Last Week in Denmark

Social media addiction, Emergency shelters, Water shortages: LWID S3E19

• Season 3 • Episode 19

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Some of Denmark’s biggest challenges are just beneath the surface. This week on Last Week In Denmark, co-hosts Katie and Kalpita—both internationals making sense of life in Denmark—offer their personal take on three quiet but pressing issues: rising social media addiction, the state of emergency shelters, and a looming water shortage in Copenhagen by 2040. What do these developments reveal about daily life—and the future—for those trying to call Denmark home?

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KATIE:
Hello! Welcome to Episode 19 of the Last Week in Denmark podcast. I'm Katie, and today I'm co-hosting with the wonderful Kalpita. How are you doing, Kalpita?

KALPITA:
I'm doing very well, thank you! How are you? Did you have a...

KATIE:
Good.

KALPITA:
I know you said you went for the Pride Parade—did you have a good one?

KATIE:
Yes, very cute, very wholesome. All through Aarhus. It was also quite quick, actually. I think it was quite efficiently organised. I know in Dublin it's a very slow crawl through the city, whereas this felt like we were very efficient in our pride, which was nice.

KALPITA:
Well, that's great. I've been to the one in Copenhagen and it's quite crazy.
It's also quite commercial, I think—very loud and everything. But the people from the community are there celebrating. What I do like though is that there are parents with little kids and young people who are curious and want to see what this is all about.

KATIE:
Yes!

KALPITA:
Yeah, exactly. I like that part of the parade.

KATIE:
This felt very, like, everyone was welcome, and there were people from all different parts of the community, and there were people kind of raising awareness about problems in the community— but then there were also lots of families, which was just really, really lovely. But anyway, let's get started with this week's topics.

So the three topics we going to cover today are:

  1. 86,000 people are suffering from social media addiction in Denmark.
  2. The government will be inspecting the emergency shelters and upgrading them throughout the year. And then...
  3. Water shortages in the capital by 2040—which, feels a little bit, I think it's not as dire as it sounds. We'll dig into that one a bit more, but I think, maybe, Narcis was going for the drama with that title.

But let’s start with the first topic then, which is the 86,000 people in Denmark that are suffering from social media addiction. So this is according to new government-backed research that has found that over half of us use social media more than we want to. And then also, within that number, 86,000 people are now considered to be addicted. And this is kind of a trend we're seeing across a number of countries. There's now over 70 countries looking into developing tools to be able to identify and measure social media addiction. So kind of moving from, “kids are annoying. They always have their head in their phones,” and kind of looking at, how is this actually affecting people’s lives? How is it affecting their mental health and how they grow throughout their lives? So kind of the questions that we're asking are, you know:

  • Do you feel anxious without your phone?
  • Do you check it without meaning to?
  • Do you try to cut back and you find that you can't?

To kind of assess what's the level of the problem. Do you think you’re addicted to your phone?

KALPITA:
I think so—a fair amount. I was also addicted to the landline when mobile phones didn’t exist, so it’s not really the mobile phone’s fault, to be honest. Although, I am also quite anxious without my phone. I use my phone a lot to read stuff, and I'm often either asking ChatGPT something or I'm Googling something. I’m not so much on social media, although I do have my share of TikTok minutes. But I do find myself... you know, you have those moments of, you know, “oh, I wonder what the temperature is in my hometown today,” and then you quickly want to... Or you suddenly think of, "oh, I got this thing, and then it was on a discount. Let me check how much I saved," or you know... Then you quickly want to look into your calculator or something. I'm weird like that. I have just these random thoughts pop and, you know, I quickly want to check.

KATIE:
No, I’m exactly the same. The phone really allows me to be very impulsive, and then I can get instant satisfaction. So it never stops. All kinds of weird facts, like what’s the largest lake in Europe? It’s in Hungary.

KALPITA:
Oh, who knew?

KATIE:
Yeah!

