WEBVTT - This one is for the scatterbrains with Johann Hari 0:00:00.880 --> 0:00:05.280 Life Uncut podcast acknowledges the traditional custodians of country throughout 0:00:05.320 --> 0:00:09.080 Australia and their connections to land, sea and community. We 0:00:09.160 --> 0:00:11.920 pay our respect to their elders past and present and 0:00:12.039 --> 0:00:15.280 extend that respect to all Aboriginal and Torres Strait Island 0:00:15.360 --> 0:00:16.120 peoples today. 0:00:16.320 --> 0:00:19.560 This episode is recorded on Gadigal Land of the Aurora Nation. 0:00:39.080 --> 0:00:41.600 Hi guys, and i'll welcome back to another episode of 0:00:41.800 --> 0:00:44.839 Life Uncut. I'm Laura and I'm produce a Keisha and 0:00:44.960 --> 0:00:49.440 I'm filling in once again for Brittany Hockley, who is 0:00:49.520 --> 0:00:55.360 still not back yet, but she's coming, hopefully metaphorically and 0:00:55.400 --> 0:00:58.240 physically coming. Who knows where she is or what she's doing. 0:00:58.320 --> 0:01:00.280 I hope wherever she is she is coming. I'm not 0:01:00.320 --> 0:01:02.920 sure if she is on not either, Laura. 0:01:03.040 --> 0:01:06.199 Before we get into today's episode, there is something it's 0:01:06.400 --> 0:01:07.120 hot on my tongue. 0:01:07.280 --> 0:01:09.480 I've been thinking about it the entire weekend. 0:01:10.600 --> 0:01:14.280 See the news about Nick Cannon having his tenth child. 0:01:14.440 --> 0:01:18.080 I don't even know who Nick Cannon is alone? Do 0:01:18.160 --> 0:01:21.160 you really? Do you remember? And Mariah Carey's first husband, 0:01:21.160 --> 0:01:22.200 They've got twins together. 0:01:22.280 --> 0:01:25.039 He had the humongous Mariah tattoo across his back. 0:01:25.400 --> 0:01:29.000 Okay, I wish I was better informed. And now I 0:01:29.040 --> 0:01:32.160 feel like I've come to the podcast really poorly researched 0:01:32.160 --> 0:01:34.480 because you've thrown this spanner at me. I am going 0:01:34.480 --> 0:01:36.880 to do a live Google and I would encourage anybody 0:01:36.880 --> 0:01:39.120 else who feels equally as old as I do and 0:01:39.160 --> 0:01:41.360 has no idea who he's's talking about to do the same. 0:01:41.400 --> 0:01:43.560 I feel like Nick Kenned and I don't min this offensively. 0:01:43.600 --> 0:01:46.959 I feel like he's more in your age is in mind? 0:01:47.240 --> 0:01:47.960 He's forty one. 0:01:48.040 --> 0:01:53.240 He's like a comedian actor like TV host. Yes I know, yes, yes, Okay, 0:01:53.240 --> 0:01:54.760 now that I've seen a photo of him, very bad 0:01:54.800 --> 0:01:57.560 with names, very good with faces, I know exactly who 0:01:57.560 --> 0:01:57.760 he is. 0:01:57.800 --> 0:01:59.360 Okay, Well, I put up a picture of him and 0:01:59.400 --> 0:02:01.639 also the Mariah tattoo on our Instagram stories. 0:02:01.680 --> 0:02:03.600 If you know who I'm talking about, does he still 0:02:03.640 --> 0:02:06.120 have Mariah? That's that's always my question is like when 0:02:06.120 --> 0:02:08.760 you get a tattoo of like, for example, Kim Kardashian 0:02:08.800 --> 0:02:11.240 and Pete Davison, like is he going to keep? I mean, 0:02:11.440 --> 0:02:13.200 you don't know the answer to this. I actually did 0:02:13.240 --> 0:02:13.720 hear about this. 0:02:13.800 --> 0:02:17.040 He got them branded which is like the burn and 0:02:17.080 --> 0:02:22.639 you can't get that. Okay, back to Nick anyway, Nick Cannon. 0:02:22.720 --> 0:02:27.519 Another wild story is that personally, I believe that reproductive 0:02:27.520 --> 0:02:30.240 scientists across the world need to study this men's sperm 0:02:30.320 --> 0:02:33.280 because I don't know what kind of superpowers they've got. 0:02:33.639 --> 0:02:36.040 But he has announced that he is about to have 0:02:36.160 --> 0:02:39.640 another baby to a woman that he already has two 0:02:39.760 --> 0:02:45.000 children to. Now you'd hear that, normally, you'd be like, yeah, cool, congratulations. 0:02:44.400 --> 0:02:47.720 And he's where it gets a little spicier. Wait, so 0:02:47.760 --> 0:02:50.600 he has this will be his tenth child. Mm hmm okay, 0:02:50.639 --> 0:02:54.160 ten ten children? Ten how many different mums? Not that 0:02:54.200 --> 0:02:56.080 it's not that it's actually important, but it's good to 0:02:56.120 --> 0:02:56.880 note context. 0:02:57.000 --> 0:02:59.160 I'll read through the names of them and their ages. 0:02:59.200 --> 0:03:02.560 So eleven year old Wins Moroccan and Monroe with Mariah Carey. 0:03:02.760 --> 0:03:06.280 Then there's five year old Golden Sagan, nineteen month old 0:03:06.600 --> 0:03:10.679 powerful Queen, and another on the way with Britney Bell. 0:03:10.960 --> 0:03:13.200 How would you know, Like, how does one look at 0:03:13.200 --> 0:03:15.959 a newborn baby with a floppy neck and think that 0:03:16.440 --> 0:03:17.280 is a powerful queen? 0:03:17.360 --> 0:03:20.800 You just know, you just know he has a newborn 0:03:20.919 --> 0:03:26.480 son named And I'm just journalistically reporting this legendary love 0:03:27.680 --> 0:03:29.760 with model pre Tacy. 0:03:30.440 --> 0:03:32.959 What is his nickname, because that's a very long name 0:03:33.000 --> 0:03:35.000 to go into any sort of situation with Hello, my 0:03:35.080 --> 0:03:37.200 name is legendary love. Sounds like a good name for 0:03:37.240 --> 0:03:40.120 a song. Do you think he just calls himself lege. 0:03:40.320 --> 0:03:44.800 Or maybe double L like els little L. 0:03:45.040 --> 0:03:47.080 It does come from a rapper of a dad. 0:03:47.800 --> 0:03:50.680 Where it does get slightly more spicy is that he's 0:03:50.720 --> 0:03:52.680 also got thirteen month old twins. He must have the 0:03:52.680 --> 0:03:55.040 twin Jeane, because he's got a couple of them, Zion 0:03:55.160 --> 0:04:00.720 and Zillion with Abby Della Rosa, who is also expecting 0:04:00.760 --> 0:04:03.840 another one of his children. So doing the math, there 0:04:03.920 --> 0:04:08.200 is a child Jew in somewhere like September October, and 0:04:08.240 --> 0:04:13.200 then there's another one Jew October November ish. 0:04:13.440 --> 0:04:16.880 Wait, so twins, and then another one with completely different partners. 0:04:16.960 --> 0:04:19.880 So he has twins to one of them who is 0:04:19.960 --> 0:04:23.800 also pregnant again, so she's having the third of his children. 0:04:24.279 --> 0:04:27.279 And then there is another woman who has two kids 0:04:27.320 --> 0:04:31.480 to him, not twins, who is also pregnant right now. 0:04:31.880 --> 0:04:34.800 See this to me? At first I was like, ooh, spicy, 0:04:34.880 --> 0:04:37.320 but no, I reckon, they're just in a polyamorous relationship 0:04:37.360 --> 0:04:40.560 like this all sounds consensual because surely they would all 0:04:40.600 --> 0:04:43.359 know about each other. There's so many other children and 0:04:43.400 --> 0:04:46.080 siblings and half siblings going on. You kind of know 0:04:46.120 --> 0:04:47.800 that the other person exists already, don't you. 0:04:48.040 --> 0:04:50.239 I mean you'd think, but I mean look at Closes 0:04:50.320 --> 0:04:53.520 Rastashian and Tristan Thompson, Like sometimes it's right under your 0:04:53.560 --> 0:04:55.120 nose and you just can't smell it. 0:04:55.520 --> 0:04:56.080 I'm not sure. 0:04:56.120 --> 0:04:58.240 I don't know if they're building some type of commune, 0:04:58.440 --> 0:05:01.520 but at this point, I'm convinced, like this man must 0:05:01.520 --> 0:05:03.400 not even need to have sex to get people pregnant. 0:05:03.480 --> 0:05:05.200 Oh, I'm pretty sure he's still having a lot of sex. 0:05:05.240 --> 0:05:08.800 So there's so many children. There's so many children, so 0:05:08.839 --> 0:05:11.599 many people getting pregnant. At the same time, he was 0:05:11.640 --> 0:05:15.480 reported saying that because this was last like December ish, 0:05:15.640 --> 0:05:18.080 that these two women both got pregnant, and he just 0:05:18.120 --> 0:05:19.440 said he was having a lot of fun. 0:05:22.279 --> 0:05:27.200 And that's what you've come to learn on this this episode. 0:05:27.760 --> 0:05:30.000 My favorite part of the entire story was that he 0:05:30.279 --> 0:05:32.440 did a pregnancy photo shoot, which you can imagine he'd 0:05:32.440 --> 0:05:33.000 be pretty good. 0:05:32.880 --> 0:05:33.679 At by this point. 0:05:33.800 --> 0:05:38.479 Right the comments underneath My favorite comment read. 0:05:38.600 --> 0:05:43.240 Just DJ Karlid. I don't get it in all of 0:05:43.240 --> 0:05:52.000 these songs, he's like DJ CARLEYD. Not the one it's 0:05:52.080 --> 0:05:57.520 like brilliant. Like I find it so hard to laugh 0:05:57.560 --> 0:06:00.360 at any stories that center around kids, because as much 0:06:00.360 --> 0:06:02.560 as I think it's funny to laugh at him and 0:06:02.920 --> 0:06:05.000 not at him even you know, if it's all consensual 0:06:05.000 --> 0:06:08.000 and they're living their lives in whatever structure they feel 0:06:08.480 --> 0:06:10.680 makes it works for them, it's one thing for us 0:06:10.720 --> 0:06:12.800 to sit here and like look in and have a laugh. 0:06:12.839 --> 0:06:14.800 But then I think there's kids at the bottom of 0:06:14.839 --> 0:06:17.119 the ears, and these kids, maybe they have atrocious names, 0:06:17.120 --> 0:06:19.440 but they didn't ask for that. I didn't ask for mine. 0:06:20.720 --> 0:06:24.440 We just get given it. The spelling of them keisha 0:06:24.560 --> 0:06:28.200 peas stupid Keshia, and there's no legendary love is probably 0:06:28.200 --> 0:06:30.320 going to be thinking the exact same thing when he 0:06:30.360 --> 0:06:30.880 grows up. 0:06:31.120 --> 0:06:33.560 Ten kids laws, that's a lot of babies, that's a 0:06:33.560 --> 0:06:36.440 lot of remembering of birthdays. But one thing that is 0:06:36.640 --> 0:06:39.120 quite sweet is that he was quoted saying, I'm so 0:06:39.240 --> 0:06:43.040 excited about all of my kids constantly, from every aspect 0:06:43.080 --> 0:06:45.200 of it, from them getting Citizen of the Month awards 0:06:45.200 --> 0:06:47.520 in the first grade to the birth of the new ones. 0:06:47.560 --> 0:06:50.400 Every day I just wake up excited as a father. 0:06:50.839 --> 0:06:53.120 That's amazing. There are people, there are men out there 0:06:53.160 --> 0:06:55.440 who have one child who are terrible dads, let alone 0:06:55.480 --> 0:06:58.240 someone who's got ten kids, and to be an active 0:06:58.440 --> 0:07:01.200 participant in active dad in all of their lives is 0:07:01.240 --> 0:07:04.320 pretty phenomenal. It seems like a full time job. Frank. 0:07:04.360 --> 0:07:06.440 And that's what one other person on Instagram wrote. 0:07:06.480 --> 0:07:09.440 They said, dude, any there's only twenty four hours in 0:07:09.480 --> 0:07:12.360 a day, Like how I mean, he's having more sex 0:07:12.400 --> 0:07:13.160 than any of us. 0:07:13.240 --> 0:07:15.400 Put it that way. I mean, to be fair, I 0:07:15.440 --> 0:07:17.320 haven't really seen anything that Nick Cannon has done in 0:07:17.320 --> 0:07:21.840 the last little bit. Has he done anything with everyone 0:07:22.480 --> 0:07:24.840 and taking care of children and getting no sleep? Okay, well, 0:07:25.240 --> 0:07:27.200 let's move on from Nick Cannon because I'm sure that 0:07:27.240 --> 0:07:29.440 there are still people who are confused as to who 0:07:29.520 --> 0:07:32.679 he even is. Let us tell you what today's episode 0:07:32.760 --> 0:07:36.880 is about. For anybody who is slightly confused. Today's episode, 0:07:36.920 --> 0:07:41.000 we're talking to Yohani. Reproductive Sciences is On today's episode, 0:07:41.120 --> 0:07:44.320 we're studying the strength of these swimmers. We're talking about contraception. 0:07:45.600 --> 0:07:48.320 Sit take a seat. No, we are talking to Yohann 0:07:48.360 --> 0:07:52.840 Hari about something they think literally every single person struggles 0:07:52.880 --> 0:07:56.440 with at the moment, and that is keeping and maintaining attention. 0:07:56.600 --> 0:07:58.840 And why is it that we all feel so scattered 0:07:58.880 --> 0:08:01.400 and find it so hard to actually focus on any 0:08:01.440 --> 0:08:03.800 one thing at anyone time. And I know that we've 0:08:03.840 --> 0:08:05.720 spoken a lot on the podcast over the last couple 0:08:05.720 --> 0:08:09.280 of years about burnout and overwhelm and social media and 0:08:09.320 --> 0:08:12.360 all of these contributing factors. But Johann Hari is an 0:08:12.400 --> 0:08:15.600 expert in attention as a subject. He's written a book 0:08:15.600 --> 0:08:18.800 on it called Stolen Focus. And the thing I love 0:08:18.960 --> 0:08:21.240 so much about this conversation is that I think a 0:08:21.240 --> 0:08:23.000 lot of us feel guilty for the fact that we 0:08:23.040 --> 0:08:26.640 are so scabby, or we're so overwhelmed, or we're so 0:08:26.680 --> 0:08:28.560 we're spread so thin that we find it hard to 0:08:28.560 --> 0:08:32.520 concentrate on anyone's task. And this conversation with Johann was 0:08:32.520 --> 0:08:36.120 a real sort of eye opener that it's not necessarily 0:08:36.200 --> 0:08:39.720 your fault or my fault, but it's actually something that 0:08:39.840 --> 0:08:42.720 is being intentionally done to us, and our focus and 0:08:42.760 --> 0:08:46.240 attention is being intentionally stolen. See what I. 0:08:46.120 --> 0:08:48.320 Love about this conversation is that if I were to 0:08:48.360 --> 0:08:50.520 hear Oh, we're going to talk about focus and attention. 0:08:51.400 --> 0:08:52.800 I don't have another attention totally. 0:08:52.840 --> 0:08:54.720 I'm like, oh, that's a bit, you know, I probably 0:08:54.880 --> 0:08:57.480 I will be scattered halfway listening to it. Johanna is 0:08:57.520 --> 0:09:00.920 one of the funniest people I've ever heard, story like, 0:09:01.600 --> 0:09:03.840 and he does he practices what he preaches. He actually 0:09:03.840 --> 0:09:08.520 went on a three month no social media, no internet connection, 0:09:08.640 --> 0:09:12.000 no phone connection to study for this book and to 0:09:12.080 --> 0:09:14.040 really research it. I love that he just he puts 0:09:14.040 --> 0:09:16.600 his money where his mouth is. He really dives so 0:09:16.840 --> 0:09:18.320 deep into his subject matter. 0:09:18.559 --> 0:09:22.080 He also has probably the funniest accidentally unfiltered story. Like 0:09:22.080 --> 0:09:23.720 we've heard a lot, We've heard a lot of accidentally 0:09:23.760 --> 0:09:27.120 unfiltered stories. This has got to be the fucking funniest 0:09:27.120 --> 0:09:30.719 story I have ever heard, to the point where we 0:09:30.720 --> 0:09:32.880 were both crying whilst it was being said. But also 0:09:32.920 --> 0:09:35.200 I was like, how is this going to offend anyone? 0:09:35.240 --> 0:09:37.160 In the first five minutes of this interview and we 0:09:37.200 --> 0:09:39.240 don't even care. It's so worth it, it stated. So 0:09:39.840 --> 0:09:42.199 even if that's all you listen to, it's brilliant. 0:09:42.360 --> 0:09:46.079 If you don't like harsh language, maybe skip a little bit. 0:09:46.600 --> 0:09:49.320 But yeah, he's phenomenal, and I genuinely think this is 0:09:49.320 --> 0:09:52.160 one of my favorite guests that I've ever heard on 0:09:52.200 --> 0:09:54.840 Life one Card. I just think he's so so funny 0:09:54.880 --> 0:09:57.440 and entertaining and engaging, and like, I learn a lot 0:09:57.440 --> 0:09:59.319 from it without a feeling like I was sitting in 0:09:59.360 --> 0:09:59.960 a lecture theater. 0:10:00.160 --> 0:10:02.160 So loved it. Well. Something that I wanted to talk 0:10:02.160 --> 0:10:04.000 to you about, Kesha, the question I had for you 0:10:04.400 --> 0:10:08.080 before we get into speaking to Johann. There is something 0:10:08.240 --> 0:10:10.640 that's been making the rounds on TikTok now because laugh 0:10:10.640 --> 0:10:12.880 on Cut is on TikTok. If you didn't know that, 0:10:13.120 --> 0:10:15.480 go and follow us. It's laugh on Cut podcast. I'm 0:10:15.480 --> 0:10:18.520 pretty sure where TikTok is now, but there has been 0:10:18.559 --> 0:10:21.440 a conversation and this was repurposed in news dot com today. 0:10:21.480 --> 0:10:24.720 You It is a young girl who is nineteen years old. 0:10:25.080 --> 0:10:28.080 She's moved out with her boyfriend and instead of them 0:10:28.120 --> 0:10:31.120 moving out together and getting rooms together and sleeping in 0:10:31.160 --> 0:10:33.920 the same bed every single night, they've moved out and 0:10:33.960 --> 0:10:37.680 they have intentionally gotten separate bedrooms in the same house, 0:10:37.920 --> 0:10:39.840 and it has divided the internet. 0:10:40.920 --> 0:10:43.600 Interesting can see why this would divide the internet because 0:10:43.600 --> 0:10:47.040 it's not very typical but I think she's a genius. 0:10:47.160 --> 0:10:49.640 When you and your boyfriend finally move in together, but 0:10:49.679 --> 0:10:52.040 you want separate rooms so you can still have your 0:10:52.040 --> 0:10:54.920 own space and you decorate it how you want, she 0:10:55.040 --> 0:10:58.400 said while sharing footage of their adjacent rooms. Now, there 0:10:58.440 --> 0:11:00.880 are so many people commenting on this about Howard is 0:11:00.920 --> 0:11:03.880 a red flag. But I'm with you. I think that. Yeah, 0:11:03.960 --> 0:11:05.760 people are saying that this is like the beginning of 0:11:05.800 --> 0:11:06.160 the end. 0:11:06.679 --> 0:11:08.760 Oh my gosh, in what way you're gonna start living 0:11:08.800 --> 0:11:10.959 like roommates because they technically are. 0:11:11.400 --> 0:11:12.560 I mean, I don't know about you, but I don't 0:11:12.600 --> 0:11:18.439 fuck my roommates. I mean, like, by definition, they are roommates. 0:11:18.120 --> 0:11:20.120 Which when you're in a romantic part when you live 0:11:20.160 --> 0:11:23.959 with a partner, you technically are just roommates. 0:11:23.600 --> 0:11:29.720 Who sleep in the same bed. Like, No, you're not, No, Keisha, 0:11:31.360 --> 0:11:33.760 You're not just roommates who sleep in the same bed. 0:11:34.080 --> 0:11:36.520 Kesha's like, so I'm in a relationship with my house 0:11:36.520 --> 0:11:39.200 made at the moment, I'm absolutely not. He will not 0:11:39.320 --> 0:11:41.920 like me saying that normal his new girlfriend, who I 0:11:41.960 --> 0:11:46.280 know listens to the podcast. Okay, I don't know, Sorry, No, Okay. 0:11:46.440 --> 0:11:49.280 I think that the reason why this type and Look, 0:11:49.320 --> 0:11:51.240 we actually spoke about it on the radio this week 0:11:51.280 --> 0:11:55.160 as well. There is so much stigma around couples who 0:11:55.160 --> 0:11:57.319 don't sleep in the same bed because I think we 0:11:57.520 --> 0:11:59.920 expect and we think it indicates that must mean that 0:12:00.120 --> 0:12:02.880 relationship has broken down, or that you don't love each 0:12:02.920 --> 0:12:05.320 other as much anymore, or the fact that you need 0:12:05.360 --> 0:12:09.280 your alone time at nighttime indicates that you're not happy together, 0:12:09.400 --> 0:12:11.200 or that you don't want to be together, And I 0:12:11.280 --> 0:12:13.560 just think it's such a fucking farce, Like there are 0:12:13.600 --> 0:12:15.880 so many people who are There's so many reasons why 0:12:15.880 --> 0:12:17.960 couples don't sleep in the same bed together, and it 0:12:17.960 --> 0:12:20.400 doesn't have to just be that the relationship is falling down. 0:12:20.640 --> 0:12:22.440 If anything, could just be that they both want a 0:12:22.440 --> 0:12:25.679 good night's sleep, which makes the relationship better totally. I 0:12:25.800 --> 0:12:27.520 used to work in breakfast radio and a lot of 0:12:27.559 --> 0:12:30.400 the people that I worked with who worked similar hours, 0:12:30.400 --> 0:12:30.720 so we. 0:12:30.600 --> 0:12:32.599 Were getting up anywhere between three and four o'clock in 0:12:32.640 --> 0:12:33.800 the morning, and a. 0:12:33.720 --> 0:12:35.920 Lot of them would sleep in separate rooms to their partners. 0:12:35.960 --> 0:12:37.839 But the one thing that I think they did really 0:12:37.880 --> 0:12:40.520 well was that they would do that Sunday to Thursday, 0:12:41.120 --> 0:12:43.520 and then they'd spend Friday and Saturday night in the 0:12:43.600 --> 0:12:46.040 same bed, so when they were waking up to go 0:12:46.080 --> 0:12:48.200 to work really early, they wouldn't disturb the other person. 0:12:48.520 --> 0:12:51.080 You also have your wardrobe separate, so that like they 0:12:51.120 --> 0:12:53.040 could get dressed and go to work and it just 0:12:53.240 --> 0:12:55.920 it wouldn't annoyed the other person and cause them to 0:12:55.960 --> 0:12:57.120 have bad sleeping patterns. 0:12:57.480 --> 0:13:00.480 My grandparents to be married for sixty six years, but 0:13:00.480 --> 0:13:02.840 they don't actually like each other anymore, because anyone. 0:13:02.920 --> 0:13:05.520 So in love, it's actually it's so beautiful to see 0:13:05.559 --> 0:13:07.840 them together. But they've slept in separate bedrooms for ages 0:13:07.880 --> 0:13:09.440 because one of them snored, and. 0:13:09.360 --> 0:13:11.480 That is literally the foundation as to why they've been 0:13:11.520 --> 0:13:14.800 together for sixty six years. I actually have friends who 0:13:14.920 --> 0:13:18.280 have done something similar where when they've brought like because 0:13:18.280 --> 0:13:20.560 obviously things change so much when you have kids, but 0:13:20.640 --> 0:13:23.319 when they've had their first baby, they started sleeping in 0:13:23.400 --> 0:13:25.680 separate rooms because it just worked for them in terms 0:13:25.720 --> 0:13:28.720 of getting more sleep, especially because sleep is such a 0:13:28.720 --> 0:13:31.520 priority and such a rarity when you're in that period 0:13:31.559 --> 0:13:34.360 of life, and that it's something that's just continued for them. 0:13:34.600 --> 0:13:38.000 But I remember when she first told me that she 0:13:38.080 --> 0:13:40.240 was sleeping in a separate room to her partner, and 0:13:40.360 --> 0:13:42.920 in my mind, because we're so conditioned by what is 0:13:42.960 --> 0:13:46.120 the normal thing for a relationship, I was like, oh 0:13:46.160 --> 0:13:48.520 my god, red flag ding ding ding, they must be 0:13:48.520 --> 0:13:51.720 on the rocks. But really they're in such a great place. 