its own tail it's like we've come so far into this and we're all just trying to learn the best ways to grab each other's

attention I think remembering that you're allowed to opt out and that if you do get sucked in that isn't because you're weak it's not because that if you do get sucked in that isn't because you're weak it's not because you don't have any self-control it's because that is literally what these algorithms are designed to do what this content is designed to do is to keep you on the apps for as long as possible it's to keep you engaged it's to make you buy things again in my book it's kind of what I talk about although influencers from the point of inception the idea has always been they're able to influence people usually we live under a capitalist society usually to buy things if that's your really cynical take but there was a point when the platforms were also

more about education and community building and learning and now it does feel like everything is literally you know how they say that fast fashion shops are designed to get your cortisol levels up so the music will be really loud and the way the clothes are laid out it's like quite stressful and the idea is to put you into a state of sort of like fight or flight so that you'll want to buy more things in that environment it's everything is designed basically to make you feel like you've got to act and I think that was what the attention economy thing, that definition that I gave before that was saying that attention is a catalyst for action. I do think that the way that these social media platforms work is they put you into such a highly

strong engaged frame of mind. It's like, God, I want to be like this person. God, this is so inspirational. I love the way that she looks. I love the way that he's dressed. I love the music they're listening to. You're on such a fast paced, almost like heightened, high elevated state that you want to act because your attention is so grabbed. You almost want to find a way to have whatever the thing that's grabbed your attention in your life because it's giving you such a rush of dopamine or whatever it might be. Another message I loved reads, the internet used to be a place you could go being on the internet meant sitting at the computer in the corner of the sitting room and then getting

bored after at most an hour and leaving again now we can't escape and to be totally offline is to be outside of some of the news culture friendships life that is happening in chia tolentino's trick mirror she talks a lot about this she talks about how she is of the generation that kind of, with the first generation to grow up with the early iterations of the internet and how much that has changed over the course of our lives. And I do really miss that idea of being able to log off. And I think this exists beyond social media. It's in terms of work, you know, people having your number, being able to WhatsApp you, knowing you're online, or even the fact that say you do post an Instagram story, but you didn't reply to an email, that surveillance, that sense of like people will know that you're always being watched is really gross. And it means that it does create this anxiety,

even if we're not acting on it, even if it's actually making us less productive because we're wasting so much time scrolling or feeling inadequate or actually letting things that we see on social media impact our day-to-day lives it does give us this feeling that we always have to be on that people are always going to be aware of what we're doing where we are if we're awake that you can't just lie anymore it's really hard to be like oh I'm not going out tonight to one group of friends and then go out with another group of friends because people might see that you're out so I think there's like so many levels to this being online it's not only are we always on the internet all the time we're always interconnected with everyone

and whilst that's nice whilst that's really good that you know I can speak to my sister in Australia or see what she's up to with her kids or that I can whatsapp my mum or that I can see on Facebook you know a friend that I went to school 10 years ago has just got married as much as that's a nice thing I also I don't know if any of you guys ever get this, but sometimes I'm like, God, I wish I could just disappear and escape. I feel so overexposed, even though at the same time I'm exposing myself. I suddenly just got this overwhelming feeling that I can't ever escape. And like you've all kind of messaged in, sometimes you'd love the idea of opting out of social media, which is an option. It feels like you can't. And more and more I'm noticing, obviously I already have a social media presence that really helped my book, but

sometimes I'll meet a young, a new writer, sorry, not necessarily a young writer, a writer of my own age, whose publishers are encouraging them to start up an Instagram profile or a TikTok in order to kind of plug their book before it comes out and that to me is kind of where I'm starting to feel like oh I hate this I hate that we are allowing social media to become the point of action for everyone to get the word out about things and I know that print media is dying and no one's really reading newspapers in the same way and that in order to get the word out about things and I know that print media is dying and no one's really reading newspapers in the same way and that in order to get people to do those things that means that we would have to actively not give our attention to social media but as I said it's such a Russian doll of things where creators are trying to hack the algorithm

themselves the algorithm is trying to hack our attention we're all paying attention and so it's this continuous feedback loop where it's really hard to escape and because that is working so effectively the other means or traditional means of media and even for things like writers where normally people who are not normally but sometimes or often writers are solitary people who love telling stories they don't necessarily want to be visible. Writing used to be an art where people didn't necessarily know who an author was. It wasn't necessarily a famous role. And so it does make me feel a bit sad that people in different creative industries are having to turn into content creators in order to sell their work, which isn't the same thing at all. And I myself even find having been on these platforms for so long and having grown up with them that I, in order to keep my following,

