May 26, 2026 • 41 mins
Last week, you heard about brain rot and its neuroscience. So this week, we wanted to tackle how to combat it. Manoush Zomorodi is a journalist and host of TED Radio Hour. Mostly, she's trying to figure out how technology is changing your body, your brain, and your behavior. She and Kal sit down to talk about how movement and boredom can be vital parts of warding off the more negative effects of scrolling and screentime.
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
In the previous episode, you heard from neuroscientist David Eagleman.
We talked about brain rot, neuroplasticity, and whether spending too
much time on our phones is making us a dumber.
David doesn't seem to think so, he considers himself a
cyber optimist.
Speaker 2 (00:16):
It would be very hard for me to accept any
argument that somehow, as a species, we are getting dumber.
Speaker 1 (00:23):
But after speaking with David, I wanted to dig a
little deeper into the multitude of ways in which technology
may be impacting our brains. So I called up someone
who would give me a research perspective along with some
tangible ways to actually combat brain rot.
Speaker 2 (00:40):
Because I don't know about you, but the days when
I'm like, you know, on my laptop all day, all
I want to do is like slither out of my
chair across the living room to the couch so I
can look at another screen. You know what I mean.
Speaker 1 (00:53):
Manusha Zummerodi is a longtime journalist, host of NPR's Ted
Radio Hour, and the author of two books, Bored and
Brilliant and most recently, Body Electric. She's spent years researching
and reporting how our technology changes our bodies, brains, and behavior.
By running her own experiments. She was part of these
experiments herself with thousands of people. She's driven by her
(01:16):
curiosity to, in her words, find ways for us to
feel less like crap. In my conversation with Manusha, we
talk about the recent lawsuit that found two tech giants,
Meta and YouTube, responsible for designing addictive, harmful platforms for kids,
and we dive into the research that illustrates what technology
is actually doing to our attention, our memory, and our bodies.
Speaker 2 (01:41):
Here We How Agon agon Agon.
Speaker 1 (01:46):
Hey, I'm Kalpen and this is here We Go Again,
a show that takes today's trends and headlines and asks
why does history keep repeating itself?
Speaker 2 (01:55):
Here We.
Speaker 1 (02:11):
Hello?
Speaker 2 (02:13):
How are you good? How are you? I'm really well. Yeah,
I am recording myself. I'm a new Zummarodi and I've
been a journalist for decades, or I will say I
am a new Summarodi and I am trying to figure
out how technology is changing your body, your brain and
your behavior.
Speaker 1 (02:32):
Well, I'll just dive in because it's been a busy
couple of months. I guess I guess it's never not
but this Meta and YouTube lawsuit, So for our listeners,
landmark decision. In a Los Angeles jury found that Meta, Instagram,
and YouTube were responsible for designing platforms that were intentionally
(02:53):
meant to be addictive and harmful to kids. And I guess,
as a journalist who's been studying how technology impacts humans,
what was your initial reaction to this lawsuit and what
did it mean to you?
Speaker 2 (03:07):
Well, look, no one ever feels bad for Meta, right.
No one's like, oh my god, I'm so sorry that
sucks for you. Ever. I mean, I was kind of shocked,
to be honest, because, as you know, we have seen
no movement in Congress regarding putting parameters around any of
the tech companies what they are able to do. And
part of that has been because there is this debate
(03:28):
over the First Amendment and Section two thirty, right, this
idea that like, we're platforms, we can't control what people
put on them, We're not responsible. So what the lawyers
did is they had a really interesting tactic was what,
as you said, they looked at the design like infinite scroll,
algorithmically deciding what you see based on what you tell them,
(03:49):
sort of personalizing the feed to the point the prosecutors
argued that people were becoming addicted that they were it
was a consumer hazard essentially. I think it's extraordinary that
it took us this long to like actually say we
want to hold tech companies accountable. However, I think taking
(04:10):
one person, one young woman's experience, and deciding that, you know,
this company was responsible for her mental health problems, this
is not going to be a popular opinion. I think
it's questionable because I've been talking to a lot of
the researchers who have said, you know, the worry is
by putting all the blame and onus on the tech companies,
(04:32):
we're missing the bigger picture. Yes, kids are sadder, but
if we're like, great, take away their phones, ban social media,
we aren't going to do the other things that they need,
which is not only is there a teen mental health crisis,
there's a grown up mental health crisis. And the number
one thing that correlates to teen well being is how
well they're grown ups are doing. And the grown ups
(04:54):
aren't doing that great either. So do I feel bad
for the tech companies? No? Should they be let off
the hook? Absolutely freakin' not. Was this quite an interesting
legal maneuver that was pulled that the design mechanisms were addictive, fascinating,
and I'm not sorry it worked, but I worry that
we're like, great, clean up that mess now we go on,
(05:14):
And I just don't think that policy is the only
issue here. And also where's the money going to go?
I really hope it goes into more places for kids
to hang out, more after school programs, more ways of
connecting kids.
Speaker 1 (05:28):
To your point about you know, feeling like well, people
are just going to feel like, well, we've solved that
now and let's move on. What are you seeing as
fixes for you know, like you said, the adults aren't
doing well either. Are we scapegoating our addiction to these
things way too much? Is there? Dare I say, and
(05:49):
sound like a right winger? What is the role of
personal responsibility here, both for parents and for individuals? I
assume that's part of a very fair conversation around this stuff.
Speaker 2 (05:58):
Absolutely. I mean so, okay, So my obsession has been
we talk so much about the mental health issues that
there are because of our tech use, but I think
we're leaving out the actual physical effects of our tech use.
And rather than like shaming kids like get off your phone,
we need to look at like, okay, instead of telling
them not to do something. What should we be telling
(06:21):
them to do? What opportunities can we offer them? I mean,
you can't be an adult in the world without being
on a screen these days, So how do we begin
to coach them at a young age to be able
to manage themselves? At the risk of sounding like a
right winger, unfortunately, some of it it does come down
to personal responsibility. That is the state of the United
(06:43):
States today. We cannot look to policymakers to fix things
for us, at least not as of now.
Speaker 1 (06:50):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (06:50):
Sure, So I've sort of fell down this rabbit hole
over the pandemic because I was like, I don't understand.
I'm sitting on my like all my screens all day long.
I am not moving. Why do I feel so tired
at the end of the day. Like my question was
where is my energy actually going? And around this time
I actually read some really interesting research by a physiologist
(07:13):
at Columbia University. His name is Keith Diaz, and Keith's job,
like he has said, made it his mission to figure out,
like what is the least amount of movement that the
human body needs so that our like screen filled sedentary
lives don't kill us early and he had found an
answer which I thought was amazing. He found that just
(07:33):
five minutes of gentle movement every half hour offset a
lot of the harms blood pressure spikes, glucose spikes, exhaustion,
all of those things. So I was like, I saw
this and I was like, well, if that's the answer,
you know, it's so simple. A wait that means I
would have to get up every half hour to like move.
(07:55):
So I called Keith and I was like, listen, I
think you found a solution. Do you think people can
do it? He's like this is it practical? Yeah, He's like,
I did it in the lab whatever. I was like, well,
why don't we why? I was like, well, why don't
we ask people? So he and I partnered and we
did this was very exciting for me, NPR and Columbia
partner to do a clinical trial. So we got twenty
(08:18):
thousand people to be the resident weirdo at the office
on campus in their families who stood up every half
hour and like moved side to side like this for
five minutes or whatever. They did. They took the dog out,
they vacuumed, they just got more movement in their lives.
And the results were quite extraordinary. So I should tell
(08:41):
you first, I actually went and was a guinea pig
in his lab, so like, I was there for two days.
So one day I sat on my ass for eight
hours straight and they measured my blood sugar, my blood pressure,
my mood, my ability to focus, all of this stuff.
Needless to say, it was pretty bad. Then I came
(09:01):
back a second day and they measured all those things.
But I took these five minute breaks on a treadmill
and it was two miles an hour. We're not like
talking like sprinting or burpies or anything like a stroll.
And my blood sugar was cut in half. The day
I was there, my blood pressure dropped by five points.
I felt so much better. I was able to focus
(09:22):
and concentrate. I wasn't depressed. I actually went home and
had enough energy to make dinner for my kids. It
was extraordinary, So I felt great asking twenty thousand people
like try it. This was my experience. Give it a shot.
Speaker 1 (09:36):
You just I feel like we hear a lot about
how there aren't enough studies on these things, but you're
even if it's not longitudinal, like what you're describing is
obviously it does mean something you said this was right
after COVID.
Speaker 2 (09:47):
Yeah, his original lab findings came out in twenty twenty one,
and we did our clinical trial in twenty twenty three,
so those findings are being peer reviewed. But I ended
up or my book that's coming out, Body Electric, I
went through all of the stories and the data that
like twenty thousand people laid on us, and I tried
(10:08):
to figure out, like, what did they do? Was it
individual responsibility as we've been talking about, or were they
able to change the system in some way? Like you know,
if you're a professor you're running a three hour like workshop,
you can get your students to stand up, maybe not
every half hour, but do it every forty five minutes
or an hour, like you have the power to do this.
