1
00:00:23,520 --> 00:00:26,040
Speaker 1: Welcome to two Percent. I am your host, Michael Easter,

2
00:00:26,120 --> 00:00:28,400
Speaker 1: and today we have a really great episode and we're

3
00:00:28,400 --> 00:00:32,920
Speaker 1: gonna be talking vices. Yes, vices. Everyone's got one, whether

4
00:00:33,000 --> 00:00:37,040
Speaker 1: it's drinking, smoking, or using social media way too much.

5
00:00:37,120 --> 00:00:39,240
Speaker 1: I guarantee if you are listening to this right now,

6
00:00:39,880 --> 00:00:44,640
Speaker 1: you have a vice. Now. In this podcast and in general,

7
00:00:44,720 --> 00:00:47,200
Speaker 1: in all of my work, I argue that the path

8
00:00:47,240 --> 00:00:51,440
Speaker 1: to improving your life it requires embracing short term discomfort

9
00:00:51,920 --> 00:00:54,200
Speaker 1: to get a long term benefit. All of the things

10
00:00:54,280 --> 00:00:57,600
Speaker 1: that help us in our life, they're usually tough in

11
00:00:57,680 --> 00:01:01,120
Speaker 1: the short term, but the thing about vices is they

12
00:01:01,120 --> 00:01:04,760
Speaker 1: are the opposite. They give us short term pleasure at

13
00:01:04,760 --> 00:01:08,320
Speaker 1: the expense of long term growth. So how should we

14
00:01:08,440 --> 00:01:11,480
Speaker 1: think about vices in a world where there are so

15
00:01:11,680 --> 00:01:14,280
Speaker 1: many things that we can fall into that give us

16
00:01:14,319 --> 00:01:16,720
Speaker 1: a little hit of pleasure but maybe hurt us in

17
00:01:16,760 --> 00:01:19,200
Speaker 1: the long run. To talk about this topic, we're going

18
00:01:19,280 --> 00:01:22,880
Speaker 1: to be taking a very nuanced view, because the thing

19
00:01:22,880 --> 00:01:25,840
Speaker 1: about vices is if you can learn to leverage them

20
00:01:25,880 --> 00:01:28,560
Speaker 1: for good, get all the good things from them, but

21
00:01:28,640 --> 00:01:31,640
Speaker 1: avoid the downsides, they can actually enhance your life. We

22
00:01:31,680 --> 00:01:34,480
Speaker 1: do not have to live like monks in order to

23
00:01:34,480 --> 00:01:36,479
Speaker 1: live a good life. So we're going to be bringing

24
00:01:36,560 --> 00:01:39,200
Speaker 1: on two people. First, we're going to bring on Dean Statman.

25
00:01:39,319 --> 00:01:41,920
Speaker 1: He is a reporter at GQ magazine and he had

26
00:01:41,959 --> 00:01:46,399
Speaker 1: a very interesting and counterintuitive New Year's resolution that is

27
00:01:46,440 --> 00:01:49,520
Speaker 1: totally opposite of dry January. After that, we're going to

28
00:01:49,560 --> 00:01:52,680
Speaker 1: bring on Taylor Lorenz, who argues that social media is

29
00:01:52,680 --> 00:01:56,600
Speaker 1: actually not addictive, but the information she gives you might

30
00:01:56,720 --> 00:01:58,880
Speaker 1: help you use it in a way that helps you

31
00:01:58,960 --> 00:02:01,560
Speaker 1: in the long run than hurt you. And then finally,

32
00:02:01,880 --> 00:02:04,919
Speaker 1: I am going to open the curtain into my life

33
00:02:04,960 --> 00:02:07,360
Speaker 1: and I am going to tell you what my number

34
00:02:07,400 --> 00:02:10,680
Speaker 1: one vice is. Now, if you listen to social media,

35
00:02:11,280 --> 00:02:13,400
Speaker 1: you will think this thing is killing me, But if

36
00:02:13,440 --> 00:02:16,680
Speaker 1: you actually look at the science, there's no harm in

37
00:02:16,720 --> 00:02:18,880
Speaker 1: this vice I have. So I'll tell you what that is.

38
00:02:19,840 --> 00:02:23,720
Speaker 1: Let's get into it. There have been a lot of

39
00:02:23,720 --> 00:02:28,119
Speaker 1: conflicting reports about drinking and health over the past few years.

40
00:02:28,160 --> 00:02:31,280
Speaker 1: So for most of time, scientific bodies said, you know,

41
00:02:31,320 --> 00:02:32,760
Speaker 1: if you have one or two drinks a day, that

42
00:02:32,800 --> 00:02:35,040
Speaker 1: could actually help your heart health. But in the last

43
00:02:35,040 --> 00:02:37,880
Speaker 1: handful of years that has totally been flipped and now

44
00:02:38,000 --> 00:02:40,560
Speaker 1: a lot of people are saying no alcohol at all

45
00:02:41,240 --> 00:02:44,840
Speaker 1: that is going to vastly improve your health. Now, I

46
00:02:44,880 --> 00:02:47,600
Speaker 1: do think there is a bit of nuance in this topic.

47
00:02:48,200 --> 00:02:51,320
Speaker 1: For example, take me, I do not drink at all.

48
00:02:51,440 --> 00:02:53,680
Speaker 1: I've been sober for eleven years, and the reason for

49
00:02:53,720 --> 00:02:56,880
Speaker 1: that is because my favorite drink it was always the

50
00:02:56,919 --> 00:02:59,440
Speaker 1: next one. And if you drink like that, you can

51
00:02:59,520 --> 00:03:02,320
Speaker 1: rock up some life problems. But on the other hand,

52
00:03:02,760 --> 00:03:05,960
Speaker 1: most people are having one to two drinks every now

53
00:03:06,000 --> 00:03:08,880
Speaker 1: and then, and I think a big question is is

54
00:03:09,000 --> 00:03:12,480
Speaker 1: that enough to really hurt health? Well, a lot of

55
00:03:12,480 --> 00:03:15,240
Speaker 1: people are arguing that it is, and it is affecting

56
00:03:15,240 --> 00:03:17,040
Speaker 1: people's behavior. So I'm going to read a couple of

57
00:03:17,080 --> 00:03:20,359
Speaker 1: stats here. Gallup recently found that drinking is at an

58
00:03:20,400 --> 00:03:22,960
Speaker 1: all time low. So when the seventies up through about

59
00:03:23,000 --> 00:03:27,560
Speaker 1: twenty twenty, between sixty to seventy percent of the population drink.

60
00:03:28,200 --> 00:03:31,320
Speaker 1: Now the figure is fifty four percent. We also have

61
00:03:31,440 --> 00:03:34,400
Speaker 1: wineries that are closing in Napa Valley because not enough

62
00:03:34,400 --> 00:03:36,880
Speaker 1: people are buying wine. And I recently spoke to a

63
00:03:36,920 --> 00:03:39,560
Speaker 1: friend who owns a restaurant in La and she said

64
00:03:39,600 --> 00:03:42,960
Speaker 1: that a lot of LA restaurants are struggling because no

65
00:03:43,000 --> 00:03:45,880
Speaker 1: one is drinking anymore, and restaurants make a lot of

66
00:03:45,920 --> 00:03:50,240
Speaker 1: money from alcohol sales. So big question here is drinking

67
00:03:50,280 --> 00:03:54,000
Speaker 1: bad or can it be even good? I have a friend,

68
00:03:54,200 --> 00:03:55,880
Speaker 1: his name is Dean Statman. I used to work with

69
00:03:56,000 --> 00:03:59,320
Speaker 1: him at Men's Health magazine, Very fitness minded, healthy guy,

70
00:03:59,680 --> 00:04:02,680
Speaker 1: and he saw all this stuff out there about how

71
00:04:02,880 --> 00:04:05,480
Speaker 1: not drinking is the answer to health. So we decided

72
00:04:05,520 --> 00:04:09,120
Speaker 1: to jump on the wagon. He lasted about three months

73
00:04:09,240 --> 00:04:12,960
Speaker 1: because he found that although his health scores on his

74
00:04:12,960 --> 00:04:16,560
Speaker 1: fitness tracker did improve, a lot of really interesting things

75
00:04:16,600 --> 00:04:19,240
Speaker 1: happened to his mental health and his social life. He

76
00:04:19,279 --> 00:04:22,120
Speaker 1: wrote a piece about it in GQ. It is called

77
00:04:22,760 --> 00:04:27,440
Speaker 1: why My twenty twenty six resolution is to start drinking again.

78
00:04:27,600 --> 00:04:29,279
Speaker 1: So we're going to bring on Dean and we're going

79
00:04:29,360 --> 00:04:32,440
Speaker 1: to talk about how his thinking on alcohol has evolved

80
00:04:32,480 --> 00:04:37,040
Speaker 1: and what he learned in reporting this piece. All right, Dan,

81
00:04:37,080 --> 00:04:39,000
Speaker 1: thanks for coming on the show. Pleasure to be here.

82
00:04:39,240 --> 00:04:43,880
Speaker 1: So let's back up a little bit. It's summer of

83
00:04:44,000 --> 00:04:48,720
Speaker 1: last year and you decide you're going to stop drinking. Now.

84
00:04:48,760 --> 00:04:51,400
Speaker 1: I think the context that's important for this is this

85
00:04:51,560 --> 00:04:54,920
Speaker 1: wasn't like, oh I got a duy, I got arrested.

86
00:04:55,000 --> 00:04:57,960
Speaker 1: I'm going through a divorce, what prompted all this?

87
00:04:58,440 --> 00:04:59,880
Speaker 2: No, none of those things, Thank god.

88
00:05:00,200 --> 00:05:03,960
Speaker 3: I've been a journalist a magazine editor for literally my

89
00:05:04,160 --> 00:05:04,760
Speaker 3: entire career.

90
00:05:04,800 --> 00:05:08,680
Speaker 1: And that's how that's that's how we met because we

91
00:05:08,760 --> 00:05:11,640
Speaker 1: both were we both worked at mental health and overlap there.

92
00:05:11,839 --> 00:05:14,000
Speaker 3: Yeah, and and as you know, you know, you can

93
00:05:14,040 --> 00:05:17,919
Speaker 3: work in wellness, but it's not like like I guess,

94
00:05:17,960 --> 00:05:20,560
Speaker 3: I don't know, like maybe accounting or something where you

95
00:05:20,640 --> 00:05:24,720
Speaker 3: really do have this this constant it's every day is different.

96
00:05:24,760 --> 00:05:27,440
Speaker 3: Like as the sort of wellness trends come and go,

97
00:05:27,600 --> 00:05:30,080
Speaker 3: you're covering them, you're learning about them. A lot of

98
00:05:30,080 --> 00:05:33,320
Speaker 3: the time, you're actually sort of trying things out yourself totally.

99
00:05:33,400 --> 00:05:37,080
Speaker 3: And I think I had just seen the space evolved

100
00:05:37,120 --> 00:05:41,840
Speaker 3: so much as it continues to do. There's so many

101
00:05:41,880 --> 00:05:44,479
Speaker 3: ways you can optimize your wellness totally.

102
00:05:44,520 --> 00:05:47,120
Speaker 1: And you also have I will point out because of

103
00:05:47,200 --> 00:05:50,120
Speaker 1: your work. You work out all the time. Like a

104
00:05:50,120 --> 00:05:52,160
Speaker 1: lot of your Instagram feed is like you're at the gym,

105
00:05:52,240 --> 00:05:55,919
Speaker 1: you're doing like the all these classes and you really

106
00:05:55,960 --> 00:05:58,840
Speaker 1: have to live this. So it's not like you I mean,

107
00:05:58,880 --> 00:06:02,000
Speaker 1: you weren't drinking that much, but but then offsetting anything

108
00:06:02,000 --> 00:06:05,840
Speaker 1: you did drink was like a thousand really good habits. Yeah,

109
00:06:05,920 --> 00:06:08,279
Speaker 1: a lot of hit classes, a lot of running, and

110
00:06:08,279 --> 00:06:10,120
Speaker 1: then there's the stuff that I just sort of personally love,

111
00:06:10,279 --> 00:06:14,839
Speaker 1: you know, playing soccer every week. I got again just

112
00:06:14,920 --> 00:06:17,000
Speaker 1: by virtue of covering this stuff, got like really into

113
00:06:17,040 --> 00:06:20,240
Speaker 1: meditation for a while, got really into like sawn a

114
00:06:20,279 --> 00:06:23,720
Speaker 1: cold plunge, red light therapy. I've been doing a bunch

115
00:06:23,760 --> 00:06:26,200
Speaker 1: of Higher Rocks races recently, and this is all throughout,

116
00:06:26,880 --> 00:06:29,480
Speaker 1: you know, also just just drinking like an ordinary person.

117
00:06:29,760 --> 00:06:32,600
Speaker 3: At a certain point, I just, you know, I did.

118
00:06:32,720 --> 00:06:36,760
Speaker 3: I kind of got swept up in this like aura

119
00:06:37,000 --> 00:06:41,200
Speaker 3: around the NA movement where you've got you know, Tom Hollands,

120
00:06:41,240 --> 00:06:44,560
Speaker 3: Biro and Lewis Hamilton has like a tequila or a

121
00:06:44,560 --> 00:06:47,400
Speaker 3: gave or whatever, and then plus the other dozen plus

122
00:06:47,400 --> 00:06:51,640
Speaker 3: celebrities that have like non alcoholic beers and and spirits

123
00:06:51,640 --> 00:06:54,200
Speaker 3: and things. Now you know, it's back in the day

124
00:06:54,240 --> 00:06:56,560
Speaker 3: it was like everyone had their like vodka, but now.

125
00:06:56,440 --> 00:06:58,160
Speaker 2: It's worthout the celebrities.

126
00:06:58,240 --> 00:06:59,360
Speaker 1: Now it's alcohol.

127
00:07:00,360 --> 00:07:00,600
Speaker 2: Yeah.

128
00:07:00,600 --> 00:07:03,480
Speaker 3: I think at one point actually the situation from Jersey

129
00:07:03,560 --> 00:07:07,360
Speaker 3: Shore had like a protein infused vodka which was which

130
00:07:07,360 --> 00:07:09,200
Speaker 3: is quite funny if you pay attention to nutrition.

131
00:07:09,680 --> 00:07:11,800
Speaker 2: Did you drink it anyway? I don't know.

132
00:07:11,960 --> 00:07:15,280
Speaker 3: No, no, no, I mean no, shade to him. I think

133
00:07:15,280 --> 00:07:22,800
Speaker 3: he actually is sober now now mute. So I guess,

134
00:07:23,160 --> 00:07:25,760
Speaker 3: sort of point being, I I just thought, like, why

135
00:07:25,800 --> 00:07:27,680
Speaker 3: not give this a try, Like I'm already doing so

136
00:07:27,760 --> 00:07:32,360
Speaker 3: many other things for my health, for my wellness, why

137
00:07:32,400 --> 00:07:35,640
Speaker 3: not just sort of add this. The science I think

138
00:07:35,680 --> 00:07:38,240
Speaker 3: has moved past the point now where it's like, you know,

139
00:07:38,280 --> 00:07:41,200
Speaker 3: it's healthy for you to drink a glass of red

140
00:07:41,200 --> 00:07:42,760
Speaker 3: wine a day or whatever, Like we know.

141
00:07:42,800 --> 00:07:44,400
Speaker 2: Now that that's really.

142
00:07:44,160 --> 00:07:46,520
Speaker 1: Not true from a physical health perspective.

143
00:07:47,680 --> 00:07:51,320
Speaker 3: Yeah, that was Physiologically, it's it's not a plus, it's

144
00:07:51,760 --> 00:07:54,600
Speaker 3: it's likely a minus if you're sort of guess, going

145
00:07:54,640 --> 00:07:58,560
Speaker 3: past a certain point or probably in any any quantity really,

146
00:07:59,200 --> 00:08:02,640
Speaker 3: Which is also really interesting, just by the way, about

147
00:08:01,280 --> 00:08:06,000
Speaker 3: the new nutritional guidelines that the FDA just came out with,

148
00:08:06,040 --> 00:08:10,280
Speaker 3: because they actually removed specifying the number or the amount

149
00:08:10,320 --> 00:08:13,800
Speaker 3: of alcohol that is considered healthy, opting rather to just

150
00:08:13,840 --> 00:08:16,560
Speaker 3: say drink less, which is quite interesting because if you're

151
00:08:16,560 --> 00:08:18,920
Speaker 3: ready drinking an absolute shit load, like what is less?

152
00:08:20,840 --> 00:08:23,520
Speaker 1: You're like, you know, fourteen, all right, I'm following the

153
00:08:23,520 --> 00:08:24,520
Speaker 1: guidelines of fourteen.

154
00:08:24,600 --> 00:08:26,800
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, you're just following the FDA's guidelines.

155
00:08:26,880 --> 00:08:27,040
Speaker 4: Yeah.

156
00:08:27,080 --> 00:08:29,320
Speaker 3: So I decided to just give it a try and see.

157
00:08:29,520 --> 00:08:32,600
Speaker 3: I lasted about three months, which is not very long.

158
00:08:33,720 --> 00:08:37,800
Speaker 3: And the reason really at its core was that I

159
00:08:37,840 --> 00:08:44,079
Speaker 3: didn't realize going in how alcohol is not just about alcohols.

160
00:08:44,200 --> 00:08:47,080
Speaker 3: You might be pulling one lever, but it affects so

161
00:08:47,280 --> 00:08:50,320
Speaker 3: many other things. It's not just like my night's going

162
00:08:50,400 --> 00:08:53,360
Speaker 3: to be exactly the same, except my beer didn't have

163
00:08:53,400 --> 00:08:54,719
Speaker 3: any alcohol in it.

164
00:08:54,720 --> 00:08:56,319
Speaker 2: It's it.

165
00:08:56,320 --> 00:08:58,640
Speaker 3: It's got sort of roots that just go so much

166
00:08:58,679 --> 00:09:01,679
Speaker 3: further than I had an imagined. I was noticing how

167
00:09:01,800 --> 00:09:07,520
Speaker 3: it was affecting not drinking, was affecting my friendships, my

168
00:09:07,640 --> 00:09:13,320
Speaker 3: marriage even and kind of just my general like mood Outlook,

169
00:09:13,960 --> 00:09:15,480
Speaker 3: you could maybe even go so far as to say

170
00:09:15,520 --> 00:09:16,040
Speaker 3: mental health.

171
00:09:16,080 --> 00:09:17,800
Speaker 2: Maybe had I done this for longer.

172
00:09:17,880 --> 00:09:20,240
Speaker 1: You said like you were. I can't remember exactly how

173
00:09:20,280 --> 00:09:22,000
Speaker 1: you put it. It was good now, but basically you found

174
00:09:22,040 --> 00:09:24,520
Speaker 1: yourself you weren't as happy. Is that correct?

175
00:09:24,640 --> 00:09:24,960
Speaker 2: Yeah?

176
00:09:25,360 --> 00:09:28,959
Speaker 3: Hundred percent. I think you know. I'm someone who I

177
00:09:29,320 --> 00:09:31,960
Speaker 3: work from home. I'm writing most of the time, which

178
00:09:32,000 --> 00:09:35,880
Speaker 3: is as you know, it's a very you know, solo activity,

179
00:09:36,400 --> 00:09:38,880
Speaker 3: and so I used to really look forward to those

180
00:09:38,920 --> 00:09:42,360
Speaker 3: times when I would, you know, go play pickup soccer

181
00:09:43,240 --> 00:09:45,120
Speaker 3: with the guys that I had in New York and

182
00:09:45,200 --> 00:09:48,080
Speaker 3: we'd go grab beers afterwards, or or just going out

183
00:09:48,120 --> 00:09:51,959
Speaker 3: on a weekend, whether it's a Friday night going out

184
00:09:52,000 --> 00:09:54,559
Speaker 3: for dinner with friends and then going to a bar afterwards,

185
00:09:55,040 --> 00:09:57,080
Speaker 3: or or just going to bars and bar hopping it's

186
00:09:57,080 --> 00:10:00,520
Speaker 3: someone's birthday, or you go out and then you like, hey,

187
00:10:00,559 --> 00:10:02,680
Speaker 3: let's go somewhere else after this instead of just going home.

188
00:10:03,760 --> 00:10:05,960
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think that just got kind of decimated.

189
00:10:06,440 --> 00:10:09,760
Speaker 1: Yeah, I feel like the big point here is that

190
00:10:09,800 --> 00:10:14,800
Speaker 1: I think there's a massive difference between drinking alone at home,

191
00:10:15,320 --> 00:10:17,920
Speaker 1: you know, watching Netflix or whatever, and the context in

192
00:10:17,960 --> 00:10:19,720
Speaker 1: which you were doing it in which is I have

193
00:10:19,760 --> 00:10:22,520
Speaker 1: a group of friends, We're going to this dive bar,

194
00:10:22,840 --> 00:10:25,760
Speaker 1: or we've just finished this game of soccer. And in

195
00:10:25,800 --> 00:10:27,880
Speaker 1: the piece, I liked how you got into the fact

196
00:10:27,960 --> 00:10:31,920
Speaker 1: that in the context of a bar when you're drinking,

197
00:10:32,760 --> 00:10:36,120
Speaker 1: the conversations almost changed, where you you had a great

198
00:10:36,120 --> 00:10:38,920
Speaker 1: example where you're like, you know, on after the first beer,

199
00:10:38,920 --> 00:10:40,520
Speaker 1: I'd be like, hey, guys, we should all go to

200
00:10:40,559 --> 00:10:43,440
Speaker 1: this music festival in Virginia. Like, let's let's roll. I

201
00:10:43,480 --> 00:10:47,640
Speaker 1: got this right, and that those moments didn't happen as

202
00:10:47,760 --> 00:10:50,960
Speaker 1: much when you stopped drinking. You did say that you

203
00:10:50,960 --> 00:10:53,080
Speaker 1: would still occasionally go to bars, but you were like

204
00:10:53,600 --> 00:10:56,400
Speaker 1: the non alcoholic beer and it just kind of it

205
00:10:56,480 --> 00:10:58,280
Speaker 1: just changed things. So what was that like and like

206
00:10:58,360 --> 00:11:01,000
Speaker 1: how did that manifest itself in those actual situations?

207
00:11:01,280 --> 00:11:03,920
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean, I'll give a great example just from

208
00:11:03,920 --> 00:11:05,920
Speaker 3: a couple of days ago, even because now obviously that

209
00:11:05,960 --> 00:11:08,720
Speaker 3: I'm you know, not doing that experiment anymore. So, my

210
00:11:08,760 --> 00:11:11,720
Speaker 3: wife and I were out in the sort of like

211
00:11:11,880 --> 00:11:13,720
Speaker 3: area of Zurich that we hadn't been to before.

212
00:11:13,760 --> 00:11:15,120
Speaker 2: It's sort of like industrial part.

213
00:11:15,160 --> 00:11:18,320
Speaker 3: It's very much like like Shortitch in London, kind of

214
00:11:18,360 --> 00:11:21,120
Speaker 3: like a little Brooklyn sort of, and we were out

215
00:11:21,120 --> 00:11:23,080
Speaker 3: looking for furniture. It was sort of a long day,

216
00:11:23,160 --> 00:11:25,920
Speaker 3: and then we were about to go home and we

217
00:11:26,000 --> 00:11:30,440
Speaker 3: saw this like just interesting, sort of mysterious almost looking bar.

