July 14, 2022 • 51 mins
Award-Winning Author + Mental Health & Empowerment Journalist, Lacey Johnson, is back on the podcast today...this time to have a conversation about social media and how it affects us! Key takeaways from this chat:
- The problem isn’t social media; it’s the kind of power you’re giving it.
- Let your screentime inspire your life, not devour your life.
- Step off of the stage every now and then and get in the moment (your mental health and relationships absolutely depend upon it!).
- Gratitude: Lacey shares '4 Things' she is thankful for!
LINKS DISCUSSED IN THIS EPISODE:
Depression & Anxiety Are on the Rise in Young People, But Is Social Media to Blame? (Lacey interviewed a well-known psychologist for this piece)
I’ve Really Missed People, But Has COVID Made Us Socially Awkward? (For this piece, Lacey interviewed a variety of mental health experts, and they touched on the social and relational dangers of staying virtual for too long)
“Maybe It’s the Algorithm, Maybe You Need New Friends” (social media-related blog post mentioned): https://www.laceyjohnson.com/post/maybe-it-s-the-algorithm-maybe-you-need-new-friends
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:08):
Okay, little food for your so life. Oh it's pretty Bay,
It's pretty beautiful than that. A little more kicking with
(00:30):
four Happy Thursday, four Things, BAM. I am very excited
to have my friend Lacy Johnson back on. She has
been on the podcast before and she's a mental health
and empowerment journalist and she's back this time to talk
specifically about social media. And Lacy, I know you've done
a ton of research when it comes to this and
(00:50):
written articles about social media and the impact that it's
having on us. But I just got back from a
week vacation where I took a complete break. Is in
on Instagram, Twitter, Facebook, anything, and so why is it
important for us to do that from time to time?
Let's start there. There is so much in that that
(01:11):
we can really dive deeply into. But I will say,
for one thing, and this is just right off the bat,
when we're on social media and we're engaging, we are
having more information, more content, more ideas hurled at us
than humans have ever been able to handle in history.
(01:31):
I mean, in our digital age in general, we are
humans are being asked to hold more information than our
brains have ever been asked to hold, and so a
lot of what's happening is our brains cannot process this information.
We actually have something which I'm sure a lot of
people listening are familiar with, the reticular activating system which
sit sits in your brain stem, and it's responsible for
(01:55):
sort of organizing, controlling, filtering, and manipulate the parameters of
the information that you take in, sort of prioritizing the
information that you take in based upon what your program
to need to see in that moment, what your program
to notice. And when you're on social media, there's a
(02:15):
lack of deep thinking and a lack of deep connections.
So it's a shadow of connections, the solusion that you're
connecting with all these people, but your brain can't possibly
make that many in depth connections, and so it's actually
leaves you feeling more isolated and lonelier than ever a
lot of the time, and it's actually really really bad
(02:36):
for your brain. There's a lot of studies that suggests well,
the neuroscientists absolutely have determined that mindless scrolling and tons
of just like mindless consumption actually causes accelerated aging in
the brain because it doesn't help your brain fitness that
you need that you need deeper thought to keep your
(02:56):
brain firing properly. So is so show media problem in
general or is it? Is it okay within boundaries, It's
totally okay. I actually I had a really great conversation
with my friend Dr Kevin Gilliland. He's brilliant. But I
don't know why. When I gave birth to my daughter
three years ago. Well, I actually I do know why.
(03:19):
I was immersed in this two month long of just nothing.
I was at home breast feeding, diaper changing, and on
social media. That was that was my socialization at the time,
and so I was on social media more than ever before,
and I was kind of at that at the end
of the two month mark, I was kind of itching
to get back to work, and so I pitched an
(03:39):
idea to an editor, one of my editors at Pop Sugar,
and said, you know, I want to have a conversation.
I want to do some research and I want to
have a conversation with an expert on on the link
between anxiety and depression and social media use. And that,
mind you, this was pre pandemic. So a lot has
happened since then, which we'll talk about, but at that time,
(03:59):
it suicide and young people had already roared to a
historic high. I mean ten years ago we were at
the lowest for suicide and now our country is like
the highest for suicide, especially for young people. And so
I was on social media a lot, but I was
also having a lot of time to research and be like, what,
you know, what kind of topic am I going to
take on next? And so that was my first story
(04:21):
that I did after having my baby. And one thing
that he really emphasized, and this is so true, is
that social media is essentially neutral if you think about it,
like shopping isn't innately bad, food isn't bad, sex isn't bad,
but it can be harmful to a certain person two
(04:42):
if they come to that experience with a certain vulnerability,
a certain trauma, a certain lack of ability to process something,
poor conditioning, you know, poor self esteem. So social media
is not innately bad. There's actually been a lot of
positive things. But because of the addictive component, and because
(05:03):
we're all coming to social media with our own you know,
cognitive distortions, our own traumas, our own insecurities, our own expectations,
and other people can't read our minds, there's a lot
of room for error. There's also a lot of room
for dehumanizing others because it's so easy to hide behind screens.
(05:25):
Just this morning, prior tour, when I was preparing for
a conversation, I was responding to a couple of questions
on Facebook. Somebody pointed me to this group that I'm
a member of, like because I'm doing a women's health
related story, and she said, you need to you should
look at this, and I know it would be good
for your for your your research right now, And so
I went, I was, and I just noticed there were
(05:47):
all these women who were just totally attacking this fitness
experts and trainers character and making up all these stories
about her from behind a screen that I highly doubt
they would ever say to her face, and probably wouldn't
even necessarily think if if it were in the moment,
you know what I mean. So social media, to answer
(06:09):
your question in a very long winded way, social media
is not bad. But it's it's not the problem with
social media, it's the kind of power you're giving it.
Are you using it as a means as a means
to escape real living? Are you using as escape? Are
you using it as a to avoid in the flesh conversations,
(06:30):
maybe an uncomfortable conversation you want to have with somebody.
Are you have you had a lot of trauma around relationships,
Maybe you've had your heartbroken, You've gone through bad breakups,
and so you're afraid to put yourself out there and
meet other people. So you're sort of not on a
conscious level, trying to give yourself this this shadow of
connection on social media, and it's and you're you're avoiding
(06:51):
having real, rich, deeper conversations. Does that make sense? Yeah?
I think that, you know, connection is super important for us.
That's what we need connection, and some of us, given
certain life circumstances, aren't as good at it, or we
might have to work through some things before we're able
to truly connect with people. So I could see where
(07:12):
if you are in a place where connection is more
difficult for you, you try to seek it online, but
ultimately that's not going to be as fulfilling. That is
so true. And listen, I want to be really clear
to everyone listening. Anything that I'm saying, I don't want
like to add to anyone's shame around social media, any activity.
You know, there's we're all humans, it is not easy
(07:35):
to be a human on this earth, and we're here
all doing the best that we can and and working
fumbling with the traumas that we have. And you know, so, yes,
if you're a person who struggles with that, there's no shame.
If you have found yourself going to social media and
using it as a means of escape, or if you
had some dysfunctional habits or some addiction to validation and
(07:58):
attention seeking behavior online, there's no shame around that. But
we're having this conversation not to shame anybody, but to
empower you with information and tools so that you can
take that into your experience and have a healthier experience
with social media. Yeah, and then in a healthier I
think experience too, with true connection, like and what that
that looks like, because I think I use social media
(08:20):
or have in the past, to avoid a number of things.
But also you mentioned validation, and that's so true, Like
so many times I've been guilty of it, even though
I know, like why I don't know some of these people,
Why do I care what in the world they're saying
about me? Social media? For me, I've gotten a lot
better at it, but I used to freak out about
(08:43):
my captions and what I was gonna say and how
are they going to read it? And I don't know
why I couldn't just type the first thing that came
to my head and just leave it at that and
walk away. Posting was very stressful for me because I
made it stressful because I was so worried about what
their people were going to think or see or say
(09:03):
based on what I put up. So I think that
too was assigned to me, like something's got to switch here,
like I'm giving this too much power that I love
your transparency. Thank you so much for that. Two things
I want to say is because you were sort of
talking about the rejection and your anxiety around that and
wanting to give your followers, you know, not wanting to
(09:24):
anyone to reject what you're saying or or being caught
up in that. You know, from an evolutionary standpoint, we're
biologically wired to be in connection. That is how we
survived by by, you know what I mean, being in community.
We're biologically wired. So it is normal as a human
on this earth to have a physical response and fear
(09:45):
around rejection because you know, our ancestors wouldn't survive if
they were rejected. That's how they were able to eat,
That's how they were able to find a mate and procreate,
you know what I mean. So it's it's ingrained in
us to want to be accepted by other people. But again,
this is just about understanding that we're now in a
very different age and it is really changed the way
(10:07):
we form relationships, and it's really changed just a lot
of dynamics how we view ourselves, how we view the world,
how we interact with the world, how we collaborate with
the world. And so it's it's knowing that if you
have that anxiety when you go to post and you
fear that rejection and you get caught up in that,
just know that that is a normal response. It is
(10:28):
honestly a part of your evolution, uh, in terms of
your survival. But again, we just need to have these
tools and how to interact in a better way, in
a healthier way that empowers our lives and serves our lives,
doesn't disempower it. Before I got into the anxiety around it,
I think I was saying too, I would avoid sometimes
true connection, I would opt for the screen versus human
(10:52):
interaction because that was some stuff I had to work
through personally, and I have done a lot of work
in the last year and a half or so, sort
of forced upon me by other life circumstances. But I
couldn't be more thankful for it because it it gave
me the push I needed to just get in there
and dig deep. And I realized I've missed out on
(11:15):
true connection a lot of my life because I didn't
know how. And I could get into all the things
for my past that led up to that, but I
didn't even realize until I had close friends that were
able to speak into me and be honest and say,
you know, I guess in a nutshell they were longer
conversations than this, but in a nutshell like I don't
(11:38):
really feel like you care that connected to you, and
that stung. But I'm thankful that, you know, friends and
family were able to say that because it allowed me
to do the work to where I am trying to
connect more in actual interaction and creating those moments. And
so anyway, all that to say, I think whatever you
(12:00):
have going on, maybe you're okay with connecting with people,
and you don't have a fear of rejection, even face
like humans leaving you like actual humans in your life,
not humans online. But maybe it's something else. But we
can often I think, you know, I try to think
of when I joined Twitter two thousand eleven, maybe so
social media has been and then Facebook even way before that.
