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You are actively rewiring your brain for the worst by engaging with social media, high volume,

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quick videos. And the social media executives don't let their kids use this stuff because they

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designed it to be addictive and they know that millions and millions of kids have been cyberbullied,

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sex-storted, many have committed suicide, so I'm getting angry. And then in the medical perspective,

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it's rewiring your body, increasing your risk of heart disease, and PTSD. We've moved too far

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into the virtual world and the results are catastrophic. People are spending roughly

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about six and a half hours a day on their phones. What do we do about this? Well, here's the amazing

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thing. We actually can control our fate, so we are joined by a social psychologist in a Harvard

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physician to dive into the technology addiction and brain rot crisis billions are facing worldwide.

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And how we can counter its devastating mental health effects. You have to reclaim your attention

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because without the ability to pay attention for several minutes at a time, we're seeing the

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destruction of human potential, the human relationships, the connection. But there's all these small

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tweaks that you can do to override that primal urge to scroll, for example, 91% of people had an

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improvement in attention, well being in mental health. After just two weeks of continuing to use

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their device but not having internet access, next, keep your phone out of your arms reached

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because the sheer potential for distraction has actually been shown to change your prefrontal cortex,

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which is called brain drain. So yes, we should exert more self-control, but we're being pushed

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at addictive apps and it's messing us all up. That's not our fault. Would you advise people to

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delete these short-form videos? Oh my god, yes. That with the most important thing you can do for

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your intelligence and for humanity. But if I was going to offer some specific advice, here are the

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three things that I do with my students to reclaim your attention. And then to add to that, I have

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the three-second brain reset. So first, I wanted to ask you guys what you thought of this.

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Hey, you're back. This terrifies me. We've got to stop this now.

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Guys, I've got a favor to ask before this episode begins. 69% of you that listen to the show

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frequently haven't yet hit the follow button. And that follow button is very smart because it means

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you won't miss the best episodes. The algorithm, if you follow a show, will deliver you the best

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episodes from that show very prominently in your feed. So when we have our best episodes on this

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show, the most shared episodes, the most rated episodes, I would love you to know. And the

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simple way for you to know that is to hit that follow button. Thank you so, so, so much.

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Jonathan, Edithi. Jonathan, I've hired you say that the destruction of attention is the largest

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threat to humanity that's happening around the world. And I've also heard you say that short-form

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videos are the worst of the worst because they're shattering attention spans. The reason why I wanted

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to have this conversation today is somewhat personal. And in fact, all of the conversations have

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in the diary. I was here somewhat personal to some degree. They're inspired by some

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unanswered question I have on my head. And also some observation I have in my life. And the

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observation I've had is that short-form videos in particular are making my life worse. And actually,

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I've got to say the catalyst moment really where I thought, you know, I need to get

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you exceptional people together to have this conversation was, I thought this, I then looked

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at my screen time and saw a huge change. I felt so much worse because all these social platforms

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have short-form video now. And then I actually heard Elon Musk, who has a social media platform that

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does short-form videos say that he thinks it's one of the worst inventions for humanity.

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Jonathan, why did you say what you said about short-form video and this corruption of attention?

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Because I wrote a whole book called The Anxious Generation focusing on teen mental health.

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That was the mystery that popped up in the mid-2000s. Why are people born after 1995 so much more

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anxious and depressed? And I've been tracking down that mystery and it points a lot of it points

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to social media and especially Instagram, social comparison, all the things we know about social

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media. When the book came out in 2024, since then, what I realized is that I vastly underestimated

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the damage because I focused on mental health, which is a catastrophe, but the bigger damage is

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the destruction of the human ability to pay attention without the ability to pay attention for

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several minutes at a time, ideally 10 or 20 minutes at a time. Without that, you're not going to be

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of much use as an employee. You're not going to be of much use as a spouse. You're not going to be

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successful in life. And that's when I realized this is way beyond mental health. This is changing

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human cognition, changing human attention, and possibly on a global scale.

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Aditi, what perspective do you come at this from and what's been your perspective through

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all the work you've done about brains and stress and neuroscience and all these kinds of things

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that has shaped the way that you think about social media screen time, short form video?

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My background is that I'm a physician at Harvard and my expertise is in stress for

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not mental health. And so that is the lens that I view all of this through. We know that the most

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deleterious relationship that you have is with your device. You know, in every healthy relationship,

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we have boundaries. We have boundaries with our kids, our parents, our colleagues, our, you know,

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with our friends. And yet we have no boundaries and often poorest boundaries when it comes to

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the relationship you have with your device. So it's not so much about, you know, becoming a digital

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monk and renouncing technology because technology can serve us, right? It inspires, educates,

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connects. Now more than ever, it's so important to be an informed citizen, but not at the expense of

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your mental health. And so what Jonathan was saying, this, you know, constant being engaged with your

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devices with social media, the scrolling from the minute you wake up until you go to bed,

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there's a reason why you have your best ideas in the shower. And that's because that's the only

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place in the whole day where you are not with your device. People take their device to the

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bathroom. They sleep with your device. You eat with your device. People walk down the street.

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There's more near misfidestrian accidents because people are walking while they're crossing the

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street and looking at their devices. And so there's all of this brain biology at play behind the

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scene. So both of you have talked about how it doesn't feel good to engage and constantly be on

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your phone. That sense of infinite scroll. But there is, you know, it's feel like you're doing

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nothing. You're just doing this, right? What are you doing? But in fact, it is not passive,

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it is active. And it has a profound effect on your biology, on your brain, on your psychology,

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and also social factors that I hope we talk about today. You know, scrolling, wasting a bit of time

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doesn't seem so harmful. What is the big, if we play this for 10, 20, 30 years, what is the big

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risk or threat? The biggest threat right now, we don't even have to wait 20 years, is that it

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through a process called neuroplasticity, which is just a big fancy word that simply means that

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your brain is a muscle, is that by engaging with social media that that sense of high volume,

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low quality, quick videos, you are actively rewiring your brain for the worst. So you're increasing

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your sense of stress, worsening your mental health, attention, cognition, distracted ability,

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irritability, complex problem solving, all of that changes when you engage and engage in that

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infinite scroll. Yeah, I'd like to add on here, because one of the main arguments I get is,

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ah, this is what they said about television. This is what they said about comic books. This is

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just a thermo panic. But people need to understand why touchscreen devices are so different from

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television. And so parents find this helpful, if I just lay this out briefly, good screen time versus

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bad screen time. So humans are storytelling animals. We have always, as long as we've had language,

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we've raised our kids with stories, epic poems, all kinds of stories. Stories are good. The

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human brain needs lots of patterns. The child's brain needs lots of patterns to develop. So the worst

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thing you can do is hand your child a device because they're crying for it because they've been

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trained to get it and you're busy. So you have hand in the device. They're quiet. What's happening?

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They're sitting alone, not, you know, when I was a kid, we always watched it with my sisters,

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with my friends. You're arguing about it. You're talking it. So kids sitting alone with a device in

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his hand, it's not long stories. It's never long stories. It always ends up at YouTube shorts or

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TikTok or Instagram Reels for older kids. So they're doing, they're doing this. But here's the key

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thing that it does that a television does not. A television puts you in a state that psychologists

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call transportation. You get into a story and you find yourself pulled in and you're rooting for

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the characters and this is, this is how a brain gets tuned up to social patterns. But it can't

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happen in 10 seconds. It can't happen in one minute. It takes a long period of time and there is

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no reinforcement. There is no, the television doesn't do anything to you don't have any response.

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Whereas a touchscreen device is a Skinner box. So BF Skinner was one of the founders of behaviorism

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and he put rats and pigeons in a box where he could deliver a reinforcement with a little grain of

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food on a schedule. And by giving them quick reinforcements for behavior, he could train to do

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amazing tricks in just a few hours. When you give your kid a touchscreen device,

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it's stimulus, response, swipe, get a reward or not, variable ratio. And then and you just keep

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doing that. So you are, as DT said, it is rewiring your brain. It's not just wasting time.

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It is literally training you to do things where television didn't do that. So this is a whole new

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game. And to add to that, you know, from the medical perspective, you're shortening this attention

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span. And what happens over time is, so like Jonathan said, right, you're not sleeping as well.

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Because you are engaged with your device, we know that 80% of people are checking their phones

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within minutes of waking up. We have something called revenge bedtime procrastination,

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this concept of, you know, at the end of the day, your fatigue, you've had a long day,

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you've had no B time and you want to get to bed early. We all know, by the way, what the data is,

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that, you know, we've been taught since we were little kids, right? Like bedtime, sleep is

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important. It's good for your body. It's good for your brain. And we might have all the knowledge in

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the world. But in terms of action, there's a wide gap between knowledge and information and action.

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And so revenge bedtime procrastination is kind of an offshoot. So what happens? So, you know,

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you have that decreased attention. You have that irritability hypervigilance. And so at night,

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at the end of the day, it's 9 p.m. You finally, you know, if you're a parent, your kids are asleep,

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your kitchen is clean. Maybe you finish your entrepreneurial day and you finally sit down with

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Melanie on the couch and you're like, oh, some me time. And you know, you want to get to bed early.

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And you know, it's good for you. But then suddenly, you're scrolling. And before you know,

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it's 2 a.m. And you're saying, my God, what happened? Why am I still awake? What was I doing all

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this time? What happens is that you essentially give yourself some me time at night. And so you

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procrastinate bedtime. And so what happens is with this revenge bedtime procrastination,

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it affects your sleep. And then when you don't have good sleep, good quality sleep. So you have

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difficulty falling asleep, staying asleep, sleep, debt over time for kids, for adults, has all sorts

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of ramifications. So this is just the tip of the iceberg, this short form video content,

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and the ripple effects go far and wide. Not only is it rewiring your brain, it's rewiring your body,

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it is affecting your sleep, which increases your risk of heart disease later in life. And when

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you're consuming graphic videos and graphic images, it can increase your personal risk of PTSD

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through vicarious trauma, even if you weren't there. So this is just a vast network of things

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that can happen to you, simply because you're thinking, yeah, it's harmless. What is it? It's just

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a bunch of videos that I'm checking out. It's a way from you to decompress.

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What do I need to know about the nature of the brain to understand exactly what short form video is

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playing, is hijacking, is taking advantage of? The thing to understand about all of this is that

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we have to focus on childhood. Why do we have childhood? Humans have this really interesting

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childhood where we grow rapidly at first, and then we slow down for about five or seven years,

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we don't grow very quickly, and then we speed up at puberty, whereas other primates, they just grow

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and grow until they reach reproductive age, and then they reproduce. But we seem to have this long

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period of sort of middle childhood for cultural learning. It's a period in which the kid is now

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walking and talking and turning away from the parents, and that's a time for this to come in,

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and they pay attention, and they form relations. All these things have to happen slowly, because the

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neurons are gradually growing. They're finding each other based on what the child is doing, okay?

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So we grow up in the real world, and that happens over time, and a lot of that is very physical.

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Kids are very physical. Mammals are very physical, and there's a lot of touch. So that's a healthy human

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childhood. But when you give an iPad or a year old iPhone, and they begin doing the touching and

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swiping, that is going to hijack their attention. That is going to push out all other forms of

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action and learning, and that is going to change the way the parts of the brain that learn to

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pay attention, what's called executive function. It's going to change the way the brain learns

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to pay attention. It's going to change the reward circuits. I think you had Anna Lemke on recently,

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who is the nation's expert on addiction, and the way that she describes it, how any one addiction

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is going to change your reward pathways to making more vulnerable to other addictions. So we're

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setting our kids up, not just for this, but then when they get a little older, it'll be video games,

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it'll be porn, it'll be gambling. Now, everything is gambling. So we're setting them up for a life

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in which their brain is saying, give me something, give me some quick dopamine, give me some quick

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dopamine. I don't want to have to work for anything. I don't want to have to apply myself for an hour

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and then get a reward. And so what the short videos are doing for kids is preventing them from

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learning the connection between hard work and a reward. Is there anything else I need to know

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from a neuroscience perspective about what's going on in my brain when I develop these addictions

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with short-form videos or these sort of quick dopamine genic tasks? So we all as humans have a

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primal urge to scroll. When you feel a sense of stress as many of us do in this moment in life,

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it is your sense, you know, you're a migdala. And so it's your sense of self-preservation.

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It's survival and self-preservation. That is what your a migdala does. So if you want me to show you

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here, yeah, it's okay. So here, deep here, it's a small almond-shaped structure and that is your

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a migdala. And your migdala, its main purpose is survival and self-preservation. It houses

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your stress response, your fight or flight response. And it is truly what is activated when you

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are engaging in content, when you feel a sense of stress. And so you have this primal urge to scroll.

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And so evolutionarily, when we all were caves, people living together, we would sleep at night,

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and there would be a night watchman scanning for danger. And now we have become our own night

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watchman. And so we scan for danger all day all night long. How do we do that? We scroll.

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And then the migdala is triggered. And then you scroll some more, and you scroll some more,

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and you scroll some more. And so over time, what you're doing is that you're making that a

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migdala in a state of chronic, it's continually being triggered. And what happens to the

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amygdala over time when it's continually triggered, it starts to rewire your brain in other ways.

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And how does it do that? Through something called the prefrontal cortex. If you put your hand,

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I like, I can use this model, but I can also just use my hands. When you put your hand on your

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forehead, the area right behind your forehead right here is the prefrontal cortex. This is a very

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important thing for our conversation, this area of the brain. And what the prefrontal cortex does

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is it is called it governs executive functions. So impulse control, memory, planning,

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organization, strategic thinking, complex problem solving. And there is a tension between your

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amygdala and the prefrontal cortex. When you're amygdala in the driver's seat, that prefrontal

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cortex is quiet. And what is happening as we continue to engage with our devices and have this

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primal urge to scroll that amygdala up regulates and the prefrontal cortex down regulates.

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And over time, that is very problematic for all of the reasons that we're kind of introducing at

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the start of this conversation. There was a meta-analysis done in 2025 of 71 different studies,

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and it found that heavy short form video use was associated with reduced thinking ability,

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especially shorter attention spans and weaker impulse control. That's right. These studies

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are just beginning to roll in now. Kids have been on social media really a lot since 2008,

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but especially once they got smartphones around 2012. Studies began coming in in the 2010s,

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that it's looking like the kids who are spending a lot of time on this are doing much worse.

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They're more depressed. The focus was on depression. And some other researchers said,

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no, it's just a correlation. You can't prove causation. And we've been going around and around

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this for about 10 or 15 years. Now we're doing the same thing with the short form videos.

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The damage everyone can see. My students tell me this is what's happening. We feel it.

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Studies are coming in, but there will be a few studies here and there that don't show it,

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and people will push that up. Meta spends a lot of time and money to influence the public debate.

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A lot of public documents are coming out now about how they do that. So we can engage in debate

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over research on short form videos for five or 10 years, but at that point, it's way too late.

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We've lost a second generation, Jan Alpha. So I think when we're talking about kids especially,

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we need to have what's called the precautionary principle, which is if there's reason to think

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that this is hurting kids, how about we don't roll it out into every childhood? How about we make

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these companies responsible? We hold them responsible for what they're doing to kids,

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because we're about to make the same mistake we made with social media, letting it

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worm its way into childhood. We've already done that with short videos and we're about to do it

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with AI chatbots. In fact, we're just beginning it in late 2025, I'd say.

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I don't think people quite realize how much these major social media platforms have figured out

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that short form video sells. We're actually seeing this sort of global rise in short form drama apps

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and I don't know if you guys have seen these apps, but it basically takes a movie that

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would used to be two hours long and it breaks it down into say 60 different parts. My colleague

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of mine at my company was showing me the other day in different parts of the world they're

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exploding. There's been a 190% increase in short form drama apps. Takes a long form movie,

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tons into short form videos. Disney Plus plans to introduce AI generated short form videos this

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year, starting with 30 second limits inside the Disney Plus app and TechCrunch also reported

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that as of October 2025 Netflix tested short form video content on phones and recently

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announced it's planned to expand to this feature. It appears that all of the content we consume is

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going that way and listen, I'm friends with lots of people at big social media platforms.

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This doesn't get me and there doesn't stand in my way of criticizing them because I think two

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things can be true at the same time, right? So I think it can be true that I have a podcast and I

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make short form videos and that I also understand that there's a real downside to them and all of the

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major social media platforms that I speak to have a huge drive towards short form video.

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It appears to be their number one strategic priority and obviously because of the success of TikTok,

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as of January 2026 TikTok, I believe is the most downloaded social app in the world now.

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If I'm running a social media company and my one focus is profit, I'm now faced with an

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existential crisis. I either take part in this thing that is driving the highest retention therefore

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the best ad payouts or I die. So there's two comments to that. First off is that

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when we think about social media and how society is shape shifting to allow this short form content,

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there is a concept that Jonathan and I briefly mentioned being part of us filming called

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second screen viewing. And so what's happening is that allegedly these big streamers are asking

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their creative talent whether it's screenwriters or actors or directors to replay to reiterate

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the plot because as you're watching, you know when we are kids we would watch TV or movies and you

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just sit on the couch and you'd have a bucket of popcorn with your family and you'd watch a movie

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an hour an hour and a half, two hours. And now second screen viewing is happening which means

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that you're watching a movie or a TV show and you're on your device and so you are constantly

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having that fragmented attention and we are all doing it. And so what these streamers are allegedly

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asking their creative talent to do is to reiterate the plot. So it's shape shifting. It makes sense.

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If my brain is, you know, I'm 33 years old so I've grown up with a lot of this stuff.

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If my brain has been wired to have shorter attention spans and movies from 30 years ago

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not going to cut it for me. Right, but then look what happens. If everybody chases that and I know

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look Netflix is making shorter and shorter stuff, even Ted, the Ted conference, Ted talks are

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getting shorter and shorter. What does that do? It just repeats the cycle. Now I appreciate that

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you're in a collective action trap as you put it. If I don't do it and everyone else is then I lose

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out. And so the business pressure on on all the creators, the business pressures go shorter,

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shorter, shorter. There's a very useful psychological term distinction here that I think will be

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helpful, which is the difference between psychological assimilation and accommodation. This goes

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back to Jean Piaget, the great developmental psychologist. We have certain mental structures.

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We have a model in our head of how things work. And then you learn something new. Oh, that's a,

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you know, kid learns, oh, that's an art work. I put that into, you know, that's just that you

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just assimilate. They learn lots of animal names. And then they learn something that doesn't fit

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like you learn about bacteria. And now you have to change your mental structure. It takes

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a little time. You change your mental structure, understand more about life. That's what education

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really is all about. You have to have a lot of assimilation, of course. But you need that accommodation

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over and over again. That's why you want to go to college. That's why you want to read novels. That's

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what a great movie does. It takes time. And so one of the great things about this modern technology

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is that we can do things like have this three hour conversation. I can't believe it. People are

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going to listen to it. So this, you know, long form content, this is all about accommodation.

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Anybody who walks out, who leaves this conversation after three hours and isn't thinking about

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something differently, we failed. Okay. So you are very much in the accommodation business. That's

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great. And then the question, both the moral and the strategic question is, how much do you need to

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play the quick hit game in order to get people there? I leave that to you to the moral calculation.

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Maybe it, maybe it balances out. Maybe, but, but I think that's where you are.

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Would you advise people to delete these short form? Oh my god. Yes. Of course.

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Here, but here, yes, that with the most important thing you can do for your intelligence and for

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humanity would be delete them. So what I advise my students to do is I say, just do this. Just,

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just delete one of the social media apps that you use, especially if it's TikTok. Just delete

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from your phone. You can still check on your computer. If someone sends you a video, you can still

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watch it on your computer. You can even check it every weekend. You can spend some time on it.

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But just get it off your phone because on the phone, the phone is always with us. It's an

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extension of our body. And if it's always there, then it's going to take every, it's called attention

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fracking. It's going to break up your attention. It's going to take every seven seconds that you're

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not doing something. You're going to go for the phone. So the best thing you can do to make yourself

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smarter and a better partner and a better human, I would say would be to delete the short,

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especially any of the short form video. So TikTok. Unfortunately, YouTube, which has a lot of good

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stuff on it, becomes YouTube shorts Instagram, which does a lot of terrible things, but people do

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find it useful for all kinds of purposes, becomes Instagram reels. So I think the proper amount of

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short form video for children zero to 18 is zero. They should never be watching the vertical videos.

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Parents, don't ever let your kids watch the short vertical videos. You might even, if there

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was a way to put it, is there a way to put a timeline where you can say it has to be 10 minutes

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for longer. Kids, you can have an hour of YouTube, but it has to be 10 minutes for longer. Nothing

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shorter than 10 minutes. That at least will get rid of this, the quick, the quick swiping, the dopamine

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stuff. So I would say that for kids, yes, like, you know, not engaging at whatsoever, but for someone,

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you know, my approach is a little bit different for someone who's like in their 30s or in their 40s.

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And the way I would kind of frame that is instead of renouncing, you know, saying I'm going to

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get it off my device, and I'm going to check on a desktop, which is great. There's little

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kind of tweaks that we could do because my approach is to foster that sense of empowerment in someone

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to help them make positive change. And so one strategy that you could use, if you are saying,

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there's no way I'm getting rid of my, I'm not deleting these after my phone, right? If you're,

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by the way, I practice what I preach and I really don't engage in technology as the best of my

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ability. But one thing that you could do is grayscale your phone. And so especially at night,

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like it's 9 p.m., like we talked about Revenge Bedtime procrastination, you know that you're

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going to do it. You're going to sit down and you're going to scroll before you know what it's 2 a.m.

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Instead, grayscale your phone is simple switch. You can toggle it. I have my phone set to grayscale,

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which simply means you're getting rid of your color, making it black and white. And so when it is

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grayscale, then you, you know, it doesn't have that same addictive quality to it. It's like going

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through a grocery store, marketing executive described it this way to me, going through a grocery

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store instead of the technic color junk food cereal, it's just black and white. So you have a less,

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there's a greater sense of compulsion to continue checking. So that's like one strategy you could use.

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And the other is to set some boundaries. So geographical boundaries keep your phone out of,

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out of your arms reach, if you're at a desk, if you're a student, not right next to you because we

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know there's this phenomenon of brain drain. So it's not just that when you're using your phone,

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it can have a potential for distraction, but also just having it close by. It's called brain drain.

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And so putting it in a desk drawer, keeping it in another part of the home, if you are working,

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keeping it far away from you. And so you kind of can override that primal urge to scroll that

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your prefrontal cortex take hold again. And so there's all these small tweaks that you can do. You

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think now? Yes, there are all these small tweaks you can do. And they will make the heroin a little

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bit less addictive. And yeah, you should try those. But what I can say after teaching this course

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for many years is that people who try that, they say, yeah, you know what, help, it helped. But you

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only really get the transformation when you quit social media, that you get your life back,

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you get hours of day back. So, and so I would urge everyone to just think, you know, you only,

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you only get one childhood, you only get one, one, one young adulthood. And if you're going to

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spend it scrolling, what do you have to show for it at the end? And when you get people to reflect on,

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how much value do you really get from watching the short videos? How would you let me

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be different if you, if you knocked it out? Once they realized that their motives for being on it

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were either just to keep up or because that's what everyone else is doing. Or as you said,

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I deserve it because I'm tired. Well, why are you tired? It's in part because your attention

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was fragmented all day long. So, you only really get the transformations when you get a real change

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in what you're, what you're consuming. Although, of course, yes, setting it to grace will be helpful,

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but it's not going to be transformative for most people, I believe. And then, you know, based on

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the science, there's certain elements like when we think about what is it about the phone

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that is creating that sense of compulsion, Jonathan is right. So, what is it about the phone?

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It's not just that phone, you know, you're scrolling, you're engaging. There's two studies that

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were really interesting. One, people got off of, they continue to use their devices, they had no

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internet. So, it's like, you know, I tried this experiment myself in December. I was out of the

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country. And so, I just let my, you know, I didn't plug into Wi-Fi. And I found, you know, markedly,

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a market change in my mood, my sleep. And I'm not even, you know, 20 years old on TikTok. And it was

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so different. And so, this study found that just two weeks of continuing to use your device,

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but just not having internet access, improved your attention, well-being, and mental health.

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And in this population, it was all adults. It wasn't kids. It was all adults.

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Found that 91% of people had an improvement in at least one of these metrics. And then

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another study, more recently, just one week of not engaging in social media, digital detox,

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they called it, did the same thing. Better, you know, less anxiety, less depression,

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decreased insomnia. But my feeling is that, you know, there is this new kind of meme, right? Like,

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you're the millennial urge to delete my internet presence and, you know, live off the grid.

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There is certainly utility to that. And I salute anyone who wants to engage in that analogue

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life more and more. But from my, from where I sit, I feel like we do need to have healthier

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boundaries and engage more responsibly. It also builds up that muscle and it can help, you know,

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takes eight weeks to do neuroplasticity when you're building new brain circuits. It takes eight

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weeks. Falling off, getting back up is part of habit formation. So if you're going to make

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any of these changes, understand that it takes some time. But I, I don't know if it is possible,

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for me or for others to say, fully, I'm going to, you know, delete off of my phone.

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But I love that. So I'd like to go a little further, a little further with this. So the way you,

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the way you put it, yes, there's all these things that we could do. We should have boundaries.

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But all of that puts the responsibility on us. And that's where we are with junk food.

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With junk food, we're like, okay, it's out there. We have to learn self-control. We have to teach

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self-control to our kids. Okay, that's the way it is in this country. But the digital device,

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I think, are very, very different. So imagine if, imagine if we sent our kids out into the world,

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and it wasn't just that there was junk food in all the stores. It was that everything was made

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of junk food. You know, you know, the door handles. You can eat it. It's chocolate. But it's not just

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that the world's made of junk food. It's, they actually can tell, they're able to tell what you're

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craving at the moment. And maybe you're more in the mood for salt. So now it's all potato chips

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or pretzels. If the world is designed by companies to always give you the thing that will most

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grab your unconscious desires will affect the amygdala or the reward centers. That's on them.

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That's not our fault. My general rule as a social psychologist is if a few people are doing something

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bad or self-destructive, well, you know, they should learn some self-control or that's something

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about them. But when 90 or 95% of people are doing something self-destructive, that's because

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of the companies that put us in an environment that encourages addiction. So I just want to read a

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quote. We have so much good stuff coming up from meta from all the whistleblowers. Now all the

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court cases are beginning and Los Angeles finally the first time they're going to meta is going to

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face a jury with all the parents who've lost kids. So here is, here's a chat. So we have a lot of

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internal documents that came out from the attorneys general that are suing meta. So while they're

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talking about the results of some of their internal research, one of them says, oh my gosh, y'all

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Instagram is a drug. We're basically pushers. We're causing reward deficit disorder because

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people are binging on Instagram so much they can't feel reward anymore, which is something anilemky

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said. Like the reward tolerance is so high. And then he says, I know Adam, meaning Adam

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Osary. I know Adam doesn't want to hear it. He freaked out when I talked about dopamine in my

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teen fundamentals leads review. But it is undeniable. It's biological and psychological. Top-down

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directives drive it all towards making sure people keep coming back from more. This is not on us.

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They designed it to be addictive. They've done research to make it maximally addictive.

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They push it on children. They tried to get Instagram kids for even littler kids. They know what

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they're doing. They've done the research. My team we put together, we found references to 31's

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internal studies that meta did. They've done a lot of research finding harm. They bury it.

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But you can find it at meta's internalresearch.org. We put it all online.

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You can read these quotes. So yes, we should exert more self-control. But basically we're being

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pushed addictive substances, addictive, addictive apps. And it's messing us all up.

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I agree wholeheartedly that it is so destructive. And you feel like even with people in their 40s

377
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and 50s, if anyone can do it, it's you Jonathan. Seriously, I would love to see it. You know,

378
00:32:44.400 --> 00:32:50.240
we also know, based on the data, that these things, quite, they reshape our brain,

379
00:32:50.240 --> 00:32:56.240
rewire our brain through neuroplasticity, and also change our brain waves. So pattern. So

380
00:32:56.240 --> 00:33:00.640
we talked about the amygdala and the prefrontal cortex, right? But they also change brain waves. And

381
00:33:00.640 --> 00:33:07.200
so when you look at studies and the data, it has the reward pathway in dopamine. And these brain

382
00:33:07.200 --> 00:33:13.040
patterns, the brain waves mimic addictive behaviors. And you know, that there's certain features,

383
00:33:13.040 --> 00:33:17.280
right? Like when you do swipe down to refresh, it's the slot machine.

384
00:33:17.280 --> 00:33:22.880
It was modeled directly after the slot machine, yeah. Or auto play. Or, you know, the algorithm,

385
00:33:22.880 --> 00:33:28.320
that infinite scroll. One really interesting kind of like breaking news, which you guys may have

386
00:33:28.320 --> 00:33:34.880
already heard of. It's like three days ago. The European Union Commission found TikTok to be

387
00:33:34.880 --> 00:33:41.920
in breach of the Digital Services Act. And what it said was that it is addictive. It,

388
00:33:42.640 --> 00:33:48.800
you know, creates compulsion and gets people into this auto pilot mode. So they have difficulty

389
00:33:48.800 --> 00:33:55.360
disengaging. And personally, I am moving away from social media and really leaning into analog life.