218
00:11:30,600 --> 00:11:33,280
Speaker 3: From the outside, it looked like a almost like a

219
00:11:33,280 --> 00:11:36,280
Speaker 3: little sort of warehouse, but it was like clearly marked

220
00:11:36,280 --> 00:11:37,920
Speaker 3: like as a bar and had some cool like neon

221
00:11:37,960 --> 00:11:41,040
Speaker 3: in the windows. And we were just passing by and

222
00:11:41,200 --> 00:11:42,920
Speaker 3: on the way to the train, and I was like,

223
00:11:42,960 --> 00:11:44,760
Speaker 3: do you want to just grab a beer before we go?

224
00:11:44,840 --> 00:11:47,360
Speaker 3: And she was like yeah. So so we go inside

225
00:11:47,559 --> 00:11:50,960
Speaker 3: and it turns out it's actually this huge like badminton

226
00:11:51,040 --> 00:11:54,319
Speaker 3: hall and there were like like eight games of badminton,

227
00:11:54,600 --> 00:11:58,280
Speaker 3: like full court badminton going on in this like giant hangar,

228
00:11:58,600 --> 00:12:00,760
Speaker 3: and in the front there was this bar and it

229
00:12:00,840 --> 00:12:01,400
Speaker 3: was so weird.

230
00:12:01,400 --> 00:12:03,319
Speaker 2: It was almost like a kind.

231
00:12:03,120 --> 00:12:06,920
Speaker 3: Of like like Nashville like honky Tonk kind of theme,

232
00:12:07,160 --> 00:12:09,960
Speaker 3: but it also had this like Japan sort of inspur

233
00:12:10,840 --> 00:12:13,240
Speaker 3: It was very and visually it was very like it

234
00:12:13,320 --> 00:12:15,400
Speaker 3: was very cool. It was sort of like Wes Anderson

235
00:12:15,480 --> 00:12:18,320
Speaker 3: meets like kill Bill kind of aesthetic. Is the best

236
00:12:18,360 --> 00:12:20,720
Speaker 3: walking for it. And I was just like, I'm so

237
00:12:20,800 --> 00:12:23,240
Speaker 3: glad we found this spot. And then we started talking

238
00:12:23,280 --> 00:12:26,120
Speaker 3: to the bartender about the badminton and turns out it's

239
00:12:26,120 --> 00:12:29,040
Speaker 3: just like badminton club, and we ended up booking a

240
00:12:29,080 --> 00:12:30,880
Speaker 3: court for the next weekend, and that was last weekend

241
00:12:31,360 --> 00:12:33,200
Speaker 3: that just passed, and so my wife and I went

242
00:12:33,360 --> 00:12:37,040
Speaker 3: and played badminton and we've never done that with each

243
00:12:37,080 --> 00:12:37,520
Speaker 3: other before.

244
00:12:37,559 --> 00:12:40,800
Speaker 2: We've never really done anything like that with each other before.

245
00:12:40,880 --> 00:12:43,640
Speaker 3: And so had we not gone in for a beer,

246
00:12:44,040 --> 00:12:46,319
Speaker 3: we wouldn't have found this cool badminton place, and we

247
00:12:46,320 --> 00:12:48,880
Speaker 3: wouldn't have done this like great activity together as a couple.

248
00:12:48,960 --> 00:12:50,400
Speaker 2: I would have never said, you want to stop for

249
00:12:50,400 --> 00:12:51,000
Speaker 2: a beer before we.

250
00:12:51,000 --> 00:12:53,160
Speaker 3: Go home, because like in my mind at least, I'm

251
00:12:53,160 --> 00:12:54,240
Speaker 3: sure other people will disagree.

252
00:12:54,360 --> 00:12:56,680
Speaker 2: Like, what's the point.

253
00:12:56,400 --> 00:12:59,280
Speaker 1: I think for me? So I don't drink. I went

254
00:12:59,360 --> 00:13:04,280
Speaker 1: sober eleven something years And the important point is that

255
00:13:04,720 --> 00:13:06,959
Speaker 1: this was not prompted by like I listened to a

256
00:13:07,000 --> 00:13:10,400
Speaker 1: four hour podcast that told me alcohol is associated with

257
00:13:10,440 --> 00:13:13,040
Speaker 1: all these risks. I was like the guy who you

258
00:13:13,040 --> 00:13:15,199
Speaker 1: know would wake up and go where did I park

259
00:13:15,280 --> 00:13:20,120
Speaker 1: my car? And when you drink like that, that can

260
00:13:20,160 --> 00:13:23,640
Speaker 1: come with some repercussions, obviously for your health, but obviously

261
00:13:24,200 --> 00:13:27,600
Speaker 1: for your life, for your social for your social relationships

262
00:13:27,600 --> 00:13:31,360
Speaker 1: and things like that. I rarely miss uh alcohol. When

263
00:13:31,360 --> 00:13:33,440
Speaker 1: I first got sober, I thought I missed alcohol. What

264
00:13:33,520 --> 00:13:38,880
Speaker 1: I eventually realized is I didn't actually miss alcohol because

265
00:13:38,880 --> 00:13:41,200
Speaker 1: I knew that if I have one drink, it's going

266
00:13:41,280 --> 00:13:43,880
Speaker 1: to lead to X number more and that's not gonna

267
00:13:43,880 --> 00:13:48,800
Speaker 1: be good. What I missed was the setting of bars

268
00:13:49,559 --> 00:13:52,679
Speaker 1: in the sense that you walk into a bar and

269
00:13:52,720 --> 00:13:56,880
Speaker 1: everyone's relaxed, and it like levels this playing field. There's

270
00:13:56,960 --> 00:13:59,920
Speaker 1: not like like people have a warmness and it's not

271
00:14:00,120 --> 00:14:02,600
Speaker 1: awkward if someone's sitting next to you to just start

272
00:14:02,640 --> 00:14:05,320
Speaker 1: talking to the dude next to you, Whereas if you're like,

273
00:14:05,440 --> 00:14:07,200
Speaker 1: you know, I don't know an a counter of a

274
00:14:07,240 --> 00:14:09,480
Speaker 1: Wendy's or like sitting like you start talking to the

275
00:14:09,559 --> 00:14:11,000
Speaker 1: dude at the Wendy's. Next year, he's gonna be like,

276
00:14:11,000 --> 00:14:12,960
Speaker 1: why the hell are you talking to me, dude? But

277
00:14:13,000 --> 00:14:15,880
Speaker 1: it's in that bar setting, it's like people there's like

278
00:14:15,920 --> 00:14:19,560
Speaker 1: a certain sort of social comfort there. There's a warm

279
00:14:19,720 --> 00:14:22,560
Speaker 1: there's a sense of like with my work obligations, I

280
00:14:22,600 --> 00:14:26,240
Speaker 1: could just be like Okay, now I can just finally relax.

281
00:14:26,400 --> 00:14:30,680
Speaker 1: And I do think that bars are unique in giving

282
00:14:30,760 --> 00:14:33,760
Speaker 1: us those situations where like I would just feel like

283
00:14:33,800 --> 00:14:36,240
Speaker 1: I let off And so for me, like after getting sober,

284
00:14:36,280 --> 00:14:40,000
Speaker 1: I've been like, Okay, where can I find that that

285
00:14:40,400 --> 00:14:42,560
Speaker 1: isn't a bar? That's not always easy. Which I'm trying

286
00:14:42,560 --> 00:14:45,800
Speaker 1: to say is like bars have this like unique sociality

287
00:14:45,840 --> 00:14:48,880
Speaker 1: to them that doesn't necessarily come from a place that

288
00:14:49,120 --> 00:14:52,080
Speaker 1: isn't serving alcohol, and it sounds like you realized eventually

289
00:14:52,160 --> 00:14:55,560
Speaker 1: through this experiment, oh, I was getting something akin to

290
00:14:55,600 --> 00:14:58,880
Speaker 1: that as well. And then when that got removed, you go, well,

291
00:14:58,880 --> 00:15:01,080
Speaker 1: why the hell is my mental health weird? Like why

292
00:15:01,080 --> 00:15:03,200
Speaker 1: am I not why am I not having these wacky

293
00:15:03,200 --> 00:15:05,560
Speaker 1: conversations with my friends? Why are we not like connecting

294
00:15:05,560 --> 00:15:07,040
Speaker 1: as much? And it all went back to the fact

295
00:15:07,080 --> 00:15:09,800
Speaker 1: that you had a beer in your hand, and you

296
00:15:09,800 --> 00:15:11,640
Speaker 1: were the type of person that would just have one

297
00:15:11,720 --> 00:15:12,200
Speaker 1: or two.

298
00:15:12,360 --> 00:15:14,360
Speaker 3: Right, I mean you described like the bar kind of

299
00:15:14,480 --> 00:15:18,600
Speaker 3: environment perfectly. And then in a very stark contrast to that,

300
00:15:18,720 --> 00:15:22,280
Speaker 3: like during that three month stint, I ended up in

301
00:15:22,320 --> 00:15:24,440
Speaker 3: a couple of situations where I was standing in you know,

302
00:15:24,560 --> 00:15:29,360
Speaker 3: typical literal social circle of you know, five six people talking,

303
00:15:29,920 --> 00:15:33,000
Speaker 3: no one's drinking. And this wasn't just like people happened

304
00:15:33,040 --> 00:15:34,680
Speaker 3: not to be drinking in that moment, but like people

305
00:15:34,720 --> 00:15:41,040
Speaker 3: who aren't drinking and for health reas to me or

306
00:15:41,080 --> 00:15:45,840
Speaker 3: whatever reasons really, but it felt like there was just

307
00:15:45,880 --> 00:15:47,440
Speaker 3: this sort of in the In the piece, I called

308
00:15:47,480 --> 00:15:51,000
Speaker 3: it like a LinkedIn coded coldness, because it almost felt

309
00:15:51,040 --> 00:15:54,480
Speaker 3: like we were like waiting in a room before going

310
00:15:54,480 --> 00:15:56,920
Speaker 3: into like a job interview, Like I felt like everyone

311
00:15:56,960 --> 00:15:59,120
Speaker 3: had their kind of pr face on, and it just

312
00:15:59,400 --> 00:16:04,720
Speaker 3: it just felt weird, and maybe it made me sort

313
00:16:04,720 --> 00:16:09,560
Speaker 3: of in the moment, feel like, well, I don't.

314
00:16:09,320 --> 00:16:10,800
Speaker 2: Like this whole life about drinking thing.

315
00:16:11,040 --> 00:16:12,680
Speaker 3: But I found that people a lot of the time,

316
00:16:12,720 --> 00:16:17,800
Speaker 3: the people I was encountering who who were specifically sober

317
00:16:18,520 --> 00:16:22,520
Speaker 3: in the wellness scene were like people who it felt

318
00:16:22,600 --> 00:16:25,440
Speaker 3: like that was like an important part of their personality.

319
00:16:25,480 --> 00:16:27,880
Speaker 3: Like it seemed like very few conversations went by without

320
00:16:27,920 --> 00:16:31,720
Speaker 3: people sort of like announcing in some form or fashion that.

321
00:16:31,760 --> 00:16:34,240
Speaker 2: Like or like making it known that they don't drink.

322
00:16:34,320 --> 00:16:37,360
Speaker 3: And I just think that it it kind of made

323
00:16:37,440 --> 00:16:41,680
Speaker 3: things conversations just feel a little more like edited.

324
00:16:42,080 --> 00:16:43,880
Speaker 2: Dard is a good word guarded.

325
00:16:44,040 --> 00:16:46,760
Speaker 3: Yeah, And I think this really clicked for me when

326
00:16:47,040 --> 00:16:50,960
Speaker 3: I connected with an anthropologist for the piece, Ben Sannenbaum,

327
00:16:51,080 --> 00:16:53,720
Speaker 3: who you know, like looks into this stuff for a living,

328
00:16:53,960 --> 00:16:56,600
Speaker 3: and he kind of told me about this concept of

329
00:16:56,720 --> 00:17:01,880
Speaker 3: costly signaling, where you do something to sort of inflict

330
00:17:02,000 --> 00:17:05,600
Speaker 3: like a incur a cost quote unquote like upon yourself

331
00:17:06,280 --> 00:17:09,600
Speaker 3: to something like negative to yourself as almost as like

332
00:17:09,640 --> 00:17:11,600
Speaker 3: a social buy in, so that people sort of trust

333
00:17:11,640 --> 00:17:13,560
Speaker 3: and see that like, oh, this person's let their guard down.

334
00:17:13,800 --> 00:17:16,240
Speaker 3: So in this case, it's alcohol, because alcohol is something

335
00:17:16,320 --> 00:17:18,280
Speaker 3: that's like, you know, not necessarily good for you, like

336
00:17:18,320 --> 00:17:21,800
Speaker 3: he help wise, but it's one of the ways we

337
00:17:21,920 --> 00:17:28,080
Speaker 3: sort of subconsciously or subliminally like let people know, like, Hey,

338
00:17:28,080 --> 00:17:29,480
Speaker 3: I'm just I'm just here to hang out, you know

339
00:17:29,480 --> 00:17:30,800
Speaker 3: what I mean, Like I just want to like chat

340
00:17:30,840 --> 00:17:31,760
Speaker 3: to you, get to know you.

341
00:17:31,960 --> 00:17:33,520
Speaker 2: Like there's an ulterior motives here.

342
00:17:34,320 --> 00:17:36,440
Speaker 3: And I think that's one of the reasons why alcohol

343
00:17:36,480 --> 00:17:39,159
Speaker 3: does sort of serve as it's like social lubricant, and

344
00:17:39,200 --> 00:17:42,920
Speaker 3: then in the absence of that, you really feel it

345
00:17:43,040 --> 00:17:46,040
Speaker 3: when you're kind of paying attention to that.

346
00:17:46,600 --> 00:17:48,520
Speaker 1: Yeah, there's a book that I love. It's called Little

347
00:17:48,600 --> 00:17:51,399
Speaker 1: Chapel on the River and it's about It's written by

348
00:17:51,400 --> 00:17:54,760
Speaker 1: this lady whose name is Wendy Bounds. She's a friend

349
00:17:54,960 --> 00:17:58,800
Speaker 1: and after nine to eleven she moved up the Hudson

350
00:17:58,880 --> 00:18:01,440
Speaker 1: River to a town called Garatson, and she was a

351
00:18:01,480 --> 00:18:03,879
Speaker 1: reporter for the Wall Street Journal, and she took a

352
00:18:04,040 --> 00:18:07,359
Speaker 1: job at this bar called Guidance. It's like this old

353
00:18:07,400 --> 00:18:11,639
Speaker 1: pub in this town, and the book really focuses on

354
00:18:11,760 --> 00:18:15,159
Speaker 1: the relationships that were built in this bar in this

355
00:18:15,240 --> 00:18:17,520
Speaker 1: little town and how it was really the focal point

356
00:18:17,520 --> 00:18:20,119
Speaker 1: of the town, so you would have people come in,

357
00:18:20,200 --> 00:18:22,840
Speaker 1: there were regulars. The place didn't serve any hard alcohol.

358
00:18:22,880 --> 00:18:27,800
Speaker 1: It was beer only. And she wrote about how people

359
00:18:27,840 --> 00:18:31,760
Speaker 1: would come in who had totally different viewpoints, politically, totally

360
00:18:31,760 --> 00:18:37,440
Speaker 1: different backgrounds, but in that setting, any disagreements were really dropped,

361
00:18:37,480 --> 00:18:39,400
Speaker 1: like people would give each other shit, they'd rip each

362
00:18:39,400 --> 00:18:41,639
Speaker 1: other about whatever, but it was like people would just

363
00:18:41,720 --> 00:18:45,200
Speaker 1: connect who otherwise would have never connected, and that could

364
00:18:45,200 --> 00:18:48,360
Speaker 1: really only happen in that bar setting. And I think

365
00:18:48,359 --> 00:18:51,879
Speaker 1: that that to your point about the anthropology she spoke to.

366
00:18:52,040 --> 00:18:54,680
Speaker 1: It goes back to that idea you pointed out of

367
00:18:54,760 --> 00:18:57,600
Speaker 1: costly signaling, And I think when you look at for

368
00:18:57,680 --> 00:19:01,080
Speaker 1: most of time, bars were these places where people would

369
00:19:01,080 --> 00:19:04,720
Speaker 1: go to connect. And yeah, people have been drinking last

370
00:19:04,760 --> 00:19:07,400
Speaker 1: But I do feel like since twenty twenty, the rise

371
00:19:07,440 --> 00:19:11,399
Speaker 1: of sort of the health wellness podcast sphere, which grounded

372
00:19:11,440 --> 00:19:16,520
Speaker 1: I'm part of, I think that's tapered off and we're

373
00:19:16,520 --> 00:19:20,800
Speaker 1: realizing that in the sort of quest for optimal health.

374
00:19:20,840 --> 00:19:23,160
Speaker 1: Then you pointed out like the perfect Whoop score, which

375
00:19:23,240 --> 00:19:25,480
Speaker 1: tracks a but jillion different data points.

376
00:19:25,520 --> 00:19:28,159
Speaker 3: Yeah, one hundred percent and look, I still wear the

377
00:19:28,560 --> 00:19:32,680
Speaker 3: golden handcuff over here. I maybe don't check it as

378
00:19:32,720 --> 00:19:35,320
Speaker 3: often as not as you're supposed to do. Now that

379
00:19:35,320 --> 00:19:37,760
Speaker 3: you're dressing, now that you're drinking, You're like, I can't.

380
00:19:37,800 --> 00:19:38,600
Speaker 3: I can't look at that.

381
00:19:38,560 --> 00:19:39,760
Speaker 2: Score, dude.

382
00:19:39,760 --> 00:19:42,199
Speaker 3: I mean, everyone who's ever worn a whoop and has

383
00:19:42,200 --> 00:19:44,199
Speaker 3: had a beer in their life notice that. Like the

384
00:19:44,280 --> 00:19:47,760
Speaker 3: effect is, it's incredible, Like it it'll drop your recovery

385
00:19:47,800 --> 00:19:50,920
Speaker 3: score faster than you know anything.

386
00:19:51,119 --> 00:19:54,879
Speaker 2: I think part of this too was again being in

387
00:19:54,920 --> 00:19:55,840
Speaker 2: this in this space.

388
00:19:55,920 --> 00:19:57,440
Speaker 3: You know, you obviously also come across a lot of

389
00:19:57,440 --> 00:19:59,880
Speaker 3: people who are doing who are kind of taking things

390
00:20:00,119 --> 00:20:04,399
Speaker 3: the maximum and spending most of their time doing things

391
00:20:04,400 --> 00:20:07,880
Speaker 3: that are like optimizing their body. And at a certain

392
00:20:07,920 --> 00:20:10,639
Speaker 3: point I was like, we're all, you know, not to

393
00:20:10,680 --> 00:20:12,800
Speaker 3: get like grimm or anything, but like we're all gonna die.

394
00:20:12,840 --> 00:20:14,639
Speaker 3: Like we haven't gotten to the point yet where like

395
00:20:14,720 --> 00:20:18,240
Speaker 3: immortality is something we've discovered. And so with the assumption

396
00:20:18,440 --> 00:20:21,000
Speaker 3: or the understanding that like we all do have the

397
00:20:21,040 --> 00:20:24,400
Speaker 3: sort of limited time here, it's like, do I want

398
00:20:24,440 --> 00:20:28,600
Speaker 3: to be spending most of my time in the garage

399
00:20:29,040 --> 00:20:33,280
Speaker 3: tuning the car and washing the car, or do I

400
00:20:33,280 --> 00:20:35,720
Speaker 3: actually want to be out there like fucking driving it

401
00:20:35,880 --> 00:20:37,600
Speaker 3: and you know, enjoying it.

402
00:20:38,160 --> 00:20:39,679
Speaker 2: And so I think I got.

403
00:20:39,520 --> 00:20:42,920
Speaker 3: To a point where somewhere in those three months when

404
00:20:43,000 --> 00:20:46,680
Speaker 3: I just realized, like, you know, kind of cost benefit here,

405
00:20:46,760 --> 00:20:51,560
Speaker 3: like what am I gaining by not drinking? And absolutely

406
00:20:51,640 --> 00:20:54,600
Speaker 3: I was gaining things. I mean, group could tell you that,

407
00:20:54,880 --> 00:20:59,560
Speaker 3: like I was waking up feeling great, no more hangovers.

408
00:20:59,640 --> 00:21:01,679
Speaker 2: I say, gave so much money.

409
00:21:02,520 --> 00:21:05,600
Speaker 3: I just was more yeah, clear headed in the mornings,

410
00:21:05,640 --> 00:21:08,720
Speaker 3: I could have an earlier start to the day. But

411
00:21:09,040 --> 00:21:11,160
Speaker 3: on the other hand, everything that I was trading off

412
00:21:11,280 --> 00:21:14,600
Speaker 3: And it's not like I stopped getting invited to things.

413
00:21:14,600 --> 00:21:18,240
Speaker 3: It was more like I started actually removing myself from things.

414
00:21:19,000 --> 00:21:20,240
Speaker 3: You know, I don't want to go bar hopping with

415
00:21:20,280 --> 00:21:22,840
Speaker 3: friends if I'm not drinking alcohol, Like it's so boring

416
00:21:22,920 --> 00:21:25,399
Speaker 3: and like you're just watching your friends get absolutely slashed.

417
00:21:25,440 --> 00:21:31,360
Speaker 3: The conversation becomes increasingly like annoying for you. And yeah,

418
00:21:31,440 --> 00:21:33,840
Speaker 3: it's like there's just so many better uses of my

419
00:21:33,880 --> 00:21:36,760
Speaker 3: time in that situation. And I think ultimately I kind

420
00:21:36,800 --> 00:21:40,040
Speaker 3: of waited out and I was like, you know, I'm

421
00:21:40,040 --> 00:21:41,200
Speaker 3: not going to stop doing other things.

422
00:21:41,240 --> 00:21:42,240
Speaker 2: I'm literally just going.

423
00:21:42,119 --> 00:21:47,560
Speaker 3: To reintroduce drinking, and you know, not like claiming or

424
00:21:47,600 --> 00:21:49,600
Speaker 3: having the illusion that this is like a good thing

425
00:21:49,600 --> 00:21:52,480
Speaker 3: for my health, but I just felt that ultimately, net net,

426
00:21:52,520 --> 00:21:55,800
Speaker 3: it actually was positive when I factored everything in, And

427
00:21:55,840 --> 00:21:58,480
Speaker 3: I think that's, you know, maybe just something good to

428
00:21:58,520 --> 00:22:01,640
Speaker 3: consider in wellness generally, that you don't have to do everything,

429
00:22:01,760 --> 00:22:05,160
Speaker 3: and it's important to manage your priorities as well, and

430
00:22:05,240 --> 00:22:05,760
Speaker 3: you still have.

431
00:22:05,720 --> 00:22:07,159
Speaker 2: Fun, because otherwise what's the point.

