Reversing The Negative Effects of Social Media On Mental Health with Mark Weinstein

For years, Facebook has employed psychologists, data analysts, thousands of them to create the appropriate algorithm. And it's a learning algorithm manipulating your thoughts, your purchases, your business decisions, anticipating your thoughts, everything about you. So now what this creates, we talk about mental health is a lot of this contradicts what you might naturally have felt that you were going to be thinking, but you don't realize that you're being manipulated.

Welcome to the Happiness Squad Podcast. Your weekly dose of practical tips and inspirations to help you operate at your fullest potential by integrating the science of flourishing into how you live, work and lead. In each episode, we will share insights, tips and stories from leading experts, company executives, and flourishing solution providers that you can implement right away to make happiness your competitive edge and find more success, joy, health, love and meaning in everything you do.

Hello friends, I'm Ashish Kothari, the CEO of Happiness Squad, and welcome to our podcast where we share practical tips to make flourishing your competitive edge and help you achieve stellar performance powered by well being, not at its expense. I'm on a mission to help 1 billion people not just experience happiness as an emotion, but use it as a tool to unlock their fullest potential. If you're interested in learning how to make happiness your competitive edge, make sure to follow me on LinkedIn and subscribe to our newsletter@happinesssquad.com today I am honored to sit down with Mark Weinstein, a tech entrepreneur, privacy advocate, and one of the original visionaries of social networking. Mark is a thought leader who transformed the conversation on digital privacy. He's known globally for his TED talk, the Rise of Surveillance Capitalism, and recently published his bestselling book, Restoring Our Sanity Online, a powerful call for change in our digital habits and privacy practices. In our conversation, Mark and I explore the ways social media impacts mental health, how algorithms drive polarization, and what we can do to restore balance in our digital lives. Mark sheds light on the challenges parents face raising children in a digital age, sharing practical advice on setting boundaries, modeling healthy online behaviors, and reconnecting with what truly matters. We also discuss his vision for a healthier, more mindful digital landscape, one where we can break free from the hold of artificial importance and create space for authentic connection. If you're ready to rethink your relationship with technology and take actionable steps towards a more balanced online experience, this episode is for you. Hi Mark, I'm so excited to have you on our Happiness Squad podcast. You know you are. As we were just chatting before we formally started recording, one of the inventors of social media, not the Inventor. But one of the, you know, you were in this right from the very start. And so I can't think of anybody else who is better and actually has also done a lot of like self development, personal development work. You've had companies around it. So I can't really think of anybody in this space who's better positioned than you to talk about, you know, social media, this mental health crisis that we are in the midst of and really, you know, being able to use that as a force for good versus what has become, you know, what it's become now. So I'm so excited to have you on our podcast. Thank you for joining us Ashish.

It's a great pleasure. And you know there's, there's so much that's important to talk about. So. Hi everybody who's watching or listening. This is going to be a great conversation. Shisha, I'll follow your lead. Ask me anything you want.

Thank you. You know, I really want to start with this first question. You know your book in restoring our sanity online, I loved it. You know, you talk about how social media and online behaviors are contributing to a mental health crisis. Share with our listeners your perspective on how these digital habits are negatively affecting our mental well being.

