Real Men Hug

Ep. 17 || The Social Media Maze: Parenting, Politics, and the Pursuit of Positivity

Ben Kraker & Jim Van Stensel Season 1 Episode 17

In this episode of Real Men Hug, Ben and Jim explore the complex world of social media and its impact on parenting, politics, and mental health. 

Ben and Jim reflect on how social media has become a double-edged sword, bringing both connectivity and complications. Ben shares a personal story about the regret of allowing his son access to Snapchat, highlighting the platform's potential to expose young users to harmful content, leading to a broader discussion on the influence of platforms like TikTok on their kids and themselves.

Parenting today is vastly different due to social media. Ben and Jim discuss the importance of open communication with their kids, setting boundaries, and balancing trust and vigilance. Ben also reveals how social media was a lifeline for him, helping him discover his ADHD and seek treatment, emphasizing the importance of managing anxiety and maintaining a supportive approach to parenting in the face of social media challenges.

The hosts discuss how social media often amplifies extreme views and creates echo chambers, stressing the importance of seeking diverse perspectives to foster a more balanced understanding of political issues. They also explore how focusing on positive interactions can mitigate some of the negative effects of social media. 

As they wrap up, Ben and Jim acknowledge the pioneering role parents today play in the digital age. There’s no instruction manual for raising kids with social media, and they emphasize the importance of learning together and supporting each other through these challenges.

And hey, if you love what you hear, consider supporting the show at buymeacoffee.com/realmenhug. Your contributions keep us going and help us bring you more episodes filled with laughter, insights, and relatable stories. Join us in growing and strengthening our community of real men who aren't afraid to hug it out. Thank you for being a vital part of our journey!

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Jim:

Welcome to Real Men Hug, a podcast for men and the women who love them. I'm Jim and I'm Ben. Oh, welcome to the show. The show, the show. We're back in it, Ben. We are back in it. Here we are in a brand new studio. How's it feel, Ben?

Ben:

It feels very brand new and sterile kind of

Jim:

our show has been so successful that we bought a new studio

Ben:

Yes, this show has generated oodles of revenue of dollars just

Jim:

Swimming in it.

Ben:

Yes. So thank you to all of our supporters couldn't have done it without you

Jim:

We have we have people that listen to our show though every time it hits the air It's good stuff.

Ben:

I would rather have that than oodles of money and cash flow.

Jim:

I have loved some of the comments that you guys have sent. It's the self deprecation of our show we're not topping the charts. Let's be honest In reality, though. We we have a new studio because you finally settled into the new digs.

Ben:

It has been a process.

Jim:

It'll be nice when you can like get the boxes put away and add your sort of touch and flavor to it. But definitely it feels professional. It does kind of miss the vibe of the loft that we had before.

Ben:

Yeah, that was very much like a college dorm room feel almost. This is professional.

Jim:

Professional production that we got going here at real men hugs. Thanks so much for joining us today. We were talking about. Kind of what we wanted to cover and the whole idea of social media, just the whole gamut sort of comes to mind because it really is so pervasive in our culture. Anyways, it's really greatly impacted us and. Obviously, even more so our, our kids. It's huge.

Ben:

Yes. Unfortunately, and fortunately. So at the same time,

Jim:

yeah, there are positives and negatives for sure of social media, but man, especially when it comes to parenting,

Ben:

yes. It's changed so much. It really has. There

Jim:

are still things that haven't changed when it comes to being a good parent, but so much has largely because of technology and specifically social media. Like you just can't raise kids the same as you used to. So yeah. As a, as a net whole, I feel like our world would probably be a better place without social media than with it. I am kind of curious your thoughts too.

Ben:

Yeah, I would change the adjective. I don't think it would be a better place. I do think it would be a simpler place.

Jim:

Sure, less complicated.

Ben:

Yes, I don't want to put a value judgment on it, whether it's good or bad. The moment you ascribe a good or bad to something, it gets messy, really messy.

Jim:

You don't want to make a value judgment on social media as a whole.

Ben:

Correct. I would rather look at it from the perspective of simplicity versus complexity somehow that makes it feel better.

Jim:

I have to imagine though, the platform makes a difference. Definitely. Are there some platforms that you would. More readily say, this is just not a good platform for my kid to be on.

Ben:

125 percent

Jim:

and what platform or platforms would that be?

