#326 Is Your Screen Time Too High?

Hello, everybody, and welcome back to the Level Up English podcast, the best place to come to practice the English language, learn about the British accent and culture with me, your host. Michael Lavers. Now I was planning something a little bit different today. I may postpone this episode that I was planning until next week, perhaps. But I was planning to cover some English stuff, just some random idea that I had that might be useful for you. But then...

I was in the shower this morning and I had an idea that just came to me. That means it just came from nowhere. We can say it came to me. I don't know where it came from, but it came into my brain and I thought this would be a great topic to talk about because it seems like it's something that would be quite useful for all of you. And it's something that's very relevant to my life at the moment and what's going on with me even right now. So it kind of combines those two things.

And I think it could be quite interesting. So I'm excited to talk about it and we'll see how this develops over the next few weeks and months as well. We will see. But yeah, I do. quite often get suggestions from listeners to talk more about my own experiences. And I think I understand why. It's not because I'm special anyway, but I think when you... you know you're trying to learn English and you're hearing things from a personal experience it's more relatable it's more interesting to listen to

I think, you know, stories are just much more interesting than grammar lessons anyway. So I hear you and hopefully this will be interesting for those people as well. But yes, in this episode, I'm going to be talking about screen time, the topic of reducing screen time and my own problems with screen time at the moment. If you don't know, screen time is just another way of saying using devices too much, like using your phone, your laptop, your TV, all of these things. This is all screen time.

And I imagine this is something that on average gets worse and worse every year. The more we become dependent on technology and smartphones, the worse it gets. And that's definitely the case for me. So yeah, hopefully using my own experience today is going to make the content more interesting and less dry, we could say. And speaking of dry...

I think we can go back and talk about my eyes because that is something I've mentioned before on the podcast and this will be a good introduction into today's episode. Almost kind of ever since I moved to Thailand, I've been having problems with my eyes. I've been having things called styes, which confusingly rhymes with eyes, but I think it's spelled... S-T-Y-E, sty. And these are basically kind of lumps that you get around your eye, usually in your eyelid, sometimes even under your eyelid.

I actually have one right now on my left eye, under my eyelid, and it's kind of causing my vision to be a little bit blurry. I've been back and forth to the hospital quite a few times and I've had... procedures and eye drops and all these kinds of things I've had great advice from the listeners as well but yeah it's been annoying because even at the hospital they're not very helpful in like giving me a possible solution. They help me with the symptoms, but they're not really helping with

finding the root cause. So I've been basically doing a lot of the research myself, trying to figure out what is causing these? Why is it happening? And my original idea was, well, it kind of started when I moved to Thailand. So maybe one... idea was a pollution right when it's very polluted it affects my eyes from bacteria gets into my eyes and causes these problems and

I don't think that is the case because sometimes the pollution is not bad and I still have them. Or sometimes I don't really go outside and I still have issues. So I don't think it's pollution. I mean, maybe it's a factor. It's not always just one. factor. It could be many things. And then I was actually, I was quite fed up last week because I was having more problems. So I asked a really qualified doctor at Dr.

ChatGPT. I don't know if you've heard of him. Very qualified, very good sources, of course. Of course, I'm kidding, but sometimes it can be really useful just to get an idea or point you in the right direction. Maybe not trusting. the results completely but at least giving you some somewhere to start and one thing it mentioned was it could be caused by eye strain or dry eyes which may be caused

by too much screen time. And again, I don't know if that is the cause, but for me, that just clicked. I was like, oh, that makes so much sense. I don't know if I use more screens since coming to Thailand. It's certainly possible, but that makes a lot of sense for me because I... The more I thought about it, the more I realised how much time I spend staring at screens. Of course, a big part of my work is looking at screens. And over time, my recreation time...

has become on screens as well. By the way, recreation, I might mention that word a few times today. It's kind of just it means like fun time. So what do you do for recreation? What do you do for fun? It's a slightly more formal word.

A recreational activity could be like a sport, for example. That's the adjective. So yeah, my recreation time is often on screens these days. Yes, it was far... beyond what is considered healthy and actually this could be the first phrase that we look at today so in addition to talking about my own experience and screen time, I do want to make it more useful for you as a listener and a learner. So I'm going to try my best to share some phrases today that kind of are similar to the word to.

