Pod Insights The Psychology of your 20s 408. Are our phones killing intimacy? About this episode It’s not a hot take to say that most of us are incredibly addicted to our phones. But when our usage bleeds into full-blown ‘technoference’ - technology interference - there can be significant, harmful consequences. In this episode, we explore how phones can harm our friendships and romantic relationships, including:
• How phones are replacing in-person interaction
• Why we can't help but be addicted
• The impact of 'phone snubbing' on our loved ones
• How phones are killing our sex lives
• The ways we can break our habits and find our way back to intimacy
Happy listening!
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Our favourite sources from this episode:
www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2022/jan/31/age-of-intimacy-famine-interact-with-phones-rather-than-loved-ones https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2022/jan/31/age-of-intimacy-famine-interact-with-phones-rather-than-loved-ones
www.ericpickersgill.com/Removed https://www.ericpickersgill.com/Removed
https://www.sellcell.com/blog/phone-addiction-statistics-watch-out-your-phone-addiction-is-making-your-dating-sex-life-toxic/
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Transcript Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.
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3:06 Jemma Sbeg? Hello, everybody. I'm Gemma Spike and welcome back to the Psychology of Your 20s, the podcast where we talk through the biggest changes, moments and transitions of our 20s and what they mean for our psychology.
3:26 Jemma Sbeg? Hello, everybody. Welcome back to the show. Welcome back to the podcast. It is so great to have you here back for another episode. Can I tell you guys a story to start this episode off? The story that inspired me to do this episode. So the other day I was at this bath house, like spa thing when I was back in Australia for a week. This spa is like our go to place. Like when I lived there, I used to go there probably once a week. It has this like huge pool, this like soak thing, this like cold plunge sauna, all the good stuff. And whilst we were there, there was this group of three friends and all of them were on their phones. And I mean, they were on their phones in the soak pool. They were on their phones, like,
4:11 Jemma Sbeg? in the sauna at one stage for like two or three minutes, like, sitting around in the quiet spaces, literally like cold plunging all on their phones, not talking, not listening to each other. And I'm gonna be honest, I tried very hard not to judge them. I tried very hard to kind of understand maybe why they were doing it, like come up with an explanation. But it really stuck with me. It really made me see, like, perhaps very distinctly and clearly for the first time, the intimacy pandemic we are in that has been created by our phones. And I don't mean the fact that our phones are making us lonely. I feel like that's been explored a lot. I don't mean the fact that our phones are addictive or that our screen times are too high. I feel like,
4:55 Jemma Sbeg? sure, that's a part of this. But what really struck me was that even when these people were able to find a time that worked for all of them, they were able to make plans for an in-person hangout. They paid their forty five dollars, they cleared their schedules. They were face to face, like they'd be all of the odds, overcame all of the difficulties of seeing our friends these days. Here they were and they were still on their phones. Their phones were still in the way. They still took priority over real world interaction. And I feel like that was such an obvious example of our phone addiction that, yeah, it basically inspired this episode.
5:37 Jemma Sbeg? Again, like, I wasn't sitting there like shaking my head judging these people. If anything, I was just kind of profoundly shocked that this was so normalized, that you would be in this like serene space with your friends on your phone. And I think we're at a point where it seems like we are progressively getting more and more sucked in, such that this is becoming kind of a normal occurrence. And it's really making me think, like, what is the peak of this going to be? And like psychologically, what is the cost to our relationships and to how people continue to make relationships? When our phones are always like the third party or the third person in any interaction. So today, we are going to explore a different side to our
6:17 Jemma Sbeg? phone and social media use that I don't often see discussed, which is the cost to intimacy. This goes in so many different directions, so many crazy directions that you may not think it goes in. We're not just talking about the cost of too much screen time, but the actual science behind, you know, why? You need to remove your phone from social situations. Why you shouldn't have your phone on the dinner table. Why the loss of boredom in our lives created by our phones means that people know each other less. And of course, you know, five ways that we can reverse this. Five ways that we can prevent or stop our phones from taxing our relationships and preventing
7:02 Jemma Sbeg? vulnerability, intimacy and connection in this day and age. So without further ado, let's get into it.