So it's really a mental health breakdown, right? Let's just really call it what it is. And this is also for everybody, just as sort of a setting the table. Back in the 90s I built one of the first social media companies platforms super family.com and super friends.com. they were PC magazine top 100 sites for three years in that's web one. Then you know, we fast forward. Don't worry if you don't really know what web one and web two and web three and web four are. But in web two I built a platform social network called mewe m e W e it still exists. I left me we two and a half years ago. Uh, it has about 20 million users on it which is unprecedented. It's one of the only social networks remaining that competes with Facebook. But that's a separate conversation. As I said, I don't work for me we I left me we because the problem is much bigger me. We had no ads, no targeted content, nothing boosted timeline, news feeds, privacy build rights, still does all these great things. But the problem with social media is just massive. And it wasn't always for our listeners. Ashish. I want them and you to know I love social media. I love it and that's why I got into it, you know, back in the 90s, you know yeah, I know I might sound like a dinosaur, but listen, I'm really not. And the web is now, you know, 35 years old only. So, 35 years old. The web is a baby, and Facebook is only 20 years old. So, you know, and really, you know, when it was getting its mojo, it's about 17 or 18 years old. So in perspective, everybody. But what's happened is today, the way social media and the way that data collection works and the way the AI and algorithms work to grab your data, parse it, and they have thousands of pages of data on you. Just so you know, there was a reporter who just as a human being, asked Matt a couple years ago, how much can I have the data you have on me? And you're allowed to ask, by the way. And they gave him 60,000 pages of data. He's just a regular guy. It had nothing to do with him being a reporter. He was. Just because he was reporting, he thought, I'm just going to ask because I got to tell people in the world what's going on. So, look, so with that data, they know what you're thinking before you think it, okay? This is really what's going on, all right? They know everything that you're doing, everywhere that you are, everybody that you're talking to, everything that you're buying, where you go to school, where you work, where you go to dinner, you know, the credit card is. They're all in cahoots in terms of the data ecosystem, because this massive sort of creep that you can't see, we'll just call it this data ecosystem, gets data from disparate places. They're massive data companies. Aggregate it all. So this packet on you becomes huge. And then for years, Facebook has employed psychologists, data analysts, thousands of them, to create the appropriate algorithm. And it's a learning algorithm, manipulating your thoughts, your purchases, your business decisions, anticipating your thoughts, your purpose, you know, your everything about you, okay? Just everything. So now what this creates when you talk about mental health is a lot of this contradicts what you might naturally have felt that you were going to be thinking, but you don't realize that you're being manipulated. Half Facebook users get their news on Facebook. Facebook decides what news you see.

Totally.

So, you know, so really the conundrum is, and for our young people, not just Facebook, we're not just meta, we're talking. We're talking, you know, TikTok, we're talking X. We're talking platforms that are broadly social media versus what Facebook is, is personal social media. But what instagram is, is social media. The difference being that like me, we is personal social media and Snap is personal social media which is really about being connected to your family and friends and then finding like minded people and following pages and getting your news. But you know, TikTok x Insta, those are really not about being connected with your family and friends. Those are really about, you know, following and getting this boosted content and seeing what's trending. All this stuff, that's a different experience. That's why most people have, you know, more than five social media presences now.

I love it. You know, I think it's this notion of like, I mean, you know, the social dilemma, you know, when I saw it, it was quite powerful. Right. This notion of if you're not paying for it, you are the product. Right. If you're not paying for it, you are the product.

Yeah, right, but, but here's why you're, you know, at Meta, for example, you're not the product. I've said this in my TED Talk, things like that. Listen, you, I mean at Meta you are the product. Right. And the customer is the advertiser.

Absolutely.

And so Meta is faithfully serving their customer.

Absolutely.

Unfortunately, the customer is not us. We're the product sold to the politicians, the adversarial governments, to the advertisers, to the marketers. You know, anybody wants to boost content and then they can very precisely and effectively. And now with AI Ashish, they can manipulate your feed really in nanoseconds. They can instantly, they the algorithm which is now AI powered can instantaneously sense whether something is working or not. It's almost like the old days were called a B testing, but it's a B testing in nanoseconds. And that's why you might know an older person who's addicted to their feed on TikTok or Twitter.

You might know he's my father.

Yeah, right, exactly, exactly. Listen, I hear this on every interview now. You know, it's somebody's father that's addicted to the feed because the manipulative algorithm works so well now with AI supercharging it, it's just got you. And then, so take this to our kids, imagine what it's doing to our children. And then with no rules about the age, you know, sure, Facebook says you got to be 13 to join. Okay, I'm going to join tomorrow. I'm going to lie about my age. I'm going to, I'm a 13, I'm a 10 year old. But I'm going to say I'm 22. Okay. Facebook says, okay, here's my email address, here's my name. Great. Boom, you're on. Instagram just rolled out some new rules for teens. They all require teens cooperation. There's nothing verifying about it. If you don't want to be verified, great. Just lie and you're on.

