Hey, guys.
It's Chelsea from The Financial Diet.
And this week's episode is sponsored by wikibuy.
We all know how easy it is to focus on how the internet is
making our lives worse, from the presence of trolls
in every comment section--
[FAKE COUGHING] like the one below.
To mass spreading of misinformation,
to all of that toxic screen time that
is probably ruining both our eyes and our upper backs.
But for a lot of us, myself included,
the internet has been one of the most important tools
to ever exist.
Quite frankly, TFD would never have been a thing
without the internet.
And many of the most important connections
I've ever made in my life, both professionally and personally,
have come uniquely through the internet.
But beyond just enabling you to connect
with a ton of like minded people and not necessarily limit
yourself to whoever happens to be around you,
the internet has many lesser known ways
of making your life markedly better,
provided you can use it in the best way.
So without further ado, here are seven ways
the internet can secretly make your life even better.
Number one-- track your daily activity level on your phone
without any extra effort.
If you have a smartphone, you probably already
have access to a pre-installed app on your phone
that allows you to track things like your steps,
stairs climbed, or basic levels of activity.
Things like Apple Health, Google Fit, et cetera.
But you can also upgrade to many different specific apps
to help you work on the various fitness goals you
might be working toward.
You can start to set your own goals instead of necessarily
being hamstrung by the arbitrary ones we all
care so much about, a.k.a.
Those famous 10,000 steps.
And even just being aware of your fitness level
and knowing that it's passively being tracked
as you go about your day will make you more conscious
of wanting to make that progress.
Because increasing your activity level
even a small amount can have huge benefits on your health.
In one study conducted at the Harvard University T.H.
Chan School of Public Health, ultimately increasing daily
physical activity by as little as 2,000 steps--
less than a mile of walking--
was associated with positive health
outcomes for elderly women.
Even if you're not an elderly woman,
however, one of the biggest problems we all often face
is making that huge dichotomy between being an Instagram
fitness thot and being totally sedentary.
And even beyond just basic physical activity,
there are tons of incredible habit tracker apps out there
that will help make sure that you're
staying accountable to the goals that you're
setting for yourself.
It's time we all started looking at things like our smartphones
in terms of how they can help us when we are not using them,
because we want to find ways for them
to be additive to our life that don't necessarily
increase our screen time.
Things that are working passively in the background
to help keep track of things, or that you only
need to update once a day, means that you're
able to reap the benefits without being
glued to your phone.
Our head of content, Holly, uses something
called the Loop Habits Tracker, which prompts her
every day at 8 PM to record whether or not
she exercised that day.
All she has to do is check off a simple yes or no,
and it automatically keeps track of how much she is
able to stay true to that goal.
And she can look back and see the patterns
over long periods of time.
Number two-- save money on daily purchases
you would already be making with wikibuy.
Now, if you're spending most of your time at home,
you're likely making even more purchases than usual
when you shop online.
To help save money on the online purchases
you'd be making anyway, you should check out wikibuy.
Wikibuy is a free extension available for a variety
of browsers.
It instantly drops crowdsourced promo codes
into your shopping cart across thousands of retail sites.
Wikibuy offers loyalty credits at Amazon, Walmart.com,
and thousands of other retailers,
which can be redeemed for gift cards.
And while you're browsing across Amazon, Target, Home Depot
or others, the browser button will notify you
with a friendly little pop up if an item is available cheaper
elsewhere before you check out.
No need to waste your time scoping out coupon codes
or comparing prices on different retail sites,
because wikibuy will do that for you.
Check out wikibuy at the link in our description.
Number three is find more accessible education paths
than the traditional college/grad school.
For those of you who may suddenly
be faced with the prospect of unexpectedly online classes,
take solace in the fact that studies
have shown that these classes can actually
be very beneficial in helping keep students on track.
According to one study from Arizona State University,
online classes may actually help increase the chances
of these students' graduation.
The study found that three out of four institutions that
offered in-person and online courses
had higher retention and graduation
rates for students who at least enrolled
in some digital learning classes.
