Speaker 1: Hey, San Francisco, we're coming back to see you. Yes,
Speaker 1: our second year in a row. We're gonna be going
Speaker 1: to s F Sketch Fest. I'd like to think it's
Speaker 1: the premier comedy festival in the United States. Probably well
Speaker 1: in the world, you think, so, yeah, what about Beijing? Nope,
Speaker 1: it's a it's a close second. For a second. Well,
Speaker 1: we love San Francisco, we love performing there. Everyone is
Speaker 1: always so kind to us. And by San Francisco we
Speaker 1: mean the entire Bay area of course. Yeah, so we
Speaker 1: will be there doing our thing for a one time
Speaker 1: only show on Sunday, January one pm. Yeah, it's the
Speaker 1: rare Sunday afternoon. We're like the NFL of podcasters. Yeah right,
Speaker 1: that's that's what I've always thought. So all you have
Speaker 1: to do is go to the SF Sketch Fest site,
Speaker 1: look at the old calendar, and there are tons of
Speaker 1: great people performing. Oh yeah, So I suggest like just
Speaker 1: doubling down and getting tickets to all kinds of good
Speaker 1: shows for sure, and hurry up and get tickets to ours,
Speaker 1: because they've only been on sale for a week or
Speaker 1: so and they're already half sold out. That's right, So
Speaker 1: please hurry San Francisco. Please hurry. Welcome to Stuff you
Speaker 1: should know from How Stuff Works dot Com. Hey, and
Speaker 1: welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark, and there's Charles W.
Speaker 1: Chuck Bryant, and there's Jerry over there. So this is
Speaker 1: stuff you should know the Computer addiction episode. Yeah. So
Speaker 1: computer addiction, as it turns out, is many things. Mhm uh.
Speaker 1: And I'm gonna include smartphone addiction in this as computer addiction.
Speaker 1: Yeah for sure, because this was written before there were
Speaker 1: computers in people's pockets. But it is porn addiction. It
Speaker 1: is online porn. Yeah, um, yeah, exactly. Um. Is there
Speaker 1: any other way there's gent Well, that's like when when
Speaker 1: poor Fred Willard went to uh like a a porno
Speaker 1: theater and was caught or something, and like everybody felt
Speaker 1: so bad because everyone loves for Fred Willard and it
Speaker 1: wasn't like some big scandal. Everyone's just like, oh, poor Fred.
Speaker 1: Somebody needs to like explain to him how this has
Speaker 1: done these days, Like you don't need to leave your house.
Speaker 1: How are there even porno theaters? Least? I don't know.
Speaker 1: Is it like kitchy retro vintage kind of thing. Maybe
Speaker 1: I would go to one of those okay, just as
Speaker 1: you know, just to go look around and be like, hey,
Speaker 1: nice to meet you. I was just wanting to shake
Speaker 1: your hand. Won't be shaking hands, but I think it
Speaker 1: would be interesting. Like, you know, this is what it
Speaker 1: was like in the nineteen seventies, you know on Times Square.
Speaker 1: All right, I'm gonna find me a porno theater. I'm
Speaker 1: totally going. You know, Georgia Theater used to be one.
Speaker 1: That's how it started out in Athens. I don't think
Speaker 1: I knew that. And then God burned it down a
Speaker 1: few years back because of that, and Dave Matthews built
Speaker 1: it back up. I remember when he used to play there,
Speaker 1: like it seems like every three months. When like I
Speaker 1: was in school there before he was a big deal.
Speaker 1: I was like, who are these guys? Why is her
Speaker 1: name always up on that marquee? They said, you'll understand Sunday.
Speaker 1: I still don't. When is that day coming? Uh? Well,
Speaker 1: now it's not going to if it hasn't yet. So
Speaker 1: it is porn addiction. It is uh maybe gambling addiction,
Speaker 1: video game addiction, gaming addiction for sure, social media addiction,
Speaker 1: YouTube addiction. Yeah, and all a lot of things wrapped
Speaker 1: up under this big banner of computer addiction, right, and
Speaker 1: everything you just UM mentioned is what's called collectively computer
Speaker 1: mediated communication, right. Or there's another subgroup called Internet Addiction disorder.
Speaker 1: And we should point out right here that none of this,
Speaker 1: there's some controversy with some of this, and none of
Speaker 1: it is officially listed yet. Still, as far as I
Speaker 1: can tell, no, there was a push to get UM
Speaker 1: computer addiction of some form or another, at least Internet
Speaker 1: Addiction Disorder UM put into the d s M five,
Speaker 1: which they put together a couple of years back, the
Speaker 1: American Psychological Association UM. But they said, no, we should
Speaker 1: do a show just on that because yeah, well no
Speaker 1: the DSM period because I was looking at the year
Speaker 1: because I was curious when the next one was due,
Speaker 1: and then I looked at him throughout time, and I
Speaker 1: don't think there is unless I'm wrong. It didn't look
Speaker 1: like there was any like set like every ten years
Speaker 1: we're gonna put one out. No, I don't know what
Speaker 1: schedule it's it's on. Maybe when enough of the stuff
Speaker 1: turns out to be bunk. Yeah, They're like, I was
Speaker 1: probably write this thing. Yeah maybe so like, yeah, homosexuality
Speaker 1: isn't comparable to insanity any longer. We should probably rewrite
Speaker 1: the handbook, you know. And I wonder if they make
Speaker 1: addendums or if it's just like, Nope, it's locked the
Speaker 1: next until the next one comes out you're insane because
Speaker 1: you're gay, But then the next day it comes out
Speaker 1: it's like, oh, you're cud anyway. So they tried to
Speaker 1: get something like that in the DSM five and and
Speaker 1: it did not correct. Apparently. What I saw is that
Speaker 1: there's a basically a note in there that says, like,
Speaker 1: we understand that this is a thing that people are researching,
Speaker 1: so we're going to keep an eye on it, and
Speaker 1: it just needs more what we need to do more
Speaker 1: research on it. It's just too misunderstood or not well
Speaker 1: understood enough to morerant being included as which is how
Speaker 1: it should work. Like, because all the different studies I
Speaker 1: looked at was they're all pretty lame, to be honest.
