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S2 Episode 11 - Is social media really ruining our lives?
35 Plays4 months ago
In this one Lewis and Ben talk about social media and if it really is such a bad thing?
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Transcript
Introduction and Weekly Experiences
00:00:00
Speaker
Hey, everyone. Welcome back to Working It Out. I'm Lewis. And I'm Ben. And this week, we're going to talk about and we are going to talk about, is social media really ruining your lives? But first, how's your week been, mate? It's been really good. Thank you. Yeah, good week.
00:00:17
Speaker
lots of feel ah like I've been really productive this week and I'm looking forward to getting into this one because it's a bit of a controversial topic especially yeah especially for well actually for both of us I'd say yeah because we both work in it we both work in it yeah in in slightly different ways so so this is going to be like a good discussion yeah how about you how's your week been it's been good actually it's been really busy yeah so like do you have the mornings where you just wake up and you're like oh my god I felt quite burnt out today actually feeling a bit overwhelmed I don't know like I think I think I just needed like a day off training as well I've been doing a lot of training been doing like I've been working a lot when you I know you're guilty of this but like
00:00:57
Speaker
from Sunday to yesterday, it was like wake up, work all the way until like half seven, eight o'clock, walk the dog, get in bed, start again.
Exhaustion and Sleep Patterns
00:01:07
Speaker
So like, even though I love it, I think like my brain and my body just needed a chance to do something else. It's interesting you say that. I got home last night, it wasn't that late and I pretty much just passed out. Really? Yeah, I sat down with Heather and she was watching some Netflix thing called Love is Blind or something like that. She's been binging.
00:01:30
Speaker
And I sat next to her and I remember just sort of like leaning back, like onto her and then she woke me up about an hour later saying like, come on, you need to get into bed. And I was so out of it, I basically ended up just climbing onto the bed. Like ah like like after a night out or something. Like a broken man. Yeah, just sort of flopped on there and basically didn't wake up till like eight in the next morning. That's mad. Yeah. So I probably slept over,
00:01:55
Speaker
I don't know like 10 hours straight. I always remember this time that I when I was working at the butchers I came back and I don't know if I'd like been burning the candle at both ends or whatever but I came back you know when you like sit on your bed fully clothed and you just lay back before you and it was like we half six at night Fully clothed, fell asleep instantly, and I woke up at the time I had to get up and go to work the next day. I've done that before. The bedroom light was still on. I still live with my mum, so she must have just seen me. Yeah.
00:02:27
Speaker
Like I that must not have looked well and I hadn't woken up at all, still dressed. I just had to like. Just rise and go again. I just sat up and was like, all right, I'll get changed and go
Social Media Impact: Misuse and Misinformation
00:02:38
Speaker
back to work. I've had that before when like you you would have hoped to have got up at say 6.30. Yeah. But you know you have to leave by seven. I've woken up before with no alarm. Your body just clicks and then I've woken up like two minutes to seven. and'll be Yeah. And just thrown on stuff and just gone.
00:02:56
Speaker
yeah yeah it's amazing i was like i woke up in time and i just felt so refreshed yeah but did you feel good after that because i've woken up before and just felt horrible groggy yeah no i felt good yeah i was like i don't know why i remember it it was just so weird because i'm such a light sleeper but like the bedroom light on it had my phone in my pocket and like nothing I was just I feel yeah I think sometimes when you fall asleep when you when you're not planning to fully clothed yeah everyone's been there and then you wake up maybe early hours of the morning yeah a bit disorientated like hang on I fell asleep at seven it's now half two what's going on that's a horrible feeling yeah
00:03:35
Speaker
Yeah, probably b brings us on nicely to today's topic. Yeah, true. Because you can you can end up in that way if you spend too much time on social media. Yeah, so I think a lot of, I don't know.
00:03:46
Speaker
I suppose a lot of educators, maybe, and a lot of like, older people, people, we're not even older, but people in the like, 40s and 50s that didn't grow up with, or above that didn't grow up with social media, think it is like the devil's work. And and I think in so for some people, in some ways, it is pretty,
00:04:06
Speaker
pretty bad but i also think it's pretty um it's pretty good useful yeah it's easy for me to say because spoiler i actually don't think i have too much of a negative Relationship with it. Yeah, and I think Should we should we get the the horrible bits out of the way first? Yeah, go on um Obviously it can it can be a very very dangerous platform for people to view sort of voice opinions Yeah, that can be on a very micro scale. So people that troll people that yeah bully
00:04:40
Speaker
you know people that basically just go out of their way through horrible things and they use social media as their platform to do that, that's obviously a very negative thing and that can ruin people's lives and there's obviously lots of stories, you don't have to look too far to read about you know kids, teenagers, even adults who for whatever reason they kept going back, kept reading things yeah and then yeah they take their own life or things like that.
00:05:03
Speaker
And that's not social media itself, that's people on social media, but they're using it as a tool to do that. So there's a difference between that. And they're not using their real identity, are they? Exactly. They're hiding behind the keyboard and all that sort of stuff. um And I think the other thing which shows that it can be very dangerous and it can ruin lives is what we've just seen very recently here in the UK.
