 Live from the JSA Podcast Studio, presenting Data Movers, showcasing the leaders behind the headlines in the telecom and data center infrastructure industry. Welcome everybody to our podcast series, Data Movers. I'm your host, Jamie Scato-Cotaia, CEO and founder of JSA. And here's my co-host, top B2B social media influencer, Mr. Evan Christon. Good to see everyone today. And welcome to Data Movers where we sit down with the most influential men and women of today's leading in telco and data center worlds, supporting the network infrastructure requirements of this new normal. So nice to see everyone here. We're still stuck at home, despite some promising vaccine candidates. So tell me, tell me, I'm curious, Jamie, have you found yourself overloaded in terms of screen time and spending time on screens of various types? You can't escape a screen these days, right? I mean, I even try to go into my kitchen and bake something or cook something. I got to go to YouTube and figure out my recipes or, you know, so it's screen craziness from working remotely to then downloading Netflix and trying to have some downtime with the fam. We're just sitting and watching and grooming. Yeah, and the content on those screens isn't always as enriching and educational as it should be given the social media networks we're all glued to. I just took a look out of curiosity on my own phone and my iPhone here, my daily average of screen time is that almost 11 hours. So that's pretty scary. That was a big wake up call. So we really have to think clearly about how we're spending our time, the kind of content we're all consuming and that what that means for ourselves or children or families. And really that's kind of a great segue into our next guest. Absolutely. We are so excited to welcome Dr. Julie Albright to Data Movers. Of course, for any of you guys who have not yet read her or seen her, she's amazing. Author of Left to Their Own Devices. If you're viewing this on YouTube versus listening on all our podcast channels, you can see me holding up the book that I adore. Left to Their Own Devices, How Digital Natives Are We Shaping the American Dream? I should also note too, Dr. Julie Albright is a sociologist who specializes in digital culture and communications as well as a lecturer at the Applied Psychology and Engineering Departments at USC, University of Southern California and our own director over at Infrastructure Masons at Masons where we first met together as well as an ambassador for Mission Critical. So, and of course, Lee Kirby, a former guest just a couple of weeks back. So many, so many worlds collide here. So Dr. Julie Albright. Dr. Albright, so you're an author, you're a digital sociologist of sorts and you're a director at Infrastructure Mason. So I guess my first question is, what is an infrastructure Mason and do I need a secret handshake or a password to join or what is that involved? Yes, you do. It's such a great organization. I can't even tell you. Well, thank you so much for having me. It's great to see you again, Jamie and get to know you, Evan. Infrastructure Masons is an amazing organization. I was first introduced to the data center industry at data center dynamics in New York. I gave a keynote that really sort of rocked the room because it was so outside the box of the normal thinking or bound technology and I'm bringing in the social aspects. I bring in sort of a systems view. So, you know, there are people there from like Joe Kava from Google and Christian Bellotti Chief Strategist over at Microsoft and they were waiting in line to see me afterwards for 20 minutes, Peter Gross, you know, father of mission critical data centers and it was really a game changer. And so from there I was asked to give another talk down at aligned in Phoenix where I then moderated a panel with Dean Nelson. When I was in New York, the organizer said, have you met Dean Nelson? I said, no, I don't know any of these guys. Long story short, as I heard Dean's mission and part of it was to train the next generation of digital workers. I work in the university. I've worked with first generation to go to college students at USC in a scholarship program for seven years was the only faculty member on that board. And so I've had experience in how to sort of bring kids into an education and job pipeline. And so I sent him ideas and we're in meeting with the early I Mason's education committee and providing a lot of fresh ideas. And you got to call a couple weeks later from Dean saying, would you like to join the board? Which I thought it was gonna ask you to join the education committee. And he asked me to join the board of directors and just blew my mind. So since then we've traveled the world together. You know, go to London, Monaco, New York, Silicon Valley all over the place. And we've become a global organization that was part of my vision. And what it is, it's a group of professionals from the data center and IT industries that come together to really network to build friendships, to connect with each other but also to give back. And we're growing our education program. We're growing our scholarships. We just raised $115,000 this year alone so far in a pandemic for scholarships. So pretty proud of the work we're doing over there. Yeah, that's amazing. I can't wait to learn more. But going a little further back, where did this fascination with digital culture and the social impact of new technology come from? What was your first sort of interest in