Written by Phil B.
November 17th, 2024
Sydney, Australia
The only two industries whose customers are known as ‘users’ are social media platforms and the illegal drug trade.
I’m deeply saddened by the way the world currently works. Over the past couple of years, things just haven’t felt ‘right’. Personally, I hate when things don’t feel ‘right’, so I decided to figure out why things weren’t feeling ‘right’. At that time, I found that I wasn’t the only one. There have been plenty of very smart people discussing what’s wrong with the world within this context, but nobody has provided a reasonable solution. I have tried to provide a reasonable solution. But first, the background…
The interesting thing about history is that things never change. Except for the last 20 years, where this statement now becomes laughable.
And when I say ‘things never change’, this is a generally accepted fact about history. Sure, innovation happens and societies evolve, but as a parent throughout human history, you could always count on your child’s future to look mostly the same as your own. And as they become parents, they can expect the same for their kids too. The minor details change, but the core aspects of human existence remain firmly intact. The lives of humans were mostly the same as their ancestors' lives from 10,000 years ago. This fact of life no longer holds true.
It seems that in the last few decades, technology has crossed a threshold where it actually has changed the way humans live. In fact, I’d go as far as saying it’s completely bamboozled our brains that still think we’re running around chasing gazelles on the plains of Africa. Silly brains…
In knowing this, I believe society's collective anxiety largely comes from our brains evolving over millions of years in a stable, unchanging environment, yet now exist in a world completely disconnected from the one its design was based on. In other words, the architecture of human society has evolved faster than the brain could keep up. This disconnect is the root of our psychological tension.
I will now tell you a very short story. Last year (2023), Optus had a national outage. My phone uses Optus, and so does my home internet. This meant that for a few hours, regarding communication technology, I was transported back to the early 20th century.
Could I use my phone? No, because my data didn’t work.
What if I turned off my data and used my home wifi? Sorry, that wasn’t working either.
Could I use my laptop to search for something? Nope, not even close.
Was I able to play music on Spotify, use Apple Maps, or do anything that required ‘loading’?
…
The funniest thing about this is that a few months prior, I had invented this concept of going ‘1950s mode’, which I’ll explain later in the manifesto. The reason this is funny is because I remember wishing that something like this would happen. Something that would force me to not be able to use the technology of the last 2 decades that allows us to contact anyone and be contacted by anyone, at any hour of the day, any day of the week, in any place around the world. And then, of course, this Optus outage happened.
And so I got my wish … on my birthday…
One of my favourite things about life is how certain ideas and patterns show up in vastly different areas, such as power laws, where a small number of causes lead to a large impact. In these distributions, a few high values account for most of the effect, while the majority have a minor influence. For example, wealth distribution, in that a small percentage of people hold a large portion of the world's wealth. Or, social media platforms (cough cough), where a few users have millions of followers, while the vast majority have a much smaller audience.
Another pattern is the bell curve (normal distribution), in which many phenomena cluster around a central value, with fewer instances as you move toward the extremes, forming a bell-shaped distribution. For example, human height, where most people are around average height with fewer people who are much taller or shorter. Or, exam scores, where student scores tend to cluster around the average, with fewer students scoring extremely high or low.
The reason I’m explaining this is so I can show you how life has patterns, and these patterns are true across extremely different facets of our lives, facets that we never would’ve thought would have commonalities.
And so, I would like to introduce a new, more relevant one: I call it the Cheap Substitute Law. I’m sure many people have already thought of this, and good for them. But this is my manifesto, so I’m claiming it as my own. So here we go.
The Cheap Substitute Law states that in various aspects of life, there are "cheap substitutes" for things that are inherently good for us. These substitutes provide a quick, accessible alternative but lack the depth or richness to truly nourish us in the long term. While they might satisfy immediate needs, they fail to offer the lasting fulfilment or benefit of what they replace.
The following two examples illustrate this:
Junk Food vs. Real Food: Junk food is a cheap substitute for nutritious, whole food. It’s easy to access, gives us the illusion of nourishment, and temporarily satisfies hunger. However, it lacks the true, lasting benefits of real, nutrient-dense food, which genuinely sustains and promotes health. Junk food is convenient, but its effects are superficial and fleeting, leaving us without the genuine sustenance our bodies need.
