Under the Influence (with Jo Piazza) - Want to Feel Human Again？ Break Your Phone Addiction

00:00:00.000 Chew on this bold question from Dentine Gum.

00:00:03.560 Is it ever okay to compliment a millennial on their skinny jeans in 2026?

00:00:12.760 Dentine, chew bold.

00:00:21.360 Hey y'all, Jo here and you are listening to Under the Influence.

00:00:25.220 We talk about social media addiction on this podcast all of the time.

00:00:30.540 And all of us, all of us talk about it in real life, too.

00:00:33.640 We're always joking about how we're addicted to our phones, how they're glued to the palms

00:00:38.260 of our hands, but I still don't think that we're stopping nearly enough to think about

00:00:43.760 what it's really doing to us, what it's doing to our brains, our attention spans, our

00:00:48.760 relationships, and even our sex lives.

00:00:52.840 My guest today is Dr. Tekla Ross, and she understands exactly how this works.

00:00:59.000 She is a clinical psychologist and a national leader in addiction medicine who advises the

00:01:03.420 NIH and also helps tech companies face the uncomfortable truths about what their products

00:01:09.440 are doing to people.

00:01:11.440 I love this episode. 0.99

00:01:13.080 I mean, it's pretty much a therapy session, to be honest, because Tecla is going to break 1.00

00:01:17.760 down exactly how these platforms were designed to hijack our brains.

00:01:21.900 The average person spends nearly two months a year on social media.

00:01:26.780 And that constant dopamine hit is rewiring the part of our brain that lets us focus, connect, and actually feel joy.

00:01:35.980 I'm also bringing Nick on today.

00:01:37.740 I mean, like I said, this is full-blown therapy.

00:01:40.220 So that we can talk about what happens when the phone kind of becomes a third person in your marriage.

00:01:45.540 And how to build actual intimacy by putting it away.

00:01:49.300 Techo says some really bold things in this episode.

00:01:52.400 And I think that they are true.

00:01:54.040 I think it is time to start thinking about our phones and social media as addictive substances with true harm reduction strategies, honesty, and a lot less shame.

00:02:05.680 Here's Tecla.

00:02:07.320 Social media platforms aren't just apps that are on our phone.

00:02:10.800 They're sophisticated attention traps that are really designed to hijack our brain's natural reward system.

00:02:17.340 And companies, as we all very well know, compete fiercely for every moment of our attention.

00:02:22.360 using for every moment of our attention moment using manipulative design tactics like infinite

00:02:28.520 scroll and notifications we're basically on a dopamine roller coaster with a slot machine 24

00:02:34.620 7 in the palm of our hand yes i want to that's what i want to get into first although i love

00:02:40.380 the name sophisticated attention traps and so i think i'm going to name my social media file on

00:02:45.860 my phone that because it was called bullshit before but now i think i'll change it to sophisticated

00:02:50.520 attention traps. Seriously, it's what it is. It's what it is. So talk to me a little bit about the 0.94

00:02:56.020 design. Like how are these things designed to keep us coming back and to essentially just keep us

00:03:01.660 addicted, to keep us on a dopamine roller coaster? Totally. So they hijack our frontal lobes,

00:03:07.120 which is the area of our brain responsible for self-control and executive functioning, which is

00:03:13.300 it diminishes our ability to focus, to regulate our impulses, and really honestly to engage deeply

00:03:20.380 in the real world, like the present moment in front of us. And so instead, we operate on more

00:03:25.340 primitive impulses of what Tristan Harris, the Center for Humane Technology leader, calls the

00:03:30.740 bottom of the brainstem. So we're driven by immediate gratification, which impacts our

00:03:36.360 attention span, and it reduces our enjoyment in the face-to-face. And it honestly, it heightens

00:03:43.380 our anxiety about staying relevant and keeping up and the constant like, oh my gosh, oh my gosh,

00:03:49.580 am i enoughness um and i can say honestly when i operate from this level of my brain i tend to have

00:03:56.140 a lot of shame um and this is what we're all engaging in for multiple hours of a day like

00:04:04.020 honestly the amount of time we spend on social media is almost two months a year and oh my god

00:04:09.640 stop say it again say it again yeah yeah it's almost two months a year when you look at the

00:04:15.060 average use per day and the amount that you added up in your life. I was on another podcast this

00:04:22.920 summer, walking somebody through their own digital detox with social media, and she added it up in

00:04:29.780 her own life. And it was taking about two months of her life on social. When you put it like that,

00:04:36.140 I want to die. I just, but also, but also such a good reminder, again, to say these things out

00:04:41.460 loud, which is why I made you say it twice. You know, it's taking up two months of our life. That's

00:04:46.260 bananas. Yeah. And it's like it's impairing our learning, our ability to learn new things,

00:04:51.360 our emotion regulation. I mean, all of us know, like after a long scroll, you're, you know,

00:04:56.280 your frustration tolerance is low. Our social skills are atrophying. When was the last time,

00:05:02.660 honestly, Joe, you were in a deep conversation with someone, deep, long conversation, and they

00:05:07.820 didn't look at their watch didn't have their hand on their phone their phone wasn't on the table or

00:05:12.480 they didn't grab for it yeah i mean i it's been some time although i mean i try i have been trying

00:05:20.820 really hard to number one put the phone down and have phone conversations and then my phone is out

00:05:29.320 of my hands right because i'm on it i'm talking on it uh and so i'm i'm working on it but also

