Emily Race-Newmark: [00:00:00] Welcome to This is How We Care, a podcast where we look at what it means to embody care, not as an individual practice, but a collective one; and to see what kind of world emerges from this place. 

Thank you for being here. I am your host, Emily Race.

Today we are speaking with Max Stossel of Social Awakening about a dilemma that I have personally found so many of us are struggling with, and that is our relationship with social media. We'll specifically be looking at this through the lens of the young people in our lives, as Max works with kids primarily in 5th through 12th grades to raise awareness around their relationship with social media, and support the schools, parents, and adults in their lives with tips for how we can all develop a healthier relationship with this medium.

As you listen to this conversation, you'll find that there are many perspectives that we can take away around our own use of social media, regardless of whether we have kids of our own or not, in the spirit of this really being [00:01:00] our collective responsibility, to bring awareness and hopefully new actions around this relationship.

Max Stossel: My strategy is I come in with the kids, not as another adult in their lives, finger wagging going, you kids and your screens rah. I'm not doing that. I say, "Hey, I'm not here to tell you what to do. Let me show you how some of this is designed so you can all make your own decisions, make better decisions about how much and how often you wanna be using it."

And then from there, "okay, now let's look at some of the things we're doing that maybe we don't even actually like doing or the ways this is changing how we relate to ourselves or to each other based on this totally fake made up system and trying to unravel that" and give, honestly for me, what's a starting point to shift our perspectives and relationship on this stuff.

I would love to say that I come into a school and I solve all their social media problems. I don't think that's the case. I think I really provide a very good launching point of, "Hey, we're all looking at this together now. Seeing this is really a big mountain that we're not prepared for, , there's a whole industry here that's making it very hard to live healthy lives in ways that [00:02:00] feel good.

What does it look like to take action in our own lives?" And yeah, I find that method is most effective. Not gonna resonate with every kid, but I'm pretty good at getting through. 

There's some pushback on "this is just the world now. This is just the way it is and this is what we're doing."

But I find that's usually just a starting point for, "okay, let's break it down. What is just the world now? Do you like that? Is that working for you?" And for the kids, it's very difficult for some of them to even imagine what it's like outside of this. And I find exercises like, "Hey, think back to a time when you were having the most fun, where you were laughing hysterically with friends, or you felt the most alive and free and connected to the people that you love.

Like what were you doing? Who were you with? Like where were you? Were you inside, outside? What was going on? No wrong answers". And then afterwards being like, "was technology or social media involved in that, like at all? If so, in what ways?" 

And for most of the kids, especially up in high schools, now, that's not what they were remembering. And for some it is, and if so, great. "what were you doing That felt really good compared to some of the other [00:03:00] experiences that don't feel so good?" But I think it's harder than ever to sculpt our own fun and our own intentional worlds in these platforms cause they have their own agendas, and I'm trying to help young people better walk that path in a way that is on purpose.

Emily Race-Newmark: Yeah, I'm really hearing first, you're listening to these young people. They have some sort of autonomy in the matter. They have some sort of choice and you're giving them broader context so they can really choose from a powerful place. Versus almost perpetuating that model of I'm talking down to you, or I'm in charge and you should listen to me.

Which is really what social media is probably doing behind the scenes in a way.

Max Stossel: And there's never been a larger gap between parents and their kids, in terms of the lives that they know and are growing up with. When most of the adults in these kids' lives are saying like, you're on your phone too much, or What are you doing? It's just met with this eye roll of you just don't get what's happening here, what we're going through.

So I try to really get very specific into some of the apps and features and Very much be like, Hey, here's what's going on. You're doing this cause you're trying to feel connected or let in. So that's why you do [00:04:00] this on this feature. But do you wanna track all of your friends on Snap Map all the time?

Do you want everybody to see where you are? Like all of the time, are we cool with this? Are we cool just being collectively tracked? Do we ever choose this? Trying to go piece by piece in the ones that feel the most. "Oh yeah, we are all doing that, but do we want to?" I'm trying to point at it a little bit more obviously.

Emily Race-Newmark: Our guest, Max Stossel is an award winning poet and filmmaker, who has been named by Forbes as one of the best storytellers of the year.

If you haven't already checked out the grounding practice led by Max that accompanies this episode, I highly recommend you do that right now or after you finish this conversation.