0:13:51.800 --> 0:13:54.480 It's just the fact that it's not how I view relationships. 0:13:54.480 --> 0:13:56.640 It's not what I would necessarily want for my relationship. 0:13:56.679 --> 0:13:59.960 And I think we often impose what we think is 0:14:00.040 --> 0:14:02.200 the right way to do something on how somebody else 0:14:02.280 --> 0:14:05.160 is living and how they are navigating their relationship. Do 0:14:05.160 --> 0:14:05.640 you remember in. 0:14:05.640 --> 0:14:08.439 Sex and the City when they spoke about secret single behavior. 0:14:08.960 --> 0:14:12.040 To me, this feels like the best amalgamation of both, 0:14:12.080 --> 0:14:14.120 where you're in a relationship, but you can also do 0:14:14.160 --> 0:14:17.160 those things where you just want that time to yourself 0:14:17.200 --> 0:14:19.880 to like watch the show the partner's gonna hate. 0:14:20.040 --> 0:14:21.880 Maybe if you want to be done. 0:14:21.800 --> 0:14:23.800 I don't know, do your face stuff, Like just do 0:14:23.880 --> 0:14:26.000 the stuff that you don't want to do in front 0:14:26.040 --> 0:14:28.280 of your partner. If you have your own bedroom, you 0:14:28.360 --> 0:14:29.840 can do that any night of the week. 0:14:29.920 --> 0:14:31.800 Oh it's not just that. I think about this and 0:14:31.840 --> 0:14:34.400 I'm like, if I could go back and redo things, 0:14:34.440 --> 0:14:37.080 if I could go back and have my own bedroom 0:14:37.120 --> 0:14:40.720 in my house. Very expensive in bondying. Yeah, bedrooms are like, 0:14:40.800 --> 0:14:43.240 look to get a two bedroom. Alola was sleeping in 0:14:43.240 --> 0:14:45.080 a hallway for a really long time because we couldn't 0:14:45.080 --> 0:14:48.000 afford anything else. But if we could, let's say we 0:14:48.000 --> 0:14:51.080 were booge enough to have enough bedrooms for everyone, I 0:14:51.160 --> 0:14:54.920 would one hundred percent. You don't have to share a 0:14:54.960 --> 0:14:57.320 wardrobe with anyone. You don't have to like navigate who's 0:14:57.320 --> 0:14:59.280 gonna put their shoes wear. You don't have to worry 0:14:59.320 --> 0:15:01.520 about like all your shit in the bathroom getting moved around, 0:15:01.560 --> 0:15:04.160 or having to compromise to have your own space and 0:15:04.200 --> 0:15:06.960 your own things, and just cuddle when you want to cuddle, 0:15:06.960 --> 0:15:08.520 and then as soon as it's sleep time to be like, 0:15:08.560 --> 0:15:10.280 please don't touch me anymore or breathe on me, or 0:15:10.280 --> 0:15:12.440 make those Why does it sound like you're playing tennis 0:15:12.440 --> 0:15:17.600 with your mouth and your sleep. We just got into 0:15:17.640 --> 0:15:22.600 Laura's therapy session just so we all know. Now, are 0:15:22.680 --> 0:15:25.040 we moving into a four bedroom house? It's gonna be great. 0:15:25.040 --> 0:15:27.000 I've got my own bedroom. No, But I think if 0:15:27.040 --> 0:15:29.840 you can afford it, what a fucking awesome way to 0:15:30.000 --> 0:15:32.280 move into if you want to, if you want it, 0:15:32.440 --> 0:15:35.880 what an awesome way to start living with someone, especially 0:15:35.880 --> 0:15:38.040 if it's you've just started living with them, so you 0:15:38.080 --> 0:15:40.080 don't have to make the full plunge or make all 0:15:40.120 --> 0:15:42.920 the compromises. You can have sleepovers when you want to 0:15:42.920 --> 0:15:45.400 have sleepovers. You get your own space. I actually think 0:15:45.400 --> 0:15:46.760 it's genus. I think it's genius. 0:15:46.760 --> 0:15:48.680 And also you can play like which better we're you're 0:15:48.680 --> 0:15:49.800 gonna have sex in tonight? 0:15:50.000 --> 0:15:54.240 Like keep it interesting. Like my only question would be like, 0:15:54.280 --> 0:15:57.960 at what point, if any point, do you then migrate 0:15:58.040 --> 0:16:00.640 into the same bedroom, Like at what point do you go, oh, Okay, 0:16:00.680 --> 0:16:02.680 we've done enough, this is this is enough time that 0:16:02.720 --> 0:16:06.680 we've had our own space. We're gonna now move in together, 0:16:06.840 --> 0:16:08.480 but actually move into the same room, Like do you 0:16:08.520 --> 0:16:10.400 do it in baby steps? Is it that you've just 0:16:10.440 --> 0:16:12.440 moved in together, but you've kept separate rooms and then 0:16:12.480 --> 0:16:14.920 the next time you move you move into the same room, 0:16:15.200 --> 0:16:17.360 Because that's really like compiling all your shit together. 0:16:17.600 --> 0:16:19.480 Well, I think it's like, if you got used to 0:16:19.680 --> 0:16:22.040 doing the whole separate thing and you really liked it, 0:16:22.600 --> 0:16:25.520 why would you feel the need to come to merge. 0:16:26.000 --> 0:16:28.800 This could be a forever thing, could it? Though? Because 0:16:28.800 --> 0:16:32.640 society says it shouldn't be. It could be. Who are 0:16:32.680 --> 0:16:35.320 we to young? There? Young? All right, let's get into 0:16:35.600 --> 0:16:40.040 favorite part of every episode, and that is accidentally Unphil said, 0:16:40.640 --> 0:16:43.800 produce a keisha. You can kick it off today, all right, 0:16:44.080 --> 0:16:44.520 this one. 0:16:44.760 --> 0:16:46.760 I can actually see this happening to you if I'm 0:16:46.800 --> 0:16:51.240 being honest, So it reads. I purchased my first vibrator online, 0:16:51.320 --> 0:16:53.760 thinking it would be a bit more discreet of an 0:16:53.760 --> 0:16:56.440 option than going into a store. I picked out the 0:16:56.480 --> 0:16:57.880 one I had my eye on, and I was so 0:16:58.120 --> 0:17:01.760 excited for it to arrive. Weeks went by and it 0:17:01.960 --> 0:17:06.280 still hadn't arrived. Turns out it actually went missing in 0:17:06.359 --> 0:17:06.800 the post. 0:17:07.200 --> 0:17:09.920 And when that happens, you have to submit an. 0:17:09.880 --> 0:17:15.440 Inquiry to Australia Post detailing and I literally mean detailing 0:17:15.600 --> 0:17:17.280 to the exact. 0:17:17.040 --> 0:17:20.440 Point what was in the parcel. I really just hope 0:17:20.440 --> 0:17:22.680 wherever it ended up it was being put to good use. 0:17:23.480 --> 0:17:26.520 Oh Blair, having to write to oz Post, you just 0:17:26.600 --> 0:17:29.159 say vibrator, You just say, you know what, do you 0:17:29.359 --> 0:17:29.840 just own it? 0:17:30.119 --> 0:17:32.920 It's a vibrator and I want it because they're very expensive. 0:17:33.680 --> 0:17:35.720 I mean, you do want it, but do you feel 0:17:35.800 --> 0:17:40.680 comfortable enough writing Hey, my vibrator slush dildo got lost 0:17:40.760 --> 0:17:43.760 in the mail. Have you seen it floating around? It 0:17:43.840 --> 0:17:45.600 could be bouncing down the street. 0:17:45.800 --> 0:17:48.800 Is a better question. If a vibrator rocks up and 0:17:48.920 --> 0:17:51.320 the package is damaged, like it looks like it's been opened, 0:17:51.320 --> 0:17:53.000 because you know, sometimes they open it and go through it, 0:17:53.280 --> 0:17:54.760 would you still want to use it or would you 0:17:54.800 --> 0:17:59.480 be like, absolutely not. It's it's not like. I don't 0:17:59.480 --> 0:18:01.560 mean like someone from a Strainger post pulled it out 0:18:01.560 --> 0:18:03.800 and had to go and tell you no. I just 0:18:03.880 --> 0:18:05.879 mean they opened it, looked inside and then they were like, oh, 0:18:05.960 --> 0:18:07.560 that's a vibrator, closed it back up, and sent it 0:18:07.600 --> 0:18:09.680 on its merry way. I'm usually all about like the 0:18:09.760 --> 0:18:15.960 five second rule. There are exceptions, and this is one 0:18:16.000 --> 0:18:20.000 of them. Okay, well, very very coincidentally, and I swear 0:18:20.040 --> 0:18:22.600 we didn't plan this, but mine is also a vibrator story. 0:18:23.000 --> 0:18:27.280 My daughter loves to put treasures inside her glittery seed handbag. 0:18:27.560 --> 0:18:29.560 That sounded very strange when I said this had to 0:18:29.600 --> 0:18:33.240 do with vibrating. She's a little pirate, okay, But also 0:18:33.400 --> 0:18:35.280 I can relate to this because Marley's three and she 0:18:35.520 --> 0:18:38.120 likes to pack it. She likes to pack a suitcase. Mommy, 0:18:38.160 --> 0:18:40.800 I'm taking my suitcase and it's just like a kid's handbag. 0:18:40.840 --> 0:18:43.000 And she puts like a couple of lego blocks and 0:18:43.160 --> 0:18:46.199 like some sort of half massacred crosskit in there. It's 0:18:46.320 --> 0:18:49.119 just the essentials, yeah, for a day out. So this 0:18:49.280 --> 0:18:51.520 one day at the park, my beautiful two year old 0:18:51.840 --> 0:18:54.879 was busy making friends, as she usually does. She was 0:18:55.000 --> 0:18:58.119 dressed as a bloody, puffy fairy unicorn thing with chul 0:18:58.359 --> 0:19:00.960 and glitter glare. I saw her in a little huddle 0:19:01.000 --> 0:19:03.280 with other girls around the same age as her, and 0:19:03.359 --> 0:19:05.920 I thought nothing of it except how sweet it is 0:19:06.000 --> 0:19:08.639 that she's making friends. That was until one of the 0:19:08.720 --> 0:19:12.600 mums sheepishly walked over to me and said, um, I 0:19:12.640 --> 0:19:15.280 think your daughter might have packed something she shouldn't have 0:19:15.440 --> 0:19:18.639 in her handbag today. My little girl had popped the 0:19:18.720 --> 0:19:22.680 lipstick vibrator that was sitting on my bedside table into 0:19:22.760 --> 0:19:25.399 her bag, had taken it to the park, and had 0:19:25.480 --> 0:19:28.280 showed her adoring peers. I didn't even know what to 0:19:28.359 --> 0:19:30.800 say to this woman. As she handed me my vibrator. 0:19:31.040 --> 0:19:33.840 I turned bright red, yanked the vibrator out of her hands, 0:19:33.880 --> 0:19:35.280 and told my daughter we were going to get some 0:19:35.320 --> 0:19:37.240 ice cream and some chips, and we've never been back 0:19:37.240 --> 0:19:41.000 to that park again. Here's my question. Would you pick 0:19:41.080 --> 0:19:43.800 up someone's vibrator and hand it back to them or 0:19:43.960 --> 0:19:45.600 just say to little girl, go and give that to 0:19:45.640 --> 0:19:47.960 your mummy, Laura. This is the same question as the 0:19:48.000 --> 0:19:56.239 one before. You don't touch other people's vibrators. I'm all 0:19:56.280 --> 0:20:00.000 about recycling and all about reusing, but there are exceptions, 0:20:00.240 --> 0:20:02.200 and this is one of them. I have a question. 0:20:02.680 --> 0:20:04.719 This is going out okay, if you're sitting in the car, 0:20:04.800 --> 0:20:06.720 I want to know your answer to this. Please write in. 0:20:07.440 --> 0:20:11.000 Would you ever use somebody else's vibrator that you're not 0:20:11.200 --> 0:20:13.760 sexually active with, like a friend, or your mum, or 0:20:13.840 --> 0:20:16.520 your sister, just someone else's. Would you ever use a 0:20:16.680 --> 0:20:22.080 recycled vibrator that's been disinfected like Kishi? If I brought 0:20:22.119 --> 0:20:23.560 mine over and I was like, hey, it's been through 0:20:23.600 --> 0:20:26.320 the dishwasher, would you use it over my dead body? 0:20:27.520 --> 0:20:30.320 We are close. I want to know you're close. I 0:20:30.440 --> 0:20:32.680 don't ever need to be that close to you. What 0:20:32.800 --> 0:20:34.840 if it was like a dire situation where you really 0:20:34.880 --> 0:20:38.399 need a vibrator? You know what, I'll call Nick Cannon. 0:20:39.560 --> 0:20:42.280 I'm gonna go manual. I'm gooing Manuel on this one. 0:20:42.800 --> 0:20:42.840 No. 0:20:43.600 --> 0:20:46.320 Like again, I say this a lot. I don't like 0:20:46.400 --> 0:20:49.320 to yuck a yum, but that is fucking yuck. I 0:20:49.520 --> 0:20:54.879 want to know, would you, oh, look, maybe do you 0:20:54.960 --> 0:20:57.679 know what actually though, like I wouldn't like like if 0:20:57.760 --> 0:20:59.840 it was I don't know if they would never be 0:20:59.920 --> 0:21:01.560 a situation where I would need to like we I'm 0:21:01.600 --> 0:21:03.480 never gonna have a situation where I'm like on a 0:21:03.560 --> 0:21:05.680 girl's weekend away and I'm like, hey, guys, sorry didn't 0:21:05.680 --> 0:21:08.240 bring my vibrator and Brittany goes, don't worry, I disinfected 0:21:08.280 --> 0:21:11.440 mine this week. Like it's never gonna happen. But like 0:21:11.840 --> 0:21:14.680 it just reminding myself when I packed for Laura's hens, 0:21:16.320 --> 0:21:20.040 don't worry about bringing make sure you clean up the 0:21:20.080 --> 0:21:23.440 dishwasher before we leave. Yeah, I don't know. I feel 0:21:23.440 --> 0:21:25.040 like it's not as disgusting as we make it out 0:21:25.040 --> 0:21:25.880 to be. It's what I'm saying. 0:21:26.000 --> 0:21:28.320 Well, the thing that actually just popped into my mind was, 0:21:28.560 --> 0:21:31.639 you know, like, if you have sex toys and you 0:21:31.800 --> 0:21:33.119 break up with the person, or. 0:21:33.200 --> 0:21:35.320 You might just be using them with a casual whoever, 0:21:35.680 --> 0:21:37.399 do you then use them with the next casual person. 0:21:37.680 --> 0:21:38.200 I've done it. 0:21:38.720 --> 0:21:42.000 So this person involuntarily used a sex toy that you 0:21:42.160 --> 0:21:43.920 used with someone else and they didn't even know about it. 0:21:44.000 --> 0:21:46.359 And I bet you didn't even disinfect I did clean it. 0:21:46.680 --> 0:21:48.560 I did what was I'm not a fucking what just 0:21:49.320 --> 0:21:50.840 whated and down was some toilet paper? What do you 0:21:50.920 --> 0:21:55.240 mean soap with special like sex toys? So okay, that's different. 0:21:55.280 --> 0:21:57.000 When you said soap, I was like washing things with 0:21:57.080 --> 0:21:59.560 soap doesn't make it hygienic. It came in the packet 0:21:59.600 --> 0:22:01.440 like it was a freebie that got thrown in. That 0:22:01.600 --> 0:22:02.720 was the King Jelly lot. 0:22:02.920 --> 0:22:05.920 Mine didn't get lost in the mails, so it came 0:22:06.000 --> 0:22:08.920 in the bag it maybe that Maybe that's another question, 0:22:09.240 --> 0:22:12.479 like can you use a sex toy with more than 0:22:12.560 --> 0:22:13.600 one person? 0:22:13.880 --> 0:22:15.760 That's another ask on Quick. I'm writing that in for 0:22:15.840 --> 0:22:18.200 this week's ask on cut. Can you use a sex 0:22:18.280 --> 0:22:21.320 toy with your ex and then with a new partner 0:22:21.400 --> 0:22:23.360 without telling them that you used it with your ex? 0:22:24.280 --> 0:22:26.200 Oh that's a biggie all right. On that note, you 0:22:26.240 --> 0:22:28.480 get like a fake packet to open it up from 0:22:28.480 --> 0:22:31.000 and be like this brand new babe. Let's get into 0:22:31.080 --> 0:22:32.879 the chat with Johann Harry. 0:22:35.640 --> 0:22:38.120 Johann Harry is an author of three New York Times 0:22:38.200 --> 0:22:40.800 best selling books. Ted Talks have been viewed more than 0:22:40.880 --> 0:22:43.200 eighty million times. The first his names Everything You Know 0:22:43.240 --> 0:22:45.920 about Addiction is Wrong. The second is titled This Could 0:22:45.920 --> 0:22:48.600 Be Why You are depressed or anxious? And his latest book, 0:22:48.680 --> 0:22:51.840 Stolen Focus, Why You Can't Pay Attention, was published in 0:22:51.920 --> 0:22:54.080 January this year and has been a best seller on 0:22:54.200 --> 0:22:58.200 three continents. I mean, talk about an overachieva Joanne, Welcome 0:22:58.240 --> 0:22:59.439 to life on cut hooray. 0:22:59.560 --> 0:23:00.840 I'm so to be with you guys. 0:23:01.040 --> 0:23:02.880 Also, I like that it's very early in the morning 0:23:02.960 --> 0:23:04.879 and we forced a coke zero upon you. 0:23:05.320 --> 0:23:07.240 No, no, no, my god, I've already had two. Right. 0:23:07.400 --> 0:23:10.440 Excitement that was shown was really I like that. 0:23:10.600 --> 0:23:12.639 I think the biggest division between human beings is not 0:23:12.840 --> 0:23:15.760 like a theist versus religious people, or left wing versus 0:23:15.840 --> 0:23:19.040 right wing. It's fucking morning people versus everyone else. One 0:23:19.080 --> 0:23:20.919 of my exes he used to wake up every morning 0:23:21.200 --> 0:23:23.280 at five am without an alarm clock. I'd be like, 0:23:23.320 --> 0:23:25.439 what are you? What is this exa happening? 0:23:25.560 --> 0:23:27.800 And then it's surprising, but well not surprising that it 0:23:27.840 --> 0:23:30.040 didn't work out. And that's probably was the real wedge 0:23:30.040 --> 0:23:32.800 in the relationship. We start every. 0:23:32.680 --> 0:23:34.760 Single one of our interviews the same way, and that 0:23:34.920 --> 0:23:37.720 is by asking you to divulge your most embarrassing story. 0:23:38.000 --> 0:23:40.920 Do you have an accidental unfiltered So when I arrived. 0:23:40.680 --> 0:23:42.920 At your offices ten minutes ago, the first thing I 0:23:42.960 --> 0:23:45.040 saw was a copy of the book The Art of 0:23:45.080 --> 0:23:47.920 Happiness by the Dala Lama, which reminded me of the 0:23:48.000 --> 0:23:50.440 time the diala a Lama called me fat. It turns 0:23:50.480 --> 0:23:53.320 out it turns out he's a complete fucking bitch. Who 0:23:53.400 --> 0:23:57.399 knew it was? It was genuinely traumatic. So when I 0:23:57.560 --> 0:23:59.600 was was a baby journalist, there must have been like 0:23:59.640 --> 0:24:02.440 twenty five inexplicably I got sent to it. I know, 0:24:02.560 --> 0:24:06.800 this gets so much fucking worse. It was. It was horrendous. 0:24:06.840 --> 0:24:09.000 So I got sent to interview the Diala Lama, right, 0:24:09.160 --> 0:24:11.080 and everyone who into used the dial Alarma just says, 0:24:11.200 --> 0:24:14.040 you know, your holiness, you're the greatest person I've ever met. 0:24:14.119 --> 0:24:15.840 Can I rent a flat somewhere in your asshole for 0:24:15.880 --> 0:24:18.479 the next time? And you know, I really admire the Dilarma. 0:24:18.480 --> 0:24:20.640 I admire the resistance to the Chinese occupation to bet 0:24:20.720 --> 0:24:22.560 all sorts of things about him. But I think when 0:24:22.560 --> 0:24:25.000 you interview a powerful person, you know, if your journalist, 0:24:25.040 --> 0:24:27.040 your job is to challenge them in some way. So 0:24:27.160 --> 0:24:28.439 did some digging. I was like, oh, it's the dial 0:24:28.520 --> 0:24:31.840 Alarm I ever done anything wrong. Turns out he thinks 0:24:31.880 --> 0:24:33.720 disabled people are being punished for what they did in 0:24:33.760 --> 0:24:34.520 a previous life. 0:24:35.000 --> 0:24:37.320 Yeah, exactly. 0:24:37.800 --> 0:24:40.240 He says that, you know, he's very anti gay. You 0:24:40.280 --> 0:24:42.919 shouldn't use the other holes is an actual quote from 0:24:42.920 --> 0:24:44.480 the dial Alarma, and you know, using the other holes 0:24:44.560 --> 0:24:46.200 is one of my hobbies. So I was watching it 0:24:46.720 --> 0:24:49.520 and so I thought, okay, I'll challenge him a bit 0:24:49.640 --> 0:24:51.280 right started to go to interview him. He gave a 0:24:51.320 --> 0:24:54.359 speech first, if I remember rightly, and afterwards I'm sort 0:24:54.400 --> 0:24:57.120 of taken backstage. And the first twenty minutes we're talking 0:24:57.119 --> 0:24:59.240 about stuff we really agree on, you know, like the 0:24:59.320 --> 0:25:03.320 Chinese occupation to Bet, which is indeed horrific. And then 0:25:03.359 --> 0:25:06.200 I started asking him the kind of more challenging questions 0:25:07.200 --> 0:25:12.000 and he started pretending he didn't speak English. He literally 0:25:12.080 --> 0:25:15.400 goes like, I I don't won't to do Zach said, 0:25:15.440 --> 0:25:18.960 because I don't understand this this quick, And I'm like, 0:25:19.680 --> 0:25:22.480 I just saw you get English. We've been talking in 0:25:22.560 --> 0:25:24.440 English for like twenty I know you can. And he's 0:25:24.480 --> 0:25:27.119 literally just refusing to answer, just pretending he doesn't understand 0:25:27.119 --> 0:25:29.040 what I'm saying. I'm sort of pushing him and pushing 0:25:29.080 --> 0:25:30.639 him in his like goons. I'm sure that's not their 0:25:30.640 --> 0:25:33.919 official job title. But he's like people are like standing 0:25:34.000 --> 0:25:35.879 in the corner looking quite pissed off, and I thought, God, 0:25:35.920 --> 0:25:37.960 they're going to throw me out. So I thought, I'll 0:25:37.960 --> 0:25:40.240 bring it back to something where we agree. And I said, 0:25:40.280 --> 0:25:43.359 you know, your holiness, you've always been very critical of 0:25:43.440 --> 0:25:47.280 income inequality in the West, And he said, yeah, I 0:25:47.320 --> 0:25:49.680 don't see why we why we need so much money? 0:25:50.240 --> 0:25:54.440 We each only have one stomach, and then said, except you, 0:25:55.480 --> 0:26:00.720 you clearly have at least three. I'm like, this man 0:26:00.840 --> 0:26:04.639 is meant to love blades of grass and rocks? Is 0:26:04.680 --> 0:26:07.119 he fat shaming me? Is this what's happening? Am I 0:26:07.240 --> 0:26:09.240 being fat shamed by a living God? 0:26:09.640 --> 0:26:09.800 Right? 