432
00:22:07,320 --> 00:22:09,600
Speaker 1: I think you could argue that it was a positive

433
00:22:09,640 --> 00:22:11,160
Speaker 1: for your help. I mean, when you just look at

434
00:22:11,280 --> 00:22:14,880
Speaker 1: the data on the importance of being social and having

435
00:22:14,920 --> 00:22:18,680
Speaker 1: strong social connections, if that thing is enhancing that, like,

436
00:22:18,760 --> 00:22:22,560
Speaker 1: that's a really important part of overall health and lifespan.

437
00:22:22,640 --> 00:22:26,240
Speaker 1: And I think your analogy to a car is perfect

438
00:22:26,880 --> 00:22:31,000
Speaker 1: because you were not Now that you're back drinking again,

439
00:22:31,119 --> 00:22:33,720
Speaker 1: It's not like you're just redlining all the time. You're

440
00:22:33,720 --> 00:22:35,720
Speaker 1: not just like ripping that thing around twenty four to

441
00:22:35,760 --> 00:22:38,560
Speaker 1: seven redline, never changing the tires, never changing the oil.

442
00:22:39,160 --> 00:22:41,840
Speaker 1: You're living in a way that you're doing all these

443
00:22:41,880 --> 00:22:43,919
Speaker 1: things to maintain the car. It goes in the garage

444
00:22:43,960 --> 00:22:46,080
Speaker 1: every day, you top off the oil, you make sure

445
00:22:46,119 --> 00:22:50,080
Speaker 1: the tires are looking good, it's aligned, but you also

446
00:22:50,119 --> 00:22:52,040
Speaker 1: are willing to like go out and drive it. That's

447
00:22:52,040 --> 00:22:53,760
Speaker 1: why you have the damn car. So it's really like

448
00:22:54,000 --> 00:22:56,040
Speaker 1: I think the takeaway for the average person is like

449
00:22:56,080 --> 00:22:59,880
Speaker 1: finding a balance between those things. Where people can get

450
00:23:00,119 --> 00:23:04,760
Speaker 1: so caught up in health practices optimizing that you forget

451
00:23:04,800 --> 00:23:06,840
Speaker 1: to actually ask yourself, well, why am I doing all

452
00:23:06,880 --> 00:23:08,359
Speaker 1: this stuff in the first place. And a lot of

453
00:23:08,400 --> 00:23:10,760
Speaker 1: times it's like, well, so I can live better, And

454
00:23:10,800 --> 00:23:12,359
Speaker 1: then you look at all those things you go, is

455
00:23:12,400 --> 00:23:15,439
Speaker 1: this actually making me live better? Or is this just

456
00:23:15,480 --> 00:23:17,439
Speaker 1: making me a slave to all these routines for this

457
00:23:18,280 --> 00:23:21,320
Speaker 1: possible tomorrows and my whip score, and you just like

458
00:23:21,359 --> 00:23:22,640
Speaker 1: forget to live in the process.

459
00:23:23,160 --> 00:23:24,440
Speaker 2: Yeah, Yeah, I couldn't agree more.

460
00:23:24,480 --> 00:23:28,240
Speaker 3: And something that I also find myself keeping in mind

461
00:23:28,320 --> 00:23:30,840
Speaker 3: is like wellness is a big business right now, you know,

462
00:23:31,040 --> 00:23:35,520
Speaker 3: like you see categories just being like absolutely blown up

463
00:23:35,560 --> 00:23:37,680
Speaker 3: by like one product takes off and now you've got

464
00:23:37,720 --> 00:23:40,880
Speaker 3: like seven competitors. You're seeing brands that did one thing

465
00:23:41,000 --> 00:23:43,600
Speaker 3: really well now coming out with their line extensions and

466
00:23:43,640 --> 00:23:46,280
Speaker 3: like the version two point zero and the pro and

467
00:23:46,359 --> 00:23:48,119
Speaker 3: like the whatever. And so I think part of it

468
00:23:48,160 --> 00:23:51,000
Speaker 3: is also just remembering that, like, this is a business

469
00:23:51,040 --> 00:23:52,879
Speaker 3: and people are trying to sell you things.

470
00:23:53,000 --> 00:23:56,639
Speaker 1: I think what's interesting too is when you when you

471
00:23:56,720 --> 00:24:03,040
Speaker 1: really look at the data on alcohol and health. Obviously,

472
00:24:03,080 --> 00:24:06,359
Speaker 1: some people say any amount is toxic, never do it,

473
00:24:07,560 --> 00:24:10,119
Speaker 1: but a lot of those studies are not actually that great.

474
00:24:11,200 --> 00:24:13,840
Speaker 1: There's a guy, vin I Prisad, and he was an MD.

475
00:24:14,040 --> 00:24:16,080
Speaker 1: You might have heard of him. He's the he was

476
00:24:16,160 --> 00:24:19,480
Speaker 1: the former director of the Center for Biologics and Evaluation

477
00:24:19,800 --> 00:24:23,199
Speaker 1: of Research, and he did this deep He's like kind

478
00:24:23,200 --> 00:24:25,360
Speaker 1: of one of those guys that really peels back studies

479
00:24:25,400 --> 00:24:27,440
Speaker 1: and goes, Okay, what's really going on here. He asked

480
00:24:27,440 --> 00:24:30,600
Speaker 1: a lot of questions and when he looked at the research,

481
00:24:30,640 --> 00:24:34,680
Speaker 1: he was like, yeah, drinking a lot isn't good for us.

482
00:24:34,720 --> 00:24:37,800
Speaker 1: We know that. At the same time, if you're having

483
00:24:38,160 --> 00:24:40,520
Speaker 1: one or two drinks every now and then, there's really

484
00:24:41,080 --> 00:24:44,439
Speaker 1: nothing we can say that's going to tell you that

485
00:24:44,640 --> 00:24:47,200
Speaker 1: is going to take time off your life or really

486
00:24:47,200 --> 00:24:49,600
Speaker 1: affect your health in a way that's going to change

487
00:24:49,600 --> 00:24:52,160
Speaker 1: your lifespan. So we had this really great quote in

488
00:24:52,240 --> 00:24:55,680
Speaker 1: a substec quot which I will link to. He said,

489
00:24:55,720 --> 00:24:59,240
Speaker 1: advising people who don't drink to start drinking daily is

490
00:24:59,280 --> 00:25:03,040
Speaker 1: silly and I'm proven, and advising people who are drinking

491
00:25:03,119 --> 00:25:07,040
Speaker 1: a little bit each day to stop is silly and unproven.

492
00:25:07,280 --> 00:25:08,720
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, absolutely.

493
00:25:09,520 --> 00:25:13,160
Speaker 3: And there's actually another piece that I wrote recently also

494
00:25:13,200 --> 00:25:16,479
Speaker 3: for GQ, which kind of touches on something very similar,

495
00:25:16,520 --> 00:25:19,800
Speaker 3: which is basically it was looking at the data, and

496
00:25:19,840 --> 00:25:21,920
Speaker 3: this was very good data. This is from like a

497
00:25:22,320 --> 00:25:25,560
Speaker 3: decade's long study that's been going on, and they were

498
00:25:25,600 --> 00:25:29,280
Speaker 3: sort of looking at, like, what is a more effective

499
00:25:29,359 --> 00:25:33,120
Speaker 3: LeVert to pool when it comes to longevity. Is it

500
00:25:33,240 --> 00:25:36,320
Speaker 3: starting to work out or is it stopping drinking?

501
00:25:36,880 --> 00:25:39,359
Speaker 2: And overwhelmingly it's it's fitness.

502
00:25:39,440 --> 00:25:41,240
Speaker 3: You know, if you're going to change one thing, like

503
00:25:41,280 --> 00:25:45,280
Speaker 3: if you're a relatively if you're a sedentary person, that's

504
00:25:45,720 --> 00:25:48,080
Speaker 3: that's drinking and again drinking like within sort of the

505
00:25:48,640 --> 00:25:53,160
Speaker 3: bounds of common sense, you're going to do a lot

506
00:25:53,200 --> 00:25:57,360
Speaker 3: more for your longevity and your health span by upping

507
00:25:57,440 --> 00:26:02,360
Speaker 3: your activity, then you will buying or stopping alcohol consumption.

508
00:26:02,520 --> 00:26:05,320
Speaker 1: When your GQ piece came out, because there is so

509
00:26:05,520 --> 00:26:09,280
Speaker 1: much information out there about how people shouldn't drink, now,

510
00:26:09,320 --> 00:26:12,520
Speaker 1: what was the reaction you got? Was it like a

511
00:26:12,520 --> 00:26:17,520
Speaker 1: collective everyone thought oh god, thanks, Thank god someone said

512
00:26:17,520 --> 00:26:19,479
Speaker 1: this because I've been thinking it or was it like

513
00:26:19,640 --> 00:26:23,080
Speaker 1: you know, the Brian Johnson followers got their pitchforks from

514
00:26:23,119 --> 00:26:24,639
Speaker 1: their labs.

515
00:26:24,160 --> 00:26:26,400
Speaker 3: And no, no, I think they'll be They'll be mad

516
00:26:26,400 --> 00:26:29,600
Speaker 3: at me for other stuff that I've written more recently.

517
00:26:29,760 --> 00:26:34,040
Speaker 3: But it's interesting that you asked, because the response to

518
00:26:34,080 --> 00:26:36,680
Speaker 3: that piece has been like.

519
00:26:38,119 --> 00:26:39,760
Speaker 2: At least fivefold more.

520
00:26:39,800 --> 00:26:42,640
Speaker 3: I mean that's a conservative estimate, more than anything else

521
00:26:42,680 --> 00:26:46,440
Speaker 3: I've ever written that's gone online like in a positive way.

522
00:26:46,920 --> 00:26:49,840
Speaker 3: I don't think I got a single negative comment or DM.

523
00:26:50,160 --> 00:26:52,520
Speaker 3: I normally you don't even really get dms for stories

524
00:26:52,520 --> 00:26:54,640
Speaker 3: that are right, to be honest with you, maybe if

525
00:26:54,680 --> 00:26:57,280
Speaker 3: like if GQ or whichever out there, I've written it

526
00:26:57,320 --> 00:26:59,800
Speaker 3: for pusted on social like, there'll be sort of comments,

527
00:27:00,440 --> 00:27:04,000
Speaker 3: but personally I don't normally get a ton of direct feedback,

528
00:27:04,400 --> 00:27:06,359
Speaker 3: and for this piece I did, I got a ton

529
00:27:07,720 --> 00:27:09,920
Speaker 3: and it was all just like you know, some of

530
00:27:09,960 --> 00:27:10,240
Speaker 3: it was.

531
00:27:10,240 --> 00:27:11,439
Speaker 2: Just like a nice story.

532
00:27:11,480 --> 00:27:13,760
Speaker 3: I enjoyed how you reported it and wrote it, but

533
00:27:13,840 --> 00:27:17,439
Speaker 3: a lot of it was like like, dude, like I

534
00:27:17,480 --> 00:27:20,040
Speaker 3: hear you, like I also kind of tried like I

535
00:27:20,040 --> 00:27:21,719
Speaker 3: felt the same thing. There was a lot of like

536
00:27:21,880 --> 00:27:23,800
Speaker 3: I feel the same way I had the same or

537
00:27:23,880 --> 00:27:27,480
Speaker 3: similar experience. There was also some really kind of funny feedback.

538
00:27:28,560 --> 00:27:32,840
Speaker 3: Someone reached out to me with a so I'll say

539
00:27:32,920 --> 00:27:35,520
Speaker 3: I got at least three or four people get in

540
00:27:35,560 --> 00:27:38,440
Speaker 3: touch and say that they were forwarded the piece by

541
00:27:38,440 --> 00:27:41,159
Speaker 3: people in the beverage industry, and that like someone went

542
00:27:41,160 --> 00:27:42,480
Speaker 3: out of their way to tell me that, like the

543
00:27:42,520 --> 00:27:45,359
Speaker 3: story has actually been making the rounds in in like

544
00:27:45,560 --> 00:27:50,159
Speaker 3: corporate beverage America and being kind of being like waived

545
00:27:50,200 --> 00:27:53,199
Speaker 3: as a flag of like we still have a fighting chance.

546
00:27:53,280 --> 00:27:55,240
Speaker 3: I mean, you know, like the Gallup data that came

547
00:27:55,280 --> 00:27:58,280
Speaker 3: out last year drinking being down or self reported drinking,

548
00:27:58,280 --> 00:28:00,440
Speaker 3: which is always you know, self reported you never know exactly,

549
00:28:00,520 --> 00:28:03,480
Speaker 3: but down like fifty three or fifty four percent. But

550
00:28:03,680 --> 00:28:06,000
Speaker 3: I mean, really, I'm just one person. I wasn't reporting

551
00:28:06,000 --> 00:28:09,800
Speaker 3: on a trend necessarily. But yeah, I mean not that

552
00:28:09,840 --> 00:28:13,639
Speaker 3: I'm gonna sort of say, like more people should like

553
00:28:13,680 --> 00:28:15,240
Speaker 3: to start like drinking more again.

554
00:28:15,640 --> 00:28:18,439
Speaker 1: Yeah, I feel like my big takeaway from this piece,

555
00:28:18,480 --> 00:28:23,000
Speaker 1: given what you've written your experience, my own experience not drinking,

556
00:28:23,240 --> 00:28:25,600
Speaker 1: is the way that I figured out that I had

557
00:28:25,640 --> 00:28:29,159
Speaker 1: a drinking problem was that literally every problem in my

558
00:28:29,240 --> 00:28:32,399
Speaker 1: life was caused by my drinking. So if that is

559
00:28:32,480 --> 00:28:37,840
Speaker 1: you probably don't drink. If you're more like Dean, where

560
00:28:38,240 --> 00:28:42,600
Speaker 1: you are doing one hundred healthy behaviors, you go out,

561
00:28:42,720 --> 00:28:45,200
Speaker 1: you have a couple drinks in the context of friends,

562
00:28:45,240 --> 00:28:48,440
Speaker 1: you have great conversations, you meet new people, you find

563
00:28:48,600 --> 00:28:53,800
Speaker 1: badminton courts embedded in like old railway stations of Zurich.

564
00:28:54,640 --> 00:28:58,080
Speaker 1: That seems like it's probably adding to your life. And

565
00:28:58,120 --> 00:28:59,960
Speaker 1: so I think it takes a little bit of introspection

566
00:29:00,040 --> 00:29:02,400
Speaker 1: to figure out where am I on that spectrum. But

567
00:29:02,480 --> 00:29:05,880
Speaker 1: I think if you're more in the Dean spectrum, you

568
00:29:05,920 --> 00:29:08,600
Speaker 1: maybe don't have to get super caught up in this

569
00:29:08,720 --> 00:29:11,600
Speaker 1: idea that like removing alcohol is going to vastly improve

570
00:29:11,600 --> 00:29:14,200
Speaker 1: my health. I think it might actually do the It'll

571
00:29:14,240 --> 00:29:16,240
Speaker 1: either be neutral or it'll do the opposite.

572
00:29:16,520 --> 00:29:19,200
Speaker 3: Yeah, And I think another takeaway for people to should

573
00:29:19,200 --> 00:29:22,520
Speaker 3: be that like you don't have to, like, if you're

574
00:29:22,560 --> 00:29:24,600
Speaker 3: not drinking not drinking, you don't have to just kind

575
00:29:24,600 --> 00:29:27,600
Speaker 3: of start drinking in order to like get the benefits

576
00:29:27,640 --> 00:29:30,880
Speaker 3: of a more fluid social life, you know, Like I

577
00:29:31,440 --> 00:29:36,280
Speaker 3: find that it's something that helped me kind of explore

578
00:29:36,320 --> 00:29:39,120
Speaker 3: life more fully and open more opportunities, more doors that

579
00:29:39,200 --> 00:29:43,000
Speaker 3: I otherwise wouldn't have seen. But every personality is different.

580
00:29:43,040 --> 00:29:46,480
Speaker 3: I'm also like quite an introverted person. I think if

581
00:29:46,520 --> 00:29:48,960
Speaker 3: you are not drinking and you find that you are

582
00:29:49,040 --> 00:29:52,720
Speaker 3: just like thriving anyway, it's not like, oh, well, let's

583
00:29:52,720 --> 00:29:54,520
Speaker 3: see what this could unlock for me, like that guy

584
00:29:54,560 --> 00:29:57,840
Speaker 3: said that it worked, like, you don't need to do that. Like,

585
00:29:57,880 --> 00:30:00,120
Speaker 3: I don't think any sort of KPI from like a

586
00:30:00,120 --> 00:30:03,800
Speaker 3: fitness tracker is going to be what ultimately is what

587
00:30:03,880 --> 00:30:07,240
Speaker 3: makes you make a certain decision here, because when my

588
00:30:07,280 --> 00:30:09,440
Speaker 3: whoop scores were at their best, I was probably at

589
00:30:09,440 --> 00:30:14,280
Speaker 3: my like least happy. I think that it's more just

590
00:30:14,280 --> 00:30:17,480
Speaker 3: doing like a holistic inventory of your life, a very

591
00:30:17,560 --> 00:30:20,160
Speaker 3: honest taking a very honest look at yourself and saying, like,

592
00:30:20,840 --> 00:30:24,880
Speaker 3: am I happy? What are the sort of roadblocks that

593
00:30:25,120 --> 00:30:27,120
Speaker 3: I feel are sort of standing in my way from

594
00:30:27,160 --> 00:30:30,480
Speaker 3: being happy, and then just sort of like chisel away

595
00:30:30,480 --> 00:30:32,600
Speaker 3: at those based on what's closing them.

596
00:30:33,000 --> 00:30:35,240
Speaker 1: Yeah, it feels like a great place. Dan, thanks a

597
00:30:35,240 --> 00:30:37,640
Speaker 1: lot for coming on, man, I'm glad you were at

598
00:30:37,680 --> 00:30:39,719
Speaker 1: the pace. I thought it was really smart. I think

599
00:30:39,760 --> 00:30:41,840
Speaker 1: it was a good read in the context of all

600
00:30:41,840 --> 00:30:44,320
Speaker 1: the information about this today, and I think you approached

601
00:30:44,360 --> 00:30:49,160
Speaker 1: it really fairly and with a good i'll call it

602
00:30:49,200 --> 00:30:49,880
Speaker 1: sober head on.

603
00:30:50,040 --> 00:30:53,240
Speaker 3: Thanks, So I appreciate that, and yeah, great, great to

604
00:30:53,280 --> 00:30:55,440
Speaker 3: be on here. This is definitely a lot of fun.

605
00:30:56,960 --> 00:30:59,480
Speaker 1: All right. So maybe you don't smoke, you don't drink,

606
00:30:59,560 --> 00:31:03,080
Speaker 1: you don't gamble, but you may have a certain vice

607
00:31:03,640 --> 00:31:07,680
Speaker 1: as I do, and that is social media. The average

608
00:31:07,720 --> 00:31:11,200
Speaker 1: person today spends more than four hours on average on

609
00:31:11,240 --> 00:31:13,080
Speaker 1: their phone. Probably a lot of that is going to

610
00:31:13,120 --> 00:31:16,560
Speaker 1: social media. So you are seeing a lot of attention

611
00:31:16,800 --> 00:31:19,760
Speaker 1: being put on this idea that we are on social

612
00:31:19,760 --> 00:31:23,200
Speaker 1: media way too much and it is causing us harm.

613
00:31:23,560 --> 00:31:26,600
Speaker 1: Probably hearing about kids who are getting depressed from using

614
00:31:26,680 --> 00:31:30,080
Speaker 1: social media too much, probably even adults as well. And

615
00:31:30,120 --> 00:31:33,800
Speaker 1: in order to unpack this issue of whether social media

616
00:31:34,000 --> 00:31:36,720
Speaker 1: is addictive or not and whether it hurts mental health,

617
00:31:37,240 --> 00:31:39,440
Speaker 1: we have a really great guest. Her name is Taylor

618
00:31:39,480 --> 00:31:41,960
Speaker 1: de Lorenz. She's been reporting on this topic for a

619
00:31:42,120 --> 00:31:44,600
Speaker 1: very long time. She is the author of a book

620
00:31:44,800 --> 00:31:49,120
Speaker 1: called Extremely Online, The Untold Story of Fame, influence, and

621
00:31:49,240 --> 00:31:52,160
Speaker 1: Power on the Internet. She also has a podcast called

622
00:31:52,200 --> 00:31:54,120
Speaker 1: power User. It's a really good one. But the thing

623
00:31:54,160 --> 00:31:58,280
Speaker 1: about Taylor is she does not think social media is addictive,

624
00:31:58,440 --> 00:32:01,920
Speaker 1: and this has become a big bit in particular right

625
00:32:01,960 --> 00:32:04,600
Speaker 1: now with some new rulings out of California and New

626
00:32:04,600 --> 00:32:07,880
Speaker 1: Mexico that have deemed social media addictive. So we are

627
00:32:07,880 --> 00:32:10,440
Speaker 1: going to bring Taylor on. We're going to ask her

628
00:32:10,560 --> 00:32:14,480
Speaker 1: to defend her position of social media not being addictive.

629
00:32:15,040 --> 00:32:18,160
Speaker 1: She's also going to talk about the real science behind

630
00:32:18,280 --> 00:32:21,320
Speaker 1: social media use and mental health, some of the underlying

631
00:32:21,560 --> 00:32:24,520
Speaker 1: questions that need to be answered before we could even

632
00:32:24,560 --> 00:32:27,800
Speaker 1: say social media is addictive. We recorded this about a

633
00:32:27,840 --> 00:32:30,560
Speaker 1: week ago when some big news came out of the

634
00:32:30,640 --> 00:32:33,280
Speaker 1: online lookzmax in community, so we're going to unpack that

635
00:32:33,320 --> 00:32:35,120
Speaker 1: as well. And I think in the course of this

636
00:32:35,200 --> 00:32:38,560
Speaker 1: conversation you will find that my mind shifted on a

637
00:32:38,560 --> 00:32:41,120
Speaker 1: lot of these topics. For a lot of my career,

638
00:32:41,160 --> 00:32:44,480
Speaker 1: I thought social media is a complete bane against society,

639
00:32:44,600 --> 00:32:47,640
Speaker 1: that it is addictive, But she changed my opinion on

640
00:32:47,680 --> 00:32:51,120
Speaker 1: some of these topics. So let's welcome Taylor right now. Taylor,

641
00:32:51,160 --> 00:32:52,120
Speaker 1: thanks for coming on the show.

642
00:32:52,680 --> 00:32:53,520
Speaker 4: Thanks for having me.

643
00:32:53,880 --> 00:32:57,280
Speaker 1: All right, First things first, what's your favorite social media platform?

644
00:32:57,760 --> 00:33:00,640
Speaker 4: Oh gosh, it's such a hard question. I honestly, I

645
00:33:00,680 --> 00:33:04,080
Speaker 4: love TikTok. I just could go down a rabbit hole forever.

646
00:33:04,520 --> 00:33:07,720
Speaker 4: But this is toxic. As a news junkie, I have

647
00:33:07,800 --> 00:33:11,760
Speaker 4: to say, I still like X. It's very bad. It's

648
00:33:11,800 --> 00:33:15,200
Speaker 4: it's like, you know, it's full of misinformation since Elon

649
00:33:15,280 --> 00:33:18,280
Speaker 4: took over. It's not a great platform, but for breaking news,

650
00:33:18,320 --> 00:33:19,280
Speaker 4: there's just nothing better.

