467 | Free Yourself From Technology Attachment And Rediscover Human Intelligence with Shannon Algeo

[00:00:05] Welcome to the Optimal Body Podcast. I'm Dr. Jen and I'm Dr. Dom and we are doctors of physical therapy bringing you the body tips and physical therapy pearls of wisdom to help you begin to understand your body, relieve your pains and restrictions and answer your questions. Along with expert guests, our goal of the Optimal Body Podcast is really to help you discover what optimal means within your own body. Let's dive in.

[00:00:28] I'm so honored to have Shannon Algeo back on our podcast who is an American and Irish writer based in California. He's a psychotherapist, researcher, poet, yoga, Nigeria, teacher and co-founder of We Human and the We Human Podcast, formerly called Soul Feed. Shannon is the author of the books The Power in Your Hands, Liberate Yourself from Attachment to Technology and Trust Your Truth.

[00:00:53] Now we're really going to lean into The Power is in Your Hands in this podcast and I kid you not, Dom and I were almost in tears. We had shivers. Like, I mean, this is such an incredible conversation and things that we all need to be paying attention to. He's on the faculty of the Eastland Institute and Shannon leads digital liberation programs and offline retreats around the world that support people to reclaim their humanity, creativity and attention to the digital age.

[00:01:21] He holds a master's in counseling psychology with an emphasis in marriage and family therapy, professional clinical counseling. And he was named one of the 35 under 35 in wellness to watch by Wunderlust. He is an incredible speaker and we're so honored to have him back on the podcast. Shannon, we are so grateful to have you back on the podcast. I think we looked that it was in 2021. March of 2021. When we last had you on our podcast. It's crazy.

[00:01:51] Five years ago. Just have been able to like see and touch you in person. We know Shannon. He's an amazing, incredible human. We're so excited about your new book, The Power in Your Hands. This is, I mean, this topic is so real and relevant. And the fact that you not only have written this, but have researched it yourself and understand a lot more than a lot of people about this topic, I think is going to be just so incredible for people to learn about.

[00:02:21] So thank you for being here. Oh, my gosh. Thank you both so much for having me. Jen and Dom. It's so good to see you. I can't believe it's been five years. And here we are. We are back, y'all. Definitely. And kind of like Jen mentioned, we know who you are and how deeply important personal relationships and experiences are to you. And we were talking about some experiences that we've had together that are just so foundational for me and how important that human connection is.

[00:02:49] So within that, when did you or how did you realize that technology and relationships with technology and how that's taken away from our human relationships? When did that become important enough to you to research it as a part of your thesis and write a book on it? Yeah. Yeah. And I keep thinking about, you know, the time that we've spent together in person.

[00:03:12] I keep thinking about human intelligence in contrast to artificial intelligence, not to make artificial intelligence bad, but just like bringing back the H.I. and remembering the H.I. and that this has been developing for hundreds of thousands, millions of years, this intelligence of being human. And yeah, when I was in grad school, we had to pick an area of research.

[00:03:37] And because I had written a book before, I knew once I picked a topic, I was going to really be like in it. And so I was kind of like, OK, if I'm going to have to write a 50 page paper and publish a master's thesis, I better be, you know, have some skin in the game. And I also just wanted to push myself to a personal edge.

[00:03:55] And I knew that I was in a dysfunctional, problematic relationship with my phone, but I didn't know what or why or I didn't have much context around it. And it was, you know, in the midst of the pandemic and smartphone use has become so normalized. So it's so easy to go into the pathways of, well, do I really have a problem? Everyone does this. So I could just ignore it. It's normalized. It's invisible.

[00:04:23] But as we were learning about attachment theory, I kept thinking I'm in an I am in an attachment relationship with my phone. I feel like it is a caretaker. I feel like it's providing me with something that's missing. It's managing my fears and anxieties. It's helping me avoid certain emotions.

[00:04:43] And so for listeners, just as a reminder or as an introduction, attachment theory is this theory of psychology. It's widely accepted that we are social beings. And when we come into the world, Jen and Dom, you probably know this experientially very well with two little ones.

[00:05:05] But when we come into the world, we are very dependent as infants and toddlers and children on our primary caregivers. So attachment theory is this social evolutionary biological response to attach to our primary caregivers, to feel seen, to feel safe, to feel soothed, and ultimately to feel secure. And depending on how that goes, we might develop a secure attachment style.

[00:05:33] Many people develop insecure attachment styles, which are anxious, avoidant, or disorganized, which we can talk more about. But I noticed during the pandemic, after periods of isolation, living alone in Topanga Canyon, and spending a lot of time with my family on the other side of the country, worried about my parents wanting to find a partner on dating apps, spending time on social media, because that's a place where I learned to feel seen.

[00:06:03] That I was engaging with this device as a surrogate attachment figure. I was using it to stimulate myself in the morning, kind of get myself going, get motivated for the day. I was using it to numb out and disappear in the evenings and kind of just go numb and soothe me and relax me off to sleep at night.

[00:06:28] And so I wanted to explore, am I in an attachment relationship with my phone? And I was amazed to find that there were a number of research studies already linking insecure attachment style with compulsive or problematic smartphone use.

[00:06:45] That people who have relational wounding or relational traumas or relational ruptures that are not yet repaired are more likely to develop a compulsive relationship or problematic relationship, an addictive relationship even with their phones.

