# Dr. Anastasia Hronis: Dopamine expert on healthy habits that will improve your life!

An episode of [Project 100 with Mark Bouris](https://invisiblenetwork.ai/podcast/1767053714), 19 Apr 2026, 47 min.

Audio: https://p.podderapp.com/2544644999/traffic.omny.fm/d/clips/2fb3740d-3436-44af-8cc0-a91900716aa5/05ac4e52-79fb-46b8-849c-b305000bd6d0/a832b40a-788c-4a6a-88ca-b42d009cc71f/audio.mp3?utm_source=Podcast&in_playlist=ef13e652-7a19-41fd-9d0f-b305000bd6dc

All content and media by Project 100 is created and published online for informational purposes only. It is not intended to be a substitute for professional medical advice and should not be relied on as health or personal advice. **** Dr. Anastasia Hronis brings unique expertise to addiction psychology, exploring how modern technology is rewiring our brains for dependency. Her surname literally means "long years" — fitting for a conversation about optimising our relationship with dopamine-driven behaviours for longevity. We spoke about: • Understanding addiction versus obsession: the neurological differences • How dopamine pathways become primed for unhealthy patterns • Why poker machines and social media apps use identical addiction mechanics • The critical role of frustration tolerance in building resilience • Why today's youth face unprecedented challenges to mental wellbeing • Practical strategies for "prescribed boredom" and digital detox • The alarming parallels between gambling platforms and social media design This conversation reveals how our convenience-driven world undermines the very psychological resources we need for a fulfilling, long life. All content is for informational purposes only and is not medical advice. The all-new WHOOP is here — now 7% smaller with 14+ days of battery life. New features like Healthspan show how your daily habits are affecting your rate of aging — and now you can check your blood pressure straight from your wrist. If you’re serious about performance, longevity, and actual progress — this is it. Sign up for a one-month free trial at WHOOP.com — or visit join.whoop.com/mentored for one month off your annual membership fee. Eight Sleep’s newest generation, Pod 5. isn’t just another bed-frame add-on; it’s a high-tech mattress cover that actively adjusts to your body temperature throughout the night, cooling, warming, and even elevating your body when needed, all based on real-time data. The new Pod 5 introduces for the first time, a hydro-powered blanket system, utilising the same technology as the cover to extend temperature regulation across your entire body, not just the mattress surface. Clinically proven to increase quality sleep by up to one hour each night, it’s basically like having an AI-powered sleep coach, personal thermostat, and advanced health tracker working for you while you rest. Head on over to eightsleep.com/project100 and use the code PROJECT100 (that’s Project one-zero-zero) and get up to $550 off your very own Pod 5. Trust me, your body will thank you for this investment in better sleep. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

## Transcript

[0:00] Speaker 1: Doctor Denistrangishrnis. Welcome to Project one hundred.
[0:02] Speaker 2: Thank you for having me.
[0:04] Speaker 1: Your surname is Greed, but means because there's a longevity podcast,
[0:08] Speaker 1: the podcast about longevity, long life, you know, but actually
[0:11] Speaker 1: your surname means long years, many years. Yes, you're aware
[0:15] Speaker 1: of that.
[0:16] Speaker 2: I'm hopefully blessed with long because.
[0:18] Speaker 1: You know, no coinstance. This is a show about longevity
[0:22] Speaker 1: and we're going to talk about that. You are a scientist.
[0:24] Speaker 1: Do you have a PhD, et cetera. Maybe if you
[0:26] Speaker 1: could just give us a little bit of detail about
[0:28] Speaker 1: your your credentials, that is not your credibility, your credentials.
[0:32] Speaker 2: Yes, absolutely so. I'm a clinical psychologist. I practice clinically
[0:37] Speaker 2: and I'm also academic at the University of Technology in Sydney.
[0:42] Speaker 2: My main area of focus is broadly speaking, in addictions,
[0:47] Speaker 2: more narrowly in behavioral addictions. So I started actually in
[0:51] Speaker 2: the field of gambling, doing research into gambling and how
[0:54] Speaker 2: we can prevent gambling harms from occurring for people, and
[0:57] Speaker 2: how we can look from a public health person and
[1:00] Speaker 2: try and put measures in place. But that's expanded to
[1:02] Speaker 2: all kinds of behavioral addictions like video games, pornography, social media,
[1:07] Speaker 2: too much online shopping, anything where tech can be involved
[1:11] Speaker 2: in getting us hooked on something.
[1:13] Speaker 1: And what drives you? Why are you so interested in this?
[1:17] Speaker 2: Well, particularly in the field of addictions, I fell into it.
[1:20] Speaker 2: I certainly didn't study psychology thinking that I would become
[1:24] Speaker 2: interested in this, but both from a research perspective and
[1:27] Speaker 2: a clinical perspective, I fell into the roles. I was
[1:30] Speaker 2: working at a psychiatric hospital. I'd just taken five weeks
[1:33] Speaker 2: leave and I came back and they said, right, you're
[1:34] Speaker 2: on the addictions ward. And I didn't feel like I
[1:36] Speaker 2: had any bargaining chips to say, oh, I'm not sure
[1:40] Speaker 2: if I want to do that. And I hadn't done
[1:41] Speaker 2: any addiction work really before that, and I fell in
[1:45] Speaker 2: love with the people and the personalities that I worked with.
[1:50] Speaker 2: And you know, so many of the individuals I worked
[1:53] Speaker 2: with who had suffered from really serious addictions were everyday
[1:57] Speaker 2: people who had found themselves in these situation. I always say,
[2:00] Speaker 2: no one chooses to have an addiction. There's no five
[2:02] Speaker 2: year old out there going when I grow up, I
[2:04] Speaker 2: want to be addicted to something, so no one thinks
[2:06] Speaker 2: it will happen to them. And yet it does, and
[2:09] Speaker 2: so that's the driver for me that I've seen all
[2:12] Speaker 2: ends of the spectrum, and I'm really passionate about helping
[2:16] Speaker 2: people understand the risks that exist when it comes to alcohol, drugs, gambling,
[2:20] Speaker 2: all these kinds of things, so that they can be
[2:22] Speaker 2: aware of the risks that they're taking when they decide
[2:25] Speaker 2: to consume these things.
[2:27] Speaker 1: How do you define an addiction and can addictions be
[2:30] Speaker 1: good for you?
[2:32] Speaker 2: Oh, that's an interesting question.
[2:34] Speaker 1: Because I've often wondered about people. I know myself to
[2:38] Speaker 1: some extent. Let's say that I'm obsessed about the economy.
[2:41] Speaker 1: I can get stuck on something and I might read
[2:46] Speaker 1: for ten hours, and or I'll read into two or
[2:50] Speaker 1: three o'clock in the morning because I can't get my
[2:52] Speaker 1: head out of let's call it the book or whatever
[2:55] Speaker 1: it is I'm reading. Is that an addiction, I would
[2:58] Speaker 1: say no. Why.
[3:00] Speaker 2: That feels more like what we would kind of refer
[3:03] Speaker 2: to as an obsession with something where there's a strong
[3:08] Speaker 2: interest that can become unhealthy. You know, if you spend
[3:12] Speaker 2: ten hours a day researching or reading something, it means
[3:15] Speaker 2: there's an impact on other areas.
[3:16] Speaker 1: It stops from sleeping. Yes, and by the way this
[3:19] Speaker 1: does happen.
[3:20] Speaker 2: Yeah, so it becomes obsessive, and that can be driven
[3:23] Speaker 2: by you know, people's personality, traits all sorts of things,
[3:27] Speaker 2: but an addiction has more of a kind of chemical
[3:31] Speaker 2: and neurological underpinning to it. It's interesting because as technology
[3:37] Speaker 2: is advancing, we're sort of seeing more and more things
[3:40] Speaker 2: that can technically be classified as addictions. They're not necessarily
[3:44] Speaker 2: yet in our diagnostic manual. So something like a social
[3:46] Speaker 2: media addiction doesn't necessarily exist in terms of classification, but
[3:51] Speaker 2: certainly clinicians and researchers would say it does. So if
[3:55] Speaker 2: we're looking at what constitutes an addiction, we'd be looking
[3:59] Speaker 2: at sort of a few key factors. I refer to
[4:02] Speaker 2: Professor Mark Griffith's model of addiction. So, first of all,
[4:06] Speaker 2: there's an experience of salience, which means that a person
[4:09] Speaker 2: is constantly thinking about and looking for that substance or
[4:12] Speaker 2: that behavior in their life.
