Ep. 12: Sara Robin & Jack LeMay on Your Attention Please | Interview

ThisIn Episode 12 of The Cinephile Mind Podcast, Spenser sits down with director Sara Robin and writer Jack LeMay to discuss their timely documentary Your Attention Please, which premiered at SXSW and is currently on the festival circuit.

The conversation dives into what inspired the film, why its themes feel especially urgent right now, and the challenges of exploring media, attention, and modern culture through documentary filmmaking.

A thoughtful discussion about storytelling, technology, and the world we’re all living in today.

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Transcript

SPEAKER_02 0:00

Welcome to this special episode of The Cenophile Mind. Today we're joined by Sarah Robin and Jack LeMay, the directors of Your Attention Please, a powerful and timely film that takes a hard look at how the attention economy is reshaping our lives, our kids, and our relationships through deeply personal stories from a mother turned advocate after an unimaginable loss to a young programmer building tools to fight cyberbullying. The film explores the growing movement pushing back against big tech's influence, blending human impact with expert insight. It asks a critical question for our time can we redesign technology to better serve humanity? So, Sarah and Jack, welcome to the show. Appreciate you guys joining.

SPEAKER_00 0:49

Thank you, Spencer.

SPEAKER_01 0:50

Yeah, thanks for having us.

SPEAKER_02 0:52

So I was uh I was lucky to see a screening of this earlier this week, actually, and found it to be quite powerful and obviously extremely timely. Um you center both deeply personal stories and big systemic issues. Uh I'm curious, you know, to understand like what brought the two of you together? Was there a moment or realization that brought you together that made you feel like, okay, this is something that has to be made?

SPEAKER_00 1:22

Yeah, I mean, we that's a great question. Thank you. Um, we both over the past decade or so um were wrestling on and off with the impact of social media and phone culture on our lives separately. Um and for me, uh it really came to a head in 2019 when I realized I'd lost my ability to read, um, which is pretty crazy because honestly, I grew up reading all the time. Um I was the kind of kid who would read, you know, a book under the blanket late at night and be caught by her parents. Um, and so for me not to be able to enter that imaginative world of you know literature anymore, uh it was really pretty terrifying. And I set out on a course of trying to figure out my own screen time habits and um weaning myself off of the things that had become quite addictive. And then I experimented with all kinds of things like switching off notifications, putting my phone on black and white, putting it away like first hour of the day, last hour of the day, all those sorts of things. Um and as I was doing so, I was just talking to friends about it, and uh there was a lot of interest at the time of like, wait, I'm wrestling with this too. What are you doing? Can you tell me more about this? Um, and so as I, you know, became more ingrained in that, um, it also very quickly became evident that this was obviously a much larger topic than just our own personal habits. We're really talking about big systemic issues here. Um, and they probably needed a more systemic lens. So uh quite early on in the process of making a film, I realized I had to expand um what we were looking at. And so that's how this hybrid that you're talking about kind of came about of having these deeply personal stories to to anchor the film in emotion and and and and human stories, but also talking about the big systemic um uh issues at hand and how we can reshape some of these systems. Um but yeah, when I I got introduced to Jack uh through a production company in Boston, Vagrance, um, and uh his first email um instantly won me over because he was talking about his experience um and what had motivated him to uh hike the Pacific Crest Trail. Um and so uh from that start, I was like, wow, I think I found my editor.

SPEAKER_01 3:38

Yes, I uh about a year before Sarah found me, I had embarked on a pretty radical departure from the digital landscape that we live in. I had done like a six-month walk across America living out of a backpack, um, sleeping in a tent at night, you know, relying on strangers to go to grocery stores, hitch rides, um, and really just living in the moment, reconnecting to being an embodied creature and living in this beautiful natural world that we're all born into. So coming back from that into the sort of crash landing of Zoom calls and text messages and notifications and trains full of people who not a single person's looking up or making eye contact um was definitely pretty stark. And I think, you know, I was buzzing with this feeling that I wanted to put all that energy somewhere, that you know, I was I had noticed this sort of contrast um and really lived it and and wanted to make a meaningful contribution um to make us remember what we're losing, right? Um, and that was about the time that Sarah came into the picture and was looking for an editor and a collaborator to pull her film together. Um, she approached with definitely a slightly unusual concept, which was so it's an info doc that speaks to a lot of Sarah's favorite authors and thought leaders. Um, so we're gonna have a lot of talking head interviews, but we also have a few really core uh cinema verite stories, and we're gonna let their emotional journeys be the kind of thrust of the film. And I was like, great. So those are really different styles. We'll probably have a narrator to pull all that together. And she was like, Nope, no narrator. Um, it's gonna be on us to sort of create the seamless flow um from talking heads into personal stories. So it's a really extraordinary challenge. Um, but it it excited me and I was a bit daunted. But I I went ahead and signed up and said, let's see what we can make.

