Latest / Mostly Offline / Attention For Sale

Transcript

Attention For Sale · Mostly Offline

0:07
Justin: Welcome to Mostly Offline, the podcast about being a little less online and a little more present.
0:19
Justin: I'm Justin.
0:20
Maria: And I'm Maria.
0:21
Maria: We're here to talk about phones, social media, and all the ways being constantly connected can start to feel like a lot.
0:27
Justin: Today we're talking about our attention and how much of it we hand over to our phones without even noticing.
0:31
Justin: The quick check-ins that turn into an hour, the apps built to keep us scrolling, and who's actually making money off all that time.
0:38
Maria: Basically, you're not the customer, you're the product.
0:41
Justin: Exactly.
0:41
Justin: And I want to start with this.
0:42
Justin: What's the app that steals the most time from you?
0:46
Maria: Instagram, I would say, or TikTok.
0:50
Justin: To just doom scrolling.
0:52
Maria: Yeah, I would say so because randomly on TikTok, I'll be in bed, and then it will be like, this Egyptian tomb got uncovered.
1:00
Maria: And then I'm like, wait, is this historically accurate?
1:02
Maria: I need to check fact this.
1:04
Maria: And before you know it, I'm like an hour deep looking into some random ancient artifact that I would be oblivious to otherwise.
1:14
Justin: Yeah, so you're learning.
1:15
Justin: So that's not a bad thing.
1:16
Justin: But yeah, I think that's the same for me.
1:19
Justin: Like I go, well, I use the brick.
1:21
Justin: So at 10 p.m., all my apps are bricked.
1:24
Justin: So like all my social media apps, all my games on my phone are bricked.
1:26
Justin: So I can't go on them until 10 a.m.
1:28
Justin: But I will go on YouTube on like my iPad and watch YouTube videos or whatever else.
1:34
Justin: But I do try to like focus on a lot more of learning videos than just like doom scrolling.
1:40
Justin: Don't get me wrong, I do doom scroll.
1:42
Justin: I think that I don't think it's unhealthy to be a little online, obviously, but I try to make a conscious effort to like be doing something where I'm learning.
1:51
Maria: I started timing when I'm on Instagram or TikTok because and trying to kind of analyze what other people are posting.
1:59
Maria: So looking at their B-roll shots and looking at posts that are going viral and using it as time to grow my personal training business.
2:07
Maria: But every so often one of those videos will pop up and then I just go down the rabbit hole.
2:12
Maria: And I need to be better about being like, no, I'm not gonna go down the rabbit hole.
2:16
Maria: And I feel like I have been, but some videos are just so intriguing.
2:20
Justin: I mean, it's interesting and it's they're they're designed to like get your attention.
2:24
Justin: That's these feeds are built that way.
2:26
Justin: Like they're never-ending for a reason.
2:28
Justin: I read this article.
2:29
Justin: The guy that created like the never-ending page on, like, say Google or whatever else.
2:35
Justin: Like he was, I think he worked at Google.
2:37
Justin: I can't remember, but it was basically like you were scrolling, maybe it was Instagram actually, because you used to have to scroll to the bottom and then you'd go to a new page.
2:44
Justin: I can't remember, or you'd reload more.
2:46
Justin: The guy that invented the never-ending scroll, he said it's the worst thing he ever did for society.
2:54
Justin: Like he's like, This, I built this and I wish I hadn't have built it.
2:59
Maria: I think it's pretty bad.
3:00
Maria: It's so addicting.
3:02
Maria: Like we talked about it in episode one, but it's like smoking cigarettes, right?
3:06
Maria: Like the movement of bringing the cigarette up to your lips and then scrolling.
3:10
Maria: I bet, like, even just like the finger movement, the weight of the phone, like you get addicted to those movements, right?
3:16
Justin: Yeah.
3:16
Justin: Hot take.
3:18
Justin: I can almost appreciate someone smoking a cigarette more than vaping in this day and age because the person that's smoking the cigarette knows exactly how bad that cigarette is for them.
3:26
Justin: There's been health studies, the vaping person doesn't necessarily know that.
3:30
Maria: But I also wonder with children how it's gonna affect their brain.
3:34
Maria: Like I feel like with parenting, my sister just had a baby and she's like, I don't want any screen near the baby, like at all.
3:41
Maria: And I feel like when I have kids, if I have kids, I'm gonna be the exact same way.
3:45
Maria: I feel like it's easy, and I know sometimes it can be really hard as a parent, and you want to put a screen in front of a child so they just start like stop screaming their head off.
3:54
Maria: Yeah.
3:54
Maria: But at the same time, I feel like screens and the blue light and everything, it will affect the way that they're actually like maturing and growing.
4:01
Justin: Yeah, I think I think there's a lot of great things about putting an iPad in front of a toddler, fine motor control these things.
4:09
Justin: Like, I think they learn a lot of skills, but you need to be very conscious about what apps they're using.
4:14
Justin: Like you can't just give them unfettered access to TikTok or Instagram because they're gonna find things that they probably shouldn't see.
4:21
Justin: But when I think there's games and stuff that can help kids with fine motor control and things like that, like kids used to build with blocks.
4:29
Justin: Now they go on the iPad and they put the blocks into the skull, the holes, right?
4:33
Justin: And if you're like in the car, I think it's okay for a kid to watch a TV show in some settings when you're in a restaurant.
4:41
Justin: No.
4:42
Justin: Like, do I want this iPad blasting beside me when I'm at a steakhouse?
4:45
Justin: No, not really.
4:47
Justin: But I also can appreciate that they're not my children, and I don't understand what the children, the child might be going through, or like maybe the alternative is the child is screaming.
4:59
Justin: And a lot of people would say, like, well, don't take your kid to a restaurant then.
5:02
Justin: But parents deserve to have a nice night out with their kids too, right?
5:06
Justin: This is a hot take because usually I'm not in this, I'm not usually this like chill with kids doing that kind of stuff.
5:13
Justin: But like, if the alternative is like the child screaming, I mean, sure.
5:16
Justin: Or on a plane, uh there's been times where I'm like, I will give this kid my iPad if he if they just stop screaming, you know what I mean?
