Transcripts
1. Class Introduction: Have a sneaking
suspicion that you are spending too much
time on your phone? Do you find yourself
compulsively checking your phone
many times a day? Has it got a bit out of
control? You are not alone. Social media and
smartphones are addictive. The science proves it now. The technology has been
designed to keep us on our phones for the
maximum amount of time. We live in the age
of attention economy and tech surveillance. The big sites have created persuasive technology that keeps you on your phoneimpulsively, and the apps are tracking and using your data to make money. It's a bit scary, isn't it? But there are solutions
to the problem, and there are many former
addicts who have found ways to use their phone rather than
their phone using them. Myself included.
My name is Laura. I am a mother,
artist, and teacher. When my son was born
a few years ago, in a state of sleep
deprivation and confusion, I noticed that my social media compulsion and my phone use was
starting to make me feel a bit strange and numb. I didn't feel sane and
I sought to change. I studied the topic, including
the science and found my own path to clarity
and creativity. In this class, we
will lift the lid on social media and
phone addiction. We will understand
how it taps into our dopamine system and why the designers
created it that way. Then we will look
at practical tools that have been successfully used by others to get your
phone addiction under control. Class is for anyone who
wants to understand what's going on with social media
and phone addiction, whether you're worried about
yourself or a loved one, this class will make you
understand the problem and offer you practical
tools for change. Once you reclaim your
attention from your phone, you can use that precious
resource for your creativity to connect with your
loved ones and to enjoy this beautiful
world. Let's go.
2. About This Class: So much for signing up
to take this class. I know you will find value
and inspiration here. During this class, I
will quote scientists, thought leaders, and authors who I have studied in putting
this class together. When I'm quoting a source, I will put the quote on screen and reference
who I'm quoting. Along with this, I have attached a resources and key
points document. In the document, you will find links to all the sources of my study and a concise
summary of this class. I recommend grabbing a journal and pen so that you
can make notes. Particularly, pay attention
to what claims you. Is there something I say that really grabs your attention? Project for this
class is to formulate your own creative response to the material and if you
like, share it with others. We'll talk more
about that later. Let's get into the first
lesson where we will explore the science
of tech addiction.
3. The Scary Truth - The Science of Tech Addiction: Scary truth. We live in an
amazing age of technology, but at the same time, technology
is advancing so fast, our primitive brains
can't keep up. You will agree with
me that despite your intelligence
and self restraint, sometimes the way you use
your phone baffles you, and this is because it hacks into ancient parts
of your brain. Social media and your
phone trigger your body to release dopamine
and cortisol. So let's talk about
dopamine and cortisol. First of all, dopamine. Dopamine is responsible for
your pain pleasure response. Our bodies release
dopamine when something is pleasurable and you
receive a hit of pleasure, and then it swings back into pain to make you seek
out more pleasure. I quote Anna Lemke. A dopamine hit brings about pleasure and then
is quickly followed by pain or a come down in
order to keep us motivated. Lemke says this
balancing seesaw of pleasure and pain made
sense in the time of early humans when we had
to constantly search for our basic needs food,
water, shelter. Really an ingenious
method to make sure that no matter what
we do that's pleasurable, it doesn't last very long, and it's followed
by pain so that immediately we're searching
again, she explains. This works really well if
we're doing something really good like exercise
or meaningful work, but the dopamine system
doesn't discriminate, and we can get an
exaggerated feeling of high and low when it comes
to behavioral addiction, like the behavioral addiction
of checking off phone, it can give us a real
high and then a real low. I quote Catherine Price from the Power of Fun just as it's possible to build up
tolerance to a drug, the more accustomed
your brain gets to receiving these regular
hits from your devices, the more dopamine it
will take to satisfy the cravings and the more dependent on your
devices you'll become. Formally enjoyable
activities like listening to music or hanging
out with a friend feel less stimulating
and satisfying than the rapid fire jolts of fake fun that you get from
checking social media again. This is one of the worst
parts of tech addiction, David Greenfel says,
