The Anxious Generation with social psychologist Jonathan Haidt | A Bit of Optimism Podcast

Jonathan huge fan of your work um going back to all of your TED Talks um I I I would like to start there if I can um your work on on morality I I find infinitely fascinating one of the things I find so interesting especially in this modern day is is the conflict of Morality In other words two sides believing that they are on on the side of the moral right yeah um and you know and that seems to be where we are these days where where it's not like hm you have an interesting point of view that I disagree with but rather I am right and you are wrong and both sides believe that they are fighting for the moral good of the nation you know we we used to read the news and then call up our friends and vent our anger or feel our emotions and cry or whatever it was to our friends and then we would be able to have a a rational conversation about it later and now we read the news and we log on to our social media of choice and we vent our anger or feel our emotions and then we respond to the responses we respond to the reactions that's right so it's very helpful to always ask what game are you playing and what game is my partner playing what game is the other person playing yeah so yeah you know in the old days you know when while I'm older than you but you know when when we read newspapers and didn't have social media you might call I'm old enough to remember newspapers sorry but that's very generous of you thank you you look you look a lot younger than me you don't have any gray hair so I'm going to count you as a I guess you're gen you're Gen X you're not a millennial but I am Gen X yes yeah um um but you know so what game are you playing you might really have been upset about that thing and so you actually do want to vent and so you're playing the I'm expressing my feelings game and there's a place for that yeah um or maybe you know maybe your friend disagrees with you and then you're playing the game of oh I want to convince him um or maybe it's just the game of I'm right I need to prove that I'm right so there a lot of different games and that's just if it's two of you now suppose that instead of a private phone call you said let's meet down in the Roman Coliseum in the center of the Coliseum and let's fill the stands with people who paid to get in to see blood that's what they're there for they want to see fighting and now let's talk about gun control or abortion or whatever you read in the newspaper let's talk about it well what game would we be playing we're entirely playing the game of savaging the other in order to appeal to the audience now that's not what always happens on Twitter I mean Twitter often interactions can be nice but the incentives on the incentives in social media are not to play the find the truth game are not to uh you know to play the pers even even the persuade the other person game it really is playing to an audience and this is one of the reasons I am so alarmed about the future of of the United States uh because our country already was polarizing before social media and cable TV has a lot to do with this um I was already concerned about polariz my first head talk in uh uh 2008 was about left right why they can't understand each other moral foundations I was already concerned about polarization in 2008 back when social media wasn't terribly polarizing and then in 2009 you get the like button the um the the tweet and share button uh you now get um algorithms become much more common because now you've got all this information coming in from like and share buttons the newsfeed came in a couple years before so social media really reconfigured around between 2009 2012 to become much much better at throwing gasoline on every possible spark so yeah that's where we are now playing that game the the frustration is is and and this goes to you know some of the work that I've done and a lot of the work that you've done where we speak about younger generations and in the in the and the insidiousness of of social media and and cell phones as it relates to you know feelings of self-worth and sociability you know but the the There's No Going Back the the the the Genies out of the bottle like and you know the stuff that we're talking about now the you know the concept of dopamine and dopamine hits and addictive quality like this is now this is now known like this is like this is no longer news yet we all know it we all know that we're divided we all know that we react to social media the way we do we all know about virtue signaling on both sides of the political equation we know these things and yet for some reason we still can't control ourselves we still can't find get get out of it you know Jonathan H how fix America okay um let's I can do half of it um let's break the problem into the kids the Democracy okay um the kids which is the subject of of my of my book The the anxious generation that we can actually solve that in the next year or two U and I'll start there the Democracy my God that is a much harder problem for a lot of reasons which I hope we'll get we'll get into um but what you were just laying out was was how each of us might individually want to change but yet we're not able to now sometimes that's because of addiction and as you as you said I mean you know these things are all about little dopamine hits and that's what makes us crave more um and so smokers when they want to quit have trouble quitting and so part of that is what's going on for adults um but the biggest thing you know I I teach courses here at NYU and I I have graduate MBA students and I have undergrads and we go through what what the life on social media is doing to them to their productivity to their focus um to their happiness uh and uh you know some of them try to quit but and I say well why don't you why don't you all just quit and the answer is always the same because everyone else is on it I can't quit because everyone else is on it and they would miss out on too much and there are sometimes career elements for the MBA students but for the undergrads it's all social and so the way to understand what's happened to us is that these tech companies have put us into what social scientists call a collective action problem um where we Face a problem we don't like how things are we could change it individually but each of us looking at the change says wow if I do that I'll actually be worse off uh and so most of us who you know our kids come to us in sixth grade typically fifth or sixth grade and say you know Daddy I I need a smartphone everyone's everyone's got a smartphone I'm the only one uh and that's very painful to hear that your kid is being excluded well the only reason that the other parents gave their kids a smartphone so early is because they also said everyone has a smartphone and so each of us might want to delay smartphones and social media but if our kid is the only one who's kept out well then our kid is worse off but if we all do it together or if even a quarter of us do it together uh then our kids can't say they're the only one so if we can do this with the parents of our kids friends then we give