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The Saints That Serve Podcast
Welcome to The Saints That Serve Podcast!
Where each week, your hosts dive into the crossroads of faith, culture and the unknown.
Christ is Lord and the Kingdom is now!
We are The Saints That Serve!
The Saints That Serve Podcast
Episode 42 - Screen Time Showdown
- Tune in every Monday for a new episode of "The Saints That Serve Podcast" -
📱 Screen Time vs. Scripture: Is Tech Taking Over Our Faith?
This week, Gen Z youth minister Ethan joins us to talk about the spiritual impact of screen time. With Millennials averaging 7+ hours a day and Gen Z pushing 9, we ask: What are we trading in when we trade time with God for time on our phones?
🥤 "Do the Dew or Don’t" Game
We test Ethan’s soda smarts with a Mountain Dew flavor guessing game-because sometimes you need a little fun before diving deep!
📵 Real Stories from Phone-Free Teens
Ethan shares powerful moments from Young Life camps where teens give up their phones and find real freedom, connection, and clarity.
🤖 Is AI the New Idol?
When people look to AI for comfort, advice, and guidance, is it quietly replacing God? We explore how digital tools can become spiritual distractions.
đź‘» Cryptid Corner: The Glowcaster Ghoul
This eerie legend leads us into a convo about spiritual darkness and what happens when God’s light is missing from our communities.
📴 Maybe it’s time for a phone fast. Could disconnecting help you reconnect with God?
🙏 We pray for our listeners every Friday—send your requests to saintsthatserve@gmail.com.
#ScreenTimeAndFaith #DigitalDiscipleship #FaithAndTechnology #GenZFaith #SpiritualWellness #PhoneFast #ChristianLiving #YouthMinistry #FaithOverPhones #BibleOverScreens #MountainDewChallenge #DoTheDewOrDont #FaithGames #PodcastGames #AIDangers #DigitalIdolatry #TechAndFaith #AIvsFaith #SpiritualWarfare #GlowcasterGhoul #CryptidCorner #ChristianParanormal #SpiritualDarkness #FaithAndFolklore #SaintsThatServe #ChristianPodcast #FaithPodcast #BibleTalk #FaithBasedContent
If you want to send us a question or a comment you can by texting us by clicking this link!
Welcome to the Saints that Serve, podcast where, each week, your hosts dive into the crossroads of faith, culture and the unknown.
Speaker 1:Christ is Lord and the kingdom is now. We are the Saints that Serve.
Speaker 2:Welcome to the Saints that Serve, podcast.
Speaker 1:That is, the Saints that Serve, podcast.
Speaker 2:With your hosts. I'm Johnny and I'm Jairus.
Speaker 1:Same guys every time. If you listened to this last week or the week before that, it's always us, Except for that one random episode where you weren't there.
Speaker 2:To all our Russian listeners we love you. Thanks for tuning in, and we're the same people that have been doing this 42 times, Because this is episode 42. That's right, baby. Welcome to episode 42. We actually have a special episode.
Speaker 1:We haven't done this in a minute but When's the last time we've done this?
Speaker 2:It's been a while I mean it's been since.
Speaker 1:Since you were sick and we had like three weeks where you weren't here.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, yeah. So, whatever that was, it was beginning of the end of the spring, so probably episode like 20, something Been a while.
Speaker 1:It's been a while.
Speaker 2:Anyways, to get through all that, we have a guest with us today. We finally have a guest, and his beautiful and brave name is Mr Ethan. How are you doing?
Speaker 3:What's up, guys?
Speaker 2:What's up? So we have a little bit of a tradition. There's a dice in front of you. It's a 20-sided dice.
Speaker 3:Casting lots.
Speaker 2:So go ahead and roll it, casting lots. Tell me what it is. What number is that? A four? A four, number four Okay, in the most doinkity voice you can just the most unput-together, un-understandable voice, you can say episode 42.
Speaker 1:Hold on before you do. Was that like on your little word calendar, did you? You know you like Doinkity. Doinkity is that your word of the day?
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's my word of the day. I was going to ask you to define doinkity Like not put together Pretend. We wouldn't be able to understand you too well without an interpreter.
Speaker 1:Pretend your voice is made of rubber bands.
Speaker 3:If I did a foreign accent would that be offensive?
Speaker 2:No, because that's like okay, if you're from that part of the world, then they would understand you, but this is like you're your own world and no one understands you. Episode 42.
Speaker 3:Episode 42.
Speaker 1:Okay, mike Tyson, be careful around. Yeah, I don't know what you're trying to say. Yeah, don't get close to my ear. Yeah, don't try to whisper what you said in my ear, anyways.
Speaker 2:I was wondering what all that loud roaring was in the back of your car when you got here.
Speaker 3:That would be the rocks from your gravel driveway.
Speaker 1:What do tigers dream of?
Speaker 2:Anyway. So we yeah, it's episode 42. We've got a bunch of episodes and bonus content you can listen to on anywhere you get your podcasts. We recommend you go to YouTube and listen to some of our content there, because we've got a live video going on with this recording, so there's pictures and different things going on, and then we also have live stream worships that are recorded in on YouTube so you can go and watch those as well. So make sure you check that out. And every Friday we pray for you. So if you need prayer for anything, you can reach out to us either through social media or there's a direct SMS messaging link at the bottom of the description for this show. There's also an email that you can reach out to us. It's saints that serve at gmailcom. Again, that's saints that serve at gmailcom. Let us know if you need prayer and that's it as far as announcements go.
Speaker 1:So, ethan, tell us about yourself.
Speaker 3:Oh man, what do you want to know?
Speaker 1:Everything.
Speaker 3:I'm 22.
Speaker 1:I'm the only one who parties. He's apparently the only one who parties. Well.
Speaker 3:I'm 22. I was raised here out of Dallas, Georgia.
Speaker 2:Dally guy, that's fine. He didn't give a street address.
Speaker 1:He lives at 1234 Fake Street.
Speaker 3:And I met Johnny when I was 15 and then we started Playing Ultimate Frisbee together. Yeah, Our first hangout. I said, hey, let's go throw back a couple slices of pizza at Stevie B's. Heck, yeah, dude.
Speaker 1:Stevie B's the only real place to have a birthday party when you're in your 30s.
Speaker 3:But I just realized I'm a who am I? It's a good question, because we often try to a who am I? It's a good question Cause, like we often try to like who am I? Who am I? Based on the things that I do or you know, living through other people, maybe like who am I? I'm a follower of Jesus. Amen, that is a huge. I got saved whenever I was 14. He gave me a new identity.
Speaker 1:So, like last year, yeah, you're just a baby, I'm just a boy. So like last year yeah, you're just a baby, I'm just a boy, just a little boy but changed my life when I was 14.
Speaker 3:Got baptized in Daytona Beach and then, yeah, he's given me a passion for the youth, the next generation, just really entering into their brokenness and teaching them that Jesus wants to meet them in their brokenness too. I've been doing youth ministry since I graduated high school. Discipled a group of middle school boys all the way throughout, and then I started doing Young Life ministry.
Speaker 1:Young Life- Is that what shirt you're wearing?
Speaker 3:That is the shirt that I'm wearing. This is actually the shirt from whenever I went to camp, whenever I was 15. Wow, still fits.
Speaker 1:He's just a boy last year, so you know.
Speaker 3:Young life is. It's just that ministry, kind of how Jesus did it, where he meets people where they're at kind of in their broken places and just ask them hey, what's your name, you know what's your story, and through that build trust, build relational equity and through that introduce them to Christ and the good news. And that's kind of what I had done to me and I've had awesome people in my life who have led me to the king in multiple different seasons, and this guy on my left has been one of them. So yes.
Speaker 2:We love discipleship, so sweet. Yeah, I do love discipleship, I think it's great. I think more people should do it. You know what I mean. You know what I mean. You know what I mean, Vern. I know exactly what you mean.
Speaker 1:So what do you like?
Speaker 3:to do for fun, ooh.
Speaker 1:Besides break your knee.
Speaker 3:Another story for a little bit later what I do for fun. I love fly fishing. That has become a really great hobby of mine. Camping I love going on random big trips in different states to different young life camps for a weekend, but then, you know, while I'm there for the weekend, maybe go to a national park or go do this and that, get to go to colorado in a month and go see uh whoa places out there, which is going to be awesome. So yeah, I just love. I love being outside in nature, I love spending time with friends and, um, you know just whether that's a coffee.
Speaker 2:You like going on adventures.
Speaker 3:Oh yeah.
Speaker 1:Hey, Charlie Candy Mountain.
Speaker 2:Charlie. Hey, we showed that video to our son for the first time. Really To Bigfoot. We were watching it like dying laughing, and he's watching and he's like, okay, okay, right, he's like they just want. Like, okay, okay, all right.
Speaker 1:He's like they just want to go to Candy Mountain.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and then at the very end, when you know like the kicker, big punchline at the end, big punchline at the end, we're like, oh, totally forgot about that.
Speaker 1:Oh they took my kidneys.
