S5 Episode 11: IRL - Finding Our Real Selves in a Digital World // Chris Stedman

“...online, we're all trying to do … something that's very new. We're trying to be human in this new space, and none of us really know what we're doing.”

- Chris Stedman

Healthy Screen Habits Takeaway

Resources

For More Info:

https://chrisstedmanwriter.com

Facebook/Twitter/Instagram: chrisdstedman

Resources Mentioned:

Chris’ Podcast: Unread

https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/unread/id1568341860

Show Transcript

Hillary Wilkinson (00:03):

Chris Stedman is a writer, activist, and adjunct professor who teaches in the Department of Religion and Philosophy at Augsburg University in Minneapolis, Minnesota. Previously the founding director of the Yale Humanist community. He also served as a humanist chaplain at Harvard. He is the author of a new book titled I R L, Finding Our Real Selves in a Digital World. Thank you so much for spending part of your day with healthy screen habits, Chris Stedman.

Chris Stedman (01:10):

Yeah, thanks so much for having me. I'm excited for this conversation.

Hillary Wilkinson (01:14):

So, Chris, I find this is, um, kind of beautifully insightful that a humanist chaplain is exploring the ideas of online life and the concept of, I'm using air quotes, you know, cuz you should always use air quotes when in podcasting <laugh> the concept of real in digital space. First, kind of wanna make no assumptions that others know what the acronym IRL stands for, which is a point that you make in the first chapter of your book, is not assuming others, you know, knowledge base. And for those that would benefit from the translation IRL stands for in real life. So next I took care of the easy definition. I want you, I'm gonna ask you for the more meaty one. Can you define what is a humanist?

Chris Stedman (02:03):

Sure. Um, so humanist chaplain, when I was working at Harvard, um, basically there, um, at Harvard there was a chaplain for all these different sort of faith communities. So there was a Muslim chaplain, there was a Hindu chaplain. Um, and a chaplain's job is basically to serve as a resource to, um, students, staff, faculty who practiced that faith. Uh, so, you know, if you have a meaning of life question that you're sifting through, if you're looking for community. And the humanist chaplain's job was basically for everyone who didn't fall into some sort of category. Uh, we were there to support them. So it kind of became this catchall chaplaincy. So I had certainly students who were atheist or agnostic, but also a lot of students who weren't really sure what they believed. Maybe they were spiritual but not religious, they were seeking, um, they, uh, just, you know, didn't fall into some sort of category.

Chris Stedman (02:56):

And, um, you know, it's funny because, you know, that's my professional background and today I teach religion. And so I can imagine a number of people are like, Well, what does he have to say about the internet? What does that connect? How does that connect to the internet? Um, and for me, my interest really did have, there were both personal reasons I was interested in the subject.  Um, you know, I've found myself feeling this tension in my own digital life between what I felt I could or should share and what I was experiencing in the rest of my life, but also for professional reasons. Um, I have spent the last decade working with the religiously unaffiliated people who don't check a religious box. Um, and I've also been studying them. I've been working with a group of sociologists to try and understand what exactly is going on.

Chris Stedman (03:44):

Because the fastest growing segment of the religious landscape in the United States is people who say that they're not religious. Um, by, you know, that number really has exploded over the last couple decades. And I was trying to figure out why, what's sort of going on there. And I noticed, um, when working with these researchers that the rise of the religiously unaffiliated really began in the nineties. And there was a lot going on in the nineties. But one of the big things is that our relationship with the internet was completely changing. So the internet went from being something that was more of a sort of hobbyist thing. Um, it was developed first for the military, and then it was more used, you know, for people who had kind of niche interests. But in the nineties, it became much more accessible and available to the general public.

Chris Stedman (04:26):

And so, you know, for all of human history before the internet, uh, when it came to meeting these fundamental needs we have as human beings for a sense of meaning and a sense of belonging in our lives, we had to turn to institutions, uh, churches, synagogues, mosques, et cetera. Now, a lot of people go online to find those things, to explore big questions of meaning, to find a sense of connection and community. And I wanted to understand how this shift from this sort of institutional approach to meeting these foundational needs for meaning, for belonging, for a sense of real realness, the things that make us feel like our lives are meaningful and matter to doing that work online, how that was changing our understanding of who we are. So "in real life", the phrase really emerged from a time when we had a really different internet, one that was a sort of activity, something that you stepped into and then stepped out of.

