Toxic Cooking Show
Misogyny, $800 first dates, simps, and high-value women: Social media has been busy cooking up and feeding us an addictive but toxic slurry of trends over the past few years. Here at The Toxic Cooking Show we're two friends dedicated to breaking down these trends, terms, and taunts into their simplest ingredients to understand where they came from and how they affect our lives. Join us each week as we ponder and discuss charged topics like personal responsibility and "not all men" before placing them on our magical Scale O' ToxicityAny comments or topics you want to hear about write to us at toxic@awesomelifeskills.com
Toxic Cooking Show
Living the Perfect Life on Instagram. Or so it Seems
What if the perfect lives you see on Instagram are just a facade? On this eye-opening episode of the Toxic Cooking Show, we promise to help you uncover the truth behind social media's glamour and the unrealistic standards it sets. Join us, Christopher Patchet LCSW and Lindsay McClane, as we dissect how social media, particularly platforms like Instagram and Facebook, can warp our sense of reality. Together, we'll explore the psychological effects of constantly comparing ourselves to curated online personas and the isolation that can follow.
Our conversation takes a sobering turn as we highlight the pressures of adhering to fleeting trends and the pervasive influence of influencers on body image and personal expectations. With stories of seemingly glamorous lifestyles fueled by sponsorships, we reflect on the hidden financial stressors and sacrifices that may lie beneath. Drawing parallels between influencers and movie stars, we encourage listeners to keep a healthy perspective and avoid being swept away by the unattainable ideals that saturate their feeds.
As we navigate these murky waters, we touch on the implications of recent regulatory measures, like Australia's ban on social media for those under 16. Through personal anecdotes, we reminisce about life before the omnipresence of smartphones and stress the importance of educating both the young and the old about the potential pitfalls of excessive social media use. By promoting authentic content and healthier usage habits, we aim to foster a more grounded sense of self-worth and reality among our listeners.
Hi and welcome to the Toxic Cooking Show, where we break down toxic people to their simplest ingredients. I'm your host, christopher Patchett LCSW.
Speaker 2:And I'm Lindsay McLean.
Speaker 1:There's something I've noticed a lot of my clients kind of going through and I think that this would be a good thing to kind of talk about.
Speaker 2:Uh-oh.
Speaker 1:And it is ye olde social media.
Speaker 2:You know, I'm not surprised, I'm not surprised.
Speaker 1:It's a lot of times I hear people saying about how they see on Facebook or Instagram, like everybody else is getting married but me, everybody else is buying a house but me, everybody else going on vacation but me they're having kids, they're getting cute pets, they're redecorating the house that they bought.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's all the like nice, cool, fun things. Everyone's doing it, except me.
Speaker 1:Yeah, this is kind of something that a lot of people are facing. They're looking on social media all the time and they're seeing all these things that different people are doing, and then they're kind of making that comparison of themselves versus other people. So before I start, I'm going to give you some statistics. On average, people are following about 150 to 200 people on Instagram. Also, people are following about 20 influencers on Instagram. 10% of those people that they're following are influencers. Average time that somebody spends on social media is two hours what's that?
Speaker 2:I said I don't want to know this one it's actually not as bad as I thought.
Speaker 1:It's only two hours and 23 minutes. But out of 24 hours in the day. I mean it's yeah, Well, so we'll get to that. We'll get to that, Okay. But what is bad is the average teenager, Gen Alpha. They're spending about four hours, 48 minutes, oh.
Speaker 2:No, no, yeah, almost five hours a day on social media.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Oh God, we're fucked as a society.
Speaker 1:Well, even us, even people, our age, oh yeah, okay, so two hours and 23 minutes, just as you said. Out of 24 hours, that's one twelfth, a little over one twelfth of our day is spent on social media.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:And that's you take out eight hours for sleep, eight hours for working. That gives us eight hours left in the day.
Speaker 2:And you just spend a quarter of that over a quarter of that.
Speaker 1:Yeah, over a quarter of that is on social media.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and obviously I know that that's not all one chunk in the evening, like it's broken up, so it may be during the day where it's like, well, I'm at work and I've got like a little bit of downtime, so you know, scroll 10 minutes here, I'm on the train going to work and I'm scrolling there, but even still that's a lot of time.
Speaker 1:Right, and here's the thing, like we talked about this before, and on average, you, how often are you actually interacting with other people like face to face?
Speaker 2:I don't like this question because it calls me out. Um, I mean, I would say, a couple times a week I'll see, at this point, like I'll see a friend or someone, and then I have my kickboxing class and then I have my old people gardening club, but I work from home and I don't have meetings or calls or anything with anybody, so like I can go a whole day actually without actually seeing or like interacting face to face with somebody.
Speaker 1:So, between kickboxing, between seeing, like your friends, how much time would you say that all together?
