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1:00

not. Suppose

1:02

we suddenly changed the Earth's atmosphere from

1:04

20% oxygen to 80% oxygen. It's

1:08

like, oh, wouldn't that be great? Like you'd get so

1:10

much oxygen so easily we'd all feel good. Like, no,

1:13

everything would burn. Any little spark,

1:15

every electrical thing would explode. You know,

1:17

80% oxygen, everything is combustible. And similarly,

1:20

what if we give everyone an outrage

1:22

button where they can... The

1:24

slightest thing. Oh, something bothers you about what

1:26

you saw on the street? Tweet it. Somebody

1:28

did something obnoxious, take a photo, put it

1:30

up. Let people dox them. This

1:33

is what social media has done to

1:35

us. It's an open question whether liberal

1:37

democracy in the American form, it's an

1:40

open question whether we can survive, whether

1:42

our current institutions and structure is compatible

1:44

with an 80% oxygen world. I'm

1:48

Jon Favreau. Welcome to offline. Hey,

1:54

everyone. You just heard from today's

1:56

guest, social psychologist and NYU professor

1:58

Jonathan Haidt. So this is

2:01

a conversation I've wanted to have for a long time. Hite

2:03

is the author of numerous bestsellers like

2:05

The Happiness Hypothesis, The Coddling of the

2:07

American Mind, and the number one New

2:09

York Times bestseller that will join, seemingly

2:11

everyone else in talking about today, The

2:14

Anxious Generation. Hite's basic argument

2:16

is one we've made many times on this

2:19

show. The kids are not alright,

2:21

and the culprit is their phones. But

2:24

Hite takes it a step further. He

2:26

offers extensive research to support his contention

2:28

that smartphones, and especially social media, are

2:30

fueling a teen and adolescent mental health

2:33

epidemic here and in other countries. Hite

2:36

also offers a four-step plan to help us

2:38

build what he calls a healthier childhood in

2:40

the digital age. It's a

2:42

compelling book, and his recommendations make a lot of sense. But

2:45

The Anxious Generation has also touched off a

2:47

debate about whether Hite has overstated the case

2:49

against phones, and it raises

2:52

questions about whether his proposed reforms,

2:54

like banning phones in schools, have

2:56

the support necessary to become reality.

2:58

So I asked him. We talked about

3:00

the evidence he cites, the criticisms he's

3:03

received, how phones and social media have

3:05

changed our relationships and our attention spans,

3:07

and how they're making politics and democracy

3:09

much harder. As a quick note,

3:11

we had a lot to get through, so today's interview will

3:14

take up the full hour of the show. Here's

3:16

Jonathan Hite. Jonathan

3:20

Hite, welcome to Offline. Thank

3:22

you, Jon. Pleasure to be here. So

3:24

I've wanted to have you on for a

3:27

long time because even before The Anxious Generation,

3:29

a lot of your writing has focused on

3:31

the central thesis of this podcast, which is

3:34

that smartphones and social media are breaking our

3:36

brains, making us miserable, and making democracy much

3:38

more difficult. So you are talking

3:40

to a host, and I think most listeners,

3:43

who probably agree with your argument that smartphones

3:45

and especially social media are bad for kids.

3:48

But since I see people still debating

3:50

whether it's the phones that are causing the

3:52

increase in mental health challenges among kids, could

3:55

you start by talking about the most persuasive

3:57

evidence you found? So, there's a

3:59

lot of scientists. There's a lot of

4:01

correlational studies. There are a

4:03

lot of experiments. There are a lot of

4:05

time lag, longitudinal studies. One

4:08

thing I've learned by engaging in this debate

4:10

is that the scientific evidence is not nearly

4:12

as cut and dry or persuasive as you

4:14

would think. My critics will put out

4:16

a study and say, see, this proves that the height is

4:18

wrong. Then I look and say, wait a sec. No, actually,

4:20

this proves that I'm right. The scientific

4:23

evidence is really debatable. That's a whole

4:25

process that has to come out. To

4:28

my mind, the most powerful evidence

4:30

that I have seen on this is

4:32

the fact that I cannot find

4:35

anyone in Gen Z who

4:38

says or has written that

4:40

smartphones and social media were good for their generation.

4:44

There are thousands of essays and videos

4:46

by, especially Gen Z in their 20s,

4:48

saying, wow, this messed us up.

4:51

Wow, talking with naked men when I was

4:53

11 years old, this was terrible. If

4:55

there's been a crime and the crime victim keeps

4:57

saying, he did it, he did it, he's the

5:00

one. They all say that. I

5:02

actually think that's pretty persuasive. The

5:04

idea, the main criticism against me

5:06

is that I'm mistaken correlation for causation. That

5:09

sure, mental health plummeted all around the world.