(12:23):
So social media has been a part of our life
for twenty years or so, and I have in those
especially in the last two years, leaned on it heavily
to avoid, to avoid, to avoid, to avoid. But then, yes,
and then it just added more anxiety. And you know,
when I have shut down from social media and I
(12:43):
have been intentional, my cup is so much more full.
And so I'm just thankful that, Yeah, you're speaking to
the power that we give it because I was doing that.
It's like social media wasn't doing it to me. I
was allowing it. Yes, sweet, remember that we have the
power to govern ourselves, which kind of brings me to
(13:04):
my next point, which is that your screen time, your
social media time, should insot inspire your life. It should
pull you further into living. It should increase your zest
for for living. It shouldn't diminish your self worth. It
shouldn't devour your life, It shouldn't consume your life. It
shouldn't take you away from living. And you know one
(13:26):
of the biggest struggles for social media, well that I've
gotten feedback. Actually there's two. There's a lot of insecurity
and a lot of it's caused a lot of issues
in relationships. I've put out a lot of content over
the years on social media, and one thing that I've
consistently heard from people is their struggle with feeling like
(13:46):
they're not supported by people in their lives on social media.
There's a funny meme that was circulating. I don't know
if you've seen it on Instagram, which no one supports
you like a social media friend you've never met. Have
you ever seen that? No? But I can, I can resonate, right,
And in response to that, I wrote a this blog post,
(14:07):
what's really cheeky blog post? Maybe it's the algorithm, Maybe
you need new friends that a lot of people just
really resonated with. But but I'm just exploring how again,
we bring a lot of our cognitive distortions are sort
of insecurities, are all or nothing thinking to all of
our interactions and social media. So it's really easy to
(14:27):
be like, oh, I noticed that person supporting her launch.
Oh she's supporting her podcast. Oh, they're like, you know
of her post, she never comments on my post, you know,
things like that, and that can create a lot of
insecurity and dysfunction. And then there's also the element of comparison,
which is really dysfunctional because you're basically getting when you're
(14:49):
on social media, you're getting like a window seat into
someone's life. There's very little there's a world of context
that you're not getting. There's backstory, there's a whole lifetime
of conditionings and traumas and things that people are fumbling
with and struggling with behind the scenes. And comparison is
really something that most everyone struggles with. In fact, there
(15:11):
was a study that even this study it was like
they were just fifteen to thirty seven. It was a
group of a minute um people I think, male and female,
fifteen to thirty seven, and I think I think confessed
to struggling with comparison during social media when they're on
social media. Well, a couple of things have stuck out
(15:43):
to me for sure, and the comparison one. I just
was having a conversation with a friend that was going
through something and my first thought was, I had no
idea your social media looks so happy. I would never
have in a million year as guest this was going on.
And so that to me was a huge red flag
(16:05):
of like, oh yeah, duh, I know that, I know this.
Social media is not a full representation that could be
an accurate representation for her of those happy moments in
her life. But she doesn't owe anybody anything to document
every single detail of what is going on, and I
actually shouldn't rely on social media to tell me that.
But then also I've been guilty of the is this
(16:28):
person mad at me? They haven't commented or liked any
of my posts, but yes I will see them doing
it to other friends. And there's nothing that takes you
back to third grade at forty one years old like
having that moment, and it's like why again, Like you said,
that's just me giving social media power and creating a
lie in my head that probably has nothing to do
(16:51):
with that friend and my relationship and where we are
and if we're if she's mad at me or not. So,
how can we allow our screen time to inspire us
like you were insane like and not devour us. For
one thing we need to just with this is with
life in general. We need to understand that it is
(17:11):
our responsibility to take care of our own well being.
It is our responsibility to keep ourselves happy. And just
like we we you know, practice daily hygiene, we brush
our teeth, we take a shower or a bath, we
wash our hair, we need to practice mental hygiene as well.
We needed to be really good stewards of what we're
(17:33):
taking in and that goes with that that applies to
social media. And one thing is that I think that's
really important too, is there's this whole kind of movement
I've seen a lot of people right about oh and
just go through and delete anyone that's toxic in your
feet or delete any toxic content. And when I see that,
(17:54):
it reminds me of this piece that I wrote a
couple of years ago for Oprah Daily on narcissism, the
True meaning of narcissism, Because in our digital age, there's
so much misinformation on social media. Yes, there are a
lot of it's given a lot of brilliant experts a platform,
but it's also made a lot of space for misinformation.
And I noticed during that research that there's like all
(18:16):
these people who think who they think that they're an
expert on narcissism, you know, and there's all these quizzes,
are you a narcissist? Are you dating a narcissists? Right?
Do you have a friend who is a narcissist? And
the truth is is that only like one percent of
the population actually has narcissistic personality disorder. Now that exists
on a on a spectrum. But I hear this because
(18:37):
the same thing can be applied to the buzz term
toxic people. And there's a lot of encouragement to when
you're sort of taking charge of your social media feed
and you're wanting to clean it up, and it is
your responsibility to to be really really vigilal about vigilant
about what you're taking in, but to understand that you're
(18:59):
going at it from a gentle place of I am
caring for myself. I'm being kind to myself. I'm taking
responsibility for my own weaknesses, vulnerabilities, shortcomings. And it's not
about exiling or penning someone is toxic and deleting them
on social media and just doing this big sweet on
(19:21):
social media. For example, Let's say that there's a girl
on social media that you see and she is really
passionate about fitness and really passionate about clean eating, and
she shares, you know, videos or reels of her workouts,
and she shares like her smoothie bowls or her healthy recipes.
And for one person, that could be extremely inspiring and
(19:42):
that could be really helpful. But if a person, let's
say that a person is in a season and they
struggled with disordered eating or body image issues, it's going
to be toxic for them. Doesn't mean that that person
posting is toxic, that their intentions are toxic, that what
they're doing is wrong, but you, it's a important for
you as you take responsibility for your own well being
(20:03):
and you you be mindful about what you need and
what's good for you to say, you know what, maybe
that's not what I need to follow right now, maybe
this is not right for me. You could also flip
that around and say instead of if someone does unfollow you,
if people unfollow you when you share content, when you're
sharing yourself authentically as authentically as you can, because let's
(20:25):
face it, all social media is everything. Even the most
raw stuff is posted with an audience in mind, you know,
so that's important too to keep in mind. But if
you're sharing yourself authentically and you're showing up in the
best in a way that's healthy for you. And if
people un follow you, it's not necessarily as an attack
on your character. It's not an attack on who you are.
It just might be the things you're talking about, what
(20:47):
you're sharing is not right for them, or sometimes it
could honestly even be an accident. Do you know how
many times I accidentally start following someone and then they
post something and I literally don't know where they came from,
and so I have to unfollow And they might happen
to see that someone unfollowed them and that was me,
And that's because I accidentally followed them in the first place.
(21:09):
So I could be as innocent as that, and actually
nothing that you even posted meant anything to them. Yeah,
I guess what I'm trying to say is that we
don't need to let it dominate our sense of value.
Don't let it dominate your sense of value. Don't let
it be the totality of your relationships, the totality of
(21:29):
what of how you feel about yourself, of your self esteem.
Don't look to social media for validation for self esteem,
for worthiness. Let the things that you see online inspire you.
It should inspire you, like, oh awesome, I want to
go to Bali. I love her pictures. Oh my gosh,
I want to make pumpkin chocolate chip cookies in October,
(21:49):
or oh my gosh, I want to try that workout.
Let it and let it drive you further into living,
is what I'm saying. That should be how you determine
your engagement on social media. Is the enhancing my life?
Is it pulling me further into living? Is it? Is
it inviting me to live more vividly in real time
in real life? Or am I using this asn't a
(22:11):
means of escape? Am I using this to to avoid something? Yeah?
Or like you said that, or am I using this
for validation? Because if you're not getting it elsewhere, social
media is an easy place to go to try to
get it. But then it might get pretty scary for
a second if you've been feel the rejection when you
went there for something else, and then you're trying to
(22:34):
dissect all of that and thank you for sharing that
and saying that let it help you live a life
more fully because you know, I had to go through
and do some some clean out. But you're right, like
what is quote unquote toxic for me because I am
in eating disort of recovery. May not be for you know,
(22:56):
my sister or one of my friends that has never
dealt with any body image or disordered being issues, they
might be able to follow that person. So you really
have to use your own discernment in what is going
to be best for you. And I came across something
today that actually got me really excited, and I texted
myself the link because I'm gonna write down a recipe.
(23:18):
I think it was. I don't even know if I
follow this person. It just showed up as a suggested
real and I think her name is Eden Eats. She
clearly has a little bit of a following because I
ended up going to her page. But and she must
be like a cook or maybe she has a cook book.
I don't know. But she had this corn salad and
it's vibrant and full of colors, and it's obviously got
(23:39):
corn and cilantro and radishes and other greens and yeah, everything,
like I can't tell you excited. Look at your fence
right now. You're so yes, I want to make that salad.
And she said in the caption, you will not want
to eat another salad for the rest of the summer,
so you know, in so, I'm excited to figure out
(24:01):
if that statement is in fact true, but I'm excited
to make the list and go to the grocery store
and get all that nutrients and put it into my body.
And it's cool because I don't know who this person is,
but she posted this and I get to benefit from it.
And so that is something that I pulled from social
(24:22):
media today that is giving me life and and feeding
me and it will literally but I want all my
content to be It's probably not going to make me
smile that big, but you're kind of right, like pay
attention to what is like getting you excited and what
is not. Yeah, that's it. It should invite you just
like anything. Like I said, it's your responsibility to care
(24:45):
for the miracle that is your life like you were,
you're you know this. You are a miracle. You're a
walking miracle. It is your responsibility to make yourself happy,
to take care of your your emotions, take care of
your mind. And if something is preying upon or not
even necessarily praying upon, if something is fueling something that
(25:07):
you're you're a vulnerability that you're struggling with, don't subject
yourself to that. Don't put yourself in the way of that.