I dulls reality. So now let's move on to
talking about cortisol. Cortisol is known as the
body's stress hormone. It helps us respond to threat by increasing
blood pressure, hyper focusing our attention, and flooding muscles
with energy. Cortisol is the hormone which activates our fight
or flight response. It's the feeling when your sympathetic nervous
system gets triggered. This is useful when you're in danger of some kind and
you need to be alert, but cortisol can be triggered. That stress feeling can be
triggered by our phone. Quote David Greenfield. Your cortisol levels are elevated when your
phone is in sight or nearby or when hear it
or even think you hear it. It's a stress response
and it feels unpleasant, and the body's natural
response is to want to check the phone to make
the stress go away. The release of cortisol in the body is normal
and essential, but if we live in a state of constant perceived threat and
an elevated cortisol level, it is harmful to
the body and mind. I quote from the power of fun. Chronically elevated
cortisol can weaken our attention span, will power, and self restraint. Hurt our processing speeds,
eye hand coordination, ability to plan
and execute tasks, negatively affect
emotional regulation, learning and retention and
visual and verbal memory. The other problem with
an elevated level of cortisol is it makes the prefrontal
cortex go offline. What is the prefrontal cortex? The prefrontal cortex
is the part of the brain behind the forehead. That's what I'm
pointing up here. It's responsible for higher
order brain functions, including emotional control,
logic and reasoning. Why does this matter
that cortisol makes the prefrontal
cortex go offline? This matters because your dopamine system and
your prefrontal cortex work hand in hand to keep our internal compass
in the right direction. For example, the dopamine
system says, Another beer. And the prefrontal cortex says, No, no more beer. You've
got to drive home. So you can see that through feeling really,
really stressed, you turn off your ability to reason and make sensible
decisions. Let's summarize. Science of tech addiction. Having our phones nearby
triggers the cortisol hormone, which makes us feel stressed. Using our phones
releases dopamine, which gives us a
rush of pleasure. This pleasure pain
response of dopamine and cortisol keeps us stuck
in an addictive cycle. Please download
the resources and key points document for a lesson summary and
links to all the sources. Let's get more into
the nitty gritty of how technology is
hacking our brains.
4. Magic and Mind Control - How You are Being Hacked: Magic and mind control. In this lesson, let's meet a
man called Tristan Harris, a former Google engineer made famous by the Netflix
movie, The Social Dilemma. Tristan was a young, bright boy who loved magic. He loved it so much that after putting on a show at
his elementary school, he was selected to go to magic camp to learn
from the professionals. Here he learnt. I quote from stolen
focus by Johann Hari. It's really about the
limits of your attention. The job of a magician at heart is to manipulate
your focus. To learn magic is
to learn how to manipulate someone's attention
without them realizing it. And once the magician
controls their focus, Tristan realized, he
can do what he wants. One of the things he was
taught at camp is that a person's susceptibility to magic has nothing to
do with intelligence. It's about something
more subtle. It's about the weaknesses
or the limits of the blind spots or the biases that we're
all trapped inside of. Now let's travel through
space and time to the Persuasive Technology Lab at Stanford University in 2002. Tristan Harris took this secretive course,
and with other students, they figured out how to
use the science of how people behave to build
persuasive technology. Two of the students on this course called
Mike Krieger and Kevin Sistrom
invented a little app you might have
heard of Instagram. So these tech companies and designers know about
the faults and glitches in human behavior and have used them to build
addictive technology. Why is this a problem? We live in the age of the
attention economy. The longer you
spend on your apps, the more money the apps make. Sites like Instagram, Facebook, and Google scan, track, and store your data and
build a profile of you, which they can then sell to advertisers so that you get
tailored advertising so the tech companies want you
to spend as long as possible on your phone so they can learn about you and sell stuff to you. In the last lesson we
talked about dopamine. The tech designers
realized that they could use dopamine
to keep you hooked. There are three key
things that trigger dopamine that your phone does. Number one, novelty. The dopamine system
loves novelty. It loves new stuff to look at. That's why your
phones always got new stuff when you're
scrolling to look at. Number two, the dopamine