5:24
Maria: Yeah, I feel like I felt the same way.
5:25
Maria: So it's hard to judge that, but it's just scary with like the brain chemistry and the neuropathways that are being formed because they are showing now with like MRI scans and your brain being creative is really important.
5:40
Maria: And if you're not using that part of your brain, then it's just gone.
5:43
Maria: And I feel like making sure that children, even just being out in nature, just sitting down, there's so many things to see, listen to.
5:53
Maria: You don't need it all coming from a screen.
5:55
Maria: You know what I mean?
5:56
Justin: 100%.
5:56
Justin: Yeah, I think like I think it's a mindset shift of like using technology, seeing technology as a tool.
6:02
Justin: That's what I've been focusing on the last probably six months to a year, is like really, really refocusing so that looking at technology as a tool, not as like an everyday part of my life.
6:13
Justin: Like I said, my phone, I put it at the door, my little IKEA bowl with the charger on it.
6:19
Justin: It's my home phone, it sits at the door.
6:21
Justin: I try not to like take it and sit on the couch with it because then I will doom scroll.
6:26
Justin: If my phone's across the room and I have to get up to go to go talk on the phone, or someone calls me or I get a message, I can go over there and get it and I can come back.
6:35
Justin: It's kind of one of those things where you can kind of have a home phone without having a home phone.
6:41
Maria: And that's the problem with just having the phone in general, is there's just so many ways to be accessible, which we talked about in the first episode.
6:49
Maria: But it's like when I see my phone in front of me, and then I'm saying I'm scrolling, and then somebody texts me, it leads me to losing an hour because I'll go to a text and then I'll be like, oh, I need to go back to that video I was watching.
7:02
Maria: And then I'm like, oh, I need to actually reply to this email.
7:05
Maria: And being on my phone and going through my phone, it just like keeps triggering my to-do list basically in my phone.
7:11
Maria: So I'll just continue going and then you get sidetracked from the videos and then you bounce back.
7:16
Justin: Yeah, we talked about it in, I think we talked about that in episode one where it's like when someone texts you, they've added a task unknowingly, and not it's not their fault, but they've if you think about things the way we think about things, they've added a task to my to-do list when they send me a text.
7:30
Justin: And then when I'm in the gym, I'm replying to like a million text messages because that's the only time I have.
7:36
Justin: Or I'm pretty good at like when I'm on my computer, I'll reply to my messages.
7:39
Justin: But like luckily, I get to I'm in a situation where I work from a computer, so I can do that.
7:45
Justin: You're you're not necessarily you're not necessarily in that same situation, right?
7:49
Justin: You can't always be in front of your messages.
7:52
Justin: So it's really hard.
7:54
Justin: And you do, it's really easy to lose an hour when you pick up your phone.
7:58
Justin: And it could be something as simple as looking at a recipe or something.
8:03
Justin: I was telling my friend that I want to get that new Apple home view.
8:08
Justin: It's like home pod but has a screen on it.
8:10
Justin: It's like a little iPad, but it's on a home pod.
8:12
Justin: And I want it for in the kitchen because I'm like, a lot of times he's his argument was like, you have just use an iPad mini or use your phone.
8:20
Justin: And I was like, but a lot of times my phone's at the door and I'm just looking for a recipe, and I don't want to necessarily pick up this like time-sucking device.
8:29
Justin: I want something that's like purposely limited in what I can do so that I can just look at the recipe or look for something, look something up with Siri and have it tell me without having to go get my phone, because my phone then has TikTok and Instagram and all these time-sucking apps.
8:46
Maria: I was thinking of doing the same thing, but I saw I have a really old iPad from I don't even know, not even super old, just like 2018.
8:54
Maria: And basically it just connects to the Wi-Fi.
8:56
Maria: But somebody took their old iPad and they got this frame and then they glued on the back of the frame.
9:03
Maria: It's a chart, like it goes into a port, but it doesn't actually take like electricity.
9:08
Maria: It's just like plastic or something.
9:10
Maria: So it hangs on the wall.
9:11
Maria: And I was like, that's so cute.
9:13
Maria: And then what they have is they have it's like photos for the background are changing, but then when you log on, you can just do exactly what you said like just look up a recipe or just look up like a video that you want to watch while you're cooking, and it's like super purposeful, yeah, but not have like Instagram, TikTok, email, like all the things on it.
9:31
Justin: Yeah, like very limited.
9:32
Justin: I feel like if you're creative, you can build all these things.
9:35
Justin: You don't have to like go to Apple and buy them.
9:36
Justin: I'm not saying that the $400 thing that I want is like the solution for everyone.
9:42
Justin: If you have an old iPad lying around, that's a great way to do it.
9:45
Justin: Get some wood from Michaels and build a little hot glue of frame on it or whatever you want to do, right?
9:50
Justin: I think people should be crafty and do those things.
9:53
Maria: We're doing that.
9:53
Maria: We're doing a little craft night.
9:55
Maria: Okay, I'm doing it.
9:55
Maria: iPad craft night.
9:56
Justin: I have so many crafts I want to do.
9:57
Justin: I really want to cover my light in my bathroom too.
10:01
Justin: It's so ugly.
10:02
Justin: And I saw this lady like DIY'd it with like fabric and like hot glue, she like hot glued it.
10:06
Justin: I don't know.
10:07
Justin: I'm gonna build it.
10:07
Justin: I'm like, I'm just I'm like, I want things to be cute.
10:11
Maria: That's another thing, too.
10:12
Maria: Like last night I have an instructor belt and I bedazzled it, and it took, I don't even know, like seven hours.
10:19
Maria: I was up till 1 a.m.
10:21
Maria: doing it, but I was so locked in and I just put my phone in the other room.
10:25
Maria: And I feel like having a craft or something, and then actually seeing the end product, like you feel so good after.
10:31
Maria: And then this morning I was putting it on, like dancing around my barn.
10:35
Justin: It's so cute to like, it's so nice to do things with your hands too.
10:39
Justin: It's like really good for you.
10:40
Justin: It's really healthy to like do a little project.
10:43
Justin: I spend probably 10 times longer doing things than it would take to just buy things or like make the money to outweigh the cost.
10:52
Justin: But the the the happiness I get from building things is so nice.