Ben:

That would be Snapchat, If I could go back and do one thing differently, it would be. Eliminate Snapchat from my son's phone. It's just a gateway to. An unrestricted amount of, filth, drama, the opposite of what we're trying to instill in our kids. Snapchat is like a gateway to it. You can find all kinds of things on Snapchat. Kids who are exposing themselves in snaps to each other and those things get screen recorded and shared amongst other kids. And then you have plugs on Snapchat, which are on the snap map. If you look and see a plug, an electrical plug icon, that's a symbol for someplace that you can go and get some nefarious drug or substance or whatever you want. You can find it via the snap map and plugs. And so it's this uncensored unrestricted gateway to so much pain. Some kids can handle it and it's been fine, but then there's other kids who just curiosity gets the best of them and it ends up taking them down a very long. hard road. Sure. It's really difficult to come back from. I would caution any parent Do not let your kid get Snapchat.

Jim:

And if you're not familiar with it, one of the kind of key components of Snapchat is that messages and those pictures and things like that disappear after they're viewed. So you can. Change like how long it stays on the screen. And obviously you can take screenshots of it, but ultimately the whole point is that it disappears. And it's hard not to think that that's sort of like an intentional thing to keep that layer of privacy. Now it does tell you when someone has taken a screenshot of your content, so you at least have a heads up. But once they take that snapshot, then. There's nothing you can do about it. And in fact, I think even legally, cases have shown, if you sent it, then it's essentially now their photo. it's really scary, but you're right. Some people can be more responsible with it, but it's such a dangerous thing. there other ones? Like I know Tik TOK is really popular and there's some concerns about attention and some of the messages that come with that. What do you think about that one?

Ben:

It's just like any other social media platform with an algorithm. It tracks what you engage with. It tracks what you, immediately swipe away from. It tracks the, ads that you click. So it's, a super intelligent AI. feeding you more and more of what you want. And anytime that that happens, you get hooked and you keep watching. There was one, skit for lack of a better term on a tick tock video of a husband and wife in bed, and one of them is scrolling until two 30 in the morning. And the other one just. Falls asleep when they hit the pillow. And it was just a funny comparison of two types of spouses in the world, one who stays up until two 30 and scrolls and the other who falls asleep when their head hits the pillow. And it's relatable because that's, that's my wife and I,

Jim:

that's my wife. And I,

Ben:

I am the, I'm asleep as soon as my head hits the pillow.

Jim:

Isn't it funny that that's me too. I'm curious what people thought when we both said there's one of those in our relationship that you and I are the fall asleep when the head hits the pillow. Oh

Ben:

yeah. I mean, it's. Really thanks to my CPAP machine. I mean, once that air starts flowing, I'm a goner.

Jim:

I'm not saying that I never scroll on my phone in bed. I do like, it's not an uncommon thing,

Ben:

I don't have a problem necessarily with Tik TOK. I know that there's some government measures. They're trying to curtail the presence of TikTok in America because there's some Chinese control of it. I don't understand. I think it's a fine app. I think it's like anything else, you can get addicted to anything. I don't have a problem with it other than there was a time. In the last couple of years that I spent way too much time.

Jim:

It's interesting because part of it too, is not just social media, but also the rise of the internet. And now when it comes to media sources, it makes a lot more sense to compartmentalize your audience. You, you want to cater to that audience and the audience ends up being almost a customer. Caricature of itself, because you always have to do something a little bit more extreme or something that riles people up to keep them interested. And so when you only consume one news source, now all of a sudden you end up in a very extreme position without even realizing that you're there as a country. I think that's just, that's part of who we are is that we allow. Some of those outside influences and it's a business and it's an app and it's something that we voluntarily get into

Ben:

it's true

Jim:

I'm not trying to argue again because people are gonna believe what they want to believe Yes, but but it's amazing to me how people will hear something from their Select new source, and they won't even bother to entertain what other information is out there.

Ben:

It's like speaking into a vacuum. You only hear your voice and the voice of the people that you're closest to. And you miss out on so many other people's voices. Yeah. And I think that's where social media can become problematic. Cause if you're only amplifying and giving ear to the voices you agree with. You're gonna miss out on a whole lot

Jim:

for sure.

Ben:

So yeah, I can see why that would be problematic but I still don't know if it would be better if the world would be better without Social media because if it wasn't social media, it would be something else that we would find to do the same thing it's just the tribe mentality like you need a tribe and you're gonna find a tribe whether that's Gathering in caves or going on hunting trips together or for sure social media like so I don't know that Eliminating social media would somehow read society of those things. I think they'd pop up in other ways.

