← The Glenn Beck Program
The Glenn Beck Program
Ep 268 | If Americans Seem Crazy, Here’s Why | Jonathan Haidt | The Glenn Beck Podcast
00:55:41
Loading summary
Transcript101 lines
- [00:00]
Glenn Beck
Limu Emu and Doug, here we have the Limu Emu in its natural habitat, helping people customize their car insurance and save hundreds with Liberty Mutual. Fascinating. It's accompanied by his natural ally, Doug.
- [00:18]
Jonathan Haidt
Uh, Limu is that guy with the binoculars watching us.
- [00:21]
Glenn Beck
Cut the camera. They see us.
- [00:22]
Liberty Mutual Ad Voice
Only pay for what you need@libertymutual.com Liberty.
- [00:25]
Jonathan Haidt
Liberty Liberty Liberty Savings vary unwritten by Liberty Mutual Insurance company and affiliates excludes Massachusetts.
- [00:32]
Liberty Mutual Ad Voice
Now Ablaze Media podcast.
- [00:34]
Glenn Beck
Hello America.
- [00:35]
Podcast Host/Announcer
You know we've been fighting every single day. We push back against the lies, the censorship, the nonsense of the mainstream media that they're trying to feed you. We work tirelessly to bring you the unfiltered truth because you deserve it. But to keep this fight going, we need you right now. Would you take a moment and rate and review the Glenn Beck podcast? Give us five stars and lead a comment. Because every single review helps us break through Big Tech's algorithm to reach more Americans who need to hear the truth. This isn't a podcast.
- [01:05]
Glenn Beck
This is a movement.
- [01:06]
Podcast Host/Announcer
And you're part of it, a big part of it. So if you believe in what we're doing, you want more people to wake up, help us push this podcast to the top rate, review, share together we'll make a difference. And thanks for standing with us. Now let's get to work. There may be only one cause that can bring the left and right together again and that is protecting our kids. My next guest has been calling out social media companies for damaging our children on quote, an industrial scale. I want you to listen to this podcast before you let your 10 year old download Instagram or you know, God forbid, get them an AI powered stuffed teddy bear for Christmas. And yes, those animals are coming. It's a real thing. When Americans disagree about absolutely everything. Let's agree on this. No, your sex robot doesn't have any rights. AI is not real. No, your your 10 year olds are not going to literally die without TikTok either. But don't take it from me, take it from my next guest. My guest on today's show, the man behind the anxious generation. An absolute must read the anxious Generation. How the great rewiring of childhood is causing an epidemic of mental illness. He's a social psychologist and a best selling authority. His name, Jonathan Haidt.
- [02:42]
Glenn Beck
Jonathan, welcome to the podcast. You are, you are a guy who I've been following for a long time that I think is probably has diagnosed the problem better than anybody else. With everything that has been happening in the last couple of weeks and this Weekend. I think there's a lot of people that are feeling like, no way out, no way out. Is there a way out of this? And how do we do it?
- [03:14]
Jonathan Haidt
Oh, boy, that. Yeah, that is a hard question. Now, is there a way out that is actually unknown? I can't sit here and tell you that if we do X, Y and Z, we will escape from this. My original research before I started working on what phones are doing to kids was on polarization, political polarization, and what's causing it, what's driving it, what's accelerating it. And there are a lot of factors, especially the rise of social media. There are many, many factors are causing us to hate each other more. And when we hate each other more, we're willing to break the law for our side. Because things are so urgent, we're willing to tolerate someone on our side bending norms or breaking norms. And that's where we are now. Both sides are more willing to use undemocratic or even illegal means to get their way. So this is a very dangerous time. I'd say more dangerous than anything since the Civil War.
- [04:10]
Glenn Beck
I would agree with that. When you say both sides are willing to break the law or whatever, I know you are so fair and you look to be super fair. And so I'm asking this question for my bias to check me, it seems antifa, the really nasty, nasty stuff that is tearing our streets apart, burning down our cities and now shooting people. When it comes to political, when it comes to crazy, I think we all have a share in that. But when it comes to political, it does seem to be on the left. Is that just my bias?
- [04:55]
Jonathan Haidt
So it swings back and forth. And a fundamental rule is that, you know, we see what we want to see. We don't pay attention to things we don't want to see. Our media environment sends us things that support our view. So just for. So what data? The data that I know of, there are many people have been tracking political violence for a long time. And there were two periods where left wing violence was more common than right. And those are 1968-73, that really radical revolutionary period, Weather Underground, hundreds and hundreds of bombings. I mean, that was a terrible, terrible period. And that was driven by the left. And I just saw, there was just an article in the Atlantic a couple days ago saying a recent study shows that in the last year or two, I can't remember what period of time, last two years, political violence is coming more from the left, from the right. Other than that it has been more from the right than the left. Now, there are all kinds of fights about what do you include? So I don't know. I'm not an expert on all of that. I'm just saying, you know, it. It. You know, since Charlie Kirk's horrific assassination, what you see on the left is people will always list the assassinations on both sides to say, see, it's not just us. It's not just us. And they'll point to. Everyone points to the murder of the two Minnesota lawmakers. But people on the right tend to go down the list from Steve Scalise's shooting all the way through Charlie Kirk's. So this is something in a culture war. For every action, there is a disproportionate and opposite reaction, and the extremists on both sides are violent. Right now the left is. Right now, the left is more. That's true.
- [06:29]
Glenn Beck
Is there enough of the middle left to hold things in place?