5:13

Basically at the moment that kids moved their social lives onto

5:15

Instagram and a few other platforms around 2012. That

5:18

could just be coincidence. It might

5:20

have just been a big coincidence. It happened everywhere

5:22

at the same time, but just a coincidence. The

5:24

fact that the kids themselves see it, the fact

5:26

that the teachers see it, the principals see it,

5:28

the parents see it. I

5:31

actually take that as the most

5:33

persuasive. Of course,

5:36

I sometimes wonder, I'm going out on a

5:38

limb here, we don't have scientific consensus that

5:40

smartphones and social media are what's causing the

5:42

mental health crisis. Am

5:45

I fomenting a moral panic by saying, look,

5:48

we need to start acting now. We can't

5:50

wait five years for the scientists to reach

5:52

agreement. The

5:54

fact that I don't really find

5:57

anyone who disagrees with me other

5:59

than ... within the scientific other than a

6:01

few scientists who we argue over

6:03

the size of the correlations um i

6:05

was just talking yesterday with the commissioner of

6:08

uh the commissioner of schools of of

6:10

new york city and he said

6:12

he was asking a bunch of principles

6:15

what should we do with the phones and they all

6:17

said take them away take them away it's making our

6:19

jobs miserable so i think that's

6:21

pretty compelling yeah well i'll give you

6:24

a few of the like alternative

6:26

theories i've heard or some of the criticism

6:28

sure i love these alternatives yeah i figure

6:30

so and i see these floating around online

6:32

on social media uh but

6:35

you know one of them is what if more

6:38

young people are self-reporting anxiety

6:40

and depression because this is

6:42

less stigmatized than it used to be right

6:45

so that's perfectly plausible and if that

6:47

was the case then what we would

6:49

see is gradually rising rates from the

6:51

1980s through the present because

6:54

there used to be a stigma um

6:56

when i was a kid my mother sent me to

6:58

a psychiatrist when i was uh 10 or 11 years

7:00

old i had some nervous ticks that were kind of

7:02

strange and she sent me just that was very shameful

7:04

like i didn't want anybody to know but now

7:07

here you know it's 2024 and i'm perfectly happy to say

7:09

you know i i i see

7:11

a therapist every other week i have for a couple of

7:13

years so the stigma has been vanishing since the

7:15

80s um so if it was

7:17

the stigma that it was just you know it's

7:19

an illusion it's just like yeah it looks like

7:21

there's high rates but that's just because then what

7:23

we would see is a gradual rise from the

7:25

80s to the present but that's not what we

7:28

see what we see is

7:30

actually a slight fall from the

7:32

90s through 2010 2011 the millennials

7:35

their mental health was a little bit

7:38

better actually than gen x so we

7:40

see the numbers the actual rates uh

7:42

self-report rates of anxiety and depression going

7:45

slightly down during the 2000s

7:47

while stigma is dropping and dropping and

7:50

then all of a sudden 2020 2012

7:54

it goes way up way up in america

7:56

and it goes up all around certainly around

7:58

the english speaking world so you You want to

8:00

tell me that the stigma didn't

8:02

change at all from the 90s through 2011 and

8:06

then suddenly in 2012, 2013, suddenly

8:08

the whole world decided, hey, mental

8:10

illness is cool. I

8:12

don't mind saying that I'm anxious. It just,

8:14

it doesn't make any sense. The

8:16

other one I hear a lot, especially

8:18

on the left and from

8:21

some young people is, you know, what

8:23

if it's the impending climate disaster

8:25

and you know, massive inequality brought

8:27

about by late stage capitalism. Yeah.

8:30

So there's a thing called the pundit, um,

8:33

that was called the pundit illusion where whatever

8:35

happens, so it used to be like, you

8:37

know, right wing pundits, whatever happens, this shows

8:39

the need to lower taxes or whatever. And

8:42

so people were focused on climate change or

8:45

the, or who hate capitalism. Sure. Everything's

8:47

going to be evidence of that. But let's look at

8:49

the timing and let's look historically. So

8:52

what we see the sharpest increases are

8:54

for the preteen girls in 2012,

8:56

their rates double and

8:58

triple for self harmony triple. So did

9:01

something happen in 2012 that the young

9:03

girls were really clued into? Is

9:06

that when they got active about climate change?

9:08

Now Greta Thunberg, I think was about 2018

9:11

when she addressed the UN. Now

9:13

Greta was, you know, that would make sense. Greta

9:15

was incredibly inspiring, especially to young, to

9:18

girls and young women. So

9:20

if this whole thing, it was like, no

9:22

change, no change, no change. And then suddenly

9:24

Greta Thunberg, and then, you know, then

9:27

I would say, yeah, actually, maybe it was Greta. But

9:29

that's not what happened. What happened

9:31

was things, mental health was fine

9:34

during the Bush administration in the United States, George

9:37

W. Bush. And then it was fine during

9:39

Obama's first term, which means it was

9:41

fine during the global financial crisis,

9:44

because financial crises don't affect teenagers very much.

9:46

You don't see a national drop among

9:49

12 year old girls

9:51

and boys just because the economy is bad.

9:54

And then all of a sudden, in Obama's second

9:56

term, when, you know,

9:58

our first African American president is reelected, gay

10:02

marriages declared law of

10:04

the land a year or two later. This

10:08

was a progressive utopia, really, the early

10:10

2010s, and that's when girls, and

10:13

especially progressive girls, suddenly get so upset

10:15

about the state of the world. Because

10:17

I should point out that there are

10:19

three big demographic differences. The biggest one

10:21

is gender. So girls go up much

10:23

... well, not always. Girls

10:25

go up more than boys in absolute

10:28

terms, always, except for

10:30

suicide. Boys go up more. Boys

10:32

have high rates of suicide. But on

10:34

anxiety, depression, self-harm, girls start higher, and

10:36

then they go way, way up. So gender

10:38

is the biggest one. After

10:40

that comes politics and religion. So

10:43

it's girls on the left, especially, and

10:45

it's also kids in secular households. These

10:48

are the kids who had a lot of freedom.

10:50

They were not firmly anchored in binding communities. If

10:52

you're a religious conservative, your life is full of restrictions.

10:54

You have to go to church. You have to see

10:57

your grandmother. You have to say your prayers. You have

10:59

to do the dishes. I mean, religious

11:01

conservatives, they really hem their kids

11:04

in with obligations. Now,

11:06

according to many sociologists, or my favorite one,

11:08

Emile Durkheim, this is actually a good thing.

11:10

Like, many of us wouldn't choose it, but

11:12

it ends up actually being conducive to happiness.

11:15

And so what I think happened is

11:17

it's the kids who were least bound

11:19

in, which is especially secular

11:21

liberals, they're the ones who suddenly got

11:23

washed away in 2012, whereas the religious conservative

11:27

kids, their feet were firmly planted in real

11:29

communities. They didn't get washed away. They're worth

11:31

off, but it's only a little. So

11:33

again, the activism, the world is terrible,

11:35

and we didn't know it until 2013, but suddenly we

11:39

discovered that the world is terrible. Like, no,

11:41

that just doesn't fit. In all these

11:43

countries. Yeah. One thing I've wondered

11:45

is social media could be responsible in

11:47

a different way here, which is

11:50

social media is sort of like a

11:52

fire hose of bad news aimed directly

11:54

at our brains. And so that the

11:56

horrors of the world Become

11:58

more visible to kids. Through social

12:00

media probably an outsized ways that are not

12:03

you know they they might not actually match

12:05

the reality of the horrors but it like

12:07

already a like all news you're only going

12:09

to get the bad news in the worse

12:12

headlines. I was wondering if that had an

12:14

effect but yes but I would I would

12:16

for push the bit differently. So as a

12:18

social psychologists my job is to take whatever

12:21

you say and make it more social. Year

12:24

because he not. There's a

12:26

saying. And Social Psychology Cognitive

12:28

Psychology is Social Psychology. With

12:30

all of the interesting variables set to

12:33

zero so you propose a cognitive psychology

12:35

explanation may be a said social media

12:37

is bringing bad news and people are

12:39

thinking wow, the world is in bad

12:41

shape as very plausible but you know

12:43

it's much more influential especially on teenagers.

12:46

It's not. That there's a

12:48

war in Ukraine or somewhere

12:50

else is that. Sasser

12:53

the people in my seat or freaking out. Kids

12:56

are very subject to see emotional contagion especially

12:58

girls. girls are more open to social influences,

13:00

they feel other's emotions more or and so

13:02

this is one explanation for why said the

13:04

curves like everybody sort of flat and then

13:06

everybody goes up in their early twenties. His

13:09

girls is super sharp girls it really is

13:11

like a hockey sticks. The boys curves are

13:13

more gradual. It's not like you know is

13:15

they begin going up and two thousand nine

13:17

two thousand ten the the he put up.

13:20

but I'm so I think I think suddenly

13:22

especially when you look at middle school kids.

