Your Mind Matters – Susie Locke, Social Media Beware Good Bad And Ugly

What is going on in the online and virtual world and how do we keep up? Every parent is working twice as hard with all these new social media concepts and having their heavily impa— and having their time heavily impacted into monitoring their effect. Since 2000, we've been exponentially transitioning to a virtual world and at times we're being subjected to the best and sadly the worst of human nature. The worst of human nature resides in what Freud called the id, which is where our primitive and instinctive behaviors exist. When Freud wrote about this, the First World War had not yet begun, but the residue of malice and malignant behaviors in Eastern Europe filtered into their psycho-social-political consciousness, and the id, as Freud termed it, is an area of the psyche. It's instinctive and impulsive. It is disorganized, demanding, insistent, illogical, lacks morals, and is selfish. Your id drives what Freud called the pleasure principle of self-indulgence and self-gratification. If it's not satisfied, it becomes a wild animal which has not been fed. It roars, bites, and snarls until it is. The need for self-gratification is so great that the thought of hurting others is irrelevant. This concept for the darker agency of the mind is different than that of Jung's shadow, as Jung believed that although the shadow is where our darker nature resides, it also can have our goodness hidden in the recess. How do we know what our shadow is? Well, you'll be given an idea of your shadow as it emerges through your unconscious behavior. You unconsciously, spontaneously act and respond. As Jung suggests, look at our projections. Who annoys you, or who makes you angry, and who are you attacking and why? And on a collective level, when most, if not all, of society engage in this irrational and uncontrolled behavior, the next step is war and carnage. It is essential to be self-reflective, as it is to have self-control and self-regulation, which distinguishes the civilized human being from the animal. The impact of social media and technological mediums that we interact with are immediate, and they permit that impulsive reaction to be communicated to others without restriction. Punishment is often the objective of this behavior and can cause intense hurt. Deep harm, and even irreparable damage. There is no social media superego, a term that Freud proposed, which was the moral judge, that voice of a good parent that protects us and ensures that we're not harmed or that we do not harm others. The term 'do no harm' appears to have no place in social media. I am Dr. Maria Kempenska, and my guest today is Suzi Lodge. Who is a social media expert and she has her own business. We will talk about her mind and why it matters, plus the impact of social media on children and society. So please welcome Susie and thank you for joining me today on Your Mind Matters. First of all, can you give me an introduction to your background? Hi Maria, yes of course. So I am Susie Lodge, I am the founder and CEO of a company called Wiki Places for Kids, which essentially is a TripAdvisor for parents looking for amazing ideas and great things to do with their kids. And everything on there has been entirely recommended by other parents in a wiki form, and that they can add the places themselves and, and go about supporting local, very small and large businesses near them. I've been building the business since 2016, and over the last 4 or 5 years have managed to also build a community on social media myself and, and actually grown up to about 28,000 across different platforms. So I have definitely been through the peaks and the troughs of trying to build a following and, you know, enjoying the benefits, but also really getting pretty low and desperate in some of the cons of social media. And as you just said, I look ahead to what the future is and the way that we're going, and definitely have to stand up and take notice of what I'm showing and teaching my children as I go about my social media day by day. So yeah, I'm excited to talk about this with you. Oh, I'm really delighted that you've engaged on that level, because running a business, you've got to be positive and you've got to think, right, everything I'm doing is for the good and the positive. And yes, of course you have to make money, otherwise it doesn't become a business, but It's so great that you're seeing the other implications and the other impact. But Susie, how old are your children? So I have a 9-year-old boy, a 7-year-old girl, and a nearly 4-year-old girl as well. So that's quite a handful. It is. And you're a mum and you run a business. And it's quite interesting, there are more and more mums running their own businesses, which I'm really pleased about. But are you getting support in that world? Does the world of business for women get the support that it should? I think that more and more, especially since COVID there are groups and communities springing up everywhere, um, with them where women are supporting women. Um, I, and I, and I see mediocre effort from government to support women in business. Um, you know, for example, government loans or even large banking loans, large banks who provide loans, they're still almost tiddly for women and almost embarrassing. A man probably wouldn't touch the type of offering that some of the bigger banks are giving to women in business. And it's— so there's two levels to it. I think that on the ground, more and more women are supporting women and we want to see each other thrive. I myself run a network of mums in business, it's called the Wikimama Network, where about 35 big, and I built it during lockdown because I felt alone. I felt, um, almost desperate that my business had pretty much crashed overnight when things locked down. Of course, like a lot of my clients were venues and they shut, and therefore my revenue just shut down overnight, and I had to keep going because I didn't want to see my business die. So, and I could see around me a lot of other very small business owners, mums and women who were not mums but who own their own businesses, all sort of treading the space alone and feeling quite deflated and worried. And of course right now, even now we're talking on— we're in September '22 and I've seen businesses closing all around me, even the people who are super successful, the Holly Tuckers of the world, you know, had a business recently closed. So it's I do see a lot of female businesses shutting, and that might just be the lens that I'm looking through, but it doesn't seem to be happening as much for men, and it does make me think, well, where is the support for us? And perhaps it is lacking. Yeah, that's quite interesting. The interesting thing about support is both, you know, the financial but also the mental and the psychological. There are lots and lots of small businesses shutting, you know, there's no question of a doubt about that. And I see that happening, as you say, if you're in the live, you know, sort of world, which you are, taking children away, going to a venue, that is shutting. So in the world of comedy, for example, or music, they're all shutting as well. And also the big businesses take over. This is the tragedy of running a small business, small-medium