Starve the Ego Feed the Soul
Starve the Ego Feed the Soul
Navigating the Digital Age: Social Media's Influence on Relationships and Online Dating
Technology and social media significantly impact how we build and maintain our relationships. This episode explores the concepts of fubbing, the implications of social media on intimacy and trust, the dynamics of online dating, and practical steps toward healthier digital interactions.
• Discussion of how technology influences modern relationships
• Introduction of fubbing as a relationship challenge
• Exploration of social media's effect on emotional connection
• Addressing the roots of phone addiction and reliance on validation
• The impact of soft cheating and micro-infidelities in digital spaces
• Navigating online dating: casual vs. serious intentions
• Importance of setting digital boundaries in relationships
• Encouragement of mindfulness with technology use
• Call to action for individual sessions at www.nicoboraza.com
Warmly,
Nico Barraza
@FeedTheSoulNB
www.nicobarraza.com
This show is brought to you by Sonora Studios. A lot of people ask me where the design for my logo and the typography came from, and Merity at Sonora Studios is responsible for all of it. Sonora Studios is branding, design, marketing and social media. Based in San Diego, california, and founded by Merity Dambacher, sonora Studios is a branding, design and marketing firm that helps entrepreneurs and businesses showcase their talents by building and elevating their brands. With an unmatched range of creative capabilities and nearly 20 years of experience, sonora has successfully created brands, captivated audiences and communicated messages to align with brands, initiatives and goals. Sonora goes above and beyond to deliver innovative strategies and solutions to make brands truly unique, compelling and beautiful. Head over to sonorastudiosco that's C-O sonorastudiosco to learn more If you need help with your branding, social media, design, marketing all of that. They do a ton of amazing work Web design, graphic design, marketing, social media and strategy, public relations, communications, branding and marketing strategy, event branding and management and planning. So go check them over at sonorastudiosco. You, hey, y'all, welcome back to the show.
Speaker 1:I get asked a ton in sessions about how technology influences modern relationships and what we can do to mitigate some of the negative things about technology, particularly social media and how social media influences dating, influences intimacy, influences communication within relationships, for instance, even influences cheating, even influences our eyes or our energy strain from our partner or the person we're in a relationship with or dating. So social media is obviously a double-edged sword for all of us. It connects us on a variety of ways, but it also disconnects us at the same time. There's no arguing that. In fact, if we look at statistics, the prevalence of loneliness, of anxiety, of depression, has increased nearly exponentially with the use of cell phones, particularly social media within the cell phone Instagram, tiktok, twitter, facebook, linkedin, youtube, all these different you know, reddit, all these different ways to relate and to connect. And that's interesting, right, when we think about, like, the premise of social media. Its whole idea was really to connect us, or that's interesting, right, when we think about the premise of social media, its whole idea was really to connect us, or so we think right. But ultimately, when we look at it, it's merely a tool. That's a group of people, highly intelligent, very well-funded organizations that are commodifying the human attention span, and so you and I and all the people, everyone out there, we're really just commodities. Our attention is being traded and the whole thing.
Speaker 1:The reason algorithm and AI exist is to captivate us is to stick us in this funnel that wants to keep us there as long as possible, to be desensitized, to be detached, to be angered. It wants to trigger you some sort of a way, grip you emotionally some way, so it keeps your energy and your focus on there, right, so social media can enable bits of long-distance intimacy, but ultimately it becomes a comparison trap, right, for many of us. We see people that quote that quote unquote couples that look happy, people that look like they're crushing it at life, right, maybe they're super wealthy, maybe they're really fit, maybe they're you know all these things, right, and then we can start to envy others and we can start to sort of denigrate ourselves and, instead of using social media to lift ourselves up to be better, we sort of start to feel bad, we start to feel worse about ourselves. Now, the idea of having the ability to just instantly message random people on the internet can really have a sort of pigeon, be pigeonholed in this idea that we have almost an over-reliance on digital validation. Right, we're looking for energy, we're looking for an energy return, and so this can particularly be a huge problem when we're in relationships and we're checking out right, we're not communicating with our partner, we're not communicating with the family, we're not communicating with people that we need to be communicating with, and so we just scroll incessantly or we like posts, or we comment on stuff, and some of this stuff that we're following it could be content that's quote, unquote healthy for us, it could be stuff that's really positive for us, but ultimately we can use this shit as a distraction. And even the best of content can be a distraction when you just consume it mindlessly, where you're just scrolling through it again and again and again. And so that brings me to the sort of second point I wanted to make in discussing social media and how it's influenced, our ways on relating is.