Social Media's Dual Nature: Balanced Views vs. Extremes
00:05:24
Speaker
um in the news with all the riots, yeah how misinformation can be spread yeah and unfortunately it's not shut down quick enough and it's not verified no and if you want to read those things then and you want that you want to almost hear that opinion, then people go and find it and they will use that and they kind of go, oh well I read it on Facebook or yeah on Twitter it said this and then they use that as kind of their ammunition to go and do things like physically you know if you want to find a confirmation bias like if you want to find something that's going to agree with your whatever it is like flat earth yeah you can find a community yeah exactly yeah yeah um and for people that are like maybe in a vulnerable position it can be super dangerous for them yeah because they could get involved in something pretty pretty nasty to be honest yeah i don't know if it still goes on now but you used to hear about like a lot of people like like with isis and stuff they were like
00:06:18
Speaker
you know they had like horrible upbringing like English person horrible upbringing and they were bullied and then they sort of found almost this club yeah and then they got like radicalized yeah and then that's that's sort of what happened so like yeah from that from that side it's awful and like I've wrote like a couple of notes about like with the media and like politics it's it's it can be really useful because you can get a balanced view yeah and we were speaking about this i can't refer to this on the podcast or not but like like my dad yours adds like older generations that only watch bbc news that only see in one opinion and although it's not that biased i guess
00:06:57
Speaker
but they've got one view of it. yeah Whereas social media, at least, you can get a whole story. You can get like both sides of the story. You can get people who are on the ground there, yeah especially when it comes to political stuff or yeah things that are based on geography. There will be people actually in those places that say, actually, that's not what's happening. yeah They can almost give a true view.
00:07:17
Speaker
but yeah finding balance social media is good for that but then at the same time like we say you can also also find really inflammatory things on there and people almost know that if you want to start an uprising of some sort yeah do it on social you do on social media right because you'll find followers you'll find people looking for a cause yeah and they've probably already got an interest they're already frustrated they're angry at the way things are and it doesn't take much then for them to but jump behind very little fact to do that so you those are probably the two biggest things for me when it comes to social media as as well as that like short clips can miss like a lot of valuable context so like a 60 second clip about a big subject you can turn it in whatever like you could turn it so like that you know Hitler was actually a great guy
00:08:02
Speaker
You could do that. He is shaking hands and doing all this other yeah stuff. like but yeah You could do that. yeah and so I texted my dad the other day and he was talking about the news. And he was like, oh you know I'm seeing it with my own eyes. I'm like, you're not. like You have not got the whole story. You're being shown some footage. You're being the voice you're seeing something. Exactly. And your and your brain's putting it all together. And with the information you're being given and saying, yeah, I'm seeing what
Attention Span and Misinformation Algorithms
00:08:25
Speaker
they're telling me. yeah It's interesting. I saw actually someone had shared a clip Online of a guy on a train that if you ever saw this clip was a couple of months back And there's a guy on ah there's a white guy and a black guy on a train and the white guy starts It's in the full clip. This is the white guy starts He's clearly I think drunk or something giving abuse to the black guy. He's trying to provoke him He keeps saying things referencing his afro all this stuff.
00:08:52
Speaker
The black guy's basically tried to ignore him, but he keeps coming at him. And this clip's about a minute and a half long. yeah And he gets right in his face, and he starts like physically pushing this guy. And this guy says, like, like to leave it. don't If you do that again, um I'm going to lose kind defend myself, basically.
00:09:09
Speaker
and this guy just keeps going and he tries to rouse like other people up and in the end he gets really close the black guy just hits him yeah knocks him straight down someone shows another clip that's about 10 seconds long where the white guy is there it doesn't show him provoking all of that stuff just shows the black guy knocking him that's basically knocking him out yeah And that same thing can be cut in two different ways and you can have two different narratives. And you can see it with your own eyes. Exactly. And that's the scary thing, isn't it? That's dangerous, isn't it? That is dangerous. And that can be shared and put in groups and almost go viral if you like. And it can fit two very, very different narratives. So that's the danger.
00:09:48
Speaker
yeah mentor And a lot of the time, um unfortunately, I think because people, we're going to come on to attention span, but because people's attention span is probably shorter now than it ever has been, you before you've asked what's the context, you scroll to the next clip or the next video. And that's the thing, a lot of the time people see stuff, it's very short, they take it at face value, they move on to the next thing.
00:10:09
Speaker
They probably don't overly think about it, but at the same time, what they've just seen somewhere is sits and it gets stored. Yeah. And they haven't questioned it. And that's the danger. Yeah. Even if you're not like subconsciously, you might think something like, yeah, you might make make a judgment. Oh, at some point I saw a video showing me this and it comes back, doesn't it? You've stored it somewhere. Yeah. The attention thing. yeah I mean, if you scroll through reels, like I see, um,
00:10:35
Speaker
you know, every like four for fifth real, it'd be like a car accident or yeah someone falling off their bike. it yeah It is bad, really. It is bad. It's like the algorithm wants to show you stuff, doesn't it? Yeah, that's horrible. yeah There must be something in there that... But people like watching it because it's shock factor, isn't it? Yeah. It's like everyone looks at the car when you drive past that's crashed, aren't they? Whether you want to or not. Or like, for me, roadkill. Yeah, or roadkill. You can't help yourself. I can't ignore it. Even though it traumatises you. It traumatises me and I don't want to see it. Every time I go past it, I tell myself not to look. And at the last second, I just dart my eyes at it. It's human nature, isn't it? Yeah.