business, SMEs, is that you do all the hard work and then it goes off to the big boys and they take over, which in a way is why people run their own business, but at the same time it's difficult to navigate. But how do you psychologically deal with your day-to-day life with your children? How do you manage your day-to-day work life with having children and dealing with everything that comes in and hits you? Well, it's such a good question because I, I, I actually don't even know the answer. But I think the fact is there is no choice. Um, as a mum, of course, you can't take a back seat, you can't just take a rest, you can't hide away in a room and cry when things aren't going well, especially, you know, if you have more than one, I think, you know, you're outnumbered and there's always a requirement on you. For me, I am, I do think that I'm mentally very strong. I just keep going. I pick myself up and I dust myself off and I crack on to the next thing. But also life is so busy. It's either running a child here to some club or, you know, getting dinner ready, putting dinner away, all of the different things. There's actually not much time to sit and dwell, in all honesty. But I have found I also try not to sweat some of the small stuff. So I often work with my youngest around me. The pandemic has actually changed the world to a huge benefit, I think, to working mums in the fact that I remember a few years ago I would have been dreading my child walking in on a Zoom meeting or somebody hearing a child of mine in the background or having to say that I couldn't go to something because I needed to do pickup. That just wouldn't have been in my vocabulary and I would have been awfully worried about that. But the world has changed and I do think that that has opened up so many opportunities to people like me who do have to really balance being a mum and not completely dropping the ball there while also trying to keep a business alive and keep the money coming in. In our house, I'm— we're 50/50 income in our house. I don't have the choice to just take a back seat and go, do you know what, I'm going to drop that ball today. It just doesn't work. My business as it is right now, my own personal business, Wiki Places for Kids, is not the biggest of the income streams that I have going, but I would love it to be and I want it to be. But it's just something that I have to keep, you know, I have to keep throwing, you know, fuel on the fire to just keep it going and keeping it alive. And I have such a passion for it. I think that's the other thing is that it is, it actually brings me joy. And so helping other people find great things to do and seeing the, the reactions to people when they use my platforms, that is really what keeps me going. And social media does play a big role in that, which I'm happy to talk to you about in a moment. Yeah, I think, you know, so the world has changed. I do remember when my kids were small, my daughter was, you know, sort of about 3, I think my son must have been 4 and a half, and I was doing a radio interview. I'd opened my second car club in Camden, and we had a heckler, and we didn't know the heckler was a plant from a newspaper, and she was deliberately heckling all the comedians just to see what the reaction was. And she was so difficult, in the end we had to remove her, and she wrote a two, you know, a full-page spread in The Standard. This is pre-social media. And then I had to have a response. I was given a response on the LBC the next day and it was early evening and I'm doing my response and the girl that was looking after— my babysitter was looking after the kids and my daughter ran in the room as I was talking live in the radio interview and oh my goodness, I thought this is it, this is the end, it's going to sound so terrible. But he was great, it's almost like it broke the ice, it made it sound real and natural. But you know, I used to take my kids in to work. They started understanding quite early on that you work. And years and years ago, if you look back, that's what women did— cottage industries. You know, if we had farms, the kids would work on farms. They'd get used to both parents working. Now I think the joy of social media, joy of everything at home, is that you can work. The downside is it is a burden. It's 24/7. And I think if the computer's on all the time, which it most probably is for you, as it is for me, you know, it's always there, it's always a reminder that you don't get away from it. But people often say, you know, oh, you can't have a work-life balance, you know, you— the world doesn't work like that. It's not prescriptive in this world. As an entrepreneur, life isn't prescriptive, and you at times have to work more, and at times, given a break, you can work less. But, you know, it's so interesting for you to say, how do your with female entrepreneurs? How do they deal with their work-life balance? Or work, you know, work— and it's not work-life balance, is it? It's what you do, what it takes. Exactly. How do they cope psychologically with that? Yeah, I was just thinking about it, that work-life balance is what we're all striving for. Um, and, you know, and I think you put a bit of a label on that, thinking that, well, what work-life balance means is being able to work from home, um, you know, being able to do pickup, being able to do those things. And that is, to an extent, finding a way through, I think. But is it balance? I don't know. I honestly feel like I'm not necessarily that well balanced. I'm a— I am going at it 100 miles an hour all the time. And I wonder whether one day I'm just going to keel over from a heart attack, you know. Do you feel like that? Do you? Yeah, you do. Yeah. So you've got to learn to somehow You know, this is where negotiation comes in, isn't it? You've got to see your value and start negotiating. But also, I think that's— do we put so much pressure on ourselves? In the '90s, Shirley Conran wrote a book called Superwoman, and she thought it was great. You know, married to Terence Conran, who then started— he was, I think it was Habitat in Heels. He was, you know, and obviously the Conran Shop. He owned a number of restaurants. And she came from a perspective of women can do everything. Well, yes, they can do things, they're multifaceted, but it doesn't mean they should have to, and not all at once. And I think that gave such the wrong message to a lot of women to go ahead and do everything and prepare the world that we should do everything, you know. And I think this is the biggest problem we now have to re-educate, that we do need support. And I'm talking about in-house you know, whether it's an au pair or a babysitter or somebody that comes in and gives us that support. Because I think it's so important to have somebody else around to get— or other women, you know, to share that load. I think that's incredibly important. But we do give the wrong message out as women, that being multifaceted, you know, and we can think of a lot of things all at the same time, it's given us— given us permission, too much permission to do everything. The burden is our own, on ourselves to achieve. And sometimes that can be overwhelming. Do you ever feel like that? Very often. I very often feel overwhelmed because, you know, having managed to achieve what some would