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- [00:00]
A
All right. Hello, everyone, and welcome to the how to Feel Alive podcast. I am Katherine Price, and I am absolutely thrilled to be here today with Graham Dugoni, who is the CEO and founder of a company called Yonder. And you might know about Yonder, even if you don't realize you know about Yonder, because Yonder is the company that makes phone pouches, the same phone pouches that are now being used in schools, in particular in something like 30 countries around the world and millions of students. And. And they're also being used by comedians and musicians and people in courtrooms, all sorts of different groups of people. But there's been a big explosion, as most people probably know, in this phone free school movement, and Graham is one of the primary people behind that. So I had the honor of meeting Graham in person last year in May, and got to talk to him about Yonder and the reason he started it, his personal philosophy. And I really enjoyed the conversation, and I'd been wanting to get a chance to talk to him more officially for the podcast. So he is here today to join me. Wanted to give a quick background before officially welcoming him. Just to say that Graham is a total pioneer in this space. He founded Yonder in 2014 before most people, including myself, were even thinking about phones and technology and the way that they impact our experiences. And I really love the way that. Graham, you described one of your primary goals is that you believe that society needs protected spaces that are almost akin to national parks, where the human spirit can thrive and creativity and productivity can flourish in the absence of technology. So welcome, Graham. Thank you so much for joining me.
- [01:29]
B
Yeah, absolutely. Thank you for having me. I'm. I'm thrilled to be here.
- [01:33]
A
Great. So I was just saying to Graham before we hopped on the official portion of this call, that I want to go through some of the basics of what Yonder pouches are and how they work kind of as an explainer, and then I want to dive into stuff that I find even more interesting. So I thought we could start by just literally explaining to me what is a Yonder pouch and what does it do?
- [01:52]
B
Yeah, sure. So the way the Yonder program or the Yonder Pouch works in a school setting is a little bit different than a show setting or courtroom, but fundamentally, they're the same. The idea is, if you walk into a show, for example, your phone is placed inside one of our pouches, which I can actually show you.
- [02:09]
A
Yeah. Can you describe the pouch? I mean, he's holding it up for the video, but describe this to me.
- [02:14]
B
Yeah, sure. So it's a cloth pouch with a locking mechanism at the top and you place your phone and usually your wearable tech in there as well. So your watches and earbuds, when you close the pouch and you press the button, it's now locked. And then the person keeps it on them throughout the duration of the event or the school day, in whatever case. But the idea is that once you're inside that phone free space, you have possession of your devices, but you're not able to physically access them unless you go to a defined area. So the way to conceptualize that at a show is you go to a phone use area, which is very similar to the idea of a smoking section. You can tap your pouch on one of our unlocking mechanisms located in that space. It pops right open, you can make your calls, and then as you leave that to go back into the performance area, or let's say in an academic setting, into the school, your phone and your devices go back in and it's locked. So the idea is you create an entirely foam free environment and you facilitate all the good things that come out of that.
- [03:13]
A
Okay, so just to clarify, it's literally a little bag that you put your phone into and it locks for some reason. I always think of it as being like when you buy clothing and it has one of those security tags and they have to stick it into the machine to get that security tag off. I know it's not exactly like that, but I kind of think about those stations as being sort of like that where you have to pass the pouch under this thing so that you actually can access your phone.
- [03:35]
B
Yeah, that's about right. And if you're, if you're a student in school, at the end of the day you can imagine kids filing out and, and they're just tapping their pouches, that locking mechanism on a wall mounted unlocking base, and then going on their way. But it's very quick and easy.
- [03:49]
A
And also I needed to ask you why yonder? What's up with the name? I'm a writer, so I'm always curious about the stories.
- [03:55]
B
Oh yeah. Well, the idea I think is just the feeling it evokes. You know, what's happening over yonder. You have to be there to know. There's a sense of exploration and I think like wonder that comes with it. And that's tough to find in the modern age when technology permeates everything we do.
- [04:13]
A
Okay, and then what happened to the E because it's Y O N D
- [04:16]
B
R. Well, if I had known as much about, about trademarks and things like that. Ten years ago, as I do now, I probably would have added the E. I'll leave it that.
- [04:28]
A
Oh, really? That's interesting. I feel like there's a trend now to just like lose the vowels, you know, I mean that you would have been early in that trend. But it's. What's so wrong with the vowel?
- [04:38]
B
I have nothing against them, trust me.
- [04:40]
A
Okay. Officially, Graham has nothing against vowels. Okay. That's basically what I was hoping to get out of this interview. So what gave you this idea? Because this, again, to contextualize this for listeners, you started this very early. It was, I mean, 10 years ago doesn't sound like a long time. But in 2014, I'm assuming you might have had the idea even earlier than that. And just as context like Instagram wasn't available until 2012, I mean, TikTok was only available in the United States in 2016. The first front facing camera on a phone, which is what really enabled people to start taking selfies like we do now. That's 2010. So you were very early in this, at a time when people were not thinking about this and not really talking about it. So can you tell me a bit about why you decided this was necessary?
- [05:21]
B
Yeah, I think there's, you know, look, there's a crystallizing moment of maybe when the idea started to solidify for me around maybe 2012, but it was more the development. My interest over a long period of time after college has been in sociology and philosophy of technology. So it just so happened kind of that the rabbit hole I went down over three or four years and the people I was reading and studying, because it was my personal interest and my passion, kind of brought me to the point of looking at this central question of what's the role of technology in modern life? And it's really not just phones, it's all aspects. It's not just screens. It touches on things like automation. They're impact, there's cultural impact, impact on people's psychology. But I realized that it was not a new question that people had been thinking about and studying this for hundreds of years. And so it just so happened that people, I was interested in, people like Heidegger or Kierkegaard or Marshall McLuhan or Hubert Dreyfus or other, other different philosophers had touched on this. And there's a theme that just kept reemerging for me. And then as I was looking around, being in my, you know, my mid-20s and looking at how people were taking up with These radically new devices, you know, the smartphone. The natural question for me was, okay, with any radically new invention, there's going to be new possibilities and a lot of unforeseen consequences. And I knew that social etiquette, social norms, take a very long time to catch up with stuff like that. And so I felt like from what I understood about the nature of technology and what effect it was going to have, that it was going to be important for this younger generation to carve out spaces where they were allowed to and given the opportunity to experience life without those influences, with the ultimate goal of being to educate them so young people could ultimately make their own choices. But it came from my kind of. My passion and interest in the question. And at that time, it was very much against the grain, because the dominant zeitgeist, then and maybe still now, was this kind of God of efficiency and making everything faster, easier, cheaper, and more available all the time.
