Dr. Micaela

And when you think about scrolling on your phone, right, or locking my phone up or ignoring my notifications, whatever it is, pros and cons, pick the behavior it is that you're assessing.

So I'm gonna say scrolling on my phone, period.

We're just gonna make it a blanket scrolling on my phone.

When you map out the pros and cons of scrolling on your phone, you are identifying the number of things that are maintaining that behavior.

If you're doing a thing and you're doing it repeatedly, that behavior is what's called being reinforced.

And that doesn't mean that the only thing happening is a reinforcement.

It means that in the giant pile of shit that happens as a result of scrolling on your phone, the reinforcement overwhelms the punishment.

These are behavior science terms.

I'm not talking about spankings.

um or being grounded or something like that i'm talking about punishment is a consequence i did not want and a reinforcement is a consequence i wanted right is an outcome so when i scroll on my phone for eight hours con i didn't work on my thesis con i didn't get good sleep con um i feel like a slug and i feel lazy and lethargic and maybe mildly nauseous i don't know um pros i got

Endless amounts of content.

I didn't have to write my thesis.

I didn't have to think about what I wanted to eat for lunch and dinner because the only thing I had to think about was what was the next reel I was going to look at, right?

So when you can map out that system of reinforcements and punishments, it actually helps you look at and then better assess, wow, can I take away some of these reinforcements and can I add more punishments to myself?

Because I want the punishments to be louder because if I punish a behavior in behavior science terms, punishments decrease that behavior from happening.

So once I have mapped it out, it really helps me say, oh, well, then I need to do X, Y, Z to change this.

So maybe I say, I'm not allowed to work on my phone until I've done 30 minutes of work on my thesis, five minutes of work on my thesis, written two sentences, right?

So that I'm breaking the barrier of the inertia on one of those pros.

I can't escape

the thesis, which is the pro to scrolling on my phone.