Yeah, well, you know, like, couldn't agree more. Right. And I think it's at the heart, you know, Mark, of, like, I fundamentally believe, as, you know, you talk about in your book, you know, we are getting more and more polarized because, again, you know, we are being fed news that the algorithm thinks is kind of how we think. And, you know, so, like, there's this confirmation bias. But, you know, for me, it's, you know, I go back to this notion. I think in this world, we often think about good and bad. And I think with me, what you built is a good example of a good social media network. It's never the tool or technology. Right. The knife in the hand of a surgeon can save lives. A knife in the hand of a murderer can take lives. I really think when social media started, you know, when Facebook started, when kind of these WhatsApp groups started, you know, it was a big gift for me when it initially started because I reconnected with my friends who I graduated with that I had lost in touch with. Same with LinkedIn. So it could have been a massive force for good. It could have brought us together, it could have connected relationships we know are at the heart of thriving. And yet it has become, you know, because of, again, you know, this notion of not conscious capitalism, but. But really this, you know, consumerism and exploitation has become this tool that is now, you know, we are struggling. We have become dopamine addicts. We've become highly polarized and strong in our views because we believe everything of what we are seeing, which itself is now, you know, most of our sense. We say, I saw it and hence I believe it. Well, I can fake what you see. And now you don't know difference, and. Except I keep showing you all of that, and now you fundamentally tie into that.

So, you know, for our listeners, and of course, this is the Happiness Squad podcast. So don't worry, because, you know, this is the problem, right? And the problem is massive. And we all know about the problem, right? You know, either you've seen it yourself, you see it with your kids, you see it with your grown kids because it affects. Or you're 30 and you, you know, you're part of this generation, because if you're 30 then you were 10 when Facebook launched and, you know, you were 10, 11, 12 when MySpace was right there in your face. And if you're 10 or 12 right now, then, you know, you're already, you know, hooked on streaks at snap. 13, 14, 15, you know, you're already hooked. You're already on YouTube, you're already looking at TikTok and you can see, you know, that it's really entertaining, but it's a mess. And remember, so one of the things that I just want to touch on here as we look at solutions, but we want to remember that we don't really hate each other in America and the backbone of democracy is disagreement. Disagreement is what makes our political system great.

Absolutely.

As another political system, you can't disagree. If you disagree, you're going to jail, you know, and your neighbor is going to report you. And you know, in America, this agreement is how it works. We can, you know, talk to our friends, our neighbors. We put signs out on our yard, on our cars, and that's the American way. But the bots and trolls and adversarial, you know, other countries have interfered with the conversations and boosted the content. And on X, a bot or troll can easily get verified because they have access to credit cards, these machines, these robots, because they're funded by, you know, nefarious entities and nefarious countries. And so they can get a blue check and then boost even further, you know, and on, on meta, they, you know, they want the money. So, you know, now we got to look at, okay, restoring our sanity online, right? Because as Ashish told everybody, listen, I love social media because of what the vision was. And I'm one of the visionaries at the beginning saying, wow, we can use technology to stay connected with our family and friends around the world. Because in the 90s, we're already working around the world. We already had great tech. Yeah, we were already. We travel, we could work, we could do so many things. And email was really, look, email was big in the 90s, just like it's big today. And email was terrible in the 90s, just like it's terrible today. It's one dimensional. You cannot get a read on the emotions, the thoughts, the feelings of somebody through the written word. That's only one modality. So email becomes really rather ghastly except to say, hey, I'm doing okay. Are you?

And there is a time lag with it, right? There's a massive time lag. So talk to us a little bit, Mark, about strategies, right? You talk about this, you Know, creating a healthy, restoring balance in our lives. You know, when, you know this, we need to be constantly on, right, we've gotten hooked. We want to restore balance. You also talk about how do we truly show up and address this crisis of authenticity and like wanting to be somebody else, then we are not. You know, I want to like use our time to really dive into these two, you know, two topics. There's so many amazing things and, you know, talking a little bit about the source and really spending most of our time on what actions would you suggest people who are listening take? Because unless we act, I think we're going to continue struggling and we're not going to flourish. And I don't think today anybody can flourish without addressing our relationship with the digital world where we have knowingly or unknowingly plugged into.

You know, I really love what you said. This, these three words, the crisis in authenticity, the crisis of our authenticity. And you know, for, for everybody who's watching, listening, listen, this is not hard work. So I want you to take a breath and go, okay, you know, look, help is on the way. Help us here. Help is us. The way big tech works, just like big energy, big agriculture, they want us to be disempowered and dependent. That's what happens when systems become monopolistic. So then we have this sort of paternalistic capitalist system that stops being effective, by the way, because once the free market is eroded and no longer in a high functioning state, then we're stuck with the monopolist. And again, when you look at the foundations of America, the American economy is premised upon free market capitalism. And for the free market to work, that means there's, you know, we have rules and regulations so that startups can come to be and challenge and provide a better service or product so that theoretically we keep on improving and everybody is always the entrepreneurs are working to serve us. So what we can do right now, first of all is, you know, if we go to kids, it's pretty straightforward. If you've got babies, you've, you know, you want to not use the easy way out. And this is very important. Sweden just made some new rules about not having kids. See any screens whatsoever, phones, televisions, any of them, until they're over two years old.

