Will Kids Online, In Fact, Be All Right?

Summary

Critics at Large | The New Yorker

Episode: Will Kids Online, In Fact, Be All Right?
Release Date: November 21, 2024

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Introduction to the Discussion

In this episode of Critics at Large, The New Yorker's Vinson Cunningham, Naomi Fry, and Alexandra Schwartz delve into the pressing question: Will kids online, in fact, be all right? The conversation is sparked by Naomi Fry’s recent piece on Lauren Greenfield’s documentary series, Social Studies, which explores the lives of teenagers in Los Angeles amidst the pervasive influence of social media post-pandemic.

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Exploring Social Studies Documentary

Naomi Fry (00:24): Introduces Social Studies, a five-part miniseries by Lauren Greenfield, highlighting the dual lives of LA teenagers both online and offline during the pandemic. The documentary uniquely captures authentic digital interactions, including texts, likes, TikTok activity, and DMs, offering a window into the lives of the first generation born with social media.

Alex Schwartz (05:28): Shares his apprehension yet admiration for the show, emphasizing the thoughtful portrayal of teens grappling with the inescapability of social media despite recognizing its detrimental effects.

Vinson Cunningham (07:29): Reflects on the formative nature of teenage years and how social media can both shape and threaten the development of individual identity, portraying a metaphor of teenagers navigating from one societal shore to another.

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Teens’ Relationship with Social Media

Alex Schwartz (03:24): Highlights the inescapable nature of social media for teens, who, despite their critical awareness of its dangers, feel compelled to stay engaged as it’s central to their social lives.

Vinson Cunningham (03:56): Discusses a character from the documentary, illustrating how reliance on social media is integral to teens' identity formation, making the option to opt out feel like social death.

Alex Schwartz (12:17): Analyzes Sidney, a character whose journey from provocative online presence to a more thoughtful social media use in college underscores the challenges of reshaping one's online identity amidst cyberbullying and shifting social dynamics.

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Moral Panics: Historical and Contemporary Perspectives

Nomi Frye (05:28): Draws parallels between current societal fears about teenagers and historical moral panics, suggesting that concerns about youth behavior are perennial but amplified by technological advancements.

Vinson Cunningham (19:26): Recounts past moral panics related to music and figures like Marilyn Manson, illustrating how societal fears often target cultural expressions perceived as threatening to youth.

Alex Schwartz (25:01): References Goethe’s The Sorrows of Young Werther and Frederick Wertham’s Seduction of the Innocent to demonstrate how literature and media have historically fueled fears about youth behaviors leading to societal decline.

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Impact of Social Media on Mental Health

Alex Schwartz (32:00): Presents alarming statistics linking social media use to increased rates of anxiety, depression, and suicide among teenagers. He cites Andrew Solomon’s piece, highlighting a 62% rise in suicide rates among Americans aged 10-24 between 2007 and 2021.

Vinson Cunningham (32:30): Affirms the real dangers of social media addiction, emphasizing the ethical responsibility of corporations exploiting youth vulnerabilities for profit.

Alex Schwartz (35:55): Discusses Jonathan Haidt’s The Anxious Generation, which posits that the "great rewiring" of childhood through technology is causing a surge in mental illness, advocating for stricter regulations on smartphone and social media use among minors.

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Potential Solutions and Hope for the Future

Vinson Cunningham (41:05): Raises concerns about the decline of traditional community-building activities like clubs and unions, suggesting that rebuilding civil society is crucial for providing alternatives to the isolating effects of social media.

Nomi Frye (42:34): Acknowledges that while online platforms offer avenues for niche interests and connections, they cannot wholly replace the benefits of real-world community engagement.

Alex Schwartz (43:07): References Robert Putnam’s Bowling Alone to underline the ongoing decline in social capital and the importance of fostering real-life communities to counterbalance the isolative nature of digital interactions.

Vinson Cunningham (45:13): Proposes that empowering teenagers to create their own communities and advocating for freedom from corporate-controlled social spaces can offer a path towards healthier identity formation and social interaction.

Nomi Frye (47:34): Highlights the challenge of communicating the importance of real-world engagement to teenagers who are deeply entrenched in digital cultures, emphasizing the need for compassionate and relatable guidance.

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Concluding Thoughts

The hosts converge on the dual nature of social media’s impact on youth. While acknowledging the undeniable dangers and the significant rise in mental health issues correlated with increased online engagement, they also recognize the historical context of moral panics surrounding youth behavior. The discussion underscores the necessity of balancing regulation with the fostering of real-world communities to support the healthy development of teenagers in the digital age.

Alex Schwartz (48:53): Emphasizes the importance of allowing teenagers the freedom to remake themselves and the potential for resetting digital identities to promote healthier self-concepts.

Vinson Cunningham (48:25): Encourages the creation of independent, supportive communities as a countermeasure to the overwhelming influence of corporate-controlled social media platforms.

Nomi Frye (47:34): Reflects on the difficulty of addressing these issues without alienating teenagers, advocating for empathetic and understanding approaches to guide them towards healthier social interactions.

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Key Takeaways

• Inescapability of Social Media: Teens today perceive social media as integral to their social existence, making disengagement feel socially isolating.
• Historical Moral Panics: Societal fears about youth behavior are not new but are exacerbated by technological advancements.
• Mental Health Crisis: There is a strong correlation between increased social media use and rising rates of anxiety, depression, and suicide among teenagers.
• Need for Community Building: Reestablishing real-world communities and civic engagement is vital to provide alternatives to the isolative effects of social media.
• Balanced Approach: While regulation is necessary to protect youth from corporate exploitation, fostering supportive, independent communities is equally important for healthy adolescent development.

