Modern Wisdom - #009 - A Hacker In Your Pocket - How Your Smartphone Is Short Circuiting Your Brain

Starting point is 00:00:00 Hi friends. So it's been a couple of weeks since the last episode. I know that I promised I was going to do one every single week and I've fallen within the first month of that. However, I have a good excuse. I was away in Palmer and E.Y.T. and then in Dubai with my dad. It's a hard life, I know. This week I'm sitting down with Yusuf and Johnny from Propane Fitness, and this is probably my most anticipated episode to date, and I say mine, I mean, by myself, not by anybody else. We're going to be discussing the ethical use of technology and how social networks, social

Starting point is 00:00:41 media manipulates our cognitive biases and uses unseen persuasion techniques to keep you on site. Now all of this might sound a little tin file-hatty, but I promise you it's not. It is as far as I'm concerned, probably one of the biggest and most important issues that we've got going on at the moment, if you think about how ubiquitous phone use is amongst everybody on the planet. The Cambridge Analytica scandal, which recently came out where it turned out that some users on Facebook's data had been illegally acquired and manipulated caused absolute uproar, and all that was happening there was people were being targeted with ads, and some of their data had been stolen. Your phone is stealing your time and that's the one resource that we can't get any of it back.

Starting point is 00:01:31 That, to me, is a much bigger scandal that needs to be spoken about. Our phones are with us more than any partner, any friend, any family member, any pet, probably any other item that we own, they're with us every single step of the way in their possessions that we cherish to a degree and that we live our lives through. There are a window between us and the world. They mediate our experience of the external world and then manipulate our experience and our judgment of other people, both celebrity and friend. It's something that we put

Starting point is 00:02:11 an awful lot of faith into. And yet our brains are being hacked by billion dollar companies and behind every press of every button on your phone. There is a team of software engineers who have manipulated you into pressing that particular button in order to keep you on site because they need your attention because that is how the money is made on that particular platform. So hopefully you will come out of this understanding the tactics that are being used to keep you on your phone. You'll be more aware of why and how this is happening.

Starting point is 00:02:53 And also we will give you some tips and some strategies that you can implement to mitigate the amount of time that you get trapped within your phone. So without further ado, here we go. I mean, someone was selling a dildo on Facebook Marketplace yesterday. Rapp and Robert. Did you, is that the thing that you said? I might have sent it to you, but... Yeah, you said, I don't believe when you say it's not being used.

Starting point is 00:03:20 Yeah, I mean, why else are you selling it? Like, who the guys... Maybe it was a gift and they thought. Yeah, they have two of them. Still, I wouldn't trust it. I wouldn't. If someone could have been purchase two, thinking that they wanted that.

Starting point is 00:03:36 They wanted that. And they didn't. They overestimated their sexual appetite. I see. So either they double taps that add to cut button or they tried it didn't like it either way I'm not putting it in my vagina. I think it's a... Wait it's not just the vagina is it potential? Or or bum yeah you're right. Anyway put it anywhere. That's what's so great about

Starting point is 00:03:58 yeah we shouldn't discriminate I think that's very judgmental of this to assume the vagina. Judgementalman, who people that prefer anal? Well, yeah. People with it without vagina. You need to be nice to docking. Could use it to docking. Docking is the second one for docking. Can you explain in the clearest possible way what docking is? When a man interpenetrates another man with his tool. A tool. You're in retract with

Starting point is 00:04:28 a device. Yeah. Essentially. Interpenetrates. So he places his appendage into another man's appendage. Is that right? I mean, you think it wouldn't be possible. I thought before I thought I could tell you about the problem. You're all bothered. You're all bothered. So when you say appendage, you don't mean I see what you say. Not entire package.

Starting point is 00:05:02 Yeah. Yeah. Right. Lift on lip. Or not. I'm not sure package, just... Yeah. Right. Lift on lip. Or not. I'm not sure if it's... I thought... Is it penis one penis? Is that what you say?

Starting point is 00:05:12 Yeah. Penis in penis. Yeah, so lip on lip. What's lip on lip? The little lip entrance at the top of the penis. You maybe don't know. Is that the politically correct? The non-racialist.

Starting point is 00:05:25 Don't be ritious. I suppose it looks like an old, a two-thousand-old man from all of the... ...crafthanisation. Go on. Go on. Go on. Go on to start again. No.

Starting point is 00:05:39 It's fine. We can just go from now. Hi. Hi there. Hi there. Hi there. Hi there. Hi there. Hi there. Hi there. Hi there.

Starting point is 00:05:47 Hi there. Hi there. Hi there. Hi there. Hi there. Hi there. Hi there. Hi there.

Starting point is 00:05:55 Hi there. Hi there. Hi there. Hi there. Hi there. Hi there. Hi there. Hi there.

Starting point is 00:06:03 Hi there. Hi there. Hi there. Hi there. Hi there. Hi there. Hi there. Hi there. Hi there. Hi there. Hi there. for ages, but we keep on having to put it off for different reasons. We did a podcast called Distraction is Destruction. Excellent podcast. Excellent podcast. Procurest.com. Forward slash. Forward slash Distraction. We'll change the link. I can't remember. That was at the one with the yeah, with the arm, with the arm things. So basically we all are trying to reduce our phone time, or this is what about a year ago maybe, try to reduce our phone time and decide to do a podcast on how it felt when we use our phone too much and tactics that you can do to reduce that. That to me felt like my first Christmas and over the last six

Starting point is 00:06:43 months all of the stuff that I've learned feels like finding out that Santa Claus isn't real. That's... I think it'll all lie to keep you inside and you can't get out. Just the odds are stacked against you. I've just entered into this world like a year ago of fun uses maybe something that I need to consider a little bit more deeply than I have done. And then now it's just opened up this entire world of cognitive bias manipulation and persuasive techniques and a whole lot of other stuff. So it's interesting because I used to really care about it and I've just resigned in the thought that I don't care.

Starting point is 00:07:18 Without exaggeration, this is probably one of the top five passionate topics I've got in my life at the moment. Really? Yeah, like just using your fur at last. I guess creating a... You deliver things like that in such a way that I can't work out. Sounds like I'm lucky. It sounds like I'm lucky. It's so fun. Turn the game down.

Starting point is 00:07:42 Just a little bit less game. We once did a podcast where I've had my microphone set up just as I wanted it for ages. You said, came in, changed my game and it ruined the entire fucking thing. It was like a half an hour video which was around. Sorry. It's fine. You said it was in the middle of mocking you for the impression about phone use. It's not about the impression about phone use thing. It's just I think that it's something

Starting point is 00:08:09 that everybody, it's so ubiquitous, the problem of using you for too much. And the argument is the technology's neutral, it's how you use it, it determines what the outcome, so to speak. And that couldn't be further from the truth. Behind every click of a button, there's a thousand software engineers who have designed the particular route that you have taken through that app or through that website to get you to click on that thing. And it's very much more insidious. It's not even just them sitting and designing it.

Starting point is 00:08:41 A priori in a room on the road, And it's like data driven every time that every time there's iterations of thousands of people, it optimizes more and more to make you stay on the page, more and more, or click the button, or... Well, I'm there, split testing. Clouds does a variation. Yeah, yeah. So it's a combination of the best computers on the planet,

Starting point is 00:09:02 the biggest super computer is running all of the data that they can, and some of the cleverest software designers in the world who were setting them off on the right path. And then you add into it the stuff like disinformation, this camera geno-idica thing that just won't go away at the moment, all of the fake news and stuff like that. And that's like, to me personally, the faking use and delivering advertising that's curated heavily towards what someone thinks.

Starting point is 00:09:28 That's like a dropping the ocean. That's, yeah, to manipulate what someone thinks, but time is the one resource that we can't get any of it back, right? And manipulating someone to be addicted to using an app or compulsively checking the phone is like a fucking war crime. And we are really embarrassed. That thing you said about dark patterns. Yeah. Really entrapped. Did you watch that? Yeah. Really entrapped. We're defenseless. I think on the Amazon website, so I thought it's not an app, but like to cancel your account, you've got to go through like four

Starting point is 00:10:03 to four hours. And it's a really small print thing. I remember you saying as well that Amazon comes across as so innocent because it looks like it's been designed in 1999 geosities like really good. Yeah. So you think, oh well, there's such a benign company like it's just a website where you buy things, but actually it's a death star. I remember watching that video thinking like you know when, you know when you use something a lot, trying to get another example.