then label a work-life balance, that's now exactly what you just said. It's given me a way to do everything, to make sure that I'm on top of the house, to get the dishwasher unloaded, to get the washing done during the day while I'm at home trying to manage a contract and trying to build another business, making sure the children are picked up, making sure that they're at their clubs, back fed, bed, all of the things. Now it's all within my power to be able to do it because I'm not traveling to London every day and getting home at 6 o'clock in the evening. Almost then, as much as I hated that commute and the stress that that applied to me in different ways, now not having that commute means one, I don't get any headspace or downtime to do my, you know, my life admin, which I didn't realize just how much I did on that commute. But also if I was out of the house, I couldn't do all that stuff that was in the house. So there was an understanding: if you're not there, you can't do it. Just like, you know, my husband will get away with it— well, I didn't get in until 6:30. Well, no, you didn't, but now you are in. Let's get going, you know. And, but, you know, that sort of thing. And, um, and, and I, you know, I do— he's not trying to be a chauvinistic pain in the ass, but He will say that, you know, well, you know, what is it that you do when your contract finishes? Yeah, I hate that term. What, so what have you done today? Oh my goodness, I've done all the things. Actually, I have done all the things. But again, I want to be, you know, the best mum I can be. I want to be a very, you know, successful entrepreneur. I want to have friends still. I want to manage those relationships and nurture them. And I want to nurture my own health and get out for walks and get out open water swimming, which is a thing. One of the ways, actually, to answer an earlier question, which is one of the ways I'm managing to balance my overwhelm and, you know, the mental stress. I find that a real release. But yes, it does feel like, you know, sometimes it's on you to do all the things. Yes, it's partially because of who we are and the drive, because if we give birth, that's what we do. But also we now need to learn to renegotiate our home life and make sure, because that doesn't come with it, you know, You don't get a handbook for this. We go out and just recently, as you were saying, you know, through COVID, you start working at home, you've created your business, you have to drive it forward. And it's very unusual there are so many female entrepreneurs, you know, and we needed those female— we need female entrepreneurs, you know, sort of because they bring a new dimension. But we still have to learn to— how do we communicate that to others? In the correct way. And do you think though, you know, I, I'm on— I look at Instagram every now and again, and then you've got Twitter, and then you've got Facebook, and you've got all those, and impact. And if you're helping female entrepreneurs as well, is there a lot of pressure from women to women? Because you've got the accessibility to all those mediums, you know, to look good, to have our hair done. I've got to look fabulous, I'm on a Zoom today. I've got to put on my lipstick, which I don't mind actually, I quite like that. But, you know, so is there an overwhelming need to still be looking good, being amazing and being the top? Because the only person that can really make it happen is you. Yes. Well, social media for me is a blessing and a curse in so many ways. I always said that I'm not shy to admit that I use the filter. Function on my stories. So when I'm not looking, am I, you know, as flawless as one would want to be, I will definitely swipe over and put Paris over the top, and then I look a lot better. Um, I definitely do think there's a pressure, yes. But having said that, um, to really resonate with your audience, actually you're better being the most authentic version of yourself and the most genuine. That said, even, you know, even though I try to show up as me as much as possible, as I've just admitted, I will stick that filter on because I don't like my blotchy skin and the fact that I've got bags under my eyes. But I don't blame you because we are becoming a very visual society, aren't we? You know, it never quite was the way it is. I mean, to some extent, everybody can be beautiful on social media. Yeah, absolutely. I mean, there are ways to, to completely change your entire avatar and you wouldn't even know now. I mean, technology has reached such extremes of, you know, amazingness, I guess, that it's a— you could, you could literally— I mean, there are actual profiles on Instagram and other platforms where it is a bot. It isn't actually a real person. Um, there's, there's many platform— many Instagrammers, um, who are super successful, but they're not actually real. They're bots, and, um, people follow them like they're real people. So you can, you can change your own visual to, to suit. You can whip in you know, nip your waist in, put lipstick on, all using filters and all sorts of things. You know, you can do it on Zoom, Skype, Teams channels. You can change, you know, you can blur yourself and do all those things. But you can also do it on Instagram and come across in the way that you want to, which is fine if you can be bothered. I mean, I can't. I like to try and show up as much as I can. But that said, You know, I, you know, I will— I would unlikely show myself, um, with not many, you know, not much, not wearing very much, or with a terribly spotty face. That's true. Why should you? You know, because, you know, the world judges. I don't care what anybody says. Yeah. And, you know, we, we're all a bit like that, and we all want to be aesthetically pleasing. But coming back to that side, the great side of of this ability to communicate is that we can communicate. The COVID lockdown gave us that opportunity to be able to do these meetings on Zoom, and quite rightly, you know, it has created a bit of a detachment where people don't meet. But let's talk about the other side, the side as you've just sort of started talking about, which is the side of bots, the lack unrealistic side, the false narrative that is coming now through social media. As you talk about bots, I saw something, and you know, well, you know far more than I do about this, but I saw a picture of one woman, not in England, sitting there with all these screens, or that she was navigating one bot to go on all these screens with messaging. That she was putting out. So clearly she was being paid to put out messages to somebody, but she must have had about 50 screens in front of her. Yes. And she was doing this. Now tell me more about that. What do you know about that? Well, I don't know an awful lot, but it— but what I do know just frustrates me so much because this is one of the things which I feel is just incredibly unfair about social media. So, well, just a little bit of context. So I built my following organically And what that means is that I have not used bots. I have not used some of the techniques that you can use to inorganically grow, and that means, you know, getting massive groups of people to like your posts, to follow you, to sort of a follow for a follow and all of these other things. Or alternatively, there is