#008: Being Online Is Hard— I Tried Everything: 3 Habits That Actually Worked

Siara Singleton (00:08)
my goodness. Hello.

Siara Singleton (00:11)
Should I just introduce my dog this season? Nelson, come here. Come here. Come say hi. Come say hi. Hi.

I was like always hiding Nelson in season one because he's a little disruptive and as you can probably hear from the microphone, the sound of his breath. But this is Nelson, he's a three year old sheepadoodle and he's my roommate and I'm his mom. Okay, moving on.

Siara Singleton (00:40)
It has been about a year It feels weird, kind of, to be in front of the microphone again, but I'm happy to be here. I know I didn't quite warn everyone that season one was ending. It was a bit of an experimental season for me, but don't worry, I did not forget about y'all. In fact, this is all I think about.

I have not stopped gathering information and deep diving into important stories. I have not stopped interviewing people. So we have a lot to talk about in season two. And I'm back in full force. And I missed you guys. Last season was so fun. What I will share is that being in front of the camera is a weird thing for me. Like this is not a natural feeling for me. I feel like it comes so naturally to some people. But I'm not gonna lie, it's weird.

I don't know if it's the privacy thing or if it's like I'm just so conscious of the digital footprint that I'm leaving behind. But I don't know. It's just weird.

I honestly considered coming back and doing audio only for season two, but that's just such a bore. And I don't want to keep you all from seeing my beautiful guests faces, which by the way, I am just utterly amazed at the guests from last season because I don't know how I got so lucky to interview such amazing people my first go around. I'm so thankful. So I just have to start off by singing their praises.

Let's start with Tyler. In fall, Tyler launched a book, a whole freaking book. It's called Tactical Disconnection. We got a sneak preview of it in episode six, but it just launched in fall. So I'll add the link to the description. Bailey Parnell, or shall I say Dr. Bailey Parnell, we talked about her getting her doctorate in episode two. She did that. But not only that, she had twins.

twins in the same year. Women. Just women. We cannot forget cybersecurity girl, Caitlin Sarian who has grown to become the largest cybersecurity influencer on the internet, literally. She is still sharing really helpful updates on how to stay safe every week on her socials. Of course, we have Joe Hollier from our episode about the Light Phone. Last year, his team released all three shipments of the newest generation Light Phone.

and it has created quite the buzz online. Time Magazine named it one of the best inventions of 2025. They got mentioned in the Wall Street Journal, the BBC, even Aaron Paul, know, like Jesse from Breaking Bad sang its praises. I feel like that's a big deal. And I feel like I see the iPhone everywhere online. I love to see it. If you need a couple more books for your reading list,

My guest from episode five, Danielle published Fighting for our Friendships in 2024. Dr. Avriel Epps published the wonderful children's book that we discussed about AI bias. And then Arvind, of course, from the very first episode of Log Out released AI Snake Oil, which is a personal favorite of mine and I believe a very important read these days. Maybe I'll do a book review of each of them. I'm biased though, so there's that. Anyways, I'm just...

so energized by how well these guests are doing and I'm so fired up by the guests that I have for you in season two.

So for my little crew who's listening, thank you for being here and welcome to season two

Okay, so let's get into it.

Today, rather than bring on a guest, I am actually going to share some tech wellness lessons learned from the past year

because I have quite a few. First and foremost, I want to say, before I get into some habits that have really impacted me in the last year, I want to say that managing digital wellness is really hard. It is really freaking hard. And I just want to acknowledge that because

I sometimes hear consumers being blamed for their screen time issues and their data privacy vulnerabilities and

Siara Singleton (04:21)
whatnot. And I just have to say, I think that's bullshit. Yeah, I'm cussing in season two because the more I learn, the more upset I tend to get. And I just don't think that I can listen to another creator or company or whomever tell people that they are lazy or irresponsible or unmotivated when big tech has very directly created this issue for us. That is the reality of the situation. These companies have hired very smart people.

people who we will talk to in season two, by the way, to deliberately hack our brains the way our brains are supposed to be. You know, like we're doing what we're supposed to do as humans with our brains,

Siara Singleton (04:59)
They're exploiting that. And they're getting our money, our attention, and our data. Sorry, like someone has to say it. I just think for them to use human psychology and neuroscience to exploit us and then turn around and point the finger at us is very disingenuous.

Siara Singleton (05:13)
So I want to say that because I really do believe that blaming consumers for the problems that we're all experiencing is basically equivalent to blaming consumers for the climate crisis. It's just not

it.

people reached out to me after season one with their thoughts and some of the guilt that they're having. And almost everyone is struggling too. if you feel this way, you're not some less intelligent or less resilient adult for that being the case. This is the state of the world right now.