system loves reward, and that's why a lot
of the apps include hearts and likes because they give you that
buzz of a reward. And the third thing
the dopamine system really likes is
unpredictability. So when they
designed your phone, you could have got notified
on the hour at 9:00 A.M. You get your
Facebook notifications at 10:00 A.M. No, the dopamsystem
doesn't like that. It likes the surprise,
notification, notification. So they're using
those three things novelty, reward, and
unpredictability. Now let's meet somebody
else called Aza Raskin. He invented the infinite
scroll before infinite scroll. You may not you may remember it. You may not, but webpages ended and then you had
to click Next page. And in that clicking
of Next Page, you had a moment of awareness
where you could decide, Do you want to be
on this longer. But what AZA did is just created an infinite scroll
so you don't get that moment of
pause. I quote Asa. Now, he says he feels
sort of dirty about what he's invented and how it
steals people's attention. The tech companies know that
their apps are addictive, but it's how they make money, so their ethics have
been compromised. The other thing
that I found really scary is that although you think you want to go
on your phone for a nice feeling to see
good news from a friend, the thing that keeps
you on social media longer is things that make
you feel sad or angry. And therefore, the
algorithm actively promotes negativity because
it keeps you online longer. What is an algorithm? The algorithm is a
set of rules and machine learning
models that determines what content users
see in their feed. The algorithm's goal
is to personalize the user experience by showing content that's most
relevant to each user. When you go on your feed, this isn't showing real lifetime of what everyone's posting. The algorithm is
curating what it thinks will keep you
on the app for longer. I could make a whole class on this small topic of
faults of the algorithm, negativity bias, and scrolling. If you're interested in this, I recommend reading
Chapter seven of stolen focus by Johann Hari to understand this
in more detail. Let's summarize this magic
and mind control lesson. The tech companies
studied human psychology and behavior to make
technology addictive. Sites like Instagram, Facebook
and Google scan, track, and store your data
and build a profile of you which they can then
sell to advertisers. They profit from you
staying online for longer, so that's why they
made it addictive. Now you can see it
as plain as day. Your smartphone
and apps have been carefully designed
to be addictive, so the blame is
no longer on you. It's not your fault
that you're addicted, but you need to take
responsibility to change. The tech companies are invested
in you being addicted, so they aren't going to help. So now let's dig into how these addictive technologies
are hurting us.
5. How Social Media Addiction is Hurting You: How social media is hurting you. Smoking in history was
once believed to be healthy and was actively
promoted by doctors. But now we know it
obviously causes disease, it causes lung cancer. And I think it's a bit like what's happening with
social media now. People are blind to the
harm it's causing us. And when we have
awareness of the harm, we can then be more mindful about how we
use the technology. Let's see how social media and phone addiction
is hurting you. I've compiled a list of the ten ways your
phone is hurting you. I found some of these through
my reading and research, and some are from my own
personal experience. This isn't an extensive list, and I'd love to know if you have noticed a way technology
is hurting you. Please write a comment in the discussion tab
and we can discuss. Number one, inability
to be present. Normal life just can't give us the same high our phone does. So if our addiction has
got really out of hand, we feel so compelled to keep checking that we can't be
present with our friends. We've learned about that through the dopammune
response because you get that buzz of pleasure
and then the down of pain. You just don't get
that roller coaster with normal day to day life, and your phone gives you a high. Number two, scrambling
memories. I quote. What most of us don't
realize, however, is that our phones are
preventing us from remembering the things
we do experience too. The process of transferring
short term memory into long term storage requires
physical changes in our brain, more specifically, the
creation of proteins, and this process is
disrupted by distraction. I must say, in all my
studies and all my research, this was the thing that really scared me that using my phone, just scrambling my brain, scrolling and scrolling
would actually stop me making long term memories because that's really
tragic, isn't it? One to not be present
in the moment, and then two to not even remember it because
of your phone. Number three, reduced cognitive function due to task switching. So what this means is your
