Hi everyone. Welcome to another episode of Tech Talk, a podcast where Amit and I talk about all things tech. We don't just talk about tech, we also talk about our society, culture and how the tech affects everything else. So today we're gonna talk about social media addiction, and this is a scenario that has come about because of the advancement of tech. we've become more and more dependent on tech, and it has started taking a lot of our attention.
this is a very fitting topic for us to talk about And on top of that, I am a, if I wanna say victim, I am a victim of it myself, and we'll find out about Amit as well. So, yeah, very. Excited to talk about social media addiction today. hopefully you guys enjoy it. So, Amit, what's your thought on, social media addiction?
I think, I, I think, yeah, it's, it's a very relevant topic and we all have been facing with this issue lately, especially with the advent of so many, apps that are so easily available on our phone. But I think just to break it down, for people who don't know what social media is, so when we talk about media, media could be an audio file, video, an image. So that's, we define as media. And social is anything where you are meeting a lot of people.
So, on an app, especially when you are meeting a lot of people or where you can connect with other people, strangers, influencers, companies, so that's, what we call social. So it's no longer, just you and your, day-to-Day happenings, but it's now connected with others and what they're doing and, how they are progressing in their life. So that's what I, define by, social media.
And when we talk about addiction, the addiction is basically, how much time we are spending on these apps why are we spending so much time on these apps why is it relevant to talk about it now? So I think, it's a, it's a good topic to discuss.
Absolutely. you just, made me think of something. you've mentioned you, you've dissected the term social and media and, we understand that now. But I also want to talk about what are the other media? So traditional media is the opposing side of social media. So, for those of you who were, millennials who knows about other media and how prevalent they were when growing up.
So, when we talk about social media the opposing side is traditional media, and that is radio, television, etc. when we were growing up, traditional media or tv, radio took a major part of our entertainment. And I remember I. coming back from school, I had homeworks to do, but there was one TV show that was, everyone in our family gonna watch it together so I had to finish all my homework by 9:00 PM because 9:00 PM is when, when that TV show started.
So everything will be off and all of the family will come together in the living room and watch the watch that show Now. That was quite a different scenario than where we are now with the advent of social media and the medium that we use to consume this, social media content. But yeah, no. Now just differentiating between what other media are there.
We're talking about social media today, but the other ones are traditional media like radio, television, which has a different way of consuming and can be consumed, not necessarily individually, but also together, which is a little bit, different when we talk about, the, the social media, consumption that we do in our phones. so yeah, that's another perspective on the scenario.
And, when you said addiction, you can define addiction in many ways, but one of the, the common criteria of all kinds of addiction is that you cannot control it. So you know it's bad for you, but yet somehow you still end up doing it. it's the same with smoking and other kinds of addiction as well. It's not that you don't know that it's bad for you, but you still can't help it.
the cognitive dissonance between your brain, knowing that what's good or bad, but actually in, when it comes to taking action, unable to follow what, you know, in your consciousness to be the right thing to do or wrong thing that I, I, that's how I think of addiction and this is certainly that from my personal experience and I would like to hear, experiences from the audience. But yeah, that's, that's, that's how I would define.
I think, you've covered, a very good, topic, I think when you covered about, traditional media because Yes, we, that's how we used to consume, media in the olden times in eighties and nineties. and while we were growing up, and I think print media was also very, important. Yes. So I when I talked about media, I just mentioned audio, video and, images, but there is also text.
Text is also a a type of medium through which you convey information and, In the traditional, form would be newspaper or magazines, and the current form would be sending messages. So, so there are a lot of these apps now, and we are, using it on a regular basis to connect with people. and it's, it's a good, you mentioned, but addiction, it's something that you cannot control, but, why is it an addiction and, what are the consequences of that addiction?
And one of the main consequences is, your time is spent on that. Thing rather than doing something else, which, loss of productivity, which, yes, it, it could be loss of productivity or ignoring your family, ignoring your friends, ignoring your work. the side effects of addiction is, can take place, in many forms. And that's why I think it's important to talk about it because sometimes we, we don't know that we are addicted to something, until, unless we are deprived of it.
So once we get deprived of it, then we realize, oh man, I can't live without it. I, I, I need it. And, I think that's, I think that's one of the ways to figure out whether you're addicted or not.
Yes, absolutely. And, this is where I, I I wanna share, my personal experience with you guys So, I used to be a. Chronic smoker of cigarettes and, so I know addiction in the traditional form if you'd like. And, no matter how much I knew, admitted and acknowledged that it's bad for me, bad for my health and future, I still wasn't able to stop it. When the internet and the whole tech advancement or the information age kind kind of started off, maybe 15, 20 years ago.
there were new games coming up. Gaming was a new thing, as well as other ways of consuming content like, MySpace, Hi-Five, Orkut, and then eventually Facebook, etc. And people were spending a lot of time on, on these. ways of entertaining gaming as well as social media. Now, there were news, in the newspaper and other places that this is becoming an addiction.