Speaker 1: There's a ton of them though, right, Yeah, but everyone
Speaker 1: I saw was and we'll go over and was like
Speaker 1: we asked twenty people question I saw. I saw others
Speaker 1: that were legitimate. Um, And there are also apparently a
Speaker 1: lot of neurological studies as well, because there's a big
Speaker 1: controversy not just in whether, um, you could actually be
Speaker 1: addicted to computers or if it's just an impulsive of
Speaker 1: failure to control your impulses. Um. So people say, well,
Speaker 1: they're just lazy, they just want to sit around in
Speaker 1: front of a computer all day. That doesn't make them addicted.
Speaker 1: Is that what all addiction is? Though? Is it failure
Speaker 1: to control your impulse? No, I should go back and
Speaker 1: re listen. You could. And I think some people make
Speaker 1: the case that behavioral addictions, which are non substance addictions,
Speaker 1: are failures to control your impulse. Right. Other groups say, no,
Speaker 1: it's way off. These behaviors are still releasing dopamine in
Speaker 1: your brain. Um, in which case that it's following the
Speaker 1: same mechanism of addiction that heroin or cocaine creates. It's
Speaker 1: just a behavior. So there's still kind of like got
Speaker 1: a little bit of budding heads over that even which,
Speaker 1: of course, then that means that something as a morphous
Speaker 1: is Internet addiction disorder couldn't possibly be agreed upon at
Speaker 1: this point. Uh. And you can tell this article is
Speaker 1: dated too because it talks about instant messaging. So every
Speaker 1: time it said that, I just crossed it out and
Speaker 1: put texting nice. It's kind of the new I am. So.
Speaker 1: One other thing that got me too is I went
Speaker 1: and looked at the citation. It was written in two
Speaker 1: thousand seven. And what's scary though, is a lot of
Speaker 1: the stuff he's describing is taken as like totally normal
Speaker 1: and among the general population in the West. Now, yeah,
Speaker 1: you know it is. It is pretty interesting. Um, all right, Well,
Speaker 1: obviously if we're talking about the smartphones and computers, laptops, desktops,
Speaker 1: whatever your device. Um, we are talking about basically if
Speaker 1: you look down the list of of what happens if
Speaker 1: you are quote computer addicted in quote, it's basically the
Speaker 1: same as any alcohol or drug addiction. Um, do you
Speaker 1: stay on the computer front? It's longer than intended or
Speaker 1: not noticed? Notice the passage of time. You could say
Speaker 1: that with drugs. Uh. Do you make conscious efforts to
Speaker 1: cut back on computer time and repeatedly fail? That's a
Speaker 1: big one, big one. Uh. Do you think about your
Speaker 1: computer a lot when you're not using it or constantly
Speaker 1: look forward to the next opportunity use it? Drugs and alcohol?
Speaker 1: That is why I don't play video games in Yeah,
Speaker 1: in like seven whenever the Clone Wars with that episode
Speaker 1: one who knows Okay, well whatever episode, the one with
Speaker 1: jar Jar binks, probably the greatest Star Wars character ever created. Um,
Speaker 1: the that video game that came out in association with it,
Speaker 1: I found myself like thinking about how to play it
Speaker 1: better when I wasn't playing it, and I was like
Speaker 1: was this on the PlayStation? And uh, I was like
Speaker 1: this is this is no way to live. I'm not
Speaker 1: doing this anymore. So I stopped playing games altogether. Well,
Speaker 1: they definitely like I think anyone who ever played a
Speaker 1: lot of Tetris had Tetras streams or would look at
Speaker 1: the world in some ways as a Tetris grid. Um,
Speaker 1: some games really have a knack for getting into your
Speaker 1: crawl that way. Like you know, I've been playing a
Speaker 1: lot of I can't even think of the name of
Speaker 1: it now. Um, they're very immersive, you know, dude, Especially now.
Speaker 1: I mean like that that Star Wars game was was cruddy. Yeah,
Speaker 1: Like I that wasn't the first and only game I'd
Speaker 1: ever played. I'd played plenty of other games, and I
Speaker 1: could tell you that was not a good game, But
Speaker 1: I still that I think that made it even more
Speaker 1: Its strengthened my resolve even more that Like, if I
Speaker 1: was sitting there thinking about how to play this cruddy
Speaker 1: game better, Um, I should probably just stop playing games altogether. Yeah,
Speaker 1: so you haven't played any games since? Yeah, I don't
Speaker 1: play a lot. I think I've mentioned this before. I'll
Speaker 1: usually get every couple of years, I'll get one game
Speaker 1: that's the best reviewed game, and I will play that
Speaker 1: obsessively for a little while then quit. So I'm sure
Speaker 1: you have like track the progress of games these days,
Speaker 1: and now that we're starting to move into virtual reality,
Speaker 1: it's like you're we're gonna be totally lost as a species. Alright.
Speaker 1: So continuing on how it mirrors drug addiction, UM, hiding
Speaker 1: the extent of your computer used from family and friends. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's totally use a computer as an escape when feeling
Speaker 1: depressed or stressed. That one, to me is kind of like, Okay,
Speaker 1: I don't I don't see that as a sign of addiction.
Speaker 1: But this is a grabstor article, so I'll take it
Speaker 1: as gospel fact. I was a scrabstor too, all right.
Speaker 1: Um missing events or um failing at non computer tasks
Speaker 1: because you're on the computer, poor job performance, family activities.
Speaker 1: You miss that family reunion because you're playing jar jar
Speaker 1: banks charge r binks is candy crush, bonanza rodeo uh.
Speaker 1: And then it could lead to things like marital problems,
Speaker 1: um negative consequences, getting in trouble at work. The same
Speaker 1: can be said of alcohol and drugs for almost all
Speaker 1: these Bryant uh. And then sadly, there have been cases
Speaker 1: where computer addicted or gaming addicted people have either died
Speaker 1: or had their children neglected such that they either had
Speaker 1: health problems or died. And if you look it up,
Speaker 1: just look up gaming death or game binge death and
Speaker 1: they are all kinds of stories. It seems like it
Speaker 1: seems like Taiwan is one of the worst. Taiwan had
Speaker 1: two two people die within two weeks of each other
Speaker 1: from gaming binges in two thousand. Yeah. Well they had
Speaker 1: three total, and I think all three were in internet
Speaker 1: cafes even so, not even at home where they can't be,
Speaker 1: you know, disturbed, this out in public. Yeah, and apparently
Speaker 1: one guy was laying there for ten hours before they
Speaker 1: realized and another I couldn't believe this. One other um
Speaker 1: note that I saw in this article was that when
Speaker 1: the police and the paramedics came in to retrieve this
Speaker 1: dead body from the internet cafe. The other people playing
Speaker 1: didn't even stop. I think they just were basically didn't
Speaker 1: even pay attention to the fact that a dead body
Speaker 1: was being removed from the internet cafe. So there's a
Speaker 1: book called Death by Video Game and um, it's actually
Speaker 1: not new. This is this happened in the nineteen eighties.
