2023: My Surgeon General with Vice Admiral Vivek H. Murthy, MD, MBA

On this week’s episode, we had the honor of sitting down with Vice Admiral Vivek H. Murthy, MD, MBA to discuss why people are so lonely, how social media is impacting the youth, and discuss the horrifying rise in suicide rates amongst teens. 

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:02):
That is the sound of my favorite lead only fans.

Speaker 2 (00:06):
Anyway, are you gonna watch? Are you gonna go watch
the Marvel's film? Uh?

Speaker 1 (00:13):
Donald Faison, Well, you know we did hang out with
Bree Larson at that tailors.

Speaker 2 (00:18):
It has nothing to do with whether you're gonna go
see the movie or not.

Speaker 1 (00:22):
It looks dope. I'm not gonna lie.

Speaker 2 (00:24):
Joel, Are you gonna go see Marvel's Mark Marvel.

Speaker 1 (00:28):
The Marvel, the Marvel, Marvel, the Marvels. I'm gonna be
honest with you. I wasn't a huge fan of Captain Marvel. Okay,
first one.

Speaker 2 (00:34):
There comes your honesty, Joel. What were your thoughts on
Captain Marvel?

Speaker 3 (00:38):
Liked it, but not a perfect movie at all. It
did make a billion dollars in the box officoes. So
I think it's when people are like, but this is
what killed the Mark, like the Marvel's Andradic Universe, like
it made a billion dollars.

Speaker 1 (00:48):
Yeah, but that was back when Marvel was making a
billion dollars every movie though, you got it, that is
exactly every movie, no matter what happened, they were dropping
a billion.

Speaker 2 (00:57):
I saw an item Joel and Annel and Donald that said,
and this could be totabull shit. I need you guys.
It said that the new Marvel universe is thinking about
bringing back their big stars. I heard, including all those
people they killed off. They're thinking about bringing them all back.

Speaker 1 (01:15):
They could possibly do well, you know what, that's what
comic books do, though, That's how comic books are. You know,
they killed off characters and then they bring them back,
and you know, it doesn't surprise me that that's what
they're talking about. Star Wars bro.

Speaker 2 (01:33):
Imagine, imagine Robert Donna and yours check to just show
up so much.

Speaker 1 (01:37):
I want that.

Speaker 2 (01:37):
He doesn't need money.

Speaker 1 (01:38):
I want that. I want that.

Speaker 2 (01:39):
How about he doesn't need money. He's gonna be like
I amount of ideas, He's like, amount of ideas? How
about how about like an island?

Speaker 1 (01:45):
No, that's he's probably owned one.

Speaker 2 (01:47):
He probably owns one, or he probably got two.

Speaker 1 (01:49):
Right, he's like out of ideas? How about is.

Speaker 2 (01:53):
There is no how about a planet? It's not even
a plane anymore? Just kee, He's like, I'm out of ideas.
You guys, you've given me so much money. How about right,
do you think they can do a cameo?

Speaker 1 (02:10):
Do you think they would collect residuals on that ship.

Speaker 2 (02:19):
I'm in New York City, everybody, but the weather's gotten cold,
so there's no ice out here that takes the winner off.
He probably does something else.

Speaker 1 (02:30):
Probably sound hot dogs.

Speaker 2 (02:33):
As long as he doesn't play a song when he
does it. I'm fine. Donald. I know how much you
love Ganja, and I have to say, you can walk
around Lower Manhattan and you might get you might get
two breaths without the smelling whed, but you're not gonna
get a third.

Speaker 3 (02:51):
The weak carts are wild out there, yo, everywhere I
grew up in everywhere.

Speaker 1 (02:56):
I grew up in that city, and we smoked weed
back in the day like a shit.

Speaker 2 (03:01):
But you at least were a little bit covert.

Speaker 1 (03:03):
Yeah, because you go to jail for a really long
time for weed. Now that it's decriminalized in New York City,
I'm not screminized.

Speaker 2 (03:11):
It's legal, recreational legal. There's a weed shop. Every third
store is a weed shop. It's like, I know, it's
probably an overcorrection, but it is really and I don't
mean to sound like a grumpy old man, but it
is really unbelievable how many people are so high on
a given moment on the island of Manhattan.

Speaker 1 (03:28):
Well if you if if people walk the streets of
LA it would be the same thing. I promise you.

Speaker 2 (03:33):
Yeah, because there's no pedestrians there, right, I promise a
song about that. Nobody walks in LA.

Speaker 1 (03:39):
And they also wrote a song about how it doesn't
rain in southern California. But I hear El Nino's coming.

Speaker 2 (03:45):
El Nino's coming to LA.

Speaker 1 (03:47):
Yeah, man, you might want to keep your ass in
New York City, bro, that shit is on its way
all winter long.

Speaker 2 (03:55):
El Nino, you look very cute in your little hoodie.

Speaker 1 (04:00):
Motherfucker. You look like you've been working out your shoulders.
Show me that, show me that ship, show me that
gone motherfucking Okay, that's motherfucker with a six pack.

Speaker 2 (04:13):
I'm having a glow.

Speaker 1 (04:14):
Up, glow up. That's what happens when you single.

Speaker 2 (04:18):
I'm just getting in shape, I mean, and learning strike
there's something I can do. I feel like my job
is exercising.

Speaker 1 (04:23):
You know. I've been animating a lot, a lot, a lot.
I'm taking classes with Justin uh Rash. He's the dude
that did the stop motion for you know that scene
in Pinocchio with the monkey doing the swing, the thing
that was all over the place when that movie was
coming out. Yeah, he's teaching me right now along with

(04:45):
my buddy Jacob. Yo. I'm learning some ship. Man. I'm
also learning like even in stop motion animation, no is
so fucked. I mean you think as an actor, you
hear no a lot stop motion animation if you don't
get the shot right, No, but you just put in
five hours of work. I had to equate that too. Well.

(05:05):
You know, I put about three hours of work in
when I have auditions to go on an audition to
hear no. So it's kind of the same thing. But
this shit is fun, man, I'm doing I'm living the
dream right now.

Speaker 2 (05:17):
You love it, And you can't have a question for
I've never asked you. You can't go back right if
you fucked up one sequence of four frames and then
you did the whole sequence, can you go back and
be like, you can put it, put the puppet in
that exact position and try and fix it your or
it doesn't look good.

Speaker 1 (05:35):
You can, And if you're really skilled at mapping out
what your puppet's doing, it's really easy to do. But
for the most part, you set a plan and you
build a road map, but then halfway through your improvising.
You know what I mean That motion is mostly improvising
with some sort of with some sort of guideline. So

(05:56):
you develop a plan and you and you and you
try to attack the plan head on, but sincerely halfway
through you're like, I'm weighing it right now?

Speaker 2 (06:04):
Right? Is that how all the pros do it? It's
kind of like it's improvisational. I mean, they know that
the puppet has to climb up to the tree and
the monkey has to swing and grab a flower, right,
but there's no rules to that. He's just kind of
free flow.

Speaker 1 (06:16):
There are a lot of rules to it, depending on.

Speaker 2 (06:17):
Well I'm saying to execute it, but I'm saying like
it's up to the individual artists to interpret how he's
going to do that right?

Speaker 1 (06:26):
Right, But then the director could be like, wow, that's
really cool. That's not what I want. Can you do
it this way?

Speaker 2 (06:31):
Right? That's not the style of the thing.

Speaker 1 (06:33):
Right. It's a very it's a very very, very very
long process. But I mean, I mean, if you love it,
you love it. Man, Like my ankles were swollen and
shit from standing in the same standing.

Speaker 2 (06:46):
You should get one of those mats that they have
for people. Yeah, yeah, those kitchen mats when someone has
to do dishes all the time. I know, I know,
all right, we have a very, we have a very.
I can't believe that we have this, guest. We did
it big, dude, We've got we must have gotten big
because the Surgeon General of the United States did all the.

Speaker 1 (07:06):
Way up to the US government. You know, Bam in
your face.

Speaker 2 (07:10):
This guy's friends with Obama.

Speaker 1 (07:12):
All I'm trying to say is is that he's talked
to a lot of president.

Speaker 2 (07:16):
Do you remember the surgeon Well I want to talk
to him about this, But do you remember the surgeon only?
What's the only thing you can remember about surgeon generals?

Speaker 1 (07:22):
Sierra Coop. That's the only one I remember.

Speaker 2 (07:25):
No, it is it was see Ever Coop.

Speaker 1 (07:28):
Right, it's not. It's not Sierra. I thought it was Era.

Speaker 2 (07:32):
See every Coop. By the way, we're the same age.
And that's what all I could remember too. And he
was the guy who put this I think the cigarette. Yeah,
the CI cigarette Surgeon General says.

Speaker 1 (07:46):
Yeah, this will make you this ship will make.

Speaker 2 (07:49):
You give you cancer. Yeah right, see Ever Coop. I
couldn't believe I pulled that out of my butt. I
know what he looks like too.

Speaker 1 (07:55):
I don't know what he looks like. I just remember
the name was like Sierra Coop and I was like,
that's a PRETI but it's see Everett Coop. You thought
his name was Sierra yees, Sierra Coop.

Speaker 2 (08:06):
Well, ladies and gentlemen, our podcast has gotten fancy enough,
fake doctors, real friends that we have the Surgeon General
of the United States of America right now.

Speaker 1 (08:16):
He is, ha, we got that motherfucker on hold.

Speaker 2 (08:19):
Yeah, make him wait.

Speaker 4 (08:24):
Eight stories.

Speaker 5 (08:26):
You're not sure we made about a bunch of dogs
and nurses j He.

Speaker 4 (08:33):
Said, he's the stories Net. So yander round here, yeada
round here.

Speaker 2 (08:48):
There. Oh my goodness, wow, each oh my good Look
at you.

Speaker 1 (08:53):
You got like the whole background you're standing in front
of it. It looks like you're in the briefing room.

Speaker 6 (09:01):
This is where I do a lot of my podcasts from.
It's uh, it's good.

Speaker 1 (09:05):
Well, you're really in your house. You're really in your house,
and you just got a blue screen thing up though.
Keep it one.

Speaker 6 (09:10):
Well, I'm really in a movie theater and the show's
about to start. But I figure I'll do that, keep.

Speaker 1 (09:15):
It to keep it down.

Speaker 2 (09:18):
Well, welcome to our show. We're so honored you're here.
Make sure I'm pronouncing your name right. It's Vivek Murphy.

Speaker 6 (09:26):
Yeah, thank you, that's perfect.

Speaker 2 (09:27):
And you are the Surgeon General of the United States
of America.

Speaker 1 (09:31):
Thunder supply, Daniel, Thunder.

Speaker 2 (09:34):
We're gonna have some thunder a supply right now. Daniel,
thank you so much for coming. You're probably the fanciest
guest we've ever had.

Speaker 1 (09:42):
And we've had We've had Brendan Fraser.

Speaker 2 (09:45):
But I think you're cooler. I'm sorry, Bent, I'm gonna
keep it one hundred. You're cooler, man.

Speaker 6 (09:49):
Well, you know, he's a pretty big deal. So I
don't really think about myself as fancy, and my kids
remind me of that often, So.

Speaker 1 (09:57):
You know, No, you're fancy, dude, You're very fan You're
very very fascy.

Speaker 2 (10:01):
Where one degree where one degree separation away from the president,
that's all we keep thinking. Donald and I were just
ruminating it. We were growing up. There was see Everett
Coop and he Donald just admitted that he thought his
name was Sierra Coop.

Speaker 1 (10:14):
I thought it was Sierra, but I couldn't.

Speaker 2 (10:16):
Believe that I pulled I pulled that name out of
my head see Everett Coop, and I googled him because
I was interested in I learned this Donald and tell
you that. I believe he was the first surgeon to
separate conjoined twins. Did you know that the.

Speaker 6 (10:30):
VEC did not know that about him? Actually, that's really interesting.

Speaker 1 (10:33):
Where were they conjoined? That where they can joined at
the hip because they don't know, but at the shoulder
because once it's a heart and head and brainer and.

Speaker 2 (10:41):
Joel can look it up for us. I'm sure it was.
It was the first time it was done. I believe Joelle.
Please check that out for me.

Speaker 1 (10:47):
Have you done something like that? What's your I have not.

