Tech News Weekly Episode 236 Transcript

Please be advised this transcript is AI-generated and may not be word for word. Time codes refer to the approximate times in the ad-supported version of the show. 

Mikah Sargent (00:00:00):
Coming up on Tech News Weekly. I, Mikah Sargent, and my co-host Jason Howell start out the show by talking to TechDirt's, Mike Masnick about the California assembly, passing a bill that if gone into law would make it possible for parents to Sue social media companies for addicting their children to social media. Then we talk to Tom me you can check out Tom's new subs stack, but he talks about DuckDuckGo and how it may not be as private as we once thought before we round out the show with our stories of the week. First I go into detail and depth about the struggles I've had with Apple's self-service repair program and its malicious compliance and Jason Howell rounds things out with his own conversation about social media dissociation. It is a great show. It's super packed. So stay tuned for Tech News Weekly

... (00:01:00):
Podcasts you love from people you trust. This is TWiTT.

Jason Howell (00:01:19):
This is Tech News Weekly episode 236 recorded Thursday, May 26th, 2022.

Mikah Sargent (00:01:25):
This episode of Tech News Weekly is brought to you by Melissa. Make sure your customer contact data is up to date. Try Melissa's APIs in the developer portal. It's easy to log on, sign up and start playing in the API sandbox. 24 7 get started today with 1000 records cleaned for free@melissadotcomslashTWiTtandbycheckout.com

Jason Howell (00:01:47):
Modern businesses need flexible payment systems that can help them adapt to change, grow and scale fast. Discover how checkout.com can help your business thrive at checkout.com/tnw

Mikah Sargent (00:01:59):
And by zip recruiter, certain people make my life easier by helping me out and ZipRecruiter makes hiring easier because they do the work for you. How well ZipRecruiter's technology finds great candidates, and you can invite them to apply, go to zip recruiter.com/tnw, to try it for free. Hello and welcome to Tech News Weekly. This is the show where every week we talk to and about the people making and breaking the tech news. I am one of your hosts, Micah Sergeant,

Jason Howell (00:02:30):
And I'm the other guy Jason Howell and I'm excited for today because we've got two of like my favorite people on the internets on the show today.

Mikah Sargent (00:02:37):
So there's a little lot to look forward to hint a little preview. Let's actually get right into it. So California while I think the, the rest of the us is looking at different means of curtailing, controlling, changing, updating making changes to social media California has done a thing <laugh> of its own with a B 24 0 8. Joining us today to talk about California's new bill. That was just past is TechDirt's own Mike Masnick welcome back to the show, Mike.

Mike Masnick  (00:03:20):
Hey, thanks for having me. I'm glad to be here.

Mikah Sargent (00:03:22):
Glad to get you on to talk about this. I think before we get into the nitty gritty details of, of what's going on here and, and I get a chance to ask you some of your thoughts on it. I was hoping you could start by giving us sort of a very bland, very boring understanding of what AB 24 0 8 is set out to do.

Mike Masnick  (00:03:42):
Sure. And, and I should note that it, the Bill's not law yet. It's it's past the assembly. It still has to go through the Senate, but it, it looks like that's, that's going to happen, but the, the bill is a response to the idea that social media is somehow addictive specifically for children. And so it's, it's a response to that and it has different provisions in there. Effectively trying to say that companies, social media companies cannot try to addict children is, is the shortest version of it. And if it does and, and any harm comes to any child because of the addictive nature of any social media platform, it allows parents to Sue and in fact, to file class action lawsuits against the websites for the addictive nature and the harm that was created. And as part of that, it tries to force the companies to set up an auditing program of any feature or part of their service that might possibly have addictive qualities and to try to stop those before they, they put those into effect. So that that's kind of the simplest summary of the

Mikah Sargent (00:04:59):
Bill. Yeah. A, a really good summary of it. I read through it this morning and looked at the different changes that took place and, and sort of what was defined. One of the things that I, I note right off the bat from what you were just discussing, what you were just talking about is that the scope seems awfully broad <laugh> am I understanding that correctly at like, is, what is it? It almost feels like in the text, they get very sort of hinting at what they're trying to, to focus on instead of actually just saying it outright. And so I'm curious with the broadness of this, what does it mean for, as they see it, as they seem to see it, a social media company to employ addictive tactics? Are we talking about a little, a little animation that comes up when you get alike or what is the actual addictive nature of social media, as far as these lawmakers seem to see it?

Mike Masnick  (00:05:58):
It, it seems incredibly broad and it really does seem with this bill. It really open to interpretation. The language is written in a very broad way and it's, it's, you know, it's one of these things that you know, it, it, it really kind of leaves it up to the courts, you know, because it allows people to file all of these suits, you know, almost anyone can file a lawsuit or, or, and make it a class action lawsuit over these features and claim that, that there was some sort of addictive nature to something that the, the platforms did. So I, I think, you know, my, my major concern with the bill is how, you know, how it's, it just becomes open season for lawsuits on all sorts of websites.

Mikah Sargent (00:06:38):
Yeah. So let's get into that. I'm curious to hear, well, I read your opinion on, on the piece, but I would love if you shared that kind of with our listeners because you go into detail, you you, you have some great passages in here from another piece. And I'm curious, kind of when you heard about this going through, I believe TechDirt wrote about it, or when you heard about this kind of making its way through the system, you'd heard you wrote about it, but now that it has passed in in, in one of the, the, the legislative bodies you've got more thoughts. And so kind of your take on this bill particularly with the quote unquote, save the children nature of, of things,

Mike Masnick  (00:07:23):
Right? And, and, and so, you know, there are lots of bills, you know, both at the federal con congressional level and in a bunch of state legislatures that are very focused on this idea that, you know, children are at risk, and it's a, it's a sort of a very easy political move to do, save the children, protect the children think of the children you know, and the fact is that, you know childhood is not, not perfect for everyone. And certainly people go through periods of times where they're depressed or they encounter challenges, or, or in the process of trying to figure out who they are, especially as teenagers, high school aged students, you know, they go through phases and some of those phases you know, may be dangerous and may certainly be risky, but this bill effectively allows parents to blame and Sue social media for, for each of those things. And, and I find that to be really risky, you know, certainly nobody wants their kids to be depressed, or nobody wants their kids to have eating disorders or to go through other you know areas where they, they may consider self harm. You know, those are obviously very scary and problematic issues, and there are issues that, that society should be working on dealing with. But I don't think blaming Facebook for that, I is a realistic answer or one that will actually help

Mikah Sargent (00:08:42):
Mm-Hmm <affirmative>. And one of the things that that you talk about in the piece, of course, you, you just mentioned it, there is sort of a pivot of that responsibility from the part of the parents to the part of, of social media. So a scenario I have a child under 18 and they are on social media and they get to a place where they are using social media regularly to the extent that it affects their schoolwork. It starts to affect their relationships with other people. They say that they would like to focus less on social media, but feel like they can't. And maybe we even go as far as going and seeing a neurologist or a neuropsychologist who does an E EEG and can see that there's heightened activity in the pleasure centers of the brain when they use the social media TWiTtter or, or, well, I guess a child would not be using TWiTtter, but <laugh> Instagram. And so only for us, all people who use TWiTtter anyway. So that seems to show this social media addiction that some psychologists and, and you know, sociologists have, have talked about. Now I can go to in this case, Instagram and, or go to the courts and say my child is addicted to social media. They're not going to pass high school and have to, you know, go to summer school. And now you owe me I can't even remember what was it? 25 K 

Mike Masnick  (00:10:22):
So 25,000,

Mikah Sargent (00:10:23):
Yeah, 25,000 for this issue. Where is the, the sort of larger concern that we see from the, the Cal matters article that you quoted from Adam SI who talked about kind of the concerns about free speech in regard to, to this, this situation?