[4:14] Speaker 1: So if it doesn't be a substance, justice can be behavior.
[4:17] Speaker 2: It can be a behavior as well. So if we
[4:18] Speaker 2: use gambling, it's like, you know, at the end of
[4:20] Speaker 2: the day, I'm thinking about, Okay, what pathway can I
[4:23] Speaker 2: drive home? Pop in and play the Pokey's without my
[4:25] Speaker 2: partner noticing, and how am I going to hide it
[4:27] Speaker 2: on the bank statements, you know that kind of thing.
[4:29] Speaker 2: So there's a salience. There's some sort of mood modification
[4:32] Speaker 2: that happens with an addiction. So when a person engages
[4:35] Speaker 2: with the substance or behavior, they start to feel differently
[4:39] Speaker 2: and in some ways I'm going to say, quote unquote better.
[4:44] Speaker 2: A person builds up a tolerance. So this is maybe
[4:47] Speaker 2: the kind of key difference between something like an obsession
[4:50] Speaker 2: versus an addiction. Someone needs more to get that high
[4:55] Speaker 2: that they're chasing. So if it's alcohol, they need to
[4:57] Speaker 2: drink more. If it's gambling, maybe they're searching for bigger
[5:00] Speaker 2: wins or they want to spend more money. There's also
[5:04] Speaker 2: then withdrawals that occur, so if someone tries to stop,
[5:09] Speaker 2: they enter this state of withdrawal. Now that can happen
[5:11] Speaker 2: with behavioral addictions as well. It's what we refer to
[5:13] Speaker 2: as a dopamine deficit state, and that feels really unpleasant
[5:17] Speaker 2: and uncomfortable, and then often we find people have relapses.
[5:20] Speaker 2: It's part of the cycle of addiction. They'll try and
[5:23] Speaker 2: stop for a period of time, but lapses and relapses.
[5:25] Speaker 1: It common. Let's say the obsession that I've talked about
[5:30] Speaker 1: wanting to learn something. The more I learn, the more happy,
[5:35] Speaker 1: the happier I get because I now understand something. And
[5:38] Speaker 1: the more I understand something, the more I want to
[5:40] Speaker 1: know about the next lay below that and the next
[5:42] Speaker 1: belay below that. And let's say I get pleasure from that. Yes,
[5:46] Speaker 1: is that a behavioral problem? And it also can affect
[5:50] Speaker 1: other things I'm doing, so it takes my mind off
[5:52] Speaker 1: my other jobs because I find more pleasure in doing
[5:55] Speaker 1: that than doing what I normally should be doing from
[5:59] Speaker 1: a work point of view. Yes, where's the line on this?
[6:02] Speaker 1: And by the way, it might be healthy because this
[6:04] Speaker 1: may be a good thing because I might be learning
[6:06] Speaker 1: something about some other project I'm now going to do,
[6:09] Speaker 1: which I'm doing this because of Project one hundred. That's
[6:11] Speaker 1: the reason I do it, because I love my whole project. Okay,
[6:14] Speaker 1: is there any definition or any distinction between a beneficial
[6:19] Speaker 1: addiction gone past obsession to a non beneficial addiction to
[6:23] Speaker 1: something that harms you?
[6:24] Speaker 2: Yes, Well you said the key word there, which is harm.
[6:26] Speaker 2: So there's a distinction between doing something that might create
[6:31] Speaker 2: some sort of harm in our life, and that absolutely
[6:33] Speaker 2: exists on a spectrum. You know. I might you know,
[6:37] Speaker 2: be constantly working and I get a lot of satisfaction
[6:40] Speaker 2: from that, but it harms in some way my relationship
[6:43] Speaker 2: because I don't spend enough time, you know, with my partner.
[6:46] Speaker 2: So there are harms that can exist, and for each
[6:50] Speaker 2: individual person that will vary in terms of how significant
[6:54] Speaker 2: that harm might feel. But this is where we differentiate
[6:56] Speaker 2: between harms versus an addiction. Certainly, someone can experience some
[7:01] Speaker 2: negative outcomes in their life because they do something too much,
[7:04] Speaker 2: but it doesn't necessarily mean they classify for having an addiction.
[7:07] Speaker 1: Right, So maybe you now could explain because the don't
[7:10] Speaker 1: mean part is the path that really confuses me because
[7:13] Speaker 1: my brain is producing don't mean, which is rewarding me,
[7:17] Speaker 1: but at the same time it can be no good
[7:19] Speaker 1: for me. Yes, I mean why this are normally so.
[7:24] Speaker 2: Absolutely when you describe that sort of in depth learning
[7:27] Speaker 2: and that deep dive and that desire for knowledge, I
[7:30] Speaker 2: would say that don't mean is active in the brain.
[7:33] Speaker 2: It's creating that experience of sort of pleasure and reward,
[7:36] Speaker 2: and it's driving you to continue learning and researching. Thing
[7:42] Speaker 2: about don't mean and you know, don't mean exists for
[7:46] Speaker 2: the survival of the species. Evolutionary it's a good thing.
[7:49] Speaker 2: It's a good thing. We need it.
[7:50] Speaker 1: Yeah, in an evolutionary sense.
[7:52] Speaker 2: Yes, it motivates us. It's essentially a motivator. So don't
[7:55] Speaker 2: means activated when we experience something that's pleasurable or rewarding.
[8:00] Speaker 2: But it is also active in the pursuit of finding
[8:04] Speaker 2: that pleasurable, rewarding thing. So if we think back to
[8:07] Speaker 2: prehistoric times, cave man days, people needed to eat to survive,
[8:12] Speaker 2: and so when they would eat food, dope mean would
[8:14] Speaker 2: be activated. But dope mean would also fire to motivate
[8:18] Speaker 2: them to go out and you know, hunt the lines
[8:21] Speaker 2: and forage for berries and all that kind of stuff.
[8:23] Speaker 2: Same with I.
[8:23] Speaker 1: Didn't hunt any lines back in the old days. I'd
[8:25] Speaker 1: go one hundre of something else, something a bit easier
[8:28] Speaker 1: to get, but go on.
[8:30] Speaker 2: Same with kind of sex and survival of the species.
[8:33] Speaker 2: We need people to procreate so that you know, humans survive,
[8:36] Speaker 2: and so dope mean is activated during sex as well.
[8:40] Speaker 2: So fast forward to today, I don't need to work
[8:45] Speaker 2: hard to have dope mean activated. Before there was kind
[8:48] Speaker 2: of effort and work that was required for dope mean
[8:51] Speaker 2: to be activated in that sort of pleasurable way. Nowadays,
[8:54] Speaker 2: I don't need to you know, hunt food. We can
[8:57] Speaker 2: order Uber Eat. It's here in twenty minutes. It requires
[9:00] Speaker 2: or less, it requires no fs on my part. And
[9:03] Speaker 2: so what we find is that the way in which
[9:06] Speaker 2: technology exists today, or it's been developed to exist, we
[9:11] Speaker 2: get these constant kind of bouts of dopemine being activated
[9:14] Speaker 2: without us having to work for it. So, if I
[9:16] Speaker 2: come back to your example about like healthy addictions or
[9:19] Speaker 2: obsessions versus not, when you describe doing a deep dive
[9:23] Speaker 2: into learning and researching, there's effort required in that. You know,
[9:27] Speaker 2: you have to find the resources, you have to read,
[9:29] Speaker 2: you have to process. So there's efforts, which means it's
[9:32] Speaker 2: a healthier way of getting dopemine activated as opposed to
[9:36] Speaker 2: scrolling TikTok.
[9:38] Speaker 1: Right, So let's just talk about dope meinformoments.
[9:41] Speaker 2: So is it allmone very transmitting sending chemical sort of
[9:46] Speaker 2: messages between the brain and the nervous system.
[9:49] Speaker 1: Right, So can we maybe just take us through the
[9:51] Speaker 1: process of the release of dopmin.
[9:53] Speaker 2: Yes, So dope mean is operating at a subconscious level.
