Speaker 1: Now here's a highlight. From Coast to Coast AM on iHeartRadio.
Speaker 2: Coast to Coast Georginry with doctor Gene Twangy as we
Speaker 2: are talking about our work generations and we were talking
Speaker 2: about the generation disease and their depression states. Do you
Speaker 2: think social media, in the bullying that sometimes associates with it,
Speaker 2: has contributed to that depression?
Speaker 1: I do.
Speaker 3: I don't think it's a coincidence that teen depression started
Speaker 3: to increase around twenty twelve, right at the time that
Speaker 3: most Americans had a smartphone, and when social media use
Speaker 3: among teens moved from something then maybe half our teams
Speaker 3: were doing every day to something almost all of them
Speaker 3: were doing every day. So there's so many mechanisms with
Speaker 3: social media. There's cyberbullying, like you mentioned, there's comparing yourselves
Speaker 3: to all of the glamorous folks you know on Instagram.
Speaker 3: There's that. At the same time teams started spending more
Speaker 3: time online and on social media, they start and spending
Speaker 3: less time hanging out with each other face to face,
Speaker 3: which is much better for mental health.
Speaker 2: It's and why are people so mean? You know in
Speaker 2: the bullying those tactics. What's wrong with people.
Speaker 3: Well, you know, it's pretty classic that when you are
Speaker 3: face to face with someone, you're generally going to be nicer.
Speaker 3: They're right there in front of you. Expression on their
Speaker 3: faces Online it's anonymous. You're not really truly thinking of
Speaker 3: them as a fellow human being. It's not in real time,
Speaker 3: and you're not seeing the expression on that person's face.
Speaker 3: So people feel much more free to be really cruel online.
Speaker 2: Now there's another generation we didn't talk specifically about yet.
Speaker 2: That's a Generation Alpha. Where do they stand in all this?
Speaker 3: Yeah, so Generation Alphas is born in the twenty thirteen
Speaker 3: and later. They're the ones I call polars.
Speaker 2: So they're the little ones right now.
Speaker 3: They're the little ones.
Speaker 2: And how are they developing gene.
Speaker 3: We don't know a whole lot about them yet, but
Speaker 3: you know, they were the little kids of the pandemic. They,
Speaker 3: even more than Generation Z, have never known a world
Speaker 3: without smartphones or tablets, and they're not getting enough exercise
Speaker 3: and not running around outside like previous generations of children did,
Speaker 3: and that's a big problem going forward for them.
Speaker 2: Now the boomers are what age bracket.
Speaker 3: So the boomers are those born nineteen forty six to
Speaker 3: nineteen sixty.
Speaker 2: Four, nineteen sixty four, and gen X is sixty five
Speaker 2: to what to seventy nine On the millennials eighty two,
Speaker 2: ninety four, ninety four. We've got a millennial who calls
Speaker 2: a program Coed often. He's a great caller, goody young man.
Speaker 2: If more Americans would grow up to be like him,
Speaker 2: we'd be in great shape. I hope he calls in
Speaker 2: next hour. When we take calls with you, you'll get
Speaker 2: a chance to hear him. You'll know what I'm saying.
Speaker 2: But is any of this concerning to you? And as
Speaker 2: an expert, you.
Speaker 3: Know every time. Every era has its advantages and disadvantages.
Speaker 3: And there are some really good things about living right
Speaker 3: now and all the conveniences that we enjoy, but there's
Speaker 3: some big downsides too. We have a lot of disconnection,
Speaker 3: we have a lot of polarization, and we have technologies
Speaker 3: that help us out, but they can also feel addictive
Speaker 3: and could feel like we can't put them down. And
Speaker 3: I think that's an especially big problem for teens and
Speaker 3: young adults, where they're spending so much time on social
Speaker 3: media that they're not interacting with each other face to face.
Speaker 2: Interesting, now, this also seems to be a period. Well,
Speaker 2: we have more generations grouped together than ever before, it is, and.
Speaker 3: That's for two reasons. It's because people are living longer,
Speaker 3: but also they change the tech. Technological change has sped up,
Speaker 3: it's accelerating, so generations are getting shorter. You know, it's
Speaker 3: not a coincidence that those younger generations we've been speaking
Speaker 3: about are shorter in terms of years and more like
Speaker 3: fourteen or fifteen years when the silent generation Bloomers is
Speaker 3: more like twenty years. Because things change more quickly and
Speaker 3: so generations turn over more quickly. So it means we
Speaker 3: have a bigger generation gap, especially around technology. I think
Speaker 3: we have a bigger generation gap right now. Did say
Speaker 3: in the late nineteen sixties with the boomers feeling like
Speaker 3: their parents' generation didn't understand them. There it was a
Speaker 3: gap of values. Now we have a gap just around
Speaker 3: completely around communication where the two generations almost seem to
Speaker 3: speak different languages.