651
00:33:19,360 --> 00:33:21,440
Speaker 1: I agree. Have you done the Blue Sky thing as well?

652
00:33:22,080 --> 00:33:25,080
Speaker 4: I'm on there, yeah, and I'm on masted On and Threads,

653
00:33:25,240 --> 00:33:27,120
Speaker 4: I'm on you know, all of them.

654
00:33:28,000 --> 00:33:30,720
Speaker 1: How does blue Sky compare to Twitter?

655
00:33:31,040 --> 00:33:33,000
Speaker 4: Blue Sky, I mean, Blue Sky has a lot of

656
00:33:33,040 --> 00:33:35,120
Speaker 4: and same with Threads. Honestly, it has a lot of

657
00:33:35,200 --> 00:33:38,720
Speaker 4: like kind of progressive people that like quit over Elon,

658
00:33:39,040 --> 00:33:41,760
Speaker 4: So it's like this kind of self selected group. But

659
00:33:42,680 --> 00:33:44,400
Speaker 4: there's also a lot of people that believe in like

660
00:33:44,440 --> 00:33:48,240
Speaker 4: open protocol technology on Blue Sky, which I appreciate. You know,

661
00:33:48,280 --> 00:33:51,680
Speaker 4: it's like developers. Well, so you know Blue Sky and

662
00:33:51,800 --> 00:33:54,360
Speaker 4: masked On, they're both built in this like federated model

663
00:33:54,400 --> 00:33:57,320
Speaker 4: of social media, which is really different than how we

664
00:33:57,360 --> 00:33:59,200
Speaker 4: think of it. It's like kind of like you know,

665
00:33:59,200 --> 00:34:01,880
Speaker 4: how you have your phone number now, but if you

666
00:34:01,960 --> 00:34:03,640
Speaker 4: switch like maybe you have AT and T, but if

667
00:34:03,640 --> 00:34:05,880
Speaker 4: you switch to Verizon, you still have all your contacts

668
00:34:05,920 --> 00:34:08,640
Speaker 4: and your services and change. You could quit blue Sky

669
00:34:08,680 --> 00:34:10,840
Speaker 4: tomorrow and join like a competitive service that's on the

670
00:34:10,840 --> 00:34:13,600
Speaker 4: same federated network, and you would take all your followers

671
00:34:13,600 --> 00:34:17,560
Speaker 4: with you. Oh you take that's kind of different than

672
00:34:17,600 --> 00:34:18,680
Speaker 4: the rest of social media.

673
00:34:18,840 --> 00:34:21,360
Speaker 1: Okay, I like that, all right, I might have to dabble,

674
00:34:21,400 --> 00:34:23,160
Speaker 1: all right, So, but what we're here to talk about

675
00:34:23,239 --> 00:34:28,000
Speaker 1: is social media and whether or not it is addictive.

676
00:34:28,440 --> 00:34:32,320
Speaker 1: So I think a lot of people would agree drugs, alcohol,

677
00:34:32,400 --> 00:34:36,000
Speaker 1: those get lumped in the vice addiction category. And now

678
00:34:36,200 --> 00:34:38,799
Speaker 1: recently there's an argument that social media should be put

679
00:34:38,840 --> 00:34:42,719
Speaker 1: in that category as well. What is your take on that?

680
00:34:43,680 --> 00:34:46,479
Speaker 4: Yeah, so this is something that they've tried to argue

681
00:34:46,560 --> 00:34:50,080
Speaker 4: for over one hundred years, before social media, you know,

682
00:34:50,120 --> 00:34:53,120
Speaker 4: even existed. We had this idea of being addicted to

683
00:34:53,280 --> 00:34:56,120
Speaker 4: media and communication as far back as the day of novels.

684
00:34:56,120 --> 00:34:59,160
Speaker 4: There were novels that were banned for being too addictive.

685
00:34:59,520 --> 00:35:04,319
Speaker 4: They tried to ban radio shows, soap operas, you know, television,

686
00:35:04,440 --> 00:35:08,239
Speaker 4: comic books like you name it, also just any form

687
00:35:08,280 --> 00:35:10,680
Speaker 4: of new technology. I was reading some old articles from

688
00:35:10,719 --> 00:35:14,920
Speaker 4: the nineties about Walkman and people listening to you know, CDs,

689
00:35:15,000 --> 00:35:17,319
Speaker 4: and they were saying that actually listening to music as

690
00:35:17,320 --> 00:35:20,480
Speaker 4: you walk through the world would fundamentally rewire your brain

691
00:35:20,560 --> 00:35:22,480
Speaker 4: and this was very dangerous and we needed to take

692
00:35:22,480 --> 00:35:25,399
Speaker 4: the Walkman, you know, away from kids. So I think

693
00:35:25,440 --> 00:35:28,319
Speaker 4: a lot of these arguments made are not you know,

694
00:35:29,320 --> 00:35:33,000
Speaker 4: I'm not a believer in them. Honestly. That doesn't mean

695
00:35:33,000 --> 00:35:35,160
Speaker 4: that I don't think social media is highly compelling and

696
00:35:35,200 --> 00:35:39,560
Speaker 4: that people can't have extremely problematic compulsive use. It's just

697
00:35:39,640 --> 00:35:42,320
Speaker 4: really important to distinguish that from addiction.

698
00:35:42,719 --> 00:35:45,160
Speaker 1: Yeah, so how do you see addiction then, Like where's

699
00:35:45,200 --> 00:35:45,800
Speaker 1: the difference.

700
00:35:45,920 --> 00:35:48,759
Speaker 4: Yeah, addiction is I mean there are there's a whole

701
00:35:48,800 --> 00:35:52,000
Speaker 4: sort of like clinical definition of addiction which just you

702
00:35:52,080 --> 00:35:56,879
Speaker 4: cannot become addicted to consuming media, whether it's music, books,

703
00:35:57,160 --> 00:36:00,719
Speaker 4: you know, internet videos, et cetera. You can really enjoy it,

704
00:36:00,719 --> 00:36:04,120
Speaker 4: you can do it compulsively, but it's you don't have

705
00:36:04,520 --> 00:36:07,000
Speaker 4: a lot of sort of symptoms of addiction. So, for instance,

706
00:36:07,000 --> 00:36:10,239
Speaker 4: like a physiological withdrawal, Right, if you you know you're

707
00:36:10,280 --> 00:36:12,400
Speaker 4: you're not gonna go, you don't have to go to

708
00:36:12,480 --> 00:36:15,680
Speaker 4: like you're not like detoxing from social media. I mean,

709
00:36:15,680 --> 00:36:19,600
Speaker 4: we use the language of addiction so colloquially, and I

710
00:36:19,640 --> 00:36:22,400
Speaker 4: understand people kind of using it as a shorthand, but

711
00:36:22,480 --> 00:36:24,640
Speaker 4: it also does have a real clinical meaning, and when

712
00:36:24,640 --> 00:36:28,920
Speaker 4: we're writing laws around this stuff, we shouldn't, you know,

713
00:36:28,920 --> 00:36:32,239
Speaker 4: we shouldn't rely on that sort of clinical designation to

714
00:36:32,280 --> 00:36:34,360
Speaker 4: write policies around speech and communication.

715
00:36:34,560 --> 00:36:36,080
Speaker 1: Yeah, that makes sense. So I have a question, do

716
00:36:36,120 --> 00:36:37,800
Speaker 1: you think that gambling can be addictive?

717
00:36:38,160 --> 00:36:40,600
Speaker 4: The thing with gambling addiction, according to the people that

718
00:36:40,600 --> 00:36:42,760
Speaker 4: I've spoken to about it, is like you are constantly

719
00:36:42,840 --> 00:36:45,320
Speaker 4: raising the stakes. There's a lot of like compulsive behavior

720
00:36:45,320 --> 00:36:49,720
Speaker 4: related to to kind of money spending, et cetera. Really,

721
00:36:49,760 --> 00:36:52,320
Speaker 4: the reason that that gambling is is addictive is you

722
00:36:52,600 --> 00:36:55,560
Speaker 4: are fundamentally like losing money, which puts you in this

723
00:36:55,680 --> 00:37:01,000
Speaker 4: economically precarious state and makes you increasingly sprit And people

724
00:37:01,000 --> 00:37:03,480
Speaker 4: will be like, oh, but but what about Like you

725
00:37:03,520 --> 00:37:06,399
Speaker 4: get dopamine you know, from social media? Okay, you also

726
00:37:06,400 --> 00:37:09,120
Speaker 4: get dopamine from listening to music. You know, are you

727
00:37:09,160 --> 00:37:11,080
Speaker 4: a music attic because you listened to nine hours and

728
00:37:11,080 --> 00:37:13,960
Speaker 4: you got NonStop dopamine from it? Like, it's just it's different.

729
00:37:14,040 --> 00:37:16,880
Speaker 4: I think gambling is mostly considered a vice. And the

730
00:37:16,920 --> 00:37:19,960
Speaker 4: reason it's it has a negative outcome is because of

731
00:37:19,960 --> 00:37:22,080
Speaker 4: our economic system. You know, if we had a completely

732
00:37:22,080 --> 00:37:25,240
Speaker 4: different economic system and nobody cared that, you know, money

733
00:37:25,280 --> 00:37:28,719
Speaker 4: wasn't like, you know, structured the same way. Like could

734
00:37:28,760 --> 00:37:30,959
Speaker 4: people gamble all day and not have a lot of harm? Yes,

735
00:37:31,000 --> 00:37:32,640
Speaker 4: but the harm a lot of it comes from our

736
00:37:32,680 --> 00:37:33,520
Speaker 4: economic system.

737
00:37:33,680 --> 00:37:37,800
Speaker 1: So the problem is that you could in theory with gambling,

738
00:37:38,000 --> 00:37:41,360
Speaker 1: when you push that to the most extreme degree, it

739
00:37:41,480 --> 00:37:45,440
Speaker 1: ends in complete financial ruin and the effectively the downsides

740
00:37:45,440 --> 00:37:47,000
Speaker 1: are much higher than social.

741
00:37:47,000 --> 00:37:49,120
Speaker 4: I think we need to talk about the downsides right

742
00:37:49,239 --> 00:37:52,640
Speaker 4: and how realistic these downsides are, because I think a

743
00:37:52,640 --> 00:37:55,000
Speaker 4: lot of that stuff is overblown. For instance, there's this,

744
00:37:55,800 --> 00:37:58,600
Speaker 4: you know a lot of very hyperbolic claims about social

745
00:37:58,640 --> 00:38:01,759
Speaker 4: media and mental health, that widespread social media usage is

746
00:38:01,840 --> 00:38:04,160
Speaker 4: leading to some sort of mental health crisis among children.

747
00:38:04,239 --> 00:38:07,520
Speaker 4: That's just not born out by data. Now, if you

748
00:38:07,719 --> 00:38:09,759
Speaker 4: are what we do know that is born out by

749
00:38:09,800 --> 00:38:12,399
Speaker 4: data is the it's not so much that social media

750
00:38:12,440 --> 00:38:14,480
Speaker 4: is affecting your mental health, as the way that you

751
00:38:15,000 --> 00:38:17,960
Speaker 4: engage with social media is shaped by your mental state.

752
00:38:18,080 --> 00:38:21,359
Speaker 4: So if you're very depressed and you listen to really

753
00:38:21,400 --> 00:38:24,239
Speaker 4: sad songs for five hours, or go on social media

754
00:38:24,280 --> 00:38:26,879
Speaker 4: and engage in unhealthy way that can make you sadder. Yes,

755
00:38:27,320 --> 00:38:30,759
Speaker 4: you're right, and that doesn't mean that you're to blame, right,

756
00:38:30,840 --> 00:38:33,920
Speaker 4: Like sometimes that content that is given to you algorithmically.

757
00:38:34,920 --> 00:38:37,399
Speaker 4: But I was talking to a friend recently who's going

758
00:38:37,400 --> 00:38:40,960
Speaker 4: through a divorce, and her Spotify Discover playlist has been

759
00:38:41,000 --> 00:38:42,960
Speaker 4: like very depressing, and she was like, I feel like

760
00:38:43,000 --> 00:38:45,240
Speaker 4: it's like it knows that I'm going through a divorce,

761
00:38:45,239 --> 00:38:47,120
Speaker 4: and it's like feeding me this stuff. And you know,

762
00:38:47,280 --> 00:38:49,839
Speaker 4: like we all feel the push and pull of these algorithms,

763
00:38:50,280 --> 00:38:52,279
Speaker 4: and I don't want to discount that. What I would

764
00:38:52,400 --> 00:38:55,279
Speaker 4: argue is that like the way to counter that is

765
00:38:55,280 --> 00:38:58,160
Speaker 4: through data privacy legislation so that these platforms cannot hyper

766
00:38:58,200 --> 00:39:00,440
Speaker 4: target us and with you know, with highly engaging content

767
00:39:00,560 --> 00:39:03,800
Speaker 4: rather than like censorship of all content we consider harmful.

768
00:39:04,239 --> 00:39:07,040
Speaker 1: Yeah, I do think the fact that someone needs some

769
00:39:07,080 --> 00:39:12,799
Speaker 1: sort of underlying let's say, discomfort when they fall into overuse,

770
00:39:13,000 --> 00:39:16,239
Speaker 1: it's almost like they have a pre existing state and

771
00:39:16,280 --> 00:39:18,680
Speaker 1: then that gets filled by whatever the thing. And you

772
00:39:18,680 --> 00:39:22,920
Speaker 1: see that even with drug addiction, so things like like

773
00:39:22,960 --> 00:39:28,040
Speaker 1: there's a reason why the opioid epidemic really hit Appalachia.

774
00:39:28,440 --> 00:39:30,680
Speaker 1: It's because you had all these towns that were decimated

775
00:39:30,680 --> 00:39:33,759
Speaker 1: by the loss of different industries people can make money.

776
00:39:33,840 --> 00:39:35,759
Speaker 1: It was a depressing situation, and then you have this

777
00:39:35,800 --> 00:39:39,520
Speaker 1: sort of like influx of a substance that gives you

778
00:39:39,600 --> 00:39:42,600
Speaker 1: this sort of short term relief from these from the

779
00:39:42,640 --> 00:39:44,839
Speaker 1: circumstances that you find yourself in, and then you see

780
00:39:44,840 --> 00:39:46,880
Speaker 1: this thing bloom, which.

781
00:39:46,760 --> 00:39:52,080
Speaker 4: Is ironically like this argument was really kind of made

782
00:39:52,280 --> 00:39:56,640
Speaker 4: most famously about novels. So novels in the eighteen hundreds

783
00:39:56,640 --> 00:39:59,480
Speaker 4: were a massive hit. I mean, parents were freaking out.

784
00:40:00,080 --> 00:40:02,279
Speaker 4: There was these novel addictions and they were trying to

785
00:40:02,280 --> 00:40:04,880
Speaker 4: get you know, young people treatment for their novel addictions

786
00:40:04,880 --> 00:40:08,080
Speaker 4: because you know, life was not great in the eighteen hundreds,

787
00:40:08,080 --> 00:40:10,600
Speaker 4: and a lot of young people would escape, you know,

788
00:40:10,760 --> 00:40:12,920
Speaker 4: to these novels. And I think, you know, reading about novels,

789
00:40:12,960 --> 00:40:15,600
Speaker 4: it's funny because a lot of those claims are the

790
00:40:15,600 --> 00:40:17,839
Speaker 4: same ones being made about social media today, where it's

791
00:40:17,880 --> 00:40:20,719
Speaker 4: like young people or they see everyone else leading these

792
00:40:20,719 --> 00:40:25,000
Speaker 4: amazing lives and it makes them depressed. And that's probably

793
00:40:25,040 --> 00:40:27,400
Speaker 4: true into a sense, like in the sense of like

794
00:40:28,560 --> 00:40:30,480
Speaker 4: engaging with media. I mean I grew up in the

795
00:40:30,520 --> 00:40:33,400
Speaker 4: two thousands as a teenager like looking at Cosmo magazine

796
00:40:33,400 --> 00:40:35,880
Speaker 4: being like, why don't I look like this the models

797
00:40:35,880 --> 00:40:37,719
Speaker 4: in this magazine? Why am I not living this great

798
00:40:37,800 --> 00:40:39,920
Speaker 4: life of like these reality TV stars? Right? Like, we

799
00:40:39,960 --> 00:40:42,120
Speaker 4: all engage in this stuff. But I think we just

800
00:40:42,160 --> 00:40:43,960
Speaker 4: have to be careful at sort of like what we're

801
00:40:44,160 --> 00:40:45,480
Speaker 4: deeming cause and effect.

802
00:40:45,960 --> 00:40:48,399
Speaker 1: Yeah, that makes sense. So do you think that there

803
00:40:48,480 --> 00:40:52,360
Speaker 1: is actually a growth and mental health problems among young people?

804
00:40:52,560 --> 00:40:56,279
Speaker 4: I mean what we see around the data, it kind

805
00:40:56,320 --> 00:40:59,120
Speaker 4: of varies a lot and has actually backtracked the past

806
00:40:59,120 --> 00:41:01,920
Speaker 4: two years, you know, like suicide, like a lot of

807
00:41:01,920 --> 00:41:04,560
Speaker 4: mental health problems that these people that you know, these

808
00:41:04,600 --> 00:41:07,399
Speaker 4: people on Twitter will like go and you know say, well,

809
00:41:07,400 --> 00:41:09,720
Speaker 4: like look at the declines and mental health since twenty

810
00:41:09,719 --> 00:41:11,399
Speaker 4: ten or whatever. But if you look at it since

811
00:41:11,400 --> 00:41:14,040
Speaker 4: the nineteen eighties, it's significantly up. Like we're living a

812
00:41:14,040 --> 00:41:16,319
Speaker 4: better life than our parents, and our parents lived a

813
00:41:16,360 --> 00:41:18,680
Speaker 4: better life than their parents. So you know, there's a

814
00:41:18,719 --> 00:41:21,840
Speaker 4: lot of things around that. Now, did we have a

815
00:41:22,000 --> 00:41:24,960
Speaker 4: financial crisis in two thousand and eight that radically affected

816
00:41:25,560 --> 00:41:29,200
Speaker 4: the younger generation and left devastated the family lives of

817
00:41:29,360 --> 00:41:31,920
Speaker 4: you know, these people, same thing with twenty twenty, hundreds

818
00:41:31,960 --> 00:41:37,120
Speaker 4: of thousands of children lost a primary caregiver to COVID alone,

819
00:41:37,400 --> 00:41:40,480
Speaker 4: you know, losing your mom or dad like them dying

820
00:41:40,560 --> 00:41:44,400
Speaker 4: of COVID traumatically. Like that's a lot more traumatic and

821
00:41:44,480 --> 00:41:47,080
Speaker 4: life shaping than like watching too much Instagram for like

822
00:41:47,120 --> 00:41:49,239
Speaker 4: three months while you were on remote zoom school or whatever,

823
00:41:49,280 --> 00:41:51,560
Speaker 4: and not to mitigate it. But you know, it's interesting

824
00:41:51,560 --> 00:41:54,719
Speaker 4: also that like suicides dropped when kids were most online

825
00:41:54,800 --> 00:41:58,319
Speaker 4: like that in that year of twenty twenty. So I

826
00:41:58,400 --> 00:42:01,239
Speaker 4: just think these things don't always coral so neatly. And

827
00:42:01,640 --> 00:42:04,160
Speaker 4: there's a lot of people, I mean people, every single

828
00:42:04,239 --> 00:42:08,400
Speaker 4: top research are actually on this topic came out together

829
00:42:08,480 --> 00:42:10,680
Speaker 4: in twenty twenty four and issued this big report on

830
00:42:10,719 --> 00:42:13,520
Speaker 4: this exact topic and said, you know, you guys keep

831
00:42:13,520 --> 00:42:17,720
Speaker 4: claiming effectively that social media causes this. We at UNC, Princeton,

832
00:42:17,800 --> 00:42:20,279
Speaker 4: Do et cetera, all study this for a living We

833
00:42:20,320 --> 00:42:22,319
Speaker 4: can tell you social media is not causing it. It's

834
00:42:22,320 --> 00:42:25,239
Speaker 4: a mix of economic and socio political sort of factors,

835
00:42:26,239 --> 00:42:27,759
Speaker 4: and you guys need to address those things if you

836
00:42:27,760 --> 00:42:30,360
Speaker 4: want to address kids' mental health, you know, address the

837
00:42:30,360 --> 00:42:32,239
Speaker 4: fact that a significant amount of kids is growing up

838
00:42:32,239 --> 00:42:34,279
Speaker 4: below the poverty line, all these other sort of things

839
00:42:34,280 --> 00:42:35,160
Speaker 4: that it matter a lot more.

840
00:42:35,400 --> 00:42:38,160
Speaker 1: Yeah, I think there's also been a shift in how

841
00:42:38,200 --> 00:42:40,879
Speaker 1: people live day to day in a way that may

842
00:42:40,920 --> 00:42:43,439
Speaker 1: not be always positive for mental health. I think people

843
00:42:43,440 --> 00:42:48,000
Speaker 1: spend less time together. I think people spend less time outside.

844
00:42:48,040 --> 00:42:50,040
Speaker 1: I think people are less physically active, and I think

845
00:42:50,080 --> 00:42:52,680
Speaker 1: those all correlate pretty strongly with mental health, especially in

846
00:42:52,719 --> 00:42:55,880
Speaker 1: young people. So when it's in the context of social media,

847
00:42:56,880 --> 00:42:59,080
Speaker 1: you could argue, oh, well it was the social media,

848
00:42:59,160 --> 00:43:00,960
Speaker 1: or you could say, well, what was the person not

849
00:43:01,040 --> 00:43:04,200
Speaker 1: doing because they were on social media. So it's not

850
00:43:04,200 --> 00:43:07,680
Speaker 1: that social media causes these other things weren't happening as well.

851
00:43:07,800 --> 00:43:10,239
Speaker 1: It's I think the like overall point you're trying to

852
00:43:10,239 --> 00:43:12,120
Speaker 1: make is that it's like really complicated.

853
00:43:12,320 --> 00:43:16,200
Speaker 4: Yeah, And you know, I've interviewed hundreds and potentially thousands

854
00:43:16,239 --> 00:43:18,640
Speaker 4: of kids at this point over the years, and one

855
00:43:18,640 --> 00:43:20,560
Speaker 4: thing that they all say is like, I want more

856
00:43:20,600 --> 00:43:22,759
Speaker 4: free time. You know, kids today have hours and at

857
00:43:23,080 --> 00:43:26,360
Speaker 4: even just I've shocked at talking to teenagers compared to

858
00:43:26,440 --> 00:43:28,760
Speaker 4: like I'm millennial, so like I haven't been in high.

859
00:43:28,600 --> 00:43:30,400
Speaker 1: School in a while, but like, so I'm here guilty.

860
00:43:30,880 --> 00:43:35,560
Speaker 4: Yeah, Like fifteen years ago, school work was radically different.