7:13 Jemma Sbeg? Let me start by saying, technology, our phones, like, it's obviously made our life so much easier in so many amazing ways. I feel like any episode where somebody just criticizes technology is obviously not very convincing, right? Like phones, technology is responsible probably for a larger degree of connection that we are experiencing compared to previous generations, you know? How many people have met the love of their life on a dating app? Like, I have, how many of us have been able to sustain long distance friendships, connections, relationships with family because of technology? Literally everybody, you know, I've moved,
7:57 Jemma Sbeg? I don't know what now, like four times as an adult. And I can very honestly say I would not still be in touch with a lot of those friends without technology. And that's like fairly obvious to say that. But honestly, like, it has been pretty incredible for human relationships. However, in this day and age, it is not a hot take to say that most of us, our addiction has gotten to a point where it's no longer just about connection. It's about immediate gratification, which takes away from connection. We were sold this idea with social media and with our phones that this would improve how we relate to other people. When now getting.
8:39 Jemma Sbeg? To the point where it's actually taxing relationships. And the addictive nature of our phones is compromising our humanness. Like literally as I'm recording this, I think last week Meta and Facebook were forced to pay like a four hundred million dollar fine because they designed their technology to be too addictive. And it's been proven by a judge to be hurting social harmony. So I think in response to this, there's been this growing research area about technoference, technology interference, which basically looks at how technology, something that once brought us closer, is actually becoming a barrier to human connection. Like this is a deep area of study.
9:25 Jemma Sbeg? And it's even creating what one developmental psychologist, her name is Michelle Drewan, has called an intimacy famine. So essentially, we as humans, we need a certain level of intimacy to sustain ourselves, the same way we need food, water, shelter, air, whatever. And our phones are giving the impression of giving us connection and intimacy. But actually, they don't contain any real social nutrition. Meaning, we're experiencing an intimacy famine without even realizing it. We think that we are getting nutrition from this, the kind of miniature social interactions we have on our phone. It's not a real meal. It's not actually feeding us. Why is this the case?
10:09 Jemma Sbeg? Well, real intimacy requires presence. We all know that. I'm not saying anything revolutionary. But you cannot connect with somebody if you're not looking at them, listening to them in their presence, showing engagement. When there is a phone there, when there is a phone on the table, when there is a phone in your hand. It means that presence is interrupted in two ways. Firstly, you know. The fact that we are so often on our screens and entertained by our screens just means that our daily need for social interaction is less. Secondly, even when we're interacting with other people, often that presence of our phones actually unconsciously makes people feel snubbed.
10:53 Jemma Sbeg? Or like our attention could be broken at any moment by this device. And that makes vulnerability hard. It basically stops intimacy. This is what researchers are finding. It stops intimacy from reaching any meaningful level. Because we can't sustain our attention on a person long enough for them to be vulnerable and for us to create a vulnerable space. Okay, let's start with that primary reason why our phones are ruining presence. And that is that, again, we are just on them all the time. There is this, um, I guess it's a research body. It's called Cell Cell. It's like Cell Cell. It's a phone retail platform. And they did this survey a couple of years ago on like five thousand smartphone owners.
11:37 Jemma Sbeg? To understand essentially, like once and for all, what is the impact of this technology on our dating lives, on our relationships, on our behaviour at this point in like humanity's history. And their survey showed that seventy one percent of people spent more time on their phone each day than with their partner. That's nearly three in four people who were in relationships spent more time with an inanimate object than someone who they loved and cherished. That same study found that phone use is also reducing the amount of sex that we're having. And the quality of that sex as well. This statistic literally blew my mind, but they found that one in five people
12:21 Jemma Sbeg? who were spoken to in the study admitted to looking at their phone whilst they were having sex. And the majority of respondents said that their phones were, you know, the last thing they saw before they went to sleep each night, the first thing they saw when they woke up, not their partner. Like, isn't that, isn't that insane? Like, people, like.
12:43 Jemma Sbeg? Checking your phone during sex, that is like the level of addiction that we are at. That is the level of, like, I don't even know what what's a bigger word than addiction, like, dependency. You know what's really interesting about this is, as much as that is like a shocking statistic, and yet it's surprising, I kind of get where it's coming from, not to play like devil's advocate. But you have to remember that our phones have replaced or have changed the way that we relate to other people. They've also become a way that we soothe loneliness. And when we were out of a relationship or when we were lonely, when we weren't with friends, whatever it is,
13:28 Jemma Sbeg? the phone is our companion in those moments. One study on, I think it was like five hundred Chinese university students, found that the people who had the greatest phone addictions, even when they did have sustained and strong support systems, often had gone through a period where they were very, very lonely. And that contributed to them feeling a deeper sense of like dependency on their phone. Basically, when we are lonely, our phones help us regulate that emotion. But in turn, they actually make us lonelier, even when we do find connection. Because they give us that small, like minute dose of social attention and connection whilst never giving us the full meal.
