320. Should I break up with my phone?

Me and my phone are in a toxic relationship, let me explain... ORDER MY BOOK: https://www.psychologyofyour20s.com/general-clean Follow Jemma on Instagram (ironic for this episode, I know): @jemmasbeg https://www.instagram.com/jemmasbeg/?hl=en# Follow the podcast on Instagram: @thatpsychologypodcast https://www.instagram.com/thatpsychologypodcast/?hl=en# For business: [email protected] mailto:[email protected] The Psychology of your 20s is not a substitute for professional mental health help. If you are struggling, distressed or require personalised advice, please reach out to your doctor or a licensed psychologist. See omnystudio.com/listener https://omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Speaker 00

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• 0:04Jemma Sbeg?

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• 0:41Jemma Sbeg?

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• 2:07Jemma Sbeg?

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• 2:52Jemma Sbeg?

  Hello, everybody, and welcome back to the Psychology of Your 20s. The podcast where we talk through some of the big life changes and transitions of our 20s. And what they mean for our psychology.

• 3:11Jemma Sbeg?

  Hello, everybody. Welcome back to the show. Welcome back to the podcast. New listeners, old listeners, wherever you are in the world. It is so great to have you here back for another episode. As we, of course, break down the psychology of our 20s. I've been having this huge desire recently to see what it is like to go without my phone for a week, for a month, maybe forever. And I'm not talking about a digital detox, although that would probably be nice at this point. I am talking about a full breakup, a full intervention, a full divorce between me and my iPhone.

• 3:48Jemma Sbeg?

  Because I've been tracking so much of my unhappiness back to this device that has become ubiquitous in all our lives. And what it's been doing to my mind and to my productivity and to my relationships and to my self-esteem. We are, you know, probably never more than five meters away from our phone at any given time. We take it to the bathroom, even if people think that's gross, a lot of us do. We spend more time with it than our friends and our own parents. It is this constant force in our lives. So why aren't we examining our relationship with it more?

• 4:26Jemma Sbeg?

  What's really caused me to start thinking about this was not one, it was actually two things. Two things I came across recently. One was a quote, one was an article. The quote was from Henry David Thoreau and it essentially said, "The cost of anything is the amount of life you exchange for it." And ironically, it came across my Instagram feed and just kind of reached through the screen and grabbed me. And my brain immediately was like, oh, this is talking about your phone and the habits that you currently have with this device and how much life or time I'm giving to scrolling and to apps and to social media

• 5:11Jemma Sbeg?

  for very, very little reward. It is like a pit that I am sinking so much of my day into, almost six hours a day at this point, which is like honestly a bit disgusting when I say it out loud. And in actuality, for how much time I am spending on this thing, I'm getting basically nothing from it. And that time would so much be better spent learning a new skill or experiencing the world or being present with my friends. So that quote really just kind of gripped me and has been running through my head a lot recently. The second thing that has me thinking me and my phone need to get some serious distance was an article written by the ABC that I read about a group of teenagers who call themselves the Ludiite Club.

• 5:55Jemma Sbeg?

  Ludiites, um, I only just learnt this, is the name of a group of textile workers who during the Industrial Revolution uh refused to use machinery. They like actively destroyed machinery, like they were anti-technology. These kids, the Ludiites, um, they don't have smartphones. They've, some of them have never had a smartphone. They don't use social media. They have what they call dumb phones. So basically a flip phone with. No apps, it's just for emergencies. And they're kind of this group of individuals who seem so connected. They have all these friends, they seem so much happier, so much more self expressive and just wise be- beyond their years.

• 6:37Jemma Sbeg?

  And I was reading this article and I was looking at these kids who have kind of gone against our expectations that they would be quite lonely or disconnected. And I felt very, very envious. However, when I also started thinking like, maybe I could do that, maybe I should do that. The first reaction I had was one of like panic and almost anxiety about the thought of not being connected and all these situations I might not be able to handle without my iPhone. And it just brought me this extreme unease and it made me think any item whose absence creates that's that much of a reaction needs to be rethought. Because how can an inanimate object control my emotions, my self perception, my sense

• 7:21Jemma Sbeg?

  of capability that much? How did we kind of let it go this far to the point where a lot of people wouldn't know how to navigate their own city with that, their phone? They wouldn't know how to get home, they wouldn't know how to entertain themselves, they wouldn't know how to be connected. It's kind of scary when you really start to interrogate how this technology is actually harming us. And I know I sound like such an old lady, like I sound like such a concerned parent. But it is what I want to talk about today. I'm in this weird mental headspace of wanting to rethink my technological habits.

• 8:03Jemma Sbeg?