00:11:11
Speaker
I wonder where that comes from. I don't know. Maybe through a thing of if you... Maybe it's like a defence mechanism. Exactly. If I see that, whatever horrible thing it is, I know how to avoid it or how to... Yeah. Yeah. I don't know. I don't want to think about it. With
Educational Potential and Content Models
00:11:26
Speaker
the attention span thing...
00:11:29
Speaker
Do you think, I don't know, this is this is a weird one because obviously attention span is much smaller with social media. But does that stop you concentrating? Do you think that's negatively affected you? I will say, for me, I've never had a good attention span. So I don't think it's changed anything for me. If anything, I probably like it.
00:11:47
Speaker
I don't believe that it's actually altered my attention span from if I'm trying to be really balanced about it. I don't feel that my attention spans got worse. I don't feel like, oh, 10 years ago if I didn't have to use social media as much, I feel I can be just as present when I need to be now.
00:12:04
Speaker
i yeah um probably though i don't tent this sounds a lot really bad I don't tend to use social media for almost personal use. yeah I'm quite a private person. I think we've said this before. yeah I understand and I appreciate what social media can do and I think it's a really valuable tool.
00:12:19
Speaker
but And I'll probably share more on certain platforms and others, but I'm not someone who likes putting up loads of pictures of just everyday stuff. That's just not me. um So I don't probably get drawn into that as much, but I have also witnessed firsthand TikTok and reels and shorts when you're in that loop. And once you watch one,
00:12:40
Speaker
and it knows what you like and it knows the stuff that's going to keep you entertained, you can lose a lot of time. yeah And being conscious of that, um I then try and like limit the time that I'd spend on that. So even if I'm doing something for like a research purpose, I'm trying to see like what a trend is really popular at the moment.
00:12:57
Speaker
It's almost like, right, I'm gonna do this for half an hour. And then um and then I'm gonna move on to something else. Because otherwise you could lose hours. Yeah. Because it just keeps feeding you what you want. Yeah. So, yeah. um'm But ah ah'll in answer to your question, I don't feel like my attention span has kind of rotted away. No. Since such media has become more prevalent. So I think that this would be so much more damaging to like the developing brain. Yes, I agree with that. So like me at 16,
00:13:24
Speaker
like almost an adult, yeah would be like, I think I would find it like ah addictive. yeah And if you gave like a 10 or a 12 year old free reign on TikTok, yeah what would it do to them? Yeah, well my stepdaughter when she's when she's on there and she looks at a YouTube video and it just gives her another one which is obviously linked to what she's just watched and it's just an endless supply.
00:13:46
Speaker
I'm pretty sure she could just stay there, just lying in bed all day watching. If we didn't actively kind of break that at some point. um So yeah, for a developing mind and for an impressionable mind, I think it's definitely something that needs to be controlled. yeah um Even actually as an adult, I'll tell you one thing which I can easily get sucked into. I don't know if you've struggled with this as well.
00:14:08
Speaker
So on formally Twitter X Yeah, if you're reading like football news and stuff and obviously every time you're fresh and it kind of links Yeah across and it just keeps giving you stuff. Yeah, I can almost go because I know that there's all this stuff and it's loads of opinion you can end up as well like getting caught in a like a down a rabbit hole. Yeah. With it. I've done that. Yeah. Well, you just keep refreshing. Yeah. Cause it's like, in especially with X cause you can like things obviously get posted every second. Yeah. That are relevant to the topics you're interested in. You can just keep refreshing like during a, during a game, for example. Yeah. If you can't be watching and you find whatever it is, you're just there hooked, aren't you? Yeah. Yeah. I agree. You don't go, Oh, I'll check back in five minutes. Cause you know that it's there and someone's writing about it and someone's posting it.
00:14:51
Speaker
You just keep checking in. yeah but Refreshing. yeah I've actually got a friend that was saying that um some of the educational stuff on like YouTube is really good. So like kids are quite addicted to watching it, yeah but they're actually getting something out of it. Yes. yeah So Ella was watching one the other day, which was about... It was kind of one of those wacky facts.
00:15:10
Speaker
but then she quoted something about like the tallest human. Yeah. And just, she retained it. so Good for probably trivial pursuit or something. but Super power up a kid. If you gave them some, like if you, I don't know, I don't know, like maths, but made it really watchable. Yeah. That that could be a positive. i'm sure I'm sure that will happen. I think there's quite a few kids that I've even, I'm sure I've heard of kids that have learned instruments and stuff just from YouTube. Yeah. You know, you can afford a music tutor.
00:15:38
Speaker
but they had a secondhand guitar or something and they just taught themself. There's those memes and they're about like mums that make their kids like YouTube stars. They're like absolutely raking it in. yeah Yeah. I've seen a few of them. They used to be one during lockdown that Edward watched a lot. I think his channel was called something like Ryan's House or something. Okay. And he, I don't know if you ever saw his products ever come out before. because I think they sold them in like Tesco and supermarkets in the end. He did these surprise egg toys. Oh, right. And what he'd do, it started off with him just unboxing toys. His parents filmed it. He's like Ryan Caggie or something like that. I mean, I watched that.
