Transcripts For CSPAN2 After 20240703

John. Its good to be with you today. Im so looking forward to this conversation. Were here to talk about your new book, the anxious generation. I care a lot about adolescence. Im a social scientist, so i brought that lens to reading this book. I want understand whats going on. Im also a mom, so i really want reasons to be hopeful. So those are some of the perspectives i had in reading the book. Im curious what lenses you brought to writing it so im im also a social scientist. Im also a professor. Im also a father i have my my children are i have a son 17 and a daughter 14. And i said, you know, my own research is on the psychology of morality. I looked at how morality helps us understand the political divide. I have looked a lot at what social media is doing to democracy. I didnt set out to write a book on kids because thats not my expertise. Although have studied a lot of developmental psychology, i set out to write a book on what social media is doing to our country and how its making it difficult to have reasonable politics. And i thought id the first chapter off with, well, what happened to teens when they move their social lives onto onto a onto smartphones and social media in 2011 2012. What happened to them that i was going to move on and then just talk about democracy. But once i wrote that first chapter, i realized, oh my god, this is the graphs are shocking. The increase in Mental Illness is so vast and it happens in many countries. So anyway, so that drew me into it. And i think what i, what i can bring, even though im not primarily a developmental psychologist or a clinical psychologist, is as a social psychologist, im really aware of and focused on how we influence each other and you cant understand social media and the addiction to it and the difficulty of anyone stepping out unless you understand social web that people are in, the incredible concerns that we all have about reputation, what people think of us, and how much more intense that is for teenagers. So i bring that. And also im in a business school. I moved to the Nyu Stern School of business in 2011. Im i was at the university of virginia before that. And ive learned so much about business. I didnt know much about it before i came here. We dont learn much about business or capitalism. You know, in most of our schools. And so understanding the Business Models that facebook developed in particular the ad, the advertising driven engagement maximizing Business Model, has also helped me to understand why were in this deep, deep trap. Yeah. So talk to us a little bit about that Business Model, about the attention economy were in and how that factors into your thinking. So lets go back. I find it, you know, its very helpful, especially for you know, older listeners who remember the nineties, who remember how amazing it was when we first got got a web browser, when we first could like type in, you know, anything and google will or altavista, i think was the original one now would answer it. I mean, it was like we were gods, you know, you have omniscience, you can find anything. So the, you know, the early internet was incredible and the millennials grew up with it and it didnt harm their Mental Health at all. Their Mental Health is a little better than gen x before them, and it didnt harm democracy at all. In fact, it seemed to be really helping democracy in the nineties, so, you know, we we all started off very optimist stick about all of this and a point that i come back to again and again in the anxious generation is that when smartphones and social media came in, in the 20 in a to thousands, that really changed everything. Our Relationship Technology changed the technology was no longer a servant that we called them when we needed something. But once we got smartphone ads with the app store and hundreds, thousands of apps and notifications, now, there was the opportunity for companies to use us. There was the opportunity for facebook worked out the worked out the mechanics of this first. Originally, facebook had no revenue. It was just, hey, you know, lets connect people and for free. That seemed wonderful. But once they worked out their revenue model, which is that the us, the people using the the service are not the customers. They dont pay the money. They get a free service. And if youre getting something for free on the internet, probably youre the product. Well, i shouldnt say that there are kids, we get it for free. But in this case, if youre getting this companys service, youre actually the product, the customers, the advertiser. And once they develop that of free to use. But you pay with your data and your attention and, your receptivity to advertisements. Many other Companies Adopted it and then the race was on. Whoever could grab a Young Persons eyeballs and hold on would win. But if you didnt grab them and hold on, someone else would. So you better be as addictive as possible, as engaging as possible. And thats why the early, you know, even in 20 17,008, 229, it wasnt bad like it wasnt hurting kids Mental Health. But by 2015 it was. So thats the key turning point, that Business Model and you write in the book about some changes to the technologies themselves that you feel like made a big. I know the front facing camera is one of them. Talk to us a little bit about some of some of what changed around then that you feel like has has had such a big impact. Yes. So again, i didnt i didnt know this just from common knowledge. It wasnt until i first teamed up with tobias rose, stockwell, who has a wonderful book, outrage outrage machine, and then my Research Partners at roush really dug into it in detail when you lay out the story of what change technologically its a really amazing story. And so it starts. In 2007 with the introduction of the iphone. And there too, i remember my first iphone. It was magical. I mean, it was like a Digital Swiss Army knife. It had all these Amazing Things on it, could use it for all sorts of things. So i loved it. It was not harmful. My two year old son loved it, loved swiping left, you know, loved watching things. It there was no app store, there were no notifications it was just a tool that you use when you wanted it. And then in 2008, you got the Software Development kits which allow apps to allow developers to develop apps. You get the app store, you get notifications in 2010, you get the front facing camera. So now young peoples lives are not just taking photos of each other, but of themselves. Much more of selfies become much a much bigger deal. Instagram is founded in 2010, but it doesnt become popular until 2012, when facebook buys it high Speed Internet. You know, the early internet was really slow, and its in this period around 2010 to 2012, thats when were really moving quickly to high Speed Internet and unlimited data plans. Before then, teens had to conserve their texting because they were paying for each text. My point is, in 2010, most teens at great majority had a flip phone limited data, no front facing camera. They used the phone to text each other and to call that was it by 2015, most teens, 70 or over 70 , have a smartphone. Most have an Instagram Account, especially the girls. They have high speed data plans. And so now its possible for the first time to be online all the time. The millennials couldnt do that. Gen z could. And did. And you call gen z the anxious generation. Thats