KALPITA:
Wow, yeah. But I do... I do see that... I don’t find that it changes my mood or affects me in that way. Maybe there are things that are being affected in my... I don't know, brain, and mood, and stuff, which I don't recognise. But I do understand why they would like to target the young ones especially with this, because there is a big trend of, you know, people using Snapchat, which is very popular with the young people, and TikTok, and um... other ones that are coming as well. Like gamers are completely addicted to Twitch, for example. Or there's Discord and so many others that people are really, really involved in. I don't know if YouTube is considered social media, but I can tell—

KATIE:
Yeah, that’s interesting, isn't it? And I think as well, like, WhatsApp is considered social media, which I use a lot, but it's a messaging app. And I mostly use it to tell my crazy mother that I am still fine, and in Denmark, and it's very safe.

KALPITA:
Do you have conversations where you're mainly talking to the wall or the ceiling when it's your parents?

KATIE:
Hm, yeah, I don't know. I feel like sometimes they call to tell me what they are doing under the guise of trying to check in with me. So they're like, "oh my God, what are you doing," and I'll explain, and then they'll just move on to whatever it is they're doing. And then that's the conversation.

KALPITA:
I am lucky to get a little bit of forehead in the video calls that I try to make. Otherwise, it's just conversations with the ceiling, or the fan, or the lights on the wall.

KATIE:
My dad gets his nose really into the camera. And I don’t know where he thinks the phone could possibly be reading the voice, but, like, it ends up with just the nose at the front. But then I have to say, reading this article about social media— I felt old. Cause I was like, yeah, Facebook, TikTok, got it. But then it said Discord and Telegram, and I was like, "I don't know what that is."

KALPITA:
Well Telegram is encrypted end-to-end, just like WhatsApp is, but Telegram refuses to give you information to say, the government or the police authorities, which is why they've been in trouble in many countries. WhatsApp, if the authorities ask for information— say you and I were involved, or I was involved in some crime, and I was communicating with you about something sensitive, WhatsApp encrypts that so nobody can really hack into it and get our conversation. But if the authorities asked for it, then they would pick the entire conversation and give it to the authorities because, of course, they want to help. 

KATIE:
Fair enough.

KALPITA:
In crime, Telegram is a bit more... a bit more, how do you say... braver, I would say. To put it mildly. But they've been in trouble for those things as well. I also had a thought of people who... streaming, like even YouTube, for that matter. I know my husband is on YouTube the whole time. There's so much he's watching. Especially podcasts. People are consuming a lot of podcasts on YouTube. I hope everyone is watching our podcast on YouTube over there! 

KATIE:
Of course!

KALPITA:
But then also, I would also contribute to social media as... Spotify would also be social media. Then, your streaming services would also be social media because you are consuming everything on the screen, right? So it's not that you are only doom scrolling. That is addictive, but just being on the screen is addictive. We don't find time to not be on the screen, and that's also a growing concern among adults.

KATIE:
Yeah, I thought it was interesting that these studies seemed to be focusing very much on social media, but didn't really define what social media was. Cause if you look at my phone usage, I spend a lot of time on my phone day to day, but it's mostly audiobooks because I go for long walks, and I listen to audiobooks. But is that bad? Or is that okay? I have no idea. Or then like you're saying, is it Spotify? Is listening to music okay? Is that better than, you know, Instagram? Or, you know, I've never really felt a mood shift from Instagram, but I've definitely felt a mood shift when I've binge-watched seven episodes of Desperate Housewives. So like, what is actually... it's a great show. 

KALPITA:
Yeah, I find myself imitating accents or picking words when I'm watching something. Like, binge-watching something, and I suddenly find myself really acting like one of the characters. I was really into a particular series sometimes. But I do see your point, if it is only audio. I remember there was about 2-3 weeks ago, there was a story on DR about how kids are getting tinnitus, tinnitus in Danish, and it was a growing concern among doctors as well for, like, 4-year-olds, 5-year-olds, because they're using headphones, and not just your in-earphones, but the over-ear phones as well because that's causing a lot of disturbance in the hearing of children, and that's getting impaired and kids are not able to rest or hear their own thoughts. And that's becoming concerning as well. So I would, if I was one of them making this research, probably be really strict and say, "you know what, I think audio consumption should also become part of this," even though it is not typically addictive. But it is something we spend a lot of time with, like, headphones and in-ear phones as well. Because to think of it, back in the day, we had radio, right? And we were listening to audio, but it wasn't really walking around with headphones or something like that.