Speaker 2:In a week.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:I mean kickboxing two hours, gardening club is two-ish hours. That one's a little bit less face to face, because sometimes you're just like plucking weeds in the ground. But there are, there are people around you, like physical people around you, and then I don't know, another couple of hours so all together maybe about seven, eight hours yeah and that's about the same with me, like I'll.
Speaker 1:I'll kind of hang out with people, usually like on Thursday nights and maybe Friday, saturday nights, and altogether it's maybe six, seven hours.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:And you figure two hours, 23 minutes per per day on social media, that's 15 and a half hours per week.
Speaker 1:So twice of our time is spent on social media as it is in real life yeah, yeah, yeah so here, here's kind of the thing is that you think about, just as I said before, 10% of the people that we're following are most likely influencers. Influencers they're getting paid to go out and take these cool-ass shots and be able to go on vacation and go to different places in the world, or even just renovate their home.
Speaker 2:I think a lot of people kind of forget that a lot of this is like you know.
Speaker 1:Oh, then I partnered with the home depot and it's like, yep, that's how you paid that, like that's how this room you were able to refurnish like three rooms in a row, is that the paint and the wood got bankrolled, which is okay, but like it's not, not, everyone can keep doing this, house after house after house and we've talked about this before with like trad wives where they have like 20,000 kids and still they find time somehow to you know, bake and you know, do all these things around the house and things like that kind of chances are that they're getting paid for this a lot of money, and what we don't see is the nanny taking over while trad wife is writing out these scripts and things like that. So again, influencers, they're, they're being paid for this. You know, whether it is vacation time, whether it is a home run renovations, whether it is guarding, whether it's cooking, they are literally getting paid for this yeah, it is their job right and on average you kind of figure.
Speaker 1:It's kind of the same thing as saying, like how many movie stars do you know personally? Yeah and and how many people would want to be a movie star. So you I'm sure you know, and actually we both know, some people who have tried to go into the acting world and are stuck where they were and in their 30s still trying to break the industry.
Speaker 1:Yeah, seen a couple yeah, you know, in all reality, not everybody who wants to be a movie star is going to be a movie star, just like anybody who wants to be an influencer is not going to be an influencer. And even most of your influencers quote, quote, unquote are very low level, so they're not even making money off of it and they're putting a lot of money into it so hoping to have this lifted off the ground. But in the meantime, we're seeing all these influencers, we're seeing all the things that people are doing, and we end up looking at our lives and we're like what the fuck am I doing?
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:And even with our friends. We see these people online and we constantly see like influencers that are doing all these cool things, and then, on top of that, our friends. That's where the other half of like, oh, I've seen my friends doing this, I've seen my friends doing this, I've seen my friends doing this and here's kind of the big part about that is subtracting the 20 influencers on our average person. That still leaves 180 people that we're following, People that we've either known for a long time whether it's somebody that we met on a date once and never got to view their profile again.
Speaker 2:I think we all have a couple of those you just met at some point. They're hanging out on your Facebook or Instagram periodically. You're like who are you?
Speaker 1:again. Oh my God. Yeah, I can't tell you how many times that has happened. It's either somebody that I knew in the Navy that they were like in a completely different department, but since a lot of their friends matched up with my friends, they decided to add me and I'm like okay. I know we served in the Navy together, but I probably talked to you once 20 years ago Like hi.
Speaker 2:Yeah, this is why I keep a very tight lid on both my Instagram and Facebook, like I've gone through numerous purges of both. Just periodically go through and you're like I never liked you anyway, god. I want you on here.
Speaker 1:So even even that 180 people that we have left, you figure there there's 52 weeks in a, in a year. Chances are that's going to give us about three, three people per week. So that that's three people per week that that have their own special week and you kind of figure how often it is that you go on vacation. You know, go ahead.
Speaker 2:I thought you were asking me and I was like I don't go on vacation, I'm poor, I okay.
Speaker 1:Wait, wait, poor I. Okay, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, no, no, I don't want to hear this shit from you because you might not go on this like luxury vacation, but you, you just, uh, not too long ago, were in a wedding in india, or I believe, or no, okay, so the last. No, no, no you were at a uh, a friend's wedding, weren't you not too long?
Speaker 2:ago. That was a year and a half, okay. So the last vacation I went on was in August. I went to go see a friend for a long weekend. Before that, the last like vacation I took was a year previous. I went to Germany for a couple of days for a friend's wedding, and then, a month or so before that, the wedding you're thinking of is a friend who her husband is Sri Lankan, and so we were. It was the Sri Lankan wedding and I was part of the like bridesmaids, but that was here in France. I didn't travel anywhere, okay, mates, but that was here in France.
Speaker 1:I didn't travel anywhere, okay, so, so things like that, even that, okay, you, it was there in France and you didn't travel anywhere, but it was still like a huge event.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:So, whether it's vacation or whether it's a huge event or whether it's something that that you've done, you know, if you are kind of seeing this on a day-to-day basis and you're seeing that, oh well, this person went on vacation and I think it can very quickly snowball where it feels like everybody is and everybody just went on one which is like a normal amount, or one or two little things here or there, but because it's you've got 180 of these people, it's just like everybody's going on vacation.