Mike Masnick  (00:10:47):
Yeah, I, I mean, I mean, there are a bunch of concerns and, and I do think that the, the bill raises some constitutional issues specifically around the first amendment and free speech, because it's effectively, you know, trying to regulate forms of speech on the internet. And, and therefore there, there are some real concerns. And I think you know, Adam lays them out and, and he's a, you know, constitutional lawyer and a law professor. So he, you know, <laugh> understands a lot of, lot of the issues, but it's, you know, all of these bills, you know, it, it's, it's a tricky situation when you're looking to, to regulate the internet. And, and again, there are all of these bills and all sorts of state houses and, and in Washington DC where the, there's this fine line between regulating conduct and regulating speech.

Mike Masnick  (00:11:36):
Mm. And I think a lot of these bills in the, the effort to sort of appeal to, to a kind of popular audience and to say, you know, we're saving the children ignores that line and, and definitely gets at regulating speech and limiting speech rather than specifically trying to, to regulate conduct. And, you know, that's tricky when you're, you're dealing with a platform, the internet as a whole that is mostly made up of speech, right. <Laugh>, you know, there, there are some conduct elements to it, but it is majority is speech. And so you have to be really, really careful and really, really thoughtful how you would approach any kind of regulatory you know, intervention here. And I, I think this bill ignores that entirely and, and just goes down this path that is this clearly regulating speech. And I think that if this bill actually does pass and becomes law then it will be challenged and it will almost certainly be thrown out on, on first amendment grounds.

Mikah Sargent (00:12:34):
Now, one of the, the things in this piece that I think is or not in this piece, but rather in the, the bill it says content means anything communicated by means of an internet service publicly or privately, including written material or messages, oral communications, et cetera. This, they, they talk about sort of what does not, what is not considered applicable here. And they're, they do have a lot and in there, including social media platform here, it is social media platform does not include any of the following, an email service and SMS, and MMS service, a service offering one to one communication orally a business that is an internal resource or tool, even as far as going into posting comments or reviews related to content produced and published by the provider. And I think they even go as far as to say the, the content that is posted to these these, these different platforms from different users is not included in that. It is just the, the, the sort of social media platforms. Can you talk about that a little bit, because I think that that's where people kind of can get hung up because it does sound like they're trying to separate the two, but right. I think the bigger concern here is precedence, right?

Mike Masnick  (00:14:00):
Yeah. And, and so that's exactly what the, that, that section is trying to do. It is looking to, to, you know, they know that this Bill's going to get challenged and when they go to court, they wanna point to that section and say, see, look, we're not regulating anyone's speech. We're only trying to regulate the, the conduct. The issue is that, you know, so, so the, the way that, that, you know, California would argue this is that they will say that, you know, it's, it's the, the features of the service. So things like likes and notifications and whatnot that are the, the addictive quality. And it's not the content that is bringing people back. I think that's, that's a really difficult argument to make. Mm-Hmm, <affirmative>, you know, the reason that people are using Instagram and TikTok and, and whatever else is not the, the likes and the notifications, it's the content that they're receiving. Mm-Hmm, <affirmative> you know, this bill tries to, to effectively ignore that and insist that, that, that is not the case. And I think that's a really difficult argument to make. And I think that the course will have a, a difficult time believing that the state is just narrowly regulating that type of activity rather than you know, attaching it to the underlying content.

Mikah Sargent (00:15:10):
Yeah. And in the Cal matters article even makes the argument that algorithms could very well fall within first amendment rights, because those algorithms are created by human beings that are setting certain editorial rules for those so fascinating.

Mike Masnick  (00:15:28):
Yeah. It's, it's it, I mean, that issue is, is kind of complicated. And it's one that I think is important to, to think through this idea that like recommendation algorithm is that protected speech. And there's a really strong argument that it is because a recommendation is an opinion, you know, it is suggesting what, what you should be reading, and that is a form of expression. And therefore there's a very strong argument and there are a number of different precedents that suggest that recommendation algorithms are protected speech in any attempt to, to regulate them would, would run afoul of the first amendment.

Mikah Sargent (00:16:00):
My last question for you should this bill make it through the Senate and get signed by the governor of California. What are your sort of crystal ball predictions of how social social media companies will respond to this? Are they gonna wait for the Supreme court to, to shoot it down? Are they going to immediately ban all people under the age of 18 or claim to be under the age of 18? How do you think this plays out if it is going to pass?

Mike Masnick  (00:16:27):
I, I, I mean, it's a big question. I mean, you know, I, I, there, there's a number of different paths that they could take, you know, based on how they've responded to different, but in some ways related bills in Florida and Texas I, I think what they'll do is Sue and, and they will Sue to invalidate the law and say that the law violates the first amendment. And, and also is preempted by section two 30. And there's a, there's a few other, you know, legal paths that they can take. I'm sure they will discuss the idea of like, you know, banning people under the age of 18. I think that's kind of the nuclear option. I don't think that they would do that immediately, but I, I have no direct insight into what any of the platforms would, would necessarily do, but I, but the most likely thing is they would go to court, try and stop the law, and then, you know, have that process play out, which may take a few years before it's determined. And, and ultimately I think pretty clearly the courts, unless something major changes the courts would find this bill unconstitutional. Mm-Hmm

Mikah Sargent (00:17:24):
<Affirmative> well, Mike Masnick, I wanna thank you so much for taking some time out of your day to join us here on Tech News Weekly, of course, folks can head over to tech, dirt.com to check out your work. Is there anywhere else they should go and watch out for those algorithms that are addicting them?

Mike Masnick  (00:17:38):
<Laugh> I, I do rattle on, on TWiTtter quite often. So TWiTtter <laugh> at M Masick it is if, if you wanna see the the pre-processed thoughts before I write stuff out more, more carefully on Tector.

Mikah Sargent (00:17:54):
Sounds good. Thank you so much. We appreciate it. Thank

Mike Masnick  (00:17:56):
You. Thank

Mikah Sargent (00:17:57):
You. All right. Up next is DuckDuckGo as privacy focused, as we want to believe, we will hear about that shortly, but first this episode of Tech News Weekly is brought to you by Melissa. You know, Melissa poor data quality can cost organizations an average of 15 million each year. The longer poor quality data stays in your system. The more losses you could accumulate to ensure your business is successful. Your customer information needs to be accurate. Melissa is a leading provider of global data quality and address management solutions. There's another side to accurate data customer service. If you address someone with the wrong name or verify the wrong address, when dealing with an already frustrated customer, things can get awkward real quick. You need Melissa's identity solutions. Melissa's real time. Identity verification, service includes identity ID and document verification, age authentication, and global watch list screening to establish the identity of a consumer or satisfy AML KYC compliance.