this bot type program that— and I warn anybody who's joining social media, who's on social media and just hasn't grasped captured it yet, that any, pretty much anyone who says, who emails you and says, um, I can get you 50,000 followers organically, even if they say that in their advertising, what they really are is somebody, probably, you know, they've got somebody somewhere sitting behind, um, like you just said, 50, 100 screens, just almost mindlessly, um, liking, commenting, sending your stuff to people. And it is not worth it because the, the people that you are engaging with on that level are not actually engaging with you. Somebody is engaging on your behalf and getting you all of this interaction and traction. And depending on what you want this for, if you just want fame on Instagram or, you know, or just people to be liking and commenting, then I guess it's fine. But if you want genuine customers, if you want a genuine community that cares about you and what you're doing and what you're maybe selling or what you're offering or talking about or what charity you're supporting, reporting. That is not the way. And I, one of the big frustrations for me over time has been, you know, watching other people grow around me from 0 to 250,000. Now, some of those people have actually grown on their own and they have managed to, you know, they've had that golden touch and, you know, or they've created that reel that has gone viral, or they've done, and, or they are genuinely super funny and engaging and entertaining. And yes, they absolutely deserve to to be in the limelight. But many, many people have engaged bots or some of these, what I call, you know, less organic techniques to grow. And what's frustrating, I suppose, is that lots of people don't know. So lots of brands still engage with those types of account and they don't realise that their engagement, that the engagement on those accounts is not true. And some brands are paying an awful lot of money to some of these accounts. To promote them, and yet you've got the likes of me who's trying to do it the right way, who is just struggling against the algorithm and, you know, totally ignoring and, and, um, I did not want to go anywhere near a bot, um, I don't see the points. You are going to spend money on a bot, by the way, as well. Um, so it can be frustrating and extremely disheartening, and I would even go so far as to say depressing at times. Um, sure. I've got quite focused, wrongly, I've got quite focused occasionally on Instagram results, likes, follows, and engagement there as being a bit the be-all and end-all, and forgetting that actually there are many other channels and ways to market yourself. But you can become absorbed into the Instagram world and the, the, um, and the engagement that you get because it's validating you, it's making you feel relevant, when actually maybe at home in your house, you just feel like unseen and unheard and, as we've talked about, completely overwhelmed. Yeah, and I think this is why this is such a fascinating discussion, this really between organic and real, genuine and the fake, because lots— so many times, because I'm both in the world of comedy and music and entertainment generally, and all I hear is, oh, they've got so many followers, millions of followers, thousands hundreds, you know. And as soon as you hear that, you genuinely believe it, and you never really have that critical faculty that says, well, how did they get that? Really? Yeah. Is that true? Well, yes, if you're Taylor Swift or Ed Sheeran, of course we know that would be true. But really, you know, for a lot of other people— so do you ever think, we'll blow it, why should I be organic? Because just the term, I've got millions of followers, if I can buy it, why shouldn't Where do you— at what point do you say, well, no, I don't want to do that? Because for purposes of business engagement to others, they haven't got a clue. Absolutely. Why shouldn't you do that? Well, I wouldn't be— I'd be lying if I said that even this week I didn't consider, you know, joining an engagement group or doing something and looking into some of these things just to see what they're about. But I always come back to no in the end because I think I'm not a product business, but especially if you were a product business, there would be no point in doing it that way because you wouldn't be selling anything to those people. And one of the things for me is I could do it because I really, what I need to do is I need to reach every, you know, parent in the UK. And if other businesses who I want to pay me saw that I was reaching a a significant audience, then that would, um, that would maybe make them decide to go with me and pay me the money to promote them. That said, then you have to deliver, then you have to deliver results for those clients. And, um, and if you've got, say, even— so I have 21,000 followers on Instagram and a smattering of followers in another account, and then about 6,000 followers in, um, um, you know, so overall, as I said, it rounds up to about 28,000. If your engagement isn't with 28,000 people, you are certainly not going to be getting 28,000 people to a brand. So there is no point in having 28,000 or 200,000 followers if you— if they're not genuinely into you and what you're doing. But yes, I have thought about it because sometimes it's like, if you can't beat them, you know, join them. And it's very disheartening seeing— struggling against the algorithm and struggling to get reach and struggling to get noticed when And when you see other people flying, but it isn't all that meets the eye. There are lots of people who are flying who— I look at somebody else's post and look at my post and I think my content is just as good, if not better than yours. So why are you getting that engagement and why am I not? And then dig a bit deeper under the surface and they're in multiple engagement groups. And what that means is that they'll send a link to their post to this, that, and the other group, of which there might be 800 people per group. So naturally they're going to get 800 likes from that group and the following and the following. So suddenly they've got, you know, along the lines of 1,500, 1,800 likes on a post. And, and so a brand will look at that and go, great, excellent engagement. But is it true? Most of the time people are— oh, I sound like a right sourpuss here, but most of the time these people are just influencing other influencers who are in the same boat, who want the same reach. Yeah, I hear that. Is it, you know, this whole world of influencers, is it like the you know, dot-com, you know, when that all started. Is that going to bust, the influencer, or are they going to continue? Well, every year I've heard people say, even at the top and at the bottom, you know, it's that the bubble is going to burst, but so far it hasn't. Um, and I think partly because the platforms continue to evolve and they keep finding new ways for people to be successful. So what they, you know, one of the things now is it used to be with Instagram, for example, that all you needed to do was post post up a post, and if people really liked you and engaged with you on a, on a, you know, on a human level, that that would be how you grew followers. Or if they really liked you because of