SPEAKER_02 5:40

Well, it worked extremely well. So um I I really enjoyed uh the film. Like I said, it's extremely timely. And I'm also quite envious, Jack, of your, you know, backpacking, getting to actually, you know, it sounds like you actually did the thing that you know a lot of us say we want to do and disconnect and you know spend that time out in nature. So um I would imagine that was quite a uh good experience. So I'm quite envious of that.

SPEAKER_01 6:06

Um I'm I'm envious of my former self too. I'm like, can I go do it again? So there's there's plans, it'll happen again.

SPEAKER_02 6:14

You um one thing that stuck out to me when I was watching this, just you know, being part of the millennial generation myself, uh, you know, you you touch on these younger generations that are, you know, really have never experienced life without devices or phones. Uh, and I'm curious, like having spent time, you know, with people from that generation and through the process of making this, I'd love to get your sense of do you think the younger generations who have never experienced life without smartphones perceive this issue fundamentally differently? Or is there still a recognition by them that you know there's a detrimental impact here to having the being tied to these uh devices all the time? Like I said, for me, I was a child of the 90s. This film kind of tapped into a pre-social media nostalgia um, you know, since I grew up in the early internet days. So I remember what it was like. But, you know, for the generations that were born in the early 2000s that didn't have that type of, you know, childhood and youth, I'm curious if you feel like they see it um the same way as the older generations do.

SPEAKER_00 7:31

Yeah, I love that question. Um, and it's something that I was very curious about going into this project. Um, I would say not only I think every generation perceives it somewhat differently, and we noticed that when we did test screenings of the film, different people of different ages related to it differently and called out different things, but sometimes stepped away with different emotions as well after watching it. So it was really interesting, and certainly the nostalgia piece up front really resonates with millennials, and you know, we're both millennials, so I think there's an obvious reason for that. Um, but I would say not only does the younger generation, Gen Z and Gen Alpha, realize it, but sometimes even more astutely than older generations, I would say. And that is a really surprising and I think hopeful realization that there's something deeply human in us that recognizes when people don't look at each other anymore and you talk to your friend and you're only being half listened to because they're kind of on their phone and they're not really there, and you're trying to have, you know, connect and build trust, that that's a problem. Um, I think there's something innately human in us that that gets that. And we saw that in like cultural phenomena. I mean, certainly Gen Z uh getting flip phones and things like that, and that being the cool thing to do. That might seem like, okay, maybe it's a fad, you know, maybe it's just a way to be different in this digitally connected age. But when you look at things like the offline club, um, you know, people coming together, turning their phones in and hanging out phone-free, um, that's mostly a Gen Z uh movement that took off quasi overnight. And um you can, yeah, you can tell in those moments it it goes much deeper than just like a fad, something that looks cool on social media, right? It actually is doing the hard choice of let's put this thing away and let's be maybe a bit awkward in this space full of strangers when no one has like their digital pacifier and let's interact and they're actually down to do that. They they crave to do that. Um, so to me, that was a surprise and an incredibly hopeful one.