You can find that as a separate episode wherever you follow This Is How We Care. There, Max reads to us a poem he wrote that really encapsulates this conversation for me in a powerfully moving and emotional way.

And it would be a great snippet to share with folks as an appetizer to this conversation. 

Tapping into his gift of the spoken word and storytelling, Max is also the founder of Social [00:05:00] Awakening, an organization that helps teens, schools, and parents survive and thrive in the digital world.

Let's get back into our conversation, which we originally recorded together in July of 2023.

Max Stossel: When we first met, we were working at Anomaly and I was doing social media strategy for Budweiser at the time. And at the time they were just posting their press releases and as a kid they were like, you're young. Go figure out social media. And I was like, maybe pictures of beer and funny stuff.

And then their numbers went way up and I was seen as some wizz kid because I did this very simple thing that was just, companies didn't know what social media was back then. And so I was diving heavily into social media and started to notice in that work how we at Budweiser, were changing the stories we were telling to be more extreme.

Budweiser is the greatest beard does a whole lot better than here's how Budweiser is made. Or preaching to the choir, showing people ideas they wanna see and starting to notice news organizations and everybody in some capacity changing the various stories they tell based on what is working [00:06:00] inside of these social media algorithms.

And that certainly piqued my interest and I fell in love with startup world and was working on a social media app. We were told by our investors we could hold attention for two minutes or longer, we had a valuable company, so that was the work. If we autoplay videos, we get more attention. What can we do that will make people stay here longer?

And around that time doing that work, I met someone named Tristan Harris. If you've seen the social dilemma, he's featured a lot in that. And I helped him start this organization, the Center for Humane Technology. And we were getting all these emails from parents, teachers, students being like, what the heck do we do about this whole smartphone and social media thing?

And I thought, maybe my perspective can be helpful. So I spent the past about eight years giving presentations and creating resources for students, parents, and educators about how to have healthier relationships with social media and technology. 

Most recently, over the past couple years, I started an organization called Social Awakening, and that's my work around this and the hub where I go [00:07:00] into specific schools. I spend the day with the schools, giving presentations to the kids, the parents, educators, and giving them resources to try to navigate this crazy world.

Often we're very quick to jump to "technology" and technology is so broad. I think the places for concern to hone in are much more about social media and these dopamine rewards more so than this just technology in general. It's like a helpful place, I think for parents to focus in is not oh my God, all technology is bad for my kids.

Just more focused on social media. And is there an addictive seeming dopamine reward system for the younger kids as well? That seems like a helpful way of narrowing. A lot of people over the pandemic were like, thank God for social media. It's like we often call it all social media as well.

And I'm like thank God for Zoom. Thank God for FaceTime. Thank God for a lot of technology things. Thank God for social media. Maybe in some ways, but also a lot of chaos, rot in that as well. So I think we use language for a lot of these is the same thing when they're really not, and that's helpful to [00:08:00] differentiating.

Emily Race-Newmark: Thank you cuz even for me, I feel like there is almost this overwhelming experience when you think about technology or social media and , to create those distinctions can be helpful in terms of finding solutions, also, I imagine.

Max Stossel: Yeah, for sure. I think that's a good first step. 

Emily Race-Newmark: I'm assuming we're around the same generation, where for me at least, these things weren't around in my earlier years, but came to fruition maybe in high school but not to the same extent that kids are immersed in this world of social media and the different apps that you're mentioning now.

So I think there might be a disconnect for some of our listeners to understand really what does that world look like as a young person? Whether you wanna name apps or experiences, what are some of the things that you're seeing are happening in that world?

Max Stossel: It can go a different app by different app, but often say for a parent, it usually starts with Snapchat cuz Snapchat is the number one messaging app for teenagers. The way that adults text teens are mostly using Snapchat as their primary texting messenger which is not a great idea, but also a very difficult cultural force to [00:09:00] push back against because they're coming home, they're feeling left out from not being in the group chat, which is on Snapchat.

I very much encourage the kids just move the group chat over from Snap to regular messaging apps. If you tell a teenager to delete Snapchat, they might look at you like you're adding your mind. It's very important to say Hey, I'm not telling you to stop talking to your friends. Please keep talking to your friends, but do you maybe wanna move the conversation from this place to an app that's not trying to manipulate you?

