How to Decrease Anxiety and Get Focused in a Hyper Texting Digital World with Caitlin Begg

Hi, welcome to the Mind Body Space Podcast, where you can boost your resilience just by listening. Whether you're watching this on YouTube at my Fall Asleep Easy channel or on a podcast platform, please subscribe and share to support this free evidence-based content curated just for you. I'm Dr. Juna Bobby MD, a board-certified radiologist and lifestyle medicine specialist. I'm here to help you stress less and thrive in today's complex world. Join me as I meet fascinating experts in meditation, neuroscience, education, and lifestyle medicine. To get special tips and tools, head on over to mindbodyspace.com and sign up for the newsletter. Links are below.

Today I'm so excited for my conversation with Caitlin, also known as Katie, Begg. Katie founded Authentic Social in 2016 after writing her undergraduate Harvard sociology honors thesis on how digital communication can affect relationships and social interactions. Katie is such an amazing person to talk to. I met her at a fundraiser at Harvard Club. She was just one of those dynamic people that has your attention with this fascinating topic of how digital communication and hypercommunication, which we'll talk about in this podcast, affects our human-to-human interactions on a day-to-day basis. She also happens to be one of the friendliest and sweetest, an amazing, genuine person. Her heart is in all the right places, and her passion for this topic and human relationships is palpable. Her company strategizes for business-to-business technology companies and law firms to make communications easier and more effective.

She also focuses on the future of work and artificial intelligence and how it affects human-to-human interaction.

Her research is currently being featured at conferences across the United States, Europe, and Asia. I hope you enjoy this conversation as much as I did. Hi, Katie. Thank you so much for being here.

I'm so excited to be here. Very, very excited to chat with you.

So grateful that you're spending your Friday afternoon with us.

So yes, wouldn't wanna be anywhere else.

Oh, and I love that neon sign behind you. This must be my dream.

So it's actually a song lyric from the 1975 that I, I purchased a while back, uh, when I was still living in a, a studio. I chose the color lighting, the pink, because I, I like to work and experiment with different lighting. I have a blue neon light as well, so it helps with different moods and different construction of situations in the, in the office and apartment, which is nice.

So Katie, you're the founder of Authentic Social. You are a sociological researcher, and you founded this in 2016 while you were writing your undergraduate Harvard sociology honors thesis. So can you tell us a little bit about why you started this and what got you so interested? I'm assuming you grew up with tech, right? You're Gen Z. Generation tech.

So yeah, I'm a millennial, kind of. It's late '94, so kind of that in-between where sometimes they want to label you as millennial, sometimes it's Gen Z. And I actually think that that particular year that I was born helped influence a lot of my interest in researching digital relationships because when I was a senior studying sociology, I, you know, when I came in as a freshman, no one had Instagram. Social media was not a big thing. We started to get it freshman year and I started to see how it started to influence social behavior and, and the way that we interacted and how that feeling where it would be great if you met a new friend and they followed you back, but then friends would mention, oh, this person unfollowed me. And just this whole new uncharted territories that started to influence college. And it was really fascinating to me how it also influenced dating because dating apps were launched my freshman year of college and it started to influence the way that people were meeting each other, even on campus. And I found that to be very fascinating. And in sociology, a lot of times when you study the most intimate relationships. So if you study kind of, uh, dating, you can extract out things actually to more everyday interaction because people are kind of their most vulnerable in that situation. So one of the things that I studied in my, uh, honors thesis is around digital communication and the way that virtual impressions affect the way that we form relationships and perceive each other. And so one of the most interesting things that I found was that almost 100% of people, 94% of people found that they were anxious while writing text messages or waiting for text messages. And this was in 2016 before TikTok was a thing. And in, in my findings from the study at that time, Facebook was the most used social media and people did—

I was going to say you were at Harvard. Did they use Facebook a lot when you first got there?

Yes.

Yes.

Okay. People didn't really spend that much time on social media as compared to today. There's actually over a 50% increase in how much time we're spending today as compared to 2016.

Mm-hmm.

And so, or not only within the context of romantic relationships, but also interpersonal relationships, how sometimes when you send a text message and you don't receive a response, you are free to kind of create your own reality as to why that's the case. Is it that they, is it that they just are busy? We don't really know. And so this notion of asynchronous communication taking over and permeating our everyday was fascinating to me.

And can you describe a little, um, in layman's terms for the audience what you mean by that?

The explanation I like to give actually is a little bit longer and it'll help the, the listeners to understand it. So in the 1960s to 1980s, everyday conversation involved mostly synchronous communication. So what I mean by that is in your everyday life, the way that you communicated with other people was through face-to-face interaction. Through the telephone, which although it is, there's a, an object mediating that, it still is synchronous. So it's still in sync. You are hearing someone waiting for the tone, things of that sort. Now what started to happen— exactly, exactly. Now what started to happen in 2000s was social media and texting started to come about and it started to influence our everyday a little bit. Email, things of that sort. And When email started to come about, there was this notion of that's what kind of emojis were, and emoticons were invented as a way to express emotion because it doesn't naturally come through in text. Now that mattered in, in a, in a, in a bit of people's everyday. But now if we think about the, how much we use our phones, we are communicating so often through this asynchronous and not in a steady stream manner. So when we are communicating with others, I actually don't really like to call texting a conversation. It's really just exchange of information. It's not truly a conversation and it's in its actual form because conversation in its, in its kind of real definition is not only exchanging information, but kind of forming relationships and understanding. And there's tone of voice and there's, there's a lot that goes on there. It's, it's the exchange of ideas and it's in real time. So that really influences us a lot of ways because it, it causes a lot of room for misinterpretation and anxieties. And, uh, I see this a lot of times in not only within the, the clients that we work with in, in the workplace and hybrid and remote work, but also within teenagers and, uh, young people. And saw it in myself when, when I was in college and, you know, was the reason why I started to do all this research.