Chris Stedman (05:17):

But of course, that's not the internet that we have anymore. The internet is woven into so many facets of our lives, and it's increasingly a space where we spend really important chunks of our lives and do things that are very consequential. Um, and so, you know, I think this idea that we have, that the internet isn't real or isn't as real as the other parts of our lives, is something that we have to kind of dispense of. Obviously it's a huge question. Um, it's a debate that I don't, um, pretend to resolve in the book, um, and don't think anyone can about whether or not the internet is as real as the other parts of our lives. But I take, uh, my cue from unsurprisingly, uh, because I teach religion and I'm interested in it, I take my cue from this theologian, this Lutheran theologian named Dietrich Bonhoeffer, who was living in Germany at the time of the rise of the Nazis.

Chris Stedman (06:08):

And he had this idea that Christians have a responsibility to live as if there is no God, by which he meant Christians shouldn't wait for God to intervene in the face of injustice, but rather should act, um, on God's behalf in the world. And so for him, he took that very seriously and actually, you know, attempted to assassinate Hitler, which is ultimately why he was imprisoned. And, uh, that's what led to his death. And I thought about, I found myself thinking about this idea a lot, about living as if something were the case, even if you believe the opposite or aren't sure. And I think whatever we think of our digital lives less real, more real complicated. They certainly are. I think we would do ourselves, uh, a real service by treating them as if they are as consequential and important as every other part of our lives.

Chris Stedman (06:52):

And strive to bring the same kind of thoughtfulness and intention that we try to practice in other parts of our lives to not do the thing that we've all done, I think, which is to say things like, "Oh, it's just the internet. It doesn't count." Or, or," Oh, I would never talk to someone that way in person." Um, but rather to say, you know, in what ways is the, in what ways do the things that I do online really reflect important pieces of who I am and how am I practicing or not practicing my values in the digital space?

Hillary Wilkinson (07:22):

I love that. And I think it speaks to the importance of really, uh, kind of drilling down and making sure that you understand what sort of values are important to your family. We spoke a little bit before recording about how the primary audience here is parents. And, um, I think that that also is key, that recognition that for our kids who are growing up today, that distinction between online life and, and, you know, the, what we used to call online versus real life. It's, it's all real mm-hmm. <affirmative>, it's all, it's all just facets of realness. Mm-hmm. <affirmative> and, and our kids are very much within both of those realms.

Chris Stedman (08:10):

Yeah. I found myself thinking a lot, um, about my childhood while working on this book, both because I grew up in a time with a very different internet. The internet did exist when I was growing up, but I didn't have it at home. My earliest memories of it are like biking to the library logging on and using a shared computer for 20 minutes before it was someone else's turn. So it really was that sort of set apart activity. But, you know, obviously I, you know, I, I don't have children myself, but my sister has three kids that I'm really close to. And, um, you know, I talk to my sister all the time about just what a different experience it is for her to raise children in this digital moment and you know, how to have conversations with them about Yeah. Just how real the things that they're doing online are, And, you know, I think that obviously, you know, the internet has, it's created all kinds of new challenges <laugh>.

Chris Stedman (09:03):

Um, and a lot of them have to do with how the platforms operate. You know, they, they function as if they're public space, but of course they're not, They're private space. They're run by private corporations that ultimately are interested in making money. And so they operate in ways that prey on our vulnerabilities in order to keep us entangled in the digital world for longer. But it's not all bad news. Um, I found this, I came across what, well, I was doing tons of research for this book, and I came across this really encouraging study out of BYU that found that people could spend the same exact amount of time online and have fundamentally different experiences. And this was a longitudinal study they did over the course of eight years. So they studied the same people for eight years and they found that yeah, people could, you know, there's this common line of thinking that the longer you're online, the more you know, negative your experiences, the more anxious you are, the more polarized you become, et cetera.

