Hello and welcome to the live cast. My name is Glenn Scrivener, and joined as ever I am in the studio with Poolfee Z. Here are you. Yes, still here. Good to be here as always. Very good. And uh we always start off with feedback. Well, always in the last three weeks we have. Anyway, and uh I'm just I'm just so thrilled this week to be able to say that uh people are commenting on my sartorial elegance and not just your jokey t-shirts, you know? About time. It's you know, it's one thing to have a funny t-shirt. It's it's another to have, in the words of Christoph Keating, nice open woolen pullover glen. Very cozy feel. You've gone for uh another kind of woolen knit today. Well, actually, Christoph, it's you know, you you can kind of live off compliments for a month. Mark Twain said I can live off a good compliment for a month. And even this morning I was thinking, what should I wear for a recording of the live cast? And it has to be a cardigan. When did you start wearing cardigans?
SPEAKER_07Like last week when Christoph noticed. Pull over, yeah.
SPEAKER_09My wife. Well, it's it yeah, you say stage. I understand what you're saying, Paul. Do you grow into this? Yeah, you're not quite over the hill. You're not you're not over for once you're over 40, it's getting away with a nice comedy. It's all the way downhill. But yeah, my my my wife buys my clothes for me and I dress in the dark. That's that's the explanation. Why do you look the way you look? That's that's it. Um other feedback. I love this from Foster W after last week's episode where we spoke of about, among other things, Amy Coney Barrett's uh nomination to the Supreme Court. But Foster W said, great content for Christ curious Zoomers such as myself. Thank you guys so much. Did you know what a zoomer was?
SPEAKER_07Well, I guess to this is the per these are people who are watching in on Zoom, presumably. Right. Just they're they're exploring church via those kind of mediums, maybe for the first time.
SPEAKER_09And is there a kind of a portmanteau with Boomer? They're both a Zoomer and a Boomer? Maybe. Who knows? A baby boomer, who knows? I might Okay Zoomer. Okay Zoomer. But you know what's been happening in the last six months? Well, one thing has been there's been Christ curious zoomers who are um joining lots of churches and um looking in from the outside. And uh yeah, hope you hope you like what you see uh from us, Foster W. Uh we had uh another one from John E. Cork. Uh we spoke last week about adoption because Amy Comey Amy Coney Barrett was in the news because of the makeup of her family, and it included uh adopted children from uh Haiti. And John E. Cork commented fully on board with the hashtag let's get adopting train. Looking forward to our scariest thing imaginable in the next 10 days. God bless with that. Uh Cork family, you're going to increase. And uh yeah, it's a beautiful, it's a such a it's such a God-shaped thing to do, isn't it? To expand the natural family by grace and bring others into that circle of love. So, yeah, let's let's keep the the let's get adopting train going. Uh well done, you guys. Uh and then we had uh another comment by Andrew Kay, and I thought this this was interesting. He said, I don't understand why two people living in the UK are so obsessed with talking about the politics in the US. And especially when one of you described himself as a missionary to England, that was me. Uh I think um those were your exact words, that's me. Uh you can add that the various parts of the UK have their own political problems. Um that's it that's a that's an interesting point, isn't it? Like, why why do we talk about America?
SPEAKER_07Yeah, well, it's I suppose just so much of our so much of our media is taken up by America, isn't it? You know most a lot of media we uh entertainment media certainly comes out of the States, doesn't it? But you know, we so much of our just mainstream news media is taken up with what's going on over there.
SPEAKER_08Right, right.
SPEAKER_09And if you're extremely online, as we we tend to be, and 2020 is the kind of year that 2020 is, um, then the states is gonna kind of flood your feeds. Um for better and for worse. Um and I you know, I I I take that as an interesting point. We're gonna get on in this episode to talk about social media and some of the cautions that we should have around social media. And I think one of the cautions is um it kind of flattens all distinctives between people and brings down every kind of barrier for better and for worse. And one of the things that's worse about that is you feel like you can comment on US politics when um you haven't got a baldy, um which is which is quite often um my my uh failing as well. But uh haven't got a what? Baldy. Uh in it's a Northern Irish thing. Oh, okay. Yeah, yeah. I've never heard that phrase. I've learned it from Emma.
SPEAKER_07Uh well, yeah, yeah, I guess that was probably the case.
SPEAKER_09Yeah, please do comment if if have I got this wrong? Have I butchered? Is this cultural appropriation? I don't know. I need your help. Um but yeah, yeah. Like one of the things about social media is it makes you care about stuff all the way around the other side of the world, like it's home. Yeah. And then do you love your neighbor? Like, am I am I aware of what's going on down my street? Maybe not.
SPEAKER_10Sure.
SPEAKER_09Very true. Very true. It's a good it's a good point, Andrew K. We're taking that on board. And um uh another another conversation that got started on Twitter because I posted this video on Twitter and we got into the issue of uh conversion therapy on last week's episode. And somebody um sort of pushed back on Twitter and said, I think conversion therapy is ridiculous and harmful, and that if consenting adults want to stimulate themselves with members of the same sex, it harms no one and is none of my business, and it's great for their psychological and physical health. So I go for it. Which is kind of one view on conversion therapy. Conversion therapy, i.e., um, I have feelings for members of the same sex and I want to have feelings for members of the opposite sex. Maybe I want to pursue a marriage. Um and yeah, currently um it's looking like it's going to be criminalized to even help somebody think through their sexuality if it's in the direction of towards heterosexual. Um and this this person sort of you know says he he doesn't like the idea of conversion therapy, it's ridiculous and harmful that if consenting adults want to stimulate themselves with members of the same sex, it harms nobody. Um my point back to him on Twitter was really well, if you don't care what consenting adults get up to in the privacy of their own home, why do you care what consenting adults get up to in the privacy of a counseling clinic? Um like surely two consenting adults can can talk about their sexuality. Um it's just interesting that sometimes there's a moral panic over what people consider to be conversion therapy. And what ends up happening is a whole lot of pearl clutching. You know, oh my goodness, there are two people who are doing things in a room that I don't want them to do. I think the government should step in. That sounds like the bad guys from the past that you think are you think Christians are. So I I just thought that was very interesting. That that actually sometimes a moral panic over conversion therapy sounds very much like the moral panic of the bad old days when the when the church was very homophobic and bigoted and all that kind of stuff. Sure. Um we want we want the government to criminalize what two people get up to. Interesting. Anyway. Yeah, definitely interesting. That's the mailbag. That's the mailbag um for this week. Keep your comments coming in, not least because this week we have crossed a certain threshold, a certain number on YouTube. What are we what do we come to, Paul?
SPEAKER_07Yeah, well, we've momentously hit 10,000 subscribers on YouTube, which is pretty crazy. Yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_09So yeah, here we are. Here we are. We crossed, and what's interesting is these things gain momentum, and we crossed the 10,000 barrier on Sunday. Yep. And we're recording this on Tuesday, and we're already up to nearly 10,400 on Tuesday.