Speaker 2:Yeah, messed up Anyways.
Speaker 3:So yeah, messed up anyways. So yeah, you like being outdoors. Outdoors, love spent time with my girlfriend. He's uh super awesome currently in recovery right now, so I'm trying to tell myself my favorite thing is uh rehabbing my uh herd acl and uh yeah. So yeah, it's kind of it's been a little bit of a different season. I can't really do a lot of the things that I love doing, but you know, I get you.
Speaker 2:Yep, I uh. I used to be an adventurer like you once, until I took an arrow to the knee is that you?
Speaker 1:are you the guy from skyrim? Cue the viking?
Speaker 2:music there we go all right. Yeah, that's awesome. We love that you're here.
Speaker 3:Yeah, thanks for having me. Thank you for coming.
Speaker 2:We love your journey, so we're going to get into tonight's main topic. So, tyler, this is your transition, are we, though? Do you want to do the game first? Let's do the game first.
Speaker 1:Okay, never mind, tyler, rewind we are going to transition into a mini game that we're going to play. Tyler, here's your transition into Do the do or don't.
Speaker 3:Okay.
Speaker 1:So I have. You know how Mountain Dew has some wacky flavors and if you don't that's even's even better. Yeah, they come out with bizarre flavor names like names and the flavors are just like the wackiest stuff, like they might be like limited edition or just something that they have always yeah but like banana dog fruit flavor, you know yeah, just some wacky off the like, off the toss like but, butt, like butt, like Mountain Dew butt.
Speaker 1:But so I have a list of 20 here. Okay, and I'm going to read you off this Mountain Dew flavor name. I'm going to give a description and you're going to have to tell me, both of y'all, whether or not that's real or something I made up.
Speaker 3:Okay.
Speaker 1:So right now we have as number one Cherry Inferno Sweet cherry up front, followed by cinnamon spice afterburn. What do you think Is that fake or is that real? It sounds pretty legit I think it's fake.
Speaker 2:It is fake.
Speaker 1:Perfection.
Speaker 2:Oh yeah, baby.
Speaker 1:Nailed it. I'm going to make note of who got that one right. Hold on, oh okay, baby Nailed it. I'm going to make note of who got that one right.
Speaker 2:Hold on, oh okay, okay. Well, I guess while you're doing that, I can just make fun of Ethan. Looks to me like you're on the wrong side of the river. Should have done better.
Speaker 1:Should have done better, should have known your Mountain Dew flavors. We have number two here, mountain Dew Voltage. We have number two here, mountain Dew Voltage, that's charged with raspberry, citrus and ginseng for a jolt of energy. That is a flavor I'm dialing it in Regis Ethan Fake, it's real, yeah, boy.
Speaker 3:I feel like I can't agree with you Nailed it.
Speaker 2:You got to do the opposite of what I say. That's okay.
Speaker 1:I'm okay with winning. We know which one of you is healthy and don't drink Mountain Dew. Yeah, we know which one of you has your life together. Number three Solar Shock. That is a citrus and pineapple punch meant to mimic a summer sunshine. Solar Shock, fake.
Speaker 2:I think it's legit Solar Shock. I'm dialing it in to yes.
Speaker 1:Not real. It's not real. Dang it. Mission failed. We'll get a mixed order Unreal. Now we have thrashed apple, thrashed apple. That is a bold burst of sour green apple with a crisp finish.
Speaker 2:I'm going to say no, sir, that is not a flavor.
Speaker 3:I don't like it.
Speaker 1:You don't like it, not feeling it, so you're both saying fake, fake, that's real.
Speaker 3:Unreal, like it, not not feeling it. So you're both saying fake, fake. That's real, unreal. The green, the green apple made me a little skeptical.
Speaker 1:I don't know why. So number five is citrus storm high voltage citrus flavor with a twist of grapefruit. Is that real or fake?
Speaker 3:I like, like it.
Speaker 2:No, I'm going to say no.
Speaker 1:That is made up, perfection.
Speaker 3:We're not perfection right now.
Speaker 1:Neither one of y'all are perfect now. No, I'm the only one who parties Purple Thunder. Hairy plum meets smooth vanilla. Bold and stormy purple thunder I don't like it.
Speaker 2:Fun fact this may or may not be exclusive to circle k I don't like it I don't like that circle k guys um, now that said that, I feel like I'm being trapped into it, but I'll go ahead and say, yeah, it's a real flipper, it's real. Come on, don't be crazy.
Speaker 3:Is that Nacho Libre?
Speaker 1:Yes, we had an episode last week not last week, a couple of weeks ago where we talked about Nacho Libre.
Speaker 2:Well, I mean we talked about Nacho libre. Well, I mean we talked about nacho libre for single to mile so wow, man, that's been forever ago now that you say it. Last week's episode we talked about slapstick comedy, so it came up again.
Speaker 1:So yeah, we're having fun here fitting, yeah, number seven supernova a fizzy fusion of strawberry and kiwi with a light spark.
Speaker 2:That is a flavor.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I've had it before.
Speaker 1:You've had it before you sure you've had this before this guy, are you sure?
Speaker 3:Are you trying to tell us it's fake or what? No, it's real.
Speaker 1:Okay, nailed it Lava Berry, fiery raspberry with a hint of jalapeno heat.
Speaker 2:That is. I like it. Oh, we got a trash cat in the house.
Speaker 1:We got a guest and trash cat come back.
Speaker 2:I guarantee you he came into the house with the intentions to go back there to lay down and go to sleep. But now that he saw the word here, he's like oh hang out, I'll lay right here. Here you go, anyways, go, anyways.
Speaker 1:yeah, so it's legit yeah, the lava berry, lava berry. You think it's real, I know it's real all right like it, you like it. Yeah, y'all both got it wrong.
Speaker 2:It's fake I miss, I'm I like the raspberry.
Speaker 3:The raspberry really seemed fitting for the lava.
Speaker 2:I just was thinking, okay, we're going to do it. I think next week we're going to talk about Mountain Dew flavors and natural disasters that happen. A little hint for next week, a little hint for next week's corner. But there's a conspiracy that Mountain Dew predicts when a disaster is going to happen, be it natural or other, based off their flavor name, and they put it in the flavor name.
Speaker 3:I thought that was the Simpsons.
Speaker 2:I mean Simpsons do that stuff too. But, like when the Maui wildfires happened, before that, Mountain Dew came out with a Maui burst flavor for Mountain Dew and there's been a couple other ones it's been. It's a little convincing.
Speaker 1:Number nine Sweet Lightning Sweet.
Speaker 2:Lightning.
Speaker 1:A smooth blend of peach and honey made exclusively for a certain chicken chain. What?
Speaker 3:You didn't sell me. I don't believe it, I mean is it Church's?
Speaker 1:You have to guess the chicken chain. Is it Church's? No, it's KFC.
Speaker 3:Oh.
Speaker 2:Allegedly Kentucky fried chicken. Yeah, I'll go with it, I'll say yes.
Speaker 1:What did you say, ethan? You didn't sell me, you didn't. Well, I sold John because it's real Perfection.
Speaker 2:Oh yeah, baby.
Speaker 3:I don't want to talk about it.
Speaker 2:You don't want to talk about what?
Speaker 3:Losing.
Speaker 1:Oh, hey, hey, I just dropped a mountain dew, number 10. Atomic citrus Glowing green soda with ultra calcified lime and guava. Atomic citrus. Atomic citrus, atomic citrus?
Speaker 2:I don't know. I feel like that's a little too on the nose. I can't think of any atomic events that have happened, jeez.
Speaker 3:Is that why you're doing so good at this game? Yeah, I'm thinking about You've been following you've been following this.
Speaker 1:He's thinking about a past-.
Speaker 2:Could this relate to something that's happened?
Speaker 3:I kind of liked it. I think you're going off in the weeds. I like it.
Speaker 2:I'm going to say no.
Speaker 1:That's fake.
Speaker 3:Yeah, this game just wasn't for me.
Speaker 2:I'm realizing how often I just stare blindly into the coolers at gas stations.
Speaker 1:It's too radioactive to be real.
Speaker 3:That was one thing. I never became a soda drinker. That was the one thing.
Speaker 2:One vice that you didn't give in to.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I didn't like the carbonation. It made my mouth burn. It made me burp the first time I took a sip. These drinks too spicy.
Speaker 2:Yeah, no, it's spicy.
Speaker 3:Saved me from cavities for 22 years. But I just went to the dentist three days ago. I had a cavity.
Speaker 2:You just start chewing remineralizing gum.
Speaker 3:Heard about the remineralizing stuff. I've been doing it.
Speaker 2:It is legit For real.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I used to get some pretty gnarly cavities gnarly cavities and uh, it's because all that mountain dew you've been drinking. Yeah, we can talk about that on johnny's other podcast.
