HS 220 - Being Overconnected with Anne Katherine

Welcome to the holistic survival show with Jason Hartman. The economic storm brewing around the world is set to spill into all aspects of our lives. Are you prepared? Where are you going to turn for the critical life skills necessary to survive and prosper? The holistic survival show is your family's insurance for a better life. Jason will teach you to think independently, to understand threats and how to create the ultimate action plan. Sudden change or worst case scenario, you'll be ready. Welcome to holistic survival, your key resource for protecting the people, places and profits you care about in uncertain times. Ladies and gentlemen, your host, Jason Hartman.

Welcome to today's show. This is Jason Hartman, your host and as you may or may not know, every 10th show, we kind of do a special tradition here that originated with my creating wealth show where we do a topic that is actually off topic on purpose. Something just to do with general life and more successful living. And that's exactly what we're going to do today with our special guest. Again, 10th show is off topic and it is very much intentional, just for personal enrichment. And I hope you enjoy today's show. And we will be back with our guest in just a moment.

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It's my pleasure to welcome Ann Kathryn to the show. She is the author of several books, but her latest is Boundaries in an over connected setting limits to preserve your focus, privacy, relationships and sanity. Anne, welcome. How are you?

I'm just fine, Jason. Thank you for inviting me.

Well, good. Pleasure is all mine. It's good to have you. And this is a very important topic and it's really rarely discussed. I mean, life has changed so much in the past couple of decades and we're all just plugged in, turned on all the time, aren't we?

We are way too much. In fact, so much that we don't realize we can take the time to decide just how connected we want to be.

Well, you know, where do you think the problem lies? And well, first, maybe, Ann, let's debate the point as to whether or not we have a problem. And I'm going to play devil's advocate with you here. Isn't it good to be connected? Aren't we fostering more relationships through social media? It's easier to reach people now. You know, we've got friends all over the world, contacts all over the world. There are some good sides to it. Right?

Those are some wonderful sides to it. I remember when the Internet first exploded, all of my friends and I were really excited to have this very easy way to keep in touch. And it has facilitated that marvelously. And on the other hand, we have a bigger generation gap than ever when it comes to electronic usage and people on each side of the bridge between the generations who do not know how to cross. I have one example of that, a story, it's a true story that a friend of mine, the mother, her son and his wife had a baby and he announced the birth of the baby on Facebook and did not call her. So she found out that she had a granddaughter later, a day later, by accident.

Now, not only was she very hurt, but everybody in her generation, and I'm in her generation, we all understood instantly. Well, of course, that just feels like a slap in the face. So she confronted her son and daughter in law and told how hurt she was and they couldn't understand it at all. They said, well, we make all her, we say everything that's going on for us on Facebook, this is the way we communicate to our friends. And they really thought she was overreacting because they could not understand why she would be hurt by that.

And may I ask, how old were they? The couple that had the baby in.

Their 30s and my friend in her 60s. So this is an example of the bridge that we have a different set of practices on each side and we actually think this is the way things are to be done. So we're stunned when the other side operates in an opposite or a different way.

Yeah, yeah. So there is that gap now, you know, but certainly, I mean, my mother is over 60 and she's on Facebook and not very active as a 19 year old. But certainly Facebook, maybe more than any other platform has, is being embraced by baby boomers pretty well. In fact, that's why a lot of the younger people, the teenagers especially, are getting off of it and abandoning Facebook in favor of things like Instagram because they don't want to be on where their parents are on. Right. They want to be Exactly.

And that's a good example of how quickly things are changing. So one generation trying to keep up is already behind.

If you want to keep an eye on your kids, you better be on Instagram. Well, you know, Snapchat, of course, they don't have to send you the, the email you choose. You choose there very specifically. But you know, you know, one of the other areas, Ann, where I think it's pretty interesting is the way that it seems like we know a lot more stuff nowadays, but our understanding seems to be more shallow than it was in the past. And I'll just give you maybe one of the most mind blowing examples of this that I experienced about a year ago. I have a charitable foundation, the Jason Hartman foundation, and we're interested in teaching financial literacy to young adults. And so one of these Gen Y college kids that I know sent me a text message saying that he had an idea for a charitable foundation and wanted to open one and thought that I could actually explain that via text.