SPEAKER_07So I guess there's that there's that kind of slightly exponential thing, isn't it? Maybe that more people watch stuff, it appears in algorithms, right? Gets shared around. I don't know how it works. Let's steepen the curve, baby. Let's steepen the curve. That's that's that's what we're aiming for. So we're can we call ourselves influencers now?
SPEAKER_09So I guess we can, yeah. And in next week's episode, we'll talk about smoky eyeshadow and how to do it on the budget. We will get into some of that as we talk about social media. But um, one of the other things we wanted to talk about was Catherine Burble Singh. Um so we're in our reset series and talking to different people, some of them Christians, some of them not, um, but asking them questions about humanity and what we're like, and especially getting back to Genesis and those sorts of things. And uh you you enjoyed having a look at uh Catherine Burbel Singh, didn't you?
SPEAKER_07Yeah, it's great fun. I mean, she's obviously quite the character, which is which is good. And I just uh as soon as I've said that, I've realised I've just remembered back to what we said last week when we were talking about very British problems. Yes. And when you say someone's a character, you mean they're the worst person ever. That's not what I mean at all. You mean I think she is just a delightful character. Yeah. Um she was great fun to watch. Um and she's the kind of person that nice it there, and I find myself just going, Oh, it's nice to have someone who's just got some common sense.
SPEAKER_09I mean now you're in cardigan territory. Yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_07Bring on the cardigan. She's ready. Yeah, and um, yeah, just really good to listen to her, and like I say, just so many things that she was saying. Um which you just yeah, like I say, you sit there and go, Oh, thank goodness, the world hasn't gone completely bonkers. She seems to think everyone else has gone bonkers, which is good to know, it's not just me. Um and yeah, and she touched on a number of things. Um, you know, whilst talking about talking about education, she touched on a number of things which you know kind of spoke uh were a bit bit deeper than just like how we're doing a bit of teaching, you know. Right. Um and I think we're gonna see a little bit of that in the in the clip we've got lined up.
SPEAKER_09Yeah, I asked her a question about um yeah, what what are human persons really like? And I feed her a quote and uh she nails the person who gave the quote in the first instance, and then she she really goes to town on overturning that view of what people are really like. Let's have a look. I've arranged a little pop quiz for you, Catherine. Um here here are here are five quotes about human nature and education. Um and uh let's see if you can guess who said it and then get your response uh from it. So here's here's the first one. Uh man is born free. It is everywhere in chain. Who said that in the first time? Um, whatever.
SPEAKER_04We need otherwise they just won't know we need to do more than just we need to get them around them. Doing the right thing. Eventually it becomes a heart, it just becomes a hard of who they are. And that would be around them pushing them all. They won't become a good person, that they will become bad people because the original thing will just take over, and the nature of man will not be contained as it were, and and will not be developed so that the child can be somebody a good human being. Um traditionalists believe that, and traditionalists know that without that kind of structure when they're young, they will turn out to be uh disappointing adults, essentially. And when I say disappointing, people who will commit crimes, who will do bad things, who won't know the difference between right and wrong.
SPEAKER_07Yeah, so in that clip she's kind of talking about um well the the the person who came up with this quote was Rousseau, and I guess this is something that has has come into society, hasn't it, and holds quite a bit of sway amongst some people, this idea that we're kind of we're born kind of pure and naturally good, and then over time other things get in and cause problems and stuff, and you've just got to find the good inside and release it and cultivate it and stuff. And um and interestingly, yeah, I mean her her thing is very much more much more in line with the kind of traditional Christian view of the idea of kind of original sin. Um that if you you know if you don't step in, actually the nature of man will take over and you know, actually the nature of man is not is not the all good kind of lovely stuff. Um You know, people often say that she's she's talking about kids, isn't she? But you know, I think we've often said in our in like talks and sermons, you say, you know, if you you think if you've ever had kids, you've never had to teach kids to be naughty. Right. You know, kids just naturally gravitate towards these things. Um there is this kind of thing in us that leads us off the path.
SPEAKER_08Yeah.
SPEAKER_09Um and she kind of smiles when she says, and kids are going to be naughty, aren't they? They're going to be naughty. And and I think, you know, sometimes original sin is maligned as the sort of the doctrine that like God hates babies or something, or like Yeah, yeah. Um but it's not that we're born little Hitlers or anything like that. But it's it's the expectation that, you know, left to our own devices, we're gonna lie and we're gonna cheat and we're gonna steal. And you know, the Minnesota Crime Commission was this totally secular body that was set up in the early 20th century to talk about what human beings are like, because if you're gonna work in criminology, you better figure out what people are like. And it just said, we're we're all born as little savages. A child wants what it wants when it wants it. It's uncle's watch, breakfast, you know, and and and it it grabs at these things with uh an anger that would be murderous if only they had the strength. Yeah, absolutely. And this is just a totally secular body figuring out what people are like, but you know, people like Catherine Burbel Singh can't help noticing what people are actually like. And I think that's part of a movement that's going on at the moment. So Stephen Pinker um wrote a book about the blank slates, because going along with Jean-Jacques Rousseau's, you know, doctrine of humanity is that we're kind of blank slates, and we if we do good, then we rack up the goodness, and if we do bad, then we go into negative, but we're a blank slate. Um and he just brings a whole lot of psychological evidence to bear and just say, well, we're totally not. We're just we're just a bundle of different contradictions that we've inherited mainly from our parents, right? And then what do you call that? You know, we so we inherit a whole bunch of contradictions from our parents. What do you call that? I call it original sin. Um and Catherine Burble saying, not a Christian, just you know, happy to own that as a label, uh, which I thought was was very interesting. Um but uh yeah, do check out the the whole of that clip, uh the whole of that uh episode. Uh it went out on Friday night. And uh coming up this Friday night, we're gonna have uh an interview with Tom Holland, who's just a fascinating guy, historian, written uh just a tremendous book on the history of the West, but he says you can't tell the history of the West without telling the history of Christianity, the most revolutionary movement there's ever been. And uh we get into in our conversation together where he stands now. Uh we first spoke back in November of last year, and he's continued on in his journey exploring Christian faith, and he says some uh really um some really heartening things and some really challenging things to the church at the end of that interview, so you will not want to miss that out. Uh, do please subscribe below and tap the bell so that you'll get uh all these reset interviews coming into your feed. But uh, let's move on to uh the theme of this episode, really, which is should we distance from social?
SPEAKER_07Yeah. Why are we talking about this? Yeah, I mean, this has kind of come off the back of the um the documentary that's going around on Netflix at the moment. Netflix have made this documentary called The Social Dilemma, which is a bit of a play on the social network, which is the film about Facebook. And it's basically a documentary which largely is comprised of kind of interviews uh with kind of ex-employees of places like Facebook, but also Twitter, Pinterest, people who've been involved in kind of the social media tech industry. Um, and they're basically raising a number of issues um about problems with the with social media and the and the the trouble it's causing and saying, you know, are there dangers here? Has it gone too far? Is it out of control? You know, can we stop it? And all these kind of things. And it just seems to have been, you know, it's one of those things that a number of people seem to have picked up on. We've had a couple of people message in and say, You're gonna talk about this um from different angles, you know, as well. So um, yeah, we we've we both went and had a little watch, didn't we? Yeah Sunday evening. Yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_09Did you enjoy it? Did you enjoy watching?