00:16:14
Speaker
Exactly. Right. And it was really addictive content because it was like, Oh, what's he going to open today? And what's he going to need? Just like open it. Really excited. Yeah. And then play with it a bit. And then over time, so at the start of lockdown, I think they're in America, the budget for the videos compared to the end of, yeah, I can imagine like we talking sort of, I say lockdown, but the COVID period was, you could see how well they'd done. Oh my God. And then you have a range of toys, ridiculously spoiled with this child though. Yeah.
00:16:41
Speaker
I want to see how we're going to grow. How do you control that? I think I'm pretty sure the channel is still going. He's a teenager now, but he's got two twin sisters, I think as well. And I think they're obviously, as a family, they're still very much involved in UGA, but you you did see the power of it. The difference with YouTube over the others is that the the content could be re rewatched so much, like Instagram, you post something in a month, it's gone. yeah You could even repost it, no one would know. yeah I've definitely done that. But with YouTube, watch something that's made four years. like you' If you're someone that's got a million subscribers now, you could never make a YouTube video again, you'd probably make money for the rest of your life, yeah which is crazy, isn't it? That's the thing, because the search engine's so powerful on it, isn't it? That when people look for things,
00:17:28
Speaker
you know If it was a good video five years ago and the information's still correct, it's gonna keep coming up. yeah I think that's what's really interesting with, and I think that's the next thing for social media platforms. They're gonna try and copy what YouTube and TikTok do because they're interest-based as opposed to follower-based. I think that's a big thing. So you can search for a subject much easier on TikTok. You know, the problem with that is though, you can search for like,
00:17:56
Speaker
There's no like truth. There's no like, what's the word? There's no proof that wherever you search for it. so you Zoe was saying about this. So she was like, people would put like, unqualified people would put things up about like women's health. yeah And you search it on TikTok. They'll give you some terrible advice. yeah um And you'll believe it, yeah which it's not ideal.
00:18:18
Speaker
Yeah. What should happen is the kind of the cream should rise to the top and yeah you should get the the people that are most, I mean, if they're most watched, it doesn't necessarily mean they're the most correct. Yeah, favorable answer. Yeah, exactly. Like in it. Yeah. You know, if so if I searched how to lose weight and someone was like, oh, you just got loads of ice cream. Yeah. Everyone's going to watch that. Like we always say, I think we said before, didn't we, about other sort of more traditional news sources. So if you read the newspaper,
00:18:46
Speaker
doesn't mean everything you read in there is exactly fact. And that if you didn't read another five newspapers, they wouldn't say different things at a different angle, which obviously most of them do. Some are left, some are right, et cetera. So with everything, you've got to look at it out in the end, kind of understand the context and almost do your own research off the back of it. But some things are facts. Yeah. Some things are real. Yeah. So I guess AI will take that. I guess there'll be like a fact check. Yeah.
00:19:14
Speaker
And there's a little bit of that on Twitter already, isn't there? Yeah, I like that, especially when when about that whenever Trump does stuff. Yeah, he says something. There was one the other day, actually, which I saw, which was a video someone had uploaded and said, mad that David Beckham can do this on a BMX, right? It's a video of a guy who looks incredibly like David Beckham.
00:19:38
Speaker
yeah He's got the very similar tattoos, same hairstyle, face structure, and bearing in mind you don't see his face full on, you see him side profile and he's got the BMX the one wrong way and he's doing some cool tricks. But nothing that's too outrageous that you think, yeah, David Beckham might have actually just learned that at some point. yeah And then it's said underneath that it had been like verified.
00:19:58
Speaker
and said something like, our audience or something has actually said, this isn't true. And he put, he's actually like a French BMX. Right. BMXer. David. Yeah. He had a completely different name. Yeah. But if I hadn't have sort of just looked below that and I'd just gone through a feed, I'm going to go and tell people, oh my God, have you seen how good David Beckham is, are by the
Social Media in the Workplace and Body Image Influence
00:20:18
Speaker
way, BMXing? And that's how things spread, isn't it? Yeah. You'd share it. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Mental.
00:20:23
Speaker
Yeah. and So like, I guess we touched on it already but I guess for like people in the workplace and stuff, do you think it becomes like a massive distraction?
00:20:38
Speaker
Yes. Yeah, I think there is there is a danger of that mainly because people... When you when you were in retail, yeah like when I first started, I was like, makes it sound old, but I wasn't allowed my phone. Yeah, same. I used to sneak it. I used to just leave it in my pocket. to leave in But you're meant to leave it in your locker, weren't you? yeah Yeah. And then they introduced something called hot lockers, which were like, they weren't down in the main changing rooms. They were near the kind of canteen. Oh, really? And that's where I used to put my phone without thinking. And that's not that long ago. But then over time,
00:21:04
Speaker
um more and more people I think it's because more people start saying stuff like oh I need to have it for like if my kids need to get hold of me or yeah and that sort of stuff and then I guess over time it just became one of these things that because so much is on there you can't really stop people so like at work if someone if a customer saw me on my phone I'd think god they must think I'm so rude yes but now They point for you to get off it. um the I think the big thing that changed when when I was at John Lewis was they introduced partner devices. So partners actually had an iPhone, yeah which they would like go and check out for the day, which would be a work-based phone. yeah And they'd be expected to even take payments on there and look stuff up. So once you do that, you kind of break any yeah kind of boundary, don't you? have I think it's it's just become acceptable, doesn't it? yeah
00:21:54
Speaker
Yeah. But that's, yeah, as I say, it's not making somebody old, but it's not that long ago where you wouldn't even have dreamt of having your phone out. Like if i you had it in your jacket pocket, you'd think like, Oh my God. Yeah. Yeah. Um, but yeah, I bet, I bet a lot of people that are meant to be working will get, I mean, I remember getting told off once at work for like, I got caught on my phone like three times.