Speaker 1:There's this term that I actually just recently learned. I knew what the outcome was, but I didn't know it actually had a term. It's called FUBBING, p-h-u-b-b-i-n-g, which is basically when someone is prioritizing their phone over the person in front of them. And so the definition of fubbing is when someone ignores their partner, friends, for instance, child, family in favor of their phone. And this is just stats pulled off of Google, using some different AI to pull it off, but studies have shown that 46% of people report being fubbed by their partners regularly.
Speaker 1:Why is this harmful? Well, for one, it erodes emotional connection. Right, it's communicating that I'm either avoiding something that's there, right, I don't want to talk about it, I'm avoiding it, I'm avoiding my own feelings, or you just don't matter to me. Right, it's communicating these things that it's really unhealthy. It increases feelings of loneliness and neglect and it reduces quality time and meaningful conversations and the impact we can have on each other.
Speaker 1:Right, like you know, you, you catch yourself consistently looking at my phone at dinner or I got to answer this email because of work, or I got to do this, or I'm on the phone, right, someone's telling me something, and then they say something and they're like hey, did you hear what I just said? And you're not listening, so you're doing something else. Your mind's thinking of something else. That our mind does this already. Right, we already kind of fub mentally when we have a lot of shit going on, but our phones and social media have just like upped the ante. So so much so that we can't multitask. I don't give a shit what people say. The human brain is not designed to multitask. Women aren't better than men at multitasking. All genders are absolute shit at it.
Speaker 1:We can do a primary task and a very, very simple secondary task, and that's it. That's what your brain is, that's what your brain can handle. And so, when we're talking about connecting, really listening, like you know, emotional connection, you have to put your phone away, you have to listen, you have to feel. And you also have to do that when you're spending time alone, right, because so many of us are like well, I'm really good at spending alone time. I connect with myself deeply. I'm like are you on your phone scrolling Instagram? Are you seeing every story every second? You're consistently updating your phone.
Speaker 1:And I fall into this trap too. I do this a lot and I try to like be mindful of, like, hey, I need to put my freaking phone away. Man, I'm getting this thing where I'm consistently just can't be bored. I can't just sit with my own myself and just sit in my shit, you know, and you have to get better at that. And you have to do it mindfully and intentionally, because your brain is looking for the easy distraction. Now, even right now, I just literally grabbed my phone as I'm saying that, because I'm like talking about it and it's such like a incessant habit, right, it's the monkey mind. It's like the the, the mice that you keep giving this sugar to, and they keep going back to that same drink and sipping a little bit more of the sugar, sipping a little bit more of the sugar.
Speaker 1:We're addicts. We become slaves to our own addictions, but we ultimately have to say no, we have to stop it. So there's a handful of solutions right, setting up particularly blocks of hours or multiple hours or even days where it's like tech free time, either by yourself. Or it's like Fridays, right, fridays we don't get on social media. Or we get on social media like one hour or something, and the rest of it's just like put the phone away and really hold yourself accountable to it. No one's going to hold yourself accountable, you know. No one's going to hold you to the fire, but yourself. This is just like. Like I envision going to the gym, right, you can't just have a personal trainer there every single time, unless you have oodles of money, and that doesn't work with tech addiction. It's really what this is. This is technological social media addiction, and let's stop playing around.