Chris Stedman (09:56):

But they found that, um, yeah, people could have really different experiences and it all came down to whether or not they were being intentional about what they were using the internet for. And so I think encouraging kids and also reminding ourselves as adults that we need to be sort of constantly thinking about what needs am I trying to meet when I go online? What, um, you know, and, and to, and to really bring that same critical lens rather than kind of shrugging off digital space as being something that yeah. Isn't the same as the rest of life, I think makes a huge difference.

Hillary Wilkinson (10:25):

Yeah. Was that Sarah Coyne's research? Mm-hmm. <affirmative> out of byu? Yeah, it was Sarah Coyne was the primary lead on

Chris Stedman (10:33):

That. I believe so, yeah. Yeah.

Hillary Wilkinson (10:34):

And she's actually been a guest on Oh, great. Right. She spoke, uh, later on, but she, I, I clearly remember because her healthy screen habit takeaway was to interact more online, and it was to kind of flip the script. And they found in that research that those who seek to find the positive, comment on the positive, et cetera, actually come away with elevated mood. Yeah. So, yeah. Absolutely. Yeah. I, I'm thinking like, as you go through this process of writing, I've, I've never written a book <laugh>, full disclosure.

Chris Stedman (11:13):

Don't recommend it. Honestly.

Hillary Wilkinson (11:15):

I, I have had two babies and I, and I understand that birthing a child is a lot like birthing a book. So <laugh>, <laugh>, Um, so, but I'm, I'm thinking were those like kind of, I can just imagine you continually having these aha moments as you were doing your research and it, you know, getting, getting writing about the digital world. Is that the kind of thing that you experienced as you were coming, you know, coming through your process?

Chris Stedman (11:43):

Absolutely. I, you know, I mean, there are, there are different approaches to writing. There are people, it's often, you know, framed as a sort of a polemical approach. There are people who have a really clear vision of what they want to say when they write, and they know from the beginning, and then they write something to make it an argument. But the kind of writing I do is much more exploratory. I set out not really knowing what I think about something, and I try to figure I writing is how I try to sort of figure out what I think about things. And so when I began working on IRL, I, like I said, had very mixed feelings about my digital life. I knew that the digital world could be this, um, incredible space to, you know, experiment with identity, to learn and grow and be stretched.

Chris Stedman (12:24):

I know that it was a lifeline for me and my adolescence when I was a closeted teenager looking for resources, um, and other LGBTQ people to connect with the internet really was the first place that I ever came out to someone in a more low stakes environment, knowing that, you know, if it didn't go well, I could just close out of the window <laugh>. Sure. Um, and so, and, and I, and I've experienced it as a lifeline in adulthood too. Um, but I also knew that my relationship with it was not what I wanted it to be. It didn't feel healthy. It felt fraught and complicated. It felt not very mindful. I felt as if my digital time was spent really mindlessly, which again, the platforms often I think encourage, um, <laugh>. And so I was feeling much more cynical about the digital world when I started the process.

Chris Stedman (13:12):

And I found myself moving toward the middle as I wrote, Um, both because I spent a lot of time trying to really dig into as much as I could. So I did a lot of reading and research, but also I did a lot of interviewing and I talked to other people about their digital experiences. And I just found myself co consistently surprised by how many people spoke to these really sort of beautiful ways that the internet made them feel more human, and not just less. Certainly we've all had moments where the internet has made us feel less like ourselves mm-hmm. <affirmative>. Um, but I, you know, the more I talk to people, the more I found that almost everyone had some moment where the internet had played this sort of profound role in shaping how they see themselves. And, and I think it's important to, it's certainly important to be critical and to pay attention to all the challenges, but I think it's important to hear those stories too.

Hillary Wilkinson (14:03):

Right. And when we come back, I'm gonna ask you more about finding that sort of balance online in determining what it means to be real in virtual space.

Chris Stedman (14:13):

Sounds good.