 There's something called streaks on Snapchat, as I send you a message and you send me one back within 24 hours, as number builds. And then a lot of these kids are just taking pictures of the floor or a wall, feeling super stressed to keep all these streaks going because if we break the streak, are we really friends or what does that mean about us? Or things like that. 

All the elements of high school and middle school. Of popularity of who's my best friend, all of these things are being quantified and gamified by these apps. That's all the dynamics that were difficult in popularity and social elements that you remember from high school and middle school.

 Now there's gasoline poured on those [00:10:00] fires. And there's a lot of elements of it, but in some schools, I'm finding kids are afraid to take risks because what they're used to is Someone snaps a picture of it or takes a screenshot and then everybody's commenting on it. In real life it's scarier to take risks cause they're used to the comment threads back and forth and not connecting how that's different from actually being with people. 

There's some schools will say to me, they're acting out social media in real life. 

On TikTok, the trends become, Especially for middle schoolers, things that are a matter of fitting in and they often don't know what they're getting into because these trends are certainly not thinking of young people or middle schoolers and are often either hypersexualized. 

When I ask the kids what do they think their biggest challenges are, the scariest things, a lot of them will say TikTok. Cause some of the challenge is eat a raw chicken or get in a bath as hot as possible. Some people might not know that those are dangerous. And there aren't millions of people who are doing those things, but for younger kids especially, that does start to happen.

 I think the best way for a parent to see it is like those elements [00:11:00] of middle school and high school, quantified and gamified with gas poured on the fire with the challenges up.

Emily Race-Newmark: Yeah. And I imagine that there's new apps being developed or updates to these apps, I'm assuming there's a lot of listening happening as you're going into schools to hear how trends are changing or are you doing research outside of these conversations to gather that?

Max Stossel: Mostly just yeah, asking them "what are you seeing, what are you worried about? What should I know about?" And some kids talk about the new Snapchat update where people can pay to see the path you've taken physically throughout a whole day. And how really young people who have their snap map on where older predators can pay to see where everybody is all the time.

Things like that. It's certainly always evolving. Over the summer, I'm not speaking in schools all the time, so I'm much more free. And I would say I probably have less insights over these months than I do otherwise. 

Emily Race-Newmark: Amazing. There's clearly such a big need for this, and you're only one person. 

One of my hopes out of this conversation is that we can start to equip our listeners with how they could almost be extensions of the work you're doing in their own lives, regardless of what age they're at.

[00:12:00] So that moves me to the next part of our conversation, which is starting to explore what you would like to see. 

I really like this to be a dreaming space where we're almost getting a clear vision of what we wanna see versus only highlighting this is a problem, which is not super helpful all the time. 

Max Stossel: I would love for a social network to be measuring its success based on how well it enhances our social lives. I would gladly pay for a network that was using all its data to show me, here's high illuminated seven new experiences that a lot of people later said they were glad they went to.

Here are people in their lives that are now in your life that you're happy about that wouldn't have been before. 

With information like measuring success, not just how long did you watch it or did you click it, but are you actually becoming more tangibly and measurably informed on X, Y, or Z topic?

I want the metrics of the way technology is measuring its success to be in human metrics, to deal with human challenges and helping people live by their values and be the people that we want to be in the world. So that's like the dream world that I would love to see.

The app store, not being just an app store, but A help center of what are you going to technology for right now?

[00:13:00] I'm looking to live more creatively. All right. Here's five things. Three of them are digital, two of them are not, that were really helpful for that. Pick one, here's a menu of options that like makes life richer. So I would love to see tech design that way. 

That is farfetched, for now, anyway.

 In terms of what I'd love to see in schools with parents also is one big one is not giving kids smartphones. There's a lot of times parents are giving kids phones as soon as they need to communicate with them from afar. And there are plenty of devices for that. If you wanna give your kid a phone or a device that lets them send you a message when you're far away. There's flip phones or something called a gab phone, pinwheel. There's a whole lot of options to do that, but right now we're giving kids super computers, self comparison machines, porn machines and all infinite access to everything machines the moment we wanna send them a text message and that's really not helping. 

I would love for there to be collective understanding that we don't give kids smartphones until I don't know, like eighth, ninth, 10th, I'd be down for all of that grade where we create more developmental time where kids are able to learn, [00:14:00] focus, patience, how to be without their devices, how to deal with each other, how to deal with boredom, challenging emotions that come up when we don't have instant distraction.