this new digital world we all live in from a sort of sociology and culture standpoint? So funny. Well, I had started my degrees in psychology and counseling. I actually have a master's and a PhD in counseling as well as a master's and PhD in sociology. And so during that time, I met this hacker and I was online on some of the early networks. And I saw people joining these chat rooms and talking and meeting and flying around the world to meet each other. And I looked at this and I, at this time there's less than 3% of the people were even online in terms of just the regular person, not academics or DARPA or ARPANET people. And I said to my dad, the words were scrolling up on a screen and I pointed at it, I go, dad, this is gonna be huge. And my dad looked at it and said, why would anybody ever wanna do that? Because he couldn't understand, like, why would you wanna get into this thing and just scroll all these words on a screen? But I just knew it. And so I started following that feeling and researching early internet dating. I ended up coming to USC to do my PhD to look at that, the impact of computing on society. Now it was gonna change everything, which I knew. And the guy at USC was going on about how, you know, to the new cohort were all about new ideas. If you have new ideas for research, come to us, we're real excited about it. I'm like, this is awesome. Ran up to the guy who, by the way, studied 15th century Basel missions. That should have been my first clue. And I said, I wanna study the impact of computing on society. And the guy goes, what does that have to do with sociology? Oh my gosh. So I was like, traveled across the country, moved to Los Angeles, back to my dad's alma mater and everything to study this. And they were like, what are you talking about? So I'm suddenly in the Fred Flintstone School of Sociology turned out. You know, they're tapping things out on stone tablets. But, you know, a few years later, and it was very hard to get support on the early days because nobody knew what I was talking about. It was so early that they said, well, we don't know about that. We can't help you. So I'd gone to the Annenberg School of Communication, Peggy McLaughlin over there, became the Dean of Faculty and Research, gone on my committee and helped shepherd that dissertation through. You know, again, I got called in to work with eHarmony and help develop their product and did some very large scale studies on all this. And I've just continued that trajectory to see how as the technologies change, we went from, you know, desktop, now to mobile devices, a smartphone, and onto social media, et cetera, and how each of the considerations changing our behaviors and changing our society. So, you know, I've rode this wave and here I am now with a depth of understanding of where we've been, where we're going. And I think it's all, to me, it's fascinating. And my mentor is the CTO of Chevron. And when I met him, he says, oh, I think that's the biggest driver of social change. You know, the printing press, the Industrial Revolution, the Digital Revolution. So I was like, wow. So there we were. So there were people that understood that, you know, you have to sort of put it all together. Absolutely. And, you know, I was, again, watching Netflix with the rest of the world. And I don't know if you saw a social dilemma. And I'm telling you the entire time I was like, I can't wait to talk to Dr. Julie Albright about this. Like, this, you know, did they read her book? Like, you know. They're covering a lot of the same territory. Yes. I mean, they also have other talking points, but I was like, they should have interviewed you, I thought, for that piece. Which gets us to your book, actually. Left their own devices, how digital natives are we shaping the American dream? I did love the opportunity that I had last year when I interviewed you on JSE TV. I mean, the world has so changed. And, but can you give our listeners just a little preview of the topics you explore in this book and just a little synopsis, if you will? Yeah. So that book is really the culmination of my thinking up into the point where this book came out. And it really looks at how, well, I started seeing working in the university and I lived in the university with the students for seven years as a faculty and resident. So I've been quite close with them doing my community service at USC, living with the students and working side by side with them in the classrooms. And, you know, I noticed there were a lot of changes going on, students struggling with, you know, anxieties, depression, things. We've had the highest rates in 30 years in the universities, not just at USC, across the board, all the universities are struggling with this. And thinking about it, that didn't just come out of nowhere. Like what changed? What happened? Where's this coming from? So I started going back and, you know, looking at a lot of studies, like what is going on in our society where the outcome is, you know, that level of anxiety amongst the students. Well, it turns out a lot of things are changing. And the bottom line is that what I call coming untethered that young people are unhooking in droves from traditional things like getting married, buying a home, having a little house in the suburbs, you know, being part of a church, being part of community organizations like the Rotary or clubs or things like that, having children, being in a career for 30 years, like my mentor was for decades, maybe