them a normal child we say instead of spending all afternoon on your phone how about you guys get together and go out someplace with no supervision ride your bicycles go buy ice cream do something together not supervised by adults they would have a much better childhood they'd come out mentally healthy the the the though I agree the the challenge is kind of like education reform like every the more I learn about education reform the more I'm learning that it's not the school districts it's not the teachers but it's largely the parents which is everybody wants um uh education reform we just don't want you to experiment on my child you know please experiment at a different school and find out what happens um and and and I've heard the same when it comes to phones which is some schools have attempted to ban phones and it's the parents yeah who make an uproar you know I have to be able to text my kid anytime what happens if there's an emergency we'll call the office they know where your kid is they'll go get your kid out of class and say your grandmother died you know like they know where your kids are at all moments but for some reason it's the parents and the anxiety the parents have and I've even read research that like in the car you know kids who are on the phone when they're driving it's largely the parents texting them and the parents will get mad at oh no oh no so so the intention the intensity of like I have to respond immediately even when I'm driving the pressures are not coming actually from I'm look there's plenty of peer pressure from the kids obviously but but but huge amounts of pressure from the parents so yeah I hear you but how many of the parents will collectively say we agree not to give our kids when they have the anxiety of not being able to get hold of their kids every moment okay right so so this is the this is the big thing that a lot of people don't seem to understand is that there are other kinds of phones other than smartphones yeah yeah so I totally understand look you know half of what I'm saying isn't about the phones half of it is we have to let kids out on their own by the age of eight or so there are circumstances where maybe it's later but you know in general all older people we were all out by age seven plus or minus that's when you went out to play with other kids yeah that's incredibly healthy you get into trouble you get into to arguments but you resolve them um so that has to happen and I understand look I live in New York City I said I started sending letting my kids walk to school in fourth grade when very few other nobody else was doing that I wasn't going to let my kids walk around New York City without being able to track them and find them and contact them but I didn't think to give my son a flip phone I just said well he needs a phone so I gave him my old iPhone yeah um but what I'm advocating for um is that is that we solve this Collective action Problem by saying no smartphones until high school you can give your kid a flip phone you can reach your kid now you're right that even with a flip phone there's like too much there's too much contact that's definitely true so we still have to work on Norms but at least with a flip phone what's a flip phone good for all it's good for is making phone calls and receiving texts it's not even good for sending text because you have to press the seven key three times to make whatever letter so um if we gave our kids flip phones they wouldn't be on it all the time like pouring out out their emotions they'd say like you know see you at three and then they're more likely to use it to meet up and to communicate with one person not to broadcast out to social media yeah so that that's an important technological thing as for schools you're absolutely right when when I talk to principles they all hate the phones it's making their lives miserable the teachers all hate the phones it's making their lives miserable the students aren't paying attention in class they're literally watching porn and YouTube and gamble I mean they it's insane that we let kids have the greatest distraction device ever invented they can just keep it in their pocket um completely insane and I say to the principles why don't you just use phone lockers or Yonder pouches it's always the same thing which is just what you said some of the parents will freak out they need to reach their kids yes that's true some of the parents will freak out but you know what almost all most parents now are so fed up with what the phones are doing to their kids yeah that most parents would support um a phone- free school as long as they know that everyone else is supporting it everyone else is doing it and I can reach my kid in case of an emergency some will still freak out but the great majority want to do something so I think this again it's a collective action problem if we start this together it's going to overwhelm the principles and they'll have to say you know what far more parents want their kid to pay attention in class than the you know the seven who are always ruining my life by yelling and screaming at me yeah yeah okay let's go to democracy wait let before we do that um do you uh do you have kids I don't I have niece and a nephew okay how old are they uh he just my nephew just turned 13 and my niece is 14 and they both have uh smartphones I assume they do they do where are they growing up uh in Los Angeles um and do you know if they're on Instagram they are not okay what about Tik Tok they are uh my NE my niece is my niece is not my nephew my nephew's uh his demise is YouTube y uh uh teenage boy on YouTube I mean he'll get up and go get a drink and I'll walk into the kitchen and he'll be on his phone looking at YouTube I like I thought you were just getting a drink you know yeah um which is insane my niece my niece it's what I find fascinating about my niece is and I actually really like this yes she's talking on the phone the whole time to her friends but she's on FaceTime like they're actually they're actually I find that I find that super FaceTime is fine I think that's super healthy yeah yep that's right yeah so the so what the research shows um is that boys and girls are equally um they're they're spending roughly the same amount of time on their phones um about 5 hours a day just on social media uh now that includes now the the trick is though that includes Tik Tok and YouTube because the kids are watching huge amounts of videos what what really began uh in the early 2010s is that when they all got phones they all spent their whole day on the phone but the girls went for social media especially visual platforms they went for Instagram and Pinterest and Tumblr um and the boys went for video games and YouTube that they tend to be more addicted to those too um and so the girls instantly got depressed the depression epidemic it begins in 2012 2013 as soon as uh you know in 2010 very few kids had a smartphone it was just coming in you know the App Store had just been released recently so in 2010 the iPhone is not a big part of of teen Life by 2015 it's the center of teen life so what I'm arguing in in the anxious generation is that between 2010 and 2015 was