661: Committing to the Bit

Summary

Clockwise Episode 661: Committing to the Bit

Podcast: Clockwise (Relay FM)
Hosts: Dan Moren & Mikah Sargent
Guests: Stephen Robles & Flo Ion
Date: June 17, 2026
Duration: ~30 minutes

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Episode Overview

This rapid-fire tech roundtable features four topics in thirty minutes, with each panelist weighing in on current trends or news. In this episode, the group examines:

• The viability and future of Snap’s new smart glasses
• Apple's advances with Shortcuts and automation in iOS
• The potential role (and pitfalls) of robot AI pets
• The rise of “dumb” or minimalist phones and whether logging off is truly the answer

Each topic gets a nuanced take, balancing skepticism, personal anecdotes, and practical wisdom—plus a healthy dose of good-natured humor.

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Topic 1: Are Smart Glasses the Future? Snap’s $2,200 Gamble

[01:31–07:15]

• Dan introduces Snap’s latest AI-powered smart glasses, noting the high price tag ($2,200) and four-hour battery life. He wonders if this is a winning formula, and whether Snap can succeed in the smart glasses space.

Key Points & Insights:

• Stephen:

  • The landscape has changed since the Apple Vision Pro and Meta’s offerings: “The whole smart glasses thing is a little quieter.”
  • Snap’s design is “insane—no one’s going to wear these.” Meta’s glasses are the most normal-looking and thus likeliest to catch on.
  • Cultural resistance: “People don’t like even the Meta glasses with a camera...these glasses look even more ridiculous.”
  • Predictions: true AR glasses are “many years away, 5ish years or more.”
  • Memorable Quote: “This is why the Meta glasses are the only one that had any chance.” [02:17]

• Mikah:

  • Sees most current products as public experiments: “I’m kind of tired of being a paying participant in an experiment.”
  • Expresses skepticism about investing in immature products.

• Flo:

  • Is surprised Snap is still in the hardware game: “Absolutely surprised that they are holding on this long.”
  • Snapchat's strength lies in its youth demographic and ephemeral content, but these users likely can’t afford $2,200 glasses.
  • Notes Meta’s lower price point makes smart glasses more accessible: “That’s where people are going to gravitate toward.”
  • Reminisces about Snap’s early wearables (Spectacles at CES).

• Dan:

  • Questions Snap’s ability to build out a robust platform: “Google and Apple have a huge leg up...they’re experts at building platforms.”
  • Considers Snap’s move high-stakes: “Honestly, this feels like an ‘I bet the company’ move.”
  • Sees AR devices as an inevitable trend: “This genre of devices is increasingly coming down the road for all of us, whether we want it or not.”

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Topic 2: Shortcuts 2026 — AI & Automations for the Rest of Us

[07:15–12:21]

• Stephen asks about Apple’s new Shortcuts features, including natural language capability. He promises tips at the end.

Key Points & Insights:

• Mikah:

  • Hasn’t dug into Shortcuts yet, still regaining trust after past automation disappointments: “I’m just learning to trust again.”
  • Has been surprised by the competence of new Siri.

• Flo:

  • Praises Shortcuts for making automation more accessible: “It makes the IFTTT process way more easy to understand.”
  • Looks forward to integrating Shortcuts into her revived Apple Smart Home setup.

• Dan:

  • Shortcuts’ natural language improvements lower the barrier to entry for basic automations: “This really lowers the barrier to entry.”
  • Sees residual benefits in the overall experience and documentation:
    • “The editor experience is better than it used to be.”
    • “Apple is committed to not only continuing to improve [Shortcuts] but also bringing cool new levels of functionality.”
  • Notes that complex workflows are still tricky, and expertise with prompts helps.

