Digital Addiction

Episode Transcriptions Unedited, Auto-Generated.

Tyson: 00:15 Welcome to the social community and show, or it's our goal to help you learn growing transformative person gonna become today. Want to talk about digital addiction? And I mean let me set the scene here a little bit here. I don't want to come off as somebody that's not about the technology cause I'm all about the technology. I got a digital wedding ring, I got digital, everything. I got digital light bulbs, thermostats, Google homes all over the place. I love technology. Technology is great. I think technology is really able, you know, to do a lot of things. We do. I mean it makes this show possible. We're across the country. There's so much to it. But what we, what I want to show to be about this episode to be about is you being in control of these digital things and not the control of you. And that's really, it's very easy. And we'll talk, we'll get into talk about blah blah blah. I'm like the science and the psychologist and behind the, but it's easy for these technologies, these absence things to control you and start to take over your time and you become a slave to the technology versus the technology working for, you know, I don't know if you have any thoughts on that as we get started here, but

Ransom: 01:22 No, I mean, I mean that's true though. I mean, you think about it like, I guess when I became a realtor, I mean you were there that David got very first. Oh, I know. We're giving away our age. But anyway, very first iPhone came out very excited. Right? Remember I brought over to your house or like using the crap out of that thing. Like I think we killed the bat. Maybe less than that.

Tyson: 01:45 Yeah, we're, yeah, we're going one for one between my Blackberry and your iPhone. I look in yours, can you just do this? Can you do this? And yeah, yeah,

Ransom: 01:51 Do this, do this. Going back. And I called all this cool stuff and like, you know, so sure there's joys in our life and stuff like that. But I got that phone for the purpose of being a realtor. And you know, it's funny how, I guess the reason you kind of start things, like when I was a realtor, I was like, Oh, I can work on my own time. I mean like I don't have to work the regular nine to five, but when you have stuff like technology and smart phones, like you actually end up working more work eight hours a week. You can work 16 hours, 20 hours a week because guess what? When you go home, you got this thing and you're five minutes here, five minutes there, 10 minutes here, 10 minutes there. But I mean, after six, 10 minute emails, that's an additional workout. Yeah. And do that anywhere and at the store while you're driving. Don't do that. But it's possible all possible because technology is now in the Palm of your hand. It's crazy.

Tyson: 03:00 And it's funny that you say that. I've really made a huge habit of turning it off. I mean, even I'd say we're about a half an hour behind today because my phone was off, right. And I, and I was like, Oh, Hey man, what's up at ransom? You know, I'm like, Oh crap, my phone's off. I look at my phone and it half an hour early, you had messaged me, you know, so but this allows me, and I've found an I, you know, like I said, I am, I love tech. I love the highest, you know, latest and greatest gadgets. But I've, I've really made a habit to not let the technology rule my life and stop me and distract me. I'm captain distraction. I squirrel. Yeah. Half an hour later, I'm like, why the hell? How am I on YouTube watching lions kill Gazelles? I'm like, what the fuck just happened?

Tyson: 03:52 You know? So I was looking something up and next thing, you know, yeah, right. But this is a thing. I really spent a lot of effort getting out of that mode. And this is why I called when I talk about, you know, today. And some different techniques and different things that we've, we've gone through. I wanted to kinda set the stage here a little bit with some, some things in different studies and stuff that come out you know, during research and through, you know, not just for this episode, but you know, I'm always kind of interested in this, what's going on in the space, especially the psychological aspect of it. So I want to go through a couple little quick little facts. Some of these things like just absolutely blow my mind and a little maybe disheartening in a way.

Tyson: 04:34 You know, it really is like, God, this is really quite kind of sad how these things are kind of turning out. So I don't think we've talked about this on a previous episode. I can't quite remember which episode it was, but they say about 40% of your productive time at work is spent multitasking. You know, we talked about multitasking in passing. It's really, it's really a fallacy. It's not true. Your brain can't be doing count. Can be concentrating on more than one task at a time. Yes, we can be doing tasks that are unconsciously competent things. We all know we've, we've been able to drive on if few driven for quite awhile and talk on the phone. And you can do that because you've been unconsciously competent driving. Now the thing is you're not really painful attention to both of those tasks.

Tyson: 05:14 You're there paying attention, full attention to the conversation or you're kind of just hearing the conversation because something's happening as you're driving. And you can really, to me, that's a really prime example of you know, all of a sudden something's happening, your attention goes to driving and the person is still talking and you're like, wait, what were we talking about? Cause you know, you're not actually paying attention. That's a really a good, you know, and a lot of people argue like I have them all tests all the time, look all these things I do. And it's like, what's really happening is just doing things. You're not fully doing them eat, you're not giving your attention each of that. And that really kind of leads into another thing. There's a couple of different things out there, but it takes about 23 minutes and 15 seconds. When you switch tasks to get back to where you were originally in that thought pattern and process in the task.