00:05:35.840 it has been too long and they are too few and far between totally totally i mean i'll say it

00:05:44.420 to you another way i mean basically social media particular things like tech top where people open

00:05:50.920 the app almost like more than 20 times a day and consume over 90 minutes of ultra short videos

00:05:55.860 but they're basically getting like such a dopamine flood that outpaces our natural rewards in the

00:06:02.080 real world. And what we would normally get in like hours or days or months of our lives,

00:06:09.240 we're getting that dopamine instantaneously. So it's like the time warp even that's keeping us

00:06:14.300 hooked. It's just, it's eroding, as you said, the quality of our relationships. And for you,

00:06:21.620 the phone example is perfect because like you're disengaging from being on the phone so that you

00:06:27.160 can actually talk and have a conversation. But really, I just want to say that I'm making a

00:06:32.720 correlation here, but social media is really destroying the quality of our lives by destroying

00:06:37.820 the quality of our relationships. And I believe that is very, very, very accurate. I truly think

00:06:45.380 that it is one of the reasons that I don't even want my kids to start on social media. I honestly

00:06:51.860 don't i will do whatever it takes to keep them off of it it's very hard as a parent not for me

00:06:57.500 yet because they're still little but obviously you're like i want my kids to have connection

00:07:01.200 and stuff and i'm like i'll find other ways i'm gonna we are getting them landlines which i'm

00:07:06.340 very excited about we have one it's fab do you do you love your landline we love our landline

00:07:11.940 big fan big fan oh yeah so psyched so psyched all of our neighbors are adopting it as well right

00:07:17.500 like our friends are doing it because you need you have to do it kind of en masse if you if you're

00:07:21.100 the only one with the landline you're just calling the pizza guy so yeah we're we're doing landlines

00:07:26.220 i'll do anything i can to fight against it i i will get off of it as soon as i can find a way

00:07:33.520 to sell as many books as i do offline totally well we can work on it together because obviously

00:07:39.680 i'm writing a book and everyone wants me to sell it on social so you don't have a choice that's the

00:07:44.660 thing because really it's really really really hard but i do i'm an optimist and like i do believe

00:07:50.380 Just like we came up with technology, there are other inventive ways that we can go back in community to really growing and promoting and working across silos and working with art and media and in different ways to be thinking outside the box.

00:08:07.720 But I just want to go back to your point as a mom, because that was actually when I went off social.

00:08:12.000 So in 2020, my then five-year-old was like kind of sitting over my shoulder and I was scrolling and feeling super inadequate about myself because the other working moms were like baking sourdough and running a Montessori classroom and crafting other projects. 0.92

00:08:28.300 Oh, girl, they're just lying to you. 0.97

00:08:29.940 I know.

00:08:30.460 And so my five-year-old was like, Mom, you look sad.

00:08:34.380 And I looked at her and was like, I am totally sad by looking at this thing.

00:08:38.200 And at that moment, I mean, I knew all the data as a psychologist, right, about how much time teen girls spend on social media and what it does to their mental health challenges and risks and depression, anxiety.

00:08:48.620 And I looked at her and I thought, if I'm going to tell her to not be on this thing and her friends and her neighbors, like, why should I be on it?

00:08:55.520 We have to model the behavior we want to see in our kids.

00:08:58.180 And it's hard.

00:08:59.360 It's really hard.

00:09:00.200 and I've as I've gotten and spent more time away from it I've done things like you said like

00:09:05.360 I'm the girl who picks up the phone and calls my friends and has the long conversation doesn't like

00:09:09.800 dm them or like their vacation photos right I send them a letter like the dopamine hit from a letter

00:09:15.520 lasts months it's it's a process and again none of us are perfect but we're all in it we're all

00:09:21.340 very much in it so I want to get into a little bit of the nitty-gritty of this you've been working

00:09:26.280 on digital harm reduction before a lot of us even knew what that was. What first made you realize

00:09:34.080 that technology was reshaping our mental health? I started noticing that people were not drinking

00:09:40.980 as much alcohol, not going to bars as much because they didn't need that dopamine hit. They were

00:09:45.740 getting it in the palm of their hand. And that's when I said as a behaviorist, as an addiction

00:09:51.500 psychologist, as somebody who's been in the field for a while, like, oh, my gosh, what's happening?

00:09:56.300 And then I got the calls, the horrible calls of the family members and the friends whose kids

00:10:01.160 were in psychiatric wards for trying to harm themselves because of social media or people

00:10:06.680 who feel like they can no longer have social interaction because they don't have the skills

00:10:10.660 to engage in everyday life because they've been on their phone so much. And as I said to you,

00:10:14.660 it's personal, too. I've had addiction in my family on both sides and I see it all over the

00:10:20.380 place. So as somebody who's steeped in harm reduction in addiction behavior, I just I knew

00:10:26.360 that behavioral addictions have the same brain changes and clinical symptoms as addictions to

00:10:31.380 drug and alcohol. And I really couldn't ignore it any longer. Yeah, I mean, I have a lot of

00:10:38.000 addiction in my family as well. I think about addiction a lot. And I also talk about addiction

00:10:45.900 as it relates to these social media platforms.

00:10:51.060 And yet it's hard for me to even make switches

00:10:55.300 in my daily life.

00:10:56.900 I try every day.

00:10:58.740 One of the things that I think is so funny

00:11:00.380 is the social media companies

00:11:01.800 allowing you to set the limits.

00:11:03.820 I don't know anyone who adheres to those limits.