  Um, and I want to see if you guys are feeling the same way and also how we can find kind of a solution here, because it might not be a full breakup with our smartphones, but there definitely is part of this that we need to rethink. Is there a middle ground or have we just gone too far? What would our brains, what did our brains look like before our smartphones? What do they look like now? What could they look like afterwards? And just so many other questions that I've been having around what this is doing to my mind. So I'm so excited to be able to explore with you guys today, hopefully give myself some answers, give you guys some answers if you're feeling this too. Without further ado, let's talk about why we should maybe be breaking up with. Our phones. Stay with us.

• 8:53Jemma Sbeg?

  So other than that Thoreau quote and that article, there have been a few other kind of wake up calls for me recently, I would say. Firstly, um, it was a conversation I had with my boyfriend where he kind of made like an offhand comment about me always being on my phone and it offended me a little bit. But he said to me afterwards, like, surely you know this about yourself. Surely you know that you're someone who's like always working, always on their phone. Like this is just kind of who you are. And I was taken aback because I did not think that about myself. It was like a major psychological blind spot for me, something that is obvious to others, obviously not to me. And I kind of

• 9:36Jemma Sbeg?

  had chosen, I guess, in some way to ignore that this is how other people perceived me and this is how I behaved. Then after that, I started really going into my screen time data and just realized like, wow, I this thing is controlling me more than I'm controlling it. Like I'm picking up my phone 300 times a day. Each time I'm on it for like two minutes or more, I'm basically giving up my life to this inanimate thing in like 1% increments. Social media, I think, like most of us, is probably where I spend most of my time. And I think I could largely excuse that because social media is part of my job and so it was justifiable, but

• 10:18Jemma Sbeg?

  really, I think I could only be on social media for 30 minutes a day or less and still do my job. This was again, like, just an excuse that I was giving to myself. I guess an excuse to stop me feeling a bit embarrassed or ashamed or alarmed or like to stop me from recognizing that something kind of needed to be done. There's also this realization I had that if someone asked me, someone held a gun to my head and said, tell me the last five things that you saw on Instagram or the last five reels that you scroll past on TikTok, I would not be able to tell them.

• 10:59Jemma Sbeg?

  A lot of this scrolling that I was doing and that I still am doing is entirely mindless. And if I wasn't present with the outside world, which I wasn't because I was on my phone, and I obviously wasn't present with whatever was going on with my phone, like that time is basically entirely empty. I basically, I could see the argument that I wasn't even conscious in a weird way. And that was kind of a scary feeling. That's just time that it's just been rubbed out by me just, I guess, going numb from watching reels or doing things on my phone. I really would ask you to ask yourself that same question. Could you

• 11:40Jemma Sbeg?

  do that? Could you tell me the last five videos you've liked on TikTok or the last five things you saw on Instagram that genuinely actually changed your life? Could you give me any kind of recount on the value being provided by your phone or by social media? Yes, there are small things, but I don't think that value outweighs what it would feel like to not be on your phone. I think that we make all these excuses for technology that, no, you know, like I can make online friends and it's made life so much more convenient and it helps me with this and it helps me with that. But let's not kid ourselves. There is so much more value in the real world and being outdoors or being really intensely present with a friend than there is ever going to be from

• 12:26Jemma Sbeg?

  some kind of artificial connection that we have through a screen. I think the tension that we have with our phones is that they are actually very useful tools and they have, of course, been designed to have all these capabilities and to have convenience in mind. You know, we don't have to carry a map and a notebook and a wallet and a calculator and a flashlight and an address and an address book and a camera around with us. Like, we don't have to carry all of these things. And that's pretty marvelous. Definitely is saving our arms and our shoulders from heavy backpacks and heavy tote bags. Like, it has been designed to be helpful. It's also been designed to take up as much of our attention as possible, to be an attentional leech.

• 13:11Jemma Sbeg?

  Specifically, the apps we have on them have been created to use. The fact that our phones are always close to us and basically an extension of us as a way to really lure us in and to get us to spend more time and in some ways more money uh on them and more money within these like digital spaces. Smartphones and you know, social media going go hand in hand, they go hand in hand and they were both really designed around what psychologists call intermittent reinforcement. Intermittent reinforcement is the same principles used in gambling. Basically, in gambling, you never know when you're gonna get a reward. With your phones, you never know when you're gonna get a ping, you never know when

• 13:54Jemma Sbeg?

  that person's finally gonna text you back or you're going to receive a like or a message. So you just keep checking just in case, you just keep scrolling just in case you've missed something. And in some ways, it becomes quite mindless. What maybe started as a dopamine related and dopamine motivated behaviour has now become one that's just like entirely normal and devoid of a lot of feeling. Actually, there have been certain former employees of of Google and Facebook and Meta and Yahoo who have come out and said, this is what we were doing behind the scenes when we were designing these platforms and we were designing these apps. It was called a race for attention. That's literally what it was called because

• 14:39Jemma Sbeg?

  there was this idea whoever has our attention, has our money, has our ears, has our eyes, can deliver messages, can persuade us, can influence us to act one way or another. And that is an incredibly lucrative business model. And so these apps and you know, the people who designed our phones had, you know, literal neuroscientists on their teams being like, how can we make this more alluring, more flashy? What sounds will attract people the most? How can we get people more hooked in? No wonder we can't stop scrolling, you know, our phones were designed to exploit our deepest psychological vulnerabilities, our deepest biological vulnerabilities, you know, the fact that we

• 15:24Jemma Sbeg?

