I sit down with Dr. Dan Lathan and Dan Peterson from Cortex Evolution to unpack how digital media quietly rewires attention, emotion, and motivation until our days no longer match our intentions. We connect the neuroscience of algorithms to real recovery skills like mindfulness, boundaries, and replacing screen habits with real-life stories and memories. We explore:
• why we are not anti-tech and what digital mastery means
• how notifications, autoplay, infinite scroll, and curiosity traps hijack attention
• the dopamine reward pathway and why scrolling can feel compulsive
• emotional whiplash online and why it gets harder to sit with feelings
• why kids and teens are especially vulnerable due to brain development
• how mindfulness builds a pause between stimulus and response
• social validation, likes, and FOMO as modern “tribe” signals
• practical first steps like turning off notifications and designing healthier defaults
• the 100 Days, 100 Ways challenge to swap screens for real experiences
Links
Website: www.cortexevolution.com
Instagram: @dandanthepresenceman
TikTok: @dandanthepresenceman
LinkedIn: Dan Petersen | LinkedIn
linkedin.com/company/cortex-evolution/
Facebook: facebook.com/DrDanLathen
Bios
Dr. Dan Lathen is a professor and cognitive performance specialist with a Ph.D. in neuroscience and a background in addiction research and recovery. He’s spoken at professional conferences on brain health and digital overuse. Through his company Cortex Evolution, he's designed interactive programs that help people rebuild cognitive skills in today’s screen-saturated world, and coaches individuals to rewire their brains for stronger memory, motivation, and mental control. His work draws from research on neuroplasticity, habit change, and emotional resilience — and a personal passion for protecting what makes us human.
Dan Petersen is a Utah-based Certified Neuro Change Practitioner™ and the Co-founder of Cortex Evolution, where he leverages neuroscience, neuroplasticity, and executive function to help individuals and organizations optimize cognitive performance. Building on a robust background in corporate digital wellness, Dan actively consults with mid-market businesses to establish healthy device boundaries, reduce employee app fatigue, and drive intentional technology use. Alongside his work at Cortex Evolution, he serves as a partner at FutraMed and a Master Licensee with the Neuro Change Institute™, utilizing his deep understanding of brain mechanics to develop practical, cognitive-focused meditation frameworks and lead community-driven initiatives like the #100Days100Ways digital freedom challenge.
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Episode Transcript
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SPEAKER_02 (00:08):
Sleep, motivation, focus, memory, relationships,
it's all degraded by um so muchof what we get exposed to
through various forms of digitalmedia.
What we're trying to do is like,you know, break people out of
that cycle essentially that youjust described, where what you
intend to do and what youactually do have this huge gap.
We don't care how much youintend to do something.
(00:30):
You want to scroll on Facebookfor six hours and you actually
want that, then by all means, doit.
But what we care about is whenpeople want to do one thing and
their brain gets tricked intodoing another thing, like you
just described, because of theway that it's all designed to
trick our brains, that's the gapthat we're trying to close.
SPEAKER_00 (00:50):
Welcome to the Upside of Bipolar, where we
uncover the true sources ofbipolar symptoms and share
proven tools for recovery.
I'm your host, MichelleReitinger, number one
international best-sellingauthor of the Upside of Bipolar
Seven Steps to Heal YourDisorder.
In this podcast, I bring yousolo insights from my journey
and guest interviews withleading researchers and experts.
(01:11):
Join us to transform chaos intohope and reclaim your life.
Let's heal together.
(01:35):
So Dr.
Dan Lathan and Dan Peterson withme today.
Dr.
Dan Lathan is a professor andcognitive performance specialist
with a PhD in neuroscience and abackground in addiction research
and recovery.
He's spoken at professionalconferences on brain health and
digital overuse.
Through his company, CortexEvolution, he's designed
(01:55):
interactive programs that helppeople rebuild cognitive skills
in today's green saturated worldand coaches individuals to
rewire their brains for strongermemory, motivation, and mental
control.
His work draws from research onneuroplasticity, habit change,
and emotional resilience, and apersonal passion passion for
protecting what makes us human.
(02:16):
Dan Peterson, my other guest, isa Utah-based certified
neurochange practitioner and theco-founder of Cortex Evolution,
where he leverages neuroscience,neuroplasticity, an executive
function to help individuals andorganizations optimize cognitive
performance.
Building on a robust backgroundin corporate digital wellness,
Dan actively consults withmid-market businesses to
(02:39):
establish healthy deviceboundaries, reduce employee app
fatigue, and drive intentionaltechnology use.
Alongside his work at CortexRevolution, he serves as a
partner at Futura Med and MasterLicensee with NeuroChange
Institute, utilizing his deepunderstanding of brain mechanics
to develop practical,cognitive-focused meditation
(03:01):
frameworks and leadcommunity-driven initiatives
like 100 Ways Digital FreedomChallenge.
So I am so excited to have thetwo of you on today.
I've been really looking forwardto this interview, and I cannot
wait to share what you have toshare with our audience.
I think it's going to befantastic.
Thank you so much for joining metoday.
Likewise.
Thank you, Michelle, for havingus.
We're really excited to be here.
(03:23):
All right.
So we are going to begin like wealways do and have you guys tell
us our your story.
SPEAKER_01 (03:29):
I'll go first.
Sounds great.
Like the introduction uh saidDr.
Dan uh to Dr.
Dan Peterson.
I met Dr.
Dan Lathan.
I'm a tech guy, been in tech formany years.
We met at a tech conference andwe were talking about digital
overwhelm, and we just connecteddeeply on that fact.
And one day you just wake up andyou just realize how much it's
(03:53):
got its, you know, its claws inyou and how much it controls you
rather than it controlling them.
And we definitely connected overthe the neuroscience side of
things as well, where one of ourgoals for sure is taking back
control over your brain, yourown brain.
Imagine that you could not havecontrol over your own brain, but
(04:14):
it sure feels like thatsometimes.
And so getting back control isone of our big keys, and we
connected on that and kind ofgrew cortex evolution to be what
it is today, to again try toempower people to gain control
back over their own lives.
And this is just one small step,but it is a massive one because
(04:36):
we've kind of filtered it downto if you can control this,
there's so many other, you know,dominoes that fall into place as
soon as you start controllingthis one aspect of your life,
you start feeling mental freedomcome back to your life.
You start feeling free again,you start feeling back in
control, you start feeling likeyou can take on the world
(04:58):
instead of being overwhelmed byit.
That, along with, you know, likeI said, you just wake up one day
in your 40s, typically how itoccurs for a lot of people.
Hopefully sooner rather thanlater for some people.
I got deep into meditation.
I I wanted to, again, getcontrol back over your own
mental state.
Again, the life kind of feelsoverwhelming sometime, and how
(05:21):
to break out of that, you wantto connect back into your own
brain and be able to control it.
And those little things of beingable to build space in between
the initial reaction to thestimuli, whatever it be out in
the world, if you can build justa little bit of buffer of in
(05:44):
between what's happening outthere, like yelling at your kids
or you know, flying off thestress of work, something like
that.
So meditation helps you buildthat gap in in that.
And again, it was really fun towork with a neuroscientist
because it is like, is thisreal?
Is this all legit?
And it and it is.
(06:05):
It it totally is.
And that's where we try to marrywhat we call like the woo, the
meditation and the the very muchethereal thought processes that
have been practiced formillennia to the very much
neuroscience and scientificaspects of our brains and how
they function on a daily basis.
(06:26):
So that's a little bit about mystory and and why I'm I'm so
passionate about this workbecause it's helped me uh and we
really want to just reach outand help everyone else out there
get to the same place.
SPEAKER_00 (06:36):
Awesome.
Dr.
Diane?
SPEAKER_02 (06:38):
Yeah, so I'll I'll start even before his his start.
So I started my PhD on the hopesthat I could help people with
neuroscience of understandingthe brain and how we can master
it to improve our lives.
And at the time I was studyingaddiction, researching
addiction, and didn't honestlyfeel like I was helping people
in academia because I waswriting a lot of you know papers
(07:00):
and grants that I felt like, andI'm pretty sure to this day,
will never actually like helppeople in a practical way.
And so after my PhD, I I, oractually during my PhD, don't
tell my advisor this, but duringmy PhD, I became a learning and
memory coach through a differentcompany and discovered how much
I loved that because I was like,hey, I get to take stuff like
(07:23):
other research about how welearn and remember things and
actually apply it in real ways,practical ways, to help people
every day.
And so I loved that.
And after I graduated, I thendecided to start the company,
Cortex Evolution.
And before I met Dan, it wasactually really just about kind
of more general brain masteryof, you know, learning and
(07:44):
memory, uh, focus, sleep,motivation, all these things
that were interconnected and uhhelpful.
But basically, the the very dayI met Dan was the first day that
I gave a presentation on digitalmedia and how and its effects on
our brains.
And I had this, this like thiskind of like oh shit moment
(08:05):
where I realized that everythingI'd been helping people with is
negatively affected by ourdigital media culture and how it
manipulates and tricks ourbrains, right?
And like sleep, motivation,focus, memory, relationships,
it's all degraded by so much ofwhat we get exposed to through
various forms of digital media.
And so it was that day that Ikind of essentially shifted
(08:27):
everything to focus on that.
And it and it's funny thatyou're asking us about our
stories, because what I'verealized in just the past few
months is how important storiesare, the stories of like our
lives, the stories of my life,your life, Dan's life.
And digital media tends to takethose away from us because it
prevents us from getting out inreal life and making memories.
(08:51):
It prevents us from improvingourselves, growing ourselves, it
prevents us from connecting withother people in ways where we
are can creating stories in thefirst place and having the
chance to share them with otherpeople.
Like share them as you and I aresharing right now, but also
share them as and create themtogether in real time.
(09:12):
And so that's what I'm that'swhat we are ultimately trying to
help people do is you know getback control and get back their
stories.
SPEAKER_00 (09:19):
Yeah.
So I want to talk a little bitabout how we met each other and
like why I was so excited tohave you guys on my podcast.
When I met the two of you andyou were telling me about what
you were doing, it was the firsttime that I'd heard of somebody
doing something like this.
And it's interesting becausesince I've since I've met you,
I've started to see more peopleout there trying to do similar
types of things, like apps thatare trying to help people get
(09:42):
off, you know, their theirphones, which is kind of
counterintuitive.
You know, got an app on yourphone that's trying to help you
get off your phone.
Right.
But but I think that it's a realneed because the people I work
with and my my own personalexperience and then also the
people I work with, we whenyou're struggling with your
mental health, it it's kind ofit's it's a little bit like what
came first, the chicken or theegg kind of situation.
(10:04):
Like, did we, did our use ofsocial media cause the mental
health issues, or are we usingthe social media because we have
mental health issues?
And I think that the answer isboth.
Like the both of them, they'refeeding off of each other.
I, when I was younger, we didn'thave social media.
When I was diagnosed withbipolar back in 1998, I there
(10:25):
was no social media back then.
So my go-to coping mechanism wastelevision and movies.
And so when I was struggling andin distress, I would dissociate.
And I've started learning nowwhat it is truly is
dissociation.
We're trying to escape thereality we're in because it's
uncomfortable.
And so we're going somewhere,we're taking our brain somewhere
else, right?
And and so I developed, I woulddevelop these compulsive, this
(10:49):
compulsive need to watchtelevision or or movies.
As over the years, that thatdeveloped into a compulsive need
to be on social media, you know,like scrolling through YouTube
or scrolling through, you know,Instagram and those kinds of
things.
And I I've spent I spent a lotof time like trying to, you
know, trying to set boundariesfor myself and put a lot, you
(11:10):
know, things on my phone toprevent me from getting on
there.
And and I started understandinglike I need to heal the trauma
that I'm trying to escape.
You know, I'm there's a lot ofthings that needed to go into
it.
But but I want to talk about oneof the challenges that is
created by social media that youkind of talked a little bit
about, but I want to talk a bitmore about this, is that the
algorithms are designedspecifically to keep us on them.
(11:33):
You know, the algorithms for,you know, for social media, for
YouTube, for even for streamingservices.
When I was a kid, you had towait for episodes to come out of
a show.
Like there were only certaintimes that there was anything
decent to watch on TV, and thenyou had to wait for it to come
out.
And then they had, you know,recording things, you know, that
we have the VCR and things thatyou could record so you could
(11:55):
record things and watch itlater.
But now we've got streamingservices that will release
entire seasons of an of a showin one day and people will binge
the whole thing.
And it's designed to keep us onthe device.
So can you talk about that?
Because I think some of us knowkind of on an intellectual
level, but I don't think weunderstand on an emotional or
(12:16):
mental or you know, mentalhealth level what that's
actually doing.
When we get on those devices,there's a reason why we will,
you know, two or three hourslater, we're like, what the heck
just happened the last threehours of my life?
Like, how did I stay on there?
And the whole time you're like,I gotta get off of this, and
then you're like, just keepgoing.
So can you talk a little bitabout the science behind that
and why that's an issue?
(12:37):
And let's I I think if you haveany other thoughts from what
I've just said, sorry, that's Iit was a lot of things that I
just said.
But like this is why I'm soexcited to talk to you guys,
because there's so manydifferent aspects of what you do
that are people don't evenrealize that they need.
I think we knew we know a littlebit that we need it, but I don't
think we realize how much weneed what you're doing.
SPEAKER_02 (12:56):
Yeah, but maybe I can address that kind of one
piece at a time.
First of all, I do want toemphasize that we are absolutely
not anti-tech.
You know, this is literally job,Dan's job is tech.
And so you know, I use it allthe time.
We love tech for all of itsuses, but what what we're trying
to do is like, you know, breakpeople out of that cycle,
essentially, that you justdescribed, where what you intend
(13:17):
to do and what you actually dohave this huge gap.
Like we don't care how much youintend to do something.
You want to you want to scrollon Facebook for six hours and
you actually want that, then byall means, do it.
But what we care about is whenpeople want to do one thing and
their brain gets tricked intodoing another thing, like you
just described, because of theway that that it's all designed
to trick our brains, that's thegap that we're trying to close.
(13:40):
So that what we do is what weactually want to do.
And I also want to point out, ofcourse, that we're not just
interested in social media,actually.
We we can, as you also point outwith streaming, a lot of these
patterns show up in a lot ofdifferent digital media.
In fact, almost every type ofdigital media has them here or
there.
So there's there's kind ofpitfalls and and manipulative
(14:04):
techniques embedded into mostforms of digital media, whether
that's gaming, news, uh,messaging and emails, shopping,
TV, all these different things,you know, just scrolling, of
course, but also like websurfing in ways that you feel
like are helpful.
And then you realize you justspend three hours learning
about, you know, 17th centurytrebuchets, and you're like,
(14:27):
Yeah, I learned something, butthat's not what I'm like to be
to be doing with my time.
So so uh we're very much aboutyou know any form of digital
media and and even TV back inthe day, I think had a little
bit of this, but it wasdefinitely it's evolved and
morphed into a very differentanimal than it was back then.
(14:49):
I'm curious.
Uh I mean I'll I'll open thedoor for Dan if he has any
comments on that so far.
But I if you if it's helpful, Icould also kind of give some
examples of what thatmanipulation actually looks like
and why it's so influential toour brain so that you end up
spending three hours when youwant to do that.
SPEAKER_00 (15:05):
Yes, I actually think that would be super
helpful.
SPEAKER_01 (15:08):
Do you have any comments?