Speaker 2: Companies are starting to talk about how artificial intelligence may
Speaker 2: reduce the amount of workforce members at various companies, and
Speaker 2: it's kind of jarring to me to hear some of
Speaker 2: those numbers. Gene, what happens to some of these younger
Speaker 2: generations gen Z's the generation Alphas, when they grow up
Speaker 2: to be in the workforce and there's no jobs for
Speaker 2: these people.
Speaker 3: Yes, you know, there's some challenges here because at the
Speaker 3: moment we still have a labor shortage and as more
Speaker 3: Baby Bloomers continued to retire, there should be more opportunities
Speaker 3: in at least in some areas for these younger generations.
Speaker 3: So that's where we are now. It just depends on
Speaker 3: what direction the AI goes, like can't it how much
Speaker 3: can it really replace people or will it just supplement them?
Speaker 3: And I think the biggest challenge is this. Then, due
Speaker 3: to technology, we have a situation where especially a lot
Speaker 3: of young people have not had has been much experience
Speaker 3: in real life situations dealing with you know, whether it's
Speaker 3: friends or co workers face to face, so they haven't
Speaker 3: developed the social skills that they need to relate to
Speaker 3: other people, which is a really essential skill in the workplace.
Speaker 3: And guess what, AI doesn't always do that great at
Speaker 3: you know, really relating to other human beings because because
Speaker 3: AI is a human doesn't have compassion, right, you know,
Speaker 3: and it can kind of fake it, but it doesn't
Speaker 3: do that great of a job in the long run,
Speaker 3: we really really need to think about what we're teaching
Speaker 3: young people and in schools at every level, that we're
Speaker 3: going to have to place more emphasis on social skills.
Speaker 3: We're going to have to get phones out of school,
Speaker 3: bell to bell, so then they'll park to each other
Speaker 3: at lunch because it's those social skills we really need
Speaker 3: kids to develop. Now, that's what's going to be in demand.
Speaker 2: If I were a teacher in the school right now,
Speaker 2: I would have every kid put their phones in this
Speaker 2: big box as class started, and then they could retrieve
Speaker 2: their phone and when the bell rings.
Speaker 3: And a lot of teachers do that, and some school
Speaker 3: principals are starting to come around to, you know, even that.
Speaker 3: Then the individual teachers have to enforce it, and the
Speaker 3: kids grab the phone, you know, during lunchtime and when
Speaker 3: there are changing classes, so it's still there, and then
Speaker 3: bullying and distractions are still there. So even better have
Speaker 3: that been happened at the beginning of school and they
Speaker 3: pick them up at the end. There's some kind of
Speaker 3: solution where the phone is not interfering with learning and
Speaker 3: it's not interfering with that social interaction at launch and
Speaker 3: other social times.
Speaker 2: Is there a generation gene that just gets it and
Speaker 2: they understands things well.
Speaker 3: I do think that both gen xers and millennials have
Speaker 3: a little bit of a foot in the analog world
Speaker 3: and the digital world. So I'm a little bit biased.
Speaker 3: I am a gen Xer myself, but we were the
Speaker 3: last generation to have a truly analog childhood and the
Speaker 3: first to have an Internet adulthood, So you know, I
Speaker 3: think we have always taken that position as being the
Speaker 3: middle child of generations. The middle child and the family
Speaker 3: is the one who mediates between the younger and the older,
Speaker 3: So we have that role to play. But I think
Speaker 3: a lot of millennials, especially older millennials is born in
Speaker 3: the nineteen eighties, can play that role as well.
Speaker 2: But you missed some dramatic things that happened in society, assassinations, landings,
Speaker 2: things like that. Does that Does that bother you that
Speaker 2: you may have missed some great news events?
Speaker 1: Well?
Speaker 3: I think it. I mean, certainly, I think a lot
Speaker 3: of gen x are still that way, that they missed
Speaker 3: out on some pretty interesting history. But I think there's
Speaker 3: also a little bit of odd pride among gen xers,
Speaker 3: and that in feeling like that, the generation often gets
Speaker 3: forgotten and flies under the radar. I think there's a
Speaker 3: lot of gen xers are kind of proud of that,
Speaker 3: of course.
Speaker 2: And you're you were you were about what three or
Speaker 2: four years old when we landed on the moon. Silently
Speaker 2: you probably on the moon we weren't even born. Then, Wow,
Speaker 2: that's that's crazy times. How would you fix this? And
Speaker 2: is it fixable?
Speaker 3: You know, I actually do have a lot of hope
Speaker 3: around some of these issues of the problems with technology.
