Tom Rowland Podcast Episode 678 is a conversation with Dr. Brian Boxer Wachler, an ophthalmologist and eye surgeon who has performed tens of thousands of procedures, pioneered the Holcomb C3R keratoconus cross-linking treatment, and written two books, Perceptual Intelligence and Influenced. We cover how he saved the vision of Olympic bobsled champion Steven Holcomb, how that work connects to my own family's keratoconus story, and why his latest book argues that social media is quietly reshaping how all of us perceive what is real.
Listen now: Apple Podcasts · Spotify · YouTube · or press play in the player above.
Dr. Brian Boxer Wachler is an ophthalmologist and eye surgeon who has performed tens of thousands of eye procedures and is a pioneer in keratoconus treatment. He developed the Holcomb C3R cross-linking procedure that strengthens a weakened cornea, and he is the author of two books, Perceptual Intelligence and Influenced, which explore how the brain forms and is manipulated in its perception of reality.
Influenced examines how social media platforms use algorithms and psychological mechanisms to shape what people believe is real, normal, and true. Building on the idea of perceptual intelligence from his first book, he explains why intelligence and education offer little protection against algorithmic influence and how anyone can become more aware of how their perception is being shaped.
Keratoconus is a disease of the cornea, the outer lens of the eye, where weak collagen causes the cornea to bulge outward, producing blurry vision, glare, and halos. The traditional treatment was a painful cornea transplant with a long recovery. Dr. Boxer Wachler developed the Holcomb C3R cross-linking procedure, which strengthens the cornea and stops the disease from getting worse without a transplant.
Steven Holcomb was an Olympic bobsled gold medalist who had keratoconus and was going blind before Dr. Boxer Wachler treated him with the cross-linking procedure that now bears his name. I share the keratoconus story alongside Holcomb in this episode, and Dr. Boxer Wachler says watching Holcomb compete at the Sochi Olympics inspired the thinking that led to his books on perception.
Perceptual intelligence is the concept behind Dr. Boxer Wachler's first book of the same name. Just as people have emotional intelligence, he argues they have a perceptual intelligence that governs how accurately they interpret reality, and that this faculty can be fooled, trained, and manipulated, which is the bridge to the social media themes in his second book, Influenced.
Tom Rowland Podcast Episode 678 with Dr. Brian Boxer Wachler is available on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube, and iHeartRadio. The video version is embedded at the top of this page.
Dr. Boxer Wachler is not a stranger to me. One of my favorite shows we ever did was when Steven Holcomb, Turner, and I all sat down and told the story of keratoconus, the eye disease that connected all of us. Dr. Boxer Wachler is the surgeon who built the treatment that saved Steven's vision and let him keep driving a bobsled at the Olympic level. So when his new book came out and I read it cover to cover in one sitting, I knew I wanted him back to talk about both halves of his work: the eyes themselves, and what he has learned about how the mind behind the eyes can be fooled.
Press play in the player above to hear the whole conversation.
For anyone who has heard the term and never understood it, Dr. Boxer Wachler gives the clearest explanation of keratoconus I have come across. He describes how the cornea weakens and bulges, what that does to your sight, and why the old fix was a brutal cornea transplant. Then he walks through the cross-linking procedure he developed, the one named after Steven Holcomb. This part hits close to home for my family, and he tells it better than I can. Listen to the opening of the episode.
Here is the turn I did not see coming. Dr. Boxer Wachler says the idea for his books came to him in Sochi, Russia, while he was watching Steven Holcomb compete. He explains the concept of perceptual intelligence, the idea that, alongside emotional intelligence, we each have a faculty for interpreting reality that can be sharp or dull, trained or tricked. The line he draws from an eye disease to a theory of perception is one of my favorite moments in the conversation. Hear him explain it in the player above.
His second book, Influenced, is about what happens when perceptual intelligence meets an algorithm built to exploit it. Dr. Boxer Wachler makes the uncomfortable case that being educated, even being a physician, does not make you immune to having your view of reality shaped by a feed. As someone who uses social media to share fishing content, I found this genuinely sobering. He explains the mechanisms without the usual fear-mongering. Listen to that section of the episode.
Dr. Boxer Wachler also pulls back the curtain on the publishing world, and it is nothing like most people imagine. He explains why nonfiction authors sell a book proposal and a business plan before writing a single chapter, how getting an agent is its own battle, and why the work only really begins once the book is finished. If you have ever thought about writing a book, this stretch is worth the price of admission. Press play in the player above.
Listen to the full conversation: Apple Podcasts · Spotify · or watch in the player at the top of this page.
What I appreciate about Dr. Boxer Wachler is that he is a builder. He built a procedure that gives people their sight back, and now he is building a framework for protecting the thing behind the eyes, the way we interpret what we see.
The keratoconus story will always be the one closest to my heart because of what it meant for Steven and for my own family. But the perception material is the part I keep thinking about, because every one of us is carrying around a phone designed to shape what we believe.
Press play in the player above, or grab Episode 678 on Apple Podcasts or Spotify.
