657: What Dating Apps + Social Media Are Doing To Our Brains with Shannon Algeo

Summary

Highest Self Podcast® 657: What Dating Apps + Social Media Are Doing To Our Brains with Shannon Algeo

Episode Overview

In this deeply relevant and timely conversation, host Sahara Rose welcomes therapist, author, and longtime friend Shannon Algeo to explore the seismic impact of smartphones, social media, and dating apps on our brains, relationships, and societal fabric. Drawing from his new book, "The Power in Your Hands," Shannon shares personal stories, research findings, and therapeutic insights on phone addiction, attention economy, dating culture, and the quest for authentic human connection in a hyper-digital world. Together, they navigate the complexities and paradoxes of technology, grieving lost potential, and the practices that can reclaim our humanity.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Smartphone Addiction: Ubiquity & Impact

• Shannon shares distressing statistics:
  • "The average person is spending 61 to 80 days per year on [their phone]. That's two to three months of vacation a year. That's two to three months of human power that every human being is losing." (00:05)
• Phones as contemporary ‘slot machines’:
  • Sahara likens phones to a normalized addiction, and how their constant presence is “blocking our connection to our intuition, to our deepest love, pleasure, purpose.” (00:47)
  • Shannon introduces his personal journey—grieving the "unlived life" lost to phone time and the sense of emptiness that motivated his research. (03:53)
• Tech as tool vs. replacement:
  • “Technology should support a pro human existence...not replace things we love to do.” (06:41)

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2. How Our Brains Are Being Changed

• Four main areas of impact (based on research for Shannon’s book):
  • Attention spans
  • Short/long-term memory
  • Empathy
  • Negativity bias
  • “[Social media] exploits negativity bias and…decreases empathy.” (09:47)
    • Reduction in in-person cues (facial expression, tone, body language) breeds misunderstanding and cynicism.
• Behavioral addiction signals:
  • Dr. David Green’s smartphone compulsion test:
    • "Do you think about your phone when it's not around? Do you feel anxiety when you don't know where your phone is?" (07:49)

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3. Attachment, Dopamine & the Slot Machine Analogy

• Our phones as attachment figures:
  • Holding our hopes, safety, social status, and validation. “It’s holding my bank account… the possibility of a date… whether my parents are okay… the world's news.” (16:01)
• Insecure attachment and addiction:
  • "People with insecure attachment styles are more likely to develop a compulsive or addictive relationship with their phone." (17:26)
• Slot machines & intermittent rewards:
  • Social media apps intentionally design variable reward systems, creating addictive cycles similar to abusive relationships:
    • "Sometimes you get them, sometimes you get more, sometimes you get a little. And that is the architecture of developing an addiction." (21:00)

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4. Social Media & Empathy Crisis

• Comment culture vs. real intimacy:
  • Sahara: “We want to know what the tribe is thinking, but… you’re not actually in circle seeing the tribe.” (12:45)
  • Shannon cites developmental studies: Babies become distressed when parents break face-to-face connection—mirroring is vital to human development and regulation. (14:21)
• Disembodiment & relational loss:
  • Deficits in biosynchrony (nervous system co-regulation) from lack of face-to-face, in-person time (43:03)

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5. AI, Attention Economy, & Privacy

• Rise of the "attachment economy":
  • Tech companies moving from mere attention capture to attachment by learning massive amounts about users for targeted monetization. (22:22)
  • Concerns about data privacy, DMs being sold, and mass surveillance.
    • Sahara: “Instagram has just announced they are selling our DMs... So anything you message your friend, you're probably going to get an ad about now." (27:05)
• Environmental impact:
  • AI data centers use more fresh water and energy than entire cities. (27:05)

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6. Digital Dating & Its Discontents

• Dating app psychology and societal effects:
  • "The promise and the peril of Grindr... creates the intermittent reward pattern in the brain." (46:26)
  • Sahara: “With the app, I can choose who I want. But sometimes you're kind of forced into a date with someone you wouldn't naturally come into coherence with.” (54:08)
• The fantasy vs. reality gap:
  • Many users (especially younger men, per Sahara) prefer keeping things digital—ePersonas & fantasy interactions trumping messy, risky, real connections. (66:33)
  • “He's in relationship with the phone. He's not in relationship with you." (63:39)

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7. Reclaiming Agency: Practices & Experiments

• Creating friction to resist compulsivity:
  • Shannon uses the Light Phone—a minimalist, non-smartphone device—to build intentional digital boundaries. "I want the inconvenience... we need to completely reframe what we call convenience and inconvenience." (32:01)
• Voice memos & digital communication:
  • Pros and cons of voice notes vs. synchronous, embodied connection.
    • "The digital world is often one to several... and has a really low bar of entry and exit." (38:06)
• Rituals, sanctuary spaces, and accountability:
  • Sacred Slow: Shannon’s group process for 40 hours of phone-free time, restoring real-world dopamine and nervous system reset. (75:12)
  • Digital accountability buddies and community agreements as keys to change. (89:23)
• Tips for listeners:
  • Turn phone to grayscale or reds, strict app limits with "One Sec," set phone-free hours, break the morning phone-check habit. (83:59)
  • Emphasize nature, in-person time, physical books, bodily presence, and self-compassion around tech use. (86:04)

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On phone dependency:

  • “It’s not just, I need to text my friend… even the texting back thing is like… if you go MIA for 24 hours, people think you died." (08:17)

• On relational loss:

  • “I started to write this poetry that tapped me into the grief for the unlived life… who would I be if I wasn’t on my phone?” —Shannon (03:53)

• On comment culture:

  • "We want to know what the tribe is thinking, but… it’s not actually being in circle with the tribe." —Sahara (12:45)

• Digital dating reality:

  • "Many of these guys don’t actually want to meet, they just want someone to text." —Sahara (62:17)
  • "[He] is in relationship with the phone. He's not in relationship with you." —Shannon (63:39)

• On rehumanizing:

  • “If we want to get laid, we have to get in our bodies and feel the intelligence of our bodies.” —Shannon (68:03)

• On brain change:

  • “It’s crazy what taking time away from your phone... you’re like, oh my God, I’m happy. All this anxiety… is what your brain does from these phones.” —Sahara (87:48)

• On digital control:

  • "No addiction benefits from us trying to shame ourselves out of it." —Shannon (89:23)

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Timestamps for Key Segments

• Introduction & Setting the Stage — 00:00 - 03:44
• Why Write a Book About Phones? — 03:50
• Phone Addiction & What it Costs — 05:27 - 07:19
• Social Media and Empathy Crisis — 09:47 - 12:45
• Slot Machines, Addictive Design & Attachment — 17:26 - 22:00
• AI, Surveillance, and Environmental Impact — 22:22 - 30:35
• Nostalgia, Memory, and Relearning Convenience — 30:35 - 38:06
• Voice Notes, Disembodiment & Community — 38:06 - 43:03
• Co-regulation, Attachment, and City Life — 43:03 - 45:28
• Dating Apps & Real World Experiences — 45:28 - 57:15
• Persona, Fantasy, and Gen Z Dating — 63:32 - 68:03
• Beauty Standards, Instagram & Pornification — 69:27 - 73:13
• Collective Action, Activism, & Digital Fasts — 75:12 - 78:24
• Concrete Tips & Rehumanization Rituals — 83:59 - 89:23
• Closing Reflections & Book Info — 90:50 - end

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Takeaway Practices & Resources

• Try 'Sacred Slow':
  Experiment with intentional digital fasting—start with a few hours, extend to a full day, or join Shannon’s 40-hour group reset.
• Create Friction:
  Use app blocks, grayscale, or physical boundaries to disrupt compulsive patterns.
• Reclaim Ritual:
  Commit to in-person connection, time in nature, and restoring old school habits (book reading, paper directions).
• Be Accountable:
  Share your tech patterns and struggles with a friend. “Get into relationship with people that denormalizes what has become normalized.” (89:23)
• Reflect on What You’re Reaching For:
  Ask: Is this phone serving me as a tool for what I desire, or becoming the replacement for what I truly crave?

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Resources:

• Shannon's Book: The Power in Your Hands — [Available everywhere]
• ShannonAlgeo.com/books
• Sacred Slow digital fast groups (see Shannon’s site)
• Highest Self Podcast archives for embodiment, community-building, and digital wellness

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Final Insight:

“This is not a personal problem. This is a societal addiction. But it affects all of us uniquely and personally. And so let’s get free by talking.” — Shannon (89:23)

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To Connect:

• SaharaRose.com
• Instagram: @iamsahararose
• Shannon Algeo: Instagram

Subscribe for more modern, grounded, spiritual life conversations.

Transcript

[Sahara Rose]

You ever see those couples at restaurants and they're just not talking and both on their phones and you're like, I pray to God I'm not.

[Shannon Algeo]

That one day it makes me so pained in my body. You're in a relationship with our phone and the average person is spending 61 to 80 days per year on it.

[Sahara Rose]

Damn, that's a lot of vacation time I could have taken off.

[Shannon Algeo]

It's two to three months of vacation a year. That's two to three months of human power that every human being is losing. We're missing our whole lives.

[Sahara Rose]

Are these phones fucking up our brains permanently?

[Shannon Algeo]

Oh,

[Sahara Rose]

Welcome back to the Highest self podcast here. We love to talk about spirituality, but make it modern, fun, grounded and relatable so it can actually serve. Serve your needs. And I think the biggest thing that is blocking our connection to our intuition, to our deepest love, pleasure, purpose, fun, freedom. All the good shit that we're looking for is this one damn thing that we're so addicted to. But we can't walk away from our phones. And I'm not gonna lie to you guys, I'm just gonna use a little therapy session. I wake up and I check my phone. I wish I was one of those people who had the one hour morning routine and the phones in Alaska and then I like, happened to look at it. But no. And it's something that, you know, I tell myself, I'm like. But I'm looking at positive things. I'm looking at quotes, I'm playing YouTube affirmations. But it still is this instant direct, like, I feel like I need to know who messaged me, I need to know who emailed me. I need to be plugged in, right? Because I. Something in my brain is tricking me that there is a belonging in a community that is living in my phone when. When I'm not paying attention to what is just right outside of my own home. And I've noticed this phone addiction. I would say it's, you know, I don't have an addictive personality, but I would say this is an addiction. And it's one that I think all of us are addicted to. And it's so normalized, right? Because we think something's normal if everyone else around us is doing it. But this is, this is unprecedented. We have never lived in a time like this. These phones are brand new and they're literally like these slot machines that we are playing all the time. And they're changing the chemistry of our brain and how we relate, how we date, how we friendship, how we everything. And so I wanted to bring on one of my longtime friends, Shannon Algeo, here that we podcasted way back when, eight, nine years ago when this podcast started. We've been in each other's lives since, and he's become therapist and really dedicated his time towards understanding how the phone is changing our brains and specifically looking at relationships. Because I. I feel the meaning of life is to have deeper relationships. And we're all in this very toxic relationship right now that we're not talking about. So in this episode, we're going to dive into how to break free from the phone addiction so we can have more genuine, real dopamine from the sun, from friendship, from sex, from all the beautiful things that this life has that these phones are blocking us from. And before we get started with this episode, I saw that over 50% of you guys are not yet subscribed to the podcast, which, don't worry about it. I'm not offended, but I'd love to keep hanging out. I'm having a good time with you, so just subscribe to it wherever you're listening to this on YouTube, Spotify, Apple Podcasts. It helps me reach more people, reach you with our upcoming episodes and get this message out into the world. So be sure to hit subscribe. And now let's get into the episode. So without further ado, let's welcome Shannon here on the Highest Self podcast.

