What is the Future of the Internet? A Talk with Sanjay Gupta, Hank Green, and Shruti Sahib
We talked about the dangers of social media and the amount of time we spend online. But what about the positive, educational sides of the internet? On this episode, Dr. Sanjay Gupta talks to one of the YouTube’s earliest content creators, Hank Green . The state of the internet, as well as the responsibility of having a platform and how to deal with harsh online comments, are discussed by Sanjay and Hank. Plus, they ask is the future of the internet utopian? Is it Dystopian? Or maybe both?
I’m on the Internet to help people learn and get curious and do well in school and understand more of the knowable things of their universe and know more about the unknowable things. That’s lovely and it’s fun. I get a lot of joy from that.
Source: https://www.cnn.com/audio/podcasts/chasing-life/episodes/6c51819a-d613-4cff-9637-afbb0016bec8
Hank Green: A YouTuber and a Father of Video Game Player (Heterogeneous Robots and Pranks, Game Makers, and Science Teacher)
The man is Hank Green. He’s an author, a science teacher, and a video game player. He got his start on YouTube back in 2007. Think about that. That was before the term content creator was even a thing. So he has seen the digital evolution play out in real time.
You know, I remember sort of it kind of happened for me back in like 2012, 2013 when the stuff that I started to see getting made on YouTube was a lot of sort of cruel pranks or like manipulative guys trying to get-
He was one of the first people to get famous from YouTube. He was making videos with his brother and he was also trying to teach people, something I can really relate to. Hank had quite a following. There are tens of millions of views on his brother’s YouTube channels, with some of them shown in schools throughout the country. But part of the reason I wanted to speak to Hank today is because he’s also a dad. And we share some of the same concerns.
Source: https://www.cnn.com/audio/podcasts/chasing-life/episodes/6c51819a-d613-4cff-9637-afbb0016bec8
Chasing Life: What Happens When You’re On The Other Side Of The Screen, And How You Wanna Achieve It
Is my son worse off because his dad is an Internet guy and he’s going to be on the Internet the whole time. All the time and like. I cannot be like, you can’t use social media. What do you do? He’s going to ask.
So far in the season, I’ve been asking professors and doctors and experts some pretty tough questions about screen time and social media. I was looking for someone who makes the content we see when we scroll.
We’re all used to the idea that the Internet is both good and bad, that it can be used to build a home with a hammer or to hit someone in the head if you want, you know what I mean.
Hank Green and I talked about what life was like on the other side of the screen. I’m Dr. Sanjay Gupta, CNN’s chief medical correspondent. And this is Chasing Life.
The season has been pretty heavy so far. It has been very personal. I had conversations with my teenage daughters that were illuminating and wonderful, and at times frightening, to be honest. They live another life, their digital life, which I simply don’t know as much about. And I think we often fear what we don’t understand imagining and anticipating all the potential dangers of social media and screen time. I realized something else as well, something that surprised me a bit. I realize that our phones and the internet can be a source of joy and connection for so many people, despite the worry and concern. And that’s part of the reason I was so excited to talk to Hank. My daughters look up to him.
Source: https://www.cnn.com/audio/podcasts/chasing-life/episodes/6c51819a-d613-4cff-9637-afbb0016bec8
What I’d Like to do with the children, when I’m teaching science to them and they’re going to teach them how to use social media
I do. I think that the idea of teaching science to people is very important, just as a scientist myself. And I also have three teenagers and their videos have actually been shown in their classrooms. So when I told them that I was interviewing you, they I think they also knew you. So you’re cross-generational, which is pretty cool.
Yeah, I mean, I this might be a little bit can I can I really believe this about myself, But I feel like they’re like you can develop expertise in how to use a tool well. And so the question that that comes up in my mind is like, is my son worse off because his dad is a Internet guy and he’s going to be on the Internet the whole time, all the time? There’s nothing I could be like, that you can’t use social media. He’s going to be asking what you do all day. So what I would like is, and what I would hope, is that as sort of more people who were who had social media as part of their lives when they were younger have children that we’re at least able to have these conversations better or or talk about like, you know, any any new thing that enters into a society is very easy to abuse until you sort of develop norms and taboos about how to use it more well. But I think also just like any other sort of thing that can feel really good without a lot of, it’s a little like candy, you know. Where you know it, it tastes feel good, but it doesn’t provide a lot of substance. And and so I my hope is that we can get to a place where where we know how to use it. You know, it’s okay to have some, but you’re going to have to have some real food to.
Millennials probably had the best childhoods because we had balance. There was time to be connected to the digital world, and there was time that you were not connected. And I was like, okay, that’s a kid who knows what she’s talking about because that’s my main mission is to talk to people about balance. There is a lot of fear when we’re talking about social media. People just want to take away and restrict and ban and that’s not realistic. First of all, adolescents don’t respond very well to that.
What do we really do and what do we need to do? How to find the balance there, how to survive the worst case scenario in medicine?
But I guess the flip side of that is that she’s very aware of of what it’s done for her, done to her. You know, I mean, and she would she’d dial some of that back, which I think in some ways made me a little bit optimistic. Like, I feel like a lot of times the inclination In medicine, it’s always assumed the worst case scenario. We have to assume worst, hope for best, but also assume worst. And everything that we do in terms of our how we respond is, is that that worst case scenario. Most people don’t think that is the case. So how to find the balance there? And I don’t know the answer, and I don’t know that you know the answer, but I’m just curious how you think about it.
Source: https://www.cnn.com/audio/podcasts/chasing-life/episodes/6c51819a-d613-4cff-9637-afbb0016bec8
On the metaphor of junk food versus real food — a conversation with our daughter Soleil about something we’ve seen in the Internet
You know, this idea of the metaphor of junk food versus real food. I think that really resonates with me. This is an interesting way of framing it because there is content like Hank’s, but there is also a lot of junk. And therein lies the problem. You know, recently I was having a conversation about this with my youngest daughter, Soleil, and she had shown me this meme on Instagram. It was funny. We laughed, but it also wasn’t true. And I asked her, I said, Soleil, you know, this isn’t true, right? And she kind of laughed and showed me her phone again. Yeah, it’s on Instagram. And I said, Right, right. But, you know, it’s not true. And what she said next is something that really kind of stopped me in my tracks. To be honest, I don’t think that anything I see online is a true reflection of what she said. Think about that. So much of what comes across her feed is garbage. So in essence, as a result, it all becomes garbage. It all becomes suspicious. It is all lumped together and suddenly you find yourself in a really kind of scary place where nothing, nothing at all can be trusted. Social media in a lot of the Internet is just a playground for them not to be taken seriously. And that drags everyone down. It drags everything down. Even for someone like Hank, who by all accounts makes good, credible, fact checked, vetted content.
