How Can I Persuade My Girlfriend to Minimize Social Media?

00:00:00.000 | (upbeat music)

00:00:02.580 | - All right, so thanks for that question, Kobe.

00:00:06.720 | All right, Jesse, what do we have on the docket next?

00:00:10.340 | - Our next question is from Pablo.

00:00:12.240 | He's got a two-part question.

00:00:14.360 | His first is he wants your thoughts

00:00:15.840 | on how to persuade his girlfriend to minimize social media.

00:00:19.480 | - Oh, man.

00:00:20.580 | - And he should read your news article

00:00:23.240 | about the Twitter in January.

00:00:25.520 | And then part two is he actually has a question

00:00:29.440 | about his bodybuilding,

00:00:31.800 | and if that counts as high-quality leisure.

00:00:35.280 | - Jesse, how many girlfriends do you think

00:00:38.240 | are out there in the world right now

00:00:40.760 | who curse my name because their nerd boyfriend

00:00:45.760 | is pushing some Cal Newport idea,

00:00:48.840 | and they finally just say, "Enough, enough.

00:00:51.840 | "I don't wanna hear about Cal Newport."

00:00:54.360 | I think I have been cursed in apartment buildings

00:00:58.360 | and living rooms.

00:00:59.600 | - More now that your Today Show appearance.

00:01:04.080 | So all those.

00:01:05.720 | - That's right.

00:01:06.640 | - There's a big audience there.

00:01:07.800 | - That's right.

00:01:08.640 | Well, yeah, now that I'm world famous

00:01:10.880 | from being on the Today Show,

00:01:12.000 | it's only gonna make this problem worse.

00:01:13.860 | Now that I wear suit jackets to work,

00:01:16.800 | I'm gonna start wearing a suit jacket on air

00:01:18.560 | for this podcast.

00:01:19.560 | I think you should too.

00:01:21.320 | I think it's just about showing people that we're pros

00:01:24.320 | a suit jacket and tie.

00:01:26.080 | - I never use my ties in my closet,

00:01:27.960 | so maybe it'd be a good excuse to put them on.

00:01:30.520 | - Yeah, we could do the Lexford Mint thing,

00:01:32.760 | wear the same suit every time.

00:01:35.440 | - All right, here's Pablo.

00:01:36.760 | - Hi, Cal.

00:01:40.240 | First and foremost, thank you for drastically improving

00:01:42.880 | my quality of life.

00:01:44.680 | I wanted to ask two questions.

00:01:46.660 | To start, I want to know your thoughts

00:01:48.160 | on how I can harmoniously persuade my girlfriend

00:01:50.880 | into minimizing her social media use.

00:01:53.340 | - All right, Pablo.

00:01:55.800 | So for the first question,

00:01:56.720 | minimizing social media use,

00:01:58.080 | how to encourage someone else in your life to do that,

00:02:02.120 | it's dangerous waters.

00:02:04.200 | Dangerous waters when you're trying to tell someone else

00:02:07.800 | about an improvement you think they should make,

00:02:10.840 | regardless of what the topic is.

00:02:12.420 | I think anyone who's been in a relationship

00:02:14.120 | knows this experience.

00:02:15.400 | It's usually not gonna go well,

00:02:17.200 | so you have to be very careful there.

00:02:19.040 | I usually recommend that what people do

00:02:22.600 | is be the change they want to see in the world

00:02:26.360 | where you can replace world with spouse or boyfriend

00:02:29.280 | or girlfriend or kids or what have you.

00:02:31.880 | Be the change you want to see.

00:02:33.640 | So first of all, live your life

00:02:36.500 | in the way that you think is valuable.

00:02:38.360 | Use the phone-foyer method.

00:02:40.300 | Don't have your phone with you.

00:02:41.520 | Don't have social media accounts

00:02:42.960 | or the accounts you do use,

00:02:44.160 | you use on a schedule on a desktop

00:02:45.980 | for very specific purposes.

00:02:47.760 | Let the other person in your life see what that brings you.

00:02:52.500 | The concentration, the peace, the lack of anxiety.

00:02:55.840 | Let them see that.

00:02:57.960 | Then be clear when the topic comes up

00:03:00.800 | why and how you're doing that.

00:03:03.000 | Oh, well, I'm a digital minimalist

00:03:04.600 | and this is what digital minimalism is

00:03:06.580 | and I've built my life around using this in this way

00:03:09.080 | and not that and I'm getting a lot of benefits about it.

00:03:12.120 | So they know what's going on.

00:03:14.120 | They know why you're doing it and how you're doing it.

00:03:16.480 | At that point, then you have to let the seed

00:03:19.520 | germinate on its own.

00:03:21.480 | And you have to let the other person see what you're doing,

00:03:24.920 | know that it's an option,

00:03:26.120 | know the philosophy behind it and make that step of,

00:03:28.720 | you know, "Kobe, I think I wanna do this.

00:03:31.200 | Do you wanna do it with me?

00:03:32.120 | Do you wanna help me?"

00:03:33.440 | But you can't push it that hard.

00:03:35.560 | Now, if you wanna be, you know, nudging,

00:03:38.940 | you can try to do a new year thing.

00:03:41.720 | So I talked about in a recent episode that this January,

00:03:45.760 | when this episode is coming out, January, 2022,

00:03:49.400 | I've announced on my newsletter

00:03:51.100 | an analog January challenge,

00:03:52.760 | which was built just around not using Twitter

00:03:54.680 | for the month.

00:03:55.520 | So you might do something like that,

00:03:56.760 | built around new year's resolutions and say,

00:03:58.280 | "Hey, do you wanna do this with me?

00:03:59.480 | I think it'd be fun."

00:04:00.860 | So you could try that, but for the most part,

00:04:02.500 | be the change you wanna see in others

00:04:04.120 | and let the others come to you.

00:04:06.820 | The most extreme alternative to that I've heard is

00:04:10.480 | on one of my events I was doing

00:04:12.640 | on the digital minimalism tour,

00:04:14.660 | I met a parent who was worried about their teenage kids'

00:04:18.880 | social media use.

00:04:19.920 | So they took their devices on a long car trip.

00:04:23.840 | So they had no, nothing to look at or listen to,

00:04:26.280 | and then put digital minimalism audio book on in the car

00:04:30.760 | and basically forced them to listen to digital minimalism.

00:04:35.300 | So that would be the opposite extreme.

00:04:37.900 | And those kids went on to invent TikTok.

00:04:41.920 | So that backfired.

00:04:42.900 | (upbeat music)

00:04:46.380 | (upbeat music)

00:04:48.960 | (upbeat music)

How Can I Persuade My Girlfriend to Minimize Social Media?

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