April 27, 2026 • 26 mins
TechStuff presents Two Percent with Michael Easter, a twice-weekly deep dive into the science of living better by doing things the hard way.
In this episode of the podcast, Taylor Lorenz of the Substack User Mag and host of podcast Power User joins Michael to discuss whether social media should be considered addictive. Together, they look at the real science on dopamine, the recent Meta verdict from Los Angeles, Section 230, KOSA, looksmaxxing, and what's actually driving the teen mental health conversation.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:11):
Hile osvaloshen here. I'm excited to share a clip from
another podcast on the Kaleidoscope Network. It's called two Percent
with Michael Easter. Michael Easter is the New York Times
bestselling author and journalist whose mission is to push people
beyond the ninety eight percent of life lived in routine
and into the two percent of effort that rewires our limits.
(00:31):
The podcast blends science, storytelling, and practical advice to help
you live a bolder, better, and more meaningful life, one
uncomfortable idea at a time. Unlike many wellness podcasts that
cater to type a perfectionists, two Percent with Michael Easter
is built for real life and the episode We're dropping
today features Taylor Lorenz, one of tech Stuff's regular roundtable guests,
(00:54):
talking about her favorite topic, social media and whether or
not is addictive. Hope you enjoy it.
Speaker 2 (01:02):
All, right? So maybe you don't smoke, you don't drink,
you don't gamble, but you may have a certain vice
as I do, and that is social media. The average
person today spends more than four hours on average on
their phone. Probably a lot of that is going to
social media. So you are seeing a lot of attention
being put on this idea that we are on social
(01:25):
media way too much and it is causing us harm,
probably hearing about kids who are getting depressed from using
social media too much, probably even adults as well. And
in order to unpack this issue of whether social media
is addictive or not and whether it hurts mental health,
we have a really great guest. Her name is Taylor
de Lorenz. She's been reporting on this topic for a
(01:47):
very long time. She is the author of a book
called Extremely Online, The Untold Story of fame, influence, and
Power on the Internet. She also has a podcast called
power User. It's a really good one. But the thing
about Taylor is she does not think social media is addictive.
So we are going to bring Taylor on. She's also
going to talk about the real science behind social media
(02:09):
use and mental health, some of the underlying questions that
need to be answered before we could even say social
media is addictive. And I think in the course of
this conversation you will find that my mind shifted on
a lot of these topics. So let's welcome Taylor right now. Taylor,
thanks for coming on the.
Speaker 3 (02:26):
Show, Thanks for having me.
Speaker 2 (02:27):
What we're here to talk about is social media and
whether or not it is addictive. So I think a
lot of people would agree drugs, alcohol, those get lumped
in the vice addiction category. And now recently there's an
argument that social media should be put in that category
as well. What is your take on that.
Speaker 4 (02:48):
Yeah, so this is something that they've tried to argue
for over one hundred years, before social media, you know,
even existed. We had this idea of being addicted to
media and communication as far back as the day of novels.
There were novels that were banned for being too addictive.
They tried to ban radio shows, soap operas, you know, television,
(03:09):
comic books like you name it, also just any form
of new technology. I was reading some old articles from
the nineties about Walkman and people listening to you know, CDs,
and they were saying that actually listening to music as
you walk through the world would fundamentally rewire your brain
and this was very dangerous and we needed to take
the Walkman, you know, away from kids. So I think
(03:30):
a lot of these arguments made are not you know,
I'm not a believer in them. Honestly, that doesn't mean
that I don't think social media is highly compelling and
that people can't have extremely problematic compulsive use. It's just
really important to distinguish that from addiction.
Speaker 2 (03:47):
Yeah, so how do you see addiction then, Like where's
the difference.
Speaker 3 (03:50):
Yeah, addiction is.
Speaker 4 (03:52):
I mean there are there's a whole sort of like
clinical definition of addiction which just you cannot become addicted
to consuming media, whether it's music, books, you know, internet videos,
et cetera. You can really enjoy it, you can do
it compulsively, but it's you don't have a lot of
sort of symptoms of addiction. So for instance, like a
physiological withdrawal, you're not like detoxing from social media. I mean,
(04:16):
we used the language of addiction so colloquially, but it
also does have a real clinical meaning, and when we're
writing laws around this stuff, you know, we shouldn't rely
on that sort of clinical designation to write policies around
speech and communication.
Speaker 2 (04:29):
Yeah. I do think the fact that someone needs some
sort of underlying let's say, discomfort when they fall into overuse.
It's almost like they have a pre existing state and
then that gets filled by whatever the thing. And you
see that even with drug addiction, like there's a reason
why the opioid epidemic really hit Appalachia. It's because you
(04:54):
had all these towns that were decimated by the loss
of different industries people can make money. It was depressing situation,
and then you have this sort of like influx of
a substance that gives you this sort of short term
relief from these from the circumstances that you find yourself in,
and then you see this thing bloom, which.
Speaker 4 (05:11):
Is ironically like this argument was was really kind of
made most famously about novels. So novels in the eighteen
hundreds were a massive hit. I mean, parents were freaking out.
There was these novel addictions and they were trying to
get you know, young people treatment for their novel addictions
because you know, life was not great in the eighteen hundreds,
(05:32):
and a lot of young people would escape, you know,
to these novels. And I think, you know, reading about novels,
it's funny because a lot of those claims are the
same ones being made about social media today, where it's
like young people are they see everyone else leading these
amazing lives and it makes them depressed. And that's probably
true into a sense, like in the sense of like
(05:53):
engaging with media. I mean I grew up in the
two thousands as a teenager like looking at Cosmo magazine
being like, why don't I look like this the models
in this vagazine? Why am I not living this great
life of like these reality TV stars? Right? Like, we
all engage in this stuff, but I think we just
have to be careful at sort of like what we're
deeming cause and effect.
Speaker 2 (06:11):
Yeah, that makes sense. So do you think that there
is actually a growth in mental health problems among young people?