I mean, is that hilarious? You know, how do I do this? And it's a text message. And you know, I mean, text has got to be, I think, the most misused communication platform possibly in history. It's great for saying, it's great for saying, hey, I'm running late, I'll meet you at Starbucks in five minutes.

Exactly.

That's what it's for. But it's not for discussing anything at length. And what I have found is that generation Y, and I'm gonna pick on them because they're the most tech savvy generation in human history. It's like they conduct whole relationships via text message.

They do, they do.

Can't you pick up the phone and talk? But it blows my mind. They must have no phone skills at all.

However, a lot of people don't.

Let me just contrast to the way maybe people were thinking in the early 1900s or the late 1800s, they might have been saying, oh, this whole telephone idea, this is really impersonal. I mean, if you want to talk to your friend, you go and see them and visit them in person and call on them if you will.

You just use the phone to make the date. You don't actually want to talk on it.

Right, right. But you know, I mean, we've all accepted and adopted the phone. Will it. Are we just being stodgy and not with it or are we right, That's. I kind of try to question.

I think the consequences.

Tell the answer. And the answer is with texting. Texting is a composter. Of misunderstanding. For one thing, you don't even know that the person is getting your text because it looks instant. It seems like they're instantly getting it. And if they don't instantly respond, it could be seen as they're ignoring me. They're mad. It creates.

So many non issues. Or just, just what if auto correct changes the whole nature of your message and you didn't edit it before you sent it? And so what they got from you is I hate you instead of I, I dislike the color of your new blouse. So. And when people, when couples try to solve important relationship is or have an argument by text, oh my gosh, you can read tone into it and all kinds of things when you're simply trying to press those little bitty buttons as quickly as you can.

Yeah, yeah, no question. I mean, there's a hilarious website built around that, the autocorrect website. Some very, very funny and many times unfortunate examples, even a wonderful book on autocorrect of misunderstandings. Yeah, yeah, very good. Well, and what about the part of just the psychology of it? I mean, forget about misunderstandings with people. I mean, certainly many friendships and arguments have. Friendships have been lost and arguments have started over email or Facebook because. Because you don't pick up tone, you don't see facial expressions, you don't hear vocal intonality. And so there it's, it's a composter of misunderstandings. I think that's what you call text. And it's definitely true. But what about the psychology of like this addictive need for, for us to be connected? You know, the first thing I do when I wake up in the morning is I turn my phone off airplane mode that's on my dresser or on my nightstand and I look at Facebook. That's the, literally the first thing I do. And it's probably the last thing I do at night too. Is that awful? I mean, I don't know.

Well, you mentioned shallow before, and I'm certainly not saying that what you're doing is shallow, but one of the problems, one of the questions really is to ask for anybody who's on Facebook to pay attention to your total number of minutes or hours in a day. How long are you spending on Facebook? The second question is how often are you interrupted by yourself because you feel that you should go check it again? So those are two new numerals to have length of time, number of interruptions, and then ask yourself, what would I be doing if I weren't doing that? Is that taking time away from something else that Matters really a great deal more to you. And in terms of the numbers of. Number of interruptions in a day because you feel that you should check Facebook or voicemail or whatever, the number of interrupt, Right. The number of interruptions, electronic interruptions in a day, then what level of depth is that keeping you from? Is it keeping you living on a more shallow level?

I mean, I'll give you an example with that, when you're talking about the shallowness aspect. And I brought up that issue of people knowing a lot more but understanding or having much less depth to understanding of things. I used to read books a lot. I mean, I loved books. I still love books, theoretically, but I sure don't read that much now. What I read is like snippets and articles, and.

It just doesn't have the, like. The idea of sitting down and reading Atlas shrugged for 1200 pages over the next few weeks is, I would just never do that anymore.

But I used to, right? And for those of us who find that books, who think that books are precious, I suddenly had this panic a couple of weeks ago, and I thought, oh, my God, what if they stop making books? What if they stop making physical books for those of us who actually prefer that, and you have to look at them electronically? And then I thought, I might be getting too old for this world. But anyway, I think that's a good question. We are. People's brains are changing physically, readjusting, realigning due to the multiple stimulations, the many interruptions, the multitasking. We are actually physically changing our brains when we keep doing this for a length of time, and it makes us into a different type of person. And again, the question is, is this the person you want to become?

