Blackberry, Light Phone, Screen Addiction & Digital Minimalism | Guest: Laura Malvoyante

And greetings, everyone. Welcome to the undressed to go of your show. Uh, for those of you new around here, I definitely talk business and tech. And there are some of you that asked me about certain technology, because I've been covering a lot of the Google devices. Uh, you were asking me about the digital minimalistic devices that are out there. They look like smartphones, but are technically dumb phones. Uh, there's the light phone and there's some, I think it's called minimal phone, something like that. And while I do have friends that do use that, I'm not one of those because I actually need the tools, unfortunately. But I do have someone with me that has been covering some of this stuff. And I, as I mentioned before, recorded Laura that we got connected through the algorithm. But, uh, Laura, welcome to the Andres ago of your show. This is a pleasure to have you on. Yeah. Thanks for having me. And hello, everyone out there who wants to know a little bit more about digital minimalism and especially the devices related to digital minimalism. Um, a little bit more about myself. I kind of fell into digital minimalism by accident. It wasn't really a goal of mine, but about a year ago, I realized that I was spending about 10 to 12 hours a day on my screen, um, doing scrolling, watching some entertainment and things like that. And kind of a lot of culmination of life issues meeting at one point to where I just kind of broke. Um, I left my job, I was going through a disability at the same time. And then with this, all these issues, I kind of went to my screen to escape my problems. I guess a lot of people probably use devices this way. And yeah, I kind of jumped around different devices. I didn't know what device meant, what at the time I didn't know what digital minimum minimalism was. And I kind of discovered it through the book, digital minimalism by Cal Newport. And it was after a few months in of trying different phones and not realizing why it wasn't working and why I had to kind of go to the extreme of, um, dumb phones or minimalist phones in that way, because there are a lot of different phones out there that can do things still and still access the internet browsers, even very dumb feature. Phones are still a problem for someone who is very addicted. And I was one of those people who would just find a way even to check weather or things like that. I mean, I would waste hours on things. Yeah. Wow. That's a little bit more about my experience and how I got into digital minimalism. And now I'm quite into the aspect of the tech aspect, of course, the different devices, what devices could work better for some people and everybody's different with digital minimalism. There's no one size fits all. There's no one device that's going to cure your addiction or make everything better. You might have to jump back and forth between different ones to try what works for you. Yeah. And this kind of goes to what I've been telling my audience. Cause when I had a chance to exclusively review the unplugged phone earlier this year, I had trouble reviewing a device because it wasn't exactly new to the space, but I know the clientele that was interested in it, it was going to be completely new to them. And they thought this was like a whole new thing. It was going to be like, oh, there's Android, there's iPhone. And now there's a unplugged and like, no, that unplugged is Android. And there is a whole other world that exists beyond it. So when I was approaching it, I'm like, I don't know. I don't think I could just approach it like any tech review, like I've usually done. Um, I had to educate the audience and, and even that some people said it was, it went way over their heads. I'm like, well, I did what I could. And I try to give you baby steps to really explain what this was. And I titled it, um, privacy or convenience because it's, that's exactly what it all came down to. Oh, cause 10 years ago, not even, um, cause you were a BlackBerry user. I got my, my trophy. Yeah. I got my BlackBerry trophies here. Oh, that's right. Um, yeah, I showed you the, the Porsche design one, right? Uh, jealous. Yeah. You know what happened with this? I haven't told anybody this, so I'll tell you this. So when I bought it, I'm like, there's no way it can be that cheap on eBay. Uh, and I got it. And when it arrived, um, it was locked out. So I'm like, wait, was this a stolen device? I reached out to the guy that sold it to me. He's like, Hey, did you sell me a stolen device? Because it's locked out. It's like, no, it belonged to somebody, a family member or whatever. It should be fine to use or whatever. It's like, yeah, but it shows that it was security wiped. No, I can't log in without accessing the pin or whatever. So I'm like, great. I spent cheaper than what it was paid. It was pretty new, but I paid for a paperweight, a brick. Well, when Blackberry shut down their servers, that became a way for me to be able to access this thing and I was able to use it like, wait, I can use it now. So I'm like, yeah, it was awesome. And I started showing people that, Hey, look, you can still use WhatsApp on it and things like that, because it is running Android 4.3. Um, I just wish they really got 4.4 on it, but I could get lost in that. But that's to say there was a time where we had choices. I have windows phones back here. I have older Android devices that could be wiped and all that, and just use pure Android stock, um, Blackberry, obviously, but people complained about windows and Blackberry because, oh, there's no app for that. That was an expression. Oh, is there an app for that? And that's how we ended up with just a duopoly, which is Android and Apple. And as soon as they locked you into their ecosystems, not as bad as Apple because of cold, but once they lock you in, you start getting used to their services. I message of a, you reach a family member, the blue bubble, or it's like, Hey, let me pass my, my, my headphones to my iPad or whatever. And you just take the call with you and just leave the phone behind on the tablet or the computer. Yeah. While it's wonderful, it's convenient. It's also a way to keep you in. So when we were, it's kind of like boiling the frog. And once you get to that point and trying to get out of that, you realize, oh my goodness, I'm trapped. And it's difficult. I don't want to, I don't know how to live without it. Hey, when, when you, before you discover, yeah, before