Speaker 6 (10:51):
I have not separated anyone later in life at any point.

Speaker 2 (10:56):
What do you do? Were you a surgeon before you
got this position?

Speaker 6 (11:02):
So I wasn't. I was in internal medicine. The doctor
with that meant that I took care of adult patients,
and I specialized in hospital based medicine, so I took
care of patients once they were admitted to the hospital,
So that meant they were usually sicker. There's usually more
more complicated sort of situation going on. But that's where
I practiced for many years before joining the government.

Speaker 2 (11:22):
And was were you surgeon general with Obama as well?

Speaker 6 (11:26):
I was, so I was. I served as surgeon general
during his second term, the President Obama second term, and
then President Biden asked me to come back to serve
in the role when he took office, which was in
the throes of COVID, and there's a lot happening when
it came to public health in the country, so that's
why I came back.

Speaker 1 (11:43):
So you didn't serve with Trump at all?

Speaker 6 (11:47):
Well, so, well, technically speaking, I did serve for the
first three and a half months of the Trump administration
because the surgeon general's term actually doesn't go follow the
political calendar, so it doesn't tie in within a president's
sort of time and time in office. It's independent of that.

(12:08):
So my term actually extended past when President Obama in
left office. And that's why you know I served for
a few months into the Trump administration. I wasn't there
for the vast majority of his tenure as president, and
during COVID when COVID hit, I was a private citizen
on the outside, which I'll tell you was it was
tough in some ways. Because you know, having sometimes in

(12:29):
your inner role and then you step out of it
and then a problem comes up that you could have addressed.
When you're in your role, you're like, oh, gosh, I
wish I could have been back, you know, in that role.
Maybe I could have helped a bit. So I found
myself thinking about that in the first year. But you know,
but thanks to the President, Buyden had an opportunity to
come back and hopefully do some good.

Speaker 1 (12:46):
That's really interesting because in the movies like it, they
make it seem like once you're in office, you kind
of got a way back in, not like back into office,
but you could call the Attorney General like a bro. Look,
so listen, I'm freaking out, but I'm sure idea. Let
me come in on the phone. We all come in

(13:08):
and we talked this.

Speaker 2 (13:09):
I don't think Evertt's with us anymore. I'm not sure, but.

Speaker 6 (13:12):
Joelle passed away. I don't know about the whereabouts of
Sierra Coop, though.

Speaker 2 (13:19):
Sarah Coop is thriving. So wait, will you just tell
our audience because I'm sure people are wondering about what
it is that you do. Oh wait, Joel is telling me.
I want to answer the trivia here the first recorded
successful separation of conjoined twins was carried out, Oh by
Swiss surgeon, so Joelle, I don't have that right.

Speaker 3 (13:42):
So he was the first one to do Siamese twins
joined at the heart specifically.

Speaker 2 (13:48):
Oh, well, that's very impressive. Trying to why are you
trying to minimize what I said?

Speaker 3 (13:52):
Trying to me sure I got the right information? Is
sixty day six first conjoined twins?

Speaker 2 (13:57):
He didn't first conjoins by the heart?

Speaker 1 (14:00):
Vivague.

Speaker 2 (14:00):
Will you tell our listeners who might only know of
the term surgeon general from the cigarette pack warning, what
it is that you do, because I've googled it a bit,
But explain it to people absolutely.

Speaker 6 (14:13):
And that is actually how a lot of people first
hear about the role is they hear about warning labels
that are on cigarette boxes or on alcohol sort of
bottles or cans. But the role really has two primary responsibilities.
The one is to the first is to the content
connect with the public and communicate with the public about

(14:33):
critical public health issues. That could be like HIV and tobacco.
When saver coop with Surge in general, it could be
about other issues like COVID nineteen and mental health, mental
health being the one that I've focused on a lot
during my time. The second role, though, of the Surgeon
General is much less known, and that is actually to
oversee one of the eight uniformed services in the US government.

(14:56):
So many you may be familiar with the Army, the Navy,
the Air Force are some of our uniformed services, but
one of them is also the United States Public Health
Service Commission Corps. These are six thousand uniformed officers who
are nurses, doctors, physical therapists, pharmacists, and public health experts,
public health engineers, and they actually serve in public health

(15:17):
roles all across the country, and we deployed them during
times of emergencygment as an earthquake or a tornado, during
COVID nineteen after nine to eleven, these are all times
we deployed many of our officers to help provide direct
care and shore up the public health system. So the
Surgeon General has the privilege of overseeing that uniformed service.
So that's actually the reason why I wear this uniform.

(15:38):
It's not because of my role as a public health communicator.
It's because I oversee the US Public Health Service.

Speaker 1 (15:45):
You are literally a surgeon general.

Speaker 6 (15:50):
Well, it's very interesting. So this is a funny thing
about that term. It's surgeon general. I'm actually not a surgeon.
I'm an internal medicine doc. And I'm actually not a general.
I'm an admiral because that's the way that our ranks
work in the public Health Service.

Speaker 1 (16:03):
I'm so confused right now.

Speaker 2 (16:06):
So you should be called an internal admiral. Right, let's
call Biden. Let's call Biden. I want to straighten this U.
I don't, I don't. I know, he's got a couple
of things on his plate right now. But if you
could just text him, I want to change the name
of you to internal admiral.

Speaker 6 (16:23):
Well, that's why I said at the beginning, just call
me Vivake. It's a lot easier.

Speaker 2 (16:26):
I was about to see the outfit. The uniform is
very nice looking. He looked very sharp. And I've noticed
this before I've even ever met you today. I always
thought that you looked very sharp in that in that coat.

Speaker 6 (16:37):
Oh, that's very nice of you to say. I appreciate that.

Speaker 1 (16:39):
Son.

Speaker 2 (16:39):
Yeah, sorry, Donald didn't dress up. He's in his Uh.

Speaker 1 (16:44):
I didn't get the memo that Viveke was gonna come
in on his show with a freaking blazer.

Speaker 2 (16:49):
But you've seen images of the VAC before the SERI
he's always dressed really nicely in that uniform.

Speaker 1 (16:55):
I had no clue he was coming on with the uniform.
I had no clue.

Speaker 2 (16:58):
Wait, I first have a question about cigarettes. You know
when you go to other countries. I just made a
movie recently in Montreal, and oh my goodness, their cigarette
warning packets are so intense, And I wonder why you
haven't up the game because you just yours, just say like,
I don't know what's warning.

Speaker 1 (17:17):
Maybe you could get you could get cancer.

Speaker 2 (17:20):
I'm sure you've seen how other countries they have an
image of like a crying child next to their parents' bed,
like they tell a whole story on these cigarettes.

Speaker 1 (17:32):
You smoke this, you could talk like this.

Speaker 2 (17:35):
Now, yes, they don't walk around. And I'm wondering if
there's been any discussion of bringing our level of warnings
on cigarette packages up to the European Canadian level.

Speaker 1 (17:46):
Like we were in a moment we last thing, weren't
we at a moment where cigarettes had dropped off and
vaping had happened, And then now vaping is just as dangerous,
Like let's get into the whole thing on smoke.

Speaker 2 (17:57):
Well, first answer my question, then answered Donald's.

Speaker 6 (18:01):
These are awesome questions, by the way. So first is
that you're totally right. Many other countries have graphic warning labels,
not just text. They've got pictures that really bring home
why cigarettes are bad for you and frankly bad for
the people around you. We I would love for us
to do that in the United States, but there are
some legal challenges with us actually doing that. And I'll

(18:22):
tell you one thing without getting into all the gory
details of this, is that the tobacco industry has a
lot of money that they put toward sort of making
the case for them continuing to sell their products and
to try to minimize the kind of warnings or signals
or messages that might dissuade people from tobacco products. And

(18:43):
you know, they have fought tooth and nail against graphic
warning labels, and in our country so far that has
actually blocked us or prevented us from.

Speaker 2 (18:53):
That was the reason that I mean, that's so fucked up. Sorry, Okay,
So other countries have been able to get them buy
because they're on packets of Marlboro or whatever. In Montreal
and Canada. Why I was in Montreal. But you're saying
in the United States, they've successfully said legally you can't
do that.

Speaker 6 (19:12):
Yeah, so it's complhand and tied up in free speech
arguments et cetera. That they are, you know, that have
been trying folks have tried to use those kind of
arguments to say you can't put graphic warning labels on these, uh,
you know, on these cigarette boxes. Now, from a purely
public health perspective, and again I'm not a lawyer, not
going to claim to be a lawyer, but from a
purely public health perspective, we know that graphic warning labels

(19:35):
are more effective with just because more clearly. But but
this is where, just more broadly, I worry because, look,
the tobacco is not just a problem in the US, right,
It's a problem all across the world. And imagine if
you're a smaller country that doesn't have the kind of
resources that the tobacco industry does to hire lots of

(19:57):
lawyers and to try to fight you know again, and them,
you know, coming into your country and trying to market
these products across the population, You're in a much you're
you're much worse off. And so this is a problem
where I think the the industry, look, there really is
no from a health perspective, there's no redeeming positive quality

(20:18):
of tobacco. What it does is it contributes to our
risk of death, disability, and disease. We've known that for
a long time. But every time we put out a
new Surgeon General's report on tobacco, we find more and
more diseases that are made more likely if you use tobacco.
Like in nineteen sixty four, when the first report came out,
it was just about cancer, right, it was about lung

(20:39):
cancer in particular, and now we know it's multiple types
of cancers, it's diabetes, it's heart disease, it's a whole
host of conditions that are made worse, you know, by
and you're at more wrist risk of really when you
use tobacco products. So I worry that. To get to
Donald's question that you know, sometimes people think, because they

(21:01):
hear about all the other public health issues out there,
they think, oh, cigarettes, wasn't that a problem like back
in the day, didn't we solve that problem? Well, the
answer is no, we made progress. So in nineteen sixty four,
forty two percent of American smoke right right now. Thankfully,
the rate of cigarette use is under twelve percent. That's
a lot. That's a lot of progress. That's a lot

(21:21):
of progress. But what has happened is what Donald mentioned,
which is that the rates of vaping, especially among the youth,
among young people, have gone up exactly and they think, oh,
this is benign, it's not harmful. But what's really concerning
to us and the reason in twenty sixteen I issue
that actual Surgeon General's Report on youth you know vaping,

(21:42):
was because young people, when they shouldn't be on tobacco
for any reason, but when they're introduced to tobacco products
through vaping, not only does it addict them to nicotine,
but it also increases their risk of using traditional cigarettes
and other tobacco products down the line, which we know
are really dangerous for your health.

Speaker 2 (22:02):
Yeah, how have they been able to have all that?
I mean, it's so clearly the cigarette industry found another
way to get these kids hooked. They went, what if
we put it in colorful little canisters and give it
a strawberry flavor. I mean, it's so sinister. Have you
have you had? I'm sure you've tried, But there's have

(22:23):
you had any luck pushing back. I remember reading something
about Jewel, the company Jewel being closed down for somebody.
What has been your success with controlling vaping with kids,
because I mean occasionally I'm around a young person and
a teenager and you just see they're all sucking on
those jewels or whatever the vape things.

Speaker 6 (22:43):
Yeah, I know they are, and look there too. I
think we've made some progress. You know, after our report
came out, we actually called for aggressive action that the
government took for the government to take to actually reduce
the availability and use of these products in the market.
Of these products the kids and the FDA ultimately did
step in and put in a series of steps regulatory

(23:05):
steps to start clawing back you know, what has become
dangerous levels of use among kids. And for that reason,
they've been able to take some of these dangerous products
off the shelves. They really what they did is, in
some ways they put the burden on tobacco companies to
prove that their products actually have a public health benefit
and if they don't, then they shouldn't stay on the market.

(23:25):
They also took on flavors, which is which you raised it.
So there's so many flavors that appeal to kids. And
one thing we know from their data is that flavors
are the number one reason cited by kids as to
why they're use e cigarettes or vaping devices. And think
about like watermelon flavors, gummy bear flavors, all of these
flavors are really appealing to kids. So the FDA has

(23:48):
since our report came out, taken action against flavors as well.
But the bottom line is we use said Zach, which
is that the industry is proven historically to be very
creative at finding ways to continue to build and expand
their markets for their products, and so we've got to
make sure that the regulatory like apparatus that these rules

(24:12):
and laws actually keep up with the industry and then
hopefully go beyond and think ahead of where they're going.
Because the truth is, as long as we're continuing to
make tobacco products available and they are going to continue
to cause depth disease and disability. And it is having
taken care of many pay patients over the years who

(24:33):
have suffered as a result of tobacco driven disease, it
is just heartbreaking to see those avoidable deaths.