I also noticed that there have been a lot of pieces of advice being thrown around right now. I think some of it's helpful, but I think some of it's too generic and some of it is a money grab and a lot of it is just straight up bad advice, honestly. There's a lot of noise. So I'm treating myself as a little hamster. I'm truly trying everything.

I don't think I could even write down all of the different tactics and silly little habits that I have attempted.

what I will say is, I have wasted quite a bit of money on so-called digital wellness products, and I really don't want other people to do that. But today I want to focus on three habits that actually have made a big difference for me, at least in the past year. None of them cost money, but I believe that these are foundations in my life that have really allowed me to move forward in my digital wellness journey.

Okay, so first habit, and this is a really important one, the phone and the bedroom do not mix. The phone and the bedroom do not mix at any point in the day. you know this already, but I have to reiterate it because it's huge. I cannot believe I used to grab my phone and peel my eyelids open first thing in the morning and stare at a screen. That is actually crazy to me now.

because this would absolutely kill my day.

Now I consider my bedroom a completely phone-free

I keep my smartphone in my kitchen at night, and this allows me to enact the 30-minute rule, which is the first and last 30 minutes of my day are completely screen-free. No phone, no TV, no laptop. I will have none of it. I know some people like to fall asleep to the TV or whatever. I don't.

I like to fall asleep to like nature sounds. Like if you come into my home at any given evening, you're gonna hear birds singing or like classical music.

But yeah, I find this helps me set the tone for the day and just primes me to have a better day overall.

and better habits for the day too. I also just hate the idea that the phone gets to decide the first thing that I see or think or react to because my phone is not taking the lead in my day. I'm taking the lead in my day. I don't want a notification, a text, or a headline to then determine my mood as I begin my day. That's just centering tech in a way that's highly unnecessary and I think very damaging. So this has become a non-negotiable for me.

Even when I'm traveling, I'll put my phone in a separate room.

Recently a friend was making fun of me because I literally put the phone in the bathroom. I refuse to have it anywhere near me when I sleep. My sleep is very important to me. One of my biggest flexes right now is I can fall asleep like that.

I can wake up like that and I don't wake up in the middle of the night, or rarely. My sleep has seriously improved in the last year. It's kind of insane.

So if you're struggling with sleep, I really think if you are keeping your phone in the bedroom, you should reconsider. Just try it. Just try it for like a week. no notifications to wake me up. I'm not scrolling before bed. There's a lot of research to back this up to. They show that heavier smartphone use at bedtime is associated with poor sleep quality

like reducing the amount of time that you use your phone during, the nighttime.

increases sleep duration and sleep quality overall. So I will add sources to the bio. I'm not kidding about that. One thing about me is I'm going to sleep. Sleep health is important to me. And if you use your phone like as an alarm clock to wake you up, that's even better. Put it in a room right outside your bedroom. And then when you hear the alarm, it's going to force you to stand up and go turn off the alarm clock. It's going to make it harder to snooze. That's what I do. I also have

an actual alarm clock called Loftie So there's lots of ways around it. I hear a lot of excuses about this, but like, it's not worth it.

I also think it helps me with my mood and general productivity for the day. I'm not worried about my phone when I'm starting my day. I think that's huge. I'm worried about my morning routine. I'm being mindful. I'm listening to music. I really am happier in the morning when my phone is not involved.

And it allows me to focus on some of the habits that I'm always working on, like meditating daily, I like reading at least 10 pages a day, I like journaling. So giving myself that first and last 30 minutes a day helps me achieve those habits a lot more effectively,

I think that this is an extremely important habit. I would give it a try, let me know if it works.

The second habit I want to talk about is a privacy one. I have become slightly radicalized about data privacy in the past year. This is the hill that I die on at parties. I think it's really important. I think privacy is luxury.

And so over the past year, something I've been practicing is just making my default no. My default is to say no. And what I mean by that is I think the context for how often Big Tech or Little Tech asks us for information.

or to approve something or to consent to something has become so severe that the default just needs to be no. And then you assess from there because I just don't think people are being alarmist enough about their data. I think we're headed into a very serious personal data privacy bubble. And at some point everyone's going to act shocked and it's going to be like,

no, actually on all fronts and all data points we have all been wildly exposed for a while now.

and I think it's time to start mitigating risk.

So yeah, I think it's important to think twice and start with no, and then maybe assess from there.

