#88 - Jack Stewart | Homeschooling and Unplugging for Deeper Human Connections

Jack Stewart is a grown-up homeschooler. We explore how self-paced learning has shaped his social life and personal development. Jack’s upbringing was guided by his mother’s approach to homeschooling, which fostered meaningful friendships and an entrepreneurial spirit that set the stage for his success. These early experiences of forming deep connections outside traditional settings have carried through to his adult life.

Jack also shares his thoughts on the balance between structured activities and free play and how family-centered, attachment-based learning can sometimes offer advantages over conventional schools. His reflections challenge common perceptions of education and the social structures that accompany it.

Additionally, Jack talks about his move away from technology and how reducing his internet use has helped him form deeper, more authentic connections. From managing technology within his family to pursuing hands-on projects like music and board game development, Jack gives insight into a lifestyle that emphasizes focus, personal growth, and real-world interactions.

This conversation covers voluntary learning, the influence of community and nature in education, and the effects of living with less reliance on technology.

🗓️ Recorded September 19th, 2024. 📍 The Addisons, Withyham, United Kingdom

▬ Episode links ▬
Jack is no longer active on the internet. If you want to connect, then write to him at jackstewartcontact@gmail.com. If you want to sneak peek at some of Jack's old stuff from when he was active on the internet, then you can check out:

• https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/jack-stewart5
• https://www.youtube.com/@daddyhomeschools5710
• https://blog.sonlight.com/author/jack-stewart

Chapters

• 0:00 Jack's Homeschooling Journey
• 3:56 Social Dynamics of Homeschooling
• 9:22 Critique of Traditional Schooling
• 15:34 The Role of Attachment in Learning
• 26:38 Jack's Digital Detox
• 36:45 The Cost of Internet Dependency
• 37:20 The Value of Classic Literature
• 39:01 Balancing Technology and Reading
• 41:00 A Day Without Internet
• 46:47 The Benefits of Physical Books
• 55:58 Mindfulness and Technology
• 1:02:10 The Impact of Social Media on Focus

Transcript

[00:00:00] Jesper Conrad: So today we are together with Jack Stewart. First of all, Jack, welcome. And thank you for taking the time to be with us. 

[00:00:07] Jack Stewardt: Hi, thanks for speaking with me. 

[00:00:09] Jesper Conrad: Yeah, so we met Jack at HEF, which is the home education family festival in, in UK. And I had one of these dad circles and Jack attended and I was like, he looks fun.

[00:00:21] Jesper Conrad: Let's have a chat. And we had a great chat afterwards. And then I was like, ah, let's also invite him on, uh, on our, on our podcast. Uh, so here we are, um, Jack, you are officially grown up, have kids and everything, 

[00:00:42] Jack Stewardt: yeah? I'm so grown up, I'm just one of the most grown up people you've ever met, no, uh, yes I am, but I, uh, by which metric is a different question.

[00:00:53] Jesper Conrad: The question in it is, you are like a grown up homeschooler, unschooler. That's right. Yeah. And that, that's what I wanted to go to because for many of us, homeschooling and unschooling our kids, it's, um, there's always this anxiety of, Oh, like how will they come out? What will it be? Am I doing the right thing?

[00:01:15] Jesper Conrad: And you have lived through it from the other side. So, so, uh, maybe what's it you who didn't want to attend school or how did that whole thing happen with you being homeschooled? 

[00:01:28] Jack Stewardt: It was back in the day when it wasn't cool. So, um, my mother, she didn't, I don't think she knew any homeschoolers. My older sister found it very difficult to go to school, like impossible.

[00:01:41] Jack Stewardt: She was sent that because that's the thing to do. She just screamed all day long, um, just freaked out all day long, absolutely hated it. So mother was forced to consider other options or rather make up other options. She didn't know what homeschooling was. She just thought, well, they can't go to school. So I guess we have to teach them here.

[00:02:00] Jack Stewardt: Um, and it turned out to be great for my sister. He's three years older than me. And so when I came to school age, as it were, I, uh, they just said, well, if it's working for Grace, why don't we try for Jack too? Um, and I don't remember that age, but she, when, when I was that age, but she, um, she says I was, Flourishing isn't it?

[00:02:21] Jack Stewardt: The age when you're playing with snails out in the, out in the woods and you're remarking on what the sun looks like and the, um, you're just entranced by the entire world. And, um, and so homeschooling is, yeah, it's really quite special at that juncture. And then, so, and then she just carried on. Um, Then when we got to GCSE age, it looked slightly differently, but I did GCSEs and A Levels and went through to university.

[00:02:54] Jack Stewardt: Did okay, GCSEs, A Levels, did very well at university. Um, and I consider myself still homeschooled, I reckon, because I'm doing the same sort of thing with myself and I'm learning alongside other children. So, uh, I've been homeschooling a long, long time. 

[00:03:12] Jesper Conrad: And, and I say, um, As I jokingly said when we met, it's like you now you need to be the representative of all homeschoolers and unschoolers as you are a grown up, you have to look normal.

[00:03:26] Jack Stewardt: Yeah, well I'm not doing a very good job of that as you can see on my braces and my, my agrarian, my Amish agrarian revivalist. But, um, I can hold a conversation. Yeah. If that counts. Can you 

[00:03:41] Cecilie Conrad: read? 

[00:03:42] Jack Stewardt: I can indeed read. In fact, I'm a voracious reader. And 

[00:03:46] Cecilie Conrad: the other question, do you have any friends? 

[00:03:48] Jack Stewardt: I'd have zero friends now.

[00:03:52] Jack Stewardt: Um, I do have friends. I think, I reckon it was the, I've always been a, it's hard to know what's homeschooling and what's me, because I've always been a voracious reader, but voracious extrovert too, and social butterfly. So I think in whatever situation I would have been put in, I would have just found lots of friends.

[00:04:13] Jack Stewardt: Even if you put me on the middle of an island, I would have created friends like, uh, in a castaway. But, um, I think there was something special about The friendship groups that I was brought up in as a homeschooler because they were all, uh, DIY. In other words, they were all consensual. Like we w we built our friendships based on who we wanted to be friends with rather than, um, that we sat next to each other in a classroom.

[00:04:42] Jack Stewardt: So I think there was something special about the way the homeschool society looked and the way that in influenced my, um, the way I make friends. Probably another thing was. Um, the fact that, um, oh yeah, that, the fact that when you're homeschooling, you're kind of making up a new thing, like, or at least it's con, it's not strictly new, but it's contrary to societal norms.

[00:05:10] Jack Stewardt: So you are having to, again, DIY, do it yourself and entrepreneur. It's like social entrepreneur. You've got to make groups. You've got to start things. You've got to direct it the way that you see fit. You've got to, yes, but you're very active. Well, I found anyway, I don't know about you. I found that I have to be very active in a good way in this in the homeschool circles.