brain isn't working as well because you're
scrambling and you're switching too much, you're
doing this, you're doing that. And you think you
are multitasking. This phrase multitasking
is a false phrase. It's not true because
you can't multitask. All you can do is task switch. So if you're doing
what you think, you're doing lots of
things at the same time. What you're really
doing is switching, and that's switch has
a cost on your brain, and that cost is cognitive
efficiency, reaction time, accuracy, speed, and reducing your quality
to think and work. Number four, disrupted sleep, the bright glare of your
phone keeps you awake. I know. This is glaringly
obvious. See what I did that. It disrupts the release of melatonin and this
bad quality sleep. Has a bigger cost
because then you've got the cost of being exhausted
in day to day life. Number five, feelings
of inadequacy. When we are on social media, we compare our life to others. We can feel like
we're a failure, and you compare
your own real life to somebody else's
highlight reel. Number six, body image issues. On social media, there are
unhealthy role models. There are people who've
been heavily filtered and edited and maybe also had plastic surgery,
cosmetic work done. So the day to day
person can never look as good as the images
that they see on the Internet. Number seven, living in fantasy. This is a neglect of your real life that you
work so hard to convey a perfect image
of your life that your actual real life is losing its deep
sense of quality. Number eight, a feeling
of loneliness, I quote. A study at the University
of Pennsylvania found that high
usage of Facebook, Snapchat and Instagram increases rather than decreases
feelings of loneliness. Conversely, the study found that reducing social media
usage can actually make you feel less lonely and isolated and improve
your overall well being. Number nine, confusion
and overwhelm. We are saturated with too much information when
we go on our phones. I quote. Information
overload occurs when the flow and amount of information is too much
for our brains to process. This bombardment can
lead to confusion, indecisiveness, stress, and
eventually mental fatigue. Deciding what is
worth our attention becomes highly difficult
in this flood. Wonder if any of you watching have experienced
this confusion and overwhelm is
definitely something I've experienced when I've
been on my phone too much, especially close to bedtime. My mind feels very overactive,
alert and confused. Number ten, radicalization
and hypervigilance. This topic is covered in great detail in Chapter
seven of stolen focus. But to summarize, the
YouTube algorithm knows that what's
going to keep you on the platform for
longer is outrageous, shocking and extreme content. So in the past, this has
actually caused the spread of false information
with the algorithm actively promoting
conspiracy theories. And this negative
information and shocking media can make
us feel hyper vigilant. Let's summarize the ten ways
your phone is hurting you. One, inability to be present, two scrambling memories, three, reduced cognitive function
due to task switching, four, disrupted sleep, five,
feelings of inadequacy, six, body image issues, seven, living in fantasy, eight, feelings of loneliness, nine, feelings of confusion
and overwhelm, ten, radicalization
and hypervigilance. That is quite a list, isn't it? And I'd love to
hear you relate to any of these ways that
your phone is hurting you, or maybe you have noticed in yourself another way that
your phone is hurting you, please share in the
discussions tab. Before we throw our
phone in the bin, let's not throw out the baby
with the bathwater and take a moment to think
about what we love about our phone.
Here's what I love. Number one, I love
staying in touch. It's amazing to me that I'm
able to stay in touch with friends from all over the world in different walks of life. Number two, I love the ease
of access to information. When my dad grew up in the 60s, if he wanted to hear a song
that he likes on the radio, he had to cycle to
the record store, spent his hard earned cash, and then cycle back and put
it on his record player. What a different
time we live in now. If I hear a song
I like, I can go on my phone and listen
to it straight away. Number three, education
and personal development. I have apps that are helping me learn and creatively develop, like a looping app
for writing songs, a metronome for writing, and obviously the platform
you're on right now, Skillshare, which I love
for learning new things. So how can I use my phone
for the good things and reduce or completely
avoid the negative? This is where techno
vigilance comes in. We are going to
become technovigilant to stop these apps
and sites hacking us. We will start using our phones rather than our phones using us. Let's get into the
next lesson where we will discuss techno vigilance.