When I go into schools, the main policy that I'm helping schools implement from a administrative level is "Away For The Day" phone policies. There's a lot of pushback, a lot of it from parents being like, I wanna be able to text my kids during the day. And I have empathy for that.

And also, you remember going to school, you can always call the school and get ahold of your kids if you need them. And that can really work. If there are spaces the kids can go, if they need to contact you, go into that room and send a message. It's not on all the time.

 In these developmental years, trying to give the kids more spaces that are not dominated by this outer space esque social media and smartphones everywhere culture. 

That's what I would love to see and A better education system on how to navigate life.

This is highlighted a lot of ways that education is falling short in. How, teaching kids, if you don't know what your feelings are, you don't know how social media makes you [00:15:00] feel. If you don't have the mindfulness skills to watch your phone buzz and not have to reach for it, you're gonna be in for a world of hurt.

If our communication skills are not excellent, digital communications even harder. I would love to see a different philosophy to how we are preparing people for this world. And with AI coming down the line in the way that it will, it's be even easier than it is now to get an answer.

If the object of school is to get the answer, you can pretty much do that on a computer super easily all the time. What are we doing here? What are we learning? What are we creating with each other? I would love to see that mindset shift.

Emily Race-Newmark: My god. There's so many juicy things you just shared, so I'm gonna break it down. 

The first vision I heard was really almost a call to developers or the apps, the technology companies themselves. And I hear you that might feel far fetched, but it is a great vision to put out there cuz I'm sure there's folks who have a similar desire to think about the design differently.

The second vision I'm hearing is around, our expectations around how we connect with one another. And you're specifically speaking to the parents' role or the adults' role in [00:16:00] providing certain devices. 

And then the third one around education itself shifting, which to me feels like we could have a whole conversation on that because I totally hear you.,

So to bring it back to the vision piece, from the perspective of young people, the folks who are growing up now, what is your vision for them? 

Max Stossel: I mostly just want them to be in charge of their own lives, to be actually living from internally motivated place and working towards meaning and fulfillment and not all the external motivators and strange social media manipulations and hyper caring so much about what they're posting and what everybody thinks about them.

I want them to live their own lives and to live in ways that they find meaningful and loving and it's hard to get in touch with that in a super distracted everybody's in outer space with these phones world.

Emily Race-Newmark: There's a theme underneath what you're saying, which is again, back to that empowerment piece or that sense of self-direction. That's something that's perhaps missing in our society right now in general.

 It makes sense that it's compounding [00:17:00] with the presence of these algorithms that are feeding on that part of ourselves. 

Emily Race-Newmark: You're not imagining a world where social media doesn't exist at all, or we go back to flip phones. Is that at all a part of your vision, more of a radical no phone time approach, that type of thing?

Max Stossel: I just don't think that's is particularly realistic. If we were designing a society, I don't think we would do it the way we're doing it now. But I'm meeting people where they are and it doesn't seem realistic that we're gonna get rid of this stuff.

 It's too addictive. And there are some things that people really like about it and some positives and it's complicated. But yeah, self-empowerment and living self-actualized and internally directed lives is very much the theme and core under what I'm doing. 

" What do you want for you? And is that true? And is that coming from a deep place inside of you? And how do we help you have that?"

Emily Race-Newmark: So what are some ways forward? How do we break that down into the here and now? 

If I actually started with the first vision you shared around technology companies or these app developers, [00:18:00] what is there that we could do as listeners perhaps to help shift how these apps are being built? 

Max Stossel: That one is I think, the hardest to take action on unless you're inside of Apple or Google or building a new type of mobile device or iOS or things like that. Just being intentional if you're in the tech industry of what are we measuring? 

It's harder to measure the meaningful things. It's easier to measure, a click or time spent, but doing the extra work to work towards the qualitative, "how are we doing on a human level" metrics. That's one thing for tech. Yeah, I don't know why Apple doesn't do that help center idea. It's a great one. I think people would pay for that and be loyal to it.

As parents, I think the biggest and easiest action is delaying smartphone introduction. And a lot of parents are like, "but they're saying everybody else has it and I don't want them to feel left out." I hear that. Also, I have been doing this for a long time.

