Jonathan Haidt: The Case Against Social Media | Lex Fridman Podcast #291

the following is a conversation with. jonathan height social psychologist at. nyu and critic of the negative effects. of social media on the human mind and. human civilization. he gives a respectful but hard hitting. response to my conversation with mark. zuckerberg and together him and i try to. figure out how we can do better. how we can lessen the amount of. depression and division in the world. he has brilliantly discussed these. topics in his writing including in his. book the coddling of the american mind.

and in his recent long article in the. atlantic titled why the past 10 years of. american life have been uniquely stupid. when teddy roosevelt said in his famous. speech. that it is not the critical counts. he has not yet read the brilliant. writing of jonathan height i disagree. with john on some of the details of his. analysis and ideas but. both his criticism and our disagreement. is essential if we are to build better.

and better technologies that connect us. social media has both the power to. destroy our society and to help it. flourish it's up to us to figure out how. we take the letter path. this is the lex friedman podcast to. support it please check out our sponsors. in the description and now to your. friends here's jonathan height. so you've been thinking about the human. mind for quite a long time. you wrote the happiness hypothesis the.

righteous mind the coddling of the. american mind and today you're thinking. you're writing a lot about. social media and about democracy so. perhaps so if it's okay. let's go through the thread that. connects all of that work how do we get. from the very beginning to today with. the. the good the bad and the ugly of social. media. so i'm a social psychologist which means. i study. how we think. about other people and how people affect.

our thinking. and in graduate school at the university. of pennsylvania i picked the topic of. moral psychology and i studied how. morality varied across countries i. studied in brazil and india. and in the 90s i began this was like i. got my phd in 1992. and in that decade was really when the. american culture war kind of really. began to blow up and i began to notice. that left and right in this country were. becoming like separate countries and you. could use the tools of cultural. psychology to study this.

split this moral battle between left and. right. so i started doing that um and i began. growing alarmed in the in the early. 2000s about how bad polarization was. getting and i began studying. um the causes of polarization you know. bringing moral psychology to bear on our. political problems. and i was originally going to write a. book to basically help the democrats. stop screwing up because i could see. that some of my my research showed. people on the right understand.

people on the left they know what they. think you can't grow up in america. without knowing what progressives think. but here i grew up generally on the left. and i had no idea what conservatives. thought until i went and sought it out. and started reading conservative things. like national review. so originally i wanted to actually help. the democrats to understand moral. psychology so they could stop losing to. george w bush and i got a contract to. write the righteous mind and once i. started writing i committed to. understanding conservatives by reading. the best writings not the worst and i.

discovered you know what you don't. understand anything until you look from. multiple perspectives and i discovered. there are a lot of great social science. ideas in the conservative intellectual. tradition. and so and i also began to see you know. what america's actually in real trouble. and this is like two thousand eight two. thousand like things are really we're. coming apart here so i began to really. focus my research on helping left and. right understand each other and helping. our democratic institutions to work. better okay so all this is before i had. any interest in social media you know i. was on twitter i guess like 2009 and you. know not much didn't think about it much.

and then. so i'm going along as a social. psychologist studying this and then. everything seems to kind of blow up in. 2014-2015 at universities. and that's when greg lucianov came to me. in may of 2014 and said john. weird stuff is happening students are. freaking out about a speaker coming to. campus that they don't have to go see. and they're saying it's dangerous it's. violence like what is going on and so. anyway greg's ideas about how we were.

teaching students to think in distorted. ways that led us to write the coding the. american mind which wasn't primarily. about social media either it was about. you know this sort of a rise of of. depression anxiety. but after that things got so much worse. everywhere and that's when i began to. think like whoa something systemically. has changed something has changed about. the fabric of the social universe and so. ever since then i've been focused on. social media. so. we're going to try to sneak up to the. problems and the solutions at hand from. different directions.

i have a lot of questions whether. it's fundamentally the nature of social. media that's the problem it's the. decisions of various human beings that. lead the social media companies that's. the problem is there still some. component that's highlighted in the. cuddling of the american mind that's the. individual psychology at play or the the. way parenting and education works. to make uh sort of emphasize. anti-fragility. of the human mind. uh as it interacts with the social media.

platforms and the other humans through. the social so all that beautiful message. that should take us an hour or two to to. cover or maybe a couple of years yes but. so let's start if it's okay. uh you said you wanted to challenge some. of the things that mark zuckerberg has. said in a conversation with me uh what. are some of the ideas he expressed that. you disagree with okay there are two. major areas that i study uh one is what. is happening with teen mental health it. fell off a cliff in 2013 it was very. sudden um and then the other is what is. happening to our democratic and.

epistemic institutions that means. knowledge generating like the. universities journalism. so so my main areas of research where. i'm collecting the empirical research. and trying to make sense of it is. what's happened to mental health and. what's the evidence that social media is. a contributor and then the other areas. what's happening to. democracies not just america and what's. the evidence that social media is a. contributor to the dysfunction so well. i'm sure we'll get to that because. that's what the atlantic article is. about but if we focus first on what's.

happened to teen mental health. so before i read the quotes from mark i. i'd like to just give the overview um uh. and it is this. there's a lot of data tracking. adolescents. there's self-reports of how depressed. anxious lonely. there's data on hospital admissions for. self-harm there's data on suicide. and all of these things they bounce. around somewhat um but they're. relatively level in the early 2000s and. then all of a sudden around you know. around 2010 to 2013 depending on which.

statistic you're looking at. all of a sudden they begin to shoot. upwards um more so for girls in some. cases but on the whole it's like up for. both sexes it's just that boys have. lower levels of anxiety and depression. so the curve is not quite as dramatic. but what we see is not small increase. it's not like oh 10 20. no the increases are between 50 and 150. um depending on which group you're. looking at um you know suicide for. pre-teen girls think thankfully it's not. very common um but it's two to three.

times more common now or by 2015 it had. doubled between 2010 and 2015 it doubled. so something is going radically wrong in. the world of american preteens. and what we so as i've been studying it. i found first of all it's not just. america it's identical in canada and the. uk. um australia new zealand are very. similar they're just after a little. delay so whatever we're looking for here. but but yet it's not it's not as clear. uh in the germanic countries it's in. continental europe it's a little. different and we can get into that when.

we talk about childhood. but. something's happening in many countries. um that and it started right around 2012. 2013 it wasn't gradual um it hit girls. hardest and it hit pre-teen girls the. hardest so what could it be. nobody has come up with another. explanation. nobody it wasn't the financial crisis. that wouldn't have hit pre-teen girls. the hardest um there is no other. explanation the complexity here and the. data is of course as everyone knows. correlation doesn't prove causation the.

fact that television viewing was going. up in the 50s and 60 in the 60s and 70s. doesn't mean that that was the cause of. the crime so what i've done. and this has worked with gene twenge uh. who wrote the book igen is um because i. was challenged you know when i when greg. and i put out the book the the coddling. of the american mind some researchers. challenged us and said oh you don't know. what you're talking about you know the. correlations between social media use. and and mental health they exist but. they're tiny it's it's you know like a. correlation coefficient of 0.03 or you. know a beta of 0.05 you know tiny little.

things and one famous article said it's. no bigger than the correlation of mental. bad mental health and eating potatoes. which exists but it's like it's so tiny. it's zero essentially and that that. claim that social media is no more. harmful than eating potatoes or wearing. eye glasses it was a very catchy claim. and it's caught on and i keep hearing. that. um but let me unpack why that's not true. and then we'll get to what mark said. because what mark basically said here. actually i'll read it. by the way just to pause real quick uh.

is. you you implied but just make it. explicit that the best explanation we. have now as you're proposing is that a. very particular aspect of social media. is there is a cause which is not just. social media but the the like button and. the retweet a certain mechanism of. virality that that was. invented or perhaps yeah some aspect of. social media is the cause good idea. let's be clear connecting people is good. i mean overall the more you connect. people the better giving people the.

telephone was an amazing step forward. giving them free telephone you know free. long distance is even better videos i. mean so connecting people is good i'm. not a luddite um and social media at. least the idea of users posting things. like that happens on linkedin and it's. great it can serve all kinds of needs. what i'm talking about here is not the. internet it's not technology it's not. smartphones and it's not even all social. media. it's a particular business model in. which people are incentivized to create.

content and that content is what brings. other people on and the people on there. are the product which is sold to. advertisers it's that particular. business model which facebook pioneered. which seems to be incredibly harmful for. teenagers especially for young girls 10. to 14 years old is where they're most. vulnerable. and it seems to be particularly harmful. for democratic institutions because it. leads to all kinds of anger conflict and. the destruction of any shared narrative. so that's what we're talking about we're. talking about facebook twitter i don't.

have any data on tick tock i suspect. it's going to end up being having a lot. of really bad effects uh because the. teens are on it so much and to be really. clear since we're doing the nuance now. in this section lots of good stuff. happens you know a lot of there's a lot. of funny things on on twitter i use. twitter because it's an amazing way to. put out news to put out when i write. something you know you know you and i. you know use it to to promote things we. we learn things quickly um well this. could be now this is harder to. measure and we'll probably. i'll try to mention it because.

so much of our conversation will be. about rigorous criticism i'll try to. sometimes mention. what are the possible positive effects. of social media in different ways so for. example in the way i've been using. twitter. not the promotion or any of that kind of. stuff it makes me. feel less lonely. to connect with people to make me smile. a little bit of humor here and there it. and that at scale is a very interesting. effect being connected across the globe.

especially during times of covert and so. on it's very difficult to measure that. so we kind of have to consider that and. be honest. that there is a trade-off. uh we have to be honest about the. positive and the negative and sometimes. we're not sufficiently positive or in a. rigorous scientific way about the uh. we're not. rigorous in a scientific way about the. negative and that's what we're trying to. do. here. um and. so. that brings us to. the mark zuckerberg okay but wait let me.