you discovered these, uh, these other devices in the minimalistic or the, uh, the digital minimal world, um, you were trying to use, uh, was it a pixel? I think you were trying to use as a, not a Google device, but not the Google per se. I have a Google pixel eight. So I, this was, this is the only smart device that I have. Google device or Android device, but I use it primarily for work and I tried to install minimalist launchers. I tried to use it as a dumbed down smartphone, but it's still as a Google device. So in the end it wasn't working. And sometimes I have to use this device for either traveling or things like that, which I will use it begrudgingly, but yeah, it's, it's not something you can switch, you can't switch from an iPhone to having a Google pixel and expect that your goal, your life is going to be better. It's exactly the same experience in the end. And even if you dumbed down the launchers and it's not as tempting to look at, you could, you could still waste just as much time. Yes. It's maybe less convenient than Apple if you're used to the ecosystem. So yeah, that was a failed attempt. Won't have many for myself. If you want to hear a history of fails, like I've done them all. That's for sure. Well, you're happy to share them. And what, what, what, what did you move on to the, from that though? What was the, what drove you to look for an option that wasn't Android or iPhone? Was it the fact that you couldn't detach from the digital world through the pixel? My first device, actually, when I was starting digital minimalism, I still had an iPhone at this point. I went to Nokia because when you think of the dumbest phone that you've had in your history of using phones, most people think of Nokia easily. I can just switch to that and live like I was in 2003 and be fine. I had a Nokia 6300 4G, which has KaiOS and with KaiOS you do certain applications. You can easily access Google, YouTube, WhatsApp, and things like this, which didn't benefit anybody who was addicted to the internet. So I basically was spending more time trying to see what was on my device. And in the end it was more frustrating. And so I picked that up after about a month and I went further down the rabbit hole and tried to go further back in time. I thought maybe going more as nostalgic, okay, I'll try the Razer V3 from 2006 or seven that I used when I was younger. Luckily in France, we still have access to 2G, so I can use a lot of older devices, um, older BlackBerrys that run BlackBerry OS 7 and things like that. So I did go down that rabbit hole of old devices. So I used Motorola Razer, which was terrible. The sound quality is terrible with 2G. There's a reason we don't use it anymore. And I had to learn this from many drop calls, many interrupted calls, business calls were ruined, uh, for 2G. I tried an old BlackBerry, uh, the BlackBerry Torch, um, beautiful device, really respectful, but really difficult to use in 2024. Again, it was a call issue situation. So 2G, that was a no-go. And at this point I was getting frustrated as I didn't understand, like I couldn't break the addiction. Um, even with the older BlackBerry, I could still access the internet. Like that was my problem. So I really needed to find the dumbest phone I could find. And this led me down the rabbit hole on Reddit of digital minimalism and then minimalist devices. And there was only a couple of companies that were making devices at that point. It was Punk'd and Light Phone Company. And unfortunately the Light Phone Company, the Light Phone 2 does not work in Europe or it does not work really well with all the bands. So I didn't want to risk it and try it. So I got the Punk'd device, the MP01. I also tested the MP02, but if somebody was asking me which device would actually be the least addictive, I would say the MP01. If you have 2G access, if you don't, you have to go with the MP02. Yeah. Because the MP02 has signal, so you can use a messaging app. And as crazy as it sounds, a messaging app for somebody who is addicted is still a time waster. So, and it also has more apps such as Notes and things like that. And I really need a phone that has nothing in the MP02 by Punk'd. It had literally alarms. There's reminders, but there's a limited amount you can put in there. So I couldn't put every note of my life in there. So it was really the device that kind of reset me to really think about how I was spending time on devices. And the only one that really worked to kind of break that cycle and really gave me time to focus on what I needed as far as digital decluttering and kind of organizing the devices in my life in a healthy way. And that set me on the path to rediscovering older Android devices, wiping them and putting my own lineage OS on there or just trying to use different and getting more creative with devices that I had and realizing that there were other options besides just this dumb phone, but it was a good detox device, I would say, like something to really cut you off. And then you can kind of build on that. You can build on devices that maybe you need certain applications or maybe you think you can use a dumbed down smartphone like I did and go back to Google Pixel and realize you can't, you are still an addict and it can come back just as fast as you left it. And I had to jump back and use that device and then go to different devices. Um, I recently used the Barbie HMD phone and that's been my phone for the past month. And honestly, I made fun of the phone before it came out. I said, I'm not going to get it. It's so tacky. It's really not my style. And then somebody got it for me as a gift, as a joke gift, I think. I ended up loving it. I said, wow, it's actually really interesting how they skinned the device. And it's really, at least the European model, um, the American model, I believe has Kai OS, but the European model has S 30 plus, so it's even more limited. And yeah, it's, it's a great dumb phone. Uh, it's a great first phone for younger kids or people in your life that you think need a phone, but don't need a smartphone, I would definitely suggest it. It's super fun. It's a conversation piece. You put that on the table. Someone's going to, is that a toy? Um, yeah. So that's kind of my journey through devices. I do test a lot of different devices. Of course, my favorite device is the BlackBerry, um, Q 10. That'll be my all-time favorite. I've tried the Q 20. I'm trying to key one right now just to test as an Android version. And I had priv a long time ago, but I