SPEAKER_01 9:30

Yeah. I think this whole project was a crash course and understanding Gen Z and their complexity better. Um, we knew from the outset that Gen Z was a critical voice that in some ways had been under underrepresented in this conversation. Uh, a lot of millennials and boomers talking about them and about what this had done to them. Let's like, let's hear from them themselves, right? Um, I think Gen Z is as complicated a cross-section of society as any group of people you could draw. So we like to sort of paint them with one brush. Um, some examples are, you know, you have people like Trisha Prabhu, who decided that she very vaguely remembered something from probably she's born in the year 2000, and in the first four years of her life, you know, she got to live without Facebook being in the world. Um, and yet when she becomes a teenager, she's sort of aware that there's this thing that used to exist right at the dawn of her life that she wishes she had more of. And um, that is really the core of what the human experience is. There's a term we discovered called anamoya, where it's like um a longing for a period of time you were never a part of. Uh, and in a lot of ways, that gets applied to Gen Z. If you look at online all these uh trends of looking at like 90s core nostalgia core type stuff of like cul de sacs with sprinklers going off and there's like a glow in the air, and it's kind of like the life before everything got complicated. Um, you know, we also learned a lot when we went to Brockton High School. We got to interact with a lot of kids that are currently like 16, 17 years old. One thing that surprised us was, you know, it wasn't just um the kids that were freaking out about phones being taken out of schools, it was largely their parents. And so we would be like, why is it such a big deal that like you can't talk to your parent during the day? And they were like, if I get my math test back at like 2 p.m. and I got like a B plus, like I can't tell my dad right away like what my grade was. And um when I'm out of school, they won't know where I am. And and I'm like, isn't that stuff you want though? Like, don't like my memory would say that uh I would not want my parents knowing what I'm doing all day, right? Like you, as a teenager, you want a certain amount of anonymity where you live a little bit apart from your parents. Um, and we would pose that question to them and say, What do you think the world was like back 20 years ago when we just didn't uh weren't in touch with our parents the entire day until 6 p.m. when dinner rolled around? And they were like, honestly, I'm not sure how everyone wasn't just dead and you know, ended up in a ditch somewhere. Like it was it was such a novel concept. Um and yet, as the phones came out of the schools and they started to experience the other side of that, they were like, I totally get it now. Like I felt like I was a bit in my digital safety bubble where I could sit in a cafeteria and like text someone 10 feet away from me rather than just going over and having the awkward experience of trying to talk in person. And it was hard to rip off that band-aid. But now a year later we're all in the same boat, we all had to rip off the band-aid, and like the noise in the cafeteria is through the roof now. There's actually kids talking to each other, there's friendships being made. Um, the the social fabric of the school has really revitalized because uh kids are forced to be kids and be teenagers and actually hang out in person. So I think it is a universal human experience that we just have to give them the opportunity and the space to be able to experience.

SPEAKER_02 13:04

Yeah, I love that. And Sarah, you kind of uh alluded to it. Um, but you know, the the rise of these offline clubs uh was something that was super fascinating to me um and quite hopeful, and I and you know gave me some more optimism uh about this sort of movement to phone-free uh environment. So I was gonna ask, like, is do you do you see this as more of like a niche trend? Or do you feel like you know, having gone through this process, that these are more early signs of an actual broader shift in the culture?

SPEAKER_00 13:47

Yeah, we were asking ourselves that a lot. And I think even since we we interviewed Ilya Kneppel, who would one of the founders of the offline club, and asked him that very question, I think times have changed a little bit because at the time AI was just taking off. And I think his answer to it was, well, even though they are, you know, there is an offline movement going on, but the push for AI is really defining our culture, and and that's where the most energy is going, and that's where the future is going. And now, a year and a half later, it it already feels quite different once again. And you know, we had the verdicts in the social media addiction trials a couple of weeks ago that said for the first time uh that these companies knew what they were doing and uh you know were purposefully addicting kids, um, even so. And that is the first time that we have a court in the US saying that. Um so we can see there is this sea change happening now and a perception of technology and what role it should play and accountability around that. And at the same time, AI, I think, was being held accountable so much faster than social media. It took us like 15 years with social media to be here now, and with AI, it was like three years, four years, and um, people are a lot more aware of of the risks and a lot more conversations about it, a lot more pushback. So I do um I do feel quite hopeful that this is not an early part of a movement to really just realign technology with human well-being and human goals, um, which is you know what we would want it to be, right? Why why should it be anything else? Um why should why should our technology work against us? Um, I think it's uh in a way a very um basic ask to have to say, let's put the human being back in the center of how we consume of our technology, like what its goals are. Um and I really do feel there's there's a human movement that is that is taking off now.

SPEAKER_01 15:41

Yeah, I would just say like in 2023 when we were first embarking on this project, and you asked the average person, like, is your phone doing more harm than good in your life? I think more than half the people would be like, no, I think it does some harm, but I think you know it's nuanced, and I don't know if it's all the phone cut to now three years later. Seven out of ten people are watching the film, and when immediately they're like, I've been waiting for this film to come out, like I feel it, right? Just in these three years we've been making the movie, we have noticed that the average person is much more likely to jump on this topic and say, like, I feel this, I'm looking for a change to this, what are we gonna do about it? Um, so as you said in the very beginning, I feel like we were lucky with the timing of making this movie and how it was kind of evolving with society and with uh public sentiment about how open people are to this topic. Um and we're coming here at a time when really people are looking for change, and our film is trying to propose avenues for um how you can make change and how you can join the movement. And uh, and that's really what we're it's a hopeful tale more than it is a doomsday tale.