0:26:10.960 --> 0:26:12.880 And it was not my finest moment in Joe Listen. 0:26:12.880 --> 0:26:18.160 I said, well, you're quite fat as well. So after 0:26:18.600 --> 0:26:20.960 they basically threw me out, and so after when I 0:26:21.040 --> 0:26:23.600 let what I read about this right, I got the 0:26:23.600 --> 0:26:25.560 world's first of a Buddhist death threat, which I'm really 0:26:25.600 --> 0:26:26.920 proud of. They were like, are we going to kill you? 0:26:26.920 --> 0:26:28.360 And I was like, I wrote back and said, you're 0:26:28.400 --> 0:26:30.000 going to have at least five fucking lives as a 0:26:30.040 --> 0:26:32.280 woodlouse now because you sent this emi. But it was 0:26:32.400 --> 0:26:36.440 genuinely it's not look at look at that beneficent, smiling face. 0:26:36.520 --> 0:26:39.840 Now imagine you're going you're fat bitch, right that that 0:26:40.040 --> 0:26:40.720 is what happened to me. 0:26:41.200 --> 0:26:44.840 He uses other holes as it was horrible to someone 0:26:44.960 --> 0:26:47.640 who pretended as though he didn't know what you were saying. 0:26:48.800 --> 0:26:51.200 Every fucking word that I said to him. 0:26:51.320 --> 0:26:54.480 Now that we have offended anybody who is quite the 0:26:54.520 --> 0:26:55.840 fan of the Dalai Lama. 0:26:56.119 --> 0:26:58.320 Right, Like the thing is it's precisely because he's so 0:26:58.400 --> 0:27:00.840 admirable that it's quite upsetting, but also it's quite nice 0:27:00.880 --> 0:27:04.000 because it's a reminder you know, everyone is flawed, you know, 0:27:04.119 --> 0:27:06.240 even the most admirable people. So it's actually a nice 0:27:06.240 --> 0:27:08.560 little lesson in life about like sometimes you know you 0:27:08.680 --> 0:27:11.160 identify an unpleasant characteristic in yourself, you're like, oh God, 0:27:11.200 --> 0:27:12.960 and I that kind of person you are? No, everyone's 0:27:12.960 --> 0:27:16.720 a cunt sometimes, right. Sorry. Kevil in Australia, using that word. 0:27:17.440 --> 0:27:19.800 My mother is Scottish, so I know that this is 0:27:19.840 --> 0:27:21.600 the only place in the world that uses the sea 0:27:21.640 --> 0:27:23.320 word in the same way as Scottish people. 0:27:23.520 --> 0:27:25.800 I don't know if we do. I don't know if 0:27:25.840 --> 0:27:28.359 it's good because I am frequency. I mean, it is 0:27:28.520 --> 0:27:31.280 what ten am in the nine thirty nine thirty The 0:27:31.359 --> 0:27:33.840 sea words a big words bring out for breakfast. 0:27:33.600 --> 0:27:35.560 You see in Scotland. So if you said to my mother, 0:27:35.800 --> 0:27:38.159 I don't know how to get to the post office, 0:27:38.240 --> 0:27:40.840 she going, so got left it here doning about one 0:27:40.880 --> 0:27:42.920 hundred yards, you'll see a bunch of cunts standing there 0:27:43.359 --> 0:27:45.520 gore right where they are? What done? You'll see another 0:27:45.560 --> 0:27:47.679 bunch of cunts. That's the post office, right, and there 0:27:47.680 --> 0:27:50.440 would be no insult to any of those people. That's 0:27:50.600 --> 0:27:54.600 just that's just a neutral word meaning person or thing, right, 0:27:54.840 --> 0:27:56.600 So I know it is a bit misogynistic and so 0:27:56.640 --> 0:27:58.080 we should we should read it. And I have tried 0:27:58.119 --> 0:28:00.520 to explain this to the people of Scotland, but they 0:28:00.720 --> 0:28:04.840 sadly called me a Yeah. 0:28:05.720 --> 0:28:07.560 Now, the reason why you were actually it's not just 0:28:07.680 --> 0:28:08.920 the reason why you're here, but it's one of the 0:28:08.960 --> 0:28:10.920 reasons why we wanted to speak to you. You spent 0:28:11.080 --> 0:28:14.640 quite a bit of time by yourself in Provincetown talk 0:28:14.680 --> 0:28:17.000 to us about why and what was the instigator for 0:28:17.160 --> 0:28:18.919 this trip and why it was so special. 0:28:19.280 --> 0:28:21.840 Yeah. So I noticed my own ability to focus and 0:28:21.880 --> 0:28:25.080 pay attention was getting worse, you know, with each year 0:28:25.160 --> 0:28:28.960 that passed. It felt like things that require deep focus 0:28:29.040 --> 0:28:33.040 that are so important to me, like reading books, watching films, 0:28:33.080 --> 0:28:36.159 having proper long conversations were getting more and more like 0:28:36.280 --> 0:28:38.200 running up and down escalator, do you know what I mean? 0:28:38.280 --> 0:28:39.880 Like I could still do them, but it was like 0:28:39.920 --> 0:28:41.720 the escalator was getting faster and I was having to 0:28:41.800 --> 0:28:44.520 run faster to get there. I noticed this happening to 0:28:44.640 --> 0:28:47.520 lots of people around me, and there was this moment 0:28:47.760 --> 0:28:49.920 which set me on the road to Provincetown where I 0:28:50.000 --> 0:28:53.000 sort of realized I could see the facts. Right. The 0:28:53.040 --> 0:28:55.560 average office worker now focuses on only one task for 0:28:55.640 --> 0:28:57.880 only three minutes. I said that to someone the other day, 0:28:57.880 --> 0:28:59.440 and they said, how do they get a whole three minutes? 0:29:00.160 --> 0:29:03.120 Every one child who was identified with serious attention problems 0:29:03.160 --> 0:29:05.800 when when I was seven years old, there's now one 0:29:05.880 --> 0:29:08.520 hundred children who've been identified with that problem. But I 0:29:08.560 --> 0:29:10.480 think I was quite afraid of looking into it. To 0:29:10.560 --> 0:29:14.200 be honest, I think because I was quite embarrassed. I thought, well, 0:29:14.240 --> 0:29:16.720 there's something wrong with me, so why would you try 0:29:16.720 --> 0:29:18.880 and figure out the problems? Obviously just weak, you're not 0:29:18.880 --> 0:29:19.560 good enough, right. 0:29:19.920 --> 0:29:23.000 Ignorance is bliss? Yeah, yeah, exactly, or even the question 0:29:23.080 --> 0:29:25.680 of like well, I mean it's pretty easy, like just 0:29:25.720 --> 0:29:28.440 pay more attention, or just be more focus, have more willpower, 0:29:28.760 --> 0:29:30.840 have more self control. Like that's the kind of I 0:29:30.880 --> 0:29:33.920 think a lot of initial thoughts. We blame ourselves more 0:29:33.960 --> 0:29:36.160 than external forces one hundred percent. 0:29:36.200 --> 0:29:37.800 And I had, you know, it's so funny you say that, 0:29:37.840 --> 0:29:39.800 because very early on in the research for the book, 0:29:40.360 --> 0:29:42.560 I went to interview the leading expert on willpower in 0:29:42.640 --> 0:29:45.640 the world, and an amazing scientist called Professor Roy Baumeister 0:29:45.960 --> 0:29:48.960 who's at the University of Queensland here in Australia. And 0:29:49.160 --> 0:29:50.400 I said to me, and I'm thinking of writing this 0:29:50.440 --> 0:29:53.040 book about why people can't focus because I interview huge 0:29:53.120 --> 0:29:55.440 numbs of scientists in my books and I'm being interested 0:29:55.440 --> 0:29:57.240 in what's going on and obviously how your science could 0:29:57.240 --> 0:29:58.840 help us to understand it. And he said to me 0:29:58.920 --> 0:30:00.520 something like these out words are in the book he says, 0:30:00.520 --> 0:30:02.640 saying like, Oh, it's interesting you say that, because I've 0:30:02.640 --> 0:30:04.960 found I can't really focus. I just play games on 0:30:05.040 --> 0:30:07.880 my phone phone a lot. Now I just kind I'm 0:30:07.880 --> 0:30:10.080 sort of sitting there and I'm like, the fuck. 0:30:10.320 --> 0:30:12.680 See if you have problems with this, we are author. 0:30:13.720 --> 0:30:18.000 He wrote a book called Willpower. He's literally the leading 0:30:18.120 --> 0:30:20.200 expert of the world of willpower. I'm like, I rememberlieve 0:30:20.200 --> 0:30:22.720 that a to be thinking, oh fuck, what do we do? 0:30:23.000 --> 0:30:26.480 But actually the solution does not like primarily and individual willpower. 0:30:26.520 --> 0:30:27.760 Be Sorry, there was this Just to go back to 0:30:27.800 --> 0:30:29.880 your initial question, because what set me on the road 0:30:29.920 --> 0:30:32.200 to it, there was one experience that really was like, Okay, 0:30:32.560 --> 0:30:35.120 I have to investigate this. I've got a godson, and 0:30:35.200 --> 0:30:37.239 when he was nine he developed this brief but very 0:30:37.280 --> 0:30:40.400 intense obsession with Elvis Presley, and it was super cute 0:30:40.400 --> 0:30:43.320 because he appeared to genuinely not know that impersonating Elvis 0:30:43.360 --> 0:30:46.240 had become a kind of cheesy cliche. So I think 0:30:46.280 --> 0:30:49.200 he was the last person ever to do a totally 0:30:49.280 --> 0:30:52.479 sincere impression of Elvis. So it was completely adorable when 0:30:52.520 --> 0:30:55.360 he would do like suspicious Minds or Rubellas Vegas, and 0:30:55.880 --> 0:30:57.640 when he used to tack him in. He would get 0:30:57.640 --> 0:30:59.680 me to tell him the story of Elvis's life over 0:30:59.680 --> 0:31:01.480 an over again. Obviously I skipped a bit at the 0:31:01.560 --> 0:31:03.880 end where of this shit himself to death on the toilet, 0:31:04.200 --> 0:31:08.320 and one night I mentioned just in passing, I mentioned Graceland, 0:31:08.360 --> 0:31:10.680 where Elvis lived, and his eyes lit up and he 0:31:10.680 --> 0:31:13.000 said to me, John, will you take me to Graceland 0:31:13.080 --> 0:31:15.800 one day? And I was like, sure, the way you 0:31:15.880 --> 0:31:17.680 do with nine year olds, know next week it'll be 0:31:18.200 --> 0:31:19.040 Lego Land. 0:31:18.920 --> 0:31:21.160 Or Lapland, or we're ever going to have to actually 0:31:21.160 --> 0:31:21.880 see it exactly. 0:31:21.960 --> 0:31:23.120 It's like it's like promising. 0:31:23.840 --> 0:31:26.120 I'm still holding onto the pink convertible car that my 0:31:26.200 --> 0:31:28.280 dad promised me when I was nine, and I never 0:31:28.440 --> 0:31:33.280 got the cruelty, the cruelty, the trauma that he inflicted. 0:31:33.000 --> 0:31:35.160 Exactly, that trauma will, no doubt if harm your attention. 0:31:35.280 --> 0:31:37.240 And it's another that's a whole other episode. 0:31:38.640 --> 0:31:40.680 He kept sort of going, no, no, do you swear 0:31:40.960 --> 0:31:44.800 you'll take me to Graceland? And I said, I absolutely promise. 0:31:45.560 --> 0:31:47.400 And I didn't think at that moment again for ten 0:31:47.520 --> 0:31:50.920 years until so many things had gone wrong. So he 0:31:51.280 --> 0:31:53.880 dropped out of school when he was fifteen. By the 0:31:53.960 --> 0:31:57.120 time he was nineteen, he spent literally all his waking hours. 0:31:57.160 --> 0:31:59.880 I know that sounds like in saturation. It's not alternate 0:32:00.040 --> 0:32:02.800 between his iPad, his iPhone, and his laptop, and his 0:32:02.920 --> 0:32:07.640 life was just this kind of blur of WhatsApp, YouTube, porn. 0:32:08.080 --> 0:32:09.600 And when you talk to him it was almost like 0:32:09.680 --> 0:32:11.920 he was kind of whirring at the speed of snapchat. 0:32:12.000 --> 0:32:13.800 You know, it felt like nothing still could get through 0:32:13.880 --> 0:32:16.000 to him. And one day we were sitting on my 0:32:16.040 --> 0:32:18.720 sofa in London, and all day I was trying to 0:32:18.760 --> 0:32:20.960 talk to him, and I just I just couldn't. It 0:32:21.120 --> 0:32:23.720 was like, you know, throwing sticks into a really fast 0:32:23.800 --> 0:32:26.320 moving river. You just couldn't get any traction with him. 0:32:26.560 --> 0:32:28.280 And to be totally honest with you both, I wasn't 0:32:29.280 --> 0:32:30.920 I wasn't that much better, right. I was staring at 0:32:30.920 --> 0:32:34.040 my own devices and I was hating this experience. And 0:32:34.080 --> 0:32:36.840 I suddenly remembered this moment all these years before, and 0:32:36.960 --> 0:32:41.040 I said to him, Hey, let's go to Graceland. This 0:32:41.200 --> 0:32:43.000 is no way to live. Let's break this numbing routine. 0:32:43.040 --> 0:32:44.760 Let's go on a big road trip all over the South. 0:32:45.240 --> 0:32:47.800 But as immediately thought ahead, you've got promise me one 0:32:47.840 --> 0:32:49.680 thing if we do it, which is that if we go, 0:32:50.320 --> 0:32:52.080 you'll leave your phone in the hotel during the day, 0:32:52.080 --> 0:32:53.960 because there's no point going if you're just gonna stare 0:32:53.960 --> 0:32:56.640 at your phone the whole time. And he took him. 0:32:56.840 --> 0:32:58.240 He didn't like the way he was living either. He 0:32:58.240 --> 0:33:01.120 took a moment, he thought about it, and he said, yeah, 0:33:01.560 --> 0:33:03.440 let's do this. I'll do it. Okay, I promise you, 0:33:03.520 --> 0:33:05.440 I'll do that. Let's do it. And I think it 0:33:05.520 --> 0:33:08.040 was literally like it was two or three weeks later. 0:33:08.360 --> 0:33:10.479 We took off from Heathrow to We went to New 0:33:10.560 --> 0:33:13.760 Orleans first, and a couple of weeks after that we 0:33:13.880 --> 0:33:16.040 got to the Gates of Graceland. And when you get there, 0:33:16.120 --> 0:33:18.680 now this was even before COVID, there's no one who 0:33:18.760 --> 0:33:20.760 shows you around. What happens is they hand you an 0:33:20.760 --> 0:33:24.320 iPad and you put in earbuds and the iPad shows 0:33:24.360 --> 0:33:27.120 you around. Right, It kind of says, go left, go right, 0:33:27.480 --> 0:33:30.360 your tour guide exactly. Every room you're in, it like 0:33:30.400 --> 0:33:32.520 exactly like a tour guide. It tells you the story 0:33:32.560 --> 0:33:34.680 about that room, and every room you go in, there's 0:33:34.800 --> 0:33:36.760 an image of that room on the iPad in front 0:33:36.800 --> 0:33:39.840 of you. Right. So we're walking around Graceland and I 0:33:39.920 --> 0:33:41.760 sort of note I was getting a bit pissed off 0:33:41.760 --> 0:33:44.520 because I'm started to notice what happens is everyone just 0:33:44.600 --> 0:33:47.960 walks around staring at the iPad, right. They're just sort 0:33:48.000 --> 0:33:50.320 of staying and then sometimes people do look up. They 0:33:50.400 --> 0:33:53.680 look up to take out their phones, take a selfie pose, 0:33:54.000 --> 0:33:55.800 they put their phone away, and then they go back 0:33:55.800 --> 0:33:57.280 to staring at the iPad. And I'm getting a little 0:33:57.280 --> 0:33:59.520 bit annoyed, but not like massively, but just like feeling 0:33:59.520 --> 0:34:01.760 a bit out of sorts about it. And we got 0:34:01.800 --> 0:34:04.360 to the Jungle Room, which was Elvis's favorite room in Graceland. 0:34:04.400 --> 0:34:06.160 It's got loads of fake plants in it and I 0:34:06.240 --> 0:34:08.640 never forget them. There was a middle aged Canadian couple 0:34:08.760 --> 0:34:11.520 next to us, and the man turned to his wife 0:34:11.560 --> 0:34:15.520 and he said, honey, this is amazing. Look. If you 0:34:15.640 --> 0:34:18.319 swipe left, you can see the Jungle Room to the left, 0:34:18.880 --> 0:34:21.160 and if you swipe right, you can see the Jungle 0:34:21.239 --> 0:34:23.160 Room to the right. And I thought they were kidding, right, 0:34:23.760 --> 0:34:25.480 So I laughed and I turned and looked at them, 0:34:25.480 --> 0:34:28.680 and they were just swiping back and forth. And I 0:34:28.840 --> 0:34:31.239 leaned forward and I said, but sir, there's an old 0:34:31.280 --> 0:34:34.520 fashioned form of swiping you could do. It's called turning 0:34:34.600 --> 0:34:37.839 your head, because you realize we're actually in the jungle room. 0:34:37.880 --> 0:34:39.000 You don't have to look at a picture of it 0:34:39.040 --> 0:34:42.040 on the internet. We're literally there. It's all around you. 0:34:42.440 --> 0:34:44.240 And they looked at me like I was completely arranged 0:34:44.280 --> 0:34:46.239 and back to out the room and I turned to 0:34:46.320 --> 0:34:48.960 my godson to laugh about it, and he was standing 0:34:49.000 --> 0:34:51.520 in the corner staring at Snapchat, because from the minute 0:34:51.920 --> 0:34:55.320 we landed he just couldn't stop. He couldn't stop. And 0:34:55.440 --> 0:34:56.880 I went up to him, and I did think it's 0:34:56.920 --> 0:34:58.560 never a good idea with teenagers. I tried to grab 0:34:58.640 --> 0:35:00.600 the phone out of his hand. I said to him, 0:35:01.120 --> 0:35:03.360 I know you're afraid of missing out, but this is 0:35:03.440 --> 0:35:06.040 guaranteeing that you'll miss out. You're not showing up at 0:35:06.080 --> 0:35:08.200 the events of your own existence. You're not present at 0:35:08.239 --> 0:35:11.040 your own life. This is no way to live. And 0:35:11.160 --> 0:35:14.080 he stormed off, understandably, and I wandered around Memphis on 0:35:14.120 --> 0:35:16.400 my own that night, and I found him later by 0:35:16.480 --> 0:35:19.120 the guitar shapes swimming Paul in the Heartbreak Hotel where 0:35:19.160 --> 0:35:21.279 we were staying, and he was sitting with his feet 0:35:21.280 --> 0:35:22.680 in the pool and he was looking at his phone 0:35:23.120 --> 0:35:25.840 and I apologized to him for getting so angry, and 0:35:25.920 --> 0:35:27.759 he didn't look up from a snapchat, but he said, 0:35:28.640 --> 0:35:32.000 I know something's really wrong here and I don't know 0:35:32.080 --> 0:35:35.680 what it is. And that's when I thought, I need 0:35:35.719 --> 0:35:37.680 to stop putting this off. I need to figure out 0:35:37.719 --> 0:35:39.759 what's actually because it was like, it was like we 0:35:39.840 --> 0:35:42.040 went away to escape this problem of distraction, but there 0:35:42.120 --> 0:35:44.960 was nowhere to escape to because it was everywhere, right, 0:35:45.760 --> 0:35:47.520 And that's why that was the start of me really 0:35:47.600 --> 0:35:49.200 going on this big journey all over the world. 0:35:49.600 --> 0:35:52.440 And why Provincetown? What was it about going there that 0:35:52.560 --> 0:35:54.520 you thought if you say it's everywhere, it's going to 0:35:54.560 --> 0:35:56.720 follow you regardless. What was it about going and spending 0:35:56.800 --> 0:35:59.160 time especially there, or what were the rules that you 0:35:59.280 --> 0:36:02.760 had for yourself health in doing this that was different. 0:36:03.200 --> 0:36:05.439 So at the start of working on my book, style 0:36:05.520 --> 0:36:08.439 and focus, I thought, well, it's obvious what the problem 0:36:08.520 --> 0:36:11.880 is here. I'm weak, I'm not good enough. I need 0:36:11.960 --> 0:36:14.800 to use my willpower. And someone invented the smartphone and 0:36:14.880 --> 0:36:17.160 that fucked me over, right, So I thought, okay, if 0:36:17.160 --> 0:36:19.000 these are the two problems and the solution is kind 0:36:19.000 --> 0:36:21.800 of obvious, right, I'll use my willpower to separate myself 0:36:21.800 --> 0:36:24.200 from the phone. So I was in this very lucky 0:36:24.239 --> 0:36:26.080 position that one of my previous books got made into 0:36:26.160 --> 0:36:27.600 big Hollywood film, so I had a load of money 0:36:27.640 --> 0:36:29.239 for the first time in my life. I thought, fuck out, 0:36:29.239 --> 0:36:31.680 I'm just gonna go away. So I booked a room 0:36:31.719 --> 0:36:33.640 in a beach house in Provincetown, which is a bit 0:36:33.719 --> 0:36:35.839 like Byron Bay. Basically, it's on the tip of Cape Cod. 0:36:35.920 --> 0:36:38.440 It's a much gayer version of Byron Bay. It's the 0:36:38.520 --> 0:36:40.719 kind of place where there's more than one person who 0:36:40.760 --> 0:36:42.840 owns a full time living by dressing as Ursula, the 0:36:42.960 --> 0:36:45.160 villain from The Little Man Made and singing songs about 0:36:45.200 --> 0:36:45.800 kind of lingers. 0:36:45.880 --> 0:36:46.920 Right, that's amazing. 0:36:47.000 --> 0:36:47.600 It's paradise. 0:36:48.400 --> 0:36:49.120 I would hate. 0:36:52.040 --> 0:36:54.240 I should have gone into the Dilama dressed as Ursula. 0:36:54.360 --> 0:36:55.759 That would have really fucked with him. But if I 0:36:55.800 --> 0:36:57.320 ever do it again, I will. And I booked this 0:36:57.440 --> 0:37:00.600 room and I went there, and I had no smartphone, 0:37:00.680 --> 0:37:02.360 and I had no laptop that could get online. My 0:37:02.360 --> 0:37:04.239 friend Mtiat has gave me his broken old laptop that 0:37:04.360 --> 0:37:06.759 been able to get online for years, and I had 0:37:06.840 --> 0:37:10.520 three months completely offline. I didn't have any access to 0:37:10.560 --> 0:37:13.719 the Internet at all, and loads of things happened in 0:37:13.800 --> 0:37:16.000 that month, but the biggest thing that amazed me was, 0:37:16.040 --> 0:37:18.000 I Mean, the other thing I thought before I went was, well, 0:37:18.040 --> 0:37:20.000 maybe my attentions getting worse because I'm getting older. I 0:37:20.080 --> 0:37:22.640 was nearly forty when I went, And the most striking 0:37:22.719 --> 0:37:26.719 thing was how much and how rapidly my attention came back. 0:37:27.680 --> 0:37:29.160 My attention went back to being as good as it 0:37:29.200 --> 0:37:30.719 had been when I was seventeen. I could read for 0:37:30.840 --> 0:37:33.040 like eight hours a day, I could have really long 0:37:33.120 --> 0:37:38.319 conversations quite quickly. That desperate kind of hunger for the distractions, 0:37:38.400 --> 0:37:41.000 the kind of pings and paranoias of the way we live, 0:37:41.880 --> 0:37:45.800 really washed out, like a tide that had gone. And 0:37:45.960 --> 0:37:47.800 I later realized actually, because after that I went on 0:37:47.880 --> 0:37:49.839 this big journey, I interviewed over two hundred the leading 0:37:49.840 --> 0:37:52.840 scientists in the world, from Moscow to Melbourne to Miami 0:37:53.120 --> 0:37:56.080 who've studied why our attentions getting worse, and they've actually 0:37:56.080 --> 0:37:58.920 shown that there's scientific evidence for twelve factors that can 0:37:58.960 --> 0:38:01.239 make your attention better and make your attention worse. Some 0:38:01.400 --> 0:38:02.960 of them are in our tech, but actually most of 0:38:03.040 --> 0:38:05.600 them are not they're much bigger factors in the way 0:38:05.680 --> 0:38:07.120 we live. I'm sure we'll get to some of them. 0:38:07.320 --> 0:38:09.160 And I realized actually a lot of them had changed 0:38:09.200 --> 0:38:12.239 in Provincetown. It wasn't just the lack of the tech. 0:38:12.440 --> 0:38:14.600 But I remember on the last day I was there, 0:38:15.280 --> 0:38:19.160 there's a point at the edge of Provincetown. It's just 0:38:19.200 --> 0:38:21.920 beyond the lighthouse where you can go on a boat, 0:38:22.120 --> 0:38:24.480 and I remember going there and looking out over I 0:38:24.560 --> 0:38:27.719 hadn't gone anywhere for three months, right, and looking out 0:38:27.800 --> 0:38:30.359 over this landscape where i'd been, where my mind had 0:38:30.400 --> 0:38:33.480 really been for three months, and thinking this is amazing. 