How You Become a Slave to Technology and Devices – In Just 7 Minutes with Susan Weinschenk

Check out episode
  • Discover what makes us always want to be connected to technology
  • Find out how technology changed how we think, feel, and interact with one another
  • Learn what mindfulness meditation is all about and why this is the best way to retrain our brain

Resources/Links:

Summary

Susan Weinschenk, Ph.D. is a Chief Behavioral Scientist at her own consulting firm, The Team W, Inc. She speaks and teaches worldwide, and is an Adjunct Professor at the University of Wisconsin. Her work specializes in how to apply brain and behavioral science to the design of products and technology.

In this episode, Susan shares her deep insights into the brain and behavioral science. She debunks why we ever feel like we are addicted to email or twitter or texting and find it impossible to ignore our email if you see that there are messages in our inbox. She also shares ways on how we can retrain our brain to reduce stress and improve our focus and concentration.

Check out these episode highlights:

  • 01:41 – Susan’s ideal client: My ideal client is someone who is really curious about human behavior, really curious about their own behavior. And sincerely wants to learn about why do we do the things that we do?
    .
  • 02:04 – Problem she helps solve: Instead of using what we know about human behavior, they just kind of use what they think is true, or they follow their own ideas.
  • 03:43 – Typical symptoms that clients do before reaching out to Susan: Basically, you get this feeling that you’re never really present and doing one thing. So, whatever you’re doing, there’s always a little part of you that is monitoring, like the phone or the laptop, or whatever it is, and so you can’t be fully present. And that means you can’t be your best self and you can’t do your best work. And then the other thing that happens is it actually is stressful and tiring. So, the research shows us that when you are torn in two ways like that, your brain is constantly switching, and it’ll actually cause stress and make you tired.
  • 04:46 – Common mistakes people make when trying to solve that problem: I think a lot of the mistakes that people make is that they just try and fix one little thing, they’re not really seeing the whole problem. So, you know, basically, when you’re addicted to your technology like this, it’s called a conditioned response. If any of you studied psychology in school, you might remember Pavlov, and the saliva and the dogs, and conditioned response. And that’s what this is. And so just doing little things, just saying, oh, I’ll not work. Well, you sound like you have an app, right? That tells you how much screen time you have.
  • 05:58 – Susan’s Valuable Free Action(VFA):“You have to decide, for instance, if you’re the kind of person who when you wake up and you’re still in bed, you reach for the phone to check messages.”
  • 07:49 – Susan’s Valuable Free Resource(VFR): Mindfulness Meditation:Retrain your brain to reduce stress and improve your focus and concentration: Register Free: https://courses.theteamw.com/series/free/mindfulness-meditation

Tweetable Takeaways from this Episode:

“Train your brain to be present in the current moment. Mindfulness meditation is a great way to do that.” -@thebrainlady Click To Tweet

Info about our correspondent host: Travis has a background in sales, marketing, and strategy, and left the corporate world several years ago to start his own agency. As a copywriter by trade, his biggest skill is putting the right words, in front of the right people, at the right time. Travis has developed go-to-market strategies for grassroots apps to Fortune 500 and helped optimize up to $50k per day in Facebook Ad spend for one of the biggest startups in Asia.

Transcript
(Note, this was transcribed using a transcription software and may not reflect the exact words used in the podcast)

Travis Bennett: 0:09
Hi everyone and welcome to another edition of Marketing The Invisible. My name is Travis Bennett and I’m rocking it out of Yangon in Myanmar, proving you can be anywhere in the world and build a successful business. I’m joined today by Susan Weinschenk. Susan, a very, very warm welcome.

Susan Weinschenk: 0:24
Hi Travis.

Travis Bennett: 0:25
And where are you coming to, coming to all of us today from?

Susan Weinschenk: 0:28
I am in Wisconsin, in the rural part of Wisconsin, in the US.

Travis Bennett: 0:33
Nice. It must be a beautiful part of the world.

Susan Weinschenk: 0:36
It is. it’s very green right now, it’s summer, which we love. Don’t call me in the middle of winter because then I won’t be quite so happy about where I live.

Travis Bennett: 0:47
Duly noted. We’ve just hit rainy season here, we’ve had buckets and torrential things, rain coming through the roof. It’s very, very tropical. So, for those of you who don’t know Susan, she’s got a Ph.D. in Psychology.

She’s the Chief Behavioral Scientist in their own consulting firm, The Team W, Inc. She speaks, she teaches, she’s an Adjunct Professor at the University of Wisconsin. And all of the work, everything that she’s doing, specializes in how to apply brain and behavioral science to designing products and technology, which is a really interesting mix of the two.

Susan, it’s great to have you on the show today. What we’re actually going to be talking about is, “How You’ve Become a Slave to Technology and Devices and What You Can Do About It”. And of course, Susan’s going to explain everything in just seven minutes. So, I’m going to start this time and hit the club running. Question number one, Susan, who is your ideal client?

Susan Weinschenk: 1:41
Well, for this topic, I would say my ideal client is someone who is really curious about human behavior, really curious about their own behavior. And sincerely wants to learn about why do we do the things that we do?

Travis Bennett: 1:57
Okay. So then, leading on from that to, what the problem that you’re going to be solving for these ideal clients?

Susan Weinschenk: 2:04
Well, there’s so much wonderful research about the brain and behavioral science these days, and we just know a lot about why people behave the way they do. But I find that a lot of times people don’t apply that. And so, they’re designing something, they’re coming out with a new product.

And instead of using what we know about human behavior, they just kind of use what they think is true, or they follow their own ideas.