Mm-hmm. And so when you're talking about, um, non-real-time texting and you were Speaking before about how people get anxious waiting for a text to come back, for example, because there's no real, you know, I guess there's informal rules depending on your age of how quickly you should be getting back to people, right? So, yes, I had a boss, uh, when I first finished residency and she wanted it like immediate responses on text. And she was like, oh, you're awesome. Because I would text back so quickly. But, um, but certainly there's people who take their time now. And like you said, with dating especially, like there's no real rules to like how you, how quickly you're supposed to respond. And, and I doubt that most people are having conversations about that when they start dating. They're not like, okay, what do you think we should, you know, what should the response time be?

Exactly. And establishing those communication norms are so important. And I, I found. Before I met my boyfriend, when I was dating, I mean, I text everyone the same. I send a lot of different messages at once and sometimes I will take a while to respond cuz I like to be thoughtful in my responses.

Oh, okay.

Mm-hmm.

I found that it was very difficult to, to start this new kind of, uh, endeavors with people, whether it's friends or it's dating or it's work and not establish those communication norms. So that's something I always try to. Encourage people to do in a natural sense. It doesn't have to be some formal or overorchestrated thing, but just a, as a, as a side note, if I'm doing one of my kind of crazy 81 hours without a phone type of experiments, I will let my friends know ahead of time so they know that I haven't fallen off the face of the earth and there's no anxiety there without responding. So things like that.

I'm saying like some, you know, for normal people, I mean, for most people, maybe you should take a moment and think, how do I want to respond to this person? Um, especially if it's a new relationship, do I wanna be setting it up for them to expect me to respond immediately, or I'm gonna wait an hour? Like you said, not over-orchestrated, which is interesting also, but how do you establish that kind of rule with someone? Cuz you know, if you say I'm not the kind of person who texts back right away, then the other person might not like that, right? That's weird, right? Or, well, I've heard that happening though. Like people saying that, like when they're dating, like they'll say, I don't text back immediately. Or is it almost like a match type of thing where if you're the kind of person who texts back immediately, the other person isn't, then it's harder to have a relationship? Is it a personality thing?

No, I'll, I'll link, I'll link it to a larger sense of something. Is that, so say for example that you have a group of friends and that you have brunch on Sunday and you're meeting together and you're excited to catch up. You haven't seen each other in a few weeks. And say that this group of friends is a little bit analog. You communicate via text message to make plans, but you don't share every moment of every day. Then when you meet for brunch, you're gonna be so excited to see everyone. You share all these stories, you have some gossip, you have some fun different stories to share. You have life updates, and it's really exciting to be able to share that news in person. Now on the flip side, say that this group chat is constantly going all the time, all the time, which is fun. Won't lie about that. It's not, not to say that it's not fun.

I feel like that happens more in high school, right?

It, well, it depends on the age and the norms kind of, uh, across things. But then when you see people in person, oftentimes when these types of groups who are, are speaking, uh, so often there's an element of hypercommunication, kind of communication that is accelerated and that's happening so often. Then when you meet in person, you're not gonna have as much to talk about. And that's when oftentimes people retreat to going back on their phone because they're uncomfortable with those pauses. And then if we wanna extract that back out to dating, That also has to do with kind of why people don't really know what to talk about, because if they're texting all the time, there's not really much to talk about and you're getting to know the person and that should be done more in a steady stream. And that's extracted out to business as well as, you know, save some of the things that you wanna speak about with people for a meeting. Um, use, I like to use digital communication as a way to exchange information and not as a way to have conversations whenever possible.

What if you're like long distance though? Or like you, you talked about using dating apps, right? Which dating app did you use, by the way?

All of them. All of them.

Okay.

Yeah.

Uh, and did you meet your boyfriend, current boyfriend on an app?

I did on Bumble.

Bumble. Okay. When you're meeting somebody online, what do you recommend that young people or single people do now? As far as, uh, setting up a communication, texting communication, cuz obviously that's how they start, right? On all of these apps.

Definitely. Yeah. So what I would try to do was just meet someone as soon as possible. That's not always possible. Mm-hmm. Because there's a lot of different life outcomes, but the more that you can make a plan and anticipate that plan and wait for that plan and get excited for that plan and actually establish in person whether there's a connection there. The better, and that goes not only for dating, but also for business connections. I think the more that if you're trying to see if there's a client fit, the more that you can get on, even if it's Zoom and, and chat in a synchronous way versus send a back and forth a ton of emails, that can be a better way to really just establish whether there's some connection or fit.