Casual Hookups vs. Deep Romantic Relationships: Casual hookups are a Cheap Substitute for genuine romantic connection. It may mimic the closeness and intimacy of a relationship, but it lacks the profound connection that comes from a long-term, committed partnership. The accessibility of casual relationships can deter people from investing the time and effort required to form meaningful bonds, even though those deeper connections are what ultimately provide lasting fulfilment and true emotional nourishment.
The latest example of the Cheap Substitute Law is social media. Based on the previous two examples, I hope you can see where this is going…
In all cases, the substitutes offer convenience and immediate gratification, but their superficial nature prevents us from experiencing the true depth and long-term benefits of the real thing. The ease of access to these substitutes can trap us in a cycle of short-term fixes, leaving our deeper needs unmet.
These cheap substitutes are modern inventions. It’s like we, as a society, have created ways to trick ourselves into thinking we’re doing what’s good for us. We’re trying to fill something deep within us with their shallow counterparts. I’m confident in saying that this is a broader issue that is only becoming more prevalent across more facets of life as time goes on. Unfortunately for us, we think we can have our cake and eat it too. And in case you didn’t know, we can’t have our cake and eat it too, hence why this saying exists in the first place.
So now that we’ve established some background context, in that the world is trending towards cheap substitutes for things that our brains haven’t evolved to engage in and are therefore suffering as a result, we will now explore the three key problems we are, in consequence, facing as a society:
As any rational being would guess, I will now explain all three problems in sequential order.
As mentioned, the human brain, our ancient, intricate piece of evolution, was forged in environments rich with direct human interaction and meaningful tasks. It stands no chance against today’s onslaught of media.
Excessive media consumption is destroying our mental health. One study, published in the Journal of Social and Clinical Psychology, found that limiting social media to just 30 minutes per day significantly reduced anxiety, depression, and loneliness (Hunt et al., 2018). Why? Because when your brain is bombarded by an endless stream of superficial stimuli, it throws your dopamine system into disarray. Dr. Andrew Huberman lays it out simply: constant media stimulation disrupts the dopamine signalling system, which is essential for motivation, pleasure, and reinforcing behaviour. Every flash of content provides frequent and rapid bursts of dopamine, which overstimulates the brain and reduces dopamine receptor sensitivity. This means that normal activities that used to feel rewarding now seem less enjoyable (more on this in the ‘Opportunity Cost’ section).
Because we have conditioned our brains to expect this high dopamine release every time we consume media, when given the choice to scroll, our brains will always want to do it. We can’t ‘willpower’ our way around it. We have to temporarily (or permanently) remove it from our list of options of things to do. Remember, the dopaminergic system in your brain doesn’t know whether you’re hunting for food, finding a mate, or scrolling TikTok. All it knows is that it wants a dopamine hit, and it wants it in the easiest and most low-effort way possible.
Scrolling through social media, we are bombarded by endless snippets of ‘content’, each demanding our attention for a fleeting moment before we switch to the next. This constant ‘context switching’, jumping from one post to another, from a funny meme to a tragic news story, then to a random ad, forces our brains into a perpetual state of distraction. Our brains were not designed to do this. Think about it, because of social media, this is the first time in human history that humans are exposed to rapidly switching contexts, and it's accessible in the palms of hands. As mentioned in the 'Unprecedented Times' section, this certainly cannot be good for us.
So what’s the result? A perpetual loop of scrolling, never truly satisfied, always craving the next hit of shallow content. But there is hope. By understanding how low-quality media consumption affects our brains, we can make deliberate choices to break free from the cycle. It’s not just about cutting back on media, it’s about choosing higher quality, meaningful content and giving our brains the time they need to focus, recalibrate, and find real satisfaction once again.