10:57
Justin: Like I'm a craft, I like making a little craft.
11:00
Justin: I'm trying to think of what crafty things I've done, but I like to do a little craft or like doing things myself.
11:04
Justin: People are always like, why are you fixing your garburator when you have a landlord that's their job?
11:10
Justin: I like to do those things because I want to like problem solve and like fix it.
11:14
Justin: I don't mind doing it.
11:15
Justin: It's not like a thing that I'm incapable of doing.
11:17
Justin: I think those are skills you have to keep brushing up on.
11:21
Maria: Also, coming back to the being intentional with technology, I miss computer labs.
11:27
Maria: I feel like having that implemented where it's not like constantly in front of you, but we still had the tactile still skills to write an exam and do the things on paper.
11:38
Maria: Like I have a lot of friends that are teachers.
11:40
Maria: And from what I've been told, is even a few years ago when we were in high school, the same test that they would give us, it takes students like four to five hours to write it out because they don't have the tactile skills to write.
11:53
Maria: Versus when we were in school, we went to the computer lab, we had that amount of time, and then we were expected to write or an or handwrite for certain projects.
12:04
Justin: Interesting, I've never even considered that.
12:06
Justin: Like I write things down a lot because I find it easier to remember when I write it down.
12:10
Justin: But I guess like a lot of kids probably aren't writing anymore.
12:14
Justin: They're just taking notes on their phones, or like I mean, an argument can be made for like why I learned these things.
12:21
Justin: Like I was talking to Max about I'm always bugging him about like math.
12:25
Justin: And I'm like, you this is simple math, whatever.
12:28
Justin: I do it in my head.
12:29
Justin: And there's an argument for like, why would I do math if there's a calculator in my pocket all the time?
12:34
Justin: Right.
12:35
Justin: But I like doing the math, I like figuring out the problem.
12:38
Justin: Some people can't be bothered, I can be.
12:41
Maria: But I feel like that's a big problem of like what we're touching on too, is it's so accessible, the information and AI, that it's we're choosing not to actually put in the work and not to actually solve the problem.
12:55
Maria: And in the long run, that's gonna affect our brain.
12:57
Justin: For sure.
12:58
Justin: People are trading their brains in for AI.
13:01
Justin: I think it's very evident, it's very evident that people who are intelligent are leveraging AI to increase their intelligence, and people that are not thinking for themselves are using AI to continue to not think for themselves.
13:18
Justin: I think there's a lot of I think it'll be really interesting in like 10 years to see if there's a larger divide because I do think the like scholars of the world are using AI for researching things and as a research companion.
13:34
Justin: But there's a lot of people too that are just asking AI what they should do about every problem in their life, up to like getting groceries.
13:43
Maria: Well, it's scary too because I know that there was a case where a lawyer actually was using AI and they brought evidence that got pushed through.
13:53
Maria: And I'm not a lawyer, so I don't know how these things work.
13:56
Maria: But it was written out through AI and basically it was quoting a law that didn't exist, but it looked so legitimate that the judge was like, Oh yeah, like this makes sense.
14:06
Maria: And then they found out later on that it was AI, and that really scares me too, because if we're not checking things and we're not using our brain, like AI is a great tool, but if everybody and the top of the top of the top person stops actually using their brain and they're just like, oh, AI's got it, things are gonna go whack because it's not actually gonna be accurate.
14:27
Justin: Yeah, 100%.
14:27
Justin: I saw that court case as well, and it's very scary that I obviously lawyers are gonna use AI.
14:35
Justin: There's companies that are specifically built for those types of things, but it's scary to think that some people are letting AI make critical decisions.
14:46
Justin: I don't think a computer can make a critical decision because.
14:49
Justin: Sorry, Siri's going crazy in my bedroom.
14:54
Justin: I think it's hard for a computer to make a critical decision because I really believe that to make a critical decision, you need to be scared of consequences.
15:04
Justin: And I don't think a computer can be scared of consequences.
15:06
Justin: That comes from like a being alive, sentient thing where you're scared of like, if I drive my car 300 kilometers an hour down the highway, the risk is I die.
15:15
Justin: And that's a critical decision, right?
15:18
Justin: I don't think a computer can make a critical decision.
15:20
Justin: So it's very scary that some people are letting them do that for them.
15:23
Maria: Well, I watched something online as well that was a lady who was taking pharmaceutical drugs for epilepsy, I believe.
15:32
Maria: And they're investigating now the amount of medical advice that AI has given and how it's not actually accurate.
15:39
Maria: But they have, I think it was two years of chats.
15:43
Maria: And she kept asking, Are you sure I can like go off this medication?
15:47
Maria: It said, Yes, this is the plan to which we're gonna get you off of the medication.
15:52
Maria: She didn't talk to a medical provider and AI kind of like pushed her into doing it, and then she ended up passing away because she had a seizure.
16:01
Maria: So now they're looking into cases too with AI on the advice that it's given, and it comes back to exactly what you said.
16:08
Maria: At the end of the day, why would AI be scared if it gives bad advice and it ends up hurting someone or creating a bad situation?
16:18
Maria: It doesn't have feelings, it's literally a code.
16:21
Justin: Yeah, I agree.
16:23
Justin: I think there's situations as well where like something will happen, something illegal will happen, and we find out that these companies were warned about the conversations that these individuals were having with AI and they didn't do anything about it.
16:40
Justin: Someone has to be held accountable, whether that's Sam Altman, the CEO of OpenAI, or who.
16:47
Justin: But the buck has to stop somewhere, or else we need like regulations for these things.
16:52
Justin: There's too many kids talking to AI.
16:54
Justin: I mean, when I was a teenager, I was I struggled with depression, suicidal thoughts, these things.
17:01
Justin: If I had AI then, I would have for sure been talking to it.
17:05
Justin: And would it have talked me into it or out of it?
17:08
Justin: We don't know, right?
17:09
Justin: So it's like very scary to think that kids are doing that.
17:13
Justin: Let's reframe to something a little more positive.
17:16
Justin: What how much time do you think you accidentally give to your phones each your phone each week?
17:22
Maria: Probably 45 minutes a day, I would say.