[00:07:01] And so that was really the beginning of feeling like, oh, this sense that I felt intuitively within myself as I was learning about attachment theory actually has now years of research behind it, which I think is really relevant when we're considering making changes to our relationship with our phones. We need to understand the depth of attachment that might be playing a role in why we are struggling to change our behaviors.

[00:07:32] Man, so fascinating. And I think, you know, already listening, I know myself, I'm like thinking of different things, you know, within my own life and I'm sure other people are as well. Now, does attachment theory in general, in terms of how you relate to people or in relationships in humans, does it mimic what you're seeing on your attachment to your phone? Or is this different?

[00:08:00] And can we, you know, you did highlight what the different attachments are, attachment styles are. Can we talk briefly about breaking each of those down into understanding what different attachment styles are? And then how is that different from the attachment style into, you know, interpersonal relationships versus your phone? Totally. Yes, such a great question.

[00:08:22] And I think we are just finding the language to talk about what's happening in our relationships with technology. And without language, we and without research studies, we can't fully grasp and talk about what's happening within us and between us in our relationships internally and interpersonally.

[00:08:45] So before going into the attachment styles, I think it's just always important to name the four key differences between the virtual world and the real world. So the real world is embodied. We are in our bodies with other people. It is synchronous. We are having an exchange in real time.

[00:09:07] It is one to one or one to few, meaning like I can see and relate to the other specific bodies that I'm connecting with. And there's a higher bar of entry and exit, meaning I know you, Jen and Dom, I have spent time with you. We have been in each other's houses. We have hung out. We've talked about real issues. So like we matter to one another. In contrast, the virtual world is disembodied.

[00:09:36] So it's often little, you know, pictures of people on a screen and usernames. It is it's disembodies. It's asynchronous, meaning people are responding at different times. It is often one to several or one to many kind of like the influencer and the megaphone.

[00:09:58] And there's a low bar of entry and low bar of exit, which means you can just block someone, cancel them, never think about them again. There's no skin in the relational game. So I find this to be so important to remind myself of again and again that these two dimensions, the real world and the virtual world, it sounds kind of crazy to say this out loud, but they are not the same.

[00:10:21] It's like it's so obvious that it sounds kind of like, yeah, but it's important for us to think about the ways that they are not the same. So we understand what it means to relate to another human being in person or even what we're doing right now is I'm seeing your bodies on the screen. And I'm also we're also having this conversation at the same time. Yeah.

[00:11:18] So when someone develops an anxious attachment style, it's usually because it's often because the primary caregiver was sometimes there when the child needed support or soothing. Sometimes the parent was there and other times they weren't. And so then the child developed this anxious, this embodied, this is all very somatic.

[00:11:46] It's in the body, this anxious preoccupation with I need to stay fixed on my caregiver so that I need to know where they are. I need to know where they're at emotionally. I need to learn to read them and their subtle cues because I want to know, is this going to be one of those times where I get the soothing and support? Or is this one of those times where I have to reach for it, beg for it, protest for it, demand for it? And that's this preoccupation anxiety.

[00:12:15] Now, that feature of sometimes you get it, sometimes you don't mimics the intermittent reward systems that social media apps implement and ultimately exploit the human mind. Sometimes I log on Instagram or TikTok and there's a flood of likes and comments after I post something. And other times it's crickets and the algorithm doesn't seem to like it as much.

[00:12:44] And then therefore me and my vulnerability as a human being, I interpret that. I internalize that potentially as there's something wrong with me. I'm not being seen. I'm not liked. And so for individuals with the anxious type of insecure attachment style, that intermittent reward structure of the social media apps mimics the sometimes available, sometimes unavailable caregiver.

[00:13:12] And that makes people with anxious attachment styles even more likely to have a problematic relationship with their smartphone. Now, avoidant attachment styles. So if you have a really kind of overbearing parent, for example, or caregiver, or you feel like it's not safe to express the authentic emotion because that caregiver will have like a really big reaction and they'll get dysregulated.

[00:13:39] A child might learn to withdraw or hide or kind of disappear in order to feel safe and soothed. And there also is this ability to go online and just kind of numb to avoid emotion through spending time on the phone, on social media. And I've noticed both.

[00:14:32] And there's a lot of ways that it's not safe to process it or to have an important conversation. So there's all of these ways that our relationship with technology has become a surrogate where we're going to the device instead of going to another human being. That's so fascinating. I mean, so much of what you say. I feel like I'm going through an internal checklist on how I use my technology as you're going through all of this. So I'm going to have some reflecting to do after we chat.

[00:14:59] And even just when you talk about the four components that are different between person to person or in-person versus virtual communication, it just as you point those out, it makes it so clear to me how people feel like they can communicate differently virtually versus when they're in person with somebody.

[00:15:18] Like, I feel like you see completely different sides of people in how they respond to things or to people in the comments on social platforms versus how they choose to in person. Like, do you think that's a huge player in why we see so much? Fighting and hate on social platforms versus how you would probably communicate to somebody in person about the same exact thing? Oh, my gosh. Yeah, I mean, absolutely.

[00:15:46] The human brain has developed for up to two million years to crave tone of voice, facial expression and body language in order to feel satisfied in the exchange. So we have a human intelligence. Let's call it HI. Like, let's say what it is. Like, to read subtle cues of facial expression, to attend to body language, to hear tone of voice.