This addiction is not by accident. Social media exploits the same psychological mechanisms that hook gamblers. Ever heard of Infinite Scrolling? It’s not a fluke you can’t put your phone down. It taps into variable-ratio reinforcement, the same principle that keeps suckers glued to slot machines. Yes, that’s right. The way the ‘Infinite Scroll’ has been designed on your favourite social media platforms was based on slot machines. Just like how you never know when you’ll win money next in a slot machine, so you keep pulling, you never know when the next scroll will show you a post that interests you, so you keep scrolling. It’s addictive. It’s deliberate. And it’s destroying our well-being.
Prior to the Internet, mobile phones and social media, if you weren’t physically next to someone, the only hope you had at immediate communication with them was you were next to a telephone, they were next to a telephone, and you knew their number. Prior to this, the only hope you had in having immediate communication with someone was if you could literally see their face in front of you.
It’s been like that for all of human history, until it hasn’t. For the first time since life began, humans have been able to contact anyone and be contacted by anyone, at any hour of the day, any day of the week, in any place around the world.
Spoiler alert: the human brain doesn’t like this.
It comes back to the way our brains evolved. To summarise, they didn’t evolve to be able to contact anyone and be contacted by anyone, at any hour of the day, any day of the week, in any place around the world. Because of this technology, we never switch off. Ever.
We’re living in a world where 1% of people do things, make things and experience things, and the other 99% of people sit in their bedrooms, alone, watching the 1% do things, make things and experience things. Imagine getting to the end of your life and realising you never lived a life at all, you just watched other people live theirs. That is the road we are going down! Think of how many people you know who wake up, scroll, go to work and scroll at any opportunity they can, come home (probably scrolling on the bus or train), eat dinner and either scroll or watch YouTube, Netflix or a reality TV show right up until they go to bed, and then scroll for another hour before finally getting to sleep at 1am. And they do this Monday to Friday, then maybe go out somewhere on Friday or Saturday night, and during any downtime they have on the weekend, they’re either scrolling or watching media on their TV or their computer. Then they repeat this the next week, and the next week, and the next week…
I can’t comprehend how someone can realise this about themselves and not be struck with an existential crisis. But each to their own I guess.
With that being said, I’d argue that one of the biggest problems we face with media and devices in general is the opportunity cost that comes from spending so much time either consuming media, or being stuck in a battle of willpower, pondering whether we should pick up our phones and scroll, or do something actually useful. A massive part of the problem has nothing to do with the media we’re consuming but is actually about what we’re missing out on.
And I don’t just mean this in the sense that practically everyone, in a social setting, checks their phone and messages people, or scrolls at any point they experience boredom. No. That is sad, but that’s not where I think the real problem lies. The real problem lies in that the natural drive we have as humans is being consumed by media, meaning we have no drive to create and experience things in the real world. Big things. Not just a casual conversation. I’m talking about big projects that bring people together. I’m talking about working towards a common goal within your community. I’m talking about creating art and music and other things that you can package into the ‘art and music’ bucket.
As discussed earlier, our bodies naturally produce dopamine, the chemical that gives us the drive and motivation to do things. Now, let me explain a study done on mice. Researchers have shown that dopamine plays a crucial role in motivation by studying mice whose dopamine receptors were impaired. These mice lost interest in moving, engaging socially, or even eating, because the motivational signal was disrupted. In fact, even when food was placed directly in front of their mouths, they didn't bother to eat, and began to starve. Their dopamine receptors were so desensitised, that they didn't even have the motivation to live. Now, contrast this to how you feel after scrolling TikTok for an hour. It’s not that you've 'used up' all your dopamine like a fuel tank running empty, but rather that constant bursts of dopamine from social media overstimulate your brain, causing your dopamine receptors to become less sensitive. This downregulation means that activities that used to feel rewarding no longer seem as satisfying. The rapid dopamine spikes from scrolling are simply unnatural, making it harder to find motivation for real-life activities.
This is why after scrolling non-stop for a long period of time, you feel like you don’t even want to get up. Personally, I can remember doing this and feeling as though I was hungry, thirsty and needed to go to the bathroom, yet it was such a battle for me to even convince myself to get off my bed.