00:22:17
Speaker
But I have to be on there now, so. Yeah, exactly. And I'm the boss, so. Yeah. and Okay. and The next part would be like mental health. And the biggest like subject I think would be like comparison.
00:22:32
Speaker
So like, I saw a post of a day that was really good and it was about a guy, he's actually a coach. I don't know him, but I follow him. I like his content. it Repurpose some of it sometimes. Because I'm like, yeah, that's exactly how I think. But anyway, he was talking about how, like he's not in amazing shape. And that's kind of his thing. and But he was saying how he went on holiday and he used to be really insecure about the way he looked. And him and his friend were, I think it was like Benadorm or something.
00:23:02
Speaker
And he was obviously chatting to his friend about like not having an absolute like shredded six pack and stuff. And they were saying like, okay, well, if you sit here and have a look around, how many people can you see right now that you would say are in good shape? but Yeah. And it was like, he said they could see probably roughly like 50 to 150 people and pretty much none of them were in the same shape as he was. Yeah. So I don't know, less than 1%. Yeah. And then he was like, right, go on your Instagram, scroll through and tell me what the first 10 people look like. Yeah. And nine of them were shredded. Yeah.
00:23:38
Speaker
And that's, that was like, wow, that's, that is really interesting because I, although I don't care anymore, I don't know if I ever cared that much, but I do think that like quite often I'm like, oh, I'm not in very good shape. But when you compared yourself to the like the population, yeah you're in like,
00:24:01
Speaker
the top 1%, but when you go on Instagram, I'm like, come on, I'm skinny, like I need to gain some muscle, I need to drop some body fat, because all it shows you is people who are gifted, or taking gear. I don't care if they're taking gear or not. but you know, it it definitely gives you a perception of like what's normal. Yeah. I'm not even sure if some of them are real people. I know. Pretty sure of some of them are AI generated anyway. Some of the photos are definitely, well, oh obviously they're edited. heads Like I don't need to say that. Yeah. But just from like a body perspective and sometimes like i um I follow quite a lot of bodybuilding content. and And even with that, like they are like getting on stage, they're being compared with each other.
00:24:47
Speaker
they'll take some photos and you'll be like, yeah, they're going to win that show. And then they'll go and stand next to the other people yeah that they're competing against. And you're like, Oh my God. Like you would never stood a chance. Yeah. So I think the, we were saying earlier, actually, I mean, just before this, the algorithm looks at certain things and it seems to, especially if you've ever liked any kind of gym page or fitness page or anything like that,
00:25:13
Speaker
it does seem to just keep throwing out examples of almost the stereotypical perfect physique, doesn't it? Like tiny waist for a guy with like a massive, like the Dorito shape, basically. Yeah, massive chest, massive arms. Yeah, like massive quads. Great hair. Yeah, slicked back hair, all this stuff. And like usually with a palm tree in the background, like Instagram loves those images. And then the most like, not angry, but like, The personality is like... Masculine. Incredibly confident. Yeah. Yeah. He does his own thing. He's an absolute boss, this guy. This is what you should be doing now. Yeah. Yeah. So, and as you say, as a proportion of the images you see, if it's going to be somebody who's topless, it's usually that more than anything else. Yeah. Yeah. So, yeah. Yeah. Maybe we should just go through our phones right now.
00:26:06
Speaker
I'm going to go through the explore page. might be Yeah. That's the one, isn't it? I mean, I've just opened my phone and the first photo that's come up is a model. Yeah. With a closeup of her bum. Yeah. That's my first one. Do you know what? Mine's actually describe that. So I don't know if Ben, I should describe what he's seen. So my discover page is a lot of trainers to be fair. Yeah. This is the second one I had.
00:26:35
Speaker
Mike Thurston. Mike Thurston, yeah. Yeah, I mean. I mean, as one in a million, yeah. ah Next one we've got here is CL Sweeney. I mean. Another guy in great shape. If I devoted my life to fitness, I would never look that good. Never never seen this guy before, but he's on my explore page. I've got this woman here with huge glutes, abs, and she's promoting um a line of supplements. Of course, yeah. Transformation picture.
00:27:05
Speaker
Yeah. I mean he was in great shape before. Really? A few footballers here dawd in as well, interestingly. Do you know what as well? It's not just body shape, like obviously I'm a bit into running at the moment. Yeah.