861
00:43:35,719 --> 00:43:38,080
Speaker 4: You know, kids today have significantly more homework. They're also

862
00:43:38,120 --> 00:43:41,040
Speaker 4: more likely to participate in the economy, so they have jobs.

863
00:43:41,080 --> 00:43:44,040
Speaker 4: They feel this pressure to you know, to make a living,

864
00:43:44,080 --> 00:43:46,880
Speaker 4: to be interning in you know, high school colleges have

865
00:43:46,920 --> 00:43:49,720
Speaker 4: gotten more competitive, the economic situation has gotten more intense.

866
00:43:49,800 --> 00:43:52,319
Speaker 4: So there's all these pressures. And then we have the

867
00:43:52,840 --> 00:43:56,080
Speaker 4: just the geographic landscape of America where there's no longer

868
00:43:56,160 --> 00:43:59,080
Speaker 4: third places. Malls which I grew up going to, like

869
00:43:59,160 --> 00:44:02,760
Speaker 4: have shuttered. You know. You mentioned sort of like physical activity.

870
00:44:02,800 --> 00:44:04,319
Speaker 4: A lot of young people today don't get that. They

871
00:44:04,320 --> 00:44:06,920
Speaker 4: don't participate in you know, team sports have been sort

872
00:44:06,920 --> 00:44:08,080
Speaker 4: of bought out by private equity.

873
00:44:08,320 --> 00:44:12,239
Speaker 1: Yeah. The third spaces thing is interesting because I'm also

874
00:44:12,280 --> 00:44:14,600
Speaker 1: a millennial, and when I was in high school, it's like, oh,

875
00:44:14,640 --> 00:44:16,680
Speaker 1: you go to the mall, you do you have these

876
00:44:16,719 --> 00:44:19,000
Speaker 1: places you could just go and hang out with other people,

877
00:44:19,040 --> 00:44:21,320
Speaker 1: And I feel like that happens a lot less often

878
00:44:21,400 --> 00:44:24,440
Speaker 1: for whatever various reasons it is with your own people.

879
00:44:24,680 --> 00:44:27,200
Speaker 4: Yeah, I think parents are also more nervous. You know,

880
00:44:27,239 --> 00:44:29,279
Speaker 4: one thing that I thought I found was really interesting too,

881
00:44:29,600 --> 00:44:32,120
Speaker 4: is kids today are a lot less likely to have

882
00:44:32,400 --> 00:44:35,480
Speaker 4: a trusted adult in their lives that's not their parents.

883
00:44:35,719 --> 00:44:38,279
Speaker 4: So thirty forty years ago, they were more likely to

884
00:44:38,320 --> 00:44:41,560
Speaker 4: have a coach, a teacher, a mentor. They're more likely

885
00:44:41,600 --> 00:44:45,239
Speaker 4: to you know, engage with adults that weren't directly their

886
00:44:45,280 --> 00:44:48,160
Speaker 4: family members. And I think, like, for whatever reason, and

887
00:44:48,239 --> 00:44:50,720
Speaker 4: I was talking to researchers about, you know, many reasons,

888
00:44:50,719 --> 00:44:55,440
Speaker 4: this is like kids and adults are becoming much more stratified.

889
00:44:55,520 --> 00:44:57,560
Speaker 4: So we're seeing this world of like the kids world

890
00:44:57,640 --> 00:45:00,360
Speaker 4: and the adult world. On the internet, everybody is together,

891
00:45:00,600 --> 00:45:03,880
Speaker 4: but but irl kids don't necessarily have people to go to,

892
00:45:04,040 --> 00:45:05,960
Speaker 4: and so I think they turn to these online spaces

893
00:45:05,960 --> 00:45:06,600
Speaker 4: for support.

894
00:45:06,800 --> 00:45:09,920
Speaker 1: Why do you think the blame has been put nearly

895
00:45:10,080 --> 00:45:11,320
Speaker 1: entirely on social media?

896
00:45:11,360 --> 00:45:14,280
Speaker 4: Well, listen, social media companies do a lot of bad things.

897
00:45:14,960 --> 00:45:19,200
Speaker 4: Mark Zuckerberg doesn't care about like, you know, these are

898
00:45:19,239 --> 00:45:22,600
Speaker 4: profit maximizing tech companies that have done a lot of

899
00:45:22,640 --> 00:45:25,200
Speaker 4: harm in the world. Like no one's gonna you know,

900
00:45:25,280 --> 00:45:28,560
Speaker 4: go out there and be like Meta really cares about

901
00:45:28,560 --> 00:45:30,320
Speaker 4: the world, you know, these are companies that have helped

902
00:45:30,360 --> 00:45:34,560
Speaker 4: facilitate atrocities in places like me and mar and you know,

903
00:45:34,680 --> 00:45:38,760
Speaker 4: like and they've been really irresponsible. They're ultimately profit driven

904
00:45:38,960 --> 00:45:44,080
Speaker 4: platforms that don't they're not optimizing for like our societal

905
00:45:44,120 --> 00:45:47,680
Speaker 4: well being. But I think we need to understand that

906
00:45:47,800 --> 00:45:51,800
Speaker 4: like companies are, you know, we have we live under capitalism,

907
00:45:51,840 --> 00:45:54,240
Speaker 4: that is the economic system that we live in. Companies

908
00:45:54,280 --> 00:45:57,160
Speaker 4: exist to make a profit. We shouldn't punish them for

909
00:45:57,239 --> 00:46:00,160
Speaker 4: making their products so good that people want up and

910
00:46:00,280 --> 00:46:02,319
Speaker 4: so much time on them. But there are ways that

911
00:46:02,320 --> 00:46:06,839
Speaker 4: we can curb the type of negative business practices that

912
00:46:07,400 --> 00:46:10,680
Speaker 4: Meta engages in that actually degrade our internet. We have

913
00:46:10,719 --> 00:46:14,759
Speaker 4: no data privacy laws and now, unfortunately, if we pass

914
00:46:14,840 --> 00:46:18,759
Speaker 4: these social media addiction laws, they're gonna have even more

915
00:46:18,840 --> 00:46:21,040
Speaker 4: power and our Internet's gonna get even worse for everyone,

916
00:46:21,080 --> 00:46:22,040
Speaker 4: and that's gonna suck.

917
00:46:22,880 --> 00:46:25,680
Speaker 1: Do you think part of it is just because it's

918
00:46:25,760 --> 00:46:30,760
Speaker 1: so visual as well as if we think, okay, mental

919
00:46:30,800 --> 00:46:35,879
Speaker 1: health among teens and maybe even adults is going down,

920
00:46:36,080 --> 00:46:38,360
Speaker 1: we go, okay, that thing, and you go, I wonder why,

921
00:46:38,520 --> 00:46:40,279
Speaker 1: And then you look at everyone and everyone's looking at

922
00:46:40,280 --> 00:46:42,680
Speaker 1: their phone. That sort of becomes it and it's like, oh,

923
00:46:42,960 --> 00:46:44,360
Speaker 1: it's obvious it's the phone.

924
00:46:44,640 --> 00:46:51,160
Speaker 4: We also have massive, multi billion dollar messaging political propaganda

925
00:46:51,160 --> 00:46:54,040
Speaker 4: campaigns aimed at pushing the idea that this is the phone.

926
00:46:54,080 --> 00:46:57,799
Speaker 4: Like there are these nonprofits and special interest groups and

927
00:46:57,880 --> 00:47:02,239
Speaker 4: groups like the Heritage Foundation and enco's or formerly known

928
00:47:02,239 --> 00:47:05,480
Speaker 4: as Morality and Media. These are a lot of organizations

929
00:47:05,480 --> 00:47:08,239
Speaker 4: that are affiliated with the religious far right, that are

930
00:47:08,280 --> 00:47:10,520
Speaker 4: religious fundamentalists that have been pushing the idea that the

931
00:47:10,560 --> 00:47:13,840
Speaker 4: Internet is, you know, the downfall of society since the nineties.

932
00:47:14,640 --> 00:47:18,000
Speaker 4: They're responsible for this what was originally known as the

933
00:47:18,200 --> 00:47:21,800
Speaker 4: Communications Decency Act, which was probably you know, significantly overturned,

934
00:47:21,880 --> 00:47:25,480
Speaker 4: but they've they've put this idea forward forever. And I

935
00:47:25,520 --> 00:47:29,640
Speaker 4: think it was after Donald Trump's election that a lot

936
00:47:29,680 --> 00:47:31,640
Speaker 4: of the mainstream media got on board with that. I

937
00:47:31,680 --> 00:47:33,200
Speaker 4: worked at the New York Times at the time, and

938
00:47:33,239 --> 00:47:35,680
Speaker 4: it was this idea of like, well, Donald Trump is

939
00:47:35,719 --> 00:47:38,480
Speaker 4: in office and everything is bad because of Facebook, and

940
00:47:39,400 --> 00:47:42,640
Speaker 4: had the media had been to like they hadn't been

941
00:47:42,680 --> 00:47:45,160
Speaker 4: critical of tech enough, but I think they flipped and

942
00:47:45,200 --> 00:47:47,880
Speaker 4: they just started sort of feeding into this stuff. And

943
00:47:47,880 --> 00:47:49,440
Speaker 4: you have to also note that like the New York

944
00:47:49,480 --> 00:47:51,319
Speaker 4: Times and a lot of these mainstream media companies also

945
00:47:51,360 --> 00:47:54,320
Speaker 4: directly compete with Meta and Google. These companies have oblitted

946
00:47:54,520 --> 00:47:57,120
Speaker 4: rated their business models, and they are also part of,

947
00:47:57,400 --> 00:47:59,799
Speaker 4: you know, these political action groups that go out and

948
00:48:01,000 --> 00:48:03,200
Speaker 4: you know, intentionally kind of put forward the idea that

949
00:48:03,239 --> 00:48:05,479
Speaker 4: the Internet is bad and we need sort of mainstream media.

950
00:48:05,560 --> 00:48:07,320
Speaker 4: So I think there's just a lot of competing interests

951
00:48:07,360 --> 00:48:07,719
Speaker 4: at play.

952
00:48:07,960 --> 00:48:11,560
Speaker 1: Yeah, And you've been covering the trial that recently happened

953
00:48:11,719 --> 00:48:14,960
Speaker 1: in California. There was another one in New Mexico that

954
00:48:15,520 --> 00:48:18,520
Speaker 1: looked at this question of is social media addictive and

955
00:48:18,640 --> 00:48:22,719
Speaker 1: came companies be held liable if someone has bad outcomes

956
00:48:23,400 --> 00:48:25,680
Speaker 1: due to social media? Can you walk us through kind

957
00:48:25,719 --> 00:48:28,600
Speaker 1: of what that trial was all about, what the arguments were,

958
00:48:28,640 --> 00:48:31,880
Speaker 1: and what it ultimately ended up finding. Yeah.

959
00:48:31,920 --> 00:48:34,359
Speaker 4: So, first of all, it was this poor twenty year

960
00:48:34,400 --> 00:48:38,560
Speaker 4: old girl who I feel horrible for. This girl had

961
00:48:38,600 --> 00:48:44,920
Speaker 4: a horrible, horrible life. She grew up with an abusive mother,

962
00:48:45,000 --> 00:48:49,080
Speaker 4: an abusive father. Her father abused her and abandoned her

963
00:48:49,200 --> 00:48:54,080
Speaker 4: when she was quite young. Her mother also physically abused

964
00:48:54,120 --> 00:48:59,120
Speaker 4: her emotionally tortured her. We witnessed videos of the abuse

965
00:48:59,239 --> 00:49:02,439
Speaker 4: in court. The abuse was so bad in her home

966
00:49:02,480 --> 00:49:05,160
Speaker 4: that her sister tried to take her own life as well,

967
00:49:06,120 --> 00:49:11,480
Speaker 4: and effectively, this girl used Instagram and YouTube as an escape. So,

968
00:49:11,960 --> 00:49:14,439
Speaker 4: you know, she was having this really difficult home life.

969
00:49:14,480 --> 00:49:18,440
Speaker 4: Her mother also weighed her daily, told her she was fat.

970
00:49:18,520 --> 00:49:20,439
Speaker 4: Her father told her that she was fat and ugly

971
00:49:20,480 --> 00:49:22,840
Speaker 4: and all this stuff. So and kicked her out of

972
00:49:22,840 --> 00:49:24,960
Speaker 4: the house at one point, just this girl was struggling,

973
00:49:25,680 --> 00:49:29,640
Speaker 4: she went and saw a therapist. In her years of therapy,

974
00:49:29,719 --> 00:49:32,800
Speaker 4: and the therapist testified to you know, she wasn't mentioning

975
00:49:32,800 --> 00:49:34,640
Speaker 4: social media. She was mostly like, hey, I'm growing up

976
00:49:34,680 --> 00:49:36,279
Speaker 4: in this abusive home. Can you help get me out

977
00:49:36,320 --> 00:49:39,279
Speaker 4: of my home? And they didn't. She stayed there. So

978
00:49:39,320 --> 00:49:42,000
Speaker 4: this girl was really failed by the system, I would argue.

979
00:49:42,440 --> 00:49:46,279
Speaker 4: Now conveniently she's kicked out of the house. Suddenly there's

980
00:49:46,280 --> 00:49:48,319
Speaker 4: all these ads in class action lawsuits saying, hey, you

981
00:49:48,320 --> 00:49:50,080
Speaker 4: can make a lot of money actually for the you know,

982
00:49:50,080 --> 00:49:53,040
Speaker 4: if you were a victim of social media. Now the mom,

983
00:49:53,120 --> 00:49:56,160
Speaker 4: the abusive mom comes back around. Suddenly the daughter's living

984
00:49:56,239 --> 00:49:58,279
Speaker 4: a home again, and she's like, you know, we're going

985
00:49:58,320 --> 00:50:00,319
Speaker 4: to sue. We're part of this class action law. You know,

986
00:50:00,360 --> 00:50:04,880
Speaker 4: this big group sort of suing meta at the trial.

987
00:50:05,200 --> 00:50:06,959
Speaker 4: I mean what we saw was, like what I saw

988
00:50:07,000 --> 00:50:09,239
Speaker 4: was this girl first of all, going through you know

989
00:50:11,000 --> 00:50:14,440
Speaker 4: that being being put through hell again where you imagine

990
00:50:14,520 --> 00:50:16,520
Speaker 4: having growing up in this horrible and then having your

991
00:50:16,520 --> 00:50:20,600
Speaker 4: therapist testify to the embarrassing stuff that you said. And ironically,

992
00:50:21,000 --> 00:50:23,600
Speaker 4: she's pursuing a career as a social media manager right

993
00:50:23,640 --> 00:50:27,080
Speaker 4: now because she really did fall in love with Instagram

994
00:50:27,120 --> 00:50:29,240
Speaker 4: and making these video fan adits.

995
00:50:28,880 --> 00:50:32,680
Speaker 1: And she was claiming that Instagram was it Instagram specifically

996
00:50:32,719 --> 00:50:35,120
Speaker 1: had hurt her mental health. This was the reason why

997
00:50:35,160 --> 00:50:37,279
Speaker 1: she was having mental health problems, was a lot all

998
00:50:37,320 --> 00:50:39,799
Speaker 1: the time she was spending on social media, effectively.

999
00:50:39,480 --> 00:50:41,799
Speaker 4: Exactly they said. They were arguing that, you know, she

1000
00:50:41,840 --> 00:50:44,759
Speaker 4: wouldn't have had you know that these mental that that

1001
00:50:44,880 --> 00:50:48,799
Speaker 4: being on social media contributed to her mental health problems. Now,

1002
00:50:48,840 --> 00:50:51,279
Speaker 4: it's important to remember in this lass, like what the

1003
00:50:51,360 --> 00:50:55,440
Speaker 4: jury found wasn't that that it was totally responsible, but

1004
00:50:55,600 --> 00:50:58,640
Speaker 4: if it even contributed point zero zero zero, like one

1005
00:50:58,680 --> 00:51:02,279
Speaker 4: percent to her mental health, that could be found like

1006
00:51:02,880 --> 00:51:04,440
Speaker 4: you know, that was that was sort of like the

1007
00:51:04,560 --> 00:51:07,280
Speaker 4: questions that the jurors were given and what they found

1008
00:51:07,400 --> 00:51:09,600
Speaker 4: was or what they determined, Again, these are just nine

1009
00:51:09,680 --> 00:51:12,799
Speaker 4: random people, right that said through this emotional trial and

1010
00:51:12,840 --> 00:51:17,880
Speaker 4: they found yes, you know, great that girl got you know,

1011
00:51:17,960 --> 00:51:21,520
Speaker 4: or six million. They were rewarded six million dollars. I

1012
00:51:21,520 --> 00:51:25,120
Speaker 4: think what's really scary is that this girl is just

1013
00:51:25,160 --> 00:51:27,480
Speaker 4: being exploited over and over and over again by like,

1014
00:51:28,400 --> 00:51:31,799
Speaker 4: you know, multiple systems here. But the people that are

1015
00:51:31,840 --> 00:51:35,000
Speaker 4: involved in this trial, that put forward, that put her forward,

1016
00:51:36,080 --> 00:51:40,400
Speaker 4: are this reactionary political movement, and their goal is to

1017
00:51:40,520 --> 00:51:44,200
Speaker 4: dismantle something called Section two thirty, which is the really

1018
00:51:44,280 --> 00:51:47,920
Speaker 4: tiny piece of internet law that guarantees user generated content

1019
00:51:47,960 --> 00:51:50,920
Speaker 4: and free speech online. This case was not just notable

1020
00:51:50,920 --> 00:51:53,400
Speaker 4: because they were like putting Mark Zuckerberg on trial or whatever.

1021
00:51:53,640 --> 00:51:56,680
Speaker 4: It was notable because it established this really novel legal

1022
00:51:56,719 --> 00:52:00,480
Speaker 4: precedent that will be used to enact mass ship and

1023
00:52:00,480 --> 00:52:04,440
Speaker 4: surveillance online. And they do it, you know, they did

1024
00:52:04,440 --> 00:52:07,279
Speaker 4: it through this like kind of using this girl's case.

1025
00:52:07,360 --> 00:52:09,759
Speaker 4: I would argue, honestly, that girl. I think the mother

1026
00:52:09,800 --> 00:52:13,440
Speaker 4: should have been on trial personally, but you know, we

1027
00:52:13,520 --> 00:52:14,840
Speaker 4: have Mark Zuckerberg instead.

1028
00:52:15,160 --> 00:52:21,399
Speaker 1: So the fear is that more censorship arises because of this,

1029
00:52:21,440 --> 00:52:23,440
Speaker 1: more or less, and how would that actually play out?

1030
00:52:23,760 --> 00:52:25,760
Speaker 4: They're using it? Yeah, so as soon as the verdict

1031
00:52:25,880 --> 00:52:30,239
Speaker 4: was read, the parents and political groups involved in this

1032
00:52:30,360 --> 00:52:32,560
Speaker 4: case went outside in the steps of the court and

1033
00:52:32,600 --> 00:52:35,840
Speaker 4: held a press conference. They asked for three pieces of legislation.

1034
00:52:35,960 --> 00:52:37,759
Speaker 4: They were like, great, we just got this big win.

1035
00:52:39,000 --> 00:52:42,840
Speaker 4: Now we want to repeal Section two thirty pass something

1036
00:52:42,880 --> 00:52:45,360
Speaker 4: called the Kids Online Safety Act, which would give the

1037
00:52:45,360 --> 00:52:49,960
Speaker 4: government the power to effectively mandate the removal of any

1038
00:52:49,960 --> 00:52:53,160
Speaker 4: content deemed harmful for children, which the Trump administration has

1039
00:52:53,200 --> 00:52:56,279
Speaker 4: said is going to be any LGBTQ content, reproductive justice content,

1040
00:52:56,280 --> 00:52:58,640
Speaker 4: et cetera. So they were advocating for that, and then

1041
00:52:58,640 --> 00:53:02,600
Speaker 4: they were advocating for national ID checks, so complete removal

1042
00:53:02,640 --> 00:53:06,879
Speaker 4: of anonymity from the Internet. All three of those things

1043
00:53:06,880 --> 00:53:10,719
Speaker 4: are very scary, and I would argue don't keep kids

1044
00:53:10,719 --> 00:53:12,960
Speaker 4: safe at all. In fact, in danger, we know, in

1045
00:53:13,080 --> 00:53:17,120
Speaker 4: danger of thousands of immigrant kids, LGBTQ kids, kids you

1046
00:53:17,160 --> 00:53:21,000
Speaker 4: know that are seeking mental health support, and they're already

1047
00:53:21,120 --> 00:53:24,719
Speaker 4: you know, using these to pacc these laws. Ironically, those

1048
00:53:24,800 --> 00:53:27,279
Speaker 4: laws are also laws that META is lobbying for. And

1049
00:53:27,360 --> 00:53:31,600
Speaker 4: META is already using this case to push for the

1050
00:53:31,640 --> 00:53:34,000
Speaker 4: App Store Accountability Act and all these other laws, so

1051
00:53:34,080 --> 00:53:36,279
Speaker 4: it and META of course has been running ads. They

1052
00:53:36,320 --> 00:53:38,040
Speaker 4: want to repeal section two thirty as well. That will

1053
00:53:38,040 --> 00:53:39,960
Speaker 4: actually allow Meta to consolidate power.

1054
00:53:40,239 --> 00:53:43,680
Speaker 1: So why walk us through how that benefits Meta.

1055
00:53:43,960 --> 00:53:49,120
Speaker 4: Yeah, so section two thirty guarantees the It effectively puts

1056
00:53:49,160 --> 00:53:52,880
Speaker 4: the liability for online speech on the speaker. So if

1057
00:53:52,920 --> 00:53:54,680
Speaker 4: you go on the Internet and you say something bad,

1058
00:53:54,960 --> 00:53:58,160
Speaker 4: you should be held responsible. You know, say you say

1059
00:53:58,160 --> 00:54:01,680
Speaker 4: something hateful in a chain email, forward that chain email

1060
00:54:01,719 --> 00:54:06,040
Speaker 4: to my mom. Section two thirty allows me to forward

1061
00:54:06,120 --> 00:54:10,839
Speaker 4: your email without being held liable for defamation if what

1062
00:54:10,880 --> 00:54:13,759
Speaker 4: you said in the email was bad or wrong. So

1063
00:54:14,200 --> 00:54:16,319
Speaker 4: it's really important. It allows us to have retweets. It

1064
00:54:16,360 --> 00:54:19,160
Speaker 4: allows us to leave a negative review on Yelp. If

1065
00:54:19,200 --> 00:54:24,439
Speaker 4: you were to remove section two thirty, basically every single

1066
00:54:24,480 --> 00:54:28,440
Speaker 4: platform would have to pre screen content and ensure that

1067
00:54:28,480 --> 00:54:31,319
Speaker 4: it's not sort of any legal, legally dicey stuff. So

1068
00:54:31,520 --> 00:54:33,560
Speaker 4: you would not be able to leave a negative review

1069
00:54:33,600 --> 00:54:36,719
Speaker 4: on Yelp because the restaurant might sue Yelp, and Yelp

1070
00:54:36,719 --> 00:54:41,040
Speaker 4: doesn't want to have that now because of AI, these

1071
00:54:41,080 --> 00:54:44,080
Speaker 4: tech companies, the really big ones, are actually kind of

1072
00:54:44,160 --> 00:54:46,719
Speaker 4: fine removing section two thirty because they are confident that

1073
00:54:46,760 --> 00:54:50,160
Speaker 4: they can pre screen everything with AI. Yes we'll have

1074
00:54:50,200 --> 00:54:53,040
Speaker 4: mass censorship. Yes we won't be able to criticize power

1075
00:54:53,080 --> 00:54:55,520
Speaker 4: online anymore. But that's how it is in a lot

1076
00:54:55,520 --> 00:54:58,920
Speaker 4: of authoritarian countries, and they still have a thriving Internet ecosystem. Ultimately,

1077
00:54:59,719 --> 00:55:02,600
Speaker 4: these business you know, these giant tech companies, they rely

1078
00:55:02,680 --> 00:55:05,560
Speaker 4: on harvesting data. They don't rely on free speech, and

1079
00:55:05,920 --> 00:55:08,000
Speaker 4: censoring every single piece of content actually allows them to

1080
00:55:08,040 --> 00:55:11,360
Speaker 4: harvest even more data than they previously do now, so

1081
00:55:12,160 --> 00:55:14,520
Speaker 4: they don't really care about that. What it would also do, though,

1082
00:55:14,560 --> 00:55:19,240
Speaker 4: is decimate the broader internet, remove forums, remove remove actual

1083
00:55:19,320 --> 00:55:21,520
Speaker 4: like remove grassroots free speech.