6. Practice Tecno Vigilance: Back in this lesson,
we're going to talk about techno vigilance, which is a term I invented. I love the word vigil because it means to be watchful and awake. And vigilante is a
self empointed person who takes the law
into their own hands, and that's what
we're going to do. We're going to be watchful. We're going to be
awake, and we're going to take our
attention back. We're going to go through some practical and
actionable ways that we can use our phones in a healthy and effective way. Before we get into that,
we're going to first discuss habits and pre commitment. So some of you may have read the book Atomic Habits
by James Clear, and in it, he describes one of the best ways to
form a new habit. It's to make it hard to do bad stuff and to make it
easy to do good stuff. So, for example, if you want
to stop eating chocolate, stop having the chocolate
in the cupboards, because if it's in the
cupboard, it's easy to get to. And if you want to, for example, start a hobby like running, how can you make that easy? You could put your running
shoes next to your bed so it reminds you to go for a run. So this is what we want
to do with our phones. We want to make it
hard to do bad stuff and make it easy
to do good stuff. And then I want to talk
about pre commitment. So pre commitment is
a promise that you make to yourself of something
you're going to do. And it's even better if you make that promise to others, if
you're public about it. Several studies have
actually documented that pre commitment can lead
to better self control. Let's talk about being intentional when it
comes to your phone. So why do you use your phone and what
do you love about it? And what don't you like about using your phone?
Let me go first. I use my phone to promote
my creative business, to connect with my
friends and to learn. I love listening to
the radio, to music. I love listening to audiobooks and studying online
and on Skillshare. And I like to use
apps to record, practice, and write music. What don't you like
about using your phone? I don't like getting
stuck on scrolling, and I don't like seeing certain posts that
really trigger me. For example, I used to work
as a professional dancer, and I can't do that job anymore because of my parenting
responsibilities, and seeing photos
can make me feel sad or nostalgic or
like I'm missing out. I also don't like compulsively checking my email for
no apparent reason. Please press the
pause button now and answer these two
questions for yourself. Why do you use your phone and
what do you love about it? What don't you like
about using your phone? Now you're starting
to understand what is good about your phone and
what's bad about your phone. Let's discuss the eight ways to practice techno vigilance. First thing you might like
to try is a digital detox. This can take many forms. The author of stolen
focus, Johan Hari, went and lived in a remote place without his
phone for three months. He says he experienced
withdrawal symptoms, which is very extreme. And I don't think all
of us now can just take three months out of our
lives to reset our brain. What is another way
you could do this? You could try out the practice
of a digital Sabbath. This is the Jewish practice of a day of rest and celebration, and you just turn
off your phone for 24 hours. I tried this. For me, it doesn't work, and it doesn't work for
me because I work at the weekend as a children's entertainer and during the week, my parenting and work
responsibilities mean that it just actually annoys me to have
my phone off for 24 hours. So if it annoys me, then it defeats the purpose of an exercise meant to
make me feel better. This is where I think boundaries and breaks can be
more effective. Now we'll get into number two. Number two is to
delete addictive apps from your phone or use
an app blocking app. Oh the irony of using an
app to stop you using apps, but there are app blockers
out there that can, for example, set timing limits on how long you
use a certain app. For me, what works is I have deleted Instagram and
Facebook from my phone. I still need to check them and upload to them for my work. So I select a time, I re download from
the app store, do the thing I plan to do, set a timer so I don't
get stuck on there, and then delete again. That is the only thing
that works for me. I've also totally
deleted email from my phone and I only
check it on my desktop. For me, it's just so compulsive
to check those thing, and I need to put those stops in place by deleting the apps. Number three, unfollow
triggering people. If there is someone whose posts always trigger you,
unfollow them. Curate your feed to
make it more inspiring. Saying this, I've still noticed the algorithm will promote
more dramatic content to me. So if I'm going to scroll, I've still got to be really cautious. Sometimes what I do,
if I go on my phone, I just check the pages of people I really
want to see, like, a few of my favorite bands or my friends and see what
they're up to rather than scrolling
because then I might see some content that I
don't really want to see. Number four, put good and
useful apps on your homepage. So what apps are good for you? For me, it's my looper, my audible, my maps, they're all good apps that don't sap me and they're
not compulsive, so I'll put them on my home screen so