SPEAKER_07I did enjoy it, yeah. Um I actually started watching it earlier in the day. Um and I got a I got about a minute in. I thought this seems really good. I said, uh I think I'm gonna just put this put this down and um I'll see if Becca, my wife, wants to watch it as well. I and I said, Oh, there's this thing, and she said, Oh yeah, actually I've put it on our list. And I was like, Oh, let's watch it later because that'll be good. Um yeah, I mean I think it's interesting and it it it was it was a very interesting watch. And there's lots of things in there, I think, for me, as someone who uses social media quite a lot and is just aware of some of the criticisms of it. I don't think there was anything in there that was like new to me in the sense that I've never heard someone say, hey, this is a danger, like quite aware of it. I think though, perhaps if you're if you're a casual user of social media or you're not someone who spends a lot of time, I don't know, looking at the angry world of Twitter so much. Right. Um bless you. Yeah, yeah. What's it like? Yeah. Um I think there might be stuff in there that you've perhaps not thought about. And I mean one of one of the things they talk about in there is is that social media is what it does is it it kind of cr it it works on you to create a to create small imperceptible changes over time. Um and if you can do that sort of, you know, if someone says, hey, give me ten million dollars and I can change one percent of people, you know, that doesn't seem like a lot of people, but in terms of two billion people on Facebook, that's a good proportion, you can make a lot of money out.
SPEAKER_09So they're 2.7 monthly users on Facebook, I think.
SPEAKER_07Yeah, I'm not sure exactly what the numbers are, but I mean it's ridiculously high. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Um, you know, I think perhaps we're not aware of the the small imperceptible changes that have come into the way we interact with our devices and stuff because of social media. Right. Um and I think maybe shining a light on that is is quite a good thing.
SPEAKER_09Yeah, yeah. It it kind of struck me as a morality tale uh and woven into it's not just talking heads. It's not just talking heads, is it? There's a kind of they kind of have a little narrative, there's a dramatic element. Which could have it could have been really on the nose, couldn't it? It could have been really hammy, kind of like I I I feared for it when I saw, oh, there are actors and they're actually playing roles. Uh-oh. Um it it felt a little bit like you know some really bad Christian dramas from the 1980s, kind of. Like Yeah. Billy's being influenced for bad. You know. And and because like there was there was quite a screw tape feel to it, like the screw tape letters. Um, because what they do is they personify the algorithms. And so um the algorithms are they're they're kind of like tempters, and they play the role of tempters, like in the screw tape letters, C.S. Lewis's great satire on how you know the devil tries to um uh you know tempt and c reclaim a soul for for the dark side.
SPEAKER_07Um so yeah, I mean, so so for example, like he the the the the kid is trying to go for a week, isn't he, without his phone in order to get the screen fixed.
SPEAKER_08Yes.
SPEAKER_07And when he's not been on the phone for a few days, the kind of algorithms are standing around going, Well, what's wrong? Why is he not here? Like, what's going on? It's like, let's try let's try this. Let's try sending a notification about oh, his his girlfriend, his ex-girlfriend's in a relationship. Let's send a notification about that, and that's what eventually makes him pick the phone up again when he sees it.
SPEAKER_08Yes. Um stuff.
SPEAKER_09And the talking heads, when they're on, they make it very clear that, oh, look, there's no personality behind the algorithms. There's no personal agent who is trying to enslave you. But then all the drama is about, you know, the algorithms are personified as trying to, you know, vampirically suck all the attention from you, out of you, that they they possibly can, so that they can sell you and sell your data, the blood to say a few more ads and right. Yeah, to the advertisers. You know, and and they they repeat the thing that's often said about any kind of on online platform that's free. If it's free, um you're not the customer, you're the product. You're being sold. Who are you being sold to? You're being sold to the advertisers, your data's being sold to the advertisers. And so, you know, and and The claim is that this is unprecedented. We've never been as good at collating data and at designing these algorithms that can deliver customers to advertisers as efficiently as we currently have. And that that's true. The computing power that we have these days is just exponentially greater than it was even a couple of decades ago. Sure. But it it did strike me a little bit as the sort of the moral panic henny penny kind of no, but this time it's really different. You know, this time and they kept making the claim that we've got these little chimp brains that have been evolved to just deal with, you know, 80 interactions in our tiny little tribe, and now we're being thrust onto the great ocean of, you know, Instagram and followers and likes and dislikes and and and all that stuff. And our little chimp brains can't handle because we're we're being pitted against a great computer that's got such computing power and poor little us. So we're kind of enslaved to this great technology. Uh and and as they sort of say that, they they want to say like they want to personify the um the algorithms, right? But they kind of um they diminish us. Like we're we're now robots enslaved in the matrix. And you know, the the algorithms are our masters.
SPEAKER_07Um I think you know, if you if you were to look at some stats on the way we use stuff, I mean you can kind of see why people were perhaps you know saying there's something to be worried about. So So apparently per day the amount of time people spend on online on their phone is two hours thirty-four minutes, but if you're between eighteen and twenty-four, that rises to three hours fourteen. One in five minutes online is spent on social media. People check their phone on average every 12 minutes. Wow. Which it which seems crazy, but I can well believe it. Um two so four yeah, two in five adults, forty percent, look at their phone within the first five minutes of waking up. That goes up to sixty-five percent if you're under thirty-five. Um yeah, so you know, 70% of adults have social media accounts. 35% of your time is spent on sites owned by Facebook or Google.
SPEAKER_10Mm-hmm.
SPEAKER_07And actually, in these past six months, in the situation we've been in with COVID and stuff, daytime daytime internet usage has doubled.
SPEAKER_08Right.
SPEAKER_07So there's a lot more going on. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So you can kind of understand why people are saying these things. And I said to you as well, when you know, when we watched this, sat down and watched this documentary, my youngest daughter, who's just six months, she woke up twice within like the first hour or so and she needed feeding and stuff, and so we'd paused the paused it. And I was just really aware that like in that idle moment I was like, I wanted to pick up my phone to like do something to fill that moment, because we're sitting there, like, and but I was also really aware that I was like, I can't pick up my phone. What were you looking for in that in that moment? What did you want?
SPEAKER_09Fill the time, yeah.
SPEAKER_07Yeah, yeah. And I mean, I don't know, it's funny as well. Becca did say, Oh, you're gonna say this on the thing, aren't you? And I was like, Yes, I am. Like, there's a bit where they were showing a clip from some show with um Whoopi Goldberg, it's one of those kind of whatever the American equivalent of loose women is. Yes, you know, and she's saying on Whoopi Goldberg is saying on it like The view, is it called there? She goes, You want to put down your phone and pay attention to what I was saying. At which point Becca was on her phone, and I was like, Do you not realise the irony of what's going on? She's double screening, yeah, yeah. So, you know, I I we're well aware of that, this this idea of filling the idle moment with stuff. And you know, I've talked with other people about you know, I what did I used to do when I when I was waiting for a bus or the train, and the train was had another 10 minutes and I didn't have a phone, there was no smartphones. What did I do? I don't remember what I did. Did you listen to your Sony Disc man? Yeah, probably.