We’re talking about like sense making at this point. The structures of credibility have always existed. In the beginning of newspapers, everyone knew that every newspaper had a perspective, like there was a communist and a Republican newspaper, and business news like that, and we now have that to some extent. When I was growing up in the 1980’s and 90’s, that was very clear. And now it is very not clear. One thing I try to do very hard is to ensure that the content that I am making is right and also to talk about why I got it wrong. And, and and that’s almost too for a lot of people like more instructive to be like, oh, so like not only is everyone fallible, but also you can sort of walk down the path of how you, what you a what what assumption you made that led to your wrong content in some way. But I worry about it being so person focused because a person almost is like has to be less credible than a really good organization because a person can only do so much and a person you can’t scale them the same way and you can’t you can’t build in fact checking the same way as you as you can with like a strong, robust news organization. And so if we end up in a situation where we only believe individuals, I think that’s a worse world.
This is obviously something that you’re quite good at. I’m not saying this just to flatter you, but a large amount of people pay attention to your work, and they want to use that to educate their kids in a good way. How do you say you have something wrong when you’ve got something wrong? Does it take a long time for you to think about the institution of trust with your own writings? How much do you think about the idea of trust and the fact that you don’t know your background, in a digital world?
I think about it all the time. It’s one of the things I worry about it and on a lot for a lot of different good reasons. I worry about it for myself. I think a lot of people will be upset if I don’t live up to what I’ve been trying to portray in public. The thing I like to say about making content on the Internet is that, like all of me that you see is me. You don’t see everything of me. And I worry a lot about, you know, I’ve seen people both in just mistakes and in like really intentional ways to do things that have really destroyed a lot of their credibility. And they’re not just destroying their own thing, they’re destroying something else that is bigger and it’s inside of other people. I would like to be most careful with that.
Source: https://www.cnn.com/audio/podcasts/chasing-life/episodes/6c51819a-d613-4cff-9637-afbb0016bec8
Why are you going to have to argue with a professional arbitrator when you shouldn’t? A candid look at how you feel about the Internet and what you can do about it
Hank interacts online more than I do, which can take a toll even on a professional like him. It’s best to avoid that urge when we come back.
I’ve gotten better over the years at realizing that you can’t really argue with a professional arguer without becoming a professional arguer. I don’t do that for a living.
I was working on it. It’s such a it’s a weird job and not a lot of people have had it. And I was 27 when I uploaded my first YouTube video. I married an adult when I was a child. I, you know, had a pretty stable set of situations. That is not the truth for most people. Like most of the people who were like my colleagues in that era where we’re like 18, 19, 20, maybe even younger than that. It was a lot easier to make worse decisions. And because, you know, for all the reasons and and I kind of wanted to walk through like just sort of let let a character make some mistakes for me I wouldn’t make it. And also explore just sort of a lot of how I how I see the Internet now, how I think it’s going to be in the future and how good it is at turning absolutely anything into a fight.
Source: https://www.cnn.com/audio/podcasts/chasing-life/episodes/6c51819a-d613-4cff-9637-afbb0016bec8
How Much Time Are You Spending Online? How Much Do You Spend Online? What Are You Using Facebook, Twitter, and TikTok?
How much time are you spending online? Online, you’re making your content. What would you call your use of these platforms?
Um, the parts where it would be tricky to call it work, I could probably make the case just to justify to myself. It’s likely to take between 2 and 3 hours per day. The weird thing is that like what is online? Everything is online. I’m not counting that as likeNetflix is online. In other words, using social media like Twitter and TikTok. Consuming content, doing social media, social stuff, it’s hours per day, probably two or 3 hours per day.
Source: https://www.cnn.com/audio/podcasts/chasing-life/episodes/6c51819a-d613-4cff-9637-afbb0016bec8
How do you find out what I’m reading? What do I need to learn from it? How do I find out where I am going, and how to get out of it?
It’s something you need to get good at, I feel that way. When I have been using it like it’s, it has been destructive for me. I would like to find a reason to be upset. I’m. I’ve stumbled across a piece of the internet and found out what the content creators are saying, but most of the time they’re taking a scientific truth and then usually biological. It’s backtracking to the perspective that they wanted to have. I’m so mad because I want to do things like grab a sciencey thing and tell a story and do unscientific things. You can’t just say things! You know? You know you can speak, but I have to be careful because I can also be angry that the world is not what I want it to be. My wife can quickly identify me when I’m in that space. There is something you are mad about, but it has nothing to do with what you do. You also have to recognize that like the present, like you can’t fix everything. And so, like you have to focus on what you do and what you’re good at and what you actually like instead of, you know, it’s it’s harder to be a good dad and a good partner and a good leader at my businesses. If I am caught up in something, I think the internet is designed to keep us on the platforms and that is really good because it’s good at catching us in conflict.
Your your wife sounds very wise. Obviously. I am curious like these these videos or content that you’re consuming that do rile you up in the way that you described. How does it get to you? Is it is it part of your feed? Is it being fed to you by one of these algorithms you’re describing?
Part of my like, the fun part of my job is that people will ask me questions. And so one that I saw just this week, it came to me because several people on TikTok had seen this video, which got millions of viewers, and it was talking about some things in a scientific frame. A bunch of people tagged me, asking if this was true, and Hank Green was among them. It wasn’t. Like you’re just trying to take something that sounds, sciencey to lend credibility to your argument. I get into that as well. and I like it gets my blood pressure going. But I’ve gotten better over the years at realizing that. One of the things is true. You can’t argue with a professional arguer if you don’t become a professional arguer. And that’s not what I do for a living. I don’t argue with people for a living. I’m not using the internet to make people angry. I’m on the Internet to help people learn more about the universe and how it works, and to know more about the unknowable things. And that that’s beautiful and it’s fun. And like, I get so much joy from that. And I also think that it does more good than getting in a fight. You know.