• Stephen (Tips & Cautions):

  • It's groundbreaking for new users: “It's going to make it more accessible.”
  • Don’t give too verbose prompts: “Just tell it the end result...don’t try to prescribe how to do it.”
  • Anecdotes:
    • AI handled a nuanced CarPlay automation (“connect to CarPlay, if Monday to Friday between 6 and 7 am...send a text”) perfectly in one shot.
    • For more complex automations, it may insert unnecessary steps or struggle with variable connections.
    • Successfully created a shortcut to use the Anthropic API, including all needed JSON and dictionary values.
  • Memorable Quote: “Try not to be super verbose and detailed...just tell it the end result, like what do you want it to do?” [10:55]

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Topic 3: Would You Let an AI Robot Pet Into Your Heart?

[14:20–20:53]

• Mikah introduces the trend of cute AI robot pets, referencing Casio's Mofflin and questioning whether such a thing could win a spot in your home or heart.

Key Points & Insights:

• Flo:

  • Enthusiastic: “I really do like this category of gadgetry.”
  • AI pets help with emotional uplift and are already used in elder care.
  • Cautions about security/AI mishaps, referencing news stories where AI chatbots in toys went awry.
  • “I would totally, absolutely have [an AI pet] in my venue...make me feel fuzzy feelings.” [16:49]

• Dan:

  • Not a pet person; finds the idea of another thing needing care (even digitally) overwhelming.
  • “Just give me a cute stuffed animal any day. They’re much lower maintenance.” [18:19]
  • Relates tech pets to pressure of apps/games that require maintenance (Animal Crossing, Tamagotchi).

• Stephen:

  • Recalls buying a live pet rabbit (and the resulting mess).
  • Would have considered a robot pet instead.
  • Shares horror story of childhood “Corky” doll (cassette-powered animatronic): “Nightmare fuel...if the battery was running low, it would start talking slower in this demonic voice.” [19:05]
  • Generally hesitant about robot companions as a result.

• Mikah:

  • Appreciates AI pets for specific scenarios (elder care, those seeking companionship without responsibility).
  • Wonders about safety, privacy, and emotional risk if the pet is neglected.
  • “There are times where the little thing does a little squeak in a video and I’m going, maybe that would be so cute to have. But yeah, I think I would just end up ... not taking care of it and then feeling bad about it.” [20:40]

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Topic 4: “Dumb” Phones & Logging Off — Fad or Fix?

[20:53–28:15]

• Flo recounts the trend towards minimalist or “dumb” phones. Commodore is releasing a simple flip phone that does the basics (calls, WhatsApp, camera) but no social media. She asks if the panel could see themselves logging off in this way.

Key Points & Insights:

• Dan:

  • Sees "dumb phones" as an alluring but impractical response—treating a psychological issue (“using the phone too much”) with technology isn’t usually effective.
  • “If you don’t want to log on to social media, remove the social media from your phone. That is a much easier solution than going out and spending $400 on a new gadget.” [23:10]
  • Highlights the convenience of all-in-one devices. Warns people may end up with a “$400 paperweight.”

• Stephen:

  • Tried the original Light Phone and other e-ink gadgets.
  • Practicality killed the experiment: “Anytime I get one of these devices, the moment you need to do something like order Chipotle...reach for your actual phone and you do that three to five times and...stop carrying both devices.” [24:50]
  • Suggests focus modes or removing apps as more effective.

• Mikah:

  • Jokes about “committing to the bit” but admits he would not go through with the inconvenience.
  • “If you’re going to get one of these phones, you have to commit to the bit, which means...find a phone book, I guess, and write a letter to Chipotle.” [26:23]
  • Ultimately, not interested in trying the minimalist phone experiment.

• Flo:

  • Plans to keep experimenting: “I'm also really good at committing to the bit. And you know what? What the heck, I've got nothing else going on. Let me try and not live with a smartphone.” [27:57]

---

Bonus Topic: Favorite Travel Snacks

[28:39–29:07]

• Stephen: Jalapeno kettle chips or anything “Reese’s.”
• Mikah: Any kind of trail mix, especially homemade with lots of cashews.
• Flo: Peanut M&Ms—“I always have them on me.”
• Dan: Dried pineapple and pretzels.