Yeah, launch I I would launchright into that.
Yeah, that that's because again,let's let's focus on the science
for a minute and then we can goto like the the peripherals for
sure.
SPEAKER_02 (15:17):
Okay.
Yeah, so to do this, I it'susually most helpful if I just
take you through kind of like ahypothetical situation.
So imagine if we have like ahypothetical teenager named
Tommy, and he's you know tryingto do homework in his room in
the evening, and he gets a buzzin his pocket from his phone.
Okay, that's actually amanipulation tactic because your
brain is wired to respond to anysudden touch.
(15:41):
It's either a threat, potentialthreat, or it's potential
pleasure.
And so your brain is like, oh,what is this thing buzzing?
That is a way that they get yourbrain's attention.
Then he sees Tommy sees anotification from an app and
that tells him he has a message.
Well, that notification, theyknow that your brain is as a
curiosity factor or anythingnovel or unknown, it wants to
(16:02):
know what it is.
And so, of course, he's gonnaopen that.
He wants to see what the whatthe notification is.
That notification was actuallysent at a time because of the
algorithms when they know thathe'll open it, so they don't
send it during school as much asthey send it once he's chilling
at home in the evening.
But he opens the notificationand he notices that it's
actually not a real message.
(16:22):
Sorry, Tommy, you don't yourfriend didn't actually message
you, it's just from the appitself that sent him some sort
of message to to get hisattention.
And then that it startsautoplaying a video.
Because if it's autoplay, likeyou know, how much how hard is
it to look away from somethingonce it's already playing?
If you've ever been in a roomwith like a show going off the
(16:42):
side while you're trying to talkto somebody, it's very hard to
look away from that show.
No matter how stupid it is, orhow you you have no idea what
the plot is, you still want towatch it because the movement,
again, is telling your brainthis could be important, it
could be a threat, it could bean opportunity.
That movement is verystimulating to your brain.
Anyway, then Tommy realizes hedoesn't actually like that
(17:04):
video, but since he's on theapp, there's all sorts of stuff
presented to his face now.
There's there's other videos andand posts that have clickbait
titles because those again rrely on exploiting our
curiosity.
He also, if he goes to his feed,and now he's in like ultra
danger zone because in the feed,they actually design posts,
(17:27):
first of all, so that they onlyfill up part of your screen.
And then there's another onethat's half shown beneath it.
That's because there's somethingcalled the zygarnic effect where
your brain wants to finishthings.
And so if you have if you havesomething that is unfinished,
then you scroll down to see theto finish it and see the next
one, but then there's anotherunfinished one that gets
revealed, right?
(17:47):
And so that then it justcontinues and you get into this
infinite loop of scrolling.
And as you can tell, we we'reonly in like, I don't know, what
did what are we at?
30 seconds into his experience,and he's been manipulated about
like half a dozen times already.
And then we could go on to talkabout, you know, the way that
they ex they throw out a lot ofemotionally provocative content
(18:08):
to either get us sad or angry,or even delighted sometimes.
Just things that activate theemotions and our amygdala so
that we want to stay engagedwith it.
There's all sorts of things likesexualization of things, there's
the the brief colors, thesounds, very brief, you know,
kind of sound bites, and thefact that they make things
(18:28):
shorter and shorter because thatgives more dopamine hits to your
brain, then that becomessomewhat of an addictive cycle.
And I'm gonna use that termcarefully as we go through this
conversation of what truly isaddiction.
But there's definitely overlapwhere your brain starts to crave
those little hits of dopaminethat come and starts to not be
as interested over time inreal-life dopamine and real-life
(18:53):
pleasures like connection withyour friends or the sunset or go
exercise or those kind ofthings.
And so it it manipulates yourbrain in the moment, and every
little hit of that is like adonut, it's like multiple donuts
every single day, where each oneis not a problem by itself, but
when you're doing you knowdozens of donuts a day, then it
(19:15):
starts to change your brain, andyour your brain becomes wired to
want and expect that and noteven know how to handle normal
life.
You know, you talked aboutdissociation, like maybe you
don't know how to handle theemotions of normal life.
Maybe you don't know how tohandle the social pressures of
normal life, maybe you don'tknow how to handle the focus of
like focusing on a task for 20minutes straight without I'm I
(19:38):
say that like that's a lot.
It's not a lot, right?
20 minutes, but in today's worldit kind of feels like a lot to
people.
And so the brain is manipulatedin the short term and over time
rewired.
Yeah.
SPEAKER_01 (19:49):
And uh we can take a tangent uh off this as well, uh,
following that same line uh ofreasoning and thought with
there's been a ton of studiesdone on social media, especially
now, right?
And this is why a lot of this isnow coming to light.
There has been time and effortdedicated into studying these
effects of digital media comingto our plate and different forms
(20:10):
of digital media, because it'sbeen the TV, right?
It's been let's say radio, TV,you know, internet, and social
media.
And those kind of evolution hashas definitely had an effect on
our psyche and how it affectsour psyche, along with, let's
take into account and pull thetangent of kids.
(20:32):
And just as Dr.
Dan was talking about, kids areespecially susceptible to this
kind of stuff because theirprefrontal cortex hasn't fully
developed until you're around 23to 25 years age, typically, uh
around that time frame.
And so kids are extremelysusceptible to this kind of
stuff because just as Dan wastalking about, it is attacking
the amygdala, the emotionalresponse, and kids are very
(20:54):
susceptible to emotionalresponses.
Their amygdala is a high part ofwhat's going on, because if a
lion or tiger or food or wateror resources like that, they
react very emotionally.
And thus the triggers that someof the social media is
triggering is very emotionalkind of triggers.
And so thus, kids are becomingespecially sucked into social
(21:18):
media, and that's why thedamages of social media have
been particularly highlightedand laws have been in place.
You'll see it across the globe.
Australia just banned socialmedia for anyone under 16, you
know, just last year.
And that's coming to fruition ina lot of states, and it's
probably going to come tofruition nationwide, and and it
(21:40):
multiple countries are enablingbans on social media for kids
under 13, for example.
They can't even make an accountfor that kind of stuff because
of these triggers Dan's talkingabout, that's happening to our
brains.
So the structure of our brainsreally matters, and that's why
things.
Things like meditation and otherthings, but getting a space
(22:04):
between stimuli and response issome of the keys because it
builds that prefrontal cortexmuscles, if you will, but it's
brain power to bring it from theamygdala back to the prefrontal
cortex and really analyze whatyou're seeing rather than react.
Because you'll see a lot ofpolitical stuff that will get
you enraged, right?
(22:25):
And bringing that emotionalresponse.
And now you're 30 levels deep ina in uh a thread arguing with
strangers over the internet.
I didn't want to be spending mytime with that today, but I am
enraged at this video that Ineed to reach out and put my
opinion out there, but that'snot what you wanted to do today.
(22:46):
That wasn't your plan to goonline and troll the internet,
you know, and be enraged andfight with some stranger across
the country on some video.
Like that kind of stuff isfascinating for us to watch
because it is very much likewhat what triggers someone to
get involved in this and thenlose hours of your day being
(23:07):
involved in this kind of stuffand thus lose your control.
SPEAKER_00 (23:12):
Well, and I also want to ask because something
that both of you have touched onum that I think is I don't know,
I'm sure there are people outthere talking about this, but I
don't think that I've everreally talked to anybody about
it is and I don't know if thisis a correct term, but like
emotional fatigue.
We're when we experience normal,healthy life, right, we're not
(23:33):
experiencing like these drapdramatic, intense shifts in our
emotional response, in our inour emotions over, you know, in
seconds, right?
We're we're in a situation, youknow, we might be, you know, if
you're outside on a hike withyour kids, you know, maybe
you're feeling, you know, peaceand you're feeling pleasure and
you're feeling like, you know,wow, what a beautiful world we
(23:55):
have to live in.
And you're feeling that for along period of time because
you're in the situation, you'reexperiencing the situation.
Or maybe you're in a reallydifficult situation with your
family and you're feeling reallyintense sadness.
You know, somebody died, and soeverybody together is feeling a
lot of sadness right now becauseof the situation you're in.
But when you're on social media,as you're scrolling through,
(24:16):
you're going from, you know,some goofy laughing, you know,
thing that makes you laugh andyou're laughing hysterically
because it's really funny.
And then the next thing issomebody that does something
that makes you really angry, youknow, and then you're going the
next thing you're going through,you know, the next video you're
watching is something reallyinteresting.
And then, you know, you're goingthrough and you're having these
like dramatic shifts that aremanipulative.
(24:37):
It's not, you're notexperiencing something in your
life that is causing theemotional response.
You're watching something onlinethat is designed to elicit an
emotional response.
And so you're going throughthese really intense emotional
shifts really quickly.
And I don't know what the, butit seems logically.
So I'd like to ask, you know,especially Dr.
(24:59):
Dan, if you have, if you'vestudied this, but that's not
normal.
Like that's not healthy for ourbrains to be experiencing that.
And it seems like it would bemore difficult to experience a
normal emotional response tosomething if your brain is like
experiencing this emotionalfatigue from being like
stimulated and to have theseintense emotional responses to
things that you're viewing.
(25:20):
And so that when you're in a,you know, a normal life
situation, you're, you know, itseems like it would mess your br
your ability to experienceemotional response in a healthy
way.
Is I mean, is that accurate?
SPEAKER_02 (25:31):
Yes, I would reframe it a tiny bit in the sense of
saying it makes it a lot harderto sit with an emotional
response.
SPEAKER_00 (25:39):
Yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_02 (25:40):
Because, you know, we could it's not like you know,
you'd go home and be like, Ican't feel love for my kids
anymore because I've been likevegging on social media.
Like you still can, but it whatgets harder is for your brain to
sit with things because it's soused to, you know, okay, that
that anger was unpleasant.
I'm going to shift it, andliterally like five seconds
later, I'm going to shift into adifferent feeling.
(26:03):
Or almost conversely, you know,if the feeling didn't originate
from social media, but rather inin normal life, you feel in a
tense situation, but you're usedto not sitting with emotions, so
then even that real lifeemotion, you're like, I can't
say what this, I don't need tonumb out or change or something.
And so it reduces your yourbrain's ability to sit with it
(26:25):
because thanks toneuroplasticity, essentially
what you do over and over, yourbrain gets better at doing.
And so if you are shifting upand down and all over the place
very rapidly, that's what yourbrain's going to get better at
doing.
And it's going to get worse atsitting with emotions, with both
positive and negative.
And so it's it's harder for youto, you know, sit and like just
(26:48):
have absolute contentment andjoy from something that's good
in your life.
It's also harder to sit withlike something like grief or
loneliness or frustration.
And so people just seek toescape.
And and obviously, in thecontext of bipolar, this is
relevant as well, right?
Is that if we if we're trainingour brain to be less able to sit
(27:11):
in any given state, then youknow that can magnify any sort
of like bipolar swings, whetherit's up or down.
Those can be magnified.
Those symptoms can be worsenedbecause of this pattern, this
training your brain into notstaying with any particular
emotion or state very long.
SPEAKER_00 (27:29):
Yeah, for sure.
That's and I have actually seenthat in my own in my own life.
And it's it is I I would love totalk to, you know, Dan, if you
can talk a little bit about themindfulness aspect of this,
because that's one of the one ofthe things that was so
intriguing to me when I talkedto the two of you was that that
combination of awareness and youknow, awareness of what social
media and not just me socialmedia, digital tech.
(27:51):
So, you know, digital tech, thedangers and the pitfalls of that
and mindfulness practice,because one of the things that's
challenging, you know, and I,you know, when I talk about
bipolar, I don't talk about itas an as a defined underlying
condition.
It is a you know, set ofsymptoms that have been
diagnosed with a, you know, as awith a diagnosis, but it can it
is possible to identify thesource of the symptoms, treat
(28:14):
the source, and heal.
But in order to be able to dothat, you have to learn how to
sit with uncomfortable emotions.
Psychotropic medications aredesigned to suppress emotional
response.
So when you safely heal and comeoff of those things, now you've
got to learn how to processemotions that have been
suppressed for, you know,sometimes decades.
And so I was so intrigued bythis combination that you guys
(28:38):
came up with with this cortexrevolution, because mindfulness
meditation, I think, issomething that they should be
teaching in schools.
I think that should be a lifeskill that everybody has taught
from the time they're a child.
But it's something that is likeyou mentioned, you know, earlier
in your in your introduction,Dan was, you know, we call it
woo, you know, because it seemslike it's it is coupled with,
(29:00):
you know, holistic stuff.
And so people kind of think seeit as something that's out
there, where it's actually askill that is millennia old that
is a way of exercising yourconsciousness, a way of
exercising your agency overwhat's happening inside your
mind and what's happening withyour emotions and that.
So, Dan, can you talk a littlebit about mindfulness and how
(29:22):
this actually plays into all ofwhat we've been talking about?
SPEAKER_01 (29:25):
Yeah.
And and definitely goes intolike desensitate
desenssification.
Like you're desensitized to theaspect.
And in even in our real lives,we've seen this, right?
With like video games to socialmedia, to this outrage, to this
again, exposure to these veryyou know intense emotions.
When we get into a real lifescenario where that happens,
(29:47):
like a car crash happens orsomething like that, people just
turn on.
It used to be like, whoa, likeeveryone would wreck very
seriously, and now it's justanother day at the office.
And like you'll see kids even bevery much desensitized to happy,
sad, and they can be very muchdesensitized to that kind of
stuff because they're exposed toit constantly and getting those
(30:10):
high and lows.
And so your book, again, yourbrain kind of gets used to that,
and and thus it's like, oh, I'mpretty used to that.
Some car crashed, thisbuilding's on fire, another day.
You know, the news has exposedus to that because the news uh
also preys on that very muchemotional response, like
(30:30):
something bad's happening in theworld, you need to pay attention
to is very much things.
So the the the mindfulnessaspect comes in of again being
able to again take thoseemotions and sit with them
within your brain and be able toactually process that rather
than just this is what'shappening, be able to understand
within your body and brain, andhaving you be able to process
(30:54):
the information that is comingin to your aura, to your to your
soul, to to not only your brain,but like how your body's
reacting to that.
Again, your brain controls allof that.
And when we we talk about theneuroscience aspect, that's what
we love so much, because youunderstand your brain is able to
control all of that.
And when you sit with yourselfand you sit in mindfulness,
(31:17):
you're able to process thatinformation.
So, like you said, having traumafrom the past, uh, or even like
these high emotional states thatyou with bipolar, when you are
able to sit with that andprocess that with meditation and
breathe and sit with yourselfand understand that in this
moment, this very second, isanything wrong?
(31:42):
You're trying to process thepast or your brain is trying to
protect yourself from somethingin the future.
But if you can separate again,mindfulness, if you can separate
your mind from both of thosesides and sit in this moment and
be present and breathe, yourealize in this very second
there's nothing wrong.
(32:03):
And then you can take it a babystep at a time of what's coming
at you.
High, low, other, you can belike, wait a second, how can I
process this information?
Is this gonna matter in 10minutes from now?
Is this gonna matter uh a weekfrom now?
Is this gonna matter a year fromnow?
How can I actually process withthis information that's coming
(32:25):
to me?
What is the real problem?
Like you said, like if if I wantto be able to grieve someone
that died, yes, that's gonnamatter, you know, a year from
now.
Yes, that's a serious thing thatI can actually process and take
in.