This is bad. And I, I think eventually there was, a, a, a person who actually unalived by, after playing thirty-one or 40 hours of video games continuously. So when I first heard about it I thought, come on, that's not what an addiction is. This is just media or traditional media trying to label something as dangerous, something that they don't understand because it's new technology, but us teenagers, when we were we know what's going on and it's not an addiction at all.
that, that has been my, perspective towards, social media and gaming for, for a very long time because. It doesn't fit with the rest of the other things that we think as addictive, like drugs, smoking and things like that. So it's, it's totally different kind of thing. So I never kind of took it seriously because I thought, okay, this is, this is a totally different thing.
People who doesn't do it don't understand that it's, it's not, it's not, it can't be addiction because it's, it's not a, a any substance that's going inside your body and whatever. So I, I completely dismissed this whole scenario until, and I don't wanna talk too negatively about tick tock, but until tick tock before that I, I had spent good amount of times on Instagram and Facebook an hour or two, which already felt like quite significant part of my day.
But then when TikTok came about, I have found myself spending six or eight hours continuously. That's like a full-time job. I mean, that, that's, that can't be normal. And once I've done that a number of times, and this happened, you just went on to a, like a hole of scrolling and scrolling continuously, endlessly. And then I re-examined myself on how I spent the, these, these times in, many days in, in the past month. Then it became clear that this, this is not just.
An app in my phone or the, the next level of technological advancement. But this is actually affecting my judgment and my decision making because I knew at the time when I was scrolling that this, I should stop now or I should have stopped earlier, but I am, continuing to do so, continuing to, be engaged and not stopping while knowing that I should stop. I'm not stopping. And yeah, sometimes in life you, it, even that moment does happen.
Like even for example, if you're having a good time with your friends hanging out, in a physical space and you think that, yeah, I should really go home and, do the house chores, but you don't, that's one thing. But then. When you're doing watching TikTok and do it thinking that I should stop for six hours and then you continue to still watch for six hours until your body can't handle anymore and you fall asleep.
That's a level of lack of control, which can actually be classed as addiction because for first 15 years of, consuming content, I did not wanna admit or agree and to a degree, I think I was correct that okay, those are not addictions. The technology has advanced to, in order to get your, attention, it has advanced to a degree that you just cannot control a lot of the times. And that I, I just have no other way logically to avoid acknowledging that it is an addiction.
But yeah, so that's my experience in terms of how to agree and admit that it was an addiction.
Interesting. I think. Yes. we have talked about your TikTok, Marathons sessions. so yeah, I mean, for me, I think, what I have noticed for myself is that, when, Orkut came, it was, still, I mean, everyone used it. I was in college and, we used it to connect to people and we used to chat on that. And then Facebook came, initially Facebook had a lot of games, so I was playing a lot of games on that. These, movie quizzes and other things. So I, I remember doing that.
And then Facebook became a news feed, so you could look at, what others were sharing so you could get the news. So rather than reading a newspaper, you were getting news from, people. And these were random websites. So internet is so vast and sometimes you don't know what is out there. So people, based on their interest, they explore new subjects and based on that, they post new articles.
So I used to absorb that on Facebook and my addiction started, I mean, I wouldn't say it's, I mean, maybe it's an addiction, so. My thing is I have to scroll through everything, till the, most till the last update that I've, seen. So every day I used to scroll through the whole feed till the day before, I mean until yesterday's feed. And that way I used to keep myself up to date with everything. And then I used to try to comment on everything, and then I used to read all the articles.
So I think I'm, I'm an information like, I absorb a lot of information, but I don't do a lot of, things with that information. So, so it started with that. And then, YouTube came. I am, I'm a huge YouTube addict. my wife can vouch for that. I love watching videos on YouTube. people watch, short videos on TikTok. You watch short form content. I watch long form content. I can watch like hours and hours of like, debates and seminars and sessions and whatnot.
And I, I watch on all sorts of topics and I tell my wife that I'm, I'm learning things. And my wife is like, no, you're not learning things. You're just wasting your time because whatever you learn, you're not applying. Right? So you're, you're actually not learning. It's only in the application that you learn. And then recently I've noticed this, I've become an Instagram addict. I use, I started using Instagram when I went for traveling to South America.
And we used to follow a lot of travelers and we used to post, me and my wife, we both used to post on Instagram. And from there the addiction started happening. And then you randomly scroll, through things. and Instagram has a good recommendation in engine. So whatever you like it, starts, displaying things, based on your interest. So it starts showing you, okay, these are the things you like. So it starts showing you that, and then you become more addicted to it. so it, started with that.
And then I think the most recent trend that I've seen is, I've started playing a lot of chess on Lee chess. So that's another, gaming app. So a lot of people play these, Games, online or on the phone. And I play chess and I don't, say it's, addiction 'cause I'm learning something. I'm applying my brain. So I don't call it an addiction, but it is an addiction because whenever I'm having dinner, I try to play chess or, whenever I'm traveling, I try to play chess.
