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Speaker 1: Hello, Welcome to Healthy. Thanks for joining us today on

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Speaker 1: the daily podcast from Body and Soul. I am the

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Speaker 1: host of Felicity Haley. Do you follow you should care

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Speaker 1: about across social media? Well, I'm joined by the formidable

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Speaker 1: force behind it all today, Lucy Blacktston. She has a

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Speaker 1: new book out and today we discuss the evolution of

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Speaker 1: her social media consumption, how she well maintains boundaries and

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Speaker 1: also the upside of doom scrolling. Now, if you like

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Speaker 1: what you hear from Lucy, I know you will so

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Speaker 1: listening to Extra Healthy Ish, our sister podcasts where Lucy

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Speaker 1: talks about how she manages her mental health in the

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Speaker 1: digital age. You can grab that one wherever you get

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Speaker 1: your podcasts. Lucy, thanks for joining us on Healthy. How

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Speaker 1: are you?

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Speaker 2: I am so good. It's a pleasure to be here.

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Speaker 2: I am the damn site better than I was the

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Speaker 2: last time we tried to record this because for everyone listening,

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Speaker 2: we tried to record this on the morning that we

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Speaker 2: found out Liam Payne of my favorite boy band of

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Speaker 2: all time, One Direction, passed away. So I literally had

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Speaker 2: to be like, guys, I can't do this. I need

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Speaker 2: to take some time for me. That's how I'm staying

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Speaker 2: healthy is by like putting up those boundaries.

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Speaker 1: I'm very impressed. And how are you going with the

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Speaker 1: grief of it all?

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Speaker 2: Look, if you've read the book, you'll know that I'm

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Speaker 2: no stranger to grief, and I feel like it's a

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Speaker 2: strange one though, because it's not. It doesn't feel like

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Speaker 2: it's yours, even though it's like that little girl that

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Speaker 2: was so obsessed with one direction is literally would be

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Speaker 2: institutionalized at this point, like you're I'm yeah, I just

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Speaker 2: feel it's quite interesting trying to grapple with something that

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Speaker 2: feels like such a huge loss, but it's someone that

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Speaker 2: you don't know, and you're really trying to not feel

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Speaker 2: stupid about it. It's like my big goal was to

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Speaker 2: make other people online that are also grieving this strange

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Speaker 2: thing not feel where or stupid about it.

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Speaker 1: Well, don't it's kind of I mean, I've actually been.

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Speaker 1: I mean, I'm getting sucked into all the online banter

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Speaker 1: about it, like his last video and all the fans

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Speaker 1: crying in London, and it's amazing how it has actually

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Speaker 1: swept the.

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Speaker 2: World the world, And I'm not surprised because I was

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Speaker 2: on the internet from about twenty two to twenty fifteen,

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Speaker 2: when that was my whole life, one direction, my whole life.

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Speaker 2: So I'm really not surprised that so many people are

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Speaker 2: really upset about it, but just unexpected for everyone. Right,

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Speaker 2: what the hell?

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Speaker 1: Absolutely now, let's just leave the Liam talk. Let's talk

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Speaker 1: about you. We could cat me into a whole podcast

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Speaker 1: on the passing of Liam Payne. But you've built this

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Speaker 1: mega media brand on social media. I mean it's I

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Speaker 1: actually stand in all, having worked in the media for

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Speaker 1: a very long time, what does your social media consumption

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Speaker 1: look like in a in a day, a week or yeah,

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Speaker 1: create a picture for us.

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Speaker 2: Twenty it would have been like I was laid off

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Speaker 2: from COVID we'd started to cheat you care about in

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Speaker 2: twenty eighteen, and because I didn't have a job and

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Speaker 2: the world was falling to goddamn pieces. In twenty twenty,

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Speaker 2: my social media use was just insane. It was like

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Speaker 2: all I was doing was writing, digesting, posting, writing duty posting.