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Jason Howell (00:20:50):
All right. Doc dot go. As you mentioned carved out a place for itself in this like sea of search engines specifically around privacy, right? It's the browser? Well, they have a browser, but the, the search engine itself has been an option for people who are hyper-focused on keeping their searches, private and secure. This is really DuckDuckGo's total identity bleeping computer reported this week. That is perhaps at least it's browser product might not be as tracker free as some might believe. And we're gonna dive right into that. Joining us to talk about this is my good friend and a familiar face to all TWiTTs, Tom Merrit. Welcome back to the show, Tom.

Tom Merritt (00:21:31):
Hey, thanks, Jason. Good to be here.

Jason Howell (00:21:33):
Awesome to have you here, man. It's always great to see you on the other side of the glass. So absolutely. Let's talk a little bit about DuckDuckGo. You wrote about it. So we're gonna dive right in before we kind of get to Microsoft's involvement and why people are, you know, kind of up in arms about this. Talk a little bit about their mission duck go's mission. I know, you know, there are times where duck go is the right solution for me, I'm sure everybody, you know, can find reasons to go to DuckDuckGo. They want that secure search engine experience. How have they done in recent years in cultivating that, that kind of identity around their search engine and competing to others? Behem this like Google?

Tom Merritt (00:22:11):
Yeah. Their, their marketing is very focused around privacy. Even very recently, they've been calling out Google for tracking and pointing out that the DuckDuckGo search engine is anonymous. They're very transparent about how the search engine works in recording your IP address, but not building profiles. It does sell ads, which is kind of how it gotten the trouble that we're gonna talk about in a minute. But the ads are contextual. They are not built around a profile, so they are not trying to say, well, we think this person likes this kind of stuff. They're saying, well, this person is searching for cats on the moon. So let's, you know, try to sell 'em pet products or something like that. We're we're very familiar with DuckDuckGo's privacy protection on the search engine. As you mentioned, they also have a browser that they have been trying to promote as an alternative to other privacy protecting browsers like brave and the DuckDuckGo privacy brand from search was supposed to be applied to this browser, which it mostly

Jason Howell (00:23:12):
Is <laugh> mostly. Hmm. They should put that on the if, if, if they sold it in store don't they're

Tom Merritt (00:23:17):
Box, I don't the pull quote

Jason Howell (00:23:19):
<Laugh>, it's mostly secure, mostly private. All right. So we get the news now that, that there's this like Microsoft I don't know. I don't know if it's a partnership or what, whatever it is behind the scenes, there's some sort of deal that DuckDuckGo has with Microsoft that brings them into the mix. Explain how that works from what we understand from what we know. And like you said, this is I think there's, there's probably been some confusion in how this has been reported around the browser product versus the search product. This is specific to the browser, I believe. What is Microsoft's involvement there?

Tom Merritt (00:23:55):
No, exactly. And a, as you mentioned, a security researcher named Zach Edwards discovered that the browser, which says it's not allowing tracking was allowing a particular type of tracking for Microsoft on non-Microsoft sites. If it was on Microsoft, it wouldn't be a problem that's first party tracking mm-hmm <affirmative> and even brave doesn't by default block, first party tracking. So that wouldn't have been a problem, but it was allowing third party, Microsoft tracking and a very specific kind the kind of tracking it was allowing was a script that DuckDuckGo's browser was blocking from loading from Facebook, from Google, but not from Microsoft. It was still blocking setting third party cookies. It was still blocking fingerprinting. So duck, duck Echo's defense is to say like, we are still protecting your privacy more than most browsers, more than Chrome, more than safari, et cetera.

Tom Merritt (00:24:51):
But it hadn't been transparent that this particular tracking script, which could send some telemetry back to Microsoft was allowed to load Gabriel Weinberg posted on TWiTtter, that this was because of the deal DuckDuckGo has with Microsoft for search syndication the search results on the DuckDuckGo search engine come from Microsoft in part, and the advertising is also sold through a search syndication with Microsoft as part of that deal. Apparently they had a provision that prevented DuckDuckGo from blocking the tracking on the browser. And Weinberg also said that there was a provision of confidentiality, which is, which had prevented them from telling anyone about it. My guess is that when that deal was signed for search DuckDuckGo, didn't contemplate making a browser at any point. And so lawyers being lawyers, you know, they, they tried to push to get as much as possible push duck, duck, go into allowing that with duck, go thinking well, that doesn't impact search. And now it does Gabriel Weinberg has said, we're trying to get Microsoft to change that provision so that we can also block that particular kind of tracking on the browser as well. But we'll see if they can get that done.

Jason Howell (00:26:08):
I guess, where my mind is heading with this is, you know, the, the question of, okay, so, so DuckDuckGo is a, you know, as we've said, privacy focused product, people use that product because they believe they're getting the most privacy protection, let's say whether they are or not. That's, you know, that's, that's what, what is out there to, to believe why, why the exception here with Microsoft? I mean specifically, like what I wanna, what I wanna ask and what I wanna know is if there are other deals kind of like this, and Microsoft's just the one that's been discovered, but sure. I don't know. What do you think about that?

Tom Merritt (00:26:44):
Yeah, it's, it's a, it's a matter of trust, right? Yeah, absolutely. I get where DuckDuckGo came from, which is we made a deal before we made a browser and it made us do this thing, make this exception. And we couldn't tell anybody about it because of the deal, but that is a legitimate question. What other deals do you have? The thing is the security researcher that, that found this Zach Edwards found that Facebook was being blocked. Google was being blocked. So there's no obvious exceptions other than Microsoft, my guess is there probably aren't any other exceptions outside of Microsoft. There might be some other Microsoft stuff happening that, that hasn't been discovered, but it's not obvious stuff like cookies or fingerprinting or anything like that, that all checks out. So this is more, a matter of perception than actual damage in the end, Dr.

Tom Merritt (00:27:36):
KO's browser does a better job than almost every browser out there, except for maybe brave and a few others at protecting your privacy. And it had this one little exception, which it's now doing the right thing and saying, okay, now that it's out there and, and the confidentiality agreement you know, has been, has been maybe not breached, but, but, you know, has, has been bypassed by public conversation. We can say, we're trying to get Microsoft to change this. I think DuckDuckGo has done everything right since it became public and probably was stuck in a corner because of a legal agreement that in hindsight, it shouldn't have agreed to, but maybe they just didn't under didn't realize what they were agreeing to at the time would prevent them from making a browser cuz they had no plans making a browser. That makes any sense.