Speaker 2:Yeah, you too, you were on vacation somewhere as well at some point.
Speaker 1:You know and and this, this were kind of like that, that whole thing that I was kind of saying about you were at a friend's wedding. That was a you know know a year and a half ago, yeah, and so if you, if you're seeing, if you're seeing, like you know, somebody uh going to a wedding, and you're seeing that this person over here is going on vacation and this person over here just bought a house and this person over here just got married, this person over here I got a, had a baby. Okay, you're, you're talking about five completely different people and we end up trying to kind of combine them into a person yeah and by a person I mean every other person.
Speaker 2:It's just the internet. All of my friends.
Speaker 1:Right, and that's the thing is that you're saying that, okay, everybody's getting married, but me, everybody's having kids, but me, everybody's doing that, everybody, everybody, everybody, everybody. But the thing is is that we don't see the other side of life.
Speaker 2:I was just about to say nobody. Well, that's not true. There are some people who put entirely too much information online, and so you do know when they're getting a divorce and you do know when they're fighting with their significant other, but most people don't put that on there, like you're only putting the happy things, so you never see the little daily struggles going on their life and not only that, but okay, so I know with me.
Speaker 1:As far as instagram, you know, and and this is yeah, you're right as far as me on instagram, last time I posted something was I, I don't know fucking months ago.
Speaker 2:I was about to say when was the last time we just send each other memes on there?
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah. But yeah, I mean me actually posting something. I might post a picture of Molly. I know like right now my Facebook picture is a picture of Molly.
Speaker 2:As it should be.
Speaker 1:As it should be, as it should be, and I might post on there either something written or a picture or whatever, maybe two or three times a year. And if you're seeing this and again, you have 180 people and they're posting three, four, five times a year, a year, and different people are going to go through different things at different times. So you might be seeing this person on vacation, this person having a luxury meal, this person who just got proposed to and that's going to be the last time that you see them posting for a year or five, six months and this person next week now this person's buying a house, and this person, you know, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera.
Speaker 2:I also think there's a tendency to like when things are going really well, people post a lot. Which kind of makes it seem even more present. Is that one person is getting married this year out of your friend group, one single one, but she will not shut up about it. And so every time that you log on, it's new pictures, new this, new that, all of these things.
Speaker 2:We're looking at wedding invitations here's the sign I'm trying on dresses which of these bridesmaids dresses should we get? We're doing floral, we're trying the cake, the lead up to the wedding, then the wedding itself, and for days afterward they're posting photos. Sometimes I've seen people who, for like months afterward, continue to post photos from their wedding and they're like it's been six months. I just want to, you know, thank so-and-so for doing the flowers. It's like please stop. It was one wedding, one person, but yeah, it just. It fills up your feed with like everyone's getting married because she won't shut up about it not speaking from personal experience or anything yeah, you just see it on your feed because melissa can't shut the fuck up about it.
Speaker 1:Not that I'm thinking about anybody in particular no, no, no, never Damn you, melissa.
Speaker 2:I'm so glad I don't have a friend named Melissa. That bitch, she sold me out.
Speaker 1:But, yeah you know, we're taking in all these people. We're saying that everybody is doing this except for us, and a lot of times when I'm working with a client, it's going to affect the way that we see things. It's going to affect the way that we see things, so it's going to affect the way that we see ourselves.
Speaker 1:And another thing is that we you know, like I said, we don't see the other half of things. So the person who is constantly going on vacation, you know the person who's going on four or five, six vacations a year they might be eating top ramen and living in a studio apartment because going on vacation to them is extremely important, which absolutely nothing wrong with that. Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2:That's your choice. Yeah, yeah, yeah, that's your choice.
Speaker 1:Yeah, the person who bought a new house. We don't know all the things that they went through in order to buy a new house. When I was living in Brooklyn, to buy a condo was 600,000.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:And if I see a friend of mine who lives down in Kentucky buying a brand new big ass house, they're probably paying like two 50. But if I have it in my head that you know like, oh my God, they must be making so much money, blah, blah, blah, and in all reality they're, they're paying. You know like, oh my god, they must be making so much money, blah, blah, blah, and in all reality they're paying. You know, a quarter of a condo in New York? Yeah, we don't, are you?
Speaker 2:surprised they're that cheap in New York. A whole condo. This was yeah, I mean well, so it's a one bedroom condo oh, okay, I was imagining like, because the condos I've seen it was like suburban type ones and so they're bigger, they're for like a family. Okay, that makes more sense. Yeah, carry on, yeah.
Speaker 1:Yeah, we're not talking luxury condos, we're talking like you're starting at $600,000.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, yeah, that sounds about right.