just pick up on the issue of trade-offs. because um. people might think like well like how. much of this do we need if we have too. much it's bad no that's a. one-dimensional. conceptualization this is a. multi-dimensional issue and a lot of. people seem to think like oh what we. have done without social media and. covered like we would have been sitting. there alone in our homes. yeah if all we had was uh you know. texting telephone zoom skype multiplayer. video games whatsapp um. all sorts of ways of communicating with. each other oh and there's blogs and the.

rest of the internet yeah we would have. been fine did we really need the. hyper-viral platforms of facebook and. twitter now those did help certain. things get out faster and that did help. science twitter sometimes but it also. led to huge explosions of misinformation. and the polarization of our politics to. such an extent that a third of the. country you know didn't believe. what the medical establishment was. saying and we'll get into this the. medical establishment sometimes was. playing political games that made them. less credible yeah so on net it's not. clear to me if you've got the internet.

smartphones blogs all of the you know. all of that stuff it's not clear to me. that adding in. this particular business model of. facebook twitter tick tock that that. that that really adds a lot more and one. interesting one we'll also talk about. is youtube i think it's easier to talk. about twitter and facebook. youtube is another complex piece that's. very hard to because youtube has many. things it's a content platform but also. has a recommendation system. that's.

let's let's focus our discussion. on perhaps twitter and facebook but you. do in uh in this large document that. you're putting together uh on social. media uh called social media and. political dysfunction collaborative. review with the. chris bale that includes i believe. papers on youtube as well it does but. yeah again just to finish up with the. nuance yeah um uh youtube is really. complicated because i can't imagine life. without youtube it's incredibly useful. it does a lot of good things um it also. obviously helps to radicalize terrorist.

groups and and murderers so um i you. know i think about youtube the way i. think about the internet in general and. i don't know enough to really comment on. youtube so i have been focused um and. it's also interesting. one thing we know is. teen social life change radically. between about 2010 and 2012. before 2010. they weren't mostly on every day because. they didn't have smartphones yet by 2012. to 14 that's the area in which they. almost all get smart phones and they. become daily users of the girl so the. girls go to instagram and tumblr they go.

to the visual ones the boys go to. youtube and video games those don't seem. to be as harmful to mental health or. even harmful at all it's really um. tumblr instagram particularly that seem. to really have done in girls mental. health um so now. okay so let's look at the quote from. from mark zuckerberg. so uh at uh at 64 uh minutes and 31. seconds on the video i did i'm coded. this guy this is the this is excellent. this is the very helpful youtube. transcript youtube's an amazing program.

um you ask him about francis haugen you. give him a chance to respond. uh and here's the key thing um. uh so he talks about what francis haugen. said he said no but that's. mischaracterized actually on most. measures the kids are doing better when. they're on instagram it's just on one. out of the 18. and then he says. um i think an accurate characterization. would have been the kids using instagram. uh or not kids but teens is generally. positive for their mental health that's. his claim that youtube that uh instagram.

is overall taken as a whole instagram is. positive for their mental health that's. what he says okay. now is it really is it really uh so. first just a simple okay now here what. i'd like to do is turn my attention to. another document that we'll make. available. so i was invited to give. testimony before a senate subcommittee. two weeks ago. where they were considering the platform. accountability act should we force the. platforms to actually tell us what our. kids are doing like we have no idea. other than self-report we have no idea.

you know they're the only ones who know. like the kid does this and then over the. next hours the kids depressed are happy. we can't know that but but facebook. knows it um so should they be compelled. to uh to reveal the data we need that. so you raise just uh. uh to give people a little bit of. context in this document is brilliantly. structured. with questions studies that indicate. that the answer to a question is yes. indicate that the answer to question is. no and then mix results and questions. include things like does social media.

make people more angry or effectively. polarized right. that's the one that we're going to get. to that's the one for democracy yes. that's democracy so i've got three. different google docs here because i. found this is an amazing way and thank. god for google docs it's an amazing way. to organize the research literature and. it's a collaborative review meaning that. so on this one gene twenge and i put up. the first draft and we say please you. know comment add studies tell us what we. missed and it evolves in real time in. any direction the yes or the oh yeah we. specifically encourage because i look my.

the center of my research is that our. gut feelings drive our reasoning that's. that was my dissertation that was my. early research and so if gene twenge and. i are committed to but we're going to. obviously preferentially believe that. these platforms are bad for kids because. we said so in our books so we have. confirmation bias and i'm a devotee of. john stuart mill the only cure for. confirmation bias is other people who. have a different confirmation bias so. these documents evolve because critics. then say no you missed this or they say. you don't know what you're talking about. said great say so tell us um so i put.

together this document and i'm gonna i'm. gonna put links to everything on my. website if users if you're sorry if. listeners viewers go to. jonathanheight.com. socialmedia it's a new page i just. created i'll put everything together in. one place there and we'll put those in. the show notes like links to this. document. and and other things like it though. that's right exactly right so yeah so. the thing i want to call attention now. is this document this document here with. the title teen mental health is. plummeting and social media is a major.

contributing cause um so ben sasse and. chris coons are on the judiciary. committee they had a subcommittee. hearing on uh nate priscilli's bill uh. platform accountability transparency act. so they asked me to testify on what do. we know what's going on with teen mental. health and so what i did was i put. together everything i know with plenty. of graphs. to make these points that first what do. we know about the crisis well uh that. the crisis is specific to mood disorders. not everything else it's it's not just. self-report it's also behavioral data. because suicide and self-harm go.

skyrocketing after 2010. um the. increases are very large and the crisis. is gendered. and it's hit many countries so i go. through the data on that so we have a. pretty clear characterization and. nobody's disputed me on this on this. part so can we just pause real quick. just so for people who are not aware so. self-report just how you kind of collect. data on this kind of thing sure you have. a. self-reported survey you ask people. uh how yeah how anxious are you these. days yeah how many hours a week do you.

social media. that kind of stuff and then you do. it's maybe. you can collect large amounts of data. that way because you can ask a large. number of people that kind of question. and but then there's uh i forget the. term you use but more. uh so non-self-report data behavioral. data behavioral data that's right where. you actually have self-harm. and uh suicide numbers exactly so there. are a lot of graphs like this so this is. from the national survey on drug use and. health so the so the federal government. and also pew and gallup there are a lot.

of organizations that have been. collecting survey data for decades so. this is a gold mine and what you see on. these graphs over and over again is. relatively straight lines up until. around 2010 or 2012. and on the x-axis. we have time years going from 2004 to. 2020 on the y-axis is the percent of u.s. teens who had a major depression in the. last year that's right so when this data. started coming out around so gene. twang's book igen 2017 a lot of people. say oh she you know she doesn't know. what she's talking about this is just. self-report like gen z they're just.

really comfortable talking about this. this is a good thing this isn't a real. epidemic and literally the day before my. book with greg was published the day. before there was a psychiatrist in new. york times who had an op-ed saying relax. cell phones smartphones are not ruining. your kid's brain and he said it's just. self-report it's just that they're. they're they're giving higher rates. there's more diagnosis but underlying. there's no change no because these gra. these it's theoretically possible but. all we have to do is look at the. hospitalization data for self-harm and.

suicide and we see the exact same trends. we see also a very sudden big rise um. around between 2009 and 2012 you have an. elbow and then it goes up up up so that. is not self-report those are actual kids. admitted to hospitals for cutting. themselves. so we have a catastrophe and this was. all true before kovid covet made things. worse but we have to realize um you know. covet's going away kids are back in. school or back in school but we're not. going to go back to where we were. because this problem is not caused by. covid what is it caused by um well uh.

just again to just go through the point. then i'll stop i i just feel like i'm i. just really don't want to get out the. data to show that market is wrong so. first point correlational studies. consistently show a link they almost all. do but it's not big. equivalent to a correlation coefficient. around point one typically um. that's the first point the second point. um is that um this the correlation is. actually much larger than for eating. potatoes so that famous line wasn't.

about social media use that was about. digital media use that included watching. netflix doing homework on everything and. so what they did is they they looked at. all screen use and then they said this. is correlated with self-reports of. depression anxiety at like you know 0.03. it's tiny. and well but they said that clearly in. the paper but the media has reported as. social media. is 0.03 or tiny and that's just not true. what i found digging into it you don't. know this until you look at the there's. more than 100 studies in the google doc.

once you dig in what you see is okay you. see a tiny correlation what happens if. we zoom in on just social media it. always gets bigger often a lot bigger. two or three times bigger. what happens if we zoom in on girls and. social media it always gets bigger often. a lot bigger and so. what i think we can conclude in fact. what one of the authors of the potato. studies herself concludes amy orban says. i think i have a quote from here she. reviewed a lot of studies and she. herself said that quote the associations. between social media use and well-being.

therefore range from about r equals 0.15. to r equals 0.10 um. so that's the range we're talking about. and that's for boys and girls together. um and a lot of research including hers. and mine show that girls it's higher so. for girls we're talking about. correlations around point one five to. point two i believe gene twangy and i. found it's about point two or 0.22. now this might sound like an arcane. social science debate but people have to. understand public health correlations. are almost never above 0.2 so the. correlation of childhood exposure to.

lead and adult iq very serious problem. that's 0.09 like the world's messy and. our measurements are messy and so if you. find a consistent correlation of 0.15. like you would never let your kid do. that thing that actually is dangerous. and it can explain when you multiply it. over. tens of millions of kids spending you. know years of their lives. you actually can explain the mental. health epidemic just from. social media use. well and then there's questions by the. way uh this is really good to learn.

because i quit potatoes and it had no. [Laughter]. uh and it's a russian that was a big. sacrifice. um they're quite literal actually. because i'm mostly eating keto these. days but that's that's. that's funny that they're actually. literally called the potato studies okay. uh but. given this and there's a lot of. fascinating data here there's also a. discussion of how to how to fix it. what are the aspects. that if fixed would start to reverse.

some of these trends. so if we just. linger on the sort of the mark. zuckerberg. statements. so first of all do you think. mark is aware of some of these. studies. so. if we if you put yourself in the shoes. of mark zuckerberg and the executives. that facebook and twitter. how can you try to understand the. studies like the google docs you put. together. to try to make decisions that fix things. is is is there a stable science now that.