your parents as well. All these things are changing. And knowing what I know now about sociology, these kinds of things, like being part of a marriage or being part of a church or being part of something, root you and anchor you and provide social support and actually enhance your physical and mental wellness. So having come unplugged, and let's say I'm not trying to go back to, you know, being Amish, that's not my point here at all. But what my point is something changed, what changed, those are the things that change. And at the same time, they're hyper attached to digital technologies with all the pressures to be perfect and look perfect and the filters. And, you know, we've got young women stampeding into plastic surgery offices in droves to look like they're filtered cells. So this idea that you've got so many ideals to live up to as a young person and things. So it's not that we're just on plugging but we're sort of building our new houses on sand. We haven't replaced the old institutions with something solid. And so these kids are kind of coming unmoored. And this is your incoming workforce, for example. That's why it's so important to think about because it's going to tail into the young workers that you hire. So we need to be thinking about wellness and such. So the book goes into that. And I look at the various vectors, how's our connection to these digital devices changing us from our relationships to how we think in our brain. Remember how people used to remember phone numbers? Now they say, well, I remember one phone number. Like nobody remembers a phone number. People don't do math in their heads the way they used to. All these kinds of just navigation, people, young people particularly, they don't even know how to read a paper map. So all these little small dependencies add up in our world. And that's what I'm looking at. And there's a chapter on the untethered workforce and our need to connect back to nature in our bodies and ourselves, which is what's getting lost in the shuffle of Instagram and TikTok and Facebook and all this social media. Well, that's really some inspirational thinking and a lot of food for thought. Now, taking this full circle to our industry in the data center space, I've been in telecom and networking for 30 years and I can count on one hand the time we talked about culture or people or personal development. I mean, we love and by we, I mean, middle-aged white men, we love speeds and feeds and power and gigabytes and data technology and traffic. So what are your thoughts on culture and people in this world? Yeah. Well, I'm starting to work on the next book, which is tentatively called The Cloud Machine with Dean Nelson. And it's gonna look at now, we're going from more of an American-centric focus, although there isn't some international data in the last book, to thinking about what happens as we expand these digital networks and connect everybody globally. And as we grow our dependencies on this network, as you said, speed, reliability, what about power? All these, what about our carbon footprints? People don't think about all these kinds of things and how we're building our lives now on the backbone of these networks. And I think you guys are amazing. This is an amazing industry. I've been trying to tell my brother to get into it, you know, great people. So great, so smart, so nice. You know, what a wonderful industry of people. I can't even say enough good things about it. You know, it's really interesting to see how this global web of digital connectivity is growing. You mentioned at the top of the show that you spent, what was it, 10 hours, 11 minutes or something on your phone in a day. As part of my research, I'm digging up an old talk that Steve Jobs gave in Aspen in 1983. And people don't even know about it. It was before he was Steve Jobs, capital S, capital J kind of thing. And he said, he predicted a lot of the future. One of the things he said was, you know, we're gonna be on these devices like maybe two, three hours a day. But if we're on those devices two, three hours a day at this point, you know, he'd probably be shocked to see your phone and what you just showed us that 10 plus, and that's average. Young kids are on there constantly. So this idea that we're connecting not only more people but more things, our homes, our transportation, our food supply, our water, our electricity. And the kinds of concerns I have is, you know, what if this whole machine stops? I was on the phone yesterday with a fella that we're putting together a new proposal for DARPA, our Department of Defense. And he's been looking at cybersecurity in our electrical infrastructure and how, you know, we're getting into smart grid. And again, everything's being digitized. And he said, you know, you can take, we did studies because you can take out one part of the system and other parts begin to fail. Those interdependencies that we don't think about between these large systems create new frailties, new challenges. And as they grow and grow, we don't always think about all those interconnections. So that's the kind of thing that, you know, I'm starting to think about, and then what that means on the ground for the people that are reliant upon those kinds of things, you know, the power went out, for example, PG&E is doing rolling blackouts, you may be aware, in the Bay Area. And my friend told a story and it just struck me. He said that the power went out and he turned on his phone to see