Are smartphones and social media the new crack cocaine?
In August 2019, I sat down with Kristin Sunanta Walker. She had welcomed me into the Digital Tech Initiative, a group of people from many fields who look at how technology affects mental health. This time she asked the questions. We talked about compulsive internet use, why social media keeps people coming back, and what a healthy balance with a phone might look like.
This is an archive episode, recorded when the show covered addiction and recovery broadly. The views here are the ones we each gave on the day, and I have kept them in our own words.
Why compare a phone to a refined drug?
At 2:24, I pointed out that internet addiction is not new. In the nineties, Kimberly Young surveyed people about their online habits, and a small group of them were losing marriages and money to chat rooms and online games.
I then compared that history to cocaine. People chewed the coca leaf for centuries without much harm, but once the drug was extracted, and later refined into crack, it became far more addictive. The more a product is refined to work faster, the more people who try it get hooked.
So, the internet went from dial-up to an always-on connection at home, and then to an always-on connection in our pockets. Large companies now employ experts whose job is to keep people engaged. In my view, the product keeps getting more refined.
What did the early chat rooms reveal?
From 5:45, Kristin described her work before healthcare, setting up databases and chat rooms on closed networks for universities and companies. She noted that gaming addiction had been added to the diagnostic manual and that social media addiction had been proposed next. In her view, the addictive pull existed long before any big corporation put money into it.
At 8:16, she told the story of a university system her team built to make registration more efficient. Instead, productivity fell across staff, professors, and students, who were so absorbed in the chat rooms that people missed work and classes. At their final meeting, the team asked what they had created.
Is social media the new smoking?
At 10:11, I described watching old episodes of I Love Lucy, where the cast smokes on screen as if it were nothing. Advertisements once claimed that doctors recommended certain brands, and we later learned the tobacco companies spent decades making their product more addictive and marketing it to children. I suggested that internet and social media addiction may be what we look back on decades from now and ask what we were thinking.
From 12:01, Kristin told of boarding a commercial flight and seeing both pilots laughing at Facebook on their phones before takeoff. She was clear that the initiative does not shame anyone for using social media. Still, she found it a jarring sign of how far the habit has seeped into everyday life.
Can something that has never killed anyone still be dangerous?
At 15:54, I explained why I take this seriously. Many of my patients have opioid dependence, and with fentanyl mixed into the street supply, a single use can end in an accidental overdose. Someone might argue that looking at a phone has never killed anyone. Of course, the families of people hurt by texting while driving would disagree, and phone makers now build software that limits the phone while a car is moving.
At 17:16, Kristin raised her concern about suicide. She believes rising suicidal thinking is tied to online gaming, smartphones, and social media, and that a tool meant to connect us has left many people more disconnected. That is why the initiative includes psychologists, psychiatrists, and a speaker who talks openly about suicidal thoughts. If you are struggling, reaching out to someone is the first step.
Why do vulnerable people and aggressive people meet online?
At 18:22, I said that people who are already depressed or anxious may be drawn to heavy internet use. I admitted that I do not especially like crowds, and that it is easier to talk with people online when I do not have to look at anyone.
Unfortunately, the same distance makes it easier for some people to attack others, because they never see the other person’s face. When people with social anxiety meet people who enjoy hurting others, it is a recipe for disaster.
How do you manage something you cannot give up?
At 21:26, I compared compulsive internet use with other kinds of addiction. Nobody needs alcohol, street drugs, or gambling. Yet everyone has to eat, so food may be the better comparison. As with dieting, the goal is balance and support rather than taking the thing away.
At 22:56, Kristin said she relates to this personally, having struggled with food since early childhood. She cannot do her job without a phone or the internet, so being told to spend less time online is not a useful answer for her. In her view, the message has to reach people without taking away the very tool they need to work.
What happens when the builders step away?
At 24:10, I mentioned a news report that Steve Wozniak of Apple had closed his Facebook account and said many people should do the same. I compared it to someone who started a tobacco company telling people they should not smoke.