like my Instagram engagement is amazing when I'm doing loads of reels. I find reels quite hard to do. They're kind of not my natural habitat. I love writing my sub stacks. I'm really enjoying that. I love doing these podcasts, but both of those things kind of take you out of Instagram. And in order to feed the beast and keep my career alive and make sure I'm still making money, I have to conform to the ideals and the content that works well on these platforms, which at the minute is that really attention grabbing stuff. And so just to refer back to that message again about the internet used to be a place that we could go on, that has changed. And I wonder if this kind of any of these choices that we can make in life in order to help the planet or, you know, encourage people to act or do things in a different way without government bodies and without legislation and without, you know,

these huge investment companies changing, which often they won't, it takes massive collective action, but it can be really hard to make a decision when all of your peers aren't. And so, for instance, like, I'm actually writing a piece about consumerism right now, but I opted out of fast fashion or decided to stop buying fast fashion maybe like six years ago now. And I really miss it, but I've stuck by that decision. And it does make me feel jealous that people can still, you know, buy loads of clothes and Zara or can be completely updating their wardrobe. It's not something that I have access to anymore but I've opted out of that and that hasn't made really any difference I wouldn't say to the fast fashion industries if we all did it that would make a massive difference same with

social media if we all collectively reduced our screen time if we started, I don't know, buying independent magazines like Polyestazine, something like that, then the collective action, but it would need to be hundreds of thousands, if not millions of people doing it, would change this having to always be on the internet. Because ultimately, we have to vote with our wallets, we have to take action that's going to have real material impact on companies in a monetary way in order for them to actually change how they act. So that's really hard because in a way, I guess it's victim blaming us as the consumers have very little power on our own. We have a lot of power collectively, but we're very weakened by these really pervasive systems which make all of this consumption whether it's fast fashion

whether it's social media content everything is heightened it's quick it's fast-paced it's dopamine hit it's a plaster for this economically dire situation that most of us are living in it's a quick fix a serotonin boost and it's hard to opt out of those things even though we know that these are sort of like having a sugary donut on an empty stomach instead of making ourselves a healthy meal or like even just like a big nutritious meal it's the same kind of thing and we live in a fast food fast fashion fast content culture and if you can find a way to dip your toe in and out of that and not let that become all consuming, it's like anything. I love a McDonald's, huge fan. And I love fast food, but I know that I can't have that for three meals a day, every day of the week.

I loved fast fashion. I really miss it. I really miss being able to buy cheap clothes constantly. But that's my one kind of, I guess, ecological and sustainable and ethical decision that I've actually made and stuck to. I've tried veganism. Anyway, I'm writing a sub stack about that, so I'll stop wanging on about that. But if we can find a way to think about social media in the same way that we do other fast fashion consumption things where it's like yeah I can go on it in the evening for like an hour when I've watched my show with my housemate and have my dinner or when I've read a bit of my book or on the weekends I think that's fine I think the problem is we're allowing ourselves to basically

mainline content into our veins for up to eight hours a day. And there is no way that that is good for us. But we weren't given the tools when social media was invented on how to use it. And it is changing so quickly. And it's becoming so much more normal for everyone to create content. And I do think it's changing our neuroplasticity. It's changing the way our brain works. It's changing our chemical reactions and dopamine hits and what we find interesting. Oh, that was a long rant. Sorry. Can we unlock the power of nature to tackle microplastics?

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exhale and you open your phone and you think, now I can relax and scroll. And absolutely, you are just setting your brain on fire. it's just so intense and I am the worst for this like my I have a real addiction to podcasts I have a real addiction with stuffing my brain with information so I can't let any organic thoughts pop up that might upset me which is why reading and writing are probably the only things that really take do relax me because it's kind of, I'm engaging and using my brain. It feels like a meditation. Also going to the gym and exercising or doing a gym class. Those are really the only times that I'm properly off my phone. I'm terrible at having a shower. I play a podcast. If I go to the loo, I often might have a scroll. It's really,

I mean, that's just unhygienic first of all but I do completely agree with this person and I feel sickened to think how normal this has become it's such an addiction because there was a time when that wasn't normal I remember getting my first one of my first phones and it was an LG pink chocolate flip-flop and I can so clearly remember not having charged it and I would just like oh I'll remember to charge it and just not using it for like a few days or like dropping it down the side of my bed and being like can't be arsed I'll just get it another day like I would love it I would love sending a text then it would run out of credit and you'd be like oh I guess I can't use it I would

lose it it would run out of charge there was no urgency if you've ever been in a group of friends where someone has a portable charger and your phone is all dying the anxiety levels of who's going to get the phone charger next how much battery you're on like we physically can't we become so dependent in a way that's awful like even thinking about using citymatter it helps us get around we have kind of delegated every single use to our phone so much so that we are dependent on it even for shopping I never take out cards with me I literally exclusively use Apple Pay I always I'm looking at maps I have the most terrible sense of direction so we'll use them up to get me

