Judge John Hodgman - Facetime Served

Episode Date: March 5, 2025

Liam and Maya are long distance lovers. But Maya struggles with phone addiction. She installed a program to limit her screen time. But this bums Liam out! He wants to Facetime his partner without an annoying digital chaperone. Who’s right? Who’s wrong?We are on TikTok and YouTube! Follow us on both @judgejohnhodgmanpod! Follow us on Instagram @judgejohnhodgman for that TikTok of Liam's cat and more exclusives!Thanks to reddit user u/banjo_solo for naming this week’s case! To suggest a title for a future episode, keep an eye on the Maximum Fun subreddit at reddit.com/r/maximumfun! Judge John Hodgman is audience supported! Join our members at maximumfun.org/join.

Welcome to the Judge John Hodgman podcast. I'm Bailiff Jesse Thorne. This week, FaceTime served. Liam brings the case against his girlfriend, Maya. Liam and Maya are long distance lovers, but Maya struggles with phone addiction. She installed a program to limit her screen time, but this bums Liam out. He wants to FaceTime his partner without an annoying digital chaperone. Who's right, who's wrong?

Only one can decide. Please rise as Judge John Hodgman enters the courtroom and presents an obscure cultural reference. Scallops, umbrella, sleep, star, SOS, porch jazz, Scallops. Umbrella. Sleep. Star. S.O.S. Porch. Jazz. Stay.

Flare. Circle. Bunk. Signal. Field hippies. Alarm. Triangle. Shelled beans.

Crash. Bailiff Jesse Thorne, please swear the litigants in. Triangle, shelled beans, crash. Mail of Jesse Thorne, please swear the litigants in. Liam and Maya, please rise and raise your right hands. Do you swear to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth? So help you, God or whatever? Yes. I do. Do you swear to abide by Judge John Hodgman's ruling

despite the fact that he is no longer in the employ of a phone manufacturer? I do. Yes. Judge Hodgman's ruling, despite the fact that he is no longer in the employ of a phone manufacturer? I do. Judge Hodgman, you may proceed. Wow. Sorry to push on that bruise, John. Wow. Push on the bruise?

He stuck a bayonet in it and twisted. Still available and in wardrobe apple. Take me back. But first, we're gonna do this podcast. Liam and Maya, you may be seated for an immediate summary judgment on one of your favors can either of you name the piece of culture that I referenced when I entered the courtroom. Maya, what's your guess?

I would guess the New York Times game connections. Interesting. Interesting. The New York Times games connections. Of course, there may or may not be a connection between the New York Times games connections. Of course, there may or may not be a connection between the New York Times game connections and your case. Liam, do you want to guess? I'm going to guess that a 1980s science fiction.

I'll stop you right there. I'll allow your guess in a moment, but I just want I want to be clear that that Maya is more correct than not, but not yet specific enough to win the summary judgment. So think of that while you are telling me your prepared 1980s science fiction guess. Cause I haven't heard of that. No, no, no, my prepared guess was way worse.

I want to hear them all. I want to hear all the guesses. My prepared guess was the poem television by Roald Dahl. Poem television by Roald Dahl. Okay, interesting. Which I might just lock in still because I believe, yeah, that's all I got. What was the 1980 science fiction thing you were going to guess? Not even specific, just maybe a scene where someone's communicating over a tablet and

there's information being streamed. You just figured John is a Gen X nerd, you might as well guess an entire- Yeah, now that's all I can think about. Generational category of content. Yeah, and still wrong. But you want to lock in the poem, Television by Roald Dahl. And I think it's time to debut. For the very first time on the Judge John Hodgman podcast, the guess is locked in sound effect. Lock that guess in. Locked in.

I don't know what that sound effect is going to be when our editor A.J. McKeon picks it, but it's going to be really cool. It could be that. It could be locked in. It might be a sad trombone even. And Maya, your guess is locked in. Let's hear it.

Locked in. But I'm here to tell you that all guesses are wrong. Now I bet a bunch of you out there were thinking along the lines of Liam that maybe I was activating a Judge John Hodgman Winter Soldier to come out of hibernation. I thought maybe it was the Judge John Hodgman British shipping news. No, nor was it a mysterious numbers station in Eastern Europe in the 90s. That was in fact, Maya, you were more wrong than right. That was today's clues from the New York Times connections game.

There is a connection to the fact that you and Liam play connections together, sometimes as part of your LDL, long distance lover lifestyle, but you did not guess specifically that it was today's, and nor did you catch the secret code that I was giving you, number station style, in the connections clues. So for those of you who don't know, connections gives you a bunch of words, and you sort them into four or five categories that they relate to.

So I replaced the original ones from today, which were, I think it was like dawn and worm and sunrise, whatever it was, it was all words that had to do with the sunrise. And instead, I replaced them with these words, which you may have caught when I was reading them. They are scallops, porch, jazz, field hippies, and shelled beans. For an immediate summary judgment in one of your's favors, Maya or Liam, can you guess the connection between those four things?

Maya- They all feel vaguely Boston adjacent. Jason- Wow. Literally Boston adjacent, except for the buffer zone of Portsmouth, New Hampshire. I'm talking about Maine, right, Joel Mann? That's correct. That's right. Let's have the sound effect for the Maine Joel Cam reveal.

Maine Joel Cam. There's Joel Mann. I am here in our Maine summertime and sometimes wintertime studio here at WERU FM in Orland, Maine, available online at weru.org, where we enjoy from time to time gallons of scallops. Joel Mann, our main producer and program director here at Program Director, Operations Manager. What? Both. Both. Our both director here at WERU plays porch jazz at the Pentago at Inn every Tuesday during

the seasonable season. Joel Mann's favorite band is Joe Bird and the Field Hippies. Favorite band of all time? Close. Better than Zeppelin? Yeah. Okay, good. And shelled beans, of course, have nothing to do with WERU, but they are. This week's My Makeshift Main-Based Cabal is this can

of Stewart's shelled beans only available in New England and which I only discovered. I grew up eating salads made with these beans by my dad and they are delicious. You can see that they're gluten-free, rich in fiber and no fat food with recipes on the back panel, including shell bean salad, which is delicious, and guacamole, which you don't make with these beans. Don't ever do that. But otherwise, use them. Anyway, it's beautiful to have here.