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Notable Quotes

• Alex Schwartz (03:24): "The sense of inescapability... they feel that they cannot give it up because that is where so much social life is taking place."
• Vinson Cunningham (03:56): "Social media ... feels like it threatens social death."
• Alex Schwartz (32:00): "Between 2007 and 2021, the incidence of suicide among Americans between the ages of 10 and 24 rose by 62%."
• Vinson Cunningham (32:30): "Corporations seeking to take advantage of the vulnerability of the young to profit off of them... needs to stop."
• Alex Schwartz (35:55): "Brains are getting literally rewired... Jonathan Haidt's The Anxious Generation speaks directly to this."

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Conclusion

Critics at Large provides a nuanced examination of the intricate relationship between teenagers and social media. By intertwining current observations with historical parallels, the hosts offer a comprehensive understanding of the challenges faced by today’s youth. The episode serves as both a cautionary tale and a call to action, emphasizing the need for societal shifts to support the mental well-being and healthy development of the next generation in an increasingly digital world.

Transcript

[Alex Schwartz]

Welcome to Critics at Large, a podcast from the New Yorker. I'm Alex Schwartz.

[Vincent Cunningham]

I'm Vincent Cunningham.

[Nomi Frye]

And I'm Nomi Frye. Each week on this show, we make sense of what's happening in the culture right now and how we got here. Hi, guys.

[Alex Schwartz]

Hello.

[Vincent Cunningham]

Hello.

[Nomi Frye]

So, as I've mentioned before on our show, I myself have a teenager. And in fact, she's told me, stop talking about me on your podcast. But since she doesn't listen, I can just go ahead and keep talking. And I'm not mentioning anything, you know, bad or personal. Anyway, I recently watched something that has been described as a kind of horror movie for the parents of teenagers. But in fact, it's not a horror movie, it's a documentary. It's called Social Studies. I recently wrote a piece about it for the New Yorker website. It's a five part miniseries created by the photographer and filmmaker Lauren Greenfield. And it documents the lives of a group of teenagers living in LA post early pandemic, I would say like a year and a half into the pandemic. And it documents both their real life interactions with their peers, with their teachers, with their parents, and also, interestingly, their online lives. I definitely fell into a little rabbit hole, especially earlier quarantine over summer, my social media, like, consumption, it was like 12 hours a day. I definitely found myself like comparing to people online that I didn't even know. People will take videos, like whether they're drunk or high, and it looks so much fun. All of my friends, we were all kind of like, this is cool. You didn't have anything else to do. The past year plus has been what Greenfield did was she sought permission and received permission from the teens who agreed to participate in this documentary to screen grab their phone activity. We see their texts with their friends or with their parents, we see their likes, we see what they're scrolling on TikTok, we see their DMs. And so it kind of brings you in into the world as it is for these digital natives who Greenfield kind of clarifies to us, are the first generation to have been born with social media.

[Alex Schwartz]

Right.

[Nomi Frye]

Essentially. Right. What struck you guys about the way the series portrays social media use among these teens?

[Alex Schwartz]

Well, I think what struck me the most is the sense of inescapability. And that's something that the teens themselves wrestle with. And I know that we're gonna talk about as it appears in the documentary and elsewhere, but this sense that even as the teens themselves are kind of the most articulate critics of the social media industry and platforms. And they're very aware of the dangers and the damage that they're doing. They feel that they cannot give it up because that is where so much social life is taking place. And so just seeing that in action was very striking. And also seeing the teens be really thoughtful about it was striking.

[Nomi Frye]

Mm.

[Vincent Cunningham]

Yeah. Early on, I think it's in the first episode, one of the young women says, you know, I just can't imagine what I'd be like without it. Like, I'd just be this like, uninformed, like, lousy 14 year old with like, you know, this girl who by the way, is smart, articulate, has this great relationship with her mom. Yeah. But she, again, with full knowledge of that, of some negative effects, feels that she. We would not be able to build an identity without this.

[Nomi Frye]

I think one of the main things that struck me about this very good, I think, series is that on the one hand, we don't need much to be alarmed.

[Alex Schwartz]

Right.

[Nomi Frye]

This is kind of like a new thing that has some very far reaching consequences. But on the other hand, also, it did strike me that the tone of the show kind of tapped into this long tradition of panicking about what the kids are up to. There have been many texts that have aimed to show us why we don't understand our kids and why we should be scared that we don't understand our kids. And part of what I'm thinking is how much of this concern around social media use by teens is, is warranted. On the one hand, asking if the kids are all right, quote, unquote, is something that's happened to basically every generation. But on the other hand, kids right now are adapting to one of the most massive, if not the most massive, technological shifts in modern history. That's today on Critics at Large. Will the kids online in fact be all right? Okay, so let's start talking about social studies. So this is a show created by Lauren Greenfield. It's been airing on FX this fall. It's also on Hulu. Initial Impressions. Did you guys like it? Did you enjoy it?

[Alex Schwartz]

I loved this show.

[Nomi Frye]

Okay.

[Alex Schwartz]

I loved this show. I was afraid to watch it. Yeah. You know, even though I should note.

[Nomi Frye]

That, you know, Alex has a young child, certainly not Instagram age.

[Alex Schwartz]

I have a child who's more than a decade away from being a teen.

[Nomi Frye]

And yet she's already terrified.

[Alex Schwartz]

No, I was really trying to engage with the people actually living this reality right now. And I think the subjects of this documentary are, as Nomi said before, the first generation to be kids with social media. And that first, I think, by and large, by evidence of this documentary, but also a lot of other stuff that we're gonna get to has been more of a burden than a privilege. So, anyway, I loved this series in part because I loved the kids. And I do think the documentary gave them room to be really thoughtful about their own lives and personal interviews. And also was pretty honest about showing how they live their lives when they're not reflecting on them every second. Cause they're just going through life like everybody else, but more so because they're teenagers. And I did find it concerning. Yeah, I did. Okay, I'm just gonna say it. I don't wanna strike the match of moral panic in this room and have us all, you know, screaming and jumping to the rafters.