This word T-O-O, meaning too much, right? You have too much of something. And there are many ways we could say too much. And I'm going to share a few of them today and some related terms in this episode to give you some wider... vocabulary and yet one of them we could say is far beyond or just beyond we don't need to say far so here's my example because before i always had this idea that my screen time was quite good

And I would even I wouldn't go as far to say I judged people who had high screen time. That's kind of a negative word. But I did compare myself. to people who had, you know, eight hours of phone time every day. And I did feel a little bit proud, a little bit good about myself. Like my screen time on my phone is maybe two hours every day or less than two hours.

And I felt quite proud of that. I was like, yes, that's great. Except the one area I was neglecting was my laptop. And that was, here's the sentence, far beyond healthy. Or another way to say that, we could say my screen time on my laptop is beyond what is considered healthy. So that just means there's this healthy level and beyond means above. It's too much. It's too far above, basically. So it's beyond healthy. So we can say beyond and then the adjective. It's beyond bad.

Maybe that's a simple example, but that gives you an idea of how we could use it. Beyond bad might mean very, very bad. It's way worse than bad. So yes, my screen time was beyond healthy. I might share some quite embarrassing things today. I'm not very, I'm not quite happy to share these things. I'm reluctant to share them, but I'll do my best. I'll be open about it. There are many days where my screen time just on my laptop would be 12 hours a day, which maybe to some of you sounds like a lot.

Maybe to some of you who work on computers, maybe you're thinking, oh, that's kind of normal. It depends on your life, right? But yeah, I mean, when you think about it or when I think about it, it starts to make sense when... I might be working on my laptop for many hours in the day. At lunchtime, I might watch a YouTube video while I have lunch. That could be 45 minutes. And then in the evening, I might relax with my laptop.

watching YouTube. Again, I love YouTube, as you may know. And again, that could be from 7pm until 10pm or something like that, or even 6pm until 10. On the weekend, it's usually higher as well. So I spend a lot of time watching videos. And if I'm not, maybe I might even be playing something on my PlayStation, which is more screen time. And maybe even worse, I would say, because on a video game, you're really...

are staring and you're not blinking as much. And I think that might be part of the issue with dry eyes is when you're not blinking, your eyes get dry because you're focused on a scream and that's not so good. One thing I am trying to use is eye drops just to keep my eyes moist. That means wet as much as I can. But yeah, of course, that doesn't really address the root cause.

which means that doesn't fix the original problem. It's just something that might help. So yes, kind of stepping backwards now, excessive screen time is... Something that, of course, is a problem for many people. So I wonder if many of you listening now will relate to what I'm saying and maybe this might be a wake-up call for you as well.

That's one reason why I was excited to talk about this, because it might be nice to have that discussion with all of you and see if you can relate to this too. And yeah, another word I just mentioned there is excessive. Excessive. This is another adjective and you may be able to guess. It just means too much, really, too much. Screen time can be excessive if you're not careful.

It's kind of like in excess. That word, that excess is too much. And the adjective is excessive. So excessive something, excessive screen time, excessive phone use. excessive alcohol consumption. So we just have to have the noun afterwards. We don't really say excessive drink because that's the verb. We would say excessive consumption, for example. Yeah, so my screen time has become a bit excessive in summary. And yeah, I think, as I said, many people are experiencing this as well.

I do wonder if COVID had any impact because I know it seems like a distant memory for many people now, the pandemic, but I do think the effects are still ongoing where we... began certain habits during that time and once a habit comes you know by you know on purpose or by accident it's very hard to give up the habit so maybe you developed a habit of you know

Using your screen more in the evenings, whereas before COVID, when you were more free, you didn't. I don't know. It could be many factors, right? So first of all, I want to talk about here.

how to know if your screen time is a problem. And of course, the first one I'll mention is the one I'm facing now, which is health issues, right? If you're noticing any... strange health things coming up around your body and there's a chance it could be related to screen time it's something to consider right it's something to think about uh do you feel your eyes are strained

Right, strained is kind of like when we use a muscle too much and it's a little bit painful. So I think you know that feeling when you've been watching TV for too long, you have eye strain. That's when you're looking and your eyes are going to feel a bit sore and red and it's quite uncomfortable to keep them open. You need to close your eyes to keep them rested. And yeah, for me, as I said...