Dr. Brian Boxer Wachler · Steven Holcomb · Holcomb C3R Cross-Linking · Influenced (book) · Perceptual Intelligence (book) · Sochi 2014 Olympics · Keratoconus
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Dr. Brian Boxer Wachler is an ophthalmologist and eye surgeon who has performed tens of thousands of eye procedures and is recognized as a pioneer in the treatment of keratoconus. He developed the Holcomb C3R cross-linking procedure, named for Olympic bobsled champion Steven Holcomb, which strengthens a weakened cornea and halts the disease without a transplant. He is the author of two books, Perceptual Intelligence and Influenced: The Impact of Social Media on Our Perception, and he appears regularly in the media discussing eye health and how technology shapes human perception.
Full transcript of the Tom Rowland Podcast, Episode 678 with Dr. Brian Boxer Wachler, leading eye doctor and author of Influenced: The Impact of Social Media on Our Perception.
Dr. Brian Boxer Wachler: Hey, it's Dr. Brian Boxer Wachler here. As a guest, I'm very excited to be on the Tom Rowland Show.
Tom Rowland: Doctor Brian, how are you doing?
Dr. Brian Boxer Wachler: I'm doing great. How are you?
Tom Rowland: I'm doing so well. It's so good to see you. I hope life is treating you well. You're just one of my favorite people in the world, and I've told the story a number of times, but Dr. Brian Boxer Wachler is responsible for saving my son's vision, and for creating the procedure that saved his vision. So a double whammy there. Turner is doing fantastic — he still has the best vision of anyone in the family. It's just such a relief and such a pleasure, and I'm just forever grateful to you.
Dr. Brian Boxer Wachler: You're welcome. Happy to help. That's why I'm here.
Tom Rowland: And we did one of my favorite shows together when you, Stephen Holcomb, and Turner were all on the boat, and we all shared the story of keratoconus. Just a great show. And you got an awesome big tarpon right there at Long Beach Bridge.
Dr. Brian Boxer Wachler: My arm is still recovering, all these years later.
Tom Rowland: Well, it was like a rodeo ride. We had you up on the front of the boat on the Yeti cooler, and it was up and down. I was behind you making sure you were gonna stay on the boat, but good times — that was really fun.
Tom Rowland: So keratoconus isn't what we're here to talk about today — we're gonna talk about your new book on social media — but would you mind giving a little background on that, in case people are encountering keratoconus or don't know about it, kind of like Turner and I were in that situation, and what your work is all about?
Dr. Brian Boxer Wachler: Sure. So keratoconus one-oh-one is that it's a disease of the cornea, the outer lens of the eye, where it gets weakened because the collagen is weak and it bulges out, like having a hernia in the groin. When it's on the eye, it can cause a tremendous amount of distortion, blurry vision, glare and halos at night, and the traditional treatment was an invasive and very painful, long-recovery cornea transplant. I developed these procedures many, many years ago called Holcomb C3-R cross-linking that strengthens the cornea and stops it from getting worse, and also Intacs, which are little micro inserts that help push it back to improve the vision. A lot of times we do those both on the same day. And then there's even something called the Vision ICL, which is a lens implant for nearsightedness and astigmatism. Three months later, or at least beyond three months, we can correct the vision even further, oftentimes with that lens implant. So we have a lot of tools in the keratoconus toolbox now.
Tom Rowland: Yeah, that's incredible. It's just such an incredible story — your story, and you can read about it in Stephen Holcomb's book that he wrote. But Now I See is the title, right? And that's how I learned about you, just by doing some research, and then I saw that this book was out and read it cover to cover in one sitting. Then we called up and made the appointment, and it was really one of the best decisions we've ever made. The advancements that you've made with our care are really amazing to me. So, very cool — you've had a really great career, and your career is taking you in a few different places as well. Is this your second book that you've written?
Dr. Brian Boxer Wachler: My second book. Right.
Tom Rowland: Yeah, so what was the first book — Perceptual Intelligence?
Dr. Brian Boxer Wachler: First one was Perceptual Intelligence, and actually it was when I was in Sochi, Russia, for the Olympics to watch Stephen Holcomb compete — that was my inspiration to write this book. So it kind of ties back to keratoconus in a way, why that book even came to fruition. It's basically the concept that we get so much information around us from what people say to us, what people send us on emails and social media, or what we watch on TV or listen to, that we're always challenged to understand how to separate what's real and what's not real or true. So the concept of perceptual intelligence is, like we have emotional intelligence, we have a perception intelligence — how to separate the fact from the fantasy. That's what the book is about. Basically, critical thinking — how to be a good critical thinker and check some of the things that lead us astray at the door, so we can be as accurate as possible in our assessments of whatever information we're being hit with.
Tom Rowland: It's interesting that you say the Olympics, when you were there, was your inspiration. What about that trip made you think about perceptual intelligence in a way that made you want to write a book about it?
Dr. Brian Boxer Wachler: I saw this huge disconnect between what was really happening on the ground in Sochi, Russia, and the narrative — that was the inspiration, actually.
Tom Rowland: And for a guy like you who's obviously very busy — you're a world-renowned surgeon, an eye surgeon — where do you find the time to write a book, research it, put it together, publish it, and market it? There's so much that goes into it. How do you do that?