you can start to investigate and and. also maybe uh if you can comment. on the depth of data that's available. because ultimately. this is something you argue that the. data should be more transparent should. be provided but currently if it's not. all you have is maybe some leaks of. internal data. that's right and we could talk about the. potential you have to be very sort of. objective about the potential bias in. those kinds of leaks you want to.

it would be nice to have a non-leak data. like. like yeah it'd be nice to be able to. actually have academic researchers able. to access in de-individuated. de-identified form um the actual data on. what kids are doing and how their mood. changes and and you know when people. commit suicide what was happening before. and it'd be great to know that we have. no idea. so what how do we begin. to fix social media would you say okay. so here's the most important thing to. understand. in the social sciences. you know we say is social media harmful.

to kids that's a broad question you. can't answer that directly you have to. have much more specific questions you. have to operationalize it and have a. theory of how it's harming kids and so. almost all of the research is done on. what's called the dose response model. that is. everybody including the researchers are. thinking about this like let's they. treated this like sugar. you know because the data usually shows. a little bit of social media uses and. correlated with harm but a lot is so you. know think of it like sugar and if kids. have a lot of sugar then it's bad so how.

much is okay. um but social media is not like sugar at. all it's not a dose response thing it's. a complete rewiring of childhood. so. we evolved as a species in which kids. play in mixed age groups they learn the. skills of adulthood they're always. playing and working and learning and. doing errands that's normal childhood. that's how you develop your brain that's. you become a mature adult until the. 1990s in the 1990s we dropped all that. we said it's too dangerous if we let you. outside you'll be kidnapped so we. completely we began rewiring childhood.

in the 90s before social media. and that's a big part of the story. i'm a big fan of leonardo skinnezy who. wrote the book free range kids if there. are any parents listening to this please. buy lenora's book free range kids and. then go to letgrow.org it's a nonprofit. that lenora and i started with peter. gray and. daniel shukman. to help change the laws and the norms. around letting kids out to play they. need free play so that's the the big. picture they need free play. and we started stopping that in the 90s.

that we reduced it and then. gen z kids born in 1996 they're the. first people in history to get on social. media before puberty. millennials didn't get it until they. were in college but gen z they get it. because you can lie you just lie about. your age. they so they really begin to get on. around 2009-2010. and boom two years later they're. depressed it's not because they ate too. much sugar necessarily it's because. even normal social interactions that. kids had in the early 2000s largely well.

they decline because now everything's. through the phone. and that's what i'm trying to get across. that it's not just a dose response thing. it's imagine. imagine one middle school where everyone. has an instagram account and it's. constant drama everyone's constantly. checking and posting and worrying and. imagine going through puberty that way. versus imagine there was a policy no. phones in school you have to check them. in a locker no one can have an instagram. account all the parents are on board. parents only let their kids have.

instagram because the kid says everyone. else has it we're and that's we're stuck. in a social dilemma we're stuck in a. trap so. what's the solution keep kids off until. they're done with puberty there's a new. study actually by amy orban and andy. schabilski showing that the damage is. greatest. for girls between 11 and 13. so there is. no way to make it safe for pre-teens or. even 13 14 year olds we've gotta kids. should simply not be allowed on. these business models. where you're the product they should not. be allowed until you're 16. we need to. raise the agent and force it that's the.

biggest thing so i think that's a really. powerful solution but. it's a. it makes me wonder if there's other. solutions. like controlling the virality of. bullying. so sort of if there's a way that's more. productive to childhood. to use social media so of course one. thing is putting your phone down but. first of all from the perspective of. social media companies i it might be. difficult to convince them to do so.

uh. and also. for me as an adult who grew up without. social media. it's so. social media is a source of joy so i. wonder. if it's possible to design the. mechanisms. both the. challenge the ad driven model but. actually just technically the. recommender system. and how viral. how virality works on these platforms if. it's possible to design a platform that. leads to growth anti-fragility but does.

not lead to depression. self-harm and suicide that like finding. that balance and making that is the. objective function not. not engagement yeah or. i don't think i don't think that can be. done for kids so i am very reluctant to. tell adults what to do i have a lot of. libertarian friends and i would lose. their friendship if i started saying oh. it's bad for adults and we should stop. adults from using it yeah but by the. same token i'm very reluctant to have. facebook and instagram tell my kids what. to do without me even knowing or without.

me having any ability to control it. right as a parent it's very hard to stop. your kid i have stopped my kids from. getting on instagram um and that's. caused some difficulties but um but they. also have thanked me because they see. that it's stupid they see that what the. kids are really on it. what they post they see that the culture. of it is is stupid as they say so. um i don't think there's a way to make. it healthy for kids i think there's one. thing which is healthy for kids which is. free play we already robbed them of most. of it in the 90s. the more time they spend on their.

devices the less they have free play. video games is a kind of play i'm not. saying that these things are all bad. but you know 12 hours of video game play. means you don't get any physical play. um so and ultimately physical play is. the way. uh to. to develop. physical to fragility and especially. social skills kids need huge amounts of. conflict with no adult to meet to. supervise or mediate and that's what we. robbed them of so anyway that we should. move on because i you know i get really. into the evidence here because i think. the story is actually quite clear now.

there was a lot of ambiguity there are. conflicting studies but when you look at. it all together. the correlational studies are pretty. clear and the effect sizes are coming in. around 0.1 to 0.15 whether you call that. a correlation coefficient or a beta it's. all in the standardized beta it's all in. that sort of sort of range. there's also experimental evidence we. collect uh true experiments with random. assignment and they mostly show an. effect. and there's um eyewitness testimony. you know. with the kids themselves you talk to. girls and you pull them do you think.

overall instagram is good for your. mental health or bad for you're not. going to find a group saying oh it's. wonderful oh yeah yeah mark you're right. it's mostly good no the girls themselves. say this is the major reason and i've. got studies in the google doc where. there's been surveys what do you think. is causing the is causing depression. anxiety and the number one thing they. say is social media so there's multiple. strands of evidence do you think the. recommendation is as a parent. that teens should not use instagram yes. twitter yes that's ultimately maybe in.

the long term that there's no way. there's no way to make it safe there. it's unsafe at any speed look i mean it. might be very difficult to make it safe. and in the short term while we don't. know how to make it safe put down the. phone well now hold on a second. play with other kids via a platform like. roblox or multiplayer video games that's. great i have no beef with that. you focus on bullying before that's one. of five or seven different avenues of. harm the main one i think which does in.

the girls. is not being bullied um it's living a. life where you're thinking all the time. about posting. because once a girl starts posting so. it's bad enough that they're scrolling. through and this is everyone comments on. this you're scrolling through and. everyone's life looks better than yours. because it's fake and all that you see. are the ones the algorithm picked that. were the night anyway so the scrolling i. think is bad for the girls but i'm. beginning to see i can't prove this but. i'm beginning to see from talking to. girls from seeing how it's used is once. you start posting.

that takes over your mind and now you're. basically you're no longer present. because even if you're only spending. five or six hours a day on instagram. you're always thinking about it and when. you're in class you're thinking about. who how are people responding to the. post that i made between period you know. between classes um i mean i do it you. know i tried to stay off twitter for a. while but now i've got this big article. i'm i'm tweeting about it and i can't. help it like i check you know 20 times a. day i'll check like what are people. saying what are people saying this is. terrible and i'm a you know 58 year old.

man imagine being a 12 year old girl. going through puberty you're. self-conscious about how you look and i. see some young women i see some. professional young women women in their. 20s and 30s who are putting up sexy. photos of themselves like and this is so. sad so sad don't be doing this yeah see. i the the thing where i disagree a. little bit. is i agree with you in in the short term. but in the long term i feel it's the. responsibility of social media. not in some kind of ethical way not just. in an ethical way but it'll actually be.

good for the product for the company. to maximize the long-term happiness and. well-being of the person. so not just engagement so consider but. the person is not the customer so the. thing is not to make them happy it's to. keep them on. that's the way it is currently right. that driven if we can get a business. model as you're saying i'd be all for it. and and i think that's the way to make. much more money so like a subscription. model where. the money comes from paying it's. it's not. that would work wouldn't it that would. help so subscription definitely would. help but i'm not sure it's so much i.

mean a lot of people say it's about the. source of money but i just think it's. about the fundamental. mission of the product. if you want people to really love a. thing i think that thing. should uh. maximize your long-term well-being. in theory in morality land it should i. don't think it's just more than land i. think in business land too but that's. maybe a discussion for another day we're. we're studying the reality of the way.

things currently are and they are as. they are as the studies are highlighting. so let us go then. in from the land of mental health for. young people. to the land of democracy by the way. in these big umbrella areas. is there a connection is there a. correlation between. the mental health of a human mind and. the division. of our political discipline oh yes oh. yes.

so our brains are structured. to be. uh really good at approach and avoid so. we have circuits the front left circle. isn't over simplification but there's. some truth to it there's what's called. the behavioral activation system front. left cortex it's all about approach. opportunity you know. kid in a candy store and then the front. right cortex has circuits specialized. for withdrawal fear threat and of course. students you know i'm a college. professor and most of us think about our. college days like you know yeah we were. anxious at times but it was fun and it. was like i can take all these courses i.

can do all these clubs all these people. now imagine if in 2013 all of a sudden. students are coming in with their front. right cortex hyper-activated. everything's a threat uh everything is. dangerous there's not enough to go. around. so. the front right cortex puts us into. what's called defend mode as opposed to. discover mode now let's move up to. adults imagine. a large diverse secular liberal. democracy in which people are most of. the time in discover mode.

and you know we have a problem let's. think how to solve it and this is what. de tocqueville said about americans like. there's a problem we get together we. figure out how to solve it and he said. whereas in england and france people. would wait for the king to do it but. here like let you know the role person. do it that's the can do mindset that's. front left cortex discover mode. if you have a national shift of people. spending more time in defend mode now. you so everything that comes up whatever. anyone says you're not looking like oh. is there something good about you. thinking you know how is this dangerous.