[Shannon Algeo]

Hi, Samara. Hey. Thank you. I'm so excited to be here. Thank you for having me on the show.

[Sahara Rose]

Okay, so why did you write the book about phones? Why this? Why now?

[Shannon Algeo]

When I was in graduate school, we had to pick a topic of research to focus on, and I was kind of at an edge between two topics, and I was, and this was one of them, my relationship to my phone. And I selfishly wanted to look at my own relationship with my phone because I knew that it was addictive. I knew that it was problematic. I knew that it was taking up my creative bandwidth, my relational bandwidth, my human bandwidth. And so when I was studying poetry therapy in grad school, which is a methodology of therapy that's often used in substance use treatment centers, and I was like, ooh, I wonder if I could write some poetry about my relationship to my phone and explore that a little bit to get into the undercurrent of emotions that I'm feeling about how much time I'm spending online. And I started to write this poetry that tapped me into the grief of for the unlived life. Like, I started to imagine this phantom ghost Life of a Shannon that I could be if I wasn't on my phone. Like actually going up to people and talking to them in a park, like asking a guy out on a date or writing a novel or writing more poetry, like literally, who would I be? And I felt this ache of grief in my soul for the amount of time that this phone is taking from me. And that sense of lostness and emptiness and grief motivated me to get off my phone. And that's when I started experimenting with like 45 days. The flip phone. I brought my light phone here today. This is the Light Phone 3, which is amazing.

[Sahara Rose]

What's a light phone?

[Shannon Algeo]

A light phone is a non smartphone. I'm going to see if I can turn it on here. And it just has the basics. A calculator, you know, call and text.

[Sahara Rose]

So you can, you can text. Is it like the old school days where you have to like hold down the number and get to the right letter?

[Shannon Algeo]

Do you remember that? Oh my God. T9?

[Sahara Rose]

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Shannon Algeo]

The flip phone that I use used as T9.

[Sahara Rose]

Oh my God. So you were texting fully, doing that?

[Shannon Algeo]

Oh yeah. And I actually like loved it. The analog like clicking of the buttons on the flip phone is so.

[Sahara Rose]

I remember when we switched from that to iPhone, I was like, wait, how are people when there's no keyboard, how are you going to type? It was because I remember BlackBerry. Like I had a BlackBerry and I would be like fully in a conversation with someone, like texting something. But I could like feel the letters. And then once it was gone, I was like, you can't do that anymore. You have to like look at it the whole time.

[Shannon Algeo]

Right? The pressing of a button. Like I really felt this when I drove a Tesla for the first time and I was on this like iPad and I was like, wait, I just want the like warning like flashers button where I can put on my flashers and like click. Like I want buttons.

[Sahara Rose]

There's something I self driving cars. I'm like, I don't want a self driving car. Like it's like one of the very few, like mechanical things I do. Don't take that away from me.

[Shannon Algeo]

Yes. And this is bringing up a really important theme is that technology should support a pro human existence and technology should be a tool that enhances our lives as human beings. And when technology starts to replace things that we actually enjoy and love to do, it's like, I don't want AI for example, to write a book for me. I actually like writing. And so I think we're In a moment. Right now, for sure, where we are tasked with discerning what are the things that I want to do as a human being and how do I use technology to support those things, not replace them.

[Sahara Rose]

So let's talk about what is the phone doing to our brain?

[Shannon Algeo]

Yeah. So in my book, the Power in youn Hands, I looked at the at four major things that the phone is doing in this chapter called Societal Addiction by Design. Because this is a societal addiction, almost everyone who owns a smartphone would qualify for having a behavioral addiction. On the smartphone compulsion test developed by Dr. David Green. What are.

[Sahara Rose]

What are some questions on that test?

[Shannon Algeo]

I'm kind of paraphrasing right now, but do you think about your phone when it's not around? Do you feel anxiety when you don't know where your phone is? Do you check your phone first thing in the morning when you wake up? Do you feel stress in relationship to your phone throughout the day? Like, questions like this, there's 15 of them. They're yes or no questions. And most people would have to not own a smartphone in order to not have a behavioral addiction.

[Sahara Rose]

Because now, like, when I was traveling in Brazil, I was like, my phone died one day. I'm like, I can't even get into my apartment right now. I don't know the password for things. I don't have the thing to get in. I can't call an Uber. I can't call anyone. I was like, I might have to literally camp out in front of this building until I bump into someone to let me charge a phone. And I'm like, it's so crazy how much more and more reliance they're building into these phones that it is like, not just, I need to text my friend back, but even the texting back thing is like. Like with your mother or people that you're in contact with. If you go MIA for 24 hours, people think you died. Yeah, because we're all just so connected. All the connected all the time.

[Shannon Algeo]

I love that you said, until I find someone who can help me charge my phone, because that really speaks.

[Sahara Rose]

Give me some drugs.

[Shannon Algeo]

Yeah. Well, also. But that speaks to, like, at the end of the day, we rely on a person to help us. And that, like, a lot of this technology has replaced those sweet moments of spontaneity where you pull over and you ask the gas station attendant for directions or do you have a map?

[Sahara Rose]

No one does that.

[Shannon Algeo]

And then people start to interact with one another in the embodied, built world through community.

[Sahara Rose]

I'm having flashbacks of growing up and asking people for directions. And it would be like, oh, yeah, I think I know where it is. It's this, that. And you, like, had to remember. But I mean, I don't remember that being an extremely pleasant experience either. But it is a little human moment that I just realized I haven't had in 20 plus years.

[Shannon Algeo]

And it's the social fabric of who we are as a social species. And so when you start to erode since 2007 when the iPhone came out, you start to erode at the fabric of how we connect as a species that's going to impact our own brains. And to go back to your question, I looked at how smartphone use and compulsive smartphone use impacts attention spans short term and long term memory, empathy and negativity bias, specifically because social media exploits negativity bias and social media also decreases empathy. And you can wonder like, oh, well, why does social media decrease human empathy? Why would it do that? And one of the reasons is because our brains have been developing for nearly 2 million years to crave facial expression, body language and tone of voice. And when you're reading the comment section on someone's social media posts where people are getting angry or, you know, correcting people, there's no tone of voice, there's no facial expression, there's no body language. And then I start to internalize a sense of like, oh, people are, people are fucked up. What's wrong with people? This world is not safe. I can't believe people believe that. I can't believe people are like that. This world is so broken. This world is so wrong. And then I go to the grocery store and I have built a neural pathway in my brain, a musculature of seeing people through that lens. And that's very different than, you know, I remember when I was in New York city in my 20s, I saw a taxi cab hit a woman in her 80s. She was a biker and she was walking her bike across the street. And an SUV taxicab, yellow taxi hit this woman near Columbus Circle. And as soon as I looked over, I could see the front tire on her Torso. And within 10 seconds, 15 New Yorkers went. I was one of them. I threw down my backpack with my laptop and we picked the front of that taxi cab up. And that is how we are designed to help to come together as a human species to solve problems that are happening before our eyes. And that was 10, 15 years ago. Imagine now if I was walking down the street, scrolling on my phone and just didn't even see that. Just missed that moment altogether. This is how social media impacts and technology impacts how we're walking through the world literally, and how we're perceiving what our role is when you know that's an extreme example of something urgent happening. But there's so many other examples of how we could be showing up in our communities and participating in relationships in our lives.

[Sahara Rose]

I love what you said about when you're reading the comments, you're thinking the worst of people. And it's so true because you're seeing someone's most nuanced thought that if you understood the full perspective of their life would make sense. But you're reading it and I now I'm thinking, yes, you're right, because I'm not even seeing who this person is, what they look like, how they said it, all the things. I'm seeing it in my brain. And it's crazy how we all even use Instagram. We don't watch the full video, we just go straight to the comments. So there is something innate in us of like, I want to know what the tribe is thinking, but it's in the shadow way of you're not actually in circle seeing the tribe. And the other thing you said of that. We have been biologically wired to want facial expressions. The most viral post ever on social media. Do you know what it is? What it was this very, very close up video of this girl's face and she like scrunched her nose and it has billions of views. And I saw like a clip of an interview and they're like, why did it go so violent? I think she was one of the first to just get so close to her face. And it's like something about us humans of like, I want that. And it's sad though, because it's like to get that close to someone's face in real life is intimacy. It takes time and trust. But we aren't developing the social tools to have that. So now. And it was a very pretty girl too. And so I'm very intimate. But she wasn't being sexual or anything. It was just like a cute little face. She just did this like a cute little scrunch. And it was like a moment like that would be like a moment you're like playing with someone, right? But it's like so many lonely people. That becomes the hit. I'd be curious how many people watch that video on loop.

[Shannon Algeo]

Yes. Yeah, yeah. There's this famous research study that was done called the Strange Experiment where they looked at how an infant responded when a mother or parent was providing mirroring. Because as human beings, we want to be met in our. In our face. We want to be seen and mirrored and. And soothed through a fac. Expression. If you think about a parent or a mother looking over a baby and being like, like, it's okay, you're okay. You know, I see you. To be seen is to. Is to be human, is to be alive, is to be loved. And in this experiment, the strange experiment, they studied the baby's face when the mother would not provide that mirroring or even attention and would look away. People have started to replicate this study with young parents with their children looking at their baby and then looking on the phone, like bringing the phone in front of the baby and in between the parent's face and the baby's face. And you start to see the baby get really distressed. And I notice this in myself if I'm at dinner with someone and we're having a really deep conversation and then they grab their phone out of their bag and start looking at it. I notice immediately in my body that I panic and I want to grab my phone too. Yes, that's how.

