The Rich Roll Podcast - Touch Grass: Andrew Yang Returns To Talk Phone Addiction, AI's Cognitive Toll, & The Fight For Your Attention

Episode Date: June 8, 2026

Andrew Yang is an entrepreneur, former presidential candidate, and founder of Noble Mobile. This is a conversation about our phones, and what they're doing to us. We get into the machinery engineered to colonize your attention, the cognitive cost of leaning on AI, and why willpower won't save you. Andrew is great. This one is a Trojan horse for a more challenging conversation. Enjoy! Show notes + MORE Watch on YouTube Newsletter Sign-Up Today’s Sponsors: PlantPower Meal Planner: Get $20 off an annual subscription with code RICHROLL20👉🏼https://meals.richroll.com  Squarespace: Use code RichRoll to save 10% off your first order of a website or domain👉🏼https://www.squarespace.com/RichRoll  WHOOP: Join now and get one month free👉🏼https://www.join.whoop.com/Roll  Birch: Get 27% off ALL mattresses + 2 free eco-rest pillows👉🏼https://www.BirchLiving.com/richroll  Noble Mobile: Try Noble for just $10 with code RICHROLL👉🏼https://www.noblemobile.com  iRestore: Save on customer favorites with code RICHROLL👉🏼https://www.irestore.com/RICHROLL Check out all of the amazing discounts from our Sponsors👉🏼https://www.richroll.com/sponsors  Find out more about Voicing Change Media at https://www.voicingchange.media and follow us @voicingchange

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Disturbing new study found a link between technology and depression. Research confirms that excessive smartphone use presents itself a lot like addiction. We know they're connected to prescient anxiety. The dangers are hiding in there. Join us right now is Andrew Yang, it's a former candidate for president. We know these tools are indispensable, but also that they're eating our brains and mental health.

This thing is eroding our ability to think clearly, to focus. It's changing our neurology. It's impairing our physical health. Obviously, our mental health. Your life is on the line. Andrew's so good to do. see you, man. Thank you for doing this. Rich, I am back here in the Rich Rollaverse. We're having an Alfrusco experience, a little touchgrass moment, which is apropos for the conversation I want

to have with you about the benefits of an analog life. Yes, very apropos, very uplifting. It's pretty common to hear someone say, like, I'm just addicted to my smartphone. Do you think that this is like a legitimate addiction, or is it just an obsessive-compulsive, relationship that we have, like, how do you think about, like, that? Of course it's addictive. And of course, it's a real thing. I mean, you can see the generational impact it's had on, unfortunately, young girls over the last number of years.

Do you know Jonathan Haidt? Yes. Yeah. So Jonathan wrote the book, The Anxious Generation and raised the alarm. But the data was clear. And the data was there as early as 2017 in Gene Twangy's book, IGen, which is when I saw it. So even when I was running for president, I was like, hey, guys, FYI, these devices, not great for our kids. And so you know that if it's having that effect on our children, it's having an effect on us too.

It's just not quite as severe because our brains matured in a different way. and maybe the way we use the smartphone is a little bit different. But it's an addiction for sure. And it can have very, very negative effects. I mean, walking the streets of New York, I can't tell you how many people just have their smartphone out. And then occasionally they pump into you or someone. And you know, you know, I mean, heck, even when I'm driving the streets of New York,

have I seen someone just like walk into traffic where the sword brought up? Completely. So that's an addictive behavior. that I'm going to suggest could have very negative effects for, you know, some of those pedestrians. The definition of addiction is the inability to control a behavior despite negative consequences, characterized by a compulsive need to engage in the behavior irrespective of important life priorities. I mean, come on. Like, this is what we're doing.

You know what I mean? And, you know, I tend to have this sort of bias. I perceive things through the length. lens of addiction because I'm long-time sober person. And if there is a silver lining in all of this, you know, when I first got sober in 1998, addiction was something that, that, you know, you should be ashamed of, that was something on the margins that we pretended wasn't there and, you know, afflicted these poor people who, you know, ended up in the gutter or just couldn't get it, couldn't keep the needle out of their arm or whatnot. And now,

Now, because of the smartphones, like, we're all connected to this idea of addiction in a way that, you know, 10, 15 years ago, we weren't because we all feel that pull. We're all succumbing to it. We're all victimized to it. And if there's one thing about addiction, it's that willpower isn't going to cut it. Like, if you're relying on your willpower to solve this problem, you're just going to relapse and you're going to relapse and you're going to get frustrated and you're just going to dig this hole. and yet with respect to our smartphones, it's sort of like food addiction. Like we kind of need them in order to function in society, which means we're, you know, we're just, we're kind of hitting it like a drug every single day.

And despite our best intentions or trying to summon that willpower to put distance between ourselves and the thing, like it's almost, you know, we're doomed in that way. And yet we're shouldered with the responsibility of solving this. Like, what can you share about your experience with that and what you say to people who are stuck in that loop? Yeah. First, we've all been there. And I think most people know that the most constructive thing you can do is take one action in the direction that you want. So if you're looking at your behaviors day to day, it could be, okay.