---

Notable Quotes

• “The whole smart glasses thing is a little quieter... these are insane—no one's going to wear these.” — Stephen, [02:01]
• “I’m kind of tired of being a paying participant in an experiment.” — Mikah, [02:58]
• “It makes the IFTTT process way more easy to understand.” — Flo, [08:13]
• “If you don’t want to log on to social media, remove the social media from your phone.” — Dan, [23:10]
• “If you’re going to get one of these phones, you have to commit to the bit.” — Mikah, [26:16]

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Tone & Style Highlights

• Light-hearted, playful banter (especially from Mikah and Flo).
• Candid skepticism toward fads and hardware “experiments.”
• Personal anecdotes keep the conversation relatable and relevant.
• Panelists balance open-mindedness to new tech with practical wisdom.

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For Listeners Who Haven’t Tuned In

This episode of Clockwise provides a lively, bite-sized assessment of emergent tech fads versus long-term trends, with panelists drawing on real-world usage and healthy skepticism. Whether debating the fashion risks of smart glasses, the reality of AI automation, the weirdness of robot pets, or the practicality of dumb phones, each voice brings both humor and substance. If you want to catch the pulse of tech culture—with a side of travel snack recommendations—Episode 661 is a smart, fun listen.

Transcript

[A]

It's time for episode 661 of the Clockwise podcast from Relay, recorded Wednesday, June 17, 2026. Clockwise, four people, four tech topics, 30 minutes. Welcome back to Clockwise the tech podcast, whose name you'll never have to take off a building. My name is Dan Moran and I am joined as always by my co host. It is the one, it is the only. It is my bestest co host, Mr. Micah Sargent. How are you doing today, Micah?

[B]

Wow. I'm doing even better now that I know that I'm your bestest co host.

[A]

Don't tell any of the other co hosts.

[B]

I actually am texting all of them right now to brag about it. But in the meantime, I'm also laughing at that intro.

[A]

Very good, very good.

[B]

I do try Topical Real.

[A]

Topical Real.

[B]

And now in the moment. Did not pre read that and it was hilarious.

[A]

Good, I'm glad to see I nailed that one. All right, we got a great show for you today. To my left it is co host of the primary technology podcast, youtuber and most importantly, co host of Mac Power Users. Here on Relay, it's Stephen Robles. Welcome back, Stephen.

[C]

Thanks so much for having me. Great to be here.

[B]

And to my left, senior writer of PC magazine, it's the wonderful Flo Ion. Welcome back. Floating.

[C]

Hello.

[D]

And I just met Steven last week at WWDC. That's right.

[A]

All right, Lem, we got four topics. Just 30 minutes. Let me kick things off. Snap is back. Did you miss them? With its latest attempt at smart glasses. This time it's a pair that costs almost $2,200 and has four hours of battery life and lets you do stuff with AI because it's 2026. I'm curious to know if you think this is a winning formula. Are smart glasses of the future and do you see a future specifically for Snap'? I forgot what they've called already. Specs, I think. Steven, thoughts?

[C]

I mean, I feel like the big picture has shifted. You know, when Apple Vision Pro came out in the years right before that meta glasses, it was like this is it, this is the future. And I still think there is a future that includes those things. But seeing everything Apple did this year where it feels like vibe coding is everywhere, from safari extensions to shortcuts, which we'll talk about in a second, it really feels like the whole smart glasses thing is a little quieter. And if you've seen a picture of these snap glasses, I mean, they are insane. Like no one's going to wear these. This is why the meta glasses are the Only one that had any chance because they look the most normal. But if you watch. Joanna Stern actually had a recent video on her new YouTube channel about how people can record you without the light showing. And you can just see the reaction from culture now. Like, people don't like even the Meta glasses with a camera. And these glasses look even more ridiculous. So I think we're many years away, 5ish years or more, where we actually have AR glasses that are useful, that people might adopt. I don't think we're close.