the great rewiring of childhood where kids were no longer uh looking at each other or spending time with each other because they had this incredible distraction device this and this phone which was their portal to lots of companies that wanted to get their attention so we basically it's like you know a lot most parents would not want their their their child their daughter to have an open window add onto the street where anyone could just reach in and you know and see them and take them but that's kind of what we did in the early 2010s we said here have a phone go on Instagram talk with strangers uh you know they'll try to proposition you they'll try to sell you things but you know what are you going to do it's the digital age that's where we are so so but so is but parents are struggling as well like I think I mean all parents I think most most parents are well-intentioned most parents absolutely the vast majority of parents want want what's best for for their kids um there is it's okay to be tempted by the the magic of the phone you know because it's a great babysitter um you know giving the kids a div I went out for brunch and there's a whole table of the parents and then there's a whole table of the kids and all the parents were chatting and all the kids were on their own device yeah that's right and it was tragic like I have friends who they've got two two younger kids and the kids don't have phones but every and I've gone out for dinner with them and their family they bring paper and and and colored pencils and so the kids like as soon as you get to the dinner table the kids just start drawing that's great and I find that and like so so you're still allowing the kids to be distracted to do something else except it's it's analog and I kind of like whatever happened to the mom bag filled with games and toys and you know pens and pencils and paper yeah no that that's that's exactly right part of you know as I'm as I've been reconstructing the history of how did we get here like yeah how is it that an entire generation is now sucked into this terrible terrible way to grow up how did this happen and what I realized is you have to put yourself back in the year let's say 2011 2012 which is when the big transitions happening and you know for those you know I mean I'm I just turned 60 um boy do I remember the fall over the Berlin Wall the 1990s the beginning of the internet I mean the '90s were incredible and it was like so hopeful and it was you know democracy is going to rule and the internet is going to you know be the greatest friend of of democracy and it's going to take down tyrants um and then the millennial generation which grew up with the early internet um they mastered it and they were able to use it in all kinds of ways uh we'll talk I think you and I might disagree about the Millennials versus gen Z or maybe we do we'll find out but um the Millennials mental health actually wasn't much worse it actually was a little better than Gen X Gen X had the worst mental health of any generation that might have to do with lead poisoning That's Another topic we can come back to but but the Millennials their mental health didn't didn't plunge um and so we thought like well you know the internet's amazing we all love it um these kids are digital natives they're going to this is the way of the future um and uh the internet is amazing for democracy so is social media and look at the Arab Spring look at Occupy Wall Street so so in 2011 2012 when you're at parent say let's say you're a 35y old parent and you're at dinner and you know you think should I give my kid an iPhone I mean iPhones are amazing internet's amazing the kids's going to ma Master it anyway you know we thought it was okay yeah we thought maybe we're even helping them like let the let them get a head start you know they're going to be living with these things why not let them play with it at age three I got my first iPhone when my son was two and he figure you know is incredible he got the touch and swipe technology and the fact that I didn't sell everything and buy Apple stock is one of my greatest regrets I mean what a product uh this was 2008 so um so you have to go back to that time and realize we didn't know what we were doing we thought that this wasn't going to harm the kids and it's really only in 2016 I'd say it's after the Trump election that's when a lot of people especially in the blue parts of the country really began to turn on the internet and social media and see this is causing all kinds of problems and then so so our our discovery that that a life online is really really bad for kids we didn't actually know that in 2011 what how would you define the social differences between the millennial generation and the Gen Z generation like what are the big big markers that make them so so different yeah so the big marker the biggest marker of all um is that um Millennials grew up with flip phones and gen Z grew up with iPhones and the reason why this matters so much is that for Millennials um so we'd already ruined childhood by the time the Millennials came along for a lot of reasons that you've talked about the over you know the the codling the everyone gets a medal so that was already going on that began in the 80s and so you're right to point out that this you know changed the Millennials and it wasn't their fault you know it's it's none of this is the kids fault obviously it's it's structures and parents and things but um so the Millennials grew up with without toughening uh we began to crack down on going outside so the older Millennials if you're born in 1981 882 you know you you probably did still play outside um but if you're born in 1990 9192 you probably didn't you probably were not allowed to go out without an adult watching you um that's it's really the 90s that we really stopped letting kids out and of course that's just when the crime wave ended you and I grew up during a huge crime wave um in the United States but it sort of mysteriously ends in the 90s again I think that's lead poisoning we'll come back to that um so the Millennials actually don't have as much freedom in childhood they have a lot of overprotection but they're still really heavily interacting with each other directly one-on-one or in small groups um they have flip phones but with a flip phone again you're not going to like pour out your heart on a flip phone texting you use it to talk to one person or text one person it wasn't all about group calls so that's the Millennials and their mental health is actually as I said a little better than genx all right so then we get to 2009 20101 this is when social media now becomes much nastier so the Millennials got Facebook in college you had to have a college account in order to get it for the first few years so the Millennials had flip phones and no social media when they were going through puberty they don't get that stuff until they're in college or later gen Z I would Define gen Z as it's the it's the first people who got a smartphone and social media at the beginning of puberty if you go through puberty not playing with your friends not talking to others but with you know this you know this thing