  Crave dopamine, the fact that we crave serotonin and the fact that something like Instagram or social media or any number of things can provide us that in like a very nice snack-like bite. I know I'm kind of starting to sound like a bit of a conspiracy theorist here and obviously I don't think that there is some big bad nefarious plot to have us all reliant on technology and unable to avoid enjoyment from anything else. I don't think there's some big plot to slowly control our minds or whatever else people might put out there. But I do think that because we've taken all of these technological advancements for granted, we haven't considered the implications further down the line for our brain, for our neuroplasticity, for how we socialize.

• 16:08Jemma Sbeg?

  Let's examine that for a second because, you know, this technology has only been around for, let's say, twenty years. Already we have seen changes to our brains. You've probably seen a few articles here and there exclaiming that our phones are rewiring our minds and they're making us less human. The truth is a lot more nuanced than the headline suggests, but yes, there is truth in that statement that smartphones are reshaping the way our brains process information, regulate attention, experience emotion, think, feel, express empathy, all the things that make us, well, human.

• 16:50Jemma Sbeg?

  One major area of concern that I think is on everyone's minds is obviously attention span. Um, I feel like this has gotten a lot worse for me in the past four years, perhaps since Covid. Um, tell me if you feel the same, but I feel like my attention pre-Covid, post-Covid is so different. And some people will attribute that to smartphone use. So there was a study published in Nature in twenty twenty two that basically found that globally our attention spans have measurably shortened in the last decade. And they link that mainly to rapid-fire, dopamine-driven feedback loops provided by digital content.

• 17:35Jemma Sbeg?

  You know, apps like TikTok and Instagram are designed to overstimulate us and they have trained our brains to kind of expect. Novelty and expect some new form of entertainment every few seconds. And because they've been trained to expect that, it makes sustained, long-term focus and attention feel boring and feel almost intolerable. That's why when, you know, you've been in a task for a while, you suddenly will have this weird, almost impulsive urge to scroll. It's like your brain begging for like a treat, begging for like a hit. The problem with that is that many of the tasks we're required to do as humans or that we would normally enjoy doing,

• 18:18Jemma Sbeg?

  don't operate on the same dopamine reward scale or the same timeline. Take, for example, working towards a thesis, working towards a big exam and your business idea, a long-term project or goal. You're not going to get a hit for a while. The dopamine that comes from successfully completing that big goal or that big task is significantly delayed. It's definitely not on a six-second, twelve-second, one-minute cycle, the way that our phones are operating. There's going to be a lot of repetitive, hard work that you will not be rewarded for in the moment. But because we can no longer sustain our attention to focus on those things, because we are so used to being rewarded instantly,

• 19:02Jemma Sbeg?

  it can become a lot harder to sustain our focus and our attention on the thing ahead of us and to complete goals. It becomes a lot harder to resist small daily temptations in favor of a more valuable feeling later on. Studies have shown we are becoming worse at delaying gratification. We want the pleasure and we want it now. That's not good news. We are actually, as a society, less inclined to do hard things. We can't pay attention for as long. And on an emotional level, phones are also interfering with our ability to self-regulate. A study from the University of Texas demonstrated that the mere presence of a smartphone,

• 19:44Jemma Sbeg?

  even if it's off, actually reduces our available emotional and cognitive capacity. Why? Because part of your attention is always unconsciously monitoring your phone, just in case it lights up or it vibrates or someone needs you or it demands your attention. The phone, your phone, becomes kind of like a cognitive parasite. It's like quietly siphoning off mental energy, even when it's not in use. That's the critical thing, even when it's not in use. This is due to what psychologists call, in the context of smartphone use, brain drain. We have limited attentional resources. And so if we are constantly exercising our willpower in one way,

• 20:30Jemma Sbeg?

  subconsciously really trying to resist checking our phone, trying really hard to not pay attention to it, we actually are depleting our overall resources in another way. And that's what makes concentrating on another task substantially harder, even if you don't realise it. Just the fact that your phone is there and that you want to touch it, even if you're not, is still making what you're doing now more difficult. This effect was strongest in this study amongst the participants who reported being more emotionally dependent on their phones. So people who said they used their phone to deal with difficult feelings. They resorted to drowning out uncomfortable thoughts using social media, using these proxy forms of social connection.