That doesn't mean that that there's a negative intention behind
the person who posted it. It could be a medicinal
for someone else, but if it's not for you, you
need to be aware of that and know that and
and not have weird feelings around that, and also know
(25:27):
that you know it's I feel like social media is
such a false metric for worthiness and popularity, and I
just know that that's not so that not to not
to take things so personally. You know what I mean
in terms of your your social media content, what you're
sharing and exchanging in regards to how many likes or
(25:49):
comments you might get on a particular post. Yes, that exactly.
That's what I mean. So much of and I'd like,
I'm so cautious to share, but I think it's important
to share. So much is contrived and inaccurate, you know,
Like I said a few minutes ago, even the most
raw and vulnerable and honest of content is released with
(26:10):
an audience in mind. And I'll tell you a quick story.
I have lots of relationships with publicists. With publicists because
of writing for so many magazines and media sources. I
have to interview a lot of experts, um a lot
of experts, and mental health and entrepreneurship and you know,
women's health, women's empowerment. I do a lot of content
(26:32):
in those areas. And a while ago, I had a
publicist who had worked with and had a great relationship with, say, Hey,
you know, I've got this new client, this new expert.
She's written a book, a best selling book. Vet her
and let me know if you would like to meet
her and have coffee with her, because you might want
to work her into some stories or use her as
an expert for some maybe some relationship related content. Like sure,
(26:56):
you know, I get a lot of this. I vetted
her and I was so impressed. Whether I went to
her website, went to her social media, she just looked
so full of life, and she's got this bestselling book
and from in a lot of ways, even though we
do very different things, I was like, oh gosh, like
that's inspiring me, you know, because as a writer like
she's in many ways like I, I'm very inspired by
(27:16):
her career and what she's created for herself. And we
ended up meeting and as it happens. We She ended
up confessing to me that her best selling book status
was not even real, it was completely fake, that she
had paid for it. She was in a lot of debts,
she had all these struggles, and all I could think was,
(27:37):
my gosh, I was on your social media this morning,
and you look like the picture of success and like
you're just creating on this content on the art of manifestation,
manifest your dreams. And but behind the scenes there was
she was going through a very hard time and was
really struggling, and had confessed that she had a lot
(27:57):
of pressure from her team to do some of the
things that she'd done, and she was really regretting it,
and she was feeling like she was living a lie.
And so I share that that is not something that
I've come across every day by any means. But if
you are comparing yourself to someone in social media, someone
that you you know, whether it's a celebrity or an
influencer or an expert or any any maybe someone you
(28:21):
went to high school with, I don't know, and you
are comparing for one thing, you don't even know that
what they're sharing is even the truth. You don't know
what demons, they're fighting behind the scenes, what's going on
in their relationship, what help struggles they could be having,
or even that anything that the glory that they're basking
in is even real. So that is really important for
(28:43):
us to know that when we go to social media,
let it inspire your life, but also have a little
bit of a lightness when you go and you consume
information on there. What are your thoughts on how we
(29:10):
have put And I say we maybe other people haven't,
but somewhere in my head, not that I guess, I
just assume others are thinking this way. I'm not saying
I judge people based on this, but this is what
I think is happening. Now. There's all this credibility in
your social media following, like there, even though we know
it may not be true, there's so much weight, Like
(29:33):
if you're thinking about maybe working with someone or I
have someone that writes books and she said that certain
publishers won't even talk to her because she doesn't have
the social media following that others have. But what did
we do before Instagram? Like people still wrote and published
books and books still got sold. So why does it
matter how many people you have on your Instagram page
(29:56):
as to whether or not you're qualified to write a
book and talk about something meaningful. It doesn't, but it's
social media has changed the fabric of the way we
interact with each other. But but why does it have
so much weight in such a short amount of time?
I agree, and yeah, I mean that is such an
ongoing struggle for so many people. I have the same conversation.
(30:16):
The only reason that I was able to get any
attention from publishers is because of borrowed credibility. I don't
have a big following. I've never really nurtured. I'm not
super consistent on social media for my own reasons. Never
had a desire to be an influencer. You know, I
want to have impact, I want to share my work.
But it's been a struggle for me personally as well,
(30:38):
because I've never I've never really wanted the responsibility of
a big following, to be honest with you, and I
think that being in this realm of mental health and
seeing it from all of these internal angles, I've seen
that it's not having a big following. If you think
for one minute that it's going to satiate you, you
are wrong. You are absolutely subscribing to Smoke in Mirrors,
(31:03):
because I'll tell you what this just this is really
relevant to what you were saying. Not long ago, I
went to a dinner with a public figure that I
had interviewed for a magazine story. Wonderful, wonderful person, amazing,
truly authentic person, has a great has a pretty big following,
but just truly is just as good as gold. Gotten
(31:25):
to know her, and she was having a really intimate
dinner at her house and had invited several just people
that she'd work with. There were quite a few other
influencers there, a couple celebrities, and then just a few
people like me who were like by far the least
famous in the room, and um, but who she'd work with,
(31:47):
who she'd worked with, and we all there's about seventeen women.
They're all just lovely women, and we each, she each
had a stand and share how we knew, how you know,
how we how we know her, um, what we do.
And I am telling you there were one one influencer,
the most famous person in the room, who has like
(32:09):
two million Instagram followers, stood and confessed. You know, she said,
I always thought that once I got to a certain
level of fame and as a certain level of followers,
that I would feel good, that I would be okay,
that I would feel like I'd made it, that I
would be fulfilled, And it didn't happen zero percent. Because
(32:29):
the bottom line is that you have to live alone
inside of your own head for the rest of your life.
It doesn't matter how many people you have swooning over
your you know, downloading your songs, or liking your posts,
or following you or you know, just vying for a
selfie with you. You still have to live alone inside
(32:50):
of your own head for the rest of your life.
And so the quest for having a big following, the
quest for validation, the quest for fame, the quest for
influence on social media is a fruitless search. And it's
also not even an accurate goal because so many followers
are bought, so people have you know, if you're comparing yourself,
(33:13):
you might be comparing yourself to someone who has a
publicist behind them they pay six or seven grand a
month to help them, or a marketing team or boughts
they've you know, hired a service to you know what
I mean. So all angles of that of validation and
popularity on social media and using follower account as a
(33:34):
metric for worthiness is really really tragic and really really
inaccurate and really frustrating. Yeah, well, thank you for for
sharing that, even just on for some people, it might
not be social media where they're seeking the validation. It
might be in other areas of their life, but that,
you know, for that reminder that it's all within yourself.
(33:55):
And I'm in a paraphrase what I saw in j
Low's documentary. Have you seen halftime yet? Yes? Oh, my gosh,
of course so good. I think this is when she
was talking about different relationships that she had been in.
Obviously a lot of her relationships were always covered in
the media, but you know, she was like, I feel
like I was constantly looking for home with other people.
(34:18):
And then she kind of just put her hand on
her chest and she was like, but home is here,
and she was talking about herself. And I have goose
bumps when I say it back again, because at that
moment I just started crying, and I thought, Okay, this
is amazing. I'm crying during the j LO documentary. But
I found the whole thing to be really powerful. I thought, Oh,
(34:40):
I like j Lo, Oh cool, she got to do
the halftime show. This seems interesting, but I took away
so much more from that, so I encourage you all
to check it out. Pretty sure, it's on Netflix. I've
had the same reaction, the same reaction. I was always
liked her, I was respected her, but I was I'll
tell you another thing that was very illuminating when she
was crying about how her lack of like nominations and
(35:03):
winning awards. And it's interesting because most people look at
her and they would love to have the level of
fame and money and power and success and the accolades
that she has created. And yet she's having this internal
struggle of like, I don't feel like I'm accepted by Hollywood.
I don't feel like I'm accepted by my peers, by
my colleagues. And so it's true what they say, for
(35:24):
every level, there's another devil, no matter where you are
on this earth. That's just the way that it is.
I have never you haven't heard for every for every level,
there's another devil. Just we always think. I feel like
you know, many humans can fall prey to the sort
of magical thinking that once I have the child, I'll
be happy, once I fall in love, once I get
(35:47):
the best selling book status, once my podcast gets this
many downloads, once I move into this house, once I
blah blah blah, then I'll be okay. And the truth
is is that that is something that is within reach
at all time, no matter where you are, and it's
something that you have to choose and you have to
consciously create in your life. It's not something that lands
in your orbit. You have to reach into the ether
(36:09):
and grab it and proclaim that for yourself, you know. Yeah,
And you know you mentioned every time we're posting something regardless,
there's always an audience in mind. Yeah, always, you know.
So in a way, it's like social media is our stage,
and speak to stepping down from the stage every once
(36:29):
in a while, and why that's important for our relationships,
our mental health and just being present with ourselves, like
like back to my Girl j Lo, Like connecting with
ourselves is just as important as having that human connection
with others offscreen. But stepping down from that does that
give us the space and capacity to get to know
(36:51):
ourselves better? Well, let me just talk about relationships first.
So there was one study, it was a year or
two ago that found at eighty percent of the content
that we put out on social media is like it's
it breeds self absorption because of it is about yourself,
and that is not natural. And in person conversation there's
(37:14):
a lot more exchange going on. You usually talk about yourself,
maybe a in person more like unless you're going through
like some you're meeting with a friend who's going through
and you know, in the throes of a divorce or
something like that. In general, it's not normal or healthy
to be so self absorbed and to talk about yourself
to show this is what I'm doing, you know what
(37:35):
I mean social media, So that is negative to our relationships.