That's the case. My eyes are quite red these days. As you can see, I've had those sty problems. And even like when I close my eyes at nighttime, it feels like my eyes don't close as comfortably as they used to. which is quite strange. So that might be some puffiness around. Puffiness is like when it gets a little bit bigger. Puffiness. So yeah, using your phone, for example.

to the point of eye strain, of course, is very unhealthy. So we should avoid that if possible. Here's another phrase that I just mentioned. This is not quite the same meaning as... too or excessive but doing something to the point of something. This is like when you do something to a certain level where another thing happens or becomes true. So we could talk about the other thing being exhaustion. You're very tired. And you can say, he worked to the point of exhaustion.

In other words, he worked so much that he was exhausted. If a couple is arguing a lot, you could say they argued to the point of almost breaking up. Not quite, but almost. So they argued so much that they almost broke up. They argued to the point of breaking up. And yet if you're using your phone to the point of eye strain, that is unhealthy. You're using your phone so much that it gets to the level of having strain in your eyes. So that's not ideal. That's not great, is it? So that's one.

Way to know that your screen time is maybe a problem for you. Another way, I think, is just if you're listening to me talking right now and you're feeling like a little bit defensive. Maybe you want to argue with me or you're feeling a bit guilty or you're kind of questioning, hmm, actually, do I have a problem?

If you're questioning or you have a slight feeling like that, that could be another sign. You know, there's a reason why you're feeling that way. So maybe not, maybe not, but it's a possibility. Another one is... if you have other hobbies as well. I just personally think it's quite healthy to have hobbies outside of, well, first of all, outside of the house, but also outside of the screen, outside of the digital world.

And I do have other hobbies like running, walking, cycling. I like to be active as much as I can. But one thing I realised personally is I didn't have any indoor hobbies. that weren't screen related. I love doing things online. I love learning languages, which I do a lot of online these days on the computer, but I don't really have many indoor hobbies.

so i've actually been working on a few indoor hobbies recently which i'm really excited about one of them is quite random this is sewing which is spelt

S-E-W, to sew, which is like when you're fixing clothes with a needle and a thread, making clothing, stuff like that. I'm quite excited about this. It's a very weird... hobby that many people might call an old lady hobby but for me i'm quite enjoying it so this is my my new indoor hobby that i'm trying to do to reduce my screen time but also it's just quite enjoyable for me

So yeah, if you don't have any more hobbies outside of screens, then that's possibly a way that you know that it might be a problem for you. So think about what you could do. Think about some new hobbies that you could take up. That means to start. Think about how long you are staying in one place in the day. How much time each day are you stationary? Lots of words today but this word just means not moving. Stationary.

You're not moving. So if you're stationary for more than eight hours every day, then maybe there might be some issue there. Of course, many of you will have a job. that requires you to be sat down for eight hours every day. And you know, maybe there's not much you can do. Maybe you can walk around every few minutes just to stretch your legs, if that's possible. But of course, in that situation,

Coming home and then spending four hours on your phone maybe is not the best solution. If you have the time and energy, it could be good to go for a walk after work or before work. or on your lunch break, something like that. I think there's usually something that can be done to improve the situation. The final thing that I would suggest for everyone, this is really useful, is record your screen time. I know that many devices have inbuilt screen time kind of recording features.

For me, I never found it that useful because, you know, for example, I might have my phone unlocked. I often listen to podcasts on YouTube. just like this one, maybe. And I'll have my phone kind of playing the podcast, but I'm not really looking at the screen. So my screen will say, you know, one hour screen time, but I wasn't actually looking at it. I was only listening.

so it doesn't really count as screen time so it's not totally accurate in my case right now for example my phone and my laptop are both unlocked at the same time So it might say two hours of screen time, whereas that's not really true. It's more like one hour because they're both open. So I've actually made a very simple graph kind of table in.

like a spreadsheet on my computer. I know it's ironic that I'm doing it on my computer but it's just so much easier than writing it on paper. I kind of time myself in the day so I kind of record how much time I'm spending staring at screens. I don't think I'll do this forever because it's a little bit annoying, a little bit tedious, but I'm kind of starting my timer when I start looking at the computer and then I stop the timer when I'm finished. And it was quite interesting. Honestly...