So in my free time, I, I'm playing chess, so that's my way to unwind myself or relax. I'm not relaxing. I'm just playing chess. so yeah, that's my journey with social media, different types of gaming, different types of apps. So YouTube, Instagram, Facebook. I've reduced a lot. I've reduced a lot of Facebook. I've started using Twitter and LinkedIn, but, I've, I've tried to figure out like what I have I'm doing. another, part I want to cover is, Technology news.
So I'm in the field of technology. Rinat is also in the field of technology and we both read a lot of tech news. So my, news comes from reading a lot of articles and I follow a lot of blogs. And every day I try to, read the latest news, latest gadgets, what's happening in the world of tech, and keep myself up to date. And what I noticed is that I was, going through a lot of pages.
So I start with page one, then page two, page three, page four, page five, click all, all the tabs, and then keep on endlessly, going through all the pages over a period of time. What I realized is I should restrict myself. I'll only go till page five or till page 10. Depending upon how many articles I cover, and that's it. No matter what, how interesting the next pages are. I will not go beyond page five or page 10. So I have put a mental limit and I work with that.
So that's one way for me to tackle with that addiction. With, chess, I've now limited to, only certain times when, when I think, my time I'm, I'm free so I can utilize that time for playing chess. apart from that, I don't play chess, Instagram. I'm trying to reduce it. I don't want to uninstall the app because then it doesn't solve the problem because the moment you install it, you are back to the same situation.
So controlling an addiction is you are exposed to that addiction and then you are able to control. So I think that's, that's the. That's one way to tackle it, but I'm not an expert on that.
Yes, no, absolutely. Neither of us are expert in, addiction handling. But I mean, you know, when you mentioned YouTube, I was also gonna say that I've, there are so many channels, and before TikTok was popular, I've, I was also an addict of YouTube. Now, TikTok has just taken all of my real estate of attention and, completely focused on that. But YouTube I used to watch a lot of, tutorial and educational videos. And, a lot of you might also know about Crash course, it's very popular channel.
And I've watched like most of their, series of educational videos and they were very interesting to me. but just like you Amit, I mean, I was watching educational and like productive content. I was telling myself that, okay, this is, this is positive, I'm doing something good with my life. But actually just consuming educational content doesn't really improve our lives until we apply it.
And, that, that's something we tell ourselves that, okay, it's not addiction because we are doing, we are actually being productive, but actually in reality, we're not until we, we take action based upon it. So, that's, that's a really, important perspective that I guess we both have now learned.
another thing, and not to, not to diss you in any way, but recently I've seen a, a quote, regarding chess is that all the chess players like to say that this is improving their brain and, strategy and negotiation technique. But if you become really good in playing Chess, then all you do is become a good chess player. Your brain is becoming really good in chess, but not necessarily the rest of the things. But again, I am not a, like a chronic chess player, so I don't know.
But I, I, I do admit it is a game of strategy and you do have to think a lot, which is a, the don't,
don't try to defend Rinat. I'm not trying to defend myself. I know it's an addiction. When I'm in a waiting room, I'm playing it. So,
yeah. So the point is that, yeah, if we, if we deflect our responsibilities in life while, for doing whatever Facebook, chess or tick-tock, if we are Avoiding the actual responsibilities, then that's the problem. And as you mentioned, you've taken many, many measures to keep all of these in control. I've also attempted to take many, many measures and failed in all of them.
And then the final step I have taken is that I have uninstalled that, as you mentioned, that that's not necessarily a solution, but for me, I feel like the more difficult I make it, for me to access, the better chances I have Yes, I have uninstalled TikTok, Instagram, Facebook in the past as well. But then I did end up downloading it again and watching it.
But this time what happened is I've, I've really looked at myself and I thought, I have to have to, keep bringing this in control and how can I do that? So what happens straight away after you uninstall it is that I. You won't just casually pick up the phone and turn on TikTok or Instagram because now you have to download it, which means that you have to mentally be okay with, okay, I'm going through the effort of downloading.
That means I'm, I definitely want to spend more than 10 minutes, because that's what happens most of the time that you think, oh, I'm just gonna be on TikTok for 10 minutes for a quick break. But then you end up spending two hours on it, which is, which, which was a problem with me. So uninstalling really did help, but I didn't uninstall everything together. I uninstall TikTok because that was the most problematic.
And then I told myself I that okay, all the educational and productive videos on TikTok, how do I, I did wanna do something with it. So I thought, okay. Whenever I now need to go on TikTok, I will go it through my desktop. So it's not completely inaccessible to me, but I just, agreed with myself that I'm not gonna download it again in my phone. I'm just gonna turn on the desktop, and then go on it.