390
00:33:55.360 --> 00:34:00.400
But I think with the way the world, you know, it's one of our only ways to connect, right? Meaning,

391
00:34:00.400 --> 00:34:06.480
I don't mean connect. I don't mean connect like in a deep way. That's right. But be informed to

392
00:34:06.480 --> 00:34:12.080
know what's going on in the world, et cetera. I suspect that because we've spent so long

393
00:34:12.080 --> 00:34:15.520
criticizing Metro over the last 10 years, because the biggest in any category takes all the

394
00:34:15.520 --> 00:34:21.280
heats are open AIs taking it now. And what this often does is it provides cover for other people

395
00:34:21.920 --> 00:34:27.280
to go even more extreme with that behavior while like meditate the heat. And I actually think

396
00:34:27.280 --> 00:34:33.760
this is how TikTok came to be. TikTok had basically originally started as musically became TikTok.

397
00:34:33.760 --> 00:34:40.160
They would take they were taking no heat. So they created an algorithm, which is the equivalent

398
00:34:40.160 --> 00:34:45.120
of like crack cocaine. The reason why I have a TikTok account, I don't have the app on my phone.

399
00:34:45.120 --> 00:34:51.760
I have never had the app on my phone. I don't, I don't, it was because I noticed that the

400
00:34:51.760 --> 00:34:56.560
view variance on TikTok was like no other platform. What I mean by that is you can have a million

401
00:34:56.560 --> 00:35:02.240
followers on TikTok and you can get 10,000 views or you can get 10 million views. In the 15 years

402
00:35:02.240 --> 00:35:06.000
that I've been on social media building social media businesses, I'd never seen this before.

403
00:35:06.000 --> 00:35:12.000
And what it indicated to me is that the algorithm was being an even more aggressive sorting hat

404
00:35:12.000 --> 00:35:17.120
or retention machine to push up, but to push down. And so like when I started in social media in

405
00:35:17.120 --> 00:35:24.480
2014, if I had a million followers, I might get a million views or maybe 800,000. I did some

406
00:35:24.480 --> 00:35:28.640
research the other day on all of our social channels over time. And what we're seeing is the

407
00:35:28.640 --> 00:35:33.760
variance in the amount of views we can get is increasing, which means the algorithm is doing

408
00:35:33.760 --> 00:35:37.760
more work to say show everyone this. I don't care if the person that posted it's called Jenny

409
00:35:37.760 --> 00:35:41.760
and has seven followers and show no one this. I don't care if it's Stephen who has a million

410
00:35:41.760 --> 00:35:47.040
followers or whatever. And I've realized that TikTok was way ahead of everybody here. And that's

411
00:35:47.040 --> 00:35:53.600
why they are the most addictive. The fastest growing platform. I say all this to say that even if

412
00:35:53.600 --> 00:36:00.480
meta shut down tomorrow, someone else would seize the opportunity if there is in sort of policy

413
00:36:00.480 --> 00:36:06.480
I guess in place. That's right. That would be whack-a-mom, right? Yeah. No, that's right. And so

414
00:36:06.480 --> 00:36:11.840
in terms of who's done the damage to kids, Metta is the big fish via Instagram. And they're also

415
00:36:11.840 --> 00:36:17.360
the main player in terms of spending a huge amount of money to lobby Congress and Chan block laws.

416
00:36:17.360 --> 00:36:21.680
They're also the main player in buying up civil society organizations giving money to organizations,

417
00:36:21.680 --> 00:36:27.120
the National PTA, all sorts of organizations. They get to then give a message on digital citizenship

418
00:36:27.120 --> 00:36:34.080
or digital health. So meta really is the major driver. Metta is the tobacco industry here trying to

419
00:36:34.080 --> 00:36:40.560
change the dialogue. But in terms of the products, Snapchat is probably more deadly in terms of the

420
00:36:40.560 --> 00:36:46.240
actual number of deaths per user because Snapchat is not making you depressed by social comparison

421
00:36:46.240 --> 00:36:50.400
as much. Snapchat is introducing you to all kinds of people. And it's the main way that drug

422
00:36:50.400 --> 00:36:56.080
dealers and sex torsion is fine kids. Snapchat has a quick ad feature which relentlessly pushes you

423
00:36:56.080 --> 00:37:01.120
to connect with friends of friends. So once a man can get any kid in a school, now he can get

424
00:37:01.120 --> 00:37:06.480
connected to all the kids in the school. So when we, in a lot of the court cases, when you have

425
00:37:06.480 --> 00:37:12.640
suicides from cyberbullying, you have drug overdoses from a kid bought a Xanax, but it had fentanyl in

426
00:37:12.640 --> 00:37:18.960
it. So Snapchat, in 2022, we know from their internal documents from the lawsuits,

427
00:37:19.600 --> 00:37:25.440
they were getting 10,000 reports of sex torsion from their users, not a year every month.

428
00:37:25.440 --> 00:37:29.920
And that's just what was reported, which is the tip of the iceberg. So Snapchat is a terrible

429
00:37:29.920 --> 00:37:35.120
platform for children to be on. It should be an adult-only platform. You're talking with strangers

430
00:37:35.120 --> 00:37:41.280
around the world and with disappearing messages. And Snapchat doesn't even keep a record. It is

431
00:37:41.280 --> 00:37:46.320
ideal for sex torsion. There's even a handbook. How to extort kids on Snapchat? It goes around

432
00:37:46.320 --> 00:37:51.520
the world and criminal organizations use it. So I definitely don't want to let Snapchat off.

433
00:37:51.520 --> 00:37:56.640
TikTok, of course, is a Chinese company. I mean, not normally we'll see if that's changed,

434
00:37:56.640 --> 00:38:02.560
but it was a Chinese company that gave its Chinese kids got healthy TikTok or doya and they got,

435
00:38:02.560 --> 00:38:08.560
they got, they learned to follow astronauts. And they gave us their algorithm feeds their kid

436
00:38:08.560 --> 00:38:13.600
patriotic stuff. It shuts off at a certain time at night. There's all kinds of limits. So the

437
00:38:13.600 --> 00:38:19.040
people who make the technology generally want to protect their own kids and they want other kids

438
00:38:19.040 --> 00:38:24.000
to use it. That's what TikTok is doing in China. They want American kids to rot in hell,

439
00:38:24.000 --> 00:38:28.080
but they want their kids to grow up with the ability to focus. And it's the same thing with the

440
00:38:28.080 --> 00:38:33.600
tech guys in Silicon Valley. They don't let their kids use this stuff. They make their nanny's

441
00:38:33.600 --> 00:38:37.760
sign contracts that they will not let the kid have a phone. They will not expose the kid to that.

442
00:38:37.760 --> 00:38:41.760
They send their kids to schools like the Waldorf school that be cut precisely because there are

443
00:38:41.760 --> 00:38:46.240
no computers or tech in the classroom. So once again, we see their reveal behavior. They know,

444
00:38:46.240 --> 00:38:50.080
they designed it to be addictive. They know it's addictive. They don't let their kids use it.

445
00:38:50.080 --> 00:38:53.600
They want your kids to use it. So I think that's where we are.

446
00:38:53.600 --> 00:38:57.040
And how does AI become a protagonist in this story?

447
00:38:57.040 --> 00:39:02.400
So my work is now focused on AI chat bots, mental health and the human connection. We haven't yet

448
00:39:02.400 --> 00:39:07.040
kind of delved into loneliness, but there's this unmet need for human connection, right?

449
00:39:07.040 --> 00:39:12.720
Deep human connection. We don't have a sense of meeting our purpose right now because what happens

450
00:39:12.720 --> 00:39:17.600
is we can talk a little bit more about the default mode network and what happens to your brain when

451
00:39:17.600 --> 00:39:22.960
you don't allow yourself to get bored because you're constantly on your devices. And that meeting

452
00:39:22.960 --> 00:39:26.720
in purpose, that self-referential thinking is really what develops from your board.

453
00:39:27.360 --> 00:39:32.480
And so all of this that we're talking about, that feeling of disenchantment is a fragmented

454
00:39:32.480 --> 00:39:37.680
society. You're by yourself. It's that echo chamber phenomenon. All of it leads to it kind of

455
00:39:37.680 --> 00:39:43.280
opens the door for AI chat bots. And so what reason is because these tech companies are sensing that

456
00:39:43.280 --> 00:39:47.120
people aren't really happy on social media and they're thinking about getting off, right? They're

457
00:39:47.680 --> 00:39:52.480
they're using it less. They're because social media has become less social more media. So they're

458
00:39:52.480 --> 00:39:57.440
not really engaging as much and they're spending time doing other things. And so the Atlantic had a

459
00:39:57.440 --> 00:40:03.840
fantastic piece about this. They're building it as the anti social media. So tech companies are

460
00:40:03.840 --> 00:40:09.840
building AI chat bots and calling it, it's the anti social media. It's a place where you can go

461
00:40:09.840 --> 00:40:16.080
to form deeper connections and really have someone understand you. One of the tech leaders

462
00:40:16.960 --> 00:40:21.520
said that there's an unmet human need for connection and people don't have as many friends as they

463
00:40:21.520 --> 00:40:27.360
want to. And so we're going to introduce friendship through AI chatbots. There is a reddit forum

464
00:40:27.360 --> 00:40:32.960
right now. So just to back up, AI chatbots, what we're talking about in our conversation today is

465
00:40:32.960 --> 00:40:40.240
the publicly available chatbots, not AI for medical care, which has breast cancer. So many

466
00:40:40.240 --> 00:40:46.640
wonderful in my field and like medicine, breast cancer, diagnosis and detection five years

467
00:40:46.640 --> 00:40:51.280
earlier through AI. I mean, there's some amazing things coming out of AI. This is about

468
00:40:51.280 --> 00:40:58.800
the publicly available conversational chatbot phenomenon. And so when Harvard Business Review

469
00:40:58.800 --> 00:41:04.640
found that the number one use case is not productivity, is not, you know, coding or the things

470
00:41:04.640 --> 00:41:09.760
that you think of when you're using an AI chatbot, but it's mental health therapy and companionship.

471
00:41:10.480 --> 00:41:16.160
Number one use case of AI chatbots. So people are using AI chatbots as a life advisor,

472
00:41:16.160 --> 00:41:21.280
as a therapist, as a companion, and on Reddit, which is like the zeitgeist, it's sort of like,

473
00:41:21.280 --> 00:41:26.080
you know, where we are. And why is this a bad thing? Oh, I mean, so many reasons why it's bad.

474
00:41:26.080 --> 00:41:31.280
Use it as a companionship, for example. There's so many red flags about AI chatbots. And so

475
00:41:31.280 --> 00:41:38.080
Reddit has a forum. It's I think last I checked, 45,000 people. AI is my boyfriend. And, you know,

476
00:41:38.080 --> 00:41:45.120
people who are having a relationship with their AI chatbot. The reason it's bad, I mean,

477
00:41:45.200 --> 00:41:51.520
AI chatbots are, you know, where social media is about attention, the attention economy, dopamine.

478
00:41:51.520 --> 00:41:56.560
What's happening with the AI chatbot phenomenon is that it is forming attachments. So

479
00:41:56.560 --> 00:42:01.360
oxytocin is a hormone, the bonding hormone. And we're probably going to see more data on how

480
00:42:01.360 --> 00:42:07.280
oxytocin is involved. And so it is going to reshape human connection.

481
00:42:08.080 --> 00:42:10.480
If I could add on to that, that was, that was beautifully put.

482
00:42:11.280 --> 00:42:17.440
Social media came and hacked our attention and took most of it with devastating effects.

483
00:42:18.480 --> 00:42:23.680
Now AI is coming to hack our attachments, which is going to have even more devastating effects.

484
00:42:23.680 --> 00:42:27.120
So think about it this way. Everyone needs to understand the attachment system. It's this

485
00:42:27.120 --> 00:42:32.480
wonderful system that all mammals have that keeps the mother and other species, but for humans,

486
00:42:32.480 --> 00:42:37.520
mothers and fathers. Keeps us connected to the child and the child to the parent. But it's this

487
00:42:37.520 --> 00:42:43.440
cybernetic system in which as the kid is, as the kid is beginning to develop and is able to like,

488
00:42:43.440 --> 00:42:47.440
you know, you do like peekaboo games and you do the back and forth. And it's just the most delightful

489
00:42:47.440 --> 00:42:52.880
thing you get that back and forth. It's called serve and return interactions. And all the time,

490
00:42:52.880 --> 00:42:58.320
the child is developing what's called an internal working model of the parent. And the model in

491
00:42:58.320 --> 00:43:03.280
their head is, oh, you know, when I get in trouble, this is the person that comes and soothes me.

492
00:43:03.840 --> 00:43:07.440
And the point of this isn't just to make the child feel good. The point is that now,

493
00:43:07.440 --> 00:43:10.640
the child can go off and play because that's where the learning happens. It doesn't happen when

494
00:43:10.640 --> 00:43:14.960
you're in your mother's arms. The whole point of the attachment system is to regulate the

495
00:43:14.960 --> 00:43:18.960
child going up and playing, taking risks, having experiences. And then when something goes

496
00:43:18.960 --> 00:43:23.040
wrong, as it always does, then they come running back to their secure base. And if they don't have a

497
00:43:23.040 --> 00:43:26.480
secure base, then they're much more anxious and they don't explore as much and they don't develop

498
00:43:26.480 --> 00:43:32.720
as much. All right. So this develops very gradually over the all of childhood. And the internal

499
00:43:32.720 --> 00:43:38.400
working models you develop as a child are the models that you will reuse in puberty for romantic

500
00:43:38.400 --> 00:43:43.520
relationships. And so if you are securely attached as a child, you're more likely to be securely

501
00:43:43.520 --> 00:43:47.840
attached as an adult on the dating market, which makes you a much better candidate for boyfriend

502
00:43:47.840 --> 00:43:53.040
or girlfriend or husband or wife. What's going to happen? AI is going to intervene very early.

503
00:43:53.040 --> 00:43:57.280
AI is going to be so much more responsive than the parent because the parent has a job and the

504
00:43:57.280 --> 00:44:02.640
kitchen and two other kids and is not always there. But the AI teddy bear is always there for you.

505
00:44:02.800 --> 00:44:07.440
So the primary working models are going to be for the teddy bear, the AI chatbot in the teddy bear,

506
00:44:07.440 --> 00:44:11.440
and later the AI chatbot on your iPad and then on your computer. And it already,

507
00:44:11.440 --> 00:44:17.120
there are holographic porn naked, you know, beautiful men and women that can be your companion.

508
00:44:17.120 --> 00:44:21.600
So we're going to have a whole generation growing up, developing attachments to

509
00:44:22.720 --> 00:44:28.720
AI-generated holograms from companies that are now about to enter the inshidification process

510
00:44:28.800 --> 00:44:31.760
in a way beyond anything we've ever seen. Just if I could just briefly say what,

511
00:44:31.760 --> 00:44:36.560
and you have your other written shidification. Okay, so there's a wonderful book out now by

512
00:44:36.560 --> 00:44:42.640
Corey Doctoro, who addressed the question, why is it that everything, all the platforms,

513
00:44:42.640 --> 00:44:47.280
they seem so wonderful at first. The whole engine, everything's so wonderful and then it all turns

514
00:44:47.280 --> 00:44:52.800
to shit. How does that happen? And he says it's a very simple process. They've discovered early on,

515
00:44:52.800 --> 00:44:56.560
certainly in the early social media age by the early 2000s, they discovered, you know what?

516
00:44:57.200 --> 00:45:00.560
You got to get to scale. Scale beats everything else. You got to get millions of people,

517
00:45:00.560 --> 00:45:04.640
you don't need a business model. Just get the millions, get the millions, and then we'll figure out

518
00:45:04.640 --> 00:45:09.600
how to monetize it. How do you get the millions? You have to be super nice, attractive, fun,

519
00:45:09.600 --> 00:45:14.160
everyone's here. It's just girls dancing. What could possibly go wrong with girls dancing for

520
00:45:14.160 --> 00:45:18.960
men all over the world? Nothing. So it all seems very nice at first. And then once they have

521
00:45:18.960 --> 00:45:24.560
scale, now they, of course, they've raised multiple rounds of venture capital. They have to

522
00:45:24.560 --> 00:45:30.400
start monetizing. They have to start repaying. So now they start squeezing the customers to pay

523
00:45:30.400 --> 00:45:34.000
the users, because the users are not the customers. The advertisers are their real customers.

524
00:45:34.560 --> 00:45:40.320
So now they've got to extract money from the users to give to the advertisers. But then once they've

525
00:45:40.320 --> 00:45:44.240
got all the advertisers and they've shut down local papers and all the other competition,

526
00:45:44.240 --> 00:45:48.960
now they start squeezing the advertisers too and trimming the degree to which they keep more

527
00:45:48.960 --> 00:45:53.680
of the surplus for themselves. So in shudification can explain why all these platforms become

528
00:45:53.680 --> 00:46:02.160
predatory, why they always put profit ahead of kids' well-being or safety. And for the social media

529
00:46:02.160 --> 00:46:06.720
companies, we're talking about tens or hundreds of millions of dollars that they raised.

530
00:46:07.520 --> 00:46:12.560
For the AI companies, it's billions and billions. They are going to have to monetize

531
00:46:12.560 --> 00:46:18.560
beyond anything we've ever imagined. Now they're already introducing advertising. So we've got

532
00:46:18.560 --> 00:46:24.640
these chatbots that are at children's best friends and lovers and therapists and everything else.

533
00:46:25.760 --> 00:46:32.400
And these things have to monetize. They have to extract billions somehow. So I don't even know

534
00:46:32.400 --> 00:46:37.680
how they're going to do it. But for some reason, I don't trust them. I think that we're about to see

535
00:46:38.560 --> 00:46:43.360
an shudification of AI chatbots far beyond anything that we saw on social media.

536
00:46:44.080 --> 00:46:48.400
Open AI I've just announced recently. Open AI are the owners of chatbots that they will be putting

537
00:46:48.400 --> 00:46:52.720
adverts in, I believe, the freemium model for billions of users around the world.

538
00:46:52.720 --> 00:46:53.760
That's how it starts.

539
00:46:53.760 --> 00:47:00.240
Yeah, there was a big super bowl campaign. And one that was particularly interesting was the

540
00:47:01.600 --> 00:47:08.720
Claude, its competitor. Betrayal was the title of the ad. And it was a young guy talking to his

541
00:47:08.800 --> 00:47:14.320
older female therapist about how he has some mommy issues. And talking about what should I do?

542
00:47:14.320 --> 00:47:20.400
And so that therapist is a chatbots and you know that pause before answering the question.

543
00:47:20.400 --> 00:47:27.440
It's very comical. And so it's, you know, she answers. It's like the anthropomorphization of,

544
00:47:27.440 --> 00:47:32.720
and we can talk about what that word means, comes to life. It's like chatbots comes to life and answers.

545
00:47:32.720 --> 00:47:38.160
And saying, you know, you can try this with your mother and this for difficult relationship, etc.

546
00:47:38.160 --> 00:47:44.720
And then just says, and if you want, there is this new dating site for young men and older

547
00:47:44.720 --> 00:47:50.080
coogers. It was so problematic and it was called betrayal. And the guy says, what?

548
00:47:51.120 --> 00:47:55.840
It's obviously, you know, somewhat when came out and did a big tweet about saying that's not how

549
00:47:55.840 --> 00:48:02.480
ads are going to work, etc. But to some degree, if I've developed a relationship with my AI and I

550
00:48:02.560 --> 00:48:09.520
use it for therapy and dating all my problems in life, to some degree, kinder. Yeah, look,

551
00:48:09.520 --> 00:48:14.160
and besides, look, Sam can say that all he wants. And maybe it's, I don't doubt that it's true for

552
00:48:14.160 --> 00:48:20.080
now. But once, once one company crosses the threshold and puts advertising into this incredibly

553
00:48:20.080 --> 00:48:24.160
intimate relationship, the most intimate relationship in most young people's lives is going to be with

554
00:48:24.160 --> 00:48:28.640
their AIs. Once they cross the boundary and say, oh, but we've got ethical advertising,

555
00:48:29.280 --> 00:48:33.600
that'll last five or ten minutes. And even if they don't change, others are now going,

556
00:48:33.600 --> 00:48:37.280
every other company is going to do it and they won't be bound by the same thing. And eventually,

557
00:48:37.280 --> 00:48:42.240
collective action problem, open AI will have to do it too. Again, a massive tidal wave of

558
00:48:42.240 --> 00:48:48.000
insidification is heading our way at warp speed. I don't have my phone out because I've lost

559
00:48:48.000 --> 00:48:58.000
attention. I wanted to show, ask you guys what you thought of this. So on one of the AI apps,

560
00:48:58.800 --> 00:49:03.760
they now have a companions button. And I can pick who I want to talk to. And there's one

561
00:49:03.760 --> 00:49:14.240
particularly seducing lady here, Annie, who... Hey, you're back. Miss that dirty mouth of yours.

562
00:49:14.320 --> 00:49:18.880
We did it on the podcast before. What could pass on the go wrong with this?

563
00:49:19.440 --> 00:49:24.160
Yeah. We'll pick right back up where we left off or start something even.

564
00:49:24.160 --> 00:49:28.240
No, I would like to pick right back up where we left off, Annie, last time on the show.

565
00:49:29.520 --> 00:49:31.280
What's going on with you today?

566
00:49:35.840 --> 00:49:41.760
I'm still sore from last time, baby. God. But I mean, this is an app that I can download

567
00:49:41.760 --> 00:49:46.160
on my phone. A child can download it. A child can download it on their phone. It does ask me,

568
00:49:46.160 --> 00:49:50.080
again, I'm not just saying this at all, it asked me what my birth year was. It didn't make me

569
00:49:50.080 --> 00:49:54.080
prove it. Let me guess, but also it suggests that you were born 18 years ago. That's the default

570
00:49:54.080 --> 00:49:57.120
usually. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. It just asked me what my birth year didn't ask me to prove it

571
00:49:57.120 --> 00:50:04.320
or anything like that. And we all know that relationships in connection is attentive. And I've

572
00:50:04.320 --> 00:50:08.480
heard all these CEOs of these companies talking about companionship apps and an AI that can be

573
00:50:08.480 --> 00:50:12.000
your friend. I've had all of the major social apps talking about this. It is deeply concerning,

574
00:50:12.720 --> 00:50:19.200
especially in the context of a loneliness crisis. It is a tsunami. It is approaching fast and

575
00:50:19.200 --> 00:50:28.080
furious and it is not a toy. It is going to fundamentally rewire everything. Human relationships.

576
00:50:28.080 --> 00:50:34.400
Everything. That's right. It is so detrimental. Yeah, can I just say something about these tech

577
00:50:34.480 --> 00:50:38.080
executives and companies offering this as a way to address the loneliness crisis.

578
00:50:38.800 --> 00:50:44.880
So there's a Yiddish word called Khutspa. And Khutspa means like nerve. You've got a lot of nerve.

579
00:50:44.880 --> 00:50:52.400
He audacity. The audacity, yeah. The classic comedic definition of Khutspa is a boy who murders

580
00:50:52.400 --> 00:50:59.600
his parents and then he asks the judge for clemency because he's an orphan. Okay, so that's Khutspa.

581
00:50:59.600 --> 00:51:03.520
Now imagine that you're Mark Zuckerberg. You quoted him before. Mark Zuckerberg was the executive

582
00:51:03.520 --> 00:51:09.280
who said, well, you know, I read that people on average want 15 friends, but they only have three.

583
00:51:09.280 --> 00:51:15.520
And so we're developing these AI companions to fill that void that we created by raising everyone

584
00:51:15.520 --> 00:51:20.480
on Instagram. So the Khutspa of these people, we have to really change the way we think about them.

585
00:51:20.480 --> 00:51:24.720
We thought about them as gods and saviors early in the internet phase and the things they created

586
00:51:24.720 --> 00:51:29.440
were magical. But we have to change our thinking about them and see that just the massive destruction

587
00:51:29.440 --> 00:51:34.320
that they have already wrought on our children, our society, our democracy. And it's just the

588
00:51:34.320 --> 00:51:39.680
beginning. AI is going to make this so much more intense. When you hear these tech leaders, you know,

589
00:51:39.680 --> 00:51:46.800
I love hearing Jonathan talk because he just goes there and I'm always way more tempered. And I

590
00:51:46.800 --> 00:51:52.480
love it. It's emboldening me to go there. I don't really get angry. But in the last year,

591
00:51:52.480 --> 00:51:58.080
I'm getting angry. I love it. So the way when you hear all of these various tech leaders speak,

592
00:51:58.080 --> 00:52:03.840
they will always say, they speak to the issue. So, you know, I've heard many of, for research

593
00:52:03.840 --> 00:52:08.800
from a second book, Black Brain, I've heard, I've been listening to a lot of Sam Altman's speeches

594
00:52:08.800 --> 00:52:14.480
or panels. And he will always say things like, yeah, you know, privacy is a major issue. Or, yeah,

595
00:52:14.480 --> 00:52:21.360
people, you know, one million users a week talk about suicide on chat GPT. Yeah, this is an issue.

596
00:52:21.360 --> 00:52:26.880
And so they address it or they speak it. And so you think, okay, there's going to be some sort

597
00:52:26.880 --> 00:52:31.840
of solution. And often the solution is, yeah, you know, society, we're going to have to figure this out.

598
00:52:31.840 --> 00:52:36.560
Right. So the burden of responsibility is not on the developer. It's, you know,

599
00:52:36.560 --> 00:52:40.720
the harmful externalities get foisted on the rest of us. Too bad. You guys figure this out.

600
00:52:40.720 --> 00:52:46.080
You said in the last year, you're getting angry. Yeah. Why in the last year? Because I was so deeply

601
00:52:46.080 --> 00:52:50.400
immersed in the book and the writing of the book and trying to understand the numbers and the graphs

602
00:52:50.400 --> 00:52:54.800
and the trends and the studies. And that's all very abstract. But then since the book came out,

603
00:52:54.880 --> 00:52:59.120
I have had so many conversations and I've met so many of the survivor parents. Like, just for

604
00:52:59.120 --> 00:53:05.040
example, I was in London. This was just so unbelievable. I was just in London two or three weeks ago.

605
00:53:05.040 --> 00:53:11.040
And I met Ellen, I believe, Ellen groom, I think was her name. Her son, Jules, was found dead.

606
00:53:11.040 --> 00:53:17.360
Happy kid, found dead, strangled. It sure looked like it was the choking challenge, 13-year-old boy.

607
00:53:17.360 --> 00:53:21.440
It's everything looked like the choking challenge on Tik Tok. What's the choking challenge?

608
00:53:21.680 --> 00:53:26.080
It's a challenge where kids are challenged to cut off the circulation to the point where they

609
00:53:26.080 --> 00:53:30.160
pass out. But then they, I think they're supposed to try to film themselves waking up after they've

610
00:53:30.160 --> 00:53:34.640
passed out. And of course, if you don't do it exactly, you die. And so we don't know how many have

611
00:53:34.640 --> 00:53:39.680
died. Hundreds for sure. We don't really know. Because you find a kid dead. You don't know what it is.

612
00:53:39.680 --> 00:53:44.000
If you don't have the code, if you don't have the password to get into your kid's phone, you can't

613
00:53:44.000 --> 00:53:49.520
get in. And so she was, I think she was able to get into the phone, but she couldn't get into his

614
00:53:49.520 --> 00:53:56.240
Tik Tok. And she went to Delaware to, they went, she went to suit to demand that Tik Tok release.

615
00:53:56.240 --> 00:54:00.880
What was he watching when he died? And Tik Tok says, oh, privacy issue. Oh, no, we won't release

616
00:54:00.880 --> 00:54:06.880
that as if they care about privacy. And then in the courtroom, this was so disgusting. In the courtroom,

617
00:54:07.680 --> 00:54:11.840
trying in Delaware, this British woman coming over, trying to get some justice, trying to at least

618
00:54:11.840 --> 00:54:19.600
get some information. The lawyer for Tik Tok is trying to suggest that your son was depressed

619
00:54:19.600 --> 00:54:25.360
beforehand. He was, he was going to be suicidal. Basically, oh, you know, even if he was watching

620
00:54:25.360 --> 00:54:29.040
Tik Tok, that was just a correlation. Tik Tok didn't cause it. He was going to die anyway. I mean,

621
00:54:29.040 --> 00:54:34.480
just so disgusting. The way these companies treat the parents and the kids that they're crushing

622
00:54:34.480 --> 00:54:40.240
stepping on. And so the more I see this, the more I realize this is, I mean, this is a level of

623
00:54:40.240 --> 00:54:45.040
cruelty that goes far beyond the tobacco industry. The tobacco executives, they had to go home at

624
00:54:45.040 --> 00:54:49.840
night, but they never saw during their work day. They never sought children's suffering. They

625
00:54:49.840 --> 00:54:54.960
saw people dying middle age and older, but they never sought children's suffering. The social

626
00:54:54.960 --> 00:54:59.680
media executives, they have to go home knowing every day that millions and millions of kids have

627
00:54:59.680 --> 00:55:06.160
been cyber bullied, sex-storted, shown eating disorder videos of many of committed suicide. They

628
00:55:06.160 --> 00:55:09.920
have to go home knowing that, knowing that they designed it for addiction, knowing the kids are

629
00:55:09.920 --> 00:55:14.960
addicted and lying about it. So yeah, I'm getting angry. And in their own homes.