[Vincent Cunningham]

We got time. We. We can get there if you want.

[Alex Schwartz]

Yeah, I just, you know, I thought that it gave a very convincing impression of a really difficult situation, which is being, in the broad sense, unable to leave. For me, as a teenager and trying not to see it through exclusively personal lens, but it's kind of hard not to. Well, I think it's exactly. You kind of look through all this stuff personally, because we all were teenagers. Being able to leave situations was extremely important for me as a teenager. Like being able to say, I need to opt out of this right now. And the thing that really strikes me about social media is that for these teenagers, that's not an option because it feels like it threatens social death. And so that, to me, was the kind of overarching theme of the documentary, this being unable to opt out. Now, I'm curious what you guys thought.

[Vincent Cunningham]

I really liked it too. I mean, it's what always strikes me when I am forced to look directly at teenagers is that so much of our sensibility is really formed so early on. So much personality, so much identity, so much of the mark that makes us individual. That crucible is entered very early on in our lives. And this is precisely, like, what scares us about it, right? That it's this little. You're in this little boat from one shore to another and, like, will you make it to the far shore? Will you make it past this era? This moment of, yes, deep vulnerability. Yes. Like, psychic peril. All these things, but one during which kind of much of what makes you is already intact. And therefore much of what makes you can possibly be, like, whatever, broken, hurt in this, really. So, yeah, just like, you know, I remember comments people made to me, good and bad. I remember compliments that I got when I was 13 years old and they were things that I, like, tried to form my identity around later on. It's like, do you really see that in me now? I'm aiming at that because, you know, so that moment where, like, so much can toss and turn you. And so for me, and we can get into this. Yes, it was about this particular issue of social media and whatever, you know what it means. Precisely. But to me, it was more about just that moment in our lives and what happens when that moment in our lives kind of comes up against the weird, semi permanent thing that is society.

[Nomi Frye]

Yeah, no, totally. I mean, I agree. I love this show. And I think it reminds you that teenagers are both, like, so sophisticated. Like, in ways where I was like, okay, they know. These kids know way more than me and can articulate, like, the bind they find themselves in living through the age of social media better than I can, because that is, like, their domain. And also, you're reminded that they're, like, mere babies who know nothing.

[Alex Schwartz]

One character who I thought was really interesting and who had quite a trajectory over the course of the series was this girl, Sidney. When the show starts, Sidney's a college freshman and seems not. I'm just gonna be frank. She doesn't seem that smart of a character. She seems like. She seems very, very eager to fit in on the social world online, where basically she's a minor who's posting a ton of really, really sexy content.

[Nomi Frye]

When I was in high school at Pali, I would post pictures that were just not normal to post for being a minor. But that's what you see online and on TV and everywhere. And that's what's marketed. Social media is more about looking good and appealing to what other people like. And I, like, tagged my Instagram account so people would be like, oh, she's like, hot. I'll follow her Instagram. Like, I would post on TikTok to get more followers on Instagram. Like, it's like a whole cycle.

[Alex Schwartz]

You get this view of her social accounts and especially her TikTok, where she's doing really provocative dances, she's wearing really skimpy clothing, she's posing in, like, you know, sexy ways. And Sidney is interesting because she ends up actually, first of all, being a lot smarter than I perhaps cruelly assumed that she was, and also being a lot more reflective, which are not always the same things she goes at. When she goes to college, she gets a group of friends, and it seems like she is having a much more wholesome social media life because they're posting, like, fun TikToks. She's no longer doing all this sexy stuff that actually got her slut shamed. And also, of course, a lot of comments from older men online when she was in high school. But that also blows up in her face. Because when a lot of your friendships are taking place in social media, if something goes on in them that might fracture a relationship, which happens with her roommate, then she kind of immediately gets, you know, cyberbullied by. There's like a little army descends on her. And this happens to other kids in the show too. And she kind of tries to move away from a life where presenting herself on social media is gonna be her primary identity. So I would say I was very interested in her just because of like how out there she was and how she kind of does start because she's on the older end to make it through this period that Vinson was describing or going to the other shore.

[Nomi Frye]

Yeah, I mean, I've been an admirer of Greenfield's work for a while now. I wrote about a show and a book she put out maybe eight years ago called Generation wealth, which called Photographs from, you know, her 25 year long career as a photographer where she kind of documents the effects of America's kind of unsated hunger for all things luxury and surface. Right? And she, she kind of looks the complications of these kind of what might be considered superficial desires of the American mind. And so this social media project and social studies is very much in line with it. It takes place in la, but it's not just about la. It's about how social media has created this competitiveness or has honed in, at least on the already underlying desires that maybe especially teenagers have to be, you know, to be perfect, to be, to appear rather than to actually become something. Right. To look rather than to be, to flaunt rather than to actually create and produce. Right. And I think it's. She's perfect for this project because she's kind of spent her career looking exactly at these things.

[Vincent Cunningham]

You know, one of the things I admire, and this connects to one of my favorite characters in the Thing, by the way, is that Greenfield reminds us over and over that there are two sides of this social media equation. It's not like social media is just like ambiently in the air and every child is its victim. No, there are people that are on the sort of. That are clients of what social media offers.

[Nomi Frye]

Clients, Victims.

[Vincent Cunningham]

Victims. But that it is, it works upon them. That on the other side of it is capital. There's not just like invisibility on the other Side, someone is buying something and someone is selling something, and one of the kids is kind of on the business end of it. This kid. His name is Jack Schwartz.