• 21:15Jemma Sbeg?

  There was one question, it was like, uh, I can't remember what it said, but it was basically like, can you imagine, like, can you imagine dealing with this situation? And it was like, someone breaking up with you without having your phone, do you think it would make it worse? And almost everyone was like, oh, yeah. There were all these questions that basically showed that our phones are like a little security blanket, like we're children. And when we're sad, or when we're lonely, or when we're tired, we go to them for nourishment in a weird way. Let's also talk about social connection for a second here, because I think it's probably one of the most important parts of this conversation. Everyone, everyone wants to talk about it. Do our phones make friendship and dating harder, or do they make it easier? I feel like everyone's split down the middle. Half the people say, no, you know, I'm more connected than ever.

• 22:00Jemma Sbeg?

  The other half say, yeah, you might be more connected, but is that real connection? For me, I personally think that our phones are again a tool. But when they become the only tool through which we can connect with others, they're not useful anymore. Like, they've served their purpose almost too much to the form of reliance. I saw this tweet the other day that I think captures the price we've paid for this convenience and this ease beautifully. This person said, "Our phones and social media, they don't work because humans are inherently social. They work because they figured out how to replace real connection with the artificial sensation that we are connecting."

• 22:43Jemma Sbeg?

  Artificial because it doesn't require either person to be truly present or invested in the other person. You can maintain a friendship through a series of happy birthday messages, through sending reels back and forth. Your dating life can become looking at thousands of faces over and over again, rather than walking into a bar and feeling the spark in real life. And so, no, it's not the same, but in some small way, we've been made to feel like it is. Psychologists have actually given that experience a name. The experience of, I guess, having these like bite-sized,

• 23:24Jemma Sbeg?

  small moments of connection in like a digital space that aren't real, but kind of sustain us until we can meet up in person. They call them social snacks, or they call this process social snacking. These brief digital interactions that mimic the nutrients of real connection are important, and they do sustain us over time, like a snacks, snacks between a meal. But they are not a meal. They don't fill us. And over time, as these micro-interactions become the default, they actually begin to substitute the real thing. You know, a phone call no longer needs to take place if you feel like, you know, you're kind of full on just texting them throughout the day.

• 24:09Jemma Sbeg?

  Laughing with someone until you cry doesn't happen as much. Really like sitting down, being present with your friends for a weekend, and not pulling up your phone to show them something, or not, you know, being like, "Oh, what were you talking about?" because you've been distracted by a notification. It just doesn't, like, that's all that happens these days. Like, there is no just sitting down and being like, I'm here, you're here, let's be completely present. And no, there isn't something more interesting than I wanna be doing. When connection just becomes like, I guess, an exchange of content, we do lose the intimacy that comes from actually knowing and being known by another person. And then sometimes you even get to the point where because you've been snacking all day, like, social snacking, I guess.

• 24:52Jemma Sbeg?

  You're so tired by that, that you can't even do the real thing. Like, all of this technology is meant to be helping us in making the real thing more convenient. But then when you're so exhausted by all the stuff that happens in between, you don't make it happen. Hopefully this is making sense, but what I've been finding is that I can't even be bothered to reply to texts or to reply to reels or to messages anymore. Because it's just so overwhelming. There's just so much. And as soon as I open my phone, it's like, oh, my God, there's like fifty people or whatever, like, I need to reply to, or it's just, this actually feels like more effort for less outcome. And so unless someone's like messaging me to make plans, like,

• 25:34Jemma Sbeg?

  I'm not particularly engaged. But I also realize that so much of how other people interact with each other takes place in those in-between moments. So that's the dilemma. Like, you both wanna participate and you wanna be around for those moments. You also are kind of exhausted by this process and you understand how over-reliant you are on it. So you do wanna stay, take a step back. Like, it's kind of exhausting, really. Hopefully that dilemma makes sense. The more I think about it, you know, the more, it does kind of sound like a toxic relationship, right? Like, me and my phone are in a toxic relationship. We need to break up. It's like when you get to that point with someone when, like, you can't be with them anymore, but you also don't know life without them. So you're just kind of like

• 26:19Jemma Sbeg?

  hoping it will get better. Or like working up the courage. To do it, that's literally what this feels like. It's kind of funny, honestly, like talking about these anonymous objects like it's a bad boyfriend, but it kind of is. It's this boyfriend that like actually keeps telling you that like you can't live without them, but you probably couldn't. So with that in mind, let's take a step back, let's take a step away, have a short break, go have some water, go have a tea and let's come back and talk about solutions as well as some more stories of people who have gone completely technology free, whether they regret it, what they've learned, whether they would recommend it as well. All of that and more after this short break.