Starting point is 00:10:29 So Facebook's another example where like, you think the design's like pretty fucking like play school basic because you think it is, yeah. It's like, guys, put a bit more effort in than a blue banner and a f in the middle. You're saying that blue now as well, don't they? You can't use that, no one can use that. It is a very recognizable bloop.

Starting point is 00:10:46 Wow, fair point. But you look at it and think, so Amazon looks so basic, the website. Yeah, like everything's in really small font at the bottom. Black and white, not absolutely. There's no movie in advert. Exactly. There's not much going on. And then you want to say the video that it walks you through

Starting point is 00:10:59 what's actually going on. We'll put links to the description in this. It basically saw, for all on purpose. For me, all of this got kicked off by a podcast between Tristan Harris and Sam Harris, Stan Tristan. And he is the founder of Time Well Spent and the Center for Humane Technology, humanetech.com. I think it is that you can have a look at some of the more stuff about that. And basically he used to be the design ethicist or design philosopher at Google and he started asking questions about whether or not people are being manipulated ethically on their phone. So this feels like I'm opening the floodgates

Starting point is 00:11:39 to a world of shit. But really, I genuinely don't think that there's a topic which can be more ubiquitous for people to need to know about like at the moment it's so for me it's really really important and hopefully people find a little bit of value in this. So basically I think it's like common I'd say it's commonly accepted amongst all of us to everybody even like my mom and my dad know that they probably use their phones a little bit too much and a perfect example of this. I couldn't believe it, so I've just been away to Dubai. I was at the top of the Burj Khalifa with my dad who hasn't been on holiday for 17 years. Right? So I'm nearly a kilometer up in the air, lion's share of a kilometer, 148th floor, largest tallest building in the world,

Starting point is 00:12:22 tallest observatory platform in the world. And we got up there, dad hasn't been on holiday in nearly two decades, right? And we flew on seven and a half hours and paid however much money and all the rest of it. And I went to the bathroom and I came back out to see that he was sat down on the couch on his phone. And I was like, dad, what do you do on your phone? And he was like, oh, just answering some work emails. You do remember that this was your retirement trip, dad. Your holiday was for your retirement, your retiring and your answering work emails. And it's just that, I mean, what a perfect example of buzz. And the thing is, so the argument is

Starting point is 00:13:00 that the red circle on the bottom of the app, the thing is, does he want to check his phone when he's at 148th floor of the Burj Khalifa? No, he doesn't want to check his phone. However, he has checked his phone. Does that mean that that's something he wants to do? There's a wizardry, isn't there? Someone's made you do something that you wouldn't have, if someone said, do you want to check your phone, I can check and respond to a work email. The answer would always be, no, I don't want to check my phone and respond to my work email,

Starting point is 00:13:28 but they've managed to still make you do that. You see that? That's the part where I don't know where I lie and that, because I, I think I do want to check my phone. So I think of that time. Like, we, I was in Budapest, Rebecca, and the whole time I've got my phone in my pocket, if anyone had ever said it said to me, Johnny made it.

Starting point is 00:13:51 Have five minutes to yourself. Go and learn. I think I'd be okay with it. I see what you're saying. I think what Tristan was getting at was the present self versus future self. And it's like, you sit on your phone and scroll and use feed for half an hour in the morning. But then if you were to ask yourself,

Starting point is 00:14:11 was that time well spent it? Would you have wanted to spend today half an hour scrolling and using it? Yeah, got it. Especially when you've got to consider, as we say, times the one resource that you're not gonna get any of it back. And you specifically, as a person who likes

Starting point is 00:14:23 to be as efficient as you can with his day, like the time that you spend on your phone, which isn't contributing directly to the objectives that you've got to complete that day, who's made you choose? Is it leisure time? Does it count as leisure time? So the question is, and the main question of this is, does it not have positive for you, because if it not have positive for you overall, then sweet. But the problem is that it's a zero-sum game where all different platforms online are competing for our attention. So if YouTube adds all your play, which they only done within the last 18 months or the last two years, YouTube ads auto play under the next video, that upped their

Starting point is 00:15:07 YouTube ads auto-play over the next video that upped their time on site by between 5 and 10% YouTube ads or YouTube videos YouTube added added oh okay auto-play oh that's just an advertiser that's a market that's a market as a mind there isn't it yeah so YouTube YouTube added it oh my god I there isn't it? Yeah. So YouTube added it. Oh my god, I need to go and do this. YouTube added in auto play the next video that increased their time on site by 5 to 10%. There's only so many hours in the day, so that 5 to 10% has come from somewhere, either come from someone's spare time, or it's been taken from Facebook or Twitter or Google or whatever it is.

Starting point is 00:15:42 And what that means is that Facebook now needs to do or to play videos as you scroll down. They need to up their armory. It's like an arms race. It's an arms race to see who can use the most number of manipulative, cognitive bias affecting techniques to get you to stay on site. And the fact of the matter is that the economy reflects the more time someone spends on a site,

Starting point is 00:16:04 the more value that the economy reflects the more time someone spends on a site, the more value that company has because the revenue is generated through advertising. An advertising is mostly based on how much exposure are people going to get. How much exposure is directly equal to how much time on site. If you can get people to stay on site irrelevant of whether or not they want to, you make my money. Yeah. So a bit shit when you look at it like that. An example that I think they think he mentioned in this and it definitely catches me every single time. And this is this really hurts my pride because I see what I like to see myself as somebody who is able to is the game board I always find myself It's I like to probe myself in somebody who can

Starting point is 00:16:51 maintain cognitive effort on a single task having meditated for so long at least tried to train for this thing You're easily the best person I know at that single thing and that's meditator Okay, the best like single focus like he's gonna do gonna do something, can't you put a deep word, sit and do it? Yeah. And yet I am still defenseless against like, okay, I need to quickly check when that person's birthday is on Facebook.

Starting point is 00:17:11 Gone. And then 10 minutes later, you've closed the tab, you've done loads of other things, and you're like, hang on. I didn't even do the thing I went on there for. Every time. And again, this is not, the one of the main points I want to get across

Starting point is 00:17:24 during this podcast is that if this is happening to you, not only is it not just you that it's happening to, but it's not your fault. And I think that realizing one of the main steps that I think needs to happen is that firstly, people need to realize that there is a problem, that if they were to look back at their day and portion out how much time they spend on their phone, that it is a regrettable action. Like, and this isn't me saying that people shouldn't use Facebook and shouldn't use Twitter and

Starting point is 00:17:49 shouldn't use Instagram because it does have good and net positive for sure and there is a contrast there is a Goldilocks zone of how much time you should be spending on there and what you're doing with your time on there as well. But the problem is that these sites are designed in a way to manipulate your cognitive biases so that you do not leave and so that you don't do the thing that you went on there to do so that you look at the ad so that you watch the video so that you do whatever. So I mean, as a couple of examples that are really, really good, variable schedule rewards

Starting point is 00:18:19 are the dopamine release technique that slot machines work on. So you press the button, you wait, something's going to happen. It's either something good or something that's neutral usually. Twitter, if you open up Twitter on your phone now, press the button, I'll wait. And then you wait for the notifications to load, you'll see the app loads, then you use feed loads, and then you

Starting point is 00:18:45 mention the load with a number sometimes. If you did, because I don't have Twitter on my phone, so I've never seen this. I do. Basically, all that happens is there's a wait, there's a pause between loading up. Yeah, they could program it so that it occurred immediately, but they don't, and the reason is the amount of time it takes for that to load so you've got a loading screen there loading. Got that it's painful isn't it? Yeah then that'll open, then that'll go, then that'll happen and then you'll see how many

Starting point is 00:19:12 mentions you've got that come up and the reason for that is it is the exact same amount of time wait that slot machine takes. And you go, ooh, I've got that, I've got this. Exactly the same on Instagram. So the alarm bell came up last. Yeah, exactly. Why are you waiting because it's that variable schedule reward? That's what you, Facebook itself did the same thing. Make sure you hold your breath.

