292: True Fun vs. Fake Fun with Catherine Price

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Focusing just on the negative isn't doing anything to help the negative necessarily. It might just be making us miserable. And what's more, if you're emotionally exhausted all the time, you don't have energy to do anything. That's when you're just going to start doom scrolling social media and reading the same depressing news articles again and again because you feel powerless and exhausted. But if you actually are having enough fun, it gives you a source of energy that you can then use to take action. And, and what's more, it actually brings us closer together with people who are different from us.

What's next? This is a question we're all having to ask and answer more frequently. I'm Jenny Blake, your host of the Pivot Podcast and author of the only Move that Matters is your next one.

For show notes from this episode, visit pivotmethod.com podcast if Change is the only constant, then let's get better at it. Here we go.

Hello. Hello my friends. I'm so excited to have Katherine Price here with us today. Katherine helps people scroll less, live more, and have more fun. She's a science journalist, speaker, and the author of so many books. The latest two are how to break up with your phone, the 30 day plan to take back your life, and the power of how to feel alive again. Katherine is the creator and founder of Screen Life Balance, and I met her at the TED conference. She gave one of, if not my favorite talk of the entire week and it was just incredible to see everybody flocking to her after she delivered her talk with so much praise and just so like geeking out to meet her when she would pass us in the hallways. So with that, if I've sufficiently embarrassed you, Katherine, welcome to the show.

Thank you very much. Yes, you've definitely sufficiently embarrassed me. So well done.

I think so many people have dreams of being invited to the TED stage someday. You actually got the invite and again delivered this incredible talk. I am so curious, how did this come to pass and what went through your mind as you realized you're going to get up on that Stage.

Well, I too had harbored longstanding dreams of getting up. Well, actually, let's rephrase that, of having gotten up on the TED stage and having given a TED Talk. The prospect of giving a TED Talk was absolutely terrifying. And I had applied several times but never succeeded. And then after the Power of Fun came out, a friend of mine who'd previously given a TED Talk mentioned my name to the science curator at ted and we had a couple conversations. And that is how it ended up happening. But yes, it is an intense experience.

Tell us a little bit about the lead up. How long did you spend preparing? Did you already have a semblance of a talk written that you had delivered, or did you start from scratch?

I started from scratch because TED was in April of 2022, and my book came out in December, and I hadn't done any speaking engagements really about it because of the pandemic. So I didn't have anything to build off of. So it was, put it this way, I looked at my drafts folder recently and there were 53 different versions in there of the same 10 minute talk. And that's in addition to all the individual edits that I did to those drafts.

Oh, my goodness, I'm so rusty. I don't know about you, because, yeah, I've been speaking so much less the last few years. I don't even think I could give a regular talk very well right now if I was back in person, let alone one with this much pressure like, oh my goodness. So tell us about. Were you just rehearsing all the time leading up to it? How many days would you say you were in, like, a speaker prep boot camp?

I think I was invited sometime in late February, and so I had March to write the talk and prepare. So that was pretty much all I was focused on in March. They were really supportive, though. I've never actually had an experience with a speaking engagement, or a writing engagement, for that matter, where I felt so supported and so much a part of a community, as I did with the TED experience. Because you're in a group of people with a specific curator who helps you write and edit and practice your talk, and then they have a practice session with an actual speaking coach, which is something I'd never had before. And when you actually get to ted, you meet the other people in your cohort, and there are rehearsal rooms that you can go to that actually have, like a red carpet that you can stand on and you can invite other people to listen to your rehearsal. They really try to hold your hand through the whole process in a way that was very comforting and very helpful because it's obviously very terrifying.

I can imagine. How did it feel when you walked out onto the stage and saw everybody?

It felt very surreal. My particular session was hosted by Meg Ryan, so that alone was very surreal. Like, when I did my dress rehearsal, I was like, oh, who's in the audience? Okay, it's, you know, Chris Anderson. And oh my God, there's Meg Ryan. You know, had to refrain from making any references to When Harry Met Sally. I'm sure she's so, so sick of. So it was very surre. And I think one of the challenges was that it's hard not to have an out of body experience when you're on the stage, but if you have an out of body experience, then that can throw you off. So hopefully it was not obvious, but there definitely were two spots in my talk where I lost my spot for a second and had a full body adrenaline rush. Thankfully found my spot again. But it's just interesting because it's like, what's the worst that can happen? They edit the talks and the audience is incredibly supportive and literally cheers if you lose your place. But I just obviously didn't want that to happen, so I'm grateful it didn't happen visually. But in the. There were a couple of moments of panic there.