[B]

They're trying, which is good. Well, okay, they're trying, which is interesting. And someone's putting something out there, which is interesting. I think there's a lot of work to be done. And if this is going to be the future, these are all just experiments for now. And we're very much in a phase where consumer technology companies love to sort of iterate in public and use us as test experiments to figure out what works and what doesn't. And there's a part of me that's very much not in love with that idea. And so I'm less of a, of a, of a tech purchaser version of a tech enthusiast than I used to be because I'm kind of tired of being a paying participant in an experiment. I'm curious to hear your thoughts, Flo.

[D]

Well, I happen to be an annoying person who happens to like the idea of these smart glasses. But as far as Snapchat doing anything, I am absolutely surprised that they are holding on this long. I know that their, their social media network is still heavily populated by the youths. The youths and folks who really like the fact that, like, you post on there and it just disappears. Like that is something that apparently is a niche in today's world, which is how they've managed to stick around, but almost, what is it, like $2,500 for their pair of glasses? I was just saying the other day, I think the reason that smart glasses have sort of bucked the everyone's looking at you trend at this point is because they're, in Meta's case, they've become way more approachable and affordable. Like 400 bucks on sale, you can buy a pair of smart glasses. That's kind of, I feel like where people are going to gravitate toward. I'm not really understanding what Snap is going to try to do with these glasses. Just the same way that when they did this 10 years ago. Remember, Remember, Micah, the spectacles that we wore at ces?

[C]

Yes.

[B]

All those years ago.

[D]

Yeah. But AR glasses are A thing that's happening and now everybody's gonna try and make their own version.

[A]

Yeah, I'm kind of with Flow on the like, really Snap is the company doing this. Okay, I liked your point Flow that mostly, you know. Oh yeah, the network's really popular with the youths. And I thought to myself, ah, you know what? The youth often have $2,200 lying around. I think you've missed your market there a bit. I also am very curious about this idea of like Snap building a platform from the ground up for these things because again, you know, they started as a social media network essentially. Not necessarily. And I think Meta has a similar problem. Even though their glasses are more approachable is I don't think they have as robust a platform. You know, Google and Apple have a huge leg up there because both of them are experts at building platforms, have existing platforms with really high saturation rates. And so being able to leverage all of that into a new product strikes me as perhaps more tenable in the long run. It does. It is an interesting engineering point to see that these cost about $2,200. You compare that with the. The Vision Pro at 35 and you think to yourself, well, what could Apple produce that looks like this? And what price range would that end up in? Could that be competitive? I've seen some people around town in the Meta glasses. It really makes me a bit uncomfortable at times. I'm not sure that Snap is necessarily a. Well, I guess it's hard to find a company I trust less than, but maybe Snap is not so much higher on that list. And so I don't know that these will have a lot of uptick in them, I don't think. Honestly, this feels like I bet the company move. I'm not sure. Snapchat has a lot more in its. In its gas tank after this if these don't go well. So good luck to them, I guess. But I'm not convinced it's going to be a winner here. But I agree that I think this as a genre of devices is increasingly coming down the road for all of us, whether we want it or not. Thanks again for your thoughts on that. Let us go to our second topic, which comes from Steven.

[C]

I don't know if you guys know, but I like some shortcuts and shortcuts had a big year. Describe a shortcut. New actions in there. Curious if you guys have played around with them at all. What do you think? Is it working for you? And I have some tips and thoughts at the end.

[B]

So I think that this will be a really good thing. I have yet to try it myself because I'm having to ease myself back into handing over Trust in this category. And like, I have access to new Siri and I have been slowly going, oh, here's the thing that I would normally do myself. I'm actually going to see if Siri can do it and have been pleasantly surprised. But I haven't gotten to shortcuts yet, so when I do, we'll see if it disappoints me. And if it does well, then I don't know if I'll keep using it. To be honest, I'm in that space of, like, don't hurt me. I'm just learning to trust again. Flo, what are your thoughts?