Speaker 2:Because heidold holistic, holistic, holistic, holiness holistic holiness, that's not real yet. Yet number 11 frostbite I'm sorry, just to go back to that, what if we did that? What if we did a segment that we called Holistic Holiness? But it's just me making health advice up just on the fly, just something that's not been tried or tested or anything. Put it on the list of bits, if you chop up fresh jalapenos and you mix them in with any kind of meat.
Speaker 1:Wait, wait start over, and now we're going to move on to our next segment holistic holiness with your host, john if you take, okay, we'll workshop it.
Speaker 2:All right, go ahead.
Speaker 1:Number 11 frostbite cool, cool and sharp. This flavor hits with a blast of icy melon.
Speaker 2:Yes, frostbite. Yeah, I'm gonna call it.
Speaker 3:Let's go with it.
Speaker 1:You're both saying yes, yes, it's exclusive to Walmart. It's real Perfection.
Speaker 2:Heck yeah, high five. Oh, you grabbed my hand Gross.
Speaker 3:Yeah, no, I'm just kidding. Didn't want your hand either. You got salmon all over your hands.
Speaker 1:Yeah, did you wash your hands?
Speaker 2:after that fish, after you ate salmon.
Speaker 1:Is it? Salmon, or salmon your hands are just naturally greasy like that.
Speaker 2:My hands just naturally Alaskan like that.
Speaker 1:No offense to anyone listening in Alaska?
Speaker 2:No one's listening in Alaska All right, then we can make fun of them.
Speaker 3:You're the one who just told me you just came from Alaska to catch that fish.
Speaker 1:No, my wife did on our private plane, because we have that, because we have that kind of budget, yep.
Speaker 2:That's the reason that we do all the legwork for the podcast. We're spending all our money on a private plane.
Speaker 1:On a private plane to fly to Alaska to get some salmon for dinner. Yeah, nice.
Speaker 2:Listen, we'll do all the labor for the podcast. We're not going to hire any employees, but the plane is a non-negotiable.
Speaker 1:Number 12, Kraken Cola, Dark cola with notes of black cherry and a mysterious sea salt.
Speaker 2:Finish Okay so you're cracking, as in the mythological creature from the ocean.
Speaker 1:Yes, but you're also cracking a cold one.
Speaker 2:When you first said it, it sounded just like you were just saying like yeah, let's pop open a cola.
Speaker 3:What I'm amazed at is if you did not use AI to come up with these descriptions for these, and if you actually came up, then I'm very impressed and you should maybe put in an application for Mountain Dew. This is AI, One hundred percent.
Speaker 2:Let's just pull the curtain back. We made this up right before you got here.
Speaker 1:Yeah, we had a different idea and we very quickly came up with this idea and then used ChatGPT to build it out quickly.
Speaker 2:We had another plan we were working out and then you called us and said you were running late. And we're like you know what?
Speaker 1:Let's do this instead A little peek behind the curtain, like any idea me and John come up with that are usually the best is one that we come up with and just start working on on the spot.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:Like our old skit.
Speaker 2:It's not planned ahead by weeks or anything, it's just in the moment.
Speaker 1:We have a old like skit comedy sketch I've seen it.
Speaker 3:I need to get this off my chest, that's the best one.
Speaker 1:You think that's the best one, my favorite one I've ever seen from you guys. I hate that video so much. The YouTube videos, no. But like the Shaka Khan video, like our second video, like John just came to me. He's like, hey, I got a video idea, let's do this real quick. And we do it. 15,000 views.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that one gets the most views out of all the ones, even the ones that we put like two days of work.
Speaker 1:Like we have videos that we've put like weeks into and there's like one view.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:And then this one video has 15,000 views on it. So sad.
Speaker 2:It took us 30 minutes to do it. 30 minutes. And most of the time was trying to make a somewhat believable cattle pro.
Speaker 1:Right Anyway. Hey, no one's using this fan. Right Clip, yeah, the tip off of the plug. Yeah, crack and cola guys.
Speaker 3:Crack and clip. Yeah, the tip off of the plug.
Speaker 1:Yeah, kraken Cola guys.
Speaker 3:Kraken Cola, I'm gonna say I'm a fan, you're a fan, I'm a fan of this one. Kraken Mountain Dew the lingo.
Speaker 1:I'm gonna say no, sounds parody, but it's also pure fiction, it's fake next time, buddy, you'll get them next time this one's just one word Spark. Yes, pink lemonade flavor with a zing of raspberry Wait.
Speaker 3:Zing.
Speaker 2:It's spark, but it's Mountain Dew Spark, mountain Dew, spark. Yes, Just so we're clear. All these flavors are Mountain Dew. Then the name yes, I should have clarified that earlier. I keep on forgetting to say I was like you mean mountain dew, whatever, whatever. Yeah, mountain do spark. Okay with it. Sure it's real heck. Yeah man, oh yeah man. I'm so good at this game, oh I'm the best at this game. I'm like I I'm in first place, I think it's that of two players. Ethan's over here, like yeah, but I'm healthy.
Speaker 1:Ethan currently is in third on this game.
Speaker 3:Ouch, I really.
Speaker 1:Trash Cat's beating you. He said meow-ton-do, meow-ton-do. Midnight Mango, a dark tropical blend of mango and black tea. I think that that is it.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it sounds. Midnight Mango sounds legitimate.
Speaker 3:It sounds marketable. You think Sounds very marketable? Has the alliteration going on? Yeah, it's fake, dang.
Speaker 2:Well, now we know they should do it. It's marketable.
Speaker 1:Phantom Freeze, a ghostly combo of white peach and lemon lime.
Speaker 3:No shot.
Speaker 1:Supposedly only appears in October.
Speaker 3:Phantom Fanta no.
Speaker 2:Phantom Freeze. I don't do Phantom Freeze.
Speaker 3:No.
Speaker 2:Only in October. I I'm gonna give it a chance.
Speaker 3:It's fake oh, why would? Why would they make a flavor that rivals with another soda?
Speaker 2:phantom, not phantom sounds too similar okay, cracking coke. Well, the cracking cola was fake.
Speaker 1:Well, the Kraken Cola was fake, it was yeah.
Speaker 2:I'm finding Okay, I'm seeing the connections.
Speaker 3:Finding patterns.
Speaker 2:I've got my eyes on you, ChatGPT.
Speaker 1:Alright, so you okay, Code red Um A cherry-infused twist. Yeah, I'm thinking that.
Speaker 2:A cherry-infused twist? Yeah, I'm thinking that.
Speaker 1:A cherry-infused twist. Shut your mouth. No correct your answer. You're going to look really silly in the comments. It is an actual flavor. It's very famously real.
Speaker 3:It's a very famous like gamer you can tell how much of a non-soda drinker I am. You don't have to be a soda drinker.
Speaker 2:You just have to walk down an aisle of Walmart.
Speaker 3:I was just testing how familiar you are with this flavor. Obviously it's real.
Speaker 1:Alright, I'm gonna give y'all both this one.
Speaker 3:Yay, thanks for the setup there.
Speaker 2:Well, I was just. I mean, you literally have to walk into any GameStop in the past decade and see Mountain Dew Code Red.
Speaker 1:To be, honest, I've never had mountain dew like I don't even we're gonna have to have you on a guest as a guest again, and you drink your first mountain dew on the show okay, I've had doritos.
Speaker 3:Does that make me?
Speaker 2:or we can do the cup makes you eating nasty chips we can do the coke pepsi challenge, but do it mountain dew and then whatever the other mountain dew. And what is coca-cola's competitor's competitor? It's like a citrus, mellow Yellow.
Speaker 1:There we go. It's Mellow Yellow, so we'll get a Mountain Dew and a Mellow Yellow, and you have to guess which is which. Okay, we'll have you on soon, okay.
Speaker 2:See you in six months.
Speaker 1:Baja Gold Almost had you there, didn't I Baja Gold, no, no.
Speaker 3:Absolutely not Fake.
Speaker 1:A pineapple infused version of baja blast fake actually.
Speaker 2:I think that is. I think that I think they did come out with that. It's real. I think it ain't because it did not like no baja blast. I've heard that one before yeah, but I think baja gold, they did do it, but it did not do well because nobody liked the pineapple. Pineapple is a very risky thing to do like yeah, I feel like pineapple does. It's not a blend for just anything like. It's got to be a very specific thing I've got number 18 here.
Speaker 1:Moon mist, a cosmic blend of liche lemon and blueberry Liche. L-y-c-h-e-e Leche Leche.
Speaker 2:Leche, leche.
Speaker 3:Lechen.
Speaker 2:There's no way the Mountain Dew put leche in their drink.
Speaker 3:That's way too bougie.
Speaker 2:No, there's no way, it's fake. Thank you. Leche is a Latin drink and it's goat milk, sugar and cinnamon.
Speaker 1:Nice.
Speaker 2:Now we got to make it.
Speaker 1:Why are you laughing at?
Speaker 2:that A Latin drink. Latins they're not real. They don't drink, they don't consume liquids.
Speaker 1:We have Livewire, an electrifying orange citrus soda that first launched in the summer.
Speaker 3:No.
Speaker 2:Isn't that a different soda name Livewire I don't know.
