Pints With Aquinas - Digital Minimalism w/ Wisephone Creators Chris Kaspar & Jon Lentz

Episode Date: February 3, 2022

Hallow: https://hallow.com/mattfradd Get the Wisephone: https://techless.com/ Use code "FRADD" for $40 off!

Hey, welcome to Pints with Aquinas. Thank you so much for listening. If you like Pints with Aquinas and want to support us, you can do that in one of two ways by supporting us on Locals or Patreon. If you go to pintswithaquinas.com slash give it'll let you know there what you get in return. Thanks. And we're live. Chris, John, lovely to have you.

Good to be here, Matt. Great to be here. How are things? Been looking forward to this for a long time. How do you really why? Yeah. Well, you ask why? Yeah, I mean well You ask really good questions. You think deeply you just question the assumptions of the world constantly which is really annoying if you're my wife Yeah But that's what we're built on. It's just questioning assumptions. So it's fun to have this conversation. Yeah, awesome

Well, you guys are well you Chris you are the creator of wise phone. Yep. We started three years ago Yep, and John your role is I don't even know. Yeah, I don't know why I'm here We just found John on the street. Yeah, he's actually the guy in charge. Like I think about stuff and I'm the president of the company That's your official time. That's okay. Yeah, John does stuff. That's right What we need all right? Well for those who are watching I mean, obviously we we're going to be speaking about the beauty of having a having a dumb phone. But if you're out there today being like, dude, please don't preach to me about getting a dumb phone. I'm not doing it. I can't do it. That's okay. We want to talk about kind of tech

minimalism, more generally speaking. So I think there's something in this in this for everybody. So, but this is cool. I mean, you know the story. But for those who don't, I gave up the I give up the Internet every August. And I was like, I need a dumb phone, but I don't want a dumb phone that's going to be impossible to use. Like having to text on those old flip phones is just impossible. And my mate Sam Guzman for the Catholic gentleman texted me this link to you guys. And I looked at your phone it looked really great

and so I ordered it and I was just so impressed with it because it had just the level of convenience necessary for me to exist in the modern age with all these phones and so it's so cool that that you guys now sit in here so thanks sir thanks for coming yeah absolutely so tell us tell us how you got the idea to start this thing Yeah, so we have time which is nice. So I can give you the medium length story Okay, well, I'll give you the longer one because you know We just pit we pitch all the time and typically have to convince the story down to like yeah Yeah, which sucks the life out of it on some levels

But I mean there's a couple things that were going on, back in, so I was working in a fifth generation family business. It's a 120 year old company. It would fit well actually here in this town because y'all have so much steel, just good, hardworking people. But I kind of hit this place where it was like, I was hitting the law of diminishing returns

is the best way to describe it. As far as the actual impact we were making and the company as far as bringing it around to glorify God in a sense. And so I'm like, okay, what's next? I've done a lot of things, worked there for six years, said I was never gonna work at the family business, but it's just kind of this blank sheet of paper,

which is a sweet moment in life when you have a blank sheet and say, okay, God, what's next? And so it just took time to rest, reflect, and in that time my wife and I were doing foster care. God bless you. Yeah, it was an adventure. I would highly recommend it for anyone considering it. It put us in this beautiful place where we had to depend on God and not on ourselves, and we had to depend on community and not on ourselves, and God used it. But, you. But we had seven kids come and go in our house,

but there was this one time where we had 10 and 13 year old sisters and we filled out the paperwork after the CPS dropped them off. It takes about an hour and a half, the whole inch and a half stack. And the caseworker is walking out the door and she turned around and said, oh wait, don't let these girls near anything

that looks like a cell phone. Like, okay, why? Tell us And she told us some stuff about the history of cell phone usage and it was just dark. It was, I mean, just broke my heart in that moment. But that put us in this really weird place as parents. Cause I'm sure you are asking yourself even with bio kids, how do you navigate? I've never heard that term before. That's cool. Yeah. You're biological kids. How do you navigate the waters of never heard that term before. That's cool. Yeah, you're biological kids. Sure. Yeah.

How do you navigate the waters of technology? I mean, anyone with kids is constantly asking themselves this question. And the stakes were a little bit higher with foster kids because imagine you get uprooted from your home, you're in this super vulnerable place, and all of a sudden you get these jerk parents that take away something that you've held onto. And in that vulnerable moment, it's like, how do we empower them? How do we give them freedom? How do we not be the jerks?

How do you know? And so it's just prayer consideration. And through that all, we kind of landed on Amazon Alexa was this really cool kind of halfway ground. And, you know, with the family business, we've been talking about air proofing systems. I'd spent a lot of time thinking about how do you build things that cannot be broken? Like if you have a door that automatically closes and locks when it closes, you can't forget to lock the door.

I mean, I'm sure you can think of other examples of just stuff that's built into the world. And so Alexa was awesome because it was a non-visual interface to the internet. So they couldn't do the stuff that had messed with them in the past. And so we could trust them with it. So we gave them Alexa and like no rules,

which was awesome because we gave them freedom and simultaneously the boundaries were built into that device. And what was beautiful out of that and really the launching, what kind of techless came out of this was the, what it did for our relationship with them. That what was so cool. I mean, they loved us.

It was the right move. And what sorts of things would they do on Alexa just listen to music and things? I mean, what do you do when you're 13 years old? You listen to Beyonce and I can, I mean, oh, what was it? I will always love you. I've heard that song like a million by Whitney Houston. Yeah. Yeah, Whitney Houston I mean I fully turn the volume all the way up in our old house, which is a great song. Yeah, but

Seared into my memory, but that was a very small sacrifice, but you know But they would unplug it and they would go outside and plug it in and they have a party with all the neighbor kids They'd come over and then they would go plug it in somewhere else Um, and the worst they do is listen to some rap song that drops some bad words But whatever like that was nothing compared to what and you probably get to this but you mentioned techless What is techless and how is it related to the wise phone? Yeah. Yeah, so so in that moment We saw that our relationship was improved and that was the nugget, I guess.

That was the inspiration that, wait a second, purposefully designed technology can deepen relationship and instead of pulling us apart, which is what so much of tech today does. And so, you know, there are a handful of business ideas, again, back to the blank page, but really at the end of the day, the idea behind Techless was kind of like,

he must become more, I must become less. It's kind of that same concept like, tech must become less. We're not anti-tech, we're not pro-tech. It's just, it's taken too large of a space in our world, in our lives at the cost of relationship. And so we're trying to, I mean, this is like the 20 year meta vision here of what we're hoping to do, but at the end of relationship. And so we're trying to, I mean, this is like the, the 20 year meta vision here of what we're hoping to do. But at the end of the day, we really want to try to help

deepen relationships between people and using purpose-built tech to do it with that design driving things. I love it. Techless almost sounds like a, what do you say? Contradiction because you're an online, you have a website. So there's tech there. So what the, but the point is technology, as you say, deepens

relationships. Yeah, and we have a social media account. I don't know how I feel about that. Yeah, it's a tension. Hey, you got to deal with it. Yeah, it's funny that like iPhone introduced, and you'd know more about this than me, so feel free to speak to it. A few years ago, like how much time you've been spending on your phone. And it's almost like it's there, not for their benefit, because it doesn't benefit them for you to not be on their device 24 7. But it's there because we all see that it can be damaging. I would say I don't know if there's a human being on the planet, unless they're a complete moron who would recognize, yeah,

technology can get the better of me and it kind of subverts my free will. And I find myself engaging in things I shouldn't be engaging in or too much time. Yeah, so yeah, this is something that everybody's talking about. Yeah Yeah, I mean, it's the trend right now. It's the tidal wave I'm not a big statistics guy But there's study came out 75% of people claim they self identify as being addicted to their cell phones I mean, that's a pretty that's a pretty high degree of addicted to their cell phones.

That's a pretty that's a pretty high degree of 70% of people self identify. Yeah, that's high. I mean, and the other 25% might be in denial or maybe there are people like my wife who actually aren't addicted to their phones, but it's a high number. Yeah, we've got to look at that. Honestly, like nobody likes to be criticized. You know, we it's we're too exhausted to be criticized. But if being criticized will lead you to be less exhausted

because you might actually make some serious decisions that make your life less complicated, maybe it's worth listening to, you know. So how do you know if someone's kind of addicted to their phone? Again, we're using that term colloquially, perhaps. But or, you know, we're using it the hard and fast medical definition. But yeah what are some signs that you think that people are addicted to their phones? Take it away for a day right? What happens if you're an alcoholic and you go without alcohol for a day? That's that's the litmus test right? I think

some other ways that are interesting is just think how much of the day do you spend with your cell phone outside of arm's reach? Yeah right like is it ever without? I pulled this back to Right. Like is it ever without? I pulled this back to touch. Yeah. Is it ever outside of arms reach? Right. I mean, when you're sleeping, when you're working, when you're at home, think about how many of those like, hey, dad, did you see this? That was awesome moments that you've missed because you were buried in your phone.

Right. Like all of these other things, because I think what's interesting about Apple and those statistics is it almost feels like a flex of just kind of them being like, this is how much time we have been able to capture of your attention. And most of us just look at it and go, oh, 10 hours this week, no big deal. And we just put it aside. And it's like, that's almost how powerless we are. And it's almost more of like a reminder of who's in control than a call to action of saying, Hey, put it down. You know what I mean? So what was your journey like? I mean, did you have the smartphone and did you call to action of saying, hey, put it down. You know what I mean? So what was your journey like? I mean, did you have the smartphone

and did you graduate to the wise phone? How did that happen? Yeah, I did. And it was really just out of this desire to be more present in the context the Lord has put me in. When my wife and I started having kids, we have three beautiful children. So many people came around us and were like,

hey, hold on to these moments. Every single day is precious because they go so fast. You know, and these are, you know, older parents that have 18 year olds, 20 year olds, and things like that. And I think enough people told us that, that we started to listen and it started to resonate. And it was just like this really,

really tangible reality for us of saying, they're only going to be here for a short time. My wife is a gift to me and she will only be here for a short time. I will only be here for a short time. And when they leave the to me and she will only be here for a short time. I will only be here for a short time. And when they leave the house, I'm not gonna sit there and go, man, I wish I answered more emails or man, I wish I played more Angry Birds,

if that's even still a thing. It's gonna be, man, I wish that I had played more games. I wish we had laughed more. I wish we had read more. I wish we had just sat on the couch and enjoyed each other's company more. And that was the moment where I was saying, put it down, look up and be present

with those around me, because I don't want to miss these moments that are so precious that won't last forever. We should do this, Neil, put the wise phone link in the description below. Because, yeah, we are definitely I'm definitely trying to push this on people. I've had so many. What? It's up there in the school. I've had so many people like get rid of their iPhone and go to a wise phone, which again is like a convenient smart looking dumb phone.

And they've said it's just been life changing. If they use promo code, do they still get 40 bucks off? They do. That would have been awkward if you said no. Yeah, of course. You can use the promo code. Frad, you know, and you can get 40 bucks off. But seriously consider it, man, because it's, I don't know,

the question I keep asking myself and then you've heard me ask before is what level of inconvenience am I willing to endure to live a more peaceful life? And this started a while ago for me where I would come home on the weekends with my kids. And while I'm trying to have quality time with them, there's this like nagging itch in the back of my brain that's saying, you could tweet this clever idea or what have people said regarding this tweet or how many views has your YouTube video gotten? And what I found is it's like I'm being drawn out of these beautiful human moments back to the stupid screen to these multi-billion dollar companies that not only don't care about me, but they seem to have like, I don't know, like my degradation of

a human being within their interests. And so I started by giving the phone and the computer away. I would put it in a bag, my laptop, my phone, my iPad, whatever other stuff I had, I'd give it to someone on Friday night because I lack self-control. Like I just do, and I needed to know that about myself. I knew that if I put it in the top drawer of my dresser, I'd be like, I'll just check this one thing. This email is gonna just quickly send,

and it would all collapse. Whereas I knew if I handed it to a friend on Friday night and said, don't let me take this back until Monday morning, I would be ashamed to go to him. You know, it's like, I need that back now. And I just remember those days, the Friday afternoon, all day, Saturday, all day, Sunday. It was it was like this.

It was like taking a rotating fan hype, you know, on its hardest or most fast setting and yanking the plug out of the wall. And the fan would slowly come to a standstill. And I felt that's what happened with my brain. It was just in the beginning, it was so difficult because I would think about oh I got to send that email I forgot I got to do this but then my brain would slow down and I found that my Saturdays and Sundays were like these long leisurely days that I remember from being a kid. I thought I just want that

more in my life and and I know people need it for work. I understand there are legitimate reasons. So this isn't about trying to shame anybody who's not willing to make this jump yet. But at the same time, like don't let yourself off the hook too quickly because I run a bloody YouTube channel for my job. And so it's not as if I couldn't be advancing in my career if you want to put it that way by constantly tweeting and all that. But yeah, I just was that your experience when you graduated? That's the that's the word I use when you graduated to put it that way by constantly tweeting and all that. But yeah, I just, it was that your experience when you graduated has the,

that's the word I use when you graduated to the dumb phone. Yeah. Yeah. And I think what's important to do is to not be prescriptive and saying, this is the only way to solve this. Like wise phone is not the answer to all your problems. I'm the CEO. I shouldn't be saying that. Just like you said, Hey, if you get a wise phone, you can actually listen to my podcast or watch my YouTube channel. I mean, it's kind of this, but at the end of the day,

there's multi-fac, it's nuanced, it's complicated, and it's about heart level issues, and these are things that we can do to help your intentions or your will. What is your intention? What is your hope for your life? We're making tools to help you in that. I mean, I'm kind of the same way.

The discipline thing, like I get challenged, man so, so for me, wise phone is something that I use during the week actually, but some when I'm traveling like right now I have my SIM card in an iPhone. Yeah. And I, I talk about that publicly because I think it helps to just understand that. I love the, I love the honesty there too. It would be very easy to pretend and just not say that bit because just, you know, all of this company just says like, hey, we're living in a world that is technological. We can't be lights. We can't say I'm not going to use a vehicle.

There's a line and there's a time and a season for everything. And but what is the overarching narrative here and what can we do to help empower the narrative that you actually want? Not the one that's been on you. Yeah, I love that too because that's something else to keep in mind that like you could get a wise phone not necessarily break your iPhone though. I would recommend it and and you can switch you can like I want to have a light weekend this weekend I want to have a wise weekend this weekend and just take out the chip and put it in that one I just have a much more restful weekend. Yeah, and it's a hard journey I mean when I switched, you know, those first few days

it's total withdrawal, right? Because you're so used to how do you deal with boredom? You pull out your phone, you know, how do you get your sports scores, your news articles, your emails, you're constantly inundated with real-time updates and that feels pretty good. We feel important. It feels like there's things on our calendar to go and do. But the magic of Wyse Phone is what you replace it with. It's not the actual device itself. And so when you take that iPhone or that smartphone out of your life, you're naturally going to be forced

to replace it with something that is meaningful and intentional, or you're just gonna revert back to the phone. And so what do you choose to do? Like, how do you choose to spend that time? Is it reading, is it investing with your kids, is it following up on relationship? What does that look like for you?