[00:16:15] And when we're in a comment section, there are none of those things.

[00:16:19] And I think that psychologists have concluded that they've found in studies that adolescents, even though they're maybe spending up to five hours, six hours, seven hours on their phones and sometimes even connecting with other people on their devices, they report more feelings of loneliness out of those interactions after those interactions.

[00:16:48] And that is part of why, you know, or one of the reasons for that is that we aren't actually having that satisfying connection, that exchange between two people. And one of the things that social media exploits is this function of the human brain called negativity bias.

[00:17:07] So when we see floods of angry comments and the algorithm does favor content that is angry, inflammatory, it kind of wins people's attention. And why does it win people's attention? Because of negativity bias. So negativity bias is this capacity of the brain to assess, to search, to seek for danger in order to ensure survival and to avoid death.

[00:17:37] It's out in the wild. It's like, you know, predicting a potential danger can mean surviving one's life. And so when you apply that to social media and how people are interacting, I'm putting interacting in quotes because it's not a real interaction. Then one of the dangers is people start to see like, oh, you know, humans are so screwed up. What's wrong with people?

[00:18:06] The whole world is spinning apart. People are angry. People are mad. People are mentally ill. And then on a brain level, you go to the grocery store, you go to the park, and you've basically been working out your muscles of negativity bias and strengthening these views. That we should fear one another. We should look for dangers in other people. Other people are not safe.

[00:18:34] And that develops this sense of distance from other human beings rather than like the goodwill of a neighbor or trusting in people more inherently. And of course, we should all be like mindful and careful of who we're in relationship with and protect ourselves when necessary.

[00:18:54] But I think this lack of humanity in the exchange of what is happening when we connect online also impacts how we show up when we step offline and into our real lives, especially given how much time we're all spending online. Really heightening that negativity bias just for everyday interactions.

[00:19:16] And then on the flip side of that, there's, you know, I've even known psychologists who use ChatGPT to like talk through some of their emotions or what's going on rather than going to some of their friends. And ChatGPT in particular is something that's made to be agreeable. So it's like made to confirm you, confirm your biases and and lean into like, yes, you're right. You're right. You're right.

[00:19:45] So it's like, how do we navigate this space? And what is that doing to us psychologically when we have this platform that we're as much as people don't want to say we're addicted? Like we are pretty addicted, right? Even if someone's like, I'm not addicted to my phone, but yet I can't leave it. It's tethered to me. Yeah. So is that not an addiction as well?

[00:20:08] And I saw a real one time where someone was like, it was like a comedy reel and their friend is like dying on the ground and they're like, oh, let me call 911. And they get on their phone and instinctively open up Instagram and are like laughing at some of the reel. And then they're like, oh, yeah, shoot. I was supposed to call 911. But I feel like that's real, right? That's our instinctive nature to open up these apps, to go in, to ask chat, to not have these relationships anymore.

[00:20:37] And it's skewing everything. Oh, my God. Yes. And I was hanging out with a friend of mine here in Ojai. Her name is Caroline. And we were having like tea and cookies one night. And I love the story because it just it highlights the highlights what we're all going through on some level or another. We were talking about the career of an auctioneer. I don't know how we got into this.

[00:21:03] Someone was talking about like a like an estate sale or like an auction of some kind. And and we were like, what is what is an auctioneer get paid? Are they like a full time auctioneer or are they like a 1099 contractor? Like what's how much does an auctioneer make? And is it a part time gig? Is it do they work for a company? Are they like a salaried employee? And it was just kind of like silly. And then and then someone was like, oh, why don't you just ask chat GPT or ask Claude?

[00:21:31] And someone was about to go on my friend and was about to go on her phone. And then Caroline said, no, no, no, don't go on your phone. What if we wonder? And then we all kind of took a breath. And then we spent like 45 minutes to an hour wondering. And the conversation went in so many different places. Like we were wondering about the whole life of the auctioneer, what it's like to do that

[00:22:00] kind of work, what kind of like personality type would be really well suited for that work. What his private life is like? I mean, we were just having like a silly, fun, imaginal conversation. But the thing was, is that at the end of that 45 minutes or the end of that hour, we all felt so connected and creative and playful. And we were just like this evening magical tea and cookies, just like having fun. I felt like I was a kid again in high school or something like that.

[00:22:28] And that question keeps coming back to me. What if we wonder? And what happens to wonder when you can go to a large language model and ask it anything and it will tell you what to think? It will tell you an answer that quote unquote satisfies that, that itch or that curiosity.

[00:22:50] Cal Newport, the author of Digital Minimalism, defines solitude as a subjective state of time spent without input from other minds. And he talks about how we are experiencing a collective solitude deprivation. And, you know, I think satisfying and rich, rewarding human connection is so important.

[00:23:17] And I think it's so important for us to also think about how we lack solitude in our lives and how many tens of thousands of years our ancestors spent having time to reflect. And, you know, and there's research that shows that unstructured time allows the brain to work in a different type of way

[00:23:39] that integrates past experiences, makes connections, reflects, increases metacognition, insight. And so our brains actually need unstructured time to function optimally and to do what they're capable of doing.