had to go, unfortunately, really, really bad. That's my regret too. It's even just to have it on my trophy right there. Just trying to get a user was like, why is it so expensive? Yeah, I was going to get the key to you. And I said, no, I'm not going to pay that much. Oh, I know. I did test, um, the red edition of the key to, and that was an absolutely gorgeous, gorgeous device. Unfortunately, it couldn't keep up with my, um, my work demands. Cause I would, I, I pushed my phones to the limit. Um, and if the RAM management isn't there, I'm going to burn the phone quite literally. And this one, unfortunately it wasn't officially supported by the major carrier here, Verizon wireless. But, uh, for the most part it was connecting and it was really Verizon that didn't want to whitelist it without certification from Blackberry and things like that, but at the end of the day, um, I, I did enjoy it, but I also had to let that one go. Um, have you, have you given, um, the Blackberry passport, probably a look? I'm tempted. It's on my list of Blackberries to get for sure. Um, I'm slowly building up my collection of as many as I can get. Um, I have to limit myself though. It's very tempting. I had the phones. I'm, I'm always looking for another one. So yeah. Well, in the case of the Blackberry passport, I did. Um, I did have the silver edition. That's kind of how I got my channel started because I was tired of these techies not giving Blackberry the fair shake. So I had the priv and I had the passport and that was my first video that went viral and I'm like, Oh, I said I could do this. Then I had no editing. The sun was going down. I was in the backyard. So towards the end of the video, it's all dark and my dogs bark. Yes. I'd be quiet, but it became my biggest video. Like, okay, then I guess I, I don't have to be all flashy and stuff. But, um, one thing, anyone out there looking to start a YouTube channel and start a Blackberry channel, I mean, that's my second highest watched video after the apple leaving is the, it's the Blackberry one. I just got my analytics back and sure enough. I'm like, let me guess Blackberry on that list. The second most searched thing for my stuff. The first one is the unplug. Cause I've been, uh, I've been covering it basically much, uh, as much as I could. I'm basically the forum for people that have been trying to use this device. So like, Hey, look until XDA developers or Reddit gives it a fair shake, I'm going to keep covering it. And there's a couple of things that, um, that the execs, um, have let me in on that, uh, I'm getting ready to be able to talk about. So once that, once that happens towards the end of the year, then I'm like, all right, guys, I've done my part. Now you guys got to do your part. So, yeah, because, uh, I, there's another technology out there too, that I got to check out. I mean, I'm testing right now. I'm using the Samsung health ring and that, that review is incoming. Um, but anyway, with, uh, with respects to the Blackberry passport, we're going to bring that up is because it was hardware wise, um, the most powerful Blackberry. And unfortunately I, I couldn't, I couldn't use it on Verizon. So that's why I couldn't keep the device. I'm like, Oh man. So I wish I kept it, but I couldn't. And like, it just won't work there. But during the time that I did have it absolutely gorgeous. So speedy. And I think I had the same cameras, all the other Blackberries, a five megapixel camera, if I'm not mistaken. But if I could, I definitely pick one up again, but this time a different color, probably the white one. Just because the silver edition is the only one to have the chin. So it won't dig into your palm. So it was a taller device. And for the United States, um, there was a special version for AT&T over here where it had the rounded off edges instead of squared off. So it wasn't digging into your palm. I'm like, Oh, that's fascinating. But, um, it was, will be locked to AT&T, which is, was pretty annoying. And you've been, uh, you, I was, it was the light was yeah. The light phone three. Was that the one that you're, you're kind of covering? Is that it? Yeah. I'm covering three devices right now. So the minimal phone, which is not a minimalist phone. It's it's a 4G device with an E Ink display. Um, I'm also following the light phone three, but I'm not going to be the expert on that. That is Jose Briones who works with light phone and he has a lot of the inside information regarding that device. And I'm also working with Mudita for the Mudita compact. Um, they've recently reached out to me, so I've been talking with them about questions and things like that. So hopefully I can help bring to light some of the things that people have been asking about that device. And yeah, those are the three devices I'm keeping an eye on. I have back the light phone three, but I don't know, like all three of these devices have their pluses and minuses there for three different people. I think more or less the light phone three and the Mudita compact is for the same person or could be, but the minimal phone is a whole another bag of worms to open. Um, I think it's for people who want a smartphone essentially, but once the ink display, maybe to protect their eyes more like someone like myself, who's visually impaired. I do use a lot of ink devices, like the books PAMA for this reason. Um, but as far as being a digital minimalist, it's not a minimalist device at all. I mean, it'll have the Google play store. You'll be able to download any app you want on there. So it's not going to restrict you in that way, like another phone would. Yeah. And to that, uh, to, because of so much screen time, um, as a novelist myself, uh, just writing is annoying on a screen. That's the only way, honestly, unless you're going to print out a bunch of paper all the time. And I ended up using the remarkable too, as a way to proofread my books. Cause the first time I wrote a novel, I had to print the whole thing out. But the second time, like, oh my goodness, it would, I absolutely love that tablet. And then eventually it's an E Ink for those that don't know. And I did review it. You should go check it out on all my platforms. But, um, they, I didn't get it though. Uh, they introduced a keyboard for it. So now you could write through with the type set on the tablet. So it has no connection to anything else. It's just literally digital paper on an E Ink display. And they just launched, um, they just released the remarkable, I don't know. I think they