Jim:

I don't disagree with you, but I love that word. And I've used that myself, that tribe mentality, that the difference is with social media before you mightn't have had a tribal mentality, but it was at least somewhat localized.

Ben:

True.

Jim:

So now. The problem is before the news, you wanted to remain respectable. Otherwise you would lose a big chunk of your audience versus now it actually is better to be more extreme. So I guess social media and like the news in general are sort of tied together for me, but where I do feel like it is worse is that before you still were part of a smaller community. So even if you leaned more in one direction than the other, you still were trying to be acceptable within the community in which things ran. And so prevented some of these extremes from coming out, but I don't know, even as I talk, I guess one area that it's probably helpful is for marginalized groups.

Ben:

I would agree with that.

Jim:

Because if you're in a small community and you're the only fill in the blank. It's really hard to feel like you have a voice or a place. In that regard, it's probably been better.

Ben:

My biggest discovery on social media was the fact that adults can struggle with ADHD and that a lot of the symptoms and things that I thought were just weird quirks about me were actually the symptoms and, and signs that pointed to adult ADHD, the constant anxiety loops that my brain would sometimes get into. And I just could not break free from and seeing videos of people with ADHD and their doom piles. I'm surrounded by doom piles right now because I'm moving, but that's besides the point. When I do a project and I wasn't. treating my ADHD, my tools would just sit wherever they ended up and they would just be there until all of eternity. Like I would have a box in my car to throw random things. Then I would take that box out and put it in the garage next to another box of random things. And all these things that I thought were just quirks about Ben were actually Symptoms of ADHD. I set an appointment with my doctor's office. They had a social worker who was trained in. diagnosing ADHD. I went through the tests. What do you know? I was basically off the charts with ADHD. And so I started taking a medicine and some other treatment for ADHD. And it's been life changing recently because of my heart stuff, I had to stop taking my ADHD med for a bit. And that was. Difficult, because I reverted back to unmedicated Ben with raging anxiety and raging ADHD. And that's not a good mix when you're moving and stressed, stressed, and you've got a lot of projects to do. It was really bad. Had I not seen those videos, had I not read those articles that people were sharing on social media, I don't know that it would have ever crossed my mind that, Oh, maybe this is ADHD that I'm dealing with. And my life drastically improved the moment that I sought diagnosis and treatment and I'm in a much better place because of it. Um, Yeah, that's due largely to social media.

Jim:

You're convincing me as we're doing this episode that maybe there is a net positive. It seems like while yes, social media catches people on the fringes and sometimes even makes people who were on the fringes worse than they were if it weren't for it. It also catches people on the fringes that maybe wouldn't have otherwise Been connected or found that solution. I think even back to my college days before there even social media was in its fledgling stages. This was back when you had to have the dot edu address for Facebook. Zanga was king and it was, there was a guy in the dorms that never talked to anybody because he was deeply introverted. But if you got on instant messenger, And you had him instant messenger folks, if you're under 40, just, uh, the instant messaging service where you could send each other effectively texts, DMS. Yeah. DM that's a better way of saying basically a DM specific platform. And yeah, it, it allowed him to be able to do that. It's so, it sounds like for a guy like you, that felt like he was sort of an outsider in some of these ways, social media was actually a huge way to connect to that.

Ben:

It was. And anytime that you feel like an outsider, it creates so many big questions and it fosters a sense of loneliness. Like, am I the only one who is struggling with this? Seeing those videos and posts and everything else just really clarified for me that, no, I'm not the only one. There are other people my age that are dealing with these things. And. Who would have thought? So, yeah, I mean, I think a lot of good can come from social media. Do you consider podcasts to be part of social media?

Jim:

I think in the world that I had created where there was no social media. I think it almost would be like stepping back in time a little bit to before some of the ones that are a little more catered, like the Facebook and tick tock and Snapchat and all that kind of stuff, because, you know, You know, the, the direct messaging with instant messenger, I think is less problematic because it's more personal podcasts or the same thing. And there's some accountability, I think, in podcasts as well. Just that it's, it's this. Immortalized thing, you know, unlike Snapchat where it disappears, it's something that, um, you tune into and there's just a swath of podcasts out there that you're not forced to listen to just that one podcast, um, that, and it tends to be topical and Hey, here is something that maybe I know for me, this podcast I've said before would have been huge in some of my, um, Early marriage days, and especially when I was going through stuff with the kids and my wife's postpartum depression podcast would have been an amazing thing. But again, even as we talk, I, while I think we need to circle back to some of the negatives, I think of my own kid that when he was really young. Somewhere around 3rd or 4th grade is when kids start getting mean and judgmental and even in a positive light they just start clicks. That's when people find their other people and somebody like my kid who's trying to learn the social rules. Falls outside of that. He's more of the computer and the Minecraft and cubing and VR and all that kind of stuff where that's a lot more popular nowadays and there is a group for it, but it wasn't until we gave him a phone when he turned, not right when he turned 12, but he was 12 when he got one. And he also, with his own money, saved up to buy a VR headset where he can game online with his friends. So now between getting on like Minecraft and he'll have his phone set up and they're all on a group chat together or they're on VR together, he didn't really have friends to speak of until he had that. Interconnectivity on the internet where now he's got this like solid group of friends that he interacts with on a regular basis. I hear him like laughing downstairs or a lot of times when he'll do the voice chat. I digress in all of that just to say that I, speaking of my own kid, like it's actually been a positive thing. So you asked me what I would dwindle it down to. And I don't know, I'm torn because I see how there are kids who are dead today as a direct result of social media and adults and adults. And that to me is just a tragic thing, but there are also. Some of those like introverted kids or neurodivergent kids that social media has been a lifeline for them that they didn't have when you and I were growing up that it's hard for me to say, do you just get rid of it? And you can't. It's here. So How do we adapt? I think it's more about having structure and guidelines and limitations to make sure that we're more careful with this. And I think my kid is probably going to do a better job with his kids than I did because I'm just trying to figure it out. It's brand new to us. Yeah. It is. I don't know. I'm curious for you though, because us, Xennials as they call us, we didn't grow up with a lot of social media or even the internet wasn't honestly something that most people had as kids. So I

Ben:

was super nerdy.

Jim:

You had the internet as a, as a little kid. Oh yeah. I feel like of the two of us in this room, that would have been a lot more meaningful for you to have the world at your fingertips. So I'm just curious how, how the internet and the rise of social media has impacted you.

Ben:

I go back to eighth grade. Before there was the internet as we know it today, there were localized bulletin board systems, BBSs. And it sounded like a fax machine every time you dialed in to connect to the internet. You would hear the beeping just like you would calling a fax number. I just remember coming home from school and trying my best to beat my brother to the computer. Cause we had one phone line, one computer and whoever got there first, it was theirs for, I think we had like an hour and a half time limit. We would tie up the phone line Nobody could call us and if somebody picked up the phone to make a phone call it would knock us off of the internet So it was like Held together with toothpicks type of internet, but I loved it. And by the time eighth grade rolled around, I had found IRC, internet relay chat. This is pre AOL instant messenger. It's all text based chat rooms around the country and the world. And I found myself exposed to different time zones. And that was a new concept and talking to people from Florida and North Carolina and all these different states. And it was awesome. I had very early exposure to the internet and it was very formative. And kind of gave me a baseline to work from. That may impact my view of social media a little bit, because if you recall from previous episodes, I was by no means a cool kid growing up. I was extremely nerdy, still am.

Jim:

Refer to our geek culture episode. Yes,

Ben:

there you go. I found so much connection literally and relationally through the early days of the internet and it has been very formative. I think that definitely taints my perspective a little bit and helps me see the positive more than the negative. But that being the case, you were talking about the number of dead kids because of the internet and because of social media specifically. I think there's a lot of dead relationships because of social media. Just this concept of ghosting people is a very social media specific phenomenon. If you had an uncle that, you know, had political views that you disagreed with pre Facebook, there may not have even been a stage for that to come out that you had these differing views. It probably wouldn't have been an issue Except in conversations around the dinner table around election season, maybe but now if you have an uncle who posts about a candidate that you despise and you now Feel like you can't have anything to do with said uncle that's Pretty ridiculous, but I see it often Yeah on social media people get so into that tribe mentality You That it clouds their ability to interact with anybody who sees things differently. And so, now all of a sudden, the clout that you get from being part of an echo chamber that's echoing all of your beliefs, somehow becomes more important and more relevant than any relational depth that you may have outside of social media. So, I think In a lot of ways, social media is harmful because of that. I would say from a relational perspective, it's probably pretty close to 50, 50, 50 percent helpful, 50 percent detrimental to relationships. and I think around election season, especially it. Or when there's a global pandemic, it becomes a lot less helpful.

