218: what’s happening with social media & gen z mental health?! feat. dr. emily weinstein

Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
Welcome to Sheep Persisted, the Gen.
Z mental health podcast. I'm your host, Sadie Sutton.
Let's get into it. One of the things that feels
really important to me is to create enough space for us to
talk about our different experiences with tech and to
create enough space for the reality that you might be having
some really toxic experiences. And it is helpful if we can name

(00:20):
them and you have language to talk about them.
And someone else might be havingthose same experiences or they
might not. So creating enough space for
that in our conversations, whichwe I do with so many other parts
of teens lives, but for some reason not consistently with
tech. Hello, hello, and welcome back
to Sheep Persisted. I'm so excited you guys are
here. Today.
We're talking about one of the hottest topics in the mental

(00:43):
health space, specifically for Gen.
Z, which is tech and social media and phones and how that
relates to mental health. And we have an expert in this
area on the show today, we have Doctor Emily Weinstein.
She is a principal investigator at Project 0A, lecturer at
Harvard Graduate School of Education and the Co director of
the new Center for Digital Thriving.

(01:04):
She studies how phones and social media and all of these
digital experiences impact mental health, our social
dynamics, all these different things, which I think we have a
lot of questions about, about how these things impact our
mental health, how they impact our lives, positive, negative,
etcetera. And what's really incredibly
cool about Doctor Weinstein's work is that a lot of her

(01:27):
projects and research involve youth voice and youth
perspective. So she works really closely with
young adults and adolescents andteens to understand what their
experiences are with social media and what's challenging
about these new contacts. And I think this conversation is
just such an incredible way to approach this new environment
that we're in and be really curious and collaborative about

(01:49):
what the potential consequences or benefits are of social media,
especially in the specific demographic.
And so if you have ever wonderedhow social media impacts mental
health, what the experience of new tech is for teens and young
adults, and how we're trying to answer those questions from a
research perspective, this episode is for you, truly
relevant to everyone, and I hopeyou really enjoy.

(02:11):
So without further ado, let's dive in.
Well, Emily, thank you so much for joining me today.
And she persisted. I'm so incredibly excited to
have you on. We ran into each other at ABCT
and this has been a long time coming and I'm really excited to
continue to pick your brain and talk about one of the biggest
hot topics in the mental health space.
Thanks so much for having me, I'm really excited to be here.

(02:33):
Of course, to get things started, I would love to hear
about your background from you, how you went in to this like
psychology communications area, how you decided to focus on tech
specifically because you've beenat this for a while and it's
like only gaining attention as the days go on and your
background there. OK, so I'm a social scientist.

(02:55):
I study teens and technology. I am extremely interested in
teens experiences with new technologies.
So for the last dozen or so years, I've been studying social
media, and now our team is also studying generative AI.
And I'm really fascinated in what teens experience, what
their perspectives are, and making sure that we do a much

(03:17):
better job of elevating their voices in the research space and
in rooms where decisions are being made around tech and
teenagers. My background is in human
development and education, and Istarted studying tech, I think,
because I got to Harvard to start a doctoral program in
2011. And 2011 is a really interesting

(03:41):
sort of inflection point and a lot of the mental health graphs
that we look at and in a lot of the debates that are going on.
And one of the things that we know is it was also right around
the time when we really had a rise in social media and social
technologies. So Instagram launched in 2010
and then it was purchased by Facebook now Meta in 2012,

(04:03):
Snapchat came out in 2011. So this there was this shift in
the landscape and I landed at Harvard ready to study actually.
We all hope one day we could do.Let's manifest that I.
Got to Harvard to study adolescent development and I was
really interested in adolescentsperspectives on their own lives

(04:23):
and what they had to say and what they felt like.
They really wanted adults to be hearing, talking about and
studying. And it was like I couldn't get 4
minutes into a conversation. It felt like without something
about tech coming up, whether itwas texting or eventually social
media. And, and it just felt like there
were so many questions that froma research perspective, you're

(04:45):
like, oh, well, what is friendship look and feel like in
this context? What is like, how does moral
reasoning play out? How do we think about identity
issues? What is it like to think about
your civic and political participation?
And so I was really lucky. I got to work with some
researchers at Harvard who were studying those questions.
And then one of the things that happened was that kept changing.
So it was like every time we finished a study, there was just

(05:07):
naturally another question to ask where we would have to go
back and kind of redo our approaches and repeat the
interviews because we'd be wondering already what changed
in such a short period of time. 100% and there's so many
different areas that I want to get your opinion on and
different ways of approaching this to kind of explore and the
different platforms and how thisimpacts mental health and

(05:28):
education. Like you mentioned, there's just
really so many ways to go at this and it really truly is ever
changing. Like even last week, we think
about generative AI and how images just got insanely better.
You can literally tell Chad CPT to take a selfie of your friends
on a certain iPhone camera and like, it's wild.
And so I'm excited to kind of get your perspective on how all

(05:50):
of these things are evolving andchanging and shifting and
affecting adolescents lives and especially mental health.
Because I think this is one of, I don't know if I would say like
leading theories, but it's definitely a question that's
being pushed a lot. And I think one of the main
points that I hear really consistently for why this is

(06:11):
like a valid reasoning for why we've seen adolescent mental
health continue to worsen is like if you ask a teen if their
phone helps their mental health,they'll say no.
Like, no, it's not great. But I really struggle with that
because we could be like, does your AP chem class help your
mental health? No.
Does your relationship with yourparents help your mental health?

(06:32):
Maybe not. Does eating McDonald's help your
physical health? No.
But does that mean that we wipe out like all fast food nude?
And is there a direct correlation between like, the
physical health in America? Not necessarily.
And so I'm really curious your thoughts there because that is
one of the most prominent conversations that's happening
right now. I don't know if you even refer
to it as research with all the anxious generation stuff that

(06:54):
was done, but like books being published about this topic and
these theories being promoted toaudiences.
So what are your thoughts there When people are like the Gen.
Z mental health crisis is because of the phone?
So I love that you asked this question and I actually, I think
this question is a little bit ofa distraction because I think

(07:15):
that's something that's happenedis we've gotten so focused on
the debate over what research methods can and can't tell us
and what the data do and don't say about these broader trends
that I think in some cases it, it can be a really big
distraction from us having conversations about the specific
experiences we have with tech that are hard for our mental

(07:36):
health or in some cases that help our mental health.
And one of the things that I've been really interested in is the
reality that we just don't, we're missing a lot of language
to talk about different experiences we have with
technology. And so we and in some cases
teenagers just make language themselves, but I think it's and
we have so many different examples of that.
I'm so passionate about the ideaof just a talking openly about

(08:00):
some of the hard stuff in more detail than these like broad
strokes of like tech is better bad.
One thing that I really believe that my research has shown me
again and again and that I thinkis substantiated across a lot of
studies is that teens have really different experiences
with tech. We're having different
experiences in general, and we show up to whatever technologies
we're using with all of our strengths and vulnerabilities.