called it remarkable pro people assume AI would be involved. The founder was adamant. This is meant to be restrictive. It's not meant for you to be connected to the digital world. It's to deconnect you while also being environmentally friendly in a way. So you don't have to waste so much paper. So I like the concept. It's a little pricey. I haven't tried it out, but, um, uh, I am interested in the remarkable three. I just, the third generation, I just don't see the need for it. When I absolutely love the one I have. So it, that's been great. And if you, I don't know if you ever tried it out, but it's definitely one to look into. I think you're right. Be right up your alley. Yeah. There's a lot of devices I've been looking at for E Ink tablets. I mean, I've kind of fallen down the books. Rabbit hole, because I really love the books, PAMA, but the remarkable is definitely up there. I've looked at the Kindle scribe and wasn't really impressed with it. So definitely not going down the Amazon route. Um, I've learned my, my lessons from having so many Kindles that it's really not something I want to be part of anymore and just Amazon in general. I don't like being locked again in another ecosystem, having to get their books and use their services. It's not something I'm looking for, but the remarkable sounds definitely something I'd be interested in. And I would love to, to test it out because E Ink is definitely something that's, especially if you're doing a lot of reading or you're going over documents or things like that, it makes a huge difference on the eyes. Yes. And one of the advantages that it has now it's a service that remarkable provides. It, you can download an application for your iPhone, the iPad, your Android, where you can sync your notes. Um, it's a service that I think they call connect, uh, which you can desktop computer as well. But for anybody that uses a computer, the advantages, as soon as you connect the cable and you access the, the IP, you can just drag and drop between them. Um, and you don't, you don't have to technically use that service unless you're on your phone all the time and you want to pass your notes onto the remarkable, which is not what you want to do, but I'm just saying it's what can be but what I enjoy in a way possible. So anyway, like that doesn't connect to anything. Just yeah. Plenty of cables in my life. I love it. Complicated, honestly. Yeah. And, and honestly, it's just, that is the way things used to be done. It's just that, again, I go back to how convenient things have gotten. And while I love technology and that works smarter, not harder. Uh, and a little bit about me is, uh, I, this is a hobby. Everything you see here that I'm doing is a hobby. I built this up over a long time. But what I do for business, I run a family construction business. I'm also a licensed real estate broker. And also because of properties that my family's and myself own, I'm a property manager. So there's three different businesses that are kind of interdependent of one another, but there's three different clients, three different sets of headaches. And the only way I'm able to do all of this is through technology. So I've been carrying two phones for the better part of 16 years. I used to carry a Nokia and a, I don't think you guys had Nextel across the overseas. It, it was, uh, it was the walkie talkie version of phones. My family had them as well. It was on sprint. Wasn't it? Like, do you remember that? Yeah, I had one of those and I had a Nokia for the phone calls. Uh, cause you need an instant communication with the guys at site. And when you have to travel hundreds of miles to these job sites, no, you, that, that was the way to stay in constant communication. Um, and as technology evolved, uh, I did have a Moto Q, one of my first QWERTY keyboard phones. I did have a, I forget the name of that one Samsung that was also that one, but I think it was like, you have to turn it sideways and flip out the keyboard or open it up, one of those two. But as soon as my brother said, that's enough, here's a BlackBerry curve. I'm like, well, I'm not going to use this thing. Oh man. Oh my goodness. I was hooked BlackBerry for life. I was a CrackBerry addict. That light was blinking. I had to find out why. It's something that never goes away. You find out when you, whenever you pick up an old BlackBerry to say it just comes right back, you never leave. Muscle memory. So I'm assuming you might be familiar with the website crackberry.com. Oh yeah. I'm there all the time. Well, uh, that I'm sure, uh, Kevin, Michael is an acquaintance. He's the one that started crackberry.com. So he, uh, uh, actually my first, my first podcast anywhere appearance, even though it's cut more of a cameo, uh, was on the black on the crackberry podcast. So it's like, that was way long. It's on my channel somewhere. I just put the highlight there. It's like, yeah, that's many years and many pounds ago, but definitely, um, it just said like, Hey man, that that's awesome. And did the ones that, uh, along with Michael Fisher, Mr. Mobile, my channel started because Mr. Mobile gave me the push. So I credit him with why I do what I do. But now seeing, uh, uh, Michael Fisher and Kevin McCullough who put his money behind this projects and they brought out clicks, which I did review. I got the founder's thing. Um, that's awesome to see. Yeah. Cause they, they, they saw a need and filled it. Um, and they got one of the BlackBerry engineers to work on their second gen that just came out for the iPhone 16. I'm like, well, I'm not getting the iPhone 16, but I like the iPhone pro max. iPhone 15 pro max. I ordered clicks and then this was in the process of getting rid of the iPhone at the same time. I was like, well, really hard decision, but I had to ditch the iPhone. I said, I'm sorry. I'll have to wait for clicks to come out to Android eventually, maybe. And I heard they're working on it. So yes, it's just a much more complicated and vast ecosystem than a, than an iPhone. So that I know that's the main drawback. Uh, but, uh, Michael's told me that, that they do want to work on that. And I can imagine they will probably start off supporting Samsung's first. And one thing that's really irked me about Samsung is unless it's an X and those processor, you cannot de-Google it. So you're, you're stuck with Samsung on whatever you're a snapdragon. You can no longer access the bootloader to de-Google it. I'm like, dude, I love my note 10. It's a red edition and I can't do