It might be the person you're really forced to become by society and peer pressure.

Well, that's the point in my book, is to say, here's how it was, here's how it is now, here's where it's going. You can get your authority back by pausing to look at these things, making a deliberate decision for yourself about how you want to be living in this electronic world, and factor into that the relationships that matter to you, either one or two generations younger than you or older than you. And there's a guideline and a graph in there. If you care very much about somebody either two generations younger or two generations older, here's how to make the bridge. Here's where the bridge is for you so that you can nourish those important relations when that other generation has made a different choice.

Very good points. You have a chapter on intimacy in the book, and it's. It has three. Three sub chapters to it or a section, I should say, and with three chapters of friends versus friends in quotes, which we all know what that means. You know, on social media friends and then online dating and the art of intimacy. Tell us about those areas, if you would. Certainly, I think I didn't want to ask you about the tracking and the information. We. We're hearing a lot about that. And, you know, it's definitely a problem. No question.

No question.

But, you know, that seems to get a lot of play. But talk to us about these other. These other intimacy things.

Well, with regard to dating, it's important to take certain steps when you're doing computer dating, so to keep yourself safe and also to know what the red flags are and then what to do when you detect one. So that's what that section's about. Staying safe and being smart and trusting your instinct and knowing how to interpret bad news that might be disguised as perfectly ordinary behavior. The art of intimacy is about the intimacy skill. The skills that are required in order to have true intimacy, really successful marriage, really powerful, profound friendships. And one of my concerns is the skills that we use with Facebook. Texting, tweeting, are not the skills needed in order to have intimacy. So I get concerned about how are our children going to learn these complex intimacy skills. Without them.

They won't be able to have as rich a life as they could.

Go ahead.

Yeah. So let's drill down on that a little bit. Maybe. What are some of the qualities that make a person successful with friends in quotes in the online world versus the deep intimacy and friendship? And we don't just mean romantic relationships. We just mean friendships in general, but could be romantic too. Give us an example of some of the differences there. I feel like your book might have a chart with a line down the middle where.

Well, an example is that one thing I see a lot of among people friends, quote friends who are communicating with quote friends in Facebook is a great expansiveness and generosity. Like someone was taking their. Their exams to become a lawyer and final exams in law school, and everybody was so fulsome in there. Oh, we're really pulling for you. We know you'll do well and all of that kind of stuff. That's very easy online. It's very easy to give a really supportive message.

Right, right.

But that's different than really showing up in person. When a person is struggling, When a friend is struggling and it feels good, it feels good to have all these wonderful supportive messages. But that is not the same as showing up when somebody important to you dies or being there in person if you're not feeling well. It's a different process. So in person, social skills. I was talking to a professor in the midwest and he said, kids are coming to college. They don't know how to talk to each other. They don't have social skills, they don't have discussion skills in class. So they're being very quiet unless they're texting. Then they can be just click, click, click, click, click. Everybody's texting madly. But when it comes to having a group discussion, they're stymied. So are people learning, young people learning to say what they want? Are they learning to negotiate, to manage anger, to listen, to communicate feelings, to have empathy, to take care of themselves? With rude people, it's easy online. If you don't like somebody, you can unfriend them. If they're rude, you can delete them. But in person, in a job, for example, if somebody's rude, do you know what to do? Do you know how to handle your own retaliatory impulse? It's easy to retaliate online. And people, high school kids and college kids are sometimes getting in trouble because they retaliate online in some nasty ways. Well, handling the retaliatory impulse, critical for having healthy in person relationship, knowing, recognizing it, knowing what to do with that energy, knowing how to communicate it in a good way. These are critical skills to be successful in a job, friendship, or marriage.

Yep, very, very true, very true. The last thing I'd like to cover, if you can, is a little bit, one area that I just think it's almost no attention, Ann. And it is really, really, really awful. You know, we've had these school shootings and the news media just starts talking about gun control when, you know, most cases the shooters broke the law anyway.

Right.

