[Bonus Ep] Your Phone Is Why You Don’t Feel Sexy

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1:43What is up? I'm Grace Beverley and welcome back to Working Hard, the podcast shape guidebook on how to improve your own life and achieve what you actually dreamed of doing. Because life's too short for boring podcasts and bad advice.

1:57hello hello this is this is grace we got another bonus episode today i hope you're having a great week i really have been wanting to talk about this for a long time i came across this article on i think it was a tiktok that recommended it and i have not stopped thinking about it since it's by katherine shannon and it feeds into a lot of other things that i've been thinking at the moment and been obsessing over and make me feel physically sick when I think about them too much. So I just really wanted to talk about it and this is something that a lot of us will have a lot of opinions on and a lot of us might feel even a little bit embarrassed.

2:35We think of ourselves as almost above it or we think of this as not that serious a thing and I don't know it's been taking up more and more of my headspace and I think it's a conversation that we need to have. But just a quick disclaimer first, this episode isn't going to be perfectly packaged advice. I wanted to have more of a kind of honest messy conversation around phones desire losing your spark what makes us feel hot but also just an overall conversation about the fact that we're all so addicted to our phones and I think if it hasn't hit you yet I think it will soon and I think it's going to start to be talked about more and more but I think that it's not necessarily going to start to be talked about that importantly because I think that we've almost accepted the fact that our society now is so phone led and all of us have hours and hours of screen time a day.

3:27Anyway, the headline of this article, which was probably spoiled by the episode title, is your phone is why you don't feel sexy. So we're going to get into it. But the headline immediately got me. I think mostly as someone who, through necessity, spends a lot of time on my phone, but I will not lie that it's just through necessity. I think that I have to spend a lot of time on social media, obviously, for my job. And it's where I get a lot of inspiration. I do a lot of my work there. I have to be immersed in online culture. That makes me good at my job. But I also believe that I am fully addicted to my phone.

3:57And that's quite hard to say as someone who believes, I don't know, I believe I'm a very productive person. And I think a lot of us to think of ourselves as above being addicted to our phones. It feels akin to a teacher telling you to get off your phone in the middle of the school day because you don't need to be on it. And I don't know it just feels a bit icky at least to me but I've been thinking more and more and more over time about how my phone affects my daily life and I'm just gonna lay my thoughts on it bare and embarrass myself around it because I think that that's important and we can have some shared vulnerability about it or maybe it is just me.

4:33I remember seeing about two years ago this really interesting neuroscientist approach to procrastination and long story short she was basically saying by giving ourselves instant gratification we break the dopamine loop of delayed gratification and therefore we can we rewire our brain to only be able to take instant gratification and I thought about it a lot since then because I do think my attention span has decreased massively through more and more phone use and especially short form content I honestly think short form content does physical bad things to my brain we were just talking in the team here and someone said that they also only feel good when they're watching short form content for example and when you stop it you don't feel good it actually actively makes you feel bad and recently I remember my friends two of my friends came to stay with me in LA and they are two friends that are on their phones a lot less they just don't have social media or just aren't on their phones as much and I think I'm surrounded by a lot of people who are on our phones quite a lot a because I work in social media b just because I I don't know maybe I'm just around lots of people who use their phones quite a lot and I think lots of us do but I spent the week with two of my friends who came to stay with me it really made me realize because they don't use their phones that much how much I use my phone I honestly felt like I had this secret addiction that I had to quell I had to stop myself picking up my phone all the time and it was just little things we had an hour and a half journey at one point and I was in the car and I instantly got out my phone and they were just having a conversation and then I was like oh I'm gonna to put my phone away because it's rude they're having a conversation and I joined in the conversation and then we just talked all the way home and this makes me sound so dumb but I was like I can't remember the last hour and a half journey of nothingness where there was nothing to catch up about nothing to talk about and I just talked and I think that really made me think this is bad not only are our phones really bad for us and make us not feel sexy and all of the stuff that we're going to go into but also they make us terrible conversationalists it makes me more numb because of the amount I've consumed online and the amount of emotions I've faced online when scrolling but it also makes me more I don't know it makes me a less interesting person even though you think you're a more interesting person anyway I'm going to go into this article because it was so so good you can get a pretty good summary of Catherine's argument from the first few lines so I'm going to read it to you she says scrolling on our phones is killing us this is a statement of fact that needs no citation besides research isn't really my thing the massive suck of our phones and the never-ending algorithmically driven internet has been covered at greater length by better informed writers.

7:04We all know our phones are destroying our attention spans, our dopamine reward systems, our relationships. We know they're numbing our feelings and experiences. That's all I say about the general badness of phones and the internet. But I want to talk about a very specific badness. Our phones are also killing our ability to feel sexy. Getting in touch with our true desires is critical if we want to feel connected, happy, driven and alive. Like an old iPhone battery, the vital change that used to fuel our lives is trending precipitously downwards. Our phones aren't solely to blame for the lack of sexy vibes in the world, but they play a central role.