Speaker 1: Even ever since, there have been games. People have played
Speaker 1: them until they died. And Uh, I was just curious
Speaker 1: about Taiwan. And the author basically says Taiwan in particular,
Speaker 1: um at these internet cafes, which is a cheap way
Speaker 1: to get online and stay online. Yeah, so they've got
Speaker 1: these cafes. There's a lot of smoking going on in there,
Speaker 1: a lot of caffeine drinking. Um, the humidity in the
Speaker 1: country is really tough. And basically says all of this
Speaker 1: adds up to UM and you know, of course you're
Speaker 1: not eating well, you're not exercising at all, uh, and
Speaker 1: all of this adds up to really increased likelihoods of
Speaker 1: things like blood clots and UM. Because you think, like,
Speaker 1: how do you literally die from like a nineteen hour
Speaker 1: bench of a video game? It's it's all the other
Speaker 1: things that go into how you've treated your body really
Speaker 1: neglect essentially. Yeah, I mean, a blood clot makes sense
Speaker 1: to me. I saw exhaustion. I'm like, is this the
Speaker 1: eighteen nineties. You don't die of exhaustion from sitting around.
Speaker 1: Maybe you die of the vapors, you know, blood clot?
Speaker 1: I get that makes sense, And it does too because
Speaker 1: your legs are sitting there immobilized. Um, so of course
Speaker 1: you could get a blood clot. Pulmonary thrombosis, right yeah,
Speaker 1: or pulmonary Yeah, pulmonary thrombosis not good, not good at
Speaker 1: all because it travels to your heart or your brain,
Speaker 1: and all of a sudden, your World Warcraft character is
Speaker 1: just standing there not doing anything because you're debt. Uh.
Speaker 1: I see what you're saying though about this article being
Speaker 1: written a while ago and then hearing it to today,
Speaker 1: because it says even when people do interact with friends,
Speaker 1: they may become irritable because they're away from their computer.
Speaker 1: And now people aren't away from their computer ever because
Speaker 1: of the smartphone. And it's just morphed into this thing
Speaker 1: where it's just accepted that it's okay to be having
Speaker 1: a conversation with someone while they're looking at something else right, right,
Speaker 1: And I mean the idea that you're sitting there physically
Speaker 1: with somebody and they're hanging out online with other people. Um,
Speaker 1: and that's who they're actually hanging out with, even though
Speaker 1: they're physically with you in the room. Yeah, it's weird,
Speaker 1: but that's become basically, I mean, that's accepted behavior now. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I know, it's not hard to step back one degree
Speaker 1: and say this is odd. Yeah, And I wonder what
Speaker 1: the long term, Like we're right in the infancy of
Speaker 1: this thing, Like what are things going to be like
Speaker 1: in fifty years. I was in a bar the other
Speaker 1: night getting some take out dinner for the family, take
Speaker 1: out beer, I don't know, take out food, bar, restaurant,
Speaker 1: and um, and I got this place all the time
Speaker 1: and go sit out the bar, order drink, order the food,
Speaker 1: have my one drink, and get the food to go.
Speaker 1: So I'm there for like twenty five minutes, thirty minutes maybe.
Speaker 1: And I I used to love going to sitting down
Speaker 1: in a bar and talking to strangers next to me,
Speaker 1: striking like the good bar conversation is, like it's the best.
Speaker 1: And I sat down I was between these two dudes.
Speaker 1: I looked at my left, I was staring on his phone.
Speaker 1: Looked at my right, I was staring at his phone.
Speaker 1: People beside them were staring at their phones. Nobody was
Speaker 1: talking to each other. So I ended up having a
Speaker 1: good conversation with the bartender, which was fine. How Yukowski,
Speaker 1: yesk of you. Yeah, that's true, But um, I don't know, man,
Speaker 1: it just depressed me. Yeah, no, I know what you mean.
Speaker 1: When you step back and look around and stuff like that,
Speaker 1: you can make the case that they're still connecting with
Speaker 1: whoever they're talking to, who they'd rather be talking to.
Speaker 1: I guess right, And that's actually I mean, that was
Speaker 1: one of the things that that Ed touches on in
Speaker 1: the negative effects of this is that you you start
Speaker 1: to prefer your online friends. Well, I mean, there are
Speaker 1: it's entirely possible that your online friends are better friends
Speaker 1: from the people you're surrounded with in real life, you know.
Speaker 1: So I don't know that that's necessarily a drawback, but
Speaker 1: there is definitely a case to be made in plenty
Speaker 1: of studies that suggest that we are growing ironically more
Speaker 1: socially isolated the more connected we become. Yeah, but also
Speaker 1: get the feeling that in that bar, if I would
Speaker 1: have said, hey, man, like, let's get a conversation going,
Speaker 1: of course I wouldn't do it that offer, because it
Speaker 1: would have been that's a great conversation, sir, would you
Speaker 1: like to speak with me? Hey man, let's get a conversation.
Speaker 1: But if I got a conversation going and these people
Speaker 1: put their phones away for a minute, they might be like, oh,
Speaker 1: well this, you know, I'd rather be talking to this guy.
Speaker 1: Because a lot of times, I mean, we're assuming people
Speaker 1: are interacting with friends on social media. It might be
Speaker 1: watching cat videos or reading uh news sites angry about
Speaker 1: the election, just feeding into their anger over and over
Speaker 1: and over. Um, they might be like, dude, thank you
Speaker 1: for talking to me. And because that was so much
Speaker 1: more pleasurable than like, it's sort of the de facto
Speaker 1: go to of well, I have thirty seconds to stand
Speaker 1: here and wait for the elevator, right, so let me
Speaker 1: check my social meds. The thing is, I don't necessarily
Speaker 1: agree with you. I think that the more we are
Speaker 1: drawn into our devices to communicate with others, the harder
Speaker 1: it becomes to talk to somebody who says, hey, let's
Speaker 1: get a conversation. Go no, no no, I agree. In real life,
Speaker 1: I agree with that, you know, I think they would
Speaker 1: if people did it, though they might be surprised and delighted, like, wait,
Speaker 1: I can still do this, you know, not me. I
Speaker 1: find I'm failing at it more and more these days.