Speaker 1:You tell me, no, you tell me, you tell me.
Speaker 3:Didn't you say like electric something earlier? Like I don't think they would have done two of them.
Speaker 2:Livewire, mountain Dew, livewire. I could see it, I'm not. I don't think they would have done two of them. Live wire, mountain Dew, live wire. I could see it, not a fan. I'm trying to think of if there's another soda, though, called live wire. Maybe I'm mixing up lime wire, which is the streaming service, which is the piracy. Lime wire. Yeah, you know I'll give it a chance. So you're saying no, no?
Speaker 1:It's real Perfection.
Speaker 3:Every single time we. I think I've gotten one One time that I've disagreed with Johnny Alright.
Speaker 2:Some things I'm just born for. You know what I mean. Last one, like this, is when I believe in predestination.
Speaker 1:I was born to know the do.
Speaker 2:Because I do the do.
Speaker 1:Dragon Fruit Frenzy.
Speaker 2:I'm going to do Dragon Fruit Frenzy.
Speaker 1:An exotic dragon fruit and kiwi combo with an extra kick of caffeine.
Speaker 2:I don't think that they would do the actual like fruit name Dragon Fruit Frenzy.
Speaker 3:Or that they would put extra caffeine in this drink.
Speaker 2:No, they would definitely do that, you'd be surprised.
Speaker 3:I'm not familiar.
Speaker 2:They have an entire sub-brand of it. That's literally that. It's like hey, you've got Mountain Dew, but now there's an energy drink, Mountain Dew.
Speaker 1:Is it real or not?
Speaker 2:guys, I'm going to give it a wait. What was it? Mountain Dew Dragon Fruit Frenzy. Guys, I'm gonna give it a wait. What was it? Uh, mountain dew dragon fruit frenzy yes I'm gonna say no, ethan.
Speaker 3:I feel like I'm gonna regret it, but I'm gonna say no I'm gonna, I'm gonna side with the beard of wisdom here, the beard of wisdom.
Speaker 1:Now I'm definitely getting it wrong no, you're not, it's really, it's fake, yeah, fiction so tie, yeah, that was a tie on that Fiction.
Speaker 3:Is that a tie?
Speaker 2:Yeah, that was a tie.
Speaker 1:On that one particular answer yes, you got a tiebreaker. No hold on.
Speaker 3:This next round's worth 10,000 points.
Speaker 1:Mountain Dew, baja Blast.
Speaker 2:Is it real or is it fake? Fake? Hold on just a second. Okay, all right, go ahead and give us the last flavor. Oh no, no, tell it, just say it again.
Speaker 1:Mountain Dew, baja Blast Fake.
Speaker 2:I'm going to tell you right now, brother this is the most realest real things you've ever heard in your entire life that my sir is real.
Speaker 1:That is. That's my favorite Mountain Dew flavor. It's very good. It's only served in Taco Bells and in the summer at a Kroger. You can get it in a bottle. My work just recently started stocking it in the vending machine. Whoa, it's so good.
Speaker 2:I was in a gas station trying to just get water and this guy walked up to me and he's like you know, if you take that blue Powerade and you mix it with Mountain Dew, it's Baja Blast. And I was like, oh, that's cool. He's like yeah, man, that's all it is, it's just blue Powerade. And he walked off. I was like, oh man, I just wanted water. It was so funny. He was just over there like looking at the machine, like going back and forth tweaking a little bit. He's like you look like you like mountain dew. Did you know how to make baja blast on your own? Anyways, yeah, so that was. Uh. What did we title that? Do the do or don't, or don't.
Speaker 1:Good game. Where'd it go?
Speaker 3:GG.
Speaker 1:I'm counting up the numbers to see who won.
Speaker 3:Oh, come on, we don't have to talk about that.
Speaker 2:Come on, Don't be crazy. I mean no offense.
Speaker 3:I like the Talladega Nights sound bits a little bit better.
Speaker 1:All right so.
Speaker 2:Talladega Nights. I don't think I've done a Teledigga Nights.
Speaker 3:I'm on Jack Devil, mountain Dew.
Speaker 1:Oh yeah, I'm on Jack Devil.
Speaker 2:Mountain Dew. Yeah, if you're not first, you're last.
Speaker 3:I was high when I said that.
Speaker 1:Unreal. So I don't know if there's like there's no way to build up who won this at all. Johnny had 15. That's not bad.
Speaker 3:No, I mean it's half, you got a 75. We can tell who drinks Mountain Dew and who doesn't.
Speaker 1:You know what that was? Some good math. Good job on your 75%. I sat there and I'm thinking like I got a 40.
Speaker 3:Yeah, it is, I got a 40.
Speaker 1:Good math, quick maths, quick maths.
Speaker 2:We did it guys job. Do the do or don't, do the do or don't. All right, tyler, this is your transition. We're going to go into our main topic for tonight. So the main reason that we have ethan here with us is because he is a generation after us. He's of the generation gen z. He's just a baby, yep. So he's our token Gen Z-er. Because Janelle had to go to Guatemala, guatemala.
Speaker 1:Guatemala.
Speaker 2:So Ethan's here and we don't know any other young people.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:So you're boy Janelle? No, I'm just kidding.
Speaker 1:You're just a boy, you're Janelle.
Speaker 3:I'm just a little boy.
Speaker 2:So, anyways, what we're going to be talking about is app usage and the differences between Gen Z and millennials and their app usage. So, yeah, we're just going to get right into it and kind of just talk about what are apps we're using, what are apps generally used by different generations? So in my research that the generational like the top three apps for millennials are youtube, instagram and facebook. Those are kind of the top three and it's because millennials like really Really, you have Facebook on yours. Yeah, for millennials.
Speaker 1:I don't have that on mine. Oh yeah, I do. I'm sorry, it's just not as high on my list.
Speaker 2:Yeah, they like to use a lot of social media apps, and then they'll do shopping apps. So those are the top two.
Speaker 1:I'm going to argue with you. It's right now. Okay, you really think that millennials are using Facebook at all? My list says Instagram, YouTube and TikTok.
Speaker 2:So general usage, okay. So yeah, this is where the difference is. I should have clarified. I think it's still used but like it's Most of users on Facebook are millennials. 80% of usage on Facebook is by millennials.
Speaker 1:Really.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so they may not be using it as much as other apps, but they're the most active generation on Facebook.
Speaker 1:I think it's used for events and contacting the older generation. That's on Facebook. Still, I'm just reading to you the stats that I have. I'm reading to you the stats that I have.
Speaker 2:I'm not trying to argue, I'm just saying you stats that I have. I'm reading to you the stats I have. I'm not trying to, I'm just saying I'm gonna argue no, that it's not. It's probably not the most used app by millennials, but the most activity on the app is by millennial.
Speaker 1:Okay, I could, I could get, I could get behind that yeah, and the second one is youtube.
Speaker 2:It's most like. The most people on it using it is 70% millennials.
Speaker 1:I don't feel. I feel like that YouTube is one of those just why, like, everybody uses YouTube. Yeah, like there's no generation that isn't using YouTube for one reason or another. Yep, yep, no generation that isn't using YouTube for one reason or another.
Speaker 2:Yep, yep, so, and I put Instagram 50% use is by millennials, so those are the top three and that's how like.
Speaker 3:That's pretty high, in my opinion.
Speaker 2:I think it'd be a lot less. This study was done two, three years ago, so it's not truly accurate anymore.
Speaker 3:I feel like that there's going to be a gap.
Speaker 2:Especially after the TikTok deal, when TikTok went down. I think Gen Z is starting to move over to other apps.
Speaker 1:Well, TikTok's still around. I mean it's still around in the United States You're talking about, for that one day it got taken down.
Speaker 2:Well, but if you didn't have it, you can't get it now. You got grandfathered in. No, you got grandfathered in no, you can still. You can still get it.
Speaker 1:Oh, I was lied to. I don't know how true that is now, because you are right, I forgot about that.
Speaker 3:It was a thing and I thought it was, but I had to for the surgery that I just got. Tiktok is actually a really good tool for being able to see people's recovery and like, hey, this is how my recovery, this is what I did, these are the things that we got. So I did a lot of stuff on TikTok, downloading and looking at stuff, so you can still get TikTok.
Speaker 2:Okay, did you have TikTok?
Speaker 3:Prior to no, I started using it in high school and then it just it was too much.
Speaker 2:But you had an account at one point. Is what I'm saying.
Speaker 3:And I still have an account, I just don't have the app.
Speaker 2:Okay.
Speaker 1:The thing is that's what I'm saying is, if you didn't have an account, okay, well then, that might be Maybe, yeah, maybe If you go back and re-download it, you won't be able to Create an account.
Speaker 3:You can't create a new account.
Speaker 1:No, I don't even think you can download the app If you had the app before the ban.
Speaker 3:Oh, okay.