And once you taste the richness of that, it's kind of like, yeah, I actually don't even want to go check my phone to see if there's a text message or a missed call because I'm just so enjoying being present with where I am. And that's the magic of the phone. I would actually encourage people right now to if you do have an iPhone or an Android or whatever, maybe take us up on that challenge. Give it up for 24 hours Irish people right now to if you do have an iPhone or an Android or whatever,

maybe take us up on that challenge, give it up for 24 hours, and then let us know in the comments section what that experience was like. And it may not be pleasant. Like it may be like, you're super irritated all day, but that might be a sign that something needs to change. Yeah. I mean, I remember the first day I was using wisese phone, it was an early rough prototype. I mean, it was like, okay, can I make a call? Yeah, kind of. But my hand, I kept pulling out of my pocket

and holding it in my hand and looking at it and like wanting to do something with it, but there was nothing to do. And that was actually really cool. And then I put it back in my pocket and then I reclaimed that time. It was just, and I've seen multiple people, they have this shape

that holds a phone and they just like, it's this ghost thing and like, it's muscle memory, right? Like I play piano, my fingers can almost play the piece. It's my brain isn't even activated. It's kind of that. And so there's some dynamics there that happen as far as that first 24 hours. That's tough. I mean, it really is. It's kind of kind of a you know that first week really is the hardest season after that then you really get to taste the sweetness I'd say yeah have you had family members that you've tried to bring on board and how is that gone it's beta testers yeah yeah they always get to test the new weird features and stuff and see what works and what doesn't so I think the other thing that people should realize about your phone is unlike other

simple phones like Gab phone who are doing great work for kids and having these like smart looking dumb phones, they use basically Google's apps that are dumbed down. You've built all of these features from scratch, which means you actually cannot be tracked by big tech. Tell us a bit about why you did that and why that's important. Yeah, I think, you know, Chris talked a little bit about the design philosophy of the phone, and so there's one side where it's just a security feature. We want parents to have total control over the data and the information

that's being accessed and not just parents, but individuals as well. But then there's the other side of it, where if you look at the design philosophy and the business model of those big tech companies of Google's and others, it's all about behavioral predictability, behavioral data. We wanna shift that and make it about relational connection. And so when you're feeding that Google funnel, which is literally their stated mission

is to capture 100% of data that's possible in any realm and in any regard. Now we're trying to scale that back and saying, we actually don't want to know you by numbers and data and statistics. We want you to be known by us and by others as a relational person made in the image of God. And so how can we drive that and how can even in our design philosophy in ways that most people will never understand or it won't make any sense to them. But how can we deliver on that in a way

that isn't necessarily personally profitable for us? Facebook 98% of their revenue comes from ads. We've made the commitment that we will never have ads because we don't want to interact with people that way. We don't want to treat them as numbers and data and statistic. We want to treat them as unique individuals who really have a desire to be known and loved. And that's what we want to try to enable. Yeah.

Yeah. And early on in Wisephone, when Techless was one person, now we're like 30-ish or so, when we were one person, I am a non-technical guy, right? I'm not a super hacker or anything, but I figured out how to turn off micro settings and literally distill an Android phone and turn off everything. I could turn off the date and the time and wifi just to get this super micro,

what's the least amount you can have in a phone? And what was interesting was after all that, the one thing that you could not, you could turn off everything except for the Google search bar. And at that moment it clicked to me. Why did Google release Android for free? He said the world it's because the Google search bar.

I mean, that is the purpose of this is in everything, the monetization of it all. I mean, that's it. And the Google search bar, I have philosophical qualms with some of the things in the Google search bar. And that was like, I, I understood the why at that point of this phone. It's not about this other stuff. It's actually so that they can track what's going on.

And so we just had to cut it at the source. And the only way to do that was to build a purpose built device from the ground up. And then another interesting kind of philosophical moment we had was early on, we actually built using Google infrastructure. So we released some stuff through the Google Play Store and all this stuff in our messaging app. We believe in transparency.

That's not a philosophy that Google believes in. They believe in cognitomo, in privacy, in a quasi privacy, I'll call it, especially amongst relationships. So the way our family portal set up is people have access to every message that's sent on a phone. And how do you access that? Because parents might be interested to know about that.

Yeah, I mean, just log in your Teclis ID on teclis.com. On a computer. On a computer, exactly. And you can see all the text messages. And you can see the messages. Huh, that's awesome, dude. And today, I mean, and there is opportunity, I'll just say there's opportunity for that to potentially be exploited but to date we haven't had anyone

Be the overbearing parent. I guess that yeah, and so we're thinking about some challenges with that But that being said Google philosophically Philosophically does not believe that parents have the right to see kids messages, huh? And yeah, and as a result our app was pulled from the Play Store. Wow. Which was a foundational part of our tech and our philosophy. And so we realized at that moment, there's no way that we can fight this battle

unless we own the platform. Like we cannot build on the layers of scaffolding that are already been built. We have to go all the way to the bottom and own it from the ground up so that we can do what we need to do and so we went there and it was hard Wow now, isn't it like $400 for the phone? Why the hell is it that much money is what somebody would say like why the heck would I pay?

$400 for a dumb phone. That's that's ridiculous. Yeah, good question. So, I mean first of all we don't do ads Yeah, good question. So, I mean, first of all, we don't do ads. So I'll tell you right now, if you go to Walmart and buy a phone that costs 50 bucks, I promise you that phone costs the person selling it $120 because I know the math, I've done it. I'm resourcing phones and all this stuff. So why are they subsidizing it 70 bucks?

It's because you're tied to carrier services, you're tied to advertisements, bloatware. I mean there are contractual obligations on this phone that you buy for $50 from Walmart. There's all this stuff that drains your battery, leaks your privacy, and there's this hidden monetization that you don't see. And so we don't have any of that. And just like anything premium or ad-free, there's a cost you want you to premium You're paying per month for it. You want Netflix you're paying for it all these ad free services cable TV. Keep going down the list and that cost is associated with the

Freedom to not be driven by I've heard it said and I'd love you to speak to this that if you're not paying for something in the tech world You're the product. That's why and you could say you've done that down a little bit and say if you're not paying much Like if you're paying a hundred dollars for like a three thousand dollar phone or something like that You're the product speak to that a bit. Yeah, so I think a really interesting life scenario case is when Google bought YouTube YouTube actually cost Google is when Google bought YouTube, YouTube actually cost Google significant amounts of money for the first several years

that it was integrated into the Google platform to the tune of half a billion dollars in losses year over year. So as a company, you look at that and you go, why in the world that doesn't make good business sense? Well, Google's revenue as a whole jumped to 22 billion. They were making 8 billion in profit off of that because it wasn't about YouTube as a platform, it was about the missing piece of data that they

could mine and prospect from their user base to actually impact their algorithms and all of these things for Google Ads and other channels of the business. So that whole acquisition was a data play. That's really at its core what it was. And so when you think about if you're not paying for the product, you are the product, these are the type of things that are going on behind the scenes and I'm not making necessarily any judgment on Google.

That's their business and they're very forthcoming with it, right? So shame on us if we have a problem with it and we continue to comply. But at the same time, that is what they are after. And so Chris said it perfectly, if you're not paying for that, there's value there that is being realized

that is not monetary to the company. And so how does that actually get implemented into their platform? It's where they say, yeah, it's actually worth more to us to lose money on a hardware device because we will make so much more money by what we can capture from that hardware device.

Yeah. Yeah. And if you watch the social dilemma, I'm not saying anything new here. I'm copying- You know, I haven't watched that yet. Oh, you have to. Yeah, yeah. If you watch the Social Dilemma, I'm not saying anything new here. I'm copying you. You know I haven't watched that yet. Oh, you have to. Oh, you should. Tell us about it.

Oh, God. For those who haven't seen it like me. Tell me about it. So first of all, you have to watch it on Netflix. That's the only place you can watch it. But it is... Is that something you think you could show your kids and it might help wake them up if they're a smart kid?

Or is there some inappropriate stuff? Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, no, it's great. There might be a couple sure four letter words in it, but yeah No, it is in my opinion It's kind of a turning point in the it is a turning point This documentary is a turning point in the sentiment of the Western world in us understanding our technology And it did a perfect job of unpacking the problem Because I'll just say with techclis, we were having the same

conversations two years ago and it was like crickets. Like no one understood or resonated with it. No one felt the harms. No one could identify them or articulate it. And now we say, we talk about it, everyone's nodding their heads and I'm like, what changed the social dilemma? That really helped. Yeah, that's it. That is the linchpin in changing the sentiment of America And it does perfectly it just crisply articulates the problem And so we're dancing around it in this conversation now where it falls short is talking about the solution

It just ends with a horrific problem. It is the social dilemma. Oh, I see dilemma now you go sort it out They say yeah And so that's actually where we come in, is we're working on the solution. Because I don't want to be one of those type of people that just points a bunch of fingers and it doesn't actually do anything to solve. That's critical and just, I want to help build something beautiful. And so that's what we're working on. So did you have expertise in technology and coding prior to Techless?

What qualifications did you have to start the company? So my background is in building companies from the ground up. Like I've had an ad agency and I was the creative director and just like asking sort of the philosophical questions. Same type of stuff you've done, but I've done it with multiple companies and just helping understand the problems in the market and identifying the proper solutions. And I mean, I helped launch a precious metals company that just, I think eight years ago we launched, we just crossed a billion dollars in lifetime sales. Simply for one reason, that market was sketchy

and we did business honestly. That wasn't that complicated, but no one thought to do that. And so we just did it. And next thing you know, it's going great. And so I've done software development projects, nothing this ambitious. And the truth is, is that in, you know, three years ago, basically three years ago today, it was this moment of do we do techless? And it was like a couple options. And this is deeply technical, well beyond my skill set. And it was this moment where I was

reading Psalms 127, 1, which says, unless the Lord builds the house, those that labor, labor in vain. And it was like, okay, this is crazy. If this is going to happen, if this is going to succeed, it's clearly going to be you and not me. And just hold it with an open hand. And you know what? If you're going to shut this thing down two years in, we're going to stick to our guns, stick to our values and try to honor you with what we're doing here. And the rest is up to you. And the burden was off of our shoulders, stick to our values, and try to honor you with what we're doing here, and the rest is up to you." The burden was off of our shoulders, at my shoulders at that point.

Crazy prayers have been answered. We prayed for who is the number one guy that can help us in developing hardware that has a faith-based perspective that's worked at Apple or Google. I'm like, there's probably eight people in the world that fit that criteria, and we get a guy named Josh Bankanko, who is the creator of Apple iPad. Like the lead on first generation Apple. Well, he helped with early stage product development, conceptual type stuff, just looking over our shoulder, making sure we're not jumping off any cliffs. I mean, that's a cool answer to prayer. Yes, it is very specific and

precise. And I can give you multiple examples of that. That's just like, okay, cool. There's something good here. I don't know where we're going to be in five years, but just that's the answer is just, there's some cool stuff going on. Yeah, I feel similar because I mean, prior to doing Pines with Aquinas, I wrote a lot and spoke a lot on the topic of pornography. And I would feel very similar to you.

Like I would stand up and speak to parents about the problems with technology. And it was people, it's like they couldn't see it. But I saw it, because I saw the carnage. Because whenever I would speak at a high school, I'd have young men and young women coming up to me. One of the most devastating stories I heard was a boy who was given an iPhone by his mom.

And then he did what every boy does. Well, we shouldn't say every, but essentially every boy does looks at pornography. I mean, when I was a kid, I'm 38 How old are you? 33 I'm 29. Okay. So when I was a kid I've got a calculator and immediately learned how to type boobies into my phone using numbers. That's cool Maybe not but the thing is like why would you think like as a parent that you wouldn't your kid wouldn't do something like that

And so this kid got a phone he's looking at porn and he hates that he's looking at porn but he's so embarrassed so he doesn't tell his mom. He ends up breaking his phone and tries to hide it from his mom and weeks go by maybe not even that long and she discovers that the phone's broken and he just says I'm so sorry I broke my phone and she says okay well you know be more careful buys him another phone Couple months go by same thing happens. He breaks that phone Mother finds out and she's like this is you have got to be more careful You know your father works hard for this money and it's not a toy and so she buys him a third phone

This is a true story when the third phone broke And she found out he finally broke down and said, I cannot stop looking at pornography. But what's interesting is like we're like 20 minutes maybe into this conversation. And we really haven't even spoken about don't have an iPhone because you might be doing bad things on it. Like you'd think that that would be the first thing we're talking about. We're actually talking about no, no, the problem isn't just there are evil things that you can look at and participate in online. It's there are plenty of evil things that you can look at and participate in online It's there are plenty of good things that you can participate in online and they're destroying your life because you're not actually being present to

What you want to be present to yeah, that's it not a question. Just an observation. Mm-hmm Yeah, we hear stories like that all the time Similarly, we had a mom who wrote in a couple of weeks ago and she said that we gave our son an iPhone They they were very faithful parents. They thought they had done absolutely everything to lock it down and secure it and close the loopholes It's impossible, but it's impossible very hard So a couple of weeks after they gave the phone they realized, you know Again, very faithful parents totally plugged into what their kid was doing They realized that he had been looking at pornography for the first time. And they were so brokenhearted, they were so disgusted.

And they bought a Wyze phone. And they phoned in just to let us know that after two weeks of having the Wyze phone, he's no longer sitting in his room for large parts of the day. He's at the dinner table. He's asking questions. He's looking you in the eye.