[9:58] Speaker 2: We often don't kind of know that dopamine is there
[10:01] Speaker 2: and firing until we experience an urge for something. And
[10:06] Speaker 2: that doesn't necessarily have to be this kind of like
[10:08] Speaker 2: addictive urge, Right, I could have the urge to, you know,
[10:11] Speaker 2: eat a donut or have some chocolate, and that is
[10:14] Speaker 2: dopamine firing. When it comes to my conscious awareness, dopamine
[10:18] Speaker 2: is already active and it's kind of what's motivating me
[10:20] Speaker 2: to seek out that kind of st So.
[10:22] Speaker 1: What set that off in the first place. Did I
[10:24] Speaker 1: see the chocolate or did I see an ad on
[10:26] Speaker 1: television or on Instagram?
[10:28] Speaker 2: Or it could be or it could literally be that
[10:32] Speaker 2: my brain and my dopamine pathways have become primed to
[10:37] Speaker 2: seeking out those pleasurable experiences. So if I'm someone who
[10:42] Speaker 2: regularly eats chocolate or donuts and say I regularly eat
[10:45] Speaker 2: it a particular day or time of day, my brain
[10:48] Speaker 2: starts to learn, Oh, this person here eats donuts, and
[10:51] Speaker 2: that's something that we get dopamine activated from. It's pleasurable,
[10:55] Speaker 2: it provides sort of some sugar, et cetera, And so
[10:58] Speaker 2: dopamine will activate even without an external stimulus. It's based
[11:01] Speaker 2: on kind of our patterns. Of engagement. And this is
[11:04] Speaker 2: how we can become hooked on something. So you know,
[11:07] Speaker 2: if I use social media as an example, if someone
[11:11] Speaker 2: is used to scrolling on social media in the morning
[11:14] Speaker 2: or the end of the day, do you know, our
[11:16] Speaker 2: brain learns our patterns and we become sensitive to the
[11:20] Speaker 2: rewards that the environment is providing us. And so then come,
[11:24] Speaker 2: you know, nine o'clock or whenever I'm used to sort
[11:26] Speaker 2: of scrolling. Don't mean we'll start firing motivating me to
[11:30] Speaker 2: seek out my phone, pick it up and start scrolling again.
[11:32] Speaker 2: So it can happen without any external trigger.
[11:36] Speaker 1: Right, that's crazy. So let's say I'm hungry, I forgot
[11:40] Speaker 1: to lunch because I've been too busy doing podcasts and
[11:42] Speaker 1: it's five o'clock I haven't anything since breakfast, and or
[11:46] Speaker 1: if I stop the service station, the first thing I
[11:48] Speaker 1: feel like doing, I'll see the Kitcat, which they all
[11:51] Speaker 1: do it. It's sitting right there as I'm paying. They know, okay, yes,
[11:58] Speaker 1: and me reaching for the kit Cat and buying that
[12:01] Speaker 1: is that dopamine setting in. Yes, absolutely, to urge me
[12:06] Speaker 1: to do it, or urge me to do it, encourage
[12:07] Speaker 1: me to do that.
[12:08] Speaker 2: The word is and the fact that you have that
[12:10] Speaker 2: kind of trigger there as well, like you see us.
[12:12] Speaker 1: Well, no, they put it there, but they are this
[12:15] Speaker 1: is marketing, yes exactly, they know the deal. Yes, the
[12:19] Speaker 1: temptation is there. Dope, mean fires, it can fire from
[12:22] Speaker 1: that external trigger once we see it. So maybe I
[12:25] Speaker 1: wasn't thinking about kit cats and so I definitely was.
[12:27] Speaker 1: I was putting Petsro on my car and I go
[12:29] Speaker 1: and know there it is, and I'm hungry.
[12:30] Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah, So the desire for a kind of reward
[12:34] Speaker 2: and pleasure paired with being hungry, it's the perfect kind
[12:38] Speaker 2: of combination to drive you to buy that that kit
[12:40] Speaker 2: cat and eats Wow.
[12:42] Speaker 1: So and maybe we could let's let's look at say
[12:47] Speaker 1: someone who go to the pub, and this happens to
[12:50] Speaker 1: a lot of people, especially younger people. You know, I'm
[12:53] Speaker 1: being through this process myself when I was younger, and
[12:57] Speaker 1: was a long time ago. But but this is these
[12:58] Speaker 1: things are revolved. You go to the part, you have
[13:00] Speaker 1: three or four beers. Someone you can't drink any more
[13:03] Speaker 1: beer because you got a tummy's all full. So someone
[13:05] Speaker 1: says let's have a vodka. Next thing you know, you've
[13:07] Speaker 1: drink a couple of vodkas and then someone pulls out
[13:10] Speaker 1: a line of cocaine, and you know, and they all
[13:12] Speaker 1: sort of work together, like it's sort of like nearly like, well,
[13:16] Speaker 1: that's what you do. You drink beer, then you drink vodka,
[13:17] Speaker 1: then you drink then you snore cocaine and then you
[13:20] Speaker 1: then you feel like ca and you go back and
[13:21] Speaker 1: have more vodka, like and then this process starts and
[13:24] Speaker 1: everyone's fucked up. Now I'm not I'm won't put that
[13:28] Speaker 1: into addiction category just yet, because there is that's another level.
[13:32] Speaker 1: But just explain how the don't mean works in that situation.
[13:35] Speaker 1: Is that don't means sort of training my brain that
[13:37] Speaker 1: every time I go to the pub and I'm with
[13:39] Speaker 1: this certain group of people, this is my process. Is
[13:43] Speaker 1: that how it works? And is that what we've got
[13:45] Speaker 1: to become aware of in order to deal with that shit?
[13:48] Speaker 2: And look, there is individual different So certainly for some
[13:51] Speaker 2: people they can go out, go to the pub, have
[13:53] Speaker 2: the cocaine, won't necessarily get addiction from it. We know
[13:57] Speaker 2: that there's about a sort of fifty percent heritability factor
[14:00] Speaker 2: when it comes to addiction, so some people are genetically
[14:05] Speaker 2: vulnerable to developing addictions compared to others. Some people have
[14:10] Speaker 2: greater sort of sensitivity in their reward pathways. Some people
[14:13] Speaker 2: have greater traits relating to impulsivity. So there's a whole
[14:16] Speaker 2: lot of factors that come into why one person can
[14:18] Speaker 2: be in that scenario and not get addicted in the
[14:20] Speaker 2: other might. But yes, there is this sort of priming
[14:23] Speaker 2: and training of neural pathways. The more we do something,
[14:26] Speaker 2: the more well developed those pathways in the.
[14:27] Speaker 1: Brain becomes like any training mode exactly like exactly, like
[14:32] Speaker 1: we just train learning for example.
[14:34] Speaker 2: Yes, so you can use it for healthy habits or
[14:37] Speaker 2: it can also be how unhealthy habits develop. And so
[14:40] Speaker 2: then those pathways become very quick to fire, very automatic,
[14:43] Speaker 2: and that's how one person can end up having a
[14:46] Speaker 2: fun Saturday night and then you know a few months
[14:48] Speaker 2: down the track, every night they're at the pub on
[14:50] Speaker 2: their own in a very different situation, feeling that urge
[14:54] Speaker 2: like they're compelled to drink.
[14:56] Speaker 1: As a clinical psychologist, can you sort of at personality
[15:00] Speaker 1: traits to say that person there could be someone who
[15:02] Speaker 1: could fall into that category.
[15:04] Speaker 2: Definitely, risk factors absolutely, what does that mean that someone
[15:08] Speaker 2: has a greater risk of developing an addiction? So, for example,
[15:13] Speaker 2: someone who has a history of mental health concerns, whether
[15:16] Speaker 2: it's anxiety, depression, trauma, is going to be at higher
[15:19] Speaker 2: risk of developing an addiction than someone who doesn't have that.
[15:23] Speaker 2: It's not to say it's black and white, but there's
[15:25] Speaker 2: a risk factor there. Correlation, yes, yeahpos a causation exactly. Exactly. Impulsivity.
[15:35] Speaker 1: So people with ADHD, what does impulsively mean? Do you
[15:38] Speaker 1: mind telling me? Yeah?
[15:39] Speaker 2: Yeah, So a person feels like they act before they think.
[15:45] Speaker 2: They're the sort of person who goes gosh, I, you know,
[15:48] Speaker 2: picked up the phone and I yelled at that person,
[15:50] Speaker 2: And I really should have thought through before I did that,
[15:52] Speaker 2: So they might end up making decisions for themselves that
[15:54] Speaker 2: they haven't really thought through.
