Too Much Screen Time is Too Much: A Conversation With Dr. Michael Rich about a Case Study with a Student Lost Down a Tik Tok Rabbit Hole
Do you ever feel like you or your kids are spending way too much time on your phones? Have you ever found yourself scrolling for long periods of time? It’s hard to know how much screen time is too much when we spend so much time on our phones. For answers, Dr. Sanjay Gupta sits down with self-described “mediatrician”, Dr. Michael Rich, who co-directs the Clinic for Interactive Media Disorders at Boston Children’s Hospital. Sanjay talks with Dr. Rich about his unique approach to treating young patients with problematic media use. One student lost down a TikTok rabbit hole and we hear about it.
It was starting to wear on me physically first, I think. I was scrolling for a long time, you know, not going to sleep. It was taking hours out of my day.
Source: https://www.cnn.com/audio/podcasts/chasing-life/episodes/f2b7f7a5-ae60-4b5a-a795-afac01011dd1
The chasing-life story of a college student and the end of the TikTok. A story about a friend and a wrestler
The story I’m about to tell you will sound familiar at first. It’s about a college student. He was pulling a lot of all nighters, but he wasn’t cramming for exams. He wasn’t hanging out with friends.
It was very difficult to stop. It was as hard to say, okay, I’ve seen enough because there isn’t enough on TikTok. There’s no winning on TikTok. There’s no end point. So you just keep going.
Add it all up, half an hour to an hour when I wake up, you know, a little bit in the free time during the day, maybe during a meal, another 2 hours during the day, maybe averaging 5 to 6 hours a day, even more if I had more free time.
Source: https://www.cnn.com/audio/podcasts/chasing-life/episodes/f2b7f7a5-ae60-4b5a-a795-afac01011dd1
What happens to my TikTok account when I walked away one night and realized I wasn’t a cynic, not even that good
And it is that journey of saying that like, Hi, this is my TikTok account. I don’t have any followers. The only people I know on here are my friends, and I’m going to post and someone might see it because there is a chance. Because that’s how the TikTok algorithm works.
And then everything changed. Jerome had been scrolling away one night and he saw the sun come up. He hadn’t slept at all, and he was falling behind in school. At that point, he broke up with TikTok.
I was simply watching, just scrolling, just kind of just droning on through endless content. That’s when I started to become less of a creative and more of a cynic, you know? All I would be doing is looking at the content. I would see it and I would be like, Oh, I could be funnier than that. Or, Oh, they’re not even that good.
Source: https://www.cnn.com/audio/podcasts/chasing-life/episodes/f2b7f7a5-ae60-4b5a-a795-afac01011dd1
What Happened to Jerome and Why Did You Get There? A Conversation with Jerome, a Mom of Three Daughters, and a Dad of Three Teens
Jerome says something deep inside of him stirred. Maybe it was an urge to simply look up from his phone and actually enjoy the real world around him. It was like emerging from a fog.
It wasn’t until I started taking time away from the app that I realized that I wasn’t unattractive, I wasn’t unsuccessful, I wasn’t, you know, unpopular. It was just the fact that I was comparing myself to the super ideals of every form.
That. That is the thing that really stuck with me about Jerome’s story. How innocently it all started. If I’m being honest, as a dad of three teenage daughters, I can’t help but think about how I can keep them away from that place. I can see how much they like the app. I can see the appeal. Heck, we’ve even made videos together. There’s something that worries me. I worry about their digital world more than my real world does because they don’t have as many rules or supervision. My oldest, Sage, is about to head to college, which means soon she will be the same age Jerome was when this all happened to him. It’s hard to believe, but might the same thing happen to her? Thankfully, Jerome had the knowledge to figure it out. But I know not everyone can do that. In fact, sometimes it gets so bad people need medical help.
It is there as a resource for helping those children and families who have really gone down the rabbit hole, if you will, of gaming, of social media and of what we call information bingeing.
Source: https://www.cnn.com/audio/podcasts/chasing-life/episodes/f2b7f7a5-ae60-4b5a-a795-afac01011dd1
Do kids have trouble with their media use? Dr. Rich explains why social media and obsessive compulsive disorder can lead to a difficult life in children’s minds
We’re in a new world that we’ll have to figure out as time goes on. It’s not even half a century old anymore. I mean, I have 17 year old patients who say, you know, I’m cool, but I really worry about my 14 year old sibling because this environment is morphing and evolving so rapidly.