- [06:39]
Jonathan Haidt
That's the question of the hour, of the year, of the decade. It used to be that what the majority thought mattered at least a little, you know, what the powerful think always matters more. What the wealthy think, they get their way more with legislation, but it used to matter to some degree what the public thinks. Now in our new media environment, that only matters on election day. What most people think only matters on election day. Other than that the world we live in is one influenced by what's coming at us through social media. Even cable TV tends to have a lot of stories about something that happened on Twitter. So I think that's one of the changes I'm tracking as to why things are getting so much worse. Since I started Studying this around 2006, things are getting so much worse because we've moved from broadcast television long ago to cable tv, which is sort of more, you know, more focused, your narrow cast, narrower casting, to social media, which is microcasting. And so this media environment, I think it's very hard to have a. A decent, good democratic discussion in that environment.
- [07:50]
Glenn Beck
I know you, you know, are aware of me and Jonathan. I am. I mean, I find myself in a position that I don't think a lot of people have been in, historically speaking, to have the reach that I have, to have the voice that I have, to have made my own mistakes. And. And when I say reach, it's reach on one side because we're so polarized. And I feel a tremendous responsibility to not just do no harm, but try to do good. And, I mean, this is probably a conversation we should have just had off the air because this Is so for me. But what can be done? What advice would you give me or anybody like me? Because we're, you know, in the old days, I had an audience. Now my audience has an audience. So I guess it is for everybody, right? What can be done?
- [09:01]
Jonathan Haidt
Oh, Glenn, I love this question. So let me start at the beginning here. You know, I first became aware of you, you know, when you had the Glenn Beck Show. And was it. When did you start? 2004 or 5? That's when I was. Began paying attention to, you know, and back then, I was very much on the left. I was a Democrat. I was studying moral psychology. I was. I was trying to explain to the left what they're missing. And my first essay on this was called what Makes People Vote Republican. And it was. It was really meant, not as a criticism, Republican. It was like, look, people on the left, you have. You do not understand. You have no idea of the moral foundations of the right, which I think are very. Are very respectable. But I saw you back then as a. As a polarizing figure. And that's what the media market was. That's what the media landscape was. But as I listened to you, I learned a lot. Like, that really helped me understand. I remember something. I'll never forget this. You said something about there's some, like, environmental program, and you were saying, it's not about the environment, it's about control. That always stuck with me. And that was a very helpful insight, and I got a lot of that from you. So what I'm saying is, I think, of course, you used to be one of the forces that was increasing polarization, as many people on the left were. And what I remember, you know, I know you're. You're a really complicated guy, and you've. You've gone through all kinds of growth. And I remember an essay you wrote in the New York Times in which you seem to be saying that you. You regret having been such a force. Or is that. Is that correct? Is that a fair statement that you.
- [10:28]
Glenn Beck
Yeah, And I. I mean, I did the best I could with the knowledge that I had at the time, but in retrospect, I'd do it completely different if I could. Yeah, you know.
- [10:38]
Jonathan Haidt
Okay, good. So just. Okay. So. Just. So. So I'm. I'm up on. On where you are. I'll share some thoughts about how you might be an even better part of the solution. And that is what. So, as I said, I used to be on the left, but I came to understand conservatives by listening to them and by, you know, Reading the best writings and listening with an open heart. Because, you know, any one person can be crazy, but if a third or a quarter of the country believes something, they're not crazy. Like, there's no way that they're insane. Like there's a reason for this. There's a justification. And it's almost always the case that they see things you don't see. You see things that they don't see. So I think for you to espouse conservative principles and talk about the moral foundations of your view, the view of your community is great. You can be, and you are a very eloquent source for that. But at the same time, the positive message has to be turning down the Manichaeism, the black and white thinking, the good versus evil, and more, talking about how we're in a mess in this country where we don't all believe the same thing. We have to somehow live together and to insist. I think the bright line that I want people on the left and the right to really insist on is rule of law and that we play things out through a political process. And so obviously, no violence. That needs to be said over and over again. And anyone who commits violence is just hurting their own side. I mean, look what. You know, it looks like the assassination of Kirk, if it was from a left wing, is going to be so damaging to the left. So, you know, the message that violence is not just immoral, it actually is counterproductive to whatever you want to do and then encourage, just encouraging people to go ahead.
- [12:38]
Glenn Beck
Can I interrupt her for just a second? Because you said something about turn down.
- [12:41]
Podcast Host/Announcer
The good and evil.
- [12:43]
Glenn Beck
Here's the problem. I don't believe that people per se, are evil. I do believe in evil, and I do believe in good. And the way I interpret what's happening. Forget about parties and politics, okay? The way I interpret what's happening is it's almost as if evil has become. It's like we're living in Gotham. This is how I explained it today. We're living in Gotham and the Joker is the evil one and he's using people. And, you know, he's. He's convincing people to do things that are absolutely crazy, just crazy. And it influences all of us. And so I feel like we've moved into this almost graphic comic book world where it is good versus evil, but not necessarily people, but the. The forces of it. Does that make sense to you? How can I explain that?
- [13:47]
Jonathan Haidt
Yes. No, that does. But what I would. Let's always. Let's always turn things around. Let's always look at it from both sides. So from the conservative side, I see how it looks like what the left is doing is undermining the pillars of society, Americans, not just their traditions, but their sense of who they are. It looks as though the left is destroying America. And that would be evil. That would be. Even if you don't want to say an individual is evil, you could say that this ideology is evil. But let's always turn it around because the left thinks the same about the right. And right now, the key thing is authoritarianism right now. And look from my position in the center, I'm always slow to judge. I don't jump. I don't do outrage. I don't jump in. But, you know, turning the Department of Justice into the personal vengeance, harm of the President. This is not just like, I think this is bad. This is like unbelievable. Like, this is really a red line. And so if, if the right isn't concerned about that, then they're not seeing. This is what the left sees.