17:27
Maria: And it's because I'm very much like on it.
17:30
Maria: Yeah.
17:30
Maria: And I know myself, like I was saying, like those random videos.
17:33
Maria: You said earlier in another episode that there's a lady that's digging a hole in her house.
17:38
Justin: I'm obsessed with her.
17:39
Maria: I would watch that for like four hours.
17:42
Maria: I'd be zipping through.
17:45
Justin: She's so amazing though.
17:46
Maria: But what I've been doing, and it's because I've been super aware of this for quite a while, is I set timers and I go on social media with intention.
17:55
Maria: So I know that social media is gonna try to market me something, get me to buy something, or I'm gonna be sidetracked.
18:01
Maria: So I make it really clear for myself before I even go on it.
18:05
Maria: I'm like, okay, 30 minutes, I'm gonna find videos regarding these topics.
18:11
Maria: I'm gonna look at the best performing videos, I'm gonna analyze what those creators are doing.
18:16
Maria: And then I'm going to try to put my own spin, but try to like mix them all together and create something that's my own and create a video out of it.
18:25
Justin: Yeah.
18:25
Justin: I think you know I love a timer.
18:27
Justin: I think that's an ADHD thing.
18:29
Justin: I do that as well.
18:31
Justin: I set a timer.
18:32
Justin: You can actually like if you use shortcuts on your if you have an iPhone.
18:35
Justin: I don't know about Android, but I know an iPhone, if you use shortcuts, you can like set up a shortcut on your phone where when you open an app, it can start a timer automatically.
18:43
Justin: So you can have it like when I open TikTok, start a 10-minute timer, just as a brain thing, because I think we don't realize how much time we accidentally give to social media.
18:53
Justin: I'm stringent with my social media time.
18:56
Justin: And sometimes I will be sitting here and I'm like, oh my God, I've been on the TikTok, Instagram, whatever for an hour.
19:03
Justin: And I'm like, I did not mean for that to happen.
19:06
Justin: Now I've lost an hour of my day.
19:07
Justin: Makes me sad because then I'm like, oh, what what what do I have to cut out of my day to make up for that time?
19:13
Maria: How much do you think that you accidentally give to your phone?
19:17
Justin: I've been a little less stringent with myself lately.
19:20
Justin: It's probably an hour.
19:22
Justin: I at one point I turned off screen time on my phone because I was too hyper focused on it.
19:28
Justin: But at one point I was trying to get my screen time down to an hour.
19:31
Justin: And I'm probably at like an hour and a half, hour, 45 minutes.
19:35
Justin: I don't think it's possible to get it lower than that.
19:37
Justin: I think you could get it to an hour, but it's really hard.
19:40
Justin: If you have any social life, if you talk to anyone, if you're not just like a hermit, it's really hard to get it lower than an hour, I think.
19:47
Justin: But I would say I accidentally give an hour to like those bad ones.
19:52
Justin: If I'm not working on like social media for the pod or social media for myself, if it's actually just like doom scrolling, probably sometimes an hour.
20:00
Maria: I would say too, being an entrepreneur has helped me with social media in the sense of when and because I've broken down these videos, when I go on social media, I know exactly if somebody is marketing something to me.
20:13
Maria: And now I feel like the general public doesn't necessarily understand that because it's switched, and we've talked about it before, but it switched to marketing where they're making videos where they don't actually want you to know that you're being marketed something.
20:27
Maria: And so they're just doing something like crazy or making a coffee.
20:30
Maria: Yeah.
20:31
Maria: But then wearing the workout set or in this aesthetic space, it's marketing something to you.
20:37
Justin: Or the coffee machine.
20:38
Maria: Yeah.
20:38
Justin: The the thing with social media is, or I should say anything that's free, if something is being given to you for free, it you're the product.
20:48
Justin: You're not the that's not the product.
20:49
Justin: So like TikTok, TikTok is not the product we are, right?
20:54
Justin: So it's like, how does TikTok make money?
20:56
Justin: Add revenue.
20:57
Justin: How does ad revenue happen?
20:59
Justin: People buying stuff.
21:00
Justin: I think every all these apps are designed to keep us on them.
21:04
Justin: They're and they're designed to use our weaknesses to keep us there.
21:10
Maria: Our attention makes other people money.
21:13
Justin: 100%.
21:13
Justin: Yeah.
21:14
Justin: Yeah.
21:15
Justin: And even if you don't realize you're doing it, the person, even if you're not buying the coffee maker or the workout set that's in the ad, the creator's getting paid by that company because other people are, right?
21:27
Justin: And you're feeding into that whether you're buying it or not.
21:29
Justin: You're feeding into this like really, really capitalist society.
21:33
Maria: It's even gone into have you seen the cucumber salad guy?
21:37
Justin: Yes.
21:38
Maria: Okay, that guy has made so much money because the jars that he makes to cook, he has them linked in his Amazon storefront.
21:47
Justin: Yep.
21:47
Maria: So even though you're watching it, you're like, hee hee, I love this.
21:50
Maria: Let's make a salad with a cucumber guy.
21:53
Maria: You look and you see, oh my gosh, that container looks so convenient.
21:56
Maria: That container's so good.
21:58
Maria: I'm gonna go buy it, I'm gonna clink.
21:59
Maria: On their links.
22:01
Maria: And it's just nuts.
22:02
Maria: Like I know we already just talked about it, but I just think it's nuts how many products are being marketed to you in a 30-second video without you even knowing.
22:12
Justin: 100%.
22:13
Maria: And I feel like people really need to be aware.
22:15
Maria: And I know that Instagram and TikTok have now put the paid partnership at the bottom.
22:21
Maria: But I feel like every single video should essentially have that because anything you're showing, somebody could want and you're technically marketing it.
22:29
Maria: Yeah.
22:30
Maria: Even if you're not intentionally doing it.
22:32
Justin: Yeah, I think honestly, anytime you get something for free, that's a paid partnership.
22:36
Justin: The problem is the legislation is so slow, right?
22:40
Justin: So the government doesn't keep up with how quickly things change.
22:43
Justin: But like if I'm wearing a Lululemon workout set and Lululemon gave me the shorts, I think I should have to put paid partnership because I'm wearing something that I did not pay for.
