Joe Rogan & Jonathan Haidt - Social Media is Giving Kids Anxiety

You're raising your kids here. What's your policy on letting them out? Man, it's slippery. How old is your oldest? Well, I have a grown one who's 22 and then I have a 10 and an 8. Okay, and it's hard man because I Don't even like when they go over on sleepovers over a friend's house. It's scary whose problem is that it's everybody's problem You know, it's uh, well, I mean the parents mean we're pretty selective about the parents But there's a lot of parents don't pay attention to their kids at all Meaning they just tune out and they get on the phone the kids are sticking forks into the fucking outlets and you know There's there's a lot of weirdness when it comes to the styles of that people haven't been raising their children What is this this graph you just pulled up? Yeah, so, you know, so Depressive episodes. Yeah, so I guess I'll just narrate it for people who are listening not watching video, you know So you said before it's like a virus came out of nowhere and that is sort of what it's been like So what's happening in America and I know it's happening the same in Britain and Canada I haven't looked at other other places yet haven't dug into those stats What's happening is that rates of depression and anxiety were fairly stable from the you know, 90s through the early 2000s And what you see here and this is a graph That's in our book is that the the percentage of kids aged 12 to 17 in America who met the criteria For having a major depressive episode that is they're given a symptom checklist with nine symptoms And if you say yes to five of them, you know feeling hopeless and couldn't get out of bed If you say yes to five or more you're you're considered to have had a major depressive episode And what you see is that the rate for boys is around 5% and then around 2011 it starts going up and now it's around 7% which is actually a somewhat substantial increase But as you can see in the graph the line for girls starts off higher because girls have more mood disorders more anxiety and depression Boys have more antisocial behavior alcoholism crime and violence But girls turn it's called an internalizing disorder girls basically make themselves miserable boys make other people miserable The girls rate is higher but it was stable from you know, 2000 or this in that graph from 2005 through 2010 and then right around 2011 2012 starts going up and it goes way up to the point where it goes up from about 12% to now about 20% of American teenage girls have had a major depressive episode in the last year one in five So this is huge. Okay next slide Now let's look just at college students So this is more selective these are kids who've made it into college and what we see is that in 2010 and 20 and 2012 When college students were all Millennials the rates were pretty low This is do you have a psychological disorder and they didn't specify they or they said such as depression And so we see about two to three percent of the boys The college men and about five percent of five to six percent of college women say yes to that question That's when it was Millennials, but beginning in 2013 gen Z begins arriving. That's kids born in 1995 Gen Z begins arriving and so by 2016 colleges are almost all Gen Z and the rates shoot up way up Yeah, we're looking at these charts right now and folks who are just listening that it's like It's a like a jump ramp for a BMX racer I mean it really is crazy for him out of nowhere and it hits at 2012 It goes on a very sharp upward angle, right? It goes from six less than six percent to almost 15 percent in the space of four years. That's crazy. It's crazy But you can't say that that's a my country's can't say crazy. What can I say? fucking nuts No because some people might have in that allergy Oh boy Ludicrous preposterous It's really frightening And so this has huge ramifications now, let me just make clear I think we have another another slide there you bring up the next one Okay, so some people say oh, come on you guys are catastrophizing The increase isn't real It's just that you know this generation they're really comfortable talking about mental illness And so the fact that they say they're depressed just means they're comfortable. It doesn't mean that there's an epidemic I've heard this argument that it's just an argument of recognition rather than of perfectly reason That's right diagnostic criteria change perfectly reasonable argument. Is it true? Well, let's look at behavior So what this graph shows is the number of boys out of a hundred thousand Who were admitted to a hospital every year because they cut they deliberately harmed themselves to the part they had to be hospitalized and what you see here is that There's no change over time. So boys these graphs from 2001 to 2015 the lines are flat for all the different age groups And just notice that the highest rates are around 280 out of a hundred thousand per year. That's the situation for boys next graph Bang the situation for girls is really really different. So the averages are higher So self-harm has always been more of a girl thing than a boy thing But you know boys are except for suicide Exactly. We'll get to that. That's right. That's next So if we look at self-harm what you see here is that the rates were fairly stable up until 2009 and then bang Just as in the last late the same thing the rates for girls go shooting up So the rate for 15 to 19 year old girls is up 62 percent since 2009 Now notice the rate for the Millennials that is the rate for the oldest girls age 20 to 24 That's only up 17 percent. So whatever happened. It's not affecting the Millennials. It's affecting Gen Z I think ways there one hit the advance key because