Yeah. And there were people. I remember Bryce Dallas Howard was giving her talk. She totally lost her place. And people cheered. And just seeing the grace and composure as she paused, tried to remember, rebounded from that. And then. Yeah. Every time someone did lose their place, the audience cheered for them, which might be more stressful.

I feel like the kind of the running joke of, I need a drink of water. Cause you could go get a sip of water. Also, I will say, I didn't think it was really a thing for your mouth to go totally dry when speaking. I've never had that happen to me before. And I kept being like, this auditorium, it's so dry in here. The air is so dry. It's so dry. And then after I did my talk, like the next day, no problems with the dry auditorium.

Oh, my gosh.

Clearly just stress hormones. Yeah.

And that full body adrenaline rush. Like you said, there's already gonna be adrenaline pumping when you get on the stage. But let alone when you forget your place. I didn't notice that in your talk even once, let alone twice.

Good.

Did you just happen to remember in time before anyone noticed? Because that's terrifying when the rush starts. And that's where the panic can sometimes compound on itself.

Yeah, the first one, I actually don't remember when it was, which is probably a good sign. And I can't tell from the video they sent me, so that's good. I just know I felt it. And then the second time, bizarrely, was right at the end of the talk where I was, like, totally in the clear. Smooth sailing. I was just supposed to finish it. And thankfully I got a laugh, like, right before I lost my place. And that moment when people were laughing is when I was able to get it back. But you can see there's a slight tell in the video where I, like, push my hair behind my ear. And when I watch it, I'm like, oh, yeah, that was that moment again. Thankfully, I don't think that if you weren't me, you would notice that. But anyway, I just wonder, you know, in other people's talks, if, even if it seemed to go smoothly, if other people were having the same kind of. Oh, God. Kind of moment. So I'm trying to reframe it to be like, I found my place. It's okay. I felt that should be a success. You know, instead of being like, oh, my God, I almost completely blanked.

Well, it makes for a good story. Certainly. I had a lot of imposter syndrome in different moments, attending the conference, I felt like, okay, I'm an author, speaker, podcaster, but we're here not only attending with people who are, like, curing cancer and developing vaccines and putting people on the moon, and then let alone if I were a speaker, I was sort of projecting. But so many of the talks tackled such serious crises of our era. Did you at any point have imposter syndrome as a speaker or as an attendee of your talk is on fun? Because I was also reflecting after your talk that yours was my favorite. And then I was wondering, I'm thinking, isn't this so interesting that of all this content, the one we really need, the one that people really resonated with, the one that people were hooting and hollering and coming up to you in the hallways, was about having more fun. So it was just like, I'm so curious, your thought process and journey around the content itself, whether it's the TED Talk or even writing the book.

I'm laughing because I had a very funny moment the first night when we had dinner as a group, the science cohort. And, you know, I'm a science journalist, but I am not a scientist. And obviously, I wrote a book about fun. And I sat down next to this guy and I was like, oh, so what is your talk on? Like, what do you do? And I should note, this person has subsequently become my closest friend from ted. So it's kind of funny to reflect back on now. But he just goes very dryly, he's British. He was like, oh, you know, I'm rewriting the code of DNA to synthesize new life, essentially. And I was like, oh, so you're God. Okay, great. And he's like, how about you? And I'm like, I'm talking about fun. And inside, I was just cracking up because I was like, this guy is literally.

Like, creating new forms of life. But then I think what was wonderful is, as I said, he became my closest friend from ted. And I think that it was neat as a speaker to recognize that even the most accomplished people who were speaking and the people who were the most intimidating on paper, like, everyone was nervous about giving a TED Talk. So that actually, from the perspective of being one of the speakers, I think was really helpful, because any imposter syndrome, I felt like I also knew that a lot of people that I would think would be the people who would not have imposter syndrome at all. Maybe they didn't have imposter syndrome, but they were also most of them nervous about getting on that stage. So that was actually really comforting.

I can see that the topic of fun is such a good one. What really grabbed me is I had just come out with free time, and I talk a lot about flow and deep work. I love your definition of true fun versus fake fun. I love how you say that true fun is the confluence of playfulness, connection, and flow, and that fun itself is kind of the ultimate flow state, that we are not having fun if we're not in a flow state, and vice versa. When we're in a flow state, we're having fun. Although flow isn't the only ingredient. So can you just give listeners a brief overview of true fun versus fake fun?