[00:05:36] Jack Stewardt: Maintain deliberately, commit to people. Um, and this is something I think has contributed to why I have deep, trusting, intimate, uh, friendships now, is because I had that habit of creating and maintaining those, um, from, from homeschool land as a kid. 

[00:06:01] Jesper Conrad: It doesn't, where normal life, where you go to a school and you maybe play a, you know, adult led kind of sport.

[00:06:09] Jesper Conrad: It's like, then you have your friendship, friendship group of the school, the, the ones all the same age as you, born in the same neighborhood as you, and then the, the same if you have a sport. I just, Oh, yeah, it's one of the things I sometimes marvel about how when I occasionally I do not like to look down at school and the way the society is built around this, but sometimes it weirds me out, uh, the, the whole age segregation.

[00:06:40] Jesper Conrad: If I today came into a group of 28 other people, all the same age as me, all born, born in the same area, more or less, I would be, I would be scared. I would say like, what's going on, who is this, like, candid camera, what's, why is all the same age? It would really be weird, uh, and, but we take it as really normal for kids.

[00:07:05] Cecilie Conrad: But I think you took two different, quite interesting elements of being home educated, having friends compared to being in a school setting, having friends up. So there is the fact that you have to, as a home made child. Take responsibility for your relation. Take initiative, express the wish to be together, come up with how, when, and why, and how frequently do we spend time together.

[00:07:35] Cecilie Conrad: And, and that's on you and the relation you have with your friend or friend group as a homeschooling child. Unless you have parents who structure everything, but that's rare. So that's harder in a way. On the other hand, you get to choose your friends, which makes it easier because you have friends you want to have, you have passion in that.

[00:07:59] Cecilie Conrad: Um, whereas a schooled child will be in a group of, let's say 20, 25 other kids. And that will be, that's the frame, that's the only 25 kids you can choose between to find friends. But you get to spend time with them every day. That's set up for you. You don't have to work for it. And very often there's this social fascism in the school setting where they even tell you what to play, how to play, when to play it and who to take home.

[00:08:25] Cecilie Conrad: And you have to invite everyone for your birthday. And every Tuesday we all, they even, I don't know if they do that here, but in Denmark now they've come up with this play group system where they, they, they actually demand. The family is to invite a specific group of children home on a specific day. So you have the school time but outside of school time the school is ruling the children's social life which I find scary on a level I can't even describe.

[00:08:56] Cecilie Conrad: I call it social fascism. It's so structured and so coerced by it's so structured Well, whatever. So there's just these two elements and, and they are both in, so it's harder and easier at the same time. 

[00:09:12] Jack Stewardt: Um, but do you think that, I do, I do agree that there's that creepy control that you get from the, um, social governance at school, and it's kind of in between.

[00:09:26] Jack Stewardt: I mean, I think where kids love to be, I like telling this story of. When we went to a forest school and there was the sort of circle that was set up of these are your activities This is what been governed for you This is what's been set up for you. And then outside of that is basically the chaos of the forest Um, and there was a wall in between and my kids played on the wall and I thought, Oh, it's interesting symbolically that they like to be in that borderlands.

[00:09:53] Jack Stewardt: Um, they like to know that there's absolute chaos out there and it's like exciting and dangerous and mum's not looking and dad's not looking. So if you fall, you're, it's on you. And then inside you've got the home. You've got. the protection of your, of the government, governance of your family, um, and the, all the benefits that come from that.

[00:10:15] Jack Stewardt: But they like having both. And I think we probably all do. And you go, you venture out and then you come home and you venture out and you come home. But at school, you don't really have either. You don't have the loving protection of family who, who actually love you, and not just there for business. And you also don't have unsupervised play.

[00:10:39] Jack Stewardt: So you have, you have like the worst, um, you're not in, you don't. You don't have the benefits of either. I suppose it's mixed metaphors with the Borderlands, but what I mean by Borderlands is being able to be in both lands, and if you've got neither land, then you've got nothing. Um, what was my point?

[00:11:02] Jack Stewardt: That's very 

[00:11:03] Cecilie Conrad: wise. No, that was the point. That's very wise. I think it's very wise. And I think it's a it's a big problem. I'm trying to not be too judgmental just after calling it fascist, um, about the school system. No, but really, I've given it quite a lot of thought. And I think if I was to come up with a system to host 500 kids every day, be responsible.

[00:11:29] Cecilie Conrad: Let's play pretend that I'm a school leader now. Um, and, and I have 500 kids, uh, between the ages of 6 and 16. It's my responsibility that they grow up in a, in a good way. We call that education. Um, but it's obviously way bigger than that. Um, I have a staff of whatever people to help me and I have a big building.

[00:11:54] Cecilie Conrad: What do I do? I think I don't have a lot of options outside of how it looks today. You need a lot of discipline and structure and top down decisions and, and rules and bells that rings and, and, and just, you know, when I say jump, you all jump and that's because the genetics of, of taking kids out of core family, putting them in a setting with no unconditional love, um, forcing them to do well, you wouldn't necessarily think you have to force them to do things they don't want to do.

[00:12:28] Cecilie Conrad: But the thing is. There is not space for all of them to explore what they want to do. So, so that, that's how it kind of has to be. I've seen a lot of beautiful school projects with a lot of beautiful, amazing, mindful, open minded, free thinking people trying to build something new. But the genetics of school just creeps into it.

[00:12:54] Cecilie Conrad: There will be a curriculum, there will be rules, there will be top down decisions, and it's very hard to avoid it. So, so, so that's just what I'm saying about I'm not judging it, because I think it, it, it just, it is what it is. If you want a school, you'll get a school, and a school will have the structure.

[00:13:12] Cecilie Conrad: There will not be free play, there will not be it will not be voluntary, there will not be unconditional love, and you just get neither of what you need. 

[00:13:24] Jack Stewardt: Um, do you think, do you think that there are structures, because part of me is thinking there are structures that you can put in place that will help to fan the flame of voluntary love, just interpersonal, healthy interpersonal, um, relationships.

[00:13:47] Jack Stewardt: There are circumstances that that precipitate that or circumstances that help that and produce that over and over again. And there are circumstances that would be very bad to that. For example, I don't know if you put them in prison, put kids in or put anyone in prison, it's not going to produce those productive loving relationships.

[00:14:08] Jack Stewardt: Um, whereas there is a set that if you put them in the woods, I believe, uh, you're more likely to, um, but there is a structure and a deep interconnected system in the woods. And I think that circumstance and, uh, um, that environment does help to produce loving relationship or loving intelligent, you know, sort of eco, uh, ecology of societal ecology that's connected with the connected with nature.