At 25:40, I was honest about my own use. I told myself I needed social media for my practice, yet I could not think of a single patient who found me there. Checking whether anyone liked a clever comment does nothing for my business.
Interestingly, at 26:42, I recalled the creator of the game Flappy Bird pulling it from the app store because he worried it was too addictive. He gave up what he said was a large daily advertising income to do it.
Does the internet magnify narcissism?
From 27:12, Kristin said addiction to digital media fosters grandiose and dishonest behavior, and at 28:11, I added that a narcissist’s reach is magnified online. A carefully chosen photo or comment can do real damage, and the person can always claim they were only sharing their life. In fact, it amounts to gaslighting online.
At 28:54, Kristin described people who try to get around the legal system by attacking someone on social media without naming them directly. She said courts are starting to take those posts seriously.
At 30:20, I urged caution. Opioid prescribing for chronic pain swung from one extreme to the other, and doctors who tried to do the right thing ended up in trouble. In my view, the same pendulum could catch innocent people if the laws on internet addiction are written carelessly.
Who is Kristin Sunanta Walker?
Kristin Sunanta Walker led the Digital Tech Initiative, which she described as a benefit company whose members volunteer alongside their own careers and whose proceeds go back into the work. Before she worked in healthcare, she set up databases, intranets, and chat rooms for universities and companies. At the time of this conversation, she ran her own company, a radio and podcast network, and consulting work.
What can listeners take away from this conversation?
A phone is not a drug, but the products on it are refined, like a drug, to keep people coming back. For most people the answer is not to throw the phone away. It is to notice the pull, set boundaries, and find support when the balance slips.
How do I approach this today?
Today my practice focuses on helping people come off benzodiazepines and other medications gradually, and on medication for alcohol and opioid dependence. Physical dependence is not addiction, and the safest way off is usually slow.
Call 911 or go to an emergency department if there is a seizure, confusion or hallucinations, or thoughts of self-harm. For thoughts of suicide or any mental health crisis, you can also call or text the 988 Suicide and Crisis Lifeline.
This page is educational. It is not medical advice, and listening to the episode or reading this page does not create a doctor-patient relationship. Decisions about starting, continuing, or tapering any medication should be made with your own physician.
Full transcript
A note from Dr. Leeds: my guests speak from their own experience and expertise, and the terminology they use is their own. Whatever the topic, this show holds to one distinction: physical dependence on a prescribed medication is not addiction. This transcript is educational content, not medical advice, and nothing here creates a doctor-patient relationship.
Read the full transcript (33 minutes)
Dr. Mark Leeds [00:09] Welcome to The Rehab on the Mental Health News Radio Network. I am Dr. Mark Leeds and I will be your host. Join me in exploring the world of addiction treatment. How can we improve the ways that we help individuals to overcome addiction? The goal of treatment is to save lives and help people to get back on track to a path towards success and happiness in life.
Kristin Sunanta Walker [00:45] Hi everyone, Kristin Walker here with Dr. Mark Leeds. Dr. Leeds, thank you so much for being a part of what we’re doing and also coming on the show.
Dr. Mark Leeds [00:53] Thank you for inviting me on the show.
Kristin Sunanta Walker [00:57] Absolutely. I want our listeners to understand what your background is, and then we’ll weave that into why you wanted to be a part of Digital Tech Initiative.
Dr. Mark Leeds [01:11] Yes. So I’ve been in practice. I’ve been in medical practice for 20 years now as a family practice doctor. And during the past five years, I’ve gotten really involved in treating addiction, specifically opioid addiction. And in the past few years, we’ve had a lot of patients coming to the practice with other kinds of addiction. And some sorts of addiction don’t really have a good medical treatment. You know, for example, you know, drugs like cocaine and amphetamine. There is treatment, there’s psychological treatment, there’s therapy, but there’s no medication that can treat those kinds of addiction. And also things like gambling addiction, sex addiction, pornography addiction. You know, there’s no medication you can give to a person that fixes those kinds of addiction. But there is therapy, there’s treatment, there’s things that can be done. And of course, we see that the topic of internet addiction and technology addiction, social media addiction is something that people are talking about, but they haven’t really been defined in the medical community fully. So I think it’s a really interesting topic. And I think it’s something that we’re all going to be dealing with in the near future.