SPEAKER_09Yeah, probably that stuff. Yeah, I was on a walkman, but we're we're different generations. So the ghetto blaster on his shoulder. That's me. Should we have a look at a clip on uh addiction? Because I I think um the the talking head section on this um delivers some uh hilarious lines and some insightful lines about how we can become addicted to this technology.
SPEAKER_11Rewind a few years ago. I was the uh I was the president of Pinterest. I was coming home and I couldn't get off my phone once I got home despite having two young kids who needed my love and attention. I was in the pantry, you know, typing away on an email, or sometimes looking at Pinterest. I thought, God, this is classic irony. I am going to work during the day and building something that then I am falling prey to, and I couldn't, I mean, some of those moments I couldn't help myself.
SPEAKER_06The one that I'm I'm most prone to is Twitter. Um, used to be Reddit. I actually had to write myself software to break my addiction to reading Reddit.
SPEAKER_12I'm probably most addicted to my email. I mean, really. I mean, I I feel it.
SPEAKER_11Well, I mean, it's sort it's it's it's interesting that knowing what was going on behind the curtain, I still wasn't able to control my usage.
SPEAKER_02So that's a little scary. Even knowing how these tricks work, I'm still susceptible to them. I'll still pick up the phone and in 20 minutes will disappear.
SPEAKER_03Do you check your smartphone before you pee in the morning or while you're peeing in the morning? Because those are the only two choices.
SPEAKER_11I tried through willpower, just pure willpower. Oh, I'll I'll put down my phone, I'll leave my phone in the car when I get home. I think I told myself a thousand times, a thousand different days, I am not gonna bring my phone to the bedroom, and then 9 p.m. rolls around. And so that was sort of willpower was kind of attempt one, and then attempt two was you know, brute force.
SPEAKER_10Introducing the kitchen safe.
unknownThe kitchen safe.
SPEAKER_09So, yes, it can be very addictive. Um, and just that that idea that you know pulling down on your screen in order to, you know, it you know, it it is very much like getting three cherries on the on the slot machine. Yeah. Is is is it gonna work this time? Am I gonna get a new email? Am I gonna get a new notification?
SPEAKER_07I mean, I know I've sat there sometimes like scrolling and and I'm thinking and I can feel myself like thinking like I see something and I go, I'm not that interested in that. And I'm I'm pushing the next thing, I'm not that interested in that. And and it's like I'm just like, where find me something. Yes. You know, and if I keep going, eventually, surely, eventually, I'm gonna get lucky. Yeah. And find something that interests me as I can go, you know. Put the money in the slot. Where's the cat video that I really, really after? Yeah. You know. And so you can definitely see it has that addictive quality. And the guy was saying, I don't know if you uh you know, I can't remember where they say exactly, but when you pull down that the you always get something different at the top. It never just pops up the same thing. It's not like it goes, sorry, there's no more new content. It's just like there's always new content. Yeah.
SPEAKER_08Yeah.
SPEAKER_07So if you don't like what you see, you're like, oh, just try again.
SPEAKER_09Yeah. Try again. But it's training us, it's anchoring that that you know motion in in us psychologically. And you know, and they're they're they're very good at what they do. And and so being aware that there are trillion-dollar there's a trillion-dollar industry that's using like computing that is just out of this world in terms of its capabilities. Where, you know, and the- and they say that like so few people who work at Google or Facebook actually understand the algorithms that are being used. There's there's only like five-five people in all of Google that understand, you know. How it works. The and and so it is it is a technology that's machine learning and it's always telling itself how to get better at extracting your attention. And so here is a massive issue for discipleship, because attention is what I'm meant to be giving to the Lord. You know, um the the blessed man of Psalm 1 meditates on the law of God day and night, gives his attention to the scriptures day and night. What do we give our attention to? Yeah. Every 12 minutes looking at the Bible. Well, look at the looking not looking at the Bible. We wish. Yeah, yeah. Imagine that. Imagine every 12 minutes we actually get a verse from the Bible.
SPEAKER_07Yeah, and I mean I heard I heard it said that, you know, like we said, focus is worship. So what you focus on really is the thing you worship, and attention is the beginning of adoration. And if you were to sit and think, well, what where's my focus a lot of the time? You know, what are the things I focus on? Where's my attention? Social media would be a big one, wouldn't it? A thing that's constantly pulling our focus away from other things. Yeah. Because that that's often the the issue as well, isn't it? Like every 12 minutes, you know, you can't make a start on something because every 12 minutes there's a buzz or something, or you're looking to get the next hit. Um and that constant look is you know, the attention, the adoration thing, it leads to that. You can just see and you know, I I I as well, I I I can say, you know, when I've you you come away from it, I don't know how other people feel, but it it it doesn't feel very satisfactory. Yeah. You know, right. Like you It's junk food. It's not it is yeah, it's junk food. You don't come out of it, but but yeah, I don't know if it's even like junk food, at least when you're eating it, like it generally is good, yeah.
SPEAKER_10Yeah.
SPEAKER_07But like you can sit there, like I say, you can sit there and be going, like, come on, give me something. It's not like I'm eating a burger going, well, come on, I just want the taste of this burger to come through. Depending on the burger, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. You know, but social media can be like that. Sometimes we go, there's got something here.
SPEAKER_09Yeah. So where is my focus? Where is my joy? Um and uh yeah, for me, for me, it's massively fear of missing out. Like, like I was at university before social media, I was at university in the 1900s, and um but still the big problem was oh, there's a whole bunch of other young people we're in the prime of our lives, I could never get to sleep because the possibility that there was somebody else out there having fun at two in the morning, of course there's gonna be there's gonna be someone having fun at two in the morning. Yeah. And at three, maybe at four I can start to think about getting to sleep. What if you miss the big thing?
SPEAKER_07Yeah, it's the fear of missing out. And I and I I totally unlike that. But then you get the other people who are the um the Jomo's, the joy of missing out. Oh, really? Um so so so equally, so you get those people who are almost proud, you know. Okay. Those people wind me up there. Right. I've never seen Star Wars, and I don't think I ever will. Those people, yeah. Those people say, no, I don't use social media at all. And I'm like, Oh, you're so above us, aren't you? You know, yeah. Whatever.
SPEAKER_09Writing a tweet angrily. Those people. Yeah, yeah. And and and the the myth of multitasking as well. It it teaches you that you you you think you can. I I think I can scroll Twitter and scroll Facebook and you know, and watch an email and watch the email and yell at the kids, and you know, all all at once. And like multitasking is a total myth.
SPEAKER_07And I I think it does like obviously it steals your time. And I think that's that is a big issue. But I think it it leaves people quite anxious because it never switches off. And there was another statistic that was something I think it was about 70 70 odd percent of people never switch their phone off.
SPEAKER_08Right.