13:24

Middle school kids are not supposed. To be

13:26

worrying about the war in Ukraine or

13:28

inflation or anything else. They're supposed to

13:30

be playing that by the time your

13:32

senior in high school. Okay, you're reading

13:34

the newspaper. Maybe you're getting politically active,

13:37

but it's completely inappropriate for ten eleven,

13:39

twelve year old to have like thought

13:41

you know enough flog rise made in

13:43

Iraq or know exactly been reported to

13:45

Down a Goose's are you know about

13:47

throw it in stomach former Florida as

13:49

not pretty so that's what we're doomed.

13:51

Or middle school kids, they're suddenly immersed

13:53

and then there's posted. Go to these

13:55

protests. You know my my daughter's middle school they cancelled

13:57

school to go to a gun control. You know, gunfire?

14:00

I mean really middle school, please

14:02

just lay off the middle school kids.

14:04

Let them start puberty in a

14:06

normal healthy way Yeah, do

14:08

you got any more please? I love

14:10

well for people who haven't read the

14:12

book Could you explain a little bit

14:14

about why you think it rose so

14:16

sharply for girls and explain

14:18

the gender difference actually? Sure. Okay. So so

14:21

the basic story of the book is a

14:23

tragedy in in two acts Although there's a

14:25

third we can talk about which is community

14:28

In act one we take away the play based

14:30

childhood kids always used to

14:32

be out playing and Even

14:35

during the crime wave when I was growing up So

14:38

we take away begin in the 90s. We stopped letting kids

14:40

out. We're very afraid. They'll be kidnapped or hit by

14:42

a car So so

14:44

we block them from the kinds of

14:46

experiences that they need to be to

14:49

overcome their anxieties To

14:51

become more confident and capable. So that's that's act

14:53

one from like 1990 to 2010 But

14:58

in 2010 kids are still using their phones.

15:00

They have flip phones They're still using their

15:02

phones to communicate with other kids. They text

15:05

them. They call them they meet up to

15:07

you know, they meet up after school and

15:09

then everything changes act two of the tragedy

15:11

is this the in rushing of the phone

15:14

based childhood and That

15:16

means that kids go from having a flip phone

15:18

that they use to like painfully text each other

15:21

We know it's very hard to text on a

15:23

flip phone to suddenly having everyone's got an

15:26

iPhone with a front-facing camera They've got

15:28

Instagram. They've got high-speed internet at that

15:30

point. Everybody's on their phone now the

15:32

girls Choose so everyone's on

15:34

their phones, but they choose different things the girls

15:37

Actually think about it this way if you want

15:39

to trap an animal What you have to do

15:42

is find bait that the animal likes and

15:44

then the animals attract it And then you have to

15:46

find a way that once the animal takes the bait

15:48

they can't escape So if you

15:51

want to trap girls what you do is you say?

15:54

Hey, do you want to find out what everyone's

15:56

saying about everyone and

15:58

for girls? That's really? Appealing

16:00

especially do you want to find out what everyone's saying

16:02

about you? Now

16:04

that's more interesting to girls than it is to boys for

16:07

boys If you want to trap a boy you say hey

16:10

Do you want to look at pictures of naked women

16:12

or men whatever you're attracted to do you want to

16:14

look at high quality image? You know images of people

16:16

having sex. That's a lot more interesting to

16:18

boys than to girls or you say to boys

16:21

Hey, do you want to join teams and

16:23

fight war? You won't get physically hurt, but

16:25

really graphic amazing graphics It's very exciting. Yeah,

16:28

that sounds pretty good. Sign me up for

16:30

that three or four hours a day So

16:33

girls and boys go into they get very very deeply

16:35

immersed in different kinds of

16:37

activities all of which have quick dopamine

16:39

loops all of which are Very

16:42

rewarding on a variable ratio schedule, so

16:44

they're very addictive both ways But

16:47

the boys are actually having fun now over

16:49

time I think they're really harming themselves if

16:51

you if you keep giving yourself quick dopamine

16:53

for five or ten years every day You're

16:56

gonna change the reinforcement systems in your brain and

16:58

possibly permanently so the boys actually are getting quite

17:00

damaged I believe but if you look at kids

17:02

who are 14 the boys are actually having some

17:04

fun now. They're lonely as hell But

17:07

they are having fun when they're playing video games now

17:10

the girls on the other hand They're not

17:12

having fun when yours just swiping

17:14

on social media. You're looking at other photos

17:16

of beautiful girls, and they're perfect lives That's

17:19

not fun You're commenting on

17:21

what people said that's not fun. This is more

17:23

work So so this is

17:25

why I think we see there are both boys

17:27

and girls are addicted They

17:30

spend massive amounts of time about

17:32

five hours a day just on social media This

17:36

pushes out everything else, so they're not reading books. They're

17:38

not having hobbies. They're not seeing their friends This is

17:40

happening to both sexes But the

17:42

the video games and porn aren't they don't seem

17:44

as destructive to the boys at the age of

17:46

14 now if we look at These kids when

17:48

they're 30 and 40 I

17:50

think what we're going to find is that

17:52

the girls are somewhat functional They'll be more

17:54

anxious than average, but they'll have jobs, and

17:56

they finish college There's a lot of the

17:59

boys are going to still be dependent. They're

18:01

not gonna have developed skills to hold a job

18:03

or court a woman for the

18:05

heterosexual boys. So that's what I think is

18:07

the nature of the sex difference. The girls

18:09

went especially for Instagram, Pinterest, and Tumblr. Those

18:11

were three of the biggest platforms early on,

18:13

which the boys went much more for video

18:15

games than YouTube and that's why I think

18:18

one of the reasons they have very different

18:20

outcomes. Yeah, I mean it seems

18:22

for girls that there are

18:24

just like larger societal pressures that

18:26

have existed for decades, right, where

18:29

they're going to naturally feel the

18:32

pressure to compare

18:35

and look at other, and you know

18:37

there's sort of these unfair beauty standards

18:39

that girls feel pressure to

18:41

conform to that boys maybe do not

18:44

as much. That's right, absolutely. It's

18:46

always been clear to me that middle school is

18:48

harder for girls. I mean I hated middle school,

18:50

but it's harder for growth than it is for

18:52

boys, on average, harder for growth than boys. And

18:54

then social media says let's take the 10 worst parts

18:56

about middle school for a girl and let's crank them

18:59

up to 10. Let's just make it all a lot

19:01

worse. As

19:07

a chef and a restaurant owner, I'm as

19:09

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19:11

my ingredients. That's why I love made-in cookware.

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19:56

Center for Deakin, the UPS board. Be

19:59

Unstoppable. A

20:05

lot of debate out there on what to

20:07

put on your Johnsonville broad. No sauerkraut. No

20:09

sauerkraut. Peppers and onions, but no peppers and

20:11

onions. Or maybe peppers, but no onions. But

20:14

what kind of peppers? And then the mustard. What are

20:16

we doing brown? Spicy or are you going to go amateur hour? And

20:19

then catch up to its own situation. Which, by the

20:21

way, is absolute heresy. And here

20:23

is the beautiful truth. Johnsonville don't care.