how is this a threat how is this. violence how can i attack this how can i. you know so so if you imagine you know. god up there with a little lever like. okay let's let's push everyone over into. you know more into discover mode and. it's like joy breaks out age of aquarius. all right let's shift them back into. let's put everyone in defend mode and i. can't think of a better way to put. people in defend mode than to have them. spend some time on. partisan or political twitter where it's. just a stream of horror stories. including videos about how horrible the. other side is and it's not just that. they're bad people it's that if they win.

this election then we lose our country. or then it's catastrophe. so twitter and again we're not saying. all of twitter you know. most people aren't on twitter and people. that are mostly not talking about. politics but the ones that are on. talking about politics are flooding us. with stuff. all the journalists see it all the. major mainstream media is hugely. influenced by twitter. so if we put everyone if there's more. sort of anxiety sense of threat this. colors everything and then you're not.

you know the great thing about about a. democracy and especially a you know or a. legislature that has some diversity in. it is that the art of politics is that. you can grow the pie and then divide it. you don't just fight zero sum you you. find ways that we can all get sixty. percent of what we want. uh and that that ends when everyone's. anxious and angry so. let's try to start to figure out who's. to blame here. is it the nature of social media is it. the decision.

of of. the people at the heads of social media. companies that they're making in the. detailed engineering designs of the. algorithm. is it the users of social media that. drive narratives like you mentioned. journalists. that want to maximize drama in order to. uh. uh drive clicks to their off-site uh. articles. is it just human nature. that loves drama can't look away from an.

accident when you're driving by it is. there is there something to be said. about the reason i ask these questions. is to see can we start to figure out. what the solution would be. uh for to to uh to alleviate to. de-escalate not yet not yet let's first. we have to understand. um you know as as we did on the teen. mental health thing okay now let's lay. out what is the problem what's messing. up our country and then we'll we can. talk about solutions so it's all the. things you said interacting in an. interesting way um so human nature is.

tribal we evolve for intergroup conflict. um we love war um we we uh the first. time my buddies and i played paintball i. was 29 um and we were divided into teams. with strangers to shoot guns at each. other and kill each other and we all. afterwards it was like oh my god that. was incredible like it really felt like. we'd opened a room in our hearts that. had never been opened but as men you. know testosterone changes our brains and. our bodies and activates the war stuff.

like we've got more stuff and that's why. boys like certain team sports it's play. war. so that's who we are. it doesn't mean we're always tribal it. doesn't mean we're always wanting to. fight we're also really good at making. peace and cooperation and finding deals. we're good at trade and exchange so you. know. you want your country to you want a. society that has room for conflict. ideally over sports like that's great. that's totally it's not just harmless. it's actually good. um but otherwise you want cooperation to. generally prevail in the society that's.

how you create prosperity and peace. and if you're gonna have a diverse. democracy you really better focus on. cooperation not on tribalism and. division. uh and there's a wonderful book by yasha. monk called the great experiment that. talks about the difficulty of diversity. in democracy and and and what we need to. do to. get this right and to get the benefits. of diversity. so that's human nature. um now let's imagine that the. technological environment makes it. really easy for us to cooperate let's. give everyone telephones and the postal.

service let's give them email like wow. you know we can do all these things. together with people far away it's. amazing. um now instead of that let's give them a. technology that encourages them to fight. so early facebook and twitter were. generally lovely places um you know. people old enough to remember like they. were fun there's a lot of humor um you. didn't feel like you're going to get. your head blown off no matter what you. said um. 2007 2008 2009 it was still fun these. were nice places mostly and like almost. all the platforms started off as nice. places. um but and this is.

the key thing in the in the article in. the atlantic article. on babel on after babel the atlantic. article by the way is why the past 10. years of american life have been. uniquely stupid. yeah my title in the magazine was after. babel uh adapting to a world we can no. longer share that's what i proposed but. they they a b tested what's the title it. gets the most clicks and it was why the. past 10 years have been using the bible. the tower of babel is is a um. is a driving metaphor in the piece so. what first of all what is it what's the.

top of babel what's what's babel what. are we talking about okay so the tower. babel is a story in early in genesis. where the descendants of noah are. spreading out and repopulating the world. and they're on the plane of shinar and. they say let us build us a city with a. tower to make a name for ourselves lest. we be scattered again and so it's a very. short story there's not a lot in it but. it looks like they're saying you know we. don't want god to flood us again let's. build a city and a tower. and to reach the heavens and god is. offended by the hubris of these people.

um acting again like gods um. and he says here's the key line he says. let us go down and confuse their. language so that they may not understand. one another. so in the story he doesn't literally. knock the tower over but you know many. of us have seen images or you know movie. drama dramatizations where a great wind. comes and the tower is knocked over and. the people are left wandering amid the. rubble unable to talk to each other. so i've been grappling i've been trying.

to say what the hell happened to our. society. beginning in 2014 what the hell is. happening to universities and then it. spread out from universities it hit. journalism the arts and now it's all. over companies. um what the hell happened to us and it. wasn't until i reread the babel story a. couple of years ago that i thought whoa. this is it this is the metaphor because. you know i've been thinking about. tribalism and left right battles and war. and you know that's easy to think about. but babel isn't like you know and god. said let half of the people hate the.

other half no it wasn't that it's god. said let us confuse their language that. they none of them can understand each. other ever again or at least for a while. um so it's a story about fragmentation. and that's what's unique about our time. so. so meta or facebook wrote a rebuttal um. to my article they disputed what i said. uh and one of their arguments was oh but. you know. polarization goes back way before social. media and you know and it was happening. in the 90s and they're right it does and.

i should i did say that but i should. have said it more clearly with more. examples but here's the new thing. even though left and right we're. beginning to hate each other more. we weren't afraid of the person next to. us we weren't afraid of each other. cable tv. you know fox news whatever you want to. point to about increasing polarization. it didn't make me afraid of my students. and that was new in around 2014 2015. we. started hearing getting articles. you know i'm a liberal professor and my. liberal students frightened me it was in. vox in 2015. and that was after greg and.

i had turned in the draft of our. of our first draft of our coddling. article. and surveys show over and over again. students are not as afraid of their. professors they're actually afraid of. other students. most students are lovely it's not like. the whole generation has lost their. minds what happens is a small number. a small number are adept at using social. media to destroy anyone that they think. they can get credit for destroying. and the bizarre thing is it's never it's.

rarely about what ideas you express it's. usually about a word like he used this. word. um or this you know this was insensitive. or you know i can link this word to that. so it's it's a it's they don't really. engage with ideas and arguments it's a. real sort of gotcha um prosecutor i'm. sort of like oh you know it's like a. like a witch trial mindset um. so so the unique thing here is there's. something about social media in those. years. that a small number of people. can sort of be catalysts for this. division they can start the viral wave. that leads to a division that's.

different than the other division we saw. before it's a little different than. viral wave once you get some people who. can who can use social media to. intimidate you get a you get a sudden. phase shift you get a big change in the. dynamics of groups and that's the heart. of the article this isn't just another. article about how social media is. polarizing us and destroying democracy. the heart of the article. is an analysis of what makes groups. smart and what makes them stupid. and so. because as we said earlier you know my. own research is on post-hoc reasoning. just postdoc justification.

rationalization the only cure for that. is other people who don't share your. biases and so if you have an academic. debate as like the one i'm having with. you know with these other researchers. over social media you know i write. something they write something i have to. take account of their arguments and they. have to take account of mine. when the academic world works it's. because it puts us together in ways that. things cancel out that's what makes. universities smart what makes them. generators of knowledge. unless we stop dissent. what if we say. on these topics there can be no dissent.

and if anyone says otherwise if any. academic comes up with research that. says otherwise we're going to destroy. them and if any academic even tweets a. study. contradicting what is the official word. we're going to destroy them and that was. the famous case of david shore. who in the days after george floyd was. killed and there were protests and the. question is are these protests going to. be productive or they're going to. backfire. now most of them were peaceful but some. were violent and he tweeted a study he. just simply tweeted a study.

done by an action african-american i. think sociologist at princeton. omar wasau. and wasa's study showed that when you. look back at the 60s you see that where. there were violent protests it tended to. backfire peaceful protests tend to work. and so he simply tweeted that study. and there was a twitter mob after him. this was insensitive this was. anti-black it i think he was accused of. and he was fired within a day or two. so this is the kind of dynamic this is. not caused by cable tv this is not cause. this is something new okay.

just on a small tangent there. uh in that situation because it happens. time and time again you highlight in. your current work but also in the. coddling of the american mind. is the blame on the mob the mechanisms. that enables the mob or the people that. do the firing the administration does. the firing yeah it's all of them well. can i. i sometimes feel. that we don't put enough blame on the. people that do the firing.

which is that feels like. in the long arc of human history that is. the place for courage. and for ideals right that's where it. stops that's where the buck stops like. is so if there's going to be new. mechanisms for mobs and all that kind of. stuff there's going to be tribalism yeah. but at the end of the day that's what it. means to be a leader is to stop. stop the mob at the door but i'm a. social psychologist which means i look. at the social forces at work on people.

and if and if you show me a situation in. which 95 of the people behave one way. and it's a way that we find surprising. and shameful. i'm not going to say wow 95 of the. people are shameful i'm going to say wow. what a powerful situation. we've got to change that situation so. that's what i think is happening here. because there are hardly any in the. first few years you know it begins. around 2018 2019 it really enters the. corporate world there are hardly any. leaders who stood up against it. but i've talked to a lot and it's it's. always the same thing. you have these you know you know people.

in their usually their 50s or 60s. generally they're progressive or on the. left. they're accused of things by their young. employees they don't have the vocabulary. to stand up to it. and they give in very quickly and. because it happens over and over again. and there's only a few examples of. university presidents who said like no. we're not going to stop this talk just. because you're freaking out no you know. we're not going to fire this professor. because he wrote a paper that you that. you you don't like. there are so few examples.

