Sh8peshift Your Life

Analog to Digital Babies: Balancing Technology in a Hybrid Generation feat. Khalil Anthony

• Zakiya Harris aka Sh8peshifter • Season 1 • Episode 20

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In this episode of Sh8peshift Your Life, we explore how technology has transformed the way we relate, communicate, move, and care for ourselves. As the Hybrid Generation — raised in both analog and digital worlds — we hold a unique power: to bridge the wisdom of the past with the innovation of the present. We’ll unpack how (SPIRIT) works in our lives to create balance, intention, and deeper connection in an increasingly digital age.


If this episode resonated with you, subscribe, leave a review, and share it with your people! Let’s keep the conversation going—connect with me and let me know your biggest takeaway.

Sh8peShift YourLife (00:

00.078) you 18.222) you 22.574) you 27.403) you 51.597) Welcome back to a next edition of Shape Shift Your Life, the podcast. Today we're going to talk about analog babies, people born before, not that much before, but born before 1980. So sorry millennials. We're generation grown and we're to talk about balancing technology in this hybrid generation. But before we get into it, I am so happy that I think this will be I know somewhere between my 19th and 20-ish something episode and I have my first guest that is going to be joining us today. It's the Khalil Anthony Peoples, my brother from another. He is a polymath. He is a multidisciplinary artist working with various mediums and media. His work really investigates the relationship between spirit and space and the black body, sexuality, the urban experience. Khalil is a sought after creative consultant. He is an artistic director for BIPOC artists and brands. He's worked with internationally known organizations and businesses, cultural equity and strategy design. He's also an Emmy award winning musician, multi published author, director, has commissioned visual, is a commissioned visual performance artist and entrepreneur. Please, Shapeshifters, welcome our first guest to the episode. Khalil Anthony Peoples. insert loud claps. So how are you feeling today? I'm good. How are you doing? Analog to digital babies. You know, we are born of the analog generation. In many ways, we feel like we are midwives, doulas, because we are the ones who were born in an analog time. We literally were in school when computers first, like for regular people came on the scene. And now we've been really part of this technological revolution. So today we're just going to kind of talk about the trends and learnings, insights that we've seen and how to balance it. Because I think we would all agree that we all need to come into a new level of balance with our use of technology. And if you don't believe me, open up your phone and go look at your screen time.

Sh8peShift YourLife (03:

11.02) Let's take it all the way back to the beginning. So when was the first time that you remember being introduced to a computer? Great question. I think in my mind it's either second or third grade. I went to a school in Evanston, Illinois called Willard Elementary and we had all the supplies, we had all the resources. So we had that computer in there. And I remember thinking I was doing like big things, you know, cause we can mess dolls, you can create a person who can walk across this. And then they had the little games they were playing. So it felt very like, ooh, this is so different than, you know, pencil and paper. I remember that being like, For me, I grew up in Oakland, California. went to a private school. So we had all them thangs too. And it was like, everybody, we have a computer. It was an app. Yeah, it was an Apple Macintosh computer with the, the multicolored Apple with the bite in it. And have this huge monitor and this really chunky keyboard and this floppy disk drive. People might not remember and we had all these floppy disks and you had to put it in and we all could take turns using the computer. I don't know if I had a sense of wonder around it. I just thought it was kind of clunky. I kind of think of it in the way that I think of like fax machines and the first cell phones. Like, yeah, they were doing cool stuff, but it wasn't that cool. Yeah. I mean, It was so much cooler than your pen and paper though. You know what I mean? Like it was like, you can draw whatever you want. I know for me what freaked me out is when I saw the person I made move across the screen and it was like, uh-oh, you know, like we doing something. It definitely was something that was connected to like privilege. So I think for me, the next kind of milestone moment was fast forward from elementary school all the way up to college. had email and computer labs. College gave you an email account, right? That's the other thing. One of the things college was like looped you into technology. What was that experience like for you? I always think about, you know, the idea of like creating. I'm sure I asked this question. was like, oh, does my email have to be my name? I'm sure I asked that question. And they were like, it could be anything you want. You know, of course I started with my name. But then from there, I think I created, you know, different emails, like for different.