And what I'm going to do is when I rule on you, Liam or Maya, I'm going to bang my gavel on my can of beans. And those of you who are watching on the YouTube can see a preview of this now. This is the sound of a gavel banging a can of beans. If you want to see what that looks like, go over to Judge John Hodgman Pod. You can see a preview of this now. This is the sound of a gavel banging a can of beans. If you want to see what that looks like, go over to Judge John Hodgman, the pod judge, John Hodgman pod. All right, let's get into it. Joel, it's great to be back here.

Good to have you back, John. We'll talk more later. OK. All right. So who who seeks justice in my court? Is it you, Liam? Yes, it's me. Now, Liam, let me ask you a question. You guys are long distance lovers. The term that I invented for the introduction to make you as uncomfortable as possible.

But you are in a relationship and you do not live in the same place. That's correct. You and Maya. And Maya lives in Massachusetts, which is probably why she guessed Massachusetts because that's what Massachusettsians would guess. I speak as one of them, of course.

But you are in fact in where? In Norman, right? In Maine. Massachusettsians would guess. I speak as one of them, of course. But you are in fact in where? In Norman, right? In Maine. Right now you're together though. You're not LDLing, you're short distance loving in the studio. Yes.

Where do we find you two together right now? Massachusetts or Maine, who traveled? I traveled, we're in Alston right now. Alston, Massachusetts. I used to go there quite a bit actually, but I'm not going to go down memory lane right now. But you're from Maine and you live in Maine and you live, it says here in Brunswick, Maine,

home of Bowdoin College. That's correct. Yes, I'm originally from Connecticut, but now working and living up in Maine. All right, I'm sure we can bleep that last part out about Connecticut. Topic is Maine. What are you researching? What are you researching there in in Bowdoin? At Bowdoin? Yeah, I'm an evolutionary biologist. So I study mainly bird evolution and teach classes like ornithology. Or you teach ornithology in Maine. That's correct. That's incredible. To paraphrase our new social media manager, Dan Telfer,

what's the best bird? What's your favorite bird? My favorite bird is an American herring gull, the sort of parking lot seagull. I study them out of my field station, so I've come to love them. Of all the birds, you're talking about a trash bird. It's part of the reason that you get obsessed with them.

They're sort of like... Why? Because they've taken all your food and you're mad? You have a certain set of skills and you're tracking them down to get your french fries back? Are you a sailor who's glad to finally be approaching land? Basically, at the field season, basically, yes. What's your favorite fact about this bird that you love so much? My favorite fact about a herring gull

is that they take, even though they grow to full size in the first year of life, they take about four or five years to start breeding because they have to develop all of these social skills. Is there a greater commitment? Basically, yeah. They have to find a partner. They have to do all these like nuanced social behaviors

at these breeding colonies that we don't usually get to see in cities, but they have a really elaborate social lives. Maya, where do you live? Massachusetts. You don't have to give me the precise address. I live in Jamaica Plain. Jamaica, JP they call it. Yes.

And what do you, what kind of animals do you study there? What do you get up to? I work at MIT, and I help coordinate research for researcher prototypes around constructive communication. That's the Massachusetts Institute for Technology. Yes, I think I've heard of that. Tell me more about constructive communication MIT style. Yeah, I guess at the lab, I am working and used to do a lot of social media analysis.

And then they're like, oh, these digital tools are making communication less constructive. What happens if we try to use them for not evil and advertising money and surveillance? So we're working with a lot of college campuses to see if we can foster on campus dialogue that's enhanced with technology. So it's all in person, but the technology helps you listen more. You live in Massachusetts, you live in JP, and Liam lives all the way, like, two and a half hours away in Brunswick. This is not long distance to a lot of places in the world, but in New England, this is pretty long distance.

How did you meet? On Tinder in Boston. So that was just traveling through up and down Connecticut to Maine. Why do you keep bringing up that other place? It's the reason I was in Massachusetts originally. You were passing through Massachusetts from another place going back to Maine and you just had Tinder pinging out. Yes. And then it pinged back and it said, love of your life, love of your life, stop immediately.

My first and only Tinder date, I will say. Where was the date? It was in Davis Square at Elm Street Tap Room. Yeah. Davis Square in Summerville or Cambridge? Summerville and then briefly at Dragon Pizza. Yes. All fantastic local businesses that I suppose you should support.

And how long ago was that first date? Two and a half years ago. Yeah, just about two and a half. So most of the time you're keeping in touch using technology. How do you how do you use I'm thinking phones, right? We're talking about some phones. Maya, how do you how do you keep in touch over the phone? Throughout the day, probably a little WhatsApp messages. And

then at the bookends of the day, it's usually a video call. Video call. And do you play games on the phone together from time to time? I have a New York Times app with all their little games. So I'll share my screen and we'll do like connections together and stuff. Crossword puzzle. Yeah. Crossword puzzles.

The other ones that aren't as fun. You hate the B. The B. I don't like how they do the spelling B. We don't do that one. Thank you, Liam. I think I've heard everything I need to in order to make my decision. Yes.

I've messed with the, I've messed with the spelling B a few times and I've, I find it to be diverting, but not not they don't have the they don't include the words that I know exist and they know exist, but they still don't include them. Yeah, yeah. You know what I'm talking about, don't you? Don't you, Liam? Yeah.

And you're not like filling anything out like it just keeps going. And then if you don't do like the absolute best, I always feel like a failure. Right. I lost a lot of time chasing that Queen Bee. Right. Oh yeah, Queen Bee, yeah. A lot of time. And do I remember any words from it? No.

I don't. Liam, you have a really good point. All games are bad, because they only make you feel bad. If you enjoy the Spelling Bee, Jesse or anyone out there, you should do what you enjoy. You like what you like. It wasn't for me, but I do enjoy some of those other games.

And, Maya, you're sharing your screen with Liam. Liam, do you have a subscription? I don't. I think I did at one point, but I don't. All right. Well, we're back in action because I had found in your favor, and now I'm unfinding. For any, only because I'm a company man and I write that little column every now and then. Yeah.

In any case, this all sounds like fun. So Liam, where does the problem start? What's going on? So my dispute today is that Maya has a phone health, phone hygiene, phone security setting. I don't even need the video to hear the air quotes around those. A setting that if, among other settings, one of them is if you hold your phone too close to your face, it locks and says your phone's too close to your face. your phone too close to your face, it locks and says, your phone's too close to your face.