- [07:29]
A
And was there a crystallizing moment for you when you realized, oh, wow, something needs to change here. This is not okay?
- [07:36]
B
Yeah, I think that moment for me was. I was actually. I was at a music festival and there was someone who was dancing, and he was. He was intoxicated, he was having a good time, and some strangers who didn't know him were recording him, videotaping him and posting it online. And if you. I just looked at that and thought about it, and if you think about what that does, what that means, there's huge implications all the way down the line. And ultimately it has this total neutralizing effect on people's ability to express themselves, because no such thing, I think, as intimate intimacy without privacy. And this idea of what level of privacy can people have and expect in the public sphere is a question that has never been wrestled with because we haven't had the tools to make it question. So to me, that idea of, again, carving out these spaces, like national parks, where people can go and be free to express themselves, to experience things in a primary way, I thought that was so foundational to just. To civil society, to our collective psychological health.
- [08:40]
A
I'm laughing because I've realized I've gone where I wanted to anyway, which is philosophy. Without asking you the questions that I ask at the beginning of this whole list of questions like the basics of yonder that I just hit the microphone with. So I'm going to try to gracefully transition into those questions and then come back to what I really want to talk to you about. So you're talking about protected spaces, and I could make a connection between that and schools, you just were kind of talking about use of yonder in a concert setting. But I wanted to get a little bit more into the use of yonder in schools and what's happening now, what's changing and how that works. Just because I know a lot of people in this audience have kind of heard of the Pouches, but don't really understand in a school setting, which I understand it's gotten a lot bigger in the past year or a couple years.
- [09:21]
B
Yeah, well, 10 years ago I was going to, door to door to every school around the Bay Area down to Los Angeles and I was talking about home free schools and I got laughed out of a lot of buildings. Really the dominant idea with it at that time was so different. It was getting more tech into the classroom. But even then 10 years ago, there were a lot of teachers who were raising their hand and going, this is, this is an issue we're having problems with. Students are distracted, they're not able to focus. And those kind of issues I think just became more and more prevalent and then really accelerated post Covid as people became more aware of what spending six day hours a day was, was doing to people in general, but especially kids. So what we've done over the last 10 years has really brick by brick to build up a program to support districts and states to actually go phone free. And I tried to be very conscientious or deliberate with choosing the language phone free 10 years ago because I thought it's important that it's framed in a positive light. It is a positive thing. It's to give this younger generation the experience of a phone free education versus a cell phone ban or punishing them, which is not real and it's not the message. So in context of a school, there's so many issues around really not just phones, but a lot of elements of technology. But phones are the primary one. Some are becoming well known, others are less well known. But what we've learned is that it's a community issue and you have to go in and you have to help teachers, you have to help faculty, students and parents in the community understand the question, but then also help them find a solution. And that's what we try to do, is go, hey, there's the physical product, which is obviously important, but there's all the education and the preparation and the logistics to actually make it effective. Because almost every district for the past five years has had some phone policy in place. The difficulty is it's almost impossible to enforce. So the things we've seen when we help a district or school go home free are tremendous, and I can go into those in more depth. But yeah, that's, that's kind of how we've built up to where we are now.
- [11:30]
A
Yeah, I do want to talk about some of those effects, but I also wanted to just clarify how this works, because as you just started to imply, it's not. You're not just selling the pouches. It comes with a lot of support. And I'm wondering if you can just describe that a bit about what happens when a school decides to use yonder pouches.
- [11:45]
B
Oh, yeah, of course. So when a district works with us, with us, we approach it as a program. So the pouch and the, and the hardware, the unlocking mechanisms that we talked about and how we install those, we help with all of that, but we also help with the initial planning, the education and the rollout and the ongoing support. So what that looks like is if a district were to come to us today and say, hey, we'd love to roll out yonder in a week, our response is, that's terrific. That's amazing. Have you thought about this? Have you talked to your parents? Have you put out a questionnaire and answered their questions about how they're going to get in touch with their kid throughout the day and all these really important things to get their buy in? Have you talked to teachers about how this is going to be implemented? Have you looked at your policy and make sure that it's something that's reasonable and enforceable? That's what we actually do. Our team is mostly former educators, so we actually work with the district to create the policy, to have a communication plan, to talk to their parents and their community and their students and get their input. And then we help with the actual physical rollout and the planning on day one through the first week, and then the ongoing support. Because it is a massive culture change in a school. The idea saying that a school wants to go foam free is one thing. Doing it, it requires some attention and energy. And you have to be willing to go through a period of time where digital natives are adjusting to walking through the world six hours a day without their smartphone. That's a shift. So how you prepare for it, how you do it, how you keep up with it, and, and the fidelity is really important. And maybe just to explain how it works one other way. Every student is assigned a pouch at the beginning of the year, kind of like a textbook. So they're given the, you know, the responsibility, but also the, the kind of agency to have that and that way they're, you know, it just becomes eventually part of the daily ritual. Students walk in their devices, go in. It's a phone preschool day.
- [13:40]
A
I like the idea of the ritual. Just to note that I think rituals are so important. Yeah, continue.
- [13:46]
B
Yeah, well, that's it, I think, and that's what we've. We've learned. But again, we've grown the company with. We have no social media. We don't do.