I can probably share with you if you're interested. I've recorded for one week so far. And on Tuesday, I was trying to keep it as minimal as possible. It was six, well, it was seven hours. I think that's not too bad, honestly, seven hours. Then the next days it was six hours, 50, five hours, 50. That was my best day on a Thursday. I think I was outside for most of the day.

And then Friday was 10 hours 30, 10 and a half hours. I did have a 90 minute group class. I did work on that day quite a lot as well. So that was a higher day. Maybe it's harder on a busy work day. Saturday was 4 hours 20. Quite proud of that one. Actually, that was my best day, of course, because I spend most of the time outside.

So that was quite a good one. Sunday was super high because it was eight hours, 30. And how much of that? Like six and a half hours was recreation, which was like YouTube, basically. So that's a lot of time kind of wasting my day. We will be right back to the Level Up English podcast after a short break. Just a quick announcement to say that a big change is coming to Level Up English. I will be launching Level 3 tier for members.

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So yeah, once you start recording your screen time, you might be surprised it's much higher than you think, especially if you're spending a lot of time on your phone, like social media or video games, because when we do this, time goes by so quickly. It may feel like one hour, but it's actually been much longer. That's how I felt anyway. And another thing you might realise, as I have, is how much time you're spending

not really making any memories. If I look back to Sunday, six and a half hours on YouTube and other social media, that's a long time to be just sat looking at stuff. I do like YouTube. Of course, I don't want to stop YouTube because I really enjoy watching YouTube content, but...

When I think back over the time, I don't really have any good memories. So that's kind of just six and a half hours in one day, kind of wasted in some sense. I don't remember anything. It's just skipped over all that time. And if I do that every day, that's so much of my life that is being spent on kind of things that are not memorable, which I feel like is such a waste. So it might be a wake up call like it is for me to.

live my life a bit more and enjoy the short time I have on the planet. I think that's a potential positive outcome of recording this kind of data. See, that's the final thing there. And now let me tell you...

my idea for reducing screen time. I made a plan. I'm quite excited for my plan because I'm very clear on what I want to do. And I think it's... Just like a language learning routine, a language learning plan, it's achievable and specific. I think those are very important factors when making a goal or when making a habit change, whether it's for...

a good habit or removing a bad habit. So my plan goes week by week. I've recorded for one week already. Week number one was simply to record my screen time. as I just told you. And I did have the intention of reducing screen time, but I didn't impose any limits. Impose just means kind of to make a limit or to force myself.

to follow a limit. I didn't impose a limit on myself. So if I did want to watch more, that's fine. I wasn't going to punish myself for doing so. But I was trying to keep it lower than normal. So yeah, week one was just record screen time. Importantly, in three categories. I think that's really important to see because it's quite hard to reduce screen time if you don't know where you're spending it. So I found for me...

I use screens for three reasons. One is studying. I study languages with screens. Next of course is work. And finally, recreation. Fun. So there are three areas for which I use screens and I recorded my time in each one. Week two, which is just starting now, is to have a realistic goal. to reduce the screen time. So this is the week where I'm starting to set limits on myself and I'm going to be a bit more strict with myself. So this is where we can set boundaries on screen time.

A boundary is kind of another word for a limit. It's like a border or area which you cannot pass. So this is a boundary. You cannot come into this area. It's very similar to the word border. in some sense, like a country border, be a boundary. Setting boundaries around screen time can be quite important to just make sure there's those rules in place to stop you doing too much.

Again, I think this is really important when making a new goal or routine. And this is not doing too much too quickly, whether you're exercising or you're learning English or you're doing what I'm doing here. And that's not to say, OK, my screen time was 12 hours a day. Next week, it's going to be two hours a day. Likely, if I do that, I will get frustrated because it's not possible to change so quickly.