Speaker 1 (24:40):
What's your relationship with the FDA, Like, do you have
them like on speed dial? Are you like, yo, come on, man,
I need you to pass this shit already, my guy.

Speaker 2 (24:52):
A chain is a text Is there a text chain
with emojis?

Speaker 6 (24:59):
There is not textan with emojis, at least if there is,
I'm not on that chain. But you know, I talked
to folks, you know, across the federal agencies, at the FDA,
at other federal agencies. But it's really important to say
that the FDA is an independent agency, just like our
office Office of the Surgeon General is independent. So they
make their own decisions about, you know, what drugs they approve,

(25:22):
what recommendations they make, what they do when it comes
to regulating tobacco products. We certainly provide our input and advice,
and but they ultimately make their own decisions.

Speaker 1 (25:33):
I wish they made decisions a little bit faster sometimes,
that's all.

Speaker 2 (25:36):
Yeah, I agree. I hope that you can. I hope
that because of this podcast and how successful it is,
you're going to be able to get more graphic warnings
on cigarettes, because you know, it's interesting. They become like
a conversation topic. Someone drops one of those on a
table in a restaurant in Montreal, and then everyone I
found starts talking about it, and then all of a sudden,

(25:57):
it was like, oh my god, look at that picture.
That is so nasty, that's so gross. But then people
are talking about cigarettes and talking about how you shouldn't
be smoking. It generates conversation like like, of course it
was intended to So I really feel that would be
that would be powerful in this country too, and I
think it's a shame that you guys have yet to

(26:18):
be able to get that through.

Speaker 6 (26:20):
Yeah, I couldn't agree with you more. I think not
only do I think that would be helpful, but look
in terms of this speed of things. You know, there
are a lot of really hard working folks in government
are trying to move things fast, and they're trying to
you know, they came to government because they want to
help people. But the bottom line is there are a
lot of things that make the governments work slow. Even
just think about legislation right like we have been you know,

(26:44):
I and many others have been pushing to get legislation
passed that would help protect kids against the harms of
social media. You know, I put out an.

Speaker 7 (26:54):
Advisory Cgional's advisory in May of this past year, but
I've been talking about a long before then, continue to
talking about it more afterward, about the urgent need for
us to have safety standards in place to protect kids from,
you know, being from what they're being supposed to right now,
which is harmful content, pornography, extreme violence, but also from
the bullying and harassment that's taking place, and including from strangers,

(27:17):
and the addictive features on these on these platforms sucks
kids in and takes their time away from sleep, from
in person interaction, from learning time in class.

Speaker 1 (27:26):
So we one other thing. Once they get not to
cut you off. Also, once they get off the thing,
they are freaking so agitated and so discombobulated. Trust me,
as a kid who as a as a dad who
has as a father of a kid who plays video
games on iPads with his friends on social media. When

(27:47):
he's asked to get off, the energy that has shifted
in him is so ridiculous. He is so angry and
so upset. So yeah, dude, I am with you on that.

Speaker 6 (28:00):
I'm sorry, go on, yeah No, And to your point
on what you mentioned, that behavior is very similar to
the behavior that we see when you take a substance
away from someone that they're addicted to. It's very, very
similar and so and I don't think that that's a coincidence.
I think these the platforms. Their goal is to maximize
how much time people spend on the platforms, right, That's

(28:23):
what actually drives revenue in the bottom line for them.
And look as apparent as a doctor, a surgeon general,
what I care about is actually time well spent. You know,
what they care about is maximizing the amount of time spent.
But this is a place where we we got to
protect our kids. This isn't look one thing, just to
be super clear on this isn't happening because like the

(28:45):
current generation of young people have been somehow born into
this world with dramatically less will power than prior generations.
What's changed is that they are now exposed to tools
that are praying on the fact that adolescents are much
more sensitive than other people to social comparison and to
social suggestion because of their unique phase of brain development.

(29:08):
So we've got to step up and protect our kids.
I raise that because to your point, Zach about the
speed of government, this is a place where we need
government to move a lot faster right, Like, we kids
can't wait years and years and years for effective legislation
to pass and to ultimately be implemented. Their childhood is
happening right now. That's why I'm going to continue to
do everything I can, certainly to push Congress and to

(29:30):
tell the public why this is so urgent, so they can,
you know, they can do what they need to do
to make their wishes known to their lawmakers. But but look,
I say, this is the data two kids. Like I
worry deeply about the world. Our kids are growing up,
and we've got to move faster to make it safer
and more supportive for them.

Speaker 2 (29:49):
I feel like this is an issue, the rare issue
where you could unite parties on something because I really listen,
I took TikTok off my phone try for like a month,
and it was so incredibly addicting, addictive. I found that
I really had trouble getting off of it right right

(30:13):
when I was like okay, enough, it set me something else.
I was interested in a way more powerful way personally
for me than any of the other social media platforms,
and so I was like, I cannot have this on
my phone. It's not good for me. It's such a
waste of time. And I'm a grown man who can
who has the willpower to be like, okay enough, And
I think of this drug being given to children. And

(30:36):
I'm not a parent myself, but if I was, I
would be so concerned for the amount of time they're
spending on this app that can be very, very unhealthy
for them, telling them they need to look a certain way,
telling them they need to act a certain way, making
them feel less than about themselves. So I guess my.
And there's a great book I recommended before on here

(30:58):
that I don't know if you've read, called The Chaos
Machine Jo. Well, we should have trying to have that
author on here because he's he was a really, really
great book, and I recommend it to parents especially. But
what do you you know, we have a lot of
parents that listen to the show. What can you give
them some advice? What does one do? Because their kids
all want to be on the same things as their friends, right?

(31:20):
What you know? What what do you? What do you?
What do you tell a parent about how to control
their kids addiction to these social media apps? Because it's
clearly not good for any of us.

Speaker 1 (31:30):
I'm gonna keep it one hundred and it's easier said
than done. You're gonna give your anecdote right now, and
that ship is out the window when you hear the
kid freaking screaming like a banshee in the freaking in
the house, and you're like, fine, just take this ship.
Just take the fucking gang. Just take it, take it,
take it, take it. You know what I mean?

Speaker 2 (31:49):
Right? Oh yeah, right right, I'm sure And listen, that's
that's a ladies and gentlemen. That's right from the Fason household. No,
I know, but I I it may may have I
don't know. I don't have any answers, but I'm hoping
that you can at least give some recommendations to people.
I'm sure one of the things is is what age
can you hold it off until? Right?

Speaker 6 (32:09):
Yeah, well, look, this is the dilemma. I think almost
every parent is finding themselves in how to manage technology
that we didn't grow up with, that we didn't have
to manage, that's rapidly evolving, and that's designed to suck
our kids in without any limits, right Like, that is
a dilemma. And right now, what I would tell parents
out there is just no Number one, you're not struggling
alone here every other parent is dealing with this. I

(32:32):
say that because I run into a lot of parents
who think, hey, every other parent has figured this out.
I'm the failure because I haven't figured out how to
manage this with my kids. So number one, that's not true.
Number Two, I think the important thing to realize is
that we can start a lot of this work by
initiating a conversation with our kids about how we use technology,

(32:52):
how technology makes them feel. There's so many young people
I talk to who are on social media who have
a lot of insight into how it's making them feel,
who often say, you know, I feeling great about my
day that I go on social and I see all
the stuff that other people are doing and I just
don't feel so great as a result. Or I see
people doing stuff without me and then I start to
feel left out. And all of that is important, but

(33:14):
when a child is processing that alone, it can be
even more stressful. So starting a conversation with your child
about how they're using social media, how it's making them feel.
Are they having dangerous interactions or are they being approached
by strangers, Like six out of ten adolescent girls are
right now yeah, in ways that are making them feel uncomfortable.
These are things it's important to start a conversation on

(33:36):
the second. Here's another thing I would do. If you're
a parent whose child is not yet on social media,
I would seek to delay their use of social media
until past middle school if you can. This is a
lot easier said than done, because a lot of the
people around them, a lot of the kids around them,
are going to be on social and they're gonna.

Speaker 1 (33:54):
Say, hey, everybody has phones already.

Speaker 2 (33:56):
It's fine, parent, But a parent can can say you
can have a phone, but you're knocking down social media
right so they can There's an asterisk to that, which
I'll get you in a second, because it can be
a tricky to do that because sometimes kids will download
and use apps and create accounts without your knowledge of them.
Even if you are a thoughtful, conscientious parent who's monitoring
their phone. There are ways to hide apps and to

(34:18):
essentially keeping in the dark as a parent, But delaying
the use until past middle school is ideal. And here's why.

Speaker 6 (34:24):
Because adolescence is a unique time when our kids' brains
and their socialized are developing, when they're more vulnerable. If
you will to the harms that social media may cause.
But the early adolescent period, when they're in middle school
is when they're particularly sensitive. So delaying passe is helpful. Now,
doing it on your own is very hard. But if
you can partner with a few other parents, yeah, who

(34:48):
may also have similar concerns about their kids, who may
want to keep them safe, that becomes a lot easier.
You have more supporter as a parent. But your kids
also know, hey, I'm not the only one. Donald's kids
are also not getting to use this in middle school,
Zax kids aren't getting to us this like they'll know right,
like that they're at least not alone.

Speaker 2 (35:05):
Ideally with the with the kids friend group, right, you know,
saying hey, we four parents are going to band together.

Speaker 6 (35:11):
And exactly exactly, so that makes it a little more sustainable.
Let me say one last word though, about well two
last things. One is about what to do if your
kids already on social media, right, because that can be hard,
you know, like taking it away from them, Like I
know that that is not an easy proposition.

Speaker 1 (35:27):
But taking a drug away, yeah, and.

Speaker 6 (35:29):
It's it's it can be incredibly painful if it's not
done in the right way, right, Just like cutting somebody
off immediately without any support you know, from a substance
addicted to could be potentially harmful to them without the
right you know process. So here, what I would say
is a place to start is to create a few
tech freeze zones in your child's life. And specifically the

(35:52):
areas I would protect in their day are there times
for sleep, learning, and in person interaction. Those are the
three things our kids need in our to grow, develop
and thrive. And that could mean an hour before your
child goes to bed and throughout the night they don't
have access to their devices. I was just with a
parent the other day at an event that I was at,
who said, you know, we started a practice in middle

(36:13):
school if everyone charges their phones in our bedroom, they
don't take their phones into their bedrooms. And we're still
doing that to this day even though our kids are
in high school. And it keeps protect their sleep, protecting
their in person time from tech. So time around the
dinner table, time when they're hanging out with their friend,
you know, with friends at home, when they're family gatherings
also important, and time learning. So many kids are actually

(36:35):
on their devices in school in class while they're doing
their homework, and I'll tell you this. You know, like
we overestimate how good we are at multitasking. We think, oh,
we can pay attention to this and that at the
same time be on our phone. I'll listen to a conversation.
The signs is super clear that we're really bad and multitasking.
What we do is we task switch rapidly. So if
we're looking at that text that popped up on our

(36:56):
phone in class, we're not actually hearing what our teacher
is saying. So I would this is a place where
parents are speaking up more and more in schools to say, hey,
can we make classrooms a tech free space? You know,
the kids can maybe use them in between classes or
I can't.

Speaker 2 (37:11):
Believe they're not. I mean, I'm sorry for being naive
because I don't have any kids, but I would daydream
of a world where the teacher is saying, like, no phones.
You're saying a lot of kids are doing it under
their desk or whatever. But this must be hard for
them to police.