He's like when guests would come over, he's fully engaged with them. He's smiling, he's happy, and he's laughing. And it was just an amazing story that a few of us broke down over hearing and just saying praise the Lord because So many of these things are happening in the dark and they're destroying lives and can you imagine that was a boy who maybe Had looked at it for a couple of months. Maybe I mean imagine 15 years of that trajectory Cycle and yeah, I won't say who but we both know this particular individual. He made sure that his son had covenant eyes on his phone as his son was going through high school and did a good job at it right. So knew enough as to how

to lock this down in a way that most people don't know. When this boy went to college, he called his dad and he said, Hey, I just want to thank you because I hated, hated having covenant eyes on my phone as a teenager when everybody else didn't. But I want to say thank you because everyone here is a predator. His exact words. This isn't like a converted Christian young adult. This is just someone who looked around and when I was raised differently. But I think the thing is, it's like our kids are like cracking into the Pentagon's website while we don't know how to

check a history file. And so take the burden off yourself, parents. I mean, it's, it's, you know, get rid of your kids smartphone, I would suggest as a as a as a father who's imperfect and screws up and apologize to my kids regularly. I would say get rid of that smartphone, get a wise phone, get a gab phone. We're not just here to push push wise phone, but like what look around for an alternative and get that because your life will become easier. And so will your children's. Yeah, and I want to know what are tips. This is the hairy question. So you give a kid crack cocaine and iPhone and then you take it away. Well, how do you do that as a loving parent? Like, where does your head go? Because I'm sure you've thought about this a little bit.

That's just a crazy conversation. How would you approach that? Well, I think I don't know what to say except some conversations and actions are worth engaging in, even if they initially create more chaos than order. And so the the initial frustrations and perhaps temper tantrum that you experience is worth it in the long run. What isn't worth doing is saying, well, if I take this phone away, I mean, gosh, he's going to freak out and okay, well, the option isn't, we'll just keep doing that then. Um, so it would seem to me that, uh, as a parent, you would want to

sit your children down and say, look, we're making some decisions in this family because we want to have a healthy family where people are happy and beautiful and live good lives and iPhones and androids and all this, they're kind of against us living that life. So we've made a decision that we're all getting say wise phones or dumb phone or whatever. And here's why we're doing it. And just I would just implement it.

I mean, what's so great about your phone is it doesn't have the inconveniences of a flip phone. I mean, you can group text. You can send photos. You can, you can use maps. I mean, it's, it's kind of like just the right amount of stuff, but there's zero way to get online. And I had a person come over to my house recently and they told us that children's ages. And my first question is your kids don't have phones,

do they? Like, do they have phones? I understand it's an offensive, abrasive question, but I'd rather lose friends than my kids be exposed to porn because I was too much of a coward to implement these sorts of things. And this person said, yeah, they do. We've locked it down and things like that. That happened about a month ago, about two weeks ago. But last week, I get a call from this parent crying because this person has seen how they got around it and how they downloaded Snapchat

and how they're accessing porn. So we got them dumb phones for their children. And when I say dumb phones, I mean, what, you know, smart, smart looking dumb phones. But it's just like your life doesn't have to be this difficult, parents. Like it doesn't. It could be easier. Yeah and I think one of the greatest challenges, it becomes obvious when you take a closer look at big tech, is that they just don't care. I mean Apple for example, it is a 22 step process to lock down an iPhone. I could document it for you. Wow. And guess what? It changes.

Every software update, it becomes 19 steps and it adjusts itself and it's still not foolproof. Like I had a locked down iPhone. I had accountability partners, you know, whole nine yards and I'm sitting here scrolling the news app, boom, nudity. I'm like, what the heck? Like just, I didn't ask for this

and it's just getting fed to me. There's just loopholes. I mean, Google, YouTube, they used to have parental restrictions on YouTube to where you could lock down a computer and they removed, they de-featured it. So they used to have something that protected kids and they just took it away. Don't they have a YouTube kids though? They have a YouTube kids, but it's like for age five. Oh, I see.

I mean, if you give a 12 year old YouTube kids, they'll throw it back at you. And that just so reveals the heart of big tech. They just don't. Yeah. I mean, they got billions of dollars. They could do this easy. Snap their fingers in one week. They could fix this stuff. That's funny though. I mean, this is a deeper conspiracy theory, but the family is the enemy of big state and large government and big tech. Family is the building block of society. You destroy that and then the government gets to be parent, you know, and that's kind of the role I think tech sees itself as. Parents have no right to implement these sorts of rules for their children.

Yeah, but that's true. Yeah, I mean, totally, totally. But back to that moment, like you're talking about with with with kids and everything, it is hard initially. It's very difficult. But I think one thing to look forward to and have hope for is that when you go to something like Wisephone, is that there is a piece about this tech tension battle that I'm sure any parent that's given their phone, a smartphone to a kid feels it. And it weighs on you every day. Mom, can I blank, have 15 more minutes.

Mom, can I download this app? And it's this perpetual tug of war. And that's adversarial. It's like constant negotiation. It just wears you down. It's exhausting. It's exhausting. And our goal is to just like.

It's hard to parent when you're exhausted. Forget about it. This is the boundaries. It's built in and you can't argue because it's just is what it is. Yeah, there's no like, can I download this particular app? Sure. If there's an app store, oh, there isn't. Then I guess you can use the calculator. Yeah, so there's that hard conversation. But then afterwards, I truly believe

that there's peace, which is with it's worth gold. So yeah, and there's a false piece and there's a real piece. So it's like, what do I want? Do I want no conflict? Or do I want goodness for my child that will involve conflict? That's the piece we would prefer that would hopefully end up somewhere better. You know, yeah. Yeah. What kind of stories do you guys hear? What's what's one story that you've heard from a parent or somebody who bought your phone and that really stands out to you?

Yeah, I think the one that I just shared is is one that has been particularly impactful. And there's so many that are similar in that vein, but I think another one that really comes to mind, just to share a different one, is a parent that was really kind of similar to myself, if I'm being honest, where just kind of disengaged with their kids, you know, they're home and they're present

and they're likable and they're having fun, but they're distracted. Their mind is elsewhere and you can tell. And it was just so incredibly sweet to hear this dad describe the dynamic, he had two girls between him and his two girls and how that had changed. He would come home and they would run and give him a hug and a kiss

and they kind of disappear and go and play. And now he comes home and they cling to his leg and they drag him through the house and they're just doing things together. And it was just beautiful to hear him describe this story of just saying, when I put my phone down and that goes back to what I was saying earlier about the magic of the phone, it's like you rediscover what is out there and what these gifts are that we have in our life. The gift of our spouses, the gift of our kids, which far outweighs the phone.

Now you already kind of answered this when you said there's like 19 steps to lock down your phone. If you have an iPhone or perhaps an Android, maybe they're very different. But this keeps changing with every update. But so that that's a bit of a bit of an answer. But someone might say, OK, why do I need to buy your product when I have an iPhone and I can maybe tech? I can lock it down, right?

That's a possibility for me. I can make it dumb. So why would I why would I buy your product? I'll give tech, I can lock it down, right? That's a possibility for me. I can make it dumb. So why would I buy your product? I'll give you that. You can lock down an iPhone, but how many times have you deleted an app and then you reinstall it? I mean, how many times have you turned off something

and then you turn it back on because it takes five seconds. So kind of like when my wife and I did foster care, we forced ourselves to be in a position of needing help and needing others. It was an intentional life decision beyond our power, beyond our control, and it was an intentionally designed dilemma for ourselves to deepen our love and to live out our greater purpose. And there were moments where had we wanted to, I promise you, would have been like, just get these kids out of our house. That sounds very unloving, but I'm just being vulnerable. It's like, can we just take a break for a week? Or like, we just don't want to do this right now.

But we didn't have a choice. You sign up, you say, I'm going to love these kids and you'll love them no matter what. And you know, you just commit to that. And that's what this is. It's a bigger commitment. And yeah, there's a cost associated with it. You release some power, you release convenience, but at the same time, you can't, what I call, Big Tech offers incremental solutions already. I mean, they play these games, right? Where you can have a phone that turns gray or dark at 10 p.m., night mode.

Apple offers focus mode. I don't even know if you even heard of that, right? What is that? I didn't even know this, okay? So there's some focus mode in Apple offers and supposedly it helps you focus. You focus, right? So we were in a group in San Francisco last week and they said how many people have used focus mode and a hundred people like two people raise their hands. And the best way I describe

it is it's like fast, it's like McDonald's offering a salad. When you go to McDonald's how many people only order a salad? No, you order something else. You order french fries or I mean, just like it's just it's this incremental solution to something that needs a real systematic change. Yeah, that's that's really good. I don't think we should. I've said this before. I think we should underestimate how pathetic we are.

So if somebody says, well, I could just look this down. It's like, yeah, you could. And maybe that's what you should do and good for you. But you're probably pathetic and your resolution is likely to wane. And then you'll choose the Big Mac. Yeah. And so instead

of doing that, you could you could have some. And again, I'm sure there are people who have self-control leaps and years beyond me. I don't have much. But for me, I think like this, there's real virtue in knowing your weaknesses and acting accordingly. And so rather than saying something that sounds

heroic, well, I'm just going to get the Android and I'm just going to determine I'm not going to let it control me. Yeah, but the thing is this thing is designed to control you and you only have a limited amount of self control. So you could instead know yourself and say, get a wise phone and there it is done Yeah, and pathetic is a really strong word. I would just say human Well, I'd say pathetic It's about energy to like we have a finite amount of energy per day That's right to make choices and to think through things and to fight struggles and we should this is a legit thing

This is why Steve Jobs would dress the same every single day same thing because he Realized that you only have a certain amount of what it had you put it energy energy Yeah, and a day that's it so that not having to choose what you're gonna wear that day is going to help you then make Other choices elsewhere like it's a real thing exactly yeah And so in a sense what we're trying to do is just give you back your energy to focus on the things that matter So you don't have I mean there are huge studies that focus on the effect of phones on our brains. I'm talking neural pathways, neuroscience type of stuff.

And I mean, there's like standardized tests where they have two groups of people. One group has their phone off in a room. Yeah. And another group has their phone off outside of the room. And there was a 30% difference in the test scores. Just the mere presence of the phone in the room off there was a 30% difference in the test scores. Just the mere presence of the phone in the room off affected their brain. It took that much energy because it was there, its presence. And so we're kind of like just trying to mitigate that and just focus on the stuff that matters.

That's what we're trying to give in a sense. Feel free to jump in at any point here. But Colin Carr asks, curious how you as a company decide what is or is not acceptable for phone use. The digital minimalist community seems to have a lot of different ideas on what makes a digitally, digitally minimal phone. I use a light phone too, but also really love and admire your Christ and family centric philosophy at Techless would definitely be considering the wise phone when my LP to light phone to dies So I guess this was Colin. Yeah. Yeah calling great question. If you have any ideas, we're all ears This is one of the greatest challenges for us, right? You know, is it's what is to lock down?

What is not locked down enough? you know what kind of feeds into our mission of intentionality and kind of restoring relationship or redeeming connection. And you know, what distracts from that? Because no matter what app we put on the phone, there's always going to be an app that we don't have. And there's great reason to add some of these apps. And I think really what we're trying to do is just saying,

Hey, can we give you tools? And I'll let Chris speak about this. Can we give you tools that allow you to function well that bring out the real utility, the utility benefit of the phone while not totally consuming and having you absorbed into the device? And I think that's really the tension that we live in. And I mean, you can speak more to the tools aspect.

Yeah, I mean, this is like every day. I am like literally living perpetually. I'm asking that question of like, what's the margin? I mean, if you were to define modesty in precise terms, how would you define modesty? Well, are you talking in regards to dress? I mean, I'm just, yeah, it's tough. You have general categories like it's humility and dress. Yeah. But then of course, depending on culture, modesty, how do you feed that into machine learning algorithm to define precisely what modest is? Yeah.

I mean, it's very, very difficult. Don't know. But, and I'll say, like I said, this is something we're asking every day, but there's in response to that question, we have this honor and the techless office. When we first started, we had this headline from The Verge and it says, there is no perfect minimalist phone yet. And I was like, oh, we'll go make the perfect minimalist phone, you know? And as I've sat and pondered on it two years later, I would now consider that headline

saying there is no perfect minimalist phone ever. There will never be a phone that meets the expectations of minimalists. There's a continuum from nothing to everything and we will never create the one that satiates all the desires of the market We're not here to please everyone and so then we have to ask the bigger question of what are we hoping to accomplish in the world? And what is the ones we're looking for and John was talking about that and at the end of the day we want it deep in Relationships and so the litmus test and we have a series I'm working on it's kind of soft fuzzy words here but like design philosophies five or six things that are on it's kind of soft fuzzy words here but like design philosophies five or six things that are defining the assumptions that everything's built on and we're looking through those lenses

and it's so countercultural but that's the litmus test for us is what deep I mean at the highest metal level what deepens relationship what pulls you away from relationships with God and with others and that's the yay or nay for us. Well one of the things you guys are about to implement and I love the way you're doing it is and I'll let you speak to this you are about to implement and I love the way you're doing it is and I'll let you speak to this. You're about to make a way for people to listen to music on the phone. But I love that the way you're going to do that isn't by putting some sort of Spotify app on it. But instead you're going to have to walk over to your computer, choose the MP3s you wish to listen to and drag them onto the dashboard.

What a pain. Yeah, but it's intentional. It makes it intentional. It's lovely. So you, it's like, yeah, you can have this but you can be intentional about it. But yeah, tell us about that decision. Yeah, so we'll have music and podcasts here in 2022.

Not gonna commit to a date yet, but it is coming. And yeah, we want it to be an intentional decision for people to be thoughtful and mindful of what it is that. And, and yeah, we want it to be an intentional decision for people to be thoughtful and mindful of what it is that they're listening to and what it is that they're choosing not to write because so much of life is just lived in the reactive and we want to help people live in the proactive of thinking one step ahead of where they are in a moment. Yeah. And one of the biggest, like I was talking about these soft design philosophies work on they're getting harder, but like one of the ones that we have is that convenience is not the goal

I mean and so many people everything a big tech tries to make things more convenient They try to make you more powerful faster better quicker, whatever Like there's a balance that we are pulling in the other direction of patience and intentional inconveniences I mean if you think about eating healthy It's a pain you have to go shop for groceries, cook for yourself, pay more money at restaurants. I mean, it takes research as opposed to just running through a drive through. And so that cost is something that we want to start bringing into technology as we're thinking about it and making intentional inconvenience hurdles to make it.

It's appropriate. Make tech live in its appropriate space in our life. And so having to go to your computer and drag and drop an MP3 file, which is probably hard to find nowadays, being honest, that's intentionally inconvenient. And that could be a scapegoat for, oh, we're building tech the lazy way, it's not. It's us saying, this is what we believe is the proper mix

of not being endless consumers or doom scrolling or listening perpetually or just getting sucked in, which is that's just a different design assumption that we're building from. I love that analogy to food. You know, I think a lot of people who are watching right now, if I was to ask them like, when's the last time you enjoyed a good book and read it the whole way through. I think a lot of us would be embarrassed. And it's the analogy I would use is, you know, when this has happened to me as a kid, like my parents who I love, but, you know, those and I don't fault them for this,

but there was always unhealthy food at the ready. There was there was crisps and chocolate and coke in the fridge and things like this all the time. It was always accessible. And then they would actually say to us, when you bloody eat an apple, eat a banana. Don't you know Jordan, your cousin, he likes bananas. Like that was going to help me.