Okay. So you've been giving this lecture called Everyday Conversation: The Effect of Asynchronous Communication and Hypercommunication on Daily Interaction. And sociotechnical systems. Can you tell us a little bit about that?

Sure. So my company, Authentic Social, focuses on sociotechnical systems strategy for business-to-business technology companies and law firms. And we do some special projects with executives as well. And so what that involves is sociotechnical systems is the joint optimization of social and technical systems. So what that looks like within a company is making sure that the people and the processes are aligned, um, so the technology and things of that sort. So, our main focus area within sociotechnical systems are making sure that there's everyday learning within the workplace, because we've seen that employee attrition rates go down a ton when there is everyday learning. Um, also we work with making sure that there's not communication dysfunctions within hybrid or remote work, and then also looking at social selling strategies. So, How that relates back to the question you just asked is I had founded Authentic Social in 2016 when I was a senior, kind of by accident, uh, from the thesis found that the more that we aligned our digital and real world selves, that there was higher ROI, both in personal and professional settings.

Mm-hmm.

And I thought that was interesting. And so when I was working at LinkedIn full-time after graduation, I worked on Authentic Social on the side. I was on the West Coast, so getting up early at, you know, 6:00 AM starting all this, all this stuff.

What did you do at LinkedIn?

I was in the Business Leadership Program, which unfortunately they just discontinued, but it was a great entry-level talent program and I was a sales development representative. We did lots of rotations though, so we went through talent acquisition and customer success and learned a lot about business and also made a lot of analog connections 'cause I was in the office that have kind of lasted through my career. But what I started to notice in sales was even at, you know, company like LinkedIn, which does a great job with social selling and things like that, that there could be rooms for improvement in making selling a little bit less alienating and a little bit more human.

Mm-hmm.

And so that's what I've sought to do. And kind of, I'll, I'll link that back to the research in a second. My dad is, has been in sales for as long as I can remember and, you know, top rep at, at his different companies that has also always used kind of really creative, interesting kind of people methods. And so, mm-hmm. And when I studied sociology, I started to look at sales actually from an academic lens, which is a little odd. People don't normally look at sales through an academic lens. And after I had worked on Authentic Social, so I left LinkedIn after a year full-time and, um, have been full-time ever since. We actually have never had to accept any venture capital and it's been completely self-funded and self-perpetuating through our clients and profits. So that's been fabulous. It's been great. And one of the things I noticed after a few years of doing Authentic Social was that it would be great if, you know, I started as a result of a thesis, but after a few years, you know, that research was what it was. It was helpful in starting this, but I wanted to continue that and make Authentic Social unique in that our clients receive something that is not just me Googling things or me building off of other things. It's having internal research. It's having that body of work influence what we're doing with clients and also have research that not only influences what we do with clients, but hopefully to make the world a more learning-oriented, conversation-oriented place. So I started on this kind of interesting journey with my research, which I'm happy to, it's a kind of an interesting story. I'm happy to elaborate on that if it's interesting to you later on. But, um, I, once I, this research started to kind of take off, submitted to lots of different conferences and will be, have presented already in UCLA, UCSB. We'll be presenting at the American Sociological Association's annual meeting, which is about the educative power of sociology and kind of centers around that kind of education narrative that we're working towards, which is the largest sociology conference in the world. I'll be presenting there on Sunday. Then I take an Uber to JFK and from Philly, Probably, I don't know, train, planes, automobiles, who knows how I'm gonna get there. I'm not inside of that yet. Um, then I fly to Helsinki and we'll be speaking at a future of work conference in Finland and presenting 3 different talks there.

Exciting.

Starting that research journey.

So yeah, Helsinki, you're gonna be talking about digital communication dysfunction avoidance in the hybrid work settings. Basically trying to help people communicate more efficiently and prevent miscommunication, right? I wanna come back to like what this all means for everyday work and for everyday people. So when you go into an organization or when you're giving this conference, what is the basic message? Let's say you're gonna give them like 1, 2, 3, how do you avoid dysfunction? You know, how do you set the rules for asynchronous versus— how does the hypercommunication affect? And by hypercommunication, I think what you mean is when you're expected to text back. Almost immediately, right? And that what you were talking about before, you're telling each other everything that's happening throughout the day. So maybe in a work organization, it might be a Slack channel, or when you're just texting your friends, just texting.

So it's, first of all, I'll define a couple terms for your audience just so that it's helpful. First, what I'm speaking about is hypercommunication is excess inbound or outbound communication, which is often precipitated by technology. So it means that there's so many pieces of communicative information that it, it kind of overwhelms our brain. Hypercommunication, just how we, we think about a hyperfixation or hyperactive. There's so much going on, it, it's a little overwhelming. So that's hypercommunication.

Whether it's with your mom or your, or your friend group or at your boss on Slack.

All the time. All the, yeah, exactly. And asynchronous communication is conversations with a time lag between the messages.

Mm-hmm.

So it's not in that steady stream and it's such as through social media and other related mechanisms like. IMessages and text messages.