And then I realized that, okay, now the addiction has go, gone to a stage that if I can't find TikTok, I'll end up spending time on Instagram. I mean, before TikTok, I wasn't spending so much time on Instagram anyway, but now that I've normalized spending six hours on my phone, I was spending it on Instagram, failing TikTok. So. Then I uninstalled Instagram. Then I realized that I am, I'm now ending up, I mean, maybe not as much, but still spending considerable amount of time on Facebook.
So I uninstalled Facebook and then YouTube from my phone, and then I, it's, it's completely, deserted island. My phone, I do have Twitter in there, but I'm not a big fan of Twitter, and the feed is not, not really tailored towards me for whatever reason. So I don't, I don't, I'm not, I don't really like Twitter enough to be addicted. But what ended up happening is that I've logged in through. The internet browser on my phone.
I logged into YouTube over there to to watch again shorts through YouTube. and then I downloaded an app which limits the usage of particular applications in your phone. but you don't need to, you don't need to actually use the app. so ba basically you won't ever have to open that particular app, but it just, basically, you just set it up on that app to, block the internet browser, the Chrome browser in your phone, and that's what I've done.
And, I'm sorry, I can't remember the name of the app, but it's one of the popular apps in, when you search for Limit my app usage in, in Google Play Store and whatever. I think it's, stay free. is, is the name of the app. but yeah, so, it, it, you can basically tell that, okay, I only can use, Chrome browser for 60 minutes on every 24 hours, and it tracks you. And once you pass, using the 60 minutes, then you can't use it Obviously, there are ways to get around it.
I have to uninstall the actual app and then I can use something that again. But I think the main thing to remember with all kinds of addiction is in your mind, not just the, the, the surface part of your mind, but deep within your mind.
You have to know and agree that you actually genuinely want to stop un until you do that, until you don't have this agreement deep within you there is no, no other way to escape this because yes, I mean, for traditional kind of drugs like weed or cigarette or other kind of drugs, it's difficult to have access to it because government and society, et cetera. But social media, there is no difficulty accessing it.
So it is totally all on you to be able to live an examined life, be aware of what you are doing, be an observer of yourself, and then take action to control in your life what you want to control. So it is very important. and I've ignored it most of my life. I didn't even want to class it as an addiction, but, I have ended up in, in my life where I have no other way, but to acknowledge that it is a problem.
So, absolutely, definitely, would urge everyone to look at it and, examine how it's affecting your life.
So, yeah, it's a very interesting, perspective, Rinat, because, going through your addiction journey and, talking about how you've taken measures is, quite interesting. And I, I, I see a pattern here. there was TikTok, then you remove TikTok, then there was Instagram, then you removed Instagram, there was YouTube, Facebook, etc. But if, if you see the pattern, it's mostly short form videos and, Instagram is pictures. But Instagram tried to replicate the TikTok formula. On short form.
Yeah. It was the videos that, got me addicted?
Yeah. Yes. And, and same with YouTube now, YouTube, Shorts, Instagram, Reels and TikTok. Mm-Hmm. So they're all, interconnected. And Facebook is also pushed now starting on, videos more. So I think, I think that there is definitely a pattern here, but I think let's, let's break it down. What's happening in these apps? So these apps, the, the way they run is by, by the amount of sheer amount of people that they have on these apps.
So suppose all your friends and all your, colleagues are there on the app. So you want to be there on that app. And, then you start sharing things about your personal life and you want to see what others are doing in their personal life.
Another thing is in reality, you do want to know what's happening in, people's lives, but you don't want to know about every person's life whom you have ever met, because sometimes you meet people once and then you follow them on Instagram, Facebook, LinkedIn, whatever, and then you keep getting their, images or things on your feed. Now, in your head you think, okay, fine, I might reconnect with them in the future, so let me have them on my profile. And you keep getting that in feed.
And now they have started traveling and then you're like, oh my God, they're going here. They're going here. What's happening with my life? I'm not doing anything. So you feel you, you get addicted into that trap. Then, and Facebook did that. Instagram did it, and a lot of people felt like, oh, I'm not doing anything good with my life. These people are doing so many great things and, what's happening with their life. Then TikTok came, and TikTok was all short form videos and videos were funny.
So they were quite addictive. Like they were, they were about, initially they were about, mimicry. You mimic, a famous song. you, you dance to a famous song, and then it started with a lot of special effects and then it became like utility videos, like I. Okay, how do you do things in, in your bathroom, in your house, the decor, DIY fixes, etc. And then you are like, wow, this is so cool. I'm learning.
So it's, it just like YouTube, but now instead of watching a one-hour video, you're watching a 32nd clip and you're like, wow, this is so good. I can do this. Let me buy it or let me do this. And that's how it, it, gets you addicted because you are thinking in your head that, wow, just by watching this video, I'm learning so much, but you forget. And I've seen this pattern with my friends as well, who keep sharing videos on you Instagram.