[00:14:46] Jack Stewardt: Um, and so my point is. Yes, that top down decision making, that sort of social fascism, um, does seem to be a problem, but structure, I'm not sure that that's diagnosable as the problem. What do you think? Because there's structure, like I'm saying, in those environments. 

[00:15:07] Jesper Conrad: Yeah. Um, 

[00:15:09] Cecilie Conrad: well, I think as long as, as long as things are voluntary.

[00:15:13] Jesper Conrad: Yeah. And I, but I have a, of these days, I take a lot of Gordon Neufeld as I've started working together with him on, on his project. And I've listened to so much he's saying, and I can only recommend it, but he talks about the, the school settings. And how they originally were inside your attachment village, you would call it, uh, which is if it was a small local school, then the teacher would be.

[00:15:44] Jesper Conrad: The neighbor from down your village, kind of, with whom your parent has a relationship. They know the person, they like the person, you've seen the person in your house and you like the person. So the, the whole thing about sending them to strangers, that's, that structure is very different than what we maybe had earlier where.

[00:16:07] Jesper Conrad: You were in age mixed groups because it was small local schools for the village and some of the other children's parents was the teacher. I think that actually maybe could have worked or worked in a different way than it does today where it's, it is difficult to learn from someone with whom you're not attached, with whom you don't want the deep connection with.

[00:16:36] Jack Stewardt: Yeah, I think. That's true, and I think part of the reason that's true is because when you are, um, because the connections you're trying to make in your head, the neural connections you're trying to make when you learn, are embedded in a bigger system of connections in your interpersonal life. Um, and so if your interpersonal life, meaning like, for example, your teacher, It's completely cut off from the rest of the system, the system in your brain, like, there's all the, there's, there's my family over there, there's my church over there, there's my, um, doctors over there, and then completely different, in a completely different realm is my teacher over here.

[00:17:27] Jack Stewardt: Um, then that comp, that like atomizing of your interpersonal life is kind of reflect itself. in a retardation, if you excuse the term, of your making connections elsewhere, you're making learning connections. I'm putting it in a very grammatically stupid way. What I'm saying is, if your teacher is connected, your learning is going to be connected.

[00:18:00] Jack Stewardt: I think it's not a coincidence that these two are connected, that these two things look like each other. Having interpersonal life, richly having this sort of mycelial underground network of social harmony and system that you can see before you of your teacher knowing your mum and your mum and your grandmother is upstairs and they are, and you're learning because, you know, your uncle is a blacksmith and you're going to be like a blacksmith and your blacksmith knows the teacher and the teacher knows, you know, all this network.

[00:18:31] Jack Stewardt: That's this beautiful, um, network that then you sort of. You have that image of your life, and you look down on your page, and you're gonna make more of that on your page. And so you're gonna do that with physics, and you're gonna do, and you're gonna plug, you're gonna make a network of Connections with physics, and then you're going to plug that network of connections into the network of connections up there that you have in your interpersonal life.

[00:18:58] Jack Stewardt: You're going to make a network of connections between the two of them, and you're going to make a network of connections between your physics and your maths, and your maths and your art. Um, and I think that, Is when education really sings. I think that's when like it pops that that's that's those like penny drop moments when you're like, you know, now it I get it and there's that like joy and the light in your eyes me like oh my goodness and you make and you make connections and it isn't just not it's not just on the page.

[00:19:29] Jack Stewardt: You make a connection from the page to your mum, and to the blacksmith, and to the trees, and to, you know, this big scale learning, I think, is what I'm after anyway with my kids. 

[00:19:43] Cecilie Conrad: But I think also, the way I hear you, you say that the root is your social life, the relations you have, that will be the root of your learning, that will be, and also your anchor.

[00:19:56] Cecilie Conrad: I think I, what I observe at the moment is our oldest who live at home. He's studying behavioral psychology at the moment. And every time he's been sitting down with his book, he has to get up and talk to someone about what he just learned as if it's simply, it cannot stay within himself. So if he had a more structured school setting where you have this weird individualistic idea that we force, like, like force feeding geese to get the big livers so we can make work.

[00:20:30] Cecilie Conrad: Ah, We kind of force feed the children this, uh, this learning so that they can make a nice exam. It's, it's, it, we have this idea that it stays within with this one person, but actually one of the reasons I think our son really likes to study behavioral psychology on top of just trying to make sense of the world, is that he really likes to talk with people about interesting stuff that he finds interesting.

[00:20:59] Cecilie Conrad: And this stuff is always. worth a good conversation when he learned something new. And I don't think he would enjoy, even if the teacher had time, in, in a more distant relation in the school setting, where it's a professional relation, he wouldn't enjoy the conversation like that. He likes to Have it around the bonfire later in the same day with friends and family.

[00:21:21] Jesper Conrad: Imagine everyone should have the same aha moment at the same time. And 

[00:21:26] Cecilie Conrad: want to discuss the same thing. That's what I'm saying about the genetics of school. It's just simply not possible to give them all that talking time that they need. So, so yeah, that's the one thing. And then I just also want to like put into this conversation before we highlight.

[00:21:42] Cecilie Conrad: Yeah. The village and the forest with too many roses around the edge of the picture. And, and, you know, just that I'm pretty sure the village schools were, were very traumatizing for a lot of children and that, um, especially boys really suffered in that setting and that there was a power structure, um, really suppressing the lower class and, and really.

[00:22:10] Cecilie Conrad: pushing down those who, who was not able to or did not want to learn this kind of thing. Um, I, I'll say the word voluntary again, which because it's, it's a star on my sky that have you, if we imagine, if we make a fairytale world and there's a school and there's a beautiful village with a, with a forest around and we all have nature and organic food and, and it's all very beautiful.

[00:22:36] Cecilie Conrad: Um, And there's the blacksmith and you can learn that from him and there's maybe the person who was doing the weaving and there's the baker and you have that picture we all have it from cartoons and fairy tales. If it was voluntary for the kids. you know, if they would be, some of them really want to be in school and learn to read and write and, and geography.

[00:22:59] Cecilie Conrad: And they could come whenever, you know, they could come to school when they're six or they could come to school when they're 16, um, and, and learn whatever. And one of them would maybe only want to talk to the priest all the time. And one of them would, you know, hang out with the blacksmith and only learn that and never learn to read and write and have no idea about where Africa is.

[00:23:20] Cecilie Conrad: If it was a voluntary setting, there would be respect around the children's lives, and it would be just as valuable to become the next blacksmith as to become the next priest, then I see a beautiful world, but that's not what it was. 

[00:23:34] Jesper Conrad: No, no, but I'm, what I'm not talking about is not, uh, Idolizing the old school as a 

[00:23:42] Cecilie Conrad: podcast conversation.