SPEAKER_07And of course, most people then are not just getting social media like as we think of it social media, but they're also getting pinging through all the time, like you've been sent an email, um, breaking news, yeah, this has happened, you know, rediscover this day on your photos or whatever. Like um, and it means all the time you're being stimulated and you're having stuff thrown at you. Um and I just don't think that I don't think that's particularly healthy. That's not healthy.
SPEAKER_09That's not healthy, yeah, yeah. And like one of my pushbacks is is kind of well look, J.K. Rowling, when she wrote Harry Potter, she really tried to grab kids' attention. And like she she put a lot of effort into like trying to make every single sentence as addictive as possible so that you just couldn't, you know, you couldn't go to sleep, you know, having read that one chapter. She even put cliffhangers in her chapters so that you had to turn the page and read the next one. What a monster. You know, stealing our kids' attention, stealing, you know. Like she needs more reasons to be a monster at the moment, Glenn. Right, right. Piling in on JK. But you know, like so everybody is always trying to optimize the way they grab your attention. So an advertiser on radio is trying to definitely trying to grab your attention in whatever limited ways that you're able to on on radio. So everyone's always trying to do this. But I I think the argument of the social dilemma is, well, just the computing power and the and the omnipresence of the devices.
SPEAKER_07Yeah, and I think the difference is it's the way it adapts to you as well, probably. So you know, you read Harry Potter, and if you don't like it, you just stop reading it. Yeah. You know. Um, whereas what happens when you're on social media is it it kind of serves you stuff, and if you don't like it, it's like, well, that's not working. Let me serve you something else until you do like it. And now I know what you like. I'm gonna serve you something a bit more like that. Yeah. A bit more like that. So it's Hooray! Yeah. And now you're and now you've got it. Like there's there's something in me that goes, Well, that's good, isn't it? Yeah, and because there's that you know, there's there there is something in that. Because no one wants to look at stuff that they're not interested in.
SPEAKER_09Yeah. You know, that's very true. I was fascinated by like last week on YouTube. So like most people navigate YouTube like using the home screen and whatever's like suggested to you in the home screen, okay, which has nothing to do with what you've subscribed to. Sure, because you've just chosen your subscriptions. But choose your subscriptions and um and just interestingly, you know, when we looked at our stats for we've got 10,000 subscribers, actually about 80% of all our views on our channel come from non-subscribers. So subscribe now. So subscribe now. Um click the bell. Smash that bell. And and you know, and so it's interesting. So the the homepage is just purely the algorithm feeding you stuff YouTube thinks you liked. It's not because you've bought into a particular channel that you're getting that video. And just last week I was looking through the homepage and I was like, eh, I I don't think I don't think these videos are me. I I think the algorithm's broken. It doesn't really understand me. Yeah. You know, the complicated splendid stuff that is glend. So then I switched over to the tab that's just your subscriptions. And that those are the things that you've actually had to buy into. And I looked at all those videos of like, what a waste of time. Like, like dull, dull, dull, dull, dull. And so I went back to the home screen and I thought it was an interesting experience of you know, Proverbs 20, verse 5 says, the purposes of a man's heart are deep waters, but a man of understanding draws them out. And maybe an algorithm of understanding can be the same. Can yeah, yeah. May maybe I don't know myself as well as I think I know me. And and and and therefore, like, you know, a Spotify playlist or something, or you know, there are smart playlists that some of these platforms can can feed to you that might tickle your fancy more than the music that you know.
SPEAKER_08Yeah.
SPEAKER_07But you can you can certainly discover new things, can't you, via whether it's YouTube or music or something that you would you would just never have found because of the sheer vastness of what's out there.
SPEAKER_09Yeah.
SPEAKER_07So in some sense, it's quite nice having something served to you and saying, well, why don't you have a look?
SPEAKER_08Yes.
SPEAKER_07Yeah.
SPEAKER_09And it's one of the I mean, YouTube is kind of one of the places where you can break out of the bubble a l a little bit more than in some of like face Facebook, it's very much echo chambery.
SPEAKER_07Um you you don't just have, you know, you might have a a number of friends on there, but you don't get served everything that they're saying. You tend to get served the stuff that Facebook is saying. We know that you believe these kind of things, and we're gonna serve up people who believe the same kind of things.
SPEAKER_08So there's not gonna be a lot of contradiction on there on the whole.
SPEAKER_07Yeah. And you can try and bust it, can't you? I mean, they said it a little bit on the thing that you know you should you like things that and follow things that you don't agree with. You know, so there's a number of news organizations and groups that I've liked on Facebook or people I follow on Twitter, who basically I know I'm not gonna agree with, but it's quite useful to have them there to see what people are saying.
SPEAKER_09Yeah, yeah. I think that brings us on to the the polarization point because I I think like one of the things that the internet does, even before social media, suddenly you you had on all these sort of messenger boards the ability to generate a community about the most niche thing in the universe. Like you you could be you could like have an interest in the most like particular little nerdy um you know uh hobby. But there are enough people on planet Earth that you could have a community of a thousand people who's on you've got a lively message board, and away you go. Um and so and so you know, ac actually you get the strengthening of a lot of fringe voices through the internet. Um, and the the the film gets into that, the social dilemma, and it gets into the problem of of the silos that we get into and the echo chambers that we get into and the polarization that we get into. And I thought I thought this was some of the profoundest stuff that came out of the film. So let's have a look at this clip about polarization.
SPEAKER_05We are a nation of people that no longer speak to each other. We are a nation of people who have stopped being friends with people because of who they voted for in the last election. We are a nation of people who have isolated ourselves to only watch channels that tell us that we're right.
SPEAKER_00My message here today is that tribalism is ruining us, it is tearing our country apart. It is no way for sane adults to act.
SPEAKER_03If everyone's entitled to their own facts, there's really no need for compromise, no need for people to come together. In fact, there's really no need for people to interact. We need to have some shared understanding of reality, otherwise, we aren't a country.
SPEAKER_02So, in the long term, the solution here is to build more AI tools that find patterns of people using the services that no real person would do.
SPEAKER_01We are allowing the technologists to frame this as a problem that they are equipped to solve. That is that's a lie. People talk about AI as if it will know truth. AI is not gonna solve these problems. AI cannot solve the problem of fake news. Google doesn't have the option of saying, oh, is this conspiracy? Is this truth? Because they don't know what truth is. They don't have a they don't have a proxy for truth that's better than a click.
SPEAKER_12If we don't agree on what is true, or that there is such a thing as truth, or toast, this is the problem beneath other problems, because if we can't agree on what's true, then we can't navigate out of any of our problems.