Another thing that is really great virtue of stepping off
of the stage and disconnecting is the way that it
forms our relationships. So the thing about social media is
that it's actually very unhealthy for our brains because it
allows us to get access to information about another person
(37:57):
without us having to share anything about ourselves. So let's
say and and So that's that's not only unhealthy for
your brain, but that's also unhealthy for the future, potentially
the future of your relationships. Let me give you an
example to so that this makes sense. Let's say that
you take your daughter to one of her friend's birthday parties. Okay,
(38:18):
you go there and you meet some of the moms
and you connect with one of them. You just really
like somebody, one of a mom that you meet and
you guys just really hit it off. You like her vibe,
you had a great conversation, you like your energy, she's
really nice. You enjoyed talking to her, and then you
develop a relationship with friendship and blossoms from there. But
(38:41):
let's say that before doing that, you decided you were
gonna kind of find out who was going, and you
were going to vet everybody on their according to their
social media profiles before meeting them. Let's say that that
mom before you met her, had posted something on her
social media that triggered you. Maybe it you're bringing a
(39:02):
bias to without even realizing it to social media, and
it upset you. And maybe you wouldn't have even talked
to her in the first place. I mean, maybe you
wouldn't want going, you know what I mean, Maybe it
could have prevented a friendship. And I say this is
because social media is absolutely shaping the way that we
form friendships. And it's also we think that it's creating
(39:25):
more connection and it can, but it's how many is
it hindering? So that's why it's so important to step
off the stage and for some you know, in terms
of relationships, and then I'll kind of get to the
brain health piece, but it's important to step off the
stage and connect with people one on one, look them
in the eye, build the experience their essence, you know
(39:47):
what I mean, connect with them in a deep way
without a million distractions. And you know, because otherwise, if
you're trying to connect with people online, you're scrolling and
you're you're constantly being tugged did a million directions, Oh
look at this, Oh look I get this notification. Oh
this person liked. Why you're trying to connect or get
to know someone online? So that is one reason that
(40:09):
well there's a multitude of reasons within that. Why why
stepping off the stage and connecting in the flesh is
is just vital. Another thing is that when we are
constantly on social media and we're mindlessly scrolling, it prevents boredom,
and boredom, believe it or not, is wonderful for your
brain because it encourages imagination. It kind of forces creativity
(40:34):
and imagination, and it forces us to not trauma block,
but to process things, to sit with things. It breeds inventiveness.
So boredom is really really important. And that's one of
the problems that we've had in our modern day is
that we don't let ourselves be bored anymore because the
(40:55):
moment we do, we just start, you know, or there's
a law and in a conversation, we want to pick
up our phone and start scrolling again. But the last
piece is that having a deeper conversation, in a deeper connection,
one that causes you to ponder things and and and
you know, spawns analysis and exploration and connection that is
(41:16):
so good for your mental health and your emotional health.
It's good and which is good for your physical health,
which is good for your spiritual health. When you're working
on one, you're working on it all. And that's just
you can't have this deeper connections on social media when
you're available you have thousands of people available to you,
(41:36):
versus when you're sitting at a table with one, two, three,
four people. So I'd say my challenge is that to
ask yourself, am I doing this to perform? Am I performing?
Because if you live a life performing, then one day
you will never really lived at all. And so ask yourself,
am I performing or or am I living? And to
(41:58):
step off the stage and know that at one day
when you die, the things that you did strictly to
perform won't will be meaningless, but the connections that you
made and the love and that you formed will be
what matters. Well. So let's say you kind of for
your job, have to be on this stage for a
little bit. Is there a recipe for how much or
(42:19):
how often you maybe should work in stepping down? I
think it's different for everybody. I think it comes down
to self monitoring and discipline, which is difficult at first
because when you go to start that self monitoring, your
brain wants to go back to that habit of picking
up the phone and scrolling and getting So there's lots
of things you can do. One thing that I think
(42:40):
that's super important and I actually got this from my
psychologist friend, Dr Kevin Gilliland. He said, um, it's it's amazing.
And once you force yourself to look at the data,
to look at the numbers, then you can't hide from them.
So check your social media activity, look on your phone,
on your smartphone, and say be honest with yourself, how
much in engaging How much time am I spending on
(43:02):
social media versus connecting with my partner and looking them
in the eye and having a heart to heart talk
with them. How much am I spending on social media
versus eating or cooking or working out or gardening or
whatever it is that I love so much? What am
I giving more energy to? And and so the first
piece is just getting really honest with yourself. And then
(43:23):
the next second piece is making a decision to you know, self,
monitor to decide for you what is reasonable and and
you know, and I also I'm not a big fan
of extreme I mean, I wrote a book called Radical
Life Renovation. But it's all about making tiny choices that
create radical results. You don't have to like burn the
(43:43):
village down, so to speak. Three percent better. So I'm
gonna get three percent better today. I'm going to spend
three percent less time today on social media. I'm gonna
get three percent better about not seeking validation. I'm going
to get three percent better about not comparing myself. Yeah,
I think that that good encouragement. Just one you know,
how do you eat an elephant one bite at a time?
(44:05):
And so it might be very overwhelming if you look
at it and see like, oh wow, I've been spending
this much time on social media, which you can go
into your phone like it does it for you, like
if you've never looked at your screen time, it'll break
down how much time you're spending on text messages, on emails,
on Instagram, whatever. So you can assess that and then
(44:25):
just know that, yeah, you don't have to go like
go cold turkey, but start weaning yourself off of it
because it is an addiction. I don't did you ever
watch the what was it the Social of course? Yeah, yeah,
that's it's. Yeah, we didn't really get into that, but
there's a lot on and if you want, I can
just briefly mentioned about the dopamine hits that you get
(44:46):
when every time you get that little red notification. And
the scary part about that is that the way dopamine
works and which is I mean, that's why people get
so addicted to cocaine. Dopamine is your reward, Kim A
Cold's that's what gives you. That makes you happy. It
gives you that surge of happiness, but it is very addictive.
(45:08):
And what happens is when you get that dopamine hit,
you create even more of it the next time, and
then it takes something more to give you that same hit.
In other words, like if a person is becomes addicted
to cocaine, the next time, they're gonna need a little
bit more to get that same high. Same with social media.
Maybe you share something and you get a insane number
of likes and shares and comments or and praise or
(45:31):
validation and it gets you high, it gets you that
dopamine hit. The next time, you're gonna need a little
bit more. Or what happens when the next time you
post a picture and it doesn't resonate with people as much,
it doesn't get the attention, then you have a dopamine withdrawal.
And dopamine withdrawal can cause anxiety, depression, stress, agitation, feelings
(45:54):
of low self worth. So it's just really important. Again.
It's all comes down to self monitoring and being very
vigilant about the energy and the ideas and the beliefs
and the expectations that you bring to your social media life.
Let it inspire your life, not devour your life. I
love that. Let it inspire your life, not devour your life.
(46:16):
And I looked it up real quick, because it's been
a minute since I watched it, and it was on Netflix,
and it's the social dilemma. And if people want to
watch that, you may even want to watch it with
your kids. It can be a healthy conversation for your
family to because I know social media is so big
with kids right now, but I'm pretty sure that the
creators of these apps said in this documentary that they
(46:37):
don't allow their kids to use it. Yes, and and
and yeah they did. They did say that well because
and the creators of Instagram admitted that they knew what
they were doing, that that the dopamine hit that it
would become addictive. They actually knew what they were doing,
which is really scary. Yeah, Like even how you have
to scroll up with your thumb, like there is some
weird connection, like there's a reason why you're scrolling up
(47:00):
and there's something about your thumb like when you're scrolling.
I don't know if it was in that documentary or
another thing that I watched, but nothing that we're doing
within these apps is by mistake. It is all calculated. Yeah, absolutely,
And also it's really scary for kids because kids and
and teens don't yet have the emotional processing ability that
(47:20):
adults have. They haven't really garnered that sense of resilience yet,
so they're very, very vulnerable to the highs and lows
and emotional winds of social media, which is why there's
been so much self harm suicide in response to cyber bullying.
It's terrifying. Yeah, I know, it's like, well, and we've
just got to learn how to navigate these waters because
(47:43):
social media is not going away, and so if we
want to protect our mental health and the health of
our children, we just have to keep talking about it.
And I'm thankful for people like you, Lacy that dig
in and do the research and talk with the experts
and put out articles. You mentioned a few in our chat,
and I'm going to link those in the show notes
if people want a way to just have an easy
(48:05):
way to go find them and click on them so
they can read them. I'm so glad you were able
to come back on. I always enjoy chatting with you,
and before we go, I would love to hear four
things that you are thankful for today. I know you
did it last time you were here, but today might
be different. My gosh, I could list forty or more
I'm so grateful for so many things right now. I
(48:27):
am grateful for um, this mug of honey lavender tea
that I'm drinking that is so good. I am grateful
for my new home. My husband and I are moving
into a new home on the outskirts of Nashville, and
really grateful for that. I'm grateful for this Tracy Anderson method,
which is my favorite fitness method of all time. It's
(48:48):
so good for your brain. She's done a lot of
research and work with neuroscientists. By the way, I have
to give her a plug because I just adore the
Tracy Anderson Method so much. It is my oxygen. Okay,
number four, Oh gosh, I can't decide. I either okay, sonet,
Can I do five? I'd say, or is the rain
that we just had in Nashville was Oh my gosh,
(49:10):
we we went like ten days without rain. I don't
normally love rain, but we needed rain. Aren't my grass
needed rain? And then the fifth thing, sorry, the four plus,
I'll say four plus is this amazing spaghetti recipe that
I found online that I'm going to make tonight. You
simmer the sauce for like five hours and it's got
(49:30):
a little like chopped carrots in it that sweetens the
sauce and you add a little red wine to it
and it's the best spaghetti I've ever had in my life. Well,
so how do we? I mean, you'll have to send
me the link and I'll have to put it in
the show notes. Yes, the only thing that I'll say,
if you put the recipe in the show notes, I
don't recommend adding the cloth that. Um, I mean, some
people might do it, but my cousin Ashley did it
(49:52):
and didn't like it, and I did it, and my
husband gagged and he loves the spahetti recipe. So just
my recommendation, omit the cloth. It is the best spaghetti
recipe ever. And you have to let the sauce simmer
for five hours and it will blow your mind and
you'll never do anything else again. I've never mixed forgetting
another way again. I'm not glad you shared a fifth thing,
(50:13):
which is fitting because that's what I call my Tuesday episode.