(08:21):
We're in the context of digital spaces that in some ways
intersect with whatever our offline lives are like.
In some ways, they're very different because we've opted
into online communities that arevery different but related to
who we are or what we care about.
And so one of the things that feels really important to me is
to create enough space for us totalk about our different

(08:43):
experiences with tech and to create enough space for the
reality that you might be havingsome really toxic experiences.
And it is helpful if we can namethem and it is helpful if we can
acknowledge them and you have language to talk about them.
And someone else might be havingthose same experiences or they
might not. And so creating enough space for
that in our conversations, whichwe do with so many other parts

(09:04):
of teens lives, but for some reason not consistently with
tech. Yeah, I think that's incredibly
important. And you're right, it absolutely
gets missed. Like, I know the way I show up
with tech is completely different.
Like we're having a really intelligent and nuanced
conversation and like tonight I'll be doomed scrolling on
TikTok and learning nothing new.So it's like the way that we
approach these things is really different.

(09:25):
And I think just painting this like X on this thing as a whole
that is so nuanced and differentfor each person is challenging.
Like we could say that the education system, we're now
seeing data that like it's really helping girls, girls have
better Gpas and work better in that educational style and are
matriculating at a faster rate to college and grad school.
And we can't necessarily say thesame for young boys.

(09:47):
But we don't necessarily say thewhole education systems failure.
It's A to blame for all of thesechallenges.
We say people have different needs and how can we kind of
adjust and meet those needs so that we can like meet the
population at large and support this ongoing objective and
agenda of educating young adults.
And so I think you're absolutelyright that all of that nuance

(10:09):
gets missed when we say the mental health problems are a
result of the phone and all the things that we don't think about
when we just attach A cause or even a correlational at best
relationship to these devices. And there are things that are
really hard about phones and there are things that are hard
for whole groups of people. And there are things that are

(10:30):
hard for for many, if not all ofus around the way technologies
are designed. One of the things that our
research team does is we try to really listen to teams.
We ask them questions about what's hard for them.
And one of the things we're interested in is trying to
connect the dots. So instead of just feeling like
this is all so new and different, we have no idea how
to help, we can actually trace the lines to different

(10:52):
interventions and evidence basedpractices that might be actually
really helpful in the context ofwhatever's coming up around
tech. And this feels especially
important because as we know, ittakes time to do really rigorous
RCT's and other kinds of investigations and studies that
would help us feel like something is extremely evidence
based. And tech is changing really
fast. So if we're constantly trying to

(11:13):
tailor every single interventionto this particulars of a
technology, it can feel like we're just constantly behind and
we don't, we can't afford to have no ideas about how to help.
So an example of listening and then sort of connecting the dots
is a few years ago when my colleague Kerry James and I were
working on our book Behind Theirscreens.
We one of the things that we heard was about the experience

(11:36):
of being left on red like you the worst or on opened.
If you're on whatever, you send a message.
And my siblings have this phrasein our family where they'll say
left unheard. So we have a big family.
There's four kids. So at dinner, everyone's like
talking at each other. And sometimes we'll, like, make
a joke. It just lands completely flat.
And we'll be like left unheard, chronically left unheard.

(11:58):
And it's like the funniest thingever.
But it's like, anyways, I just had to say that because I think
it's one of the best adaptationsof like teen lingo to real life.
Totally. Yeah.
So I mean, we, and it's also that's a great illustration of
the reality that by the way, this kind of experience can
happen when you're not on your phone.
But it's also the case that there are some really specific

(12:19):
design features of technology that can amplify the experience
because you literally can see like, oh, this message was
opened and the person read it and they haven't responded.
And so one of the things we started hearing, and this I
don't think will be a huge shockto you or anyone listening, it
was how that can just pull you into this kind of anxious

(12:40):
thinking spiral. Like you see that someone's read
your message and they haven't responded and you're like,
should I not have said that? Are they mad at me?
Was that not funny? Like, am I an idiot?
Whatever. You're kind of like your own
brand of the anxious thinking spiral looks like.
But one of the things that was really interesting for us was as

(13:01):
we were kind of sitting down alongside teens and listening to
them give voice to this and by the way, resonating with it
ourselves. Because I think most adults have
had an experience, even if it's not specifically being left on
red. It's like you sent an e-mail and
then been like, did I first? You're like, oh, you like text?
Someone and you see them in reallife.
Did I send that? Did I send shoot?
Did I send that to the wrong person?

(13:22):
And then you're like, why didn'tthey reply?
And actually, when you listen towhat people describe, you're
like, oh, this is actually, thisis really familiar for most
people, I think, who have a psych background in that it
sounds a lot like familiar cognitive distortions.
Yeah. Like that whole process of going
like, oh, they didn't, oh, they didn't respond.
They must be mad at me. They must think I'm an idiot.

(13:43):
That is a pretty classic exampleor version of mind reading,
which is a cognitive distortion that is super well studied and
widely discussed where we just think we know what someone else
is thinking about us. We assume that it's bad.
We give it sort of a whole negative spin.
And so I, for context, I am not a clinical psychologist and I,

(14:05):
but I very quickly started to feel as we were listening to
teens like, oh, this would be a really interesting
interdisciplinary project. We could work with teens and
with clinical psychologists and potentially with some educators
and try and Co create basically a glossary of different
cognitive distortions. We actually call them thinking

(14:26):
traps in the glossary we created, which was sort of like
teen LED language, but we could,we could name some of the
thinking traps or distortions that come up around tech, things
that weren't created by tech, like all or nothing thinking or
catastrophizing or shoulds whereyou feel like, oh, hi, like I
should get more likes or I shouldn't be a person who cares

(14:46):
about this kind of thing. And well, tech did not create
these sorts of distortions. One of the things that we hear
when we really listen to teens is that there are a lot of ways
that tech is designed that make social media in particular so
ripe for these kinds of distortions.
And when we start talking about them, I think that takes some of

(15:08):
the power out of them. But also connecting the dots to
this sounds like a cognitive distortion.
And we have a lot of evidence based practice that we can draw
on to then think about how we help people shift their self
talk, reframe their thoughts, think about the cognitive
restructuring activities that they might do.
Yeah, I love that and I love thedetail of the way that you're

(15:29):
exploring this. Remember you gave an example
when I heard you speak where youwere like we hear teens talk
about it's not the phone, it's not social media, it's not
Snapchat. It's the fact that you can see
after your message has been delivered, their snap score.
So, you know, if they're talkingto other people and you're
explaining this like pattern that people are reporting with
bank, I'll check the snap score and the stop.