the title of your book. So tell us who is the anxious generation . What marks the beginni in mind and how diweet here . Yeah, so the way that the way that i discovered this was originally through the work of jean tanguy. She wrote a book called i gen and. She had an atlantic article where, you know, author people need to understand authors dont make up their own titles. The atlantic is very good at making up titles that will sell. They made up the title have smartphones destroyed a generation. And so because it was a kind of an overthetop title, jane took a lot of flack for that. A lot of psychologists criticized her because what she was showing was these graphs of Mental Health of, lets say, Mental Illness, of depression, anxiety were like little hockey sticks, like they were flat. And then they would go up in 2013, 2014 and 2015. And i thought, wow, three years of data. I see that. I see the upturn. But if this goes down next year, shes going to be really embarrassed that it didnt go down. It just kept going up and up and up and its continue going up ever since. So the teen Mental Health crisis began in 2013. Thats when all the numbers began going up in 2011. Theres no sign of a problem. 2013. 2014 is when everything goes up, but it takes us a while to notice it because know we researchers, we dont get the data, the data collected. It takes two years before you see the published and but we began to notice on campus around 2014, 2015 that all of our Mental Health centers were flooded. We couldnt keep up with the demand. And so at the time, we thought our students were millennials, people were telling us, oh yeah, the millennial generation, you know, born in 1981 through 1999 or 2000, nobody really knew. But it turns out that if you were born in 1996 or seven, you have much higher odds of being anxious and depressed than if you were born in 1992 or 93. Its that sudden. Its the most sudden change ive ever seen in longitudinal data. And i think its because the millennials went through puberty on the early internet puberty, an incredibly important period of brain development. The brain is really rewiring itself into a final adult locked down configuration. Millennials went through with flip phones and the early internet, and they came out fine. Their Mental Health is good. Gen z, i think is defined by the fact that they went through puberty and social media many hours a day and that messes you up socially, developmentally. And i think neurologically and i know thats part of your thesis in the book, but there is another component of your argument in the anxious gen as well. Will you talk talk to us a little bit about what that is. Oh, yes, thank you. Because everyones so interested in the phones because thats all front and center. But actually my story, not a simple story about all of those kids. They got phones and then they were ruined. Its actually a two part story. I can summarize the whole book by saying we have overprotected our children in the real world and we have unde protected them online. So my previous was called the coddling of the American Mind how good intentions and bad ideas are setting up a generation failure. I wrote that with my friend greg lukyanov and we spent a lot of time we were trying to understand. Why are College Students suddenly so fragile . Beginning in 2015 . It wasnt like this in 2012, 2013. Why are College Students so fragile that many think theyre being harmed if a visiting speaker comes that they dont like . If theres a book assigned that they think has difficult content, the students in 2014 2015, which is different from those from those before, so we were looking especially at over protection a large part of our argument was we were trying on play researchers such as peter gray and the work of Lenore Skenazy, who wrote this wonderful book, free range kids. And we argued that because children are antifa fragile. That was the key word in that book where kids are not fragile. Theyre not going to break if they experience a setback. Actually, they need to experience setbacks. Its like the immune system. The immune system. If you protect a kid from dirt and germs, the immune system cant develop because the immune system requires disease, germs, bacteria in order to develop and become strong. So the story that i tell in the access generatioishat childhood was always based on play, especially unsupervised, vigorous, outdoor, rough and tumble play, pretend, play, all kinds of play kids playing with each other without adult supervision so that they learn how to regulate their behavior. They learn how to resolve conflicts. Play is what all mammals do. And in the 1980s and nineties, americans began to freak out about child abduction. We thought if we ever let kids out, theyll be kidnaped. So we cracked down on childhood independence. In the nineties, we largely stopped letting them out. And so by about 2010, no one has seen a child outdoors without a chaperon in so long that some neighbors begin calling the police when they see a child outdoors without a chaperon. So we crack down on free play, which i think interfered with development. But and this is the millennials were talking about now they didnt get to play outside as much but theyre not depressed anxious yet so the story tell is that that weakened them that made them more fragile and then when they thrown into the whirlpool of social media and people say bad things about each other and youre exposed to all of horrible, horrible content. Thats when thats when adolescence were easily broken. And that i think, genz, im so curious about this. Im listening to some of your language and hearing words like broken and thinking about the idea that a generation is ruined. Im trying to reconcile it with of my own experiences with this generation, teens who are amazing and and im wondering, as you were choosing this title, as you were thinking about this amg, youre a psychology ist and you were choosing this language. The this term, the anxious generation. You have any concern that branding that the current generation this way would be sort of a selffulfilling prophecy for teens. Oh selffulfilling prophecy. No, i didnt i didnt worry about that because i it as a as a call to action. Now first, i should say my original title that i propose was kids in space. And it was going to be about what happens when you take kids out planet earth. You know, like plants need soil. If you try to raise them in the air, theyre almost all going to die. And we took kids out of communities and we raised them in cyberspace. And so that was my original title was just kids in space. But publishers rightly pointed out that, you know, that nobodys going to know what that means. And they came up with the the anxious generation. But i think its a good. The book is actually not even really addressed to young people. Is really addressed to alt and teachers becsee need to change what were doing very, very quickly. Im here to try to play a long game of persuading people over a five or ten year is that, you know, im here to say, look, the parents all see the problem. The teachers see it, not all. Okay. You and i are both professors. I need to be more careful. I need to be precise in my language. Not everyone sees the problem, but i think most do by now. So im trying to raise the call that something has gone terribly wrong. I should be clear in response to your question, most kids are doing fine. The majority