Speaker 1:Most of us that are on social media are addicted to it in some way. Right? Let's be honest about it. It fills some sort of void, right, and they're a monkey mind, just so we got from board standing in line and might as well get on my phone. Might as well go on instagram, might as well see if anyone emailed me. Do I have any new text messages, right? Um, and we do this all the time. It's it's become synonymous with just day-to-day life. So, setting up tech free time, but also being mindful of your phone use, checking notifications at set times, setting up your do not disturb and when you're on, do not disturb, allow certain calls from certain individuals and like, put them on your favorites, but but don't mindlessly scroll right, try to prevent that. Maybe turn off notifications for certain apps, right, and only check it on certain times during the day.
Speaker 1:And then, the biggest thing of all of this is addressing the root cause. Are we escaping into our phones due to relationship dissatisfaction? Do we have some sort of problem either internally, something going on in ourselves, with our past, in our current lives? Are we worried about our future? Is something going on between us and our partner? And are we avoiding addressing the root causes? And we have to really be honest about that, right, we have to check in with why we're going to our phone, why we're looking for an escape, just like any other drug.
Speaker 1:You know, when we talk about addiction and recovery, the first step to recovery is to admit that you have a problem and then the second step to that is finding ways and building a support system to change how you operate. And when you have those, let's say, cravings or urges to go to your phone and be mindful about it, right, because the phone is so easy to be addicted to. It's not like we're doing this drug. It operates much in the same way of almost a relationship with pornography and this is specifically talking to men, right. It's like, oh, you're feeling lonely, you're feeling depressed, feeling sad, feeling overwhelmed. Overwhelmed is a key thing. Well, okay, we'll just go watch porn and then feel shame after and feel guilt, and it's quite unhealthy for us in our brain in very many ways with intimacy and with how we relate to people and how we date.
Speaker 1:And then we use the phone as the same way. It's just viewed not as viewed as bad, because there's not as much taboo, but really it disconnects us all in the same way. You know, you forget, like, how many hours in the day we have. And now the days are flying by. Why are the days feeling like they're going so much quicker? It's not just because we're aging. It's really because our, our, our, our whole way of relating in our day-to-day lives has changed because of how much phone and screen time we have, right? So we really got to address the root cause of why we're trying to escape, you know, is it due to relationship dissatisfaction? We have to address that. We have to communicate, right.
Speaker 1:So the third part of this is social media's impact on intimacy and trust. Okay, now it's really easy for us to say like hey, social media is the highlight reel versus reality, right? So many couples, some even therapists, social media influencers, you know, they, they're only showing parts of their real life, right? And very, very small slivers and people post their best moments, leading to unrealistic expectations that we create on ourselves and the world. It can create comparison anxiety. You know, why don't we look as happy as them? Why aren't we dancing on this? Why aren't we over 20, 30, 40, 50, 60 years? Why don't we look like them? And that's, that's ridiculous, right?
Speaker 1:Personally, I cannot wait to get off social media entirely. I will always keep this podcast running because I love what I do here, but I just don't think social media has been healthy in my own personal life. I've met a lot of awesome people and of course, there's a part of me that doesn't want to lose those opportunities, but I think, if I really break it down to the pros and cons, I think ultimately it's been more negative than positive in my life. Are you feeling stuck in your relationships, career, personal growth, dealing with loneliness, anxiety, depression? Do you want to be able to create healthier relationships and work on yourself and also work on your relationships with others? Counseling and coaching can help you gain clarity and take action.
Speaker 1:Book a one-on-one session today at wwwnicoborazacom and start moving forward with confidence. Build the self you want to build, and I look forward, as I say this a lot, going back to the 90s a little bit and just not having social media. Not having it or perhaps paying someone to run it for me, but being on it a lot less, and so part of the reason why I'm looking forward to flying full-time, I still want to have clients, I still want to always be a counselor and help people in that way, but I don't want to feel like I have to get on social media to market a podcast or to market it Like I just don't want to be on that space. Life is short guys, really, if you're not building relationships, if you're not spending it with people you love, if you're spending a shit ton of time distracting yourself on Instagram or TikTok or any of these things and if you're lying to yourself that it's a good spending of your time. It's not. It's not. I'm glad you're here. Podcast is. I think it's a different way we absorb stuff. It's long form. We can put our headphones in, we can do other stuff. The whole scrolling and swiping it's just not healthy for our brains.