i have to include that the situational. forces are so strong now i think we are. seeing we are seeing. a reversal in the last few weeks or. months a clear sign of that is that the. new york times actually came out with an. editorial. from the editorial board saying that. free speech is important. now that's amazing that the times had. the guts to stand up for free speech. because. you know they're the the people well. what's been happening with the times is. that they've allowed twitter to become.

the editorial board twitter as control. over the new york times and the new york. times literally will change papers i. have an essay in politico uh with with. nadine strauss and steve pinker and. pamela pereski on how um the new york. times. retracted and changed uh an editorial by. brett stevens and they did it in a. sneaky way and they lied about it and. they did this out of fear because he. mentioned iq he mentioned iq and jews. and then he went on to say. it probably isn't a genetic thing it's. probably culture but he mentioned it.

and the new york times i mean they were. really cowardly now i think they from. what i hear they know that they were. cowardly they know that they should not. have fired james bennett they know that. they gave in to the mob and that's why. they're now poking their head up above. the parapet and they're saying oh we. think that free speech is important and. then of course they got their heads. blown off because you know twitter. reacted like how dare you say this are. you saying racist speech is okay but. they didn't back down they they didn't. retract it they didn't apologize for. defending free speech. so i think uh i think the times might be. coming back.

can i ask your opinion on something here. what in terms of the times coming back. in terms of twitter being the editorial. board. for. the prestigious. journalistic organizations um what's the. importance of the role of mr elon musk. in this. so. um you know it's all fun and games but. here's a human who tweets about the. importance of freedom of speech and buys. twitter. what are your thoughts on on the.

influence. the positive and the negative possible. consequences of this particular action. so you know if he is going to succeed in. if he's going to be one of the major. reasons why we decarbonize quickly and. why we get to mars then i'm willing to. cut him a lot of slack. so i have an overall positive view of. him now where i'm concerned and where. i'm critical. is. where in the middle of a raging culture. war and this culture war is making our. institutions stupid it's making them. fail um this culture i think could.

destroy our country and by destroy i. mean we could descend into constant. constitutional crises a lot more. violence you know not that we're going. to disappear not that we're going to. kill each other but i think there will. be a lot more violence so. we're in the middle of this raging. culture war it's possibly turning to. violence. you need to. not add fuel to the fire and the fact. that he declared that he's going to be a. republican and the democrats are the bad. party. and you know as an individual citizen. he's entitled to his opinion of course.

but as an influential citizen he should. at least be thoughtful. and. more importantly. companies need companies need and i. think would benefit. from a geneva convention for the culture. war in which. because they're all being they're all. being damaged by the culture we're. coming to the companies what we need to. get to i hope is a place where um. companies. do they have they have strong ethical. obligations about the effects that they.

cause about how they treat their. employees about their supply chain they. have strong ethical obligations. but they should not be weighing in on. cultural issues well if i can read the. exact tweak because part of the tweet i. like. he said in the past i voted democrat. because they were mostly the kind the. kindness party. but they have become the party of. division and hate so i can no longer. support them and will vote republican. and then he finishes with now watch. their dirty tricks campaigning against.

me unfold. okay uh what do you make of that like. what do you think he was thinking that. he came out so blatantly as a partisan. because he's probably communicating with. the board. with the people inside twitter and he's. clearly seeing the lien. and he's responding to that lien he's. he's also opening the door to the. to the. potential bringing back um. the former president. onto the platform and also bringing back. which he's probably looking at the.

numbers of the people who are behind. truth social. saying that okay it seems that there's a. strong lien in twitter. uh in terms of. the left. um and in fact from what i see it seems. like. um. the current operation of twitter is. the the the. the extremes of the left get outraged by. something. and the extremes of the right point out. how the left is ridiculous like that.

seems to be the mechanism. and and but and then it's it's uh. that's the source of the drama and then. the left gets very mad at the right that. points out the ridiculousness and. there's this vicious kind of psychology. that's the polarization cycle that's. what that's what we're in there's. something that happened here that's. there's a shift where there's a decline. i would say in both parties towards. being shitty. okay but look what everything with the. parties that's not the issue yeah the. issue is should the most important ceo. in america the ceo of some of our.

biggest and most important companies so. yeah so let's imagine let's imagine five. years from now that two different worlds. in one world the. the ceo of every fortune 500 company has. said i'm a republican because i hate. those douchebags or i'm a democrat. because i hate those nazi racists that's. one world where everybody declares. everybody puts up a thing in their. window everybody is it's cultural. everywhere all the time 24 hours a day. you pick a doctor based on whether he's. red or blue everything is culture war. that's one possible future which we're. headed towards the other is we say you.

know what political conflict should be. confined to political spaces there is a. room for protests but you don't go. protesting at people's private homes you. don't go threatening their children you. don't go doxing them we have to have. channels that are not culture war all. the time when you go shopping when you. go to a restaurant you shouldn't be. yelled and screamed at um when you buy a. product you should be able to buy. products from an excellent company you. shouldn't have to always think. what's the ceo what is it i mean what an. insane world but that's where we're. heading so. i think that elon did a really bad thing. in in in launching that tweet that was i.

think really throwing fuel on a fire and. setting a norm in which businesses are. going to get even more politicized than. they are and you're saying specifically. the problem was that he picked the side. as the head of yes as the ceo as the. head of several major companies. you know of course we can find out what. his views are you know it's not like. it's just i mean actually with him it's. maybe hard to know but you know it's not. that a ceo can't. be a partisan or have views but to. publicly declare it in that way in such.

a really insulting way. um this is throwing fuel on the fire and. it's setting a precedent that. corporations are major players in the. cultural world i'm trying to reverse. that we've got to pull back from that. let me play devil's advocate here so. because i've gotten a chance to interact. with quite a few ceos. um. there is also a value for authenticity. so i'm guessing this was written while. sitting on the toilet. and. i could see in a day from now.

saying lol just kidding. there's a there's a humor there's a. lightness. there's a chaos element and that's chaos. is not. yeah that's not what we need right now. we don't need more well so yes there's a. balance here. the chaos isn't engineered chaos it's. really authentically who he is. and i would like to say that there's i. agree with that that's a trade-off. because. if you become a politician so there's a. trade-off between. in this case maybe authenticity and. civility.

maybe like. being calculating. about the impact you have with your. words versus just being yourself and i'm. not sure. calculating is also a slippery slope. both are slippery slopes you have to be. careful so when we have conversations in. a vacuum and we just say like what. should a person do. those are very hard but our world is. actually structured into domains and. institutions. and if it's just like oh you know. talking here among our friends like we. should be authentic sure.

but the ceo of a company has fiduciary. duties legal fiduciary duties to the. company he owes loyalty to the company. and if he is using the company. for his own. political gain or other purposes or. social standing that's a violation of. his fiduciary duty to the company. now there's debate among scholars. whether your fiduciary duties the. shareholders i i don't think it's the. shareholders i think many legal experts. say um it's the company is a legal. person you have duties to the company. employees owe a duty to the company.

um so he's got those duties and i think. he you know you can say he's being. authentic but he's also violating those. duties. so that's it's those it's not. necessarily he's filing a law by doing. it but he. certainly is shredding any notion of. professional ethics around leadership of. a company in the modern age. i think you have to take it in the full. context because. you see that the. he's not being a political player he's. just saying quit being douchey suppose. the ceo of ford says you know what. um let's pick a group well i i shouldn't.

do a racial group because that would be. different let's just say uh you know. what um left-handed people are. douchebags i hate them like why would. you say that like. left-handed people what you said now is. not not either. funny or like-hearted because i hate. them it wasn't funny i'm not picking you. i'm saying that statement words matter. there's a lightness to the statement in. the full context if you look at the at. the timeline of the man there's. ridiculous memes and there's non-stop.

jokes that my big problem with the ceo. of ford is there's never any of that not. only is there any of that there's not a. celebration of the beauty of the. engineering of the different products. it's all political speak. channeled through multiple meetings of. pr there's a there's there's levels upon. levels upon levels where you think that. there it's it's really not authentic and. there. you're actually by being polite by being. civil you're actually playing politics. because all all of your.

actual political decision making is done. in the back channels that's that's. obvious here here's a human being. being authentic and actually struggling. with some of the ideas and having fun. with it i i think this lightness. represents the kind of positivity that. we should be striving for it's f it's. funny to say that because you're looking. at these statements and they seem. negative but in the full context of. social media i don't know if they are so.

but look at what you just said in the. full context you're taking his tweets in. context you know who doesn't do that. twitter like that's the twitter. everything is taken in the maximum. possible way there is no context oh yeah. so this is not like. you know yes i wish we did take people. in context i wish we lived in that world. but now that we have twitter and. facebook we don't live in that world. anymore so you're saying. it is a bit of a responsibility for. people with a large platform to consider. the fact that.

there is the fundamental mechanism of. twitter where people don't give you the. benefit of the doubt well i don't want. to hang it on a large platform because. then that's what a lot of people say. like well you know she shouldn't say. that because she has a large platform. and she should say things that agree. with my politics i don't want to hang it. on large platform i want to hang it on. ceo of a company ceos of a company have. duties and responsibilities and and you. know scott gallery i think is very clear. about this you know he criticizes elon a. lot as being a really bad role model for. young men. young men need role models and he is a. very appealing attractive role model so.

i agree with you but in terms of being a. role model i think uh okay they don't. want to put a responsibility on people. but yes he could be a much much better. role model there yeah i mean to insult. sitting centers by calling them old i. mean that's you know. yeah i won't do both sideism of like. well those senators can be assholes too. yeah but yes that's fair enough respond. intelligently as i tweeted to. unintelligent treatment yes. yes um so the reason i like it he's now.