And because you don't have these basic rules set up like we were talking about before, most people don't say, oh, this is how quickly I respond. Or, you know, unless you have a message going back on your email, like I'll be back with you within 24 hours. So most people don't do that in their casual relationships or their intimate relationships or with work. So I'm assuming that you're going into these places and trying to set some sort of template so that people know what to expect or what's expected of them so that there's no—

Exactly. So, I have 3 talks at this conference in Turku, Finland, which is right outside of Helsinki. And the first one is that everyday conversation, the effect of asynchronous communication and hypercommunication on daily interaction and sociotechnical systems. Now, a typical listener, they might be thinking, well, what did you just say? What does that mean? So, I'll break it down for you and kind of, yeah. Help everyone understand kind of why we start with that and what people are, are gonna get out of it in simple terms. So what Everyday Conversation is about and the effect of this asynchronous communication, hypercommunication is that it's looking at, okay, everyday conversation, the way that we speak and interact on a, on an everyday basis in our daily lives. How does the fact that we are communicating not in a steady stream and the fact that there's so much information thrown at us on a daily basis, I mean, there's notifications, notifications, notifications. Little message, little ping, ping, ping, ping, ping. How does that affect not only daily interaction, but also on a larger, more macro scale? How does that affect sociotechnical systems? Now, a sociotechnical system can be something that's brought a society, or it can be an organization.

It could—

there's lots of different examples of sociotechnical systems, but that's kind of the, the broader view is let's establish this as being something that is important because it is, and researchers such as Sherry Turkle, who studies conversation and technology, and people like that have, have really established that this is of sociological importance. The idea of starting with this talk, everyday conversation, is to show people in 2023 what does all this mean? And to make people understand and break them out of this kind of pattern that we're all in. Because the reason why I started all this research was I found myself, I was not feeling really well mentally. I felt overwhelmed by technology. I felt like there was too much information that my brain was clogged. I call it phone brain. And I broke myself out of this phone brain through the methods and the solutions that I present at these conferences. And it's through something that I call Progression to Analog, and that's a progression to analog, which is, you know, saying kind of a, a play on words that we are moving towards an analog. Now that does not mean that we want to throw away all of our technology, but what it is, is about exploring a more human everyday. And that's what I wanna place in the audience. And I kind of do two different things. So I leverage sociological methods and practices and things of that sort, like ethnomethodology, which is the study of everyday conversation and the way that that helps us kind of construct meaning from our, our situations and our surroundings. But I also write critical theory and look at kind of really dense literature review from French and American sociological texts from the 1930s to the 2020s about everyday life. And its alienation under capitalism. Look at conversation trends over time, over different decades and how it's changed. I, I got out of Print Technology magazines from over 7 decades and looked at different patterns that might have, uh, be affecting the way that we speak.

So what have you found?

So one of the things I noticed in my, my own life is that this acceleration of information, so the way that we're getting all these notifications, mm-hmm, if we're able to start each day without that a little bit, it helps downstream produ— productivity and also sense of calm and wellness for the rest of the day. So an example of that is on September 5th of last year, I had been carrying around Society of the Spectacle, um, which is a kind of, uh, critique of spectacular and commodity society, uh, Guy Debord, uh, Guy Debord, if you wanna say it in, you know, French terms. I carried it around for, for 3 months and, uh, ended up finishing it on September 5th. And it just so happened that my phone was on the other side of the room, so I didn't touch my phone.

Mm-hmm.

And I noticed that for the rest of the day, I was so, I was in such a good mood. My screen time ended up being only like an hour. And I thought that was so interesting and actually kind of by accident, not on purpose to do this kind of project or research, but I just started to wake up every day and, and read and, and read and read. And for years I couldn't finish a book and I was having trouble with kind of focusing and it just started to have such a huge downstream effect on my everyday life. My screen time has gone down 65% in the last year since doing that.

So you wake up and you read for how long?

You know, it depends. I wanted it to work with my everyday life. So some mornings, if you have a 5:00 AM flight, sometimes I will literally just read one page, but I will, I go in and I write in all my books. So I, I will write the date, the place, and the time, and I will read a page and, and underline and whatever. And that just starts the, to set the intention for the day because as someone who has an ADHD brain and is not neurotypical, when people were saying to me, oh, to meditate, just sit and be still at the beginning of the day. Well, that's not how my brain works.

I don't wanna do that. They're looking at people and almost everybody has these symptoms. So not pathologizing everybody or not undermining people who actually have issues, but yeah.

Exactly. And actually South Korean-born, he lives in Germany, Byung-Chul Han, this philosopher who I'm obsessed with. He speaks about that actually, how the acceleration of information in this digital age has caused kind of a generalized sense. Of this attention issues in everyone, even people who don't have actual ADHD. There's a, there's attention issues kind of with all of us because there's so much information, this hypercommunication, how they're, we're expected to be responding all the time. So even just setting your day and reading one little page, it's really, and people can read about anything. I mean, you could be interested in, in, you know, you don't have to read weird critical theory like I am. You could read, you know, novels or something about something that interests you or, whatever that might be.

Comic book.

Comic book or Calvin and Hobbes was my favorite after exams or anything.