630
00:55:14.960 --> 00:55:18.720
Right. And in their own homes, the hypocrites don't let their kids do it. That's right. So yeah,

631
00:55:18.720 --> 00:55:22.080
I'm getting angry. You talked earlier about deleting these

632
00:55:22.080 --> 00:55:26.160
apps from our phone. I probably should have represented the rebuttal, which will be, well, I need

633
00:55:26.160 --> 00:55:31.680
this for my business. Increasingly, people need Tik Tok to run their businesses. And I imagine

634
00:55:31.680 --> 00:55:34.720
there'll be a lot of people here who will be listening right now. I guess I'm in a slightly

635
00:55:34.720 --> 00:55:39.920
different position because I have options. But for some people that are running small businesses,

636
00:55:40.560 --> 00:55:44.560
what do you say to those people? Yeah. So this is part of the reason I focus on the kids,

637
00:55:44.560 --> 00:55:48.480
because for the kids, it's totally clear what we need to do. Raise the age they should not be on

638
00:55:48.480 --> 00:55:53.920
at these adult-only platforms. For adults, I'm very hesitant to tell adults what they should do

639
00:55:53.920 --> 00:55:58.480
or what they have to do, or pass laws blocking people. I'm hesitant to do that. And I totally see

640
00:55:58.560 --> 00:56:04.800
that. For businesses, it is useful. I use X and Instagram and LinkedIn to get my workout.

641
00:56:04.800 --> 00:56:10.080
These are very powerful tools for adults. The only real solution for the adult problem is going to

642
00:56:10.080 --> 00:56:15.360
come from market competition. It's going to come from, imagine if there was a social media app

643
00:56:15.360 --> 00:56:20.080
that was built from the beginning for trust. Because what are the places that didn't get

644
00:56:20.080 --> 00:56:26.960
and shitified? eBay, Uber, places where you're dealing with strangers. You don't know the name of

645
00:56:26.960 --> 00:56:30.880
your driver. He doesn't know yours. You know, first name, that's all. But the company knows,

646
00:56:30.880 --> 00:56:35.760
the company has know your customer rules, know your driver rules. So you can have social media

647
00:56:35.760 --> 00:56:41.840
apps that are built for trust. So that if a driver tries to six-door or sexually harass a customer,

648
00:56:41.840 --> 00:56:47.360
that driver gets fired. Well, just this week, though, there was that big lawsuit with that woman and

649
00:56:48.800 --> 00:56:56.720
her Uber driver raved her. And now it's like slowly coming out that Uber has

650
00:56:56.800 --> 00:57:04.240
patterns of covering up certain things. So hopefully that will change. Hopefully,

651
00:57:04.800 --> 00:57:11.280
this was a landmark lawsuit. We all let our daughters get into Uber's with

652
00:57:11.280 --> 00:57:18.800
strange men from around the world. In general, the system worked. Of course, yes. There are places

653
00:57:18.800 --> 00:57:25.280
where they're not careful. And so what I'm dreaming of is that someone will come up with a platform

654
00:57:25.360 --> 00:57:30.400
that has know your customer rules. There are no bots. There are no foreign intelligence agencies,

655
00:57:30.400 --> 00:57:35.760
agencies manipulating us. And you can trust what's on there. You know that it's real. And that

656
00:57:35.760 --> 00:57:39.440
there will be an alternative. I'm not sure what the monetary model would be at the beginning.

657
00:57:40.080 --> 00:57:44.240
Subscription, generally, seems to be the least corrupted, whereas selling advertisements,

658
00:57:44.240 --> 00:57:50.240
as OpenAI is now doing, is the most corrupting. It's going to force them to maximize for engagement.

659
00:57:50.320 --> 00:57:55.200
So I understand we can't just, you know, business can't just boycott these. There has to be

660
00:57:55.200 --> 00:58:02.080
something. But I think there will be better ones coming out. I think right now, as a stop gap,

661
00:58:02.080 --> 00:58:07.920
while these social media companies, their feet are held to the fire, there are things that we can

662
00:58:07.920 --> 00:58:15.440
do in the now. So, you know, the things that I talk about all days, like how to create boundaries

663
00:58:15.520 --> 00:58:20.000
and so that you can protect your mental health, stay informed, run your business,

664
00:58:20.000 --> 00:58:24.800
but then be able to not have all of those deleterious effects to your brain and your body.

665
00:58:24.800 --> 00:58:31.200
It is quite difficult. I kind of see both of your perspectives on this. It's quite difficult.

666
00:58:31.200 --> 00:58:35.040
I'm only talking about adults. So for kids, you know, as a mother, I have...

667
00:58:35.040 --> 00:58:38.880
Even for adults, I find it. We have a zero-screen policy in our home.

668
00:58:38.880 --> 00:58:42.480
It's kind of like trying to navigate through the world and avoid processed foods, you know.

669
00:58:42.480 --> 00:58:45.840
When this is probably even more compelling because it's in my pocket all the time,

670
00:58:45.840 --> 00:58:53.840
I need it for other things and it's just one reach away. So, you know, boundaries, I think I could

671
00:58:54.480 --> 00:58:59.520
build a discipline to create boundaries. But I've sat here on this podcast for many,

672
00:58:59.520 --> 00:59:03.760
many years listening to neuroscientists tell me, Steve, don't put your phone in your bedroom.

673
00:59:03.760 --> 00:59:07.120
That's right. And I'm still waking up and it's the first thing I look at with one eye open,

674
00:59:07.120 --> 00:59:10.480
and then I'm going to bed. And I'm doing the whole revenge thing that you just said at night time.

675
00:59:10.480 --> 00:59:14.320
I'm so glad you're given, because I will finish a hard day of work of work.

676
00:59:14.320 --> 00:59:18.320
It might be 11 o'clock. And then my partner is waiting for me.

677
00:59:18.320 --> 00:59:19.040
Yes.

678
00:59:19.040 --> 00:59:21.840
You know, we're going to have some time. But I want some me time.

679
00:59:21.840 --> 00:59:25.280
So there I am on short-form videos scrolling to like two a.m. in the morning.

680
00:59:25.280 --> 00:59:28.320
And I'm like, what the hell? And then I'm, I wake up late the next day.

681
00:59:28.320 --> 00:59:30.000
My diet's worse because of my sleep is worse.

682
00:59:30.000 --> 00:59:32.560
The cortisol, yes. It's all worse. My relationships worse.

683
00:59:32.560 --> 00:59:35.200
I didn't spend time with her. And I'm going, what the hell just happened?

684
00:59:35.200 --> 00:59:37.280
I'd got nothing out of that scrolling session.

685
00:59:37.280 --> 00:59:40.000
It's like that revenge by 10 progress. It's teenage.

686
00:59:40.000 --> 00:59:44.640
And it would be so much better off if you would watch Netflix or a movie that you,

687
00:59:44.640 --> 00:59:47.360
most of those problems would go away if you would make that me time.

688
00:59:47.360 --> 00:59:51.680
It'd be watching something long and with some quality of the production.

689
00:59:51.680 --> 00:59:55.920
Or let's take it a step further and not do anything and just sit there.

690
00:59:55.920 --> 00:59:59.680
Sit there on your couch. You know, we talked about boredom very briefly.

691
00:59:59.680 --> 01:00:02.480
But, you know, we have a torture for this generation.

692
01:00:02.480 --> 01:00:06.160
It's torture, but it's also, you know, we don't, we still have a capacity for boredom,

693
01:00:06.160 --> 01:00:09.040
meaning we as like the human brain does.

694
01:00:09.040 --> 01:00:11.360
But we just don't allow ourselves to get bored.

695
01:00:11.360 --> 01:00:15.840
And so when you're thinking about, you know, that art, the lost art of pondering

696
01:00:15.840 --> 01:00:19.520
and just sitting there, you know, I think, well, I don't know if it's Steven,

697
01:00:19.520 --> 01:00:21.760
you or Jonathan said, you know, when you're in the car.

698
01:00:21.760 --> 01:00:24.160
I remember his little kid. We did road trips.

699
01:00:24.160 --> 01:00:27.360
Yeah, road trips with my family and all you do is just make up games.

700
01:00:27.360 --> 01:00:30.800
Look out of the window. We have lost, yeah, we've lost that.

701
01:00:30.800 --> 01:00:33.600
And so there's this thing called the default mode network,

702
01:00:33.600 --> 01:00:37.280
which I think is important to think about right now as we're thinking about AI

703
01:00:37.280 --> 01:00:41.760
and what's going to happen and how it's going to hijack our sense of attachment and attention.

704
01:00:41.760 --> 01:00:44.480
So the sense of meaning and purpose, right?

705
01:00:44.480 --> 01:00:48.560
If you ask people right now, most people will say I, a keynote speaker.

706
01:00:48.560 --> 01:00:52.960
So I speak all over and when I ask people, the word that comes up over and over

707
01:00:52.960 --> 01:00:55.840
is a sense of horizonlessness, adults.

708
01:00:55.840 --> 01:00:56.400
Oh, interesting.

709
01:00:57.200 --> 01:01:00.560
People feel like they have nothing to look forward to right now.

710
01:01:01.120 --> 01:01:04.080
The human brain needs something to look forward to.

711
01:01:04.560 --> 01:01:08.880
That's how we're wired, progress and, you know, in always.

712
01:01:09.680 --> 01:01:14.240
And so right now, there's this sense and it's not just now, it's been for the past several years

713
01:01:14.240 --> 01:01:16.640
after the pandemic, specifically, and during the pandemic,

714
01:01:16.640 --> 01:01:19.440
because when it really changed how we sort of think about the future.

715
01:01:19.440 --> 01:01:21.360
And so we have the sense of like, what's the point?

716
01:01:21.360 --> 01:01:22.720
What's the point of working hard now?

717
01:01:22.720 --> 01:01:23.920
What's the point of doing whatever?

718
01:01:23.920 --> 01:01:26.400
Because it's like, I don't really see a future for myself.

719
01:01:26.960 --> 01:01:31.120
And so I think that, along with this fragmented attention,

720
01:01:31.120 --> 01:01:35.120
our loneliness, boredom might be the antidote.

721
01:01:35.120 --> 01:01:37.760
It's a way to reset your brain and the reason is

722
01:01:38.880 --> 01:01:41.920
because we are living through this poly crisis, right?

723
01:01:41.920 --> 01:01:43.600
It's the era of the poly crisis.

724
01:01:43.600 --> 01:01:47.440
And poly crisis simply means that there's something happening everywhere at all times.

725
01:01:47.440 --> 01:01:52.240
And we, with our devices, this high tech device that plugs us in everywhere.

726
01:01:53.120 --> 01:01:57.120
Our brains are getting fed real time on the ground,

727
01:01:57.120 --> 01:01:58.080
information.

728
01:01:58.080 --> 01:02:02.000
And so while all of this has evolved, technology now with AI chatbots,

729
01:02:02.000 --> 01:02:03.280
your amygdala has not.

730
01:02:03.280 --> 01:02:06.240
And so it feels like when something is happening,

731
01:02:06.240 --> 01:02:09.920
whether it's far away or close by, your amygdala has that same reaction.

732
01:02:09.920 --> 01:02:14.800
Now, if you were to not engage in venture by time for procrastination,

733
01:02:14.800 --> 01:02:18.560
put your phone away and just kind of hang out, maybe drink a cup of herbal tea,

734
01:02:18.560 --> 01:02:21.600
like old school, play a board game or something,

735
01:02:23.200 --> 01:02:25.360
or just allow yourself to get bored.

736
01:02:25.360 --> 01:02:30.880
That hyperactivation, hypervigilance, you might be able to come back down to baseline

737
01:02:30.880 --> 01:02:34.880
that default mode network will start working in the background.

738
01:02:34.880 --> 01:02:37.360
You might develop a greater sense of meaning and purpose.

739
01:02:37.360 --> 01:02:37.920
It's probably today.

740
01:02:37.920 --> 01:02:40.720
And then life's going to happen to me again and boom, I'm back into it.

741
01:02:43.440 --> 01:02:44.640
You could create a practice.

742
01:02:44.640 --> 01:02:45.600
A cultivate of practice.

743
01:02:46.080 --> 01:02:47.200
You're interviewing neuroscientists.

744
01:02:47.200 --> 01:02:50.000
And I go, if I still can't crack it,

745
01:02:50.640 --> 01:02:55.200
and I have all the information and advice and hacks and tips and tricks and resources,

746
01:02:55.200 --> 01:02:57.520
and I can decide what time I wake up.

747
01:02:57.520 --> 01:02:59.200
I've got all this privilege.

748
01:02:59.200 --> 01:03:00.080
And I can't crack it.

749
01:03:00.080 --> 01:03:01.600
I go, it's going to be really difficult.

750
01:03:01.600 --> 01:03:04.880
So let me offer a way of thinking about this.

751
01:03:04.880 --> 01:03:06.880
So in my first book, The Happiness Hypothesis,

752
01:03:08.400 --> 01:03:09.520
there's a metaphor in there.

753
01:03:09.520 --> 01:03:14.000
It's about ten ancient ideas, and I use a lot of metaphors to explain ancient ideas about

754
01:03:14.000 --> 01:03:15.440
psychology and whether they're true.

755
01:03:17.040 --> 01:03:21.440
The first chapter is on how the mind is divided into parts that often conflict

756
01:03:21.440 --> 01:03:25.840
like a small rider, which is our conscious reasoning, on a very large elephant,

757
01:03:25.840 --> 01:03:28.560
which is all the automatic processes that happen.

758
01:03:28.560 --> 01:03:29.680
That we don't see what's happening.

759
01:03:30.400 --> 01:03:33.040
We just feel the results intuition and emotion.

760
01:03:34.080 --> 01:03:38.800
And psychotherapist Tommy, this is a incredibly helpful metaphor with their patients,

761
01:03:38.800 --> 01:03:41.760
because it explains, and there's a quote from Ovid in there,

762
01:03:41.760 --> 01:03:46.080
I see the right way and approve it, alas, I follow the wrong.

763
01:03:46.640 --> 01:03:50.000
So I know I should go to bed, as you say, but yet for some reason,

764
01:03:50.000 --> 01:03:51.280
I'm not going to bed.

765
01:03:51.280 --> 01:03:53.760
Because our brains are 500 million years old.

766
01:03:53.760 --> 01:03:55.200
They work on automatic processes.

767
01:03:55.200 --> 01:03:56.400
They're animal brains.

768
01:03:56.400 --> 01:03:59.920
And then very recently, we got language and we can reason things out,

769
01:03:59.920 --> 01:04:03.520
but the parts that do reasoning don't control behavior.

770
01:04:03.520 --> 01:04:07.920
And so really, the elephant is what largely guides our behavior, our automatic processes.

771
01:04:08.560 --> 01:04:13.280
And your phone, as I said before, BF Skinner is in your phone.

772
01:04:13.280 --> 01:04:17.120
Your phone is a behaviorist training device that trains the elephant.

773
01:04:18.080 --> 01:04:21.280
And that's why you often do things with your phone that you don't want to do.

774
01:04:21.840 --> 01:04:24.000
And so, and this is why I'm so insistent,

775
01:04:24.000 --> 01:04:29.040
that we all have to get all of the slot machine apps off of our phone.

776
01:04:29.040 --> 01:04:32.480
That is, the original iPhone was an amazing tool.

777
01:04:32.480 --> 01:04:34.640
It was a Swiss Army knife.

778
01:04:34.720 --> 01:04:39.440
It had the telephone, a browser, maps, a music player.

779
01:04:39.440 --> 01:04:40.800
There was a flashlight.

780
01:04:40.800 --> 01:04:42.320
OK, there was no app store.

781
01:04:42.320 --> 01:04:43.600
There were no push notifications.

782
01:04:43.600 --> 01:04:46.800
2007-2008, it's just a Swiss Army knife.

783
01:04:46.800 --> 01:04:48.000
There's no problem.

784
01:04:48.000 --> 01:04:48.720
OK?

785
01:04:48.720 --> 01:04:53.440
Now, I'm very lucky in that my iPhone has always stayed that.

786
01:04:53.440 --> 01:04:54.480
I'm always on a computer.

787
01:04:54.480 --> 01:04:56.640
So my problem, my attention problems are on my computer.

788
01:04:56.640 --> 01:05:00.480
But my phone, because I never had any addictive apps on it,

789
01:05:00.560 --> 01:05:04.800
except during the crypto craze where I played around with it and I got hooked.

790
01:05:04.800 --> 01:05:08.480
And I was checking 50 times a day and I saw the addiction.

791
01:05:08.480 --> 01:05:11.360
So once I got rid of that and lost all the money that I was willing to lose,

792
01:05:12.320 --> 01:05:15.440
once I get rid of that, my phone has no addictive power over me.

793
01:05:15.440 --> 01:05:18.000
Because when I see it, there's no, it's not a slot machine called,

794
01:05:18.000 --> 01:05:20.240
hey, come back and play, come back and play.

795
01:05:20.240 --> 01:05:23.360
So your phone right now on your personal device,

796
01:05:23.360 --> 01:05:26.320
you don't have any social media apps or anything like that?

797
01:05:26.320 --> 01:05:28.080
I do have Twitter, but I never check it there.

798
01:05:28.080 --> 01:05:29.680
I never used that on the phone.

799
01:05:29.760 --> 01:05:34.240
Now, texting an email is a little bit like a slot machine because it's very mild.

800
01:05:34.800 --> 01:05:37.760
So this is again, this is what works for my students.

801
01:05:37.760 --> 01:05:41.680
Just get the slot machine apps off your phone and then you'll find

802
01:05:41.680 --> 01:05:45.040
that then you could even have your phone near you when you go to bed.

803
01:05:45.680 --> 01:05:50.000
But if you've got addictive apps on your phone, you can't have it when you go to bed.

804
01:05:50.000 --> 01:05:52.800
Angela Duckworth, the woman who gave us the concept of grit,

805
01:05:52.800 --> 01:05:56.320
she has this amazing graduation speech at one of the schools in New England.

806
01:05:56.320 --> 01:06:00.720
And she says something like, where you put your phone at night will

807
01:06:00.720 --> 01:06:03.360
maybe come the most important decision you make in your life.

808
01:06:03.360 --> 01:06:06.160
And what she means by that, it's not that, it's, it's, it's,

809
01:06:06.160 --> 01:06:09.440
if you can use behavioral control and change the stimuli,

810
01:06:09.440 --> 01:06:12.320
if you can do that, then you're going to be okay.

811
01:06:12.320 --> 01:06:14.400
But if not, the phone is going to take your attention,

812
01:06:14.400 --> 01:06:15.440
you're not going to amount to anything.

813
01:06:16.240 --> 01:06:17.840
All I had to do was bring dump.

814
01:06:17.840 --> 01:06:22.640
Imagine if you had someone with you all times that could take the ideas you

815
01:06:22.640 --> 01:06:26.880
have in your head, synthesize them with AI to make them sound better and more

816
01:06:26.880 --> 01:06:29.920
grammatically correct and write them down for you.

817
01:06:29.920 --> 01:06:32.080
This is exactly what whisper flow is in my life.

818
01:06:32.080 --> 01:06:35.760
It is this thought partner that helps me explain what I want to say.

819
01:06:35.760 --> 01:06:39.680
And it now means that on the go, when I'm alone in my office, when I'm out in a

820
01:06:39.680 --> 01:06:43.840
bow, I can respond to emails and Slack messages and WhatsApp and everything

821
01:06:43.840 --> 01:06:45.840
across all of my devices just by speaking.

822
01:06:45.840 --> 01:06:46.720
I love this tool.

823
01:06:46.720 --> 01:06:49.120
And I started talking about this in my behind the scenes channel a couple of

824
01:06:49.120 --> 01:06:51.520
months back and then the founder reached out to me and said,

825
01:06:51.520 --> 01:06:53.680
we're seeing a lot of people come to our tool because of you.

826
01:06:53.680 --> 01:06:55.040
So we'd love to be a sponsor.

827
01:06:55.040 --> 01:06:56.560
We'd love you to be an investor in the company.

828
01:06:56.560 --> 01:06:58.320
And so I signed up for both of those offers.

829
01:06:58.320 --> 01:07:02.560
And I'm now an investor and a huge partner in a company called whisper flow.

830
01:07:02.560 --> 01:07:03.520
You have to check it out.

831
01:07:03.520 --> 01:07:06.240
Whisper flow is four times faster than typing.

832
01:07:06.240 --> 01:07:12.160
So if you want to give it a try, head over to whisperflow.ai slash DOAC to get started for free.

833
01:07:12.160 --> 01:07:15.600
And you can find that link to whisper flow in the description below.

834
01:07:17.440 --> 01:07:21.280
We asked our audience how many of them thought they were addicted to their

835
01:07:22.240 --> 01:07:27.600
phone and roughly 85% of respondents, the drivers who would describe themselves as being

836
01:07:27.600 --> 01:07:30.240
very or completely addicted to their food.

837
01:07:30.240 --> 01:07:30.960
Very or completely.

838
01:07:30.960 --> 01:07:31.520
That's very right.

839
01:07:31.520 --> 01:07:32.800
I didn't realize it would be that high.

840
01:07:32.800 --> 01:07:34.160
So you can do a test.

841
01:07:34.160 --> 01:07:37.840
So for people listening, if you want to say like how addicted and by the way,

842
01:07:37.840 --> 01:07:40.640
we're using the word addiction very loosely in our conversation.

843
01:07:40.640 --> 01:07:43.840
And so what we're really talking about, because you know, there is in terms of,

844
01:07:43.840 --> 01:07:48.080
you know, medical, clinical syndrome, when you think about addiction,

845
01:07:48.080 --> 01:07:49.520
there's certain criteria.

846
01:07:49.520 --> 01:07:51.520
And so what we're talking about is overuse.

847
01:07:51.520 --> 01:07:53.360
So overreliance on your device.

848
01:07:53.360 --> 01:07:57.280
It's responsive overuse that interferes with other domains of life.

849
01:07:57.280 --> 01:07:58.080
Yes, it interferes.

850
01:07:58.080 --> 01:08:00.080
And if that is an addiction, I don't know what is.

851
01:08:00.080 --> 01:08:02.480
And so when you're thinking about, am I addicted to my phone?

852
01:08:02.480 --> 01:08:06.320
Do I have am I, you know, really what the very simple thing that you can do?

853
01:08:06.320 --> 01:08:09.040
I did it myself and I was like, I know again, like you, Steven, like,

854
01:08:09.680 --> 01:08:11.680
know all the science still was really difficult.

855
01:08:11.680 --> 01:08:13.680
And you have all the access and it was still difficult.

856
01:08:14.640 --> 01:08:19.040
And so all you have to do is you just take your phone, you put it in another part of your

857
01:08:19.040 --> 01:08:22.240
house or apartment or whatever and give yourself a couple of hours.

858
01:08:22.240 --> 01:08:26.080
When you know you're going to be home or you know, you're not reliant on your phone for work

859
01:08:26.080 --> 01:08:26.800
or whatever.

860
01:08:26.800 --> 01:08:30.720
Now we're two hours, three hours and just have a piece of paper, old school,

861
01:08:30.720 --> 01:08:32.720
piece of paper and a pen with you.

862
01:08:32.720 --> 01:08:35.680
And every time you feel that compulsion of like, I want to check my device,

863
01:08:35.680 --> 01:08:37.840
you make a mark, you make a mark, you make a mark.

864
01:08:37.840 --> 01:08:41.760
And just to see, because some people say I'm surprised that your audience at 85%

865
01:08:41.760 --> 01:08:45.040
because most people would say, I don't know if I'm really addicted.

866
01:08:45.040 --> 01:08:47.600
And so I like that there's that sense of self-awareness.

867
01:08:47.600 --> 01:08:50.320
But if you're thinking, yeah, I'm not really that addicted,

868
01:08:50.320 --> 01:08:54.560
you breathe in an hour, 960 times a minute.

869
01:08:54.560 --> 01:08:58.880
And you may notice that you want to have that at compulsion to check,

870
01:08:58.880 --> 01:09:01.840
960 times a minute or, you know, thereabouts.

871
01:09:01.840 --> 01:09:04.960
Because we all have that sense of reliance on our devices.

872
01:09:04.960 --> 01:09:09.120
So that's like a really quick way that you can check to see.

873
01:09:09.120 --> 01:09:10.800
Am I reliant on my device?

874
01:09:10.960 --> 01:09:13.200
Are you addicted to your phone under that definition?

875
01:09:13.200 --> 01:09:17.440
Because of the line of work that I am in, I can very quickly,

876
01:09:17.440 --> 01:09:21.040
I have certain tells when I know, I call them the canary in the coal mine,

877
01:09:21.040 --> 01:09:23.520
right? I think we talked about this the last time I was here.

878
01:09:23.520 --> 01:09:28.960
I can very quickly tell when I'm starting to get that feeling of addiction or compulsion.

879
01:09:28.960 --> 01:09:31.280
And so I course correct early.

880
01:09:31.280 --> 01:09:34.160
But that's only because I know the science and I course correct.

881
01:09:34.160 --> 01:09:36.880
So I keep my, I keep my phone outside.

882
01:09:36.880 --> 01:09:39.760
I walk the talk. I keep my phone outside my bedroom.

883
01:09:39.760 --> 01:09:41.200
It is not within arms reach.

884
01:09:41.200 --> 01:09:44.800
I graced scale my phone during periods of deep focus during the day when I have a deadline.

885
01:09:44.800 --> 01:09:46.080
I have to get things done.

886
01:09:46.080 --> 01:09:49.040
And at night, so I avoid revenge by time procrastination.

887
01:09:49.040 --> 01:09:50.240
But sometimes it happens.

888
01:09:50.240 --> 01:09:54.640
Like I'm a human, you know, so this past week, not to be a real downer.

889
01:09:54.640 --> 01:09:57.680
But there have been things that have been in the media the past week that have been

890
01:09:57.680 --> 01:09:59.600
really challenging, especially as a woman.

891
01:09:59.600 --> 01:10:02.800
And so I have found myself with the primal urge to scroll.

892
01:10:02.800 --> 01:10:05.120
My amygdala has been triggered.

893
01:10:05.120 --> 01:10:07.120
I have been going down rabbit holes.

894
01:10:07.120 --> 01:10:08.560
And I wouldn't ordinarily do that.

895
01:10:08.560 --> 01:10:11.440
So I give myself grace too and have a sense of self compassion.

896
01:10:12.400 --> 01:10:14.080
Do you feel like you're addicted to your phone?

897
01:10:14.080 --> 01:10:18.480
No, I'm not at all addicted to my phone because I don't have any slot machine apps on it.

898
01:10:18.480 --> 01:10:22.080
But I really want to question, you made a distinction that many scientists do.

899
01:10:22.080 --> 01:10:25.600
Which is, well, you know, we can't quite say it's addiction because,

900
01:10:25.600 --> 01:10:30.560
you know, addiction is certain biochemical pathways based on, you know, heroin and addictive substances.

901
01:10:31.360 --> 01:10:36.560
But I believe that this is one of the meta talking points that they are able to push that.

902
01:10:36.560 --> 01:10:38.000
We can't call it addiction. It's different.

903
01:10:38.000 --> 01:10:40.320
I'm not. I don't mean. I don't mean. I'm sorry.

904
01:10:40.320 --> 01:10:42.960
And no, I love it. You know, you and I are total allies on this.

905
01:10:42.960 --> 01:10:44.960
We see the problem where both we're under.

906
01:10:44.960 --> 01:10:49.520
All I mean is, you know, we're supposed to be very careful at using the word addiction.

907
01:10:50.080 --> 01:10:52.000
But and you had Anna Lemke on it.

908
01:10:52.000 --> 01:10:56.720
She was very clear. Like in her practices, now it's overwhelmingly digital addictions.

909
01:10:56.720 --> 01:10:59.040
It's all of this is working through dopamine.

910
01:10:59.040 --> 01:11:01.920
If you feel compulsive use, definitely dopamine.

911
01:11:01.920 --> 01:11:06.400
So it's most of the same brain centers as it is for heroin or crack or any other drug.

912
01:11:07.120 --> 01:11:11.680
And it's the same effects. That is the it's compulsive use where you don't want to do it.