of gen z are not depressed and anxious. So you know, if we say destroyed or broken, i dont that literally everyone, not even majority. However, i do think that the majority were influenced in ways that might make them a little a little weaker a little less confident. So speaking as a social scientist, you see gigantic differences, Mental Illness between generations. You know, you and i, were good at looking at averages and standard deviations, saying, is this a small effect or a big effect . These are really big effects statistically in terms of the difference between generations. So sorry, that was a kind of a convoluted answer, but thats how it came to be called the anxious generation. And they use the word so much anxiety is one of the main words they use. Even more than depression. Anxiety is the central is the central Mental Illness. And its a big part of a lot of their identities. So im not worried that this is going to cause them to be more the things coming out of their phones where people are glamorizing it, that thats what would cause for sure. I hear you on that. And talk to us a little bit about of the recommendations you have in the book about what you think its going to take for us to, as you say, like bring kids back to earth. I know you have some very specific force reforms that youd like to see. Talk to us about what they are and how you got there. Mm hmm. Okay ill do that. And then. And then i actually want ask you because you wrote a book on this, and i want to actually get country view from you. So ill. Ill do that just a moment. But here. Okay, here we go. The so, the four norms that i propose, i propose simple norms because were stuck in a series of collective action problems. You know, its its no good to tell a parent, just dont give your kid an iphone because if youre the only one who doesnt give your kid an iphone then shes cut off. Shes isolated. Shes alone. And that really could be bad for her. But what if if a bunch of parents whose kids are friends what if a group of us decide, you know what, were just gonna give our kids flip phones. They dont need a smartphone in sixth grade, seventh grade, eighth grade. Were just going to wait till high school before we give them a smartphone. Well, now, if all your friends have smartphones, have i have flip phones, even if theres only ten of you in a grade of 50 kids, youre fine, especially if youre also given more free play, more time hang out together, because thats a lot more fun hanging out with your friends, going to get ice cream, riding bicycles. Thats a lot more fun than alone on your bed. Liking peoples posts. So anyway, the four norms are these no smartphones before high school, no social media before 16 phone free schools and far more independence free play and responsibility in the real world. If were going to take it, were going to greatly reduce screen time, especially in k through eight. Thats where a lot of the damage is done. Thats where we can easily reduce phone use. If were going to reduce screen time, we have to give back fun and joy and time to play in time with each other. So this is all about trying to roll back the phone based childhood and restore the play based childhood. I really appreciate that. Im wondering, i know youve been talking about these four reforms. What has the response been like from different people who youve engaged in some of these ideas . The response has been incredible. I have been involved in many social change efforts. I ran a Gun Control Group in college, miserable. All you know, we made no progress. I have advised political campaigns, you know, how do you adjust language to persuade people . Its very hard to change peoples minds here. What ive discovered, i have no opposition, no. No one is saying that im wrong. There are there are a few other researchers. There is an actor. Theres a good, healthy academic debate. There are some who say the effects are tiny. The evidence of causation, not certain, but the great work. The great majority of parents, teachers, gen z, they see this. And so im finding i dont have to persuade anyone. Ive done a huge amount of work. I show my work, ive put up all the Research Online on my substack after babble. Com weve collected, you know, probably a thousand studies by now and organize them. Weve created dozens or hundreds of graphs, charts. So ive done the work to persuade anyone who needs persuading. But the surprise for me has been as as the book is coming out, as people are reading it, no one is shgac theres nobody saying, im wrong. Theres nobody saying i got things wrong. I just gave a talk. An hour or two ago to a high school in texas. Remote talk. They strongly endorse the norms. So response has been unlike anything ive ever seen. And people want change. I think people hungry and ready for a change. I was so curious about that, in part because, i thought i saw some data just out of the Parents Union that i think this is from last week suggesting that a majority of parents actually dont want k12 schools going phone free. And i was kind of surprised by that. Curious how how you how youre thinking that and if there is any kind of pushback to in particular the sort of phone bans in schools that we might need to engage with as we think about mentation. All right. Thank for pushing back. Youre right. There is one objection. Its the only that comes up for phone free schools. If School Shooters. Thats the objection. And so, you know, you as a parent, what someone said to you, what would your first up be if the school said your kid cant have a phone in school, what would your first thought, be. Well, i feel like im not a great use case for this argument, but i think, okay, thats youre right. But i take your point. I take your point. Yeah. Okay. From most from most parents. For most mothers in particular. What do you think the first thought would be . You know, okay, ive a rhetorical question i think would be what . What if theres a problem . I need to be able to reach my child. So i think thats become a natural reaction because were paranoid. Weve become such paranoid parents. Theres even a wonderful book called paranoid parenting for 80. So if you have people are you have a lot of people are paranoid that their first thought is what if theres a School Shooter . What if theres a, you know, some issue i need to be able to reach my child right away. So. Okay this will take some persuasion and argument goes like this where weve gotten to talking to our children all the time and weve seen Horrible School shootings. And if every parent its an unimaginable i mean its we we cant somehow we cant keep it out of our minds. It really is hits home. But if your kid is going to go to a school, would you rather it be a school in which everyone has a phone . And as soon as theres a lockdown, half the kids are on their phone, their parents crying. Theyre loud, theyre afraid, theyre not listening. The teacher cant get attention. Do you want your kid in that school or do you want your kid in the school where . No one has a phone other than the teacher. And the teacher is telling them what to do. And people are quiet and theyre cooperating and theyre focused on whats happening around them. So experts on security do not advocate phones. Some of them have come out saying phone free schools are better, that, you know, phones are a problem. So i think it will take a little bit of time to reassure people on that. But i think