Speaker 1:But yeah, something in Kentucky or some shit like that, you can buy a three-story house for like $250, $300 or, yeah, $300. Brb over to Kentucky $250, $300,000, which is not even half, or just half of a studio apartment in New York.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:And again, you know, if somebody, if you've seen somebody who is constantly having luxury foods, we don't know their lifestyle, we don't know how much they're paying for other things, we don't know how much they're making. That's kind of. One of the other things is that we look at ourselves and we're like how are all these people affording all these things?
Speaker 2:Credit card debt. I mean not all of them, but yeah, credit card debt.
Speaker 1:I mean not all of them, but, yeah, credit card debt. And again, we don't know what they're giving up in order to have these things. So I'm not going to be eating Top Ramen every day for the rest of my life just because I want to go on vacation. Yeah, the one vacation I do go on, that is probably the only thing that I spend big money on. Outside of that, nothing. No, I'm not going to be spending a lot of money on on other things, yeah, but you know, again, we, we kind of combine all these people into one person and say like, oh, you know, everybody's getting married, everybody's getting. You know, the house, everybody's doing this, everybody's doing that. And then we're looking at our nine-to-five desk job and we're like, and I'm just sitting here doing jack shit, mm-hmm.
Speaker 1:So another big thing that is really affecting us and is body image, yes, and so even Mark Zuckeruckerberg changing facebook to meta that that was a huge part of that whole change is just because of the fact that zuckerberg finally admitted that, yes, we're, we're pushing out these, these influencers and everything like that. And you know, especially like teenagers are, you know, especially like teenagers? Are, you know, picking up on all this and they're kind of making those comparisons. So you know, one of the beautiful things, have you ever seen one of these? It's like a model and she does everything in reverse. So you know, I've seen this maybe two or three times and I give such props to these people who do this and you see them, they start off, they come off, they're, they're extremely beautiful, like attractive as all hell. You know.
Speaker 1:A 10 out of 10 off all the yeah oh, yeah, yeah, so so they, they're, they're, you know, taking off their, their, you know all the extensions. They're taking off all the extensions. They're taking out the makeup, they're taking off the filters, they're taking off all these different things and then, when you get to see them for who they truly are, yeah, they just look normal.
Speaker 1:Yeah, normal person. It's funny, I, I remember, um, when I lived in la, and not gonna say the person's name, but I remember that I uh this is gonna tell you how long ago this was uh, I saw an ad on craigslist when I was looking for a place to live, and so I found this one ad and it was, you know, looking for a roommate and must enjoy like music. I was like cool, you know, I love music, that's me. So I wrote to the person. I said like you know, hey, you know this and the other, and I'm looking for a place to move. You know, hey, you know this, that and the other, and I'm looking for a place to move. You know, june 1st or whatever. And so, you know, the person replied back and she's like yeah, you know, come on over, we'll kind of just meet up and we'll talk, hang out for a bit.
Speaker 1:My husband is a musician, really big name, not huge name, but like I mean people know. And then she's like you know, like, and you know, I've worked in adult uh videos, and so I was like cool, like you know, like can be, you know, possibly moving in with a rock star and a porno girl, and so I was just like curiosity. So I, you know, she told me both the names. I didn't hear them, either one, the rock star or the actress. And so I was like, okay, you know, let me look at these people out. And I saw the actress. And you know like, oh, let me look at these people out. And I saw the actress and like oh my God, damn, damn, she's hot. So I went over there the next day, knocked on the door and she answered the door and I was like I'm thinking in my head so you're the maid, where are these two?
Speaker 2:Because she just looked so normal.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I mean, she looked absolutely normal. And this person she was, I believe, very well known. So when I looked her up online, there was endless amount of pictures and forms and everything talking about her. Yeah, so she was pretty well known and, again, normal human being. And that's kind of the thing is that if we're seeing these influencers and we're seeing the body image and things like that and we're like, oh my God, look at all body image and things like that. And we're like, oh my God, like you know, like look at all these people and look at myself, here I am. You know my hair is too thin, or you know like my face is too pale, or you know like I'm overweight, or this, that or the other. And not only is that creating something harsh for the person viewing it about themselves, but also puts in a lot of expectations yeah, it does.
Speaker 2:Because you see that and you're like, well, this is what the gym girlies look like. They've got, you know, the cute little matching sets. They've got the perfectly done hair. They're doing their little exercises. Their butt already looks nice. Nothing is out of place. Everything is perfect. I can't achieve that. Why would I go to the gym?
Speaker 1:Right, yeah, and even the expectations of each other.
Speaker 2:Yeah, because then you see that. So it's like well know, my, my girlfriend should look like this, because all the other, all the girls I see on instagram look like this, and not just for dudes, obviously.