This isn’t just some magical motivation problem. It’s neuroscience. The body wasn’t designed to handle this level of stimulation. This is what is meant when people say that social media hijacks our dopamine system, it changes the way our brains respond to reward, making it harder to find motivation in everyday activities. So if you’re constantly scrolling throughout the day, every day, your dopamine receptors become so unbelievably desensitised, that it becomes incredibly difficult to feel motivated to do things that don't provide an immediate reward. You’re not even giving yourself the chance to do anything meaningful, because you’re neglecting the chemical inside your body that makes you want to do it in the first place!
And this is a cycle, where because you now have very low levels of dopamine sensitivity, you can’t be bothered to do anything meaningful in the real world. This results in you doing the next best thing, which is to scroll social media! And this of course makes the situation even worse! What once brought joy, spending time with loved ones, tackling a challenging project, now feels dull. We’re conditioned to need the instant hit, the quick surge, making any attempt at focus or commitment feel like an impossible task, when in reality, they’re not impossible at all, it’s just that everyone’s dopamine receptor sensitivity is lower than we’ve ever seen in human history.
The opportunity cost of constantly consuming media is absolutely massive, yet nobody can even see it because it’s hidden in real life, a place where nobody seems to exist. What we once enjoyed wholeheartedly now feels barely satisfying. We’re hooked on quick fixes, and the more we get, the less we feel.
We are social creatures, designed for community, face-to-face relationships, and meaningful activities. This isn’t just nostalgia for a simpler time; it’s literally our biology. Media overconsumption severs that vital connection. Instead of rich, fulfilling, in-person experiences, we’re settling for Cheap Substitutes. This isn’t how we were meant to live. Reclaiming our well-being requires us to turn back to the real world, to reforge those meaningful connections. I don’t think anyone would argue that working with the way your brain has evolved, rather than against it, would have a negative result. This is Evolutionarily Aligned Living. So how do we put it into practice? Read on…
Here we are. Media Mondays. Before I get into exactly what it is, let me explain how I initially tried to solve all the problems discussed so far. In my first attempt at finding a solution, I thought to myself, “Maybe I can just cut my media use down to 30 minutes a day.” Sounded reasonable. But guess what? It didn’t work. Even with 30 minutes, my brain knew the hit was coming. The promise of a fix tomorrow was enough to keep me hooked and it meant I never truly broke free. I wasn’t forced to replace that time with something better. Instead of reconnecting with people, getting outside, doing something of value, I just bided my time until I could indulge again the following morning. I stayed tethered, never really free. Real change, I realised, required something more drastic.
So being the logical being that I am, I tried something drastic: six days, no media. Six days is too long for the brain to simply “wait it out.” You can’t just count the hours till your next hit. You have to engage with the world. You have to do something else. And that’s when things start changing. Instead of scrolling, I was spending time with family, reading books, working on what matters, and rediscovering old hobbies. The best part is it didn’t feel forced. I wanted to do those things. It’s almost like I was designed to live in this way…
That’s how Media Mondays was born. One day a week, Monday, you intentionally consume media. The rest of the week, you’re free from it. And here’s what happens:
Mindful Engagement: When you limit media to just one day, you become highly selective. You choose content that nourishes you. You use media, instead of the other way round. With limited time, you naturally prioritise what truly matters.
Detoxification: Six days without media gives your mind a much-needed break. Your dopamine receptors naturally increase their sensitivity and the constant buzz fades. Stress diminishes. Clarity returns. (If this sounds all wishy-washy, please just give it a go and see for yourself).
Reclaiming Time: Without digital distractions constantly pulling you away, you suddenly have time, real time, to engage with your community, dive into projects, and build deeper relationships.
Think of it like dieting. When you want to be healthy, you don’t eat junk food every day, you limit it to a designated day, a “cheat day.” This way, you can indulge without losing control. The same principle applies here. Limit your media consumption, and strike a balance. Enjoy what it has to offer, but stay in control. Create healthy habits while still allowing for enjoyment.
There are various reasons why someone would think Media Mondays is a shockingly terrible idea. If that is you, consider this:
Enhanced Appreciation: Scarcity increases value. When media becomes rare, it becomes intentional. You consume it with purpose. It’s no longer about endless consumption; it’s about choosing what matters.