Speaker 1: So it just makes me feel So we're getting way
Speaker 1: into the opinion category and where irking a few people.
Speaker 1: Let's take a break, all right, we are back with
Speaker 1: facts and figures, okay. So um. One of the other
Speaker 1: things that struck me to chuck was was that losing
Speaker 1: losing touch with the people in your physical life in
Speaker 1: favor of people online that you're friends with. You're also,
Speaker 1: in a lot of cases doing way more spectacular things
Speaker 1: with the people online than your in your real life,
Speaker 1: like going into simulated combat. You know. That's that you
Speaker 1: do interesting stuff with the people you're ine online with
Speaker 1: rather than you know, um well, especially if you lead
Speaker 1: kind of a boring life, you know, and that's all subjective,
Speaker 1: of course, but um, I don't know if your life
Speaker 1: is really boring. Everybody can um. I saw this ESPN
Speaker 1: Outside the Lines episode on this wrestler at University of Michigan,
Speaker 1: Go Wolverines. Name is Marshall Carpenter and I think he
Speaker 1: was a twin if I'm not mistaken. But he would
Speaker 1: spend eight to fourteen hours a day gaming on his
Speaker 1: computer and was done. Like he washed out of wrestling,
Speaker 1: quit Michigan and went to rehab and like had a
Speaker 1: guy come into his house every day to rehab him
Speaker 1: out of it. Uh. And there was a football player too,
Speaker 1: named Quinn pitcock Um that quit the NFL. He played
Speaker 1: one season for the Colts because he was playing Call
Speaker 1: of Duty and only wanted to play Call of Duty.
Speaker 1: It's sad, but it's it is like, how can that?
Speaker 1: How can you not call that an addiction? You know right? No,
Speaker 1: it's true. And examples like that are the ones that
Speaker 1: the people point to say, yes, there is such a
Speaker 1: thing as computer addiction, and it does have pronounced effects
Speaker 1: not just on you know, your NFL career, but if
Speaker 1: you're just an everyday schmo, it can have pronounced effects
Speaker 1: on your relationships to like for example, um, yes, you
Speaker 1: might prefer your online friends who you're playing Call of
Speaker 1: Duty with to your wife, but you are married to
Speaker 1: your wife and if you neglect or ignore her long
Speaker 1: enough in favor of your friends for call of duty, Um,
Speaker 1: she may divorce you. And there's actually there's never been
Speaker 1: from what I've seen, a study that definitively showed it,
Speaker 1: Um that yes, uh, online time equals higher divorce rates.
Speaker 1: But I found one that came pretty close, as a
Speaker 1: two thousand fourteen study that appeared in Computers in Human
Speaker 1: Behavior a journal, and it found a two point one
Speaker 1: eight percent to a four point three two percent. Those
Speaker 1: those like decimal points that you know it's legitimate, um,
Speaker 1: And that that level rise in divorce rates correlated with
Speaker 1: a annual increase in Facebook use in a given area
Speaker 1: in the US. Right, So every that Facebook increased up
Speaker 1: to four percent and change, Um, there was a four
Speaker 1: percent and change increase in the divorce rate for that
Speaker 1: area too. It's entirely possible the two had nothing to
Speaker 1: do with one another. It's also entirely possible that yeah,
Speaker 1: it totally did. Yeah. But then there are people that
Speaker 1: say that. Um. The people that say that, well, it's
Speaker 1: no different than sitting down and watching TV every night
Speaker 1: for four or five hours. Well, you can be addicted
Speaker 1: to television too, I think, um, but I think the
Speaker 1: internet is a bit more immersive than TV, especially especially
Speaker 1: because you don't interact with the TV the way you
Speaker 1: do online usually, right unless your Elvis and Bob Goolays
Speaker 1: on TV and you with your hand going, was it
Speaker 1: Bob Goulay? It used to drive him when oh Man
Speaker 1: Will Ferrell, the Bob thing was so great, remember that. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I didn't know who was on TV when Elvis shot it.
Speaker 1: And sometimes he would just be like with the TV
Speaker 1: wasn't enough. He'd shoot his toaster or the dishwasher. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I'm Robert grew because he would see Gooley everywhere. Wow. Yeah,
Speaker 1: els is on a lot of drugs. Yeah, but they
Speaker 1: were legal. God bless my grandmother, God rest her soul.
Speaker 1: She you know. They were from Memphis, and it was
Speaker 1: always like, oh, Elvis, you know, he was still Memphis's son.
Speaker 1: Like all his doctors, they had him going every which way.
Speaker 1: His doctors killed him. He was a big, big fat junkie.
Speaker 1: He loved his drugs. I don't want to like be
Speaker 1: the one to break it to you, so I never did.
Speaker 1: I just let her think that. What's funny is that
Speaker 1: horribly ironic um but also hysterically ironic thing that he
Speaker 1: hated drug dealers. Like he would get wasted on prescription
Speaker 1: drugs and get so worked up thinking about drug dealers
Speaker 1: living in his town and you want to go shoot him,
Speaker 1: and his boys would have to like restrain him and
Speaker 1: calm him down. So he didn't drug dealers sit down
Speaker 1: to put this under your tongue on biggie sit back then,
Speaker 1: Well didn't he wasn't he like an honorary d A
Speaker 1: guy from Nixon. He tried to make it. I think
Speaker 1: they know there's that famous picture of him shaking hands
Speaker 1: with Nixon. He got that that meeting arranged. Nixon didn't
Speaker 1: wanted to happen because he's like, this is a preposterous
Speaker 1: I'm not gonna make this guy d E agent. But
Speaker 1: Elvis was offering himself as a d E, a undercover agent,
Speaker 1: because he could get closer to the hippies and all that. Um,
Speaker 1: And she was like, here's your junior badge. Anything I
Speaker 1: can do, just let me know. Man. Uh, there's a
Speaker 1: movie out about that now that I want to see
Speaker 1: that Elvison Nixon meeting. Yeah, yeah, I haven't seen it yet. Um. Alright,
Speaker 1: So back to I was not expecting to Nixon to
Speaker 1: make an appearance in this that wasn't either. I did
Speaker 1: find one study. This is Dr Susan Mueller at the
Speaker 1: University of Maryland, Go Turps. She asked two hundred students
Speaker 1: to abstain from all media for twenty four hours, called
Speaker 1: it twenty four hours unplugged. Had a colon in there.