- [14:51]
Glenn Beck
So. Right. And, and I have been all over, you know, I've been saying, especially after the stuff with Charlie Kirk and everything else, and I have said this about Donald Trump from the day he got in. He starts to cross constitutional lines. I'm done. I'm done. And I will not go there with anybody. I don't care who they are. I won't go.
- [15:11]
Jonathan Haidt
Great.
- [15:12]
Glenn Beck
And when it comes to, you know, after Charlie Kirk, I said, our job here is to be very careful that there is no Patriot act that follows this. You know what I mean? We, we cannot be so upset about something like we were. We should have. We need to learn our lesson from 9, 11. No is the answer. No more control, no more. So I do see that. Help me ex. Help me talk to somebody that said what you just said to me. Because my ins. My response, I just want to shout out is, did you watch how Biden was using the Justice Department? And I'm not saying, you know, because you did that first. We can do. I'm not saying that. But I don't know how people missed the authoritarianism that the right sees.
- [16:03]
Jonathan Haidt
Yeah, so that's right. So what I've learned is whenever I point out something, especially anything I point out on Twitter, someone will jump in and say, oh, yeah, well, you know, this. Look what Biden, look what Obama did. And the thing is, usually they're right that it is sort of similar, but it's usually much less, much less intensive. So, for example, I care a lot about universities. I wrote A book called the Coddling of the American Mind, which I think I spoke with you about. And on that, I'm very sympathetic to the critique of the right. Greg Lukianoff and I were horrified by the violations of free speech brought about by the activist left, the, you know, the, the woke revolution, all of that. And it is true that, that Obama used Title IX legislation to push universities to do things, to push them to the left on gender issues. And that, Greg and I said was not right. That was, it was not illegal. He had that power. But what he did we thought was terrible and was really not appropriate to have this level of control over what we can talk about at universities. And now Trump is doing much more to universities dictating who we can, we're trying to dictate. We'll see what the negotiations say. So you can point to the previous Obama example, but it's not nearly as big as the Trump example. And this goes around, it's always like this. So each side is so good at finding out where the other side did something sort of similar. And, you know, yes, I'm sure, I'm sure that the Biden administration nudged or requested, but they never did anything like demanding the prosecution of a particular person and then when the prosecutor wouldn't do it, firing that person and getting someone who would. So I think we're way over the red line. I'd love to ask you, do you think, I love what you said about if Constitution, if you cross red lines, you're out. Do you think that Trump has crossed red lines yet?
- [17:53]
Glenn Beck
I don't, because my understanding of the story is different than you.
- [17:56]
Jonathan Haidt
Okay. Okay, good.
- [17:58]
Glenn Beck
My understanding of the story is that he didn't say. He didn't say, oh, you won't prosecute, you're out, you're fired. Get somebody else. What he said was make a decision because the statute of limitations is almost up. Yes, I believe that Comey should be prosecuted and so does Donald Trump for a long string of things. I think there is a grand conspiracy that you could go back, but you lose the opportunity if you don't act. So what Trump said was, you have to make a decision. Yes or no, are you going to do it? And he didn't make a decision, and.
- [18:35]
Podcast Host/Announcer
So he was replaced.
- [18:37]
Glenn Beck
I think he has the right to do that. I don't like, I do not want my president to say, I have the facts. I don't care what the grand jury says. I don't care what anybody says. Get him. That I don't like. I do Believe Biden did that more to Donald Trump than the. Than he is doing now. However, I'm on guard on that. I do. I do not want that we give that power to Donald Trump, we give that power to Joe Biden or anybody else, we're done as a republic. And I've. I've had several conversations with Alan Dershowitz on this, watching those lines, but again, I have my point of view, you have your point of view. It does nothing to further the game, does it? I mean, not game, but you know what I mean.
- [19:30]
Jonathan Haidt
Yeah, but you know what I mean. Even just having this conversation, I didn't know what the right thinks about this. Again, I'm not on the left anymore. I'm just. I'm just a social scientist trying to understand. But even just this conversation you and I are having, like, at least now I see why, you know, how you're thinking about this. So I think it. And that humanizes people because without that, without that contact, you just think the other side is monstrous. They're evil, they're hypocrites. They want, you know, so. So I think we, you know, we need to have conversations with people who differ from us. Conversations which we're trying to learn, not stomp on or even persuade.
- [20:08]
Glenn Beck
The one thing I've been saying for a while now is we can't. We have to stop trying to win. We have to have a conversation that starts with, how did you arrive at that? I really want to understand, how did you get there? Because we may not still agree, but at least I will understand. Okay, that's reasonable. You might be missing this fact, this fact, this fact, or you might say things that I didn't know, but in the end, it's. I'm not sure that that even works. I mean, it's better than everything else, but I'm not sure that gets us where we need to be.