[D]

Everybody has their plus and minuses, but definitely one of the pluses that I let people know is that shortcuts, it makes the IFTTT process way more easy to understand. And definitely when the new iOS 27 comes out. I'm so sorry about this. I had taken apart my little Apple Smart home corner because I had put aside the applebeat for a while, but now I'm gonna rebuild it and we're gonna come up with some shortcuts, some. Some neat little things because I'm excited to play with it. So, yeah, I like shortcuts.

[A]

You don't have to sound so defensive. We're all friends here.

[B]

Okay.

[A]

I have spent some time with shortcuts in this release. I think that what's cool about this functionality is that for really basic stuff, the kind of stuff that most people are going to want to do with shortcuts, this really lowers the barrier to entry. So if you're just like, man, I wish every time this thing happened, this, my phone would do this thing. Guess what? Shortcut's pretty good at that for the most part. I do think when you start to get more complex, it struggles a little bit if you aren't great at articulating yourself or figuring out a best way to craft a prompt. But I've seen even some pretty complex workflows done. Well, I think, you know, lots of people who like pushing the envelope on shortcuts and seeing what it can do or not, are probably going to quickly, you know, pass through the bounds of this. But for a lot of the super basic, like, and very easy sort of connect the dots thing, where it's like, okay, I could do this thing, I just don't know how. I think it's a huge boon. One of the biggest benefits I have found from it is. It really feels like it has had residual effects in terms of the way that it has made Apple improve the shortcuts experience. Whether it's adding, you know, actions that were, you know, necessary or expanding the documentation or explanation of what certain things do or how certain things work, even just the editor experience is better than it used to be. And so all of those things are great because now that Apple wants to put this front and center, it's got to spend the time to polish that all up and make sure everything looks good and works well. I, you know, I'm maybe not quite as shortcuts like deep as Steven, but like I've spent a lot of time with shortcuts and building a lot of shortcuts and, and wrestled with many of the problems that it has. And so I'm glad to see that Apple still is committed to not only continuing to improve it, but also bringing cool new levels of functionality to it, like this natural language, you know, sort of LLM stuff. Stephen, you want to wrap us up here?

[C]

Number one, it's really exciting. I think it is going to open up to a lot of new people who have never tried shortcuts before. It's going to make it more accessible. Two, if you do try it and you're more technically minded and you're used to prompting LLMs, Try not to be super verbose and detailed. I know Federico Vitici was having issues with it describing it, but he was also giving very long prompts, very detailed. Try to just tell it the end result, like what do you want it to do? Don't try to prescribe how to do it and you might have a better experience describing the shortcut. Number three, it has been really good at doing some simple automations. I just did a live stream in my community and I asked it create an automation that when I connect to CarPlay, if it's Monday through Friday between 6 and 7am, send a text message that I'm on my way to someone and it did it all one shot, formatted the dates, did the if statements. It can do all of that really well. One of the things I do find is with more complex automations it will add random actions like a get item from list that specifically will just add randomly. I'm not sure why. Still struggles to connect some variables. So I have not been Sherlock just yet. At the very most I'll be troubleshooting other people's shortcuts because they might not work out of the box. But I've also been impressed. Like I asked it to build a shortcut that uses the Anthropic API. Just send a simple request to the API and bring it back and it was able to one shot it even with all the dictionary values. Those are very complex like JSON requests and the get contents of URL action and it can do all of it and it got all the dictionary values correct. So I'm really excited and optimistic. But it would also take some troubleshooting for more complex ones and so I'm here to help if anyone needs it.

[A]

All right, two topics down, two topics left to go. Which of course means it's halftime here at Clockwise. And to tell you about this week's sponsor, going to turn it over to Maika.

[B]

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[A]

And now back to you, Micah.

[B]

Whoa. Boomerang. Yes, Casio has its mofflin. If you haven't heard of the mofflin, look it up. It's sort of like a modern furby that's got little AI smarts in it. But there are, you know, that's one. There are a bunch of other robot AI pets that I've actually seen kind of winning people over. So I wanted to know, could a squeaking robot critter ever earn a spot in your home? What about your heart? Flo, we'll start with you.