0:38:33.520 --> 0:38:37.040 Why would I ever go back how I lived before? Right? 0:38:37.200 --> 0:38:39.600 I loved this? And the next day I got the 0:38:39.600 --> 0:38:41.400 ferry back to Boston and I got my phone and 0:38:41.480 --> 0:38:44.680 my laptop back from my friend Joleen, And within two 0:38:44.760 --> 0:38:46.960 months I was eighty percent back where i'd been. I 0:38:47.040 --> 0:38:49.080 didn't ever go quite back as far, and I was like, ah, 0:38:49.520 --> 0:38:51.880 And then I felt this kind of renewed wave of shame, like, well, 0:38:51.920 --> 0:38:54.799 what happened? Right? And that was when I realized, Oh, 0:38:54.840 --> 0:38:57.400 I need to understand in a deeper way what's happening 0:38:57.440 --> 0:39:01.359 and build more sustainable solutions than just Look, detoxes are great, 0:39:01.400 --> 0:39:02.240 but they're not the solution. 0:39:02.560 --> 0:39:04.560 And I think that's what everyone does, right people you 0:39:04.640 --> 0:39:07.160 see it, they go, I'm having a weekend off social media, 0:39:07.560 --> 0:39:10.920 as though that's the solution to cleansing whatever feelings it is. 0:39:11.000 --> 0:39:13.359 You know, sometimes people feel overwhelmed by using social media 0:39:13.600 --> 0:39:16.360 or overwhelmed by their phones. But it's this idea that 0:39:16.480 --> 0:39:19.239 a twenty four hour step away is going to solve 0:39:19.239 --> 0:39:21.759 all the problems. But the problems are actually a lot more. 0:39:22.040 --> 0:39:23.880 It's just intertwined in the way that we live our 0:39:23.920 --> 0:39:26.360 lives rather than it being just a once off detox. 0:39:26.840 --> 0:39:29.800 Yeah. And I think for all of the twelve factors 0:39:29.840 --> 0:39:31.520 that are harming our attention that I write about in 0:39:31.560 --> 0:39:34.400 my book Style and Focus, I learned from this journey 0:39:34.480 --> 0:39:36.120 that there's sort of two levels of which we've got 0:39:36.200 --> 0:39:38.359 to tackle them. I think I think of them as 0:39:38.440 --> 0:39:41.320 defense and offense. There are loads of things that we 0:39:41.360 --> 0:39:44.360 can do as individuals to defend ourselves and our children 0:39:44.719 --> 0:39:47.759 from these forces that are stealing our focus. Right. I'm 0:39:47.760 --> 0:39:49.200 sure we'll get to lots. I go through dozens in 0:39:49.200 --> 0:39:50.640 the book, but I'll give you an example of one 0:39:51.040 --> 0:39:53.560 I have at home a so called a K safe. 0:39:54.120 --> 0:39:55.880 It's a plastic safe. I don't get an commission for this, 0:39:55.920 --> 0:39:57.960 by the way, it's a bit like AVC salesperson by 0:39:58.000 --> 0:40:01.080 saying it's a plastic safe. In the show Note, you 0:40:01.239 --> 0:40:03.719 take off the lid, you put in your phone, you 0:40:03.840 --> 0:40:06.320 put on the lid, you turn the dial, and it 0:40:06.440 --> 0:40:08.840 locks your phone away for anything between five minutes and 0:40:08.920 --> 0:40:11.279 a whole day. Right. I won't sit down and watch 0:40:11.280 --> 0:40:13.120 a film with people unless that everyone puts their phone 0:40:13.120 --> 0:40:14.880 in the phone jail. We'll have my friends around for 0:40:14.920 --> 0:40:17.239 dinner unless we all in prison our phones. And it's 0:40:17.360 --> 0:40:19.880 very hard at first, and I felt that difficulty myself. 0:40:19.880 --> 0:40:22.560 If to say to people, you know, think about anything 0:40:22.600 --> 0:40:24.520 you've ever achieved in your life that you're proud of, 0:40:25.080 --> 0:40:28.120 whether it's starting a business, being a good parent, learning 0:40:28.160 --> 0:40:30.680 to play the guitar, whatever it is, that thing that 0:40:30.760 --> 0:40:33.760 you're proud of required a huge amount of sustained focus 0:40:33.840 --> 0:40:37.359 and attention. And when focus and attention break down, your 0:40:37.360 --> 0:40:40.160 ability to achieve your goals breaks down, your ability to 0:40:40.280 --> 0:40:43.480 solve your problems breaks down. You feel worse about yourself 0:40:43.520 --> 0:40:46.400 actually because you are less competent. Right, And when you 0:40:46.520 --> 0:40:48.480 start to get your attention back. Even beginning in these 0:40:48.560 --> 0:40:51.759 very small ways. It's initially anxiety provoking, and then you 0:40:51.840 --> 0:40:54.239 feel the tremendous pleasure. Just the pleasure of sitting and 0:40:54.280 --> 0:40:56.440 having dinner with your friends and them actually listening to 0:40:56.520 --> 0:40:59.600 you and you actually listening to them is such a 0:40:59.640 --> 0:41:02.320 profane and pleasure that it quite quickly people want to 0:41:02.440 --> 0:41:04.560 expand the spaces in which they can do that. So 0:41:04.640 --> 0:41:06.719 that's one level of which we've got to respond defense, right, 0:41:06.760 --> 0:41:08.160 and we can talk about lots of other ways people 0:41:08.160 --> 0:41:10.680 can defend themselves. But I want to be really, really 0:41:10.719 --> 0:41:14.200 honest with people, because, to be candid, I don't think 0:41:14.239 --> 0:41:17.440 most books about attention are being honest with people. I 0:41:17.520 --> 0:41:19.719 am passionately in favor of these individual changes. They will 0:41:19.719 --> 0:41:22.520 make a big difference. They go a long way, but 0:41:22.680 --> 0:41:24.480 on their own they're not going to solve this problem 0:41:24.920 --> 0:41:28.000 because at the moment, it's a bit like someone is 0:41:28.040 --> 0:41:30.960 pouring itching powder over us all day and then leaning 0:41:31.000 --> 0:41:33.319 forward and going, you know what, mate, you might want 0:41:33.320 --> 0:41:35.520 to learn how to meditate. Then you wouldn't scratch so much, 0:41:35.880 --> 0:41:37.680 and you want to go, well, fuck off, I'll learn 0:41:37.760 --> 0:41:40.200 to meditate. That's really valuable, But you need to stop 0:41:40.280 --> 0:41:42.799 pouring this itching powder on me. Right, So we've got 0:41:42.840 --> 0:41:47.080 to actually deal with the factors together collectively that are 0:41:47.200 --> 0:41:49.439 doing this to us. Because you know, this didn't happen 0:41:49.520 --> 0:41:51.520 because you failed, and you failed, and I failed and 0:41:51.600 --> 0:41:54.399 our kids failed. Right, this happened because of very big 0:41:54.520 --> 0:41:57.400 social forces. But these social forces, they are not inevitable. 0:41:57.520 --> 0:41:57.640 Right. 0:41:58.120 --> 0:42:02.120 Dr James Williams, who'd been at the heart of Silicon Valley, 0:42:02.160 --> 0:42:05.360 a key figure in Silicon Valley, was horrified by what 0:42:05.440 --> 0:42:08.440 they were doing, quit and became, I would argue, the 0:42:08.480 --> 0:42:12.839 most important philosopher attention in the world. He said to me, Look, 0:42:13.239 --> 0:42:16.120 the acts existed for one point four million years before 0:42:16.160 --> 0:42:18.960 anyone said, guys, should we put handle on this thing. 0:42:19.440 --> 0:42:23.040 The entire Internet has existed less than ten thousand days. Right, 0:42:23.239 --> 0:42:24.840 we can sort the shout if we want to, and 0:42:24.960 --> 0:42:27.319 not just the tech element, the other eleven components as well. 0:42:27.560 --> 0:42:29.160 We can deal with these things, but a lot of 0:42:29.200 --> 0:42:31.400 them have to be dealt with through collective action together, 0:42:32.239 --> 0:42:33.759 some of them can be dealt with individually, and a 0:42:33.800 --> 0:42:34.800 lot of them have to be dealt with at a 0:42:34.880 --> 0:42:35.759 kind of collective level. 0:42:36.160 --> 0:42:37.960 Well, you know, in when I was because I listened 0:42:38.000 --> 0:42:38.520 to your book. 0:42:38.760 --> 0:42:41.680 Weirdly enough, I am a podcaster, so I like listening 0:42:41.920 --> 0:42:44.080 and I listened to your audio book and something that 0:42:44.160 --> 0:42:46.719 I just found insanely relatable that you spoke about when 0:42:46.719 --> 0:42:48.680 you went to Provincetown was one of the things that 0:42:48.719 --> 0:42:50.239 happened to you in one of the first days that 0:42:50.280 --> 0:42:53.799 you were there, and it was that immediate, I guess 0:42:53.800 --> 0:42:56.759 anxiety of when you tap your pocket or when you 0:42:56.920 --> 0:42:58.800 check your hand and you're like, where the fuck is 0:42:58.880 --> 0:43:01.960 my phone? And at the time, I thought, I go 0:43:02.160 --> 0:43:05.120 through that literally anytime I cannot find my phone, to 0:43:05.200 --> 0:43:07.080 the point where I then get my Apple Watch to 0:43:07.160 --> 0:43:07.480 ping it. 0:43:07.560 --> 0:43:09.239 So I can go and find it. It's because it's 0:43:09.280 --> 0:43:11.000 just an extension of us, like we're so used to 0:43:11.120 --> 0:43:13.400 constantly having it as like a body part almost, so 0:43:13.520 --> 0:43:15.560 you're like sometimes even wake up and I'm like, why 0:43:15.680 --> 0:43:17.359 is it in my bed? But it's in my bed, 0:43:17.719 --> 0:43:19.439 you know, so's my child, and then there's my phone 0:43:19.440 --> 0:43:21.120 next to me in between. 0:43:20.920 --> 0:43:23.560 Us, and it's so As one of the scientists who 0:43:23.840 --> 0:43:26.719 made an incredible breakthrough and understanding this professor Suner Layman, 0:43:26.719 --> 0:43:29.880 who I interviewed in Copenhagen in Denmark. The reason he 0:43:29.920 --> 0:43:33.040 started researching this is because he loves his sons, and 0:43:33.160 --> 0:43:34.839 every morning his sons would come and jump in the bed, 0:43:34.920 --> 0:43:37.200 and instead of turning to these lovely creatures or he loves, 0:43:37.400 --> 0:43:39.239 he would instinctively reach for his phone and look at 0:43:39.280 --> 0:43:41.359 it first, and he was like, what am I doing? 0:43:41.680 --> 0:43:43.279 But so many of us do it, and that's We're 0:43:43.280 --> 0:43:45.720 all doing it, and we almost justify it to ourselves 0:43:45.760 --> 0:43:47.840 in terms of like, well, I'm just going to check in, 0:43:48.280 --> 0:43:50.000 or I'm just going to check my emails, or I'm 0:43:50.040 --> 0:43:52.200 just going to check I don't know, my Instagram, my comments, whatever, 0:43:52.239 --> 0:43:54.000 that small thing is that we think we just need 0:43:54.080 --> 0:43:57.200 to check. But it's the constantness of it, Like, what's 0:43:57.239 --> 0:43:59.160 the difference if those comments are checked at the end 0:43:59.160 --> 0:44:02.560 of the day collective once, rather than that being checked, 0:44:02.640 --> 0:44:05.239 you know, all the time throughout the day. What I 0:44:05.320 --> 0:44:07.600 always find interesting is and something that I'm so guilty 0:44:07.680 --> 0:44:09.279 of is I might be in the middle of a task, 0:44:09.320 --> 0:44:12.040 whether it be writing or researching for the podcast, or 0:44:12.080 --> 0:44:15.680 doing something for my other business, and just the distraction 0:44:15.800 --> 0:44:18.400 of getting a message or just the distraction of you know, 0:44:18.640 --> 0:44:22.360 I'll quickly tap into Instagram for a second. What impact 0:44:22.360 --> 0:44:24.360 does that have. So if you're focused on a task 0:44:24.560 --> 0:44:26.560 and then you you know, quickly check out of that 0:44:26.680 --> 0:44:29.239 task and then go back to it, what impact does 0:44:29.280 --> 0:44:31.520 that have on your ability to actually complete whatever it 0:44:31.640 --> 0:44:33.239 is that you're supposed to be given your focus to. 0:44:33.600 --> 0:44:36.400 Professor Michael Posner at the University of Oregon did a study, 0:44:36.840 --> 0:44:39.680 really shocking study found if you're interrupted, and it could 0:44:39.680 --> 0:44:41.719 be something as small as a text message. So let's 0:44:41.719 --> 0:44:43.360 say you get text message, it takes you twenty seconds 0:44:43.360 --> 0:44:45.840 to look at it. It takes you, on average twenty 0:44:45.920 --> 0:44:47.800 three minutes to get back to the level of focus 0:44:47.920 --> 0:44:49.960 you had before you were interrupted. So you think, oh, 0:44:50.080 --> 0:44:52.280 I'll answer my friends text message will take twenty seconds 0:44:52.840 --> 0:44:55.560 very much, I'll take you twenty three minutes plus twenty seconds, right, 0:44:55.600 --> 0:44:57.799 But most of us, of course, are never getting twenty 0:44:57.880 --> 0:45:00.279 three minutes spare, So we're constantly operating at this lower 0:45:00.360 --> 0:45:02.640 level of cognitive ability. And so one of people who 0:45:02.680 --> 0:45:04.359 most help me to understand this is an amazing man 0:45:04.440 --> 0:45:06.640 name Professor Earl Miller, who I went to interview at 0:45:06.680 --> 0:45:08.799 MIT in the US. See he's one of the leading 0:45:08.880 --> 0:45:11.600 neuroscientists in the world. And he said to me, look, 0:45:11.640 --> 0:45:13.640 there's one thing you've got to understand about the human 0:45:13.719 --> 0:45:17.759 brain more than anything else. You can only consciously think 0:45:17.800 --> 0:45:20.520 about one or two things at a time. That's it. 0:45:21.120 --> 0:45:24.200 This is a fundamental limitation to the human brain. The 0:45:24.320 --> 0:45:26.960 human brain has not changed significantly in forty thousand years. 0:45:26.960 --> 0:45:29.200 It's not going to change on any time scale any 0:45:29.200 --> 0:45:31.360 of us are going to see. But what's happened is 0:45:31.400 --> 0:45:33.800 we've fallen for a kind of mass delusion. The average 0:45:33.840 --> 0:45:36.160 teenager now believes they can follow six or seven forms 0:45:36.200 --> 0:45:37.719 of media at the same time, and that the rest 0:45:37.719 --> 0:45:39.719 of us are not that far behind them. So what 0:45:39.880 --> 0:45:43.120 happens is scientists like Professor Miller, scientists all over the world, 0:45:43.719 --> 0:45:45.600 they get people into labs and they get them to 0:45:45.640 --> 0:45:47.080 think they're doing more than one thing at a time, 0:45:47.320 --> 0:45:50.200 and they monitor them, and what they discover is you 0:45:50.320 --> 0:45:51.759 can't do more than one thing at a time. What 0:45:51.840 --> 0:45:54.000 you do is you juggle very quickly. You're like, wait, 0:45:54.040 --> 0:45:56.720 what did you just ask me? What's that message on WhatsApp? 0:45:56.920 --> 0:45:58.440 What does it saying on the TV there? What's this? 0:45:58.640 --> 0:46:01.399 What's this message on Facebook? Sorry? What did you ask me? Again? 0:46:01.520 --> 0:46:04.399 And the overwhelm and that burnout that then comes from 0:46:04.440 --> 0:46:07.040 that feeling of like never actually being able to complete 0:46:07.040 --> 0:46:09.640 a task because it's like this constant feeling of being 0:46:09.719 --> 0:46:13.280 overwhelmed and stressed out because there's so many plates spinning. 0:46:13.640 --> 0:46:15.520 Well, the technical term for that, the kind of fancy 0:46:15.600 --> 0:46:18.359 term for that, is the switch cost effect. So there's 0:46:18.400 --> 0:46:22.080 a cost switching between tasks. So when you're switching rapidly 0:46:22.160 --> 0:46:26.399 between tasks, the evidence is very clear, you remember much 0:46:26.480 --> 0:46:29.680 less of what you do, you make far more mistakes, 0:46:30.200 --> 0:46:32.759 you're much less creative. Evidence is that it's huge. I 0:46:32.840 --> 0:46:34.480 give you an example of a small study. It's backed 0:46:34.480 --> 0:46:37.440 by a wider body of evidence. Hewlett Packard, the printer company. 0:46:37.560 --> 0:46:40.680 They got a scientist in to study their workers, and 0:46:40.800 --> 0:46:43.239 he split them into two groups. And the first group 0:46:43.320 --> 0:46:45.360 was told, just get on with your task, whatever it is, 0:46:45.560 --> 0:46:47.759 and you're not going to be interrupted. And the second 0:46:47.800 --> 0:46:50.080 group was told, get on with your task, whatever it is, 0:46:50.280 --> 0:46:51.719 but you're going to have to at the same time 0:46:52.120 --> 0:46:54.880 onto a heavy load of email and vocals. So pretty 0:46:54.960 --> 0:46:57.040 much how most of us work. And at the end 0:46:57.080 --> 0:46:59.560 of it, the scientists tested the IQ of both groups. 0:47:00.080 --> 0:47:05.040 Group that had not been interrupted scored on average ten 0:47:05.239 --> 0:47:06.920 IQ points higher than the group that had to keep 0:47:06.920 --> 0:47:08.400 your sense to that big That is, if we all 0:47:08.440 --> 0:47:15.440 smoked a fat splift together now and got stoned. If 0:47:15.480 --> 0:47:18.600 we did that now instead of waiting far now, our 0:47:18.680 --> 0:47:21.480 IQs would go down in the short term by five points. 0:47:21.719 --> 0:47:24.600 So being chronically interrupted is twice as bad in the 0:47:24.680 --> 0:47:27.640 short term for your IQ as getting stones. 0:47:27.760 --> 0:47:33.520 Right, if that's some pretty bad conversations being markedly, if 0:47:33.560 --> 0:47:33.799 you were a. 0:47:33.880 --> 0:47:36.200 Chronic stoner, or if you were getting absolutely hammered, it 0:47:36.239 --> 0:47:39.480 would be different, right, But you can see you you'd 0:47:39.520 --> 0:47:42.239 be better off sitting at your desk doing one thing 0:47:42.320 --> 0:47:44.120 at a time, a smoking a spliff. Then you would 0:47:44.160 --> 0:47:46.920 sit at your desk, not smoking a spliff and being 0:47:46.920 --> 0:47:48.759 constantly interrupted. Now, to be clear, you'd be better off 0:47:48.840 --> 0:47:50.799 neither getting stoned nor being interrupted. Don't want to get 0:47:50.840 --> 0:47:53.080 the wrong idea, but this is why Professor Miller said 0:47:53.080 --> 0:47:55.920 to me, we're living in a perfect storm of cognitive 0:47:55.960 --> 0:47:59.839 degradation as a result of being constantly interrupted. 0:47:59.840 --> 0:48:03.359 Always joking like amongst our team that we are scatterbrains. 0:48:03.400 --> 0:48:05.520 You know that we kind of can't keep on the 0:48:05.560 --> 0:48:07.400 one train of thought thriving chaos. 0:48:07.480 --> 0:48:09.359 Say that we thrive in chaos. We don't, We say 0:48:09.520 --> 0:48:11.800 our job. We don't thrive in chaos, but it's constantly 0:48:11.880 --> 0:48:15.240 chaos and we survive. It's probably more the saying. 0:48:15.120 --> 0:48:16.600 Yeah, that's so interesting. So why do you think you 0:48:16.719 --> 0:48:17.000 say that? 0:48:17.560 --> 0:48:20.120 Oh, because it's just a it's a war cry to 0:48:20.239 --> 0:48:22.400 get through the day, really, I think. But no, we 0:48:22.680 --> 0:48:25.400 work very much in a digital space, so a podcasting 0:48:25.560 --> 0:48:28.400 is very much an audio digital medium. A lot of 0:48:28.480 --> 0:48:30.080 the work that we do and how we connect with 0:48:30.120 --> 0:48:33.560 our communities is via social media platforms, but it is 0:48:33.800 --> 0:48:36.560 without having one designated person who takes care of just 0:48:36.680 --> 0:48:39.160 the customer service side. In terms of like the huge 0:48:39.200 --> 0:48:42.920 community of emails or messages that need to be responded to, 0:48:43.239 --> 0:48:45.560 it kind of always feels like a constant barrage. 0:48:45.600 --> 0:48:46.000 And it is. 0:48:46.440 --> 0:48:49.080 As much as there's incredible aspects of that which we 0:48:49.160 --> 0:48:51.600 are so grateful for, there are some aspects of that 0:48:51.680 --> 0:48:53.400 which make it really hard to kind of hone in 0:48:53.520 --> 0:48:55.560 and get and feel accomplished in like the to do 0:48:55.719 --> 0:48:56.319 list as well. 0:48:56.680 --> 0:48:58.439 Yeah, and I've always put it down to the fact 0:48:58.480 --> 0:49:02.200 that that's our personalities. But what I loved hearing you 0:49:02.360 --> 0:49:05.960 say was that our inability to not pay attention to 0:49:06.040 --> 0:49:08.480 the one thing at the one time, it wasn't entirely 0:49:08.560 --> 0:49:12.279 our own faults, and that social media has. These big 0:49:12.440 --> 0:49:15.880 companies of social media have a lot to be accountable for. 0:49:16.160 --> 0:49:18.840 It's not all your fault, right, you didn't design this 0:49:19.040 --> 0:49:20.680 environment in which we live. So let's look at one 0:49:20.680 --> 0:49:22.160 of the twelve factors that you brought up, one of 0:49:22.160 --> 0:49:24.359 the twelve factors that are harming our focus. And they 0:49:24.400 --> 0:49:27.560 go really widely, from you know, the food we eat, 0:49:28.040 --> 0:49:29.960 to the way our kids' schools work. There's a whole 0:49:30.000 --> 0:49:31.880 range of things. But let's home in on this one, 0:49:31.880 --> 0:49:33.400 because I think you're totally right. It's the one that 0:49:33.440 --> 0:49:36.040 we think of most. I actually don't think it's the biggest, interestingly, 0:49:36.400 --> 0:49:38.200 but it's definitely very big, and it's the one we 0:49:38.239 --> 0:49:40.680 think of the most when we think about this problem. 