I can't do all of this, but I'm going to say one hour without my phone before I go to bed. if you decide to go bigger with Noble Mobile, I'll give you just my real life experience. So I joined Noble Mobile and then I blew through the data cap in month one. And it was like, okay, that wasn't great. And then a couple months in, I actually got some cash back and then got a little excited. And then I said to myself, because I'm a goal-oriented fellow, was like, oh, let me just try and do better than that the next month.

and then the next month I did not do better because I was very busy that month, but then the month after that I did. So just having measurements and goals and positive reinforcement does make you more mindful. But the first thing to do is just take a concrete step that you can actually stick to. And for me, that was, look, I don't know what I'm going to do the other 23 hours, but the hour before I go to bed, I'm not going to have this thing with me. And then what I did is I actually started reading a book And the science says that if you read a book, it helps you sleep better

And you might even learn a thing or two The advice I give people is the same that I give somebody who is a substance addict, Which is the first thing you have to do is you have to break the denial An addict will find, you know, any reason to perpetuate the behavior And I think the same holds true with smartphones. And with addiction, the first thing you have to do is admit that you are powerless over this thing that is controlling your life and that it is making your life unmanageable.

Like this is like right out of like 12 step. And then once you really grok that and kind of surrender to the fact that this thing is running your life and no matter what you do, it is in control of you rather than the other way around, realize that you can't solve the problem with the same brain that's creating it.

Like you have to ask for help. One big mental switch for me, Rich, was realizing, and this is an important thing for all of us, just about everything can wait for 45 to 60 minutes. Like, you do not need to be instantly reactive to every message, certainly not every social media notification. I mean, those things you should probably not even be looking at. But even a text message,

thinking that you have to be always on and available and being able to respond immediately, unless, frankly, it's your partner, or your spouse, you're like a family member. And you can put them in a particular zone where it's like, hey, like, then it'll vibrate. Everyone else can wait. Everything else can wait.

And then it just seems like, you know, you're busy doing something. Like, you know, you were in a meeting. Who the heck knows? But imagining that you're so important that you have to be able to respond to something in real time is an attention trap. It's also, you know, delusion. narcissism. Like, you're not that important. That is sort of my point. Your obsession with being responsive is really just a fear impulse. Like, your discomfort that's forcing you to reach for

your phone to cure yourself of that discomfort is the same craving that compels the alcoholic to grab a drink. Like, they can't sit still in their discomfort. The solution is to answer the text and feel okay that the world, the uncertainty has been resched. resolved, but learning to just sit with that discomfort is really the way forward. Like, yes. It's okay to be uncomfortable. It's not going to kill you. It might feel like it's going to kill you, but it will pass. And you'll realize over time that that thing that you thought was so urgent actually isn't. And, you know, only when you part ways with it and take a break, do you really fully recognize that all of these things that you're allowing to control your

life actually aren't that important? And the things that are important, you're related. relationships, your connection to other human beings, your capacity to, you know, do deep creative work, all of those things are getting short shrift because we're confused about what's important. You know what's funny, Rich, is like, one, you're not that important in that the world will not burn down if you don't respond to that thing within 30 minutes. But two, you are important in the sense that you should be able to unplug and take a walk and think and your life is more valuable than this, you know. And it's worth living, actually. Yes, it's both at the same time.

It's been a fascinating step for me to take. Yeah, but I've actually gotten a lot better at this where, look, the people around me kind of expect that something might be an extra, whatever it is, 30 to 60 minutes typically. And that's totally fine. And, you know, as soon as everyone realizes that, then you kind of feel freer. and your attention becomes freer and yours again. And if you think you're immune from this or that you don't fall into that category, in addition to doing that time inventory, you can do an impact inventory. In other words, and this is another thing out of recovery, like basically journal and write down

how your phone usage makes you feel on an hourly or daily basis. And then in addition to that, do a rigorous, fearless, open, and honest inventory of how your relationship with your phone affects your relationships to other people and how it makes those other people feel. And that's the real kind of like eye-opener when you realize like, oh, I'm taking all these people for granted and not really investing in my relationships with them because the most important relationship is my one with my phone. you know what there are studies that have been done that show that if I bust my phone out and use it in front of you you both like and trust me less of course so just know that that's we all know that feeling when somebody does that in front of us and then there's a secondary one is if I have my phone out and I'm not using it there's still that effect you like and trust me a little bit less just that the phone is evident if you you if you know that the phone is inaccessible, then you like and trust me more. And so like we, there's something called a Faraday bag where it cuts off the signal.

So you could, if you wanted to be really ceremonial about it, like, you have a meeting, you could like take your phone, throw, put it in the bag, it cuts the signal and then they'll know like, hey, like, no one can reach it. It's a little performative, but.