whats going to happening is that the parents were very upset about not being able to contact their kid during math class. Theyre there in the principals face. Theyre the ones who are saying, dont you do this. How can you do this . But i think that i think that it pretty soon most parents will be very open and supportive of the idea of, well, you know, if doing this and if there is a way i can get in touch with my kid, i can call the office. And if theres emergency, they can get the kid. I think i think people are going to come out very, very quickly. Schools that have gone phone free universally. An amazing experience. I put on a call on twitter. Can anyone find a story about a school that went phone free and, regretted it. No one no one can find such a story interesting and i that this is actually such a research of all classes it i think we will see more schools making this kind of decision and then well be able to see happens and well have some data to really think through together. Thats and the uk just did it uk and a number of other countries have mandated phone free schools. The state of florida just mandated it so it is happening. Were at a tipping point. It is going to happen. And since every time you do the kids themselves say, wow, schools, a lot more fun, you know, because in between classes, if the kids have phones in between classes, their silence. Everyones checking their texts and dms. But when they dont have phones, kids talk and joke and laugh and flirt and do the things that you and i remember. Kids doing between classes, they think, okay, well, heres we know, heres heres what i want. I want to ask you because i because i bought your book behind the screens when i began this project as, oh, this book looks great. And then, you know, as is, you have so many books. I didnt i really regret to say i didnt actually read it. But but my sense from from what i saw about my sense is that you take a much more nuanced view than i do about. The pluses and minuses that you see many more benefits to kids, lets say, in middle school. Being on instagram is. That true . Well, i think we have somewhat different aims. And so i would say its true that we a more nuanced view for sure. The reason is when we were right, when cory and i were writing that book. Our approach was talked to many, many kids, thousands of kids across the country. And we ask them questions like, what is it like for you to up with social media and smartphones and were really interested in the things that were hard. And we write a lot. The struggles that kids described. But one of the reasons that we focus so much on, theyre actually really two reasons why we are so interested in the details. I think. One is that we see that kids are not having a monolithic experience tech. You know, we have we have teens later. So many different circumstances and context and and hearing kid stories. It felt like it felt like that was a really important part of making sense of what was going on sort of mapping the terrain. And the second is, im im also really interested in what kinds of interventions need. And i have found its super interesting listening to teens really, and then thinking about what their experiences reveal around what might be helpful, sort of a more level, like what is hard about this and what could we do as adults to, to help. And one of the things that is really that stood out to me is that so often i think that the screen time have become a real us versus battle between kids and adults and so ive been really interested think kids really need adults in their lives who are caring and and empathetic at helping with boundaries and supporting skill development. And ive been just so interested what it looks like to build kids and also build those relationships between kids and adults so that they have us there as the guides that i know that they so desperately need. Okay. Okay. That, that all sounds fair. That sounds like very important work that certainly would be helpful to parents. I just want to know, what is your sense about it. So about the age at which should be allowed to open accounts on sites like instagram and tiktok right. The current age is 13 and its not enforced. Im saying it should be 16 and enforced. But what do you think . Yeah, i mean, i think i read description on. Well, lets, lets explain to people why are we at 13 in the first place . I think this is a really important context for people to have. This is a political compromise, not a developmentally motivated decision. Will you give want a bit of just a bit of context on why were here . Sure. So back in the beginning of the internet, in the you had companies that were collecting data from people. You had aol mail. And a lot of these people were children. And congress was tasked figuring out, well, whats law going to be . Can Companies Just take whatever they want from a seven year old and sell it . Like, whats what are we going to do . And so ed markey now, senator mark, he was then representative markey from massachusetts. He he proposed a bill it came to be called coppa, the child childhood Online Privacy protection was passed in 1998. I believe, and in his original bill it said, well, 16, he got 16. You know, i mean, 18 is the obvious choice at kids can sign contracts and theyre adults. But he thought, you know, the way the internet is going, you know, at 16, you should be able to be on aol and talking to strangers and giving away your data without, your parents knowledge or permission. You are treated as an adult on the internet. 16. So he proposes this. And then of course, the Tech Companies hate it. You know, i know it was aol, whichever ones were the ones that were being limited here with their access children, they hated it. They opposed it. And they teamed up. They were able to find some who were advocating for childrens rights. You know what . If what if what if a 13 year old wants to get an abortion . Should she not be able to, you know, go on anonymously . So you had this interesting coalition of sort of, you know, business and sort of progressive activists saying, no, no, 16 is too high. Lets make it 13. And then the way the bill was written, its 13. But the companies no responsibility whatsoever to verify that they are not liable at all for underage use if they dont know that the child is underage. And thats why they say, what is your birthday . And thats it. They dont want to know anything else. And of course, facebook knows everything about us. All these i mean, they know how old kids are. When my kids entered middle school, sixth grade in new york city schools, they both said the same thing. Everyone is on instagram. Can i have an Instagram Account . So. So the reason why all the sixth graders are on instagram when theyre not 13 is because of this bill. And that was the only Protection Congress has ever given to children. And it was essentially zero protection. It did nothing. Thats the only thing congress has ever done. The entire history of the internet. And now, of course, a lot of us are pushing. Cant you at least make it a little safer . Cant you at least pass code . So the kids Online Safety quest, can we do anything or are we going to continue to have our kids sex started and harassed and approached by strange and sold drug . I mean, its completely untenable. The Current Situation where every is exposed to everything that could possibly exist with the parents unable to stop it unless