[Alex Schwartz]

Oh, Jack. No relation.

[Nomi Frye]

What if he's your son?

[Alex Schwartz]

Okay, that is, first of all, extremely improbable. What if he's my long lost half brother? Well, no religion.

[Vincent Cunningham]

Well, you're definitely not. He's definitely not your son because his dad is, like, the mom from Mean Girls. He's, like, trying to be cool with Jack. Like, that party's gonna be a rager, man. Like, he's just, like, goading him on. He's like, how much did you pay? Let me lay it out. Jack is. Jack is actually a very traditional figure. He is the rich kid, popular in part because of his sort of affluent nihilism. He hosts a popular TikTok thing where he goes up to people on the streets and he is asking people how much your fit costs.

[Nomi Frye]

I film a lot of my content at Rodeo Drive. You see all the drip and all that Shoes, like, I think, like, were a thousand. Sheesh. You got them diors on about 20.

[Vincent Cunningham]

Racks on the watch. Sheesh.

[Nomi Frye]

1,500. Sheesh.

[Vincent Cunningham]

And, like, you know, he just makes them give, like, the rundown. If the thing is cheap, he says, no, you know, I love it. I love to see it.

[Alex Schwartz]

You're shit. You're keeping it humble.

[Vincent Cunningham]

You're keeping it humble. And a guy is, like, humble. This is pretty nice for the Midwest. He says about his $40 polo. Yes. As he's negged by a fucking Jack.

[Nomi Frye]

But who's like a total sort of baby f. Pudgy, baby face kid with long hair.

[Vincent Cunningham]

Jack is, like, sort of a genius, sort of rich high school like, bro doofus. Yeah. But 100% a legend.

[Nomi Frye]

Yeah.

[Vincent Cunningham]

And the thing is that, like, I went to high school with a kid like this. Madison prayers up my daughter, who is, like, by the way, speaking of the far shore. Just turned 19, so it's almost a teenager. Shout out to you, Madison, Happy birthday. I love you. She, like, there was a kid in her high school who threw the parties. Whether you liked this kid or not, you went to the parties he threw.

[Nomi Frye]

I'd say There was about 200 people there, which was pretty cool. And we charged, like, $10 each. And I guess at the time, we were just doing it kind of for, like, the. You could say clout or just, like, attention or just fun. We didn't really think of it in a business perspective. And we found out you can make a lot of money for that. So I guess that's when the money and business mindset just started.

[Vincent Cunningham]

In this weird way, right? He uses social media. Instead of being just its client and victim, he's using it to make money. He can imagine himself on the other side of it.

[Nomi Frye]

Totally.

[Vincent Cunningham]

He has thought himself onto the, oh, everybody else is using this thing to look cool. Maybe I can be the one who profits off of that. So it's like he. He is kind of a legend, whatever. But he also plays this really big, to me, symbolic function in the show. It's like somebody's making money off of these kids.

[Nomi Frye]

In a minute.

[Alex Schwartz]

What happens when young men run around in blue tailcoats, yellow waistcoats, trousers and tall boots and then decide to kill themselves?

[Nomi Frye]

We're gonna find out our favorite moral panics. That's in a minute.

[Alex Schwartz]

Do you need me to rephrase?

[Nomi Frye]

I'm critics of large from the New York. Hi, this is David Remnick. I'm proud to share the news that three films from the New Yorker documentary series have been shortlisted for the Academy Awards. And they are Incident Seat 31's Zoe Zephyr and Eternal Father. And they all immerse you in the finest cinematic journalism. Exploring themes of justice, identity and the bonds that shape us. These extraordinary films, which were created by established filmmakers as well as emerging artists, will inform, challenge and move you. I encourage you to watch them along with our full slate of documentary and narrative [e-mail] video.

[Vincent Cunningham]

This week's episode is sponsored by Neon's Film Presence. Directed by Steven Soderbergh and written by David Koepp, Presence is a thrilling new ghost story about a family that moves into a new home and becomes convinced they are not alone. Starring Lucy Liu, Chris Sullivan and Julia Fox, Presence has been hailed as one of the scariest movies you'll see this year. Experience it in theaters on January 24th.

[Nomi Frye]

Okay, my friends, what were what you say, some of the kind of moral panics of your own teenage years?

[Vincent Cunningham]

Well, for me, so many of them had to do with music. I feel like either whether it was, you know, the spectacle of concerned parents and social conservatives literally stomping on and breaking rap CDs. Totally or totally. The big one that I can remember was it was kind of a mix of satanic panic, which kind of went on all throughout.

[Nomi Frye]

Say you love Satan.

[Vincent Cunningham]

Exactly. With, again, music in the person of the repugnant. It turns out. Person of Marilyn Manson.

[Nomi Frye]

It turns out they were right.

[Vincent Cunningham]

They were right. A horrible person. Poorly intended all the way Marilyn Manson. The stage name of one Brian Hugh Warner.

[Alex Schwartz]

Wow, that just rolled right off your tongue.

[Nomi Frye]

I didn't know about the you.

[Vincent Cunningham]

He wore a livid face of white and black paint, and he was purported to relieve himself of at least two rows of his ribs. The better.

[Nomi Frye]

All the better.

[Vincent Cunningham]

All the better. To perform, to fellate his own. The act of fellation surely lividly painted dick. And the idea that music was gonna send all kinds of terrible, sinister messages into the minds and hearts of children was a hugely important sort of. It was part of the MTV era that a mix of image and sound would reprogram your child to be just an ungovernable satanic mess.

[Nomi Frye]

Alex, how about you?