These high and low emotions fromsocial media, news, and just
digital media in general, youtake that in and sit with it
(32:46):
with meditation, and then youcan start to process that kind
of information mindfully.
And so it really helps.
And just like you said, fromkids on up, I think everyone
needs that because that's that'sa skill.
That's a skill to understand howyour brain can take in the
information, put it in short,long-term, and other, you know,
kind of trauma that will bestuck in your brain that will
(33:08):
flash back into your psyche, youknow, from time to time and try
to control you.
And so a lot of things that wesay with a lot of this is again,
bringing back control into yourlife.
And meditation is a major way toget there.
SPEAKER_00 (33:24):
Yeah.
And I I want to talk a bit aboutso one of the things that I have
seen with with people that Iwork with, with myself, you
know, in the past is a acompulsive need to use digital
media.
It's like a it is, and it's hardto, it's hard to describe it to
somebody who doesn't understandwhat that feels like.
(33:44):
It's and I I think that thereare a lot more people that can
relate to it than than you knowthan we might think.
But it's it's like it's almostlike if you don't do it, you're
going to die.
Like it's almost like thisfeeling of like, I, you know,
it's like I have to do this.
And I you've seen this.
I read um a book called IGen, Ithink was the one that I was
(34:05):
reading where it was talkingabout this, where they they're
doing studies because this isthe generation that's coming up
right now that are, you know,starting to enter young
adulthood, are the firstgeneration who have had, you
know, social media and you know,gaming and all those things on a
phone, you know, in theirpocket.
And we had no idea what we were,what we were getting into.
(34:25):
And so a lot of parents, myselfincluded, with my older kids,
had no idea that we needed toplace like all these limitations
and help our kids because wedidn't understand the effect
that it was having on them.
But, you know, as this, as thisresearcher was doing the
research on these, uh, you know,on the effect of on these
children, on these youths, um,you know, kids were panicking,
(34:46):
like becoming hysterical if theydidn't have access to their
phones, if they didn't haveaccess to their social media.
It was like, and and I I canunderstand that.
I don't have it on the samelevel that that the youth did
because I didn't grow up withthat.
But I have, because I've becomeinvolved with, you know, my
phone and and that, and it's somuch a part of my life, like you
were mentioning earlier, Dan orDr.
(35:06):
Dan, you know, the the buzz, youknow, like on my watch.
So I have my watch so that Idon't, you know, I took my phone
and put it in another room, butmy watch still buzzes, you know?
And so I'm like, oh, what isthat?
You know, and it's so hard,especially if I'm meeting face
to face with somebody, to notlike look at my watch while I'm
talking to them.
Like, that's rude.
My brain's like, that's rude,don't do it.
But my my other part of my brainis like, well, what if it's
(35:26):
important?
You know, what do I, you know?
And and so, and then the samething, like when you start to
feel if you're not used tofeeling uncomfortable emotions
and sitting with them for a longtime, if you're starting to feel
uncomfortable emotion, the thebrain is like, I've got to get
on social media right now.
It's like looking for an escape,it's looking for something to
dissociate, it's a way to findanother, you know, let's I I
(35:48):
gotta switch the emotion rightnow.
We gotta get on social media andlook for something funny, you
know?
And so can you talk about whatthat compulsive, where that
compulsive, it really feelscompulsive.
It feels like I have to do thisright now.
Like I don't have a choice.
Like I really need to do it orsomething bad is going to
happen.
Can you talk about that?
And then let's talk about whatwhy this company that you
(36:10):
developed, like what the theimpetus.
We've talked a little bit aboutit, but I want to talk more,
more focused about why you youdeveloped your company and what
it is that you do for people.
Like how do you actually helppeople with this?
SPEAKER_02 (36:22):
Yeah, great comments, great thoughts,
Michelle.
This is where it gets veryinteresting of the overlap with
addiction.
Officially, screen, anythingscreen or digital related is not
an addiction yet, because thelast official version of the the
DSM 5, the Diagnostics andStatistical Manual for
Psychiatry and all that came outand I think it was 2013.
(36:44):
So it was it's very behind, andit it um had very high bars for
what I called enough evidence tosay this is a diagnostic
condition.
In there, it only says internetgaming disorder is a condition
for further study, and that'sall it meant.
That said, there is massiveevidence that there is at least
(37:04):
very, very significant overlapwith addiction.
It's TBD if it will ever beofficially declared an addiction
or not, but regardless, there'smassive overlap that is helpful
for us to understand.
And one of those is that yourreward circuitry, so you have a
pathway in your brain called thereward and pleasure pathway,
also called the mesolimbicpathway.
(37:25):
It basically is what is tellingyour brain what to pay attention
to, what matters, what whatshould you be motivated to do,
and what should you not.
And in addiction, that is themain place that gets rewired for
the worse, where um it getsrewired so that the brain thinks
that it needs the substance, sayalcohol or heroin or whatever,
(37:47):
it needs the substance,otherwise it cannot be okay.
It's because it's intrict, it'sso and and the key here is
artificiality or artificialness,whatever the word is, where
where something is so itartificially stimulates that
region of your brain so stronglythat it tells your brain, hey,
this is critical for yoursurvival.
(38:08):
Because the whole point of thatpathway is to help you be
attracted to to doing thingsthat help your survival, like
food and and sex and so on.
And so when you are in thatstate, your brain thinks that
the drug is necessary forsurvival, and then just like
hunger, like you you literallyfeel this like hunger of I need
(38:31):
this thing.
Just like when we get hungry, wefeel like we need food.
We when we get thirsty, we needwater.
And that is a genuine need, andwhen we feel it adds a need that
will push out all otherdecisions until we get it, for
the most part.
Same with substances, only it'sfake.
It was never actually a need.
You didn't need that thing forsurvival, but your brain now has
been wired to think it does.
(38:52):
And bringing all this to digitalmedia is that that same thing
essentially happens with variousforms of digital media.
Not to the same extent, becauseit's not it's not like heroin
where you get this like massivedopamine rush that's like orders
of magnitude higher thananything natural.
But we do get like a tiny we geta kick.
So each each little kick is notis not massive, but kick after
(39:16):
kick after kick after kick stillrewires that part of your brain
to start to feel like this thingis necessary for your survival
to some extent or another.
And that's where the compulsioncomes from.
Like, because you feel thisneed, it feels like you need it
for survival.
Now you're gonna use itcompulsively, you're gonna seek
it out desperately sometimes,just like we do food.
(39:38):
And that then is made even worseif so there's there's positive
reinforcement of this feelsgood, but there's also negative
reinforcement where this helpsme avoid the the bad feelings,
it helps me avoid the pain.
That happens in drug addictiontoo, you know, where withdrawal
is a major reason that peopleuse is just to avoid the
withdrawal feelings, thenegative feelings.
(39:59):
And same with digital media,like you were just describing,
where people say it's like, hey,I need I need this escape, I
need this way to numb out, Ineed this way to not feel my
feelings, I need this way to notbe bored, I need this way to
feel like I'm actually connectedwith people and not lonely.
And so people can be avoidingthose negatives too.
Dan sometimes calls it thepacifier.
(40:20):
It's like adult pacifier for us.
We're like, we're we needsomething to to suck on, to
soothe on.
Yes.
And so when you combine both thethe positive, like positive
reinforcement of like, hey, thisis kind of pleasurable and fun
and novelty and all that, whenyou combine that with the help,
hey, it helps me avoid thenegatives of life, then it does
(40:42):
rewire that part of your brainsimilarly, but to a much lesser
extent, than drugs of addictiondo.
SPEAKER_01 (40:50):
And uh, I want to play on that, the the social
aspect as well.
We're very social creatures.
We are massively socialcreatures.
We we lived in tribes for many,many, many thousands of years.
And so being part of a tribe andbeing accepted by that tribe
were crucial to our survivalbecause we we couldn't survive.
If you got cast out of thetribe, you were basically dead.
(41:12):
Um, and so being a part of thetribe, it was a massive
important aspect to our brainthat's still locked into our
brains today.
So getting likes, gettingfollowers, getting views.
Our psyche just goes off thecharts uh because we feel
validated, we feel part of thegroup, we feel uh together
(41:35):
because of those aspects.
And obviously, the social mediahas played into that deeply to
make sure that we get that warmand fuzzy feeling and we keep
checking back to make sure howmany likes do I got now, how
many views do I got, how how uhyou know what's my impact of
this kind of stuff, because wefeel validated from that very
(41:55):
much aspect of all of thisstuff.
We are social creatures.
FOMO is real.
Fear of missing out on what'shappening out there in the
world, even if it's on the otherside of the planet, we need to
talk about it, we need toconnect on it, we need to
discuss it, we need all thatkind of stuff.
SPEAKER_02 (42:12):
And to and to add to that, too, that there's so much
that is explained by what Danjust said.
Because why do we like, if wewatch a movie and then we go
read about the comments aboutit, or watch a YouTube video and
we go read the comments.
Why?
Because we want to share thatreaction, we want to share that
experience with somebody.
We want to like experience it asa shared moment, as a as a
(42:35):
shared story.
And if there's no one else totalk to right next to us, then
we find the next best thing,which is these artificial
anonymized comments on onYouTube.
Or it's the reason why, likereaction videos.
Why do we care how some personwe've never known how they're
reacting to something thathappened in the news, to a
current event, or to a movie?
(42:55):
Why do we care?
Because sharing a reaction withsomebody also stimulates you
know that need to have socialconnection and validation and
and whatnot.
But the problem is it's allartificial.
Like it's not like it's well, iti I shouldn't say all
artificial.
I mean it's real to some extent.
There's usually a real personthere, though sometimes it's
(43:15):
bots.
But your brain, like the thesatisfaction, the deep
satisfaction and joy andconnection that comes from like
a face-to-face, person-to-personinteraction, we especially ones
where you can actually touch theother person and you know, smell
them and hear see theirreactions, like their entire
body language and everything.
(43:37):
That is just on a completelydifferent plane from, oh,
somebody made a comment and Ijust see some words on a page.
And so we we accept kind ofthese like artificial, bare
minimum versions of socialconnection because that's what
our brain has become hard to do,because the real thing feels
uncomfortable or unattainable oror whatever.
(43:58):
But that's what we are.
Trying to do is get people tosay, like, you know, there's
nothing like it's not likeeverything that's online is is
bad or or wrong or anything, butthere's a better way to do it.
There's a better way to makereal connection, there's a
better way to spend your time,there's better ways that you can
(44:18):
make memories and stories,there's better ways to have to
learn control and to to learntoo.
People spend so much time onlinejust learning junk
ineffectively, inefficiently.
There's better ways to learn.
And all these things that youknow they have an online
version, but there are morereal, more healthy versions to
(44:40):
be had.
Yeah.
Well, I mean I think that oh, goahead, sorry.
SPEAKER_01 (44:43):
I was just gonna say that's a perfect segue to our
hundred days, hundred ways ofexactly why we're pulling this
challenge off for people.
Because exactly what Dan justmentioned is like real life
experiences is more valuablethan online.
Online's not bad necessarily,not horrible, but living in real
life and being present with yourfamily, friends, and people in
(45:05):
real life, and not checking yourwatch and not checking your
phone, and having a boating daywith not worrying about work and
not worrying about your traumafrom the past and being present
in that moment is key.
And so we wanted to have thehundred days, 100 ways challenge
to get off your devices and livein the real life, experience
real life connections, dosomething together in person is
(45:28):
more meaningful.
SPEAKER_00 (45:29):
Yeah, and I I wanna so there's I want to actually
come back to that because I Iwant to talk a little bit more
about that.
But really quickly, one of thethings, so one of the things
that I've learned, you know, asa mother is that there's a for
for young men, it's gaming isseems to be a bigger draw.
And for young women, it's socialmedia.
So it's not always the same.
I know that there's lots ofyoung women who play social, you
(45:50):
know, play video games and thereare young men on social media,
but but by and large, the thehuge draw for young men is is
gaming, and the huge draw foryoung women is social media.
And for young men, they aredrawn to, you know, this these
gaming things because there areyou're accomplishing things in
there and you're getting therewards from doing it in a way
(46:13):
that doesn't require the samelevel of effort that it does in
the real world.
And so, you know, like buildinga house would take a tremendous
amount of physical effort, andyou know, and it would be a lot
of sweat and a lot of, you know,but it's there's a lot of things
that you're uh developing withinyourself as you go through the
process of building the house,physical, mental, you know,
emotional.
(46:34):
There's a lot of a lot of thingsthat you gain in that process,
but it takes a tremendous amountof work and a long time.
However, in social media, likeMinecraft, for example, you can
build a house really quick.
You just go out and, you know,click some buttons and and you,
you know, mine some ore and you,you know, and I I've never been
able to play that.
I've tried really hard with playkids, but I can't get I can't
(46:54):
get the game.
But they're but they're buildinghuge things.
They're building these massive,you know, cities and they're
having all of the emotional, youknow, get all this emotional
feedback.
And like you were saying, it'sartificial, but but it feels
real in a lot of ways becausethey don't know what it feels
like to actually build a house.
They don't know what that thatprocess feels like.
So they don't know what the realfeelings are of accomplishment.
(47:16):
And they also don't know whatthe real intense effort that
goes into it is.
And the same thing on the socialmedia side that we can have the,
we can curate our image in a waythat gets the reactions that we
want from other people withouthaving to take any of the risks.
There's no, there's no risk,there's no learning from a bad
experience.
There's no, you know, you don'thave the, you know, it, I mean,
(47:38):
there's all kinds of risk onsocial media still.
I'm not saying that there's norisk, but it's not the same kind
of thing.
It's a very artificial situationsocially.
And so you don't develop and youdon't learn how to develop, like
learn how to get, you know, totake social cues from people.
You don't learn how to likepresent yourself in a socially
acceptable way.
You don't learn how to, youknow, so there's there's all
(48:00):
it's the same kind of thing likebuilding a house.
It's the same kind of thing inthe, you know, your experience
socially in a in a physicalworld is takes a lot more effort
and a lot more risk, but theirthe reward is so much higher
because you're actually gettingthe the real emotional feedback
from real emotional connection,physical connection, emotional
(48:21):
connection, you know, visualconnection.
And so the challenge that Ithink with, especially if
somebody has spent you know mostof their life on social media is
helping them to develop thedesire and the skills to be able
to interact with the world in areal way, in a real way, you
know, on a consistent basis.
So I'm assuming that that'swhere you're going with this 100
(48:43):
days, 100 ways challenge,because it it is, I I recently
went through with my youngest.
I had I was recognizing,especially when I was reading
this book, I was realizing likehow many mistakes I've made as a
mom with my older kids, with youknow, allowing as much as I did,
with, you know, I didn't want, Ididn't want them missing out on,
(49:04):
you know, being on social mediaand stuff.
I didn't want them missing, youknow.
I tried to put restrictions, butit was really hard to like find
a way to allow and restrict atthe same time.
So with my younger one, Ithought, this is not there, the
cost-benefit analysis is showingme that there is way more risk
than than benefit.
And so we just detox completely,you know, we stopped, we stopped
(49:25):
video games, we stopped, youknow, she will not have an
iPhone until she's 18.
I, you know, and I'm not, Idon't feel like that's extreme
anymore.
And now that I'm seeing, youknow, the issues, I'm so
thankful for Gab.
So she can still have a phoneand still connect with people
like text and stuff like that,but she doesn't have social
media.