20:25

If people are debating relish, bun, or no bun,

20:27

at least we're all talking and sharing again. And

20:29

yeah, the catch up is a personal choice. Keep

20:32

it juicy. The

20:39

thing that really drove home the problems for

20:41

me is sort of, you write about the

20:43

differences between relationships in the real world and

20:46

relationships in the virtual world. Can you talk

20:48

about the difference? Yeah, so

20:50

there's a huge difference between connecting and

20:52

performing. So Richard Reeves has this

20:54

great book called Of Boys and Men. He

20:56

points out, girls tend to interact face to face.

20:59

Boys tend to interact shoulder to shoulder. They like to

21:01

do things together. And that's even true for men. You

21:03

know, when I get together with my buddies, we're more

21:05

likely, we do talk. But we're more like, we want

21:08

to do something together. So when

21:10

technology helps us to

21:13

connect in the way that we want, the gender-specific

21:16

ways, when it helps boys to do things together,

21:18

when it helps girls to talk,

21:20

so of course girls would use the telephone

21:22

to talk for hours and hours. And

21:25

so is that bad? No, I

21:27

would say talking on the telephone with one person

21:29

is good. So that's connecting.

21:32

But what if it wasn't a one-way call? What if it was a

21:34

30-way call? What if

21:36

there's 30 people on the phone? Now, there's a

21:39

lot of performance. And

21:42

if you say something that other people

21:44

dislike or criticize, they might laugh at you and then they

21:46

build on that, and then they talk

21:48

about how stupid you are. Like, so it's high

21:51

stakes. And you get

21:53

30 people on a phone call, which you never did. But

21:56

if you had 30 people on a phone call, it would

21:58

be a high stakes. It's not really connecting. But

22:00

a lot of kids have these giant

22:02

group chats, and they're always chiming in,

22:04

and they're getting hundreds of notifications a

22:06

day. That's not connecting them. That

22:10

is performance. This

22:12

I think is one of the big reasons why as soon

22:15

as the boys move on to video games

22:17

and porn, even though they're

22:19

connecting on the video games, their level of

22:21

loneliness goes up. When the

22:24

girls move on to Instagram, even

22:26

though they're interacting, their level of

22:28

loneliness goes up. The more you

22:30

have virtual world interactions,

22:32

virtual interactions, many

22:35

of them are not intrinsically bad, some are. But

22:38

when you're having five or 10 hours a

22:40

day of virtual interactions, and you have to

22:42

sleep, and you have to go to school,

22:44

there really isn't any time to see your friends. And

22:47

that's what we see. It's so sad. I have grabs

22:49

in the book about time with friends. Before

22:51

2012, kids used to spend a lot

22:53

of time with their friends. Now they don't. They don't see them

22:55

very much. There's just no time in the day. Yeah,

22:58

and you talked about it in terms of

23:01

communities and how, I think you

23:03

said that virtual communities have sort

23:05

of a low bar for entry, and

23:08

that offline communities have a higher bar for entry.

23:10

Can you talk a little bit about the difference

23:12

there? Because I think that's pretty cool. Yeah,

23:15

childhood needs to be full of hard things. I

23:18

mean, I'd ask any parent here, if

23:20

you could remove all the obstacles from your child's

23:22

life, would you do so? Of course

23:24

not. You know, your kid needs to learn to

23:26

struggle. They need to learn to climb high walls.

23:29

They need to learn to overcome failure. And

23:31

so same thing in social life. If

23:34

you could set it, that whenever your kid made a

23:36

mistake or people were laughing at him, your kid could

23:39

just press a button and a jack. Like, that's it,

23:41

I'm done with them. Maybe go on to another community.

23:44

That would be a terrible way to raise a kid. What

23:48

has always happened for millions of years, certainly since

23:50

we've had language in the last million years, we've

23:53

always lived in relatively small

23:55

groups, a few dozen typically. And

23:57

fitting in with that community is

23:59

life. for death. You have to learn how to

24:01

fit in. And it can be painful. And

24:04

some kids are excluded. But

24:08

this is the gym,

24:10

the social, the gym where you work out how

24:12

to do this. You learn these skills. Whereas,

24:16

when everything moves into virtual communities, you know, a

24:18

huge number of apps and new apps every year,

24:20

you know, you can try out different communities. And

24:22

if you make a mistake, if you don't like

24:24

it, you don't have to fix yourself. You don't

24:27

have to make up with the people. You just

24:29

quit. And so when

24:31

everything becomes cheap, disposable and easy,

24:34

children don't have a chance to grow up. Kids

24:36

need to do hard things when they

24:38

have a phone. So let's just take awkward

24:41

silences. You know, as

24:43

soon as you get in an elevator, all the

24:45

phones come out, it's awkward to stand there for 30

24:47

seconds. My students at NYU

24:49

tell me that sometimes when they're at the lunch table,

24:51

they're sitting at lunch and

24:54

talking. But there's a moment of, you

24:56

know, there's a lull. Someone pulls out their phone because

24:59

most of them are addicted. They have to see what's

25:01

been coming in. And once one person pulls out their

25:03

phone, the others pull out their phones. So

25:05

I think what we're seeing is

25:08

our kids are so lonely. And what

25:10

they really need is each other. But as

25:12

long as they all have phones, they don't

25:14

get each other. Yeah, when you say

25:17

that, I think two things. One, which is we're

25:20

all like that now, right? Not just kids. And

25:24

two, have you seen any

25:26

evidence that sort of the

25:28

transients of these virtual world

25:30

relationships are actually affecting real

25:33

world relationships? The behaviors

25:35

that are encouraged and rewarded in these virtual

25:37

world relationships start spilling over now and this

25:39

is how people are with each other. Yes.

25:43

Now here, I don't know of any scientific

25:45

studies. This is a subtle question about behavior.

25:49

But so I teach in a business school, I speak with a

25:51

lot of people in the corporate world. And

25:53

they, you know, they almost uniformly see

25:56

real difficulties in incorporating their Gen Z

25:58

employees. It's just much harder. harder. And

26:00

again, there's no blame here. This generation,

26:03

we stuck them on social media

26:05

and smartphones at the beginning of puberty.

26:09

They went through COVID. My kids lost their first

26:13

year of middle school and high school to COVID. A

26:16

lot of kids lost their first years on

26:18

the job market. So there's

26:20

no blame here. But

26:23

what employers are noticing is

26:26

that members of

26:28

Gen Z are much more passive. If

26:31

something goes wrong, they don't take the initiative

26:33

to solve it. They might ask, what should

26:36

I do? But they just seem to

26:38

have less of a sort of internal locus of

26:40

control, a less of a sense of like, I can make

26:42

things happen. They

26:44

expect more accommodation. So in the work

26:47

world, if there's a deadline, if we

26:49

have a client who's expecting this report

26:51

on Monday morning, a lot of us are

26:53

going to be working over the weekend. I mean, that's just the way it's going

26:55

to be. But a lot

26:57

of Gen Z is like, I'm sorry, you know,

26:59

I have anxiety. And so I'm not going to

27:01

like they just expect accommodation because that's what we've

27:03

given them from the time they were little. And

27:07

another is the ghosting. It's

27:09

awkward to say you won't do something. It's awkward

27:12

to break up with someone. It's,

27:14

you know, it's so the idea that you

27:16

shouldn't have to experience anything uncomfortable. So if

27:18

someone's expecting something from you, and you don't

27:20

want to do it, just don't show up.

