Here is the complete transcript of the podcast
Welcome back to Success with Srini. Today on the podcast episode, I’m highlighting a standout addiction, an addiction that we all have within us in some proportion. And all of us are struggling with it. We do not know that yet, or we don’t know about it. And what can we do to overcome this addiction the specific addiction is called information addiction. Thanks to this we are subscribed to Facebook, Twitter, and all the other social media of the world. We are spending a significant amount of time of our time a day on these apps. And we are making them a big part of our life. And a significant part of our day is slipping away because we are scrolling. If that is who you are, then this podcast episode is for you. And that is who I am.
By the way. I am an information marketer. I’m an information content creator. And somehow deep within me, I justify that all these activities are important for the survival of my business. So I subscribed to a lot of things. And numerous times on this podcast I talked about how, you know, I started scrolling unnecessarily. And the next thing I knew is that I spent about two hours scrolling. I go to Instagram, I scroll and I’m like Gone, an hour is going on. I wake up in the morning, I opened my phone, I’m checking some emails, and then I just go into some new sites, and then my whole morning is gone. And then I don’t want to get into WhatsApp stuff. And I don’t want to get into my school WhatsApp groups McCollins WhatsApp groups, which are deadly the dangerous. Okay. So I think all of us have gone through this in a variety of forms. In fact, just yesterday, last evening, I was with a bunch of people who I met. And one person in that group told me that they listen to my radio shows. And the discussion there at some point was about addictions. And I said yes, it is true that you know, alcohol, porn, all those addictions are taking away destroying the community on a big level. But the biggest one that really is destroying the whole of humanity is inflammation addiction. And there are so many other different repercussions as a result of this addiction. But then all of us to some extent, are addicted to inflammation.
Now, the question becomes how can we deal with this? And what are some strategies techniques? Now if you have a serious addiction, and I suggest that you go meet a therapist, or go that route, but then there are mild addictions that the addiction itself is mild, you know that you’re doing, you know you’re doing it wrong, and you know that you can stop it with some degree of willpower, then what I’m about to share here is going to help you the first and the foremost thing that you got evaluate yourself. Okay, look into everything that you’re doing. And ask some questions. Ask some questions, not questions with questions, not a single question. How many times have you been opening emails, I ask the question how many times have I been opening my email app? How many times have I been opening the Twitter app, how many times opened the Facebook app? It’s not about the duration that starts with time.
So one way to answer the question is to start a log on, kind of put yourself in a pause mode, and say I’m not going to open today’s a Monday, I’m gonna open up the Facebook app to do the Tuesday, I’m not going to open up my open my credit, or Wednesday, no Instagram, or it’s Monday, I’m going to get on Facebook. I closed my Facebook app for a year. I did not post on my Facebook at all for a year, even though my podcasts and all they get published on different pages and Facebook, they’re all completely automated. I did not go to Facebook and post anything at all for a year. And I’ll tell you nothing happened. Nobody missed me. Okay, I highly suggest you schedule it. We can’t avoid inflammation. We can’t avoid social media sites. And I understand that. And I don’t want you to become very hard on yourself by listening to today’s podcast episode. But then I want you to start policing yourself. And that’s where I’m going with all this. Start policing yourself. Start scheduling time. Morning, one hour, it’s okay. Or in the afternoon. One hour is an okay evening. One hour is okay, whatever. That’s okay. There’s no hard and fast rule and what works for me may not work for you. I understand that. But to start scheduling time, I have seen people who spend a lot of time on social media or people who do not know what to do with their time their day, they don’t have a schedule. Some people do in between, that’s okay like you’re on a break for 510 minutes, you scroll, you check some, a few things here and there, that’s, that’s okay. But then giving up your entire day, you only do that because you don’t know what to do with your day. And for that, I have said this numerous times on this podcast, have a schedule, and start your day with a to-do list. And make sure that as you are working on those items in the to-do list, you’re not doing anything else, you finish one task, go to the second, finish the second go to the third. And you keep at them as much as you can. I’ve seen people do this. And that there are some things that are some activities that are called noninternet activities. No more that way. But they were at the beginning back in the day when the internet started, which is, you know, if I go to a movie and spend two hours in the movie, or three hours in the movie, then I’m not scrolling. Yeah, but I’ve seen people scrolling at the movie theaters now also. Okay, so you could try these things.
But then there’s nothing now, which is a noninternet activity because the internet is just going to the background, like every device is connected to everything, you know, just going, it’s a part of life so deeply now that I don’t know what activity is intimate. Well, even if I’m climbing now hiking mountains all everywhere, I have internet. So there’s not a place where you can go and do an activity where you do not have access to the internet. If you’re addicted, you will be everywhere anyway. So there’s no point in this. There is one thing that you could do also, which is you can cut back on the sources. So if there are too many feeds coming in, then you can cut it off. You can say okay, fine. I’ll just probably just read and listen to like two or three podcasts. I’m not saying don’t, don’t subscribe to my podcast. But you get the idea. How many podcasts? Can you listen? Right? Listen, the truth is this and how many can you listen, I’m not saying I’m the best in the game. But figure it out, whatever, whoever resonates with you, and listen to them. Right? I think that’s the right way to put this. Limit the moody apps if possible. And if at all you have to go then just go maybe once a day or twice a day, cut the sources, cut the frequency, reduce the time, use the time differently, kind of schedule the remainder of the time with other activities. And these are some strategies. And if this is beyond, let’s say you are addicted to a point where you don’t do anything other than just social media, then I highly suggest that go meet a therapist. That’s the biggest part of all this. I don’t think I’ve seen people come to me with these issues. But then it’s very rare that people do talk about the smoking addictions and drinking addictions and porn addictions, all that. But then this is something that people don’t talk about. But people do see these things in children. But they don’t see these things in themselves. So I have made major changes in the way I consume information. And I prefer consuming information from books on printed material. I do not print I try avoiding consuming information from feeds as much.
So that’s all for now. I hope today’s podcast episode is helpful. If it is, you know all the things that you have to do rate it right there review it, and share it with a friend or family. And you have a question for him. Let me know. And that’s all for now. I’ll talk to you soon. As early as tomorrow. Stay tuned.