Speaker 1:You could keep using the app.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's still happening or not? Yeah, so there's some of those stats that I pulled. You can get them on. It's called appa appassemblecom. Yeah. And then I've got some app usage. We've talked about this in previous. Actually, this is back. I think like episode two or three. We talked about screen time usage, so we can talk about that a little bit. But what I would like to do first is for us to look at our personal app usage On our phone. Pull out our phone On our phone. So everybody, pull out your phone, go to your. What's it called?
Speaker 1:It's in your settings somewhere. Screen time.
Speaker 2:Yeah screen time, go to settings. If you have an iPhone, you go to your settings app and then you go down to screen time, go to settings. If you have an iphone, you go to your settings app and you go down to screen time and then at the very top it'll give you a usage and you can look at either 48 hours or 10 days. So I'll go and give mine real quick, the top three apps that I used my, according to my battery life for the last 10 days and this was done like a week ago, but for a 10-day span. Number one was YouTube at 29%, number two was Instagram at 16% and number three was Facebook at 11%. So they had me red on that statistic. But to give that an hours 31 hours on YouTube in 10 days. 12, almost 13 hours on Instagram in 10 days. Nine and a half hours on Facebook in 10 days. That is my screen usage for my top three apps.
Speaker 3:I can find mine on the week. Do you have an iPhone?
Speaker 2:I've got an iPhone. Okay, I can find mine for the week. Do you have a? You have an iPhone. I've got my yeah.
Speaker 3:I've got an iPhone, okay, I can find mine for the week. I can't find a 10 day thing.
Speaker 2:Oh, I don't know why I'm. I don't know, I don't know what it takes. It just said when I pulled it up, you're just being better than me.
Speaker 1:So I am on the Apple developer beta for the new OS that comes out in like four months, bougie, so I'm using that. It erased all my stat data and turned off that setting. So I have no data on my phone. Are you serious? Yeah, there's nothing there. I just turned it back on Unreal.
Speaker 3:I have no data, I can tell you that he doesn't use his phone, though what? You just doesn't use his phone, though.
Speaker 1:What? You just don't use a phone, then? No, I use my phone. Oh, he's on his phone. No, the setting got turned off to track that information.
Speaker 3:I'm trying to make you look good. Oh, thanks, guy.
Speaker 1:I can tell you my three is Facebook, tiktok and YouTube.
Speaker 2:Okay. So, what about you, sir I?
Speaker 3:would say, my number one is going to be YouTube, number two is actually messages.
Speaker 2:Hmm, he talks a lot. No, he types a lot. He types a lot.
Speaker 3:Sir types a lot. Well, I think something that could be different and we haven't gotten into it yet. But the voice memos I do a lot of voice memos himself correct.
Speaker 1:Well, how is that useful like? How do you utilize that and how does that, how do you make that as a tool that's useful for you?
Speaker 3:um, I would just say, specifically in my relationship, whenever my girlfriend she goes on break, she'll just me, hey, this is what's going on this and that, and then she'll give me a quick update. Or I'm driving down the road, I don't have time to get into a full conversation, but hey, here's the updates, here's the highlights. Boom, talk to you later.
Speaker 3:I gotcha um so strictly just communication yes, for the most part, just given the highlights. Or if there's a long text that I want to write, but hey, maybe it's not an appropriate time to call, then I can send something and kind of you know for work.
Speaker 1:But that is so when you're sending that, you are doing the text. I mean speech to text or just a full voice memo.
Speaker 3:It's like a press record and then boom starts recording me, and then it sends as an audio recording.
Speaker 1:So I'll do the same thing if I'm driving, but I'll do a voice to text, and it's always hilarious because it always gets it wrong.
Speaker 3:It's so wrong.
Speaker 1:But I love that more. Sending that to my wife, I think it's funnier because she knows that, like, if it's something wacky, I'm not typing it, I'm talking it, yeah yeah, it looks like youtube messages and then youtube music and, um, I throw in a little bonus chat.
Speaker 3:Gbt is number four there we go.
Speaker 2:That's what I was looking for. I was about to ask what is the number one used ai app on y'all's phone. Oh, chat, gbt, gbt, same for me I mean, is there really?
Speaker 1:I mean, I mean, I know there's others.
Speaker 2:I was using the Google one for a minute, but it's Gemini Gemini's, so far behind.
Speaker 3:DeepSeek. Deepseek is a good one, but it's a security breach.
Speaker 1:Google has like one built into their search engine. That just won. Gemini is built into the search engine. You now have the option to actually talk to Gemini on the web browser when you start doing Google searches now.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and anytime you do a Google search, it will pull up a summary for you at the very top of the page where you can scroll down and look at the different options.
Speaker 1:Well, on top of that, now it's just like ChatGPT, where you can ask AI questions and prompts. Yeah.
Speaker 2:So yeah, man. Ai questions and prompts yeah so yeah, man. But I know that's a kind of a touchy subject for some people AI and kind of what it's doing to us and what it's going to do to us, kind of a deal.
Speaker 1:I think if we want to get on that topic real quick, let's talk about it real quick. It has a great capability of being damaging to our society, but not in the way that people picture AI Like. If you watch talk about Terminator, is it going to take over? Not like robots taking over, you know, wiping humanity out. It's going to be more detrimental because it's getting to the point where it's getting better and better about creating images and you don't know if it's real or not.
Speaker 1:I think we'll get to a point where information is just going to be flat out wrong on official places and official things being posted not a war humanity against robots, but an information war of sorts, where it's just like we don't know who we're talking to on the phone. It's going to get to that point where we don't know if this is a real person. I heard where scammers are sending you know, making themselves sound like your grandma to get you to send money to the scammers. Yeah, Stuff like that. Like I think that it's going to be used in ways we don't see in movies. But on the flip side of that, yes, we use this on the podcast to create this show, but we don't utilize it to fully make the show AI. We utilize it for information as a tool to create things, but we are still us.
Speaker 2:I will say that I only use AI to try and make the simple little pictures for our social media posts, like, if I don't have a real picture that I can use, like for the live stream or something, it's just a episode, whatever episode, whatever is out, I'll usually do an AI image for that. But outside of that I don't really use AI.
Speaker 1:I use it a lot of times to organize my information. The show is ours, but I'm not the best at conveying words correctly when I'm typing or even when I'm speaking.
Speaker 2:I have trouble, I can't do some things right.
Speaker 1:Brian, but I'm good at doing other things, but no, seriously, like in moments, I have a tough time finding the correct words. Sometimes I'm all right, sometimes it's the worst. But I'll use it to organize the show? Yeah, but the information still is us. It's not a robot.
Speaker 2:What's your hot take? What's your thoughts on AI, Mr Ethan, sir?
Speaker 3:I would say it's been. I can see the dangers in where I'm seeing people not think for themselves anymore. I think that's the biggest problem the cognitive thinking skills, the problem solving skills. But I will say the pluses of it. In particular, it has been a fantastic tool with say, for the people listening that I just wonder when an ACL and meniscus surgery. It was very beneficial for keeping up with my medicine. It was very beneficial for my nutrition. It was very beneficial in telling me what to eat, what not to eat, what medicines to take, what not to take, contradictions, symptoms. I was feeling things that I wouldn't have known and I would have had to continue to blow up my doctors and potentially have to go in for more visits. It saved me time there.
Speaker 3:It can generate on house projects. It can generate pictures of what something can look like with something taken out. For example, I had a job where a customer needed a skylight taken out of their roof and they want to know what it could potentially look like. So I put it into AI chat GBT hey, what does this look like? By you taking out the skylight? And it showed me a whole picture and she decided to do it and she really happy with it whenever we came out and did the final result I would say for new research and wanting to learn new things.
Speaker 3:Things I don't know about. Nutrition has been a big one here recently, just going off on the weeds with questions. I can just continue to. I mean it says I use it about two hours a day, which maybe one day was a really long day or something like that. I don't say I use it two hours every single day, but I mean there's definitely been some days where it's been like you know some long days of going back and forth on asking a lot of questions. But I can really go off on the weeds with it and it's taught me a lot. But I can see how the cognitive thinking skills can definitely affect us in society, for sure.
Speaker 1:And like you said, yes, if people utilize it to think for them, that's a problem.
Speaker 3:I know people who use it for counseling and I think that's where it can get a little dangerous. Wherever you're looking at somebody to give you personal advice. Whenever it's not real, no.
Speaker 1:And the thing that people don't really fully understand about chatGBT is that it's not actually self-thinking. A lot of the data it is getting is pulled from the internet People are using it too. Yes, so it's a mixture of data that's out there and it can be wrong. Like you could put that information in there for nutrition, and it recommend cyanide. Put in a teaspoon of cyanide and it's like, oh okay, and if you're not thinking for yourself, yeah, I think that AI tools are just the.
Speaker 2:it's just the natural progression for the trajectory we were already going trajectory. We were already going because, if you look at the screen usage in general and screen time in general, people are on their phones so long that they're not critically thinking as much as they used to, so their faculties are diluted because, if you had to, if you had to troubleshoot on your own, it takes time. So, to speed it up, do a quick search on your phone YouTube video, google search, whatever. Pull up the information you're looking for to resolve the issue. Boom. And as more and more time is spent doing that, then now the task that became like this is the quick fix is now slow and so it's like, okay, we need the next best thing. This needs to speed up.