[00:23:43] Cecilie Conrad: Yes. Yes. Doing it. I 

[00:23:44] Jesper Conrad: don't know. I'm talking about 

[00:23:45] Cecilie Conrad: why 

[00:23:47] Jesper Conrad: the, um, why learning can work in that setting of school is because of the attachment that you knew the person that was an attachment. That is what I like about the homeschooling, unschooling movement, is that people are, should automatically be, by default, attached.

[00:24:08] Cecilie Conrad: Just saying that that school teacher could be the meanest devil who beat up your dad because he was a slow, slow learner, just learning to read at eight to five. And, uh, And you, you grew up knowing that he's a mean, can I say a swear word, dick. And now you know you're going into that equation. 

[00:24:29] Jesper Conrad: It's 

[00:24:30] Cecilie Conrad: not necessarily 

[00:24:31] Jesper Conrad: beautiful.

[00:24:32] Cecilie Conrad: And, and 

[00:24:33] Jesper Conrad: That wasn't the point. I don't get it. 

[00:24:34] Cecilie Conrad: No. But sometimes when we talk about the village and the forest, we kind of alienate ourselves from the context we have now, where a lot of us live in cities and we drive cars and we shop in supermarkets, and it can be very alienating, but it can also, if you choose a mindful life, be a beautiful life.

[00:24:53] Jesper Conrad: Can I take it to another question, which is one of the things that you don't need to, uh, one of the things that was said, difficult in getting hold of Jack is that you in some sense have, uh, taking, uh, uh, alienating step in the world with being very, um, you, you're not very much on smartphones or anything.

[00:25:17] Jesper Conrad: And so can you tell me about the transition in your life? Why did you Remove all those things. 

[00:25:27] Jack Stewardt: Yeah, that's why I was late for you today. Sorry. Well, part of why I'll blame it on not having a smartphone to tell me what my calendar looks like anymore. So I have to keep it in my brain or other is in a paper notebook in my pocket, but then I actually have to get it out and look at what's what my day is shouting at me.

[00:25:45] Jack Stewardt: Hey, remember you've got to brush your teeth every morning. Um, Yeah, I, it was a couple of years ago and I think I realized, I mean the way I'm sort of post rationalizing it now, is I was starting to feel that technology was alienating me, not, so it was the other way around, um, that, that technology is a buffer in between me and stuff, me and the processes of life, me and the ground, me and other people, me, and so, um, I think I was, for example, I was an influencer, podcaster and a writer.

[00:26:31] Jack Stewardt: And so in terms of like, in terms of influence, the scale of influences, it was fairly wholesome because it was, you know, about homeschooling and stuff. But I've got this, I think one day it was a, it was a turning point. I knew a bunch of people online through my writing and, uh, about homeschooling, about education, and then I met them in real life.

[00:26:57] Jack Stewardt: And then they had to, I realized when I met them in real life that they didn't trust me, they admired me. Um, and that I wasn't actually helping them. I was just being cool. I think, I think that's what I realized about my particular empire that I had built online, is that I was being admired by thousands of people instead of being helpful to a few people.

[00:27:29] Jack Stewardt: And if I could change, if I could, Reduce the scope of my influence and take all of the energy that was putting into thousands of people and put it into my small group of community that I had in my life. I would make more of an impact. So that was part of it. Um, on a more philosophical level. Heidegger talks about tech, the technological mindset being, um, as if all of the objects in the world are a standing army for you.

[00:28:03] Jack Stewardt: So like a tree isn't just a tree in itself, the technological mind in and of itself, the technological mindset says that the tree is potentially useful to you. It's either a relevant piece of junk or it's useful to you. And I think this is what my brain is, is trained to do. This is how my brain was being trained to interact with people on a smartphone.

[00:28:27] Jack Stewardt: A smartphone was teaching me that they are literally manipulable in my hand. That I literally have relationships within, if I don't want to hear someone, boop, mute them. If I want to see someone's more smiley, then I'll just Google someone more smiley. Or if I just, my whole life is just in the palm of my hand.

[00:28:49] Jack Stewardt: And I think that's a powerful. That sort of digital architecture, um, was powerfully changing my brain. And I didn't like it. And I think part of the reason why is because my, my sort of meaning of life is intimacy. Um, not just intimacy with people, but intimacy with the ground, like I was saying, with, um, with what I'm eating, with the processes of stuff around me, with, you know, I've got my car and I only cycle around now.

[00:29:20] Jack Stewardt: Um, I want to be intimate with everything because I'm going to die and I want to be face to face with stuff because I want to touch it and feel it and smell it and, um, and so That's why I got rid of the internet. So I, so I could direct all those energies that was being dispersed in the smoke and mirrors of tens of thousands of people into actually hugging a few people instead.

[00:29:50] Jack Stewardt: And I know that there's not a dichotomy and I can do both, but for me, I was doing less hugging because I was doing lots of clicking. 

[00:29:59] Cecilie Conrad: I think you, this is beautiful. I think you're right that it's wrong that you can't do both. But then on the other hand, I'm not sure you can actually do both. And if you want to do both, you're going to have to be very strong and very, very mindful.

[00:30:23] Cecilie Conrad: You just assigned our second t shirt and our merch shop, which we have for funsies. Uh, it's a really fun story how it happened, uh, that we have a merch shop at all. I'll leave that for another, um, but the new t shirt is I don't co parent with the algorithm. And the thing is, um, we're not against, all of our kids have smartphones, the boys have a gaming computer, um, they also have a Switch, they share it, um, our daughter is using the iPad for her need for computers, they all have a laptop.

[00:31:04] Cecilie Conrad: They all, would they even have a watch? I mean, it's not that they don't have it and it's not part of our life. It's a big part of our life. And at this right now, at this point, I think it's a too big part of our life and we need to talk about it, but we are very mindful about how and why we use it. We've had a full stop of four years, extended two more years of only watching movies and only all together.

[00:31:32] Cecilie Conrad: Uh, before we went deeper and the kids got older and, and, you know, the premise of the whole thing changed.

[00:31:41] Cecilie Conrad: But I see how these things, in the beginning of the laptop, the internet, I mean, we have all, I've, I presume you're a good 10 years younger than us. Um, maybe more, I don't know, but I mean, we were there when the internet, we were adults when the internet was something you hadn't started to have in your home.

[00:32:04] Cecilie Conrad: We've been through the whole thing and the whole algorithm thing, I don't know when it happened. I haven't been deep into it, but it really changed. There's been a lot of changes that has just made it harder to have the technology in your pocket. Some elements of it are great. Really great. I mean, I love having Wikipedia in my back pocket.

[00:32:29] Cecilie Conrad: I love Google maps. I love being able to record a podcast, long format podcasts. listening to them and, and, uh, and producing them myself, uh, the way I, with YouTube can learn things that would before simply be, be out of reach. You know, I cannot find a person who can teach me to do this. So I'm not learning it.