(15:50):
So I was going up and I'm anxious, and then the cognitive
distortions happen. And I don't think that's a
conversation that we are having generally.
And we're also not internally thinking about it in that
respect of like, OK, like this is a behavior that also could
occur in real life, which, like,you see someone talking to
someone else, you're like, they're avoiding me.
They know I'm here, but they're still not engaging.

(16:11):
And it's ineffective to continue.
The interpretations aren't accurate.
And how can we combat that? And how can we be more effective
and constructive? And I think that is something
that can get really lost in these larger philosophical
debates about like, is this the reason for mental health
problems? Yeah.
And I'm, I think it's important that people are having those

(16:32):
conversations. And I think I also want us to be
having conversations about what we do for the person who is like
monitoring someone's snap score today and feeling really crummy
about it. And one of the realities about,
about tag and social media is to, to your point is there is so
much social information that youcould be monitoring and

(16:54):
checking. And so you're like, OK, now I'm
looking at Venmo. Now I'm looking at like this
person's Venmo. And we do that like even with
politicians now. Like it's insane.
And yeah, like what do you thinkabout?
So how do you feel about that? What do you think about that?
It's challenging because I thinkyour argument that like these
aren't things that don't happen in the real world, like you

(17:19):
could see what someone is potentially like they have a new
thing, they're engaging with this person.
This dynamic isn't something you've experienced before.
And I think what you're talking about with like the mechanism
that occurs of it's a cognitive distortion or there's rumination
or there's Co rumination with friends freaking out about this.
Again, I don't think this is new.

(17:41):
I think it's really foreign and uncomfortable, and we don't have
the skills or the language or the ability to think, Oh, I've
done this before and I've got this, and here's how I can
respond. And so I think that makes teens
more overwhelmed, but also adults and older generations
freak out to like the NTH degree.
Totally because I, I can't even tell you how many times I feel

(18:03):
like I've had a version of a conversation with a parent and I
should say like I am a parent. I have two kids.
My kids are not at the middle school stage right now, but I, I
relate so deeply to just feelingthe feeling that this is new and
feels stressful and different. And we want to protect our kids,
right? We don't want their lives to be

(18:24):
harder than they need to be. And it can feel like there is
this like, new complexity that'sjust like slamming, you know,
crashing, like a wave crashing down on them.
But I've had so many conversations where it feels
like parents have this feeling that this is so new and
different that they have nothingto offer and, or like they just

(18:44):
have no idea what to do. And it can lead to extremes in
our thinking where we either like we want to just completely
ban everything because we feel really like worried about it and
we feel unsure what to do or to just sort of go to the other
extreme where you like, hold, hold off, hold off, hold off.
And then you just kind of open the floodgates and both of those
put teens in hard positions. And one of the things that we

(19:06):
hear a lot from teens is like, you know, you do there is hard
as you start using whatever technology.
And by the way, it can even happen through like Google Docs,
like we, you know. Stories of people like yes,
that's how I communicated with my parents when I was in
treatment was Google Docs and wewould be like setting boundaries
back and forth contact like literally just typing on a

(19:27):
document. Yeah, So I mean, it just the
idea that we would just ban a certain technology and then
solve all of our issues. I think can overlook the reality
that there are so many differentcontexts and ways where we're
now like interacting with and through technology and there is
so much new social information. Like if you're, if you're
talking to your mom in a Google doc, actually that's such an
interesting example because likeyou could go in and see the

(19:49):
history and see that she like started typing something one way
and then she went went and revised it or.
It's fascinating. So I have a question for you,
which is yes. What's something that you wish
adults understood about what it feels like to be in college with
social media? You know, it's really
interesting because I wouldn't say that like social media adds

(20:11):
that much of A layer to the college experience.
I would say it's more like theseunderlying dynamics that have
been there forever that are exacerbated or even like
interact with the presence of technology.
I would say that one thing that I feel with the like the way
that social media has changed things that I kind of think is

(20:32):
happening is the Gen. Z and young adult feeling of
agencies, like the belief that our actions will have a
meaningful outcome. And I talked about this on the
podcast a couple of times. And we have like this really
interesting thing that we see happening, which I'm sure you'll
speak to it like online communities versus in person,
but are like immediate direct connection circles that have

(20:55):
evolved to be able to thrive because of and lean on others
and connect and offer support and feel needed by those.
We're not as directly connected to those anymore.
We have less relationships or less community based, but then
on the other side of things are larger network is like so blown
out of proportion and exploded to the NTH degree that like

(21:18):
communities that you could be exposed to by posting a single
video are truly endless. And so I think the belief that
your actions will have a meaningful outcome, whether it's
on that direct level where thoserelationships aren't as
established and solidified and maintained, but also on a larger
scale, like how can I make a difference in the world is

(21:39):
something that gets really disrupted.
And I think that gets exacerbated by social media and
the messaging that we're now exposed to and the things that
we see play out on a larger scale.
And I think this shows up in things like politics, like can
we make a difference with everything that's happening?
Because it shows up with things like climate change, like, and
what I'm doing is that making a difference as a generation, can

(22:01):
we solve this problem that we'rebeing told is being handed down
to us? I think it has to do with mental
health as well. Like we talked about, we don't
have the verbiage or the training or I don't even know if
media literacy would be the correct term to like navigate
this new era that we step into mental health wise.
Do we feel like we can cope withour own mental health?
But also like, what does it meanwhen we're told that we're the

(22:22):
most sensitive, depressed, anxious generation to ever
exist? And so I think that something
that has really been disrupted and shifted by social media,
like the messaging we're exposedto, but also the feeling of
almost like competency and really that that agency thing
that shows up that gets completely changed when you a

(22:45):
have less immediate relationships and like an
exponential shift in your largernetwork.
Yeah, Well, I'm wondering, it's really interesting that you were
talking about the sort of narrative applied to your
generation. And there's this both macro and
micro level to what you're describing, right?
There are these big broad messages and these looming
issues. And there's this kind of

(23:06):
grappling with the personal, like how much agency do I have
or don't I have? Is it more than I think?
Is it less than I think? And trying to right size that,
which I think is actually sort of a big part of being a young
adult is figuring out like wherewhere is my agency and what can
I do to help the things that I care about And what is, you
know, what is my purpose and what is my role in in the world

(23:27):
and in moving the needle on these things?
I'm curious, like what do you think about the framing of your
generation as the most anxious generation?
I hate it. I think it's the toughest thing.
I think that Gen. Z is absolutely the most
vulnerable. I think we're more open to
discussing these things not onlyin our immediate relationships
but more broadly, and I think that takes an incredible amount

(23:49):
of strength. I think we're more assertive and
we will speak up in ways that I think maybe socially wasn't as
acceptable in the past. It can make us a bit like have a
bad Rep at times, but I also think the ability to set
boundaries is really incredible and important.
I think that we like objectivelyare seeing an increase in mental