SPEAKER_02 16:51

Yeah, I'm glad you said that. Um and you know, I feel like that's kind of a before we wrap up here, um, you know, I wanted to touch on that hope and the future. Because, you know, one thing I took away was obviously despite the the challenges um that you know we're still facing as a society, the, you know, there is a lot of moments of optimism in this. Uh, you know, it was really encouraging for me to see, you know, things like the COSA bill have such strong bipartisan support, which is almost unheard of um, you know, in society today. Um, and you know, obviously there's still some work to be done there to get that passed, but I think it emphasizes how large-scale change takes time, uh, which obviously can be very frustrating, but you know, we're moving the needle in the right direction. Um, and I think that this a film like this can really help generate momentum to to get us to where we want to be. And um, and so like I took away a lot of hope and optimism from this, and I think it is coming out at a perfect time. Um, so I appreciate that. But want to ask you guys like, what is something that gives you the most hope and optimism right now, kind of, you know, as you walk away, or you know, getting ready to roll this out to broader audiences.

SPEAKER_01 18:18

One thing is, you know, with all the damage that has been done with social media and and technology, especially with young people in the past decade, it was a little unclear how permanent is that damage? Um, how resilient are we? I think what we've seen in the last few years is humans are incredibly resilient. Um, if you take that phone away at a high school, it within a year, you go back to a high school that could have been 20 years ago. Um, so I think seeing that firsthand in the process of making the film, how quickly we we are adaptable creatures. And just as we've adapted to making the phones normal, being in every moment of our lives, we also equally adapt to the phones coming out of every moment of our lives and continuing to thrive without them. Um and I think that's just been really heartening to see firsthand how resilient we are.

SPEAKER_00 19:14

And I would add to that the sheer amount of actions we've seen just over the last year. Um, we've seen a lot of legislation passing um on a state level in the US. Um and then of course internationally, you know, Australia came out with a social media ban. And it feels like as soon as they did that, um, you know, it was a whole set off a whole uh flow of dominoes of other countries being like, oh, if they can do that, we can do it as well. So we see countries across Europe, um, Brazil, Indonesia, Malaysia. Um, and I think it has reinvigorated the conversation here in the US as well, which we don't saw in in the court verdicts. But most of all, I think seeing how much can be achieved just on a local level. I think the whole fact that we have you know phones coming out of schools rapidly across the United States is really due to parent organizers and educators um school by school initially fighting for this. And then it gained momentum to the point where now it's it's become mainstream. And that happened really, really quickly. So I think we also got to see as as important as it is to pass federal legislation and have some you know nationwide guidelines in place, a lot can be achieved um on a much smaller uh scale that then can actually like you know uh move across the whole donation. So that gives me an immense amount of like hope just seeing that take off in this way.

SPEAKER_02 20:33

Yeah, absolutely. And I'd be remiss if I didn't mention the you know, the courage and you know resilience that the parents of those who had lost uh children that were impacted by this. Um you know, that was incredibly inspiring just in the face of you know that how much they had to overcome, not only personally, but just you know, in the courts and you know, rallying support for this uh was really uh genuinely inspiring. So um well, I think uh we're about at time. So I, you know, I'll close by just you know tossing it over to you. Where can we direct people to learn more about you guys or uh about the film? Where can where can they expect to see it?

SPEAKER_00 21:16

Yeah, so we talked about Milwaukee in the beginning. We're actually in Milwaukee right now, Photo Milwaukee Film Festival. So um we're here this weekend for for that, which is really exciting. Um, and then the best place uh for viewers to find us is our website. Um that is yourattentionplz.com. So plz short for please, yourattentionplz.com. And we have everything on there, you know, a trailer, updates on screenings, contact forms, um screening requests, um, all the good stuff.

SPEAKER_01 21:45

Sign up for our newsletter to keep uh up to date on you know latest screenings and new festivals and and ultimately a release date later this year.

SPEAKER_02 21:54

Great. Well, Sarah, Jack, thanks so much uh again for the time. Uh I love the film and I look forward.

SPEAKER_00 22:04

Thank you, Spencer.