Sh8peShift YourLife (05:

35.743) aspects to my life. The first start it was like, you have your email. Email felt very much like writing letters. It wasn't like, hey girl, what you doing? You know, it was like, good afternoon. This is Khalil Anthony Peebles. It's very professional. then I say, Right. Here's my resume. Here is the sources to the paper I wrote. You know what I mean? Those kinds of things. Not fun. But then when I started to experiment with my name, it became, I get to be a Khalil Anthony Blue, artist name. It got into this space of me investigating other talents that I had by naming myself via this email. I want to lift that up because that is something that shifted for our generation. We're from a time where people literally had phone books where they would deliver a pho- a fat yellow pages. And you got to go through it. If you were in the phone book, you kind of made it. Like if your name was in that phone book, because you know, had to like opt into that phone book and you'd have your phone number, but it was your legal name, your legal residence, your landline phone number. So your legal name was who you were. to your point, email became that first place where you literally could give yourself your own name. It was kind of like a rush. So who could have the name because other people will be trying to take the name. That's very interesting. I don't think I realized that immediately it was like a little too late. I'm like, Khalil, three, two, four. And then when it was time to get into social media or Yahoo or whatever, it was gone. You know, I'm like, uh-uh, you know, Khalil, three, two, four. Who is that? That's me. I'd like Khalil, A-P, you know, whatever. You just created. You got in where you fit in. That's why I use Khalil Anthony Peebles because it's like... Not to say there aren't any people named that, but I got those things. Those are mine. Once you selected what you wanted your name to be, you got a sense of like, your name isn't available. That name's been taken. You're like, wait a minute, there's other people out here who feel the same way I do or have the same names. You know, I'm a child of the seventies and I'm part of a generation of black American children whose parents were boomers and they grew up in the black.

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48.687) power movement and got some knowledge of self and were about naming their children African names. So they were going to them African name books and find a name and they found my name as Zekia. And then they wanted, they kept our last names. So we didn't get the full transition like Zekia Mbuntu, right? Zekia Harris. And there's all these children of that era. Like I know so many friends and colleagues of mine and we all have these African first names and Zakiya is a Swahili name. It's also Arabic. It means intelligent. Later when Facebook came in and we're going to talk about social media, mad people have the name Zakiya Harris. Mad Zakiya Harris's. And I was like, What? Like it's not a common name. And Zekia is one of those names that you people spell with two K's, two I's, two H's. I spell mine Z-A-K-I-Y-A. And there's multiple people who spell their name exactly. There's a track star, there's an author. And it really kind of was a moment where I think, Bea, whether it's picking your email, just really and seeing what's available, you really got a peek, like a sneak peek of like what other people were doing and thinking about for the first time, which we didn't really have access to before. Definitely right. Like I think that, I mean, the email, the computer, you know, created the world. Like it's like this, we were very much, I'll speak of my own experience, elementary school. I would take the bus to school and then was, you know, did all my things there. And we had pen pals and stuff like that back in the day. So that's when you feel like there's like people. in other places, of course. You knew it, but you didn't have direct connection to them. And then you get a letter back and it's like, my God, you know, that kind of thing. it has to be clear, right? As we've been moving through the world, especially with the computers, it's like now, instead of sending pen pal, you send a message or with social media, you interface with people. Like, my God, the world is like literally at the touch of your fingers. For me, when I saw the first Khalil Anthony Peebles, I'm like, bro, what are you doing? You know, that's my name. And I kind of got offended. And I was like,

Sh8peShift YourLife (10:

01.709) First of all, like I named myself Khalil in college. So my birth name, my mom is Anthony the White People's. And I grew up in a diverse community. It was diverse, but it was a lot more white people. When I got to college, I was just like, I'm black. And I knew I was black, but I meant like, you know, resistance blacks. I became Khalil Abdul-Bahami. And then it's like, I took somebody's name. So then how am I upset later? There are other people who have that name too, you know? Yes. And kind of like you, you, you're not as special as you think. Like, boo, it's, been some clues before you, you know, there's going to be something after. Exactly. We were kind of like in the pre-digital age, but still very much rooted in the analog age. Talk about some of your interactions, your relationship with self and community. First thing that comes to my head, because I've always been such a kind of ubiquitous writer, like always wrote. I have journals from 30 years ago that collected. And I would write like a page and a half letter, right? Like all of this flowery language, all of it, very poetic. And the person would be literally freaked out. Like, love me, you know, we're 13, you know what mean? We're 12. But I was so into the form of expressing my feelings through writing. So basically I would write a lot of letters, people in my neighborhood run over to their house. I remember outside being like the best thing to do. You get dropped off at school, we were outside for a while before we went inside. Then we go inside, then we had recess, then you have lunch, then have gym, but it was always physical, sweat, everything was imagination. I remember the first electric thing that might be a Walkman. Boom, there's a time and place for a Walkman. I have it on, on the bus maybe, or maybe we weren't allowed to, but when I'm with my friends, the Walkman's gone, because I'm talking and they're laughing and talking about what's new in our life. How about you? What do you remember? Yeah, I definitely was playing outside. I definitely would knock on my neighbor's door and say, such and such come out and play? Or they would knock on my door. A lot of hide and go seek, riding bikes, roller skating. I guess we didn't use the word at the time, but like bullying. Like you had to like hold your own. If someone said something to you, you had to have your snapbacks.