Kristin Sunanta Walker [02:19] And that we are dealing with now and have been dealing with
Dr. Mark Leeds [02:24] Yeah one thing that’s really interesting is that it internet addiction is something that was described in the 90s I was reading about a study that was done by dr kimberly young I’m sure you’re familiar with it or aware of it that she was did a survey of I think 500 people to survey their internet habits and online habits. And, you know, back in the 90s, the mid to late 90s, we did have the World Wide Web. But to get online, you had to dial in with a modem. You know, you hear those bleeps. You’ve got mail, AOL. Yeah, exactly. And, you know, and before that, I mean, the internet has been around much longer. It’s been around, I don’t know, I think since the 50s or something like that. And, you know, college kids had internet. Oh, they had email, they had news groups, or they could have chats. They had bulletin board systems. You know, so there’s, for many decades, there’s been ways that people could get online. But in the mid 90s, it really kind of took off. And, you know, this, you know, Dr. Young saw that there was an issue with internet addiction, even back then. And there was a small percentage of the people that she surveyed, that their lives are being destroyed by it. You know, by online gaming, online chats, you know, where they were developing relationships with people online who they’ve never met, and they were spending money and doing things that were really destroying their lives. You know, marriages were being torn apart. People were going into debt, you know, spending all their money. And, you know, so that’s just in the 90s. And now, the way I see it is that when a drug is refined with the intent of making it more addictive, and, you know, for example, one example I was thinking about is cocaine, that you have the coca leaf, which people probably for centuries have been chewing in Colombia, you know, give themselves a little bit of energy. And then along the way, somebody figures out how to get cocaine out of that. And now suddenly you have that same drug becomes like extremely addictive. And now you have, you know, starting with, I guess, the turn of the 19th century or 20th century, suddenly you have like an epidemic of people addicted to cocaine, where the original drug was not all that addicting. And then in the 1980s, you have crack cocaine took off, which is even more refined and more addicting. The more they refine a drug and make it where it’s more potent and works faster, it becomes to an extreme more addicting. More people who are exposed to that drug are more likely to become addicted. So now we have the internet where we started out, you had to dial in with a modem. It went slow, it tied up your phone line, it cost more money. Now everybody, you know, the big thing in the 2000s was we all got, what do you call it? We all got online, always on connections. We went from dialing, we had to dial in with a modem. And the big thing was, you know, through your cable company, you can get always on where your computer is always connected to the Internet. You know, that was a big transition. Now we have always on Internet in our pocket. And you have companies, social media companies, billion dollar companies that have experts working day and night trying to figure out how can we get people more engaged, more involved and get them more hooked. So the product is becoming more and more refined.
Kristin Sunanta Walker [05:45] Agreed and no, what’s fascinating to me is this isn’t in terms of what’s being submitted or what has been submitted to the DSM. Obviously, gaming addiction is considered now to be added to the DSM. Social media addiction is the term that they’ve submitted as next, but it takes so long to get things added to the DSMs that we’re probably talking like 2024 before that would even be considered. However, that kind of addiction has been around since what you’re talking about back in the 90s. And I know this too, because the technology work that I did with databases, and this is where you and I connect a lot, because we both are into databases. So the work that I did before I even got into healthcare, the way that I am now, I was setting up databases in across intranets. They were, I don’t know if they’re called that now. I don’t think people even really use those as much now. But at the time in the 90s, we were setting up chat rooms, We were setting up ways to communicate on a closed intranet within a university or a company. And I saw this then and read so much research from amazing people from all over the world about this social connection. It just wasn’t called what it is today of social media. Facebook is the advent of it getting the name of, you know, social media. But before Facebook, before even the 2000s, we had, and I saw this, addictive components. It just hadn’t been turned into what you’re talking about. It hadn’t been picked up by a big corporation that could put the money and the research and hire people that know how the addictive brain works and could feed crack, quote unquote, into a social platform in order to drive us to be even more addicted. We were addicted before Facebook. I saw this going on.
