Memes, Brain Disorders and Other Modern Maladies: When Dumb Phones are Actually Smart with Dr. Eugene Lipov

0:01John Lee Dumas:Boom! Shake the room, Fire Nation. JLD here and welcome to Entrepreneurs on Fire, brought to you by High Level, the all-in-one sales and marketing platform. Today we'll be breaking down memes, brain disorders, and other modern maladies when dumb phones are actually smart. To drop these vibe bombs, I brought to Eugene Lipov and EO Fire Studios. Dr. Eugene is a pioneering psychobiologist who developed a rapid and highly effective treatment for PTSD called SGB. He advocates for the dangers of social media from a biological perspective. And today we talk about the rise of dumb phones, what is phone breaking, why it hits Gen Z women harder, and oh, so much more.

0:40John Lee Dumas:And a big thank you for sponsoring today's episode goes to Dr. Eugene and our sponsors. Stop duct taping your business together. High Level runs your website, your funnels, email, automation, scheduling, payments, and memberships all in one place. And when you sign up at highlevelfire.com, you get a 30-day free trial plus my exclusive bonus stack that includes weekly office hours with me and much more. Visit highlevelfire.com, highlevelfire.com. Fire Nation, are you ready to build something special in the next 50 days? Check out my free YouTube series, 50 Days to Something. short and strategic step-by-step videos by me, JLD.

1:21John Lee Dumas:On day 50, you'll have a valuable asset. And the best part is it's completely free. Visit eofire.com slash YouTube and start day one today. Dr. Eugene, say what's up to Fire Nation and share something that you believe about becoming successful that most people disagree with. I consider myself a contrarian. So that by definition, People are going to disagree with that. And a lot of people think you need to develop latest and the greatest. I have had quite a successful career taking old things that have been around for a long time, shining him up and doing something different. Like I came up with a treatment, a ganglion block that takes away PTSD in 5-10 minutes.

2:08It's been around since 1925. Everybody missed it, and here I am.

2:12John Lee Dumas:Fire Nation, you better strap in because we got a lot of things to talk about. when it comes to memes, brain disorders, and other modern maladies. So I want to talk about the rise of dumb phones, Dr. Eugene, because we're just hearing more and more people. They're switching back to these quote-unquote dumb phones. Is that actually a smart move, or is this just a fad, just a trend? Well, it turns out dumb is smart, actually. I was being a contradiator, and I love that. But let me just tell you, yes, it's a very smart move because there was a very successful, there were two lawsuits, I think two weeks ago or recently where Meta has lost a big lawsuit that they were successful suing them because they showed that the algorithm is sucking the kids in and Gen Z's in.

3:02They're designed to be addictive. It's like people are peddling drugs. It's a problem. Now you can't really do that if you have a dumb phone. It protects you from that. So yes, it's a very smart thing. It's a big motion, up to 10 to 20 % of Gen Zs, especially women, are trying to get a second device like that. That's one of the solutions people are looking at. There are others, as we will go into.

3:26John Lee Dumas:I mean, it is crazy to see what the world has come to when it comes to this, how people, and by people, I kind of mean individuals that work at these companies like Facebook, Meta, obviously, which is Facebook and Instagram, TikTok, X, Twitter, et cetera. They've just figured out how to press the right dopamine buttons in the brains of individuals. And that's why this doom scrolling thing, you know, and I was a person who was so proud of myself for years. I mean, I'm 46 years old, so I'm definitely not Gen Z. But I was proud of myself because I was like, I've never doom scrolled before. That's just not me.

4:02John Lee Dumas:Well, guess what? I've caught myself this past few months. I literally have been doom scrolling and I'm doing it at like the worst time, like when I should be falling asleep in bed. I'm like, this is the worst. And now I see my two and a half year old son. I mean, his name's Bo. And guess what? He's there. We're having him watch a show. He wants to watch the most popular shows on YouTube. Those are the ones that are figuring out how to turn him into this dopamine spiking zombie. And it's like, it's crazy to see how that happens, you know, from all the way of ages, figured out months old up till I'm sure the very end and everything in the middle.

