Episode transcription

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Anne Trager
Hi everyone and welcome to the Human Pulse Podcast where we talk about living well with technology. I'm Anne Trager.

Fabrice Neuman
And I'm Fabrice Neuman.

Anne Trager
We are recording on December 8th, 2024.

Fabrice Neuman
Human pulse is never longer than 30 minutes, so let's get started.

Anne Trager
The big news today, Fabrice, is that I've added a social media channel. And it's all your fault.

Fabrice Neuman
Yeah, right. So let's make something clear first. I didn't force you to do anything.

Anne Trager
This is true. There was no force involved.

Fabrice Neuman
It was mostly linked to my enthusiasm to a somewhat new network that everybody's talking about these last few weeks, last few months, even now it's of course Bluesky, where I started to find something that I loved in Twitter and that love disappeared a few months ago.

There are many reasons for me to leave Twitter.

I have a complex relationship with Twitter. This is basically the social media I had chosen before, years back. And this is where I had balance between the people, the news I could find there, way I can interact with it and not being overwhelmed. It was really the place I chose. And then a few things changed.

Obviously, let's talk about the elephant in the room. It was bought by Elon Musk and some changes that were made after that didn't agree with me. First of all, there's obviously the political side of things, but I don't think it's the main reason why I stopped using it. There are technical reasons. For example, on Twitter, some people were getting a blue check mark because they could, that blue check mark before Musk was a way to ensure that the person or the company that was talking on Twitter was the real one, you know, and it was really a check. And after that, the check mark just became a sign of somebody paying Twitter for a and they didn't the same meaning exactly.

So I was on the lookout to find another network where I could find something in the same kind of, let's say, atmosphere. And first I tried Mastodon. Some people probably heard about it, but not that much. And it's one of the reasons why I'm not really on there. I have an account, but I'm not really on there. It's a bit technically more complex. And it was only adopted by basically tech people and geeks, part of my crowd, but not only what I search in a social network. And then Bluesky is basically what Twitter used to be. So this is what I actually started using. And I really found something there that I really like. And you heard me raving about it, right? And so you decided to open an account, and that's the real news.

Anne Trager
Well, this is true. You raved about it for like two or three weeks nonstop. And at that time there was this massive move of journalists and other people from Twitter to Bluesky. So not only were you raving about it, but you know, it was being echoed in, in the various feeds that, that even I was seeing. Okay. Well, maybe I was seeing them because of you, but anyway, so I have, I am now testing it.

Fabrice Neuman
Hehehe.

Anne Trager
I like this idea of maybe more real interactions, less subjected to algorithmic whatever, black magic, I like to call it. We will see if I get dumber from using it or if I get lost or even if it adds some value. I'm not exactly sure yet. It's too soon to tell. Right now, I can...assure you of the power of cat photos. Okay? I don't think that's specific to any social media. Cat photos work.

Fabrice Neuman
Let's be clear that the internet was created to share cat photos and videos.

Anne Trager
I agree with that. I'm sure that is true.

Okay. But we have to put this into context for people who don't know me. So I'm going to tell you a little bit about my history with social media. Right from the very beginning, I found that I only had a moderate interest in any of the social media platforms. Okay. I didn't find anything like you found on Twitter. No judgment for people who use social media all the time.

Fabrice Neuman
Mm-hmm.

Anne Trager
I personally get overwhelmed with all the nonstop messages and the proportion of emptiness in what's being communicated. I mean, even in non-digital life, I really much prefer deep conversations or silence over that whole bit of stuff that happens in between.

Fabrice Neuman
For me, it's way to circle back to what I was Twitter was the social media, social network I chose. So for example, not to feel overwhelmed by having to go to several social networks, because it's part of, and it's part of what's happening today again, because lots of people started to move away from Twitter and so go to...

Mastodon, we've already talked about it, to Threads as well, which is the Meta/Facebook response to the problems Twitter is having. So and then you have LinkedIn and you still have Facebook and you have so many places to go to. That to me is the overwhelming part. Right. You were talking about the exchanges in the place where you can meet people or maybe not, because it's not real. For me, Twitter was very real. Aside from getting news, this is for example, where I met the people I do the other podcasts I iWeek on, right? It's through Twitter. I had real exchanges on Twitter with them. And then at some point we started to have a conversation and they invited me on and now I'm part of the team. So it's like a real...

Anne Trager
Right, yeah, yeah.

Fabrice Neuman
You know, success story, if you will, of Twitter slash social media.