But why would I, why the hell would I eat a half bruised apple or a dodgy looking banana when I have this? But in seeing my family, because of my wife's health issues, she has to be very intentional about the food she eats. And since she does the shopping and the cooking, we eat healthy. And my kids happen to eat apples and bananas, all of that. And I'm like, OK, that makes sense. So just like it's a lot more difficult to eat healthy when you have a bunch of crap at the ready, it's a lot more difficult to live a beautiful, intentional life.

Reading books, you've always said you wanted to read when you've got crap at the ready. Like, how do you begin to even contemplate reading Lord of the Rings or War at Peace when you have your phone vibrating the latest Twitter response to you 24 seven? Yeah. Yeah. And I think inconvenience really does create margin. And I hope you don't mind me sharing, but we were sitting in your living room last night and you were reading Lord of the Rings to us. I've sat in so many people's living rooms

and watched YouTube clips that they found funny or something that was extremely interesting. Yeah. Yeah. Just any of that type of stuff, right? But to sit in your living room with your family and your enormous dog and, and to hear you read a passage that is so emotional and meaningful to you, and just to sit and listen. Like Chris said it earlier, that's not something we could have scripted. That's not something we could have planned on, but it was a beautiful moment that allowed us

to connect with you and know you in such an intimate way that just going, hey, let's look to somebody else to entertain or let's do this or that, that we just lose and we miss. And that's a memory that I will cherish, we will cherish in a way that just when you're so prescriptive and focused on convenience, it's just very rhythmic or it tends to be.

And when you're inconvenienced, it does create margin to say, okay, what do we do in this space? What do we do in the unknown? And how can we really live that out fully? Yeah, when I got the wise phone and I took my month off the Internet, I had to go down to Savannah to meet Ryan Foley to talk about the upcoming podcast we're going to do against pornography. I think it's going to be called Victory, everybody. It's going to be massive. Buckle up.

Can't wait. But yeah, while I was there, I stayed at a hotel and I needed to get a ride to the airport. And so I had to go down to the fellow at the front desk and be like, um, taxi still exists, right? Yeah. Okay. I need a number of a taxi. And so he gave me a number and I had to call up a taxi place and they were like, you know,

we'll be there in like 15 minutes, 15 minutes, you know? And then of course I get in the taxi and I get to my destination and I got to pay for it. So I got to pull out a credit. These are very odd experiences to somebody who's used to using Uber. That was inconvenient. So, as you say, like, yeah, your life will become inconvenienced in ways that you don't want it to.

And yet the inconveniences of being perpetually distracted will begin to dissipate and choosing one inconvenience over another is something you might find life-giving that I have. Yeah. Yeah. And one of the paradigms and one of the frameworks we have is I have this pyramid that I draw a picture of, right? And on the bottom is things that are just absolutely convenient, digital, quick, rapid. I mean, it's like a thumbs up on a, you know, like this YouTube video. Boom. That took how much effort mentally? Less than half a second.

Okay. That was a quick interaction and it works its way up to digital to a phone call. Takes a little bit more effort. Text message, phone call, all the way up to face to face interaction. And it's this pyramid. And the higher up you go, the more cost there is. I mean, for us to come to this podcast interview, I've done 15 podcast interviews, most of them were digital, but this is so much better.

It's so good. But there's a cost to this. Sit across from each other. I'm gonna fly here, book a hotel, like all this stuff, but that cost is absolutely worth it. And so we're like starting to push, our goal is to push people up that relational hierarchy as much as we possibly can as time goes on and with that comes a richer life in a sense and so we're going towards face to face but

knowing that it just takes time it takes money to do that yeah all of us are gonna have to pay something yeah you're gonna have to pay the cost of being perpetually distracted and restless and anxious or you can pay not having the immediate convenience and having to get a taxi. Yeah well I mean and you're talking about waiting 15 minutes for a taxi I mean if you think about it Jesus he moved at three miles an hour. He walked everywhere. He never once as far as I know he didn't write anything down. The medium that he used was entirely 100 percent the air

between him and the other people. And if he could change the world doing only that, then we can too. And that's been this guiding philosophy. I mean, just we don't have to do all this stuff that we think that we need to do. Tech saving devices end up not saving us time at all. I had a fellow called Joseph Pierce on the show yesterday, and he pointed out something that we all know is true. Now, we used to work 40 hour weeks.

Now we work 24, seven hour weeks in the sense that if a colleague texts you or emails you on Sunday, there's no excuse for you not to respond. Like, why wouldn't you? You have the device. And it was a difficult thing. I think one of the most difficult things for me, going from an iPhone to a wise phone, I even changed my number just so I didn't have to. That's how, that's how.

I mean, how it's kind of rude. It's kind of rude. You know, like, I don't mean to be rude, but I was just like, I think I said it to you. I had given my old number to every human being I had met for more than five minutes over the last 15 years. And so anyone could always get in touch with me. And'm like I just I don't want to do this anymore. So I got a new number and I texted my new number to say 25 people tops I think on my old iPhone

who I live life with in the day to day. But then just realizing that people were going to be texting me and I wasn't going to be responding that was I was I felt bad about that because I don't like people feeling bad things about me Actually that that was a difficult thing. That was probably the most difficult thing to overcome, but it it was it was worth it I think yeah I mean you're shifting to meaningful relationships and in the lie of social media is that you can have meaningful relationships with someone a thousand Yeah, exactly. So when people say to me like someone might live in another part of the country they're Like what's your number? I'll say to them actually email works better

Because I mean for goodness sake I mean else we call them we call them phones But they are essentially small computers we call it text message But it's become email that the two have blurred into each other anyway So being able to say to people actually email works better means I'm not on call 24-7. I don't have a laptop at home I don't have a computer at home. I don't have a computer at home I actually don't it's cool. The only thing I have is that computer you're seeing there. That's my only computer So I have to come to the office to open up my email to respond to people And it's yeah, that's just me flexing

I guess but it's it's it's but it's it's flexing from a guy who has less self-control than anybody watching Well, and it's it's an amazing decision, right? Because what is more loving for you to give 10% to a thousand people or for you to give, you know, 80% or 100% to the people in your life that really matter? Because that's what I find. My wife and I have this conversation all the time where I feel overextended, where it's just like, all right, this and this and this and that. And I'm really not giving my best.

And on the car ride home, I'm like, I felt off tonight. I felt like I was distracted. I didn't feel like I was here. And it's like, well, what good is it at that point? Why don't we take that time and say email is better so that when we do come in and make that intentional decision to sit at the computer, you're fully invested. You're giving that person your best.

And it's not just, hey, I'm getting inundated all day long. When we were flying up here, one of the things I saw on the airport blew my mind. It was this pod in the airport right by the gate and it was a box, a metal box that you could pay eight dollars for 15 minutes to sit in, connect to the internet and call or whatever you know remote to get work done in a sense and you're paying to disconnect from this reality to connect to some other reality a thousand miles away. I mean, it was just interesting.

It's kind of in my mind, this image of where tech is headed. It's like, we're trying to live in this abstract sense and not right here. And it's just this interesting thing. What are your thoughts on the metaverse? You want to open the can of worms? Yes, I do. Throw them on the table.

What do you know about metaverse? My very limited understanding is that Facebook, an initiative by Facebook, in which people can essentially live in an online space and engage with other avatars who are people around the world and do certain things like play games and go shopping and buy crap that doesn't exist for some reason and even have religious services. And it's essentially an alternate reality.

That's my understanding. Is that accurate? I'm too cool to know the details. So that's all I know. Does that sound right? That sounded good to me. Kind of vague idea of that at this point. Okay, yeah.

But that's where we're headed. I mean, that's, I mean, there's no way this isn't the next thing. Have you seen Ready Player One? Uh, no, I've seen it. What is it? Oh, it is, it is the metaverse lived out. It's basically a sci-fi movie, but it's like imagine ten years from now and it's like people live in virtual reality.

I mean, they, they, they, at great cause, it's a perfect movie to get insight into the dynamics of what we're headed into. Is it glorifying that meta reality or is it showing the pitfalls of it? Both, probably the pitfalls, I would say. Because in the movie, people have completely, they sacrifice so many things in real reality

to live in virtual. I mean, an example is there's a guy who mortgages his house and loses it just so he can buy some digital item, sword or something that he can claim some big prize and be this huge God in a sense in the metaverse. This is why death exists. We have to die or else we become like that. That's unreal.

That's ridiculous. And our friend, or who we become like that. That's unreal. That's ridiculous. Yeah. And our friend, or who has become a really good friend, Andy Crouch, who wrote the book, TechWise Family, some people may be familiar. He really challenged us last week because he's really thinking through this broader concept, like you mentioned, and he made just such an outstanding point

that we serve a God who created the material world and called it good. And now we're trying to put everything in a virtual reality and in a virtual- And the color of Babel. Yeah, exactly. Yeah, the tower, yeah. And so it's just, it's looking at that and saying, yes, we understand the impact of sin on the world

and we understand that dynamic. But I don't think it's coincidence that everything is turning virtual, right? Everybody who's watching, their net worth is largely virtual. Like how much cash do you have in your pocket right now? Like how much of it is actually liquid? Yeah.

You know, how much of your photos are in a digital capacity? How much, and now, how many of your friends are in a digital capacity exclusively? How much of your life is lived in a digital capacity? Like the Lord made the material and it is good. Yeah, and I was talking about this with Joseph Pierce yesterday, that as we distance ourselves from the real,

we mute God's voice and demands upon our lives, you know? And I think atheism is no doubt going to skyrocket as we distance ourselves from what is real. What I was thinking the other day, though, that's kind of sad is once the metaverse gets off and running, just like there's Christians now me who are making their and I feel very ambivalent about this, but my, my, my income, you know, this whole thing that we're doing online. And I justify it by saying, by the way, I get the irony. I totally get the irony that I'm on YouTube.

That's why I've said in the past, like if your only options are quit the internet and read good books, then you should choose that and stop listening to Pines with Aquinas. That said, if you're going to be here, I'm very happy to have you and I think this is perhaps more edifying than most of the content you'll find. But I just had this horrifying thought the other day that there's going to be Christians who make their incomes in the metaverse. And there may even be missionaries who walk around digital spaces and talk about Jesus. Oh, God, save us.

Come back, Jesus. Come back. We can't go there. That's going to be the worst. But if and I just think to myself, gosh, if you're a missionary in the metaverse, I'd mock it, albeit in like 10 years, then then then if your first call isn't break your headset, then you're not doing a good job. And but then I think, OK, but then you should be saying that at the Internet. And I maybe I should.

And so that scares me. I don't know how to I don't know how to think that through. I don't know how to I don't know where the line is. Well, and I think, you know, real quick, I think one thing, too, that's interesting about the wise phone dynamic is part of my story as to why I wanted to come and work for the company was my own personal experience and what I wanted to come and work for the company was my own personal experience and what I want to build and leave for my children. But it's also hearing

stories like what Chris shared about his foster daughters. And there's an element of that that you're exactly right, where it's like, hey, if we see that the metaverse is better than life lived in community with real people that live down the street or around the corner, then shame on us. Like, some of this decision to scale back is really a call to action for those around you that the Lord has created you to be in community with and to impact and to engage with. And so it's like, hey, if we can throw that aside and put on the goggles and go into the metaverse with no qualms and no hesitation, kind of shame on us for living like this, right? And I think that there's an element, there's a communal element to this as well of saying it's not

just about me and my family, although that's where our minds tend to go to, but it's also about what is the broader context that I've been called to live in and where am I neglecting that community and engagement that I ought to be doubling down in? Because then it's going to drive people to the metaverse to be with avatars of people they never have met and then we'll have Matt Fradd on the mission field in the metaverse Kill people in the metaverse See me as a missionary With a beer Stein shoot me in my face. Yeah, and if I respawn do it again That would be I think more effective than me cutting and pasting with my eyeballs scripture

quotes and shooting them at you through the metaverse. Let's see, Traden Dixie says, what is the best strategy to balance? This is kind of appropriate at this point. To balance digital minimalism while also ensuring your children are at least tech savvy enough to be relevant. Okay, so this, yeah, yeah, this is a good objection, which I think is easily responded to. You hear people say things like that. Like, why my kids, what do we do?

Just like it's not it's not a dumb objection. I think it's a good objection. I'll read it. Sorry. At least tech savvy enough to be relevant in the job market one day. Even tradesmen need some level of technological prowess to compete in this age for better or worse. I'm 100% for this initiative but struggling how I'm going to tackle this issue with my kids when they're a bit older. Great question. Your thoughts.

Well, I kind of want to hear your thoughts. You were like, oh, this is so straightforward. Sorry. So I think I'm just reading these comments as they come in from my supporters. So I hadn't read it ahead of time. So I think the question was actually an excellent one. The reason I may have rolled my eyes was because I thought the question was going in a different direction. Because when I got up and I, you know, for years, I spoke to about 70 to a hundred, not a hundred, but I'd say about 50 to 70,000 people a year

on the problem of pornography. And when I would tell parents, like porn is killing your kids, and they would justify their children having technology by saying well how are they going to learn to use it. I thought that was a bad objection because I think that children it's not going to take them long to figure things out almost immediately in a way it doesn't for parents but I do see the objection and I'm not saying that we ought to bury our children in a bunker

although I'm open to the argument until they're 21 to then introduce technology. I think one of the things that wise phone does well is okay once your child is like whatever you know I don't know but you have to make the decision for your own family for us it was when my child was 14 we gave them, you know, a phone like this, a dumb looking smartphone so that they can, you know, learn how to regulate their use of technology in appropriate way. So our rule is even though my kid has a dumb phone, he can't take it to his room. Even that. And but he's been great in doing that. So, yeah, I think like you want to kind of give your children,

help them develop that discipline that they need, yeah, I think like you want to kind of give your children, help them develop that discipline that they need as opposed to you will not watch any television or computer. Now it's time for college by I mean, we all see that that wouldn't work. Well, so what are your thoughts? Well, I mean, okay, children are like arrows, right? It's our job as parents to point them in direction release pull back and then let go. And so what I mean, seriously, we're supposed to let go of them. And then they're on their own. And if they start screwing stuff up, it's kind

of our fault, it's kind of their fault. I mean, I don't know, it's a common... But what can we do? I mean, that's the heart of this question, right? What can we do to set them up for what they should be doing, what God set them out to do. And I always think, I think of technology and I think of it the same way that I think of money. In a sense, if you compare these two, what they are when you distill them down, they're just pure power. I mean, money, you can go and just do

whatever the heck you want to do with money. You can buy, you can make things happen in the world, meaningful stuff. Technology is that as well. If you're the Luddite and super Amish and you can't do anything, you have less power. You can go and affect the world less meaningfully. And then if you have access to everything and all this stuff, then you have tremendous power. And so how do you think, and parents, and this is kind of a fledgling conversation in a sense, but parents think about how do I introduce my kids to money?