[Sahara Rose]

But it also can feel this, like, permission of like, we can all check our phones right now because we're all constantly inundated with messages, but all it takes is one person. Then you're all on your phone and then it's like a ten minute pause.

[Shannon Algeo]

Yes. Yeah.

[Sahara Rose]

Did you really need to check your message right then? Yeah.

[Shannon Algeo]

Yeah. When I was studying in grad school, attachment theory and attachment styles, I kept thinking, I'm in an attachment relationship with my phone. This isn't just a dopamine addiction. This isn't just scrolling and doom scrolling and like having fun looking at stuff and cat videos and checking the news on my phone. I feel like I am attached to this phone because it's holding so much for me. It's holding my bank account. You were speaking to this in the introduction. It's holding the possibility of a date. It's holding the possibility that I might meet my partner. It's holding the information of whether my parents are okay or not during the pandemic and if they got Covid and is everyone healthy. It's holding the world's news and am I living in a safe world? What's happening out there today? And so the more and more that I am reaching for my phone to soothe, to self soothe, to feel a sense of wholeness. Am I okay to feel seen to check on the Instagram post. You know, do people like me Are people responding? Are they commenting? Are they liking? Are they mad?

[Sahara Rose]

Plus, your business too, which is often connected with that.

[Shannon Algeo]

Yeah, it's wrapped up.

[Sahara Rose]

So it's social, it's feeling approval, but also it's your business. And it's, it's like so many layers of deep significance.

[Shannon Algeo]

Deep, deep significance. And, and that is what shocked me when I started to do the research for my thesis, is that there are research studies that show. There's now a study of over 11,000 cases. It's a meta analysis that shows that people with insecure attachment styles are more likely to develop a compulsive or addictive relationship with their phone than the average person who's already having to interface with the addictive design of these applications. So if you have an insecure attachment style, anxious or avoidant, you're more likely to develop an addiction, addiction to your phone. As you reach for that phone, to feel a sense of wholeness and completeness and enoughness. And that's what addiction is, right? We reach outside of ourselves for something that can only come from the inside. And that could be sex, that could be drugs, that could be porn, that could be social media. But the phones provide this endless, infinite scroll of possibility for us to just continue to pull on that slot machine. And by the way, they have studied why slot machines are more addictive than other forms of gambling. And it's because, well, first of all, there's like an embodied part of the slot machine. It's like you're, you're, you're pulling the lever just like you're opening the app or you're swiping. And they have found that slot machines are three to four times more addictive than just like other forms of gambling.

[Sahara Rose]

Do you see yourself one day writing books, giving talks, hosting a podcast, having courses, but the moment a camera gets in front of you and it's time for you to speak, you feel like, oh, my goddess, I have no idea what I'm doing. Even though you enter flow state when you're in a conversation with your friend, well, if this is you, you have wisdom in your heart to share, but it's just feeling like you're still a little bit of an awkward speaker. Girl, I got you. I've created my method, Speak with Soul, that now 3,000 people have gone through into creating social media brands, book deals, speaking on stages, taking their wisdom out into the world in a big way. So this is my step by step 21 day guided program with everything I know to become an incredible incident, empowered and inspired speaker because an inspirational speaker is very different than a motivational speaker. This is not about giving a TED Talk that you're going to memorize and rehearse on stage, but rather about connecting to your channel, your voice within, and delivering it in a way that comes in a state of flow. Because we all know what it's like to listen to someone who's reading off a teleprompter. With all the AI bullshit in the world, we don't need more of that. We need your heart. We need your soul. And so let me help you speak with Soul. So this 21 day course is now available for 50% off. You can find that link in the show notes and I'm so excited to support you in getting your voice brand message out into the world so it can help inspire others. You can find that link in the show notes and let's start speaking with soul. You know, on Instagram, when they developed the app, you know, when you open the app, it just shows the logo for a second and then all the likes come. That delayed reaction is from slot machines of like, did I get it? Did I get it? Did I get it? There it is. And I even heard that they, like titrate your likes. So every time you come back, there's more like, maybe I liked your post 6 hours ago, but they're showing it to you now. So every time you come, you're getting a little bit of something.

[Shannon Algeo]

Yep. That's called intermittent rewards.

[Sahara Rose]

Yes.

[Shannon Algeo]

And those intermittent rewards mean sometimes you get it and sometimes you don't. And that is the behavior of an addictive, toxic relationship is sometimes the attachment figure.

[Sahara Rose]

It's giving anxious avoidant dance. It's giving anxious avoidant dance.

[Shannon Algeo]

Yeah, sometimes your partner is there for you and sometimes they're cold and removed and unavailable. And of course, like, some of that could just be like, you know, regular human relating. Our partners aren't always going to be able to be exactly who we need them to be. But one of the features of an abusive relationship is this weapon weaponization of sometimes I give it to you and sometimes I don't. And that creates an addiction to, oh, maybe this time if I try hard enough, I'll be loved. And that is how these companies have designed these apps to trickle in these likes. Sometimes you get them, sometimes you get more, sometimes you get a little. And that is the architecture of developing an addiction.

[Sahara Rose]

And I feel they even change social media constantly. So you have to keep relearning it. They're like, oh, now actually, you can't reshare your post to your stories. Oh, now the actual rule is it doesn't care how many people comment. It's about how many people save it or share it. And now it's this and now it's that. So it's like, again, it's like a narcissist that just, like, keeps changing the rules, you know, and then. So then I have to keep changing myself to fit this thing.

[Shannon Algeo]

Yes. Yeah, well. And now the way that psychologists are talking about what is happening, because there is so much happening so fast in the evolution of technology, is that we, with AI, we are moving from an attention economy, which is kind of like this dopamine addiction of getting addicted, to opening the app, to an attachment economy where these chatbots and these large language models are actually learning so much data about Sahara Rose that it's going to be harder and harder to leave those relationships. And these companies are going into so much debt to build these data centers that they're going to bring in the monetization model, which is now they know so much about you, and now they're going to sell a product to you in that inquiry. And now we've seen AI psychosis, we've seen AI assisted suicide, and those are the extreme cases. So Zach Stein, the psychologist who formed the AI Psychological Harms Research Coalition, is now studying not just those extreme cases, but how technology is impacting and how AI specifically is impacting, like, everyday people. Because it's easy to focus or it's easy to hear about, like, oh, this crazy thing happened, but what about just like the everyday use of all of the moments that I'm now going to Claude to ask a question when I would have gone to another human being again, how is this impacting the social fabric of how we have evolved for millions of years as humans? And if we are treating these technologies as an inevitability that we can't do anything about, then we are rolling over on our backs and saying, oh, well, I guess this is hopeless and best of luck, but we have the power to reclaim the power in our hands and have agency over. Like, wait a second, how do I want to be using these technologies? Do I want to be using these technologies? How is this impacting my own human body and nervous system? And what does it mean that these technologies are asking me to go faster and faster and faster to do more and more and more? And what about the long breath? What about, like the slowing down? What about the luxuriating and the long walk without the phone? What about laying on your back and reading a novel for three hours. What about, like, the nervous system that loves to bask in the present moment? All the tools that we know and have been teaching for years. There is an ancestral wisdom that we have in our bodies. And that technology of humanity has been developing long, long before this technology. And I think, like, we need to remember that in order to have agency and discernment around how we move forward in our lives.

[Sahara Rose]

You hit so many nails on the head. And like, three specific things I really want to respond are that as humans, we are wired in certain ways that certain things will bring us greater joy than getting exactly what we think we want.

[Shannon Algeo]

So I feel that again.

[Sahara Rose]

So, for example, with AI, ChatGPT or whatever, you can have whatever conversation that you want to have. I can ask about this and I can go through the guy I wanted to date with and what do you think about that? And it's like, all me, right? And so I'm feeling like this is better than reading any book. This is better than listening to a podcast. This is better than some random conversation that I don't know where it's going to go. Not realizing that that thing, listening to the podcast, and even though you're not really sure it was going to go where you wanted to go, you hear something that you needed, that you would have never gone to, because all the AI is doing is reflecting what you are already saying. There's no room for growth or in a conversation, I can't control the direction of the conversation. But you might bring a perspective in that lands for me three months later and changes the trajectory of my life. And so we think it's better for me to have exactly what I want right now. But. But even the neurobiology of me not knowing where it's going to go, me being in the mystery of I don't know how you're going to receive the thing. These things actually give us more true joy than everything being controlled. And it really is like the Matrix, you know, it's like you can live in this perfect, fake, artificial world, but none of it is real. And I feel like so many of us are doing that. The second thing I want to note that you said was about these databases and that they're bankrupt because. And another little thing I want to add is AI is the biggest waste of water right now. I don't know how deep you've gone in this. The city of New York used less energy and water than AI used last year. New York is like the biggest city

[Shannon Algeo]

in the entire world.

[Sahara Rose]

Fresh water not salt water, fresh water. Because these databases are getting so overheated. And imagine your laptop, how hot it gets after you've been on it for a couple hours. Imagine everyone making thousands of videos a day. I mean, tens of millions if you count everyone. These databases are the size of cities and they require so much air conditioning to not blow up because they get so hot. And all this air conditioning, all of this fresh water. If we continue AI use at this rate, we will not have enough fresh water to drink. It needs to be moderated because right now it's like open use. And we're going to look back on this time, be like, that was fucking crazy. Because people are able to. The people are asking ChatGPT. And here's the thing, like, I have some friends that are very into it. I've never seen it actually give something useful in their lives. It is a masturbation. It's not real. She's like, I put chat and I put my face in and it told me what kind of plastic surgery to get and what kind of this, what kind of that. And it's like, first of all, is this helpful? Second of all, you're not even gonna do any of these things, right? You think it's like giving you stupid. It's like fill in your eyebrows. Someone else could have told you that. Like, you know, it's actually not very genius. And the other thing I want to note is with these databases being so expensive, Instagram has just announced that they are selling our DMS. Your DMs are not private. They are selling the information to your DMs, to AD companies, of course. So anything you message your friend, you're probably going to get an ad about now and. And who knows where that will go? You know, all conversations we've had with ChatGPT exist somewhere on the Internet. One day someone's going to be able to go into your files.