anything else with it after they stopped the updates. Yeah. That's, that's, that's a bummer. Um, yeah, just so much with technology. And it's amazing how people often say like, if you're so dumb, like, well, why do you want to use a dumb phone? It's because you want to hide from the government and surveillance and things like that. It's like, man, the government's been spying on you before the dawn of the smartphone. So you can't escape it. If it has GPS, they know that they're really following binary, uh, with the, the text and, and your phone calls. So smartphones just makes it as the easier way for them to understand what you're doing. But, um, It was you that said in the video that I keep thinking of it kind of like lives rent free in my head, that if you're going to the restroom and you have the door open, like, why would you not close the door if you could? You're still going to go to the That was me. I said it in the stream. Yeah. It's like you, you still lock your doors. You still put curtains around you unless you're a nudist, you know, you might still have some, some kind of privacy consciousness that I just think it's so hypocritical, but, and here's the thing. Um, when, when I first caught on to you and your channel, uh, I was initially going to reach out, but I'm like, I can't find her on any social media. Maybe it's on her about on, on her YouTube. And I couldn't find anything. There's like an email. I was like, well, I'm not ready to email her yet. Um, maybe I'll see where this goes. And if, uh, if, if it goes where I think she's headed, then I think she'll be a great person to have on the show to talk about that very topic. Uh, and now here we are. But the thing is, I initially was going to reach out to you and say, well, look, you can do Google that pixel. Um, you can do this to that, but then I started realizing, and you recently published a video, you were walking outside and you were talking about, um, basically trying to rediscover yourself and disconnecting from the digital life, but in combination to that and hearing what you're saying, um, it's. It, you, I want the audience to understand. Mr. Who's the boss recently did a video that I need everybody to check out. And he was comparing the cycle, the cycle, the psychology of social media to what the casinos do to keep gamblers in. And we know that gambling can be an addiction. If you let it, we know that alcoholism can be an addiction and you get it to go to another extreme, also pornography for people can fall into that addiction. What you're speaking about. People, but I think it's, oh, she wants to use social media. Let's you're speaking about an addiction akin to drugs or anything like that. You were talking about 12 hours a day on a screen. My goodness. 12 hours a day, probably for I'm trying to count back to when I wasn't on a screen and it's, it gets sickening after a while. I think it's almost at least 10 to 15 years of spending. I was, I was a social media manager as well before in my previous job. So I was using a work iPhone plus my personal phone. So I was on the phone nonstop for work for personal and the lines were blurred. And then I knew it was an addiction when I was waking up in the middle of the night. And my first reaction is to grab my phone and just start scrolling for no reason or end up in places I didn't know how I got there, kind of like when you drive somewhere and you know, when you get there and you don't, how did I get here? Like my brain was thinking about so many things. That's how I was with, with this addiction. It was just all the time looking at something, shopping, watching videos. And when I say like doom scrolling, doom scrolling about anything, like I said, I could waste time in a weather application. That's not normal. You shouldn't be an hour in a calculator application. It's just, why would you do that? Like, and then I kind of thought about it. I was like, wait, I come from a family with a history of addiction, different addictions as well. Of course, the alcohol addiction or cigarettes or things like that. But there's also addictions like, I don't know, gambling, of course. And I think we haven't really seen it discussed as digital addiction or anything online addiction, these devices, these applications, everything is designed to keep your attention. Your attention is the money that they're selling you. You're taking that away from you and your time is their money, honestly. And it just, it started making me sick that I was giving all this attention to a screen and I have a young child and I have a family and. All that time has been taken away for something that I don't even have anything to show for it in the end. So it got me really, it got, it got really depressing pretty fast. But then once you realize that there is a way out of it, it might take some work. It might take a lot of trial and errors. And what I try to show on my channel is just the honesty. There's some days where I slip up and I end up going right back to the old habits. I think that I'm better. There is no getting better. It's a constant addiction. It's something you always have to work on. And unfortunately, society nowadays is working against you. You have government applications to do certain things nowadays. There's only apps for it. There's not even a website for some things. And it's something that I'm always arguing about. And I think in Europe, we have a little bit more leeway of not forcing people to use certain things as of yet, because culturally each country is quite different and we can't enforce an app that everyone must use or an operating system. And we've even been able to force these big companies like Apple to be able to remove the default applications. So at the end of the year, Apple will have to give you the ability to remove applications like Safari and things that you don't want on your device because they are addictive. Yeah. And yeah, it's just, it's an addiction. It's really a problem. And it's thanks to the EU, everybody, that you now have USB type C on an iPhone and Apple's like, yeah, look, we got USB type C. Now, yeah, because you don't have a choice. You wouldn't go portless. We're going to use AirDrop. Everything's like, nope, you need a cable and it's going to be this. So yeah, proprietary cable. You can't even use a regular USB cable. Yeah, and not just that. They went, they did it in the most Apple way possible. They say, yeah, fantastic. And if you get the pro version, you get the Thunderbolts USB type C like, oh, of course