“Facebook ‘likes’ are bright dings of pseudo-pleasure, and they’re as seductive as they are hollow.”
(Justin Rosenstein, the creator of the “Like” button for Facebook)

The past two days we’ve been looking at the power of the Internet and social media to ensnare our brains and polarize us against one another. Truth be told, this is all coming from a book I’m writing. It’s called “The 7 Deadly Sins of the 21st Century,” and its an effort to name all the modern ways we’re killing ourselves to be happy. It’s also an effort to point a way out of the wilderness, toward practices that leave us feeling calm, confident, and capable.

Here’s one of those practices: Just for today, keep a count of how many real “likes” you receive today, from real people, face-to-face. How many compliments did you get? Pats on the back? Laughter at your jokes, agreeing statements, or even just friendly smiles? Count them all.

How did these real connections feel compared to how your virtual validations typically feel? Which feeling lasts longer? Which can you actually remember?

Now, here’s another challenge: Can you give out more of these real affirmations tomorrow than you received today? Can you give out more of these real ones than pseudo-pleasure likes to your virtual friends?

Peace begins with pause,

“It [social media] literally changes your relationship with society, with each other. It probably interferes with productivity in weird ways. God only knows what it’s doing to our children’s brains.”
(Sean Parker, former president of Facebook)

Yesterday I ranted a bit about the Internet and its effects on us all. Turns out I’m not the only one. There are a number of Silicon Valley pioneers regretting their part in creating our current struggles.

Sean Parker is one of them. He is particularly concerned about what we mentioned yesterday, the Internet’s power to addict us to itself, and polarize us against each other with our own confirmation bias. In a nutshell, confirmation bias is a built-in brain function, leading us to scan any new information for confirmation of what we already believe. This helped our ancestors make sense of the world, but left unchecked can close us off to any positive changes in our mindsets, and thus our lives. Here are some examples:

—You believe you are always messing up, so even your successes are framed as exceptions that prove the norm.

—You believe your teenager is prone to lying, so you micro-inspect her words for any hint of deception (lest you feel like a fool for trusting her again).

—You believe a news source is biased, so anyone who reports for, or anyone who quotes from, that source is operating from that bias and trying to trick you into questioning what you know is truth.

These struggles have been present at any time in human history, but now this flaw in our brain’s functioning has more help than we ever could imagine. Here’s how it works:

—the Internet is promoted to us all as a free, unbiased, all-access pass to all the known information in the world

—Software engineers create programs and apps built with artificial intelligence to predict, based on our searches and clicks, what kinds of content we like, we agree with, and we share with others

—These programs perfect their ability to predict us, and therefore can identify us to advertisers, thus creating more targeted ad campaigns than ever before in history

—Since ads are these programs’ main ability to make money, the programs keep feeding us more of the same things we’ve already seen, liked, and shared

—Unbeknownst to the average user, seemingly random content, from the unbiased Internet, keeps showing up in their newsfeeds (which are called “newsfeeds” to perpetuate themselves as unbiased)

—We connect further with people who believe similar things, and we all constantly confirm our biases with each other, polarizing us against all who believe anything different

Here’s more from Sean Parker: “It’s a social-validation feedback loop … exactly the kind of thing that a hacker like myself would come up with, because you’re exploiting a vulnerability in human psychology.”

So where do we go from here?

(More tomorrow…)

Peace begins with pause,

“The whole world has become a lot less stable and more polarized. Because of that, our responsibility is that much greater.”
(Robert Kyncl, YouTube’s chief business officer)

At the risk of sounding like an anti-tech curmudgeon, I am growing more and more concerned about the www (Wild, Wild, West) of the Internet. Facebook is putting out TV commercials to begin restoring its image, and Instagram is becoming known as the most depression-inducing medium for teenagers.

Meanwhile, YouTube has suddenly become wildly profitable, using its algorithms to link together scores of videos similar to any you’re currently watching, and Netflix-style, playing them before you have a chance to decide whether you actually want to watch another one. This is a miracle for marketers, able to tack on ads to the content they know you like.

Good for them. Bad for us, though. Because of the immediacy of the medium, and because we are shown more and more videos like the ones we’re already watching, the Internet encourages two things: Addiction, and confirmation bias (we only see what we already believe).