Starting point is 00:19:36 Look at Instagram, load up Instagram, you're new's feed will load, and there will be a half a second wait between that. And you're mentions and the reds a little tab coming up. So it's the same tactics that make casinos so compulsive and gambling so addictive that we're so profitable. Yeah, so we are addicted to random rewards more so than predictable rewards which I find absolutely insane that you there was a study where they took a bunch of monkeys in a room, gave them

Starting point is 00:20:02 made them do a bunch of tasks and when they discovered one button to press, it would give them a banana and they would repeat it and when they stopped, nah from happening, they stopped the, they disconnected the button from the reward, the monkeys kept doing it for a bit and then they stopped. Whereas on another iteration of the study, they gave the monkeys random rewards. And the monkeys started to develop weird rituals that they thought were creating the reward. But in fact, it was just random.

Starting point is 00:20:32 And they thought that if I didn't get a reward, then maybe I'm just not doing it right. And they'd keep it. I've got to walk this way around the tree. I have to do this with the button. It does many times. And the world developed these weird rituals. But then when they stopped giving that random reward,

Starting point is 00:20:43 the monkeys carried on for like a year afterwards or something really. There's one with rats. They gave rats. They pressed a button and it gave them a tiny, tiny amount of cocaine. One of them was, I think I've used this example before. One of them was a fixed number of times. One of them was pressed the button and it came out once and never again. One of them was random. And the random, wrapped iteration, they snapped their spines. You know, I'll go up. Press on the button, trying to get... Trying to get... Okay, and it's because this random, this variable schedule reward is so powerful, dopamine release. Do you know why...

Starting point is 00:21:14 Snap the spine? Do you know why... So, do you know why Candy Crush was so successful? Wasn't because of the game, wasn't because of anything else, it's because of how it manipulated people's dopamine levels. It's the ability, it's the lights, it's the sounds, it's the numbers, it's the cause. So why is it, why is it that are notifications on a phone to read? Yeah. So that's what, read through just to get me there, was the Twitters aren't on the home screen now.

Starting point is 00:21:41 And Twitters Uncle. That's terrible. I've just spent a week with my dad and that would be too dadish even for him. Because I would normally say and because you're so well-spoken. Aren't. But immediately. To disarmed. And the left you. Mother, father. So I think it's grandparents. One of the interesting things that you said there was about going on your phone and trying to stick to the task in hand.

Starting point is 00:22:11 Like the rabbit hole that you tumble down. Like before you know, we always, everyone makes the joke. Oh, they're not. Everyone, everyone makes the joke about, you know, like you start watching videos on YouTube and then three hours later you're watching cats like climb a petri.

Starting point is 00:22:22 Like well, is that time well spent? No, of course it's not. Like how is this? It's literally stealing people's lives? Taking people's lives? Fuck. LAUGHTER Yeah, I'm aware of it.

Starting point is 00:22:38 It's been sort of fairly very lint about this. He did it again. I don't know why he's taking the piss off. For the fuck. Yeah. Whether it's like, Well, no. No.

Starting point is 00:22:50 That was in earnest. Sorry. So it's the, it's the, I think it's when you put it like that. I'm in a luxury. Still. This is going to just devolve into Dad jokes.

Starting point is 00:23:01 I'm ready for that. If you've ever done the thing where, Mark Manson first mentioned this, where you're on your laptop, you're on Facebook, and you have this moment of like, no, I'm fucking wasting my time, close the tab, opening a new tab, www.face. No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no,

Starting point is 00:23:20 no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no to fault it. The number of times, I think the phone is even worse than laptop. You do a lot of work on other YouTube both, try and get yourselves off your phone as much as possible. But the phone is, it's so idiosyncratic and I think that's a big part of it. Like, I know friends who have got a cycle that they move through

Starting point is 00:23:40 and the listeners might do as well, they know, right, okay, I'll go top left first because that's Instagram. I'll clear off everything on there, then I'll go on Facebook or clear off everything on there, but in between all of these you're answering and replying anyway. So by the time you've gone through Snapchat and WhatsApp and everything out messenger and all the rest of the things, you've actually got number one's pop back up again and you're like right okay well this is just an endless loop. It probably gets worse. You're firing the flames. Absolutely. What it's created, what social media has created, is a sense of missing out.

Starting point is 00:24:12 There is stuff happening all around you all the time. But until you open up Instagram and see that your friends are away on holiday or see that all of your buddies have gone out to the pub or whatever it is, you don't have that desperate sense of, I'm not part of it. And by logging in, logging, checking your newsfeed, you almost begin to start to mitigate that sense of missing out a little bit.

Starting point is 00:24:39 So let's say I don't want to, I know I want it to be very, very serious because I do think that it is, but I don't want people to feel like they're culpable for it because the techniques that are being used that manipulate your cognitive biases are not, it's not things that are part of your control. A good quote from the Tristan Harris and Sam Harris, there are many things that are bugs not features about the human mind and those are the things that are being manipulated.

Starting point is 00:25:05 You're not being encouraged to do things, your mind's being hacked. That's the reason that you're staying on site. That's the reason that you're not doing the things that you're supposed to do. I do the trouble is, if you think there's a way to stop. You don't, you probably then have to start defensively using your phone with equal force and thought then have to start defensively using your phone with equal force and thought as the people who are trying to. So you need to recruit a team of a thousand software engineers. Yeah, super computer. To split test you to use your phone. It's me versus billion dollar valuation companies in Silicon Valley. Yeah. So we talked a little bit. I'd back up back myself. Yeah. In the last episode of Destruction and Destruction,

Starting point is 00:25:46 we covered a few of the tactics that we use ourselves to try and battle it slightly. So Chris was talking about moment, the app, that you set the timer limit on your phone and when you go over it, it gives you a really annoying bell. I just ignore it. You just ignore it. I'd stop using that.

Starting point is 00:26:04 I would advise everyone who's listening to download moment, it's free. It's on iOS and Android. Unless you want the proper one. Unless you want the Pro version which we've got. Which all of us have got because we're pros and not using our phone. No, of course.

Starting point is 00:26:17 If you can get it, you'll get it because you'll email them and ask for it. Yeah, that's fine. And they'll do it as well. And they will do it as well. Oh, and you it as well. And they will do it as well. Oh, and you can use it from propnix. You were on our mailing list. The other tactics, I think, were...

Starting point is 00:26:32 So for me, WhatsApp is on the sixth page of my apps under a folder called CUNT times 10 in Capacol's, so that when you go to it, you're like, ah, I'm sorry. It's such a dingus. Yeah, it Yeah, just so that you feel the pain of. I think that we can probably run through some of the best tactics that you can use to use your phone less. I do want to try and slide in the most insidious tactic. I think that any of the social networking sites have added in, which is Snapchat Snap Streeks.

Starting point is 00:27:05 Do you know what this is? Is that where you get scores based on how many times you've sent a person a Snapchat? Back and forth between someone, but it only, it resets if you miss a day. I find it interesting that you find this the most insidious one, because I know they said that they thought Snapchat was the biggest exploiter of these tactics.

Starting point is 00:27:22 I just think it's shit. But you don't understand it. You don't understand it. It's like 75% of communication online between people under the age of 15 is big through Snapchat. It's a really cool song, isn't it? It's a snap street. So I heard this story, right? People go to these kids will go away on holiday with their parents. And they'll give their logins to a friend who's back in the UK

Starting point is 00:27:44 so that they can continue to message their friends backwards and forwards. They're other friends just to keep the snapshricks going and like there's people with like thousand, thousand day snapshricks of having to message. So that's forcing someone to go back and forth and I remember one of my mates had an argument with his misses because he broke the snap street between them. What do you like? Is there anything more in name than that? So like having all the things

Starting point is 00:28:08 that you could have an argument over. Like, the magic is lost as well. Because if you're forcing someone to have contact that they wouldn't necessarily have, Oh, oh wait. Do you know what you did today, Yusuf? You ruined our forced communication number that judged how many times we had to send a message

Starting point is 00:28:24 to each other when we didn't want to. So yeah, it cheapens it in the first place. But when you break the street, can you just get your head above the water for a second? So when I broke my my fitness power. I was just like five or two days or something. Yeah. And then when I did, I was like, you know what? Like nothing's burnt down. I can't wait to find it. See I felt like everything I've been done. Really? So I was knocking on the door a thousand did a pile of the competition, the Hearst World Fair Centre in Ashington. There was no way. Is it a total dead spot for all communication? Look, tracked every egg on the day of a pile of things. Got home, realised that it hadn't sinked before midnight. Last night, wow. Lost. What'd he kill her? Never go back.