[Shannon Algeo]

Yeah. And also this is a collective problem because this is an attentional drain on the human species. And to have these companies that have the power to exploit all of us to be. To have an agenda about where our attention goes. Our attention has turned into an economy. There's this amazing author named Amelia Hruby who started this podcast called off the Grid. And she talks about this attention ecology that we need to foster an attention ecology and notice where our attention, like what spaces our attention is being used to fuel someone else's economy. And where are spaces, where are sanctuary spaces where we can be outside of the exploitation model? And what does it Feel like to be in our bodies and to be in relationship outside of the exploitation model. And I think to go back to something you said at the beginning is that these technologies since 2007 have become so normalized that we and our brains are so incredibly plastic. We have such neuroplasticity that we can develop new normals so quickly. I mean, think about when you go to a new city. And yeah, at first maybe you feel tired and you're kind of like jet lagged and getting around and learning the language, learning where things are. But then one week later, you're in a new normal. And we haven't had a break from these phones since. I think I got mine in 2008, 2009. My iPhone.

[Sahara Rose]

What was your first ringtone?

[Shannon Algeo]

Wait, what is that?

[Sahara Rose]

No, no, like the one you bought. Like, did you buy a ringtone?

[Shannon Algeo]

The one that's coming to mind right now is from my note or. No, no, from my Motorola flip phone is hello Moto. Hello, Moto. I have no idea what my eyes.

[Sahara Rose]

I remember getting my first flip phone. I was in sixth grade, so I was like an early adopter. And I got what's your fantasy by Ludacris. And I would play that on the, on the bus and be like, can

[Shannon Algeo]

you sing a line for us?

[Sahara Rose]

I wanna lick you from your head to your toes

[Shannon Algeo]

down to the floor.

[Sahara Rose]

I mean, if. If that was still the vibe, I would say, let's just keep this going, you know?

[Shannon Algeo]

I wanna lick you from your head.

[Sahara Rose]

Was even better when we had the phones at home and we had to call. Hi, so and so's mom. Is Shannon home?

[Shannon Algeo]

Oh, my gosh. Hi, Sahara. Hold on one second.

[Sahara Rose]

So and so prank calling. Prank calling. Your crush or your friend's crush? It was like I was unstoppable. Friends crush. I would do anything. My crush, forget it.

[Shannon Algeo]

And like three way calling.

[Sahara Rose]

Oh, yeah, that was. Was. Oh, you were three calling. That some shady shit. So what did you think about so and so's outfit today?

[Shannon Algeo]

Oh, my God, she's here. I know, but at least in that situation, you have to like, deal. Deal with the. She's here.

[Sahara Rose]

Yeah, right.

[Shannon Algeo]

Like, it's not like Snapchat bullying where. Where. I mean. Oh my. It's like a whole different level than what we grew up with. But what I want to say about what you're bringing up that I think is so important for us to remember. So. So in the book, there's three sections. There's a book I wrote. It's called the power in your Hands everybody go buy it. And it's reckoning is section one, remembering is section two, and reclaiming is section three. And part of remembering is remembering the ancestral wisdom in our bodies that our bodies know how to be offline. Our bodies know an intuition that doesn't require us to ask ChatGPT or Claude what we should do. But we know in our gut what is the sacral yes or the sacral no. The guttural yes or the guttural no. And if we're not checking in with that wisdom, then we're losing an intelligence that is not artificial, that's very real and very human, very embodied and very somatic. Now, one of the ways that these technologies have won over the human mind is that they have given us friction. Frictionlessness. They have given us frictionlessness. So we open the app. How many times do I go on Instagram to do something, and as soon as the app opens, I have this amnesia. I completely forget what I was gonna do. And then there's like this muscle of my brain trying to remember, trying to remember what did I come here to do? What did I. And sometimes I totally lose it, and sometimes it comes back. But the reason that I'm forgetting is because as soon as I open that app, there's this frictionlessness into the neural grooves of addiction of like, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh. Who's seeing me? Who's commenting? Oh my gosh, who sent me a message? Who sent me a dm? Oh my God, is that guy cute? Should I DM him back? Who's he? It's so frictionless for me to give in to the base of my human, like my amygdala, my like primal brain gets activated. And so a lot for me, the reason I have a light phone, a non smartphone, the reason I've had these flip phones, is I want the inconvenience. I want, like, how do I call up my friend? How do I accidentally get my friend's mom on the phone? Like, what are the inconveniences? I think we need to completely reframe what we call convenience and what we call inconvenience. This is so good because to me, as a writer, as a creative, as a lover and a maker and a of things, as an imaginative, as a visionary, I think it's incredibly convenient to have access to my creative mind and to have access to my creative intuition and my instincts. I think it's incredibly inconvenient that these technologies have co opted my dharma and my focus and my purpose that is actually Inconvenient. But is the trade off worth it that I can order Uber Eats or I can like, see that some person who I don't even know messaged me on Hinge. I don't know if you know the podcast the Emerald by Josh Schrei. I wrote an entire chapter in the book called Guardians and Protectors, which is a podcast episode that he released on the Emerald in dedication to this episode. I summarized it in my book and I wanted to, because he talks about how in, like, when we think about keeping our ourselves safe, we have locks on our doors, we have security systems, we have cameras, and we keep our homes so protected, so guarded, so safe, so that our physical bodies are safe. But then we get into bed and we lay next to our partner, if we even have a partner, and we start scrolling on these devices that have no locks, they're frictionless and they're exploiting our own minds. And so he talks about how, like, in indigenous cultures we have guardianship and protection. We have like, like rituals of processing energy, of moving energy, of keeping, like, you know, spirits out from the sanctuary space. And yet we have no guardianship and protection keeping us off of our phones as billions of us stare into a luminous presence of light that's pulling the focus of humanity. And so how do we create friction and guardianship and protection over our own psyches and souls so that we can have agency in our own lives?

[Sahara Rose]

My bestie, Rosie, who you know very

[Shannon Algeo]

well as well, Shout out to Rosie.

[Sahara Rose]

Shout out to Rosie. Her and I are like, pretty much in a relationship. We're always, every day, multiple times a day, sending each other long voice notes about not just what we're up to, but we contemplate, we ask each other big questions. We have a question of the day. It's. We talk about our dreams. She is super busy. She's doing the same master's program that you did, and she. I travel a lot and so it's hard for us to find in person time. We try to whenever we can, but sometimes months will go by that we don't see each other. But I will still always talk to her, every single day. And it hit me because I was at an airport and I'm just looking for a place where I can voice note her. And I'm like, what if there was like a friend or someone I was meant to meet here? But I'm thinking I need to talk to my friend Rosie, right? I'm kind of blocking myself off from, from connection and there's the shadow of that but then the light of that is it's so rare to find a friend like that, that, like, yeah, I might have some nice passing conversation with someone that could be great. But I get to really talk to the people and keep them in the lives. My lives. Like, like saw like, you know, a lot of people that we know that were all just super living different iterations. Right now there's a beauty to voice notes because at least I'm hearing your tone of voice, but it's like we're also not having the conversation of, I'm not seeing your micro. Your micro expressions back. I'm not getting like the full course meal. But then what's the alternative to just not have it?

[Shannon Algeo]

Totally. Oh, I have thought about this so much because I go through voice note eras with my friends and I have friends who I'm really in touch with via voice memo. And we have such like, like deep relationships and deep conversations transpiring. And I think what's helpful here is to look at the four distinctions between the real world and the digital world and just to understand what is the same and what is different. So the real world is embodied. We are here right now in a real room, in our bodies interacting. It is synchronous. So we're having this conversation right now in the same time. We're in the same space and time. The real world is one to one or one to few. Right now, this is Sahara and Shannon. So we're having this like one to one interaction. And it has a higher bar of entry and exit. The real world has a higher like. Like, you matter to me. We're in each other's lives. We've been in each other's lives for years. Like when Sa says, sahara is in Ojai, let's hang out. Like, we're at dinner together. So the digital world, conversely, is disembodied. So when we're on our phones, there is a level of disembodiment, especially on social media. It is asynchronous, like voice memos. You're getting the tone of voice, but it's not happening in the same time. The digital world is often one to several or one to many. It's kind of like that megaphone narcissistic, like influencer consciousness, which I know we both could talk a lot about. And it has a really low bar of entry and exit. You could block someone, you could unfollow them, you could cancel them. Bye, bitch. And so when thinking about, is this technology serving me, I think. And so in voice memos, for example, I think personally, most of the time, you know, it's like a walkie talkie. It's like a telegram. It's like a, it's a tone of voice transmitter. I love podcasting because it holds the power of human story and it transmits the power of human voice. I think that's a good use of technology. However, I have thought with one specific friend who I've spent months and months, like almost a year can go by of us voice memoing. And Cal Newport talks about this in Digital Minimalism, his book. He's a professor at Georgetown University. And, and he talks about how when we have a lot of low value points of contact with people that we love, they start to think like, oh,

[Sahara Rose]

I know how Sahara's doing, especially with Instagram stories.

[Shannon Algeo]

Yeah. And so, you know, like, then they don't pick up the phone to call. They think they know how you're doing because of your Instagram stories, that they don't say, wait, girl, how are you really? Give me the tea. I want the real download. And so Cal Newport has no social media. He barely texts people. And he has this window of time every single day when he's driving home from work where people can know that they can call him. And because there aren't those low value points of contact in his life, people are actually like reaching out and engaging with him. So I, so I think about comment my office hours. Exactly.

[Sahara Rose]

But then when my friend is not free at that time and I've decided it's my office hour totally, then we're just not going to talk.

[Shannon Algeo]

But they know like, okay, today's Wednesday, but tomorrow Thursday she's going to be available at that same time.

[Sahara Rose]

Yeah. Then I think it's like what voice noting allows us to do is like, you can respond when it's good for you, I can respond when it's good for me. But then we are missing that in, in real time connection. And I think what it comes back to, the real root of it is we need to be living in community because it is so hard to. Okay, let's plan a time to FaceTime. You know, and it's sad that it's that hard, but when you're in community or just in proximity, like in Ohio, you guys are in similar neighborhoods, you can just be like, hey, do you want to go grab dinner? And most of us, especially in big cities, don't have anyone that we can do that with. You know, like, that's why I moved to my grandma's building, because I knew that. But I never really would see her when I was in LA because she lived on the other side of town. I would have to plan it. And I'm like, I want to be able to see my grandmother. Like, I don't know how many more years she has left. And so I see her every single day, whether I drop off my dog with her, every single day while I'm, like, working and stuff. And so she has, like, that time. And then my mom has been staying with me for like a month and before. So it's sort of this, like, matriarchy we're in right now of, like, mom, daughter, grandmother, all in the same building, which is really nice because I noticed that I'm so much less lonely and seeking. Like, oh, I wish I was in a relationship, because I'm just around humans. And that's what we're looking for.