Speaker 1:So social media's impact on intimacy and trust can also lead to soft cheating or micro infidelities. Now, this is a huge issue with modern dating and modern relationships. Liking, commenting, dming others in flirtatious ways can create trust. Issues can create breaches of trust. This happens a lot. It happens way more than we think it does, and some couples set boundaries on social media interactions. For example, what's considered flirting, what's not. But oftentimes this flirting starts after there's already disconnection in the relationship. Right, you can't set your own boundaries.
Speaker 1:We need to be really mindful of this that social media creates this unrealistic world where there's just infinite possibilities, infinite nice, butts, infinite, you know, nice, abs, nice, whatever physical specimens, someone can write some deep shit on the internet. I was like, oh my God, that's, that's that's. I could be so happy if I was just with that person because they seem dude. Let's be real. Like relationships are fucking hard. You know you're going to struggle, you're going to face challenges in every relationship.
Speaker 1:If we continue to engage in soft cheating and micro infidelity and we don't call it what it is and we don't identify it and name it and hold ourselves accountable, no one is going to hold us accountable. And it's the same thing as anything else. Right, you have to create, you have to. The only way to build that trust is to hold yourself accountable. You know, if you start doing these things like soft cheating, micro infidelities via liking, commenting, dming others in flirtatious ways, you're never going to trust your partner because you can't trust yourself. And if you can't trust yourself, you're not going to be able to trust anybody. You're not going to be able to even delineate I love that word between someone who's trustworthy and someone who's not. And you're not going to be able to accept anyone's honesty because you're not being honest with yourself about your energy and the leakiness of it, the dilemma of instant gratification, right Feeling.
Speaker 1:We get really anxious when someone doesn't reply immediately, instantly. We have this expectation of a constant availability that leads to basically just digital exhaustion and digital burnout. That's really unhealthy and I've spoken about this on the show before, but it's like the Amazon prime mentality. I want it. I want it now. You should get back to me right now. You should engage in this conversation right now. That's just not how life works. What if someone doesn't have the capacity to talk about this right now? Social media, don't forget, on the other side of that person's photo that you're DMing, that's a real human being with a life, and so I'd be very weary.
Speaker 1:For instance, I get DMs all the time and, for instance, I get DMs from women that, for instance, will say something flirtatious or say something that's honestly sort of inappropriate some of their business and they think because of my persona, because of me being a counselor, because of me being very invested in helping others with relationships, they are entitled to my time, and that's not the case. I answer questions that are meaningful to the public, to people, relational issues, but if it's my personal business, if it's something I don't want to share, it's none of your business. I don't know who you are. You're not entitled to my personal life or my business. I will share what I feel like, sharing what I feel like is safe and appropriate for me to share.
Speaker 1:And I've noticed there's a handful of women, particularly throughout the years, that have followed my account and haven't been here for the content. They've been here for ulterior motives, if you understand what I'm saying. And that's unfortunately really disheartening, because if you're following accounts, like I can understand if the dude's posting shirt off all the time, or if there's women posting photos of their butt and there's like no depth to their fucking profile. You know to each their own. If that's what they want to do, good on you, but that's what they value. Obviously that's what they want to be known for. Um, I don't need to be known for that.