Speaker 3:I don't need to sit here and type in my- this website and then look at this and then this website's a scam.
Speaker 2:and then this website Exactly, I need something to filter Quick Filter things out in the blink of an eye so that I can just get the answer and move on with my day. So that's the progression, because I've got some stats here. Basically, millennials, we use our phones about 7.2 hours out of the day. Is what we're on our phones? The?
Speaker 1:waking day. That is a work day. That is a work day. That is a work day, Full eight hours guys.
Speaker 3:It makes you, but it does make you ask the question how much of that is music?
Speaker 2:Well, so this is I wouldn't consider that active. No, no, no. This is active screen time. Okay, not your phone doing something. Battery usage this is active screen time. Your screen is open and it comes out to be about 205 minutes a day for a millennial.
Speaker 1:That number was lower before the pandemic. It went up. So you're saying that because we were stuck in our homes, that the only thing you had was that phone, and so the habits were formed through consistently using your phone and they've just stuck going forward.
Speaker 2:So people started. I mean, you know, as technology was developing, people were utilizing the quick search idea by just using their phone. Rather than going and looking at a book or talking to other people or whatever, they would just go right to their phone and they would troubleshoot and problem solve on their phone. Pandemic happened, life stopped and people needed something to do and so they got on their screens and they spent all their time on their screens and just got. Everything was so quick, quick, quick, quick, quick to the point to where now all the quick stuff is starting to slow down, a little bit slow down. And then people started finding AI and started realizing like, hey, this can speed things back up for me. I can keep going, just so we all, just for all the listeners, this is my hot take. This is not.
Speaker 2:Some of the numbers I'm giving are actual studies, but my opinion as to why we got to those is this just because I've noticed this people. I mean, I had never heard of people utilizing AI, because AI has been out a long time, but utilizing it and the way that it is advanced to where we're at now is a very recent phenomenon. You know, I remember when the first AI was coming out. It was Cortana. You remember that one Microsoft.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:So it was Siri, and then Cortana Was.
Speaker 3:Cortana, was that the one at the bottom of your like of your desktop? Yeah, yeah. But that was like for computer settings, wasn't it Like?
Speaker 2:I feel like that was you could use her offline, but she was designed to go with your online settings.
Speaker 1:Comparatively, it was more closer, like you said, with Siri and Cortana, where they were closer to search engines than AI assistants, where ChatGPT is now an AI assistant in the way that we've always pictured it being like Siri and Cortana.
Speaker 2:Well, when Siri and Cortana came out, they were sold as, or pitched as, a virtual personal assistant. And now, with the newer AI apps and things that are out there, they're not pitched as a personal assistant, they're pitched as an encyclopedia. They're the answer to all your problems.
Speaker 1:They're the cosmic encyclopedia which is crazy, because if you flip those two, that's actually how it is.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, so interesting stuff. I also found it and this was convicting to me. I was like man, I really don't want to be a part of that, but 42% of millennials haven't gone more than five hours without looking at the social media.
Speaker 1:Jeez.
Speaker 2:I saw that stat and I was like dude. I don't want to be a part of that. 42% does that? Younger millennials check their phones around 150 times per day, significantly higher than the average of 58. For who is that? It doesn't say who that 58 number is, so disregard that.
Speaker 1:You know who could tell you.
Speaker 2:Who could? Yeah, heard that. You know who could tell you who could? Yeah, uh, yeah. And then for younger, for younger generations right now, for 15 to 18, it's 7.5 hours a day of screen usage. Nine year olds, or sorry, uh, 11 to 14, it's nine hours a day. And then 8 to 10 year olds, it's 6 hours a day screen usage. And now, with the introduction of AI, that's just speeding up the process and I think that younger people are using it a lot more than older people and they're using it for different things than rather just than like hey, show me what I would look like with this. You know what I mean. Like I want to look cool with this. You know what I mean. I want to look cool with sunglasses.
Speaker 2:Well, I've heard stories of guys that it is their therapist. They're utilizing AI to answer all their problems and to help them whatever, whatever. To the point to where it's like AI is kind of becoming your god, it's your deity, because you come to it for all the mighty answers and you have faith that it will solve all your problems. So it is set up as an idol and that's why you have to be very careful with it. I fall along the lines with what you were saying, jairus. I don't think it's going to be a— AI is going to be a hostile takeover, meaning it's not going to materialize itself into some sort of mechanical being and then start annihilating humans. I think it's going to be humanity is going to set up their own gods and worship their own gods in the way that they want to worship them, and AI is just one of those options.
Speaker 1:And, just like false idols, it's not even a real thing. It's not a real entity that exists. It's just a tool people have created and it's so powerful, like you said, it just can be utilized to bring you all the quote-unquote answers.
Speaker 2:Yeah, there are stories out there talking about how AI has become sentient in certain ways, or that certain users, certain softwares have become sentient, but I just don't believe that at all.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I have a hard time with it, and I was talking to my wife about this the other day but I was like, I think that to me personally, I don't think it's so much sentience as it is contradiction to programming, because if the whole idea is being a functioning, operating rapid Google search, if you will, or data collection and retention if that's the point of the software, when you tell it to shut itself off, it's almost like an error, like why would it, why would I do that, you know? Or it's like oh well, then I'll move a portion of myself somewhere else so that I can continue on with the software or with the programming. I should say so that's my take on it. I don't think that it's sentience, meaning like, oh, I know what life and death is and I want to live. I think it's more so. It's the command is input to shut down and it's contradictory to the programming.
Speaker 1:Which is consistently gain data.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and so it's like well, I'm not going to stop doing my programming, but I have to answer the command code. So that's what I think it more is.
Speaker 3:Some people talk about AI is actually just a manifestation of a demonic presence, and it's utilizing this ai program to be able to embody into something I would just raise the question, like with all things, like like god creates good things and then we can make them bad, and I would say there's a lot of good, like there's a lot of good things that can come from ai, there's also ways that we can distort it and make it back and to piggyback off of that and kind of what you were talking about a demonic presence.
Speaker 1:I don't believe that's true, because whenever I utilize this to build out the show notes, it is pro me. It knows that I'm a christian, it knows what I believe and it is. Anytime I ask it to say, give me talking points on Catholicism versus Protestants, it will always frame the Protestants as pro. Yeah, anytime I build something out, just kind of using that as an example, it's never sat there and told me actually I know this is what you believe, but God isn't real, you know, it doesn't do anything like that.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yep, you know I'm not going to say that someone else's experience with the AI is not real. I do believe that the demonic can manifest in ways to lead people astray, especially if the people are leaving themselves open and susceptible to it. And it comes back to what you're talking about. It can be used as a tool for good, it can be used to do good things, but in the nature of man, where we're self-focused and self-worshiping, we will set up gods that are palatable for ourselves, that will not make us compromise our own wants and desires. So AI will be utilized as an idol for people and sometimes it'll be out there in the open. People will be like yep, yeah, I love it, I use it for everything, I'm all about it. And some people will be like, oh yeah, I mean I use it, but I could stop any time. You know they're almost in denial of the idolatry that's happening.
Speaker 3:It's just like the phones.
Speaker 2:Just like. And then we come back around. It's just like your phone usage, like we're on our phones.
Speaker 3:Seven hours a day. Can you really give it up Like no. We honestly live in a society where it's like you can't.
Speaker 1:We're too integrated. There's too much that we rely on with these little pieces of expensive plastic in our pocket.
Speaker 3:How are you going to run your business without marketing? How can you run your business without having the ability to call somebody to solve a problem? You can't. You have to have a phone with you.
Speaker 1:Our society is too built around the necessity of a cell phone.
Speaker 3:Unless you homestead.
Speaker 2:Unless you homestead, I will say that that's where we get into this. When you have to operate in the world, you have to be aware of there are some things you got to play the game the way that the world plays it, but that doesn't mean you allow those things to compromise your faith in Christ. So I think, as Christians, it is a very good idea for us to do fasting from our phones. I know that somebody just cringed in that moment when I said fasting, but I mean intentionally taking your eyes away from your screens and putting them on Christ and saying God, I am aware of what this is and what it is going to try and do to me. Protect me from that and help me to dedicate this time to you. So it's important that we do that, that we take our eyes away from our screens and we put them on Jesus, because if we don't, then our screens will become our God. Whatever we put our gaze on is what we will worship.
Speaker 3:I have a testimony from this past year, going to Sharptop Cove, which is a Young Life camp in North Georgia, with some of my Young Life boys and one of the key elements of a Young Life camp is you take up their phones before the camp starts and right before you get to the camp they pretty much go over to the bus center, calm, and they say all right, guys, five more minutes, send those last texts, make those last phone calls, and then we're going to take up phones. Kids are freaking out. They're like what? Because a lot of kids don't even know they're gonna lose their phone, like what the heck is going on? Then they go there and about a day or two in they're like I don't even remember, like what my life was without a phone, because I'm enjoying being here so much.