And they never talk about, or at least not very much about two elements. One is the use of prescription drugs. That I think is very much behind some of these crazy acts. But that's not your area. But the other one they don't talk enough about is gaming. Violent games, violent movies, television shows. What are your thoughts about that?

I think the biggest puzzle piece that's involved in school shootings, violent gamings, young people who play lots of violent games behave more violently than those who do not. It causes an increase in aggressive thinking, an increase in retaliatory aggression, a decrease in helping behaviors. Playing violent games has been found to Account for a 13 to 22 increase. 22% increase in adolescent violent behavior. So when you take that and you add that to a family where the parents are either using or absent or working so hard they're not able to be good parents, then add those two together and add poor social skills so that the kids alone are thin, you have almost the entire mix needed for school shootings.

It's amazing. I mean, in some of these games and movie scenes, the Columbine shootings years ago, I mean, it was like it was out of the Matrix. I mean, it was a scene. You know, the trench coats, the whole thing. It was right in the movie. Yet these Hollywood types, they never get criticized. I mean, where's the president calling them out? Whoever the president happens to be at the time.

Right. Well, the difference. There is a difference, though. I mean, watching violence is a stimulation, a stimulant.

But doing it in a game.

Doing it in a game is a rehearsal. And they get to rehearse the entire spectrum. So they're rehearsing an entire behavioral sequence, and they're doing it over and over again. And they're being rewarded with bells and whistles or points for doing that. So that the more people they harm or kill, the greater their score. And that repetition increases learning and it causes them to have a desensitization to the pain of others. So others are seen as objects, the. The computer screen. Victims of the game. They may die, but then they pop right up again or another one pops up in its place. So it's like a chair. You throw it out the window. Chair doesn't get hurt. So the victims are not seen as human or as something that can be hurt.

Yeah, right, right. And in real life, that's flesh and blood with very mortal. And, you know, also has feelings. I mean, to talk about a lesser part of the. But, yeah, very true. Well, what, if anything, can be done about some of these problems?

Well, I. I would encourage parents, you've seen their whole chapters on that one is for your parents to move the computer that the kids are using into a room where everybody can see what's going on and not do the mute button, even though the bells and whistles may drive them crazy, so they're paying attention. And of course, kids go that direction when they're too lonely or they're too angry and they have nothing to do with it. So creating discussions within the home about.

A variety of aspects. That's in the book too, of course, with making it like watching a movie together and say, how did it make you feel when so and so got hurt or did you feel angry Today somebody took my parking place and I felt angry and anything like that happen to you? Make it easy for kids to talk about and discover and identify when they have uncomfortable feelings. Make it easy for them to talk about it, help them find words for it, show them healthy outlets ways to handle that and make that make being together as a family and learning to communicate and turning to each other. Make it more rewarding than the flat two dimensional computer screen. Make it easy for kids to tell you things.

Absolutely. Very good point. And you know, one thing that we didn't cover in the interview, but it's another side effect of the problem that we've been addressing and it's the fact that they're using time that could be used seeing the outdoors, getting some exercise, releasing endorphins and just make them feel better, you know. So yes, very good points Ann. Well give out your website and tell people where they can get your books.

Sure. One Ann Catherine.com that's the number one. Ann with an E. Catherine with a K.com is my website and my books are available online and in bookstores, Amazon, Barnes and Noble. There is a link on my website and you can have a choice of that or an independent bookstore. And I do love bookstores. We want to keep stores going, some of us. So if you have a brick and mortar or wooden bookstore in your neighborhood, they'd be happy to order that book for you. If Boundaries in an Over Connected World is the name of the book, my name is Ann Katherine and they'll be glad to get that for you.

Fantastic. And Ann, your books have excellent reviews on Amazon. So thank you for joining us today.

Thank you Jason. It's been a pleasure.

Thank you for joining us today for the Holistic Survival show Protecting the people, places and profits you care about in uncertain times. Be sure to listen to our Creating wealth show which focuses on exploiting the financial and wealth creation opportunities in today's economy. Learn more at www.orsearch Jason Hartman on itunes. This show is produced by the Hartman Media Company, offering very general guidelines and information. Opinions of guests are their own and none of the content should be considered individual advice. If you require personalized advice, please consult an appropriate professional information deemed reliable but not guaranteed.