they lock the in a room with no internet. Yeah we agree with this. This is good. The status quo is not working, i think, and i think its really important. You just teed up so. So people who are watching might be curious that there are really two things that are that are topics for discussion right now in the political. I mean, one is that right now, 13 is effectively the age of adulthood on the internet. And were just there essentially as a political compromise. Thats how we got here. The is that theres no actual verification. So its sort of like a yeah, yeah, im 13, but you could be any age were talking about one should the age of internet adulthood be raised and two or should we have actual verified nation required . And i know you talk a little bit about this in your book. Tell us about where you came down in terms of your thinking about verification in this broader debate. Yeah, so i mean, its completely i think its completely obvious to most people that pornhub and pornography sites shouldnt just be open to who can reach a computer, you know, a seven year old boy can can go to pornhub some of the sites dont even ask, are you 13 . They dont even make you lie. They just say, okay, youre here, welcome. This is completely insane. And so if if there were not privacy concerns, if there were not technical obstacles, it seems completely obvious to me that we should have at least age verification for pornography, you know, to buy all sorts to buy certain things that you cant buy in a physical store. We have 100 years of experience making the physical world safe so that adults and children can live in them. We can driving cars and we have special seats for kids. Weve been and we brought the death rate down know 90 . I mean the world is the physical world is incredibly safe for children compared to even when i dont how old you are but im 60 grown up in the seventies there were a lot more dangers. How old are you . Im like 35. Well, i shouldnt ask that. I shouldnt ask that. Whatever i dont like, i said, you know, i assume youre younger than me or or in any case. So it seems obvious to me that, you know, it took a long time to make the physical safe so that adults could do what they want. And kids could do what they want without getting too badly hurt. You know, fences around pools, all sorts of things. The internet is new and i understand that it took a while. Its going to take a while to build up guardrails. But, you know, its been around for like years now and there are zero guardrails. Theres nothing whatsoever, nothing to protect children. And the stories that were hearing now, you know, like i just read a horrible one in wired magazine, you know, these gangs of perverts and weirdos that will trick a girl into sending a nude, nude photo of herself. She thinks shes flirting with a boy. And then they reveal themselves to be a group of men who are who are sick and who blackmail her into degrading herself, cutting their names into her thigh. In one. In one case, they made her cut off the head of her pet hamster while they watched and laughed and then they said, now, for last thing we want you to do, and of course, with everything they said, if you dont it were going to show all of these videos to everyone. You know, we are going to humiliate you. And this is death to a to a teenager, to anyone but, especially to a teenager. And they said and for the final act, wed like you to kill yourself on camera. And it was finally at that point that she told her mother. She broke down and told her mother, and then they were able to put a stop to it. But this is not a one off thing. There are many of these gangs. God, we dont know how many victims theyve had, but this is not like some free and its not like a media where this thing happened and therefore we need to change our laws. No, this this is happening. Sextortion not to 1 of kids, but its not like one in a million. It so so the idea that, you know, a ten, 11 Year Old Girl can wander into this without her parents knowledge or consent that you can talk to naked men who are masturbating on omega or whatever its called. I mean this is completely insane. Yeah. So so i just, you know, i want to sort of get the gut feelings going here that what were doing completely ridiculous. And now lets look at the other side. The other side is all right. You know, if youre going to verify age is then my privacy be compromised. Because what im going to do is show you my drivers license. And what if youre hacked . Will know that i came to your site. Okay, those are legitimate points. But my argument is congress shouldnt mandate a single way of doing age verification. Congress should just the goal. Thats what it should have done back in 1998, say, you know, heres the law. The age of 16. And you guys figure it out. You figure it out. We expect you to be perfect. Were not going to make you liable if one kid gets in. But, you know, as long as youre reasonably effective, youre covered for underage use. And there are already so many different ways of doing age verification. Theres so Many Companies doing it for, Financial Products that they have their own trade association, you know, age verification association, something. So there are many different ways of doing it. But besides showing a drivers license, so it is doable. It is essential. And i think were going to have to get to the point of realizing, you know, we have to do on the internet what we did in the real world. We have to have a world in which adults can do largely what they want to do. Kids can do what they want to do. And the kids dont get chewed up in the process for sure. We need a much different and much safer kind of internet for kids. I as a as a parent, its hard for me to even listen to you tell that story. Honestly, i feel like my Blood Pressure is like sweating, listening to listening to that story and imagining my daughter in a situation like that. So i think a lot of parents understand that. I want to that evokes my desire for keeping my daughter safe and for that kind of safety is something that you talked about in the book so much. And i want to ask you specifically about this idea. You talk about in the book about how about experience blockers and you talk phones as experience blockers and you talk about our over protection of kids as experienced. And im wondering, i found it so interesting and im wondering if you can just talk a little bit about what you mean, how we got there and if you could just fit into that how i can lean into the benefit of risky play with my kids without ending up in the emergency room every week. That would be great. Yeah, thats right. Right. Well, first, let me just make the point that, you know, my goal here not to just panic parents about the internet because i dont want to be afraid of everything, but i tell stories like that to illustrate the fact that, you know, were also afraid that our our children outdoors will be theyll run into a sex criminal or a sex or Something Like that. And i tell that story because the sex predators arent out at playgrounds. Theyre really not out there. You dont hear stories about the guys who are out at playgrounds. Theyve all been arrested, locked away for life. And there are, you know, are there on extreme restrictions as sex predators. So theyre not out there. Theyre all on instagram. The sex predators, all on instagram and a few other platforms. Thats where its easy and safe for them to