0:49:40.760 --> 0:49:44.000 And I spent a lot of time trying to understand 0:49:44.040 --> 0:49:46.120 this by interviewing people in Silicon Valley, a lot of 0:49:46.160 --> 0:49:49.000 whom are designed the world in which we live, right. 0:49:49.719 --> 0:49:52.520 It was so interesting to see how haunted they are 0:49:52.640 --> 0:49:54.799 by what they've done. So, for example, I mentioned before 0:49:54.840 --> 0:49:57.359 doctor James Williams had been a key figure in Silicon Valley. 0:49:57.560 --> 0:50:00.800 He had this moment that really haunted him if speaking 0:50:00.840 --> 0:50:04.320 at a tech conference and the audience were literally the 0:50:04.400 --> 0:50:07.000 people anyone listening. Your kids are using stuff designed by 0:50:07.000 --> 0:50:09.360 the people who were in that audience today, right, And 0:50:09.480 --> 0:50:12.080 he said to them, if there's anyone here who wants 0:50:12.200 --> 0:50:14.640 to live in the world that we've created, please put 0:50:14.719 --> 0:50:16.960 up your hand. Not one person put up their hand. 0:50:17.360 --> 0:50:19.640 Not long afterwards he quit, who will? I can't do 0:50:19.719 --> 0:50:21.319 this anymore? This is immoral? Right? 0:50:21.719 --> 0:50:23.839 When you say this is immoral, what is the moral? 0:50:24.400 --> 0:50:24.600 Yeah? 0:50:24.600 --> 0:50:27.360 Exactly, what's the part that's I mean, you know, and 0:50:27.400 --> 0:50:29.480 I think so many of us have seen documentaries like 0:50:29.600 --> 0:50:32.000 The Social Dilemma or you know, we've tapped into the 0:50:32.040 --> 0:50:34.520 fact that there are problematic aspects of social media of 0:50:34.640 --> 0:50:37.759 how it sucks us of not just our attention but 0:50:37.800 --> 0:50:40.200 with our money in many ways. But what is it 0:50:40.840 --> 0:50:42.040 about it that is immoral? 0:50:42.480 --> 0:50:44.960 Yeah? So this is so important because the way big 0:50:45.080 --> 0:50:47.680 tech want us to think about this debate is are 0:50:47.719 --> 0:50:50.200 you pro tech or you anti tech? And when you 0:50:50.280 --> 0:50:51.920 hear that, you're like, oh, well, I'm not going to 0:50:52.000 --> 0:50:53.600 join the Armish. I'm not going to give up my technology. 0:50:53.640 --> 0:50:55.920 I guess that must be protech, right, no hate the Armish? 0:50:56.080 --> 0:50:57.040 Exactly if. 0:50:59.160 --> 0:51:00.040 People who believe. 0:51:01.600 --> 0:51:03.800 Exactly exactly. I once spent a week in an Amish 0:51:03.800 --> 0:51:06.080 community and I made a terrible mistake for a previous book. 0:51:06.440 --> 0:51:08.080 I made the terrible mistake the night before. 0:51:08.600 --> 0:51:10.160 I'm about to say that was a terrible mistake. 0:51:10.480 --> 0:51:12.880 No, no, well, actually they were quite nice. But the 0:51:12.960 --> 0:51:14.719 night before I made the terrible mistake of watching the 0:51:14.719 --> 0:51:17.880 Harrison Ford film Witness, which really scared the show out 0:51:17.880 --> 0:51:19.440 of me, because the Armish are not good people in 0:51:19.480 --> 0:51:22.080 that film. The real Armish are much better. No, but 0:51:22.280 --> 0:51:25.480 that's not the debate. We're all pro tech, right. The 0:51:25.560 --> 0:51:29.040 debate is what kind of tech do we want, designed 0:51:29.080 --> 0:51:31.680 for what purposes, working in whose interests? 0:51:31.719 --> 0:51:31.799 Right? 0:51:31.840 --> 0:51:33.800 Which is sound a bit fancy, So just unpack it 0:51:33.880 --> 0:51:36.880 a bit if that's okay. So anyone listening, if you 0:51:37.040 --> 0:51:41.400 open Facebook, TikTok, Twitter, any of the mainstream social media apps, 0:51:41.480 --> 0:51:44.120 now they start to make money out of you immediately 0:51:44.200 --> 0:51:48.200 in two ways. First way is really obvious, you see advertising. Okay, 0:51:48.320 --> 0:51:50.320 no one needs me to explain that. Second way is 0:51:50.360 --> 0:51:53.759 much more important. Everything you do on these apps is 0:51:53.920 --> 0:51:58.120 scanned and sorted by their artificial intelligence algorithms to figure 0:51:58.160 --> 0:52:03.040 out who you are. Constantly harvesting information about you. So 0:52:03.160 --> 0:52:05.040 let's say you've said that you like I don't know 0:52:05.400 --> 0:52:08.360 Scott Morrison, Bet Midler, and you told your mummy you 0:52:08.440 --> 0:52:10.440 just bought some nappies, right, okay, so it knows you 0:52:10.560 --> 0:52:13.120 like Scott Morrison. You probably write wing. You like Bet Middler. 0:52:13.120 --> 0:52:15.040 If you're a man, you're probably gay. No disrespect to 0:52:15.080 --> 0:52:16.799 any straight man you like Bet Midler. I don't believe 0:52:16.800 --> 0:52:19.640 there are any, but if there are. And you've told 0:52:19.640 --> 0:52:21.400 your mommy you bought nappies, okay, you've got a baby. 0:52:21.480 --> 0:52:24.760 So it's harvesting all this information about you, right, partly 0:52:24.760 --> 0:52:27.840 because it wants to sell that information to advertisers, but 0:52:28.200 --> 0:52:31.440 mainly because it's figuring out what the weaknesses and your 0:52:31.480 --> 0:52:34.319 attention are. It's figuring out what is it that keeps 0:52:34.480 --> 0:52:38.040 you as an individual scrolling for a super simple reason. 0:52:38.080 --> 0:52:39.400 And it's had to be explained to me by so 0:52:39.520 --> 0:52:41.960 many people in Silicon Valley before I really got it 0:52:42.280 --> 0:52:44.799 understood how simple it was. In a way, every time 0:52:44.880 --> 0:52:48.000 you pick up your phone and start scrolling, those companies 0:52:48.160 --> 0:52:50.680 begin to make money. The longer you scroll, the more 0:52:50.719 --> 0:52:53.080 money they make. Every time you put the app away. 0:52:53.360 --> 0:52:56.160 Their revenue stream disappears. Did so for your kids? Right, 0:52:56.239 --> 0:52:58.440 every time your kids open the app, they start to 0:52:58.480 --> 0:53:00.560 make money. The longer they scroll, the more money the 0:53:00.640 --> 0:53:03.080 company makes, because obviously the longer you scroll, the more 0:53:03.080 --> 0:53:05.759 ads you see, and the more information they harvest about 0:53:05.800 --> 0:53:08.759 you to sell to the advertisers. So all of this 0:53:08.880 --> 0:53:11.480 genius in Silicon Valley, all these algorithms, or this AI 0:53:11.760 --> 0:53:14.960 or this incredible engineering power, all of it is good 0:53:15.080 --> 0:53:17.320 at the moment towards one thing, figuring out how do 0:53:17.440 --> 0:53:18.880 we get you and your kids to pick up your 0:53:18.880 --> 0:53:21.600 phone as often as possible and scroll as long as possible. 0:53:21.719 --> 0:53:24.480 Just like I know the head of KFC, all he 0:53:24.640 --> 0:53:26.879 cares about He might as an individual, care about something else, 0:53:26.920 --> 0:53:29.279 but in his job, all he cares about is how 0:53:29.320 --> 0:53:31.560 many times did you go to KFC today? And how 0:53:31.600 --> 0:53:34.360 big was the bucket you bought? All they care about 0:53:34.960 --> 0:53:36.880 is how often and how long did you scroll? 0:53:37.040 --> 0:53:40.280 That's it, right, And these are some of the smartest 0:53:40.320 --> 0:53:42.200 people in the world. And I think this goes back 0:53:42.239 --> 0:53:44.360 to what you said earlier, this idea of offense and defense. 0:53:44.800 --> 0:53:47.359 Sure we can have some defenses against that, but it's 0:53:47.400 --> 0:53:49.120 a hard one to unpack because when you're like well, 0:53:49.600 --> 0:53:51.279 we don't have to be black and white with this. 0:53:51.480 --> 0:53:54.560 Obviously everybody is pro tech. But if everybody is pro tech, 0:53:54.719 --> 0:53:57.680 how do we then have an offense to these massive 0:53:57.719 --> 0:54:01.040 tech companies. How do we then collectively turn around and say, well, 0:54:01.080 --> 0:54:02.880 we're not happy with this, but we still want all 0:54:02.920 --> 0:54:05.040 the other stuff you know that you've created that's free. 0:54:05.440 --> 0:54:07.839 Yeah, and it's such an important question. My friend tis 0:54:07.920 --> 0:54:10.120 Stan Harris always says, who'd been at the heart of 0:54:10.160 --> 0:54:12.280 Google is now? I would argue the most important dissident 0:54:12.640 --> 0:54:15.800 speaking out against this what they're doing, says, you know, 0:54:15.880 --> 0:54:18.320 you can try having self control, but every time you do, 0:54:18.800 --> 0:54:20.840 there's ten thousand engineers at the other side of the 0:54:20.880 --> 0:54:24.200 screen working really hard to undermine your self control. So 0:54:24.239 --> 0:54:26.239 I think you've gone to exactly the most important question. 0:54:26.400 --> 0:54:28.080 There are loads of things we can do as individuals. 0:54:28.200 --> 0:54:29.719 You've gone to the heart of it, and I think 0:54:29.760 --> 0:54:31.160 we want to understand one of the things we need 0:54:31.200 --> 0:54:32.640 to do now to deal with this, one of the 0:54:32.680 --> 0:54:35.439 twelve factors that are harming our attention. I think there's 0:54:35.560 --> 0:54:38.440 an analogy in the history of Australia that I think 0:54:38.560 --> 0:54:41.080 you can probably just about remember. I can remember that. 0:54:41.120 --> 0:54:43.719 I think shows us the way forward. So when we 0:54:43.800 --> 0:54:46.160 were kids, the most common form of petrol, in fact, 0:54:46.160 --> 0:54:48.640 by far the most dominant form of petrol in Australia 0:54:48.719 --> 0:54:52.040 and in Britain across the world was leaded petrol. Right, 0:54:52.120 --> 0:54:53.520 I can remember the smell of that. 0:54:53.520 --> 0:54:55.319 I can remember moment unleaded petrols where it. 0:54:55.280 --> 0:54:58.040 Came from, exactly right. And a bit before our time, 0:54:58.160 --> 0:55:00.600 people used to paint their houses a lot with lead paint, right, 0:55:01.000 --> 0:55:02.840 And it had been known going right back to the 0:55:02.920 --> 0:55:06.120 nineteen twenties that exposure to lead really screws up your 0:55:06.120 --> 0:55:09.120 brain and in particular harms children's ability to focus and 0:55:09.120 --> 0:55:11.719 pay attention. In fact, there was an amazing scientist named 0:55:11.840 --> 0:55:14.440 Dr Alice Hamilton who in the nineteen twenties said there 0:55:14.480 --> 0:55:16.919 was an alternative to leaded petrol even then, so don't 0:55:16.960 --> 0:55:19.440 introduce leaded petrol. If it's in the petrol, it'll get 0:55:19.480 --> 0:55:21.439 in the air, everyone will be exposed to it. It'll 0:55:21.440 --> 0:55:24.000 be really bad for people's brains. And she was kind 0:55:24.000 --> 0:55:27.240 of man explained out the room, and they introduced leaded petrol. 0:55:27.280 --> 0:55:29.120 And by the time you got to the late seventies 0:55:29.200 --> 0:55:32.920 the early eighties, the science was just totally undeniable that 0:55:33.000 --> 0:55:36.160 this was really harming children's ability to focus right, and 0:55:36.280 --> 0:55:39.080 has all sorts of other terrible effects. So what happened 0:55:39.160 --> 0:55:41.359 was a group of ordinary Australian mums what we used 0:55:41.360 --> 0:55:44.600 to call back then housewives, banded together and said, well, 0:55:44.920 --> 0:55:47.239 why are we allowing this? Why are we allowing these 0:55:47.280 --> 0:55:49.520 for profit companies to screw up our kids' brains? This 0:55:49.640 --> 0:55:52.080 is crazy, especially when there's an alternative that works just 0:55:52.120 --> 0:55:54.719 as well and doesn't do that right. And it's really 0:55:54.760 --> 0:55:57.799 important to notice what those mums didn't say. They didn't say, 0:55:58.239 --> 0:56:00.560 so we're anti petrol, get rid of it. They didn't 0:56:00.560 --> 0:56:02.080 say get rid of paint. No one should paint their 0:56:02.120 --> 0:56:04.319 houses anymore, in the same way no one could say 0:56:04.400 --> 0:56:06.799 we're anti tech. Right. What they said is, let's deal 0:56:06.840 --> 0:56:10.400 with the specific aspect of this that is so harming us. 0:56:11.080 --> 0:56:13.960 So they said, let's ban leaded petrol. Right, And these 0:56:14.080 --> 0:56:19.120 mums they fought, and they fought and they were ridiculed 0:56:19.200 --> 0:56:21.160 and it you know, it's a bit like that thing 0:56:21.239 --> 0:56:24.200 Gandhi said with every political movement, First they ignore you, 0:56:24.719 --> 0:56:27.759 then they fight you, then you win. Right, And that's 0:56:27.800 --> 0:56:30.920 what happened, and everyone listening knows these mums. They won. 0:56:31.000 --> 0:56:33.239 We don't have leaded petrol anymore. As a result, the 0:56:33.320 --> 0:56:36.160 Center of Disease Control says the average child is three 0:56:36.280 --> 0:56:38.319 to five IQ points higher than they would have been 0:56:38.360 --> 0:56:40.600 had we not got rid of lead right now, and 0:56:40.719 --> 0:56:43.200 we all have better attention as a result. Right if 0:56:43.280 --> 0:56:44.799 we still had lead in the air, our attention would 0:56:44.800 --> 0:56:46.680 be even worse than it is now now. You can 0:56:46.719 --> 0:56:49.520 see to me, along with the individual forms of defense, 0:56:49.560 --> 0:56:50.879 and I talk about lots of them in the book, 0:56:51.440 --> 0:56:54.800 that's a really great model. You identify the specific element 0:56:54.840 --> 0:56:57.279 that's fucking with our brains, and you get rid of 0:56:57.320 --> 0:56:59.279 that specific element while keeping all the good stuff. We 0:56:59.360 --> 0:57:01.239 still have petrol. We stand paint right with a room 0:57:01.280 --> 0:57:03.719 that's been painted, just not with leaded paint, right, just 0:57:03.760 --> 0:57:07.320 not recently. And to me, so what I wanted to 0:57:07.400 --> 0:57:10.080 figure out was, with all these people in Silicon Valley 0:57:10.120 --> 0:57:12.160 who were at the heart of the machine, what's the 0:57:12.200 --> 0:57:14.160 equivalent of the lead in the lead paint for this problem? 0:57:14.280 --> 0:57:16.880 Right there was a moment it really fell into place 0:57:16.960 --> 0:57:20.920 for me. Hainsfeed Asaraskin, who invented a key part of 0:57:20.960 --> 0:57:23.840 how most websites work. His dad, Jeff Raskin, invented the 0:57:23.840 --> 0:57:26.720 Apple Macintosh for Steve Jobs and ASA said to me, look, 0:57:26.720 --> 0:57:28.640 there's an exact equivalent to the lead in lead paint. 0:57:29.440 --> 0:57:32.200 You've got to ban the current business model for social media. 0:57:32.880 --> 0:57:34.240 And I was like, well, what do you mean? And 0:57:34.320 --> 0:57:36.960 he said, past laws that say a business model that 0:57:37.080 --> 0:57:40.320 is based on secretly tracking you in order to figure 0:57:40.320 --> 0:57:43.760 out the weaknesses and your attention, that is just fundamentally immoral. 0:57:43.840 --> 0:57:46.400 It's like lead in lead paint. It's screwing up our kids' brains. 0:57:46.920 --> 0:57:50.360 We won't allow it. Let's imagine we do that. The 0:57:50.480 --> 0:57:52.800 day after we do that, what would happen when I 0:57:52.800 --> 0:57:55.360 opened Facebook? Would it just say sorry, everyone, we've gone fishing? 0:57:55.440 --> 0:57:57.880 He said, of course not. What would happen is they'd 0:57:57.880 --> 0:57:59.920 have to move to a different business model. And everyone 0:58:00.000 --> 0:58:02.520 I'm listening, almost everyone will have experience of the two 0:58:02.560 --> 0:58:06.840 different business models. So the first alternative is a subscription model. 0:58:07.240 --> 0:58:09.720 Everyone knows how Netflix works. You pay a certain amount, 0:58:09.880 --> 0:58:12.080 you get access, right, so it maybe that we'd want 0:58:12.120 --> 0:58:13.760 to pay a small amount to social media companies in 0:58:13.840 --> 0:58:16.160 order to get access. Key thing to understand is at 0:58:16.200 --> 0:58:20.640 that point all the incentives change. Facebook, TikTok, Twitter, you 0:58:20.800 --> 0:58:23.960 are not their customer. You are the product they sell 0:58:24.040 --> 0:58:27.200 to their real customer. Who are the advertisers? So all 0:58:27.320 --> 0:58:29.120 of their intentions towards you are figuring out, how do 0:58:29.200 --> 0:58:31.880 we hack your attention and focus and your kid's attention 0:58:31.960 --> 0:58:34.280 of focus to get you to scroll as much as possible? 0:58:34.520 --> 0:58:35.840 Pick up your phone. You want to know why your 0:58:35.880 --> 0:58:38.000 phone's in your bed. One reason is because they've been 0:58:38.200 --> 0:58:41.640 unbelievably good at making you desperately crave that feedback. Right, 0:58:41.920 --> 0:58:45.120 But if you become the customer, suddenly all the incentives change. 0:58:45.120 --> 0:58:46.960 Suddenly they're not like, oh, what does she want in 0:58:47.080 --> 0:58:49.280 order to how can we hack her in order to 0:58:49.640 --> 0:58:51.400 sell her to advertise? It's something like what does she want? 0:58:51.800 --> 0:58:54.200 It turns out she feels good when she meets up 0:58:54.240 --> 0:58:56.000 with her friends and looks into their eyes. We've will 0:58:56.080 --> 0:58:58.600 learned the importance of that in the last two years. Okay, 0:58:59.080 --> 0:59:00.960 let's design our app not to get her to doom 0:59:01.040 --> 0:59:03.400 scroll as much as possible. Let's design the app to 0:59:03.600 --> 0:59:08.200 maximize contact between people offline. Let's design it to say, Oh, 0:59:08.800 --> 0:59:11.320 your friend Hannah's around the corner. She's selected on a 0:59:11.360 --> 0:59:13.280 button she wants to meet up. Why don't you go 0:59:13.360 --> 0:59:15.640 for a drink with her. The technology exists to do 0:59:15.760 --> 0:59:17.720 that as easily as the technology exists right now, my 0:59:17.760 --> 0:59:20.520 friends in Silicon Valley could design that in five minutes. 0:59:20.720 --> 0:59:22.680 The key thing is the incentives aren't there. So that's 0:59:22.720 --> 0:59:25.160 one alternative business model. We'll think about another one which 0:59:25.240 --> 0:59:29.000 literally everyone listening has experience of. Before we had sewers, 0:59:29.480 --> 0:59:32.000 we had FECs in the street. People got cholera. It 0:59:32.120 --> 0:59:35.560 was terrible. So we all paid to build the sewers, 0:59:35.640 --> 0:59:38.440 and we all own and maintain the sewers together. Right. 0:59:38.600 --> 0:59:41.400 You own the sewers in Sydney, own the sewers in London. 0:59:41.960 --> 0:59:45.320 So just like we want to own the sewage pipes together, 0:59:45.840 --> 0:59:47.640 it might be we want to own the information pipes 0:59:47.680 --> 0:59:51.040 together because we're getting the equivalent of cholera for our attention. 0:59:51.520 --> 0:59:53.480 But the key thing is, for as long as the 0:59:53.560 --> 0:59:56.000 longer you scroll, the more money these companies make, they 0:59:56.080 --> 0:59:58.320 will just carry on being unbelievably good at it, right, 0:59:58.560 --> 1:00:00.400 and they'll get better and better at it. Paul Graham, 1:00:00.400 --> 1:00:03.240 one of the biggest investors in Silicon mailing, said the 1:00:03.360 --> 1:00:05.560 world will be more addictive in the next forty years 1:00:05.560 --> 1:00:07.720 on the current jectory than it was in the last 1:00:07.800 --> 1:00:10.240 forty Think about how much more addictive TikTok is to 1:00:10.360 --> 1:00:13.080 your kid than Facebook. So imagine the next crack like 1:00:13.160 --> 1:00:16.040 iteration of TikTok in the metabus. So that's one side 1:00:16.080 --> 1:00:18.080 of the race. Right on the other side of the race, 1:00:18.160 --> 1:00:19.760 there's got to be a movement of all of us 1:00:19.880 --> 1:00:22.280 saying no, no, you don't get to do this to 1:00:22.400 --> 1:00:24.000 us and our kids, just like those mums with the 1:00:24.080 --> 1:00:26.560 lead paint. No, we're not going to tolerate this. That's 1:00:26.640 --> 1:00:28.480 not a good life. No, this is not how we 1:00:28.520 --> 1:00:30.480 want some cost we want technology. Of course there are 1:00:30.600 --> 1:00:33.600 moments of speed, but we also want moments of thought 1:00:33.680 --> 1:00:37.360 and contemplation and rest. We want children who can play outside, 1:00:37.400 --> 1:00:39.760 who can read books. Right, we can get to that 1:00:39.800 --> 1:00:41.320 better future, but we won't get there if we don't 1:00:41.360 --> 1:00:41.760 fight for it. 1:00:42.000 --> 1:00:43.520 Do you think as well with this though? And I 1:00:43.600 --> 1:00:47.040 mean I love the analogy of the lead paint, but 1:00:47.200 --> 1:00:49.320 in terms of like how simple that was to be 1:00:49.360 --> 1:00:51.680 able to pin in and go and to really go. Okay, 1:00:51.720 --> 1:00:54.000 that's the problem. It's that one element, It's that one 1:00:54.120 --> 1:00:56.520 ingredient that's causing an issue. I guess the issue with 1:00:56.680 --> 1:00:59.760 social media is that it and especially social media, it's 1:00:59.800 --> 1:01:01.960 so abstract to so many people. I mean, especially the 1:01:01.960 --> 1:01:05.120 people who are doing the legislations around it. You know, 1:01:05.640 --> 1:01:07.520 so many of us and we work in a digital 1:01:07.600 --> 1:01:10.160 space and I still don't fully comprehend how it works. 