everywhere again that's on my phone so I have kind of outsourced so many of my thoughts and independent and independent thinking to my phone and so even if it's not social media it's just that level of screen time what I really should do I have a little dog is go on a dog walk and not have my phone but even that I'm like I might need to reply to an email or I want to listen to a podcast the fact that I can't just go for half an hour 45 minute walk without my phone is well it's sickening it's terrible and so I completely agree that we don't know how to relax because we're never fully disengaged and when this person sent this in I responded as well with we also don't know how to be bored and I think boredom is an

amazing catalyst for creativity when we actually let our minds rest and wander ideas come to us thoughts form but if we're constantly shoving our heads full of content and podcasts and ideas it's like there is no time for rumination and I think a lot of us rely on having that content and stuffing our brain with it because we get anxious and we don't want that anxious thoughts come in or you know we get we have don't want to be overwhelmed but actually the irony being that a lot of this content is what increases our anxiety. As I said, it kind of sets off our nervous system. It puts us into fight or fight. It's very adrenaline boosting, which isn't a calm

state. And so the thing that will actually help us is, you know, doing kind of therapeutic things like meditation or even going on a walk without your phone. The best antidote to all of this is of course socializing. I think there's nothing better. I never feel more full up or recharged than when I just spend an amazing time with a friend or a group of friends and you laugh and you share and you work through problems. And it does make you feel whole in a way that I know I said right at the beginning, you know, when you scroll too much, it kind of depletes you. You feel a a bit like you got kind of like post scroll clarity and you're like what was I doing why was I watching that and whereas the you know going out on a run seeing your friends all of those things I think really are the kind of like antidote to the faux

relaxation that we get and that feeling of being bored when I was growing up I used I lived in the Lake District when I was very little it was like the most amazing place to grow up as a child there was just bunny rabbits and hedgehogs and deers and loads of wildflowers and I would just play outside in the garden all day long looking for fairies picking mushrooms playing with the hedgehogs coming up with stories and that was because I had so much space in my brain to create because I was bored and then you would feel that boredom whereas now you get at even a moment's quiet in your head where you're like I feel a bit bored and immediately it's like okay what can I do to get a dopamine hit maybe it's opening a dating app opening Instagram refreshing a timeline refreshing your

messages I saw a tweet that read not only are run a thing, but I've seen a resurgence in book clubs and dinner parties and game nights, etc. More of my friends are playing tennis and golf. People genuinely just want to have community back and also hobbies that have nothing to do with trying to get rich. I am hoping that that is what is coming. And the fact that we're having this conversation perhaps highlights that that's what we're all craving. I do wonder if this is a hangover from the pandemic when we weren't allowed to get outside and do as much stuff in person. And that kind of rerouted and retrained our neural pathways to organize things online, to have a meeting on Zoom instead of in person to just do everything kind of digitally. And it was such

a difficult time, such an isolating time. And it wouldn't surprise me. And we're still, obviously, it's not completely gone away. It wouldn't surprise me if it's taken us this long to feel the repercussions and the exhaustion from having had to be so isolated and live our lives so digitally and perhaps now we are going to see a change where we're going to be like actually why are we sat on our phones inside on an August evening we don't have to be doing this we're not in lockdown anymore we can get out I think the counter to that obviously is that everything is really expensive and we are living in a situation where everyone's quite broke so that's hard but like the things that people listed dinner parties book clubs run clubs all of those things don't necessarily have

to cost a lot of money and I think that that's a really exciting time to bring back community and as I wrote about in my sub stack on beauty as MPEC and desire we have lost a sense of community and with dwindling kind of like religious doctrine and it just people's lives being so busy no one really knows their neighbors community is something that I think we already crave which is why social media kind of fills that gap and that can be good in some ways and it's useful if we have you know a quick plug to fill in that feeling of loneliness but it definitely shouldn't be the end goal and I've been watching Sex and the City again and I was thinking about how they're always

out and I found it so interesting so I was like they go out so much and then I realized that's because that's the only way you can meet people every single night they're out at bars they're dancing they're going to gallery openings and events I do think that um I mean obviously sex city isn't real life and also the women all seem to be so rich and I'm so jealous of how many nice houses they can buy and the life they live in New York is obviously completely exaggerated and I don't really know anyone that lives like that. Our lives are also more tiring and more difficult because we're more online. I do think that work has taken home with us more than ever. Very few people actually work at nine till five. Most people are working almost around the clock and so we have

all of these extra difficulties. That being said a lot of the messages being sent in which I completely agree with is this idea that we tell ourselves we don't have enough time to do whatever it might be. And actually, if we're really honest, we probably are wasting an hour to up to eight hours a day scrolling, looking at stuff online. But the time goes so quickly when you're doing that, when you're scrolling, like an hour can pass by in minutes. It's such a quick way to waste time that we forget that actually maybe we could go and meet a friend, even if it's just for a coffee or walk in the park, or maybe we could join