what was going on for an update and AT&T was out. So there, and then he realized, wait a minute, the router's out because the power's out and it's plugged into the wall. Oh, crap. And so then he ends up going out, well, I'll go to the car and I'll turn on the radio. You know, you listed the radio for an emergency broadcast. He gets in his car and he turns on the radio and there's nothing but white noise. The radio station locally is also out because of the power. So he gets our drives 30 miles to an internet cafe out in Petaluma just to get an update and did this several times in the day. There was no information. There was no way to get any information. Then they realized his son has on an Apple Watch which is connected to the Wi-Fi and Bluetooth and to his phone, which sends a signal if he's having a seizure. Well, guess what? All that network was down and they looked at each other. Well, what happens if I have a seizure? And it was suddenly the blood drained out of their face. Like all these little things begin to domino if the digital network goes down, if the power goes out. So these are the kind of things that we wanna be thinking about. And guys like you, having all these guys and gals need to sort of think about that. We're building a dependency, just thinking of it as another utility. It's always on, just turn it on, there's your internet. But what happens if that machine stops? It's funny, I'm writing a blog now about, could you imagine dealing with Corona when you do not have internet? This would, the pandemic would take on a whole new height of scariness. Sure, if you've already considered this or evaluated it or studied this and what you think, what trends in digital culture may emerge from this pandemic. And our interdependency on these systems. Exactly, that's right. And in my book, Devices that you held up there, I looked at some of the downsides of those dependencies. What's happened now from then to now is that all the trends I've been looking at in that book have amplified and accelerated to, you initially had a group of sort of cutting edge, young millennial digital natives doing these things. Now it's everybody. It's now gone mainstream, like fully, it's fully realized, let's say, at scale. To me, the COVID pandemic is the largest social experiment we've ever seen in the history of mankind. And as you said, what would it be if we didn't have the connectivity? Digital connectivity has enabled business to continue, has enabled our food supply to continue, has enabled education to continue, our social life to continue, all these things. But it's also bringing with it that those dark aspects as well people are more disconnected than ever at the same time. And a lot of people were saying before the pandemic, oh, well, we don't need to go to conferences anymore. We don't need that. We can just do everything digitally. We can just show up on a Zoom. Who needs that anymore? Well, now we know we need that. So I think that's the thing is this is giving us a chance to step back and see, one, the enabling technology is what they enable and enable us to do. Again, the continuity of business and education and things as you were talking about, but also on the other side that we do need that human connection. It's part of how it's, we're hardwired for that. We're social creatures and that's part of our DNA. So the idea is as we move out of into a post COVID moment, someday, whenever we turn that corner, we need to be integrating into corporate wellness. As Evan said, we don't think about these things. We need to be thinking about wellness and have that be a pillar of management in our corporate structures because this will live beyond COVID as we continue to be interacting with these devices. So the great things it brings, but it also brings some downsides. And I think we need to kind of address that around wellness and around really that personal connectivity. And as we work remotely, many of these companies like the Twitters and CoinBases and others are going all in on full-time remote. Like this is it now. This is the new normal. So building in ways to have teams connect and people connect, maybe there's gonna be an offsite in Lake Tahoe or somewhere, where you actually are together because these little off-channel communications is where relationships are built and things happen. And so we still do need in your great conferences that you guys have and things like that. We still miss that. We want that human touch. And I think we need it more than ever before. And I think the pandemic has really pointed that out. Yeah, and there is some very bright light at the end of the tunnel here with the therapeutics and the vaccines that are being tested and rolled out over the next months. But I think we're in the midst of a mental health crisis as well as a health crisis with, it seems like epidemic of anxiety and some depression and just general unwellness when it comes to this new way of living, particularly with people like myself who are tied into technology and sort of hardwired. So any tips or tricks or tactics for untethering or stepping away from the technology rat race? Yeah, that's a great question. Yeah, and that's kind of what I lead to in the book is that as we connect to our devices, this is really about seeing things and maybe hearing things, but it really shaves off a lot of the experience of our senses. Our body basically disappears in a digital world, maybe a visual representation, but the thought that we