[Shannon Algeo]

Yes. And that is how our nervous systems are speaking to one another. Our nervous systems co regulate when our bodies are together in the same room. There's this Dr. Dan Siegel talks about biosynchrony. Biosynchrony is our. Our biology. Our nervous systems are synchronizing and harmonizing in resonance. And we're finding points, like, in this conversation right now, we're finding points of linkage where Sahara and Shannon come together, and we're finding points of difference where we're unique in our own views and experiences. But the commonality is exactly what you're saying is that human beings need human bodies. And that's the fabric of attachment is when I feel dysregulated, when I feel scared or uncertain or confused, lonely, fearful, do I have the internal resources to self soothe and self regulate? That's the task of developing a secure attachment style. But the other task of developing a secure attachment style, which a lot of people don't talk or know about as much, is that it actually is secure to reach to the other for soothing as well. So if I'm going through something and I'm like, oh, my gosh, I feel like I need to remember that I'm going to be okay and that I'm going to get through this, I might reach out to Sahara and you're like, maybe you are able to offer me some. Like, you got this, Shannon. Like, you can do this. You're going to be okay. But maybe you're not available. Maybe you're recording a podcast. And then I have the internal resources to self soothe when the attachment figure is not present, but when we are living in isolation, and that is a shadow of city life. And I love me some city life. Like I've lived in New York and la. But when we are living in isolation and we don't have that opportunity to co regulate and to come together with bodies who know us and who soothe us and who love us, then well, do I go out to the park and walk around without my phone and take myself to a phoneless dinner at a restaurant? Or do I stay inside scrolling, hoping that that self soothing comes through the phone, that someone texts me back, that someone DMs me back, that the. The dating match happens and maybe this is the guy.

[Sahara Rose]

Yeah. Tell us about dating apps. What are they doing to our perspectives?

[Shannon Algeo]

Yeah, so I wrote this chapter in the book called Dating in the Digital Age because I wanted to. To focus. This is in the reckoning section. I wanted to reckon with how I've used dating apps and how I've misused dating apps and how I've abused dating apps. And specifically in the gay community, there's Grindr. And let me tell you the. The high of using Grindr in a new city in Europe.

[Sahara Rose]

Oh yeah.

[Shannon Algeo]

Is like, I mean I think any app in Europe. Any app in Europe. I mean to see that this.

[Sahara Rose]

No, especially when you first get to a city, it shows you the hottest ones.

[Shannon Algeo]

It does. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Sahara Rose]

Because it knows they're the most popular ones. So you're like. Even when I first got to la, I was like, I've never seen people like this in la. But those people never even respond.

[Shannon Algeo]

Yeah.

[Sahara Rose]

Like the trophies of the app.

[Shannon Algeo]

The trophies of the app. The promise. Right? The promise and the peril of Grindr.

[Sahara Rose]

I thought bad had bunny on Raya. Like imagine.

[Shannon Algeo]

Imagine I want Sahara Rose's social media or dating app that's I'm gonna spend

[Sahara Rose]

it swipe on me back. But I think they, it's like a. Like, you know, the John Mayer. They have all these celebrities on there. I think they probably pay them to be on this app. You know, like there's a possibility.

[Shannon Algeo]

There's a possibility. The possibility, right? That that's the promise of the app. And, and to see that this hot Dutch guy is like 30ft away from me, it's like. And that's one of the things Grindr gives you.

[Sahara Rose]

How many feet away from you now?

[Shannon Algeo]

Oh yeah. Grindr is about finding something fast, close and fast, baby. But I have.

[Sahara Rose]

But is it for relationships or just casual?

[Shannon Algeo]

I mean I am not a random hookup person. Just gonna tell the world while the world's listening here. Cause you needed to Know that no shade to people who love to do that. Like, I really. I don't judge it. It's just not my orientation. But what I love about Grindr is it is kind of convenient to know who's around you, because then you're not going to spend an hour and a half commuting across Los Angeles to just meet someone. But that promise of the potential of that connection creates the intermittent reward pattern in the brain of, so. So I don't have Grindr anymore. I completely deleted not just the app, but when I was in Amsterdam and I was finishing this chapter, dating in the digital age, I completely deleted, permanently deleted my Grindr account. Which, by the way, to completely delete your account takes a lot of friction. They make that hard. And I just decided that the amount of time I become a crack addict when I am on Grindr for, like, a week, and it builds up, it's just like, I watch, like, I start under appreciating everything in my life, and I just get so hooked to the possibility of, like, ooh, ooh, ooh, maybe I'm gonna meet someone.

[Sahara Rose]

Because it's like the most important thing in our lives is human connection, finding your true love. And it's like, if I just scroll enough, maybe I'll have the life and the love and the family and the house. And it's a lot.

[Shannon Algeo]

It is so much that we're putting. Let me tell you a story. I went to Amsterdam for the first time during Pride Week in. It was July 2024. It was a few years.

[Sahara Rose]

I was there for pride of this past.

[Shannon Algeo]

Oh, my God. The, like, canal parade on the boats. And I rode my bike to this bar, this, like, famous gay bar. And I was like, I am going to go into this bar without my phone. I'm going to go in and have a drink. I wasn't even actually drinking at the time. I was going to have, like, a soda water and lime at this famous gay bar in Amsterdam by myself. And when I got there on my bike, I started passing it. And then I turned around and I passed it again, and I turned around and I passed it again. And I was so nervous. I was so nervous to walk into a bar not knowing anyone in a foreign country without my phone to be my pacifier and without a drink to lubricate my anxiety. And so I watched myself. I actually felt so much compassion for myself. I was like, oh, Shannon, this is so cute. You just keep passing back and forth. And then, like, the fifth time I was passing, I was like, okay, There are these guys walking right behind me, and two of them just looked over at me. And if they go into the bar car, I'm going in. Like, I just, like, made a random rule for myself and I saw that they were walking in and I was like, okay, I parked my bike, I tied it up with the chain, hoping I would get tied up in a chain later. And you're an Instagram baby. And I went in and I felt all of the anxiety and vulnerability of, like, just showing up in my body with no phone to be my pacifier. I so many times I wanted to, why don't I just use Grindr to meet someone and then I'll go to this bar? Why don't I, like, hide behind the screen instead of having to put my humanity on the line? And this says everything that we need to know about our attachment styles and how we're masking vulnerability and preventing being rejected by using the phone as a surrogate, as a buffer so that I don't have to feel rejection, abandonment. But here's the great paradox is actually through the willingness to show up and be that badass bitch who walks into the bar and has a non alcoholic drink and a dark gay bar on a Thursday at sunset, that actually gives me the confidence to be like, oh, fuck, I can do this. I believe in myself. I can look around this room without a phone to distract me. I can, I can be here in my body. And a lot of what I'm talking about is kind of like that gay shame trauma of like, oh, I have to, like, hide around my desires. I have to hide around my sexuality. But I know that so many of us that carry that as well.

[Sahara Rose]

How many times have you thought to yourself, I need a podcast. I have so many ideas, thoughts, when I'm giving advice to my friends, I'm freaking channeling the divine. And I don't know where to share this. Well, guys, starting a podcast has been the best decision of my entire life. Nine years of the most incredible conversations. Creating my own business that allows me to travel the world freely. Being able to be paid to be me, share my voice, find my voice, become friends with my best friends. Every single one of my best friends I've met through the podcast, be mentored by people whose books I read, travel, travel around the world, become a speaker, created coaching, certification, membership courses. All of this, plus book deals. All of this has been possible because of this podcast. Because nine years ago, I got the courage to say, you know what? Even though my business is not about spirituality, I feel like sharing my voice. And I know right now you may be there too, feeling like there is so much wisdom in your heart you're ready to share, but you don't have a place to share. Share it and knowing that so many people's lives can be transformed by you just getting out of your own way and sharing your voice with the world. And so this is why I started my podcast mentorship. This is my very, very, very small group mentorship, where I personally know your name. I help you channel what your podcast is about. The message, the name, the niche, the voice, the listener creating the graphic, and then the systems, tech, tools, everything. Everything you need to bring the podcast out into the world in just seven weeks. So I've been running this mentorship all year, and it is, hands down my most favorite thing I've ever done, because I get to witness your podcast come to life. And doors are open right now for our next cohort. So if you're interested, you're curious, you're feeling inspired to join, and hopefully one day have me on your podcast. Head over to the Show Notes. You'll learn all about the podcast mentorship and be able to join. For now, next round, I can't wait to support you inside what you said. It's so relatable, even for a straight woman, because I remember my friend and I were like, okay, we need to be going out and, like, meeting guys in the wild. Like, let's go to Nobu. And we went in the wild. Yeah. And we went, like, got dressed up, and it's like the Malibu one. So it's, like, cute outside.

[Shannon Algeo]

That is the wild.

[Sahara Rose]

We get there and kind of do the look around, and there's no one there because it's like, you know, people are there with their family, their friend sitting at a restaurant, right? And my friend instantly just pulls out Hinge. And it was just so interesting for me to watch of we're here in Malibu at this gorgeous restaurant, and she's just on Hinge. And Hinge doesn't have this 30ft away feature. It's like people from wherever. And I feel where it's coming from is it's really hard to meet people in. In real life. And I'm curious what it was like in the 90s dating. I don't know. Maybe people genuine, genuinely were more open or maybe just relationships happened more with, like, a friend of a friend, and it was less like going out into, like, a bar and hoping to meet someone. I don't. I think both happen, but I feel like more Relationships were like, you met in college and things like that. Whereas we don't have a lot of those connections. Most people are disconnected from people that they knew. They're very on their own. They're moving to cities where they don't know anyone. And. And so this app can bring people together. Like my ex husband, I met him on Bumble. And I remember being super grateful that if it wasn't for the app, I would have never met him. But then the problem in our relationship was we would have never met. We didn't have the same friends, we didn't have the same interests, we didn't have the same. A lot of things that ended up really being tough in the relationship. Whereas if you date someone that you know was naturally in your friend group, you're into the same things. Like, there's a community around you that supports you. Again, 60% of marriages right now come from dating apps. So they are working. I don't know, the longevity of them versus other ones. I don't. We don't have those stats yet. Right. But I think the shadow of what I notice in myself is like, but with the app, I can choose who I want, right? I can, like, choose. Like, for example, in Brazil, Carnival, most of the time you don't bring your phone out, right? Because your phone will get robbed. So you. You literally are just going and you join the carnival and, you know, everyone's just dancing and things like that. And it's amazing because, I mean, you're not really talking, but, like, there's definitely a kiss culture. So if you make eye contact with someone, it kind of means, like, you want to kiss. And people are just very, like, free. But I remember one day I did use hinge, and I matched with a European guy, guy from London. And then he met me and my friend at the carnival. But the moment I met him, I really wasn't attracted to him, you know, And I'm like, now I'm kind of stuck with this. This person where I could have just been at the carnival and just either enjoyed myself or seen. And I feel like a lot of times these apps kind of now force you on a date with someone that you would have naturally not come into coherence with. But because now you're on a date and there's this pressure, you're kind of trying to make yourself, like, get attracted to them. And I have a lot of friends that they're like, I got on the date with the guy, and instantly I knew he wasn't it. But, you know, then we had to sit through dinner and that, and I ended up hooking up with him. And I didn't even like him. And it's like, like. And I think that. I don't know if gay guys feel that, but women feel that sometimes of, like, the guilt of, like, he got my dinner. So I kind of had to. What a lot of people would say was, well, I'm not a guy that goes up to people. Right. So the app gives those guys more of like a equal playing field.