[00:24:01] And when we are binging and inputting images and podcasts and noise and, I mean, podcasts are even great if people are listening to long form content of conversation and the human voice. But now people are talking about the clip economy, that it's not even about the podcast anymore. It's about the clips that you get from the podcast because that's what people are actually seeing.

[00:24:27] And I'm just like, oh my gosh, we need to reclaim long form content and slowing down and encouraging people to build the attentional capacity to stay with one thing for longer periods of time and also to have the ability to do nothing for periods of time. Am I answering your question, Jen? Because I'm like riffing here and I'm like...

[00:24:55] This is perfect. I didn't even have a specific question because I just want to hear from you. I want to learn about all of this in ways that's making me reflect as well. Like, oh yeah, I do have those occasional walks with my kids where I don't turn on anything. I don't know what podcast. I don't want to research anything. So I'm just like, let me just go on a walk with them. And I just either talk to them or look at the nature and like actually be. And it's like, how often do I allow that space to actually just be?

[00:25:23] And we go to the park and we do some exercise and they're running around and they're saying, yay mama. And it just allows you to. And it's a great... I honestly could just listen to you talk about this for like 40 minutes. But I feel like as the hosts, we should say something occasionally. Yeah. I want to hear about you guys too. You know, like how this applies to your lives. That ability to wonder.

[00:25:44] I'm so guilty of when something comes up and two people are arguing about the right answer to a specific question. I'm the guiltiest when it comes to just like Google it, clawed it. Like you have the answer at your disposal right now.

[00:26:03] But then when you go into this conversation about how allow space for wonder, it brings me into my physical therapy and my physiology brain about what that's doing to our neurology. Where when I am so focused on just get the answer and quit bickering. That is such a sympathetic, focused, get the answer and be done with this silly, stupid conversation.

[00:26:33] When that is such a negative viewpoint of me where the argument doesn't need to be negative. It can allow space to wonder and to talk and to use all those more open thinking, parasympathetic areas of the brain that we don't use.

[00:26:52] And as you were talking through that, I'm just like going through this realization of, man, I am so focused on the answer so often when really I should just be present to the conversation and allow the space for wonder. Because I yeah, in that moment when you said that, I always thought that I had the right answer. Like, let's just why are we bickering? Let's just figure out what the actual answer is.

[00:27:19] Yes, I love this quote by Kurt Vonnegut. He talks about glorious inefficiency. And I just love this reframing of efficiency. Because I've started to wonder, I've started to ask myself efficient for who? Efficient based on what what goal, what metric? And I actually have started to reframe my relationship with technology.

[00:27:49] Because that's the promise of technology, right? Is expediency, prime, next day shipping, get it done quickly, just get the answer and move on. And so that speed has asked our nervous systems to co-regulate with a technology that is inhuman. And I'm not anti-technology. I am pro-human.

[00:28:10] And I think we need to look back and reflect on the last 15 years and wonder, how has this technology impacted our nervous systems and our bodies? And this glorious inefficiency, I actually think efficiency for me, that it's incredibly efficient for me to have access to my creativity.

[00:28:33] It's actually incredibly efficient for my artist self to have the capacity to write the poem that I want to write. Or to play the guitar yesterday, I did a day of no technology, a sacred slow day of no technology yesterday for about 32, 36 hours. And it's just amazing to watch where my mind and body can go when the connection to the device is cut off. I'm reading almost 100 pages.

[00:29:03] I think I read 100 pages of the novel that I haven't picked up in weeks yesterday. I played guitar. I sang. I went on a walk alone in nature. I went and my friend Alex, who has a two-year-old, I went and painted. We put some sort of paint finish on a new wood table of theirs. And we were talking about parenting and how parenting brings you.

[00:29:31] Well, for my friend Alex, at least, she was saying that parenting brings her off of her device and just into her built environment because she has to care for her two-year-old. She has to make dinner. She has to push the stroller. She has to unload the dishwasher. There's just this aspect of parenting that calls you into your environment and changes your prioritization of your life.

[00:29:57] And I'm just so curious, too, if that resonates with the two of you moving from, not moving from, but having an online business and then moving into parenthood. Oh, yeah. We have to be so conscious of even just responding to a text. I will notice that if we look down and respond to a text real fast. Mama, mama, mama. Well, not only that, but they're doing something cute or playing or playful.

[00:30:26] And they look up because they want to engage. Right? They want that, even that facial feedback of like, whoa, or haha, so funny. Like whatever it may be. They look at you often, even if they're independently playing so that they can interact with their environment and who's around it and what they're doing and what the play is. And if you are looking down, you're missing that connection.

[00:30:51] Bringing it back to the attachment theories, they're not getting that supportive feedback in that moment. And so I notice that so often. And so that is something that I'm like, we have to be so dang cautious. Like even if we are needing to respond or needing to do something in that moment, we should be going and stepping into a different room so that we're not doing that in front of them.

[00:31:16] And we're really cautious, you know, try to do as much of our phone time as we need to prior to being back with our kids. When we're with our kids, we should be with our kids. We should be interacting. We should be. And even if we don't have, like, obviously you can't interact all the time. You got to do the dishes. You got to cook. You got to clean. You got to do whatever. But you're still around doing things and they get to do things around or with you, cook with you, help with you, clean with you or mess up things with you as you're cleaning, whatever it may be.