So that's my bonus episode, the fifth thing. Uh. And
I'll link that corn salad in the show notes as
well for people. And so I love that we're giving
some some food recipes but Lacy, thank you so much
for coming back on and people can get all info
(50:34):
about you and links to all the things at Lacy
Johnson dot com. And that's Lacey with an E, so
l A C E Y Johnson dot com. And you're
definitely going to be coming back on in the future
to talk about who knows what. But I always love
your insight, your wisdom, and your dedication to mental health
and empowerment. I know that that's that's your passion, that's
(50:58):
your calling, and you're so great at it and I'm
super thankful to know you. Oh my gosh, I'm so
thankful to know you. Thank you so much for having me.
It's always a pleasure. Bye, okay bye,
Okay, little food for your so life. Oh it's pretty Bay,
It's pretty beautiful than that. A little more kicking with
(00:30):
four Happy Thursday, four Things, BAM. I am very excited
to have my friend Lacy Johnson back on. She has
been on the podcast before and she's a mental health
and empowerment journalist and she's back this time to talk
specifically about social media. And Lacy, I know you've done
a ton of research when it comes to this and
(00:50):
written articles about social media and the impact that it's
having on us. But I just got back from a
week vacation where I took a complete break. Is in
on Instagram, Twitter, Facebook, anything, and so why is it
important for us to do that from time to time?
Let's start there. There is so much in that that
(01:11):
we can really dive deeply into. But I will say,
for one thing, and this is just right off the bat,
when we're on social media and we're engaging, we are
having more information, more content, more ideas hurled at us
than humans have ever been able to handle in history.
(01:31):
I mean, in our digital age in general, we are
humans are being asked to hold more information than our
brains have ever been asked to hold, and so a
lot of what's happening is our brains cannot process this information.
We actually have something which I'm sure a lot of
people listening are familiar with, the reticular activating system which
sit sits in your brain stem, and it's responsible for
(01:55):
sort of organizing, controlling, filtering, and manipulate the parameters of
the information that you take in, sort of prioritizing the
information that you take in based upon what your program
to need to see in that moment, what your program
to notice. And when you're on social media, there's a
(02:15):
lack of deep thinking and a lack of deep connections.
So it's a shadow of connections, the solusion that you're
connecting with all these people, but your brain can't possibly
make that many in depth connections, and so it's actually
leaves you feeling more isolated and lonelier than ever a
lot of the time, and it's actually really really bad
(02:36):
for your brain. There's a lot of studies that suggests well,
the neuroscientists absolutely have determined that mindless scrolling and tons
of just like mindless consumption actually causes accelerated aging in
the brain because it doesn't help your brain fitness that
you need that you need deeper thought to keep your
(02:56):
brain firing properly. So is so show media problem in
general or is it? Is it okay within boundaries, It's
totally okay. I actually I had a really great conversation
with my friend Dr Kevin Gilliland. He's brilliant. But I
don't know why. When I gave birth to my daughter
three years ago. Well, I actually I do know why.
(03:19):
I was immersed in this two month long of just nothing.
I was at home breast feeding, diaper changing, and on
social media. That was that was my socialization at the time,
and so I was on social media more than ever before,
and I was kind of at that at the end
of the two month mark, I was kind of itching
to get back to work, and so I pitched an
(03:39):
idea to an editor, one of my editors at Pop Sugar,
and said, you know, I want to have a conversation.
I want to do some research and I want to
have a conversation with an expert on on the link
between anxiety and depression and social media use. And that,
mind you, this was pre pandemic. So a lot has
happened since then, which we'll talk about, but at that time,
(03:59):
it suicide and young people had already roared to a
historic high. I mean ten years ago we were at
the lowest for suicide and now our country is like
the highest for suicide, especially for young people. And so
I was on social media a lot, but I was
also having a lot of time to research and be like, what,
you know, what kind of topic am I going to
take on next? And so that was my first story
(04:21):
that I did after having my baby. And one thing
that he really emphasized, and this is so true, is
that social media is essentially neutral if you think about it,
like shopping isn't innately bad, food isn't bad, sex isn't bad,
but it can be harmful to a certain person two
(04:42):
if they come to that experience with a certain vulnerability,
a certain trauma, a certain lack of ability to process something,
poor conditioning, you know, poor self esteem. So social media
is not innately bad. There's actually been a lot of
positive things. But because of the addictive component, and because
(05:03):
we're all coming to social media with our own you know,
cognitive distortions, our own traumas, our own insecurities, our own expectations,
and other people can't read our minds, there's a lot
of room for error. There's also a lot of room
for dehumanizing others because it's so easy to hide behind screens.
(05:25):
Just this morning, prior tour, when I was preparing for
a conversation, I was responding to a couple of questions
on Facebook. Somebody pointed me to this group that I'm
a member of, like because I'm doing a women's health
related story, and she said, you need to you should
look at this, and I know it would be good
for your for your your research right now, And so
I went, I was, and I just noticed there were
(05:47):
all these women who were just totally attacking this fitness
experts and trainers character and making up all these stories
about her from behind a screen that I highly doubt
they would ever say to her face, and probably wouldn't
even necessarily think if if it were in the moment,
you know what I mean. So social media, to answer
(06:09):
your question in a very long winded way, social media
is not bad. But it's it's not the problem with
social media, it's the kind of power you're giving it.
Are you using it as a means as a means
to escape real living? Are you using as escape? Are
you using it as a to avoid in the flesh conversations,
(06:30):
maybe an uncomfortable conversation you want to have with somebody.
Are you have you had a lot of trauma around relationships,
Maybe you've had your heartbroken, You've gone through bad breakups,
and so you're afraid to put yourself out there and
meet other people. So you're sort of not on a
conscious level, trying to give yourself this this shadow of
connection on social media, and it's and you're you're avoiding
(06:51):
having real, rich, deeper conversations. Does that make sense? Yeah?
I think that, you know, connection is super important for us.
That's what we need connection, and some of us, given
certain life circumstances, aren't as good at it, or we
might have to work through some things before we're able
to truly connect with people. So I could see where
(07:12):
if you are in a place where connection is more
difficult for you, you try to seek it online, but
ultimately that's not going to be as fulfilling. That is
so true. And listen, I want to be really clear
to everyone listening. Anything that I'm saying, I don't want
like to add to anyone's shame around social media, any activity.
You know, there's we're all humans, it is not easy
(07:35):
to be a human on this earth, and we're here
all doing the best that we can and and working
fumbling with the traumas that we have. And you know, so, yes,
if you're a person who struggles with that, there's no shame.
If you have found yourself going to social media and
using it as a means of escape, or if you
had some dysfunctional habits or some addiction to validation and
(07:58):
attention seeking behavior online, there's no shame around that. But
we're having this conversation not to shame anybody, but to
empower you with information and tools so that you can
take that into your experience and have a healthier experience
with social media. Yeah, and then in a healthier I
think experience too, with true connection, like and what that
that looks like, because I think I use social media
(08:20):
or have in the past, to avoid a number of things.
But also you mentioned validation, and that's so true, Like
so many times I've been guilty of it, even though
I know, like why I don't know some of these people,
Why do I care what in the world they're saying
about me? Social media? For me, I've gotten a lot
better at it, but I used to freak out about
(08:43):
my captions and what I was gonna say and how
are they going to read it? And I don't know
why I couldn't just type the first thing that came
to my head and just leave it at that and
walk away. Posting was very stressful for me because I
made it stressful because I was so worried about what
their people were going to think or see or say
(09:03):
based on what I put up. So I think that
too was assigned to me, like something's got to switch here,
like I'm giving this too much power that I love
your transparency. Thank you so much for that. Two things
I want to say is because you were sort of
talking about the rejection and your anxiety around that and
wanting to give your followers, you know, not wanting to
(09:24):
anyone to reject what you're saying or or being caught
up in that. You know, from an evolutionary standpoint, we're
biologically wired to be in connection. That is how we
survived by by, you know what I mean, being in community.
We're biologically wired. So it is normal as a human
on this earth to have a physical response and fear
(09:45):
around rejection because you know, our ancestors wouldn't survive if
they were rejected. That's how they were able to eat,
That's how they were able to find a mate and procreate,
you know what I mean. So it's it's ingrained in
us to want to be accepted by other people. But again,
this is just about understanding that we're now in a
very different age and it is really changed the way
(10:07):
we form relationships, and it's really changed just a lot
of dynamics how we view ourselves, how we view the world,
how we interact with the world, how we collaborate with
the world. And so it's it's knowing that if you
have that anxiety when you go to post and you
fear that rejection and you get caught up in that,
just know that that is a normal response. It is
(10:28):
honestly a part of your evolution, uh, in terms of
your survival. But again, we just need to have these
tools and how to interact in a better way, in
a healthier way that empowers our lives and serves our lives,
doesn't disempower it. Before I got into the anxiety around it,
I think I was saying too, I would avoid sometimes
true connection, I would opt for the screen versus human
(10:52):
interaction because that was some stuff I had to work
through personally, and I have done a lot of work
in the last year and a half or so, sort
of forced upon me by other life circumstances. But I
couldn't be more thankful for it because it it gave
me the push I needed to just get in there
and dig deep. And I realized I've missed out on
(11:15):
true connection a lot of my life because I didn't
know how. And I could get into all the things
for my past that led up to that, but I
didn't even realize until I had close friends that were
able to speak into me and be honest and say,
you know, I guess in a nutshell they were longer
conversations than this, but in a nutshell like I don't
(11:38):
really feel like you care that connected to you, and
that stung. But I'm thankful that, you know, friends and
family were able to say that because it allowed me
to do the work to where I am trying to
connect more in actual interaction and creating those moments. And
so anyway, all that to say, I think whatever you
(12:00):
have going on, maybe you're okay with connecting with people,
and you don't have a fear of rejection, even face
like humans leaving you like actual humans in your life,
not humans online. But maybe it's something else. But we
can often I think, you know, I try to think
of when I joined Twitter two thousand eleven, maybe so
social media has been and then Facebook even way before that.
(12:23):
So social media has been a part of our life
for twenty years or so, and I have in those
especially in the last two years, leaned on it heavily
to avoid, to avoid, to avoid, to avoid. But then, yes,
and then it just added more anxiety. And you know,
when I have shut down from social media and I
(12:43):
have been intentional, my cup is so much more full.