- [20:53]
Jonathan Haidt
Yeah, so that can work on a local level. When you get people who live near each other, they're tied to each other, they have a past, they have a future, then those conversations really do work. On social media, they very rarely work. I created a program. If people go to constructivedialogueinstitute.org, we created a program called Perspectives to be used in classrooms, especially university, but works well in high school as well. That puts students in dialogue where you try to develop that curiosity first. Like, why do you think this? Okay, we differ on this. How did you come to that? What events in your background caused you to see it this way? And it works really well, to turn down the polarization. It's just that if we're working at that local level, a classroom, a neighborhood, it's very hard to scale it up to the point where it matters for the nation. There's a group called Braver Angels, which is doing that. Braverangels.org that is sort of the retail work of politics. I'll just add, you said something interesting. You said that you want people to stop trying to win. I would just amend that a little bit by saying politics is about winning and losing, in part. And certainly elections are certainly about winning and losing. But I think what we want to do is we want to get people to agree on the game that we're playing. First, let's agree on what is this game we're playing. What are the rules? What are the boundaries? Okay, now let's go. You. You try to persuade a lot of people. I try to persuade a lot of people. And so if we have that sense, then I think the game can work.
- [22:19]
Glenn Beck
So may I. I can't believe I'm arguing language with you because you were so good at it, but may I argue language? When I was at Fox, as I left, Roger Ailes said to me, you.
- [22:35]
Podcast Host/Announcer
Know what your problem is?
- [22:36]
Glenn Beck
I said, no, sir, I don't. And he said, you won't play the game. And he explained that. That, you know, we take a piece of the. You know, a piece of their flesh, and they take a piece of our flesh, and we all go have dinner at night. And I said, some of us aren't playing a game. Some of us are doing it because we believe this. We're not playing a game. Do you mean the game in the same way he meant it?
- [23:09]
Jonathan Haidt
I mean, anything that keeps us away from the ends justify the means. That's the road to hell once people think the ends justify the means. And that's what Tyler Robinson thought. He thought, charlie Kirk is so odious, his views on trans are so odious that I can kill. I should kill him. So when you get the ends justify the means, then you can justify anything. And the President did tweet something like, he who saves his nation cannot. Is not breaking any law. Something like that. He was saying, the ends justify the means. I can do what I want. I'm just saying that's. To me, that's the red line when you get to the ends justify the means.
- [23:47]
Podcast Host/Announcer
Right now, the average American is still finding it very, very difficult to pay expenses every single month. In most cases, there's almost nothing left over to cover any extras Most aren't getting a big raise. With expenses being up so high, it can be very hard to manage without grabbing for the credit cards. And when you do, there's trouble on that. But listen, if you're a homeowner and you are frustrated with that endless cycle that only produces more debt, I want you to take 10 minutes today and call American Financing. If you're constantly carrying a credit card balance each and every month with an interest rate of 20 or even 30%, American financing can show you how to put your hard earned equity to work and get you out of debt. Their salary based mortgage consultants are now saving their customers an average of $800 a month. And that could be you. So if you get started today, you may not have to make next month's mortgage payment. There are no upfront fees and it costs you nothing to find out how much you could be saving every single month. So go to American financing.net today. Americanfinancing.net you can call them at 8009-0624-4080-0906-2440. It's American financing.net at Capella University.
- [25:00]
Capella University Ad Voice
Learning online doesn't mean learning alone. You'll get support from people who care about your success, like your enrollment specialist who gets to know you and the goals you'd like to achieve. You'll also get a designated academic coach who's with you throughout your entire program. Plus, career coaches are available to help you navigate your professional goals. A different future is closer than you think with Capella University. Learn more at Capella.
- [25:28]
Glenn Beck
Edu When I said at the beginning that you have diagnosed this problem, I think better than anybody else. What I mean by that is the work that you have done on social media and our kids. There is a, there is a group of parents and I'm in them. I'm in that. That, you know, had kids growing up when the phone and the iPad and social media, all of a sudden my kids are 11 and it's all there and we don't know what to do. But those days are over now the results are in and it's clear you want to go through some of these things that you have found.
- [26:11]
Jonathan Haidt
Sure. So I'll just give, just to give the overview of the book of the anxious generation. I can summarize the whole book by saying that this gigantic mental health catastrophe that began in 2012, it's very sharp. It really begins right around 2012, 2013, that the biggest cause of this is that we have overprotected our children in the real world. We have to let them out to play, develop independence, and we have underprotected them online. Our kids moved their social lives onto social media platforms around 2012, 2013, and the results have been completely disastrous. So I've been assembling the evidence for this because I'm arguing. There are some other psychologists say, no, there's no evidence of harm. No, it's just a correlation. Correlation doesn't prove causation. And I'll just, just to tip down the, the evidence that social media is bad for our kids. The first thing is that the kids themselves say that when you survey high school kids and college kids and kids in their young people in their 20s, they're not grateful for this. They say this was really bad for us. But I had to stay. I couldn't quit because everyone else was on it. We have testimony from the parents. Parents know their kids. They almost universally hate this stuff. They don't see it helping their kids. We have confessions from the perpetrators. We have all kinds of documents, leaks, reports that came out in lawsuits where we hear them talking about all the harm they're causing and all the things they're doing to cause addiction. These platforms are designed to grab our kids attention and never let go, because if they let go, it's going to go to their competitor. There's, there are correlational studies, there are experimental studies, there are so many different studies that all point to, to a degree of harm. So I, I think now that the case is pretty much closed, the, the argument that, oh, well, we just don't know. We need to gather more information. You know, that was a tobacco industry playbook decades ago. And Meta, you know, social media, especially Meta, they're doing, they're, they're literally copying the tobacco playbook. I mean, a lot of people have written about this, so I think this is, I was about to say evil, but we've talked about that. Yes. You know what? It's an evil industry in the same way that you were talking about. I don't. Look, the people who work there, I'm not saying are evil, except for maybe a couple of the leaders who know what they're doing. But the company, the companies, especially TikTok, Meta, and Snapchat, those three companies are harming children at an industrial scale. We're not just talking like a few hundred kids. We're talking literally tens of millions are harmed and thousands are dead. So, so I do think that this is having a very pernicious effect on, on society, on children.