the most Apple way possible. Cause people don't know that the licensing, when people buy a lightning cable or that they don't know that. How come this works differently than the one that got my Apple box. You have to look for the one that's certified by Apple and it's a licensing fee that they have to pay and they make a ton of money for why, why did, why did the iPad have a USB type C a long time ago and wasn't it Apple that kind of invented it with Thunderbolt? So why did it take so long? I mean, fricking, Hey, they got the MacBook pro got rid of every port and just put four USB type C ports on it. So three of them being Thunderbolt and their iPhones were still lightning cables. It also like the most Apple way possible. That's why everybody's waiting for the folding phone and it's going to be the most Apple thing possible, you know? So, you know, it'd be really cool. Hey, maybe you could pass a note to the European union, tell them that Apple and smartphone carriers have to have a headphone jack. I'm sure. I'm sure that's on their table. I'm sure. Yeah. I'd be like, I really need a headphone jack. Oh, right. Look, I just put my hearing aid. Boom. There you go. Oh my goodness. That was some bleeding hearts going to hear that and say, yeah, that's true. Not accessible. But in all that, it's like really listening to your story, uh, in recent videos too, um, and just hearing you talk was really driving home that point. Like, no, I think there was more to this and I'm glad I waited to hear more of you out because you were more of introducing yourself to the audience and, and things like that. Um, I think the algorithm fed us, uh, got us connected because people were searching for BlackBerry things. And we kind of both talked about something around the same time and I'm the YouTube algorithm works sometimes, but with, uh, oh, in that digital minimalism, the real concern comes, as you mentioned, uh, being disconnected from the family, one thing that I try to do every now and then, especially around the holidays is I try to take about a two week detox from like social media out entirely. And what sucks about that is as, uh, I do all of my marketing. On social media, because I can do it. And that's with respects to my real estate business, as it's in my show. Um, all my connections, besides you, all my connections have been through social media, my guests and everything. They all, my, my biggest interview of the year is all being arranged through X and X slash Twitter. Twitter was the worst place. I ditched Twitter over a year ago because of how toxic it was. And the next one was Facebook. So I got rid of Facebook, but then those punks bought Instagram. So I'm like, dude, I'll be right here. So like, I'm right back to where I left and you know, what really irks me the most, and this is what's up about convenience people. They try to, it's either privacy or convenience. You can have them both. We know that meta is Facebook. They just, you know, just like Google said, Apple is their parent company. They just literally because they didn't want the, you know, whatever it's, it's, it's a business decision, but when it comes to meta Facebook, uh, they ended up buying Instagram, they ended up buying WhatsApp, they ended up buying Oculus. So now they have all this information that flows over to them and who knows what else they're going to buy. But the part that upset me about Instagram though, for content creators, the best way to be able to upload things. It's not through a fricking app. It's through the computer. So there is a creator studio, but in order for you to use the creator studio for the meta, whatever they call it on Instagram, you need to have a corresponding Facebook page connected to that, and you can't have a Facebook page without a personal page. That's how they get you. So to me, I have to use the app because those punks don't let me do anything else. So I'm like, well, maybe I could just do it on my iPad with the keyboard and work that way. It's like, Oh no, because the app isn't optimized for an iPad. You can't get all the features there. It's like, man, you guys really, really hate us. I mean, I still have a Facebook account for this exact reason, because a lot of my family connects through like, um, Facebook messenger. So yes, I technically can't delete my Facebook account because I still need to attach to use messenger and it's just really, yes, I don't have Facebook on any of my devices, but my account still exists. And all of that information that's been collected still exists. I can't get rid of it. And it's, it's really aggravating because they know what they're doing. Oh, yes. They found a way. I remember, um, being on, on my university campus 20, 19 years ago. And as I was walking through the campus, somebody stopped me. Cause once it was Microsoft handing out, can you, do you want to test one note? You get a lifetime, whatever. This is one note. It's like, that's the best tool, by the way, I use that every single day. Oh, it's awesome. And it pairs up nicely with Samsung notes. Oh no, look what you're doing to us. So anyway, um, but then someone say, Hey, um, Facebook's coming. I'm like, what is that? I don't care. I don't even have my space. So eventually I didn't make my first Facebook page. My, my group was all on Facebook. So my classmate created an account for me so we can all do our class project. Because apparently it was required in the class. I'm like, huh? And that's how I ended up getting a Facebook page that I eventually do delete. But when I, when I was deleting it, I had two business pages and then it said, if you delete this, these are going to, Whoa, you're holding me hostage. Holy smokes. So I, I passed my admin to a friend and eventually like a year later, I said, well, I'm going to create an alias that nobody knows. Um, then pass the admin rights back to me. And that's how I was able to get those pages back. But sneaky Facebook, they still found out like, Hey, that's you. So it's like, why don't connect with all these other friends that, you know, like, here's all you got about you anyway. So we know exactly who you are. Yes. I I've had people on my show that have been banned from technology for X, Y, Z reasons. And one of them got at least her Twitter account back and conveniently her name is also Laura. So when she got her stuff back, cause she's an investigative journalist, she had all her stuff on, on, on Twitter. And she was excited to have it back. But then I'm like, Hey, doesn't it bother you that