00:11:05.580 It's like, it always asks you,

00:11:07.080 and I think it does this on purpose, I swear to God.

00:11:08.920 I think it always asks you if you want to keep going

00:11:11.620 when you're in the middle of something.

00:11:13.520 Like, it's not just when you're scrolling.

00:11:14.860 I always get asked it like when I'm in the middle of posting something.

00:11:18.460 So I have to say no.

00:11:19.800 I think it knows to do that.

00:11:21.340 I swear to God.

00:11:22.800 Oh, I'm sure it does.

00:11:23.620 Do you know that Netflix, for example, you know, the time ticker when it's ticking for

00:11:28.300 the next episode, you know, in a show or something, they change the time that it automatically

00:11:34.240 brings on the next episode based on the binge worthiness of the show.

00:11:38.520 So if you're watching a documentary like they're giving you some time before the next one comes

00:11:42.840 up, they're robbing our most primitive friends.

00:11:44.860 of our brain and they know that they're doing it right like this is very conscious or or am i being

00:11:50.920 being overly critical and conspiracy theorist i mean they're conscious and like um show me where

00:11:58.620 the incentives are and you know we'll show you where the product is right it's like they they're

00:12:04.680 incentivized to do this to measure time on platform um and so yes and i do think there's some companies

00:12:11.720 that are acknowledging their role

00:12:14.960 and designing these like sticky and compulsive features.

00:12:18.560 That said, meaningful change is usually slow

00:12:21.180 and it tends to be driven less by altruism

00:12:23.820 and more by external forces like regulatory pressure,

00:12:27.700 public backlash, incentives, new competitive standards.

00:12:33.140 And we're starting to see all that.

00:12:34.880 I think Jonathan Haidt obviously in his move

00:12:36.660 and has done an incredible job and others.

00:12:39.620 There are promising exceptions.

00:12:41.420 There are a growing number of companies that are partnering with psychologists like myself who are co-designing digital therapeutics, safety features and healthier engagement models.

00:12:51.500 But as you said, profit incentives often outweigh our well-being.

00:12:57.200 So many firms continue to just resist the change and go for the revenue.

00:13:03.080 So we'll show you, as my husband says, show me the incentive and I'll show you the behavior.

00:13:07.020 i mean yeah and how do tech companies react when you come in as a psychologist and say hey your

00:13:14.740 product's hurting people like do you think that they want to change i think individual actors

00:13:21.400 within companies want to change but then as you said their incentive is to keep people on and keep

00:13:26.760 making money and provide money for their shareholders yeah i mean yes yes there are

00:13:32.180 definitely those companies. There are those companies that are what I'm calling altruistically

00:13:37.100 curious. They're like, oh, geez, we're deep down the rabbit hole. We should actually be doing

00:13:41.460 better, better by our clients, better by our shareholders, better by everyone. And so they

00:13:45.380 get a little curious and they bring people like me on. I'm part of a group with clinical female

00:13:49.880 tech advisors who do just that. But when it gets down to the revenue, they may change their mind,

00:13:56.340 But I choose to consciously work with companies that prioritize people and well-being and connection. We hurt in community, but we also heal in community. And I bring that philosophy with me into the tech world. And I work with organizations that want to create these conditions where users and whole communities can heal and thrive in connection.

00:14:20.100 And I'm an optimist. Like, I do believe that there are those folks out there that are doing it. I don't think it's, you know, the alphabets, but it's some of the smaller houses that are especially those that are working in what I call the social health space, which are really working on bringing us back to each other, human to human.

00:14:38.780 I want to take a quick break. And when we get back, I want to talk about coming back to each

00:14:44.200 other, human to human, because, again, like I said, this is the tangible stuff that I want

00:14:48.960 more of in my life. And so I want to find more ways to get there.

00:15:02.240 Okay, we are back. I talked about this the other day on the podcast, my friend Casey and I

00:15:08.000 We were in New York. We went to a book event. And then we just wandered around with like no real place to go. We hadn't looked up the hottest new restaurant on social media or whatever. And we saw a bar that looked funny. We're like, that bar is turquoise on the outside. And it looks like it belongs in like Miami, but the sad parts of Miami. We're like, that's for us.

00:15:30.180 And so we went in and we ended up having a great conversation with the bartender, with the servers, with other people in there. And to your point earlier, we didn't look at our phones for about two hours.

00:15:41.660 Yep. Yep. You were totally present in the moment. And I loved your your spontaneity piece, right? Like how much is the technology taking away the spontaneity of just being present in our everyday lives? I have a similar experience. I was just in Paris with some friends on the last day. I was with a girlfriend of mine and we were walking around and we found this restaurant like, oh, my gosh, it looks amazing. And then I said, well, there's the chef. Maybe I should just go in and ask if they have space.