Dr. Mark Leeds [07:53] Exactly and Facebook started out on a campus intranet and we had that too I when I went I went to college I think 87 to 91 and we had that hookup I think halfway through my through college they hooked up a network between all the dorms and suddenly we could all chat share files and I think at that point suddenly everybody got a lot less work done
Kristin Sunanta Walker [08:16] Yes, exactly. I remember in the late 90s, we had set up an intranet for a university system, and there was also a CRM database that we set up. And we were watching, and we were actually studying with the university the lack of, even though we created this system to make work more efficient and get the registration process for students into the university more efficient. I mean, it did that piece, but the actual productivity amongst the staff from frontline administrative staff all the way to professors and students went down because everybody got into the chat rooms and there was more infighting. There were more incidents of people not coming into work, missing classes and so on because they were so obsessed with what was going on in the chat rooms that we had helped set up. I mean, we didn’t invent anything new. We just used open source technology that already existed at the time and we plugged it into the database we created. But it was really fascinating when we had our last meeting about it. This was in, gosh, 1999, I believe. We had a meeting about it and we looked at it with this interesting perplexity as, well, what did we create? And we didn’t have anybody like you on board that understood addiction and so on. We just kind of sat back at it. So when social media really became a term and we started having it available via public access, I remember sitting back and I had a conversation with one of the original programmers on the project we worked on in the 90s. And he said, you know, we saw that. Isn’t that weird? Now look at what’s happening. This is going nowhere good.
Dr. Mark Leeds [10:11] Yeah. And, you know, I think we’ve all been looking, you know, for what is going to be the next, the next smoking epidemic, you know, as far as, you know, is it sugar? Is sugar the thing that’s going to kill all of us or microwave ovens? And way back, I guess, in the 50s, we started watching reruns of the show, I Love Lucy, And it’s incredible that the cast, I mean, Lucy, and she’s just sitting there lighting up a cigarette. And in this one episode, another woman comes in and the men all run over to fight to light her cigarette. And they’re just smoking on the show like it’s no big deal. And, you know, doctors used to recommend cigarettes probably for respiratory infections. And, you know, they had advertisements that would say four out of five doctors recommend this brand of cigarette. You know, so I mean, imagine now, I mean, that’s like, you know, we know that not only are cigarettes extremely deadly and damaging, but we also know that the companies that make them were conspiring for decades to, you know, to make them more addictive, to make the product more potent and the delivery system more efficient, and to market to kids and to minority groups to do whatever they could to get the product out there and get more people hooked. And you know so it looks like that you know they said recently the new sitting is a new smoking you know because if we all sit all day yes computers you know that’s as bad as smoking because we need to get up and move around but it really looks like the real new smoking is internet addiction social media addiction you know that could really be taking us down a road of you know something that we could look back on this 40 50 years from now and say you know, what were we thinking? You know, we’re all sitting there with social media. I mean, I’ve noticed that, you know, getting on an airplane, it’s kind of scary that the pilot is sitting there looking at his phone before we’re going to take off. I mean, you wonder.