Starting point is 00:29:05 This was the first welfare center in Ashington City. Yes, you shouldn't. Ashington, if you listen to this, get some Wi-Fi. For fuck's sake. Bloody hell. It's like what you said about when you spend 500 pounds. You'll never, you'll always be firing pounds with us. We're soft to the earth to be like.

Starting point is 00:29:18 I mean, that's the most use of analogy. For any of this, isn't it? So if you never spend any money you will always have a lot of money. You always better off here. You always better off. He was so shaken by it, he's like that man in Japan's always been on the worst on it forever. That's how I feel about my my fitness mastery. I think what I'll be on now. I was annoyed at that. Whatever it is, whatever it is now plus a thousand. It's because you drive with a functional car into an MOT center.

Starting point is 00:29:48 And it's fine, like you drove them, and then you drive away. You need to tell, you need to tell. And the 900 pounds worse off, but there's no difference to you. Like you're still driving a car that's... So, yeah, but it was a danger to other motorists. It was a 900 pound danger to other motorists.

Starting point is 00:30:01 Supposedly. That's like saying, you do it. But you need to break, so you should have gone, you should have gone, I warned you, you should have gone, oh, I got a guy. I should. We've got a guy. This is a prize, we need all. Break.

Starting point is 00:30:12 We have a guy who looks up and now he kicks the tyres a bit. He goes, I sound like, fucking guy. So I'm off, don't go on again. We have a saying in Egypt that breaks for pansies. So. Do you? No. But the driving test in Egypt is drive, 10 meters forwards, drive 10 meters backwards. that breaks up for pansies. So... Do you? No.

Starting point is 00:30:25 But the driving test in Egypt is drive 10 meters forwards, drive 10 meters backwards. It's easy to place on the world to pass your driving test. Yeah, if you drive it, it's carage. It is. People, reversing up a slip road is a common maneuver. That's why you've got a dash cam. You just... I thought it was so you could capture all of your dogging experiences on the front of your bonnet. That's why you've got a dashcam. Yeah, isn't it? You have got a dashcam. I thought it was so you could capture all of your dogging experiences on the front of

Starting point is 00:30:48 you, but Kaira has just been imprinted onto me and dogging, of course. But you know how many hours of video is watched on YouTube every month? I'd love to know, but I don't know. Guests are okay. All right, come on, Scott, in between us, we can put together a really... Hundreds of hours. At least, at least an hour, I reckon. That's just you, isn't it?

Starting point is 00:31:11 Like, between us, we would watch an hour at... Tom Martin. Just Tom Martin. Probably the same video. So, what's the unit of time? A day. No, not a month. A month, five feet.

Starting point is 00:31:23 Well, let's figure out in a day, so I'll say... I'll just... No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, okay, so well, there's probably a billion users. Five, one billion users daily, each one... Ten minutes. Ten minutes, okay. Because there'll be some people who use it hardly at all in some magazines. So, 150 million hours per day, times 30. That's fast math, isn't it? That's the other way. That's the other way.

Starting point is 00:32:01 The Egyptian dog's. So let's say 4.5 trillion hours. Sorry, no, it's not. 4.5 billion hours. One billion. One, they recently celebrated 1 billion hours. Oh, well, that's really disappointing, man. God, see.

Starting point is 00:32:13 Oh, I mean, you got your math wrong. But yeah, they celebrated a billion hours a month, which is like mental. It's that they're celebrating wasting a billion hours of human history. They could be executing. The argument is,. It's the, the, the, retrospect you wouldn't have wanted to use it. This is the same analogy and the best analogy that I can come up with is, how do you know that? Right, okay, so the best analogy

Starting point is 00:32:53 that I can come up with is eating sweets because what you want, what you want is not necessarily what's always good for you. Right. I want to eat the sweets. In retrospect, am I glad that I ate the sweets? No, I'm in a fucking deficit at the moment. Why would I ate the sweets? No, I'm in a fucking deficit at the moment. Why would I have eaten the sweets? In fact, I would argue that from the...

Starting point is 00:33:09 Okay, let's say from half an hour after you've eaten the sweets forever in the future, you wished that you hadn't eaten the sweets. Half an hour after spending... Immediately after spending 900 pounds on a MRT. So, like... You actually probably didn't want to spend 900 pounds in a box. Yeah, he never did. No, so it was never a towel. Never a towel. So, let's go back to the sweets.

Starting point is 00:33:34 Fucking really, of course. It's a really painful thing. And if someone said, would you have wanted to eat those sweets from last year or a month ago or Three hours ago you'd always say I wish I hadn't And his here's one of the big only phone markers. Yeah, pretty much. Here's one of the big things and it's the outrage Online always travels further than positivity and because of the way that the newsfeed optimization works is specific to Facebook, outrage is more

Starting point is 00:34:13 attractive than positivity. That means that you are more likely to click on outrage. All that the computer is then going to start feeding you is more of what you want. More outrage. Hang on. What about the sweet analogy? I ate the sweet, but I kind of didn't want to eat the sweet, but I did kind of want to eat the sweet. I don't want to click on the outrage. I don't want to be delivered more outrage, but all that the computer is doing is delivering more of what it's job is, which is to maximise time on site and to maximise click-throughs. Plus, when you have a sweet, I think it creates the immediate desire of another sweet.

Starting point is 00:34:47 So you've had the sweet, you don't think that was lovely enough, enough's enough. You think, that was nice, I love another one. In fact, that's a really good analogy because we know that the bacteria that develop in your gut as a result of certain foods will cause, they'll interact with your brain and cause you to crave more of the same food. And so that's a double-edged sword. As with outrage, that if you consume lots of outrage, that's going to then change your mental environment over time and change the general tone and emotion that you're experiencing throughout the day.

Starting point is 00:35:20 Well, one of the way people do gratitude journals because they want to fill themselves with positivity. One of the main things is that because of how Facebook works and because it delivers news to people who they know want to see it, there was a time online where if the word Trump was in an article it would be top of your newsfeed irrelevant of what you'd clicked on. There was a brief period where that happened. What's it said Trump? Just Trump literally Trump to the top. Everything to the top. Literally it trumped it. Top Trump's. And yeah, a thing with Facebook is that because it will get you to click on things that you have

Starting point is 00:36:02 a particular cognitive bias towards, it segregates you into these echo chambers online, with other like-minded people that share the shit that you want to click on, but that you potentially don't want to click on. Then you don't even know you're in it. No. And the outrage. Not good for you.

Starting point is 00:36:17 It's not good for your whole. So. And that's your right, in which case it's fine? Then you just confirm. Then you're here. Confirm. I'm right. Take that.

Starting point is 00:36:27 I think that talking about some solutions for this is probably a big deal. The first part of it, the first thing that I wanted to try and achieve was to let everyone know that it is a little bit of a problem. It's a massive problem. And that you do need to be conscious of how much easy you phone.

Starting point is 00:36:44 And I don't want it to be. I would actually argue now that it is come for me a real vice when I'm self-referential about why I want to use my phone. I like regret. I regret being so silly as to have used it, which previously up until learning that you were potentially being manipulated and that it is not time well spent. That's something that you might not have done. But the end goal is more worthwhile. It's the same thing as knowing up until the point in which you knew that smoking might cause cancer. You were fine smoking a cigarette.

Starting point is 00:37:16 Now that you know that it might do, you feel guilty about smoking a cigarette. This is something I used to enjoy. Now it's something that I feel is... I've heard a similar thing about porn which is that your face let up a suit on porn. I had an idea just a bit of my concern. So there's a count, you know how like, so the amount of porn on the internet increased rapidly over time. There was a point in time when no one watched any porn. Now, porn's, I mean, you'll tell us the stats in a second. You'll give you some stats.