Sh8peShift YourLife (12:

15.705) There's a level of hazing that happens in black communities, but that develops a level of grit. Like no one was coming to like bail you out. You had to stand for yourself in my teenage years, studying for my license test, learning how to type. Let me say that was like a class we had in high school. And I'm so grateful because I still, it's probably the one thing I really learned in high school was how to type on a keyboard. School would prepare you with keyboarding. School would prepare you to take your driving permit. School was a place where you sports and extracurricular activities. And, I was really in a lot of groups. And if someone likes you, they had to like ask for your phone number. And like we have phone books that we wrote down manual phone numbers in, or you memorize phone numbers. And when you would call somebody, the line might be busy. You might get through. It was a flex if you had call waiting. It was a super flex if you had three way calling. And if you have both. you was doing it if you were like, no, we got all the freeway call. They were like, you call your people on the three way and they call other people on the three way. And you would just be like six and nine deep in high school talking on the phone for like hours and hours and hours. my God. Do you remember when or has this ever happened to you when two people, you thought you were talking to one person and they're talking to like, what do you think about blah, blah, Joanna's dress? Obviously it wasn't that, but I'd like, oh, that dress is ugly girl. I don't know what she had that on for. And then here comes Joanna. Oh, now you're talking about my dress. He'd be like, ah. You know, you're like, you got Joanna on the phone? That is not right. I grew up in a house full of cousins. Like, to get out the door, how many times they called me a little big hit, you know, like, there's your little big hit, you know, whatever. I'm like, So then you get out, you're in the corner, somebody say something, you're like, whatever. You know, I'm not going to say the insult now, because some things you can't say now that we used to say back then. By the time I got to school, I'm ready to, you know. do what I gotta do to defend myself. You had to know how to communicate. You had to interact with people. You had to like be a critical thinker. I remember having a pager. That was like the big flex. If you had a pager so someone could call you and then, well, they could page you so then you could go to a page. Then you'd call them. Five cents on a pay phone and you were doing it. So in high school, it was pager status and I was that girl. For me, it was like, you had this pager, it would go off.

Sh8peShift YourLife (14:

42.187) Everybody be like, Ooh, what are you doing? Like, you think you have a page that you're doing some bad. You didn't see people get their page during class, but they couldn't get up on a class and call anybody. So they sit in there, you know, all anxious waiting to go and then call. it's like, and mama. Like you need to make sure you take out the chicken. I never had a pager, never had a two way, never had any of that. We were talking about this a couple of weeks ago, but just this idea of privacy back in the day was like ingrained in my family. What happens in this house stays in this house. Right? Like if you out in the streets talking about what we talking about, and if we find out, you know, it's like you're a traitor. You're like, what are you doing? So everything to me was about like the levels of privacy, how familiar I was with you. I couldn't have people sleep over. They had to wait outside. I would come out and meet them. And it wasn't like my house was immaculate. It was great. Maybe that was the reason. But they was like, they ain't coming in here. So I think there's something about this device on my body that felt like, you can reach me. And I think it's hilarious now because the phone in my band with me when I go to bed. You know what I'm saying? The privacy thing has totally changed, obviously. But back in the day, I was not about that. I'm so glad you brought up privacy because I grew up in a similar household where what happens in the house stays in the house. Don't tell those people our business. We didn't even really open up our curtains. You know what saying? was like, you can't even really open the light in because it's like, don't want people going to be looking in here. walking around looking at facial expressions. I wasn't even allowed to like have an expression. The expression Let's be clear. Let's be clear. And anything outside of the mask of being well and presentable was unacceptable. You always had to look a certain way, dress a certain way, talk a certain way, hold your face a certain way, represent your family a certain way. It was taboo, if you will, to let that veil come down. And then you learned really quickly, even if it wasn't said, you just learned really quickly.