(10:31):
Or if you're the boss, if you have walking meetings
or walking zoom calls, that's within your control. And we
actually Keith has shown that productivity did not suffer because
of this. It actually rose for participants by like not
a ton, but a little bit. It didn't. All those
interruptions did not make people less productive. So it's this
(10:52):
mind shift that like, oh my god, I'm really working
as long as I'm sitting and I'm locked in for
as long as possible and that's just not the case.
Speaker 1 (11:01):
Can you back up and kind of slowly walk us
through what did you personally have to do in this study?
Because I find it so interesting. I mean, the results
are fascinating, but I'm also curious about, like the methodology
and what your role was in getting it up and running.
I can't be easy having a sample size of twenty
thousand people.
Speaker 2 (11:20):
No no, no, well, okay, so first of all, we
couldn't measure like the glucose levels and blood pressure of
twenty thousand people. And I should also say this was
a self selecting group like public radio nerds, who clearly
were feeling some pain that they joined us. So those
are the caveats there. But what we ended up doing
was we would text them and have surveys that we
(11:43):
gave them instructions. You could choose a cohort, you could
choose to move for five minutes, every half hour, every hour,
or every two hours, and then we sent them surveys
constantly and that's a pretty standard format for big group
studies that were going on. And then we were able
to measure things like fatigue. Fatigue was the people who Well,
I should say the people who said yes, I'm going
(12:06):
to do this for two weeks embarked on it. Eighty
percent of them stuck with it for the full two weeks,
and we saw an average of twenty five percent reduction
in fatigue. A lot of people talked about like their
back feeling better, Like can you measure that? No, but
they felt like their back was better. There were people
who felt like they could concentrate more, they got rid
(12:27):
of aches and pains, They like had energy in the
evening to go for a big walk with their kids
as opposed to coming home and lying on the couch. Wow.
Because I don't know about you, but the days when
I'm like, you know, on my laptop all day, all
I want to do is like slither out of my
chair across the living room to the couch so I
can look at another screen.
Speaker 1 (12:46):
Yeah know what I mean. It's very difficult to motivate
to do anything physical for me if I'm having that
kind of a day.
Speaker 2 (12:52):
And it's not because you're a bad person.
Speaker 1 (12:53):
It's well, it's all sorts of a bad person.
Speaker 2 (12:55):
Well you might be, but other people are not. It's
their biology as well, and that's what I also wanted
to understand, like what is going on in your body
when you sit there that especially like where does the
screen come into this? That was my other question too,
And you want to should we nerd out please? Okay,
so there's really interesting reasons. Okay, So first of all,
(13:18):
when you're sitting like this, you got to think of
your legs as like kinked garden hoses. You know how
like with a garden hose, like the pressure gets backed
up and you're like, uh oh, this thing's gonna blow.
So when you're sitting, you kink yourself at your knees
and your hips, and that keeps blood flow from doing
its things circulating. And when you don't have blood flow,
(13:40):
that diminishes the amount of oxygen that gets sent to
your brain. What do you need to think? Focus, feel good?
You need oxygen. Okay, So that explains one thing. Another thing,
your leg muscles do so much work when they are
stimulated and activated. They're the things that push that oxygen
(14:01):
up to your brain. It's like you need that sort
of If they're just stagnant, they don't pull out the
sugar from your blood and they don't push the oxygen
to your brain. So there's that. Another one, Sitting like
this compresses your diaphragm. So if you go for long
hours sitting like this, you're an actor, you know you
need big air. Right while we start taking short breasts,
(14:23):
we get less oxygen to the brain more CO two
builds up all those things. Okay, but then here comes
the screen part, which I think is really interesting, and
this is a new area of research. It's a sense
called interoception. So you've heard of like you know, perception
or introception, but this is interroception. And so the idea
(14:44):
is your internal sensing of what is going on in
your body. So that can be subconscious. You just took
a drink of your seltzer, your body was like, yo, thirsty,
do it right, I get sweaty, take off my jacket.
But also we can be conscious of that like, oh
I am feeling anxious right now, maybe it's time to
(15:05):
get off Instagram, or oh my god, my eyes are
stinging and killing me. I need to step away and
take a break from the screen. All of these things.
We don't pay attention to those messages that our body
is sending us when we're like staring at a screen
and so into what we're doing, we are I mean,
this has happened to me where my foot has fallen
(15:27):
asleep after hours of sitting in a weird position, or
oh my god, I have to peece so bad? One
was the last time I peed? I don't know, because
I've been on Zoom for meetings back to back to
back to back. So this idea that we lose sort
of touch with what our body is telling us it
needs because we're listening so carefully to what the screen
is telling us it needs for us to do.
Speaker 1 (15:48):
And how much of that. I'm always curious about the
neuroscience or the sort of quote unquote addictive nature of
it is that you know, with let's take nicotine or smoking, right,
I feel like almost exactly what you described, You could
say the same about a cigarette, right, somebody who is
addicted to smoking, you know, however they took it up
(16:11):
or like, I know it's bad for me, I know
it's causing all these issues. I can't go for a
hike without wheezing, but I'm still smoking. Are there comparisons
that you see or is that just a totally left
field question.
Speaker 2 (16:23):
I do see comparisons. I think where the comparisons fall
apart is that smoking will fucking kill you, right, and
like these things won't kill you. Look putting aside. You
know other lawsuits regarding kids who've been coached by their
chatbots to take their own life. But generally, billions of
people every day use their devices for good, to talk
(16:46):
to their mom, to make sure they get their groceries.
To exist in the world. Are there some things that
are problematic? Yes? Does it show addictive tendencies? Yes? Should
we use the word addiction? Experts are still debating that idea,
But you know, just things like I learned about something
called dark patterns. So dark patterns are where software designers
(17:10):
will replace something in an app and you're so used
to with muscle memory hitting a certain button, but maybe
they want you to try a new feature, so they
throw the new feature in the part. Like an Instagram
when they introduced reels, like used to hit there for
posting a picture, they moved reels there, so everyone was like, shit,
what is this? Oh? What is this new? Oh? And
they made you try reels. Essentially, you know, you know
(17:32):
how to get on a bike and you just go, well,
you know how to post on Instagram if you do
it enough too, so just sort of like taking over
these neural pathways for design reasons, you can also do
that for good and that's why it's tricky, right, Like
we can nudge people to get more exercise or you know,
(17:53):
eat better food, or take deeper breaths. I think that
is what makes this such a difficult consation, in that
it's a very personalized every person is different, and that
it's not black and white. Some tech is good, some
tech is bad. It's tricky.
Speaker 1 (18:18):
So first thing I do in the morning, like I
assume most of us, alarm goes off. It's my phone alarm.
It's not even a separate you know, alarm on a
side table or anything. So you reach for your phone
to turn it off. But then obviously you're grabbing your phone.
And I'm not on Twitter, I'm not on TikTok, but
I do still like I open that Instagram to look
at the dogs, of course, or I'll go to NPR
and just read you know, NPR, al Jazeera, the Guardian,
(18:40):
whatever sort of just what's.
Speaker 2 (18:41):
The top really the best first thing in the morning.
Speaker 1 (18:44):
Terrible way to wake up, is my point. Yeah, yeah,
but why do I do this? What is a what's
the Obviously, some of it is just like, well, you
just need better habits. Why don't you plug your phone
up across the room and then you can just go
brush your teeth? What is that scrolling due to our brains?
Does it do something? Or is it like you were
saying earlier, is it more the physical memory or is
(19:06):
there something neurological that happens too.
Speaker 2 (19:08):
Okay, so I want to put a caveat out there.
I am not a neuroscientist. However, what I do to.
Speaker 1 (19:14):
The podcast nobody's listening to a podcast for really I
have done, though.
Speaker 2 (19:18):
Is talk to neuroscientists, cognitive psychologists, physiologists, technologists, all the
people doing all theologies. The number one thing that I've
come to is it's easy, Like isn't it easier for
you to like tap something and have thoughts broadcast into
your brain rather than lying there and thinking about things
(19:42):
and be like, shit, I have a lot to do today,
or man, oh my god, did I really say that
last night? Or like you know, having thoughts isn't always pleasant.
Maybe sometimes people like you come up with incredible characters
and it's lots of fun up in there. But I
think for a lot of people they've loss the muscle
or they never got it to begin with, because it's
(20:04):
just so easy. With boredom comes discomfort, and it's really
being able to sit with that discomfort take the time
to either work your way through it, reach for help,
think through, find the answers. And what we know is
that's what happens when you get bored. As for what
happens when you scroll, it's very stimulating, right, it's super stimulating.
