November 26, 2024 • 55 mins
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Discover the hidden costs of our digital age as I sit down with Zach Rausch, the lead researcher behind "The Anxious Generation." Zach opens up about his personal journey with mental health challenges and how it fueled his passion to explore the complex relationship between technology and well-being. This episode peels back the layers on the disturbing rise in loneliness, anxiety, and depression among young people, especially adolescent girls, as they grapple with the very tools meant to connect them. We tackle the sobering reality of international trends affecting mental health and stress the urgency of addressing these issues for the sake of future generations.
Zach Rausch is Associate Research Scientist at NYU-Stern School of Business, lead researcher to Social Psychologist Jonathan Haidt and the #1 New York Times best seller, The Anxious Generation. Zach previously worked at the Center for Humane Technology and as Communications Manager at Heterodox Academy. He earned a Bachelor of Arts in sociology and religious studies and a Master of Science in psychological science from SUNY New Paltz. Zach previously studied Buddhism in Bodh Gaya, India, worked in Wilderness Therapy, and was a direct care worker in two psychiatric group homes.
Zach’s research and writing have been featured internationally, in outlets such The New York Times, The Atlantic, The Boston Globe, The Wall Street Journal, and more.
Twitter: https://twitter.com/ZachMRausch
Newsletter: After Babel
Website: https://zach-rausch.com/
Anxious Generation: https://anxiousgeneration.com
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Kimberly Beam Holmes has applied her master's degree in psychology for over ten years, acting as the CEO of Marriage Helper & CEO and Creator of PIES University, being a wife and mother herself, and researching how attraction affects relationships. Her videos, podcasts, and following reach over 500,000 people a month who are making changes and becoming the best they can be.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
What we're experiencing in today's world is
a destruction of happiness.
That's what we are diving intoin today's episode.
What we talk about with myguest, zach Rausch, who was the
lead researcher for the book theAnxious Generation, which has
been a phenomenon and has takenthe world by storm it seems
Everyone is talking about thisbook.
(00:21):
What we talk about is how ourphones are our greatest
distractions, and the thing thathas led us to become more
connected than we've ever beenbefore is leading us to be
lonelier, more anxious and moredepressed than ever before.
And it's not just us as adults,it's our kids, and the effects
(00:43):
are even more significant on ourchildren.
On today's episode, we talkabout how girls are more
susceptible to the effects ofsmartphones and social medias
than boys are.
We talk about all of thenegative effects of these items
on children and, mostimportantly, what we as parents
and as adults can do differentlyfor ourselves and to create a
(01:05):
better future for the nextgeneration.
Let's dive in to today'sepisode.
All right, zach, I am reallyexcited to have you on today,
and as a researcher, so I'mcurrently in the middle of my
PhD.
So, like researchers speakingto fellow researcher, I feel
like we may geek out on a coupleof things today, if that's okay
(01:25):
with you.
Speaker 2 (01:27):
I'd love to Well, thank you so much for having me
on and hello to your listeners.
I'm very excited to talk aboutthis.
Speaker 1 (01:34):
Yeah, so you were the lead researcher for the book
the Anxious Generation, and thisbook is has been really
incredible.
It's gotten a lot of attentionin the media.
Hopefully it's gotten a lot ofpeople to begin to think
differently about how they useand approach smartphones and
social media.
We'll we'll talk more aboutthat, but why were you
(01:56):
interested in doing research onthis topic?
What is it?
What was your precipice intothis field?
Speaker 2 (02:03):
Yeah, so I have one of the weirdest journeys to get
to where I am.
I never thought that this wouldbe the job that I would have.
I was working in psychiatricgroup homes after I finished my
bachelor's degree, which was insociology and religious studies.
I was planning to be a socialworker and a therapist, but I
(02:29):
had long struggled with my ownmental illness, with depression
and anxiety, and so I'd alwaysbeen really interested in this
kind of adolescent mental healthin particular, because that's
when it really started for meand I decided to volunteer at an
evolutionary psychologyresearch lab that was near my
(02:50):
house where I was living at thetime in New York, and my mentor
there gave me the Coddling ofthe American Mind, which was
John's John Haidt's 2018 book,and when I read it I was like,
oh my God, he's talking about me.
I just felt very resonant to thekinds of problems he was
talking about, which was risingmental health issues on American
(03:14):
college campuses in particular,and the changes in childhood
that were going on over the lastseveral decades, and I did some
research on his book.
He read my blog post that Iwrote about my research, and
then I started working with him,and over the last five, six
years, I just slowly became moreand more interested in this
(03:37):
topic and I began to see justhow profound the change of
childhood has been over the lastdecade and how much of a
problem that we're facing, bothhere in the United States but
also in many countries aroundthe world, of what has been
happening to teens, and then Ibecame really interested to try
to understand what was drivingthat.
Speaker 1 (03:59):
That's right.
So, if I remember correctly,you really led the charge in,
not just looking at the changeof childhood in America and how
adolescents were affected bymental illness, but you did it
over several different countries.
Can you tell us more about that?
Speaker 2 (04:14):
Yeah, what I think is so the anxious generation was
actually not supposed to be abook.
We had one chapter written thatwas going to be about what's
going on with teens, and then itwas going to actually be a book
about what technology is doingto society, to liberal
democracies.
That's where the book began.
(04:34):
But as we were doing theresearch and we noticed that
okay, so between 2010 and 2015,we see big spikes in anxiety,
depression, self-harm, suicideamong teens, especially among
girls here in the US, and thenwe noticed that this pattern was
showing up in Australia, in NewZealand, in Canada, in the UK,
(04:58):
and then very similar trendswith anxiety and depression
across the Nordic countries andmost of Western Europe the
anxiety and depression acrossthe Nordic countries and most of
Western Europe and we realizedthat this is a huge story, and
so that was really kind of theimpetus that led us to write
this whole book, because it'snot just an American phenomena.
This is a multinational changethat's been going on with young
(05:20):
people.
Speaker 1 (05:22):
Now, did you just look at those countries or did
you look at a lot of countriesand realize that there was the
correlation between thosespecific countries?
Why those countries?
Speaker 2 (05:32):
Yeah, that's a great question.
There are a couple reasons forit.
The first is really justpractical in terms of my primary
language is English, so thatmakes it easier for me to read
those studies.
The second is, where do we havethe best available data?
That tends to be in the moreWestern Europe Anglosphere, and
(05:57):
also data that looks at trendsover time that goes back I mean,
ideally I like to look backinto the 1900s and see changes
over time.
So a lot of the reason for thefocus was just the availability
of data, the quality of the datawhen that data was around and
my ability to really read thosepapers.
But we have done a lot of workmore recently trying to expand
(06:21):
that scope and we do see we dohave some good international
data that goes beyond and we'vefound, for example, with school
loneliness, there's a studycalled the Program for
International Student Assessmentand that's done every three
years and it's mostly aboutacademic performance, but it has
eight items around feelingalienated alone at school, and
(06:44):
this is among 15-year-olds andwhat we found is that average
scores were pretty steady upuntil 2012, all around the world
, and then it starts to go up,and this is in Latin America,
this is even in East Asia, eventhough the changes are smaller,
and so we are starting to get abetter sense of the changes.
(07:06):
There's a great economist, dannyBlanchflower, who's done some
work, also looking reallyglobally, and he's found that,
you know, there used to be thisU-shaped curve of happiness
where young people tend to behappiest.
Then it goes down and you downand life gets hard, we get kind
(07:28):
of miserable and then the kidsleave and then we get happy
again.
And he found that that U-shapedcurve has really disappeared in
most countries around the worldwhere now young people
consistently are the least happy.
And so this is now there's aquestion about when that changed
(07:54):
, and we just don't have thedata to go far back enough in
many of these countries to know.
But what we're seeing is a trueinternational, maybe global,
phenomenon of kind of thedestruction of human happiness
when we're when we're young.
Speaker 1 (08:08):
I am taking notes because I'm sitting here like
this is.
This is a lot so to so for forthe listeners.
Maybe they haven't read theAnxious Generation.
You know, we, we startedtalking about social media.
So there's this book writtenit's called the Anxious
Generation and clearly you werethe lead researcher on it and
really what y'all sought to dowas was this like you took these
?
As you said, you started withthis, this Anglosphere.
(08:31):
You saw these rates begin tochange and where did it come in
Like?
So where in the hypothesis waswhy are these things shifting
and it linking to social mediaand smartphones?
Speaker 2 (08:47):
Yeah, great question.
So I think that maybe the bestway to illustrate this is to
first lay out what our corethesis is and then I can talk
about at what point did kind of.
This is more of John's journeyinto this process because I came
in a little bit later, but thecore thesis of the Anxious
(09:08):
Generation is that we've beenover-protecting kids in the real
world and under-protecting themonline and it's a two.
So it's a kind of a two-parttheory that we're really pushing
.
And the time points of changefor all of these things are
happening at different times.
So for what we call the loss ofthe play-based childhood, which
(09:29):
has to do with theoverprotection side, that begins
most prominently in the 1980s,but we can go even further back
to the 1960s, and it's a long,slow change in how we are
(09:59):
raising kids, of what kids areable to do.
And then the early 2010s, wehave what we call the rise of
the phone-based childhood.
And so Coddling of the AmericanMind about the potential role of
social media on youth mentalhealth, and at that point he had
said it might be contributingto it, but he didn't know and it
was very unclear.
(10:19):
And right after the Coddling waspublished there was a bunch of
articles that came out, bothlike one in the New York Times
that was challenging some of theassumptions about whether or
not social media is contributingto it, but then a bunch of
really important empiricalarticles and many of them showed
(10:41):
completely different findings.
And many of them showedcompletely different findings.
And it was at that point hedecided to team up with Gene
Twenge to another psychologistwho's written extensively on
(11:01):
this to track all of the studies, all of the available studies
on all sides of what's going on,and they started an open source
Google document where it wasbroken down by getting all of
the correlational evidencethat's out there, all of the
longitudinal experimentalstudies, and I came in later to
really to help with this.
But it was at that point thatyou know that he was starting to
build a bigger and better senseof what's going on here with
(11:23):
social media and over the courseof a few years I think he
became more confident that thiswas playing a substantial role
in the mental health problemsthat we're also seeing, where do
you think we would be if wedidn't have social media today?
Speaker 1 (11:41):
Like, what do you think would be different today
if we did not have social media?
Speaker 2 (11:45):
That's an interesting question, I think that you know
, I think one.