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39.535) that that veil existed, that there were consequences for lifting up that veil, and who got to see it and who didn't? I remember we had school clothes. You put your school clothes, you go to school, you come home, you change your school clothes. I had to do my homework first. So I had to sit down, do all my homework, and then, I mean, I'm sitting in my play clothes, doing my homework, and then when I'm done, I can go out to play. There was this regiment that you, you know, I can't compare my life with anybody's because I'm... Only live mine. I think for what you call it, the hybrid generation. love that term. We always say analog digital babies, know, but in hybrid really works for me because it's like we are raised by the boomers, black boomers, which is totally different to me. There was like rules of order. This is how you are going to be a representation of this family. Remember the stories we hear now is like, you walk down the street and you got in trouble and everybody says something to you on the block. Like that was you down there, Cusset. You know, and by the time you got home, it was my grandma. She's standing there like, What you out there doing? I'm like, Lord, at mercy, you already know. They told everything I've done. I'm so sorry for not representing us in the way that I know better. Those thoughts like that, you know better. It's like, you do, you know? Right. And it doesn't mean that that was that we didn't have like, there's always trauma. There's harm, harm and everything. But there are some things that I really appreciate about that. time and maybe we can talk about associations before we shift into the social media. was a latch heat kids. Go in the house and warm up the leftovers and do your homework or go to sports practice or get home from practice and no adult to be there. My mom worked two jobs and so I learned resiliency. I learned grit. I learned critical thinking. I grew up in a neighborhood that I wasn't in the hood, but I was hood adjacent. So I had to learn how to protect myself as a young black girl. growing up around the way and the male gaze and what that looks like. And I think those are all really powerful things I appreciate about the era, the ability to just be, the ability to read, to be able to just be with myself for extended periods of time. And I think the nuance is like not even thinking it was a long time, just knowing that time felt like there was so much more of it than it does now. So what do you appreciate about your analog

Sh8peShift YourLife (18:

59.611) pre-digital life. I grew up and like I was smart. I didn't realize this then, but like before I would go out the door my mom was like, oh, you're such a beautiful black boy. I'm like, get out of let me go. You know, but that was like equipping me for the world of people who were like, look how dark you are, you know, whatever those statements might be on. I always knew, oh right, you're a hater. That was fantastic. Like I used to say this poem, Hey Black Child to me every... morning, know, six or whatever. And I'm just like, all right, let me get out of here. But like being 52 now, right? It's like, wow, you know, that's so much impacted how I see myself, you know, as a black man in the world. I love my grandmother. We would have been Lesky kids too, but we lived with my grandma. My mom had two sisters, two, their kids and me. We all had our own space in the house. But parents were gone and grandma was there. When the street lights come or if I hear the This Anthony scream, I come home and then we eat dinner and then you wash the dishes. You take out the garbage and you can have a little time to video games came out. It was like, you can play for like 20 minutes and then it's bedtime. and then rinse and repeat, you know? My appreciation comes from like, me and my grandma would sit on the porch and talk. Some days I wouldn't go run down the budget. Like, come on, ask me what you're doing. I'm like, I'm sitting here. I didn't realize it then, but just being inundated with family stories. I was three years old. She's like, what college do you want to go to? I was always in conversation. Seeing myself through their eyes, help me wake up today, are like this super belief in who I was, right? So let's transition into now, let's just fast forward into full social media. Walk us a little bit through your social media platform journey. Okay. So would you say Yahoo! Personals is like social media to a certain extent or no? Cause it's not media, but it's social. It's great. Yeah. Cause it's before all the things before Friendster is my first like social media.

Sh8peShift YourLife (20:

56.471) I think Yahoo! Personal that this, you're putting up a picture of yourself for anonymous people to respond to. You're having dialogues and you're meeting people in the world, which was beyond, my brain could not conceive what that really was. So I had a date, I was living in LA, Yahoo! Personals, right? And- Well, Yahoo! Personal's like a dating thing. I'm not familiar with Yahoo! It was, okay, right, because I'm a little older to you, right? So Yahoo! Personal is like a dating site. It's like pre- Tinder, Pre, all of that stuff, prematch.com. But you would go on there and then you would meet and you'd be like, would message each other. And I met them at a cafe and they had on this huge sweater and I was like, wow, you took those pictures like 20 years ago. You are not him. So then he had his little dog and it was like very LA place. And then I remember just sitting there like, how am I getting out of this? know, how am I leaving? He's like, I'm going to take the dog back home. and then I'll come back and I was like, perfect, honey. I gotta get outta here, like went home. A lot of things that I was raised not to do, I started doing right through the social aspect of the internet. You know, it's like you don't talk to strangers, you don't go to nobody's house, you don't do these things, but you like, I'll meet you at 10 minutes. You know, it's like, who is this person you talking to? All the privacy I loved so dearly kind of got thrown out the window to a certain extent once socials online and social media started, cause you started this. sharing a lot more than I've ever shared in my space. For me, it was MySpace. MySpace was the big time because MySpace gave you an opportunity to not only name yourself, but then design your world. Pick your avatar of what you look like. I think it was genius in MySpace that you could customize your own landing page and user experience. I remember there became a whole job opportunity for people who could design MySpace pages. We all were going into the back. and code and hacking in order to add custom color, custom fonts, designs. So that was just magical. You were in this collective universe and you could collaborate, meet people, watch people literally all over the world. I am a musician and my page was about my music. People were monetizing their pages by adding, selling products, players to share music and