Speaker 1:like it goes both ways, and even like within genders, I think people can start to be like well, this is what you're supposed to look like, and so anybody who doesn't achieve that standard is sloppy, is lazy, doesn't care, etc yeah, exactly like every girl in the world should have, like you know, uh, double d boobs, and every guy in the world should be cut, you know, abs out the ass, and so it puts a lot of pressure on people as far as what they expect from themselves and what they expect from other people. And the thing is is that you know this is not a new problem. You know we've. I even remember in the 90s, growing up and hearing about this on. You know the models and things like that. Well, the thing is at that time really I have to go out to search for that there was some things like MTV had House of Fashion and things like that, but the majority of it was it wasn't so much in your face.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and I think with social media it's in your face all the time and it moves so quickly. You have these little trends that appear like mob wife, mobster wife, whichever one it was, that just appeared at some point this year or last year, I don't even remember, and it was this trend in how you were supposed to dress and then instantly just kind of dropped off again, but for a brief period. Do you even know what I'm talking about?
Speaker 1:Not a fucking clue. I was just about to ask.
Speaker 2:Exactly it was. You know, like the if I said like a mobster's wife, you know kind of the image you picture of, like the big fur coat, the gold, like that kind of thing. That was a very brief trend that just like shot into outer space and like came back down again and people like I want to do this. But there's this expectation people saw and they're like, well, I need, I need to do this, I need to get on trend. And so you go out there, you buy all this stuff off of fucking timu and it's already crap that you're getting and let's not forget that people are being abused to make this stuff for you and you wear it like three times and the trend is over and you eat it and you have to go buy more stuff for the next trend.
Speaker 2:If you think that, like if you're trying to do that because you think that it's important, because you see it on social media and social media makes you feel like you are missing out If you're not doing this trend. Everyone's on this trend, everyone's doing whatever nails, everyone's doing whatever makeup. Only you aren't. That is not true.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah. So you know social media is, is not real life. It's, unfortunately, and and this is kind of the thing that I was kind of saying about before is that on average, you know, you and I both we were kind of saying that maybe interacting with other people, we're spending seven hours a week as opposed to 15 hours, so that's double the time that we're spending on social media than we are in real life than we are in real life.
Speaker 1:So 51% of the people that we're seeing are, you know, these chiseled out people, or people on vacation, or people who are having great food, or people who are having, you know, buying the new house, or the people who are just getting married. And we look at our lives and we're like I'm so fucking boring, like you know, like.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I don't have any of these things. I'm, you know, falling behind Like something's wrong with me.
Speaker 1:So I've noticed this a lot with, I would say, 35 and younger. It is probably the majority of what my clients have kind of came up with, probably the majority of what my clients have kind of came up with, and I mean even myself I recently had to let go of social media as a whole because of the fact that it was kind of driving me insane just as well.
Speaker 1:And I mean, that's kind of the thing is that again we're spending so much time on social media that we're forgetting that that's not the reality of things.
Speaker 2:Well, I think that you know when you say 35 and younger. So I was born in 91, which was the year the Internet came out. So, yes, we talk about you know, gen Z growing up with the Internet and all of that. But it actually started a little bit before you know Gen Z growing up with the internet and all of that. But it actually started a little bit before you know Gen Z came along and the internet was here. It was in homes, but I also had that as a millennial Like I remember having a computer, like a household computer, and you had dial up and you were getting on. So, like you know, we were the group, that kind of like. Just as stuff was becoming relevant to us, like things were being created for us, like we were the first wave to hit it. Because what Facebook opened up to everyone in 2007, 2008, somewhere around in there, I know I was in high school.
Speaker 1:I was going to say, I think Facebook. Well, I mean, facebook was there.
Speaker 2:I was going to say I think Facebook Well, I mean Facebook was there, but it was only for, like, college students, and then at a certain point it opened up to like everyone.
Speaker 1:So it was 2008 when, when I joined Facebook.
Speaker 2:Okay.
Speaker 1:And I remember I was one of the last people to join Facebook because of the fact that I was like MySpace forever.
Speaker 2:So 2007 sticks in my head as like when people started to join, and I can't be bothered to look it up right now to see if that's true or not.
Speaker 1:So as far as false information, I mean, I would guess that 2007 is about the time where it opened up, yeah, but oh yeah, go on I was gonna say definitely 2008, because that was the year that I joined yeah, and I remember my space from like the beginning of high school.
Speaker 2:That like that was because I had a my space.
Speaker 2:Very briefly, and then I got facebook. But like you think about you know, high school is like when you really start to middle school is when you kind of become aware in high school is when you're like really aware of like all the people and things, and so we were the first kind of generation to be going through it at that time that 35 ish and younger that like we were getting hit by that. It's like facebook's here and instagram is here and snapchat and tick like, well, tick, tock. We missed that's. That's for the younger ones, but we've grown up with that and so I'm not surprised that these are the people who are having the most kind of trouble pulling themselves away and being like this is not not reality. What I'm seeing here is not reality. I think older people didn't have that, have a better chance of kind of putting that buffer and being like I had life before social media and so I can kind of see better maybe.