Dr. Brian Boxer Wachler: Oh, my gosh. For my first book, Perceptual Intelligence, I had no idea — I was just like, oh great, let's do a book, this is gonna be fun. And then it's like, oh my gosh. First of all, getting an agent to sell the book is a whole process, and then writing the book proposal, because what people don't realize is that for nonfiction books, versus fiction like Harry Potter, you don't write the whole book first. You literally have a business plan for the book — what's the market for the book, what are the competitive titles, how are you going to market the book, what's your platform. Then you have a sample chapter, and when a publisher buys it, then you actually write the book. Whereas with Harry Potter, JK Rowling wrote the whole book first, and that's the way it works in fiction — they read the whole book before a publisher gets it. So that was a whole ordeal. And then when you finish the book, now there's the process of helping to get it into people's hands, which is a whole other chapter. So just writing the book — you don't just go, oh yeah, I'm done. No, no, no. Now you've got the whole second half of that train you've gotta pull.
Tom Rowland: Right, and I'm sure some people do it much better than others, and you learn a few things after you've written one and done this before. So what do you have in store for you now? Is this the beginning of the book tour, I guess, is what you'd call it now that you've finished this new book?
Dr. Brian Boxer Wachler: Yeah, this is really the beginning, and actually I should answer the question of how I have time to do all this stuff. I wanna give you the background, because a lot of people don't realize how the book industry works when you see a book on a shelf or on Amazon. But basically, I just try to be as efficient as I can with my time. For this current book, which is about social media — a deep dive into how it affects us, good and bad, because there's great, and there's also bad and evil on social media — the book does a very deep dive, and I'll explain how I even got into social media in a moment. But I just work, and I work really efficiently. I got in a lot of trouble once — I was at one of my daughter's volleyball tournaments in Florida, and I didn't go to any of the dinners, didn't do anything with the parents. I was really sort of an absent volleyball dad, and just stayed in the hotel writing a very detailed outline and doing the research, putting together about a forty-five page detailed outline of the book. So I just find these times when I can work really efficiently and try to make every moment count, I guess. And of course, downtime too — you have to always have downtime.
Tom Rowland: Are you a morning guy when you write? Is that one of your more productive times, or evening, or middle of the night? What's your most productive writing time?
Dr. Brian Boxer Wachler: Usually mornings, because by the end of the day I'm a little bit like, okay, I just wanna chill. So mornings is usually really good, or weekends as well. Or if I'm on a plane — I'm not watching movies, I was actually writing on the plane a lot during the book time.
Tom Rowland: So now we get to what the book's actually about — social media. What's your experience been with social media, and how did that lead you to write this book? I know you're doing the cap, no cap thing — I watch that all the time, and I'm sure that's given you a different perception of what's going on with social media. But where did your interest in this come from?
Dr. Brian Boxer Wachler: Really, during the pandemic, my daughter said to me, dad, there are some really good doctors who are on TikTok, and they give great information — we can get you started, because we're on TikTok a little bit. And I was like, oh, that sounds kinda fun. I had a lot more time because it was the beginning of the pandemic, two years ago. So they got me started, and I started observing what people were saying and doing, and I thought, there's so much bad information out there that's going viral. And if a post gets — and this isn't just on TikTok, this is Instagram, it's on YouTube, it's on Facebook as well — if a post gets hundreds of thousands or millions of views, that's what the algorithm chose to recognize, that hey, this is a post that people wanna see. But the algorithms don't do anything to actually fact-check, to see if it's accurate or if it's harmful even. So I started to find my niche in terms of finding videos that were not true, or ones that were true, and making a side-by-side duet on it in TikTok, as it's called. And instead of saying it's false, I was using Gen Z lingo — I would say it's cap, c-a-p, and that's Gen Z for not true. Not cap means it's true. So I started doing that, and people really started loving it, and I started to get a hat — I'll show you the original, the OG hat I made. And then I started to actually make merch. I would have never thought that this is where I'd be two years ago — I would have said, what's Brian gonna be doing in the mirror? This is not where I think I'm gonna be. But let me show you.
Tom Rowland: That's a great start to the conversation.
Dr. Brian Boxer Wachler: So oftentimes I wouldn't even say a word — I'd just be watching and reacting, and say at the top of the video, like, doctor reacts to lemon juice for acne, or whatever the topic is. Then let's play the cap game — I'd be watching and reacting and doing some funny expressions. And then at the end, people are really curious, like Groundhog Day — is Punxsutawney Phil gonna come out or not? So they wait till the end to see what happens. And if I put the cap sign on, that means it's not true. That was the OG one — it was just literally a piece of paper with a Sharpie. And then I upped my game and went with the actual embroidered caps. So that's sort of what I'm known for doing, and it just really developed. I got to learn a lot, and I got to meet other influencers and become friends with them. And then it was like, wow — actually, at the time, I was already thinking about doing a book on social media, and this really added fuel to the fire with my direct experience now as an influencer, and knowing other influencers, and that's the beginning of how this book came to blossom into what it is today.