00:27:20
Speaker
um Everyone that I sort of look that I'm targeted by is is running like an Olympic level 10k 5k And making me wonder why I can't do that. Yeah, I would say actually one in one in eight here are Basically either videos or photos of really ripped. Yeah people and I'm genuine it genuinely I don't actually use Instagram to look for I wouldn't go and search
00:27:53
Speaker
up for these things. So it's obviously based on things I've liked in the past, I guess, or pages I follow. ye But, yeah. And I i guess everyone is quite similar, isn't it? Yeah. I think it will push you that sort of thing as well if you don't you don't um if you don't use social media much.
Personal Impact and Unrealistic Expectations
00:28:15
Speaker
she like It will know that you know people like seeing people in great shape that are good looking. So it will push you that.
00:28:22
Speaker
yeah But yeah, that's, um yeah, that's that's the subject. But like, how do you feel about it personally? Do you feel like, I'm gonna go first because I use it a lot. I i mean, should we have a look at my screen time?
00:28:42
Speaker
and But I never seem to feel fatigued from it. And I do think that I am, I have got a short attention span. So I do think that I'm kind of, I might be the minority. Like Zoe, for example, will take some time off. Like she will literally put her phone in the other room. Yeah. So I'll tell you mine why you're, why you're getting it up today. So X 10 minutes.
00:29:11
Speaker
Instagram 11 minutes. I'm not really going to count WhatsApp of social media, but 10 minutes as well. They're the only ones today. That's pretty good. Um, okay. Today I might have used, I might actually use the desktop platforms at some point. I mean, I've been on my computer a lot today. Yeah. Well this week I've been on it a lot. So today I've spent an hour and 15 minutes on Instagram, an hour and a half on YouTube.
00:29:40
Speaker
that's that's mostly I mean there's a lot on whatsapp yeah this week it's friday i've spent seven hours and five minutes on instagram an hour a day that's not actually that bad is it no but i use my laptop so this probably isn't the best yeah So would you say when you're using your phone though, it's more for actual every day, just using it like a normal user and your laptop mainly for work based things or? Yeah. Yeah. I just prefer to type on my laptop. So if you, if you were to basically say an hour a day on Instagram,
00:30:12
Speaker
as and as a normal user, I think that's quite healthy. Yeah, a healthy amount. Do you know, my my screen time is is nearly four hours a day, and which I actually don't think is too bad for an online coach. I was going to say, for somebody that is in ah is in a very like digital platform. Yeah, yeah but i do I do use my laptop for WhatsApp more than I do my phone, just because I find it easier. But this is a but but bit of a different subject. But for people that think they've got no time, have a look at your screen time, because 45 minutes of that could be a workout Yeah, I do think just going back to a slightly broader subject that we kind of we were talking about as part of this I do think that a lot of people who feel very unhappy or feel unhappy with their lot if you like in life I do think social media is quite a big cause of that because
00:31:05
Speaker
So it's controversial, but at one, basically ah a point in time, if you were, for example, ah born into a particular, it's like social economic class,
00:31:18
Speaker
and you would have gone into like a factory job, right? um would known It would have been enough and you wouldn't have known any different. night Now, it's amazing that you can broaden your horizons and you can access things and educate yourself through all these platforms so yeah to go and do something else. However, it also does come with that whole thing of, well, I deserve to have that, yeah I should get that too.
00:31:41
Speaker
And if you're prepared to put the time and the work and all of the you know dedication in to do that, then amazing. And that's like what you you you kind of deserve, whatever you you get from it. But if you just look at things and think, well, I'm a human and they've got that, so I should have that, that's where it becomes quite dangerous. yeah And I think that's why if you look now, you know there's so many ah so many people, and it's not just young people, but there's people of all ages who look at their life and at one point in time they would have been really happy with that. They've got a home, they've got a family, they've got a good job, ye but they look at social media and they're not an influencer or they're not travelling the world as part of their job.
00:32:20
Speaker
because a bit like the body image things, you're almost told that's normal. yeah A lot of the people that people end up following are because they do cool stuff. They travel, they eat nice meals, they do all the stuff that kind of yeah everyday person would want to do more of. And that's the danger, isn't it? yeah Because you start comparing your life. It's the FOMO, isn't it? Yeah. And you feel like, well, they're my age. They're from a similar town to I am. Why have I not got that?
00:32:47
Speaker
And that's where that comparison thing comes in again. But as I say, at one point, it was almost ignorance is bliss. You would have gone about like, actually, I'm good at my hands. I'm going to go and do that job. I'm going to build a life for myself. Great. Now people kind of go, oh, well, actually there's this going on over here. Why am I not involved in that? Why am I not a crypto trader? Why am I not stuff you would just never have known about? And yeah, you almost told it's cool stuff to do. What you don't see as well is, you know,
00:33:13
Speaker
that one person that you're watching has been incredibly lucky yeah and they've probably worked incredibly hard, not that you can't. but like you're not seeing all the hundreds of people that have failed. Like I remember when I first started coaching like four years ago, I followed like probably like 20 or 30 coaches that were like a bit ahead of me, you know, maybe a year or two ahead. I had like two or three clients and they probably had like 15. I think some of them were like, it was their full-time gig. They've all stopped. And it's like,
00:33:45
Speaker
At the time I'm like, Oh my God, like really look up to these people. And they're, they're just the people that like were ahead. Like all the people that started after me. And that's just like, I'm not a millionaire. Like I'm not, it's not like I'm doing something, you know, mental. yeah Um, not everyone can.