in front of your face I mean you walk around you know in like New York City are are you in La where do you live I live in LA okay yeah so you know well maybe nobody walks in La there's no walk in La people drive with their phones in front of their faces there you go there you go so U that I think is the big difference that um j z went through puberty especially this is especially clear with the girls but it's true for the boys as well uh they went through puberty with a thing that blocked their interactions with others they don't spend much time with others um and we have a lot of data on this kids used to spend a lot of time with their friends and as soon as you get to 2012 that plummets it plummets to the point where by 2019 kids were only spending a little bit more time with their friends than their parents were which is insane and when they were with their friends it was a lot like what you just said they might be physically with their friends but they're all on their devices so you know as a human being we're an incredibly social species you can't grow up without a lot of social interaction but that's what we did to gen Z you you talk about the irony of democracy you know which is we thought the internet would be the greatest thing you know for democracy and it's ended up being sort of it's the possibly the worst thing possibly the worst thing for democracy and you look at the way that uh more uh uh dictatorial or tyrannical regimes operate they they've cracked down on all of it and and and not always for propaganda purposes like we know in China for example there's there are they too are concerned about their children spending too much time on the phone and so you know it's just not possible like the phones physically don't work for more than a fixed amount of period of time per day you know and like they can do that and you start to think you know you know is democracy might be a great form of government for for choice but is it the best form of government for for the the the the the flourishing of society right that's and that's the question that question goes back to Aristotle and Plato that's the fundamental question of political Theory what form of government is best and the lesson of the but I would have def I I still believe in democracy of course but but but this is a the the internet and social media have profoundly changed many many things in our lives you know it changes the way Innovation Works Innovation used to be a hardware model now it's largely a software model iterate iterate iterate you know it's changed uh the way entrepreneurship worked which is only big companies compete could compete against big companies now small companies can compete against big companies because of computers and and and and the internet and social media and it's it's a huge Boon for entrepreneurs I mean so it's it's had profound and and permanent and and and many positive impacts but we have to look at the liabilities as well and again I go back to the original question where we started which is the Genies out of the bottle and I think everybody has their point of view which is we have to pass legislation to crack down on the social media companies because of their algorithms and we we have to censor this and we have to stop that and we have to control this and control that and our children but the reality is we're doing nothing that's right we're doing nothing at all that's right we're whining and complaining and everybody thinks they have the solution which none of those none of those are silver bullets and so you you spend a lot of time looking at this data and you spend a lot of time and and and you've written and spoken extensively about the damages and the collective action that you talking about which I agree with social animals can only cure social problems socially right um but we're left back at at point one which is how do I even organize people to do that yeah when the very the very thing that I need to organize them which is the internet is being used yeah to organize disorganization getting deeply philosophical Okay so we've got we got so many threads here tell you what are you free for the next are you free for the next four hours well I'm I'm kind I plan to work on this basically until I die so yeah um how about let's Trace out the democ threads and then I really want to talk about the effect it's having in the workplace and on entrepreneurship yes I mean here I am teaching in a business school and I haven't really been keeping up with Trends in in in work culture over the last couple years whereas you have yeah so let's do the democracy thing and then we'll go to entrepreneurship and business um the my friend Triston Harris of the center for human technology has long made the argument that digital technology is helping authoritarian countries be better authoritarian countries if you're China you know in MA in the era of ma or Stalin like they had to have secret police forces that were brutal but they couldn't be everywhere now they can be everywhere yeah so so the digital technology is is a tremendous Boon to China and that includes all the you know the cameras and the AI for face recognition so you you take all of it China is in much better shape because of the technological Revolution democracy on the other hand has all these really well-known weaknesses known since the time of Plato who said that democracy is the second worst form of government because it inevitably decays into tyranny and he was talking about direct democracy because people are passionate they're easily LED astray they respond to demagogues and so the American founding fathers knew all this they read Plato and Aristotle they they knew political Theory and history and James Madison said well how do we design it so that the people don't get to make the laws and rules the people choose the representatives and then the representatives are somewhat insulated from the people's passions so that they can actually think together and and debate and come up with policies then the people get to throw them out if they're not happy that was the system they gave us and boy did that work in the Gutenberg era the era that was based on print um now in the network era the problems Madison was trying to fix are overwhelmed I mean those problems are 10x 100x for the reasons we've been talking about if the citizens aren't just like voting on Election Day for who they want they're rather opining at every moment so that Congress people I mean you see this you know uh Ted Cruz he wants uh I was I was testifying remotely at a a senate hearing on on social media regulation and Ted Cruz um gives this oh actually I'm sorry previously Ted Cruz had given this bombastic speech on the senate floor and then he sat down he was caught on camera instantly checking his Twitter feed to see how his Senate speech played so if our politicians are being held captive to this instant feedback from whatever random stranger boy does that pervert democracy and then the funny thing that I got confused is then like a few months later I was testifying um just by Zoom to on a hearing about regulation and I gave the example of a senator uh who um was caught