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16.331) promoting shows and cultural events. And it was like for the first time, we didn't have to rely on the mainstream media. It was the angle, the music and for me the art. The first time you saw the party might be on MySpace. I saw this on my, you know what I mean? It was like this other way to connect the people outside in what we traditionally do. It didn't cost anything. It's free to use. So then you like saving money on. marketing. I forgot people used to make a customized. For me, it was the first time I shared my music to anybody. Music obviously took a while before Spotify started to take all of our money as artists. And that created this space of, my God, I'll go to my page and hear my new song. It was exciting. And cut out what, know, we grew up in a time where it's like, you know, got to lose advantage and all these things and they were like bigger than life. It's like, how am I going to be discovered? you kind of got rid of that idea and discover yourself. we're going to timeline jump into the social media era that we're in from MySpace to Facebook to YouTube and Instagram and Twitter, Snapchat and TikTok. What are the two platforms that you're on the most right now? The apps that I use are the weather app. I'm not on any. I haven't been on Facebook for like four years. Instagram is So back it up then. Because you were on them. For sure. So what were some of the reasons why you're not now? Great question. When it first came, it wasn't like my family everywhere. You know? And then when I got like you get requests from, know, cousin blah blah, I want to be your friend, Auntie Nooboo. It doesn't take a lot for me to be annoying. A little bit does the trick sometimes. I was in Tulum like back in the day, back in the day, long time ago. And I put the pictures up. And I come back and everybody was talking to me about Tulum. And I was like, what is wrong with everybody talking to me about Tulum? And I'm like, come on, Brainiac. Like you told them information and they were talking to you about it. So if you don't like it, then don't share that. It was such a lamp bulb. But I'm telling all my secrets. It was weird. I grew up and my business is my business. Your business is your business. And I'm not about being in your business. You know, I'm a big supporter of people.

Sh8peShift YourLife (25:

30.231) I listen to every track my friends send me. listen to watch all the movies. I do all of that, but I don't need to be in every part of your life, you know? And it felt like some of the byproduct of being on social media is that I am in every, you you're just watching this stuff and you're just doing it. You're consuming, you know, moths to a flame. You're gonna look. It's right here. You're looking and looking and then not feeling good. Like, am I not excited that my friend just won a Tony award? Like, of course I am. Where'd the jealousy come in? I own it. For myself, felt like something about this social media space is creating that. You we've seen the studies. People are depressed, don't feel included, isolated, you know. It's been great for me in the past. It isn't working for me now, and I don't want to do anything that's not working. In the year that I haven't been on it, I feel like I've had deeper conversations with those who I talk to. Because, you know, when I think about who I was talking to before, my God, this is the best example. My birthday just happened. You know. social media birthdays, it'd be like 800 messages. You'd be like, ooh, the world love me, oh, they love me, happy birthday. This year, I'm not on it, so it was like substantially lower. And I was in my feelings, I was like, because at first I didn't understand what was going on, I'm like, where's all the people? And it's like, boy, they would get a message that says your birthday, and then they would say, because people aren't respectful, happy birthday. Now, not getting that message doesn't mean they forgot about you, but they're not getting an update, or you might be on somebody's page and you see. somebody else post and say, happy birthday to them. You're like, shucks, it's a birthday. know what? just made me remember, like, I've been in that culture and that's what I expected. And now I'm out of that culture and that doesn't happen there. You know what mean? Like, I don't talk to 40 people in a day anymore. I talk to maybe three, because I'm not liking this or liking that. And it's a difference in my life, but I'm actually excited about it. It's like, whoa, you know, like waking up from a dream. Yeah, that's really powerful. For me, Facebook. It was a numbers game because it was about your friends and even the word. Like, I mean, how psychologically diabolical when it calls it your friend. Because who is a friend? They really re-prote-rammed us into what even if it was a friend in real life is a stranger I've never met my friend, is my family member my friend? And people were looking at that count. How many friends do you have? How many friend requests are you getting? Who are you requesting to be friends with? Statistically, boomers are the fastest growing...

