If I had to explain digital addiction to someone, I would say it's a lot like gambling at a casino. It's possible to win big, but more often than not, you'll just lose both your time and money. If you do win, it's usually just enough to keep you playing. In the end, the casino always wins, and you always lose. It's the same with digital addiction. It's possible to come across a meaningful piece of content that will change your life for the better. But most of the time, you're just scrolling through cat memes and other digital junk. If you do come across something promising, it's usually short-lived, and the next minute, you're back to scrolling again. In the end, the company's collecting your data and selling your attention to advertisers always win, and you always lose. So why do people still go to the casino? And why do so many of us keep scrolling? Fortunately, I've only ever lost $83 at my first and last time going to a casino. But I have struggled on and off with digital addiction for over a decade, losing thousands of hours to digital junk. So 30 days ago, I decided to go offline to try to overcome procrastination and put the nail on the coffin when it comes to this addiction. And on my 11th day offline, I went back online. But I wouldn't quite say I failed because I did learn a lot about digital addiction and how to overcome it during those 30 days. So if you yourself struggle with digital or phone addiction, hopefully this video will be one of those meaningful pieces of content that will help you to change your life for the better. The first step to overcoming digital addiction is to understand the problem. Over the past few months, I've researched digital addiction by reading these two books as well as watching the Netflix documentary, The Social Delema. All this research, as well as my own experience, has made me realize that the internet is not the problem. Social media isn't even the problem. The problem is digital junk. If you don't know what digital junk is, it's essentially any app, social media platform, game, or content that causes negative emotions and is extremely addictive. It makes us feel anxious, stressed, isolated, and waste significant amounts of our time, all while giving us no genuine pleasure or comfort. Social media companies fill these content feeds with junk because that's what makes them as addictive as possible. Digital junk triggers the deep emotional centers of our brain, often making us interested, but also angry, frustrated, and worried. And despite all the negative emotions that digital addiction causes us, we can't help but keep scrolling. And it's not our fault. These products are designed by thousands of people to keep us engaged as long and as often as possible. The more digital junk, the more engagement, the more data, the more ads, and the more money in their pockets. So what do we do? What is the solution to the problem of digital addiction? After struggling for so long, I now understand that to truly overcome digital addiction, we must remove the desire to consume digital junk. Simply restricting yourself from using the internet entirely, like I tried to do for 30 days, is not going to remove that desire. Yes, it gets rid of the digital junk, but it also eliminates practical and useful digital usage. I think the solution is mindfulness. Have you ever stopped and asked yourself how you feel when you're consuming content? When you're scrolling Instagram, checking the news in the morning, or watching that crazy video with your friends at you? How often do you take the time to stop and ask yourself how you really feel while consuming this content? This is not easy, especially when social media platforms are designed to keep us scrolling and consuming, not stopping and reflecting on how we feel. But being mindful requires us to do just that, to stop and ask ourselves questions, like how is what I'm consuming right now making me feel? Is this digital junk? Is this the best use of my time? And sometimes it's easier to be mindful after we've consumed content. Setting aside some time to reflect on and maybe even journal about how our digital usage makes us feel is a really powerful way to practice mindfulness. The best thing about mindfulness is that no matter what, it's always available to us. Over time, the practice of mindfulness started to act like a filter, and I naturally gravitated away from the digital junk and towards the beneficial digital use. I moved away from what didn't make me feel good towards what did. And it turns out I've actually been doing this for longer than I thought, without even realizing it. I quit playing video games many years ago thanks to mindfulness and reflection, which you can hear more about in this video here, and I also stopped using almost all traditional social media years ago as well. Because sometimes entire social media platforms or methods of consumption just might not work for you. For me personally, I realized that using social media in a traditional sense with endless news feeds and ads and recommendations exposed me to a ton of digital junk. Even if I tried to ignore it while scrolling past, there was no way to completely remove it, so I would be exposed no matter what. By being mindful and reflecting on how I was feeling while using social media, I realized that it was really affecting my state of mind throughout the day. I would be exposed to problems in the world that were so far out of my control and be pulled into the drama of other people's lives. The more I use social media, the more junk I was exposed to, and the more anxious and stressed and isolated I became. So I set out to avoid the junk entirely and have more control over the content that I was consuming. And the only way to do that was to leave these platforms all together. There are however a couple methods of consumption that do work well for me. The first is YouTube. YouTube actually helped me a lot in the early days of my self-improvement journey. It was through YouTube that I was exposed to people like David Goggins, Gary Vaynerchuk, and others who exposed me to interesting and beneficial ideas that helped me become who I am today. And unlike other social media platforms, I was actually able to get rid of almost all the digital junk on YouTube, using an ad blocker and an extension to hide the algorithms recommendations and the homepage. But lately, over the past couple of years, I feel like I just don't get the same benefit out of watching YouTube videos that I used to. As I talked about in my previous video on digital addiction, YouTube videos have just kind of become a form of procrastination and distraction for me. Now that I have a clear vision of who I want to become and what I want to achieve, I just don't feel the need to look for inspiring or motivational videos anymore. I am motivated. Now it's just about doing the work. So these days, I'm very specific with how I use YouTube. I now use it mainly as a creator uploading videos with the hope to inspire others to live better lives. Occasionally, I also use YouTube for entertainment, but after using an extension to block everything except for the subscription feed, I only watch videos from the few channels that I'm subscribed to. Sometimes, I'll unhide the search bar to find a useful video like how to change the air filter on my car, but for the most part, after I've watched what's in my subscription feed, I run out of content. And running out of content is perfect for me because unlike the endless scrolling of traditional social media, it provides me an opportunity to stop and move on to something else. So that is how I'll be using YouTube going forward, but probably my favorite method of consumption is podcasts. I don't listen to a ton of podcasts, but the ones I do listen to, I get a ton of value from. Like the rich role podcasts, the minimalist, the Tim Ferriss show, and the Tesla daily podcasts. And unlike YouTube videos, podcasts provide the ability to truly multitask. Since it's audio only, I can listen while I'm doing chores, cooking, walking, driving, etc. I also really like the podcast platform because it's so easy to be selective with the content that I choose to see. I subscribe only to my favorite podcast, and that's all I see when I open the app. There's no recommendations, no ads, and most importantly, no digital junk. And because I'm subscribed only to a few podcasts, it's easy for me to listen to all the new episodes that interest me and run out of content. So that's pretty much my plan for consuming content. But aside from consumption, going forward, I plan for the vast majority of my digital usage to be dedicated to creating awesome videos for this channel. As for my procrastination, going offline taught me that just because I removed my primary distraction of digital junk doesn't mean that I will no longer have any desire to procrastinate. Creation and self-discipline are still very hard, and there can be a lot of resistance associated with these activities. But removing the junk helps bring this resistance to the forefront, making it easier to recognize and overcome. As for my digital addiction, I think I'm at a really good place. Practicing mindfulness keeps me aware of the harmful effects that digital junk has on my life. And if I do end up getting sucked back into the junk, I know I can use mindfulness to pull myself out. So many of us today spend countless hours staring at these tiny screens in our pockets that just seem to make us more and more miserable. Our lives have become so intertwined with these digital devices and we just can't seem to stop scrolling. Like the gambling addict that can't stop pulling the lever on the slot machine, we are addicted. But there's hope. Mindfulness is within us all and available to use at any time. But it only works if we use it. Thanks so much for watching, and I'll see you next week. Peace.