Kristin Sunanta Walker [12:01] I saw that too. I saw, I was getting on the plane and one of our members of the initiative, Dr. Darren Hanna, he’s a pilot. He flies a couple of Cessnas and he’s flown me all over the place. And he’s not a social media person at all. He’s one of the few on our membership board that isn’t. But he was actually before he started noticing what was going on. And he understands AI, artificial intelligence. So he just wisely went, I, you know, when you’re a scientist and you see what’s happening, you go, I think I should step away from this. But it was fascinating because I was telling him, I was teasing him one day. He had his iPad out and we were getting ready to take off. And I said, oh, you’re going to play some games while we’re flying. And he looked at me and he smirked and he turned the iPad around. And of course it was all the weather patterns of where he’s going to be flying through. So he was actually using it to help him fly. And I went, oh, sorry. And then the next day I got on a commercial flight. I get on the plane and I, there was like a, you know, people were still putting their baggage up. And so I was, we were kind of, I was in that first area where they let you in and the pilot is to my left. And I see both of them, the pilot and the co-pilot are on Facebook laughing on their phones. And I don’t shame. And listen, anyone that’s listening to this show, we are not shaming people for using social media. We use it too. Most of us, except for Dr. Hannah, we’re on it too. It’s just that it’s such a measure of how much this has seeped into our culture. And it isn’t just social media. I mean, that’s a, that’s a easy target for us to pick on. There’s, it’s so much beyond that space, but it’s just, it just was a jarring reminder to me. Oh my gosh, that’s how much it’s invaded our space that we can’t even get ready to fly a plane without checking our Facebook.
Dr. Mark Leeds [14:07] Yeah. And I’m sure that the pilot, when he showed you the weather map, I’m sure that’s what he was doing. But we also know how quickly a person can change their screen before showing it to you.
Kristin Sunanta Walker [14:16] Well, I know Dr. Hanna and he wouldn’t do that. But yeah, that’s very true. But yeah, it’s just, it’s fascinating to me. I like all components of this. I like that we, so the people that are part of this initiative are so varied in our studies. You’re the only one on our membership team. And the reason why I keep saying membership listeners is because we set this up as a benefit corporation. And if you want to know how, what B Corps work, you can go to bcorps.com. It’s a fantastic place. It used to be something that you could just get certified as a B Corp, which we’re in the process of doing for digital tech initiative. But it used to just be there. Now there are actually incorporation statuses, which we went through the process of doing to become a benefit LLC, to have all of these great members. And the reason why we did that is because all of us have jobs. I mean, Dr. Leeds, you have a full-time practice working with people who are trying to recover from chemical substance abuse addiction. I have a company, I have a radio network, a podcast network. I have another consulting job. Everyone on this board has a career. We don’t have to do what we’re doing. We want to do this because it’s something that we absolutely believe in. And our proceeds are going to go back into supporting this work and supporting other organizations that do this work. So this isn’t a big profit money venture for us. This is a social justice, social good initiative for all of us.
Dr. Mark Leeds [15:54] Yeah, it’s really important. It’s important to start now talking about this, you know, start a dialogue because this is such a serious thing. You know, people, you know, the patients I see who are, many of them are addicted to opioids, you know, which is one of the most deadly classes of drug. You know, opioids and alcohol are by far at the top. You know, it just takes one accidental overdose of, you know, especially these days where they’re putting fentanyl in the heroin and people don’t know if fentanyl is there or how much fentanyl is there. You know, so it just takes one use of the drug to have an accidental overdose. And if no one is there to revive the person, you know, it’s tragic. And so someone might say, well, you know, drugs like, you know, marijuana has never killed anyone. And someone can make the same argument for saying social media has never killed anyone. You know, looking at your cell phone has never killed anyone. But, you know, talk to the families of the person who’s walked off a cliff into a hole or even more commonly, you know, driving a car while texting. You know, that’s gotten to the point where it’s illegal. In a lot of areas, maybe everywhere now. And there’s a lot of signs on the road where I live that tell people, you know, stop texting, put it down. I can wait. The big companies that make phones and phone operating systems are now putting in software to disable the phone while you’re driving. You know, so it is potentially very dangerous.