Speaker 1:So MySpace came out when I was 21. Okay, 21, 22. I think it came out 2001, 2002. I was in the Navy when I first joined, so 2002 is when I was in, so maybe 2001 is when it really kind of opened up.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:So also at that time that when I would go on to MySpace I actually had to go to the V or the uh USO and use the computer there. And so you know, even even people my age, where they were 21, 22, when it first came out you weren't connected all the time.
Speaker 2:Yeah, you weren't connected all the time.
Speaker 1:Yeah, you weren't connected all the time, so you actually had to physically have a desktop computer if people know what that is anymore so they would have to actually go to a desktop computer and open up myspace and actually search around on it. And that meant that you had to sit there and actually sit and look at this stuff. You couldn't just be on the train, you couldn't be on, you know, out in public or anything like that. And yeah, just kind of how you were saying that phones probably like so it was 2008 when yeah, it was 2008 when the iphone first came out, so that that was your first cell phone that you could go online with yeah, of course it takes a while to sort of trickle down, because I don't like.
Speaker 2:When we were in college there were still a lot of us who did not have smartphones at the time, and it was starting to become a bit of an oddity then what, what kind of fun did you have when, when I first met you?
Speaker 2:I. I don't remember if I had it at that very moment, but I know that year was the year I had that little bitty phone that was like maybe half the width of my palm and it like the screen flipped up. You know, of course it was one of those ones where you had to like to type out the. You know, it was like you click the numbers, you know one, two, three times, and one, two, one, two, three, like yeah, yeah, that's what I grew up with. Like very briefly, I hit that where I was like I have a phone I can text, and it was only a couple of years. Then we moved into two smartphones, thank God.
Speaker 1:And so I remember my first smartphone was a Blackberry and that was 2009. Yeah, so by that time I was already 29. So I had gone 29 years of my life before social media became a constant thing, so you know. And then even thinking of like social media itself, okay, so you had Facebook, and that was about an eight, until about 2008 when Twitter came out, and then 2011 when Instagram came out, and then 2018 is when TikTok came out, but it didn't get popular until 2020. So I mean, all these things are relatively new, only like 15 years. So I mean, as time kind of progresses, the more and more time that we're spending on social media and it kind of shows with you know, just as I was, kind of progresses the more and more time that we're spending on social media, and it kind of shows with you know, just as I was kind of saying, your alpha generation or generation alpha, is it gen alpha?
Speaker 2:I think it's gen alpha.
Speaker 1:Gen alpha. So, as we see, with gen alpha they're spending 4.8 hours.
Speaker 2:Yeah, because they've grown up fully connected, like they have been born into a world where everyone in the household has a smartphone, has a laptop and there may be just additional laptops and tablets floating around, like they may actually have their very own tablets, like it's the baby's tablet. Here you go, watch whatever it is Cocoa melon and be quiet. Like it's not even. Oh, you have to go to the TV. You have to wait for, like, your program to come on or we tape it. No, it is here 24, seven access, all for you.
Speaker 1:So, as I said, you and I were, we're probably seeing 51 of our our life through social media.
Speaker 2:uh, jenna that makes me want to quit social media generation alpha is probably god, 80, 90.
Speaker 1:If they're spending five hours a day, oh my gosh. So, with all that said, where do we go from here?
Speaker 2:I mean, I think what you said earlier about acknowledging that this is not real life it is, in a way, we've made it become real life, but I think that people need to do a better job of really taking a long look at because I see this discussion going on, people saying I just remember, everything you see on social media isn't real, and that is true. But I think we need to hammer that point home, that it's not real. And that's not even talking about stuff like filters. That's a whole other thing of people using even dumb stuff Like. I've seen videos and things being like what X vacation spot looks like on social media, what it looks like in real life, and of course, it looks way different than what the travel influencer is showing you, and not just like fewer people. But you know, of course they've got the, the retouched photos and videos that are like sparkly and blue water and pristine sand and it's like, oh, it may not actually look that awesome.
Speaker 2:I think we need to do, as a society, a better job of acknowledging that and driving that point home. That's like this is not real life. It's actually not what you're seeing. There is just a part of life and that's okay. But you can't assume that this is everything, and then I think we also probably need to do a better job of enforcing rules. So Australia passed a law recently that I don't know the specifics on, but banning I believe it's social media for anyone 16 and under. Had you seen that?
Speaker 1:No, I didn't see that.
Speaker 2:It just passed recently. From when we're recording this, it passed like maybe a week or so ago, and you know there's a lot of people like, oh, that's terrible. You know, this is how kids are getting information, this is how they're staying abreast on topics. It's not. Of course there are some kids who are doing it. Of course there are some kids who are using it for good, obviously, but the vast majority of them no. I would love to see more things like that being put in place. Not necessarily we must ban all social media. I don't think that's the correct response. To just ban it makes it this like interesting thing of like oh, I'm not supposed to have it now, I really want it, but doing stuff like really cracking down on kids using their phones in schools. You and I both grew up in a time where that was not okay. Well, you were already out of high school, but like I was in a high school when people started getting cell phones, but it was still oh, like, not everyone had one.