I have heard so many parents say, "I'm so glad I waited." I'm still waiting for the first parents to tell me that they wish they gave it sooner. Do with that what you will. 

There's a [00:19:00] movement called "Wait Until Eigth", which gets communities together to eighth grade and says, as a community, we're not gonna do this.

Sometimes easier with smaller schools than it's for bigger ones, but working with your kids' friends' parents, is a really helpful way of being effective here. There's a lot more things for parents and I can send you the PDFs that I send to parents as well for that. 

You can put in the show notes or something, but leading by example, it's a big part of this is the kids learn it from adults they don't know the difference as they're looking at the back of your, your phone between that you're playing the game or scrolling or you're calling the hospital. Like it all looks the same. And so narrating that. 

And one thing I told my friend recently, which she found really helpful was recognizing that tech is a trade.

So like whenever you're picking up your device, you're making a trade, you're either trading presence or something to, for whatever you're seeking. Sherry Turkle gives a nice example of in conversation, if we wanna know who's the actor in that thing, we could look it up. We could have the answer immediately.

But what we're trading in that process is the process of figuring it out together. The other stories, [00:20:00] maybe we're laughing, whatever it might be. And so just checking in on ourselves. It's as I reach for tech, do I want to make this trade? Is this a trade that I want to make right now? Sometimes it will be, sometimes it won't be great.

A really tough one for a lot of parents is, Screaming kid on a car ride. You have the choice to give them the iPad that will shut them up for however many hours or to just endure the screaming. And I recognize that's really hard. I think just being honest with yourself that if you're giving an iPad, you're doing it for you.

 You're not giving that iPad for that kid. It's for you. You are having trouble with the noise and knowing that and not diluting yourself into thinking this is helping them. It's not. That's helping you.

That honesty and recognizing it as a trade I think is helpful as well.

Emily Race-Newmark: Yeah, there's a couple threads I wanna follow from here. one, I really appreciate you saying that again, as a new parent, there's this a tension I feel where I don't wanna judge other parents' decisions. And I also feel an urgency to say, wait a minute, we need to bring awareness to the impulse to get a quick fix through providing a one-year-old a screen, what are some other ways we [00:21:00] could address what's happening here? 

it's super important. And Also acknowledging we as adults, whether we have kids or not, also are struggling at times to find our way to have healthy relationship with social media, with these apps, with technology as a whole. It's hard to lead by example if we're also struggling with that thing. Is that something that you found in working with parents?

Max Stossel: Totally. We like to pretend it's a kid problem. It's not just a kid problem. This is everybody and it's really hard. And yeah, addiction is often pain avoidance and we are running away from all sorts of stuff into our various addictions and it's never been easier to run away from ourselves because we're carrying these things around 24 hours a day, seven days a week.

 It's all of us and we're all trying to figure out how to do it together. For middle schoolers, high schoolers, it is helpful for parents to be honest about that with their kids. " Hey, yeah, I'm struggling with this too. Maybe we could work on it together." Is a helpful sentence.

Emily Race-Newmark: I'm imagining as part of the society that you're painting, there's also other resources in place to support us with some of the things that are [00:22:00] beneath that surface layer. 

For instance, if we're turning to our devices to avoid a feeling of discomfort within ourselves or maybe we don't know how to connect with someone at a coffee shop.

And we're like, let me go hide in my little personal bubble here, then what would you see instead as other strategies or ways of people dealing with that discomfort?

Max Stossel: Yeah, so this is tricky. I had a good conversation with a school in New Jersey actually where the kids were pushing back a bit. They're basically like, we agree, and if you had the choice between no relationships or only synthetic relationships, what would you pick?

And I was like, I would choose synthetic relationships and I don't believe that's what the choice is. And when I look at the amount of Depression and anxiety skyrocketing, that's happening, which is quite significant, spiking in a major way right around when social media got popular. One of the biggest pieces of that is that right now, when you're feeling lonely or bored in your room, you don't have to pick up the phone and call a friend.

You don't have to go outside and figure something out . We've interrupted that process of letting the [00:23:00] pain get challenging enough so that we do something about it. And I think that's a really tricky part of managing all of this. But yes, as we're implementing phones away policies, I would love for there to be, have more fun spaces, really be intentional about what does it look like to create more fun in our kids and in our own lives.