Speaker 4 (06:17):
I mean, what we see around the data, it kind
of varies a lot and has actually backtracked the past
two years, you know, like suicide, like a lot of
mental health problems that these people that you know, these
people on Twitter will like go and you know say, well,
like look at the declines and mental health since twenty
ten or whatever. But if you look at it since
the nineteen eighties, it's significantly up. Like we're living a
(06:39):
better life than our parents, and our parents lived a
better life than their parents. So you know, there's a
lot of things around that. Now, did we have a
financial crisis in two thousand and eight that radically affected
the younger generation and left devastated the family lives of
you knows of people. Same thing with twenty twenty, hundreds
of thousands of children lost a primary care giver to
(07:00):
COVID alone, you know, losing your mom or dad like
them dying of COVID traumatically. Like that's a lot more
traumatic and life shaping than like watching too much Instagram
for like three months while you were on remote zoom
school or whatever, and not to mitigate it, but you know,
it's interesting also that like suicides dropped when kids were
most online like that in that year of twenty twenty.
(07:23):
So I just think these things don't always correlate so neatly.
And there's a lot of people, I mean people, every
single top research are actually on this topic came came
out together in twenty twenty four and issued this big
report on this exact topic and said, you know, you
guys keep claiming effectively that social media causes this. We
at UNC, Princeton, Duke, et cetera all study this for
(07:44):
a living We can tell you social media is not
causing it. It's a mix of economic and socio political
sort of factors, and you guys need to address those things.
If you want to address kids mental health, you know,
address the fact that a significant amount of kids is
growing up below the poverty line, all these other sort
of things that mappen are a lot more.
Speaker 2 (08:01):
Yeah. I think there's also been a shift in how
people live day to day in a way that may
not be always positive for mental health. I think people
spend less time together, I think people spend less time outside.
I think people are less physically active, and I think
those all correlate pretty strongly with mental health, especially in
young people. So when it's in the context of social media,
(08:22):
you could argue, oh, well it was the social media,
or you could say, well, what was the person not
doing because they were on social media, So it's not
that social media causes these other things weren't happening as well.
It's I think the like overall point you're trying to
make is that it's like really complicated.
Speaker 4 (08:38):
Yeah, And you know, I've interviewed hundreds and potentially thousands
of kids at this point over the years, and one
thing that they all say is like, I want more
free time. You know, kids today have hours and at
even just I've shocked it talking to teenagers compared to
like I'm millennial, so like I haven't been in high.
Speaker 3 (08:54):
School in a while, I'm here guilty.
Speaker 4 (08:56):
Yeah, Like fifteen years ago, school work was radically different.
You know, kids today have significantly more homework. They're also
more likely to participate in the economy, so they have jobs.
They feel this pressure to you know, to make a living,
to be interning in you know, high school colleges have
gotten more competitive, the economic situation has gotten more intense.
So there's all these pressures. And then we have the
(09:18):
just the geographic landscape of America where there's no longer
third places. Malls which I grew up going to, like
have shuttered. You know, you mentioned sort of like physical activity.
A lot of young people today don't get that. They
don't participate in you know, team sports have been sort
of bought out by private aquitty.
Speaker 2 (09:34):
The third spaces thing is interesting because I'm also a millennial,
and when I was in high school, it's like, oh,
you go to the mall, you do you have these
places you could just go and hang out with other people,
And I feel like that happens a lot less often
for whatever various reasons it is with your own people.
Speaker 4 (09:50):
Yeah, I think parents are also more nervous. You know,
one thing that I thought I found was really interesting too,
is kids today are a lot less likely to have
a trusted adult in their lives that's not their parent.
So thirty forty years ago, they were more likely to
have a coach, a teacher, a mentor. They're more likely
to you know, engage with adults that weren't directly their
(10:11):
family members. And I think, like, for whatever reason, and
I was talking to researchers about, you know, many reasons,
this is like kids and adults are becoming much more stratified.
So we're seeing this world of like the kids world
and the adult world. On the internet, everybody is together,
but irl, kids don't necessarily have people to go to,
and so I think they turn to these online spaces
(10:31):
for support.
Speaker 2 (10:32):
Why do you think the blame has been put nearly
entirely on social media?
Speaker 4 (10:37):
Well, listen, social media companies do a lot of bad things.
Mark Zuckerberg doesn't care about like, you know, these are
profit maximizing tech companies that have done a lot of
harm in the world. Like no one's gonna you know,
go out there and be like Meta really cares about
the world, you know, these are companies that have helped
facilitate atrocities in places like me and mar you know,
(11:00):
like and they've been really irresponsible. They're ultimately profit driven
platforms that don't they're not optimizing for like our societal
well being. But I think we need to understand that
like companies are, you know, we have we live under capitalism,
that is the economic system that we live in. Companies
exist to make a profit. We shouldn't punish them for
(11:23):
making their products so good that people want to spend
so much time on them. But there are ways that
we can curb the type of negative business practices that
Meta engages in that actually degrade our Internet. We have
no data privacy laws, and now, unfortunately, if we pass
these social media addiction laws, they're going to have even
(11:44):
more power, and our Internet's going to get even worse
for everyone, and that's gonna suck.
Speaker 2 (11:48):
Interesting. So I can see the I mean, I can
(12:12):
see an argument for some sort of I don't know, guardrails.
I can see a case where when I think about
when are young people most sort of I guess at
risk of potentially developing what we talked about with like
excessive overuse that could cause harm. So if you look
(12:33):
at I'm sure you're familiar with this, but just for
the listeners, if someone, say, takes a substance like alcohol
or marijuana when they're fifteen, there are odds of becoming
addicted go to like fifty percent, whereas if they wait
till they're twenty one, then the odds are ten percent.
And that's because people are kind of finding comfort and
(12:55):
trying to figure things out when they are younger, and
so if something sort of relieve short term discomfort, the
brain sort of remembers that and it can lapse into
some sort of misuse. So I can see there, I
could see someone's argument for saying like, well, maybe we
need some guardbrails on this, especially for young people. Where
do you how do you think about that?
Speaker 4 (13:13):
We're talking about access to information, And ironically that example
that you just gave of exposing someone at fifteen to
to verse twenty one, it's actually much more harmful to
expose young people to sort of the entire Internet later,
because they don't develop the media literacy skills that it's
so crucial for them to develop actually as young as possible.
(13:35):
So it's really important to expose kids to the Internet
at a young age under a direct like supervision, right,
and with guardrails, because you want them to be able
to operate in the media and information and technology sort
of landscape of their time and not fall for misinformation
and not fall for scams the minute they turn eighteen.