[00:31:45] But like having that space and that interaction has been so incredibly, you know, remindful of me to what I'm doing and how I'm showing up and what my presence truly looks like in their life. Like it's such a good reminder for how I use my phone daily.

[00:32:05] And it's very telling when our older son, Dante, anytime we open a computer or even are looking at our phone, one thing that he asks now is, are you working? Are you working? Because he knows that we do a lot of our work on computers and on phones and or he has little like if he has a toy that looks like a phone or looks like something, he'll sit there and be like, I'm working.

[00:32:33] I'm typing away at it. But yeah, I mimic everything that Jen said in that the comparison of me not being immediately present, but cooking or doing preparation for, you know, chores or things around the house versus being on technology is night and day because I can invite them into those other creative tasks.

[00:32:59] I had to hang a hose on one outside of our house the other day and inviting Dante into that with me. So he can care and he's carrying around clutching all of these tools that a three-year-old probably shouldn't be holding. But here we are. He's carrying around screwdrivers and wrenches and sitting there and I'm drilling a hole in the wall and I look over at him and he's going, yay, dad, dad.

[00:33:23] Yeah, you know, it's those moments where that compared to me looking down at the phone scrolling or getting back to a text or something. No comparison. Yeah, exactly. It's such a different life experience and it's really important, I think, in our day and age when it is so easy. Like, it's my job. It's something I have to do. I just need to do this quickly.

[00:33:47] Or, you know, like that immediacy of like needing to get back in that moment. How important is that really? Like, what is that actually doing for our brains, you know, and starting to think about that. And I want to get back into your book as well because you talk about the grief of the unlived life. Like, what is the grief of an unlived life? What does that mean? Yes. A color-coordinated, as you pointed out. Yeah, I know.

[00:34:17] Such a perfect t-shirt you're wearing today. Can I just say one more thing about what you were just saying? Yes. Because it's so, you're just highlighting something that's so foundational that I didn't say earlier about attachment. Which is we learn as young ones through mirroring and through twinning. And that looking and seeing, is mama seeing me? Is dada seeing me? Is a attachment doesn't happen in one moment.

[00:34:47] It's an ongoing process of brain development. And little ones, they borrow the prefrontal cortex of the parents, of the caregiver, of the adult. And so, they're just, you know, they're mirroring, they're twinning, they're mimicking, they're like, I'm working.

[00:35:11] You know, like, they are learning through the behaviors and also the nervous systems of their caregivers. And so, I just think it's really interesting what we were talking about before around how these devices do activate this fight or flight, this sympathetic nervous system, kind of like get the answer, like take action. Kind of, there's a stress. There's a stress to being on my device that I feel.

[00:35:38] And how that impacts the nervous system of the being who's learning to co-regulate from the caregiver. And I also realized that in this age of digitization, there's so much stress and pressure that's being put on caregivers to manage this issue. And like Jonathan Haidt, the NYU social psychologist says that in order to solve a collective action problem, we need to take collective action.

[00:36:07] And that solving these problems is much easier if communities of parents are acting in collective and in coalition, rather than the onus being placed on individual parents and couples and family systems to manage this problem. And to go into your question, Jen, about the grief of the unlived life.

[00:36:31] I just, I, when I started to, I was like, almost going to pick a different thesis topic. And I was like, just trying to figure out if I was really going to dive into this. And I was in my place in Topanga. I left my phone at home. I went on a walk at 20 minutes away. There was a cafe that I would walk to pretty regularly without my phone.

[00:37:00] And on this one particular day, I went with my journal and I ordered my decaf Americano. And I sat down and I opened the journal and then my hand grabbed my pocket. And I was like, wait, obviously my phone's not there because I didn't bring it. But my body has this neurophysiology, this attachment. It's like still grabbing for the device that I consciously left at home.

[00:37:28] And then I took out my pen and I wrote this poem that just flooded out of me. It just came straight out and I never changed a word. And it's the opening poem of the book. It's reaching for the phone I left at home on purpose. And one of the lines in it is, it's difficult to mourn the unlived life. And who would I be without this weapon of mass distraction? Who would I have become?

[00:37:56] And do I still have a chance to break him free from this digital cell, this prison of careful and calculated and colorful design? Do I still have a chance to break him free and embrace who he is becoming, who I am becoming? And I started to wonder who I would be. The average person spends 61 to 80 days every year on their phone. It's two to three months. So I was like, who?

[00:38:26] Like there's a life. There's a parallel life. There's a ghost life. There's a phantom limb of a life that I'm not living. And that could be really depressing and kind of like put me into a spin of despair. But for me, it gave me hope, weirdly. It was like, because I'm still alive. I still have agency. And that's why I wrote this book, The Power in Your Hands. Because all of us have this opportunity because we are still here.

[00:38:53] And the rise of technology is not inevitable. We can be a part of it. We can choose how we participate. I'm not saying it's easy. But through learning and through experimentation and trying like short little hours of detox and distancing and slowing down and going offline, we can remember what our ancestors knew about how to be in our bodies.

[00:39:17] And the grief of the unlived life is just this feeling of remembering that it doesn't have to be like this. And it can be another way. And the only way that that's going to happen is if I change my relationship to my phone. Because this is not a personal addiction. This is seen as a societal addiction.