7:33Nothing about our phones is sexy, from the things they allow us to do, to how they feel to use, to what they ultimately symbolise. So let's talk about phone addiction for a second. I really do feel like I'm hearing more about phone addiction than ever at the moment. I heard a statistic from Professor Adam Alter the other day that we are set to spend 20 years scrolling our phones throughout our lifetime. 20 years. And actually, there was one that the article that Catherine did ends with this quote that literally made me want to cry. Remember this, the next time you fall asleep to a TikTok playing on an endless loop, one day your heart will stop beating and the only thing that's eternal is love.

8:12We're on a little flying little, quite big flying rock in space. and we're sitting there staring at these tiny little computers. I don't want to sound like a boomer. Like, oh, none of us are talking to each other, but genuinely none of us are talking to each other. And it's hurting our connection and it's hurting everything. And I don't think that we necessarily need to suddenly have a world where we don't use our phones because I think that we have become a world that needs our phones in lots of ways. But I just think it is killing our brains and it's also such it's such a shit way to spend your life it really is that sounds so deep but I the more I think about it the more I think about the fact that that is horrible and I think there's more nuance to the discussion around phone addiction to how Catherine starts her article so she says our phones are killing us because obviously the narrative of just get rid of your phone doesn't work when it's literally your livelihood and it is the livelihood of a lot of people it's the way we stay connected it's the way we reach each other it's this ability to stay in touch with the world around us that we never seem to used to need before the invention of phones or smartphones but it's something that we've adjusted to need now but I do think we are now seeing the start of a cultural conversation about how phones actually can keep us from living our life rather than giving us this interconnectivity and you know in actually in the article by Catherine she says despite our current disappointments I'm going to paraphrase this a little because it's a bit long despite our current disappointments the rise of technology during the late 90s and early 2000s was a pretty sexy time.

9:45The internet promised us first and foremost new ways to communicate and connect with each other. The human element was still at the core of this new uncharted territory. It was hopeful and it was hot. We thought we'd be getting more of each other not less. That really is the crux of it. We thought we were going to be getting more of each other and we thought by being interconnected we would be more connected to people and I just don't think that many of us would agree that's actually true. So going a little bit into phone addiction because I wanted to look it up and really get to grips with it because I do think it's important to talk about and I do think I sound like a iPad kid saying I'm addicted to my phone but here we are but world famous psychiatrist Dr Julie has five signs for phone addiction and I'm going to read them to you and you can diagnose yourself because that's what we last do on the internet.

10:24Number one is spending every spare minute scrolling so you get your phone out in the bathroom or walking between appointments. I was also just thinking how unhygienic it is to get your phone out in the bathroom and yet I do it all the time. I'll be between a meeting and it's almost like trying to steal the time back that I don't actually have and I'm just sat there on my phone and there's nothing exciting to see and it probably makes me worse at the next meeting but I still do it. Number two, feeling unable to stop constantly checking it. Three, feeling lonely or agitated when you're without your phone for long periods.

10:52You neglect your responsibilities to spend more time on your phone. I think we would all hate to say that that's true but I think for actually for lots of people when you're procrastinating with your phone you're technically neglecting your responsibilities so again I'll just embarrass myself for everyone and your relationships are suffering as you spend so much time on your phone. I actually sent this article to my fiance as soon as I read it because I think that whilst we would consider ourselves nice conversational people who love spending time with each other I would be lying if I didn't say that I think we spend too much time on our phone especially at the end of the day when you're trying to get that time back you feel you've got to the end of a super super busy day and you want to claw that time back for yourself in spending time on your phone and not needing to do anything and just needing to swipe your thumb and actually, I don't know, it's terrible for connection.

11:37It's absolutely terrible for connection. And I think the more we're aware of it, the better.

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12:43That's because Asana is where humans and AI coordinate work together. AI makes it easy to hand off routine tasks, streamline workflows, and keep everyone focused on the work that matters most. That's how work gets handled. That's Asana. visit us at asana.com that's a-s-a-n-a dot com so let's get into sexiness and what it even means because obviously this article was specifically about that and i do think it's a very beautifully put specific article that is important to think about because sexiness and how else would i describe this sexiness intimacy and being in your body is an incredibly important part of life and I think Catherine is spot on in her discussion of what it really means to be sexy or to feel hot I'm going to read you another section of the article here but it really made me think about the last time I felt sexy I think despite us trying to look our best for Instagram it's you don't it's never sexy like when you're posting it on Instagram it's moments of embodiment dancing with your mates on a night out or traveling or sitting down reading a book outside whatever it might be feeling in your body and it might not be sexy in the way you think of sexy but feeling truly in your body and in touch with yourself is the antithesis of being on your phone so catherine says it's safe to say now that we're more than 30 years into the great internet experiment that our devices didn't bring us closer together the proliferation of devices surrounding us at all times may help us get in touch with other people sure but they impede our ability to get in touch with ourselves a touch screen would indeed seem to promise something tactile and real but they leave us cold tepid and listless something is deeply wrong when we sex the same way we order a sandwich so eros is the idea of carnal desire so a embodied desire so carnal is relating to physical especially sexual needs and activities and desire we know what desire means so it's like the actual physical desire that you feel in your body she says it's an embodied experience and our phones do a terrific job of getting us out of our bodies and into our heads.