She won't have it until she's18.
But I I want to talk aboutbecause it was it was a painful
(49:48):
experience for her.
Like I almost felt like aphysically painful experience
for her when we were detoxing.
And it took months.
You know, the first month wasthe worst by far, but it took
months for her to be able tostart to feel comfortable doing
other things besides being onscreens.
And it took months for her tofeel comfortable like with the
(50:09):
social interactions and learninghow to look people in the eyes.
And, you know, there's a lot ofthings that I realized that she
was struggling with because Imade mistakes as a mom in
allowing her to have too muchaccess to video games and
YouTube and things, things likethat.
So let's talk now about.
So I want to talk about, I wantto talk about your hundred days,
hundred ways.
I want to talk about what youdo, why people come to you in
(50:31):
the first place and what you doto help them.
Because I think that people needto know that resources like
yours are out there.
I think a lot of times we'retrying so hard to control this
in ourselves and figure out howto control it for our kids.
And it feels like a losingbattle, and we don't really know
what we're doing, especially ifwe're struggling with the
addiction ourselves.
So, why do why did you startyour company?
(50:52):
How why do people come to you?
What can you do to help?
Gonna go for one first.
SPEAKER_01 (50:56):
Oh, right.
Well, yeah, I'm happy to jumpin.
Yeah, for sure.
I agree.
First of all, don't blameyourself.
You know, it it it it's again,it it is it's an ever-evolving
process.
Now, uh one thing to know and tounderstand it, so our brains are
immaculate at evolving to thecurrent status, right?
This the status quo, whateverthe status quo is, our brains
(51:18):
will try to rationalize that.
But you got to remember, we'vebeen this form of brain has
evolved for millions of yearsinto what it is now.
And only in the last 20 ofmillions of years of evolution
have we had to deal with thisproblem.
And so it's a new problem.
And we're trying to wrap ourminds around it.
(51:38):
Again, we evolve quickly, butnot that quickly.
So, yeah, it it can control usin ways that we fully don't
understand.
It's about bringing thatknowledge to light, is where I
think people can come to us andsay, enlighten us, you know,
because knowledge is power.
And once you understand it, justlike you you have, is once you
(51:59):
understand the data, you makedifferent decisions because now
you understand the data.
So 100% that's one thing that welove to do is empower people,
you know, small to mediumbusinesses, to individuals, to
whoever wants to come our way,to understand the data and
understand how it is reallyaffecting the brains and to
again get this data in front ofpeople, uh, and then they make
(52:23):
different decisions.
So a lot of times people willcome to us and again, the first
some of the first things you dois just turn off notifications.
Stop getting notificationsbecause again, it's that buzz,
that beep, that ding that'scontrolling us.
So the the other second half ofthat is gaining back control,
like we talked about at thebeginning.
So having the knowledge to makethose decisions to gain back
(52:45):
control, I think are the keysteps for sure of what we can
provide people to ensure that A,you understand the science, the
data, B, you understand what todo next, and now you're
empowered to go do it yourself,and then see how it changes your
life.
Because some of the things thatI love to see is the
testimonials of people of like,hey, I cut this out, and holy
(53:07):
cow, I feel so much better.
That's what we love.
You know, because we theultimate goal is to help improve
people's lives, you know.
That's that's really like, yeah,we're trying to change the
world.
Is a big lofty goal, sure.
But how do we break that downinto edible bites and pieces of
like this is one way we can doit?
(53:28):
So that's why we're attackingit, Dr.
Dan.
SPEAKER_02 (53:31):
Absolutely.
Yeah, we we're really trying tobuild a movement because and and
uh not just us, obviously,there's there's lots of people
in this space, but but whatthere isn't is a coherent social
movement of digital mastery.
And especially with all thenuances that we've talked about,
where some people are like justdon't use tech at all.
We don't agree with that.
Other people are like, um, youknow, just it it's all it's it's
(53:56):
it's a behavioral problem.
Like you just need more control,and we don't agree with that
either.
The problem is not yourbehavior, the problem is the
manipulative, manipulativedesign, and our behavior is the
solution to that problem.
And so what we're trying to dois is to unite um people who are
already in this space and allthe parents, all the educators,
(54:18):
all the individuals who arelike, I see this in my students,
I see this in my children, I seethis in me, I see this in my
team, like in professionalsettings of just like all the
ways that digital media iscontrolling them and taking away
their time, taking away theirsocial capacity, taking away
their their cognitive skills tolike learn and remember and
(54:39):
focus, taking away theirphysical health as they just
become you know these littlecouch gnomes or whatever hunched
over.
And and like what we're tryingto do is make it so that people
have knowledge of what ofunderstanding the true problem,
as Dan is just saying, we needto understand that it's not your
fault that what what is the truesource of the problem and also
(55:01):
the severity of the problem.
A lot of people only recognize,well, yeah, I I zone out on
TikTok occasionally, but itdoesn't affect me much.
And then but if you actuallylike let me see their life, it's
like ruining their sleep and andso many and the work
productivity and so manydifferent things.
So yeah, awareness is a hugepiece of what we do.
That's how we start our ourbusiness trainings.
(55:21):
We have things like what we callthe digital mastery initiative
for companies and teams to helpthem get their team back in
control of the of the digitaloverwhelm.
We have programs like what wecall in your hands.
It's basically how do you learnthe skills to do something about
this?
Because awareness is the firststep, but then how do you do
(55:42):
something about it?
You know, how do you go frombeing controlled by it to no, I
don't need it.
I can do it if I want, I canabsolutely still choose, choose
all you want, but I won't becontrolled by it.
And there's a a whole set ofskills there that can be
learned.
There's things that can rewireyour brain, and so our In Your
Hands program is a 10-weekcohort-based program that makes
(56:05):
it so that people can go throughand learn those skills as they
change their digital media lifeand habits week after week after
week.
And and at the top of it all isour Hundred Days, Hundred Ways
program, because for a lot ofpeople it's it's maybe not
something that they're like, Oh,I really want to, you know, hire
a professional help for this inany form, but it's maybe just
(56:25):
rediscovering some joy andfinding those those stories,
those shared moments with otherpeople, those memories that
they've been missing out on,maybe haven't even realized how
much they've been missing themuntil we point it out and say,
you know, when was the last timeyou w you went and made a memory
with your best friend or yourkids or whatever?
SPEAKER_01 (56:43):
And was the last time you went to dinner and
didn't have your phone with you?
SPEAKER_02 (56:48):
Yeah.
Yeah.
Or we went to a concert and youjust took in the music instead
of recording it.
And so all these things thatthat with hundred days, hundred
ways, it's just a challenge toin 100 days collect as many real
life experiences as you can.
You don't have to do allhundred.
You can join late, you can skipdays, doesn't matter.
(57:09):
The point is just collect asmany real life experiences as
you can in that in that time.
And as we've like been doing itand sharing it with people, you
know, people are starting togive us stories of it's like,
oh, I did this thing that Inever like one person went
firewalking on hot coals, neverthought that they could do that
in their life, but they did it.
You know, sometimes it's peoplejust like, oh, I went and took a
(57:30):
nap.
I don't let myself do thatenough.
For other people, it's oh we I wwe went to a show with my our
our kids and it like it was likethe best day of their life, you
know.
And all these like differentlevels of things, but the common
denominator is just it's not ona screen.
You're going out and you'rebeing present in real life and
(57:51):
rediscovering the joys of that.
And so we we designed thischallenge to be something that
people could just do to alittle, do a lot.
You know, there's there'snothing paid in it.
There's it's just a free publicchallenge that everyone can do
and can do with their families,with their friends, with their t
teams, whatever it is, and comeback to real life.
(58:14):
And our our our motto there isscroll less to live more.
SPEAKER_00 (58:18):
Yeah, and that's incredible.
And I I think to go back to youryou you're you know, you're
you're not anti-technology, butwe want to make technology our
tool, not allow it to become ourmaster.
We don't want it to to controlour lives, we don't want it to
overcome us, we don't want touse it to medicate ourselves,
(58:39):
you know, self-medication or orto avoid or to become an
artificial, you know, you know,existence.
We want to learn how to utilizethe tools in effective ways and
live our lives in real ways.
And one of the things I workwith was, you know, as I work
with my people, we don't I trynot to use language like good
(59:02):
and bad.
I try to use language likehealthy and unhealthy because
because language like good andbad often can carries, you know,
connotations of judgment thatoften are harmful to us, you
know, like I'm I'm a goodperson, I'm a bad person, you
know, no, no, no.
I are is it is this a healthychoice?
Is this uh an unhealthy choice?
You know, am I approaching thisin a healthy way or is this an
(59:23):
unhealthy way?
You know, and looking at itthrough that lens, and and
because we hope we want to behealthy people.
I hope I want to be, you know, II want to choose to be healthy.
I want to choose to approachlife in a healthy way.
I want to have healthyrelationships, I want to have
healthy interactions, you know.
And so I love, I love thishundred days, hundred ways, and
(59:44):
I'm actually super intrigued byit.
I want to do it myself and Iwant to invite my audience to do
the same thing.
I think it would be an amazingthing to not just do it, but
share it with other people sothat we have, because there's
there is tremendous power insocial, in social interaction
with people.
And I I think that it's there'sa lot of value when we are
(01:00:04):
sharing experiences where we areworking towards something
together, you know, where we'reworking towards greater
connection, greater, you know,healthier ways of living,
healthier ways of being.
And and that that is those areways to really strong develop
strong relationships, healthyrelationships with people is
when we're working towardssomething good, you know,
healthy together.
(01:00:25):
See, I even use that languagesometimes myself, but but I I
would love for people to knowhow do they how do they start
with the challenge?
How do we get started with that?
SPEAKER_02 (01:00:34):
Yeah, very simple.
Just go to Cortex Evolution, andthat's that's evolution, by the
way, not revolution, commonmistake that people make.
Go to Cortex Evolution.com slash100, the numbers one zero zero.
unknown (01:00:49):
Perfect.
SPEAKER_02 (01:00:49):
And that that basically just gives you
everything you need, because itjust has the the rules, the the
descriptions of you know what itis and what it isn't, as well as
a starter guide for 63 ideas toget you started.
But we also want people to getcreative with their own ideas.
So if people just go tocortexevolution.com slash 100,
that'll give them everythingthey need to get started.
SPEAKER_00 (01:01:11):
And I noticed in Dan Peterson, in your bio, it had
hashtag 100 days, 100 ways.
Do you guys have that?
Is that your hashtag?
Yeah.
So I I invite anybody who'swho's listening who decides to
try this.
If you're gonna post anything,make sure you do use that
hashtag so that we can see whatyou're doing, so that we can
connect with you in that way.
That's a healthy way, I think,of connecting with each other is
(01:01:34):
as we're doing things together,we want to we want to share it
and we want to use those, theseare great tools if we use them
as a tool and not allow it tobecome our master.
So let's not be afraid of it,but let's learn how to use it in
a wise way.
And if somebody wants to learnmore about the things that
you're talking about, you know,if they want to learn more
about, you know, how harmfulthis can be and and what the
(01:01:55):
dangers are and what we can doabout it, how do they find you?
What what kind of resources doyou offer to people that want to
start working with you?
SPEAKER_02 (01:02:02):
Best way is just going to cortexevolution.com.
We have everything there, moreor less, though it's always a
work in progress.
But that's how people can canfind us for the Hundred Day
Challenge for our businesstrainings that we do on this
topic for in your hands, and andthen they can start to learn
some of these skills.
Because as you say, it's it'snot, you know, there's there's
(01:02:23):
positive aspects, healthyaspects, and there's negative
aspects to it.
And it it's like smoking wasback in the day, except if
smoking had half of it that washealthy.
So it's it's like a complicatedfield where there's a lot of
nuance, there's a lot of, youknow, how can we really master
this and still have it be partof our lives in a useful way,
(01:02:43):
but not let it control us.
And so that that's what all ofour programs are about.
SPEAKER_00 (01:02:48):
Perfect.
Okay, I'm going to invite eachof you.
If there's one thing that youwant people to take away from
today, what is the one thingthat you would hope that they
would take away?
And I'm sorry to put it feels alittle bit like pressure to
think.
I'll give you just a second tothink about it.
But and I don't know who wantsto go first, but if it what's
the one thing that you hopepeople will take away from
today?
What's one thing they can do?
What's one thing that you wantthem to think about?
(01:03:10):
What's something that you wouldhope that they'd take away from
our conversation?
SPEAKER_01 (01:03:13):
Yeah.
I'm easy to go first because II've said it m multiple times
throughout the the podcast here.
It's definitely control.
You know, take your controlback, take control back over
your life.
Your brain thrives on control.
It wants to be in control.
You, it's called metacognition,can think about your own
thoughts and be in control ofyour own brain.
(01:03:35):
So it's controlling the control,right?
Uh it's definitely theself-mastery is key.
Again, your mindset, yourself-mastery, your your
perspective is everything.
If you change your perspective,you can change your life.
You can get back to thatcontrol.
And getting back into control isdefinitely something I want your
(01:03:56):
listeners to think about.
SPEAKER_02 (01:03:57):
For me, I would say my invitation would be in the
spirit of 100 days, 100 ways, goout and try to replace one
digital activity with a reallife one.
And pay a lot of attention tohow it feels.
Because if you actually payattention to how these things
feel, like when you get past thecompulsive nature and
everything, how does it feel?
(01:04:19):
Does it feel better?
Are you more glad that youscrolled on TikTok for an hour?
Or would you have been feelingbetter, felt happier, felt more
joyful, and be more glad thatyou went out and watched the
sunset?
SPEAKER_00 (01:04:34):
That's amazing.
I know.
And it it's funny, when we whenyou become when you're when you
feel like you're dependent onsocial media or digital media,
you know, video games and thingslike that, it's it's like we
can't remember how to have life,how to do life without it, you
know.
And when I was when I wasdetoxing my daughter, I had to
work really hard to make likelists, like, hey, what can we do
(01:04:56):
if, you know, instead of doingthese things, we've got to find
other things to do.
And I had to do a lot of stuffwith her at first to help her
learn how to do other things,you know, like we we bought, we
started buying board games andwe started, you know, we got a
lot of art supplies, and I wastaking her to the library all
the time and things because andI and I needed to sit with her
to do a lot of the thingsbecause she hadn't developed a
(01:05:18):
lot of those skills.
Because and this is like superembarrassing to admit, but I
think I'm not the only parentout there who like got sucked
into this and and before werealized it, we were like way
down the rabbit hole.
And we're like, this is notwhere I want to be with my
family.
So, but I have to say, like,once you wake that creative part
of a child's brain back up, it'sit then then it's just it goes
(01:05:40):
on its own.
It's this perpetual motionthing.
Like, you don't have to do itanymore.
I don't have to feed her ideas.
She's got all kinds of thingsthat she does on her own now,
and very happy.
And it's like her, she it's likeshe blossomed overnight.
You know, I her personality cameout in ways that I'd never seen
before.
She was much more calm and andyou know, handles things, you
know, takes things in stridemuch more easily.
(01:06:02):
She's much more emotionallyresilient.
So I strongly urge people totake advantage of the resources
that these, you know, the danshave to offer.
Go to Cortex Evolution andplease try the 100 days, 100
ways challenge.
I'm going to do it and I'm goingto share.
I'll use the hashtag as I'mdoing things.