It is easy for people to appeal to their amygdala. They are the emotional centers of the brain. It will get a lot of attention, and probably many opinions. Do you do you resist the urge to go that way to to to just provoke? Because that would probably, you know, maybe get even more people fired up and sharing your videos.
Yeah, I’m lucky to be in a situation where I don’t have my goal right now isn’t to get more attention or even money or whatever it is. It’s clear from research that shouting at people and talking about how bad they are and how wrong they are is not good for your cause. Like it does not convince people of things. The people are pushed to sides. That’s all it does.
Source: https://www.cnn.com/audio/podcasts/chasing-life/episodes/6c51819a-d613-4cff-9637-afbb0016bec8
I Have More Power than Before, I’m Going to Censor My Lives, Is It Like You’re in the Dark?
I mean, people when they come up to you in real life IRL, it’s probably very complimentary and thankful and grateful for, you know things that you’ve taught them and taught their kids. And I imagine that it’s the same way online in terms of the comments section and stuff like that. Do you read comments and do you feel like the response that you get in the digital world mirrors what you get in the real world?
Yeah. Yeah. For the, for the most part. It’s like there are comments that are cruel to me sometimes, and also people who disagree with things that I have done in the past, and that’s because I am not shy about my feelings on some controversial topics here and there. And the and so I’m like, you know, I’m kind of fine with that? I’m not a person to some people, I think it’s taken time to get there and to comprehend the extent to which I am. The people don’t see me. They see me as a sort of shell with a brand or something. I’ve gotten comfortable with both the idea that I have more power than those people, and the reality that I do. And so they feel like they can throw a punch I won’t be able to sense it. And and also, if I throw a punch at that, they will feel like I just like stepped on them with a transformer robot foot like the that that you know you kind of when you when you’re on the Internet and you have a you have a following and you have. You have, you know, status for lack of a better term. You have to know that you wield more power than you think. And I watch people all the time, and I, it really bugs me to be like, I’m not going to censor myself just because I have an army of angry people who will attack anyone I attack, and that we will come into their lives and make themselves absolutely miserable to the point where they have to delete their Internet history. I won’t censor myself because of that. It’s not really censoring yourself to not to recognize that you have more power than before.
That’s really good self awareness. I mean, to recognize that you’d be punching down, so to speak, and with a pretty heavy blow if you decided to engage in that way. People don’t know that they can leave a mark on you just because you are.
They have no idea. And people have been you know, John and I, my brother, have made this content together. We’ve had a few times where there were a lot of people who just didn’t like us. They think it’s fun and that we’re having a good time as well. We aren’t. We can’t say anything. We just have to, like, live through it. You know, it’s it’s a bad part of a good thing.
Source: https://www.cnn.com/audio/podcasts/chasing-life/episodes/6c51819a-d613-4cff-9637-afbb0016bec8
What do we really want to see in the online world? How do we get where we are now? How we’ve come to that realization
Yeah, absolutely. I don’t know how it gets better. It will take a lot of people with good thoughts and good conversations, as well as a lot of time and experience to make that happen. I am very interested in the printing press. We suddenly had the ability for people who disagreed with the church, for the Catholic Church to take it on and say, like, I think that you’re doing it wrong and we’re going to share that information. We’re going to be better at it than you, and we’re going to be more nimble than you. There are so many similarities between it and the conflicts we have now. It was a messy time. It was really bad. And lots of people died. And it was it was a book like nobody thinks we shouldn’t have books. They figured out how to have books that would not be destructive. We figured out how to move through that time where it was probably for the best that we would like that Like we didn’t we shouldn’t have lived in a world where the church had that much power. We needed to move into a world where there was more individual agency. I think we’re having that now. The discussion is not about young people and screentime. Every single one of us is talking about that right now.
I do think about that. I don’t know if it will ever come out but I’m thinking about what the internet might be like if we were careful. It is very different from what we have now. I believe that you never feel like you’re in history when you’re in it. But we always are. You don’t feel like you’re part of it. The fact that we’re in this place right now is part of a larger story that will not be covered in the next few years. But we are. And we’re at the beginning of this revolution in communications. You know, I know people who’ve run big social media companies and and they do think about the societal implications of what they do and they consider society and the world one of the one of their stakeholders, along with their employees and their advertisers and their investors and whatever. Basically, we are fine with the fact that you have technology, use it how you can and make as much money as you can, because that is how that makes sense. We haven’t really thought about how to do it in a way that’s really pro-social. We haven’t thought about how to sort of make the tool best for a human and best for human outcomes, because that’s really complicated and it’s kind of scary to say like, I’m going to use the social media platform to make me happy. It’s like, Woo hoo hoo. They can push the buttons but they shouldn’t. So what? What is the future like? Is it utopian or is it a little bit of both? Because that’s sort of what the future always is.
The future. At the same time, it was a little utopian, a little dystopian and a little weird. It’s a really kind of beautiful way to look at it, an authentic way to look at it. It’s true. We never know which way things are going to unfold. You will be surprised, if the impact of these technologies will get better? Will they get worse over time? Maybe it’s going to be both. All that we can really try and do is understand them, these tools, at the time we are using them. We can develop an expertise in how to use them well, like Hank said, and at the same time we can sharpen our awareness of how they can be detrimental to us. The pressures of being online can take a toll, even for someone who has been around for a while. He’s probably got more skin than most. Hank is a concern to me. I worry about people who don’t do things very well. I worry about young people. This is something I’m hearing about even from my own kids.
With social media, you want to make it seem like you’re making a statement with the way people see you. Like your life is so perfect. Even though not everyone’s lives is perfect.
Source: https://www.cnn.com/audio/podcasts/chasing-life/episodes/6c51819a-d613-4cff-9637-afbb0016bec8
Getting What You Want: A Conversation with Sky and the Parent-Paradox Approach to Teenagers’ Negativity and Bingos
A conversation with Sky is going to happen next week. About the pressures of being a teenage girl online. This is a conversation I will never forget. I’m going to sit down with the child psychologist and discuss how this pressure can affect young people.
A lot of young women feel like they’ve got to put out this perfect picture because you’re supposed to put out perfect aspects of your life and they know it’s not reality, but they’re giving that to other people. Even though we know that is not reality, we are in this like feedback loop as we look at perfect photos and pictures. So we’re just comparing our worst days, our worst moments, our worst angles to other people’s best. And of course, you’re going to not feel great when you do that.