You start with allowances and you start working your way up and you start having those conversations and it's over years and as you release power to them in the form of giving them money, you are intentional about it. You give them, you help them pay for their new car or whatever that looks like. You have a plan for that, most loving parents do. And so just think about the big picture of you're going to release them into this world and question the idea. I mean, so many parents think, hey, I want my kid to go and make a bunch of money. I think we would question that assumption. No, I don't want them to go far in the world. I want them to be holy.

Exactly. So, I mean, it's all question that assumption as well. How much power is proper for your kids regarding technology as far as their lifestyle? Yeah, you don't want them to be irrelevant, but at the same time, if you set your kid up to be a billionaire, you've ruined them on some capacity. Yeah. And so it's possible that your kid could probably make a handsome annual salary through TikTok, but why the hell would you give your kid TikTok? Like that's a terrible reason to give you a kid TikTok. You know what I mean? Which I think is the interesting kind of second part

to your friend's question, where it's like, if you ask anybody with any level of technical competency, like in high school or in college, where do they want to work? It's Google, it's Apple, it's Amazon, right? Maybe Tesla, something like that, right? So what if we actually took those kids, and this is something that's really near and dear

to Chris's heart, Chris and I's heart, is let's get them creating, let's get them building businesses, let's get them thinking differently about how technology can be used for the benefit of mankind, for the benefit of others, because you have so many incredible people that are just feeding the machine of some of what we would say is not particularly good. So what if they got those skills, what if they took online coding classes and all of these things, develop that competency and went and used that knowledge base to not create the metaverse, but to create whatever the next big thing is in 20 years that can really be morally guided as much as technology can to bless others.

One way I'm going to try to do that, and none of this is perfect, but my mate, Jacob Imam, who works at New Pauly, is starting a wood working shop here. I got to introduce you to him before you all go. I'm going to help my son set up an Etsy store and he's going to create different wooden things. Like we'll start with checkers boards and checker boards and things like that, that I will help him then sell. But there's that personal talent element along with the financial

what you say incentive you know it's also more of a personal thing clint collins has a question he says can you send texts from a wise phone to an email address like if someone texts you a link that you want to open could you forward it to your own email i know the answer but that's a good question what's the answer yeah you can't do, could you forward it to your own email? I know the answer, but that's a good question. What's the answer? Yeah, I know. You can't do it, can you? You should know. I hope you know. Not that I'm aware of.

You guys work for Wisephone, right? I think so. You can't do it. Probably not anymore. Techless doesn't enable that, but if you're hacky enough, you can make up your own receive text. Oh, interesting. Type number that receives text. So here's a question.

That's outside of our. If you're techie enough. Can you look at porn on the wisephone? Lying is a sin go. No, not possible. No. Alexander Gross says, what are some ways that someone could use social media and various apps to our advantage as Christians to spread the message rather

than shying away from it? I think you model this extremely well. You know, I think that your content and the things that you're passionate about get posted to social media, but you're not sitting at home consumed by it. You're not reading, you know, the comments and looking for likes

and doing whatever else people do. I mean, I think that's a fantastic way is to set clear boundaries and to engage with it in just a very small format to, you know, kind of communicate the value that you see in using that platform. What do you think? Any thoughts? Man, I don't want to be a curmudgeon. No, be a curmudgeon. That's my favorite kind of person.

What are some ways that someone could use social media and various apps to our advantages, Catholics? Yeah, it's, I mean, so like I got off social media for three years ago. I listened to an episode by Matt Walsh, Catholics. Yeah, it's I mean, so like I got off social media. For three years ago, I listened to an episode by Matt Walsh, actually, and he was like lamb pruning social media and what it's doing to us. I'm like, yeah, he's exactly right. And from that point on, I gave it was probably irresponsible, but I hired someone, gave them my passwords and told them to change them. It was probably really bad. But yes, I don't I. But yeah, so I don't

go on. I don't have access to it. But I want people to know about these shows because I think they benefit people's lives. I want to lead people closer to Jesus Christ. I'm convinced that these shows do that because we get emails every day from people converting. So I am in that sense sort of using social media, but I'm having other people post. Yeah, I mean, I think there's value in the body of Christ holistically, just like there's different forms of individual expression of faith. I think there's value in believers being on social media to some degree. But as my life has progressed and as I've thought about it and meditated on it and read

scripture, I keep gravitating further and further and further away from digital and more and more and more towards face to face and trusting that one meaningful conversation in five minutes can make a much more profound impact than a million likes. And so again, I don't want to be a curmudgeon and say that there's not a place for this. I've seen some really cool things and you can anchor to those stories and use those to justify something more meaningful, but I'm starting to just really double down on very intentional community, face-to-face, fewer people, smaller, deeper relationships.

I mean, Jesus changed the world with 12 disciples. That was it. I mean, he spoke every now and then to a group of 5,000, but that was it. That was really the impetus of his ministry, and I'm trusting that there's value there. I also think there's way too much about changing the world instead of changing yourself.

Yes. You know, like for goodness sake, the last thing I want is you changing the world. Have you met you? You're awful, you know? Whereas instead, like what if I chose not to be a lustful, greedy, arrogant, what was the word I used recently, you xorious fellow and instead tried to love my bride and children

and those around me and, you know, you know. Thomas, I never know how to say his name. You have to let me know. Thomas Goetz or gets who is a supporter and therefore a wonderful and very handsome human being says on a scale from when this gets to what we're saying on a scale from one to ten one being omish man I kind of wish I was omish I know it's easy to fantasize that I'm sure it's not as good as it looks on a scale from one to ten one being omish and ten being a cyborg with part of your brain being connected

to the internet where do you think disciples of Christ belong we are connected to family and friends and great apologetics to the internet. Where do you think Disciples of Christ belong? We are connected to family and friends and great apologetics through the internet. I found interest in the Catholic Church in mid-Michigan through a YouTube channel by an Australian guy. Oh, stop it. In Ohio. Can you send us the link? It might not be me. Can we get the link to that show? Would it be funny if it wasn't me? I was guided to R.C.I.A. That's the right of Christian initiation for adults through a video app run by a guy from California. There's certainly a great deal of good being done through technology and the Internet. So that's good. It's good to hear this pushback.

And if I if I if I speak to aggressively against it, I think I'm just trying to bend the stick back the other way. Aristotle talks about that, like if you're engaged in a particular vice, I think I'm just trying to bend the stick back the other way. Aristotle talks about that. Like if you're engaged in a particular vice, then you don't want to just start kind of, you know, acting. Well, you want to kind of go the other way. So, for example, if someone's struggling with pornography and it would generally speaking, all things being equal, be appropriate to watch certain television shows that may allude to the sexual act or romantic relationships

You might decide for a time to be under no circumstances Not just while I watch those shows, but I'm not gonna watch TV. So bending the stick back is helpful That's perhaps what I'm doing, but feel free. I like I appreciate the pushback So there's a good great deal of good being done through technology in the internet There is where's the where's this? where's the line is what he's asking. One being Amish, 10 being a cyborg. There is. And I mean, this is the nuance. And I appreciate the art of the question, because honestly, the truth is,

is the theology of technology is extremely underdeveloped. The conversation around it. I mean, and you could take examples in church history, go back to what it means to be a monk. At a season there, that was an underdeveloped conversation. And then writing came out and thought leaders came out and there was a lot of processing and collaboration to firming up and understanding that. We're kind of in that right now because technology has happened to us. Now we're processing it. And so that question perfectly embodies the tension. And there's a tension and I think there are answers.

And the truth is, is the books on the theology of technology are being written right now. Like, I've got a pre-release book I'm reading right now that Andrew Crouch wrote. There's another guy that, I mean, that the definitive theology of technology is being written right now, and so we're asking ourselves constantly this question about it, and I don't think it's a simple answer. I don't think it is a one. I don't think it is a ten.

It's situational. Yeah, I kind of think what we're trying to do here is to at least invite all of us to wrestle, to not too quickly dismiss us as Luddites, but to wrestle with the question and to come up with an appropriate solution. Like we're not saying to you if you have an iPhone, you're a bad Christian. No one said that.

No, I'm not saying that. I don't think that at all. Okay, so we're not I'm not trying to tell anybody what to do. I really just want us to grapple with this question in an honest way without becoming too quickly defensive. Yeah, and that's the beauty. Honestly, the beauty is the nuance. I mean, if you look at what's happening today in the political world and everything,

everything gets polarized and it's a one or it's a 10. And it's just like this division. And that just makes a mess and it oversimplifies stuff. And that's why I like long form podcast content because we can dive into the weeds and start splitting this and start deciphering and putting language around things and start actually beginning to understand it.

And so maybe there's a range between two and eight, depending on the situation, Ecclesiastes, there's a time for this, there's a time for this. And it's situational based. And there's theology. I mean, you go into, okay, Cain and Abel, right? They both pioneered technology. One did livestock.

That was the very first ever livestock, right? And the other one pioneered technology. One did livestock. That was the very first ever livestock, right? And the other one pioneered agriculture. Okay. I'm making stuff in the ground grow. Okay. Well, both of them created something and then both of them presented it to the Lord and one was rejected. Why?

I mean, they were both equal level of innovation. It had to do something with their heart and the posture of how they brought it to the Lord. And one was pleasing and one wasn't. And they could, you could probably swap the brothers the Lord and one was pleasing and one wasn't And they could you could probably swap the brothers and have this one doing that and this one doing the other And it probably would have been rejected still the same the results might have been the same Which tells me that the intention of the creators matter Yes, and God looks at something deeper than the semantics of are you Android or?

Yeah, yeah, yeah just just to reiterate, like no one's telling you, the listener, what to do here. I'm not telling you what to do at all. And I just want me to wrestle with it, you know? And I'm continually wrestling with it. Like I'm holding an iPad while I talk to you. Like I'm aware of what's happening here. I transcribe my notes from the computer to the paper.

You're way cooler than me. That's way cooler. But like this iPad has been thoroughly locked down and it and it allows me certain apps so that I can communicate with my patrons and my local supporters. But I can't access the internet through this, you know, and maybe one day I can. But the point is, I mean, I'm trying to wrestle with this in a way that benefits clients with equinus and that shows love to my supporters. But we all have to kind of try to find to find that because what's the alternative?

The alternative is literally just to go with the flow that big tech has you in. That's it. That's what you can do. Or you can try to be a little bit more critical and make certain decisions that might make your life more free, more beautiful. Yeah. And that's why we use the term redeem, not remove. Right. As we want to take a look at this and find a way to redeem the engagements that we have. Your iPad example is fantastic. And if you look back over church history, you don't want Christians coming out of the

public arenas. You don't want them just to go and run and head to the hills. You want people to engage, but how can we do it in a redemptive way? Yeah, that's good. I mean, you see it with money. I mean, there's a big movement right now of faith-based investment that's kind of budding as well in a similar space of investors with money saying, hey, how can I invest this in a way that's not just buying some random stock of some company? I don't know anything or a portfolio, but you were talking about this on your podcast, a bucket of stocks that has a bunch of questionable ethical stuff

Yeah, it's they're asking that question of how can I do it better? That's what exact worth the same precipice of how can we do it? Yeah, and and it takes time and infrastructure I mean to create a bucket of equities. That's glorifying to God is not easy. You can't just do it that we're in that same place Yeah, yeah, like the wrestling with it does take mental energy But it's benefit beneficial in mental energy, but it's beneficial in the long run because it's exhausting. I mean, I think most of us have maybe we haven't and I shouldn't put this in other people, but I've had the experience. I go somewhere, maybe I give a presentation, I go back to

my hotel room and I'm spent and I feel good about what I've just done and I got the laptop lid open up on my chest, The glow of the office is shining on my face. And then I even open up another tab. So now I'm not watching the thing I thought I wanted to watch. Now I'm scrolling through something and I'm texting someone. So I'm like texting while looking at Twitter while listening to the office. This is not enjoyable. It's distracting, which feels similar because it numbs your pain.

But then at the end of it, when you shut the laptop lid, you just feel kind of icky. And that wasn't leisure. That was dissociation. You know. Yeah. Let's see, Kyle Whittington says, are Chris and John going to match your offer to smash your iPhone and get a free wise phone for one to two people? You really should do that, like as a marketing strategy, like through your social media say we like five people to smash their phones film it.

We'll give you a free one. Makes great advertising. So who's this Kyle? This is Kyle Whittington. Kyle. All right. If he smashes his his iPhone, we'll send him a wise phone. Bring it on.

All right. There you go. Kyle. It has been laid down. We need proof. Kyle. Okay. So here's what you can do. We're going to, we lay this down now that you've thrown that out. Kyle, if you video yourself, that's going to be difficult since you're smashing your phone, but if you use somebody else's phone to smash your phone and you, Kyle Whittington email assistant at mattfrad.com, um,

give us the proof of it. Wise phone will send you a free wisephone. Is that correct? And I'll do him one better. I'll give him one to give to a friend. Wow. Look at that. Man. Kyle. Well done. Just so you know, it was a well-timed comment. It was a very well-timed kale. They are going to get two free phones. There you go. Now, here's the thing. If I start, if my assistant, Melanie, starts getting a ton of emails from videos, videos and smash phones, you won't necessarily get one. This only pertains to Kyle and his friend.

But oh, look at this. Oh my gosh, this is hilarious. He just wrote back. He said, I already did that at the conference. This is the guy. All right, so now we need to choose somebody else. We've got two free wise phones that we are going to send out. They're on the table, the metaphorical table, which we're going to send out so that the

next one of you patrons, or local supporters who says, you're willing to do it, all right, we're gonna have to, this is fun, man, we're gonna do this right now, let's see, anyone? I will just preach a word of caution, be wise in how you smash your phone. Chris smashed his phone and broke all of the tile underneath of his phone, so.

Tell us about that. I mean, it's actually on your channel. If you go back and watch your Christmas ad. That little one minute clip. Yeah there's a one minute clip of smash your iPhone for Christmas and the the tile underneath smashes in as many pieces as the phone screen did and that is my fireplace at my house but it's totally worth it. So was it okay just real quick so if you are a local supporter or a patreon right where I've told you to give us questions, the next commenter who says they're willing

to smash their phone and you will send me that footage via email, you'll get two free wise phones. There you go. So I'm scrolling and I'll let you know who it is. But in the meantime, tell us how that happened. That may was your wife's phone. Did you ask her if you could smash it? No, we like, what did you, how did that?