Community Shift: Imagine if everyone did this. The dynamic changes. People put their phones down. They’re present. They’re engaged. Real connections flourish (this is discussed in further detail later on).
Reality is Boring: I hear people say that the reason they’re always consuming media is because their real life is boring. They have it backwards. Your real life is boring because you spend all of your time consuming media.
Media Mondays aren’t rigid; they’re guiding principles. The core rules are simple: no social media, no news, no streaming services (movies or shows). Podcasts, music, and books are allowed. Adapt them if you need to. Start with two media days if you must, or limit your daily media intake. Your system will never be perfect, but start small and as you see the benefits, I can guarantee that you’ll want to keep going further.
There will always be exceptions, too. Major political or sporting events are okay. The point is that in these instances, you’re actively seeking out the media, rather than just letting technology and algorithms tell you what to watch. We don’t want to throw the baby out with the bathwater.
What about when you genuinely need to access the internet and media for a positive reason? Searching on YouTube for a video that will teach you something is fine because you’re actively seeking it, rather than just hopping onto YouTube and letting the algorithm spoonfeed you content that is designed to hijack your brain. It’s about being proactive with your search, rather than reactive with the algorithm.
The same goes for media required for work or school/university. It’s about your intention. If you know ahead of time what media you are trying to find, then by all means find it. The negative effects occur when the reason you open up YouTube or another media platform is because you want the algorithm to tell you what to watch. Don’t let the algorithm tell you what to watch.
“But if I cut out the news, I’ll be uninformed!” That’s what people say. Let me tell you, most of what parades as “news” today isn’t news at all. It’s sensationalised fear-mongering designed to hook you, rile you up, and keep you engaged long enough to sell your attention to advertisers. It’s a business model that profits off fear and outrage.
I still can’t fathom the idea that when a random person in a completely different state from where I live, has a car crash overnight and dies, I am expected to wake up the next morning, turn on the TV and have someone tell me this information with a solemn tone in their voice accompanied by capitalised bright red text that says something like “HORROR CRASH IN MELBOURNE. FAMILY IS DISTRAUGHT”, in which they then show footage of a mother bawling her eyes out at the site of her son’s mangled car while screaming uncontrollably.
...
Sure, someone dying is sad, but there is absolutely no reason that I need to know this information. There’s nothing I can do about it. It has no impact on my life. If I never found out that it happened, I certainly would not be labelled as ‘misinformed’, and I especially don’t need to hear about it first thing in the morning and presented in a way that looks and sounds like an announcement marking the beginning of World War 3.
It’s incredibly sad to think that the only reason mainstream media covers these ‘events’ on their news shows is because it hijacks our brains, which are designed to pay close attention to bad news (as a survival mechanism), and then sell our attention to advertisers. That’s the only reason it exists. Really when you think about it, it’s incredibly insensitive to the families of those involved in these random, one-off events like car crashes, houses burning down, etc. Imagine knowing that your son just died in a car crash and now camera crews are filming you in an incredibly distressed state, solely so that they can broadcast the footage of you around the country the following morning, all so they can charge advertisers more money because now they have more viewers, meaning they will make more profit…
Disgusting.
So, if something is truly important, believe me, you’ll hear about it. Big events find their way into conversation, at work, and in social settings. You don’t need to be constantly tuned in. We need to filter out the garbage and focus on what really matters.
Let’s talk about what going ‘1950s mode’ is: As I said, I invented this basic idea around mid-2023. It’s very simple. For a certain amount of time, you live as though it was the 1950s. This means no phone, laptop, or any similar device. Nothing. As the name suggests, you are living as if it is the 1950s. You can only do things and use things that people could’ve done and used in the 1950s. To say that this was a turning point in my life (and now that I think about it, was probably the genesis of Media Mondays more than a year later), would be an understatement.
Think of 1950s Mode as an extreme extension of Media Mondays. A way to take the principles of disconnection and mindfulness to the next level, for occasions where it's possible to do so. If Media Mondays are about regaining some control over your media consumption, 1950s Mode is about going all in, completely unplugging from modern technology for a night or even a day to fully reset and immerse yourself in the present moment. It’s not something you do every week, but when you do, the effects are profound.