Ransom: 06:00 Oh, you're talking and driving. It's not taking 22 minutes to get back into the conversation.

Tyson: 06:05 Well, to get back to that mental space that you're in so that you, you know, you're working, you're on a, I don't know, a project you're working on, you putting, putting your sides together and it's like, and then somebody texted you, I need to grab that. And you start going that. So that type of action to get back to that thought process and that thought train of thought and the flow you're in, that's, you're looking at 23 minutes because that one little thing distracted you and 99.9% of time that it was pointless. You know, and I heard this really cool thing this guy does. I've got to try. I'm trying to figure how to set up my phone, but when somebody calls him, he has an automatic text message that goes and says, I'm busy. If this is urgent, then texts me urgent. And he said, I have never got an urgent text ever. I was like, that's pretty pimp. You know? I was like, that's one little cool little hacking. I know people do like a different email things and stuff and whatever.

Ransom: 07:01 Hey come, I'm busy away a meetings, whatever. I'll get back to the office at two o'clock.

Tyson: 07:05 Yeah, I'll call you then. Right, right. I don't do that. I just don't check my email and I'll respond on it. I know I checked my email already for today and get you to tomorrow and that's just the way it goes. And we'll see what happens is, you know, people have come to expect that I'm not going to respond to my email, you know, and then that goes onto the next thing. I found that 70% of all emails are open within six seconds of receiving it. And that's like that's insanity.

Ransom: 07:43 Well, I mean if you think about it, cause I remember I worked at bank of Hawaii, right? And it's this customer service, right? You're sitting there answering the phone call per se, but as you're talking to person, like your emails coming in, you can check that email right there as you're working, it's asking per se, but you know, so, but you have that ability to check it like, cause you're at your desk,

Tyson: 08:08 Right? Yeah, exactly. And then the notification comes up and you click it like as soon as that thing. So whatever you're doing, it's over now. Cause you've seen the notification pop up and then you're clicking it and now you're into something else. And the different tasks. And then, and I know we talked about in past, you know the average person I guess depends which country and they work anywhere from about an hour and a half to two hours a day of actual work. Yeah. Most of it's just responding to things and, and being distracted. And then, you know, whether it's being distracted with email or being distracted with the internet or, or whatever it is. And then it just becomes this big, you know, distraction here. So, and, and that's why like I've had, I've had meetings with people in the past and they're like, this is great.

Tyson: 08:51 You, you, your potential is fully here and a whole time. And like, like you never got an email or notification, nothing ever happened. And I'm like, yeah, I turned it off and it's off to begin with. And then they're just like surprised. Like I had that happen with few clients are like, Oh, it's crazy. Like you didn't get a phone call or text or email anything the whole time we were, we were in a meeting and I'm like, yeah, well my, and then what's happened to them is they're like, Oh yeah, huh, yeah. Oh yeah, sorry, my grandma could have waited 20 minutes. You and then, and then that kind of leads into the next thing that really was astounding to me. And it says Americans are viewing their smoke smartphones more often than before on average, 52 times a day.

Speaker 3: 09:44 [Inaudible]

Tyson: 09:44 So that's the average. So I'm sitting here at 10, somebody is at a hundred so we can get the 52

Speaker 3: 09:53 [Inaudible]

Tyson: 09:53 And I've even heard things as high as people checking Instagram upwards of four to 600 times a day as possible. Yeah. So it says, it kind of goes into the average American checks our phones every 12 minutes.

Speaker 3: 10:11 [Inaudible]

Tyson: 10:11 That's that. I mean, could you, I mean, I can, that just blows my mind. Like, I can't imagine every 12 minutes I'm on my phone. Like, did I get something? Did I get something that somebody messaged me? Ooh, please dopamine, please, please, please. You know, and that's just what it comes, you know? That's really what it comes down to. We'll get into more of the science and then a little bit as we go through here. Yeah.

Ransom: 10:31 But I mean, and that's, that's kind of where it's at. And again, I've, doesn't matter what job at work, there weren't all kinds of jobs. You always see, you'll see that people were on the phone and they're just like, I'm there, you know, and they're on the phone while they're doing whatever task it is that they're trying to do. And you know, I guess part of that comes from the fact that it's, I guess like a habit that we've created over time. And part of it is, the other part too is right. Like you have all this time, right? Most people will take this beat out at Workday and they will accomplish, like you said, you'll accomplish all the work that they need to do in that hour and a half rest of the time. It's just filled up with stuff. Right. You know, so I mean, just depends on what jobs you have and you know, sort of my job in the house care depends on, you know, what the patient's demands and needs are. Sometimes we can do that, but we've got a corporate here, we got to go do this, we got to do that. Or something comes up in the same color, don't have that equipment. We got to go get it. Like, you never know.