I'll be kind of depressed maybe because I've got so much free time that I don't know what to do with it. Many problems can come with these sudden big changes. I think the important thing is to do it gradually and make it realistic. So my goal for this week is have a daily screen time of eight hours. Eight hours.

And I've split that up into work, study and recreation. So, you know, of course, I can do other stuff outside of the screens, which I'll mention. But work, I've got four hours of screen time on work. four hours. Studying, two hours. And recreation, two hours. This is the first day today, so I don't know how this will go. I have no idea.

But of course, I can do stuff outside of that time, not on screens. So if I finish two hours of studying on screens, then I can use a book to study instead. If I... finish my four hours of work on screens, I can do it on paper. You know, there's other things I could do outside. So I'm not limiting myself in these areas. I'm only limiting the screens, the screen time.

But another thing I'm saying just to make it a little bit more fair for myself is I can move the times around. So let's say I get to four hours. and I still want to work more than four hours. I can do that, but that means I have to take time from the other area. So if I want to work for five hours on my computer...

then maybe my recreation time will be reduced to one hour. And I like this idea because it does give me some flexibility, but I'm still not going to use screens more than eight hours total. So that's my goal. and then uh yeah so time limits and then next week it's going to be reducing even more

So again, this is a gradual week by week thing. Every weekend I'm going to review, you know, how did it go? Did I succeed? Did I fail? What was difficult? What can I change? And then I'm going to try to reduce next week. I haven't decided by how much, maybe 30 minutes or one hour, I don't know. Again, keep it small and realistic bit by bit. But I'm going to reduce it again until...

eventually after a few weeks, I think I'll get to some point where, okay, if I reduce it even more, I'm not going to have any time for work. You know, I need to do some work. So I need some time on the screen. I'm going to get to some level where I think is a good balance. So that's my goal. And I think if you want to try something similar, I recommend you do the same. And maybe you can let me know in the comments how it's going for you as well. I'd love to hear.

If anyone is joining me on this experiment, that would be motivating for me as well, but also just interesting to see. A final thing, a final tip that I can mention on how to reduce screen time is... It's not all about reducing, you know, in terms of health, for example, eye health. It can just be taking a break. I think they say like every 15 minutes, look. on the horizon for 50, 15 seconds. I don't remember. There's some kind of rule that people say.

to help protect your eyes that honestly I don't follow because I get really focused on my work and I'm kind of in the zone. I'm really like doing some really productive work and I just don't want to stop focusing because it will take myself. out of that way of thinking but yeah probably I should be doing that so yeah as much as you can just take a break walk around the room for a minute come back again

Sometimes I will just take a break and, you know, clean something for one minute or wash a mug that I've used. Another good tip that I've heard is drink lots and lots of water because first it's quite healthy. stay hydrated but also because you'll you have to get up and go to the toilet right so it forces you to stand up stretch your legs and give your eyes a break as well so that's one other thing you could do is like a bonus thing to help you

And it's what I will be trying this week as well. I'll see how it goes. So, yes, a couple of interesting things that I have noticed after my first week I can just mention now is one. I spend more time than necessary studying. So here's another phrase that you might be familiar with, but this is more than necessary. More than necessary.

This is that construction that you might know more than something or taller than he is taller than me. This is more than that. But yeah, more than necessary just means. more than what you need. So there's what you need and we're going higher. It's an excessive amount of that. So of course people probably use their phones more than necessary.

You might be using social media more than necessary. I mean, how much social media is necessary? Maybe for many of us, zero, right? But I think we know that. So yeah, I spend more time than necessary. studying. So what I mean by this is I noticed when I was recording my time doing my flashcards for example that some days I could do it in even like 50 minutes, 5-0, which may seem like a lot to some of you, but I have quite a lot of flashcards these days that I do really enjoy, by the way.

But yeah, I could do it 50 minutes, but then other days it would take me 90 minutes. And when I thought about the difference between those days, the main difference is that on the longer days, I was less focused. I was taking breaks. I was checking my notifications on my phone. I was just like not having a strong focus, maybe because I was tired or I found something difficult and I wanted to...

make myself feel less bad by distracting myself. So that's something that I found interesting. So I think from now on I'm going to try my best to get a good sleep and really focus on my studies. which will help reduce my screen time and probably improve the efficiency of my language learning as well. So that's something that was quite a good thing for me to notice.