Speaker 6 (37:26):
Well, so that's one of the reasons I think it's
been challenging for schools. A lot of them have policies
they're just not enforced. But the schools that I've Ever
since our social media advisory came out on kids' mental
health in earlier this year, we've heard from more and
more schools that have used that sort of as a
way to go to their parent communities and say, look,

(37:46):
we've got to now create these tech free zones in
our classroom. And one of them I ran into actually
a school in Indiana when I was visiting, and they
told me, they said, actually, after we implemented that policy,
a couple of things we noticed almost right away. We
noticed that we heard kids actually talking to each other
more in the hallways during lunchtime. We actually saw them

(38:06):
playing games like whether it was Jenga or card games
or other things in between classes when they had some
downtime that wasn't happening before everyone was on their devices.
They weren't actually interacting with each other. So anyway, these
are our places or some small steps we can take.
But a last they see to Donald's point about the phones,
here's the tricky thing the phones. Smartphones in particular are

(38:30):
easy to load apps onto, and those apps can often
be hidden. I have heard so many heartbreaking stories from
parents who have lost their children to suicide after their
child was mercilessly bullied and harassed on social media, and
they were really monitoring those phones, but they only realized
after their child passed that they were all of these

(38:51):
accounts that they had that they didn't know about and
apps that they were hiding that the parent wasn't aware of.
So there are more and more parents who are actually
doing this. They're saying, yeah, I want my kid to
be safe, to be able to make a call if
there's an issue, to be able to get help, to
be in touch with me, but they're actually trying to
get them what you can call dumb phones, so phones
that we used to use back in the day when.

Speaker 2 (39:14):
Yeah that Motorola Star tech baby.

Speaker 6 (39:17):
Yeah, I mean the phones which allow you to make
phone calls and text, but which don't allow you to
actually download apps. So those might seem old school Sidekick
mobile Sidekick Baby, get back, y'all, I think that may
have had apps. I'm not sure.

Speaker 2 (39:31):
Well, we're going to take a break, but we both
have so many more questions for you. We're so glad
you're here. I want to get to one of the
latest things that you're speaking about and spreading the word about.

Speaker 1 (39:41):
I had the problem which I believe that too.

Speaker 2 (39:43):
What's that You.

Speaker 1 (39:44):
Had the perfect segue?

Speaker 2 (39:45):
Okay, well, can we need to take a break and
then you can go back to your segue. Everyone remember
where we are at and then listen to these ads.
When we come back. Donald is going to be in
charge of the segue. We'll be right back, all right, Donald,

(40:06):
what was your segue? Everyone remembered where we were.

Speaker 1 (40:09):
So you left office and things were kind of normal.
You came back to office and there was a Clusterfuck,
let's keep it one hundred. Like everything had switched. The
world had changed, and not only had it changed, people
were staying at home because of the change that had

(40:33):
come caused loneliness. Caused a lot of loneliness, caused a
lot of fear. And you're combating that right now.

Speaker 2 (40:43):
My correct, That was very good, Donald. I mean, you
know where we think we're decent podcast hosts, vivic. But
I just want to give my I want to give
you your flowers. Donald. That was nicely done.

Speaker 1 (40:56):
I'll take that. I'll take that.

Speaker 2 (40:57):
I'll take that level segue. That was very nice. If
I could just piggyback off of it, the loneliness epidemic
was happening question mark and then COVID magnified it exponentially.
Is that true?

Speaker 6 (41:14):
That's exactly right. Yeah, it was. It was a fire
that was burning for years and then COVID just dumped
a whole lot of fuel on it and made loneliness
much worse. But yeah, this was a problem before. In fact,
I was seeing loneliness in communities when I was traveling
around the country in twenty fifteen during my first stinto
Surgeon General. It was and that's actually what made me

(41:35):
realize that this was a public health issue. You see,
before that like I never learned about loneliness in medical school,
Like we were never taught it was a health issue.
But I knew what it felt like because as a kid,
I struggled a lot with loneliness.

Speaker 2 (41:49):
Myself.

Speaker 6 (41:50):
I was, you know, it was one of those kids
who didn't really want to go to school most days,
and I would often fake having a stomach ache so
that my mom would, you know, take pity on me
and let me stay at home. Not because she doesn't
know that, by the way, And I don't know if
she listens to this podcast or not, but if.

Speaker 2 (42:04):
She does, she does, everyone does everyone, And.

Speaker 1 (42:09):
Also listen, let's be honest, man, you did fake you did.
You got out of school a lot. But look at
you now you're a surgeon general.

Speaker 2 (42:15):
So I'm listening. You know, I know that Obama listens.
So just watch your words, watch.

Speaker 1 (42:19):
Your be careful, be careful, careful.

Speaker 2 (42:22):
Don't don't dis Obama because he listens, all right for
how we talk.

Speaker 6 (42:28):
Yeah, But you know, the thing is I did all
that because I was not because I was scared about
teachers or tests. I was scared about going to the
cafeteria lunchtime one more time and not having someone to
sit next to, or being on the playground and being
scared that I wouldn't get chosen to be on someone's team,
even though it was a pretty decent athlete, because I
just didn't have that many friends. So I knew that

(42:49):
feeling personally, and I actually saw it in a lot
of my patients, you know, when I as a doctor.
But I didn't realize how widespread it was until I
started traveling as surge in general and hearing from people
who would things like, you know, I feel like I
just walked through life, you know, carrying all these burdens
by myself. Or I feel like if I disappeared tomorrow,
nobody would care, nobody would notice, or I feel invisible.

(43:11):
And I was hearing this from college students who are
surrounded by hundreds of other students on campus, like from
moms and dads who were like a busy workplace. I
was hearing this from CEOs and from members of Congress.
Everybody seemed to have their own stories and struggles with loneliness.
So that's what got me interested in exploring this deeper.
And as I did, I realized two big things. One

(43:32):
is that loneliness is extremely common. One in two adults
have measurable levels of loneliness in the United States, and
even the numbers are even higher among kids. But I
also came to realize how consequential loneliness is for both
our mental health and our physical health, and that really
surprised me absolutely.

Speaker 1 (43:49):
I mean I think about it all the time, Like
you know, some people can strue loneliness as well. I'm
by myself all the time. But you could be lonely
and be surrounded by a bunch of people, you could
be you could be lonely and have and and have
a wife or a husband and children surrounding you and
still feel lonely and still feel alone. It's it's it

(44:11):
you say, one in two. Wow, I feel like everybody
at some point experiences loneliness.

Speaker 6 (44:18):
I think you're right, and I think I think one
in two is actually an underestimate because that's the number
of people who are actually willing to admit to it
right on a survey. But I think there's this sense
of shame also that surrounds loneliness where we we think.
And this is how I felt when I was a
kid and at times when I was an adult, and
I struggled with loneliness. But I felt like, you know,
I'm lonely because I I'm not likable, I did something wrong.

(44:41):
I'm not like interesting enough, Like you think it's something
about you, you know that is making you, uh, you know,
not someone the folks want to hang out with. And
it doesn't feel great to admit that. So I think
people actually keep that under wraps.

Speaker 2 (44:52):
Did the did did social media, which we thought would
would make people more connected? Did did it tribute to
this isolation?

Speaker 6 (45:02):
I believe it has, yeah, And I think the intent
was to actually build community. But what ended up happening
with social media were a couple of interesting and really
concerning things. One is that people started shifting more of
what used to be offline in person friendships to online friendships.
They started valuing quantity number of friends over the quality

(45:26):
of friends, regardless of how few they were. I still
remember in the early days of social media, people always
talk about how many friends do you have? Like I
have this many. Oh, now I'm getting to that level,
and I'm getting to that level. Contacts are not necessarily friends,
like online acquaintances don't necessarily translate to somebody who can
be there for you during a crisis, right. I think
the last thing that happened, which is more insidious but

(45:47):
really important, is that I think for many people, social
media ended up shredding their self esteem, not all at once,
gradually over time. But it doesn't matter like how rich, powerful,
accomplished you are, whatever. When you're constantly comparing yourself help
to what people are posting online, you're gonna feel worse
about your life. And that's even though we know like
that that's not one hundred percent real, that people are

(46:08):
curating and selecting what they post. It actually turns it
turns out that that doesn't insulate us from feeling worse
about ourselves, and so that that I think has had
an impact because imagine if you if you feel worse
and worse about yourself, less confident in who you are,
it makes it harder to actually go and put yourself
out there and meet other people and build a relationship friendship.
And so I think all of this together has actually

(46:31):
contributed to greater loneliness in the population.

Speaker 1 (46:34):
Social media has contributed to so many of the lives
that are out there right now, Like now, some of
y'all don't look like that. I'm gonna keep it one
hundred like some of y'all, but putting filter after filter
after filter on your face and we know, okay, because
ain't nobody skin that perfect?

Speaker 2 (46:52):
Yeah? Okay, well you're too much?

Speaker 1 (46:54):
Am I going too far?

Speaker 2 (46:55):
No? True? Do you have a filter on right now?

Speaker 1 (47:00):
Because you know what happened.

Speaker 6 (47:06):
I wish, I wish I was sophisticated enough to even
know how to put a filter on.

Speaker 1 (47:10):
But I'm just I don't have so handsome Oh man,
thank you, no doubt.

Speaker 2 (47:15):
I will tell my mother you said that. She'll be
very proud. She's listening. Of course, he's right in a
sense that the filters and everything makes you know adds
to a heightened sense of people feeling like, gosh, I
don't look like that. I'm not.

Speaker 1 (47:30):
That's what I was, That's what I was trying to
get at, Like sincerely, man, Like, there's nothing real on
social media. Everything that's posted is a heightened reality, and
we all know it, but we still try to keep
up with it. We try to keep we all get
the we get the latest filters ourselves or we get
the you know what I mean.

Speaker 6 (47:47):
Yeah, And look, there's the thing is that there's a
fine line between using some of these features for fun
and then slipping into a world where that becomes the norm.
And I think that's what's happened like really quickly here
with social media. So look, I think part of our
challenge and like in this moment in our lives and
in society, is to figure out how to how to

(48:09):
start living real life as opposed to living our lives
mostly online, which is what's happening to most people. Like
real life is happening offline's and we need to get
people to a place where they have the space, the
opportunities to comfort, the skills to actually engage.

Speaker 2 (48:25):
With one another.

Speaker 6 (48:26):
I'll honestly say this it's not always about like major
massive transformation of your life. Like sometimes like just a
little bit of interaction can go a long way to
making us feel better, Like stopping to say hello to
somebody on the way out out of work, you know,
just to check on them, see how they're doing, picking
up the phone to call a friend on your way
to work just to say hey, yeah, I was thinking

(48:48):
about you. Just want to know what you're up to,
how you're doing, or dropping somebody aline just to say hey,
I remember that thing you did for me last week
and that it really helped.

Speaker 1 (48:56):
Me a lot.

Speaker 2 (48:56):
You know, I was having a bad day. Thanks for
reaching out for me to me, Thanks for thinking about me.

Speaker 6 (49:01):
These things can take like a minute, two minutes, but
they make us feel so much better, more human, more connected,
because the truth is, like you know, we evolved over
thousands of years to not just like listen to the
content of what each other is saying, but to like
to perceive and to take in like your facial expression,
your body language, the tone of your voice, your physical presence.

(49:23):
And when we have all of that which we have
an in person interaction, it goes so much farther and
is so much richer for us than we are when
we are solely relying. Let's say I'm texting somebody or
emailing them to communicate.

Speaker 1 (49:35):
Okay, but here's a question. Then, how do we get
out in the world and do all of these things
when we hate each other? Right now? You know what
I mean? Like, that's where we're at right now as
a as a people. Yeah, we deal with so much hate.
This planet is filled with hate. And we're asking people
to get out and touch and stuff like that, and

(49:58):
a lot of people don't want to be touched by
other people, you know what I mean? Like, where how
do we can how do we how do we fix that?
Like how that there's more to it than just you know,
I mean, getting out with loved ones is something different.
But I feel like and I and I get where
you're coming from with that, but I feel like right now,

(50:19):
like I feel like social media, I feel like all
of these things are really are what's contributing to the
amount of hatred that's going on in this world towards
towards one another, you know, and I, you know, I
I My question is, how do we combat that If

(50:40):
we're going to get out and we're going to start
talking to people. And we're going to start doing that,
we got to be ready to hear. You know, some
people don't want to listen.