27:22

Just don't do it. So

27:24

I hear a lot about that. So again,

27:27

this is just these are more just from anecdotes

27:29

that I hear. Yeah, stands to

27:31

reason that if you didn't have a

27:33

normal childhood full of face to face

27:35

with millions of face to face interactions,

27:37

some of which were awkward, if

27:39

you take out, let's say 70% of

27:41

those, and you swap in these weird virtual

27:43

stuff, stands to reason that if you're a

27:46

24 year old, you're not going to be

27:48

behaving in the expected way in the

27:51

office. Yeah. And I was just

27:53

thinking about like, even just in my own life since

27:55

since doing this show. And you know, I was thinking

27:57

about it again, reading your book is like you're, you're

27:59

just around and a bunch of friends and if

28:01

you're all on your phone, or

28:03

if there is this moment of silence, you don't,

28:06

sometimes you just grab the phone and look at the phone

28:08

instead of just thinking of like, oh, what's the next thing

28:11

I'm gonna say? What's the next topic of conversation I'm gonna

28:13

have? And that's sort of all

28:15

generations really. That's right. So

28:17

people do talk about them having

28:19

poor conversational skills. And

28:22

for the boys especially, difficulty making eye

28:24

contact. I'd love to

28:26

see data on this, but I hear this a lot. In

28:29

fact, I'll just share a funny story. So

28:32

when The Calling of the American Mind came out in 2018, I

28:35

was on Billmore. And the first

28:37

guest was Stormy Daniels. And

28:39

so she went out, she had a book out and

28:41

Bill interviews her and then I come out and I

28:43

talk about what's happening to kids. And

28:45

afterwards, there's like a little party for

28:47

everybody who's involved, all the production crew

28:49

and the guests. So I'm talking with

28:51

her and she says, oh,

28:53

you know, I saw your segment and

28:55

wow, yeah, I really, I really seen

28:57

that, that Gen Z is just really

28:59

different. And she said, I've

29:02

worked with men of all ages, ever

29:04

since I was 17, she's been in strip clubs and dancing.

29:09

She said she's always worked with men of all ages and she

29:11

likes to flirt with them and talk with them. And

29:14

she's noticed in the last few years, the

29:16

young men can't look her in the eye.

29:18

So again, it's just an anecdote, but I'm

29:20

hearing this a lot about eye contact. Boys

29:22

have trouble making eye contact. So

29:25

you recommend four major reforms,

29:28

no smartphones before high school, no social

29:30

media before 16, phone-free schools

29:33

and more unsupervised play. Can you

29:35

talk about some of the obstacles

29:37

to getting these done and what

29:39

seemed to be some of the

29:41

more common sources of resistance? Sure,

29:44

so let's take the easiest one, the one that we

29:46

can do this year, the one that is happening this

29:48

year, which is phone-free schools. It

29:50

is terrible to have the greatest distraction

29:52

device ever made in your pocket. And

29:55

that's what we've allowed kids to do. If you

29:57

can imagine a teacher trying to teach a

29:59

class. where every kid has on

30:01

their desk, you know, a

30:03

TV set and a guitar and

30:06

a walkie-talkie and a phonograph,

30:08

you know, from back in the old days. Like

30:11

that's absurd, like why would we do that? But

30:13

that's what we do. Having phones

30:15

in school is completely insane. And

30:17

so most schools have a rule. You can't take

30:19

out your phone during class. You have to wait

30:21

until class is over, which does two

30:23

things. One, all the kids,

30:25

especially in the back row, they're just you hide it behind

30:27

a book and you're on your phone. I mean, you have

30:30

to be on your phone because everyone else's. If people are

30:32

texting, you have to check. Otherwise, you're left out. Some

30:35

teachers have told me kids go to the bathroom

30:37

a lot more often nowadays than they used to

30:39

because they have to they have to see their

30:41

phone. They can't go 40 minutes without checking it.

30:43

So anyway, phones in schools are complete, complete insanity.

30:46

This one is easy. This one is

30:48

happening. It's happened. If you're listening to

30:50

this conversation, and you have kids and

30:52

your kids go to a school where

30:54

they allow the kids to use their

30:56

phones between classes or lunch, please

30:59

talk to the principal and beg them

31:01

say please, I want my child to

31:03

listen to the teacher during class and to

31:05

talk with other kids between classes. But

31:08

if they have phones, they're not doing either of those. So

31:11

so phone free schools is easy. It's not

31:14

controversial. It's just there's some implementation questions. But

31:16

there's really no counter argument. I've not yet

31:18

seen a counter argument to taking the phones

31:20

in the morning and giving them back in

31:22

the evening. I guess it's I guess it's

31:25

you hear some parents say, well, I need to be

31:27

able to contact my kids, right? Like I

31:29

need to be able to if it but which which

31:31

is a very like recent

31:34

thing because I remember like, you know, when I was in

31:36

school, if your parents really needed you that someone would come

31:38

into the class and say, hey, your parents, that's right. If

31:41

it's an emergency, if it's an emergency, you can

31:43

still reach your kid. But if

31:45

every parent is texting their children multiple times during

31:47

the day to check up on things and oh,

31:50

I'm scheduling your dentist appointment. Are you free then?

31:52

Then? Or, oh, can you do this on your

31:54

way home? Like, you know, this

31:56

is during class. Like this never could have

31:58

been done until you know, 20. or

32:00

something and now it's routine. So

32:02

we have to stop, we have to stop it. So

32:04

phone free schools there's really no debate. I mean that's

32:06

just a no-brainer. The

32:09

first two are the ones where

32:11

there's not a lot of opposition

32:13

but there is some debate. So the first

32:15

rule is no smartphone till high school. Just give them

32:17

a flip phone or a phone watch. And

32:20

the second rule is no social media till 16. And

32:22

a lot

32:25

of the pushback is people think

32:28

no smartphone till high school. How will I get

32:30

in touch with my child? With

32:32

a flip phone or a brick phone or a

32:34

phone watch. That works fine. Do

32:36

you need your child to have complete

32:38

access to everything on the internet 24

32:40

hours a day? How about they just

32:42

can get it on their computer at

32:44

home? Do you need

32:47

everyone in the world to be able to reach your

32:49

child to try to sextort them, flirt with them, get

32:51

them to send photos of themselves? Like no you don't

32:53

need that. No child needs that. So

32:55

I'm not saying you

32:57

can't communicate with your child. You can text them. And

33:00

I'm not saying keep them off the internet. They can

33:02

go on the internet but it should be ideally on

33:04

a desktop computer. Especially if you're like, we're talking like

33:06

eight, nine, ten year old kids. Have

33:09

a desktop computer in your kitchen, in your

33:11

living room, family room. Have a computer that

33:13

the kids can use. If it's out

33:15

in a public place they're much less likely to get

33:17

into porn, to start talking with strange men.