At Houston Community College, for example,
first time freshman retention rates
were at least nine points higher among students
in exclusively online or blended courses.
At the University of Central Florida,
students who took between 40% and 60% of their courses online
finished their degrees earlier than students
who took no online classes.
They completed their degrees in 3.9 years
compared with 4.3 years for learners who
took only in-person courses.
And this makes total sense when you consider just how much life
can get in the way of a perfect audience card
when it comes to in-person classes.
For many of us, the cost of higher education
means having to work at least part time while studying,
and the inconvenience posed by having to exclusively take
all of your classes in person and having no flexibility there
means that you may end up having to cut the class altogether
rather than being able to adapt it to fit your needs.
I was recently listening to a podcast with NYU professor
Scott Galloway--
I'll link you guys to that in the description--
where he talked about how this coronavirus situation might
shape the future of education.
He predicted that many colleges would eventually
go out of business as a result of no longer being
able to inflate their prices with the promise
of in-person college experiences.
And that people would find that more adapted
virtual/online driven education was actually
more beneficial for them even without a stay at home mandate.
And it's also important to note that online learning really
extends accessibility for students who
may have various disabilities.
Whether they be emotional, mental, or physical,
these disabilities often say nothing
about a student's capacity to learn
or excel in a subject matter, but may say a lot
about their inability to meet the needs
of a regular in-person class.
Even someone who is physically more than capable
of getting to a classroom might have a very difficult time
with that particular structure if they suffer from something
like severe anxiety or ADHD.
They may find that being in person
can make something as universal as test
taking feel nearly impossible.
By broadening the range of avenues
that we have toward getting an education,
we are inherently opening up the experience
to a much more diverse group of people.
Number four-- simplify how you store and sought photos.
There's sort of a paradox with the smartphone and photography.
It is more accessible than ever to simply
take photos of things every day on a whim,
but that also makes us much less likely
to appreciate these photos, to really
remember what's important, or to keep them somehow organized
to a degree that we can go back and flip through them
the way we want to.
I think we've all had that acute embarrassment of scrolling back
through our photo gallery and having
to scroll past a really cringe worthy selfie graveyard
before we can get to the photos of our friend's wedding
that we want to look at.
But many people don't even realize that most smartphones
come with built in ways to categorize, navigate, and sort
our photos.
For example, you can use the search function
of Apple or Android phones to find things
like beach or cat, which the phones themselves can actually
recognize.
You can also tag people in your photo albums,
and your phone will take the liberty
of tagging them in other photos in which they appear.
You can use a map feature to sort your photos by location,
and quickly get to something like that trip you
took to Majorca last year.
And between the cloud service, things
like Amazon Drive, Google Drive, Dropbox,
and other free or cheap online storage facilities,
there are pretty much endless ways
to move your photos off your phone
and into nice neat categorized albums
so that you can make sure you're not cluttering up
your phone with so many photos that you end up accidentally
deleting the ones that you actually want to keep.
Number five-- more easily support your local community.
At the time of recording this, we
are still in the middle of a social distancing mandate here
in New York City to help combat the coronavirus, which
means that we are more distanced than ever
from the people and businesses and organizations
that exist around us.
And all of us at TFD, and I imagine a lot of you,
are really worried about how we can support
those organizations, people, and businesses around us
without necessarily breaking some
of these very important rules.
And we're right to feel that way, as spending money locally
is demonstrated to have a ton of benefits.
One study found that independent retailers
create on average twice as many jobs as the same amount
of money spent with Amazon.
A lot of us might have already been following
some of our favorite shops and restaurants
on places like Instagram.
But if you haven't, go follow them now,
because I guarantee that most of them
are providing you with really easy clear ways in which you
can best support them during this time.
Even just growing their social media presence
is a huge help to them.
And when it comes to things like local organizations,
many of them are more active now than they've
ever been, just digitally.
The local community coalition that I am part of
has actually ramped up its meetings to two times a month
rather than one, because it's much easier for most members
to fit it into their schedules now that they're primarily
held by Zoom.
There are also tons of local Facebook groups popping up
all over the place right now to help neighbors come together
and find ways in which to help one another.