Speaker 6 (50:49):
Yeah, So I think that's the right question, Donald, because
I do think you're right, and I don't think you're
alone in feeling like the feeling like there's a lot
of hate and division and anger like in the world
right now, and that makes the more you feel that,
the less less you want to reach out to other
people or build bridges. Two things I would say here, though,
One is I actually think there's actually less hate than

(51:12):
we think. And because it is magnified on social media,
it's magnified in the traditional media, and it makes us
think that that is everyone. That's how everyone feels like
these are all the interactions that are happening everywhere. They're
actually not. They're a fraction of reality. But here's the
second thing. I think we actually hate. It's easier to
hate other people when we don't know them, right, And like,

(51:33):
if you're always give you a simple example, if you're
at work, let's say, and you want to just get
to know a few more people, you don't need to
like go to your your your person in your neighboring
cubicle and say hey, can you have lunch with me
so we can talk about the top three most divisive
controversial subjects out there, because that's not what people like do, right,

(51:54):
You might like we connect on this stuff that we share,
Like maybe we both have kids and we were worried
about them. Maybe we both love music and we you know,
we just went to a concert last night. We can
talk about that. Maybe you know, we talk about the
work we have. I we talk about the communities and
neighborhoods we live in. There's a lot of our life
that actually is part of a shared experience that constitutes

(52:15):
you know, subjects of conversation and points of connection. Frankly,
that can bring us together. And I'll tell you what
happens when we do that. When we start learning about
people about their family, about their background, about their kids,
about their experience in the neighborhood, but their culture, When
we started learning about that, it becomes a lot easier
for us to manage disagreements. Right, Like you, I don't

(52:38):
know if you guys have this, but most people have
a relative that they get together with the Thanksgiving who's
their crazy uncle or they're crazy aunt. Who's got views
that are totally different from them, who they don't can't
talk to about politics or whatever it is. But the
truth is if that uncle or aunt, we're in a
car accident ended up in the hospital, you would show up.
If you were in the hospital and you needed something
in an emergency, they would you do that because you

(53:01):
have a foundation of relationship that allows you to perhaps
disagree on things. And you can see though that being
beneath that is a real person, right, We're more than
the issues we disagree on, like, and that's what building
these sort of connections allows us to feel. And that's
what I think we have a chance to get back to.
That's why I say it happens in the small conversations

(53:22):
between neighbors, co workers, between folks, between fellow parents. We
have a lot that actually connects us. We're just not
hearing or seeing much of that on social media.

Speaker 1 (53:32):
Or the news. So start in the community.

Speaker 2 (53:36):
Yes, right out, Yeah, you just made me realize that
Thanksgiving this year is going to be a doozy for
a lot of people. Like if you look at if
you looked at a graph at the most difficult Thanksgivings
of the last twenty years. I bet this one's gonna win.

Speaker 1 (53:55):
Hey, you know what, pretty wrong? You know, this is
probably going to be the most I mean just coming
out of COVID too though, so everybody is really probably
gonna this will probably be the biggest year of congregation
on thanks Is that the right word? On Thanksgiving?

Speaker 4 (54:11):
You know what I mean?

Speaker 2 (54:12):
Use of congregation? I went to congregation Temple Israel.

Speaker 1 (54:19):
Let's take a break.

Speaker 2 (54:19):
We'll be right back after these fine words. I want
to talk about on a serious note, On a more
serious note, the team suicide rate. In doing some research
on you coming on, I read some articles that really
blew my mind. I knew that this had increased, but

(54:42):
here's something from US News and World Report which I
would think would would be accurate. Researchers found that between
two thousand and eight and eighteen, suicide rate among thirteen
and fourteen year olds nationwide more than doubled, from roughly
to deaths per one hundred thousand and two eight to
five or one hundred thousand, a stark reversal from a

(55:04):
decline that began the nineties and now in the suicide
is now the leading cause of death for thirteen fourteen
year olds in the United States.

Speaker 6 (55:12):
That's accurate, right, yeah, and so so disturbing. I mean, like,
how did we get here?

Speaker 2 (55:17):
Right? Right? And before you answered, my gut is to say,
what is the big change? The big change is social media?
But is it more than that? Like? Why is this
fucking happening? And what do parents do?

Speaker 1 (55:31):
This scares the shit out of me. I'm sorry, Doc,
but this does. This is one thing that sincerely.

Speaker 2 (55:37):
I'm sure it scares everyone out there listening, and it's
not something that's talked about a lot. I knew that
the suicide rate had increased, but I didn't know it
was as stark as that stat. So I wondered, in
your position, what do you think the cause of it
is and what can be done about it?

Speaker 6 (55:52):
Well, listen, I don't think there's anything more important as
a public health issue than we should be focusing on
in youth mental health. I've called this a defining public
health crisis of our time, and I firmly believe that,
and it's why I've spent the better part of my
tenure focused on this issue. I think to understand it
where it's coming from. I think we've got to understand that.
Yet some of it has to do with the profound

(56:15):
impact that social media has had on kids' mental health.
I think we've also seen a growing amount of loneliness
among kids that is part only partially related to social media.
I think there are other contributors to that loneliness as well.
But we know that the amount of time that kids
spend in person with their friends has actually dropped by

(56:38):
fifty percent in the around fifteen years or so prior
to the pandemic, and I dropped even further during the pandemic.
So there are more and more forces that are taking
us away from each other. And look, I think that
there's another element to this that we don't talk about enough,
which is I think more and more of our kids
are becoming the victims of a achievement culture that I

(57:00):
don't think serves them right. It's not a culture that
says achievement is good or bad. It's not about that.
It's about how we define what achievement is and what
success is. And I think that we're telling our kids
more and more that if they aren't perfect, that they
don't have a future. They've got to get into fancy schools,
have a long resume, have you know, top grades, et cetera,

(57:23):
in order to make it through and be worthy. And again,
there's nothing wrong with having good grades, with striving, you know,
to get into great schools, with you know, with achievement.
There's nothing wrong with it in and of itself. Here's
the problem. The problem comes where we define our kids
worth their self esteem by whether or not they've met

(57:43):
these increasingly stringent standards of success. You know, when I
talk to kids around the country, I do a lot
of round tables with high school students, with college students,
and with even younger students, they tell me that they
feel like they're being asked to chase a model of
success that says, to make it, you've got to be famous,
you've got to be wealthy, you've got to be powerful,

(58:06):
and ideally all three. Right, if you get all three,
we'll write books about you, we'll make movies about you,
we'll write stories about you in the media. But you know,
I'll tell you this, I know a lot of people
who are rich, powerful and famous and who are really
unhappy and not fulfilled. And I know a lot of
people who are not rich, who are not powerful, who
are not famous, but they're really really happy because they

(58:28):
have relationships in their life. They have a sense of purpose,
in the role they play in their neighborhood or in
their work. That's ultimately what matters, and I think that
the focus has shifted so much away from that that
that what has become a more toxic achievement culture, combined
with loneliness and the negative impacts of social media, I
think are combining to hurt our kids. There's one last

(58:51):
factor that we have to keep in mind which is
hard to ignore, and this is affecting adults too, but
it's the negative information environment that we're all surrounded in,
like we are drowning in negative doom scrolling.

Speaker 2 (59:02):
I mean, I mean, I think that term doom scrolling
is so relevant because you know, more than ever now
you pick up your phone and you're just getting hit
with a fire hose of horribleness.

Speaker 6 (59:16):
That's right, and it's not I'm not saying that we
should be blind to the challenges happening around us in
the world, but I do think that there's a problem
when it is so out of proportion the news that
we're getting that it were constantly here and everything that's
broken about the world, we're hearing very little about what
is right about the world because that's not deemed newsworthy
and it doesn't drive clicks, and so if you see

(59:38):
that all the time, then you come to believe that
that's real, right, that everything is truly broken, that there
is no hope in the future. It is very difficult
to be happy and fulfilled and content if the future
is not bright, if you don't think that there's hope
that things are going to continue to be good, that
they can get better, that they're going to be great
for your kids. And so you put all of this
stuff together, the negative and information environment, with social media,

(01:00:01):
with loneliness, with this toxic achievement culture, and you have
a recipe for the youth mental health crisis that we're
seeing today.

Speaker 2 (01:00:08):
What do you recommend parents who are listening to say
to their children, Because I've bet a lot of these
parents who tragically lost their children to suicide would have
thought that it came out of the blue for them.
Some some of course, recognize that their children were suffering
and depressed, but I'm sure many had no idea. What
do you what do you recommend a parent listening to

(01:00:29):
this do with their with their teenager or their adolescent child,
with the conversation. They should have to reach out to them.

Speaker 6 (01:00:38):
Yeah, so this is this, I think is one of
the scariest things for parents. And that is why I
resonate with what you were saying Donald as well about
it being scary, because to think that your kid might
be suffering in silence and you don't know about it,
and to worry that it may lead to a terrible
outcome like them harming themselves. I mean, that is every
parent's worst nightmare, right and so and I feel that too.

(01:01:01):
You know, my kids are five and seven. But you know,
I'll tell you guys like my daughter who's five, when
she was in preschool just a few months ago last spring,
she came home one day and asked my wife and
I if we could post a picture that we had
taken of her on a social media platform. And she
actually named the platform. And we're like, whoa, whoa, whoa.
You're in preschool, where did this come from. It's not

(01:01:23):
a platform that we even use like ourselves, and we
don't talk about it at home, but her friends in
pre school we're talking about posting stuff on social media.
So this is this is a nightmare to manage for parents.
Here's what I would say to them. Though, one thing
that remains true is that as parents, our love for
our children is the most powerful protective force that we

(01:01:47):
have to give them. It's important our kids know that
we love them, that we love them unconditionally. We may
tell them, they may say nothing, They may like wave
us off. They may say, ah, you know, you don't
need to say that you're being sappy. Doesn't matter. Say
it to your kids. Express it to your kids in
the moments of darkness and crisis, when they're wondering who
in the world actually values them and cares about them.

(01:02:09):
You want them to remember that their parents do. So
that's one thing we can remind our kids of. The
second thing we can do as parents is to I
start conversations with our children about their mental health. Sometimes
parents worry, Hey, if I bring it up, maybe it'll
plant the idea in their head. If I use the
word depression, maybe it'll lead them to become depressed. If
I talk about suicide, maybe it'll put that idea in there.

(01:02:30):
The studies actually very clearly show that that is not
the case. More so, what happens is when you raise
these issues and just to ask your child as they
are struggled with these Do they know what these are?
Do they know what to do? If they do start
to feel like they're depressed or anxious? That actually opens
things up for your child to recognize that, hey, I
don't have to be embarrassed about this. I can talk
to my parents about this. Other people deal with this.

(01:02:51):
I don't have to be ashamed. So that's a really
important conversation to start as a parent. And the last
thing I would suggest to parents, and there's a lot
more we could talk about, the last thing I'd suggest
is that while I would certainly underscore some of the
points we talked about earlier in terms of creating tech
free zones in your child's life, creating boundaries around social media,

(01:03:12):
delaying the use as long as possible, I also think
it's important to fill our child's lives with positive sources
of influence and positive experiences. Right. We want them to
experience fulfilling relationships. One of the ways they do that
is by actually seeing us enjoy our friendships as parents.
Our kids so often pay attention not to what we say,
but to what we do right, and when they see

(01:03:33):
their parents investing in relationships, having family over taking time
to be with friends, reaching out to friends who might
be struggling, because that's what we should do, show up
for one another. That sends an important message to the child.
Creating opportunities for kids to also spend time in person
with other kids is also vital.

Speaker 2 (01:03:50):
With my own kids.

Speaker 6 (01:03:51):
I'll tell you right now, we are putting as much
effort as we can into setting up play dates for
them with other kids so that they can have unstructured playtime.
So many kids, their lives are so overscheduled right there's
like no time to even get together because there are
at soccer practices, music rehearsals, concerts, games, that everything. And
there's nothing wrong with some of those activities, but we

(01:04:12):
need those opportunities for our kids to enjoy unstructured play
with other kids where they can be creative, they can
interact with each other without again technology, with just being themselves.
So these are a few things that our advice to parents.
But just remember as parents, look, you're not the only
one struggling. You're not the only one worried about these
issues around the mental health of your kids. The more

(01:04:32):
his parents we can start talking with each other about
the common struggle that we all have and protecting our kids,
the more we'll have support as well in our parenting journey.

Speaker 2 (01:04:43):
Just to finish on that point, you'd recommend a parent
talking to their kid and saying, you know, hey, you know,
I want you to know that you can always come
to me kind of thing, right if you're feeling bullied
or you're or loan, so, you know, creating a channel
for them to be able to say space for them
to be able to come to you, right.