It's important that we have todefine our terms here.
So what would that mean?
I mean, are we saying I thinkthe world would be much better
off without the major socialmedia platforms that we're
concerned about, which is TikTok, instagram, snapchat?
(12:08):
I think that we would lose alot if we lost things like
YouTube.
I think that there are and Ilove to talk about this that
there's a wide array of benefitsand risks and trade-offs to
each of the social mediaplatforms, but I think that if
(12:31):
teens and young people were notable to spend almost all of
their time on these platformsevery single day, I think we
wouldn't have seen such adramatic change in youth mental
health rates.
Our concern is not with socialmedia per se, but it's the
(12:51):
combination of having asmartphone with social media
that allows companies to hookyou in and use business
incentives, and there's a wholelike attention economy being
driving this device that's inour pocket all the time, and
(13:14):
it's that combination ofsmartphones and these particular
social media apps which consumeso much time and bring so much
harm to young people.
So that's really what we'reconcerned about.
Speaker 1 (13:27):
Let's dive into more of that.
So what are the ways, like whatis the average age that kids
are beginning to be on phones oron social media.
Now how is that affecting them?
Is that affecting theirdevelopment, their social
development?
What all is it affecting andhow is it playing out?
Speaker 2 (13:46):
Yeah, so the average age of getting a smartphone
continues to get younger.
So now in the US it's around, Ibelieve, age 10.
One of the most strikingstatistics I've heard on this
comes actually from the UK.
I haven't gotten the statistichere in the US, but it's just
about 25% of five toseven-year-olds now have a
(14:07):
smartphone, their own personalsmartphone.
So yeah, I know, I couldn'tbelieve it.
So what's happening is thatwe're getting these devices at
younger and younger ages.
I mean, that was justsmartphones, but we also have
tablets and iPads.
Screens are saturating intoearly childhood and with social
(14:31):
media now, ideally, I mean, therule is set that you have to be
13, but nobody follows that rule.
It takes two seconds to figureout how to get around that, and
what we know from the company'sown reports is that there are
millions of kids under the ageof 13 who are using it.
Our sense is that it generallybegins in early middle school.
(14:53):
That's when teens really startto move their social lives onto
these platforms.
But I don't have the specificsthat there.
And so to the question of whatis social media doing and what
are the mechanisms through whichit can cause harm or benefits,
(15:15):
what we talk about in the book.
So we have a chapter about howsocial media really impacts
everybody everybody and then howit impacts girls in particular,
because that's where we see thehighest risk of harm from heavy
use of social media is withyoung adolescent girls, and so
just to lay them out, there isjust an enormous opportunity
(15:37):
cost.
This is the most simple kind ofharm, which is that the average
teen is now spending five hoursa day, every day, on social
media just social media, notother entertainment.
Screen use and entertainmentscreen use.
The average is between eight to10 hours a day, and it's even
the average gets higher forblack and Hispanic teens and low
(15:58):
income teens as well.
So there's some socioeconomicdisparities here.
And when you're spending thismuch time, where does everything
else go?
How do you fit all of this?
Well, everything else getspushed out, and so we've been
seeing and we tracked this allin the book and also on our sub
stack is time spent with friendsin person huge declines over
(16:21):
the last decade.
Time spent sleeping gets pushedout.
Time spent being outside,getting sunlight, having hobbies
, reading books all of thesethings have been being pushed
out, and all of that has hugeimplications on our ability to
learn to connect to find meaning, to find meaning and so that
(16:50):
one feature of this that we haveproducts that are designed to
be compulsive and to keep us onfor longer and longer.
That alone is a huge harm and amechanism of harm.
So related to this is socialdeprivation and sleep
deprivation.
So as those things get pushedout, kids are spending so much
less time with each other inperson and we see a huge rise in
teenage loneliness.
And adults too Adults are oneof the report after report of
(17:16):
finding that Americans are justincredibly lonely, and part of
this is that we've shifted fromhaving devices so telephones,
flip phones that enable us toconnect with each other, often
with the goal of meeting up inperson.
Or if you're on a phone call,it's synchronous, it's with one
(17:38):
other person, and then you shiftthat to a smartphone where the
goal is no longer I'm going toconnect with someone in order to
meet with them in person or tohave an extended conversation.
It's about you use theplatforms to stay on the
platforms, and it's often withan audience of hundreds of
people.
It's more asynchronous and it'sreally that change in how
(18:01):
social life was moved and it'snot a sufficient replacement,
and so there's a profound socialdeprivation happening, sleep
deprivation.
We know that sleep is justabsolutely essential for child
development, adolescentdevelopment.
Kids already weren't gettingenough sleep.
The schools start really early.
That was already a problem, andthat's just an issue that's
(18:25):
been exacerbated because theprimary time that kids are
spending a lot of time on theirphones is in bed, and this is
also when a lot of harms happenis while you're in bed late at
night.
That's a lot of cyberbullyinghappens then, and just quickly
I'll just do two more isattention fragmentation, which
is just the fact that I meanthis is for all of us.
(18:48):
We get hundreds of pushnotifications every single day,
notifications from texting, fromnews sites, and what this does
is it stops us from being ableto have sustained attention on
one thing.
We're terrible multitaskers,and so we're constantly task
switching attention on one thing.
We're terrible multitaskers,and so we're constantly task
switching.
We're switching from oneactivity to the next, from our
(19:11):
phone to trying to read a book,to looking at something else on
the internet, and this makes itreally hard for us to pay
attention, to focus, and this isa lot of the problems that we
believe are driving declines instudent learning and school in
particular.
And then, finally, the fourthone is the problem of
problematic use, compulsive useand behavioral addictions, and
(19:34):
we could debate about whetherthat term should be used
addiction should be used or notbut what we know is that these
platforms are designed in a wayto hook users, and there's about
10% of young people where theiruse disrupts the function of
their daily life, so it disruptstheir family relationships,
(19:54):
school and, in particular, theyshow symptoms that look very
much like withdrawal.
When you take the device away,they become very irritable, they
isolate more, and so that isanother area of harm that there
is literally something happeningto kids who are using it for
(20:18):
many, many hours, and it'sbecome something that they are
truly dependent on it's becomesomething that they are truly
dependent on.
Speaker 1 (20:32):
I feel like I just escaped as a teenager,
specifically like as anadolescent and teenager.
I was just on the outskirt ofthis wave, so I was a little bit
too old.
I was like in middle schoolwhen AOL came out, like late
elementary middle.
I had a flip phone in middleschool and in high school, but
didn't have a smartphone,honestly, till I was in my
twenties, cause I also thoughtit was weird to have a screen
(20:54):
that you touch.
It was like it's going to breakand then it's never going to be
able to be fixed, like I wantbuttons that I can actually
press.
So I was a little bit of a lateadopter.
Speaker 2 (21:03):
I felt the same way.
That's so funny, yeah, Itotally did.
Speaker 1 (21:06):
So I was a bit of a late adopter and, like, facebook
, became a thing when I wasprobably 18.
And it was mainly for collegestudents and I was able to get
one because I went to a highschool that was on a college
campus.
So you know, it wasn't really athing I can't even imagine, and
it's hard enough for me now, asa 35 year old, to regulate my
(21:28):
relationship with my smartphoneand to not get sucked into the
algorithm of social media and tonot be constantly feeling like,
oh my gosh wheel in our heads.
I can't imagine what it wouldbe for a girl for me, you know,
(21:48):
16 years old, if all of this wastrue, if my current reality was
true for me when I was 16, whyare girls more susceptible?
Speaker 2 (21:58):
Yeah, well, just to respond to two things that you
said.
One of the most common thingswe hear from young people and
also adults is I meant to go onfor five minutes.
It's now three hours later.
This is the most common thingthat you hear, and it's designed
to be that way.
And another thing just to noteis that the platforms are
(22:45):
particularly so if that's what'shappening to us asregulate and
so one that's not fullydeveloped.
Two, the thing you care aboutmost often not everybody, but in
middle school is do I fit in?
Do I fit into my friend group?
Do I belong?
You're so sensitive to socialrewards you're trying to figure
out where you fit in.
It's a sinister way for middleschoolers, and the companies
(23:26):
know this.
When you look at their owninternal reports, they talk
about teens being the mostsusceptible to social rewards.
They have bad compulsive use.
They're the ones who are goingto spend the most time on these
platforms and they're a keyaudience for these companies.
So I just think, beyond boysand girls, this is happening to
everybody, especially duringthis early period.
(23:49):
Now the question about withgirls is a really interesting
one.
Social media tends to be worsefor girls is just because girls
spend so much more time thanboys using social media.
Girls have migrated theirsocial lives more onto the
(24:09):
visually oriented platforms likeTikTok, instagram, and boys
have moved much more of theirlives onto multiplayer video
games.
There's some statistic like onein five boys are spending more
than four hours a day playingvideo games, and so if we want
to understand what's drivingdifferent, or just the context
(24:32):
that kids are living in, forgirls it's much more of TikTok,
instagram.
For boys it's more varied ondifferent platforms, on
different platforms, and thenfor girls, you know, for
whatever is driving this, visualsocial comparison is something
that is very, very uh, has ahuge impact on girls self-esteem
(24:53):
, self-image, and the companiesthemselves know this, and so
they build all these beautyfilter apps.
You build a platform that isdesigned in a way that takes
advantage of our kind ofinherent insecurities and also
desires, and so you have theseplatforms that are just primed
(25:14):
for negative social comparison,and so that's just one mechanism
through which harm is happening.
Another mechanism of harm isthat girls, unfortunately, are
much more likely to be forpredation, extortion, sexual
harassment.
These are things that happen togirls at extremely high rates
(25:37):
on these platforms.
There was a whistleblowerreport from this guy.
His name's Arturo Bejar, and hefound on Instagram that just
about 15% so one in eight of 13to 15-year-olds receive unwanted
sexual solicitations everysingle week, every week, and he
(25:59):
describes it as the largestscale case of sexual harassment
to have ever happened.
So there are dozens ofmechanisms through which it's
harming teens boys and girls andhappening in different ways.
The way that aggression playsout between boys and girls on
(26:21):
average is different.
Boys tend to be much morephysical, using physical
violence if you get intoconflict.
For girls, it's much morerelational.
It's about lowering one'sstatus, one's reputation and
one's friend group.
A boys are more physical and sothat the change in how bullying
happens radically changedduring this period, because now
(26:55):
there's a whole new suite ofways that essentially girls can
bully each other.