No, that's a little overboard. That's a little overboard. But, but it's important to know the effect that this has, um, on your relationships. I spent a lot of time encouraging all of you people to pursue work that lights you up, to find that thing that gets you excited out of bed in the morning,

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conditions that gave rise to that conversation in the first place have only metastasized. We have the advent of AI and, of course, this ever-expanding, you know, epidemic of attention deficit caused by our relationship with our smartphones? Some say I was a little bit early to the scene when I came up in 2019 and 2020 saying AI is on its way and it's going to eat the jobs. I could have said eat our brains and I wouldn't have been off base. It's actually much worse than even I'd projected because I imagined that you'd have, let's say, the public sector or various things.

figures who were trying to be counterweights to the AI onslaught. But really, they're cheerleaders. And at this point, it feels like we're all trafficking in a world that's controlled by the tech platforms. Yeah. I mean, we have an information landscape that is informed by the incentives of the powers that be, the tech oligarchs, who, you know, sort of these. a fence in the Oval Office who are, you know, currying favor to clear the regulatory space to do whatever they want while seeding these social media platforms with all sorts of information that

manipulates us into thinking this is in our best interest and it's going to be this glorious future. But we all know what we feel like when we've stared at our phone too long or when we've taken advantage of these AI tools. Like there is a, you know, kind of a dystopic, emotional experience to all of this that is inescapable and undeniable. I don't know what you're talking about. Oh, yeah. I mean, we've all been there where you picked up your phone to do something. And then 45 minutes later, you're like, what would I pick this up to do?

Because you've got sucked down a rabbit hole. And it's a terrible feeling. And I'm a Gen Xer, so I remember the before times. and I'm blessed in that I feel like, you know, and you too, like our brains were fully formed before these tools arrived. But for our kids, like, they don't remember an era, but before the screens started to dominate. And, you know, it reminds me of this saying that I'm sure you've heard that we have these Stone Age brains and then medieval institutions and God-like technology in our pockets.

And that's where we are. It's like our brains are really not designed for these tools. And the tools have reduced friction in a way that feels very positive and pleasant and seamless. But it's actually eroding our well-being. Yeah, we're convinced that these modern conveniences and the reduction of friction and the pathway towards more ease and accessibility will make us happier. and the opposite. Oh, yeah. And it's tough, too, for folks like,

I'm just used myself as an example. So I'm a heavy phone user. I'm online a lot. And my wife says it's the worst part of my job that I'm on social media platforms because it's not good for my mental health. But I'm a quasi-public figure. I've got things I'm trying to put out there and promote.

I imagine that there are actually people that want to hear from me. I don't know if you have any of these problems, right? I mean, first of all, you're not a quasi-public figure. You're a full-blown public figure. Oh, well, thank you. Thank you. But I share that kind of relationship because it's very easy to say, well, I need this for my job.

This is like my work and these platforms are one in the same. And so you have this very justifiable excuse to lose yourself. I'm a productive, hardworking individual. and this is part of my work. Yeah. And so I would be negligent if I didn't spend 45 minutes on this feed going nowhere, which is really what happens. And even when you're just mindlessly scrolling, you can tell yourself,

well, I kind of need to know what's going on out there because it helps inform how I think about these things and talk about them when I'm behind a podium. But is that really what's happening? Like where is denial entering the picture here? Oh, I mean, it's all of us because you can convince yourself. that you are somewhat productive, even if you passively absorbed for an hour, because like you said, you have to have your fingers on the pulse and you're seeing what other people are saying. Meanwhile, the feed is darkened on most of these platforms where you're not getting wholesome

constructive information. You're getting weird inflammatory content around someone's screw up or, you know, like this person, someone you should throw online eggs at. I mean, that's a lot of what you get. So there's this productivity trap element for folks like, I guess you're in this boat too with me, like folks like us. One thing I've done that's made me feel better about using X is I've given the money away.

And so now it feels like to the extent that I'm earning money, I'm like giving it to someone who typically needs it. And the messages I've gotten when I've given even, you know, $5, $600 away, it's really touching because people, tell me about how, you know, they were like going to miss rent or that they just got laid off. And unfortunately, that happens eight out of ten times. And I'm not sure if it's just because the folks who enter online giveaways are close to distress or that's just what's going on out there. But it's still an excuse to remain engaged on these platforms that are just zapping you of your

chi and life force. Oh, yeah. I mean, so my wife says this is the worst part of my job and she's right because she's seen my mood go dark because of some online interaction. And one of the comparisons I make is that it's very, very rare in our lives that your neighbor comes to your fence or property line and starts screaming at you. Like that's not a normal experience. But you have the online equivalent just about every day. And maybe they're not screaming at you. But you're witnessing a screaming match.

Yeah. your entire constitution, like your hormonal regulation just gets completely derailed. Like you become captive to being impulsed by people you're never going to meet and you become this ping pong ball. You're just bouncing around like living your life reactively based upon what an algorithm decides to show you. And what it's deciding to show you is going to be inflammatory or, you know, controversial or dramatic or fear-inducing in some way. And that is not a bug. That's the feature. That's the underlying, you know, it speaks to the underlying incentive system beneath all of this.

