During an appearance on The Midlife Makeover Show hosted by Wendy Valentine, LAMB OF GOD frontman Randy Blythe once again offered his perspective on the well-known downside of social media, which is the addiction it creates. He said in part (as transcribed by BLABBERMOUTH.NET): “See, obviously, I am not a Luddite, I am not anti-technology. I’m talking to you from New York City. We can see each other in this magic device called a computer. And now we all carry these little tiny computers around in our pocket that are millions of times more powerful than the ones that guided our first space missions. People went to the moon using computers the size of this hotel room and we have ones that are bazillions of times more powerful. So the technology is good for us being able to talk, and I love talking to my friends overseas. I can FaceTime my friends in Japan or Finland or whatever, and it’s amazing and it’s great. However, it should be used as a supplement to real human interaction, because there is empathy and nuance, and all that stuff gets lost when you’re not face to face and you unconsciously are constantly evaluating someone’s body language and seeing how they’re carrying themselves. And that will give you real clues as to their emotional state and therefore how you should interface with this person face to face. So, like I said, this technology is great, but it is a digital representation of real life. And I think people have come to rely on it too much. ‘Oh, I have lots of friends on Instagram or TikTok or Facebook’ or whatever. I’m, like, really? Are those friends gonna come help you when you blow a flat on the side of the road on your car and you don’t have a spare and you need them to go to the store to get one? Are they gonna do that for you? Your 800 friends all over the world? No.”Blythe previously discussed social media’s impact on our mental health during a September 2020 appearance on “The Hardcore Humanism With Dr. Mike” podcast. He said at the time: “This is one thing that worries me for the younger generation, who are raised with these things. The ‘pocket Jesus,’ as I call it, the cell phone, has everything you need; it’s your savior. The world is your oyster.”For instance, I’ve traveled the world. I’ve been to every continent except for Antarctica. I can tell you there is a vast, vast difference from looking at pictures of, let’s say, the Highlands in Scotland, or watching a documentary about the Highlands in Scotland — you can learn some things. There’s a vast difference between viewing that on a screen and being there. It is unbelievable. That’s a plug for the Highlands; it’s an amazing place. But it’s not comparable.”So, for me, I’m not a Luddite — I believe the Internet is a valuable tool — but I feel it should be as the tool, a means to an end rather than the end itself. And I feel that’s kind of, in a lot of ways, what it’s become, with social media and so forth, people chasing likes and building their profiles and all that other stuff. And it’s, like, to what end? What does that get you in the end? A bazillion Instagram followers. What does that get you? How does that translate into something of value within your life other than you’re popular on cell phones. [Laughs]”Blythe went on to say that while social media can be a valuable educational and communication tool, it can also be an immense distraction.”When I lay down on my death bed, and I do hope I’m cognizant when I am dying — I hope I’m awake,” he said. “I want to experience this; I want to understand what’s happening, and hopefully I will meet it with fortitude and bravery. But when I lay down on my death bed and I think about my life, I doubt I will say to myself, ‘You know, I really wish I had spent more time looking at my cell phone, building my social media profile. I really wish I had been on the computer more Googling kangaroos,’ or whatever I was doing.”I like to use these things in order to inject myself into the stream of life,” he continued. “I’m lucky enough to travel — or I used to be — with my band a lot, and when we would go into a city, I’d go on Google. [I would look for] museums, or what’s an interesting neighborhood here, or what’s the local food. And then I put the phone in my pocket and I go. Because I want to taste that food, I want to walk in that museum — I want to see these things. And I think the challenge right now, being stuck at home so much, is there’s a lot of things about my town, and I think this is for anyone probably, that they take for granted, that become mundane after you’re exposed to them daily. And I’m trying to really broaden my perspective on where I live and go see some things I haven’t seen in a while or maybe find some new things — try and view the world in a different way.”Blythe’s second book, “Just Beyond The Light: Making Peace With The Wars Inside Our Head”, came out on February 18 via Grand Central Publishing (GCP).”Just Beyond The Light” was described by Blythe as a “tight, concise roadmap of how I have attempted to maintain what I believe to be a proper perspective in life, even during difficult times.”In December, Blythe announced more spoken-word and question-and-answer events to promote “Just Beyond The Light”. The special “evening with” event includes a spoken-word performance, an audience question-and-answer session, a copy of “Just Beyond The Light” and an opportunity to have the book signed.In 2012, Blythe was arrested in the Czech Republic and charged with manslaughter for allegedly pushing a 19-year-old fan offstage at a show two year prior and causing injuries that led to the fan’s death. Blythe spent 37 days in a Prague prison before ultimately being found not guilty in 2013.Blythe’s prison experience inspired two songs on LAMB OF GOD’s 2015 album “VII: Sturm Und Drang”: “512”, one of his three prison cell numbers, and “Still Echoes”, written while he was in Pankrac Prison, a dilapidated facility built in the 1880s that had been used for executions by the Nazis during World War II. It also led him to write his first book, “Dark Days”, in which he shared his whole side of the story publicly for the first time.[embedded content]