Speaker 1 (26:58):
Do you think that these social media companies are
intentionally trying to prey onthe vulnerabilities?
Speaker 2 (27:08):
So what we know from their own platforms is that they
know that this harm ishappening.
I mean, it's very obvious andthey're not doing much about it
at all, not doing much about itat all.
So, regardless of theirintention, they are
intentionally choosing not tofix their products in a way to
make this safer, because it ispossible, and there are many
(27:31):
people even within the companieswho have lots of great ideas
about how to improve it, butdown the line it's I mean,
essentially it's the profitmotive.
It's just not going to sell.
And I think the one importantframework to think about, kind
of the solutions, but also theproblems that everybody is
(27:51):
facing, is this concept of acollective action problem where,
if you so, at the company level, if any individual company
decides that they don't want totarget teens in the way that
teens have been targeted,they're going to be at a
competitive disadvantage to allof the other companies that are
out there.
(28:11):
And so nobody does it becausenobody wants to be the only one
to do this.
And essentially, there is areason why we like social media.
It's not just that it's alltoxic and bad, but it's we like
it because it gives us pleasure,it's fun, it's entertaining and
there's all sorts of like withanything like soda things that
(28:34):
are not great for us.
We're drawn to it and it'sessentially saying, like let's
have 10 soda companies and onesoda company is going to take
away all the sugar.
Well, what's going to happen isthat company is going to lose
out and the ones that put inmore sugar is going to get more
people to use it, and this isthe problem that we're in.
The companies don't want tochange and users do migrate and
(28:59):
use the platforms that are themost essentially addictive.
Migrate and use the platformsthat are the most essentially
addictive, and this is the.
This is really why governmentreally needs to step in here.
Speaker 1 (29:09):
The more I hear you talk about it, the more
infuriated I am.
For one and then for second.
Like can change really everhappen, or are we just going to
continue like in 10 years fromnow?
If it keeps going this way,what is the conversation going
to be and what's the title ofthe next book, the yeah, well so
(29:33):
.
Speaker 2 (29:33):
So here's the thing even though the trajectory we've
been on has not been good,there is such a profound hunger
for change here, and what's sopositive about this problem,
(29:56):
relative to some other problems,is that almost all legislators
have children, tech companyleaders and people within the
companies.
They have children, and so allof us have direct experience to
the problems that are happening,and because of that, I think
that there's an enormouspotential for change to happen,
(30:19):
and we're already seeing thatnow.
So at the level of schools,it's been extraordinary, with
schools going phone-free frombell to bell.
This has enormous support fromteachers, from administrators
and even young people, and thething to say here for just the
phone-free school thing, is thatkids have not experienced any
(30:40):
other kind of way of livingother than having their devices
all the time, and so it's reallychallenging and scary to do
something so different thanyou're used to.
But what we've found in theschools that have done this you
give kids just a couple weeks toreadjust, to experience those
(31:00):
awkward moments that we wereable to avoid because we had our
phones.
There's more laughter in thehallways, the lunchrooms are
much louder, teachers are havingto tell kids to quiet down at
the beginning of class.
Literally, that's something ateacher has said, and they said
that they haven't had to do thatin the last 10 years.
(31:21):
And they said that they haven'thad to do that in the last 10
years.
I mean, it's like so the thingis.
My point is that people see theproblem the kids, the parents,
the teachers and there's so manypeople who care, and I think
that there's a lot of potentialfor change.
Speaker 1 (31:39):
So how does change begin?
What can we do with our kids,and then with ourselves, to help
?
Speaker 2 (31:47):
Yeah, there are four foundational norms that we
suggest in the book.
All of them are about thecollective action problem I was
talking about.
So just to go into that alittle bit, more is I was
talking about the what happensat the level of the companies,
but we can take that sameconcept and do it for the, for
(32:08):
the level of teens themselves.
And so imagine well you know,if you are a teenager and you're
in a class of 30 other kids, if29 of them have a smartphone
and social media, you not havingit is going to be and this is a
term many teens say socialdeath.
(32:29):
It feels like you are sociallyisolated, you are losing out of
what everything is happening,and so it's super painful to
have to make that decision andnobody wants to make that
decision to be left out,especially again during that
period where we're so cued in towhere do we fit in?
Now?
Parents also recognize that,and so no parent wants to be
(32:56):
like.
It's such a difficult decisionto make to have to hold back
from giving these devices, togiving these platforms to your
kid who says, if I don't havethis, I'm going to be left out,
and that's really difficult andhard.
So now let's say let's cut.
Let's say, a teen goes in to aseventh grade class and now 25
(33:20):
percent of the kids have asmartphone and social media.
Well, now it's so much easieras a parent to say well, johnny
and Maria and everybody else,they don't have it, and so it
makes everything easier.
So collective change allowsindividual change to be easier.
So what we suggest is that wecreate a norm that families and
(33:44):
communities do together, and sothat's no smartphones until high
school.
Getting it out of middle school, because this is really where
it's most toxic.
Bullying is already worse atits worst in seventh grade.
So let's just get the phonesout of middle school.
The next thing is no socialmedia until 16.
And this is a difficult thingto do now, but we're seeing and
(34:10):
governments can really help here, and this is what Australia is
actually doing they're setting anew minimum age at 16.
Phone free schools from bell tobell.
And at the same time you knowI've talked a lot about the
underprotection online, but notthe overprotection side in the
real world is that we need togive kids back more free play,
(34:32):
independence and responsibilityin the real world, and we could
talk more about that as well.
But just to make sure to beat adead horse is like.
The idea here is that you'renot doing these things alone,
that you would find otherparents of your kids' friends
and you would delay together.
(34:53):
You ideally would have schoolsat an institutional level
instituting this phone-freepolicy.
So it's not one teacher doesthis, another teacher does that.
It's happening collectively andwhen we do that it's easier for
everyone.
Speaker 1 (35:09):
What do you say to the people who, may they hear
you begin saying things likeinstitute, legislate government
and they're like, no, we shouldbe able to make our choices,
kind of, what is the, what isyour?
I mean?
How would you respond to that?
How would you respond to thepeople that would say government
shouldn't, shouldn't getinvolved with this?
Speaker 2 (35:31):
Ideally, I think that I mean it would be great if we
could do this on our own and Ithink that there is a lot that
we can do.
So again, what we're suggestingfor delaying till 14, it's a
norm.
We're not talking aboutlegislation here.
This is something that parentscan do, families can do, schools
(35:52):
can do.
But here's the problem Once akid is given a phone, family
life becomes a constant struggleover screen time.
Once you give phones into aschool, school becomes a
constant struggle over screentime.
Once you give phones into aschool, school becomes a
constant fight over screen time.
Why?
Because these products aredesigned particularly in a way
(36:13):
to drive compulsive use and it'sputting kids and parents and
teachers into these collectiveaction problems.
And the number one, like one ofthe main reasons we have
government, is to help solvethese kinds of problems, because
if you can get support to, youknow to set up clear standards
(36:39):
for the companies, so for I mean, what we need, these companies
have shown repeatedly that theycannot self-regulate.
So I think that's just pointnumber one.
And then the other thing isthat you know schools and
families need help Gettinggovernment funding for phone
lockers or phone pouches.
(36:59):
There's a lot that can be doneand I think that you know it's
totally reasonable and fair tohave the debate around the role
of government here.
But I think there are somethings that are just clearly
needed to be done because we'rejust going to keep going down
the same path if the whole thingis that we need help, same path
if the whole thing is that weneed help.
Speaker 1 (37:20):
Yeah, Do you ever think that it and I and I agree
like it's the fact that 25% offive to seven year olds have a
phone and you know, and thethings that predators and how
predators can like target thesekids online, and a lot of times,
parents don't think about itbecause they're like well,
(37:42):
they're safe here in my home.
They're you know, they're notout on the streets, they're not
running in the road, they're not.
You know, whatever, and we'll,we'll probably get more into
that, but um, clearly somethingneeds to change and it's so
addicting that we can't stop itourselves.
My a question I wanted to askwith this as well, is so many
(38:03):
schools, like my kid's school,has given them all Chromebooks.
Now, this isn't a smartphoneand they don't have social media
, but I feel like a lot of thesame struggles exist Because
it's distracting.
There's YouTube on it.
My daughter is 10 and she cannotprioritize work.
Like she's supposed to do herhomework on this Chromebook, but
(38:26):
she gets distracted with likeaccessibility settings, Like she
just wants to play with stuffon it, Like the accessibility
settings are going to YouTubeand it's like 20 minutes before
she even starts the homework.
So how about?
What about just that Like takeaway the smartphones?
So how about what about justthat like take away the
smartphones?
What about just screens ingeneral?
And should those also?
Should parents and schools alsobe regulating that?
Speaker 2 (38:49):
Yeah, that's a really good question.
This is an area that we didn'ttalk much about in the book, in
part because at the the time wedidn't know all that much about
it.
But this is an area that we'vebeen really interested in and,
if any of your listeners want tolearn more, we have been
publishing a bunch of essays onour sub stack, after Babbel,
(39:10):
about educational technology andthe pros and cons here.
I think you hit the nail on thehead with the key problem,
which is distraction.
So there's the question of thedistraction effects and the
learning benefits.
Do the distraction effectsoverwhelm those learning
benefits?
(39:30):
And that, generally, is whatseems to be happening is that
there is a lot of potential thatthese things could be good.
There is a lot of potentialthat these things could be good,
but again, when you have kidswho already probably don't want
to pay that much attention inmath class using a Chromebook,
the distraction effects are sostrong.
(39:50):
Now there are a lot of schoolsthat have implemented certain
ways to kind of lock down thecomputers, but having the
one-to-one iPads, especially inyounger age groups, does not
seem to be giving the kind ofbenefits that were promised here
.
The one other point I want tomake is.
(40:12):
This is something that a recentresearcher wrote on our Substack
, Dr Jared Hoover, and heexplained something like what is
the primary function of a tool,and he kind of defines it as
what you do with 80% of yourtime with that thing.
And so what you can do with ahammer, you can use it as a
(40:35):
doorstopper, you can use it asall sorts of things, but the
primary use is to nail things in.
And he asked the same questionabout screens and devices.
What do we typically use thisfor?
Well, 80% of the time it'sgenerally entertainment screen
use, watching videos, socialmedia, texting with our friends
(40:57):
and if you're doing this andthis is how you know this
product so well and you put thisinto a classroom, the
expectation that kids are justnot going to move in that
direction is completelyunrealistic.