Yeah, that's the revenue model. The average American is now checking our smartphone between 186 and 205 times a day. So if you think about how many hours you're up and about, that comes to once every six minutes or so, something along those lines. And for someone hearing that who thinks that's crazy, just start timing yourself. we actually have like a noble life app that just gives you a very clean score where anything over 100 means that it's excessive and anything below 100 would be considered good. What is this doing to our physical health and our mental health? Like what does the data and the science say?

Do you have a sense of that? So it's different across groups. I mean, the most striking and painful data is among young people where it's eroded mental health and led to a spike in anxiety and depression. It has made forming human connection more difficult. When you look at the rate of friendship or having close friends, it's fallen off a cliff. Socializing with other teenagers in real life has fallen off a cliff. For adults, it's lowered our attention span.

It's made it harder for us to focus. and one of the challenges that I've set for myself that you probably are, because you're very elevated, you probably do this naturally. But try and just put your phone away when you're having a meal with your family and then see if you can actually just go through the meal talking to your kids. So what we do in my house, we say, hey, no screens at the table. But the odds of me or my wife or one of my kids violating that rule sometime mid-meal. moderately high, unfortunately, because it's like, oh, I need to take this call or I need to do this. And so it's diminished our capacity to have deep relationships and meaningful experiences.

There's some research that has come out over the last year from Carnegie Mellon, Oxford, MIT, UCLA that basically says that reliance on reliance on. AI is kind of stunting our problem-solving skills, our memory retention. I think there was one study that even compared the mental impairment of reliance on these tools to that of a drunk driver and concluded that it's even worse. And so people are walking around like impaired as if they're drunk like all day long. Like it is insane what we're signing up for and kind of volunteering for. And like you, I'm Gen X, like I'm an elder Gen X. Our neurons were formed, you know, before any of these tools came online. But if you're Gen Z or Gen Alpha and you've never known anything differently, like your brain is being formed by these things. And I think there's

also some studies that suggest that even when you take these tools away, especially from a younger person, they're so used to pattern switching, you know, kind of like the attention deficit, like always trying to look at something new, that even when you remove that, like, their brain is still doing that and insists upon that. So, you know, it's difficult for them to, more difficult for them to be present, to focus and, you know, to kind of concentrate or do any kind of like deep work. Yeah. Is A. making us smarter or dumber? I think we all know what's making us dumber. just like when Waze and Google Maps hit, like our ability to find our way to a destination dropped.

It's cognitive offload. We've just offloaded everything. It seems like a good thing, but maybe not. Yeah, and the revenue model of these tech platforms is around maximizing engagement. And then AI is now like a turbo boost before that. And so what it behooves us to do is to actually try and circumscribe these tools in our own lives.

I mean, you and I are both friends with Arthur Brooks. And he said a number of rules to live by in terms of your smartphone that are actually achievable for most people. Now, do I achieve them on most days? I achieve maybe half of them. But there are things like stay away from your phone an hour after you wake up, an hour before you go to sleep, go meals without them. take one phone break per day outside of these times that you're describing and take like a weekend

off from your phone about every month or so. So some of these things I do every day where it's like, do I put my smartphone away before I go to bed and then do something else? Like maybe even read a book. Yeah, I do. Like that's something that I think many of us can do. I'm not able to do it in the morning. I wake up and think I'm a very important person and I need to see what's going on. So that's not a good habit. But these are spaces that we need to carve out more and more. And now I've started a company to try and help people move in that direction. And I'm thrilled that you like what we're building with Noble mobile because I think we have a chance to help a lot of people. Yeah. I love it. I mean, it is such a unique business proposition, the idea that

you can like your cellular carrier and that the business incentive is to reduce your phone usage. Like, how does that even work? Like, do you actually pay people back? Like, how does that even make sense from an entrepreneurial point of view? So I was inspired by a company called Cost Plus Drugs that Mark Cuban started. Are you familiar with this company? Yeah, I am. Has Mark been on? No. Oh, we should have to have him on. Yeah, we should freaking get him on. I mean, you guys would get along great So for those people who haven't heard of this company, cost plus drugs buys generic drugs in bulk and then sells them to the American public

at a very modest markup of 15%. And now hundreds of thousands of Americans are getting their drugs from cost plus drugs and it's saving lives, it's saving people millions and millions of dollars. So I'm friends with Mark. I'm trying to get them to run for president. Go, Mark. Cuban.

What about you? Cuban Yang, 28. Okay. You heard it here. Go ahead. Sorry. Oh, no, it's fine. So, you know, I'm talking to Mark, and I'm like, Mark, this is genius. We have to try and figure out how to cost plus other things in Americans' lives so that we're not getting gouged as much.

So I went through the average Americans cost structure, and it goes unsurprising. Housing, health care, education, food, fuel, transportation. media and then wireless. And so I thought which of these could we actually cost plus. So Mark took a shot at drugs, which is in, you know, category two. And I landed in category number eight wireless. I was a Verizon customer for 20 years, paying them $150 a month just for myself. So that's high.