22:55
Maria: I think so too.
22:56
Justin: But how do you change that?
22:58
Justin: People aren't going to want to do it, right?
23:00
Justin: They already, it's hard enough to get someone to admit that they're an ad, that they're posting an ad.
23:06
Justin: Truth in advertising, I mean, that was a big thing in Canada when I was growing up, that we had the House Hippo ads.
23:11
Justin: We've talked about these before.
23:12
Justin: Like I think people believe what you tell them a lot of times.
23:18
Justin: And it's really sad because we we need more truth in advertising and like a way for people to tell if it's real, especially in the AI era, because these AI videos are getting so good that like sometimes I can't even tell them, tell that they're AI.
23:34
Justin: Obviously, a bear jumping on a trampoline is AI, but it not everyone has that.
23:40
Justin: Not everyone can tell, right?
23:42
Justin: Especially our parents.
23:45
Justin: And the scams and stuff are getting worse and worse and worse.
23:48
Justin: And if people are using scams, you I mean, we're we're posting our voices on the internet.
23:53
Justin: Someone could use this to create AI voices of us and use it to scam our parents.
23:59
Maria: And that's why you need to have a safe word or like multiple safe words.
24:02
Maria: I was talking to my parents about this.
24:04
Maria: I am terrified with tech like the brick because say that you're walking in the mall or you're somewhere and they've decided to target you.
24:14
Maria: They tap your phone with the brick or they tap your phone with something that makes it so you can use your phone and you don't even necessarily know that the call or the text has been disabled.
24:24
Maria: Then they make an AI video of you and they take your voice and they get you to call your parents.
24:31
Maria: And it's like, please help me send, I don't know, $10,000.
24:35
Maria: Your parents are trying to call you, it's not going through.
24:38
Maria: Then they send an AI photo, an AI video.
24:40
Maria: It looks so realistic.
24:42
Maria: Like that scares me because obviously I'm not a parent, but if I was, even if there was a chance that that was real, I would send them money over so quick.
24:53
Justin: Yeah.
24:53
Maria: And so that's what terrifies me is I don't know how they're gonna be able to regulate that.
24:59
Justin: Yeah.
25:00
Justin: Two things.
25:01
Justin: I forget that people don't work in technology like I do, right?
25:04
Justin: So every time I'm like, people have these fears, I'm like, that can't happen.
25:08
Justin: The good news is the brick can't you can't do that with like a passive device like that.
25:12
Justin: So you have to have the app on your phone, so that's good.
25:15
Justin: And my brick, I can put my brick on your phone.
25:18
Justin: Doesn't do anything, doesn't do a thing, which is great news.
25:21
Justin: You have to have the app, you have to set it up yourself.
25:24
Justin: So that's good.
25:25
Justin: Your phone's actually super secure, like even payments-wise.
25:28
Justin: I've read about these like people walking around with like card readers scanning people's wallets and like charging their cards.
25:35
Justin: Your phone won't do that.
25:36
Justin: It needs to be authenticated before it'll take a before it'll do a payment, unless it's dead.
25:41
Justin: In that case, when your phone's dead, you can tap, but only with your primary card and only when it's like turned off.
25:47
Justin: But yeah, so there's like security, luckily, in place for these things.
25:51
Justin: But it is scary.
25:52
Justin: It's very scary because my mom might be like my mom, I don't want to say gullible, my mom might trust it because it sounds like me, or like a lot of times it's like, oh, I got a new phone number.
26:06
Justin: I need it's an emergency, I need money, right?
26:08
Justin: Like your parents want to help.
26:10
Justin: They're not thinking critically about like whether you actually need help or trying to call you.
26:16
Justin: I think my mom would, my dad probably would, but they would a lot of people wouldn't.
26:21
Justin: They would just be like, My child needs help, I need to send them money.
26:24
Maria: I just think it's terrifying because I know that you watched The Office, right?
26:28
Maria: Yeah, the episode where Michael gets the email from the prince.
26:32
Maria: And I just feel like the old scams by email were just so outrageous and hilarious, and just I feel really bad for anyone who got taken advantage of in those situations.
26:45
Maria: But some of them were just the most ridiculous things ever, versus now it's so scary because they're so realistic.
26:51
Justin: Scams used to be like, I'm a Saudi Arabian prince, I need you to have I need $10,000 to get my $10 billion, and I'll give you some of it, right?
26:58
Justin: But now it's like on Twitter, for example, there's all these accounts, these like crypto bros that are like, I told Grok bot to use the $60 and it turned it into $5,000.
27:12
Justin: That's not true.
27:13
Justin: And like I mean, maybe in a minute, minute possibility that could be true, but it's not going to work for everyone.
27:22
Justin: And I think the scams are so right in front of people now that they don't even, it's how could you know?
27:29
Justin: Because it's like on your feed, it's not like an email anymore, it's not you're hiding in your spam folder.
27:35
Justin: These are these are real places where people hang out.
27:38
Maria: Yeah, it's really terrifying, actually.
27:40
Maria: What do you think, besides being hyper-aware of marketing and maybe setting timers, what do you think are some other small ways that we could be more intentional without completely deleting our social media?
27:54
Justin: I think, like I said, for me, a big one has just been treating my phone like a tool rather than device that's like I need to have with me at every second of the day.
28:06
Justin: So if I'm on the couch, I try to put my phone in the other room, try to put my phone down, especially if I'm with people.
28:11
Justin: Even at a restaurant, I will try to keep my phone in my pocket or in my bag, not on the table.
28:17
Justin: I notice everyone you have dinner with puts their phone face down on the table.
28:20
Justin: It's still grab, you're you're still looking at it, you're thinking about it, right?
28:24
Justin: Like it's pulling your attention towards you.
28:26
Justin: I think you just have to be really intentional.
28:29
Justin: Putting your phone down.
28:31
Justin: Like I said before, I'm dreaming of a day where you can leave the house without a phone.
28:38
Justin: I've I try to be more intentional with my outside time, try not to be on my phone, try not to listen to a podcast.
28:45
Justin: Even then, like I've just not been having like the nicest little conversations with people on the street, like my neighbors and stuff, because I don't have headphones in.