Speaker 1 (01:05:02):
Yeah. I try to tell my kids every day. Yo,
you can tell me anything and everything and it's all good,
you know what I mean. It also goes with you know,
it also goes with other adults too, you know what
I mean. If your teacher says something to you, I'm
on your side, so tell me first. If you're in trouble,

(01:05:25):
I'm on your side, so tell me, and then we
can combat this together, you know what I mean. Like
it's all that just something that we're always trying to
tell our children, but secretly we still fear that same shit,
you know what I mean, the same thing.

Speaker 2 (01:05:43):
But all you can do is do your best and
and and I don't want to speak to this. I
want the doctor to speak to it. But some sort
of initiating some sort of regular conversation right where where
they feel that they're loved and there's and there's always
a clear community and love from you to say if
something's coming up, if you're depressed, you know people get depressed,

(01:06:06):
come talk to me. If you're being bullied. I've been bullied,
come talk to me. Like, butther's just a really safe
zone for them to come to you.

Speaker 6 (01:06:14):
Right, Yeah, No, that you're both articuling in it perfectly,
that's exactly right. They need to know that they can
come to us as parents and that they're not going
to get in trouble by being honest about something that
they're dealing with, their crisis that they're in. I'll share
one last tip for parents, which is that I think
also this is something my parents did for me when

(01:06:35):
I was growing up that I fully didn't appreciate the
value of until years later. We know that serving and
helping other people is a powerful antidote to loneliness. We
know it's actually really good for our mental health and
well being. And one of the things that my parents
used to do for me when I was a kid
is one whenever we had a family friend who was

(01:06:55):
in crisis. My parents would always step up to help,
right And it didn't mean like you know, it to
be in big ways. It could sometimes just be a
phone call to check on them, see how they're doing.
Sometimes it was visiting them to drop off food. Sometimes
it was you know, stopping in to watch their child
and babysit so they could have some time for themselves.
But it was in small ways. They sought to help
friends who were in crisis. And then as I got older,

(01:07:17):
my parents encouraged me to do the same. When they
would hear about a friend of mine who was having
a tough time, they'd say, well, what have you done?
You can you go and help them out? Like I
had a friend when I was in high school in
tenth grade.

Speaker 2 (01:07:29):
I remember this.

Speaker 6 (01:07:31):
There's a group of guys in our class who went
out for lunch and they were driving somewhere and something
happened when they were driving, they got into a car
accident and one of the kids died in that car accident,
And the kid sitting next to him was actually a
very good friend of mine who I had grown up with.
And my parents I still remember they said to me,
they said, have you checked on him to see how

(01:07:55):
he's doing. And I was like, oh, you know, I
don't think I really. I was like, you know, just
saw him in classes and that They're like, no, go
to his house, check on him, make sure he's okay.
And so I did. My sister and I went over.
We ended up spending like half a day with him.
We didn't talk about the accident at all. But I'll
tell you at the end of that day, when we

(01:08:15):
were leaving, he just turned to both of us and
he said, Hey, I really needed this. Thank you so much.
I've been hurting a lot, but it meant a lot
to have you guys over. And so, as parents, whenever
you have a chance to encourage your children to help
and support and be there for their friends who might
be having a hard time, I would encourage that because

(01:08:36):
sometimes you might think my kids struggling they need help.
Turns out, when we help other people, we ultimately help
and support and sustain ourselves as well.

Speaker 2 (01:08:44):
And also I should mention you just made me realize.
You know, all of these bully kids that are being horrible,
they have parents, so so make sure that your kid's
not that kid, right, I mean, because I imagine some
of these children that are being just utterly awful on
social media need to hear from their parents that that

(01:09:07):
that this could lead to someone's suicide. I mean that
the words have such impact on people.

Speaker 6 (01:09:13):
That's right, And a lot of those bullies, I'll be honest,
have some deeper issue that they're dealing with themselves that
someone's got to help them with, you know. And you
know that old saying hurt people hurt people. There's a
lot of a lot of truth to that. So look,
the bottom line is we're in this We're in this
vicious cycle now where pain has been getting more pain.

(01:09:34):
There are a lot of people who are hurt that
they're you know, potentially hurting themselves further, or they're down
on themselves, or sometimes in some cases they may be
bullying or hurting other people around them, and that that
just continues to multiply. We need to turn that vicious
cycle into a virtuous cycle, which is what we can
do when we actually start helping one another, reaching out
to one another in positive ways, like I'll tell you

(01:09:56):
that friend of ours, like when I was growing up,
who I was in that terrible accident, Like I suspect
that when we spend time with him, and he felt,
you know, a bit better that day. Maybe he was
nicer to someone else in his life. Maybe he was
kinder to his sisters and his parents. We don't know
the ripples that are created when we reach out to
somebody in a moment of kindness and when we seek

(01:10:18):
to serve people who are hurting.

Speaker 1 (01:10:19):
I really do like that, though, that's not that's that
isn't a way that I have ever thought about combating
against my own depressions or my own loneliness and to
help someone else out. Absolutely, that is. Oh, that's so

(01:10:40):
because you're you're not only helping them out, you're helping yourself.
That's such a great it's a great instinct.

Speaker 2 (01:10:48):
Like when you're feeling down, when you're feeling I've done
this before at the direction I probably of my therapist,
but it worked. Like, and you're down, think of someone
in your life who could use a pep talk or
cheering up or checking in with yeah, and then and
then just do it. FaceTime them, call them, hey, I've
been thinking about you and giving them the love you get.

Speaker 6 (01:11:08):
It back in yourself. That says so true. And you know,
the last few weeks I've been I've been traveling to
different colleges actually talking about these the very subjects you
and I are all talking about. But it's a part
of what we call our We Are Made to Connect
College Campus Tour and it's been a fascinating journey. But
you know, college students are suffering with some of the

(01:11:29):
highest rates of loneliness and they're sort of at the
epicenter of the youth mental health crisis. But one of
the things that we do with the college students in
addition to talking about loneliness, talking about strategies to rebuild connection,
is we've actually posed this challenge to them called our
five for five Challenge, where we ask them to engage
in five acts of connection over the next five days.

(01:11:51):
And this could be either an expression of gratitude, an
extension of support to someone who needs help, or could
be asking for help themselves. And it's a really powerful challenge.
And we actually do the first data challenge with them
like in the room, and we asked them all to
think about somebody in fact, what if you guys want

(01:12:11):
to do this.

Speaker 2 (01:12:12):
It takes it at a seconds. We can do this together.
We want to do it, and we want the audience
to play along.

Speaker 6 (01:12:16):
Yeah, yeah, So everyone listening right right now, What I
want you to do is it just just sort of
close your eyes for a second, and I want you
to think about somebody in your life that you're grateful for.
To be somebody who helped you out a few days
ago when you were having a rough day. To be
somebody who showed up in your life a few years

(01:12:37):
ago when you had a major disappointment where things didn't
go quite your way and they helped to remind you
that things were going to be okay and that they
had your back. However big or small the action, Think
about who that person is, Think about what they did
for you, think about how it felt. And I want

(01:13:00):
you to actually to just if you're listening out here
and you've got a phone, I want you to pull
out your phone and I want you to compose a
text or an email to them right now. The key
is to do it in the moment so you don't
put it off, and just to take sixty seconds to
do this. But write them just a short note. It

(01:13:21):
could be one line, could be two lines, just telling
them that you were thinking about them, You remember this
beautiful thing they did for you, and how grateful you
are to them. So I'll just give you a few
seconds to do I'm doing it right now as you speak.
I live This is the first time I've live texted
on the podcast.

Speaker 2 (01:13:39):
Awesome. Everyone pull over if you're driving, Please don't do
this while you're driving. Yes, I'm sure the Surgeon General
would not approve of that. A good call, Zach. I
appreciate that to take another And this is something that
is so easy that people can do. You know, it
takes two seconds to say to someone who's going through something, Hey,

(01:14:01):
you're on my mind. Hey sending in love. Hey, I'm
going to be in your neighborhood. Should I stop by?
We all have someone in our lives that could use
some love, and and and and we shouldn't be stingy
with our love. That is so true because our love

(01:14:21):
is a renewable resource. Yeah's infinitus, right, it's infinite. Uh.

Speaker 6 (01:14:25):
And the more we give, actually, the more I realize
we have to give. But like, look, just even what
we did now right the way, when you did yours?

Speaker 2 (01:14:33):
Did you who did you text? Was it Obama or Biden?

Speaker 1 (01:14:35):
Which one?

Speaker 2 (01:14:36):
On? The person? The person that I thought of actually
rockets me. If a fake I just wanted to say,
thinking of you, thinking of you, sending you love.

Speaker 1 (01:14:48):
Gave me that job as a general.

Speaker 2 (01:14:50):
I still have the suit.

Speaker 1 (01:14:51):
I still love me, I appreciate you.

Speaker 2 (01:14:52):
I still have the suit. And I got to meet
a fake doctors. I got to be a fake doctors.
Real Friends.

Speaker 1 (01:15:00):
Is your favorite podcast right now?

Speaker 6 (01:15:05):
That's so funny to the person that actually thought it
was my was my mother, because I was just on
a flight coming back and I just texted my my
parents and my sister. I was like, hey, I'll be
back in DC soon. I'm just getting on a flight.
And my mom like called me right away. I was
like sitting in my seat, you know, and she called
me and I was like, hey, everything okay. She was like, yeah,
I just saw that you would leaveing. I just wanted

(01:15:26):
to make sure that you're okay. See if you had eaten?
Are you going to be able to sleep on the plane?
And it was very endearing. This these are the same
conversations my mom would have with me, like years ago,
you know, when I was when I was traveling. But
but the just being reminded that it doesn't matter how
old I get, you know, whatever I'm do, my job
is whatever. My mom's love is constant, It's always there
for me. Like that just made me just feel so

(01:15:49):
good and so grateful, and so she was the one
I was thinking about. But I think, look, I think
that this in these kind of small actions that can
send powerful ripples out. You know, when we do this
exercise in college campus is we actually have the students
turn the flashlight on their phone after they send their
email or their text, and then hold it up toward

(01:16:11):
the ceiling and we dim the lights, and then we
have them look around and what they see are hundreds
of points of lights shining out like into the air,
and those each of those are rays of hope. Right,
somebody's going to receive one of those messages and feel
better about themselves. They're going to be reminded that they're
not alone, that somebody actually is thinking about them, that

(01:16:31):
they remember them. Maybe they're having a really down day,
and they'll think, oh, you know, maybe I do have
something of value to give to the world. This person
just remembered something I did for them. You know, those
rays of light are incredibly powerful. And the reason I'll
ask you say that these are so important is because
we've been talking about a lot of stuff today that
require policy solutions, programmatic solutions. But I think this deeper

(01:16:55):
despair that we're seeing in our country, I think is
part of a deeper underlying moral crisis that we're in,
where in some ways I feel like we have lost
sight of what we need to do and who we
need to be to enable all of us to thrive.
Like people say to me all the time, if they
you know, it feels like it's become more important to

(01:17:15):
be right than to be kind, more important to be
powerful than to be compassionate, and more important to look
out for myself than to look out for other people.
But I actually think, deep down inside, like all of us,
I think in our hearts, we want our kids to
grow up in a world where people are actually nice
to each other. We want people to be able to

(01:17:35):
look out for one another. We want somebody to be
able to lift us up when we fall down, and
we want to be able to do that for other people.
But I think right now we have drifted away from
some of those core values, and I think it's this
is our time to re anchor ourselves in those core
values and to ask ourselves what do we want to
fundamentally guide and shape the world that we're going to

(01:17:57):
live in, that our kids are growing up in. And
how do we proactively take those values and not just
have them these things that sit in our heads or
on paper, but say, how do I apply the values
of kindness and generosity, of service and of friendship to
the interactions I have in my day to day life,
To the decisions I make about what issues I speak
up for, to the decisions I make about who I

(01:18:18):
choose to be my leaders, you know, in organizations or
in government? Like, how do I apply these values to
my life and to our life? And how do we
talk more openly about them? Because this is I think
one of the great prices that we paid in the
last few years, is I think something that we all want,
a certain set of core values we all hold. Dear,
I've just disintegrated and have faded into the background, and

(01:18:41):
we feels like we're fundamentally angry and self centered and
mean spirited. But I don't think that's our true identity.
And in our hearts we are optimistic, we are courageous,
we are kind, and this is our opportunity to reclaim
and rebuild that identity.