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Hillary Wilkinson (14:14):

My guest is Chris Stedman, author of the book we're discussing IRL: Finding Our Real Selves in a Digital World. He's also the writer and host of Unread, a narrative podcast series about the digital breadcrumbs people leave behind. So I know we're talking about IRL right now, but honestly, if you've not listened to Unread, I highly recommend it. <laugh>. It was honored at the 2022 Webby Awards and recognized in many best podcasts of 2021 lists. It's four episodes, sequentially done. He's a master at storytelling, as you can tell, and with background music, audio clips, it's, it's riveting. So, thank you. Sure. I'm gonna go back to the book now, <laugh>. Ok. I feel like intention is what we were talking about right before the break and intention is kind of a theme in your digital wellness exploration, which I feel like intention often brings balance. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>. So I want to ask you about finding balance online. With all we know about persuasive design, attention economy, algorithmic push, is it possible, and I'm asking you like this very, very difficult question. Yeah. Is it possible to find balance online?

Chris Stedman (15:49):

So I think it's possible. I will say that I think right now the conditions that we're operating under are not ideal <laugh>. And I think we need systemic transformation. Um, you know, I think the platforms have to be made to change their practices in the same way that, you know, I can change my relationship to the physical environment around me. I can recycle more, walk more, drive less, et cetera. But until the 100 corporations that are responsible for the majority of carbon output are forced to change their practices, I might change my relationship to the world around me. But the system isn't going to change. And so, you know, likewise, I think online we can, we can change our relationship to the internet, but we are sort of swimming upstream. And so, you know, obviously individual change is what leads to systemic change. And so it starts with us <laugh>

Chris Stedman (16:39):

Um, but yes, I think it's absolutely possible. I, you know, I took a three month social media break when I was finishing IRL cuz I really had to finish the book <laugh>. Um, but I, I also found myself thinking, okay, I've spent the last few years reading, researching, interviewing, reflecting on my own life online, but I've been online the whole time and maybe I need to sort of experience the opposite. And so when I first started my break <laugh>, I was truly going through withdrawal. Like my friends were like, You are texting us in tweet formats, Stop <laugh>. Um, and I, I felt like yeah, truly felt withdrawal, but then eventually that gave way to this immense feeling of relief, which would seem to confirm all the sort of naysayers about the internet, Right. That it's bad, it makes us more unhappy, et cetera.

Chris Stedman (17:24):

But what I came to realize was, the reason I felt relief was because I was basically on retreat. It's like when you go on vacation, your worries melt away because you're, you're basically stepping out of your life. Right? And again, religion professor, I found myself thinking about Thomas Merton, who was this Catholic priest who at one point thought he was gonna become a monastic, thought he was gonna go live off the grid, live this life in a religious order order. Um, but he came to feel, very strongly, that the whole point of retreat is that it gives us the perspective we need so that we can reenter the world and reengage and recommit to the work that we see as being important. And I think that it is critical that we have time away from the internet in order to take that break, to get that perspective that we need. You know, when I was growing up, again, disconnection was my norm and connection was this activity. So I would go online, I would connect with people, and then I'd go back to the rest of my life. And I didn't have a smartphone until I was in my first job at Harvard. And so I spent a lot of my formative years even into adulthood, spending a lot of time alone, like waiting for a bus. I would just be sitting there bored. <laugh>

Hillary Wilkinson (18:30):

In reflection 

Chris Stedman (18:32):

I'd be bored. And exactly, it's in those moments of boredom, of loneliness that the mind wanders. It's this incredibly creative space. Sometimes the thoughts that we've been trying to distract ourselves from thinking arise, and we have to think about them and confront them and deal with them. When I was a kid in those moments that we were really bored, my siblings and I would be told by our mom, Go play outside. And that's when we would create these, these inventive imagination games where we would create characters that we could, you know, explore different aspects of our identity with that brought us closer together. And I think it's critically important that we have that time of disconnection. So today, connection is the norm. At the very first, first moment of boredom, I can just grab my phone and start scrolling.

