Once upon a time, mass-producing food felt like a utopian breakthrough.
More food. Faster. Cheaper. For everyone.
And for a while... it worked.
Then quietly, over decades, it started killing us.
Obesity. Chronic inflammation. Autoimmune disorders. A generation of bodies running on the wrong fuel - overfed, undernourished, and completely dependent on the system that broke them.
You already know this story.
But here's the one nobody's telling...
Big Tech is doing to our brains what Big Food did to our bodies.
Internet. Social Media. AI.
Each one a breakthrough. Each one taken too far for convenience and mindless mass consumption.
Big Food hijacked our tastebuds for money.
Big Tech hijacked our brains… for money.
They hooked our taste. Now they’ve hooked our attention.
And it's moving faster than our biology can keep up with.
20 years ago…
The only people you had to compare yourself to were your neighbours. People in your street. Your socioeconomic world.
Now you open your phone and you're up against a global highlight reel of the wealthiest, most curated, most algorithmically-optimised lives on earth.
99% of it is fake. But the emotional damage is real.
10 years ago…
Tiktok didn’t exist.
Now it's hammering a billion brains with cheap, addictive dopamine hits 24/7.
The same way we'd mindlessly smash a bag of Doritos or suck down a McDonald's milkshake without a second thought - we're now gorging on heaps of fake news.
And just five years ago...
The idea that a ‘Super Intelligence’ was going to replace 1000000s of jobs was unimaginable (check out the video at the bottom about this).
Now we’re relying on chat GPT to solve everything – which literally shrinks our brains (MIT scientists are calling it ‘
cognitive atrophy’)
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We outsourced our food to factories and forgot how to feed ourselves – Now we're outsourcing our minds to machines and forgetting how to think.
Just like we evolved to consume real food…
We evolved to consume information…
Slowly… intentionally… seasonally… wilfully…
And look, we're not saying all technology is bad…It's literally how we're talking to you right now. How we spread the message of real food to hundreds of thousands of people.
But it's like this...
A burger and a pint on the weekend isn't going to kill you. But if that's your entire diet - you already know what happens.
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Social Media, AI & Mental Health
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And as we've shared already, your diet isn’t just made of what you eat. It’s about everything you consume;
- The amount of sunlight you get each day
- Your relationships
- The music you listen to
- How you exercise
- And importantly - what you see on social media
Because we don’t just consume nutrients; we also consume ideas, opinions, and the visuals we see. We might not realise it initially, but what we see on our screens every day becomes a part of us just as much as the food we eat does.
Activists recently hacked London advertisements, calling out social media platforms and the harm Big Tech can do:
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Australia recently became the first country to pass a nation-wide ban on social media for under 16s, and Malaysia, Greece, France, Austria, Spain, Denmark, Norway and Indonesia are amongst other countries either considering or currently rolling out a similar style of ban with pretty widespread support across Europe (see the stats below). The UK has announced plans to potentially follow this ban too, although as of right now in mid April 2026, MPs have rejected a proposal to ban under-16s from using social media for the second time.
What are your thoughts? Would you support or oppose a social media ban for teens? Are you seeing the impact it’s having on the young people in your own life, or even yourself?
We know there’s no easy answer, and navigating a virtual world that our bodies and brains were not built to deal with is challenging to say the least.
But getting back to nature and what it truly means to be human is always the answer we look to, so here are a few actionable steps we’re putting in place to protect ourselves & the next generation from being sucked in to screens and social media:
1.) Creating boundaries: Spend the first and last hour of your day phone-free, and try 1 day a week without screen time.
2.) Using technology to limit technology: Apps like Opal and Freedom allow you to block distracting apps, set daily usage limits, and schedule focus sessions to curb mindless scrolling. Brick is also an amazing devise for this that takes things one step further - this is what Josh uses every day and it has made a huge difference.
3.) Prioritising real-world interactions: Facetime, zoom and texting are better than no interaction at all, but they’re no match for real human interactions… Meet up with friends, talk face-to-face with family, or instead of being on your phone while waiting for a coffee or the bus, have a look around and strike up a conversation... you never know who you might meet or what you might see.
4.) Un-follow accounts that instigate self-comparison or that make you feel bad about your body image: If they’re making you feel unhappy, you don’t need to see them. Pay attention to how your nervous system feels before and after you're on your phone. Maybe it's time to take a break if it's becoming too disruptive.
5.) Read a real book or watch a movie: Our attention spans are getting shorter ( 2.5 minutes in 2004 to 47 seconds in 2026), and this erosion of sustained focus is linked to increased stress, lower productivity and more mental fatigue - collectively known as ‘brain rot’. Try reading a physical book again or watching a movie with your loved ones, just like the old days…
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So, just like we learned to read labels, question ingredients, exercise balance and reject the food system that was quietly breaking us…
It's high time we all did the same with info & technology.
Don’t just vet what you’re putting into your mouth…
Vet what you’re putting into your mind.
-Micheal, Emma, Anna & the APE team
P.S- a couple of videos you might find insightful...
1.) Take a walk with Josh in this recent video where he talks about the impact of constantly being on our phones is having, and begs the question.. what is the "intervention" isn't another supplement, app or routine but rather, less noise, less input and just getting out into nature.
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