33:19

It's just a lot of the bad stuff

33:21

happens when they have the phone in private

33:23

at night. So put that, you know, delay

33:25

that as long as you can. So

33:28

and then social media, no social media until 16. Social

33:32

media is so completely inappropriate for children.

33:35

We have a general consensus in

33:37

our society that we do pass

33:39

laws to restrict kids

33:42

with regard to sex, like

33:44

explicit hardcore sex, violence,

33:47

like really graphic violence, and

33:51

addiction. We think that a nine year

33:53

old can't be, you know, we don't let

33:55

nine year olds into casinos to gamble. They'll

33:57

be too easily taken advantage of. your

34:00

kid goes on social media and smartphones

34:02

in general. So you've got

34:04

huge amounts of really graphic sex, including

34:06

a lot of violent sex and choking

34:08

and things like that. And you

34:10

have a huge amount of violence. Depends

34:13

on whatever you click on on TikTok

34:15

or Instagram Reels. But

34:18

a lot of the boys end up

34:21

seeing car crashes, people getting punched in

34:23

the face, people falling to their death.

34:25

I mean, they end up seeing horrible

34:27

stuff. Drug

34:30

gangs, dismembering live people.

34:32

I mean, horrible things. And

34:36

there was addiction. Because

34:38

social media is addictive to about 10% of

34:41

kids have what's called problematic use,

34:43

which is essentially addiction. And

34:46

because especially for the boys, we then hook them

34:48

on gambling. Now that sometimes has to wait till

34:50

they're 18, but there's some gambling, there's some stuff

34:52

that they're able to get the kids on earlier.

34:55

My point is, we've worked for

34:57

100 years to make the real

34:59

world a place where we

35:01

can live with young people and young people

35:04

can walk around and we can buy liquor.

35:06

They can't. And we can buy cigarettes and

35:08

they can't. And we can go to strip

35:10

clubs and casinos and they can't. That's

35:13

the real world. And all of a sudden we develop

35:15

this virtual world. We say, how about

35:17

no restrictions? You know, it'll be too hard. Like,

35:19

are we going to ask everyone to identify themselves?

35:21

Are we going to ask everyone to show ID?

35:24

We can't do that. So how about no restrictions?

35:26

How about every child can have as much hardcore

35:28

porn as they want? That's what we've decided as

35:30

a kid. Yeah. I

35:33

mean, what, I'm sure you've seen this,

35:35

the National Academy of Sciences report that

35:37

found social media encourages a lot of

35:39

these harmful behaviors. They also found that,

35:42

you know, for some

35:44

kids in marginalized communities, especially

35:46

LGBTQ kids, you know,

35:48

the internet and social media especially can

35:50

be like a lifeline that, you

35:52

know, connects them to communities of

35:55

people like them that depending

35:57

on where they live, they may not come in

35:59

contact with. offline so one thing you

36:01

know i hear from people who are resistant to

36:03

this is like look obviously there's a lot of

36:05

trouble kids can get into but for some kids

36:08

who do feel excluded in real life this is

36:10

the way that they connect with other people this

36:12

is the way that they find these communities in

36:14

those communities are important to them. Yes

36:17

so that that makes it makes

36:19

some sense on its face

36:22

but there's a couple of problems with that. The

36:25

first is that it confuses social

36:27

media with the internet so

36:30

when the internet that came out in the

36:33

nineties was amazing and

36:35

suddenly you know lgbtq kids they

36:37

could find discussion groups that could

36:39

find other kids so the internet

36:42

largely solve that problem in the

36:44

nineties. I'm also information you

36:46

could find you couldn't find anything about

36:49

your interest you could find anything about

36:51

your group so the internet solve that

36:53

problem the nineteen nineties. Now

36:55

then in the twenty ten in the two thousands we

36:57

get facebook which originally was just

36:59

about connecting people but then once

37:01

it becomes more about the news feed curated by

37:03

algorithms so this is what really happened in the

37:05

twenty tens. So do lgbtq

37:08

people need a news

37:10

feed curated by algorithms that

37:13

are pushing them to interact with strangers all

37:15

over the world and feeding them content is

37:17

this good for them that were bad for

37:19

them. Yes the internet is

37:21

great i fully support

37:23

the benefits of the internet for

37:25

kids from especially sexual minorities

37:28

there so that's great

37:30

but they don't need instagram

37:32

or more tiktok or anything

37:34

like that. Second common sense

37:36

media they do a lot of surveys of families

37:38

and kids they found that

37:41

lgbtq adolescents were more likely

37:43

to their non lgbtq peers.

37:45

To believe that their lives will be

37:47

better without each platform that they use

37:50

and that lgbtq girls were more

37:53

than twice as likely as non

37:55

lgbtq girls to encounter harmful content

37:57

related to suicide and eating disorders.

38:00

So, you know, yes, that

38:02

argument makes sense on its face. And I know

38:04

it's one that Metta keeps pushing. Metta keeps trying

38:06

to say, oh, we can't regulate because that'll be

38:08

bad for LGBTQ kids. But it's just not true.

38:11

Metta does more harm to LGBTQ kids than to others.

38:13

And if you look at it this way, something's

38:16

really weird here. There

38:20

has never been a decade in

38:22

which LGBTQ was destigmatized

38:24

faster than the one we just went through.

38:27

You know, in 2010, you know, there

38:29

was still a big stigma and

38:31

Obama was opposed to gay marriage.

38:34

I mean, it was a different world in 2010. If

38:37

this was primarily a question about stigma,

38:39

then we would expect that this should

38:41

be the decade when LGBTQ kids got

38:43

the healthiest. We would expect them

38:46

to be happier. But they're the

38:48

least happy. So whatever this

38:50

world is, it's really, really harsh on

38:52

LGBTQ kids, more so than non-LGBT kids.

38:54

So I just I don't buy it.