Jim:

Before. We had social media. You could disagree on candidates. now that we have social media, people have found, Oh, I get punished when I say something that sounds too right or too left. Biden is a jibbering nonsensical dementia patient. I saw somebody had posted, a side by side image of, Trump doing the same hand motions as Hitler. Yeah. And so it forces you to pick one single side. You can't have any nuance because if you do, then now all of a sudden I feel like an outsider. Most people don't want to feel that way. So the nuance gets lost and then eventually we start demonizing aspects of the other side. when I hop on to check the news, I actually check it's five or six different websites. So fox news, I get on CNN. The associated press, I get on us and Canada news from the BBC and then I'll get on like an M live or a wood TV sort of thing. You again, have that Aggrandizing of like this person is terrible and I have to hate this person and compare them to the the worst person that I can. I think we've lost that capacity to be able to sit down and say, Okay, what do we agree on? Or how can we come to a conclusion together without? Fighting, right? And I don't think either side is particularly good at that anymore. No, I don't think so. So I'm curious though. You had mentioned the other side of it is the impact that it has on children. When we were kids, we could do something stupid. And only the people that were there would remember it, whereas now your kid screws up and it's on Snapchat or Instagram or wherever. It's something that anybody and everybody can see and it never goes away. You also never just get to go home and escape it because it's still there on your phone You don't get that break. That's something a luxury that we had as kids that our kids don't have anymore Your kids are farther along. I'm curious to hear you reflect on the impact that you think that has had on your kids

Ben:

well, my daughter is 15 and We did allow her to have Snapchat with the condition of Andy being in her contacts and Andy being able to check her phone at any time to, uh, just see how things are going. And that's been super helpful. And there have been several of my daughter's friends who got themselves into heaps of trouble because of that very thing. Because. When something goes on the internet, on social media, it usually stays there for quite a long time and you can't just make it go away. She's watched and seen several friends struggle and have to overcome these different reputations that they've earned for themselves based on what they put on social media. For our daughter, she tended to put her stuff out, in person to whoever would listen. And that is its own challenge. But in that I'm grateful that there's no, documentation of it. Like there would be if she did take to social media to air those rants and thoughts and everything else. She's very fortunate that she had enough discipline to not do that. Because unfortunately there are a lot of kids that just, Don't have that foresight or wisdom. Maybe it's the difference between boys and girls, but I can certainly look and see from my son's experience things that he's put on social media that have already come back to bite him or have the potential to And i'm just like Yeah, whoa, why would you ever put that out there? So it's a it's a very real concern and again I'm grateful for my daughter and her Healthy approach to social media she does talk with Andy quite a bit about things She encounters on Instagram or snapchat and I think that's the main difference maker. Sure It's to keep that open line of communication with your kids. That's so vital.

Jim:

You had mentioned that some of the Snapchat stuff was detrimental, in the case of your son and the exposure and the unfettered access to all the dirtiest corners of the world. As you reflect on that, I'm curious, do sometimes you wonder what if we had just. outright banned any kind of social media.

Ben:

One of the most frustrating parts of my parenting journey has been allowing our son access to Snapchat. We'd made that decision because we talked with other parents of his friends and they let their kids have it. It got to a point where it was very much a. a Joneses kind of situation. Everybody was doing it. Everybody's kids had Snapchat. We were among the few that were sticking our toes in the dirt. And we just got to a point where it was exhausting to keep doing that. So we're like, fine, you can have Snapchat. It's been rough for my son. From that perspective, I would absolutely agree that our world without social media, our world without Snapchat specifically, I think would be a much better, brighter place. I think Snapchat is just a source of a lot of brokenness and a lot of. Anytime you have an app where the main goal is to provoke or just put something out there for just a moment, it's a perfect hiding spot. Anytime that that's the goal, I just don't think that's healthy. That just creates a lot of opportunity for hurt.

Jim:

Kids can do that. Well, even if the app isn't intentionally structured and created to do that. Have you heard the term Finsta before?

Ben:

Uh, no.