But it, it's, it really is helpful to kind of set intentions for the day. And it's fun cuz one of the, one of these books I just had on my desk is, you know, I can open it and I can see, oh, okay, this was on, uh, February 9th. I was at my friend Alixa's house in Costa Rica and I was, I was reading by the beach here and I saw a spider monkey. It was the first time spider monkeys have been there since 2004. And I'm, immediately kind of brought back there.

So you're saying that you haven't been able to read a book in a long time, but because you started this new habit, you've been able to finish books now?

And not just books, but I went from not being able to even finish a beach read to in a year with no other changes in my life. There's not anything other health-wise to finishing almost 50 full books on everyday life, sociology. Psychology, philosophy, all these little things. Wow.

Well, I just have to pause here and ask you a little more details on this, cuz this is so relevant to so many people, including myself. Like, it's very hard to finish books these days, right? Cuz we have so much that we can read on our phone. So you start the day reading something on paper, depending on how long it's gonna be. You don't give yourself any time limits. You don't give yourself a minimum or a maximum. Mm-hmm.

No, because actually part of it, and this was in Society of the Spectacle by Guy Debord, is there's this idea of, uh, spectacular time and pseudo-cyclical time and the amount that modern society makes us constantly keep track of time, that actually is a huge weight on our brains.

Mm-hmm.

And that's a, I, I mean, it's normal. I'm not someone who lives in a fantasy land, you know, I'm from New Jersey. I live in New York City. I know that there's a reality and there's a thing that there's, there's life that we need to, you know, we need to be on time to things and things of that sort. But to be able to set up your day to lose track of time, even for a couple minutes through reading is really wonderful and reading. Through something that isn't a screen, because then you're not distracted by anything else. It really is a nice way to set intentions for the day.

Okay. So the first thing you do when you wake up is whatever you need to do, brush your teeth or whatever, drink coffee. And then, but you're reading, you're reading actual analog paper.

Yes.

And then, you know, when do you get on the phone? Like when you have your first appointment or something, or, and do people know, like your boyfriend, does he know that you're not gonna be answering him? Does your mom know? You know, Katie's okay. She's not answering, but she's meeting, so it's fine.

I have a funny answer to this. So actually in this progression to analog, I've done all these fun, interesting projects to help kind of return my everyday to a little bit more human-oriented and creativity and learning. And I actually got an analog phone, got it on eBay, and, uh, can I see a picture of you holding it?

Ready?

Is, oh, that's cute. So what's nice about having an analog phone is that in case of an emergency or something like that, I gave the number to my friends and they can, they can call it. And on days when I want to and have the opportunity to, which isn't every day or even every week sometimes, but if I wanna just totally be off my phone, I know that there's a way to communicate with the outside world, which is nice. I also like it because I, I speak with my grandmother often and It's really nice to just sit and look out the window of my apartment and just be on the phone and be doing one thing at a time. And it's just helped me so much in focusing on one item at a time. Because when you go on your phone, there's so many di— there's a whole different world that opens up and that world can be great. I'm not discounting the fact that phones make life a lot easier. I mean, I have no sense of direction, so Google Maps is wonderful. But the reality is, is if you see that a message is there, you're gonna wanna respond to it and then your brain kind of. You start out not really being able to complete tasks in the day. So just by starting out the day, completing one thing, even if it's just a page, it doesn't have to be a full chapter. That was the other thing with reading was that I would kind of think, oh, well, I have to read a whole chapter every time. No, you could read one page and then that really adds up. It really makes, makes your everyday more about learning and not about consuming the news, which is just exhausting to learn about whatever political party or affiliation. It's just, there's so much noise. There's so much. Kind of awful things going on in the world. Um, and it's important to keep informed, but not to not be bogged down with all this information and to kind of set your day up for success.

As soon as you wake up, like you don't want that.

Yeah, exactly. It's like waking up and taking like 10 tequila shots. I mean, it's, it's like that's what going on your phone is like.

I love that you say you give yourself absolutely no rules about how long you're reading and how much you're reading.

No.

So that, I think that's really key. I'm gonna try that. I love it.

Yeah.

Okay. You're an Ironman, right? You've done Ironman, which is so impressive. I think that's amazing.

Yes. When I was 18, I did Ironman Lake Placid, and when I was 14, I did a half Ironman. Yeah. And I rode at Harvard for 2 years. Unfortunately, I had to stop because I have a chronic illness called POTS syndrome. So it's postural orthostatic tachycardia syndrome.

Mm-hmm.

And they, when I went in for my physical sophomore year, they were finding some issues with my heart and heart rate was really high. They didn't know if it was like pulmonary embolism. And so it took me a while and unfortunately had to stop rowing because they had, they couldn't rule anything out.

Mm-hmm.

It actually took me, that was in 20 or 2013 or 2014.

POTS is like orthostatic hypotension, so you can faint.

Yes, exactly. And I, that had been happening kind of my whole life, but it didn't, it didn't actually get diagnosed until 2020 until I actually saw a TikTok and went to Columbia Med and brought all these things and they were like, TikTok, you're the first person. They're like, you're the first person to successfully diagnose yourself off of TikTok, which I do not recommend to any of the listeners. This was like years and years of stuff.

And, uh, but there was a lot of information on TikTok, I have to admit.