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Speaker 2: It was the best feeling ever. But it's not. You

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Speaker 2: can't sustain that. That's just not a normal thing to

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Speaker 2: be doing twenty four seven. So now twenty twenty four,

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Speaker 2: Lucy is most of my time is focused on newsletters,

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Speaker 2: and honestly, the place that I get most of my

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Speaker 2: news is literally like me going on desktop websites, which.

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Speaker 1: Is not what a lot of you ails do anymore.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, and also reading newsletters, and so people think that

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Speaker 2: I'm online a lot, but realistically I'm writing the newsletter

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Speaker 2: in the morning, post a mundane poll or two on Instagram,

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Speaker 2: and then I'm doing normal things like like reading my

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Speaker 2: emails and doing my job, which is a lot of writing.

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Speaker 2: And then at night I give myself TikTok time because

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Speaker 2: I'm obsessed with TikTok.

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Speaker 1: So how long do you get a night of TikTok time?

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Speaker 2: Oh? Look, just whenever I get to bed, from when

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Speaker 2: I get into bed to when I fall asleep. So honestly,

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Speaker 2: I'm quite tired, so it's usually it's less than an hour,

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Speaker 2: I reckon.

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Speaker 1: So, how have you gone from being this perhaps mega

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Speaker 1: consumer to a quasi consumer or moderate or perhaps you

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Speaker 1: how have you got the boundaries in place?

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Speaker 2: Oh? I really just I wrote about this a lot

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Speaker 2: in the book. I could just tell, like a lot

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Speaker 2: of us can, that this just cannot be good for

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Speaker 2: my psyche, Like it just cannot be good for any

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Speaker 2: of us to be going online and like, one scroll

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Speaker 2: you're seeing your cousin's wedding. Another scroll you're seeing a

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Speaker 2: cute dog, another you're seeing someone's food. Another you're seeing

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Speaker 2: the world the worst crisis you've ever seen in the world.

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Speaker 2: The next is an infographic about climate change, and the

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Speaker 2: next is someone who's just broken up with your boyfriend.

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Speaker 2: And the fact that I think a lot of us

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Speaker 2: are giving all those different things the same amount of

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Speaker 2: attention when two of them, definitely two of them deserved

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Speaker 2: more attention and more time than the rest, I think

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Speaker 2: it really scared me. I think I was like, oh,

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Speaker 2: I don't want this to be how I consume news.

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Speaker 2: I also don't want to be that complicit. Oh I

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Speaker 2: also don't want to be the person that encourages other

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Speaker 2: people to consume news like this, which seems so hypocritical

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Speaker 2: because a lot of people come to shit you should

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Speaker 2: care about Instagram for their news. But I honestly, I

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Speaker 2: just got a bit freaked out. I was like, Lucy,

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Speaker 2: you need to look after your brain and this doesn't

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Speaker 2: feel good.

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Speaker 1: I actually see your Instagram page is more like a

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Speaker 1: modern day magazine, having you know, many years spent many

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Speaker 1: years in magazines when I mean, they're like, oh, it

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Speaker 1: totally is. It's like the twenty you know, twenty twenty

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Speaker 1: plus version of how I would have consumed a magazine.

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Speaker 2: That's dreaming because I am obsessed with magazines, always have been,

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Speaker 2: and it curlls me now when I go to buy

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Speaker 2: one and most of its ads and it's like, I understand,

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Speaker 2: because you need to keep running a business, but also

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Speaker 2: bring back the magazine somehow. So that is gorgeous compliment.

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Speaker 1: Oh well, I mean it, I wanted to pick up

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Speaker 1: something else. You write in your book about doom scrolling. Now,

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Speaker 1: there's so much negativity around this, and you know, we

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Speaker 1: all beat ourselves up when we're getting that doom scrolling mode.

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Speaker 1: You're saying, there could be an upside. How do you

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Speaker 1: make it work?