(24:10):
health challenges, but I don't necessarily think that the
messaging surrounding that is effective.
And it's almost like a self fulfilling prophecy.
Like I remember from my treatment days when I would do
occupational therapy and we do our group and it would be like,
let's draw our identities. Like who are we trying to like

(24:32):
undepress these young adults? And all these people in the
circle were like, I am depressed, I'm anxious.
Like that was the identity. It wasn't like I feel depressed
or I feel anxious. And so I think we do see that as
a larger scale when we feel likeGen.
Z is so polarizing and aggressive and with their
beliefs and so anxious and depressed and struggling in all

(24:54):
these areas. I think it's a challenging thing
to grapple with and then have tolike fight that norm that feels
like you're almost like subscribed to without your your
permission. And then when you do struggle,
it's like almost so much more normalized to a negative degree
that it's like, this is just what being Gen.
Z is. And this is how all my friends

(25:15):
feel. And this is what I've heard from
people who are older than me andnot like, OK, but this doesn't
have to be your norm. And here's how we can shift that
experience. I wonder in some ways if
sometimes I've wondered if adults pointing the finger
specifically at tech is sort of a way to let ourselves off the
hook on addressing some of the other reasons why your

(25:40):
generation is struggling and, and when you're struggling.
And I first of all, I, I just, Ireally, I so appreciate your
perspective on this. And I, I have wondered about
this too. I, I remember when the book The
Anxious Generation came out, I, I did an interview with John
Height, the author. And I remember asking him about
the title because I had this wonder too.

(26:02):
Like, what do teens think about this idea of being the anxious
generation? And it feels, you know, the
things we were just talking as an intervention about how
powerful naming things could be.And I think the words we use and
the labels we apply, like they, they really matter.
And yeah, so, so I wonder about that.
Your comment also though, has methinking about this study that I

(26:23):
worked on last fall that our team got to work on with some
colleagues at Indiana Universityand common sense that was around
the idea of productivity cultureor grind culture.
And it's really interesting. And I know you've talked about
burnout and you've talked about some of these ideas on the
podcast before. But one of the things that came
up was we had set out a couple of years ago to work on this

(26:44):
study around trying to think about digital well-being, like
the intersections of well-being and technology.
And we were doing some listeningsessions with our teen advisors,
and they basically told us, if you really want to understand
the way tech impacts mental health, you need to come at it
differently. Like you need to widen your lens
and you need to start by lookingat our mental health more

(27:06):
broadly and all of the differentsort of things going on and how
tech is actually intersecting with those things.
Not just that it's the root, butthat there are other roots that
are really important to talk about here.
And one of those roots, one of the ideas that came up in one of
those sessions, was this idea ofone team called it Grind
Culture. She described it as this feeling
that you always have to be productive and striving and

(27:28):
doing something. And we started kind of unpacking
this idea with teens, and we heard that not everyone, but a
lot of people resonated with this idea that it's not okay to
rest, that there's pressure to feel like you always have to be
doing something and showing thatyou're doing something.
And then when we started listening more, we actually
heard that it wasn't just like productivity around work or

(27:50):
grinding around work, but there were actually all these
different grinds that people were describing.
And I'll tell you what they were.
And I'm curious like which ones stand out to you?
OK, so one of them I'll say whatis that is like an activism type
grind or this feeling of I need to be doing something related to
the issues and the things that Icare about.
So you kind of named that one. And I think that's a really

(28:10):
interesting example of 1 where we can see how social media can
really sort of turn up the volume on that.
And also, we can see how maybe it's there even when you're not
looking at social media. So we did all this qualitative
work, and then we ended up doinga national survey to try and
understand a little bit more about how relevant these
pressures were for teens in different places and across the

(28:30):
US. And the two most common
pressures actually, that we ended up seeing across the
national data sort of go hand inhand, but they were actually
different. So one was achievement pressure,
but that actually went along with what was even more
prevalent, which we ended up calling game plan pressure.
And it was described initially as this idea of needing to have

(28:53):
a set plan for your life. Like I am supposed to know what
I am going to do, what my path is and I should already be on
that path. And I hear this come up when I'm
like talking to a sophomore or junior in college.
And they're like, you know, I, Iwas talking to someone recently
who was like, I feel like I was very late to join LinkedIn.

(29:14):
And I said, I said to the personlike, wow, that's, that's so I
believe you, that you feel, I really believe you that you feel
that way. And like, that's fascinating to
me that you feel that way because you haven't even had a
job yet. Like, you haven't, you've barely
even had internships. Like, what makes you feel like
you're late to join LinkedIn? But there was this idea that
they were behind already and that they should be curating

(29:36):
this professional identity. And I think that I'm giving you
an example of how I think tech intersects with it.
But I'm curious about what your experience of this is, and
whether you think tech is playing a role or how it's
playing a role. Yeah, I like, I absolutely
agree. And I side note, when people are
like, what's the most toxic social media at LinkedIn?
It's not the short form videos, it's LinkedIn like, Oh my God, I

(30:00):
never opened that app. But I think it's something that
is very real. And I think about my own
experiences and even like how I add to that.
Like I did an episode where I was talking about like my goals
and my plans for going into psychology and what steps I
would take to get there and my advice for someone else that
would want to go through the same field.

(30:20):
But I do have that very articulated plan and that kind
of hierarchy gives me more data,a piece of OK, but like I'm on,
even if something's not happening right now, like
generally I'm moving in that direction.
And I'm a teaching assistant forhigh schoolers right now for
Grit Lab. And so we're teaching them about
passion and perseverance and goal setting.
And literally the assignment we had them to last week or the

(30:40):
week before was like, what are their top level goals?
What is their career AB and C that they could potentially
pursue? And originally we this was a
college course and I took it last semester and it was really
helpful for us to do those career AB and CS because we're
applying to jobs and we have to decide, do we need the training?
Do we need to go to grad school?But thinking about that from a
high school perspective and being like, OK, so like, what is

(31:03):
the career? What steps are you going to
take? What you have to do now is just
such an incredible amount of pressure.
And I've seen my younger siblings go through it as they
approach the college applicationprocess.
If not only like what's your GPA, what's your SAT score, but
what's the narrative that's being created?
How have you quantified all these experiences you've had so
far? And really that like agency

(31:26):
piece of how have you made a difference?
And I think the Internet makes that so much again, we have more
insight into what other people are doing.
People post their like, college application results and their
essays and their resumes and LinkedIn, but also like the
scale in which you can make a change.
Like I remember reading an article about this one kid who

(31:46):
got into Harvard for like, making the website that tracked
COVID outbreaks in high school. Like what, 50 years ago, you
never could have done something on that scale, which is so
incredibly cool that we're now equipped and able to do that.
But the pressure that that is then extended to younger
generations and the competition that exists as a result because

(32:07):
so many of us have these goals that require this next step of
higher education is really daunting and challenging.
Again, I think it's like that agency, peace and
self-confidence and and self esteem of like, do I believe
that the things I do will get mewhere I want to go?
And when you aren't sure, that'sgoing to be really demoralizing

(32:27):
and overwhelming. And then when you see everyone
else seemingly do that, it's a really challenging experience to
navigate. And I think there is so much
value in goal setting and in identifying different possible
paths. And alongside it, we want to
have have a recognition that actually there are a lot of
different possible paths and there are a lot of paths to

(32:48):
happiness and fulfillment and enough economic success and
impact on the things we care about there.
There are so many different waysto get there.
And I think that one of the things that can be hard to hold
on to when you start seeing everyone else's stats and scores
and also in a context where college admissions is so
competitive, it, it can and gradschool admissions, right?