And it, and it kind of goes, it's kind of the point I wanna make here is that social media can be good. It can be a way to spark connections and meet different people. It's just about the level that, that we use it. But, but with POTS syndrome, once I got officially diagnosed with this, cause I always felt that something was wrong and off, but I never, there was never a word for it. And I sometimes thought I was crazy because. It took forever to get diagnosed. And so when I received that diagnosis, I really, this kind of inspired this research as well, because I thought I need to find a way to make myself less stressed and less anxious each day and just more at peace with things so that it doesn't influence my health negatively. And I, and I think that goes for everyone who's listening to this, whether you have a chronic illness or not. I mean, I always say POTS is annoying, but I don't have cancer and I don't have something that shortening my lifespan. I have a lot of, I have super low blood pressure. I can faint and, you know, passed out even on my birthday, you know, a few weeks ago in a grocery store in the Hamptons. But, you know, it was fine afterwards. It's not—

well, happy birthday, Katie.

Thank you. You, you know how to prepare for these things and you, I think technology can make us so anxious about things cuz we're constantly anticipating things and waiting for things. And, you know, in the past when I, when this stuff from POTS used to happen, there was a lot more anxiety associated with it and I feel a lot more at peace with things more generally, just because of the, the work that I've done over the past year or so that I think everyone can benefit from, even if it's not reading. I think trying to integrate some analog elements into your everyday is really great. Mm-hmm. I mean, an example I can give is my cousin Caroline, who is going to be a sophomore at the University of Pennsylvania.

Mm-hmm.

Um, she's an M&T and she kind of noticed that I was shooting film a lot. So as a part of this progression to analog, I kind of stopped taking pictures on my phone. As much and, uh, started doing, uh, taking more film. And she has brought disposable cameras and film and stuff back, uh, to college and says that it's a lot of fun to kind of be off your phone and taking pictures with friends and shows that sense of anticipation. And when you drop off the film, you have to wait for it. And that's nice to not have to get everything immediately and to be so stressed about how you look.

And everybody's checking how they look on the pictures, the 100 pictures they took, right?

Yeah, exactly. And I think the other thing is just being present wherever you are. Something I've been really impressed with is I have another cousin, um, Ella, who's also 19, and we love the 1975 and go to their concerts together. And something I noticed every concert we go to, she is Gen Z, but she doesn't touch her phone the whole time unless it's to take one quick picture. She just has this amazing ability to be so present. And it is that analog element of just wanting to be present with the people that she's with because she values her family. So much that time is really meaningful. And so I think that the more that we can integrate analog elements into every day, not because technology is a tool, let's use it as a tool, but not use it as something that makes us miserable. When we're with a friend, let's not go on our phone. Let's put our phone on do not disturb and answer things after we speak with that friend. You know, let's not try to be everywhere.

When you were talking about anxiety related to texting and like waiting for people to text back, I thought it was fascinating that you did mention stress as part of POTS because that is not well known, but it is true. Stress can trigger POTS.

Sure.

Did you see any relationship to controlling your disease along with sort of getting control of your social media and phone usage?

So not so much with POTS because I have had that forever. Like that was, you know, I was in kindergarten and I passed out at the farm, things like that.

Mm-hmm.

So, but what it has helped with the stress management around kind of the anxiety of passing out, but what it has impacted Weirdly enough is my gut health. I was diagnosed with, you know, some different stomach issues throughout the years and cut out dairy, cut out gluten, even though growing up I could eat these foods. And since this process, I have been reintegrating it into my diet with no problems. I don't get the stomachaches that I used to get at all, really. I mean, it's extremely rare. It used to be an everyday thing that my stomach would hurt all the time. Um, it was, you know, uh, for, for so long and it really has helped my gut health feeling bloated or feeling kind of, you know, pain, um, digesting foods.

Did you try the low FODMAP thing? Is that what you chose? I did.

Uh, I did a while ago, but that's not really what made the impact. Um, what, what has made the impact more is slowing down for me and not being so hyper-accelerated. In, in my everyday. I don't even know if that's a word, but you know what I mean? Just not going a million miles an hour because—

so how do you slow yourself down?

I hate to sound like a broke record, but for me, really waking up and not being on technology is huge. 'Cause I, you start out your day and there's just so much information thrown at you that it's just too much. And even if you don't like reading, to start out your day and do a couple yoga moves, I don't know the proper term 'cause I'm not a, you know, I, rode and, you know, did triathlons. I, I don't, I've gone to some hot yoga stuff, but that didn't work out 'cause I've coughed. That's not a good idea. No, that was not, I was like dizzy.

Yeah.

Not, not great. But whatever it is, if it's just sitting with your thoughts or something that's not having to do with technology, then it makes you better able to kind of understand things because so much is expected of us now because we, we're expected to always be on and always be available. And we think that remote work is this real big freedom thing, which it can be in certain senses. It really has helped get more disabled people and women into the workforce, which is great. But there are facts and figures and a recent Insider report kind of showed that remote work, while it gets more people into the workforce, some people have trouble kind of getting promoted because they're not kind of in, in person.

Mm-hmm.