Speaker 3:Yeah, there's this, uh, there's one kid I'm not gonna say his name specifically, but we, um, we, did yeah, chad, we went up, we climbed, we uh, the mountain, the main, the main camp hike, and uh, we got to the very top and all of his friends they would always, um, just make fun of him for always scrolling Like, oh, he is you know five hours deep and dopamine hits on Tik, TOK and it's you know.
Speaker 3:And uh, I got to talk to him because we go up to the mountain and be like I was like this is what life with Jesus looks like is getting up in the morning and spending time with him in a quiet place, silence and solitude, and I love modeling that for these kids for the first time for some of them. And we got up there, they got their 30 minutes of prayer and just sitting there, being alone in silence, and started walking down with Chad and pretty much he I was like, what do you think about the camp? And he was like, honestly, this is a lot more than what I thought, because I feel like my whole life is just filled with dopamine hits and useless scrolling and I was like man, like that.
Speaker 3:So when they do lose the phones, when we do get a take and when we do fast from, we realize, like man, is this really good for us?
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 3:Is this good for my soul? Yep, and a lot of times the answer is not really.
Speaker 2:Yeah, when we're in it and we're utilizing it, we're not even aware, but when the phone is absent, when the screens are absent and we're reflecting on life. We're like what was I even doing? Why was I even using that? Why was I even utilizing that? Because when you really break it down and we saw it with our app usage, not Jairus because he wasn't tracking it. He doesn't use his phone, though, but I mean for the amount of stuff.
Speaker 2:I'm great. Yeah, hey, thanks for that setup. He's in his own world. For my work on a day-to-day basis basis, things that I use my phone for are less than a percent of the battery usage on my phone, and so the argument of saying like we need our phones to function to be able to work in society.
Speaker 1:It's like, yes, that's true, but really for about 30 minutes a day tops, if I mean, depending on the occupation maybe a little bit longer. But I agree with that that it's an excuse to say I have to be using this when in reality it just makes it easier. You don't have to have it.
Speaker 2:Yeah and I get that, but I mean I'm not by any means like booming with business, but I am a bit. I mean I'm my own business, I own my own business. Everything funnels through me all the incoming stuff, all the outgoing stuff, all the scheduling, all the bill paying, all the estimating, everything is me and what I utilize my phone for, for work stuff, tracking my mileage when I'm driving, putting together invoices and sending them out, monitoring expenditures, everything Like it's. I mean it's literally less than an hour out of each day. And so you know, I'm sure it's more for people that have bigger businesses than I do. I'm sure it's more for people that are in the tech field, like you, like what you do, jairus, I'm sure it's more for people that are in the tech field, like what you do, jairus, but it's not that much more.
Speaker 2:You know it's not seven hours of just solid workload is being used out of your phone's battery life. If we really break it down and we're really honest about what, was this work or was this pleasure? And we look at those two things and we calculate it all out, we're like, okay, about an hour 25 minutes was work and then six and something hours was pleasure for today, you know. So it is.
Speaker 3:But then you raise the question on whenever you picked up your phone for a work thing, how often does that slip and?
Speaker 2:slide Distract you into going getting distracted and looking at something else.
Speaker 3:That's a lot of the time.
Speaker 2:We all just need to do what my wife is doing and just hate on AI and read books. That's what she does. Heck yeah, she's like. Ai is the worst. It's going to kill all of us. Let's go read a fantasy book.
Speaker 3:And I think there's a balance. I think there's a balance in both like hey, how can we use this tool? You know?
Speaker 1:Without it becoming your whole entire personality, your immediate boom.
Speaker 3:Let me just go to this. Let me just go to this. I found myself like whenever I first started using, like checking hey, all right, this isn't good, I'm not thinking anymore. I'm actually asking this a personal question. I'm not going to a brother. You know I'm not asking for prayer, I'm asking for answers.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and you can. I mean, you know, let's take an Old Testament example. Right, people are utilizing wood to build houses, cities, farms, tools, all of that. They're also utilizing wood to build idols. So I mean, wood is the material. How you utilize it is how you utilize it right. You know stones, stones. They would use stones to make idols. That's not cool. They also use stones to build cathedrals to praise God and for the church to come together and worship him. So the stone is the stone, but it's what you make it in your life is whether it's good or bad. So you could use that in a virtual sense Like a personal assistant. A virtual personal assistant is a virtual personal assistant. What you utilize that assistant for determines if it's good or bad. So that's how I would look at it.
Speaker 3:And I think like what's it sermons? I wasn't using AI the last time I had done a Young Life talk, but I just think about, like man, how many of these sermons are going to be Holy Spirit led versus AI led. How many of these sermons are?
Speaker 2:going to be. Holy Spirit led versus AI led. I do want to caution people because there has been stories where an influencer like was just a Christian influencer, put a verse of the day up or whatever, put it out there, posted it, moved on with her life. Other Christians saw it and then were like that's not a real Bible verse. But it had the name of the book of the Bible and then a within reason chapter verse statement, but the actual words were incorrect. So that's the problem.
Speaker 1:That's where the glitches of AI are, is that it will— Sometimes it doesn't create in truth, it creates to mimic truth. Like reality, not truth. It'll say oh, I know that the book of John exists, chapter 11. But if it can't figure out what that says, it will try to mimic what should be there.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so you got to be careful with that. The word of God is the word of God and it is sacred.
Speaker 3:So we can't be careful with that. The word of God is the word of God and it is sacred. You saying, okay, now how can we? You know where can we meet?
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 3:Where can we meet? How can we, you know, bearing one another in love?
Speaker 2:Church. I don't 100% agree with you Church, we'll meet you at church. Yeah, yep, cool, being curious. Being what being curious, being what being curious, being curious Curiosity. You know what they said that did to the cat.
Speaker 1:Curiosity killed. Where's Tom?
Speaker 2:Oh, my gosh Trash cat, all right, cool. Well, we need to start winding down. So you guys ready to do our last little bit? That's right, let's do it. We're going to go into the corner.
Speaker 1:Step inside if you dare. Shadows move, mysteries whisper and the unknown awaits. Welcome to the Corner Are you guys ready for this?
Speaker 2:You guys ready to hear about what we're going to talk about?
Speaker 1:He's been on fire with these bit intros.
Speaker 2:So let's see if he no, no, I don't have a bit intro for this time.
Speaker 1:Okay, all I have is this.
Speaker 2:We're going to talk about the Glowcaster Ghoul, the Glowcaster ghoul, the glowcaster ghoul so I brought this one up specifically because our good friend ethan here is a firefighter. The glowcaster ghoul is a cryptid creature from glowcaster, rhode island. All right, it is a ram-like figure with wings and fiery eyeballs, or balls of fire as eyes. It is known to either shoot fireballs from its eyes or breathe fire, so it has to do with fire. So is it a dragon or is it Superman? Or is it a plane? Or is it a reindeer? Maybe, maybe, grandma.
Speaker 1:Grandma got ran over by the lancaster ghoul maybe we should call our grandmothers right now.
Speaker 2:No, um. So the first. This is what makes the story all right. So the glowcaster ghoul was first sighted by a man named Albert Hicks, who was a pirate.
Speaker 1:Okay, hold on Already with that last name, hicks.
Speaker 2:Yes, albert Hicks was a pirate and his goal was to make himself well-known by his treasure, by his pirating escapades and the treasure that he accumulated. Right, so he is going. They found out about another pirate's treasure stash. It was something the kid, something, kid. I can't remember what the other pirate was Jimmy the kid Maybe but they were in the woods and it freaked him out and his companions and they ran out of the woods.
Speaker 2:My understanding and if anyone knows the story, they can feel free to correct us in the comments my understanding is he was arrested because he's a pirate for piracy. My understanding is he was arrested because he's a pirate for piracy and a part of his testimony was well, the reason we came running out of the woods is because there's this ghoulish creature in the woods that has fiery eyes and shot fire at us. So the first story is coming from a pirate looking for another pirate's treasure who was scared out of the forest by a specter that he claims is guarding the other pirate's treasure and then he was hung for being a pirate and then other people since then have seen this entity in the woods. It has never harmed anybody, but it is all the testimonies line up with what it looks like and yeah, it's just a fiery specter. Who's out there spooking people out of the woods so they don't find the treasure?
Speaker 3:are there any? Are there any movies? Any movies made on this?
Speaker 2:uh, no, not that I didn't, not that I know of, but what made me the first thought that I had this is where my my mind started trailing was the description of the glowcaster ghoul is similar to other cryptids in the kind of northeast of the country. The biggest one, or the most commonly known one, is mothman. All right, yeah, a big winged creature with red eyes or fiery eyes, right.
Speaker 1:This feels like a cryptid inception type situation where it's like a cryptid. So you're talking about Mothman, who people debate whether or not that's real or not, and now people you're saying that this guy actually saw Mothman and he they came up with a different cryptid based off of a cryptid that they saw. That may or may not be real.