The average American spending 83 a month on their wireless. So if you're spending more than that, you're above average, you know, in a bad way, honestly, honestly. But what shocked me was that the average European is spending $35 a month or less than half of what we're spending. And so I started to dig in and wondered, could we get Americans a better deal? So I went to Verizon AT&T and T-Mobile to see who would want to build something better for the public.

T-Mobile said we're interested. And so what we did is we bought all. all this data wholesale from T-Mobile, but we realized that if someone used less data, it would enable us to return half the savings to them. So what we're doing really is we're cost-plusing all of your wireless data. And if you were to use less data in a given month, then we will actually send you cash back.

What we've done is we built a rebate system that is like a friendly angel that rewards you for doom scrolling a little bit less. Yeah. Nobody likes their cell phone carrier. I think I've been with AT&T since I moved to Los Angeles, like 1996, 1997. It's a constant hassle. It's a nightmare. But until Noble came along, like, I never thought, like, well, you know, how do you change?

There isn't any other option. You just have to tolerate it. They have all the leverage. And then to realize, like, you explained to me their margins and just how much they're gouging you and how difficult they make it. for you to make any kind of switch or take back any of that power. Yeah, that delta between $83 and $35 a month. I don't know if that sounds like a lot to people,

but that adds up to $100 billion a year and extra spend on our wireless data. And of that $100 billion, $11 billion is going to Verizon shareholders in, like just straight cash. Verizon takes $11 billion of their profits and pays it to their shareholders as a dividend. AT&T, your former carrier, took $7 billion last year and sent it to their shareholders as a dividend. And then T-Mobile was another three or so. So that's $21 billion of the $100 billion in extra spend. One of the reasons I'm so passionate about Noble Mobile is that I firmly believe that saving money actually makes you feel better about your life, your prospects, your future. Where if you feel like time is working for you, then you feel better.

Whereas if you feel like the walls are closing in and your bills are higher than your income, let's say, then you start to feel more pessimistic. So with Noble, the most you can pay in any given month is $50. And I will confess to everyone, that's what I pay a lot of months because I'm a heavy phone user. $50 is still, you know, $100 less than I used to pay. but if you don't use a whole lot of data and Wi-Fi doesn't count in this calculation so if you're at your home or your office you're probably using no data because you're just on your Wi-Fi the least you can pay us is $30 a month so the average noble user is paying $42 a month and using their phone 15 to 20% less than

they did before they started with us and I think for a lot of people here that would be an appropriate target. Like you're not trying to throw your phone into the ocean. Maybe some of you are. I would enjoy that. But if I were to say to you, hey, you know, you're going to reduce your screen time by 15 to 20 percent and get paid for that, most people would be thrilled. Well, it's acknowledging an incentive that actually works. You know, the onus is on us.

It's sort of this bottom up thing as the end user to figure this out. And there's all these apps. We can gray scale our phone. We're sort of acknowledging like we need these things in order to function in modern society, even though our relationship with them is unhealthy. And so we try to protect ourselves with creating boundaries that we are constantly breaking and these apps to carve out time or block out our, you know, social media apps for periods throughout the day so that we can focus.

And that's fine. But like money? Yes. Like, oh, you're going to pay. like I'm actually going to save money or you're going to refund my money or, you know, like that is being an entirely different language. Yes. Like we're simple creatures. We like measurements.

We like rewards. We like money. We like getting paid for doing something that we kind of want to do but haven't really had this kind of nudge or incentive. And we've seen it among our users. I mean, our users have changed behavior because when you're doom scrolling at the margins, you're like, oh, wait a minute. I'm actually costing myself money if I'm out to dinner with my friends or family and I've got my phone out. And then you get reminded, I should not have my phone out. Like I'm here to hang out with my friends or my family.

So it's been an awesome success thus far. And it's great to do something that both saves people money, which I love. But Hassan Minhaj is a comedian I'm friendly with calls these guys are rectangles of sad. And it's like, you know, imagine getting rewarded for using your rectangle of sadness a little bit less. Mr. Andrew Yang, would you say that your relationship with your phone is intentional or reactive? Mostly reactive, unfortunately. You could even say abusive, where it just sends me pings and notifications and vibrations and I just run to it and respond saying, what is it? What's the matter? Well, I got good news for you, Andrew, because there is a cellular company that's going to help you with that very problem. And it's actually going to pay you to use your phone less.

Well, I do like money. What's it called? It's called Noble Mobile. Have you heard of it? I have in a dream. It came. If you want to learn about Noble mobile, the company founded by the great Andrew Yang sitting next to me right now, you can do that and you can sign up and you can change your relationship. with your phone entirely. Here's what you're going to do. You're going to go to noblemobile.com and you can try it for just $10 for your first month when you use the very special VIP behind the Velvet Rope code.