• 27:05Jemma Sbeg?

  This episode is sponsored by Gymshark. Gymshark has spent over 14 years obsessing over gym clothing and the people who wear it. And let me just say, I think we all know they are very, very good at what they do. No, seriously, their stuff is so good. Their everyday seamless collection is light, it's soft, it's stretchy. All of their stuff just looks good on and it's made for people who love to exercise, whatever exercise that is, lifting, cardio, Pilates, running around campus, maybe just doing errands. Discover Gymshark and find your new favorite gym clothing at gymshark.com.

• 27:42Jemma Sbeg?

  I've been approaching my health really differently this year. I used to be really focused on maximizing and doing more. And now I'm just realizing that if I listen to what my body needs, I perform way better. And that's why I am obsessed with my Whoop. Truly, you guys, you know, I'm such a data and information driven person and I love opening my Whoop app and seeing how my sleep, my stress, my strain is correlating with my mood, with my running performance, with how I'm just feeling day to day. I'm not an elite athlete by any means, but I do really benefit and I also just really enjoy knowing more about my body. And Whoop also gives me these actionable personalized insights that have made me more

• 28:27Jemma Sbeg?

  intentional and meant that I make smarter decisions day to day about what I need rather than just putting my foot on the gas and just going, going, going, going. New members can try Whoop with a 30 day free trial before committing to a membership. That's join.whoop.com/psychology for your free month of Whoop.

• 28:46Jemma Sbeg?

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• 29:31Jemma Sbeg?

  that make membership feel rewarding long before takeoff and long after landing. Because Sky Miles is more than a travel program, it is a membership that moves with you. Fly farther, earn every day, redeem your way and access more. Because when your membership is as unique as you are, there's no telling where your next journey will take you. So I've been really fascinated, particularly by stories of people who have stepped away from social media and their phones entirely, and what happened to them afterwards. I feel like it's like I'm watching from afar, seeing their experience, they're my guinea pigs.

• 30:14Jemma Sbeg?

  And you're probably gonna hate what I have to say next. All of them love it. Literally, every single person who has a story about quitting their phone, all of them are like, "I'm happier, I'm lighter, I'm more productive, I smell the flowers, animals come up to me, food tastes better." Like, all of them have a story like that. One woman who quit her smartphone for a year and wrote this big article about it, even said that that year felt like the longest year she'd ever lived because she basically gained more time or a greater perception of time, which, like, that feels pretty profound. I think a lot of us could do with more time in our day and a sense of more time in our lives, more time to do things, experience things.

• 30:58Jemma Sbeg?

  She's saying that that gave that to her. An even more like kind of shocking example or story of this was a town in France that has gone completely phone free. This town is like fifty kilometers away from Paris. There's two thousand people. It's called Seine Point, Point? S S Seine Port, I think. S E I N E P O R T. Seine Port. Um, very interesting. Basically, like back in twenty twenty four, they voted on this and their mayor was like, do we wanna go phone free? Fifty four percent of them said yes, and so mobile phones are banned in public places.

• 31:40Jemma Sbeg?

  Like you walk down the street apparently and like you just don't see phones. It's like you're from completely different time. And I don't know how they enforce that, like whether it's a fine or whatnot, but people apparently really, really love it. I'm sure some hate it, but from the article that interviewed the mayor, he was like, people really enjoy this idea of just being present with their neighbors and they're watchful and they're really enjoying their community rather than just feeling sucked into this device that gives the impression of community. You know, when you read blog posts and stories of people who have quit their phones, it it is, it feels like people talking about being converted to a new religion.

• 32:19Jemma Sbeg?

  And yes, of course, a lot of these cases are anecdotal and they're based on someone's personal experiences. But the science does back up some of their personal findings, that their perspective, their worldview, their brains feel like they've been changed. The biggest claim that's come out of the scientific community recently is that just being without your phone for seventy two hours or partaking in a three day reset creates changes in your brain activity that researchers can physically observe and see. So this particular study, which I I feel like has been talked about everywhere recently, it was published just earlier this year in March twenty twenty five by the University of Cologne and

• 33:02Jemma Sbeg?

  uh Heidelberg University in Germany. And they took a number of people between the age of eighteen and thirty and they basically said, You are not allowed to use your phone for three days. Unless you you are literally in an emergency, do not use your phone for three days. And during this three day period, the researchers conducted psychological tests and they used brain scans using F M R I to kind of just examine what they were seeing and what the effects were of restricting phone usage. The brain scans were kind of shocking. They showed the brains of basically people in withdrawal. Very similar to how the brain of someone withdrawing from drugs or alcohol would look.