And so it goes back into.
There's potential, but thedistraction effects and what
kids are generally leaningtowards doing with it pulls them
(41:21):
away from the class.
Now, there are cases where edtech does seem to be really
beneficial, but in general, theconstant oversaturation of
devices does not seem to be thathelpful.
Speaker 1 (41:35):
Mm-hmm.
So let's end on, maybe, thehappy note.
We know what we can do in termsof not not giving smartphones
until high school, not doingsocial media until at least the
age of 16.
I always like to say my kidsare never going to have it, even
when they're adults.
But you mentioned play, sogiving kids back a sense of
(41:58):
independence and a sense of play.
So what I mean?
Maybe we've forgotten what thislooks like.
What's the best way for kids toplay and have independence?
Speaker 2 (42:07):
Yeah, well, thank you .
Thank you for bringing this up,because this is part of the
story that often gets left outjust because there's so much to
say.
You know, just to lay it outthere, humans are just like all
other mammals and we need toplay a ton, and especially
during early childhood, playingis the vehicle through which we
(42:32):
learn to be part of our socialgroups, to learn the skills that
we need, and play is thisnatural, intuitive thing that
kids do to navigate their socialcircles.
You learn self-governance, youlearn all of the skills that you
want kids to learn through thisnatural evolutionary process
(42:54):
that they just do on their own,and one of the things that
happened is that over the lastfew decades, we've really pulled
kids away through into highlystructured activities that
they're not kind of generatingfor themselves.
School's gotten longer, and nowwe also have smartphones, and
(43:14):
all of these things are blockingkids' abilities to have this
kind of free play experiencethat so many people experienced
growing up until the last fewdecades, and so we have a couple
big suggestions here about whatwe can do about this.
Just like with the problems withsmartphones, there's also a
(43:35):
collective action problemhappening here, which is that
okay, 30 years ago.
You open the door, the kids goout and you say, come back when
the streetlights come on.
Well, that doesn't happenanymore.
And if you were the only oneonly parent to do this, well one
who's your kid going to playwith?
And this sounds just like aterrible idea.
(43:57):
So what we need to do is how dowe solve this collectively, and
one of the best places to dothis is at schools, and you just
(44:20):
have one or two adults there aslifeguards, not referees,
managing conflict, and you justlet kids play and you have a
bunch of loose parts, of jumpropes, things that are out there
, and I mean it's extraordinaryhow beneficial these small
things can do.
So that's one thing.
Another thing we would love tosee is that schools expand
(44:42):
recess.
What we found is recess andlunch are like contracting
together and you have 20 minutes.
So if we want to teach kidssocial, emotional learning,
bring back play in schools.
So Let Grow Play Clubexpandingcess.
And the third thing is what wecall the Lekro Experience, and
(45:04):
so Lekro is an organization, anonprofit, that John had started
with someone named LenoreSkenazy who wrote the book Free
Range.
Parenting is really difficult aswell is giving kids
independence.
It's really hard to say, to tellkids, or really hard to trust
(45:30):
kids to do things on their ownbecause we're not as used to it.
And so the LECRO experience,the LECRO project, is a homework
assignment that schools giveout to all the kids in the class
and they have the kids go homeand they have to do something
they've never done before ontheir own, with their parents
permission, and what this tendsto look like is going to the
(45:51):
store to buy ingredients to bakea cake or to walk the dog on
their own or to walk the dog ontheir own, and these are just
little things that kids do, andit's incredible how impactful
this is, not just for the kidbut also for the parents, to see
(46:11):
just how much more capable ourkids are than we often think.
So those three things, we think, can go a really long way, and
in part because it allows us tobuild that trust muscle, both in
kids and in parents, ofremembering how capable kids are
and that, being independent outin the real world, they'll be
(46:33):
okay.
Speaker 1 (46:35):
Now can parents access those items on the
nonprofit you're talking about.
Speaker 2 (46:42):
Yes, great, great question.
So the two places for yourlisteners if you want to learn
more, finding resources on boththe phone side and the play side
, go to anxiousgenerationcom andgo to our Take Action tab and
you can find all sorts ofresources there.
And then for Let Grow, you goto letgroworg and they have
(47:05):
resources for play clubs, theLet Grow Experience and
everything else that you mightwant to learn about on that.
And if you want to sign up forour newsletter and to kind of be
part of this movement, at thebottom of the homepage on
anxiousgenerationcom you cansign up and we send out emails
(47:27):
with resources like the oneswe've been talking about.
Speaker 1 (47:29):
Yeah, that's fantastic.
You also mentioned that you andJonathan have a sub stack,
which we will put the link to inthe show notes as well, and
then, of course, by the bookAnxious Generation, if you
haven't yet.
Yeah, did you think like, didyou know the book was gonna take
off as crazy as it did?
Did y'all have a hunch, or wasit just totally mind blowing?
Speaker 2 (47:54):
I think John was a little bit more confident than I
was.
It totally, totally took me bysurprise.
I mean, it has been quite aremarkable several months and
what we really see is that thebook was a catalyst for a lot of
energy.
That was already there.
We really didn't add I don'tthink all that much that was so
(48:18):
new as more of reassuring andreaffirming what so many people
knew and were ready to act butjust didn't know quite how?
Speaker 1 (48:27):
Yeah, that's fantastic.
Is there another one in theworks?
Speaker 2 (48:32):
So right now, we are really focusing on what's going
on with kids.
There's going to be a teenversion of the book coming out
next year, and we've launched athree-year campaign where we're
really trying to push these fournorms, and so please join us.
Speaker 1 (48:49):
I love that.
Zach Rausch, thank you so muchfor joining me today, love your
work, love what you're doing andlove the impact that you're
making for kids and theirfutures everywhere.
Thank you so much.
We covered so much in thisconversation and I could have
(49:10):
asked him so many more questions, but it can feel overwhelming.
It can feel overwhelming to meat least, because it feels like
we are just stuck in thishamster wheel or this spider web
that we as a whole society andas a whole globe, as a whole
world, just can't seem to getout of, because social media has
become so addictive and sosticky and so entangled into our
(49:34):
lives and how we live and howwe work and how we show up.
I thought an interesting pointthat was made was how they're
called social media platforms.
Now, back when Facebook firststarted, it was called a
networking, like socialnetworking, like the show, the
social network, where JT, justinTimberlake showed up to be an
(49:57):
actor.
That's why I loved the movie somuch.
But in that movie and in whatsocial networks were at the time
, it was a way originally tonetwork, but now it's a platform
.
And what do you do on aplatform?
You perform.
We're expecting our childrenand our teenagers, who have
(50:18):
these social media platforms tomanage a brand and to perform
for likes and for engagement,and that's what we expect of
ourselves too, and it's sodraining the fact that kids now
say that they want to be aninfluencer as a career goal when
they grow up.
I feel like we need someserious recalibration to reality
(50:42):
and to what matters most inlife.
I won't get on my soapbox,although I could.
Here are my key takeaways fromtoday's episode Phone free.
Phone free I spoke with apastor on a previous episode
where we talked about digitaldetox, and one of the things
that he said was his.
His girls are teenagers and heread this book, the anxious
(51:04):
generation, and once he read it,they were not yet in high
school, they were not yet 16.
And so he had a conversationwith them about it because they
were old enough they wereprobably like 12 or 13.
And so he had a conversationwith what he now knew, based on
what the research said, and hesaid now, being a loving father,
if you were me, what would youdo?
And they said, dad, you have totake our phones away, because
(51:27):
here's the thing the majority ofyou are thinking my kids
already have phones.
I can't take it away.
You can take it away.
You're their parent.
You are the person who gets todecide what their future is
going to look like, the personwho gets to decide what their
future is going to look like,and you have the responsibility
to to ensure that your childrenare given the absolute best
chance of success, and not justsuccess being what they achieve,
(51:49):
but the person they become.
Social media isn't helping usbecome better people.
It's just.
It's just not, especiallyespecially when you're an
adolescent or a teenager.
It's adding to anxiety.
It's adding to depression.
It's adding not especially whenyou're an adolescent or a
teenager.
It's adding to anxiety.
It's adding to depression.
It's adding to the suiciderates.
It's even worse for girls, butit's still terrible for boys.
(52:10):
As a parent me especially I havea responsibility to my kids to
make sure they do not have aphone until they are at least 16
.
I keep saying to my husbandit's like maybe when they go to
college I will get them a phoneand let them have social media,
but in our house it's a bigthing.
Our kids have never had theirown iPad.
(52:31):
They've never had their owntablet.
They're 10 and eight.
It wasn't until they startedgoing to this school where they
were assigned a Chromebook.
But even when they get home,they're not allowed on their
Chromebook.
And if they have homework ontheir Chromebook, I am right
there, like right there Now theystill watch TV, they still play
video games.
There are other areas that westill have to manage and
(52:51):
regulate screen time, but I amvery diligent about this and I
am very passionate about this nophone, no social media.
If your kids have it, delete it, take it from them.
They will be really angry inthe short term.
I can't tell you, growing up,how many times my parents like,
so my dad, had to approve what Iwore until probably till I got
(53:15):
married Not that I like askedhim after I moved out of the
house, but like when I bought.
When my mom would take me tobuy a new swimsuit, it was a
rule in my house that it had topass my dad's approval of being
modest.
So I was never wearing a twopiece bikini, like I had, you
know, a halter top and like boyshorts, it it was appropriate
(53:37):
and I would get so mad at him.
Or if I bought shorts that weretoo short, he would, he would
throw them and I would get somad at him.
Or if I bought shorts that weretoo short, he would throw them
away and I would get so mad athim.
And I would say to him but myfriends or the people at school
or all these other people,they're allowed to do it.
My dad would always say to me Iam so sorry that their parents
(53:57):
don't love them as much as Ilove you.
Maybe that's what we should allcling to as parents.
We make decisions on behalf ofour children because we love
them and we want them to havethe best possible future outcome
.
What does that look like,specifically with screens and
social media, for you and foryour kids?
(54:20):
And then, of course, the finaltakeaway is play.
I am all for like kids beingindependent and having chores.
In fact, like something I wantto do.
I might do it.
Today, my daughter hasbasketball practice and she's 10
.
Um, I may like give her mydebit card.
Like play, like follow alongand go to the grocery store
(54:42):
after basketball and say hey,like go I'll.