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49.313) group of people on Facebook, as well as international people, right? It was still very much American focused and as well as younger people focused. So as it begins to expand and literally get to the point where I don't even see any of my friends post. I the people that you quote unquote love and you want to see, don't even see their things because it's become so much more about selling our data and selling ad space. Instagram was like, as my friend told me, it's Instabrack, like the biggest flexes where you were seeing my car, my home, my partner, like just a high level of lifestyle curation we had never seen before. And this is now with the advent of smartphones because all of this social media is fueled by smartphones and everyone having a smartphone and on that smartphone having a So now being able to be citizen journalists, now being able to document, now being able to take pictures and selfies and all these things that, again, we couldn't do before. So the smartphone with the tech, with the social media just transformed our ideas of what's private. Nothing's private, because even if you're private now, someone else can pull out their phone and start recording for you. feel like Instagram was the first time where I started feeling insecure. My look, my clothes, my surroundings. This look, yeah, you're flexing, but it's not really that deep. Because the thing about Facebook is kind of like a lot more people you know anyway. But if like Instagram kind of threw you into this whole of like the world or people that you maybe didn't know. Instagram, they have celebrities on Instagram. Now you're able to like DM a superstar. Like you could never even do that before. They're showing their life. So the stakes got higher. And for me, the curation got tighter and I became a lot more self-conscious about how I look and how I'm perceived. Thank you for being vulnerable about that. I felt insecure too. I felt like jealousy. I said I've never felt jealous before because I'm a human, but not to that extent. Now I'm on this thing where I spent so much time getting ready. I only got this amount of views. It's just like, what are you talking about? Because like you do a show and you got a hundred people in the audience. That's a good show. But on this, on this,

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07.457) forum, your friend got thousand likes and something. It's this very weird hierarchical positionality. makes me feel loose, manipulated, less than we were talking about earlier. We're growing up in a space where your parents are, don't go out the house with this. Don't do this. Privacy is important. Those are values. And now the values have changed. That level of comparison and external validation as a musician, as someone who is an entrepreneur, all of my social media has always been about getting to the bag. I'm not even going to hold y'all. I've never been the one to share my daughter. You got to really dig to find pictures of my family. I'm not giving you my relationship updates, baby. I'm keeping my private life, my private life, my businesses, creative endeavors and projects. That meant that I would now get a photo shoot. Actually, one of my first really amazing shoots, you shot me. So now we're getting like real photography, real glam. I'm getting styled. Not so much to put a picture on social media for like my website or a show, but then I would share those images on social media and to see the response I got, like giving the cheese to a lab rat. All these people shared it, reposted it. They're talking about it. They DM me personally and that creates the incentive of wanting more. And what's so interesting is my work has always been supported by women, BIPOC women and black women. So it's interesting that when I'm the most made up with the most makeup on and I'm, you know, the most produced, women always like, fuck the male gaze, we're not in the male gaze. But it's like, even women are responding to the thirst trap, you know, on the flip. The shadow of that was when I'm not in that space, I don't feel comfortable sharing, right? If I'm not, if it's not all to a level and all produced, then I'm not gonna say anything at all. This is good, because I feel like this is like getting to these places. I'm gonna be candid and put this out. You see that frame right here? You see how funny you look? Just like this hyper-particle. Generation where it matters. We're from a different era. Yeah. And then in this world that we live in...

Sh8peShift YourLife (32:

18.091) What they say? Like once it's online, it's what do I want to live forever? I mean, not that post. And it's funny because those are the posts people really gravitate to. We're thinking, my God, I don't want to look like that. And people want to see you looking like that. It's definitely a switch. Then people were like, I'm going to rent out this airplane. Sit in it while I have my champagne. And they're spending all this money to pretend to be something. Growing up in our families, like you are something because you're part of this lineage. Particularly like the younger folks. My daughter's generation, she 19, just fully rebelled into a place of authenticity because now we're in the time of digital natives. Now we have people who did not grow up in the analog, people who smartphones is the only phone they know. They don't know what a landline is. They don't know what a pager is. And so them bringing their full authentic selves without all the makeup was normal. because they were born into that. And so that level of vulnerability, you started seeing people build entire brands, companies off of wearing a bonnet, off of crying and telling you how depressed they are. We've seen relationship dramas, breakups, get back together. We've seen people get called out online, being the new public square. Now it's pretty much anything goes. There's no limits, no privacy. We don't even have privacy. With our data, it's being sold. It's like the training wheels fell off and there's no separation. Are we really living in the real world? Are we more living in the digital world? You go outside and everybody's on their phone. Everybody's plugged in. People meet you in the physical world and then they want to go see your online avatar. And if an avatar doesn't have the likes and the follows, it's all like a social credits for. What do you think are some of the implications of that? One thing that hits me every time I think about any do technology is we just take it. They're like, here, we just made this phone that you can carry with you. We don't think about what me having that phone against my body is going to do for 24 hours, opposed to 24 years. There's no test. We just go out as guinea pigs. Some of these social media things have been created to help the government watch what we're doing. Literally be like, this is where this person is signed in. You're literally a little dot on those computers, and they have access to multiple.