Starting point is 00:37:45 There's a lot of porn. And then there's an argument to say, actually, worrying about how much porn you watch is what can be more damaging than just watching a bit of. So then, that's what I was gonna say was that Chris said that you have to, you use your phone if you get a net benefit from using it. And what you've done by creating a cycle of guilt with using your phone is that you use a phone if you get a net benefit from using it. And what you've done by creating a cycle of guilt with using your phone

Starting point is 00:38:08 is that you've reduced the net benefit that you get from using your phone. Or potentially removed the chance of getting a net benefit completely. Which could be a bit... Could have pulled it under... So maybe you've actually tricked yourself into using your phone less in a very con-released way, which is good You know what I would love to see and I don't know whether this is that's on porn hub I've got some minstats. I would love to see them but separately so the Cambridge Analytica stuff

Starting point is 00:38:33 Like before I left the house there was a new story about Something about Facebook leaking data to third party apps and things like that. I would love to know whether Facebook time on screen is decreased Since all this came out and I would imagine I'd love to know whether Facebook time on screen is decreased since all this came out and I would imagine. I'd love to know that. I imagine it hasn't. I bet it took a very marginal dip and then it's gone right back. Look at what's the number one new source for most people. Facebook. It's actually Twitter.

Starting point is 00:38:58 People are finding out actually about Facebook news leaks on Facebook. Surely Facebook can just remove anything. No news feeds. Now mentioned. Well do you remember when you remember when Google got pulled for putting their own shopping yeah the top things at the top of a particular list. There's like this fair use policy thing isn't it like where well this is my platform I can do with it well I want well no actually you're supposed to be neutral in a way but okay your neutral at the content that you deliver but not neutral at delivering the content it's just a phone that isn't it? It's really the moment like they're not a charity they're you know they're a business profit driven like course again advertiser and services on their own

Starting point is 00:39:43 platform but I think I think the other thing to consider is as well that everyone believes that if you were to look at this from a very critical perspective, you would think that all of the guys in Silicon Valley were in black hoods and long noses, sat around a wooden table chanting and like doing, like just this nefarious company that's maliciously trying to steal your time, but they're not just trying to maximize profit.

Starting point is 00:40:10 Profit is the attention economy means that profit is directly related to time onsite. That means that maximizing time onsite is all that matters. And if outrage and cognitive bias manipulation and snap streaks and auto player videos, that's kind of worse in a way that there's no conscious or moral consideration at all. Would it be worse than if they were saying we actually want to go out of our way to destroy people's lives? I mean, that would be worse, but I think that there wouldn't be much like a bit. Well, at least it's very linear what's happening.

Starting point is 00:40:40 Because if you can, this is that's pure intention, they're achieving it. If you could, if you could, Tristan Harris's argument is if you could change the economy to reward businesses somehow based on how much value they add to someone's life, rather than their time on site, they would change in a heartbeat. But is that not what Zuxux trying to do? Because you know, time while spent is a snippet from his that is big posts that he did. It's the other way around. How is it?

Starting point is 00:41:07 Yeah. So it's, so it's a copied Tristan. Is it really? Okay. So is that not why he's saying like all of the fake news is going to be removed and like we're going to penalize business pages. That's fine. Again, all of that is what we're talking about there is the content that's being delivered, not how you deliver the content.

Starting point is 00:41:34 Not really. You know, because he's not going to say, oh, we're actually want to encourage you to spend less time on Facebook. What he wants you to do is the time on Facebook that you spend to be more meaningful, which is fine, but there is always like no one's attacking Buzzfeed. Well, I've never once read a Buzzfeed article that afterwards I haven't regretted. And that is a factual statement. That's because they're misbranded. Let's just click that shite, isn't it? Should we have a look at some stats on Pornhub?

Starting point is 00:42:01 So I take my hat off to the analyst, the analyst, who nice. Hey. He does the Pornhub annual starts. Yeah, right. I imagine it's a data team. I would probably like it. It's not a bloke with a spreadsheet.

Starting point is 00:42:21 Bloody hell, Mitch, you know how much porn we've watched this year? Um, go up your door. Um, what, what has? Possibly? 28.5 billion annual visits to Pornhub. This is the most interesting stat, right? 28.5. There's only four per year per person. Four what?

Starting point is 00:42:40 Four visits per year per person. That's presuming that all seven of them are in every people on the planet is accessing porn. Including newborns and... Yeah, people on a deathbed. Yeah. People in third world countries. They're once every three months.

Starting point is 00:42:53 That's true. So they don't get running water. There's some abidiginals somewhere. Someone they fucking got porn. So 28.5 billion annual visits to Pornhub. But only 25 billion searches performed. And what that means is that... That means it nailed it.

Starting point is 00:43:09 ...three point five billion people have clicked on, something that's appeared on there, suggested videos at the start. Now, I don't mean to sound like an official nada. But I've got highest standards for my porn and just clicking on the first thing that comes through I mean You don't know it's common denominator here. You've chosen you've chosen to watch something that's taken no investment Feed from you to watch it's just a very least that you could do is fucking refine it. Yeah Someone's just gone on and gone. Well there we go first one refine it. Yeah. Someone's just gone on and gone, well there we go. First one. Oh, fucks, fucks. Yeah. In the scrimmin' it. So I'd like to play devil's advocate and say that

Starting point is 00:43:50 we don't know that there was 3.5 billion that were hits but didn't search. Necessarily clicked on a video. They may have gone on and they're like, oh no, not today. I'm not going to point today. They had a really difficult discussion with themselves about their no-fap. They opened it and they were like, oh no! There's probably a chunk of people in there who go on there and do leave. So I wonder what the split is, people who just click on the first video they see. I think the number of people who type porn have been, visit porn hub, and then decide not to use porn hubs, probably in the minority.

Starting point is 00:44:23 Really? Because with Facebook, I often will open Facebook and then be like no hang on what am I doing? So I think that the the emotional psychological hormonal Drivers behind looking at porn hub versus looking at Facebook are quite different now. I don't know what you do on Facebook Or what you do on porn, but that's my life. Can you believe this? This is the best stat.

Starting point is 00:44:48 Over the course of 2017, there were 120 million video votes on porn hub, which is a million votes more than was cast in the last US presidential election. That is mental, isn't it? So what you keep foot Cambridge Analytica. Yeah. So we're hardness, you're smart, it's wonderful. We need to know how many uniques there are because I'm a little bit because that could be one guy voting 20 million times. That's a guy really focusing on time well spenders, you know what I want to

Starting point is 00:45:24 know? I have a I want to know? And I have a burning desire to know this, is how many people pay for porn, have premium. Oh, yeah. They're definitely not going to reveal that out there because it would be terrifyingly low because the, I bet you it isn't. The variety of content that you get already on porn hub, just, so they operate the freemium model, so they over-deliver on the front end.

Starting point is 00:45:47 And what that makes everybody think is, holy fuck, what must the paid model look like? Jav, jav, jav right hook. Exactly, Gary. It's just Gary Vaynerchuk behind the other side. Gary Vaynerchuk, just behind the other side. I wouldn't have thought so. Because seeing their financials would be... Do you know what Joe Rogan did an interview with the guy

Starting point is 00:46:06 who was involved in a startup upon hub and they just bought up everything. They bought it so X and X X, X hamster, like they bought every video streaming service as it came up, bought it in, you've like, still run it separate. No, no, no, no, no,

Starting point is 00:46:21 so it's still run as like a separate site or whatever, but they own it, they own like the staff, how much they own. I want to say like someone might call me out on this, but I want to say it's like more than 80% of like porn streaming worldwide they command is under there. It's a bit like you need to where they just buy out all the different soap companies and look, you get the illusion of choice. You go into the shop board. It's gorgeous. You don't even. Yeah. the shop or just you don't even. It's always the same thing. It's always poor. I mean, if there was some real market fair

Starting point is 00:46:49 at a governing body here, regulators. Absolutely being a monopoly claim going in. But the fact of the matter is it's porn. So everyone's like, no, no, no, no, no, no, I've got to speak to the porn people. So wet. Like, it's all right, I'm letting you know I'm not right again. Yeah, I'll come back all soppy.

Starting point is 00:47:06 So, right, let's do some reductions of phone use strategies. Mine have developed since last year, since we last did that. My main one is that when you are in an inertial frame of reference, the likelihood of you staying on your phone is higher. that when you are in an inertial frame of reference, the likelihood of you staying on your phone is higher. So if you're lying down, it's more likely than if you're sitting. And if you're sitting, it's more likely than if you're standing. And if you're standing, it's more likely than if you're walking. So the fact is jumping, yeah, yeah, flying,

Starting point is 00:47:39 flying, flapping, flapping, flapping, snatching, do not try and snatch with, chin ups, unless you're you demean tree clock off. It's impossible, isn't it? Do you use your phone while you're doing a chin up? It depends how strong you are. 100 chin up, fine. Basically, did lift.