Speaker 1:My high school for me was you couldn't have a beeper, yeah.
Speaker 2:Look, I've been trying so hard not to say this whole episode, but you're old, I'm sorry it had to come out. I'm dating myself too, if it makes you feel better. But like I remember being in high school and somebody's cell phone might go off, it's like, oh, you're not supposed to have that. But they weren't smartphones first off. Nobody had that and not everyone had one, but we were just starting to see it where it's like all right, you're not supposed to have it out, you're not supposed to be like texting anybody during class and teachers would take it from you.
Speaker 2:And now I hear stories from people who I know, who are teachers, and they're like it's a problem because kids have their phones and they're texting each other, they're on social media, they're doing everything they're not supposed to and when you try and take it away from them they raise hell and you, the teacher, can get in serious trouble from the school Because Kitty goes home to Mommy and is like they took my phone away during class. Never mind that the kid has the phone back now, nothing was done to it, it was just taken away because you were on your phone during class and Mommy, dearest, goes to the school and threatens to have everyone fired and mommy dearest goes to the school and threatens to like have everyone fired. It's like you know. I think we have to, as a society, put our foot down on that type of behavior and be like yeah, we're not putting up with this anymore.
Speaker 2:Like that's done, you're. You're banned from having phones during school. Oh, you know what? If my mom needs to get in contact, then she can do it the way that she experienced it herself when she was a kid, which is that she calls the school and the school calls your classroom and says can you please send child xyz up to the main office. There you go, you can still get in contact with your kid. Why do you need to be in contact with your kid during school hours? They're supposed to be studying, they're supposed to be learning, not talking to you. You're supposed to be at work I, I definitely agree like I.
Speaker 2:I think that that's a huge problem right there yeah, just just like cutting that out, like that's just that many fewer hours that kids can be on their phones. I think we need to do a better job of educating people. This is what we always talk about, isn't it? The education aspect. But like, making sure people actually know the harms that social media can cause when you're consuming too much of it. Like, especially parents, even just kids themselves, giving them the tools to be like is this what you want your life to be? No, then you know here, here are the tools that you now need.
Speaker 2:So we gave you the tools to learn, like, what this can do and why it's bad. What are the tools that you now need? We gave you the tools to learn what this can do and why it's bad, what are the good parts, what are the bad parts. And then here are some tools to help you cut down on your usage. If you say, I see it, maybe I'm 16. I don't have the ability to really force myself to stop looking. What are some other ways that we can help those kids who say, like I want to. I'm just not sure how. And not just kids, but everyone.
Speaker 1:I agree, I think. I think the biggest thing is is being able to educate, and the funny thing is is not only kids, but adults too.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:Because, just as I was kind of saying that even myself being 45, like I had to, I didn't delete all my social media, I just delete the apps. So that way I can't go onto it. Yeah, but even being 45, it still is going to affect you, like you might realistically know, and that's something that we all go through. Our brain goes into this whole like well, realistically I know blah, blah, blah, but I still feel it when you're seeing it day in and day out.
Speaker 2:It gets a lot harder to remind yourself that it's not real. This is a filter. This is like a snapshot of a single day, a single hour in one person's life. It gets really hard to remind yourself. Sometimes it's like it's bigger than this.
Speaker 1:So, yeah, definitely kids. I definitely think that adults, Like I said, the models I've seen where they take off all the crap and show that they are a human being I think that things like that should be pushed more. I think that things like that should be pushed more and unfortunately Zuckerberg and all those cronies are not going to push those types of things.
Speaker 2:No, because they benefit from you spending as much time on there as possible. Because the more time you spend on social media, the more ads you see and the more ads. You see the more money they make, so they have no incentive. This is the same problem we ran into when I was talking about the momfluencers there is no incentive on the part of social media companies to actually put a stop to this bad behavior because it hurts their bottom line.
Speaker 1:Yeah, exactly. But yeah, I definitely think that I would love to see more of the models kind of doing things like that. I would love to see both men and women, Because, just as well with men, the six-pack that they have rub a little bit of oil, they're going to become more defined. Pack that they have Rub a little bit of oil, they're going to become more defined. So being able to say, okay, yeah, I work out fucking eight hours a day as a job and my abs are not nearly what you're seeing in my pictures.
Speaker 2:Yeah, even making note of this is a photo. I believe France has a law that you have to note if a photo has been retouched, like, use an ad, which of course it has it's an advertisement. So, you know, I'm not quite sure if it's a great idea in theory, but it's always just like this little bitty thing down at the bottom. It's like ah, it's been retouched, but maybe we, you know, do a better job of forcing that, enforcing that, rather on social media. It's like, if you are an influence, if you make money off of this, if you use a filter, if you're using AI, if you're retouching stuff, now it doesn't prevent people from doing as you said. You get a little pump going and you oil yourself up and you get the lighting just right. There's only so much you can force people to disclose, but at the very least, it forces people to do the work, as opposed to just, you know, popping six filters on and taking a photo, cause you know the filters work with videos too. At this point, and.