Just grabbed it. No, you didn submit. What did you have that? Just just grabbed it. No, you didn't. Did you? I mean, we have I have like a drawer of like 40 phones. You testing hardware constantly. So I've played with them all. I've gone through like eight phones myself in the last three years.

So just eight or nine. Just goofing around. What was what's been one because when we posted that video, we got a ton of comments. And I wrote to you guys, I'm like, you guys might want to field some of these. What are some good objections that you've heard to maybe your particular phone that you need, it needs to get better at, or just maybe getting rid of your

smartphone in general. What are some good objections to that that you've heard that we haven't addressed already? So there's kind of a couple, couple categories. Category one is this is hard. Like, and so we get returns from people that actually didn't count the cost of what it actually takes to do this.

And so they get it and they're like, oh wow, like this is, you know, there's a convenience hurdle. And so that's, I mean, there's all, we could talk a long time about that, but just reconciling the expectations. All right, we got one real quick. I'm sorry to cut you off, but I just don't want everybody thinking they're gonna get two phones. No way, there's a lot we could talk a long time about that, but just reconciling. All right, we got one real quick. I'm sorry to cut you off, but I just don't want everybody thinking they're going to get. No way. That's amazing. Clint Collins is a, he's been a supporter

of points to the class for a long time. Beautiful dude, beautiful family. He is going to smash his phone and get two free phones. Is that correct? Clint, let me know that that's what you want to do. And there you go. And you know, me, I think you have my number or my email at least. So just you could email me and I'll, uh, I'll, I'll make sure you know. Yeah. I'll put you in touch. I'm sorry to cut you off. Yeah.

So there's that whole category. And honestly, that's not something we can change. That's just inevitable. No matter what. I mean, two years from now, we're going to be selling wise phones and people are not going to like, there's not, I mean, it's like, it's like when you start a gym membership, it's just, you got to lift weights and it's hard. And it's just like, it's, that's just the reality of it. Okay. So there's one aspect, but the one that, that, um, that I want to

be very honest about, um, is that we are a startup and we started with a set budget, set number of people. We are not Apple with the billion dollar development team. And the truth is, is the experience is less delightful than I would like for it to be. That's the best way to describe it. And it's manifested itself in bugs, or the animation doesn't go as quickly as I want. There's little rough edges to the experience,

and we have a vision for something that is different than that, I'll just say it, and we have grown. If you tried Wisephone a year and a half ago, versus a year ago, versus six months ago, ago versus now versus the one that we gave you. I was just going to say that if you don't mind. Yeah, I mean, this is your second version of hardware. Is that correct?

Yeah, you we had sushi last night and you you got me got me a phone and I will say this is incredibly fluid and it significantly better to the one you gave me at first. Yeah, the last one I'd click messages and it one you gave me at first. The last one I'd click messages and it would take a second, not even a second, but like half a second. But this is really good. Well, and those milliseconds matter is the best way to describe it. And I mean, and I best way to describe it,

there's just this, you can't even identify it, but just some nuance, tiny stuff, stuff that we're thinking about perpetually as how to delight users. I mean, we're working on, we want to sometime this year overhaul animations to just make the phone just animate in cool little subtle ways. You may not even see it, but it's just something tiny that adds up to a delightful experience. And so we are working on that. We're aware of it. And I think if you follow the trend of where Wyze phone has been, it's been really cool to see the progress, But as of now, we're not there. But the cool thing is is we're making progress

So that's one thing that I would just say We're give us some grace. I guess we're a startup and we are an Apple and people have Apple s expectations That's right. I mean, it's kind of like Amazon employees. Do they have working on their phones? Yeah I mean, you know, so it's like Amazon, people buy stuff on Amazon and it gets there in a day. Exactly. 24 hours. You can't have the same expectation if you're going to buy from some bookstore in Michigan. So we're dealing with that. Yeah. Billion dollar expectations.

But we're not backing down from the challenge. It just takes time. And so we're working on it. And I think I have great hope and we have made massive progress. Yeah. People are just new to this and you want to look up the wise phone and get see the details on it click a link in the description and Yeah, check it out and if you use frad by the way I don't get any financial back back from this if you just I'm doing this

I really believe it'll bless your life. That is actually what I think So you use the promo code frad you you'll get $40 off your wise phone. Before we go further, though, speaking of making money, I do want to say thank you to Hello, who is a sponsor of this show. Hello is a wonderful prayer and meditation app that will help you grow in your relationship with the Lord. So if you do have a phone and you're experiencing anxiety from it, you couldn't get better than Hello. Hello.com slash Matt Fradd. Hello.com slash Matt Fradd. There's a link in the description below for you to check it out. It'll lead you in meditations. It'll lead you in the Holy Rosary. It has these different things like daily reflections from the Gospels with Jeff Kavens, Jonathan Rumi,

morning psalm with Bishop Barron. You know, so you can spend a few minutes just listening to scripture, praying, you can even do Bible in a year and it'll just kind of give you notifications and it's beautifully done. And I would, I would highly recommend that if you want to grow in your prayer life, whether you're Protestant or Catholic, go to hello.com slash Matt Fred, hello.com slash Matt Fred. If you just download the app to Android or iPhone, you'll get certain things free on it, but there's a ton more kind of behind the paywall. So if you go to hello.com slash Matt Fred and sign up that way, you'll get a, I think it's a month or three months, I forget, free.

So you can try the entire thing out first. One thing I'm starting to use this for is to play sleep stories to my kids at night. Um, so they listened to the scripture kind of read by father Mike Schmitz and different things like that. It's really excellent. Hello. H a l l o w.com slash Matt. Fradd. Check them out. Hello.com slash Matt. Fradd. What else did you have on that glorious notebook that you wanted to discuss? Okay. I got to show you this. It's a great notebook too, but thank you. Thank you. I got a piece of mail. Okay. And I think it it I want you to look at it and tell me what you think of this. I'm just curious All right

I'm I'm looking just so people know I'm looking at a little thing that seems like it goes over your door handle It's arrived in my mailbox Friday, and I pulled it out and it was actually a interesting moment It's girl scout cookie time all cookies are five dollars per package Okay, and then it tells you all the different ones. What am I missing? And then there's a scan me at the bottom. Is that what you wanted me to say? The QR code? Okay, and that was in our mailbox.

So the expectation of this flyer is that I go with my smartphone, scan the code, buy cookies. You don't even get to have that nice interaction with the girls at your door. I never talked to her. And it makes me, this is the world that we're headed towards. I mean if you think about what this is it's 100% transactional. It's Uber Eats for Girl Scouts. What's the purpose of this? The purpose of this is to make money. Yes. And they could

plash to the whole town, 2,000 people, you could literally plash to the whole town in four hours. That's the town of Shiner and it's extremely transactional zero relationship And I asked what's the purpose of selling Girl Scout cookies? And I don't want to be a jerk here, but but like I sold Boy Scout popcorn I'm an Eagle Scout, you know and like what the value of that who cares about the money it was about Having to be a salesman and sweating it out with it Yeah having to have those interactions with adults and comport yourself well and be polite and that was the value of it. And so, I mean, I really think that this is kind of an icon in a sense of where the world's headed and just this transactional relation list. It's

about money and that's not the point of this. And we kind of miss the oversight, you know, it's excellent. Yeah. It's just, yeah, it's an icon in my mind. Yeah. Yeah good good insight there anything else you want to address Apple Apple. Did you hear this week? They released I don't even know if I want to mention this They released a pregnant person Emoji, oh god have mercy. Yeah. Yes a man men can't be pregnant Apple But yeah, the pregnant emoji was a dude. I mean, I thought he was just like me, like just a bit fat. But no, no, I don't think that was the point.

But the question I have to ask is, is that misinformation? Yes, of course it is. It is? Yes. Like why? It's misinformation because men can't become pregnant. If you want to say that's misinformation. I'm not saying it should be banned. I'm just saying it's.

It's it's as fake as the unicorn emoji. Yeah. So how do you feel about emojis in general? Like just I don't like them. I think that emojis are sort of like, well, they make us poorer writers. I mean, if you write well, you give the impression you wish to give through the text that you you put out. But text is meant for quick things. So it's it's it's kind of reverting from the intellect to the feeling

like a nice little smiley face at the end of my my thing, you know. Now, I don't agree. OK, I think Matt Walsh was being a little tongue in cheek when he did this. So I think he was there was a obviously there was some sense in which he was being serious and I don't agree with this, but I did think it was funny. This is a tweet, you know, Matt Walsh is. Oh, yeah. He said every and I try to imagine this in a gravelly deep voice. Every day I see more grown adult men using emojis

There is no excuse for this emojis are for children and women Do you think your great-grandfather would have been caught dead using emojis if the internet existed back then have some self-respect for God's sake I love how shy that is. Don't you? I like how you quoted him to say what you really believe, but you didn't have to I don't I don't I disagree with that like if he's actually being serious I disagree with that I think it's okay to send an emoji but like there's a sense in which it kind of dumbs us down even further like smiley face instead of maybe expressing in text. So if you had carte blanche authority and actually asked the

audience this too would you do emojis? I didn't realize that this is what you were getting to. Oh no. It's this conundrum. So just with Wisephone, we were talking to a guy that created Apple Mouse. You don't have it on there now, do you? No. We were talking to the guy that created Apple Mouse and we said, hey, should we release this blank new,

I'm not gonna tell you feature on Wisephone? And he goes, you know, it is very hard to make Wisephone. It's very easy to lose it philosophically, and it's impossible to get back. And there's kind of this one way gate of when we release something, it sets a new expectation and it starts to change the world and it starts building things. And we can't take it back. And so emoji is one of those that like I'm still on the fence on it with love. I'm true on this a little bit with your audience, whatever, like, you know, it's awesome you why his phone have emojis.

It's a really interesting question. People saying in the chat, anything? Nothing is on emojis yet. No opinions on emojis. We will get them. Yeah. Well, it's a good question. I mean, part of the problem, say, with social media is that when you're interacting in the world of social media, you're not in the head space to assess and, uh,

way sophisticated opinions and arguments. That's just, that's not what you're there for. It's, it's not conducive to that deep thinking, which is why there are just so many people dunking on each other. Like you quote tweet somebody in order to dunk on this stupid thing that they just said there's no one texting back saying who's successful on Twitter saying could you explain what you meant by this term I wasn't sure perhaps we were maybe we're equivocating or maybe there's a different concept you're trying to convert no one does that because you're not in the headspace for it so likewise I think text messages are meant to be a quick, facilitate quick communication,

which is why emojis are helpful. So I'm not opposed to them. I'm actually fairly curmudgeony on emojis. I mean, I've used them, you know, but because I think that they just speak to the longing for in-person interaction, you know, like I think everybody has that one person in their life that just has an incredible laugh that just inspires the entire room to laugh. I do and hang out with this guy every Tuesday night. And when he sends me a laughing emoji of something, it just, it makes me long to be in the room because I know what his laugh is like and to feel the infection of that. And it's a way, instead of just going like,

ha ha, or that was funny, that you realize that there's just an inadequacy in that statement, right? Like it just doesn't do justice to the response that the other individual wants to give to you. And so you give this fake representation of yourself to communicate something that I would much rather see in person. On YouTube, you can ban particular words.

People who have YouTube accounts know this, right? Like if someone uses the F-bomb, their comment will not come through. It's actually a fun day when you sit down and write all of the most disgusting words you can possibly think of in a row. But I've been tempted to block anybody who says LMAO or LOL, because it's a lie! Your ass is still there and you didn't just laugh out loud. But then you're gonna bring all the people who have fear of missing out out of the woodwork. FOMO. Oh I gotta get rid of those people as well. But the LOL

bugs me because it's a way of people like passive aggressively like it's a spite laugh that's what LOL has become in comm sections is lol. We're an idiot, but the guy didn't go Idiot so I think I'm gonna start blocking those people Okay, but here's the thing and there's such a slippery slope. Yes, suppose you allow emojis. Why not gifts? What's the difference? Yeah, you decide Again, it's a continuum every decision we have there is a literal continuum and it is just I mean It's a seamless line from one thing to the next. I mean, you could take this to the camera, right? Like so many people take a picture and or pictures and then they sit there and they look at the pictures,

right? Which is kind of sucking you into the phone and you're taking pictures of a precious moment, but now you're not in that moment anymore. And so we're, we're constantly asking questions around what is that right line? I mean, we created this thing. It's on the phone right now, but I don't know if many people use it called instant camera, where you can look at only one picture ever. Like your photo roll is only one photo. The rest of it syncs to the portal. So you still have the photos just not on the phone.

You can view it to see if anyone was closing their eyes and that's it. And then you're in the moment. I mean, but that's kind of that nuance. Like we're trying to get to that edge. I mean, John was talking about emoji. I mean, just the sky's the limit as far as what we can do. He's talking about emojis and faces are like artificial. What if we do non-face emojis, you know, like only.

Thumbs up. Yeah, horses or, you know, like, I don't know. It's just, it would just there's thinking to be had. Yeah, but I like your point about once you go there. I mean, it's not true that you can't go back, but it would be very kind of an abrasive move. It just takes people off. It's hard to. Yeah.

Yeah. I mean, you, you, yeah. If you add email and they take it away, people, oh man. Yeah. I bought this phone and you owe me my money back because I was under the impression. Yeah, thousands of people. Totally. We have some opinions from chat.

Oh opinions. So one of them is smiley face, rolling laughing face, blushing face, hands out, star eyes, hard eyes, smiley face. Nice. So, I will articulate it there. That was very well put. No two emojis and then later on she follows up and says, think about what you want to say and say it,

which I don't know I think I'd object to I think that well I'll read this other comment from Clint Collins who says I think emojis serve a purpose because Written medium like text lacks tone of voice and facial expression so emojis can help supplemental meaning There's a certain irony to this is a different one from Aaron bagel There's a certain irony to emojis being insufficient carriers of emotion so the designs get more complicated

which results in things being misinterpreted. Like different emojis across different platforms look different and you can kind of mean different things. Yeah. Yeah. By the way, you know Clint, who you're gonna send two phones to, and I'm like, you have my number Clint. And he wrote back, went, correct. I had your old number

Shut up getting two phones right to my assistant Clint or Message me over here or you know, however, we'll get them to you Maggie says I would want emojis for inside jokes with friends. Yeah, I get it It's fun, you know, and then she says jokes with friends. Yeah, I get it. It's fun. You know, and then she says, I say, lol, after messages, I am insecure in like, I like to undermine myself. Lol. Tear crying, laughing emoji.