28:53
Justin: You're such so much more approachable.
28:55
Justin: And like often I will wear headphones because I don't want to people to try to like sell me things or whatever on the corner.
29:02
Justin: But I think if you take your headphones out and look around at the world, it's it's pretty easy to put your phone down.
29:08
Maria: This sounds ridiculous, but a product idea that I've had is having like like a wallet in your shoe, or if Aura Ring could just link so you could like tap and somehow purchase.
29:21
Maria: I know that there's a debit card where you hold the chip with your thumb, yeah, and then you go down.
29:26
Maria: And so if anybody steals your card, it won't actually work because your fingerprint has to be touching the chip.
29:33
Maria: So if there's something like that where you like touch your ring with your fingerprint and then you could pay, I just feel like that would be amazing.
29:41
Justin: Yeah, Apple Watch can do that, so it has payments on it, but the ring's a good idea.
29:45
Justin: I forgot that we both are aura ring baddies.
29:49
Maria: I just feel like Uber too is so convenient, but even just like Haline, a cab, yeah, bring that back.
29:54
Justin: I know there's no cabs around though.
29:56
Justin: There are none.
29:57
Justin: Like, I yeah, we've really, as a society, we've really pushed down these services that used to exist.
30:04
Justin: And I think about that for like people that don't have a phone.
30:09
Justin: Like, how are they getting a cab?
30:11
Justin: Because I don't see cabs driving around anymore.
30:13
Justin: I will grab a cab before an Uber, but there's never any cabs, right?
30:17
Justin: It's like I don't know.
30:19
Justin: And there's a safety thing with cabs, especially for women.
30:23
Justin: With I mean with Ubers too, especially for women.
30:26
Justin: You know, when you get in an Uber that the driver is tracked, and like there's a little bit of a safety thing there, I think.
30:33
Justin: They're talking about bringing Waymo here.
30:35
Justin: What is those like robot cars?
30:37
Justin: I think it'll be a nightmare because there's so much snow here, but we'll see.
30:41
Justin: Yeah, I don't know.
30:43
Maria: Well, my dad was saying too the other day that businesses that they thought would never go out of business have gone out of business, and he was explaining just the gas pump.
30:53
Maria: It always used to be that you drove to the gas station and somebody was there and they would wipe down your windshield, they would pump your car, and they would maybe check your car tires, the pressure.
31:06
Maria: And he was saying that everybody loved that.
31:09
Maria: And so when they brought self-service, everyone was like, Who would use that?
31:12
Maria: But because we're so pressured with time and because we want to be so efficient here, and I feel like to be honest, the way our society is here, it's not really about enjoying life, it's about be the most efficient and make the most money.
31:27
Justin: Yes.
31:27
Maria: And so my dad, he said, when this happened, his parents were like, This is ridiculous.
31:32
Maria: Nobody's ever gonna go for that.
31:34
Maria: But of course they did because it would save them time or they felt like it saved them time.
31:39
Maria: But I feel like we need to bring those things back.
31:42
Maria: And I think people really need to have a little bit more patience, to be honest, because it's like we talked about it before, but with Amazon Prime, deliveries the next day, ordering food, having it in 15 minutes, we really are living in a utopia.
31:58
Justin: We are.
31:58
Justin: I read a book about this.
32:00
Justin: I can't remember what it's called.
32:02
Justin: I can link it in the show notes, but it it was talking about how if you went back to the turn of the 19th century, I think we talked about this before.
32:11
Justin: How if you asked someone what a utopia would look like, they would describe a modern society typical to what we live in now.
32:17
Justin: I think a lot of a lot of problems with modern society, like the removal of gas station attendance for full surf gas or self- or checkout people for in favor of self-checkouts, is greed and capitalism because those people cost money.
32:35
Justin: So they don't want to pay those people.
32:37
Justin: New York, I think it's New York State, is bringing in a law where if someone uses a self-checkout, you have to give them a discount on their product because you're not paying an employee to check them out.
32:51
Maria: I like that.
32:52
Justin: I think that that's the way things should go.
32:54
Justin: I think I enjoy my grocery store, does not have self-checkouts.
32:58
Justin: I enjoy talking to the grocery store people when I go to the grocery store.
33:01
Justin: I like the human connection.
33:04
Justin: I try to talk to people when I go into businesses.
33:06
Justin: I think as a society, we've also become really antisocial.
33:10
Justin: People don't want to talk to people.
33:13
Justin: I've noticed a big difference since I moved.
33:15
Justin: This building, the demographic's a lot older, and people will just yap your ear off in the elevator.
33:19
Justin: And I love it.
33:20
Justin: I love it.
33:20
Justin: Because it's an older group of people.
33:22
Justin: They just happen to do that.
33:24
Maria: I also had a conversation with someone recently about their, was it with you?
33:29
Maria: I can't remember.
33:30
Maria: But it was basically they gave these rats a utopia.
33:36
Justin: Yes.
33:36
Maria: They gave the rats a utopia, and then basically what happened is the males actually stopped having sex with the females, and the males started to just have this weird hierarchy thing where the male mice just wanted to have as many females attracted to it as possible, but it didn't actually want to have kids or to produce.
34:00
Maria: And so I was having a conversation with someone, and they were saying that they feel like that's what's happening now with males in society, where they're getting focused on how other males are perceiving them and they want to be the big dog, but they don't actually care about reproduction.
34:19
Justin: Yeah, the so the rats became like looks maxers.
34:22
Maria: Yeah.
34:22
Justin: That's crazy.
34:23
Maria: Essentially, yeah.
34:24
Justin: That is, I think that is what people are doing.
34:27
Justin: People worry way too much about that.
34:29
Justin: I had a guy big dog me the other day.
34:31
Justin: Like, he like puffed his chest up, and it was like the most powerful thing I've ever had.
34:35
Justin: I've never felt like I was bigger than anyone in the room.
34:38
Justin: But this guy and his girlfriend, or I'm assuming girlfriend, were walking together, and he was like puffed his chest up a little bit.
34:44
Justin: And I was like, my dude, don't worry about me.
34:47
Justin: But it's weird.
34:48
Justin: I think men do really, really care about where they fall in society.