So, at around 7pm, with all my university work done for the night, I would go 1950s mode. I would say goodnight to my family, sit in my room, and because I didn’t want to just stare at the wall for the next 3 hours, I had to do something.
Anything.
And the fact that I couldn’t do anything that I had been doing for the past decade or so was the most beautifully liberating thing that had ever happened to me. The sense of peace was incredible. Knowing that, until the next morning, I couldn’t contact anyone or be contacted by anyone, was unbelievably peaceful. Yes, peaceful. I keep saying peaceful because I want to emphasise how peaceful it was.
I highly encourage you to try and go 1950s mode tonight. Make the hard and fast rule that after 7pm, you must live as though it’s the 1950s. No matter what. You will most likely pick up a book or look through your wardrobe. Good for you. But it’s not the things that it forces you to do that will make it such a good feeling. It’s the things that it forces you not to do. Now, I want to make something very clear here. It’s not enough to just 'not be on your phone.' You need to decide, firmly, that during this time, your phone and other devices simply don’t exist. Not “maybe” or “if I feel like it.” You need to make this decision ahead of time for it to actually work. It’s different when you set that hard rule, as opposed to leaning on willpower each time your addicted fingers reach for that device without you even noticing. Trust me when I say it just feels different.
A common theme you’ll see in this manifesto is that our anxiety as a society is mostly tied to the fact that, because of our phones, the internet, and media in general, we can always be doing something more interesting. Regardless of what real-life situation you’re in, the fact that there’s a phone in your pocket and Netflix on TV, you could always be doing something more stimulating for your brain. This creates a constant, underlying feeling that what you’re currently doing, isn’t enough.
Turn off your phone. Please.
When Sunday night comes around, I’ll admit it. I look forward to waking up the following morning and having the fattest, most juiciest of scrolls. But, by the end of the night (it’s Monday at this point, just so we’re clear), I can’t wait to wake up the next day without this stupid burden on my shoulders. I can’t wait to have 6 straight days without that constant pull that media has on me. Going to bed on Monday night can only be described as one of relief. In saying that, I find this feeling of relief to be somewhat comical given my mindset 24 hours prior, which can only be described as the media version of a heroin addict.
We used to go online to escape from the real world. Now we go to the real world to escape from being online.
So we've established what 'Media Mondays' is and how going ’1950s Mode’ is a more extreme extension, but now let's take it one step further. Imagine this. It’s Sunday morning, and you wake up in a world where, until the following day, devices don’t exist. No phone. No computers. No technology at all. Nothing. So, what do you do? You could probably read a book, go for a walk, or look around your garage and notice some things that you haven’t even thought about in 7 years. Now I’ll be honest, even for me this sounds a bit dead. But, what if your whole family did it? Seriously consider what this would be like for a second. Stop reading this, and take a moment to complete this thought experiment. If you and your family woke up one morning in this scenario, what would you all actually do?
Now I have no way of knowing if you actually did that or not, but let’s assume you did, and now we’re moving on. Okay, consider this. It’s not just you and your family doing this, but it’s your entire street. Once again, stop reading this and actually take a moment to complete this thought experiment. If you, your family and every house on your street, for all of Sunday, couldn’t use any devices whatsoever, what do you think people would do? How long do you think it would take for people to step outside of their houses and look around? What would happen if people from different houses on your street, all stepped outside and noticed that they weren’t the only ones who had stepped outside to notice if anyone else had stepped outside? What would the conversation between these people look like? What would be happening in your house, or on your street, by 5pm? Now what would happen if you had multiple friends on your street, all doing the same thing? Seriously, take a moment to think about what you would do in this situation. You have an entire day, where you’re not able to contact anyone and be contacted by anyone (sound familiar?), other than those that the two eyes sticking out the front of your face can see, or that the two ears sticking out the side of your head can hear?
How would you feel knowing that until you wake up the following morning, the only reality you can take part in is the reality right in front of you? You will have absolutely no clue what anybody else is doing, and they will have absolutely no clue what you’re doing…
This is also an example of a Network Effect, where the more people engaging in the practice, the better the outcome for everyone involved.