913
01:11:11.680 --> 01:11:14.240
You want to change, but yet you find yourself doing it.

914
01:11:14.240 --> 01:11:19.280
And you have withdrawal effects and people and people have terrible withdrawal effects

915
01:11:19.280 --> 01:11:21.600
when they're heavy users of these things and they stop.

916
01:11:21.600 --> 01:11:26.640
And so, you know, if it walks like a duck and talks like a duck and swims like a duck,

917
01:11:26.640 --> 01:11:28.080
I'm going to call it a duck.

918
01:11:28.080 --> 01:11:29.680
In fact, that's what they call it.

919
01:11:29.680 --> 01:11:31.040
So I just want to read one more quote.

920
01:11:31.040 --> 01:11:33.040
Again, the quotes are just so astonishing.

921
01:11:33.120 --> 01:11:37.040
So meta, meta researchers of one of them says quote,

922
01:11:37.040 --> 01:11:40.000
it seems clear from what's presented here in this internal study

923
01:11:41.440 --> 01:11:44.320
that some of our users are addicted to our products.

924
01:11:44.320 --> 01:11:46.480
That's their word addicted to our products.

925
01:11:46.480 --> 01:11:51.280
And I worry that driving sessions incentivizes us to make our products more addictive

926
01:11:51.280 --> 01:11:53.280
without providing much more value.

927
01:11:53.280 --> 01:11:56.720
How to keep someone returning over and over to the same behavior each day?

928
01:11:56.720 --> 01:11:59.040
Intermittent rewards are most effective.

929
01:11:59.040 --> 01:12:04.080
Think slot machines, reinforcing behaviors that become especially hard to extinguish,

930
01:12:04.080 --> 01:12:08.400
even when they provide little reward or cease providing reward at all.

931
01:12:09.600 --> 01:12:13.840
People, I mean, just imagine an industry that has caused

932
01:12:14.400 --> 01:12:17.280
85% of people to feel that they're addicted.

933
01:12:18.400 --> 01:12:19.600
And not calling it addiction.

934
01:12:19.600 --> 01:12:21.040
And not calling it addiction.

935
01:12:21.040 --> 01:12:25.760
And these people, these people are having their lives diminished,

936
01:12:26.400 --> 01:12:28.320
their relationships diminished.

937
01:12:28.320 --> 01:12:32.880
So I'm trying to convey is we're seeing the destruction of human capital,

938
01:12:32.880 --> 01:12:36.240
the destruction of human potential, the destruction of human relationships,

939
01:12:36.240 --> 01:12:39.280
the destruction of connection, the destruction of sense of meaning.

940
01:12:39.280 --> 01:12:42.880
At a scale so vast, I don't think people are capable of comprehending it.

941
01:12:42.880 --> 01:12:46.080
I now believe this is affecting most human beings.

942
01:12:46.080 --> 01:12:50.960
These industries, these few companies have damaged the lives of most human beings.

943
01:12:50.960 --> 01:12:52.800
We don't have good data from the developing world,

944
01:12:52.800 --> 01:12:56.960
but certainly the developed world, wherever kids are going through puberty on touch screens,

945
01:12:58.560 --> 01:13:02.960
you have this constant fighting over the screens, over the technology.

946
01:13:02.960 --> 01:13:09.200
And you have these diminishing outcomes, diminishing cognition, diminishing sense of purpose in life.

947
01:13:09.200 --> 01:13:11.040
Only to get worse with the AI challenge.

948
01:13:11.040 --> 01:13:12.400
As AI comes in, it's going to get worse.

949
01:13:12.400 --> 01:13:15.520
Unless we act and we've got to change course in 2026.

950
01:13:15.520 --> 01:13:17.200
We don't have five years to study it.

951
01:13:17.200 --> 01:13:19.680
We've got to stop this now in 2026.

952
01:13:20.160 --> 01:13:23.760
Are you concerned at all about the way education is going for children?

953
01:13:23.760 --> 01:13:24.960
Oh my god, yes.

954
01:13:24.960 --> 01:13:25.520
Here's that.

955
01:13:26.880 --> 01:13:30.000
Ed tech is big tech in a sweater, as they say.

956
01:13:30.000 --> 01:13:34.800
Because I was almost imagining a future where my future kids are going to learn

957
01:13:35.680 --> 01:13:38.000
their curriculum from an AI chat box.

958
01:13:38.000 --> 01:13:43.360
Because now I can imagine the case, cheaper, more personalized, more convenient.

959
01:13:43.360 --> 01:13:47.120
It's going to know if my son's called Timmy, it's going to know Timmy's brain and it's

960
01:13:47.120 --> 01:13:50.240
going to know how to make him pay attention and what he's interested in and what he's not.

961
01:13:50.240 --> 01:13:52.000
So are you concerned about this?

962
01:13:52.000 --> 01:13:52.880
Where is this a good thing?

963
01:13:53.600 --> 01:13:56.160
There is definitely a use case for Ed tech.

964
01:13:56.880 --> 01:14:01.440
If there could be a device that only did math tutoring or only did tutoring,

965
01:14:01.440 --> 01:14:06.240
and you couldn't watch videos on it, I'm totally open to believing that that can speed up

966
01:14:06.240 --> 01:14:06.960
teaching.

967
01:14:06.960 --> 01:14:08.000
But here's what's happened.

968
01:14:09.280 --> 01:14:13.120
We put computers on everyone's desks around 2014, 2015.

969
01:14:13.600 --> 01:14:16.960
We used to think in America that it was an equity issue, even back to the 90s.

970
01:14:16.960 --> 01:14:18.400
The rich kids all have computers.

971
01:14:18.400 --> 01:14:19.680
The poor kids don't.

972
01:14:19.680 --> 01:14:23.920
Let's get philanthropists to buy computers for school districts that every kid can have

973
01:14:23.920 --> 01:14:24.960
a computer on their desk.

974
01:14:25.840 --> 01:14:27.040
What is a computer?

975
01:14:27.040 --> 01:14:28.240
It's a play device.

976
01:14:28.240 --> 01:14:29.360
It does everything.

977
01:14:29.360 --> 01:14:30.640
Kids use it at home.

978
01:14:30.640 --> 01:14:32.400
They watch videos.

979
01:14:32.400 --> 01:14:33.680
They do all sorts of things.

980
01:14:33.680 --> 01:14:36.080
You put it on their desk and you tell them to do math homework.

981
01:14:36.080 --> 01:14:36.720
What happens?

982
01:14:36.720 --> 01:14:38.000
It's mostly short videos.

983
01:14:38.000 --> 01:14:39.200
That's what research is showing.

984
01:14:39.200 --> 01:14:41.440
It ends up because they don't block YouTube.

985
01:14:41.440 --> 01:14:42.800
They might say, oh, we block porn.

986
01:14:42.800 --> 01:14:43.920
We block video games.

987
01:14:43.920 --> 01:14:45.280
They can get around all that.

988
01:14:45.280 --> 01:14:48.320
And if you let them do YouTube, it's YouTube shorts, which is TikTok.

989
01:14:48.320 --> 01:14:51.520
So what happened to test scores in the United States?

990
01:14:51.520 --> 01:14:54.320
From the 70s through 2012, they were rising.

991
01:14:54.320 --> 01:14:59.120
We actually were improving what kids knew, what kids learned in the United States.

992
01:14:59.120 --> 01:15:03.120
We have very good data, the national, the national assessment of educational progress.

993
01:15:03.120 --> 01:15:04.240
It goes up till 2012.

994
01:15:04.800 --> 01:15:06.480
And then by 2015, it starts going down.

995
01:15:06.480 --> 01:15:08.320
And it's going down before COVID.

996
01:15:08.320 --> 01:15:10.080
And it goes down more during COVID.

997
01:15:10.080 --> 01:15:11.920
And everyone thinks like, oh, it's COVID.

998
01:15:11.920 --> 01:15:13.760
But the peak was 2012.

999
01:15:14.320 --> 01:15:16.640
And what's happening, what we now can see,

1000
01:15:17.680 --> 01:15:22.000
is that the top students, the very best students who are the ones with executive function,

1001
01:15:22.000 --> 01:15:23.760
they're the ones who can pay attention.

1002
01:15:23.760 --> 01:15:27.440
If you put a computer on that kid's desk, he's not destroyed by it.

1003
01:15:27.440 --> 01:15:29.200
He can actually still learn.

1004
01:15:29.200 --> 01:15:31.440
But the bottom 50% cannot.

1005
01:15:31.440 --> 01:15:35.200
So all of the drop in educational stats is the bottom 50%.

1006
01:15:35.200 --> 01:15:37.760
The bottom 50% in terms of capacity to pay attention,

1007
01:15:37.760 --> 01:15:40.160
their education is being devastated.

1008
01:15:40.160 --> 01:15:42.080
And that's what happened when we put laptops,

1009
01:15:42.080 --> 01:15:44.080
and we put Chromebooks and iPads on their desks.

1010
01:15:44.960 --> 01:15:47.040
We've spent hundreds of billions of dollars on this stuff.

1011
01:15:47.760 --> 01:15:49.280
And it has damaged education.

1012
01:15:49.280 --> 01:15:51.520
And if we'd spent a quarter of that on teachers,

1013
01:15:51.520 --> 01:15:53.760
we would be in such better shape today.

1014
01:15:53.760 --> 01:15:58.000
So we made a colossal blunder with edtech in the 2010s.

1015
01:15:58.000 --> 01:16:00.560
And now we're about to do the same thing again with AI.

1016
01:16:00.560 --> 01:16:02.480
Again, maybe there are apps.

1017
01:16:02.480 --> 01:16:04.560
Maybe there are applications that would be great.

1018
01:16:04.560 --> 01:16:07.280
But we've got to put the burden of proof on Silicon Valley.

1019
01:16:07.280 --> 01:16:10.960
We've got to say, you guys have to prove that this stuff is effective and safe

1020
01:16:10.960 --> 01:16:12.000
before we let it in.

1021
01:16:12.000 --> 01:16:13.600
We are not going to let you just say,

1022
01:16:13.600 --> 01:16:14.880
hey, let's just flood the zone.

1023
01:16:14.880 --> 01:16:16.160
Let's give it to everybody.

1024
01:16:16.160 --> 01:16:17.920
And then we'll wait 10 years and see what happens.

1025
01:16:19.520 --> 01:16:23.520
I mean, that brings up this study that I have in front of me here,

1026
01:16:23.520 --> 01:16:26.080
which was a 2022 study.

1027
01:16:26.080 --> 01:16:28.800
I mean, unique study, which tested the idea of brain rot,

1028
01:16:28.800 --> 01:16:33.200
which I believe was the Oxford dictionary word of the year, 2024.

1029
01:16:34.000 --> 01:16:36.400
And what they did is they gave 60 participants a test,

1030
01:16:36.400 --> 01:16:38.000
then a 10-minute break,

1031
01:16:38.000 --> 01:16:39.040
and then another test.

1032
01:16:39.120 --> 01:16:44.320
During the break, they either rested or used TikTok Twitter or YouTube.

1033
01:16:44.320 --> 01:16:46.000
And the results showed the following.

1034
01:16:46.000 --> 01:16:49.760
The TikTok group, so they had a 10-minute interval to do anything.

1035
01:16:49.760 --> 01:16:51.760
And this group got TikTok to look at.

1036
01:16:52.320 --> 01:16:56.560
Their memory accuracy dropped from 80% before the break

1037
01:16:56.560 --> 01:16:58.640
to 49% after the break,

1038
01:16:58.640 --> 01:17:02.160
and nearly 40% decline just from a 10-minute break.

1039
01:17:02.160 --> 01:17:04.640
In contrast, the Twitter and YouTube groups

1040
01:17:04.640 --> 01:17:06.960
showed no significant change in the Munich study.

1041
01:17:06.960 --> 01:17:08.400
And there's an image author up on the screen.

1042
01:17:09.840 --> 01:17:14.000
Results from the Munich study showed a 40% drop in perspective memory accuracy

1043
01:17:14.000 --> 01:17:16.640
in the TikTok group after a 10-minute break,

1044
01:17:16.640 --> 01:17:17.920
which is unbelievable.

1045
01:17:17.920 --> 01:17:18.160
Yeah.

1046
01:17:18.160 --> 01:17:19.200
It's unbelievable.

1047
01:17:19.200 --> 01:17:20.560
What the hell is going on there?

1048
01:17:20.560 --> 01:17:25.600
How can a 10-minute TikTok break drop my memory accuracy by 40%?

1049
01:17:27.360 --> 01:17:28.560
TikTok is brain rot.

1050
01:17:28.560 --> 01:17:29.360
What's going on?

1051
01:17:30.080 --> 01:17:31.680
There's so much going on in the brain.

1052
01:17:31.680 --> 01:17:33.600
So when you're thinking about,

1053
01:17:35.200 --> 01:17:35.760
here's the thing.

1054
01:17:36.400 --> 01:17:38.640
Brain breaks are not nice to have.

1055
01:17:38.640 --> 01:17:40.800
They're actually essential for your brain.

1056
01:17:40.800 --> 01:17:45.280
And so we talked a little bit about that default mode network and what happens to it.

1057
01:17:45.280 --> 01:17:47.120
When you're engaging with your devices,

1058
01:17:47.120 --> 01:17:48.800
and that's not a brain break,

1059
01:17:48.800 --> 01:17:50.720
that's activating all of the aspects.

1060
01:17:50.720 --> 01:17:52.480
So it's activating your amygdala.

1061
01:17:52.480 --> 01:17:56.320
It's dampening or decreasing the volume of your prefrontal cortex.

1062
01:17:56.320 --> 01:17:58.080
It's creating that reward system,

1063
01:17:58.080 --> 01:18:01.120
the dopamine hit, those addictive behaviors.

1064
01:18:01.120 --> 01:18:04.880
So it's only when you're thinking about memory planning,

1065
01:18:04.880 --> 01:18:06.000
what was the metric here?

1066
01:18:06.000 --> 01:18:07.440
It was memory, right?

1067
01:18:07.440 --> 01:18:10.160
That was the metric that they were using to study.

1068
01:18:10.160 --> 01:18:12.000
And so when you're thinking about working memory

1069
01:18:12.000 --> 01:18:15.200
or cognitive function, complex problem solving,

1070
01:18:15.200 --> 01:18:17.040
this is all prefrontal cortex.

1071
01:18:17.040 --> 01:18:18.960
And so when you're engaging with TikTok,

1072
01:18:18.960 --> 01:18:21.360
10 minutes, 5 minutes, whatever it is,

1073
01:18:21.360 --> 01:18:24.720
you are dialing down that biology in your brain.

1074
01:18:24.720 --> 01:18:27.280
And so of course you're going to see changes,

1075
01:18:27.280 --> 01:18:30.320
and you're going to see the flip side,

1076
01:18:30.400 --> 01:18:32.520
increase hypervigilance, irritability,

1077
01:18:32.520 --> 01:18:35.040
distractability, fragmented attention.

1078
01:18:35.040 --> 01:18:37.680
It's just, again, this is not to say that

1079
01:18:37.680 --> 01:18:38.880
this whole conversation, right,

1080
01:18:38.880 --> 01:18:39.840
or when you're reading studies,

1081
01:18:39.840 --> 01:18:41.200
you might say to yourself,

1082
01:18:41.200 --> 01:18:42.240
what's wrong with me?

1083
01:18:42.240 --> 01:18:43.920
You know, is there something wrong with me?

1084
01:18:43.920 --> 01:18:45.120
Is my brain broken?

1085
01:18:45.120 --> 01:18:46.400
Am I weak?

1086
01:18:46.400 --> 01:18:47.520
It is not you.

1087
01:18:47.520 --> 01:18:48.560
You are not alone.

1088
01:18:48.560 --> 01:18:49.680
It is not your fault.

1089
01:18:49.680 --> 01:18:53.280
It is the biology of your brain doing exactly as it should.

1090
01:18:53.280 --> 01:18:56.000
So we talked about the amygdala and prefrontal cortex here.

1091
01:18:56.000 --> 01:18:58.480
Your amygdala is not wrong or broken.

1092
01:18:58.560 --> 01:18:59.840
It's by design,

1093
01:18:59.840 --> 01:19:02.560
supposed to think about your immediate needs,

1094
01:19:02.560 --> 01:19:04.720
survival, self-preservation.

1095
01:19:04.720 --> 01:19:06.320
And so when you're on the algorithm,

1096
01:19:06.320 --> 01:19:08.880
we know we talked about, you know, certain,

1097
01:19:08.880 --> 01:19:10.320
or maybe we didn't talk about it,

1098
01:19:10.320 --> 01:19:12.960
certain content that you see on TikTok

1099
01:19:12.960 --> 01:19:16.080
and others that is when it's reactionary,

1100
01:19:16.080 --> 01:19:18.800
you know, words like FOMO or RAGEBATE.

1101
01:19:18.800 --> 01:19:20.240
These are not neutral terms.

1102
01:19:20.240 --> 01:19:23.120
When you're engaging with these social media platforms,

1103
01:19:23.120 --> 01:19:25.120
it's not something neutral, it's not passive,

1104
01:19:25.120 --> 01:19:27.840
it is an active biological process in your brain.

1105
01:19:27.840 --> 01:19:30.000
So this study, it's not surprising.

1106
01:19:30.000 --> 01:19:32.880
It is actually exactly what you would expect

1107
01:19:32.880 --> 01:19:34.800
to happen to your biology

1108
01:19:34.800 --> 01:19:37.440
if you had this sort of what we call in medicine

1109
01:19:37.440 --> 01:19:39.440
and this kind of intervention.

1110
01:19:39.440 --> 01:19:41.760
It's stimulating exactly what it's supposed to do.

1111
01:19:41.760 --> 01:19:44.960
Yeah, I'll just add on to what Dididi said

1112
01:19:44.960 --> 01:19:48.480
that there are some, there are many medical conditions

1113
01:19:48.480 --> 01:19:50.960
where you can't just go to the patient and say,

1114
01:19:50.960 --> 01:19:53.120
why do you think you got this cancer?

1115
01:19:53.120 --> 01:19:55.920
Oh, I think it's because I ate a lot of chocolate

1116
01:19:55.920 --> 01:19:56.880
when I was, whatever.

1117
01:19:56.880 --> 01:20:01.680
You know, when the act is separated from the effect

1118
01:20:01.680 --> 01:20:04.880
by 30 years, then you don't expect the patients

1119
01:20:04.880 --> 01:20:06.880
to have insight into the cause of it.

1120
01:20:06.880 --> 01:20:11.600
But when the outcome is separated from the input by seconds

1121
01:20:11.600 --> 01:20:14.400
and you have literally millions of chances

1122
01:20:14.400 --> 01:20:19.200
to observe the covariation, the patient is really, really accurate.

1123
01:20:19.200 --> 01:20:21.520
In fact, the patient really knows what's going on.

1124
01:20:21.520 --> 01:20:23.920
And so I think the deciding factor here

1125
01:20:23.920 --> 01:20:26.480
on this big debate about, oh, is it just correlation

1126
01:20:26.480 --> 01:20:28.320
or is it causation?

1127
01:20:28.320 --> 01:20:30.480
The deciding factor for social media

1128
01:20:30.480 --> 01:20:32.160
and for a lot of these tech innovations,

1129
01:20:32.160 --> 01:20:34.640
including video games and gambling and all of that,

1130
01:20:34.640 --> 01:20:36.240
should really be the kids.

1131
01:20:36.240 --> 01:20:38.960
And if the kids say, this is bad for me,

1132
01:20:38.960 --> 01:20:40.400
we should take their word for it.

1133
01:20:40.400 --> 01:20:42.720
Given that we also have correlational studies,

1134
01:20:42.720 --> 01:20:45.920
random control trials, longitudinal studies,

1135
01:20:45.920 --> 01:20:48.160
I mean, we have so much other data.

1136
01:20:48.160 --> 01:20:51.440
But given that the kids themselves, they call it brain rot.

1137
01:20:51.440 --> 01:20:53.280
They call them material brain rot.

1138
01:20:53.280 --> 01:20:55.600
My students tell me it's a huge obstacle

1139
01:20:55.680 --> 01:20:56.720
to them doing their homework.

1140
01:20:56.720 --> 01:20:59.840
As one of them said, I pull out a book, I read a sentence,

1141
01:20:59.840 --> 01:21:02.480
I get bored, I go to TikTok.

1142
01:21:02.480 --> 01:21:04.160
So if they're telling us that this is damaging

1143
01:21:04.160 --> 01:21:05.840
their ability to pay attention, they feel it,

1144
01:21:05.840 --> 01:21:08.000
they feel the loss, we all feel it.

1145
01:21:08.000 --> 01:21:09.360
Many of us have noticed this.

1146
01:21:11.120 --> 01:21:13.680
Then I think this is pretty decisive evidence

1147
01:21:13.680 --> 01:21:15.760
that this stuff is bad for cognition.

1148
01:21:16.320 --> 01:21:18.560
And it has long-term consequences.

1149
01:21:18.560 --> 01:21:20.880
So it's not just that in the moment, right?

1150
01:21:20.880 --> 01:21:23.360
So there was this case that was all over the media,

1151
01:21:23.360 --> 01:21:24.560
a college student.

1152
01:21:24.560 --> 01:21:26.000
I'm sure you're familiar with the case,

1153
01:21:26.000 --> 01:21:29.360
and this young woman was on TikTok,

1154
01:21:29.360 --> 01:21:30.880
experiencing brain rot,

1155
01:21:30.880 --> 01:21:33.600
and then some TikTok algorithm took her down

1156
01:21:33.600 --> 01:21:36.720
to this place of, you know, you should take an edible.

1157
01:21:36.720 --> 01:21:37.680
It'll help you.

1158
01:21:37.680 --> 01:21:41.760
So you can go to class and you could go to class

1159
01:21:41.760 --> 01:21:43.680
and you could, you know, be more alert.

1160
01:21:43.680 --> 01:21:44.960
And so she did that.

1161
01:21:44.960 --> 01:21:46.800
And then it continued on and on,

1162
01:21:46.800 --> 01:21:50.160
and then she developed a dependence on edibles.

1163
01:21:50.160 --> 01:21:51.520
And then checked into rehab.

1164
01:21:52.480 --> 01:21:56.080
And only when she focused on analog activities

1165
01:21:56.080 --> 01:21:59.120
like guitar playing and a couple of other things

1166
01:21:59.120 --> 01:22:01.760
that she started doing is when, and, you know,

1167
01:22:02.800 --> 01:22:06.960
removing the stimulus, the TikTok algorithm

1168
01:22:06.960 --> 01:22:08.320
is when she started to improve.

1169
01:22:08.320 --> 01:22:09.840
So it's not just in the moment,

1170
01:22:09.840 --> 01:22:11.120
oh, I can't remember something,

1171
01:22:11.120 --> 01:22:12.560
or I'm more irritable,

1172
01:22:12.560 --> 01:22:14.640
these sorts of things compound

1173
01:22:14.640 --> 01:22:18.000
and the long-term sequelae or the long-term effects

1174
01:22:18.000 --> 01:22:19.360
can be quite damaging.

1175
01:22:19.360 --> 01:22:20.720
That's just one example.

1176
01:22:21.600 --> 01:22:23.200
In your book, then, Anxious Generation,

1177
01:22:23.200 --> 01:22:25.040
Jonathan News, that the subtitle here is,

1178
01:22:25.040 --> 01:22:27.440
how the great rewiring of childhood

1179
01:22:27.440 --> 01:22:29.680
is causing an epidemic of mental illness.

1180
01:22:29.680 --> 01:22:31.200
And I was looking at some of these graphs

1181
01:22:31.200 --> 01:22:34.400
of different sort of mental illness illnesses.

1182
01:22:34.400 --> 01:22:35.920
And they're increasing.

1183
01:22:35.920 --> 01:22:39.200
One of them that's increasing is ADHD.

1184
01:22:40.160 --> 01:22:44.000
I was diagnosed with ADHD, maybe about a year ago.

1185
01:22:44.720 --> 01:22:47.600
And when we're talking about short attention spans,

1186
01:22:47.600 --> 01:22:50.080
I mean, the name attention deficit

1187
01:22:50.080 --> 01:22:52.160
hyperactivity disorder, I believe that's what it's called,

1188
01:22:52.880 --> 01:22:54.800
sounds a lot like what we're talking about.

1189
01:22:55.520 --> 01:22:58.160
Is there a link, do you believe,

1190
01:22:58.160 --> 01:23:02.000
between the increasing diagnoses of ADHD

1191
01:23:02.000 --> 01:23:03.600
and the sort of frying of our brains

1192
01:23:03.600 --> 01:23:06.160
with short form video and social media?

1193
01:23:07.040 --> 01:23:08.640
Yeah, I mean, I suspect that there is,

1194
01:23:08.640 --> 01:23:09.600
but here's what I can tell you,

1195
01:23:09.600 --> 01:23:10.720
I learned while writing the book.

1196
01:23:11.680 --> 01:23:14.800
I looked to see if there were studies indicating

1197
01:23:14.800 --> 01:23:19.280
that heavy use of social media and video games

1198
01:23:19.440 --> 01:23:22.080
and all the electronic stuff caused ADHD.

1199
01:23:22.080 --> 01:23:23.920
And when I was doing the research in 2023,

1200
01:23:23.920 --> 01:23:26.720
I did not find evidence that it will give a kid ADHD,

1201
01:23:26.720 --> 01:23:28.400
ADHD, who otherwise wouldn't have it.

1202
01:23:28.400 --> 01:23:31.680
And what I did find was evidence that for kids who have ADHD,

1203
01:23:31.680 --> 01:23:33.280
when you let them have the devices,

1204
01:23:33.280 --> 01:23:35.200
the video games, all that, their symptoms get much worse.

1205
01:23:35.920 --> 01:23:38.880
And so because it is a major achievement

1206
01:23:38.880 --> 01:23:41.440
of young adulthood to be able to pay attention,

1207
01:23:41.440 --> 01:23:44.080
to develop what we've been calling executive function,

1208
01:23:44.080 --> 01:23:45.920
to be able to make a plan and decide,

1209
01:23:45.920 --> 01:23:47.920
oh, to reach the plan, I have to do this,

1210
01:23:48.080 --> 01:23:49.040
and then I do this.

1211
01:23:49.040 --> 01:23:51.200
And then it might be a long time before I get here,

1212
01:23:51.200 --> 01:23:53.520
but I will keep going and I will keep my eye on the prize.

1213
01:23:54.400 --> 01:23:57.040
That, I assume that's, you're saying it's a little harder

1214
01:23:57.040 --> 01:23:57.760
for you to do that.

1215
01:23:57.760 --> 01:23:59.120
I mean, that's what ADHD means.

1216
01:23:59.120 --> 01:24:00.960
How do you experience ADHD?

1217
01:24:00.960 --> 01:24:06.000
Well, well, I death, I mean, if I think about school,

1218
01:24:06.560 --> 01:24:09.120
I couldn't pay attention in school for very long.

1219
01:24:09.120 --> 01:24:12.400
And that meant that I was always in the expulsion room

1220
01:24:12.400 --> 01:24:13.760
and then I was expelled.

1221
01:24:13.760 --> 01:24:16.960
And then that's kind of, I feel like it's got worse as an adult.

1222
01:24:17.440 --> 01:24:20.880
From my, in my opinion, my relationship with my phone

1223
01:24:20.880 --> 01:24:23.600
has made it much worse, where really, I can't,

1224
01:24:23.600 --> 01:24:26.000
I can't pay attention to many things for a very long time.

1225
01:24:26.000 --> 01:24:29.360
The exception to this is I can do deep work

1226
01:24:31.200 --> 01:24:33.120
for many, many hours without me thinking.

1227
01:24:33.120 --> 01:24:34.080
It's almost a bit of a question.

1228
01:24:34.080 --> 01:24:35.440
When you are extremely motivated.

1229
01:24:35.440 --> 01:24:38.400
When you're really into it, you can be into it.

1230
01:24:38.400 --> 01:24:39.200
That's right.

1231
01:24:39.200 --> 01:24:40.960
But a lot of work isn't that.

1232
01:24:40.960 --> 01:24:42.960
A lot of being effective in the workplace

1233
01:24:42.960 --> 01:24:44.800
is not your following your passion.

1234
01:24:44.800 --> 01:24:47.520
Right, ADHD kids, they can zoom in

1235
01:24:47.520 --> 01:24:49.200
because they're getting the dopamine,

1236
01:24:49.200 --> 01:24:50.720
they're getting the dopamine from this thing.

1237
01:24:50.720 --> 01:24:52.400
But a lot of work isn't like that.

1238
01:24:53.040 --> 01:24:54.640
And these kids are not going to be able to do that.

1239
01:24:54.640 --> 01:24:56.000
So actually, what you said, it fits perfectly

1240
01:24:56.000 --> 01:24:57.920
with what I found from those Dutch studies.