Tyson: 11:41 Yeah. And you know, it is, it is job dependent. You know, you're going to be, you're going to have, your whole day is just a distraction, right? It's just like whatever the next thing comes up. It's like, what, how urgent is compared to what I'm doing and yeah, I get that. But I still, you know, I think it still comes back to, you know, prioritizing these things and saying, what is urgent truly, you know, can, am I the person that can handle this? Is this thing something I need to do right now or can this be done by somebody else? Please lay there. And that really is, like you said, this is going to depend on your job, but we can all come up with these false things that we've kind of put into place.

Ransom: 12:22 Yeah. But I think that's the reason why we're doing this episode. Right? It's just to bring out the fact that, Hey, let's just call it what it is. It's addiction, right? You're looking at your home and your phone. You're looking at Instagram 400 times a day. Like, seriously. That's a lot of time you'd be looking at against other things with that time. You know, I don't know. Everybody's relationship with their job is different. Some people know their jobs, some people eat their jobs, but I'm sure that you know, even if you're at work, like there are other things that you could do with your time per se, but you choose to be on your phone. If you're on your phone more often than not, then chances are that's an addiction. That's not something that you can just be like, well, I can turn my phone off and turn it away. Like, can you, can you really do that? And even if you do do that, do you have anxiety about it? It's like, do you cost anything? Like, Oh, where's my phone in my locker? Like, you know, how much time do you get distracted? Just thinking about where your phone is.

Tyson: 13:27 And that's the thing that leads into two more little things that I, I know some studies I read that the longest time the average person was willing to be away from her phone was four hours and 31% of people have anxiety about their, about separation from their phone and 60% experience occasional stress when their phone is out of reach or off.

Ransom: 13:49 Yeah, no, that's, that's what I mean. Like that's how you know addiction is taking hold. Same thing with any other addiction. It's like when you don't have it, like you constantly think about all the time, like there's addiction. People just call it what it is. I'm not saying that that's a bad thing. There are definitely worse addictions to have. However, like this is a stuff that is controlling your life, right? Technology was created to make your life easier. Yet now it's making your life harder because it's becoming an obligation. Like this is something that you are now obligated to do every day of your life because you started this habit and now you can't stop it.

Tyson: 14:32 Right. And then I guess we can jump into the science here about this. So what this behavior is, is and I'll link to the studies for three guys. You want to look at more of them and I'll link to a great,

Ransom: 14:45 I can a little bit about this. I wanted this, Oh, that's right. For senior at anyway. But anyway,

Tyson: 14:50 If,

Ransom: 14:52 But he was referencing study too. But anyway,

Tyson: 14:54 Going, I don't know, we'll, we'll, we'll, we'll link to those things. And so you guys can look more into it if you're interested. And also the, the science part is a great little course thing. I'll talk about a little bit more as we get to that section of the podcast. But it really goes through this really in nice plain English really easy to understand. As I said, they're charge stuff, but what it really comes down to is variable reinforcement. So there's four, four different types of types of variable reinforcement. So it's a fixed interval schedule. There's a variable interval schedule, a fixed ratio schedule, and then a variable ratio schedule. So in the show notes you can look at what all those different are. But what, what, what comes down to in this, in this behavior is this variable ratio schedule.

Tyson: 15:45 So what that is, this was a number of responses in a VRBO reach ratio schedule. The number of responses needed for our reward varies. This is the most powerful type of intermittent reinforcement schedule in humans. This type of behavior of this type of schedule is used by casinos to attract gamblers. Slot machine pays out an average wind ratio say five to one but does not guarantee there every fifth bet behavior will be rewarded. Reinforcement with a win. So this is the, this is the mechanism that they're using to get you addicted. Every time you open your phone, your Texas, your Instagram, your Facebook, your Snapchat, you don't know that somebody like me does somebody DM me that somebody comment that some, what is somebody doing? You have no idea. So that compulsive behavior is what makes you want to, cause you never know. Like if I open at this time, there's going to, is there going to be something for me? Is there going to be somebody that likes me, loves me, whatever it is, you know, am I going to get that dopamine release? I'm not going to get that happiness. Am I going to that thing? And you never know. And that's the mechanism. It's just like gambling. It's just like a lot of these types of addictions that fall into this category. That's what's happening here.

Ransom: 16:57 Yeah. And I don't like, again, I don't know assignment sequence, the one that did it, but he's just talking about this type of behavior. It gets introduced to children at my age. It's like most kids, I want to see, let's just go with the age of two. It's probably started seeming younger than that. Every three year old I know has access to iPhone as said to an iPad and they just basically picking on this stuff and clicking on it and it's causing chemical connections into their brain. Right? Cheating them. Things like dopamine, right? There's just like, Oh, you get this stimulus and enjoyment from this antisocial device, basically be just, you know, stimulating their brain and like you're teaching them at a young age to get addicted to certain things and it's not regulated. It's not controlled, I guess by federal government or whatever. But you know, as a parent, like these are things to like think about like, sure. Again, technology helps us. We're talking about some of our other episodes of all sleep and stuff like that, but you're watching these iPhones and iPads late at night, that blue light is actually diminishing the sleep that you get as well. So like they know there are a whole bunch of things say with technology and I guess like Spiderman man with great response.