have and there's a pleasure in the physicality and we're embodied beings living in embodied life and that's what's getting left behind and that's still important. And when I talk in the book about these things, I have a chapter on untethering from the body and untethering from nature. First thing I talk about to start the nature chapter is food and eating better and eating whole foods and how we've moved toward an industrialization of food where it's so processed that we're sort of processing away all the healthful aspects of it. I've spent a lot of time in Europe now where they go regularly to the farmer's markets and they have all these fresh bread. You know, I saw a painter coming out with his fresh baguette, young guy, he wasn't some gourmand, he's a kid and he got his fresh bread at the end of the day and you know, that's part of it. It's having that fresh, whole, beautiful food. So we need to get back to that. So we need to feed ourselves, first of all, good food. Second thing about being out in nature, it turns out that COVID, by the way, to ward off the serious impacts of COVID are things like vitamin C and D. In other words, eating healthfully and getting sunshine. So that's the second thing, is spending time outdoors in nature. Even when you look at a device, you asked Jamie earlier, are you spending too much time on devices? You ever even notice your eyes start like burning out of your head or getting tired or strained? Your back, your body, oh, because you're sitting there staring at something. That's not a natural thing for us. We need to be moving. So the idea is when you're in nature, think about a hike, you know, you, oh, there's a bird. Oh, look at the clouds. Oh, those trees are beautiful. Your eyes are sort of wandering around. That's called diffuse attention by psychologists. And it turns out that kind of just wandering eye, relaxed looking around actually calms anxiety. And that there's a clinical method called EMDR where they move fingers back and forth and you watch the fingers. That was developed after a walk in Central Park where she felt calmer afterwards and took and sort of automated that looking around and relaxed into a psychological therapy. And so go outside and walk, spend time in nature. And we need to exercise, bring our bodies back into the picture. Yoga, meditation, movement, any kind of thing, bicycling, whatever you can do, weight, some kind of getting the body back again is gonna be important. And all these things are protective by the way against COVID. So, you know, eating healthily, being physicality, also lowers depression and lowers anxiety. So step away from the devices, don't give them up, but balance I think is the key. As a side note, I was reading an article about from evolutionary biologists who found a real world example of human evolution over the last number of decades and extra vein has been discovered growing in our arms, given all of this sort of office work and work with our hands and typing and all kinds of things. So how amazing is that? Our bodies are actually responding from an evolution standpoint to this new world. So really we need to begin to think a little differently. Jamie? No, that is very interesting. And I could honestly talk with Dr. Albright for hours. I just love all the information, but we're gonna end this with what we like to call the rapid fire section. We're just gonna shout out a couple of things. You tell us the first thing that comes to mind. So here we go. If you could have lunch with a famous person in history, who would it be and why? Well, probably Anthony Bourdain. He's just such an interesting person, an amazing essayist and writer, lived an amazing life. He's funny, fun, smart. I mean, what do you want? Loves good food. Great answer. If you could go anywhere in the world right now, if right, where would it be? Well, I'm trying to get to Falun, Sweden of all things. I think my book is gonna start in Falun. There's some interesting, amazing innovation going on there and green technologies and innovation that goes back, by the way, 1,000 years. Which who knew, there's a mine there that's 1,000 years old. It's the site of the first corporation in Europe. Who knew any of this stuff? So I can't wait to go there and see some of the arts and see some of the new data centers going on there. It's amazing. Hopefully soon. Love that. So what is the most used app on your phone? Oh, gosh. It's probably my texting app with my brother. And what is your favorite hobby or pastime when you untether? Oh, gosh, that could be many things. Well, I love a great meal and great conversation with friends, live music, wine tasting. So it could be any of those three. Love it. Well, that's also a 1,000 year old activity. So it's good to see what's old is new again. Well, thank you so much for joining us, Dr. Albright. You've really provided us with some food for thought and refreshing shift away from just tech, speeds and feeds to humanity and being human. So look forward to reading your book and your new book when it comes out. So if you enjoyed everyone today's Data Movers Podcast, be sure to check out jsa.net slash podcast for upcoming Data Movers episodes. Again, we release those every other Wednesday. So please do check us out. And our next episode release will be December 16th, Christmas time. It's coming, believe it or not. Time flies. So be sure to follow us on Twitter at Jay Scotto and me and Evan Kerstel. And until then. Happy networking. Thank you, Dr.