1084
00:55:21,840 --> 00:55:25,560
Speaker 1: Interestingly, so I can see the I mean, I can

1085
00:55:25,600 --> 00:55:29,879
Speaker 1: see an argument for some sort of I don't know, guardrails.

1086
00:55:30,160 --> 00:55:33,200
Speaker 1: I can see a case where when I think about

1087
00:55:34,000 --> 00:55:39,719
Speaker 1: when are young people most sort of I guess at

1088
00:55:39,840 --> 00:55:42,759
Speaker 1: risk of potentially developing what we talked about with like

1089
00:55:43,280 --> 00:55:46,759
Speaker 1: excessive overuse that could cause harm. So if you look

1090
00:55:46,840 --> 00:55:48,840
Speaker 1: at I'm sure you're familiar with this, but just for

1091
00:55:48,880 --> 00:55:54,440
Speaker 1: the listeners, if someone say, takes a substance like alcohol

1092
00:55:54,640 --> 00:55:58,000
Speaker 1: or marijuana when they're fifteen, there are odds of becoming

1093
00:55:58,040 --> 00:56:01,839
Speaker 1: addicted grow to like fifty percent. Whereas if they wait

1094
00:56:01,920 --> 00:56:06,200
Speaker 1: till they're twenty one, then the odds are ten percent.

1095
00:56:06,239 --> 00:56:08,480
Speaker 1: And that's because people are kind of finding comfort and

1096
00:56:08,480 --> 00:56:11,960
Speaker 1: trying to figure things out when they are younger. And

1097
00:56:12,000 --> 00:56:14,840
Speaker 1: so if something sort of relieves short term discomfort, the

1098
00:56:14,880 --> 00:56:17,719
Speaker 1: brain sort of remembers that and it can lapse into

1099
00:56:17,760 --> 00:56:20,360
Speaker 1: some sort of misuse. So I can see there, I

1100
00:56:20,400 --> 00:56:22,920
Speaker 1: could see someone's argument for saying, like, well, maybe we

1101
00:56:22,960 --> 00:56:25,000
Speaker 1: need some guardbrails on this, especially for young people. But

1102
00:56:25,360 --> 00:56:26,239
Speaker 1: how do you think about that.

1103
00:56:26,400 --> 00:56:29,640
Speaker 4: We have, like we have centuries of speech law in America.

1104
00:56:29,760 --> 00:56:31,920
Speaker 4: You know you cannot. Section two thirty does not protect

1105
00:56:31,920 --> 00:56:36,560
Speaker 4: platforms from illegal content. Section two thirty also allows platforms

1106
00:56:36,560 --> 00:56:40,279
Speaker 4: to moderate content differently, So a gardening forum can be

1107
00:56:40,360 --> 00:56:44,279
Speaker 4: moderated differently than a BDSM forum. You know. Section two

1108
00:56:44,320 --> 00:56:47,799
Speaker 4: thirty is actually what allows children's spaces to exist on

1109
00:56:47,840 --> 00:56:50,239
Speaker 4: the Internet because they can be moderated differently. If we

1110
00:56:50,320 --> 00:56:53,799
Speaker 4: remove that, all spaces are effectively moderate. You know, it's

1111
00:56:53,800 --> 00:56:55,840
Speaker 4: all sort of like the same. It's basically all or nothing.

1112
00:56:57,000 --> 00:56:59,640
Speaker 4: You know, you bring up sort of like alcohol or cigarettes,

1113
00:56:59,640 --> 00:57:01,640
Speaker 4: et cetera. What I would say is that those don't

1114
00:57:01,680 --> 00:57:03,879
Speaker 4: provide benefits, Like those don't provide like.

1115
00:57:04,560 --> 00:57:05,960
Speaker 1: I would argue, I would argue differently.

1116
00:57:06,120 --> 00:57:09,360
Speaker 4: What I mean is that, like we're talking about access

1117
00:57:09,360 --> 00:57:12,919
Speaker 4: to information, and ironically that example that you just gave

1118
00:57:13,000 --> 00:57:16,360
Speaker 4: of exposing someone at fifteen to to verse twenty one,

1119
00:57:16,760 --> 00:57:20,680
Speaker 4: it's actually much more harmful to expose young people to

1120
00:57:21,080 --> 00:57:24,480
Speaker 4: sort of the entire Internet later, because they don't develop

1121
00:57:24,520 --> 00:57:27,520
Speaker 4: the media literacy skills that it's so crucial for them

1122
00:57:27,520 --> 00:57:30,880
Speaker 4: to develop actually as young as possible. So it's really

1123
00:57:30,920 --> 00:57:34,439
Speaker 4: important to expose kids to the Internet at a young

1124
00:57:34,560 --> 00:57:39,560
Speaker 4: age under a direct like supervision, right, and with guardrails,

1125
00:57:39,560 --> 00:57:41,880
Speaker 4: because you want them to be able to operate in

1126
00:57:41,920 --> 00:57:45,200
Speaker 4: the media and information and technology sort of landscape of

1127
00:57:45,240 --> 00:57:47,760
Speaker 4: their time and not fall for misinformation and not fall

1128
00:57:47,800 --> 00:57:50,600
Speaker 4: for scams the minute they turn eighteen. But to do that,

1129
00:57:50,640 --> 00:57:52,480
Speaker 4: you have to introduce them to this stuff really young.

1130
00:57:52,600 --> 00:57:54,280
Speaker 4: That's why when we grew up as millennials, like we

1131
00:57:54,320 --> 00:57:57,560
Speaker 4: had computer class. We learned about these things, Like you know,

1132
00:57:57,560 --> 00:58:00,000
Speaker 4: people should be learning about this stuff in civics class,

1133
00:58:00,000 --> 00:58:02,120
Speaker 4: social studies, et cetera. We should say, like, here's what

1134
00:58:02,120 --> 00:58:04,720
Speaker 4: misinformation is, here's how you can look at this platform,

1135
00:58:04,760 --> 00:58:07,600
Speaker 4: here's some tools to navigate, Like instead we're going the

1136
00:58:07,640 --> 00:58:09,800
Speaker 4: opposite way, and we're trying to kind of like ban

1137
00:58:10,000 --> 00:58:12,600
Speaker 4: kids completely. And then we know that the later they

1138
00:58:12,600 --> 00:58:15,520
Speaker 4: get on, the more likely they are to fall for scams,

1139
00:58:15,560 --> 00:58:17,920
Speaker 4: the more likely they are to fall for misinformation, et cetera.

1140
00:58:18,480 --> 00:58:22,640
Speaker 1: This would explain why boomers are always falling for fake

1141
00:58:22,720 --> 00:58:27,800
Speaker 1: news on Facebook. Yes, literally, is there data behind that?

1142
00:58:28,440 --> 00:58:30,960
Speaker 4: Yeah, definitely. Yeah. And there's a lot of like media

1143
00:58:31,080 --> 00:58:34,560
Speaker 4: educators that have tried to talk about this repeatedly, journalists

1144
00:58:34,600 --> 00:58:36,680
Speaker 4: like others. I think what's hard is that like a

1145
00:58:36,680 --> 00:58:39,720
Speaker 4: lot of these parents feel like I can't do like

1146
00:58:39,760 --> 00:58:42,040
Speaker 4: a media studies class with my kid, Like why is

1147
00:58:42,080 --> 00:58:43,840
Speaker 4: it my job? You know, I don't I don't have

1148
00:58:43,920 --> 00:58:46,520
Speaker 4: the and I totally they don't have the time. A

1149
00:58:46,520 --> 00:58:48,080
Speaker 4: lot of them are working two jobs. A lot of

1150
00:58:48,080 --> 00:58:51,040
Speaker 4: these you know kids are growing up in in households

1151
00:58:51,040 --> 00:58:53,080
Speaker 4: where both the parents work, they see them for an hour,

1152
00:58:53,480 --> 00:58:55,240
Speaker 4: you know. So what I would argue is for some

1153
00:58:55,280 --> 00:58:57,760
Speaker 4: sort of like public education system, especially with AI. We're

1154
00:58:57,760 --> 00:58:59,760
Speaker 4: seeing this a lot with AI, Like say you ban

1155
00:58:59,840 --> 00:59:02,680
Speaker 4: social media tomorrow, We're about to see this on steroids

1156
00:59:02,720 --> 00:59:07,280
Speaker 4: with AI. We need to reform our public education system.

1157
00:59:07,280 --> 00:59:11,160
Speaker 4: We need like national educational you know things, and maybe

1158
00:59:11,240 --> 00:59:13,360
Speaker 4: make the tech companies pay for it, you know, make

1159
00:59:13,360 --> 00:59:15,320
Speaker 4: the tech like tax them more. There are so many

1160
00:59:15,320 --> 00:59:18,320
Speaker 4: things that we can do to fix these problems. We

1161
00:59:18,320 --> 00:59:20,960
Speaker 4: can also pass comprehensive data privacy reform laws so that

1162
00:59:21,000 --> 00:59:24,240
Speaker 4: these young people are not getting as you say, like addicted,

1163
00:59:24,280 --> 00:59:26,760
Speaker 4: whatever you want to say. We know that this content

1164
00:59:26,800 --> 00:59:29,840
Speaker 4: is highly engaging. Part of the ways that that you know,

1165
00:59:29,880 --> 00:59:32,040
Speaker 4: these feeds are made so engaging is because they can

1166
00:59:32,120 --> 00:59:35,080
Speaker 4: hyper target you. You know, there's that famous story where

1167
00:59:35,560 --> 00:59:38,000
Speaker 4: target knew a child, a girl was pregnant before her

1168
00:59:38,040 --> 00:59:41,080
Speaker 4: own father. Right, Like, if we take that away, the

1169
00:59:41,120 --> 00:59:43,640
Speaker 4: content gets a lot less engaging because they can't target

1170
00:59:43,720 --> 00:59:44,600
Speaker 4: kids as aggressively.

1171
00:59:45,040 --> 00:59:49,800
Speaker 1: So do you think that maybe the algorithms need to

1172
00:59:49,840 --> 00:59:52,280
Speaker 1: be changed, Well, we don't want the worst, that's kind

1173
00:59:52,560 --> 00:59:55,040
Speaker 1: so I guess yeah. Or maybe there's not even a

1174
00:59:55,080 --> 00:59:56,120
Speaker 1: problem to solve. I don't know.

1175
00:59:56,400 --> 00:59:59,000
Speaker 4: No, there are definitely problems to solve, big problems, and

1176
00:59:59,000 --> 01:00:01,360
Speaker 4: there's a lot that we could do you to, I think,

1177
01:00:01,440 --> 01:00:04,360
Speaker 4: address all of the very legitimate concerns that parents have

1178
01:00:04,400 --> 01:00:06,640
Speaker 4: when they talk about this stuff, because it's really hard

1179
01:00:06,760 --> 01:00:10,840
Speaker 4: to raise kids today. I'm totally empathetic about that. We

1180
01:00:10,880 --> 01:00:14,000
Speaker 4: don't want top down government control of algorithms, like that's

1181
01:00:14,120 --> 01:00:17,280
Speaker 4: very silly. The Trump administration has said what they would

1182
01:00:17,320 --> 01:00:19,440
Speaker 4: do with that, and it's not good. But we do

1183
01:00:19,480 --> 01:00:21,840
Speaker 4: want to give users more control. So ironically, we were

1184
01:00:21,840 --> 01:00:25,320
Speaker 4: talking earlier when I first joined about blue Sky or Vocalon.

1185
01:00:25,880 --> 01:00:29,320
Speaker 4: There's this other model for the web that actually is

1186
01:00:29,440 --> 01:00:32,680
Speaker 4: gaining popularity, which is the fetaverse model. It's this model

1187
01:00:32,720 --> 01:00:36,320
Speaker 4: where essentially there's interoperability between platforms and there's a lot

1188
01:00:36,360 --> 01:00:38,760
Speaker 4: more user choice. With blue Sky or some of these

1189
01:00:38,760 --> 01:00:41,600
Speaker 4: other services, you can actually choose, you have control over

1190
01:00:41,640 --> 01:00:44,280
Speaker 4: the algorithm, you can tweak the algorithm, you can put

1191
01:00:44,280 --> 01:00:46,880
Speaker 4: a lot more user control, and parents can set a

1192
01:00:46,920 --> 01:00:50,760
Speaker 4: lot more controls things that these big tech platforms don't allow.

1193
01:00:51,480 --> 01:00:54,840
Speaker 4: There's no advertising as well on a lot of those alternatives,

1194
01:00:54,920 --> 01:00:58,400
Speaker 4: so they're just inherently less predatory. We could mandate that

1195
01:00:58,480 --> 01:01:01,600
Speaker 4: all of these social media platforms federate that you don't

1196
01:01:01,680 --> 01:01:03,960
Speaker 4: have to use Instagram. You know, maybe these kids, like

1197
01:01:04,120 --> 01:01:06,160
Speaker 4: they don't want to be left off totally socially, but

1198
01:01:06,200 --> 01:01:08,080
Speaker 4: maybe they use an alternative to Instagram, but they can

1199
01:01:08,120 --> 01:01:11,200
Speaker 4: still access certain parts, you know, certain content from Instagram

1200
01:01:11,240 --> 01:01:13,840
Speaker 4: that's fed into this alternative app that's in total gray

1201
01:01:13,880 --> 01:01:16,520
Speaker 4: scale and doesn't you know, just has a reverse crown

1202
01:01:16,600 --> 01:01:19,640
Speaker 4: feed or whatever. But it's about giving people choice because

1203
01:01:19,680 --> 01:01:23,080
Speaker 4: I don't think we want the government controlling content, and

1204
01:01:23,120 --> 01:01:25,440
Speaker 4: I don't think we want parents. Every child is different.

1205
01:01:25,520 --> 01:01:28,120
Speaker 4: What's appropriate for one child at fifteen is not appropriate

1206
01:01:28,160 --> 01:01:30,320
Speaker 4: for another child at fifteen, and we should trust parents

1207
01:01:30,520 --> 01:01:32,120
Speaker 4: and families to make those decisions.

1208
01:01:32,400 --> 01:01:34,360
Speaker 1: Yeah, I think that makes a lot of sense. And

1209
01:01:34,360 --> 01:01:38,160
Speaker 1: I hadn't heard of that different model, but that seems

1210
01:01:38,240 --> 01:01:40,360
Speaker 1: logical that parents should have some say in, like what

1211
01:01:40,520 --> 01:01:42,880
Speaker 1: is being fed to my kid, because right now it's

1212
01:01:42,920 --> 01:01:44,200
Speaker 1: just kind of like you log in and it's just

1213
01:01:44,200 --> 01:01:45,440
Speaker 1: what's going to happen happens?

1214
01:01:45,640 --> 01:01:47,840
Speaker 4: Well, it's like does your kid have Instagram? Yes or no?

1215
01:01:47,880 --> 01:01:50,560
Speaker 4: It's this binary thing and yeah, you can set teen accounts,

1216
01:01:50,560 --> 01:01:53,000
Speaker 4: but it's like there's not choices. What if we had

1217
01:01:53,560 --> 01:01:55,920
Speaker 4: twenty choices instead of Instagram that we're all really similar

1218
01:01:55,960 --> 01:01:57,720
Speaker 4: and kids could all connect, they could have the same

1219
01:01:57,760 --> 01:02:00,200
Speaker 4: social network on all of them. We can mandate, you know,

1220
01:02:00,480 --> 01:02:03,000
Speaker 4: changes to these companies. We can also say, hey, Meta,

1221
01:02:03,080 --> 01:02:05,760
Speaker 4: you continue to use the computer fraud and Abuse Act

1222
01:02:05,920 --> 01:02:09,520
Speaker 4: to shut down any and all competition. You can't do

1223
01:02:09,520 --> 01:02:11,680
Speaker 4: that anymore. We're reforming that law. That law was written

1224
01:02:11,680 --> 01:02:15,160
Speaker 4: in the nineteen eighties. You know. So I think there's

1225
01:02:15,200 --> 01:02:17,720
Speaker 4: just so many not to mention data privacy. There's just

1226
01:02:17,720 --> 01:02:19,840
Speaker 4: a lot that we could do that would that would

1227
01:02:20,360 --> 01:02:23,040
Speaker 4: you know, fix pretty much almost all of these problems.

1228
01:02:23,080 --> 01:02:25,040
Speaker 4: I'm willing to bet that parents kind of you know,

1229
01:02:25,120 --> 01:02:28,000
Speaker 4: think but putting making this dumb show trial where Meta

1230
01:02:28,040 --> 01:02:29,920
Speaker 4: pays six million dollars something they can make up in

1231
01:02:29,960 --> 01:02:33,280
Speaker 4: an instant and an abusive you know, parents are rewarded

1232
01:02:33,320 --> 01:02:36,160
Speaker 4: for nothing, Like we don't get any meaningful change from that.

1233
01:02:36,600 --> 01:02:39,479
Speaker 1: One of the big things that was highlighted in the case,

1234
01:02:39,520 --> 01:02:43,360
Speaker 1: and the argument was made around dopamine, which I feel

1235
01:02:43,360 --> 01:02:46,200
Speaker 1: like parents hear that dopamine has become the scary word.

1236
01:02:46,320 --> 01:02:48,520
Speaker 1: It's like you got to do a dopamine dtox where

1237
01:02:48,560 --> 01:02:52,720
Speaker 1: a dopamine nation walk us through some of the problems

1238
01:02:52,760 --> 01:02:52,960
Speaker 1: with that.

1239
01:02:53,280 --> 01:02:55,040
Speaker 4: It's very silly, you know. I was talking to a

1240
01:02:55,040 --> 01:02:59,160
Speaker 4: big time safety researcher recently about this idea of dopamine

1241
01:02:59,160 --> 01:03:02,200
Speaker 4: and she was saying, like, it's not based on anything,

1242
01:03:02,320 --> 01:03:04,840
Speaker 4: and like dopamine is actually pretty good. Like, you know,

1243
01:03:04,920 --> 01:03:07,120
Speaker 4: you get a lot of dopamine from snuggling puppies. If

1244
01:03:07,160 --> 01:03:09,240
Speaker 4: you were snuggling puppies for ten hours, you know, would

1245
01:03:09,240 --> 01:03:11,440
Speaker 4: that be harmful? No, she was saying that, like what

1246
01:03:11,560 --> 01:03:16,000
Speaker 4: she sees from her research is primarily that the sort

1247
01:03:16,040 --> 01:03:19,800
Speaker 4: of response that's elicited when when people scroll through these

1248
01:03:19,800 --> 01:03:22,760
Speaker 4: feeds is actually, sorry to say it, clavicular. I feel

1249
01:03:22,760 --> 01:03:25,720
Speaker 4: like the clavicular guy, but like it's a cortisol spike.

1250
01:03:26,240 --> 01:03:29,520
Speaker 4: So it's spiking your cortisol, which is keeping you hyper engaged.

1251
01:03:29,520 --> 01:03:32,040
Speaker 4: And what that is is actually a stress response. And

1252
01:03:32,120 --> 01:03:34,040
Speaker 4: I think we all feel that when we use our phone.

1253
01:03:34,080 --> 01:03:36,000
Speaker 4: I think if we were getting dopamine, which is like

1254
01:03:36,040 --> 01:03:38,240
Speaker 4: what we get from listening to a pleasurable song or

1255
01:03:38,280 --> 01:03:40,240
Speaker 4: like a great album. Right, Like that's why there's not

1256
01:03:40,280 --> 01:03:43,720
Speaker 4: the same moral panic about Spotify as there is you know, Meta,

1257
01:03:43,800 --> 01:03:46,520
Speaker 4: when Spotify actually has more of the addicting features that

1258
01:03:46,560 --> 01:03:48,680
Speaker 4: we put on trial. You know that put Meta on

1259
01:03:48,720 --> 01:03:51,280
Speaker 4: trial for But I think we're getting this stressful content,

1260
01:03:51,320 --> 01:03:53,960
Speaker 4: we're getting this stress response, and we want to mitigate that.

1261
01:03:54,240 --> 01:03:56,280
Speaker 4: But that's not dopamine, that's something else.

1262
01:03:56,400 --> 01:03:59,160
Speaker 1: Yeah, And so it's like, if we're penalizing anything that

1263
01:03:59,640 --> 01:04:02,840
Speaker 1: alters dopamine, all of a sudden, we've penalized every single

1264
01:04:02,840 --> 01:04:05,360
Speaker 1: thing we do in life. Because dopamine keeps us alive

1265
01:04:05,400 --> 01:04:07,000
Speaker 1: in many way. I mean, it motivates you to eat.

1266
01:04:07,480 --> 01:04:11,000
Speaker 1: It's also people who have Parkinson's have parkins isn't because

1267
01:04:11,000 --> 01:04:12,560
Speaker 1: they don't have enough dopamine. So if we're like, oh,

1268
01:04:12,560 --> 01:04:14,480
Speaker 1: we got to bring those dopamine levels down, now we're

1269
01:04:14,480 --> 01:04:19,040
Speaker 1: all going to have Parkinsons, it's very.

1270
01:04:18,880 --> 01:04:21,800
Speaker 4: Silly and it doesn't fix the fundamental problem, which is that,

1271
01:04:21,880 --> 01:04:24,480
Speaker 4: like we have these big structural issues with the Internet

1272
01:04:24,520 --> 01:04:27,840
Speaker 4: that we could fix. We could build a more open, equitable,

1273
01:04:27,960 --> 01:04:30,960
Speaker 4: less profit driven internet that's more competitive, it gives that

1274
01:04:31,040 --> 01:04:34,640
Speaker 4: puts users back in control. But instead we're like down

1275
01:04:34,640 --> 01:04:37,360
Speaker 4: this other weird path. And we've been down these paths

1276
01:04:37,400 --> 01:04:39,360
Speaker 4: before too, you know, we see again, we see it

1277
01:04:39,400 --> 01:04:41,680
Speaker 4: with every new form of technology. I just think we're

1278
01:04:41,680 --> 01:04:43,720
Speaker 4: at a very scary point right now because these people,

1279
01:04:44,720 --> 01:04:47,200
Speaker 4: these people have gotten pretty far in their political effort

1280
01:04:47,240 --> 01:04:49,080
Speaker 4: and there are some pretty scary laws that they want

1281
01:04:49,080 --> 01:04:49,480
Speaker 4: to pass.