[00:32:53] Cecilie Conrad: I can do that with YouTube now. Yes. And then on the other hand, um, I can also go for a hundred thousand followers. I can be, uh, in the rabbit hole of the social media platforms. I can sink into, I mean, it's such a trap and it does alienate us. Can I, can I say the thing about YouTube and your phone? 

[00:33:21] Jesper Conrad: Oh yeah, yeah, yeah.

[00:33:22] Jesper Conrad: It keeps reappearing on the YouTube, 

[00:33:25] Cecilie Conrad: the YouTube app twice a week on his phone. 

[00:33:28] Jesper Conrad: Yeah. 

[00:33:28] Cecilie Conrad: Not really knowing how it got back. 

[00:33:30] Jesper Conrad: I know. 

[00:33:31] Cecilie Conrad: We've discussed if we should put parental control so I can stop it. 

[00:33:35] Jesper Conrad: It is random. Sometimes when I'm really tired, I'm like, I would just install it again. It's I can handle it.

[00:33:42] Jesper Conrad: And then two days after I'm like, Oh, you'd need to delete it. And then a week after it's there again, I'm like, Oh yeah, maybe you were tired yesterday. 

[00:33:50] Cecilie Conrad: Being mindful about how, if you click, you don't hug. It's actually maybe the 

[00:33:57] Jesper Conrad: next t shirt. I like that. If you click, you don't hug 

[00:34:03] Jack Stewardt: more, more hugs, less clicks.

[00:34:06] Jack Stewardt: Yeah. I. I, um, I was in the, I I was, I was totally relate to that fight with YouTube because, um, you know, I was, I fought, I fought YouTube for 10 years or something, and after a while you gotta admit defeat. I mean, it's a kind of a hit to my ego. I mean, I'm sure you guys are able to be more mindful about it and get and, and do it better.

[00:34:37] Jack Stewardt: I wasn't able to. I mean, I, I read a sentence of a, I sat down to read a book, read the first sentence, brain got cloudy, read the first sentence again. I thought I should read that. I read that sentence again and then got out YouTube. And then that was just what I did. I, I feel like I'm a pretty disciplined person.

[00:34:54] Jack Stewardt: I couldn't do it. And, and only, and now I'm a voracious reader and it's because I got rid of the internet. I know you can do both. And, but I think part of what you were saying about, I did have to think hard about that. You know, I can't go, I can't just Google stuff. I can't go on Wikipedia. I can't look, there is an opportunity cost of, um, of what are you not able to learn?

[00:35:19] Jack Stewardt: Yeah. Just because you don't have the internet and you don't have those, you know, interesting, informative YouTube videos and stuff like that. But if I, so. Theoretically, you've got this infinite, you've got an infinite ocean of data on the internet available to you. But if you actually put up a real day with internet, for me, a real day with internet versus a real day with, um, just normal life and books, Um, the learning that I get from the depth of a classic book, for example, Um, let's say on the Roman Empire, you could get a bunch of.

[00:35:57] Jack Stewardt: stuff on a YouTube video, or I could read Edward Gibbon's Decline and Fall. And, um, you know, I could do like the, um, Wikipedia dumpster diving. Um, and so if I hold up, I know there's infinite, infinite data on Wikipedia about the Roman Empire, but actually, My learning about it would, would be so much, I would, I would, I would even say that an hour with Edward Gibbon's classic text on the decline of the Roman Empire would be worth 12 looking around Wikipedia.

[00:36:36] Jack Stewardt: Even though there's a bunch of data on Wikipedia, you get all of the facts on Wikipedia. I just It doesn't have that thing of one time tested, passionate, clearly writing, excellent academic. They're in your hands. I guess you could just look at the PDF, but I'm just not gonna. I'm just, I'm going to be clear with you.

[00:36:59] Jack Stewardt: I'm never going to read Edward Gibbons. I'm sure it's there on the internet and nobody's reading it. Nobody, nobody's get downloading the PDF of Edward Gibbon or whoever it is and sitting there and reading it. 

[00:37:10] Cecilie Conrad: I think there might be like three people doing it. 

[00:37:12] Jack Stewardt: Yeah. 

[00:37:15] Cecilie Conrad: Yeah. No, I think it's, it's also an interesting I dare you question to, to dare people to be, to look at.

[00:37:24] Cecilie Conrad: Okay, so how much of the time you spend on your phone? Are you actually spending on these things you say are the valuable things? So how much of the time is Wikipedia and, and learning new stuff and whatever, calling your family? Maybe you live far away from your grandmother, maybe you can call her twice a week.

[00:37:46] Cecilie Conrad: Do you use that phone for that? Or, are those things just an excuse to keep your Duolingo streak by doing the shortest version every night just before you fall asleep? And by the way, that's why you end up on YouTube, because you have the phone in your hand, not your book. It's actually one of the reasons we have Kindles for all of us.

[00:38:07] Cecilie Conrad: I agree with you, a physical book is amazing. The thing is just, we live five people in a van, so we, and we are all big readers. It's, it's impossible to feed my children all the books they need, um, within the physical environment of my life. So we bought them Kindles. And one of the reasons you, we want them to read on a Kindle, not on the reading apps on the phone is because the Kindle is not the phone.

[00:38:32] Cecilie Conrad: The only thing you can do on the Kindle is to read a book. You just can't, there's no video, there's no colors, and it takes time to change book. You wouldn't like flip through different ones. There's no pictures. It's just, it's just a book. Um, so, yeah, I'm just thinking, we probably fool ourselves quite a lot, just like, just like we think we're eating all the good stuff, but if you look at it, maybe There's still a lot of carrots in the fridge, but there are no more crisps in the cupboard.

[00:39:03] Cecilie Conrad: And, you know, it's the same thing. So if we were mindful just for a little while, um, maybe we would be worth it to 

[00:39:14] Jesper Conrad: buy a phone 

[00:39:14] Cecilie Conrad: jail. 

[00:39:15] Jesper Conrad: But a day without internet to me who works online, it sounds like almost scary. I just bought my Starling and it's very happy with it. So, so, uh, what are you doing, Jack? Why do I 

[00:39:29] Jack Stewardt: do it?

[00:39:30] Jesper Conrad: Yeah, what are you doing when you don't have the Wi Fi in the morning? Oh, what am I 

[00:39:34] Jack Stewardt: doing? Yeah, um, how does the 

[00:39:37] Jesper Conrad: day of the life and of Jack Stewart looks without internet? 

[00:39:41] Jack Stewardt: Yes, so for example, yesterday Um, I get my coffee. I take my coffee, I'll get up, get, take my coffee and my, in this case Edward Gibbon out on some of the bench where the sun, uh, the sun rises right in your face and read for about half an hour to an hour.