14:10 Jemma Sbeg? Basically, meaning that they are like bread crumbing us with real intimacy and at the same time making it harder for us to experience actual in-person intimacy because they're always there. So that's the first way that our phones kind of get in the way. We literally cannot pull away from them even when we are with other people. The second way they interrupt intimacy or they hurt intimacy is that social snubbing or that concept of phone snubbing that I briefly mentioned before. I think we have all had this experience. I've done this, let me be real, where we're talking to our partner, we're talking to our friend, to our boss, to our parent.
14:50 Jemma Sbeg? And suddenly they like pick up their phone to respond to a notification like right as we are bearing our soul. Or right as we're like about to eat dinner or engaging with them, talking, telling them something important. And suddenly, as soon as that happened, it like it immediately sends you a signal that they are no longer interested. That they are no longer listening. Somebody picking their phone up at the dinner table is like the technological equivalent of walking away from somebody mid-conversation at a party because somebody more interesting came in. That's literally what it is and it hurts. It really hurts. That's why like I always, well, I don't always do this, but I try hard to, you know, don't eat with your phone at the dinner table.
15:34 Jemma Sbeg? Don't bring your phone to special moments or have it present, especially with the people you love because that attention-grabbing nature is not something that you always have the mental strength to overcome just because you think you can. Studies have been done on this phone-snubbing phenomenon that we're seeing more and more of and the harm that it's doing to intimacy. And one particular study from two thousand and twenty-five did actually measure, they were like, does this hurt people's relationships, like on a level that betrayal might, you know? Telling somebody your secret, telling somebody a story or being vulnerable vulnerable with them and then having them reach for their phone.
16:14 Jemma Sbeg? Like, what is the emotional reaction that that brings about in somebody? And the results showed that when when somebody was in a relationship with somebody who was more prone to using their phone during moments of intimacy. They had greater levels of resentment, greater levels of anger, greater levels of shame even. And over time, this research found that it significantly diminished relationship quality, relationship stability, relationship vulnerability. Because there was less and less space or time to meaningfully share, to meaningfully connect. And the thing is, is like vulnerability and intimacy are freaking hard.
16:56 Jemma Sbeg? Like, it is hard to sit in front of somebody and say, this is what I'm struggling with, this is what is really impacting me. This is what I feel is missing in our relationship, whatever it is, and. For somebody to then essentially send you the signal that like this inanimate object, my phone is more important than this conversation, like that is going to shut down future attempts at intimacy and it's gonna mean that the bond suffers as well. Another study from two thousand nineteen, again, it's just basically reiterating the same finding, which is that technoference causes feelings of rejection, it causes feelings of dismissal.
17:37 Jemma Sbeg? And it is like the silent killer of relationship these days. The, this study went more in depth and it actually asked people to keep like a diary over fourteen days um of like how often their phone was interrupting their relationship. And seventy two percent of these couples who were involved in the study said now that I notice it, now that I'm thinking about it, like this, this phone, this technology is creating an interference in our relationship. They also reported higher phone usage during the day correlating to more conflict, more irritability, more anger. So there's like multiple, multiple interruptions that were happening. So I just think that this is like
18:21 Jemma Sbeg? a very powerful reminder to not see your phone as this like passive harmless object, but to understand the power and the ability it has to damage even like your closest relationships without you even realizing. The other thing that our phones and social media have done that I think is killing relationships and more so friendships is that they have strangely also commodified friendships so that it's become this like tit for tat online way of engaging with one another. I think especially with social media. Basically, we now show loyalty to our friends, not by showing up for them in person, not by helping them physically, not by being around them more or sharing experiences,
19:06 Jemma Sbeg? but also and more so showing up in, in likes, showing up in comments, showing up in social media engagement, being present in their online lives more than their in-person lives. It's like this extra layer that we are now all having to prove ourselves on in our friendships that like you can give somebody so much when it comes to your in-person friendship, but there's this level of like online loyalty that if we don't live up to Creates a lot of resentment. And I think that's something that not, that like doesn't get spoken about enough. The way that social media and our phones have downgraded
19:50 Jemma Sbeg? physical intimacy and downgraded like a real social connection and upgraded a kind of fictional online connection of liking, engaging, commenting. Like, I'm sure we've all had this feeling of posting like, I don't know, a photo that you think is amazing or a story and expecting like your friends to comment on it, expecting your friends to respond, whatever it is. And, and them not, and feeling hurt. Like, the new rules and the new playbook for friendship online. And the fact that like, you know, it's, it's understood but not always communicated means that there are more and more of these like small slights
20:35 Jemma Sbeg? and this small sense of betrayals that come with friendship being converted into like online interactions. Can I talk about one final way I think that our phones are killing intimacy that also doesn't always make this conversation? Hot take. Our phones are killing intimacy because none of us know how to be bored anymore. And the thing is, is that when you're bored, when you're sitting around with your friends and maybe, maybe like twiddling your thumbs, that is when you truly get to know people. Because you naturally fill those silences with stories, with personal details, with vulnerability that creates closeness.