[15:55] Speaker 1: They I bought their I bought their kid cat. I
[15:58] Speaker 1: was hungry, but I bought their kids sero. And I
[16:00] Speaker 1: shouldn't have bought it, Yes, yes, because I should have
[16:03] Speaker 1: waited to go. I could have got a bit of
[16:04] Speaker 1: chicken and some vegetables.
[16:05] Speaker 2: Exactly.
[16:06] Speaker 1: Is that impulsivity?
[16:07] Speaker 2: It is, But that's like one example versus someone kind
[16:09] Speaker 2: of having a pattern in their life of impulsivity. So
[16:12] Speaker 2: it's something we see as one of the features of ADHD,
[16:16] Speaker 2: for example, there can be this sort of impulsivity for
[16:18] Speaker 2: people with ADHD, and very often I see this combination
[16:23] Speaker 2: of perhaps people who've had undiagnosed ADHD through their life
[16:26] Speaker 2: been quite vulnerable and susceptible to developing an addiction.
[16:30] Speaker 1: If we take it back to the lens of living
[16:32] Speaker 1: better or optimizing your standard of living, not necessarily, I
[16:38] Speaker 1: mean clearly, if you're you're addicted to drugs, for example,
[16:41] Speaker 1: or something like that, your longevity period will so reduce
[16:44] Speaker 1: a bit because you'll be damaging yourself physically. But let's
[16:47] Speaker 1: not look at that so much, that effect of addiction,
[16:52] Speaker 1: particularly drugs and alcohol. You know we're doing look at
[16:55] Speaker 1: livers and all that sort of stuff, But let's just
[16:57] Speaker 1: look at the quality of your life. Yes, how would
[17:00] Speaker 1: someone start to realize that? Look they take the view here,
[17:05] Speaker 1: I am fifty five years of age. I really want
[17:09] Speaker 1: I've been listening to the Project one hundred, or've been
[17:11] Speaker 1: listening to Peter or t whoever it is, Andrew Human.
[17:14] Speaker 1: I really want to live a longer, better life. And
[17:17] Speaker 1: I know that I can't keep going out Friday nights
[17:21] Speaker 1: and getting off my face and or and then sat
[17:25] Speaker 1: there morning you know, sitting at the poking machines and
[17:27] Speaker 1: having bets on horses that I don't even know who
[17:29] Speaker 1: they are. And what's the first thing that they need
[17:33] Speaker 1: that gets to be aware of this? Like, how do
[17:37] Speaker 1: they become aware of this that this is an issue?
[17:39] Speaker 1: Then what do they do? There's a lot of people
[17:42] Speaker 1: like this, especially younger people. How do they become aware
[17:46] Speaker 1: of it and overpower the brains training? And then what
[17:51] Speaker 1: do they do about it? Ap Africans see something like yourself,
[17:55] Speaker 1: but maybe that's the answer.
[17:58] Speaker 2: Yeah, Well, the first indication often is, well, there's kind
[18:03] Speaker 2: of there's kind of two things I commonly see. One
[18:05] Speaker 2: is people don't feel good. And I know that's kind
[18:08] Speaker 2: of a really general sort of way of describing things.
[18:11] Speaker 2: But when we engage in dopamine driven activities, and not
[18:16] Speaker 2: necessarily with having an addiction, but just sort of we're
[18:19] Speaker 2: looking for that sort of quick hit and feeling of pleasure,
[18:24] Speaker 2: this is a This provides an experience of a very
[18:26] Speaker 2: kind of hedonic happiness.
[18:29] Speaker 1: As in hedonism. Yes, yes, pleasures.
[18:31] Speaker 2: Exactly, but that's often not in alignment with a person's values,
[18:38] Speaker 2: the things that they find meaningful or satisfying in life,
[18:41] Speaker 2: and so The other kind of happiness we talk about
[18:44] Speaker 2: is a more eudaimonic happiness, which is where someone does
[18:47] Speaker 2: feel quite aligned with their values, they feel quite satisfied
[18:50] Speaker 2: in life. So it's different to that sort of moment
[18:52] Speaker 2: to moment feeling of happiness, but that's greater sense of
[18:55] Speaker 2: being able to sit back and be like, ah, okay,
[19:00] Speaker 2: I feel good about my life overall as a whole picture.
[19:04] Speaker 2: So there's that internal tension that people can find themselves
[19:08] Speaker 2: in when they're constantly seeking out these dope mean driven behaviors.
[19:13] Speaker 2: The second kind of I guess warning sign is often
[19:16] Speaker 2: that people have got to a point in their life
[19:18] Speaker 2: where things are not quite working. And what I mean
[19:21] Speaker 2: by that is someone in their life is complaining about
[19:24] Speaker 2: something or they're feeling more distracted at work. You know,
[19:27] Speaker 2: if you're gambling and you're wanting to kind of like
[19:29] Speaker 2: place bets while you're meant to be working. So something
[19:32] Speaker 2: practically in their life isn't going to plan, and therefore
[19:34] Speaker 2: they come and they sort of seek out some help.
[19:37] Speaker 2: So it would be that kind of like emotional piece
[19:39] Speaker 2: of reflection, do I actually feel good about these behaviors
[19:42] Speaker 2: I'm engaging with? And secondly, are they causing some kind
[19:45] Speaker 2: of problems in my life.
[19:47] Speaker 1: And when you, let's say, an individual either recognizes that
[19:52] Speaker 1: ins somebody else and tell them or do something intervenalis's
[19:56] Speaker 1: call it, or alternaly, you recognize that thing in yourself.
[20:00] Speaker 1: Why is it? We just can't say to our brain,
[20:02] Speaker 1: we're not doing that anymore.
[20:05] Speaker 2: For some people, they can, they can. Yeah, I think
[20:07] Speaker 2: it depends on the degree to which that unhealthy kind
[20:11] Speaker 2: of behavior has developed, and you know, the resources that
[20:16] Speaker 2: someone has access to. So I'm thinking about a person who,
[20:21] Speaker 2: let's say, is maybe you know, drinking a little bit
[20:23] Speaker 2: too much in the evenings, right, but they've got great family,
[20:27] Speaker 2: great work, great friends, no financial stress, like everything else
[20:31] Speaker 2: in their life is pretty solid. It's probably going to
[20:35] Speaker 2: be easier for that person to go, you know what,
[20:37] Speaker 2: Actually this whole drinking thing at night isn't working for me.
[20:40] Speaker 2: I want to you know, live healthier, etc. And so
[20:43] Speaker 2: we'll make a decision to change that. And sure there
[20:45] Speaker 2: might be some urges and things along the way, but
[20:48] Speaker 2: we look at kind of protective factors for a person,
[20:51] Speaker 2: and that's someone who's got a lot of protective factors
[20:53] Speaker 2: in their life versus someone who might feel quite lonely,
[20:56] Speaker 2: have bouts of depression, have you know, unstable how or
[21:00] Speaker 2: unstable income, et cetera. For them to perhaps decide to
[21:03] Speaker 2: make that change for themselves, they might struggle more so
[21:06] Speaker 2: and might need some extra supports in place to help them.
[21:09] Speaker 1: So, is that what you call cognitive therapy where you
[21:14] Speaker 1: explain to someone and get them to be aware of
[21:17] Speaker 1: what they're doing, what the issue is, and what's driving
[21:19] Speaker 1: them to do this. Is that what you call cognitive therapy.
[21:22] Speaker 2: Yeah. Cognitive therapy or cognitive behavioral therapy looks at sort
[21:27] Speaker 2: of the interplay between three key factors our cognitions, so
[21:31] Speaker 2: our thought processes, our emotions, and our behaviors. And so
[21:36] Speaker 2: we can look to target those three factors to try
[21:38] Speaker 2: and help someone make changes for themselves. When we look
[21:41] Speaker 2: specifically at the cognitions, what we're looking for is untrue
[21:48] Speaker 2: or unhelpful beliefs that a person might have. So, for example,
[21:51] Speaker 2: someone might have a belief of like I need this
[21:54] Speaker 2: substance or I need to do this thing in order
[21:56] Speaker 2: to cope, and so I would gently challenge that with
[21:59] Speaker 2: a person like do you actually need it? Or is
[22:01] Speaker 2: this just sort of a story or a narrative that
[22:04] Speaker 2: you've been telling yourself, or for example, with things like gambling,
[22:07] Speaker 2: we see people develop these unhelpful beliefs around luck. You know,
[22:12] Speaker 2: this is my lucky machine or my lucky number and
[22:14] Speaker 2: things like that. And so therefore it's a lot about
[22:17] Speaker 2: helping a person reframe those thoughts and beliefs to actually
[22:22] Speaker 2: kind of look at gambling through patterns of a lens
[22:25] Speaker 2: of randomness as opposed to sort of luck and things
[22:28] Speaker 2: like that.