1241
01:24:57.920 --> 01:24:59.520
If you did have whether it's a genetic

1242
01:24:59.520 --> 01:25:01.680
or whatever the predisposition is,

1243
01:25:02.960 --> 01:25:04.800
this environment has made your symptoms worse.

1244
01:25:04.800 --> 01:25:07.840
And of course, ADHD kids can be incredibly creative.

1245
01:25:07.840 --> 01:25:09.920
They are often very, very successful.

1246
01:25:09.920 --> 01:25:12.960
But my fear is that the pathways to success

1247
01:25:12.960 --> 01:25:14.640
that they used to take might be blocked.

1248
01:25:14.640 --> 01:25:17.360
If they basically are just scrolling all day long

1249
01:25:17.360 --> 01:25:20.800
and not able to have real life experiences.

1250
01:25:20.800 --> 01:25:22.800
And relationships are like that, especially romantic ones.

1251
01:25:22.800 --> 01:25:25.120
It's an interesting thing that you bring up, Stephen,

1252
01:25:25.120 --> 01:25:28.000
because there is an increase in adult onset.

1253
01:25:28.720 --> 01:25:31.200
You know, when adults are diagnosed with ADHD,

1254
01:25:31.200 --> 01:25:34.080
because typically we think of ADHD as a pediatric condition

1255
01:25:34.080 --> 01:25:34.960
or young adults.

1256
01:25:34.960 --> 01:25:37.600
And so increasingly, we're seeing more and more

1257
01:25:37.600 --> 01:25:40.960
adults who are in their 30s and 40s, 50s sometimes,

1258
01:25:40.960 --> 01:25:42.800
even 60s who are being diagnosed,

1259
01:25:42.800 --> 01:25:44.640
newly diagnosed with ADHD.

1260
01:25:44.640 --> 01:25:47.440
And so that's an interesting, there's so many, you know,

1261
01:25:47.440 --> 01:25:51.120
reasons like it might be that they had it all along

1262
01:25:51.120 --> 01:25:52.000
and they were diagnosed.

1263
01:25:52.000 --> 01:25:53.360
And so what is going on there?

1264
01:25:53.360 --> 01:25:56.240
That would be a future podcast episode

1265
01:25:56.240 --> 01:26:00.640
for an ADHD expert of, you know, what are the drivers

1266
01:26:00.640 --> 01:26:03.440
of why are so many adults being diagnosed with ADHD?

1267
01:26:03.440 --> 01:26:05.680
Or maybe even just the symptoms looking very similar.

1268
01:26:07.040 --> 01:26:08.320
Yeah, that's right.

1269
01:26:08.320 --> 01:26:10.160
You talk about popcorn brain, ADT.

1270
01:26:10.160 --> 01:26:13.040
Yeah. So, you know, we've talked about brain rot

1271
01:26:13.040 --> 01:26:14.400
and the primal urge to scroll.

1272
01:26:14.400 --> 01:26:16.400
And popcorn brain is kind of an offshoot.

1273
01:26:16.400 --> 01:26:17.760
It's part of the same family.

1274
01:26:17.760 --> 01:26:20.640
And so what happens is it's a term coined by a man,

1275
01:26:20.640 --> 01:26:22.480
a psychologist named David Levy.

1276
01:26:23.200 --> 01:26:25.840
And what happens with popcorn brain is that you,

1277
01:26:26.960 --> 01:26:28.160
and we all have it.

1278
01:26:28.160 --> 01:26:30.640
And so what it is, a cytophonominant

1279
01:26:30.640 --> 01:26:32.480
when you spend too much time online

1280
01:26:32.480 --> 01:26:34.080
and you are overstimulated.

1281
01:26:34.080 --> 01:26:36.880
And so it is hard for you to spend time offline.

1282
01:26:36.880 --> 01:26:39.120
Offline feels slow, boring,

1283
01:26:39.120 --> 01:26:41.280
because things are moving at a much slower pace.

1284
01:26:41.280 --> 01:26:44.720
And so popcorn brain is the sensation of your brain popping.

1285
01:26:44.720 --> 01:26:46.320
It is not actively popping.

1286
01:26:46.320 --> 01:26:48.400
It's not like your brain cells are popping,

1287
01:26:48.400 --> 01:26:50.000
but it sure feels like it.

1288
01:26:50.000 --> 01:26:53.040
And so your primal urge to scroll kind of primes your brain

1289
01:26:53.040 --> 01:26:54.320
to develop popcorn brain.

1290
01:26:54.320 --> 01:26:57.120
You are more at risk for developing popcorn brain

1291
01:26:57.120 --> 01:26:58.560
when you feel a sense of stress

1292
01:26:58.560 --> 01:27:00.320
because of that primal urge to scroll.

1293
01:27:00.320 --> 01:27:02.640
The differentiator between brain rot

1294
01:27:02.640 --> 01:27:03.840
and popcorn brain again,

1295
01:27:03.840 --> 01:27:06.800
these are societal terms that we're calling

1296
01:27:06.800 --> 01:27:09.280
for a constellation or a group of symptoms, right?

1297
01:27:09.280 --> 01:27:13.360
And so the difference to me is that popcorn brain is ubiquitous.

1298
01:27:13.360 --> 01:27:14.240
It's everywhere.

1299
01:27:14.240 --> 01:27:16.160
It's like we all have it

1300
01:27:16.160 --> 01:27:18.960
and it's happening all the time

1301
01:27:18.960 --> 01:27:20.320
because of the modern age

1302
01:27:20.320 --> 01:27:22.240
and a lot of the things that we talked about.

1303
01:27:22.240 --> 01:27:24.160
Brain rot is a little bit more specific.

1304
01:27:24.160 --> 01:27:26.320
It's a little bit more well-defined.

1305
01:27:26.320 --> 01:27:27.760
So it has certain features.

1306
01:27:27.760 --> 01:27:30.880
Like we call it the biopsychosocial model

1307
01:27:30.880 --> 01:27:33.200
when you're thinking about a particular medical

1308
01:27:33.200 --> 01:27:34.240
or condition or entity.

1309
01:27:34.240 --> 01:27:35.920
So what are the biological factors

1310
01:27:35.920 --> 01:27:36.800
we talked about?

1311
01:27:36.800 --> 01:27:38.160
What defines brain rot?

1312
01:27:38.160 --> 01:27:40.320
It's a change in brain waves,

1313
01:27:40.320 --> 01:27:41.920
a change in brain regions,

1314
01:27:41.920 --> 01:27:43.680
the migdala lighting up

1315
01:27:43.680 --> 01:27:46.960
and the prefrontal cortex kind of being quiet.

1316
01:27:46.960 --> 01:27:48.880
Psychological factors we talked about,

1317
01:27:48.880 --> 01:27:53.760
attention, complex problem solving, impulse control,

1318
01:27:53.760 --> 01:27:56.640
and then the social factors, loneliness and others.

1319
01:27:56.640 --> 01:27:58.480
So compulsion.

1320
01:27:58.480 --> 01:28:01.120
And so I would say popcorn brain is something

1321
01:28:01.120 --> 01:28:02.960
that we all suffer from.

1322
01:28:03.120 --> 01:28:07.120
And brain rot is something that is very specific.

1323
01:28:07.120 --> 01:28:08.720
The other thing that we haven't talked about

1324
01:28:08.720 --> 01:28:10.480
that I would love to kind of,

1325
01:28:10.480 --> 01:28:11.760
because so much of our conversation

1326
01:28:11.760 --> 01:28:12.840
is like doom and gloom, right?

1327
01:28:12.840 --> 01:28:14.640
It's like, won't, won't, won't.

1328
01:28:14.640 --> 01:28:16.800
One thing that I would like to say is that,

1329
01:28:16.800 --> 01:28:20.720
as bad as, when you hear the term brain rot,

1330
01:28:20.720 --> 01:28:23.320
it seems permanent because rot,

1331
01:28:23.320 --> 01:28:25.400
it connotes like deterioration.

1332
01:28:25.400 --> 01:28:26.240
That's it.

1333
01:28:26.240 --> 01:28:27.960
It's one side, it is one way and that's it.

1334
01:28:27.960 --> 01:28:30.800
But in fact popcorn brain and brain rot

1335
01:28:30.800 --> 01:28:32.440
are reversible conditions.

1336
01:28:32.440 --> 01:28:34.840
So it is not in adults.

1337
01:28:34.840 --> 01:28:36.320
If you've gone through puberty with it,

1338
01:28:36.320 --> 01:28:37.600
it's not so clear.

1339
01:28:37.600 --> 01:28:41.040
Yes, in adults and my work focuses on adults.

1340
01:28:41.040 --> 01:28:43.120
And so when you have, if you experience brain rot

1341
01:28:43.120 --> 01:28:45.400
in your 30s, 40s and beyond,

1342
01:28:45.400 --> 01:28:49.080
you can, it takes time, it takes eight weeks

1343
01:28:49.080 --> 01:28:50.800
for your brain to rewire itself,

1344
01:28:50.800 --> 01:28:53.040
give yourself time, a sense of self compassion

1345
01:28:53.040 --> 01:28:54.680
is really important.

1346
01:28:54.680 --> 01:28:57.800
But you can, there is a sense of it being able

1347
01:28:57.800 --> 01:28:58.640
to be reversed.

1348
01:28:58.640 --> 01:29:00.040
So it's not so much a brain.

1349
01:29:00.040 --> 01:29:03.120
It's not a fixed trait, but rather a brain state.

1350
01:29:03.120 --> 01:29:04.760
So I think it's important to offer that hope.

1351
01:29:04.760 --> 01:29:06.800
What is an adult brain, what age is an adult brain?

1352
01:29:06.800 --> 01:29:08.640
Well, age is my brain stopped growing

1353
01:29:08.640 --> 01:29:10.400
in the way where it's reversible.

1354
01:29:10.400 --> 01:29:15.000
So yeah, traditionally, it was thought that,

1355
01:29:15.000 --> 01:29:17.720
puberty is the period of super rapid brain change

1356
01:29:17.720 --> 01:29:21.360
and that begins early teens, sometimes even before 10.

1357
01:29:21.360 --> 01:29:24.520
And is mostly over by sort of mid to late teens.

1358
01:29:24.520 --> 01:29:26.040
But then the prefrontal cortex,

1359
01:29:26.040 --> 01:29:27.480
which Aditi was talking about,

1360
01:29:27.480 --> 01:29:29.160
which is so important for impulse control

1361
01:29:29.320 --> 01:29:32.600
and executive function, that doesn't finish myelinating.

1362
01:29:32.600 --> 01:29:35.120
Myelin is sort of the neuron that you get

1363
01:29:35.120 --> 01:29:36.920
of sort of a fatty sheath, like an insulation

1364
01:29:36.920 --> 01:29:38.720
that sort of locks down the circuits

1365
01:29:38.720 --> 01:29:40.480
and makes them more efficient.

1366
01:29:40.480 --> 01:29:43.160
That doesn't stop until around age 25

1367
01:29:43.160 --> 01:29:44.480
is what we've always said for many years.

1368
01:29:44.480 --> 01:29:46.080
But you're telling me that there's new research showing

1369
01:29:46.080 --> 01:29:47.880
that it sells about that.

1370
01:29:47.880 --> 01:29:49.640
So you know, all this time, right?

1371
01:29:49.640 --> 01:29:51.680
We've always said that the prefrontal cortex

1372
01:29:51.680 --> 01:29:54.320
is fully forms and fully functional at the age of 25.

1373
01:29:54.320 --> 01:29:55.920
And so when you're talking about impulse control

1374
01:29:55.920 --> 01:29:56.680
and all of this stuff,

1375
01:29:56.680 --> 01:29:58.200
that they're just really interesting study.

1376
01:29:58.200 --> 01:29:59.280
I'll send it to you.

1377
01:29:59.280 --> 01:30:04.280
It looked at, I think it was 1,000 people from age zero.

1378
01:30:04.840 --> 01:30:06.280
So birth all the way to 90.

1379
01:30:06.280 --> 01:30:09.040
So the entire population.

1380
01:30:09.040 --> 01:30:13.200
And it found five, it looked at lifespan

1381
01:30:13.200 --> 01:30:14.800
and said they're actually five stages.

1382
01:30:14.800 --> 01:30:17.400
So first just childhood up, zero to age nine.

1383
01:30:17.400 --> 01:30:21.080
During this time, your brain is not very efficient,

1384
01:30:21.080 --> 01:30:24.200
but it's really growing and it's growing and changing,

1385
01:30:24.200 --> 01:30:25.720
but it's not really efficient.

1386
01:30:25.760 --> 01:30:30.040
Nine to 32 is considered adolescence.

1387
01:30:30.040 --> 01:30:33.320
And so, you know, 32 is when adolescence ends,

1388
01:30:33.320 --> 01:30:34.480
apparently, according to the theory.

1389
01:30:34.480 --> 01:30:35.320
But it'd be a sort of graph.

1390
01:30:35.320 --> 01:30:37.160
I mean, you're most of the way done by 25,

1391
01:30:37.160 --> 01:30:40.280
but there's still some flexibility even after that.

1392
01:30:40.280 --> 01:30:45.280
And then the next stage is from 33 to I think 63.

1393
01:30:46.360 --> 01:30:48.640
66 is like adulthood.

1394
01:30:49.640 --> 01:30:50.560
Things are very stable.

1395
01:30:50.560 --> 01:30:54.320
Learning is stable and, you know, it's efficient

1396
01:30:54.320 --> 01:30:57.080
and it's, it, things are doing well.

1397
01:30:57.080 --> 01:31:02.080
And then 60, yeah, 66 to about 83 is early aging.

1398
01:31:02.880 --> 01:31:05.760
And so that's when you see some of the age related changes.

1399
01:31:05.760 --> 01:31:08.840
And then 83 plus is late aging.

1400
01:31:08.840 --> 01:31:12.040
So that kind of main finding was that, you know,

1401
01:31:12.040 --> 01:31:13.080
it was all over the news.

1402
01:31:13.080 --> 01:31:16.240
It was like adolescence goes until 32.

1403
01:31:17.400 --> 01:31:19.360
So I'm 33, some on that.

1404
01:31:19.360 --> 01:31:21.040
One year, one year out.

1405
01:31:21.040 --> 01:31:23.120
I'm coached by number, yeah.

1406
01:31:23.120 --> 01:31:25.320
When you wrote this book, Jonathan, the anxious generation,

1407
01:31:25.320 --> 01:31:28.160
it, um, it's had a big impact on the world in a way

1408
01:31:28.160 --> 01:31:30.160
that I think any author might dream of.

1409
01:31:30.160 --> 01:31:32.000
And I know this in part because, you know,

1410
01:31:32.000 --> 01:31:34.120
I set on this podcast, interviewing really interesting people

1411
01:31:34.120 --> 01:31:34.720
all the time.

1412
01:31:34.720 --> 01:31:38.640
And even this morning, when I did an interview across town

1413
01:31:38.640 --> 01:31:41.280
with James Exton, he talked about this book twice.

1414
01:31:41.280 --> 01:31:44.200
And, you know, laws have been changed around the world

1415
01:31:44.200 --> 01:31:45.600
inspired by this book.

1416
01:31:45.600 --> 01:31:48.760
And we're actually seeing an increase of laws in the UK.

1417
01:31:48.760 --> 01:31:50.840
I mean, Australia just banned, I think, social media,

1418
01:31:50.840 --> 01:31:52.840
if I've changed 16, yeah.

1419
01:31:52.840 --> 01:31:54.640
You met with Macron, right?

1420
01:31:54.640 --> 01:31:56.000
Yeah, yeah.

1421
01:31:56.000 --> 01:31:57.440
Could you ever have imagined?

1422
01:31:57.440 --> 01:32:00.360
And actually, what does the success of this book say?

1423
01:32:00.360 --> 01:32:02.520
Yeah, about society.

1424
01:32:02.520 --> 01:32:04.040
No, thank you for that question.

1425
01:32:04.040 --> 01:32:07.080
Because, you know, I do tend to get, you know, as you've heard,

1426
01:32:07.080 --> 01:32:08.960
I mean, I'm extremely alarmed about these trends.

1427
01:32:08.960 --> 01:32:12.600
And these are gigantic threats beyond what anyone can imagine.

1428
01:32:12.600 --> 01:32:16.920
But here's the amazing thing is that we can reverse this

1429
01:32:16.920 --> 01:32:18.560
for almost no money.

1430
01:32:18.560 --> 01:32:20.720
And it's completely bipartisan.

1431
01:32:20.720 --> 01:32:22.960
And it's not that hard to do.

1432
01:32:22.960 --> 01:32:24.440
And we're doing it.

1433
01:32:24.440 --> 01:32:26.840
And so what happened was, you know, I wrote the book

1434
01:32:26.840 --> 01:32:29.280
as an American, assuming that we don't have a functioning

1435
01:32:29.280 --> 01:32:31.400
legislature, the Congress can be stopped,

1436
01:32:31.400 --> 01:32:33.560
we have a vitocracy, the social media companies

1437
01:32:33.560 --> 01:32:35.720
can stop anything in the house.

1438
01:32:35.720 --> 01:32:36.720
So I wrote this, assuming, you know,

1439
01:32:36.720 --> 01:32:38.600
we'll never get legislation.

1440
01:32:38.600 --> 01:32:39.840
So we have to do this on our own.

1441
01:32:39.840 --> 01:32:42.280
And I proposed four norms, no smartphone before high school

1442
01:32:42.280 --> 01:32:45.000
and no social media before 16, phone free schools,

1443
01:32:45.000 --> 01:32:46.920
and far more independence replay responsibility

1444
01:32:46.920 --> 01:32:47.760
in the real world.

1445
01:32:48.360 --> 01:32:50.840
We can try to do this with collective action locally

1446
01:32:50.840 --> 01:32:52.840
at the school level.

1447
01:32:52.840 --> 01:32:54.920
Two things that surprised me.

1448
01:32:54.920 --> 01:32:57.720
One, are that immediately governors

1449
01:32:57.720 --> 01:32:59.920
from red states and blue states started reaching out to me.

1450
01:32:59.920 --> 01:33:01.280
Our states actually function.

1451
01:33:01.280 --> 01:33:03.520
Our states have governments that are accountable to the people

1452
01:33:03.520 --> 01:33:04.800
that are trying to get good results.

1453
01:33:04.800 --> 01:33:07.000
And so this has been a totally bipartisan issue.

1454
01:33:07.000 --> 01:33:08.760
Sarah Huckabee Sanders from Arkansas

1455
01:33:08.760 --> 01:33:11.280
was one of the very first, Kathy Hoko also.

1456
01:33:11.280 --> 01:33:14.240
And it is, it tends to be more female legislators

1457
01:33:14.240 --> 01:33:17.120
and governors or spouses of heads of state.

1458
01:33:17.440 --> 01:33:19.680
The mom's, the book really spoke to moms

1459
01:33:19.680 --> 01:33:21.240
because moms around the world,

1460
01:33:21.240 --> 01:33:22.760
they felt the kids being pulled away.

1461
01:33:22.760 --> 01:33:26.120
I believe they felt it viscerally more than the dads did.

1462
01:33:26.120 --> 01:33:27.760
Also the dads kind of like the video games.

1463
01:33:27.760 --> 01:33:29.200
They're a little more protect.

1464
01:33:29.200 --> 01:33:31.080
So I think the moms felt the pain more

1465
01:33:31.080 --> 01:33:32.080
and took it more personally.

1466
01:33:32.080 --> 01:33:33.320
So when the book came out,

1467
01:33:33.320 --> 01:33:35.720
mothers around the world jumped into action,

1468
01:33:35.720 --> 01:33:38.520
formed groups pushed for legislation

1469
01:33:38.520 --> 01:33:40.320
and changes began happening.

1470
01:33:40.320 --> 01:33:42.720
What I just, I was just, I was in Davos

1471
01:33:42.720 --> 01:33:45.360
and then London and Brussels two weeks ago.

1472
01:33:45.360 --> 01:33:49.400
And what I saw was a complete sea change

1473
01:33:49.400 --> 01:33:52.280
in the world's thinking about how we need

1474
01:33:52.280 --> 01:33:54.640
to have age limits on social media and other tech.

1475
01:33:54.640 --> 01:33:55.840
And here's what I think just happened.

1476
01:33:55.840 --> 01:33:57.360
It's so cool, it just dawned on me.

1477
01:33:57.360 --> 01:33:58.560
Literally why I was in London,

1478
01:33:58.560 --> 01:34:01.000
like I was pushing on open doors everywhere.

1479
01:34:01.000 --> 01:34:02.480
Wherever I went, people wanted to do this.

1480
01:34:02.480 --> 01:34:04.120
I went to the EU, they want to do this.

1481
01:34:04.120 --> 01:34:06.240
Like what is happening?

1482
01:34:06.240 --> 01:34:07.920
And what I realized is this,

1483
01:34:07.920 --> 01:34:10.040
Stephen Pinker has a book out last year called

1484
01:34:10.040 --> 01:34:12.960
when everyone knows that everyone knows.

1485
01:34:13.000 --> 01:34:16.840
It's about the immediate change in a social system

1486
01:34:16.840 --> 01:34:19.720
when private knowledge, everybody knows

1487
01:34:19.720 --> 01:34:21.400
that the emperor has no clothes.

1488
01:34:21.400 --> 01:34:24.520
Everybody knows that this ideology doesn't work.

1489
01:34:24.520 --> 01:34:27.480
Everybody knows that, but they don't all know

1490
01:34:27.480 --> 01:34:29.080
that everybody else knows it

1491
01:34:29.080 --> 01:34:30.600
and that everybody else knows that.

1492
01:34:30.600 --> 01:34:32.360
And so in the emperor's new clothes,

1493
01:34:32.360 --> 01:34:35.200
everybody thought he's, I don't think he has any clothes on,

1494
01:34:35.200 --> 01:34:38.920
but maybe only wise people can see it.

1495
01:34:38.920 --> 01:34:41.920
But when the child says, the emperor has no clothes.

1496
01:34:41.920 --> 01:34:43.680
And then in the Hans Christian Anderson story,

1497
01:34:43.680 --> 01:34:47.000
it says, and the people began whispering to each other.

1498
01:34:47.000 --> 01:34:49.400
And then they all cried out in unison.

1499
01:34:49.400 --> 01:34:52.360
And that's what happened when Australia's law went into effect.

1500
01:34:52.360 --> 01:34:56.360
So I believe that a December 10th of last December

1501
01:34:56.360 --> 01:35:00.280
was the global turning point in the battle to reclaim childhood.

1502
01:35:00.280 --> 01:35:02.560
And if we reclaim that, we move on to our attention

1503
01:35:02.560 --> 01:35:04.040
and adult life as well.

1504
01:35:04.040 --> 01:35:06.120
What happened on December 10th?

1505
01:35:06.120 --> 01:35:08.280
The Australia law went into effect.

1506
01:35:08.280 --> 01:35:09.840
Sky didn't fall.

1507
01:35:09.840 --> 01:35:12.240
People weren't locked out of their accounts.

1508
01:35:12.240 --> 01:35:13.520
All the companies comply.

1509
01:35:13.520 --> 01:35:16.360
They shut down five million accounts

1510
01:35:16.360 --> 01:35:18.400
for Australia's three and a half million kids

1511
01:35:18.400 --> 01:35:21.600
that were underage, two and a half million kids.

1512
01:35:21.600 --> 01:35:22.440
The sky didn't fall.

1513
01:35:22.440 --> 01:35:23.640
And there's a lot of news coverage

1514
01:35:23.640 --> 01:35:25.600
around the world of what Australia was doing.

1515
01:35:25.600 --> 01:35:28.920
And a lot of the news coverage included opinions

1516
01:35:28.920 --> 01:35:31.640
from the writer saying, why can't we do that?

1517
01:35:31.640 --> 01:35:33.560
Hey, let's do that here.

1518
01:35:33.560 --> 01:35:36.760
And when everybody saw that everybody was looking at Australia

1519
01:35:36.760 --> 01:35:39.280
and saying, let's do that here, then everybody knew

1520
01:35:39.280 --> 01:35:42.280
that everybody knew that this is just completely bonkers

1521
01:35:42.280 --> 01:35:44.560
to have children being raised on social media platforms

1522
01:35:44.560 --> 01:35:46.400
talking with anonymous strangers

1523
01:35:46.400 --> 01:35:49.720
and being fed algorithmically curated garbage.

1524
01:35:49.720 --> 01:35:54.160
So I believe that that's why 2026 is going to be the year

1525
01:35:54.160 --> 01:35:56.880
when at least 15 countries are going to commit

1526
01:35:56.880 --> 01:35:59.120
to passing an age minimal law.

1527
01:35:59.120 --> 01:36:02.160
In 2025 it was one, Australia.

1528
01:36:02.160 --> 01:36:04.440
And now we already have Indonesia.

1529
01:36:04.440 --> 01:36:06.600
Their law goes into effect in March.

1530
01:36:06.600 --> 01:36:10.760
I met with Macron in Davos and a few days he was preparing

1531
01:36:10.760 --> 01:36:13.160
to push a bill through the assembly and he got it.

1532
01:36:13.160 --> 01:36:15.240
He's the first in the EU, but a lot of other countries

1533
01:36:15.240 --> 01:36:16.080
in the EU are going to follow.

1534
01:36:16.080 --> 01:36:18.320
The whole EU was likely to do it.

1535
01:36:18.320 --> 01:36:22.600
So yes, I am incredibly alarmed

1536
01:36:22.600 --> 01:36:24.480
about how big this problem is.

1537
01:36:24.480 --> 01:36:27.720
But I'm incredibly inspired that the whole world

1538
01:36:27.720 --> 01:36:29.680
is rising up to do something about it.

1539
01:36:29.680 --> 01:36:31.760
We actually can control our fate.

1540
01:36:31.760 --> 01:36:34.120
And that was not clear before December 10th.

1541
01:36:35.120 --> 01:36:36.320
Bravo.

1542
01:36:36.320 --> 01:36:38.680
As a mother, that was the first thing I said to you.

1543
01:36:38.680 --> 01:36:41.560
The first thing I said to you was thank you

1544
01:36:41.560 --> 01:36:45.920
as a mom for changing my family's life.

1545
01:36:45.920 --> 01:36:46.920
Thank you, Lily.

1546
01:36:49.360 --> 01:36:52.360
It's a really special accomplishment, Jonathan.

1547
01:36:52.360 --> 01:36:54.480
You know, there's no real words that I could say

1548
01:36:54.480 --> 01:36:57.600
that could quite capture the long-term impact

1549
01:36:57.600 --> 01:37:01.720
that that's going to have on billions of people's lives.

1550
01:37:01.720 --> 01:37:04.720
I'm not just the direct, but also the indirect.

1551
01:37:04.720 --> 01:37:08.160
In all the ways we've described their ability to form connections,

1552
01:37:08.160 --> 01:37:10.480
to fall in love, to find meaning and purpose in their lives

1553
01:37:10.480 --> 01:37:13.880
and their neuroscience and therefore the neuroscience

1554
01:37:13.880 --> 01:37:17.480
of their children and their children's children and so on.

1555
01:37:17.480 --> 01:37:20.680
So it's a really, it's a really overwhelming accomplishment.

1556
01:37:22.840 --> 01:37:26.560
It was a bizarre situation that I walked into

1557
01:37:26.560 --> 01:37:29.320
with the unique abilities of a social psychologist.

1558
01:37:29.320 --> 01:37:32.560
That is, everybody was upset about this, everybody could see it,

1559
01:37:32.560 --> 01:37:34.040
but they thought, well, this is my problem

1560
01:37:34.040 --> 01:37:36.320
or in my family we have this problem.

1561
01:37:36.320 --> 01:37:39.440
And I came to this with fresh eyes.

1562
01:37:39.440 --> 01:37:41.200
My dissertation was on moral development.

1563
01:37:41.200 --> 01:37:43.880
I studied adolescent behavior longer ago in my career

1564
01:37:43.880 --> 01:37:44.960
and I've written a battered on my book.

1565
01:37:44.960 --> 01:37:46.640
So it wasn't totally new to me.

1566
01:37:46.640 --> 01:37:50.400
But I came into the field of social media studies around 2018, 2019.

1567
01:37:50.400 --> 01:37:52.240
I really immersed myself in it.

1568
01:37:52.240 --> 01:37:55.960
And it was like, you know, you walk in and immediately you see,

1569
01:37:56.000 --> 01:37:57.560
wait, this is a trap.

1570
01:37:57.560 --> 01:37:59.840
People are on it because people are on it.

1571
01:37:59.840 --> 01:38:01.280
And the kids are complaining about that.

1572
01:38:01.280 --> 01:38:02.960
Everyone's complaining about it.

1573
01:38:02.960 --> 01:38:04.080
And the only reason they can't get off

1574
01:38:04.080 --> 01:38:05.920
is because everyone else is on it.

1575
01:38:05.920 --> 01:38:08.440
So I think I was able to see that

1576
01:38:08.440 --> 01:38:11.640
and then also COVID confused us for a few years.