And so I'm just thankful that, Yeah, you're speaking to
the power that we give it because I was doing that.
It's like social media wasn't doing it to me. I
was allowing it. Yes, sweet, remember that we have the
power to govern ourselves, which kind of brings me to
(13:04):
my next point, which is that your screen time, your
social media time, should insot inspire your life. It should
pull you further into living. It should increase your zest
for for living. It shouldn't diminish your self worth. It
shouldn't devour your life, It shouldn't consume your life. It
shouldn't take you away from living. And you know one
(13:26):
of the biggest struggles for social media, well that I've
gotten feedback. Actually there's two. There's a lot of insecurity
and a lot of it's caused a lot of issues
in relationships. I've put out a lot of content over
the years on social media, and one thing that I've
consistently heard from people is their struggle with feeling like
(13:46):
they're not supported by people in their lives on social media.
There's a funny meme that was circulating. I don't know
if you've seen it on Instagram, which no one supports
you like a social media friend you've never met. Have
you ever seen that? No? But I can, I can resonate, right,
And in response to that, I wrote a this blog post,
(14:07):
what's really cheeky blog post? Maybe it's the algorithm, Maybe
you need new friends that a lot of people just
really resonated with. But but I'm just exploring how again,
we bring a lot of our cognitive distortions are sort
of insecurities, are all or nothing thinking to all of
our interactions and social media. So it's really easy to
(14:27):
be like, oh, I noticed that person supporting her launch.
Oh she's supporting her podcast. Oh, they're like, you know
of her post, she never comments on my post, you know,
things like that, and that can create a lot of
insecurity and dysfunction. And then there's also the element of comparison,
which is really dysfunctional because you're basically getting when you're
(14:49):
on social media, you're getting like a window seat into
someone's life. There's very little there's a world of context
that you're not getting. There's backstory, there's a whole lifetime
of conditionings and traumas and things that people are fumbling
with and struggling with behind the scenes. And comparison is
really something that most everyone struggles with. In fact, there
(15:11):
was a study that even this study it was like
they were just fifteen to thirty seven. It was a
group of a minute um people I think, male and female,
fifteen to thirty seven, and I think I think confessed
to struggling with comparison during social media when they're on
social media. Well, a couple of things have stuck out
(15:43):
to me for sure, and the comparison one. I just
was having a conversation with a friend that was going
through something and my first thought was, I had no
idea your social media looks so happy. I would never
have in a million year as guest this was going on.
And so that to me was a huge red flag
(16:05):
of like, oh yeah, duh, I know that, I know this.
Social media is not a full representation that could be
an accurate representation for her of those happy moments in
her life. But she doesn't owe anybody anything to document
every single detail of what is going on, and I
actually shouldn't rely on social media to tell me that.
But then also I've been guilty of the is this
(16:28):
person mad at me? They haven't commented or liked any
of my posts, but yes I will see them doing
it to other friends. And there's nothing that takes you
back to third grade at forty one years old like
having that moment, and it's like why again, Like you said,
that's just me giving social media power and creating a
lie in my head that probably has nothing to do
(16:51):
with that friend and my relationship and where we are
and if we're if she's mad at me or not. So,
how can we allow our screen time to inspire us
like you were insane like and not devour us. For
one thing we need to just with this is with
life in general. We need to understand that it is
(17:11):
our responsibility to take care of our own well being.
It is our responsibility to keep ourselves happy. And just
like we we you know, practice daily hygiene, we brush
our teeth, we take a shower or a bath, we
wash our hair, we need to practice mental hygiene as well.
We needed to be really good stewards of what we're
(17:33):
taking in and that goes with that that applies to
social media. And one thing is that I think that's
really important too, is there's this whole kind of movement
I've seen a lot of people right about oh and
just go through and delete anyone that's toxic in your
feet or delete any toxic content. And when I see that,
(17:54):
it reminds me of this piece that I wrote a
couple of years ago for Oprah Daily on narcissism, the
True meaning of narcissism, Because in our digital age, there's
so much misinformation on social media. Yes, there are a
lot of it's given a lot of brilliant experts a platform,
but it's also made a lot of space for misinformation.
And I noticed during that research that there's like all
(18:16):
these people who think who they think that they're an
expert on narcissism, you know, and there's all these quizzes,
are you a narcissist? Are you dating a narcissists? Right?
Do you have a friend who is a narcissist? And
the truth is is that only like one percent of
the population actually has narcissistic personality disorder. Now that exists
on a on a spectrum. But I hear this because
(18:37):
the same thing can be applied to the buzz term
toxic people. And there's a lot of encouragement to when
you're sort of taking charge of your social media feed
and you're wanting to clean it up, and it is
your responsibility to to be really really vigilal about vigilant
about what you're taking in, but to understand that you're
(18:59):
going at it from a gentle place of I am
caring for myself. I'm being kind to myself. I'm taking
responsibility for my own weaknesses, vulnerabilities, shortcomings. And it's not
about exiling or penning someone is toxic and deleting them
on social media and just doing this big sweet on
(19:21):
social media. For example, Let's say that there's a girl
on social media that you see and she is really
passionate about fitness and really passionate about clean eating, and
she shares, you know, videos or reels of her workouts,
and she shares like her smoothie bowls or her healthy recipes.
And for one person, that could be extremely inspiring and
(19:42):
that could be really helpful. But if a person, let's
say that a person is in a season and they
struggled with disordered eating or body image issues, it's going
to be toxic for them. Doesn't mean that that person
posting is toxic, that their intentions are toxic, that what
they're doing is wrong, but you, it's a important for
you as you take responsibility for your own well being
(20:03):
and you you be mindful about what you need and
what's good for you to say, you know what, maybe
that's not what I need to follow right now, maybe
this is not right for me. You could also flip
that around and say instead of if someone does unfollow you,
if people unfollow you when you share content, when you're
sharing yourself authentically as authentically as you can, because let's
(20:25):
face it, all social media is everything. Even the most
raw stuff is posted with an audience in mind, you know,
so that's important too to keep in mind. But if
you're sharing yourself authentically and you're showing up in the
best in a way that's healthy for you. And if
people un follow you, it's not necessarily as an attack
on your character. It's not an attack on who you are.
It just might be the things you're talking about, what
(20:47):
you're sharing is not right for them, or sometimes it
could honestly even be an accident. Do you know how
many times I accidentally start following someone and then they
post something and I literally don't know where they came from,
and so I have to unfollow And they might happen
to see that someone unfollowed them and that was me,
And that's because I accidentally followed them in the first place.
(21:09):
So I could be as innocent as that, and actually
nothing that you even posted meant anything to them. Yeah,
I guess what I'm trying to say is that we
don't need to let it dominate our sense of value.
Don't let it dominate your sense of value. Don't let
it be the totality of your relationships, the totality of
(21:29):
what of how you feel about yourself, of your self esteem.
Don't look to social media for validation for self esteem,
for worthiness. Let the things that you see online inspire you.
It should inspire you, like, oh awesome, I want to
go to Bali. I love her pictures. Oh my gosh,
I want to make pumpkin chocolate chip cookies in October,
(21:49):
or oh my gosh, I want to try that workout.
Let it and let it drive you further into living,
is what I'm saying. That should be how you determine
your engagement on social media. Is the enhancing my life?
Is it pulling me further into living? Is it? Is
it inviting me to live more vividly in real time
in real life? Or am I using this asn't a
(22:11):
means of escape? Am I using this to to avoid something? Yeah?
Or like you said that, or am I using this
for validation? Because if you're not getting it elsewhere, social
media is an easy place to go to try to
get it. But then it might get pretty scary for
a second if you've been feel the rejection when you
went there for something else, and then you're trying to
(22:34):
dissect all of that and thank you for sharing that
and saying that let it help you live a life
more fully because you know, I had to go through
and do some some clean out. But you're right, like
what is quote unquote toxic for me because I am
in eating disort of recovery. May not be for you know,
(22:56):
my sister or one of my friends that has never
dealt with any body image or disordered being issues, they
might be able to follow that person. So you really
have to use your own discernment in what is going
to be best for you. And I came across something
today that actually got me really excited, and I texted
myself the link because I'm gonna write down a recipe.
(23:18):
I think it was. I don't even know if I
follow this person. It just showed up as a suggested
real and I think her name is Eden Eats. She
clearly has a little bit of a following because I
ended up going to her page. But and she must
be like a cook or maybe she has a cook book.
I don't know. But she had this corn salad and
it's vibrant and full of colors, and it's obviously got
(23:39):
corn and cilantro and radishes and other greens and yeah, everything,
like I can't tell you excited. Look at your fence
right now. You're so yes, I want to make that salad.
And she said in the caption, you will not want
to eat another salad for the rest of the summer,
so you know, in so, I'm excited to figure out
(24:01):
if that statement is in fact true, but I'm excited
to make the list and go to the grocery store
and get all that nutrients and put it into my body.
And it's cool because I don't know who this person is,
but she posted this and I get to benefit from it.
And so that is something that I pulled from social
(24:22):
media today that is giving me life and and feeding
me and it will literally but I want all my
content to be It's probably not going to make me
smile that big, but you're kind of right, like pay
attention to what is like getting you excited and what
is not. Yeah, that's it. It should invite you just
like anything. Like I said, it's your responsibility to care
(24:45):
for the miracle that is your life like you were,
you're you know this. You are a miracle. You're a
walking miracle. It is your responsibility to make yourself happy,
to take care of your your emotions, take care of
your mind. And if something is preying upon or not
even necessarily praying upon, if something is fueling something that
(25:07):
you're you're a vulnerability that you're struggling with, don't subject
yourself to that. Don't put yourself in the way of that.
That doesn't mean that that there's a negative intention behind
the person who posted it. It could be a medicinal
for someone else, but if it's not for you, you
need to be aware of that and know that and
and not have weird feelings around that, and also know
(25:27):
that you know it's I feel like social media is
such a false metric for worthiness and popularity, and I
just know that that's not so that not to not
to take things so personally. You know what I mean
in terms of your your social media content, what you're
sharing and exchanging in regards to how many likes or
(25:49):
comments you might get on a particular post. Yes, that exactly.