[00:40:01] Jack Stewardt: Kids get up, do some homeschooling. Um. And then I'll work on my board game. I brought this board game to the conference that you were at and someone, someone happened past it and looked at it and the old English and the Latin and the way that it all works and they said, This is a board game developed by somebody who doesn't have the internet.

[00:40:22] Jack Stewardt: And I said, Yes, it is. I think they meant it derogatorily. Meaning like, only if you are so bored, are you going to make something like this. Um, but you know, work on that for a bit. And then I have someone living down the end of my garden in a van, and they So the way they pay rent is they are, um, we exchange skills.

[00:40:43] Jack Stewardt: So they're doing a bunch of stuff. They're gardening, they're cooking, they're teaching my daughter to cook, they're teaching me joinery, this sort of thing. So we did a bit of that. Then I taught her to swing dance. And then, uh, I did some more reading. I walk around the block, walk to the woods while I read because I'm too ADHD to lie down and read, I guess.

[00:41:06] Jack Stewardt: Um, reading something else this time, reading a novel, and then I come home and I'm cooking, um, I am playing a different game with the kids, I'm just rough and tumbling with the kids, um, which we do an awful lot, um, and then they, Uh, do a bit more homeschooling, and then we go off and play tennis, and then they go to bed and I go off to improv class.

[00:41:32] Jack Stewardt: Um, which, I go to some, basically something different each evening, but it's, I, you know, I go to improv, I go to life drawing, I do, um, I play gigs, I songwrite, and so, um, actually yesterday as well. A friend came over, she was just going by, but she's the female vocalist in, in, um, a, uh, something I'm recording this fall.

[00:41:54] Jack Stewardt: And so we practiced that. Um, so I have a, a constellation of thr for me, thrilling projects. They're not really pastimes, there's stuff that I'm creating, is the way I think about it. And everything feeds into each other in this thing that I'm nurturing you. And bringing into life and it's like real and physical and, and free.

[00:42:28] Jack Stewardt: I love my life.

[00:42:31] Jesper Conrad: It also sounds like you have, uh, in a, in a day almost, uh, live and do what people do in two or three weeks sometimes. 

[00:42:42] Jack Stewardt: I do absolutely do, um, a lot more than I used to. There was, with, with no doomscrolling and stuff. And you would, you would have thought, That I would get more tired from all of the hard brain work.

[00:42:56] Jack Stewardt: But actually there's a sense in which a YouTube video, and that's why it's addictive to watch YouTube videos and, you know, TikTok and whatever else, um, is because they actually demand a certain, um, frequency of like, of stimulation in your brain. Um, so it feels like, it feels like when I settled down at 9 PM to some YouTube videos before bed, like I'm relaxing.

[00:43:29] Jack Stewardt: I'm just taking the brakes off or I'm just like relaxing to my seat. And my brain is going to calm down, but actually. You'll probably agree with me that after a while on YouTube, there's that blue light and whatever, you're actually kind of more excited, even though you're not learning anything, doing anything.

[00:43:45] Jack Stewardt: It's, there's this paradox of, and so when I'm, reading a book, even though it's challenging material. And as you know, Edward Gibbons, a Victorians, um, um, very flowery language. And so it takes a little bit to work through it, but it doesn't feel like that because it's such a big cog in my brain. It's such a slow moving.

[00:44:13] Jack Stewardt: Matt, as opposed to shimmery, if you see the metaphor, Matt, Matt Page of, uh, it's almost like it's growing. It's like a tree growing. It's just, and so there's a sense in which that is much more. relaxing. And so I can do more of that. I can spend my whole day doing that, really. And it doesn't fatigue me particularly.

[00:44:39] Jack Stewardt: It doesn't, I mean, I can't, I can't spend my whole day reading Edward Gibbon, but I can spend my whole day doing those things. Um, because in a way it just kind of fits better into the big oak. If you, I do, I, my, my mixed metaphors are insane, but you probably get the picture. 

[00:44:56] Cecilie Conrad: Well, we all do mixed metaphors and that's the beauty of it.

[00:45:00] Cecilie Conrad: I think that. Also, I've observed that reading, I come from academics and I also come from before the internet, so I find it hard to find solid information on the internet. It's always something flimsy and there'll be commercials and weird stuff and, and a real book, someone, you know, there was an editor, someone fact checked that it's not going to be published if, if, uh, it's if it hasn't been checked and if it doesn't have a hole and there's problems, usually an idea behind how do we present this.

[00:45:36] Cecilie Conrad: So I love my books and, and there are lots of books in the vans and Jesper sometimes complains about it because they take only when 

[00:45:45] Jesper Conrad: I've read it once, I'm like, how many times do I need to read it? I love my books. I just read them on my Kindle. 

[00:45:52] Cecilie Conrad: Yeah, but that's whatever. It's not our conflicts. 

[00:45:56] Jesper Conrad: No, no, it's not a big conflict.

[00:45:59] Cecilie Conrad: It's an argument. Um, but what I observe is, besides the fact that a book often is more wholesome, um, when I take it in reading, I take it in when, when I'm ready for it. Whereas if I take it in as an audiobook or I take it in as a video, it's sort of this foie gras story again, it's being pushed into me.

[00:46:26] Cecilie Conrad: And I have to kind of run alongside or be bored slowly walking alongside the explanation of something then I put it at double speed and it becomes weird. So, I think that's also why we don't tire out because it, when we read things in a, On paper on a Kindle is actually, and it's met the Kindle. That's another nice thing about it.

[00:46:50] Cecilie Conrad: The ink technology actually is matte, not shiny, which for me is a game changer. And there's no blue light involved in, you know, it really works. But maybe 

[00:47:02] Jesper Conrad: it's something about the timbre when you read, it's your speed that gives the brain time to ponder and stop, otherwise I would need to stop what I'm listening to.

[00:47:15] Cecilie Conrad: Now when he's studying behavioral psychology, he even feels very often when he's read a chapter, or some study, whatever, he needs to sit down and write about it. with a physical pen in a physical book. That's his choice. He has a laptop, but when he's studying, he takes out pen and paper because it simply settles the mind and he gets clear.

[00:47:41] Cecilie Conrad: What did I exactly learn? How can I understand this when writing about it? And he chooses that even though he has the option to do something else. 

[00:47:51] Jack Stewardt: That's 

[00:47:51] Cecilie Conrad: interesting. 

[00:47:52] Jack Stewardt: Yeah. I remember people telling me when I was a teenager that writing is better than, um, um, the typing. Yeah. Typing. Um, but I didn't believe them, but I think as I've gotten older, um, I think they must be right in terms of how it organizes itself in your brain when you put it down, when your whole hand makes the word, you know, like that.