(13:55):
But to do that, you have to introduce them to
this stuff really young. That's why when we grew up
as millennials, we had computer class. We learned about these things. Like,
you know, people should be learning about this stuff in
civics class and social studies, et cetera. We should say, like,
here's what misinformation is, here's how you can look at
this platform. Here's some tools to navigate like. Instead, we're
going the opposite way, and we're trying to kind of
like ban kids completely. And then we know that the
(14:17):
later they get on, the more likely they are to
fall for scams, the more likely they are to fall
for misinformation, et cetera.
Speaker 2 (14:23):
This one explain why boomers are always falling for fake
news on Facebook. Yes, literally, is there data behind that? Yeah.
Speaker 4 (14:33):
And there's a lot of like media educators that have
tried to talk about this repeatedly, journalists like others. I
think what's hard is that like a lot of these
parents feel like I can't do like a media studies class.
My kid, like, why is it my job? You know,
I don't I don't have the and I totally they
don't have the time. A lot of them are working
two jobs. A lot of these you know kids are
growing up in in households where both the parents work.
(14:55):
They see them for an hour, you know. So what
I would argue is for some sort of like public educations,
especially with AI. We're seeing this a lot with AI.
Like say you ban social media tomorrow, We're about to
see this on steroids with AI.
Speaker 3 (15:06):
We need to.
Speaker 4 (15:08):
Reform our public education system. We need like national educational
you know things, and maybe make the tech companies pay
for it, you know, make the tech like tax them more.
There are so many things that we can do to
fix these problems. We can also pass comprehensive data privacy
reform laws so that these young people are not getting
as you say, like addicted. Whatever you want to say.
(15:29):
We know that this content is highly engaging. Part of
the ways that you know, these feeds are made so
engaging is because they can hyper target you.
Speaker 2 (15:36):
So do you think that maybe the algorithms need to
be changed?
Speaker 4 (15:42):
We don't want top down government control of algorithms, like
that's very silly. The Trump administration has said what they
would do with that, and it's not good, But we
do want to give users more control. So ironically, we
were talking earlier when I first joined about blue Sky
or Max that that there's this other model for the
web that actually is gaining popularity, which is the feda
(16:02):
verse model. It's this model where essentially there's interoperability between
platforms and there's a lot more user choice. With blue
Sky or some of these other services, you can actually choose,
you have control over the algorithm, you can tweak the algorithm,
you can put a lot more user control, and parents
can set a lot more controls things that these big
tech platforms don't allow. There's no advertising as well on
(16:24):
a lot of those alternatives, so they're just inherently less predatory.
We could mandate that all of these social media platforms
federate that you don't have to use Instagram. You know,
maybe these kids like they don't want to be left
off totally socially, but maybe they use an alternative to Instagram,
but they can still access certain parts, you know, certain
content from Instagram that's fed into this alternative app. That's
in total gray scale, and doesn't you know, just has
(16:47):
a reverse cron feed or whatever. But it's about giving
people choice because I don't think we want the government
controlling content, and I don't think we want parents. Every
child is different. What's appropriate for one child at fifteen
is not appropriate for another child at fifteen, and we
should trust parents and families to make those decisions.
Speaker 2 (17:03):
Yeah, I think that makes a lot of sense. And
I hadn't heard of that different model, but that seems
logical that parents should have some say in, like what
is being fed to my kid? Because right now it's
just kind of like you log in, it's just what's
going to happen happens.
Speaker 3 (17:17):
Well, it's like does your kid have Instagram? Yes or no?
Speaker 4 (17:19):
It's this binary thing and yeah, you can set teen accounts,
but it's like, there's not choices. What if we had
twenty choices instead of Instagram that were all really similar
and kids could all connect, they could have the same
social network on all of them. We can mandate, you know,
changes to these companies. We can also say, hey, Meta,
you continue to use the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act
to shut down any and all competition. You can't do
(17:41):
that anymore. We're reforming that law. That law was written
in the nineteen eighties, you know. So I think there's
just so many not to mention data privacy. There's just
a lot that we could do that would that, you know,
fix pretty much almost all of these problems. I'm willing
to bet that parents kind of you know, think but
put making this dumb show trial where metapays million dollars
something they can make up in an instant and an
(18:02):
abusive you know, parents are rewarded for nothing, Like we
don't get any meaningful change from that.
Speaker 2 (18:07):
All right, So we've talked a lot about kids and
social media. How is it affecting or maybe not affecting adults?
Speaker 4 (18:14):
Yeah, I think you know, when we look at adults,
often adults have more unhealthy behavior around the internet than children.
This goes back to this idea of like people that
didn't grow up native to this technology often struggle to
navigate it and navigate it in a healthy way. This
is why you have a lot of boomers that are
like on Facebook all the time, oversharing, using it in
(18:35):
bad ways, or parents, you know, they'll chastise their kids
for being on their phones, but they're also on their phones.
It's so hard for a lot of adults to stay
out their phone, so, you know, the same with children.
There is no evidence that that social media or the
internet is causing some sort of like widespread mental health
crisis among adults at all, but a lot of adults
(18:55):
do use it in unhealthy ways, and I think exacerbate
whatever issue they have, whether it's insecurity or you know,
bad you know, having bad mental health or whatever they're
they're you know, sometimes they're just wasting time on it,
right and it feels like a time suck. It's like
you watched like TV for five hours, you know. I
remember before, you know, before the days of social media,
I would watch a lot more television and it's like,
(19:16):
you feel like you just lost eight hours. So I
think the good thing about being an adult is that
you have a lot more control over your life and
totally can it takes steps.
Speaker 2 (19:26):
And with like the boomer thing, my like my mom
and my wife's parents use their phones way more than
anyone else signed up. And I think, isn't there data
that shows that older people spend the most time on
their phones?
Speaker 4 (19:41):
Yes, yes, older people spend an inordinate amount of time
on their phone and social media and are a lot
more likely to like overshire, Like they overshare a lot.
I think they don't have like a good idea of boundaries.
So yeah, got to get the old p Maybe we
need an over sixty ban on the internet, you know,
maybe let's pass that before we ban you know, everyone
under sixteen.
Speaker 2 (20:01):
There you go. That should be your next big piece
why we should why we should put age limits on
boomers on social media?