00:16:08.940 we did and then we suddenly sat at the chef's table and we realized afterwards it was like

00:16:13.500 a michelin star restaurant we had no idea we were just kind of like happenstance walking by

00:16:19.200 but those kind of synchronicities that's from harmony that happens when we're just

00:16:23.980 living our real lives that doesn't happen if we're glued to our phone

00:16:27.100 it it doesn't and that used to be so much of real life i mean and so much of traveling i i traveled

00:16:34.820 so much before social media thank god also because i do think that as a person who lived a life

00:16:42.880 before smartphones and before social media my brain formed without that and i feel so lucky for

00:16:50.080 for having that time but the serendipity of just like you don't know what's going to happen next

00:16:55.540 you don't know if this restaurant's going to be any good you don't have an opinion about it

00:16:58.960 because you haven't read 15 different opinions about it like how amazing is that

00:17:03.180 totally you get to decide for yourself oh my god what a novelty you get to decide and same with i

00:17:08.560 think about it with books too i mean with bookstagram and i love bookstagrammers right

00:17:13.240 because we need we need to help people find more books book reviews are gone so god bless the

00:17:18.280 bookstagrammers but then also we just have so many other people's opinions about something um all the

00:17:24.860 time and so i think it is very hard to form our own opinions now it is it is i mean um i've if we

00:17:32.580 can get into it i mean we can get into it we can get into all of it yes real connection now

00:17:38.780 has to begin with ourself like what do you value what's important to you you can't be present for

00:17:46.820 others if you're unable to be present with yourself so i think the real challenge with

00:17:51.500 the social media and the phone is like are we spending time alone in solitude with ourselves

00:17:56.340 like connecting with ourselves. And what is asking yourself, like what's serving me

00:18:02.260 psychologically, mentally, socially, what's nourishing me, what's depleting me,

00:18:06.400 what's adding to my life, what's extracting from my life. You know, we have to get good

00:18:11.260 at loving ourselves first. Esther Perel, I know you know her, often says the quality of our

00:18:16.700 relationships determines the quality of our lives. And I will say the part that I would add to that

00:18:21.100 quote of hers is that begins within. Like when we can get comfortable with ourselves and what we

00:18:26.860 need and what we value and that like, I want to go to this restaurant to try it, not because a

00:18:31.540 million other people told me to do it. That is when we can begin to really connect deeply with

00:18:37.240 others. I will say this, like I can't be a hypocrite. I work remotely. It's a real privilege. 0.93

00:18:45.040 But if I'm not careful, it'll seep into every part of my life. And so I have to do all the

00:18:49.860 things that you were saying that you started doing before. Like I have to do self-binding,

00:18:54.480 which is like no phones in the bed so I can be intimate with my partner. No screens before

00:18:59.640 sunrise. Deleting certain apps like Instagram and TikTok. And I have to do behavioral substitution,

00:19:06.020 which is like replacing scrolling with walking and meeting friends. And that's really the premise

00:19:12.680 of the book that I'm writing is around behavioral substitution and teaching people how to do that.

00:19:16.960 we change behavior based on three things, knowledge, skills, and confidence. And it's

00:19:21.120 really just about practice. Like how do we practice these new skills to rewire our brain?

00:19:25.180 And like you said, like you have the advantage of having lived a life without social media

00:19:29.560 and the smartphone. And so you can go back to like, oh yeah, what were those things that made

00:19:34.240 me happy? But as parents, we have to teach our kids those things, those values, like what it

00:19:39.940 means to be connected with our purpose and ourselves in that way. And that's also what I

00:19:45.000 teach CEOs and entrepreneurs is how to do this. So I would just say for connection for me in 2025

00:19:51.960 is really about prioritizing like connection with myself and then my social health connecting with

00:19:57.160 others. And I can say that there's no DM that will suffice for the true nourishment of the

00:20:05.120 human to human connection or the voice to voice, honestly. The voice to voice. Truly, truly, truly.

00:20:10.620 To hearing the tone of someone's voice and the texture of their voice. I send voice memos to my friends, to some of my clients, and they love it because they can hear me. They can hear the tone. They can hear if I'm down. They can hear if I'm up. They can hear me laugh. They can hear me stutter. They can hear me being perfect. They're getting all of me.

00:20:31.580 exactly exactly and there's no tone in text there's no tone in dm and it just and

00:20:37.760 frankly we get lazy we truly get lazy totally 100 we get lazy i mean even my sister i love

00:20:45.280 obviously she's my sister i know her very well i can sometimes get lost in translation in a text

00:20:50.160 with my sister right because it doesn't have all the tone and the texture that i need

00:20:55.100 so talk to me a little bit about these substitutions about like how where do you

00:21:00.020 even start if you want to create these behavioral substitutions in your life? It's a really great

00:21:05.920 question. I would pick the time of the day that it's feeling most distressing. So for me, it was

00:21:12.540 most distressing right before I went to bed to be on my technology because then I'd be like ruminating

00:21:17.080 about all the horrible news and maybe I was looking at work or I was on LinkedIn. And so I

00:21:23.040 was like, wait a second, I am laying in bed with my partner and I'm not talking to him. I'm not

00:21:27.640 being intimate with him i am engaging in this thing and so that was where i started first i was

00:21:32.500 like nope not so i literally don't hold my phone in my bed i'm like if i need to access my phone

00:21:37.180 or engage with my phone it cannot be in my bed like the way that we used to talk about get the

00:21:42.380 tv out of the bedroom because it wasn't impacting people's sex lives like honestly i feel that way

00:21:47.860 about the phone so that was where i started and then i i have a deep like meditation and journaling

00:21:53.160 practice and so the no screen before sunrise was like deeply nourishing so i went a.m p.m like

00:21:58.920 extremes what do i do right before i go to bed and what do i do right when i wake up in the morning

00:22:02.840 and those were the two easiest places for me to start so what do you do i mean like essentially

00:22:08.960 i just want to know your morning and evening routines now yeah my am and p.m routine so at

00:22:13.760 night um after we put the kids to bed we've got like i don't know maybe an hour hour and a half

00:22:19.700 I do sometimes have to go like back to send an email or to check on things, but I allow

00:22:23.860 like no more than a half an hour.