Kristin Sunanta Walker [17:16] And it’s not just even that. It’s how many, what kind of suicide rates are we seeing now? You know, with, and listeners, if you’re tuning in, we are a dog friendly show. So if you hear nails clicking around, those are my dogs. Anyway, I mean, one of the reasons we have Frank King, the mental health comedian on our membership advisory board as well is because he, his entire mission now is to talk about suicide, suicidal ideation. And also we have all these wonderful psychologists and psychiatrists on board as well. But the suicide rate has gone up exponentially since the internet, since gaming, online gaming, since online porn, since smartphones, since social media. All of these things have caused our suicide rate to go up. So for something that is supposed to connect us, which is the World Wide Web, we’re so even so much more disconnected that we have more people, you know, contemplating suicide than ever and actually committing suicide.
Dr. Mark Leeds [18:22] Yeah, and a big issue is that social media and internet use, you know, or overuse of the internet, or what some people might call compulsive internet use or internet use disorder, is something that might, that people who are already depressed or anxious or have mental health issues would be attracted to. I mean, for me, I don’t like going out of my house. When I drive to the store, I don’t like getting out of the car right away. I don’t especially like being around crowds of people. But it’s really easy to go online when I don’t have to look at anybody and interact with people online. But I also am at risk for being attacked by people who don’t. On the other side, there’s people who feel it’s more easy to attack someone online because you’re not looking someone in the face. You’re not putting yourself at physical risk for attacking someone because it’s all kind of anonymous somewhat. It’s not really anonymous, but, you know, you’re in a situation where it’s all digital. You’re not seeing the person’s eyes or their face. And so you have on one side, you know, people who are maybe narcissistic or aggressive and they like to hurt people. And then you have people who have other kinds of mental health issues. Maybe they have social anxiety disorder and other kinds of things that will drive them to go online. And these people interacting is just a recipe for disaster.
Kristin Sunanta Walker [19:43] Absolutely. Absolutely. And there’s so many components to it. You’re dealing with multiple kinds of addiction to different things all in the online space, social media being one of them. That’s the one that gets the most flack. I will say this though, internet being online, obviously in any way, on your phone, on your computer, that’s its own addiction. However, that and the social media component, there are good usages of this. And one of the things that I know we all want to make sure that we do is we don’t want to shame anyone for using it. We all use it too. Our own organization has social media. And obviously we’re doing a lot of things online with what we’re doing with the initiative. So it isn’t that we’re going to go out and make everybody feel bad for being on your phone. We’re not going to do any talks where we say, okay, everybody turn your phones into this basket. I mean, I would never do that anyway. My phone is a $2,200 phone. I’m not going to hand over this miniature computer that’s become an appendage into some basket because somebody shames me for having it and doesn’t want it to accidentally go off during their speech. But you know we have to find a way to talk about this and share what’s going on with this from a genetic component from the addiction standpoint from what it’s doing to our mental health or how it’s affecting our mental health in good ways and bad it has to be talked about in a way that people actually hear it and that’s what I’m finding just isn’t there people aren’t actually absorbing it in a, no one’s been able to, as far as I can see, really get the message across that people hear it.
Dr. Mark Leeds [21:26] Yeah. And comparing, comparing internet addiction or social media addiction or compulsive internet use, comparing it to other kinds of addiction. You know, there’s a lot of things that people are addicted to. They don’t need, I mean, there’s, People are addicted to alcohol, drugs. We don’t need street drugs. Nobody needs to be using cocaine. Nobody needs to be drinking alcohol. In fact, even though it’s legal and everywhere and there’s pressure, we don’t have to do those. Nobody has to gamble. You know but on the other hand food addiction I mean we all have to eat right you know so maybe it’s better to compare it to that sex addiction is a complicated one because you know it’s normal for people to have have sex in certain situations but if they’re addicted to it then you know so there’s kinds of addiction where you have to kind of balance it and help the person find a healthy balance because the solution is not to say let’s take away your internet because you’re you’re using it too much, but to find ways to help people manage it more effectively. You know, like, for example, in dieting, if a person can, you know, eat less carbs and manage their sugar intake, you know, that goes a long way towards helping, you know, and tracking their foods and maybe meeting with people who have the same issues to help keep them in check, you know, have a network of support. So there are ways to manage those kinds of addiction where you can still use, you know, in the case of internet addiction, you can still use the internet, but somehow, you know, have the support to manage it properly.