[Alex Schwartz]

Well, okay. When I was a middle schooler and early teenager just on the cusp of the new millennium, there was a thing that my mom belonged to at my middle school called the Girls Study Group. The name the Girls Study Group can still send a shiver down my spine. Because a big thing that had happened in the 90s and goes on to this very day was concern about girls. Are girls gonna be okay? They're so, you know, in our culture that is so obsessed with body image where they're getting this negative reinforcement all the time and materialistic and, you know, on and on and on. The point of the Girls Study Group was basically like, how can we help our daughters? And, of course, one of the major texts that I associate with this time, a text that lived, I believe, unread on my mother's bedside table probably between 1995 and 2005, was the book Reviving Ophelia by the psychologist Mary Peifer. And it was basically like case studies about girls who were just going down the toilet. And. Yes. And so that was this kind of sense of, oh, my God, I'm a girl. I'm gonna fall off the cliff. And the mothers are all trying to band together to discuss how they can hold us back. Thus, like, trying to position themselves as our advocates, but in fact, thereby turning themselves into our adversaries. I just felt like, don't study me.

[Nomi Frye]

Totally. Yeah, Alex. I mean, my memory of a moral panic is also related to a book, a book that I, too, read on the cusp of puberty. The book I'm talking about was a case study. Turned out to be. Was supposedly real. Turned out to be totally false. Yes, I'm talking about. Go Ask alice, published in 1971 as the supposed found diary of a Teenage Runway who, spoiler alert, overdoses by the end of. Of the book, turns out to have Been totally made up, you know, basically to scare kids straight. And I remember reading it. Yeah. When I was maybe 10, on the floor of like a mall bookstore and feeling completely terrified and being like, oh, my God, this is as the book intended. You know, this is what it means to be a teenager. It means you're gonna have to have, like, wild sex, take speed and heroin, you know, like run away from home, become like a lost hippie lamb.

[Vincent Cunningham]

I'm waiting for the fictional part and die.

[Nomi Frye]

Oh, my God, my tongue lolling out the side of my mouth, you know, wearing love beads and, you know, a torn.

[Vincent Cunningham]

Are you describing Jenny from Forrest Gump?

[Nomi Frye]

I mean, basically. But that's, But Vincent, that is so. I mean, R.F. jenny, you know, it was just like the specter of teenage dumb as disaster.

[Vincent Cunningham]

Yeah.

[Alex Schwartz]

Well, guys, I want to ask. Let's widen the lens for a sec because I'm now feeling sufficiently panicked about social media. I feel like I'm ready to lead the panic. I'm ready to lead the moral panic. Charge the brigade. But, Nomi, no. When you wrote about social studies in your piece, if I may just quote you to you.

[Nomi Frye]

Please do.

[Alex Schwartz]

You wrote that as you watch the series, you say, I did feel that it occasionally struck an alarmist tone that reminded me of past. What has happened to our children style teen centric texts. And you go on to say that in a sense, being worried about the waywardness of a younger generation has been part of American culture at least since F. Scott Fitzgerald's tales of the flapper twenties. So what about social studies made you think of this tradition of moral panics?

[Nomi Frye]

Well, you know, I mean, I'm old enough to have been through, to have myself weirdly myself panicked by kind of what culture was telling me about the kids. I remember moving, coming about to go to high school in the States because, as you know, I'm from Israel and my. My father worked in the states. I was 14, about to go to high school to spend ninth grade in America. And very early on in the year, maybe even the summer before, reading Bret Easton Ellis's My Dear Bretty Easton Ellis's Rules of Attraction and Less Than Zero and saying, oh my God, I'm gonna have to become like a coke addict if I wanna fit. I don't even know.

[Alex Schwartz]

You are so fearful of the hand you. We talk about the hand of the market. Yeah, you were like, afraid the hand of the culture, the invisible hand of the culture moving you, just pushing you face first into a pile of cocaine or. I feel for you, young Novi.

[Nomi Frye]

No, because I think it might have been because I was, for me, all of these moral panics. Not that Israel or any other place surely has its own whatever moral panics about the youth and has had. But I think America, especially because it's such a youth dominated society, there are also so many fears about where. Because the youth is leading so much.

[Vincent Cunningham]

What are they up to?

[Nomi Frye]

What are they up to? And will they lead us astray? And are we going to hell in a handbasket? And so I think coming from outside, I was watching it kind of as an outsider and being like, okay, I guess I gotta get with a program, right?

[Alex Schwartz]

I mean, you know, your point about America and youth makes me think of somewhere that isn't America. And another moral panic from the past. Goethe's book, the Sorrows of Young Werther. I don't know if you guys know about this, so I don't. Goethe, the German writer, when he was very young, 24, wrote and published the epistolary novel the Sorrows of Young Werther. He published this book in 1774. It's about a young man stuck in a love triangle in love with a young married woman, can't have her, and so ends up getting two pistols and killing himself. And what then ensued is kind of. It's a little bit muddy. Basically, there is reason to believe that other young German youths. First of all, this novel was wildly popular. This was the viral 18th century.

[Vincent Cunningham]

Sounds like a pop sensation.

[Alex Schwartz]

Novel. Novel. It was an utter sensation. It was actually banned because people were so afraid that young men would start doing this, as perhaps they did. There's like some historical confusion over what actually happened. But in this case, you know, the outfit that the protagonist of this novel wears was very distinctive. It was a blue tailcoat with a yellow waistcoat, trousers and tall boots. This became an absolute craze. And so the adults were on the lookout for young boys who were dressed like this and who, you know, there was a signature like Verther perfume. They were on the lookout for kids who were wearing this stuff because they basically seen as suicide risks. And there was this huge panic that that was going that, you know, the youth were going to do this themselves. And the point of that work to me at least is the panic can be more of a problem than the youth. The reaction can be worse totally than.