1:01:10.480 --> 1:01:12.280 But I know it benefits me in lots of ways. 1:01:12.320 --> 1:01:15.160 It benefits me from a business, from an advertising perspective, 1:01:15.200 --> 1:01:19.720 it benefits me from keeping connected. And I know it's negative, 1:01:20.080 --> 1:01:23.960 but without really understanding the nuances of how the platforms 1:01:24.000 --> 1:01:26.280 have been created, and I think that there is kind 1:01:26.280 --> 1:01:28.200 of a lack of transparency from the people who sit 1:01:28.200 --> 1:01:31.120 at the top, like an intentional lack of transparency. Totally 1:01:31.680 --> 1:01:34.600 that that's kind of what stops people from collectively going 1:01:35.080 --> 1:01:37.720 we don't want this. You know, individually we're all like, yeah, 1:01:37.720 --> 1:01:40.080 we're not happy, but collectively, no one really knows where 1:01:40.080 --> 1:01:40.480 to start. 1:01:40.920 --> 1:01:43.760 I think that's totally right. There's a different historical analogy 1:01:43.800 --> 1:01:45.720 that makes me helps me to think about that, and 1:01:45.760 --> 1:01:47.160 it will sound a bit odd for a moment, but 1:01:47.680 --> 1:01:49.480 I really loved my grandmother's I was raised by my 1:01:49.600 --> 1:01:51.400 Scottish grandmother and my mom was ille when I was 1:01:51.400 --> 1:01:53.320 a kid, and my dad was in a different country, 1:01:53.440 --> 1:01:56.880 and my grandmother's with the age I am now in 1:01:57.240 --> 1:02:00.600 nineteen sixty two, right, and in ninety six, So one 1:02:00.640 --> 1:02:03.120 of them was a Scottish, working class Scottish woman living 1:02:03.160 --> 1:02:06.560 in a kind of housing project, and my Swiss grandmother 1:02:06.760 --> 1:02:09.640 was a peasant living in a what's what they would 1:02:09.640 --> 1:02:11.000 have called her then, in a wooden heart on the 1:02:11.040 --> 1:02:14.040 side of a mountain. Right. And in nineteen sixty two, 1:02:14.680 --> 1:02:16.960 neither of my grandmothers were allowed to have bank accounts 1:02:17.400 --> 1:02:19.440 because they were married women. They were added to bank 1:02:19.480 --> 1:02:21.600 accounts in their own name. It was legal for their 1:02:21.640 --> 1:02:24.680 husbands to rape them, as it was legal everywhere in 1:02:24.680 --> 1:02:27.200 the world for men to rape their wives. My Swiss 1:02:27.200 --> 1:02:30.040 grandmother wasn't allowed to vote because she was a woman, right, 1:02:30.080 --> 1:02:31.840 And I'm very conscious of a man man's blaming this 1:02:31.920 --> 1:02:33.160 to you know this much better than I do. But 1:02:34.440 --> 1:02:38.200 I think about my grandmother's lives then and how enormous 1:02:38.480 --> 1:02:41.080 the challenges that face them were, right, And then I 1:02:41.120 --> 1:02:44.040 think about my niece Erin, who's just about to turn eighteen. 1:02:44.720 --> 1:02:47.000 My Swiss grandmother, she loved to paint and draw. And 1:02:47.080 --> 1:02:48.720 when she liked to paint and draw, they when she 1:02:48.800 --> 1:02:50.000 was a girl They would just say, what the fuck 1:02:50.000 --> 1:02:51.600 are you doing, Get into the kitchen, that's your job. 1:02:52.200 --> 1:02:53.600 My niece, when she loved to paint and draw, we 1:02:53.680 --> 1:02:55.840 started googling art schools. Right now, I don't want to 1:02:55.920 --> 1:02:58.440 underestimate how much further we've got to go in achieving 1:02:58.480 --> 1:03:03.200 liberation for women. But even the craziest misogynists wouldn't say, well, 1:03:03.600 --> 1:03:05.520 Erin shouldn't be allowed to have a bank account, it 1:03:05.560 --> 1:03:07.640 should be legal for men to rape her, and she 1:03:07.680 --> 1:03:10.000 shouldn't be allowed to vote. Even the most barking, mad 1:03:10.520 --> 1:03:14.560 you know figure doesn't say that, right. That transformation happened 1:03:14.760 --> 1:03:17.880 because loads of women just said I'm not fucking taking 1:03:17.920 --> 1:03:19.960 this anymore. You're not going to treat me like that. 1:03:20.480 --> 1:03:22.640 And if I think about my grandmother's in nineteen sixty two, 1:03:23.520 --> 1:03:25.760 it's not like they had a script, right, it was like, oh, 1:03:25.800 --> 1:03:28.120 we'll do the following twelve point program, and you know, 1:03:28.400 --> 1:03:30.080 and that had to fight had to happen at every 1:03:30.160 --> 1:03:32.240 level as well. It had to happen every family, in 1:03:32.320 --> 1:03:36.480 every workplace, in every in parliaments everywhere, right, And I 1:03:36.520 --> 1:03:38.240 think this is a bit like that, the attention fight. 1:03:38.280 --> 1:03:40.000 I don't want to overestimate the power else. There's a 1:03:40.000 --> 1:03:43.160 lot of differences as well, but in the same way, 1:03:43.360 --> 1:03:45.840 the fight for attention has to happen in your most 1:03:45.880 --> 1:03:48.200 intimate spaces, in your bed, right, You've got to have 1:03:48.360 --> 1:03:49.960 that fight for attention. You are going to have it 1:03:50.040 --> 1:03:51.840 at your kid's schools, You've got to have it at 1:03:52.200 --> 1:03:53.680 you know, at a national level. So it's got to 1:03:53.720 --> 1:03:56.200 happen at lots of levels. But sometimes people say to me, 1:03:56.320 --> 1:03:59.640 totally understandably, but big tech is so powerful, how we 1:04:00.080 --> 1:04:01.640 going to take this on? And I would say to them, 1:04:02.320 --> 1:04:04.560 You're absolutely right. It's a big fight. We've got ahead 1:04:04.560 --> 1:04:06.919 of us, and the other eleven factors are big as well. 1:04:07.440 --> 1:04:10.240 But big tech is not one hundredth as powerful as 1:04:10.320 --> 1:04:13.960 men were in nineteen sixty two, right when these women 1:04:14.000 --> 1:04:15.800 that I knew and loved were the age I am now, 1:04:16.640 --> 1:04:19.680 men controlled literally everything, right, It's not an exaggeration. They 1:04:19.720 --> 1:04:23.280 controlled every country, almost every company in the world, every 1:04:23.360 --> 1:04:24.600 police force, every. 1:04:24.640 --> 1:04:27.000 Army, and it wasn't in their interest to change anything 1:04:27.200 --> 1:04:30.040 until they were forced to change something exactly. 1:04:30.120 --> 1:04:32.560 You know, Rebecca Sonat, a brilliant American writer, says, you know, 1:04:33.000 --> 1:04:36.120 politicians or weather veans, it's our job to be the weather. Right, 1:04:36.920 --> 1:04:39.280 They'll be as good as we make them. The changes 1:04:39.320 --> 1:04:40.800 that happen will be as good as the ones that 1:04:40.840 --> 1:04:43.160 we organize and demand right now. Of course we do 1:04:43.240 --> 1:04:45.400 that at an individual level and a collective level. But yeah, 1:04:45.520 --> 1:04:47.080 like the lead industry, they were never going to go, 1:04:47.520 --> 1:04:49.840 you know what, guys, We've made enough money, let's stop 1:04:49.880 --> 1:04:51.440 sucking up kids' brains. Right, They we're never going to 1:04:51.480 --> 1:04:53.320 do that, right, They had to be made to do it. 1:04:53.840 --> 1:04:56.520 We have to make these companies do it when it 1:04:56.560 --> 1:04:58.560 comes to big tech and across the board all these 1:04:58.600 --> 1:05:00.520 other things. But we can totally that can I talk 1:05:00.520 --> 1:05:03.000 about just I think it were particularly relevant to your audience. 1:05:03.000 --> 1:05:06.040 There's another way in which this is harming us that 1:05:06.160 --> 1:05:09.160 I think is really worth thinking about. It's particularly catastrophic 1:05:09.200 --> 1:05:12.760 for teenage girls. The design of the machinery is driven 1:05:12.800 --> 1:05:14.600 by just one idea, which is, how do we get 1:05:14.600 --> 1:05:16.560 people to scroll longer and longer and longer. Right, So 1:05:16.680 --> 1:05:18.959 the algorithms, all the computers are set up to figure out, okay, 1:05:19.320 --> 1:05:21.560 track everything and figure out what it is that keeps 1:05:21.600 --> 1:05:25.360 people scrolling, right, and those algorithms. This wasn't anyone's fault. 1:05:25.400 --> 1:05:27.680 They didn't design it that way, but they just stumbled 1:05:27.720 --> 1:05:31.960 across an underlying truth about human psychology. Right. The kind 1:05:31.960 --> 1:05:34.000 of fancy term for it is negativity bias, but it's 1:05:34.080 --> 1:05:36.880 very simple. Everyone will have experienced it. You will stare 1:05:37.040 --> 1:05:40.880 longer at something that makes you angry or upset then 1:05:40.920 --> 1:05:43.520 you will at something that makes you feel good. If 1:05:43.560 --> 1:05:45.120 you've ever seen a car crash, you know exactly what 1:05:45.200 --> 1:05:47.080 I mean. Right, you stared longer at the mangled car 1:05:47.120 --> 1:05:48.840 wreck than you did at the pretty flowers side. 1:05:48.880 --> 1:05:51.000 We said this about comment sections. You know, you could 1:05:51.040 --> 1:05:53.520 receive one hundred good comments on something, or even five 1:05:53.640 --> 1:05:57.040 nice comments on something you won't. They will not even 1:05:57.160 --> 1:05:59.960 reach you. But if you receive one thing that hurts you, 1:06:00.440 --> 1:06:03.320 that makes you feel invalidated or question your sense of self, 1:06:03.640 --> 1:06:08.720 that will rock you. Whereas the compliments, the niceties, everything else, 1:06:08.840 --> 1:06:10.600 it's as though they don't even exist because we can 1:06:10.640 --> 1:06:11.720 be so negatively good. 1:06:12.000 --> 1:06:14.880 That's a really powerful example of negativity bias, and it's 1:06:14.960 --> 1:06:18.240 very deep in human nature. Ten week old children will 1:06:18.280 --> 1:06:20.400 stare longer at an angry face than a smiling face. 1:06:20.440 --> 1:06:22.480 It's probably for a good reason. O're eating our evolution, 1:06:23.040 --> 1:06:25.440 our ancestors who weren't watching out for the scary shit, 1:06:25.520 --> 1:06:27.640 probably got eaten and didn't get to be our ancestors. Right, 1:06:27.680 --> 1:06:29.240 And there's a slightly crude way of putting it, but 1:06:29.280 --> 1:06:31.760 you see what I mean, right. But the problem is 1:06:32.480 --> 1:06:35.480 probably is when you combine two things, a business model 1:06:35.600 --> 1:06:39.920 designed to figure out what keeps you scrolling plus negativity bias. Right. 1:06:39.960 --> 1:06:42.400 So what these algorithms discovered is best way to explain. 1:06:42.400 --> 1:06:44.320 It's picture two teenage girls who go to the same 1:06:44.400 --> 1:06:46.960 party and go home on the same bus, and one 1:06:47.000 --> 1:06:50.200 of them does a little video for TikTok status update whatever, 1:06:50.800 --> 1:06:52.640 and they say, what a nice party, I had a 1:06:52.680 --> 1:06:55.400 great time. Everyone looked good. You know, we danced this 1:06:55.560 --> 1:06:58.720 or that whatever, Right, And the second girl does a 1:06:58.840 --> 1:07:01.560 video or update where she goes, Karen was a right 1:07:01.760 --> 1:07:04.800 skank at that party her boyfriend's and asshole, I spent 1:07:04.840 --> 1:07:06.720 too much time counseling my niece on her TikTok. 1:07:06.800 --> 1:07:09.160 So it's so true, Yes, she got the spicy ta, 1:07:09.920 --> 1:07:11.080 so doesn't angry. 1:07:11.200 --> 1:07:14.840 Imagine that girl does an angry denunciatory rant, right, So 1:07:14.960 --> 1:07:17.080 the algorithm is scanning to look at the kind of 1:07:17.160 --> 1:07:20.560 words you use, and it will put that nice video 1:07:20.640 --> 1:07:22.880 that nice Data's update into a few people's feeds, right, 1:07:23.560 --> 1:07:25.880 But the second update it will put into far more 1:07:25.920 --> 1:07:28.600 people's feeds because it knows if you see something angry 1:07:28.600 --> 1:07:30.120 and what do you mean, Karen's a scank, You're a 1:07:30.160 --> 1:07:32.280 fucking scant. You can see how that triggers an argument 1:07:32.360 --> 1:07:33.280 that causes engagement. 1:07:33.400 --> 1:07:33.520 Right. 1:07:33.600 --> 1:07:35.640 I fucking love this because we see this and we've 1:07:35.680 --> 1:07:38.960 had this conversation internally. In regards to influencers, I think 1:07:39.120 --> 1:07:43.520 a lot of influencers engage outrage culture. They get really angry, 1:07:43.520 --> 1:07:45.800 and often it's around things that you should be angry about, 1:07:46.080 --> 1:07:48.960 but they will verbalize how angry they are as a 1:07:49.040 --> 1:07:51.840 way of growing their following because it is a really 1:07:52.000 --> 1:07:56.920 fucking great tactic. People love to see someone angry and 1:07:57.080 --> 1:08:00.200 outraged about an injustice, and we are so much more 1:08:00.240 --> 1:08:01.960 willing to follow that. To get on board with that. 1:08:02.160 --> 1:08:04.960 It is a crusade. It is a plight rather than 1:08:05.080 --> 1:08:08.640 following someone who you know is just happy. Not that 1:08:08.680 --> 1:08:10.160 we need to be happy all the time or positive, 1:08:10.200 --> 1:08:12.240 That's not what I'm saying. But it is a tool, 1:08:12.480 --> 1:08:14.640 and I don't think people are aware that it's actually 1:08:14.640 --> 1:08:17.120 a tool that some people and influencers have clocked into 1:08:17.160 --> 1:08:17.479 as well. 1:08:17.800 --> 1:08:20.880 Those influencers are consciously or unconsciously learning the rules of 1:08:20.920 --> 1:08:23.120 the system they're operating in rightly. So just like the 1:08:23.160 --> 1:08:25.160 teenage girls on the bus, an influence is going to 1:08:25.200 --> 1:08:27.120 clock if I do all these nice posts. If I say, oh, look, 1:08:27.160 --> 1:08:29.680 I read this nice book and wasn't it lovely? You know, 1:08:29.720 --> 1:08:31.120 you're not going to get much traction if you go 1:08:31.520 --> 1:08:33.880 have you seen what this bitch did? Right, It's going 1:08:33.960 --> 1:08:35.680 to get a lot of traction. So I feel it 1:08:35.760 --> 1:08:37.960 happening to myself. I don't look at social media now, 1:08:38.080 --> 1:08:39.680 I've got an assistant. I give my tweets to do. 1:08:40.080 --> 1:08:44.599 It sounds very grand, because I feel myself becoming cruder 1:08:44.800 --> 1:08:47.400 and nastier when I'm on it, because you see, oh, 1:08:47.760 --> 1:08:49.679 I said this nice thing and it looked like hardly 1:08:49.720 --> 1:08:52.639 anyone noticed, and I said this nasty thing, and look 1:08:52.760 --> 1:08:55.080 now people are talking about me. There's some degree to 1:08:55.120 --> 1:08:58.120 which this is just human psychology. But we're operating in 1:08:58.200 --> 1:09:01.800 a machinery that it's super charging the worst of our psychology, right, 1:09:02.160 --> 1:09:04.920 and that doesn't have to happen. We can't change the 1:09:05.160 --> 1:09:07.720 negativity bias. That's just a natural part of human psychology. 1:09:07.920 --> 1:09:12.080 But we can stop the machines fucking jabbing a knitting 1:09:12.160 --> 1:09:15.559 needle that are at our negativity bias all the time. Right, 1:09:15.840 --> 1:09:17.720 So if we change the business model and the way 1:09:17.760 --> 1:09:20.400 we've talked about, you get out of that trap. Right 1:09:20.479 --> 1:09:22.800 in a subscription model and I want to make you 1:09:22.920 --> 1:09:25.800 angry something, they're like, oh, you want to feel good, 1:09:26.000 --> 1:09:28.360 Let's start giving her feedback where she feels good, not 1:09:28.600 --> 1:09:30.880 feedback that makes it angry, upset, and hostile. Right. 1:09:31.040 --> 1:09:31.240 See. 1:09:31.280 --> 1:09:33.400 I also think that there's like a whole other elements 1:09:33.439 --> 1:09:35.120 to this, And Johanna, I know that this is something 1:09:35.240 --> 1:09:38.120 that you are extremely well researched in, and that is 1:09:38.160 --> 1:09:40.000 our brains and the way that they work in a 1:09:40.040 --> 1:09:42.800 similar way to how drug addiction works with social media. 1:09:43.360 --> 1:09:45.639 You know, we now have so much research that shows 1:09:45.720 --> 1:09:48.280 us that when we post something on social media that 1:09:48.400 --> 1:09:51.120 gets likes and gets comments and gets any type of interaction, 1:09:51.840 --> 1:09:54.040 we get a release of dopamine in our brains. And 1:09:54.080 --> 1:09:55.840 that's the same thing that goes up when you take 1:09:55.960 --> 1:09:59.200 just about any illegal drug. And so not only do 1:09:59.280 --> 1:10:02.080 we have these massive tech companies that have designed these 1:10:02.240 --> 1:10:06.439 algorithms to keep us scrolling and keep us engaged. We 1:10:06.640 --> 1:10:09.360 also have our own brains that are being programmed and 1:10:09.479 --> 1:10:13.000 kind of rewired that every time we post something that 1:10:13.120 --> 1:10:15.960 might create you know, outrage culture as we're talking about, 1:10:16.560 --> 1:10:18.680 we get more interaction and so we get more of 1:10:18.760 --> 1:10:21.439 that dopamine being released into our own brains. So it's 1:10:21.479 --> 1:10:23.400 kind of like a storm in a tea cup of 1:10:23.520 --> 1:10:25.800 all of these different factors with how our brains are 1:10:25.840 --> 1:10:27.200 working in terms of social media. 1:10:27.479 --> 1:10:30.840 It's interesting though, the irony in that which I find 1:10:31.040 --> 1:10:33.200 is that all of that comes down to this want 1:10:33.240 --> 1:10:35.519 for connectedness, if this want for like being part of 1:10:35.600 --> 1:10:38.559 a community, to feel validated, to be liked by your friends. 1:10:38.600 --> 1:10:41.240 You know, a lot of that is what it's geared around. 1:10:41.400 --> 1:10:44.800 It's still feeling like you're part of a community, but 1:10:44.920 --> 1:10:46.840 we almost are lacking connection because of it. At the 1:10:46.880 --> 1:10:47.320 same time. 1:10:47.439 --> 1:10:49.559 Well, I think about that. It's such an important point, 1:10:49.600 --> 1:10:50.960 and I thought about this a lot because one of 1:10:50.960 --> 1:10:52.920 the places that we clarified my thought on this is 1:10:53.000 --> 1:10:55.640 I went to the first ever Internet rehab center in 1:10:55.720 --> 1:10:56.000 the world. 1:10:56.320 --> 1:10:58.560 There is a rehab center for the Internet. Well, not 1:10:58.640 --> 1:11:02.479 for the Internet. I'm addicted to the Internet. 1:11:02.640 --> 1:11:04.640 Oh that's amazing, you know, it's funny when I arrived that. 1:11:04.680 --> 1:11:07.400 It's just outside Spokane in Washington State. And I remember 1:11:07.400 --> 1:11:09.360 when I arrived there, it's in a clearing in the woods. 1:11:09.400 --> 1:11:11.800 I got out the car absolutely instinctively, I looked at 1:11:11.840 --> 1:11:13.719 my phone was really pissed off. I had no signals. 1:11:14.439 --> 1:11:17.840 Ah fuck, you're in the right place, right, So I 1:11:17.920 --> 1:11:20.240 went in and this was this is pre COVID. They 1:11:20.320 --> 1:11:22.559 get all kinds of people there, but they disproportionately get 1:11:22.680 --> 1:11:26.679 young men who'd become obsessed with online multiplayer role playing games. 1:11:27.040 --> 1:11:29.160 Then it was World of Warcraft, it'd be Fortnite now. 1:11:29.439 --> 1:11:31.439 The woman who runs co founded the clinic and co 1:11:31.600 --> 1:11:34.120 runs it is an amazing person called Dr Hillary Cash. 1:11:34.840 --> 1:11:37.880 This place is called Restart Washington. And remember how saying 1:11:37.920 --> 1:11:40.439 to me afterwards, well, you've got to ask yourself, what 1:11:40.560 --> 1:11:43.080 are these young men getting out of these games. What 1:11:43.160 --> 1:11:45.840 they're getting is the kind of parody of the things 1:11:45.880 --> 1:11:48.360 they've lost. So let's think about that. They're getting a 1:11:48.439 --> 1:11:51.320 sense that they're physically moving around, Right, young men don't 1:11:51.400 --> 1:11:53.760 leave the house, but to getting sense they're physically moving around, 1:11:53.760 --> 1:11:56.920 they're getting a sense that people see them. Right, we 1:11:57.040 --> 1:11:59.560 are even before COVID, we were the loneliest society and 1:11:59.600 --> 1:12:01.639 human here. Right, at least when you're playing the game, 1:12:01.720 --> 1:12:05.599 someone's seeing you visibility exactly. Oh, they're getting a sense 1:12:05.600 --> 1:12:06.920 they're good at something, and they. 1:12:06.880 --> 1:12:08.840 Can be the version of themselves they want to be. 1:12:09.000 --> 1:12:11.720 They cannot create who they are, the way they look, 1:12:11.840 --> 1:12:14.640 how they present themselves. Someone who's an introvert can be 1:12:14.640 --> 1:12:17.000 an extrovert in that environment one percent. 1:12:17.200 --> 1:12:19.200 And they're also getting a sense they're getting better and 1:12:19.280 --> 1:12:21.160 better at something. But what doctor Cash said to me 1:12:21.240 --> 1:12:23.920 is they're getting these are unparaphrasing, but they're getting a 1:12:24.040 --> 1:12:26.720 kind of parody of those things. Right. Well, I thought 1:12:26.720 --> 1:12:28.880 about this a lot because the young men were often 1:12:28.920 --> 1:12:32.320 addicted both to these games and to pornography. Right, I'm 1:12:32.360 --> 1:12:34.320 thinking you have to talking to them in a way. 1:12:34.960 --> 1:12:37.360 I think the relationship between social media and social life 1:12:37.439 --> 1:12:40.000 is a bit like the relationship between pornography and sex. Right. 1:12:40.560 --> 1:12:43.360 If your whole sex life consisted looking at porn, you 1:12:43.439 --> 1:12:46.760 would go around feeling pissed off and inadequate all the time, 1:12:46.760 --> 1:12:48.880 because that's not what we evolved to do. We evolved 1:12:48.920 --> 1:12:49.519 to have sex. 1:12:49.720 --> 1:12:49.840 Right. 