SPEAKER_07So I mean, I think the thing that struck on there, isn't it, that you know, there's this sense of oh look at the problems that AI has caused in terms of throwing you know false news around and stuff like that, and then you've got Zuckerberg saying, like, well, we're just we're just gonna design technology that can work out what this is, and this, and you know, there's a lady saying, No, you know, they've got no proxy for truth. You know, a click is uh what people click on. That's what the AI knows to be true, so to speak. And you know, that guy at the end saying, you know, if we can't work out what's true, we're toast, and you know, that being the problem beneath our problems, if we can't agree on truth, we can't navigate out of any of our problems. And I mean, I guess that's something that for a long time we've kind of seen it. I mean, it came up a few years ago, I think again when when when Trump became president and there was this whole kind of uproar about there's fake news here and there's fake news there, and I think Babylon B probably did a thing where they said um you know, society that has you know for so long has been saying truth is all relative and whatnot, your own truth, now outraged at fake news, you know. But as Christians, I think we we we'd seen that kind of coming in a way, maybe not in this scale, but we knew for a long time that there's an issue around truth in our society. Right. Um I mean I think I I think it is a it is a huge issue because I was talking to someone the other day I preached at a different uh another church, and I said, you know, looking at like the stuff with COVID, I just don't even know what to believe is true anymore. Like, so you'll see a post on social media and you know, okay, well, if I want to know if that's true, I need to go and look it up. But what if I go to Google and I look this up? Well, Google are only serving me certain results anyway, and how do I know that the websites I'm getting served are not just part of their agenda, or how do I know that the websites I'm getting might not be part of Google's agenda, but I don't really know anything about the people behind these websites, and at what point can I know anything?
SPEAKER_09And I think Yeah, it just leaves you with a lot of issues, doesn't it? Yeah, yeah. They say in um the social dilemma that you know Google search results will be tailored to the place where you live. And so we just did a little test on Facebook, and uh if you don't follow us on Facebook, follow us on Facebook, and and you'll get um uh some different content there. Um you can you can tell that we're not entirely on board with anyway. I mean, every 12 minutes or so there'll be new material you should get on there and like And if you don't we'll send a notification. Your pocket will buzz until you and we just ask people, you know, if you type into the search bar, lockdown is. Um what what is the autocomplete? And it it's it's true that the autocomplete is different in in different kinds of countries. And um it it seems like um if it's in the UK, then it says lockdown is over, lockdown is making me depressed, lockdown. Is pointless, lockdown is coming back, lockdown is killing me. And then you know there are different ones. So here somebody lives in Singapore and it's lockdown is over in India. Lockdown is coming back. But still, lockdown is making me depressed. Depressed seems to be, you know, a global winner in all this. But I think they made too much of it in the film that you get quite answers.
SPEAKER_07I was expecting it to be because pretty much everyone in the UK had almost identical things. The only people who got very slightly different things were people who maybe used like DuckDuckGo or tried a different search engine. We did say like having a go on a different search engine. But even then they weren't. Yeah, I think we were expecting it to be like you and I were sitting next to each other in the office, and I think we were expecting to get completely different answers, like served to us. So in a sense, I was a little bit disappointed. Like it's like there isn't a grand conspiracy behind those. You wanted there to be somewhere.
SPEAKER_09I wanted it to be true. Yeah, yeah, I did think they overplayed their hand at points in the in the film. Um but it it's certainly true that there is a polarization that is supercharged by social media. And you know, I mean, like, look at the look at the election results in 2016. Like Twitter was shocked that anyone I I don't know anyone who ever voted Brexit. Like says everyone on Twitter is like people say that. I don't know a single person who voted Brexit. Well, like 52% of the population did, and same in America, you know, Trump is elected. I don't know anyone who's a Republican. Well, it looks like half the country is.
SPEAKER_07And I think that's obvious, you can see where that comes from when you're when you do follow people who you don't necessarily agree with. So you'll you'll see someone who posts something maybe more conservative, and if you click on the Twitter feed, you know, to see what people have replied, 99% of it underneath will be people agreeing with them. And then if you see someone who someone who's posted something a bit more kind of liberal on the left, you go underneath, and it's just quite all leftist. And what you don't see in those is people having a discussion generally with both sides kind of sharing ideas. Sometimes you do, yeah, but normally it's just yeah, here's here's everyone agreeing with this person. Yeah, here's everyone agreeing with this person. So if you click on that, if you only follow people who are more conservative or more liberal, every time you click on their post, you'll be like, well, everybody's agreeing.
SPEAKER_09Yes.
SPEAKER_07So everybody must believe this.
SPEAKER_09Yeah, yeah, yeah. And it's it's just completely forks, isn't it? It's Echo Chambers. I mean, that was like last week before I think it was it was just as Trump um was diagnosed with COVID. Um, somebody said, Um, why is it only Republicans who get COVID and not Democrats? And and there was a lot of people sort of agreeing underneath, and I'm like, I I think this is probably the algorithm. I don't think this is reality. Yeah, absolutely. I I think you're in a bubble. If like it's it's probably in your bubble you're told that you know those silly Republicans are the careless ones who are always getting COVID and and your democratic friends are all the ones who are you know healthy and safe. But it it just makes you think, like, what what do you trust? Who do you trust? Where do you go? And it it causes a real confidence in in truth. And it was just so interesting to me that pretty much the protagonist of the social dilemma said the problem underneath the problem is we don't know what's true anymore. We don't have a story that unites us. Now I think that's why we are on social media. Like, there are there are lots of bad reasons to be on social media. You know, there's a bad reason to be on social media because you've got a hole in yourself that you know, feed me, feed me. Validate me.
SPEAKER_07Validate me. Yeah, yeah. I particularly enjoyed that comment. We because we'd asked on social media, why are you on social media?
SPEAKER_09Yes.
SPEAKER_07And I don't know if we've got the exact wording to hand, but uh someone says, you know, because I'm a needy egomaniac who needs assurance, you need to be validated every 20 minutes by other people, you know. And I said, Tim, no, you're not, you're great, we love you, you know. Which I just thought was wonderful. Okay, but I mean it does it does it does make you think like why are we why do we post? Yeah. Like if we and and and because I know I'll see things people post, and I just think, why are you even posting that?
SPEAKER_09Yeah.
SPEAKER_07But then I have to think to myself, why am I posting these things?
SPEAKER_09Like why Yeah, I I I'm often reflecting on like the narcissist myth is that narcissists is like in love with, and that you know, finish that sentence. Narcissus is in love with himself, not so much. He's in love with the reflection of himself that he sees, right? And that is what enslaves him. And that that is why he will never pull himself away from the lake and and and why he's trapped. He's not just in love with himself, he's l in love with the image of himself. Okay, it's Instagram's 10th birthday today. Okay, right? Um and there's a there's a problem with narcissism, and it's not just the problem that we love ourselves, it's we love the curated image of ourselves where we put just the right filter on and we get the light just right, and we take 1500 selfies and we just we just upload that one. And it's we're enslaved not just by our love of ourselves, but of the image of ourselves. And I can I can give a very neat version of myself online. And it's it's it's interesting to me. Look, like podcasts are so different. Like I I've I kind of stop I I stopped idolizing certain people on podcasts because in long form you get to hear their heart a bit more. And I and there are people I thought who were just really funny, and I just thought, actually, you're just very shallow. Right. Okay, yeah. Because after an hour and a half of them talking, you actually hear their heart, you know. Um if they're just saying funny things on Twitter, then you know 51 liners. You can curate that image.
SPEAKER_08Yeah.