Starting point is 00:47:53 Did lift. Did lift. Basically, don't use your phone when you're an inertial frame of reference. So if you are, you just trapped his between his chin and his beard, his Arab beard. What did you just, you just trapped his between his chin and his, between his beard, his Arab beard. What the... what the... is fun. Oh.

Starting point is 00:48:09 Is Pannas. Egypt's you said trapped his, trapped his, trapped his. Speaking of which, Robbie trapped his Glanz penis doing lateral raises. Glanz or Megalinegrim? It's possible. What's a Bruce Clidris? Clitoral Megalinegrim. What's a what's a Bruce Clidris Clitoro Megalinegrim? Yeah. Well, if you are an Olympic weightlifter, potentially one who's coming back from the Commonwealth Games, which is recently in Australia, and you are suffering with Clitoro Megalinegrim, we had some contact. We had someone opt into our email list called Zoe Smith.

Starting point is 00:48:45 Right. There's a way, Lifter, who's just come back to the come-well game called Zoe Smith. You have made a cake with her once. So, just presumed. Email her and went, is this the same Zoe Smith that I've made a cake with? She emailed us. Look at him. I didn't even tell you. I'm not done anything. I'm just, is this the same thing Smith? No reply. Do you think you replied to me saying sadly not. Oh, good. That's a shame. So it's time, time, time, time, time, time, time, time, time, time, time, time, time, time, time, time, time, time, time, time, time, time, time, time, time, time, time, time, time, time, time, time, time, time, time, time, time, time, time, time, time, time, time, time, time, time, time, time, time, time, time, time, time, time, time, time, time, time, time, time, time, time, time, time, time, time, time, time, time, time, time, time, time, time, time, time, time, time, time, time, time, time, time, time, time, time, time, time, time, time, time, time, time, time, time, time, time, time, time, time, time, time, time, time, time, time, time, time, time, time, time, time, time, time, time, time, time, time, time, time, time, time, time, time, time, time, time, time, time, time, time, time, time, time, time, time, time, time, time, time, time, time, time, time, time, time, time, time, time, time, time, time, time, time, time, time, time, time, time, time, time, time, time, time, time, time, time, time, time, time, time, time, time, time, time, time, time, time, time, time, time, time, time, time, time, time, time, best, best few things to do. Do not sleep with your phone by your bed. So put your phone over the phone of the fast side of the room. Put the charger over the fast

Starting point is 00:49:30 side of the room. It's the first step. That means that if you want the phone to be charged the next day, you've got to go over there stacking the deck in your favour against having it near your bed. It means that when you wake up on a morning, like, I can't believe, I cannot believe that these like, dormat alarm clocks that you have to stand on for 10 seconds. Oh, that's cool. Have been, well, I mean, that's just you all over, isn't it? Were you at the criticize, it was? Yes.

Starting point is 00:49:56 Just put your phone, put the alarm on your phone and put the phone on your phone. I'm not the only one in the phone. The only one in the Amazon. I know you're not. Then try and cancel my account, and I can't. You can't do it. Yeah, put your phone over the far side of the room. I do the next to the window, so it means that when you wake up in the morning, you do that.

Starting point is 00:50:09 My advice would be do not look at your phone for anything other than turning off your alarm clock unless you desperately need to do it, i.e. You waiting for someone to come and pick you up, police. Police. Do not pick your phone up until after you've done everything that you need to do in the morning that include to make him breakfast, having coffee, setting yourself up for the day, ideally until you get in the car. If you're doing meditation, if you're doing run-ward, if you're doing anything else, look at

Starting point is 00:50:34 the phone. Like when you open up the phone, direct yourself immediately to the app that you need to use. The second one from me is to remove all social media websites from the home page of your phone. I think that for many people, almost everybody uses their phone in some way or another that's related to work or contacting friends. And I think that an outright deletion of social media off your phone can be a little bit extreme for some people, although that's the goal. Take it off your home screen and move it into a folder

Starting point is 00:51:05 somewhere that you need to swipe through for quite a while to get to. Also remove the number notifications from everything except for things that are generated by other humans. So for me, I've kept mine on for Messenger, for Facebook, I've kept mine on for WhatsApp, but not for group chats. The reason is that if someone has messaged me specifically, that's probably actually worthy of my time. I know that it sucks you into using the phone, but for me it's probably not far off time. So that's not, you wouldn't call it Facebook as human generated. For the most part because there isn't, there is a unfair weight towards computer generated.

Starting point is 00:51:45 Or there's messages, basically. Bit emails, messages. Direct, direct. How do you eliminate group chat notifications on WhatsApp? One button, notifications, group chat. Oh, really? Yeah. And you can leave like normal ones on.

Starting point is 00:51:57 I'm gonna do that now. And then turn off also direct. Well, group chats, the problem with group chats. They live. Yeah, they're just, they can rack up like really, really quick. And you've got... I think if you have them on notification, it's a nightmare. Yeah, absolutely.

Starting point is 00:52:12 They'll be on your home screen, you look at your home screen, kills you. Can't do it. Next one, Johnny, if you've got... I'm already good enough. I've already, I've already ignored you. It's still bothering you. Just the idea of it.

Starting point is 00:52:24 Johnny, what have you got? Have you got any tactics that you use for phone reduction? I've already, I've already ignored you. It's still bothering you. Just the idea of that. Johnny, what have you got? Have you got any tactics that you use for phone reduction? So the one, I mean, you both experienced when I went through my phase with my shit phone. I think for me, that is the one that I would aspire to be briefly explaining that. So I bought a 20 pound phone on Amazon, which is the most basic phone you can imagine.

Starting point is 00:52:51 It has a torch. What does he call it again? Shiffon. The bastard. Oh yeah. The bastard. You're a mother fuck bastard. Yeah, the bastard.

Starting point is 00:53:03 So it. VBHAR, STA. So so which is a reference to a YouTube video because we will spend too much time on YouTube and you You can actually reference 150 million if anyone would like access to the funniest collection of YouTube videos I that is no exaggeration You see how many 700 probably like it is curated content, it is really high quality. That's time while spending. That is time excellent to spend. Excellent. Well, it's been. So yeah, and for a 24 hour period once a week, take your SIM card out of your iPhone or

Starting point is 00:53:41 you're Android and put it into the shape. And then you wake up the next day and it is weird. What were the barriers that you found? So that's right. So the hardest thing is, or was, date like I would go with my girlfriend somewhere. So like she'd be shopping or would be like, we'll go to Tesco and you find yourself in these periods of dead time

Starting point is 00:54:06 where You you go to check it anyway, so I find myself getting about my pocket and looking at it and then thinking I mean that's the one of my going really see what I'm going to do. You're like turning the torch on and off I've done that 50 times today That's so interesting. It's compulsive. It's compulsive. It's that's the idiosyncrasy side of it.

Starting point is 00:54:31 There's this really good meme that I saw online. It's about a guy sitting on the subway and this person's speaking in the third person and they're saying, I saw this guy sitting across from me. He's sat across from me on rush hour on train, as everyone else was sat looking at their phones and he was just sat there staring out of the window like a psychopath. Like sitting having a coffee, we're not texting.

Starting point is 00:54:57 Yeah, you know what I mean? Like the compulsion to check. And this is the thing because the introspection occurs. That's such a new thing as well 10 years ago That wouldn't be normal. Yeah, yeah introspection occurs during periods of boredom Like periods of boredom allow you to ask yourself questions throughout the day. Sit your sitting thing Yeah, like when do you have like if you were told to go and sit in a room now for 30 minutes you couldn't meditate

Starting point is 00:55:22 So you couldn't actually do what we would do when we had a little bit of silence. And you told to go and sit in a room for 30 minutes. The number of people that would give up. So that considered the greatest punishment to put someone in solitary confinement. It's not as stimulus as nothing. Yeah, people with highest level prefer to be in prison with rapists and criminals. Then by themselves. Then on the wrong. Yeah. And there's been...

Starting point is 00:55:47 My first thought for that is I would just... Thousands of hours of meditation. Nailist. Well yeah, that's fine. I want to be the man. Maybe 20. I want to be the man. Maybe 20.