(20:28):
One of the most fascinating research that I learned about
was from an informatics researcher. This is informatics is the
study of computers and humans and how they interact. So
Gloria Mark, she studies how interruptions work with people and
their devices, and she found that like, if you have
an hour where you're constantly being interrupted by pings on
(20:48):
your phone and messages and you don't have Twitter notifications,
but for people who do or Instagram notifications, all those interruptions,
your brain will get into a pattern that you're used
to being interrupted. So even if all those interruptions go
away the next hour, you will start to wait for
it cal interrupt yourself, like you get stuck. So you're like,
(21:13):
you know, that. I call it like my cracked out
feeling where I'm like, got a check, gotta check what's
the weather. Oh my god, did I get another text?
Actually I checked everything, and I'm still checking everything, and
I really don't feel like going on Pinterest, but I'm
doing it anyway, Like, huh, I see that in my
cel phone. I'm like, Okay, just blow it down, girlfriend,
like chill it out. And because I know what happens
like that uses all that switching uses a ton of
(21:36):
cognitive energy. Switch switch switch. You're using glucose, glucose, glucose,
more oxygen, and then you start to lose the activity
in the part of your brain where you make purposeful decisions.
You go over to the side that's just like this,
that side where you're not even really looking at what
you're scrolling at. That part like is like I got you.
(21:57):
You can't make any more good decisions, so I'm gonna
take are for you. We're fine here, just scroll, just
scroll and chill. And that's where you're like, you know,
binging on shit that you don't really want to look at,
but you're doing it anyway, because like the thought of
meditating sounds like ridiculously hard, or even just getting up
and going to bed?
Speaker 1 (22:17):
Oh yeah, yeah yeah. How many times are you just
like why am I doing? I could be asleep for
an extra forty minutes.
Speaker 2 (22:23):
That's ridiculous, which would be delightful. Isn't as delightful? Can
I really get up? I don't think So that's you're
literally you've depleted the energy in your body. No wonder.
Speaker 1 (22:34):
So this experiment you ran a little over ten years ago,
board and brilliant. Oh yeah, with your audience, can you
walk us through that one?
Speaker 2 (22:41):
Yeah? And I kind of love it because like twenty
sixteen is back again, So I feel like I was
a little ahead of my time in terms of trends,
so this was for me and it's I thought, I
think it sounds quaint now, but I guess if you
were like ten years old and now you're twenty, you're like,
wait what that makes total sense? But anyway, I'm like, God,
I've been talking about this for so long, but I
(23:03):
just was confused. I was like, I had this feeling
like there was sand in my brain. I can't It's
not wasn't a writer's block. It was like a it
was like a stuck feeling. I can't really explain it.
And I started to think, like, well, okay, so what
is different about my life? It was twenty fifteen. What
is different about my life now than say, like in
(23:24):
twenty ten. Well, I didn't have the iPhone because I'm
not an early adopter. So I realized, like every single
moment in my day when I was like waiting in
line for coffee or sitting on the subway or all
those times where I would just kind of like space out,
I had something to do. I could be productive. I
could check what I had to do next. I could
(23:46):
look at the headlines. I could text my husband. I
could look at like some cute pants that I might
want to buy. There was constantly something to do, and
it just made me wonder like, well, wait, what had
been happening in my brain when I wasn't doing these
Like I was bored? And we always like I grew
up thinking like, oh my god, only boring people get bored.
(24:06):
I was like, well, maybe boredom was actually good. So
I went on this journey to understand what happens when
you get bored. And at that time, mind wandering research
was hot, so this was a thing I love. Finding
the nerds who are like, oh, yes, you're referring to
mind wandering and the default mode and your brain. I'm like, great,
(24:28):
he'll lay it on me. So when you get bored,
that can sort of lead you to your mind wandering right, Like,
and you clearly you have this mind wandering tendency that
can click in really fast. Right. It's a network of
your brain called the default mode, founded by a researcher
named Marcus Reichel. And this can be like, you know,
(24:49):
when you're folding socks and then you look down, You're like, oh,
I folded all the socks. Look at me. It's like
when your body goes on autopilot and you're not like
I'm going to hit the tennis ball. So like that
not meditation where you're not trying to have thoughts, where
your mind just sort of goes where it wants to go.
So in that default mode, this is where they think
(25:11):
some of the most original thinking happens. It's where you're like, oh,
I saw that guy wearing that shirt, but that was
pretty similar to one from like nineteen thirty two, and
then you like, oh, come up with a new fashion
idea like creativity, Right, you take one idea, you take
another one, you smash them together, you create something new.
You also do something which I love, called autobiographical planning.
(25:35):
So this is literally looking at your life, taking notes
of like the highs and lows, telling yourself your story
you were, a narrative to how you got to be
sitting here right now, and then casting into the future
like time travel, like well, what's I mean? That could
be like the next hour, that could be next week,
that could be ten years from now, and you're setting
(25:57):
goals and then you're figuring out like, okay, well how
am I going to do that? I guess I could
go to college. Do I need to go to college?
I don't know? Like right, all of these things that
make up forming a life. It's pretty basic, right, but
if you're not doing it, no wonder you feel hopeless.
It's hard work, it is not easy, it is uncomfortable,
(26:20):
and if you dig deeper, there are actually several types
of mind wandering. So there's the kind where you ruminate
and you're like, I'm a bad person. I never should
have said that. I suck. That part's not good. But
there's also positive constructive daydreaming, which is that original thinking
problem solving, creative thinking, autobiographical planning. And my theory was
(26:43):
you can coach yourself to be like getting bored feels uncomfortable,
or for some of the younger people in our study,
they were like, I have no idea what you're talking about.
I have never been bored in my life. Okay. So
I was like, Okay, so we're all gonna do it
together for a week. We're gonna get at more board.
You're going to understand the science of it. You're going
(27:03):
to understand the history of it. You're going to understand
sort of why things have been designed the way that
they have. Because at that time, this whole idea of
you know, making money off of your attention span was
relatively new. And then like, see what happens, We got
you And so we did it for a week, twenty
thousand of us. Wow, got for you. Yeah, and we
(27:24):
actually also so this was before phones could measure like
how much time you spend on your phone?
Speaker 1 (27:30):
Huh.
Speaker 2 (27:31):
So we like I contacted this guy who like white
labeled his app for us so we could measure our
time on our phones, and like we didn't cut that
much time off collectively. But I think like scientists who
I worked with were like, dude, do you know how
hard it is to change someone's habits in five days?
(27:52):
Like really hard? But if you got one person or
twenty thousand people to go for a walk without listening
on their you know, earbuds or not without checking their messages,
that's like pretty big. And so we just heard great
stories from people like I finished my dissertation because I
(28:12):
figured out what I needed to do at the end,
or like I started playing my guitar again, or I
reached out to my dad because I thought about it,
and I really just like really nice stuff.
Speaker 1 (28:24):
For those five days. What were the rules? Could just
no phones period?
Speaker 2 (28:28):
Well we gamified, of course, cal because you gotta like
hit them, you know, you gotta take what you got, right,
So every day we gave them a challenge, like some
way to try and like use their technology differently. So
like one day was like, don't put your phone on
your body, don't hold it in your pocket, don't like
hold it in your hand when you go to the
(28:48):
bathroom because I know you do. Just put it on
a table. Try to let it live its own life
for the day, separate from you. Another day was like,
don't take a photo, like not one single photo and
just like observe, Oh, I feel uncomfortable. This is when
I would usually pull out my phone to take a picture.
I'm not going to do Is that good? Is that bad?
No judgment, Like maybe you're like fuck this, I really
(29:10):
like taking photos, knock yourself out. It's more just like
we are being experimented on NonStop by these companies, Like
so we kind of need to experiment for ourselves too,
like what works for you and what doesn't, and it's
going to be different for everyone.
Speaker 1 (29:25):
Was there a reason behind the reason, like why did
you choose those specific challenges and were there specific things
that each one revealed about our relationship to our phones.
Speaker 2 (29:35):
Well, each one was based on Like I'm a nerd, right,
so I was like, there's new research into how taking
photos at the time, how taking photos affects our memory.
So I wanted to understand that and this idea of
like outsourcing your memory to your phone, which you know
at first you're like that's terrible. You're not going to
(29:55):
have any memories of your life if you take only photos.
But that's just not true, right, Like I use my
phone to take a picture of where I parked, so
I don't forget where my car is, do you know
what I mean? There are use cases, and I think
for me, it's breaking it down to you saying like,
is this a good use case? Do I want this
in fact? And then the go for it if you're like,
(30:16):
you know what, I really just want to watch my
knees blow out her candles and somebody else take photos.
It's fine. I'm just gonna sit here and watch and
be in it. And that's fine too, you know. Wow.
Speaker 1 (30:33):
I think it's so interesting that the openness to the
degrees of these things, because I don't know if you
feel this way as a New Yorker, but like it's
tour season coming up again, Like if you've got a
meeting in Dumbo or kind of anywhere in Manhattan. Aside
from like that, just get out of the fucking sidewalk.
Just the picture looks better if you put your back
(30:54):
up against the building anyway, So just get out of
the sidewalk.
Speaker 2 (30:57):
But the god, we're so nasty because they're like, oh
my god, New York just really are awful.