they're the first I see. Number five, set your
background as something to remind you to be mindful
and intentional. I got this idea
from how to break up with your phone
by Katherine Price, and she has a
little saying, WWW. What for? Why now? What else? So, what am I picking
up my phone for? Why am I doing it now? What else could I be doing? So, it's in the evening. I finish work. My son's in
bed. I pick up my phone. What am I picking
my phone up for? I don't know. Why
am I doing it now? I don't know. What else could
I do? I could do a drawing. I could listen to some
music. So many times, you just pick it up without knowing having a plan of
what you're going to do. If you've got a job or something specific you
want to do, great, but we're trying to get out of this addictive and
compulsive cycle. Number six, don't charge your phone in your bedroom
or keep it by your bed. When you are tired, your guard goes down and you're
more likely to scroll. The light of your phone and the triggering information
will keep you awake, and it will be the first thing
you check in the morning. So I charge mine in the kitchen. You might need to get
an alarm clock or a clock in your
bedroom, if necessary. Number seven, create
no phone zones. With your family, you
might have times or places where phones aren't
used, for example. We have a family rule, no
phones at the dinner table. Number eight, mini digital
breaks to boost focus. Build up digital breaks
from your phone. So like I said earlier, I can't do the 24 hours because that's not
effective for me, but I can do two or 3 hours. In the evening, for example, I will listen to an audio book, and when I'm listening
to the audiobook, I get an urge to check WhatsApp. I know a friend probably
has messaged me back, but I don't interrupt my reading session
and only check after. For example, I might say, I'm going to just listen
to my audiobook until 9:00 and I'm not going to
check my phone until then. And when I'm writing
or doing focus work, I'm not allowed to
check my email, my Facebook, my Instagram. So for example, when I was
writing the script for this, it requires a lot of
focus and concentration, but my brain wants to scatter off and go, Oh, I
just check stuff. I just check stuff, but I
just don't permit that. If I do that, I know I'm
affecting my cognitive function. I'm not going to be able to
do as good job in writing the script and getting it
done in a timely manner. If you like more tips and tricks to practice
technovigilance, I do recommend reading
how to break up with your phone by Catherine
Price. Pause the video. What is one thing
you can do right now to start practicing
techno vigilance? You can go and download the resources and
key points document, which has the list of the eight tips that
I just mentioned. And I want you to pick
one an action it, something that's
easy and doable. And to put that pre commitment
in the discussions tab. You might also like to
write that precommitment down in your journal,
tell a friend, for example, I will delete
Instagram and Facebook from my phone and reinstall
it when I need to use it. Experiment with
what works for you. Our lives are very different, and our work is very different, so we all need to try
out different ways of practicing technovigilance. I introduced these
concepts to a friend, and what she did
is she just turned mobile data off her phone when
she was with her children. So that means all she
could do is ring and text, and everything else was
not available to her. Now, once you freed up your time by managing
your phone use, how will you use the void and how will you reclaim your focus? Let's get into the next lesson.
7. Fill the Void + Increase Your Focus: I realized that I had an
addiction to my phone. I had a lot of voids in my life, and I've had to work
to fill those voids. Before we practice technovigilance,
we were being hacked. That hacking drains our brains, makes us feel numb,
and we can use our phone to ignore our
problems and our feelings. And so now I'm going to go
into six voids that I believe our phone fills and
these voids are crucial needs for well being and crucial for every person. Now, each of us are
different and our well being needs get
fulfilled in different ways. This list I've written
these six voids. It's not an exhaustive list, but they're just
things that I noticed were missing for me, and I want to share with
you what those six things were and then how I filled
that void personally. The first void is
a void of beauty, connection to nature and spirit, uplifting ideas, creativity,
and beautiful imagery. Number two is a
void of community, friendship, family, and love. Number three, avoid
of development, progress in gainful
employment or studying. Number four, avoid of flow, experience of full immersion and absorption in the
act of doing or making. Number five, a void of sleep, not fully recharging batteries
with good quality sleep. Number six, a void of
wandering and wondering, allowing your mind to wander
and ponder deep questions. And now I'm just going to
go into these six voids and how I filled them up and how you might
like to fill them up. So for the void of beauty, we could get outside,
walk in nature, sit and observe nature, take time to study
material that uplifts you spiritual material or
maybe light hearted comedy. I've got into chicken shop date by Emilia Demoldenberg.