I'm going to stand at the frontof the store.
I want you to go and like finda couple of things that you want
to buy in order to make dinneror something and then, like,
come and check out and if youneed help checking out, like
I'll be up here.
But I think that could be a coolexperiment and help her gain
some independence.
You know, do some things on herown.
(55:04):
How can we give back to ourchildren independence and play
in their lives?
Because, overall, as a society,we have been over protecting
our kids in the real world andnot wanting them to go outside,
not wanting them to go play anddo things because they might get
hurt or they might get taken,and of course we should be wise,
(55:25):
but we've been over-protectingour children in the real world
and under-protecting them withtheir access and their use of
screens and onto the internet.
Those are my key takeaways.
What are some of your keytakeaways from today's episode?
Leave a comment on the YouTubevideo, share this with a friend
and, as always, until next week,stay strong.
What we're experiencing in today's world is
a destruction of happiness.
That's what we are diving intoin today's episode.
What we talk about with myguest, zach Rausch, who was the
lead researcher for the book theAnxious Generation, which has
been a phenomenon and has takenthe world by storm it seems
Everyone is talking about thisbook.
(00:21):
What we talk about is how ourphones are our greatest
distractions, and the thing thathas led us to become more
connected than we've ever beenbefore is leading us to be
lonelier, more anxious and moredepressed than ever before.
And it's not just us as adults,it's our kids, and the effects
(00:43):
are even more significant on ourchildren.
On today's episode, we talkabout how girls are more
susceptible to the effects ofsmartphones and social medias
than boys are.
We talk about all of thenegative effects of these items
on children and, mostimportantly, what we as parents
and as adults can do differentlyfor ourselves and to create a
(01:05):
better future for the nextgeneration.
Let's dive in to today'sepisode.
All right, zach, I am reallyexcited to have you on today,
and as a researcher, so I'mcurrently in the middle of my
PhD.
So, like researchers speakingto fellow researcher, I feel
like we may geek out on a coupleof things today, if that's okay
(01:25):
with you.
Speaker 2 (01:27):
I'd love to Well, thank you so much for having me
on and hello to your listeners.
I'm very excited to talk aboutthis.
Speaker 1 (01:34):
Yeah, so you were the lead researcher for the book
the Anxious Generation, and thisbook is has been really
incredible.
It's gotten a lot of attentionin the media.
Hopefully it's gotten a lot ofpeople to begin to think
differently about how they useand approach smartphones and
social media.
We'll we'll talk more aboutthat, but why were you
(01:56):
interested in doing research onthis topic?
What is it?
What was your precipice intothis field?
Speaker 2 (02:03):
Yeah, so I have one of the weirdest journeys to get
to where I am.
I never thought that this wouldbe the job that I would have.
I was working in psychiatricgroup homes after I finished my
bachelor's degree, which was insociology and religious studies.
I was planning to be a socialworker and a therapist, but I
(02:29):
had long struggled with my ownmental illness, with depression
and anxiety, and so I'd alwaysbeen really interested in this
kind of adolescent mental healthin particular, because that's
when it really started for meand I decided to volunteer at an
evolutionary psychologyresearch lab that was near my
(02:50):
house where I was living at thetime in New York, and my mentor
there gave me the Coddling ofthe American Mind, which was
John's John Haidt's 2018 book,and when I read it I was like,
oh my God, he's talking about me.
I just felt very resonant to thekinds of problems he was
talking about, which was risingmental health issues on American
(03:14):
college campuses in particular,and the changes in childhood
that were going on over the lastseveral decades, and I did some
research on his book.
He read my blog post that Iwrote about my research, and
then I started working with him,and over the last five, six
years, I just slowly became moreand more interested in this
(03:37):
topic and I began to see justhow profound the change of
childhood has been over the lastdecade and how much of a
problem that we're facing, bothhere in the United States but
also in many countries aroundthe world, of what has been
happening to teens, and then Ibecame really interested to try
to understand what was drivingthat.
Speaker 1 (03:59):
That's right.
So, if I remember correctly,you really led the charge in,
not just looking at the changeof childhood in America and how
adolescents were affected bymental illness, but you did it
over several different countries.
Can you tell us more about that?
Speaker 2 (04:14):
Yeah, what I think is so the anxious generation was
actually not supposed to be abook.
We had one chapter written thatwas going to be about what's
going on with teens, and then itwas going to actually be a book
about what technology is doingto society, to liberal
democracies.
That's where the book began.
(04:34):
But as we were doing theresearch and we noticed that
okay, so between 2010 and 2015,we see big spikes in anxiety,
depression, self-harm, suicideamong teens, especially among
girls here in the US, and thenwe noticed that this pattern was
showing up in Australia, in NewZealand, in Canada, in the UK,
(04:58):
and then very similar trendswith anxiety and depression
across the Nordic countries andmost of Western Europe the
anxiety and depression acrossthe Nordic countries and most of
Western Europe and we realizedthat this is a huge story, and
so that was really kind of theimpetus that led us to write
this whole book, because it'snot just an American phenomena.
This is a multinational changethat's been going on with young
(05:20):
people.
Speaker 1 (05:22):
Now, did you just look at those countries or did
you look at a lot of countriesand realize that there was the
correlation between thosespecific countries?
Why those countries?
Speaker 2 (05:32):
Yeah, that's a great question.
There are a couple reasons forit.
The first is really justpractical in terms of my primary
language is English, so thatmakes it easier for me to read
those studies.
The second is, where do we havethe best available data?
That tends to be in the moreWestern Europe Anglosphere, and
(05:57):
also data that looks at trendsover time that goes back I mean,
ideally I like to look backinto the 1900s and see changes
over time.
So a lot of the reason for thefocus was just the availability
of data, the quality of the datawhen that data was around and
my ability to really read thosepapers.
But we have done a lot of workmore recently trying to expand
(06:21):
that scope and we do see we dohave some good international
data that goes beyond and we'vefound, for example, with school
loneliness, there's a studycalled the Program for
International Student Assessmentand that's done every three
years and it's mostly aboutacademic performance, but it has
eight items around feelingalienated alone at school, and
(06:44):
this is among 15-year-olds andwhat we found is that average
scores were pretty steady upuntil 2012, all around the world
, and then it starts to go up,and this is in Latin America,
this is even in East Asia, eventhough the changes are smaller,
and so we are starting to get abetter sense of the changes.
(07:06):
There's a great economist, dannyBlanchflower, who's done some
work, also looking reallyglobally, and he's found that,
you know, there used to be thisU-shaped curve of happiness
where young people tend to behappiest.
Then it goes down and you downand life gets hard, we get kind
(07:28):
of miserable and then the kidsleave and then we get happy
again.
And he found that that U-shapedcurve has really disappeared in
most countries around the worldwhere now young people
consistently are the least happy.
And so this is now there's aquestion about when that changed
(07:54):
, and we just don't have thedata to go far back enough in
many of these countries to know.
But what we're seeing is a trueinternational, maybe global,
phenomenon of kind of thedestruction of human happiness
when we're when we're young.
Speaker 1 (08:08):
I am taking notes because I'm sitting here like
this is.
This is a lot so to so for forthe listeners.
Maybe they haven't read theAnxious Generation.
You know, we, we startedtalking about social media.
So there's this book writtenit's called the Anxious
Generation and clearly you werethe lead researcher on it and
really what y'all sought to dowas was this like you took these
?
As you said, you started withthis, this Anglosphere.
(08:31):
You saw these rates begin tochange and where did it come in
Like?
So where in the hypothesis waswhy are these things shifting
and it linking to social mediaand smartphones?
Speaker 2 (08:47):
Yeah, great question.
So I think that maybe the bestway to illustrate this is to
first lay out what our corethesis is and then I can talk
about at what point did kind of.
This is more of John's journeyinto this process because I came
in a little bit later, but thecore thesis of the Anxious
(09:08):
Generation is that we've beenover-protecting kids in the real
world and under-protecting themonline and it's a two.
So it's a kind of a two-parttheory that we're really pushing
.
And the time points of changefor all of these things are
happening at different times.
So for what we call the loss ofthe play-based childhood, which
(09:29):
has to do with theoverprotection side, that begins
most prominently in the 1980s,but we can go even further back
to the 1960s, and it's a long,slow change in how we are
(09:59):
raising kids, of what kids areable to do.
And then the early 2010s, wehave what we call the rise of
the phone-based childhood.
And so Coddling of the AmericanMind about the potential role of
social media on youth mentalhealth, and at that point he had
said it might be contributingto it, but he didn't know and it
was very unclear.
(10:19):
And right after the Coddling waspublished there was a bunch of
articles that came out, bothlike one in the New York Times
that was challenging some of theassumptions about whether or
not social media is contributingto it, but then a bunch of
really important empiricalarticles and many of them showed
(10:41):
completely different findings.
And many of them showedcompletely different findings.
And it was at that point hedecided to team up with Gene
Twenge to another psychologistwho's written extensively on
(11:01):
this to track all of the studies, all of the available studies
on all sides of what's going on,and they started an open source
Google document where it wasbroken down by getting all of
the correlational evidencethat's out there, all of the
longitudinal experimentalstudies, and I came in later to
really to help with this.
But it was at that point thatyou know that he was starting to
build a bigger and better senseof what's going on here with
(11:23):
social media and over the courseof a few years I think he
became more confident that thiswas playing a substantial role
in the mental health problemsthat we're also seeing, where do
you think we would be if wedidn't have social media today?
Speaker 1 (11:41):
Like, what do you think would be different today
if we did not have social media?
Speaker 2 (11:45):
That's an interesting question, I think that you know
, I think one.
It's important that we have todefine our terms here.
So what would that mean?
I mean, are we saying I thinkthe world would be much better
off without the major socialmedia platforms that we're
concerned about, which is TikTok, instagram, snapchat?
(12:08):
I think that we would lose alot if we lost things like
YouTube.
I think that there are and Ilove to talk about this that
there's a wide array of benefitsand risks and trade-offs to
each of the social mediaplatforms, but I think that if
(12:31):
teens and young people were notable to spend almost all of
their time on these platformsevery single day, I think we
wouldn't have seen such adramatic change in youth mental
health rates.
Our concern is not with socialmedia per se, but it's the
(12:51):
combination of having asmartphone with social media
that allows companies to hookyou in and use business
incentives, and there's a wholelike attention economy being
driving this device that's inour pocket all the time, and
(13:14):
it's that combination ofsmartphones and these particular
social media apps which consumeso much time and bring so much
harm to young people.