1:12:50.439 --> 1:12:54.040 In the same way, if your life consists of staring 1:12:54.040 --> 1:12:57.720 at people through screens. It's it's like a sex life. 1:12:57.720 --> 1:12:59.760 The consists only a pornography. It's not meeting your deeper 1:12:59.800 --> 1:13:02.559 knee as a human being. Right, Everyone listening knows they 1:13:02.600 --> 1:13:05.280 have physical needs. You need food, you need water, you 1:13:05.360 --> 1:13:07.640 need clean air. If I took those things away from you, 1:13:07.760 --> 1:13:09.880 you be in real trouble, real fast. But there's equally 1:13:09.920 --> 1:13:13.000 strong evidence that all human beings have natural psychological needs. 1:13:13.320 --> 1:13:15.280 You need to feel you belong. You need to feel 1:13:15.280 --> 1:13:17.240 your life has meaning and purpose. You need feel people 1:13:17.360 --> 1:13:19.679 see you and value you. You feel got a future 1:13:19.720 --> 1:13:22.200 that makes sense, and interacting through screens has many great 1:13:22.240 --> 1:13:24.360 things about it. But if it takes too much of 1:13:24.439 --> 1:13:27.360 your life, your psychological needs aren't met. Look, if interacting 1:13:27.400 --> 1:13:30.040 through screens met our psychological needs, we would all have 1:13:30.120 --> 1:13:32.479 been completely fine in the last two years. Right Instead, 1:13:32.520 --> 1:13:35.639 I never once heard anyone say the sentence hooray another 1:13:35.720 --> 1:13:39.320 zoom call. Right ever? Right, Because this way of being, 1:13:39.960 --> 1:13:41.960 while it has many benefits and should be part of 1:13:42.000 --> 1:13:44.880 our lives, if it's everything, is not meeting your deep 1:13:44.920 --> 1:13:46.720 in ees. So I think you've got to ask as well, 1:13:47.320 --> 1:13:49.760 what are the unmet needs that we have that are 1:13:49.840 --> 1:13:53.519 making us turn to this Because it looks like the 1:13:53.600 --> 1:13:56.400 things we've lost. Oh, we've got less friends than we had, 1:13:56.479 --> 1:13:59.280 but here's some Facebook friends. You've lost status in the 1:13:59.320 --> 1:14:01.920 society and the economy, but here's a status update. It 1:14:02.120 --> 1:14:04.040 looks like the things you've lost. But it's not the 1:14:04.120 --> 1:14:06.519 things you've lost. It's not It's like giving a sex 1:14:06.560 --> 1:14:09.400 style person porn. It's it's not going to solve the problem. Right. 1:14:09.720 --> 1:14:12.719 I even remember when MySpace first started, and I'm like, Okay, 1:14:13.240 --> 1:14:15.560 I'm the top, a bit older than you, but like 1:14:15.680 --> 1:14:17.439 you look at people and you'd be like, how many 1:14:17.479 --> 1:14:19.639 friends have they got? Who's in their top friends list? 1:14:19.720 --> 1:14:21.040 You know, I still do that. We still go on 1:14:21.160 --> 1:14:23.479 Instagram and we go how many followers has that person got? 1:14:23.960 --> 1:14:25.840 How many comments did they get on their new version 1:14:25.880 --> 1:14:26.000 of it? 1:14:26.120 --> 1:14:27.519 But I think I just want of thinking about what 1:14:27.720 --> 1:14:31.000 are the wider So there are all sorts of other 1:14:31.160 --> 1:14:33.879 changes that are happening that are making us more vulnerable 1:14:33.880 --> 1:14:35.920 to that thing you're describing, right, that thing or how 1:14:35.960 --> 1:14:39.000 many follows is this person got mindlessly scrolling for hours 1:14:39.000 --> 1:14:42.519 and hours. Anyone listening who struggled to focus in a pandemic, 1:14:42.840 --> 1:14:46.040 stop blaming yourself right. In fact, you'd be a very 1:14:46.120 --> 1:14:49.360 weird person if in a situation of unprecedented danger you 1:14:49.520 --> 1:14:52.960 were able to focus right. And this is true so 1:14:53.200 --> 1:14:54.960 many of the things that I write about in stolein focus. 1:14:54.960 --> 1:14:57.880 It's called stolen focus because your focus didn't collapse, you'll 1:14:58.120 --> 1:15:00.439 lose it, exactly, it was stolen from you by these 1:15:00.479 --> 1:15:03.200 big forces. A lot of the elements. Anything that reduces 1:15:03.280 --> 1:15:06.160 stress improves attention. So I talk about lots of ways 1:15:06.240 --> 1:15:08.080 we can reduce stress, lots of things that have been 1:15:08.120 --> 1:15:10.800 done across the world to reduce stress in all sorts 1:15:10.800 --> 1:15:13.679 of places. So that's one example, but there's so many. 1:15:14.200 --> 1:15:16.000 I mean, it was so weird doing this research because 1:15:16.000 --> 1:15:18.599 there were so many things I had never even thought 1:15:18.600 --> 1:15:21.519 about that hugely affected. I'd never thought, for example, about 1:15:21.560 --> 1:15:23.880 how food might affect my attention right. As you can 1:15:23.920 --> 1:15:25.240 tell from my chins, I'm a bit of a junk 1:15:25.280 --> 1:15:33.479 food addict and the three stomachs I had. I had 1:15:33.520 --> 1:15:36.479 a real low point in my life, and it was 1:15:36.560 --> 1:15:38.840 Christmas Eve two thousand and seven. It based it's so sad. 1:15:38.840 --> 1:15:40.880 It was Christmas Eve. At lunch time, I went to 1:15:40.960 --> 1:15:42.960 my local KFC. I used to live in brit Lane 1:15:43.000 --> 1:15:45.519 in East London, and I went and I said my 1:15:45.560 --> 1:15:47.560 standard order, which is so disgusting I won't repeat it. 1:15:48.040 --> 1:15:50.960 And the guy behind the counter said, oh, Yohan, I'm 1:15:50.960 --> 1:15:53.680 really glad you're here. I was like, all right, and 1:15:53.800 --> 1:15:56.200 he went off behind where they fried the chicken and 1:15:56.280 --> 1:15:58.560 the chips something, and he came back with all the 1:15:58.640 --> 1:16:01.719 members of staff and they have bought me a massive 1:16:01.800 --> 1:16:05.160 Christmas card in which they've written to our best customer, 1:16:05.920 --> 1:16:08.760 and they've all written these persons. And one of the 1:16:08.800 --> 1:16:11.320 reasons my heart sunk is I thought, this isn't even 1:16:11.360 --> 1:16:14.360 the fried chicken shop I come to the most. How 1:16:14.479 --> 1:16:17.040 can this be happening to me? It was Actually I 1:16:17.040 --> 1:16:18.800 didn't go back there for ages. And then about a 1:16:18.920 --> 1:16:20.639 year later I bumped into the guy by the counter 1:16:20.840 --> 1:16:22.080 and he said, you didn't come back your hand. We 1:16:22.120 --> 1:16:25.200 assumed you'd had a heart attack. Anyway, it was a 1:16:25.320 --> 1:16:28.280 terrible So so when I talk about the element with food, 1:16:28.360 --> 1:16:30.680 I say this with no sense of superiority at all, 1:16:30.800 --> 1:16:36.040 but so sorry. It was so awful heart attack. I 1:16:37.280 --> 1:16:41.479 was very fat at the time, but as various living 1:16:41.600 --> 1:16:45.559 deities happened. So there's this really fascinating movement called nutritional 1:16:45.600 --> 1:16:48.600 psychiatry amte loads of them. So they're studying how the 1:16:48.720 --> 1:16:51.920 ways we eat affect the ways we feel and are 1:16:52.040 --> 1:16:55.040 capacities of our minds and our brains. And they taught 1:16:55.120 --> 1:16:57.720 me that there's loads of ways in which the way 1:16:57.840 --> 1:17:00.200 we eat is harming our attention and folks. It's I 1:17:00.200 --> 1:17:01.760 give the example of one. There's lots that go through 1:17:01.760 --> 1:17:04.120 in the book. So let's say you have the standard Australian, 1:17:04.200 --> 1:17:08.519 British American breakfast. You have sugary cereal or white bread 1:17:08.640 --> 1:17:10.160 with butter toasted or whatever. 1:17:10.240 --> 1:17:14.240 Right, pichapetta does like some white bread as don't have 1:17:14.360 --> 1:17:19.599 bird seed, just inalized white eat bread. Have the good bread. 1:17:20.400 --> 1:17:23.519 I'm one hundred percent with you, and I'll be I'll 1:17:23.520 --> 1:17:25.479 see you in the cardiac ording forty years time. But 1:17:25.640 --> 1:17:29.519 the will be the ones chickens will be the one 1:17:29.560 --> 1:17:32.439 getting KFC from here when you have that. What it 1:17:32.560 --> 1:17:34.040 does is it One of the reasons it feels so 1:17:34.120 --> 1:17:36.679 good is it releases a huge amount of energy really 1:17:36.760 --> 1:17:39.800 quickly into your brain. So you're like, I'm awake, the 1:17:39.920 --> 1:17:42.800 day has begun. Right, a huge amount of glucose in 1:17:42.840 --> 1:17:45.120 particulars released in your brain. But what's happened is it's 1:17:45.160 --> 1:17:49.240 released so much energy so quickly that an hour, an 1:17:49.280 --> 1:17:51.240 hour and a half later, you'll be sitting at your desk, 1:17:51.280 --> 1:17:53.439 your child will be sitting at their desk, and you'll 1:17:53.439 --> 1:17:55.360 get a huge energy slump. And what you get then 1:17:55.439 --> 1:17:57.599 is what's called brain fog, where you just can't focus 1:17:57.720 --> 1:17:59.400 very well. Your just your at tension isn't as good 1:17:59.560 --> 1:18:01.639 until you have another sugary carbe treat. 1:18:01.720 --> 1:18:01.840 Right. 1:18:02.080 --> 1:18:03.760 So, the way Dale put it to me is the 1:18:03.800 --> 1:18:06.519 way we eat puts us on a roller coaster of 1:18:06.880 --> 1:18:10.080 energy spikes and energy crashes throughout the day, spike crash, 1:18:10.160 --> 1:18:13.880 spike crash, which gives you these long patches of brain fog. 1:18:14.240 --> 1:18:16.559 Whereas if you eat food that releases energy more steadily, 1:18:17.040 --> 1:18:20.559 like you had oatmeal with blueberries something I've never tried. 1:18:21.120 --> 1:18:23.760 What that would do is it would release energy much 1:18:23.840 --> 1:18:26.120 more steadily throughout the day. Right, the way Dale put 1:18:26.120 --> 1:18:28.240 it to me, at the moment we're putting rocket of 1:18:28.280 --> 1:18:30.720 fuel into a mini right, it'll go really fast for 1:18:30.800 --> 1:18:32.840 five minutes and then it will just stop. Whereas if 1:18:32.840 --> 1:18:35.599 you put in the fuel it's designed to take, you'll 1:18:35.640 --> 1:18:37.479 go for longer with your attention. So there were so 1:18:37.600 --> 1:18:39.800 many things like that where I just thought, God, I'd 1:18:39.840 --> 1:18:42.759 never I'd never thought about that. It never even crossed 1:18:42.800 --> 1:18:46.440 my mind that there's there's so many of these components. 1:18:46.479 --> 1:18:48.479 It was fascinating just going on this journey into the 1:18:48.479 --> 1:18:51.160 science of it and realizing, Oh, there's so much that's 1:18:51.160 --> 1:18:53.800 affecting our attention and these things combined. So we all know, 1:18:54.960 --> 1:18:56.800 a day you haven't sleapt is the day that you're 1:18:56.800 --> 1:18:58.439 going to be so much more tempted by that, you know, 1:18:58.680 --> 1:19:01.320 scrolling through a scrolling scroller. Day when you've eaten badly, 1:19:01.400 --> 1:19:04.280 you haven't slept, you're very stressed out. So a lot 1:19:04.320 --> 1:19:06.360 of these factors have been combining. I think it's why 1:19:06.400 --> 1:19:09.439 attention has really suffered during the pandemic. A lot of 1:19:09.479 --> 1:19:13.000 them have been combining and combining in complicated ways. But 1:19:13.120 --> 1:19:15.760 once you understand what these twelve factors are, then you 1:19:15.880 --> 1:19:17.960 can begin to defend yourself as an individual, you can 1:19:18.000 --> 1:19:20.200 defend your kids a bit, and then we can begin 1:19:20.280 --> 1:19:22.439 to take on these bigger, bigger forces. 1:19:22.600 --> 1:19:24.840 What are just I mean, obviously we focused on social 1:19:24.880 --> 1:19:27.719 media and on not just social media but your phones 1:19:27.800 --> 1:19:29.760 in general for so long because I think it's the 1:19:29.840 --> 1:19:32.560 one that is so obvious, like it's the one that 1:19:32.760 --> 1:19:35.679 really seems to on a day to day affect people. 1:19:36.000 --> 1:19:39.960 We've covered food. What are the other really important factors 1:19:40.040 --> 1:19:42.240 that influence the way that someone can concentrate or their 1:19:42.280 --> 1:19:43.320 ability to have focus? 1:19:43.840 --> 1:19:45.880 So I think there's lots, and if it's okay, rather 1:19:45.880 --> 1:19:48.360 than just kind of summarizing lots some bit weird, I'll 1:19:48.360 --> 1:19:49.640 don't home in on one that I think I'll be 1:19:49.720 --> 1:19:51.320 really relevant to a lot of your audience as well. 1:19:51.960 --> 1:19:53.639 One of the heroes of my book is a woman 1:19:53.680 --> 1:19:56.360 called Leonor's Gnazi. Leno is one of my heroes because 1:19:56.360 --> 1:19:58.120 she's the kind of person. You know, it's very easy 1:19:58.160 --> 1:20:00.720 in life to describe problems right. Lenai is one of 1:20:00.760 --> 1:20:03.720 those people who build solutions to things right. Lenare grew 1:20:03.800 --> 1:20:05.960 up in a suburb of Chicago in the nineteen sixties, 1:20:06.080 --> 1:20:07.960 mid nineteen sixties. I think she won't tell me her 1:20:08.000 --> 1:20:10.479 exact age. I've never been I've unpushed her on it. 1:20:10.720 --> 1:20:13.800 And from when she was six years old, Lenore used 1:20:13.880 --> 1:20:17.080 to leave home on her own at eight am and 1:20:17.240 --> 1:20:19.519 walk to school on her own, and generally she would 1:20:19.560 --> 1:20:21.000 jump into all the other kids who were walking to 1:20:21.080 --> 1:20:24.880 school because in the mid nineteen sixties, everyone everywhere in 1:20:24.920 --> 1:20:27.760 the world walked to school. Ask your parents, that's what 1:20:27.880 --> 1:20:30.240 they did, right, And when school ended at whatever it was, 1:20:30.280 --> 1:20:32.360 three o'clock, her and her friends would leave on their own, 1:20:32.800 --> 1:20:34.960 wander around the neighborhood freely, and find their way home 1:20:35.000 --> 1:20:38.040 when they were hungry. Right. By the time Lenore was 1:20:38.080 --> 1:20:40.160 a mother in the mid nineties, she was living in 1:20:40.280 --> 1:20:43.840 Queens in New York. That had ended. You were meant 1:20:43.880 --> 1:20:46.200 to deliver your child like a package to school and 1:20:46.280 --> 1:20:48.120 be waiting there at the gate when they came out. 1:20:48.400 --> 1:20:50.639 In fact, by two thousand and three, only ten percent 1:20:50.680 --> 1:20:54.080 of American children ever played outside without an adult. And 1:20:54.160 --> 1:20:57.200 obviously it completely ended during COVID. Right, And it turns 1:20:57.240 --> 1:21:00.720 out that childhood we've lost contained a huge number of 1:21:00.800 --> 1:21:04.200 things that were incredibly important for children to develop attention. 1:21:04.640 --> 1:21:06.120 To give you a real no shit sher loot one 1:21:06.560 --> 1:21:10.679 exercise right, Children who get to run around can focus 1:21:10.840 --> 1:21:13.120 much better. As Professor Joel Nigg, the leading expert on 1:21:13.240 --> 1:21:15.880 children's attention problems in the United States, explained to me, 1:21:16.120 --> 1:21:18.400 children who get to exercise develop more brain connections. Their 1:21:18.400 --> 1:21:20.640 attention is better. The single best thing you can do 1:21:20.760 --> 1:21:23.160 for a child who's struggling to focus is let them 1:21:23.200 --> 1:21:25.599 go and run around. We are the first human society 1:21:26.120 --> 1:21:28.080 ever in the history of our species to try to 1:21:28.120 --> 1:21:29.960 get kids to sit still for eight hours a day. 1:21:30.200 --> 1:21:32.960 It's bonkers, right, But even beyond exercise. This is one 1:21:33.000 --> 1:21:35.640 of the key elements to this. How this is this 1:21:35.800 --> 1:21:39.040 transformation is harmed attention is that we've deprived children of 1:21:39.120 --> 1:21:42.960 free play. When children play freely with other children, they 1:21:43.120 --> 1:21:47.000 develop all sorts of skills that are extremely important for 1:21:47.160 --> 1:21:51.080 focus and attention. One is they learn how to take risks. Right, 1:21:51.600 --> 1:21:54.519 you climb the tree, you get quite high up, you're scared, 1:21:54.600 --> 1:21:57.000 but you didn't die. You find your way down, you break. 1:21:56.840 --> 1:21:59.280 A leg, you get over, and your mom doesn't take 1:21:59.280 --> 1:22:03.040 your hospital too. So that's just the nineties. 1:22:03.280 --> 1:22:06.559 You take it. You, That's why you've got that mysterious 1:22:06.640 --> 1:22:10.799 limb y. You take all these risks with other kids. Socially, 1:22:11.360 --> 1:22:13.240 if you've got adults standing over you telling you what 1:22:13.320 --> 1:22:15.240 to do, you don't do that. And if you don't 1:22:15.640 --> 1:22:20.000 develop those skills of taking risks, realizing your competent, building 1:22:20.080 --> 1:22:23.280 up your competence, you'll be anxious all the time. It's 1:22:23.320 --> 1:22:25.840 one of the reasons We've got so many anxious children now, 1:22:26.280 --> 1:22:29.000 and anxiety destroys attention. As we all know. Anyone so 1:22:29.080 --> 1:22:31.679 I had any anxiety knows that you can't pay attention. 1:22:32.000 --> 1:22:34.040 We have so many anxious parents though, as well, and 1:22:34.120 --> 1:22:36.559 I think so much of that comes from the fact 1:22:36.640 --> 1:22:40.320 that we are so aware now of what can go wrong. 1:22:40.640 --> 1:22:43.200 Every day we are bombarded by what can go wrong, 1:22:43.280 --> 1:22:46.240 how your kid can die, what horrible thing can happen 1:22:46.280 --> 1:22:49.760 to them, And we live in this constant protection mode, 1:22:49.760 --> 1:22:52.960 which is why all these other things have been impacted. 1:22:53.240 --> 1:22:54.960 And I think, you know, maybe back in the day 1:22:55.000 --> 1:22:56.760 and there was an ignorance almost you know, bad things 1:22:56.800 --> 1:22:59.080 would happen maybe in another community or another town, never 1:22:59.160 --> 1:23:02.120 in our town, and so you lived in this ignorance 1:23:02.200 --> 1:23:04.479 is kind of bliss. And as we've become more exposed 1:23:04.479 --> 1:23:06.599 to the news, as we've become exposed to terrible things 1:23:06.600 --> 1:23:09.320 that have happened through social media, we go, fuck, that 1:23:09.360 --> 1:23:12.080 could happen to us, and everyone's well got smaller because 1:23:12.120 --> 1:23:12.240 of that. 1:23:12.320 --> 1:23:13.720 I think it's a really good way of putting it. 1:23:13.800 --> 1:23:17.120 And so Lena was trying to think about what do 1:23:17.200 --> 1:23:18.439 we do about that? Right, And at first she thought, 1:23:18.439 --> 1:23:20.600 what the solution's obvious. And she discovered also by the 1:23:20.600 --> 1:23:23.200 way she learned the science, that there's loads of other 1:23:23.240 --> 1:23:25.720 benefits to free play that boost attention. So she was like, 1:23:25.760 --> 1:23:27.400 what can we do? And then she at first she thought, well, 1:23:27.439 --> 1:23:29.120 the answers really obvious. I'll just let my kid out 1:23:29.120 --> 1:23:31.360 to play, But she quickly discovered if you're the only 1:23:31.439 --> 1:23:33.799 parent letting your kid out to play, they get scared. 1:23:33.840 --> 1:23:36.400 You look nuts. Actually often people call the police now, right, 1:23:36.680 --> 1:23:39.040 So she's like, that's not solution. So Lenor began to 1:23:39.080 --> 1:23:41.120 run a group called let Grow. It's letgrow dot org 1:23:41.200 --> 1:23:43.120 that everyone listening, I really recommend you go to it. 1:23:43.520 --> 1:23:45.559 And what they do is they go to whole groups 1:23:45.600 --> 1:23:49.360 and whole communities and whole schools and they persuade everyone 1:23:49.479 --> 1:23:52.519 to give their kids increasing levels of independence that build 1:23:52.600 --> 1:23:54.760 up to playing outside. And I think of all the 1:23:54.800 --> 1:23:57.600 conversations that have per stolen focus, I think probably the 1:23:57.640 --> 1:24:00.600 most moving was with fourteen and you're a boy in 1:24:00.640 --> 1:24:04.280 Long Islands just before COVID here who This is a big, tall, 1:24:04.400 --> 1:24:07.320 strapping boy. He was taller than me and until this 1:24:07.400 --> 1:24:09.759 program had begun nine months before, he had never played 1:24:09.800 --> 1:24:12.040 outside without an adult watching it. He'd never gone outside 1:24:12.040 --> 1:24:15.040 of his house without an adult, right. I asked him 1:24:15.040 --> 1:24:16.880 why and he said, oh, my parents are afraid of 1:24:16.960 --> 1:24:19.439 all these kidnappings. He lived in a town where the 1:24:19.479 --> 1:24:22.000 French bakery was across the street from the olive oil store, 1:24:22.320 --> 1:24:23.560 and he had a level of fear that would be 1:24:23.560 --> 1:24:26.280 appropriate if he lived in like Ukraine. Right now, right, 1:24:26.720 --> 1:24:28.400 But then this program began and I said what did 1:24:28.439 --> 1:24:29.559 you do? And he said, I me and my friends. 