[D]

I think you know the answer to this, considering I have a mountain of virtual pet babies that I really do like. This category of gadgetry, it's been around before. This AI takeover over sort of happened where you would just, like, get something really cute and it would just. It would move all cutely and it would give you these feelings of cute dopamine to kind of help you. You know, if you go to the elderly care section of your pharmacy, you will see these little dudes that they offer. You could buy them your fsa, you know, they really do work. However, I'm also aware that last Christmas, I did not give you my heart is give you back the AI robot, the AI toy that you bought my kid, which nobody actually did. But there was a big thing about people were buying these AI toys off Amazon, and the AI would had, like a chatbot in it, and the kids would chat with it, and then, you know, it would say awful things. And so there's always an extreme to all of this, of course, but with a company like Casio, you know, I could imagine that something like this would be curated for the right people. I feel like this is just gonna become a bigger category now that AI and chatbots are a part of the equation. And honestly, I think it's fine because a real, like, real animals are difficult to take care of. They're expensive because they have real bodies that have to be taken care of versus, I mean, it's just like, yeah, you can't just slap them on a charger. But I like this. You know, this is something that I would totally, absolutely have in my venue. I would love something like this that would interact with me and just like, make me feel fuzzy feelings. So I'm for this.

[A]

It's gonna be a hard pass for me. Sorry, Flo, I'm on the other side here. I. I was Looking around at it, and I found the Verge's headline. It was, I hate my AI Pet with every fiber of my feet.

[C]

Oh, okay.

[A]

And I thought to myself, yeah, that's probably me. By basics, I'm not a pet person. I had a pet frog growing up. It just swam around in an aquarium, basically. I think all those, like, you know, Tamagotchis and. And Neopets and Aibos and whatever, that all bounced off me as a kid. I just had very little appeal for me. And so, well, I'm perfectly fine if, you know, like, obviously, everybody's different. There are for people for whom this may appeal. Personally, I find the idea of a thing that. Another thing that I need to take care of, even if it's just in very sort of basic ways, like, I don't have to feed it, but I have to, like, you know, like Tamagotchis and stuff. Right? Like, trying to keep up with those always felt, like, very overwhelming. And at a certain point, I just give up. It's similar ways I feel on, like, you know, like, Animal Crossing or games like that, where I have to, like, just do stuff just to keep up with doing up. And I eventually get into this cycle and wonder, why am I even doing this? So, to me, this feels like a animatronic version of the Duolingo owl, where it just constantly wants your attention. And I just. I already have enough of that in my life. I don't feel like the return I'm gonna get on my investment, you know, is. Is necessarily really going to pay off there. Honestly, just give me a cute stuffed animal any day. Those things are much. They're much lower maintenance. You don't have to do anything. Steven, what about you?

[C]

So here's the thing. We recently bought my daughter a pet, a live pet, which is a rabbit. And I did not realize how much hair would be floating around the house because of a rabbit and other things that come with a rabbit. If I honestly knew this thing existed, I might have tried this first and said, like, let's see, maybe this over a real rabbit. But I also just want to mention. Have you guys ever heard of a Corky doll? Because I had this when I was a kid. This is before all the AI toys. This was a doll that it ran on D batteries. And you would put a cassette tape in its back.

[A]

Yes.

[C]

And you would play the cassette tape and the mouth would move and it

[A]

would spill, like, whatever.

[C]

Rocket. Yes. And it was nightmare fuel. I remember this thing staring at me in the middle of the night, and then what was hilarious? If the battery was running low, it would start talking slower in this demonic voice.

[A]

Creepy.

[C]

So all that to say my quirky doll. It made me hesitant for more robot friends in the future. And honestly, this thing could make a serious comeback with an LLM powered voice that also spoke creepy. But anyway, yeah, I probably won't be getting the Mofflin.

[A]

Oof.

