Final round of the two truths game about what improvements I can make to support my digital goals, plus some meta-commentary on what this podcast even is. Spoiler: it's not educational, it's just me complaining and asking questions I don't have answers to. Setting intentions I probably won’t follow through on Hey, welcome back. We are on a three-part bender here. If you’re new, you have tuned into Liv versus the Surveillance State. In this podcast I talk about my experiences within the modern technological era and how bloody convenience and connection costs us. It often demands a payment of our psychological health and, dare I say, integrity. And today before we begin, let us say grace since we’re starting a new tradition here. Because I complain so much, I have to say one nice thing before I start complaining. I have to say at least one thing I’m grateful for. Today’s grace So today I think I’m going to say I’m grateful for very accessible podcast equipment. I would even say maybe too accessible.—I feel like every man (every straight man) needs a license to purchase podcasting gear the way we do with guns and firearms. If we need a license to buy guns, we need men to register and license for podcasting. Yeah okay, I’m just going to leave that there because that is a topic for another day.—So I’m grateful for that. I’m grateful for the chance to just sit here and talk to the world, talk out into the void, and upload what I say on the internet and then people just have access to it when they want to listen. Or even if they don’t want to listen, it is still there. I could upload this on the internet and no one could listen to it and that’s all right. Someday someone’s just going to find this on here maybe hundreds of years from now. But that’s cool. I just need to do this right now for my mental health. Alright, let’s get into it. I’m going to try to get through this episode real quick because I just feel like I ramble on, don’t I? Final round of two truths and a lie So for the third and final instalment of the two truths and a lie game we’ve been playing for the last couple of episodes, I am going to finally be answering the last question of the bunch. It is: what improvements can I make to my environment to better support my digital goals? Well, I said originally “better support my goals” but because this podcast is obviously about digital technology, social media, and online stuff, I’ve just kind of reworded it to be digital goals. I did get this journal prompt from a Pinterest journal list infographic. The other two questions that I answered are in the last couple of episodes. So again, if you are new here, please go back and listen right from the very start if you should want to. Otherwise you’re going to be wondering what the hell I’m talking about. Okay, so what improvements can I make to my environment to better support my digital goals? I guess before I answer this question, I want to acknowledge that within my immediate environment (as in the environment that I have direct control over) I already have everything I need to achieve my digital goals. My goals of either getting things ticked off my to-do list or just minimising reliance on stuff. So yeah, I have all the tools and resources I need right now and I should not want for more. If anything, I think that half the hurdle for me is just the mental work to just go and do it. And the other half of the hurdle would be the social and cyber structures that we are bound to, that we are limited to operate within. So perhaps I could think of answers to this question that are more focused on my mental environment, or the way I do things inside the boundaries of that, which would better support my digital goals. And to be cognisant of how privileged I am to have choices for and accessibility to such things, and of my personal limitations. My digital goals, just so we’re clear So to reiterate, my digital goals are to: 1) bloody finish organising my online filing and storage system. 2) minimise my everyday usage and reliance on digital tools such as doomscrolling on socials or YouTube or whatever video apps there are for my oxytocin fix. And 3) do all that while easing back into the world of social media this year. Very slowly. Very mindful. Very demure. Answer one, no socials on phone So I guess my first answer for two truths and a lie would be to continue not having social media on my phone, on my actual mobile phone, and to fight the urge to have it on my mobile device for prolonged periods. This is specifically for my portable gadgets though, that I take with me everywhere. So yeah, the phone that I take with me everywhere just because I have to. And just leave the social scrolling for when I’m on my laptop at home or when I’m sitting down doing something, especially now that I’m planning on getting back on social media in the future. Because I feel like the phone is something that we take with us everywhere and we’ve just gotten used to having that connection at any time we want. And I’ve been doing good, doing okay with beating my phone screen addiction for the last wee while. But I want to be able to maintain that. And I know now the work of maintaining that and the work of fighting the urge to not continuously scroll is just mental discipline honestly. And also just simply eliminating access to the addiction. These days I don’t reach out for my phone in public every 10 seconds. Even when I’m just at home, I often go a couple hours or so and I’m thinking, wait, where’s my phone? Because I’ve made my phone specifically only to be contacted via messaging and phone call. And checking emails and the weather. But there’s no constant stream of back and forth on social media, constantly talking to somebody on it. I think that’s what for me is the thing that has tied me to it before, this constant need of connecting and talking to someone. And also I’ve turned off all notifications a couple of years ago. Literally, even the badges. When I still had social media, I only had badges on when someone has specifically messaged me or tried to call me. And then after that I turned the badges off when someone comments or messages me. So I’ve been working on this a few years now, slowly taking off the need to look at it. And when I upload an app, I immediately turn off all notifications on it except for apps that really need it. For example, Uber, because you’re waiting, you need to know if the driver’s outside. Obviously the apps that you need it for. The ballet story So I don’t reach for my phone every few seconds now because I’ve just worked on the habit of that. I used to have this itch to look at my phone every 10 seconds when I’m just sitting and waiting for something in public, like waiting for my drink in a pub, or even worse when I’m at the movies and I’m itching to scroll my phone so bad while watching. But you’re not supposed to have your phone out in movies, which is great. It’s a great situation to put yourself in if you want to work on your screen addiction because you’re forced to sit in a space where you’re not doing an activity or anything. You’re literally just sitting there in the dark. And normally, if you’re watching a movie at home, you would also be doomscrolling, but you can’t just out of theatre etiquette and being considerate to people around you. I think the last time I felt that way before doing something about it was, I can’t remember, was that 2024 or 2025? During Auckland Arts Festival. Auckland Arts Festival used to invite me to watch a few of the show’s opening nights of my choosing. So they’d be like, choose four shows, we’ll give you tickets to it, and you can have a plus one. One of the shows I went to that year was the ballet, I think it was the Scottish Ballet or something, they came to Auckland and it was for A Streetcar Named Desire, the play but in ballet form. So if you are a patron of the arts, you know that the ballet and the opera and all that, they take ages and you just have an interval in the middle. So I took my friend Amber as my plus one because we both used to do ballet and she used to live in New Orleans, which is where A Streetcar Named Desire was set in. So it was just this cute little girls night out and it just made sense and it was really fun. And anyway, as everyone knows, you can’t have your phone out, especially in ballet. But ballets are just sooooo long and Amber and I, being of the Millennial/Gen Z era (and also at the time I think we were trying to work on quitting vaping) so our attention spans have already eroded by years of screen usage. And we were just sitting there itching to reach for our phones. Not that we weren’t interested in the show because I loved it. I love the ballet and I’m not going to say I love the story of A Streetcar Named Desire because the plotline is kind of effed up. But it’s not like we weren’t enjoying watching it. It’s just by habit we just want to reach for a phone. We’re itching. And we’re working on our nicotine addiction. It was just like-what are we-what is this era? We have this beautiful, beautiful ballet in front of us and all we want to do is do something else. And I just specifically remember that. Surely I felt that way in other situations, but that was one of the last times that I’ve felt that way, because I started thinking, oh my god, I fricking love the ballet. And here I am wanting to do anything else. What has happened to me? And I’ve since worked on this and no longer do I reach for my phone now. I just literally stare out into the open air and look like a creep in these situations, especially in the elevator. I’ll be standing in the elevator and literally seven people are on their phones and I’m just staring out over yonder. And I probably look like such a creep, honestly. So I’ve worked on it, I’ve add