checking you know I was asked whether this would affect Congress said yes and I gave the example I didn't mention names of a senator you know who was caught doing this and then it turns out Ted Cruz was in the room and he then uh asked his question of me which was actually not really a question even it was just he just went on and on and on about his number of Twitter followers like that was what he wanted to talk about was how he thought Twitter was discriminated against him anyway all I'm saying is man is this messing up democracy as we had it in America well I I and the there oh I could go some this Rabbit Hole lots of directions this rabbit hole is deep so so it goes back to your the arena analogy which is we've now put our politicians in the center of the arena and we want blood and we want a performance and we know that they grand stand and perform for the cameras like this is not news but but uh but it's not just CNN and the Nightly News now it's the as you said it's the instant gratification and I've been told by some of the old-timer congressmen that there was a time where they would grand stand 20% for the cameras and then 80% of the date debate was behind closed doors that's right yeah and and now it's 100% for the cameras Y and even when the new Speaker of the House was elected like the number of people said I don't even know him like I oh my God I didn't know that wow oh the number of of congressmen who said I I don't even know the guy that's incredible and so we I mean there's not that many of them there's a few hundred of them and but they don't socialize anymore they don't socialize anymore and and and and there was a time when you moved your whole family to Washington y you know and and your kids integrated into the school systems and then exactly you went to the baseball games and you went to the PTA meetings and you went to school plays and you saw people the opposite party sitting in the stands with you and you socialized and they didn't absolutely they they may or may not have been friends but they were social and they were civil and they saw each other as human they saw each other as parents Y and now they spend most of their time back in their home States they say doing the work of their people but let's be honest it's fundraising fundraising and and they spend very little time in Washington they and rarely move their families to Washington anymore so they don't even see each other as human anymore and they don't know each other and so how can how can a governing class govern and be expected to find common ground with people who they only view as the enemy or an abst worse worse an abstract enemy which is the which is the worst kind inhuman right and unhuman um so what we're really talking about in all of these things is the restoration of humanity yeah whether it's whether it's teenagers spending time with teenagers and they all put their phones in a bucket when they come in the house you know like I mean like I I mean a good connection you know which is it's the same thing right it's the same thing which is if invite all the kids over for a play date and call the parents and say if you need your kid call me here's my phone number because I've taken all the kids phones away yes oh that's great oh I'm gonna write this down because that's that's a piece of advice I'm going to give to parents thank you right like like here's my phone number your kids's coming over to my house I'm taking your kids's phone away while they're playing call me if they need if you need anything and and and and it's it is it is it's they I know somebody who did this which is they they they were really stressed out about their um kids being addicted to their phones they decided to go on a family vacation and they forced their kids to leave the the phones at home so that was fight number one of course but turns out the parents prevailed because the kids are you know 13 you know mhm um and they brought one phone because you got to have a phone right mhm and apparently the first two or three days of the vacation were absolutely awful fighting and yelling and I want my phone and I miss my friends and then after about 2 three days apparently they all forgot and they had the most incredible time and they bonded as a family nobody missed their phones and it was magical the point is like any addiction there's going to be some some some side effects you you're going to have some exactly withdrawal symptoms you're going to have withdrawal symptoms and you have to allow and the problem is as we take these phones away from the kids and they act out and then we immediately give it back and like any drug addict you just it sucks and it's awful but you got to allow the withdrawal symptoms to to to to go through absolutely that's right and that's why summer camp is so important in American society right now it's very hard to get your kid off for long enough for the withdrawal symptoms to subside for the dopamine neurons to reset set to the Bas normal Baseline level um but summer camp sending your kid away for three or four weeks minimum where most most summer camps do ban the phones I gave a talk to a group of summer camp uh administrators most of them do confiscate the phones thank God uh nobody should send their kid to a camp that doesn't confiscate the phones um and I hear the same story very often the kid comes back from Camp it's the sweet you know it's the sweet 11 you know 11y old That I Used to Know You know I have a 12 or 13 year old girl let's say and she became all you know cranky and negative um you send her to camp and you get your child back for a couple of weeks and then they go back on their phones and the Ugly personality returns isn't it ironic that parents are comfortable that their kids phones are taken away at summer camp where where they will legitimately like fall off horses and break their arm you know yeah yeah but we don't want to take their phones away when they're just at school and we have to figure out what time to pick them up like there's a great irony in that well you know in part it's the logist I mean the logistics is is a piece of it the idea that your kids are being cared for by someone else so you can step back but what I'm learning you know since I sent my kids to my daughter especially to summer camp it's now the norm that you get photos every day yeah somebody goes around takes thousands of photos yeah and AI there's a whatever this C my I don't know what it's called but there's this company they use AI to find the pictures of your child and send you a customized set of reports what this means is that your kid's at summer camp away from you for three or four weeks but every day the kid has to perform for the camera because Mom and Dad might be watching it's insane so I I would urge I would urge summer camps to stop doing that send a few group photos every weekend not during the week um and I would urge parents to ask that ask that of the camp say please you know would you consider not sending photos every day it's bad for everyone so so going back to the previous to the previous line of thought which is this resocialization so forcing kids to play amongst themselves with