That way makes me laugh. And I love big creative books. I've been reading the
creative act by Rick Rubin, and I just love big, colorful books about sewing
and knitting and art. I subscribe to an art magazine that just filled my
mind with good imagery. Personally, I live
in a small village quite far away from big cities. I used to live in London. I used to love going
to art galleries, so it's much harder
for me to do that. So I wanted to bring
the art gallery to myself with art magazines. Number two, community
feeling connected. We have friends for
a reason, a season, or a lifetime, and
in different seasons of our life, we need friends. And for me, my phone
addiction got worse when I became a mum because really
I needed to start again and, like, make mum friends. And the way I did that was
starting a singing mmas group. Singing Mummas is an
international movement for women's well being
through singing. And I also got an allotment where I
could meet my neighbors. Number three, a void
of development. So we've all got different
ways we want to develop, but you might like to
change your career, find a new hobby or find
something to study. For me, I got really
into hand sewing, like my beautiful
smock I'm wearing now, and that has helped
me to have something positive to focus my mind on
rather than the doom scroll. Number four, flow. This is such an
interesting topic. There's loads I could
say about flow, and I recommend
looking into the work of Mihi hicks and Mihai. What he says is that flow is the melting together of
action and consciousness, the state of finding
a balance between a skill and how
challenging that task is. So we all have different
things that will get us into a flow state for me, the things that get me in
flow are walking in nature, sewing, drawing, reading
a good book, Housework. I actually Googled, Can
housework create flow? So I really love
cleaning and tidying. It gives me a buzz. How can you include more flow
activities in your life? Pause the video now and write down a list
of things that you feel bring you into a flow
state. Number five, sleep. These ones are obvious, but get your phone out of
your bedroom and make sure you turn it off at
least an hour before bed. Might like to keep a journal
by your bed and write down your worries or your
to do list before bed. And if your sleep is still
causing you problems, you might like to
do some more of your own personal research
and maybe even see a doctor. And I know with sleep
and with my phone, this is a constant
art of progress, and I sometimes trick myself that I'm further
along than I am. So even last night, I had a really busy day, and I was filming lots of videos with my friends for my music, and late at night, I was
just so excited about. I just wanted to look
at these videos, and and then I had a
bad night's sleep, and it's my own fault. I have to constantly do this
practice of forgiveness and readjusting and
making kind rules for yourself that's
going to work for you. Number six, wander and wonder. The art of mind wandering. Some people think that
that's lazy or idle, but it's actually essential act, especially for creativity,
and it helps us process our life and to link
interesting ideas together. For example, when I have
been working on this course, I've done a lot of wandering and wondering by staring out the window or
going on long walks. I quote studies have shown that daydreaming can help boost creativity and problem
solving ability. This is because when we
allow our minds to wander, it gives our brains
a chance to explore different perspectives and make unexpected connections
between ideas. To allow ourselves to
connect thoughts and ideas, we need time to
wander and wander. Allow yourself mind
wandering time. You might like to take some
time to sit or walk in nature or just stare out your
window. Time to reflect. If you haven't already, please head to the projects and Downloads tab and download the resources PDF
where you will find a printout of the six
voids or phone fills. Get out your journal and take a moment to ponder
on these questions. What void am I avoiding
by using my phone? And how can I fill that
void in a better way? What I believe is that if we have space and time in our day, if we haven't addressed
our phone addiction, we will always fill that time
and space with our phone. And we won't sit and be uncomfortable
and notice the void. So that's what I was doing. When I became a m, and I
didn't have any mum friends, rather than sit with the sadness of being alone of
not having friends, I would just grab my phone. So in this process of
becoming aware of our voids, it can be painful, but it's worth examining because then we can transform
ourselves and start to use our time and
space in a better way. Let's get into the
next lesson where we will creatively respond
to the problem.