Speaker 3 (20:09):
No one in Congress will be able to access the web.
Speaker 2 (20:12):
And with the research on social media and mental health,
whether it's kids, whether it's adults, I think a lot
of people see headlines about study finds social media use
does xyz, but a lot of those studies have flaws.
Speaker 4 (20:26):
Yeah, there's this great headline of a story that came
out years ago that was not every study on like
depression and social media is bad, only most of them,
And it was actually talking mostly about like these teen studies.
Speaker 3 (20:39):
But it's kind of true.
Speaker 4 (20:40):
Universally, there was this book called The Anxious Generation written
by this man Jonathan Height, that used effectively almost entirely
like debunked or deeply sort of like mischaracterized studies. So
there's a lot of bad stuff out there. You can
make a study that finds anything right. And so I
hate when people are like, but what about this study,
And it's like, well, there's tons of limitation and that's
a bad study. But what we know from the meta analysis,
(21:02):
which are basically like studies that study all the studies,
is that there is no causal effect. So it just
goes back to the same thing that we're seeing with teens.
Social media use is like a symptom of whatever the
underlying like root issue is that you're having. Or maybe
you're using it in a positive way, right, but if
you're using a negative way, it's the behavior that you're
engaged in because of some root issue. And I think
(21:25):
that's what's so important to note, is that cause because
this has been a very studied area. Again, like there's
this you know, this is their people like Alice Marwick
Candae Odgers, who people can look up I highly suggest
you know, reading their work on this, Like these are
people that have studied this stuff for literal decades since
the early two thousands.
Speaker 2 (21:43):
So when you talk to anyone about social media and
they feel like they use it too much and they've
got a problem with it, and I know you're not
a clinician, but I feel like you've talked to enough
people that I can trust your advice. Here, what do
you tell them?
Speaker 4 (21:56):
So I think of this guy Ian Anderson, who is
a habit research at Caltech, and it's him and I
can't remember his colleague. They did this great, big study
that came out last fall where they studied this idea
of addiction and they studied kind of how it was
affecting use. And again, this is a guy who has
a PhD and like habit behavior, Like there are people
(22:17):
that like study this STUFT for a living, and they
were really interested in this. And what they found is
that actually the more that a user believed that they
were addicted to a platform, the harder it was for
them to moderate their own use. And you know, so
I think that we get all these narratives and we
convince ourselves like, oh, I'm so addicted to Instagram, so.
Speaker 3 (22:37):
Addicted to Instagram.
Speaker 4 (22:38):
What I would tell people is like that narrative that
you're telling yourself actually makes it harder for you to
take control. We all have bad habits, we all have
unhealthy behavior as things we want to change, We want
to go to the gym more. We want to eat
less sweets, we want to whatever, but we need to
we need to start like looking at those things differently,
making micro changes. I mean, some of I would argue
that those people should get involved in politics and fight
(23:01):
for some of these laws. But in the meantime, like
you know, do what you can, but view it as
a habit like anything else. But you know, there are
a lot of other people that install all these sort
of like blockers, these attend you know, there are a
lot of like apps that can help you kind of
mitigate maybe you get a different phone. I know people
also even have like these weekend phones now that they
activate on the flip phone only on the weekend. Like,
you know, figure do kind of the best that you can,
(23:22):
but it's harder and harder. I mean I talk to
parents too, where like I think of that viral tweet
of the girl, you know, she was banned from her
or her mom took away like her iPads, so she
started tweeting from her smart fridge. We have vapes now,
the swipe vape, which has a little screen which lets
you go on social media from your vape.
Speaker 2 (23:38):
Oh wow, I mean, why do one vice when you
could just layer on another one, like let's just pack
them up. Maybe we could turn that into a cup.
You can fill it up with booze.
Speaker 4 (23:48):
It's bad, but it's like we're living in this like
internet enabled world and it's getting harder and harder. And
like parents, I know, it's so hard and it's so
unfair that so much is falling on parents right now.
But what I would say is, like, expose your kids
this stuff in like young like healthy ways when they're young,
and teach them to moderate their use when they're young.
Don't stigmatize it when you talk to kids too. The
(24:09):
primary way that young people use social media and I
know that, like everybody thinks it's scrolling short form video,
according to Adam Massari at Instagram, it's actually dming each other.
Speaker 3 (24:19):
It's chat. That's why Snapchat is so popular. It's chat.
Speaker 4 (24:22):
So these kids are desperate for social connection, they're desperate
to feel belonging. They want to explore their interests. Give
them other avenues to do that and they won't be
on their screen so much.
Speaker 2 (24:31):
Yeah, And I think when I've thought about my own
relationship with social media, what's helped me is to pull
back and go what about this do I think is
not helping me? What about this is actually a positive
in my life? And for me to sort of wine
up with what you just said, positives are the dms.
It's like, I've met awesome people on Instagram that I
(24:52):
would have never met in real life, and We've got
these crazy long DM chains. I've never met these people
in real life, but I'm like, oh, this person's a
great friend. Yeah, we just share, like we got a
niche video, like you know that we share. It's more
just the The problem becomes when I get out of
the dms and then I start swiping mindlessly and I go,
oh my god, twenty minutes have gone by and you're
(25:13):
on a deadline. Dude, Like, don't do that. But I
think sort of observation is the first step to changing something.
You got to be aware of where the problem lies.
Because I think these things are they come with benefits
or else we would never use them. If there was
no benefits behind social media, no one would be on it.
So drilling down, Okay, well, what is the benefit I
(25:36):
think can be useful one.
Speaker 4 (25:38):
Hundred and like what are you actually seeking out of it?
And what content like isn't serving you, you know, like
what are you reacting to in the minute, and like
changing your algorithm a little bit. Like we've all kind
of learned these behaviors of like when I see a
bunch of bad stuff, it's like, okay, I got to
go like some x y Z videos and hopefully get
some of that on my feed. You know, but use
the tools that you can mute the people that you
(25:58):
need to mute. Do the best you can. It's very hard.
That's why I would argue we need sort of some
of these top level fixes. But until we get those
top level fixes, I very much support people kind of
just doing whatever they can.
Speaker 2 (26:10):
Totally. I like that. Well, Taylor, I appreciate you coming on.
This is awesome.