something that you did, say you were an author and you resonated, and, you know, whatever, um, that would be the reason. Now you just have to be a bit of a show pony or good with, or good at creating videos, and that's how you get success with Reels. And it's so, so what is happening is that some people's bubble is bursting. So unfortunately, the people that evolved in the, in the early days of Instagram, who, who built really genuine followings because they actually had something interesting to say, they're not being seen as much anymore because they're not prepared to jump on this Reels bandwagon that's been introduced, where you literally have to create content every single day that reaches— it's got a different algorithm to the other types of posts, so you're actually even reaching your target audience, you're reaching a world, you know, a global audience. But if you don't do it, you're going to get penalized and you'll get bumped down the ranking of, um, um, as far as Instagram is concerned. So, so to answer your question, I think I'm not sure if the bubble is ever going to burst. I think, you know, I do think, um, this is stretching the conversation a little bit further on, but, um, one day it might be that we're all living in some sort of virtual world existence. God forbid, I literally hate that. And then where does the social you know, where are we then and what type of person does that suit? But so I think it's bursting for some people in the traditional sense, but then just new people find a way of growing and becoming huge with the new technologies that are introduced. It's a constantly evolving world of content creation and influencers. Madness. There is that madness. And I mean, you know, sort of Facebook, now called Meta, and creating these avatar worlds where they've had immediate and immense problems with the already sexual abuse on the metaworld. Can you believe it? It's just crazy. And, you know, we have, apart from a war that's going on already, you know, we have a lot of bad people behaving badly socially and publicly. Yes. And I do wonder whether social media and this constant repetition of what seems to be interesting news, all you're doing, a lot of people are doing, is being bombarded by negative behaviour. Yes. And, you know, it doesn't monitor it. There is no, really no social, as I said, no one that is the moral arbiter for social media. Who lays down the law? And I do think we're looking, apart from our we're leading towards a global government. Somewhere that will happen. God forbid it's any of the governments that are in play at the moment. I think everybody's struggling to find the right people to lead a globe, let alone a country. But— and I think it's difficult, I'm not criticizing politicians themselves, I just think it's a difficult job. But who is gonna— we do need a moral opportunity here and a moral, you know, panel, a moral set of people that will say, no, this is how humankind have to behave, because we are not behaving like that anymore. And if anything goes, we're just going to get worse and worse. Killings are going to get worse, and, you know, young people's behavior is going to get worse. And, um, I think that the people who— I've mentioned this before, you know, those that create the algorithms also sit in their little bubble and have no idea what their algorithm or the impact of their algorithm has on others. Exactly. Either. And I just think that's scary. Yeah. That they don't even think about it, and we just give them carte blanche. I've never seen a business— when I ran my business, I was very conscious of the algorithms and how we developed our, um, website and so on. I was very instrumental in that. We all were, you know, the people, myself and my other business partner. But now it seems I've heard people say, oh no, I'll just get somebody to do that. Well, who is this person? What are they doing? What decisions are they making? How is their, you know, decision going to influence people down the end of the road? What's going to happen? But they buy everything, it's so fast, everybody wants everything so quickly. But moving on to your— let's talk about children. Yes, that's talking about the influence of social media and the impact on the mind, you know, of not only on social media, we've talked about the impact on women's minds. And, you know, sort of, it's gone a bit crazy. I think the world is totally being sort of thrown up in the air, and the revolution is happening on every level. Disruption is happening on every level. Uh, but what do you fear most about your children and social media? Losing my kids, I think, to social media. Um, already none of my children have a phone, and I'm pretty dead set against them not having one until they go to secondary school, and only then because that's when they start to walk alone down busy roads and, you know, and things like that. That would be my reason, but I know that their reason for wanting a phone will be completely different. They won't care about being able to communicate with their parents or anybody else. They want it for gaming, talking to each other, you know, communicating, getting into social media platforms. And I— it scares the life out of me, honestly. What lies ahead for them. And for years and years I've said, you know, let's hope that the cybernannying side of, you know, of governance, I guess, sorts this out so that by the time my children get hold of a phone and get on social media, that it's under control. But I already see some small levels of addiction in my children when it comes to especially screens. I think for sure I can say screens overall TV, tablets, and, you know, the amount of times I have to say no to someone, "Can I borrow your phone, Mum?" Literally, you know, it's just so frustrating. My son turns into a completely different person once he's spent time on his Switch or on my phone. He is awful, and he really struggles to come out of a, of the world where, of a gratuitous world where you can, it's almost like a drug where you continually get hit after hit after hit of of success on a game, and you come back to the real world and he hates it because it's not as fun. It's not as exciting. You don't get that adrenaline hit. You know, when mummy asks you to empty the dishwasher, that's boring. You know, that's just not fun. But I also see, I have to be really mindful about what I am showing my children. I will be completely honest. I think that my husband and I spend way too much time on our phones. They see the tops of our foreheads more than they see our faces some days. Partly because we can actually now, with technology the way it is, run our entire businesses pretty much through our mobiles. To one extent, my mobile is more powerful than my laptop, I believe. You know, I can do everything on it, including, you know, taking photographs, which is a big part of what I do for my job as well, which my laptop can't do. And social media platforms, they are on my phone and not on my laptop. And I can see already my children getting a little bit obsessive with things, especially YouTube. We've had to take it off all of the TVs in the house because I noticed that they were just absorbing drivel after drivel, all this nonsense that they were watching, and all these absolute pain-in-the-backside influences out