Speaker 1 (31:02):
Well that's sinny. You ask any New Yorker for directions
and they will happily help you. So you're fine.
Speaker 2 (31:07):
We also like to look like no at all, So.
Speaker 1 (31:09):
Yes, yes, exactly. But let's say something like like I'm
a big I'm a big fantom mass transit in the city,
especially the ferry, Like you're on the ferry in the
summer and I get there, like I'm glad they're a
tourists on the fairy A great way to see the city.
But whether it's here, whether it's somewhere, like you're the
thing of like somebody who just watches everything through their screen,
(31:29):
I am very much like, oh, you're really missing our
beautiful city. You're gonna go home and watch the same
video that you watched while you were on the boat
because you didn't take its Like take the picture obviously
it looks looks beautiful, take a ten second video, but
in the like you know, twelve minutes that it takes
to get from like Williamsburg across the river or whatever.
And this might just be the like weird actor part
(31:51):
of my brain, but like, put your phone in your
pocket so you can enjoy what the water smells like
in the early spring, or what your full peripheral vision
looks like who you were with, you know, what languages
you heard when you were standing there, like there's all
of that stuff to me. I realize I sound like
(32:12):
an old man when I'm saying put your phones away.
But that's the reason that I feel that, and it
is to your point an effort, right. I do try to,
like everybody else, like oh, this would make a cool photo.
I try to limit that to like just take the
photo and put it back in your pocket, because probably
you're never going to look at the photo again anyway.
But really, like, just feel the presence of where you are.
Otherwise just go home and watch a documentary about it.
Speaker 2 (32:34):
I totally get that, and I also worry that I
sound like a curmudgeon. But like my concern is that
the more I learn about these things, like that old phrase,
use it or lose it is just so true. Like
if you only look at a screen, your eyeballs will
literally change shape and make you near sighted sooner than
(32:57):
far sighted. If you only listen, to have your EarPods
on all day long, depending on how you listen and volume,
et cetera, you will lose your hearing. Like the body
needs rest, it needs breaks, it needs to be in nature,
it needs sunshine, it needs to look into the horizon.
(33:18):
These are you know, we have not evolved along with
our devices. These are ancient biological needs. And I think
the fact that you're in touch with them, like I
think you are listening to what your body needs. I
would say that is inter reception in many ways that
you are saying like I need a minute, you know,
(33:38):
And I think that is something that we need to
cultivate in younger people that like, listen to your body.
Like I don't know you, but like when my kids
were little, they would be dicks when they would get
off their iPads. So like and now I'm saying to parents, like,
so you know, I made this little chart. I'm like,
look at the chart. Before your kid goes on an iPad,
(34:00):
pick that which smiley face or sad face fit picks
is them. Let them spend time on their iPad, and
then measure how do they feel after, have them point
to the face after maybe at twenty minutes they're still
smiley face. Maybe at forty five after that they're like
want to throw it across the room, because that's what
my kids used to do. So like this constant like
what do I need right now? And this is really
(34:23):
kind of a sad state. I would say, thanks capitalism.
If we don't answer that question, there are companies standing
by who will tell us exactly what we need.
Speaker 1 (34:32):
Was there any indication from this experiment about any impact
on people's relationships with each other, whether whether it's people
they knew or not, Like just the sort of that
human interaction piece that this is something that I just
worry about broadly, both in kind of the public service hat,
but then also in the in the comedy hat, where
(34:56):
I'm never a fan of anything that means that people
interact with each other less. I just feel like it's
so easy to One of the reasons, you know, I
think a lot of us don't have Twitter anymore, is like, Okay,
it feels really good if you're like looking at some
like nasty tweet that put someone in their place because
they tweeted something shitty.
Speaker 2 (35:14):
Frusht h Yeah, got them.
Speaker 1 (35:16):
But it obviously doesn't actually contribute to the discourse around
people having divergent points of view on something. The only
thing that really does is human interaction around that. And
so I just wonder in that sample size, were there
any examples of people who felt like, oh, I connected
with somebody, Maybe I had disagreed with or somebody who
I grew apart from or something.
Speaker 2 (35:35):
Yeah, so I saw that in both the Bored and
Brilliant study and the Body Electric study. So in Body Electric,
part of walking and getting more movement was people just
saw other humans more often, whether like they were walking
around their office and saw their colleagues, they were taking
their dog for more walks and talk to their neighbors.
They decided that they were gonna get their parents up
(35:58):
and go for a walk after dinner, you know, just
that sort of being with someone. And also, by the way,
if you walk together and your bodies you know, when
you walk with someone and you get this like weird.
Have you ever done this where you walk with someone
and your legs sync up while you're walking, like your
step sank. I don't know if you've ever noticed you
get like a weird kind of feeling in your head.
(36:19):
That's because your brains are literally sinking up on the
same wavelength. It's amazing, like you can just do weird
experiments all the time. Anyway, So yes, I think that
being in bodily contact with someone not because you're working
out or you're playing physical sports on a team, you're
just moving in the world had a really profound impact.
(36:43):
And then in the board and brilliant study. Actually, day
four was a challenge issued by doctor Sherry Turkle. She
wanted people to take an in person one that day,
have a seven minute conversation in person. So she wrote
a book called Reclaiming Conversation, and her point was it
can't just be like, hey, what's up? Yeah, seven minutes
(37:05):
was like, She's like, you got to do the full
seven minutes, and you have to do it in person,
and that's when a connection comes about. So we just
had people test it out, like did it work? I
don't know, we can't really measure it. Our placebo's a
real thing. Absolutely, did people like feel a little better?
For sure? Yeah?
Speaker 1 (37:25):
Well, to sum up a what behaviors would you like
to continue to change? But you find continues to be
a challenge, and I'm asking that in the service of
b where should listeners start If they're worried about screen time,
brain row, doom scrolling, they want to focus on the
benefits that you've outlined. They're maybe feeling a little empowered, like, oh, yeah,
(37:46):
you're right, there is a personal responsibility here. I don't
need to only worry about what tech companies are and
aren't doing. What's something small that they can do today?
How can they continue to build better long term habits.
Speaker 2 (37:58):
I was going to tell them to look at my instagram.
Huh yes, all right, let's do the first one. So
the first one was about myself. Oh my god, the
struggle is real. Every fricking day, cal like, do I
want to sit on my butt and like just power
through my to do list? Or think that I'm powering
through my to do list? But then I'm like this
(38:19):
is I feel like I'm working so hard and this
is crap. I before our interview, I was like, you
have time, get up, don't answer any more emails, and
go for a walk. So I did. And I have
this little route that I take and I don't look
at my phone and it takes me seven minutes. And
I felt so much better and I felt so much
more energized. As opposed to what I really wanted to do. Though,
(38:41):
it was like, there's a draw of peanut butter and
I have like five emails that I think I could
just get really fast, but I was like, no, no, no,
you need blood flow, your brain needs oxygen. You want
to have fun on this conversation. Do it. So that's
one thing I tell people, like, write yourself a frickin mantra.
Today I will take three five minute walks throughout the
day because I want to be able to concentrate and
(39:03):
I don't want to be exhausted tonight. And also like
I mean, depending on how old you are, like I
want to get chronic illnesses. Right, It's that simple. And
then where you can find me? Oh my god, Well
I have this new book which I'm really excited about.
I think times are hard, really hard right now. We
are exhausted and scared, and it feels very existential, and
(39:27):
like my one hope is like if I can help
people feel just like a little teeny bit better and
healthier in their bodies and more connected to this world,
like that would be huge. So can we fix it all?
I can't, but I can do my part, and this
is my part. So Body Electric is the book. I'm
on Instagram. I'm at manouche z m A n O
(39:49):
U s h Z. If you come there, I will
probably tell you to get off there. That's a fun
game we can play together. And uh, you know, moderation
as much as we can. We're just trying to. We
just got to get through it. We can do this.
We can do this and we can have some fun
and we can like enjoy the world that we do have.
Speaker 1 (40:10):
Thank you, Manish, I really appreciate you being on how
it was so fun to talk. That was my guest
journalist Manush Zamarodi. To learn more about the science of
how technology is impacting our bodies, you can order her
newest book, Body Electric, The Hidden Costs of the Digital
Age and new Science to reclaim your well being. Here
(40:33):
we Go again as a production of iHeart Podcasts and
Snaffou Media in association with New Metric Media. Our executive
producers are me kalpen ed Helms, Mike Falbo, Alyssa Martino,
Andy Kim, Pat Kelly, Chris Kelly, and Dylan Fagan. Megan
tan is our producer and writer. Dave Shumka is our
producer and editor. Our consulting producer is rom and Borsolino.
(40:55):
Tory Smith is our associate producer. Theme music by Chris Kelly,
logo by mat Legal, review from Daniel Welsh, Caroline Johnson
and Meghan Halson. Special thanks to Glenn Bassner, Isaac Dunham,
Adam Horn, Lane Klein, and everyone at iHeart podcasts, but
especially Will Pearson, Carrie Lieberman and Nikki Etoor. Thanks for listening. Everybody,
(41:18):
tell your friends, write a review. All of this helps.