Speaker 2:I think a lot of people don't know that or aren't thinking about that that you can actually have a video of you actively moving around doing stuff with a filter on that makes you look perfect, you know, pulls in your waist or something like that and I think we need to start forcing people to disclose that publicly on the video. Like something has to be like really obvious. I'm not saying you can't use AI for these things, but if you were going to make money off of this video, you have to disclose it.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I definitely agree with that. I think that using AI has to be because, like there are, ai is getting better. You know it's you. You see ai pictures from like a year ago, even where you would see somebody with like three nostrils, or you know they would have one short arm, or you know, like something obvious yeah, and now you have to like, especially for people, especially if it's done with like a good program.
Speaker 1:You have to look yeah, yeah, you really, I mean nowadays, yeah, you really have to look, and the thing is, is that I mean we're talking, you know, a year between then and now? The super obvious to the you have to look, give it another year, it's gonna be next to impossible yeah and so I I definitely think that ai is definitely going to need to have its own little thing yeah but with all that being said, where would you put this on our scale of toxicity?
Speaker 1:would you say that this is a green potato, shave it off and you'll be fine, but or would you say that this is a death cap mushroom where 50, 50 shot getting killed, or antifreeze where it's a delightful last meal?
Speaker 2:I will say that social media is a death cap mushroom, because obviously we didn't talk about here, because we are the toxic cooking show. We don't talk about good things, we only talk about the shitty ones. Social media can be used for good, and social media is used for good in many different cases. I have seen so. I have, like family and friends in Western North Carolina, some of whom were heavily affected by Hurricane Helene, and I've seen a lot of people posting and continuing to post stuff about that, like getting resources out. I mean some of them. This was not somebody that I knew well, but she lost her house in the hurricane. Like when the flooding happened, she lost everything and people were helping you happened, she lost everything and people were helping, you know, get her stuff. There were others who were more fortunate but still like didn't have running water for a month and they were using social media to get resources out to others and to find resources to say, okay, how do we get the stuff that we need and how do we get stuff to people? You know we have what we need. How do we get the stuff that we need and how do we get stuff to people? We have what we need. How do we continue to help others?
Speaker 2:We see it used around the world for people sharing information. That's why it often gets cut. When there are social unrest. That's happening because people will share information about hey, there's a protest here, hey there's this that's happening, hey there's that.
Speaker 2:So it can be very good, but it can also be really, really, really bad, and I think on a daily basis we see a lot of that bad, like in your just own personal scrolling. Or it had been tinkered with with AI and they're presenting something that's just it's not true. Or they're simply presenting it's like here's my happy, wonderful life of me and my husband and my two kids and it's perfect. Yeah, you guys scream at each other every night before you go to bed. I just don't see that part because you're not posting it. I just see the cute family photos and a couple of years. All of a sudden, you're going to change your name to your first name and your middle name and you're going to change your profile photo and I'm going to have to do a deep dive and be like, oop, when did the divorce happen? So, yeah, I would say Death Cat Mushroom.
Speaker 1:I would agree with you 100% that, yes, there are good things that come out of social media, everything that you kind of just said, things that come out of social media, everything that you kind of just said. I think that also, social media can be used as a healthy thing, because one of the things that does happen to a lot of people is that they feel accepted. They see that other people are going through the same type of struggles that they're going through.
Speaker 2:Yep, you can find other people who are going through the same thing. You can connect with going through Yep. You can find other people who are going through the same thing. You can connect with people in your area if you've just moved, if you have a specific hobby social media is a great way to be like, hey, can I come too? And people are like yeah.
Speaker 1:But unfortunately, I think that the shit that we were talking about today is mostly what's getting pushed.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:But yeah, I think that social media, if it was used in a positive way, it could be very positive Mm-hmm.
Speaker 2:And so, with that being said, you should follow us on all of our social media.
Speaker 1:Thank you so much for listening. Definitely should follow us on our social media. Thank you so much for listening. Definitely should follow us on our social media. We don't have anything toxic. No filters here. Nope, we are on X, we are on TikTok. We are on Facebook. We are on Instagram. Did I forget anything?
Speaker 2:There are five of them Threads.
Speaker 1:And we are on thread, so please feel free to follow us and if you have any thing that you want to add, please feel free to write us at toxic, at awesome life skillscom, and please rate and leave a comment on our, on our page. Kind of getting the message out there. So thank you so much for listening. I've been Christopher Patchett, lcsw.
Speaker 2:And I've been Lindsay McLean.
Speaker 1:Bye.
Speaker 2:Bye, thank you.