of all different areas of the world. Um, you know, it was driving me mental, but they were glued to it. And they even asked me themselves, both my children, can we create YouTube channels, Mummy? I was like, oh my goodness. Well, first, what are you going to create it about? I asked, to be honest, like, what is it going to be? And then I was like, what, what, why are you even encouraging this conversation? So they wanted their own YouTube channels. They also, because a lot of what I do is about sharing our experiences and great days out that we go on, and we, we do get to go on a lot of great, great days out. So they get shared and plastered all over social media, which obviously I've had to be very aware of and conscious of, but they want to be featured more. They're saying, oh, Mummy, will you put that on Instagram? Mummy, will you put this in on here or there and everywhere? So I'm, I'm feeding a need in them already without, you know, not even meaning to. And, and it does worry me the way that they are going, that they— my son, you know, had his birthday recently and he got given loads of lovely things for his birthday, lots of things that were nothing to do with screens, books, books, games, I don't know, things to engage with, toys. And yet after he'd opened them all, very quickly he wanted to return to his tablet or would ask me for my phone or to the TV. And it was just heartbreaking really, because you kind of think, well, you know, I have probably facilitated this over time. This is essentially my fault. And what direction are we going to go in if they continue down this track of, you know, and the more exciting it gets. And my husband has an Oculus Quest, which is a virtual world sort of— oh gosh, I can't think of the term, but it's a virtual world thing. And obviously my son loves that because you are practically there in another world. And with AI, the way it's going, which scares the life out of me as well, that's completely ungoverned. You know, it does make me worry about the direction. In addition to that, I mean, there's the obvious things which are really, you know, are worrying. If a child does get involved with social media, that I've heard countless times, friends of mine, and that with the older ones and my children, but the children themselves start to— their mental health starts to really deteriorate because they become obsessed with their appearance and also like likes and followers, you know. And we know, we've all heard, uh, probably a really sad story about a child that's taken their own lives because they either got involved in some stupid prank, um, that was on social media, or they actually just felt lonely, bullied through cyberbullying, or that they weren't actually popular enough in comparison to what their friends were getting. And this whole comparisonitis thing doesn't just sit with children, of course. It's something that I've really struggled with, watching other people be more successful and, you know, and grow and develop and appear to be more wealthy potentially, although you can never tell really on the outside. That's true. It's, you know, people look like they're far more successful. Other children will look at other children and think that their lives are better, that they've got more things. And don't we all look at social media and go, well, that family's happier, that person's marriage looks better than mine. Oh, look at, they've got that car, I can't afford it. Blah blah blah. It's on and on and on, and it's just really, um, you know, I'm painting a very bleak picture because I actually do think— no, no, I've asked you to, I've asked you because I think what you're covering is not just your life. Yeah, covering the negative approach that lots and lots of parents and lots of people worry about, and that's what I've asked you to cover. And I'm really grateful that you're doing this, Susie, because it's so powerful and it's something that every parent should be asking themselves, you know, if they're putting themselves out there as we are the best thing since sliced bread and look at us and isn't it wonderful. And it's not true, the impact that alone is having on other people's lives, you know, and particularly as you say children, you know, and people are very unconscious the way they're behaving through this medium. Yeah, absolutely. And I think also we don't always take notice of our— the time that we're spending. I heard an absolutely fascinating fact that, um, on average people are spending about 2 hours 24 minutes a day, and obviously we know that lots of people spend a lot more time than that. And the stat goes on to say that if that person then lived to being 70 years old, they would have spent 5.7 years of their lives on social media. It's ridiculous. Imagine, nobody on their deathbed— I mean, so far in my life anyway, no one on their deathbed has said, oh, I wish I'd spent more time on social media. They would really also wish they'd spent more time with my child. Absolutely, it's all relation-based. So coming to that point, how do you deal with discipline? Because your work, as you say, both yours and your husband's, is on, you know, is your husband on that sort of super high quality, you know, immersive, um, medium, and you equally, you have to use it. So how do you deal with the discipline of your children, them and us? Yeah, so we have rules in our house about how we all use the phone. Um, one, one is a very simple one, which is no phones or devices of any kind at the table. So when we are breakfasting, lunching, dinning together, um, there are no devices at the table. Um, and I, and I put this in place because I did realize that my husband and I were sitting there at the dinner table with our phones sometimes, you know, answering things, finishing an email, blahdy blahdy blah, and then we would berate the children for awful behavior and get get, you know, cross with them or get cross with my son for bringing his Switch to the table. And you can't have that. You can't— what we're— we're the ones showing him how to behave, and it's just absolute double standards. So we brought that rule in around tablet usage and other device usage. Thankfully, some of the tablets and things that we've got have— you have the ability to have a parent portal and control time around those uses. So I've set timers so that they can only have like 45 minutes on this day, an hour and a half on that day, depending on the reason for it. My son does a lot of travel in the car because he plays football for Peterborough, which is a good hour or so away from us. So he does a lot of travel and we allow him to, you know, to use it in the car. And so we have certain levels of discipline. As I said, I've removed YouTube from the main TV so they can't just go on and sit there mindlessly watching this absolute nonsense. And watching these other Instagrammers trying to get everyone to follow so that they could win £10,000. And oh goodness me, it's just nonsense. But I felt— but honestly, we're still finding our way, you know, because things are changing and moving so fast and we have no boilerplate to work from. We are the first generation to have this issue. When I was young, I had an Atari. Do you remember? Anybody remember? I had an Atari, and I think I was a tiny bit older, I had a Game Gear or a