Tom Rowland: Yeah, it's fascinating, because I think about social media all the time. My other son, Hayden, just got back from a trip — he was a leader for a group called Moondance, and he went to Europe, and one of their main rules was that no one could use their phone. They were totally unplugged, no social media — they would just have very specific times when they could call home and say everybody was okay. No news is good news, and it's really back to the way it was when you and I grew up — if you don't hear anything, that's good. So he's coming off of seventy-five days with no phone and no social media, and we were having good conversations about that. Meanwhile, I'm watching my own habits — how they've changed, even if you're just bored for a second, you pick up your phone and look at it, and you wonder, what is that doing to me? Which is one thing, because I actually know what life was like before social media. And then there's this whole other world of what is it like for someone who has never known a world without social media — what does that look like, and what is that doing to a whole population? I'm assuming you're getting into that in your book, but what a crazy conversation you could have with anyone about that. I'm really interested to hear your thoughts on where we're going and what to expect out of this period that we're in.
Dr. Brian Boxer Wachler: The reason social media is so powerful and keeps growing, and isn't going away anywhere — if you're a parent, and you're like, well, I'm just not gonna allow my kids to be on it, or I'm just gonna ignore it, that's not a good approach. Because first of all, social media is — even Facebook, right, that's social media, and most adults are on Facebook, their kids aren't, but that's also social media. So what it does, the reason it's so effective, and at times very addictive — I even went through an addictive phase, too, that I talk about in the beginning of the book, which was a surprise to me — it's almost like somebody who's treating a condition and then becomes a victim of the condition itself. There's a neurochemical in our brains called dopamine. So when you do something really amazing, like have a great workout, accomplish something, eat chocolate, or when people do drugs, or they gamble and hit a jackpot or get a big win on a hand — that's stimulating this neurochemical called dopamine, which is the feel-good reward chemical. That's what makes us feel good. So gambling, classically, especially on a slot machine, is the classic example for stimulating dopamine, because it's also random — you don't know when you're gonna get that payout, and the randomness is what actually makes it even more addictive. Social media is like that, because you're scrolling through your feed, seeing video after video, and you don't know which one is gonna be really entertaining or educational or just grab you. It's that unpredictability of the hit that makes it so addictive, and the algorithms all know that. That's why when you're seeing your feed, it's not gonna be the same as anyone else's feed — it's based on your own psychology, on what you like to watch. So the algorithms are smarter than we are, and most people think, oh, this is what everyone else sees, but it's not — it's actually curated and catered right to the individual.
Tom Rowland: That forms almost like an echo chamber, where whatever you're thinking is completely reinforced with social media, and that becomes dangerous in politics or anything that people think about as fervently as a religion — even your diet, veganism or carnivore or paleo. If that's what you're into, that's what you're gonna see, and it's like, well, everybody's into this, this is what the world is like — but it's not, it's just what you want to see, and it's being reinforced over and over. And I'd imagine it's probably using the camera on your phone to see how your eyes are moving on the video and what you're looking at — and if it doesn't do that yet, it probably will in the future. It seems very sophisticated.
Dr. Brian Boxer Wachler: Oh, much more than people realize. There was a great documentary called The Social Dilemma on Netflix, and I quoted some really key interviews from some of the engineers, like at Google, and behind the scenes — their insights were mind-blowing.
Tom Rowland: Yeah, one of the things I remember about that is several of them said they wouldn't let their own kids be on social media.
Dr. Brian Boxer Wachler: Yeah, exactly, exactly, right.
Tom Rowland: So where do you think this is headed for this generation? I agree with you strongly that when you're having the discussion with your kids about getting a social media account — we went through that with Turner, one of my sons. When he was young, Facebook was basically the only social media, and I remember him coming home wanting a Facebook account, and at first we were like, you're not old enough yet. And then I started thinking, is there a way this could be a teaching moment, where we could show him that social media isn't evil — there's a lot of good things about it, and if you learn how to do it, you can learn how to market a business, or learn how to do all kinds of things. So I was kind of like, if you just say no, then you're this social pariah who doesn't do the one big thing everyone else does. I'm not sure that's the answer. But what did you come up with in your research, talking to all these different people — what's the best way to coach your children on social media?
Dr. Brian Boxer Wachler: I think first of all, you want to understand what social media is, especially as a parent. There's actually research that shows this — they had two groups of parents whose kids were on social media. One group of parents said, we're not going to learn about it, we're just going to try to coach our kids about it. The other group were encouraged to get on social media themselves, get an account — they don't have to post, but at least they're in there, they see what's going on behind the curtain, so it's not scary anymore. And the group of parents who were involved with social media had much more success helping to modulate their children's behavior on social media. The reason is because they're talking to their children from a position of experience — like, yes, I'm on Instagram, I'm on TikTok, so let's take a look at the influencers you're following. I'd like to see the influencers you're following, because they're savvy enough to know there are even influencers, versus the group who just kept their head in the sand. So they were able to speak with more credibility in those discussions with their kids to help modulate their behavior. That's a key takeaway from that research — if you're a parent, don't be afraid, set up an account so you understand whichever platform your children are on, and you can swim around there, see what it's about, and then communicate better with your kids about it.