And I think it’s so powerful if you can apply what we’ve learned, what the research shows us, then you have a much better shot at reaching people getting your message across, and coming up with a solution for your customers that really works, but that also works for you as a business.

Now, we’re talking about this topic, which is, you know, why are we all slaves to our technology and devices? And is that okay, or not, and what can we do about it? I think also, you know, there’s so much science that we can apply. And I think a lot of times we don’t really understand, how is it that we seem to be addicted to our cell phone, like when did that happen? Like, it’s not like we set out to say, I would like to become addicted to this device. And I never be able to turn it off and always be distracted no matter what I’m doing, right? And yet, it happened. So, and there’s a reason that it happened, there’s a science behind it.

Travis Bennett: 3:30
Okay. So, we’ve got five minutes on the clock. You kind of said one of these already, but what are the typical symptoms that people experienced when they are addicted to their devices? They’re distracted, and what else? What other problems do they have?

Susan Weinschenk: 3:43
Yeah, I mean, basically, you get this feeling that you’re never really present and doing one thing. So, whatever you’re doing, there’s always a little part of you that is monitoring, like the phone or the laptop, or whatever it is, and so you can’t be fully present.

And that means you can’t be your best self and you can’t do your best work. And then the other thing that happens is it actually is stressful and tiring. So, the research shows us that when you are torn in two ways like that, your brain is constantly switching, and it’ll actually cause stress and make you tired.

Travis Bennett: 4:20
Okay. So, we’re wearing our self out by trying to do everything at once. We can’t actually multitask very well.

Susan Weinschenk: 4:26
Right.

Travis Bennett: 4:27
Okay. So, when people are trying to fix this for themselves, or you know, I get a notification on my iPhone, it told me your screen time is up 400% this week, and I’m like, oh my God. What mistakes am I making when I’m trying to solve this problem for myself? Now, we’ve got three minutes, 40 seconds on the clock. So, we’re doing okay for time. But what’s the mistakes that I’m making what I’m trying to solve this myself?

Susan Weinschenk: 4:46
I think a lot of the mistakes that people make is that they just try and fix one little thing, they’re not really seeing the whole problem.

So, you know, basically, when you’re addicted to your technology like this, it’s called a conditioned response.

If any of you studied psychology in school, you might remember Pavlov, and the saliva and the dogs, and conditioned response. And that’s what this is. And so just doing little things, just saying, oh, I’ll not work. Well, you sound like you have an app, right? That tells you how much screen time you have.

Travis Bennett: 5:20
Yeah, so the latest update on my iPhone, it actually gives me a notification each week telling me how my screen time does me.

Susan Weinschenk: 5:27
That’s not going to help you. No, because actually, that’s feeding it. Now you’re getting feedback. It’s like not the feedback you want, but you’re getting feedback. And what you need to do is break the habit. And so, there’s a whole science around how do we break habits, and that’s really what people need to do.

Travis Bennett: 5:46
Okay, so for someone who’s interested in breaking this habit, what’s one piece of advice that you can give them so they can start solving this problem for themselves? We’ve got two minutes and 20 seconds on the clock.

Susan Weinschenk: 5:58
Okay, so it’s really, actually, it’s easy, people think that breaking habits or making new habits is hard, it’s not. But what you have to do is you have to replace it with another conditioned response.

So, you have to build a different habit or different response. So, you have to decide, for instance, if you’re the kind of person who when you wake up and you’re still in bed, you reach for the phone to check messages, right? Which a lot of people do. Then what you have to do is you have to say, okay, from now on, I’m going to get up, go brush my teeth and get a drink of water. And I’m going to do that first. That’s the first thing I do when I wake up, not reach for my phone. And then you just have to do that for about three or four days. And that will start to set a new habit.

Travis Bennett: 6:42
Okay, so building a new conditioned response.

Susan Weinschenk: 6:45
Right. And so, for instance, you know, if your phone, here’s my phone here, if it’s beeping, or chirping, or making noise, instead of picking it up and looking at it and scrolling with your finger, this is a conditioned response. Your new response could be to pick it up, turn it over and put it down.

And you just do that for a couple of days. And that will now become, it really will become, the conditioned response, because we are that much slaves to these fast conditioned responses, especially if there’s a physical movement. So, you just need to decide, which are the things that are, you know, when are you most conditioned, and then create a new habit for that. Of course, it really would help if you turned off notifications or turned your phone off.

Travis Bennett: 7:30
Do not disturb mode. You know what, my phone, I don’t think it’s turned off for the last year, right?

Susan Weinschenk: 7:37
Right.

Travis Bennett: 7:37
Okay, so 30 seconds left. While we got you here, I’d like to hit on this last question. One valuable free resource that we can send listeners to today that they can get help with this problem, where should people go?

Susan Weinschenk: 7:49
Yeah. So, I would suggest that I have a class on mindfulness, mindfulness meditation, this is really about training your brain to be present in the current moment. And so, the best way to do that is to retrain your brain. Mindfulness meditation is a great way to do that and I have a free course on it. So, if people go to courses.theteamw.com, that’ll take you to our online training platform. And then if you just search for mindfulness there, it’ll take you right to the course.

Travis Bennett: 8:21
Perfect. So courses.theteamw.com and the mindfulness course in there, completely free, they can check it out. And that’s our time for today. Susan, it’s been a pleasure having you on the show. Thank you so much for your insights.

Susan Weinschenk: 8:35
Thanks, Travis. It’s great to be here.

Tom Poland: 8:37
Thanks for checking out our Marketing The Invisible podcast. If you like what we’re doing here please head over to iTunes to subscribe, rate us, and leave us a review. It’s very much appreciated. And if you want to generate five fresh leads in just five hours then check out www.fivehourchallenge.com.

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