So that's really what we'reconcerned about.
Speaker 1 (13:27):
Let's dive into more of that.
So what are the ways, like whatis the average age that kids
are beginning to be on phones oron social media.
Now how is that affecting them?
Is that affecting theirdevelopment, their social
development?
What all is it affecting andhow is it playing out?
Speaker 2 (13:46):
Yeah, so the average age of getting a smartphone
continues to get younger.
So now in the US it's around, Ibelieve, age 10.
One of the most strikingstatistics I've heard on this
comes actually from the UK.
I haven't gotten the statistichere in the US, but it's just
about 25% of five toseven-year-olds now have a
(14:07):
smartphone, their own personalsmartphone.
So yeah, I know, I couldn'tbelieve it.
So what's happening is thatwe're getting these devices at
younger and younger ages.
I mean, that was justsmartphones, but we also have
tablets and iPads.
Screens are saturating intoearly childhood and with social
(14:31):
media now, ideally, I mean, therule is set that you have to be
13, but nobody follows that rule.
It takes two seconds to figureout how to get around that, and
what we know from the company'sown reports is that there are
millions of kids under the ageof 13 who are using it.
Our sense is that it generallybegins in early middle school.
(14:53):
That's when teens really startto move their social lives onto
these platforms.
But I don't have the specificsthat there.
And so to the question of whatis social media doing and what
are the mechanisms through whichit can cause harm or benefits,
(15:15):
what we talk about in the book.
So we have a chapter about howsocial media really impacts
everybody everybody and then howit impacts girls in particular,
because that's where we see thehighest risk of harm from heavy
use of social media is withyoung adolescent girls, and so
just to lay them out, there isjust an enormous opportunity
(15:37):
cost.
This is the most simple kind ofharm, which is that the average
teen is now spending five hoursa day, every day, on social
media just social media, notother entertainment.
Screen use and entertainmentscreen use.
The average is between eight to10 hours a day, and it's even
the average gets higher forblack and Hispanic teens and low
(15:58):
income teens as well.
So there's some socioeconomicdisparities here.
And when you're spending thismuch time, where does everything
else go?
How do you fit all of this?
Well, everything else getspushed out, and so we've been
seeing and we tracked this allin the book and also on our sub
stack is time spent with friendsin person huge declines over
(16:21):
the last decade.
Time spent sleeping gets pushedout.
Time spent being outside,getting sunlight, having hobbies
, reading books all of thesethings have been being pushed
out, and all of that has hugeimplications on our ability to
learn to connect to find meaning, to find meaning and so that
(16:50):
one feature of this that we haveproducts that are designed to
be compulsive and to keep us onfor longer and longer.
That alone is a huge harm and amechanism of harm.
So related to this is socialdeprivation and sleep
deprivation.
So as those things get pushedout, kids are spending so much
less time with each other inperson and we see a huge rise in
teenage loneliness.
And adults too Adults are oneof the report after report of
(17:16):
finding that Americans are justincredibly lonely, and part of
this is that we've shifted fromhaving devices so telephones,
flip phones that enable us toconnect with each other, often
with the goal of meeting up inperson.
Or if you're on a phone call,it's synchronous, it's with one
(17:38):
other person, and then you shiftthat to a smartphone where the
goal is no longer I'm going toconnect with someone in order to
meet with them in person or tohave an extended conversation.
It's about you use theplatforms to stay on the
platforms, and it's often withan audience of hundreds of
people.
It's more asynchronous and it'sreally that change in how
(18:01):
social life was moved and it'snot a sufficient replacement,
and so there's a profound socialdeprivation happening, sleep
deprivation.
We know that sleep is justabsolutely essential for child
development, adolescentdevelopment.
Kids already weren't gettingenough sleep.
The schools start really early.
That was already a problem, andthat's just an issue that's
(18:25):
been exacerbated because theprimary time that kids are
spending a lot of time on theirphones is in bed, and this is
also when a lot of harms happenis while you're in bed late at
night.
That's a lot of cyberbullyinghappens then, and just quickly
I'll just do two more isattention fragmentation, which
is just the fact that I meanthis is for all of us.
(18:48):
We get hundreds of pushnotifications every single day,
notifications from texting, fromnews sites, and what this does
is it stops us from being ableto have sustained attention on
one thing.
We're terrible multitaskers,and so we're constantly task
switching attention on one thing.
We're terrible multitaskers,and so we're constantly task
switching.
We're switching from oneactivity to the next, from our
(19:11):
phone to trying to read a book,to looking at something else on
the internet, and this makes itreally hard for us to pay
attention, to focus, and this isa lot of the problems that we
believe are driving declines instudent learning and school in
particular.
And then, finally, the fourthone is the problem of
problematic use, compulsive useand behavioral addictions, and
(19:34):
we could debate about whetherthat term should be used
addiction should be used or notbut what we know is that these
platforms are designed in a wayto hook users, and there's about
10% of young people where theiruse disrupts the function of
their daily life, so it disruptstheir family relationships,
(19:54):
school and, in particular, theyshow symptoms that look very
much like withdrawal.
When you take the device away,they become very irritable, they
isolate more, and so that isanother area of harm that there
is literally something happeningto kids who are using it for
(20:18):
many, many hours, and it'sbecome something that they are
truly dependent on it's becomesomething that they are truly
dependent on.
Speaker 1 (20:32):
I feel like I just escaped as a teenager,
specifically like as anadolescent and teenager.
I was just on the outskirt ofthis wave, so I was a little bit
too old.
I was like in middle schoolwhen AOL came out, like late
elementary middle.
I had a flip phone in middleschool and in high school, but
didn't have a smartphone,honestly, till I was in my
twenties, cause I also thoughtit was weird to have a screen
(20:54):
that you touch.
It was like it's going to breakand then it's never going to be
able to be fixed, like I wantbuttons that I can actually
press.
So I was a little bit of a lateadopter.
Speaker 2 (21:03):
I felt the same way.
That's so funny, yeah, Itotally did.
Speaker 1 (21:06):
So I was a bit of a late adopter and, like, facebook
, became a thing when I wasprobably 18.
And it was mainly for collegestudents and I was able to get
one because I went to a highschool that was on a college
campus.
So you know, it wasn't really athing I can't even imagine, and
it's hard enough for me now, asa 35 year old, to regulate my
(21:28):
relationship with my smartphoneand to not get sucked into the
algorithm of social media and tonot be constantly feeling like,
oh my gosh wheel in our heads.
I can't imagine what it wouldbe for a girl for me, you know,
(21:48):
16 years old, if all of this wastrue, if my current reality was
true for me when I was 16, whyare girls more susceptible?
Speaker 2 (21:58):
Yeah, well, just to respond to two things that you
said.
One of the most common thingswe hear from young people and
also adults is I meant to go onfor five minutes.
It's now three hours later.
This is the most common thingthat you hear, and it's designed
to be that way.
And another thing just to noteis that the platforms are
(22:45):
particularly so if that's what'shappening to us asregulate and
so one that's not fullydeveloped.
Two, the thing you care aboutmost often not everybody, but in
middle school is do I fit in?
Do I fit into my friend group?
Do I belong?
You're so sensitive to socialrewards you're trying to figure
out where you fit in.
It's a sinister way for middleschoolers, and the companies
(23:26):
know this.
When you look at their owninternal reports, they talk
about teens being the mostsusceptible to social rewards.
They have bad compulsive use.
They're the ones who are goingto spend the most time on these
platforms and they're a keyaudience for these companies.
So I just think, beyond boysand girls, this is happening to
everybody, especially duringthis early period.
(23:49):
Now the question about withgirls is a really interesting
one.
Social media tends to be worsefor girls is just because girls
spend so much more time thanboys using social media.
Girls have migrated theirsocial lives more onto the
(24:09):
visually oriented platforms likeTikTok, instagram, and boys
have moved much more of theirlives onto multiplayer video
games.
There's some statistic like onein five boys are spending more
than four hours a day playingvideo games, and so if we want
to understand what's drivingdifferent, or just the context
(24:32):
that kids are living in, forgirls it's much more of TikTok,
instagram.
For boys it's more varied ondifferent platforms, on
different platforms, and thenfor girls, you know, for
whatever is driving this, visualsocial comparison is something
that is very, very uh, has ahuge impact on girls self-esteem
(24:53):
, self-image, and the companiesthemselves know this, and so
they build all these beautyfilter apps.
You build a platform that isdesigned in a way that takes
advantage of our kind ofinherent insecurities and also
desires, and so you have theseplatforms that are just primed
(25:14):
for negative social comparison,and so that's just one mechanism
through which harm is happening.
Another mechanism of harm isthat girls, unfortunately, are
much more likely to be forpredation, extortion, sexual
harassment.
These are things that happen togirls at extremely high rates
(25:37):
on these platforms.
There was a whistleblowerreport from this guy.
His name's Arturo Bejar, and hefound on Instagram that just
about 15% so one in eight of 13to 15-year-olds receive unwanted
sexual solicitations everysingle week, every week, and he
(25:59):
describes it as the largestscale case of sexual harassment
to have ever happened.
So there are dozens ofmechanisms through which it's
harming teens boys and girls andhappening in different ways.
The way that aggression playsout between boys and girls on
(26:21):
average is different.
Boys tend to be much morephysical, using physical
violence if you get intoconflict.
For girls, it's much morerelational.
It's about lowering one'sstatus, one's reputation and
one's friend group.
A boys are more physical and sothat the change in how bullying
happens radically changedduring this period, because now
(26:55):
there's a whole new suite ofways that essentially girls can
bully each other.
Speaker 1 (26:58):
Do you think that these social media companies are
intentionally trying to prey onthe vulnerabilities?
Speaker 2 (27:08):
So what we know from their own platforms is that they
know that this harm ishappening.
I mean, it's very obvious andthey're not doing much about it
at all, not doing much about itat all.
So, regardless of theirintention, they are
intentionally choosing not tofix their products in a way to
make this safer, because it ispossible, and there are many
(27:31):
people even within the companieswho have lots of great ideas
about how to improve it, butdown the line it's I mean,
essentially it's the profitmotive.
It's just not going to sell.
And I think the one importantframework to think about, kind
of the solutions, but also theproblems that everybody is
(27:51):
facing, is this concept of acollective action problem where,
if you so, at the company level, if any individual company
decides that they don't want totarget teens in the way that
teens have been targeted,they're going to be at a
competitive disadvantage to allof the other companies that are
out there.