And then it won't unlock after you move it further away and maybe five or so seconds. Then it will unlock and you can resume moving your phone. And this is all happening on Maya's phone. But in any situation where we're communicating over the phone or in these cases where that you know sharing the screen I will see the phone screen lock from this like distance alert Maya explain to me the locking is this a situation like pretend that this can of shell beans is my phone and if I put it too close to my face the can of

beans aka the phone will see it and then I won't be close to my face, the can of beans, aka the phone, will see it, and then I won't be able to do anything on the phone. Is that right? By locking it means I'm locked out. Does it turn black? Does the screen turn black or what? The whole screen will be taken over with a little arrow that says your phone is too close to your face,

and it'll only have one button that you can't press until the phone is far enough from your face. Then it says, like, okay, now you can go back to using your phone and you click the button. And did I understand from Liam that there's even a delay? Like, so like, here, this is too close to my face. My can of shell beans locks. I move it away to the appropriate distance, which I presume you can set, and I press the

button and does it come back immediately? Or do I have to wait a period of time as punishment? I think you just wait a couple seconds for it to recognize that your face is far enough away. Yeah. And then you click and you're back. So this isn't so much to limit your time, but to limit the amount of time that the phone is right up close to your face. Is that right? Yeah, that's exactly it. And is that for vision issues or what was the issue that caused you to install this program? I think it was designed for people with vision

issues. I heard about it actually at a party. My friend tried to show me something on their phone and it locked and I was like, what is that? I need it. Sounds like a hell of a party, my friend tried to show me something on their phone and it locked. And I was like, what is that? I need it. Sounds like a hell of a party. It was crazy. And they showed me it was in the accessibility features. So this is onboard an iPhone, I presume? Yes.

I'll tell you something that I love. iPhones and all Apple products. And I would love to tell the world about how much I love them at any time. You know what, John? I just want to say that I love Expressions College of Art and Design in Embreeville, California. Yeah. I'd love to go back to getting paid $300 to be in commercials for them. I'm just saying Apple and Expressions sponsor Judge John Hodgman, that's all.

And by the way, Stuart Shellbeams, you get a freebie today because I've loved you my whole life. I think that commercial is still on YouTube and I'm naked in it. Oh, well. You want to see me with hair but without clothes? Daniel Spear is our video editor. Maybe Daniel can find that YouTube and plop it into one of our breaks during this podcast. Either way, our audience will thrill

as I recreate that commercial's famous catchphrase, you forgot to consider the yield curve, Dave. While nude. ["The Yield Curve"] So Maya, how's the program working out for you? Do you like it? Is it helping you? How has it affected your life? I like it because it tells me when I'm too

sleepy to be on my phone anymore because there's, I think, a pretty direct correlation with how tired you are and how close you're holding your phone to your face. A lot of the time when you're kind of like mindlessly scrolling. Let me ask you, you ever lie in bed and you're looking at your phone for some important reason that you absolutely have to be looking at right then, right? Cause it's very important and probably, probably good for professional development as well, or personal enrichment.

You have to be using your phone in bed, right? And it's late at night. You ever sort of fall asleep and drop the phone on your face? That ever happened to you? I don't. I'm waiting for an answer, Maya. I don't think about that specific lead up, but I have dropped my own phone on my face in bed. Right. Yeah, me too. Last night. Me too. Good. Good. We have that in common then. Liam's complaint isn't about when you are scrolling in bed at night by yourself, but specifically when you are spending time with him, the screen freezes up.

And Liam, you sent in some evidence, which I'm going to look at now. Exhibit A. Screenshots during one single game of connections, you screenshotted one, two, three, four, five separate times that the phone locked during the time when you were supposedly talking to each other. Is that right, Liam? That's right, yeah. And I think these screenshots,

based on the timeline, it might've been, we're usually not so slow at connections. So it might've been a crossword. It says here, it says here connections. Yes. Well, if you think that I'm judging you for the time it takes you to complete the game of connections, strangely, I'm not for once judging you because you should be taking all the time you want.

Cause this isn't just a game you're playing together. It's a time you're spending together. And tell me how it feels when when when you're trying to be with your loved one all the way down there in Jamaica Plain and you get screen locked blocked at 1157, 1159, 1201, 1202, and 1204, the times of these screenshots. How does that feel? It feels a little frustrating, especially because my whole screen is, like when Maya's screen sharing, the vast majority of my screen is what's on her phone,

plus a little video panel where I can see myself, and then a blank panel where her video would go if she wasn't screen sharing. Anyone who wants to see visual representation of this can go to our social media or our show page at maximumfund.org where these photos are being posted. All I'm then seeing is an alert saying, you are holding your phone too close to your face and my own face.

Nothing else is happening and I am holding my phone at an appropriate distance. The message isn't for you. It's for Maya. Yes, that's correct. And then we sort of pause and wait and then it's unlocked. And then we speak to each other when the, when the phone is locked or does the audio go out too? We can hear each other.

I, I just had an epiphany while you're bringing me to court about this. Oh yeah. You hate group punishment. You don't like when a whole group is punished for one person's mistake and you feel like you're being punished by my screen. Sounds like Maya just got the crux. Maya, tell me about Liam's traumatic problem of an hatred of group punishment. I just remember this line from a report card that I think your mom had written a letter in response to.

Tell me more. That was a distinct line. It was a really glowing progress report on maybe seven-year-old Liam. But one distinct line in it was Liam does not like group punishment. It's not fair. That's what your mom wrote to the teacher on the report card, Liam? It was either coming from the teacher or there was a whole kerfuffle with group punishment in that elementary school.

That was very frustrating to me even as a child. This was a formative moment. Have you told me the name of your elementary school and I searched it, am I going to see some very weird news stories? No, it wasn't. It's scandalous. Stanford prison experiment type stuff going on over there.

No, they had a traffic light in the cafeteria. When the like a full sort of street size traffic light that was mounted in the front of the cafeteria and at lunchtime. Was this a, was your cafeteria TGI Fridays? That would be maybe a little better than my elementary school food. When the traffic light was green, you could talk as a child ought be able to do.