Speaker 3 (26:14):
Thanks for having me. This was fun.
Speaker 1 (26:20):
If you enjoy what you just heard, we hope you'll
check out the other episodes of two percent with Michae Arista.
It's available wherever you get your podcasts, twice a week
in both video and audio.
Hile osvaloshen here. I'm excited to share a clip from
another podcast on the Kaleidoscope Network. It's called two Percent
with Michael Easter. Michael Easter is the New York Times
bestselling author and journalist whose mission is to push people
beyond the ninety eight percent of life lived in routine
and into the two percent of effort that rewires our limits.
(00:31):
The podcast blends science, storytelling, and practical advice to help
you live a bolder, better, and more meaningful life, one
uncomfortable idea at a time. Unlike many wellness podcasts that
cater to type a perfectionists, two Percent with Michael Easter
is built for real life and the episode We're dropping
today features Taylor Lorenz, one of tech Stuff's regular roundtable guests,
(00:54):
talking about her favorite topic, social media and whether or
not is addictive. Hope you enjoy it.
Speaker 2 (01:02):
All, right? So maybe you don't smoke, you don't drink,
you don't gamble, but you may have a certain vice
as I do, and that is social media. The average
person today spends more than four hours on average on
their phone. Probably a lot of that is going to
social media. So you are seeing a lot of attention
being put on this idea that we are on social
(01:25):
media way too much and it is causing us harm,
probably hearing about kids who are getting depressed from using
social media too much, probably even adults as well. And
in order to unpack this issue of whether social media
is addictive or not and whether it hurts mental health,
we have a really great guest. Her name is Taylor
de Lorenz. She's been reporting on this topic for a
(01:47):
very long time. She is the author of a book
called Extremely Online, The Untold Story of fame, influence, and
Power on the Internet. She also has a podcast called
power User. It's a really good one. But the thing
about Taylor is she does not think social media is addictive.
So we are going to bring Taylor on. She's also
going to talk about the real science behind social media
(02:09):
use and mental health, some of the underlying questions that
need to be answered before we could even say social
media is addictive. And I think in the course of
this conversation you will find that my mind shifted on
a lot of these topics. So let's welcome Taylor right now. Taylor,
thanks for coming on the.
Speaker 3 (02:26):
Show, Thanks for having me.
Speaker 2 (02:27):
What we're here to talk about is social media and
whether or not it is addictive. So I think a
lot of people would agree drugs, alcohol, those get lumped
in the vice addiction category. And now recently there's an
argument that social media should be put in that category
as well. What is your take on that.
Speaker 4 (02:48):
Yeah, so this is something that they've tried to argue
for over one hundred years, before social media, you know,
even existed. We had this idea of being addicted to
media and communication as far back as the day of novels.
There were novels that were banned for being too addictive.
They tried to ban radio shows, soap operas, you know, television,
(03:09):
comic books like you name it, also just any form
of new technology. I was reading some old articles from
the nineties about Walkman and people listening to you know, CDs,
and they were saying that actually listening to music as
you walk through the world would fundamentally rewire your brain
and this was very dangerous and we needed to take
the Walkman, you know, away from kids. So I think
(03:30):
a lot of these arguments made are not you know,
I'm not a believer in them. Honestly, that doesn't mean
that I don't think social media is highly compelling and
that people can't have extremely problematic compulsive use. It's just
really important to distinguish that from addiction.
Speaker 2 (03:47):
Yeah, so how do you see addiction then, Like where's
the difference.
Speaker 3 (03:50):
Yeah, addiction is.
Speaker 4 (03:52):
I mean there are there's a whole sort of like
clinical definition of addiction which just you cannot become addicted
to consuming media, whether it's music, books, you know, internet videos,
et cetera. You can really enjoy it, you can do
it compulsively, but it's you don't have a lot of
sort of symptoms of addiction. So for instance, like a
physiological withdrawal, you're not like detoxing from social media. I mean,
(04:16):
we used the language of addiction so colloquially, but it
also does have a real clinical meaning, and when we're
writing laws around this stuff, you know, we shouldn't rely
on that sort of clinical designation to write policies around
speech and communication.
Speaker 2 (04:29):
Yeah. I do think the fact that someone needs some
sort of underlying let's say, discomfort when they fall into overuse.
It's almost like they have a pre existing state and
then that gets filled by whatever the thing. And you
see that even with drug addiction, like there's a reason
why the opioid epidemic really hit Appalachia. It's because you
(04:54):
had all these towns that were decimated by the loss
of different industries people can make money. It was depressing situation,
and then you have this sort of like influx of
a substance that gives you this sort of short term
relief from these from the circumstances that you find yourself in,
and then you see this thing bloom, which.
Speaker 4 (05:11):
Is ironically like this argument was was really kind of
made most famously about novels. So novels in the eighteen
hundreds were a massive hit. I mean, parents were freaking out.
There was these novel addictions and they were trying to
get you know, young people treatment for their novel addictions
because you know, life was not great in the eighteen hundreds,
(05:32):
and a lot of young people would escape, you know,
to these novels. And I think, you know, reading about novels,
it's funny because a lot of those claims are the
same ones being made about social media today, where it's
like young people are they see everyone else leading these
amazing lives and it makes them depressed. And that's probably
true into a sense, like in the sense of like
(05:53):
engaging with media. I mean I grew up in the
two thousands as a teenager like looking at Cosmo magazine
being like, why don't I look like this the models
in this vagazine? Why am I not living this great
life of like these reality TV stars? Right? Like, we
all engage in this stuff, but I think we just
have to be careful at sort of like what we're
deeming cause and effect.
Speaker 2 (06:11):
Yeah, that makes sense. So do you think that there
is actually a growth in mental health problems among young people?
Speaker 4 (06:17):
I mean, what we see around the data, it kind
of varies a lot and has actually backtracked the past
two years, you know, like suicide, like a lot of
mental health problems that these people that you know, these
people on Twitter will like go and you know say, well,
like look at the declines and mental health since twenty
ten or whatever. But if you look at it since
the nineteen eighties, it's significantly up. Like we're living a
(06:39):
better life than our parents, and our parents lived a
better life than their parents. So you know, there's a
lot of things around that. Now, did we have a
financial crisis in two thousand and eight that radically affected
the younger generation and left devastated the family lives of
you knows of people. Same thing with twenty twenty, hundreds
of thousands of children lost a primary care giver to
(07:00):
COVID alone, you know, losing your mom or dad like
them dying of COVID traumatically. Like that's a lot more
traumatic and life shaping than like watching too much Instagram
for like three months while you were on remote zoom
school or whatever, and not to mitigate it, but you know,
it's interesting also that like suicides dropped when kids were
most online like that in that year of twenty twenty.