Now let’s bring things back to the reasonable. In the real world, doing this would be very difficult to achieve, because essentially nobody will respect your decision to block off the outside world for an entire day. We’ve built a world where it’s socially unacceptable to ‘check out’ from instant communication for no apparent reason.
Unless for some crazy reason you’ve gone camping, simply saying to everyone “For the next 24 hours, I will not be contactable. Sorry.” will not result in people thinking very highly of you. They will most likely say “What’s wrong with him?” or “Why is she doing this? Have we done something wrong?” The fact that humans would most likely respond in this way is proof that we’ve broken what society considers to be a normal way for humans to live.
Isn’t this absurd? For hundreds of thousands of years, it has been totally reasonable for humans to not contact anyone or be contacted by anyone unless you can physically see them. And in the last couple of decades, this normal way of living, a way of living that our brains have spent multiple millions of years evolving to accept and take comfort in, has been thrown out the window. No wonder we have become the ‘anxious generation’...
So how do we find a balance? That’s a great question. In my opinion, the best way to go about this is through what’s known as a ‘barbell approach’. This is a concept where you only exist at the very edges of a spectrum and avoid the messy middle. For example, in investing, the barbell approach means you would only invest in super speculative assets that will either go to the moon or go bust, and, invest in super safe assets that won’t grow by much each year but you be assured that they will at least grow. In this case, you’re at both ends of the spectrum, and avoiding the messy middle. You get the benefit of putting most of your money into assets that are safe and reliable (but won't grow by much), while still having some exposure to assets that could potentially go crazy, but will most likely go to nothing.
This is what we’re doing with Media Mondays. You’re either all in on media and technology where you scroll to your heart's content, allowing you to find and consume the media that is actually beneficial to you (remember, we don’t want to throw the baby out with the bathwater), or, we’re going completely cold turkey, where we make the decision ahead of time to avoid media at all costs so we can force ourselves to enjoy the real world, without having a constant battle of willpower within our minds of “Well I know I shouldn’t scroll right now, but it will only be for 5 minutes, but I know it’s not good for me, but I also know that I could miss out on something interesting … but ... but ... but ...”
It’s about optimising for both outcomes, at separate times of the week, so we can enjoy the benefits of both without getting stuck in the messy middle.
To conclude, it's essential to understand that Media Mondays isn't about loss. It's about taking back control. The world of media and technology has been designed to pull you in, to keep you scrolling endlessly, without you even realising it. These platforms employ some of the smartest minds to figure out how to make their products addictive because, simply put, it's highly profitable. The more addicted you are, the more money they make. This isn't about you benefiting. It's about them benefiting at your expense.
When we stop an activity we deem damaging, such as smoking or drinking, we always use the phrase 'giving it up'. This is a terrible phrase. By 'giving something up', we're implying that we're losing something good. No one ever says "I'm giving up banging my head on the wall" or "I'm giving up stepping on nails". It's always "I'm giving up drinking" or "smoking", with the feeling behind it being "I know I should give it up, but it's just so good! I don't want to give it up, but I just have to!" It's implied that what comes with the change is a sense of loss, and that you are trading something good, for something painful.
Media Mondays offers a way to regain control over your life. By limiting media to just one day, you break the cycle of dependency. You're not giving something up; instead, you're gaining something back. Your time, your focus, your capacity to engage in meaningful activities. You’re making a conscious choice to use media intentionally, rather than letting it use you. This small change is a powerful act of reclaiming your autonomy. So, don't think of Media Mondays as a punishment. It’s a gift. You're gaining back the freedom to be in control of your life, rather than living as a puppet at the end of a set of strings being manipulated by devices and media that are designed solely to hijack your attention and sell that attention for money.
Media is a business, and business’ are designed to make money. So if their so-called 'product' is free, the real product must be you.
#mediamondays
Hunt, M. G., Marx, R., Lipson, C., & Young, J. (2018). No More FOMO: Limiting Social Media Decreases Loneliness and Depression. Journal of Social and Clinical Psychology, 37(10), 751-768.
Huberman, A. (2021). Understanding and Harnessing Dopamine. [Podcast Episode]. In Huberman Lab Podcast.