contact young contact children. So i do want people to realize weve completely overinvested in our defense portfolio in the real world where were vastly overspending with negative and were completely underinvested in protecting our kids online where were not doing anything. I mean, some are are trying and struggling, but were not very effective and. We need to do a lot more. And we need help from congress and from norms. So now to your question, so you after i wrote that first chapter about the graphs, the data, and what the hell happened, i felt like, wow, you know, i better i better write a whole chapter just on childhood so people understand, like, what is it that these phones are preventing us from doing as kids. Mm. And once i laid that out, you know, i again not a developmental psychologist but i study evolution and culture and im interested in development, moral development around the world and i think a lot about how does a child go . How does a boy become a man . How does a girl become a woman . How is that handled all over the world . And you know, kids need a huge amount of experience. They have a huge curiosity a hunger to understand the world, not maybe through books, but through direct experience and when you im sure parents have had this experience, youre traveling youre in this amazing place. You want to go see a waterfall or go see this amazing thing, and your kid just wants to sit there on on her ipad in, the hotel room, my wife and i found that, you know, when we went to, you know, nice hotel in upstate new york, it was only when we just locked away the phones and the ipads just locked them away. So no, you cannot have these until we until we leave leave the hotel. You know that our kids really, like, opened up and started enjoying the facilities. So kids need a huge amount of experience the best is selfdirected, unsupervised. And it turns out the best of the best actually has some element of risk. One of the essential tasks that kids have to manage is, is risk and managing it for themselves. And if you protect them from risk all the time, you you make the decisions about whats risky. They never learn to do that. Thats part of what happened with gen z when they showed up in college 2014, 2015. And many of them were like, this book dangerous, this book is going to hurt. Like, what . What how can i dont how can a book how can a speaker hurt people if you dont even have to go to their talk . What you talking about . So we really deprived our kids of the experience of risk. Now theres really wonderful work by some play researchers, including one from norway, ellen sand, cedar, who has a couple of essays on how kids need read. Risky play because taking and experiencing fear and then overcoming it is literally the way kids overcome anxiety and this really explain many parents will have seen you take your kid to an Amusement Park you take a bunch of kids to amume park. Theyre not just going to be like, oh, i dont do anything scary. No, its the opposite, actually. Its about like, okay, which roller coaster are you going to try . You know, here in new york city, you know, theres a you know, theres like the soaring eagle theres the steeplechase. I mean, theres a bunch and then theres like, okay, whats the big one . Well, obviously, the cyclone. But theres, you know, theres a theres a bunch of them and then theres the slingshot, which i mean, scared to do. But the point is, the kids spent a lot of time talking about it and some of them are ready to try, you know, cyclone at a certain age or, slingshot and you can see theyre like its like theyre in a Chemistry Lab titrating the exact amount of fear that theyre ready for. And if they pick something thats a little scary and theyre scared, just before lunch, i remember that child being really scared as the roller coaster is just going over the top of the hill. Its and then its thrilling. And then when you come out at the other end, your jumping up and down and you are now a stronger, tougher kid, you have overcome your fear. You had this feeling of thrills, and you are on your way to being less anxious as an adult. If you do that, thousands times, you will be much less anxious as an adult. So kids need a huge range of experiences. Some percentage of them should ideally involve fear. Some should involve social exclusion and conflict and if we at this very diet of experience and we say, how about if we cut down the total number of experiences by 7 , lets just give them 70 less experience, and lets make sure none of it has any risk or fear or threat. What do you think . Like, you know, we all want to protect our kids from danger, but who pick that . Who would choose to deprive kid of the full range of Human Experience . And unfortunately, thats what weve done. Once a kid gets a phone, not every kid, you know, some kids, they can take it or leave it. But a lot of kids, especially girls on social media and boys on video games, once you give them the device if you dont really put strong and clear limits on it will expand like a gas to fill every available moment of their day. And i have you were describing the roller coasters i think most viewers will probably be in this position i was imagining i was remembering going on this roller coaster the hulk at age 11. And that is such a visceral memory for me. I want to go back to something. Its a positive memory to a yeah, it is. Its well, it is. Although, you know, i wrote, it so many times back to back, i think i was ill afterwards and thats whats different now. But i think there was also some confidence that came with that. I want to go back to something you shared a few minutes ago. So you were talking about going on vacation and the sort of importance of locking in the idea of what what opened up when the phones, the kids phones were locked in the. And that just makes me think about something i feel like ive heard from a lot of which is that they wish that their parents would lock the parents phones in the room that they they wish that they could have their parents undivided attention. And im wondering, as we think about as we think about moving forward, as we think about what it will take to get to a better or a better state of affairs, what role do we have as as adults and as parents to reflect on, think about, look critically at our own tech habits . Yeah, that that is a question that many have raised. And i think my answer is going to be a little counterintuitive, which is i dont think parents are actually that important by the time kids are in middle school now. Obviously important for many reasons. But im going to add, is this when the kids are little, theyre really focused on their parents and playing with their parents and back and forth games and, songs and jokes. And its really fun. I mean, thats one of the great things about being a dad is, you know, you really its your mr. Play. And so what you do, you know what the parents are doing when the kids are, you know, one, two, three, four or five years old. I think that does matter a lot. And a lot of parents are giving whats called continuous partial attention to their toddlers and their children theyre trying to do their email. Theyre trying to cook. Theyre kind of pretending to be going along with a game and theyre not doing a good job of any of it. This is bad for all of us so for kids in Elementary School and before. I do think wed be better off even if you spend less total time with your