Yeah. So one of the things I found the most interesting when I was researching and writing the book is that there's actually not a great definition of fun, at least not in the sense that comes across if you talk to people about their memories that they would describe as having been the most fun. Didn't say this in the talk, but if you look in the dictionary, you'll find a definition that says something like, fun is lighthearted amusement or enjoyment. But if you then ask people, well, tell me some of the most fun memories from your life, they end up telling you these really kind of profound Stories with such deep joy in them that when I read the stories, and I've collected thousands of these by now, like, I often end up tearing up, like I have a huge smile on my face. But I'm also really emotional because there's something so fundamentally human and connecting and uniting about these stories. Everyone's energy in the stories were the same. Even though these people were not reading each other's stories, they were just doing their independent recounting of these stories. Anyway, I realized there needs to be a better definition. And so I came up with the theory, which I ran by these volunteers, that fun could be defined as the confluence, as you were saying, of playfulness, connection and flow, where playfulness does not require playing games, which I always like to emphasize because I personally like, cannot stand charades or anything where I have to pretend. So it's not about that, just about being lighthearted and not caring too much about the outcome of what you're doing. And then connection is this feeling of being connected, usually with another person, although sometimes with an animal, sometimes with your environment, sometimes with the activity itself. But in the vast majority of examples people gave me, there was another person involved. And that was true even for people who are self described introverts. And then flow, as you were saying, the state of being completely engrossed and present in your experience to the point that you lose track of time. But I also realized when I came up with this definition that there is a opposite form of quote, fun, which I refer to as fake fun, which is basically activities and products that are marketed to us as fun, but that if you reflect upon them, don't actually result in playful, connected flow and in fact often leave us feeling worse than we did before we started. You know, social media is the most obvious example of this, but it's been interesting to me since the book came out to hear from people where the distinction between true fun and fake fun is something that really is resonating with people way more than I necessarily anticipated it would when I wrote the book. But that really does seem to strike a nerve. Like a lot of people have said, oh, wow, it's really useful to clarify the difference between true fun and fake fun.

We'll be right back just after this.

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One of the elements of fake fun is what you call polluted time and also self judgment. It's funny because I'm only just realizing that I was asking you the question about your inner critic and speaking at ted, which is a form of judgment and self judgment and sort of self evaluation. So now I have a two part question. Did you have fun giving your TED Talk or was it a little too fraught? And what do you think it is about fake fun and social media? Like tell us how this self judgment thing comes in and then also examples maybe people in your fun squad have given you of where it's gone completely.

Yeah, I would say I definitely did have fun at TED in general. I had a lot more fun after my talk. There was a feeling right after getting off that stage that someone described as euphoric relief, which I was like, yep, that is it. Like if I could capture that feeling and keep that without having to give a TED Talk, that would be great. But during the talk itself it was very interesting because I think it was just this, you know, it's the most pressure filled speech I've ever given. Everything else feels easier now, but in the moment itself, I was vacillating between being in the moment and then, as I was saying, having this kind of out of body feeling of oh God, I'm giving a TED Talk. Those moments were bad. Being in the moment was much better. I think that I did have these like tiny moments of playful connected flow when for example, I'd say something and like the audience would laugh. That was a really wonderful, affirming and fun moment. But I would say that, you know, it's very hard to have full on true fun and lose yourself in a moment that's so high pressure. So that was, I think it was as fun as it could be, let's put it that way. And then in terms of you're asking why social media? What about it makes it fake fun? I would say a number of things. One of the biggest aspects of social media that I think results in fake fun as opposed to true fun, is that anytime you're taking a picture of your experience or posting an experience or picture of an experience on social media, you are by definition not in the experience, you're outside of it. So you're not in flow. And then also you're putting these photos up specifically for judgment. Like you're looking for likes and comments and affirmation from people. So you're essentially performing your life rather than living your life. And again, anything where you are stepping outside of yourself or when you are engaging in or seeking judgment, those are situations that will not be conducive to fun. And so I don't think that really anything about social media can be fun. I don't really see how you could have a moment of playful, connected flow scrolling through social media. Other people can feel free to argue with me on that one. But, you know, it probably says something else about my relationship with it.

Well, I know I'm not on social media and some of my more popular podcast episodes are how I run my business without it. Because I think there are people who are increasingly curious. And I'll hear people say things like, social media is neutral, it's just your relationship to it. And I go, it's absolutely not neutral. It's like, I disagree with that statement that social media is just this neutral device and it's our relationship or how we use it that says if it's fun or not. It's designed to be addictive, like crack. It's designed. I mean, that's now rehashing old ground for listeners of this podcast. But no, I don't think it's neutral at all. By design.