My friends use it as this is not serious. Yeah. Yeah. Well, text is tone deaf. Yes. Which is one of my arguments against all the script or incidentally, since I'm sitting across from two Protestants, but, uh, yeah. Cause it's like, you can be like, uh, how are you doing today?

And they can be like, how are you doing today? Or how are you doing today? I don't know what you mean. Which word do you emphasize? Everything. Yes. What, uh, the, uh, different emphasis. Yeah. Cool. So, so I have another question question I wanna dive into with you. All right. So we've been talking about technology, but it's all been like basically the last 20 years.

That's been our whole conversation for the most part, so far. Yeah. Yeah. And I'm naturally innately curious about your perspective on technology, particularly for the Catholic church, like critical moments. Because I mean, tech is like a meaningful breakthrough that amplifies human power,

right, in some capacity. So there's moments, if times where human power has been amplified, and if you think about like the automobile or the printing press or even the audio microphones, like that changes the way a church service can be held. I mean, it can be broadcast or something like I would love to see your. Gosh, I don't know. I don't have anything insightful to say, but keep going. I mean, OK, I take one of those moments and just unpack what you think. I'd be curious what happened to the church after the precipice of that.

I mean, well, here's one during covid restrictions and lockdowns, masses began to be televised, you know. I never liked that and I never sat through one and if you did and you're out there, good for you, I'm not knocking it. I just think... I also am not a fan, like in the Catholic Church, we believe in what's called the true presence of Christ in the Eucharist, right? And so there's this thing called adoration, where the Eucharist is put in this golden thing called a monstrance and people come and kneel before it and worship Christ. But there's actually YouTube channels where there's like a video of it 24 hours a day. I don't like that either. I just think it's like, I don't know, like sitting before a screen is a very different

experience to being in the presence of the Eucharist in person. I don't think, like sitting before a screen is a very different experience to being in the presence of the Eucharist in person. I think anyone would deny that. But I think in a way, it kind of like thwarts your relationship with Christ. So like now that a lot of COVID restrictions have ended, I fear that many people have just become accustomed to an online mass, say, and are no longer seeing the value or forgetting that there is a value in congregating with other human beings, you know.

But I don't know, man, I it's a great point because I'm all about the written word, but that's technology. You know, I'm all about, um, I see the importance of a microphone. I see that. Um, but I don't think TV's are good. I don't think that's done a lot of good. I don't think the automobile is good, you know, but I have them and I see the value in them now that we have to have them in order to exist.

But I don't have any sort of sophisticated way of delineating between those developments in technology that are ultimately conducive to the good of man and communities and those that aren't. So I don't know. It's part of the, I mean, this gets back to the tension we're talking about. So because it's like, okay, you're against TVs. You know, when I say I'm against TV, I just don't think it's been a positive net boom for the human race. But okay, what about radios? You know, I suppose I say no. Okay. What about like walkie-talkies, you know

It's just an evolution right so prior to radio like a Message or a mass was only ever in person. That was it. Hmm And as far as your voice could project if there was no microphone, that's it The most you can people you can address like, how loud can my voice go? Yeah, amphitheaters is what you'd need, right? The natural amphitheater. Yeah, and there are some that they hold 4,000 people, and that's about it.

And so, there's something there that after radio, after microphones, now you can speak to 50,000 people. I mean, that changed in that moment as far as Catholic community Yeah, and the church and the dynamics and going on and we're just seeing another level of it with TV that you're talking about But I'm just like what happened in that moment Hmm. Yeah, I don't know but you know, there's we should perhaps point here to what's called the fallacy of the beard Have you ever heard of that? No fallacy of the beard is the idea that okay If I was to ask you if I had a beard right

now, you would say what? No, no, I don't clearly have a beard. But if I don't shave and it's a week from now and I ask you if I have a beard, you might still say no. Well, there will come a point when you say, well, yes, you have a beard. Just because you don't know when that became a beard doesn't mean you don't know what a beard is. Does that make sense? Yep.

Like if I start piling up pennies on the table, you may not know when it becomes a pile, but you know what a pile of pennies is more or less. And I think similarly, just because I may not know when a particular technology is sort of deleterious to us or to individuals, it doesn't mean I can't point out what is. And so I don't think we should allow, you know, if someone was to stand out there and say, I think phones aren't good for people. If someone was to try to use the fallacy of the beard, that would be just that, I think, a fallacy. Because I can say that something's harmful, even though I can't point to a dumbed down version that I don't think is. What do you think of that?

Sort of makes sense to me. Yeah. Yeah, it's kind of that continuum we're talking about. It's just sort of perpetual. And there's the good and bad. I mean, so I'm just, I'm trying to think more than just the last 20 years because that's what everyone's thinking about

and just pre-digital age even, because those same trends have already occurred. We've already gone through the cycle on some levels and there's been some thought, I mean there's been consequences, you know, like I would imagine when with automobiles that now all of a sudden you can drive 30 miles to a church. That you couldn't have done that before and so now your community, there's a disintegration of it. Because beforehand, the inconvenience of hopping in a wagon or riding a horse just wasn't worth it. So you had to live in a grace with one another

because you were forced to sit there with the people that you were within walking distance to your church. And that dissolved. And there's some good and there's some bad, but there's consequences. Yeah, that's right. Consequences to both. And that's what's cool to it. This is not a zero-sum game We're not saying if you have an iPhone there'll be a ton of negatives and if you have a wise phone There'll be a ton of positives like no there's obviously a trade-off and you have to decide for yourself. What's worth trading?

Yeah, yeah, because none of these technologies change the heart And so you write you can be absent any of these things. You can take a car completely out of your life. You can take your cell phone completely out of your life and still be the same person that you were with the phone in your hand or the car in your driveway. And so yeah, I think it's all about heart change, which then impacts everything else that you touch. Yeah.

And yet, as I'm sure you would would agree that these technologies also affect the heart and make us perhaps more vicious or virtuous depending on how we use them. Absolutely. Neil, you're a smart dude. You probably have a ton of thoughts. Feel free to object or... Is that mic on? Yeah. Okay good. So the the idea... Because usually when you hear things about technology being a kind of good landmark for a certain turn in history, it's usually things like, oh, the printing press really enabled like democracy. And then there are a lot of things which seem to be positive about the progression of technology,

like infant mortality going down and things like that I mean it's to me I think that there's there's something to be said about looking at these technologies skeptically and seeing that they are unnatural things and that they cause problems and that they shouldn't be considered the default they should be thought of as weird and even going back further and further all of it should be thought of as weird. And even going back further and further, all of it should be thought of as weird. And that's how we really, you know, should approach all of these things like, you know, democracy was, you know, invented. We need to look at how it works. And, you know, it's not just some, you know, you know, external like divine thing. It's like you know a system. Um same with you know roads, cars, all the things that you guys have been talking about. Um and then

counteracting that I think that just because people were you know having half of their family die from eating moldy food because they couldn't have enough food they weren't necessarily more virtuous. So I think that that that's another thing is this isn't the whole conversation. It's something to keep in mind. Like you were saying, like you what really doesn't change is the heart is really what the core is always going to be. So I think that's the kind of perspective. And from that perspective, it is to me, I think of it more like looking back at all of it. A lot of these technologies, you look at what you lose

and you look at what you get. And I think we have gained a lot of connection and I see a lot of things that I think are very cool and beautiful, like memes and the ways that people interact uniquely online and cool art forms that can exist only in the digital space and things like that. I think that it's important to say that those are positive things.

And it also isn't necessarily like you're saying, you can't prescribe one thing for everybody. It's not like, those are beautiful, but I wish they didn't exist because I wish this whole technology was just like not, it's like, the world can be more complicated than that and we can have more situations. But yeah, I think the overall message is that,

these things are strange, like really strange. Yeah, and that's a good way of putting it. Strange, like we were talking last night about sort of bumper lanes, right, of theology in a sense, and there's a wide gap and there's freedom within these bumper lanes, the left and the right, theologically, within the Catholic Church, and strange is a good word.

I think back to, like, and we're kind of not intentionally avoiding some of the questions that are being asked, right? The zero to 10, am I an android or am I Amish? Like there's the bumper lanes concept and I think what I come back to, what comes to mind is like looking at right after the fall, the very first thing after the fall that Adam and Eve did is they went and they created something for themselves. They made a loincloth out of plants or something. That was a piece of technology, right? Yeah.

And in a sense, it was a broken piece of technology. They went and said, I cannot fully depend on God for protection. I am naked. I am vulnerable. I need to guard myself from His presence now. And so, they made this piece of tech to protect them. But the cool thing in that is that was the first man made, well maybe you could say language was, Adam named the animals, but second piece of tech created. The cool thing was is that God came in and after he talked to them, before he sent them out,

he made the very first ever tech upgrade, he made them skins, you know, like clothes out of skins. That's really cool. And he met them where they were. And so, yeah, it was weird and broken. And at the same time, God in an act of grace, which was an icon. If you think about a skin, there's a cost to that skin that he crafted clothes for them. And it's a premonition to the future sacrifice of Christ was an act of grace.

But God gave them the first tech upgrade to allow them to go live in this now broken world. And I think that gives us some boundaries. That's really insightful. I've never thought of that before. Yeah, I mean, we like loin, loin skins, 2.0 or something. Yeah, totally. We use tech to escape God and simultaneously God uses tech to protect us and to help shape us.

And so there's, there's some boundaries in a sense of this There's a lot of good here as well. Yeah. Wow, that's really good That's cool, I've definitely heard the like, you know the whole the Fig leaves were the first technology, but that's an interesting other perspective. Yeah to add on that Yeah, and then and then if you keep going in the story the next thing that happens is Noah In the flood and God gave him a design But he said you go build it. Yeah, he could have snapped his fingers and built it Yeah, but he didn't it was a, another technological collaboration between God and man that it

was a beautiful thing. There was, you know, redemption and destruction. I mean, there was a heck of a lot going on in that moment. But it took him a long time and took great effort on his part. I mean, ridicule, blood, sweat, tears to make this thing that was God's design. And I think that's also an impetus for creators to think through, hey, there can be something holy, but it also takes effort here. I like that's also an impetus for creators to think through, hey, there's can be something holy, but it also takes effort here. I like that.

What do you think, what's, what's one change you would make in your life regarding technology that either you should make or if you had the courage you would make. So it seems like the two of you use wise phone, you no longer use smartphones unless you travel, there's certain exceptions. And you've seen the benefit of that. But then looking at your own life now, like what is it? Is that it?

Are you done? Or are there other things like, no, I can see that this technology is negatively interfering in my life in a way that would be better if it weren't there. Well, one that we implemented was to really scale back our TV usage. That was a huge one. I think, you know, we have three young kids. It's a danger just to throw the TV on as a babysitter. It's easy at the end of the day.

Mom has worked hard, dad has worked hard and just turn it on, throw a movie on. And it really forces me to be absent from the role that the Lord had given me, which is to be invested in my family, to be nurturing them and leading them in the way that they should go. So we've regulated it really to Friday night, movie nights as a family. We'll watch an occasional sports game as they appear, those sorts of things,

but we do not sit down and make a regular rhythm of watching TV. And in that, it goes back to what we were talking about earlier. It's not just taking away the television, but it's replacing it. And my wife and I had that conversation where we sat down and we said, all right, if we're gonna do this,

we can't just kick the kids in the backyard and you and I lay on the couch and just go, thank goodness for a fenced yard, right? It's like, we actually have to get on the floor and wrestle with them or build Legos or throw the ball or do the tea parties or whatever the case is, so that we're actually replacing something that they loved and enjoyed

with something that they actually long for more. And so that was a big shift for us because at the end of a long day, it's almost like you're just getting started and we've got, all right, three hours till bedtime, let's double down and go after it. So that was a huge- I love what you did too though

is you didn't just say like TV bad. You said like, no, let's turn this into a communal family activity that we get to look forward to once a week. Yeah, that seems really healthy. Yeah. So I'm a filmmaker back in the day, I've traveled the world doing films for a lot of ministries and things like that. And so I love film. And I get sucked into movies like man, all you can eat Netflix, that's like heyday for me, right? Part of the story of why Wisephone is so important. But this year, my challenge to myself is to not, two things. One, and this is one of the techless design philosophies is no solo entertainment

ever. That's one of your OC. Is that something you try to stick to? Well, with Wisephone, we are not going to ever have entertainment with the, I will say music could be. Oh, I see what you're saying. But like, we're not going to allow you to sit and watch something by yourself. We're not going to allow you to have a game to sit there and do with yourself. Like, maybe someday don't anchor to this people, but like we might have a conversation game where you have prompting questions

to ask somebody else like that fits within the design philosophy, the other does not, because that draws you closer to people, the other does not. So I'm challenging myself, and this is the one I don't have courage to do. I don't know how. I'm gonna give myself a C for this year already. But I'm challenging myself regardless, but doing no solo entertainment. That's good, yeah. Paired with, if I do, or if I ever, if I do I do there's gonna have to be I have to read scripture first and even if it's a brief amount of time but I cannot hit the play button on something until that's been ingested. Yeah. One decision I made recently is to no longer read YouTube comments which is a weird thing when you run a YouTube channel.

And when I say recently, I mean this week, it's been like four or five days now, I think that was great because negative comments are 500 times louder than positive ones for whatever reason. And so what I realized was I have enough people in my life such as Neil and others who work with me who can give me good critical feedback, like stop doing that I don't say this or that was inappropriate this isn't helping. That I actually don't need to read a billion different people's comments and the reason I decided to do this I heard recently that Tucker Carlson doesn't. Read comments and you just look at that guy and whatever you think of his philosophy that man is a free man I mean, he's got like the weird resting face. That's kind of funny. He kind of like laughs like

And I love it. It's beautiful. I think that's what people love him. He's not guarded. He's very vulnerable Peterson's like that as well. He's very vulnerable. I don't think Joe Rogan's reading comments that guy doesn't seem to care So I just think I'm like wow, that would be a good decision. So I actually found a nice piece of technology, I think it was a Google Chrome extension that hides all YouTube comments. Nice. And it's not like there aren't workarounds, but it's a reminder to me that, you know what, like this and maybe I'll go back to it at some point. And certainly there's a drawback, like, okay, you're the creator of these videos and you're not interacting with us in your

YouTube section. Don't you realize that that's hurting your brand because we don't feel seen? Yeah, maybe it is. And I'd love to interact with some people, but it's just too much. That's a calculated cost. I mean, there is a cost, yes, but it's calculated and intentional in order to drive what? Are you asking me? In order to drive,? Are you asking me in order to drive? I think like a more authentic conversation.