Chasing Life: A Story About Social Media and the Mental Health of a Young Population (Matter Studies Report on CNN Audio Podcast)
Chasing Life is a production of CNN Audio. Our podcast is produced by Grace Walker, Xavier Lopez, Eryn Mathewson, and David Rind. Our senior producer is Haley Thomas. Tommy Bazarian is our engineer. Dan Dzula is our technical director. The executive producer of CNN Audio is Steve Lickteig. Thanks goes out to Ben Tinker, CNN Health, and the other people.
I remember I heard the buzzer, my phone, probably Snapchat notification, something trying to pull me in, and I instantly had that pillow in response to grab for it. And it was in that response in the millisecond between that buzz and my grab that I finally hit my breaking point. I wondered how I am allowing the apps to have so much power over me. So I started looking up things from, Is social media bad? What features do I use to keep me scrolling? There were many studies that explored social media’s role in sparking the mental health crisis of young people and in harming young people. The lack of youth representation and youth voices in the discussions was very upsetting.
The Voice I Knew You About CPR: A Journey Through Time with My Daughter Sky and My Grandchild, Sky’s Girlfriend, Amy’s Mom
The voice you just heard belongs to a very special member of my family, my 16-year-old daughter, Sky. I love my daughters the same, but don’t get me wrong. Sky though, is unique in her own way. Every other parent in the neighborhood brings the child to them for advice. She’s the one who knows CPR. She is the top choice for babysitters for everyone. She is really something else.
She makes fun of herself. If you’ve been on this journey with me since episode one, you know that I brought all three of my daughters along for the ride this season. I have been a medical journalist for more than 20 years and have never done that before. I’ve kept my kids away from the television and media part of my world. I wanted to have honest conversations with them about the impact technology has had on their lives. For better or worse, they have grown up in a digital world.
I have friends of my own. I don’t think all of them are phone related, because more of them deal with anxiety than depression. Like I see that concern.
Source: https://www.cnn.com/audio/podcasts/chasing-life/episodes/279fb31f-f176-4d8c-af8b-afc401155ab0
What was the inspiration for the spring/summer 2004 season? And what did you think about it? — How do you feel about it now?
So you asked me like what was the the inspiration for the season? I guess that was probably more than anything else. Exactly what you’re talking about. We don’t have a good handle on it, right?
I think it’s different for everyone. You can never really know exactly what’s going on in someone’s head. Like, even like my best friends, I like, we talk all the time. We like, can I feel like I can tell them anything. I still don’t really know what’s going on in their head exactly.
Source: https://www.cnn.com/audio/podcasts/chasing-life/episodes/279fb31f-f176-4d8c-af8b-afc401155ab0
On the funniest thing about me: How I feel about my daughter’s mental health and what I’m trying to say about it
Sky’s correct. There is no surprise. Maybe we can’t always know how our friends are feeling no matter how close we are. What I can say with more certainty is that my daughter’s mental health is one of the most important things in the world to me. It has been at the forefront of my mind throughout the season.
Yeah. I want to put a positive image of me on social media. I have had something wrong, like, like, like, thinking about it.
You are the funniest thing about me. and I don’t say this again lightly, but you look good in every article of clothing that you’ve ever worn. You look great in all of the colors. I think it’s sort of crazy.
Source: https://www.cnn.com/audio/podcasts/chasing-life/episodes/279fb31f-f176-4d8c-af8b-afc401155ab0
Chasing Life: How I’m going to Help Sky and the Children in the Adverse, or What Can I Do to Help My Daughter in Navigating the Internet?
Sky’s correct. There is pressure to be perfect online. That’s no secret. And like phones and social media itself. Filters and Photoshop probably are not going away. We learned today that they can go too far. The impact falling down the rabbit hole has on mental health can be significant. Those CDC numbers, they’re still on my mind. What can I do to make a difference as a dad? What can any of us do as parents to support our children, to help them navigate this virtual world? Telling Sky, for example, she is beautiful, is absolutely sincere. It’s honest, she knows that. It doesn’t feel like it’s enough sometimes. So I decided to get a little vulnerable myself with Professor Sinclair-McBride and asked her for advice.
We are seeing a lot of sad people. We are seeing a lot of anxiety. There is a lot of trauma we are seeing. The main reasons that young people end up with me is because of these.
I want to know what I can do as a dad to support Sky and the rest of my girls as they navigate this new world. I am CNN’s Chief Medical Correspondent. And this is Chasing Life.
You know, just a few weeks after I recorded that conversation with Sky, there was some new data that came out from the CDC confirming some of our worst fears as parents. I’m going to warn you now, before I read you this, that a few of the statistics are pretty disturbing. There were people who mentioned suicide.
Let me tell you more about it. They found out that almost one in five teen girls are sad or depressed. And that was nearly double the rate for teen boys. And this next one will probably shock you as it did me. Almost 25% of teen girls said that they had a suicide plan. A little over one third of four girls. That was not easy for me to hear as a parent. Hearing about young people in such distress, feeling alone in the worst case, feeling hopeless, like they had nothing more to live for. That is a powerful punch to the gut. And we cannot turn away our eyes to this. What is it doing to drive it?
Basically, the numbers have worsened every year my girls have been alive. That coincides with the birth of the digital world. After looking over the report, thinking back to my conversation with Sky and my other daughters, I couldn’t help but wonder what role is social media playing in all this? What should we say for sure?
That’s the professor Keneisha Sinclair-McBride. Her entire job is treating adolescents’ mental health. At Boston Children’s Hospital and Harvard Medical School, she is an assistant professor of psychology. We heard from Dr. Michael Rich earlier in the season. I got a lot from Dr. Rich. I’ve been thinking a lot about that conversation. I still have a lot of questions after reading the report and that’s why I called Professor Sinclair-McBride. I wanted to start by asking her to only reply to one of the statistics from the report. And that is that more than 40% of high school students report feeling sadness or hopelessness. That’s keeping some of them from living their lives. 40%. And I wondered, was she seeing and hearing this from the young people she treats?