Tom Rowland: Yeah, definitely. I think that's probably true for almost anything with your kids — if you can come talk to them from a place of, I guess the difference between empathy and sympathy is the way it's always been explained to me: somebody's in a hole, you look down and say, oh man, that's terrible, I feel sorry for you — that's sympathy. Empathy would be to get down in the hole with them and say, okay, now we've gotta figure out how to get out of here. It made me think about that with social media — I'm going to get in here with you, we're going to explore this together, and I'm going to explain why I don't think that's a great influencer for you to follow, and maybe this one is.
Dr. Brian Boxer Wachler: There are some influencers who are amazing and really inspire, teach, educate, and entertain people in a safe and healthy way. But then there are others who have made perhaps dark intentions, and even cults have found that social media is a very potent breeding ground. We have a whole chapter in the book about cults — people think, oh, those are like the Hare Krishnas, but no, there are a lot of different kinds of cults. They don't look like cults, they're not easily identified, but they're out there, and there's a darkness in that world too.
Tom Rowland: I'm sure. And so cults — I don't know why that would be surprising to me, I just haven't heard that before, but I'd imagine that cults have always looked for places where you find young, displaced people — a displaced young person is a college student, they're not at home anymore, they're at this new place, they don't have a lot of friends, they're looking for a place to belong. And here come these people who seem really nice, and next thing you know, they go to a weekend retreat and start to get their brain molded around — well, I really like what these people are saying — and that goes on and on, through some seemingly harmless things, to now we want all your worldly possessions and we want you to move over here. That's kind of the long story of the cult story. So now you're saying it's ripe on the internet for cults to be in communication with kids, and probably people of all ages, right?
Dr. Brian Boxer Wachler: Yeah, anybody — like you said, you identified a really powerful risk factor, which is somebody who's displaced, who might feel like an outsider because they moved to a new community, could also be for a job, not just college. And the person in the cult comes across as, I'm your friend, I'm not critical of you, unconditional love and acceptance — especially if somebody's had challenges from a previous chapter in their life with those issues, then this could feel like, oh my gosh, somebody really accepts me for who I am, this is great. So who's not gonna gravitate towards somebody who's not being critical, who offers unconditional acceptance and love? And it's like an individual person coming across in the cult like this — it's not like a group of people with a big banner that says, hey, we're this cult. It's so under the radar that people get fooled — they don't realize what's happening through that process.
Tom Rowland: Wow. Another thing that almost everyone has to encounter if you're on social media at all, and if you're any sort of an influencer, is the haters and the negativity — do you go into that in your book?
Dr. Brian Boxer Wachler: Yeah, definitely. We talk about trolls, because even if somebody isn't an influencer, there are still trolls out there who, through very easy anonymity, make terrible, insulting comments that can really weigh heavily on people psychologically. So handling trolls is really important when you're on social media, but even especially for kids and teens, because their brains are still developing — the frontal lobe is the higher-order command center, the CEO of the brain, and it's usually not fully developed until, on average, about age twenty-five. So people younger than that don't necessarily have all the tools to handle criticism that can be really sharp and stabbing. So handling trolls is really important — even talking to your kids about trolls and how to handle them on social media.
Tom Rowland: Do you think there's anything to the argument that, since your frontal lobe isn't developed until you're twenty-five and you're not capable of dealing with trolls — but we've never had trolls until just recently — is there any argument that this new information coming in, and these new influences, being brought up around social media, would somehow allow people who are much younger to develop that capacity much quicker? I heard Joe Rogan having that conversation — what they were saying on his show was that there's this common thing that a tribe should be fifty or a hundred and fifty people, that's how many people you're capable of having relationships with. And now we have thirty thousand followers as a small account, two hundred fifty thousand as a small account, some people have millions — how can we possibly develop quickly enough to manage thirty thousand relationships when we're really only capable of fifty or a hundred? Joe Rogan had an interesting idea that maybe this new stimulus would allow us to develop in a different way to handle more of that, but we just haven't been in this period long enough to know. Do you know what I'm saying?
Dr. Brian Boxer Wachler: Yeah. I mean, I think the human brain still only has so much bandwidth. If you have relationships in person, that can be maybe a maximum of fifty really solid relationships. What makes a relationship? It's time spent with that person — you sharing information and hearing information back from them over a period of time, and therefore you have a relationship. So if I've got, between all my platforms, like three point four million followers, there's just no way I can have a relationship with even a fraction of that amount of people. Even though the technology in theory exists, to really have a true relationship you still need those basics. Digitally, I've met good friends, other influencers, through my experience, because we've had communication back and forth, phone calls, real communication, meaningful communication. I guess that's probably the key word — is the communication meaningful for the two people? Because relationships take two sides. I don't think anyone could say it's a meaningful relationship between millions of followers and the influencer.
Tom Rowland: That could be distorted by a young person, or really anyone — you're following this influencer, you leave a comment, and then they comment back, so now there's this back-and-forth. Is that a relationship? Well, to one side of it, it is — to the influencer, they're just throwing a thumbs-up in there, trying to keep their account active, or maybe it's not even them, maybe it's somebody else managing their account. But that's kind of a funny situation — one side feels like they're in a relationship with this person, and it's not even really a person. It's a weird thing.