38:56

That's my point. I don't buy this

38:58

idea that, oh, Instagram is so good

39:00

for LGBTQ kids. No, I mean, point

39:02

taken that if you're looking for

39:04

communities of like minded people, you can find them

39:06

without social media and you could in the 90s,

39:08

in the early 2000s as well. And

39:11

you can if you need mental health help, if you

39:13

need to research that you can do that as well

39:16

on the Internet. You said something else that was interesting,

39:18

though, that when that

39:20

in that survey from Common

39:22

Sense Media that LGBTQ kids said

39:25

they could do without these platforms, right? They'd be happy without

39:28

this. And I also saw these studies. I think you said

39:30

it in the past as well that like, even

39:32

if kids resist phone

39:35

free schools at first or resist getting off

39:37

social media, the kids where there are the

39:40

schools that have banned the phones, the kids

39:42

are happier afterwards. Within two or three

39:44

weeks. And we've seen these studies where kids

39:46

like, would you give up social media if

39:48

everyone else was still on it? No. Everyone

39:52

could give up social media and everyone could give up the

39:54

platforms. Would you do it? And then people want to do

39:56

it. So it really is the sort of fear of missing

39:58

out that's driving a lot of this as well. That's

40:00

right. That's the key to the whole

40:02

thing is to recognize that this is

40:04

a collective action problem and social media

40:07

is socially addictive So cigarettes

40:09

are biologically addictive and when I was

40:11

in high school You

40:13

know, there were some kids who smoked and you could buy

40:15

cigarettes from a vending machine back then in

40:18

the peak year of smoking was 1997 and

40:23

37% of American high school students smoked which

40:25

means that two-thirds didn't but social

40:27

media is much much more addictive Because

40:29

you can't have a school where only 37% of the kids are

40:31

on social media It's

40:34

it's gonna be either zero or 95 so or

40:36

you know, whatever but So

40:39

social media puts a lot of pressure on

40:41

other kids to join where smoking cigarettes didn't

40:43

do that So once you

40:45

understand that this is a trap Then

40:48

what we see is something very interesting the

40:50

young kids like 10 year olds They're

40:52

desperate to get a phone An

40:54

Instagram account tick-tock because that's what the older kids are

40:57

doing. They're desperate for it But I was

40:59

talking with a German a German interviewer

41:01

for a German newspaper and she said

41:03

she said some German TV Program

41:05

had done they did interviews with the kid, you know,

41:07

the 10 year olds and they were all I want

41:10

tick-tock I want Instagram. I wanna smart and I want

41:12

everything and then they Interviewed

41:14

either 18 year olds or 20 year olds and

41:17

they were all like wow, this really

41:19

messed us up I wish

41:21

we didn't have this so again what

41:23

we see is that is that Gen

41:26

Z themselves? Do not defend this

41:28

Gen Z is not saying don't take our phones.

41:30

We love our phones. They're saying we're trapped We're

41:32

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unstoppable. So,

43:20

first time I wanted to have you on was in April of 2022,

43:22

after you wrote a piece in the

43:24

Atlantic called, Why the Past 10 Years of American

43:27

Life Have Been Uniquely Stupid. And

43:29

you basically lay a lot of

43:31

the blame for political polarization and institutional

43:33

distrust on the rise of social media,

43:35

which really is the initial reason I

43:37

became interested in doing this podcast. I've

43:40

learned a lot about what being too online

43:43

is doing to our mental health. I've also

43:45

been worried though for a long time that

43:47

the behavior social media encourages and the way

43:49

it shapes our thinking about the world is

43:52

antithetical to what liberal democracy requires of us.

43:55

What have you discovered on that topic? research

44:00

has always been on moral psychology. I used

44:02

to look at how morality varies by culture. And

44:05

then in the late 90s early 2000s as

44:07

the culture was heating up I began looking

44:09

at liberal conservative as though they were different

44:12

cultures with different moralities. So I've been studying

44:14

this since the 90s and I

44:17

began to get very alarmed about political

44:19

polarization. And this is before social media.

44:21

This is just there so and

44:24

I was writing essays there's like 10 reasons

44:26

we're getting more polarized. You know the loss

44:28

of the greatest generation, the Cold War ending,

44:30

more education because more

44:32

educated people do more culture war stuff. Working

44:35

class people don't care as much about culture

44:37

war stuff. They want bread and butter

44:39

issues. So I don't want to

44:41

say that our polarization is just because of

44:43

social media. I can't even say that that's

44:45

the primary cause. But I think it is

44:47

a huge amplifier because what happens

44:50

is, so I have two Atlantic articles. The

44:52

one that you read is the one really

44:54

trying to lay out the whole story. But

44:56

my first one was my first pass at

44:58

this was in

45:00

2019 I was trying to say why

45:03

why did everything go crazy around 2014-2015.

45:05

It really felt like there was a

45:07

change in the fabric of the universe.

45:10

And we saw this on campus. You

45:12

know in 2013 things were normal and college students were

45:14

what you think of college students. And by 2015 they

45:17

were protesting against microaggressions and

45:19

asking for safe spaces. Again this

45:21

wasn't the majority of them but it was happening all over the

45:23

country especially especially at elite schools.

45:26

So something weird happened on college campuses and

45:28

then it turned out it wasn't just college

45:31

campuses. It was

45:33

spread much more widely in our society and

45:35

it just seemed like everything is now explosive.

45:37

If anyone says anything it can get blown

45:40

up into a whole big thing and they

45:42

can be fired within 24 hours. Like really?

45:44

This is the world we live in. We all have to walk on

45:46

eggshells. So I

45:48

think social media really changed the basic

45:51

fabric of everything. Now if

45:53

you go back to Federalist 10 and I think

45:55

I quote Madison

45:57

in Federalist 10 he talked

45:59

It talks about

46:02

how we are so prone to vex

46:04

and oppress each other that if no

46:06

substantive cause for disagreement can be found,

46:08

the most trivial little thing can become

46:10

a reason for outreach, something like that.

46:12

So the founding fathers were very aware

46:14

that people are argumentative and they easily

46:16

get in fights and they usually get

46:18

upset. And so the idea was, how

46:20

do we create a system that kind

46:22

of slows things down? How do we

46:24

have legislators, because remember, we

46:27

do not have a democracy. They

46:29

did not want direct democracy because

46:31

the people are passionate, the people are

46:33

prone to demagogues. They

46:35

wanted a system where the legislators

46:37

have sufficient independence to do what

46:39

they think is best, but

46:41

it's crucial that the people can kick them out

46:43

if they're not happy. That's the key. What

46:46

happens now? Most of

46:48

our congresspeople are on Twitter. There

46:52

was a famous scene where Ted

46:54

Cruz gave this big speech in

46:56

the Senate and then he sits

46:58

down and he pulls out his

47:00

phone and one of the journalists behind him takes a

47:02

photograph. He's checking what people are

47:05

saying on Twitter. This is

47:07

exactly the opposite of what the founding fathers

47:09

wanted. And this is one reason why Congress

47:11

is breaking down, our Congress is dysfunctional. Now,

47:13

there are many reasons for that, but if

47:15

it was an ailing institution in the 90s

47:17

and early 2000s, this is just like a

47:20

metaphor that I use is, suppose we suddenly

47:22

change the

47:27

Earth's atmosphere from 20% oxygen to 80%

47:30

oxygen. It's like,

47:32

oh, wouldn't that be great? Like you'd get so

47:34

much oxygen so easily we'd all feel good. No,

47:36

everything would burn. Any little spark,

47:39

every electrical thing would explode. 80%

47:42

oxygen, everything is combustible. And similarly, what

47:44

if we give everyone an outrage button

47:46

where they could, the slightest thing, oh,

47:48

something bothers you about what you saw

47:50

on the street, tweet it. Somebody

47:53

did something obnoxious, take a photo, put it up, let

47:55

people dox them. This

47:57

is what social media has done to us.