I appreciate you listening, and until we go again, I'm
Kelpenn
In the previous episode, you heard from neuroscientist David Eagleman.
We talked about brain rot, neuroplasticity, and whether spending too
much time on our phones is making us a dumber.
David doesn't seem to think so, he considers himself a
cyber optimist.
Speaker 2 (00:16):
It would be very hard for me to accept any
argument that somehow, as a species, we are getting dumber.
Speaker 1 (00:23):
But after speaking with David, I wanted to dig a
little deeper into the multitude of ways in which technology
may be impacting our brains. So I called up someone
who would give me a research perspective along with some
tangible ways to actually combat brain rot.
Speaker 2 (00:40):
Because I don't know about you, but the days when
I'm like, you know, on my laptop all day, all
I want to do is like slither out of my
chair across the living room to the couch so I
can look at another screen. You know what I mean.
Speaker 1 (00:53):
Manusha Zummerodi is a longtime journalist, host of NPR's Ted
Radio Hour, and the author of two books, Bored and
Brilliant and most recently, Body Electric. She's spent years researching
and reporting how our technology changes our bodies, brains, and behavior.
By running her own experiments. She was part of these
experiments herself with thousands of people. She's driven by her
(01:16):
curiosity to, in her words, find ways for us to
feel less like crap. In my conversation with Manusha, we
talk about the recent lawsuit that found two tech giants,
Meta and YouTube, responsible for designing addictive, harmful platforms for kids,
and we dive into the research that illustrates what technology
is actually doing to our attention, our memory, and our bodies.
Speaker 2 (01:41):
Here We How Agon agon Agon.
Speaker 1 (01:46):
Hey, I'm Kalpen and this is here We Go Again,
a show that takes today's trends and headlines and asks
why does history keep repeating itself?
Speaker 2 (01:55):
Here We.
Speaker 1 (02:11):
Hello?
Speaker 2 (02:13):
How are you good? How are you? I'm really well. Yeah,
I am recording myself. I'm a new Zummarodi and I've
been a journalist for decades, or I will say I
am a new Summarodi and I am trying to figure
out how technology is changing your body, your brain and
your behavior.
Speaker 1 (02:32):
Well, I'll just dive in because it's been a busy
couple of months. I guess I guess it's never not
but this Meta and YouTube lawsuit, So for our listeners,
landmark decision. In a Los Angeles jury found that Meta, Instagram,
and YouTube were responsible for designing platforms that were intentionally
(02:53):
meant to be addictive and harmful to kids. And I guess,
as a journalist who's been studying how technology impacts humans,
what was your initial reaction to this lawsuit and what
did it mean to you?
Speaker 2 (03:07):
Well, look, no one ever feels bad for Meta, right.
No one's like, oh my god, I'm so sorry that
sucks for you. Ever. I mean, I was kind of shocked,
to be honest, because, as you know, we have seen
no movement in Congress regarding putting parameters around any of
the tech companies what they are able to do. And
part of that has been because there is this debate
(03:28):
over the First Amendment and Section two thirty, right, this
idea that like, we're platforms, we can't control what people
put on them, We're not responsible. So what the lawyers
did is they had a really interesting tactic was what,
as you said, they looked at the design like infinite scroll,
algorithmically deciding what you see based on what you tell them,
(03:49):
sort of personalizing the feed to the point the prosecutors
argued that people were becoming addicted that they were it
was a consumer hazard essentially. I think it's extraordinary that
it took us this long to like actually say we
want to hold tech companies accountable. However, I think taking
(04:10):
one person, one young woman's experience, and deciding that, you know,
this company was responsible for her mental health problems, this
is not going to be a popular opinion. I think
it's questionable because I've been talking to a lot of
the researchers who have said, you know, the worry is
by putting all the blame and onus on the tech companies,
(04:32):
we're missing the bigger picture. Yes, kids are sadder, but
if we're like, great, take away their phones, ban social media,
we aren't going to do the other things that they need,
which is not only is there a teen mental health crisis,
there's a grown up mental health crisis. And the number
one thing that correlates to teen well being is how
well they're grown ups are doing. And the grown ups
(04:54):
aren't doing that great either. So do I feel bad
for the tech companies? No? Should they be let off
the hook? Absolutely freakin' not. Was this quite an interesting
legal maneuver that was pulled that the design mechanisms were addictive, fascinating,
and I'm not sorry it worked, but I worry that
we're like, great, clean up that mess now we go on,
(05:14):
And I just don't think that policy is the only
issue here. And also where's the money going to go?
I really hope it goes into more places for kids
to hang out, more after school programs, more ways of
connecting kids.
Speaker 1 (05:28):
To your point about you know, feeling like well, people
are just going to feel like, well, we've solved that
now and let's move on. What are you seeing as
fixes for you know, like you said, the adults aren't
doing well either. Are we scapegoating our addiction to these
things way too much? Is there? Dare I say, and
(05:49):
sound like a right winger? What is the role of
personal responsibility here, both for parents and for individuals? I
assume that's part of a very fair conversation around this stuff.
Speaker 2 (05:58):
Absolutely. I mean so, okay, So my obsession has been
we talk so much about the mental health issues that
there are because of our tech use, but I think
we're leaving out the actual physical effects of our tech use.
And rather than like shaming kids like get off your phone,
we need to look at like, okay, instead of telling
them not to do something. What should we be telling
(06:21):
them to do? What opportunities can we offer them? I mean,
you can't be an adult in the world without being
on a screen these days, So how do we begin
to coach them at a young age to be able
to manage themselves? At the risk of sounding like a
right winger, unfortunately, some of it it does come down
to personal responsibility. That is the state of the United
(06:43):
States today. We cannot look to policymakers to fix things
for us, at least not as of now.
Speaker 1 (06:50):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (06:50):
Sure, So I've sort of fell down this rabbit hole
over the pandemic because I was like, I don't understand.
I'm sitting on my like all my screens all day long.
I am not moving. Why do I feel so tired
at the end of the day. Like my question was
where is my energy actually going? And around this time
I actually read some really interesting research by a physiologist
(07:13):
at Columbia University. His name is Keith Diaz, and Keith's job,
like he has said, made it his mission to figure out,
like what is the least amount of movement that the
human body needs so that our like screen filled sedentary
lives don't kill us early and he had found an
answer which I thought was amazing. He found that just
(07:33):
five minutes of gentle movement every half hour offset a
lot of the harms blood pressure spikes, glucose spikes, exhaustion,
all of those things. So I was like, I saw
this and I was like, well, if that's the answer,
you know, it's so simple. A wait that means I
would have to get up every half hour to like move.
(07:55):
So I called Keith and I was like, listen, I
think you found a solution. Do you think people can
do it? He's like this is it practical? Yeah, He's like,
I did it in the lab whatever. I was like, well,
why don't we why? I was like, well, why don't
we ask people? So he and I partnered and we
did this was very exciting for me, NPR and Columbia
partner to do a clinical trial. So we got twenty
(08:18):
thousand people to be the resident weirdo at the office
on campus in their families who stood up every half
hour and like moved side to side like this for
five minutes or whatever. They did. They took the dog out,
they vacuumed, they just got more movement in their lives.
And the results were quite extraordinary. So I should tell
(08:41):
you first, I actually went and was a guinea pig
in his lab, so like, I was there for two days.
So one day I sat on my ass for eight
hours straight and they measured my blood sugar, my blood pressure,
my mood, my ability to focus, all of this stuff.
Needless to say, it was pretty bad. Then I came
(09:01):
back a second day and they measured all those things.
But I took these five minute breaks on a treadmill
and it was two miles an hour. We're not like
talking like sprinting or burpies or anything like a stroll.
And my blood sugar was cut in half. The day
I was there, my blood pressure dropped by five points.
I felt so much better. I was able to focus
(09:22):
and concentrate. I wasn't depressed. I actually went home and
had enough energy to make dinner for my kids. It
was extraordinary, So I felt great asking twenty thousand people
like try it. This was my experience. Give it a shot.
Speaker 1 (09:36):
You just I feel like we hear a lot about
how there aren't enough studies on these things, but you're
even if it's not longitudinal, like what you're describing is
obviously it does mean something you said this was right
after COVID.
Speaker 2 (09:47):
Yeah, his original lab findings came out in twenty twenty one,
and we did our clinical trial in twenty twenty three,
so those findings are being peer reviewed. But I ended
up or my book that's coming out, Body Electric, I
went through all of the stories and the data that
like twenty thousand people laid on us, and I tried
(10:08):
to figure out, like, what did they do? Was it
individual responsibility as we've been talking about, or were they
able to change the system in some way? Like you know,
if you're a professor you're running a three hour like workshop,
you can get your students to stand up, maybe not
every half hour, but do it every forty five minutes
or an hour, like you have the power to do this.