[00:48:18] Cecilie Conrad: There's solid studies out now that prove that. Even, even your brain when you try to retrieve information, you will somewhat remember where on the paper you wrote it. And that will be part of helping you. You will know it was on the right side in the top and that you did a little doodle because someone was talking to you or whatever, and you'll kind of see that with your mind's eye and then you can retrieve the information.

[00:48:44] Cecilie Conrad: And that only happens with pen and paper. That does not happen when you write on a computer, even though I'm not against it. If you want to write an essay on a computer, it's better than not writing it. 

[00:48:54] Jack Stewardt: Yeah, and there are benefits, I mean, there are, I would say the benefits don't outweigh the cons, but I can definitely see, you know, you can reorganize it more easily, you can edit more easily, you can delete, you know, whatever.

[00:49:06] Jack Stewardt: But, um, yeah, just like when you are in the woods, you can tell I love the woods, um, and you see, you see the acorn that it is in a particular place in the woods. Sounds like a trivial thing to say, but it's It's not accidental that it's right there on the floor because it dropped from that tree, that it's there.

[00:49:32] Jack Stewardt: And so that, so now I'm more likely to remember the acorn or information about the acorn because of where it is. It means something that it's there. 

[00:49:44] Cecilie Conrad: And 

[00:49:44] Jack Stewardt: everything, every little thing in the woods is like that because it, and it's not necessarily true. It doesn't seem as true because it's on the, on the internet.

[00:49:56] Jack Stewardt: It doesn't seem as true because anything can just be moved at any point to anywhere else for fun. So anything can just be copied and pasted anywhere else, so everything sort of feels dislocated and unreal. Um, and on your page, like what you're saying, um, and actually what you're saying about the teacher, I think those are similar, that, that's like, that's like the acorn.

[00:50:18] Jack Stewardt: You, it makes sense to you as a part of, you know, a bigger system. It makes sense to you, like you, you learn about your, you, you're writing it there. Um, after you've said that thought above it, and before you've said these other thoughts below it, and with a line connected over here, it's, it's almost like it's in the woods on your page.

[00:50:42] Jack Stewardt: It's in a woods of thoughts, 

[00:50:44] Cecilie Conrad: um, 

[00:50:45] Jack Stewardt: and it's deliberate that you've put it there and made it and created that letter in that particular way. It's fallen like the acorn with purpose, as it were, um, just like you are more likely to learn from your teacher if you see him or her. As a part of a wider community or as a part of a project or as a part of a spiritual life or, you know, as a part of something.

[00:51:14] Jack Stewardt: I think it is always going to stick better like that. 

[00:51:19] Cecilie Conrad: Yeah, that's interesting. At the same time, I'm currently writing a book and there's no way I would write that book in a notebook. No way I would do that when I have to write long format things and I have to get my thoughts out. Yeah. And it's pages and pages and pages.

[00:51:40] Cecilie Conrad: It's actually not because I'm editing because I'm not editing a lot. It's because of the speed. I can simply write faster and I can also physically write for a longer time. If I write, I learned to write on a typewriter, the good old style. And now I do it on my laptop. So I'm, I'm just trying to not go too much, you know, to one side and, and, and call out all the electronics as bad.

[00:52:12] Cecilie Conrad: I think to be mindful and maybe open your eyes a little bit. I think a lot of people, including myself. Uh, very easily start to fool ourselves as to how we use it. And I've been, I read the book, um, Your Stolen Focus about a year ago with my oldest son. We were reading it like a chapter and then we would discuss it.

[00:52:35] Cecilie Conrad: It was really interesting and eye opening and scary. And after that, I realized that, My focus also is, is weaning and it's not because I'm getting older and it's not because I'm distracted by traveling. It's not because I'm overwhelmed. It's it's because it's because of the algorithms. And it's because of many things.

[00:52:58] Cecilie Conrad: It's actually not only the internet. There are many things. There's also the pollution and you know, there are many things happening that, that attacks our ability to focus. And if you think about that just for a little while, it's really scary. I mean, I'm academic. I've read a lot of books and I used to read a lot of novels and just consume it.

[00:53:22] Cecilie Conrad: And I find it hard to focus now. I find it hard to read a full chapter. I did it a year ago. 

[00:53:27] Jack Stewardt: Uh, what's your academic, um, field out of interest? Is it science? I'm 

[00:53:32] Cecilie Conrad: a psychologist. 

[00:53:33] Jack Stewardt: Psychology. 

[00:53:34] Cecilie Conrad: Yeah. So I read psychology and, and it was consuming a lot of material, so I knew how to read fast and focus 30 years ago when I was studying.

[00:53:42] Cecilie Conrad: And now I just realized that the amount of books I consume I is, is really, has really gone down. And I think a, it has a lot to do with. with the development of technology. Um, so I'm very aware of that. And at the same time, what you do would be radical for most people. So I think the good, choice would be to,

[00:54:09] Cecilie Conrad: to just install some mindfulness to begin with. Yeah. 

[00:54:13] Jack Stewardt: What do you mean in this case by mindfulness, thought, thoughtfulness, reflect, self reflection? 

[00:54:18] Cecilie Conrad: I think, um, that our ego more or less always gets in the way of what is good. And I think one way of taming the ego energy that, that confuses our life, um, and usually ruins most of what's important. One very good way is to, to just be in the witness energy, just witness what's going on in your life, with no agenda, so you're not trying to put yourself down and say you're a bad person because you looked at YouTube videos, or you're a good person because you read an academic book about the Roman Empire, but just witness.

[00:55:08] Cecilie Conrad: And, and if you hold that witness position for an hour a day, then it, in my opinion, experience spirals off and you'll start just witnessing what's actually going on. And, and that can be pretty hard to do because very often we realize that we're fooling ourselves. Very often we realize that the good things we want to do, we don't really do them.

[00:55:35] Cecilie Conrad: And the bad things that are less important things that we don't really want to do, they take up a lot of time. And so we, we become aware that we're wasting our time. Like you said before, I'm going to die. And before that, I want to live. That's basically what you said. Um, but it will make the shifts. It will make the shifts possible.

[00:55:57] Cecilie Conrad: And we talked about technology and how we lose maybe the ability to focus, to do things slowly, to understand things that. That has a lot of elements, so you have to read several books to get the idea and then maybe you can connect the dots. That cannot be done in, in YouTube Shorts. It's impossible. It cannot be done in a documentary.

[00:56:22] Cecilie Conrad: It cannot be done in a not, you have to actually be able to think for a long stretch of time. So if we're mindful about how often do I change activity? How often is my phone in my hand? How often do I use the algorithm based, uh, media? Um,

[00:56:43] Cecilie Conrad: is it because I want to, um, then this witness position is going to just feed you information. about your, what you're actually doing based on that, maybe changes will happen. Maybe not. Maybe you're happy. Maybe you're like, okay, this is how I live. And because you have a witness position, I'm judging witness position.