Speaker 1 (01:19:00):
That note well, we will end the podcast that's a
mic drop.

Speaker 2 (01:19:05):
Thank you so much for joining us and for sharing
what you do with our audience. And it's an honor
to have had you and we really appreciate it. Thank
you for all the good you're doing in the world.

Speaker 6 (01:19:16):
Thank you both. And I so enjoyed this. And I
will say, having spent a lot of time when I
was in residency training watching both of you on screen
in scrubs, it's a joy, certainly to meet you guys.
But I'll say, just in a real personal note, you
brought a lot of joy and laughter to many of
us who are going through medical training in those years.

(01:19:36):
I wouldn't underestimate how important that was. We needed to laugh,
We needed to be able to see the light side
of life after going through incredibly painful, difficult days, dealing
with life and death every day.

Speaker 2 (01:19:46):
So thank you for everything. Was there one of us
who you thought was funnier than the other when you
were meeting.

Speaker 1 (01:19:51):
He related with me. We're both brown bro.

Speaker 2 (01:19:57):
Okay, sorry, of course, all right, thank you Thank you
forake so much. Thanks so much, guys, great to be
with you.

Speaker 1 (01:20:03):
Appreciate your appreciate you. Let's take a break.

Speaker 2 (01:20:06):
We'll be right back after these fine words. That was
so awesome.

Speaker 1 (01:20:18):
That was awesome, man, Holy col but fake came with it.

Speaker 2 (01:20:23):
He's such a wonderful speaker on these on these topics,
and he's in such a position to make a huge difference.

Speaker 3 (01:20:31):
Yeah, he's actually like going around speaking at a bunch
of colleges right now about the loneliness epidemic. So I
know we have a lot of college kids who listen
to us. If Veke is coming to your school, go
check them out.

Speaker 1 (01:20:41):
Like that shit is real man, like we are all.
We all experience it in some way. He's going to
give you tools. I hope we've given you tools in
this podcast. Just you listening right now, We've given you
tools to fight loneliness. And you know, I'm going to
use some of the tools that were given this actually
the reaching out to people when I feel when I feel.

Speaker 2 (01:21:04):
You could reach out to me more because you don't ever.

Speaker 1 (01:21:07):
Well you I've reached out to my wife first and
next will be you.

Speaker 2 (01:21:12):
Yeah, but I mean, you know we're not in the
same city. You could occasionally be like I could write
the text for you.

Speaker 1 (01:21:17):
I shit you a meme. You could write the text
for me.

Speaker 2 (01:21:21):
If I if I if I send you some texts,
will you just copy and paste on Yeah, hey man,
hey man, just checking in. I know you're in New
York City. Just want to say I love you and
you're on my mind. Okay, hit me up if you
want to chat, I'll write that. I'll just text you
and then you can just context. Yeah, and then like

(01:21:42):
once a week, just copy and paste because you never
reach out. All you send me fucking memes. That's your
love language.

Speaker 1 (01:21:52):
That is my love language, because I know you'll appreciate.
You appreciate I knowing.

Speaker 2 (01:21:56):
I so know when Donald's up baked in his house
because all of a sudden, I'll get like a.

Speaker 1 (01:22:00):
Ro so stupid funny as hell.

Speaker 2 (01:22:03):
No, of course it's funny. I'm just like I can
tell by the level of how stonery the meme is, Like,
what's going on at your house over there?

Speaker 1 (01:22:10):
Motherfucker? I sent that one. The Jimmy Fallon shit with
them singing we are the Champion and they put Usher
in the corner and Usher thinks he's in the middle
square like so you know, Jimmy Fallon does the Brady
Bunch thing and they all sing on his show. Okay,
so Jimmy Fallon does a thing where it's like the
Brady Bunch and they sing different songs, right, So they

(01:22:33):
he had one and they're all singing we are to
Champion the Queens song we are the champ right, and
it's a bunch of freaking like a list musicians singing.
Somebody told Usher he was in the center square, but
he was really in the corner. So this motherfucker's looking
around everything around him, down to the left, to the right,

(01:22:58):
and up, and really he has only somebody up into
the left of his ass. I said, do that shit.
I was so fucking baked when I said you that shit,
cause I laughed so too. It took me a second
to realize, wait a second, what am I looking at here?
What is it? And then I read the caption and
the capture said somebody to Usher he was in listener square.

Speaker 2 (01:23:18):
Listen, you don't ever check in, You don't ever check in.
I'm going to send you the text I want to
receive once in a while from you.

Speaker 1 (01:23:24):
I send you freaking gold.

Speaker 2 (01:23:26):
That was a great episode, and audience, if you're feeling
that was a little bit of a melancholic one, Have
I got news for you? Next week, Living Legend. It's
the guest we've wanted for a long ass time. Alicia Silverstone.

Speaker 1 (01:23:43):
You know, I just recently watched Clueless really with your kids.
I walked into the living room and my wife and
daughter were watching Clueless.

Speaker 2 (01:23:51):
That's funny.

Speaker 1 (01:23:52):
It was not funny. I started crying. No, it's still one.
It still holds up by far, it still holds up
like it's.

Speaker 2 (01:24:02):
You're crying from nostalgia.

Speaker 4 (01:24:04):
No.

Speaker 1 (01:24:04):
Britney came on on shone. Yeah, and that shit wrecked
me and I couldn't. At first, I didn't know why.
And it was like, oh my god, her glow and
her her uh spirit, Oh my gosh. And we wound
up doing a couple of movies together. But I started crying.
I couldn't and I didn't understand why. And that was why.

(01:24:27):
One because I was in a classic. Two because she
was I got to experience it with her, and I
thought she was really special.

Speaker 2 (01:24:35):
Did Wilder like the movie?

Speaker 1 (01:24:37):
I don't think she gets it, you know what I'm saying.

Speaker 2 (01:24:39):
It's above her head still.

Speaker 1 (01:24:41):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (01:24:41):
Uh.

Speaker 1 (01:24:42):
When the movie came out, it was above Casey. You know,
Casey was still young. You know what I'm saying. And
so like a lot of the jokes from the movie
went over her head. So she watches it now she's like,
I didn't get that back then.

Speaker 2 (01:24:53):
Well, I'm so happy we having Alicia on because she's
just really funny and and uh, that has a lot
of fun, interesting stories to tell, and it's something we
wanted to coordinate for a while and we finally did it.
So I'm stoked about it.

Speaker 1 (01:25:07):
What's crazy is that I'm not the one that got
her on the show.

Speaker 2 (01:25:12):
Of course. You know what happened was she reached out
to me because when we talked about her that time,
someone must have told her, and she left me a
voice note saying I heard you guys were talking about
me on your podcast, and I just you. I just
went right into it. I was like, yeah, we were,
Will you please come on. Obviously Donald has a connection

(01:25:32):
to you because of the movie, and I have a
connection to you because my crush. But also you were
in my movie, and so she said, yes.

Speaker 1 (01:25:40):
Yeah, I could see why you had a crush on her.

Speaker 2 (01:25:42):
Holy cow, I think a lot of straight Man and
I watched.

Speaker 1 (01:25:46):
I watched I think I just think persons in general.
I watched that movie and I was like, holy.

Speaker 2 (01:25:56):
That was But I also I just love I love
fun any silly women and that characters was so funny
and silly.

Speaker 1 (01:26:04):
And uh, she's gonna be on the podcast and we're
gonna talk.

Speaker 2 (01:26:08):
About There we go.

Speaker 1 (01:26:09):
We're talking about fire O Smith. We're gonna talk about
freaking I'm gonna have to rewatch the video. I'm gonna
have to watch the videos too. Let's go down. You
know what we should do. We should do a rewatch.
Hopefully the strike will be over by then, but we
should rewatch some of her greatest hits.

Speaker 2 (01:26:24):
We're allowed to talk about Aerosmith videos.

Speaker 1 (01:26:27):
Okay, we'll talk about that. I want to talk about that.

Speaker 2 (01:26:30):
I don't think. I don't think. I don't think Fran
Dresher controls, uh the Aerosmith videos.

Speaker 1 (01:26:34):
I don't know. Motherfuckers was not dressing up for Halloween. Bro,
motherfuckers was not dressing up for.

Speaker 2 (01:26:42):
I don't think anyone listened to that stupid rule. Although
I'm surprised.

Speaker 1 (01:26:46):
I don't know, Bro, I don't know my guy. A
lot of people you.

Speaker 2 (01:26:51):
Guy, my guy, are you my guys?

Speaker 3 (01:26:54):
It's mixed, it's mixed, I think, most notably Megan Fox
dressed as a character from a movie. And then she
added sag and.

Speaker 2 (01:27:06):
That was a weird She's like me, I guess she's
poking the bear.

Speaker 1 (01:27:11):
She's come at me something about it because I said
my guy.

Speaker 2 (01:27:16):
I just wondered, because I haven't seen a well are you.
Are you the kind of guy who says my guy?

Speaker 1 (01:27:19):
Now? No, I just use it to be funny, okay,
because I.

Speaker 2 (01:27:22):
Just need to adjust if you're going to be on
my guy, say.

Speaker 1 (01:27:25):
I'm not going to be. Every time I hear that
ship that shit makes me laugh. Like certain people can
get away with like, oh my gosh.

Speaker 2 (01:27:32):
Certain people can kind of get away with it. But
I don't really like it. I don't think you should
be on my guy, sayer.

Speaker 1 (01:27:37):
Who can get away with saying my guy other than me?
Just now.

Speaker 2 (01:27:41):
I think there's a certain type of funny person that
can get away with being like, come on my guy.

Speaker 1 (01:27:45):
I don't want to work that way.

Speaker 2 (01:27:46):
I don't want to Daniel guy weird, not much. I mean,
maybe Daniel might be my guy. Say, I think Daniel
is my guy. Honestly.

Speaker 8 (01:27:57):
I do it when I'm doing like a New York impression.

Speaker 2 (01:27:59):
If I'm talking to my friend or something.

Speaker 1 (01:28:00):
I'll be like, my guy, what are you doing?

Speaker 2 (01:28:02):
Oh that's not how I hear my guy these days.

Speaker 1 (01:28:05):
My guy, my guy, the very Irish guy. Migay, magay.

Speaker 2 (01:28:11):
Okay, what you're doing here, doll?

Speaker 1 (01:28:16):
What are you doing here? My guy? What are you doing?
My gooy? What does everybody use that? That? Whatever anybody said,
we're gonna go Irish with it. Everybody goes, what are
you doing here?

Speaker 2 (01:28:32):
That's in the name of the father, right, that's the
one that comes to me. What are you doing here?

Speaker 1 (01:28:38):
Doll?

Speaker 2 (01:28:43):
All right, we're gonna take a break. When we come back,
we're gonna talk. We're gonna do a T Mobile segment.

Speaker 1 (01:28:47):
We read back.

Speaker 2 (01:28:55):
This segment of Fake Doctor's Real Friends is brought to
you by T Mobile five G home in protecting you
from exploding bills with a price lock guarantee. Visit t
mobile dot com slash zach to check availability. All right,
got you?

Speaker 3 (01:29:08):
Well, so you have a letter here from Charlie Young.
Charlie Wright says, Hi, my name is Charlie and I'm
eighteen from the landdown Under, hoping I could be the
youngest guest on the show, which I.

Speaker 1 (01:29:19):
Think you might be on the running. Uh.

Speaker 3 (01:29:20):
Just wanted to thank Zach, Donald, Daniel and Joel for
keeping my spirits high. I'm going through a really tough
breakup and a depression period and just started doing new job,
and without your podcast, I would be in a world
of constant confusion, pain and grief. I used to watch
Grubs with my ex. However, this podcast brings a whole
new set of memories I can create associated to the
incredible show. This has led me to be able to
eat again, sleep again, and have something to look forward

(01:29:42):
to each day. From Donald screaming to Zach's jokes and
perspectives on love.

Speaker 2 (01:29:45):
In persone, Donald.

Speaker 1 (01:29:47):
Screaming, I'm not even the funny guy on the podcast.
I'm just a loud guy. It sounds like, no, you're funny,
You're just also to scream.