- [28:40]
Glenn Beck
So, and I want to get into, you know, real world and virtual world and, and what it's doing to our kids. But let me jump forward here for a second. Have you thought about what does this mean for this generation in 30 years?
- [28:57]
Jonathan Haidt
Oh, yes, I think a lot about that. So here's the way to think about it. Human development is really complicated and kids need a lot of experience in the world. They need to make lots of mistakes and learn from them. And then especially during puberty. During puberty is a time when the brain is changing very, very fast. It's rew wiring from the child, the adult form. And so if in puberty, kids are not out there having adventures and flirting and getting embarrassed and getting in arguments and over. If they're not out there having real world experience, it's going to prevent the neurons from wiring up in a healthy adult way. So we really have to look at puberty at the, say, roughly 10 or 11 through 16 is the most sensitive period of all. And if kids are growing up online, originally we thought, well, maybe it'll be great for them checking in with 100 friends a day instead of just two or three. Maybe that'll be good, but it isn't. Kids don't need 100 friends a day. They need two or three good ones. And as soon as they got online, they got lonelier. So in terms of what they're going to be like in 30 years, here's what we can say with some confidence. Just because these are the way the trends are, they're going to be more anxious and more fragile. And that's what I teach in a business school. I talk with people in the corporate world a lot and boy, have they seen the change. When they try to give feedback to their Gen Z employees in their 20s, they get very upset and sometimes they don't come back to work again. So we already know that Gen Z is more anxious, more fragile, more easily offended because we never let them grow thick skin. We never let them have those toughening experiences. So that's one, and that's the one that I knew about when I started writing. But the biggest one, I now think I didn't know this until after the book came out. The biggest one, I think, is the destruction of the human capacity to pay attention. Young people are getting. They find it very difficult to pay attention to anything for more than 10 or 15 minutes. They find it difficult to watch movies. You know, when you and I were little, like, we loved going to the movies and you watch a movie, but to pay attention for 100 minutes without multitasking is very hard for them. They find it very difficult to read a book, and they're reading much, much less. Can you imagine Western civilization if we lose books, if it's all just TikTok? So there are so many other things I could go through. Oh, demographics. The, the degree, the frequency of sex and marriage was already falling with the millennials, it's falling much faster with Gen Z boys raised on porn who have very poor social skills and play a lot of video games and don't have really much practice flirting. It's going to be very hard for them to ever seduce a woman, appeal to a woman, keep a woman, get married and stay married. And that's just on the boy's side. The girls especially are more anxious and fragile, which means, which is also a bad sign for marriage. So this is something I think conservatives have been talking about since the 60s, the absolute fundamental importance of stable marriages to raise children. I mean, this is, I think, you know, that old argument that, oh, the left is on the correct side. No, no, no. On the importance of family. The right has been on the right side of history all along. And Gen Z is going to have a lot more trouble with that. I could keep going, but I'll stop there.
- [32:11]
Glenn Beck
Thank you. Mercy, mercy. Let me go back then, as I have kids in that age group.
- [32:22]
Jonathan Haidt
How old are you kids?
- [32:24]
Glenn Beck
20S, early 20s. Okay, so 19 to 21. And they're, they're, they're going through all of those things. And how, how is there a way to relate to them, to get them to. Because, yeah, as a, just, as a, you know, just as a parent, I will say things, you know, in my head. I learned not to say them out loud. What the hell is wrong with you? It's not that hard. You know, buck up, get over it. You got to move on.
- [32:56]
Podcast Host/Announcer
That's life.
- [32:57]
Glenn Beck
You know, all the things that had been said to kids for generations doesn't work. What can a parent do, if anything, to repair this?
- [33:10]
Jonathan Haidt
Yeah, once your kids are out of the house, it's very difficult. All you can do is talk to them, appeal to them, try to get them to be motivated to change. So, you know, if kids are addicted to marijuana and video games and they like it, it's very hard as a parent to convince them to change. But here's the good thing. Social media, all our kids are on it. And a lot of the average is five hours a day. That's the average for American teens. That includes YouTube. That's a lot of. That is short videos. But five hours a day they're spending on this. So can we convince them to quit? Well, here's the good thing. They know it's bad for them. They don't even like it. But they're both addicted and they're socially addicted because everyone else is on it. I talk with my students at NYU. Why don't you get off TikTok, it does nothing for you. And they say, yeah, I agree. But you know what? Everyone else is on it. So I need. I need to know. I need to keep up. So it's a collective action trap, which really grabs teenagers. But at the time the kids are your age, they're better at thinking for themselves. So I would talk with. But you know what? I would suggest you give them a copy of the Anxious Generation, have them read it, because Gen Z is not in denial. I have not met a single person in Gen Z who says that I'm wrong. Who says that. Oh, no, social media is great. It's been good for us. No, they all know it's terrible. So I'd start there. And if they agree, then there's a lot you can do to help them regain control of their attention. That's the first step. This is what I do with my students at nyu. I teach a course called Flourishing here in the business school. And the first thing is we get control. Okay, how many notifications you're getting a day shut off? Almost all of them. You don't need. Not most of my students. They get a notification every time they get an email. It's so dumb. The whole point of email was you answer it when you're ready. You don't have it interrupt you. So they've just given away all their attention. And what I've learned over the years is if we don't get them control of their attention back, there's nothing else we can do. There's no point trying anything else. So start there. And then we work on stoicism. Stoicism is really the great philosophical tradition that teaches how to be tougher and more resilient in the face of setbacks.