1:24:29.600 --> 1:24:31.880 We started to play in the street boll games. And 1:24:31.920 --> 1:24:33.800 I said, oh, and I never forget away said it? 1:24:33.840 --> 1:24:35.280 He said it, and he said it, and then we 1:24:35.360 --> 1:24:37.080 started to go into the woods and he leaned forward 1:24:37.120 --> 1:24:40.080 and said, even though our cell phones don't have any 1:24:40.160 --> 1:24:42.080 reception in the woods, he said, like that was like 1:24:42.120 --> 1:24:44.240 some explosive relation. And I said, what did you do 1:24:44.320 --> 1:24:45.840 in the woods and he said, oh, we've built a 1:24:45.960 --> 1:24:48.840 fort and now we're building an even bigger fort. And 1:24:48.920 --> 1:24:50.720 I said, I was speaking to this boy. Maybe this 1:24:50.800 --> 1:24:52.599 sounds over the top, but it was like watching him 1:24:52.720 --> 1:24:56.000 come to life. Right. I thought about how many kids 1:24:56.080 --> 1:24:59.160 I know who never get to explore anything except on 1:24:59.200 --> 1:25:01.600 Fortnite we can have surprise. They're obsessed with it and 1:25:01.840 --> 1:25:04.120 Lenor was with me that day, and when he left, 1:25:04.280 --> 1:25:06.120 she turned to me. She said, you know, think about 1:25:06.200 --> 1:25:10.160 human history. For all of human history, human beings, when 1:25:10.160 --> 1:25:12.439 they were young, they had to go out, they had 1:25:12.479 --> 1:25:15.160 to explore, They had to figure out how things worked, 1:25:15.200 --> 1:25:18.160 They had to map the territory and the space of 1:25:18.280 --> 1:25:21.080 basically one generation, we took all that away from them. 1:25:21.600 --> 1:25:25.080 It stunted them physically, It stunted their attention, It stunted 1:25:25.120 --> 1:25:27.960 their ability to function in the world. And that boy, 1:25:28.040 --> 1:25:30.320 given a tiny little sliver of freedom, what did he do. 1:25:30.640 --> 1:25:32.240 He went into the woods and he built a fort. 1:25:32.280 --> 1:25:34.920 Because it is so deep in human nature, these impulses. 1:25:35.280 --> 1:25:38.360 So I would argue every there's lots of things we 1:25:38.439 --> 1:25:40.120 need to do to restore attention. One is we need 1:25:40.120 --> 1:25:43.200 to give our children a childhood that our ancestors would 1:25:43.240 --> 1:25:46.280 have recognized as a human childhood. We need to restore 1:25:46.600 --> 1:25:49.040 human childhood. Every school in Australia should have a let 1:25:49.080 --> 1:25:52.080 Grow program. This is free, it costs nothing. It unites 1:25:52.120 --> 1:25:54.320 people who are really left wing and really right wing 1:25:54.400 --> 1:25:56.760 and everything in between. We can do that right, that 1:25:56.840 --> 1:25:59.280 doesn't cost anything. And if one good thing can come 1:25:59.320 --> 1:26:02.400 out of COVID, this has been a terrible tragedy and 1:26:02.560 --> 1:26:05.840 millions of people across the world have died. But we 1:26:05.960 --> 1:26:08.120 can all see. Whatever you think about the restrictions, and 1:26:08.160 --> 1:26:10.479 I was broadly in favor of them, we can all 1:26:10.640 --> 1:26:13.479 see that shutting our kids away for two years has 1:26:13.680 --> 1:26:16.720 catastrophically harmed them. Okay, well, if shutting our kids away 1:26:16.800 --> 1:26:19.240 during COVID harmed them, which we can all see, we 1:26:19.320 --> 1:26:21.800 should be able to see that shutting them away before COVID, 1:26:21.840 --> 1:26:24.040 which by any historical standard is what we were doing, 1:26:24.479 --> 1:26:26.519 that was also really harming them. And if part of 1:26:26.560 --> 1:26:29.280 the legacy as we re emerge is that we learn 1:26:29.640 --> 1:26:32.240 how to let our children grow again, grow physically, grow 1:26:32.320 --> 1:26:34.439 a sense of attention. And like you said that, you 1:26:34.520 --> 1:26:36.320 were talking about the kind of fear people feel, which 1:26:36.320 --> 1:26:39.519 is totally understandable. And Leonor said to me, you know, look, 1:26:39.880 --> 1:26:42.040 you can tell people the statistics, and the statistics are 1:26:42.080 --> 1:26:44.840 really coming there, even more striking in Australia. But your 1:26:44.920 --> 1:26:47.439 child is significantly more likely to be hit by lightning 1:26:47.479 --> 1:26:49.800 than be kidnapped by a stranger. Right, And if someone 1:26:49.840 --> 1:26:50.920 said to you, I'm not going to let my kid 1:26:50.960 --> 1:26:52.840 out because I'm worried they might get hit by lightning. 1:26:52.920 --> 1:26:55.800 You'd think they were completely deranged, right, But Lane said, 1:26:55.880 --> 1:26:57.760 it doesn't work. It's not how human psychology work. It 1:26:57.800 --> 1:27:01.400 doesn't work explaining statistics to people. Statistics worked, no one 1:27:01.439 --> 1:27:03.680 would buy lottery tickets and Las Vegas would be a 1:27:03.840 --> 1:27:06.639 you know, empty town in the desert. Right. What works 1:27:07.240 --> 1:27:10.600 is getting people to try. Their kids going out and 1:27:10.680 --> 1:27:12.960 their son, who they've been worried about being so anxious 1:27:13.000 --> 1:27:16.479 and fragile, comes back and he's a bit sweaty, and 1:27:16.640 --> 1:27:18.960 he can see he's had this adventure and he's sort 1:27:18.960 --> 1:27:21.160 of squirrel and tried to climate try and they're like, oh, 1:27:21.320 --> 1:27:23.920 that's my boy, that's the child I want. It's those 1:27:24.040 --> 1:27:27.960 moments of transformation that people get when their children start 1:27:28.080 --> 1:27:30.960 to actually grow. That's what makes them want to do it. 1:27:31.040 --> 1:27:32.640 So you've just got to get parents to try this. 1:27:33.479 --> 1:27:36.360 Trying to argue against the fear just increases the fear. Well, 1:27:36.400 --> 1:27:37.800 you've got to give them as a sense, your child 1:27:37.880 --> 1:27:39.760 doesn't have to be like this because they can see. 1:27:39.800 --> 1:27:44.160 People can see how unbelievably anxious children are at the moment. Right, 1:27:44.560 --> 1:27:46.640 this is a key element of what we can what 1:27:46.800 --> 1:27:49.000 we can do. It's one of the kind of one 1:27:49.040 --> 1:27:51.160 of several really big changes I argue for in the book, 1:27:51.160 --> 1:27:52.599 along with lots of individual changes. 1:27:52.880 --> 1:27:55.560 Johannah, thank you so much for coming and being a 1:27:55.600 --> 1:27:57.760 part of the podcast. I could speak to you for 1:27:57.960 --> 1:27:58.960 literally whole day. 1:27:59.160 --> 1:28:01.320 Oh this has been so to joy. Thank you so much. 1:28:01.760 --> 1:28:02.439 You are a joy. 1:28:02.600 --> 1:28:05.760 And I forgive you for presenting the face of mynmosis. 1:28:07.160 --> 1:28:08.559 Did you get this from our book swop? 1:28:09.040 --> 1:28:10.960 It was literally was the very first thing I saw 1:28:11.000 --> 1:28:12.560 when I walked through the door was an image of 1:28:12.560 --> 1:28:14.680 the deal Alama. So I forgive you. 1:28:15.000 --> 1:28:16.920 Sorry, I'm sorry for the trauma that brought up, but 1:28:16.920 --> 1:28:18.280 I'm very glad that you got to share that on 1:28:18.320 --> 1:28:20.760 the podcast. But please tell everyone where they can find you. 1:28:21.000 --> 1:28:23.720 I mean, you can get your books from all good bookstores, 1:28:23.760 --> 1:28:25.400 from all good audio places. 1:28:25.560 --> 1:28:30.400 To get them from ship bookstore. Your bookstore is not 1:28:30.479 --> 1:28:32.840 good enough do that. But so where can people find 1:28:33.280 --> 1:28:37.559 If they go to www dot stolenfocusbook dot com, they 1:28:37.680 --> 1:28:39.760 can see where to follow me on social media. I 1:28:39.880 --> 1:28:43.479 will not see you back, sorrysteg Semi. There they can 1:28:43.520 --> 1:28:45.160 see where to get the audiobook, the ebook or the 1:28:45.160 --> 1:28:47.560 physical book. They can see what people like Oprah and 1:28:47.720 --> 1:28:49.720 Hillary Clinton and lots of other people have said about 1:28:49.720 --> 1:28:50.920 the book. I love being able to say that. 1:28:51.200 --> 1:28:52.920 I'll all the links in the show notes as well, 1:28:52.960 --> 1:28:54.599 so you can just tap that way. 1:28:54.840 --> 1:28:56.400 I got in trouble at the end of a podcast 1:28:56.520 --> 1:28:57.960 a couple of and maybe a year and a half 1:28:58.000 --> 1:29:00.360 ago now, I was interviewed by the Sama guy. He 1:29:00.439 --> 1:29:03.519 was fifty this is relevant and at the end he 1:29:03.600 --> 1:29:06.479 said to me, so, what's your Facebook? And I said it? 1:29:06.680 --> 1:29:08.240 And he said what's your Twitter? And I said it? 1:29:08.280 --> 1:29:09.840 And he said what's your Instagram? And I said it. 1:29:09.920 --> 1:29:12.519 He said what's your Snapchat? And I said, I am 1:29:12.600 --> 1:29:15.639 a forty three year old man. The only forty three 1:29:15.680 --> 1:29:18.800 year old men on Snapchat are definitely pedophiles, right, Why 1:29:18.880 --> 1:29:19.400 are they there? 1:29:20.160 --> 1:29:21.240 He was like, I want Snapchat? 1:29:22.000 --> 1:29:23.479 Why he didn't laugh at all? And I've got this 1:29:23.600 --> 1:29:25.720 really bad thing where when someone doesn't laugh at joke, 1:29:25.720 --> 1:29:27.519 I tell I lean into it. So I said, you 1:29:27.600 --> 1:29:29.880 know that show To Catch a Predator, the American Showman 1:29:29.920 --> 1:29:32.720 the Catfish pedophiles, I said, the next season of To 1:29:32.760 --> 1:29:34.840 Catch a Predator, they should just go up to adult 1:29:34.880 --> 1:29:37.519 men in the street and say, what is your Snapchat handle? 1:29:37.880 --> 1:29:40.240 And if they have one, immediately fucking arrest them in 1:29:40.360 --> 1:29:43.599 the van. Right Anyway, he didn't laugh at that. Later 1:29:43.680 --> 1:29:45.519 I go look him up. He's quite big on snapchat. 1:29:45.680 --> 1:29:48.479 So so now my bar for all interviews is do 1:29:48.560 --> 1:29:50.960 I get through them without accidentally accusing the person interviewing 1:29:51.000 --> 1:29:52.880 me of being a pedophile? And I'm friends, have we 1:29:53.000 --> 1:29:53.760 met that low bar? 1:29:54.479 --> 1:29:56.320 I lie that that's it? How can I offend someone 1:29:56.360 --> 1:29:57.280 on this interview today? 1:29:57.439 --> 1:29:57.839 Exactly? 1:29:58.080 --> 1:29:59.439 You know what you got to do that You've got 1:29:59.479 --> 1:30:01.240 to have the extra dreams and the lows, otherwise you 1:30:01.280 --> 1:30:02.960 don't get cut through. You don't want everyone to like you. 1:30:03.320 --> 1:30:05.920 Shot of whiskey? Wasn't that that someone said that I did? 1:30:05.960 --> 1:30:06.599 That interesting? 1:30:06.720 --> 1:30:08.120 When I don't want to be everyone's cup of tea, 1:30:08.160 --> 1:30:10.200 you want to be someone's shot of whiskey. I love that. 1:30:10.439 --> 1:30:12.400 I was a terrible Instagram quote. I think I read 1:30:12.439 --> 1:30:14.280 during a breakup once and I was like, yeah, fuck you, 1:30:14.400 --> 1:30:14.920 I'll post that. 1:30:15.360 --> 1:30:17.120 I love that. That's so good. 1:30:18.439 --> 1:30:20.760 Thank you so much, it's been the best. 1:30:20.920 --> 1:30:22.720 Oh what a pleasure. Cheers, Thanks so much. 1:30:23.520 --> 1:30:25.559 All right, You know that we never finish our episodes 1:30:25.600 --> 1:30:28.320 without our suck and our sweet, our highlight and our 1:30:28.400 --> 1:30:30.840 low light of each and every week. And I just 1:30:30.960 --> 1:30:33.120 asked produce a Keisha what her suck was, and then 1:30:33.200 --> 1:30:36.920 she almost vomited. So I'm really frightened about what this is. 1:30:37.880 --> 1:30:40.360 Like fully gagged into the microphone. We had to start again. 1:30:40.520 --> 1:30:43.200 I said, I that was genuinely an accident, and I 1:30:43.240 --> 1:30:45.320 didn't actually feel that one coming, But it is related 1:30:45.360 --> 1:30:45.920 to my suck. 1:30:46.960 --> 1:30:48.880 Two weeks ago, I got on the podcast and I 1:30:48.960 --> 1:30:50.680 said that my suck for the. 1:30:50.720 --> 1:30:53.519 Week was that I had been really, really sick, and 1:30:54.040 --> 1:30:55.560 the main symptom that I had was that I was 1:30:55.600 --> 1:30:58.599 super nauseous and really fatigued. Anyway, it turns out through 1:30:58.680 --> 1:31:01.680 the week, I found out that I got three parasites. 1:31:02.200 --> 1:31:04.160 Wait what did you call them? It was like they 1:31:04.200 --> 1:31:06.640 thought it was an amoeba amibas that it wasn't an 1:31:06.680 --> 1:31:12.720 Amba the great Amima twenty three three parasites. You really 1:31:12.800 --> 1:31:14.680 did take a few things home from Bali you shouldn't have. 1:31:15.439 --> 1:31:17.600 But anyway, so the suck comes into it because I 1:31:17.640 --> 1:31:19.880 found this out on the Monday, and I got sent 1:31:19.960 --> 1:31:21.920 away to go and get the medicine to treat the 1:31:22.040 --> 1:31:24.200 worst of the three, the other. 1:31:24.080 --> 1:31:26.599 Two to keep the final ones keep the other two, 1:31:26.720 --> 1:31:27.679 just get rid of the bad one. 1:31:28.160 --> 1:31:30.320 I think the two of them will fix themselves up, 1:31:30.360 --> 1:31:32.920 but one of them needs medicine. And I went to 1:31:33.400 --> 1:31:35.880 maybe three or four different pharmacies and they were like, hey, 1:31:36.120 --> 1:31:38.760 this medication has been out of stock for more than 1:31:38.800 --> 1:31:40.840 three months in all of Australia. 1:31:40.680 --> 1:31:42.120 And I thought, well, that's not good. 1:31:42.280 --> 1:31:44.040 But it was a moment where I went, you know what, 1:31:44.720 --> 1:31:46.519 this is the first time this has ever happened to me, 1:31:46.600 --> 1:31:48.920 which makes me so grateful to live in Australia because 1:31:49.120 --> 1:31:51.680 we're never in the position where we're out of medication or. 1:31:51.680 --> 1:31:53.000 Do you know why they don't have it here? It's 1:31:53.000 --> 1:31:55.839 because no one's been traveling, so no one's needed medication 1:31:56.000 --> 1:31:59.920 for a fucking rogue a meeba from Bali who knows anyway, 1:32:00.240 --> 1:32:02.400 So that is the suck. Still don't have the medicine 1:32:02.439 --> 1:32:02.600 for it. 1:32:02.720 --> 1:32:04.240 So I'm still getting like a lot of the side 1:32:04.280 --> 1:32:07.240 effects of feeling really really sick all the time. 1:32:07.320 --> 1:32:09.760 So yeah, apologies for that, but my sweet is a 1:32:09.880 --> 1:32:10.840 bit related to that. 1:32:11.080 --> 1:32:12.760 So at the moment, they've got me on some other 1:32:12.880 --> 1:32:16.200 things to treat the other ones, and I can't drink 1:32:16.600 --> 1:32:19.080 at all, which makes it sound like I'm a massive 1:32:19.160 --> 1:32:19.599 party girl. 1:32:19.640 --> 1:32:23.760 Who drinks a lot, which is only on weekends, which 1:32:23.800 --> 1:32:27.360 is only two of my seven days a week. Don't 1:32:27.520 --> 1:32:29.880 judge me on weekends. I like to have a good time. 1:32:30.760 --> 1:32:33.000 But as a part of that, I've kind I feel 1:32:33.000 --> 1:32:35.320 as though I've kind of hit reset because I was like, 1:32:35.320 --> 1:32:37.559 all right, we just need a month of chill. 1:32:37.560 --> 1:32:38.400 Okay, we need to. 1:32:38.479 --> 1:32:42.000 I spent my first Saturday night in the house not 1:32:42.200 --> 1:32:44.760 doing anything in as long as I can remember. I 1:32:44.880 --> 1:32:47.360 have watched so much more Netflix, and it's been a real, 1:32:47.520 --> 1:32:51.200 like wholesome, good for my body time. So that is 1:32:51.240 --> 1:32:53.599 my sweet is that I'm starting to feel like I'm 1:32:53.640 --> 1:32:55.840 doing things to get my body back on track. 1:32:55.680 --> 1:32:57.840 And surely that's going to have good outcomes. What I 1:32:58.080 --> 1:33:01.439 like about this, though, is that you're health forced you 1:33:01.520 --> 1:33:03.719 to spend a Saturday night in and so you're choosing 1:33:03.800 --> 1:33:07.200 to see the silver lining. Yes, you're forced in buying 1:33:07.280 --> 1:33:10.240 a meeba against your will, and you're seeing the bright 1:33:10.400 --> 1:33:12.720 side of things. That's the positivity I like to hear. 1:33:13.000 --> 1:33:15.759 I like to find the silver lining in life. Okay, 1:33:16.120 --> 1:33:18.519 my suck for the week is that we drove down 1:33:18.560 --> 1:33:20.280 to Molliwook. We're gonna have a weekend away with the 1:33:20.360 --> 1:33:22.160 girls and we did. I mean that was sweet. We 1:33:22.240 --> 1:33:24.200 had a weekend away with the girls. Except I've had 1:33:24.240 --> 1:33:27.920 this very annoying cold not COVID PCR test says it's 1:33:27.960 --> 1:33:30.479 not COVID for like the last week, so I was 1:33:30.560 --> 1:33:32.000 like half blast. So I didn't really feel like I 1:33:32.080 --> 1:33:33.439 got to enjoy it as much as I would have. 1:33:33.720 --> 1:33:36.320 But on the way back from Mollimook, we stopped and 1:33:36.360 --> 1:33:38.479 we visited my mum, who lives in Woollongong. And when 1:33:38.520 --> 1:33:41.320 we stopped out, you know, like in the car, how 1:33:41.560 --> 1:33:44.080 some things are automated and it's like lots of pressure 1:33:44.120 --> 1:33:49.000 in back tire or you're you're really driving different cars. 1:33:49.320 --> 1:33:52.719 Your oil needs must be nice. Mine just has flashing 1:33:52.840 --> 1:33:56.439 lights on the dashboard and it's like engine not HoTT 1:33:56.680 --> 1:33:59.120 Mine was like lots of pressure and back tire. We 1:33:59.160 --> 1:34:01.000 were like, ah, yeah, whatever. It always tells us there's 1:34:01.000 --> 1:34:03.120 things wrong that I'm wrong when they're not wrong. Oh no, 1:34:03.200 --> 1:34:05.559 there was something wrong. We had a completely flat tire 1:34:05.560 --> 1:34:07.720 and we're driven for over an hour with a completely 1:34:07.880 --> 1:34:10.760 flat tire. God like nothing, and I was up your car. 1:34:10.920 --> 1:34:14.519 I was like wondering where the car was going down 1:34:14.600 --> 1:34:19.320 the fucking freeway. What did you not notice? So anyway, 1:34:19.439 --> 1:34:21.920 we stopped and I learned that I'm very good at 1:34:21.960 --> 1:34:25.040 jacking a car up it's done, and Matt's not very 1:34:25.040 --> 1:34:26.320 good at jacking a car up. And that was like 1:34:26.320 --> 1:34:28.320 a real moment of just like I felt like a 1:34:28.400 --> 1:34:31.320 powerful queen validation. You know, when I was eighteen, I 1:34:31.360 --> 1:34:33.400 got my first flat tire. I just moved to Queensland nineties. 1:34:33.400 --> 1:34:36.080 I didn't know anybody and I had to change a 1:34:36.280 --> 1:34:39.000 car tire only to get like a couple hundred meters 1:34:39.040 --> 1:34:39.759 down the road. 1:34:40.400 --> 1:34:43.959 Via a YouTube video. You couldn't get everything from YouTube. 1:34:43.960 --> 1:34:45.920 I told myself how to be a jurey designer because 1:34:45.960 --> 1:34:49.479 of YouTube and a podcast. You actually do you can 1:34:49.560 --> 1:34:52.160 learn anything from YouTube. My sweet for the week, I 1:34:52.280 --> 1:34:53.920 have a couple of sweets, so I'm going to rattle 1:34:53.960 --> 1:34:57.040 off two of them. One is that our merch finally 1:34:57.160 --> 1:34:59.880 dropped just in time for summer. I hope you guys. 1:34:59.880 --> 1:35:03.040 Are I enjoy your jumpers? The nights are still cold. Yeah, 1:35:03.080 --> 1:35:05.360 and it's also not like it's not a hot I'm 1:35:05.400 --> 1:35:06.120 wearing it right now. 1:35:06.840 --> 1:35:07.000 Yeah. 1:35:07.040 --> 1:35:08.640 You wouldn't let me wear it because if I went 1:35:08.680 --> 1:35:10.720 to put the same one on but we thought we'd 1:35:10.720 --> 1:35:12.719 looked silly. I was like, we can't have matching uniforms, 1:35:12.760 --> 1:35:15.800 but no, the jumpers are here. They are beautiful. They 1:35:15.840 --> 1:35:19.920 are the perfect perfect temperature for between seasons. Highly recommend 1:35:19.960 --> 1:35:22.400 going and getting one. Also, five dollars from every single 1:35:22.439 --> 1:35:25.160 merch jumper is going towards Deadly Connections, which is we 1:35:25.320 --> 1:35:29.080 interview Karlie on the podcast from Deadly Connections charity and 1:35:29.200 --> 1:35:31.680 what that is is a non for profit organization run 1:35:31.720 --> 1:35:34.880 by the Indigenous community for Indigenous people, so it is 1:35:34.920 --> 1:35:38.559 an amazing cause. Also, my other sweet for the week 1:35:38.760 --> 1:35:42.040 is that I finally got a copy, a hard copy 1:35:42.439 --> 1:35:46.840 printed copy of our fucking book and I am so excited. 1:35:47.760 --> 1:35:49.680 Life on cart Well Domination twenty twenty four. 1:35:49.840 --> 1:35:51.640 Hang on, we just need to get Delilah in the 1:35:51.800 --> 1:35:55.519 Rain to the Go Away to give context to this. 1:35:55.760 --> 1:35:59.040 The very first copy that Britain Laura got of the book. 1:35:59.400 --> 1:36:02.160 The first time they'd seen the book, they were going 1:36:02.200 --> 1:36:03.200 to take pictures with it. 1:36:04.320 --> 1:36:07.400 I hadn't even seen it, and then it saw the 1:36:07.479 --> 1:36:11.120 inside of Delilah's mouth. It was an unbelievable case of 1:36:11.280 --> 1:36:13.840 my dog ate my homework. And that was the very 1:36:13.920 --> 1:36:18.360 first book that ever got printed. It got absolutely fucking annihilated. 1:36:19.400 --> 1:36:23.080 She loved it, she devoured it. But anyway, guys, that 1:36:23.160 --> 1:36:25.240 book is coming out in October, So if you haven't 1:36:25.240 --> 1:36:28.479 gone and gotten your pre order copy yet, please go 1:36:28.760 --> 1:36:30.400 and get yourself a copy. We don't know how many 1:36:30.439 --> 1:36:32.800 we're gonna need before they sell out, so jump on. 1:36:32.840 --> 1:36:34.320 You can pre order it from the website. We'll put 1:36:34.320 --> 1:36:36.160 all the details in the show notes. And that is 1:36:36.320 --> 1:36:40.360 it from us. And you know the drill? Do you, Keisha? 1:36:40.520 --> 1:36:42.200 Do you know the drill? Mate? I've been feeling in 1:36:42.280 --> 1:36:44.680 for three weeks. Now, Tell your mom, tell your dad, 1:36:44.760 --> 1:36:46.439 tell your dog, tell your friend, and share the love 1:36:46.640 --> 1:36:51.400 because we love love. I mean it is friends plural, 1:36:51.520 --> 1:36:57.720 but that's okay. Tell your friend, just one friend. It's 1:36:57.800 --> 1:37:02.120 to your friend. Fuck tell you won't tell you that 1:37:02.520 --> 1:37:05.920 you don't. Tell your friends and share the love because 1:37:06.280 --> 1:37:07.280 we all love