1282
01:04:49,720 --> 01:04:51,160
Speaker 1: All Right, So we've talked a lot about kids in

1283
01:04:51,200 --> 01:04:55,560
Speaker 1: social media. How is it affecting or maybe not affecting adults.

1284
01:04:56,320 --> 01:04:58,320
Speaker 4: Yeah, I think, you know, when we look at adults,

1285
01:04:58,320 --> 01:05:02,320
Speaker 4: often adults have more or unhealthy behavior around the internet

1286
01:05:02,480 --> 01:05:05,040
Speaker 4: than children. This goes back to this idea of like

1287
01:05:05,120 --> 01:05:08,280
Speaker 4: people that didn't grow up native to this technology often

1288
01:05:08,640 --> 01:05:12,520
Speaker 4: struggle to navigate it and navigate it in a healthy way.

1289
01:05:12,520 --> 01:05:14,640
Speaker 4: This is why you have a lot of boomers that

1290
01:05:14,680 --> 01:05:17,520
Speaker 4: are like on Facebook all the time, over sharing, using

1291
01:05:17,600 --> 01:05:20,800
Speaker 4: it in bad ways. Or parents, you know, they'll chastise

1292
01:05:20,840 --> 01:05:22,880
Speaker 4: their kids for being on their phones, but they're also

1293
01:05:23,000 --> 01:05:24,840
Speaker 4: on their phones. It's so hard for a lot of

1294
01:05:24,840 --> 01:05:27,680
Speaker 4: adults to stay off their phones, so you know, the

1295
01:05:27,720 --> 01:05:30,720
Speaker 4: same with children. There is no evidence that that social

1296
01:05:30,800 --> 01:05:32,560
Speaker 4: media or the Internet is causing some sort of like

1297
01:05:32,600 --> 01:05:36,880
Speaker 4: widespread mental health crisis among adults at all, but a

1298
01:05:36,880 --> 01:05:40,000
Speaker 4: lot of adults do use it in unhealthy ways, and

1299
01:05:40,040 --> 01:05:43,320
Speaker 4: I think exacerbate whatever issues they have, whether it's insecurity

1300
01:05:43,480 --> 01:05:46,680
Speaker 4: or you know bad you know, having bad mental health

1301
01:05:46,720 --> 01:05:49,720
Speaker 4: or whatever they're you know, sometimes they're just wasting time

1302
01:05:49,760 --> 01:05:51,280
Speaker 4: on it, right and it feels like a time suck.

1303
01:05:51,320 --> 01:05:53,440
Speaker 4: It's like you watched like TV for five hours, you know,

1304
01:05:53,440 --> 01:05:57,200
Speaker 4: I remember before, you know, before the days of social media.

1305
01:05:57,200 --> 01:05:58,800
Speaker 4: I would watch a lot more television and it's like

1306
01:05:58,840 --> 01:06:01,320
Speaker 4: you feel like you just lost dat out. So I

1307
01:06:01,320 --> 01:06:03,600
Speaker 4: think the good thing about being an adult is that

1308
01:06:03,640 --> 01:06:06,280
Speaker 4: you have a lot more control over your life.

1309
01:06:06,360 --> 01:06:12,360
Speaker 1: And totally with like the boomer thing. My like, my

1310
01:06:12,600 --> 01:06:17,760
Speaker 1: mom and my wife's parents use their phones way more

1311
01:06:17,920 --> 01:06:20,640
Speaker 1: than anyone else I know. And I think, isn't there

1312
01:06:20,720 --> 01:06:23,560
Speaker 1: data that shows that older people spend the most time

1313
01:06:23,560 --> 01:06:24,080
Speaker 1: on their phones?

1314
01:06:24,400 --> 01:06:28,160
Speaker 4: Yes? Yes, older people spend inordinate amount of time on

1315
01:06:28,200 --> 01:06:30,880
Speaker 4: their phone and social media and are a lot more

1316
01:06:30,960 --> 01:06:33,600
Speaker 4: likely to like overshare, Like they overshare a lot. I

1317
01:06:33,640 --> 01:06:36,040
Speaker 4: think they don't have like a good idea of boundaries.

1318
01:06:36,040 --> 01:06:38,000
Speaker 4: So yeah, got to get to old p Maybe we

1319
01:06:38,040 --> 01:06:40,240
Speaker 4: need an over sixty ban on the internet, you know,

1320
01:06:40,320 --> 01:06:42,760
Speaker 4: maybe let's pass that before we ban you know, everyone

1321
01:06:42,840 --> 01:06:43,480
Speaker 4: under sixteen.

1322
01:06:43,920 --> 01:06:46,960
Speaker 1: There you go. That should be your next big piece

1323
01:06:47,440 --> 01:06:50,480
Speaker 1: why we should why we should put age limits on

1324
01:06:50,800 --> 01:06:52,200
Speaker 1: boomers on social media?

1325
01:06:52,240 --> 01:06:54,480
Speaker 4: No one in Congress will be able to access the web.

1326
01:06:55,240 --> 01:06:59,000
Speaker 1: And with the research on social media and mental health,

1327
01:06:59,080 --> 01:07:01,720
Speaker 1: whether it's kids, whether it's adults, I think a lot

1328
01:07:01,720 --> 01:07:05,160
Speaker 1: of people see headlines about study finds social media use

1329
01:07:05,280 --> 01:07:07,720
Speaker 1: does X y Z, but a lot of those studies

1330
01:07:07,720 --> 01:07:08,320
Speaker 1: have flaws.

1331
01:07:08,640 --> 01:07:12,200
Speaker 4: Yeah, there's this great headline of a story that came

1332
01:07:12,200 --> 01:07:15,280
Speaker 4: out years ago that was not every study on like

1333
01:07:15,320 --> 01:07:18,280
Speaker 4: depression and social media is bad, only most of them,

1334
01:07:18,880 --> 01:07:21,800
Speaker 4: and it was actually talking mostly about like these teen studies.

1335
01:07:21,840 --> 01:07:24,920
Speaker 4: But it's kind of true. Universally. There was this book

1336
01:07:25,040 --> 01:07:27,720
Speaker 4: called The Anxious Generation written by this man Jonathan Height,

1337
01:07:27,960 --> 01:07:32,280
Speaker 4: that used effectively almost entirely like debunked or deeply sort

1338
01:07:32,280 --> 01:07:34,760
Speaker 4: of like mischaracterized studies. So there's a lot of bad

1339
01:07:34,760 --> 01:07:36,800
Speaker 4: stuff out there. You can make a study that finds

1340
01:07:36,800 --> 01:07:39,720
Speaker 4: anything right, and so I hate when people are like,

1341
01:07:39,720 --> 01:07:41,800
Speaker 4: but what about this study, And it's like, well, there's

1342
01:07:41,840 --> 01:07:43,800
Speaker 4: tons of limitations and that's a bad study. But what

1343
01:07:43,840 --> 01:07:46,040
Speaker 4: we know from the meta analysis, which are basically like

1344
01:07:46,080 --> 01:07:48,640
Speaker 4: studies that study all the studies, is that there is

1345
01:07:48,680 --> 01:07:50,880
Speaker 4: no causal effect. So it just goes back to the

1346
01:07:50,920 --> 01:07:54,080
Speaker 4: same thing that we're seeing with teens. Social media use

1347
01:07:54,200 --> 01:07:57,439
Speaker 4: is like a symptom of whatever. The underlying like root

1348
01:07:57,880 --> 01:08:00,200
Speaker 4: issue is that you're having or maybe you're having using

1349
01:08:00,200 --> 01:08:01,680
Speaker 4: it in a positive way, right, But if you're using

1350
01:08:01,680 --> 01:08:05,000
Speaker 4: a negative way, it's the behavior that you're engaged in

1351
01:08:05,280 --> 01:08:08,000
Speaker 4: because of some root issue. And I think that's what's

1352
01:08:08,080 --> 01:08:11,680
Speaker 4: so important to note, is that cause because this has

1353
01:08:11,720 --> 01:08:14,080
Speaker 4: been a very studied area. Again, like there's this you know,

1354
01:08:14,240 --> 01:08:17,720
Speaker 4: this is their people like Alice Marwick, Candas Adgers who

1355
01:08:17,760 --> 01:08:20,280
Speaker 4: people can look up I highly suggest, you know, reading

1356
01:08:20,320 --> 01:08:21,840
Speaker 4: their work on this. Like these are people that have

1357
01:08:21,840 --> 01:08:25,120
Speaker 4: studied this stuff for literal decades, since the early two thousands.

1358
01:08:25,680 --> 01:08:30,000
Speaker 1: So when you talk to anyone about social media and

1359
01:08:30,040 --> 01:08:32,400
Speaker 1: I feel like they use it too much and they've

1360
01:08:32,439 --> 01:08:34,160
Speaker 1: got a problem with it. And I know you're not

1361
01:08:34,200 --> 01:08:36,400
Speaker 1: a clinician, but I feel like you've talked to enough

1362
01:08:36,439 --> 01:08:37,920
Speaker 1: people that I can trust your advice. Here, what do

1363
01:08:37,960 --> 01:08:38,479
Speaker 1: you tell them?

1364
01:08:39,320 --> 01:08:42,040
Speaker 4: So I think of this guy Ian Anderson who is

1365
01:08:42,160 --> 01:08:45,680
Speaker 4: a habit researcher at Caltech, and it's him and I

1366
01:08:45,720 --> 01:08:49,120
Speaker 4: can't remember his colleague. They did this great, big study

1367
01:08:49,120 --> 01:08:53,360
Speaker 4: that came out last fall where they studied this idea

1368
01:08:53,439 --> 01:08:56,080
Speaker 4: of addiction and they studied kind of how it was

1369
01:08:56,080 --> 01:08:58,400
Speaker 4: affecting use. And again this is a guy who has

1370
01:08:58,400 --> 01:09:00,960
Speaker 4: a PhD and like habit behavior, Like there are people

1371
01:09:00,960 --> 01:09:02,360
Speaker 4: that like study this stuft for a living and they

1372
01:09:02,360 --> 01:09:04,920
Speaker 4: were really interested in this. And what they found is

1373
01:09:04,920 --> 01:09:08,360
Speaker 4: that actually the more that a user believed that they

1374
01:09:08,360 --> 01:09:11,760
Speaker 4: were addicted to a platform, the harder it was for

1375
01:09:11,840 --> 01:09:15,880
Speaker 4: them to moderate their own use. And you know, so

1376
01:09:16,240 --> 01:09:18,160
Speaker 4: I think that we get all these narratives and we

1377
01:09:18,240 --> 01:09:20,360
Speaker 4: convince ourselves like, oh, I'm so addicted to Instagram, so

1378
01:09:20,360 --> 01:09:22,400
Speaker 4: addicted to Instagram. What I would tell people is like

1379
01:09:22,600 --> 01:09:25,439
Speaker 4: that narrative that you're telling yourself actually makes it harder

1380
01:09:25,439 --> 01:09:28,559
Speaker 4: for you to take control. We all have bad habits,

1381
01:09:28,560 --> 01:09:31,679
Speaker 4: we all have unhealthy behavior as things we want to change.

1382
01:09:31,680 --> 01:09:32,960
Speaker 4: We want to go to the gym more, we want

1383
01:09:33,000 --> 01:09:35,200
Speaker 4: to eat less sweets, we want to whatever. But we

1384
01:09:35,240 --> 01:09:37,960
Speaker 4: need to we need to start like looking at those

1385
01:09:37,960 --> 01:09:40,560
Speaker 4: things differently, making micro changes. I mean some of I

1386
01:09:40,560 --> 01:09:43,720
Speaker 4: would argue that those people should get involved in politics

1387
01:09:43,720 --> 01:09:45,679
Speaker 4: and fight for some of these laws. But in the meantime,

1388
01:09:45,760 --> 01:09:48,120
Speaker 4: like you know, do what you can, but view it

1389
01:09:48,160 --> 01:09:49,960
Speaker 4: as a habit like anything else. But you know, there

1390
01:09:49,960 --> 01:09:51,760
Speaker 4: are a lot of other people that install these sort

1391
01:09:51,760 --> 01:09:53,479
Speaker 4: of like blockers, these attend you know, there are a

1392
01:09:53,520 --> 01:09:56,400
Speaker 4: lot of like apps that can help you kind of mitiga.

1393
01:09:56,520 --> 01:09:58,679
Speaker 4: Maybe you get a different phone. I know people even

1394
01:09:58,680 --> 01:10:00,800
Speaker 4: have like these weekend phones now that they activate on

1395
01:10:00,800 --> 01:10:02,920
Speaker 4: the flip phone only on the weekend. Like you know, figure,

1396
01:10:03,080 --> 01:10:05,760
Speaker 4: you do kind of the best that you can, but

1397
01:10:05,800 --> 01:10:07,920
Speaker 4: it's harder and harder. I mean I talk to parents too,

1398
01:10:07,960 --> 01:10:10,040
Speaker 4: where like I think of that viral tweet of the girl,

1399
01:10:10,360 --> 01:10:11,920
Speaker 4: you know, she was banned from her or her mom

1400
01:10:11,960 --> 01:10:14,320
Speaker 4: took away like her iPads, so she started tweeting from

1401
01:10:14,360 --> 01:10:18,280
Speaker 4: her smart fridge. We have vapes now, the swipe vape,

1402
01:10:18,280 --> 01:10:19,920
Speaker 4: which has a little screen which lets you go on

1403
01:10:19,920 --> 01:10:21,439
Speaker 4: social media from your vape.

1404
01:10:21,760 --> 01:10:24,559
Speaker 1: Oh wow, I mean, why do one vice when you

1405
01:10:24,560 --> 01:10:27,320
Speaker 1: could just layer on another one, Like let's just pack

1406
01:10:27,360 --> 01:10:28,960
Speaker 1: them on. Maybe we could turn that into a cup.

1407
01:10:29,040 --> 01:10:30,440
Speaker 1: You can fill it up with booze.

1408
01:10:31,200 --> 01:10:33,560
Speaker 4: It's bad, but it's like we're living in this like

1409
01:10:33,640 --> 01:10:36,360
Speaker 4: internet enabled world and it's getting harder and harder. And

1410
01:10:36,400 --> 01:10:39,479
Speaker 4: like parents, I know, it's so hard and it's so

1411
01:10:39,600 --> 01:10:41,880
Speaker 4: unfair that so much is falling on parents right now.

1412
01:10:41,920 --> 01:10:44,479
Speaker 4: But what I would say is, like expose your kids

1413
01:10:44,520 --> 01:10:47,439
Speaker 4: this stuff in like young like healthy ways when they're young,

1414
01:10:47,479 --> 01:10:49,599
Speaker 4: and teach them to moderate their use when they're young.

1415
01:10:49,760 --> 01:10:52,800
Speaker 4: Don't stigmatize it when you talk to kids too. The

1416
01:10:52,840 --> 01:10:55,280
Speaker 4: primary way that young people use social media, and I

1417
01:10:55,320 --> 01:10:58,400
Speaker 4: know that like everybody thinks it's scrolling short form video.

1418
01:10:59,040 --> 01:11:01,880
Speaker 4: According to Adam's right Instagram, it's actually dming each other.

1419
01:11:02,000 --> 01:11:04,960
Speaker 4: It's chat. That's why snapchat is so popular. It's chat.

1420
01:11:05,200 --> 01:11:08,320
Speaker 4: So these kids are desperate for social connection, They're desperate

1421
01:11:08,400 --> 01:11:11,200
Speaker 4: to feel belonging. They want to explore their interests. Give

1422
01:11:11,240 --> 01:11:13,360
Speaker 4: them other avenues to do that and they won't be

1423
01:11:13,360 --> 01:11:14,280
Speaker 4: on their screen so much.

1424
01:11:14,600 --> 01:11:16,559
Speaker 1: Yeah, And I think when I've thought about my own

1425
01:11:17,000 --> 01:11:20,400
Speaker 1: relationship with social media, what's helped me is to pull

1426
01:11:20,439 --> 01:11:23,519
Speaker 1: back and go, what about this do I think is

1427
01:11:23,520 --> 01:11:26,599
Speaker 1: not helping me? What about this is actually a positive

1428
01:11:26,640 --> 01:11:29,360
Speaker 1: in my life? And for me to sort of line

1429
01:11:29,439 --> 01:11:32,639
Speaker 1: up with what you just said, positives are the dms.

1430
01:11:33,240 --> 01:11:35,800
Speaker 1: It's like, I've met awesome people on Instagram that I

1431
01:11:35,800 --> 01:11:37,920
Speaker 1: would have never met in real life, and we've got

1432
01:11:37,920 --> 01:11:40,320
Speaker 1: these crazy long DM chains. I've never met these people

1433
01:11:40,320 --> 01:11:42,640
Speaker 1: in real life, but I'm like, oh, this person's a

1434
01:11:42,640 --> 01:11:44,479
Speaker 1: great friend. Yeah, we just share, like we got a

1435
01:11:44,560 --> 01:11:49,000
Speaker 1: niche video, like you know that we share. It's more

1436
01:11:49,120 --> 01:11:51,880
Speaker 1: just the The problem becomes when I get out of

1437
01:11:51,920 --> 01:11:55,000
Speaker 1: the dms and then I start swiping mindlessly and I go,

1438
01:11:55,040 --> 01:11:56,960
Speaker 1: oh my god, twenty minutes have gone by and you're

1439
01:11:56,960 --> 01:11:59,040
Speaker 1: on a deadline, dude, Like, don't do that. But I

1440
01:11:59,040 --> 01:12:07,000
Speaker 1: think sort of observation is the first step to changing something.

1441
01:12:07,040 --> 01:12:09,040
Speaker 1: You've got to be aware of where the problem lies.

1442
01:12:09,040 --> 01:12:12,439
Speaker 1: Because I think these things are they come with benefits

1443
01:12:12,520 --> 01:12:14,160
Speaker 1: or else we would never use them. If there was

1444
01:12:14,200 --> 01:12:16,720
Speaker 1: no benefits behind social media, no one would be on it.

1445
01:12:16,800 --> 01:12:19,600
Speaker 1: So drilling down, Okay, well what is the benefit I

1446
01:12:19,600 --> 01:12:20,800
Speaker 1: think can be useful.

1447
01:12:20,800 --> 01:12:23,760
Speaker 4: One hundred and like what are you actually seeking out

1448
01:12:23,760 --> 01:12:27,680
Speaker 4: of it? And what content like isn't serving you? You know,

1449
01:12:27,760 --> 01:12:29,479
Speaker 4: like what are you reacting to in the minute, and

1450
01:12:29,520 --> 01:12:31,559
Speaker 4: like changing your algorithm a little bit. Like we've all

1451
01:12:31,640 --> 01:12:33,920
Speaker 4: kind of learned these behaviors of like when I see

1452
01:12:33,960 --> 01:12:35,360
Speaker 4: a bunch of bad stuff, it's like, okay, I got

1453
01:12:35,360 --> 01:12:37,719
Speaker 4: to go like some x y Z videos and hopefully

1454
01:12:37,720 --> 01:12:39,000
Speaker 4: get some of that on my feed, you know. But

1455
01:12:39,160 --> 01:12:41,519
Speaker 4: use the tools that you can mute the people that

1456
01:12:41,560 --> 01:12:43,920
Speaker 4: you need to mute. Do the best you can. It's

1457
01:12:44,040 --> 01:12:46,519
Speaker 4: very hard. That's why I would argue we need sort

1458
01:12:46,520 --> 01:12:49,560
Speaker 4: of some of these top level fixes. But until we

1459
01:12:49,600 --> 01:12:51,800
Speaker 4: get those top level fixes, I very much support people

1460
01:12:51,840 --> 01:12:53,919
Speaker 4: kind of just doing whatever they can totally.

1461
01:12:53,960 --> 01:12:55,479
Speaker 1: All right, We're going to start to land the plane

1462
01:12:55,560 --> 01:13:00,200
Speaker 1: pivot into a totally new lane. You've covered the Internet,

1463
01:13:00,320 --> 01:13:04,320
Speaker 1: online worlds, your entire career. Looks maxing is a thing,

1464
01:13:04,720 --> 01:13:08,880
Speaker 1: and just last night, Clovicular it's kind of the looks

1465
01:13:08,920 --> 01:13:12,439
Speaker 1: Maxing King supposedly might have odeed. What is your sense

1466
01:13:12,479 --> 01:13:15,599
Speaker 1: on the looks maxing community and what is going on there?

1467
01:13:16,000 --> 01:13:16,360
Speaker 2: Yeah?

1468
01:13:16,479 --> 01:13:20,759
Speaker 4: I think it's, you know, this outgrowth of like broader

1469
01:13:20,800 --> 01:13:25,520
Speaker 4: trendsing culture towards like sort of self optimization, so like documenting,

1470
01:13:25,520 --> 01:13:27,880
Speaker 4: live streaming every aspect of your life, tracking like the

1471
01:13:27,920 --> 01:13:31,880
Speaker 4: Brian Johnson kind of like tracking everything to Also, you know,

1472
01:13:31,920 --> 01:13:34,880
Speaker 4: I've seen people just be like Clivicular is just sort

1473
01:13:34,920 --> 01:13:38,040
Speaker 4: of appropriating like women's culture. We like we've been looks

1474
01:13:38,080 --> 01:13:41,040
Speaker 4: maxing forever, like gay male culture, Like it's just being

1475
01:13:41,040 --> 01:13:44,520
Speaker 4: brought to straight men now. You know, for him specifically,

1476
01:13:44,720 --> 01:13:47,640
Speaker 4: I feel very sad for him because this guy is

1477
01:13:47,680 --> 01:13:50,000
Speaker 4: a twenty year old. You know, he's spoken about being

1478
01:13:50,040 --> 01:13:53,160
Speaker 4: like extremely neurodivergent and having a really hard time finding friends.

1479
01:13:53,640 --> 01:13:55,960
Speaker 4: And I think the bad thing about the current like

1480
01:13:56,000 --> 01:13:58,639
Speaker 4: algorithmic internet that we all live in now that rewards

1481
01:13:58,680 --> 01:14:01,679
Speaker 4: attention and over everything else is like I don't think

1482
01:14:01,720 --> 01:14:05,160
Speaker 4: that this kid is served by live streaming his life

1483
01:14:05,240 --> 01:14:07,920
Speaker 4: twenty four to seven with these other like kickstreamers. I feel.

1484
01:14:07,920 --> 01:14:10,400
Speaker 4: So I'm like, I hope his parents can like get

1485
01:14:10,439 --> 01:14:12,880
Speaker 4: him out of whatever, you know, system that he's in.