(07:23):
So I just think these things don't always correlate so neatly.
And there's a lot of people, I mean people, every
single top research are actually on this topic came came
out together in twenty twenty four and issued this big
report on this exact topic and said, you know, you
guys keep claiming effectively that social media causes this. We
at UNC, Princeton, Duke, et cetera all study this for
(07:44):
a living We can tell you social media is not
causing it. It's a mix of economic and socio political
sort of factors, and you guys need to address those things.
If you want to address kids mental health, you know,
address the fact that a significant amount of kids is
growing up below the poverty line, all these other sort
of things that mappen are a lot more.
Speaker 2 (08:01):
Yeah. I think there's also been a shift in how
people live day to day in a way that may
not be always positive for mental health. I think people
spend less time together, I think people spend less time outside.
I think people are less physically active, and I think
those all correlate pretty strongly with mental health, especially in
young people. So when it's in the context of social media,
(08:22):
you could argue, oh, well it was the social media,
or you could say, well, what was the person not
doing because they were on social media, So it's not
that social media causes these other things weren't happening as well.
It's I think the like overall point you're trying to
make is that it's like really complicated.
Speaker 4 (08:38):
Yeah, And you know, I've interviewed hundreds and potentially thousands
of kids at this point over the years, and one
thing that they all say is like, I want more
free time. You know, kids today have hours and at
even just I've shocked it talking to teenagers compared to
like I'm millennial, so like I haven't been in high.
Speaker 3 (08:54):
School in a while, I'm here guilty.
Speaker 4 (08:56):
Yeah, Like fifteen years ago, school work was radically different.
You know, kids today have significantly more homework. They're also
more likely to participate in the economy, so they have jobs.
They feel this pressure to you know, to make a living,
to be interning in you know, high school colleges have
gotten more competitive, the economic situation has gotten more intense.
So there's all these pressures. And then we have the
(09:18):
just the geographic landscape of America where there's no longer
third places. Malls which I grew up going to, like
have shuttered. You know, you mentioned sort of like physical activity.
A lot of young people today don't get that. They
don't participate in you know, team sports have been sort
of bought out by private aquitty.
Speaker 2 (09:34):
The third spaces thing is interesting because I'm also a millennial,
and when I was in high school, it's like, oh,
you go to the mall, you do you have these
places you could just go and hang out with other people,
And I feel like that happens a lot less often
for whatever various reasons it is with your own people.
Speaker 4 (09:50):
Yeah, I think parents are also more nervous. You know,
one thing that I thought I found was really interesting too,
is kids today are a lot less likely to have
a trusted adult in their lives that's not their parent.
So thirty forty years ago, they were more likely to
have a coach, a teacher, a mentor. They're more likely
to you know, engage with adults that weren't directly their
(10:11):
family members. And I think, like, for whatever reason, and
I was talking to researchers about, you know, many reasons,
this is like kids and adults are becoming much more stratified.
So we're seeing this world of like the kids world
and the adult world. On the internet, everybody is together,
but irl, kids don't necessarily have people to go to,
and so I think they turn to these online spaces
(10:31):
for support.
Speaker 2 (10:32):
Why do you think the blame has been put nearly
entirely on social media?
Speaker 4 (10:37):
Well, listen, social media companies do a lot of bad things.
Mark Zuckerberg doesn't care about like, you know, these are
profit maximizing tech companies that have done a lot of
harm in the world. Like no one's gonna you know,
go out there and be like Meta really cares about
the world, you know, these are companies that have helped
facilitate atrocities in places like me and mar you know,
(11:00):
like and they've been really irresponsible. They're ultimately profit driven
platforms that don't they're not optimizing for like our societal
well being. But I think we need to understand that
like companies are, you know, we have we live under capitalism,
that is the economic system that we live in. Companies
exist to make a profit. We shouldn't punish them for
(11:23):
making their products so good that people want to spend
so much time on them. But there are ways that
we can curb the type of negative business practices that
Meta engages in that actually degrade our Internet. We have
no data privacy laws, and now, unfortunately, if we pass
these social media addiction laws, they're going to have even
(11:44):
more power, and our Internet's going to get even worse
for everyone, and that's gonna suck.
Speaker 2 (11:48):
Interesting. So I can see the I mean, I can
(12:12):
see an argument for some sort of I don't know, guardrails.
I can see a case where when I think about
when are young people most sort of I guess at
risk of potentially developing what we talked about with like
excessive overuse that could cause harm. So if you look
(12:33):
at I'm sure you're familiar with this, but just for
the listeners, if someone, say, takes a substance like alcohol
or marijuana when they're fifteen, there are odds of becoming
addicted go to like fifty percent, whereas if they wait
till they're twenty one, then the odds are ten percent.
And that's because people are kind of finding comfort and
(12:55):
trying to figure things out when they are younger, and
so if something sort of relieve short term discomfort, the
brain sort of remembers that and it can lapse into
some sort of misuse. So I can see there, I
could see someone's argument for saying like, well, maybe we
need some guardbrails on this, especially for young people. Where
do you how do you think about that?
Speaker 4 (13:13):
We're talking about access to information, And ironically that example
that you just gave of exposing someone at fifteen to
to verse twenty one, it's actually much more harmful to
expose young people to sort of the entire Internet later,
because they don't develop the media literacy skills that it's
so crucial for them to develop actually as young as possible.
(13:35):
So it's really important to expose kids to the Internet
at a young age under a direct like supervision, right,
and with guardrails, because you want them to be able
to operate in the media and information and technology sort
of landscape of their time and not fall for misinformation
and not fall for scams the minute they turn eighteen.