34:54
Justin: I don't know where I was going with that.
34:56
Maria: And we also have the biggest population of incels right now.
35:00
Justin: It's scary, and I think that's partly just because women have decided that they're not willing to take the bare minimum.
35:08
Justin: It's a lot easier nowadays to be single.
35:11
Justin: Max and I talk about this.
35:13
Justin: I joke about like if we were ever to break up, God forbid, I would just be single because I don't I can handle this myself.
35:21
Justin: I don't dating is so scary.
35:23
Justin: Like, I just don't want to do it.
35:26
Justin: I I think it's scary to think and women are choosing to be by themselves.
35:32
Justin: And I wanna I say by themselves because I think there's a big difference between being by yourself and being alone.
35:39
Justin: When I was single, I spent a lot of time focusing on myself and being comfortable with being by myself.
35:46
Justin: I never I used to look at it as being alone, and now I look at it as like being but by myself.
35:51
Justin: And I think being by yourself is such a powerful skill.
35:54
Justin: And it goes to what we're talking about, like putting your phone down.
35:58
Justin: If you're not comfortable with your own thoughts, you're not gonna be able to put this phone down because you need something to fill the void.
36:07
Justin: I think we're so overstimulated as a society.
36:10
Justin: It's because we're not we're not doing a single thing in the day without listening to a podcast, watching a YouTube video, going on TikTok.
36:19
Justin: When you go to the bathroom, are you taking your phone with you and watching a TikTok?
36:23
Justin: Or are you just sitting there with your thoughts?
36:25
Justin: It's very weird, but that's an easy step to take.
36:28
Justin: It's just like instead of taking your phone to the bathroom with you, just sit down and read the shampoo bottle like we used to.
36:35
Maria: This is a really hot take.
36:37
Maria: But I also feel like people are reading books and running marathons and ultra runs to tell people that they ran ultra marathons and they read these books.
36:49
Justin: Yeah.
36:50
Maria: When I read a book, if a conversation I think it's gonna help someone, I will be like, this book really helped me take a read.
37:00
Maria: But I will never be posting, I read 50 books, yada yada, yada.
37:07
Maria: Oh, and I feel like people need to shift their perspective to exactly what you said.
37:12
Maria: You're doing it for you, you're not doing it for other people.
37:15
Maria: Yeah.
37:16
Maria: And I feel like social media has just opened this whole gate where people don't even realize that they're performing for other people.
37:22
Justin: And everything is social media nowadays.
37:24
Justin: You look at like Goodreads, you're posting your books in there, and I get it, some people use it to like track their books.
37:31
Justin: But if you're posting and you're setting a review and you're posting and you have friends on Goodreads, it's social media.
37:38
Justin: It's not just you collecting your books anymore.
37:40
Justin: If you want to write down what you're reading, get a journal.
37:43
Justin: Put it in your journal.
37:44
Justin: Apple has a journal app on your phone, put it in there.
37:47
Justin: It knows what you're reading if you're using the Apple Books app.
37:50
Justin: I have all these apps, or I've had all these apps, I've tried them all.
37:55
Justin: It's so exhausting to keep up, even like letterboxed for movies.
37:59
Justin: I can't be bothered to review a movie.
38:02
Justin: It's just too much work.
38:03
Justin: It's so performative and it exhausts me.
38:07
Justin: I think we need to just take a step back.
38:11
Maria: I just think if you love reading, you love running, you love doing those things, it's okay to like post about them and like for you to share your passion.
38:19
Maria: But at the same time, I think you really need to look within and you need to think, am I doing this to be performative?
38:26
Maria: And if I am doing it to be performative, what is the reason?
38:30
Maria: My whole social media is extremely performative.
38:32
Maria: The reason is I'm trying to grow business, I'm trying to get personal clients.
38:36
Maria: Every single post, I'm trying to hit a target market.
38:40
Maria: But just in general, if you're not doing that, think about why you are posting these things.
38:47
Maria: Why are you clicking on these videos?
38:50
Maria: Why are certain ads being marketed towards you?
38:52
Maria: What does the algorithm know about you that you don't know about yourself?
38:56
Justin: Yeah.
38:56
Justin: The I've clicked that ask app not to track button when you get a new app.
39:02
Justin: I've clicked that so many times.
39:03
Justin: My ads are not even relevant to me anymore.
39:05
Justin: And I love it.
39:06
Justin: Like I'm so I'm I'm like so obscure to the internet.
39:10
Justin: And I've noticed that because I started watching a TV show on Amazon Prime, and I just have like the ad version.
39:18
Justin: And I really like it because it's forcing me to treat TV like I remember TV being.
39:25
Justin: When a commercial comes on, it's a great time to get a glass of water, pick up my phone, send someone a text, and then put my phone back down.
39:33
Justin: I think the availability of media has caused us to like try to multitask all the time.
39:40
Justin: And so when you watch something with ads, don't look at it as like a bad thing.
39:44
Justin: Look at it as a positive.
39:45
Justin: I use that time to go to the washroom, I use that time to send a text, get a Coke zero from the fridge, those types of things.
39:52
Justin: It's really refreshing to slow down a little bit.
39:56
Maria: I think having ads, like you said, is really good as well.
39:59
Maria: Like I feel like we need to go back to just doing one thing at a time.
40:05
Maria: Also, I took a psychology course in university, and it basically, through studies, my professor was saying that you actually can't multitask, which is really interesting.
40:17
Maria: They tried, it was like a simulator where people were driving a car, and they've even argued that listening to a podcast or listening to music could be deemed so distractive that it actually increases the chance of you getting into a car accident.
40:33
Justin: Yeah.
40:33
Justin: Humans are not really good at multitasking.
40:35
Justin: Actually, I don't think any animal is.
40:38
Justin: But when you're driving a car and you're listening to a podcast, the car becomes the secondary task and that creates danger, right?
40:47
Justin: Because you'll obviously you'll be driving sometimes and like you'll be in an intense situation, someone will be almost hitting you or something.
40:55
Justin: Do you remember the podcast?
40:57
Justin: No, you have to rewind, right?
40:58
Justin: It's because driving becomes the primary task and the secondary task becomes the podcast.