But I invite you to participatein the resources that they have
(01:06:25):
to offer because I think that itwill absolutely benefit you,
help you to live a healthier,happier life.
Thank you so much for joining metoday.
This has been fantastic.
SPEAKER_02 (01:06:36):
Thank you, Michelle.
That's what we're all about iswe're helping helping people
remember how good it feels to bein real life and to regain the
control so that they can makethat stick.
SPEAKER_00 (01:06:46):
Yeah.
And I will make sure there,you're all of your links are in
the show notes.
So if anybody is is wondering,you don't have to figure out how
to how to type that in.
It'll be linked in the shownotes.
All right.
Thank you so much.
Wonderful.
Thank you so much.
Thank you so much.
Until next time, upsiders.
(01:07:09):
Thanks for joining me on theUpside of Bipolar.
Your journey to recoverymatters, and I'm grateful you're
here.
For more resources, visitwww.theupsideofbipolar.com.
If you're ready to dive deeper,grab my book, The Upside of
Bipolar (01:07:23):
Seven Steps to Heal Your Disorder.
If you're ready to heal yoursymptoms, join my monthly
membership, The Upsiders Tribe,to transform chaos into hope.
Until next time, Upsiders
Sleep, motivation, focus, memory, relationships,
it's all degraded by um so muchof what we get exposed to
through various forms of digitalmedia.
What we're trying to do is like,you know, break people out of
that cycle essentially that youjust described, where what you
intend to do and what youactually do have this huge gap.
We don't care how much youintend to do something.
(00:30):
You want to scroll on Facebookfor six hours and you actually
want that, then by all means, doit.
But what we care about is whenpeople want to do one thing and
their brain gets tricked intodoing another thing, like you
just described, because of theway that it's all designed to
trick our brains, that's the gapthat we're trying to close.
SPEAKER_00 (00:50):
Welcome to the Upside of Bipolar, where we
uncover the true sources ofbipolar symptoms and share
proven tools for recovery.
I'm your host, MichelleReitinger, number one
international best-sellingauthor of the Upside of Bipolar
Seven Steps to Heal YourDisorder.
In this podcast, I bring yousolo insights from my journey
and guest interviews withleading researchers and experts.
(01:11):
Join us to transform chaos intohope and reclaim your life.
Let's heal together.
(01:35):
So Dr.
Dan Lathan and Dan Peterson withme today.
Dr.
Dan Lathan is a professor andcognitive performance specialist
with a PhD in neuroscience and abackground in addiction research
and recovery.
He's spoken at professionalconferences on brain health and
digital overuse.
Through his company, CortexEvolution, he's designed
(01:55):
interactive programs that helppeople rebuild cognitive skills
in today's green saturated worldand coaches individuals to
rewire their brains for strongermemory, motivation, and mental
control.
His work draws from research onneuroplasticity, habit change,
and emotional resilience, and apersonal passion passion for
protecting what makes us human.
(02:16):
Dan Peterson, my other guest, isa Utah-based certified
neurochange practitioner and theco-founder of Cortex Evolution,
where he leverages neuroscience,neuroplasticity, an executive
function to help individuals andorganizations optimize cognitive
performance.
Building on a robust backgroundin corporate digital wellness,
Dan actively consults withmid-market businesses to
(02:39):
establish healthy deviceboundaries, reduce employee app
fatigue, and drive intentionaltechnology use.
Alongside his work at CortexRevolution, he serves as a
partner at Futura Med and MasterLicensee with NeuroChange
Institute, utilizing his deepunderstanding of brain mechanics
to develop practical,cognitive-focused meditation
(03:01):
frameworks and leadcommunity-driven initiatives
like 100 Ways Digital FreedomChallenge.
So I am so excited to have thetwo of you on today.
I've been really looking forwardto this interview, and I cannot
wait to share what you have toshare with our audience.
I think it's going to befantastic.
Thank you so much for joining metoday.
Likewise.
Thank you, Michelle, for havingus.
We're really excited to be here.
(03:23):
All right.
So we are going to begin like wealways do and have you guys tell
us our your story.
SPEAKER_01 (03:29):
I'll go first.
Sounds great.
Like the introduction uh saidDr.
Dan uh to Dr.
Dan Peterson.
I met Dr.
Dan Lathan.
I'm a tech guy, been in tech formany years.
We met at a tech conference andwe were talking about digital
overwhelm, and we just connecteddeeply on that fact.
And one day you just wake up andyou just realize how much it's
(03:53):
got its, you know, its claws inyou and how much it controls you
rather than it controlling them.
And we definitely connected overthe the neuroscience side of
things as well, where one of ourgoals for sure is taking back
control over your brain, yourown brain.
Imagine that you could not havecontrol over your own brain, but
(04:14):
it sure feels like thatsometimes.
And so getting back control isone of our big keys, and we
connected on that and kind ofgrew cortex evolution to be what
it is today, to again try toempower people to gain control
back over their own lives.
And this is just one small step,but it is a massive one because
(04:36):
we've kind of filtered it downto if you can control this,
there's so many other, you know,dominoes that fall into place as
soon as you start controllingthis one aspect of your life,
you start feeling mental freedomcome back to your life.
You start feeling free again,you start feeling back in
control, you start feeling likeyou can take on the world
(04:58):
instead of being overwhelmed byit.
That, along with, you know, likeI said, you just wake up one day
in your 40s, typically how itoccurs for a lot of people.
Hopefully sooner rather thanlater for some people.
I got deep into meditation.
I I wanted to, again, getcontrol back over your own
mental state.
Again, the life kind of feelsoverwhelming sometime, and how
(05:21):
to break out of that, you wantto connect back into your own
brain and be able to control it.
And those little things of beingable to build space in between
the initial reaction to thestimuli, whatever it be out in
the world, if you can build justa little bit of buffer of in
(05:44):
between what's happening outthere, like yelling at your kids
or you know, flying off thestress of work, something like
that.
So meditation helps you buildthat gap in in that.
And again, it was really fun towork with a neuroscientist
because it is like, is thisreal?
Is this all legit?
And it and it is.
(06:05):
It it totally is.
And that's where we try to marrywhat we call like the woo, the
meditation and the the very muchethereal thought processes that
have been practiced formillennia to the very much
neuroscience and scientificaspects of our brains and how
they function on a daily basis.
(06:26):
So that's a little bit about mystory and and why I'm I'm so
passionate about this workbecause it's helped me uh and we
really want to just reach outand help everyone else out there
get to the same place.
SPEAKER_00 (06:36):
Awesome.
Dr.
Diane?
SPEAKER_02 (06:38):
Yeah, so I'll I'll start even before his his start.
So I started my PhD on the hopesthat I could help people with
neuroscience of understandingthe brain and how we can master
it to improve our lives.
And at the time I was studyingaddiction, researching
addiction, and didn't honestlyfeel like I was helping people
in academia because I waswriting a lot of you know papers
(07:00):
and grants that I felt like, andI'm pretty sure to this day,
will never actually like helppeople in a practical way.
And so after my PhD, I I, oractually during my PhD, don't
tell my advisor this, but duringmy PhD, I became a learning and
memory coach through a differentcompany and discovered how much
I loved that because I was like,hey, I get to take stuff like
(07:23):
other research about how welearn and remember things and
actually apply it in real ways,practical ways, to help people
every day.
And so I loved that.
And after I graduated, I thendecided to start the company,
Cortex Evolution.
And before I met Dan, it wasactually really just about kind
of more general brain masteryof, you know, learning and
(07:44):
memory, uh, focus, sleep,motivation, all these things
that were interconnected and uhhelpful.
But basically, the the very dayI met Dan was the first day that
I gave a presentation on digitalmedia and how and its effects on
our brains.
And I had this, this like thiskind of like oh shit moment
(08:05):
where I realized that everythingI'd been helping people with is
negatively affected by ourdigital media culture and how it
manipulates and tricks ourbrains, right?
And like sleep, motivation,focus, memory, relationships,
it's all degraded by so much ofwhat we get exposed to through
various forms of digital media.
And so it was that day that Ikind of essentially shifted
(08:27):
everything to focus on that.
And it and it's funny thatyou're asking us about our
stories, because what I'verealized in just the past few
months is how important storiesare, the stories of like our
lives, the stories of my life,your life, Dan's life.
And digital media tends to takethose away from us because it
prevents us from getting out inreal life and making memories.
(08:51):
It prevents us from improvingourselves, growing ourselves, it
prevents us from connecting withother people in ways where we
are can creating stories in thefirst place and having the
chance to share them with otherpeople.
Like share them as you and I aresharing right now, but also
share them as and create themtogether in real time.
(09:12):
And so that's what I'm that'swhat we are ultimately trying to
help people do is you know getback control and get back their
stories.
SPEAKER_00 (09:19):
Yeah.
So I want to talk a little bitabout how we met each other and
like why I was so excited tohave you guys on my podcast.
When I met the two of you andyou were telling me about what
you were doing, it was the firsttime that I'd heard of somebody
doing something like this.
And it's interesting becausesince I've since I've met you,
I've started to see more peopleout there trying to do similar
types of things, like apps thatare trying to help people get
(09:42):
off, you know, their theirphones, which is kind of
counterintuitive.
You know, got an app on yourphone that's trying to help you
get off your phone.
Right.
But but I think that it's a realneed because the people I work
with and my my own personalexperience and then also the
people I work with, we whenyou're struggling with your
mental health, it it's kind ofit's it's a little bit like what
came first, the chicken or theegg kind of situation.
(10:04):
Like, did we, did our use ofsocial media cause the mental
health issues, or are we usingthe social media because we have
mental health issues?
And I think that the answer isboth.
Like the both of them, they'refeeding off of each other.
I, when I was younger, we didn'thave social media.
When I was diagnosed withbipolar back in 1998, I there
(10:25):
was no social media back then.
So my go-to coping mechanism wastelevision and movies.
And so when I was struggling andin distress, I would dissociate.
And I've started learning nowwhat it is truly is
dissociation.
We're trying to escape thereality we're in because it's
uncomfortable.
And so we're going somewhere,we're taking our brain somewhere
else, right?
And and so I developed, I woulddevelop these compulsive, this
(10:49):
compulsive need to watchtelevision or or movies.
As over the years, that thatdeveloped into a compulsive need
to be on social media, you know,like scrolling through YouTube
or scrolling through, you know,Instagram and those kinds of
things.
And I I've spent I spent a lotof time like trying to, you
know, trying to set boundariesfor myself and put a lot, you
(11:10):
know, things on my phone toprevent me from getting on
there.
And and I started understandinglike I need to heal the trauma
that I'm trying to escape.
You know, I'm there's a lot ofthings that needed to go into
it.
But but I want to talk about oneof the challenges that is
created by social media that youkind of talked a little bit
about, but I want to talk a bitmore about this, is that the
algorithms are designedspecifically to keep us on them.
(11:33):
You know, the algorithms for,you know, for social media, for
YouTube, for even for streamingservices.
When I was a kid, you had towait for episodes to come out of
a show.
Like there were only certaintimes that there was anything
decent to watch on TV, and thenyou had to wait for it to come
out.
And then they had, you know,recording things, you know, that
we have the VCR and things thatyou could record so you could
(11:55):
record things and watch itlater.
But now we've got streamingservices that will release
entire seasons of an of a showin one day and people will binge
the whole thing.
And it's designed to keep us onthe device.
So can you talk about that?
Because I think some of us knowkind of on an intellectual
level, but I don't think weunderstand on an emotional or
(12:16):
mental or you know, mentalhealth level what that's
actually doing.
When we get on those devices,there's a reason why we will,
you know, two or three hourslater, we're like, what the heck
just happened the last threehours of my life?
Like, how did I stay on there?
And the whole time you're like,I gotta get off of this, and
then you're like, just keepgoing.
So can you talk a little bitabout the science behind that
and why that's an issue?
(12:37):
And let's I I think if you haveany other thoughts from what
I've just said, sorry, that's Iit was a lot of things that I
just said.
But like this is why I'm soexcited to talk to you guys,
because there's so manydifferent aspects of what you do
that are people don't evenrealize that they need.
I think we knew we know a littlebit that we need it, but I don't
think we realize how much weneed what you're doing.
SPEAKER_02 (12:56):
Yeah, but maybe I can address that kind of one
piece at a time.
First of all, I do want toemphasize that we are absolutely
not anti-tech.
You know, this is literally job,Dan's job is tech.
And so you know, I use it allthe time.
We love tech for all of itsuses, but what what we're trying
to do is like, you know, breakpeople out of that cycle,
essentially, that you justdescribed, where what you intend
(13:17):
to do and what you actually dohave this huge gap.
Like we don't care how much youintend to do something.
You want to you want to scrollon Facebook for six hours and
you actually want that, then byall means, do it.
But what we care about is whenpeople want to do one thing and
their brain gets tricked intodoing another thing, like you
just described, because of theway that that it's all designed
to trick our brains, that's thegap that we're trying to close.
(13:40):
So that what we do is what weactually want to do.
And I also want to point out, ofcourse, that we're not just
interested in social media,actually.
We we can, as you also point outwith streaming, a lot of these
patterns show up in a lot ofdifferent digital media.
In fact, almost every type ofdigital media has them here or
there.
So there's there's kind ofpitfalls and and manipulative
(14:04):
techniques embedded into mostforms of digital media, whether
that's gaming, news, uh,messaging and emails, shopping,
TV, all these different things,you know, just scrolling, of
course, but also like websurfing in ways that you feel
like are helpful.
And then you realize you justspend three hours learning
about, you know, 17th centurytrebuchets, and you're like,
(14:27):
Yeah, I learned something, butthat's not what I'm like to be
to be doing with my time.
So so uh we're very much aboutyou know any form of digital
media and and even TV back inthe day, I think had a little
bit of this, but it wasdefinitely it's evolved and
morphed into a very differentanimal than it was back then.
(14:49):
I'm curious.
Uh I mean I'll I'll open thedoor for Dan if he has any
comments on that so far.
But I if you if it's helpful, Icould also kind of give some
examples of what thatmanipulation actually looks like
and why it's so influential toour brain so that you end up
spending three hours when youwant to do that.
SPEAKER_00 (15:05):
Yes, I actually think that would be super
helpful.
SPEAKER_01 (15:08):
Do you have any comments?
Yeah, launch I I would launchright into that.
Yeah, that that's because again,let's let's focus on the science
for a minute and then we can goto like the the peripherals for
sure.
SPEAKER_02 (15:17):
Okay.
Yeah, so to do this, I it'susually most helpful if I just
take you through kind of like ahypothetical situation.
So imagine if we have like ahypothetical teenager named
Tommy, and he's you know tryingto do homework in his room in
the evening, and he gets a buzzin his pocket from his phone.
Okay, that's actually amanipulation tactic because your
brain is wired to respond to anysudden touch.
(15:41):
It's either a threat, potentialthreat, or it's potential
pleasure.
And so your brain is like, oh,what is this thing buzzing?
That is a way that they get yourbrain's attention.
Then he sees Tommy sees anotification from an app and
that tells him he has a message.
Well, that notification, theyknow that your brain is as a
curiosity factor or anythingnovel or unknown, it wants to
(16:02):
know what it is.
And so, of course, he's gonnaopen that.
He wants to see what the whatthe notification is.
That notification was actuallysent at a time because of the
algorithms when they know thathe'll open it, so they don't
send it during school as much asthey send it once he's chilling
at home in the evening.