Tyson: 18:18 I know that's the thing. I I see a lot. I'm not, I'm sure you probably see the same thing with your, with your boy, but with my kids, you know, I have one elementary, one high school. They both do not have cell phones. They do not, technology does not leave this house. And they're, they're, they're in the minority. That does not have on demand access to technology. You know, and, and like, you know, even this morning, you know, I was walking, you know, thinking about this episode coming up and, you know, I'm walking my boy to the bus stop, which a lot of parents think I'm just such a horrible person. And, and then the kids are walking to school, elementary school, kids with phones in their hand. Yes. Heads down, phones in their hand and like, you know, there's no social, you know, these things were designed in theory and intent to make us more connected.

Tyson: 19:12 And it has, it's, it's amazing when you use it, when you want to use it for the reasons you want to use it for like this here, it's amazing. Me and ransom and a lot of my other family friends were easily stay connected in this form, you know. But you know, with this, what's happening and what's happening is we've become less connected. We become less social. You know, a lot, a lot of people talking about you know, the, the rates of, of depression and different things like that is because of these things, you know,

Ransom: 19:45 You know like that. But like you, you just see it like the whole family is sitting down at the dinner table on their phone into each other and they're all either text messaging and people playing video games, doing things in their own little personal space and personal device, but they're not connecting with one another. And I guess, you know, getting back to the whole dopamine thing, like as kids, for us as generation X, like we got our total mean from actually talking to people, right? That's where we got our responses from. It didn't come from a text message. We didn't even have this kind of stuff. Like text messaging wasn't even invented when we were kids. Nobody had that. And like even when it, when it first came on as the two way pager, we did have it, but nobody used it because it was too expensive. Why would you pay $200 for that? Like, that's retarded. But you know, now it's like the standard to go thing and all that kind of stuff. So basically how it would go. But I mean, it's just different, you know what I mean? Like we get our connections because we grew up differently, but anyone age or is raising a child into these age knows like, Hey, this is kind of how we do things. So again, just bringing awareness, that kind of stuff, so,

Tyson: 20:59 Right. Yeah. And you know, like, you know, like I've said into being, so I'm all for technology. I've, we've got all kinds of stuff, but you know, I, I like to encourage, you know, myself and my kids and everybody like put it down, let's go outside, let's go play. Like, you know we go on short road trips and stuff. It's like they all want to bring something. No, leave it home. Who gives a shit? Look out the window. You'll be okay. And that's the thing. We become scared of his boredom every, and, you know, think about, I know my own behavior and I know this from what I see as well. The second you have four or five seconds, you're standing in line somewhere. You're, you're at a stop light. Whatever it is that you're doing, you, you, you pull out your phone.

Tyson: 21:44 Ooh, let's go now. You know, it's like I can't be bored for more than three milliseconds and I, I want to bring that back. You know, boredom is a great tool. You guys hear me off for a second and you think I'm thinking you're fucking nuts. No, you got to understand the mechanisms of boredom. This is your, this is the opportunity. That's why when you're like, I'm thinking about it, I'm like being in a shower. What happens in the shower all the time? You get all these ideas, these things are come to your head. That's that mechanism of boredom. Your brain has a chance to just chill out, solve problems, come up with ideas, think you know, and that's when you get out of the shower. That all that kind of goes away. Cause it's like I'm onto the next thing now. You know? So utilize boredom bead.

Tyson: 22:27 It's okay to be bored. Find time to purposely be bored. Let your brain relax at your brain, wandered, let your mind wander, let your, your, your, your brain help you solve problems, you know. And another thing with that comes is you know, with this constant, you know, distraction the phones and constantly be on the phone. This is affecting short term memory because you're constantly distracted. You don't have the time and the ability to remember what was just happening. And then with that you're not having the ability to consolidate those memories. And if you stack on top of that, your lack of sleep, that also contributes to not only the short term memory loss, also the longterm memory loss and in memory consolidation.

Ransom: 23:10 Yeah. Yeah. I mean it's just basically one distraction as to other areas like squirrel, squirrel. And again, it's just the fact that these smart phones and these computers make it easy, like to get distracted. This is again like forming a new habit. So we're just letting people know on the habits that are out there and on people. Let's just be real. You're checking your phone more than a hundred times a day

Tyson: 23:34 If your product, your phone and email. Since we've been on this episode,

Ransom: 23:37 Probably got something going on there. And even like the small little text messages that you know are out there, you know that millennials too, instead of texting an entire sentence, they'll text fragments like, Oh, what are you doing? Oh I was thinking about going to the mall and then they can take of, Oh, but maybe we should go eat and then all, maybe we should have like, come on guys. Yeah. Warm your sentences properly. Get your whole idea across together. Like these are the things that are kind of, you know, contributing to communication skills and contributing to you know, actually saying how you're feeling. Cause you just kinda don't really put your thoughts together. You can kind of just fly them out in a short little fragmented sentence of text message. Like, these are things that, you know, if you work upon them, you know, we can improve.