a friend the reason i like elon is. because of the engineering because of. the work he does no i admire him. enormously for that but what i admire on. the twitter side is the authenticity. because i've been a little bit jaded and. worn out by people. who have. built up walls people in the position of. power the ceos and the politicians who. built up walls and you don't see the. real person that's one of the reasons i. love long-form podcasting is it. especially if you talk more than 10. minutes it's hard to have a wall up yeah. it all kind of crumbles away so i don't.

know but yes yes you're right that that. that um. is a step backwards to say. at least to me the biggest problem is to. pick sides to say i'm not going to vote. this way or that way that's um. be that like leave that to the. politicians. um you have you have much. like the importance of social media is. far bigger. than um. the bickering the short-term big of any.

one political party it's a platform. where we make progress where we. um. develop ideas through. sort of rigorous discourse all those. kinds of things so okay so here's an. idea about social media developed. through social media from elon which is. um. you know everyone freaks out because. they think either you know oh he's going. to do less content moderations the left. is freaking out because they want more. content moderation the right is. celebrating because they think the. people doing the content moderation are.

on the left. but there was a there was a one i think. was a tweet um where he said like three. things he was going to do to make it. better and was i would defeat the bots. or something but he said. authenticate all humans yeah and this is. a hugely important statement. and it's pretty powerful that this guy. can put three words in a tweet and. actually i think this could change the. world even if the bid fails the fact. that elon said that that he thinks we. need to authenticate all humans is huge. because now. we're talking about solutions here. what can we do to make social media a.

better place for democracy a place that. actually makes democracy better. as tristan harris has pointed out. social media and digital technology the. chinese are using it really skillfully. to make a better authoritarian nation. and by better i don't mean morally. better i mean like more stable. successful. whereas we're using it to make ourselves. weaker more fragmented and more insane. so we're on the way down. we're in big trouble. and um. all the argument is about content.

moderation and what we learned from. francis haugen is that what five or ten. percent of what what she what they might. call hate speech gets caught one percent. of violence intimidation content. moderation even if we do a lot more of. it isn't going to make a big difference. all the. all the powers in the dynamics changes. to the architecture and as i said in my. atlantic article uh what are the reforms. that would matter for social media and. the number one thing i said the number. one thing i believe is. um user authentication or user. verification and people freak out and. they say like you know oh but we need.

anonymous like yeah fine you can be. anonymous but um what i think needs to. be done is anyone can open an account on. you know twitter facebook whatever as. long as you're over 16 and that's. another piece once you're 16 or 18 um. at a certain age you can be treated like. an adult you can open an account and you. can look you can read. and you can make up whatever fake name. you want. but if you want to post if you want the. viral amplification on a company that. has section 230 protection from lawsuits.

which is a very special privilege i. understand the need for it but it's an. incredibly powerful privilege to protect. them from lawsuits. if you want to be able to post um on. platforms that as we'll get to in the. google doc there's a lot of evidence. that they are undermining and damaging. democracy. um then the company has this this. minimal minimal responsibility has to. meet. banks have know your customer laws you. can't just walk up to a bank with a bag. of money that you stole and say here. deposit this for me my name's john smith. you have to actually show who you are.

and the bank isn't going to announce who. you are publicly but you have to if. they're going to do business with you. they need to know you're a real person. uh um not a criminal. and so there's a lot of schemes for how. to do this there's multiple levels. people don't seem to understand this. level zero of authentication is nothing. that's what we have now level one this. might be what elon meant authenticate. all humans meaning you have to at least. pass a capture or some test to show. you're not a bot there's no identity. there's nothing just. something that you know it's a constant.

cat and mouse struggle between bots and. human you know so we try to just filter. out pure bonds. the next level up there are a variety of. schemes that allow you to authenticate. identity in ways that are not traceable. or kept so. some whether you show an id whether you. use biometric whether you have something. something on the blockchain that. establishes identity whether it's linked. to a phone whatever it is there are. multiple schemes now that companies have. figured out um for how to do this and so. if you did that then in order to get an.

account where you have posting. privileges on facebook or twitter or. tick tock or whatever. you have to at least do that and if you. do that. you know um now. um now the other people are real humans. too. and suddenly our public square is a lot. nicer because you don't have bots. swarming around this would also cut down. on trolls you still have trolls who use. their real name but this would just make. it a little scarier for trolls um some. men turn into complete assholes they can. be very polite in real life uh but some. men as soon as they have the anonymity.

they start using racial slurs they're. they're horrible. one troll can ruin thousands of people's. day. you know i'm somebody who. believes in free speech. and so there's been a lot of discussions. about this and we'll. ask you some questions about this too. but. there's. the tension there is the power of a. troll to ruin the party yes that's right. so like this idea of free speech.

boy. do you have to also consider. if you want to have a private party. and enjoy your time challenging. lots of disagreement. debate all that kind of stuff but fun no. like annoying person screaming. just not disagreeing but just like. spilling like the the drinks all over. the place. um yeah all that kind of stuff so um. see. you're saying it's a step in the right.

direction. to at least verify the humanness. of. of a person while maintaining anonymity. but the. so that's one step but the further step. that's maybe. doesn't go all the way because you can. still figure out ways to create multiple. accounts and you can but it's a lot. harder so actually there's a lot of ways. to do this there's a lot of creativity. out there about solving this problem so. if you go to the social media and. political dysfunction google doc that i. created uh with chris bale and then you.

go to. section 11 proposals for improving. social media. so we're collecting there now. some of the ideas for how to do user. authentication. and so one is world coin there's one. human-id.org. this is a new organization created by. an nyu stern student who just came into. my office last week uh working with some. other people. and what they do here is they have a. method of identity verification um that. is keyed to your phone so you do have to.

have a phone number. um and of course you can. buy seven different phone numbers if you. want but it's going to be about 20 or 30. dollars a month so nobody's gonna buy a. thousand phones um so yeah you know you. can uh um you don't have just one unique. id but most people do and nobody has a. thousand so just there just things like. this that would make an enormous. difference so here's the way that i. think about it. imagine a public square in which the. incentives are to be an asshole that the. more you kick people in the shins and.

spit on them and throw things at them. the more people applaud you um okay so. that's the public square we have now not. for most people but as you said just you. know one troll can ruin it for everybody. if there's a thousand of us in the. public square and ten are incentivized. to you know kick us and throw shit at us. like it's no fun to be in that public. square so right now i think twitter in. particular is making our public square. much worse it's making our democracy. much weaker much more divided much it's. it's bringing us down. imagine if we change the incentives.

imagine if the incentive was to be. constructive um and so this is an idea. that i've been kicking around i talked. about with reid hoffman last week and he. seemed to think it's a good idea. and it is. uh it would be very easy. to um rather than trying to focus on. posts what post is fake or whatever. focus on users what users are incredibly. aggressive and so people just use a lot. of obstetry and explanation exclamation. points. ai could easily code nastiness or just. aggression hostility.

and imagine if every user is rated on a. one to five scale for that. and the default when you open an account. on twitter or facebook the default is. four. you will see everybody who's a four and. below. but you won't even see the people who. are fives and they don't get to see you. so they can say what they want free. speech we're not censoring them they can. say what they want um but if but now. there's actually an incentive to not be. an asshole because the more of an. asshole you are the more people block. you out. so imagine our country goes in two.

directions in one things continue to. deteriorate and we have no way to have a. public square in which we could actually. talk about things and in the other we. actually try to disincentivize being an. asshole and encourage being constructive. what do you think i i well this is. because i'm an ai person. and i've very much ever since i talked. to jack about the health of conversation. but look at a lot of the machine. learning models involved. and i believe that the nastiness. classification is a difficult problem. automatically i'm sure it is so i.

personally believe. in. uh crowdsourced nastiness labeling but. in an objective way where it doesn't. become. viral mob cancellation type of dynamics. um but more sort of objectively is is. this a shitty almost out of context. with only local context. is this a shitty thing to say at this. moment because here's the thing no but. we don't care about individual posts no. no but it's all that matters is the. average the posts make the man they do.

but but the point is as long as we're. talking about averages here if one. person has a misclassified post it. doesn't matter right. yeah yeah so but you need to classify. posts in order to build up the average. that's that's what i mean and so. i i really like that idea whatev the. high level idea of. incentivizing people. to be less shitty yeah because that's. what we have that incentive in real life. yeah that's right it's actually really. painful to be in a full-time asshole i. think in physical.

reality right and it's shut off it. should be it should be also a pain. to be an asshole on on the internet and. there could be different mechanisms for. that i wish ai was there machine. learning models were there i did they. just aren't yet but how about how about. we have so one track is we have ai. machine learning models and they render. a verdict another class is crowdsourcing. you get correct and then and then. whenever the two disagree you have. you know staff at twitter or whatever. you know they look at it and they say. what's going on here and that way you. can refine both the ai and you can. refine whatever the algorithms are for.

the crowd source and because of course. that can be gamed and people can only. hey let's all rate this guy as really. aggressive you know so so you wouldn't. want just to rely on one single track. but if you have two tracks i think you. could do it. what do you think about this word. misinformation that maybe connects to. our two discussions now so one is a. discussion of social media and uh. democracy. and then the other is the coddling of. the american mind i've seen the word. misinformation. misused or used as a bullying word like.

racism and so on which are. important. concepts. to identify but they're nevertheless. instead overused yes um does that worry. you because that seems to be the. mechanism. from inside twitter from inside facebook. to label information you don't like. versus information that's. actually. fundamentally harmful to society yeah so.

i think there is um there is a meaning. of disinformation that is very useful. and and helpful. um which is when you have a concerted. campaign by russian agents. to plant a story and spread it and. they've been doing that since the 50s or. 40s even. that's what this podcast actually is but. it's a disinformation yeah you seem. really soviet to me buddy. um. it's subtle it's between the lines. okay i'm sorry but uh um so i think it.

went to the extent that there are. campaigns uh by either foreign agents uh. or you know just by the republican or. democratic parties there have been. examples of that um. there are all kinds of concerted. campaigns. that are intending to uh to confuse or. spread lies uh this is the the soviet. the fire hose of falsehood tactic so. it's very useful for that all the. companies need to have pretty large. staffs i think to deal with that because. that will always be there and that um is. really bad for our country so rene.