21:18 Jemma Sbeg? Because you're kind of like, there's this empty space and people step into it. Nowadays, we don't get that anymore because when you're bored at the function, when you're bored at the party, when you're bored at dinner, like you pick up your phone. And immediately that opportunity for vulnerability and to connect is like shut off in that moment.
21:36 Jemma Sbeg? And it's so ironic that then we all kind of walk around wondering why our friendships aren't as deep these days. But like to get close to somebody, there is going to be that level of discomfort that you have to sit in to get to know them more. And we are stopping that discomfort with technology. I think that's really what it is. Like, we can't just sit alone with our thoughts when we are alone. We can't sit alone with our thoughts when we are with other people. The moment we feel a hard emotion or we feel awkward, instead of like forging through, which is what you have to do for friendship, we kind of retreat into something comfortable that will soothe us with like this nice, constant trickle of easy dopamine.
22:18 Jemma Sbeg? But it's actually avoidance and it's actually hurting our relationships and our ability to really get to know people. That's just my theory. I feel like people have other theories about it, but the bottom one is like, is huge. Okay, let's actually explore the psychology behind why this has come to be. And why it is that even if you understand all of this, you still cannot pull yourself away from this technology. Um, because it's not you. There are actually some deep, I don't know, con- conspiratorial conspiracies, controversies behind these addictive patterns and behind why all of us, I think, now have a boundary and a dependency issue with our phones. So, stay with us.
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27:19 Jemma Sbeg? Like I said before, our phones offer this like bite sized ecosystem of what socializing and connection used to be in just like a highly addictive commodified format. We already know that. We already know that that's really what, what gets us hooked, especially to social media. Beyond that though, the reason they keep getting in the way of intimacy is that they have also become one of the primary ways that we regulate our emotions. Much like any addictive substance or object, really, right? That's really the root of all addiction. It stops us from feeling the bad feelings. And like all addiction, the cycle has to begin with intoxication. The substance has to initially be too good to say no to.
28:04 Jemma Sbeg? Our phones do this. Our phones are too good to say no to. They feel good because that was an intentional design choice.
28:12 Jemma Sbeg? Like, they are designed to capture as much attention as possible. When they were designing early models of the iPhone. The team behind them, like hired neuroscientists, hired psychologists, hired scientists. Onto their design teams, like onto their prototype teams. And essentially, their mission was, how can we break the brain's feedback loop and reward loop? So that people are obsessed with this. So that this becomes the new way of life. How do we get people addicted? They added so many features into the design of these devices. That it actually created a name. It's called persuasive design.
28:54 Jemma Sbeg? Basically, making it harder for you to say no to the object than to say yes. Basically, meaning that. The path of least resistance is the one that you don't always wanna choose, but you just constantly go down. Another way to describe this, another psychological idea that explains this is called. Nudge theory. And nudge theory essentially says, again, your phones have been designed to give you the impression of choice. But in actuality, every choice you make. Like when to pick up your phone, how long to scroll for, uh, when to turn it off. You are actually being subtly nudged towards by design features that were intended to get you into that space. Like.
29:37 Jemma Sbeg? I feel like that's all words. I'll give you some examples, um. The best example is like the use of blue light rather than more warm light. Blue light is more attention grabbing than natural light, meaning it's harder to pull your eyes away from the screen. I also feel like even the design of the screen gets us trapped. Like, that small screen. It occupies your whole field of vision. It basically gives you tunnel vision compared to a TV, compared to an iPad, compared to even a laptop. Even like the the size of these items. It's so hard for your vision to like pull away from it. We get sucked in. Attentionly. And that's before we even add on other features of of apps that were designed.