No. I think actually there's something really nefarious about it in that it is marketed to us as a way to feel connected and as a way to feel playful and as a way to enjoy ourselves, you know, but in reality, it is designed to do the opposite. I agree with you. I don't really see. I personally don't engage with it much at all. As an author, it's challenging because my book agent and then, you know, people want me to do more to like build a quote, heavy, quote unquote community on social media. And I don't feel like performing my own life. I don't think anyone should care what I eat for breakfast, you know, or like I don't want to waste other people's time by posting things that they then consume or that somehow make them feel bad or make them judge themselves. To me, it just is a. I mean, a cesspool. Like, I don't want anything to do with it.

I mean, I think that if you're.

Using it, for example, like, I've got friends who are musicians and they post announcements about shows and things like that on social media, then I think, sure, great, that's just an announcement. But that's the exception to the general trend of I think it having negative impacts on people.

And that's functional, but we can't call it fun. It seems like people are having a.

Lot more fun putting the fun and functional.

Yeah. Oh, yeah. Hey, there you go. And then fun is in the word functional. But on TikTok, people seem like they have more fun when they're creating the TikToks. But what your point is in the book as well is that just sitting there, scrolling through when I signed up for TikTok, just to see what it was all about, an hour would pass like it was nothing. An hour would vanish, and I would have been sitting there drooling one TikTok to the next, like, absolutely flabbergasted by the vast range of humanity that I could encounter in that hour. And I was weirdly entertained. But the point that you make is that you're not necessarily having true fun where you're in your life. And I just love how clearly you make the point that distraction, by definition, our phones and devices create moments of distraction that will interrupt a flow state. You cannot have a flow state with distraction. They don't. It's oil and water.

Yes, but I think you can get hypnotized. I think actually you bring up a really important distinction that Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, the guy who coined the term flow, pointed out is that if you're doing something like watching TikTok and an hour passes, some people would be like, oh, you lost track of time. You're in flow. He would have called that junk flow, because it's not really. Flow is a very active state where you're engaged and you are somewhat challenged, as opposed to just passively consuming stuff. That's what's happening if you're watching TikTok or if you're watching, like the sixth episode of a show on Netflix not because you want to, but because they have it set up so that the next episode autoplays too quickly for you even to stop it before it starts. So just as there's a distinction between fake fun and true fun, there's a really important distinction between true flow and junk flow.

I liked the example in your book. So one of my junk float TV shows is Love island. And it's truly embarrassing on some level. How many hours of my life, I mean, hundreds probably now over the years watching Love Island. But I have fun watching with my husband because we are armchair psychologizing and looking at the dating and social dynamics and we're breaking it down and we're looking at body language and micro expressions and gaslighting and all kinds of stuff. And so I did read in your book how yes, it's kind of a form of junk flow and fake fun, but because we're doing that together and we're watching this like eye candy show, but then breaking down the psychological analysis behind it, like somehow we have fun with that. We could probably have more fun if we were out river rafting in nature. I'm not gonna lie.

Well, no, I don't know. I actually would strongly defend. I'd strongly defend your practice of watching Love island with your husband because I think that's actually an example of. I mean, it's funny, like writing the book, I start thinking, oh my God, I'm just intellectualizing too much and breaking things down into these categories. But I think it's really interesting to think about that in particular because what you just described to me is very different from you sitting alone on your couch with the remote kind of next to you and you're just slack jawed, unable to stop watching because it just keeps playing. That to me would be junk flow. But what you're describing to me is that you and your husband are using the show as kind of this material for playful connected flow, which to me is totally different. It's like you're using that as fodder for interactions with each other and a structure and material to be playful and connected. So in that case, I think that's, I mean, personally, like a great example of true fun, how something like a television show can facilitate it. It's how you interact with it and how you engage with it. And I'd also say, I think there's a distinction. There's a third category we haven't talked about. You've got the true fun, right, like full on playful connected flow, the fake fun, the activities that are marketed to you as fun, but that actually really don't produce that state. But then there's like a whole middle category, the biggest category of Activities that we truly do enjoy or find nourishing or relaxing in some way, but that don't fit the definition of true fun. But that's fine. You know, like taking a bath, reading a book, listening to music, listening to a podcast, watching a movie. Like, if you're doing that intentionally and you really enjoy those things, that's great. The thing that I'm really trying to distinguish and reduce for myself and then to help other people do the same, is the category of stuff that just is objectively a waste of time that we all know at some level, but we just can't seem to turn away from. And as you alluded to, that's often because those activities or products are deliberately designed to be very difficult to disengage from, because that's how the companies behind them stand to profit.