the parents intervening and taking phones away is not dissimilar to forcing congressmen to get to know each other I think they should move their families to Washington you know if you want to represent the nation you should move your family to Washington and live there um and and and that started I think in the 90s it was it was it came with G new gingr was the one who said go back home right exactly well because he changed the schedule he said will only do business Tuesday Wednesday Thursday so you don't have to be you just fly in on Monday night or Tuesday morning you can fly out Thursday evening um and and then you don't even rent an apartment you just share you you know you share a place with a few other Congress people in your party so yeah we drained the your point about humanity is great because it I didn't see that but it is it's the same thing with the kids kids need to be interacting with each other yeah and we've drained that out and politicians need to be interacting with each other and we've drained that out and so we're surprised that this system doesn't work yeah yeah are you are you hopeful hopeful for democracy I'm hopeful for the kids I really think we can solve this I'm not hopeful for democracy um I think as long as the internet not the internet the problem is not the internet per se the internet per se is amazing we all love it nobody's considering there you know that's inconceivable to to not have the internet um social media is not the internet as long as social media stays the way it is yeah and the US Congress stays the way it is I am not hopeful at all for our country now on the kid side it's totally by partisan this is why I think we're going to win there but on the Democracy side because the right believes that the left is censoring them online and there's probably some truth to that um and my God the new the new Google AI what a disaster for Google to put out an AI that is you know radical left identitarian woke lecturing obnoxious um you know I mean why should the right ever trust Google Now Google's basically shown we're not here to find the truth we're here to make you uh endorse these you know these Progressive values yeah um so this is part of why I'm I'm very concerned and I don't see a way out frankly oh can you tell me something that you've been engaged in or done in your career anything commercially successful or not doesn't matter academic academically successful or not it doesn't matter but something you've been engaged in something you've done a project you've worked on that you absolutely loved and you wish everything you ever do could be like this one thing for the rest of your life oh wow well I would actually say this one um this one the the the um changing childhood project um in college I ran a gun control group in the state of Connecticut and that was totally hopeless and we got nothing done um I've been involved in various Progressive movements and causes where we tried to persuade people of things and you know very hard to do and got nothing done um I helped on some messaging campaigns how do we change people's minds very hard to do didn't get much done and now I'm working on this problem this gigantic problem the biggest one I've ever worked on um and I don't have to persuade people like everyone is fed up with the phones most parents are fed up they're upset about what's happening they just don't know what to do so all I have to do is so first of all I got to spend the last four years thinking about this in really deeply and doing a lot of research and that's what is my greatest pleasure is really trying to figure something out using the tools of of various social sciences so that was a joy and then I come up with these recommendations and they're very easy to do and there's no opposition and so here they are here are the four Norms if we do these four things we can s we can not solve but we'll really improve teen Children's Mental Health one no smartphone before high school two no social media before 16 three phone- free schools and four more um um Independence free play and responsibility in the real world the free range kids those four things they cost essentially nothing maybe some phone lockers you'd have to buy so they're easy they're they cost nothing they're totally bipartisan there's no culture War issue here at all um and most parents want to do it so I'm incredibly excited that I get to be part of and a contributor to what I think is going to be one of the most successful social movements and the fastest ever um that is I think Within by the end of 2025 I think we're gonna have different Norms about childhood because the ones we got now they only started you know 10 15 years ago they're very new and they're terrible and we have to get rid of them tell me an early specific happy childhood memory oh gosh um one of the most exciting things was my best friend and I christer was his name um we we would was cut through this church parking lot where there was a school and the kids there got mad at us for cutting through and before we knew we were having a rock fight with them um but it was looking back on it like we we made rules like you can't aim for the face you know there if someone gets hurt you have to pause and let them you know so it was just so exciting to have play War now I I didn't realize it at the time but you know boys really seek out play war and uh that was one of the few times that we actually got it when you really could get HT and something I've learned in writing this book is that Thrills and the and the real risk of physical injury is actually the best kind of play it does something to your nervous system to help you learn to deal with risk whereas boys who are on playing fortnite let's say they're jumping out of planes they're stabbing each other but there's no fear there's no risk so um so yeah any sort of memory where you know there there was a team versus Team situation how's that can you work with that I mean so so of all the fun things you did as a kid what is it about the throwing of the rocks and because you're thinking of one particular time where there was this rock war right yeah that's right what what do you think is the reason that that stands out excitement it was incredibly exciting yeah um and I don't even remember if we won or not like I think we finally called it off I don't remember right um but but it's things like that where you're taking chances you're doing something new and it you know I think a lot about Evolution um oh like the first time I played paintball with my buddies when we were 30 that was ecstatic because again it was play war that we didn't even know that we loved so much we' never done paintball but there's something about a small group of guys hunting another group of guys and taking aim at them and shooting them and trying to win is incredibly thrilling yeah I have done it and if you don't get hit it's really fun that's right and it's important I've played laser tag too and that's pathetic laser tag there's no pain whereas paintball it does it hurts to get hit and that's crucial that's crucial because then you really care this is so interesting so what I what I find so interesting