• 33:47Jemma Sbeg?

  There were these huge shifts in the reward and craving regions of the brain. And whilst they weren't entirely clear on why this was, they basically suggested that because not using your phone is a kind of withdrawal from a dopamine source. Your brain is very quickly trying to rewire how it can seek out stimulation and pleasure elsewhere when it's been overly reliant on one source for a long time. This is just one finding amongst so many studies and a lot of these studies, I think, have cropped up largely in response to this new anti-technology revolution and whether not using your phone does make a difference because you kind of have these natural groups that you can test against, like you have a natural control group, you have a natural

• 34:33Jemma Sbeg?

  experimental group because a lot of people have resorted to not using their phones, whereas there's another large majority who use their phones excessively. Another one of these studies was done in two thousand and twenty two. It focused more on mood and this time they asked people to go without their smartphones for a week. Almost all participants reported significantly lower levels of anxiety, specifically social anxiety and much higher levels of life satisfaction. For example, a lot of them said their days had more good moments than bad when they weren't using their phone. They said they found themselves smiling more. They said they found themselves more emotional and more in touch with their emotions

• 35:18Jemma Sbeg?

  and that they had better social interactions. Without this constant influx of notifications and stimuli. You know, I think what's really happening is that the brain is allowed to return to its natural rhythm, one that, yes, does include boredom and it will include scary thoughts sometimes, but also creative thoughts and deep focus. And when any of these things come up, they're not immediately stifled by the insertion of a screen. They are allowed to flow naturally. And when people get into the rhythm of that flow, they feel more human. Also to be expected, sleep improved. We know that blue light exposure from our

• 35:58Jemma Sbeg?

  phones is really bad for our circadian rhythm. But I think the most profound thing from this study wasn't that they were happier. It's that actually not having a phone didn't decimate their friendships. And obviously, it was only for a week, but there are so many other examples of people who are in their twenties or in their thirties who have given up their phone, thinking that it was gonna mean a lot of FOMO, thinking that it was gonna make them more disconnected, that it was gonna be harder for them to see their friends. And it turns out that it's the complete opposite. People report that it actually gave them a clearer view of which friends would make an effort, also because they removed

• 36:41Jemma Sbeg?

  that social snacking in between. They saw their friends more often, they made more plans, and they had more fun during those plans. More fun than a lot of them could remember having for a long time. You know, these moments were richer, they were more fulfilling, they were more enjoyable. And so I think that's something that a lot of people in, like me, in their twenties wanna hear is that going without your phone or social media isn't gonna destroy your life. We've been made to feel so reliant on this thing so that we can't stop. Here are these brave people who have said, actually, like, on the other side, it's never as bad as you think it is. In fact, it may actually be better, is what I'm hearing.

• 37:25Jemma Sbeg?

  So for those of you playing at home, I think the evidence is kind of stacked against me when it comes to whether I should break up with my phone or not. Like if I was doing a pro cons list for this relationship, the cons of keeping my phone definitely outweigh the pros. Let's think about the evidence for a second. More productive, better sleep, better friendships, more neural pathways. Evidence against it, less convenience, maybe less connection to my job for me personally, because I work for myself, but you know, would that necessarily be a bad thing? I think a lot of my family and friends, my boyfriend would definitely say like, no, maybe not being connected to your job twenty four seven would be a good thing.

• 38:10Jemma Sbeg?

  They're probably right. So obviously I've been thinking about this before I sat down to record this and I've been thinking about what a breakup with my phone would look like. And I do think it would have to be rather gradual, rather than like a full blown rip the bandaid off. I know I was talking at the start about having this real big impulse to just say goodbye and never come back, but I think it's going to be a slower thing. This is what I'm committing to. And I'm just going to say what my plan is. If you want to follow along at home and try these, you are more than welcome. I can't say I'm going to be entirely successful, but I want to see if I can do this for a month. We're going to start with the things I'm already doing and then we're going to move on from there.

• 38:51Jemma Sbeg?

  The things that I want to do to see if I could go kind of phone free and for how long. First thing I'm already doing, and if you listen to the podcast, you'll know I've been doing this for a while. I charge my phone outside of my bedroom and I have like an old school alarm clock. Um, it's literally like a silver alarm clock that goes like ding ding ding ding. And then you like hit it over the head. It's like, if you've seen Ferris Bueller's Day Off, which I'm sure you, most of you have, like, it's literally stereotypical, like nineteen nineties silver alarm clock. And it's been great because firstly, it makes me get out of bed a lot quicker. Um, mainly because I do want to check my phone, but also because I'm like, oh,

• 39:33Jemma Sbeg?

  if I don't get up with this one, like there's not going to be seven more alarms that are going to go off. And so that's been really, really useful. And I will say like, I don't immediately go to my phone. I do get up and do other things. So it's not the first thing I say and the last thing I say morning and night. Secondly, I've been like slowly transitioning to only having social media on my work iPad. Feel very lucky that I have the additional technology and additional means to be able to do this. But I I just, social media, like, it's just too freaking available. People are too available. We shouldn't be able to look at everyone's lives all the time and think that that's normal.