Speaker 2 (01:29:55):
Well, I think every listener at some point has had
to adjust their volume because of you. Go ahead, Joel.

Speaker 1 (01:30:01):
Okay.

Speaker 3 (01:30:02):
Charlie also appreciates Daniel's calling voice and my infectious laugh.
So thank you for everything you guys do and for
allowing me to get back on track. His question comes
from season four, episode one. You guys might remember this
as the faith Dancing episode. This is where j D
is outside the hospital trying to get pumped up for
his day, and he listens to Faith by George Michael
and does the famous Gene dance right.

Speaker 2 (01:30:24):
Jeans on if I could?

Speaker 3 (01:30:30):
He says, the question is uh, scrubs basing current days?
What would j D and or Turk listen to before
they went into the hospital? And then he asked them suggestions?
But I'm going to leave those, Charlie, so we can hear.

Speaker 2 (01:30:41):
I think Donald and I would both answer the same name.
Ready Donald? Three one two three?

Speaker 3 (01:30:49):
A lot just happened.

Speaker 1 (01:30:50):
Who I heard? Yeah, he said, you're walking into the house,
will be into the hospital. Be do do do do
Do Do Do Do Do do doo about me?

Speaker 3 (01:31:07):
Three that's the song.

Speaker 2 (01:31:08):
No, that's not what I would choose twenty twenty three.

Speaker 1 (01:31:11):
Look, shit is tim Donald?

Speaker 2 (01:31:14):
Donald admitted to me that he's now on the Oliver Dorigo.

Speaker 1 (01:31:18):
Yes, welcome, listen. I like Olivia. She's good, but I'm gonna.

Speaker 2 (01:31:22):
Be all American bitch. We'd be walking into all American bitch.

Speaker 1 (01:31:25):
Good choice. Solid. I've been walking into first person shoot
a mode because the super Bowl?

Speaker 2 (01:31:32):
Because the who's that? A little uzy?

Speaker 1 (01:31:34):
No? J Cole and Drake Baby. I'm likely feeling J
Cole right now. Listen, I think right now, if you're
asking me, go ahead, the three best rappers ahead, in
no particular order.

Speaker 2 (01:31:49):
This won't be controversial at all at all.

Speaker 1 (01:31:52):
I think everybody's gonna agree J Cole. If you can't
say J Cole, I don't know what you do. I
don't know what you.

Speaker 2 (01:31:58):
Jay Cole, Kendrick Lamar. Obviously it's pretty great, and you
gotta go.

Speaker 1 (01:32:06):
Drake.

Speaker 3 (01:32:07):
I think the era of women rappers that is a
wild thing to say that the.

Speaker 1 (01:32:11):
Current era of women rappers, there's really Dojah.

Speaker 3 (01:32:18):
For Megan, this greed.

Speaker 1 (01:32:20):
Meghan is dope. Meghan is dope, but she don't be
spitting like Dojah spitting Megan Megan's albums. Listen to I
Love Megan, I love Meg THEA Stallion, I love the Stallion,
I love listen to me I love Megae Stallion and
I don't. And I'm not even talking about the way
she looks. I'm talking about how she rapped. She got
old school, she got a very old school flow, and

(01:32:40):
she's very very witty with her ship. Right now, if
you really want to ask me who the best rapper
is female, it gotta be Dojah b Joelle.

Speaker 2 (01:32:48):
What's your answer the best female rapper currently?

Speaker 1 (01:32:54):
I there's so many.

Speaker 3 (01:32:57):
I mean I really like Megan, like she's really well,
you know. I think Doja is extremely talented, like Reco Nasty.

Speaker 2 (01:33:05):
I was gonna say your tongue so Nasty was on
my tip of my tongue, I know. And for male
lil UZI I don't even know who that is. I
just heard the name. Do you like little Zy? Isn't
that a rapper?

Speaker 1 (01:33:26):
Yeah?

Speaker 2 (01:33:26):
Yeah, lot? But Daniel, who's your favorite male and female
rappers currently?

Speaker 8 (01:33:32):
You're in DJ Goodness? I mean, Rico Nasty is really
high up there. I love her a lot. I think
Kendrick is really up there. I'm a big West Side
Gun fan personally.

Speaker 1 (01:33:42):
I think is it a little floozyvert like little Evil?
Isn't he trying to say little Evil? Is that who's
the one with the cross on his head and all
that ship? That little boozy birt No, that's twenty one savage, No,
not twenty he's the diamond. Yeah he has a diamond.
Isn't he trying to say little Evil? Some ship like that?
That sounds like conspiracy.

Speaker 2 (01:34:04):
What about the guy six by nine who was in jail.

Speaker 1 (01:34:07):
He's six by nine.

Speaker 8 (01:34:12):
I get to measure like, I think he could be
left out of the conversation.

Speaker 1 (01:34:17):
Because motherfucker gonna run up on you, Zach.

Speaker 2 (01:34:19):
No, I didn't say anything negative. I'm asking you guy's opinion.
I don't want to do. You could say all the
negative things about him. Frankly, I don't want to run
six by nine. His name is Daniel not He's not
going to run up on me.

Speaker 1 (01:34:30):
That's fine.

Speaker 2 (01:34:30):
He is somebody.

Speaker 8 (01:34:30):
Bodyguards are under to protect him from everybody else who
wants to run up on Yeah, so I'm not worried
about it.

Speaker 1 (01:34:36):
Hip hop is in a state of no Like. One
of the best lines is in first person shoot a
mode and he says, what happened to all the bars?
It seems like everybody's on a jail, somebody's everybody's in
a jail escape some shit like that. But it's real
talking because nobody be spitting at all, no more, they
just be talking.

Speaker 2 (01:34:56):
I am. I wanted to go back to our letter writer, Yes,
I wanted a letter writer mentioned that he was going
through a breakup, and I want him to know that
this too shall pass, that he will no feeling is forever,
and as much as he's feeling like shit right now,
he will come out the other side and rise like

(01:35:17):
a phoenix as a better man. But anyway, things will
always get better, I promise you. And I saw this
meme on Instagram and I sent it to my nephew
because he's, you know, out there in the dating world.
And I do think it's the best. And I sent
it to Amanda too, and she said, Charity posted it
on your stories. But this is it, says the best

(01:35:39):
piece of dating advice I've ever received is this. If
they like you, you'll know. If they don't, you'll be confused. Honestly,
it's all you need to know.

Speaker 1 (01:35:54):
Like that's real talk.

Speaker 2 (01:35:57):
I think.

Speaker 1 (01:35:59):
If I'm confused, us, I know you don't.

Speaker 2 (01:36:01):
Like me, right Listen, everyone's struggling with how to figure
it out. Why didn't he text back? Why did you
the dots? Why did he goes on? If they like you,
you'll know if you're confused, they don't, Mike Drop truly, Mmmm,
I don't have my sound effects machine, so I'm gonna
add one. Just I'm gonna do one, and just you know, improvise. Mm,

(01:36:25):
maybe you could give us one.

Speaker 1 (01:36:26):
Maybe you could give them forever. Maybe you can T
Mobile forever.

Speaker 2 (01:36:31):
Mmm mmm this this, this end of this podcast feels
like when you're on with a crush and like you
don't want to hang out. You know, you hang up
for you first, I don't want to stop talking to you.
Do you want to watch a show together? Why don't
we both start? When don't we both start a show
at the same time?

Speaker 1 (01:36:52):
And then on three go go hit play when Harry
met Sally.

Speaker 2 (01:36:59):
Thanks to Mobile. If you're over exploding internet bills, visit
T mobile dot com slash Zach and find out how
new and existing customers get T Mobiles price lock guarantee
for home internet.

Speaker 1 (01:37:11):
For you.

Speaker 2 (01:37:16):
I was gonna say he's gonna rise girthier. Okay, hear
the sirens.

Speaker 1 (01:37:19):
I mean when you say girthier, what are you referring to.

Speaker 2 (01:37:23):
His shaft and balls? Well, no, she's Luis and that's
our show. Everybody. Thank you for tuning in.

Speaker 1 (01:37:33):
You guys, this was such a good show. I miss
you so much. What has it been two weeks since
we've seen each other?

Speaker 2 (01:37:38):
Yeah, it's been a minute. Alicia's Silverstone next week and
and Donald, I'll send you the text that I want
you to occasionally just copy and paste to me.

Speaker 1 (01:37:46):
I will copy it and paste it to you right
away after you send it to me. I just want
you to know that and AUTII to thank you right now.

Speaker 2 (01:37:53):
I do. I miss you, and I could use a
little text from you.

Speaker 1 (01:37:57):
Okay, how's New York?

Speaker 2 (01:37:59):
It's beautiful. So it's that I wanted to have that
fall vibes moment, and it's so that beautiful. There's this
every for those of you know Lower Manhattan. Every gift
season November December, they have this gift market in Union
Square Park and you kind of just kind of a
moment in the season, you know when you walk by

(01:38:19):
and you see them starting to put it up, that
oh here comes Christmas. It's like hearing the Mariah Carey song.
So today I walked by and they started building the
giant gift market and I was like, here we go.

Speaker 1 (01:38:29):
Does Macon still do to windows?

Speaker 2 (01:38:31):
Yeah? Yeah, but that's up in Harold Square.

Speaker 1 (01:38:33):
I'm talking about are you going to add them to
Harold Square.

Speaker 2 (01:38:36):
I don't usually go check out the Macy's windows. That's
not usually a thing I do. But I'll do it
if you want me to.

Speaker 8 (01:38:42):
More of a Bergdorf Goodman kind of guy.

Speaker 1 (01:38:44):
Listen. There's so many Macy's in California. I remember when
there was just one Macy's and it was on thirty
fourth Street, and I used to I don't.

Speaker 2 (01:38:51):
Think you were alive when there was only one. My guy,
my guy, God, Oh my god, he's my guy.

Speaker 6 (01:38:57):
Guy.

Speaker 2 (01:38:57):
You are a my guy, guy, I'm my guy. When
you do you say my dude as well? Do you
say my say my dude, my dude, Daniel, or say
my dude? Do you yeah, I said my dude.

Speaker 1 (01:39:06):
Oh my guy. Listen, listen to me, dude.

Speaker 2 (01:39:11):
I just think my dude and my guy are so
lame in twenty twenty three, or my guy.

Speaker 1 (01:39:16):
Listen to me. When I was a kid, macy And
on thirty fourth Street was the only Macy's in New
York City.

Speaker 2 (01:39:24):
There's no way that's true.

Speaker 1 (01:39:26):
Yeah it is.

Speaker 2 (01:39:28):
There's another, maybe on the island of Manhattan. But in
the other five boroughs, I'm sure there's probably another maze.

Speaker 1 (01:39:33):
There was no Macy's in Brooklyn, there was no Macy's
in Queens. There was no Macy's. You had to go
to thirty Fourth Street. That was it.

Speaker 2 (01:39:41):
Okay, I don't know that there's other Macy's now.

Speaker 1 (01:39:44):
There is there everywhere, and you go to the mall,
it's oh.

Speaker 2 (01:39:47):
You're like a little store. Yeah, but not like a
full Macy's.

Speaker 1 (01:39:50):
Not like the Macy's in New York. I watched Star
Wars in the Macy's in New York at Christmas. Why
Why Because it was on the television back in the
day nineteen eight five or some ship like that. They
fucking had the VHS and they put Star Wars at
the kids department while all the parents went and shopped.

Speaker 2 (01:40:09):
And watched it from with all the other kids. I
picture you like the kid in the Christmas Story, except
instead of going down that slide with with Sanna, you
were just there watching Star Wars.

Speaker 1 (01:40:20):
I bought my dad to macy so we could watch
Star Wars together. Really yeah, because he had seen the
Empire strikes back and return it to Jennibody a nye
of the tape because it wasn't out yet, it didn't exist.

Speaker 2 (01:40:32):
Oh got it.

Speaker 1 (01:40:35):
Also, we were broke. I had no VHS back in
the day.

Speaker 5 (01:40:41):
All right, guys, stories we made about a bunch of
tops and nurses.

Speaker 1 (01:40:52):
The stories.

Speaker 4 (01:40:58):
Around here, other round you here hops, but we watch
Alwiz and

Speaker 2 (01:41:08):
H