And then when it was yellow, we were all like under warning. And then if things got too loud, they would switch it to red. And if you talked when the traffic light was red, you got sent to the curb, which is our playground was separate. I haven't thought about this in a long time. Sent to the curb or kicked to the curb? Sent to the curb, sort of sentenced to the curb.

Our playground was separated from our cafeteria by like a fire lane, basically. And if you talked when the traffic light was red, you had to sit on the curb and watch all the kids play like in the playground while you were like on the curb. Well, this certainly sounds weird and draconian, but that sounds like specific punishment as opposed to collective punishment. If you talked during the red light, you would be kicked to the curb.

That's the person who violated some, the rule, however dystopian it might be, is the one who's being punished. So where does the collective punishment come in? I think that the elevation of the sort of, the hazard level from green to yellow to red was based on like the overall noise. So if a table was yelling across the room and you were just talking quietly,

they could boost it to red and then you had to be quiet even though you might have even been whispering or just chatting or asking someone for help for something. Maybe I misunderstood something here. How would they choose who to send to the curb? Once it was red, total silence. or something. Maybe I misunderstood something here. How would they choose who to send to the curb? Once it was read, total silence. So if little Liam in that moment goes, I object to collective punishment,

you would be moved to the fire alley or whatever. Yes, yeah. As I was, I think several times. Look, I know that I didn't want to talk about Connecticut earlier, but this is in Connecticut. But yeah, yeah. Let's name and shame it. What's the town? What's the school?

Because I want to put him on blast. This is a weird thing. This is Long Lots Elementary School in Westport, Connecticut, unfortunately. Man, imagine what the situation is like at Short Lots Elementary School. Totally. Long Lots Elementary School in Westport, Connecticut. If anyone can verify they still have a traffic light in the cafeteria, please let us know. Or maybe it's onto a new dystopian situation.

Maybe all the students there are forced to wear matching jumpsuits and shave their heads and march in formation to go see a giant screen with a guy talking on it. Like, I don't know, maybe like the very first Apple Macintosh computer ad. Still got it. Still got it, Apple. I saw that live on television. I go back. I go deep.

So collective punishment in this case, Maya, would mean that Liam feels he's being punished for your horrible transgression of holding the phone too close to your face. Is that right? I think so. Yeah. What do you think about this insight, Liam? I guess I do feel punished. I don't know if I'm allowed to then say that that's group punishment because it's just me. But... No, two is a group. I mean... Yeah. Yeah.

Maya is also there She's being punished by the program that she's selected. You're being punished by the program. You did not select. Yes That's definitely true. And I think for me in this case it's maybe more an issue of the disruption in our actual conversation and the fact that there's not necessarily been like an arc of holding the phone less close To the face. there's not necessarily been like an arc of holding the phone less close to the face. There's not necessarily, it's not becoming less frequent over time. Oh, so you're saying in your opinion, Liam, that the program is having no effect. Yes, absolutely. No effect.

That it's not changing, Maya, it's not changing your habits. Would you agree? I would say the goal is not to change how close my phone is to my face. I think the goal is to remind myself that I have a body. And right now, the way it's contorted is probably not great to do long term. And it kind of helps me snap out of things, but it's hard to see that happen that way when you are someone being talked to through the phone, like you're not seeing the point where you put the phone down because I'm on the phone talking to you, having a great time.

I love this. The program reminds me that I have a body. Hmm. Very deep. I have a body. Very deep. So you do feel that you're getting benefit from this, even if the rate of screen locking is not decreasing to Liam's satisfaction.

Exactly. And also I would argue those screenshots are, the timestamps are nighttime timestamps. So we're floating around midnight. Right. And that is probably peak close to my face hours. So I would say that is probably the worst it gets. And I understand that's frustrating.

1157, 1159, 1201, 1202, 1204, I mean, minutes apart. How are you gonna get those connections done if you can't keep your phone in arm's length. I mean, it's sometimes even when Maya is just showing me something on her phone, whether that's like a TikTok video or something or holding the phone up to me to show me something on the phone, it will register then that it's too close and then lock. It's just sort of a constant interruption.

This refers to exhibit B in the evidence. Maya, what are you sharing with Liam in exhibit B? It is a TikTok of his very sweet cat Bowie, who I was, I'm kind of Bowie's summer camp when Liam's away for field work. Well, let's take a look at it. I wanna see this cat. ["Summer Camp"]

Pfft. Pfft. Aww. Oh, you got to say, first of all, it's amazing that you're able to hold that string and then that looked like a cranberry and then looked like a cherry in front of Bowie while also playing the accordion like that. That was amazing. Extraordinary achievement. So what is this illustrating here? Because the phone didn't lock because your face was too close to it. What are we looking at here other than this wonderful cat? And if the

answer is this wonderful cat, that's fine. Yeah, maybe just an example of the content that we are drowning ourselves in. That's the sort of level that we're working at in terms of what we're spending a lot of time watching. John, you have to understand that Maya's cat videos are the first draft of history. We can't let this cat's relationship with this cherry be forgotten.

Maya, you've alluded to feeling that you might have an addiction to your phone or an unhealthy relationship with your phone. Is that true? Yeah. Yeah. Tell me more what your concerns are and what other programs you're putting in place to

try to alleviate that. I feel like definitely post-COVID, it amped up my screen time a lot. And it also became how I kind of saw what was happening in my friends' lives who weren't close by. And then also TikTok happened and I promptly addicted myself to that. So I think that one is a true thing. I deleted it so I can't redownload it now.

So that is one method of solving this problem. I also have some time limits. So I can block off specific hours of the day where I can't open certain apps without bypassing them. Or if I spend two hours throughout the day on an app, it'll say, okay, you've reached your time limit. You can then say, okay, and it'll close the app. Or you can add five or 15 minute increments if you're doing

something really important. But with regard to the app that's currently screen lock blocking your love life, you acknowledge that it's, it's not actually, it's making you more aware of how you're holding the phone, but it doesn't seem to be minimizing the amount of times the screen locks. I'd say it's a cumulative effect. How long have you been using it? About since, I think, last March.

Okay, so coming up on a year. And so the cumulative effect is what then? How's it going? If I have a night where it's like, okay, you're getting five screen locks in a row, that is usually when I'm like, I need to look at myself and I need to just go to bed. It's not like the first one is when I'm like, because then I can write it off. And also, I think something special about this feature is you can't really get around it. You have to change your behavior to unlock the phone versus all the timer stuff. Usually there's like a backdoor to get past it.