And, they, they share, normally there are two or three types of videos. One are meme videos, meme videos are, jokes about your life. Like, jokes about being a parent, jokes about being a runner, jokes about being a father, jokes about being a man, things like that. Jokes about pets. And then there are these pet videos. So you see all these cute. Dogs, cute cats, all these videos, so, so there are these and then cute babies.
So then there are those videos and then there are fitness videos which are educational, oh, you should do this, you should do that. So then there are those videos, and then they are just random DIY videos. I. Okay, let's fix the furniture. Let's fix your cupboard, let's fix your house. 32nd video. And I'm like, wow. Oh, I want that. I want that. The problem is you share the video and, and you forget about that video in two days' time. Exactly. In two days' time, you forget about it.
Millions of people, perfect example. Millions of people have seen the, the, the, those couple of guys I think in, in India who started with a, like a, just a land grassland, and then they built a house with swimming pool with, with the, with the mud and. you feel like, you can, oh, you can do it yourself in your back garden, right? And these two guy, but actually this was debunked later I've seen another video where they have actually said that those two guys were, that was misleading.
They were having a lot of other people and machinery and, they to, to make the houses and the swimming pool. But then they were showing that they're just doing, it by themselves. But yeah, no, that's a good point. Anyway, continue. No, I
think, I, I think, you've, you've hit that because, short form videos request far more editing than long form content. So when I say long form, anything about, five to 10 minutes is about long form. And anything 30 seconds or below is short form content. And for short form content, you record first a long form content, and then you squeeze it into 30 seconds and you take the gist of it.
So suppose you're doing, you are building a. furniture, you take the gist of it, like you don't show, you are cutting the wood for, one minute or two minutes. You just show it for one second and that's it. But you don't, show how much effort has gone into cutting that wood or, fixing a nail. And you don't show all the tools. You just see the, the first, like how it looks in the beginning and then how it looks in the end and the transition.
You don't see how much effort has gone into and you think I can do it. Yes. More I can do it. Right? It makes you think that, oh, I can also do it. And, and I mean, if you, if you, if you look at all these things, the way it's working is grabbing your attention. Instagram, Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, WhatsApp, they all want your attention and the way they want and, and the reason they want their attention is because they have advertisers.
So if you are there on the app, you can see the advertisements and if you can see the advertisements, you can buy, those products or subscribe to those products, right? Or services. So Instagram wants you to be there so that you can see more and more ads. Same with TikTok, same with YouTube. So, so now what has happened is YouTube has come up with a premium subscription. Now you don't have to see ads, you just pay a monthly fee and you don't see any ads. That's good.
So, and plus YouTube has come up with a very good thing. If you turn off your search history, then you don't see any recommendation. So when I open YouTube, my YouTube, page, it itself is blank. And I don't see any videos. Oh, I don't see any videos because my search history is off. So it doesn't recommend me anything because I've switched off the search history. So it's not personalizing. So that way, oh, it means when I open YouTube. I'm not endlessly scrolling.
I have to deliberately type what I want to search, and then from there I then go mindless scrolling.
Oh wow. That is something I did not know at all. And that's, it
started recently? It started recently. That's actually quite,
yeah. Wow. That's actually because I, I do have my search history on and I'll probably keep it on anyway, but this is really good, good information to know. And I feel like our audience could also be helped with, with this because it, it's true. As soon as I, even now, as soon as I open YouTube, I hear, I see like four or five really ideal videos that I actually really am interested in that topic.
Recently I've been, very interested into gardening and I've watched two or three videos of that, and then they're coming up with now like really Appealing videos that I really wanna know how to do this thing or that thing. And I had to actually have to stop myself from clicking those things. And actually the, the suggestions are so good that there are multiple suggestions.
I sometimes get confused of which one do I click, and sometimes I end up actually opening three or four tabs just from going to YouTube.com if the suggestions have become so good. So, yeah. And what you said earlier as well is, is the short form content now. It's just, so much information. You, you think you're absorbing so much information so quickly that now it feels like a bargain that, okay, I've, I've spent like half a minute or a minute and now I know about this whole thing.
But actually you don't, it's, it's totally different story when you try to apply it in real life.
What I have realized is because I'm on all these social media apps. I don't remember or a lot of things like I don't remember what, what I heard in the podcast. I heard two days back. I don't remember. I just know that's another, I just know that I, I've consumed very good content. I'm very happy, but I don't remember, and I'm like, I have to revisit the whole content again.
I can relate to it so much because, this is part of my experience as well. So when I start watching Tick-Tock, if you like something, then you can actually go back to all the videos you've liked. Now, obviously, over the years, Tick-Tock also improved their saving functionality. So if you wanna save a video for later because you wanna do something, you wanna take an action based on it you can save it, and that's the right way of organizing. But I've started before this feature even existed.
So I've just started liking things. The things that I would like to go back to at some point. I mean, yeah, the videos I like, I do like, but very rarely I like, videos just because I like it. But most of the times I like something because I want to go back to them and just as you said, Amit that you wanna consume to do something with it.