(13:55):
But to do that, you have to introduce them to
this stuff really young. That's why when we grew up
as millennials, we had computer class. We learned about these things. Like,
you know, people should be learning about this stuff in
civics class and social studies, et cetera. We should say, like,
here's what misinformation is, here's how you can look at
this platform. Here's some tools to navigate like. Instead, we're
going the opposite way, and we're trying to kind of
like ban kids completely. And then we know that the
(14:17):
later they get on, the more likely they are to
fall for scams, the more likely they are to fall
for misinformation, et cetera.
Speaker 2 (14:23):
This one explain why boomers are always falling for fake
news on Facebook. Yes, literally, is there data behind that? Yeah.
Speaker 4 (14:33):
And there's a lot of like media educators that have
tried to talk about this repeatedly, journalists like others. I
think what's hard is that like a lot of these
parents feel like I can't do like a media studies class.
My kid, like, why is it my job? You know,
I don't I don't have the and I totally they
don't have the time. A lot of them are working
two jobs. A lot of these you know kids are
growing up in in households where both the parents work.
(14:55):
They see them for an hour, you know. So what
I would argue is for some sort of like public educations,
especially with AI. We're seeing this a lot with AI.
Like say you ban social media tomorrow, We're about to
see this on steroids with AI.
Speaker 3 (15:06):
We need to.
Speaker 4 (15:08):
Reform our public education system. We need like national educational
you know things, and maybe make the tech companies pay
for it, you know, make the tech like tax them more.
There are so many things that we can do to
fix these problems. We can also pass comprehensive data privacy
reform laws so that these young people are not getting
as you say, like addicted. Whatever you want to say.
(15:29):
We know that this content is highly engaging. Part of
the ways that you know, these feeds are made so
engaging is because they can hyper target you.
Speaker 2 (15:36):
So do you think that maybe the algorithms need to
be changed?
Speaker 4 (15:42):
We don't want top down government control of algorithms, like
that's very silly. The Trump administration has said what they
would do with that, and it's not good, But we
do want to give users more control. So ironically, we
were talking earlier when I first joined about blue Sky
or Max that that there's this other model for the
web that actually is gaining popularity, which is the feda
(16:02):
verse model. It's this model where essentially there's interoperability between
platforms and there's a lot more user choice. With blue
Sky or some of these other services, you can actually choose,
you have control over the algorithm, you can tweak the algorithm,
you can put a lot more user control, and parents
can set a lot more controls things that these big
tech platforms don't allow. There's no advertising as well on
(16:24):
a lot of those alternatives, so they're just inherently less predatory.
We could mandate that all of these social media platforms
federate that you don't have to use Instagram. You know,
maybe these kids like they don't want to be left
off totally socially, but maybe they use an alternative to Instagram,
but they can still access certain parts, you know, certain
content from Instagram that's fed into this alternative app. That's
in total gray scale, and doesn't you know, just has
(16:47):
a reverse cron feed or whatever. But it's about giving
people choice because I don't think we want the government
controlling content, and I don't think we want parents. Every
child is different. What's appropriate for one child at fifteen
is not appropriate for another child at fifteen, and we
should trust parents and families to make those decisions.
Speaker 2 (17:03):
Yeah, I think that makes a lot of sense. And
I hadn't heard of that different model, but that seems
logical that parents should have some say in, like what
is being fed to my kid? Because right now it's
just kind of like you log in, it's just what's
going to happen happens.
Speaker 3 (17:17):
Well, it's like does your kid have Instagram? Yes or no?
Speaker 4 (17:19):
It's this binary thing and yeah, you can set teen accounts,
but it's like, there's not choices. What if we had
twenty choices instead of Instagram that were all really similar
and kids could all connect, they could have the same
social network on all of them. We can mandate, you know,
changes to these companies. We can also say, hey, Meta,
you continue to use the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act
to shut down any and all competition. You can't do
(17:41):
that anymore. We're reforming that law. That law was written
in the nineteen eighties, you know. So I think there's
just so many not to mention data privacy. There's just
a lot that we could do that would that, you know,
fix pretty much almost all of these problems. I'm willing
to bet that parents kind of you know, think but
put making this dumb show trial where metapays million dollars
something they can make up in an instant and an
(18:02):
abusive you know, parents are rewarded for nothing, Like we
don't get any meaningful change from that.
Speaker 2 (18:07):
All right, So we've talked a lot about kids and
social media. How is it affecting or maybe not affecting adults?
Speaker 4 (18:14):
Yeah, I think you know, when we look at adults,
often adults have more unhealthy behavior around the internet than children.
This goes back to this idea of like people that
didn't grow up native to this technology often struggle to
navigate it and navigate it in a healthy way. This
is why you have a lot of boomers that are
like on Facebook all the time, oversharing, using it in
(18:35):
bad ways, or parents, you know, they'll chastise their kids
for being on their phones, but they're also on their phones.
It's so hard for a lot of adults to stay
out their phone, so, you know, the same with children.
There is no evidence that that social media or the
internet is causing some sort of like widespread mental health
crisis among adults at all, but a lot of adults
(18:55):
do use it in unhealthy ways, and I think exacerbate
whatever issue they have, whether it's insecurity or you know,
bad you know, having bad mental health or whatever they're
they're you know, sometimes they're just wasting time on it,
right and it feels like a time suck. It's like
you watched like TV for five hours, you know. I
remember before, you know, before the days of social media,
I would watch a lot more television and it's like,
(19:16):
you feel like you just lost eight hours. So I
think the good thing about being an adult is that
you have a lot more control over your life and
totally can it takes steps.
Speaker 2 (19:26):
And with like the boomer thing, my like my mom
and my wife's parents use their phones way more than
anyone else signed up. And I think, isn't there data
that shows that older people spend the most time on
their phones?
Speaker 4 (19:41):
Yes, yes, older people spend an inordinate amount of time
on their phone and social media and are a lot
more likely to like overshire, Like they overshare a lot.
I think they don't have like a good idea of boundaries.
So yeah, got to get the old p Maybe we
need an over sixty ban on the internet, you know,
maybe let's pass that before we ban you know, everyone
under sixteen.
Speaker 2 (20:01):
There you go. That should be your next big piece
why we should why we should put age limits on
boomers on social media?
Speaker 3 (20:09):
No one in Congress will be able to access the web.
Speaker 2 (20:12):
And with the research on social media and mental health,
whether it's kids, whether it's adults, I think a lot
of people see headlines about study finds social media use
does xyz, but a lot of those studies have flaws.
