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Jonathan Haidt (2024) - The Anxious Generation and Digital Life · The Joe Rogan Recap

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  Welcome to the Joe Rogan recap. Hey there.
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  Today we're taking a deep dive into a really thought provoking
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  conversation, the one on the Joe Rogan Experience recently.
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  Oh yeah, with Jonathan 8. Exactly focusing on that
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  detailed discussion about his new book, The Anxious
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  Generation. Right.
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  And you know how the whole digital world is reshaping
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  childhood and society? Really.
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  Totally. So this deep dive is for you,
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  the learner, if you want to quickly get to grips with the
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  crucial insights from this chat without getting lost in the
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  weeds. Yeah, we've pulled out the key
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  arguments, the main points and some genuinely surprising facts
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  actually. Definitely our main source here
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  is the transcript of that Rogan interview with hate, and our
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  mission is pretty clear. Understand hate score arguments
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  about this great rewiring of childhood, as he calls it and.
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  Unpack the consequences they talked about, which are
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  significant. OK, let's get into it then.
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  So it's worth remembering Hate was on Rogan before talking
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  about similar stuff. Right.
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  And back then there was maybe more debate about whether it was
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  really a crisis, this mental health thing with kids.
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  Exactly. Some experts were hesitant.
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  You know, comparing it to past panics about video games or
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  whatever. But hate was saying the
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  conversation now feels different, like there's been a
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  shift. A big shift, he points out.
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  There's much broader agreement now among psychologists.
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  We are facing a genuine crisis in youth mental health That
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  seems clearer now. And they touched on how
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  different generations might see it differently, like boomers
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  versus kids today. Yeah, because boomers grew up
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  with TV, maybe scheduled family viewing.
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  It's just not the same as the always on personal social media
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  world kids have now. And hate makes a really strong
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  point, doesn't he, that social media is much, much worse for
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  development? Much worse, they both sort of
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  agreed too much TV wasn't great either, but this is on another
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  level. Scale feels different, and maybe
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  the nature of it too. Absolutely, and a key part of
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  that is just the sheer time kids are spending on screens now.
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  Compared to, say, our childhoods, maybe an hour or two
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  of TV, often together. Right now the figures they
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  mentioned, I think from Gallup, show kids averaging about 5
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  hours a day just on social media.
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  Five hours. And that's not even counting
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  everything else. No, when you add in homework,
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  online YouTube games it balloons to something like 9 hours a day.
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  9 hours that's that's basically a full time job in front of a
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  screen. And crucially, it's often
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  solitary time on their own devices, not like the shared TV
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  experience. Which brings up that idea of
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  opportunity costs. Exactly what are they not doing
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  because they're spending nine hours on screens?
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  Sleep definitely. Real world activities, playing
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  outside, just interacting face to face.
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  Stuff that's vital for development.
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  Something has to give when you add a nine hour activity to your
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  day. So why the consensus since say,
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  2019 when he was on before? Well, he mentioned that back
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  then the academic debate was still pretty heated.
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  Concerns were growing, yes, but the data?
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  The data wasn't as clear or maybe interpreted differently.
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  Yeah, the early studies looking at screen time and depression,
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  for instance, showed maybe a smaller link, so researchers
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  disagreed. OK.
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  And then came COVID. Right, COVID definitely threw
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  fuel on the fire Force kids online even more.
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  Mental health took a hit, no question.
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  But Hate argues that wasn't the start of the trend.
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  No, and this is key. He showed these graphs, visual
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  data suggesting COVID was more like a temporary spike, a blip,
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  he called it. The underlying trend was already
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  well underway. OK.
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  Let's talk about those graphs, because that's where it gets
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  really interesting, right? The actual number.
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  Super interesting he showed the significant climate depression
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  rates especially hitting girls hard.
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  Back in say 2005 to 2010 it was stable.
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  Around 12% of US girls reported a major depressive episode in
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  the past year. And for boys?
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  Much lower, around 4-5 percent, also stable, but then.
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  Things change. Dramatically, starting around
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  2011, 2012, 2013, the rates for girls just started climbing
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  sharply, up to maybe 20% by 2019 and.
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  They talked about the difference between internalizing disorders
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  like anxiety and depression, which are more common in girls.
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  It's exactly versus externalizing disorders like
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  aggression, maybe substance use more often seen in boys.
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  Both groups saw increases, but the jump for girls was way.
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  Bigger. And it didn't stop in 2019, no.
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  The data kept going up. By 20/21 it was nearly 30% of
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  girls reporting a major depressive episode, 30% and boys
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  were up to around 12%. Wow, and even before the
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  pandemic hit like 2018-2019, the rise was already steep.
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  Very steep and hate ties this timing, that 2011, 2013 window
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  very specifically to technology shifts.
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  OK, what? Shifts.
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  He calls it the complete rewiring of childhood.