Tyson: 24:24 And Aaron asked me a story a couple of weeks ago. My daughter, she works, she works in the, the school news show for one of her classes. And then they do outside projects of school outside. They'd do interviews and different community stuff and do like a regular news show. And so their group was trying to coordinate something and she doesn't have a phone. They're all standing around and they're texting each other back and forth to figure out what's happening. And then she comes home. I was like, well, I don't know. Nobody can make a decision. They're all texting. Then we'll text you later when we all figure it out. Like they couldn't stand in a group and say, what's your schedule? Like, what's your schedule like how Saturday, how's Thursday? How's three o'clock house? They, they just, they locked up. They could, they didn't know how to handle that real world situation.

Tyson: 25:16 Well, we'll, we'll, we'll figure it out. We'll, we'll text each other and we'll let you know. Right. And it's, it's, it's another example, you know, this, you know, we have this poor communication, we can't do these things. And then you know, when you have to send it back and forth, 14 text messages to 87 emails so you guys can get together for lunch on Thursday at three o'clock. That takes up a huge amount of time. These are huge amount of mental bandwidth and capital and all of these things go into not getting shit done, you know, and then you come home from, from the officer work or whatever it is and you're just wiped out. Your brain's like, I've had to do so much shit today. I'm done.

Ransom: 25:53 Right. And then it's just kind of like the whole thing about just, you know, treating the expectations. Like the expectation is that I don't have to commit to a time because I can text you later. Right. Other than I guess maybe people don't realize that what's happening is like you're texting this person later, you just create for yourself.

Tyson: 26:15 Okay.

Ransom: 26:15 And then like for the 20th or 70th text message, however it takes you to create that decision every time you send that text message or what about Wednesday or what about two o'clock you're creating more and more anxiety for yourself. It's kind of crazy. Like this expectation that's gets creative because you can respond to somebody anytime actually gives you more anxiety than if you just would have committed to it. And answer the question on the first five text, like anxiety done over committed to a schedule, you're good to go. Yeah,

Tyson: 26:50 Yeah, I've, I've seen that for sound. You know, like I said, my dog, she's at that teenage rape agent and all this stuff is they've done no nothing but technology. I've seen her get ready in the morning and sit in her room the entire day waiting for the plan to come together. Just philosophy, word, just frustrated. Can I go? I'm like, when I don't know where, I don't know, but if things come together, could I, I can't, I don't know. I can't make a decision. Just yeah, no, nobody can. And she just sits there all day, you know, by six, seven o'clock at night. And she's like [inaudible] ready since 10 o'clock in the morning. He like, just go, you know what? There's nowhere to go because nobody, I don't know. Well, I'm waiting for Tom and then Jim.

Ransom: 27:39 Well, what do you want to do? You want to go to the mall, go to the mall and then, Hey, you know what happens when you go to the mall? You text your friends? Hey, I'm at the mall.

Tyson: 27:48 Yeah, why don't you give her, it doesn't work cause she doesn't have a phone so,

Ransom: 27:52 Well [inaudible] I don't know about that, but I'm just saying like, you started things in motion, you're like, well I'm going to come all with you. You guys are not I'll see you there.

Tyson: 28:03 Yes. And then that goes back to it's okay to be bored. Be by yourself. Like you guys want to go the mall. That's what we talked about. I don't have a phone. One second. His house, I'm it. I'm going to the mall. I'll be there at two 30 I have to leave at five 30 I'll see guys there and then go to the mall and be okay with nobody shows up. Maybe they show up later. I got to wander around by myself a little bit. Maybe I got to be a little bored and be Oh eight those different scenarios.

Ransom: 28:32 Then you also have the phone most of right. But it's like not really, you're out there doing something. Chances are in that situation, everybody's at home waiting for somebody to make a decision.

Tyson: 28:44 Yeah. Versus you're out there doing stuff, but you're the people, you're the person that they're looking at on Instagram and like, damn, I wish I was out there doing that.

Ransom: 28:53 You bring up the whole thing about going to the mall without a phone because that brings up a story about my son. I don't really like when Pokemon hunting, again, technology is wonderful. We wouldn't have Pokemon without smart phones, but put them on, requires you to actually take your phone with you to the location. There are ways around that, but you know for most people they go actually with their phone. So we're driving around and they're not, anyone's been to Waikiki, Honolulu, but it's a pretty busy area. There's some seldom parking, especially the peak, you know, peak times. So we're going there to catch Pokemon and we're running late. So I didn't even find parking here and I was like, okay, so this is what you need to do. Like it's over there. Just go walk over there and like go take my phone. And then when the Pokemon comes out, like we can go catch it and then, and then I'll come find you. My son was like freaking out. He's like, he's like dad, like I guess maybe it clicked in his mind that by me not having my phone, it rendered his phone useless.