Jason Howell (00:28:25):
Absolutely makes a lot of sense. I mean, you know, especially, especially when you're getting into business in the search engine market, right? Like <laugh> what a business to like try and and break into for DuckDuckGo. I've always kind of appreciated how well they've done considering the the behemoths that they're always up against and you know, so they, they were able to, I, I believe successfully carve out kind of a, a, a corner of that search engine market and capitalize also on this like rising awareness in the public sphere around privacy and protection. So I, you know, I give them a lot of credit for doing what, for pulling off what they have at a time where it really seemed like, Hey, why would you even come out with a search engine? There are no search engines that can compete anymore. So at least there's that the, there is a, there is a lot of value to disclosure. And I think at the end of the day, this is a ripe example of that, right? Like if do you think the situation would've been different, if when DuckDuckGo released this browser, it had as an asterisk on the app store or the play store. And it said, you know, it made some sort of disclosure about this Microsoft thing. We we'd probably be in a different place right now. I would imagine

Tom Merritt (00:29:35):
AB yeah, absolutely. The right thing for them to do would be to have disclosed this. It sounds like, and this is a little mushy Weinberg is implying that the confidentiality agreement prevented them from doing that. Mm-Hmm <affirmative> but there's also app store rules that require yeah. That sort of disclosure. And they say, they're, they're working on changing their, their app store descriptions to address that. So yeah, I think they could have done possibly a little better either by pushing back on Microsoft to say, Hey, we're launching this browser and this is a problem it's possible that they just didn't think anyone would find out until they got it switched. And then they thought, well, if we get it switched, then no one needs to know. And because we're protecting privacy more than most browsers anyway, we don't feel bad about it. It, that would be the only hint of hubris.

Tom Merritt (00:30:24):
I, I could detect there, but otherwise, I mean, I don't know that if I'm DuckDuckGo, I wouldn't have agreed to that same amount of terms to get the advertising deal done because without the advertising deal, you don't have a business plan for a search engine because you so far, nobody's been able to make a subscription based search engine work. You know, you see, you can see email, you see somebody like proton doing subscription based and not taking ads and, and doing better and better all the time. But people just aren't willing to pay for search engines yet. So you, you had to compromise somewhere and that, I think that's the, the little space in the armor that let this through.

Jason Howell (00:30:58):
Yeah. Yeah. Indeed. I totally agree with you at this, at this point in the game though are you concerned at all? Like, are you like, are you a fan of DuckDuckGo? Do you use it and would, would this, would this impact your your desire to use it in the future?

Tom Merritt (00:31:12):
Sure. Yeah. I use duck do go as my default on mobile for sure. And I think they're very good. There are times when I still have to turn to Google for particular things, but, but for, you know, run of the mill everyday searches, they're great. This is not going to change my using them for that. Because this is about the browser I wasn't using the browser. And even my friend, Scott Johnson, who uses the browser is not gonna turn away from them because of this. Because again, he's like, well, I would've preferred knowing about this, but it's still protecting my privacy more than others. And I'm not that concerned about it, but I think it is going to be felt by Doug do go. Yeah, because lots of other people are not going to take this well and, and people have kneejerk reactions and are going to apply it to the search engine as well as the browser. Because what you said earlier about trust, they're gonna say, well, I don't know what else you're not disclosing, so I'm not gonna trust you anymore.

Jason Howell (00:32:03):
Yeah. Some people are very, very unforgiving and when it comes to privacy, I mean, understandably so. Right.

Tom Merritt (00:32:09):
People are ex especially sensitive about privacy. So, and, and if, and there's also that that internet sense of of of, of, of, of you said one thing and you did another, right. The hypocrisy of it is going to drive people crazy where they're like, you've been saying you are the most private, and then you did this and now we will never forgive

Jason Howell (00:32:32):
You. Yeah. The, what, what keeps popping up in my mind is the comment you meant and mind, you know, mind you, you were speculating around this, but was the the comment of like, I just didn't think I would get caught. And that just that right there always stings, you know, is like as, as a reason or a rationale for something that never really works very well. Never makes people happy. Let's just say finally take a couple minutes. Tell us about your new newsletter. You just launched this recently. That's why we have you on the first place. Cuz I, I read newsletter and I was like, dang, I gave you a Tom on. So tell us

Tom Merritt (00:33:04):
About it. Hey, thanks man. Yeah. tech, Tom like tech time, but with Tom tech, tom.stack.com it's a lot of the writing I do for the daily tech news show adapted for reading. So when there's a big story, like the DuckDuckGo story I'll put that out for everybody to read for free and there's some, some special, more in depth things like a weekly Roundup that I just put out for paid subscribers. But it's, it's sort of, as the news comes in, it gets published tech, tom.subs.com

Jason Howell (00:33:33):
Right on everybody should go and check that out yet. Another vector for Tom, me awesomeness, Tom, you are so great. Thanks so much for hopping on today. It's always great to get to talk to you.

Tom Merritt (00:33:42):
Hey, thanks fans. Good to talk to you.

Jason Howell (00:33:44):
<Laugh> we'll see you soon and best of luck with the subst. Appreciate it. All right. Up next. You're gonna dive into a little bit around the Apple self repair service. Yeah. Of which I saw a couple of really large crates in our office. Yeah. Yeah. Mm-hmm <affirmative> so I can't wait to hear you talk about that, but first let's take a moment to thank the sponsor of this episode. Tech News Weekly, and that is checkout.com. We talk about innovation, groundbreaking innovation on this show and on this network all the time. That's because tech should be groundbreaking. It should be innovating all the time. Traditional payment systems, they're heavily layered. They're disconnected. They're perceived as a cost center to the business. So modern businesses actually need flexible payment systems that can help them adapt to change, to grow, to scale fast, all the things you want when you're growing your business.

Jason Howell (00:34:35):
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Jason Howell (00:35:43):
And you just, you get so much with checkout.com, right, right out of the gate, you get global optimization. They actually provide local acquiring in multiple geographies that improves your authorization rates and lowers your costs. Thankfully transparency. They have a very transparent fee structure. It's clear, it's straightforward. They have in-depth reporting that gives you visibility no matter where you happen to operate also local expertise, dedicated local teams that actually bring regional international and regulatory expertise that allows you to navigate market complexities with confidence. Like you have the team on your side and then finally strategic partnership. They actually take a collaborative, personalized approach to solving complex problems for their merchants and their ecosystem partners. And personally, I actually also really appreciate, they have a super simple API that developers, if you're a developer and you want to integrate this, help integrate this into your business, they should make it really easy. It's just a, you know, a short blip of code and you get all of the benefits of checkout.com. Discover how checkout.com can help your business thrive. All you gotta do. All you gotta remember is check out.com/tnw. That should be easy to remember. Check out.com/tnw, make sure and use that URL that way they know that you heard about it through Tech News Weekly. And we thank checkout.com for their support of this show. All right, Micah, tell us all about it.

Mikah Sargent (00:37:08):
Breathe in.