some kind of club. I'm hoping that the fact that we're all coming to this realization and having this reckoning means that we are going to be doing more stuff in real life. And I think that's really exciting. And I think that we should be taking power away from these platforms in some ways. And that I think they're never going to go away. I think social media is always going to exist. I think maybe it'll evolve and change. I think that we should recognize that there are people that make money on these platforms. They're very good at what they're doing. Also recognize that these platforms are

designed to capture our attention and that we have the power to take it back and that it can be great it can be a really useful tool it can be fun it can be educational but we have to somehow put boundaries up in how often we're allowing our attention to be taken away from us in that way and prioritizing our time in different ways and I got an incredible message, which I wanted to share with you guys. It feels so relevant, this being the topic, as I literally finished your book today, and it just covers so much of the thoughts on this. I wanted to offer a little nugget of something that I hadn't seen mentioned about this cultural FOMO of feeling like you're missing out on things if you're not on social media. Social media is so addictive because it has so many solutions to such human problems. Soothes boredom, teaches you to cook,

makes sure you're in touch with your friends, shows you the news, gives you work-related inspiration, etc. Of course, after years of this being the source of all of these things, you will feel as though not having social media will leave you with a hole. However, I believe this to be a trick because all of these things can be done and achieved outside of ourselves in the real world. I sort of realised that although it looked like I was just on social media, I was often seeking different things and social media was the one size fits all solution. So I drew a little map which was like, what am I seeking? And then the corresponding places I could get that outside of social media and also including social media. I'll try to give you an example.

Seeking rest, activities, bath, meditate, nap, listen to podcast. Seeking connection, activities, call a friend, go to a class, go to the pub, go to the local poetry pub night. Seeking creative inspiration, activities, work-related podcast, free writing, go for a walk and take photos of actual inspirational things via printed design magazine or book. But I also included social media as the activities on some of these as I do genuinely believe it has a place but it should not replace absolutely everything else. it absorbs our motivation to get up and do something for ourself out there because we can scroll and fill the hole on here once you set up these stations outside of social media to get what you crave you will find the FOMO of not being on there is much smaller sorry a genius in my dms I love this it's exactly what I've been trying to say, but way more clever.

And it's so true. I think sometimes even that idea of figuring out what it is actually we're looking for, you know, sometimes you reach your phone and you don't know what you're picking it up for. Maybe it's in those moments we've got to think, what is it I want? Like trying to be a bit like how you would like intuitively eat intuitively act so if I'm picking up my phone is it actually that I'm wondering what my friends are up to in which case can I FaceTime them if I'm picking up my phone is it because I'm trying to think about what I want to wear then maybe I could still on the internet but I don't know google our favorite celebrity and just find it in a way that isn't going to, because I think sometimes what happens is we might pick up our phone to see what our friend is doing or to check, you know, if they've posted a

story to say that they're at the party yet. And then without knowing, we accidentally get into a scroll hole. So I'm really going to take that on board, this idea of like, what is it I'm actually seeking? Is it validation? Is it inspiration? Is it rest? Is it entertainment? And like this person said, then figuring out where the original source for those things would be. I think that's so clever. And I'm just grateful to have you guys in my life because you're so interesting and smart and wise. I'm worried that I spoke really quickly on this episode because social media is something that I think about all the time. It's kind of a bit of my gilded cage where I'm so grateful to have this platform. I absolutely love having access to all of you. It's given me the best opportunities and I love creating content. On the other hand, sometimes I feel so swallowed up by it,

feel like I can't keep up, feel like I'm not good enough at it. And I've somehow missed the window of harnessing the power of this incredible thing. Because for me, I'm not someone with like a specific niche. My interests are so varied and I don't necessarily create content that's the most algorithmically friendly and that can make things difficult. But then I creatively, I'm like, no, I must do what I believe in. So social media for me is a subject very close to my heart and also something which I really struggle with sometimes. And so I've loved talking about this. And actually, it's really made me feel better about my own use of social media. And I think taking the shame away, recognizing our own power, recognizing that these platforms are designed to

keep us on and it is within our own power to say, actually, love that, love this content, but I'm going to put my phone down now and I'm going to go for a walk or I'm going to call my friend or I'm going to go out to that new gallery opening or whatever it is. So love that. Thank you so much for all of your messages as always please do rate review subscribe any feedback you have i'm open all ears and hey maybe i'll see you out in the real world but until then i'll see you right here next week bye We'll be right back. Guaranteed winner by 11 p.m. every day. 19 plus and physically located in Ontario. Gambling problem? Call 1-866-531-2600. Or visit connectsontario.ca. Select games only.

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