[B]

Scary, scary, scary stuff. I Not for me, the idea of having a companion that does not have a lot of the responsibility tied to it. I think that that is great for elder care for other people who might be looking for some level of companionship, but aren't. Also having this be an opportunity to learn about responsibility, which I think is sort of part of the reason that people end up getting pets for, you know, the people they're taking care of. So I understand. You know, it's. It's a very complicated area. And also depending on whether this LLM is connected to the Internet or is a local model and what could possibly be said? What is said, it's all very messy, for sure, but there are times where the little thing does a little squeak in a video and I'm going, maybe that would be so cute to have. But yeah, I think I would just end up.

[C]

That's a trap.

[B]

Yep. I would end up not taking care of it and then feeling bad about it and then going, but I shouldn't feel bad about it and then taking batteries out of it. Thank you all for your answers on that. Let's go to our next topic, which comes from Flo.

[D]

What I've been rabbit holing on parts of the Internet is this dump phone trend. Now, I've been following it for about the last year and a half, and I'm sort of slowly moving myself toward this trend by adopting more individual gadgets to put into my daily kit. You know, things like a standalone ebook reader or whatever. But I haven't quite delved to the phone, first of all, because I cover phones. But at the same time, the way that this news keeps taking off. This week, for instance, Commodore, they're working on a flip phone and it looks really cool, it's kind of see through ish and it has what you need on it. So it has WhatsApp, a camera, a music player, that sort of thing. But it doesn't have access to social media. And so I'm sort of wondering, I want to hear from you guys. You know, I haven't. This phone isn't out yet. I haven't played with it or anything, so I can't speak to how it works but want to hear from you guys. If the world starts to log off a little bit, would you be enticed to do the same?

[A]

This is such a weird, a weird category because I see these stories too all the time. I saw the Commodore phone yesterday when I was looking around on the, doing my daily news trawl and I had that brief moment of oh, that seems kind of cool. And then I thought about it more and I was like, but it's not, I don't think it's going anywhere. Like, I always am very suspicious of this trend because I certainly get the idea of wanting to spend less time on your phone and less time doing things, especially the things on your phone that you don't, you know, or feel like time sinks. But I am not convinced the answer to that is a technological device. Very rarely do technological devices solve the problem of I don't. My technological device takes up too much of my time. And so while I think there are single use devices that are better like E readers, you know, I have a couple different E readers and I really like them much better for reading. But even my tiny little xtx4, I don't carry most places. And the reason is because I don't want to carry four devices with me. I mean that was the great thing about the smartphone is like I don't have to carry my phone and my ipod and my ebook reader. Are you getting it? It's one device. But I, I think that at the end of the day, I think that there is a lot of this trend is people outsourcing what is actually best solved by a like psychological problem. And I don't mean to say like a clinical psychological problem, but like a mind over matter problem. If you don't want to log on to social media, remove the social media from your phone. That is a much easier solution than going out and spending $400 on a new gadget that you probably will stop using because honestly, even if it does have all the apps that you need, it will not, it will invariably not have something that you need or want to and then you won't carry it and then you'll have a $400 paperweight. So I think as with many of these things, it kind of starts with us as human technology of like, if there are things that are habits that you want to break, it's much harder absolutely to like find ways to break free from those habits. But the easy tempting answer is not probably to go and spend a bunch of money on another device. That isn't really going to solve this problem for you. So I think this is a trend in like that is really kind of a trap trend. And I encourage people like, if you really are struggling with those kinds of issues, maybe like take a step back and look at the habits that you've got and what tools you can use, maybe more simply at first to see how you can correct that rather than going out and getting something else. Because that just feels like basically consumerism at that point.