47:59

It's hypervirus. social media. Original Facebook wasn't like

48:02

this in 2004, but once

48:04

you get the newsfeed and algorithms

48:06

and outrage cycles, you

48:08

know, it's an open question whether liberal

48:10

democracy in the American form, it's an

48:12

open question whether we

48:14

can survive, whether our current institutions

48:17

and structures compatible with an 80%

48:20

oxygen world. Yeah, and not just here, but

48:22

you're seeing the stress on liberal democracies all

48:24

over the world. I also think to your

48:26

earlier point when we're talking about virtual relationships

48:29

versus sort of offline relationships,

48:32

there is something about virtual

48:34

relationships and if the more time we spend

48:36

online, the more difficult it is to disagree

48:39

in a way where

48:41

you need to disagree with in democracies, right?

48:43

And debate in that way because everything is

48:46

black and white, good or evil. And

48:48

I look at these polls of Gen

48:51

Z potentially shifting to the right or

48:53

at least disengaging from politics altogether and

48:55

I do wonder if it's driven by

48:57

some of the same social media dynamics

48:59

that are fueling some of these broader

49:01

mental health challenges. That's right. One of

49:03

the main things that my fellow professors

49:05

say about their students, so let's be

49:07

clear, most students are not radicals, most

49:09

students are not asking for trigger warnings,

49:11

most students want to learn, but

49:13

what my fellow professors say,

49:15

the most common thing I hear is

49:18

that I can't get them to disagree with

49:20

each other, I can't get a debate going.

49:22

They're so afraid of disagreeing with each other.

49:25

Now if you grew up your entire life

49:27

in a minefield and

49:29

any little thing you do can blow off

49:31

a finger or a toe, you'd be really

49:33

careful about where you walked. Now

49:35

when you grow up with small groups of friends,

49:37

you say something stupid, you make a joke that's

49:39

not funny, someone says that wasn't funny, that was

49:41

stupid, you say oh yeah sorry and then you

49:43

move on. But if you grow up in a world where

49:46

if you say something, it can get screenshotted

49:48

and passed around, it might even become a

49:50

national sensation. Sometimes things that kids say in

49:52

middle school or at high school become a

49:54

national, you know, Fox News will

49:56

pick it up or Left-wing Media will pick it up. If

50:00

we raise our kids in minefields, we shouldn't be

50:02

surprised that they're not really in

50:04

an exploratory frame of mind. Yeah,

50:06

no, that makes sense. Last question,

50:09

you gave an interview in 2020 about some

50:11

of these divisions where you said

50:13

that it was your understanding that the religious

50:16

wars ended in Europe, not because Europeans reached

50:18

some profoundly enlightened view. They just got exhausted

50:20

and realized we've got to stop this. Four

50:23

years after that interview, it's clear we have not

50:25

come to that realization yet. Have

50:28

you seen anything that gives you hope that might change?

50:32

Let me think hard about this because I don't want to give

50:34

my first answer, which is no. Let

50:36

me think about this. I

50:41

do think there's a greater recognition

50:43

of the problem, and that has

50:45

to come first. I

50:48

do think that we're

50:51

going to make huge progress on the

50:54

children's front. So far, there's

50:56

been zero regulation of social media, absolute

50:58

zero since 1998. Congress

51:00

had done nothing, nothing. I think we might

51:02

get ... There's a bill called COSA, the

51:05

Kids Online Safety Act. That actually could conceivably

51:07

pass this year. What

51:09

I'm saying is we went a long time where things got worse

51:11

and worse and worse, and there

51:13

was really no immune system. The

51:16

tech companies, these are some of the richest companies in the

51:18

world, they faced no

51:21

real opposition. They had their

51:23

way with our kids. They took over our kids' childhoods.

51:27

They took over our democratic discussion. They

51:29

took over the public square, and they

51:31

had no liability. We can't sue them

51:33

because of Section 230, the Communications Decency

51:35

Act. The

51:38

situation is untenable, and if left

51:40

unchecked, I think will lead to

51:42

the political collapse of the United

51:44

States. I think it will at least become

51:46

ungovernable. If we keep going the way we're

51:49

going, we will become ungovernable

51:51

within five or ten years. However,

51:55

things don't just keep going the way they're going.

51:58

I think we are beginning to see ... a

52:00

recognition that these companies are

52:03

messing us up and It's

52:05

going to start with the children It's going to

52:07

start with the recognition that our kids are in

52:09

horrible shape And if

52:11

we can get some legislation passed and

52:13

if we can get norms changed to

52:15

protect Gen Alpha the generation

52:18

after Gen Z That

52:20

would be an extremely hopeful sign

52:22

now What regulations

52:24

what laws would improve? Democratic

52:27

debate that's much harder I

52:30

don't want to get into content moderation because

52:32

content moderation always is going to be one

52:34

side Saying the other side speech

52:36

is harmful as we saw with the Twitter files But

52:40

there are many architectural features like things

52:42

that just enhance the the virality This

52:44

is this was one of Francis Huygens

52:46

main points the Facebook whistleblower Facebook

52:48

could have done all kinds of things

52:50

that were content neutral not about content

52:52

moderation This is changing parameters within the system.

52:55

It would make it much less explosive Let's

52:57

take the atmosphere from 80% oxygen down to 50% oxygen. That

52:59

would be a lot better So

53:03

I think we're going to face tremendous Challenges

53:05

in American democracy and as you say others

53:07

to other not not all I can't I

53:09

don't know about all but you know We're

53:11

not the only ones going through this but

53:13

but not all democracies are but the American

53:15

form which we don't have shared blood We

53:17

don't have shared enemies. We don't have shared

53:19

gods We

53:21

don't have a lot holding us together. I think

53:24

we are a large and diverse country

53:26

without a lot holding it together, so we are

53:29

at higher risk of Splitting

53:31

in some way then say Iceland or New Zealand I'm

53:34

very concerned about what's coming But

53:37

I do see hope in that people are

53:39

waking up to the dangers of social media

53:41

for society All right. Well, we will leave

53:44

it there Jonathan height the book is the

53:46

anxious generation. Thank you so much for joining

53:48

offline What a pleasure talking with you John.

53:50

I I hope your listeners will go to

53:53

anxious generation calm We have a lot of

53:55

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53:57

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54:02

So it's a pleasure talking with you. Thank you. Before

54:08

we go, some quick housekeeping. Our first ever

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