Whether right now you could offer time, money,
a helping hand for someone who maybe can't do something
like grocery shop for themselves,
or just a phone call to help someone
feel less isolated, turning to virtual resources
in order to make sure that we're staying connected
and part of our local economies might actually end up
making us feel more connected than we ever were before,
because we're taking the time to figure out what's going on
rather than just walking by it every day.
And speaking of which, number six
is feel more connected and less lonely.
So it's difficult to talk about this particular point
without mentioning, again, the current situation as it's
occurring while I'm filming this, which
is the social distancing/pause pause mandate here in New
York, which most of us around the world
are experiencing in some form.
Things like video conferences and social media
have become some of our only ways
to keep in touch with people that just a couple of weeks
ago we could walk down the street and hang out with.
But just because it may be new for you or me does not
mean that having to rely on digital resources to help us
stay connected is something that's new for everybody.
According to a 2016 study conducted
by the University of Michigan, using technology
has many benefits for older adults.
The study found that greater technology
use was associated with better self rated health, fewer
chronic conditions, higher subjective well-being,
and lower depression.
And online communities are crucial for many groups,
including those who may suffer with chronic illnesses that
prevent them from being together.
Here at TFD, one of our employees, our social media
manager Rachel, actually lives with cystic fibrosis,
which is a condition that prevents her
from being in close proximity with other people who share it.
As Rachel put it, social media often
gets a bad rap for being superficial,
but it's actually brought a lot of substance and connection
to my life.
Living with cystic fibrosis, a respiratory illness that
makes it dangerous to be around others who have it because
of fear of infection, much like COVID-19,
has made building a digital community so beneficial
for my life.
This includes private Facebook groups
and CF forums where we do everything
from share tips for managing our symptoms,
to host virtual panels with scientists and doctors who
work in our field.
Because of the dangers we face by physically meeting
in real life, the online community has become so robust
and friendships are made.
I can't express how much so many of these people, all of whom
I've never met, have improved my life.
Because they have the unique experience of knowing what
I'm going through, whereas even my closest friends and loved
ones unfortunately can not.
And as a little bit of a self plug, we at TFD
created a private Facebook group called Talk About Money, where
tons of women, and some guys, come together to talk about all
of the various ways in which they're struggling with money,
succeeding with money, curious about money,
or just want to rant about money in a way
they often can't with the people in their day to day lives.
It's easy to focus on what's negative about things
like social media, but I think now more than ever we're
all learning that if we choose to use
these digital tools in a constructive way,
they can be as good or as bad as we make them.
Number seven-- use your map apps to track where you've been
and where you want to go.
Especially when you're traveling,
it can be very difficult to find unique and interesting places
worth visiting without always defaulting
to the same things recommended by places
like Yelp or TripAdvisor.
And yet according to a Nielsen study, 92% of us
trust a friend or family's recommendation
more than we do an advertisement.
And this is obviously a good thing-- the people
who know us can make personalized recommendations
based on what we like.
But the problem comes with keeping
track of those recommendations, even in our own cities.
So here's a suggestion on how to do things differently.
Anytime someone makes a recommendation from you,
whether it's in your own city or a city
you might be going to someday, take
just a second to mark it in your maps app.
Depending on the phone you have, you
can use tools like Favorite or Star to do this.
That way, whenever you're traveling to a new place
or having a bored weekend looking for something fun
to do in your own city, you have a list
of custom made recommendations ready for you to check out
in your own maps app.
It's of course much more personal than relying
on stranger's suggestions on the internet,
and it provides a really nice way to bond with someone
when you get to tell them that, hey, I went and did
that thing you recommended to me last year.
And they're like, you were listening to me?
And you remembered something I said a year ago?
You're such a good friend.
The secret is between us--
wink.
I can't wink.
And do not forget if you are doing any online shopping
in the near future to check out wikibuy
with the link in our description.
As always, guys, thank you for watching
and don't forget to hit the Subscribe button.
And to come back every Monday, Tuesday, and Thursday
for new and awesome videos.
Buy-bye!