Right. Thank you for elucidating this third category. And that's why I love the visual of your Venn diagram. Even when you gave your talk, it's just so clear, these three categories. And you describe how something can be connected and in a flow state, but it's not necessarily fun. So there's these different variations of these three qualities, and yet you make the case for true fun. Because I love how you say that it really is a virtuous circle. Like, it helps us feel and stay alive, and that enables us to have more fun and then we flourish more, we feel happier, we feel healthier. And I don't know, it's just. I love how you start by saying, you know, you're a science researcher, and yet science had never defined this. Why? Like, there's so much positive psychology, there's so much on happiness, so much on meaning, so much on work and purpose, and yet this dearth of content around fun, I think that it was such an interesting gap in the knowledge base that you discovered someone, someone on this podcast, they said, like, you find a hole in the code base that you and only you can plug. I love that.

Oh, that's interesting. Thinking about it.

Yeah.

Yeah, it was very interesting to see that there was so little on fun. I think I had to cut this from the actual talk. But one of the top hits when I looked on PubMed for research studies about fun that it came up with, and at the time I first said this, it was actually the number one hit. Now I think it's lower, but it was an article that said, putting the fun in fungi, and it was about toenail fungus. And I was just like, okay, that's not the fun. I'm talking about but that's fascinating. And I just couldn't find, I think, maybe like, one or two actual studies about what I would consider to be anything close to the fun that people were describing to me when I surveyed them. And I think it's for two reasons. One is that, as we've discussed, there isn't really a very good or precise definition of what fun is. You know, I don't think my definition is, like, the only definition. We use fun in all sorts of different contexts, it's very hard to pin down, but. And then second, like, if you're in charge of allocating money for research grants, are you going to give the money to the research study about cancer or about fun? Going back to the imposter syndrome type thing, it's just not something that's going to be at the top of most people's priority lists. And I get that in terms of that example. But one thing that was fascinating to me as I looked into the research on playfulness and connection and flow is that whereas we think of fun as frivolous in many contexts, it's actually not at all. There's tons of research on playfulness and connection and flow suggesting that those three states on their own are enormously beneficial not just to our emotional and mental, but also our physical health. And I think it stands to reason that if they're good on their own, they'd be even better if you combine them. And that's certainly what I've learned anecdotally from people.

Yes, the mushroom fungi thing is so funny. And then also, you were saying, no, you don't have to go learn pickleball or bake sourdough in order to have fun. Like all these kind of Internet memes about what looks like fun but may not always be.

You reminded me of an important point that I wanted to make in my talk, which is that so often if you ask someone, oh, what do you do for fun? Or what is fun even? They'll give you an activity. They'll say something like pickleball or water skiing or like something that they enjoy. That's kind of our default. But one thing I came to realize is that fun is a feeling. It is not the activity by which I mean, like, you could love tennis and often have fun playing tennis, but anyone who plays tennis. I don't play tennis. Anyone who plays tennis would be able to tell you there's some games that are much more fun than others, even if it's with the same people. So there's an element of serendipity to it. And I think that's really important because it helps free fun from being associated with an activity. Which is a good thing, because in many cases we think we can only have fun if we're doing specific activities that we associate with fun. If you're not on vacation, swimming or whatever, then you can't have fun. But fun is the feeling that results from certain experiences. It can result from anything, like very unexpected things, trivial things can result in moments of playful, connected flow. So for me, it was really useful to tease out the distinction between fun being associated with an activity versus fun actually being a feeling that certain activities are more likely than others to generate for us.

I love that you mentioned serendipity, because I think that's one of the qualities that I most love in my life. And when I encounter it and when I have fun at a conference like Ted, it's usually the serendipity aspects of who I run into, who I meet, who I just crashed into walking around this big donut conference center. You know, things like that. Like we actually did get a chance to talk at the closing night party. It's like this dance party.

The lights are off each other.

Yeah, we were both right by the exit, like, one foot out the door. I didn't have nearly as much fun at the, quote, fun closing party as I did just again, walking around the donut in the morning, having coffee with someone or colliding with people. It's just so interesting with serendipity. Now I'm only thinking while talking that serendipity tends to have these ingredients too, on some level. I don't know about flow, but the playful connection is kind of baked into it.