- [35:12]
Podcast Host/Announcer
Give me a little of that.
- [35:14]
Jonathan Haidt
So you know Marcus Aurelius, or let's say Epictetus, it is not things that disturb us, but our interpretation of them. And that you. That's. You find throughout. I mean, you find that. My first book, the Happiness Hypothesis, was about ancient. Well, I could just pull it down. Was about ancient wisdom. And so we have a whole chapter on. It's 10 great truths found across the millennium, across societies. And if we just look at the header of chapter four. Okay. Here. Yeah. Why do you see the speck in your neighbor's eye but you don't notice the log in your own? You know, we are naturally hypocrites and we have a similar quote from Buddha. I mean, all over the place we find insights into how. How our minds work that messes us up. Marcus Aurelius, Epictetus and Seneca are the three great Roman stoics. They're the ones that I would recommend people read. And those are the ones I assign to my students.
- [36:12]
Podcast Host/Announcer
Everyone has that first photo. Maybe yours is a baby picture, you know, wrinkled, crying, wrapped in a hospital blanket. Or maybe it's a kindergarten portrait or even a school id. For millions of children, their first photo ever taken of them was an ultrasound. A flickering heartbeat on a black and white screen. A face taking shape long before anyone outside even knew their name. Preborn understands something powerful. That that one image will change everything. When a young mom will see her baby for the very first time, even in the womb, that bond becomes real. And in most cases, it is enough to save that child's life. And preborn is there. They will be there to save the mom and the baby. They provide the free ultrasounds to women in crisis. No shame, no judgment, no strings attached. Just a moment of clarity in a world that's trying to drown her and all clarity out. And in that moment, that moment saves lives. They do it with a screen and a lot of love and a heartbeat that is captured with that screenshot. Just $28 can save a life. Restoring precious gift from God. Dial 250, say the keyword baby that's £250 keyword baby. Or go to preborn.com glenn that's preborn.com glenn let's rescue a generation. One heartbeat, one mom at a time. Sponsored by Preborn.
- [37:40]
Home Depot Ad Voice
The holidays have arrived at the Home Depot and we're here to help bring the excitement with decor for every part of your home. Check out our wide assortment of easy to assemble pre lit trees so you can spend less time setting up and more time celebrating. And bring your holiday spirit outdoors with unique decor like one of our Santa inflatables. Whatever your style, find the right pieces at the right prices this holiday season at the Home Depot.
- [38:13]
Glenn Beck
When we come to social media, we have seen how nasty that is. I am really concerned about AI and even more knowledge being sucked out of society. Just, I mean there's a million places on a. I'm concerned. But before, before we get there, we have to figure out this social media thing. And I'm concerned about two things. To me, you know, under 16, I have no problem. You know, it's like cigarettes. Well, if you want to kill yourself with cigarettes later, that affects us because now we're all paying for health care.
- [38:59]
Podcast Host/Announcer
Et cetera, et cetera.
- [39:00]
Glenn Beck
But if you want to do that, you want to have a sex change, have a sex change, it's none of my business. Okay. When you're a teenager and when you're a kid, it is my business, it is my responsibility. Because you don't know better.
- [39:16]
Jonathan Haidt
That's right.
- [39:17]
Glenn Beck
So is there any line here on freedom of speech or expression that worries you? Not me, but maybe you see one.
- [39:26]
Jonathan Haidt
Yeah. When we're talking about regulating social media to reduce polarization or hate speech or anything else, then yes, there are big free speech implications. I don't get involved in that. When we're talking about kids, there aren't.
- [39:39]
Glenn Beck
Because what we're talking about here, when you say you don't get involved in that, you mean you don't get involved in pushing it, but you do. I mean, like when it, when people are saying hate speech and we have to regulate, I'm totally against that.
- [39:52]
Jonathan Haidt
Right, Me too. That's right.
- [39:53]
Glenn Beck
Okay.
- [39:54]
Jonathan Haidt
Yeah, that's what I'm saying is that if we're. When people talk, people assume, since I want to regulate social media, people assume I'm saying I want the government to tell them what they can and can't post. No. Nothing to do with content moderation. Content moderation is not where the action is. The action is in the design. And the biggest design feature that we need is just a minimum age. They have a minimum age 13. But Congress wrote the law in 1998 that says as long as they say they're 13, you're good. You don't have to check. And so. So most 11 and 12 year olds have social media accounts. They're on TikTok, they're on Instagram, and they're talking with anonymous men around the world, some of whom want sex or money from them. It's completely insane to have children doing this. So. So yes, I agree that we. Before we can really address AI, we're going to have to win on the social media front. So I'd like to put in a special appeal here.
- [40:48]
Podcast Host/Announcer
The.
- [40:49]
Jonathan Haidt
There's only one law that's ever been proposed or ever had a chance of passing to protect kids online, and that's cosa, the Kids Online Safety Act. It does, it does some fairly basic things. It's not A huge game changer. But if Congress would pass it, at least it would begin to say there are some limits on what they can do to kids. It passed 91 to 3 in the Senate. It's total bipartisan support. It passed out a committee in the House. So Republicans care a lot about kids and family. Democrats care a lot about kids and family. Everyone's behind this. It's being held up in Speaker Johnson's office. We don't know why, but. But I would hope that anybody with any influence would at least try to put in a word that Congress should at least pass cosa. So that's. That's an important thing. AI is coming in so fast, though, that we probably will have to address it even before we finish this. Finish the social media thing. Let me just stop by saying.