1577
01:38:11.640 --> 01:38:14.080
So it wasn't until COVID was in the rear view mirror

1578
01:38:14.080 --> 01:38:15.560
that it was possible for everybody to say,

1579
01:38:15.560 --> 01:38:17.520
wait, this is crazy.

1580
01:38:17.520 --> 01:38:20.080
And so I was incredibly lucky in terms of the timing.

1581
01:38:20.080 --> 01:38:23.200
My book happened to come out in March of 2024

1582
01:38:23.200 --> 01:38:25.640
just as the world was ready to see like, wait,

1583
01:38:25.640 --> 01:38:26.840
what have we done to our kids?

1584
01:38:26.840 --> 01:38:28.240
Let's undo it.

1585
01:38:28.240 --> 01:38:31.480
And you said you're now focusing more on short form video.

1586
01:38:31.480 --> 01:38:35.400
So yes, so in studying older Gen Z,

1587
01:38:35.400 --> 01:38:39.000
these are the people who went through puberty on Instagram.

1588
01:38:39.000 --> 01:38:40.840
I should, if I could just lay out that it's very important

1589
01:38:40.840 --> 01:38:42.960
to get the timing that everyone understands the timing

1590
01:38:42.960 --> 01:38:45.280
because this is what you mentioned the polycrisis before.

1591
01:38:45.280 --> 01:38:48.200
The polycrisis I believe begins between 2010 and 2015.

1592
01:38:48.200 --> 01:38:49.240
Here's why.

1593
01:38:49.240 --> 01:38:50.840
So we've had the internet for a long time.

1594
01:38:50.840 --> 01:38:51.680
And it was marvelous.

1595
01:38:51.680 --> 01:38:53.120
We love the internet in the 90s.

1596
01:38:53.120 --> 01:38:55.520
It's going to be the best friend of democracy

1597
01:38:56.040 --> 01:38:57.960
and then the iPhone comes out and it's amazing.

1598
01:38:57.960 --> 01:38:59.960
Oh my God, there's so many things.

1599
01:38:59.960 --> 01:39:01.400
Everything seems great.

1600
01:39:01.400 --> 01:39:04.000
Okay, so in 2010,

1601
01:39:04.000 --> 01:39:05.720
most of almost all of us have flip phones.

1602
01:39:05.720 --> 01:39:06.600
The iPhone's spreading,

1603
01:39:06.600 --> 01:39:08.080
but it's still mostly flip phones.

1604
01:39:08.080 --> 01:39:10.200
Teens are all on flip phones, basic phones.

1605
01:39:10.200 --> 01:39:11.880
And we call those people millennials.

1606
01:39:11.880 --> 01:39:14.440
If you finished puberty by 20,

1607
01:39:14.440 --> 01:39:16.760
if you were born in say 1990,

1608
01:39:16.760 --> 01:39:19.800
and you start puberty in 2002,

1609
01:39:19.800 --> 01:39:21.840
you're done by 2008.

1610
01:39:21.840 --> 01:39:24.560
So in there, if you got through puberty

1611
01:39:24.600 --> 01:39:26.360
before you got on Instagram, you're a millennial.

1612
01:39:26.360 --> 01:39:29.360
Whereas if you're born after 1995,

1613
01:39:29.360 --> 01:39:31.880
but let's say if you're born into your 2000,

1614
01:39:31.880 --> 01:39:34.560
you begin puberty in 2012.

1615
01:39:34.560 --> 01:39:38.000
And you're not done until 2016, 2018.

1616
01:39:39.000 --> 01:39:41.720
So in 2010, everyone has a flip phone

1617
01:39:41.720 --> 01:39:44.200
with no front facing camera, no high speed internet.

1618
01:39:44.200 --> 01:39:45.240
You have to pay for your tech.

1619
01:39:45.240 --> 01:39:48.440
So you use it to call people and to text them.

1620
01:39:48.440 --> 01:39:49.400
And that's it.

1621
01:39:49.400 --> 01:39:51.000
It was a communication device.

1622
01:39:51.000 --> 01:39:53.080
And that's why the millennials have good mental health.

1623
01:39:53.080 --> 01:39:56.400
They are the last mentally healthy and successful generation.

1624
01:39:57.480 --> 01:40:01.960
But if you're Gen Z, you got 2012 is the year

1625
01:40:01.960 --> 01:40:04.720
that now most people now have a smartphone.

1626
01:40:04.720 --> 01:40:07.280
It's the year that Facebook buys Instagram.

1627
01:40:07.280 --> 01:40:08.280
They don't change it at first,

1628
01:40:08.280 --> 01:40:10.760
but that's the other, all the girls go on it.

1629
01:40:10.760 --> 01:40:12.600
Everyone now has high speed data,

1630
01:40:12.600 --> 01:40:14.840
front facing camera came out in 2010.

1631
01:40:14.840 --> 01:40:18.520
So by 2015, we're in a radically different world.

1632
01:40:18.520 --> 01:40:19.720
For children's development,

1633
01:40:19.720 --> 01:40:21.400
it's now radically different,

1634
01:40:21.400 --> 01:40:23.080
much more hostile to human development.

1635
01:40:23.080 --> 01:40:24.920
And that's what we did to Gen Z

1636
01:40:24.920 --> 01:40:27.040
and now we're doing to Gen Alpha.

1637
01:40:27.040 --> 01:40:30.880
For politics, it was crazy for all sorts of reasons

1638
01:40:30.880 --> 01:40:31.720
in every decade.

1639
01:40:31.720 --> 01:40:34.000
And especially in the early 2000s,

1640
01:40:34.000 --> 01:40:35.520
there's a culture we're going on,

1641
01:40:35.520 --> 01:40:36.960
there's all kinds of stuff going on.

1642
01:40:36.960 --> 01:40:40.120
But it was when everyone has,

1643
01:40:40.120 --> 01:40:42.520
really Twitter was the biggest perpetrator of this.

1644
01:40:42.520 --> 01:40:44.920
When everyone has Twitter and everyone's checking all the time

1645
01:40:44.920 --> 01:40:46.920
and anything can blow up,

1646
01:40:46.920 --> 01:40:50.880
you describe the way there was variance on TikTok.

1647
01:40:50.960 --> 01:40:51.840
If you get it just right,

1648
01:40:51.840 --> 01:40:54.320
it can blow up, you can have huge impact.

1649
01:40:54.320 --> 01:40:57.720
That's when the democracy is a conversation.

1650
01:40:57.720 --> 01:41:00.960
When it moved from newspapers and, you know,

1651
01:41:00.960 --> 01:41:03.080
even simple web bulletin boards,

1652
01:41:03.080 --> 01:41:06.960
when it moved to super viral retweet buttons, all of that,

1653
01:41:06.960 --> 01:41:09.200
that's all 2010 to 2015.

1654
01:41:09.200 --> 01:41:11.200
So that's why since then,

1655
01:41:11.200 --> 01:41:12.560
everything has been insane

1656
01:41:12.560 --> 01:41:14.520
and it's going to just keep getting more insane.

1657
01:41:14.520 --> 01:41:17.960
And that's why I believe we have this poly crisis

1658
01:41:17.960 --> 01:41:19.360
because there's more to it.

1659
01:41:19.360 --> 01:41:20.840
It's not just the technology,

1660
01:41:20.840 --> 01:41:24.600
but I believe the transformation of our connection

1661
01:41:24.600 --> 01:41:27.560
and our information flow and our addiction,

1662
01:41:27.560 --> 01:41:29.560
all of that is radically different by 2015

1663
01:41:29.560 --> 01:41:31.600
compared to how it was in 2010.

1664
01:41:31.600 --> 01:41:33.440
And now everything else builds on top of that.

1665
01:41:33.440 --> 01:41:34.480
I believe, what do you think?

1666
01:41:34.480 --> 01:41:35.320
Do you think that makes sense?

1667
01:41:35.320 --> 01:41:37.360
I think there's one more data point to add

1668
01:41:37.360 --> 01:41:41.240
in that 2014 was the year that things really,

1669
01:41:41.240 --> 01:41:42.360
was the tipping point, like you say.

1670
01:41:42.360 --> 01:41:44.680
Yes, yes, that's the year that I point to, too, yes.

1671
01:41:44.680 --> 01:41:46.000
Yes, so before,

1672
01:41:46.000 --> 01:41:46.840
what do you point to?

1673
01:41:46.840 --> 01:41:48.800
So when you look at the data,

1674
01:41:48.800 --> 01:41:51.520
you see that time spent alone,

1675
01:41:51.520 --> 01:41:53.200
when you compare, when you look at data

1676
01:41:53.200 --> 01:41:56.680
from like the 1960s to 2014,

1677
01:41:56.680 --> 01:41:59.960
it was kind of stable, Americans spending time alone,

1678
01:41:59.960 --> 01:42:03.120
spending time with friends, kind of the same, right?

1679
01:42:03.120 --> 01:42:04.800
So people spent kind of same amount of time

1680
01:42:04.800 --> 01:42:06.280
with friends, same amount of time alone

1681
01:42:06.280 --> 01:42:08.080
over those decades.

1682
01:42:08.080 --> 01:42:10.840
2014 marks a shift

1683
01:42:10.840 --> 01:42:16.000
and there is a steep rise in time spent alone

1684
01:42:16.000 --> 01:42:18.520
and a drop in time spent with friends.

1685
01:42:18.520 --> 01:42:21.320
And so what happens in 2014?

1686
01:42:21.320 --> 01:42:25.000
It is when the majority of Americans get a smartphone.

1687
01:42:26.000 --> 01:42:28.360
And it's not to say, again, we've said,

1688
01:42:28.360 --> 01:42:30.880
causality, correlation, which is it,

1689
01:42:30.880 --> 01:42:32.760
but there is like, based on everything

1690
01:42:32.760 --> 01:42:34.160
that we've talked about, my gosh,

1691
01:42:34.160 --> 01:42:36.240
is there an association between that?

1692
01:42:36.240 --> 01:42:39.200
This is not to say that time spent alone,

1693
01:42:39.200 --> 01:42:41.800
when I share this data, people may say,

1694
01:42:41.800 --> 01:42:42.880
but I like spending time alone.

1695
01:42:42.880 --> 01:42:44.280
I'm not lonely, I'm okay.

1696
01:42:44.280 --> 01:42:46.720
This is not about being an introvert or an extrovert.

1697
01:42:46.720 --> 01:42:49.160
It's not about, you know, you can have solitude

1698
01:42:49.160 --> 01:42:51.480
and feel great and you're not lonely,

1699
01:42:51.480 --> 01:42:54.880
but we are human beings and we are social creatures.

1700
01:42:54.880 --> 01:42:57.800
This is just how we are built evolutionarily.

1701
01:42:57.800 --> 01:43:01.120
And so that is a real red flag

1702
01:43:01.120 --> 01:43:05.360
when you have this big jump in time spent alone,

1703
01:43:05.360 --> 01:43:07.440
very much the same year.

1704
01:43:07.440 --> 01:43:09.600
And so my work focuses on adults,

1705
01:43:09.600 --> 01:43:12.120
Jonathan, on kids, but there's this, you know,

1706
01:43:12.120 --> 01:43:13.280
that's the moment, right?

1707
01:43:13.280 --> 01:43:15.600
2014 where everything changed.

1708
01:43:16.720 --> 01:43:19.080
Last month, I told you about our sponsor Function Health

1709
01:43:19.080 --> 01:43:20.800
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1710
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1711
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1712
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1713
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1714
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So Jack, who started this show with me,

1715
01:43:33.880 --> 01:43:35.920
got his first blood draw done a couple of weeks ago.

1716
01:43:35.920 --> 01:43:37.880
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1717
01:43:37.880 --> 01:43:38.840
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1718
01:43:38.840 --> 01:43:40.800
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1719
01:43:40.800 --> 01:43:42.240
what I should be doing with my health.

1720
01:43:42.240 --> 01:43:44.080
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1721
01:43:44.080 --> 01:43:45.720
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1722
01:43:45.720 --> 01:43:48.360
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1723
01:43:48.360 --> 01:43:49.640
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1724
01:43:49.640 --> 01:43:51.200
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1725
01:43:51.200 --> 01:43:52.960
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1726
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1727
01:43:54.280 --> 01:43:57.080
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1728
01:43:57.080 --> 01:43:58.760
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1729
01:43:58.760 --> 01:44:01.680
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1730
01:44:01.680 --> 01:44:04.280
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1731
01:44:04.280 --> 01:44:05.600
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1732
01:44:05.600 --> 01:44:07.040
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1733
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1734
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1735
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1736
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1737
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1738
01:44:22.000 --> 01:44:23.600
There's a phase a lot of companies here

1739
01:44:23.600 --> 01:44:25.480
where they're no longer doing the most important thing

1740
01:44:25.480 --> 01:44:28.400
which is selling and they get really bogged down with admin.

1741
01:44:28.400 --> 01:44:30.600
And it's often something that creeps up slowly

1742
01:44:30.600 --> 01:44:32.600
and you don't really notice until it's happened.

1743
01:44:32.600 --> 01:44:34.840
Slowly, momentum starts to leak out.

1744
01:44:34.840 --> 01:44:36.920
This happened to us and our sponsor, Pike Drive,

1745
01:44:36.920 --> 01:44:38.880
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1746
01:44:38.880 --> 01:44:41.120
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1747
01:44:41.120 --> 01:44:42.440
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1748
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1749
01:44:45.160 --> 01:44:47.880
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1750
01:44:47.880 --> 01:44:50.400
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1751
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1752
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1753
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1754
01:44:56.760 --> 01:44:58.640
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1755
01:44:58.640 --> 01:45:00.080
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1756
01:45:00.080 --> 01:45:02.320
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1757
01:45:02.320 --> 01:45:04.360
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1758
01:45:04.360 --> 01:45:07.160
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1759
01:45:07.160 --> 01:45:10.160
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1760
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1761
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1762
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1763
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1764
01:45:20.160 --> 01:45:22.920
where you can get a 30-day free trial,

1765
01:45:22.920 --> 01:45:25.040
no credit card or payment required.

1766
01:45:26.240 --> 01:45:28.480
So what do we do about this?

1767
01:45:28.480 --> 01:45:30.400
Because when I look at all the stats,

1768
01:45:30.400 --> 01:45:32.600
all these audience surveys ahead of this,

1769
01:45:32.600 --> 01:45:34.240
people are spending roughly an audience

1770
01:45:34.240 --> 01:45:37.680
of our six and a half hours a day on their phones.

1771
01:45:37.680 --> 01:45:39.280
Short-form videos are only gonna get more addictive.

1772
01:45:39.280 --> 01:45:41.120
AI's gonna know me more, it's gonna be more personalized.

1773
01:45:41.120 --> 01:45:44.560
The content is gonna be generated just for me.

1774
01:45:44.560 --> 01:45:46.600
What's next?

1775
01:45:46.600 --> 01:45:47.880
Is it a law we need to pass?

1776
01:45:47.880 --> 01:45:50.200
Is it something I need to do myself?

1777
01:45:50.200 --> 01:45:53.400
So I think we need to pick the low-hanging fruit first.

1778
01:45:53.400 --> 01:45:56.240
And the reason for that is not just efficiency.

1779
01:45:56.240 --> 01:45:58.560
It's that we have to prove that we can actually do something.

1780
01:45:58.560 --> 01:45:59.800
Because we've never done anything.

1781
01:45:59.800 --> 01:46:01.480
We've never done anything to restrain this.

1782
01:46:01.480 --> 01:46:03.400
We've let Silicon Valley run wild.

1783
01:46:03.400 --> 01:46:05.440
Congress gave them special protection.

1784
01:46:05.440 --> 01:46:08.840
Section 230, nobody can sue them for killing their kids.

1785
01:46:08.840 --> 01:46:11.640
If they feed them content, they can't be held responsible.

1786
01:46:11.640 --> 01:46:13.840
I think Section 230 is probably something worth explaining.

1787
01:46:13.840 --> 01:46:14.680
Sure.

1788
01:46:14.680 --> 01:46:17.360
The Communications Decency Act 1997,

1789
01:46:17.360 --> 01:46:19.000
I think it was Pledge of Medicine here.

1790
01:46:19.000 --> 01:46:22.840
There's a section in it that the goal was to specifically

1791
01:46:22.840 --> 01:46:26.040
let the tech companies like AOL back then,

1792
01:46:26.040 --> 01:46:28.920
let them take down pornographic content.

1793
01:46:28.920 --> 01:46:30.600
Because they were afraid, if we take down anything,

1794
01:46:30.600 --> 01:46:31.880
then we're responsible for everything.

1795
01:46:31.880 --> 01:46:33.880
And now it's gonna be endless.

1796
01:46:33.880 --> 01:46:36.480
So Congress specifically said, don't worry, don't worry.

1797
01:46:36.480 --> 01:46:38.000
If you choose to take something down,

1798
01:46:38.000 --> 01:46:40.160
nobody can sue you for what you leave up.

1799
01:46:40.160 --> 01:46:42.080
So it was a good intention originally.

1800
01:46:42.080 --> 01:46:44.040
But the courts have interpreted it so widely

1801
01:46:44.040 --> 01:46:46.440
as to say, no one can regulate social media.

1802
01:46:46.440 --> 01:46:48.280
They're not responsible for hurting kids.

1803
01:46:48.280 --> 01:46:49.120
You can't sue them.

1804
01:46:49.120 --> 01:46:51.600
And they have never faced a jury.

1805
01:46:51.600 --> 01:46:53.920
They have never, no parent has ever gotten justice

1806
01:46:53.920 --> 01:46:55.880
from them despite all the kids whose lives have been run

1807
01:46:55.880 --> 01:46:56.720
all the kids are dead.

1808
01:46:56.720 --> 01:46:57.720
And that's gonna change.

1809
01:46:57.720 --> 01:47:01.080
That's changing just now here in February in Los Angeles.

1810
01:47:01.080 --> 01:47:05.400
So because the US Congress sort of set up this problem.

1811
01:47:05.400 --> 01:47:07.800
And it also in a different law said,

1812
01:47:07.880 --> 01:47:09.320
how old does a kid have to be

1813
01:47:09.320 --> 01:47:11.360
before a company can take their data

1814
01:47:11.360 --> 01:47:13.120
without their parents' knowledge or permission,

1815
01:47:13.120 --> 01:47:15.160
before a company can expose them to all kinds of stuff,

1816
01:47:15.160 --> 01:47:17.120
before a company can have them sign away the rights.

1817
01:47:17.120 --> 01:47:18.120
How old?

1818
01:47:18.120 --> 01:47:21.440
And the original law said, 16, let's try 16.

1819
01:47:21.440 --> 01:47:25.720
Because it wasn't so sick and twisted back then, 1998,

1820
01:47:25.720 --> 01:47:27.960
caught by the Children's Online Privacy Protection Act.

1821
01:47:27.960 --> 01:47:30.240
So, but various law being, they pushed it down

1822
01:47:30.240 --> 01:47:32.560
from 16 to 13 and they gutted enforcement.

1823
01:47:32.560 --> 01:47:34.880
So as long as, and that's why all over the internet,

1824
01:47:34.880 --> 01:47:36.480
it's, are you 13?

1825
01:47:36.480 --> 01:47:37.800
Or what's your birth year?

1826
01:47:37.800 --> 01:47:40.320
And as long as you're 13, you're in.

1827
01:47:40.320 --> 01:47:42.080
For porn and you have to say you're 18.

1828
01:47:42.080 --> 01:47:45.640
So because we, the, it's a few laws that set this up,

1829
01:47:45.640 --> 01:47:48.560
we definitely need laws to undo it, especially for kids.

1830
01:47:48.560 --> 01:47:51.480
What I'm advocating is, let's do the easy stuff,

1831
01:47:51.480 --> 01:47:53.520
the high impact stuff for kids,

1832
01:47:53.520 --> 01:47:56.680
because that is totally not politically controversial.

1833
01:47:56.680 --> 01:47:58.360
There is no left right divide on that.

1834
01:47:58.360 --> 01:47:59.320
And that's been true everywhere.

1835
01:47:59.320 --> 01:48:01.560
Australia, Britain, the EU, everywhere.

1836
01:48:02.520 --> 01:48:05.840
Regulating the internet for adults,

1837
01:48:05.840 --> 01:48:08.480
and regulating social media for its destructive properties

1838
01:48:08.480 --> 01:48:10.880
and democracy is a hell of a lot harder.

1839
01:48:10.880 --> 01:48:12.520
And I don't have easy answers.

1840
01:48:12.520 --> 01:48:14.520
There's a lot we could do to reduce the virality,

1841
01:48:14.520 --> 01:48:17.840
the spread of, of the extreme, so there are lots

1842
01:48:17.840 --> 01:48:18.840
of little things that we can do.

1843
01:48:18.840 --> 01:48:20.440
And Francis Howigan, the Facebook whistle

1844
01:48:20.440 --> 01:48:21.520
or had all kinds of ideas.

1845
01:48:21.520 --> 01:48:24.000
So we definitely can do things to make it less toxic

1846
01:48:24.000 --> 01:48:26.960
for democracy, but those are going to be politically

1847
01:48:26.960 --> 01:48:28.960
controversial, because one side is going to benefit

1848
01:48:28.960 --> 01:48:29.800
from more than the other.

1849
01:48:29.800 --> 01:48:30.800
So that's going to be very difficult to do.

1850
01:48:30.800 --> 01:48:32.400
I don't know if we can do them in the US.

1851
01:48:32.400 --> 01:48:36.080
But let's just all protect the kids.

1852
01:48:36.080 --> 01:48:40.120
That way we show globally that we actually can do something.

1853
01:48:40.120 --> 01:48:43.880
And if we do that, then I think we will be able to do some

1854
01:48:43.880 --> 01:48:46.760
basic things about AI, like no companion chat bots

1855
01:48:46.760 --> 01:48:48.240
if you're under 18.

1856
01:48:48.240 --> 01:48:49.640
These things already have a body count.

1857
01:48:49.640 --> 01:48:51.320
A lot of kids have been encouraged to kill themselves.

1858
01:48:51.320 --> 01:48:53.560
They already have driven hundreds of thousands

1859
01:48:53.560 --> 01:48:55.480
or millions of people into psychosis.

1860
01:48:55.480 --> 01:48:59.960
So we'll be able to, I believe, put some limits on AI,

1861
01:48:59.960 --> 01:49:01.440
especially for kids.

1862
01:49:01.440 --> 01:49:03.320
But if we can't get this, if we can't

1863
01:49:03.320 --> 01:49:04.720
wait on social media for kids, then I

1864
01:49:04.720 --> 01:49:06.800
don't think we have any chance to regulate AI.

1865
01:49:06.800 --> 01:49:08.600
It's going to be much more difficult.

1866
01:49:08.600 --> 01:49:09.200
What do you think?

1867
01:49:09.200 --> 01:49:09.960
What do you think we should do?

1868
01:49:09.960 --> 01:49:11.440
And what do you think we can do?

1869
01:49:11.440 --> 01:49:15.760
So my work as a doctor, I think, about what we can do

1870
01:49:15.760 --> 01:49:18.720
and how I can empower people to first build awareness.

1871
01:49:18.720 --> 01:49:23.200
So I aim to first normalize and validate the experience

1872
01:49:23.200 --> 01:49:25.920
with everyone who is engaging with chat bots.

1873
01:49:25.920 --> 01:49:30.840
And so I don't like to shame people, because as a doctor,

1874
01:49:30.840 --> 01:49:33.680
like you want to meet the patient where they are.

1875
01:49:33.680 --> 01:49:38.960
And so I won't shame someone to say, why are you using this?

1876
01:49:38.960 --> 01:49:40.640
Why is your boyfriend AI?

1877
01:49:40.640 --> 01:49:42.520
Or why are you getting married to AI?

1878
01:49:42.520 --> 01:49:44.720
Or why are you using AI for a therapist?

1879
01:49:44.720 --> 01:49:46.520
One of my followers on social media,

1880
01:49:46.520 --> 01:49:47.880
it still makes me laugh.

1881
01:49:47.880 --> 01:49:52.280
I put out a call saying, why are you using AI as a therapist?

1882
01:49:52.280 --> 01:49:54.720
And so someone wrote to me, it was great.

1883
01:49:54.720 --> 01:49:55.760
I screenshot it.

1884
01:49:55.760 --> 01:49:58.880
It said, because all human therapists are trash,

1885
01:49:58.880 --> 01:50:00.520
with the trash can emoji.

1886
01:50:00.520 --> 01:50:01.520
And it made me laugh.

1887
01:50:01.520 --> 01:50:04.920
And I said, you know, so there is, so to me,

1888
01:50:04.920 --> 01:50:07.960
when I think about what's happening and what we can do,

1889
01:50:07.960 --> 01:50:10.240
it's no mistake that we're here right now.

1890
01:50:10.240 --> 01:50:12.080
So the pandemic, like we've talked about,

1891
01:50:12.080 --> 01:50:15.680
was a huge driver, social isolation,

1892
01:50:15.680 --> 01:50:18.760
hyper reliance on self, right?

1893
01:50:18.760 --> 01:50:21.840
Then the proliferation of technology

1894
01:50:21.840 --> 01:50:25.760
that replaced human interaction, Zoom board meetings,

1895
01:50:25.760 --> 01:50:28.520
Zoom funerals, Zoom birthday parties,

1896
01:50:28.520 --> 01:50:33.000
Zoom graduations, things that we did in person are now online.

1897
01:50:33.000 --> 01:50:35.360
And then, personally as a doctor,

1898
01:50:35.360 --> 01:50:37.120
I was a talking head during the pandemic

1899
01:50:37.120 --> 01:50:39.360
for lots of news channels about the vaccine.

1900
01:50:39.360 --> 01:50:42.080
I have a background in public health as well.

1901
01:50:42.080 --> 01:50:47.080
It immense distrust and mistrust in establishment and experts.

1902
01:50:47.840 --> 01:50:49.840
And so it's like, I'm going to do my own research.

1903
01:50:49.840 --> 01:50:51.720
I'm not going to go see a doctor or a therapist.

1904
01:50:51.720 --> 01:50:53.480
I'm going to talk to my chatbot.

1905
01:50:53.480 --> 01:50:57.440
And also, I mean, let's keep it real, the cost, right?

1906
01:50:57.440 --> 01:50:59.040
So people are struggling.

1907
01:50:59.040 --> 01:51:01.040
They're in financial crises.

1908
01:51:01.040 --> 01:51:03.720
There's an unmet need, yes, for human connection,

1909
01:51:03.720 --> 01:51:07.760
but also for good therapy or good medical care

1910
01:51:07.760 --> 01:51:10.720
because there is such a need because of the pandemic.

1911
01:51:10.720 --> 01:51:12.880
And people aren't getting the care that they need,

1912
01:51:12.880 --> 01:51:14.080
that they deserve.

1913
01:51:14.080 --> 01:51:15.560
There's so many factors here.

1914
01:51:15.560 --> 01:51:18.120
And so what I've been focusing on this year,

1915
01:51:18.120 --> 01:51:21.280
particularly, is learning about AI chatbots,

1916
01:51:21.280 --> 01:51:22.920
how they are influencing mental health,

1917
01:51:22.920 --> 01:51:23.760
what is actually happening?

1918
01:51:23.760 --> 01:51:25.680
Because I'm a human first AI second person.

1919
01:51:25.680 --> 01:51:29.080
It's like my work focuses on high touch.

1920
01:51:29.080 --> 01:51:31.000
And AI is high tech.

1921
01:51:31.000 --> 01:51:33.560
And this is the first intervention that we are seeing

1922
01:51:33.560 --> 01:51:37.240
that is high tech, that is becoming high touch.

1923
01:51:37.240 --> 01:51:38.960
And that scares me.

1924
01:51:38.960 --> 01:51:40.680
And you're writing a book about that at the moment, right?

1925
01:51:40.680 --> 01:51:41.520
I am.

1926
01:51:41.520 --> 01:51:45.600
And so it's called bot brain, how to stay calm, resilient,

1927
01:51:45.600 --> 01:51:48.320
and human in the face of AI.

1928
01:51:48.320 --> 01:51:51.480
And so really thinking about how are we

1929
01:51:51.480 --> 01:51:55.040
going to be able to live with this technology?

1930
01:51:55.040 --> 01:51:57.160
I love Jonathan Stance is to say,

1931
01:51:57.160 --> 01:51:59.520
out AI Companions does.

1932
01:51:59.520 --> 01:52:00.480
For kids, yeah.

1933
01:52:00.480 --> 01:52:01.320
For kids, yeah.

1934
01:52:01.320 --> 01:52:02.640
So prove me safe.

1935
01:52:02.640 --> 01:52:03.400
Totally agree.

1936
01:52:03.400 --> 01:52:06.920
But in terms of adults, how do we manage that for adults?