Speaker 1:You know I'm here cause I really believe in the growth of human beings and in my own ability to grow, in my, in my own, um, understanding of my own mistakes and I fucked up as a man and when I've fallen short and how I want to be better. And so it's not that I don't enjoy flattery, sure, but it's not why I'm on here, and I think a lot of people excuse me, I wouldn't say a lot. I think there's been a handful of women over the years that have gotten offended because they don't feed back into the energy that they're looking for, and it just shows me that this person's emotionally immature, that they're on social media, falling in love with the caricature on the internet as opposed to absorbing the content and embedding themselves, right, and so we need to be really aware of what we're doing and why we're doing it and what we're looking for. You know why we're looking for it. So be very mindful of how social media impacts intimacy and trust, even when you're a single person, because this is going to as soon as you get in a relationship, as soon as you start dating, you know, if you can't like, put boundaries up, stop DMing people and let's let's not just say men do this, because men do this, but women do this a lot too. If you can't hold yourself accountable, you're never going to be able to build trust. You're never going to be able to build true intimacy, because intimacy has to be preceded by trust, right, it has to. All right, let's talk about online dating, man, everyone's favorite subject, right, you know, and for better or for worse. Uh, dating apps are here to stay right. For instance, for me, I don't go to bars, I don't drink alcohol, um, outside of pickleball there's not really a way for me to meet people. So I've used dating apps in the past to connect Um, and I think it's really important to first define why you're on there.
Speaker 1:There's no nothing wrong with looking for casual sex. Let's stop demonizing this. We just need to be honest about why we're looking for it and be honest with people we're swiping with, right. The bigger problem is when we say we're looking for a relationship or we're looking for something more serious, but we were not emotionally available, or we just don't want one, or we can't and we just want to have a friendship or casual sex or whatever. And casual sex does not have to be devoid of connection. But be honest about the time you have to build that connection in order to have it Right. So I think it's more about being honest and not demonizing someone's truth. Like if someone wants to have casual sex and you're not into that, just say, hey, I'm not into that, but I wish you the best of luck. Let's not be like oh my God, I can't believe you're on here for that. Like it's, you're such a douche or you're so you know. Like, like it's, just it's it. We need to stop speaking ill of people that are being honest with us. Now, if someone's like hiding shit from you, well it's, someone doesn't align with what we're looking for, then we got to check ourselves. It's another area of lesson learning and growth that we need to look into.
Speaker 1:So what are some of the good things about online dating and dating apps in general? Well, for one, it expands dating opportunities beyond immediate social circles. That's huge for us. Get out of your own bubble right, beyond immediate social circles. That's huge for us. Get out of your own bubble right. Matches people with shared interests and values and allows particularly shy or introverted individuals to connect more easily in this digital age. Now, there's some good things and, of course, there's some bad things too. Right?
Speaker 1:The main thing this word gets thrown around a lot is ghosting, ghosting culture, so the ease of disappearing without explanation. Now, here's the thing If you're not communicating, if the conversation is absolutely boring and someone's just matching you, if you are offensive, if you are attacking people, if you are being unreasonable, if you're not communicating healthy, no one has a moral obligation to communicate with you that they're leaving. They could just exit the conversation, right. And so let's not call it ghosting when we're being shits, right, that's, that's, that's ridiculous. I know a handful of people are like well, I got ghosted. Well, okay, what did you say before that? Oh well, I said this. I'm like that sounds quite offensive to me.
Speaker 1:Could we, could we understand why this person might not want to engage with you anymore? All right, you know, I think we need to be really careful with the term ghosting, because a lot of times ghosting happens it's not to excuse the process of someone disappearing or vanishing, but maybe they don't want to hurt our feelings. With the truth, right, and if we ask them for the truth, let's be able to sit there and actually handle it without turning into a monster. Okay. So let's also be responsible. If we, you know, if we want to be better, we should be able to say hey, you know, I'm not really feeling this anymore. You know, if the other person can accept that, great. If they can't, it's on them. At least you did your best at communicating. So another one of the bad things is decision paralysis. We have too many options, make it hard to commit right. It's fricking.