(33:09):
Like, and there are layers upon layers of, of, I think things
that contribute to this. And it's easy to lose track of
the reality that actually there are a lot of paths to a happy
life. And I, I remember after I
finished grad school, the periodright after I finished grad
school was actually one of my most anxious periods.

(33:29):
I think I had been really singularly focused on my
dissertation for a long time andit was so much work that it kept
me really busy. And then there was something
about the transition afterwards that was just a more vulnerable
period for me. And I remember feeling more
anxious. And I also because I think
because I had just done this whole dissertation and was so
interested in psychology, I remember this experience of

(33:52):
feeling really anxious and then like going to check out a
textbook from the library about anxiety because I was like, I
will just read this textbook over the weekend and figure out,
figure out what's going on here.Yeah.
It's like, so, so interesting. Amazingly, you know,
understanding the mechanisms in a really deep way doesn't,
doesn't inoculate you from feeling anxious yourself.

(34:13):
But I remember during that period coming across this quote
that I love that is the idea is basically don't sacrifice all
your joy for an idea that you used to have about yourself that
isn't true anymore. I think it's Cheryl Strayed and
I think that there is something that we want to be able to hold

(34:34):
alongside these goal setting activities and making a plan and
yes, great. And yes, resilience.
I mean, these things really matter.
And also we want to have enough sort of cognitive flexibility
and the ways we think about our identities and our goals that we
can update information as we have more information.
And that we can start down a path and realize, oh, there's

(34:58):
new information now. And actually this thing that I
thought was a good path for me maybe is not, or maybe there's a
detour or there's something elseto do.
And I don't know, for me, hearing a lot of teens talk
about the way that the game planpressure could feel negative and
not just motivating, but actually sort of overwhelming
and disempowering even. It's made me really want to

(35:21):
understand more about how we create a real belief that
actually, if you don't have a game plan or if you think you
have a game plan and then you realize it's not the right one,
it's, it's really OK. That's actually, that's actually
most of us. Yeah, and I you, you mentioned
and like, what do I think is challenging about being in
college? And I think you also mentioned
how are we setting kids up for success?

(35:43):
This is one way we fail. Because especially I think I've
seen this so many times online on TikTok where you were like,
how did I do my high school schedule of like waking up at
what time and being in classes for how many hours and doing how
many extracurriculars and getting how much sleep?
And I think it's parallel to that experience that you had in
grad school where you're workingso hard towards a certain goal

(36:06):
and then you get there and you're kind of lost.
And I think we really do that toa negative degree when people
transition to college. Like they truly are working an
insane amount in high school with course loads and
applications and test prep and extracurriculars and friendships
and sleeve schedules that aren'twhat they should be.
And then you get to college and you are not at all prepared

(36:28):
because you have, I like to say it's optimized for avoidance.
Like you have classes a few hours a week.
No one is making you do anything.
Your meals are like totally up to you.
You don't have friends, you family's not there.
Like everything has to be built from the ground up.
And I think when you have met that sub goal and now you're
like, what do I do? Like I applied for this major,

(36:49):
but I don't know what the next step is.
You feel really lost and you never built those skills as far
as maintaining your mental health on a day-to-day basis.
And so it really all comes crumbling down and we really
haven't set teens up for successwhen it comes to making that
transition. And I know there's also all this
messaging where high school teachers would be like, this
would never fly in college. And then you get to college and

(37:11):
it's like so lacked with all thethings.
Like it's flying. Yeah, it's.
Flying and it's actually encouraged.
And so as far as making that transition, I think that's a
really, really common experiencethat people have and any of
those problems that exist in high school get exacerbated.
And you also talked about what does technology do that kind of

(37:31):
reflects the issues already going on.
And I would love to get your thoughts here, but I think
either avoiding or coping with using tech as that outlet and
whether it's social media or TV shows or gaming, these different
ways that people avoid emotions or cope with stressors that
arise. I don't know if we're
necessarily viewing young adult consumption through that lens,

(37:54):
but I think it's something that really happens at large.
And this is one thing John Height talks about is sometimes
you'll get this criticism is like that teen pregnancy rates
are lower, like drinking rates are lower or Gen.
Z isn't doing as many drugs. Like these external markers that
traditionally showed people werestruggling are no longer there.
And I think that's one thing that we're seeing right, is like

(38:17):
this way of coping is not only there but so effective.
I'm using air codes because it could be ineffective, but in the
way that people would look to those other sources to numb an
emotion or avoid experiencing something.
Doom scrolling for a couple of hours plays that similar role.
Yeah. I mean, I think tech is also
just so obviously designed to optimize for our attention.

(38:38):
So we're living in an attention economy, not an agency economy,
not a well-being economy. So the tech companies are right,
their entire revenue model is based off of being able to
capture and hold and retain our attention, keep us scrolling or
coming back for more logging in every day.
And so we actually have this design pull that can make it

(39:01):
really hard for us to act in ourown best interests in some of
these moments. And one of the things I've been
really interested in is I think when we, when we look across the
sort of social Media Research, one of the things that feels to
me like a fairly clear sort of finding is around social
comparison. And specifically when we do the
sort of upward comparisons that make us feel like that person,

(39:23):
everyone is better than me or has.
More LinkedIn. Doing better and social media is
really right. It's right for that.
In a lot of ways. It can feel like there's so
much. I mean, there is a lot of doom
and gloom, absolutely like doom scrolling content and there is a
lot of content that can evoke comparison.
So you have this sort of almost like this emotional whiplash of

(39:44):
going from this really upsetting, disturbing content
that makes you feel really sad to this content that makes you
feel sort of potentially sad in another way.
And a couple of really interesting things about
comparison, I think are worth usjust acknowledging and knowing.
So 1, is that just dispositionally, some of us are