4:35John Lee Dumas:But I want to really dive into phone bricking. And that's like a brick fire nation, B-R-I-C-K bricking. What exactly is phone bricking, Dr. Eugene? And why do people feel the need to do it these days? Well, they're doing it, which is great. Phone bricking, let's define. So that was a term that was introduced in the 1990s. When a device would become inactive, they would say it became a brick. That's an engineering term then. So, you know, it's like an iPhone, if it's broken, let's say, it's a great paperweight. It's a piece of brick. It doesn't do anything. so when people say breaking in a modern era they are describing making the phone dumb taking a smartphone taking off uh like for example all the color goes away so the color becomes black and white one two all the social media apps go away and the only apps you want to keep around is like banking, all the boring stuff that cannot sink you in.

5:38It turns out 10 to 15 % of Gen Zs, especially women, are doing, they're breaking the phones because they know it's bad for them. They can't sleep. It makes them sick. It makes them anxious. It's a terrible thing. I actually have an interesting term that maybe, you may be interesting since you have a small child. So your kid is an alpha. Alpha is the most affected children at this point because their brains never had a chance to develop. So think what happens. So when your wife or significant other, not judging, looks at the child, child is very happy, right? If the mother looks away from the child, that's been studied for years, the child becomes anxious right because if the mother is not looking at you you're not going to feed them they're going to die they get anxious they get upset and women become depressed because the oxytocin that the bonding hormone shuts down right so here's what's interesting it's the technical term for that is called technoference is one of the new terms people are using and it's very important to that's why also mothers particularly love breaking of the phones because they can spend time attention and the only time the phone should be out when you're not interacting with a child the other thing you were so right it affects on the sleep is horrific i want to tell you about that horrific yeah so it's not just bad it's horrific so here's the thing.

7:19Adolescents, your kid is not adolescent yet, but even younger. Think of this. The brain in a child is built between zero to about 16, 20 years. The brain is only built when you're sleeping. If you cannot sleep, you cannot build the brain right. And all the light you were just describing, your sleep is being affected. Because what happens is when you have the light, you have a screen in front of you, it suppresses melatonin. Melatonin is what keeps you asleep. That thing cannot sleep. The other thing you remember is like, oh my God, this stuff, political stuff, or this is cool stuff, you're still thinking about it, you're not sleeping.

8:01So my recommendation is really simple. No phone in the bedrooms for anybody. Men, women, young children, doesn't matter. One. Two, all the screens should be off two hours before you go to sleep. That's huge. isn't that interesting that's fascinating now that's the other thing to remember is that if you don't sleep i'm writing a high-tech med paper on that right now yeah if you don't sleep your inflammation the body goes up if your body inflammation goes up you get depressed if you get depressed your muscles get weak your muscles get weak you will get depressed and so on it has a lot of biological impact.

8:42It's not just a little problem. It's a big problem. The other term you want to think about is called mimetic disease. Another term people strung around. Memes, watching the memes, like cute memes, whatever. Memes can change your mind, causes psychological change that leads to biological change.

9:02John Lee Dumas:Well, Dr. Eugene, that's actually what I want to dive into next is this mimetic disease thing. So can you just kind of break down what mimetic disease is? And then, of course, kind of follow that up with, is that something that people can, quote, unquote, catch mental patterns from memes and online content? The term meme is actually an old concept. It's not being popularized. But before, the only thing meme means, it's transmission and idea. That's all it means. so if you think about it if you an influencer comes up with something sometimes great sometimes stupid that gets out there right and everybody starts to believe it if you believe it your mind makes it real right you know if you look at matrix i don't know if you've seen that movie matrix oh yeah when neo jumped off the building and broke his ribs and he was like i thought that wasn't real but the mind makes it real so yes you can catch mimetic disease what it's called so to me all psychology is biology.