00:22:25.180 So I have a full hour before bed.

00:22:27.600 I am not perfect.

00:22:28.820 Let me just say humility is a huge part of my practice.

00:22:32.380 Like this is what I strive for.

00:22:34.920 And there are nights when I don't do it.

00:22:36.320 There was a night the other night when I was scrolling and I looked at my husband and I

00:22:41.040 said, oh my gosh, I feel so much worse sitting scrolling in this chair than like had I been

00:22:46.920 holding your hand or talking to you or reading a book. And just saying that out loud, like

00:22:51.800 acknowledging it, then I didn't do it for the next consecutive six nights. Okay. So at night,

00:22:56.640 I don't have the phone in my bed. I either read, take a bath, chat with my husband, go on a walk,

00:23:02.560 anything that's off the phone, like is all fair game, right? Hang out with friends, do whatever

00:23:07.440 it is. In the morning, I do not access my phone until I've journaled and done some meditation.

00:23:15.340 um usually i try not to access it until like this fully the sun has come up so my body has time to

00:23:21.840 adjust to like oh it's the day and i see the light i step outside i um i'm not a perfect mom i'm

00:23:28.200 talking about like meditating while i unload the dishwasher right like it it's a practice of doing

00:23:34.640 things um together because as moms we don't have time to be like you know sitting perfectly on a 0.81

00:23:39.820 pillow for 30 minutes and being able to get the kids written off to school, right? So those are

00:23:47.080 my two evening practices. And then if I'm being honest, I'll share a practice that I think all

00:23:52.400 your listeners can do that's super easy that I've been doing. Oh, yeah, please do. Okay.

00:23:57.860 It's in our book and it's called Releasing the Grip. So as you notice, you probably see teens

00:24:02.940 walking all over the place with like their phone gripped in their hand, right? We like carry it

00:24:07.020 everywhere to the bathroom, the dinner table, all the places. I know. And when I realize it,

00:24:12.800 like when my girlfriend and I realized the other day, we're like, we're holding it. And with our

00:24:15.880 arms held in this weird way and we're touching it, like, why are we touching it? Why are we

00:24:19.280 holding it? It's so true. And do you know that it's rewiring like our physical bodies, like our

00:24:24.760 spine. And like I have friends who have tension in their thumbs and their fingers and their neck

00:24:29.160 because of the way that they hold it. So it's real. It's really just changing her everything

00:24:34.560 about us so instead of grabbing the phone i will place my palm up and like lay my hand flat on the

00:24:43.340 phone and i'll ask myself okay what do i need in this moment like do i need to be grabbing my phone

00:24:48.460 in this moment is there something i immediately need to be doing on my phone right now and nine

00:24:53.100 times out of ten joe i don't like i write it if there's something i need to do like as a mom i

00:24:59.120 need to follow up with the swim coach or i need to do something i'll write myself a little list

00:25:03.120 and then I will clump those together and do a bunch of things on my phone all at once.

00:25:07.560 But nine times out of 10, I do not need to be picking it up as much as I am.

00:25:12.100 You know that there is a feature on your phone where it can tell you how many times you pick up your phone per day?

00:25:16.760 I did not know that, actually.

00:25:18.640 Yeah, there is a setting in, I will find it in notifications or screen time,

00:25:25.640 where it tells you how many times you picked up your phone per day.

00:25:28.880 And you've been in like screen times where it also tells you how much you're on certain apps.

00:25:33.120 have you done that no i know about that one i know about that one okay well i will find you i

00:25:38.400 will find the um where it tells you how many times you pick up your phone but it's scary

00:25:42.280 and it's really quite alarming so that what i call release the grip placing your phone your hand on

00:25:47.060 top of the phone and asking yourself what i really need in that moment that's like the quintessential

00:25:51.320 self-compassion question um and it can really help break the cycle of like and that immediate

00:25:57.420 unconscious grab also puts you back in the driver's seat yeah because the immediate unconscious grab

00:26:02.880 is real and i think we just we desperately desperately need to stop the the immediate

00:26:08.340 unconscious grab all of us do all of us yes because if we can't figure it out we're never

00:26:13.280 going to be able to teach our kids how to do it totally and also i dictate out loud with my kids

00:26:17.980 so i'll i have my kids as like little advocates that's how i think that they're going to survive

00:26:22.400 in this tech world so i'm like hey guys i'm going to go on the phone and text grandma about coming

00:26:27.620 over to do this this or this come back in five minutes if i'm not done doing that one asks me

00:26:32.040 what I'm doing and to like tell me to get off and I'll show them I'm like look at I went to text

00:26:38.340 your grandmother and look at 17 things popped up for me to do in the meantime and so I show them

00:26:43.040 how addictive it is and they're like oh that's so crazy that's so crazy I know I know but like

00:26:48.860 bringing them all in bringing the whole family and this is a team effort is what this effort is what

00:26:53.360 it is totally okay and that is what we're going to talk about after the break I am bringing my

00:26:58.860 sweet husband, Nick Astor, on to to talk about a little bit about how, you know, as spouses,

00:27:05.200 we can hold each other accountable with the phones and and how how we can make this more of a team

00:27:10.580 effort. Great. Chew on this bold question from Dentine Gum. Is it ever OK to compliment a

00:27:21.920 millennial on their skinny jeans in 2026 dentine too bold

00:27:31.100 okay we are back i'm not going to turn this into a full-blown therapy session but i will say