about the the project you're working on now is is you know all the other things you did it was about convincing convincing convincing convincing and this one stands out because there's no convincing required it's simply action right it's it's that's right well it's even simpler people are ready to act they just don't know what to do they just don't know what to all all I have to do is show them what to do so so I just I I just I think in metap for us and I just earlier today I was thinking you know yeah things could really change fast like like with the fall of the East block and I was thinking you know I think things are going to change as fast as they did with the fall of Communism and the reason is because I traveled through the East block uh 1987 everyone hated it there were no they were no real Communists everyone hated it but they only went along out of fear sure because if you raise your voice you'll be jailed and tortured and killed or whatever well it's the same thing now jenzie hates this childhood I have not found a s literally not a single defense like nobody in gen Z is saying no don't take away social media no don't take away our phones we love our like no nobody is saying that gen Z realizes they recognize they're messed up by this um this is ruining their Generations this is ruining their mental health U why are you on it fear of missing out fear of being the only one out so if you have a situ where most of the kids don't like it most of the parents don't like it all of the teachers don't like it uh no one's happy with this but we just don't know what to do to get rid of it and I think that in in my book I basically have been able to say you know here's where we are here's how we got here four Norms will get us most of the way out the there's a com there's there's something here about relieving tension right which is you know these kids hated you uh when you walk through the through their school to cut you know to cut home and the tension was relieved by giving them an outlet right yeah where which is to to to start throwing rocks at each other to start playing to to to to uh and and the the the same is true for what you're doing with the the the work you're doing now which is you're giving an outlet you're relieving ATT tension everybody knows it's built up and in all the other cases of convincing you try to create a tension yeah right that's what convincing is about that's right right and and I think where where you yeah oh yeah you're right you're right that's good had thought of it that way right and so I think where you are your most fulfilled but also where your work seems to be the most passionate is and it's an ironic thing for an academic you know but which is it's about the relieving of tension giving people an outlet which is I hate this I hate this I hate this well you know you could just do these three things you could just start a war here you just start throwing rocks you know because there's a tension we hate you stop walking through our thing it's like we hate the cell phones like we hate each other it's like when you talk about morality you talk about people hating each other but but I think where your work shines is when you give us when when when you're not convincing us but you're pointing out the thing that we already know which is the tension and then you offer us I'm Illuminating Illuminating the thing that we already know rather than trying to convince us or show something and then offer us just one or two ways to relieve the tension and we rush towards them yeah that's right thank thank you that is a per I that I love that and that is what happened in the UK over the last month the UK is ready to tip the parents have are fed up and you know some some some mothers put up a site about delay smartphones and you know and parents are rushing to it so I think we're we're there in America uh but thank you for that thinking about like relieving tension rather than trying to change change people's minds hey before I don't know how much time we have but let's be sure to talk about the workplace because here's where I want to ask you some question let's talk about that yes yes yes yes yes right so you have this great this great clip where you go out you you you explain what's happened to Millennials um and you know how you know because of the phones and the over protection all those things they haven't learned to do things that are hard they're not patient and I forget what year you you gave that that was it was before covid um it was it was I think I think it went that I mean I was giving that answer for quite a while but I think that clip went viral I think in like 2017 or 2018 okay so you were talking about Mill Millennials almost entirely Millennials are those born between about 1981 and 1995 or six Pew says 1996 anyway um you were talking about people were born in the 80s and early 90s and all the things that you say in that are true except the mental health piece that is their levels of their levels of depression and anxiety were actually not higher than the previous generation everything you say about Mental Health is true about gen Z that is and that might have been what you referring to because you talked about how the suicide rate is up and that is true wasn't up from Millennials was down from Millennials uh Gen X had very high rates of suicide Millennials had much lower rates and then it only starts going up around 2009 it only starts going up as gen Z is is coming in so um so a lot of what you said almost all what you said is true about about the Millennials um and in a sense it's what generation has said to some extent what every generation has said about the younger one although some I'm sorry actually some of the instant gratification ones are unique to to our time anyway so all I wanted to say is you take all the things you said about the difficulties that managers are having working with Millennials they're far more true for jenzy yeah yeah jenz is much more messed up in those ways um than the Millennials were so we're probably cut this out was is a little inside baseball but the the for one of the things that frustrates me as somebody who studied culture anthropology which is a generation used to mean 20 years mhm right so like it was really easy to calculate even though it's rough around the edges so the E we start with the Baby Boomers because they're the there's the easiest our you know their parents came back from war started having fun 1945 1946 they had a bunch of kids and 20 years later so that's that's your Boomer plus 20 takes you to 1964 195 1966 and then that's Gen X and that's Gen X till about 1984 85 86 so some were younger some were older like it spanned a generation and then so Gen Y Millennials is about 8 4ish to about 24ish and then and then you keep adding 20 years and for some reason I I don't understand the why maybe it's just because it's pop culture we never used to talk about quote unquote the generations but we've never bifurcated or Tri ated you know Gen X into anything less than 20 years or the Boomers into anything less than but these mod Generations were were slicing to five and 10 year you know that's right no