Jim:

Finsta is fake Instagram. So kids have two or three or whatever Instagrams. They've got the one for their friends. And that's the one where they post anything and everything. And then they've got their fake Instagram, which is the one that their parents said they had to follow them on Instagram. And so they just make sure that they post some of the more vanilla things on the fake Instagram so that the parents don't know that they're posting a lot of other worse things. And sometimes even that can be maybe not intentionally underhanded on the kid's part. It's just, Hey, maybe my parents don't. Want to see some of this stuff, or this is really more for my friends. And this is for like my aunt and my grandpa. And these are just the, Hey, we went on vacation. Here's a picture. And these are more of the, cause it might not even be, you know, you're, you're 21 and you're drinking with your friends and you just don't want anybody to get the wrong idea about that. So you have, you're more professional, but a lot of times it's because kids are hiding stuff

Ben:

for sure. My last closing thought about social media, from the context of being a parent, unfortunately, the social media stuff, the Snapchat, all of those things have become a source of great anxiety as I consider my kids and their engagement with them. That anxiety does not always. Help me be the best parent that I can be. And so instead of approaching my son with unconditional positive regard, I'm now approaching him from the perspective of he has Snapchat. I know he's into stuff he shouldn't be. And I really hate that. As much as snapchat is the problem. I think My anxiety is also the problem. I think parents in today's age need to Find a way to hold That anxiety in such a way that it does not build a wall between them and their kids. Cause I think for sure that's happened with my son and I, because of my anxiety and worry and fear and everything else motivated by his. Presence on social media and his engagement with it. I don't think I've done the best job of handling that, which then in turns impacts my ability to parent well. So as much as Snapchat is the problem, I think parents response to it is also a factor that needs to be considered.

Jim:

You feel like it's creating an artificial barrier between. I

Ben:

think so. And then it's also more than the artificial barrier. It's creating this overwhelming colossal Sense of anxiety and anytime that you approach parenting or any pursuit in life from an anxious perspective It's just not going to go. Well, like you're going to be too occupied in the worry you're going to be too occupied in the the concern and the wondering and the worrying and the Obsessing about various things That you miss out on Your kid.

Jim:

Yeah,

Ben:

and at the end of the day, I really do believe that as a parent part of my role is to have an Unconditional positive regard of my kids. Yeah that no matter what they get into I still love them They're still valuable and No amount of social media darkness can change that. Yeah, and You That's just been a very hard thing for me to maintain in the face of the anxiety from social media.

Jim:

Sure. I think it's, it's a trust thing, right? The neighborhood that I live in my kids now, I have a nine year old and a 12 year old that even with a nine year old, as long as kind of, I know what he's doing, if he wants to quick bike down the street to hang out with the kids with the pool, or he wants to go to the park, I'll let him do it.

Ben:

Mm hmm.

Jim:

But the problem with social media is that it's not a safe neighborhood, right? As a parent you are exposing them to the worst of Everything. Yeah, and so to be able to give up that trust it's that balance of you know They need to learn, right? Part of parenting is allowing your kids to be exposed to things so that they can learn how to deal with them so that someday when they're on their own, it's not their first time ever getting into social media or their first time changing a tire or whatever it is, we're trying to equip them to do that. But social media is about the scariest possible thing because it's not a safe neighborhood. It's hard to let go of protecting your kid and trusting them to do the right thing, because if they do it wrong, the consequences are up to and including fatal. And that's terrifying as a parent. So I think you are right to have that anxiety, but I agree that you have to be able to at some point trust your kid and don't let your fear become an obstacle to having a healthy relationship with your kid.

Ben:

Definitely. Well said

Jim:

If you are one of those late thirties, early forties parents, we sympathize. It is so tough.

Ben:

It is. And there is no instruction manual because. This hasn't been done before. No, we are the pioneers and it is so difficult.

Jim:

I already told my oldest. You're going to find out that it is not fair because we are learning things with you that by the time we get to. Your little brother, we will have learned, and he might get some privileges earlier than you did. And it's sorry, but that's just the reality of being the oldest. Yep. It's, it's not that we trust one more or less. We're trying to figure it out and be a little bit more careful the first time around. We, we definitely sympathize. And even for our younger audience, hopefully now that you've had more access. access to social media, those digital natives, as they call them, maybe you'll do a better job than we did of raising your kids when it comes to social media.

Ben:

well, thanks for joining us on this episode of real men hug. We're done and we're out of here. Real men hug, but they also know when to finally end the dang show.

Jim:

You made it sound like we're just done with like, this was the last episode

Ben:

of

Jim:

real men

Ben:

hug. See you guys. It was a good one. Nice.

Jim:

That one's getting cut out, Ben.

Ben:

We'll see.

Jim:

Thanks for all the fish,

Ben:

the fish.

Jim:

If you don't know, you don't know it's from hitchhikers guide to the galaxy.

Ben:

You are the second person to quote that movie today. Be sure to check out the next episode of Real Men Hug. Thanks for listening. Have a good one.

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