Starting point is 00:55:56 Maybe 20. Like I've come out of prison and we're at that terrible time. Maybe 20. Mine's full of thought. Yeah. Just glowing blue light. Okay, so you had to do it. There is the ultimate fear of you go to it, you take this card out of your phone and there's this fear sets in of like, what is going to happen over the next 24 hours? My message, what about?

Starting point is 00:56:18 So I think a lot of that for me is business related, but I know that there's a scone. business related, but I know that there's a scone. I've really got you. So you did sometimes call me, but the thing about that is that when you called me on my shit phone days, there is this utter fear that sets in because you're like, I know that he will have hesitated before ringing me. This is still mysterious. And so you saw there and it's goes like bim bim bim bim bim bim bim bim bim bim bim bim bim bim bim bim bim bim bim bim bim bim bim bim bim bim bim bim bim bim bim bim bim bim bim bim bim bim bim bim bim bim bim bim bim bim bim bim bim bim bim bim bim bim bim bim bim bim bim bim bim bim bim bim bim bim bim bim bim bim bim bim bim bim bim bim bim bim bim bim bim bim bim bim bim bim bim bim bim bim bim bim bim bim bim bim bim bim bim bim bim bim bim bim bim bim bim bim bim bim bim bim bim bim bim bim bim bim bim bim bim bim bim bim bim bim bim bim bim bim bim bim bim bim bim bim bim bim bim bim bim bim bim bim bim bim bim bim bim bim bim bim bim bim bim bim bim bim bim bim bim bim bim bim bim bim bim bim bim bim bim bim bim bim bim bim bim bim bim bim bim bim bim bim bim bim bim bim bim bim bim bim bim bim bim bim bim bim bim bim bim bim bim bim bim bim bim bim bim bim bim bim bim bim b break the fourth wall of podcast recording and say that next week there is going to be a conversation with Kai Wei who is CEO of the lightphone.com. However, I've already had

Starting point is 00:57:12 the discussion with him. But that's really interesting and you'll find out what is potentially a more palatable solution to Johnny's shit phone problem. The shite phone. The shit phone problem. There are so many shit phone problems that mainly it takes a lot of discipline to say I'm going to have a shit phone date more and there's always a reason not have a shit phone date. You've said some strategies. Very similar to yourselves. I think the general principle with everything we've said so far is make the good decision as easy as possible and make the bad decision as hard as possible. So we have the low hanging fruit right? Exactly. Yeah. So we have the apps on the final page and call it something like your

Starting point is 00:57:54 dick. There's grayscaling your phone which I tried for a while. I've tried that too. Just really much. It just annoyed me. I don't think it made me use it less. It just meant that when I took photos, I had to double check that the... I'm crazy. I'm making the background black. And I think that does a bit. Okay. Which makes it slightly less visually stimulating. The grey scale is irritating. I think that probably sacrifices some of the experience of what you are going to use it for while it's actually not making much of a difference to the things that you wanted to change. Yeah, exactly. The only other things for me is I always have it on silence, unless everything's on do not disturb mode,

Starting point is 00:58:38 except for a select few people that when they call me. Am I one of those people, of course? You're Johnny, yeah. If Johnny isn't. It's going to be with you. Yeah. You're tick. It's just my business partner. Sure it's fine. He's not going anything for it. You were the one who influenced me to turn off all notifications. That has been the big, massive, incredible. It's such a big change. And the thing is, like, you can keep a select few. I've got personal messages on WhatsApp, I've got I-Message, Facebook's gone, Twitter's gone, or Facebook pages, if you run Facebook pages, you'll know what we mean from the app.

Starting point is 00:59:12 That's gone. I bet you've got ads manager notifications on. Do you know? Just strike. Just trying to make money. So the only time my firm makes a noise is either when you surf changes the time that he's going to purchase kabuki movement systems. Or so calendar, calendar reminders, or when we make a

Starting point is 00:59:34 cell, I think calendar reminders, although I don't have notifications for that, I make an exception for it, I think, because it's important, isn't it? You made that notification to remind someone else putting something in my schedule for me, which is also important. I mean, isn't it, isn't it? You made that notification to remote. Or if someone else put something in my schedule for me, which is also important. I mean, isn't it crazy that we're sat discussing ways to stop the things that we voluntarily bought from this thousand pound of year investment.

Starting point is 00:59:57 This thousand pound of year investment that is with us 24 hours a day, the most ubiquitous piece of technology that's probably ever existed. And we're having to come up with strategies to try and fight back against billion dollar companies. But it's it's really powerful, which makes it fantastic in many ways, like the things you can do with it, I'm brilliant. Unbelievable. But that it everything has a side effect, isn't it? How much of how much of what we're talking about is time well spent, Because for me, the Tristan came up with some good stats on it,

Starting point is 01:00:28 and he says that number one, two and three, Facebook, Instagram and Snatcher, the three most regretted uses of apps. And I think that one, two and three of the, on the other end of the scale was my fitness pal, actually, really enough, as one of the ones on the other end of the scale was my fitness pal, actually, really enough as one of the ones that's not regretted. Yeah, yeah, as highly podcasted and mindful of this app. Yeah, you know, you know, like, setting thing, I wish I hadn't wasted so much

Starting point is 01:00:53 time on my fitness pal today, like, it's, yeah, it's been productive. Like, you don't, you don't go in and scroll through and like spend too much time looking at, like, whether, when it does Charles hit his macro. That's true. Even though they try to, but the other thing for me is I've never had Facebook on my phone. And Facebook for me out of those apps is the most, used to be the most compulsive, but now on the Mac as well, I've got a mod that stops the newsfeed from showing up. And so now, it's just Chrome newsfeed blocker, I think, it's called. So I've only used it for... I got that as well. Purity. So yeah, but Facebook

Starting point is 01:01:32 purity. So really good. Facebook for me is only used for work or marketplace selling tea towels for two palms. So what that's like, and I don't know whether you're about to say this, but it's... when you go on to use Facebook and the newsfeed's blocked, it's like and I don't know whether you're about to say this, but it's when you go on to use Facebook and the news feeds blocked, it's like you have to use the menu items to navigate what you want to do. You don't just get dragged into like the first thing that appears. Because I'm such a sucker for that and I know that I am and so there's no point in me saying, oh you know what, I'll just exert more willpower and just not get sucked into the system. Yeah, I mean one of the most crazy ones in it,

Starting point is 01:02:05 this will happen to absolutely everybody. I'm gonna touch on two things here. One of the most crazy ones, you've had a long day at work. You've been out, you've been at the gym, you haven't been in the house for like 12 hours, something like that. You get back, you park the car up on the drive, you take your phone out, and then you sit in the car

Starting point is 01:02:19 for 20 minutes. There is no more shameful use of your phone than that. Sitting in the car outside your house. Outside your own house. Waiting for that before as well. It happens all the time. So it's when your willpower and discipline is at it's absolutely lowest. And you're like, I'm tired.

Starting point is 01:02:40 I just can't be bothered. Like, that's a nice right shiny thing to look at. And then you're in. And the same is like when you're too tired to go to bed. And you see it. A little bit, but it's just. Or something. Yeah, I suppose so, or that you know that you've got to,

Starting point is 01:02:55 but even with this, it's like you could do the phone thing while you move. Do you know what I mean? Like you could stand up, but it's the inertial frame of reference again, right? You comfortable, it's weird. It's sat in the car, You've been there for a while. You've probably been thinking about using your phone.

Starting point is 01:03:07 And here's another thing, like, and I don't know why this isn't a big deal. Like, how many Instagram stories do you see people? And we've all been like, well, maybe not all of us. I don't make you culpable as well. But a lot of us have been culprits of doing this. How many Instagram stories do you see people while they're fucking driving? Like the driving down the street. Doing Instagram, no, the vast majority of Instagram users

Starting point is 01:03:29 that drive will be able to attest to it. And you're like, that's a really fiddly thing to do. How fucking, like, I mean, I don't want to put myself in the firing line, but I would have police not going, mate, that's a video of you doing something illegal in your car. Apparently, police are now riding buses to look down there. They look down there, they look above to see people.

Starting point is 01:03:51 Yeah, special lorries that they take on motorways to look down on people. Wow. They look across at lorry drivers. To look down on them, just just just just just just go like look how small and shit your car is compared to my people. Just looking down on you. Yeah. There's that clip of a guy, you see the guy on his phone, he killed. They sent like what was it like 20 messages in the space of like 10 miles or something?