(40:04):
more inclined to comparison thanothers, right?
So you might, I might be someonewho just tends to compare myself
more than you are. Also, developmentally, there are
periods and adolescence is one of them when we're sort of more
inclined in that direction. Like we're, we're doing more
comparisons as we're figuring out who we are and how we fit
into the social world. So we're kind of more vulnerable

(40:24):
to doing that sort of thinking anyway.
Transitions can also be another time when we get more vulnerable
to comparisons because we're sort of assessing so much new
information and the transition to college is a huge transition.
So in a lot of ways, I actually think that the transition to
college is a moment when we should absolutely expect that
we're going to be more vulnerable to go into that sort

(40:47):
of comparison quicksand trap where we start feeling like like
everyone's happier than me or everyone's having better lives,
or I'm doing this wrong. I'm doing this transition wrong.
And social media can give us what feels like a lot of data to
support that evidence, but of course, it's completely flawed
data. And so I think being able to
also just know that. And for me, it means like

(41:09):
knowing when I am in a period for myself, when I'm just a
little more vulnerable for whatever reason, to the kinds of
comparisons that social media isgoing to enable.
And sometimes that might be LinkedIn and sometimes it might
be Instagram, right? Because like sometimes you're in
a phase of life where like was just talking to 1 my sisters
about this, that like, sometimesyou're a phase of life where

(41:29):
like it's wedding content that is the comparison stuff.
And at other times it's job stuff.
And other times it's something totally different.
And so one of the kind of areas of mindfulness that I think can
really serve us well is tuning into for ourselves, Hey,
noticing when we're going down that sort of comparison trap,
but be starting to notice I'm like, I'm in a period where I am

(41:53):
just, I am doing more of that kind of thinking on this
particular platform. And I need to just, I need to
know that and I need to be a little more intentional.
I need to maybe like not do thatright before bed when I'm tired.
So I'm already more inclined to.Yeah, that.
Kind of more vulnerable way of thinking or whatever it is.
And it doesn't mean that you never turn to your phone in
those moments. But if you do find that you need

(42:15):
a mindless distraction, maybe it's like the New York Times
game app instead of your LinkedIn feed.
Yeah, I have to ask you about like the young adult body image
thing because this is another one of these things that just
blew up and became like almost aposter child of the the tech and
mental health movement, which isthat in a certain amount of

(42:36):
posts you would see like eating disorder related content.
And teenage girls are really impacted by these comparisons
between themselves online versusthemselves in person or editing
or not feeling good enough because of like an online
perception or version of themselves that they're
portraying. What are your thoughts there?
It's like accurate. The data supports that we should

(42:58):
all be concerned and addressing it.
Or it's again, like, this is something that happens in real
life as well. It's just kind of way
overexposed when we have so muchlike input and stimuli that
we're interacting with. Yeah, So Sophie Tukas Bradley is
the researcher whose work in this area has probably been most
influential to my thinking. And she has this paper about the

(43:18):
sort of the perfect storm that happens for adolescent girls
with social media, with body image.
And I, I kind of continue to go back.
She has empirical data and theoretical work in this area.
And I think that this is one of the areas where on the one hand,
I, I feel like several years ago, let's say like maybe
5:00-ish years ago, I, I feel like I was having conversations

(43:40):
with teens where I was able to see that this was really
something that was happening. It was really relevant for some
of them. And there was real variation in
their experiences. Like some were just finding that
they weren't seeing as much of that, or at least were saying
that they weren't seeing as muchof that content or that they had
really kind of intentionally curated for more body positivity
or whatever it was on their feeds.

(44:00):
I, I don't know this, I, I don'thave data to back this up, but
it feels like to me, based on the conversations I'm having
with teens, that the algorithm has gotten worse around this in
recent years. And I kind of see this on my own
feet. It feels like it's the the pull
to content that is in some ways oriented towards body image.

(44:22):
First of all, it's not just weight.
Interestingly, right like there there is the weight side and
there's of course, there's the explicitly sort of pro Anna thin
spoke content that's. Now it's called Skinny Talk,
which is an exciting new development.
OK, I didn't even know that. OK, So there's there's the very
explicitly, you know, the content that encourages
completely maladaptive behavior.That's yeah, that's kind of one

(44:44):
position on this. Then there's like the kind of
pro dieting stuff, the diet culture.
Then there's the like encouraging of healthy
lifestyle. And then I would put like fitspo
sort of like related to that. That is maybe in this like more
ambiguous area, but it feels like you can end up very quickly
in a situation where the volume of that content you see just

(45:07):
does create what Sophie would describe as this perfect storm.
And then I think there are so many other kinds of content that
just interact with our sense of our own sort of body esteem and
our bodies in ways that are muchmore subtle that maybe we're not
even realizing we're seeing content that is, you know,

(45:27):
giving us a sense that we we should look different from how
we do or that, I don't know, somehow there's something wrong
with us that we should be. Yeah.
And then filters, of course, like another layer of that.
And then on top of that, I can'teven believe I I'm now getting
targeted ads for Jenna. I tools that will everything
from like scan my face and recommend a better makeup

(45:50):
routine for me, which by the way, I'm I could definitely use
on some level, but I'm not doingthat at this point.
But it feels to me like we're like 1/2 step away from that app
that's telling me that I should put my mascara on differently to
that app telling me like I wouldlook better if my lips had a
little filler or like my nose was a little different.

(46:10):
And so I'm feeling very curious.I don't know this is just but.
Again, we go back to this happens without AI.
Like I have come across this account multiple times on TikTok
where this girl will Photoshop people with either changes they
can make non surgically and thenchanges they could make
surgically and like recommend adjustments that can be or
people will be tell me what I need to do differently.

(46:31):
And all the comments are like dye your hair this color, do
your hair this way. So it happens with people also.
Like again, it's like this isn'ta new phenomenon, but it can be
very rapidly celebrated and moreisolating when there's the
ability ability for tech to do that.
Yeah. And I think there's something
also about being able to look back at the post and the content

(46:53):
and the metrics that can facilitate the sort of obsessing
and ruminating and but, but I don't, I don't know.
I mean, I think one of the things that I would say that is
would be a reasonable take away from this conversation is I have
as many questions. I have more questions than
answers at this point. And I feel like those of us who
are close to young people's experiences and who are paying

(47:14):
attention, we have a lot of questions because the tech is
changing really fast. And we have studies that tell us
like, these are really importantmechanisms.
These are things we need to be paying attention to, and
sometimes they play out differently for different teens
or at different points in time. And the technologies themselves
are changing so fast that it feels like we have to keep an
eye on on what we might expect developmentally.