How do we do that and do that together? Whether that's, simple version as board game rooms and things like that, zones where phones are not allowed and people are coming in seeking out that connection. It won't be great all the time. It's not gonna be a home run every time you walk into that room.

But it's nice to have and to be working that way.

I would love for there to be basically a peer leadership group in every school where, seniors who. Are really noticing this and figuring it out are helping the younger kids and where they are meeting biweekly talking about the different challenges that have come up, how has it dealt with where there's a counselor who's really trusted who's really just there to sit back and look in and only help when absolutely necessary.

But like that structure all over schools, I would love to see that as well. 

What can [00:24:00] we do in a coffee shop? We don't know what to do. It's honestly, my feeling is , figure it out, be bored. But not realistic. Hey, I pull out my phone a lot in that scenario too, but especially in the developmental years are you learning the skills to like, Just be with it.

And that's kids and adults. Now we're all escaping this way, but I'm afraid that the next generation is not gonna literally know how.

Emily Race-Newmark: right. Yeah. What's coming to mind right now is my family, my husband and I have a practice every friday to Saturday night, it's tied to Shabbat, which is a religious practice, but it's more that we found inspiration within that age old structure that like, oh, let's take a break for 24 hours and see what happens.

Rather than it feeling like a takeaway, we actually are creating a space of being in nature, being connected with each other, creativity, rest, all these things that we look forward to as we practice.

 That coffee shop example came up because that's usually the day that we're like, oh, whoa. Everybody's on their phone and us normally included. And I see it differently now. I can see it through [00:25:00] my daughter's eyes, who, to your point, is just seeing a bunch of humans with this square in front of their face and she doesn't know what's happening.

 I offer that as an example that like a lot of people in our lives, they're inspired by it, but they don't necessarily take that type of action on themselves because it is very challenging. But perhaps there's some sort of structure folks can find for themselves like an experiment to see what shows up. Have you personally tried things like that?

Max Stossel: Yeah, every once in a while I'll take breaks and I love the concept of Shabbat for making it a practice and a weekly ritual and different religions and cultures that's a different day of the week and great, whatever day that you wanna take a break and doing that together as groups or friend groups or families, I think that's a great idea. It's different for all sorts of folks, but I certainly am encouraging of practices like that.

Emily Race-Newmark: You mentioned it earlier as well, there's also this role I see in your vision or in the vision we're creating now that community can play and that these things are a lot harder to do if we're trying to solve them on our own. Like you said, the wait until eight is an example.

Where could we come together [00:26:00] more to hold each other accountable or play in this new space of consciousness around our technology use? What have you seen or what would be your vision for how we're playing as a community or working together?

Max Stossel: Schools are an obvious group structure that is an opportunity to work together there. Parent groups, friend groups, camps, summer camps being another one. I've also heard that because some parents wanna see so much of what their kids are doing they're encouraging more photos and phones and like away from that force and towards being intentional about spaces outside of this stuff. 

Honestly, any place where community shows up in your or your kids' lives is an opportunity to look at this or address this. It's so deeply entwined with every aspect of life and we're carrying it around all the time.

Emily Race-Newmark: Yeah, and it goes back to that idea of seeing yourself as a leader and also for children or young people to see themselves as leaders. I love the peer support model you mentioned because it almost answers a question I had earlier around you're only one person, how might you scale this [00:27:00] initiative?

Max Stossel: Looking down the road, , I'm gonna be bringing in more people than just me to be able to speak at the schools. And I have the unique background of storytelling and tech background, but I think probably former influencers will be good at giving these messages to kids too.

Like people where they can say, Hey, like I was playing a social game and let me show you how it really works. I think kids will hear that. 

And then, yeah, I want to get better at what is more ongoing curriculum or lessons, how do we provide more long-term support or find the right partners to help do that.

There's a group called Project Zero out of Harvard, who does good work and I've been working with them trying to help get some of their resources out further as trying to help parents and kids and teachers and kids have better conversations about this stuff.

The challenge is also I get a good amount of messages from people being like, I've got the answer. And it's just like things that don't quite feel like they have the robustness or might be one piece, but they're not tested. And I really like to only recommend things that like, are working like that clearly seems like they're providing value.