well that's right because so Jee twangy has an important book here called generations and she makes the argument that many people assume that a generation is defined by something that happened in the world so World War II happened boy does that create a new generation but what she shows is that perhaps a bigger influence especially in the post world is the technology that we have as kids yeah and so since the technology is changing faster and faster so are the generations so so it's it's the way I've defined it is just uh shared experience as as you're growing up like you know if you that's yeah but it's it's it's so I think I would actually say it as as the Marshall mclen quote the medium is the message yeah so if you grew up on radio that was one thing but if you grew up on television now you're more passive mclen said you're more passive and Neil Postman also you everything's entertainment you sit there you stare at the screen that's what you do yeah and that changes a generation and then you get you know then you get the early internet and and that is going to change you know what people are doing that's going to change them and then you get social media becoming nasty early social media wasn't so bad it becomes nasty you know 2010 11 12 um so so that's why Tech Generations are now much shorter than 20 years so anyway so but you know so even that's true the these things are poorly defined as to what the years are but nonetheless so so so so I but I but but broad Strokes I completely agree with you you know the the thing that I find Fascinate about this young generation at work is um uh very uncomfortable with discomfort yep absolutely getting in trouble being told you didn't do good work you know create you know um the how comfortable they are quitting without another job which is entirely new to you're you and me like you and I couldn't imagine quitting a job without another job lined up that's right you have a series of dental appointments that you keep going to although you're wearing a suit for those Dental appointments you know and then eventually you quit you know uh um but that happens um uh the other thing is the for the Young Generation which is rightfully so demanding that you will you like having boundaries and and and telling people about your own boundaries but seemingly having no respect for other people's boundaries yeah there's that great irony respect my boundaries but I'm allowed to not respect yours yeah and this just and I and I I think if you go through the patterns of all of these things I think what it reveals is is uh is um loose footedness unsure a great unsureness you know not 100% knowing who I am where I stand what the future is and I think I think uncertainty is one of the worst things you can give to someone you know this is how dictators rule it's not they're not always evil they they generate tremendous uncertainty it was said of Saddam Hussein that when you got called to his Palace you didn't know if you're going to be executed or given a Mercedes right my God yeah and so and this is how con artists work right this is how con artists work which is or or or or master manipulators master manipulators they're they're nice one day and horrible the next and screaming at you and then showering you with love and and it's the uncertainty and keeping you off balance that makes you so suceptible to control because if you're just mean I just either hate you or leave you you know right right and so I think that they're living in a in a society where they're so battered around and there's such a lack of uh sure-footedness that I think it has I think it has these ripples that what we are complaining about but they're really symptoms of something else and I think it all boils down to self-confidence and if if any parent and we going right back to your work about social media and self phones if any parent cares about the the self-confidence of their children please I beg of you reduce the app the the access to cell phones and social media that's right yeah absolutely but if you're going to take those things away you must give them something to do that builds something to do that's right that's right and that something to do should be hang out with other kids do things with kids yes that's what they really need yes and exactly and I think the thing that we think builds people self-confidence just telling them they're great that's not what does it you know let letting them solve problems with with each other letting them figure things out together letting them fight letting them resolve you know being a kid is difficult it sucks and it's especially being an adolescent I mean it's really hard um and we we we as parents want to cuddle as much as we can but there is and you you definitely know know this there is such thing as over coddling well well that's right I mean kids are anti- fragile um and um uh let's see oh what was I gonna say about that they're Built Tough you know when your kid like I always get a kick out the analogy is when a little kid falls over before they cry they look at their parents yeah and if the parent goes oh my God the kid starts crying and if the parent goes you're fine they just get up and keep playing and it's amazing how they learn to react to the pressure and the stress mhm that's right that's right and so right when we became overprotective in the 80s and 90s um yeah we we weakened their development I just want to make that's right I want to make one point about self-esteem which is it was a big word in the 70s and 80s but psychologists research psychologists are pretty wary of it um because while self-esteem is a real thing um you don't want to build up a child self-esteem that's a really bad thing to do um what you want to do is build up a child's capability so the child then does things and if the child achieves things then they will have a good opinion ofs but you can't you can't AR officially say you're great I want to build up your self-esteem that's bad for your kids right so uh and that is you know that is one of the things that's commonly said about about the Millennials because in the 80s is we really you know as a culture we really got into that and a lot of progressive education still believes that and I think it's it's making things worse on that note Jonathan thank you so so much I could talk to you for hours I I just I I I there's so many loose ends that we haven't that we haven't finished and so many Rabbit Hole I want to rabbit holes I want to continue to go is it like surgeons General is it rabbit's hole you know uhle that's good there so many more rabbit holes I want to go down with you um truly truly thanks for taking the time my pleasure Simon was great fun if you enjoyed this podcast and would like to hear more please subscribe wherever you like to listen to podcasts and if you'd like even more optimism check out my website simon.com for classes videos and more until then take care of yourself take care of each other

Channel: Simon Sinek

Views: 49,678

Keywords: simon sinek, start with why, inspiration, motivation, leadership, career, inspire

Id: i2hERv5l3H4

Length: 56min 6sec (3366 seconds)

Published: Wed Mar 27 2024