Kristin Sunanta Walker [22:56] Absolutely. I relate. I’ve always had a food addiction issue and coming from very young childhood. And that was the thing that always killed me. Yeah, you don’t have to go drink alcohol. You don’t have to go take a drug, but you do have to eat. So how do you learn how to manage that addiction when you have an addiction issue with that particular substance. So the new substance is I really can’t do my job in any way without using a phone or without using the internet. I just can’t. So telling me to, that the answer is for me to spend less time online, that’s not really an effective answer for me. Should I spend less time online at times? Yes, absolutely. We all should, but it isn’t an effective answer for me. There has to be a different kind of way to deliver the message or to help someone like me that’s in the position I am that isn’t about taking away what the very thing I need in order to do my job. So to me, I think you’re right. It’s more like food addiction.
Dr. Mark Leeds [24:10] Yeah. There was just an article. I think it just came out yesterday. You know, the Steve Wozniak, founder of Apple, said that many people should cancel their Facebook accounts. And I know other people have said this in the past, but he publicly announced that he’s he’s canceled his Facebook account, has no presence on Facebook at all anymore, and has said that many people are susceptible to overuse or misuse of it. And for the most part, those people should cancel their accounts. I mean, it’s just incredible that, you know, the founder of Apple computers is telling people go cancel Facebook. And I’m sure it’s not anything against Facebook specifically. But you know, it’s like somebody who founded a tobacco company telling you, maybe all of you shouldn’t smoke. I mean, you know, and I don’t think any of us, I mean, it’s hard to say, I mean, for the most part, most of us don’t need social media. […]
Kristin Sunanta Walker [25:13] Right, exactly. I’ve thought about that. I’ve thought, what if I just got rid of social media completely from my organization? I mean, what if I did that? What would that do? What if we didn’t have social media as part of Digital Tech Initiative? And that’s something that we can all talk about, but it’s become a part of how people rate your business.
Dr. Mark Leeds [25:40] Yeah, and that’s the thing. I tell myself I need it for my business. It is part of my marketing strategy. And I mean, to tell you the truth, I don’t think I’ve ever had a single patient come to my practice who found me on social media. So I’m not even 100% sure that it really does anything for me there. I have had patients come in who watch YouTube videos and, you know, they liked what I was saying or what I was demonstrating on the video and they contacted me that way. And that’s a different kind of a thing. I’m, you know, we’re not being social. I’m providing an informational kind of a video and somebody watches it, finds the information useful and reaches out, you know, but yeah. So like when somebody puts up a clever comment and a funny picture and I make a funny comment that I think is funny and then I want to go back and check if anybody liked my comment. I mean, that doesn’t do anything for my business. So yeah, I mean, so there definitely has to be boundaries and drawing a line somewhere. Do you remember the whole thing with Flappy Bird, the game Flappy Bird being taken off of the app store?
Kristin Sunanta Walker [26:39] No, it’s not Angry Bird. It was called Flappy Bird.
Dr. Mark Leeds [26:42] Wait, was it Flappy Bird? Yeah, not Angry Birds. Angry Birds is a whole nother thing. There was a game called Flappy Bird. And I remember… I’m not going to do that right now. Yeah, I don’t remember the name of the author, but it was really interesting what happened. He took it off of the app store because he was afraid that the game was too addicting. And he claimed he was making $50,000 a day in advertising through the game. And he gave up a $50,000 a day income because he was worried about people becoming addicted to his game.