Jason Howell (00:37:09):
Oh, was that good of an experience? Breathe

Mikah Sargent (00:37:11):
Out. Yeah. So here's the deal? A while back I believe it was actually last year. It may have been, may have been last year. Apple announced that it was going to be introducing what it called the self-service repair program. At the time, there weren't many details. The company said, Hey, we're going to be doing this thing that allows people to get the parts and the tools that they need to be able to fix their own devices. We'll launch with a limited number of of parts and tools for those parts. And it's going to be handled by a third party. So we waited and waited and then some articles went out on some different publications that were saying, oh, remember how Apples said they were gonna do this thing. They have yet to do this thing. And then not too long after that Apple put out a new announcement saying, Hey, we've got it all in place.

Mikah Sargent (00:38:10):
We're ready to do this. They launched with a company called spot S P OT and it's you can go to self-service repair.com, which is Apple's self-service repair store for Apple products. And this is where you get the genuine Apple parts and the genuine Apple tools to do the process. So I wanted to see what it was like to do a self-service repair using Apple's now official process of note I have fixed I've replaced batteries and MacBook pros. I've fixed iPhone screens, I've replaced batteries and iPhones. I've done a lot of those different repairs. I've always used. I fix it. I fix it. Dot com. You go there, you type in the name of your I've fixed Kindles. That way. I have a really old Kindle that I love. It's the Kindle keyboard. And it was a, I think it was a Christmas present or a graduation gift, one of the two.

Mikah Sargent (00:39:07):
And like, to this day it means a lot to me, but also it works great and the wrong was it, the battery kept dying. So TWiTce now I've replaced the battery and then it's like new again. And when you did that, it, how easy was that process? I went to I fix it. I looked up my Kindle. I ordered the piece and it came in the mail, you know, maybe within the week. It had it, it was a little low on instructions, but that was again at the time. So I had to take, you know, pry it open, get it plopped in, and then it was fine. It was not that hard. What was more difficult? The, the most difficult repair I've ever done was fixing a friend's MacBook pro battery. I essentially had to completely take apart the whole machine on the inside.

Mikah Sargent (00:39:50):
Oh my God. That sounds so stressful to me. <Laugh> I? Yeah, I flipped it over and I had all my stuff laid out. I had my screwdrivers going, everything had to come outta the device and at the end and you had to put it in order and exactly, it's a little place to screw. You reverse it. Oh gosh, everything. And then you also had to use I fix had had this adhesive removal kit that had like acetone or some similar substance to remove the glue and be able to pull it all apart. Yeah. In any case, the instructions were there. I had all the pieces I needed. It was great. It worked fine. So fast forward to wanting to do this self-service repair. I've got an iPhone 12 that I use as a, as a camera.

Mikah Sargent (00:40:35):
And my, my main iPhone is an iPhone 13. So I had this extra iPhone 12 that I use as a camera and we wanted to fix the, originally we were gonna fix the display in it, but that is actually a really expensive process. So it didn't have a broken screen. It was fine. Mm-Hmm <affirmative> we would've been breaking it to do the repair. And that's just, that's a lot. Yeah. If it was an iPhone se we could have done that, but with an iPhone 12, that screen is very expensive. So we decided let's just replace the battery in it. That's not a very hard repair and it'll also give us a chance to, to check everything out. So hopped onto the self-service repair store for Apple products started my order went through the process that I've got an iPhone 12 pro max that I need to replace the battery in ordered the parts.

Mikah Sargent (00:41:17):
And part of the process that's involved is you can you can order the parts, but you can also order Apple's official tools that help you take apart the device. Okay. So they give you access to the repair manual, the official Apple repair manual, and you actually have to go through it and find there's a special code in it that you then have to type in to show that you read it basically. So they just wanna make sure before they let you do this, that you actually did do your, your I can, yeah, I can respect that. That's fair. You need to do your, your homework before you can do this repair, especially if wanna like maintain a warranty or something like that. So, right. The, it costs $49 to rent the tools from Apple and you get them for seven days.

Mikah Sargent (00:42:07):
Okay. So I went through placed the order, did all of that stuff. They do put a temporary, hold on your card for the cost of the tools that you get. So you think you might be thinking you're going in for maybe $150. There will be until you return the tools, an $1,100 charge on your card. For some people with credit cards where there's a lot of, of room, that's not a big deal, but I think about where I'm from where a lot of the people that I know don't have credit cards with a whole lot of room on them. Mm-Hmm <affirmative> and in some cases have to use debit cards. And so they, you know, having $1,100 in the card actually is not a great thing. So anyway, they will do have a problem with that personally, but did that. And I got the notification.

Mikah Sargent (00:42:55):
I was so excited. Ooh, the, the, the packages are coming in the mail. I've actually got them here. They ship these gigantic boxes. These are Pelican cases. Yeah. they ship in these two gigantic Pelican cases. There's foam inside. That's shaped for the different tools that are in there. And I got a ups tracking number. Right. And it was a three part shipment. There were two shipping numbers for both of those cases and one shipping number for the actual part that I need to do the repair. So last or may. Yeah, it would've to been last Thursday. I got a notification that two things were delivered. And the night before I got a notification saying we were delayed in getting the shipment onto the, you know, truck or whatever. I can't remember exactly what words they used. So a new shipping, a new delivery time will come later.

Mikah Sargent (00:43:49):
Mm-Hmm <affirmative> okay. So I come into the studio and I figured that it was, I didn't know, at the time that it was multiple shipping numbers. So when I saw that it was delivered, I thought that meant everything mm-hmm <affirmative>. So I came in and yeah, there's my, my TWiTtter, where I was like, oh, you know, talk about extra. These boxes are huge, but stay tuned. Cause we're gonna be doing a video low and behold, I opened those up. There's no battery inside for me to actually do the replacement. There's no replacement adhesive for me to do the replacement. There's no screws that I'm supposed to be using to do the replacement. What the heck is going on? I check the tracking number. That's when I find out there are three parts. And the part that hasn't arrived yet is the part that I actually need to do the repair.

Mikah Sargent (00:44:32):
So remember, I've got seven days to return this or else they're gonna keep that $1,100 charge on my card. Right. So I reach out to the self-service repair store and say, Hey just need to get a clarification here. I haven't gotten the the repair part yet. I've got seven days to make the return that's once everything has arrived, right? No. What? No. As soon as you get the tools, that's when the countdown starts. I said, excuse me, I can't do the repair. That is so bizarre. I cannot do the repair until I get the piece. And they said on the phone and I, I am what's the word? Paraphrasing a little bit, but the, these words were used yeah, this is an ongoing problem with our policy. So change it. So yeah, I said, all right. If I don't get the part in time that I'm going to have to return the tools, so I don't get charged for them.

Mikah Sargent (00:45:35):
And then I can't do the replacement of the battery. Yeah. Okay. Can I talk to someone who might be able to talk to me about an extension on that rental? Yeah. Yes. We'll have to have a manager call you back. I gave them two phone numbers. If you don't reach me at the first one, call me on the second one. I haven't heard anything from them. Are you serious? So when are these due to go back? These have to go back tomorrow, tomorrow. So I have to get them to ups. Tomorrow morning at the latest ups said what a waste of time, money, a waste of time, a waste of money. Oh my God. A whole Hunn box of anxiety. And like, I it's supposed, it's a package it's supposed to arrive today. However, and this is where ups is at issue.