Because, wow, two, no screens at all, at all.

Because this screen is heroin.

Yep.

This screen is heroin. Heroin to all of us. But in the hands of an infant, you know, a two month old, a four month old, a six month old, a one and a half year old, that's it game over. You have instantly made them addicted to this screen. Now sure, you might want to do a FaceTime with a grandparent somewhere that's different. Then you put the phone down because kids don't understand FaceTime anyhow. Then you just put it down the screens because what you want them to do is want books. You want to spray put books everywhere. But as soon as you go to a restaurant and you give them the phone so they'll stop crying so that you can enjoy your dinner, you've actually set yourself up for way more misery than you would have had just enjoying working with your child in the moment and finding alternatives, you know, food, drinks, crayons, toys that would have, you know, entertain them. And kids also love staring at people in restaurants, not phones.

So you know, you know Mark, in fact I was reading this and I'm sure you know this, you'll know this looking how much you researched that. But for our listeners, I was actually shocked and I'm one of those, right? So like, you know, think about we have a 14 year old and we traveled around the world and so you know, look, I'm not like, you know, the, those I'm not being holier than thou. Like, you know, I didn't know of this research and now that I know about it, I share it with everyone because I did this. You know, we did this with our kids, right? We gave them an iPad, we trapped, we did it when he, Ashwin turned three in Japan and we had taken a trip around the world. So guess what? He had on flights, eight hours, you know, the device and then we were out. And so I mean it was just our way of like keeping him entertained so we could do it. But here is what I realized, friends. I looked into this research and we are born, when we are born, when kids are born, we have two times, two to two and a half times more neurons than adults. So we have more brain cells than we are in adults. And the brain in the initial years goes to a fundamental pruning process of what I'm going to keep and what I'm not going to keep, right? And a big part of that is what's activated versus not. And if we think about the rise in ADD and rise in ADHD when we give our kids access to these devices and even if it is fast TV you're watching, you know, our parts of the brain that are used to processing things at that speed are what get further and further strengthened. So no surprise, you know, they grow up to be 5 and 6 and they're sitting in class and the teacher's calling, they can't pay attention. They're not used to receiving information at that level. Like their circuits are. I want more interest, I want excitement, I want drama, I want the, you know, Jerry being chased by Tom. And now you're talking about A's apple. Like how are you gonna catch their attention? So yes, it's like heroin. And fundamentally I think when we are giving this to them early, we are really re sculpting their brains. Like we are complicit in who they're going to become and what becomes possible for them. I was blown away by that research, Mark. I don't think people talk about that in our world, you know. Right, right.

And this is where, you know, the expert on this stuff is really John Haight. The anxious generation. You know, he's very, he's our contemporary, you know, mental health kids, the addiction, the, the fact, you know, all the stuff that we already know that pediatricians and pediatric organizations have been telling us for years. But you know, looks and it's much bigger than this. So there's the kid factor and then their mental health and then, you know, they become teenagers and they get bullied and the algorithm is always looking for their self imaging. And we know that, you know, the vast majority of the largest percentage of suicides come from, you know, problems with social media, you know, teen suicides. So we know the whole thing is a mess and we know that we can fix it. And part of restoration networking, which is really what I call Web4 Restoration Networking, part of that is just getting rid of boosted content and everybody. So you know, we didn't really spell out a lot of street cred at the beginning. But I'm one of the world's leading privacy advocates and experts and here's what I'm going to tell you today. The book talks about this, this great battle between privacy and anonymity. Why I call it the gladiator battle. And here's the thing. It's time for user ID verification. It's time for us to know that a 13 year old kid on social media is not being tricked by a 50 year old creep into thinking that that's another 13 year old peer. It's time for us to know that a 12 year old is a 12 year old and therefore they're not allowed on social media. It's time for us to realize that they, and they is the government, the social media companies, the advertisers and the marketers, the whole world, they already know who we are. So let's stop pretending that we have any anonymity and let's get the right systems in place. We get rid of bots and trolls, we cut off the creep factor, we cut off posted content and all of a sudden kids can be kids when they're on social media. They will be talking. A 13 year old can talk to a 13, 14, you know, 15 year old up until the age of 18. No boosted content, no advertise, no targeted advertising, et cetera. And user ID verification, but user ID verification for all of us so that we can get back to civil discourse, so the bots and trolls can stop disrupting our democracy. This is this. And I've got an 8.7 point plan in appendix D in the book. I mean, the stories in the book are hilarious. You guys are not going to believe Liz, the story about.