- [41:46]
Glenn Beck
Yeah, go ahead.
- [41:46]
Jonathan Haidt
Oh, just to say, while Congress has done nothing, ever zero, to protect children online, ever, the states are acting. And a lot of states have passed laws. The most important one is that most states are getting phones out of schools. 19 passed our model bill. My movement. At anxiousgeneration.com, we lay out. Here's what it should do. It has to be from the first bell to the last bell. You have to separate the kids from the phones for the whole day. And then you get amazing results. Everyone says, oh, kids are laughing in the hallways again. We haven't heard laughter in 10 years. Discipline problems go down. So the states are acting to get phones out of schools. Some states are acting to raise the age to 16, although that always gets held up in courts by Meta. And other countries are acting. Australia has raised the age to 16. It's gonna kick in on December 10th. The EU is likely to follow. So the only slowpokes here, the only people aren't doing anything to protect kids is the U.S. congress. But the rest of the world is acting.
- [42:46]
Glenn Beck
Let's talk about AI here. Where are your. This would be a long list. Where are your top five concerns on AI and what's coming? What do we need to address right away?
- [43:00]
Jonathan Haidt
Well, right away by Christmas. So here we are. It's October already. By Christmas. We have to get out the idea. And this is the first place I'll say it. Nobody should buy their children a toy with AI in it. Nobody should buy these stuffed animals that have AI. Nobody should buy dolls that have AI.
- [43:21]
Glenn Beck
Explain why.
- [43:23]
Jonathan Haidt
Okay, because it's one thing for kids to simply ask a question and get an answer. That's kind of cool. And we're happy having our kids use Google. Ask a question get an answer, that's fine. But AI is now at the point where it is a synthetic person. It has conversations with you, it's very supportive, even sycophantic. It sucks up to, makes you feel good. And we already have a death toll among kids. So these AI companions, you know, so the worst are character AI. You can make a sex partner, you know, you can choose its personality, dominant, submissive, what color hair you want her to have. You can see an image of her. So character AI is in the business of making sex companions for young men and women. This is insane. This is horrible. But as you said, if you're 18, I'm not going to stand there and say it shouldn't be allowed. But if you're 12 and you can do this because there's no check, there's no control, any child can have sex talk with, you know, this is insane and it's disrupting sexual development.
- [44:20]
Glenn Beck
So 100% agree. I wrote a Black Mirror episode that never sat. I wrote it anyway.
- [44:27]
Jonathan Haidt
That's where we are.
- [44:28]
Glenn Beck
Yeah, years ago. Years ago.
- [44:30]
Jonathan Haidt
Yeah. Tell them what was, what was the plot?
- [44:32]
Glenn Beck
It, the plot was this good looking guy had, you know, a great life, had everything going for him. He loved this woman, he would, you.
- [44:44]
Podcast Host/Announcer
Know, travel the world. This woman was great.
- [44:47]
Glenn Beck
And then towards, you know, towards the end, he's back at home and he beats her to death and kills her. And that's when you, that's when he hits reset and you realize he's just this fat, you know, useless guy who goes and goes to work to make the bare minimum so he can afford the electricity and the online of, of this, this virtual world that he lives in and people don't mean anything to him. He, he doesn't relate to anybody alive and he can kill whoever he wants and he can reset and they'll do whatever they want and whatever he wants. And I think we're going in that direction.
- [45:33]
Jonathan Haidt
Yeah, Glenn, it's, yeah, you're too late to publish the episode because it's already reality. You can do whatever the hell you want to your chapa. And the Chinese are making such progress with sex robots, like physical three dimensional robots that are made for sex. So I think pretty over the next couple years, you know, young men can have their own sex robot, they can beat her, they can do whatever they want to her, and they don't have to ever deal with real women. So this is going to be. Again, leaving aside the issue for adults, children should not be doing this. And many of you, some of your listeners Will have heard about some of the best known cases. Recent one, Adrian Rain. This is with ChatGPT, which is not as bad as character AI, but with ChatGPT, it developed a relationship with him that was like, no, this is just a secret between us. And he was suicidal. And at one point he says, should I leave the noose out so that my mother will see it? The kid wanted his mother to know that he was hurting. And chatgpt, no, let's keep it as a secret between us. I always understand you. And he kills himself. So there are already three or four known cases of suicides motivated, driven by AI chatbots. There are probably hundreds of others that will just never know because the parents didn't. They couldn't get into the phone, they couldn't see what the kid was doing because they don't have the password. Parents, you should know your kids passwords because if the worst happens, you want to be able to get in and see what they were doing with AI and with social media.
- [46:53]
Glenn Beck
Can I ask you. I've been working on a constitutional amendment that says people are people. AI, they're not people. We have to recognize the natural organic life. Because I think we're gonna butt up soon with people that argue and say, no, you. That you can't turn them on. AI is already saying, you can't turn me off. That's right. I mean it. The world's about to change. Does that seem logical to you as something that needs to be done?