Speaker 1: Even there's like a lot of that too. There's like
Speaker 1: camps in Japan, they have fasting camps, they call him
Speaker 1: where like you're just away from anything technological or connected.
Speaker 1: See that's great. Yeah, I don't think it's great if
Speaker 1: you're one of the poor teenagers whose parents put you there.
Speaker 1: I bet at the end of the week, though, you
Speaker 1: get these great stories about how like I hated it
Speaker 1: going in, but you know, I made these new friends
Speaker 1: and and then they're probably something, are like this was
Speaker 1: the worst experience, right. Uh. But she basically just had
Speaker 1: these kids, these students describe things and what it was
Speaker 1: like wasn't super scientific, but um all of them said
Speaker 1: that they were I could not function without it. And
Speaker 1: they across the board, all two hundred, Like there wasn't
Speaker 1: a single person that said like, oh that was nice.
Speaker 1: All of them are like this was one of the
Speaker 1: worst twenty for our periods of my life lately. Uh.
Speaker 1: But then you also make the argument like this is
Speaker 1: how we communicate these days, is how we get our news.
Speaker 1: Is how we can communicate through work? Uh, Like you
Speaker 1: can't just take away everything like that and say all
Speaker 1: right now, relearn everything you know and over this twenty
Speaker 1: four hour period or keep up in modern society. Yeah,
Speaker 1: so it wasn't the most fair thing to do. It
Speaker 1: seems like drawing it out over time might have been
Speaker 1: more useful than twenty four hours or something. But and
Speaker 1: it also raises another point of contention as far as
Speaker 1: determining what constitutes computer addiction. Um, the computer is not
Speaker 1: and inherently um useless or evil thing, right, Like Egg
Speaker 1: compares it to Heroin, Like you're you could legitimately sit
Speaker 1: around and use a computer for ten hours in a
Speaker 1: day in a very useful manner. Yeah, you got a
Speaker 1: deadline for work or something. Um, you sit around and
Speaker 1: shoot Heroin for ten hours. You're not accomplishing anything. You
Speaker 1: can point to that and be like, no, that's not
Speaker 1: that's not objectively good in any way, shape or form. Right. Um,
Speaker 1: with a computer, you can be like, yeah, you could
Speaker 1: be sitting there playing candy crushed for ten hours straight,
Speaker 1: or you could be um researching new things or learning
Speaker 1: a new language, or getting work done or whatever. So
Speaker 1: it's not like you can point to yes, if someone
Speaker 1: sits down at a computer for ten straight hours, their
Speaker 1: computer addicts. But the whole it muddies the whole thing,
Speaker 1: the usefulness of the computer and the ubiquity and necessity
Speaker 1: of using a computer for long stretches muddies the whole
Speaker 1: definition of what constitutes computer addiction. Well. Yeah, and while
Speaker 1: they have determined and actually shown in the brain scans
Speaker 1: that it actually lights up areas similar to drug addiction
Speaker 1: and reward centers, it doesn't render those uh, brain centers useless.
Speaker 1: Like when you do the heroine the heroine, which is
Speaker 1: kind of, you know, another way of saying what you
Speaker 1: were saying, when you ride the horse. That's that what
Speaker 1: they call it. I think that's what they call it.
Speaker 1: In the seventies, I was chasing the dragon or is
Speaker 1: that something? Okay, there's this great MST three K episode
Speaker 1: and early one with Joel and they were like injecting
Speaker 1: a monkey with something and one of them, I don't
Speaker 1: remember who said it. They go, yes, they're a little
Speaker 1: horse for a little monkey. Alright, U should we take
Speaker 1: another break? All right, we'll come back and we'll talk
Speaker 1: specifically about um, social media addiction right after this. Al right,
Speaker 1: social meds, as Hodgeman calls it, well, he ended up
Speaker 1: calling it so means by the it is a new,
Speaker 1: brand new world with social media. And I think a
Speaker 1: lot of the online addiction now is centered around studying
Speaker 1: things like Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, snapchat. A prediction. I guess
Speaker 1: it's probably a better way to put it. Yeah, it's
Speaker 1: a good point. So they've been studying for a little while.
Speaker 1: In two thousand twelve, Uh, some researchers from University of
Speaker 1: Bergen did a study where they looked at Facebook dependency
Speaker 1: and they said that the very nature of the site
Speaker 1: is problematic and that, uh they found that the brain,
Speaker 1: the parts of the brain associated with preservation of the
Speaker 1: social reputation are what's at play there. And um, basically
Speaker 1: and this stuff that you sent me and I found
Speaker 1: other stuff too, the very way that those sites are
Speaker 1: structured are to get you addicted to them. Yeah. Yeah,
Speaker 1: so there's this whole thing. Um, there's basically it's called
Speaker 1: behavioral design. There's a guy named b. J. Fogg who's
Speaker 1: a experimental psychologist slash computer scientist and he runs a
Speaker 1: uh what's called the Persuasive Technology Lab at Stanford. And
Speaker 1: this guy is like a guru god out there, UM
Speaker 1: who basically has taken this concept that yes, you can
Speaker 1: have a great idea, Yes you can have a killer app.
Speaker 1: Yes you can, UM have wonderful technology, but it doesn't
Speaker 1: amount to anything unless you get somebody to use it
Speaker 1: and to use it a lot, to make a habit
Speaker 1: out of using it. And there's this Basically there's a
Speaker 1: push right now to make technology purposefully as addictive as possible,
Speaker 1: literally addictive. And we're at a point right now with
Speaker 1: the way the apps are designed where cigarettes were back
Speaker 1: in like the seventies when they started adding things like
Speaker 1: ammonia and sugar to increase the amount of effect that
Speaker 1: nicotine had on the brain to make them more addictive.
Speaker 1: That's the point we're at with the apps that are
Speaker 1: being created, and it's all based on how they're designed. Yeah.
Speaker 1: This UM. This one researcher called n. I. R. Near
Speaker 1: ell e Y a L great name. UM wrote a
Speaker 1: book called Hooked Colon How to Build Habit Forming Products.