I think there's one number missing there. Ah, okay I'll just know go forward. Okay the number. Oh, there it is There it is the rate for the youngest girls check that out now the youngest girls. These are 10 to 14 year old girls These are preteens. Okay, they didn't used to cut themselves. They used to have very low rates But bang beginning in 2010 it shoots up. It's up 189 percent it has nearly tripled in the last five or six years. What's the wrong? We don't know for sure. But the reason why so Because of the huge sex difference the leading candidate and the timing look at that timing is social media So if you look at what happened in this country and all around the world Facebook opens up to the world in 2006, you know, you don't have to be a college student But very few teenagers have a Facebook account 2006 2007 the iPhone comes out but it's very expensive and very few teenagers have one by 2010 2011 around half of American teenagers have an iPhone or Samsung they have a smartphone and They have access to social media in middle school because even though for Facebook and Instagram I think the minimum age is and was 13 You know, I mean my son is 12 a lot of his friends have Instagram You just lie so middle school kids are now getting on social media by 2010 2011 You've got a lot of them and that's what I think is the main cause of this because you know Social media does not really affect boys very much. But man, does it affect girls? Why is that? So if you look at so a couple reasons first look at the nature of aggression within the sexes boys bullying is physical Okay, boys are physically dominating and then the risk is that they're gonna get punched. Okay, so You give everybody an iPhone. What do they do with it? Games and porn they don't use it to hurt each other Boys your boys. That's right. It doesn't affect their bullying But girls aggression that girls are actually as aggressive as boys There's research from the 80s and 90s on this if you include relational aggression Girls don't bully each other by threatening to punch each other in the face Girls bully each other by damaging the other girls social relationships Spreading rumors spreading lies spreading a doctored photograph saying bad things excluding them It's relational aggression. And so it's always been really hard to be a middle school student It's always been harder to be middle school girl than a middle school boy Okay, so beginning around 2010 2011 we throw in this brand new thing into the mix. Okay girls Here's this beautiful thing in your hand and here's all these programs Where you can damage anyone's social relationships any time of the day or night with deniability from an anonymous account Go at it girls. And so the nature of girls bullying is hypercharged by Social media and smartphones that's one mechanism The other two mechanisms are the social comparison Because it's always been hard to be a teen girl emerging with beauty standards and impossible beauty standards And when we were kids you had impossible beauty standards that these models were all doctored up and then photoshopped Okay, so you've got these impossible beauty standards out there But beginning with social media and especially in recent years Your own friends can put on a filter an Instagram to make their lips bigger their skin cleaner their eyes bigger So your own friends are more beautiful than they are in real life. You feel uglier So that's the social comparison of beauty and then probably the biggest single one Is the fear of missing out the fear of being left out? So all kids are subject to this everyone's concerned about whether they're included or whether they're they're excluded but girls are much more sensitive and so Suddenly when everybody is tracking each other's who was invited who's there and especially any program in which a girl puts something out And then waits to see what other people say about it. That is what's really damaging. I think we again Let me stress. We don't know for sure there are some experiments on this, but it's mostly correlational stuff We're talking about here correlational data But the overall experience of being a girl who was born in 1995 or later and got this stuff in middle school is Different from being a girl born in 1990. Let's say we didn't get this stuff till college Are you concerned that this is a trend that as technology becomes more and more invasive? It and with these new technologies as they emerge that this is going to be worse. Yes, or yes But it doesn't have to be so so I think in the last two years. We're really waking up to this The founders of this technology. It's really interesting So first of all, it's important to note as many people have read the lot of the creators of this technology Do not let their kids have it so they know that these things were made to be addictive They're made to grab eyeballs and not let go. So That's one thing we all which keep that in mind that the makers of this are wary of it Second they've gotten more and more addictive as they've gotten better and better as they've evolved So they're getting more and more and fortnight is an example of you know, extremely addictive game and It does but so when you if you've ever been to a Casino and you've seen kids you've seen people sitting at those machines like zombies just you know hour after hour pulling that crank Because there were psychologists working out the variable reinforcement schedule for the gambling companies Psychologists they are helping companies manipulate users and that's happening to our kids, too They're they're manipulated to stay on the device So once we're beginning to realize this the nature of these technologies The fact that what is good for adults may be terrible for 