We went to virtual visits prior to the alert. Kids who have a hard time with their media use often are not seen on their first visit because their parents won’t leave until the night before or the morning of the visit. And of course, the kids would say, no effin way, I’m out of here. As soon as we went virtual, our no show rate dropped to zero because they’re comfortable in this environment.
Dr. Rich says his patients often have underlying conditions like obsessive compulsive disorder and anxiety that are a result of stressors in their lives. And what he believes is that their use of social media, or technology turns up the volume on those conditions. I thought that was critical and he said that social media did not cause the problem for many of these children. It amplified it.
Source: https://www.cnn.com/audio/podcasts/chasing-life/episodes/f2b7f7a5-ae60-4b5a-a795-afac01011dd1
What is a kid’s most distressing point for parents? A case study: How the parents are worried about their kids spending too much time on screens
I spent my formative years in the film industry. I also respect Screen Media, even though I love it. I think that in a love affair there is a deep respect as well.
When you have a parent who is bringing a child in to see someone like you, they’re doing it because they’re worried, right? If a child’s parent is leaving them to see the doctor, it’s because they’re worried. You know, they’ve been having pain, they’ve been unable to keep food down, whatever it may be. So they’re coming into you with a worry. What is the worry? Exactly. Like I get the worry is that they, I think my kid is spending too much time on a screen. What?
A young person withdrawing from their life is what the parents see. You know, they are not getting up for school. Sometimes they’re staying up all night gaming or on social media or whatever. So they see the young person withdrawing actually from them most acutely. The kid is in their room. A kid is on a screen. You know, instead of having meals together, instead of just spending time with the family. I think that’s the most distressing point for parents.
Source: https://www.cnn.com/audio/podcasts/chasing-life/episodes/f2b7f7a5-ae60-4b5a-a795-afac01011dd1
How Do You Get What You Are Really Wanting in Medicine? When You’re Not Going to Sleep, What’s going on? What are the Pain Points of Young People?
Do you think about what is too much for the patient or family? And we have to define within normal limits in medicine. That’s how you get lab results within normal limits. What are normal limits here?
Where the problem comes in is when their day to day functions are impaired in some way. They’re not getting enough sleep. They are getting too large. They are not in school. They are moving away from their friends. I try to identify the pain points of these young people when they come to me first, if they will allow me to do so, even if it’s just to see if they’re doing okay at school. I wish I had more friends, etc. rather than having some ideal that sort of says over x number of hours is problematic, is impairing your life. I want to look more at what their life is from the time they wake up to the time they go to sleep. I think it has been about how you are feeling in your life. How are you? Are you getting grades in school that are reflective of your capabilities? And almost invariably they’ll say no. Why that could be is something we’ll explore.
The screen media is used for self-care rather than a problem. And it is not the social media or gaming doing something to them, it’s how they’re using it that becomes problematic.
In a world where social media and screen time were not as important, one of your patients might be the one you were seeing. 15 years ago. Did you know what it was 20 years ago? Would the child still be watching you? Instead of social media it would be TV watching and some sort of binge activity.
And that’s why I sort of move away from addiction as a model, because we as a society use the term addiction as pejorative. We view addiction as a punishment, rather than a cure, and we think of them as weak, weak people. These kids do have certainly short term problems withdrawing from these behaviors. When you understand that it’s not the behavior of the young person that makes them feel better but the behavior of a young person who is seeking out and pursuing this behavior so that they can feel better about themselves and their school, then you can conclude that it is not the behavior of the Including their social interactions where they can’t keep on top of a conversation. They come home and they sit down in front of a screen and play a first person shooter. And not only are they in control of that universe, but in many ways they are better than so-called neurotypical kids at a game that actually reinforces and rewards distractibility, hyper vigilance, and all the aspects of ADHD that are problematic in a classroom setting.
Source: https://www.cnn.com/audio/podcasts/chasing-life/episodes/f2b7f7a5-ae60-4b5a-a795-afac01011dd1
What I’d Like to do if I Can’t Use Social Media to Help My Son and His Families With Alcohol and Cigars
That’s fascinating. That’s a really, especially that idea of how you might have a day like you described, where you’re feeling behind all day and then you come home and you can regain some sense of control. That sounds familiar, doc. It sounds familiar to me but I can also see it in things my kids might see. I’ll probably even find myself playing a silly game on planes because I’m. I need to regain control of my life. I might need some victories. I need a few wins because I’ve had a bunch of losses today, but I can beat this computer at this.