(28:11):
And so nobody does it becausenobody wants to be the only one
to do this.
And essentially, there is areason why we like social media.
It's not just that it's alltoxic and bad, but it's we like
it because it gives us pleasure,it's fun, it's entertaining and
there's all sorts of like withanything like soda things that
(28:34):
are not great for us.
We're drawn to it and it'sessentially saying, like let's
have 10 soda companies and onesoda company is going to take
away all the sugar.
Well, what's going to happen isthat company is going to lose
out and the ones that put inmore sugar is going to get more
people to use it, and this isthe problem that we're in.
The companies don't want tochange and users do migrate and
(28:59):
use the platforms that are themost essentially addictive.
Migrate and use the platformsthat are the most essentially
addictive, and this is the.
This is really why governmentreally needs to step in here.
Speaker 1 (29:09):
The more I hear you talk about it, the more
infuriated I am.
For one and then for second.
Like can change really everhappen, or are we just going to
continue like in 10 years fromnow?
If it keeps going this way,what is the conversation going
to be and what's the title ofthe next book, the yeah, well so
(29:33):
.
Speaker 2 (29:33):
So here's the thing even though the trajectory we've
been on has not been good,there is such a profound hunger
for change here, and what's sopositive about this problem,
(29:56):
relative to some other problems,is that almost all legislators
have children, tech companyleaders and people within the
companies.
They have children, and so allof us have direct experience to
the problems that are happening,and because of that, I think
that there's an enormouspotential for change to happen,
(30:19):
and we're already seeing thatnow.
So at the level of schools,it's been extraordinary, with
schools going phone-free frombell to bell.
This has enormous support fromteachers, from administrators
and even young people, and thething to say here for just the
phone-free school thing, is thatkids have not experienced any
(30:40):
other kind of way of livingother than having their devices
all the time, and so it's reallychallenging and scary to do
something so different thanyou're used to.
But what we've found in theschools that have done this you
give kids just a couple weeks toreadjust, to experience those
(31:00):
awkward moments that we wereable to avoid because we had our
phones.
There's more laughter in thehallways, the lunchrooms are
much louder, teachers are havingto tell kids to quiet down at
the beginning of class.
Literally, that's something ateacher has said, and they said
that they haven't had to do thatin the last 10 years.
(31:21):
And they said that they haven'thad to do that in the last 10
years.
I mean, it's like so the thingis.
My point is that people see theproblem the kids, the parents,
the teachers and there's so manypeople who care, and I think
that there's a lot of potentialfor change.
Speaker 1 (31:39):
So how does change begin?
What can we do with our kids,and then with ourselves, to help
?
Speaker 2 (31:47):
Yeah, there are four foundational norms that we
suggest in the book.
All of them are about thecollective action problem I was
talking about.
So just to go into that alittle bit, more is I was
talking about the what happensat the level of the companies,
but we can take that sameconcept and do it for the, for
(32:08):
the level of teens themselves.
And so imagine well you know,if you are a teenager and you're
in a class of 30 other kids, if29 of them have a smartphone
and social media, you not havingit is going to be and this is a
term many teens say socialdeath.
(32:29):
It feels like you are sociallyisolated, you are losing out of
what everything is happening,and so it's super painful to
have to make that decision andnobody wants to make that
decision to be left out,especially again during that
period where we're so cued in towhere do we fit in?
Now?
Parents also recognize that,and so no parent wants to be
(32:56):
like.
It's such a difficult decisionto make to have to hold back
from giving these devices, togiving these platforms to your
kid who says, if I don't havethis, I'm going to be left out,
and that's really difficult andhard.
So now let's say let's cut.
Let's say, a teen goes in to aseventh grade class and now 25
(33:20):
percent of the kids have asmartphone and social media.
Well, now it's so much easieras a parent to say well, johnny
and Maria and everybody else,they don't have it, and so it
makes everything easier.
So collective change allowsindividual change to be easier.
So what we suggest is that wecreate a norm that families and
(33:44):
communities do together, and sothat's no smartphones until high
school.
Getting it out of middle school, because this is really where
it's most toxic.
Bullying is already worse atits worst in seventh grade.
So let's just get the phonesout of middle school.
The next thing is no socialmedia until 16.
And this is a difficult thingto do now, but we're seeing and
(34:10):
governments can really help here, and this is what Australia is
actually doing they're setting anew minimum age at 16.
Phone free schools from bell tobell.
And at the same time you knowI've talked a lot about the
underprotection online, but notthe overprotection side in the
real world is that we need togive kids back more free play,
(34:32):
independence and responsibilityin the real world, and we could
talk more about that as well.
But just to make sure to beat adead horse is like.
The idea here is that you'renot doing these things alone,
that you would find otherparents of your kids' friends
and you would delay together.
(34:53):
You ideally would have schoolsat an institutional level
instituting this phone-freepolicy.
So it's not one teacher doesthis, another teacher does that.
It's happening collectively andwhen we do that it's easier for
everyone.
Speaker 1 (35:09):
What do you say to the people who, may they hear
you begin saying things likeinstitute, legislate government
and they're like, no, we shouldbe able to make our choices,
kind of, what is the, what isyour?
I mean?
How would you respond to that?
How would you respond to thepeople that would say government
shouldn't, shouldn't getinvolved with this?
Speaker 2 (35:31):
Ideally, I think that I mean it would be great if we
could do this on our own and Ithink that there is a lot that
we can do.
So again, what we're suggestingfor delaying till 14, it's a
norm.
We're not talking aboutlegislation here.
This is something that parentscan do, families can do, schools
(35:52):
can do.
But here's the problem Once akid is given a phone, family
life becomes a constant struggleover screen time.
Once you give phones into aschool, school becomes a
constant struggle over screentime.
Once you give phones into aschool, school becomes a
constant fight over screen time.
Why?
Because these products aredesigned particularly in a way
(36:13):
to drive compulsive use and it'sputting kids and parents and
teachers into these collectiveaction problems.
And the number one, like one ofthe main reasons we have
government, is to help solvethese kinds of problems, because
if you can get support to, youknow to set up clear standards
(36:39):
for the companies, so for I mean, what we need, these companies
have shown repeatedly that theycannot self-regulate.
So I think that's just pointnumber one.
And then the other thing isthat you know schools and
families need help Gettinggovernment funding for phone
lockers or phone pouches.
(36:59):
There's a lot that can be doneand I think that you know it's
totally reasonable and fair tohave the debate around the role
of government here.
But I think there are somethings that are just clearly
needed to be done because we'rejust going to keep going down
the same path if the whole thingis that we need help, same path
if the whole thing is that weneed help.
Speaker 1 (37:20):
Yeah, Do you ever think that it and I and I agree
like it's the fact that 25% offive to seven year olds have a
phone and you know, and thethings that predators and how
predators can like target thesekids online, and a lot of times,
parents don't think about itbecause they're like well,
(37:42):
they're safe here in my home.
They're you know, they're notout on the streets, they're not
running in the road, they're not.
You know, whatever, and we'll,we'll probably get more into
that, but um, clearly somethingneeds to change and it's so
addicting that we can't stop itourselves.
My a question I wanted to askwith this as well, is so many
(38:03):
schools, like my kid's school,has given them all Chromebooks.
Now, this isn't a smartphoneand they don't have social media
, but I feel like a lot of thesame struggles exist Because
it's distracting.
There's YouTube on it.
My daughter is 10 and she cannotprioritize work.
Like she's supposed to do herhomework on this Chromebook, but
(38:26):
she gets distracted with likeaccessibility settings, Like she
just wants to play with stuffon it, Like the accessibility
settings are going to YouTubeand it's like 20 minutes before
she even starts the homework.
So how about?
What about just that Like takeaway the smartphones?
So how about what about justthat like take away the
smartphones?
What about just screens ingeneral?
And should those also?
Should parents and schools alsobe regulating that?
Speaker 2 (38:49):
Yeah, that's a really good question.
This is an area that we didn'ttalk much about in the book, in
part because at the the time wedidn't know all that much about
it.
But this is an area that we'vebeen really interested in and,
if any of your listeners want tolearn more, we have been
publishing a bunch of essays onour sub stack, after Babbel,
(39:10):
about educational technology andthe pros and cons here.
I think you hit the nail on thehead with the key problem,
which is distraction.
So there's the question of thedistraction effects and the
learning benefits.
Do the distraction effectsoverwhelm those learning
benefits?
(39:30):
And that, generally, is whatseems to be happening is that
there is a lot of potential thatthese things could be good.
There is a lot of potentialthat these things could be good,
but again, when you have kidswho already probably don't want
to pay that much attention inmath class using a Chromebook,
the distraction effects are sostrong.
(39:50):
Now there are a lot of schoolsthat have implemented certain
ways to kind of lock down thecomputers, but having the
one-to-one iPads, especially inyounger age groups, does not
seem to be giving the kind ofbenefits that were promised here
.
The one other point I want tomake is.
(40:12):
This is something that a recentresearcher wrote on our Substack
, Dr Jared Hoover, and heexplained something like what is
the primary function of a tool,and he kind of defines it as
what you do with 80% of yourtime with that thing.
And so what you can do with ahammer, you can use it as a
(40:35):
doorstopper, you can use it asall sorts of things, but the
primary use is to nail things in.
And he asked the same questionabout screens and devices.
What do we typically use thisfor?
Well, 80% of the time it'sgenerally entertainment screen
use, watching videos, socialmedia, texting with our friends
(40:57):
and if you're doing this andthis is how you know this
product so well and you put thisinto a classroom, the
expectation that kids are justnot going to move in that
direction is completelyunrealistic.
And so it goes back into.
There's potential, but thedistraction effects and what
kids are generally leaningtowards doing with it pulls them
(41:21):
away from the class.
Now, there are cases where edtech does seem to be really
beneficial, but in general, theconstant oversaturation of
devices does not seem to be thathelpful.
Speaker 1 (41:35):
Mm-hmm.
So let's end on, maybe, thehappy note.
We know what we can do in termsof not not giving smartphones
until high school, not doingsocial media until at least the
age of 16.
I always like to say my kidsare never going to have it, even
when they're adults.
But you mentioned play, sogiving kids back a sense of
(41:58):
independence and a sense of play.
So what I mean?
Maybe we've forgotten what thislooks like.
What's the best way for kids toplay and have independence?