Anne Trager
Well, and I agree with you. I'll be completely honest. I've meet people on social media as well and have some interesting exchanges. I think proportionally speaking, there's a whole lot that's depending on the social media itself, there's a whole lot that's less real. I'm going to say it that way. But I do think that the ability to communicate with so many people is really, really crazily wonderful and actually a little bit weird. I'm not entirely sure that we as human beings are made for that kind of massive communication with the world all at once. And I'm not just making that up. There was a theory that was developed in the 1980s by University of Oxford anthropologist and psychologist named Robin Dunbar.

And it's called the social brain hypothesis. And it gives a number, Dunbar's number, which is 150. So according to the theory, this is the limit that our brain can handle in terms of meaningful contacts. Now he gives a bunch of other numbers and it can, depending on how deep the contact, it can go up to a higher than that. However, even in the social media age, according to subsequent research, this number pretty well holds. So for me, when I think about it, there's something comforting in knowing that for me that, okay, so if I feel a little overwhelmed by social media, there might be a reason for it.

Fabrice Neuman
Hmm.

Yeah, true. So I think it goes back to what we were saying about Facebook. You know, when Facebook appeared and the relationship you have on Facebook, the links between you and the other users, they use the word friend. You know, you are friends with someone on Facebook. And it's weird because the word friend basically changed meaning because of that, because Facebook is still used by three billion people on Earth or more. So I guess to me, it means that these are tools. Once again, as per usual, I'd say it's a tool that we need to learn how to use. So I don't think going into social media means that you're going to interact with all the accounts, all the people or media that you subscribe to, that you follow. It's not what it means. Sometimes you can have conversations with people that you don't know in real life. And it might happen a couple of times and then it stops. It doesn't have to go further than that. And I would say this is part of the power of social networks and media.

Anne Trager
Mm-hmm.

Fabrice Neuman
Which is to put you potentially in contact with people you otherwise would not meet. And yeah, this is absolutely fabulous. I think the other problem we are seeing with social media is the way they changed.

Anne Trager
Hmm. True, true and fabulous. Wonderful. Yeah.

Fabrice Neuman
In the before times, you know, 15 years ago when they were created or something. So you would go there, you would get information or interesting links and you would click on something and then you would go away from the social network. It would be a way to find something and then to leave. But obviously it's not what those companies want because they need to have a return on investment because it's very expensive to put in place. So they created algorithms to increase engagement. And this is where it all crumbles. Because when you further engagement, what it means is that these social media networks want you to stay on them. For example, it means that if you post something with a link on it, maybe your post will not be seen by as many people because it's not the kind of engagement they want. They don't want you to propose something for people to leave. They want you to propose something for people to stay on. And that's a real problem. And this is where, coming back to Bluesky, it gets interesting because Bluesky doesn't rely on that. This is not the promise they are making. We'll see if they can keep it.

Anne Trager
Well, and that's, you know, at the same time, it's part of what is so wonderful about the serendipity that you can have on social media. It brings me to this question of what I'd like to address today, which is how do we live well with social media?

Because I know personally that I am not strong enough to resist the work of all of those thousands of engineers who worked on those algorithms to hack my dopamine system.

Fabrice Neuman
Hmm.

Anne Trager
Okay. So I'm just not strong enough for that. So, I have to do something about it. And one of the things that I do is to have very clear boundaries. I mean, I'm really, really very keen on boundaries. It is a tool that, speaking of tools, I use to work and live well with social media. You know, this reminds me of the relationship that I have with just empty time.

I don't particularly like to have empty time. I mean, whenever I have a moment that's empty, I will usually fill it up with something. Maybe I'll move about, clean the house, meditate, or do something. I have to fill it up. I use a word for that. I call it being an in-filler.

Fabrice Neuman
Hmm.

Anne Trager
Okay, some people don't have that problem. I do. Okay. And it's not necessarily a problem. It's just the way I am.

Fabrice Neuman
Yeah, no, no. But this is what makes you such a particularly good candidate for algorithms because this is what they do.

Anne Trager
Yeah, absolutely. So I am very aware of this about myself. So self-awareness is another really important tool. I know this about myself and I'm very wary of social media.

I know that if my eye catches the glimmer of the phone at just the right time, like when I have an empty moment, and then I pull up something like Instagram—oh my God—scroll, scroll, scroll. Before I know it, all of my empty time and even time that was not meant to be empty has fallen victim to just one more flick of the finger.

I feel like I don't want to miss something—a picture or a quote that could be interesting or whatever. And sometimes I even fall into doomscrolling. I mean, who wants to be doing that? Okay. But I understand why, and I know that I am subject to that kind of thing. There is a quote from St. Augustine.

So I think he had some sort of future vision about social media because obviously there was none of it in his time. And he said, "Complete abstinence is easier than perfect moderation." So sometimes I go with complete abstinence because the scrolling just topples all good intentions. I don't know how to stop.