Rich Roll. Make your relationship with your phone less abusive, more deliberate, a little more distant. And we'll all be happier. There is all this emergent evidence-based science coming out about the benefits of light therapy for skin health, which I have to say is something that I've been increasingly interested in,

especially since I'm nearing 60. And I've got to say that I've fallen in love with the eye-restored alumina face mask. And the reason why I like it so much and why it stands out against the many competitors that are out there is because it uses three different light modes simultaneously. You got red light to boost collagen and elastin production, infrared to calm inflammation, and blue light to reduce acne and prevent breakouts. And it has 360 LEDs, which is more than twice the number in most of the popular devices.

It's simple to use. It's convenient. I pop it on when I'm doing something else, like answering emails. Just 10 minutes, a few times a week, that's it. And my skin just looks better or even a little more alive. They also make the eye restore elite for hair growth built on that same idea. technology that works quietly in the background while you go about your life. And right now, I Restore is offering some huge discounts on their red light therapy devices. Right now, you can save

on customer favorites like the I Restore Elite Helmet and the Illumina Face Mask. Just head to irrestore.com and use code rich roll. How do you think about these platforms, our relationship with them, and how you're trying to message people about developing a healthier perspective on all of this? Yeah, it's good fun, but I mean, working with folks like you and Scott Galloway and Arthur Brooks and Chelsea Handler, like all of whom have embraced Noble because they realize it's going to help people, they're using it. And one of the revelations I had, switching from Verizon to Noble, even I was like, is my stuff going to work? And then when it does work exactly the same or better, then you get really fired up. You're like, wait a minute, I was giving those guys an extra $100 a month for what? Yeah, I didn't realize how easy it is to switch and you just basically toggle a few switches on your phone and it takes care of it.

Every device manufactured from 2018 on has an e-sim in it that just you can direct it to talk to another network. So for the average person, you can switch in like five or six minutes. And that's what most people don't realize. Most of us, Gen Xers, we think we have to go to a store and stand in line and do. all this stuff, but we're much freer than that. Well, the best way to make data work for us is to use it to schedule IRL experiences. And I know that's one thing that Noble does. Like, you have these phone-free events.

And if there's, you know, another silver lining to this moment that we're all weathering, it's a greater appreciation for connection and community. Like, these things were meant to foster that. They put distance between us and other human beings. And now we're kind of like in this moment where we're craving it more than ever. And you're seeing even, you know, young people especially, like. Yeah. Some of the things we're messing around with, for example, would be everyone puts their phone in a box at the dinner table out at a restaurant.

And then if no one actually takes their phone out, then you get 10% off your bill like paid for by no more. More money incentive. Yeah, yeah. I mean, you know, we do tend to traffic in money. But data is money and that's one of the interesting things here. Another idea that I had was that if you go, you get together with a friend in real life and you take a picture and then you like send it to us or post it, then you get like a, you know, discount off your cell phone bill that month. So there are these positive ways that we can use a billing relationship. But totally agree with you that it's all meant to spur in real life experience and connection relationships.

We've had over 10,000 people attend these no phone offline parties, including the hundreds at an event here in L.A. We have one in New York in May that the New York events tend to be pretty well attended because you know, like everyone likes to, you know, take a break and party. And I will say for folks like you and I rich, it is so much fun attending a phone free party because you have no choice but to look at each other and converse and maybe buy someone a drink. And it feels like a college party in the 90s again. Yeah.

And one person actually tried to get someone else's phone number, but no one had a phone. So they wrote the number down on a napkin, just like we used. to do. The 90s were the best. In the 90s. But it makes you realize how this phone has become such a, like, a crutch and a barrier between people in those kinds of settings. Because if you're bored or lonely at a bar or club today, what do you do? You bust at your phone, like a second later.

And then you're like, oh, and then you're like soothed and you're seeing what's going on. But if you don't have that recourse, then you're like, all right, who's here? Like, what's going on? Yeah. Yeah, you're forced to get out of your comfort zone and interact with people. I think a lot of it also has to do with the fact that, like, nobody has them. And that kind of mirrors Jonathan Heights's research with schools. It's not that kids are against a no-phone policy.

They just don't want to be the only one. So if you take the phone away from everyone, they're actually a lot happier. and everybody's kind of flourishing on a whole new level. So these phone-free parties or whatever, these IRL events, like the fact that no one has it, that's the real appeal. Yeah, yeah. You can check it out at offlineparty.com. We've now had maybe 22 of them.

And I've been to virtually all of them. So I've partied a lot this past year without votes, which also is kind of liberating too because, you know, no one's taking photos or recording anything. digitally. We walk around with those old school film cameras, you know, like the disposables. Yeah. You talked about, I want to get into like other solutions. So you mentioned like, oh, don't bring, you know, no phones for dinner or you can do these, you can set up boundaries. This is my deep work time, etc.