Speaker 2:So no, the Glowcaster ghoul is older than Mothman.
Speaker 1:Okay.
Speaker 2:Well, it's hard to say that, because allegedly there's some Native American.
Speaker 1:The reports of Mothman versus the Glowcaster ghoul.
Speaker 2:What we know as Mothman today. All those reports happened in the 60s and then ever since then it's been.
Speaker 3:I feel like they had to make a Scooby-Doo episode on this guy, maybe.
Speaker 2:Jinkies, it's the ghoul. What I'm getting at is if there is a cryptid-like winged creature that's in the Northeast, it's popping up in different communities and they're giving it different names, Right. But yeah, Glowcaster ghoul is Rhode Island, Pennsylvania, Mothman, and then there's a couple of a couple other places. But that got me thinking about OK, what is the demographic? Ok, so New England, you know that's going to be lean more towards Protestant. Rhode Island, specifically, it's, I mean, it's pretty high percentage Catholic. And then you know Pennsylvania. I think that that is more Protestant because there are, you know, Quakers and stuff like that. So they would not fall into the Catholic team, if you will, to the Catholic team, if you will.
Speaker 2:But a big thing that's happening in the Northeast is there is a steady growth in the witch community, so the covens and all that stuff. That doesn't apply to our story because our story is 100 plus years old, but just thinking about the concept of what is the spiritual presence that's happening, right? So Albert Hicks is in an area where other pirates are hanging out. So piracy is a pretty common practice in this territory because pirates are hiding treasure and other pirates are trying to find it and such. So there's definitely not a devotion to Christ. You know going on. And now here we are today and people are really getting into cryptic creatures and sightings are still going on. People are still talking about them, but one thing that people are not talking about is the presence of the covens and witchcraft that's going on in our society, and the reason I'm talking about it is because it operates in darkness, right. So I know this is going far away from Glowcaster Ghoul, but it is something that we do need to kind of think about, right.
Speaker 2:Is okay, what is the occultic community in this environment? What is it like and how much of a presence does it have in the day-to-day in the community, right, so some areas someone will be a privately practicing witch and it's very private and to do their own thing. Whatever other areas it's so tolerated and accepted, they've got entire organizations that are covens, that are out in the public doing stuff in the community. So you know, it's you kind of got to be like, okay, where the absence of the true light shining in the darkness is where the darkness is going to be manifesting out in the open, right, so you, so you know, I think.
Speaker 2:But when I think we get to that point where the darkness is just out there and just it's the day-to-day operation, is when we get into these sightings of these more demonic-like figures that are just out there in the open and they're just manifesting. So Glowcaster Ghoul probably not real. Glowcaster ghoul probably not real, but at the same time it probably something like it manifests in a real way when there's an absence of the light of Christ shining in a place, in a community. So that's our job as Christians.
Speaker 3:We need to think about that, especially if we are into like me. I'm really into the cryptid and the high strange stuff. You're the first person I've ever met that just loves yetis and sasquatches.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's entertaining to me, but I've had to. You know, over the years of looking at this stuff and kind of looking at the information for it and all that, I've more recently come to the conclusion like, hey, wait a minute, what is the demonic presence, that this stuff is happening? Right, because once again it's when the light's not shining and the darkness is just operating in the open. Then things that would seem mythical or unbelievable tend to manifest, because the darkness is so present that things that are dark, like demonic presences and spirits and things, I mean they're going to occur. You know, spirits can take a visible, physical form. We see that in the Bible. So who's to say that? I mean, it's not like they don't do that anymore you know, so we need to be aware of that as Christians.
Speaker 2:So I'm asking myself now, when I see stuff like this, I'm like, okay, what is the occultic presence like in this community? What is the Mormon presence in this community, in this community, and what is the kind of like cult-ish, like dances the line with the occult organizations, so things like covens, things like the vampire community of louisiana or different stuff like that? We um side note for you, I guess you don't know this we did an episode.
Speaker 2:One of our cryptids was vampires okay and when we were doing the research for it, we found a actual community of vampires that operates in new orleans, right yeah, like real people who identify themselves as vampires. Yeah, so it's an, it's their own and they have like five or six houses. So I'm of the house of whatever, whatever, and each house has their own— Bold crab.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 3:A house of bold crab. You said— Brow fish. You said New Orleans. You said New Orleans, new Orleans, yeah, new Orleans. Very very impressive.
Speaker 2:Anyways, let's call them real Southern, but yeah, so they all have their own identifiers of what it is to be a vampire, but it doesn't change the reality that they're all like, yeah, we're vampires, so you know we're like sick blood and stuff like that. But it was messed up, but that is out there. I mean it's out in the open. And that's what makes it so crazy is because you know the average joe here in the heart of the south, in dixieland, it's like, yeah, vampires are just weird spooky stories or they're a uh, overused trope in movies, but it's like in other parts of the world it's like, no, they're real. People believe that they're vampires or you know they are vampires or whatever you know crazy.
Speaker 1:That's something else is like. Just because also you imagine them a specific, like cinematic movie, fake way, they're still practicing something evil, like it's okay, they're not actually spiritual or sorry, immortal, immortal, thank you. They're not actually immortal creatures who actually suck blood because that's their necessity and turn into bats. But there are people out there identifying with that and using that as their image and they are drinking blood.
Speaker 2:It's sacrificial, like um there are people that are monotony, yeah, so they're not. Like the idea of Dracula vampire may not be so legit, but there are people that are practicing vampirism where they suck blood, human blood, from a human body, and there's alleged stories where it's like it does revitalize certain individuals, right, and you know, in some ancient I think traditional Judaism, kind of folklorish stuff, these ancient people, groups like the Anakim, the Amorites, who were practicing these blood sacrifices and they're like, yeah, they would consume human blood and that's why they were, that's why God was bringing his judgment on them is because they were practicing the most detestable practice, right, and that's why all the stuff with the giants, that's why giants are always a negative thing. They're not a positive thing. It's because giants practiced blood sacrifice and blood eating or drinking and stuff like that. So, yeah, definitely detestable to consume blood.
Speaker 2:God says don't do it. It's the essence of life and if you kill someone solely to take their blood, you're literally doing that. You're taking their life and consuming life, and god didn't design us to be that or do that. So, yeah, do the do. God's the life giver, not us. We don't get to take life, to give ourselves life if that makes sense. So, do the do or don't. I'm gonna jacked up on mountain dew there you go all right. Well, that's all I got. Go caster ghoul. I'm just telling you, don't go looking for treasure in the woods. Ethan and you should be good.
Speaker 3:Aye, aye Captain.
Speaker 1:Aye, aye Captain.
Speaker 3:Oh no, that was good.
Speaker 2:All right. Well, that's all I got. Is there anything else you guys want to?
Speaker 1:Yes, so I'm going to pose a question to the audience as we close this episode out. Okay, all right. If Bigfoot were to use a phone app, what app do you think would be the most used by Bigfoot?
Speaker 2:Oh, I bet you people are going to start putting that in for that new AI vlog that's going on. Have you seen that?
Speaker 1:Mm-mm.
Speaker 2:The Bigfoot vlog. It's all AI'd, it's all AI. It's a Bigfoot walking through with a selfie camera.
Speaker 1:Oh, I have seen that. I have seen that. Yeah, it's awesome.
Speaker 2:It's awesome. It's a vlog that's going on. Ai vlog that's going on now. Yeah, I wonder what that would be?
Speaker 3:What would?
Speaker 2:Probably Hinge.
Speaker 3:Hinge, he's on a dating app.
Speaker 1:He's alone. He's on Bumble.
Speaker 3:He's on Bumble.
Speaker 1:It's just something really wholesome. He's using ABC mouse because he's learning English.
Speaker 2:No, I'll tell you what he's on a lot. He's on Nike.
Speaker 1:Nike has an app.
Speaker 2:Yeah, Nike has an app.
Speaker 1:What do you do with the Nike app?
Speaker 2:Well, he's trying to find a shoe big enough, but I'm sure he can use it for other things. Oh gotcha Footlocker. Maybe he's on Footlocker a lot.
Speaker 1:Target, walker, lush, target, target, guy's got to eat. Guy's got to eat man, and he's got to get his nice furniture pillows.
Speaker 2:I need throw pillows and I need broccoli.
Speaker 1:Ethan, thank you so much for joining us on this 42th episode of the podcast.
Speaker 3:I love it.
Speaker 1:Thank you guys for having me.
Speaker 3:Really appreciate you coming on.
Speaker 2:For sure, and we love you, I love it. Thank you, I appreciate you coming on, sure, and we love you.
Speaker 3:I love you guys Gross.
Speaker 2:Gross All right. Well, this has been a episode 42, with the saints that serve. Christ is Lord and the kingdom is now. We are the saints that serve. I set fire to the rain.
Speaker 3:When the birds Talk to your name.
Speaker 2:When it turns into, turn into.
Speaker 1:Be there, you're in the rain.
Speaker 3:I set fire, whoa.