And now I've, as, as I just mentioned like 10 minutes ago, that I've now uninstalled TikTok and my logic is that if I wanna watch TikTok and I need to be productive with TikTok, I'm gonna go it and go to a go on it in my desktop. And when I do go instead of mindless scrolling, I actually do end up looking through my liked videos because I know that there are thing, I do wanna be productive and I do wanna take deliberate actions, intentional and not just, mindless scrolling.
So I, now started going to all of my liked videos and. What I've noticed is over, last three years, I've liked so many videos and I've even forgot about all the different things I've liked. And then I thought, okay, I need to actually know how many things. because these are all of these individual things. liked videos are action to take on something. So I thought, okay, let me see how many videos that I've liked so far. And then I scrolled down and down and down and it was like endless.
I mean, I thought I only sparingly, liked only the very few that I wanna do something about. And even that ended up being 1700. Videos that I have liked over the last three years. And then I, it was a chore just to count, copy the, all the URLs and then put it in Excel and then do some calculation. And then I realized that I've liked about 1700 videos. And then I thought, okay, let me start from the very beginning.
And then it was nostalgic to go to the very beginning, all the old videos that I have watched and liked, etc. But then a lot of the things that I had liked with the intention that I, I have something to do regarding this, maybe I want to check out this website. Maybe I want to use this tool. Maybe I want to. And then I realized a lot of those have become obsolete. They're not even relevant anymore.
there were some websites, I went to that website and saw they've gone out of business, and then I went to this other website where you can write really good articles, but then by now ChatGPT is here. So all the things that I've liked before, ChatGPT, a lot of them are already obsolete now The intention of taking an action was in 2020 or 2021, and I needed to take those actions in 2021, not go back to it in 2024, but that's what's happening.
And I've essentially not only thought in 2020 that I've, I'm, being productive, but I actually fully wasted that time and the time right now when I'm going back to it and realizing that it was a waste of, my time then, and it's a waste of my time now. So I. Yes, I do agree that there are some really good information, productive things to do, but don't just completely, go on autopilot. when you are doing this, if you like something, you be more organized.
You save it in a to-do list or you do something and then take action, within that month when you found that video if you really have to. But I would still very strongly encourage everyone to uninstall it, because that's what worked for me. And go on it in your desktop, if you tell your mind that, okay, I, I'm not depriving myself, it's not quite cold Turkey, I'm not completely depriving myself.
If I want to really be productive with TikTok, I can go on it in my in, in desktop and usually desktop has this aura that, when you sit on a table and watch it on your laptop or your desktop computer, you are kind of already in a productive mood. So it's more difficult to go on a mindless scrolling Fiesta for five hours. Yeah. So, it probably would work better in
that, I think. I think we've talked a lot about the addiction part, but I think we should also talk about why it exists in the first place. I think Instagram has its place because, people do like to share pictures, especially with families and friends, and they do want to share, certain memories. So if I visit a place, I want to take a picture and capture it and store it somewhere so people can like, and comment.
And plus I also have a reminder, okay, I visited these places and when I meet new people, I can show them, okay, these are the places I've been to, and then we can connect. So Instagram has its place. Same with Facebook. Facebook is good for friends and families. Again, like, if you want, if you have a life event, you pay post all the pictures and then people can come and comment on it. Google Photos is trying to do that.
So in photos you can create an album, and then with that album you can share it to all the, all, all your friends and families. A friend, a few friends of mine have done that. And then you can comment on those photos without uploading it on Facebook or other, other channels. But then you also have to be an Android user. Then, Twitter has its place. I think Twitter is quite relevant because it's text, so you have to actually. Pay attention to read the text.
But Twitter has now also started posting a lot of videos, GIFs and audio format, so then it becomes more chaotic. Plus, Twitter was initially just three or four lines. Now it's long form content as well. So people who pay a subscription fee, they can post long form content. People who don't, they can only post still, two or three sentences. So Twitter is still good because that's where you can get the, bleeding-Edge news, so BBC or any other news media they first posted.
So you don't have to actually go somewhere. You can just get a notification like an earthquake has happened, a tsunami has happened, of all volcano has erupted, a flight has cancelled, someone got shot, etc. So you get all the news on Twitter. So it, it's, it's relevant, but of course it's about you, how sparingly you use it. And then you have LinkedIn. LinkedIn is good if you have work, but apart from work, there are not a lot of now content on LinkedIn, which has got nothing to do with work.
And, and I've noticed that. So what I do is now I go to LinkedIn. I just search for people whom I've met or whom I've listened to on a YouTube video or something. And then I try to Google them and see, okay, what have they done? What is their, career history, where are they currently working, what kind of posts they have posted? So people whom I'm interested in the feed, I just go through a bit and then I just leave it. I don't like go through the feed extensively.