Yeah. Or institute some kind of digital detox. Like, do these ever work or you just rubber band back to like your bad behavior. I mean, it's it's sort of like an intermittent fast, I suppose, if you use food as an analogy. But we still find our way back to that compulsive behavior where we're just being impulse almost, you know, against our will. You know, there was a study and I think it was even run by meta that if you spend a week off of social media platforms, your mood improved significantly. And that's true too if someone takes your device away. So I, I, Because like the first day you're freaking out. But then by the second or third day, you're like, oh, this is actually kind of nice.

So I'm with you that the guidelines or the time restrictions that are self-imposed tend to have real limits in their effectiveness and utility. Because you know it's always there. You know that, you know, after the meal ends, you can rush to your phone and be comforted by it. But I think what Jonathan Haid established is really the answer, which is if no one has it, then you're fine. It's just if you're the only loser who doesn't have the phone in your school or at the party, then you feel deficient. And so that's the norm that can be established within a family environment, within a company or organization, within a school district, within a friend group, maybe even with. within, you know, a locality. And that's something that Noble wants to be helpful to.

And in our own lives, I mean, I think we're our best accountability buddies. And I suppose that I don't know if that's a technical addiction term. But one thing I did when I was a kid, I was very profane as a kid because I was one of the only Asian kids in my town and I didn't want to be a nerd. so I just swore all the time. So then I got to college and was still swearing all the time. And this cute girl I liked said, why do you cuss so much? And then I said, like, I don't know.

And so I gave a couple of guys I hung out at that time licensed to punch me in the arm as hard as they could any time. I said, fuck or shit. Because you like this girl? Because I like this girl and I wanted to clean up my, you know, my act to, a dater. And so, of course, my friends rejoiced at the ability to, like, pound me anytime I cursed, which I did all the time because I just did it like every, you know, third sentence without thinking about it.

And it totally worked. And then I stopped swearing because it got to a point, rich, where when I swore and these guys weren't around, I would flinch because I was so used to getting pounded. Negative incentives work. Yeah, like positive incentives work. Noble, as you guys can tell is very, very benign and positive. But if you give someone in your life license, and one of Noble's ads, which is funny, meant to be funny, is me smacking phones out of people's hands.

Yeah. But if you give someone in your life, like the ability to, let's say it's like, hey, anytime I bust my phone out during a meal, like, you know, you get $5 or whatever for like your kids or whatnot, they'll call you out like every chance they get. Like if you can establish some kind of norm or culture that might be fun or reward, rewarding or punitive. Yeah. I think, you know, that can give you hope.

Yeah, it's tough, man. Like, I'll create these rules like, well, there's a difference between using my phone to create something and using it to consume. But that's also just artifice. Like, I can be in denial about that. Yeah. And I will take my phone into the gym and realize that a workout that should take 45 minutes. It ends up taking two hours and I'll justify, oh, I'm making notes or I'm having creative ideas and I'm like writing them down. And so I'm kind of multitasking or I'm preparing for a podcast.

Same, same. But like, no, this is not the way. You and I are kindred spirits. So two things we've done to try and be helpful. So number one, everyone will appreciate this. Everyone wants to know what their baseline is, what their current behaviors are. So if you download the Noble Life app, it's totally free. just takes a minute to download.

And all it's going to do is it's going to monitor how many times you pick up your phone. And how much doom scrolling you're doing. And so we said 100 as like the reasonableness threshold. If you're above 100, you get these, you know, cheeky messages being like, hey, your brain might be running a little bit. And then if you're below 100, then it's like, oh, you're good. And that's free, easy. It's meant to be a fun resource and tool for people. Now, one of the things, obviously, because we're a business, if you have the Noble Life app,

any time you're below 100, then you develop cash rewards because that's the way we roll. We roll. And then the cash rewards then can be used as a credit for Noble mobile. So that's the second thing is that if you have an interest in actually getting your behavior aligned to your wireless plan, then check out Noble mobile. We save you money just about, you know, everyone's saving like almost 50% or more off their cell phone bill, but then we'll, in all likelihood, reduce your screen time by 15 to 20%. Yeah, I mean, the function, the aspect of that that I like the most, I mean, the money's fine and that's great, but it's, it's showing you those metrics so that you can

break the grip of denial and actually objectively see how you're behaving because it's shocking. We all lie to ourselves, man. We all lie to ourselves. This is the deal. Like, the stakes are high. This thing is eroding our ability to think clearly, to focus. It's changing our neurology. It's impairing our physical health. Obviously, our mental health.

We can't concentrate. Like, it is truly coming for all of your time. And your life is on the line. And the only resource that we can't renew in our lives is time. and we squander it without thinking about it. It really is tragic. And so I think it's just, if I could say anything, it's just incumbent upon all of us to really rethink this

and not be so cavalier about it. I think we're just like, oh, well, or, well, everyone's doing it, and it's just kind of the thing. And to understand that we have agency and that you're actually financially incentivizing people to do this, this is serious business. Like, your life is truly on the line. The stakes could not be higher.