- [13:53]
A
Yeah, I was gonna ask you about that.
- [13:54]
B
Yeah, we don't do. So we've grown truly school by school. We. We place a huge emphasis on being in person with our partners. And that's. That's how we've learned, because we've learned from principals and teachers all around the world. They've said, hey, have you thought of this? This worked really well for me. And we've gone, great idea. We'll.
- [14:12]
A
We'll.
- [14:12]
B
We'll roll that into our process and the product. So it's been a totally collaborative on the ground kind of thing, which I think has helped us a lot because we've had to wrestle with these questions up front and really understand how communities relate to the question. And that idea of kind of collective action and how do you do it? That's ultimately what we do, I think, is we're right there on the ground helping.
- [14:35]
A
I mean, it seems from the. I guess I'm not really on the outside because I'm very involved in this movement, but, like, it does seem that things have accelerated greatly, especially since John Height's book the Anxious Generation came out last March. And I'm wondering, from your perspective, it sounds like the pandemic also had a big impact on adoption and interest in yonder pouches. But was your rate of growth linear or getting closer to exponential or how would you describe what's happening right now?
- [14:58]
B
Yeah, this is a total sea change the last six months, I would say, or so on in the issues in general. I think a tipping point has kind of occurred, and it's. It's seeped into mainstream consciousness in a huge way, which is incredibly exciting because it's such an important issue. And every. Every parent, every person in the world, at some way, form or fashion, is thinking about this, whether they know it or not, because I just feel that there's a general sense that in life we all feel that we're running faster to stay in the same place. This kind of treadmill effect. And that's one way of relating to the question. Another is kids being bullied in school or videotaped or Distractions or concern about spending too much time on social media. So for us, we're in a phase of kind of exponential growth, which is really exciting. But it's something we were prepared for because we've been doing it, I think, for so long. But to see how quickly it's moving now is, is really cool.
- [15:54]
A
It is amazing. I mean, it's so heartening, honestly, to see this taking off. And I am curious to ask you about what you've seen in terms of results from the schools you've worked with and the responses you've got from teachers, administrators, and also students themselves. Because one thing, one of the many things that impresses me about yonder is that it seems that you've really put thought into figuring out how should we actually measure outcomes here so that it's not just like, yeah, it seems better, but you actually have data that you can use to make the case that this should be the norm.
- [16:23]
B
Yeah, well, the first, like the first point of view I think we always try to take into account is students. And in trying to empathize with, with the situation of being a digital native and wrestling with this question, one thing I found over a long period of time is young people are smart. They know that something's up. It's kind of how to, how to help them create a structure, how to think about it. And that's what we found, is that probably the biggest effect in schools is after the first two or three or four weeks after going home free, students admit that they're happier. There's pushback from students at the beginning, which is totally natural, we understand, but they will admit that they're making more friends, they feel more engaged, they feel more at ease. Some of the lesser known things that we pay attention to, which I really love, are we hear from teachers all the time that the lunchroom is so loud that they'll walk in and they'll think there's a fight happening, but it's just students talking again. Or we'll also hear the students are eating more at lunch because they're not afraid of being filmed and posted on the Internet. They're not self conscious. We see a dramatic reduction in disciplinary issues and fights because so many of those are orchestrated online. We see improved academic outcomes. And that's, that's simple because teachers have more time to teach. They're not the phone police wrestling with this question, this power struggle throughout the day. But also students are just less distracted. Which, you know, that idea of just how students learn and developing critical thinking faculties is, is Huge. And if you watch students or any of us adults on a phone texting and doing that, it's very different than sustained attention. And that's a muscle that has to be flexed to be developed. So those are some of the things we see. But overall, we also hear that just there's a huge change in the school culture. Students posture changes, their eye contact changes, and these are things that are like, these are crit skills for life, you know, that's amazing.
- [18:19]
A
I mean, it's hard to listen to you talk about that and not get a huge smile on my face and just feel like, you know, what have we been doing? I mean, the idea that lunchrooms have become so silent, you know, or that kids are not eating because they're worried about being filmed, or I would also think they're too busy scrolling. You don't even have time to eat. I mean, what have we done? And it's really heartening to hear evidence that people are waking up around this. And that's, I think, a good segue into. I feel like I covered most of the basics here. If you're listening to this and you're like, I want to learn more about yonder, go to their website. There's lots of information there. But now I get to talk with you about what I wanted to talk about the most, which is this philosophy and this kind of, what does this say about us? And I was trying to think about how to. How to start this part of the conversation. And I was thinking, I think you and I are similar in kind of this existential kind of approach to life. And I have thought since I first started working on this project that any discussion we have about technology or devices or phones or any of this stuff is kind of has to be placed in the context of the fact that we are all going to die. And I don't think that's talked enough about. We're like, oh, they're less distracted. Well, that's important. But fundamentally, what keeps me up at night is the fact that we have one life with a finite amount of time. Eventually it's going to end and we're, to my mind, wasting all this time doing meaningless junk on these devices that were given to us that we adopted into our lives without any thought or consideration about what we wanted the role to be. So that's what I think needs to be, kind of at least, is in my mind when I think about this issue. And I was wondering if that resonates with you. And I wanted to learn more about your philosophy towards life. Because I know that you have thought a lot about this.