I was stopped in my tracks by the last point of Dr. Rich. When you treat someone with an addiction to alcohol or cigarets, you’re asking them to give up their things. Abstinence makes sense. For most people, that is simply not realistic with technology. Rich’s approach is to respect it while learning to live with it. I know that’s a big change from the doom and gloom warnings. Many of us hear that social media is bad for us and we should stop using it. It is necessary that we be cut out of our lives.
I feel like they can teach you how to use a tool well, even though I might be a little bit nervous about that. My thinking is that is my son is worse off because his dad is online all the time, even if only for a short while? You can’t use social media… I can’t be that way. He will be asking what you do all day, every day. So what I would like is, and what I would hope, is that as sort of more people who were who had social media as part of their lives when they were younger have children that we’re at least able to have these conversations better or or talk about like, you know, any any new thing that enters into a society is very easy to abuse until you sort of develop norms and taboos about how to use it more well. But I think also just like any other sort of thing that can feel really good without a lot of, it’s a little like candy, you know. Where you know it tastes good, it doesn’t provide much substance. And and so I my hope is that we can get to a place where where we know how to use it. It’s okay to have some, but you’re going to need some real food.
It might be a power tool, like an automobile, in a way. As my children are starting to drive, I think it’s fascinating. I think about that all the time as well. Like if you said, what is my biggest concern about screens with my teenagers? You know what I would say far and away, my biggest concern is they use it when they’re behind the wheel of a car far away, because that can be catastrophic in a millisecond. How much they use it overall doesn’t concern me. Sure. I am more concerned about when they use it and what they use it for.
What really matters here is content that we are both consuming and creating in this space and the context in which we are using it. It would be fine if it was right in the middle of the day between things you wouldn’t want your child doing at three in the morning, in bed at night, or sitting at the dinner table. The focus of the day should be on the content. Is this healthy content? Is it helpful or not? And what is the context in which they are doing it? And I think the one place that screen time comes in is really what is this displacing that I could be doing? Yeah. I wonder if I am having a conversation with my parents at the kitchen table. I was wondering if I could be playing with my friends. The seductiveness of the online space can make it difficult to find a rich and diverse menu of experiences that is helpful to growing up.
Chasing Life: An Introduction to a Parent-Of-A-Matrix Patient’s Experience with Screening and Surveillance
And I’m going to get his advice for improving my own family’s relationship with technology. Stay informed. Now back to Chasing Life. Before we hear more from Dr. Rich, I want to first introduce you to one of his patients.
Allison first visited Dr. Rich as a preventive measure. There wasn’t yet a problem, but her mom, Amy, says that she was struggling to raise Allison and her siblings in a world that was so different from the one that she grew up in.
The TV was broken in the back of my dad’s closet, and it got fixed, quote unquote, when I had my tonsils out. We had a TV in our house but it wasn’t functional until I was 16. So coming at that, you know, with screens everywhere, raising kids, it was definitely baptism by fire.
Source: https://www.cnn.com/audio/podcasts/chasing-life/episodes/f2b7f7a5-ae60-4b5a-a795-afac01011dd1
Downtime: Implementing Smartphone Wellness Check for Ubiquitous Smartphone Usage (Interview with Dr. Rich at the Podcast Podcast)
I implemented downtime where I can’t use my phone until 715 in the morning and I can’t use it after 830 at night so I can wind down for bed and have my morning routine. But I also made app limits so I can only spend a certain amount of time on YouTube. I can only spend a certain amount of time doing games. I only can spend a limited amount of time on other apps. So that means that I don’t spend countless hours mindlessly scrolling.
It’s pretty impressive. And again, keep in mind, she’s only 13. Now, Allison, I have to tell you, I can really relate to your parents. We often think of going to the doctor for checkups to help prevent future health problems. And in many ways, that is what your parents did for you here as well. And for all your listeners. This is what the conversation with Dr. Rich on the podcast is supposed to do for you. Think of it as a wellness check for smartphone usage.