Speaker 3: To take what we are discussing about the Team mental
Speaker 3: health crisis, well, if social media and technology really is
Speaker 3: the cause of the team mental health crisis, then we
Speaker 3: know how to solve it. That's actually changeable. You can't
Speaker 3: change a lot of the other problems that tend to
Speaker 3: cause depression. You can't change your genetics, you can't change
Speaker 3: the bad stuff that happened in the past. Be awfully
Speaker 3: hard to change discrimination and poverty overnight. But we can
Speaker 3: put common sense regulations on social media. We can raise
Speaker 3: the minimum age for social media to sixteen and actually
Speaker 3: verify age. That's one thing that we could do would
Speaker 3: probably make an enormous difference for mental health among children
Speaker 3: and young teens.
Speaker 2: Some people would argue that that's too restrictive and we're
Speaker 2: taking away freedoms. But on the other hand, that may
Speaker 2: work very well.
Speaker 3: Don't you think we have laws that have age restrictions
Speaker 3: on drinking alcohol, on driving a car, on buying cigarette,
Speaker 3: when you can vote, when you can vote, why not
Speaker 3: have it for social media?
Speaker 2: How would they track that?
Speaker 1: Though?
Speaker 3: You know, there's an increasing number of companies that can
Speaker 3: do age verification and do third party verification of everything.
Speaker 3: There's so there's so many companies. They actually have their
Speaker 3: own trade association. If you've flown on an airplane and
Speaker 3: seen clear, that's what they do. They do biometrics and
Speaker 3: store identity and so then it's with a third party.
Speaker 3: There's not as many privacy and concerns. There's ways to
Speaker 3: do it, and there's they're going to figure it out.
Speaker 3: I mean, that's the other viewpoint on it, is that
Speaker 3: this is the problem for the social media companies to solve,
Speaker 3: and fortunately they make billions, so I think they can
Speaker 3: probably figure it out.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's truly remarkable stuff. Hey, yeah, we might have
Speaker 2: to have retina scans in your in your computer.
Speaker 3: Or at the very least some way to make sure
Speaker 3: that we don't have ten year olds on Instagram.
Speaker 2: How much of this is parental responsibility?
Speaker 3: You know, this is a difficulty. You do not need
Speaker 3: parental permission to get a social media account, so parents
Speaker 3: can try to try to keep their kids off social media.
Speaker 3: But it's really really difficult, and that's because it's so unregulated.
Speaker 2: At what age do you think most parents have purchased
Speaker 2: smartphones for their kids.
Speaker 3: The average age to get a smarttone these days is ten,
Speaker 3: ten years old, and that that day is a couple
Speaker 3: of years old. So I spec and.
Speaker 2: They know how to and they know how to use
Speaker 2: these phones too, better than we do.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and you know, the good news is you can
Speaker 3: put parental controls on the phones. The bad news is
Speaker 3: a lot of parents don't do that or don't know
Speaker 3: how to do that right. So, to my mind, the
Speaker 3: solution of that is the flip phone, you know, or
Speaker 3: more restricted phones. I mean, there's no reason to my
Speaker 3: mind to give a nine or ten year old child
Speaker 3: a full blown smartphone. They don't need it. What you
Speaker 3: want is for them to be able to call you
Speaker 3: and maybe text a few friends. So give them a
Speaker 3: phone that can only do that.
Speaker 2: It's not it, though.
Speaker 3: Gine it's becoming hip. It's kind of cool. You know.
Speaker 3: There's apparently a lot of gen Zers are now going
Speaker 3: back to slip phones. Some of them have two phones.
Speaker 3: They have the flip phone when they go out because
Speaker 3: they want to be able to concentrate on their friends.
Speaker 3: And then there are other phones. So there's one called
Speaker 3: the gab phone that's for kids that you can text
Speaker 3: and call and take pictures and that's it, and it
Speaker 3: looks like a regular smartphone.
Speaker 2: I think some gen Z came up to me when
Speaker 2: I had my flip phone years ago and a dinosaur, Well.
Speaker 3: Now they want them. Everything that was out is now
Speaker 3: back in. That's that's how it works.
Speaker 2: Who's moving back in with family and parents? Is that
Speaker 2: the Generation Z.
Speaker 3: For the most part. I mean, you know gen Z,
Speaker 3: they're oldest members by the cutoffs that I use are
Speaker 3: twenty eight. So yeah, especially during the pandemic, a lot
Speaker 3: of them came back home. But you know that's changing now.
Speaker 3: A lot of job opportunities out there for young people
Speaker 3: from labor shortages and so on. We'll see if that continues.
Speaker 3: But it's a better economic picture than it was, say
Speaker 3: for millennials. When millennials were the younger adults because a
Speaker 3: lot of them graduated into the Great Recession. A lot
Speaker 3: of millennials doing very well economically now, but they had
Speaker 3: a hard time of it early on into more.
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