Game Boy. And, um, and I just was not interested in gaming or being behind a screen. It just wasn't my thing. I wanted to be out and about. So, um, you know, so we're all navigating this in our— on our own without any advice. And I suppose to an extent, this is where it's so contradictory. This is where social media really lends itself, because a positive to social media is just how much you can learn how much advice you can get. You know, you can join all the different communities for any single problem you've got, and that's where you, you know, there's a lot of sharing and advice. And, um, and within my network group, we ask each other. This is where women are really supporting women. I bet, I bet most women out there would say that the majority of WhatsApp groups they're in are mainly women in those groups. Um, it is certainly for me anyway. I'm in a couple of groups where there's men in them as well, token men potentially. But this is where women are supporting women. This is where we're all learning this new sort of time period, I think, you know, together and figuring it all out. We definitely have not got it nailed here. We are still figuring it out. You know, I'm trying to— I'm very aware that the behavior of my children gets worse after usage of tablets and things. And God forbid what it's going to be like when they get stuck into a world of of the social media rabbit hole where it's very difficult to come out. Yeah, because your daughter must be going very soon to secondary school. Yeah, well, my son first, he's 9. Oh, your son's 9? Yes, him first, so he's the biggest trouble. And then Tilda is 7, so she's in the year behind him. But it is a worry, and I— because I think the other thing that that we all really struggle with, because this conversation came up very recently about when, when are we all going to let our kids have phones with a group of the school mums. And some of them were very clear about it, others were, oh, I'm not really sure, because of this whole bullying, um, we are in. If you, if your kid doesn't have— and this is the age-old thing, you know, when I was at school, it's whether or not you had high-tech or Nike trainers, you know, if you're high-tech, then you weren't cool enough. It's going to be the same thing now if you haven't got an iPhone but you've got an Nokia 80% or whatever it's called, you know, you're going to be bullied. And so you're constantly straddling a dilemma of do you just try to make your kid's life easier in a world that's really difficult, traumatic, coming out of pandemics and, you know, one global crisis after another? Do you really want to add another layer of, you know— Ah, so that's a very good point. I was going to come to that and you've actually opened that door quite nicely. A segue, as they say in comedy. Um, to that point, do you talk to your son, who's 9, and, you know, your daughter perhaps less so at 7, but do you talk to him about the dilemma, the downside of social media? Because I have a friend who's, um, he teaches his daughter, she's older, a little bit older, she's 11, 12. He talks to her about the downside of the addictive nature of of interacting with various sites and so on. Do you talk to your son about that, what the addiction is? And do you frighten him a little bit so that he is wary? Because frankly, they don't know the outcome. No, they can't understand it. They can only see what they see for themselves, really, at this age. So do you actually tell him how dangerous it can be? I do, I do. But I, I, you know, if I'm going to be completely honest, I think sometimes the way I deliver that is not the, the it can often be delivered in a frustrated, get yourself off that tablet type way. Blah blah, this is going to turn you into a zombie, this is going to turn you— Susie, can I just say, you know, sometimes kids do know when it's done— when kids— children know if they're being told off because they are annoying or if a parent hates them. This is— there's this crazy thing in psychology where they think children are unaware of if a parent loves them or hates them. And they always are aware if they know they've overstepped the line. Every child will say, well, you know, yes, my parent told me off, but I deserved it. Yes, I was pushing the boundaries. So yeah, I think parents are being criticized far too much for that discipline because it will be annoying if a child doesn't do as they're told. Over and over again. You've got to see it through and help them understand there are, you know, there are problems, there are minor punishments. Let's face it, this is a minor punishment in comparison to what could happen for them. So that is not the right or wrong way. You can't sit and negotiate with a 9-year-old. No, not at all. So they've got to be very clear guidelines that you actually stick And I think this is another way that social media sort of piles the pressure onto a parent as well, because without social media I would never have been aware of calm parenting or positive parenting, you know, notions. And, you know, you only really know your own parenting and your parents' parenting and what you can sometimes see, snippets of other people's parenting. And so social media brings in all these other options of how to be a better parent, you know. And then, you know, God forbid you should act on a whim and, you know, naturally in response to your kid being an absolute brat, because then you've defied all the rules that are in all these other, like, new apparently better ways of parenting. Um, but yeah, no, we definitely— we try to talk to Jacob, um, as much as we can about, about bigger issues, global issues, you know. We didn't hide anything from him around the pandemic or around the, um, the war in Ukraine. We try to talk to him about things without really scaring him, but as I said, sometimes, you know, you do fly off the handle because you're so annoyed and frustrated with the ignoring and, you know, the bad temper that comes out of it. But I do think it's really important. I'm not one that protects my children from all things and trying to keep them little, because actually I just think you're setting yourself up for, and them up for, just an enormous fall. But that's my way, and I don't know that that's everybody else's. But in fact, I know it's not. But I— but that said, I also came from parents who seriously and significantly overshared, and that wasn't massively helpful either. But that was— no, no, I totally agree. Parents sometimes say far too much to their children. And, you know, I've heard conversations at very young ages where mothers are talking about their boyfriends, their sex life, and all this. No, stop. 