Source: https://www.cnn.com/audio/podcasts/chasing-life/episodes/f2b7f7a5-ae60-4b5a-a795-afac01011dd1
How do you gain the trust of your patients? A simple example: a patient’s view of the world from an old guy’s perspective
How do you gain the trust of the patients you treat? I’m not saying that they are not looking at you and saying that this guy is an old guy. You and I are the same age. I’m just saying that. How can they comprehend my world? How do you gain that trust?
Source: https://www.cnn.com/audio/podcasts/chasing-life/episodes/f2b7f7a5-ae60-4b5a-a795-afac01011dd1
What do you think about Grand Theft Auto and what you want to do in the digital age? “How do you find out how to steal a car with your thumbs” — Dr. Rich
I ask them what games they play, or what socia-, seriously. I tell them that I am knowledgeable about it in a variety of ways, that’s not saying it’s a bad place. I’m looking at it as the world that they live in. And I think that’s a mistake that a lot of parents make, which is they’re sort of dealing with it as something else. They are standing next to the stairs and saying turn off Grand Theft Auto. I hate that. What I encourage the parents to do is sit down next to their child and play Grand Theft Auto with them, because there’s some really interesting things that happen then. You are saying, I love you, I care about you, but if I don’t get rid of it, it will be bad for you. I want to understand what you like to do. I want to understand what you’re doing. When you find out how to steal cars with your thumbs, you ask your child, okay? I figured out how to do it. We’ll discuss why we might want to do that and rehearse it over and over again. Right. You’re arriving from a different part of the world. You are learning from the child how to be a student. You’re changing the power differential in ways that are really meaningful to the kid, which is, I care about what you do. I care about you, and you’re not wagging a finger at them so much as you’re saying, Let’s understand this together and you’re giving them a way of moving on. That is the next step and it isn’t a punishment at all.
When you distill it all down, is there a best way to raise your children, not a right way, but is a best way to do things in the digital age? Is it the other top tips that you give?
At the end of the day, my biggest question for Dr. Rich wasn’t really about the data. I wanted to know as a fellow dad, fellow doctor, when he looks at where this is all headed. Does he think he’s going to win?
I am hopeful. It’s kind of an occupational hazard for a doctor to be optimistic. But I am hopeful because of what I hear from the kids. And so I think that we will get better. Problems we don’t anticipate will be encountered. So I think that, yes, things are going to get better. And yes, there will be some potholes in the road. Will we be able to spot the potholes and steer around them? Is hitting them going to cause more problems? But either way, I’m confident that we can do this. We have to take a yes we can attitude toward this and be prepared for problems to occur and solve them without guilt.
I like that. I really do. Taking a yes we can attitude towards this big issue is a big reason why I wanted to do this season. I wanted to look at the impact that social media and technology was having on all of us. I wanted to make sure the tone of our conversation was right. Being a bad parent is not what it’s about. It’s not about being a bad kid. It’s not about right or wrong. I might not be making the right decisions as a parent all the time. I know that. It’s ok because it’s more about doing the best you can with the best intentions in mind. The Wild west is where we’re found when it comes to these technologies. We are making this up as we go along, but it is all about learning what works best for you. It was wise for Allison and her mom, Amy, to tackle these issues before bad things happen. One day, they’ll decide to stop cold turkey because they have a problem, after they were able to self-identify. And I do realize that for some of you listening, you may be still worried about your habits and still not clear what exactly you need to do to change. Catherine Price is going to teach us how to break up with our phones in the next episode.
Taking a break will make you understand the effect that your relationship with technology is having on you, and will also help you appreciate how great technology can be.
Yeah, I think I could quit Tik Tok and Instagram. That is my main source of communication, and I would be a little bit harder to give up on.
Chasing Life with CNN Audio: A Conversation with Sanjay Gupta, Dan Green, Dan Mathewson, and David Rind
Chasing Life is a production of CNN Audio. Our podcast is produced by Grace Walker, Xavier Lopez, Eryn Mathewson, and David Rind. Our senior producer is Haley Thomas. Andrea Kane is our medical writer and Tommy Bazarian is our engineer. Dan is the technical director. Steve Lickteig is the executive producer of CNN Audio. Thanks to all of the above, plus a special thanks to Ben Tinker and the CNN Health team.
This season, we’ve been talking about the potential dangers of social media and the amount of time we spend online. But what about the positive, educational sides of the internet? On this episode, Dr. Sanjay Gupta talks to one of the YouTube’s earliest content creators, Hank Green . Sanjay and Hank discuss the state of the internet today, the responsibility of having a platform, and how to deal with harsh online comments. Plus, they ask is the future of the internet utopian? What about a Dystopian? Or maybe both?