Chris Stedman (19:14):

And so I need to actually be really intentional about carving out time away from the internet. Not because the internet is inherently bad, not because it's fake or less real, but because I need the perspective I can only get when I'm alone. Um, and that is something that I've had to real make a real effort to. Um, and that's a big reason why I've gotten really into like, biking and other physical activities. I, I've gotten into weightlift, which is completely unimaginable for me, <laugh>, um, because there are things that sort of center me in my body and help me disconnect, um, and spend time alone. So I think that that's definitely very important. Defining balance.

Hillary Wilkinson (19:51):

I think that's really critical. That reflective component of what you're talking about is really critical when talking about establishing a relationship with the self mm-hmm. <affirmative>. And I think that kind of keys into this bigger, well, not bigger, but let's, let's say this concurrent issue we are having where social scientists are saying that we're experiencing a secondary pandemic. And it was actually being talked about and explored like pre-Covid 19. But the idea of this loneliness pandemic, which according to National Institute on Aging loneliness, as it turns out, is as detrimental to our overall health as smoking 15 cigarettes a day. Hmm. And, and it said that loneliness can shorten a person's lifespan by as many as 15 years. It's a really big problem. So that the, the bigger challenge it seems to be is people are having difficulty with connection to others. And I think that we can't help but have difficulty connecting with others if we don't truly know ourselves.

Chris Stedman (21:04):

Yeah. And I think loneliness is detrimental when we are uncomfortable with being alone with ourselves. That's, you knows, I found, I found for myself a big part of what was driving my mindless digital use was that I was not comfortable being alone with my own thoughts. And so I wanted to distract myself from them. And I think we experience loneliness as this acutely painful experience when we Yeah. Um, when we aren't comfortable being with ourselves. But when I'm spending time truly by myself feeling completely comfortable, and when it's a choice rather than something that feels like, it's like forced upon me that I'm, I have to be alone because nobody wants to be with me or whatever, I don't experience loneliness. I, I experience the joy of solitude. And so, yeah, I think a lot of it does come down to are we comfortable spending time with ourselves or not.

Hillary Wilkinson (22:02):

Right. And in your studies, I mean, other than what you experienced with your, I'm gonna call it a digital retreat for a, some people call it digital fasting, but I, I prefer that term digital retreat because I think it does speak to you come back, you know mm-hmm. <affirmative> and to, um, kind of gain the lessons learned. You, you do need to come back and apply what you've learned. And so in all of that, has the internet do you think helped us or harmed us in our ways to kind of find this, uh, this meaning and belonging?

Chris Stedman (22:41):

Yeah, I think it's a mixed bag, <laugh>. Um, I think that for all the challenges, and I think we're, we're hopefully if you're listening to this podcast, you're well aware that there are, there are many. But I also think that it has created all kinds of new opportunities for us to re-approach some of these age old questions that inform our understanding of the self, of what it means to be real, to live a meaningful life, to re-approach them in new ways, to see them with new eyes. Uh, I open IRL by talking about, um, going to a drag performance <laugh>. Um, and how I, like, I prefer going to the amateur night where it's people who are just attempting the art form of drag for the very first time. Because you often see sort of one of two things. You either see someone trying something that's like, not working at all <laugh>, but they're taking a risk, Right?

Chris Stedman (23:30):

They're taking a big swing and maybe they're, they're making a mistake and it's not working. Or you see people really putting themselves out there and being vulnerable and trying something new for the first time. And I think online, we're all trying to do things that, you know, we're trying to do something that's very new. We're trying to be human in this new space, and none of us really know what we're doing. So we're constantly making mistakes. We're taking big swings, we're making ourselves vulnerable. And I think that it's in those moments that we really get to see ourselves for who we are. Um, I was reminded of when I was in high school, my mom said I had to go out for a sport. And I was like, You have to be kidding, because I was a bookish kid. I was not at all athletic.