[Shannon Algeo]

Yeah, yeah.

[Sahara Rose]

Than the guy who's approaching everyone. But I. But maybe you gotta work on that. Right. Cause that's what life is.

[Shannon Algeo]

Totally. Well, the identity of. I'm not a guy who goes up to people. That used to not be an option. It's like you had to risk something in your physical body. And I also just want to flag that. I think we don't have to talk about these things. These dating apps, for example, in an all or nothing, black or white, good or bad, good and evil kind of way, it's checking in with yourself and your body and in your day. Because these things can change day to day and week to week, whether they're in service of you and in service of your soul and in service of you realizing who you're capable of being and who you want to be with, or if it's. If it's depleting your life force energy and draining you. And that's what I've noticed so recently, what I've started to do because I'm. Because I'm back on Hinge, y'. All. Hey, if you want to date, hit me up and I.

[Sahara Rose]

Can we set them up with someone? Y' all know? What's your type?

[Shannon Algeo]

Oh, my. My type is. Is broad.

[Sahara Rose]

Broad.

[Shannon Algeo]

Well, broad shoulders, but, like, varied. Diverse.

[Sahara Rose]

Okay. You ain't got no type.

[Shannon Algeo]

Yeah, well, this turns into a matchmaking service. But here's the thing is I'm quick. Now. Hinge has a voice memo feature. So taking this research and applying it, I'm like, let me get my voice into this conversation. And then they can hear my voice and they like, maybe they are going to disappear after hearing my voice. Or at least there is, like, humanity being exchanged. And I don't want to be on my phone, thumbs tapping a glass screen.

[Sahara Rose]

Tell us, like, your practice right now with, like, Instagram dating apps. How do you not let it become addictive?

[Shannon Algeo]

So for me, because I. The Light Phone 3, and I don't get a commission for talking about the Light Phone 3. In fact, they're on Pre order right now because the chips that are required to make them are not available because of AI data centers buying them all up. So Light phone threes aren't even available right now. But you can pre order them.

[Sahara Rose]

There are dating apps on the light phone.

[Shannon Algeo]

No, no. And that's the point is that for me, because I don't use my iPhone all day. I just can't even be on the dating apps until I turn on my iPhone. So I turn on my iPhone for, like, basically two reasons, and I do it about once a day for maybe an hour or less.

[Sahara Rose]

Are you, like, so excited for that hour?

[Shannon Algeo]

Not really. I mean, maybe in the background, but I've really developed some new normals since being on the light phone. I'm way more addicted to my laptop and checking my email on my laptop. But it's harm reduction because I'm not like, carrying it around everywhere. Yeah. So when I go on the dating apps, I'm either like posting something quickly on social media or I'm like checking hinge and just seeing like, okay, is there anything I need to respond to? But that really works for me because.

[Sahara Rose]

And on hinge your plays, you send a voice note, they send it back, and then are you like, let's FaceTime.

[Shannon Algeo]

Yes. So this is my new thing actually, is that I have done two to three phone. Actually, I start with a phone call because I'm a therapist and I do telehealth therapy. Doing a FaceTime is, like, kind of exhausting for me if I don't know if I really want to. So I start with a phone call. So voice note on the app and then a phone call. And then maybe after one or two phone calls, we do a FaceTime and then I drive my ass to LA for the date. Living in Ojai has really helped me with, like, make sure you want to go to dinner with this person. And I think if you're in a big city, spending some time actually talking and feeling the chemistry either through FaceTime or through the of the exchange of voice is actually just kind of kinder to myself and to the other person.

[Sahara Rose]

FaceTime before is essential. Oh, my God. So recently I matched with this guy, and he was a very good texter, which is a red flag. You know, people like their text game, their emoticon game. I'm like, oh, you're good. You know?

[Shannon Algeo]

Well, now with AI, it's like, we got to be careful what's happening.

[Sahara Rose]

These people's hinge core products are made by AI. But anyways, he was a Good texter. And we were vibing and so I was like, oh, I would love to FaceTime you. And he was like, oh, like I'm busy this weekend because I have this like soccer tournament thing. And I was like, okay, you know, makes sense. He already planned his weekend. So then comes Monday and I'm like, oh, I would love to FaceTime you. I'm super busy. Da da da. Comes Tuesday. So now it's like four days of this person can't get on a FaceTime.

[Shannon Algeo]

And then red flag.

[Sahara Rose]

Yeah. And then I was like, there we were supposed to FaceTime at the end of the day. And then he's like, do you mind if we just do a phone call instead? Because I have to drive to Pasadena.

[Shannon Algeo]

Double red flag.

[Sahara Rose]

And I'm like, have I been. Am I talking to a deep fake right now? I put his. Sending me a video. I put it through the deep fake thing to see if he was a real human.

[Shannon Algeo]

It's actually Rosie showed it to me. It's just Claude.

[Sahara Rose]

No, there's a deep fake thing and he was a real human. But I, I think that he and some of these guys don't actually want to meet, they just want someone to text. Yeah, yeah, because he was tell. He was sending me voice. So texting me, today I did this, today I did that. It was like a lot of information for someone I've never FaceTimed with. And I was like, maybe he's a little anxious attachment, which I was honestly calling in.

[Shannon Algeo]

But someone want to anxiously attach.

[Sahara Rose]

Yeah, please, let's switch it up a little. But then when it was like he didn't want to face. So then I, I was just like, hey, it's been super hard to find time to hop on a FaceTime call and I'm curious how we'll ever even meet if it's so hard to FaceTime. And so maybe this is not a fit. He's like, okay, keep killing the game. Keep killing the game.

[Shannon Algeo]

Well, what, what a send off.

[Sahara Rose]

And it was like, it was like, no, like, I'm really sorry. Like, let's actually. It was like, no, that is genuinely all this person wanted. But someone to text. And had I not been like, I'm going to remove myself from the situation if we're not even going to face him, let alone meet in person, this would have gone on forever. And I'm like, whoa, this is what Gen Z is doing.

[Shannon Algeo]

Can we talk about this for a second?

[Sahara Rose]

And now I'm outing myself with the Gen Z.

[Shannon Algeo]

Can we just talk about because he's in relationship with the phone. He's not in relationship with you. Can we get depth psychological for a second on this? Because I was thinking about this on my walk this morning and I was like, ooh, I feel like this is for the podcast today. So let's talk about the psychological Persona for a second. Because long before the Internet and social media, the human psychology has had a Persona, and now it's developed into an E Persona which affects our dating lives online. So the Persona is this psychological function of let me project out into the world this version of myself who I think is going to be liked, accepted, wanted, and desired and is going to prevent me from rejection and abandonment and to be kicked out of the tribe. Right. Okay. I'm going to design a Persona. It's very much based on what my parents rewarded or punished and then also what the sighting culture rewards and punishes. So let me give you Shannon. He's fabulous. He's amazing. You love him. It's obsessed. Okay. So then in the creation of the Persona, I exile my shadow. The parts of myself that I think are gross, unlovable, not going to get applause. And the shadow is then out of my view. I can't see it. I disown it. It's like, cut off. And so then I can only find my shadow and when I'm projecting it onto someone else. So when I'm judging someone else, that is often my own shadow material that I can't even see as mine because I've cut it off for myself. So with a dating app with these, you get, you know, five images on hinge of this, like, gorgeous being, and then you get these little quippy, like, magazine style bites of Persona. This is an E Persona. Okay, so what happens when you put your E Persona out into the world, which, you know, people do as influencers, if you have a social media profile, then other people can project their fantasies onto who they think this embodiment of Sahara Rose is so he doesn't actually have to engage with the real human being, Sahara Rose, who has, like, flaws and who gets tired and who, like, no, no.

[Sahara Rose]

Zero.

[Shannon Algeo]

Right? Who's like a whole human being. Like, like the whole package. Like, what a beautiful thing to be a whole human. And. And so that would require that this person, like, risk something.

[Sahara Rose]

Are they conscious of this?

[Shannon Algeo]

No. Okay. No. It's like, because if you're not looking for a real relationship, then how convenient to just keep tapping glass.

[Sahara Rose]

Like, I don't understand. It's like, you guys don't want to like, have. Have sex. Like, I'm genuinely curious. I've heard Gen Z is having the least sex of any generation.

[Shannon Algeo]

Well, think about what these phones do to us. Like, let's talk about eroticism, let's talk about sensuality, because those are in the category of embodied intelligence. And we are in the spirit of artificial intelligence. That's all anyone's talking about.

[Sahara Rose]

So they would rather just think I'm talking to this beautiful hot girl who I don't have to ruin the fantasy of. And then, like, watch for possibly.

[Shannon Algeo]

Because if they're projecting the fantasy onto you and you in quotes, right? Because this isn't you. This is like images and texts. This isn't Sahara Rose. But you are engaging with them. So then that gives something to their identity. Like, oh, my gosh, I got the girl. I got the girl. I have the thing because she's interested in me. But. But that is. This protected me. That's actually in a jail cell of digitization that doesn't have to step out into the real world and risk abandonment and risk rejection and risk actually being in a relational exchange. And so why isn't Gen Z having as much sex? Why am I not having as much sex as I would like to be having? I'm really going all out there on this podcast right now with the T is like

[Sahara Rose]

support group. This is a safe space.

[Shannon Algeo]

This is a safe space for everyone to be celibate. But, like, if we want to get laid, we have to get in our bodies and we have to feel the. The intelligence of.

[Sahara Rose]

That's why I feel like the best men are like construction workers, you know,

[Shannon Algeo]

farmers, hammer and nails, motherfucker.

[Sahara Rose]

Yeah. People who, like, work.

[Shannon Algeo]

Build me a house.

[Sahara Rose]

Yes. I'm like, ew, like tech. Like, super in their head. No, like a dancer. Like someone in their bodies.