- [19:56]
B
Yeah, well, I think, yeah, you and I share a similar perspective in that I guess before even Yonder was solidified to me, my path to it was through existentialist thinkers and through music and it kind of thinking about. I had one real job before yonder, after school and I was working in a windowless kind of basement office doing finance, which for my, who I am, I'm not well suited to do that. No, it was my like Kafka esque experience of the modern world and looking around and going, is this, you know, is this it for me? And what, what does it mean and how does this ladder up? And I started studying kind of postmodernist thinkers and what was the influence on technology on and people's understanding of themselves and what's meaningful in life? So that's framed everything I think, I think about and it's, I think it's something that's plaguing young people as well. You know, this idea that what do you believe in that's larger than yourself? You know, because if you're at the center of the universe and at the center of everything you do and every decision, good and bad, in certain ways that's empowering. But in a lot of ways that's a lot of pressure. And I think that's something that maybe the decline of religion in the west has left a vacuum there that is yet to be filled. I think what I've, what I've learned and one of the things I believe is that part of the anecdote is not just okay, being negative about technology. Technology's here and we're moving forward. And I don't do view what yonder is doing as the genie can't really be put back in the bottle. It's how do we take a step forward into the future and also build around things that are meaningful. So what, what grounds people in life? And there's a really good, There's a philosopher who I came into touch with as I was starting the company and his, he passed away a couple years ago. His name was Albert Borgman and he has an idea, the concept of focal things. These things that focus human energy and attention are rooted against the social backdrop of life. It's kind of the difference between, let's say like turning a dial on a thermostat to create heat versus going out and chopping wood and building a fire. And then people gather around the hearth. And what that does, he calls it the device paradigm. You know, so to me That's a big. That's a really important thing. And I think at some level, shows fill that role. When people go into these shared experiences, it fills them up.
- [22:11]
A
Well, you mean the different. To go to the thermostat thing. I don't quite understand it. So in one case you're just turning a dial and getting heat without thought and. Or experience. And in the other, you're putting work into it and having an experience or. What do you mean?
- [22:22]
B
Yeah, it's basically that the idea of when you. And this is true with the movement towards smart homes or anything else, if you. If you turn a dial and then you just get heat, that's very. Ultimately, it's much more efficient. It's very efficient, very time efficient. It's energy efficient in a lot of ways. When you go out and you. Let's say an example like that, you chop wood and then you go build a fire, you're bound up into a broader landscaping process. You have an appreciation for the wood, which leads to an appreciation of the forest. You go to build the fire and it builds. It's a location that you. Focuses people's energy and people gather around and there's shared social experiences, which leads to storytelling. So you can apply it to other things too. The idea of. I think a lot of people do this without knowing it. People who are into biking, gardening, running, things that require skillful participation in the act, in your body and a full engagement, that's something that's deeply fulfilling and grounds people in their life. And I think maybe a dominant theme now in the west is this idea of technological efficiency in all things. And I would say that if you look at that, it serves us well in a lot of fields, but in the realm of meaning and social experience and things that root us and our. Structure us in our life, I think it's hollowing something out.
- [23:37]
A
I completely agree with you. And it makes me think of a point someone made in a newsletter I was reading about AI. I was hoping to save AI till the end of our conversation, but here we are. And he was making the point that, you know, AI is promising to increase efficiency or we can get the answers to things. We can get things done for us so quickly. You can have a song written, you could have all these things generated. And obviously there's big conversation to be had around AI and its role in education. But this guy's point was that there are circumstances in life where the effort is the point. You know, the essay is not the point. The essay, which, as you probably know it Comes from the word meaning to try. Like the effort that goes into writing an essay, that is the point of the essay. And I feel like there's a parallel between what you just said about, yeah, sure, you could just turn a thermostat and get heat. Maybe there's times when you want that because you just want, you know, you want to go to bed and your house is cold. But there's a different experience and a different value to creating that yourself and much, much more sensory, and it's much more an actual experience. I think that's interesting.
- [24:38]
B
That's exactly. I think if you ask anybody what they enjoy doing most in life and then ask them to take that thing and imagine that by making it cheaper, easier, more available or faster, does it enhance the enjoyment of that thing? I'd be shocked if almost anyone said yes, because the things that people enjoy doing the most are things that are bound up in the process. And that's something that fundamentally is a big, big picture thing. I think that you put against this dominant theme coming out of Silicon valley the last 15 years or anything else. You can describe it different ways. It's almost like, is the view from the top of a mountain different if you took a gondola or you hiked? These classic kind of truisms, but they're real. The idea that Alan Watts has a good expression, you know, like, does a melody sound better by. Or you get more enjoyment by playing it faster. Like, it doesn't make any sense. The meaning of these things are bound up in the participation and the doing them yourself. And I'm not saying that can apply to all elements of modern life, because, look, the Industrial Revolution and making Model Ts, it serves us incredibly well in certain aspects. But when you apply it to the realm of meaning and social experience and development of critical thinking faculties, I think that archetypal idea, I think we're seeing what, what, what comes of that. And it's a. It's a big. It's a big thing.
- [25:59]
A
What do you mean? What, what do you see coming of it?
- [26:02]
B
I think what we're experiencing now, I mean, look, if you're. If you're a young person and you're spending a lot of time online and put aside what that does socially, you know, the projection of an identity outside of yourself, that's not rooted in the constellation of your relationships in the physical world, which is the only tried and true way to develop that we know of. To me, the rest is more or less a thought experiment.
- [26:23]
A
Right, right. But put that aside, I mean, just over there.
- [26:26]
B
Yeah, put that aside. I think everyone more or less has to form a worldview and a structure of knowledge in their mind about where things hang together. And you, you, you bring in more information or data. Data becomes like information, information becomes eventually, you hope, understanding. And what I see on the Internet is everything is more or less flat. And so if you use an example, like if you go to look up something about primates and you go to a library, you go to a certain section, you look it up and it's structured and you can find it through, you know, mammals to apes, and you get there on the Internet, if you look that up, the second video might, you might see is going to be some ridiculous out there thing. So there's no structure, there's no differentiation of meaning or how to structure things or context in context. So, and you see it play out in politics or a lot of things. This idea of information retrieval is not the same as critical thinking or building a foundation, a foundational view of the world that you add to and you're open to changing. And so what I see, whether it's people discussing politics or anything else, is people's viewpoints become this loose amalgamation of ideas that are not really lived in. They're not taking an idea, walking around in their shoes for a week and going, huh, do I like this idea or not? They're kind of these ideas like a Tetris block that are just kind of glommed onto each other and they're not fully formed thoughts or points of view, they're just kind of inherited ideas or associations, you know, And I think it makes it difficult for people to communicate or really understand or have a point of view on what they believe.