Chris Stedman (24:09):

My siblings were very athletically gifted. I was not. And so I thought, she's trolling me. I mean, I didn't know the word trolling at the time, but I was like, she's gotta be kidding. But she was insistent. And so I went out for cross country thinking, Okay, I'm a horrible runner. So this was my attempt at self-sabotage. I was like, I'm not gonna make the team cuz I'm gonna be so bad. While it truly was self-sabotage in a different way, <laugh>, because I didn't realize everyone makes the team in cross country <laugh>. And so there I was in cross country and I was doing something I was horrible at. And eventually I started to get a little less horrible at it. And I, you know, I'm a storyteller, I would love to say, like, and by the end of the season I was in first place. But no, I wasn't <laugh>. I was like,

Hillary Wilkinson (24:52):

Disney finish, come on!

Chris Stedman (24:53):

But I wasn't, I wasn't in last place. And in fact, I got the most improved award cuz this is how bad I was when I started two years in a row, <laugh>. And the thing that, I mean, I, a I discovered I actually loved running and I loved, like things that were athletic that I never thought I would. And as I mentioned now, I actually do all kinds of athletic things. Um, but so a I realized there were things about me that I, I hadn't discovered yet. Um, things that maybe I were, could surprise me about myself, but also I discovered that we learn fundamentally different things about ourselves when we do something that we're not good at. Prior to that, I had mostly stuck to the things that just came naturally to me. Things I was, you know, praised for or that were highlighted by teachers or whatever as being like, things I had some aptitude for.

Chris Stedman (25:38):

And I discovered actually that there are, there were really important things I needed to learn about myself from doing things that actually I was really bad at. And I think that online it can often feel like we're doing something that we're really bad at. We're making mistakes constantly. We're not sure what to tell our kids, or in my case, my students or my nephews or my niece, you know, what they should do. But I actually think that that messy work of trying to figure out how do I do this and how do we do this together, How do we do this well, gives us all kinds of opportunities to learn really important things about ourselves. So I actually think in that respect, the internet is one of the best tools we have, honestly, to getting a little bit closer to, um, you know, understanding who we are and, and determining what makes our lives feel meaningful. And that was not a conclusion that I was expecting to reach when I started working on this book.

Hillary Wilkinson (26:30):

Yeah, interesting. But I mean, it's, it speaks to your process as well where you say you start out with just an idea and kind of chase that.

Chris Stedman (26:38):

Absolutely.

Hillary Wilkinson (26:39):

So we have to take a short break, but when we come back, I am going to, to ask Chris Stedman for his healthy screen habit.

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Hillary Wilkinson (26:51):

My guest today is Chris Stedman, author of the book IRL. And I'm, you know, because we're talking so much stuff offline, I just want, or online, I wanna just ask a little offline human interest. Chris, what's your favorite ice cream?

Chris Stedman (27:10):

Okay. It's so ironic that you asked this because this is the, the question I ask when I'm doing intros with my students at the beginning of the semester, I have them introduce all these serious things about themselves and then I'm like, "What's your favorite ice cream flavor?" <laugh>? And, uh, so you'd think I'd have a good answer. Ready? I would say pistachio. I love pistachio. I love coffee ice cream. Okay, good. Pistachio is so good. Yeah.

Hillary Wilkinson (27:33):

Yeah. So fun fact, the flavoring in pistachio is not actually pistachio. It's almond.

Chris Stedman (27:38):

What is it?

Hillary Wilkinson (27:40):

It's almond!

Chris Stedman (27:40):

Okay. Yeah. Learn something new today.

Hillary Wilkinson (27:44):

I know apparently the almond flavoring comes through more and they'll use the bits of pistachio.

Chris Stedman (27:50):

Interesting.

Hillary Wilkinson (27:50):

Clearly I eat way too much ice cream.

Chris Stedman (27:53):

<laugh>, same

Hillary Wilkinson (27:54):

<laugh>. So Chris, on every episode I wanna give our listeners something for their time. And this comes in the form of a healthy screen habit, which is a tip or takeaway that can be put into practice nearly immediately. Do you have a healthy screen habit you can share with us?