When you hear something like that, that’s, we’re talking about symptoms of depression. A lot of kids are facing an epidemic of loneliness and overwhelm. We all have a lot to feel that way if you are still learning and growing, or if it’s the lens you are looking at. Everyone is upset about something. Bad things are happening all the time. So when you think about a young person trying to figure this out as their brain is developing in the shadow of a world altering event with COVID 19, this is not a surprising statement from the CDC’s report. The diagnostic elements of it, in terms of the symptoms kids are reporting, don’t feel surprising since the numbers are surprising.
Body image issues and eating disorders are part of what you specialize in. Do you think that this is all related when we, when we’re talking about what we’re seeing with mental health overall, body image issues, eating disorders and the impact of social media devices, content being fed to people on a regular basis, is it too flimsy to draw a connection between all these things, or do you think it exists?
I don’t think it’s too flimsy. I think it might start out innocently, and if the person’s diet looks healthy, I might follow it. Maybe I’m going to emulate some of her recipes and that can be fun. You can fall down a rabbit hole of more and more depending on your makeup. And then there’s the fact that there’s so much of people’s appearance in the digital world that is not real. Right. A lot of teenagers are comparing themselves to each other, even though they haven’t figured out how to put their bodies into proper shape. Well, I don’t look like her. It’s like she doesn’t look like her either. But you don’t know that, right? Because you’re looking at her social media feed. You’re feeling inadequate now because of what you’re seeing on your screen.
Professor Sinclair McBride calls this the “Selfie Effect.” What the studies have shown is that scrolling through an unlimited supply of picture perfect images and then comparing them real time to your selfies – bam! That can have a real effect on people’s moods and psychological health. The trend mostly affects young girls, but it is not the only one. People of all ages and genders have experienced this.
Sometimes young people ask if it’s not that we don’t understand this. They know that Photoshop exists. They use Snapchat filters, they understand it. It kind of distorts your lens of what is real if that’s all you’re seeing. Everyone’s face is smooth. If, like everyone, you know, has a particular shape and that’s all you’re seeing, now you feel inadequate.
Right. Like if you think about the trend lately now I think it was a couple of years ago now, like the idea of someone being goals, your goals, that person is goals. But like you don’t know what’s happening behind the scenes to make them look that way, right? Or like, you don’t know how realistic this is. Or maybe that’s just, that’s not your body type or that, you know, like there’s just so much more variety in life than just a few set ways of being. But those are the things that get the most views and the most attention. You could see how that would change people’s views.
Has that sort of thing been there much longer than social media. I mean, you know, when I was growing up again, it was magazines and pictures of just inexplicable models. You know, they couldn’t possibly have that skin or that body type. It’s the same thing, isn’t it?
But it’s just so much bigger. You know, there were only so many fashion magazines. If you read the issue, you could keep it. But that’s the end of that, right? You looked at the images after reading the whole thing. That’s what it is. The stuff you keep in your phone is always there. It’s always available to you. You can look at hundreds of pictures of the people that you’re interested in looking at. It always continues, never really ends. I think that accessibility is what makes it different. They have always been comparing themselves. None of these things are new, but there’s the accessibility of it all feels very different.
And I guess the persistence, like you’re saying, it’s just always there are something you’re carrying around in your hands. Do you think that a younger person, a person whose brain is not yet fully developed, who’s continuously exposed to these types of images, what does it mean for them long term? Does it do their brains change in some way in terms of expectations?
It’s crucial that you decide where you’re going to put your attention because, if that’s what you’re seeing, it’s important for you to find something to look at. But I think that that involves having a conversation with young people to really like kind of see where their heads are around this stuff, right? Because there’s a lot that can be really affirming. We have to look for it. It must be our attention that we give it. The internet is busy with people trying to get you some time. I talk to young people about it because they don’t like to be a part of it. So it’s important to like to like so this is this is a business, right? She’s working out, but she’s also trying to get more sponsors. I believe children can see that if you want to buy me time, I’m going to give my time to people who are standing for what I believe in.
You are absolutely correct about that. It was the thing that got to my girls the most when I was talking to them. They seemed to get the idea of someone trying to take something from them and playing it, even though they weren’t aware. I wonder you run a practice where you’re caring for these children, these young people, adolescents. How big a problem is this? Is there a way to contextualize this?
You should not say it if they roll their eyes. You have to say that, you’re my dad. My parents always say I look great. They say it with like an eye roll, but also this little smile. People need to know that they are valued, right? People need to, need to hear that, to know that no matter what, there’s a safe space to come home to. And they’re going to give you that eye roll because they’re supposed to. I think that it’s more important that the kids tell me what they’re told, than the fact that they don’t believe it. But like, they’re like, happy or proud or pleased. They may not want their parents to know that. The stuff you say doesn’t really matter.
Source: https://www.cnn.com/audio/podcasts/chasing-life/episodes/279fb31f-f176-4d8c-af8b-afc401155ab0
What do you want to know about mental health, social media and the digital age? A few questions about balancing school play and school play
That’s coming up in a second. I want to hear from you, I’ve been asking a lot of questions this season, but I also want to know what you think. I am aware that this is extremely personal for a lot of people. What do you want to know when it comes to mental health and social media? Have any changes been made to your digital diet since listening to this year’s show? Call me and I will get back to you. Let’s leave a message. It would mean a lot to hear from you, and we might even include your voice on an upcoming episode of the podcast.
So what does that balance actually look like? Professor Sinclair-McBride says that is varies for every teen and that it begins with a few questions.
What are they trying to accomplish? Are they involved in the school play? They are doing community service. They have something. If you don’t have that I’m worried about you lying in your bed all day looking at your phone.
Source: https://www.cnn.com/audio/podcasts/chasing-life/episodes/279fb31f-f176-4d8c-af8b-afc401155ab0
What do you wanna do? How do you find time in a social media rabbit hole? Why do you need to know what you want to do?
If someone says “okay, yeah, I’m checking the boxes that they’re talking about in terms of my real life”, I realize that it’s interfering with my life. I’m not doing some of the things I want to do. What do you tell someone if you say that’s me? I’m experiencing these issues.