Dr. Brian Boxer Wachler: It's a weird — actually, there's a name for it. It's called a parasocial relationship, PSR. In psychology, that's what it's called with social media, because the follower feels that they have a relationship, which is part of the intimacy of social media, which on one hand is great. I take a very balanced view about social media — it's not all bad, it's not all good, there's a balance, it's like a candle. You can use it for illumination, but you can burn yourself really badly too. So with this parasocial relationship, the follower — because of the intimacy of the influencer sharing videos in their home, letting them into their world, which is one of the nice things about social media — there's a personal component to it, at least on one side, versus a conventional celebrity, where you really don't see anything of their personal world, you just see them on camera portraying somebody else. But social media has this authenticity — that's the key. That's the key difference — people, when they're true to themselves as they present themselves, they're authentic, and that brings in that relationship, or the pseudo relationship, so to speak. That's the parasocial relationship.
Tom Rowland: Wow. And I guess that's what a really great influencer does — like a great communicator, you hear about stories of people meeting great politicians, they may not agree with that politician, but they got to meet them, and immediately they felt like they were the most important person in the room, and they were like, that guy is amazing — right? Ten minutes before you met him, you were saying they were a crook, but then you got in there, and this person has this x-factor personality that just draws people in. I'm sure Barack Obama's like that, Bill Clinton's like that, lots of politicians we all know are like that — they have this huge personality that when you're with them, you feel incredibly important to them. That's just one of their qualities that makes them a great politician, or a great band leader, or a great rock and roll singer, or a great cult leader. But to portray that across the internet, and to have that as part of your social media image, that's also what you're really looking for — somebody who can put that out there and make people feel like they have this relationship with them, and they become more magnetic to more people, and I guess they get more followers.
Dr. Brian Boxer Wachler: Yeah, they share their personality and come across as authentic — hopefully that matches the real deal behind the camera — and the element of authenticity is key. It's the equivalent of some of these presidents who can make people feel like they're the only person in the room when they're talking to them. When an influencer comments on one of their posts — there's lots of comments — well, influencers will comment on some of those comments, and those followers who get that comment, it's the equivalent of speaking with Bill Clinton and feeling like you're the only person in the room, because the influencer commented on your comment, on their post, and it makes them feel incredibly special. It's the same thing in certain respects.
Tom Rowland: What about the influencer themselves, creating this persona on your social media account — could that be a trap? Could that be something where it's not really you, but you play this great character that draws in followers, and now that has to be you? Is there a trap there for some people?
Dr. Brian Boxer Wachler: There's a really dark example we talked about in one of the countries in Asia. There's a man whose name is Ridho Babbo, and he has about eighty thousand followers, which for that country is pretty sizable — that can feel like a soccer stadium, that's a lot of people. On his account, he seems like this nice playboy, dancing around, having a good time at parties, and he would put out there that if there were girls who wanted to come and maybe audition, or work at his facility, or apply to get a job — he had thousands and thousands of women come to apply and audition. And what it ended up being was a sex ring — some of these women were actually abducted, raped in hotel rooms, and then sold into the sex trade industry. His account, and he's been arrested since, but his account is still up, actually. But here's an example of somebody who portrayed themselves to be one thing, but in reality they were very, very different, and quite sinister.
Tom Rowland: Yeah, well, I can imagine there's plenty of that going around, maybe not to that degree, but —
Dr. Brian Boxer Wachler: And I think a key message is, if an influencer ever asks for a one-on-one meetup — no, never, never accept that. That's a red flag.
Tom Rowland: Yeah, I would think so. But there are meetups, right — like, hey, we're gonna be at this place and all of my followers can come and hang out, and there'll be lots of —
Dr. Brian Boxer Wachler: I think that's a little different, because you have a large group of people. But again, this Babbo character did the same thing, and it turned out to be a very dark undertaking for some of those women who went. So even if you go to a group meetup with an influencer, you still need to have your critical thinking — your perceptual intelligence, if you will — really honed in, for if anything starts to seem a little unusual, or there are other red flags, you need to be aware of it. But a one-on-one meetup, if an influencer says, hey, let's you and me meet, I'd like to meet you and talk to you — never accept that. That's a red flag.
Tom Rowland: Yeah, and that could be sinister — that could be a cult, that could be whatever, all the things we talked about. That's unusual.
Tom Rowland: So we talk about on this podcast a lot the delicate balance of social media and fishing, because fishing has been kind of a secretive sport for a long time — you have these places where you go and you don't really want anybody to know, because then they'll go there. So there's this real fine balance, because on the one hand, social media has been very good for the sport, because you can show people what you're doing out there — you see them catching these big tarpon or big snook, and then they want to go. So it has helped bring a whole younger audience into fishing, because now fishing seems really cool. But there's this real fine line — what are you doing, are you exploiting your spots, are you damaging the environment by putting too many people in a place that many people never were intended to be? I'm sure you've run across this in other things besides fishing — how do you balance social media and the pressure it can bring to a natural place, like a vlogger going around to the national parks and showing this beautiful place where, probably in history, there's never been more than a hundred people there at the same time, and then they show you exactly how to get there and what to do, and the next weekend there's seven hundred people there. Did you run into, in your research, different ways social media is affecting things I'm probably not even thinking about? Fishing is one, the outdoors is certainly one, where you're putting a lot of pressure on some area — I just wondered what your thoughts are on that.