Well, there is a way around it, it seems to me, Liam, because this only happens when Maya is sharing her screen. Why don't you just share your screen instead? Then you wouldn't have this problem. She would be forced to pay attention to you for as long as you want. With no machine coming in saying, you might not give this guy this much of your time.

You have to go to bed soon. Occasionally I will sort of drive, I guess, on the screen share on the video call. But I think most of the sort of group activities, Crossword Puzzles connections, connections, that thing, their home is on Maya's phone. Because you won't pay for a subscription. I do do the cooking.

You do the long distance cooking? Oh, no. I do have the New York Times cooking subscription app. Okay. There's some balance, but we try. But I feel as though Maya is maybe more of the Consistent crossword puzzler the sort of day-to-day stuff. So it it kind of makes less sense I don't I don't necessarily do that when I'm by myself ever You're saying that she

more consistently initiates she's bet this is one of those things that sometimes partners say and heterosexual couplings where the guy is like She's just she's just better at doing everything than me. So I just let her do it Maya's certainly better at doing crossword puzzles than me, but I just don't I Taking the trash out and doing all the cooking and cleaning Every time I try I just dump the trash can on my head and run out and run out into the parking lot and then the gulls attack me. So it's better that she just do it. No, I'm just not picking up a Monday on my own, like solo. I would I'd never do like solo

crossword puzzles. I don't have streaks or anything that I'm managing. Is this an evening ritual? Oh, yes. Evening ritual. Oh, yes. And how often is this ritual of long distance loving via New York Times connections or whatever happening every night? Would you say it can? It we kind of go through phases. I think right now we're in and off.

Yeah. But when we're on, it's usually every night could be off forever. Maybe this whole relationship got too close to your face. You got to take a break. No, no, it's going well. Do you ever have plans to to how long does it take to get from Brunswick to Maine to JP Massachusetts with normal traffic about two hours and 37 minutes? Roughly. I've never I've I've I've let's let's go back. Let's go back to the slow motion Joel cam to see Joel's silent scoffing and full effect. Took me 40 minutes just to get to the studio.

Do you ever plan to move closer together? Yeah, definitely. Hoping to the academic sort of jobs are very weird. And so I'm in a postdoc right now. So sort of a transition phase. Yeah, definitely hoping to. The academic jobs are very weird, and so I'm in a postdoc right now, so a transition phase, but hopefully with a more permanent position, essentially. You're only able to apply to schools that are on the waterfront.

Maya, is this app something that you find recommendable based on the research work that you and your colleagues do? I wouldn't say there's much of an overlap. I think it's a cool HCI question though. Yeah, it's a really cool HCI question. Yeah, did he get it right? Is it human computer interface? Yeah.

Good job, Jesse Thorne. TYVM. Liam wants me to rule that you turn off the setting. Liam all the time or just when you're long distance loving via connections, when you're making a long distance love connection? I think it would be unlikely to have the setting like flip on and off. I think we'd probably forget. I think it would, you know, but I saw I'm hoping that this particular setting, the other

timers, the other phone lock stuff, uh, none of my business, but I think that this particular setting, yes, I would like it. So you're not asking her to turn off this particular setting just for your connection sessions. You're asking him to turn it off forever. Yes. I think that the only way that the setting would stay off for like when we're on a phone call, a call randomly, I think it wouldn't be the thing where she would pull up the setting.

Maybe that would work. Pull up the settings menu, flip it off, answer the call, that sort of thing. But I think just having to be off. So it's got to be off all the time because you think that Maya is too dumb or lazy to turn it off from time to time and then turn it back on. No! I just think it probably wouldn't happen. She's not dumb, she's only lazy!

Obviously Maya isn't dumb or lazy, obviously you don't think she is. But I mean, I do find it a little curious that you, you know, someone could come in and say like, look, when we're doing the, when we're playing the game together, or I just want to spend some time together at the end of the night, could you mind turning off the thing so that it's not interrupting us all the time? That seems pretty reasonable. Why are you asking for this blanket turn off? If not, that you don't trust Maya to turn it off.

Yeah, that's, I suppose that's reasonable. I think in practice, it probably would not, the setting would not end it off. Yeah, I suppose that's reasonable. I think in practice, it probably would not, the setting would not end up off. Maya, what's involved in turning off the screen to close setting? That's a really good question because I think I've kind of intentionally forgotten how to, so I'm not tempted to turn it off,

but I have to go probably into settings somewhere. I think it's under the accessibility features and then it's under one More menu and then I can click to turn it off and you know Liam has made it clear that this Annoyed him as well. You've had some incredible psychological insight into and I mean in terms of his dislike of being punished for something someone else is doing, and yet you still would like to keep it on. Why? I think because it's very useful to me in the times that I'm not talking to Liam on the phone,

in the times where it's just me and my little scroll-addicted brain just in a room by ourselves. That's when these features are really helpful to kind of knock me out of it. What are some of the specific programs or techniques that you've been using to help limit your screen time or make you more, at least more aware of the amount of time you're using the screen that have been really helpful to you that you think our listeners should know about,

or me, because frankly, I'm dropping my phone on my face all the time. Probably the most effective one I have is called unblock, and for some reason it's, or maybe it's just block, and it's spelled with a Q instead of a C-K at the end. That's how they get you. They're like, oh, you spelled that thing in a funny way. I'm going to buy it.

Exactly. And so it'll kind of block you from opening specific apps for a set scheduled time of day. And if you really need to get into them, you have to, it has like a grid of little dots that will light up and you have to press 30 of them in the right order to unlock it. So you really have to like want it to get you just like pressing the like 15 more minutes. It's fine. It's like you really have to be like, OK, I'm playing this dumb 30 interval game.

Liam, do you do you use anything to limit your screen time, or is this not an issue for you? The phone is not so much an issue for me. I never have done... I got a little bit into Instagram reels, but I never did TikTok and the quality of the content, unlike other stuff is not good enough to really hook you. So I don't spend too much time on the phone.