Mikah Sargent (00:46:28):
It was in California on Monday. They sent it, it came from you know, from wherever to Illinois, from Illinois to California, they sent it back to Illinois. Oh, are you kidding me on Tuesday? And then sent it back to us from there. So yesterday I got a notification that, Hey, actually your package is going to arrive today, Wednesday, yesterday at that point, I'm looking at it going. Yeah. Right. And I was right at like 11:00 PM. It said your package is set to arrive today still. No, it's not. <Laugh> you're closed. So supposed to come today, if it does not come today, then I literally will not be able to use all of these tools to do the repair. I don't wish this on my worst enemy to have to deal with all of this. Yeah. When I could go and let's just go right now, I fix it.com.

Mikah Sargent (00:47:24):
I will type in at the top, in the search bar, iPhone 12 pro max I find the iPhone 12 pro max. I want to replace the battery for the iPhone 12 pro max. And so I will scroll and find the battery. Where is that? There's the featured guide for replacing the battery, but I don't think it has the link in it. There we go. Iphone 12 pro max battery replacement with the tools included the fixed kit that has an eye opener. It has the necessary screw drivers or drivers. It has the suction cups that you need and the battery and adhesive $45 for the whole thing.

Jason Howell (00:48:10):
And you get it within a few

Mikah Sargent (00:48:11):
Days and you get it within a few days. And if I wanted to just get the battery, cuz I've got all the, I Fixit tools myself as I do only $40 and none of this stress and overhead and nonsense, that's involved in these Pelican cases. So I to say the least am, I'm not angry. I'm just disappointed.

Jason Howell (00:48:33):
Yeah. Disappointment. Right.

Mikah Sargent (00:48:35):
I'm very disappointed.

Jason Howell (00:48:36):
Disappointed too. What a,

Mikah Sargent (00:48:38):
And this is the process. This is the thing that annoys me the most is that Apple is going to get to say, we hired a third party to do this. This is on them. You know what I mean? Yeah. That's, I'm sure why they did it. Yeah. Because it's that company's responsibility to figure out the logistics. It's, that's company's responsibility to get the pieces to where they need to go.

Jason Howell (00:48:56):
I mean, I feel like I heard this already on the network and it could have been you, it could have been someone else. I can't remember who said it, but it gosh, because we talked about this, did we talk about this with Dan Warren a few weeks ago?

Mikah Sargent (00:49:07):
We may have. Yeah. Yeah. And

Jason Howell (00:49:08):
So maybe it

Mikah Sargent (00:49:09):
Was Dan. It was when they actually finally launched

Jason Howell (00:49:11):
It. Right. When they finally launched it. That's right. So it's probably from that conversation where someone said, either you or Dan said, like this was the minimum amount that Apple actually had to do to be able to say we support, self-repair see. Yes, we're doing the right thing. Meanwhile it's it's like the, honestly it feels very passive aggressive.

Mikah Sargent (00:49:31):
Yes. So this is Leo coined wait and coined the term. But he, he called out the term perfectly this past Saturday, it's called malicious compliance, malicious compliance. And it is that they, there we go. Where, when you tell your brother who's annoying you, when you say I stop poking me. And so instead of poking you, they start slapping you. Yeah. I'm not poking you. I'm not poking. You said I can't

Jason Howell (00:49:53):
Poke you.

Mikah Sargent (00:49:53):
Right. Malicious compliance. And not to mention this cannot be environmentally friendly to send these Pelican cases out all the time to these different places for people who are wanting to do the self-service repair.

Jason Howell (00:50:05):
No, no, absolutely. It feels very irresponsible.

Mikah Sargent (00:50:09):
And they shipped the package back to Illinois and back out to California. So that's even more of carbon waste.

Jason Howell (00:50:15):
I mean, I could, I, and I could, I can already hear Apple saying no, but this is necessary if you wanna do it. Right. Like yeah, of course we could ship out out, you know, a little kit that I fix it does, but you're probably gonna get it wrong. You know, if we're gonna do they, is there any sort of like, they don't certify it after you fix it. Like

Mikah Sargent (00:50:30):
You do have to, you have to contact the self-service repair program and they download the special thing to your phone that you, then it, it does a thing to make sure that everything is, is where it's supposed to be and how it's supposed to be. Yeah. So there is, there's a little bit more of a process involved, but I've also heard cuz there have been a few other people who have done this, who didn't have the ups issue who actually did get all the pieces and parts in time who said that it was so much harder to do it this way than it was to do it. Like an I Fixit route because well, there are a whole bunch of reasons. I don't wanna get too much into it because fingers crossed. I'm still getting the tools today or the part today so that we can actually do this video that I really want to do. Awesome.

Jason Howell (00:51:10):
I hope so.

Mikah Sargent (00:51:11):
Cuz otherwise, like I said, it just has to go back and that would be ridiculous.

Jason Howell (00:51:16):
So. Wow. And I'm also curious to know if they know that it's an issue that the kit is arriving before, the part, how are they shipping the, how is the part being shipped? Yeah. Is it an overnight thing?

Mikah Sargent (00:51:27):
Right? It has to be shipped separately if there's an issue. Because like I said, it was one tracking number that had three tracking numbers kind of built into it. Yeah. Which I, I had remembered ups doing that in the past, but I always got them all at the same time. So the fact that they didn't that they didn't come in at all that the, the third package didn't come in. My, my suggestion, Tim, Tim. Good morning, Tim, Tim Apple,

Jason Howell (00:51:54):
Tim Apple.

Mikah Sargent (00:51:55):
My suggestion for you is to call your friends at spot and tell them, Hey, send out the part first. Yes. And then once it's delivered, send out the tools,

Jason Howell (00:52:10):
Hey, that's

Mikah Sargent (00:52:10):
Not about because they're going to keep the part, like the part is the thing that they will keep no matter what. Yeah. The tools are the things that have to go back. So how fast did

Jason Howell (00:52:17):
You

Mikah Sargent (00:52:17):
Get the tools? The tools were within a week.

Jason Howell (00:52:20):
Oh, so it was still a,

Mikah Sargent (00:52:22):
Yeah, it wasn't an overnight or anything like that or at least from my end, it wasn't an overnight. Right. Who knows how long it took em to get em together and then send them out. And

Jason Howell (00:52:28):
I, I suppose that's kind of part of the issue here too, is that, you know, like you're you review phones, you've probably got a couple of phones, you know, in your possession, if you need to be out a phone, you're okay. Exactly. That somebody

Mikah Sargent (00:52:41):
Else, somebody who's actually they, and this is what I'm saying. When I lived in Missouri, it was a three hour drive to the nearest Apple store. That's why I went to, I fix it and fixed things when they were broken because I'm not gonna drive three hours. The gas at that costs the pay, the payment that you have to pay at the time for the repair, drop it off,

Jason Howell (00:52:56):
Drop, drop

Mikah Sargent (00:52:57):
Back later, drop, go back later. Some people don't have multiple phones. They have their one phone. And that's why they're doing this because they think, oh, I can do it in one day. I can get my phone fixed. Now they're just stuck. And then on top of that, like there's so much about this. Yeah. That's just ridiculous. So,

Jason Howell (00:53:13):
Well, I hope you get the part. I would love, love to see the final product

Mikah Sargent (00:53:17):
As Anthony pointed out. Even if I don't get the part, we'll at least do a tour of the tools. So you can see what I would've been using to do the repair.