Chris Stedman (28:11):

Yeah. So in IRL I use these sort of like metaphors as, um, in each chapter there's this kind of operating metaphor, which is, you know, I basically, the internet is such a huge part of our lives. It's so integrated into everything that it almost is like the air we breathe sometimes and you can't see it. Um, it's like invisible to us. And so I wanted to find ways to step back and get more perspective and find a kind of backdoor into reflecting on our digital life and how it's impacting us. And so in one chapter I used maps as this guiding metaphor, mostly because as a kid I loved maps <laugh>, but, and so it was an excuse to spend a ton of time in the map library at the University of Minnesota and stuff. But also I found myself thinking, okay, in when a cartographer is making a map, they have to take this complex three-dimensional terrain and they have to reduce it down to something two-dimensional, and they can include every detail of the map, otherwise the map would be as large as the territory they're trying to map itself.

Chris Stedman (29:05):

So they have to make choices about what they share and what they don't. And I thought this could be a great guiding metaphor for the ways that we share our lives on social media. We choose what to show and not what not to show. We're creating a representation of ourselves online. But this was one of these really fun moments where it turned out the metaphor was working on more than one level, including levels I wasn't anticipating. Because the thing about maps is we look at them as if they're just a sort of nu neutral factual depiction of a place, but they actually represent choices that people made about what is worth showing and what is not. And of course, those choices have a lot to do with who's, who's paying for the map, um, who decides Sure. You know, which cultural forces are dominant. And so you look at a map and actually you're seeing, you know, the interests of, of power and those kinds of things.

Chris Stedman (29:50):

And so online, you know, we are mapping ourselves by the sort of norms that have been established by the people who have created the platforms, which again, move us in the direction of, you know, sort of making money for them. And so I actually think it's kind of fun and interesting and helpful to sit down and try to create a map of your digital life. And you can use, you know, think back to when you had to make a map when you were in elementary school or something. You have to create a key that shows what symbols mean what, but just the process of trying to create this map that could be legible to somebody else that someone could look at and get some understanding of what your digital world is like, um, I think is really, can be really insightful. And I think it's an activity you can do as a, as a family to say, you know, we're gonna all sit down and create maps.

Chris Stedman (30:32):

And I, I, so I actually do this with my students. I have them make maps of their digital lives. And it's so interesting how different they are, how people choose to represent the different parts of their digital life in really different ways. What they choose to sort of document or not. Is it the platforms they spend time on? Is it the relationships they have? Is it the sort of different ways that they show up in different spaces online? Um, because right, we've always been multiple selves in different parts of our lives, the self I am in this interview is not the same as when I'm hanging out with my mom or teaching my students. Instead, who I am is a composite of all these different selves. And so how are the different ways that we sort of show up online and different parts bring different parts of ourselves to the forefront? How are those represented in a map of our digital lives? So I think it's kind a, yeah. Fun exercise to try out.

Hillary Wilkinson (31:20):

Yeah. Excellent. Well, if you'd like to purchase the book IRL, Finding Our Real Selves in a Digital World, you can find it on our Healthy Screen Habits, Amazon Marketplace. Or if you have the opportunity, please support your local independent brick and mortar book seller. However, if you need the ease and convenience of online shopping, go to healthy screen habits.org, click on tools, then resources, and scroll all the way down to find the marketplace storefront. Chris, if people want to find more about you and your work, where can they find you?

Chris Stedman (31:55):

Yeah, I'm on social media <laugh>, I'm on Twitter, Instagram and Facebook. My handle for all of those, it's Chris D as in dog, which is not my middle name, but, uh, Chris d Stedman, s t e d m a n. Or you can go to Chris Steadman without the d. Confusing, I know. But chrisstedmanwriter.com.

Hillary Wilkinson (32:15):

Excellent. As always, a complete transcript of this conversation can be found in this episode's show notes, which you can find by going to, once again healthyscreenhabits.org. Click on the podcast button at the top of the page and scroll down to find this episode. Chris, thank you so much for chatting with me today. I feel like we're gonna go and create digital maps and it'll be quite an adventure to see where my, uh, where my kids put themselves, 

Chris Stedman: Yeah, you'll have, you'll have to, if you feel like it, you'll have to send me yours. I'd love to see it.

Hillary Wilkinson: Oh, that would be awesome. Yeah. Okay. Thank you so much for being here today. 

Chris Stedman:

Yeah, thanks for having me.