But he opens the notificationand he notices that it's
actually not a real message.
(16:22):
Sorry, Tommy, you don't yourfriend didn't actually message
you, it's just from the appitself that sent him some sort
of message to to get hisattention.
And then that it startsautoplaying a video.
Because if it's autoplay, likeyou know, how much how hard is
it to look away from somethingonce it's already playing?
If you've ever been in a roomwith like a show going off the
(16:42):
side while you're trying to talkto somebody, it's very hard to
look away from that show.
No matter how stupid it is, orhow you you have no idea what
the plot is, you still want towatch it because the movement,
again, is telling your brainthis could be important, it
could be a threat, it could bean opportunity.
That movement is verystimulating to your brain.
Anyway, then Tommy realizes hedoesn't actually like that
(17:04):
video, but since he's on theapp, there's all sorts of stuff
presented to his face now.
There's there's other videos andand posts that have clickbait
titles because those again rrely on exploiting our
curiosity.
He also, if he goes to his feed,and now he's in like ultra
danger zone because in the feed,they actually design posts,
(17:27):
first of all, so that they onlyfill up part of your screen.
And then there's another onethat's half shown beneath it.
That's because there's somethingcalled the zygarnic effect where
your brain wants to finishthings.
And so if you have if you havesomething that is unfinished,
then you scroll down to see theto finish it and see the next
one, but then there's anotherunfinished one that gets
revealed, right?
(17:47):
And so that then it justcontinues and you get into this
infinite loop of scrolling.
And as you can tell, we we'reonly in like, I don't know, what
did what are we at?
30 seconds into his experience,and he's been manipulated about
like half a dozen times already.
And then we could go on to talkabout, you know, the way that
they ex they throw out a lot ofemotionally provocative content
(18:08):
to either get us sad or angry,or even delighted sometimes.
Just things that activate theemotions and our amygdala so
that we want to stay engagedwith it.
There's all sorts of things likesexualization of things, there's
the the brief colors, thesounds, very brief, you know,
kind of sound bites, and thefact that they make things
(18:28):
shorter and shorter because thatgives more dopamine hits to your
brain, then that becomessomewhat of an addictive cycle.
And I'm gonna use that termcarefully as we go through this
conversation of what truly isaddiction.
But there's definitely overlapwhere your brain starts to crave
those little hits of dopaminethat come and starts to not be
as interested over time inreal-life dopamine and real-life
(18:53):
pleasures like connection withyour friends or the sunset or go
exercise or those kind ofthings.
And so it it manipulates yourbrain in the moment, and every
little hit of that is like adonut, it's like multiple donuts
every single day, where each oneis not a problem by itself, but
when you're doing you knowdozens of donuts a day, then it
(19:15):
starts to change your brain, andyour your brain becomes wired to
want and expect that and noteven know how to handle normal
life.
You know, you talked aboutdissociation, like maybe you
don't know how to handle theemotions of normal life.
Maybe you don't know how tohandle the social pressures of
normal life, maybe you don'tknow how to handle the focus of
like focusing on a task for 20minutes straight without I'm I
(19:38):
say that like that's a lot.
It's not a lot, right?
20 minutes, but in today's worldit kind of feels like a lot to
people.
And so the brain is manipulatedin the short term and over time
rewired.
Yeah.
SPEAKER_01 (19:49):
And uh we can take a tangent uh off this as well, uh,
following that same line uh ofreasoning and thought with
there's been a ton of studiesdone on social media, especially
now, right?
And this is why a lot of this isnow coming to light.
There has been time and effortdedicated into studying these
effects of digital media comingto our plate and different forms
(20:10):
of digital media, because it'sbeen the TV, right?
It's been let's say radio, TV,you know, internet, and social
media.
And those kind of evolution hashas definitely had an effect on
our psyche and how it affectsour psyche, along with, let's
take into account and pull thetangent of kids.
(20:32):
And just as Dr.
Dan was talking about, kids areespecially susceptible to this
kind of stuff because theirprefrontal cortex hasn't fully
developed until you're around 23to 25 years age, typically, uh
around that time frame.
And so kids are extremelysusceptible to this kind of
stuff because just as Dan wastalking about, it is attacking
the amygdala, the emotionalresponse, and kids are very
(20:54):
susceptible to emotionalresponses.
Their amygdala is a high part ofwhat's going on, because if a
lion or tiger or food or wateror resources like that, they
react very emotionally.
And thus the triggers that someof the social media is
triggering is very emotionalkind of triggers.
And so thus, kids are becomingespecially sucked into social
(21:18):
media, and that's why thedamages of social media have
been particularly highlightedand laws have been in place.
You'll see it across the globe.
Australia just banned socialmedia for anyone under 16, you
know, just last year.
And that's coming to fruition ina lot of states, and it's
probably going to come tofruition nationwide, and and it
(21:40):
multiple countries are enablingbans on social media for kids
under 13, for example.
They can't even make an accountfor that kind of stuff because
of these triggers Dan's talkingabout, that's happening to our
brains.
So the structure of our brainsreally matters, and that's why
things.
Things like meditation and otherthings, but getting a space
(22:04):
between stimuli and response issome of the keys because it
builds that prefrontal cortexmuscles, if you will, but it's
brain power to bring it from theamygdala back to the prefrontal
cortex and really analyze whatyou're seeing rather than react.
Because you'll see a lot ofpolitical stuff that will get
you enraged, right?
(22:25):
And bringing that emotionalresponse.
And now you're 30 levels deep ina in uh a thread arguing with
strangers over the internet.
I didn't want to be spending mytime with that today, but I am
enraged at this video that Ineed to reach out and put my
opinion out there, but that'snot what you wanted to do today.
(22:46):
That wasn't your plan to goonline and troll the internet,
you know, and be enraged andfight with some stranger across
the country on some video.
Like that kind of stuff isfascinating for us to watch
because it is very much likewhat what triggers someone to
get involved in this and thenlose hours of your day being
(23:07):
involved in this kind of stuffand thus lose your control.
SPEAKER_00 (23:12):
Well, and I also want to ask because something
that both of you have touched onum that I think is I don't know,
I'm sure there are people outthere talking about this, but I
don't think that I've everreally talked to anybody about
it is and I don't know if thisis a correct term, but like
emotional fatigue.
We're when we experience normal,healthy life, right, we're not
(23:33):
experiencing like these drapdramatic, intense shifts in our
emotional response, in our inour emotions over, you know, in
seconds, right?
We're we're in a situation, youknow, we might be, you know, if
you're outside on a hike withyour kids, you know, maybe
you're feeling, you know, peaceand you're feeling pleasure and
you're feeling like, you know,wow, what a beautiful world we
(23:55):
have to live in.
And you're feeling that for along period of time because
you're in the situation, you'reexperiencing the situation.
Or maybe you're in a reallydifficult situation with your
family and you're feeling reallyintense sadness.
You know, somebody died, and soeverybody together is feeling a
lot of sadness right now becauseof the situation you're in.
But when you're on social media,as you're scrolling through,
(24:16):
you're going from, you know,some goofy laughing, you know,
thing that makes you laugh andyou're laughing hysterically
because it's really funny.
And then the next thing issomebody that does something
that makes you really angry, youknow, and then you're going the
next thing you're going through,you know, the next video you're
watching is something reallyinteresting.
And then, you know, you're goingthrough and you're having these
like dramatic shifts that aremanipulative.
(24:37):
It's not, you're notexperiencing something in your
life that is causing theemotional response.
You're watching something onlinethat is designed to elicit an
emotional response.
And so you're going throughthese really intense emotional
shifts really quickly.
And I don't know what the, butit seems logically.
So I'd like to ask, you know,especially Dr.
(24:59):
Dan, if you have, if you'vestudied this, but that's not
normal.
Like that's not healthy for ourbrains to be experiencing that.
And it seems like it would bemore difficult to experience a
normal emotional response tosomething if your brain is like
experiencing this emotionalfatigue from being like
stimulated and to have theseintense emotional responses to
things that you're viewing.
(25:20):
And so that when you're in a,you know, a normal life
situation, you're, you know, itseems like it would mess your br
your ability to experienceemotional response in a healthy
way.
Is I mean, is that accurate?
SPEAKER_02 (25:31):
Yes, I would reframe it a tiny bit in the sense of
saying it makes it a lot harderto sit with an emotional
response.
SPEAKER_00 (25:39):
Yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_02 (25:40):
Because, you know, we could it's not like you know,
you'd go home and be like, Ican't feel love for my kids
anymore because I've been likevegging on social media.
Like you still can, but it whatgets harder is for your brain to
sit with things because it's soused to, you know, okay, that
that anger was unpleasant.
I'm going to shift it, andliterally like five seconds
later, I'm going to shift into adifferent feeling.
(26:03):
Or almost conversely, you know,if the feeling didn't originate
from social media, but rather inin normal life, you feel in a
tense situation, but you're usedto not sitting with emotions, so
then even that real lifeemotion, you're like, I can't
say what this, I don't need tonumb out or change or something.
And so it reduces your yourbrain's ability to sit with it
(26:25):
because thanks toneuroplasticity, essentially
what you do over and over, yourbrain gets better at doing.
And so if you are shifting upand down and all over the place
very rapidly, that's what yourbrain's going to get better at
doing.
And it's going to get worse atsitting with emotions, with both
positive and negative.
And so it's it's harder for youto, you know, sit and like just
(26:48):
have absolute contentment andjoy from something that's good
in your life.
It's also harder to sit withlike something like grief or
loneliness or frustration.
And so people just seek toescape.
And and obviously, in thecontext of bipolar, this is
relevant as well, right?
Is that if we if we're trainingour brain to be less able to sit
(27:11):
in any given state, then youknow that can magnify any sort
of like bipolar swings, whetherit's up or down.
Those can be magnified.
Those symptoms can be worsenedbecause of this pattern, this
training your brain into notstaying with any particular
emotion or state very long.
SPEAKER_00 (27:29):
Yeah, for sure.
That's and I have actually seenthat in my own in my own life.
And it's it is I I would love totalk to, you know, Dan, if you
can talk a little bit about themindfulness aspect of this,
because that's one of the one ofthe things that was so
intriguing to me when I talkedto the two of you was that that
combination of awareness and youknow, awareness of what social
media and not just me socialmedia, digital tech.
(27:51):
So, you know, digital tech, thedangers and the pitfalls of that
and mindfulness practice,because one of the things that's
challenging, you know, and I,you know, when I talk about
bipolar, I don't talk about itas an as a defined underlying
condition.
It is a you know, set ofsymptoms that have been
diagnosed with a, you know, as awith a diagnosis, but it can it
is possible to identify thesource of the symptoms, treat
(28:14):
the source, and heal.
But in order to be able to dothat, you have to learn how to
sit with uncomfortable emotions.
Psychotropic medications aredesigned to suppress emotional
response.
So when you safely heal and comeoff of those things, now you've
got to learn how to processemotions that have been
suppressed for, you know,sometimes decades.
And so I was so intrigued bythis combination that you guys
(28:38):
came up with with this cortexrevolution, because mindfulness
meditation, I think, issomething that they should be
teaching in schools.
I think that should be a lifeskill that everybody has taught
from the time they're a child.
But it's something that is likeyou mentioned, you know, earlier
in your in your introduction,Dan was, you know, we call it
woo, you know, because it seemslike it's it is coupled with,
(29:00):
you know, holistic stuff.
And so people kind of think seeit as something that's out
there, where it's actually askill that is millennia old that
is a way of exercising yourconsciousness, a way of
exercising your agency overwhat's happening inside your
mind and what's happening withyour emotions and that.
So, Dan, can you talk a littlebit about mindfulness and how
(29:22):
this actually plays into all ofwhat we've been talking about?
SPEAKER_01 (29:25):
Yeah.
And and definitely goes intolike desensitate
desenssification.
Like you're desensitized to theaspect.
And in even in our real lives,we've seen this, right?
With like video games to socialmedia, to this outrage, to this
again, exposure to these veryyou know intense emotions.
When we get into a real lifescenario where that happens,
(29:47):
like a car crash happens orsomething like that, people just
turn on.
It used to be like, whoa, likeeveryone would wreck very
seriously, and now it's justanother day at the office.
And like you'll see kids even bevery much desensitized to happy,
sad, and they can be very muchdesensitized to that kind of
stuff because they're exposed toit constantly and getting those
(30:10):
high and lows.
And so your book, again, yourbrain kind of gets used to that,
and and thus it's like, oh, I'mpretty used to that.
Some car crashed, thisbuilding's on fire, another day.
You know, the news has exposedus to that because the news uh
also preys on that very muchemotional response, like
(30:30):
something bad's happening in theworld, you need to pay attention
to is very much things.
So the the the mindfulnessaspect comes in of again being
able to again take thoseemotions and sit with them
within your brain and be able toactually process that rather
than just this is what'shappening, be able to understand
within your body and brain, andhaving you be able to process
(30:54):
the information that is comingin to your aura, to your to your
soul, to to not only your brain,but like how your body's
reacting to that.
Again, your brain controls allof that.
And when we we talk about theneuroscience aspect, that's what
we love so much, because youunderstand your brain is able to
control all of that.
And when you sit with yourselfand you sit in mindfulness,
(31:17):
you're able to process thatinformation.
So, like you said, having traumafrom the past, uh, or even like
these high emotional states thatyou with bipolar, when you are
able to sit with that andprocess that with meditation and
breathe and sit with yourselfand understand that in this
moment, this very second, isanything wrong?
(31:42):
You're trying to process thepast or your brain is trying to
protect yourself from somethingin the future.
But if you can separate again,mindfulness, if you can separate
your mind from both of thosesides and sit in this moment and
be present and breathe, yourealize in this very second
there's nothing wrong.
(32:03):
And then you can take it a babystep at a time of what's coming
at you.
High, low, other, you can belike, wait a second, how can I
process this information?
Is this gonna matter in 10minutes from now?
Is this gonna matter uh a weekfrom now?
Is this gonna matter a year fromnow?
How can I actually process withthis information that's coming
(32:25):
to me?
What is the real problem?
Like you said, like if if I wantto be able to grieve someone
that died, yes, that's gonnamatter, you know, a year from
now.
Yes, that's a serious thing thatI can actually process and take
in.
These high and low emotions fromsocial media, news, and just
digital media in general, youtake that in and sit with it
(32:46):
with meditation, and then youcan start to process that kind
of information mindfully.
And so it really helps.
And just like you said, fromkids on up, I think everyone
needs that because that's that'sa skill.
That's a skill to understand howyour brain can take in the
information, put it in short,long-term, and other, you know,
kind of trauma that will bestuck in your brain that will
(33:08):
flash back into your psyche, youknow, from time to time and try
to control you.
And so a lot of things that wesay with a lot of this is again,
bringing back control into yourlife.
And meditation is a major way toget there.
SPEAKER_00 (33:24):
Yeah.
And I I want to talk a bit aboutso one of the things that I have
seen with with people that Iwork with, with myself, you
know, in the past is a acompulsive need to use digital
media.
It's like a it is, and it's hardto, it's hard to describe it to
somebody who doesn't understandwhat that feels like.
(33:44):
It's and I I think that thereare a lot more people that can
relate to it than than you knowthan we might think.
But it's it's like it's almostlike if you don't do it, you're
going to die.
Like it's almost like thisfeeling of like, I, you know,
it's like I have to do this.