[Nomi Frye]

The thing about like the saggy pants, you know, I mean, you were talking about like the outfit and oh my God, what does, you know, they're like their jeans are ripped or like their pants are Saggy. It means they're like gangster appers. You know, like, bill classic. Like, pull up your pants, like you're a miscreant. You're a. It sounds so familiar, what you're saying.

[Vincent Cunningham]

Yeah, yeah. It does seem to me that all these moral panics, I think that they have a root in guilt feelings. We look at adults, look at the society that they have created, and then sort of children act as, like, this weird mirror of what the feared outcome is. In 1954, a psychologist named Fredric Wertham came out with this book that's called Seduction of the Innocent. And it sparked the comic book's sort of moral panic, where he was like, superman is a fascist. Wonder Woman was created to turn young girls into lesbians. Oh. And he says that comic books were, quote, short courses in murder, mayhem, robbery, rape, cannibalism, carnage, necrophilia, sex, sadism, masochism. Virtually every other form of crime. Degeneracy, bestiality.

[Nomi Frye]

And horror has to do with affluence, too, coming out of the Depression. And, you know, kids don't need to go work in the factory when they're, you know, there's leisure, there's.

[Vincent Cunningham]

And there's like, you know, we just got over a world war. Like all of the sort of violent, like, all of the sort of zeitgeist ghosts that exist in the culture, we sort of imprint them upon the youth, but really it's about. It's about a fear of what our world is. And instead of dealing with them and trying to change the society, sort of saying, oh, my God, look at these kids who are gonna come along and ruin the world that we've already sort of so carefully constructed.

[Nomi Frye]

So to bring us back to social media and technology and kids online, how scared should we actually, actually be? That's in a minute on Critics at Large from the New Yorker.

[Alex Schwartz]

On Lipstick on the Rim, we speak with industry insiders, doctors, and the biggest stars to bring you all the facts. Become best friends with your hair stylist. They're going to make you look and.

[Nomi Frye]

Feel so good, and you'll just show.

[Vincent Cunningham]

Up as a better you.

[Nomi Frye]

I always wanted to. Those girls are hard to raise. They are going to push all the buttons. Just having a community is the best because you can compare stories with your girlfriends. Cheers.

[Alex Schwartz]

Listen to Lipstick on the Rim on Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts or watch full episodes now on YouTube.

[Nomi Frye]

So where do we land? And is this really an unprecedented and very scary moment of extreme technological change? Or is it just like the latest of many moral panics that we've been talking about, that we've experienced throughout our lives, that we've seen over the course of history. What do you guys think?

[Vincent Cunningham]

Of course, the sort of sedate answer, the sober answer, is a little bit of both. But I would say, generally, I think that the dangers of social media for kids, I think it's. To me, it's obviously real on some level. There's no way that you can just be like, it's just like the boob tube. I don't think that's true. I don't think that that's true.

[Nomi Frye]

The idiot box.

[Vincent Cunningham]

The idiot box. I think that there are. I mean, listen, I'm not a scientist. I don't know about the rewiring of the brain. I couldn't even tell you. I do recognize patterns of addiction, and I know that I experience those when I am on my phone. And so to expose younger children to that must have real meaning. But to me, more concretely, again, there is not just a mist behind these things. These are corporations seeking to take advantage of the vulnerability of the young to profit off of them. And so I think that they should not do that. I think that that is recklessly irresponsible. And we are still trying to catch up with real actors, real people with real motivations, using children to achieve aims and ends that are not compatible with the good of most people. And so that needs to stop.

[Alex Schwartz]

I think this is a huge deal. I can't overstate what a huge deal I think social media is for all of us and for kids in particular. I know I sound like, you know, not so fun to say that. I'm not saying, like, and I'm off it and I'm doing great. Look at me. But we actually. I think one thing we should stress here is we actually know some stuff now. Like, we're not just speculating now. We actually know some stuff about the damaging effects that social media has. I mean, this is kind of. You know, there's been research at this point that shows strong correlation. And I'm talking about the huge spike in youth anxiety and depression. Causation is, as always, a trickier question, but correlation is very strong. And I'm thinking of, for instance, in the New Yorker, the writer Andrew Solomon recently published a piece called Has Social Media Fueled a Teen Suicide Crisis? And there's some, like, pretty sobering stuff in there. I'm just glancing at the piece right now. Between 2007 and 2021, the incidence of suicide among Americans between the ages of 10 and 24 rose by 62%. The Centers for Disease Control found that 1 in 3 teenage girls considered taking her life in 2021, up from 1 in 5 in 2011. The Youth Suicide rate has increased disproportionately among some minority groups. And this I found really interesting. Salman writes, rates of depression have also risen sharply among teens. And 53% of Americans now believe that social media is predominantly or fully so. One thing that I came across, for me in social studies as well, is it was interesting to me how the teens themselves were like, we don't like feeling this way. And we do think it has to do with this stuff. It's different to me than in the past. Like, you know, saying, no, guy. You just. You guys just don't get our music. I hear kind of like, yeah, we're not thrilled with the situation either, but opting out is. Feels impossible, and that's very striking. And another work that has come out recently that's been hugely discussed and is everywhere speaks this directly. It's called the Anxious Generation by Jonathan Haidt. The subtitle is how the Great Rewiring of Childhood Is Causing an Epidemic of Mental Illness.

[Nomi Frye]

Not to put too fine a point on it, Jonathan.

[Alex Schwartz]

Exactly. This is a huge bestseller. Haidt is a social scientist, and he believes he is making the case that brains are getting literally rewired, that neurons are responding, you know, in this very sensitive period of development. And he has this phrase that I think is right and resonated with me a lot. And I'm curious what you guys think. He basically thinks that, you know, kids of this generation are dealing with overprotection in the real world. Kind of like, you can't go out alone. I need to know where you are. I've got to track you. You know, I want to, like, watch your play. From a young age, like littler kids and under protection in the virtual world. And seeing the Greenfield documentary, that struck me as so true. One very low key but important thing to me were some of her shots of just the kids at school and all the stuff that they're looking at at school while someone is talking and their attention is supposed to be on something else and just like, flitting through all these different things and the fact that it's just like, they're allowed to do it.