30 minutes a day, again, it adds up. That's a lot of time in the week that I'm wasting on distraction. So I'd much rather be focused and then I'll have a longer afternoon for when I can do something fun, right? After I'm done. And another thing I noticed is I quite easily go overboard with recreation time. Again, fun time. So here's one more.

be the last one today. I don't want to share too many phrases, but to go overboard with something is again, just to do too much. It really just means the same overboard. We often use that on a pirate ship, for example. If someone goes overboard, they get pushed off the ship. But I think this is a little bit different. It just means there's the level of what's expected or what's normal, and you're going over that level.

So you're going overboard. It's very easy, for example, to go overboard when watching a new TV series. I'm watching some series at the moment. I'm really glad that they only come out once a week because if not, I would binge them, which means watch them all in one go. And I would really go overboard because I get quite addicted to series.

Quite a big problem for many of us, I think, isn't it? So yeah, I go overboard with recreation time and I just think it's more than necessary. It's more than what I need to do. So in the evening, I love to relax in the evening. I work hard in the day. And when 6 p.m. comes, I'm very strict on myself. No more work after six. No more.

emails or stressful things or things that might cause me stress, because I think it's important to have some time to relax and also prepare for sleep as well. It's good for your sleep. So yeah, I'm very strict with that, but sometimes... I definitely go overboard and I might, as I said before, what is that? Like four hours nonstop playing video games or something like that. And yeah, I think video games can be really fun. I love.

some video games but the difference between playing two hours and four hours is not double the fun that's what i think that's a really interesting realization to come to so it's

This is maybe quite an advanced term, some of you may know, but this is what we can call diminishing returns. Diminishing returns, which means the more you do something, the less... positive effect it brings you so it's not double you know playing video games for one hour might be 100 fun let's give it a number 100 fun is playing for two hours gonna make it

twice as fun as one hour? Maybe not. Maybe 1.5 times. A little bit less, but more fun, but not quite to the same level. But how about four hours? Is that four times the fun? yeah maybe 1.7 times the fun again eventually the fun starts to drop off and kind of maybe after five six hours of video games the level of fun you're having will start to decrease

And, you know, have you had that before where you're playing a game or you're watching something and you're not really having fun, but you just don't want to get up. You don't want to do anything else because maybe you're too lazy. And yeah, that's a horrible feeling when... The fun has diminished. The fun has gone. So something I'm considering, I'm thinking about that. I don't want to go overboard with my screen time in the evening. So I'm trying other hobbies.

Another one I'm getting into, that's kind of a lie, I haven't even started yet, but I like the idea of calligraphy. which is writing, really nice writing. So I've got a nice pen and I'd love to do some Japanese or Chinese calligraphy where you're writing the characters and practicing.

your language skills at the same time. I like that idea. And of course, you could also do it with English and practice your really nice English handwriting as well. That's something that could be quite fun. So I may try that this week. Yes, I think that's basically it. So essentially screen overuse can affect quality of sleep, your social life.

And of course, it can even make your eyesight or other health things worse. So that's my summary for my TED talk today, my little monologue. And yeah, hopefully you enjoyed hearing about this. This is an ongoing situation, so we'll see how it develops over time. And maybe it might just help my eyes as well. I'm really hoping that is the key.

to helping my eyes because I do feel better when I have less screen time. It does make a difference in my life and I feel it in my eyes and my brain as well. It's quite a nice feeling. So we'll see how it goes. And yeah, maybe final word today, overuse. I just mentioned screen overuse can affect many things. Overuse just means using too much. So again, we've got too, too much over.

We have overboard, overused. Over just means too much. It's a really useful prefix to know. So overuse of screens is not good.

So my final thing here would just be to give you a call to action. In other words, leave a comment. Tell me your experience with screens. You can leave a comment on the public. website at levelupenglish.school slash podcast 326. There's also a link down below that says show notes.