12 year olds 10 year olds And once we realize that these things are so attractive that they crowd out all the other healthy activities like playing outside playing with groups of friends Once we realize that I think and I hope we'll get some reasonable norms and what I'd like to propose This is fantastic to be able to talk to so many people What I'd like to propose is if you have kids, especially if you have kids under about 16 Please do what you can to talk with other parents and especially with the principle of any schools You know and say we need some sensible norms because we can't solve this problem by ourselves So I want to keep my kids off social media But my son says well most of my friends are have Instagram accounts now if it was every friend and he was the only one Who was excluded it would be really hard for me to stick to my guns I would do it would be really hard Whereas if it was only a few of his friends and most of them weren't it would be so easy And I hear this from parents over and over I don't want my kid on social media, but I don't want her to be left out Yeah, and so if the principal would just say parents, please this is getting this is getting out of hand This is harming kids. Look at the data. Look at the suicide rates. Look at the look at the self-harm rates We've got to do something. What do you do a couple things? I think it's pretty pretty simple norms one all devices out of the bedroom by a set time at least half an hour before bed There is no reason why kids should have an iPhone or a computer or screen in their bedroom Because so many kids are attracted to it They'll check their status overnight and it interrupts their sleep. We can't be having teenagers who have interrupted sleep That there's just no benefit from that gave my daughter a Fitbit my 10 year old to you know Monitor all sorts of different things. She was interested in it. So we got her one for Christmas and She slept five and a half hours the first night she had it on because we could check we're like, what are you doing? She's checking the Fitbit. What's what's going on here? Like this is not good Like you can't wear this now and she's like trying to make all these arguments to keep it I'm like listen, she's it's not distracting me I go if it's not distracting you then you shouldn't care if you don't have it on Right cuz then it's not gonna mean anything. Yeah, and then there's like this like a shit like she got check made it That's right. No cuz these things are so attractive so addictive I had one of those goddamn watches those Apple watches I had it on for one day while I was doing the podcast to get vibrating. I'm like, oh my god I'm getting text messages on my wrist my wrist. Yeah, so right and your brain is all developed. Yeah, you're an adult Well, okay. Okay, but imagine if you're a 10 or 11 year old You put something out there and you want to know did you know did bill like it yet? You know, why did why did Mary like bills but not like so so that's the rule number one You got to get devices out of the bedroom. Give them an old-fashioned alarm clock. Let him wake up with an alarm cuts one To no social media till high school There is no reason why kids in middle school or elementary school should have Instagram Facebook snapchat any of those I agree they can text each other like when we were kids you'd call each other on the phone That's fine. They can text each other But there should be no social media till high school because it's a it's a social dilemma that we can't solve alone We can only solve it if there's an agreement among parents and guidance from the principal Please parents don't give your kid an Instagram account My only concern is that they're not going to learn how to mitigate it or how to navigate it rather If we say nothing till high school and then when they get into high school, then they they're confronted with it I would like them to have some skills or at least some understanding of what's going on now Wait a second. So so I'm not saying don't let them have access to these machines. I'm not saying don't let them know I know exactly what you're saying. You're saying don't allow social media. Yeah, and how about this? The bullying that takes place in middle school is primitive and destructive And the bullying that takes place in late high school is a lot less and is not really in way What do you think that is? Well Mills like middle school kids are just coming into this There's some research So Jean Twenge has a book called I gen and she has some data in there that suggests that when you get social media In college, it doesn't seem to harm you but when you got it and your pre-teen years it does And so and she thinks that it's in part the nature of the bullying is such So, you know sure we want them to know how to deal with this But you know, they can learn it pretty quickly when they're 15 It's not like they need a running start from 11 to 15, right? So I just see no good whatsoever coming from social media in middle school And I see a lot of harm if you want your look I go around the country I talk about this The almost the rule now is when someone in someone says oh, well my daughter's in high school and you know She's had it and I say How is she doing? Does she have anxiety problems? The answer is almost always yes Mmm, and if it's not her then her friends are all crippled by or suffering from anxiety So I think we have to you know, you have to wake costs and benefits a few years ago We didn't know for sure about the costs now we do. Yeah. No, you're making total sense I'm purely playing devil's advocate and I'm on the same page with you I don't give my kids don't have phones and my 10 year old It's shocking how many girls in her class have phones