[Nomi Frye]

They're allowed to do it. I'm like, where the fuck is going on?

[Alex Schwartz]

No one is gonna willingly give it up. I wouldn't willingly give it up. So. So where is the kind of proper Protection going, like, actually not right now. So Haidt has made some recommendations, including no smartphones before high school, no social media before 16, and no phones in schools. Yeah, I have no idea if this is possible. I am not parenting a kid of that age. But I have noticed that there is currently legislation, especially in California actually, where social studies was filmed, to try to make it.

[Nomi Frye]

Well, it just passed, right?

[Alex Schwartz]

Well, there have been a few different pieces of legislation.

[Nomi Frye]

So the Schools act passed.

[Alex Schwartz]

Yes.

[Nomi Frye]

And by 2026, I believe it'll go into effect. That cell phones won't be in use in schools.

[Alex Schwartz]

Yeah, that exactly.

[Nomi Frye]

Limit or prohibit.

[Alex Schwartz]

Totally.

[Nomi Frye]

Yeah.

[Alex Schwartz]

That it's gonna be at least regulated. And another thing I saw that I thought was really interesting that was just signed into law in California is that there is going to be a law, basically, I believe, prohibiting social media companies from sending alerts during school hours or late at night. And something that Haidt talks about a lot is like this kind of alert culture.

[Vincent Cunningham]

Boop, boop, boop.

[Alex Schwartz]

Just like alerts. Alerts, like constantly, like, oh, something's happening. I'm getting an email. I've been mentioned in a story I like, you know, well, just the cortisol.

[Nomi Frye]

Spikes themselves, you know, of just like, it can be. It can be healthy, it can be good.

[Vincent Cunningham]

Yeah.

[Alex Schwartz]

So again, I really don't wanna sound like finger waggy and so annoying and dull. No, but it's scary.

[Nomi Frye]

And you know what? And it's not. And it's not. The thing is, it really is. What Vincent said about the corporations, like, who are we wagging fingers against here? We're not wagging fingers against the kids. We're wagging fingers against, like, meta. You know, we're wagging fingers against, you know, TikTok. I almost said hip hop. I'm like, hip hop, hip hop. What?

[Vincent Cunningham]

Y.

[Nomi Frye]

But you know what I mean, it's not like we're not like people doing this. Yeah, yeah. It's not like I'm not like, against like Johnny Rotten, you know, I'm against like, you know, Tim Cook or whoever. You know, it's like.

[Vincent Cunningham]

Or like Elon often opportunistic adults.

[Nomi Frye]

Totally.

[Vincent Cunningham]

Yeah. But it's also, you know, while all that is true, and I totally. I agree every point about social media specifically, I totally agree. Am on board with. Also, though, this documentary to me, paints a picture of a lonely world. And that's not just because of social media. And so my question is, okay, we get the kids off of these phones, what do we. What fills the gap? One young man who I was really. I just thought was so charming. And his name is Keyshawn. He's a young black. Keyshawn was great black kid.

[Nomi Frye]

He's Singlewood.

[Vincent Cunningham]

Yeah, yeah. He's 17 years old, raised by a single mom, et cetera, et cetera.

[Nomi Frye]

I try to switch from my old school to probably for one reason, play football. I used to sneak on the bus to go to the games. Like, I was really just all about football back then.

[Alex Schwartz]

I really loved the sport.

[Vincent Cunningham]

That was like my to get out.

[Nomi Frye]

But things didn't fall out that way. I lost focus in school and started to slip a little. I got kicked off the football team. I didn't have football. I didn't have nothing.

[Vincent Cunningham]

And that's when DJ came around. And then you see him get much more interested in being famous on TikTok and he's like, you know, I'm gonna. He's on there with his girlfriend. He's all this stuff. And this might have been an editorial choice, but I didn't hear anything about any other group to which any of these kids belong. I was asking clubs what used to be called, this whole crust of society, which used to be called civil society, people joining trade unions and all their kinds of things, lodges and guilds or.

[Nomi Frye]

Having hobbies that aren't intramural sports.

[Vincent Cunningham]

That layer of society is shrinking. And parallel to our, I think, rightful crusade, maybe against some of the ills of social media and other attendant phenomena, is like, how do we rebuild that sector of society? And that's what I kept on thinking about.

[Nomi Frye]

Absolutely. But I also think some of these kids, I think Sidney says, the girl, Sidney, the one who posts sexy TikToks, says at one point, I have passion like photography or whatever, but I don't post them because they don't get likes. But I do think it's true. And as a mother of a young teenager myself, there are things that happen both online and offline that are creative and passionate. You know, whether it's like you're interested in a very specific sub niche of music, you know, like my daughter is. And you learn a lot from being online. And you might relate to other people who have this, like, niche interest, and that might be more kind of like productive than just like, posting online and getting likes, it might also lead to that. I'm not saying these things are separate, but it's not like. I think you're right, Vincent, that it's shrinking for sure. I don't think that it's totally gone. And I think that's. I think that's the part that's maybe a little alarmist that I bet all.

[Vincent Cunningham]

Of these kids are on the chess club or whatever. I hope so.

[Nomi Frye]

I don't know if Chess club.

[Alex Schwartz]

But they're all secretly on the chess club.

[Nomi Frye]

The kids are still doing things, you know, Kids are still playing guitar.

[Vincent Cunningham]

Yeah.