(47:37):
And then we have to be listeningto what young people are telling
us they're experiencing. And I think we have to be
looking for the things that maybe they don't even know the
name that are coming up. I totally going to pivot and
talk about like two other areas that I think are really relevant
but less mental health related. We talked about the achievement
pressure, which I think is something that so many of us

(47:59):
experienced in school. But the other area that gets a
lot of attention is like phones in school, tech in school.
I remember getting a laptop thatwe had at all times and could
take home in fifth grade, which like people are like, oh, the
phones were the problems. I was watching Disney Channel
YouTube in class, like not paying attention, but not
because of a smartphone. I remember one time the entire
school downloaded this like chatapp and we're all messaging and

(48:22):
like finally tech support figured out and was like, it's
banned, it's done. You guys can't do this.
So it's like people will find a way.
Like you used to pass notes, nowyou're like texting under the
desk. But what have you heard?
And what are your thoughts around tech and education and
how that shows up? Yeah, so we're in a really
interesting moment where we're having big society wide debates

(48:42):
on what the right tech policies are in school.
And should we have, first of all, if we have phone bands,
what type of phone bands should we have?
Should it be just a band during class hours?
Should it be a sort of bell to bell band?
Is there a difference between what we should have as the rules
in middle school? Maybe more inclination I think
for more people would be is is full band in middle school and

(49:03):
some kinds of partial bands during high school where there's
no phones during during classes.But then either free periods are
different or for students who eat lunch off campus, they can
use their phones for those periods.
So there's obviously this is a big conversation right now.
I think a lot of us are are watching to see what happens.
And a lot of people are pointingto anecdotal data and to reports

(49:23):
of individual schools and teachers who are saying this is
going really well. And I'm listening to those.
I want to take that seriously. And I think there are people who
are saying, you know, we have data from this place, and maybe
it's helping with certain outcomes, but not the mental
health outcome. So, you know, it might not be a
fantasy. It might not be a magic bullet
for all of our issues. It feels to me like, I think

(49:44):
most of us can probably agree that we don't.
Like I have been in classes where there is phone out on the
desk buzzing in the middle of class time.
And that's pretty disruptive notonly to your learning, but also
to the learning of the people around you.
And I don't think we need a million studies or a lot of data
to tell us that that's the case.I also know and I hear from

(50:06):
teachers and we do have data from teachers that managing
phones feels like a burden to them.
So what do we do about it? I think we have to be talking
about this. We do need boundaries around
tech. That feels very obvious to me.
I think one of the reasons that I have been in a camp of like
more curious and trying to understand what implementation
looks like is 1. I don't want just another

(50:28):
implementation burden on the teachers.
Like I think the enforced the question of how this gets
enforced and do the teachers have enough support from the
administration? Have we just like put yet
another kind of thing on their To Do List that they're having
to constantly be like yelling atstudents about?
Again, I think that's like very addressable, but that's that's
one piece. The other thing is I am really

(50:49):
curious. I want us to make sure that as
we think about putting boundaries around phones in
schools, which I think we need to do, I want us to make sure
that we are also sort of attending to the roots of what
we are trying to address and why.
And for me, that means, like, I really want school to be an
engaging place for learning. I want students to have access

(51:11):
to learning experiences that feel really meaningful that they
frankly would feel like they were cheating themselves to be
missing out on. I also think when we think about
spaces like, you know, recess orlike lunch periods, we have not
solved the problem if what happens is we get rid of the
phones. But we walk into a cafeteria and
everyone has like a Chromebook out or a laptop out and they

(51:31):
figured out how to just like stream Netflix or YouTube and to
each other. And that is not an argument to
say we should just allow the phones because we're not doing
this effectively at all. I just want us to make sure that
as we are paying attention to the tech, we are really trying
to address for for teens and forour students and why, and making
sure that we're actually creating interventions and

(51:54):
policies that are getting us allcloser to our goals rather than
just serving as a distraction. So we feel like we've done
something without actually improving the outcomes in terms
of students learning or their emotional well-being or their
socialization. What do you think?
No, I, I think you really hit the nail on the head.
And like all these different areas where I'm have curiosities

(52:16):
around like cyberbullying and video game usage increasing and
using AI in schools, like all ofthese politics and political
messaging directed at young adults.
I think we keep coming back to this premise that like, these
are not happenings and mechanisms and dynamics that
don't already exist. They're just existing in a

(52:39):
different context. And I think you're right
understanding like, OK, what is the goal here?
What is the outcome and adjustments that we make with
tech? Does that truly serve that
outcome? And then what is the lived
experience of the populations that this is actually impacting?
And I think when we focus on these other random metrics like
screen time or phone bands or like a certain age for social

(53:02):
media, it almost is like a Band-Aid on a bullet hole or
pushing off the inevitable and not addressing this idea of like
equipping kids with the skills they need to navigate this more
effectively to do it themselves.Because if they just have
external factors doing it for them at some point, get to the
point where they're independent and then that all collapses.

(53:23):
And there's really negative outcomes if they can't suddenly
regulate those behaviors and emotions independently.
And I think that is something that I'm sure you also share the
belief on, like we need more oureducation and support and
messaging around for young adults.
They do feel like they can navigate this effectively and

(53:43):
feel supported in doing so. Yes.
And the design polls are so strong that I think it's also
okay for us to acknowledge that we might just need boundaries
because relying on our own self regulation.
The worst thing we can go? Impossible, right?
Like it is so the social norm oflike this is a space where we
don't use tech. I think we all need more spaces
like that in our lives. And the idea that school is one

(54:06):
of them feels reasonable to me. And I think that it might be the
case that we see that there are some metrics that we see really
positive impacts like maybe cyberbullying, I think is a good
example, which is something thatI've seen in some of the studies
around this. And if we have a reduction in
cyberbullying, that's really meaningful.
And I think that it may or may not be that we have improvements
on every single metric that people are saying that this will

(54:28):
help us. So I think we'll see.
The other thing that I want to say is just that I've been
hearing from educators who are really worried about students
streaming and recording fights at school.
And I think that this is an areathat is is really on my radar
right now as we think about the reality that it's not only this
distraction issue, but the idea of the ways that recording a

(54:51):
fight can amplify the complexityof those social dynamics for the
people involved, for the people around and really impact your
sense of safety and community atyour school.
That feels really important to me.
And that's an example of something where if phones are
not accessible to record a fightin school, you have had a pretty
direct right, like you have had a pretty direct intervention.

(55:12):
No one's going to bring out the Polaroid and be like it
happened. It's here shaking the date.
And you know, if they do, by theway, even if they have a
polarized, they end up with likea Polaroid of fight that feels
so different in terms of the impact it will have on the team.
So that's a long winded way of saying I am really here for the
conversations about phones in school.