Share one of the stories with us, Marco.

Okay, you ready for this? Everybody Meta just a few years ago decided it was in the best interest of meta to ask everybody who is a Meta member in Australia to send them a naked picture of themselves. No, absolutely. This is well documented. You got to read the rest of the story. But this is just, this is, I mean, these things, you know, the book, you know, a bunch of people read it are really, I mean, the book's funny, you know, because I have a good sense of humor and I love the truth. And so there's 420 footnotes validating and documenting from highly credible sources in the book. And the book is 21 chapters in 155 pages before the appendices. So you can read a six page chapter before you go to bed and just chuckle and it's a head scratcher. And also go, oh, and here's what you can do because many chapters have things you can do right now while this new generation of social media is coming, while the government is, you know, starting to break up Google and Meta, you know, because we need the government to help us and the government just found Google guilty of antitrust violations. Met is next.

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While we are are waiting for these systems and governments and things to change. You know, what are three specific things if I am, you know, let's talk about three different, like forget we'll come to the children and parents for a minute. But if I am an adult. Right. I'm a 30, 40 year old. I recognize that this is, you know, I am addicted because, you know, this was a core part of me growing up. What are three things I can do right now to protect myself and to restore my sanity online?

Well, listen, now, first of all, it's more complicated for an adult because that also means that your whole world is communicating with you through your phone. You know, so it could be your nanny, it could be your mother in law, it could be your grandparents, it could be your kids, could be work. So what you want to do is set up some boundaries both for yourself and just let the world know. Now one, you know, there's a couple things. Keep the phone out of your bedroom. Same thing for kids. It's like, you know, and also you have to role model for your kids because you can't tell your kids, do something that you don't do.

Absolutely.

It doesn't work. Every parent knows that, but every parent does it. Forget that you've got a role model. No phones at when you're eating, when you're at a meal with your husband, your wife, girlfriend, boyfriend, yourself, get a book. You know, my kids read when they're at the table. If they want to do something while they're eating and there's nothing they're not being entertained by other family members, get a book. Enjoy it. So you got to remember real reading. And don't read a book on your iPad. Get a book. Read a book, a real book. Paper, you know, feel it, you recycle it. When you've done, give it away, you know, make sure that you don't have any chargers to your phones in your bedroom. You know, again, keep the phones out of the bedroom.

One, keep the phone out of your bedroom. For sure. Set boundaries.

Yeah, yeah. Now they're, they're, you know, I mean, Apple now, you know, and other apps can monitor your time. You know, even China has a maximum 40 minutes a day on TikTok, their version of TikTok, because TikTok is the Chinese app, by the way, and it's manipulating your kids and stealing their data. Don't kid yourself that's actually the truth. So, and I've written about that and the government has extensively studied that. But, you know, I mean, so you've got to figure out at a limited time, I mean, wait, delay the acquisition of a phone for your kids. Get them a flip phone. Let them take pictures, Let them look at pictures. I have nothing against letting kids look at pictures. It's amazing how much Their history, they know. The second thing is, you know, in order to stop using your phone, stop posting, stop posting, you know, take a break, take a week off and see how it feels. If there's someone that is expecting a post from you, give them a call, Stop posting, okay? Because any picture you post of your kid in diapers or your kid winning an award or your kid having a good time is there for the rest of their lives. And I forget who said this the other day it was, oh, one of the Shark Tank folks was interviewed and they said, stop posting. Because every time they interview anybody, the first thing they do is, you know, get with AI and have AI do a massive and very rapid search and find out everything that you've ever posted or done in your life that's available. And right now with AI, it's all there. So if you want to, you know, kind of like, sorry, but if you want to screw up your kids lives, keep posting about them so that their future boyfriends, girlfriends, husbands, wives, employers, so that everybody can see everything. And here's the problem. If you post that they're supporting Trump or Harris or whatever they're doing or, you know, here they are having a great time and whatever it is, but to somebody else, it suggests a personality characteristic that might not be right for them in a relationship or in a job and that lives with them forever. So, you know, so you want to like, you know, just cut way back on your posting, cut way back. You monitor your time. And then the other thing is, you know, you want to, like you said, take action. So get your exercise, get outside, you know, and because you got a role model for your kids too. How can you tell a kid to stop playing video games if you're just running around, if you're just doing errands all the time, if you don't stop and go smell the roses, if you don't stop and get them outside with you, whether they like to or not at first, once they get used to the fact that it's going to happen and you got to be strong. So you've got to be strong with your kids. They depend on you to be strong. A kid's job is to test you every step of the way. Your job is to be strong when tested.