It’s good, therefore, that YouTube is now recognizing their responsibility in a less stable, more polarized world. It would be better for them, and many others, to recognize their role in helping make it that way.

More on this tomorrow.

Peace begins with pause,

“Thinking is difficult; this is why most people judge.”
(Carl Jung)

In a world where we can swipe through friends’ messages with less effort than erasing a whiteboard, taking the time to carefully consider our responses to people seems more expensive than ever. Time is money, effort is energy, and immediacy is more important than accuracy.

This is why quick judgments (that’s stupid, this is a waste of time, she’s wrong, he’s evil, you’re conservative, you’re liberal, etc) are so prevalent.

Today—just today—let’s try some careful consideration before we judge everyone and everything around us.

Who knows? Maybe we’ll find out we’re not always right.

Peace begins with pause,

“When I was a boy of fourteen, my father was so ignorant I could hardly stand to have the old man around. But when I got to be twenty-one, I was astonished by how much he’d learned in seven years.”
(Mark Twain)

This famous quote has been used countless times — mostly by parents laboring through the aggravation of their teen’s adolescence. The fact that it’s attributed to one of our most esteemed writers gives it a measure of validity. That he said it more than a century ago lends a “timeless wisdom” tag to it. We think our teenagers have no respect for us. We think that no matter how hard we try, we will never be able to inject wisdom into their hormone-riddled brains. Thus it is. Thus it has always been, thus it will always be.

If, by this, we mean to say we are not alone, we are not the first weary travelers to trod the maddening journey of launching our teens into adulthood, then that’s wonderful. Misery loves company, and the community spirit may be just what we need to help ourselves stay calm, patient, and sane.

If, however, we employ this quote to heighten our hopes that one day, someday, our teenagers will finally come to their senses and ACKNOWLEDGE, THANK, and APPLAUD us for all of our sacrifices and wisdom, then please, let’s not. Great parents do not survive the teen years by waiting for their kids’ validation. It’s never our kids’ job to validate us as parents; it’s their job to use whatever wisdom and guidance they can get to launch out into a productive life of their own. And it’s our job to help them do just that. Even if we never get any credit.

(Of course, the ironic twist is that parents who are able to let go of the need to receive that kind of validation are the ones most likely to receive it.)

Peace begins with pause,

“A good marriage is one which allows for change and growth in the individuals and in the way they express their love.”
(Pearl Buck)

Yesterday, I did another “Real Talk” segment on NBC’s “Atlanta & Co.” The conversation was about common interests between spouses. Should a woman learn to be interested in her guy’s hobbies? Should a guy learn to like chick-flicks? Check out the segment here (I had a lot of fun with this one).

Common ground with your spouse may not be a rock solid foundation upon which to build your marriage. Individually, we are shifting sands. That is to say, we grow, we evolve, we change our likes and dislikes. There’s nothing wrong with having shared interests, but healthy marriages allow for unshared interests as well. The key is learning how to accommodate these changes in one another.

The architects of earthquake-proof skyscrapers in Tokyo, Japan show us the power of flexibility. As the earth’s tectonic plates move, the steel structures’ built-in shock-absorbing technology keeps the buildings from toppling over. The entire building sways. YouTube it if you don’t believe it.

If a skyscraper can manage to be flexible to a 8.9 magnitude earthquakes, you can surely manage to sway with the various ways in which your partner changes over the years. Staying rigid to these movements will inevitably lead to collapse.

Accept growth and change in your spouse. That will allow your marriage the flexibility to shift during any major quakes and stay intact throughout the ever-shifting landscape of ever after.

Peace begins with pause,

“You see much more of your children once they leave home.”
(Lucille Ball)

This quote by the legendary comedienne Lucille Ball is true on a couple of different levels. On one hand, she seems to be talking about the phenomenon of children leaving home only to return asking for help. For this very reason, don’t tell your kids that they can be anything when they grow up. “Unemployed and dwelling in my parents’ basement” isn’t a box they can check on the SAT career option list and it’s better for them to hear it now rather than later.

On another note, the comedienne is touching on a deeper truth worth exploring. Your relationship with your children will grow by leaps and bounds when you can start to truly see them as individuals. This is sometimes easier to do when you give them a chance to experience the world away from you, and that shouldn’t begin when they go off to college.