Jason Howell (00:53:24):
<Laugh> I mean, that's really honestly, that's part of the, that's a big part of the story, right?

Mikah Sargent (00:53:29):
Yeah. It is kind of about the tools. There are some really cool things. I've already looked in those boxes. Oh, that's the other, they come with these red zip tag things on them. And so you have to cut them. So people, you would know if someone else had opened them and they ship in the box, new ones to put on before you send it back. Oh, interesting. It's all very, you know, kind of official or whatever, but yeah, inside of that, those two boxes, there's some pretty neat, neat tools. That interesting need to go back. So yeah.

Jason Howell (00:53:56):
<Laugh> well, I hope it all works out. <Laugh> that's

Mikah Sargent (00:54:00):
Me too. Me too. All right. Let's take a quick break. So I can tell you about our pals at zip recruiter, before we hear about how to protect yourself from social media dissociation, zip recruiter is the sponsor this week. Certain people just make life so much easier. You've got those, those people that do that. You don't know what you do without them. Maybe it's your partner, your friend, or your personal assistant. It's like, if you need to grow your business, zip recruiter makes hiring so much easier because they do the work for you. And now you can try it for free@ziprecruiter.com slash T NW, zip recruiters, technology finds the right candidates for your job, and you can invite your top choices to apply. So they go, oh, nice. I got an invite. This is great. Four outta five employers who post on zip recruiter get a quality candidate within the first day. No wonder zip recruiter is the number one rated hiring site based on G2 ratings as of January 1st, 2022. The hardest thing you have to do is to remember our special URL. We keep it simple to try ZipRecruiter for free. Just remember this URL. It's ziprecruiter.com/t N w again, that's zip recruiter.com/tnw. Thank you. Zip recruiter for sponsoring this week's episode of Tech News Weekly, Jason Howell take

Jason Howell (00:55:26):
It away. So I realized as you were talking with Mike Masick that there's, there's definitely some crossover between that story and the one that the research that I, that I ran across. So social media, obviously huge part of everyone's lives. It's a huge part of the technology landscape right now. You love it or hate it. You're probably on social media at this point and will wear, or another were researchers at the university of Washington, did a study to analyze the ways that we actually use social media. And I'm sure there are a lot of studies that do this. This one was, was a little unique. It focused actually on kind of the dissociative qualities of, of social media when we use

Mikah Sargent (00:56:06):
It. Sorry, could you repeat that? I was zoned out. Oh yeah.

Jason Howell (00:56:09):
Associated, sorry. Sorry. Yeah, come back to me.

Mikah Sargent (00:56:10):
Here

Jason Howell (00:56:10):
We go. Distive qualities of social media. Got it. Got it. Sorry. I have to remind you every 10 minutes to come back.

Mikah Sargent (00:56:17):
I gotta Sue somebody for social media and

Jason Howell (00:56:19):
Addiction too. Right? Right. And specifically how social media impacts our lives as we're using it how it shapes how we feel about ourselves, all of these things and what is this? And this is what really kind of resonates between the masic article and what we're talking about here. What is this addictive? And I'll put that in air quotes, addictive quality that we feel that users talk about when they talk about their social media use. I know I've, I've felt that at times like, oh, so addicted to TWiTtter, I need to like, take a break. I need to take a step back because every, you know, little moment is me, you know, staring at the feed and scrolling, scrolling as they, and that, you know, it feels like an addiction, right? Because we're, it's this habit that we're so used to doing well, the group presented its findings.

Jason Howell (00:57:02):
It was a paper titled. I don't even remember what I read colon, how design influences dissociation on social media. So it was presented earlier this month at the 2022 conference on human factors and computing. Ooh, I can't wait to read this thing now. Yeah. That sounds like a really good piece. They had participants using TWiTtter via a specific app called chirp. And the reason that they were using a specific app is because they could build certain things into the app experience, got it. To facilitate for the, for the study and they could watch people's behavior while using it. Now, granted the, the people weren't like in a room, they weren't being analyzed while they were using it. It was more during the course of an entire month mm-hmm <affirmative>, those people would use TWiTtter via chirp for all of their TWiTtter interactions, their browsing, that sort of stuff.

Jason Howell (00:57:49):
When they're using the app, after three minutes of interacting with it they would be asked on a scale of one to five, how much they agreed with this statement. I am currently using chirp without really paying attention to what I'm doing. And then afterwards that would pop up every 15 minutes. So depending on your usage, you'd get this prompt every once in a while. And it, it would served as kind of like an interruption, right? Because so often we pull out our phones, we scroll, next thing we know it's an hour later and you've fallen down that rabbit hole. You're like, what just happened to the past hour? I, you know, I don't even know what I read. Like, I couldn't even tell you, like recite to you what I read, but I read something for the past hour and people were outraged or whatever the case may be huge state.

Jason Howell (00:58:29):
Yes. This, this acted as a way to kind of interrupt that, that mesmerizing kind of hypnosis <laugh> of sorts and, and ask like, where are you right now? Are you actually engaged with what you're reading? Or are you just mindlessly scrolling and you know, kind of in a wormhole, what they found was that around half of the users strongly identified with the idea of dissociation while using TWiTtter. And I mean, personally, that sounds kinda low to me. I, I had just have a hard, yeah, that is hard hard time believing that most people, at some point don't experience that kind of dissociative quality when they're using social media, it's so easy to do. The participants did say that that having those ongoing interruptions actually helped bring them back from that state kind of into a more intentional space, intentional usage space. And apparently this is the first time that the dissociative state has been documented in an academic study related to social media, which is surprising to me. Okay.

Mikah Sargent (00:59:31):
That's interesting.

Jason Howell (00:59:32):
Because I just feel like this is so common. Yeah. And so known, but the study helps to differentiate between dissociation and addiction. So the lead author, Amanda Bonn actually said, instead of, I should be able to have more self-control, it's more like we all naturally dissociate in many ways throughout our day, whether it's daydreaming or scrolling through Instagram, we stop paying attention to what's happening around us. And yeah, it's very, very true. So, and then, you know, as I said, the other part of this were the interruptions kind of the interventions that were built into the app, those cues to kind of bring participants back. And I think ultimately I think a lot of the participants recognized that as being a very powerful tool, that kind of reminded me of like, like TikTok, for example, if you're on TikTok for a while you end up getting that video, that's someone saying, Hey, you've

Mikah Sargent (01:00:24):
Been using TikTok for a while. Yeah. Yeah. You could take a break or the, whatever we used to do that the Nintendo, we, the first version of the Nintendo we had this, it would show kind of a, I think I don't remember it exactly, but I think birds chirped, and it was showing someone going outside and it was like, Hey, you should take a break <laugh> or Netflix is very annoying. Are you still watching?