I love it. I love it. You know, I always talk about my son being my biggest teacher. Right.

I usually use it.

Yeah, I use it in a different context, but it is. I love your, what you said, you know, the job of kids is to test us. And our job is to be Strong right now.

Turn off the metadata on your photos. Most of you don't realize that every picture you take and post has metadata on it. It's, it's timestamped, it's location stamped. So for safety, for security, for privacy, it's very easy. Go into your privacy and security settings, whether it's an Android phone or an iPhone, and you can very easily find, you know, photo data, metadata on your photos and turn it off.

I'm going to look at it.

Very easy to do so, and you turn it off. So then you know you've instantly taken a massive step forward in the privacy and security and safety of yourself and your family.

Wow. What are some other tech oriented things like this? I didn't had no idea that you actually.

Are you ready for this one? All right, if you're driving a General Motors car, go into your GM app because you know, every, you get a car, a GM car, you've got a GM app now. And turn off the data collection. It's right there. You know, my data, it's right there. Because you know who gets that information? Ashish? They give it to the insurance companies, they give it to the government. So they actually know when you're breaking the law, when you're speeding, when you went too fast, when you ran a light, it doesn't matter you got a ticket or not, they know they're giving that information to your insurance companies and your insurance rates are now being, you know, driven by that, not just your driving record. Turn off that data. So, you know, there's, there's a lot that you can do that's just data. But then there's a lot you can do around. Now listen, social media is here. The other thing is create texting chat groups and most of us have now because, you know, then you're just talking to the people you want to talk to and you're posting pictures just with them. Again, you turn your metadata off anyhow, in case they repost. Ask them not to. But this is actually where, you know, this is a great preemptive piece for social media. Also, make sure you get your privacy settings correct on your data. But remember, Meta tracks you whether you're a member or not, whether you're logged in or not. This was documented by the Wall street journal nearly 10 years ago. It hasn't changed. So don't think that you're impervious if you're not a member of Meta, you've still got to take steps. So be mindful of, you know, location data, of everything that's turned on on your phone. And just be aware that the data ecosystem is grabbing things now. Soon this will change because the inventor of the web, Sir Tim Berners Lee, who also endorsed this book, the inventor of the World Wide Web, Sir Tim Berners Lee, endorsed Restoring Our Sanity online, as did Steve Wozniak. Now you know him as Woz, the co founder of Apple. Both of them. Tim Berners Lee says this vision which I share is a digital future that prioritizes human well being. This is a vital read. Woz says this is a vital, a must read for anyone concerned with where we are today and looking for a better path forward. So the book has got tons of actions. It's hard as she could see. It's hard for me to just pick out three. Right, because there are many things. Also with your kids, there's a punch to this, what you can do right now, as in a partnership with your kids. Remember, it's got to be a partnership with your kids. So there's lots we can do. And Tim Berners Lee has invented a new system called pods, which will be coming soon with data portability. Because one of the problems, half the world's on Facebook and Meta products, we're stuck there. It's called the network effect. Well, fingers crossed. The government is working its way around to what's called data portability or data interoperability regulations, which will again stimulate the free market. Imagine if you could start a new social network and people knew that they could easily move all their data to your site. That's a game changer. And therefore we could then vote with where we are members of and we can move and we can get our friends to move with us because you can't get friends to move very easily. Right now they're stuck with this network effect. They're stuck where they are on Instagram.

Mark, I have a question. But you know, your comment earlier is still sticking with me about the journalist who said to meta, give me all your data, and he got 60,000 pages of stuff. Can people reach out and ask for that data to be deleted?

Getting your data deleted off Facebook is complicated. On the one hand, they say, yes, you can delete your account, but there are a lot of asterisks and they're pretty complex. But you can understand one very simply. Anything that you've posted with other people still is going to live on those feeds and basically you posted everything. So you can delete your account and delete your quote data. It's also on backup servers that go on for ages. It's also already up in the data ecosystem. So that data's already been scraped and grabbed and it lives where it's already been sort of put where you already placed it. So the answer is really yes. They say you can and is it effective? The answer is no.