10:00It is a biologic change in your mind that activates your norepinephrine and inflammation, and that leads to suicides. Get a lot of this story. In 9 to 12-year-olds, the suicide rate's the highest it's been pretty much ever.

10:16John Lee Dumas:That's terrifying. What do you think is causing that? Inflammation, lack of sleep, anxiety, and especially girls, because women and girls compare themselves to others, men not as much. You probably know that. It's like, you don't care how my hair looks. Well, that's what I want to talk about next. I mean, we're talking specifically about Gen Z women here. So why are these Gen Z women particularly sensitive to this? Like what is happening beneath the surface for them? Well, there are a couple of things. One, that's a first generation. Like millennials did not grow up with the devices. They only had dumb phones.

10:51so we adopted it later I'm a baby boomer I'm way older but Gen Z's grew up with those phones and it's a social thing right so the problem is if you think about if you're a young girl you know women as well but let's say young women during high school so they post something up and now they're worrying if somebody liked what I said they didn't like it, they dissed me, they did this, they did that you're thinking about this all the time beside the usual content. We know now that Meta and TikTok, by the way, is the most addictive platform out there. So it's always moving very fast. So average amount of time people spend on devices like five to seven hours, if you're lucky.

11:38I've also seen a bunch of kids doing both. They're on the computer, supposedly doing homework, and doing the phone, and playing the radio. I mean, it's like the poor brain is like doesn't know what to do with itself.

11:52John Lee Dumas:All right, listen, Dr. E, we have so much to talk about around this. This is such an important topic. I mean, whether you're a millennial, Gen Z, a boomer, Gen X, Alpha, we're going to get into all of this and more when we get back from thanking our sponsors. Fire Nation, ideas are exciting, but systems will allow you to create freedom. That is where High Level comes in. High Level allows you to build and run your entire business from one platform. Website builder and hosting, funnel and landing pages, email marketing, automation and workflows, calendar booking, payments and subscriptions, even course and membership hosting.

12:27John Lee Dumas:Everything works together seamlessly. Plus, award-winning 24-7 support so you are never stuck. And when you go through my link at highlevelfire.com, you unlock my full bonus stack. A 30-day free trial of High Level with full access. a private 50-minute coaching call with me, weekly live office hours with me, a digital copy of my book, The Common Path to Uncommon Success, my 50 Days to Something execution roadmap, and more. Stop piecing tools together. Start building momentum. Visit highlevelfire.com and start building your something today. Fire Nation, are you ready to create something special in just 50 days?

13:06John Lee Dumas:If you just thought, yes, then check out my free YouTube series 50 days to something. Every video is short, clear, and built to move you forward one intentional step at a time. Clarity, offer, validation systems, momentum. By day 50, you are not working on something. You have built something, something to be proud of. And this is completely free on my YouTube channel right now. If you're done letting weeks just drift on by, visit eofire.com slash YouTube. That's eofire.com slash YouTube. and press play on day one. 50 days will pass in the blink of an eye. The only question is whether you'll still be thinking or finally building something special.

13:51John Lee Dumas:Dr. Eugene, I want to talk about the alpha generation. I mean, we were just talking about Gen Z women and how they're really struggling. Of course, all of Gen Z is, but I mean, specifically the women. But the alpha generation, I mean, looking ahead, what happens to kids who are growing up in total digital immersion? It's literally all they know. I mean, what risks should we be paying attention to within this? Well, first of all, let me plug my new book. It's called Mimetic Disease, Doomscrolling, The Hidden Biology of Digital Life and the Way Forward. It's on Amazon for download. I need this book.

14:28John Lee Dumas:I mean, you might be saving my son's life, literally. I mean, he's two and a half years old. Suicides between nine and 12 year olds. You heard of Fire Nation. It's at an all time high. It does not need to be there. So keep going, please. We'll be back to Alpha Generation. So when you go to my chapter, I have a third of the book talks about generational differences. So here is the story. So the first picture you see in Alpha Generation's chapter, you see this cute little kid with a phone in front of them in their stroller, right? And there are devices built specifically to hold the phone in front of the child.