KATIE:
No, it was always in the open-air. And then some of it, like, my dad used to listen to the most boring news show every day, so I never listened to it anyway.

KALPITA:
Yeah. It is a conversation I had with my husband a couple of days ago where we spoke about, there is an increase in access to information and, therefore, consumption. And back in the day, when we didn't have accessibility, we were listening to maybe one radio show or a couple of TV shows in a given particular time slot, and work life was also without screens. So this overload of screen-time and consumption, audio and visual, is concerning. But it's very delightful.

KATIE:
Yeah. I mean, I love it. I don’t want it to go anywhere. But I do see how the human psyche has not been able to catch up with how quickly technology has moved forward and how screen-heavy our lives have become. And I suppose maybe, like, they're kind of narrowing down it to social media because there is so much, and you could approach everything differently. But I think they might need to go again and kind of like narrow it down even further because something like TikTok, I think, has a different effect than Instagram vs Facebook vs YouTube. I think they all have negative effects, and it is... you can be addicted to one and not the other, but how do you have the language to, like, reflect and have that awareness of, "oh, this is a problem,"? I think that's something, or maybe something that's more useful is kind of sharing resources on how to identify a social media addiction in someone else as opposed to yourself. Because, so often, I think we don't have the awareness of those things until it's too late.

KALPITA:
Yeah, I mean, it’s like a calorie deficit, right? You have everything in moderation. So I suppose consumption of information should also be in moderation, with screen or without screen. Yay, look at us. 

KATIE:
Yeah, particularly if it's stupid information.

KALPITA:
Solving the world’s problems.

KATIE:
There we go. Dear government—done! But since we’ve solved that problem, let’s move on to the next one. The next topic of the day, which is that the Danish government are inspecting emergency shelters across the country and upgrading them as needed. So, kind of, this article that's linked in the newsletter, kind of started out with a very upsetting question, in my opinion, which was, "if Denmark is attacked, do you know where your nearest shelter is?" I absolutely, 100%, have no idea where I would find any shelter, whatsoever. Do you?

KALPITA:
I had no clue that we had shelters—so forget finding one!

KATIE:
So Denmark has room for 3.6 million people underground if we're attacked. So that's a huge amount of the population! And you're in Copenhagen, I'm in Aarhus, the second biggest city, so like, we have no idea where to go, and there's this many. Where do we find this information? 

KALPITA:
I hope there’s a map. Like, I hope there's a map at some point. When they’re done with this upgrade and finding out if there are enough or not. I really would like a map to know where's the nearest, if I need to go to a shelter, that is.

KATIE:
Yeah, I wonder. So basically, what's happening here is that the Minister for Disaster Prevention is basically looking into making sure that we're prepared for what's coming, should a war happen. And they've basically taken full ownership of the shelters. And they've actually been quite criticised. It took a huge amount of time to actually find out how many there were. So it took about a year and half to conclusively find out that there's room for 3.6 million people. But now they have to find out if they're good enough; that people can actually go to them. And then see, can they get more shelters? So that's something that they're aiming to reach by the end of the year. But it is one of those things of like, "oh, I have my water in the basement. I got my little portable stove," but beyond that, I'm like, "oh my God, I'm not ready for war...". 

KALPITA:
I am so embarrassed to admit, but I am one of those families or people who are not prepared for crisis. And I blame my husband for it because he's thinks, "ah, nothing's going to happen, you know, we're in Denmark. We're going to be just fine." As much as I love his confidence, I do get nervous sometimes when this kind of news comes out. But I do remember talking about this when we spoke about, I think it was Fionn and I, that spoke about this war trade and the preparedness that Denmark was doing with the heavy budget that was put aside for it. And one of the things that we did find out was that all of this preparedness and these huge budgets that were being allocated across EU and in Denmark, one of the things that they wanted to do is to make sure that there are shelters. At the same time, make sure the bridges and all of that are protected, and those can be used as well. And obviously, have soldiers on ground and be able to help people; not just to protect them, but also to mobilise them if need be. And one thing in this article also highlights is that metro stations— I mean, I'm in Copenhagen, so I am spoiled for choice in that context, that in I can just run to a metro station, especially the underground ones that... and I can be sure that, you know, I will be okay, I suppose. Unless that's also blocked or whatever. But the entire metro line is pretty huge and it has a lot of space underground. So that could something that they could be working towards preparing, I would hope. I also know that there are some old spaces as well that they could be using. Even the spaces in forests where you have these shelters for people. Those could also be very, very convenient. I suppose they would be upgrading them in a way that, you know, people can actually gather and protect themselves in some way, so. I'm glad they're doing it. I mean, now's the time.