- [28:02]
A
Yeah, I completely agree with you. And that was something I was reflecting on when I was writing. How to break up with your phone is, you know, if you're constantly filling your brain up with information. So in addition to the quality of whatever that content may or not may or may not be, the sheer amount of information and stimulation and this deluge of constant content, it just doesn't leave any room in our brains for thinking. And so I became really interested in, I think, just what you're saying, which is, what effect does this have on our capacity to have independent thoughts, to develop a sense of self, to be creative, to generate new ideas ourselves? I mean, how can you possibly do that if your brain is just constantly on almost defense mode with all this information coming in, much of which is not well thought out or not high quality or Maybe it's straight up not true. It's to me deeply concerning.
- [28:52]
B
I, I completely agree because I think that the aspect of critical thinking is. It's not necessarily like a native faculty. It's something that has to be developed and it has to be, has to be worked on. And it, it takes that space you talked about to, to kind of reach out with your mind's eye. And a lot of modern technology is so hyper visual and it's so. The amplitude is so high that it just, it's almost the opposite wavelength to, to what critical thinking is or even sustained attention and long form reading where you have to kind of reach out and meet the material halfway, you know?
- [29:26]
A
Yeah. Pause and actually think about what you're reading. I mean, any of those philosophers, if you're like, what did you just say? Why is that sentence so long?
- [29:32]
B
Oh, people like I. It took me six months to a year to, to read that. What is this person talking about? You'd have to dissect it sentence by sentence, you know?
- [29:43]
A
Right, right. I think it's just fascinating to think also. And you were alluding to this earlier with the fire example of the impact this is having on our ability to inhabit our own bodies and then present in our own lives. And that's something I'm interested in your take on in particular. I mean, when it does come to the yonder pouches, because as you were talking about, one of the primary situations in which they're used is concerts and live music. These situations where people are together, having an experience. And as anyone who's been in one of those experiences recently knows, there's a, to my mind, very odd phenomenon of everybody taking out their phones immediately and then recording the experience they're in while they're in the experience. And I remember going to, I think it was John Oliver who made this joke when I saw him. He's like, oh, you could, you know, you please put your phones away. You're making essentially a shitty video that you're going of the experience you're currently having, like on this tiny, tiny screen. I would suggest you put it away and watch the actual experience that's happening in real life on a much larger screen, which is your eyes. You know, that was basically his point. And I'm wondering your thoughts on that or what you've observed in the difference between when people are, you know, doing their normal on their phone thing versus perhaps having been been forced to put their phones away. But what happens in those moments? What's the difference?
- [31:00]
B
Oh, I think it's a big difference. I think artists always have the best way of talking about things like this. To me, you know, I can say it one way, but an artist, John Oliver or, you know, or Dave Chappelle or whoever, the way they approach these questions, just by illuminating it through. Through the creative act, I think is so much more powerful.
- [31:17]
A
But yeah, because he made them laugh. Everyone was laughing about it. I think when you laugh, you're like, I'm laughing, but. Oh, that's true.
- [31:23]
B
Exactly. That's kind of like. That's the beauty of comedy, you know. But I think the difference we see there's the perspective of the artist, which I think they feel in a way the most, because artists are like the most like attuned or sensitive people in a culture, in a way, I think. And so I've heard from a lot of artists we work with that they feel the difference. They feel the difference of pure attention and the energy in the room. And it makes for a better show fundamentally, I think also people in the crowd feel it once they get over this initial hump of kind of. Or you can call withdrawal or just feeling something different from not having their phone. Like, if you're in a. If you're in Madison Square Garden, it's a 25, 000 person show and not a single person is on their phone. It feels different. At the concession stand, people are talking and usually they're talking about how they're talking because they're not on their phones. But also that ability for a show to turn into something magical that not every show does, but sometimes happens where it can kind of build and build and crescendo. That's what we go to live events for. And that's what I think maybe is not always understood is when there's a bunch of people in the crowd and there's kind of these half measures taken, people go, I'm conscientious. I only text a little bit. Or. And that's. I'm not here to say that's wrong or not, but the actual effect I believe it has is you have 20,000 people. Everyone does that for a few times, pulls out their phone, takes photo, texts, whatever. It's like it takes a little pin prick in the roof of the building and that energy leaves the room and it doesn't come back the same way At a micrological level. If you and I are talking and I do that, I kind of. You go to do something and then you reattend to the conversation. The conversation is not the same as it was before, you've implicitly said, this situation is not enough for me, and now I'm coming back and everything has changed. So you magnify that out thousands of times, the atmosphere is going to be radically different. So again, it's not for me, it's not trying to be pedantic or say what it is. To me, it's mostly just people feel it for themselves and they can say what it means to them, you know.