Speaker 2 (42:07):
Yeah, well, thank you .
Thank you for bringing this up,because this is part of the
story that often gets left outjust because there's so much to
say.
You know, just to lay it outthere, humans are just like all
other mammals and we need toplay a ton, and especially
during early childhood, playingis the vehicle through which we
(42:32):
learn to be part of our socialgroups, to learn the skills that
we need, and play is thisnatural, intuitive thing that
kids do to navigate their socialcircles.
You learn self-governance, youlearn all of the skills that you
want kids to learn through thisnatural evolutionary process
(42:54):
that they just do on their own,and one of the things that
happened is that over the lastfew decades, we've really pulled
kids away through into highlystructured activities that
they're not kind of generatingfor themselves.
School's gotten longer, and nowwe also have smartphones, and
(43:14):
all of these things are blockingkids' abilities to have this
kind of free play experiencethat so many people experienced
growing up until the last fewdecades, and so we have a couple
big suggestions here about whatwe can do about this.
Just like with the problems withsmartphones, there's also a
(43:35):
collective action problemhappening here, which is that
okay, 30 years ago.
You open the door, the kids goout and you say, come back when
the streetlights come on.
Well, that doesn't happenanymore.
And if you were the only oneonly parent to do this, well one
who's your kid going to playwith?
And this sounds just like aterrible idea.
(43:57):
So what we need to do is how dowe solve this collectively, and
one of the best places to dothis is at schools, and you just
(44:20):
have one or two adults there aslifeguards, not referees,
managing conflict, and you justlet kids play and you have a
bunch of loose parts, of jumpropes, things that are out there
, and I mean it's extraordinaryhow beneficial these small
things can do.
So that's one thing.
Another thing we would love tosee is that schools expand
(44:42):
recess.
What we found is recess andlunch are like contracting
together and you have 20 minutes.
So if we want to teach kidssocial, emotional learning,
bring back play in schools.
So Let Grow Play Clubexpandingcess.
And the third thing is what wecall the Lekro Experience, and
(45:04):
so Lekro is an organization, anonprofit, that John had started
with someone named LenoreSkenazy who wrote the book Free
Range.
Parenting is really difficult aswell is giving kids
independence.
It's really hard to say, to tellkids, or really hard to trust
(45:30):
kids to do things on their ownbecause we're not as used to it.
And so the LECRO experience,the LECRO project, is a homework
assignment that schools giveout to all the kids in the class
and they have the kids go homeand they have to do something
they've never done before ontheir own, with their parents
permission, and what this tendsto look like is going to the
(45:51):
store to buy ingredients to bakea cake or to walk the dog on
their own or to walk the dog ontheir own, and these are just
little things that kids do, andit's incredible how impactful
this is, not just for the kidbut also for the parents, to see
(46:11):
just how much more capable ourkids are than we often think.
So those three things, we think, can go a really long way, and
in part because it allows us tobuild that trust muscle, both in
kids and in parents, ofremembering how capable kids are
and that, being independent outin the real world, they'll be
(46:33):
okay.
Speaker 1 (46:35):
Now can parents access those items on the
nonprofit you're talking about.
Speaker 2 (46:42):
Yes, great, great question.
So the two places for yourlisteners if you want to learn
more, finding resources on boththe phone side and the play side
, go to anxiousgenerationcom andgo to our Take Action tab and
you can find all sorts ofresources there.
And then for Let Grow, you goto letgroworg and they have
(47:05):
resources for play clubs, theLet Grow Experience and
everything else that you mightwant to learn about on that.
And if you want to sign up forour newsletter and to kind of be
part of this movement, at thebottom of the homepage on
anxiousgenerationcom you cansign up and we send out emails
(47:27):
with resources like the oneswe've been talking about.
Speaker 1 (47:29):
Yeah, that's fantastic.
You also mentioned that you andJonathan have a sub stack,
which we will put the link to inthe show notes as well, and
then, of course, by the bookAnxious Generation, if you
haven't yet.
Yeah, did you think like, didyou know the book was gonna take
off as crazy as it did?
Did y'all have a hunch, or wasit just totally mind blowing?
Speaker 2 (47:54):
I think John was a little bit more confident than I
was.
It totally, totally took me bysurprise.
I mean, it has been quite aremarkable several months and
what we really see is that thebook was a catalyst for a lot of
energy.
That was already there.
We really didn't add I don'tthink all that much that was so
(48:18):
new as more of reassuring andreaffirming what so many people
knew and were ready to act butjust didn't know quite how?
Speaker 1 (48:27):
Yeah, that's fantastic.
Is there another one in theworks?
Speaker 2 (48:32):
So right now, we are really focusing on what's going
on with kids.
There's going to be a teenversion of the book coming out
next year, and we've launched athree-year campaign where we're
really trying to push these fournorms, and so please join us.
Speaker 1 (48:49):
I love that.
Zach Rausch, thank you so muchfor joining me today, love your
work, love what you're doing andlove the impact that you're
making for kids and theirfutures everywhere.
Thank you so much.
We covered so much in thisconversation and I could have
(49:10):
asked him so many more questions, but it can feel overwhelming.
It can feel overwhelming to meat least, because it feels like
we are just stuck in thishamster wheel or this spider web
that we as a whole society andas a whole globe, as a whole
world, just can't seem to getout of, because social media has
become so addictive and sosticky and so entangled into our
(49:34):
lives and how we live and howwe work and how we show up.
I thought an interesting pointthat was made was how they're
called social media platforms.
Now, back when Facebook firststarted, it was called a
networking, like socialnetworking, like the show, the
social network, where JT, justinTimberlake showed up to be an
(49:57):
actor.
That's why I loved the movie somuch.
But in that movie and in whatsocial networks were at the time
, it was a way originally tonetwork, but now it's a platform
.
And what do you do on aplatform?
You perform.
We're expecting our childrenand our teenagers, who have
(50:18):
these social media platforms tomanage a brand and to perform
for likes and for engagement,and that's what we expect of
ourselves too, and it's sodraining the fact that kids now
say that they want to be aninfluencer as a career goal when
they grow up.
I feel like we need someserious recalibration to reality
(50:42):
and to what matters most inlife.
I won't get on my soapbox,although I could.
Here are my key takeaways fromtoday's episode Phone free.
Phone free I spoke with apastor on a previous episode
where we talked about digitaldetox, and one of the things
that he said was his.
His girls are teenagers and heread this book, the anxious
(51:04):
generation, and once he read it,they were not yet in high
school, they were not yet 16.
And so he had a conversationwith them about it because they
were old enough they wereprobably like 12 or 13.
And so he had a conversationwith what he now knew, based on
what the research said, and hesaid now, being a loving father,
if you were me, what would youdo?
And they said, dad, you have totake our phones away, because
(51:27):
here's the thing the majority ofyou are thinking my kids
already have phones.
I can't take it away.
You can take it away.
You're their parent.
You are the person who gets todecide what their future is
going to look like, the personwho gets to decide what their
future is going to look like,and you have the responsibility
to to ensure that your childrenare given the absolute best
chance of success, and not justsuccess being what they achieve,
(51:49):
but the person they become.
Social media isn't helping usbecome better people.
It's just.
It's just not, especiallyespecially when you're an
adolescent or a teenager.
It's adding to anxiety.
It's adding to depression.
It's adding not especially whenyou're an adolescent or a
teenager.
It's adding to anxiety.
It's adding to depression.
It's adding to the suiciderates.
It's even worse for girls, butit's still terrible for boys.
(52:10):
As a parent me especially I havea responsibility to my kids to
make sure they do not have aphone until they are at least 16
.
I keep saying to my husbandit's like maybe when they go to
college I will get them a phoneand let them have social media,
but in our house it's a bigthing.
Our kids have never had theirown iPad.
(52:31):
They've never had their owntablet.
They're 10 and eight.
It wasn't until they startedgoing to this school where they
were assigned a Chromebook.
But even when they get home,they're not allowed on their
Chromebook.
And if they have homework ontheir Chromebook, I am right
there, like right there Now theystill watch TV, they still play
video games.
There are other areas that westill have to manage and
(52:51):
regulate screen time, but I amvery diligent about this and I
am very passionate about this nophone, no social media.
If your kids have it, delete it, take it from them.
They will be really angry inthe short term.
I can't tell you, growing up,how many times my parents like,
so my dad, had to approve what Iwore until probably till I got
(53:15):
married Not that I like askedhim after I moved out of the
house, but like when I bought.
When my mom would take me tobuy a new swimsuit, it was a
rule in my house that it had topass my dad's approval of being
modest.
So I was never wearing a twopiece bikini, like I had, you
know, a halter top and like boyshorts, it it was appropriate
(53:37):
and I would get so mad at him.
Or if I bought shorts that weretoo short, he would, he would
throw them and I would get somad at him.
Or if I bought shorts that weretoo short, he would throw them
away and I would get so mad athim.
And I would say to him but myfriends or the people at school
or all these other people,they're allowed to do it.
My dad would always say to me Iam so sorry that their parents
(53:57):
don't love them as much as Ilove you.
Maybe that's what we should allcling to as parents.
We make decisions on behalf ofour children because we love
them and we want them to havethe best possible future outcome
.
What does that look like,specifically with screens and
social media, for you and foryour kids?
(54:20):
And then, of course, the finaltakeaway is play.
I am all for like kids beingindependent and having chores.
In fact, like something I wantto do.
I might do it.
Today, my daughter hasbasketball practice and she's 10
.
Um, I may like give her mydebit card.
Like play, like follow alongand go to the grocery store
(54:42):
after basketball and say hey,like go I'll.
I'm going to stand at the frontof the store.
I want you to go and like finda couple of things that you want
to buy in order to make dinneror something and then, like,
come and check out and if youneed help checking out, like
I'll be up here.
But I think that could be a coolexperiment and help her gain
some independence.
You know, do some things on herown.
(55:04):
How can we give back to ourchildren independence and play
in their lives?
Because, overall, as a society,we have been over protecting
our kids in the real world andnot wanting them to go outside,
not wanting them to go play anddo things because they might get
hurt or they might get taken,and of course we should be wise,
(55:25):
but we've been over-protectingour children in the real world
and under-protecting them withtheir access and their use of
screens and onto the internet.
Those are my key takeaways.
What are some of your keytakeaways from today's episode?
Leave a comment on the YouTubevideo, share this with a friend
and, as always, until next week,stay strong.
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