KATIE:
I’m glad someone's thinking about it, because I definitely am avoiding it, 100%. It's that kind of like... oh, I don't know. You know any time you watch a war movie or read a book about war, and you're just like, “sure, they didn’t know it was coming either,"? And then I'm here, like, "la la la, it won't happen." And it's like, "they didn’t know it was happening either! Go get some beans." So I'm glad someone is doing something.

KALPITA:
I mean, if we are lucky and our buildings are standing, then maybe you have, you know, the loft or what are they called... the mezzanine floors where we can all be Anne Franks and take inspiration.

KATIE:
That’s true… Maybe it’ll be like a sleepover? No, it won’t. It’ll be terrible. Never mind. I’m so sorry.

KALPITA:
Well, I really, really hope that it doesn’t come to that. I mean, we have been making progress in many aspects on that front, so, here's hoping.

KATIE:
Yeah. I mean, there’s a plan, which is great to see. And it's great to see, kind of, I think almost every week, we have something related to preparedness. Or maybe every other week that Denmark is introducing this new measure, or it's looking into this, and it's kind of very much looking forward to whatever the future might be. Which gives me confidence.

KALPITA:
Absolutely. Hopefully it’s a secure future with a growing economy and everyone has jobs.

KATIE:
Yay! We'll see! Will we move on to the last topic of the day then, which is the water shortage in the capital by 2040? So, we have time. We can do things. Don’t panic. But, basically, if nothing is done soon, the Copenhagen area could face water shortages, and that could be usage restrictions or as dramatic as empty taps by 2040. There's a lot of things contributing. There's polluted groundwater, old pipes, rising temperatures (that we’re all aware of, and we like sometimes; other times, not so much), and then poor water management. So this is basically opening up the discussion to talk about this shortage that's going to be coming up, which could be up to 12 million cubic meters of water by 2040. Which could mean that some people are without water, there are significant restrictions, and kind of even things like, if you're on the top floor of an apartment building, you might not have enough water pressure to have a shower. Which would be a big problem, particularly in the summer. And, then of course, kind of a focus on making sure we protect our clean drinking water. That's kind of the summary of what's going on there. But what does that make you feel, being in Copenhagen? Now, they have said it's probably going to affect the rest of Denmark as well. We're not safe anywhere, but focusing on the capital first, just to scare everybody.

KALPITA:
I come from a place where we have regular water shortages, so I'm not... I think this is one of the things that I feel very at home with. Having said that, I do not like the idea of not having showers. I do also know for a fact, that especially where I live right now in Copenhagen, this used to be like an industrial area, and they had these... So my building is about 100 years old, or something, and they didn't have toilets or baths in these type of apartments. And there was a backyard where now we have gardens. Back then, they used to have, like, a community bath and community toilets, which people used to use. So I won't be surprised if we went back to that just to keep, you know, water usage in control. But there are two things we can control in this situation, right? One is the pipes. We can get new pipes. We can work on that. We do have 15 years to do that. And the other thing is we can work towards getting some kind of water storage. I don't know if Denmark has them, I've never heard of it, but we could have dams, we could have river streams where we can store water. We do have, maybe not enough, but we do get enough rainfall, and that can also be reserved, and saved, and used for emergency purposes as well. So, I'm very optimistic that this situation could be controlled, and for good amount of time and years as well. So I suppose if Copenhagen can alter the situation, I'm sure that can be reflected to other parts of Denmark as well. I do also know that this is not just a Denmark problem. This is a problem across countries because my conversation with Fionn last week was about how... I was in Scotland on a holiday, and they were talking about, you know, they were in a drought, which has not been for, I don't know, 50-80 years since the last draught, and they were really, really concerned. Because the farmers couldn't, obviously, use any water, and even households were not getting enough water. And they were already in a water shortage because of the draught. And at the same time, there was this news about Denmark being in a draught situation as well. And that's not the first time Denmark has had that either. So it is a growing concern across countries, especially in the west as well. So, I hope there's a collective decision, and, of course, climate change isn't helping.