Almost like the after example I gave here. We implement this thing and it really helps with X. And [00:28:00] I would love for there to be a greater database to navigate this whole mess. Here are a lot of different things that help with X, Y, or Z and help in a meaningful lasting way.

Emily Race-Newmark: Yeah, I love that. Again, like pointing to signs of what's working. 

You started talking about some actions, which I think are great, but I'd like to look at if folks could actually pause this recording right now and take an action, what would you like that to be?

Max Stossel: If you pause right now and do something, going into your notifications and turning off any notification that's not from a human being trying to reach you. By default we get lots of buzzes and distractions of this person liked your photo, happy Holidays from this app, you haven't played this game in a while. 

Turning it off so your phone can only buzz if a person's getting ahold of you. It's a nice one that works across the board.

Another one that a lot of people like is looking at our phone use around sleep. Is our phone, our alarm clock, and then we're immediately scrolling right after that. Getting a physical alarm clock to not have our phone be alarm clock is nice. 

And also not having the screen be like, It's the last thing that you're looking at [00:29:00] before you go to sleep. Or just you in the dark and letting that blast your eyes for hours and hours at a time. So I would say to be taking a look at how our habits around notifications and around sleep are two like very actionable items.

Emily Race-Newmark: And again, rather than that feeling like a takeaway, like we're taking away this pacifier that soothes us in some way, it's okay, what could we replace as like a sleep ritual instead. I don't know if you have

Max Stossel: What would be a good habit? 

Listening to things is very different than watching them. Maybe you're listening to a story or music or something like that. 

What do you wanna wake up and do first thing in the morning? Can try stuff. Some people like journaling, some people like, just walking around. Some people like going straight to the shower, whatever it might be. But what does it look like for you to yeah, to wake up in a way that is not so passive.

Emily Race-Newmark: This may be a stretch based on our audience, but I am curious if there was a teenager listening to this right now, what would you be your invitation for them? If they could just pause the podcast right now?

Max Stossel: I think it would be to do that exercise of thinking about what were the moments in your life that [00:30:00] felt most alive, felt you laughing with friends, like when did you feel the most connected with life and with yourself and what were you doing and how could you do more of that? And to think about how much is social media or technology influencing that?

Cuz most of the time it's that's not actually what's bringing us to life. It's just harder than it's ever been to even figure out how to do the things and create the fun in part because even if you're a teenager who's being brave and wants to tap their friends in the shoulder and say, "Hey, let's do this", you're interrupting your friends who are doing this.

So it's just an extra amount of energy that can take. And so I would say it's harder than it's ever been and you can make your own fun. And what does it look like to do that?

Emily Race-Newmark: Yeah. I'm wondering as you say that, is there also an invitation for parents or adults in young people's lives to just ask that same question? Like almost start a dialogue over a moment, over dinner or something? I don't know what that moment might be to get curious about oh, what are you noticing?

Max Stossel: Yeah, it's a great idea.

Emily Race-Newmark: Yeah. Amazing. 

I [00:31:00] can't thank you enough for the work you're doing and also just the way that you're showing up with it. You said at the start, everything from the words that you're using, the way that you're incorporating art into this, but also really just getting on the same level and seeing people no matter what their age as we're all humans, there's no hierarchy here. There's no one like has the answers more than someone else. So I really appreciate the way you're showing up and grateful for this conversation. I can't wait to share it.

Max Stossel: Thank you for bringing me on for having it, and yeah, I hope it helps.

Emily Race-Newmark: Thank you for listening to this conversation. If you want to learn more about the work MAX is doing through Social Awakening, check out their website at socialawakening.org.

You can fill out a form there if you're interested in supporting their work or scheduling them to come to your school; just note that you may need to schedule a bit out in advance, as they are certainly in demand.

If Max's art and poetry interests you, you can head over to wordsthatmove.com to check out that. 

Everything is linked over in the show notes of our website at thisishowwecare.Com where you can also sign up for our newsletter to [00:32:00] receive weekly prompts and practices from each of our guests with the intention of bringing deeper reflection and playful experimentation of these ideas into your life.

Lastly, if you think the messages from this episode will speak to someone you care about, please share it with them. 

This is just one of the many ways that you can help us co create a world of embodied collective care.

This episode was produced by me, Emily Race, co produced by Kimberly Ann, with editing by Andrew Salamone, and music by Eric Weisberg.