'Exactly, yeah, yeah.' You know, so I hear what you're saying. It's very difficult, I think, for parents. And that, as you say, calm parenting— yes, that happens at times. And very often I really believe that those sort of models that are put out there are by people who've never had children, that have never been, you know, sort of working and looking after children at the same time. Because as I say, children really know when they've pushed the boundaries themselves. And there is justified anger or justified annoyance, and that child will know when they have just— it's when it's unjust that we're talking about. And I think good parents are being punished along with bad parents here. I think that's a really severe criticism that you're, you know, people are falling into. It's really bad to, you know, sort of feel that, oh my goodness, I have to do this in the right way all the time, I'm being monitored by other people. I'm not, I'm not good enough. But you are good enough. One of the best books that was ever reading— written is A Good Enough Parent. Just be good enough. You don't have to be perfect. You don't have to be the best. Because if you're good enough, the child will find their own nature, find their own way out into the world. They need to develop themselves to come out into the world themselves, you know, and understand you know, sort of how they live in this world. And you're there sort of like petals to protect them. And as they grow like this wonderful organic being, you're there to help them and, you know, protect them, bring them inside when they, you know, things are going wrong, and just make sure that they know they have backup. But also protect— to protect them from a very difficult outside world at the moment. Yes. So I think you're doing super well, and don't beat yourself up. And I think this is where social media, especially if you have to engage. You hear all that. Yeah. You know, and I think psychology has got a lot to blame for this as well. You know, they open up all these magazines and, you know, every psychological person has a view whether they've had training or not. You know, they've had a weekend's training in something like a Mental Health First Aid and they think they know everything about psychology and become that guru. And it's actually disturbing. You know, and people in advance, you know, so inadvertently might listen or read something and they think, oh my goodness, I must be the worst parent in the world. No, you're the best parent that child, your child, has. Yes. And I believe very much in the spiritual nature that each child comes into the parents that they— let's have the caveat of the right parents who behave in the right way— that they needed to develop. I'm not talking about parents who are off the Richter scale or actually disturbed in some way. That's really difficult, and they need looking after and protecting. But most children are being looked after by good parents or good enough parents, and you do a good enough job. And I think this is where we're being inundated by false information, which is where we started really, isn't it? So we're almost tying up to a really fabulous, you know, sort of piece of information. What should people look out for themselves? Here we are, adults, we're trying to live our lives, and as you say, you know, we all put on our makeup when we do the Zoom, and we all try to look our best because you have to make that instantaneous connection, you know, with people. And, you know, it doesn't matter what we think that people really see, they don't see, do they? They don't see the full side So our persona, as Jung called it, that mask that we all wear because there's too much beneath us to be able to show at one time, is what people see and connect to. So is there something that is good, that is worthwhile, that we should all get, this filter zone that helps us connect better? The sort of tips from that, have you learned any? I think over time I've learned to just engage and disconnect a bit from on an emotional level from social media. And this would be my biggest tip to anybody, is just to remind you that it is entertainment. See it as entertainment and not as a way, you know, not as instructional, not as a way to live, not as some— something that you need to try and live and aspire to be. It is literally— it's another form of TV where people dress up and act a certain way to give over a certain certain side of themselves in that particular moment. And just to constantly remind yourself that that is what it is. And I think to try to get some rules for yourself about your usage, try to, you know, one of my big things to say is that if you could, a lot of people, we all do it, I know it, and I've done it before loads, but we all often scroll when we go to bed. We're lying in bed and we're scrolling, and then eventually we turn the light out, we're going to sleep. It's one of the worst things that you can do because of the blue light, but also all the rubbish you've just filled your brain with before you go to bed and sleep quality down. And then everything about you that evening, that night, that your quality of sleep that night, and then how you are the next day is directly proportionally, I think, impacted from this tripe that you've inhaled and swallowed just before you go to bed. So I think getting some rules around it, thinking to yourself constantly, this isn't real. This is just a, you know, this is one-dimensional. Yes, take the positives, and I want— there are lots of positives. You can get amazing communities, um, that you can join and be part of and get support and advice. You can learn an awful lot of, um, you know, get free educational resources and learn key skills, techniques, upskill yourself. There's so many things you can do, but I think it's about everything in moderation. And, you know, if you are And I'm not saying don't use social media. I absolutely think it, you know, especially as a business owner, there is literally no way I won't be using social media until it does blow up into a million pieces. I will be using every free resource I can get to promote my, my business. But just a reminder that there's a time and a place for it, and it isn't always. It's not every time you've got a second to flick on and scroll. It's not when you're walking, you know, behind your pram like scrolling, scrolling, scrolling when you've got your child in the— in your hand on the, you know, and you've got your phone in the other. I mean, I'm saying take my advice basically because I'm not using it, so it's— I've got to really learn, relearn some of these things myself. But these are the times when I really spot where I'm getting dragged into that social media rabbit hole. And, um, and the more I get sucked in, the more depressed I get with my own things, with how successful I am in business, with my friendships, with my marriage, with my holiday, with my house, you know, with my back garden. All you're doing is, you know, it's basically flicking through a magazine, but you kind of forget because you look, you think that when you're on social media that you're looking at people who are like for like, and you might be looking at people who are the same 2.4 children type setup, but they've literally shown one corner of their world and not anything else. So Susie Lodge, uh, please remind us of, before we finish, your website, so, and how people can contact you. I cannot thank you enough for being so open about the world of social media. Everybody needs to hear this. So what is your website and how can they contact you? So my website is wikiplacesforkids.com, and I'm also on Instagram as @wikiplacesforkids. Wikiplacesforkids_official and Facebook as @wikiplacesforkids as well. You can find me everywhere. And we have an app as well called WikiKids, so if you're looking for great days out and you want parent recommendations rather than being advertised at, then this is the platform for you.