KATIE:
Yeah, I suppose everywhere is experiencing those, kind of, rising temperatures. But I think as well, you know, particularly in Europe, we all have such old infrastructure. So that's kind of one of the things you've highlighted already is, you know, we have very old pipes in Copenhagen. They're about 100 years old in a lot of places, and a water pipe usually lasts between 75 and 100 years, so it is, we're moving past our prime. And it's estimated that these pipes are losing between 4% and 13% of water, so that's obviously a huge saving if we just fix those pipes. What that entails? I'm sure it's a huge amount of work and a huge cost, but for, like, a huge result in the end. I do think as well that's just a problem across any historical city. I know Dublin consistently has terrible water problems... Dublin itself is okay, but on the west coast of the island and particularly down south, there's always a drought. Everything bad happens down there. They get, like, monsoon weather, and then they get droughts, and then they get random diseases and stuff... I don't know. There's something going on in that bottom corner of the country. But there's often houses that are left without water, or we have to put in kind of water restrictions. We do have a lot of water towers in Ireland because we do get... I think it's a very similar amount of rainfall, and that's kind of water storage, but they're often poorly maintained, so it leaks anyway, and then we lose the water cause we're not very good at things. But water towers can be an idea, particularly with rainfall. And obviously, Denmark is surrounded by water. You're never more than 50 kilometres away from water, so I do wonder, is there some kind of solution that people can figure out that we just keep water. I do find that baffling, sometimes, like, we're surrounded by water. And maybe it's a bit of a stupid thought, but I thought this in Ireland too, like, we were an island surrounded by water. How do we not have water? I know it's saltwater, but, like, surely there's a way that we can figure something out. How do we get the water in the first place to be drinkable, do you know? 

KALPITA:
I don't really know what the entire science and politics behind ocean water is. It was also something my sister asked. It's like, "how do you all have a drought? Like, you're surrounded by water." But yeah, I think the surface evaporation also contributes a lot, and I don't think you can use ocean water for survival in any way. And I believe that the science has not come that far to use that or, I suppose, that has all kinds of consequences that do not allow us to do that. Having said that, have you ever been in a water shortage since you mentioned...? 

KATIE:
Not a real one. We definitely had periods where, in Ireland, we weren't allowed to, like, use hoses. Or, like, there were recommendations that you take a shorter shower, because if you take a one minute shorter shower, you can save ten litres of water over a period of time, and things like that. Kind of, in other parts of the country, there would be more restrictions then. Because my parents lived just outside the capital, so there was nothing that really affected my life personally, but I know it affected a lot of people in the countryside. And as you say, in particular, the farmers. Ireland has a huge amount of livestock, and what's significant about our cows and our meat products and our dairy products is we have the largest grass-fed population of cows, and that makes a significant difference to the quality of the dairy and meat products. So, that grass needs to be green, it needs to be watered, so that we can produce those high-quality products that are then sold around the world as luxury goods. So it's a huge, huge problem in general for produce but also for our exports as well and the, kind of, reputation of Irish goods too. So I'm really glad I'm not a farmer... I'd be so stressed. We also had— my mom used to work in the weather stations, the people who predict the weather, and she still knows people who work there. And they get calls every day, farmers complaining that they predicted rain, and then it didn't rain. And at the time, I was like, "that's so crazy," but then when you're going through, like, these drier periods, I would call too, just in case it made any difference. 

KALPITA:
Yeah, I mean, that speaks a lot about also how it might affect Denmark in general. I mean, Copenhagen is just too proud and too spoiled anyways, so we can manage. But my heart really goes out to farmers, especially, who have enough cattle and that is their survival mechanism. I think that would be a very, very unfortunate thing, if we came to that. It is, I mean, animal product is a huge part of our economy as well, and that, I mean, that just is a whole economic disadvantage if we have to look into 2040. But then maybe emergency preparedness is just going to be extended to 2040 where we just have to keep packaged water. But that also needs water. Like, I mean, packaged water is water.

