Andrew Wilkinson, founder of Tiny (a holding company with 100M+ in revenue), describes how a COVID-era shift to all-day Zoom and Twitter use sent him into a spiral of anhedonia and digital addiction. He recounts going completely offline for one month — no phone, no email, no podcasts — and the dramatic mental reset that followed. He connects his experience to Anna Lemke’s research on dopamine, explaining how constant stimulation degrades our ability to feel pleasure.
Speakers: Andrew Wilkinson (guest, founder of Tiny), Sam Parr (host), Shaan Puri (host)
Introduction: Andrew Wilkinson and Tiny [00:00:00]
Shaan: Andrew is a great friend of ours. He has this big business called Tiny, where they own a bunch of different businesses — north of 100 million or so in revenue. He took a company public. You’re successful in every traditional sense of the word. You’re a good friend. You normally come on a lot, but you just tweeted about how you kind of took off for all of August and bailed, because you were having a meltdown — which we’ve all had before — a digital overload meltdown. And you just bailed, right?
The COVID Spiral [00:00:30]
Andrew: Totally. It was really bad. It’s interesting to think about, because I think this happened to everyone during COVID — their life just shifted in a weird way. My life just became crappy during COVID, which is weird because I had this amazing year. We took a business public, we raised a big fund, we got to work with all these interesting people, we bought some great businesses, I didn’t die of COVID — all these great things happened, and yet I was totally miserable.
When I zoom out on my old day — I don’t know if you guys know, but I live in Victoria, Canada, and I didn’t even have an office. I actually liked working out of cafes. I would go to the same cafe every day, sit there with headphones on. Three or four of my friends would always work there, so it was kind of like Cheers. There were always interesting people to talk to. My day was just broken up into a bunch of chunks — any given day I wouldn’t really be on the computer or in one place for more than an hour or two.
And then my day went from that to sitting in a house on my computer all day on Zoom, doing email. It just made me miserable.
When I look at what I love about business — I don’t actually love doing business per se. Business is great; doing strategy, coming up with ideas, all that. But the cool thing about business is you get to meet interesting people. Business is just a hack. If you’re interested in health, you figure out a health business, and suddenly you can meet all the most interesting people in that world. I’m an extrovert, so anyway — I was totally bummed.
The Twitter Trap [00:02:00]
Andrew: I started going on Twitter a lot because I was craving socializing. I went from about 20,000 followers to 170,000 followers, and I got totally hooked into that. A good day would be a viral tweet, or going on your podcast, or something exciting happening. A bad day would be I say something on Twitter, get dunked on, get misunderstood, or it doesn’t do well.
What a ridiculous thing — I’d tweet and it would only get 50 likes instead of 5,000 likes and it would throw my whole day off. So I got to a point where I was just like, “Jesus Christ, this is totally ridiculous. I’m thinking about Twitter constantly, I’m checking Twitter constantly.”
On top of that — email, checking stats, checking stocks. If I went to the bathroom without my phone I felt like I was going to freak out. Constantly listening to audiobooks, constantly listening to podcasts. No silence.
I just hit this weird breaking point on August 1st where I woke up and I was like, “I’m not stoked to get out of bed.” I’m not depressed — objectively everything is fine. I just had anhedonia. I was just not excited about anything.
Sam: What’s that word you just said? That was a good one.
Andrew: It means an inability to feel pleasure. Nothing would get me pumped, nothing would give me a hit. You know when you go on Netflix and you’re scrolling endlessly for the perfect thing and you just can’t find it? That’s how my life felt.
Going Dark for One Month [00:03:30]
Andrew: So I basically — it was the middle of August, I live in British Columbia, it’s super beautiful — and I said to my wife, “I’m out for the next month. Let’s go off to our cabin, go on some trips, and I’m just going to totally check out.”
I set a couple of rules for myself: no phone, no email, no computer, no podcasts, no phone calls, no social media, no news. I couldn’t even read nonfiction business books. It was pretty extreme. I put on my Apple Watch — which has cellular — and said, “Okay, if there’s an emergency I can get a phone call.” I put my phone in a drawer and disappeared. I went up to my cabin and hung out with my kids.
The Withdrawal [00:04:30]
Andrew: Honestly, for the first three or four days, it felt like there was a bug in my brain. I was so irritable. I was being a huge jerk. I was slapping my pocket every five seconds to check stuff. I’d be sitting on the beach with my kids and I’d constantly be thinking, “Oh, I need to text this to a friend, I gotta take a photo of this.”
So it was really horrible withdrawal. But then after three or four days, I was like, “Holy crap, this is really interesting.” I started reading fiction books and just sitting for hours, enjoying a sunset, taking a silent drive, doing all this stuff.
It’s kind of like if you eat junk food all the time — you’re drinking Coke and having burgers — and then you eat broccoli, it doesn’t taste that good. Your brain is primed for extreme flavors. But if you switch to broccoli, and you don’t eat that junk for a month, then broccoli is like orgasmic. It’s amazing.
Coming Back to Life [00:05:30]
Andrew: So I did this for four weeks, felt really good, and came back. I kind of reintroduced myself into society, started going out and working again. And it was really bizarre.
I’d listen to a song playing in a cafe and it would be like the greatest song I’d ever heard. I’d read some random article and it would be fascinating — I’d just be completely engaged with it. Problems I had to solve that would have pissed me off before suddenly seemed like no problem. I was excited to solve them.
And I was going, “Why did that work? What was it about that?”
The Dopamine Science [00:06:30]
Andrew: Around that time I started listening to podcasts again. I listened to this podcast by Andrew Huberman — Huberman Lab — which I’m sure you guys have listened to. He’s amazing.
Sam: Yeah — he’s actually coming on the podcast.
Andrew: Oh, amazing. That’s awesome.
So he did this deep dive on addiction with this woman Anna Lemke, who’s a Stanford addiction doctor. I was like, “Oh, this will be interesting — it’ll be about heroin addiction or something, how they treat alcoholism.” I’ll start listening thinking it’s about those other people who have those other problems.
Sam: It’s fun to read about them. Totally.
Andrew: I was like, “Oh, maybe I can help fund a heroin addiction center in Victoria or something.” And as I listen, I just go, “Oh my god, this is not about those people. This is universal.”
Basically — the chemical dopamine, the neurotransmitter, is what makes you feel craving and pleasure when you do things. It motivates you to do things. And here’s what she said: if you eat chocolate cake once a month, it tastes amazing and you don’t really crave it that much. It’s very pleasurable. If you eat it once a week, it’s still enjoyable but it’s not as good, and you start having cravings. If you eat it every day, your brain literally craves it and you’re in pain until you eat it — and when you eat it, it’s not even that enjoyable anymore. It just makes the pain go away for a little bit.
She compares that to heroin addiction, or anything really.
So here we all are — we’re stimulating ourselves with social media 24/7, constantly taking these hits, and the hits become less and less enjoyable. She talked about being at Stanford and treating students who were addicted to social media and video games and had no motivation. She said, “I basically recommend a dopamine fast for four weeks — they can’t do any of that stuff. They have to go walk in silence, drive in silence, have quiet moments. Not avoid those things, but just sit with them.”
I realized I’d basically done that for myself, and that’s why I felt better. I was an addict. It’s crazy.