- [33:31]
A
Yeah, it's. I think it's really interesting to think how this used to be the norm. You know, I think when you and I first met, I was mentioning this video I saw that someone shared with me, which is an HD video shot by a Japanese crew that was. They were doing. I think it was to advertise HD television or HD filming or whatever. But it's in the mid-90s and it's just scenes of people walking down the street in New York. Just a typical rush hour scene in New York. And you watch that video now and it's very disconcerting because it looks modern because of the definition, but there's something that's not quite the same. And then you start to notice, oh, it's because everyone's looking up like no one's on a phone. Everyone is actually present, maybe in their own little world, but they're actually just walking down the street. And to me, that's just a very small example of what you're talking about. I absolutely love the analogy of the idea of these little pinpricks in the bubble of that experience where not everybody is present. If you've got everybody just doing three little phone checks during that time, that adds up to. It's like the ozone layer, like you're destroying it bit by bit. And I know when we were talking before, I was mentioning the concept of collective effervescence, which is something I became aware of because Adam Grant wrote an article in the New York Times about it, but I believe it was coined by Emile Durkheim. And basically the idea that there are these certain shared experiences with other people where this. This joy and effervescence are created because everyone is so present with each other. And I think that's what you're describing. It reminds me of every year I go to a swing dancing camp in New Hampshire. It's like an absolutely amazing and magical, like five days where all you do is dance and listen to music. And I normally go to bed quite early, but at that camp, I routinely stay up till like two in the morning because there's this Amazing musician named Gordon Webster, who has this capacity to get everybody on the same page in a way that I've never experienced before. And there's always this moment at the end of the night, so I can't go to bed because I don't want to miss it, where all of a sudden you'll be in the middle of a dance and suddenly everybody has stopped partner dancing and starts to creep up to the stage where he's playing. And he somehow gets everybody to clap along, and then he changes the dynamics, and suddenly it's from clapping to snapping, but it's within, like, one beat of the music. And then a spontaneous, you know, dance circle will emerge, but then everyone will be back on stage. There's just this feeling, this. It's almost like you go from being an individual in the room or part of a pair dancing, to part of this larger collective group. It becomes one organism in some way. And there's this joy and this buoyancy that comes from that. And one of the things I've noticed is no one's really on their phones during that because they're all so present. And I remember I asked, actually one of the drummer for this band this year, I got a chance to meet him, and I said, do you possibly remember this thing that happened last year? You play gigs all the time, but it was this magical moment. And he said, yeah, I actually do remember that. All this is to say, I think that there is a word for that feeling. I think it is collective effervescence. And we're missing that when we allow these little mini distractions that come from checking our phones or recording what we're doing while we're in the experience. And anyway, that's something that really resonates with me, what you were just saying.
- [36:34]
B
Oh, yeah. And I think it's a profound experience you described. It's something that the ancient Greeks talked about. Their words for it were a little different. They called it attunement, but, yeah, exactly. It's. It's a. It's a thing. And it's. I think it's deeply, deeply important. And when you feel it, I know exactly what you're talking about. It's a magical thing. And I think that's something that. That live events and things can. Can provide for people. And it also has this. I think it has this impact of cutting across all different lines that usually divide people, I think, because you're swept up into this shared mood together. And I think that is profoundly beneficial for society at large. And it's Also just it's fun and that's important too, right?
- [37:19]
A
Yeah, yeah. I mean, that was my follow up book is the Power of Fun. And you know, I think fun is this combination of being playful and connected end in flow. And the connected end and flow thing is exactly what we're talking about, right? It's like that's what to my mind makes life worth living. And those are the moments we remember. And just as you're saying, those are the moments where suddenly we don't have these divides. Like we actually connect on a human level when we share a laugh or we share an experience with. With each other. But we can't have that, I don't think, if we're distracted.
- [37:47]
B
Oh yeah. And also, I mean, like Kierkegaard wrote about this a lot in like the present age. I mean, if everyone's casting out into the void on social media or through the Internet or even just relating to the world in not a primary way, you can view things as big problems that when you go to a show or you see people on the ground more often, they're just not necessary problems. You know what I mean? They become embodied in people. And you just, whether through osmosis, not, not always thinking about it, you just realize people are people. Maybe they have different beliefs, but it turns out most people are pretty reasonable and on the same page about a lot of things. But that is harder to grasp. I've noticed when everyone is relating to the digital world, I think there's an element of just the binary nature or the polarity of the medium. It's hard on the Internet, let's say, to suspend judgment and to sit on that fence, because that's more difficult when you're in person. It breeds more moderation, I think, and that's important.
- [38:42]
A
Yeah, I completely agree with you. You forget that most of us have the same hopes and dreams and we all are human beings and we get caught up in the differences instead of recognizing how much we have in common. I wanted to ask you what you think it says about us that there's. That yonder pouches are even necessary. Because I remember, I remember my first encounter with a yonder pouch was at this off site that I was asked to speak at. It was in 2019 and I was psyched because I'd heard about them, but I hadn't experienced them myself. And I remember it was a finance conference and there were a couple of people who were so grumpy about it. We're grown adults. What do you mean we have to give up our phone and put it in a pouch. And I was kind of laughing because I'm like, well, the fact that you can't give up your phone, what does that say about your grown adultness? What does that say about us? And I think that you were telling me a story that you saw someone with bloodied hands coming out of a bathroom because they'd been trying to rip open the yonder pouch. An accurate anecdote. And what do you think that just says about us? That we need to have this taken away from us? Because what we're talking about seems to make so much sense. We want to be engaged in our life, we want to be present, we want to be deep thinkers. So why are we? I don't know. Do you know what I mean?
- [39:50]
B
I've seen a lot of stuff over, over 10 years of going to shows and seeing people in all different contexts. I think one thing I will say is it's changed dramatically since 10 years ago. And the average person, I think if you talk to them the way you and I are talking or just talk about the experience of a, of a phone free space, space for someone and what it means, you get a very different answer than four or five years ago. Most people, I think they really do get it. But I don't think there's anything to feel bad about, about the need for us to create phone free spaces and, and what our ability to, let's say hold out against like technology that is designed to do certain things and have an influence. Look, we're hyper visual animals and we have a device in our hand that is, there's super visual, it's flashing lights and it also, it scratches a lot of, it kind of like lightly scratches on, on a lot of itches that are deeply deep. Human needs, you know, the need for shared experiences, the need to connect with people. When you think about those things mirrored online, they're rooted in something very real. Yeah, just that. It's just that the way, the way they come about is that they kind of perform like the salt and fat without the meat and potatoes. You know, they're not enough to sustain us. But they're very titillating. And that's hard for. That's an issue that doesn't just relate to technology. You could mirror that in the food industry probably, you know, the fundamental needs and the reason we want salt is that it's, you know, difficult to come by now. It's everywhere now. We have to resist the over availability. So it's a. I don't think I castigate us for the need. It's just, how do we. How do we try to adapt and create structures in our collective, like social lives in our civil society, that try to represent where we are and nudge us in a slightly better direction, you know, and give our. Give all of ourselves some grace along the way, because all these levers are too big for anyone to really move. I think we're just trying to nudge and try to understand where we're at.