Ransom: 29:58 He's like, how am I gonna call you? Like how are you going to find me? You know? And I realized like I did this, like this is my doing because he has access to all the time. But you know, like you said when we were kids, I was like, I was like, dude, you're going to be there for 15 minutes. Like I'll find parking and I'll be 15 minutes. Like the first year. Like, no, probably not. I'll drive back around a honk my horn and I'll be right here. Like I know way. Oh again, this is stuff that people that grew up with a smart phone, like they don't know what it's like to not have a phone. They don't know what it's like to, you know, I know, I hear Gary V talk about all the time too is like, you know, you have no idea what it's like to go to school on Friday. And I saying, Hey Tyson, come meet me at the mall on Saturday. And then like Saturday I'm at the mall. Tyson doesn't show up and like I can't talk to him til Monday. It's like, you know what I mean? And then Monday you find out, Oh you know, my sister broke her ankle and like where are they going to emergency? And it's like, Oh damn grounded, grounded or whatever. But like you just like, if you were in love, I know age, you don't know what that's like. No idea what that's like.

Tyson: 31:15 No, that's good. I mean that, and that's, you know, I'm, I'm from against my kids, you know, even a teenager getting a phone cause I want the skills, you know, I'm trying to, and it's hard cause they're like, yeah, you're dumb. You know, it's like one day you'll thank me when you can navigate and somebody is not there and you don't know what to do. And it's like, right, what happens? Even 150 minutes, just wait longer. Yeah. Fuck. You know? But that's the kind of things that technology creates all these expectations. So, you know, that's the thing I want to try and like, like part of this show, like, let's, let's put ourselves in these, these advantageous situations. Let's put ourselves in these things that we fear. Like, what is, are you so scared that you can't navigate the world anymore without your phone? Leave it home today.

Tyson: 32:08 You'll be just fine. That's true. Guaranteed. You might actually come home alive. Yeah, that's true. You know, and joking, joking aside. But these are things that, you know, are real, you know. I, I've seen different studies and different things about, you know, people like we're talking about FOMO, you know, being on vacation, on Instagram, seeing what's going on back home. Like, damn, am I missing out on anything? You're on vacation. They're missing out. You're not, you know, if people sit by the pool in Kabul, they're like, Oh, what's going on up? Tom's having a barbecue. Shit. No, how am I? Everybody wants to be where you are. Like stop. Like it's okay, you know, but it's, you know, set yourself up in these situations, you know, take the day or take some time. And what are you scared of? What is it you, you think you're gonna miss?

Tyson: 33:00 What is it you think is going to happen? Like set yourself up. We just don't know. Something could happen to all the fucking cell phone towers in your, in your city goes down. If you already practice this, you are prepared, you know, shit pops off and there's a war, civil uprising, whatever it is. You are prepared, you know, if you lose your job and you are prepared, you've practiced this when times are good. We've talked about before when times are good practice, the shit you think you're scared of. What are you so scared of, you know, practice these things now

Ransom: 33:36 For us as we bring things to a close, it's kind of want to put things in perspective. I guess for me in my life and what's been going on. A really good friend of mine lost his father recently. You know, it kind of affected me a lot cause he's kinda like a father to me too. Like I was in high school, like I was at his house and get rid of the weekend and like is that it always be yelling at us and telling us. Yeah. Awesome. That built a lot of character into me as a person and kind of develop me as a person. You know, I had a really, really big loss last week just doing this episode now talking about digital addiction and things like that. It's like, you know, it's just a phone. It's a digital world made up of cyberspace and things and you know, I just kind of guess maybe it's just the place that I'm at right now and today's road we need a lot more human connection.

Ransom: 34:38 Like people talking to one another, like looking each other in the face, shaking hands, giving hugs and you know, being with each other physically like next to each other, like to be their support. Like there's, there is a connection to the fall and I'm not gonna lie, having a text message or video call can help substitute human contact, but it's not a replacement even, you know, for me just going to see his family, we're all in the living room praying to rosary for this. You're Catholic, you know what that feels like. You know, there's just something about a presence when all of the family is there together for one purpose and we all share beyond a computer or beyond the telephone, like just physically standing next to somebody. You can feel the energy of that person. And you know, just again, maybe this is just some place where I'm at right now, but there is no replacement for that energy connection and the connections that you get being next week. As much as we want to try and do that with technology and FaceTime and text messaging, like yes, it's a good substitute but it's no substitute. You can't replace the real thing. So I guess for me, I kind of just wanted to end on that. Anything else? You got to end this episode or

Tyson: 36:04 You know, so thank you for sharing. I know that's a big loss. Ah, I not, I, I, you know he did play a huge role in our lives and it great lessons and stuff. But I did want to end on some techniques, things that helped me. I, I want, I want, I want you guys to take action. I want this, we talked a lot about the psychology. We talked about the statistics, these different things that are happening. Now let's work on the addiction part. If you, if you really have a severe problem with addiction, Oh, this is not an addiction counseling. We're not concerts. There are severities of these things. You can get into different types of addictions, you know, whether it's a games on your phone with pornography and different types of things like that.