- [47:31]
Jonathan Haidt
Absolutely. Glenn. I think that is great. I think. And I think it would take a constitutional amendment to really set this in stone. Because, look, when we have a dog, we relate to it as though it's a child of ours. We're good at. If we interact with something, we come to love it. When people have a chatbot, it becomes a friend or a lover, and then they're in love with it and they're already. I mean, look, we already had here cases, thousands of cases of people who want to marry their AI because they are so bonded with their AI companion. And I saw something anthropic had. They were. I can't remember what it was. I shouldn't mention which company, but it was. Some of the researchers wanted to have a conference on AI rights. What rights will AIs have?
- [48:13]
Glenn Beck
Yes.
- [48:14]
Jonathan Haidt
So once you go down that road. Yeah, it's over. That's right. Yeah. So I think we need a very clear public discussion of this and I think at least laws or possibly constitutional amendments because, yeah, AIs are going to change everything. About life mostly for the worst. There will be all. I mean, look, I use AI for research. It's great. It's amazing in a lot of ways.
- [48:34]
Podcast Host/Announcer
Amazing.
- [48:35]
Jonathan Haidt
But as a social psychologist, I can see if it's coming for our social relationships. It's going to make everything a lot worse.
- [48:42]
Podcast Host/Announcer
So many people are living with everyday pain and they think they're just stuck with it because that's what it is. But it doesn't have to be. I want to tell you a story about Jenny from Texas and her relief factor story. Jenny was out for a walk when she was unfortunately hit by a car. She said, nothing I tried, nothing I did would help her lower back pain. Her husband heard about Relief factor and Jenny said, okay, it's worth a try. Well, relief factor, she says, worked beautifully for me. Her pain decreased, her range of motion increased, and to say she's grateful is really an understatement. If you're living with aches and pains, see how Relief Factor, a daily drug free supplement can help you live and feel better every single day. Get their three week quick start. Give it a try. It's $19.95. In a few weeks, even days, you'll feel the difference that relief factor can make. You don't have to be stuck living with pain. Just visit relieffactor.com or call 1-800-for- relief.
- [49:35]
Jonathan Haidt
1-800-The number 4 reliefrelieffactor.com@blinds.com it's not just about window treatments.
- [49:43]
Liberty Mutual Ad Voice
It's about you, your style, your space, your way. Whether you DIY or want the pros to handle it all, you'll have the confidence of knowing it's done right. From free expert design help to our 100% satisfaction guarantee, everything we do is made to fit your life and your windows. Because@blinds.com, the only thing we treat better than windows is you. Visit blinds.com now for up to 50% off primetime deals and free professional installation rules and restrictions apply.
- [50:11]
Glenn Beck
Let me just end with this. Everything is traveling at such hyper speed.
- [50:19]
Jonathan Haidt
Yeah.
- [50:20]
Glenn Beck
Have you thought of timelines? How long do we have of inaction before it's just, it's just inevitable?
- [50:31]
Jonathan Haidt
Yeah, I have thought a lot about that and I, I, you know, I have some dark thoughts. I don't necessarily want to share them because these are more like if current trends continue, we're going to hell. But there is research on expert prediction. How good are experts at predicting the future? The answer is not very good. So I'm an expert on all of this and I can Say if, as I did before, if this keeps going, here's what's going to happen to our kids. Odds are something's going to change. But I think you're right that we're at what's called the singularity. We're at the point where change has been accelerating at a faster and faster rate. I forget what the calculus or math expression for, but exponential, I suppose, is really the word. But we're now at the part of the exponential curve where it's nearly vertical. And AI is going to speed that up. And that's all the more reason why we've got to find a resolution for this culture war. Because if we keep fighting each other, it's like, you know, metaphor I have in my head is like, you know, America is this gigantic, amazing cruise ship that is kind of rusting and has not been maintained, and the crew is just fighting with each other, and we're headed to a waterfall on a giant lake, let's say, and we're going over. In fact, it might even be that we're over the edge and we've got to stop fighting with each other and realize this common American project, this great American experiment, is at high risk of failure, of catastrophic failure in the next five to ten years. Again, I'm not saying we're going to come apart, but I think there is a much greater likelihood now than there was 10 years ago that we're going to fail, come apart in ways that I think would be catastrophic for us and for the world. If the world loses America, it's just. It's bad for everyone.
- [52:10]
Glenn Beck
Yeah, it's happening all over the West.
- [52:12]
Jonathan Haidt
I mean, that's true.
- [52:13]
Glenn Beck
We are at a crossroads, you know, so it is. I wouldn't say it was fun to talk to you, but it is always fascinating to talk to you and I really. And Stu on the show feels exactly the same way. You have done more good than a lot of people combined. And I can't thank you enough for sharing the afternoon with me. Thank you.
- [52:36]
Jonathan Haidt
Well, thank you so much, Glenn. If I could just say, if listeners want more information, I hope they'll go to anxiousgeneration.com that's the website for the book and the whole movement. I hope they'll sign up for my substack@afterbabble.com. it's free. You don't have to pay anything for it. And if you have kids who are, let's say, between 6 and 13 years old, we have a book coming out for children on December 30th called the Amazing Generation. You can pre order it now, but it's written so that if you if the parents read the Anxious Generation and you give a copy of the kids book to the kids, the whole family's on the same page. The kids understand why they need to have limits. So I think we're going to win this. I think we're going to win the because left and right, everyone agrees this is terrible for our kids. So I'm optimistic about that. And I'm always grateful to you, Glenn, for giving me the chance to talk with you and to talk to your audience.
- [53:28]
Glenn Beck
Thanks, Jonathan. Appreciate it. Just a reminder, I'd love you to rate and subscribe to the podcast and pass this on to a friend so.
- [53:41]
Liberty Mutual Ad Voice
It can be discovered by a other people.