(55:32):
I don't feel like I have yet seen the data that makes me feel
like it's so obvious that this has impacted all of these
different metrics and exactly the ways that we thought it
would. I also think that the details
really matter, like what is the nature of the rule?
How is it implemented? And making sure that we have
enough kind of that we're we have enough of an ear to the
ground that we're thinking aboutwhat's going on in different

(55:53):
communities as we do this. So we know if we're getting it
wrong and we can adjust. Last question, knowing how bad
our ability to regulate and thatthis is not meant to be like in
a rude, shaming way for humans in general, but like our
willpower is horrible, right? Like we are designed as species
to be lazy and conserve energy, and these apps are designed to

(56:14):
capture that attention and keep it.
So knowing that this is an uphill battle and it's OK for it
to feel challenging and difficult, and it's meant to be
hard to shift your relationship with these devices because
they're designed to keep you on them.
If you could like wave a magic wand for Gen.
Z and there was like some piece of awareness that they had some

(56:34):
piece of education, maybe they all got that like CBT education
around labeling these patterns that take place.
Or maybe everyone gets a phone box and there's a certain amount
of time of day that they're not having access.
Like what would that first step B to kind of help supplement
this beyond just like, okay, let's be more mindful and aware
and continue to stay curious, but also we can take steps.

(56:55):
And even though it's challenging, there are ways we
can work to build more healthierrelationships.
So this the first thing that came to mind for me when you
were asking this and I feel likeI should say to people that you
did not give me this question inadvance.
So I am actually. Guys, I'm sorry I'm not setting
us up for success here. I wish that people, I wish that

(57:16):
everyone in Gen. Z, but frankly everyone had more
of a feeling that they could optout of these different things
when they need to and that it would be OK.
And I also wish that we had morepractices that normalized opting
out in different ways and for different periods.

(57:37):
So that because all of the things we were talking about,
about recognizing that you mightbe in a more vulnerable moment
or this might not be serving youor whatever it is.
Those, those things. You can have those realizations,
but feel so much social pressureor design pull or whatever it is
that you don't actually ultimately feel like or have the

(57:57):
agency to actually opt out in the moments when you know that
that might serve you well. And I wish we all had a whole
bunch of different kind of timesand spaces in our lives where we
were opting in and out of different technologies, where we
were modulating our youth so that we could get the benefits
and reduce some of the negatives.
And I wish that we were existing.

(58:18):
I would wave my wand to put Gen.Z, frankly, in a system where it
wasn't just on each of your shoulders to have to develop
coping skills and have willpower.
I would put you in a system where this was just much, much
easier to do as a society. I completely agree and I think
this is again, why I love Gen. Z is that I think this idea of

(58:39):
opting out is so much more common and normalized.
And obviously like comparison ischallenging.
Social dynamics can be difficult.
We compare their self esteem tied up in it.
But like the frequency at which I hear people being like, oh,
like I don't have Instagram right now.
I deleted it or like I'm off it for finals or like I gave up

(59:01):
TikTok for whatever amount of period of time or like he
doesn't have social media green flag.
That's great. We love to see it like these
little things where this is now more normalized and it's
acceptable, I think is really great.
And I think we have this awareness that these are things
we can strive for and that we would like to do.
And it's not as demonized and villainized.

(59:22):
And there's the fear, right? But I think hopefully we can
build relationships that we're surrounded by people that
support us if we want to make those decisions and make those
choices. And I also agree with you, like
I had Grit lab last semester andit was like absolutely no tech
whatsoever. Like you're on your phone, you
lose participation points like no technology allowed.

(59:42):
And that's a rarity in college. But it makes such a difference
to truly be unplugged and not have that be a something that's
even in your vicinity for that period of time.
And so hopefully we'll get to that point.
And even I think that opting in piece is so important because
again, if you are just putting kids in schools where they don't
have phones, but then they go tocollege and it's like free for

(01:00:04):
all, they never learn the skillsto regulate.
But like if you're going to likea certain Cafe or a restaurant,
no phones. They do that at concerts
sometimes or tapings for like television shows.
Like where do you want to show up and truly be unplugged?
And when you go there, you can be held accountable and given
the resources to do that. So I absolutely love that.
And I hope we see a shift in that direction.

(01:00:24):
Oh, my other thing, since I havea wand, I would give everyone a
sense of mattering, that they matter, and also a sense of what
matters to them. I think one of the things that's
really interesting is like the opting out is more helpful if we
know what we're trying to optimize for, if we know what

(01:00:46):
we're trying to align our valueswith and towards.
And I think that there is a lot of noise that can make it feel
like ours are mattering. It's tied to all these external
sort of indicators, like what wewere talking about about grind,
you know, the grind and achievement pressure and all
these external metrics. And also that there isn't a lot
of space to be thinking about like what are my values and what

(01:01:09):
really matters to me? And I love, I love the
opportunity. And we actually, the Center for
Digital Thriving actually has a whole resource around tech and
values. That is, it's totally free, and
it's a value you sort and it invites you to think about what
your values are and then to specifically think about how
tech hurts or helps or both withthose different values, or

(01:01:30):
neither. So I love that.
And I think it's such an important piece of the equation
where it's like if we're taking away these phones or people are
on phones for a reason, right? They're bored, they're spending
their time doing it, or maybe they're avoiding something.
Real life is challenging. It's a way to escape.
And so we see this in the data where when people are really
struggling with severe mental health challenges, taking away
their phones makes it worse. So it's like, what are we doing

(01:01:51):
to also make sure that this lived experience outside of that
is fulfilling and you have that sense of matter and you feel
needed, you have that sense of purpose and you can be really
clear on how tech either is helping or hurting that and then
creating more time for that as well.
Daddy, thanks so much for havingme.
Thank you for coming on. And if people want to learn all
about your research, get your book, check out the Center for

(01:02:14):
Digital Thriving. Where can they do that?
They can visit us at Center for digital thriving org.
We would love to have you check out the thinking traps glossary
that Sadie and I were talking about the value sort.
Stay connected. Read about our grind research.
We have a newsletter. You can also find us on
Instagram, LinkedIn and we just joined Blue Sky.
If you enjoyed this episode, if she persisted, make sure to

(01:02:34):
leave a review, subscribe and share with a friend or family
member. Follow along at at She Persisted
podcast on TikTok, Instagram, YouTube, and more for bonus
content. Thanks for listening and keep
persisting.

All Episodes

Episode Transcript

Popular Podcasts

On Purpose with Jay Shetty

Dateline NBC

24/7 News: The Latest

.css-15opob5{left:0;position:absolute;top:0.8rem;} All Episodes

.css-14f5ked{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:2;overflow:hidden;}218: what’s happening with social media & gen z mental health?! feat. dr. emily weinstein

Episode Transcript

Popular Podcasts

.css-r6mb8g{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:1;overflow:hidden;}On Purpose with Jay Shetty

Dateline NBC

24/7 News: The Latest

All Episodes

218: what’s happening with social media & gen z mental health?! feat. dr. emily weinstein

On Purpose with Jay Shetty