Well, I think also it has the element of novelty and unpredictability which can be conducive to fun. I mean, some people are going to gravitate more towards serendipity than others. In my book, I talk about what I call fun factors, which is kind of the characteristics that tend to generate fun experiences for each of us personally. And some people like novelty and serendipity and spontaneity more than other people. But in general, I would say that, yes, like when you open yourself up to opportunities as they arise and when you're not so rigid in your plans, that sets the scene for fun. You know, kind of like lighting candles for a romantic dinner or something, it tends to be attractive for many people for fun. So I think there's like a balance to be struck where I think each of us has a personal collection of activities, settings, and people that are more likely than others to generate fun for us. And I call those fun magnets. So, for example, for me, playing music with a particular group of friends is definitely a fun magnet. And that's useful information for me to have because I know that if I make a plan to spend time with those people, I am more likely to have fun than I would be if I did something else. So in that aspect, you can, to a certain degree, plan for fun, or at least set the scene for fun by identifying the situations in which you're the most likely to have it. With that said, I think it's also really important to keep ourselves open to more spontaneous interactions and serendipity so that you can find the delight of an unexpected moment of fun. And I personally struggle with that in the way that we communicate with each other these days. Where, you know, like, how often did you just randomly call up a friend? I mean, maybe you do, but I find that most of my interactions are like, let's text to find a time. Or like, you know, you even text someone to be like, I'm about to call you, or like, I'm out walking the dog, just gonna try you to see if you've got 10 minutes free. Right? Like, there's not as much kind of spontaneity in our interactions as I think that there used to be before smartphones, But I'm often struck by how delightful and how fun those spontaneous, unexpected interactions can be. And so I think we need to create and leave space in our days and our lives for those types of interactions to occur.

We'll be right back just after this.

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I know you have a quiz of what's your fun personality type without being as Deep in the research as you are, I could just say, don't you feel like some people are more fun than others? And then, so then the question is, you talked about becoming a fun magnet and the research will say people have a different happiness set point. And yes, there is some wiggle room depending on what you actually do, positive habits you develop. Do you think some people are just more fun than others? Do you think that everyone can move the needle on their personality? Or I know you're saying it's a feeling, but is it also a trait where some people are just really fun people and then others that's just not their strength and they're like, might be interesting, but they're not necessarily fun? And does it matter?

I think it's both. I think that certainly some people are experiencing more fun than others, and certain people seem to be better at attracting fun than other people. And those are people that we call fun people. But in my research, one question I asked people was specifically to describe someone in their life whom they consider to be a so called fun person. And then I asked them to describe what about that person made them fun. And it was really interesting because sure, some of the people were described as being very outgoing or goofy or, you know, just kind of like typical extroverted characteristics that you might immediately assume had to do with being fun. But there were a lot of characteristics people described that did not match that. They said things like the person always makes them feel comfortable in their presence, or they're up for anything, or they make everyone feel included and listened to and heard. And that really stood out to me because first of all, none of the traits were genetic in that case. And also they were traits that introverts actually excel at. So there wasn't necessarily the need to be extroverted in order to be, quote, a fun person. And many of the characteristics people describe were characteristics that each of us has the capacity to develop further. So I think that while we each might have different fun set points, just as we have fun set happiness points, there's definitely room to move the needle. I think each of us has a different kind of intrinsic desire and need for fun. Like, I definitely am realizing the more I think about it that I have a deep need for socialization and fun. But with that said, I think that if people want to build more fun into their lives, or rather invite more fun into their lives, there are things that each one of us can do to make that more likely to occur, which include things like going out of our ways to say, to adopt the improv comedy mindset of yes, and, you know, kind of going with the flow a bit more, making a point to help other people feel included. You don't have to be the person who makes jokes. You can be someone who just laughs easily. That actually helps everyone around you have fun, which is going to make you have more fun too. We can all work on letting go of our own perfectionism and self judgment. That's hugely important for becoming more quote unquote fun and having more fun. And we also can do and try more new things, even if they're small. You know, trying to have more fun shouldn't feel like a burden. So many of us are struggling with just feeling overwhelmed all the time. So I'm not suggesting that people should add this to their to do lists. But we also do have more leisure time than we acknowledge because we fritter away a lot of it on things like Instagram. So if you're able to reclaim some of the time that you and your heart of hearts know you're actually wasting right now, you may find that there's more time for you to do or try stuff that you're curious about or interested in. And I found that the more new experiences that people expose themselves to, the more opportunities they will have for playful connected flow. You also can just notice moments of playful connected flow you're already having. Because I think that many of us are already having mini micro moments of fun throughout our days, kind of sprinkled throughout our days. Like you were saying when you were walking around the TED Oval and just having a cup of coffee with somebody and probably laughing and having a fun conversation like that's a moment of fun. But we don't necessarily label it as such. And so it kind of drifts by unacknowledged. So I think there's a real benefit in noticing and naming those moments as they occur throughout our days. And then also once you start doing that, you might start to recognize that there's actually a lot more opportunities for you to help create moments of playful connected flow than you realized. There was an example that I didn't. I think this is in one of my 53 drafts that didn't get used for the TED Talk. But I was talking to someone who was saying that he had had, as he put it, two full hours of true fun doing nothing more than just sitting on a park bench with his nephew and they were trying to catch leaves as they fell off of a tree. Maybe I did put that in the talk. I don't remember at this point. But anyway, I was like, oh, that's amazing, because basically that was free. He didn't have to go anywhere. All he needed to do was open himself up to the possibilities that were already around him. And in this case he was literally grabbing them out of the air. Which I just love that he made the metaphor literal. But long story short, I think yes, we can move the needle on how much fun we're having and whether we think of ourselves or are perceived as a quote, fun person. But I don't think that everyone necessarily cares as much about it as other people.