15:04And I've seen it in like real life. I live in a nice part of town. and then the kid is completely ignoring everything around. So number one, if you have a child, we already know alpha generation. We're talking about now 10-year-old, 12-year-old. So alpha generation is zero to 16 currently. They're already having more anxiety than previous generations and they have learned disability. Now the question is why does that happen? We know it's happening. It's not a debate if it's happening. It is happening. It's happening because they can't sleep, right? We're back to the lights. to all of this chasing dopamine around and cute little thing on the screen and all the motion.

15:43The mind is not built for that. And again, the only time the brain is built is when you're sleeping. And they cannot sleep normally. Children need a lot of sleep while the phone interferes with that. And I know it's really convenient. You go to dinner and you put a phone in front of the kid so they're quiet and you can have a lovely dinner. Sounds like a great idea at the time. Unfortunately, you're going to pay for it in the back end in the lessons.

16:10John Lee Dumas:I mean, real quick, is the right number zero hours a day? Or is there an acceptable amount of time? Or is there no acceptable amount of time? Well, first of all, even think of cyanide. How much cyanide do you want to take? Zero. So it depends what age, right? Also, I mean, we're talking about, I think, in my opinion, zero to two, zero. There is no need for anything like that. The other part, not only that, but only the biggest predictor of behavior of children is apparent behavior. And I know it's an uncomfortable thing to say, but if you pull out the phone when frown the child, guess what they want to be doing?

16:47They want to pull out the phone and do the same thing.

16:49John Lee Dumas:It happens with me. You know, I have to like check a text message that comes in. I pull my phone out of my pocket just to like look at it. And then my son's just like, daddy, what are you doing? What are you doing? Let me see. Let me see. But think about what they're trying to do. A, they want to emulate you. Yep, emulate. Which is normal. Two, they would like to have your full attention. It's like, aha, you're playing a baseball game. Look at that. I hit a home run. I'm sorry, I was on the phone. I mean, they don't like that kind of thing. I mean, it's not normal. So the point is, I think quitting, and again, it's not easy to do.

17:22But like, for example, I'll tell you how I operate my word. So I only get news 30 minutes a day, and that's it. I have very tight borders on it. I have no need to know if there was a missile, five missiles, 20 missiles, 100 missiles were shut down. Who cares? It makes no difference. There's no phone in my bedroom. I want to sleep well. Right. And, you know, with my kid, I mean, I didn't know anything about this. So unfortunately, he was exposed to screen, but he's 22. But I'd like to tell you how I got into this completely, because this is really not my space. I've never really been interested in social media and all that garbage.

18:01In my opinion. So can I tell you my story real quick? Let's hear it. My son had the normals. Like, you know, he's playing his video game and watching the phone, the TikTok and all of that. The usual. I told him, I said, don't do it. Don't do it. He was like, yeah, yeah, yeah, whatever. Go away. Anyway, so about a year ago, he comes back and he goes, you know, I'm tired of this. This makes me sick. Like, this is like, I'm a physician. So I've been telling all the biology doesn't care. Anyway, so he goes, I want to just start doing Legos. so you start doing legos put the phone down then you start playing board games i was like what so the point is generation z are not as stupid as we think then the stand is making him sick that's why they're starting to figure out ways to disconnect so if you can have like for alpha generation uh i think the best thing is like board games or like shoots and letters things like i I used to play.

18:55It was my kid. Experiential going out in nature. And of course you have your life to do. I mean, so you have to be interactive, but do you really need every freaking text responded to that microsecond? No. If you're an emergency personnel, yes, but you're probably not that. Not me. Put it down, step away. Your son will thank you and your whole family will be much healthier for it. He may actually maybe save his brain and his life because the inflammation leads to cancer and all other problems.