Sh8peShift YourLife (34:

35.713) cameras, multiple views. The thing that I find most harmful, I go to events with my family and the kids walk in with screens this big. I'm not trying to be talking about one of my little nephews, but it's like a screen and a body. So then the mom's like, did you say hi to everybody? Of course he didn't. He's done looking past their screen. That happens for like three minutes and then he's back at his piece with the screen. He's very intelligent, but the idea of saying hello to each other, those things that you would get. You're asked what, if you walked in anybody's house as a kid and didn't say hello to every adult there, you gotta say hello to everybody who comes in. Back in the day, acknowledging people doesn't happen anymore. Yeah, we acknowledge each other in parasocialy, not in per... COVID really accelerated that because also, for those of us who just need to earn a living, so much of our work has gone online. And it's not just social media, it's the way that I meet with my team. the way that I listen to music, the way that I pay my bills, record this podcast. Every single task is connected to a freaking screen, which we know gives out light, which we know destroys our nervous system. Like right now, as we're recording this one video, I'm looking at you and I'm looking at me. Who talks and looks at themselves? Like, it's like, when you talk and look at the other freak of person, but now I'm sitting in Zooms all day, looking at myself, looking at my background, looking at my skin. It's just crazy town. That is great. When it first, you know, the Zoom nation, that's what I call it, like that when COVID and all that. At first it was like, let me make sure I'm looking at the person I'm talking to. And then like, you know, let me make sure I'm still cute. It's back to individual privacy. Like, what am I OK with individually? I can't find myself in that room anymore. So what do I think is okay for me? Cause I can't tell you what to do. I'm on the train yesterday. I do this thing where I just, you know, look at my phone anymore with the music and headphones. So I'm watching people and everyone walks in and then they stand and it's just literally dumb is going ham. You're unaware of everything happening. I get to a space and my body says, grab your phone. It's like, no, be uncomfortable. That's what uncomfortable is to just be here. Yeah. I'm waiting for somebody. got to go on my phone and look at what the Dow Jones or.

Sh8peShift YourLife (36:

51.031) Huffington Post, like, no, an email or waiting for something that's not there. A grandma used to say a watch pot never boils. When we did too much, we had to sit down. That was one of the things that you're right. Some woman in your family that was older, sit, show, ask. Now, that was funnish. Right? We're not going to beat you. We're not going to lecture you. Being called from recess to sit down detention, that was like hell. And now people can't sit down. Now, nobody can sit down. And so what is the cost of that? The first step of addiction is admitting you have a problem. I am addicted. I have a problem. I am addicted to digital crack. I am on the digital crack. And so I'm practicing different interventions. I have a love relationship with apps. I do program my social media, but that means I am checking it still. Did the post. get programmed to go out on time. What does Duke responds? I'll have to share it to my story or let me post it on TikTok. So there is a little bit of that navigation and I'm really trying to get away from and just post and walk away. and because of that, I'm constantly deleting and then adding an app every week. When I set my week plan together, look at those moments where I'm going to pull in those analog activities. I based them on what my goals are. So right now, one of my goals are learning Spanish and deepening my relationship knowledge. And so if I have spare time, those are things that I can do. I'm creative. I love to make music. I love to move. I love to work out. I love to spend time in nature. I love to book times to call you or see a friend in real life and really getting into that in real life. Dope should I do? You don't even see it on social media. Like my social media, is she cute? But my best times are not on social media. I don't feel the need to post. It is always kind of interesting when you have friends and that's like their go-to to be with you. They're with you and they have to like create something to post and tell everybody. I think that's very interesting, but those are some of the ways that I'm navigating. And so for everyone out here who says like, I have an idea, I have a business, I have a venture, I have a project, I have a dream, I have a goal.