At the same time, I don’t completely abstain from social media because there is this sort of frivolous joy that I get in it, okay, that I like. And there is, as you were saying, the serendipity of meeting people and learning about things that you never, ever would have learned about if you weren’t on social media.

Fabrice Neuman
Hmm. So what do you do then?

Anne Trager
That's a really good question. So what do I do? Again, I'm very clear about my boundaries, and it takes this form. First of all, I am no longer on Instagram because that one was just so totally addictive to me. I just was like, okay, no, that’s total abstinence for me. I do use LinkedIn because I think there are some really interesting connections that we can make there. But I set aside specific time, what I call "bound time," with a beginning and an end for LinkedIn. Once in a blue moon, I will drop into Facebook, and then I only give myself a limited time. And again, the timer is set. Okay. When I go onto Facebook, I don’t have that kind of self-control otherwise.

Fabrice Neuman
I admire that—having a timer.

Anne Trager
People think of me as this super-disciplined queen who’s got so much self-control, but I don’t really. I really have to work hard on it. The other thing is I have no apps on my phone for social media. That means it creates friction. If I want to use social media, I have to go and open my laptop. I have no shortcuts on my laptop, so if I want to open a specific social media, I actually have to open the browser and then click in all the right places. Again, I’m putting friction so that I’m not tempted to go to them at all times. I also avoid YouTube whenever I can because there’s just so much there that I can get sucked into and get totally lost.

The thing is, now that I’m testing Bluesky, I broke all my rules. The app is on my phone. I have shortcuts. So, yeah, I don’t know what’s going to happen. I see immediately that it does, even in the way that it’s set up and less reliant on algorithms, require a high level of self-control for me to manage my own use. So we’ll see how it goes. How do you handle this social?

Fabrice Neuman
Well, so, yeah, it’s interesting.

The first thing I did was to choose a social network, right? I tried a few and then I thought, okay, I cannot be on them all, and it doesn’t make sense to me at least. So I chose Bluesky because it was getting some traction. People were joining. So now there are like 25 million people on it. And I find interesting things there. So I chose that and LinkedIn.

Those are the only ones on my phone, and I even have notifications for Bluesky but not for LinkedIn. Bluesky is still a work in progress, so I have notifications, but I’m careful.

I also use a browser extension to remove Shorts on YouTube to avoid time-wasting.

Anne Trager
Interesting. That’s a smart approach. You’re consciously designing your interactions.

Fabrice Neuman
Exactly. It’s about minimizing distractions and maintaining control. I don’t have social apps like Facebook or Instagram on my phone. For YouTube, I use an extension to eliminate Shorts, which are particularly addictive for me. This keeps my experience streamlined.

Anne Trager
That’s a helpful strategy. It’s fascinating to see how we’ve both adapted our usage based on our tendencies and challenges. Still, there’s this larger question about the societal impact, especially on younger users.

Fabrice Neuman
True. Recently, Australia passed a law aiming to restrict social media use for individuals under 16. Enforcement challenges aside, it raises awareness about how social media affects developing brains. It’s a complex issue, and some parents might feel overwhelmed by the tech-savviness required to manage these platforms.

Anne Trager
Absolutely. Studies by social psychologists like Jonathan Haidt emphasize the negative impact of social media on youth, such as increased anxiety and depression. On the flip side, there’s guidance, like the Mayo Clinic’s recommendation to make phone use a reward for outdoor activities. It’s an idea I might apply to myself!

Fabrice Neuman
That’s a good point. Parenting tools and resources like ConnectSafely.org can help families navigate these challenges. However, the burden shouldn’t solely fall on parents—platforms should also implement ethical design changes.

Anne Trager
It’s a balancing act. While social media offers valuable connections and information, it also demands intentional use. For example, the concept of adding friction to usage—like removing apps or setting clear time limits—helps us reclaim control.

Fabrice Neuman
Absolutely. At the end of the day, these are just tools. How we use them determines whether they help or harm us. If we all approach social media with awareness and kindness, we can create a better digital environment.

Anne Trager
Agreed. Maybe, as you said earlier, applying a “three positives for one negative” approach to social media interactions could shift the landscape. Imagine if every negative comment inspired three positive contributions.

Fabrice Neuman
It’s a simple but powerful idea. Let’s encourage others to try it—small changes can create ripples.

Anne Trager
On that optimistic note, thank you all for joining us. Visit HumanPulsePodcast.com for links and past episodes, and leave a review to support the show.

Fabrice Neuman
Thanks for subscribing, sharing, and being part of our community. See you in two weeks!

Anne Trager
Bye, everyone.

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