I spend the vast majority of my day on a computer. Maybe you should spend more of your time looking at birds. Yeah, I do. I've I've heard that before. I've gotten that feedback before. You spend the vast amount of time on your computers. I don't think that you have you have you live with any herring gulls. No, some dead ones in the office, but none in my house.

But yeah, modern science, a lot of taxidermied and preserved. I hope is what you mean. Yes, it's rude to refer to your colleagues that way. So, Amai had this incredible insight into your childhood trauma of collective punishment over there at Long Lots in Westport, Connecticut. She's a pretty smart, aware person, obviously not selfish, not lazy, not dumb in any way. She seems to feel that she has a real problem that she's working on vis-à-vis

cutting down on screen time. Do you think that she has that problem and how do you think it's going for her? The problem is there. It's not at a point where, I mean, she's very successful. She's brilliant and has a thriving social life and I love our relationship and all those things. So it's not destroying anything, but there is a lot of bone time.

And I think that these, at different points, there's been things that worked and didn't work. Like uninstalling the apps, I think has worked really well. I guess what I'm trying to figure out here is, do you just want to have more consistent screen time with Maya? Or do you think that these programs overall are dumb and stupid and she should get rid of them? And this is just your way into that. I think that some of them definitely work. The timers are great.

Uninstalling various apps, I think, works great. This one has, it's sort of more actively disruptive than it is helpful in any sort of way, from my observations. Well, it certainly annoys you. That's a yes that I have observed. And would you say that your issue is more that you are annoyed, that you are not getting uninterrupted time with

an attention paid to you by your beloved partner, or that you are reliving trauma that you endured in Westport, Connecticut as an elementary school child? Consciously, I would say the former. I haven't made the connection between this and elementary school until today. But I think, yes, for me, I would say it's about having a sort of smooth conversation, or if we're handing the phone back and forth, not having it, you know, in times when we're in person, you know, not having it locked randomly. It's just like a constant active disruption

that doesn't seem to be impacting the overall screen time. So you would have me rule that you turn off the setting forever, this particular setting forever. Yes, this specific setting. You would accept no compromise. Of course, I'm coming in. My hope is that the setting is... Sort of a negotiation.

I would ask that the setting be turned off. I think there are maybe other strategies. You're coming in promising to eradicate the Department of Education, but what you really mean is that you're going to leave it in place, but gut it so that it can't do its job. That's where you want to end up. That's just a kind of negotiation that is totally normal in governance.

That analogy could maybe make me rethink my position, reverse engineered. But, I think in this narrow, narrow case of the, of the phone setting, uh, yeah, I think on or narrow case of the phone setting, yeah, I think on or off would be better. Maya, you would also accept no compromise? You just want to leave it on. I think I share the skepticism that Liam had that it would be something we would like toggle easily. I could see it becoming like maybe a part of a ritual.

Like if we can make it like a habit that's stacked on top of connections, then maybe that could work. But I am like- Maybe if there were a program out there that would remind you that now it is time for you to spend time with your boyfriend. I understand it's very disruptive for when we're talking. It's just it is pretty helpful for me when I'm not talking to anyone. Okay I think I've heard everything I need to in order

to make my decision. I am going to go back into the break room here at WERU. I'm gonna get that MIT mug that I should have gotten in the first place, fill it full of water and I'll be back in a moment with that wonderful refreshing mug of water and my decision. Please rise as Judge John Hodgman exits the courtroom. Maya, how are you feeling about your chances in this case right now? Um, I think I'm feeling pretty okay,

but also, like, I think healthfully, like, I'm trying to stay detached. Like, I'm not gonna be super sad if it doesn't go my way. It's like, it'll be what it'll be. So I'm feeling great. Folks who are at home listening on their earphones and not watching on YouTube can't see your flowing saffron robes because

apparently the first Buddhist monk on our program. Liam, how are you feeling about your chances? I think my chances are very low. It is Maya's phone. And I think that the analogies I've heard so far with larger political context lead me to believe that I don't have very much standard. Liam, how do you feel about your chances at freedom from want? Freedom from want.

I'm still coming to, I have a lot to reckon with in terms of sort of transcending and stuff. Especially being reminded of my elementary school years. So there's a lot I think I need to unpack. Well, we'll see what Judge Hodgeman has to say about all this when we come back in just a moment. ["Juice is Coming to You"] ["Juice is Coming to You"]

["Juice is Coming to You"] Jesse, I'm excited. Is it because the Max Fund Drive is literally right around the corner starting March 17th? It's almost time for spring break and Max Fun Drive is celebrating spring with an incredible two weeks of fun drive games, bonuses, bonus episodes. Our spring break party special is going to be live on video and in your bonus content feed as well as the delight in knowing that you are supporting directly the Judge John Hodgson podcast and all of

the podcasts you love at Maximum Fun. If you're new to the show, you need to know right now that the Max Fun Drive is the one time per year we come around asking for you to directly support the show. It's your memberships that make the show possible that that pay for possible, that pay for the editing, that pay for the distribution, and pay for the salaries of Jennifer Marmer and Daniel Spear and Dan Telfer and all of the J Squad. And it's also an incredible time to have a lot of fun

and catch up with all the other Max Fund podcasts that we love, right, Jesse? We have an incredible spring break episode of Judge John Hodgman that's gonna be exclusive to members where we are trying some of your craziest tropical cocktails. They're in fact gonna be mixed by our friend Ben Harrison from Greatest Generation,

who's a real tropical cocktail enthusiast. We're gonna be solving your vacation disputes, and it's all going to be available to you on video and audio if you are a member of Maximum Fun. I just ordered my captain shirt, John. Yes, that's right, Jesse. I've got my tropical robes flying in for the spring break special and you can only see it if you're a member. The Max Fun Drive is the best time every year for you to support our show and it's the one time of year that we ask. We cannot do it

without you, so we ask that we do it with you. And I'm also bringing back a MaxFunDrive tradition. That's right, the joy of zoning my online video game stream where I zone commercial, residential, and industrial in Sim City 2013. It's a live stream that I'll be doing every morning of the MaxFunDrive. This year, I'm going to be building a spring break resort community. Join me every morning of the MaxFunDrive for the Joy of Zoning Daytona edition. Get ready to join us the 17th through the 28th of March

for the biggest, baddest, breakiest, Max Fun Drive of all time. We'll see you there. ["The Last Post"] Police rise as Judge John Hodgman reenters the courtroom and presents his verdict. Here's the MIT mug that I promised everyone. I told you it was real.