[00:57:14] Cecilie Conrad: At least you know, yeah, 

[00:57:16] Jack Stewardt: that's a great, that's a great, um, that's great advice. It's like when you, it's like, it's like the difference between someone saying a great diet is the keto diet and then you get on the keto diet just because you've been told to versus noticing and witnessing that I feel a certain way on this breakfast and I feel a different way on the different breakfast and just stopping and going, you know what, this, um, this morning was different and I feel different and that's happened and not guilt, not that I haven't performed to the right standards, not that I didn't do the keto or didn't or did do the keto or whatever it was just seeing yourself and putting an arm of compassion around yourself and saying, you know, that happened and I can see that.

[00:58:01] Jack Stewardt: Um, that's much more likely to produce. better habits of, you know, I'm going to have the, uh, the porridge this morning instead of the whatever. Um, because of that, I'm going to 

[00:58:11] Cecilie Conrad: install a router in my home that shuts off automatically every day at five o'clock in the afternoon, because then I'm done working.

[00:58:18] Cecilie Conrad: So I want to be, you know, you just find your ways. Yeah. And, and yeah, but on the note of breakfast, I need to 

[00:58:26] Jesper Conrad: make 

[00:58:27] Cecilie Conrad: lunch for our kids. Yes, I 

[00:58:29] Jesper Conrad: will, I will finish up with a short story and a question and then we should talk more also later. 

[00:58:36] Cecilie Conrad: Rest of your water. 

[00:58:38] Jesper Conrad: Yes. So. I have, um, been on a process journey of removing apps, removing notification, uh, jokingly shared the story about YouTube reappearing all the time.

[00:58:56] Jesper Conrad: In the periods where, uh, I have successfully deleted my YouTube, uh, app. Uh, then I found myself looking at the Chrome app because it's actually also have a wonderful or the Google Chrome app. I have a wonderful, uh, where it shows me news, different fun news that works for me. And then I've also recently deleted this one.

[00:59:20] Jesper Conrad: And, and the fun part is, uh, feeling and you cannot say that living five people in a van being full time traveling, but sometimes when I've taken my phone in the morning, uh, I felt like alone. There wasn't any welcoming algorithm ready to give me a fix, which is a fun process of realizing that I actually also like that fix of, uh, But I don't feel satisfied afterwards.

[00:59:50] Jesper Conrad: It's like a bad sugar cake versus a nice date with chocolate. Um, so, but it gives the fix and people should, I don't, I think people should honor and respect how effective these fix are. And it does something wonderful, but not on the long term basis. I've actually in my world feel I lose more time than the joy the fixes gives me.

[01:00:14] Jesper Conrad: But it gives a fix. It gives the dopamine reaction and it is wonderful. Dopamine is wonderful. We cannot lie about that. 

[01:00:21] Cecilie Conrad: Go for a run. 

[01:00:22] Jesper Conrad: Yeah. Go for a run. Gives it as well. Um, so when you did the change in your life, have you felt a difference in your focus? 

[01:00:36] Jack Stewardt: Yeah, well, I've mentioned that I read now, and so I have, I'm able to focus in that respect because I cancel, what do I do, I, it narrows my focus, I suppose.

[01:00:57] Jack Stewardt: Which I suppose, which, that's just what focus is, if you focus on a, I'm focusing on this pencil instead of all of the others, I'm shushing a bunch of stuff, that's what focus is, shushing almost everything. Um, and I think that's the biggest thing that my phone did for my focus is, uh, getting rid of my phone did for my focus, is it shushed almost everything in my life.

[01:01:27] Jack Stewardt: I just kept the best things, which is my family and the woods and, um, me and the Lord and other people around and my allotment. And, you know, these are the best things. I don't think necessarily, um, For me, the problem with going to McDonald's is not that it's literally poisoning me, it's that actually the opportunity cost is that I'm not eating my blueberries and my steak, um, because I'm full on the cardboard of McDonald's.

[01:02:04] Jack Stewardt: And so, um, I think this was, this was what, this is a similar thing with, like, the internet was a social appetite suppressant. For me, it just filled me up on cardboard and it filled my social appetite up on cardboard. Um, so that I, I say, so I didn't have that piercing focus that you have when you're hungry for things and you're lonely, you know, loneliness is good.

[01:02:38] Jack Stewardt: It's a good thing. Your body and your mind, we feel lonely for a reason and it makes you do stuff. It makes you get out. When I got rid of my social media, I got lonely. And I went, I literally went around the neighborhood and knocked on doors. Like I used to do when I was eight, seven years old and say, can you come out to play?

[01:03:00] Jack Stewardt: I basically did that. I basically did that. And that was in the middle of COVID. So we, we spoke across from the, most of the time they wouldn't come out. So we spoke across from the, you know, several meters, but, um, but anyway, I, I think what it did for my focus was it got rid of a lot of faff. Uh, just. It shushed a lot of stuff so I could see what matters.

[01:03:28] Jesper Conrad: Yeah. Uh, thank you. It has been a really good, uh, talk. Uh, 

[01:03:35] Cecilie Conrad: we have to stop it. We have 

[01:03:37] Jesper Conrad: to stop it, but we also have to continue. I look forward to continue. 

[01:03:41] Cecilie Conrad: Yeah. 

[01:03:43] Jesper Conrad: Yeah. Um, as you're not super normally in these podcasts by asking people, Oh, if people want to read some of your stuff or get in contact with you, do you have a homepage?

[01:03:53] Jesper Conrad: Uh, But with you, I'm like in doubt. Do you share still somehow? And, and can people find you or is it, they will listen to this and that's it? 

[01:04:05] Jack Stewardt: Um, they will listen to this and that's it. Although if, um, I'm just on the horizon creating a bunch of stuff. So I'm recording an album. I am developing this board game.

[01:04:18] Jack Stewardt: Um, but it's none of it's ready to, I've got no internet presence on any of it yet. So what I could do is, um, give y'all the email, which would be jackstuartcontactatgmail. com. Um, Stuart with an S T E W. And what you can do is, um, if you're interested in, um, getting, uh, keeping abreast of what I'm up to and what the products that are soon to, uh, emerge, um, then let me know there and I can keep you abreast.

[01:04:56] Jesper Conrad: That is 

[01:04:57] Cecilie Conrad: perfect. 

[01:04:57] Jesper Conrad: That is perfect. With 

[01:04:58] Cecilie Conrad: that simple note in the show notes. 

[01:05:00] Jesper Conrad: Yes. Thanks a lot for your time, Jack. It has been a big pleasure. 

[01:05:03] Cecilie Conrad: Thank 

[01:05:04] Jesper Conrad: you very much.