- [41:39]
A
Yeah. I've been thinking a lot recently about. I think what you're speaking about as well, which is that part of the appeal of something like social media is that we are social creatures who desperately, in fact, need social connection. And so if you have something that promises you social connection, that's easy. We're going to be very attracted to that. And I was also thinking about how we also have this simultaneous terror of rejection or of awkwardness, because that might represent rejection from a group, you know, exclusion from the group. And evolutionarily speaking, like, we want to and we need to be part of a group because otherwise we would be out on our own and maybe die. I was just thinking about. It's interesting how to me, it seems like that's one of the main reasons we are so vulnerable to being sucked into things like social media, is that it kind of addresses both of those things. It's like, okay, it's promising us connection, but without any risk of. I mean, I guess you could be bullied and stuff online, but you're not having the awkward interaction of having to ask someone out in person, you know, or be rejected in person, and you don't have to get off your couch. And so I. Yeah, I think what you're saying makes a lot of sense, is to have empathy with ourselves. It makes sense that we're drawn to these things, and they're certainly designed to draw us in. But how do we all, individually and then collectively take a step back and ask, is this actually fulfilling what we need and what we want? You know, is this how we want to be spending our limited time? Like, what do we want our shared experiences to be? What do we want our classroom experience to be? Just what do we want?
- [43:06]
B
Yeah, I think it's a. That's exactly right. That's a tough one. If it sounds too good to be true or it's all easy, those are not usually the things that. That end up being really deeply good for us or. Or I would say, not even the most profoundly enjoyable. But there's, like, there's an element to it where it's easier to slip in and down into these kinds of activities because they're passive and active. Whether it's going to a show or it's getting out and doing something or these social, they always take a bit of a push. You have to get over that hump. And we all feel that in day to day life, you know. But once you do, you feel better things, you know, you feel engaged. And that's kind of, I would say that's a broad theme with the way I think technology relates to a lot of different things is it just has, it's a of piece, it can be a path of least resistance, it has other amazing possibilities, but it can also be that and that kind of leads a certain direction.
- [44:01]
A
Well, one thing I was really curious about asking you about is how your reflections and how your personal philosophy, which probably was developing even before smartphones became a thing, how has this influenced your own tech habits? Can you tell me a bit about how you interact with technology on a day to day basis?
- [44:18]
B
Well, sure. Well, I think for as a company one thing that we prioritize in a huge way is, is being in person. So it's a funny paradox for us because as we've grown we're becoming more spread out because we put such a huge emphasis on trying to be near the schools and people we work with. I think one thing we've made a conscientious effort to do though is we're very like heavy on, on phone calls versus other mediums of communication. And something we look for when we bring people on is people can talk and also can write. Well because to me that, that, that tells you a lot and it also forces you to think critically and structure your thoughts. So those are two things that are really important. Look for me personally I've, I've navigated the world with just a flip phone for the last 10 years. So I have a certain. That's my own choice. I don't, not going out advocating for it or whatever, but for me it generally works. It makes a lot of things more difficult. Trust me. The walls, as the walls slowly close in around and so many aspects are woven through that foundational infrastructure of the smartphone. But on balance I think it allows me to control my inputs and that
- [45:28]
A
I think that's important. We'd say that again. It allows you to control your inputs. Tell me more.
- [45:31]
B
Control my inputs? Yeah. Which to me it's like it's a well known thing in sociology or what anthropology, that our social groups can only get to kind of a certain size that you can manage. I figure it's more or less the same with your body and your senses. You can only handle so many things really at a time and attend to them. So for me, it's kind of a. It's a, it's a limitation that I work with. And I still, I work a lot and I have stress like everybody else. I'm not, you know, and I check emails, but it's all emails. And those things are tied to my computer. They're tied to physical spaces in time that are linchpins. I have to pivot around. There's no other way. And then for me, the phone is. Is something that I used to. I talk, I text very little, but I talk to people a lot on the phone, which other people probably think is a huge pain in the ass. My friends. And I'm sure it is, but in general it works for me. But yeah, like, nobody's immune from all these things and I don't claim to have the answers at all. It's when it's raining outside, everybody gets wet, you know, so. But that's, that's how I've tried to navigate. It is, is just kind of control my inputs because I feel like it keeps me on a more even keel.
- [46:41]
A
Do people pick up the phone when you call? Like, how often does it go to voicemail? Because people are so scared of picking up the phone. I'm just wondering how it is if they know that that's your thing.
- [46:49]
B
I don't know. I think, I think my friends and everybody and people I work with all know that that's, that's how I do it. So there's no other way. If I'm not going to text someone back and forth more than about two times and that it's. That it's a call.
- [47:03]
A
But again, you're like, literally you're typing out, you're doing the abc. I don't think many listeners probably remember this style of texting. You're like hitting the button multiple times to get to the, to the T.
- [47:14]
B
Well, they have T9. So it's the kind of, you know, predictive text that you do on the buttons, but you're not far off. It's basically the same. It's the same process, but yeah. And then at home, the only thing I'd add maybe is I think for people is helpful to think about is to me, technology's influence on people is mostly physical. It's understanding the ideas behind it and rationalizing it is important. But it, it's largely physical and creating spaces for things to exist and not mixing associations, I think is a really good idea. You know, so obviously not bringing your phone into your bedroom, but also having like the computer room or the TV room. That's the only other thing that I practice is I kind of work in certain space spaces and like don't work in others. And I work a lot, but it keep it in certain places so that it doesn't mix, you know, and it tells my body when I step into this space, this happens, you know, this space, this is where I work.