Main Institute of Tofu. Main Institute of Tofu, that's Rachel. Here's the MIT mug that I promised everyone. I told you it was real. Main Institute of Tofu. Main Institute of Tofu, that's right, Joel. Joel, man, got me again. Mm. Mm. And it's nice and full of fresh, fresh, cold, fresh Gulf of Maine shrimp juice.

Just reopened to the fishery in the Gulf of Maine to the Gulf of Maine shrimp. Isn't that right, Joel? That's right. I call it. Mmm. Scallop pressings. Maya, so I really sympathize with you.

I mean, in terms of you're trying to be mindful about how much you're using the phone and how much it changes and warps our lives and indeed our bodies. I mean, it's astonishing to think about how it's only been less than 20 years that so much of our civil life is organized around poison light from a phone at 2 a.m. and how much of our individual and indeed our romantic lives are being affected. In certain cases, obviously, affected positively. You met through your phones, you stay in touch through your phones, you do this adorable connecting through connections on your phones. And yet also I was reminded just how addicted I am to my phone on this physical level.

That's why I responded so deeply when you're like, it reminds me that I have a body because, you know, I have weird aches and pains in my shoulders and in my forearm that are absolutely connected to the way I move my thumb over the phone, that repetitive motion syndrome issues that come up. And also like I had made this decision, I need to read more, and I do like to read e-books because they're easier for my eyes to see. But I need to read more books and read less Reddit. I love going on to the Maximum Fun subreddit and seeing all the titles that you all suggest

and having fun over there. It's a great time, but I need to read more books and read less Reddit. So one thing I did was that I just switched the position of those two icons on my home screen. You know what happened? I read a book. My thumb went so, so consistently to where the Reddit icon used to be that I just started bringing up the book over and over and over again automatically.

And once I was in it, I read it. And that's just because my thumb muscle memory was taking me there. It just changed my whole body. Anyway, I enjoyed rereading Shibumi by Trevanian again. I don't know why that made you laugh, Joel. I don't know what you're talking about. Shibumi by Trevanian. Yeah. All right. Anyway, I read a book and look what happened. I had a great time.

In any case, it made me think that it really requires more than willpower to break or reshape habits or to have more healthy relationships with the habits of what we put into our eyes and our ears and our mouths and I guess our noses and other parts of our bodies. You know, these habits are very, very ingrained and I think that using the technology to sort of break or reshape your relationship to the technology is very responsible of you. And, um, and I don't think you need to show a strong progress graph. To your boyfriend in Maine in order to justify continuing using a product that you feel is useful to you.

That said, your long distance lovers, and I'll say it again, your long distance lovers. And when you're LDLing it, even across the vast distance of two and a half hours between Brunswick, Maine and Jamaica Plain, Massachusetts, you have to honor the time you have together, whether it is in person or whether it is virtual. We talk a certain amount about mindfulness on this podcast, be mindful of the work that you leave for others. But Maya, I think what I appreciate more is your effort to seek a certain mindfulness

in the use of this technology, to stop, to stop yourself from time to time and remind yourself, I am a person in a body. I can put this down, I can do something else, or I can choose to re-engage with this. I don't want to hurt my eyes, so I'm going to keep my phone at a good distance from my face and every now and then I get dinged by it and it will break me out of this bad pattern. But I don't think that it's fair for you to treat your LDL time over the phone with Liam as a bad pattern. That's a good pattern.

That is a pattern that you should be mindfully choosing and being mindful to make the most of it when you have it. And yeah, I think that there's a reason that this particular setting is not easy to toggle on and toggle off. But that is a mindful choice that I think that you should make when you and Liam are choosing to play a game together or spend some time together at the end of the night.

You'll know when the screen is too close to your face because it'll bonk you in the face when you drop it, falling asleep. But maybe the choice, the mindful choice that you want to make is more one like, let's meet up a little bit earlier so it's not too late. But instead use this time to be together if you can't actually be together in person. And I think that it is not fair for Liam to tell you to turn off the technology that you think is helping you all the time, but it is reasonable to say, just as it is to say,

to say to a very old friend from college who you love very much, hey, stop looking at your watch all the time. I'm trying to talk to you. Because he's getting texts on his watch. I'm not naming him. Connathan Jolton. I don't know why I'm putting my friend on blast. I want to go on his cruise again. Jesse, you're going on the cruise, right? I'm going on the cruise, but I'm paying my way.

Yeah. Friends and family. That if I actually said to him, which I never have, except passive aggressively on a podcast when he's not listening, I wish you would turn that off so that we can talk about the movie or whatever. He would. He respects our friendship. You both respect your relationship. I think it's fair for Liam to make a reasonable request, which is please turn this off before we get down to our long distance loving, however it takes its shape, form or shape. And I think it's reasonable for you to do it, Maya,

and to be mindful about turning it back on again when you do. And if it helps, you can make a little ritual of it. At the beginning of every long distance loving connection sesh, just repeat together, just to really look at each other in the virtual eye and promise to be present together, turn off all the technology that might interrupt your conversation, turn on your do not disturb buttons so that no one else can get through. This is your time together. And just take a deep couple of deep breaths together and then say in sequence and in unison

scallops umbrella sleep star SOS porch jazz stay, stay, flare, circle, bunk, signal, field hippies, alarm, triangle, shell beans, crash. This is my wish for you as a couple. This is the sound of a gavel. Gav-el. Gav-el. Gav-el. Gav-el.

Gav-el. Gav-el. Gav-el. Gav-el. Gav-el. Judge John Hodgman rules that is all. Please rise as Judge John Hodgman rules that is all. Please rise as Judge John Hodgman exits the courtroom. Liam, how do you feel right now?

That's a very reasonable compromise and I think that would work. I like the idea of it being a sort of ritual as well. Maya, how are you feeling? Yeah, I think this is, I like the connection to mindfully turning it off and on. And I appreciate that, like the connection to the body was considered in this because I don't think there's many other features that have that effect. Liam, Maya, thanks for joining us on the Judge John Hodgman podcast. Thank you.