Speaker 1:Hundreds of thousands of people you can swipe with, you can move your location, you swipe people all over the world. So it can lead to this like, oh, the grass is greener on every other side of the fence and there's millions of fences and where do I pick? Where do I land? So really important to be aware of that and, of course, the elephant in the room is the superficiality, the superficial nature of objectifying people into five photos, into the answer of five prompts. You know, swiping culture reduces depth and connections, but particularly like I want to be honest. Like if you're not writing deep responses on your prompts whether it's Tinder, whatever like you're not going to get deep matches. Everybody you know. Like how many people have I come across? It's like some prompt is like my personality is pizza, I like app, I like pineapple on pizza. I like dogs, I like cats, I like nature.
Speaker 1:It's like you please expand on who you are. Right, if you're in your early 20s, teens, I get it. Like you know you don't know who the hell you are yet. But like if you're dating your late twenties, thirties, forties, fifties and beyond, spend some time. Like, literally spend some time and show someone effort on what you're putting out there, right? Be really specific with what you're looking for, what you're open to. If you're open to a lot of different things, like actual relationships, marriage depth and connection, if you're open to casual sex, intimacy, if you're open to just making a friendship, write that shit. Who you are. What have you learned from your past relationships? What are you looking for?
Speaker 1:Don't just write what you're looking for. Write what you're offering and be honest. If you really think you have a high level of emotional intelligence and self-awareness, write that. But if you don't really think you have that, don't use those words. Don't use those words. And if you're consistently working on that, say that. Oh yeah, I'm always working on self-awareness. I've been in therapy, I'm really working on this part. I'm like awesome, write that. But if you're not and you just read some book, that's just not enough, right? And so let's be really intentional about the words we use and about what we write, right? If you're a boring person, write boring responses, literally. If you are a deep human being and you're listening to this podcast, you want to be better. Spend some damn time 20, 30 minutes on creating a good profile that describes you in totality as much as possible and what you're looking for. And I know the prompts are short and this and that, but just get better at it. Get better at being more concise, right Practice.
Speaker 1:So how do we manage online dating in a healthy way? Well, for one, let's set our intentions. Are you looking for casual dating, something serious or a mixture? Are you open to a lot of different things? You open a friendship? Let's, let's be real, let's actually write it out, whether it's a journal or a piece of paper. Let's write what we're looking for and let's let's let's even like list them from areas of importance, you know, and let's be really honest.
Speaker 1:If you can't handle a casual thing, but you're craving sex or intimacy, don't look for casual, because you're going to get hurt, right? If you want something casual and you're also open to something deep, then write that there's nothing wrong. It doesn't mean you're a bad person. It doesn't mean you're you know you have something wrong with you. It's okay, all of us have sex drives, but be honest about what you can handle emotionally, right. Be really honest about that. And if someone is looking for something different, don't demonize them, don't demonize yourself. It's just a compatibility thing. Wish them well, move on to the next person.
Speaker 1:Let's limit time spent swiping to avoid burnout. A lot of clients that come to me like I'm so exhausted, I want to delete hinge. I want to delete tenure. It's because you're probably spending too much time. Just like we talked about addiction on social media, right? Dating apps are a form of social media, so set up time when you check in and let your matches know as much as you can hey, you know, I only checked the app this time. So if it's someone that you're actually really interested in, being adult and sending your phone number and just get on a call really quick, that's a way, better way to get to know someone.
Speaker 1:Talk, use your voice. Don't be scared about giving out your phone. You can block people if they're weird, right, but I always like to. I prefer to use my voice and, like, use my thumbs. That's how we're supposed to communicate and, of course, the best is in person. But you want to still vet people with your voice before you spend time to meet someone in person, right, and so I always encourage people to get on the phone or FaceTime or set up a time, right. I mean it's 15, 20 minutes. You get to know someone's energy, how they speak, right, sarcasm and humor comes off way easier with voice than it does with your freaking thumbs using emojis.