[00:39:40] You would basically need to not own a smartphone in order to not qualify for having a behavioral addiction on the smartphone compulsion test developed by psychiatrist Dr. David Greenfield. Pretty much everyone who owns a phone would score quite high on that compulsion test. So this is a societal addiction. But it shows up in each of our lives uniquely and personally. So we don't all experience it the same way. And our attachment styles, as we've discussed, play a role in that.

[00:40:08] And there's a number of other factors. Like I recently talked on a podcast with someone like, well, what about Lyft drivers? What about people driving Uber Eats? What about people who can't get a light phone and disconnect from their smartphones? I was just talking to a friend last night. What about people who are on call? But just because there are obstacles doesn't mean we can't do experiments.

[00:40:34] And I'm starting to think about this like PT, like physical therapy exercises. That you don't just do your PT exercises once or for a few weeks. I do my PT exercises like every other day. Thank you. So proud. Jen has helped me with that over the years. And that's how I think we need to approach going offline as a practice, as like little

[00:41:02] experimentations, as little experiments and experiences of retraining our neuropsychology, our interpersonal neurobiology, our nervous systems to remember the magic of slowing down and being with our own minds and not feeling that stress of the whole wide world seeping

[00:41:28] into ourselves through noise and noise and noise and noise and then calling that normal life. No, thank you. I know. I mean, even just talking about this too. Sorry. I know you were going to say something. I just could sit and listen right now. I need to give you massive props because I haven't felt internally this emotional. Like, and I got chills when you were reading that line from your poem.

[00:41:54] Yeah, I haven't gotten this emotional or felt the need for reflection so much during a podcast recent in my recent memory. So you're doing something to me right now. I mean, it's just so real. You know, it's like even in my world, I'm supposed to be this influencer, right? Who's documenting everything. And I look at people when they share different events they go to. Even family events and they're taking photos and they're posting about it and they're doing things.

[00:42:22] And I'm like, and I remember we'll have huge events at our house or people over and I didn't take one photo. I didn't, I didn't, oh, I should have shared the, we had the element thing out. I didn't even take a photo that we actually use it. And then we, you know, like there's so many things that it's like, this is in my natural life. And I talk about this, but now you're not getting to see it like in real life. And like, I should have posted it. I should have done that.

[00:42:48] Like, and the shame even comes through of like, I could be a better influencer, but I also have that desire to just want to be, to just want to be in the moment, to just want to connect with friends without having to worry about taking the videos and taking the photos and taking all the things. Like, I just want to be in that moment.

[00:43:10] And so there's even like that, that hard distinction that I have to make, you know, of like, how much am I in what world do I need to show up in? Yes. And that's the, that's the, like, what a great question you're asking. And I, I've been thinking about this a lot because I've started to with, with a friend of mine, um, who, who films content. She is amazing.

[00:43:39] Her name's Nico and she helps me, she's helping me film videos on this topic, but I've been pretty like on social media for the last couple of years. I just share when I feel genuinely inspired. I haven't been like really feeding the algorithm in an ambitious or dedicated kind of way. And there's pros and cons to that. Right. Um, so, but I've been noticing like, as I do posts, like four posts a week or every other

[00:44:09] day, I'm like feeling more hooked and curious and wanting to check and seeing if people are liking it and wanting to be engaged. And I'm just noticing how it's like bringing me online, even as I write about this book and am trying my best to practice and embody it. And so there is that tension. Filming content with Nico is really helpful for me because we're doing these kind of dedicated

[00:44:38] four to six hour shoots and we're co-creating together. And then she's going and editing it and it's not a part of my real life. Um, but maybe that's oversimplifying too, because there are times where you are wanting to document things and in your actual life potentially, but at what cost? I think like we need to ask ourselves, like, is this actually how we want to be doing this?

[00:45:05] And is it costing me my actual presence in the moment that I could be enjoying? And you know, how is this impacting me? And I think that this is the shadow of the E persona and shadow of the influencer dream is

[00:45:26] this, this relationship with documenting and capturing, um, that actually replaces this thing that we're talking about this quality of mind, this quality of presence, this quality of being in a state of just enjoying one's life. And, and what if no one sees it? What if it's just yours? What if I did not document every single little thing, you know? You gad.

[00:45:57] It's, it's just, it's very fascinating to think about when it's like, that is the stuff that I feel like, especially right now, it's like people are showing every little timestamp of their life, right? So that means you're setting up a phone for every little thing that you're even doing in order to show. And then people are getting that satisfaction from looking at it and being in their life and being in that moment.

[00:46:26] And, and sometimes we do, like you had said, we use social media to disconnect, to, to zone out, but are we really zoning out? What is that really doing to our mind when we have to be on it? I just need to doom scroll for the night in order to just like, get my mind off of all the stress. Like, are we actually getting our mind off of stress? No, I think we're, we're, we're binging more content.

[00:46:53] Like I just did a training for therapists in LA, uh, to reflect on their own relationship to technology and to support their clients, to understand connections between mental health symptoms and, uh, technology use and how technology use is impacting anxiety and depression and, um, despair and a number of mental health symptoms. And it's, uh, what was your question again? Just now you asked such a good question.