And I you've seen this.
I read um a book called IGen, Ithink was the one that I was
(34:05):
reading where it was talkingabout this, where they they're
doing studies because this isthe generation that's coming up
right now that are, you know,starting to enter young
adulthood, are the firstgeneration who have had, you
know, social media and you know,gaming and all those things on a
phone, you know, in theirpocket.
And we had no idea what we were,what we were getting into.
(34:25):
And so a lot of parents, myselfincluded, with my older kids,
had no idea that we needed toplace like all these limitations
and help our kids because wedidn't understand the effect
that it was having on them.
But, you know, as this, as thisresearcher was doing the
research on these, uh, you know,on the effect of on these
children, on these youths, um,you know, kids were panicking,
(34:46):
like becoming hysterical if theydidn't have access to their
phones, if they didn't haveaccess to their social media.
It was like, and and I I canunderstand that.
I don't have it on the samelevel that that the youth did
because I didn't grow up withthat.
But I have, because I've becomeinvolved with, you know, my
phone and and that, and it's somuch a part of my life, like you
were mentioning earlier, Dan orDr.
(35:06):
Dan, you know, the the buzz, youknow, like on my watch.
So I have my watch so that Idon't, you know, I took my phone
and put it in another room, butmy watch still buzzes, you know?
And so I'm like, oh, what isthat?
You know, and it's so hard,especially if I'm meeting face
to face with somebody, to notlike look at my watch while I'm
talking to them.
Like, that's rude.
My brain's like, that's rude,don't do it.
But my my other part of my brainis like, well, what if it's
(35:26):
important?
You know, what do I, you know?
And and so, and then the samething, like when you start to
feel if you're not used tofeeling uncomfortable emotions
and sitting with them for a longtime, if you're starting to feel
uncomfortable emotion, the thebrain is like, I've got to get
on social media right now.
It's like looking for an escape,it's looking for something to
dissociate, it's a way to findanother, you know, let's I I
(35:48):
gotta switch the emotion rightnow.
We gotta get on social media andlook for something funny, you
know?
And so can you talk about whatthat compulsive, where that
compulsive, it really feelscompulsive.
It feels like I have to do thisright now.
Like I don't have a choice.
Like I really need to do it orsomething bad is going to
happen.
Can you talk about that?
And then let's talk about whatwhy this company that you
(36:10):
developed, like what the theimpetus.
We've talked a little bit aboutit, but I want to talk more,
more focused about why you youdeveloped your company and what
it is that you do for people.
Like how do you actually helppeople with this?
SPEAKER_02 (36:22):
Yeah, great comments, great thoughts,
Michelle.
This is where it gets veryinteresting of the overlap with
addiction.
Officially, screen, anythingscreen or digital related is not
an addiction yet, because thelast official version of the the
DSM 5, the Diagnostics andStatistical Manual for
Psychiatry and all that came outand I think it was 2013.
(36:44):
So it was it's very behind, andit it um had very high bars for
what I called enough evidence tosay this is a diagnostic
condition.
In there, it only says internetgaming disorder is a condition
for further study, and that'sall it meant.
That said, there is massiveevidence that there is at least
(37:04):
very, very significant overlapwith addiction.
It's TBD if it will ever beofficially declared an addiction
or not, but regardless, there'smassive overlap that is helpful
for us to understand.
And one of those is that yourreward circuitry, so you have a
pathway in your brain called thereward and pleasure pathway,
also called the mesolimbicpathway.
(37:25):
It basically is what is tellingyour brain what to pay attention
to, what matters, what whatshould you be motivated to do,
and what should you not.
And in addiction, that is themain place that gets rewired for
the worse, where um it getsrewired so that the brain thinks
that it needs the substance, sayalcohol or heroin or whatever,
(37:47):
it needs the substance,otherwise it cannot be okay.
It's because it's intrict, it'sso and and the key here is
artificiality or artificialness,whatever the word is, where
where something is so itartificially stimulates that
region of your brain so stronglythat it tells your brain, hey,
this is critical for yoursurvival.
(38:08):
Because the whole point of thatpathway is to help you be
attracted to to doing thingsthat help your survival, like
food and and sex and so on.
And so when you are in thatstate, your brain thinks that
the drug is necessary forsurvival, and then just like
hunger, like you you literallyfeel this like hunger of I need
(38:31):
this thing.
Just like when we get hungry, wefeel like we need food.
We when we get thirsty, we needwater.
And that is a genuine need, andwhen we feel it adds a need that
will push out all otherdecisions until we get it, for
the most part.
Same with substances, only it'sfake.
It was never actually a need.
You didn't need that thing forsurvival, but your brain now has
been wired to think it does.
(38:52):
And bringing all this to digitalmedia is that that same thing
essentially happens with variousforms of digital media.
Not to the same extent, becauseit's not it's not like heroin
where you get this like massivedopamine rush that's like orders
of magnitude higher thananything natural.
But we do get like a tiny we geta kick.
So each each little kick is notis not massive, but kick after
(39:16):
kick after kick after kick stillrewires that part of your brain
to start to feel like this thingis necessary for your survival
to some extent or another.
And that's where the compulsioncomes from.
Like, because you feel thisneed, it feels like you need it
for survival.
Now you're gonna use itcompulsively, you're gonna seek
it out desperately sometimes,just like we do food.
(39:38):
And that then is made even worseif so there's there's positive
reinforcement of this feelsgood, but there's also negative
reinforcement where this helpsme avoid the the bad feelings,
it helps me avoid the pain.
That happens in drug addictiontoo, you know, where withdrawal
is a major reason that peopleuse is just to avoid the
withdrawal feelings, thenegative feelings.
(39:59):
And same with digital media,like you were just describing,
where people say it's like, hey,I need I need this escape, I
need this way to numb out, Ineed this way to not feel my
feelings, I need this way to notbe bored, I need this way to
feel like I'm actually connectedwith people and not lonely.
And so people can be avoidingthose negatives too.
Dan sometimes calls it thepacifier.
(40:20):
It's like adult pacifier for us.
We're like, we're we needsomething to to suck on, to
soothe on.
Yes.
And so when you combine both thethe positive, like positive
reinforcement of like, hey, thisis kind of pleasurable and fun
and novelty and all that, whenyou combine that with the help,
hey, it helps me avoid thenegatives of life, then it does
(40:42):
rewire that part of your brainsimilarly, but to a much lesser
extent, than drugs of addictiondo.
SPEAKER_01 (40:50):
And uh, I want to play on that, the the social
aspect as well.
We're very social creatures.
We are massively socialcreatures.
We we lived in tribes for many,many, many thousands of years.
And so being part of a tribe andbeing accepted by that tribe
were crucial to our survivalbecause we we couldn't survive.
If you got cast out of thetribe, you were basically dead.
(41:12):
Um, and so being a part of thetribe, it was a massive
important aspect to our brainthat's still locked into our
brains today.
So getting likes, gettingfollowers, getting views.
Our psyche just goes off thecharts uh because we feel
validated, we feel part of thegroup, we feel uh together
(41:35):
because of those aspects.
And obviously, the social mediahas played into that deeply to
make sure that we get that warmand fuzzy feeling and we keep
checking back to make sure howmany likes do I got now, how
many views do I got, how how uhyou know what's my impact of
this kind of stuff, because wefeel validated from that very
(41:55):
much aspect of all of thisstuff.
We are social creatures.
FOMO is real.
Fear of missing out on what'shappening out there in the
world, even if it's on the otherside of the planet, we need to
talk about it, we need toconnect on it, we need to
discuss it, we need all thatkind of stuff.
SPEAKER_02 (42:12):
And to and to add to that, too, that there's so much
that is explained by what Danjust said.
Because why do we like, if wewatch a movie and then we go
read about the comments aboutit, or watch a YouTube video and
we go read the comments.
Why?
Because we want to share thatreaction, we want to share that
experience with somebody.
We want to like experience it asa shared moment, as a as a
(42:35):
shared story.
And if there's no one else totalk to right next to us, then
we find the next best thing,which is these artificial
anonymized comments on onYouTube.
Or it's the reason why, likereaction videos.
Why do we care how some personwe've never known how they're
reacting to something thathappened in the news, to a
current event, or to a movie?
(42:55):
Why do we care?
Because sharing a reaction withsomebody also stimulates you
know that need to have socialconnection and validation and
and whatnot.
But the problem is it's allartificial.
Like it's not like it's well, iti I shouldn't say all
artificial.
I mean it's real to some extent.
There's usually a real personthere, though sometimes it's
(43:15):
bots.
But your brain, like the thesatisfaction, the deep
satisfaction and joy andconnection that comes from like
a face-to-face, person-to-personinteraction, we especially ones
where you can actually touch theother person and you know, smell
them and hear see theirreactions, like their entire
body language and everything.
(43:37):
That is just on a completelydifferent plane from, oh,
somebody made a comment and Ijust see some words on a page.
And so we we accept kind ofthese like artificial, bare
minimum versions of socialconnection because that's what
our brain has become hard to do,because the real thing feels
uncomfortable or unattainable oror whatever.
(43:58):
But that's what we are.
Trying to do is get people tosay, like, you know, there's
nothing like it's not likeeverything that's online is is
bad or or wrong or anything, butthere's a better way to do it.
There's a better way to makereal connection, there's a
better way to spend your time,there's better ways that you can
(44:18):
make memories and stories,there's better ways to have to
learn control and to to learntoo.
People spend so much time onlinejust learning junk
ineffectively, inefficiently.
There's better ways to learn.
And all these things that youknow they have an online
version, but there are morereal, more healthy versions to
(44:40):
be had.
Yeah.
Well, I mean I think that oh, goahead, sorry.
SPEAKER_01 (44:43):
I was just gonna say that's a perfect segue to our
hundred days, hundred ways ofexactly why we're pulling this
challenge off for people.
Because exactly what Dan justmentioned is like real life
experiences is more valuablethan online.
Online's not bad necessarily,not horrible, but living in real
life and being present with yourfamily, friends, and people in
(45:05):
real life, and not checking yourwatch and not checking your
phone, and having a boating daywith not worrying about work and
not worrying about your traumafrom the past and being present
in that moment is key.
And so we wanted to have thehundred days, 100 ways challenge
to get off your devices and livein the real life, experience
real life connections, dosomething together in person is
(45:28):
more meaningful.
SPEAKER_00 (45:29):
Yeah, and I I wanna so there's I want to actually
come back to that because I Iwant to talk a little bit more
about that.
But really quickly, one of thethings, so one of the things
that I've learned, you know, asa mother is that there's a for
for young men, it's gaming isseems to be a bigger draw.
And for young women, it's socialmedia.
So it's not always the same.
I know that there's lots ofyoung women who play social, you
(45:50):
know, play video games and thereare young men on social media,
but but by and large, the thehuge draw for young men is is
gaming, and the huge draw foryoung women is social media.
And for young men, they aredrawn to, you know, this these
gaming things because there areyou're accomplishing things in
there and you're getting therewards from doing it in a way
(46:13):
that doesn't require the samelevel of effort that it does in
the real world.
And so, you know, like buildinga house would take a tremendous
amount of physical effort, andyou know, and it would be a lot
of sweat and a lot of, you know,but it's there's a lot of things
that you're uh developing withinyourself as you go through the
process of building the house,physical, mental, you know,
emotional.
(46:34):
There's a lot of a lot of thingsthat you gain in that process,
but it takes a tremendous amountof work and a long time.
However, in social media, likeMinecraft, for example, you can
build a house really quick.
You just go out and, you know,click some buttons and and you,
you know, mine some ore and you,you know, and I I've never been
able to play that.
I've tried really hard with playkids, but I can't get I can't
(46:54):
get the game.
But they're but they're buildinghuge things.
They're building these massive,you know, cities and they're
having all of the emotional, youknow, get all this emotional
feedback.
And like you were saying, it'sartificial, but but it feels
real in a lot of ways becausethey don't know what it feels
like to actually build a house.
They don't know what that thatprocess feels like.
So they don't know what the realfeelings are of accomplishment.
(47:16):
And they also don't know whatthe real intense effort that
goes into it is.
And the same thing on the socialmedia side that we can have the,
we can curate our image in a waythat gets the reactions that we
want from other people withouthaving to take any of the risks.
There's no, there's no risk,there's no learning from a bad
experience.
There's no, you know, you don'thave the, you know, it, I mean,
(47:38):
there's all kinds of risk onsocial media still.
I'm not saying that there's norisk, but it's not the same kind
of thing.
It's a very artificial situationsocially.
And so you don't develop and youdon't learn how to develop, like
learn how to get, you know, totake social cues from people.
You don't learn how to likepresent yourself in a socially
acceptable way.
You don't learn how to, youknow, so there's there's all
(48:00):
it's the same kind of thing likebuilding a house.
It's the same kind of thing inthe, you know, your experience
socially in a in a physicalworld is takes a lot more effort
and a lot more risk, but theirthe reward is so much higher
because you're actually gettingthe the real emotional feedback
from real emotional connection,physical connection, emotional
(48:21):
connection, you know, visualconnection.
And so the challenge that Ithink with, especially if
somebody has spent you know mostof their life on social media is
helping them to develop thedesire and the skills to be able
to interact with the world in areal way, in a real way, you
know, on a consistent basis.
So I'm assuming that that'swhere you're going with this 100
(48:43):
days, 100 ways challenge,because it it is, I I recently
went through with my youngest.
I had I was recognizing,especially when I was reading
this book, I was realizing likehow many mistakes I've made as a
mom with my older kids, with youknow, allowing as much as I did,
with, you know, I didn't want, Ididn't want them missing out on,
(49:04):
you know, being on social mediaand stuff.
I didn't want them missing, youknow.
I tried to put restrictions, butit was really hard to like find
a way to allow and restrict atthe same time.
So with my younger one, Ithought, this is not there, the
cost-benefit analysis is showingme that there is way more risk
than than benefit.
And so we just detox completely,you know, we stopped, we stopped
(49:25):
video games, we stopped, youknow, she will not have an
iPhone until she's 18.
I, you know, and I'm not, Idon't feel like that's extreme
anymore.
And now that I'm seeing, youknow, the issues, I'm so
thankful for Gab.
So she can still have a phoneand still connect with people
like text and stuff like that,but she doesn't have social
media.
She won't have it until she's18.
But I I want to talk aboutbecause it was it was a painful
(49:48):
experience for her.
Like I almost felt like aphysically painful experience
for her when we were detoxing.
And it took months.
You know, the first month wasthe worst by far, but it took
months for her to be able tostart to feel comfortable doing
other things besides being onscreens.
And it took months for her tofeel comfortable like with the
(50:09):
social interactions and learninghow to look people in the eyes.
And, you know, there's a lot ofthings that I realized that she
was struggling with because Imade mistakes as a mom in
allowing her to have too muchaccess to video games and
YouTube and things, things likethat.
So let's talk now about.
So I want to talk about, I wantto talk about your hundred days,
hundred ways.
I want to talk about what youdo, why people come to you in
(50:31):
the first place and what you doto help them.
Because I think that people needto know that resources like
yours are out there.
I think a lot of times we'retrying so hard to control this
in ourselves and figure out howto control it for our kids.
And it feels like a losingbattle, and we don't really know
what we're doing, especially ifwe're struggling with the
addiction ourselves.
So, why do why did you startyour company?
(50:52):
How why do people come to you?
What can you do to help?