Kristin Sunanta Walker [27:12] That’s interesting. Well, I’ve had people just, we’re going to also, you and I and a couple of other of us that are members, are going to talk about the narcissistic components of all of this as well. But I did have someone tell me that the federal government, or they told a colleague of mine that the federal government offered them $1 billion for something that they trademarked related to online addiction. And I have no doubt that Flappy Bird did what they, you know, did this, but this other one, everyone kind of looked at and went, that is utterly ridiculous. That is narcissism speaking, the grandiose ness of it and the just outright lying and digital media addiction fosters that behavior. That’s for another show that we will definitely get into. But
Dr. Mark Leeds [28:11] I can imagine that the reach of a narcissist is very much magnified and there’s so much, subtlety to what they can do. I mean, just like a family member posting, you know, like I was saying, you know, say your mother, your brother, sister is posting vacation pictures and are posting pictures of them smiling, smiling and having a great time. I mean, there’s so much damage that can be done very subtly. And there’s not really anything you can say about it that, you know, you go to them and say, I know what you’re trying to do, posting this picture, making that comment. And they can say, well, what are you talking about? I’m just posting my life up here and let, well, you know, we know what you’re trying to do. It’s, they really can. Gaslighting online. Exactly. I mean, it’s to an extreme and magnified.
Kristin Sunanta Walker [28:54] Absolutely. And there’s the ways that you, and that’s why I love that we have an attorney on this as well, because there are ways in which you can try to circumvent the legal system by utilizing social media. I mean, I have friends of mine that are being skewered on social media. I’ve had a couple of people try to skewer me on social media. And when you’re dealing with someone that’s doing that, obviously, you know, from in many ways, they are a narcissist because who would behave that way. But the ones I’ve dealt with, absolutely. They try to circumvent a legal process by posting, you know, that you’re evil, you’re this, you’re that. And they don’t technically say that they’re talking about you in a specific interaction online, but then underneath they take screenshots of something with your name in it. So they really are saying it’s you. And the legal profession, thank goodness we have the attorney we do because she’s of the generation that grew up with this. There are laws being put in place. So even if you infer changing someone’s name or not putting it directly in a message and then putting something underneath, those things are being taken seriously by courts. And actually, many judges find those kinds of actions fun to chew apart the person that thinks they can get away with doing them.
Dr. Mark Leeds [30:20] And I can see it’s going to be very difficult to deal with this in the legal profession, because I think similar to the issues we’ve gone through with the treatment of chronic pain and using opioids for treating pain, and we’ve gone from one extreme to another, where 20 years ago, they were telling doctors, you’ll be disciplined if you don’t treat pain with opioids. 20 years later, we’re being told we’ll be disciplined if we do treat them. And it’s actually now swinging the other direction. There actually are articles coming out and the media really has a lot of influence on people and their opinions. They’re now coming back to that now doctors are bad because we took the CDC report on opioid prescribing too seriously from 2016, that we really need to go back to treating chronic pain properly. And things just swing back and forth. And the laws end up, you know, people who are innocent and, you know, trying to do the right thing end up getting in trouble. And the people who are malicious end up getting away with stuff. So they have to be really careful in how they address the issues of internet addiction.
Kristin Sunanta Walker [31:24] Absolutely. Well, thanks for coming on. I look forward to doing more shows. And I’m really excited that you wanted to join us in this digital tech initiative.
Dr. Mark Leeds [31:34] Thank you. Thank you for having me.
Kristin Sunanta Walker [31:35] Everyone, just so you know, Dr. Leeds has his own podcast on Mental Health News Radio Network. It is called The Rehab Podcast, and you can find that through iTunes, Stitcher, all of the all of the favorite players out there. And actually, if you want to connect to it directly to see more about it, you can go to therehab.com. Thanks, everybody, for joining us.
Dr. Mark Leeds [32:00] Thank you for joining us today on The Rehab on the Mental Health News Radio Network. I hope that you have found this show to be interesting and useful. If so, please subscribe to The Rehab Podcast and share on social media. I appreciate your taking the time to listen to The Rehab. Thank you.