[Nomi Frye]

You know what I mean? They might be doing it less, but.

[Vincent Cunningham]

Are they making a band, though? Cause, like, cool. Have your interest, but, like, interests that bring us into community.

[Nomi Frye]

I think less so than before. I think there's definitely room for worry that it's shrinking, as you say, but I don't think it's totally gone. Yeah, yeah. Which the documentary might kind of lead you to think.

[Vincent Cunningham]

Yeah. Even though I think there is a problem out here. I am anti alarm.

[Nomi Frye]

Yeah.

[Alex Schwartz]

Yeah. I feel like, Vincent, the good news and the bad news is that the problem that you describe has been with us for a while. What you were saying just about kind of fraying civic society and community, reminded me of how could it not? The 2000 book Bowling Alone by Robert D. Putnam, which, of course posits that Americans are dealing with, as the subtitle says, a declining social capital. That there really is a lack of social activity to link people together. You know, when we were talking about preparing this episode, we were talking about some of the really, like, dark sides of the web that young people are getting sucked into. We were discussing people like Andrew Tate or Nick Fuentes, the manosphere. Like these kind of. Kind of, like men's rights guru figures who seem to hold a lot of sway over teenage and young 20s boys in particular. Exactly. The kind of people who might really benefit from having some other stuff going on.

[Vincent Cunningham]

This is Andrew Tate, who is a sort of former kickboxer, has recently decamped to Romania, where he has been arrested, I think, several times on charges of sex trafficking, sexual assault, other things. But is a very. I mean, again, not to keep invoking my daughter, but when she was in high school, there were boys who were listening to his frank. Frank misogyny and bringing it into school.

[Nomi Frye]

Same with my daughter. She tells me about it. Yeah.

[Alex Schwartz]

Yeah. That I find really, really freaky, and I think is related directly to what you describe. You know, if you're not, like, in community in another way, in a pretty serious way, then you're gonna feel recognized and feel like you're. You're in community with this kind of very nefarious online guru type of figure who is leading you to some really, really dark places. Yeah. I mean, are there things that make us Hopeful, right?

[Nomi Frye]

No, I mean, what's the solution? Yeah, I mean, you know, certain reasonable guardrails for every day. I mean, I'm even thinking of myself.

[Alex Schwartz]

Yeah. What are you gonna do? A woman in her late 40s as susceptible as ever, as susceptible as ever.

[Nomi Frye]

To compare and despair online. What's wrong with me?

[Vincent Cunningham]

To me, it all to me. And this isn't. I don't know if it's advice, it's just my observation, but to me I think that what young people value the most is independence, right? And is like freedom to have space to form an identity. And I think that there is an argument that compassionate adults can make to kids that says, hey, that space that you think is your free to make something of yourself that is owned by somebody and they have designs on you. It's just a business. It's a bunch of guys in suits or maybe they just wear fluffy vests, but it's like this is owned space. And again, classically the idea of civil society is where we join. This is like my one streak of libertarian Americanism, right? Where we join together and make groups of our own choosing, whether they be again, chess clubs or whatever, whatever sort of affinity space exists in your high school, the LGBT group that where we choose our associations with other people is where we are actually free from these big government, business, these big sectors of society. And the way to actually be punk is to get together with some other people and decide something to do together. And if we start to not only create real legal guardrails, but make the case to children that the freedom that you seek resides elsewhere. That to me is the hope.

[Nomi Frye]

I know. I mean the tricky thing is though that the last thing like our kids want to hear from us is what's punk and what's not fun, you know, what's punk? And so I'm like, you know, maybe I should be like, oh yeah, this is actually like social media, super cool, I get addicted to it. And she'll be like, no thanks.

[Alex Schwartz]

I kind of wonder about that too. Even having an almost two year old, I look around the playground and seeing all the stooped headed parents just like looking down into their phones and I think, are these kids just gonna be like, nothing could be lamer than that. Which is totally correct. I know, Yeah. I mean, look, to go back to your idea, Vinson, of your metaphor of the kind of boat traveling from one shore to another. I mean, it's funny, I transferred high schools, I left a co ed school for a girls school and was seen as like a complete weirdo. And then everything clicked and it was great. That's again, why I keep coming back to the same point of you have to be free to like, remake yourself a bit. That's right. And not to have everything that's happened. I mean, honestly, maybe there would be some kind of way to just like a jubilee year, wipe free the devices.

[Vincent Cunningham]

Everybody's gotta choose a new handle.

[Alex Schwartz]

Yeah, just get. You can't have that past coming with you at all times. That's so key to be able to remake yourself. And that's what I wish I would say for the teens know that it is possible to reset.

[Nomi Frye]

Okay, you guys, speaking of unplugging, it's been a tough couple of weeks. Let's face it, it's almost Thanksgiving. We're gonna be taking a break from the pod next week and maybe a break from the news. Maybe a break from our phones. Probably not, God willing, I don't know. But I hope our listeners can do the same. And I hope we all have a nice holiday. This has been creepy. Critics at Large. Our senior producer is Rhiannon Corby and Alex Barish is our consulting editor. Our executive producer is Steven Valentino. Conde Nast's head of Global audio is Chris Bannon. Alexis Quadrado composed our theme music and we had engineering help today from Jake Loomis with mixing by Mike Kushman. You can find every episode of Critics at [e-mail] Critics, we'll see you again in December. Hi, this is David Remnick and I'm pleased to share the news that I'm Not a robot. A live action short film from the New Yorker's Screening Room series has been shortlisted for the Academy Awards. This thought provoking film grapples with questions that we can all relate to about identity and technology and what it means to be human in an increasingly digital world. I encourage you to watch I'm Not a Robot along with our full slate of documentary and narrative [e-mail] video from PRX.