That's what I mean. So much of and I'd like,
I'm so cautious to share, but I think it's important
to share. So much is contrived and inaccurate, you know,
Like I said a few minutes ago, even the most
raw and vulnerable and honest of content is released with
(26:10):
an audience in mind. And I'll tell you a quick story.
I have lots of relationships with publicists. With publicists because
of writing for so many magazines and media sources. I
have to interview a lot of experts, um a lot
of experts, and mental health and entrepreneurship and you know,
women's health, women's empowerment. I do a lot of content
(26:32):
in those areas. And a while ago, I had a
publicist who had worked with and had a great relationship with, say, Hey,
you know, I've got this new client, this new expert.
She's written a book, a best selling book. Vet her
and let me know if you would like to meet
her and have coffee with her, because you might want
to work her into some stories or use her as
an expert for some maybe some relationship related content. Like sure,
(26:56):
you know, I get a lot of this. I vetted
her and I was so impressed. Whether I went to
her website, went to her social media, she just looked
so full of life, and she's got this bestselling book
and from in a lot of ways, even though we
do very different things, I was like, oh gosh, like
that's inspiring me, you know, because as a writer like
she's in many ways like I, I'm very inspired by
(27:16):
her career and what she's created for herself. And we
ended up meeting and as it happens. We She ended
up confessing to me that her best selling book status
was not even real, it was completely fake, that she
had paid for it. She was in a lot of debts,
she had all these struggles, and all I could think was,
(27:37):
my gosh, I was on your social media this morning,
and you look like the picture of success and like
you're just creating on this content on the art of manifestation,
manifest your dreams. And but behind the scenes there was
she was going through a very hard time and was
really struggling, and had confessed that she had a lot
(27:57):
of pressure from her team to do some of the
things that she'd done, and she was really regretting it,
and she was feeling like she was living a lie.
And so I share that that is not something that
I've come across every day by any means. But if
you are comparing yourself to someone in social media, someone
that you you know, whether it's a celebrity or an
influencer or an expert or any any maybe someone you
(28:21):
went to high school with, I don't know, and you
are comparing for one thing, you don't even know that
what they're sharing is even the truth. You don't know
what demons, they're fighting behind the scenes, what's going on
in their relationship, what help struggles they could be having,
or even that anything that the glory that they're basking
in is even real. So that is really important for
(28:43):
us to know that when we go to social media,
let it inspire your life, but also have a little
bit of a lightness when you go and you consume
information on there. What are your thoughts on how we
(29:10):
have put And I say we maybe other people haven't,
but somewhere in my head, not that I guess, I
just assume others are thinking this way. I'm not saying
I judge people based on this, but this is what
I think is happening. Now. There's all this credibility in
your social media following, like there, even though we know
it may not be true, there's so much weight, Like
(29:33):
if you're thinking about maybe working with someone or I
have someone that writes books and she said that certain
publishers won't even talk to her because she doesn't have
the social media following that others have. But what did
we do before Instagram? Like people still wrote and published
books and books still got sold. So why does it
matter how many people you have on your Instagram page
(29:56):
as to whether or not you're qualified to write a
book and talk about something meaningful. It doesn't, but it's
social media has changed the fabric of the way we
interact with each other. But but why does it have
so much weight in such a short amount of time?
I agree, and yeah, I mean that is such an
ongoing struggle for so many people. I have the same conversation.
(30:16):
The only reason that I was able to get any
attention from publishers is because of borrowed credibility. I don't
have a big following. I've never really nurtured. I'm not
super consistent on social media for my own reasons. Never
had a desire to be an influencer. You know, I
want to have impact, I want to share my work.
But it's been a struggle for me personally as well,
(30:38):
because I've never I've never really wanted the responsibility of
a big following, to be honest with you, and I
think that being in this realm of mental health and
seeing it from all of these internal angles, I've seen
that it's not having a big following. If you think
for one minute that it's going to satiate you, you
are wrong. You are absolutely subscribing to Smoke in Mirrors,
(31:03):
because I'll tell you what this just this is really
relevant to what you were saying. Not long ago, I
went to a dinner with a public figure that I
had interviewed for a magazine story. Wonderful, wonderful person, amazing,
truly authentic person, has a great has a pretty big following,
but just truly is just as good as gold. Gotten
(31:25):
to know her, and she was having a really intimate
dinner at her house and had invited several just people
that she'd work with. There were quite a few other
influencers there, a couple celebrities, and then just a few
people like me who were like by far the least
famous in the room, and um, but who she'd work with,
(31:47):
who she'd worked with, and we all there's about seventeen women.
They're all just lovely women, and we each, she each
had a stand and share how we knew, how you know,
how we how we know her, um, what we do.
And I am telling you there were one one influencer,
the most famous person in the room, who has like
(32:09):
two million Instagram followers, stood and confessed. You know, she said,
I always thought that once I got to a certain
level of fame and as a certain level of followers,
that I would feel good, that I would be okay,
that I would feel like I'd made it, that I
would be fulfilled, And it didn't happen zero percent. Because
(32:29):
the bottom line is that you have to live alone
inside of your own head for the rest of your life.
It doesn't matter how many people you have swooning over
your you know, downloading your songs, or liking your posts,
or following you or you know, just vying for a
selfie with you. You still have to live alone inside
(32:50):
of your own head for the rest of your life.
And so the quest for having a big following, the
quest for validation, the quest for fame, the quest for
influence on social media is a fruitless search. And it's
also not even an accurate goal because so many followers
are bought, so people have you know, if you're comparing yourself,
(33:13):
you might be comparing yourself to someone who has a
publicist behind them they pay six or seven grand a
month to help them, or a marketing team or boughts
they've you know, hired a service to you know what
I mean. So all angles of that of validation and
popularity on social media and using follower account as a
(33:34):
metric for worthiness is really really tragic and really really
inaccurate and really frustrating. Yeah, well, thank you for for
sharing that, even just on for some people, it might
not be social media where they're seeking the validation. It
might be in other areas of their life, but that,
you know, for that reminder that it's all within yourself.
(33:55):
And I'm in a paraphrase what I saw in j
Low's documentary. Have you seen halftime yet? Yes? Oh, my gosh,
of course so good. I think this is when she
was talking about different relationships that she had been in.
Obviously a lot of her relationships were always covered in
the media, but you know, she was like, I feel
like I was constantly looking for home with other people.
(34:18):
And then she kind of just put her hand on
her chest and she was like, but home is here,
and she was talking about herself. And I have goose
bumps when I say it back again, because at that
moment I just started crying, and I thought, Okay, this
is amazing. I'm crying during the j LO documentary. But
I found the whole thing to be really powerful. I thought, Oh,
(34:40):
I like j Lo, Oh cool, she got to do
the halftime show. This seems interesting, but I took away
so much more from that, so I encourage you all
to check it out. Pretty sure, it's on Netflix. I've
had the same reaction, the same reaction. I was always
liked her, I was respected her, but I was I'll
tell you another thing that was very illuminating when she
was crying about how her lack of like nominations and
(35:03):
winning awards. And it's interesting because most people look at
her and they would love to have the level of
fame and money and power and success and the accolades
that she has created. And yet she's having this internal
struggle of like, I don't feel like I'm accepted by Hollywood.
I don't feel like I'm accepted by my peers, by
my colleagues. And so it's true what they say, for
(35:24):
every level, there's another devil, no matter where you are
on this earth. That's just the way that it is.
I have never you haven't heard for every for every level,
there's another devil. Just we always think. I feel like
you know, many humans can fall prey to the sort
of magical thinking that once I have the child, I'll
be happy, once I fall in love, once I get
(35:47):
the best selling book status, once my podcast gets this
many downloads, once I move into this house, once I
blah blah blah, then I'll be okay. And the truth
is is that that is something that is within reach
at all time, no matter where you are, and it's
something that you have to choose and you have to
consciously create in your life. It's not something that lands
in your orbit. You have to reach into the ether
(36:09):
and grab it and proclaim that for yourself, you know. Yeah,
And you know you mentioned every time we're posting something regardless,
there's always an audience in mind. Yeah, always, you know.
So in a way, it's like social media is our stage,
and speak to stepping down from the stage every once
(36:29):
in a while, and why that's important for our relationships,
our mental health and just being present with ourselves, like
like back to my Girl j Lo, Like connecting with
ourselves is just as important as having that human connection
with others offscreen. But stepping down from that does that
give us the space and capacity to get to know
(36:51):
ourselves better? Well, let me just talk about relationships first.
So there was one study, it was a year or
two ago that found at eighty percent of the content
that we put out on social media is like it's
it breeds self absorption because of it is about yourself,
and that is not natural. And in person conversation there's
(37:14):
a lot more exchange going on. You usually talk about yourself,
maybe a in person more like unless you're going through
like some you're meeting with a friend who's going through
and you know, in the throes of a divorce or
something like that. In general, it's not normal or healthy
to be so self absorbed and to talk about yourself
to show this is what I'm doing, you know what
(37:35):
I mean social media, So that is negative to our relationships.