deresta um is is just brilliant on this. reading her work has really frightened. me and opened my eyes about how easy it. is to manipulate um to manipulate and. spread. misinformation and especially um. polarization the russians have been. trying for the since the 50s. they would come to america and they. would do hate crimes they would spray. you know swastikas and synagogues to. make you know in this very anti-black. slurs they try to make americans feel. that they're as divided as possible. most of the debate nowadays however is.

not that it seems to be people are. talking about what the other side is. saying. so. um you know if you're on the right then. you're very conscious of the times when. well you know the left wouldn't let us. even say. could covet be from a lab like they. would like you literally would get shut. down for saying that and it turns out. well we don't know if it's true but. there's at least a real likelihood that. it isn't it certainly is something that. should have been talked about so i tend. to stay away from any such discussions. and the reason is twofold one is because. they're almost entirely partisan it.

generally is each side thinks that what. the other side is saying is fate is is. his. misinformation or disinformation and. they can prove certain examples um so. we're not going to get anywhere on that. we certainly are never going to get 60. votes in the senate for anything. about that i don't think content. moderation is nearly as important as. people think it has to be done and it. can be improved. almost all the action is in the dynamics. the architecture the virality uh and. then the nature of who. who is on the platform you know.

unverified people and how much. amplification they get that's what we. should be looking at rather than wasting. so much of our breath on whether we're. going to do a little more or little less. content moderation so the true harm to. society. on average and over the long term is in. the dynamics is it it's fundamentally in. the dynamics of social media not in the. subtle choices of content moderation aka. censorship exactly they've always been. conspiracy theories you know the turner. diaries is this book written in 1978 it.

it introduced the the replacement theory. to a lot of people um timothy mcveigh. had it on him when he was captured in. 1995 after the oklahoma city bombing. it's a kind of a bible of that that. fringe violent racist uh white. supremacist group. and that um so you know the the the. killer in buffalo was well acquainted. with these ideas they you know they've. been around but you know this guy's from. a small town i forget where he's from uh. you know but he was and he says in a. manifesto.

he was entirely influenced by things he. found online he was not influenced by. anyone he met in person. ideas spread and communities can form. these like micro communities. can form with bizarre and twisted. beliefs. um and this is again back to the the. atlantic article i've got this amazing. quote from martin guri. let me just find it but he uh martin. guri he was a former cia analyst wrote. this brilliant book uh called the revolt. of the public or um.

and he has this. um great quote he says he talks about. how. in the age of mass media we were all in. a sense looking at a mirror looking back. at us and it might have been a distorted. mirror but we had stories in common we. had facts in common um it was mass media. and he describes how the flood of. information with the internet uh is like. a tsunami washing over it has all kinds. of effects and he says. this isn't a comment in an interview in. vox he says.

the digital revolution has shattered. that mirror and now the public inhabits. those broken pieces of glass so the. public isn't one thing it's highly. fragmented and it's basically mutually. hostile it's mostly people yelling each. other and living in bubbles of one sort. or another. and so you know we now see clearly. there's there this little bubble of of. just bizarre you know nastiness. in which you know the killer in christ. church and the killer in norway and now. in buffalo you know they're all put into.

a community and posts flow up within. that community by a certain dynamic. so we can never stamp. those words or ideas out the question is. not. can we stop them from existing the. question is. what platforms what are the platforms by. which they spread all over the world and. into every little town so that the one. percent of whatever whatever percentage. of young men are vulnerable to this that. they they get exposed to it it's in the. dynamics in the architecture. it's a fascinating point to think about. because we often.

debate and think about the. the content moderation the censorship. the ideas of free speech but you're. saying. yes that's important to talk about but. much more important is fixing the. dynamics that's right because everyone. thinks if there's regulation it means. censorship at least people on the right. think regulation equals censorship and. i'm trying to say no no that's only if. all we talk about is content moderation. well then yes that is the framework you. know how much or how little do we you. know but i don't want to talk about that. because all the action is in the.

dynamics that's the point of my article. it's the architecture changed and our. social world went insane. so. can you try to steal man the other side. so. the people that might say that social. media is good for society overall. both in the dimension of mental health. as as mark said for teenagers teenage. girls. and for our democracy yes there's a lot. of negative things but that's. slices of data if you look at the whole.

which is difficult to measure it's. actually good for society and it to the. degree that it's not good it's getting. better and better is it possible to. steal another point yeah. it's it's hard but i should be able to. do it um. i need to put my money where my mouth is. and that's a good question so on the. mental health front. um you know the argument is usually what. the the what they say is well you know. for communities that are cut off. especially lgbtq kids they can find each. other. so it's it's it it connects kids.

especially kids who wouldn't find. connection otherwise. it. exposes you to a range of ideas and. content. and. it's fun. is there in the studies you looked at is. there inklings of. of data that's. maybe early data that shows that there. is positive effects in terms of. self-report data or. how would you measure behavioral. positive uh. it's difficult right so um.

so if you look at how do you feel when. you're on the platform you get a mix of. positive and negative uh and people say. they feel supported and this is what. mark was referring to when he said you. know there was like 18 criteria and on. most it was positive and on some was. negative. so if you look at how do you feel while. you're using the platform a lot you know. look most kids enjoy it they're having. fun. but some kids are feeling inferior. cut off. bullied. so. if we're saying what's the average.

experience on the platform that might. actually be positive if we just measure. the hedonics like how much fun versus. fear is there it could well be positive. but what i'm trying to okay so is that. enough steel manning can i use pretty. that's pretty good okay you held your. breath. but what i'm trying to point out is this. isn't a dose response sugar thing like. how do you feel while you're consuming. heroin like while i'm consuming heroin i. feel great. um but am i glad that heroin came into. my life am i glad that everyone in my.

seventh grade class is on heroin like no. i'm not like i wish that people weren't. on heroin and they could play on the. playground but instead they're just you. know sitting on the bench shooting up. during recess so. when you look at it as an emergent. phenomenon that changed childhood now it. doesn't matter what are the feelings. while you're actually using it we need. to zoom out and say. how has this changed childhood can you. try to do the same for democracy yeah. um so we can go back to uh you know what. mark said in. 2012 um when he was taking facebook.

public. and you know this is the wake of the. arab spring i think people really have. to remember what an extraordinary year. 2011 was it starts with the arab spring. um dictators are pulled down now people. say you know facebook took them down i. mean of course it was the citizens the. people themselves took down dictators. aided by. facebook and twitter and tell i don't. know if it was. or texting there were some other. platforms they used so. the argument that mark makes. in this letter to. potential shareholders investors.

is you know we're at a turning point in. history. and um you know. social media is rewiring. we're giving people the tools to rewire. their institutions so this all sounds. great like this is the democratic dream. and what i write about in the essay is. the period of techno-democratic optimism. which began in the early 90s with the. fall of the of the iron curtain and the. soviet union and then the internet comes. in and you know people i mean people my. age remember how extraordinary it was.

how much fun it was i mean the sense. that this was the dawning of a new age. and there was so much optimism and so. this optimism runs all the way from the. early 90s. all the way through 2011. with the arab spring and of course that. year ends with occupy wall street and. there were also. big protest movements in israel and. spain and in a lot of areas martin guri. talks about this. so there certainly was a case to be made. that. facebook in particular but all these. platforms these were god's gift. democracy.

what dictator could possibly keep out. the internet what dictator could stand. up to people connected on these digital. media platforms so that's the strong. case that this is gonna be good for. democracy. and then we can see what happened in the. years after now first of all um so in. uh in mark's response to you so here let. me read from what he said when you. interviewed him. he says. uh i think it's worth grounding this. conversation in the actual research that. has been done on this which by and large. finds that social media is not a large.

driver of polarization he says that then. he says. most academic studies that i've seen. actually show that social media use is. correlated with lower polarization. that's the factual claim that he makes. which is not true. but he asserts that um study well. actually wait it's tricky because he. says the studies he has seen. so i can't so it might be that studies. he has seen say that but if you go to. the google doc with chris bale you see. there's seven different questions that. can be addressed and on one of them. which is. filter bubbles the evidence is very. mixed and you might be right that.

facebook overall doesn't contribute to. filter bubbles but on the other six the. evidence is pretty strongly on the yes. side it is a cause he also draws a line. between the united states versus the. rest of the world right and there's one. thing true about that which is that. polarization has been rising much faster. in the us than in any other major. country so he's right about that so. we're talking about an article by uh. matt matthew against cow. uh and a few other researchers a very. important article we've got it in the in. the political dysfunction um database.

and we should say that in this study. there's um like i started to say there's. a lot of fascinating questions that are. it's organized by whether studies. indicate yes or no question one is does. social media make people more angry or. effectively polarized. question two is does social media create. echo chamber these are fascinating. really important questions question. three is the social media amplified. posts that are more emotional. inflammatory or false question four is. the social media increase the. probability of violence question five is. the social media enable foreign.

governments to increase political. dysfunction in the us and other. democracies question six the social. media decrease trust. seven is the social media strengthen. populist movements and then there's. other uh sections as you mentioned yeah. that's right but if you once you once. you operationalize it as seven different. questions um you know like so one is. about polarization and there are. measures of that the degree to which. people say they hate the other side and. so in this study by uh by boxell against.

cow and shapiro 2021. um they looked at all the measures of. polarization they could find going back. to the 1970s for about 20 different. countries and they show plots you have. these nice plots with red lines showing. that in some countries it's going up. like the united states especially in. some countries it's going down and in. some countries it's pretty flat and so. mark says well you know if if. polarization's going up a lot in the us. but not in most other countries well. maybe facebook isn't responsible but so. much depends on how you operationalize.

things are we interested in the straight. line regression line going back to the. 70s. and if so well then he's right in what. he says. but that's not the argument the argument. isn't that. you know it's been rising or falling. since the 70s the argument is it's been. rising and falling since 2012. or so and for that now i just spoke with. i just i've been emailing with the. authors of the study and they say. there's not really enough data to do it. statistically reliably because there's. only a few observations after 2012. but. if you look at the graphs in their study.