00:27:39.820 that it i think that phones can come between spouses and really diminish connection there

00:27:48.900 as well. Is that something you've noticed in your research? Oh, 100%. It can be an intimacy

00:27:55.320 killer. And you know what? Esther Perel has a ton of research on this. We're having far less

00:28:00.280 sex and intimacy in the digital era than we ever have before. One, because of a couple of things,

00:28:06.760 right? People can access pornography and other things in the palm of their hand. And the other

00:28:12.600 piece is that we're not looking at each other when we have moments of intimacy. We're not holding

00:28:17.040 hands when we go on a walk. We're holding our phones. We're not looking in each other's eyes

00:28:20.960 when we're laying in bed because we're looking at our phones. We're not traveling together across

00:28:25.720 to various new countries and staring into each other's eyes at dinner because we're looking at

00:28:30.120 our phone. I mean, every opportunity for intimacy is stolen by the phone. So what are your

00:28:37.440 recommendations here for couples, right, to hold each other accountable? I got to say, it drives

00:28:43.760 me insane when nick is on his phone uh in bed it does it drives me crazy darlin it's like i'm just

00:28:49.200 like put the phone away but that is also that's how he reads he doesn't read books he reads the

00:28:53.980 news on his phone so that's what he does while i'm reading a book in bed but like what what limits do

00:28:58.400 you suggest to people it's such a great point so um i always start with what i said earlier model

00:29:05.320 the behavior you want to see not just for your kids but for your partners so um i just started

00:29:10.980 saying to my husband out loud, like, hey, I'm going to be doing and changing some of my behaviors

00:29:16.600 around my phone to improve my health. And here are some of the things I'm going to be doing.

00:29:21.420 Feel free to join me in it. Come alongside me in it. But this is really going to help me. And so

00:29:27.100 I do not access my phone in bed. My husband does. But he knows, like, don't show me the screen

00:29:32.260 because I will get very mad. Like, I don't want to see the screen. Don't talk to me about the

00:29:37.900 horrible news right before bed, like off limits. If you're going to absorb that content, please do

00:29:42.200 not share it with me. So it started there. And then he realized like, oh, I noticed that she's

00:29:47.760 like a lot calmer before bed and she's reading. And so he started reading before bed. And so it

00:29:54.080 sort of has this sort of ripple effect. But, you know, you can't change somebody else's behavior.

00:29:58.520 You have to focus on your own. And so I lead by example. And as I said, I bring in the whole

00:30:02.840 family. And I ask them to call me out on my bad behavior. So my kids, my husband will call me out

00:30:08.920 on like, hey, we noticed that you were, you know, on the phone at breakfast this morning way more

00:30:14.440 than you usually are. What's going on? And sometimes, you know, it just has to happen for

00:30:19.580 work or other things. But nine times out of 10, I can really check my own behavior to take my

00:30:24.060 inventory. Yeah. My goal is also not to have it at the table. I don't want it. I don't want it

00:30:29.120 whenever we're sitting at a table nick you can jump in how do you feel about all this well hey

00:30:34.140 guys i was gonna jump in i love being referred to as your sweet sweet husband but you are you're

00:30:39.460 sweet such a fine introduction um yeah i mean i i think you guys are saying is true and i think

00:30:45.900 it's a matter it really is a matter of discipline and one of the things that you talked about was

00:30:49.380 the need to to grab the phone i forget that the word that you used to describe it but you know

00:30:55.720 I've also found that sometimes there's a compulsion to do it when you don't even necessarily have

00:30:59.780 anything important to do. It's sort of a, well, I've got a few minutes or a few seconds of nothing

00:31:05.760 time. Why don't I look at my phone? Maybe there's something new. I think I'll reload the New York

00:31:11.260 Times for the 33rd time today. And it's just easy to get into that habit. And I think it's

00:31:17.340 probably for a good reason. I think our brains are sort of wired to go, well, gee, I'm looking

00:31:21.600 for interesting information. This is not just, I'm not just wasting my time here. Do you sort

00:31:25.380 of rationalize it a little bit? But even that needs to be reined in because it will sort of

00:31:30.640 suck you in. Table, it's a great idea. I'm down for that rule. Let's keep it going. Leave it

00:31:38.160 upstairs. I mean, I do tend to look at it before bed for legitimate reasons. And then I usually

00:31:45.780 read a long article or something and it's just convenient to do it that way, which I suppose is

00:31:50.800 not the worst thing in the world. But the dinner table and things like that, it's the reflex. You

00:31:56.160 just have to control the reflex. Yeah, for me, I think the table feels like the best way to start

00:32:01.640 to model to the kids. So not just breakfast. So start of our day, start of our day. How about we

00:32:07.120 don't be on these things? One thing we have been doing is because we want them to hear news

00:32:10.740 and we want to hear news. So we're trying to play NPR in the mornings the same way that we would

00:32:16.380 have heard it if we were driving to school in my parents' car growing up, right? But we walk to

00:32:21.840 school, so we don't. And so I think we could get news that way. We don't have to be scrolling our

00:32:26.740 phones. 100%. I love that. Yeah, we have no phones ever at a table, dinner table. And as I said,

00:32:34.260 my kids are little advocates. So we'll go out to like a restaurant and my kids will be like,

00:32:38.000 notice if there are a ton of people on their phones. Again, no judgment. It's like people

00:32:42.880 need to do what they need to do but with our family there's there's no screen time during the