[00:47:22] Well, is scrolling actually helping people with the stress that they feel like they're because people say, I need to do, yeah, I just need to scroll to de-stress. Right. At the end of the day. It's like eating like three bags of chips, right? It's like there's something or just like eating a bunch of brownies. There's a, there's a binging quality to it and it probably can feel good because it's a self soothing attempt.

[00:47:52] It's a, it's an attempt to self-regulate. And my friend, Nikki Myers, who's the founder of the yoga of 12, of 12 step recovery says addiction is the disease of the lost self. And anytime I reach outside of myself for something that can only be sourced from the inside, I risk forming an addictive relationship with whatever that thing is.

[00:48:19] And so there, there's this quality of reaching outside of the self to, to soothe, which is so attachment based. Like we have real human relational needs. The, the, the features of secure attachment are two things. Secure attachment means that I can internally self-soothe when needed. Like I have, I have these kind of built abilities.

[00:48:46] I have the musculature of self-soothing in my system. And I also can reach towards another person to co-regulate interpersonally. Actually a feature of secure attachment is not an, an ability to just take care of yourself and be hyper independent and just be okay. Secure attachment means if I'm feeling dysregulated, I can reach to someone who I love and care about

[00:49:15] and ask for support and say, can you see me? Can you help me soothe? Can you help me feel safe and secure? And can we regulate together? Can you reassure me? And as adults, when, when, and if that person is not available to do that, then we also can internally soothe. So I, I love to think, and I write about this in the book about bowing at the feet of our coping mechanisms instead of shaming ourselves.

[00:49:45] And when we bow at the feet of our coping mechanisms, we say, thank you for the, for what you are trying to do. That binge scrolling at the end of the day is an attempt to meet some need, a need for relaxation, a need for love, a need for peace, a need to feel neutral. And weirdly, like scrolling on the phone can kind of do that for me. Sometimes I just kind of feel like I like go blank.

[00:50:12] Like I just like took ketamine or something, but it's not actually connecting me to myself regulating resource and myself with a capital S. It's, it's adding more noise to my day. And it's like so much noise that I like kind of go numb. It's like kind of like being on a plane, a long plane ride, and you just stop feeling

[00:50:39] the fact that you're being skyrocketed through the air after a while. And so I, I think for everyone listening, we have to wonder, we have to get curious or the invitation is to get curious if this is actually meeting the need that we're seeking. And what would it look like to actually move towards feeling held or feeling, uh, calm or

[00:51:02] feeling peaceful rather than just scrolling, scrolling, scrolling into oblivion? What's your drug of choice? What's your drug of choice to attempt to cover up and not actually address the stress or the anxiety that you're feeling? And I think what this conversation is pointing out is technology is becoming that for a lot of people. And that's a real challenge.

[00:51:30] And I know we're already running up on when we should be letting you go, but we brought up our little ones a little earlier. And I just need to be left with a little bit of hope on raising two young children in this world of technology and the challenges that we have already felt with it. What do you think are some of the main challenges with the developing minds and how we can best

[00:51:59] set them, set them up to understand how technology can play a role in their lives as a tool and to be able to enhance their lives rather than becoming this dependent or addictive behavior? Yeah, such a good question. And he, you know, what gives me hope is that our brains are so plastic. There's so much neuroplasticity.

[00:52:28] We can change habits and norms so quickly. Look at how quickly we became influencers and, you know, started online businesses and adapted to the technology itself. And so I, you know, it doesn't have to be this way. And a lot of big tech companies want us to believe that, that everything that's happening

[00:52:57] in the future of AI is an, is an inevitability. Because if we think it's inevitable, then we surrender our agency and we don't play a role in participating in the building. And we can be the builders. And it starts, it starts at home and it starts in our sub communities. It starts in our built environment about learning.

[00:53:22] We, I think we do have a lot of learning to do about how these technologies have impacted us. The research in the last five years is just catching up so that we can talk in clear and discerning ways about what technology is doing to the human mind. And we need to be sharing that more and talking about it and, and using that clear information to inspire a culture to shift.

[00:53:51] And I, and I think we can, we can, you know, every, every couple, every family has its own culture and communities have cultures as well. And we can, we can act together. And so I think having, um, having communities learn and create sanctuary spaces together

[00:54:17] and share values, you know, like it's, it's just way easier for parents to tell their 13 year old that they're not getting a smartphone. When a whole community of, uh, of parents at a school has said, we're all not going to give our kids smartphones until they graduate from a high school and they're getting ready to go to college. If everyone does that together, then that collective action choice doesn't put the pressure

[00:54:44] on Jen and Dom who are limiting Dante from having this social access point that all of his friends have. Then it becomes a personal problem. So we need to take personal problems and give them back to the community and say, no, no, no, no, this is our problem. And we need to come up with a solution together. Um, one of the few bipartisan issues that exists in our, in our, uh, often divided country

[00:55:10] is changing laws and, and, and passing legislation, like no, uh, phone bell to bell in schools. Phones in schools are just terrible for the attention spans of young minds. Yes. These technologies affect our attention span negatively and make it almost impossible to pay attention to the teacher. How, how interesting is a teacher going to be when you can play any amount of games on your phone or look at social media or be on Snapchat with your friends? Yep.