[22:28] Speaker 1: It was a book about It was written by a
[22:31] Speaker 1: neuroscientist and it was illustrated by an illustrator, and it
[22:36] Speaker 1: talked about how we build a story, or our brain,
[22:41] Speaker 1: our neurinal system builds a story about ourselves. And then
[22:45] Speaker 1: every time, over time, and every time we do the
[22:49] Speaker 1: thing that we built the story about ourselves, it then
[22:53] Speaker 1: confirms in our neurinal system that is the story about ourselves,
[22:56] Speaker 1: and we just keep adding to it. And we might
[22:59] Speaker 1: have in our mind we are a person who plays
[23:01] Speaker 1: the pokem machines and we build a story about ourselves.
[23:03] Speaker 1: That's what we do, that's what we are. We might
[23:06] Speaker 1: be doing it secretly, you might everyone in the family
[23:08] Speaker 1: may know about it, whatever the case, and we might
[23:10] Speaker 1: be smoking Ciggy's and getting the nicotine and we might
[23:13] Speaker 1: be having a couple of drinks for et cetera. But
[23:16] Speaker 1: the book went on to say that just the same
[23:20] Speaker 1: way as you can build that story about yourself, as
[23:22] Speaker 1: you can change that story about yourself. And of course
[23:24] Speaker 1: it's about neuroplasticity, but maybe you could touch on that
[23:28] Speaker 1: stuff for me, you know, like, how easy is it
[23:32] Speaker 1: is it for someone to use this plasticity concept to
[23:38] Speaker 1: turn the story around? And you know, and how have
[23:41] Speaker 1: you seen some radical turnarounds where someone was a let's
[23:44] Speaker 1: call it a loser and for themselves personally hurting themselves,
[23:48] Speaker 1: and then they turned into someone who is just magnificent
[23:51] Speaker 1: and did something great for society or for themselves or
[23:54] Speaker 1: for the family. Have you seen that process of neuroplasticity
[23:57] Speaker 1: where people change their story completely.
[23:59] Speaker 2: About Absolutely, it's certainly one that takes a lot of
[24:03] Speaker 2: work and a lot of effort and doesn't necessarily come easily.
[24:09] Speaker 2: But absolutely, I guess we would conceptualize what you're talking
[24:12] Speaker 2: about as core beliefs that a person can have about themselves,
[24:17] Speaker 2: about others, or about the world. You know, if I
[24:20] Speaker 2: experienced trauma in my life, I'm potentially likely to develop
[24:23] Speaker 2: a belief of the world is dangerous, and so every
[24:26] Speaker 2: time I walk down the street, I'm looking through the
[24:28] Speaker 2: lens of that belief. So these are often based on
[24:32] Speaker 2: experiences that people have in their life. Sometimes they can
[24:35] Speaker 2: be helpful. We can have really helpful care beliefs for ourselves,
[24:37] Speaker 2: but also really unhelpful ones as well. So we can
[24:41] Speaker 2: go through this pattern and this process of trying to
[24:45] Speaker 2: help someone shift those very deep seated beliefs that they have,
[24:49] Speaker 2: and we can do that in a number of different ways.
[24:51] Speaker 2: So the cognitive behavioral therapy does that, but it does
[24:56] Speaker 2: it in a more rational way, and for some people
[24:58] Speaker 2: that can be helpful. But for other people, what we
[25:02] Speaker 2: find is they say, yeah, look, I know that belief
[25:04] Speaker 2: is not necessarily accurate or true, but I still feel it,
[25:08] Speaker 2: like in my gut, it still feels true. And so
[25:11] Speaker 2: that's where some of our more cognitive based therapies, I
[25:14] Speaker 2: would say have their limits, because something like an addiction
[25:18] Speaker 2: is typically not a problem of rationality. Most people who
[25:22] Speaker 2: have an addiction know that what they're doing is probably
[25:25] Speaker 2: not very rational and doesn't make sense, but they still,
[25:28] Speaker 2: on a very kind of deep level, feel compelled to
[25:31] Speaker 2: do it.
[25:32] Speaker 1: Addiction with social media, Like I know a seventeen year
[25:38] Speaker 1: old kid who's very close to me, who very very bright, kid,
[25:45] Speaker 1: great at school, blower but I'm not joking, never gets
[25:49] Speaker 1: off that from the moment he wakes up. It doesn't
[25:53] Speaker 1: matter what he's doing the gym, no matter, that's always
[25:56] Speaker 1: in front of him. Is that an addiction could be?
[26:01] Speaker 2: They could be. I mean, addiction to social media certainly exists.
[26:05] Speaker 1: It's a new thing.
[26:06] Speaker 2: But yes, in the sense that we don't have formal
[26:08] Speaker 2: kind of classification systems for it. But I think any clinician,
[26:13] Speaker 2: researcher parents would say, yeah, social media addiction absolutely exists.
[26:18] Speaker 2: And you know, these platforms are designed to be sticky,
[26:23] Speaker 2: as they call it.
[26:24] Speaker 1: Well, you've been very you've been very fair, sed No,
[26:28] Speaker 1: but I mean, but they do, but they do work
[26:30] Speaker 1: on the basis that they are. They understand how to
[26:32] Speaker 1: make sure you don't leave that platform.
[26:34] Speaker 2: Absolutely. Social media apps are designed in a way that
[26:40] Speaker 2: mimics very similarly how poke machines work. Anything that we
[26:45] Speaker 2: can do very quickly and easily, and the faster we
[26:48] Speaker 2: can do something, the more addictive potential it has. Is
[26:51] Speaker 2: that right, Yeah, So this is why poke machine is
[26:53] Speaker 2: more addictive. Yep, more addictive than you know, like sitting
[26:56] Speaker 2: there scratching the scratchy or engaging with other games.
[27:00] Speaker 1: That's right. It is one of the most addictive.
[27:02] Speaker 2: Yes, gambling absolutely absolutely, and speed is one of the
[27:06] Speaker 2: things that makes it addictive.
[27:07] Speaker 1: Why is that.
[27:09] Speaker 2: Because we can we can get that sense of immersion
[27:12] Speaker 2: into something, right, It takes us out of reality and
[27:15] Speaker 2: we can just kind of end up in that sort
[27:17] Speaker 2: of state of immersed within the kind of spins.
[27:20] Speaker 1: And you can keep doing it. It keeps prapsing a button.
[27:22] Speaker 2: No effort, right, we talked about dopamine and effort. There's
[27:24] Speaker 2: no effort scratchy, I have to actually scratch the scratching.
[27:26] Speaker 2: There's no effort kind of required.
[27:28] Speaker 1: Were having a better on the wads to have to
[27:29] Speaker 1: read the form?
[27:30] Speaker 2: Yes, yes, it's it's slower, I might have to wait
[27:33] Speaker 2: longer versus how fast I have to watch the race
[27:36] Speaker 2: way exactly exactly. So there's other factors as well, but
[27:39] Speaker 2: speed and ease is one of them. So there's regulations
[27:42] Speaker 2: about how fast pokies can spin. I think it's about
[27:44] Speaker 2: two point three seconds per spin, and that regulation is
[27:49] Speaker 2: in place because there's recognition. That's speed you know very
[27:52] Speaker 2: much kind of equates addictive potential.