41:02
Justin: Humans are not really good at that.
41:04
Justin: I notice a lot of times I'll be on meetings with people, things like that.
41:09
Justin: And you can tell they're working.
41:11
Justin: They're working on something completely different, they're not listening to you.
41:14
Justin: And it's a really horrible thing, horrible feeling.
41:16
Justin: Because it's like, why do you even have your camera on if you're not going to be listening to me anyway?
41:21
Justin: I'd rather you just turn it off.
41:23
Maria: Also, coming back to the iPads with kids.
41:25
Maria: I've watched a lot of videos recently where the TV shows we used to watch, like Franklin, the OG and Peppa Pig, things like that.
41:35
Maria: Arthur, oh my gosh, Arthur.
41:37
Maria: I should dress up like that for Halloween.
41:39
Justin: That'd be so funny.
41:40
Maria: But yeah, Arthur, when they put those on, they're finding their kids to be really relaxed.
41:46
Maria: And it's because it is so slow moving.
41:49
Maria: Versus the new TV shows are super fast-paced and they're like attention grabbing.
41:55
Maria: So if your brain is constantly getting used to that and the thrill, it's like it just has to become more thrilling.
42:03
Justin: Hate that.
42:03
Justin: I think also these I don't know what kids, I don't know what kids watch on TV nowadays, but I remember like Arthur, there was always a life lesson in there.
42:13
Justin: Like you were learning something, even though you didn't maybe know you were learning something.
42:18
Justin: Even The Simpsons, that's like the most brain-rotted TV show I could ever think of from our generation or from our childhoods.
42:25
Justin: You still learned things through that show, right?
42:28
Justin: But now I think kids are watching the attention span of these kids is like six seconds or something.
42:36
Maria: But also, I feel like society, like the idea of failure or cancel culture, is so big that it's almost projecting that on children.
42:45
Maria: And that's why parents are getting so defensive, is because they don't want their child to have that label for the rest of their life.
42:52
Maria: And I feel like we need to bring back failing.
42:55
Maria: And it's okay to fail.
42:57
Maria: Honestly, the best lessons I've ever learned in life is because I failed.
43:01
Justin: Failure is the best teacher.
43:02
Maria: Yeah.
43:03
Justin: For sure.
43:03
Justin: Um, hands down.
43:05
Justin: Everything, every important lesson in my life has been from failure.
43:09
Justin: I think if you don't fail, you end up, well, if people don't fail, we end up with an entire generation of kids who think that they're right all the time and they've never seen diff, they've never seen adversity in their lives.
43:24
Justin: Their parents are coddling them.
43:26
Justin: I think my generation is one of the worst culprits for that, for throwing an iPad in front of their kids for not parenting as much or being way softer because we feel like our parents were too hard on us.
43:40
Justin: So then we're gonna be so soft on our kids.
43:43
Maria: And there's also a book, it's called The Anxious Generation.
43:46
Maria: Have you read that?
43:47
Justin: No.
43:48
Maria: So basically, the writer describes that at the beginning, if you were to send your child to Mars, and it talks about all the benefits that could be on Mars.
43:59
Maria: But then once you send your child to Mars, if you want them to come back to Earth, they can't because their body's gotten used to like different gravity, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera.
44:10
Maria: And he connects that to children being on online social media, text messaging, whatever it is.
44:19
Maria: And that our parents didn't necessarily understand the power that an Instagram post could hold, or even like the bullying that happens online, all of those things.
44:31
Maria: Yeah.
44:32
Maria: Like it's still just so unknown, the things that you can even do online.
44:35
Maria: Yeah.
44:36
Maria: And that's what's terrifying.
44:38
Justin: It's really scary.
44:39
Justin: But at the same time, if you tell your children they can't have social media and all their friends have social media, then they're excluded because they're not part of the thing, right?
44:51
Justin: I think we have to have legislation like Australia is doing, where it's just illegal, simply illegal for children to have social media.
44:59
Justin: And then when they're an adult, they can decide if they want social media or not.
45:04
Justin: Your brain at 12 years old is not developed enough to decide whether this is good enough for you.
45:09
Justin: Is it the same as smoking?
45:11
Justin: Maybe.
45:12
Justin: We don't know yet.
45:13
Justin: I do think social media is as bad for you as some of these other toxins that are illegal for minors to use.
45:21
Justin: And I think there should be laws against it.
45:24
Maria: Yeah, and I also think if and when they put regulations on AI, it's gonna cause so much anxiety because people are gonna actually have to cold turkey and use parts of their brain that they haven't used in a while.
45:40
Maria: Yeah.
45:40
Maria: And yeah, I feel like people are gonna be really upset, but then it begs a question, are they ever gonna regulate it?
45:46
Maria: I don't know.
45:47
Maria: I don't know.
45:47
Maria: I don't know how they would.
45:49
Justin: I think now that some of these companies, I think, well, sadly, some of these companies are being their products are being copied by using AI.
46:00
Justin: And so I think companies like Adobe and Microsoft are their products are being reverse engineered.
46:06
Justin: They're going to lobby the governments now for AI regulation.
46:09
Justin: It's sadly because it's not because the kids are using it, it's because of capitalism.
46:15
Justin: But I do think that there's a I do think there's lobbying that's gonna happen.
46:21
Justin: So before we like close this out, what what are some things we could be doing with the time we save putting our phones down?
46:30
Maria: I think we could be crafting, making real life connections with people, doing things that actually make us happy, and also just sitting and being bored.
46:41
Maria: I feel like there's nothing wrong with that.
46:42
Maria: And I think we need to bring being bored back.
46:45
Justin: Yeah, I think we should do an entire episode on that, probably.
46:48
Justin: Being bored is when some of my most creative time is.
46:51
Justin: So this week, let's try one small thing.
46:54
Justin: Check your screen time, pick an app that eats the most of it, and set a daily limit, or move it off your home screen.
46:59
Maria: And if you're listening, tell us what you would do with an extra hour a day if your phone gave it back.
47:04
Justin: Thanks for listening to Mostly Offline.
47:06
Justin: We'll see you next time.
47:07
Maria: Until then, take a breath, put your phone down for a minute, and remember your time is worth more than their ad revenue.