I’m on the Internet to help people learn and get curious in school and understand some of the things they don’t know. That is beautiful and it is fun. I get so much joy from that.
Source: https://www.cnn.com/audio/podcasts/chasing-life/episodes/6c51819a-d613-4cff-9637-afbb0016bec8
Hank Green: YouTuber’s First Hitchhiker: An Absolutely Remarkable Thing and a Beautifully Foolish Endeavor
Hank Green is a fictional character. He’s an author, a science communicator, and a vlogger. He got his start on YouTube back in 2007. Think about that. That was before the term content creator was even a thing. So he has seen the digital evolution play out in real time.
You know, I remember sort of it kind of happened for me back in like 2012, 2013 when the stuff that I started to see getting made on YouTube was a lot of sort of cruel pranks or like manipulative guys trying to get-
Hank started posting videos at a time when there were not as many stars on the internet. Keep in mind, this was 2007, and because of this, he’s got a pretty unique perspective as someone who kind of struck gold and gained Internet fame, a following that so many young people nowadays really aspire to. Hank spent so much of his career online and decided to write about it. Sort of. Hank published two books that touch on Internet fame and the digital world. An Absolutely Remarkable Thing and a Beautifully Foolish Endeavor are what they’re called. The titles of both of them are wonderful. And again, while these books are fiction, Hank says he was definitively drawing inspiration from his real life.
Source: https://www.cnn.com/audio/podcasts/chasing-life/episodes/6c51819a-d613-4cff-9637-afbb0016bec8
What Happens When You’re Out Of The Internet All The Time? Hank Green, Chief Medical Correspondent for CNN, Chasing Life
Is my son any worse off because his dad is on the Internet all the time? All the time and like. And there’s no way I can be like, you can’t use social media. He’s going to be like, what do you do?
I’ve been asking professors and doctors some difficult questions about the use of technology. I wanted to hear from the person who makes the content that we see on a scrolling screen.
I think that we are comfortable with the idea that the internet is good and bad and that it’s a tool that you can use to harm someone.
Today, my conversation with Hank Green, a content creator and a fellow dad, about what life is like on the other side of the screen. I am the chief medical correspondent for CNN. And this is Chasing Life.
Source: https://www.cnn.com/audio/podcasts/chasing-life/episodes/6c51819a-d613-4cff-9637-afbb0016bec8
Cross-Generational Talks with Hank, Bethe, Micah, Alyne, Sasha and Meissner
I do. And I think that the the idea of teaching people science in particular, just as a scientist myself, I think is super important. And I also have three teenagers and their videos have actually been shown in their classrooms. They knew you even when I told them that I was interviewing you. So you’re cross-generational, which is pretty cool.
Yeah, And I have to say, these are tough conversations. I’ve gone through this with Hank and I have a few. My 17 year old son said to me that he wouldn’t let my kids use social media until they were older. Which was, God, it’s a little bit of a punch in the gut to hear because I thought I was, you know, being a good parent-
Source: https://www.cnn.com/audio/podcasts/chasing-life/episodes/6c51819a-d613-4cff-9637-afbb0016bec8
What do you think about it? The balance of what you’re trying to tell yourself and what you can’t tell me in terms of how you respond to things?
But I guess the flip side of that is that she’s very aware of of what it’s done for her, done to her. She would dial some of that back, which I think made me a bit more hopeful. I feel like a lot of the time. In medicine, we see this all the time and we assume the worst case scenario. We have to assume the worst, hope for the best, but assume the worst. The worst case scenario is what we respond to in terms of our how we respond. That is not the case for most people. How do you find the balance there? And I don’t know the answer, and I don’t know that you know the answer, but I’m just curious how you think about it.