Speaker 4 (20:26):
Yeah, there's this great headline of a story that came
out years ago that was not every study on like
depression and social media is bad, only most of them,
And it was actually talking mostly about like these teen studies.
Speaker 3 (20:39):
But it's kind of true.
Speaker 4 (20:40):
Universally, there was this book called The Anxious Generation written
by this man Jonathan Height, that used effectively almost entirely
like debunked or deeply sort of like mischaracterized studies. So
there's a lot of bad stuff out there. You can
make a study that finds anything right. And so I
hate when people are like, but what about this study,
And it's like, well, there's tons of limitation and that's
a bad study. But what we know from the meta analysis,
(21:02):
which are basically like studies that study all the studies,
is that there is no causal effect. So it just
goes back to the same thing that we're seeing with teens.
Social media use is like a symptom of whatever the
underlying like root issue is that you're having. Or maybe
you're using it in a positive way, right, but if
you're using a negative way, it's the behavior that you're
engaged in because of some root issue. And I think
(21:25):
that's what's so important to note, is that cause because
this has been a very studied area. Again, like there's
this you know, this is their people like Alice Marwick
Candae Odgers, who people can look up I highly suggest
you know, reading their work on this, Like these are
people that have studied this stuff for literal decades since
the early two thousands.
Speaker 2 (21:43):
So when you talk to anyone about social media and
they feel like they use it too much and they've
got a problem with it, and I know you're not
a clinician, but I feel like you've talked to enough
people that I can trust your advice. Here, what do
you tell them?
Speaker 4 (21:56):
So I think of this guy Ian Anderson, who is
a habit research at Caltech, and it's him and I
can't remember his colleague. They did this great, big study
that came out last fall where they studied this idea
of addiction and they studied kind of how it was
affecting use. And again, this is a guy who has
a PhD and like habit behavior, Like there are people
(22:17):
that like study this STUFT for a living, and they
were really interested in this. And what they found is
that actually the more that a user believed that they
were addicted to a platform, the harder it was for
them to moderate their own use. And you know, so
I think that we get all these narratives and we
convince ourselves like, oh, I'm so addicted to Instagram, so.
Speaker 3 (22:37):
Addicted to Instagram.
Speaker 4 (22:38):
What I would tell people is like that narrative that
you're telling yourself actually makes it harder for you to
take control. We all have bad habits, we all have
unhealthy behavior as things we want to change, We want
to go to the gym more. We want to eat
less sweets, we want to whatever, but we need to
we need to start like looking at those things differently,
making micro changes. I mean, some of I would argue
that those people should get involved in politics and fight
(23:01):
for some of these laws. But in the meantime, like
you know, do what you can, but view it as
a habit like anything else. But you know, there are
a lot of other people that install all these sort
of like blockers, these attend you know, there are a
lot of like apps that can help you kind of
mitigate maybe you get a different phone. I know people
also even have like these weekend phones now that they
activate on the flip phone only on the weekend. Like,
you know, figure do kind of the best that you can,
(23:22):
but it's harder and harder. I mean I talk to
parents too, where like I think of that viral tweet
of the girl, you know, she was banned from her
or her mom took away like her iPads, so she
started tweeting from her smart fridge. We have vapes now,
the swipe vape, which has a little screen which lets
you go on social media from your vape.
Speaker 2 (23:38):
Oh wow, I mean, why do one vice when you
could just layer on another one, like let's just pack
them up. Maybe we could turn that into a cup.
You can fill it up with booze.
Speaker 4 (23:48):
It's bad, but it's like we're living in this like
internet enabled world and it's getting harder and harder. And
like parents, I know, it's so hard and it's so
unfair that so much is falling on parents right now.
But what I would say is, like, expose your kids
this stuff in like young like healthy ways when they're young,
and teach them to moderate their use when they're young.
Don't stigmatize it when you talk to kids too. The
(24:09):
primary way that young people use social media and I
know that, like everybody thinks it's scrolling short form video,
according to Adam Massari at Instagram, it's actually dming each other.
Speaker 3 (24:19):
It's chat. That's why Snapchat is so popular. It's chat.
Speaker 4 (24:22):
So these kids are desperate for social connection, they're desperate
to feel belonging. They want to explore their interests. Give
them other avenues to do that and they won't be
on their screen so much.
Speaker 2 (24:31):
Yeah, And I think when I've thought about my own
relationship with social media, what's helped me is to pull
back and go what about this do I think is
not helping me? What about this is actually a positive
in my life? And for me to sort of wine
up with what you just said, positives are the dms.
It's like, I've met awesome people on Instagram that I
(24:52):
would have never met in real life, and We've got
these crazy long DM chains. I've never met these people
in real life, but I'm like, oh, this person's a
great friend. Yeah, we just share, like we got a
niche video, like you know that we share. It's more
just the The problem becomes when I get out of
the dms and then I start swiping mindlessly and I go,
oh my god, twenty minutes have gone by and you're
(25:13):
on a deadline. Dude, Like, don't do that. But I
think sort of observation is the first step to changing something.
You got to be aware of where the problem lies.
Because I think these things are they come with benefits
or else we would never use them. If there was
no benefits behind social media, no one would be on it.
So drilling down, Okay, well, what is the benefit I
(25:36):
think can be useful one.
Speaker 4 (25:38):
Hundred and like what are you actually seeking out of it?
And what content like isn't serving you, you know, like
what are you reacting to in the minute, and like
changing your algorithm a little bit. Like we've all kind
of learned these behaviors of like when I see a
bunch of bad stuff, it's like, okay, I got to
go like some x y Z videos and hopefully get
some of that on my feed. You know, but use
the tools that you can mute the people that you
(25:58):
need to mute. Do the best you can. It's very hard.
That's why I would argue we need sort of some
of these top level fixes. But until we get those
top level fixes, I very much support people kind of
just doing whatever they can.
Speaker 2 (26:10):
Totally. I like that. Well, Taylor, I appreciate you coming on.
This is awesome.
Speaker 3 (26:14):
Thanks for having me. This was fun.
Speaker 1 (26:20):
If you enjoy what you just heard, we hope you'll
check out the other episodes of two percent with Michae Arista.
It's available wherever you get your podcasts, twice a week
in both video and audio.
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