and they actually do provide as they. pointed out to me they do provide a. statistical test if you break the data. at the year 2000 so actually a. polarization is going up pretty widely. if you just look after 2000 which is. when the internet would be influential. and if you look just after 2012 you have. to just do it by eye but if you do it on. their graphs by eye you see that. actually a number of countries do see a. sudden sharp upturn not all not all by. any means but my point is mark asserts. he points to one study and he points. this over and over again i have had two.

conversations with him he pointed this. study both times. he asserts that this study shows that. polarization is up some places down. other places there's no association. but actually. we have another section in the google. doc where we review all the data on the. decline of democracy and the high point. of democracy of course it was rising in. the 90s but if you look around the world. by some measures it begins to drop in. the late 2000s around 20 2007 2008 by. others it's in the early to mid uh 2010s.

the point is there is a by many measures. there's a drop in the quality and the. number of democracies on this planet. that began in the 2010s and so um yes. mark can point to one study. but if you look in the google doc there. are a lot of other studies that point. the other way and especially about. whether things are getting more. polarized or less more polarized not in. all countries but in a lot so you've. provided. the problem. several proposals for solutions. do you think mark do you think.

elon or whoever is at the head of. twitter. uh would be able to implement these. changes or does there need to be a. competitor social network system step up. if you were to predict the future uh now. this is you giving sort of financial. advice to me no no no. i. i can give you advice do the opposite of. whatever i've done okay excellent. but what do you think. uh when when we talk again in ten years. uh what do you think would be looking at. if it's a better world yeah so you have.

to look at each the dynamics of each. change that needs to be made and you. have to look at it systemically and so. the biggest change for teen mental. health i think is to raise the age from. 13 it was set to 13 in kappa in like. 1997 or six or whatever that eight. whatever it was. it was set to 13 with no enforcement i. think it needs to go to 16 or 18 with. enforcement now there's no way that. facebook can say. um. actually so look at instagram the age is. 13 but they don't enforce it.

and and they're under pressure to not. enforce it because if they did enforce. it then all the kids would just go to. tick-tock which they're doing anyway but. if we go back a couple years when they. they were talking about rolling out. facebook for kids because they need to. get those kids they need to get kids. under 13. there's a business imperative. to hook them early and keep them. so i don't expect facebook to act on its. own accord and do the right thing. because. exactly when you have a social dilemma. you know like what economists call like. a prisoner's dilemma or a social dilemma. is you know generalized to multiple.

people and when you have a social. dilemma. each player can't opt out because. they're going to lose you have to have. central regulation so i think we have to. raise the age um the uk parliament is. way ahead of us i think they're actually. functional the us congress is not. functional. so the parliament is implementing the. age-appropriate design code that may put. pressure on the platforms globally to. change certain so anyway my point is. we have to have regulation to force them. to be transparent and share what they're. doing there are some good bills out.

there so i think that if the companies. and the and the users if we're all stuck. in a social dilemma um in which the. incentives to the. incentives against doing the right thing. are strong. we do need we do need regulation on. certain matters and again it's not about. content moderation who gets to say what. but it's things like the platform. accountability and transparency act uh. which is from senators coons portman and. klobuchar this would force the platforms. to just share information about what. they're doing like we can't even study. what's happening without the information.

so that i think is just common sense um. senator michael bennett introduced the. uh the digital platforms commission act. of 2022. which would create a body tasked with. actually regulating and having oversight. right now the us government doesn't have. a body i mean the ftc can do certain. things we have things about antitrust. but we don't have a body that can. oversee or understand these things that. are transforming everything and possibly. severely damaging our political life. so i think there's a lot of oh and then.

the the um. uh the state of california is actually. currently considering a version of the. uk's um the age-appropriate design code. which would force the companies to do. some simple things like not be sending. alerts and notifications to children at. 10 or 11 o'clock at night just things. like that to make. make platforms just less damaging. so i think there's an essential role for. regulation and i think if the us. congress is too paralyzed by politics if. the uk and the eu and the state of.

california and the state a few other. states if they enact legislation the. platforms don't want to have different. versions in different states or. countries so i think there actually is. some hope even if the us congress is. dysfunctional so there is because i've. been interacting with certain. regulations hitting. uh designed to hit amazon but it's. hitting youtube youtube folks have been. talking to me which is recommender. systems the algorithm has to be. has to be public i think. versus pro private which completely. breaks it's uh it's way too clumsy of.

regulation that where the unintended. consequences break recommender systems. not for amazon but for other um for. other platforms that's just to say. that government can sometimes be clumsy. with the regulation he usually is and so. my preference is the threat of. regulation. uh in a friendly way encourages you. really should need it you really. shouldn't need it. my preference is great leaders lead the.

way. in doing the right thing and i actually. honestly this to our earlier kind of. maybe my naive disagreement that i think. it's good business to do the right thing. in the in these spaces sometimes it is. sometimes it sometimes it loses you most. of your users well i think it's. important because i've been thinking a. lot about world war three recently yeah. and uh i it might be. silly to say but i think. social media has a role.

in either creating world war iii or. avoiding world war three it seems like. so much of wars throughout history have. been. started through very fast escalation and. it feels like just looking at our recent. history social media is the mechanism. for escalation and so it's really. important to get this right not just for. the mental health of young people not. just for the polarization of bickering. over. over small scale political issues but. literally. um the survival of human civilization so.

there's a lot at stake here. yeah i certainly agree with that i would. just say that i'm less concerned about. world war iii than i am about civil war. two i think that's a more likely. prospect yeah. yeah. yeah. can i ask for your why sage advice to. young people. so advice number one is put down the. phone. uh don't use instagram and and social. media but uh to young people in high. school in college. how to have a career or how to have a.

life they can be proud of. yeah i'd be happy to because i i teach a. course at nyu um in the business school. uh called work wisdom and happiness and. the course is you know it's advice on. how to have a happy you know a. successful career. as a human being but the course has. evolved that it's now about three things. how to get stronger smarter and more. sociable. if you can do those three things then. you will be more successful at work and. in love and friendships and if you are.

more successful in work love and. friendships then you will be happier you. will be as happy as you can be in fact. so the question is how do you become. smarter stronger and happier. um and the answer. to all three. is it's a number of things but it's you. have to see yourself as this like. complex adaptive system you've got this. complicated mind that needs a lot of. experience to wire itself up and the. most important part of that experience. is that you don't grow when you are with.

your attachment figure you don't grow. when you're safe you have an attachment. figure to make you feel confident to go. out and explore the world in that world. you will face threats you will face fear. and sometimes you'll come running back. but you have to keep doing it because. over time you then develop the strength. to stay out there and to conquer it. that's normal human childhood that's. what we blocked in the 1990s in this. country so. young people have to get themselves the. childhood and this is all the way. through adolescence and young adulthood. they have to get themselves the.

experience that older generations are. blocking them from out of fear and that. their phones are blocking them from out. of just you know hijacking almost all. the inputs into their life in almost all. the minutes of their day. so go out there put yourself out in. experiences you are anti-fragile and. you're not going to get strong unless. you actually have setbacks and. criticisms and and fights. so that's how you get stronger. and then there's an analogy in how you. get smarter which is you have to expose. yourself to other ideas to ideas that.

people that criticize you. people that disagree with you. and this is why i co-founded heterodox. academy because we believe that that. faculty need to be in communities that. have political diversity and viewpoint. diversity but so do students. and it turns out students want this the. surveys show very clearly. gen z has not turned against. viewpoint diversity most of them want it. but they're just afraid of the small. number that will sort of shoot darts at. them if they you know if they say. something wrong so anyway the point is.

um you're anti-fragile and so you have. to realize that to get stronger you have. to realize to get smarter and then the. key to becoming more sociable is very. simple it's just always looking it. through the other person's point of view. don't be so focused on what you want and. what you're afraid of. put yourself in the other person's shoes. what's interesting to them what do they. want. and if you develop the skill of looking. at it from their point of view you'll be. a better conversation partner you'll be. a better life partner. so there there's a lot that you can do i. mean i could say you know go read the.

calling in american mind. i could say go read dale carnegie how to. win friends and influence people. but take charge of your life and your. development because if you don't do it. then. the the older older protective. generation. and your phone are going to take charge. of you. so on anti-fragility and coddling the. american mind if i may read just a few. lines from chief justice john roberts. which i find this is really beautiful. so it's not just about viewpoint.

diversity but it's real struggle absurd. unfair struggle that seems to be. formative to the human mind he says from. time to time in the years to come i hope. you will be treated unfairly so that you. will come to know the value of justice i. hope that you will suffer betrayal. because that will teach you the. importance of loyalty sorry to say but i. hope you will be lonely from time time. so that you don't take friends for. granted i wish you bad luck again from. time to time so that you will be.

conscious of the role of chance in life. and understand that your success is not. completely deserved and that the failure. of others is not completely deserved. either. and when you lose as you will from time. to time i hope every now and then your. opponent will gloat over your failure it. is a way for you to understand the. importance of sportsmanship. i hope you'll be ignored so you know the. importance of listening to others and i. hope you will have just enough pain to.

learn compassion. whether i wish these things are not. they're going to happen. and whether you benefit from them or not. will depend upon your ability to see the. message in your misfortunes. he read that in a middle school. graduation yes for his sons his son's. middle school graduation. that's what i was trying to say only. that's much more beautiful yeah and uh i. think your work is really important and. it is beautiful and uh it's bold and. fearless and it's a huge honor to sit. with me i'm a big fan thank you for.

spending your valuable time with me. today john thank you so much thanks so. much lex what a pleasure. thanks for listening to this. conversation with jonathan height to. support this podcast please check out. our sponsors in the description. and now let me leave you with some words. from carl jung. everything that irritates us about. others. can lead us to an understanding of. ourselves. thank you for listening and hope to see. you next time.

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