That's what I want, you know? So, you know, I have people who support us on locals and Patreon. I'm open to listening to them because they've kind of like bought into the mission, even if it's five bucks a month. People don't pay five bucks on YouTube to call you a loser and then leave. So like people on Patreon, people on locals, yeah, trolling is free. So that was that was a decision I made that I'm really glad. But honestly, I feel challenged by what you shared

with your family and I thank you for sharing it because we have sort of fallen into a, the TV's a babysitter a bit, I'll be honest. We have a dumb TV, if that's a thing. So there's no internet on it. And so we have like a collection of DVDs we buy from like secondhand stores and things that I think we are good and the kids like. And we've we have kind of gotten into the rhythm of where the kids are. I think they're watching a movie like who said they could like what you know.

So there you go. That's a challenge for me that I really want to I really want to not like stomp down on that so that they all feel like why would you do this to us? I want to sort of be like, you know, let's watch a movie tonight, but we're not gonna be doing it tomorrow or the next day or whatever. So yeah, that'll be, and that's a sacrifice for me. I don't like movies. I don't like sitting down and watching movies. My brain is too ADD.

I can't sit through almost, yeah, I don't like really movies. So whenever the kids wanna watch a movie, even if it's a movie that my friends like and it's like an adult's like, I don't usually like it. But like you say, like that's a sacrifice you want to make to have a meaningful time with your kids. Yeah.

Yeah. Sweet. Awesome. Okay, here's a question as we begin to wrap up. Sorry, I understand that that sweet was very much a clear indicator that we were about to wrap up and now I've just changed my mind. What are some things that, if people about to buy the Wyze phone or they

bought a Wyze phone, what are some things they should expect to see this year? You've already said music and podcasts. Yeah I think music and podcasts you can look at themes and different designs for the phone. There are a lot of be a lot of just speed improvements like you were saying kind of the transitions and all of those things those will go a lot faster. We improvements, like you were saying, kind of the transitions and all of those things, those will go a lot faster. We have a notes app that's coming out and several other things. And one thing I wanted to circle back to

on a question that you asked earlier, is just one thing I think we haven't done well is recognizing that this is a journey for people and that stepping away from something like an iPhone to a wise phone, it's not a simple transition, right? You get an iPhone 12 and then you get an iPhone 13 and it's just pure bliss for people, right? Like there's no adjustment, you're just happy as can be.

This is hard. And I don't think that we've done a good job of coming alongside people and loving them and being that encouragement in relationship that we would like to be. So for any of your listeners that have bought a wise phone or you're thinking about it, reach out and connect with us, friends at techless.com. Chris and I are the your listeners that have bought a wise phone or you're thinking about it reach out and connect with us friends

at techless comm Chris and I are the only ones that have access to that email account. We'll be engaging with it directly We just want to hear from you. We want to love and support you. We want to pray for you And we just want to share stories about how yeah, the first couple days of the journey is hard But then it gets a lot sweeter. So didn't mean to derail the question. I love the circle. That's excellent Yeah, it's almost like you could have like the first nine days, what to expect. Almost like helping someone detox from McDonald's or something. And we're working on that document just to try to show people kind of like, what is the wise phone timeline? You know, cause

you're so excited when you get it. And then on day two, you're like, I don't think I can do it. Like where's Wilson, you know, and you're just going crazy. Somebody will get that reference. Yeah, I got it. Just took me five seconds. Jokes are always funny when you have to explain. But yeah, and then there's a few other things. But back to what you can expect. One thing that we built intentionally is we wanted to do a buy it and then we keep upgrading it type of model. So like if you buy a Tesla, it's the only car that i know of that every week

you get some software update and there's new features and the car gets better wow it's like i didn't know that fine wine that ages like i mean really seriously because everything's hard wired it was built very intentionally everything's wired to one single computer and screen and so like there's little stuff that if the the glove box it's a pain to open in the UX UI, they just update it and now it's easy to open. And so we built with an architecture that's pretty unique, like that we can fix stuff and make it better and improve perpetually. And so every two weeks we're releasing updates, which just, so there's a journey here, which

is worth getting excited about. I get excited about it. So one thing, yeah, we had a super chat earlier who was saying that for his job would be convenient to have email and browser so can he expect that? I'm guessing no. Also Twitter would help. Unlimited browser no plans for anything like that I'm guessing. Yeah not at this time. Right yeah. Yeah we get asked that a lot and I think yeah just right now it's something we've tabled. Yeah back to the whole incremental solutions right big tech has everything and they start cutting back We are very intentionally starting at the opposite end of the spectrum and it's not to say ten years from now

We won't open that stuff up But basically when it comes to browser, you know Because you've talked about pornography and just all the distraction everything we're talking about like we want to slow release things in a way that empowers the intention of the users, but B is just foolproof and super tight. And as far as I know to date, no one's made a porn free browser, like that really works.

It's just hard. And so that is Pandora's box. And when you start opening up email and distractions and stuff, we're not like, it's not a never, but it's just, that is Pandora's box. And when you start opening up email and distractions and stuff, we're not like, it's not a never, but it's just not a, not right now. I think one of your answers to that can be just get an iPhone, like get an iPhone and we'll even show you how to lock down everything you need, except your email, except your browser.

Cause it sounds like that honestly would be the best case for this fellow. Like if he's got a job and he needs email, then yeah, then maybe don't get a wise phone. Definitely don't get a wise phone. I think the greatest solution, I'm actually about to do this myself. I'm going to get a small iPad like that and put on the things that I need when I'm traveling and just use it for that purpose. That's why I got this. So I leave this in my office so that when I come to the office, I can sort of do a couple of things. Because then you get it with cellular it does work on the go so if you have to call an uber or if you have to fly it's small enough that you can pull it out and scan your boarding pass and do those sorts of

things but it's not ever present with you. So we've got the iPad user, we've got the desktop, I have to go to the office user, I have a laptop and one of the things we are releasing we're working on is a hotspot on the phone. So you can actually connect, open your computer, turn on your hotspot and connect to the internet on your second device by design. So that way, Wyse phone isn't vulnerable, but at the same time you have a certain degree of connection.

But the hurdle that I have set for myself is, yeah, I wanna check in. I'm a freaking CEO techis and I'm doing stuff but I just have to force myself to go to my laptop and it's this inconvenience of sitting there opening it up and it's enough of a hurdle to where it doesn't hurt. I mean maybe sure there's some interactions but people, anyone that matters has my phone and they call me. Yeah. And if it doesn't then it's not and so it's kind of your email game that you're playing. It's just, that's the boundary that I have

and it works just fine. I know you also are coming up with like a dark mode. Honestly, I know it's a small thing, but I think that's a big deal because it's a white screen with black font. And again, if you want to see images of this wise phone that we're talking about, click the link in the description.

You can scroll through and see exactly what it looks like. And again, if you want to buy it, go to checkout and use Fradd as a promo code. Does it have to be capitals or not? I don't know. That's a good question. I just put it in lowercase, no. Oh, okay.

It doesn't need to be Fradd. You get 40 bucks off if you wanted to get one. And just for clarity, we actually made the change this morning that the phone that you have that is now new is the one that people can pre-order. Yep. Great, great. And they will start shipping in the coming weeks.

Yeah, this is very, very fast. So everything we're talking about, that is all we will ship moving forward. Yeah. Awesome. Anything you I'm tempted to ask you this, but I think it'd be too difficult a question to answer, given what we've said about 10 to zero continuum thing. But it's almost like if I if I said to you right now, you have ten billion dollars. There it is. Now make make your perfect techless phone.

Do you would you know how would you know what to do? I mean we have ideas around it. So like we had our very first ever board meeting We've had an official non-legal advisory board meetings for the last two and a half years We had our very first board meeting this last month and the purpose of that meeting was what is the company direction for the next? Six months and so we unpacked that and talked about a lot of product feature releases and financials and all that stuff But then the next board meeting is what is the purpose of Teclis for the next 15 years? six months. And so we unpacked that and talked about a lot of product feature releases and financials and all that stuff. But the next board meeting is what is the purpose of Teclis for the next 15 years? And so we're prepping to answer that question in some capacity.

And it goes all the way back to that litmus test of what specifically drives people towards deeper relationship with God and with one another. And that involves, yes, wise phone being more rich, more sophisticated, but it also involves a level of content and access to resources and thought leadership at critical moments in life. And so, I mean, we may not just make wise phone a few years from now. I mean, the computer's on the table, different levels of phones. I mean, like, but the content piece is really important because what do you do when your kid gets a sex message? How do you handle that moment?

If we could point people towards some answers of how to have that conversation in a meaningful way that helps them, then we've restored lives. I mean, think about how that could have changed the trajectory of that kid's life if they have a parent that lovingly is guided into proper conversation that's rooted in science and just a good healthy perspective that 30 years from now they're going to be a different person because at that moment, I mean, we are dealing with intimate places in people's lives and that's the intersection that we want to be very careful about and steward properly. And so that's why we're tiptoeing into the release years, because

that's such a precious space. And so much of what we'd spend that money on would be outside of product, period. It would be building an infrastructure to better engage with individuals and to love them well and bring that thought leadership that Chris is talking about to the forefront, because we work with people like Protect Young Eyes or Andrea Davis at Better Screen Time or all of these different entities. How can, like Chris said, how can we infuse those resources so parents and others feel equipped to handle these challenging situations? But how can we live out our mission of redeeming connection and redeeming relationship and loving people that are on this journey,

not using them for personal gain, for financial gain like so many companies are doing, but how can we be on the front lines to be a company that's praying for people, that's encouraging people, that when they're calling in and struggling with pornography, we're not like, well, here's a phone, but it's here's a phone and can we talk with you? Can we pray with you? Can we love you? And I think there's that dynamic that we want to build equally is build the product, but build the infrastructure to love people well.

Yeah. And the long game is, and we talked about the social dilemma, that's the problem. We're all aware of it now. The long game is just like, I feel like Whole Foods, they came in and started making healthy choices when it was weird. Like the people that didn't wear deodorant and like, you know, they showed up and it was just like, you're the frilly guys. Now everyone shops at Whole Foods and who bought them?

I mean, it's just like this, it's normal. They defined the future of health food. I mean, they were just like this. It's normal. They defined the future of health food. I mean, they were the leaders. They made it happen. God willing, who knows how much of this vision will accomplish, but God willing, we have a seat at the table redefining the future of what healthy technology looks like in a way that is wholesome. And if we could just question and undermine the hundreds of thousands of assumptions that our tech is built on today and start with something new, it's a blessing to people, then there could be not just three generations of blessing, there could be a thousand generations of blessing that no company lasts more than 500 years, like ever, no matter

what. But there's a potential that we could have an effect that affects For a long time here. Yeah Yeah, one of the things that Catholics have to do when they go to confession Is make a like a firm amendment of a firm decision not to sin again Right. So it's but it's not it's not like It's not you don't have to So it's, but it's not, it's not like, it's not, you don't have to, you can foresee that due to your weakness, you may very well fall again into this thing that you're repenting from.

But there has to be a firm decision that I am done with this and I don't want to do it again. But, but part of that has to be the decision to remove yourself from near occasions of sin. You know, we live in a world where falls and scandal is bound to come and we can't remove ourselves from the world. But if I go to confession and I confess looking at pornography and I say, I don't want to do it again. If I've done nothing to remove myself from the near occasion of sin, I was lying. So as a brother in Christ to those who are watching right

now, mate, you might be a young man or a young woman or older man or old woman who's looking at pornography as somebody who's been there and still struggles with the temptation from time to time. I would say that this could be a very heroic decision to make and a very necessary decision to make. So I said it before I mean it like we have a computer in my house, but I wanted my wife to have the password to that.

So when I go home and leave my big desktop, which, you know, I don't actually have any way to access online. Now, there's a sense in which that's so that I can protect myself from online temptation. But that's only the beginning of it. The more I've sort of grown in that area of my life, I see other things as far more threatening to my peace, such as social media, right? So that's the primary reason I do it now.

But just to those who are watching right now, if pornography is one of your primary struggles, you know, manful, or whatever the equivalent is, wonder womanly decisions must be made. Don't be a coward. I mean, it's easy to say, I was weak and I fell, but maybe what you should have said is, I'm a coward and I'm unwilling to make the decisions I need to make to live a life free of this sin. Consider that before becoming offended at me calling you a coward and then maybe make the decision. Get get a wise phone.

Click the link or don't get a wise phone. Go to Walmart if that's what you want and buy a flip phone. But but but radical decisions, decisions to be free of pornography may make you look weird in your friend group or social group. But their decisions that you'll be so glad you made 10 years from now when you're in a porn free marriage or 20 years from now when you know you're a grandfather and you don't have to be like one of these granddads who has to hide his poor news from his grandkids when they're over or something, you know, is creepy.

Like you don't have to keep going down this dead end road that porn hub wants you on that Apple may want you on. You can make decisions, but those decisions might hurt right now. But as a brother who's been there, I would just want to encourage you. It's worth the sacrifice. So you know, as I say, I'm not making money right from you buying this wise phone. It's not like these guys give me 10 bucks every time they we sell a phone. But you don't even have to get a wise phone.

Like that's not even what I'm here to pitch. If you want to get a gab phone, if you want to get a flip phone, do that. Look into the options. But I want to encourage you as a brother to make that hard decision because it may very well be the result of eternal life and eternal death. That sounds manipulative, perhaps, but if eternal life and eternal death are real opportunities for you and serious sin that we refuse to repent of is the cause of those things, namely eternal death, then whether it sounds manipulative or not, it's the world in which we live.

It's the reality in which we live. So I just pray that God would give you the courage to make the decision you need to make. Mm hmm. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. What's the phrase? If your eye causes you to sin, plug it out. That's just saying, do whatever the heck it takes.

Yeah. Just do it. If your iPhone causes you to sin, break it. Yeah. Like if you think I'm radical causes you to sin, break it. Mm. Yeah, like if you think I'm radical for saying that, then you haven't read our Blessed Lord. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Cool. Awesome. Anything else? Do you guys have a podcast, did you say? Or are you ashamed to admit it? We have a... This is not fully developed, are we? Yeah, we have an undeveloped podcast that we haven't even released.

We filmed season one, which is probably about half the content is talking about pornographyed podcast that we haven't even released. We filmed season one, which is probably about half the content is talking about pornography, which we actually don't talk about that much moving forward, but we haven't released it yet. So coming to a wise phone near you. Yes. Yes. All right. Okay. For those who support us on Patreon or locals, we are going to do a post show wrap up for you. So go on over to Locals or Patreon and we'll do that for you right now. But to the rest of you, thanks so much for being here. If you think this video could bless somebody in your life, you know, maybe you're finding it very difficult to talk to an aunt or a sister or a grandparent or something like that. This this could be a help to them. So please feel free to share it. All right, sweet.