30:22 Jemma Sbeg? With the phone in mind, like the infinite scroll of social media, all these other addictive properties that we could get into. Essentially, like, it is you against. A team of very smart people who. Essentially, were paid to get you hooked.
30:39 Jemma Sbeg? There's the same developmental psychologist I mentioned before, Michelle Dron. She's done so much research on this and she speaks about, I think it was in her book, she speaks about how she realised she had a problem with her phone. When she began to understood that her phone behaved just like someone close to her in her life. It made noises, it commanded her attention, it asked her to resolve issues. Alerted her to problems, it like basically communicated with her. And she talks about like how we groom our phone to like remove smudges. How we always have it close to us, we become nervous if we can't find it. Or if the battery dies, again dying, like our phone is almost this human thing.
31:23 Jemma Sbeg? We've essentially come to, I don't know if it's like anthropomorphise, but like. Assign our phones with human qualities. Assign this non-human object with the characteristics that a friend would have or a partner would have. And that alters our emotional and cognitive response to that object. Meaning we feel a greater sense of dependency. Meaning we feel like us and our phones are in a relationship. They've fulfilled the psychological needs and the psychological deficits. That have come with friendship being harder, relationships being harder, that they created.
32:05 Jemma Sbeg? Like, it has replaced the need for a real world companion, essentially. Not always, but like in, in a small way. When we rely upon an inanimate object to fulfil our intimate emotional needs. Of course, that is going to have bleed on effects to how we eventually. And as a society begin to relate to one another. And that's why I think, you know, when the question comes up of like, why does this matter? Well, it matters because human relationships matter. And they are much more important than a relationship with an inanimate object. But if you are not conscious and if you are not cognizant of how much time you are
32:50 Jemma Sbeg? spending with this device and spending with this technology, pretty soon it can become your primary relationship. I had this realization a few years ago when I started truly calculating how many days of my life I literally miss per year from being on my phone. Are you ready for this number? If you have a screen time of six hours a day, you will spend ninety days each year on your phone. That is ninety nine zero four days on a screen. Consuming things that you will likely not remember in twenty four hours' time. Let that sink in. Ninety days, if I'm being honest. I have that problem. I know a lot of people have that problem. I'm not gonna sit here and claim to be like this
33:33 Jemma Sbeg? person who has the perfect relationship with technology and with her phone. However, I do feel like we need some new strategies. Because that is a lot of time that we cannot get back, and that is a lot of time that if we are being honest, would be better spent with the people we love actually physically experiencing the world, or like at least working or caring about something that is more permanent and more meaningful. The way that we are going to do this is essentially adding friction back in where these technology companies took friction out.
34:15 Jemma Sbeg? Essentially, make it harder to use technology. Have boundaries the way that you would for like a toxic relationship, right? I will also say.
34:28 Jemma Sbeg? If you want to experiment with going phone free, or at least smartphone free, it's actually not as doom and gloom as you may think. There is this whole social movement of people right now, going smartphone free, going technology free, going social media free. And as much as I'm not gonna again recommend it, like early studies do show they are a lot happier. Even if they lose some convenience, like they are doing better than most of us. A study from two thousand eighteen had three hundred people just share a single meal at a restaurant with their family and friends. And they either, you know, had their phone on the table, had their phone put away. And those people, just in that moment,
35:13 Jemma Sbeg? had an increased level of happiness and social harmony and fulfillment compared to the people who had their phones present. So even in those small moments, like choosing to resist does make you feel better. Another study found, I think it was from like two thousand twenty four, three quarters of people who left their phones at home just for a day also felt happier in the long run. That impact, I think, lasted like a week. And the final study I wanna talk about here is this twenty twenty five study that found that going without social media and the internet for two weeks, psychologically and emotionally, reset people's entire moods going forward.
35:56 Jemma Sbeg? Ninety one percent of the people in this experiment felt better in the weeks and months afterwards. That's the option here. Setting boundaries, creating more friction, having those phone free periods, having those phone free moments, months. You don't have to start with two weeks. I think just start with designing your home to be less technology friendly. Having like no phone zones in your house or like a designated phone zone, I think is like an incredibly important strategy here. I saw this woman talk about the always be charging trick in like this New York Times article. So essentially what she's doing to stop her phone from interrupting her relationship
36:39 Jemma Sbeg? and stop her phone from interrupting her life is that she says, I can use my phone as much as I want. But if I'm gonna use it, it must always be charging. And she only has a charger in one spot in her house. She even speaks about needing, like, I think she needed like a recipe for something. And she, like, obviously she can't bring her phone to the kitchen, so she like handwrote the recipe from her phone and went kind of analog with it. It's not completely taking away the need for technology or the use of it, it's just creating guardrails. Phone-free evenings as well, I feel like just saying, two days a week, two afternoons a week, I'm just not gonna have my phone on me.