(10:31):
Or if you're the boss, if you have walking meetings
or walking zoom calls, that's within your control. And we
actually Keith has shown that productivity did not suffer because
of this. It actually rose for participants by like not
a ton, but a little bit. It didn't. All those
interruptions did not make people less productive. So it's this
(10:52):
mind shift that like, oh my god, I'm really working
as long as I'm sitting and I'm locked in for
as long as possible and that's just not the case.
Speaker 1 (11:01):
Can you back up and kind of slowly walk us
through what did you personally have to do in this study?
Because I find it so interesting. I mean, the results
are fascinating, but I'm also curious about, like the methodology
and what your role was in getting it up and running.
I can't be easy having a sample size of twenty
thousand people.
Speaker 2 (11:20):
No no, no, well, okay, so first of all, we
couldn't measure like the glucose levels and blood pressure of
twenty thousand people. And I should also say this was
a self selecting group like public radio nerds, who clearly
were feeling some pain that they joined us. So those
are the caveats there. But what we ended up doing
was we would text them and have surveys that we
(11:43):
gave them instructions. You could choose a cohort, you could
choose to move for five minutes, every half hour, every hour,
or every two hours, and then we sent them surveys
constantly and that's a pretty standard format for big group
studies that were going on. And then we were able
to measure things like fatigue. Fatigue was the people who Well,
I should say the people who said yes, I'm going
(12:06):
to do this for two weeks embarked on it. Eighty
percent of them stuck with it for the full two weeks,
and we saw an average of twenty five percent reduction
in fatigue. A lot of people talked about like their
back feeling better, Like can you measure that? No, but
they felt like their back was better. There were people
who felt like they could concentrate more, they got rid
(12:27):
of aches and pains, They like had energy in the
evening to go for a big walk with their kids
as opposed to coming home and lying on the couch. Wow.
Because I don't know about you, but the days when
I'm like, you know, on my laptop all day, all
I want to do is like slither out of my
chair across the living room to the couch so I
can look at another screen.
Speaker 1 (12:46):
Yeah know what I mean. It's very difficult to motivate
to do anything physical for me if I'm having that
kind of a day.
Speaker 2 (12:52):
And it's not because you're a bad person.
Speaker 1 (12:53):
It's well, it's all sorts of a bad person.
Speaker 2 (12:55):
Well you might be, but other people are not. It's
their biology as well, and that's what I also wanted
to understand, like what is going on in your body
when you sit there that especially like where does the
screen come into this? That was my other question too,
And you want to should we nerd out please? Okay,
so there's really interesting reasons. Okay, So first of all,
(13:18):
when you're sitting like this, you got to think of
your legs as like kinked garden hoses. You know how
like with a garden hose, like the pressure gets backed
up and you're like, uh oh, this thing's gonna blow.
So when you're sitting, you kink yourself at your knees
and your hips, and that keeps blood flow from doing
its things circulating. And when you don't have blood flow,
(13:40):
that diminishes the amount of oxygen that gets sent to
your brain. What do you need to think? Focus, feel good?
You need oxygen. Okay, So that explains one thing. Another thing,
your leg muscles do so much work when they are
stimulated and activated. They're the things that push that oxygen
(14:01):
up to your brain. It's like you need that sort
of If they're just stagnant, they don't pull out the
sugar from your blood and they don't push the oxygen
to your brain. So there's that. Another one, Sitting like
this compresses your diaphragm. So if you go for long
hours sitting like this, you're an actor, you know you
need big air. Right while we start taking short breasts,
(14:23):
we get less oxygen to the brain more CO two
builds up all those things. Okay, but then here comes
the screen part, which I think is really interesting, and
this is a new area of research. It's a sense
called interoception. So you've heard of like you know, perception
or introception, but this is interroception. And so the idea
(14:44):
is your internal sensing of what is going on in
your body. So that can be subconscious. You just took
a drink of your seltzer, your body was like, yo, thirsty,
do it right, I get sweaty, take off my jacket.
But also we can be conscious of that like, oh
I am feeling anxious right now, maybe it's time to
(15:05):
get off Instagram, or oh my god, my eyes are
stinging and killing me. I need to step away and
take a break from the screen. All of these things.
We don't pay attention to those messages that our body
is sending us when we're like staring at a screen
and so into what we're doing, we are I mean,
this has happened to me where my foot has fallen
(15:27):
asleep after hours of sitting in a weird position, or
oh my god, I have to peece so bad? One
was the last time I peed? I don't know, because
I've been on Zoom for meetings back to back to
back to back. So this idea that we lose sort
of touch with what our body is telling us it
needs because we're listening so carefully to what the screen
is telling us it needs for us to do.
Speaker 1 (15:48):
And how much of that. I'm always curious about the
neuroscience or the sort of quote unquote addictive nature of
it is that you know, with let's take nicotine or smoking, right,
I feel like almost exactly what you described, You could
say the same about a cigarette, right, somebody who is
addicted to smoking, you know, however they took it up
(16:11):
or like, I know it's bad for me, I know
it's causing all these issues. I can't go for a
hike without wheezing, but I'm still smoking. Are there comparisons
that you see or is that just a totally left
field question.
Speaker 2 (16:23):
I do see comparisons. I think where the comparisons fall
apart is that smoking will fucking kill you, right, and
like these things won't kill you. Look putting aside. You
know other lawsuits regarding kids who've been coached by their
chatbots to take their own life. But generally, billions of
people every day use their devices for good, to talk
(16:46):
to their mom, to make sure they get their groceries.
To exist in the world. Are there some things that
are problematic? Yes? Does it show addictive tendencies? Yes? Should
we use the word addiction? Experts are still debating that idea,
But you know, just things like I learned about something
called dark patterns. So dark patterns are where software designers
(17:10):
will replace something in an app and you're so used
to with muscle memory hitting a certain button, but maybe
they want you to try a new feature, so they
throw the new feature in the part. Like an Instagram
when they introduced reels, like used to hit there for
posting a picture, they moved reels there, so everyone was like, shit,
what is this? Oh? What is this new? Oh? And
they made you try reels. Essentially, you know, you know
(17:32):
how to get on a bike and you just go, well,
you know how to post on Instagram if you do
it enough too, so just sort of like taking over
these neural pathways for design reasons, you can also do
that for good and that's why it's tricky, right, Like
we can nudge people to get more exercise or you know,
(17:53):
eat better food, or take deeper breaths. I think that
is what makes this such a difficult consation, in that
it's a very personalized every person is different, and that
it's not black and white. Some tech is good, some
tech is bad. It's tricky.
Speaker 1 (18:18):
So first thing I do in the morning, like I
assume most of us, alarm goes off. It's my phone alarm.
It's not even a separate you know, alarm on a
side table or anything. So you reach for your phone
to turn it off. But then obviously you're grabbing your phone.
And I'm not on Twitter, I'm not on TikTok, but
I do still like I open that Instagram to look
at the dogs, of course, or I'll go to NPR
and just read you know, NPR, al Jazeera, the Guardian,
(18:40):
whatever sort of just what's.
Speaker 2 (18:41):
The top really the best first thing in the morning.
Speaker 1 (18:44):
Terrible way to wake up, is my point. Yeah, yeah,
but why do I do this? What is a what's
the Obviously, some of it is just like, well, you
just need better habits. Why don't you plug your phone
up across the room and then you can just go
brush your teeth? What is that scrolling due to our brains?
Does it do something? Or is it like you were
saying earlier, is it more the physical memory or is
(19:06):
there something neurological that happens too.
Speaker 2 (19:08):
Okay, so I want to put a caveat out there.
I am not a neuroscientist. However, what I do to.
Speaker 1 (19:14):
The podcast nobody's listening to a podcast for really I
have done, though.
Speaker 2 (19:18):
Is talk to neuroscientists, cognitive psychologists, physiologists, technologists, all the
people doing all theologies. The number one thing that I've
come to is it's easy, Like isn't it easier for
you to like tap something and have thoughts broadcast into
your brain rather than lying there and thinking about things
(19:42):
and be like, shit, I have a lot to do today,
or man, oh my god, did I really say that
last night? Or like you know, having thoughts isn't always pleasant.
Maybe sometimes people like you come up with incredible characters
and it's lots of fun up in there. But I
think for a lot of people they've loss the muscle
or they never got it to begin with, because it's
(20:04):
just so easy. With boredom comes discomfort, and it's really
being able to sit with that discomfort take the time
to either work your way through it, reach for help,
think through, find the answers. And what we know is
that's what happens when you get bored. As for what
happens when you scroll, it's very stimulating, right, it's super stimulating.
(20:28):
One of the most fascinating research that I learned about
was from an informatics researcher. This is informatics is the
study of computers and humans and how they interact. So
Gloria Mark, she studies how interruptions work with people and
their devices, and she found that like, if you have
an hour where you're constantly being interrupted by pings on
(20:48):
your phone and messages and you don't have Twitter notifications,
but for people who do or Instagram notifications, all those interruptions,
your brain will get into a pattern that you're used
to being interrupted. So even if all those interruptions go
away the next hour, you will start to wait for
it cal interrupt yourself, like you get stuck. So you're like,
(21:13):
you know, that. I call it like my cracked out
feeling where I'm like, got a check, gotta check what's
the weather. Oh my god, did I get another text?