For example, if an app asks, can we have access to your contacts? I say no. Can we have access to your camera gallery? I say no. Can we have access to your location? Absolutely not. Absolutely not, actually. If it actually makes sense for that specific app and that specific situation, then I can change my answer. Like, obviously Uber, for example, would need to have access to my location in order to send me a car. I understand that. But if you start with no,

you're less likely to say yes to things that are just unnecessary. It's one more step. Start with no, Just think more critically. That's what I've been practicing.

Another thing is if a company sends you new terms and conditions, right? The default is yes, because that's convenient. It's easy, you just want to use the product. But I think, especially right now, it's really important to not say yes right away. And I know, nobody wants to go scroll that crazy, long, confusing legal document. I'm not doing that either. What I'm doing is I'm taking all the terms and conditions, I'm copying and pasting it into Claude.

And I'm saying, hey, what's significant about these changes? What's new? What might be alarming in general that I missed before? Because chances are they're asking to do something that they really don't need to be doing. I think we've all made accept terms the D's fault when we just don't need to a lot of times. I have been quite amazed by what I found when I do this. And there have been, I won't name them now, but there have been a few instances where I stopped using

a product or service because I was like, no, I don't want to agree to that. Usually it's them asking to train their AI on your data. And I think, especially for more sensitive applications, I just think that's a crazy thing to ask. It's a crazy large cost to us as a consumer. Our data is very valuable. Data became more valuable than oil in like 2012, I think. So

we need to protect ourselves by looking twice at the terms and conditions before saying yes to them, in my opinion. At least that's what I'm doing.

And I really want to talk about that on the show more and give folks updates because in my world, I actually see this news a lot and the tech niche news space. There's a lot of great reporters out there that report on when a company has decided to do something new with their product that, you know, the world isn't going to love. But I don't think the mass population usually sees that. So I will definitely be sharing more of that information in season two.

I also think a lot of times there is more of an opportunity to opt out than you think. When I'm shopping and they ask me for my email or my phone number, my default is no. Like I know you can seem like a pain in the ass, but I'm sorry, why does anyone need that information? Like, can I please buy a blouse without you knowing my social security number? Because what you're doing is giving them an extremely valuable piece of data. Your email is valuable.

That's how they get in contact with you. That's how they waste your time in your inbox. That's how they connect your data to other places. And what are you really getting out of that? Like, so what, now I'm paying $89.99 for a blouse and my time and my data? I just want to pay the $89.99. Thank you. And, ooh, another really good one is facial recognition. Can we use facial recognition for this thing? No. No, you cannot.

We talk about that in the episode with Dr. Avril Epps about how she says no at the airport to facial recognition. I'm such a scardy cat. I have never said no. But one of these days I'm going to Like they already have it, right? But like I do want to get the courage to just be like, actually, no, you cannot have my face this day. But I don't know why TSA just makes me nervous. So I'm always like, whatever you guys say. But yeah, my point is like defaults no. Even when it's inconvenient.

I just feel like it's a good way to exercise your agency. Sometimes it actually just feels really good. Even if it's not hugely impactful, I'm just like, yeah, like this is my data. I'm protecting my data. My data matters to me.

And I want to start flexing that muscle a lot more because even myself, like I've just become desensitized. A lot of times I just do whatever they tell us to do. But no, like we're human beings. We get to say no to robots.

Last thing I will say on this topic is that I think people need to start thinking about their data like it's money.

Every time someone asks you for it, think of it as a transaction because that is what it is. It may not be as and as clean as money, but it is still valuable and eventually it is going to cost you.

Like they want it and they're giving you almost nothing in return for it. So start thinking about giving away your data as a transaction and you'll start to really change the way that your brain works around giving that information away. And I know this sounds like common sense, but I just don't think it is. I have conversations with people and they'll casually tell me that they pasted something into AI and I'm like, you put what and where not only personal information, but like company information.

you're scaring us, like stop doing that. We've just all got to be way more protective of our data. Start with no, think twice and then

decide.

Siara Singleton (15:42)
Okay, the final habit that I want to share. has maybe been the most dramatic one that I'll talk about today. And that is that I've completely changed how I consume the news. And it has done wonders for me. Something that I've struggled with since college is that when I consume the news, it causes a lot of anxiety for me. my God, the news stresses me out, y'all.

and I know I'm not the only one. I want to stay informed, but I want to protect my mental health at the same time. And I've just had a really hard time doing that. It's just been this constant problem. And I think it's just gotten worse and worse than I ever thought that it can get. I'm in the US. So those of you who are here know, like, no matter where you stand, it is stressful to hear the news. We don't even like to talk about it. It's just, it's a lot.