14:53In the digital age, we often neglect our bodies entirely and use them merely as a way to transport our heads to meetings. No one feels connected, present, alive, embodied or sexy when they're on their phone all day. And it's true, even if we don't want to admit it, it's very fucking true. And I think this is such a good point because I, for example, I'm going on a lunchtime walk now on my work day and the difference it makes when I actually move my body in the day versus being sat looking at the screen all day is frankly day changing, but also in a way life changing overall but I don't know it's just a moment where I can get back into my body from being so much in my head and I think that I've never truly understood the difference between those two things I've always thought that it's better to be using your head more and I actually just don't think your mind should be employed at all times of the day because then it doesn't make good decisions when it needs to be employed and I think that's such a big reason why we're all feeling so burnt out about absolutely everything we're using our minds more than we ever have I also think it would obviously be hypocritical of me to be a social media basher because it's very much I mean it's how I make money it's a huge amount of my work and for my businesses and all of this and obviously I still think moments of connection online are incredible but I do think all of this raises such good points about how we can connect online and use it to our advantage but also why so many of us can feel in a funk after 10 days straight screen time or spending 20 years of our life on our phones I just think that I just don't want it to be one of those conversations that's had way too late and we've all just given ourselves some sort of dopamine dysfunction and we can't concentrate and we can't do any long-form content and we can't have good ideas because our brains have been utilized and like zapped on things it didn't need to be used consuming.

16:33I just, yeah, it can't be good. But Catherine goes on to speak about the lack of space that using our phones 24-7 leaves for us to develop our own thoughts too. So this is something I always make a point of mentioning when we do episodes on planning and procrastination. We need to find space for boredom. I think we used to be able to be bored so long, even as, I don't know, I was born in 1997. I feel like I spent a lot of time as a child bored and that was a good thing. You went outside and you played or you just made up a play or you, you know, made up some sort of dance routine. And that is so important.

17:05We need to preserve boredom. And I think that we don't allow ourselves a single second of boredom. And I think it's really, really, I think, I just think it's destroying our brains. I don't think our brains can take this much this amount of the time. You know if you think how much of a difference going on a walk makes for you being able to actually make good decisions or have clarity on any sort of issues, imagine how much better clarity we could get if we weren't attached to these little devices all the time. She says in the article that our intuition is one of the most valuable tools we have at our disposable and I can't think of anything that undermines it more than our phones.

17:38The unprecedented immediate intimate access we have to the lives of other people means we are always second guessing ourselves we need to remember that everything of this world has a beginning and an end especially the sexy things we can't escape the normal ups and downs of life or the passage of time we need to allow ourselves to be restless and bored to be less preoccupied with the opinions of others and to look honestly within ourselves we need to get off our phones and hear the gravel crunching under our feet our phones promise us something eternal and infinite but we should be extremely skeptical of anything that claims it can go on forever.

18:09I will say I don't think having access to the lives of others is inherently bad but I think we do need to constantly check our awareness of the fact that we do have that access and we are swamped by that access and it's not been natural any time ever to both be seeing your career and your relationship and also that of every single other person. Like how are you meant to judge your own life and what you want to do whilst also having to form opinions even whether you want to or not on every other person's it just doesn't leave space for us to be able to form valid opinions on our own and actually valid opinions on our own life is what helps us make good decisions and go in the right direction and i do think that having access to the lives of others also plays a huge role in your own confidence and learning your own confidence and my confidence journey as a person and i think it also links to general life fulfillment this constant idea of comparison which we definitely do talk about a lot and we talk about with social media but it's obviously part of this whole phone conversation.

19:08There is literally so much I want to talk about on this episode. I would absolutely love your DMs on this topic. We'll share some of them and have some conversations over on the Working Hard pod Instagram. I just think that it's, I don't know, as I said, it's an embarrassing conversation. It feels a bit of a failure to admit that you have some sort of addiction to something that is so, I don't know, I don't know why it feels embarrassing, but it is and I do find it so and I want to stop it and at the same time I want to do well in my career and I think that there's also this conversation that we could have here about the fact that being an influencer and therefore being constantly online is currently seen as one of the most lucrative and best jobs that you can get in terms of you know work to reward ratio and therefore everyone also feels they are constantly one post away or one social media interaction away from a much better life and I think that all of this compounds it's not just that it's not just social media it's not just short form content it's not just us being in our heads all the time it is all of these different things to end last episode i chose a guest excerpt for the quote to live by but i think for this one i have to include a quote from katherine shannon because the way she writes sentences is incredible and i this one really made me stop and think she talks a little bit in the article about how well she kind of alludes to the fact that our phones bring us convenience and convenience actually doesn't bring us anything better than just convenience itself.