So I think YouTube has done a very good job because I think YouTube has figured out that instead of feeding you something, I deliberately have to go and search for content. And same on LinkedIn. I want to deliberately search for people whom I'm interested in. And same on Facebook. I want to deliberately go and see pictures of people whom I want to know, okay, what's happening in their life. I've not been in touch. Let's see, have they had a child, have they got married?
Have they traveled, et cetera. And same with Instagram. I I just want to, find people, not random strangers, And then I think educational part. So I think YouTube has a good part where it comes to education. You can learn a lot of things provided you apply. I think a lot of problem with addiction is that you think it's useful for you, even though it's not useful, because without application, nothing is useful.
And one of the measures I've taken is like, okay, I watch all this content, what am I doing with it? So I started writing a newsletter about all the content that I've been watching and reading. So that. It's not just mindless consumption. It's like, okay, I've consumed it. What have I absorbed from that? And then how can I articulate it and share it with, people who subscribe? And I don't have a lot of subscribers. I'm about 30, 32 subscribers who are mostly my friends and families.
And, they read it and, they sometimes give a comment, but it's fine. My purpose is whatever I've read, whatever is happening in my life, I absorb that. I, I go through a. What do you say? A recollection of all the events that have happened based on my calendar. And then I try to recollect all that, organize it, and then, articulate it in a newsletter. Because the moment I articulate, I'm putting effort.
That means I can remember now things because if you just absorb and you are not writing about it or telling it about it, or discussing about it, it's just mindless. So you keep forgetting it because your brain has limited capacity. It's like, okay, I'm absorbing so much information, but in order for me to absorb more information, some information has to go out. So you, you, you see a pattern that you're starting to forget things.
You're starting to not remember a lot of things because so many, you, you are almost everywhere. Your attention is everywhere. Your attention is on a game. Your attention is on the social media apps. Your attention is on photos because sometimes, I mean, we are talking about social media addiction, but people, a lot of people have addiction of taking a lot of pictures. So when they're at a particular event, they're taking pictures, but they're not actually in that event.
and, and, and there are countless other things. What I have noticed is I am addicted to a few blogs. I've, I've organized all the apps in my phone, so a few sections. So chess is one, Instagram is one, and YouTube. So these are the three things that I constantly hang around because if I'm in a train, I want to pass my time, I can listen to music, that's fine. I can listen to a podcast, that's fine. But if I want to do something, I mindlessly scroll or I read an article.
So what I've realized is that it's time to have, I. your, what do you say? It's time to have your own time back. Give it back to yourself. Don't give it to these apps. So instead of using these apps on your phone, just sit quietly, get bored. I think people have stopped, realizing the importance of getting bored. We can't get bored anymore. I, we don't want to get bored. We are like, oh, this is happening. This life is so exciting. No, dude, get bored.
If you don't get bored, you'll not get new ideas.
Absolutely. And I was just about to say it like being bored has its actual. Therapeutic benefits. I mean, it, it, it's not just about, okay, I, I, I wanna not be addicted, but actually, while you are not doing things, your brain is actually doing things that you don't always consciously know, but it is still doing things. And also, you are giving yourself your conscious mind a bit of rest from consumption, which is also very good for future productivity and more quality productivity.
I mean, consuming content, content as much as you tell yourself that you're being productive, it's not, you're not. even after that, you put your phone down and you think, okay, I'm gonna do something good or productive or something, and then you do start doing something and you are automatically, your brain is on autopilot because it's already tired. By consuming so much information, it, it can't generate anymore new creative ideas.
But if you give yourself or your brain a bit of break, do nothing, yeah, some people have like a feared connotation of on meditation. I, myself am like that. I, I don't, haven't done meditation much and I don't know whether I'll be able to, but. If you like meditation, do meditation. If you don't, then just do nothing and give your brain or yourself, or your consciousness a bit of break from everything, and you'll see the difference.
If you start doing it regularly, just half an hour of not doing anything, just, while sipping cup of tea or coffee and just not do anything, then you'll see that there is a big difference in your output, quality of output. right now you are living your life with, you're doing your job at work and whatever you think everything is going well, but. You'll see the difference once you start giving your brain a bit of rest and the output you generate would be of a much higher quality.
You can probably still have the same rate of output, the same kind of things. Maybe, you took you an hour to prepare a presentation, it still takes you an hour to prepare a presentation, but the quality of it would increase drastically and you will see that, it would be noticeable difference. So absolutely, very much would encourage everyone to, to.
Get bored, I personally would say I haven't come out of the other side just yet, but I started acknowledging that it is a problem and it's something that you need to deliberately, intentionally take action. It's not just gonna automatically phase away. This is not a phase, this is not a, not a problem. It is a problem and it will continue to be a problem Or get even worse if you don't take action, it needs deliberate action to fix this. Otherwise you're going down.