SPEAKER_09But this is what we're doing. Well, this is part of what we're doing online. We're we're projecting an image out there. But we we kind of we we came up with 10 reasons to be online. And one of them was to learn, to learn the news. And like uh a lot of people, their first news source is is Twitter or Facebook, you know. And I th I think I think that used that used to be me. I think I used to kind of the way I'd understand the news is I'd I'd look at all the jokes and I wouldn't get the jokes, and I'd try and reverse engineer what the news story was that people were making on Twitter. That's how I got the news. Some people are online to learn, some people are online to get work, you know. Yeah, part of your work is to Yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_07I I I I'm uh hopefully people see my see my guitar stuff and then they come and get lessons. So drum up drum up some business. Yeah, you do get your business on there, and I know and I know lots of other people who do that as well.
SPEAKER_09Some people want to build a platform, which is uh like I was I was asked by a publisher just last week, um, okay, we're gonna pitch your book idea at the next meeting, and you know, we love your book idea, but can you just tell us, like, tell us your number, your social media numbers? And like my first reaction was like, no, look, if if it's a good idea, do it. If it's not a good idea, don't do it. Doesn't it doesn't matter what my follow account is, right? So I I I didn't give my follow account, I didn't give but he he asked about sort of video numbers, and so I just said, look, speak life's video numbers at this. Our podcast downloads at that, if that's helpful, you know. But for so many people, you know, they they they're illustrators or they're authors, they're writers, and it's important to build a platform for them. And that's become part of the industry. And so, you know, the blessing at your peril, in a sense, for some people.
SPEAKER_07Yes. You know, you in a sense, it ties in with the work thing. You you just wouldn't work.
SPEAKER_09Yeah. Yeah. Like if I if I went to another to another publisher, one that I haven't worked with now, one of their first questions would be like, How many followers do you have on Twitter? Like that and I'm not getting published. But it's it's just like, yeah, and so how many blue ticks on Twitter are there because they're building a platform? Yeah. Um, you know, and and for better and for worse. Um fourthly, people are on online to project an image. We've already said that in in terms of the Instagram kind of stuff. Some are on online to share their heart. Um and they they want to be known. Um and and sometimes you get a sense on Twitter, don't you, that some people are oversharing.
SPEAKER_07Yeah. When you say they want to be known, you don't mean in the sense of I want to be famous necessarily, but I want people to see the real meaning.
SPEAKER_09Yeah, see, yeah. Some want some want to project a mask, and some want some do want to, like, this is me and all my mess. Yeah, yeah. Um and and and sometimes there can be inappropriate ways. There's it's it's great when people are honest and don't just plaster on a mask. Um, but there can be problems with oversharing too. Um why are we online to distract ourselves, to compare ourselves, to feel connected, to be seen, to be heard. Um and I I I think why am I online? I'm online to answer the question that the social dilemma guy asks. What is the problem underneath the problem? We don't know what truth is, we don't have a story that unites us. I think we've got a story to tell. And so whenever I'm asked, you know, why do you write, I always say I write for the same reason the dog barks. Because it's in the dog and it just comes out. You know, why why do I why do I write? Why did I blog? Why do I write books? Why am I on Twitter? Why do I make videos? Because there's something in me that I want to get out. Um, rather than there's something out there that I want to suck in. And in some senses, I I see that as a as a difference between a kind of a Genesis 11, Genesis 12 view of the world. Genesis 11 is Tower of Babel, everyone wants to make a name for themselves, lift themselves up above others, and you know, reach towards the heavens. And of course, God is opposed to that kind of name-making. And then in the next chapter, Genesis 12, God plucks this nobody from nowhere, Abraham, and he says, No, I'm gonna bless you, and you'll be a conduit of blessing to the nations. And so while Babel is kind of up and in making a name for myself, um the Lord says to Abram, I will make your name great, and I'll bless the nations through you. So it's a kind of a down and out thing. And if we can maybe cling on to that on social media, if you've got something to say in order to bless others, then wonderful. We've got this incredible technology that supercharges that good desire. It can supercharge bad things, yeah, but it can also supercharge good things. That's why I'm online. Sure. Hopefully.
unknownHopefully.
SPEAKER_09And and but let's be aware, that's the spiritual desire that I have. There's also the flesh, and the flesh is always trying to lift itself up and make an end of itself.
SPEAKER_07Of course. And I am both. Even with good motivations, you know, we like we know, don't we, that it's nice when you oh look, I've got so many likes on this, you know. Like I put this and people thought that was great. And yeah, yeah, you know, it it is the it does it there is an element of validation, isn't there? Yes. Um I mean I and and I and I can say and but it it it it it switches very quickly, doesn't it, though? Because um you can get quite a lot of validation from people, and but it only takes one or two negative comments to stick with you.
SPEAKER_09Um annoying preamble banter. Someone said that on a on an episode about two years ago, and we've been idiots who know nothing of Christ. I think that was the Yeah, that was one Christmas. That was a Christmas one.
SPEAKER_07That was a Christmas. Yeah, yeah. God bless us. So some of these negative comments can actually have an effect. Give me the good stuff. But actually, I mean, seriously though, like l the the worst time the the time I've experienced it worst was actually on some of my guitar stuff, was when because it was just an effort to make videos at one stage, I would just like I asked people for music, you know, guitar bands, you know, and say, Oh, I've I'll I'll I'll listen to it. It's a reaction video, yeah, yeah. And I'd listen to one band and I really liked one of their songs, and then I listened to another one. I was like, Oh yeah, it wasn't really for me, you know. And I said, you know, when I was a teenager, I would have quite liked this bit, this kind of thing here, but now for me it doesn't really I would just be bored as a person playing this now.
SPEAKER_09Old man Cardigan country, yeah, man.
SPEAKER_07I had to take the video down because like it was that bad. Like I had because it was literally just abuse, abuse, abuse, like by multiple multiple people. And I think also what they it was that kind of classic, like someone's clearly gone and said, like, hey everybody, because someone said, like, we're sharing this on our group, yes, you know, we're sharing this on our group, and so we're all you know, everyone thinks you're whatever. So you're like, okay, I don't really need this on Sunday morning or whatever it is, you know, like sitting in church with my phone going, you know, you know, wow.
SPEAKER_09So you know and the social dilemma like makes the good point that we weren't created to handle that level of abuse. You know, we we just yeah, we're went we're meant to live in smaller communities. They they give a kind of an evolutionary psychology kind of um spin on that. Um and some of some of that spin I would have issues with, but um but it's certainly true that we are not created to have angry strangers from around the world wish wishing us dead in viciously imaginative ways. That's that's not really what we're what we're made for. So what can we do, Paul? Okay, what's yeah.