It takes a lot to say I’m having a problem with something, so I give a lot of praise andAffirmation. There’s a weakness to that and a humility to that that needs to be honored. There’s a lot of shame in knowing that you aren’t living the way you want to be living it, right? So that’s the first step for me. So, I like to know what you like to do, before this was a problem. What did you think about it? What did you do? What were you interested in? What did you and your friends do? And then so that’s like going in the past and then going in the future, what do you want for the future? Not necessarily what you want to be when you grow up, what kind of stuff you want to spend your time doing, right? What do you want to do after high school? What are what are your goals like? What is it about you that makes you happy? What is your dream vacation? Where are you trying to go with things? That’s not just the device, that’s what gives me clues into what we can devote time to now.
Professor Sinclair-McBride is correct. It takes a lot of courage and vulnerability to tell someone you have a problem. But at the end of the day, I also wonder if there’s more that us parents should be doing, that we can be doing, on a larger scale to protect kids in the first place. Multiple experts have told me just how easy it is to get sucked into a social media rabbit hole. Apps like TikTok or Instagram, they are made to activate a stream of dopamine that rewards us for staying online. They know what they’re doing. They do things like make you emotional by doing things like fire up your amygdala. So now you got this really big mix of neurochemicals circulating in your brain. And for what? One of my guests, Catherine Price, even compared social media to slot machines, saying they are both engineered purposely to encourage us to keep on playing or in this case, scrolling. And with that in mind, I asked Professor Sinclair-McBride what actions she might want to see from tech companies.
There is transparency. When your girls realized it wasn’t just a job, you said the thing that captured their attention the most. People trying to buy your time, all that kind of stuff. I would like for the information to be constantly available to them. Like, if you were just like watching a TikTok and it says underneath this person is sponsored by blah, blah, blah, like it should just be, like just in big blaring letters. Not in a way that you can avoid it or like, you know, this person is selling you this supplement, but really they work out five hours a day. Like I don’t know, whatever it is just to make it really clear what’s really happening.
I feel like I missed out on a lot, but I was interested in the comments she made about the selfies. And I mean, should should these filters, I guess they’re going to exist. It is, is as one of my daughters said, we talk about these things as being good things or bad things. Sometimes they’re just a thing. They are there. People like to see the sunrise and sunset pictures and the mountains and nature pictures. But when it comes to filtering the human, you know, our own bodies and stuff. If you were to wave a magic wand and the tech companies said how to handle people modifying their appearance, how would you handle it?
I think I have a kind of an intersectional response to that in the sense that, like a lot of the filters kind of have a very Eurocentric lens. It would be great if they didn’t make people’s skin colors lighter, or change the shape of their noses, or do things that make them more toward a certain set of ideals.
Standard of beauty that may not be from the cultural background that they’re from, right? Like, I think that would be really clutch. Like it would be nice if like when you put a filter on, it said you’re beautiful as you are, but you can play with this if you want, right? Like, it’s just just a tool is just something that is here. But also this picture of you without the filter is also really cool. And I notice that some kids are really into sending them each other unfiltered, silly pictures or like making like really ridiculous faces and like, that’s a sense of a kind of like vulnerability or connection that like, I really care about you, we’re really close because I sent you this really unflattering picture of myself.
What’s the most common place where people are using social media the most? What do we really need to know about how kids will use social media?
Right. I would like to know if we can predict the trajectory of this where people are using these technologies the most. I know this is a totally hypothetical question that requires a crystal ball, but if you had to sort of look a decade or even two decades into the future, do you think that girls or kids, adolescents that are my adolescents’ age, my kids age, they’re teenagers, do you think that they will continue to be using social media as much as they do now? Is it a period of adolescence that you think it is?
I think the period of adolescence is when the most time is spent. I am very inspired by the way this generation of kids take noprisoners when it comes to things that cause harm or needs to be fixed in the world. Maybe they’re going to be the ones to figure out how to make that so. I don’t think anyone who’s like 14 now will be sitting at 30 looking at the same filters that they’re seeing right now. I’m sure there will be doing something completely different, but I also think that they may be a part of the change of how to make this feel more balanced and empowering.
Source: https://www.cnn.com/audio/podcasts/chasing-life/episodes/279fb31f-f176-4d8c-af8b-afc401155ab0
The role that words play in raising kids to realize that I am sorry, but I’m sorry, and I hope that I don’t have any naive thoughts
I keep saying I don’t want to be naive here, and I really don’t. But like I think I was surprised when Sky said that she, I guess I look at the pictures of my family. I think you’re all perfect no matter what. You look great no matter what. It gets to me a little bit, I don’t know. I’m feeling myself get a little emotional thinking about her saying that because I, like it’s not that big a deal, right? There is a picture. It’s not. I think that she would agree with that. It’s not that something has hurt her, but it has made her feel like that, and that’s why she said that. I want to stop my kids from feeling that way. If I just say, hey, you always look great, that’s not going to work. That’s not that’s not that doesn’t get through, I’m just dad saying, of course I’m going to say that, Dad, you know.
I believe that this kind of fear stems from fear of being imperfect. If I’m presenting my best but not always getting it, the bottom is going to fall out, and I’m not going to get the things that I dream of, that’s like if I make a mistake. You know, if there are bad circumstances or good circumstances that make someone feel that way, then it’s not necessarily that. It’s just like if you get a lot of positive feedback, you want to keep getting positive feedback, right? And so being being able to feel comfortable in your mistakes and in your imperfection is like a continuous lifelong process. As she gets older, I believe that that sense of ownership over that, this is me all the good, and the bad, and you know, I have value that starts to really kind of solidify for people as they get older.
Truth is, I will take the eye rolls any day if it means my daughters know that I care. Sometimes it does feel like the words you say to your kids don’t really make a difference. But they do. They’re listening and they are playing a role that has been handed to them. Roll their eyes is the role they play. I can’t be bothered, Dad. But they are hearing you. They are working on what you’re saying. Hopefully, they are storing that information in a safe way and feeling good about it as well. After speaking to Professor Sinclair-McBride, I’m even more determined to tell my daughters how much they mean to me over and over again. It’s important. I hope you’re going to do the same with your kids, but also your friends, your loved ones. Because being in a world surrounded by screens, those real life conversations, they make even more of a difference than ever.
Source: https://www.cnn.com/audio/podcasts/chasing-life/episodes/279fb31f-f176-4d8c-af8b-afc401155ab0
A 20-Year-Old Tech Journalist Who’s Fighting for the Future of the Internet and What We Can Do to Make Social Media Safer
Professor Sinclair-McBride called for social media companies to be more transparent when she talked with me, and it really stuck out to me. It’s an interesting idea. Throughout the season, I’ve asked experts their thoughts on how we can make social media a better place. But now there is a push to pose that very same question to the social media companies themselves. And the professor isn’t the only one calling for change.