[C]

Steven I am always intrigued by these trends. I actually tried the light phone when that came out like the original light phone, I was, you know, there's some like the daylight tablet is out there now. I got the xtink E Reader or Xthink E Reader that's like magsafes to the back of your iPhone. The problem is anytime I get one of these devices, the moment you need to do something like order Chipotle to go pick it up or order an instacart or do anything smartphone related, you need to reach for your actual phone and then you have your actual phone and you do that three to five times and you immediately think, I'm gonna stop carrying both devices. And I can't just go out with my light phone or whatever because I can't do all the things I need to do when I'm out and about or imessage like all of those things. And so I'm with Dan, like a focus mode or removing the social media app from your phone, like way better than trying to figure out how to make a second device work. And also just, you know, there's a lot of muscle memory in like the doom scrolling. And that's why like when I change focus modes in the evenings and weekends, my home screen changes. So where social media apps like Instagram are on my home screen during the day, they're not there at night and on the weekend. And just that slight obstacle of my thumb naturally will open Instagram at this point. Instead it opens something else. And just that little bit of disruption can help change your habits at certain times. So I would say just try a focus mode with a different home screen first. The second device, it's just really difficult to make that work.

[B]

Yeah, I think there's a lot involved with this that comes down to committing to the bit. Right. Because you described the moment that you needed to order Chipotle, not having access to it, needing to then go. And I think that if you're going to get one of these phones, you have to commit to the bit which Means that you. That's not how you order Chipotle. You have to figure out a new way of doing so. Find a phone book, I guess, if you can, and write a letter. Yeah, write a letter to Chipotle headquarters, and in a few business weeks, you'll get burrito. Burrito. And look, when it comes to humor, I am so willing to commit to the bit, but when it comes to even the slightest inconvenience to me, I am not willing to commit to the bit again, unless it's about humor, in which case I am willing to commit to the bit, like I'm doing right now. And so I don't have any interest in buying a dumb phone because I know that it would be a dumb choice for me as a person who's not going to commit to the inconvenient bit. And instead, as Dan has suggested, perhaps if I really wanted to, I could look at some other ways of going about making those changes. But honestly, other than Instagram, I very rarely open up a thing and learn about the latest scandal. And so, so, so in that way, I think that it's. My phone has kind of taken care of of that problem for me just because of gesturing all around into the air. I just don't want to look at all of it anyway, so my phone is a little dumb in that way. Anyway, that's my thoughts, Flo. What are yours?

[D]

Mine are that I'm going to continue doing what I'm doing because like you, Micah, I'm also really good at committing to the bit. And you know what? You know, what the heck, I've got nothing else going on. Let me try and not live with a smartphone, you know. Thank you all for your opinions.

[A]

All right, that is four topics down. We got just enough time for a bonus topic. But before that, I'll just quickly mention if you want to buy some clockwise merchandise, you can go to clockwise social for hats, T shirts, tote bags, mugs, stickers, everything. It helps support the show. We really appreciate it. Clockwise social. All right, bonus topic for you. What is your favorite plane or car or travel snack? Steven?

[C]

I do like a jalapeno kettle chip. And if it's, you know, going for something sweet, anything. Reese. Reese's Reese. I don't know how everybody says that anyway, anything like that. I'm a Reese kind of guy, so those are my favorite ones.

[B]

Well, for me, I'm any kind of trail mix, honestly, better if I can make it myself. So it's got like triple the amount of cashews. It normally would. Flo, what about you, Peanut?

[D]

M&M's baby. All day and every day. I always have them on me.

[A]

That's a good choice. I like, really like dried pineapple. I think that's a good, good plain snack. Otherwise, pretzels. It's gotta be pretzels. All right, that is the end of the show. Before we go, I want to remind you that if you'd like to get ad free episodes with an extra unwound episode every single week, you can become a member of clockwise. Just go to Relay FM clockwise. Sign up for just $7 per month or $70 a year and you'll help support the show. And with that, all that remains is for us to thank our fantastic guests this week. Stephen Robles, thank you so much for joining us.

[C]

Thanks for having me.

[B]

And of course, Flo or. And Zion, thank you so much for being here.

[D]

Thank you guys for having me as well.

[A]

And Michael will be back next week, but until then, we remind everyone out there listening, watch what you say and

[B]

keep watching the clock.

[A]

Bye, everybody.