00:34:04
Speaker
you can do what you see on Instagram. Yeah, exactly. But you stay consistent, you didn't give up. No. There would have been loads of times that you could have given up. Yeah. And other people would have, but they're also the people that then complain that they don't have what other people have yeah as well. So that's it that' it's the sort of negative side, isn't it? I don't want, I sound like I'm being really negative about it. I'm not. No, no, no, it's a great point. I think it's just something of really like a macro level. It's quite evident, isn't it, that previous generations,
00:34:30
Speaker
because you didn't know you can almost be upset yeah but you yeah that you weren't living what can happen. Exactly, yeah. And it's just a big one now, right? If you're a young person and you're about to learn to like drive, right?
00:34:46
Speaker
And when not when I learned to drive, for people that you'd be influenced by, if you thought about getting a cool car, would be people you'd see like driving around doing laps. Yeah. Similar age, a couple of years older, like, oh, you had a a Golf R32. Yeah, oh my god, so it's like dream. Astro VXR, something like that. You'd see them about and you'd think, oh, that's really cool.
00:35:06
Speaker
Even, I don't know, 2010, 2012, you wouldn't have necessarily seen loads of content being shared for that sort of stuff on Instagram. ah The platforms just didn't really have that kind of content on there. yeah Now,
00:35:18
Speaker
You've got TikTok, your Instagram, YouTube channels, all this stuff, dedicated to cars and whatever interest you're into. And if you're learning or you're at that age where you're kind of entering that world. You want a Tesla. You want one, don't you? Yeah. You you think, well, I need a Lamborghini. Yeah. you've Suddenly you've jumped a few steps from even really cool entry level cars that you'd have saved up for work really hard for. Now you almost think, well,
00:35:39
Speaker
a cool car is this, because it's being promoted, it's being pushed at me. And that yeah that's what causes people to probably go and sell stuff and do the stuff they do, which you can see why, can't you? Because they've got these ambitions and these dreams which are so like astronomical. yeah yeah But they feel like if they're, um yeah, they need they need to get there one way or another. Yeah. Yeah, you've got to be hungry, but I guess you've got to be realistic as well,
Life Improvements and Personal Values
00:36:05
Speaker
wouldn't you? Yeah. Okay, I've got i've got two ending questions.
00:36:09
Speaker
Name one thing that you could cut out of your life that would automatically improve it.
00:36:17
Speaker
Good question. This is well hard to be fair. What's the other question? What do you think about that one? The other one is what's one thing in your life that you're willing to be disliked for? That one's probably easier.
00:36:33
Speaker
I'd be willing to be disliked for being kind and genuine. Yeah, that is easy. That's an easy one for me. If people didn't know me and were willing to kind of look from afar and go, oh, like, why does that guy do this? Or why does he achieve that? Or whatever. And say, oh, he's so nice. Or like, oh, he's so nice. Or, you know, some people say stuff like that, I don't know. Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's fine by me. I'd much rather be there by being kind. I think you're one of the nicest people I know, actually.
00:37:01
Speaker
Oh thanks. you have no all then You're welcome. and then I don't know how to follow that up. you were for for me For me it's like I was thinking about and for saying no to things I don't want to do. Yeah I like that. Because
00:37:21
Speaker
I don't, there's definitely things so that, do you remember like, weirdly I listened to Joey Barton's book once? Okay. And this is a weird one, but I used to own a little van, right? And when you've got a van, everyone asks you all the time if you can do a dump run or help them move house. Yeah. And I listened to his book at the same time and he had a thing in there. It was like, if someone asks you to do something and it's in a month's time,
00:37:46
Speaker
if you won't do it today, say no. So I just kept saying no to people and they were like, why? And I was like, I don't, I hate moving. Like I just happened to have this van. I'm just using it as a car cause it was cheap. Like, and they were like, Oh, okay. I'm like'm not, no, i'm I'm good. I get one day off a week. I'm not helping you move house. I do. I respect you for saying that. Yeah. Yeah. I find that really hard. I'd,
00:38:11
Speaker
Yeah. End up just doing it and then being like, oh, you would be surprised how often it happens, mate. Yeah. Yeah. So that's one of them because you got to want to do something nice, haven't you? Yeah.
00:38:26
Speaker
Well, the other thing is, is when you, um, when people start to take advantage of it, or it's an expected thing, like yeah Lewis got a van, so he'll do it yeah without, well, actually, know you know, he might not want to do that. I'd say on on your day off or, you know, they don't know what else you've got to do on that with that time. So yeah. And I think that's the thing is that you get put in a position sometimes where it's really hard. I find it really hard anyway to say no, but you've actually got genuine reasons why. So.