Peace begins with pause,

“New opinions are always suspected, and usually opposed, without any other reason but because they are not common.”
(John Locke)

New ideas are not usually popular ideas, especially in the field of human relationships. Perhaps this is because adopting a new parenting or marriage philosophy, for instance, can mean abandoning what your family-of-origin practiced and taught.

Well, we tend to teach some radical new ideas here in The Daily Pause, sometimes so radical it takes awhile before people accept and adopt them:

—You are not responsible for your kids and the choices they make; you are responsible to them for the choices you make.
—You are neither capable of nor called to meet your spouse’s needs, and vice-versa, because neediness is not the foundation of a mutually chosen relationship (and it is not attractive).
—Parenting is not about raising kids, it’s about apprenticing and then launching new adults into the world.
—Raising your voice to be heard actually increases people’s efforts to tune you out.

Researching and discovering these principles, and then crafting memorable ways to communicate them, is my life’s work. But that doesn’t mean I take it personally when folks resist these ideas at first; that’s just human nature at work.

What I care most about is whether our mere discussion of these ideas furthers your deep desire and growing ability to love yourself and others well.

Peace begins with pause,

“The secret of being a bore is to tell everything.”
(Voltaire)

Watching our kids struggle with friendships is one of the hardest parts of parenting. That’s why I specifically address the topic in each of the editions of our new Choose Your Own Adulthood Online Platform. I cannot urge you strongly enough to check it out. You can sign up for a monthly or annual subscription, buy it as a gift for a teen or young adult you care about, or even just start out with free access to the first two levels.

The rest of today’s Pause is below. But if you want to know more about the platform, watch this video first:

Be More Interested, Be Less Interesting

As any of us face new social situations, it can be tempting to think up and share things about ourselves others may find interesting. While this may work a little, it can easily backfire into looking a little self-absorbed. A far more effective strategy is this: Be more interested, and be less interesting. Take a genuine interest in others, asking them questions about themselves, their lives, their interests, and what makes them happiest.

You can go to a party, and make friends with a number of people, without really trying that hard. All you have to do is get curious:

“Where are you from?”
“What do you miss most about your hometown?”
“Do you have any family close by?”
“Who in your family are you closest to?”

And on and on. This is a skill that may not come naturally, but it can be learned, and we all get to practice it every day. Try it on someone this week. Then teach it to your kids.

Peace begins with pause,

“For every action there is an equal and opposite reaction,
plus a social media overreaction.”
(Anonymous)

Respond More, React Less is, in many ways, the entire ScreamFree message. It’s also an important section in our new online platform, Choose Your Own Adulthood. The platform has editions for High School and College Students, plus one for young adults in the workplace, but it’s practical wisdom we all need. Here’s an excerpt:

In our era of instant electronic connection, people are freaking out more than ever. Quick, unthoughtful, cruel tweets. Trolls online, filling up comments pages with instant negativity. Couples breaking up because one of ’em took too long to reply to a text. (She hasn’t texted me back, and it’s been over 20 minutes! She must be cheating!)

Used to be, a hundred years ago, when people traveled by train or boat, the loved ones left behind would have to wait days or weeks to hear from their dearly departed. Word would finally come through a carefully written letter. And then they would, upon much reflection, craft a response letter back. Contrast that with today. Now people rush to flip out their phones as soon as the plane touches down, ’cause heaven forbid their loved ones go a minute more without knowing if the flight went down in flames.

Emotional reactivity is on the rise, and it’s everywhere. It’s what makes for great reality TV, that’s for sure. But in true reality, it makes for pretty bad relationships. Just like when a body reacts to an allergen, people can react to a perceived threat, or slight, by choking off any future possibilities. That’s the real power of reactivity—it usually creates the very outcomes you were hoping to avoid.

Learn to respond more, and react less. What’s the difference? A response is thoughtful, while a reaction is an automatic reflex. A response is careful, while a reaction is careless. A response is measured—informed by education, experience, and an estimate of its immediate and long-term effects. When we respond, rather than react, we actually communicate from our highest principles and deepest desires. Reactions, on the other hand, come straight from our most shallow anxieties and fears.

Peace begins with pause,