Speaker 1: UM basically said it starts with this trigger, and the hook,
Speaker 1: which is in the case of social media and Facebook,
Speaker 1: is lonely, loneliness, boredom or stress. Okay, so that's the
Speaker 1: hook that they get you with a board the standing
Speaker 1: there at the elevator for a minute. Hey, it's so sad,
Speaker 1: but it's actually your Facebook feed. Are you standing the
Speaker 1: line in the grocery store. Don't talk to the nice
Speaker 1: lady next to you. Ignore that little kid making cute faces.
Speaker 1: She didn't want to talk to you anyway. So you're
Speaker 1: bored and that's how they get you going. That's how
Speaker 1: they get you cooked, to begin with that initial little trigger,
Speaker 1: but then it goes from there. So so I think
Speaker 1: that I think boredom would constitute a motivation that will
Speaker 1: motivate you. Right. The trigger is something like, um, if
Speaker 1: you open up Facebook and there's the news feed and
Speaker 1: there's like all these different stories or your friends like something,
Speaker 1: and so you are activated too. You're motivated by boredom
Speaker 1: to go seek out the news feed. The news feed
Speaker 1: itself are are triggers that you click and then all
Speaker 1: of a sudden you are immersed in your Facebook app. Yes,
Speaker 1: and fogs actually come up with this kind of shorthand
Speaker 1: formula for it. It's um B equals M A T
Speaker 1: so behavior the behavior that you're after, which is interacting
Speaker 1: with Facebook, is what Facebook wants you to do. UM
Speaker 1: it's where motivation, So you're motivated by boredom. Ability, it's
Speaker 1: very easy to open up the app on your phone.
Speaker 1: You're able to low hanging fruit is what we call it.
Speaker 1: UM and a trigger all come together. So the triggers,
Speaker 1: say is the news feed. The ability is just opening
Speaker 1: up the Facebook app, and then the motivation is boredom.
Speaker 1: But there are plenty of other motivations. There's plenty of
Speaker 1: other abilities, there's plenty of other triggers. And what they
Speaker 1: found out is that the key seems to be ability,
Speaker 1: where if you make it as easy as possible for
Speaker 1: a person to do something, they're likely to do it,
Speaker 1: and once they do it, you can start getting them
Speaker 1: to do it over and over, so a behavior becomes
Speaker 1: a habit. Yeah, that's the key, that's the point. That's
Speaker 1: what they're after, and that's how they're designing apps these
Speaker 1: days to make habitual. Yeah. Well, the Facebook in particular,
Speaker 1: like it's no accident that the UM what's it called
Speaker 1: not the alert but the notification is in red. Um.
Speaker 1: That's a color that they found draws like a more
Speaker 1: immediate reaction in response. That's what stop sign is red um.
Speaker 1: That's why I read like is read. That's why the
Speaker 1: Facebook alerts are read, so I'm read when I'm mad. Uh.
Speaker 1: This other guy, UM, what's his first name something Harris. Uh.
Speaker 1: This is sort of the depressing part. He says. You
Speaker 1: might say to yourself, it's my responsibility to exert self
Speaker 1: control when it comes to things like getting on Facebook. Uh,
Speaker 1: he said, But that's not acknowledging the fact that there
Speaker 1: are a thousand people on the other side of that
Speaker 1: screen whose job it is to break down whatever responsibility
Speaker 1: you can maintain. Yeah, which is I mean, that's just
Speaker 1: dead on. And this guy knows his name is Tristan Harris.
Speaker 1: He actually spent time under studying under B. J. Fogg,
Speaker 1: and he's kind of gone the opposite way. Um, he's saying, Hey,
Speaker 1: we actually, um are doing something kind of nefarious here.
Speaker 1: We should really kind of cool it with the behavioral stuff.
Speaker 1: So he's kind of launched a push for people to
Speaker 1: rely on technology less or to resist interesting the use
Speaker 1: of technology in their lives. So basically there's I mean,
Speaker 1: some of it comes up in this article by ed
Speaker 1: to UM, like doing things like setting alarms and when
Speaker 1: the alarm goes off, your computers off, you just turn
Speaker 1: it off UM, or just allotting certain parts of the
Speaker 1: day to UM using your computer, your phone. But I
Speaker 1: mean it may have worked in two thousand seven, it's
Speaker 1: just getting harder and harder today. Like we were saying before,
Speaker 1: have you ever been on LinkedIn? Yeah, I've got like
Speaker 1: a time. It's totally neglected, like all LinkedIn accounts. I
Speaker 1: know some people are super into it. I think I
Speaker 1: get by the way. People I'm not on LinkedIn, never
Speaker 1: have been nothing against it, don't even fully understand what
Speaker 1: it is. But I don't need any more LinkedIn invites
Speaker 1: because I'm not on it. I get them all the time.
Speaker 1: But when LinkedIn launched UM, apparently they had a hub
Speaker 1: and spoke icon to represent visually what your network was,
Speaker 1: how big it was, and they said that that was
Speaker 1: a very intentional thing. When you look at it, that
Speaker 1: trigger just say like, well look at my wheel. It's lame.
Speaker 1: I can't have people see him a wheel like that. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I connect, connect connect to people. Yeah, like fog says.
Speaker 1: He's like, yeah, people couldn't think have people thinking they
Speaker 1: were losers. Yeah, so yeah, they started using the site
Speaker 1: like crazy. Well I'm surprised, I mean, Facebook says how
Speaker 1: many friends you have. I'm kind of surprised that's not
Speaker 1: featured a little more prominently, like you know, and or
Speaker 1: even represented in terms of popularity. I'm quite sure that
Speaker 1: they studied that extensively and found that it actually like
Speaker 1: a reduction in Facebook. So they they guarantee that that
Speaker 1: wasn't Yeah, that wasn't something they overlooked. Yeah, because it
Speaker 1: seems obvious that they would be like you would click
Speaker 1: on someone's profile and it would be like this is
Speaker 1: so and so they're super popular and he says he's
Speaker 1: a hero, You're a zero. Uh and then sadly, I'm
Speaker 1: not on Snapchat at all. But m dude, the US
Speaker 1: Snapchat is one of the most difficult things you could
Speaker 1: ever try to do. Well, they said in here. They
Speaker 1: said that Facebook's um behavioral design makes like it's cute
Speaker 1: compared to what Snapchat is doing. Yeah, like Facebook, if
Speaker 1: you send someone um a note, right, you get some
Speaker 1: sort of alert when they read your note. Yeah, well,
Speaker 1: not an alert, but you can see like a little
Speaker 1: check mark like so and so rick as at this time.