Sh8peShift YourLife (39:

05.941) and I don't have enough time, you're full of shit. Look at your screen time and then tell me you don't have enough time, period. Pardon me, I said I'm on social media. But the reality about what you said about the screen time is like, I'm on my phone. I'm addicted to my phone. I'm going to use my phone to listen to my music. If I go out tonight, I need to make sure the weather is popping because I'm in Chicago and it's like 78, but it feels like 42. This phone is everywhere. So I am not on social media, but I'm still on the phone. So I'm like, whoa, that... For me, that was huge. So I'll be like, okay, I'm going to bed. Your phone is not necessary, honey. I don't need my phone in bed with me. Put that phone outside. Or during the day, I'll see it and I'm about to touch it. I'm like, how about let's go outside? I have this nice yard, so I've been grounding where I take my shoes off. And I'm like, oh my God, like that was great. was like, imagine your phone as an illicit drug. You could not do as much, much as you be on that phone. You can't do cocaine. You can't smoke weed that much. You know, you can't smoke cigarettes. You can't drink. You would be dead. We are in a really dangerous time because those drugs will kill you. This thing over time, it's like you're walking dead. I know people who are on their phone all day long sending these videos and I don't even know how to communicate with them anymore. I can't look at all the videos you send me, honey. Half of them are not really funny. And I want to be like, girl, let's go out and walk in the park. But I'll go with you to the park. All you're going to do is show me your phone every time you get going. Stop hanging out. Stop me something on your damn phone. I don't care. Send me the link. Let me pull up this. I don't need you to pull it up. Don't pull it up. I love my friends. Like Mia, you talk so much. I love talking to you. And when I was on social media, it was great to see you pop up. I love your work. But to think about spending quality time with someone where we are just looking at a phone, don't get me wrong. Laughing like, girl. You see Betty Anne, you know what mean, whatever. But that can't be the way I spend time with my friends. It has to be about us and like, what are we making right now? What are we learning about each other? You know, like, are we being vulnerable? Are we sharing things that actually matter? Getting a watch, that alone has taken so many times off me having to pick up my phone. Just want to know what freaking time did it.

Sh8peShift YourLife (41:

20.18) Once you pick it up, three and four other things that you don't need to do. Now I need to check my email, go back to this. Now I need to go to that. So just picking it up is dangerous. And we know that now you don't even need the phone because they just don't neural link you in. And so part of the new humanity that we're living in is where there isn't a disconnect between what part of you is AI and what part of you is human. Now we don't even need humans. Self-driving cars are more safe and there's no human error. AI can calculate things faster. We are literally destroying humanity. Yes, I said it. So digital detoxes, re-examining your relationship with technology, building really strong analog anchors just for us. And that's why it's so hard for lot of young people right now because they never have had to learn how to sit down. how to be still, how to unplug. So part of that in you dies or gets weak. And then when you need it, you ain't got it. And the most important thing that if we don't have to think, we don't have to memorize, we don't have to wonder that currency of creativity is so important. The future belongs to creatives and imagination is priceless. We talk about the future we want to create. How are you going to create that future if you're not even creating, if you're just regurgitating? And so not just for us, most importantly for our children, because we're going to need that creative ingenuity to co-create the world we want to see. Last words. Yeah. I'm going take a word you just said, imagination. As a young person growing up, as an adult now, like that's been my chief resource for excellence. My imagination, I can see myself in another situation and I can be there. It's always been the spaceship that I've used. My imagination works differently where I'm like, I'm in Chicago physically now. Yesterday I went outside and the sun hit me. It was like Venezuela sun and it was like South Africa sun. So where are we going to feel the sun next? Using my imagination to be in multiple places. Cause I'm, I'm in charge of that. Finding my own power in that space. It's like social media. You realize it goes and does what it usually does. It's taking my money. I'm not part of the system for real. Yes. It's clogged. What do I, how do I move? I use my imagination to get me wherever it is that I

Sh8peShift YourLife (43:

45.492) That's what makes me feel great. And that has never wavered through the digital. Thank you so much Khalil for being our first guest. Let folks know how they can follow your work and stay connected to you. My website was KhalilAnthonyPeebles.com and I'm still available on Instagram. It's being Khalil Anthony. on Instagram. Hopefully this will give you an opportunity to reflect on your own relationship with technology. Learn a little bit from us as being part of the hybrid generation and balance your relationship with tech. Until then, we'll see you next time. Keep shifting. Bye. Bye. Much, much love and light for showing up today, Shapeshifters. You could be doing anything right now and you chose to be here and I do not take that for granted. Looking for extra support on your journey? Explore my affordable coaching programs. Whether you prefer personalized one-on-one sessions or engaging group coaching, I'm here to help you align your vision and thrive on your own terms. Visit shapeshiftyourlife.com, that's S-H the number eight, P-E, shiftyourlife.com and schedule your free shift call to discuss your coaching goals. Keep shifting.

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Zakiya aka Sh8peshifter

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