8. Class Project : Your Creative Response: Class project. In this lesson, we are going to creatively
respond to the material. During my research period where
I was putting this script together and
planning this class, I formed my own
creative response to the material by writing a
poem or spoken word piece, and I'm going to share that
with you in just a moment. What I'd like to do is
like to listen to my poem. And then after I'd like
you to take a moment in quiet and write
down any ideas, concepts or quotes from this course that
really claimed you. Maybe they shocked
you. They just really took your attention, they really grabbed
your attention, make some notes in your journal. And then once you've made a note of those things
that really claimed you, set a timer and make time
for a creative response. It might just be 5 minutes where you write down a
flow of consciousness. It might be 20 minutes
where you give yourself permission
to write a poem, or it might be an hour
where you do a drawing about what we've
learned in this class. It's totally up to you, and I really
encourage you not to skip this bit because
this is the thing we're trying to do is
we're trying to allow our brain creative
processing and focus time that previously
our phone stole from us. So what we want to
do is we want to make sure that we
really consolidate this information by doing
something creative and focused, and now I'm going
to share my poem. Technology took my autonomy, living in an attention economy. Not on odyssey, because
I just sta per Wait. Let me just check my Facebook. And then my Instagram
and then my email. And then after that, I'll check WhatsApp WhatsApp. What's that? I got stuck, can't seem
to get the plot back. These apps distract
my attention. These apps are
strange invention. These apps that hack my
chemistry, dopamine dips, disrupt my serenity,
compulsion compulsive compel. Compelled to rebell. I am not a Pav love dog salivating at the sight
of a red bell face, but needs my eyeballs and data to sell some
stuff to me later. They just love a couch potato. Don't hate the game,
hate the player, but I don't hate myself. I hate my phone it turns
me into a crazy drone, sort of gets me into
this lazy zone, makes me wish I could
throw away my phone. I need to forgive Azaskin for
the hours that you cost me. I need to forgive
Kevin and Mike, 'cause through your
filters, I lost me. I need to forgive Mr. Zuckerberg for my
depression and my debt. Though I choose to forgive, I do not choose to forget. I woke up from a dream and
realized that I was dreaming. I woke up from my phone and realized that
I was screaming. I stopped the
infinite scroll and saw my husband and
child leaving. And now I just have to sit with all this and
do some grieving. The best way to say sorry
is to alter your behavior. Addicts, we know we have to give our power to
something greater. So I switch off my Wi Fi, disconnect my mobile data, and I head out to the woods
to connect to my true nature. Thank you. I hope you
enjoyed that poem. I am planning on
recording that and releasing that on Spotify and music streaming
later in the year, so do keep an eye out for that. And now it's time for
your creative response, and I'd really love
it if you shared it in the project section. And I think this creative
response is really important in helping
us to remind each other about best practice because even though I've
been studying all of this, writing my script, practicing, I still fall off the wagon, and we all need to help each
other get back on the wagon. So I look forward to seeing
your creative response. Now let's get into the
final lesson where we talk about further resources
and we say goodbye.
9. Resources and Goodbye: So much for taking this class. I've mentioned it a few times, but I have summarized all the lessons in this class
and put together a list of books and websites
which you will find in the key points
and resources document. You will also find the
text for my poem there. Skillshare is all about
community, so let's connect. As you can tell from my teaching style and
from this class, it's that I really value
and care about connection. And although I can
see the number of students who take
each of my classes, it's very hard to feel connected to you unless I get to
hear from you directly. So I'd love it if you post creative response in
the project section. I'd love it if you ask me a
question and discussions tab, and I'd love it if you leave me a review because it lets
me know that this class is quality because I
work really hard and put a lot of time and
effort into my classes. You can go to my teacher
page and follow me, and that is where
you'll find out about other classes I have on offer and find out
about new classes. There are also links on my teacher page to my
social media ha ha. My Instagram, my
Facebook and my website, and you can also find
links to my music, which is on all
streaming services. I also have an email
list where I send out inspiring emails
once or twice a month, and I'd love you to sign up there so we can stay in touch. My the knowledge in this
class bring more intention, focus, creativity, peace,
and beauty into your life. Thank you so much for
watching. Goodbye.
Laura Lamn, I light the Creative Spark