Well, I love what you brought up. It's not just the funniest, most exuberant, extroverted people that are fun. You can be a fun person. Going back to that thing of suspending judgment of yourself and others that you say that the fun squad said the people they had fun around weren't judging them. It was like a judgment free zone. And in fact, part of the reason I signed off social media was cause I kept judging myself and others. It like perfectly put me into compare and despair and judgment mode. And I just don't think our brains are meant to be seen quite as much of other people and what they have and what they look like and what the latest lip filler is and things.

Also, it's such a non true version of people's lives. No one's posting photos of their emotional breakdown they had in the bathroom. You know, they're just posting or if.

They are, that, that becomes performative as well in its own way.

Totally. Which is so weird. So weird.

Yeah. So I just love that part of having fun is shedding those layers of self judgment and distraction again, going back to that junk flow and polluted time. Like these things that just we're interrupting fun flow states in a lot of ways and probably just reducing some of that. We will generally have more fun in our lives and have that. As you say, fun just isn't just a result of human thriving, it is a cause. Like this isn't just some afterthought. I say the same thing about free time. It's not just some afterthought. What are you gonna do in what little free time you have? It's a mindset, it's a way of being that cultivates this as a priority, not just on the sidelines.

Yes, definitely. And on the note of thriving. I mean, I know I alluded to this earlier, but it really is astonishing to look into the many ways that fun, based on this definition is good for us and One that stood out to me is the effects that it is likely having on our physical health and two ways in which that is occurring. There's actually a lot, but two of them are just that. I think many of us know by this point that stress is bad for us because of the increase it causes in stress hormones such as cortisol, that are great if you're trying to run away from a lion, but really, really bad over time because it increases your heart rate, your blood pressure, your blood sugar, leads to a whole host of long term health issues. Well, fun is a really relaxed state. And then on the similar note, being socially isolated and lonely is actually enormously bad for our physical health. I think that's a little bit less well known, but it actually affects our bodies down to the level at which our genes are expressed, meaning which genes are turned on and off at particular moments of time, which in turn affects our risks for disease. When we're having fun though, we actually, well, by my definition, we are socially connected. So while I don't know of any specific research, again, that's been done on fun's effect on these two things, I think it stands to reason that since fun is a socially connected and relaxed state, it actually could be having a physiological effect on our levels of stress hormones that is good for us. So that's why in my talk I refer to fun as actually being a health intervention, which truly does blow my mind when I think about it that way. But then when I put the pieces together, I strongly believe it's true.

Was there anything that has surprised you about studying this since the book came out? Which is always the big regret. Like, oh, no, I should have put this in. But has anything surfaced in the months since it's launched?

I don't think anything huge has surfaced. As I said, it's been interesting to see which parts of the book resonate with people and also what type of people like the book. Cause as you can certainly no doubt tell, I really like breaking things down into small pieces. So, you know, some people that read the book are like, well, that was not fun. Like, why'd she talk so much about the definition of fun? I'm like, cause I'm me, I can't help myself. But I think, no, not really. I think it's more just like if I were to rewrite it, I might emphasize certain things more than others just because of the responses I've gotten from some people. I also use a term, the fun audit in the book, which even as I was writing it, I was like, that does not sound fun. I'd probably call that the funtervention now.

Hilarious. Well, it's its own, like, funny wink.

Yeah, yeah, there's a wink. There's a wink there. Yeah, it's not a tax audit. But one thing I do hope that might happen as a result of this and that I then would love to write a amended version of, it would be that someone out there will actually use this working definition as something to do some real research on so that, you know, my hypotheses could actually be tested. I think that'd be really cool. It's like, wouldn't it be amazing if some time down the road, like a doctor actually prescribes fun to someone? I mean, so many people need a permission slip. Like people literally write themselves permission slips. What if you were able to get that from a health professional? That would be pretty cool.