So is the only way to kind of get out of this mess is to basically not be on these networks?

Well, here's the thing for you and I, our privacy as older citizens is essentially over. But for our kids, but over to this point because yeah, we can stop right now, we can say, okay, that's enough, you know, and then we can either pull ourselves off of these surveillance capitalists applications. That's what they are, surveillance capitalism, everybody. And you can see my 9 minute TED talk on the rise of surveillance capitalism purposely short so we can get right to it and you can understand it. And again there the stories are really entertaining. But this is what happened. The world and democracy became married to surveillance capitalism. And these in a certain way are really supposed to be polar opposites. Democracy is where privacy is protected. Privacy is your right.

Yes.

So, and so the answer is Ashish. Yes. In the interim we start to listen. You turn off the metadata on the photos so that anytime you post a photo, there's no data that's embedded, you know, on the back of it that says, here's where this picture was taken, here's the date, here's the time, here's the location. You know, none of that, that stamp disappears. Yes. And like I said, you probably want to, as we said, you know, stop posting. Stop posting so much, you know, it's not necessary. Be mindful if you're posting about others, family members, friends, reunions, etc. Make sure that anybody you're posting about is accepting of that because that's going to live forever and start to take the, the actions then you can move right now listen, there's a network called Mastodon, there's a search engine called DuckDuckGo. Jack Dorsy has started a Web3 company called Blue Sky. Mei Mei has always protected your data as yours, not the company. So there's no mismanagement of data there. There's not nothing even analyzing your data there. So you want to, you know, also start to take action. And we understand, listen, I understand that you might enjoy seeing what people are doing on Meta still, you might be addicted to TikTok Insta X. And so you want to just slow it down and get back to real life. Go out with a friend and say, let's put Our phones down, let's talk. And go through the awkward moments of silence of, you know, hey, did you see. You know, just. Just wait a moment. And all of a sudden, life restores. Restoring our sanity online is about restoring our sanity offline.

We have a series, Mark, that I created. You know, as I started doing work around flourishing, I realized this was as much about doing new things as it was about dropping old things that are at the heart of our suffering. And so we said, you know, there was a whole series like it is around, how have you made unhappiness a habit, Right? So we can talk about building new habits. And I know you wrote the book on habits, right? Habits. Really great and amazing. You know, you did so much work around that space. And so one of the habits that. Absolutely. I can't agree more with what you're saying. One of the habits I talk about is exactly that, which is, look, 22 years ago, I came to the US in 97, and my highlight, you know, this memory still is 99. I went to Six Flags, okay? And I still remember lines used to be long, and we used to stand in lines, and we used to look around, right? At other people, because that's kind of what it. You know, smartphones hadn't come out and these social media networks hadn't come in our consciousness. If I go out now, even if you sit in a restaurant, you see four people all on their phones. You're waiting in a queue, you're on your phones. And in fact, we are on our phones. If we are in an elevator riding 30 seconds up, we are on our phone. So this notion of if we want to have. If we want to restore our sanity online, we have to, you know, literally, I think you start by dropping at this moment, put the phone away, not be on it. Create the capacity to actually be idle. We don't need constant stimulation that we have just gotten used to that. It now feels uncomfortable, right? We go through caffeine withdrawals. We go through dopamine withdrawals.

You know, a very simple practice as you start to connect to the world more is something years ago, I forget the gentleman's name. There was something called the power of acknowledgement. And, you know, just if you're in an elevator, take a look around and notice somebody's shoes or earrings or, you know, shirt or whatever it is and say, wow, I like that. That looks great. You know, some compliment, and it's disarming, and it's a conversation starter. And it could even go to, where'd you get that? Or you know, who do you work for? You know, whatever, you know, you, you work in this building too. Or, you know, whatever, you know, it's. Human beings are conversational. I mean in, in person conversational. Not on a phone conversational, but in person conversational. Compliment your waiter or waitress, even if they're having a bad day and you know, you're ready to get pissed off, take a break and go, wait, this is not about me. But she should know. This is one of the greatest secrets of the world. When you feel like somebody is doing something wrong to you or snubbing you or the secret is it's not about you. There's something else going on for them. You just happen to be right there in the moment that's receiving the energy.