19:25John Lee Dumas:So listen, Dr. Eugene, we've talked about this, but I really want to hammer this home because it's such an important topic. We're talking memes, phones, and sleep. What's the connection between these three, especially when it comes to the sleep disruption? So memes and doom scrolling, let's put them together in the same kind of bucket if that's okay. So it's basically grabbing your attention and keeping you on a platform. Is that fair fair right so you do that so once that happens i it you know i'm i'm supposed to be an expert in ptsd post-traumatic stress disorder so i'm starting to use the term digital ptsd in a sense it's giving you mental disorder that is biological so let me tell you what else biologically once you see something that's kind of outlandish or you see a shooting in the face or whatever.

20:14Let's say, shooting in the face. And the algorithm shows you similar things, right? It chases you around. You can't just get away from it. You see it once, it's over. No, no, no, no. They want to keep you in a platform for hours. That's the plan. So, one, your norepinephrine or adrenaline goes up. So you're revved up. So you're revved up, and then you're trying to seek more, trying to figure it out. That dopamine goes up. And if you do it late, so you do doom scrolling so you keep watching the same thing for the next five hours because you're getting so upset you're more revved up you're you know your body is ready to run you're fight and flight right you're ready to go and your melatonin goes down melatonin goes down you can't sleep if you sleep you're not going to sleep deeply if that persists what turns out is the system the fight and flight system activates your immune system the immune system is now activated it.

21:08It's called interleukin-6. It's cytokine that leads to inflammation. Inflammation leads to depression. People who commit suicide, their inflammation has increased, right? All of that is this whole cycle. And now you feel bad. The next time you get up, you can barely awake because you haven't slept well. Now you're depressed. So you kind of soothe yourself by watching the phone again. You're in the cycle.

21:34John Lee Dumas:Fire Nation, we need to avoid this cycle for obvious reasons. And I think one step that we can take, Dr. Eugene, is to educate ourselves. So as we kind of bring this home now, what is the reason why you decided I have to write this book? Who is it for? And most importantly, where can we get it? Well, we'll start where we can get it. Amazon. I've got a self-published shit there. It's going to be on Kindle and the regular book. And then later we'll be probably doing an audio book. It's for everybody. It's for all generations because you may be a millennial, you may be a baby boomer, they can still suck you in.

22:15I mean, like for example, John, you get sucked in, you know, even though you were resisting it, but it sucks you in. I'm going to get sucked in. Smarter than you. Smarter than me, that's for sure. it's like nuclear war it's better not to start it right you don't want to you don't want to get into it so um it also is for educators so people in school i cannot believe they're still debating should phones be allowed in schools that's just stupid that should not be allowed period there's no debate and like for example in china if you're under 16 they will shut down all the phones at 9 p.m. No question, no debate, nothing.

22:53The point is our legislator need to help us with that to protect the people. That's our job, right? That's why you don't want to have poisoning. We don't allow red dye number five, but yet we allow the phones. And I would say red dye is not as dangerous as the phones.

23:11John Lee Dumas:So where does Fire Nation go to pick up this book to learn more? What do you recommend as next steps? Well, a couple of things. One, if you could help me promote the information. So I think reading the book will open up a lot of people's eyes because I've read pretty much everything that's out there about this. Most people who write about is by our psychologists. They really don't think about biology. So my particular claim to fame, I call myself psychobiologist. So I look at all mental disease, psychological disease as biological disease and I can explain it. I come up with a treatment that reverses inflammation and all of this.

23:49In fact, tomorrow I'm presenting at a pretty big conference using stellar ganglion block, my procedure to reverse anxiety in adolescence. So this is very close, near and dear to my heart and I could see how it affected. So number two, if Fire Nation could help me find the people, have the resources, financial and digital, I want to set up the super duper, the best there is, breaking up. because the problem is like one of my medical students said, I'd like to brick my phone, not brick, brick. But I have to live in the real world, right? I'd like to be able to make phone calls. I'd like to text.

24:29I'd like to be able to use my parking app. I'd like to be able to do banking. But the problem is the phones, all the apps out there, there's about eight of them. They'll have problems. Of course, mine will be the best.