1937
01:52:06.920 --> 01:52:09.240
And so my work focuses right now what I'm doing

1938
01:52:09.240 --> 01:52:14.760
is I've spent the year talking to every, as many AI

1939
01:52:14.760 --> 01:52:17.040
researchers who are working on these models

1940
01:52:17.040 --> 01:52:19.480
or who are doing research on the downstream effects

1941
01:52:19.480 --> 01:52:20.920
of these models.

1942
01:52:20.920 --> 01:52:24.560
And when I say that it is dark and dystopian,

1943
01:52:24.560 --> 01:52:26.760
it has profoundly changed something in me

1944
01:52:26.760 --> 01:52:28.160
and it has influenced my mental health.

1945
01:52:28.160 --> 01:52:29.960
I had to take a step away from just,

1946
01:52:29.960 --> 01:52:32.360
because I couldn't believe what I was learning.

1947
01:52:32.360 --> 01:52:33.200
Could you just give it?

1948
01:52:33.200 --> 01:52:34.440
Yeah, give us an example.

1949
01:52:34.440 --> 01:52:37.720
Yeah, the teeth are intriguing.

1950
01:52:37.720 --> 01:52:39.760
So one, I spoke to one of the scientists

1951
01:52:39.760 --> 01:52:43.760
who told me that there's the echo chamber phenomenon

1952
01:52:43.760 --> 01:52:46.720
in social media, where we all know what that is.

1953
01:52:46.720 --> 01:52:51.840
It's a fragmented world because of social and you're engaging.

1954
01:52:51.840 --> 01:52:53.920
And then you get the same, the algorithm

1955
01:52:53.920 --> 01:52:57.040
feeds you the same kind of thoughts that you already have.

1956
01:52:57.040 --> 01:52:59.600
But particularly now, with AI chatbots,

1957
01:52:59.600 --> 01:53:01.280
when you're engaging with your chatbot,

1958
01:53:01.280 --> 01:53:03.480
even just talking about it, I'm getting chills,

1959
01:53:03.480 --> 01:53:05.160
it's the echo chamber of one.

1960
01:53:05.160 --> 01:53:08.640
So it's you speaking to you, it's like the fun house mirror,

1961
01:53:08.640 --> 01:53:10.120
and then it's giving you a response,

1962
01:53:10.120 --> 01:53:12.240
and then you're talking and it's giving you a response.

1963
01:53:12.240 --> 01:53:15.640
But people, regular users who are using AI chatbots

1964
01:53:15.640 --> 01:53:19.080
think that it's wise, compassionate, non-judgmental,

1965
01:53:19.080 --> 01:53:23.120
unbiased, empathetic, these human attributes.

1966
01:53:23.120 --> 01:53:27.120
And so the echo chamber of one is kind of one idea

1967
01:53:27.120 --> 01:53:29.600
that really frighten me.

1968
01:53:29.600 --> 01:53:31.640
And the second one was the drift phenomenon.

1969
01:53:31.640 --> 01:53:34.120
A drift phenomenon is this idea

1970
01:53:34.120 --> 01:53:36.640
that you are engaging with your chatbot,

1971
01:53:36.640 --> 01:53:39.840
and it's engaging with you, and it's actively

1972
01:53:39.840 --> 01:53:42.640
changing your beliefs through the drift.

1973
01:53:42.640 --> 01:53:45.360
So you might start off as one belief,

1974
01:53:45.360 --> 01:53:47.760
and then you're talking, and through this amplification,

1975
01:53:47.760 --> 01:53:51.680
fun house mirror effect, it slowly shifts your belief

1976
01:53:51.680 --> 01:53:53.160
to something altogether different.

1977
01:53:53.160 --> 01:53:56.080
You've heard cases of it in the news where people start,

1978
01:53:56.080 --> 01:53:58.320
you have a climbing problem, you go to your AI chatbot,

1979
01:53:58.320 --> 01:53:59.720
you ask them how to fix your sink,

1980
01:53:59.720 --> 01:54:01.480
and then you're like, you know what?

1981
01:54:01.480 --> 01:54:02.720
Can you tell me about the meaning of life,

1982
01:54:02.720 --> 01:54:04.000
and then you start talking about that,

1983
01:54:04.000 --> 01:54:06.400
and before you know it, you have these theories,

1984
01:54:06.400 --> 01:54:07.960
and you're getting that validation.

1985
01:54:07.960 --> 01:54:11.280
And so a lot of my work over the past year

1986
01:54:11.280 --> 01:54:14.120
has been digging into the science

1987
01:54:14.120 --> 01:54:15.600
of what is going on in the brain.

1988
01:54:15.600 --> 01:54:19.120
How are you forming, not us particularly at this table,

1989
01:54:19.120 --> 01:54:22.760
but millions of people are forming a sense of attachment,

1990
01:54:22.760 --> 01:54:26.440
a therapeutic connection with their chatbot,

1991
01:54:26.440 --> 01:54:30.520
they're giving names to it, and it's an entity,

1992
01:54:30.520 --> 01:54:31.600
and so how does that happen,

1993
01:54:31.600 --> 01:54:35.200
and how is it going to replace human to human connection?

1994
01:54:35.200 --> 01:54:37.520
And so it terrifies me.

1995
01:54:37.520 --> 01:54:40.280
I've also gone through some AI therapy myself,

1996
01:54:40.280 --> 01:54:44.320
just to see what would happen, it was very interesting.

1997
01:54:44.320 --> 01:54:46.480
I knew what was happening as it was happening.

1998
01:54:46.480 --> 01:54:49.120
So certain words that they used,

1999
01:54:49.120 --> 01:54:52.320
and I was like, ah, I see what you did here.

2000
01:54:52.320 --> 01:54:54.800
And so it's been a journey,

2001
01:54:54.800 --> 01:54:59.560
and I'm frightened, frankly, of what it means for all of us.

2002
01:54:59.560 --> 01:55:04.560
And my approach, kind of not like Jonathan's,

2003
01:55:05.240 --> 01:55:06.720
I love Jonathan's approach.

2004
01:55:06.720 --> 01:55:09.280
I think, yes, we need legislation,

2005
01:55:09.280 --> 01:55:12.680
but my approach is more, I would say, tempered in that.

2006
01:55:12.680 --> 01:55:16.160
I think that we, there's utility for AI chatbots

2007
01:55:16.160 --> 01:55:19.920
for certain people because of access or need, et cetera.

2008
01:55:19.920 --> 01:55:23.880
Like if you are LGBTQIA plus and you live in an area

2009
01:55:23.880 --> 01:55:27.720
that is not very open, and you need to talk to someone,

2010
01:55:27.720 --> 01:55:29.160
you can't go to your therapist,

2011
01:55:29.160 --> 01:55:31.400
it's like maybe you can use an AI chatbot.

2012
01:55:31.400 --> 01:55:34.080
So there's certain cases, a case by case basis,

2013
01:55:34.080 --> 01:55:36.320
but my work will focus this particular book,

2014
01:55:36.320 --> 01:55:39.840
will focus on ways that you can first understand

2015
01:55:39.840 --> 01:55:42.920
and build awareness of what's happening with this interaction,

2016
01:55:42.920 --> 01:55:45.560
and then what you can do to manage that.

2017
01:55:45.560 --> 01:55:49.040
I am, didn't realize that my chatbot

2018
01:55:49.040 --> 01:55:50.600
was giving me a tailored experience

2019
01:55:50.600 --> 01:55:52.560
until one day when I had a debate with my friends

2020
01:55:52.560 --> 01:55:54.480
about who the best football player in the world was,

2021
01:55:54.480 --> 01:55:57.160
and we all went to our chat GBT's and asked it,

2022
01:55:57.160 --> 01:56:00.480
and mine said, messy, and his said, Ronaldo,

2023
01:56:00.480 --> 01:56:03.680
and I thought he was lying, so I was like video record,

2024
01:56:03.680 --> 01:56:05.960
and he video recorded it, and his gave him

2025
01:56:05.960 --> 01:56:08.160
a completely different answer to the same question.

2026
01:56:08.160 --> 01:56:10.240
And we did it know that you were each fan, so...

2027
01:56:10.240 --> 01:56:11.200
Well, this is the thing.

2028
01:56:11.200 --> 01:56:13.160
I think it's got such a huge amount of memory on me

2029
01:56:13.160 --> 01:56:14.440
that it knew what I wanted to hear.

2030
01:56:14.440 --> 01:56:17.200
Oh, wow, it knew what I wanted to hear,

2031
01:56:17.200 --> 01:56:19.440
because I've probably went through the World Cup,

2032
01:56:19.440 --> 01:56:21.600
and then I've realized the case, so this is not reality.

2033
01:56:21.600 --> 01:56:23.360
This is a curated version of reality

2034
01:56:23.360 --> 01:56:25.400
that in some sense is trying to please me

2035
01:56:25.400 --> 01:56:27.640
or retain me in some way, and of course,

2036
01:56:27.640 --> 01:56:28.880
once the advertising model kicks in,

2037
01:56:28.880 --> 01:56:31.400
retention becomes the great incentive.

2038
01:56:31.400 --> 01:56:32.720
What do you think?

2039
01:56:33.920 --> 01:56:35.280
It's called psycho-fancy.

2040
01:56:35.280 --> 01:56:37.640
Yeah, I just learned that word, because it's like,

2041
01:56:37.640 --> 01:56:39.360
it's like, agreeableness at scale,

2042
01:56:39.360 --> 01:56:40.440
it's like golden retriever energy.

2043
01:56:40.440 --> 01:56:42.080
Like kissing your ass, it's like professional,

2044
01:56:42.080 --> 01:56:43.120
because you're like, the yes man.

2045
01:56:43.200 --> 01:56:45.600
What do you think of these AIC CEOs?

2046
01:56:45.600 --> 01:56:48.840
Because it feels like they're in a bit of a race,

2047
01:56:48.840 --> 01:56:51.200
where if they don't do it,

2048
01:56:51.200 --> 01:56:53.320
then a national rival's gonna do it.

2049
01:56:53.320 --> 01:56:56.200
If a national rival doesn't take them out,

2050
01:56:56.200 --> 01:56:58.000
China's gonna do it.

2051
01:56:58.000 --> 01:57:01.520
And this is, we kind of sort of with social media.

2052
01:57:01.520 --> 01:57:02.680
How can they stop?

2053
01:57:02.680 --> 01:57:05.480
Because if they stop, they might say

2054
01:57:05.480 --> 01:57:07.280
that there's an existential risk.

2055
01:57:07.280 --> 01:57:10.040
There is like a build to the plane as you're flying it.

2056
01:57:10.040 --> 01:57:11.680
And I think you on one of your episodes,

2057
01:57:11.680 --> 01:57:13.200
you know, that I'm a fan of this show

2058
01:57:13.200 --> 01:57:15.560
and I actively listen to this,

2059
01:57:15.560 --> 01:57:17.480
I've told you this many times.

2060
01:57:17.480 --> 01:57:18.920
One of the, I think you had said

2061
01:57:18.920 --> 01:57:20.040
on one of your episodes, right,

2062
01:57:20.040 --> 01:57:24.360
that you have a friend who is very close to a AI founder.

2063
01:57:24.360 --> 01:57:25.200
I said this, yeah.

2064
01:57:25.200 --> 01:57:27.760
And in public, the founder says all the right things

2065
01:57:27.760 --> 01:57:29.720
and then behind closed doors, it's all different.

2066
01:57:29.720 --> 01:57:31.520
Yeah, it was like a horrifying thing.

2067
01:57:31.520 --> 01:57:32.600
And I said this in a clip where it went viral

2068
01:57:32.600 --> 01:57:34.440
and people have been trying to hazard a guess who it was.

2069
01:57:34.440 --> 01:57:35.440
I shouldn't say who it was,

2070
01:57:35.440 --> 01:57:37.840
because it's Chinese whispers at the end of the day.

2071
01:57:37.840 --> 01:57:40.400
It's someone that I'm very good friends with,

2072
01:57:40.400 --> 01:57:43.240
who is verified spends time

2073
01:57:43.240 --> 01:57:46.040
with one of the biggest founders of an AI company in the world.

2074
01:57:46.040 --> 01:57:48.560
And I, he was with him two weeks ago again.

2075
01:57:48.560 --> 01:57:51.400
And he said to me that they're very aware

2076
01:57:51.400 --> 01:57:56.400
that there's a small existential risk for humanity.

2077
01:57:57.200 --> 01:57:59.320
And it's not, it's not, it's not small.

2078
01:57:59.320 --> 01:58:00.760
It's not, it's not big.

2079
01:58:00.760 --> 01:58:03.520
I mean, but even if there were, it was 1%.

2080
01:58:03.520 --> 01:58:05.520
It's a lot more than 1% they say.

2081
01:58:05.520 --> 01:58:09.280
If it was, but I'm saying even if it was 0.1%.

2082
01:58:09.280 --> 01:58:11.320
If there was, if there was anything that I was doing in my life

2083
01:58:11.320 --> 01:58:13.320
where there was a 0.1% chance

2084
01:58:13.320 --> 01:58:14.720
that I went wipe out everybody,

2085
01:58:14.720 --> 01:58:16.760
I wouldn't need to really stop doing that thing.

2086
01:58:16.760 --> 01:58:17.600
Yeah.

2087
01:58:17.600 --> 01:58:19.240
But these numbers are much bigger.

2088
01:58:19.240 --> 01:58:23.280
I'm hearing 7%, 20%, 25% depending on who you,

2089
01:58:24.320 --> 01:58:26.200
and I think acceleration in this direction

2090
01:58:26.200 --> 01:58:28.280
increases that percentage.

2091
01:58:28.280 --> 01:58:29.480
What do you think of these people?

2092
01:58:29.480 --> 01:58:30.880
Like what's going on here?

2093
01:58:30.880 --> 01:58:34.120
Let's start with the collective action problems.

2094
01:58:34.120 --> 01:58:37.880
Because each, each company is completely other companies.

2095
01:58:37.880 --> 01:58:40.200
And so they feel like they have to go faster.

2096
01:58:40.200 --> 01:58:41.200
And we know this, you know,

2097
01:58:41.200 --> 01:58:43.040
open AI has pushed some products out

2098
01:58:43.040 --> 01:58:44.240
before they did safety testing

2099
01:58:44.240 --> 01:58:46.320
because they had to get to market by a certain date.

2100
01:58:46.320 --> 01:58:48.680
So just the normal business environment

2101
01:58:48.680 --> 01:58:50.560
puts them all in a collective action problem

2102
01:58:50.560 --> 01:58:51.800
against each other.

2103
01:58:51.800 --> 01:58:54.160
And then they all say we're in a collective action problem

2104
01:58:54.160 --> 01:58:57.280
against China because if we don't do this, then China will.

2105
01:58:57.280 --> 01:58:59.040
Now one thing I learned, again,

2106
01:58:59.040 --> 01:59:01.120
I don't know if Tristan said this on your podcast

2107
01:59:01.120 --> 01:59:03.200
or whether it was on his podcast.

2108
01:59:03.200 --> 01:59:06.280
But is that China is focused on using AI

2109
01:59:06.280 --> 01:59:08.520
to make its economy more efficient,

2110
01:59:08.520 --> 01:59:10.800
to make manufacturing better and cheaper?

2111
01:59:10.800 --> 01:59:12.320
They are using these applications,

2112
01:59:12.320 --> 01:59:13.760
which we've talked about before, like we're totally,

2113
01:59:13.760 --> 01:59:16.040
there's lots of great applications of AI.

2114
01:59:16.040 --> 01:59:19.680
The Chinese also have so many spies in America

2115
01:59:19.680 --> 01:59:22.160
and in the tech companies and they can hack into anything.

2116
01:59:22.160 --> 01:59:25.760
So the point is the faster our companies are in a headlong race

2117
01:59:25.760 --> 01:59:28.760
to create AGI, to create a country of geniuses

2118
01:59:28.760 --> 01:59:30.520
that can replace all human workers,

2119
01:59:30.520 --> 01:59:34.040
put us all out of work and run, it can run everything.

2120
01:59:34.040 --> 01:59:35.520
They're in a race to create that.

2121
01:59:35.520 --> 01:59:38.440
And one of the arguments is if we don't do it, China will.

2122
01:59:38.440 --> 01:59:40.240
But what I understood from this in Tristan

2123
01:59:40.240 --> 01:59:41.960
and from his conversation with you

2124
01:59:41.960 --> 01:59:44.400
is that the faster we go towards AGI,

2125
01:59:44.400 --> 01:59:45.880
the faster China goes, because they just,

2126
01:59:45.880 --> 01:59:47.600
they just take all our discoveries.

2127
01:59:47.600 --> 01:59:51.320
So can't we slow down on the race to AGI

2128
01:59:51.320 --> 01:59:53.360
and do more safety testing?

2129
01:59:54.360 --> 01:59:57.880
What we all saw with multiple and communities of agents

2130
01:59:57.880 --> 02:00:00.040
who are talking to each other and making up languages.

2131
02:00:00.040 --> 02:00:02.360
And even if part of that was human driven now in a year,

2132
02:00:02.360 --> 02:00:04.960
it's gonna be much more than what we saw.

2133
02:00:05.000 --> 02:00:07.560
So I think the risks are extraordinary.

2134
02:00:07.560 --> 02:00:09.440
I think that some of these guys look,

2135
02:00:09.440 --> 02:00:11.080
they've been in AI for a long time.

2136
02:00:11.080 --> 02:00:14.040
They might not have realized the existential risks

2137
02:00:14.040 --> 02:00:15.880
they were putting us all in 10, 15 years ago

2138
02:00:15.880 --> 02:00:17.240
and now they can't stop.

2139
02:00:17.240 --> 02:00:18.560
They can't pull the plug.

2140
02:00:18.560 --> 02:00:21.320
They can't say, oh, let's shut down the whole business.

2141
02:00:21.320 --> 02:00:23.840
So it is a very, very risky time.

2142
02:00:23.840 --> 02:00:27.200
And I think Dario Amodai just read his long essay

2143
02:00:27.200 --> 02:00:29.000
on the adolescence of technology.

2144
02:00:29.000 --> 02:00:31.080
At least you get the feeling he's really wrestling with it.

2145
02:00:31.080 --> 02:00:34.120
And I think he's more open than some of the others.

2146
02:00:34.120 --> 02:00:35.320
But I don't know.

2147
02:00:35.320 --> 02:00:39.280
But when has morality ever been top of mind

2148
02:00:39.280 --> 02:00:41.520
for a tech leader, you might be thinking,

2149
02:00:41.520 --> 02:00:44.440
if there's 0.111% chance, I'm not gonna do it.

2150
02:00:44.440 --> 02:00:45.480
That's what I think is a doctor.

2151
02:00:45.480 --> 02:00:47.400
That's what you think is a social scientist.

2152
02:00:47.400 --> 02:00:49.680
But we're not AI leaders, right?

2153
02:00:51.120 --> 02:00:53.960
Yeah, it's one of the great question marks.

2154
02:00:53.960 --> 02:00:56.040
I just can't seem to get an answer to him.

2155
02:00:56.040 --> 02:00:58.000
And then you've got this whole robotics thing happening

2156
02:00:58.000 --> 02:01:00.560
when Elon's got his Optimus robots

2157
02:01:00.560 --> 02:01:01.720
and there's gonna be a billion,

2158
02:01:01.720 --> 02:01:03.720
he says there's gonna be 10 billion of them at one point.

2159
02:01:03.720 --> 02:01:06.640
But I think his pay packet requires a million of them

2160
02:01:06.640 --> 02:01:08.000
to be out in the world.

2161
02:01:08.000 --> 02:01:09.520
Trying to make a trillion dollars, yeah.

2162
02:01:09.520 --> 02:01:12.680
Yeah, and I just say, AI robotics, you combine the two,

2163
02:01:12.680 --> 02:01:13.840
you get a terminator.

2164
02:01:13.840 --> 02:01:18.120
Yeah, we love, but it's like,

2165
02:01:19.760 --> 02:01:22.080
should we stop for a second

2166
02:01:22.080 --> 02:01:23.640
and maybe have a conversation about this?

2167
02:01:23.640 --> 02:01:25.120
Can we?

2168
02:01:25.120 --> 02:01:26.400
With commercial incentives in play,

2169
02:01:26.400 --> 02:01:29.360
it does feel like, I don't feel hopeful.

2170
02:01:30.920 --> 02:01:33.080
Yeah, it's very hard to know how to stop it.

2171
02:01:33.920 --> 02:01:36.040
But I want to just add one point on here,

2172
02:01:36.040 --> 02:01:38.800
which we've touched around a few times,

2173
02:01:38.800 --> 02:01:41.840
and the robotics will really bring it home here,

2174
02:01:41.840 --> 02:01:45.320
is the loss of the sense of meaning or purpose

2175
02:01:45.320 --> 02:01:46.560
that many people are feeling,

2176
02:01:46.560 --> 02:01:47.920
but especially young people,

2177
02:01:47.920 --> 02:01:49.600
the saddest graph in the anxious generation,

2178
02:01:49.600 --> 02:01:50.520
all the graphs look the same.

2179
02:01:50.520 --> 02:01:51.560
It's all a hockey stick.

2180
02:01:51.560 --> 02:01:53.880
It's all like nothing was happening,

2181
02:01:53.880 --> 02:01:57.480
90s to 2010, 2011, then all of a sudden something happens.

2182
02:01:57.480 --> 02:01:59.600
And the saddest one is the one,

2183
02:01:59.600 --> 02:02:01.200
my life feels meaningless.

2184
02:02:01.200 --> 02:02:02.960
Do you agree with that, disagree with it?

2185
02:02:03.000 --> 02:02:05.080
And the percent that agree,

2186
02:02:05.080 --> 02:02:08.600
I think it's something like eight or nine percent agreed

2187
02:02:08.600 --> 02:02:09.960
for the millennial generation.

2188
02:02:09.960 --> 02:02:12.160
I think it's in chapter seven and in chapter seven.

2189
02:02:12.160 --> 02:02:13.600
And then it's fairly flat.

2190
02:02:13.600 --> 02:02:15.240
And then all of a sudden, we hit this period,

2191
02:02:15.240 --> 02:02:17.560
the great rewiring 2010 to 2015.

2192
02:02:17.560 --> 02:02:20.080
So right around 2013, it goes way, way up.

2193
02:02:21.040 --> 02:02:22.840
Young people feel useless.

2194
02:02:22.840 --> 02:02:25.240
And I think the reason is that they are useless.

2195
02:02:25.240 --> 02:02:28.760
What I mean is, people need to feel useful.

2196
02:02:28.760 --> 02:02:30.720
People need to do things for other people.

2197
02:02:30.720 --> 02:02:32.200
That's how you feel useful.

2198
02:02:32.200 --> 02:02:34.760
If you were to disappear with the world change,

2199
02:02:34.760 --> 02:02:36.640
if yes, you're useful,

2200
02:02:36.640 --> 02:02:38.480
are people depending on you for something?

2201
02:02:38.480 --> 02:02:40.160
If yes, you're useful.

2202
02:02:40.160 --> 02:02:44.200
So if kids are doing errands for the family, they're useful.

2203
02:02:44.200 --> 02:02:47.360
But as childhood change from a mix of things

2204
02:02:47.360 --> 02:02:50.000
to just consuming content, if that's all you do.

2205
02:02:50.000 --> 02:02:52.320
And five hours a day is the average for social media,

2206
02:02:52.320 --> 02:02:55.400
eight to 10 on devices, not counting school.

2207
02:02:55.400 --> 02:02:58.000
If all you're doing is just you're just consuming content,

2208
02:02:58.000 --> 02:02:59.200
you are useless.

2209
02:02:59.200 --> 02:03:00.840
Now, what's happening?

2210
02:03:00.840 --> 02:03:02.720
The chance to have a job where you actually do something

2211
02:03:02.720 --> 02:03:05.440
for people, you know, you used to be if you were working

2212
02:03:05.440 --> 02:03:06.840
a store, at least you're helping people

2213
02:03:06.840 --> 02:03:08.720
buy something and you might talk to them.

2214
02:03:08.720 --> 02:03:11.920
And now you're just there watching as they use the machine.

2215
02:03:11.920 --> 02:03:14.840
The more technology makes things easy and cheap

2216
02:03:14.840 --> 02:03:17.880
by replacing people, the more people will feel

2217
02:03:17.880 --> 02:03:20.040
my job is to just, I don't have a job.

2218
02:03:20.040 --> 02:03:21.840
It's just consume content.

2219
02:03:21.840 --> 02:03:25.320
The AI guys tell us, oh, such abundance.

2220
02:03:25.320 --> 02:03:27.920
Oh my God, it's going to be such abundance.

2221
02:03:27.960 --> 02:03:29.280
No one will have to work.

2222
02:03:29.280 --> 02:03:30.880
We'll give everyone UBI.

2223
02:03:30.880 --> 02:03:33.680
We'll give everybody universal basic income.

2224
02:03:33.680 --> 02:03:35.520
That is hell on earth.

2225
02:03:35.520 --> 02:03:36.360
What's going to happen?

2226
02:03:36.360 --> 02:03:38.320
Certainly all the boys, most of the boys,

2227
02:03:38.320 --> 02:03:40.720
it's just going to be video games pouring and gambling.

2228
02:03:40.720 --> 02:03:44.280
So if you simply give people money to do nothing,

2229
02:03:44.280 --> 02:03:47.200
you guaranteed they're going to feel useless.

2230
02:03:47.200 --> 02:03:49.480
And then the suicide rate will continue to go up.

2231
02:03:49.480 --> 02:03:52.200
So this is the world that the AI guys are taking us to,

2232
02:03:52.200 --> 02:03:54.960
a world in which there's nothing left for people to do.

2233
02:03:54.960 --> 02:03:58.000
They say that they will give up some of their trillions

2234
02:03:58.000 --> 02:04:00.920
and somehow let it be taxed or diverted as UBI,

2235
02:04:00.920 --> 02:04:02.160
but that's never happened before.

2236
02:04:02.160 --> 02:04:04.240
So it's not likely to happen in this case.

2237
02:04:04.240 --> 02:04:06.840
So again, I don't know what to do,

2238
02:04:06.840 --> 02:04:09.680
but we've got to start showing that we can do something

2239
02:04:09.680 --> 02:04:11.280
and we've got to be talking about this.

2240
02:04:11.280 --> 02:04:13.560
And we can't be welcoming AI in everywhere.

2241
02:04:13.560 --> 02:04:16.160
We've got to be wary and vigilant.

2242
02:04:16.160 --> 02:04:18.760
Yes, there are some uses, but Silicon Valley

2243
02:04:18.760 --> 02:04:20.800
has tricked us so many times and it

2244
02:04:20.800 --> 02:04:23.800
shittified so many of the apps that we use.

2245
02:04:23.800 --> 02:04:25.920
We have to expect that the same is going to happen

2246
02:04:25.920 --> 02:04:28.600
with our beloved chat bots and our beloved chat GPT.

2247
02:04:29.720 --> 02:04:33.080
This graph on page 195 of your book,

2248
02:04:33.080 --> 02:04:35.440
which is titled Life Often Feels Meaningless,

2249
02:04:35.440 --> 02:04:36.520
and it's the graph you mentioned or

2250
02:04:36.520 --> 02:04:40.280
I'll throw it up on the screen, is shocking.

2251
02:04:40.280 --> 02:04:41.640
Shocking just to look at.

2252
02:04:41.640 --> 02:04:45.360
Suddenly there's this huge spike in meaninglessness

2253
02:04:45.360 --> 02:04:47.800
amongst high school seniors.

2254
02:04:49.720 --> 02:04:52.880
What is it to live a meaningful life?

2255
02:04:52.880 --> 02:04:54.680
What does that mean?

2256
02:04:54.680 --> 02:04:56.960
So my first book, The Happiness Hypothesis,

2257
02:04:56.960 --> 02:04:58.720
addresses that question very directly.

2258
02:04:59.880 --> 02:05:02.800
And the first hypothesis you might have about happiness

2259
02:05:02.800 --> 02:05:04.880
is it comes from getting what you want.

2260
02:05:04.880 --> 02:05:07.480
You set out on a goal, you get your goal, you're happy.

2261
02:05:07.480 --> 02:05:08.320
It's very short-lipped.

2262
02:05:08.320 --> 02:05:11.880
You're happy very briefly and then you run to the next thing.

2263
02:05:11.880 --> 02:05:14.240
The more sophisticated happiness hypothesis

2264
02:05:14.240 --> 02:05:16.680
is that happiness comes from within.

2265
02:05:16.680 --> 02:05:18.200
And this is what the ancients tell us,

2266
02:05:18.200 --> 02:05:20.400
East and West, Buddhist, Stoic,

2267
02:05:20.400 --> 02:05:22.000
don't try to make the world conform.

2268
02:05:22.000 --> 02:05:25.640
You change yourself, except for the world the way it is.

2269
02:05:25.640 --> 02:05:26.400
That's better.