I've heard all the strategies. I've heard about the low information diet. I've heard the people who say, oh, I just don't consume the news. And listen, if that works for you, great. That has never really aligned with me and who I am as a person. I've done it for like a week here, a month there, and there's a difference, but it just never felt right. Total disengagement just never felt like me. So I had a problem to solve on one hand.

There is no benefit to me being massively anxious about everything happening in my country or my country's relationship to other countries. There are so many emergencies and there are very few that I can personally solve before breakfast, right? On the other hand, pretending none of it concerns me just doesn't match my values. It's not how I was raised and it's just not the vibe. So the question became, how can I get a reasonable understanding of what's going on?

and still be at peace. And what I eventually realized is that part of my issue was not actually the nature of the news and the contents of the news that was causing the anxiety. It was the format of the news. It was the tone, the framing. A lot of the content I was consuming was not actually sharpening my understanding of a situation. It was just making me angry. It was feeding me a conclusion and calling that information.

So now my new strategy is that I almost completely rely on unbiased news sources. There's a few that I really like. There's more than I ever realized. And yeah, I completely rely on them. Even my social media algorithms have kind of figured out that I'm not really interested in the infotainment as much. So I'm getting a lot less of that. And I'm telling you, in some of the most

stressful and tumultuous and dark times for my country and other countries. I've never felt more at peace with my relationship to the news, honestly. I'm not at peace with what's happening. I want to be very clear about that. But I am at peace with my relationship to the news, or at least more at peace than I ever have been before. And this is just like for anyone who knows me personally, this is

This is huge. This is a completely new thing for me. Truly.

So here's what that looks like. I have a few different apps with neutral news by sources and they'll, give you the news, but they'll also tell you headlines from other news sources, the more biased news sources. So you can kind of see what people are seeing, which is also really impactful, especially if you're going to be maybe talking about this with people who share a different point of view. Cause it's like you're getting a landscape of the different echo chambers happening. I cannot.

express how powerful that is. I try to do it in late morning or lunchtime, earlier in the day. I don't do much news at night. And then I'll just supplement with the news as I go about the day. I also have a daily podcast. It's a 10 minute daily podcast during the weekday with unbiased reporting of like major news only, but unbiased and gives you the quick rundown. So I love that.

And you know, it's worth acknowledging, I don't know if anything can be perfectly unbiased, but it's unbiased enough that I genuinely do not know the leanings of the journalists or the podcast hosts reporting on it. And I think that says a lot these days because now when I consume it, feels much more informed form and less manipulative. It feels more like reading the newspaper that everyone else is reading rather than being handed a pre-packaged.

emotional experience and told its analysis.

And you know what, I think this practice has actually made me more discerning. Not less passionate, I'm not neutral when it comes to world issues. I have opinions and I care. But I think actually if you really care, not to sound informed at the happy hour or a messily debate with a friend, but if you really care about the issues, then you should really care about the neutral facts. Because these biased news sources are dressing up half-truths and emotional phrases as facts. And I do not think that's right.

think it's very disingenuous. And I mean that for the right and the left and everyone in between. Assuming everyone is trying at some level to be a good person,

You want your convictions and your opinions to be grounded in something a little sturdier than infotainment, I would assume.

I think it's not very honorable of these news sources to feed you outrage and then call it understanding, not to be dramatic, but I actually think it's a little insulting for a news source to deny you the full story and then tell you how to feel because chances are if you're listening to this podcast, you're fairly intelligent. You know things, you can connect dots. You can make your own opinions and your own decisions about a piece of news. we're not all going to come to the same conclusions and have the same feelings about it.

That's not the point of unbiased news sources. I just think having a news source tell you that you're angry or tell you that you're sad or tell you that you're happy about something is unnecessary because you have a brain. And you don't need someone to tell you how to feel. You need the facts so that you can then figure out how you feel about something or your opinion on something. So yeah,

this is my hot take currently. I'm just very done with news that comes with crazy levels of bias. And that, I'm sorry, it does include the humorous political podcast or show or the dramatic social media roundups. I'm just not into it. If you're doing the most and you're bordering on misinformation, I'm out. I'm out.

If you're interested in checking out my favorite unbiased news sources, I will also throw those into the description.

But yeah, those are three of the biggest habits that I think have changed my life over the past year, truly. They're not flashy, they're not trendy, but they cost you nothing and I think they're genuinely effective. So let me know if you try any, let me know if you have any favorites so we can share with the class.

Siara Singleton (22:32)
All right, I'm getting off my soapbox for today. That's all I got. But I'm happy to be back and I'm happy you're here with me. I'll see you in episode two.

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