Actually I checked everything, and I'm still checking everything, and
I really don't feel like going on Pinterest, but I'm
doing it anyway, Like, huh, I see that in my
cel phone. I'm like, Okay, just blow it down, girlfriend,
like chill it out. And because I know what happens
like that uses all that switching uses a ton of
(21:36):
cognitive energy. Switch switch switch. You're using glucose, glucose, glucose,
more oxygen, and then you start to lose the activity
in the part of your brain where you make purposeful decisions.
You go over to the side that's just like this,
that side where you're not even really looking at what
you're scrolling at. That part like is like I got you.
(21:57):
You can't make any more good decisions, so I'm gonna
take are for you. We're fine here, just scroll, just
scroll and chill. And that's where you're like, you know,
binging on shit that you don't really want to look at,
but you're doing it anyway, because like the thought of
meditating sounds like ridiculously hard, or even just getting up
and going to bed?
Speaker 1 (22:17):
Oh yeah, yeah yeah. How many times are you just
like why am I doing? I could be asleep for
an extra forty minutes.
Speaker 2 (22:23):
That's ridiculous, which would be delightful. Isn't as delightful? Can
I really get up? I don't think So that's you're
literally you've depleted the energy in your body. No wonder.
Speaker 1 (22:34):
So this experiment you ran a little over ten years ago,
board and brilliant. Oh yeah, with your audience, can you
walk us through that one?
Speaker 2 (22:41):
Yeah? And I kind of love it because like twenty
sixteen is back again, So I feel like I was
a little ahead of my time in terms of trends,
so this was for me and it's I thought, I
think it sounds quaint now, but I guess if you
were like ten years old and now you're twenty, you're like,
wait what that makes total sense? But anyway, I'm like, God,
I've been talking about this for so long, but I
(23:03):
just was confused. I was like, I had this feeling
like there was sand in my brain. I can't It's
not wasn't a writer's block. It was like a it
was like a stuck feeling. I can't really explain it.
And I started to think, like, well, okay, so what
is different about my life? It was twenty fifteen. What
is different about my life now than say, like in
(23:24):
twenty ten. Well, I didn't have the iPhone because I'm
not an early adopter. So I realized, like every single
moment in my day when I was like waiting in
line for coffee or sitting on the subway or all
those times where I would just kind of like space out,
I had something to do. I could be productive. I
could check what I had to do next. I could
(23:46):
look at the headlines. I could text my husband. I
could look at like some cute pants that I might
want to buy. There was constantly something to do, and
it just made me wonder like, well, wait, what had
been happening in my brain when I wasn't doing these
Like I was bored? And we always like I grew
up thinking like, oh my god, only boring people get bored.
(24:06):
I was like, well, maybe boredom was actually good. So
I went on this journey to understand what happens when
you get bored. And at that time, mind wandering research
was hot, so this was a thing I love. Finding
the nerds who are like, oh, yes, you're referring to
mind wandering and the default mode and your brain. I'm like, great,
(24:28):
he'll lay it on me. So when you get bored,
that can sort of lead you to your mind wandering right, Like,
and you clearly you have this mind wandering tendency that
can click in really fast. Right. It's a network of
your brain called the default mode, founded by a researcher
named Marcus Reichel. And this can be like, you know,
(24:49):
when you're folding socks and then you look down, You're like, oh,
I folded all the socks. Look at me. It's like
when your body goes on autopilot and you're not like
I'm going to hit the tennis ball. So like that
not meditation where you're not trying to have thoughts, where
your mind just sort of goes where it wants to go.
So in that default mode, this is where they think
(25:11):
some of the most original thinking happens. It's where you're like, oh,
I saw that guy wearing that shirt, but that was
pretty similar to one from like nineteen thirty two, and
then you like, oh, come up with a new fashion
idea like creativity, Right, you take one idea, you take
another one, you smash them together, you create something new.
You also do something which I love, called autobiographical planning.
(25:35):
So this is literally looking at your life, taking notes
of like the highs and lows, telling yourself your story
you were, a narrative to how you got to be
sitting here right now, and then casting into the future
like time travel, like well, what's I mean? That could
be like the next hour, that could be next week,
that could be ten years from now, and you're setting
(25:57):
goals and then you're figuring out like, okay, well how
am I going to do that? I guess I could
go to college. Do I need to go to college?
I don't know? Like right, all of these things that
make up forming a life. It's pretty basic, right, but
if you're not doing it, no wonder you feel hopeless.
It's hard work, it is not easy, it is uncomfortable,
(26:20):
and if you dig deeper, there are actually several types
of mind wandering. So there's the kind where you ruminate
and you're like, I'm a bad person. I never should
have said that. I suck. That part's not good. But
there's also positive constructive daydreaming, which is that original thinking
problem solving, creative thinking, autobiographical planning. And my theory was
(26:43):
you can coach yourself to be like getting bored feels uncomfortable,
or for some of the younger people in our study,
they were like, I have no idea what you're talking about.
I have never been bored in my life. Okay. So
I was like, Okay, so we're all gonna do it
together for a week. We're gonna get at more board.
You're going to understand the science of it. You're going
(27:03):
to understand the history of it. You're going to understand
sort of why things have been designed the way that
they have. Because at that time, this whole idea of
you know, making money off of your attention span was
relatively new. And then like, see what happens, We got
you And so we did it for a week, twenty
thousand of us. Wow, got for you. Yeah, and we
(27:24):
actually also so this was before phones could measure like
how much time you spend on your phone?
Speaker 1 (27:30):
Huh.
Speaker 2 (27:31):
So we like I contacted this guy who like white
labeled his app for us so we could measure our
time on our phones, and like we didn't cut that
much time off collectively. But I think like scientists who
I worked with were like, dude, do you know how
hard it is to change someone's habits in five days?
(27:52):
Like really hard? But if you got one person or
twenty thousand people to go for a walk without listening
on their you know, earbuds or not without checking their messages,
that's like pretty big. And so we just heard great
stories from people like I finished my dissertation because I
(28:12):
figured out what I needed to do at the end,
or like I started playing my guitar again, or I
reached out to my dad because I thought about it,
and I really just like really nice stuff.
Speaker 1 (28:24):
For those five days. What were the rules? Could just
no phones period?
Speaker 2 (28:28):
Well we gamified, of course, cal because you gotta like
hit them, you know, you gotta take what you got, right,
So every day we gave them a challenge, like some
way to try and like use their technology differently. So
like one day was like, don't put your phone on
your body, don't hold it in your pocket, don't like
hold it in your hand when you go to the
(28:48):
bathroom because I know you do. Just put it on
a table. Try to let it live its own life
for the day, separate from you. Another day was like,
don't take a photo, like not one single photo and
just like observe, Oh, I feel uncomfortable. This is when
I would usually pull out my phone to take a picture.
I'm not going to do Is that good? Is that bad?
No judgment, Like maybe you're like fuck this, I really
(29:10):
like taking photos, knock yourself out. It's more just like
we are being experimented on NonStop by these companies, Like
so we kind of need to experiment for ourselves too,
like what works for you and what doesn't, and it's
going to be different for everyone.
Speaker 1 (29:25):
Was there a reason behind the reason, like why did
you choose those specific challenges and were there specific things
that each one revealed about our relationship to our phones.
Speaker 2 (29:35):
Well, each one was based on Like I'm a nerd, right,
so I was like, there's new research into how taking
photos at the time, how taking photos affects our memory.
So I wanted to understand that and this idea of
like outsourcing your memory to your phone, which you know
at first you're like that's terrible. You're not going to
(29:55):
have any memories of your life if you take only photos.
But that's just not true, right, Like I use my
phone to take a picture of where I parked, so
I don't forget where my car is, do you know
what I mean? There are use cases, and I think
for me, it's breaking it down to you saying like,
is this a good use case? Do I want this
in fact? And then the go for it if you're like,
(30:16):
you know what, I really just want to watch my
knees blow out her candles and somebody else take photos.
It's fine. I'm just gonna sit here and watch and
be in it. And that's fine too, you know. Wow.
Speaker 1 (30:33):
I think it's so interesting that the openness to the
degrees of these things, because I don't know if you
feel this way as a New Yorker, but like it's
tour season coming up again, Like if you've got a
meeting in Dumbo or kind of anywhere in Manhattan. Aside
from like that, just get out of the fucking sidewalk.
Just the picture looks better if you put your back
(30:54):
up against the building anyway, So just get out of
the sidewalk.
Speaker 2 (30:57):
But the god, we're so nasty because they're like, oh
my god, New York just really are awful.
Speaker 1 (31:02):
Well that's sinny. You ask any New Yorker for directions
and they will happily help you. So you're fine.
Speaker 2 (31:07):
We also like to look like no at all, So.