Source: https://www.cnn.com/audio/podcasts/chasing-life/episodes/6c51819a-d613-4cff-9637-afbb0016bec8
The Food Problem: How Junk Food becomes a Memomoron of Science and Science, and What Happens When You Get It Wrong
Junk food is seen as a metaphor for real food. I think that really resonates with me. I think that is an interesting idea because yes, Hank’s stuff is educational and scientific, but there is also a lot of junk. And therein lies the problem. You know, recently I was having a conversation about this with my youngest daughter, Soleil, and she had shown me this meme on Instagram. It was funny. We laughed but it was not true. And I asked her, I said, Soleil, you know, this isn’t true, right? She showed me her phone again, and laughed. It’s on the photo-sharing site. And I said right away. But, you know, it’s not true. She said something next that stopped me in my tracks. What she said is, Dad, to be honest, I really don’t think that anything that I see anymore online is true. Think about that. So much of what comes across her feed is garbage. It all becomes garbage as a result. It all becomes suspicious. It is all lumped together and you find yourself in a really scary situation where you don’t know what to do. Social media in a lot of the Internet is just a playground for them not to be taken seriously. Everyone is dragged down by that. It drags everything down. Even for Hank, who makes good, credible, fact checked, vetted content.
We are talking about making sense at this point. Like there’s always been structures of credibility. There was a communist newspaper and a Republican newspaper during the early days of newspapers, so we have to learn about that now. And that when I was growing up in the eighties and nineties, that was very that was more much more clear. It is not clear now. One thing I try to do very hard is to get the content I make right and when I get it wrong, discuss the fact that I got it wrong. And, and and that’s almost too for a lot of people like more instructive to be like, oh, so like not only is everyone fallible, but also you can sort of walk down the path of how you, what you a what what assumption you made that led to your wrong content in some way. But I worry about it being so person focused because a person almost is like has to be less credible than a really good organization because a person can only do so much and a person you can’t scale them the same way You can’t build the exact same way as you can with a strong, robust news organization. And so if we end up in a situation where we only believe individuals, I think that’s a worse world.
This is obviously something that you’re quite good at. A lot of people pay attention to you and your work is also shown in schools, you know, and people that want to educate their kids in a good way, so I’m not saying this just to flatter you. You said, “How do you admit when you’ve got something wrong?” How much time do you spend thinking about the institution of trust with your own content? You want to get it accurate, but just the idea of trust, everything from word choice to, I don’t know your background to your your presentation, how much do you think about that in this digital world?
I think about it all the time. It’s one of the things that I worry about, and on a lot of different good reasons. I worry about it for myself. I think a lot of people would be devastated if I didn’t live up to what I’ve been trying to portray in public. The thing I like to say about making content on the Internet is that, like all of me that you see is me. You just don’t see all of me. And I worry a lot about, you know, I’ve seen people both in just mistakes and in like really intentional ways to do things that have really destroyed a lot of their credibility. They are destroying something larger than their own thing and it’s inside of other people. That’s the thing that I want to be careful with.
Source: https://www.cnn.com/audio/podcasts/chasing-life/episodes/6c51819a-d613-4cff-9637-afbb0016bec8
How Exactly Do I Have to Talk About Dating Aliens and What Do You Want to Say About Me? When I Learned To Stop Talking About Marriage
Hank is interacting more online than I am, and that can take a toll on him. When we return, avoid the urge to get into it for your own good.
I’ve learned over the years that I can’t argue without becoming a professional arguer. And that’s not what I do for a living.
I was working through it. It’s such a it’s a weird job and not a lot of people have had it. And I was 27 when I uploaded my first YouTube video. So I was married an adult. There were a lot of situations that I had a stable set of. That isn’t the truth for most people. Like most of the people who were like my colleagues in that era where we’re like 18, 19, 20, maybe even younger than that. It made it simpler for them to make worse decisions. And because, you know, for all the reasons and and I kind of wanted to walk through like just sort of let let a character make some mistakes for me That is how I wouldn’t make it. Also explore a lot of how the Internet is currently used and how it will be in the future as well as how good it is at turning things into fights.
Source: https://www.cnn.com/audio/podcasts/chasing-life/episodes/6c51819a-d613-4cff-9637-afbb0016bec8
What amount of time do you spend online? A case study in the case of Netflix and TikTok (Analysis of the Top Ten Most Popular Videos of the World Wide Web)
What amount of time do you spend online? You are spending time on the internet to make your content. Just like a user of these various platforms, how would you describe your use?
I could justify to myself the parts where it was hard to call it work. It’s probably on the order of 2 to 3 hours per day. The weird thing is that like what is online? Everything is online. I’m not counting that as part of the equation forNetflix being online. In terms of using services like TikTok. It’s probably two or 3 hours per day doing social media and consuming content.
Source: https://www.cnn.com/audio/podcasts/chasing-life/episodes/6c51819a-d613-4cff-9637-afbb0016bec8
Why are so many people angry about something that you don’t want to tell us? What do you think about the tikTok video?