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  Think about it. The iPhone gets a front facing
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  camera in 2010. Instagram launches.
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  High speed mobile data becomes common for teens.
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  Right before 2010 it was mostly flip phones.
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  Basic stuff. Like 2015 smartphones,
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  Instagram, constant Internet access.
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  That was the new reality for a huge chunk of kids.
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  And they also wondered if the later acceleration post 2018
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  might be linked to TikTok taking off.
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  Yeah, they definitely discussed Tik Tok's role.
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  Each nature is quite different, Hate argues.
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  How so different from, say, watching Netflix?
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  Very different. Netflix is storytelling
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  narrative. TikTok is this fire hose of
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  short, often disconnected, sometimes disturbing little
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  clips. No real story, just constant
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  stimulation. Highly addictive by design.
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  He mentioned talking to his NYU students, right?
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  Yeah, saying almost all use Netflix, but few wish it didn't
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  exist. TikTok, different story.
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  Many feel trapped by it, hooked on this endless scroll.
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  And consuming a lot of content about mental illness itself,
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  which seems problematic. Yeah, potentially creating this
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  feedback loop, which leads us naturally to the whole TikTok
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  band debate. Which is complicated.
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  National security versus free speech harm to kids.
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  Right. Hate being sort of libertarian
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  Leaning. Admitted he's uncomfortable with
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  bands just based on potential harm to kids.
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  He'd prefer something like age verification.
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  But the ownership piece is unique, with TikTok by Dance
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  being a Chinese company. That's the game changer for the
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  national security argument. They're legally obligated to the
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  Chinese Communist Party. They use that Cold War analogy,
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  which was pretty powerful. Yeah, Rogan and Haight talked
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  about Tristan Harris's point. Imagine the Soviets awning NBC
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  or something in the 60s beaming stuff directly to American kids.
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  Unthinkable, then. Yet here we are, with the
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  platform dominant among US youth, ultimately answering to
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  Beijing. And the risks are very data
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  collection is huge, obviously psychological profiling,
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  targeted ads. But the bigger fear is
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  influence. Controlling the algorithm,
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  shaping what kids see. Potentially, yeah.
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  They mentioned examples like alleged content manipulation in
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  Russia or the Riley Gaines stuff being down ranked.
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  Apparently, that kind of potential for political
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  influence is a major concern. So the push is maybe to force a
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  sale rather than an outright ban to a non Chinese owner.
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  That seems to be the idea behind the recent legislation.
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  Yeah, Remove this specific national security risk tied to
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  China. OK, but the discussion went
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  broader than just TikTok, right? To social media's wider impacts.
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  Definitely, Hate argues it's created this environment where
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  the loudest, angriest voices can intimidate everyone else.
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  Distorting things in universities, journalism
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  everywhere. He used that D gun analogy like
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  everyone online has a weapon to inflict emotional harm,
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  harassment. And adding bots into the mix,
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  what percentage did they estimate on ex Twitter?
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  The numbers vary, but potentially very high, which
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  makes the whole idea of a public square kind of meaningless if
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  it's full of fake accounts amplifying craziness.
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  It creates this fun house world, as he called it.
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  Hard to know what's real. So Rogan asks the $1,000,000
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  question. What can we do besides just tell
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  kids use less? Because that's not really
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  working. For the bigger societal
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  manipulation stuff, hate floated identity verification.
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  Right. Not necessarily making everyone
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  use real names publicly, but confirming users are actual
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  humans to combat the bot armies. Though tricky to implement
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  globally and you need to protect whistleblowers.
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  True. Complex.
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  He also briefly touched on Web One versus Web 2 and the hope
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  for Web Three like Project Liberty, giving users more data
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  control, basically fixing the Internet's underlying structure.
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  But for the kids, mental health specifically, he seemed more
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  optimistic, calling it a collective action problem.
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  Yeah, his point is a lot of kids are only on there because
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  everyone else is peer pressure, FOMO.
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  And if you ask them, many might secretly wish it would just go
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  away if everyone stopped at once.
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  Apparently yes, which is why he proposes those 4 norms for
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  parents in schools collective action.
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  OK, remind us what those were. One, no smartphones before high
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  school. Flip phones are OK.
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  Two, no social media until 16 actually enforce the age limits.
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  3 phone free schools get them out of the classroom in
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  hallways. Which studies show actually
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  boost academic achievement and social interaction.
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  And for more independence, more free play, more real world
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  responsibility for kids. Makes sense.
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  But getting parents on board? That's the challenge, isn't it?
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  Phones are convenient. Huge challenge.
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  He acknowledges that, but he also said he gets encouragement
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  talking to Gen. Z themself.
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  They know it's messing with him. He used the smoking analogy,
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  right? How norms shifted dramatically
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  around that. Exactly what seemed normal, even
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  cool, became unacceptable, especially for kids.