Tyson: 36:52 Gambling. there's a lot of stuff there. If you're really suffering with these things, you know, this is an addiction on top of it. An addiction, you know, go seek professional help. There's something in your city a lot of times you know, insurance companies can take care of this. The, the state has funded programs that really it may cost you nothing. Please look into that. With that said something that really helped me was one meditation. Now this sounds great. Tyson, you will not, I ain't gotta be like that, but what, right. Well, what happened was they know I wasn't from that camp. Don't let this any, I, I mean today I got shit to do. I ain't got 20 minutes for this shit, you know? But what I found was when, when I took the time to say there's something here, I keep hearing it.

Tyson: 37:37 I got to give this a run. What I noticed is I noticed what I was doing, and it sounds crazy, but just like this morning I was reading for whatever reason, something caught my eye on my computer and 20, 30 minutes later, I'm like, what the fuck are you doing? And that's, that's something that I found. I develop a meditation. It's like, what are you doing? You know, and I'll be on my phone and I ha, you know, when I had that compulsion to scroll I'd be like, what are you doing? And I never had that before. You know, that awareness that you know, the watch you're watching kind of thing, you know. And so that's a tool for you guys. Another, another thing that really really kind of broke my addiction was I don't know if it's the beginning of the year, end of this year, whatever it was, some around that time.

Tyson: 38:31 For the last episode we put out in the beginning of the year I deleted all, all, all these apps from my phone. I did all the social media, all, all, all this stuff, you know, disabled it or deleted it, whatever I could do for one entire week. Now the first few days it was kinda hard cause that habits, they're like, Oh, what's going on? What's going on? And I do business things on Instagram, on Facebook, on these things. And there was some limitations. Only I found a limitation with an Instagram, either play with a few different desktop laptop, kind of computer apps to kind of figure through some things. But I got it to do what I had to do. And at the end of the, at the end of that week, you know, by by day I had the two and a half to three hours just like that, that compulsion was kinda gone.

Tyson: 39:17 That thing was kinda gone even though I very, I wasn't a very heavy user to begin with. And then I was like, okay, I'm set up, what should I do? And I'm like what do I need to reinstall? Nothing. I put back Instagram because it's hard to message people. And then I needed Facebook for something. I can't remember, but that's it. Everything else stayed off and it's been off and has never come back on. And I just use all web based things. When I schedule time to get on these apps, I take a few minutes and whatever it is, you know, 10, 15 minutes, I schedule, I go in there, I check the messages most times just once a week and I'm out and then even not in control of me anymore.

Ransom: 40:04 Right. And then, I don't know if there's apps and stuff like that, but I know from like Apple products, stuff like that, like you can control, it's called screen time, screen time. Like people actually get and maybe you're not techniques and you can't go cold Turkey. Believe me going cold Turkey on anything, whether it's smoking, drinking and stuff, digital addiction, whatever. It can be rough. Like just limit yourself. I got 30 minutes of screen time every day and I gotta do what I gotta do and get off. And that's,

Tyson: 40:34 Yeah, no, that's a good point. Android you've got to have one of the newer operating systems, but they do have those things on there. Apple has an, I w was a couple of updates back. They had me about a year ago. Now. They added that stuff within, I know within Instagram and within Facebook app you can go in there and I highly recommend go in there and look at how much time you're spending on it. Now it'll show you a chart each day your average I have each of mindset for 15 minutes. I almost never hit it. They, my average is like seven minutes and it's just real quick. I jump into my messages and I'm out. So set those up. Go in in your, in your, you know, in your phone, look at what the most used apps you have now to tell you, especially on, on iPhone, as long as you're, you have it decently updated.

Tyson: 41:21 And I enjoyed if you've got the last few versions, you'll have something in there that shows your most used apps. And go in there and look at that and look how much time you're spending on each those apps and, and set yourself a limit. Say an hour and a half on Instagram. All right, let me back this down to 45 minutes and free up time in your day, free up, stop being coming and slave. There's different techniques to this stuff. These, those are the two things that really worked for me. Did you, you have any experience with anything that you want to share at all?

Ransom: 41:55 No. I'm, you know, again, I didn't grow up with this addiction so it's not embedded in me from a kid. Like I can go days without my phone. Like it doesn't bother me. You know, and I'm just accepted a person. I'll just adapt. Like if I don't use my phone or do something else or, you know the other thing that I see cabal on and on this my phone, it's like, what is your time worth? You're checking Instagram 52 or maybe you're that person that checks Instagram 400 times a day. Like go check that out and see how much time you actually spend on Instagram. Who knows? It could be spending more time than you would maybe spend like five hours a day on Instagram. Like, what could you do with that five hours? Would you start another job? Did you make more money?