I know. Well, I have a permission slip. And for every chapter of Free Time and then at the end, and it's like a huge theme of the Free Time podcast, I ask every guest if they could give people permission. And so I do think so much of this is the permission. Again, it's like, it's so not about adding. Sometimes it's the permission to just drop some shoulds or. I just love the idea of doctors prescribing fun. If only, if only. Imagine all the kids with ADHD that are just desperate to have fun, that are being medicated just because they have so much energy, you know?

Yeah, I think in general, I mean, there's definitely. I forget what it is now. I've heard some anecdote about doctors actually prescribe. It's like prescribing behavioral interventions that are not what you would think. So I actually don't think it's out of the realm of possibility for that to happen. So if there are any doctors out there listening, like, maybe think about it, because, geez, people have such difficulty giving themselves permission to have fun. And just to expand on that a bit, I think it's very interesting that so many of us feel that we don't have permission to prioritize ourselves and our own needs and our own mental well being, or to just enjoy our own lives. That's really interesting to reflect on because I think too often we think of life as being the zero sum thing where we think, you can't possibly be someone who cares about fun, who also cares about all of the truly upsetting things happening in the world. People will say, isn't that frivolous? How can you possibly Think about fun when these horrible things are happening. I think that's interesting to reflect on because focusing just on the negative isn't doing anything to help the negative necessarily. It might just be making us miserable. And what's more, if you're emotionally exhausted all the time, you don't have energy to do anything. That's when you're just gonna start doom scrolling social media and reading the same depressing news article again and again because you feel powerless and exhausted. But if you actually are having enough fun, it gives you a source of energy that you can then use to take action. And what's more, it actually brings us closer together with people who are different from us. I say this in my book, but like you can have fun dancing at a wedding with someone who has very different political views from you. So I think if we're able to have fun together, that creates a shared sense of humanity that we then can use to create the base from which we can work together to address some of the problems.

So beautifully said as we wrap up. If you could give listeners one experiment, one encouragement, it could be a permission slip or an encouraging micro experiment that they could try this week. After listening to this, what would it be?

I would say to set aside, you know, a few minutes without your phone to reflect on some, maybe let's say like two or three moments from your life that stand out to you as having truly been fun ones that you describe as so fun to be scientific about it. And then once you've recorded those, just look for themes, just see, do any people stand out? Do any settings really generate fun for you? Are there any activities? And then ask yourself, is there anything you can do in the coming week or so to build one of those into your life, to actually go do one of the things that frequently results in fun, or spend time with the person whom you frequently have fun with. So that's what I would say is an experiment. And then just notice what a difference it makes in your energy levels and your mood to have done so.

I love it. And yes, I love how this was a key phrase in your question to the Fun Squad. Was so fun. Like the last time you had so.

Much fun, it was capitalized too. So fun.

Oh my goodness. Well, this was so fun, as was your talk. I can't wait for everybody to watch it. I highly recommend listeners, if you just want to see an example of greatness in action, a great speaker like funny, smart, engaging. That was Katherine all the way. Katherine. Where can people keep in touch?

People can keep in touch by signing up for my newsletter@screenlifebalance.com or kathleenprice.com it's screenlifebalance.com I got a lot of resources, as you said at the beginning of the podcast, to help people scroll less and live more, which is what I've been really trying to do myself. So please sign up for my newsletter. You could follow me on social media if you want, but I never post and I hate it. So.

Good luck.

Sorry you're out, busy having fun. And I mean the fact that we're even recording this mid summer, it will probably be out later than that. But both of us were like okay, we can do this cause who wants to be indoors recording on summer day?

No one.

But this was really as fun as a call sitting in front of the computer can be. So thank you so much Katherine.

Thank you for being you. Yeah, no, it's exactly an example though of like you have everyday experiences that are if you reflect on them. Like this is a moment of true fun for my day. So thank you very much.

Well me too and listeners. Hope you had fun listening. Thank you so much for being here and looking forward to keeping in touch.

Thanks so much for listening to this episode of the Pivot Podcast. Make sure you don't miss an episode or my insider tips and templates by signing up for Pivotlist, a curated twice monthly newsletter where I share the inside scoop on what I'm reading, watching, listening to, and the latest tools I'm geeking out on. Sign up@pivotmethod.com pivotlist get show notes from the this episode@pivotmethod.com podcast and connect with me on Twitter. Enny Blake.

Remember, build first, then your courage will follow. Hasn't it always.

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