Emma is in the middle of a fight between social media companies, users, and lawmakers for change in the tech sector. What will it take to make social media safer? Is it even really possible? Also, should these companies be held accountable, carry some sort of responsibility for the harms young people like Emma and others are alleging? It is not an easy thing to do, but it is the most important issue of our time. Today we are going to try and get answers from a tech journalist who is going to educate us about a decades old law in front of the Supreme Court that could affect the future of the internet.
That is Emma Lemke. It’s a name you probably need to remember because I have a feeling you’re going to be hearing it a lot. Emma is a college student. My own girls are much older than her. She and many of her peers have decided to take on a fight that is big, bigger than themselves.
I created a hearing to better protect kids on the internet. And the 20 year old had a very clear message for U.S. senators and frankly, for the whole world.
No doubt. Emma is a remarkable young woman. She’s inspiring. She is right at the age when most people are figuring out who they are, what they want out of life, and just having fun. And the fact that she’s dedicating these prime college years to fighting for a future that is better for her and other young people. It gives me a lot of faith in the younger generations. I think about this a lot. We have given our kids a world that they did not want. Climate change, civil unrest, deep political polarization, and, yes, an inescapable digital world, any of them. And each of those times I have seen young people rise up and tackle some of these huge issues. It kind of makes me believe that the kids are going to be okay. It isn’t just talk either. Emma has some specific ideas about ways to improve social media.
Tessellated” Techno-Physics: How the Laws in Section 229 haven’t Go Away
Members of my generation have expressed concern for their own well-being, but also for their siblings, cousins, and anyone else who might come after them.
Because of Section 229, a lot of the lawsuits concerning tech and mental health have not gone away.
Source: https://www.cnn.com/audio/podcasts/chasing-life/episodes/63bb7b1b-4a4a-4704-b8b0-afc8014ce9fa
The Tick Tock Conversation: What Happens when You Meet Someone and You Or Someone Get Your Attention, And How You Feel When You Are On The Internet
Yes. So the concerns driving the tick tock conversation are. Oh, I guess there are twofold. One is kind of the the mental health conversation you and I were having earlier. That is not unique to tick tock. One of the unique characteristics of the company is that they are owned by a company with a significant presence in China, which is something the US and policymakers in Europe and Canada have said is required for companies to do in China. And the fear is that TikTok U.S. user data could find its way into the hands of the Chinese government because the Chinese government has leverage over Tiktok’s parent company. Mm, hmm. There’s no evidence that the Chinese government has actually accessed this information or used it for intelligence purposes. But if you talk to cybersecurity experts, the potential is there.
I remember seeing all of my friends as attention get pulled away from me and having their eyes looking up at me, having conversations and getting pulled straight down. And it felt like a drop. Each one would go and spend a lot more time on their phones and screens, rather than talking with me.
But I was an optimistic 11-12 year old, so in my mind I was thinking there has to be something that is so mystical and magical and golden within these platforms that’s taking my friend’s attention away from me in the moment and throwing their attention down at the screen.
It seemed to me like it was magical. I was a kid, and you told me that someday, we would carry these devices in our hands and it would be possible to conjure up images and sounds from anywhere in the world. I would have thought of witches and other weird things. But here we are. Not only does the technology exist, but there seems to be this strange obligation to constantly interact with it. There is this constant pressure that young people have to be online. And as I’ve learned this season, it can be particularly challenging for girls. It can be a double whammy for young people like my daughters and Emma who are feeling the pressures of being young women and online.
Source: https://www.cnn.com/audio/podcasts/chasing-life/episodes/63bb7b1b-4a4a-4704-b8b0-afc8014ce9fa
What did Emma Tell Me About Social Media When I Was Going to Washington, D.C., and How did she find out about it?
I can easily see how many people liked my video, how many people commented, and how many liked and followers I have.
That was Emma’s order to action. Emma claims that there’s something about the way social media draws you in and doesn’t let you go, something that feels manipulative by design. The idea reminded me of what I said to Catherine Price earlier in the season. She had the same take, if you remember. She says that many of these apps are designed to mimic slot machines in order to keep you hooked, so you pull the lever more and more. Emma simply doesn’t think this is right. In fact, she believes that it’s time for a redesign and she believes that the responsibility to fix it should come from, you guessed it, those who designed it in the first place.
She looked at legislation that could make a difference. And at the age of 17, she was advocating for changes to policy at the state and then the federal level behind all of Emma’s work is this idea that we cannot legislate on behalf of young people without giving young people a seat at the table.
Often times I think young people, they do not think that legislative action will effectively solve this issue. One, because of how slow and methodical and chaotic and complicated it can be. But two, because you, in the media, get clips of senators asking, “How do you make money, Mr. Zuckerberg?” You know, like these these basic questions that you would think, oh, no, as a 12 year old, I could answer that. What are you doing? You’re supposed to be the one who protects me. But in going there and going to D.C., I have become so optimistic because I see these senators working tirelessly to understand these issues by bringing in young people like me.
Source: https://www.cnn.com/audio/podcasts/chasing-life/episodes/63bb7b1b-4a4a-4704-b8b0-afc8014ce9fa
What does autoplay and targeting in social media tell us? A CNN Tech Reporter’s Perspective on the Communications Decency Act (Section 230)
What does that mean? Emma saw how autoplay would lead to her downfall. For example, how searching for something as simple as healthy meals led to suggested content pushing her toward disordered eating. It is just so strange, but disordered eating content would fire up the emotional centers of your brain and get you to stick around longer. It’s sick and Emma doesn’t want anyone to go through that. She wants the public to know how these algorithms work, and how they recommend content that isn’t good for them.
I think the second thing we have to address is how to protect young people. It wants to look at regulation via design features such as stopping autoplay by default, stopping or banning targeted advertising, and other things that would help young people stop consuming harmful content. And it is also looking at features allowing minors to be direct message by adults that they don’t know. And I think in investigating how to put into place those two things, safeguards and algorithmic transparency, that we will see the most effective solutions emerge.