and Facebook accounts and Instagram accounts and they I'll say it right now her friends are at higher risk than she is of Having an anxiety disorder of being hospitalized because they're going to cut themselves and ultimately of suicide Yeah It's so common and it's most of the kids in school now and when they get older than 10 The the number increases like parents hold out for as long as they can but as they get older and the kids want phones man Everybody wants a phone. That's right. So let me put in a plug. So I gave my son So I'm saying two contradictory things one is I'm saying we gotta let our kids out I gotta start letting them out at least by age 8 at least to go with their friends to playground stores We got to start doing this and at the same time I'm saying that the technology has some negative effects Okay, if you're gonna send your kid out I totally get what you were saying about your the panic like the first time that we let our son out in the park and Then he didn't come home right when he said like and it was real panic Yeah in part so two things one is we have to get used to that because he always does come home But secondly, I didn't realize this when I gave him an iPhone my old iPhone There's a great little product the I'm not I don't know for rising. No, they don't make it. It's I think LG makes it but it's a gizmo or gizmo gadget And so it's a simple it's a watch It's it's it's a big clunky thing But my daughter loves wearing it because it's kind of like a James Bond Dick Tracy thing It's a watch you press a button you turn it on you can call three phone numbers. That's it three phone Yeah, so she can call and so so now I can send her out to get bagels on Sunday morning She walks about six blocks in New York City. It's incredibly safe. How old is she? She is nine So, oh, yeah, so And she is a much more independent confident girl because of it and she is proud of this fact But she is a free-range kid. She can walk around our neighborhood. I mean we live in Greenwich Village. It's incredibly safe So she can go get bagels and it you know She has no sense of direction. So a couple times when she's been out doing an errand she gets lost She just presses a button daddy. I don't know where I am and if she's calm And I see we talk it through and I can track her that's the reassuring thing I can see on a screen roughly where she is So I can say, you know, what do you see and I said come back this way and she always knows her She gets in trouble. Just walk home and start again. Yeah Whoo What are you thinking Joe? All right, what's what's that facial expression? Nothing. It's just children wandering around on their own Yeah, let's always happened. Mm-hmm. Yeah, and as they have to do at some point I know but listen look at how you're even reacting to this What what you're you're you're beaming up and you're adding emotion to your voice and you're smiling Yes, as though it's everything's gonna be fine everything you're doing this and sort of you're not just reassuring. You're selling it You're right. I am selling it. Yeah because we as a Society bought into a set of beliefs that are based on falsehoods. The risk to our kids is minuscule Someone calculated at present rates of abduction by strangers If you put your kid in a car and you go into a store and you leave the windows open Your kids sitting there in the parking lot You'd have to stay in that store for 700,000 years before your kid is likely to be abducted Well, it does not depend on what neighborhood you live in. I suppose so Yeah, but still the point is that there's hardly any actual abduction. And so actually this brings up a really important point I'd like to say You one of the sticking points here is that we're afraid to let our kids out because bad things can happen to us As well as to the kids sure and so I would hope that would be the least of your concerns I hope what number one concern would be your children's safety But you getting in trouble, but hope would be the least of your concerns Not the least of them because I am selling something I am selling the idea that that the gigantic rise in mental illness of teenagers is caused in part because we've Overprotected them we have denied them the experiences of independence. They need to develop their basic social sense and so I am selling an idea that we've we've totally botched this and we need to undo it and A big piece of that is we need to be removed from the fear of legal prosecution And so Utah the state of Utah passed a year and a half ago year ago Yeah, they passed the first free-range kids bill, which says it puts into state law It says I forget what the exact terms but the gist of it is a parent cannot be considered to be negligent Just by having the kids be unsupervised So if you send your kids out to the park, you know, you have to use judge obviously if there's a pattern of neglect That's a totally different story, right? But the mere effect. Let as you just said the story about well I'm teaching my kids to go outside. I know that they're outside. I told them to go outside You can't be arrested for that and until we have legal protections It's gonna be very hard for anyone to do it because they you know The risk is you could be drawn into months and months of supervision Your kids can actually be taken away from you if you give them independence in some parts of the country It's interesting that you thought would be so progressive about that Yeah, I don't know the history behind it such a safe place. It's one of the reasons why that could be Yeah, so a big part of this is we don't trust each other anymore, right? You know if you don't trust your neighbors, then you're you're not gonna let them out. You're not gonna let your kids out