after being banned for four to five years, they still had your data. And she's like, huh? That's a good point. It's like, there's some people in politics that I got banned because of what I said. Yeah. Good for you. They kept you, your digital life is there. How's, how's that a badge of honor? Um, yeah, it's, so it's crazy. And one thing that you recently highlighted on a student that I did talk about because it's unavoidable, what age is appropriate for our children to have a smartphone? You know, uh, you were sharing some, uh, a study in, uh, from France. Uh, can you just give us a nutshell of what, uh, what the average age over there is for introduction to digital life? Yeah. So a study came out just this past week in France. They had interviewed children from the ages four to 17, and they found that the average age is 11 years old and five months for the first smartphone. And the first connected device is around nine years old for a tablet. So I don't know if anyone knows out there. Um, the French president came out earlier this year to make kind of a guidance for parents, uh, when to give smart devices to children and the government's trying to kind of build up some guidelines because there's no really resources out there for parents. And this study kind of highlights that, that parents are like, Hey, we need some advice. We need some help. Are these devices bad or good or causing any problems? And when the French president came out, he had advised that the first smart device probably shouldn't be given to kids until they're 16. I mean, if he could make those guidelines possible, he would, he would advise that. Um, of course those guidelines will probably take 10 years to come out. And by then, well, who knows what we'll have in place besides smart devices. We might have the chips from, uh, Mr. Musk himself in our heads, but, but in any case, the study was quite interesting because they also interviewed the children involved in the study. Um, did they feel that these devices were negatively impacting their health or, or anything in their life? 30% of those children came back and said they're having trouble sleeping. And this kind of hurt me because this is exactly what I had as being an addict as an adult. So I couldn't imagine with this addiction at a, at a child's age where your brain is still developing, you don't have all those, I don't know, intuitions of questioning things, or you're taking everything at face value because you don't have this critical thinking skills yet. So imagine you're seeing something online, you're taking it for face value, a headline, a video, short form content that you're just over consuming. It would be difficult to sleep at night with some of the things we all see online. But imagine as an 11 year old, you have your own smartphone in your own room. So you have no one controlling what you're seeing. You have parents who gave you this device who are probably also addicted to their devices. So they can't even give you the help to how to use the device or maybe they put parental controls on it. But as we know, as kids ourselves, I was able to go around this parental controls in the nineties. So I can only imagine what kids can do. So this study highlighted also that parents didn't estimate the impact of devices. They asked parents, do they think that they're addicted to their devices? And most parents said, yeah, I think I have a problem with my device, but my kid's dependency is worse than mine. So they're always assuming that the kids are spending more time on their device when in fact they're about the same or the parents are usually a lot worse depending on the course. And they said that the kids who do have smartphones are spending four hours a day on a connected device. So if you're counting school hours, that the hours are in school, plus those hours at home, because in French schools, generally they're not using tablets or computers. So yeah, that's, it's not in the curriculum and French schools, uh, as of yet, um, the NT tech for the moment. Um, so you won't see tablets in elementary schools or things like that. They're very much about learning to write, to build a brain pathways. They know how important that is for young children. And they're trying to keep them off devices as long as possible. Yeah. Because one thing that's going to sleep with their phones, basically like everywhere else in the world. Yeah. And that's just it. That's a, we learned pretty quick because the wife and I were experimenting. All right. So I have to, I have an Android device that I put in the kid family link, as they call it, and then here is the iPhone. Um, and the iPhone, uh, cause my wife is using an iPhone. Uh, it's like, well, you can control some of the stuff from it. So let's use the parental thing from the iPhone. When I did it, I didn't like to at the age of this, uh, we remove some of those things that, excuse me, I'm the parent, not Apple. I say when I can remove these things. So I did hate that. Whereas Android doesn't say that it's like, you have the control of the device. Um, and I love that. And like, Hey, your daughter is still using the phones. Okay. Shut down. Like there you're locked up. You can't get it, but not the case with the iPhone. So I, that did frustrate me. I did need her to have some way to communicate with the, with the family because it's at school and she's in charge of her brothers. So, um, it, it didn't take that long with 10 years old. Let's see what happens. It didn't take long for her for us to start finding out that she's talking to her friends and they're all girls and that's fine. But the thing is they're all chatting up and it's like 10 30, 11 PM. And the other parents are upset too. They're like, there's no talking that late. It's like me, he thought no more phone for you. So she, she has to ask for permission and she has to use it within range of where we are. We don't let her go to a room and things like that. And normally more on weekends. So she could talk to her friends, but during week, Nope, that's not happening. And that's how it's been. But like, how do I get her to stay communicated in communication with the watch it's in, she's small enough to still use the little keyboard, but it's so inconvenient. She's like, ah, it discourages. So it's just like the main things is what she messages with. Like, there you go. That's the way it works for now. Um, so that's been the way to at least stay in communication with her, where we use the watch instead of the phone. But, um, using