Yes.

But it's not about you. So if you can get off of your upset about, you know, they're doing this to you and you can say, hey, are you okay? You know, hey, can I help? Hey, you know, something that gets you off yourself. Stop being, you know, so self centered about you. It's not about us. It's. I don't know if Jack taught me this, Jack Canfield, somebody taught me this. It's just not about us. So if we could stop living in a world of seeing what's wrong and thinking that everybody's out to get us, the world becomes a much more beautiful place. And the other thing is we've forgotten to stop and look at the sunset or moon.

You know, we have tuned ourselves from the wonder. We, we've tuned ourselves away from the wonder and these moments of awe that just evade us if we actually notice.

Yes. And you know, maybe, you know, something in television said, listen, I, I watch the baseball playoffs and the World Series and some of the ads are like, okay, now, you know, you're going to get like a Zen moment. And to me, this is great. I don't know why they're doing it, but you know, these, these advertisers, but it's like, yeah, take a Zen moment but, but you know, step outside.

Yes.

You know, take a breath of air when it, you know, fresh air. Or just go look at a blade of grass. There's a great Bluey show. You know, for those of you have kids, I mean, look, Bluey is hilarious. One day they have the dad like, it's called Born Yesterday. It's a six minute segment and it's born Yesterday. And so the kids now make dad think he was born yesterday. And then he like looks at a leaf with incredible wonder and all the veins in the leaf. And I'm sorry, I don't want to get too far off track and too esoteric for us here, but that's the podcast that we're on, Right. And afterwards, when he's allowed to come back to his real life, well, you know what they find him doing? They find him outside looking at a leaf.

Absolutely. Well, I think it's not esoteric. I think it's very much on. This is the heart of the practices we talk about savoring, being mindfully present, fully engaged. Right. With the world around us. You know, Mark, I often talk about this. I don't know if you ever were a Batman fan, but, you know, way back before Batman movies became cool, were these very bad renditions of Batman. And in one of them with Michael Keaton, the villain was Jim Carrey, and he plays this character called the Riddler. I don't know if you're. If you ever watched that.

I remember Batman from before that, too, when it was Adam west, you know, in a television series.

But it was crazy because, you know, Riddler, this was in the 90s or maybe early 2000. Riddler created this device, which he basically gave to everybody for free. That was, you know, this tv, right? And you could watch tv. And this was before always on, so it could play. But it literally, you know, showed literally this image of basically, people would sit in March and it would just take all their brainwaves, right? It's, like constantly on, taking the brainwaves that are plugged in. And, you know, smartphones, for me today are that. Because if you look, we are always on, right? Like, people are, like, walking like this in the most beautiful surroundings, and they're on. You know, they're with people who. They care so deeply about their family, and they are on. All four of them are on. And it's really, to me, just crazy. And so I love the work you're doing. I love the practicality of the tips that are in your book. You know, for those who are listening, dear friends, please go check it out. Because, look, if you want to flourish, if you want to thrive, if you want to be happier, healthier, you know, have a life filled with more love and meaning and authenticity. We can't do it unless we change our relationship and really restore our sanity online. As Mark says, unless we do this work, we're not. It is impossible, is what I would say. It's not just hard. It is impossible because our whole experience is being shaped this way. So I think we have to go through a fundamental unlearning and unbundling of these habits that collectively have made ourselves prisoners in our own world.

Ashish, if I may add, because you just touched on something really important when you talk about artificial intelligence, let's give a phrase to everybody who's with us and let's just say it's time for us to release our artificial importance and get back to what's really important and valuable.

Yeah.

Beautiful.

Mark, thank you for joining us. Thank you for this amazing conversation. We'll put the link to the book, we'll will put the link to your TED Talk. This was incredibly enlightening for me. I know it will be helpful for our listeners. Thank you for the amazing work that you're doing in the world. I appreciate you.

Likewise, Ashish. Appreciate you. Thank you everybody. I appreciate all of you. We're in this together and let's feel powerful and let's take care of it.

Take care.

That wraps up another episode of the Happiness Squad podcast. We hope you found the insights actionable to enhance your journey towards happiness and fill your life with more joy, health, love and meaning. Please consider leaving us. Review and share the podcast with anyone in your professional or personal life who you feel will benefit from some of these very insights. It's a really simple way to extend support and spread positivity. Take care and remember, happiness is a choice that's available to you moment to moment in the here and now. Take care and see you next week.