[27:56] Speaker 1: So therefore just on that. Because then the online betting formats,
[28:01] Speaker 1: where I can go on one of the betting formats
[28:04] Speaker 1: and go online, they might have ten races going Sydney, Melbourne,
[28:09] Speaker 1: Brisbane while a couple the whole country. Whereas before I
[28:13] Speaker 1: start to go to the races, have a bet, walk out,
[28:15] Speaker 1: have a bet with a bookmaker, walk up to the rails,
[28:18] Speaker 1: watch the race, come back and collect my money whatever
[28:20] Speaker 1: the case, I might have eight of those races in
[28:22] Speaker 1: a day. But today you can go online and you
[28:25] Speaker 1: can watch every race event across the country, and for
[28:28] Speaker 1: that matter, you can watch race events overseas and effectively
[28:31] Speaker 1: you just press a button because it's already got your
[28:33] Speaker 1: credit card details or your bank details, and so that
[28:36] Speaker 1: is much more addictive because of the speed yes, or access.
[28:41] Speaker 2: Speed and ease yessolute.
[28:43] Speaker 1: Let's just pressing a button. Therefore, if they're designing their
[28:47] Speaker 1: website or their app or whatever the case may be,
[28:50] Speaker 1: it's all about no friction. So the less friction, the
[28:54] Speaker 1: more likely it is that someone would someone would be
[28:57] Speaker 1: with that perhaps predisposition would become.
[28:59] Speaker 2: A yes, yeah, or even people who don't necessarily become
[29:03] Speaker 2: addicted are perhaps experiencing more harm or sort of using
[29:07] Speaker 2: it more than they would if it wasn't as easy
[29:10] Speaker 2: or as quick or as seamless to be able to
[29:12] Speaker 2: engage with it.
[29:13] Speaker 1: So when social media apps go from the old days,
[29:19] Speaker 1: you had to post and play with and write all
[29:22] Speaker 1: lot of stuff. And I'm not talking about the person
[29:26] Speaker 1: who's posting, but I'm talking about the person's reading it.
[29:29] Speaker 1: You had to sort of go to the page and
[29:31] Speaker 1: look at it and go to the post and you know,
[29:34] Speaker 1: you see it. Now there's you know, ten or twelve
[29:38] Speaker 1: second reels. So those reels are really playing into our
[29:44] Speaker 1: predisposition to become more addicted to particular protocol, whichever it is,
[29:49] Speaker 1: whichever a social media protocol you're using, and it's like
[29:52] Speaker 1: a race to be the fastest amongst all of them.
[29:56] Speaker 2: Yeah, absolutely, we see. You know, if you think about
[30:01] Speaker 2: the way in which social media has evolved. Back in
[30:03] Speaker 2: the old days of Facebook, you got to the end
[30:05] Speaker 2: of your home screen and it said it either said
[30:08] Speaker 2: one or two things click to see more or you're
[30:11] Speaker 2: all caught up, so you could get to the end
[30:13] Speaker 2: of the scroll. Now we have the endless scroll. You
[30:15] Speaker 2: know there is no end. You don't click to see
[30:17] Speaker 2: more because click to see more gives the opportunity for
[30:20] Speaker 2: the prefrontal cortex to come back online and sort of
[30:23] Speaker 2: help us make a decision do I actually want to
[30:25] Speaker 2: keep scrolling or do I want to do something else
[30:27] Speaker 2: with my time. They take those features away because they
[30:30] Speaker 2: remove any kind of point of friction or anything that
[30:32] Speaker 2: might remove us from continuing to engage with the app.
[30:36] Speaker 1: So the process of say let's call it on your device,
[30:41] Speaker 1: of touching it and flicking across it feels very much
[30:46] Speaker 1: like a pogram sham. But is there Do you think
[30:48] Speaker 1: there's some intellect gone into that there? Is there anything
[30:52] Speaker 1: associated with that flicking across with your finger? I mean
[30:56] Speaker 1: that helps your what entices you to become more obst
[31:00] Speaker 1: or more addicted, or more likely to sit on that
[31:04] Speaker 1: particular protocol.
[31:06] Speaker 2: I say it would help us have a false sense
[31:08] Speaker 2: of feeling like we have control, right, you know, the
[31:11] Speaker 2: idea that I can scroll through or flick through gives
[31:14] Speaker 2: me a sense that I'm choosing. Yeah, But I would
[31:18] Speaker 2: kind of argue that we're not really fully in control
[31:21] Speaker 2: when we're so immersed in scrolling through what the apps
[31:24] Speaker 2: are showing us.
[31:25] Speaker 1: It's very clever. I mean, I mean, do they have
[31:29] Speaker 1: ethic debates on this stuff? Do you guys? Do I
[31:31] Speaker 1: mean do you have like global ethic disbates where I
[31:34] Speaker 1: don't know, because like at the end of the day,
[31:37] Speaker 1: we can't live any world and say to people, you know,
[31:40] Speaker 1: you shouldn't do this because there's a million things we
[31:42] Speaker 1: shouldn't do. People, you know, the vendors would say, you know,
[31:47] Speaker 1: we're making vitable. If people don't want to do it,
[31:49] Speaker 1: they don't do it. Like But then on the other hand,
[31:52] Speaker 1: someone might say, well, we have a people under age
[31:54] Speaker 1: which we're just going through now in Australia with this
[31:56] Speaker 1: under sixteen law, but people underage, shouldn't you looking at it?
[32:00] Speaker 1: I mean, it's probably not what they're looking at. Its
[32:02] Speaker 1: probably the fact that they're just getting addicted to it
[32:04] Speaker 1: is the real issue. Yeah, I mean, this government has
[32:07] Speaker 1: sold out that well, we want to take bad content
[32:10] Speaker 1: away from them, but really the question becomes maybe the
[32:14] Speaker 1: real question is maybe what's more important is we should
[32:17] Speaker 1: just take that addictive behavior away from them, that ability
[32:20] Speaker 1: to develop that whilst they're not at an age where
[32:22] Speaker 1: they can make a proper decision or a proper choice
[32:25] Speaker 1: of what's good for me, and parents don't know either. So, like,
[32:28] Speaker 1: what do you think about that aspect of it? Like content?
[32:31] Speaker 1: Is it about content that we should be protecting them
[32:34] Speaker 1: from or is it the behavioral stuff that we should
[32:38] Speaker 1: be protecting them from.
[32:39] Speaker 2: I think both both. I think absolutely both. We need
[32:42] Speaker 2: regulation essentially, and the companies are not regulating themselves. It's
[32:49] Speaker 2: content and it's the behavior. And I'll give you an example.
[32:54] Speaker 2: I work with a young pre teen boy who've apes.
[32:59] Speaker 1: And like the little vapes that they sucked, the yeah,
[33:04] Speaker 1: whatever it is, the chemicals, whatever.
[33:06] Speaker 2: It is that they second, and the social media platforms
[33:09] Speaker 2: that he's on show him all these videos of like fun, cool,
[33:14] Speaker 2: colorful vapes, you know, youngish looking people vaping call out
[33:19] Speaker 2: of marketing, and I thought, oh my god, that's awful.
[33:23] Speaker 2: So I got on my same social media platform and
[33:26] Speaker 2: I searched vapes and what I got was a whole
[33:30] Speaker 2: bunch of people talking about why vapes are bad for you.
[33:32] Speaker 2: Because the algorithm knows that I'm a clinical psychologist interested
[33:36] Speaker 2: in public health, who's you know, not for vapes. But
[33:39] Speaker 2: in the same way that the algorithm knows that that's
[33:40] Speaker 2: who I am. The algorithm also knows who is that
[33:43] Speaker 2: my client is a pre teen boy. Yeah, yeah, boy
[33:46] Speaker 2: exactly and underaged. So you know, there is a lot
[33:51] Speaker 2: that kind of the algorithm speaks to when it comes
[33:54] Speaker 2: to content. I'm for the band that came into place.
[34:01] Speaker 2: I've just and again I'm maybe biased in my perspective,
[34:04] Speaker 2: but I have kind of seen the really ugly side
[34:07] Speaker 2: of what can happen when kids have access to things
[34:10] Speaker 2: that no one should have access to online, let alone
[34:13] Speaker 2: young developing brains. And that stuff is really hard to
[34:17] Speaker 2: undo when kids see some of these things online or
[34:20] Speaker 2: they get fed these messages that are really unhealthy and
[34:23] Speaker 2: unhelpful for them that can take a long time to
[34:26] Speaker 2: undo in therapy. As opposed to them just not having
[34:29] Speaker 2: access to it from the start, is.