Speaker 1:There's so many things that are misconstrued and misinterpreted via text messaging. It's the worst way of communicating. It should only be used for like hey, you know, let's chat a little bit and then let's exchange numbers and let's get on the phone. When someone is like hesitant to get on the phone and they're just like, oh, I move really slowly, that that to me is personally a red flag because it means that they're not emotionally mature enough to use their voice to communicate. I don't think there's any good excuse to literally not give out your phone number. You can block someone. You can search people's phone numbers publicly these days, right, it's just you know. So I think it's just a much better way.
Speaker 1:If you're really dating with intention, I would start there. Use your voice, take breaks if it starts to feel like a chore rather than an opportunity. So if you need to take space away, then create that space and, you know, take some time off and you don't have to delete your app. Maybe you put on a pause. There's a lot of ways to do that. But don't forget, dating is a process of dating multiple people, right? When we just date one person, that's a relationship. We need to really redefine what dating is, and if you date multiple people, it doesn't mean you're polyamorous. It means you're in the dating phase and you can just be honest with people you are dating. You're not in a relationship, right? Okay? So can technology enhance relationships instead of hurting them? Perhaps? I would argue that ultimately no, and so I think we really have to set digital boundaries together, as single people in the dating phase and as people in a relationship and in a marriage.
Speaker 1:Do social media detoxes. Take breaks together, take trips together. You don't need to freaking post photos on Instagram or Facebook to show every all your friends, your family how cool the trip is. Be present. Take photos of the apartment. Just be present, like, just be with them, right. If you're going on a date, just be with the person. You don't need to take a sunset photo all the time. Use your brain like the old school ways. Remember the setting, right. You don't have memory in your brain, in your, in your body. Feel what it's like to just be fully present, okay.
Speaker 1:Another boundary you could set is no phone zones. Maybe no phones in the bedrooms. Maybe no phones in the kitchen, right, when we're cooking together, right? Maybe no phones on date nights, right? Obviously, emergencies aside, if you got kids, you know you have to be, but you can, you know, set your kids through that they can get through, but then everyone else is on.
Speaker 1:Do not disturb, right? Be intentional. Be intentional and show someone you show someone you love them, show them that, let them know. Hey, you know we're putting the phones on. Didn't disturb tonight, cause we're going to check in. We're going to connect, right, and then use intentional ways of communicating, like I said, like use video calls, um, and, and pick up the phone and call someone to get to know them after the initial connection on an app over texting, let's, let's be adults here. Let's actually be emotionally mature. You cannot be emotionally mature and just communicate with your thumbs. You're that's, you're hiding behind something, right? That's ridiculous. You have to take risks to get to know people. That's what intimacy is. You have to open, you have to be available to be wounded in order to be loved. That's how it goes. So the need for digital mindfulness is even more present. It's 2025, folks.
Speaker 1:Obviously, our world has changed forever over the past 10, 15 years, and the only mode of defense we have, without becoming completely controlled by algorithmic artificial intelligence trying to manipulate and commodify our attention, is our mindfulness and our ability to be conscious of what we're doing. Technology isn't inherently bad, but how we use it determines its impact. Instead of letting tech control our relationships, we should be intentional about when and how we engage with it. Ask yourself these questions Is my phone helping or hurting my connections? Be honest, ask yourself that Am I using technology as a tool for intimacy or as an escape from deeper conversations? Ask yourself that Am I looking for attention from other random people on the internet because I'm unhappy in my relationship or I'm unhappy with myself and I'm not communicating with my partner? Am I self-sabotaging my relationship through the use of technology, through micro transactions such as soft cheating or micro infidelity, where I'm liking, commenting or DMing others in a flirtatious way, while in a relationship, let's start to build trust within ourselves, so that way we can build trust in a relationship in the container of dating.
Speaker 1:Thank you for being here and I look forward to the next one. Thank you so much for tuning in to Star of the Eagle. Feed the Soul. Please leave us a five-star written review on Apple and Spotify podcast. It's a free way you can give back to the show and show your support and, as always, if you want to work with me one-on-one, head over to wwwnicoborazacom.