this, and I think this is a good way, I think for kids, you have to just make it as uncomfortable as possible for them to kind of, I don't know if your family had this, but when I was growing up, there, there was only one computer and it had to be in the family room and everyone can see what you're doing on the computer and you can only use the computer or the phone. So you had to make a choice. If somebody had to make a phone call, you have to wait for them to finish the phone, then you, but I think when I think of minimalism, I think about having devices for specific areas of my house, um, for my bedroom, for example, I had to make the rule of like no tech in the bedroom, no computers, no phone. We connected because if I have access to it from my bed, I'm going to use it. And I know myself, like I keep it in my living area is the entertainment area. And so that's helped a lot, kind of my brain to shut off. Like, okay, this is where I sleep. This is where I entertain myself. And I think maybe for kids as well, it's a good resource. Cause I explained this to my son. We only have one TV in the house. The TV is in the living room. This is where we watch the TV. We don't watch it in the bedroom. There's no tech in his bedroom either. And I think just trying to be great to like, this is where we sleep. This is where we calm down and kind of creating that barrier and making it uncomfortable. Like, yeah, it's, it sucks. You have to come out and ask to use something. Like, it's not fun. It's not like he makes you think of like, do I really want to do this? Do I really have to do this? And, um, that's the kind of parents, it's just like, if you have to change the wifi password, do it. Yeah. Oh man. There are, there are many, many things. And sometimes you probably feel the same. I imagine you, you might. We're like, no, you spend too much time on your phone. Like, but who am I to say that? You know, it's like, I was just feel hypocritical. And it's all the, or our kids would notice you mentioned that your son called you, I think. And you mentioned about people trying to go to sleep and they're stuck on their smartphones. I think a lot of people have been questioning some of the science behind this whole blue light that comes from the phones, because all you need blue light filters and this and that they've used that as the excuse to keep using it at night. It's not the blue light keeping you up. It's the doom scrolling. And that's a lot of people colors. It's the continuous movement. It's a lot of things keeping you up. Yeah. And it's that doom scrolling is for real. So for people I mentioned that earlier, I'm going to be leaving a link to this in the video description and the activity. Well, yeah, the video description for you, those of you on YouTube, but everybody else, the show must cover this episode of www.discovery.com. I'm going to be leaving also embedded. There is the video about the social media and how it's like gambling that Mr. Who's the boss did because he does talk about the man who invented doom scrolling and how he is now part of the movement against doom scrolling. It really has been something. And I think I did learn a lot also from you. And I think this will do good to my audience with respects to understand that it wasn't when people were asking me, hey, you test this phone versus this. Is it because you're trying to hide from Google? Because that's a whole other thing. We're talking about two different things. Yeah, I think a lot of people who maybe get into digital minimalism because they don't want to be followed by Google or the big companies, but the fact they're not addressing the real issue, like, why don't you want to be followed, maybe because you realize that you're spending too much time or they're getting more value for their money after you. They're making a lot of money off the status. So maybe you don't want them to make that off of you. There are devices, of course, for that. And there are minimalist devices that promote more privacy than other devices. But when it comes to the end of the day, it's just don't just get away from the devices and they're not going to make so much money off of you or know any information if you're not going to be in there. Yeah. Yeah. So it's not about wearing tinfoil hats, people. It's literally about it's literally about health. I think that's a really good place that we can wrap it up here. Normally, I let my guests give their social media plugins. But in your case, it's not actually the case, but they can definitely follow your YouTube channel. I have an email if you want to reach out. I mean, a lot of my followers do send me emails if they want to have a story or that's something to share. I'm I read my emails. That's about as far as I go into social media. So you're you're welcome to spell it out for folks. Yeah, my email is Laura Malvoy on like my name at Gmail dot com. So Google will get all the information you put in there as well. And I'm sure that people complaining are emailing you from Gmail, too, so they should know. Oh, man, that's great. And yes, good old fashioned email, folks. That still beats out almost everything else. This has been an absolute pleasure, Laura. Thank you so much for sharing of your life and what you're doing. I do recommend people to go follow her channel because what she's doing is you something more unique in the tech space that we do need. And you are speaking out of experience, not just speaking, commentating on someone else's. This is you, basically. So in a way, it's kind of like a vlog. Yeah, I think that was what was missing when I got into digital minimalism. Like I said, I read the book with Cal Newport on digital minimalism, but I got frustrated when I started reading the book because he was giving it from the perspective of other people's addiction, not his own personal experience, because he starts the book off with I never had Facebook. I never had this. I never I'm like, OK, good for you. Yeah. Yeah. Here are some people who are terrible at life. Learn from them. Yeah, but I definitely recommend you all go check it out. The email, for those of you that know, whether you're listening or watching this one of the video platforms, I'll be leaving links to her YouTube channel where you can also find her email. And I'll also be leaving the email in the show notes to come is up so that the address to go via dot com. Laura has been an absolute pleasure. Who knows? We might be able to do this again sometime. Sure. Thank you for having me.