[Shannon Algeo]

Yes. Yes, we're being. We've been sold a false dream. Yes, we've been sold a false dream. And how did we get sold it? Techno idealism. So techno idealism is this. I mean, we all felt it. Do you remember when Hipstamatic became Instagram? Hipstamatic was this, like, pre Instagram. Like, it wasn't. It was like a.

[Sahara Rose]

It was like a Tumblr kind of thing.

[Shannon Algeo]

It was like, not even that. It was just literally, you take photos and then you turn them into sepia and black and white and they look cool.

[Sahara Rose]

Right. That's how Instagram started.

[Shannon Algeo]

Exactly. And so Instagram made that. But made it social media. And then Facebook bought Instagram and. And it was so fun at first, because I was just like showing photos of my roommates.

[Sahara Rose]

Well, the switch to Facebook, to Instagram is really. Because Facebook was only people you knew. And then Instagram became two strangers.

[Shannon Algeo]

Yes, yes.

[Sahara Rose]

This one app just changed the trajectory or our brains, our neurochemistry, like how we are, like what human beings are actually going to look at. They looked like they. They showed pictures of what a woman Even I think 20 years from now is going to look like. And it's like all this filler. Right, because with Instagram, it even changed the beauty standards.

[Shannon Algeo]

Yes.

[Sahara Rose]

Because things need to be very, like, big and apparent. So the huge lips, the overly filled cheeks, the huge eyelashes, all of these things. Whereas before, the beauty standards were more like the Runway model.

[Shannon Algeo]

Yes.

[Sahara Rose]

And I'm not saying one is better or worse, but even when we look at the 90s stars like Julia Roberts and the people we consider to be Cindy Crawford, et cetera, they would not be popular on Instagram too. They would be too plain, because what we're looking at is artificial. Even their beauty, on top of them having all this plastic surgery and whatever and makeup and all these layers, then they face tune them and they use all these filters. So it's like you're not even looking at a person. You're looking at a caricature of a person. And then what that is doing relationally is, you know, and it started more with men, with women, but I'm even seeing women with men is the men will see these caricatures of what women are supposed to look like, hyper feminine, hyper sexual. And then they look at the normal woman around them, they seem so plain, you know, they seem ugly. And so then you're living in the fantasy of this Instagram model that you're following, which, by the way, Instagram is an only fans funnel for men. It's so crazy that with my guy friends, when I go on their Explore pages and some of my guy friends tell me they're like, I have to keep saying, not interested in like booty shaking and titties and all these things, because Instagram keeps showing it to me. And I think with men, they're more just visually stimulated. And so when you see that, even for me as a woman, sometimes I'll see them on mine, I'm like, what is this? You know, And I'm totally straight, but even I'm clicking on it, you know, let alone if that was like turning me on. And then you start to see more and more and more and more. And then the mind's the man's brain is like, hyper addicted. And that's why I actually see a lot of men getting off Instagram more than women because they're like, oh, this is like, really dangerous for me and my goals and my everything, because I feel like they can get warped into it. But I don't think men use Instagram so much for the validation and the attention and the likes. Like, most guys, straight guys I know, they don't care about posting. Like, they haven't done a post in years, but they're on there looking, especially looking at girls. Whereas I feel like women, we use the app more for the likes, the validation, the look at me. We have groups of girls. I posted a picture all like, oh, my God, you look insane. And it's like just this echo chamber of like, why are we even doing this? And. But even that, I think now with girls, they make thirst traps of men for the woman. And I'm wondering if this is going to change us women of like, y' all don't look like that. And so less and less sex because we're living in this fantasy, right?

[Shannon Algeo]

And that. That's how. That's why porn is so addictive and can make. Porn addiction, can make it really hard to enjoy and get pleasure from the act of actual intercourse and sexual exchange is because it becomes such a mental, visually stimulated thing. And those, those visuals, I. I definitely have it, especially on my Facebook. There's like a swipe side carousel. And it always gives me, like, hot guys with their shirts off or, like, wearing no underwear. And like, the thing is flopping around and the sweatpants, it, like, whoa.

[Sahara Rose]

It goes all the way.

[Shannon Algeo]

Gives me a whole carousel of, like, thirst trap content. And I'm like, on Facebook. On Facebook, what? It's like, it's like boomers and my parents, friends and all these lovely people. And then just like, hot guys, like, almost naked, playing with like, little, like, like chickens, little, like chickadees.

[Sahara Rose]

Wow, it really said for you, Paige.

[Shannon Algeo]

They're like, we know what she wants.

[Sahara Rose]

Exactly. Give her some ohi porn.

[Shannon Algeo]

She wants a farmer who's wearing no underwear. But this is playing to our base level.

[Sahara Rose]

And then like, man is probably not even real.

[Shannon Algeo]

Yes, we. And this is the power of rehumanization rituals, of remembering that.

[Sahara Rose]

That.

[Shannon Algeo]

That is the essence of the power in your hands. This book that I wrote for four years is not just reckoning with the problem and naming the problem, but how do we remember the aliveness of our own embodied intelligence? And how do we reclaim the power that our ancestors knew well, My grandfather was born in County Donegal in Ireland in 1907 in an electricity less hut, a hut with no electricity in the north of Ireland in 1907. And he came to the United States on a boat with nothing. And my grandmother too was born in County Donegal. And I think about the connection that my grandparents had to the earth, to the wildness, and how technology, the advancements in technology are beyond what they could ever imagine. And yes, technology is an amazing thing. We are recording into these beautiful microphones right now. And we get to like share our voices and our connection and our conversation with so many more people than my grandparents could ever have imagined. And there are people who are running technology companies who do not have the best interests of human beings in their corporate goals. And if we don't look dead eye with sobriety at these intentions and how our, our attention is being exploited, and if we don't take collective action together,

[Sahara Rose]

so what is the action we can take?

[Shannon Algeo]

Yeah, so. So a collective action problem requires collective action. The reason that this is such a big problem for all of us is because all of us are on these apps and with these phones. And so we must act together. There is this work of attentional activism that the Strother school of radical attention is doing. And this likens this moment that we are in currently right now to the Industrial Revolution. So what happened during the Industrial Revolution, companies exploited labor workers and that led to banding together to create union that set boundaries, that set minimum wages, that set working conditions. Where we are in human history right now and we can't even see it, but some leaders are identifying it is we are at the brink of a radical rehumanization movement where we say, no, you cannot do that with our attention. And so something that we can do right now is create sanctuary spaces where we are free from exploitation. And I'm doing these groups now. The first one is starting in May and June called Sacred Slow. And we're doing 40 hours of no technology. So it's a phone free, digital fast, no technology for 40 hours. So we can remember what it feels like in our bodies to be offline. Because until we reset our dopamine levels, until we start like gazing at the chipped paint in the sight lighting of this house and being like, oh my God, that yellow paint looks so cool. Until I'm like, oh my God, I love looking at the glisten in Sahara's beautiful chestnut brown eyes and the pop of color of these hibiscus earrings. Like until we can remember for your dopamine Stimulation for your dopamine stimulation. Until we can remember how good that feels, then we're not going to feel incentivized to get off of our phones. So in order to make a change in our relationship to technology, we have to make a change in our relationship to technology. It's like what comes first, the chicken or the egg? We have to kind of jump into an experiment. And that's what I learned from doing these five day offline workshops at the Esalen Institute. And let me tell you what this really is about. I think underneath the surface for a lot of people is not what we think it's about. It's about grief. It's about we're scared of getting older, we're scared of dying, we're scared of being alone. Scared.

[Sahara Rose]

And I think, to me, when I think of five days without my phone, what if my parents die? No one can contact me.

[Shannon Algeo]

Exactly. Exactly. And that's why we create a protocol where everyone has access to the Esalen phone. So someone, if there's an emergency, the outside world can call and someone will get a message. We have to set up infrastructure, scaffolding so that we can manage our anxieties when we go offline for 40 hours.

[Sahara Rose]

Yeah, because that's. I remember for years you were doing the once a week without a phone day. You said you would, like, put your phone in your drawer. I think with the last time we podcast, you were talking about that. And when I think of you, that

[Shannon Algeo]

this has been going on that long. Yeah.

[Sahara Rose]

And I remember just feeling like I would have so much anxiety if my mom couldn't contact me. And it is this deep fear that is underneath it all. Yes. On the surface level, then I'll check my Instagram and this. But it's like this. Like, if I'm not always plugged in, the worst thing will happen.

[Shannon Algeo]

Yes. And that's why in therapy, if I have a client who's having increased suicidal thoughts or has a history of suicide and they're going through something tough, we create a safety plan in. We create a plan of like, okay, we're going to do X, Y and Z. You're going to do X, Y and Z. To stay resourced, here are the people you can reach out to if you're feeling like you're distressed. Here's. You know, we can increase and have an additional session this week if you need that. So when I am going offline for 40 hours, I go through a protocol of letting people know how to reach me, the address that I'm going To be at a backup person. So basically, just so I can, like, sleep, relax and let go. So that's an important part of the work because the phone is holding so much for us. We didn't used to have these phones, so it's not like these phones need to be in all of this.

[Sahara Rose]

And you would get a phone call from the principal, hey, your mom's here. It's like, I wonder why, you know, doesn't happen anymore.

[Shannon Algeo]

The web knows how to web, but we don't trust the web because we've put so much of our trust and value into the phones. So in order to go off the phone, we have to activate the web. We have to activate the social infrastructure. So you're a doorman. Like, you know, you can come up with people who can help you, and you can just know, okay, if something important comes up, this is how you're going to reach me. But it does take relational work. It takes kind of establishing that friction and informing people who you care about. Like, I'm going to be changing my behavior in relationship to my phone. So I don't want you to get too anxious this. That I'm not going to be available. Other people will be impacted too.

[Sahara Rose]

I think having this flip phone or something is a really good interim because I'm like. I'm thinking right now I'm like, driving around LA and I have no phone. What if I get in a car accident? What if this, what if that? And it's like, at least having something that's like, okay, you could call urgently if need be. But then I was just thinking, in the 80s, no one had phones. You know, my dad showed me his first cell phone. I think it was like 1989 or something like that. It was a. This giant thing, and it was like he was like, ahead of his time to have that.

[Shannon Algeo]

Yeah.

[Sahara Rose]

And it's like. So everyone was driving around, like, you know, and I remember thinking, how did people. Let's say we were supposed to meet at the mall and I'm running late. I had no way of contacting you, but people just figured it out. And we think it's like this impossible thing, but it's just how life was.

[Shannon Algeo]

Yeah. Yeah.