SPEAKER_07I mean I think I think you know we should I don't think necessarily so their thing on the thing was basically like you should just delete if you can. Get rid of it. Um And for some people maybe that's the right thing. I don't think it is such a terrible negative that we we have to get rid of it. But I understand that for some of us we'll we'll find it too much of a distraction or we're worried about the focus and attention it's taking. Or, you know, we might be thinking like, why am I posting things and maybe we're questioning our own motives behind that um rather than just simple time wasting. Um so there are things I think you know we can do, and I I some of these I've done myself, so actually, even before I watched Social Dilemma recently I turned off all my notifications. So I turned off all Facebook, Twitter, Instagram notifications. Uh the only uh and actually now I've turned off kind of even like breaking news notifications, I turned off my yeah, email stuff. Because you don't you know uh it would be the case at 10 o'clock at night you'd see an email pop through and you wouldn't read it, but you'd get the notification, you could see the first line or whatever, and you kind of know what it's about, and then you it's in your head and you know. Yeah. But just you know, turn your notifications off, and the only things I have now are kind of like WhatsApp or like instant messaging stuff, you know, where someone has messaged me very directly, yeah, yeah, and you would expect to have a bit of a conversation backwards and forwards. So um and that just means that uh my experience was that I just picked up my phone less um because it certainly wasn't telling me to look at it. Um and it was just quite freeing. And I think it just makes you less it's less stimulating, less anxious about things. So turn off your notifications. Um if you work on a desktop, just don't leave stuff open all day. Don't leave your Gmail tab open or whatever it is, um, or your Facebook tabs, you know. If you are gonna look at stuff, look at it, finish it, get rid of it, let it be done. You can set time limits on social media. So um, you know, some people will say, look, I'm I'm not gonna spend more than 30 minutes on it. Use a timer, you know, something that beeps at you. I mean, this sounds crazy, doesn't it? That we might have to do this, but if if it is that much of a struggle for us, so you use a timer so it doesn't run away. You could some people limit their time by having software on their phones or or devices that will say they can only access certain websites at certain times of the day, so they can get a productive morning of work in and then have a coffee at whatever time, and they've got this window of social media or whatever it might be, and you can get other people to kind of lock that down for you. Um stuff like leave I think they talked on this the thing on uh social dilemma, leaving your phone in another room or like not taking it into the bedroom at night, so letting it charge somewhere else overnight or somewhere, or if you're just not using it, don't need to have it in your pocket, like on your lap when you're watching TV and stuff, you can just put it away. Um one of the things we've tried at home is I try not to have my phone out like at the dining table, like with the kids and stuff, and just aware as well that like I think it comes up with Captain Burble scene, doesn't it? Aware that about how much I use it in front of the kids when it's my phone on my iPad. Um because I want to be present in the moment with them, you know, that like I don't want them to just be like you know, daddy, and I'm like, I haven't got time for this right now because I'm you know there are difficulties, there are difficulties in that as well, because because I and what I would say I've said about my iPad a number of times is that like my iPad isn't simply like the place for social media, right? You know, it it's the place I'll I'll I'll read, yeah, it's the place I'll watch things, it's the place I put the music on for the you know the guitar stuff. So there's a sense in which I'll be using these tablets, these devices regardless of social media. Um but you know, I'm just aware around the kids in particular that I don't want to be glued to the screen the whole time. Catherine says, treat it like smoking.
SPEAKER_09You wouldn't you wouldn't smoke around the kids. No do it when they go up to bed, but uh yeah.
SPEAKER_07Puffing away. Puffing away. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Um one thing that came up at the end of the social dilemma as well, that Jonathan Heights was on there, which was a you know, nice pleasant surprise to see him on there. Um, he'd said, you know, ask your children how long do they think it's acceptable to spend on the screen each day? And he said often they'll say far lower than their actual children.
SPEAKER_09Because everyone underestimates the time, you know.
SPEAKER_07They'll say they reckon, you know, they'll say I reckon I'm on it for like an hour or something. When the reality is, yeah. Yeah, you go an hour, great, because the reality is it's it's normally like three hours or something. Yeah. So you you that way as well, you're you're avoiding a conflict with your kids, hopefully, or at least kind of meeting them somewhere. Um, some people just delete the apps on their phones, say I don't need I don't need social media on my on my phone. I think you said you deleted Twitter on Facebook and stuff like that. Yeah, absolutely. So if you want to use it, you've got to go on the desktop.
SPEAKER_08Yeah.
SPEAKER_07Um and those things are all quite negative, aren't they? Like take away stuff, do not you know, do not taste, do not touch. Um but actually some of the other things people were saying was well, you know, the positive things are just just make more real life plans. So do ring up a friend and say, Why don't we meet up?
SPEAKER_08Right.
SPEAKER_07You know, or or have a phone call and see how stuff's going, or um add new things into your life. So I'm gonna take up something, and I could read this book, you know. I could I could go and start this class, I could do this, or have a new hobby or stuff, you know. Yeah. Um This is now Kindle time, not Facebook time and absolutely, yeah, lots of stuff like that people have said. You know, and I saw someone saying the raps are available, yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I saw someone who said, you know, that since they'd done, you know, reduced their social media, they said I've read more books in the past three months than I have in the past three years. Yeah. You know, just glued to a book a whole time.
SPEAKER_09Couldn't stop turning the pages. You just have to put little pictures of people in the margin just as avatars. It helps you get through. I kept swiping down the page, but it wouldn't turn.
SPEAKER_07So there are lots of practical things you can do. So I think you know, if you are if you're someone who's worried about your your consumption of it, um I I don't think you need to necessarily get rid of it entirely, because there can be positives. Yeah. Um But be very aware.
SPEAKER_09Be very aware. They they are trying to vampirically suck your attention away. Um and and it will take a lot of self-control in order to use it as a tool rather than to be used by it, I think.
SPEAKER_07Yeah. I mean I think the thing I've noticed when I've stopped, you know, when I've sat there with a book is um is the silence. Like so I mean even if you're sitting there with your phone, I g i i of course in an in terms of audio, there's no difference between sitting there with a book or a phone, you know, most of the time. Although your phone may throw videos at you, I suppose. But almost just felt like everything just seemed more calm when I was sitting reading a book rather than having more information. Because it's where when you're going through a thing, I suppose you don't know as you're going through Twitter, you get someone who says, like, life is beautiful, you know. Yeah, right. You know, love each other, and then the next person says, like, kill all puppies. You're the worst human being, yeah. You know this stuff. And there's just a lot of kind of even on Facebook, people you know, like some people, yeah, you know, we all know people on Facebook who are just seriously moaning about life and stuff and and or just antagonizing things. And and you realise that in a sense, you know, there's all this kind of stuff which just kind of switching your attention constantly. Whereas actually sitting and focusing on something, yeah, it just felt like there was space and time and quiet. And I was like, Yeah.
SPEAKER_09What's going on here? Like it's quite nice, is this? Absolutely. Yeah, yeah. And you might be able to do something like read your Bible or something like that. So crazy talk. Crazy talk, but um do subscribe and click the bell below. Not because you're a slave, but because you want to. Do it, do it, do it. And in a very uh um appropriate way. You can subscribe to all our social media feeds.
SPEAKER_07We're everywhere. Check it once a day, you know.
SPEAKER_09Check it, just just check in every now and again. And uh and if you want to uh support some of the work that we do here at Speak Life, we do depend on the generosity of people like you. So you can go to speaklife.org.uk slash give, and there are plenty of ways of giving there. Stay tuned for our in-depth interview with Tom Holland coming out on Friday, and uh then we'll discuss that again next week on the live cast. But uh until then, so long and see you later. Take care.