Speaker 1 (31:09):
Yes, yes, exactly. But let's say something like like I'm
a big I'm a big fantom mass transit in the city,
especially the ferry, Like you're on the ferry in the
summer and I get there, like I'm glad they're a
tourists on the fairy A great way to see the city.
But whether it's here, whether it's somewhere, like you're the
thing of like somebody who just watches everything through their screen,
(31:29):
I am very much like, oh, you're really missing our
beautiful city. You're gonna go home and watch the same
video that you watched while you were on the boat
because you didn't take its Like take the picture obviously
it looks looks beautiful, take a ten second video, but
in the like you know, twelve minutes that it takes
to get from like Williamsburg across the river or whatever.
And this might just be the like weird actor part
(31:51):
of my brain, but like, put your phone in your
pocket so you can enjoy what the water smells like
in the early spring, or what your full peripheral vision
looks like who you were with, you know, what languages
you heard when you were standing there, like there's all
of that stuff to me. I realize I sound like
(32:12):
an old man when I'm saying put your phones away.
But that's the reason that I feel that, and it
is to your point an effort, right. I do try to,
like everybody else, like oh, this would make a cool photo.
I try to limit that to like just take the
photo and put it back in your pocket, because probably
you're never going to look at the photo again anyway.
But really, like, just feel the presence of where you are.
Otherwise just go home and watch a documentary about it.
Speaker 2 (32:34):
I totally get that, and I also worry that I
sound like a curmudgeon. But like my concern is that
the more I learn about these things, like that old phrase,
use it or lose it is just so true. Like
if you only look at a screen, your eyeballs will
literally change shape and make you near sighted sooner than
(32:57):
far sighted. If you only listen, to have your EarPods
on all day long, depending on how you listen and volume,
et cetera, you will lose your hearing. Like the body
needs rest, it needs breaks, it needs to be in nature,
it needs sunshine, it needs to look into the horizon.
(33:18):
These are you know, we have not evolved along with
our devices. These are ancient biological needs. And I think
the fact that you're in touch with them, like I
think you are listening to what your body needs. I
would say that is inter reception in many ways that
you are saying like I need a minute, you know,
(33:38):
And I think that is something that we need to
cultivate in younger people that like, listen to your body.
Like I don't know you, but like when my kids
were little, they would be dicks when they would get
off their iPads. So like and now I'm saying to parents, like,
so you know, I made this little chart. I'm like,
look at the chart. Before your kid goes on an iPad,
(34:00):
pick that which smiley face or sad face fit picks
is them. Let them spend time on their iPad, and
then measure how do they feel after, have them point
to the face after maybe at twenty minutes they're still
smiley face. Maybe at forty five after that they're like
want to throw it across the room, because that's what
my kids used to do. So like this constant like
what do I need right now? And this is really
(34:23):
kind of a sad state. I would say, thanks capitalism.
If we don't answer that question, there are companies standing
by who will tell us exactly what we need.
Speaker 1 (34:32):
Was there any indication from this experiment about any impact
on people's relationships with each other, whether whether it's people
they knew or not, Like just the sort of that
human interaction piece that this is something that I just
worry about broadly, both in kind of the public service hat,
but then also in the in the comedy hat, where
(34:56):
I'm never a fan of anything that means that people
interact with each other less. I just feel like it's
so easy to One of the reasons, you know, I
think a lot of us don't have Twitter anymore, is like, Okay,
it feels really good if you're like looking at some
like nasty tweet that put someone in their place because
they tweeted something shitty.
Speaker 2 (35:14):
Frusht h Yeah, got them.
Speaker 1 (35:16):
But it obviously doesn't actually contribute to the discourse around
people having divergent points of view on something. The only
thing that really does is human interaction around that. And
so I just wonder in that sample size, were there
any examples of people who felt like, oh, I connected
with somebody, Maybe I had disagreed with or somebody who
I grew apart from or something.
Speaker 2 (35:35):
Yeah, so I saw that in both the Bored and
Brilliant study and the Body Electric study. So in Body Electric,
part of walking and getting more movement was people just
saw other humans more often, whether like they were walking
around their office and saw their colleagues, they were taking
their dog for more walks and talk to their neighbors.
They decided that they were gonna get their parents up
(35:58):
and go for a walk after dinner, you know, just
that sort of being with someone. And also, by the way,
if you walk together and your bodies you know, when
you walk with someone and you get this like weird.
Have you ever done this where you walk with someone
and your legs sync up while you're walking, like your
step sank. I don't know if you've ever noticed you
get like a weird kind of feeling in your head.
(36:19):
That's because your brains are literally sinking up on the
same wavelength. It's amazing, like you can just do weird
experiments all the time. Anyway, So yes, I think that
being in bodily contact with someone not because you're working
out or you're playing physical sports on a team, you're
just moving in the world had a really profound impact.
(36:43):
And then in the board and brilliant study. Actually, day
four was a challenge issued by doctor Sherry Turkle. She
wanted people to take an in person one that day,
have a seven minute conversation in person. So she wrote
a book called Reclaiming Conversation, and her point was it
can't just be like, hey, what's up? Yeah, seven minutes
(37:05):
was like, She's like, you got to do the full
seven minutes, and you have to do it in person,
and that's when a connection comes about. So we just
had people test it out, like did it work? I
don't know, we can't really measure it. Our placebo's a
real thing. Absolutely, did people like feel a little better?
For sure? Yeah?
Speaker 1 (37:25):
Well, to sum up a what behaviors would you like
to continue to change? But you find continues to be
a challenge, and I'm asking that in the service of
b where should listeners start If they're worried about screen time,
brain row, doom scrolling, they want to focus on the
benefits that you've outlined. They're maybe feeling a little empowered, like, oh, yeah,
(37:46):
you're right, there is a personal responsibility here. I don't
need to only worry about what tech companies are and
aren't doing. What's something small that they can do today?
How can they continue to build better long term habits.
Speaker 2 (37:58):
I was going to tell them to look at my instagram.
Huh yes, all right, let's do the first one. So
the first one was about myself. Oh my god, the
struggle is real. Every fricking day, cal like, do I
want to sit on my butt and like just power
through my to do list? Or think that I'm powering
through my to do list? But then I'm like this
(38:19):
is I feel like I'm working so hard and this
is crap. I before our interview, I was like, you
have time, get up, don't answer any more emails, and
go for a walk. So I did. And I have
this little route that I take and I don't look
at my phone and it takes me seven minutes. And
I felt so much better and I felt so much
more energized. As opposed to what I really wanted to do. Though,
(38:41):
it was like, there's a draw of peanut butter and
I have like five emails that I think I could
just get really fast, but I was like, no, no, no,
you need blood flow, your brain needs oxygen. You want
to have fun on this conversation. Do it. So that's
one thing I tell people, like, write yourself a frickin mantra.
Today I will take three five minute walks throughout the
day because I want to be able to concentrate and
(39:03):
I don't want to be exhausted tonight. And also like
I mean, depending on how old you are, like I
want to get chronic illnesses. Right, It's that simple. And
then where you can find me? Oh my god, Well
I have this new book which I'm really excited about.
I think times are hard, really hard right now. We
are exhausted and scared, and it feels very existential, and
(39:27):
like my one hope is like if I can help
people feel just like a little teeny bit better and
healthier in their bodies and more connected to this world,
like that would be huge. So can we fix it all?
I can't, but I can do my part, and this
is my part. So Body Electric is the book. I'm
on Instagram. I'm at manouche z m A n O
(39:49):
U s h Z. If you come there, I will
probably tell you to get off there. That's a fun
game we can play together. And uh, you know, moderation
as much as we can. We're just trying to. We
just got to get through it. We can do this.
We can do this and we can have some fun
and we can like enjoy the world that we do have.
Speaker 1 (40:10):
Thank you, Manish, I really appreciate you being on how
it was so fun to talk. That was my guest
journalist Manush Zamarodi. To learn more about the science of
how technology is impacting our bodies, you can order her
newest book, Body Electric, The Hidden Costs of the Digital
Age and new Science to reclaim your well being. Here
(40:33):
we Go again as a production of iHeart Podcasts and
Snaffou Media in association with New Metric Media. Our executive
producers are me kalpen ed Helms, Mike Falbo, Alyssa Martino,
Andy Kim, Pat Kelly, Chris Kelly, and Dylan Fagan. Megan
tan is our producer and writer. Dave Shumka is our
producer and editor. Our consulting producer is rom and Borsolino.
(40:55):
Tory Smith is our associate producer. Theme music by Chris Kelly,
logo by mat Legal, review from Daniel Welsh, Caroline Johnson
and Meghan Halson. Special thanks to Glenn Bassner, Isaac Dunham,
Adam Horn, Lane Klein, and everyone at iHeart podcasts, but
especially Will Pearson, Carrie Lieberman and Nikki Etoor. Thanks for listening. Everybody,
(41:18):
tell your friends, write a review. All of this helps.
I appreciate you listening, and until we go again, I'm
Kelpenn
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