[34:31] Speaker 1: That because they don't have a well developed profinal court,
[34:35] Speaker 1: it could probably not developed at all, probably so they
[34:38] Speaker 1: therefore can't make rational decisions. Therefore you can't have rational
[34:41] Speaker 1: conversation with them. So you're sitting there Anastasia of Ponis
[34:45] Speaker 1: as a rational scientist, trying to explain them the rationality
[34:50] Speaker 1: why this thing is no good from but you're talking
[34:51] Speaker 1: to a different brain.
[34:53] Speaker 2: Is that the issue the brain, their limbic system is
[34:56] Speaker 2: a very kind of like old, well developed part of
[34:58] Speaker 2: the brain. It's very impulsive, reward seeking. The frontal lobe
[35:02] Speaker 2: is not yet well developed, so they can't regulate themselves
[35:07] Speaker 2: in a way that an adult can. And I think
[35:08] Speaker 2: it's an unfair ass to ask kids to regulate their
[35:12] Speaker 2: behavior when it comes to social media when we as
[35:14] Speaker 2: adults struggle with it at times.
[35:16] Speaker 1: But how do you get them to regulate it? When
[35:17] Speaker 1: you're going to say, well, because regulation is about rational
[35:20] Speaker 1: and logical, rational thinking and logic, but they're prefound cortex
[35:25] Speaker 1: like that path that is not developed yet, which likes
[35:28] Speaker 1: to look at it those things that way as opposed
[35:30] Speaker 1: to the limb system. It's just like the doors closed.
[35:34] Speaker 2: Yeah, well, I think we need regulation of the companies
[35:37] Speaker 2: that are creating these platforms. They need to be held
[35:40] Speaker 2: to account. We've seen sort of things in the last
[35:43] Speaker 2: few weeks with the kind of US action that took place,
[35:47] Speaker 2: and you know, the company is being held responsible. We'll
[35:50] Speaker 2: see what the actual outcome of that all is. But
[35:52] Speaker 2: we need regulation in the same way that there is
[35:56] Speaker 2: regulation with you know how poker machines are manufactured, not
[35:59] Speaker 2: to say that that's you know, the greatest answer we have,
[36:02] Speaker 2: or you know, alcohol, there's regulations on these products in
[36:05] Speaker 2: some way, and we need the same for social media
[36:07] Speaker 2: because there is just endless evidence to suggest that it
[36:10] Speaker 2: is potentially addictive, it's harmful, there are so many risks
[36:13] Speaker 2: attached to it, and with any you know, we have
[36:15] Speaker 2: regulation around how cars are developed and that we need
[36:18] Speaker 2: to wear seat belts because risks are attached to driving
[36:21] Speaker 2: a car. We need the same for social media.
[36:24] Speaker 1: So if I could ask you to just to pull
[36:27] Speaker 1: aug crystal ball from a moment and think forward. You know,
[36:30] Speaker 1: we live in a world where medical technology. Health technology
[36:33] Speaker 1: will make us live longer. And you know, a young
[36:37] Speaker 1: person who's twenty today, by the time they turn seventy
[36:41] Speaker 1: fifty years from now, will probably be out of cure
[36:43] Speaker 1: just about everything. You know, right now, we can fix
[36:46] Speaker 1: your herd, we can do everything. We probably can't do
[36:47] Speaker 1: things your brain so much. By then, we'll have cures
[36:50] Speaker 1: for a lot of things, dementia, everything, and so all
[36:54] Speaker 1: of a sudden they're going to be living longer through
[36:56] Speaker 1: medical intervention. What do you see as the emerging problems
[37:02] Speaker 1: coming out of the new addictions today that might actually
[37:07] Speaker 1: give them a long whilst they have a longer life,
[37:09] Speaker 1: they're going to have a miserable life. And what are
[37:11] Speaker 1: you worried about about, for example, social media relative to
[37:14] Speaker 1: addictions starting at a young age, or what can that
[37:18] Speaker 1: develop into? Because you know, you might get one person
[37:21] Speaker 1: you can see you, but there's probably you know, in
[37:23] Speaker 1: Australia three or four million kids in the same category
[37:26] Speaker 1: who won't get to see you. They can't afford it,
[37:28] Speaker 1: they I don't know about it, their parents ain't care. Whatever.
[37:31] Speaker 1: What do you see that? What's the danger ahead for them?
[37:35] Speaker 1: Because living a good, long life.
[37:37] Speaker 2: The biggest thing that worries me is that young kids
[37:43] Speaker 2: and teens these days have so much available to them
[37:46] Speaker 2: in the way of destruction, which means they don't get
[37:50] Speaker 2: the opportunity to be quiet still or bored. You know,
[37:58] Speaker 2: if you're doing an essay as part of your homework
[38:01] Speaker 2: and you get to a point where you feel really
[38:02] Speaker 2: stuck and it's really hard. Before the era of kind
[38:05] Speaker 2: of phones and tech, you know, with maybe daydream for
[38:08] Speaker 2: a few minutes, kind of doodle on the side of
[38:09] Speaker 2: the page and then come back to it. Nowadays, we
[38:12] Speaker 2: go straight to picking up the phone and scrolling or
[38:15] Speaker 2: distracting in some way. And what that means is that
[38:20] Speaker 2: our ability or kid's ability for frustration tolerance is decreasing.
[38:24] Speaker 2: So we all need to be able to sit with frustration, discomfort,
[38:29] Speaker 2: something emotionally painful. That's absolutely because life is full of
[38:34] Speaker 2: hard moments, sometimes small modes moments, sometimes bigger moments in life,
[38:39] Speaker 2: and being able to kind of sit with that internal
[38:42] Speaker 2: discomfort is a crucial skill for us.
[38:45] Speaker 1: That resilience.
[38:47] Speaker 2: Yeah, it absolutely ties into resilience. You know, Can I
[38:51] Speaker 2: face this discomfort? Can I sit with it and not
[38:54] Speaker 2: feel like I need to drown myself in some sort
[38:56] Speaker 2: of distraction or escape it. Kids are not getting the
[39:01] Speaker 2: opportunity to develop that muscle or that skill within themselves.
[39:05] Speaker 2: And so my concern is what happens when we have
[39:08] Speaker 2: a generation of adults who don't feel like they have
[39:12] Speaker 2: the capacity to sit with hard stuff in life. What's
[39:15] Speaker 2: going to happen?
[39:16] Speaker 1: Then?
[39:16] Speaker 2: That's my concern.
[39:18] Speaker 1: Wow, I mean, I'm just thinking that through the only
[39:24] Speaker 1: not only, they can do anything they want today, like
[39:27] Speaker 1: that access to everything like drugs, alcohol, even though it's
[39:31] Speaker 1: not allowed. I know, people aren't know us all these things,
[39:33] Speaker 1: but these things are available, and they can online and
[39:36] Speaker 1: you know, like telephones, you know, smart devices, et cetera, receptera.
[39:45] Speaker 1: They've got so much access to stuff. If something happens,
[39:49] Speaker 1: I mean, when they don't I don't have this ability
[39:52] Speaker 1: to deal with it, or they haven't had the experience
[39:54] Speaker 1: of dealing with their brain is not used to it.
[39:59] Speaker 1: Do we under the risk of sort of systemic depressions
[40:04] Speaker 1: or systemic other problems that associated with emotional emotional problems,
[40:08] Speaker 1: mental health problems.
[40:09] Speaker 2: That's the concern. I think that if those skills are
[40:13] Speaker 2: not well developed from a young age, it's going to
[40:16] Speaker 2: lead to adults struggling with the realities of the hard
[40:18] Speaker 2: stuff that happens in life.
[40:20] Speaker 1: And right now we're sort of starting to experience a
[40:23] Speaker 1: bit of this stuff. You know, we've COVID lockdowns. Whether
[40:26] Speaker 1: they're right wrong, doesn't matter. They are hard stuff to
[40:28] Speaker 1: deal with, COVID lockdowns. You know, we've got the Ran war,
[40:32] Speaker 1: got inflation, which an effects adults usually but none less,
[40:36] Speaker 1: you know, cost living crisis. I see this stuff happening
[40:41] Speaker 1: more often than this type of volatility will happen in
[40:44] Speaker 1: an economic sense more more often than it's ever happened before.
[40:48] Speaker 1: That's certainly what I've seen in all the data, and
[40:52] Speaker 1: therefore it's more likely that these individuals are going to
[40:56] Speaker 1: be confronted as adults more than any of us were ever.
[41:03] Speaker 2: Yeah.