20:35You think convenience is going to give you an easier life and that's actually a fallacy. She says, thoroughly exhausting ourselves intellectually and physically through a productive work brings fulfillment and with fulfillment comes peace. And I believe this so strongly. I think that whatever you want to say about phones, I think one of the most damaging things we have nowadays, and this is said, you know, it's not actually damaging. I think there are far more damaging things out there that exist. But the amount of convenience we all have is obviously a huge and I'm saying this from a very privileged standpoint but I think we can all agree that especially in developed countries the kind of standard or like the average of convenience that we all have access to whether that is takeout or whether that is Amazon or whatever I think the access to convenience teaches us that convenience is always better instant is always better and anything you can do to shortcut anything is always better and I don't think that's true and the days will have felt best will have been the times where we did hard things and overcame them or came out the other side or got something done that we really needed to get done or whatever it might be.

21:42I don't think our best days are ever the day where you Amazon primed something you wanted to receive the next day and it was at your doorstep and I just think that this whole idea of convenience being the marker of luxury I think is true but I think luxury and fulfillment aren't necessarily connected and I think that it tricks our brains a little bit in the wrong way and I don't think we should all be aiming for maximum convenience and I know that's like a hugely privileged thing to say but I do think it is worth saying because I do think that you know as she says here thoroughly exhausting ourselves intellectually and physically through productive work brings fulfillment and what you could read that as is glamorizing labor and glamorizing work and being like okay well you should just work harder and you're going to be a happier person and I think while that can be true to some extent I don't mean that necessarily in your job you don't need to exhaust yourself in work to be a fulfilled person I don't believe that's the only way through fulfillment I do think some of the luckiest people in this world love their jobs and therefore are able to get fulfilled through the thing that also pays them but I think that fulfillment and or productive work could also be meditating for half an hour when you find it hard to meditate but you know it benefits you or writing in your diary or journaling for 40 minutes or a few pages when you find that really hard but you know it benefits you that is productive work too productive work isn't just about your job and the more we get rid of productive work as Catherine calls it the more we get rid of this productive work the more we get rid of fulfillment and I think we really need to understand that and we know that doing hard things makes us happy or makes us feel fulfilled and I think we can carry that into more of our lives and there's nothing hard or fulfilling on your phone I think that a lot of our jobs require phones and we were actually going around the team earlier and talking about our screen times because obviously a lot of us are on social media all the time and it's part of our jobs but I do think that there is a separate part outside of that and everything all the convenience that our phones bring us can be pretty antithetical to feeling fulfilled based on how both how unproductive it makes us but also how much it takes us away from other forms of productive fulfilling work.

23:49I know that was meant to obviously just be one quote but there's this other bit that Catherine mentions as well. She says instantaneous access to everything obviously comes at a cost. The cost being that we all behaved like demented Roman emperors at once bored and deranged summoning whatever we want at any time. It is perhaps impossible to desire what we already have, what is easy or what is implicitly promised to us. Desire is fueled to a certain degree by the possibility of not getting what you want. It depends on a certain distance and difficulty that must be overcome through one's own effort.

24:17Technology makes us lazy. We think our phones will do the work for us but they don't. And there is a depressing place to stop but I am gonna do so. I feel like this is, I don't know, I loved this article so much and I think there was so much in this that really really made me thought about myself and my phone use and my idea of fulfillment and my relationships and how much phones have obviously given me. Like that's obvious and I feel like I don't need to point that out but I will anyway because you know. But also how much they take away from us and how much if we feel we physically couldn't decrease our screen time for anything other than the work we need to do.

24:51I think that's a problem and I think it's a problem we should talk about and I think that it's a problem that we might start talking about too late. So I love this article. I would love to hear any of your thoughts on the topic and anything you thought I got wrong or right. This is a bigger conversation I'd love to have, not least so that I don't feel alone and like a little iPad kid. But thank you so much for listening. I'm sorry, this I feel like this got more and more depressing as the episode went on but we like having important conversations on this podcast and sometimes they're not going to be that exciting but I do think they're interesting I aim to have interesting things to talk about at dinner with friends is the brief for these types of episodes so please let me know how these conversations end up with your friends because I would like more opinions without embarrassing myself in front of people I actually know in real life but thank you so much for listening and I will see you on Monday for a very exciting episode

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