And I implore everyone to rethink this relationship. And if you think it's okay, even if your screen time is high, if you do an inventory, like, write down what you do every 15 minutes throughout the day and do that for a day or a week, I think pretty much everybody will be shocked at how much time they're wasting. And then we walk around saying, well, I don't have time for this, that, and the other. and the things that are most important in life end up coming last because this becomes first, because we're addicted to it. And it is insane from pillar to post. And we're all just, you know, kind of accepting it. It's crazy talk. Yes. Amen, brother.

And it's interrupting our actual in real life relationships. I mean, studies have shown that you do a digital check-in and you're like, oh, I'm good with this person. and you're less likely to see them face to face, catch up with them for coffee or lunch. This includes close family members. And these screens are not a substitute for actual human contact. And all the science bears that out. Yeah.

If I could say anything, especially to young people, like the good news is the bar is so low right now. Like, everybody is so distracted that if you could just develop a modicum, of focus, like maybe 20% of what you were doing when you were 23 years old, that puts you in the 99.99% like if you could just carve out some degree of deep focus throughout the day, you can leapfrog over everyone because everyone is so distracted now. So you could actually distinguish yourself and accomplish quite a bit because everyone is so locked in on their doom scrolling. when you talk about accomplishing something, Rich, what I think about really is quality time with my kids

because all too often it's not high quality, unfortunately, you know, like you get together with them and instead of actually having a heart-to-heart, real conversation, it's just very practical and activity-based and like I'm distracted and they're distracted. And then it's easier, you know, like you take them on a family trip. The easiest thing to do is give your kid an iPad or screen and then they'll let them sedate themselves like on the plane ride instead of trying to, you know, tell them about where they're going. Yeah. So what's your message to parents and how do you do that as a parent yourself? You know, I mean, I think most people know the aphorism that kids respond to what you do, not what you say. And it's one reason why like, you know, I need to do

better and be a better role model because they see you right through. If you're like, hey, don't use your screen so much and then you bust yours out like uh you know at the dinner table or on the family trip or whatever it is so then you have to lead and then you have to be good human and good spirited about it when it doesn't work the first the second time and then that like third or fourth time like maybe they'll they'll actually uh enjoy it and be attentive to uh you know like the Picasso museum or wherever i dragged them to that's a real story i did drag up the two Picasso museum When you were running for president, what did you learn about the digital information ecosystem that the average person might not understand or be aware of?

I was competing. So you try and get attention any way you can. And so I joke with my wife or she jokes about it being like the presidential event Olympics, where it's like, oh, what talent do you have that translates well online, whether it's dancing the Cupid shuffle or getting on a skateboard or like all these things. And so I think that's something that I've inhabited and lived in a way that most people don't fully understand. And you know what the downsides are of that too, where like it's just attention. It's like if you can do something that's snazzy and grab someone in the first three seconds,

then you have a better chance to compete. in this economy. But then, you know, if you have like a substantive message, then you're at something of a disadvantage. The election process then mirrors, you know, every kind of digital creator's experience. I mean, it's same is true in podcasting or anyone who's trying to put a message out there. Like if you want to capture attention.

Yeah. You're in running for president this whole time. Hardly. Hardly. Hardly. No way. What about, are you? Are you, first of all, how are you feeling about the state of liberal democracy right now?

And would you consider running again? I don't feel great. People reach out to be all the time, freaking out about AI. And I'd consider running again if I thought I could be constructive and generative and helpful and actually advance real solutions. You know, one of my jokes is I'm almost too young not to run again. Yeah. Because I'm under the age of 77 or whatever the age is. All right, well, you heard it here.

I'll interpret that as a yes. Yang Roll 28. Huh? The Yang Gang is getting back together again. Yang gang plus rich roll. Unstoppable. Noble mobile. Freaking get off that bone.

Look up. Touch grass. Except people are going to need to see you on their phones if you're going to run for president. This is the conundrum, Andrew. Maybe I'll show up to everyone's door. We can't live without them. And that's actually the summer, Rich. It's like, look, we know these tools are indispensable,

but also that they're eating our brains and mental health. So let's do better. And, you know, I mean, I try and be good humor about things, but this is like a, you know, like multi-million dollar business that wants to be a counterweight on the human side. And right now you have this, you know, series of tech giants that just want to extract. and ring value from us. We want to build something everyone's excited about

and happy to be a part of. Last thing. Leave people with one actionable takeaway that they can practice today or tonight around their phone hygiene. Other than signing up for Noble mobile mobile. No, no. This is the most practical one

and it's even kind of catchy. Don't sleep with your phone. Don't make love to it. But what it means is really just put it in another room. Just plug it in in another room. That physiologically will help you sleep better, will help you actually wake up in a better state of mind. And that's science. Like just the phone in your room, some part of your brain knows that it's there and wants to respond to it. So just put it to bed in the living room. And some people, when they hear this, say like, then how am I going to wake up?

There's something called an alarm clock. It costs approximately $12. You can have one function. You can set that alarm. But do not sleep with your phone in the same room as you. Amen, brother. Thanks, buddy. Thank you.