Dr. Brian Boxer Wachler: I think that's gonna be a natural extension of being covered in the old days by a magazine that talks about, oh, this is a great vacation I went to and this is what I did — maybe it was Reader's Digest, maybe it was a fishing magazine even. So it's just extending that concept. I think there has to be some responsibility and consideration of what that natural resource is, to make sure that making people aware of it doesn't end up harming it accidentally or inadvertently.
Tom Rowland: Yeah, so where are we going with all of this? What do you think, after all this research, becoming an influencer yourself with this huge following and a niche that you're doing, but you also have this whole other life as a real doctor and a world-renowned surgeon — you have a different perspective, and now you're even an author on this. Where are we going with social media? I don't think it's going away either — I agree with you there — but where is it going?
Dr. Brian Boxer Wachler: It's gonna continue to grow, and people need to understand what the risks are to themselves, especially the addiction component. Because I went through this phase where I was growing like crazy, and literally I had dopamine sloshing around in my head with all these viral videos, and you get in the habit of refreshing your phone to see how many more views you've got — because it's a natural thing, like, oh my gosh, how many more hundreds of thousands did I get in the last five minutes since I refreshed it. So there's this addictive component, because of dopamine. So I think, number one, it becomes even more important to understand how we can have a healthy relationship with it and not let it interfere with the real relationships we have in life. Because I experienced that downside, where at one point my social media sort of addiction was starting to interfere with some of my family relationships, and I went into more detail about that in the beginning of the book — nobody was really, I've never really talked publicly about that until the book came out. But that was also part of my experience, knowing what happens. And all the other influencers I interviewed for the book all had some point where it was interfering with their personal lives — an influencer isn't above it any more than a follower or a user on social media.
Tom Rowland: So I would think they'd be in even more danger, because there's more dopamine — if you're looking at your account and it's like, well, I got five likes, oh, seven likes, or you look at it and it's a hundred and fifty thousand views and five thousand comments, it seems like it's just more. Or do you become numb to it at some point, to where it's just, it's a hundred thousand, what's on it?
Dr. Brian Boxer Wachler: I think after a while there's a desensitization period for influencers, to some degree, but there's always the temptation — what's happening now on that latest post I did? I've gotten to the point where it's really under control, it's been under control for a while now. But from a user point of view, whatever their source of dopamine is from social media, whether it's their own posts or watching other people's posts, it can still be just as powerful. So we have to learn how to live and keep it under control, and that's what the end of the book talks about — how we can keep this under control so it doesn't sabotage the most important things in our life, which are relationships with real people.
Tom Rowland: Hopefully that's what young people understand — that real people, real relationships, and actually communicating with your voice and talking to someone in person, one to one, is really what this life is about, not across the internet. Did you ever see, I'm sure you did with your research, Black Mirror? There's this one episode that's just so disturbing — they live in a building and have to ride stationary bicycles to get points, and everything around them is screens, no windows, and to swipe an advertisement away they have to use their points, and they get more social points by getting likes from someone. If you use up all your points, you're overrun with ads you can't stop. This guy is brushing his teeth and the mirror turns into a screen with an ad, and the only way to get more points is to ride the bicycle. So they're all constantly riding this bicycle, living in this world without windows, never going outside. It's very disturbing — I think that's the most disturbing Black Mirror episode of all, but it was entertaining too, because it's like, wow, this social media thing could grow into something that's just pervasive around you everywhere, every wall a screen. That's a scary world — if that's it, I'm moving to Alaska or somewhere.
Dr. Brian Boxer Wachler: They have mirrors in Alaska too.
Tom Rowland: They also have places in Alaska that don't have mirrors — you just pitch a tent on the Kenai.
Dr. Brian Boxer Wachler: Right. I went fishing there a few years ago with some buddies, and we were in the river casting, and it was amazing — fun reeling in a salmon, they're tough fighters.
Tom Rowland: I can't wait to go — I'm hoping we'll see some bears, though I don't want to see them up close. I like the Alaskan bears, because they're much better fed than the Yellowstone bears, and seem to be more into eating salmon than eating you. But I have a healthy respect for them, and I don't want any problems, so I'm being very careful about what I say.
Dr. Brian Boxer Wachler: Get to your spot on the river super early, because when we had a guide, we had to get there early — people get very territorial about their spot in the river. So get there early, that'd be my advice.
Tom Rowland: Brian, how do people get your book? It's on preorder — I already preordered it on Audible, and you said you're reading it yourself, right?
Dr. Brian Boxer Wachler: Yeah, reading the book is a marathon, a triathlon in a literary sense. I spent last weekend and the weekend before in the studio. The reason I decided to read the book myself, even though it's so much more work than having a professional do it, is because I've listened to books before, and when I don't hear the author read it, I feel a little shortchanged — I would really love to hear them say it in their own words, because it's their book. So I did it because I wanted the listeners to have that full experience, and also with the intonations — sometimes there's some humor, and I know the humor because I wrote it, so I can deliver it more on point. But boy, yesterday was day four of being in the studio for like six hours at a clip, and you're in a little booth with headphones, with the producer and the audio engineer, going back and forth — say this again a little differently. It's so exhausting, but I only have about three hours left in the studio and I'll be done. I already feel like it's gonna be a huge accomplishment just to finish reading the book.