Yeah, a really dangerous hole and wouldn't be able to come out of it. It is just like any other addiction. You get a hit of dopamine every time you watch a content and then you, your brain wants to continue watching it. And when I stopped, I installed these apps, I actually saw the same kind of reaction in my brain. I. When I stopped smoking and it's, it's scarily similar.
And even though I keep telling myself that these are two different things, the one is physical harming my body and one is just, I'm just spending time. But no, actually the effect on your brain is very similar. And I did not wanna believe the people who said these things before, but actually I can't logically, rationally avoid this because it had harmed my productivity in, in, in major way.
So yeah, now it's still, it's still always gonna be work in progress, but, definitely something that you guys wanna seriously look at and examine your life in. In terms of first start with stats, your phone. Already records every, all the, every day, what you spend your time on. So just look at the stats. If it's alarming, then you know that there is something that needs to be done.
So I think, I have, I have an app similar that shows like how much, time I'm spending on each of these, which of the apps are taking most of my time. So I've started doing that. So that's one thing. But I think I, I, before we finish the podcast, I wanted to touch base on few points. we forgot about notifications. We didn't talk about notifications. Like a lot of times what happens is you post a content and then you wait. Did someone like it? Did someone put a comment?
it it's, it happens with our podcast as well, right? We, post a video and we wait for, okay, how many views, how many likes, what happens? So that gives you a dopamine effect, so that, that's also an addiction, right? Because you are now creating content, but you are addicted to those notifications, like you are addicted for that validation that if you don't get enough likes or if you don't get enough comments or enough views, your content is not great. And you're seeing that validation.
So that's, one of the things that, I have found, especially after starting to post a lot of content on YouTube, writing a newsletter and doing other things, I think, you get into that habit of, okay, why am I not generating in views what's happening? And then you start hacking the algorithm. Well, it's just a waste of time. You're posting content because you want to, and you like it for others. And if others don't want that, it's fine.
If you want to create a business, then you can put effort, but think of it as a business and then put, time and effort based on that. If you're just doing it for the, for the fun part, then don't be addicted to it. Like, don't keep waiting. Okay. There will be a new notification or a new, comment. The second thing I wanted to say is that, one of the, places where we actually consume the most content is when we are sitting on the So we go to the toilet, we go with our phones. It's so easy.
Earlier, it was so difficult. You can't carry a TV to your toilet. You can't carry a big newspaper to your toilet, right? I mean, you can, but it's difficult. So anyway, so you now carry a phone and you play games, you watch Instagram content and then, and you're just sitting there and then you realize, you start feeling constipated. You're not empty. And I have noticed this with myself. Like, I don't feel empty if I'm using my phone.
So what I've done is I still take the phone because if there is an emergency call, I have a son. If I get a call from the nursery, I, I would want to be able to pick it up, but I just keep it there. I don't see the phone and I just focus on, okay. I'm here to do something and let me just focus on that. And I feel very empty and very relaxed after that. So I think that's important. And the third thing I wanted to cover is attention economy. So we talked about attention economy.
These apps are talking about seeking your attention, but in the end, what you have to think is how can you give that attention to something else? And does everything in your life need attention? And soon or later you'll realize that not everything in your life needs the same amount of attention, and you need to just focus on things that you enjoy the most. So say you enjoy running, just focus on that. So I've stopped taking a headphone or stop taking even my phone for a run. I do a 10 K run.
I don't take a phone. I don't have to listen to any music. I don't even have to listen to a podcast. I now pay attention to things around me rather than things that are not around me. I think people forget that, if you are commenting or chatting with people, on the phone, they're close to you. No, sometimes you ignore people who are sitting in front of you to stay connected with people who are living in another continent. And, it doesn't make sense. But this is absolutely how life is.
No, this is actually very interesting. I mean, for right now, I can't even imagine not listening to music when, when I go for a run. But you actually made me really, open my eyes to this new world of possibilities actually. for the gamers out there, real life has the most vibrant, highest graphics, and most interesting life in among all the other games that you'll play.
And most realistic when you go for a run, or do any experiences, walk, walk in real life, cycling, cycling experience, whatever. if you compare it to being in a video game console world, this one is so much more interesting and so much more vivid. The feelings, the color, the smell and everything. It's, it's a lot more immersive if you wanna, come back full circle.
So, definitely something to, keep in mind and definitely something to take action, not just keep in mind, not, don't just consume our content either take action based on it. So after, after you guys have listened to it, we would like you guys to make a list. You know, maybe it could be one or two or three items of things that you will do in real life. Take action or. Or suppress in virtual life. You know, maybe an app you wanna, uninstall or whatever.
But, yeah, definitely it's a work in progress for us and you and, hopefully we'll, see some real progress in future. So with that thought, I think we had really exciting conversation. Hope you guys have also enjoyed it. And, yeah, look forward to get any feedback or any comments, based on this conversation on how you changed your lives based on us.
Thanks. Thanks, Rinat. Yeah. Really enjoyed the
conversation. Bye. Yes, thank you everyone.