1486
01:14:12,920 --> 01:14:16,280
Speaker 4: But but yeah, he's gotten I mean, he talked so

1487
01:14:16,360 --> 01:14:20,679
Speaker 4: he got out of the hospital this morning. He talked

1488
01:14:20,680 --> 01:14:23,639
Speaker 4: about the fact that he basically takes drugs to cope

1489
01:14:23,640 --> 01:14:26,000
Speaker 4: with being neurodiversent, because it's hard for him to stream

1490
01:14:26,040 --> 01:14:28,680
Speaker 4: fourteen hours a day with you know, the way he is,

1491
01:14:29,040 --> 01:14:32,559
Speaker 4: and so he took this sort of toxic cocktail of drugs.

1492
01:14:32,560 --> 01:14:35,320
Speaker 4: He's also on peptides. He's also talked about doing meth

1493
01:14:36,000 --> 01:14:36,959
Speaker 4: things like that.

1494
01:14:36,960 --> 01:14:39,120
Speaker 1: That almost feels that almost goes back to what we

1495
01:14:39,120 --> 01:14:42,559
Speaker 1: were talking about earlier, where most I mean, we'll just

1496
01:14:42,640 --> 01:14:44,040
Speaker 1: use the word addiction because it's easy.

1497
01:14:44,160 --> 01:14:44,880
Speaker 4: Yeah, yeah, yeah.

1498
01:14:44,960 --> 01:14:49,520
Speaker 1: Most addiction stems from trying to solve an inherent, underlying

1499
01:14:49,560 --> 01:14:51,280
Speaker 1: problem in a person's life.

1500
01:14:51,439 --> 01:14:53,519
Speaker 4: Yeah, you know, it's interesting. I talked to a lot

1501
01:14:53,520 --> 01:14:55,880
Speaker 4: of people in the Looksmacks or community, and a lot

1502
01:14:55,880 --> 01:14:58,800
Speaker 4: of people that were actually like taking courses from people

1503
01:14:58,800 --> 01:15:01,720
Speaker 4: like clivicular and like smaller people, and so many of

1504
01:15:01,760 --> 01:15:04,080
Speaker 4: these young men. Like the reason they're turning to looks

1505
01:15:04,120 --> 01:15:06,360
Speaker 4: Maxing is because they feel like they don't have any

1506
01:15:06,360 --> 01:15:09,479
Speaker 4: sort of economic mobility, they don't feel any sort of

1507
01:15:09,560 --> 01:15:14,160
Speaker 4: agency over their lives, and so taking agency over the

1508
01:15:14,160 --> 01:15:16,360
Speaker 4: way that you look is this way to kind of

1509
01:15:16,400 --> 01:15:19,200
Speaker 4: like establish autonomy and feel a sense of control. This

1510
01:15:19,280 --> 01:15:20,800
Speaker 4: is also how a lot of women end up with

1511
01:15:20,920 --> 01:15:24,800
Speaker 4: serious eating disorders. It's this like desire for control and

1512
01:15:24,920 --> 01:15:28,880
Speaker 4: autonomy and like exerting that control in unhealthy ways. And

1513
01:15:29,600 --> 01:15:31,840
Speaker 4: I think that like, if we want to address like

1514
01:15:31,880 --> 01:15:34,080
Speaker 4: the looks maxing and all of these sort of like

1515
01:15:34,200 --> 01:15:37,560
Speaker 4: unhealthy things, we need to have like again broader conversations

1516
01:15:37,600 --> 01:15:39,320
Speaker 4: about like what is it that is making these men

1517
01:15:39,360 --> 01:15:43,599
Speaker 4: feel so hopeless and nihilistic about the world, and how

1518
01:15:43,600 --> 01:15:46,960
Speaker 4: do we mitigate that? Because it's like, yes, social media

1519
01:15:47,000 --> 01:15:50,240
Speaker 4: exacerbates it, but actually the worst uh sort of places

1520
01:15:50,280 --> 01:15:53,519
Speaker 4: where these places, you know, the places where these men

1521
01:15:53,680 --> 01:15:56,760
Speaker 4: get radicalized and all of this hate is fomented are

1522
01:15:56,960 --> 01:16:00,000
Speaker 4: are forums like looks max dot org that are not algorithmics.

1523
01:16:00,080 --> 01:16:02,600
Speaker 4: They're like old school forums, and so it's like you

1524
01:16:02,640 --> 01:16:04,639
Speaker 4: could ban social media and stuff, but they're they're actually

1525
01:16:04,680 --> 01:16:07,880
Speaker 4: getting radicalized in it like very nineteen nineties kind of

1526
01:16:07,920 --> 01:16:11,200
Speaker 4: like format. So you can't just blame the algorithms, like

1527
01:16:11,240 --> 01:16:13,040
Speaker 4: you need to go a little deeper and be like,

1528
01:16:13,080 --> 01:16:17,880
Speaker 4: what is making young men turn to these coping mechanisms and,

1529
01:16:17,920 --> 01:16:22,840
Speaker 4: like you said, unhealthy stuff, whether it's I think drugs, alcohol, going,

1530
01:16:22,920 --> 01:16:26,240
Speaker 4: you know, bone smashing, whatever, you know, it's all sort

1531
01:16:26,240 --> 01:16:27,280
Speaker 4: of like maladapting.

1532
01:16:27,439 --> 01:16:29,960
Speaker 1: Yeah, and that's where it gets really complicated. And so

1533
01:16:30,439 --> 01:16:32,919
Speaker 1: with what we've just been talking about now, it's easier

1534
01:16:32,960 --> 01:16:36,599
Speaker 1: for politicians these different groups to just be like, oh,

1535
01:16:36,600 --> 01:16:39,439
Speaker 1: it's the social media, it's not all these million other

1536
01:16:39,479 --> 01:16:41,080
Speaker 1: things happening in people's lives.

1537
01:16:41,479 --> 01:16:43,519
Speaker 4: Yeah, it's not the fact that young men, you know,

1538
01:16:44,240 --> 01:16:48,080
Speaker 4: have seen like average wages decrease for you know, so

1539
01:16:48,120 --> 01:16:50,760
Speaker 4: many years, or they watch their parents struggle economically, their

1540
01:16:50,880 --> 01:16:53,800
Speaker 4: entire childhood was defined by the financial crisis, they feel,

1541
01:16:54,120 --> 01:16:56,639
Speaker 4: you know, I did a bunch of stories back when

1542
01:16:56,640 --> 01:16:57,960
Speaker 4: I was at the New York Times in twenty twenty

1543
01:16:57,960 --> 01:17:02,400
Speaker 4: one on Wall Street bets and crypto and speculative kind

1544
01:17:02,400 --> 01:17:05,040
Speaker 4: of I mean effectively gambling. I would say, with these

1545
01:17:05,080 --> 01:17:08,080
Speaker 4: like meme coins and meme stocks, and a lot of

1546
01:17:08,080 --> 01:17:10,560
Speaker 4: those kids have ended up in the looksmaxing sort of

1547
01:17:10,600 --> 01:17:12,960
Speaker 4: community and adjacent communities, and they're all there's a lot

1548
01:17:12,960 --> 01:17:17,160
Speaker 4: of overlap between the like meme coin crypto world, and

1549
01:17:17,200 --> 01:17:21,160
Speaker 4: it's just nihilism. It's basically like the entire economic system

1550
01:17:21,200 --> 01:17:24,840
Speaker 4: in America is a lottery. Anyway, what's the point of

1551
01:17:25,000 --> 01:17:26,680
Speaker 4: you know, investing. There is no such thing as like

1552
01:17:26,720 --> 01:17:28,720
Speaker 4: working for forty years for a stable company. There is

1553
01:17:28,760 --> 01:17:30,960
Speaker 4: no stability in the world. And I get it, Like,

1554
01:17:31,000 --> 01:17:33,640
Speaker 4: these are kids that grew up. Donald Trump, you know,

1555
01:17:34,280 --> 01:17:36,840
Speaker 4: has had a political career for like ten years, so

1556
01:17:36,880 --> 01:17:39,639
Speaker 4: it's they sort of have primarily known him as our president.

1557
01:17:40,840 --> 01:17:43,160
Speaker 4: They had COVID, they have you know, it's like there's

1558
01:17:43,200 --> 01:17:46,120
Speaker 4: a lot of upheaval that they've witnessed, and so I

1559
01:17:46,160 --> 01:17:49,840
Speaker 4: think they just this is how they're kind of, you know,

1560
01:17:50,400 --> 01:17:51,160
Speaker 4: reacting to that.

1561
01:17:51,560 --> 01:17:55,120
Speaker 1: Yeah, all right, final question, this is a more positive question. Yeah,

1562
01:17:55,240 --> 01:17:57,479
Speaker 1: you've been a vegan for a long time, right, Yeah,

1563
01:17:57,600 --> 01:17:58,559
Speaker 1: what have you learned from that?

1564
01:18:00,080 --> 01:18:02,479
Speaker 4: You know, it's given me a lot of empathy. Like

1565
01:18:02,680 --> 01:18:07,200
Speaker 4: I was thinking of this recently. I used to be

1566
01:18:07,360 --> 01:18:09,760
Speaker 4: extremely militant about it when I was young, and like

1567
01:18:09,760 --> 01:18:12,160
Speaker 4: really moral, like really annoying. I was like the one

1568
01:18:12,200 --> 01:18:14,639
Speaker 4: that was like most people, I'm surprising, you know. I actually,

1569
01:18:14,840 --> 01:18:17,200
Speaker 4: like I've bringing up sometimes we don't have it like

1570
01:18:17,240 --> 01:18:20,320
Speaker 4: in my bio and stuff. And if you want to

1571
01:18:20,320 --> 01:18:22,559
Speaker 4: go talk about toxicity on the internet, nothing is more

1572
01:18:22,600 --> 01:18:25,880
Speaker 4: toxic than like the vegan communities online. And like so

1573
01:18:26,000 --> 01:18:29,759
Speaker 4: much of my early Internet experience was being that person

1574
01:18:29,840 --> 01:18:32,280
Speaker 4: online that was like the fourteen year old like, you know,

1575
01:18:32,840 --> 01:18:36,280
Speaker 4: being like you're a murderer. You're doing you know, genocide

1576
01:18:36,320 --> 01:18:39,960
Speaker 4: of the chickens, and you should die, and you know,

1577
01:18:40,080 --> 01:18:42,280
Speaker 4: and and I think like the older I get, the

1578
01:18:42,280 --> 01:18:44,000
Speaker 4: more I realized that, like we all just make these

1579
01:18:44,000 --> 01:18:47,080
Speaker 4: sort of like ethical trade offs and decisions in life

1580
01:18:47,120 --> 01:18:49,360
Speaker 4: and how to live life, and and you kind of

1581
01:18:49,400 --> 01:18:51,160
Speaker 4: just have to do the best you can and accept

1582
01:18:51,160 --> 01:18:54,599
Speaker 4: that like I'm flawed. I'm not living perfectly. This other

1583
01:18:54,640 --> 01:18:56,800
Speaker 4: person is living perfectly, but like let's just all kind

1584
01:18:56,840 --> 01:18:59,720
Speaker 4: of like work together to have a better society and

1585
01:18:59,720 --> 01:19:01,000
Speaker 4: not be it's black and white. And you know what,

1586
01:19:01,000 --> 01:19:03,000
Speaker 4: if you want to eat twenty percent less meat, like

1587
01:19:03,160 --> 01:19:07,960
Speaker 4: that's that's good for the world, I would argue.

1588
01:19:06,600 --> 01:19:09,600
Speaker 1: So that's a positive. That's a positive note to end on.

1589
01:19:09,800 --> 01:19:13,400
Speaker 1: I like that empathy for people and being accepting and open.

1590
01:19:14,080 --> 01:19:16,679
Speaker 4: Yeah, try not to rage tweet, you know.

1591
01:19:17,000 --> 01:19:19,479
Speaker 1: Try not to rage tweet. That's a good rule to

1592
01:19:19,520 --> 01:19:22,360
Speaker 1: live by. Well, Taylor, I appreciate you coming on.

1593
01:19:22,439 --> 01:19:24,880
Speaker 4: This is awesomes Thanks for having me. This was fun.

1594
01:19:26,280 --> 01:19:28,479
Speaker 1: All right, let's land the plane. Here. We heard from

1595
01:19:28,520 --> 01:19:32,519
Speaker 1: Dean Statman about why alcohol in moderation can be a

1596
01:19:32,520 --> 01:19:35,519
Speaker 1: good thing in some circumstances, and we talked to Taylor

1597
01:19:35,600 --> 01:19:39,320
Speaker 1: Lorenz who told us that maybe all of this moral

1598
01:19:39,360 --> 01:19:42,200
Speaker 1: panic over social media is overblown and there are ways

1599
01:19:42,200 --> 01:19:44,720
Speaker 1: to use social media to improve your life. So now

1600
01:19:44,760 --> 01:19:48,640
Speaker 1: I'm going to talk about one of my own personal vices.

1601
01:19:48,840 --> 01:19:51,759
Speaker 1: It is my absolute favorite thing in the world, besides

1602
01:19:51,840 --> 01:19:54,680
Speaker 1: my wife, my dogs, and a good trail run. But

1603
01:19:54,760 --> 01:19:57,320
Speaker 1: if you listen to the Internet, they would tell you

1604
01:19:57,720 --> 01:20:03,000
Speaker 1: that this habit I have is completely ruining my health.

1605
01:20:03,040 --> 01:20:04,760
Speaker 1: This is going to give me cancer, it is going

1606
01:20:04,840 --> 01:20:06,519
Speaker 1: to end me early, it is going to do all

1607
01:20:06,520 --> 01:20:10,040
Speaker 1: these terrible things for me. But if you listen to science,

1608
01:20:10,720 --> 01:20:12,680
Speaker 1: turns out it may not be that bad. Here I

1609
01:20:12,720 --> 01:20:16,439
Speaker 1: am talking about diet soda, and I'm going to crack

1610
01:20:16,479 --> 01:20:22,200
Speaker 1: one right now because it is so delicious. Now I

1611
01:20:22,240 --> 01:20:24,000
Speaker 1: will say this about diet soda. I am not the

1612
01:20:24,040 --> 01:20:30,479
Speaker 1: Trumpian twelve diet cokes a day consumer, but probably half

1613
01:20:30,479 --> 01:20:35,040
Speaker 1: maybe five a day. Probably five seems about good. Now,

1614
01:20:35,080 --> 01:20:38,240
Speaker 1: diet soda gets a bad rap, and a lot of

1615
01:20:38,240 --> 01:20:41,560
Speaker 1: the bad rap came from the studies that were conducted

1616
01:20:41,600 --> 01:20:45,240
Speaker 1: in mice in the seventies. So what happened is that

1617
01:20:45,360 --> 01:20:48,760
Speaker 1: they fed mice a bunch of aspartame, which is the

1618
01:20:49,040 --> 01:20:52,559
Speaker 1: no calorie sweetener that is found in diet soda and

1619
01:20:52,600 --> 01:20:56,439
Speaker 1: makes it so delicious without the sugar, and they found

1620
01:20:56,439 --> 01:21:00,920
Speaker 1: that these mice developed more tumors miser didn't have.

1621
01:21:00,960 --> 01:21:01,040
Speaker 2: That.

1622
01:21:01,320 --> 01:21:03,840
Speaker 1: Now, the problem with this study, though, is that the

1623
01:21:03,880 --> 01:21:07,760
Speaker 1: amount of aspertain that they fed these mice, it was

1624
01:21:07,880 --> 01:21:11,759
Speaker 1: a ridiculous amount. There was no way a human being

1625
01:21:11,960 --> 01:21:15,720
Speaker 1: could ever eat that much aspertain. In fact, if you

1626
01:21:15,760 --> 01:21:18,280
Speaker 1: were to try and get all that aspertain from diet soda,

1627
01:21:18,520 --> 01:21:21,639
Speaker 1: you would literally die from all the liquid you had

1628
01:21:21,680 --> 01:21:24,920
Speaker 1: to drink to get that aspertain. The liquid the water

1629
01:21:25,120 --> 01:21:27,840
Speaker 1: would kill you first. And then follow up research also

1630
01:21:27,880 --> 01:21:31,760
Speaker 1: found that the way that these tumors were created the aspertain,

1631
01:21:31,840 --> 01:21:34,840
Speaker 1: that same mechanism does not apply to humans. So it

1632
01:21:34,840 --> 01:21:36,679
Speaker 1: turns out you do not have to worry about getting

1633
01:21:36,760 --> 01:21:40,479
Speaker 1: cancer from drinking your diet coke or diet doctor pepper

1634
01:21:40,600 --> 01:21:43,400
Speaker 1: or diet pepsi or diet insert anything. There's a new

1635
01:21:43,439 --> 01:21:46,120
Speaker 1: fear though, So the cancer thing that was in the seventies,

1636
01:21:46,120 --> 01:21:48,000
Speaker 1: it persisted for a while. You probably still hear it

1637
01:21:48,000 --> 01:21:52,080
Speaker 1: out there. Now. A big target is that aspertain and

1638
01:21:52,120 --> 01:21:58,680
Speaker 1: other artificial sweeteners might disrupt your gut microbiome. Sounds very spooky, like,

1639
01:21:58,720 --> 01:22:00,880
Speaker 1: oh no, my gut micro I don't want that to

1640
01:22:00,920 --> 01:22:03,760
Speaker 1: be bad. But here's the thing. We do not know

1641
01:22:03,920 --> 01:22:06,519
Speaker 1: a lot about the gut microbiome, and it takes a

1642
01:22:06,760 --> 01:22:10,360
Speaker 1: lot to change it. So researchers will throw all sorts

1643
01:22:10,400 --> 01:22:13,040
Speaker 1: of fiber, all sorts of vegetables at the gut microbiome,

1644
01:22:13,439 --> 01:22:16,439
Speaker 1: and it does nothing. In fact, one of my favorite

1645
01:22:16,600 --> 01:22:20,120
Speaker 1: nutrition thinkers, she is a columnist at the Washington Post.

1646
01:22:20,160 --> 01:22:24,520
Speaker 1: Her name is Tamar Haspell. She wrote about aspartame, artificial sweeteners,

1647
01:22:24,520 --> 01:22:27,400
Speaker 1: and the gut microbiome in general, and she said the following,

1648
01:22:27,479 --> 01:22:30,360
Speaker 1: The gut microbiome has become the conspiracy theory of nutrition.

1649
01:22:30,640 --> 01:22:34,439
Speaker 1: It's where people go to prove something's dangerous when there's

1650
01:22:34,520 --> 01:22:37,600
Speaker 1: no evidence that it really is. So you don't have

1651
01:22:37,640 --> 01:22:41,400
Speaker 1: to worry about gut microbiome. Now, some people will say, oh,

1652
01:22:41,479 --> 01:22:43,679
Speaker 1: just drink water. Why don't you just drink water, idiot,

1653
01:22:43,720 --> 01:22:46,200
Speaker 1: that'd be so much better for you. It's like, yes,

1654
01:22:46,560 --> 01:22:48,840
Speaker 1: I do drink water. Water is great. I drink plenty

1655
01:22:48,880 --> 01:22:52,920
Speaker 1: of it. But here's the thing. Water is not as

1656
01:22:52,960 --> 01:22:55,320
Speaker 1: delicious as diet soda. So I think about it this way.

1657
01:22:56,520 --> 01:23:00,679
Speaker 1: Diet soda is a good alternative instead of drinking sugary

1658
01:23:00,720 --> 01:23:02,240
Speaker 1: soda because we know if you drink a lot of

1659
01:23:02,240 --> 01:23:04,840
Speaker 1: sugary soda, you're probably gonna end up with some bad

1660
01:23:04,880 --> 01:23:07,240
Speaker 1: health outcomes. So what diet soda does as it comes

1661
01:23:07,240 --> 01:23:08,680
Speaker 1: in and goes, hey, I'm going to give you that

1662
01:23:08,760 --> 01:23:12,880
Speaker 1: same deliciousness, the sweetness, the bubbles, the cola flavor, the

1663
01:23:12,920 --> 01:23:15,280
Speaker 1: root beer flavor or whatever it is. But you're gonna

1664
01:23:15,280 --> 01:23:18,400
Speaker 1: have very few downsides. So it is a very reasonable

1665
01:23:18,479 --> 01:23:22,200
Speaker 1: alternative to real soda. If we followed that water logic

1666
01:23:22,240 --> 01:23:24,719
Speaker 1: too far, it would be like, yeah, we'll never drive

1667
01:23:24,800 --> 01:23:27,599
Speaker 1: your car when you could just walk. Yeah, never have

1668
01:23:27,720 --> 01:23:30,320
Speaker 1: dessert when you could just eat a grilled chicken salad

1669
01:23:30,400 --> 01:23:32,479
Speaker 1: all the time. It's like, no, we need to have

1670
01:23:32,520 --> 01:23:35,439
Speaker 1: times where we have things that we really enjoy, and

1671
01:23:35,479 --> 01:23:38,880
Speaker 1: if they have very few side effects, like diet soda does,

1672
01:23:39,760 --> 01:23:42,880
Speaker 1: I think that is a good bargain. I also saw

1673
01:23:43,080 --> 01:23:47,040
Speaker 1: a thing online the other day where RFK was supposedly

1674
01:23:47,040 --> 01:23:49,240
Speaker 1: going to ban diet soda. Now it turns out that

1675
01:23:49,320 --> 01:23:52,000
Speaker 1: was not real, but when I first saw it, I

1676
01:23:52,160 --> 01:23:55,320
Speaker 1: was like, this is why we have the Second Amendment.

1677
01:23:55,560 --> 01:23:58,160
Speaker 1: Out of my cold dead hands, my man, I love

1678
01:23:58,200 --> 01:24:00,439
Speaker 1: my diet soda way too much for that. Take away

1679
01:24:00,439 --> 01:24:04,840
Speaker 1: for you is really one, diet soda is fine, and two,

1680
01:24:05,520 --> 01:24:07,680
Speaker 1: if you got something that you love and it's not

1681
01:24:07,840 --> 01:24:11,639
Speaker 1: causing you any clear health problems, lean into it. You're

1682
01:24:11,680 --> 01:24:14,680
Speaker 1: only going to live once. Enjoy yourself. Cheers to that.

1683
01:24:15,880 --> 01:24:18,400
Speaker 1: Thanks for listening to my rant, Thanks for checking out

1684
01:24:18,439 --> 01:24:21,800
Speaker 1: the show. New episodes drop twice a week, so make

1685
01:24:21,840 --> 01:24:24,559
Speaker 1: sure to subscribe so you will get those directly in

1686
01:24:24,680 --> 01:24:28,280
Speaker 1: your feed. And we are always open to your questions.

1687
01:24:28,360 --> 01:24:31,599
Speaker 1: Feel free to send them to our email or to

1688
01:24:31,640 --> 01:24:33,680
Speaker 1: put them in the comments, and we will try and

1689
01:24:33,720 --> 01:24:38,120
Speaker 1: answer as many questions as humanly possible. I'll say it again,

1690
01:24:38,200 --> 01:24:40,680
Speaker 1: don't forget to subscribe. It really helps us. And as

1691
01:24:40,720 --> 01:24:43,360
Speaker 1: always inclosing, as we always do and as we always

1692
01:24:43,400 --> 01:24:45,720
Speaker 1: will have fun, don't die