Ransom: 42:44 Could you actually take time to go spend with people you care about and friends that you never see? You know, like we don't, we all have the same amount of time when source resources are abundant, but times on, same for all of us. You're going to spend the next 30 minutes on Instagram. Are you going to spend the next 30 minutes doing something that's going to improve your life or be more productive? And those are the kinds of things I think honestly, you'd be looking at this stuff. I got things that you didn't take care of today. So that's kind of how the technique to helps me. It's like, what is your time actually? Where could you be doing it with? Who could you be spending that time? How could you better your life with that next 30 minutes other than X, Y, Z?

Tyson: 43:32 Absolutely. No, that's, that's, that's perfect. That's things lessons I learned as well. And if you're looking for some things to help you, you know, with some of these things that we're talking about, check out this month's giveaway. Go to social community.show/pick me. See what we got. We, we do all kinds of different things books and courses, different types of bundles and different things that we are going on. There's probably just one or two more giveaways the time this airs before we head into the holiday season, when we start giving back. We'll talk more about that later, but if you want to see what we got going on, we're always in there trying to find things for you guys to help you guys be calm. These things, to do these different things. To talk about social community and.show/pick me, see what we got going on or this month's giveaway and then different links and stuff to, to, to that things we've talked about here.

Tyson: 44:26 I will link to some of those studies that I talked about in the beginning. If you want to go on a deep dive like me I enjoy running down rabbit holes. This, this great little course I found on lumen learning. It's basic principles of opportune conditioning. Thor, Jordan, Nikes, law of effect. It's a great course. It really breaks this down, that variable ratio we were talking about earlier and you can get in there and you can really learn a lot about this. I think once we come to be, where are these things, we recognize them now. Just because you're aware of it is not going to mean you're, you're immune to it. It just gives you the ability to say, Oh, I see what's going on here. Variable ratio schedule here. I know it's happening. I know, honestly, go in there and check the think out.

Tyson: 45:18 Books is a fun little book. If you're looking for the little bit more of a a wean off, kind of not a cold Turkey approach. Like I did a how to break up their phone. It's a 30 day plan. A little key point to the book here is more and more people the world over are becoming addicted, their phones. And it really is a form of addiction. Social media developers are probably to blame the engineer apps around this principle. Addiction such as this can be detrimental to your attention span, memory and quality of sleep. Consistently. It's, well consequently it's well worth breaking up with your phone or at the least reducing the time you spend on it. You finally will have the time for real life experiences like we talked about and the space to get started on lifelong projects and dreams.

Tyson: 46:01 That's a quick little key point of that book. Another book, it's really good on this idea of deep work, a condom and I'm thinking in bets. We'll also be doing that as a episode certified book review. If you want to learn more about those books and what they're about and it was a social committee and not show, get into this episode. And and see those things there. And then anything else that you want to talk about with those things? Ransom. It's good man. Perfect. And then this week's challenge sounds crazy. You're gonna think I'm dumb, but I want you to go into your phone. I want you to look at your most used apps and delete them all. Delete all your social media apps, leads your email client, disable it, whatever you gotta do, delete it for one week. You'll thank me later. You will not die. I guarantee it. Stress the challenge. Take back your life. Break the addiction. Do not be a slave to Instagram, to your phone, to these app developers, to your emails. Get in there, delete all your social media apps and or disabled them. Whichever way works for your phone. I know that your other most used apps can get rid of them.

Tyson: 47:19 Go do that.

Ransom: 47:21 It was taking us to our final thoughts. You know, we're always here about bringing awareness to people and to things that are going on and just another awareness. If aren't aware that it's an addiction. Now you're way, this is the time to actually think about it. Like, am I addicted? Maybe I am. Maybe I should do something about that. Maybe I'm more than just the digital image of my cell phone or out there in the cloud somewhere. After all, she's the phone guys. It's all it is. Microchips and sensors and cameras on it. Oh, it's a phone.

Tyson: 47:59 Yeah. And, and you know, if you have a friend or family member that has got a bit of an addiction, go over to their place. Sit on the couch right next to them. Pull up this episode. You can go through it with them and delete their apps, their apps. Yes. Help them through this. Get there. Get in person, get out there. Let's bring back, recapture. We ignite your friendship, your family connection, whatever it is that you're looking for. Get over there. Get to these people. Do you want us to put the show in other ways? Leaving likes and reviews definitely helped. Recommending them to your friends and family. Definitely. Great way after this, after one week is over, all your apps deleted unless you have scheduled some time on a desktop. You can go check us out. Social community on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter. Also don't forget to subscribe on YouTube if you like the video version or your favorite podcast app or past episodes and links. Everything we talk about here today, you give us the social committee in that show and until next time, get off the damn phone. Keep learning, keep growing and transforming to the person you

Speaker 4: 49:12 Want to get up.