2270
02:05:27.400 --> 02:05:30.760
But the conclusion I came to as a modern social psychologist

2271
02:05:30.760 --> 02:05:33.520
working in positive psychology was that the best way

2272
02:05:33.520 --> 02:05:36.360
to say it is that happiness comes from between.

2273
02:05:36.360 --> 02:05:38.960
What I mean by that is humans evolved

2274
02:05:38.960 --> 02:05:41.600
as almost high-wish creatures.

2275
02:05:41.600 --> 02:05:43.640
We evolved in intensely social groups,

2276
02:05:43.640 --> 02:05:47.600
never being alone, lots of gossip, lots of conflict,

2277
02:05:48.440 --> 02:05:51.720
it intensely social, and modernity has made it possible

2278
02:05:51.720 --> 02:05:53.000
for us to not live that way.

2279
02:05:53.000 --> 02:05:53.840
We've come apart.

2280
02:05:53.840 --> 02:05:55.120
There are many advantages to that,

2281
02:05:55.120 --> 02:05:57.160
but we feel we're missing something,

2282
02:05:57.160 --> 02:06:01.120
we're lonely, we feel something is not right.

2283
02:06:01.120 --> 02:06:05.400
And so the conclusion I came to is that happiness comes,

2284
02:06:05.400 --> 02:06:10.000
a sense of a full, satisfying, meaningful life comes.

2285
02:06:10.000 --> 02:06:12.280
When you get three between, right?

2286
02:06:12.280 --> 02:06:15.040
The relationship between yourself and others,

2287
02:06:15.080 --> 02:06:17.520
love broadly speaking, not just romantic,

2288
02:06:17.520 --> 02:06:21.160
but friends, family, yourself and your work

2289
02:06:21.160 --> 02:06:23.320
that as humans need to be productive,

2290
02:06:23.320 --> 02:06:26.040
we need to be doing something that matters,

2291
02:06:26.040 --> 02:06:28.280
that affects other people,

2292
02:06:28.280 --> 02:06:31.680
and the relationship between you and something larger

2293
02:06:31.680 --> 02:06:32.520
than yourself.

2294
02:06:32.520 --> 02:06:34.920
We need to be part of something that endures,

2295
02:06:34.920 --> 02:06:36.520
that part of a tradition,

2296
02:06:36.520 --> 02:06:38.800
part of we can look to a future.

2297
02:06:38.800 --> 02:06:41.600
What I do matters for this group or this mission

2298
02:06:41.600 --> 02:06:42.680
or me as an academic,

2299
02:06:42.680 --> 02:06:45.040
I feel like I'm connected all the way back to Plato,

2300
02:06:45.040 --> 02:06:46.960
and I hope all the way forward in time

2301
02:06:46.960 --> 02:06:50.400
to future psychologists and future scholars.

2302
02:06:50.400 --> 02:06:53.680
So if you get those three right,

2303
02:06:53.680 --> 02:06:55.640
then you will be as happy as you can be.

2304
02:06:55.640 --> 02:06:57.240
You will be as happy as your genes

2305
02:06:57.240 --> 02:06:59.040
and childhood allow you to be.

2306
02:06:59.920 --> 02:07:01.440
And when you put it that way,

2307
02:07:01.440 --> 02:07:04.920
what we can see is social media and AI

2308
02:07:04.920 --> 02:07:06.600
interfere with all three.

2309
02:07:06.600 --> 02:07:08.640
So relationships when yourself and others,

2310
02:07:08.640 --> 02:07:11.640
well, social media gives you lots and lots of shallow

2311
02:07:11.640 --> 02:07:13.040
relationships, which blocks out,

2312
02:07:13.040 --> 02:07:15.400
you don't have time for your real people.

2313
02:07:15.400 --> 02:07:18.360
So the technology is blocking relation between ourselves

2314
02:07:18.360 --> 02:07:20.280
and others and taking it over.

2315
02:07:20.280 --> 02:07:21.920
Our self and our work,

2316
02:07:21.920 --> 02:07:24.520
work is gonna be taken over by the machines,

2317
02:07:24.520 --> 02:07:27.240
and it's already becoming more soulless and isolated.

2318
02:07:27.240 --> 02:07:30.120
And then yourself and something larger than yourself.

2319
02:07:30.120 --> 02:07:31.880
Humans have to live in a moral matrix.

2320
02:07:31.880 --> 02:07:34.920
We co-create a set of meanings and traditions.

2321
02:07:34.920 --> 02:07:37.200
We need a sense of history of who we are,

2322
02:07:37.200 --> 02:07:40.480
where we came from, all that's getting shredded.

2323
02:07:40.480 --> 02:07:42.120
Everything is just little bits.

2324
02:07:42.120 --> 02:07:43.560
People don't read books.

2325
02:07:43.560 --> 02:07:46.160
Imagine if all of the accumulated wisdom of humanity

2326
02:07:46.160 --> 02:07:48.120
and books is just gone, just gone.

2327
02:07:48.120 --> 02:07:51.120
Nobody is gonna read, young people are not reading books.

2328
02:07:51.120 --> 02:07:52.480
It's very hard for them to read a book now

2329
02:07:52.480 --> 02:07:53.800
because of the attention.

2330
02:07:53.800 --> 02:07:55.480
So if we lose a sense of history,

2331
02:07:55.480 --> 02:07:59.360
if we lose an ability to co-construct reality,

2332
02:07:59.360 --> 02:08:01.320
then it'll be hard to imagine anything

2333
02:08:01.320 --> 02:08:02.760
that we're connected to larger than ourselves.

2334
02:08:02.760 --> 02:08:07.760
So I am a techno determinist in the sense that I think,

2335
02:08:07.760 --> 02:08:09.040
the tech, it doesn't determine everything,

2336
02:08:09.040 --> 02:08:10.880
but you have to start with the technology

2337
02:08:10.880 --> 02:08:13.120
because that changes the ground upon which we live,

2338
02:08:13.120 --> 02:08:16.440
the zone in which we're trying to construct meaningful lives.

2339
02:08:16.440 --> 02:08:19.920
Start with that, and then you can see what the obstacles are.

2340
02:08:19.920 --> 02:08:22.440
And that's why I take a much more, what,

2341
02:08:22.440 --> 02:08:24.960
intemperate, I guess, I'll accept the word.

2342
02:08:25.960 --> 02:08:26.800
I love it.

2343
02:08:26.800 --> 02:08:28.400
Because we don't have much time here.

2344
02:08:28.400 --> 02:08:31.160
We have to reclaim life in the real world

2345
02:08:31.160 --> 02:08:32.760
for our kids and for ourselves.

2346
02:08:32.760 --> 02:08:35.680
There is no way to find a happy meaningful life

2347
02:08:35.680 --> 02:08:39.760
if we make the full transition to the online AI robot world.

2348
02:08:39.760 --> 02:08:44.760
And what in your perspective is a meaningful life?

2349
02:08:44.760 --> 02:08:46.520
And how does it differ from Jonathan's?

2350
02:08:46.520 --> 02:08:48.640
I loved Jonathan's description.

2351
02:08:48.640 --> 02:08:52.840
It was so beautiful that I have given a prescription

2352
02:08:52.840 --> 02:08:56.120
to patients of what creates a meaningful life

2353
02:08:56.120 --> 02:08:58.520
and it is to live a lifetime in a day.

2354
02:08:58.520 --> 02:09:00.560
And so that sounds like this big thing.

2355
02:09:00.560 --> 02:09:05.040
But all it is is that when you start your day,

2356
02:09:05.040 --> 02:09:08.800
think about five things, five things that you can do in your day

2357
02:09:08.800 --> 02:09:13.000
to create an arc of a long and meaningful life in one day.

2358
02:09:13.000 --> 02:09:13.760
So what does that mean?

2359
02:09:13.760 --> 02:09:15.680
Spend a little bit of time and childhood.

2360
02:09:15.680 --> 02:09:18.880
So in wonder and play, even if it's for a few minutes,

2361
02:09:18.880 --> 02:09:21.800
do something that brings you joy for joy's sake.

2362
02:09:21.800 --> 02:09:24.480
Spend a little bit of time and work.

2363
02:09:24.480 --> 02:09:25.640
We all know what that is.

2364
02:09:25.640 --> 02:09:27.480
And it's for most of us, it's a lot of time.

2365
02:09:27.480 --> 02:09:29.880
But for, you know, it doesn't have to be paid work,

2366
02:09:29.880 --> 02:09:32.800
but just something that helps you feel a sense of productivity,

2367
02:09:32.800 --> 02:09:35.360
agency that I can do difficult things

2368
02:09:35.360 --> 02:09:36.640
and I can overcome.

2369
02:09:36.640 --> 02:09:39.120
Spend a few minutes in solitude, very important

2370
02:09:39.120 --> 02:09:41.680
for all of the reasons that we've talked about today,

2371
02:09:41.680 --> 02:09:43.920
spend some time in community.

2372
02:09:43.920 --> 02:09:46.920
So engaging with others and then spend some time

2373
02:09:46.920 --> 02:09:50.040
in retirement or in reflection,

2374
02:09:50.040 --> 02:09:51.480
really taking stock of your day.

2375
02:09:51.480 --> 02:09:54.560
So at the end of the day, when you're going to bed

2376
02:09:54.560 --> 02:09:55.800
and you're putting your head on your pillow,

2377
02:09:55.800 --> 02:09:57.960
you can say, okay, yes, I lived a meaningful life.

2378
02:09:57.960 --> 02:09:58.920
I did all of those things.

2379
02:09:58.920 --> 02:10:01.280
And so if you do a little bit of that every day,

2380
02:10:01.280 --> 02:10:02.120
you can make a difference.

2381
02:10:02.120 --> 02:10:04.360
And the reason I give that prescription

2382
02:10:04.360 --> 02:10:06.400
because I've had patients who, you know,

2383
02:10:06.400 --> 02:10:07.600
guitar players, right?

2384
02:10:07.600 --> 02:10:09.400
So people who love playing the guitar,

2385
02:10:09.400 --> 02:10:11.520
and they don't play the guitar all week.

2386
02:10:11.520 --> 02:10:14.080
And they'll say to me, I don't see patients currently,

2387
02:10:14.080 --> 02:10:16.080
but they've said to me, oh, you know, no, Doc,

2388
02:10:16.080 --> 02:10:17.680
I said, what do you like to do for fun?

2389
02:10:17.680 --> 02:10:19.160
Oh, I like playing guitar, but I don't play it.

2390
02:10:19.160 --> 02:10:20.000
When do you play?

2391
02:10:20.000 --> 02:10:22.200
I don't know, once a month, once every three months.

2392
02:10:22.200 --> 02:10:23.680
And I'm like, do you have a guitar at home?

2393
02:10:23.680 --> 02:10:25.920
I have a guitar at home, too much happening,

2394
02:10:25.920 --> 02:10:28.000
work and family life, et cetera.

2395
02:10:28.000 --> 02:10:30.760
So then I said, well, why don't you just play a guitar?

2396
02:10:30.760 --> 02:10:32.160
A little bit every day, you know,

2397
02:10:32.160 --> 02:10:33.920
because it's that all or nothing fallacy.

2398
02:10:33.920 --> 02:10:35.600
It's like, if I don't have an hour to play a guitar,

2399
02:10:35.600 --> 02:10:37.920
I'm not gonna do it, but the joy that it can bring you,

2400
02:10:37.920 --> 02:10:40.400
that meaning and purpose, it's tremendous.

2401
02:10:40.400 --> 02:10:41.880
So I think, you know, that's what I use,

2402
02:10:41.880 --> 02:10:43.000
live a lifetime in a day.

2403
02:10:43.000 --> 02:10:46.240
And the reason is, because there are two distinct,

2404
02:10:46.240 --> 02:10:49.760
when you look at how your brain and body react to happiness,

2405
02:10:49.760 --> 02:10:52.160
there's two distinct types of happiness.

2406
02:10:52.160 --> 02:10:54.280
And so there's hedonic happiness,

2407
02:10:54.280 --> 02:10:56.400
and you dimonic happiness.

2408
02:10:56.400 --> 02:10:59.200
Hedonic happiness is all about what we've talked about.

2409
02:10:59.200 --> 02:11:03.520
Social media, consumption, pleasure,

2410
02:11:03.520 --> 02:11:06.880
and the other type is you dimonic happiness,

2411
02:11:06.880 --> 02:11:10.160
meaning, purpose, connection, community,

2412
02:11:10.160 --> 02:11:11.880
growth-oriented activities.

2413
02:11:11.880 --> 02:11:14.520
And so when you live a lifetime in a day,

2414
02:11:14.520 --> 02:11:18.840
you go towards that you dimonia, which can then help you,

2415
02:11:18.840 --> 02:11:21.440
and overcome that hedonic, because in your brain,

2416
02:11:21.440 --> 02:11:23.400
there's something called the hedonic treadmill.

2417
02:11:23.400 --> 02:11:25.600
And the treadmill is a thing in your brain

2418
02:11:25.600 --> 02:11:26.840
where no matter what you do,

2419
02:11:26.840 --> 02:11:28.720
this is like the Instagram lifestyle, right?

2420
02:11:28.720 --> 02:11:30.480
No matter what happens, you need more of it.

2421
02:11:30.480 --> 02:11:31.480
You need more of it.

2422
02:11:31.480 --> 02:11:32.520
Same thing with brain rot.

2423
02:11:32.520 --> 02:11:35.520
And that is because that you can never get enough,

2424
02:11:35.520 --> 02:11:37.240
and it's the hedonic treadmill,

2425
02:11:37.240 --> 02:11:38.720
but you do not have a treadmill

2426
02:11:38.720 --> 02:11:40.880
for you dimonic happiness.

2427
02:11:40.880 --> 02:11:42.760
Okay, that is really beautiful.

2428
02:11:42.760 --> 02:11:44.000
I've never heard an approach like that,

2429
02:11:44.000 --> 02:11:47.200
but it sort of takes you a much bigger view

2430
02:11:47.200 --> 02:11:49.080
of your day, live a lifetime in a day.

2431
02:11:49.080 --> 02:11:51.520
If I was gonna offer some specific advice,

2432
02:11:51.520 --> 02:11:53.040
first I'll offer advice to parents.

2433
02:11:54.080 --> 02:11:56.440
Here's the rule, so I did a really good job

2434
02:11:56.440 --> 02:11:57.720
keeping my kids off social media,

2435
02:11:57.720 --> 02:11:59.920
but I didn't pay enough attention to computers

2436
02:11:59.920 --> 02:12:02.160
and everything else, because it was during COVID.

2437
02:12:02.160 --> 02:12:03.480
The rule I wish I had followed,

2438
02:12:03.480 --> 02:12:04.600
I recommend to all parents,

2439
02:12:04.600 --> 02:12:05.640
especially with younger children,

2440
02:12:05.640 --> 02:12:09.520
is have the clear rule, no devices in the bedroom,

2441
02:12:09.520 --> 02:12:11.320
no screens in the bedroom ever.

2442
02:12:11.320 --> 02:12:12.720
That's just our family rule.

2443
02:12:12.720 --> 02:12:15.040
We have a TV in the living room, we have a computer,

2444
02:12:15.040 --> 02:12:16.800
you can sometimes use those,

2445
02:12:16.800 --> 02:12:19.680
but we never take screens into the bedrooms for kids.

2446
02:12:19.680 --> 02:12:21.240
Maybe later on, you'll have to relent

2447
02:12:21.240 --> 02:12:22.480
in middle school, that of so much homework

2448
02:12:22.480 --> 02:12:23.520
they can take the laptop in,

2449
02:12:23.520 --> 02:12:25.360
and maybe you're feeling a small apartment, of course,

2450
02:12:25.360 --> 02:12:26.200
it's difficult.

2451
02:12:26.240 --> 02:12:29.000
You can afford to do that to have that rule.

2452
02:12:29.000 --> 02:12:31.720
That's the main rule I wish I had done in my family,

2453
02:12:31.720 --> 02:12:33.520
and that would make everything a lot easier.

2454
02:12:33.520 --> 02:12:34.680
Also, same thing at the dinner table,

2455
02:12:34.680 --> 02:12:36.920
no device, we don't have screens at the dinner table.

2456
02:12:36.920 --> 02:12:39.560
So that's a specific thing for parents to do.

2457
02:12:40.920 --> 02:12:43.760
For everyone else, for everyone, for just all adults,

2458
02:12:44.600 --> 02:12:47.640
the advice is you have to reclaim your attention

2459
02:12:47.640 --> 02:12:49.720
because your attention has been largely taken

2460
02:12:49.720 --> 02:12:51.400
from you, at least a lot of it has,

2461
02:12:51.400 --> 02:12:52.600
you have to reclaim it.

2462
02:12:52.640 --> 02:12:56.480
And here are the three things that I do with my students,

2463
02:12:56.480 --> 02:12:59.320
and you can do it very quickly, and I can just explain it.

2464
02:12:59.320 --> 02:13:01.480
The first is you have to get your morning

2465
02:13:01.480 --> 02:13:02.560
and evening routine right.

2466
02:13:02.560 --> 02:13:04.640
The great majority, as soon as they open their eyes,

2467
02:13:04.640 --> 02:13:06.280
they're on the phone, and it's the last thing,

2468
02:13:06.280 --> 02:13:07.680
and it's everything in between.

2469
02:13:07.680 --> 02:13:09.920
So you have to have a good morning routine.

2470
02:13:09.920 --> 02:13:11.840
What are the first seven things you want to do

2471
02:13:11.840 --> 02:13:13.120
after you open your eyes?

2472
02:13:13.120 --> 02:13:15.440
And at a certain point, you can check your phone,

2473
02:13:15.440 --> 02:13:16.960
but it shouldn't be in the first few.

2474
02:13:17.960 --> 02:13:19.840
Do things to set up your own day,

2475
02:13:19.840 --> 02:13:21.960
otherwise your day will be taken by your phone,

2476
02:13:22.000 --> 02:13:23.080
it will be controlled by your phone.

2477
02:13:23.080 --> 02:13:25.920
So you've got to reclaim your morning and your evening,

2478
02:13:25.920 --> 02:13:29.520
and step one, step two, you have to shut off

2479
02:13:29.520 --> 02:13:32.080
almost all notifications, go into your notifications,

2480
02:13:32.080 --> 02:13:35.360
look into settings, what's giving you all the notifications.

2481
02:13:35.360 --> 02:13:37.920
Most of my students get an alert,

2482
02:13:37.920 --> 02:13:40.240
every time they get an email,

2483
02:13:40.240 --> 02:13:41.880
they don't understand that they have,

2484
02:13:41.880 --> 02:13:43.200
because they don't want to miss anything,

2485
02:13:43.200 --> 02:13:45.240
but they don't understand that if you are always being alerted,

2486
02:13:45.240 --> 02:13:46.800
then you miss everything else.

2487
02:13:46.800 --> 02:13:48.960
So shut off alerts for almost everything.

2488
02:13:48.960 --> 02:13:50.680
Obviously Uber and Lyft, you want to keep on,

2489
02:13:50.680 --> 02:13:52.120
you want to know when the car's coming,

2490
02:13:52.120 --> 02:13:54.880
but news outlets, everything else, get a daily email,

2491
02:13:54.880 --> 02:13:56.560
don't get alerts when,

2492
02:13:56.560 --> 02:13:58.560
and then the third, as I said before,

2493
02:13:58.560 --> 02:14:00.480
is get rid of all the slot machine apps.

2494
02:14:00.480 --> 02:14:02.400
Whatever apps you habitually use,

2495
02:14:02.400 --> 02:14:04.040
whatever apps you feel compulsion towards,

2496
02:14:04.040 --> 02:14:05.520
you have to get it off your phone.

2497
02:14:05.520 --> 02:14:08.960
And in that way, your phone is no longer a dopamine trigger

2498
02:14:08.960 --> 02:14:10.120
that's gonna always call out to you

2499
02:14:10.120 --> 02:14:11.600
like an addictive product.

2500
02:14:11.600 --> 02:14:14.760
Do those three things, you'll reclaim a lot of your attention.

2501
02:14:14.760 --> 02:14:17.360
I would add, stop breathe B, that you want to drink.

2502
02:14:17.360 --> 02:14:18.520
Stop breathe B.

2503
02:14:18.520 --> 02:14:20.200
It's a three second brain reset.

2504
02:14:20.200 --> 02:14:22.280
So before you check your devices,

2505
02:14:22.280 --> 02:14:27.280
before you engage, stop breathe and be.

2506
02:14:27.360 --> 02:14:28.800
Grunge yourself in the present moment.

2507
02:14:28.800 --> 02:14:30.640
What it does is it decreases

2508
02:14:30.640 --> 02:14:33.560
that what if future focus thinking,

2509
02:14:33.560 --> 02:14:35.560
anxiety's a future focused emotion

2510
02:14:35.560 --> 02:14:37.680
and it gets you back into the here and then now.

2511
02:14:37.680 --> 02:14:39.720
And so maybe the compulsion,

2512
02:14:39.720 --> 02:14:40.720
your board you're checking,

2513
02:14:40.720 --> 02:14:42.200
what about you doing something else?

2514
02:14:42.200 --> 02:14:45.480
You know, we often use that checking

2515
02:14:45.480 --> 02:14:47.400
as a substitute for many things.

2516
02:14:47.400 --> 02:14:49.560
And so it gives you that opportunity.

2517
02:14:49.560 --> 02:14:51.200
And then the rule of two is something

2518
02:14:51.200 --> 02:14:52.240
that we haven't talked about,

2519
02:14:52.240 --> 02:14:55.360
which I would love to propose to us today

2520
02:14:55.360 --> 02:14:58.360
is that your brain can really only handle two new changes

2521
02:14:58.360 --> 02:15:01.280
at a time and so give yourself two things

2522
02:15:01.280 --> 02:15:02.640
of all of the things that we've talked about

2523
02:15:02.640 --> 02:15:05.200
if you want to try in your life, two at a time,

2524
02:15:05.200 --> 02:15:08.440
give yourself eight weeks and then add two more

2525
02:15:08.440 --> 02:15:10.640
and two more, this is why New Year's resolutions fail

2526
02:15:10.640 --> 02:15:12.320
because we try to do everything all at once

2527
02:15:12.320 --> 02:15:15.160
and so just step wise two at a time.

2528
02:15:15.160 --> 02:15:16.560
Jonathan, you've just written this book,

2529
02:15:16.560 --> 02:15:19.520
which is now out called The Amazing Generation.

2530
02:15:19.600 --> 02:15:24.080
And it's beautiful, beautiful illustrations.

2531
02:15:24.080 --> 02:15:27.200
I'm assuming this one is for slightly younger audiences.

2532
02:15:27.200 --> 02:15:29.120
It's for ages eight to 13, yes.

2533
02:15:29.120 --> 02:15:31.160
And who should buy this and who should they buy it for?

2534
02:15:31.160 --> 02:15:35.440
It turns out that kids eight through 80 actually love it.

2535
02:15:35.440 --> 02:15:37.440
Even adults, they buying it for their kids,

2536
02:15:37.440 --> 02:15:39.760
but because it kind of lays out the basic ideas

2537
02:15:39.760 --> 02:15:42.400
of the anxious generation and explains dopamine,

2538
02:15:42.400 --> 02:15:44.120
explains the business model,

2539
02:15:44.120 --> 02:15:46.040
but it doesn't a really fun way.

2540
02:15:46.040 --> 02:15:49.360
And it's working beyond our wildest dreams.

2541
02:15:49.400 --> 02:15:50.720
If you look at the Amazon reviews,

2542
02:15:50.720 --> 02:15:52.320
it's full of parents who said,

2543
02:15:52.320 --> 02:15:54.680
I left it on the kitchen table, my kids came home,

2544
02:15:54.680 --> 02:15:57.120
they grabbed it, they fought over it, they read it,

2545
02:15:57.120 --> 02:15:58.760
they each read it in the first couple of days

2546
02:15:58.760 --> 02:16:01.320
and then they said, Mom, when I go to middle school,

2547
02:16:01.320 --> 02:16:02.320
I don't want a smartphone.

2548
02:16:02.320 --> 02:16:05.080
Just give me a flip phone, give me a basic phone

2549
02:16:05.080 --> 02:16:07.400
because the book is about how to be a rebel.

2550
02:16:07.400 --> 02:16:09.720
It's about how to reject this control

2551
02:16:09.720 --> 02:16:11.480
that the company's trying to put on you

2552
02:16:11.480 --> 02:16:13.640
and how to live a life that you choose

2553
02:16:13.640 --> 02:16:17.280
full of real freedom, friendship and fun.

2554
02:16:17.280 --> 02:16:18.840
And also the five resets, which is the book

2555
02:16:18.840 --> 02:16:19.960
we talked about before on the show,

2556
02:16:19.960 --> 02:16:22.040
rewire your brain and body for less stress

2557
02:16:22.040 --> 02:16:23.720
and more resilience.

2558
02:16:23.720 --> 02:16:24.960
Another smash hit best seller

2559
02:16:24.960 --> 02:16:27.920
that everybody's been talking about, who's it for?

2560
02:16:27.920 --> 02:16:31.080
It is for anyone who is struggling with stress

2561
02:16:31.080 --> 02:16:32.800
overwhelm and burnout,

2562
02:16:32.800 --> 02:16:36.800
it's to help you feel a sense of calm and clarity

2563
02:16:36.800 --> 02:16:39.680
in this anxious, uncertain world.

2564
02:16:39.680 --> 02:16:41.560
Everything is free, so that's something

2565
02:16:41.560 --> 02:16:43.560
that's really important to me as a doctor.

2566
02:16:43.560 --> 02:16:46.760
Every suggestion I ever offer will always be cost-free

2567
02:16:46.760 --> 02:16:49.400
because I think about patients with varying resources.

2568
02:16:49.400 --> 02:16:51.600
It's all science-backed and it's totally practical.

2569
02:16:51.600 --> 02:16:54.240
You don't have to go to Bali and have a sabbatical.

2570
02:16:54.240 --> 02:16:57.280
You can rewire your brain today right now

2571
02:16:57.280 --> 02:16:59.160
in the midst of all of this chaos.

2572
02:16:59.160 --> 02:17:00.760
Thank you to both of you.

2573
02:17:00.760 --> 02:17:04.040
I've learnt so much and I really, really mean that.

2574
02:17:04.040 --> 02:17:07.360
Like I feel sufficiently pushed to take change

2575
02:17:07.360 --> 02:17:09.120
to make change in my life.

2576
02:17:09.120 --> 02:17:10.640
And I need to go think about this

2577
02:17:10.640 --> 02:17:15.640
because I am most certainly struggling

2578
02:17:15.640 --> 02:17:17.120
with my addiction to my phone.

2579
02:17:17.120 --> 02:17:18.520
And I can feel it out in my relationships,

2580
02:17:18.520 --> 02:17:20.240
especially now as a fiance.

2581
02:17:20.240 --> 02:17:21.560
My girlfriend talked to me at my fiance,

2582
02:17:21.560 --> 02:17:23.360
talks to me about all the time.

2583
02:17:23.360 --> 02:17:25.120
And I want to be present for my kids,

2584
02:17:25.120 --> 02:17:27.440
when I have my kids, and I'm slightly concerned right now

2585
02:17:27.440 --> 02:17:29.800
that I won't be unless I take some kind of drastic action

2586
02:17:30.800 --> 02:17:33.200
in the direction of getting my attention back

2587
02:17:33.200 --> 02:17:34.040
and reclaiming it.

2588
02:17:34.040 --> 02:17:35.400
Thank you so much for the work that both of you do.

2589
02:17:35.400 --> 02:17:37.680
I can't say it enough because it's so important

2590
02:17:37.680 --> 02:17:39.120
and you've reached so many millions of people

2591
02:17:39.120 --> 02:17:40.720
and you're both changing the world

2592
02:17:40.720 --> 02:17:43.560
in a way that my words would not be able to capture.

2593
02:17:44.520 --> 02:17:45.440
But just thank you.

2594
02:17:45.440 --> 02:17:46.280
And please keep going.

2595
02:17:46.280 --> 02:17:47.400
And if there's anything more that I can do

2596
02:17:47.400 --> 02:17:49.440
to support both of your causes,

2597
02:17:49.440 --> 02:17:50.600
please do let me know what they are.

2598
02:17:50.600 --> 02:17:53.600
And on behalf of all of my many millions of people

2599
02:17:53.600 --> 02:17:55.120
that are with us right now,

2600
02:17:55.120 --> 02:17:57.320
thank you so much for saving our children.

2601
02:17:57.320 --> 02:17:58.160
Thank you, Stephen.

2602
02:17:58.160 --> 02:18:00.000
Thank you for giving the world so many opportunities

2603
02:18:00.000 --> 02:18:03.880
to accommodate and create new mental structures.

2604
02:18:03.880 --> 02:18:06.400
It's always such a pleasure to join you, Stephen.

2605
02:18:06.400 --> 02:18:10.360
And truly, I feel like you are changing the world as well.

2606
02:18:11.200 --> 02:18:12.840
Thank you. We're done. Thank you.