Speaker 1: So that sets it up for a social obligation for
Speaker 1: the person who received the note to respond because they
Speaker 1: know that you know that they've read it now, yeah,
Speaker 1: or you see it as they've you know, like they
Speaker 1: saw this thing three days ago. That's responded. That motivates
Speaker 1: the behavior. Yes, that's that's built in design. Snapchat has
Speaker 1: a feature that displays how many days in a row
Speaker 1: two people have snapped each other and then actually does
Speaker 1: reward you with like emojis and things. Right, people love gamification. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's basically what it is. Right. Yeah. So they said
Speaker 1: what Facebook doing is just like kids play compared to
Speaker 1: what they're trying to do. It's app chat and other
Speaker 1: apps in the future. Right this uh, this, it's I
Speaker 1: think an Atlantic article that that that pulls from. Um.
Speaker 1: They were saying that there's reports of people who are
Speaker 1: on the snapchat streaks of like X number of consecutive days.
Speaker 1: They don't want to break their streak, so if they
Speaker 1: know they're going to be away from their device or whatever,
Speaker 1: they'll give their password and log into a friend to
Speaker 1: have them snapchat the other friends, so that the streak
Speaker 1: will be unbroken, which I mean if you step back,
Speaker 1: and there's plenty of people who are like, so, who cares,
Speaker 1: It's fine, this is the way the world is now.
Speaker 1: Some some teenagers are snapchatting each other because so that
Speaker 1: they can get emojis? Is that really that wrong? And
Speaker 1: that's the legitimate response, and that is I mean, and
Speaker 1: that is At the same time, though, I really feel
Speaker 1: like there's um, there's a lot of shirking of responsibility
Speaker 1: for taking the human species in a certain direction without
Speaker 1: the human species being largely aware of it. We'll see.
Speaker 1: That's where that's exactly crystallizes my problem with it. It's
Speaker 1: not that sure, that is sort of the world now
Speaker 1: and that's what people do, but it's the fact that
Speaker 1: we're being manipulated into doing so behind the scenes when
Speaker 1: they have those meetings and they're like, hey, what if
Speaker 1: the Facebook feed? What if they auto played these videos?
Speaker 1: So before you know it, you're watching a video that
Speaker 1: you didn't even want to watch, and then you're watching
Speaker 1: another one, like so let's put in the AutoPlay feature. Uh,
Speaker 1: And they call it hair is called it the bottomless bowl,
Speaker 1: that infinite stream that you get sucked into because they
Speaker 1: found there was a study where people eat sev more
Speaker 1: soup out of a self refilling bowl, a regular bowl
Speaker 1: without even realizing they've eaten more. I want to see
Speaker 1: that bowl. They just can't too. You just keep eating
Speaker 1: the soup. And that's essentially what they're doing on Facebook
Speaker 1: and your other social media. Social media feeds is um
Speaker 1: is you get sucked in before you know it, and
Speaker 1: then a half hour has gone by, like you rationalize yourself, like,
Speaker 1: you know, I can just go check um I sent
Speaker 1: her for in request or a message. Just it'll take
Speaker 1: two seconds. Let me just check and see if they responded.
Speaker 1: Twenty five minutes later, they found is twenty five minutes
Speaker 1: is the average time that you it takes you to
Speaker 1: get back to what you were doing because you get
Speaker 1: distracted because of that feed. You know, I've never been
Speaker 1: more aware of how often I checked Twitter than I
Speaker 1: was when I was checking Twitter while I was researching
Speaker 1: this article. Just nothing to do with thing, anything. Randomly,
Speaker 1: I'd just go open up Twitter and look nothing, no change,
Speaker 1: nothing worth seeing. It's it is bizarre the habits you
Speaker 1: can form from it. So what do you do? Chuck
Speaker 1: if you want out besides having to completely faster unplug
Speaker 1: or whatever. Well, like you were talking about the if
Speaker 1: you are if you I should say, if you are
Speaker 1: a bona fide computer addict. Oh, I mean you can
Speaker 1: go through a legit twelve step program like you go
Speaker 1: through rehab. There are people out there doing that. So
Speaker 1: if you feel like you need that, or you're someone
Speaker 1: in your family needs that, like have an intervention like
Speaker 1: these cases are I was talking about. Like this wrestler,
Speaker 1: you're gaming fourteen hours a day. Your life is suffering
Speaker 1: in some ways, in many ways, like there's just no
Speaker 1: way getting around it. No, there's not. Because again, like
Speaker 1: you're not getting exercise, you're not eating right, you're creating
Speaker 1: um uh, blood clots in your legs, you're you're not
Speaker 1: hanging out with the people who are you're physically around with.
Speaker 1: Of course there's problems. Um you could also Uh, this
Speaker 1: one was good. I thought you can put the computer
Speaker 1: in the high traffic area of the house, That is
Speaker 1: a good one. Instead of being up there in your
Speaker 1: bedroom in the closet looking like a guy from reefer madness. Yeah,
Speaker 1: sit out in the open where someone might distract you
Speaker 1: into a human interaction, right, or being will to keep
Speaker 1: tabs on, Like, Uh, you've been at the computer for
Speaker 1: six hours, now, what's your problem. Yeah, I'm working, Okay,
Speaker 1: we'll keep going. Yeah, And I mean I find that
Speaker 1: our lives are and I'm sure you're the same way.
Speaker 1: They're busy enough to wear I mean I don't have
Speaker 1: time to do that. What six hours at the at
Speaker 1: the six and eight hours of of funning. Oh yeah,
Speaker 1: when we do our research and our work online. But
Speaker 1: like I can't play Fallout for eight hours. You know,
Speaker 1: I have responsibilities. But the fewer responsibilities you have, I guess,
Speaker 1: the more prone you are. I think there was Yeah,
Speaker 1: if you're born with a silver spoon in your mouth,
Speaker 1: your toast when it comes to gaming. Yeah, that's true. Um.
Speaker 1: It says here that study people who are more anxious
Speaker 1: and socially insecure appreciate the easy ways to communicate via
Speaker 1: the social meds. But on the other hand, people who
Speaker 1: are more organized and ambitious were at a decreased risk
Speaker 1: of tech related addiction. Uh. And we just use it,
Speaker 1: you know, use it for the things they need it for.