Another Judge John Hodgman case is in the books. In just a second, we're going to have swift justice. But first, our thanks to Redditor Banjo Solo for naming this week's episode, FaceTime Served. You can join the conversation at the Maximum Fun subreddit. That's r slash Maximum Fun. Evidence and photos from the show are posted on the episode page at MaximumFun.org

and on our Instagram at JudgeJohnHodgmanPod. You can also watch full video of this and every Judge John Hodgman episode on YouTube at JudgeJohnHodgmanPod and short videos on TikTok, YouTube and Instagram. And hey, I want to send a special thank you to a listener named Will Shipley, who left some wonderful kind words and a five-star rating over on Apple podcasts.

Will wrote encouragingly, stick with it. Yes, the court cases appear at first blush to be minor matters with lots of laughs in the proceedings. But there's something deeper happening with Judge John Hodgman. He gently nudges his litigants into seeing that these disagreements are, in fact, about real issues and they deserve to be heard. John and Jesse make jokes, but also give real advice on how we can be more kind to each other. And that is something we could all use, especially right now.

I just want to say hi, Will. Jesse, you remember Will came up to our signing line after our San Francisco show. And, uh, and I remembered him very well, but I completely forgot his name because I'm old and, uh, and he's a super nice guy and a very well-known and important programmer in the Macintosh community. And now I believe in Apple employees. So Will, I'm sorry I forgot your name, especially so now. I want to give a shout out to

the other listeners who came up to us in the San Francisco line, including the folks from our Oakland A's, and they'll always be the Oakland A's case some time ago. The most sobbing of Judge John Hodgman episodes, I would say. Yeah, they were kind enough to bring me a green and yellow cell flag from the Oakland Coliseum. And they brought me a crazy crab t-shirt. Yeah, and I have a crazy crab t-shirt

in my home right this very moment. And also, the listeners who brought me my own elementary school yearbook. Wow. It's all about connections today, isn't it? Elementary schools, Apple computer. Yeah, they came through with some really amazing photos of Jesse in middle school in his yearbook. Really nice to get an update on what Abe and Josh Bingham, the twins are up to.

Nice guys. We love it when you're there. Thank you to all of you who came to see us perform on our Road Court tour. And thank you to all of us who are leaving your good words and your multiple stars, maybe up to five, over there on Apple Podcasts or maybe at Pocket Casts or if you're leaving comments over on Spotify or if you're liking and sharing and subscribing on

YouTube and leaving comments there or on our other social media. When you show up, it not only gives us a nice happy feeling, but it includes, it encourages the algorithm to let other people know about the show too. And it is really, really helpful in getting new people to enjoy the show. So thank you, Will. Thank you to all those listeners who came out. And even if you just go and tell a person without using social media, without using your phone at all, turn it off and go find a friend and say, turn your phone back on because you got to listen to the Judges on Audubon Podcast. That's a really wonderful thing to do, so thank you. Guess what? If you weren't one of

the sold out crowd in Los Angeles, I'm not saying you might get a chance to watch the show, but you might get a chance to watch the show. We'll see what happens, but it could be that you'll have an opportunity to watch the show. Judge John Hodgman was created by Jesse Thorne and John Hodgman. This episode engineered by Chris Kalifarsky

at PRX Podcast Garage in Boston, Massachusetts. Our social media manager is Dan Telfer. The podcast is edited by AJ McKeon. Our video producer is Daniel Spear. Our producer is Jennifer Marmer. Now let's get to Swift Justice where we answer your small disputes with a quick judgment, forward comment

on the Maximum Fund subreddit says, and this comment really belies their name. My household keeps a bag of single use plastic bags for purposes of reuse. You know, your grocery store bags so that you can use them to pick up your pet's savings. One person in the home prefers to crumple the bags up inside a larger outside bag.

So you like, you have one bag full of a bunch of little crumpled up balls of bags basically. The other person puts each bag inside the outside layer like a concentric onion of bags. Wow. Either system works fine, but trying to do both is a disaster. Which is better?

Well, definitely layering bag into bag into bag like it's a Russian doll of bags is more painstaking. But I would not say that it is better than just keeping one bag full of little bags. Frankly, you know, if that makes you happy to be so... And I'm someone who respects tidiness and persnicketyness in the way I organize the things around me. And I could see how that could be satisfying to you to layer in your bags perfectly that way. But I think that that's a you project more than a house project. I think there's no reason.

I think the other one is kind of more time effective. But if you need to do this, if you're the person in the house who needs to do this, just keep your own separate bag project going. Think of it like a ball of twine or foil. Just something you work on in the end of the night. Laying your bags into bags and then giving a little kiss and putting it under your bed. Or better than this, put it under your mattress and make it nice and flat while you sleep and then you can sleep knowing that you have your little project underneath your butt. Otherwise, just dump them in there. Hey, speaking about tidying, spring cleaning time is coming up

because spring is about to spring. And we're looking for some spring disputes. Is it time for spring cleaning and no one else in the house is getting on board? Do you want a spring mattress, but your partner just wants memory foam? I'm a memory foam guy. What do you think, Joel?

Memory foam's just too soft. Too soft? Yeah, need it harder. I'm a memory foam guy. What do you think, Joel? Memory foam is just too soft. Too soft? Yeah, need it harder. You need a hard spring? Yeah. Okay. What about you, Jesse? Spring or foam?

I'm a foam man, but it can get a little clammy. A little clammy, okay. Horsehair for me all the way. Oh, sure. What about the legendary British highwayman Spring Heel Jack? Do you have a disputeman Spring Heel Jack? Do you have a dispute about Spring Heel Jack or anything to do with spring?

Does your partner want to use real Easter eggs for an Easter egg hunt and you don't want to leave one egg to rot behind, instead you want to use plastic eggs? Spring, that's what we're looking for disputes about. Spring time, springtime habits, springtime traditions, or just literal slinkies, like things shaped as springs. Let's hear all your spring cases. Send them to me at maximumfund.org slash JJHO.

Again, that's maximumfund.org slash JJHO. Where, Jesse, we accept only disputes involving springs, right? No, we accept all your disputes. Indeed, they are the lifeblood of our program. So go to maximumfun.org slash JJ HO and submit those cases. No case too big or too small. We'll talk to you next time on the Judge John Hodgman podcast.

Maximum Fun, a worker owned network of artists owned shows supported directly by you.