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Speaker 2: Okay, I can't say this for everyone, but the way

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Speaker 2: that I rationalize it to myself is, at least when

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Speaker 2: I'm doom scrolling, I've built a business where I feel

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Speaker 2: like I can do something about a lot of the

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Speaker 2: things that I see. So I have the immense privilege

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Speaker 2: of seeing something really terrible happening in the news, and

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Speaker 2: whereas a lot of people just have to scroll on,

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Speaker 2: I'm like, oh, holy shit, let me post about this,

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Speaker 2: rite about this, podcast about this, and help more people

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Speaker 2: find out or make it easier to make sense of.

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Speaker 2: And that's how I rationalize how much I doom scroll

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Speaker 2: even though I try not to do it so much anymore.

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Speaker 2: Is that okay, Well, at least you can do something

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Speaker 2: about it. And I think that's why we saw such

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Speaker 2: a rise in even if it's it has its goods

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Speaker 2: and its bad its like Instagram activism and people wanting

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Speaker 2: to share so much stuff, especially in twenty twenty. I

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Speaker 2: think it's because of doom scrolling, and they just all

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Speaker 2: want it to be like damn, how can I actually

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Speaker 2: feel like I'm doing something? And so I rationalize it

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Speaker 2: by being like, shit, if I see something really terrible,

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Speaker 2: let me just make it make Actually.

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Speaker 1: That's a good point because I feel like so often

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Speaker 1: where we focus on the negativity of social media and

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Speaker 1: the perhaps control it has over so many of us,

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Speaker 1: but there is such a positive side to it as well,

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Speaker 1: and you've got that throughout your your different points in

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Speaker 1: in media. But there's a lovely activism and a lot

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Speaker 1: of people feel seen, whether it's about mental health issues

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Speaker 1: or whatever. The you know, fitness or health, and we're

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Speaker 1: finding those communities.

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Speaker 2: Yeah. I honestly writing the book because I feel like,

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Speaker 2: for me, the whole theme of the book is the

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Speaker 2: Internet and how it's fucked me up up and then

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Speaker 2: how it's also given me such a beautiful life that

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Speaker 2: I love now. And so a lot of it was

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Speaker 2: me sitting down and being like, what boots do? I

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Speaker 2: love the online community, having friends that I've never met

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Speaker 2: that are thinking about me even though though they don't

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Speaker 2: know me, Like that's so cute. And then like being

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Speaker 2: able to make people feel seen and heard about things

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Speaker 2: like grief or loving a boy band. I just I'm

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Speaker 2: obsessed with. And the bits that I'm not obsus with

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Speaker 2: are the ones that we always see the headlines about,

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Speaker 2: like it's harming how young girls see themselves through if

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Speaker 2: we're using what do they always say if you're using

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Speaker 2: a product for free, you are the product? Like how

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Speaker 2: it's like it's free, but is it really? Because we've

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Speaker 2: come to the product, so yeah, it's I do try

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Speaker 2: to not be cynical about it. I do try to

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Speaker 2: end up with quite an optimistic point of view us

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Speaker 2: like I would not be able.

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Speaker 1: To do my job exactly. Anyway, Lucy, thank you so

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Speaker 1: much for coming on Healthy Is.

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Speaker 2: You're so welcome. It's been a joy.

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Speaker 1: TikTok hour, that's a great idea. Just put away, well

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Speaker 1: even half an hour that is going to be my

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Speaker 1: social media time and I will not touch it throughout

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Speaker 1: the day. It's a challenge anyway. Lucy's new book is

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Speaker 1: called Make It Make Sense and it is out now.

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Speaker 1: If you have any ideas for upcoming EPPS themes, guest

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Speaker 1: dm me across social media at Felicity Harley, anything else,

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Speaker 1: head to Body and soult com, dot you follows and socials,

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Speaker 1: grab our print edition which is out in your local

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Speaker 1: Sunday paper and until tomorrow we'll enjoy you Tiktalk hour

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Speaker 1: and stay healthy