You could also leave a comment on the YouTube video in the comments down below. Or the members, you're always welcome to leave a comment on the course page down below, the quiz and all that stuff. You can find the comments down there. And yeah, if you do want to become a member, by the way, and support what I do at Level Up English, that's something I'm always working on. I've always got new ideas. I'm adding content all the time.

such as the private podcast, group classes and other stuff. You can also find that on the website levelupenglish.school and there's a glowing members button at the top of the page. I'll be more than happy to welcome you into our community if you want to join and maybe I'll meet you there at some point.

But yeah, I hope you stick around until the very end because we have a really nice quote to end on. I was so happy to see this quote because I haven't really heard it before, but it really spoke to me. It really has a nice meaning.

But before we get there, I want to take a trip around the world and say thank you to a few podcast reviews on Apple Podcasts. I have one review from Ukraine and this is from Tanya, I think. Tanya. I learnt the Cyrillic alphabet a long time ago. I'm quite slow to read it, but I get that. I think your name is Tanya. But anyway, this person said, Thank you, Michael. I'm from Ukraine. I have listened to podcast 322.

on small talk. And I should say that it was very interesting to listen how really to fight my own shyness and start small talk with strangers. Your advice is so valuable. Because sometimes we meet foreigners and I often don't really know how to start our conversations. Well, that's great feedback. Thank you so much, Tanya. That's so nice of you to say. I didn't really consider that anything I mentioned in the episode might actually be...

Good advice for you meeting foreigners and people visiting your country or where you live. So yeah, hopefully you can use some small talk to make some conversations and if people don't respond positively... Don't take it personally. Some people just have a bad day. They're grumpy people. So keep trying and maybe you'll make some nice friends eventually. I have one from... Abu Abdallah, Abu Baker Abdallah, something like that. And this person said,

Hi Mike, I am an old listener of your podcast and I just want to say what you're doing is amazing. I like how mindful you are in choosing every single word that you say. How critical in expressing your ideas. You are not providing only language lessons, but also life lessons. I have learned a lot from your podcast. Much appreciation. And that is from Sudan. So thank you so much. That's so nice to say.

No, I don't know if I would say I'm giving life lessons, but I do like to share my own experience of life and maybe it's relatable in some way, but I don't think I've lived enough life to be giving lessons yet. But yeah, thank you so much. That's a really great review. Happy to read that. One more here from Aira or Isla. who is from japan and they've also got some japanese for me to read so i've said before if you write a review in your own language i will do my best to read it

Maybe some exceptions if I don't read, like Arabic and Korean. Maybe I can't read your languages, but if I can read it, I will do my best to say it out loud. So it might be embarrassing sometimes. Anyway, Iris said, love your podcast. I've already watched all of them. Wow. Thanks for your amazing work. which means a recommended channel for people who want to learn British English. That was hard. I don't know why it was one sentence, but it was hard.

But yeah, thank you so much. That's very kind of you and always happy to see your reviews. It does help a lot in spreading the word of my podcast too, which is great. And now onto the quote, which is from Christian. Louis Lange? I wish I knew how to pronounce his name. Christian Louis Lange? Maybe, if it's French. I'm very sorry, Christian, but I'm sure you're not listening. Anyway, he said...

Technology is a useful servant, but a dangerous master. I love this. It makes so much sense to me. Technology is so useful if you use it to serve you, to help you. We use it as a tool to do what we want. It's an amazing tool that I think we wouldn't give up. We could live in the forest with no technology, but... I don't think most of us want to do that because technology is so useful. But if technology controls us, it's a very dangerous master.

So if you have a problem with your screen time, like I might do, then it can be quite dangerous. So maybe a final question to ask before we finish today. Is technology serving you? Or is it controlling you? Quite a deep one, but we'll leave it there. So thank you so, so much for watching and listening. I hope you've enjoyed me getting a bit personal about my issues today, and I hope you found something useful here too.

So thanks once again and I'll see you in the next one. Goodbye. You have been listening to the Level Up English podcast. If you would like to leave a question to be answered on a future episode, then please go to levelupenglish.school forward slash podcast. That's levelupenglish.school slash podcast. And I'll answer your question on a future episode. Thanks for listening.