KATIE:
Everything needs water! I do think that like, we have no... I think it was, like, almost  like a blowup scandal not that long ago of how much water it takes to make almond milk. And it was just this kind of like, "oh, yeah, I don't know how most of my food is made. I have no idea." 

KALPITA:
Yeah. We probably won't have any space for intolerances and allergies, and we just have to make do with whatever. Yeah, I mean think about it, you know, water is... I mean, we use water for everything, not just for drinking. But you're using water in cooking, you're using water... the food that you get is also using water. The clothes you wear is using water. The computer, the energy, everything you're using, requires water as well. So, I have faith, I think, I mean there's no other way but to keep faith in the government and on the experts and hope that they're going to do a good job. But I'm happy to hear and find ways to conserve water, even if it's in a small community setup. For example, there are places where I come from where people in smaller towns or smaller communities, like a whole block of buildings have... apartments buildings have a system where they save rain water, and they use that rain water during drought seasons and drought periods, and they do pretty well. That's just within the setup of, obviously, households and, you know, not really farmers, but I suppose that bigger problem is something that the government will look at. 

KATIE:
But I think, actually, I think the point is made in this article that if a million of us can save just a small amount water, there is more water for farmers and for the population as a whole. So kind of, I think, it's a bit like climate change, well I guess this does fall under climate change as well, that it is, we need to look at it as a collective of everybody in the country does this to improve it for everybody in the country as opposed to, "I as an individual, I will do this to make my life a bit easier, depending on what I need." Because, I think, the example they gave was, if everybody, you know, if you're serving a million customers, and all of them take a one minute shower, in an individual level, a one minute shower is nothing, but then if you have a million, that's a million minutes of water. That's insane to kind of try and quantify in your head. So you're just like, "okay, this is a big problem. We do need to look at this on a national level."

KALPITA:
Yeah, that's one thing I can start doing. I'll just take shorter showers... eventually I'll come down to a minute.

KATIE:
Particularly in winter! I love being warm and toasty. In the summer, fine. 

KALPITA:
Then there’s the sauna option.

KATIE:
Oh okay! There’s a sauna near me... Okay, okay, I'll get over it. I'll be very good and go to my sauna instead.

KALPITA:
I think if we start now in the summertime, then by wintertime, we should be okay.

KATIE:
Yeah, okay. We can do that. 

KALPITA:
Yeah, one person can make a big difference to the whole mix of things. So, it begins with us.

KATIE:
We should make a Disney movie about people taking short showers. Then people will be inspired!

KALPITA:
You know, I had an aunt... or I have an aunt; she still exists. Bless her. They had some major shortages back in their time, and she used to have every little thing in the house that could hold any amount of water, she would fill it up. She was, in fact, she was so affected by it, that even today, when she has all the facilities at her fingertips, she just has to fill water in every possible container she can find. There's glasses, there's bowls, there's buckets, there's all kinds of things that she still has and she will still fill water in it. So, yeah, it does have a big impact once you get into the drought situation. 

KATIE:
Let’s hope we never have to deal with that ourselves. 

KALPITA:
Yeah, exactly.

KATIE:
Thinking of you, government!

KALPITA:
One-minute showers, people. That’s how we can save water.

KATIE:
Well, I think they actually did give some advice. It was:

  • Turn off the tap while brushing your teeth
  • Water your plants with a watering can rather than a hose 
  • Take a 1-minute shorter shower
  • Use the economy function on washing machines and dishwashers 
  • Get the faucet fixed if it drips, and get the toilet fixed if it runs

So, not to ignore those problems. 

KALPITA:
Yeah, small actions and we can make it. 

KATIE:
Yay! We will together. And that’s all our topics for today. So thank you so much for your time and the lovely chat.

KALPITA:
Likewise—thank you!

People on this episode

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LWID

Host
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Kalpita Bhosale

Guest
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Katie Burns

Guest