child. Make that time be time when youre when youre really as person to person face to face turn taking and fully present. By the time kids get to middle school, they dont care very much about what you want to do or what you think. They are completely obsessed with what everybody else thinks. They would never wear a pair of sneakers that you bought them that you thought were great. If they think will make fun of them. So if you if you tell me we can either do this we can either work on parents so that they dont spend as much time their phone and they model good behavior. Lets see if we can reduce the Mental Health crisis. Having parents model good behavior, but i dont think thats going to turn it around. All if the other kids are on instagram in sixth and seventh grade, theyre going to be on instagram in sixth and seventh. It doesnt matter what their parents are doing, whereas if we could come up with a norm in which we parents all get together, we say no smartphone to high school that i think would be transformative. That would be such a big effect. Just delay the crazy delay it until it let them at least get through early puberty. So, of course, parents for many things, you know, but as you know, a lot of the research on personality just continues to show that personality is not really shaped by the parents, its by genes and its shaped by peers and culture but theyre not really looking to us for theyre not copying us by the time theyre in middle school. Theyre copying their it feels like it feels like if not the modeling, though, the the connection. I mean, parents do still matter so much to middle schoolers. And im thinking about i just read jenny wallaces never enough and im thinking about her her arguments about mattering and how important it is were for our kids during the teen years to know that they matter to others and to us and yes, it feels like that is part of what happens when we are constantly distracted and our kids. I know from teens, theyre noticing that and theyre feeling it. Okay. Okay. There i 100 agree. Lets talk about this or that matter. And that is a great word. So, right. What i was saying is parents dont necessarily matter as role models as much, but theyre very important from an attachment perspective. The kid needs a secure base to need to trust their parent. They need to know that if things go bad, they have a place to go. If someones trying to force to kill themselves on camera, they can go to an adult whos going to support them and not scream at them. Not to so of course, to. Right. Not just not just that they can. Yeah, thats right. That is absolutely. Thats right. Yeah. So so yeah. I certainly not saying parents dont matter. I would never say that. Im just saying teens arent copying them so much. Now your word matter is fantastic because whats whats happening for boys . Whats happening is they feel that they are useless. And there are these questions monitoring the future. Sometimes i you know, what is it . Sometimes feel like my life has no meaning or i feel that i am useless. And how much do you agree or disagree with this question . And these numbers . The agreement with that was actually going down a little bit in the 2000, but those things everything about despair, uselessness, those all do a hockey stick curve up. They all rise very quickly. After around 2012, kids, as soon as they get as soon as they move their lives online, they feel useless. So ive been thinking about this. We got these graphs in the book and two nights ago i was in i was in austin, texas, and i and i was taking the, you know, the an uber to the to the airport and, you know, making small with the driver. And he said, oh, im here to, promote a book says oh, whats the book on. And rather than tell him what it was about, i said, well, you know, its about whats happening to your generation. He was young, he was 28. But he was 22, 28. And so older. Gen z and and i said, well, you know, what do you think is happening . You know, know, you know, we got we got problems, you know, a lot with depression where, you know, an anxious wave, were not in were not doing so well economically. So i had a list of litanies and i said, what do you think is . What do you think is causing it . Why are why is your generation unhappy . And the first thing he said was, you know, i think a lot of us, especially boys, they just feel useless. They feel like, you know, like the world doesnt really value them for anything. And then he use this phrase i wrote it down, i should find it. But it was basically he said, cause i said, okay, what do you mean . You know, you know, what do mean . Use it, tell me more. And i think what he said was, you need to feel that you mean something. Someone, you know, just that you. Yeah, you are connected in a way that yeah, you matter. Thats right. And, and so i dont think its its not just that your parents are paying attention, although. No, of course that it if your parents arent even to you if theyre saying you know what this text in is more important than you, you dont matter. So youre right in that way. If parents convey you dont matter that bad. I do agree with that. Yeah, its its its so interesting to just to think about this and to think about what role, which is what youre trying to parse and what role is social media really playing here and what else is on, i hope. You know, i, i hope that people will Pay Attention not just to the tech side of your book, but to the other piece of what youre here about independence and aut supporting play. And i love your description of play clubs in schools and some of the interventions like that that are really actionable. And i hope that that will be part of that around this book as well. I certainly hope so. So let me now put in, you know, for turning more towards specific things that that people do, that parents can do. I hope anybody, especially if your kids are in k through eight or just, you know, younger than high school, especially. I hope youll go to let go, dawg its a Small Organization by Lenore Skenazy, who wrote free range kids and me and peter gray, a play researcher. And it offers all kinds of ways to help you let grow to help you step back, give your kids independence and we also especially find it powerful. We work through schools so our if if you dont mind, id love to just briefly explain this one project that is so powerful. Its called the let grow experience. It gets right to what you were just asking about about how do parents do this . So im a big fan of sending kids out on errands and, you know, when i kids were in fourth grade, maybe even third, we started sending we just like across the street to a supermarket and but, you know, a lot. But thats because i was friends with skenazy when i moved to new york city in 2011, my wife and i met and we were really influenced by her book free range kids. So we were pushing our kids out to do things and they loved it. They really felt more confident. They were proud of themselves. Their friends werent doing this, but they were. But its hard, especially if if no other kids are out there. So what this actually the project was invented by a teacher at brooklyn tech. But lenore and i put it up at grow. Its called the let grow experience. Its a homework. And imagine if your kid is in, say, a third grade class, eight years old. And the assignment the teacher gives is go home, talk with your parents, think of something that you think you