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  He thinks a similar shift is possible, maybe even starting
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  for phones and social media and childhood.
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  Interesting. But then the conversation zoomed
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  out again to the future of technology and humanity.
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  Yeah, the addictive nature of it, all, the money behind it,
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  it's huge. Hate seemed reluctant to tell
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  adults what to do. Right.
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  His focus is fiercely on protecting kids.
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  He worries about the adult world too.
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  Easy access to porn, AI, companions, whatever.
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  Making people maybe weaker. But his main plea is keep kids
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  separate from this firehose until their brains are more
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  developed. The junk food analogy came back
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  here too. Society he is slowly adapting to
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  resist bad food, but. But the desire for social
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  approval, the thing social media exploits, is maybe deeper, more
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  fundamental than wanting junk food.
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  Arguably, yes. Yeah.
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  Which raises a scary possibility that kids growing up marinated
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  in this might never develop the adult self-control to manage it.
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  Their executive function development gets short
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  circuited. They mentioned post and ghost as
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  a strategy for adults. Yeah, like post your thing then
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  get out. Don't get sucked into the
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  comments, which by the way, have gotten worse, haven't they?
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  Threaded comments just seem to breed conflict.
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  Totally. It all feels a bit like paddling
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  upstream against it. A raging waterfall, as they put
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  it. And looking ahead, things like
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  Neuralink hardware integration. Yeah, raises fundamental
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  questions about being human, driven by competition.
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  If others get the brain implant, you'll feel you need it too.
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  Which is why hate keeps calling for a pause.
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  Let's just stop and think about what we're doing, especially to
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  childhood, before we go further down this path.
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  The techno optimist view hasn't panned out for kids and social
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  media. And he stressed the need for
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  social sciences sociology to catch up and study this rapid
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  change. Even though that's hard within
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  university, sometimes with political pressures.
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  They touched briefly on the Singularity AI potential for
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  progress, but also sociological chaos.
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  And the worry about AI getting captured by ideology.
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  The Google Gemini example came up.
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  Had to called it structural stupidity.
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  Leading to this massive loss of trust in institutions and
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  sources of knowledge. Yeah.
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  Which loops back to the importance of professional
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  responsibility. Universities pursuing truth
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  journalism. Reporting Facts.
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  Core missions. And viewpoint diversity, free
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  speech, especially on campus. Right, the problem of extremists
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  shouting down moderates, cancel culture making people afraid to
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  speak. They discussed the anti-Semitism
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  controversies, the weirdness of defending calls for genocide as
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  political speech while clamping down on other things.
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  It's all contributing to the public losing trust in higher
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  education. But HATE is working on this
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  right Heterodox Academy Constructive Dialogue Institute.
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  Trying to equip people, especially students, with tools
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  for better conversations across differences, like the
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  Perspectives program. Universities need to allow
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  debate, not silence it. OK, so despite all these massive
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  challenges, did they end on any note of optimism?
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  Actually, yes. Hate seemed genuinely hopeful
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  about the kid issues, specifically why he sees
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  bipartisan concern growing. Republicans, Democrats, people
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  across the spectrum are worried about kids and tech.
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  That's rare these days. He thinks we could be near a
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  tipping point in attitudes like the shift in Britain recently on
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  phones, in schools or even comparing it to the sudden fall
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  of the Iron Curtain. Things can change faster than
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  you think. And he mentioned that movement
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  free the anxious generation. Yeah, launching with public art
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  like that huge 12 foot milk carton, trying to raise
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  awareness and push for those 4 norms.
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  So, concrete steps for parents in schools.
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  Exactly. He really believes attitudes
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  towards phones and tech for kids are about to change radically.
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  OK, so wrapping this up, this deep dive into Rogan and hate
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  really underscores how this digital revolution, especially
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  smartphones and social media, has profoundly impacted kids
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  mental health, mostly not for the better.
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  And it's tangled up with these bigger societal issues,
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  political polarization, loss of trust.
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  It's all connected. But there is growing awareness
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  and maybe, just maybe, a path forward through collective
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  action, rethinking how tech fits into childhood.
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  So for you, the learner, you've now got a much deeper
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  understanding of this whole complex picture.
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  And Jonathan hates arguments. Hopefully it gives you something
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  to think about. Yeah, consider the implications
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  for your own life, maybe the kids in your world.
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  And here's that final thought to chew on.
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  Technology isn't slowing down. So how do we as a society
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  balance all of the cool stuff, connectivity, innovation, with
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  the basic needs of human beings, especially kids, to develop
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  healthily? And how do we keep democracy
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  functioning in this new environment?
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  What's the role of individual choices versus collective rules
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  and figuring that out? Big questions.
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  If you want to dig deeper, definitely check out Hates book
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  The Anxious Generation. And look at those resources they
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  mentioned, like Let Grow or the Constructive Dialogue Institute.
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  Keep exploring this, it's important.