Um, and not kind of in front of people. And so one of, one of the things I like to, um, think about is You know, as it relates to work and as it relates to everything, how can I carve out time for work, but also carve out time for life and, and make sure to interrelate them as much as possible? Because one of the things that was better about when we were in person for work is you went to work and then you came home. And I think we don't think about that as much. Like we are really expected to be on 24/7.

Okay. So last time we spoke, we had this fascinating conversation about how young people, you know, kids are. Kids who are growing up with social media and teenagers and even college students, like what do they want to present themselves? How do they wanna present themselves in the internet world? Right? Because, um, these things are out there forever. Whatever pictures you take, even if you think you're in a private chat, for example, in, I think it was 2016, they, um, Harvard actually, no. Sorry, it was class of 2021. Harvard rescinded admission of 10 students, for example, and you know, they thought they were speaking in a private chat. And this opens up a whole can of worms because obviously if you are making racist comments or if you're being a horrible person, whether in real life or on the internet, you know, I think those two things have to merge. And so we're not promoting, uh, let's say, you know, pretend you're a great person on the internet and then say all these horrible things in real life. It's about merging your core values. And I think that's what you're saying with Authentic Social, right?

Like, exactly.

Yeah.

And that was kind of the genesis of Authentic Social from my 2016 Harvard thesis was around aligning your digital and real-world self because really in 2023 and, and beyond, there's one self. And this is what I like to say to anyone, no matter what their age is, is a lot of people don't see you on an everyday basis. They don't see you even every year. So whatever they see online is real to them. That's who you are to them because they don't see you every day. They don't know the ins and outs of things. And so when you're thinking about what you're typing and how you're typing, it's important to not do inflammatory things in a, in general, but in a digital context whenever possible. This is something that's really hard with texting because it is really easy to just respond, and I've been guilty of it. I, I, you know, I'm sure everyone has been guilty of it. And it's just the worst feeling when you succumb to that, uh, anxiety and pressure to respond to something and you were like, that's not what I meant. Uh, and so really just taking time to first of all, level the expectations with your friends and family around like, what technology use is going to be normal for you. That's the first thing. And then as you're thinking about your online presence, it should be fun and it should be a way to express yourself and to be a creative space where you can form your identity and discover who you are. Um, it as an addition to in-person things. And that's part of the fun part of Instagram is figuring out what angles and what, what are you drawn to? What, what interests you? And less about, I need to smooth myself and pinch in my waist and, and do all this kind of stuff. That's the, the fun part of film too, is that it lets you just show things as they are. And that's the real advice that I would give anyone is try to show things as they are inherently. Social media, as authentic as you wanna be on social media, it's not what an— the analog world is like.

Mm-hmm.

And also keep that in your head, even as if people are sharing things and, and sharing, um, parts of their life, it's not going to be what the full picture is. And actually, I, um, I, I was just at Amy Edmondson's, uh, house in Maine yesterday. She's a professor at Harvard Business School and her new book, uh, The, the Right Kind of Wrong comes out next month. And it's about speaking about failure and being more comfortable with failure and how for younger people, especially Gen Z, they're not used to seeing failure on an everyday basis. They're used to just seeing successes. And the more that we can get comfortable with sharing our little failures with our friends and our family, the, the better. I mean, with Authentic Social, I'm so glad that it's, it's been a successful, uh, you know, endeavor that's grown over the last several years. But I, I mean, there's been so many pivots and, and journey points along the way. And you know, when I first had to quit rowing, that felt like a huge failure to me until I got diagnosed with POTS. And there's also failures that I've made in digital communication where I felt so guilty about what I sent or when I did, and that it didn't feel like me. And we all make these little mistakes and failures and, and speaking about them more openly in everyday conversation with each other is so important and can make a huge difference in how we feel, not only about ourselves, but the world around us. The more that we can interact with our surroundings in an unmediated form, so directly interact with your experiences. I'm very inspired by the situationist French revolutionary group in, in the 1960s. And they popularized something called the dérivée, which is quite literally the sense of drifting and really becoming one with your surroundings. So going around with no— going on a walk with no presupposed notions and just kind of being taken by the surroundings around you. And to someone who might be listening to this saying, yeah, right. Okay. Whatever. Seriously, try it once in a while. Don't measure your walk on your Apple Watch and don't make it something I have to be back in X amount of time. Even if it's just a couple times a month to just really interact with your surroundings without, even if I'm on a walk, uh, or, or a, a workout and I have my headphones in and my, my phone, I'll take it out for a few minutes and just sit with what the world around me is like. We don't do that enough now.

Mm-hmm.

And it has just made such a positive impact on, on my life. I, and I, I think there's this sense in, in all I do of the sense of détente, of, of, of what it means Uh, quite literally is like hijacking or rerouting.

Mm-hmm.

And that can be done with speech or with everyday life. And let's reroute and take what, take what our everyday life looks like, cuz there's realities that we can't escape and work and things like that. But let's, let's turn it on its head. Let's, let's find some ways that we can interject some analog realities into our everyday, some direct communication, and then it will make us more refreshed, make posting on social media feel exciting. Mm-hmm. And feel like you're opening the mail.

Mm-hmm.