[41:03] Speaker 1: I mean in my when I was younger, it was
[41:05] Speaker 1: a ten year process. Every ten years something happened. But
[41:09] Speaker 1: do you know, we didn't have distractions, and we had
[41:11] Speaker 1: to learn how to deal with stuff, and often I
[41:15] Speaker 1: fall back on those learnings. But if it's happening every
[41:18] Speaker 1: three years, this could cause big mental health problems around
[41:23] Speaker 1: the world globally. That's a that's a big issue. That's
[41:28] Speaker 1: a big, like a large problem for the planet.
[41:32] Speaker 2: Yes, and we're not seeing rates of mental health in
[41:35] Speaker 2: young people decline. If anything, they're on the rise. We
[41:39] Speaker 2: see the rise of things like climate anxiety, and you know,
[41:42] Speaker 2: young people having anxiety about the future and what the
[41:45] Speaker 2: future holds, and these quite sort of big picture, almost
[41:47] Speaker 2: existential sort of fears that are coming about from a
[41:50] Speaker 2: younger age. And so you know, the future I think
[41:55] Speaker 2: for long a lot of young people kind of looks
[41:58] Speaker 2: a bit scary. Yeah, the reality is maybe it is,
[42:04] Speaker 2: but without the kind of psychological resources to be able
[42:07] Speaker 2: to cope with what comes our way. It's going to
[42:09] Speaker 2: feel even.
[42:10] Speaker 1: Harder, which means they'll have a crappier life. They may
[42:15] Speaker 1: live physically longer, but they'll have a crappier life than
[42:17] Speaker 1: we had. You know, I just thought about just see
[42:20] Speaker 1: Agris said. They said that, you know, we are seeing
[42:25] Speaker 1: politicians globally but here in Australia as well, trying to
[42:29] Speaker 1: tackle some of these issues. But it's very it's not strategic,
[42:33] Speaker 1: it's very tactical, like they're saying, oh, well, we're going
[42:35] Speaker 1: to put this Laura and the stop kids from getting
[42:37] Speaker 1: contact under the age of sixteen. Therefore you know, they'll
[42:40] Speaker 1: be banned off the platforms. But what we're not seeing
[42:44] Speaker 1: is a I hate this word, but a holistic strategy
[42:48] Speaker 1: around what you and I just talked about, then why
[42:51] Speaker 1: this is a problem, and how do we not only
[42:54] Speaker 1: take these things away from them, and not only discourage
[42:58] Speaker 1: the vendors of this, these products or the content to
[43:01] Speaker 1: not do it, hitting them up with fifty million dollar
[43:03] Speaker 1: fives all that sort of stuff, or proposing to do,
[43:06] Speaker 1: but also educating parents and perhaps even kids as to
[43:10] Speaker 1: what you're talking about. You know, like you won't build
[43:13] Speaker 1: resilience if you're escaping or if you have an escape
[43:17] Speaker 1: patch all the time. Every time some form of mental
[43:21] Speaker 1: frustration comes up, like boredom.
[43:23] Speaker 2: Yes, yes, I literally prescribe boredom to you know, teens
[43:29] Speaker 2: and families. I will say to them, you know, for
[43:31] Speaker 2: young kids, you know, playing video games too much or something.
[43:33] Speaker 2: I'll say, right, half an hour a day, you sit
[43:35] Speaker 2: with nothing, you know, pens, paper, whatever.
[43:38] Speaker 1: But no, not as a punishment, but as a technique,
[43:42] Speaker 1: as an experience. Yes, yep, and that's not what But
[43:45] Speaker 1: no one's talking about that in the stasia you that
[43:48] Speaker 1: was your brilliant what you just said. Where because the
[43:51] Speaker 1: kids see it as punishment. It can't be meeted out
[43:55] Speaker 1: as punishment because what they're doing is not wrong. I mean,
[43:58] Speaker 1: it's available, and we the adults, all our to be valuable.
[44:02] Speaker 1: It's not wrong. But if you say to them, there's
[44:04] Speaker 1: something very valuable in being bored and your brain being
[44:10] Speaker 1: frustrated with the boredom and trying to urge you to
[44:14] Speaker 1: do something that you were doing previously, there's something that
[44:17] Speaker 1: builds this thing called resilience or whatever the world is
[44:19] Speaker 1: that better suited for the kids to understand as that
[44:23] Speaker 1: being as a superpower.
[44:25] Speaker 2: Yeah, well, they say our best thinking often happens in
[44:27] Speaker 2: the shower, right. It's a different part of the brain
[44:31] Speaker 2: that's active, the default mode network, which allows us to
[44:34] Speaker 2: do a lot of that sort of reflective thinking about ourselves,
[44:38] Speaker 2: about our life, about the world. You know, we get
[44:41] Speaker 2: into a sort of different way of thinking that is
[44:43] Speaker 2: not as easily available to us when we're distracted with devices.
[44:45] Speaker 2: But it's very important for sitting with discomfort, for thinking
[44:50] Speaker 2: about ourselves, our life, for creativity, for so many.
[44:54] Speaker 1: Things that's interesting. So we nearly you know, and I
[44:58] Speaker 1: remember when I was a kid, Mom, get out of
[45:00] Speaker 1: the bloody shower, like, you know, because you're using up
[45:04] Speaker 1: all the hot water because we used to have one
[45:06] Speaker 1: tank of hot water. It only filled up at midnight
[45:08] Speaker 1: because that was off peak, you know it electricity was cheap,
[45:10] Speaker 1: but then all gas what it was. But actually, you
[45:14] Speaker 1: probably should encourage a kid to hang in the shower
[45:17] Speaker 1: for as long as they want because they're not on
[45:18] Speaker 1: the device. They're actually you know, maybe daydreaming or whatever
[45:23] Speaker 1: the case may be. It's probably bloody good for them.
[45:25] Speaker 2: Yes, I agree, but these days they're probably rushing to
[45:27] Speaker 2: get out of the shower and get onto its them.
[45:29] Speaker 1: Yeah, totally. But now we want to encourage them to
[45:31] Speaker 1: do the things that we were getting discouraged to do,
[45:34] Speaker 1: and so the more simple things that they can do,
[45:37] Speaker 1: and then even going beyond that, like boredom. I like
[45:42] Speaker 1: that as a concept, boredom. I'm probably one of the
[45:45] Speaker 1: people in the world. I don't like boredom. I'm always
[45:48] Speaker 1: trying it because I have too many problems available to
[45:51] Speaker 1: me to solve.
[45:53] Speaker 2: I don't think anyone would like boredom right fields.
[45:56] Speaker 1: But I should comfortable. I should just sit back and
[46:01] Speaker 1: see what happens, just sort of Yeah, it'll just marinate
[46:04] Speaker 1: in a little bit, and just hang in there a bit,
[46:06] Speaker 1: just even and would you suggest, like you just do
[46:09] Speaker 1: it for a minute, then go for two minutes, and
[46:11] Speaker 1: then try and extend it for five minutes. It's nearly meditated,
[46:13] Speaker 1: But would you just how do you do that? What
[46:16] Speaker 1: is the process of.
[46:17] Speaker 2: Doing straight for twenty minutes?
[46:19] Speaker 1: Not long enough, not long? But just do as much
[46:22] Speaker 1: as you can, I guess, but positively set out to
[46:25] Speaker 1: do it.
[46:25] Speaker 2: Yeah, allocate time for it. Yeah, I'm going to spend
[46:30] Speaker 2: twenty minutes or so in the evening, in the afternoon
[46:33] Speaker 2: and just kind of exist with no no.
[46:37] Speaker 1: No Telly, no tech. Yes, no radio.
[46:39] Speaker 2: You can have pen, you can have paper, but no laptops,
[46:42] Speaker 2: no radio, no podcasts, you know, nothing that's taking us
[46:45] Speaker 2: away from just being with ourselves and let your mind
[46:48] Speaker 2: wander and see where it goes.
[46:50] Speaker 1: Well, that's personally, that's one of the best bits of
[46:56] Speaker 1: guidance that I've received for a long long time. I
[47:00] Speaker 1: really appreciate it. Thank you, doctor Anastasia Ronis long life
[47:05] Speaker 1: to you, and thanks very much for coming on Project one,
[47:07] Speaker 1: not thank
[47:08] Speaker 2: You for having me

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