Starting point is 01:04:11 And then it just drove straight in the back of the car, killing time family. Oh God. And I don't know, like it's, but it's the thing, right? That there, like do people want to be on their phone? Like is your, is using your phone while you're in the car time while spent for you? Or is it just a new speed scrolling? And we all, we all, someone who I know has a problem with doing it. It's a difficult problem that many people face. And one of those things that it's fine until it's not, and then you're like,

Starting point is 01:04:44 that was not worth the text message that I said or the... Of course it's not. Of course it's not. And it's all, it's the... So for me, I think the thing you said about not looking at it when... So something that Dan Gibson... That, DAB, Digital or the Lord Gaster, Gibson. As just mentioned, May, which is really interesting because he always strikes me as a busy guy.

Starting point is 01:05:08 From the moment he wakes up to about 7 o'clock at night, he's up rushing train, trains, pinching every second out of his morning, then he's at work. He's like, oh my God, what's going on? Finish his, and he's like, I often ask, I'll allow myself 30 minutes in the evening to check social media. He seems really on top of it.

Starting point is 01:05:28 And the other day told me that he's experimenting with, not allowing himself to look at social media in the morning. I was like, okay, so it's eroding away at you as well. Like it's obviously what used to be a very controlled in the evening, 30 minutes. It's now creeping into the morning. Yeah. Now he's like, it's got the point where I feel like I need

Starting point is 01:05:45 to put a boundary on this. I think the easiest way to do it for me, and this is the, this, heart's about I'm sure that if there's anyone who understands how it's setting better than I do or we do, that they, this will be a common tactic. But I made the rule about when I was going out for drinks. If I was on a stint of sobriety,

Starting point is 01:06:03 and it was my birthday, and I knew that I wanted to have some drinks, but not too many, I had to set myself a hardline rule. And it's the same with the phone, when you're trying to stop yourself from doing something your mind wants to do, but in retrospect, you don't. What was it, the current self versus the remembered self?

Starting point is 01:06:22 Yeah. You need to set very, very hard lines. And one of the easiest ones to do is to say, right, up until a particular point, I'm not going to look at my phone in the morning. After a particular point, I'm not going to look at my phone on a night. Yeah. Well, the most productive time I've ever had in my life. And I don't know why I don't go back to this. Is when I was, I was no Wi-Fi until 3pm.

Starting point is 01:06:45 How did you do that? Did you not automate that? You literally just went over and clicked to switch. So just go to bed, turn everything off, turn Wi-Fi and connection off on everything. And then next day wake up, purely offline work until 3pm. Is it a woman? And then have a girlfriend? If you were a knowledge worker, you asked to communicate with other people that's

Starting point is 01:07:01 probably going to be difficult. Then I would mind really turn it on for that one task and then turn it back off again. Oh my god. That is serious. And I had a 30 minute allocation for social media WhatsApp messages at 6pm and it was beautiful. I mean that is the absolute extreme. And then I slipped out of the habit and normal life's a mess. The thing is, I asked, I said to Dan, what are you doing?

Starting point is 01:07:24 Digital audio. Digital audio broad writing. I asked to Dan, what are you doing? Digital audio. Digital audio broadcasters. Right, that's good. Just for anyone who's confused. How are you doing to ensure that you don't check your phone before midday? Because for me, saying, like, I'll just not do that. So you know what people set to go,

Starting point is 01:07:36 like tomorrow I'm gonna go on a diet. So it's something that requires willpower, it's something that is probably currently your norm. And to just click your fingers and change. Especially in the morning, you wake up, you're burns by the bed, you reach over, tear off your life, it's on the other side of the bed. Not, of course.

Starting point is 01:07:51 And there's loads of red things to check. You're like, well, that looks exciting, check that. Before you go, you're in 30 minutes down, down the line, you've been waiting for it. Well, you've got a physical alarm clock, didn't you? Just to eliminate that, and it's such a good idea. I think you need it. Yeah. But what we're talking about here is he's talking about it to you, so do you, so if

Starting point is 01:08:10 which is making the choice you want to make either in retrospect or in advance as easy as possible and the choice that you don't want to make as difficult as possible. So yeah, you're right that on a morning it's difficult not to check your phone, but it's a piece of piss if it's not in your hand. Yeah, you cannot check your phone if it's not there So put it put it somewhere you know what I started doing that was to break the idiot's synthetic habit at the start of this year I put my phone in my other pocket The number of times that I've taken my wallet out recently and obviously I will spend 10 minutes pressing the pressing your wallet Yeah, I don't have a consistent pocket.

Starting point is 01:08:45 I do. I always go to the right pocket. So, but yeah, I think you just need to try and do things that are going to stack the deck in your favor and for the most part that involves just putting your phone away. So I think that starts with trying to spot your own patterns, doesn't it? Yeah. Right now, like when is it that you look at your phone, like when are you? When do you get really chewed up with time? Yeah, yeah.

Starting point is 01:09:08 And again, you know, you sat down with a doctor and a accountant, the fairly figures based, you cannot derive much from the research without having figures. And you need to have some figures so doubt. Wresky time and moment. Yeah, rescue time is moment. Rescue time is Rescue time is

Starting point is 01:09:26 moment for MacBook, right? Yeah, and it's so- Depressing when you look at that annual report or the monthly reports. Send you an email on a Sunday. Send us an email every Sunday. And you know what? You know what?

Starting point is 01:09:36 Naturally, I unsubscribe from any of you. So I wouldn't know about that. But, you know what my- Yes, I did my all-time- That's the most valuable part of it. I just checked it on the website. Mm-hmm. Gozin, does it buy a choice?

Starting point is 01:09:51 You know my total font time since we started using moment, which was after distraction, destruction, it's destruction, 18 about 18 months ago. How much? My total font time is just under 4,000 hours in 18 months. I spend over a third of my waking life on my phone. And this is someone who's trying to do everything in his power. It'll take you...

Starting point is 01:10:21 I'm not going to get the full stats. I'm just going to get the... Dailys. Yeah. Because you can see it gives you a percent as you just listed. It gives you a percentage of waking time. The third sounds about right. The tip that I was going to say that you told me about was put your apps into a few folders or off the home screen and then use the search function to get to it, which is, it feels the same to me as the, the newsfeed blocker because you go on Facebook and you're like, what am I here to do? Yeah, you have to be mindful to choose it. So, which is that same. That's an option. If you go into

Starting point is 01:11:02 Siri on your phone, if you use an Android then I have no idea. But if you go into settings and then Siri and turn off Siri app suggestions, then take all of your apps off the home screen and put them into folders to get to the apps. The most convenient way, the quickest way to do it is to swipe down from the top and to type into a search bar what it is that you want. But to do that you need to make a conscious choice to type the letter of the app that you want and to begin the process, which just gives you a little bit of automatic, is your moment. Just a little bit of a moment to just think, why am I here?

Starting point is 01:11:35 What am I doing? What am I doing? Yeah, it's less of a compulsion, because I found that having the same way that a river cuts through a bend to find the quickest way. I managed to find a shortcut to my own ship folder routine. Yeah, me too. That's it.

Starting point is 01:11:50 Within three days, I'd found a quick way that was quicker than when it used to be on my home screen. Oh no, that's a good word, then. That's my home screen. Yeah, I have to go one, two to find my folder called Time Wasting. That's why I spend most of my time.

Starting point is 01:12:02 Hahaha. So time spending. You just realize that you are such a fickle bastard who will just overcome everything you put in your own way. Which is why it's not your choice. Thank you very much. Check out the distraction instruction podcast. I'll make sure that that is in the links links to the

Starting point is 01:12:28 What's it the choice architecture? What was one that you sent us on YouTube? Dark patterns on YouTube links to Tristan Harris with Sam Harris and a couple of other websites that you may be interested in If you want to find out anymore or if you've got any questions feel free to tweet me or the guys online and we'll catch you next time we've got more life hacks coming up we've got Kai Wei coming up Daniel head from Rommwad and Quinn Henneck of Juggernaut training systems thank you bye Offends, get offends

Modern Wisdom - #009 - A Hacker In Your Pocket - How Your Smartphone Is Short Circuiting Your Brain

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