Now when I go on social media, it's fun. It's like, oh, I don't go on as, as, as often each day. It's for a little bit. So it's, it's nice. It doesn't feel exhausting.

Mm-hmm.

Realizing that that is not the full picture, that it's important to share failures. That's kind of what my whole mission with Authentic Social is about, is this education and educative process, not only with the business side of it, but just with the, the meaning and the, the purpose-filled side of it. And I hope that listeners can draw something from that.

So what would you tell parents of, let's say, kids in grade school? I mean, I've seen parents talk about how their kid is so addicted to the iPad that, you know, when they took it away, they started having fits and like banging their head on the wall. I mean, I've heard all these kinds of stories, like they're actually addicted. So what would you tell these parents? And then go on for like middle school, high school, maybe some stages.

First is that as much as you can have your kid not be an iPad kid, the better. They should be reading, they should be focusing on the world around them. They should learn technology, but they should not be given the iPad like a binky. That's the first thing. It's something that— there's this notion of the atomized individual that is brought up in some of my research where we have become with technology a little bit more like individual people. And so when you teach your child that it's okay to, in a social setting, just go on their phone or go on an iPad, it will affect their social skills long-term. It will affect their ability to be bored and to sit with a situation, to sit with their thoughts. Which is important. So that's the first thing. Now, the, the reality is too, is in terms of, uh, uh, parents, there's this anxiety that I've, I've kind of heard from lots of different parents around how do you protect your child from something that is as scary as social media? Now there's resources out there like the Social Institute and Half the Story that do a lot of great work in education of youth and education of parents in terms of how to leverage social media more effectively. So that's one piece of it is the education. The education is in what I like to call the spectacular form. So that's, you take a class or something great, but how do we implement it in our everyday lives?

Mm-hmm.

It all comes back to conversation and dialogue, making sure that your child feels comfortable with you speaking about what's going on on technology, that you are talking to them and saying, this is not the full picture. This is not the full reality. Health guidelines that have come out recently to, to share that kids should not be getting on social media at a young age. You shouldn't let your child. Use it at such a young age where they're having to bypass, you know, requirements and things like that. There's a reason why it's better to wait. People like me, millennials who had to wait because they weren't out yet, have a little bit better of a kind of an understanding of these types of things. So wherever you can, let them wait and also talk to other parents in your kid's social circle because it's all, you know, you don't want to isolate your child from their social circle, but if other parents understand what's going on, then that can, can be something that can have positive change. And so. Again, those resources like the Social Institute, Half the Story are important, but figuring out ways that you can embed it in your everyday and, um, make it cool for them. Like instead of, you know, give them a film camera, give them something to do outside of just being, uh, obsessed with social media. Encourage them to have creative habits, learning-based habits, and interests that are outside of social. That also helps a ton. Getting, you know, going out in nature, doing things that are really interesting, that, and immersive experiences with their peers. That are, that are a little bit away from technology, that can help balance their feeling around technology as well. And just to let them know that technological dysfunctions, you know, through this mediated asynchronous communication happens to everyone so that they're not alone when something does happen, 'cause it will, that's upsetting on technology. Say that it happened to you. It happens to everyone. And that's not shared enough with younger kids. I think sometimes when something goes wrong, they feel so anxious about it and so at fault.

Mm-hmm.

Again, linking you back to the failure. Notion, making sure that they know that it's okay, uh, too, and that there's more out there than just technology.

I love that. Okay. Thank you so much for all of this information, and I hope, uh, one of these days I can come to one of your keynotes that you're doing. Maybe you're speaking in New York.

Definitely.

Definitely. This was awesome. Thank you so much, Katie. This was such an enlightening conversation, and I would love to have more more of these.

And yeah, certainly. And if anyone kind of wants to follow along, I will be speaking in Finland, Sweden, and I'm going to Munich in September to speak at the Responsible Artificial Intelligence Forum about the effect of— potential effects of artificial intelligence on conversation. And so you can follow along. My name is Caitlin Begg, and I also go by Katie sometimes, so it's C-A-I-T-L-I-N. Yeah, tell them where they can find you. You can find me I'm on Instagram, it's @katieb, C-A-I-T-Y-B. That's a lot of my film kind of stuff. LinkedIn is under Caitlin Begg, so you can find and connect and follow me there. And then if you're interested in Authentic Social, the website is authsocial.com, A-U-T-H-S-O-C-I-A-L.com. And then in terms of my research, you can just go to everydayconversation.com and it has a lot about what's going on, research-wise. And upcoming talks, and I will add to my schedule there. So hopefully ours will overlap at some point.

Oh my gosh. Fantastic work. This is so important. And when you do that talk on AI, I need you to come back on this podcast.

Oh, I would love that. Yeah, I would love that. All right.

Thank you, Katie.

So good to see you.

Thanks so much.

You too.

You too.

Thank you so much for listening. Forward this to a friend, a family member, anyone who needs to stress less, and soon enough you'll be surrounded by more zen people. Your support is literally what makes this possible. Subscribe and head on over to YouTube to my Fall Asleep Easy channel. Sign up for your updates at mindbodyspace.com and get special tips into your inbox once a month. Until next time, this is Dr. Juna wishing you wellness.