Jason Howell (01:00:42):
Are you still watching? <Laugh> I am still watching. Yes. Yes. Oh, so anyways yeah, the ultimate conclusion was that lack of control is not the issue, rather platform design and building in systems that ultimately prevent people from snapping into that dissociative state. So putting on putting the onus on the platform and not the person to regulate their behavior, it sounds like, huh. And I don't know how I feel about that. Yeah. But

Mikah Sargent (01:01:11):
I, I just, I'm always going. I think I will always be of, well, not always is, is something could come along that changes my mind, but I think I'll always be of mixed minds about that.

Jason Howell (01:01:19):
Yeah. Might always be because I can see the value, the benefit of a platform or an app or an OS. I mean, you know, Android and iOS both have, you know, kind of digital wellness features baked into it. And I think even at the time that those were rolling out, people were very like, yeah, but shouldn't, you just have personal responsibility instead of the platform making these decisions for you. And like, I agree with that. Mm-Hmm <affirmative>, we should all be personally responsible for our actions, but it's also very handy if I recognize that I have a problem with this, and there's a tool that I can activate that helps to bring me back. Yes. Then I'm for that too. Mm-Hmm <affirmative> so, yeah, I'm kind of a mixed mind of it as, as well, but I thought it was an interesting study. Interesting. because we

Mikah Sargent (01:02:00):
Need, we need to be doing these studies. Yeah. No matter what it is, we need to be doing these studies. Anecdotally, I have observed in in some some family, friends who are my sibling's age who, you know, have heard stories and things like that. Anecdotally there is, I, I feel that there's going to be a growing issue over time, over time with the way that the youth dopamine cycle is changed by social media and particularly social media that involves stardom or fandom or, or, or any level of recognition recognition. If you go, if you were, if you were a young person like this person that I'm thinking of who was a video game streamer, they, you know, had gotten on the platform, they grew a base, they got pretty popular on, on the video game streaming. And then they had to take a step back for many different reasons. And now they're going through a period where they are having trouble feeling that reward center activated with things that are, you know, day to day with, you know, feeling a sense of satisfaction from doing a day's work or, or completing certain tasks where those would come easier to a person who didn't have that very easy. You know, people are focusing on me, I'm getting responses from people yeah. On the I'm internet, famous in, in, you know, a limited capacity,

Jason Howell (01:03:33):
Those light, that light numbers,

Mikah Sargent (01:03:35):
Those light numbers, exactly the views that is a huge burst of, of dopamine that takes place there. And I really think that we're going to be facing a certain level of reckoning. You know, there, there are older folks who I've heard, ah, everybody, these days is depressed back when we were depressed, we just chewed on the gum and kept on rolling. And it's like, there are so many things that are involved with that. And I think that one of the things that's involved with that is the way that our dopamine cycles have changed. And because of that, that the effect that it has on serotonin levels and all of that, that, and also that there's more attention being paid to it, that there is more depression, you know, than we have seen in, in certain periods of time. So anyway, all of that, I'm glad that this is, this research is being done because we need to understand it so that we can prepare for it as we go

Jason Howell (01:04:30):
Forward. Yeah, yeah, indeed. Indeed. So yeah. Check out the the research, if you're interested. This article that I found is ZME science.com. I didn't find a huge amount of source, like different publications writing about this, maybe a handful, but this was definitely the best, more, most informative article that had some information about the, about the study. And then of course you can, you know take a look at the study itself if you wanna go deeper, but definitely interesting stuff. All right. We've reached the end of this episode, Tech News Weekly, thank you as always for watching and listening each and every week we do this show every Thursday. So if you go to TWiTt.tv/tnw, there, you can find all the ways to subscribe. So you don't even have to think about what day it is and when it's gonna come. And how am I gonna find it? Because you just open up your podcaster and there it is waiting for you. It's like magic.

Mikah Sargent (01:05:21):
If you are looking for a way to get a warm, bubbly feeling, we're just talking about dopamine. And knowing that you are supporting us here at TWiTt directly with these shows that you watch every week, well, I've got a way for you to do that. And it also gets you some great stuff, too. It's called club TWiT. You gotta TWiT that TV slash club TWiT it'll cost you seven bucks a month. And for that seven bucks, you get every single one of TWiTt shows ad free. So you get all the content right there. You get access to the members only TWiT plus feed that has extra content. You won't find anywhere else including unboxings that we, you know, don't maybe not publish to everybody conversations with awesome folks, both here at TWiTt and out in the world. And even more stuff that will be soon coming to TWiTt.

Mikah Sargent (01:06:12):
Plus it's always growing and it's really exciting. And you get access to the TWiTt discord server. That is a place where you can go to chat with your fellow club, TWiTt members, and also those of us here at TWiTt. So if you've always wanted to reach out and haven't been able to do that in other ways. The discord server is just the place for that TWiTt.tv/club TWiTt seven bucks a month. We also heard that some folks wanted to support us in a way that didn't have all the extra bells and whistles. If you use Apple podcasts, you can do that. You just go into Apple podcasts, you search for Tech News Weekly. You find the audio version of the show and tap for 2 99 a month. You subscribe, and that will get you the audio feed without any ads, the ad free audio version of the podcast, if you would like to tweet or follow or all those things at, at me, I am at mic Sergeant on many, a social media network, or you can add to chihuahua.coffee, C HHI, Hua, hoa.coffee, where I've got links to the places I'm most active online.

Mikah Sargent (01:07:16):
Check me out on Saturday with Leo Laport for the tech guy radio show, the radio show heard around the world where folks call in with their tech news, or are there tech requests and, and questions. We try to answer those. And on Tuesdays for iOS today, with Rosemary orchard, where we talk all things, iOS, tvOS, home pots, I iPad OS it's all the OSS Apple has. There are too many at OSS, but we try to help you make the most of those devices in those OSS. Jason Howell. What about you?

Jason Howell (01:07:46):
Well Fineman TWiTtter at Jason Howell, and then doing all about Android every Tuesday at TWiTtter TV slash AA, talking about that OS and then big, thanks to John Ashley, sitting behind the board there also to Burke even more behind the scenes. He's not even in the studio right now for helping us do this show each and every week. And thanks to you for watching and listening. We'll see y'all next time on Tech News Weekly. Bye everybody.

Mikah Sargent (01:08:13):
Boom.

Rod Pyle (01:08:14):
Hey, I'm rod Pyle, editor of ad Astra magazine, and each week I'm joined by Tariq Malik the editor in chief over @ Space.com in our new this week in space podcast, every Friday, tar and I take a deep dive into the stories that define the new space age what's NASA up to when will Americans, once again set foot on the moon. And how about those samples from the perseverance Rover? When do those coming home? What the heck has Elon must done now, in addition to all the latest and greatest and space exploration, we'll take an occasional look at bits of space flight history that you've probably never heard of and all with an eye towards having a good time along the way. Check us out on your favorite podcaster.