• 40:13Jemma Sbeg?

  And think that seeing a million little tiny videos every single day is what our brain chemistry was made to respond to. So having it on my iPad definitely gives me like a cognitive distance. And it gives me like a barrier, like a friction barrier, like it's not easy, it's not immediate. Like I do actually have to go and turn it on and charge it and find it to be able to use it. And it's kind of bulky and it's kind of hard. So having that barrier, fantastic. Thirdly, when I have my phone, and if you're my friend, you know this, I constantly have do not disturb on. Um, constantly, it's probably very frustrating, but it's so that I can sh- like I can check it when I want to, rather than when it wants

• 40:56Jemma Sbeg?

  me to pay attention. Like, I feel like it's switching the script on who has power in this relationship, me on my phone. Like, do not disturb, kind of doesn't give it a voice, so I can just um only check when I want to check it. I found that very, very helpful. Fourth thing I've been doing, I cannot use two devices at the same time. Can't watch TV and be on my phone. And the way that I've been trying to not do that is obviously just pay more attention. Like when I'm doing one thing, I'm doing one thing. But also I've been kind of slowly accumulating other activities to do whilst I'm watching TV at night, whilst I'm kind of sitting at the couch and it's just like background noise.

• 41:36Jemma Sbeg?

  Sudoku, um, that stuff, like, it is so much fun doing Sudoku. I've become a little bit obsessed with it. Like, I can't leave the house unless I've done like a couple. I've got one of those like big books from the news agency and I've done half of it. Now, whenever I catch flats, I always find like the Sudoku one, like the back of the magazine. It's so engaging. I feel like I'm also doing a lot for my long-term brain health in terms of protecting against dementia. Like I'm doing these little brain exercises every single day. And you can just kind of sit there and like mindlessly do it and still be kind of focusing. I also, um, someone got me a Lego set the other day. Oh, so much fun. Like Lego is, I, I, it's literally a billion dollar industry.

• 42:21Jemma Sbeg?

  So I'm not surprising anyone when I say that I'm enjoying it. I'm sure a lot of people enjoy it. But it's, feels amazing. It feels so great doing something with your hands whilst, you know, you're watching your TV show. Especially if you're someone who struggles to just concentrate on one thing at once. Friend of mine is also teaching me how to knit, my beautiful friend, Chia. She made me this gorgeous scarf. And I was like, I, I feel like I need to learn how to make something because how often, how many of us know how to like truly make something these days? Like, you know, maybe some of us know how to like make cookies or like if you really tried, you could make like a box out of wood. But we're really losing like these skills that were used to perfect long ago. And so getting back to that and like having someone who is really good at something be able to teach me.

• 43:05Jemma Sbeg?

  It's also like a fun, social thing. I actually saw someone the other day talk about how in their journey to kind of stop using their phone as much. They had a boredom menu. They found that their major trigger for using their phone, even when they didn't want to, was just that they had run out of things to do and like their brain was just obviously pleasure hunting and, and like stimulation hunting. So she has this big list of things to do when she's bored, including chores, including things that she would never normally have on her to-do list. That are things she kind of wants to do. Like that is something that I think I need to implement more. Obviously I've done it a little bit. I can see how that would be very effective. This is also something I'm working towards, which is using grayscale on my phone.

• 43:48Jemma Sbeg?

  I don't do this all the time. I actually find it to be, well, I think the point is, is that it's um, meant to make the appeal of the phone less alluring by putting everything in black, white and grey. But I find it comes sometimes kind of gives me a headache. Um, but the technique like is definitely effective. By removing colour, I definitely have noticed that there's like less accidental sensory overload. So that is something that is definitely a quick, I think a quick replacement, quick fix that gets to like the root of the problem. Also, I have ordered a flip phone. And I'm gonna keep you updated on how it goes, but it's pink. It was like a hundred dollars from Office Works.

• 44:30Jemma Sbeg?

  Um, and I'm excited for it to arrive. Like, I think it's gonna be a fun little accessory. And what I really wanna do is just begin by taking it to the park when I walk my dog and like just giving that number to my boyfriend and to my close friends and to um like my parents. And then taking it like to run errands. And then taking it for like day trips or like into work so that I'm not entirely disconnected. But there is like not this, not the the brain drain of the of the iPhone being next to me that I constantly feel inclined to like scroll and swipe and do things on, just because it's there.