00:32:46.360 week so they don't they're not allowed to go on tablets or the television or anything during the

00:32:50.820 week at school because if they're not doing school stuff or sports they need to be like outside and

00:32:55.080 being outside talking to the neighbors and being creative and and letting their mind unwind in that

00:33:00.660 way so i love the no the no phones at the table i love the space that you're going to keep them

00:33:05.660 like where's the space we have a docking station and that's where the tablets are and you sort of

00:33:10.080 have to ask permission if you're going to go engage with the tablets at least the kids do

00:33:13.740 and then of course we try and model that i try and leave the room if i'm in a text and i tell

00:33:19.080 them what i'm doing like hey i gotta leave the room i gotta send a work message or something so

00:33:22.660 that when i am with them i am present because we're seeing really early research data is coming

00:33:27.620 out secure attachment with kids can be ruptured through tech addiction later on in life so it like

00:33:34.980 it is very harmful with our relationship with children. Yeah, I try to narrate too,

00:33:41.740 as much as I'm like, oh, because they have no idea what we're doing. They can't differentiate

00:33:45.380 between I'm sending a text to grandma, I'm reading the New York Times, or I'm fucking around on 0.99

00:33:49.480 Instagram. Totally. That's a key one, I should say, because they really don't know. And every 0.99

00:33:54.340 once in a while, maybe you're screwing around, but maybe there's something frustrating. And that

00:33:58.360 can sometimes translate into a short temper, you know, you got a message from the IRS or something,

00:34:02.860 something that puts you in an immediate bad mood um and then you spat because somebody in a room

00:34:08.020 you know and that's because this it's it's poor discipline to look at that thing in in a social

00:34:15.040 environment or in an environment where you know the kids are around or or whatever you know save

00:34:19.920 it it's just almost never truly urgent it's true it's true one of the books i want to write maybe

00:34:25.820 we need to write it together the three of us is like the tiffany's book of manners but per phone

00:34:29.780 oh my god i'm so here for that yeah that will be a bestseller let's do that let's do it because

00:34:35.260 it's like we have all lost like what is socially acceptable um i i'll be with friends and they'll

00:34:43.800 they'll suddenly just like i'll be saying something deep and meaningful and they'll pull

00:34:47.920 out their phones and like oh i just need to do this in a second i'm like do you need to do it

00:34:51.480 right now need to do it right now when i'm saying something that feels like pretty hard to say out

00:34:58.480 out. And I so that's another thing I do intimately between partners. I will say to my husband all

00:35:04.520 the time, like, do you have the capacity to hear this right now? Like, is this the right time? So

00:35:08.240 like if he is texting for work or whatever, I want to honor that this isn't the right time to tell

00:35:12.160 him something important. And I'll say, just tell me when you're ready to take it in. Right. And so

00:35:18.000 we're just like constantly trying to narrate. And I will say this, that just being consciously aware

00:35:24.220 of your relationship to your phone which is what my book is all about like what kind of relationship

00:35:28.940 do I have want to have with this thing like I don't want it to control me I want to control it

00:35:33.620 and so that relationship includes me first but then my husband and my children and my parents

00:35:39.900 and my neighbors and everyone around me yeah I want to control it and like I can control it I

00:35:46.040 think just saying that out loud is really helpful huge it's huge but we have to make a conscious

00:35:50.900 choice like that's why i said the releasing of the grip like put your hand on top and be able to say

00:35:55.420 what do i need in this moment usually it's not that instinct that you're getting and nick you

00:35:59.820 talked about that usually you don't need to do that um but we are rewiring our brains to have

00:36:06.460 that hit just i often tell people to start start noticing how much time you spend alone off your

00:36:12.840 phone so i've started to go to like my dental appointment and like other visits and see like

00:36:18.440 can i sit by myself just staring not on my phone i allow myself to like journal if i want to with

00:36:25.120 my pencil or whatever but like can i just sit there before my appointment not on my technology

00:36:30.080 it's hard it is really hard have you ever encountered the phantom vibration in your

00:36:36.460 talking uh mike you know what uh well you're actually not don't have the phone with you

00:36:41.580 when you've made the effort to go for a walk without your phone and every once in a while

00:36:44.640 you feel a little zip zip in your pocket thinking about something and literally your nerves are

00:36:49.960 triggered which just shows how tied to us these things have become and i suppose a good metric

00:36:56.220 could be can i go on a walk and not feel the phantom vibration that would be a sign that i'm

00:37:03.080 progressing so well then i have all my notifications off so i don't feel the phantom vibration but i

00:37:10.420 I just feel it like, oh, I want to reach for it and like message somebody about this thing.

00:37:15.440 So I totally know what you mean.

00:37:17.060 I will say, Nick, the more time I spend off of it.

00:37:20.260 So we have a family cabin on an island that has like no running water, no electricity,

00:37:24.680 no stores, no nothing.

00:37:26.420 And when we go to this place, we like totally disconnect.

00:37:29.140 We play cards, we play games.

00:37:30.480 And the more time I spend out there, when I come back to reality, I realize like, oh,

00:37:35.840 I don't need it.

00:37:37.180 I don't need it for anything.

00:37:38.760 It's when I have to reintegrate back into work that I'm like, I'm digitally overloaded again.

00:37:45.560 We could do that, honey.

00:37:47.660 We could have the cabin as a screen-free zone.

00:37:52.480 You know, it's not a bad idea.

00:37:55.420 The screen needs to come into play once in a while because there's no phone at the cabin.