If you’ve been paying attention to the news in the past couple of weeks, you might have come across a story or many stories about the ongoing legal battles social media companies are currently facing. This topic is something that really strikes home because the safety of our kids is at the center of many of these legal brawls. Some of the legal jargon can be hard to understand for me. So I decided to sit down with one of my colleagues who lives and breathes social media and tech.
That’s Brian Fung. He has been a CNN tech reporter for many years and is based in Washington D.C. I was going to ask Brian about the questions Emma asked him. Like, why do those algorithms feel manipulative and the reality slash possibility of holding social media companies accountable? Brian claims the answer is in an old piece of legislation called the Communications Decency Act. You might have heard of this already. It’s called Section 230. I read an article that you wrote and it had a headline about Section 231 and it really made me pay attention to it. It said how the Supreme Court could reshape the Internet as you know it. It’s a big deal. I mean, it sounds like a big deal. I’m curious if you can just give us a little bit about Section 230.
That’s right. If Section 230 is made smaller, that will make it harder for tech platforms to stay out of lawsuits and that is something that a lot of tech platforms are worried about. Facebook could have to stop ranking content in its feed or Google or YouTube might have to stop fighting spam. That’s where the arguments are coming from. How do we avoid litigation? If you can’t be accused of doing enough if you stop moderating the content, you won’t have to.
I know that a lot of this can feel dense, but it is difficult to overstate just how big these court cases are. Legislative actions are slow but the Supreme Court ruling can have a rapid effect on change. And there’s one case in particular Brian’s been paying close attention to.
Section 230 is going to get some clarity soon from the Supreme Court. And Brian says we’ll likely get a ruling in Gonzales versus Google by the end of June or early July. For now, lawmakers seem to have their sights on the TikTok platform, which I’ve been talking to my own daughters about all season.
I am aware that it sounds a lot. And you may be wondering why do I have to care about how companies moderate content? Why? Because it strikes to the heart of how most of us use social media. Think of it like this. The suggestion is made by the algorithm. We interact with those things. What we don’t like will be learned by it. But what happens then when the algorithm spits out something dangerous or objectionable and someone then retweets it or likes it, should they be held responsible for the damage that causes?
So then you heard this and a really important exchange between Justice Amy Coney Barrett and one of the lawyers for the plaintiffs who are suing Google.
Justice Barrett asked, Hey, if I go to Twitter and I retweet something under your legal theory, you’re saying I’m not protected by Section 230. And the lawyer responded, Yeah, that’s content you’ve created.
And and the implication being that if you’ve created this content, then you’re potentially liable for it. You aren’t just passing on someone else’s content, even if it is a re-post. That is a really big deal.
Source: https://www.cnn.com/audio/podcasts/chasing-life/episodes/63bb7b1b-4a4a-4704-b8b0-afc8014ce9fa
What do we really know about TikTok and social media and mental health? Are there any lawsuits? An example from a mother’s son’s suicide
This hits on, I think, so many sectors of society. And, you know, I think there’s a relevance to to everyone. Are there any lawsuits over the associations between these platforms and mental health that have traction?
And this is key, that’s what it is. We heard about how this law has allowed misinformation on the internet to be easily distributed and then accessed by people who may not know they are reading it. It is section 230, which is a big reason why social media companies have been shielded from legal action even by families who’ve been harmed by this content.
Good example, there was a congressional hearing a few weeks ago where a mother whose son committed suicide after being bombarded with bullying messages on Snapchat, tried to sue the company.
After his death. We discovered that in a single day, forty messages came in including negative, harassing, sexually explicit and humiliating messages. He asked his-
What are the teenagers going to do? They’re going to set their phones so they live in Canada, and they’ll still use the popular messaging apps.
I don’t really use TikTok. I don’t use my phone for that anymore. But I know from my daughters and I know by following your reporting that at the same time, TikTok is hugely influential. It’s controversial but influential. There’s a lot of news coming out. Canada is banning it on government devices. Certain states have done that in the United States as well. What do you think is is driving that with with TikTok specifically? Is there something different fundamentally about TikTok?
There is no evidence that they’ve accessed this data, because of the concerns about China and the company that owns TikTok. Right. But do you do you think that there’s there’s real validity to these concerns or is this more anti-Chinese sort of rhetoric, which we’ve heard a lot, you know, during the pandemic. The posturing has seemed to reach critical levels at times. Is this part of that? Is it getting wrapped up or is there some valid concerns here?
You know, this is a question that I’ve been grappling with at a very personal level. I am Asian-American as well. My family is from China. And so it’s often hard to tell where one ends and the other begins. It’s obvious to me that there is a national security risk that has been established. The question is what you do with that. I think that now, particularly, history. Typically the U.S. is in a kind of competition mode with China, and so it’s low hanging fruit at the moment to take a tough stance against China. And I think that there’s probably some blurring of the lines between what is very much a legitimate national security concern and being critical of China in ways that yield political dividends.
Source: https://www.cnn.com/audio/podcasts/chasing-life/episodes/63bb7b1b-4a4a-4704-b8b0-afc8014ce9fa
What’s happening in the United States, and what’s going on in the UK? What do we know? What can we learn from the recent decisions?
There is no federal data privacy law. California is the toughest state to operate in when it comes to handling user data. It is kind of glaring that we don’t have a national federal privacy standard, and that we have been trying to fix for a long time.
When you look at the United States, is this country different than other countries? The U.K Coroners Court ruled that social media companies were responsible for a teen’s suicide. I think it was last year. It is the first of its kind. TikTok is also under scrutiny for failing to protect children’s data. We’re hearing about all these sorts of things in the U.K. That’s accountability. It sounds like it. It is, it’s happening overseas, but not here in the United States. Is it happening at the moment? Do you think it’s a sign of what’s to come? Or is the United States different?
The UK and EU have been very active in addressing many of these issues. The way that regulation is in those places is a big part of the reason. The government is expected to impose rules ahead of time in the European context, rather than trying to enforce them. Whereas in the United States, the legal regime is kind of flipped where corporate accountability happens generally after things go wrong. There are some indications that may be starting to change. The EU has passed or used laws that are a reference for how we craft our own laws, as pointed out by policymakers in Congress. There’s definitely a lot of cross-pollination going on. Is that enough to overcome the kind of sclerotic political divisions affecting our government right now?