[Sahara Rose]

For not just a little bit. For thousands of years.

[Shannon Algeo]

Yeah. When I did 45 days with a flip phone, my flip phone didn't have gps. The light phone has gps.

[Sahara Rose]

So how are you going around?

[Shannon Algeo]

So I would go on my computer and go. So I was in Topanga. I didn't even have a printer at the time. I Actually made it a part of my process. I did have a printer. I made it a part of my process. So if I was coming from Topanga to here, I would put in your address on my computer. And then I actually, with a Sharpie and a blank piece of paper, I wrote out every step of the directions so that I kind of had gone through it in my head once. And then I just put the directions next to me in the car and I drove somewhere in la. And if I got lost, I did have my flip phone. So I. Like, there was one time I got totally lost and I was going on a date and it was night and I couldn't find the street to turn on in West Hollywood. And I called my sister, said, molly, could you help me find out where I'm going? And she looked it up on her computer or her phone, and my sister talked me through how to get there. And the web webbed.

[Sahara Rose]

How cute.

[Shannon Algeo]

The social web.

[Sahara Rose]

Think how good that is for your brain to actually remember directions. I'm like, isn't it like I drive to my same gym every day and I still use the gps?

[Shannon Algeo]

I know, I know. Oh, my gosh. Our. Our geographical intimacy and the under reliance of our brains to actually, like, learn place, to have a sense of place is so real.

[Sahara Rose]

There is so much to discuss. So any final tips you would like to leave listeners with?

[Shannon Algeo]

Yeah. Oh, my gosh. Well, one tip is just like, can we all give Sahara Rose some love because she is amazing and you have been such a powerful force of dedication to this community for so many years. And I'm so inspired by how you continue to show up with curiosity and engagement and interest and passion. So inspiring. So everyone please love up on Sahara Rose. Thank you. Compliment her earrings.

[Sahara Rose]

I'm in my hibiscus era.

[Shannon Algeo]

Yeah, that's a good era to be in. Like, we should all have a hibiscus era.

[Sahara Rose]

I feel like also like, looking at flowers, you can get such natural dopamine from. They're here for a reason, guys. Just go outside and look at a flower. Flowers grow flowers. Like, yes. It's so funny because I have my personal Instagram that's not my public one. And my. My explore page, it's so different. It's just flowers. And I'm like, okay, this is an okay app to be on. You know, still it's better to go outside, but it's like, we can even change how much dopamine we're getting from the content.

[Shannon Algeo]

Yes. I mean, you could do things like turn your screen. You can Turn your iPhone screen to grayscale or to red scale. Make it a boring place to be. Download the app right now. One sec. And put strict blocks on the apps that are the apps that you're using the most compulsively.

[Sahara Rose]

Like time limits.

[Shannon Algeo]

Yeah. So like when I was on my iPhone, I would use One sec and I would put a strict block. And I love a strict block because it doms you. You can't.

[Sahara Rose]

Oh yeah. I was always like 15 more minutes.

[Shannon Algeo]

You can't take it off once it's started. It is like there's nothing you can do to change it. So you can set from like from let's say 7am to 4pm from the moment you wake up until 4pm you just won't be able to open that app. So play around with something like that. Join a sacred slow for a period of 40 hours offline or just set a four hour period in your morning. Your brain is most plastic in the morning when you wake up. And if it can't be four hours, just do one hour. Can you get to your meditation app without looking at your phone first? Without. You can set the timer, but don't look at your social media and your texts.

[Sahara Rose]

I love that. And this conversation coming back to the intro. I'm gonna stop getting on my phone in the morning because it's neuroplastically wiring my brain to want to check my phone more throughout the day. If that's what I. What I'm starting with.

[Shannon Algeo]

And you're starting with this big spike in dopamine and it's. And it's an external source coming from pleasure.

[Sahara Rose]

Because I feel like I didn't do it before when I was in a relationship because there was like a human next to me. And so I'm like reaching for connection.

[Shannon Algeo]

Yes.

[Sahara Rose]

And then like.

[Shannon Algeo]

Yes.

[Sahara Rose]

It's like this very sad, like, vulnerable feeling of like, we're really not meant to live alone and be so isolated. And so like poor little me is like, please someone say good morning to me. Notice me. I want to feel connected to the rest of the world. And then. But I'm doing it on this app that I'm not even talking to people. I'm just now all of them looking at a bunch of content and reading messages and checking emails. It's like not even fun, you know?

[Shannon Algeo]

Totally.

[Sahara Rose]

And so what I've been trying to do now is like just go on YouTube and play some music. Right. And it's so great when I have. When I'm home with my dog.

[Shannon Algeo]

Yep.

[Sahara Rose]

I'M like, being a pet is just. It's like, oh, my God, like, this is the oxytocin and the connection that I've been really looking for. And also just saying good morning to myself. Good morning. How are you?

[Shannon Algeo]

What do you dream of?

[Sahara Rose]

Like, you just want to be recognized and it's like giving that to yourself.

[Shannon Algeo]

I love what you're doing now because you're noticing what you're actually reaching for. And the phone promises a hit of that, but it doesn't deliver on the promise. And so when we are in an abusive relationship, let's acknowledge it. It's not that the phone is bad. The apps do have many of them exploitative intentions and that is, I think, nefarious. But the technology in and of itself isn't bad. But when we're reaching for something that's not giving us the whole damn meal, and we deserve the whole damn meal, and we're here to be our highest selves. This is the highest self podcast and checking our phones in the morning and draining ourselves on these technologies. This, this morning, there's something in the air around our connection. And doing this because this morning was the first morning in a while where I didn't look at my computer or my light phone and I meditated for 15 minutes before doing anything. And then after I meditated, I still didn't look at my computer or my light phone. And I went on a like 35 minute walk. And then I came back home and I made breakfast and then I looked at my phone and I just felt so in my agency and authority. I felt like I was like, really, Shannon?

[Sahara Rose]

And it's crazy what taking time away from your phone, you're like, oh, my God, I'm happy. Like, you realize all of this anxiety and things we were feeling that we're like, maybe it's because of my relationship and maybe it's because of my mom and maybe because this is like, no, it's what your brain does from these phones.

[Shannon Algeo]

Yeah. Yes.

[Sahara Rose]

And for me, nature is the best way to unplug. Because when I'm in nature, why the hell would I ever want to look at my phone, you know? So it's like putting yourself in these situations where you're on a walk, on a hike. Also being with friends, I feel like when I'm with good friends, hours pass and it's like, I'm like, I just don't want this to end. And I feel like we all just need to prioritize that, like, prioritize, like weekends with friends. So it's not like, okay, I have an hour and then you gotta go. And you know, it doesn't give you that full. It's like, like living. It's crazy because one of my friends was like, we should all just like hang out on our phones next to each other. Like there's a name for it. It's like people I don't know, isn't that like something? It's like basically you're both on. Like three of you will be on a couch, but you're all on your own phones and you're kind of talking, but you're all on your phones.

[Shannon Algeo]

Oh, she's.

[Sahara Rose]

She's the same AI girl.

[Shannon Algeo]

It's like co scrolling and I'm like,

[Sahara Rose]

let's do the exact opposite of that where there's no phones and we all just need to be with each other and. And there can be silence. It could be like, I'm just gonna do this yoga right here and you're gonna play music. And you know, me and my. One of my besties, Christine, who I think you know, lived together for almost two years and it was like so great because in the morning we would do our morning dances, we would talk about our dreams. And it's like, that's what we want. We want the tribe, we want the village. And the phone is never gonna be the replacement for that.

[Shannon Algeo]

Never. Never ever, ever. And it's okay to use it to get into embodied connection, but it can never replace it. Interact with ourselves like you do in the morning, with compassion of like, how are you? How is your dreams? How are you feeling? How can we be compassionate towards what we're reaching for? We don't want to shame ourselves out of this addiction. No addiction benefits from us trying to shame ourselves out of it. That just perpetuates the self loathing and self hatred of addiction. This is not a personal problem. This is a societal addiction. But it affects all of us uniquely and personally. And so let's get free by talking. This is the last thing I'll leave us with. Talk to a friend about your relationship to technology. I have a digital accountability buddy, my friend Mari. Shout out Mari Moo. And we are always talking about like the next experiment that we're going to do. Our screen time. Let's do a screen time check. Get into relationship with people that denormalizes what has become normalized. If this has become so normalized that it's an invisible addiction that nobody's even asking any questions about. As we all walk around the whole world with our Necks crane down, then let's start to talk about it, because that will send signals to our brains that this is not normal and we can get free together.

[Sahara Rose]

Thank you so much for sharing that, Shannon. Where can people get your book?

[Shannon Algeo]

Oh, my gosh. Thank you so much. Shannonalgio.com Books Book the Power in your hands Liberate yourself from attachment to technology. Yeah. And you can get it on Amazon, you can get it on Barnes and Noble. If you don't want to get it at either of those places, you can get it on bookshop. You can get it anywhere books are sold. If you want the book and it's not at your local bookstore, you can go to your local bookstore and say, do you have the power in your hands? By Shannon Algeo? And they'll order it and it can help spread the word to more people.

[Sahara Rose]

Bring back reading books, flipping pages, sitting with it in your hand. Like, it's so nice. It's so good for your brain.

[Shannon Algeo]

And it's 95,000 words of a hardcover book that I wrote by hand. I did not use AI to write this book. I wrote every word and I wrote it in Europe. I wrote some of it like that. But I want to write my third book by hand. Okay, that's my next challenge.

[Sahara Rose]

Yeah, definitely. I feel like AI should not be allowed to. To be in books. It's just this regurgitation of thoughts. And there's something so beautiful because most of what we read online, I think right now it's like 80% of the Internet is written by AI. And most people's Instagram captions are AI. It's all slop. It's all AI slop. And. And it's. You can tell the moment that it's used, it like changes what was real into something else. And so what I love about books, and I think there actually are laws in books around, you're not allowed to use AI. So it's like some of the lapses just left human writing. Yes. So that's sexy. So be sure to get his book in the show notes. Share this with your friend. Be accountability buddies on your screen time and your phone uses. Have a conversation about it. I feel like sometimes we know our friends so well, but we have no idea what our relationships are with our phones. And it can help us to just be accountable and make it more of a priority. So. Share this episode this is a great one to really dive deep into. Be sure to subscribe wherever you're listening to this conversation. It's on YouTube. YouTube, Spotify Apple. And I'm so excited to continue to weave with you in future episodes. Namaste. Trust your intuition, trust your inner wisdom, trust your inner guidance. So trust your intuition, trust your inner wisdom, Trust you in the guidance.