00:38:52
Speaker
It could be that you just don't want to do it. Or that, yeah yeah. I would never say, back in the day I would never say no if that was the reason. yeah So I do try and think about that sometimes. yeah It's very freeing to do that. Especially when you're an adult. There's certain things now where I've like, I mean I recently helped my mum do a garden. I didn't really want to do it, that's my mum. So I did. But part of me was like,
00:39:18
Speaker
I wonder if I could just pay someone to do it. And she could just she still gets it. So what I always end up doing in those situations, I mean, obviously it's family, it's kind of unquestionable, but yeah even if it was a friend, my mind goes, oh, well hang on, wait, and goes back through the archives and pulls out something and says, I remember they did
Financial Concerns and Weekend Plans
00:39:38
Speaker
that for you. It doesn't matter how big or small it is. yeah And then I sort of do an equation and go, oh, well now I i owe that i owe them. yeah Even if actually I've probably helped them more than vice versa. I've just got that feeling of like some yeah crazy conscious thing going on. yeah
00:39:54
Speaker
okay What about the other question? So one thing to give up to cut out of your life that would improve it automatically Money That's a good one So no one has money. No one. Yeah, I think that the bird or the burden of financial pressure But obviously that's attributed to money. So that'd be a big one for me if you could remove money which is so involved with greed and people do horrible things to each other and ah screw people over because of money. And I think it really does, it causes just so many issues, so many levels. So for me, if I could just exist without having to worry about money or deal with money, well it might be a better place. we don't know I don't know what the form, but well how we would we would yeah trade things and do things, but I don't know, maybe we'd work it out. Would you do the same thing?
00:40:49
Speaker
Would you be working 12-hour days? This is a difficult question because it makes it sound like you don't like your job if you said no. I think I would definitely still be doing the same type of thing I'm doing now. yeah What that would look like in terms of yeah day-to-day, I don't know. yeah but yeah just Whenever I think of any anything which adds stress or pressure, it's usually financially related.
00:41:13
Speaker
so it is a stressful thing everything else to be honest i feel is in a good place for me so i feel like technology the use of technology is a good thing yeah i've got a healthy relationship with friends family good place i used to do this thing with someone i worked with We'd score everything, like it's just a little bit more like out of 10. And say like, right, your love life, you know, your fitness, whatever it might be. And the thing which I'd always find, not like, oh, I was always broke or anything, but the thing I'd always have like, oh, well, actually, if I had that amount, or if I could just get a little bit more than I could be able to do this, it always came back to money. thing The thing is with money,
00:41:54
Speaker
is it doesn't matter how much you've got, you're thinking about the next thing. yeah I was gonna say that that's what I would cut out, and it's not the money side that's thinking about the next thing, because sometimes I can't relax because of that. yeah So I'm like...
00:42:06
Speaker
what can I get obsessed with next? yeah and And if I'm not, I feel a bit empty if I'm not obsessed with something. So maybe that, but I don't know how you'd cut that out. I think it's part of my weird personality. It can be a healthy driver and a lot of the motivations for why we do things are money related. yeah I guess that's the trade off, but there's also yeah the stress and yeah people I've you know had in my life or continue to have in my life who have to worry about money stuff, family and things.
00:42:35
Speaker
If you could just take that away and then they not have to worry about it and sort of, I don't have to worry about it, then life would be more straightforward and be easier, yeah. But that's wishful thinking, isn't it? We live in a world where unfortunately I don't even know what it is. Most of the, this is, yeah, I mean, I don't know who's going to hear this, but most of the things when I think about money and having more money is what it allows me to do with time and how i can help in some way so it's like can i help my mum with like the house yeah can i help my brother because he's like a yeah gigging musician yeah can i help him do something which means he can
00:43:11
Speaker
be more self-sustainable. Can I do stuff which means Ella can kind of do the stuff she wants and you know we not have to worry about, oh, we can't do that this month, or all that sort of stuff. yeah I think that's the big thing that's changed as well. like Financial pressures look different. When you're younger, you worry about, oh, I can't afford to let his trainers.
00:43:30
Speaker
or I need to save up for them. As you get older, it becomes less I think about like material stuff. I want to make more money so I can give it to people. Exactly. Big life decisions and stuff like that. And who you can help, that's the way I look at it. Yeah. And that's my main driver. I like that. Yeah. Nice.
00:43:46
Speaker
Cool. We'll leave it there. Good good place to end. Mic drop. Cool. Hope everyone's good. Thanks for listening. first ah First Premier League game of the season this weekend. yeah So I'm excited for that. Premier League game tonight, isn't it? Oh yeah, it is, isn't it? That's the United fans going to watch it.
00:44:03
Speaker
Oh, nice. It's a cool thing to do. yeah, are you doing anything good over the weekend? Just relaxing. We're going to Cambridge tomorrow. So any burglars listening?
00:44:15
Speaker
Not going to be in in the morning. God, I probably shouldn't have said that. Um, yeah, we're going to go to Cambridge. So he knows this walk. So we're going to walk, take Manny into Cambridge. Yep. Spend the morning there. I do like Cambridge. I haven't been for a little while, but it's a really nice place to go and visit. Do that. Probably going to do some work on Sunday. I've got a lot to do between now and like September. We need to organise the hike. Yeah. Getting closer. Cool. Just going through a few fine details and then, yeah, we'll be up that mountain in no time. Nice. What about you?
00:44:52
Speaker
Looking forward to watching the football. um Enjoy a bit of family time this weekend. Get to the gym. Nice. To finish off the week. But yeah, aside from that, not too much. Going to try and take it as easy as possible. Good man. Cool. Let's leave it there. See you next week.