00:37:59.940 But in general, let's do it.

00:38:02.340 We've got a long weekend coming up.

00:38:03.460 What do you think?

00:38:03.920 You want a challenge?

00:38:05.520 Yeah, I do.

00:38:06.200 I do.

00:38:07.040 Challenge.

00:38:07.400 challenge and then you're going to come back challenge i'm happy to come back we'll talk

00:38:11.480 about it can i give you a free a couple of like pointers we call it yeah you can my my co-author

00:38:17.040 kit and i call this log cabin weekend or log cabin sunday so um have fun with it like name out loud

00:38:25.200 when it feels uncomfortable so you're not like sitting in your little shame circle like i reach

00:38:30.000 for it right now or i want to access it um as parents it's really hard right there's that like

00:38:34.820 hour that they watch the show and you feel relaxed and you can reconnect with each other

00:38:38.960 so i always like prepare myself i'm i'm such a behaviorist i like bring extra games and things

00:38:44.760 that i know will occupy my kid both individually and together so that i have some alone time with

00:38:49.580 my husband um and then i try and notice how i feel at the beginning of it and notice how i

00:38:56.420 feel at the end of it to like really remind me of the value all right cabin challenge is on

00:39:03.880 and then you're coming

00:39:04.940 and then you're coming back

00:39:05.900 we're back

00:39:06.840 we'll talk about it

00:39:07.800 perfect

00:39:08.540 all right

00:39:09.000 and we're gonna write that book

00:39:09.880 we just came up with

00:39:10.540 so many good ideas today

00:39:11.480 you're gonna write

00:39:13.020 Tiffany's Book of Manners 0.90

00:39:14.440 for the phone

00:39:15.260 for the phone

00:39:16.480 done

00:39:16.840 I mean seriously

00:39:17.460 like we're never gonna

00:39:18.040 have to work again after this

00:39:19.020 because

00:39:19.340 and then we're gonna

00:39:19.940 and then we're gonna

00:39:20.420 save the world

00:39:20.920 all right

00:39:21.360 so tell everyone

00:39:22.100 where they can find you

00:39:23.120 and your research

00:39:24.060 and you can't

00:39:24.880 you can't order this book yet

00:39:26.320 though right

00:39:26.720 can you

00:39:27.120 you can't order this book yet

00:39:28.740 okay

00:39:29.520 okay but when you can

00:39:31.020 we're all getting it

00:39:32.020 yeah

00:39:32.560 it's um

00:39:33.480 i'll give you the title it's a good one it won't love you back the home will never love you back

00:39:41.120 it won't love you back actually that's a great title and i i think most book titles are bad

00:39:46.660 and that is really good joe that says a lot coming from you so i'm going to take my compliment in

00:39:51.320 please take it take it and tell everyone in fact you could put that blurb on the book you're like

00:39:55.380 joe thinks most book titles are bad but this is excellent thanks we will we'll totally do it

00:40:00.300 easy peasy I you can find me it's the irony the only social media I'm on is LinkedIn but it is

00:40:06.860 definitely social media so don't you know don't pretend like it's not um you can find me there

00:40:11.380 I have a website techlobr.com I do a lot of talks on social media and harm reduction and um obviously

00:40:17.880 I said I work with CEOs entrepreneurs and health care systems so you can find me there um you can

00:40:23.140 also find me, I consult for a company that's kind of redesigning well-being, like redesigning

00:40:32.120 social media. It's called Warmer. And the CEO and co-founder Pete Caden says it's social without

00:40:38.800 the side effects. So it's a place with like real human-to-human connection, no followers,

00:40:44.440 no highlight reel, no influencer content, no ads, no trolls, just people and community connecting

00:40:50.640 on matters that matter. So it's like the harmony that happens, as we said before,

00:40:55.520 when we're dancing in conversation. But this is with a friend or a stranger who's walked in your

00:41:01.080 shoes. Maybe it's somebody who's experienced the kind of parenting challenges you're after or grief

00:41:06.080 or career change or maybe an obscure hobby you really like. But we match people with somebody

00:41:10.980 who's been there. And then we help people get back out into the real world. So we're not measuring

00:41:15.660 time on platform. We're not keeping you on the app for hours with dopamine hits. You can you can

00:41:21.940 engage in like rituals to help you engage in your wellness, but that's a personal choice, not one

00:41:27.240 that we force upon the people. So check out warmer.com. It's the social media antidote.

00:41:33.240 It's very new and young, so it's still growing and there are a lot of opportunities to come in

00:41:38.700 the future. Perfect. I can't wait. I'm going to check it out. Love it. Love it. Thank you so much

00:41:43.920 for being here today and for coaching us i mean this did end up being kind of a therapy session

00:41:47.220 so that was great hey we love to just drop in because we're all there you know i'm in relationship

00:41:52.340 i actually my husband's a therapist too so what do you do when you have two therapists going at

00:41:56.720 this together wow that's that actually seems like a lot to me you're right it is we over process

00:42:03.140 i'll bet you do i'll bet you do but you know we're all we're all benefiting from it right now

00:42:07.720 exactly exactly nick joe it's been so much fun invite me back we'll talk about the

00:42:12.560 the log cabin weekend cabin challenge coming up in coming up in two weeks so you're coming back

00:42:16.780 on in november we'll figure it out all right talk to you soon bye

00:42:42.560 Thank you.

Under the Influence (with Jo Piazza) - October 23, 2025

Want to Feel Human Again？ Break Your Phone Addiction

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