Gonna go for one first.
SPEAKER_01 (50:56):
Oh, right.
Well, yeah, I'm happy to jumpin.
Yeah, for sure.
I agree.
First of all, don't blameyourself.
You know, it it it it's again,it it is it's an ever-evolving
process.
Now, uh one thing to know and tounderstand it, so our brains are
immaculate at evolving to thecurrent status, right?
This the status quo, whateverthe status quo is, our brains
(51:18):
will try to rationalize that.
But you got to remember, we'vebeen this form of brain has
evolved for millions of yearsinto what it is now.
And only in the last 20 ofmillions of years of evolution
have we had to deal with thisproblem.
And so it's a new problem.
And we're trying to wrap ourminds around it.
(51:38):
Again, we evolve quickly, butnot that quickly.
So, yeah, it it can control usin ways that we fully don't
understand.
It's about bringing thatknowledge to light, is where I
think people can come to us andsay, enlighten us, you know,
because knowledge is power.
And once you understand it, justlike you you have, is once you
(51:59):
understand the data, you makedifferent decisions because now
you understand the data.
So 100% that's one thing that welove to do is empower people,
you know, small to mediumbusinesses, to individuals, to
whoever wants to come our way,to understand the data and
understand how it is reallyaffecting the brains and to
again get this data in front ofpeople, uh, and then they make
(52:23):
different decisions.
So a lot of times people willcome to us and again, the first
some of the first things you dois just turn off notifications.
Stop getting notificationsbecause again, it's that buzz,
that beep, that ding that'scontrolling us.
So the the other second half ofthat is gaining back control,
like we talked about at thebeginning.
So having the knowledge to makethose decisions to gain back
(52:45):
control, I think are the keysteps for sure of what we can
provide people to ensure that A,you understand the science, the
data, B, you understand what todo next, and now you're
empowered to go do it yourself,and then see how it changes your
life.
Because some of the things thatI love to see is the
testimonials of people of like,hey, I cut this out, and holy
(53:07):
cow, I feel so much better.
That's what we love.
You know, because we theultimate goal is to help improve
people's lives, you know.
That's that's really like, yeah,we're trying to change the
world.
Is a big lofty goal, sure.
But how do we break that downinto edible bites and pieces of
like this is one way we can doit?
(53:28):
So that's why we're attackingit, Dr.
Dan.
SPEAKER_02 (53:31):
Absolutely.
Yeah, we we're really trying tobuild a movement because and and
uh not just us, obviously,there's there's lots of people
in this space, but but whatthere isn't is a coherent social
movement of digital mastery.
And especially with all thenuances that we've talked about,
where some people are like justdon't use tech at all.
We don't agree with that.
Other people are like, um, youknow, just it it's all it's it's
(53:56):
it's a behavioral problem.
Like you just need more control,and we don't agree with that
either.
The problem is not yourbehavior, the problem is the
manipulative, manipulativedesign, and our behavior is the
solution to that problem.
And so what we're trying to dois is to unite um people who are
already in this space and allthe parents, all the educators,
(54:18):
all the individuals who arelike, I see this in my students,
I see this in my children, I seethis in me, I see this in my
team, like in professionalsettings of just like all the
ways that digital media iscontrolling them and taking away
their time, taking away theirsocial capacity, taking away
their their cognitive skills tolike learn and remember and
(54:39):
focus, taking away theirphysical health as they just
become you know these littlecouch gnomes or whatever hunched
over.
And and like what we're tryingto do is make it so that people
have knowledge of what ofunderstanding the true problem,
as Dan is just saying, we needto understand that it's not your
fault that what what is the truesource of the problem and also
(55:01):
the severity of the problem.
A lot of people only recognize,well, yeah, I I zone out on
TikTok occasionally, but itdoesn't affect me much.
And then but if you actuallylike let me see their life, it's
like ruining their sleep and andso many and the work
productivity and so manydifferent things.
So yeah, awareness is a hugepiece of what we do.
That's how we start our ourbusiness trainings.
(55:21):
We have things like what we callthe digital mastery initiative
for companies and teams to helpthem get their team back in
control of the of the digitaloverwhelm.
We have programs like what wecall in your hands.
It's basically how do you learnthe skills to do something about
this?
Because awareness is the firststep, but then how do you do
(55:42):
something about it?
You know, how do you go frombeing controlled by it to no, I
don't need it.
I can do it if I want, I canabsolutely still choose, choose
all you want, but I won't becontrolled by it.
And there's a a whole set ofskills there that can be
learned.
There's things that can rewireyour brain, and so our In Your
Hands program is a 10-weekcohort-based program that makes
(56:05):
it so that people can go throughand learn those skills as they
change their digital media lifeand habits week after week after
week.
And and at the top of it all isour Hundred Days, Hundred Ways
program, because for a lot ofpeople it's it's maybe not
something that they're like, Oh,I really want to, you know, hire
a professional help for this inany form, but it's maybe just
(56:25):
rediscovering some joy andfinding those those stories,
those shared moments with otherpeople, those memories that
they've been missing out on,maybe haven't even realized how
much they've been missing themuntil we point it out and say,
you know, when was the last timeyou w you went and made a memory
with your best friend or yourkids or whatever?
SPEAKER_01 (56:43):
And was the last time you went to dinner and
didn't have your phone with you?
SPEAKER_02 (56:48):
Yeah.
Yeah.
Or we went to a concert and youjust took in the music instead
of recording it.
And so all these things thatthat with hundred days, hundred
ways, it's just a challenge toin 100 days collect as many real
life experiences as you can.
You don't have to do allhundred.
You can join late, you can skipdays, doesn't matter.
(57:09):
The point is just collect asmany real life experiences as
you can in that in that time.
And as we've like been doing itand sharing it with people, you
know, people are starting togive us stories of it's like,
oh, I did this thing that Inever like one person went
firewalking on hot coals, neverthought that they could do that
in their life, but they did it.
You know, sometimes it's peoplejust like, oh, I went and took a
(57:30):
nap.
I don't let myself do thatenough.
For other people, it's oh we I wwe went to a show with my our
our kids and it like it was likethe best day of their life, you
know.
And all these like differentlevels of things, but the common
denominator is just it's not ona screen.
You're going out and you'rebeing present in real life and
(57:51):
rediscovering the joys of that.
And so we we designed thischallenge to be something that
people could just do to alittle, do a lot.
You know, there's there'snothing paid in it.
There's it's just a free publicchallenge that everyone can do
and can do with their families,with their friends, with their t
teams, whatever it is, and comeback to real life.
(58:14):
And our our our motto there isscroll less to live more.
SPEAKER_00 (58:18):
Yeah, and that's incredible.
And I I think to go back to youryou you're you know, you're
you're not anti-technology, butwe want to make technology our
tool, not allow it to become ourmaster.
We don't want it to to controlour lives, we don't want it to
overcome us, we don't want touse it to medicate ourselves,
(58:39):
you know, self-medication or orto avoid or to become an
artificial, you know, you know,existence.
We want to learn how to utilizethe tools in effective ways and
live our lives in real ways.
And one of the things I workwith was, you know, as I work
with my people, we don't I trynot to use language like good
(59:02):
and bad.
I try to use language likehealthy and unhealthy because
because language like good andbad often can carries, you know,
connotations of judgment thatoften are harmful to us, you
know, like I'm I'm a goodperson, I'm a bad person, you
know, no, no, no.
I are is it is this a healthychoice?
Is this uh an unhealthy choice?
You know, am I approaching thisin a healthy way or is this an
(59:23):
unhealthy way?
You know, and looking at itthrough that lens, and and
because we hope we want to behealthy people.
I hope I want to be, you know, II want to choose to be healthy.
I want to choose to approachlife in a healthy way.
I want to have healthyrelationships, I want to have
healthy interactions, you know.
And so I love, I love thishundred days, hundred ways, and
(59:44):
I'm actually super intrigued byit.
I want to do it myself and Iwant to invite my audience to do
the same thing.
I think it would be an amazingthing to not just do it, but
share it with other people sothat we have, because there's
there is tremendous power insocial, in social interaction
with people.
And I I think that it's there'sa lot of value when we are
(01:00:04):
sharing experiences where we areworking towards something
together, you know, where we'reworking towards greater
connection, greater, you know,healthier ways of living,
healthier ways of being.
And and that that is those areways to really strong develop
strong relationships, healthyrelationships with people is
when we're working towardssomething good, you know,
healthy together.
(01:00:25):
See, I even use that languagesometimes myself, but but I I
would love for people to knowhow do they how do they start
with the challenge?
How do we get started with that?
SPEAKER_02 (01:00:34):
Yeah, very simple.
Just go to Cortex Evolution, andthat's that's evolution, by the
way, not revolution, commonmistake that people make.
Go to Cortex Evolution.com slash100, the numbers one zero zero.
unknown (01:00:49):
Perfect.
SPEAKER_02 (01:00:49):
And that that basically just gives you
everything you need, because itjust has the the rules, the the
descriptions of you know what itis and what it isn't, as well as
a starter guide for 63 ideas toget you started.
But we also want people to getcreative with their own ideas.
So if people just go tocortexevolution.com slash 100,
that'll give them everythingthey need to get started.
SPEAKER_00 (01:01:11):
And I noticed in Dan Peterson, in your bio, it had
hashtag 100 days, 100 ways.
Do you guys have that?
Is that your hashtag?
Yeah.
So I I invite anybody who'swho's listening who decides to
try this.
If you're gonna post anything,make sure you do use that
hashtag so that we can see whatyou're doing, so that we can
connect with you in that way.
That's a healthy way, I think,of connecting with each other is
(01:01:34):
as we're doing things together,we want to we want to share it
and we want to use those, theseare great tools if we use them
as a tool and not allow it tobecome our master.
So let's not be afraid of it,but let's learn how to use it in
a wise way.
And if somebody wants to learnmore about the things that
you're talking about, you know,if they want to learn more
about, you know, how harmfulthis can be and and what the
(01:01:55):
dangers are and what we can doabout it, how do they find you?
What what kind of resources doyou offer to people that want to
start working with you?
SPEAKER_02 (01:02:02):
Best way is just going to cortexevolution.com.
We have everything there, moreor less, though it's always a
work in progress.
But that's how people can canfind us for the Hundred Day
Challenge for our businesstrainings that we do on this
topic for in your hands, and andthen they can start to learn
some of these skills.
Because as you say, it's it'snot, you know, there's there's
(01:02:23):
positive aspects, healthyaspects, and there's negative
aspects to it.
And it it's like smoking wasback in the day, except if
smoking had half of it that washealthy.
So it's it's like a complicatedfield where there's a lot of
nuance, there's a lot of, youknow, how can we really master
this and still have it be partof our lives in a useful way,
(01:02:43):
but not let it control us.
And so that that's what all ofour programs are about.
SPEAKER_00 (01:02:48):
Perfect.
Okay, I'm going to invite eachof you.
If there's one thing that youwant people to take away from
today, what is the one thingthat you would hope that they
would take away?
And I'm sorry to put it feels alittle bit like pressure to
think.
I'll give you just a second tothink about it.
But and I don't know who wantsto go first, but if it what's
the one thing that you hopepeople will take away from
today?
What's one thing they can do?
What's one thing that you wantthem to think about?
(01:03:10):
What's something that you wouldhope that they'd take away from
our conversation?
SPEAKER_01 (01:03:13):
Yeah.
I'm easy to go first because II've said it m multiple times
throughout the the podcast here.
It's definitely control.
You know, take your controlback, take control back over
your life.
Your brain thrives on control.
It wants to be in control.
You, it's called metacognition,can think about your own
thoughts and be in control ofyour own brain.
(01:03:35):
So it's controlling the control,right?
Uh it's definitely theself-mastery is key.
Again, your mindset, yourself-mastery, your your
perspective is everything.
If you change your perspective,you can change your life.
You can get back to thatcontrol.
And getting back into control isdefinitely something I want your
(01:03:56):
listeners to think about.
SPEAKER_02 (01:03:57):
For me, I would say my invitation would be in the
spirit of 100 days, 100 ways, goout and try to replace one
digital activity with a reallife one.
And pay a lot of attention tohow it feels.
Because if you actually payattention to how these things
feel, like when you get past thecompulsive nature and
everything, how does it feel?
(01:04:19):
Does it feel better?
Are you more glad that youscrolled on TikTok for an hour?
Or would you have been feelingbetter, felt happier, felt more
joyful, and be more glad thatyou went out and watched the
sunset?
SPEAKER_00 (01:04:34):
That's amazing.
I know.
And it it's funny, when we whenyou become when you're when you
feel like you're dependent onsocial media or digital media,
you know, video games and thingslike that, it's it's like we
can't remember how to have life,how to do life without it, you
know.
And when I was when I wasdetoxing my daughter, I had to
work really hard to make likelists, like, hey, what can we do
(01:04:56):
if, you know, instead of doingthese things, we've got to find
other things to do.
And I had to do a lot of stuffwith her at first to help her
learn how to do other things,you know, like we we bought, we
started buying board games andwe started, you know, we got a
lot of art supplies, and I wastaking her to the library all
the time and things because andI and I needed to sit with her
to do a lot of the thingsbecause she hadn't developed a
(01:05:18):
lot of those skills.
Because and this is like superembarrassing to admit, but I
think I'm not the only parentout there who like got sucked
into this and and before werealized it, we were like way
down the rabbit hole.
And we're like, this is notwhere I want to be with my
family.
So, but I have to say, like,once you wake that creative part
of a child's brain back up, it'sit then then it's just it goes
(01:05:40):
on its own.
It's this perpetual motionthing.
Like, you don't have to do itanymore.
I don't have to feed her ideas.
She's got all kinds of thingsthat she does on her own now,
and very happy.
And it's like her, she it's likeshe blossomed overnight.
You know, I her personality cameout in ways that I'd never seen
before.
She was much more calm and andyou know, handles things, you
know, takes things in stridemuch more easily.
(01:06:02):
She's much more emotionallyresilient.
So I strongly urge people totake advantage of the resources
that these, you know, the danshave to offer.
Go to Cortex Evolution andplease try the 100 days, 100
ways challenge.
I'm going to do it and I'm goingto share.
I'll use the hashtag as I'mdoing things.
But I invite you to participatein the resources that they have
(01:06:25):
to offer because I think that itwill absolutely benefit you,
help you to live a healthier,happier life.
Thank you so much for joining metoday.
This has been fantastic.
SPEAKER_02 (01:06:36):
Thank you, Michelle.
That's what we're all about iswe're helping helping people
remember how good it feels to bein real life and to regain the
control so that they can makethat stick.
SPEAKER_00 (01:06:46):
Yeah.
And I will make sure there,you're all of your links are in
the show notes.
So if anybody is is wondering,you don't have to figure out how
to how to type that in.
It'll be linked in the shownotes.
All right.
Thank you so much.
Wonderful.
Thank you so much.
Thank you so much.
Until next time, upsiders.
(01:07:09):
Thanks for joining me on theUpside of Bipolar.
Your journey to recoverymatters, and I'm grateful you're
here.
For more resources, visitwww.theupsideofbipolar.com.
If you're ready to dive deeper,grab my book, The Upside of
Bipolar (01:07:23):
Seven Steps to Heal Your Disorder.
If you're ready to heal yoursymptoms, join my monthly
membership, The Upsiders Tribe,to transform chaos into hope.
Until next time, Upsiders
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