Speaker 1: I'd say that characterizes me. Yeah, it's the tool aside
Speaker 1: from checking Twitter. What else? Man you got anything else?
Speaker 1: I got one more thing. I just saw this good
Speaker 1: um artic. Well, it was an article as a research
Speaker 1: paper Internet Addiction colon, A brief summary of research and
Speaker 1: practice from Hillary Cash Lazette, Ray and Stealing Alexander Winkler. Um.
Speaker 1: And I just read the summation. But it's interesting they said,
Speaker 1: from our practical perspective, the different types of I a D.
Speaker 1: That's the Internet addiction disorder. Uh, they fit into one
Speaker 1: category due to various uh, internet specific commonalities. So you
Speaker 1: talk about porn addiction or gaming and addiction, or any
Speaker 1: of these various addictions except probably social media in some
Speaker 1: ways because anonymity and riskless interaction or two of them. Uh.
Speaker 1: And then commonalities and the underlying behavior which is avoidant
Speaker 1: sphere pleasure and entertainment. And then the overlapping systems I'm sorry,
Speaker 1: symptoms increased amount of time spent online and preoccupation and
Speaker 1: other signs of addiction. But in the end they say,
Speaker 1: you know, more research, more research, more research, that's what
Speaker 1: we need, which I mean, of course, it's coming like
Speaker 1: this is probably the premier addiction of the twenty one century.
Speaker 1: The thing is, we seem to be looking at it
Speaker 1: is less and less of an addiction and more and
Speaker 1: more of normal life. So I don't know, maybe there
Speaker 1: will be less study of it. I'm just gonna encourage
Speaker 1: people to you don't have to go out and and
Speaker 1: give up everything, but just try to spend a little
Speaker 1: more time talking to people. Yeah, it's just go to
Speaker 1: somebody and say, hey, make conversation with me just a
Speaker 1: little bit here and there, just and that always. Or
Speaker 1: let's get a conversation going pet pepper and into your
Speaker 1: life here and there and see if it does not
Speaker 1: provide reward. Yeah. Another good one that I've found at
Speaker 1: least makes you COGNI is in of it is when
Speaker 1: you are standing there waiting for that elevator or whatever
Speaker 1: and you go to grab your phone, just think and
Speaker 1: stop yourself at least do it to just poke yourself
Speaker 1: for fun. Think of it as a gun. Yeah, and
Speaker 1: you're gonna get tackled for waving it around in public.
Speaker 1: I've tried to do some of this lately to where
Speaker 1: I do just start talking to people and it freaks
Speaker 1: people out a little bit these days, Yeah, whereas it
Speaker 1: definitely I don't remember it freaking people out like when
Speaker 1: I was in college. Yeah, I think you're right. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's definitely changed. And it's like, white, what do you want?
Speaker 1: What are you talking to me? If you want to
Speaker 1: talk to somebody who wasn't around, you had to go
Speaker 1: to a pay phone back in your day. They still
Speaker 1: have those. I see him from time to time. Their
Speaker 1: neat It's like being in a living museum. Uh well,
Speaker 1: I don't think either one of us have anything else. Instead,
Speaker 1: we're going to suggest that you go on the house
Speaker 1: stuff works dot com. Type in a search bar computer
Speaker 1: addiction if you want to know more about this. Um,
Speaker 1: there's plenty of others if you can look up to. Uh.
Speaker 1: And since I said search bar in there somewhere, it's
Speaker 1: time for a listener mail. Uh yeah, And hey, sorry
Speaker 1: if it was a little soap boxy on that one.
Speaker 1: I didn't want to get to soap boxy. But I
Speaker 1: kind of miss folks talking to folks. You know, we'll
Speaker 1: talk to you. He just tapped me on the shoulder.
Speaker 1: All right, I'm gonna call this uh syntax um beef.
Speaker 1: Hey guys, small issue I had with the syntax episode
Speaker 1: and discussing the colonial American reaction to levies like the
Speaker 1: sugar tax, you dismissed the purpose of the taxes making
Speaker 1: the king richer. It is a common misconception that the
Speaker 1: taxes were imposed on the colonies arbitrarily, and this was
Speaker 1: certainly the patriot narrative used to support independence go Pats,
Speaker 1: but in fact, the taxes were levied to cover the
Speaker 1: cost of the devastating French and Indian War, which the
Speaker 1: colony survived only due to the British army's resistance. Revisionist
Speaker 1: history nowadays tends to focus on the without representation part
Speaker 1: of the no tax should request, as well as the
Speaker 1: effects of other laws such as forbidding settlement in the
Speaker 1: Appalachian regions and restriction of trade, rather than taxes alone.
Speaker 1: But I want to clear it up because portraying King
Speaker 1: George five is greedy ignores legitimate political motives on the
Speaker 1: part of the British Empire, dropping ignored in the revolutionary narrative.
Speaker 1: Did this be email come from the UK? No? Oklahoma? Okay, okay,
Speaker 1: right so close. I love the show. Keep up a
Speaker 1: good work, guy, Sincerely, Thomas from Oklahoma. Thanks a lot, Thomas,
Speaker 1: thanks for setting us straight. Um. Yeah, I think we
Speaker 1: kind of just did the Nickel sketch of the King.
Speaker 1: I think it's pretty easy to fall into that trap. Sure,
Speaker 1: that's what they teach us in school exactly. You want
Speaker 1: to get pushed drawn by the King England. No, I
Speaker 1: saw Schoolhouse Rock. That was a jerk Schoolhouse Rock with
Speaker 1: Jack Black. No, that was school Love Rock. Oh, that's right.
Speaker 1: If you want to get in touch with me or Chuck,
Speaker 1: you can hang out with me on Twitter at John
Speaker 1: Show Them Clark. You can also look us up at
Speaker 1: s Y s K podcast. You can hang out with
Speaker 1: Chuck on Facebook at Charles W. Chuck Bryant, or Facebook
Speaker 1: dot com slash Stuff you Should Know. You can send
Speaker 1: us an email to stuff Podcasts at how stuff Works
Speaker 1: dot com and has always hang out with us at
Speaker 1: her home on the web. Stuff you Should Know dot
Speaker 1: com for more on this and thousands of other topics.
Speaker 1: Is it how stuff Works dot com