37:19 Jemma Sbeg? I'm gonna go out, I'm gonna brisket, I'm going to see my friends without my phone, or I'm going to get to the restaurant and put my phone away is also incredibly valuable. And again, those studies show add intimacy back into our relationships. You know, because it's not always the phone, it's like, it's social media specifically. Deleting social media when you walk through the door, or only having it on your laptop. I was doing this for a while, I was like, I can only go on social media when I'm outside my house. So like, when I walk, like, when I walk back in the door, I don't know, five P M, six P M, like, that app is getting deleted. And then when I leave the next morning, like, that's when I can re-download it.
38:05 Jemma Sbeg? Just creating, again, guardrails that say, that essentially communicate to yourself, like, this is not gonna be the thing that's allowed to dominate my life. Like, this is not going to be this omnipresent thing. I am actually in control of this technology and what I wanna do with it and what it gets to do with me. And even just creating that tiny bit of friction of like deleting the app. Maybe what it takes to just, I don't know, let it release its like kind of grip from your mind. Also, like, social media-free weekends, I feel like I'm just throwing heaps of things at you guys. Um, and having, like, obviously, abstinence is one thing. Not spending as much time on your phone is one thing, not spending as much time on social media is one thing, but
38:50 Jemma Sbeg? it's not gonna be effective unless you also have alternative habits. For when you're bored, for when you're sad, for when you're lonely. Again, the real reason and the main reason, I would say, that technology and our phones and our relationship to our phones have gotten to the addictive point that they have is because they have become the sole way that we know how to deal with hard feelings.
39:14 Jemma Sbeg? And so having a strategy, having something else that you can do when those hard feelings comes up, starts to interrupt that dependency cycle. That begins with boredom, that begins with sadness or loneliness. Where the only kind of antidote we have now is to scroll as a distraction, is to put on a TV show in the background as a distraction. Give yourself an alternative, give yourself, I don't know, a journal practice, give yourself, have a puzzle that you're doing, have a friend that you call instead, have anything in your home, in your life, that you can do first,
39:57 Jemma Sbeg? before you immediately like pick up your phone to avoid and suppress whatever bad thing it is that you are feeling. I think at the end of the day, this is somewhat of a value thing, right? You cannot change your relationship with this technology unless you have a deep moment with yourself and seriously consider, what do I value more? Quick dopamine or deep connection? Cause that's really what we're going up against. Do we want short-term gratification or long-term gratification? The phone offers short-term gratification, relationships offer long-term gratification. And keeping that number in mind, actually doing the math with your screen time. How many days are you losing?
40:39 Jemma Sbeg? How many years of your life are you, are you to this object, to this inanimate object? I think is the motivation we need to have healthier habits. So I think I'm gonna wrap the episode up there. I feel like this was a very ranty episode. We touched on some psychology, but really I think the through line is just be more conscious about how technology is interrupting intimacy. Genuinely acknowledge if this has and it continues to create problems in your relationships and whether you want it to continue to create that problem in your relationship and apply some of those strategies. Add the friction back in so that
41:23 Jemma Sbeg? being present with your friends, being present with your partner, with your family is the easier thing to do. And being online, being on social media, being your phone is the harder path, is the path with more resistance. All right, let's wrap it up. I want to thank our researcher Lucy Davidson for her help with this episode. If you have made it this far, leave a little phone emoji down below so that I know that you listened all the way to the end. And if you have any more strategies around how you're going to reshape, change your relationship with technology, I'd also love to hear it below. Make sure that you're following us on Instagram.
42:04 Jemma Sbeg? If you are listening on Spotify or Apple as well, you may not know, but the podcast is now on Netflix. So if you want a more visual experience, if you want to watch video episodes, there will be a link in the description. In fact, there are many links in the description that I'm just gonna turn your attention to if you want to follow us by the book. Read the sub stacks, watch the video episodes, all the self-promotion goes on down there. Um, I don't know if I have anything else to say, just that I hope you enjoyed this episode and that. I don't know, be safe, be kind, be gentle to yourself. We will talk very, very soon.
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