[00:55:40] So what gives me hope is that there's so many young people who are wanting to go analog, who are wanting non-smartphones, who are embracing slowness, who want sanctuary spaces where their minds aren't being exploited. There's, there's a, um, organization in the Netherlands and in Europe called the offline club that's hosting these offline events where people are reading and playing board games and

[00:56:08] knitting and cathedrals and libraries and in parks. And, and I just, I feel hope, um, in the work that I get to do with people on retreats where we do these five day offline immersions in community and in nature, exploring our creativity and connection to one another. People are interested. People want to learn. People are engaged around making it different.

[00:56:35] And I think the more that we, as people who have, uh, leadership and communities who look to us for guidance, the more that we can embody and model other ways of being that, that show people that it doesn't have to be this way. Uh, the more we can inspire change in our communities. And just remember the last thing I'll say is the smallest action, even just like a few hours

[00:57:03] in the morning, if you can without your phone, or even if you can't maybe one day a week, if you could just try it one time, a one time experiment can be life-changing because you will always carry that experience with you and your body. Um, and then that can inspire the next experiment that comes maybe in a month or two months or three months, who knows when, but, but the, the changes that I've made in my life, um, have come from

[00:57:32] years ago doing these little experiments that made me realize in my nervous system. Oh my gosh. Off. I for, I forgot. I forgot the magic of being offline and how my body really settles into such a sweet, regulated place. That's not interrupted. And I want that. So I, I think that gives me hope is that we can like guide people into experiences where they

[00:58:00] actually desire getting off of our devices because it feels good. Yeah, exactly. And I think that's a perfect place to kind of leave people is trying out little experiments, right? Like people have asked me before, they were like, oh, my phone lives outside of my room or I don't, and I'm like, you know, I don't feel like I'm in that space because I have a mother who lives close by when she's alone.

[00:58:26] I always want access to if she needs me. However, could I put, I think there's certain like bricks you could put on social media apps that won't allow you to click in after a certain time. Or, you know, could I, with still having the availability of a call that needs to come through if needed, could I still have the ability to block out other things? And like, what does that experiment?

[00:58:53] So I think like getting experiential with yourself and what that really looks like and getting a little uncomfortable with it is so incredibly needed. This book, The Power in Your Hands, it really is in our hands. And it's hard and scary for, I think, a lot of us to confront. But I'm so excited to dive in myself and really learn and see what I can do for myself and for our growing boys.

[00:59:20] And so I just appreciate you being here, educating us the way that you do and being so vulnerable and real as well with your own experiences and what you're still learning yourself. You know, you're modeling for us. So thank you for the work that you're doing. Where can people get this book in their hands or go on a retreat for five days and really disconnect to reconnect? How could people get more about you? Yeah, yeah.

[00:59:50] Okay, so The Power in Your Hands. Thank you so much. I just am so grateful to talk to the both of you. And it's so exciting to hear your questions and to feel your like resonance and aliveness around this topic and to feel the way that you're thinking about it as leaders of your home with your boys. And it's just it's such an ongoing experiment. And finding the experiments like what is the next right action? What is the next experiment?

[01:00:19] Turn your phone to grayscale. You know, block those social media apps. Make it so your mom's call always rings. You know, you can do things like this. It's in it's friction filled to do those things. But when we participate in making changes, we get more invested in the changes that we're making. And that's where our agency lies. So The Power in Your Hands.

[01:00:42] I really genuinely feel like this book is a invitation to ask a lot of questions about what has become normalized about your relationship with technology. I am so proud of this book. It's not perfect. I could have worked on it for a whole nother year to make it just even more perfect and edit and edit and edit forever.

[01:01:04] But I am so proud because I think this book will make you think and make you question and make you try something that that is like the goal of this book. If someone holds this book in their hands and then goes and try something out in their own lives, huge success. I do not think that all of my solutions will work for everyone. But I do think that the questions in this book will guide you to your own solutions about

[01:01:32] how this applies to your life and your relationship with technology. So ShannonAlgeo.com forward slash book, all the upcoming retreats and book events. There's a retreat in Ireland and Kripalu and Esalen coming up in the fall. And there's going to be some amazing book events starting off in California. And yeah, ShannonAlgeo.com forward slash book. And if you go to your local bookstore and ask them if they have it and they don't, they'll order it.

[01:02:02] So thank you for helping to spread the word through purchasing the book or recommending it to your friends or asking your local bookstore if they have it. And Jen and Dom, I'm just so grateful to you for having me on the show and just to see your faces. I want to get in the car right now and drive to your house and hug you both. I know we need to see you in person. Speaking of interpersonal relationships, you always have the most amazing energy. And like I said, I mean, this conversation did something to me.

[01:02:29] I was feeling emotional mid chat and I don't read a lot. It's very hard to motivate me to read. But if we have ended any podcast and I have actually been motivated to read the person's book, this is the time. And I think like you said, I think it's going to be so valuable to help people do that self experimentation. So thanks so much. Thank you. Thank you both. I really hope you enjoyed that one because I can't tell you how much I enjoyed it, how

[01:02:58] much introspection that brought to me just in that short interview. We absolutely love Shannon and love any chance we get to chat with him. Please go check out his new book. They'll be linked up down in the show notes. And of course, pass this along to anybody, you know, pass this along to someone who has little someone who, you know, might have issues with the connection with their technology. I think it behooves all of us to find ways to break free and have more human to human connection.

[01:03:25] And of course, we'll see you next time on the Optimal Body Podcast.