I feel like it’s a thing that you have to get good at. The times when it’s been destructive for me are when I have been using it like it’s. I’m almost looking for reasons to be upset. And I’m. I’m like, I’ve, I’ve stumbled across a piece of the Internet or like I sort of set of the content creators who are saying things specifically what bugs me probably the most of all things is when they’re taking some like nugget of scientific truth and then usually biological and then applying that to a social system or to politics in a way that is really appealing. But really it’s sort of backtracking to the perspective that they wanted to have. So just like grabbing some sciencey thing and telling a, like doing unscientific things with it where I’m like, I want to- just, I’m so mad. You can’t just say something. You know? I can be angry because the world is not the way that I wish it were, but you can just say things. And, and my wife kind of can quickly identify when I’m in that space. There’s something you’re upset about that does not have to do with what you do. You have to know that you can’t fix everything. And so, like you have to focus on what you do and what you’re good at and what you actually like instead of, you know, it’s it’s harder to be a good dad and a good partner and a good leader at my businesses. If I’m caught up in something that may cause a conflict, I think that the Internet is designed to keep us on the platforms, because it will catch us in conflict, which is really good at keeping us on the platforms.
Your your wife sounds very wise. Obviously. I am curious like these these videos or content that you’re consuming that do rile you up in the way that you described. Is it possible to get to you? Is it a part of your feed? Is it being fed to you by one of these algorithms you’re describing?
Part of my like, the fun part of my job is that people will ask me questions. Several people on TikTok saw this video which got millions of viewers, and it was talking about some things in a scientific frame. And a bunch of people had tagged me and they said, Hank Green, is this true? I mean, it was not. You’re trying to lend credibility to your argument by taking something that sounds sciencey. But I, you know, get into that. and I like it gets my blood pressure going. But I’ve gotten better over the years at realizing that. One of the things. I realized that you can’t argue with a professional if you’re not a professional arguer. And that’s not what I do for a living. I work for people and don’t argue with them. I’m not on the Internet to yell at people. I’m on the Internet to help people learn and get curious and do well in school and and understand more of the knowable things of their universe and know more about the unknowable things. That’s great, and it’s fun. And like, I get so much joy from that. And I also think that it does more good than getting in a fight. You know.
It’s easy to fire people up, you know, to appeal to their their amygdala. You know, they’re emotional centers of the brain. And that will get a lot of provocation and probably a lot of views. Do you don’t want to go that route to just cause trouble? It’s possible that you will get even more people to watch and share your videos.
Yeah, I’m lucky to be in a situation where I don’t have my goal right now isn’t to get more attention or even money or whatever it is. It’s pretty obvious from research that talking about how wrong someone is and how badly they are isn’t great for your cause because it sets up a dichotomy of the conflict. It doesn’t convince people of things. It pushes people to sides. That’s all it does.
Source: https://www.cnn.com/audio/podcasts/chasing-life/episodes/6c51819a-d613-4cff-9637-afbb0016bec8
How do I feel when I’m online? And how do I communicate with people and what I’ve learned from doing things that have more power than I feel like I do?
When you’re in real life, people are very complimentary and thankful because they know how you’ve helped them and their kids. And I imagine that it’s the same way online in terms of the comments section and stuff like that. Do you read comments and do you feel like the response that you get in the digital world mirrors what you get in the real world?
Yeah. Yeah. For most of the time. And like there are comments that are cruel to me sometimes and there are people who disagree with things that I’ve done in the past and in one way or another, because, you know, I am not shy about my feelings on some controversial topics here and there. And the and so I’m like, you know, I’m kind of fine with that? It’s taken me a long time to realize that I am not a person to everyone, and it’s also taken me a long time to understand the nature of who I am. They don’t see me. They see me as a sort of a shell that contains a brand or a I don’t I don’t know. I have gotten comfortable with the idea that I have more power than people who don’t. And so they feel like they can throw a punch and I won’t feel it. And and also, if I throw a punch at that, they will feel like I just like stepped on them with a transformer robot foot like the that that you know you kind of when you when you’re on the Internet and you have a you have a following and you have. You have status for lack of a better term. You kind of have to understand that you wield a lot more power than you feel like you wield. I watch people all the time, and it’s hard for me to be sensitive because I have an army of angry people who will come into their lives and ruin them, and that’s why I won’t censor myself. I don’t think I will be able to censor myself just because of that. And I’m like, Well, it’s not really censoring yourself to not to to, like, recognize that you have more power than you once had.
