5.2 The Impact of Internet Polarization and the Value of Civil Discourse in Light of the Charlie Kirk Assassination

Following the tragic shooting of Charlie Kirk at Utah Valley University, Shannon Russell, who was at the event, Natalie Perry, Grace Raje, a student at UVU, and Kimball Call discuss the effects of the internet and polarization, how we can help each other and our families, and how we deal with these issues we’re facing by recognizing and following our internal compass.

 

00:00 Introduction and Host's Welcome

00:44 Panel Introductions

01:21 Grace's Perspective on the Assassination

02:13 Natalie's Experience at the Event

08:07 Discussion on Social Media and Misinformation

19:23 Generational Differences and Digital Natives

27:15 Impact of Internet on Young Men

30:27 The Impact of Internet Rabbit Holes on Young Men

31:06 Promoting Positive Masculinity in Education

31:55 Escapism and Its Role in Extremism

32:54 The Importance of Connection Over Avoidance

33:26 Maternal Feminism vs. Modern Feminism

35:27 Fostering Critical Thinking in the Digital Age

37:30 The Dangers of Overstimulation and Dopamine Addiction

41:13 Challenging the Untruths of Fragility, Emotional Reasoning, and Us vs. Them

46:20 The Pressure to Form Immediate Opinions

50:22 Encouraging Civil Discourse and Embracing Failure

55:33 Conclusion and Final Thoughts

 

“We recognize and follow our intuitive internal compass to speak and act with integrity. And so as we teach this tenet at an international level, we are so blessed to hear from mothers and women all over the globe who believe in following our internal compass. And that is something that every person on this earth has and needs to learn how to use and, and how do we tap into that internal compass? How do we speak, how do we act? Those are the issues I think that we need to address and are very relevant to what happened this week.” - Natalie Perry

 

“Personally, I think we're gonna look back at kids having social media the same way we look back on how prevalent smoking was in the seventies and eighties… We're gonna say, ‘What were we thinking? Giving kids access to that amount of information before they were trained or taught how to process it, how to filter it out, how to use it for good or use it for other uses.’ It's seriously doing some real damage to not just our kids, but to adults as well. I think there's a lot of interesting research coming out about that, but I don't think you need to be in the research to see the negative effects. I think you can just look at what's been happening over the last week.” - Kimball Call

 

“I think that the family unit is the best place and arguably the only place that's really suitable to hold space for our generation. As we process this disassociation, as we process this dystopian pit in our stomach and the expectation to speak articulately about our thoughts on social media, because that's what's expected of us, even though we're actually processing an emotional thing, and our hearts and brains aren't always communicating. So the family and mothers specifically have a very special and unique ability to hold space for my generation to not have to be articulate, to not have to post right away, to maybe even feel indifferent or to feel sick or to feel whatever they're feeling without criticism, because this is an emotional event.” - Grace Raje

 

“We need to get back to reality, and we need to help kids grow up in reality. So one of the best ways moms and parents can help their kids is to give them a childhood that resembles the childhood [they] probably experienced. . . .Before the internet was a thing, get kids off video games, get kids off. Don't let them have social media. Get them in touch with books. Help them fall in love with reading. Help them fall in love with nature, help them fall in love with sports and in-person social activities with friends.” - Kimball Call

 

“When you can stop seeing things as us versus them, you can think critically.” - Kimball Call

 

“There's this moral obligation to have opinions about everything. . . not that it's wrong to have an opinion, anybody who knows me knows I'm remarkably opinionated, but the problem is that we confuse our identity with our opinions, and then when you're wrong or you have new information, it's hard to admit that you're wrong because it feels like a compromisation of your worth. And the thing that I've learned in order to . . . interface with difficult concepts and be able to hear other people's opinions, is to remove my worth from my opinions, to remove my emotional response from my opinions, and then understand that my internal compass is the gift that I have to discern between the two, and that that takes practice. But as you continue to practice that, it'll be a lot easier, and all of a sudden I can just admit that I'm wrong about something, but I know who I am and I know th