Tom Rowland: That's awesome. When you listen to audiobooks, you'll notice sometimes there's a break where the author's voice is a certain way and then it's just slightly different, and you can tell that was the next day — he's fresh, and it's just slightly different. But if you had any sort of a cold or anything, that makes a huge difference in how your voice sounds, and the listener, listening for six hours at a time, notices every little piece of that. So I guess you have to be very careful to maintain the same type of voice, which probably means getting plenty of rest and not yelling and screaming at your daughter's volleyball game the night before. What do you have to think about when you're reading like that — did they give you any tips about maintaining voice consistency?
Dr. Brian Boxer Wachler: Well, certainly getting good rest is really important, especially between the days. Since I'm working during the week, I can't record during the week, so for me it's been weekends — that Friday night I made sure I went to bed early, and went to bed early Saturday night too. We were even out to dinner with some friends, and I said, you know what, I need to get up, I really need my sleep, so I'm gonna have to skip dessert, guys. They understood, and I had no problem pulling the plug, because I know I need to be on. Also, when you're doing this in the studio, you're not actually recording six hours straight — you take breaks. The producer, because they're very experienced, can hear when you start to sound a little fatigued, and they'll say, let's take a five-minute break, stand up, walk around. It was funny, because in yesterday's session we were getting through a big chunk, and she said, I think we were supposed to end at four, and I said, okay, let's take a break like you said, but has anyone come back at the end of the day like this and had literally a second wind? And she said, no. And the engineer said, no, never — these are people with years of experience. So I said, you know what, I'm gonna be special — so what I did is I went and did a bunch of air squats, a bunch of push-ups, some high-knee runs down the hall, had a little bit of coffee, and came back, and they were like, holy smokes, you're really doing great.
Tom Rowland: The benefit of exercise — that's awesome, man. So how much longer did you go, another couple hours?
Dr. Brian Boxer Wachler: No, we went about forty more minutes, because we were already over time. I wanted to try to get in a little more to finish that one chapter — that was actually chapter eleven. It's a twelve-chapter book, with a conclusion and an epilogue, so during tomorrow or Wednesday I'm gonna be finishing the rest of it — about three and a half hours, and then I'll be done.
Dr. Brian Boxer Wachler: So people, where can they get the book? It's everywhere books are sold — Amazon, Barnes and Noble, pretty much everywhere you can find it, and of course the audiobook.
Tom Rowland: What's the title?
Dr. Brian Boxer Wachler: Influenced: The Impact of Social Media on Our Perception.
Tom Rowland: Alright, Dr. Brian Boxer Wachler, right on.
Dr. Brian Boxer Wachler: I'll mention, I feel really honored to have some great people who endorsed the book — like Gronk, Gronkowski, the NFL star, who had some awesome things to say about it, which is actually on the book itself. When you get endorsements, the publisher likes to put them on the book or inside it. And also Dr. Pimple Popper, Sandra Lee, also gave a wonderful endorsement about the book, and a lot of other influencers as well. So I'm very grateful it's been so well received by people in the know.
Tom Rowland: Wow, yeah, that's great, because it is a sensitive subject — are you telling people they shouldn't be on social media, or, from an influencer's perspective, we don't wanna tell them they shouldn't be. It's kind of an interesting perspective — where are you going with this, I don't know if I want to endorse your book, we'll have to read it first to see if it's gonna be good for business or bad for business. But I think it's just responsible social media, right?
Dr. Brian Boxer Wachler: And that's why they endorsed it, because they realize this is a really important book for people to have, whether they're parents, adults, or even teenagers, because it's taking a balanced and fair view of social media, to really help inform people and ultimately how to live in a healthy way and have healthy relationships with social media and those people, and also balance it with the real world as well. That's why they endorsed it — because they felt this is really important information, a very important book that people should get their hands on, so to speak.
Tom Rowland: I love it. So when will it be out — I pre-ordered, I can't wait to read it.
Dr. Brian Boxer Wachler: It's coming out officially in October, and as soon as Amazon gets the shipment, they don't wait till October — once they get the shipment, they start sending copies. So if people preorder, they may get the book within a couple of days, depending.
Tom Rowland: Well, we're gonna try to publish this right around that date, so if you're listening to this right now, it's available probably right now, and you should go get it. Alright, that's great. Well, Dr. Brian, thank you very much for helping us learn a little bit more about social media. I think it's a super important topic, and I'm glad to see you write the book about it.
Dr. Brian Boxer Wachler: Thank you very much. It's a pleasure seeing you as always, and thanks for having me.
Tom Rowland: Yeah, we'll have to go fishing again.
Dr. Brian Boxer Wachler: Alright, I love it.
Tom Rowland: Thank you.
Dr. Brian Boxer Wachler: Alright, we'll see you later. Okay. Bye, Tom.
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