But that’s really good self awareness, though. I mean, to recognize that you’d be punching down, so to speak, and with a pretty heavy blow if you decided to engage in that way. There is a chance that people won’t recognize that you can leave a mark on them just because you are.
They don’t have a clue. John and I, my brother, made this content together. We’ve been through times when there have been groups of people that don’t like us. They think it is fun and we are having a good time as well. And we aren’t. But like, we can’t say anything. We have to live through it. It is a bad part of a good thing.
Source: https://www.cnn.com/audio/podcasts/chasing-life/episodes/6c51819a-d613-4cff-9637-afbb0016bec8
The Internet of Things, and what are we about in 2023–It’s going to be different than it was in 1915–Now that’s all that
Yeah, absolutely. I don’t know how it gets better. It will require a lot of individual people having good, thoughtful thoughts and good conversations and a lot of time and experience with it, so I believe it will be. I think a lot about the printing press. The ability to disagree with the church allowed the Catholic Church to say, like, I think you’re doing it wrong. and we’re going to share that information. We’re going to be better at it than you, and we’re also going to be more flexible. There are many parallels to that set of conflicts we have now. It was a messy time. It was very bad. And lots of people died. It was a book that no one thought we shouldn’t have. We figured out how to have books and have them not be societally destructive. We figured out how to get through that time so we wouldn’t end up living in a world where the church had so much power. We needed to get into a world where there was more individualism. I think we’re having that now. That’s not a discussion about young people and screen time. It’s a conversation that every single person in the society is having.
I do think about that. The thing that I’m working on now, which I don’t know if it will ever come out, is is about what I think the Internet could be like if we were thoughtful and careful about it. But it is very different from what we have now. You never feel like you are in history when you are, that is what I think. But we always are. You never feel like you’re a part of it. Most of the things that we’re talking about in 2023 are going to be forgotten because this moment is going to be part of a larger story. But but we are. We’re at the start of a new revolution. You know, I know people who’ve run big social media companies and and they do think about the societal implications of what they do and they consider society and the world one of the one of their stakeholders, along with their employees and their advertisers and their investors and whatever. But like, mostly the thing that we’re we’re fine with is like, okay, you’ve got this technology, use it how you can and make as much money as you can, because that’s how that makes sense. We haven’t really thought about how to do it in a way that’s really pro-social. We haven’t thought about how to sort of make the tool best for a human and best for human outcomes, because that’s really complicated and it’s kind of scary to say like, Oh, I’m going to use the social media platform is gonna make me happier. It’s like, wow. They should not be able to push those buttons. So what? What is that future look like? And and is it dystopian or is it utopian or is it a little bit of both? That’s what the future always is.
The future. A little dystopian, a little utopian, all of it at the same time. It’s a really kind of beautiful way to look at it, an authentic way to look at it. It’s true. We never know which way things are going to unfold. You will be surprised, if the impact of these technologies will get better? Will they get worse over time? Is it going to be both? We can’t really do anything about it, we have to understand them at the time we use them. At the same time, we can hone our awareness of how they can be detrimental to us if we develop an expertise in how to use them well. Hank mentioned that even for him, someone with years now of experience, the pressures of being online can take a toll. He probably has thicker skin than most. And frankly, that troubled me because Hank is Hank. I worry about regular people. There are young people I worry about. I am hearing it from my kids.
How people see you, I guess with social media, you want to put out like a good picture of yourself, make it seem like. Like your life is so perfect. Even though not everyone’s lives is perfect.
Source: https://www.cnn.com/audio/podcasts/chasing-life/episodes/6c51819a-d613-4cff-9637-afbb0016bec8
Keeping a Girl From Feeling Like She’s Broached, Or How You Think You’re Going To Look at Them
My daughter Sky will be speaking with me next week. About the pressures of being a teenage girl online. This is going to be one conversation I will never forget. Plus, I’m going to sit down with the child psychologist about the impact this pressure can have on young people.
We’re all in this feedback loop of looking at good pictures and bad pictures, even though we know that’s not reality. We’re comparing the worst days of our lives. Our worst moments are worse angles to other people’s best. You will not feel great when you do that.