Another thing that is really great virtue of stepping off
of the stage and disconnecting is the way that it
forms our relationships. So the thing about social media is
that it's actually very unhealthy for our brains because it
allows us to get access to information about another person
(37:57):
without us having to share anything about ourselves. So let's
say and and So that's that's not only unhealthy for
your brain, but that's also unhealthy for the future, potentially
the future of your relationships. Let me give you an
example to so that this makes sense. Let's say that
you take your daughter to one of her friend's birthday parties. Okay,
(38:18):
you go there and you meet some of the moms
and you connect with one of them. You just really
like somebody, one of a mom that you meet and
you guys just really hit it off. You like her vibe,
you had a great conversation, you like your energy, she's
really nice. You enjoyed talking to her, and then you
develop a relationship with friendship and blossoms from there. But
(38:41):
let's say that before doing that, you decided you were
gonna kind of find out who was going, and you
were going to vet everybody on their according to their
social media profiles before meeting them. Let's say that that
mom before you met her, had posted something on her
social media that triggered you. Maybe it you're bringing a
(39:02):
bias to without even realizing it to social media, and
it upset you. And maybe you wouldn't have even talked
to her in the first place. I mean, maybe you
wouldn't want going, you know what I mean, Maybe it
could have prevented a friendship. And I say this is
because social media is absolutely shaping the way that we
form friendships. And it's also we think that it's creating
(39:25):
more connection and it can, but it's how many is
it hindering? So that's why it's so important to step
off the stage and for some you know, in terms
of relationships, and then I'll kind of get to the
brain health piece, but it's important to step off the
stage and connect with people one on one, look them
in the eye, build the experience their essence, you know
(39:47):
what I mean, connect with them in a deep way
without a million distractions. And you know, because otherwise, if
you're trying to connect with people online, you're scrolling and
you're you're constantly being tugged did a million directions, Oh
look at this, Oh look I get this notification. Oh
this person liked. Why you're trying to connect or get
to know someone online? So that is one reason that
(40:09):
well there's a multitude of reasons within that. Why why
stepping off the stage and connecting in the flesh is
is just vital. Another thing is that when we are
constantly on social media and we're mindlessly scrolling, it prevents boredom,
and boredom, believe it or not, is wonderful for your
brain because it encourages imagination. It kind of forces creativity
(40:34):
and imagination, and it forces us to not trauma block,
but to process things, to sit with things. It breeds inventiveness.
So boredom is really really important. And that's one of
the problems that we've had in our modern day is
that we don't let ourselves be bored anymore because the
(40:55):
moment we do, we just start, you know, or there's
a law and in a conversation, we want to pick
up our phone and start scrolling again. But the last
piece is that having a deeper conversation, in a deeper connection,
one that causes you to ponder things and and and
you know, spawns analysis and exploration and connection that is
(41:16):
so good for your mental health and your emotional health.
It's good and which is good for your physical health,
which is good for your spiritual health. When you're working
on one, you're working on it all. And that's just
you can't have this deeper connections on social media when
you're available you have thousands of people available to you,
(41:36):
versus when you're sitting at a table with one, two, three,
four people. So I'd say my challenge is that to
ask yourself, am I doing this to perform? Am I performing?
Because if you live a life performing, then one day
you will never really lived at all. And so ask yourself,
am I performing or or am I living? And to
(41:58):
step off the stage and know that at one day
when you die, the things that you did strictly to
perform won't will be meaningless, but the connections that you
made and the love and that you formed will be
what matters. Well. So let's say you kind of for
your job, have to be on this stage for a
little bit. Is there a recipe for how much or
(42:19):
how often you maybe should work in stepping down? I
think it's different for everybody. I think it comes down
to self monitoring and discipline, which is difficult at first
because when you go to start that self monitoring, your
brain wants to go back to that habit of picking
up the phone and scrolling and getting So there's lots
of things you can do. One thing that I think
(42:40):
that's super important and I actually got this from my
psychologist friend, Dr Kevin Gilliland. He said, um, it's it's amazing.
And once you force yourself to look at the data,
to look at the numbers, then you can't hide from them.
So check your social media activity, look on your phone,
on your smartphone, and say be honest with yourself, how
much in engaging How much time am I spending on
(43:02):
social media versus connecting with my partner and looking them
in the eye and having a heart to heart talk
with them. How much am I spending on social media
versus eating or cooking or working out or gardening or
whatever it is that I love so much? What am
I giving more energy to? And and so the first
piece is just getting really honest with yourself. And then
(43:23):
the next second piece is making a decision to you know, self,
monitor to decide for you what is reasonable and and
you know, and I also I'm not a big fan
of extreme I mean, I wrote a book called Radical
Life Renovation. But it's all about making tiny choices that
create radical results. You don't have to like burn the
(43:43):
village down, so to speak. Three percent better. So I'm
gonna get three percent better today. I'm going to spend
three percent less time today on social media. I'm gonna
get three percent better about not seeking validation. I'm going
to get three percent better about not comparing myself. Yeah,
I think that that good encouragement. Just one you know,
how do you eat an elephant one bite at a time?
(44:05):
And so it might be very overwhelming if you look
at it and see like, oh wow, I've been spending
this much time on social media, which you can go
into your phone like it does it for you, like
if you've never looked at your screen time, it'll break
down how much time you're spending on text messages, on emails,
on Instagram, whatever. So you can assess that and then
(44:25):
just know that, yeah, you don't have to go like
go cold turkey, but start weaning yourself off of it
because it is an addiction. I don't did you ever
watch the what was it the Social of course? Yeah, yeah,
that's it's. Yeah, we didn't really get into that, but
there's a lot on and if you want, I can
just briefly mentioned about the dopamine hits that you get
(44:46):
when every time you get that little red notification. And
the scary part about that is that the way dopamine
works and which is I mean, that's why people get
so addicted to cocaine. Dopamine is your reward, Kim A
Cold's that's what gives you. That makes you happy. It
gives you that surge of happiness, but it is very addictive.
(45:08):
And what happens is when you get that dopamine hit,
you create even more of it the next time, and
then it takes something more to give you that same hit.
In other words, like if a person is becomes addicted
to cocaine, the next time, they're gonna need a little
bit more to get that same high. Same with social media.
Maybe you share something and you get a insane number
of likes and shares and comments or and praise or
(45:31):
validation and it gets you high, it gets you that
dopamine hit. The next time, you're gonna need a little
bit more. Or what happens when the next time you
post a picture and it doesn't resonate with people as much,
it doesn't get the attention, then you have a dopamine withdrawal.
And dopamine withdrawal can cause anxiety, depression, stress, agitation, feelings
(45:54):
of low self worth. So it's just really important. Again.
It's all comes down to self monitoring and being very
vigilant about the energy and the ideas and the beliefs
and the expectations that you bring to your social media life.
Let it inspire your life, not devour your life. I
love that. Let it inspire your life, not devour your life.
(46:16):
And I looked it up real quick, because it's been
a minute since I watched it, and it was on Netflix,
and it's the social dilemma. And if people want to
watch that, you may even want to watch it with
your kids. It can be a healthy conversation for your
family to because I know social media is so big
with kids right now, but I'm pretty sure that the
creators of these apps said in this documentary that they
(46:37):
don't allow their kids to use it. Yes, and and
and yeah they did. They did say that well because
and the creators of Instagram admitted that they knew what
they were doing, that that the dopamine hit that it
would become addictive. They actually knew what they were doing,
which is really scary. Yeah, Like even how you have
to scroll up with your thumb, like there is some
weird connection, like there's a reason why you're scrolling up
(47:00):
and there's something about your thumb like when you're scrolling.
I don't know if it was in that documentary or
another thing that I watched, but nothing that we're doing
within these apps is by mistake. It is all calculated. Yeah, absolutely,
And also it's really scary for kids because kids and
and teens don't yet have the emotional processing ability that
(47:20):
adults have. They haven't really garnered that sense of resilience yet,
so they're very, very vulnerable to the highs and lows
and emotional winds of social media, which is why there's
been so much self harm suicide in response to cyber bullying.
It's terrifying. Yeah, I know, it's like, well, and we've
just got to learn how to navigate these waters because
(47:43):
social media is not going away, and so if we
want to protect our mental health and the health of
our children, we just have to keep talking about it.
And I'm thankful for people like you, Lacy that dig
in and do the research and talk with the experts
and put out articles. You mentioned a few in our chat,
and I'm going to link those in the show notes
if people want a way to just have an easy
(48:05):
way to go find them and click on them so
they can read them. I'm so glad you were able
to come back on. I always enjoy chatting with you,
and before we go, I would love to hear four
things that you are thankful for today. I know you
did it last time you were here, but today might
be different. My gosh, I could list forty or more
I'm so grateful for so many things right now. I
(48:27):
am grateful for um, this mug of honey lavender tea
that I'm drinking that is so good. I am grateful
for my new home. My husband and I are moving
into a new home on the outskirts of Nashville, and
really grateful for that. I'm grateful for this Tracy Anderson method,
which is my favorite fitness method of all time. It's
(48:48):
so good for your brain. She's done a lot of
research and work with neuroscientists. By the way, I have
to give her a plug because I just adore the
Tracy Anderson Method so much. It is my oxygen. Okay,
number four, Oh gosh, I can't decide. I either okay, sonet,
Can I do five? I'd say, or is the rain
that we just had in Nashville was Oh my gosh,
(49:10):
we we went like ten days without rain. I don't
normally love rain, but we needed rain. Aren't my grass
needed rain? And then the fifth thing, sorry, the four plus,
I'll say four plus is this amazing spaghetti recipe that
I found online that I'm going to make tonight. You
simmer the sauce for like five hours and it's got
(49:30):
a little like chopped carrots in it that sweetens the
sauce and you add a little red wine to it
and it's the best spaghetti I've ever had in my life. Well,
so how do we? I mean, you'll have to send
me the link and I'll have to put it in
the show notes. Yes, the only thing that I'll say,
if you put the recipe in the show notes, I
don't recommend adding the cloth that. Um, I mean, some
people might do it, but my cousin Ashley did it
(49:52):
and didn't like it, and I did it, and my
husband gagged and he loves the spahetti recipe. So just
my recommendation, omit the cloth. It is the best spaghetti
recipe ever. And you have to let the sauce simmer
for five hours and it will blow your mind and
you'll never do anything else again. I've never mixed forgetting
another way again. I'm not glad you shared a fifth thing,
(50:13):
which is fitting because that's what I call my Tuesday episode.
So that's my bonus episode, the fifth thing. Uh. And
I'll link that corn salad in the show notes as
well for people. And so I love that we're giving
some some food recipes but Lacy, thank you so much
for coming back on and people can get all info
(50:34):
about you and links to all the things at Lacy
Johnson dot com. And that's Lacey with an E, so
l A C E Y Johnson dot com. And you're
definitely going to be coming back on in the future
to talk about who knows what. But I always love
your insight, your wisdom, and your dedication to mental health
and empowerment. I know that that's that's your passion, that's
(50:58):
your calling, and you're so great at it and I'm
super thankful to know you. Oh my gosh, I'm so
thankful to know you. Thank you so much for having me.
It's always a pleasure. Bye, okay bye,
Feeling Things with Amy & Kat News
Host
Amy Brown
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