- [48:11]
A
So that is very good advice. I think that I intellectually know and horrible at doing myself, but I'm inspired to try again because I completely agree with you. It's. I've been a freelancer for my entire life, which I guess in some ways you have been as well because you're. You're independent business creator. But yeah, I mean, you know, it's so hard when there's no intrinsic division between my home life and my work life because they're in the same physical space a lot of the time. Or like, you know, how do you create these divides so that your brain can actually know that there's a difference? How do you turn your brain off if you're working in the same space that you're eating dinner or that you're sleeping or whatever?
- [48:53]
B
It's so hard. And there's no social backdrop or structure that informs us implicitly of what it should be or shouldn't be. Because all these things are so new. I think that's part of the, the difficulty, you know, whereas if you look on the pat, you look backwards, you have traditions and you have religious kind of ideas that underpin the social backdrop that people act against. But in the modern world, things are moving so quickly, especially related to technology, that there's no. I think that's. Everyone is wrestling with how do you create those structures and those practices and habits and rituals when there's nothing really out there necessarily to grab from.
- [49:29]
A
Yeah. Well, that leads me to the last question I had for you and then wanted to see if you had any final thoughts you wanted to touch on. But we're obviously at the precipice of another major change in how we interact with technology, which is artificial intelligence. And I've been thinking about this a lot. It's been keeping me up nights. Thankfully. I do fall asleep pretty quickly, but definitely also have some late night ruminations because it seems to me like we let, you know, smartphones and social media, things like that into our lives pretty thoroughly and comprehensively without ever pausing to think, like, what do we want the role of this to be? And now we have this new era of technology that's even more powerful and potentially transformative. And I'm wondering if you have any thoughts on how you think, how you're thinking about this transition or what questions you think we as a society should be asking so that we don't potentially walk into similar mistakes as what we've already, one might argue, done so far.
- [50:19]
B
I think it's a good question. And like, look, I'm, I'm a, an example. I, I'm, I watch a ton of tennis, I'm a tennis fan. And so there's been a big push in, in the tennis world over the past few years to adopt a technology called ShotSpot that tells you where, exactly where the ball wins. The only people who held out were the French Open. And the French are like, no, there's, there's a mark in the clay and we can see where the ball is. And, you know, we're gonna, we're gonna keep that for quite a while. I kind of like that approach because there's a tradition and there's things that we know and then there's new things that we don't fully know. And it seems like maybe a good idea. But also there's some, a little bit of healthy skepticism and let's, let's, let's watch this, but let's know, let's stick with elements of what we know works. I kind of think about it a similar way. I have some ideas of, like, you known us to be like a rocket scientist to, to look at the temptation of what AI can do and think about its effect on people's ability to read, write and critically think. That's very obvious and I already see it in emails I see floating around, you can see what's generated and you. Does not take much imagination to see where that could go. So my feeling is I don't think anybody's an expert on where this is going or its influence, but I do think there are people who have thought about the issue for a very, very long time, and there are older philosophers who have looked at the underpinning themes and, and we can try to extrapolate some lessons from that. So, you know, for us internally at the company, it's, I place a huge emphasis on people being able to talk, have eye contact, write well and critically think. And so we're going to be very, and I'm personally very just kind of slow and wary about it, I would say.
- [52:02]
A
Well, thank you for that. I could talk to you for the entire afternoon, but I know that time is coming to a close. So is there anything, final thoughts that things we didn't touch on or things that came to mind that you want to share before we wrap up?
- [52:16]
B
No, we've talked about. So we have so many shared interests that, honestly, it's a joy to talk with you about. I mean, talking about the idea of collective effervescence in attunement. These are things that I'm. I find thrilling to talk about. Honestly, to see them in action, I love. Maybe the only thing I'd add is I think there's sometimes a perception in the education world or just in life that things are too far gone. They're too far gone, and it can lead to apathy. You know, this idea that the world is moving and there's an element, there's a degree of truth that the world is moving and the goal is not to put the genie back in the bottle. But I can tell you, because we've been doing it for so long, for 10 years, in shows and these other spaces in schools, that we can do something. And there's a lot of people who care deeply about trying to help their communities and help their families and young people. And it is possible to do. It's not so simple as just shipping a pouch or doing something you have to activate the community. But it absolutely can be done. And the benefits, I think it's hard for people to imagine until they see it, but they can become do. And that's. That's what I know because I've experienced it, but I'm also seeing it happen other places. So I'm really. I'm really optimistic about what I'm seeing happen on the ground because I know it can happen in this kind of social action. So maybe that's. That's probably what I would say.
- [53:39]
A
I really appreciate that as a final thought, because I think that's really important because this really can feel overwhelming and as if, you know, kind of apocalyptic. This. You were saying, the genie's out of the bottle. What are you going to do? Kids want the phones. Everybody wants to be on social media, but in reality, like, I don't think we want that. I think that's just what we become accustomed to. And as you were saying in our conversation, I've heard you say in other conversations, it actually is surprising how quickly people can adjust to this new, slash, very old way of being and interacting with each other like it seems scary and foreign, like, oh, you're taking my phone away, you know, at first, but then within minutes, within hours, you know, maybe, as you were saying, a couple days or weeks in the school setting, people acclimate to it and then realize, oh, I like this better. You know, it's like getting back in touch with life and with yourself in a way that maybe you didn't even realize was missing until suddenly it comes back. And then it goes from a place of, oh, I shouldn't be on my phone or I shouldn't do this to I don't want to be on my phone in a concert, because I'm here to have this experience with everyone, and I don't want to have my social media open in class because I'm here to learn and engage with my fellow students and friends. So I really appreciate that. As a final note for our conversation, so thank you.
- [54:47]
B
Yeah, absolutely. No, I've really enjoyed it, and thank you so much for having me.
- [54:52]
A
Yes. And just as a reminder, everybody, I've been speaking with Graham Dugoni, who's the founder and CEO of Yonder, the maker of the phone pouches that are everywhere and hopefully going to be even more everywhere in the coming months and years. So thank you, everyone, and thanks, Graham.