can do that youve never done by yourself. And it will give examples like maybe its walking the dog for the first time, maybe its making, maybe its going to the store and buying groceries, maybe its raking the yard, whatever. You know, you come up with something and agree with your parents and you do it. And then, you know, the next week you come in and everybody talks about it and you write down what you did, you put it. Its a little you put it up on your tree. You have a leaf on your tree, and then you do this week for ten or 20 weeks. And after ten or 20 weeks. So an amazing thing happens even just after the second or third week, which is the kids are often little nervous about, about going out, especially on their own. But then, like as we were talking about with thrills, theyre nervous, theyre a little anxious. They do it, it works. Theyre thrilled. Theyre like jumping up and down. So now they want to do it again and they do another one and another one. Another one. So it really affects the kids. But heres the cool thing. It really affects the parents because these are often parents that would let their kid walk three blocks to a store. But its a homework assignment. And if everyones doing it, then actually its much easier for parents to let go. And if a whole town does it, if every Elementary School in the town does it before you know it, youre seeing eight year olds in the Grocery Store buying and carrying it home just the way my generation and all previous generations used to do. We used to trust seven year olds to go shopping, to do errands, to ride their bicycles. We dont do that anywhere we need to. So the let grow experience, i urge parents to try it themselves at home. And if you have any influence on the school, your kids go to it. Great middle school too. So k through eight is a fantastic project. It also works in high school, but its just its a little bit different. But k through eight please try to let go project go to let dawg and john i love this story in your book where you talk about your daughter bringing you lunch to your office. I felt i was right there with you peering down, watching her across the street and trying make sure you didnt lose sight of her, but also that that was so important. And i think parents will really resonate with. I want to i want to just ask you one other. I hope you dont mind one more. Maybe slightly critical question as we wrap up those ideas, push back me. I want someone to push back. Okay, im ready. So i had i had one of my undergrads who works on my team read your book with me. When i was preparing for this interview. And it was so interesting, she really resonated with a lot of what youre describing about the independence, the importance of independence and and play for sure. That was, you know, in her notes and her highlights, she was like. Yes, yes, yes. And there a number of recommendations that was really interesting said to me, you know, i felt shes a first gen college student. And she said, i felt in reading of the recommendations like they like more time in beautiful green spaces and Outward Bound programs like gap years abroad. And she was like, i just came away feeling like these things were recommendations for rich kids. They were recommendations that i couldnt have access to. And i was thinking about this because so much of you know your argument about bringing kids back to earth i wondered about the earth. Most kids right now actually get to live in and how we actually think about implementation when it requires others really acknowledging these these big inequities in access to the kinds of experiences that we know are so important for positive development. That is a great its not exactly a counterargument that certainly is a qualification or nuance that we do attend to in the book. And i we because Lenore Skenazy actually helped me to write some of those later chapters with specific advice for parents. And it true that that some of them are more accessible to parents who are or in the upper third of the Income Distribution than to the lower third. That certainly is true. But a lot of it but put it this way, there is so much concern about inequality ity and about disadvantaged and underserved kids that a lot of these programs are really available to kids from any income level. So for example, im a huge fan of summer camp, summer camp, sleepaway camp is pretty much the only way youre ever going to get kids to go phone free for a month and its transformative when they do, they get completely detoxed. They lose addiction. But yes, of course it costs money. Now for more than 100 years, thereve been all kinds of organizations trying to bring from this from the city, poor kids immigrant kids out to camps there, all kinds programs. I gave a talk the Camp Directors Association a couple of months ago in new orleans and it was really clear, you know, its true that of the kids at camp are middle class and above. Of course thats true. But most of them have financial aid. Most of them are aware of the problem. They want to bring other kids in, theyll give them a full ride. So there are often and we talk about in the book to four outwd bound programs the state of connecticut has a Great Program again making it totally accessible its designed actually for kids who are not middle class. So yes. As a parent you would have to look for these as a parent, you as a, you know, working class or poor parent, loiss parent, you would have to look for these. Its true. Whereas know, if you live in a lovely green suburb, you can just go to the local woods or someones, you know, two acre backyard. So that is true. But its especially urgent that they do it and that those us who can support such things do so because the new digital Digital Divide is not that rich or kids in wealthy families have Better Computers and more access. Thats we thought in the nineties like, oh no, you know, the internet is so important. And although know the rich kids have access, but the poor kids dont. We need to give those kids their own computer. We need to give every kid a Computer Class we thought. And that was a mistake because these devices are so distracting. They do so much damage. When kids move on to them, it become happy users that the new Digital Divide is that whatever numbers, whenever you look at, some measure of screen you screen time, supervision. Its the well, its the kids, wealthier families who who have more limits, more controls and they use an hour or two less a day of screen time its low scores kids black kids, kids with whos parent who have a single they have a lot more screen use and screen time. And so they are being harmed by it more than wealthy kids. I think that the digital addictions are actually exaggerating our Unequal Society and our our class divide. So we need we we need to take special efforts and philanthropic efforts to make these opportunities available to all john. I have so many more questions that i want to ask you. Im getting the cue to wrap. Thank you so much for your attention to this topic. I know we both want to see a happier, healthier generation of teens. And so its great to have this chance to talk with you about about your thinking, how we get there. And thanks for joining us. Well, thank you so much, emily. I hope will go to anxious dot com the website for the and after babble. Com which is substack rig its free and i put all the Research Supporting and investigating whats going