• 45:12Jemma Sbeg?

  Especially like when I'm commuting or when I'm just like in moments of stillness. Um, I really wanna try and not just feel like the first thing I can do to entertain myself is to pick up this device that requires absolutely no active energy from me. One thing I will say about the flip phone though, and if you have a flip phone, tell me how you are going with this, is that I kind of want a camera on me. I feel like that's gonna be the biggest issue, especially with like restaurants all having QR codes these days. I think that's gonna be, I guess you could always order at the counter. But also just, you know, if my dog does something cute or if I see something cool, I do think I'll miss that. But I think we cross the bridge, that bridge when we come to it.

• 45:58Jemma Sbeg?

  Um, I also don't wanna replace one technology with like a thousand more pieces of technology. I don't think that's realistic, you know. I feel like I've spoken about getting the iPad and that's one piece of technology and then getting the flip phone. That's two pieces of technology and then getting the camera. It's like that's three and it's like, uh, I kinda see why they made these, obviously. But finally, I think with that, I do kinda wanna work up to doing phone-free weekends, no phone. One of my friends, Meg, like recently went away with her boyfriend and she left her phone in Sydney and she was telling me how like the first hour she was like kinda panicking and then she was like, oh. Doesn't really matter. So no phone for a weekend and then maybe no phone for a week on holiday.

• 46:42Jemma Sbeg?

  That's something I wanna work up to. I'm gonna report back. Please hold me accountable. If someone can like DM me, if you're listening to this in like three months, can you DM me and say, hey, did you end up doing that? So that I feel some sense of like external responsibility. Mainly, I think just being aware of how much time my phone has drained out of my life has been important in itself. I have a lot of excuses, some of them may even be valid, but

• 47:12Jemma Sbeg?

  the only person I'm making those excuses to is me and I'm also the one who's suffering the consequences. And so I think a big part of this is just having a frank chat with myself and being like, does your phone usage and does your technology usage actually align with how you see yourself? And actually align with how you see your life? Because the answer is no, I don't see myself as someone who wants to waste time and I don't see myself as doing things that are completely at times useless. And I have a lot of things I wanna achieve and I have a lot of projects that I'm working on. And I am feeling very time poor at the same time. It's like, well, I can't be sitting here saying that I'm time poor if I have time to scroll for six to seven hours a day. Like two things cannot be true.

• 47:57Jemma Sbeg?

  So I want to just reclaim my attention for myself and I wanna reclaim my time for myself and just sit and be present with what I'm doing. And I think this will be a good challenge for that. A challenge in delayed gratification, a challenge in uncomfortable stillness and boredom. And just, I wanna see if I can do it and I wanna see if it's something that will actually help me. I have a feeling that it will, considering every single person who I've ever, I've talked about it with genuinely sounds like they are in a cult. So am I willingly signing up for this cult? Yeah, I think I am and I will report back. But yeah, tell me what you think. Tell me in the comments below if you are also having this strange dilemma

• 48:41Jemma Sbeg?

  with your phone, whether you're also seeing the appeal of all these people who are leaving technology behind. Do we think this is gonna become more common and more popular, especially as people are kind of at their wits end with social media and with technology and with AI and with all these other things? I think so. I personally think that it's gonna be like a huge. Counter culture, counter revolutionary thing. I'm excited to be a participant. Maybe, hopefully. Let me know your thoughts below and make sure that you are following along. Whatever you are listening to this episode, whether you're on YouTube, Spotify, Apple Podcasts, so that you know when we release new episodes, maybe even an update episode to this one.

• 49:23Jemma Sbeg?

  Make sure you, yes again, leave a comment below and are following us on Instagram at That Psychology Podcast. So that you can let me know your thoughts and also share any future suggestions for episodes. You want us to cover any topics about our twenties, about culture, about psychology, about so much more. And until next time, stay safe, be kind, be gentle to yourself, get off, get off your damn phone. And we will talk very, very soon.

• 49:59Jemma Sbeg?

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• 50:36Jemma Sbeg?

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• 51:21Jemma Sbeg?

  and meant that I make smarter decisions day to day about what I need, rather than just putting my foot on the gas and just going, going, going, going. New members can try Whoop with a 30 day free trial before committing to a membership. That's join dot whoop dot com slash psychology for your free month of Whoop. Hey, question, are you an extra care member at CVS? Because there is literally no reason not to be. It's super easy to join and members instantly get extra big deals on things you buy most. I mean, this is stuff you're already buying, things like snacks, personal care products, all of it. And after you join, the savings just show up. Deals refresh every two weeks, but they don't last long.

• 52:04Jemma Sbeg?

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• 52:13Speaker 00

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