- Andrew Huberman hosts the Huberman Lab Podcast, focusing on science and practical tools for everyday life.
- Guest Dr. Jonathan Haidt, a social psychologist and author, discusses his book "The Anxious Generation."
- The conversation centers on the mental health crisis linked to smartphone use, particularly during puberty.
- Haidt highlights critical periods for social development and the differing impacts of technology on boys and girls.
- The discussion emphasizes solutions to improve mental health among youth affected by smartphones.
- Huberman aims to provide accessible science-based information to the public through the podcast.

- The iPhone's release in 2007 marked a shift in communication tools, with teenagers primarily using flip phones until 2010.
- By 2015, smartphones became ubiquitous among teens, leading to increased social media use, particularly Instagram among girls.
- The period from 2010 to 2015 is identified as the "great rewiring of childhood," significantly impacting children's behavior and attention spans.
- Smartphone use is likened to an obsessive-compulsive loop, exacerbating distractions and compulsions rather than alleviating them.
- Mental health statistics show a sharp increase in anxiety, depression, and self-harm among girls starting around 2012, with rates doubling for many measures.
- The rise in mental health issues correlates with increased smartphone use and social media engagement, particularly among girls.
- Various factors contribute to this decline, including sleep disruption, blue light exposure, and reduced in-person social interactions.
- Current data indicates teens spend about 5 hours a day on social media, with platforms like TikTok and YouTube being particularly addictive.

- Kids spend 5-10 hours daily on screens, including social media and video games.
- Shift from play-based childhood (before 2010) to phone-based childhood (after 2010) is detrimental to development.
- Loss of community trust since the 1950s led to decreased outdoor play and increased parental supervision.
- Fear of child abduction surged in the 1990s, resulting in overprotection and reduced outdoor activities.
- Increased screen time and internet engagement, particularly among boys initially, shifted children's focus from outdoor play.
- Social media later attracted both genders, solidifying the phone-based childhood experience.
- The overall decline in play and social interaction is linked to rising mental health issues in children.

- AG1 offers a special promotion: 5 free travel packs and a year supply of vitamin D3K2 with purchase.
- The discussion centers around societal tragedies affecting children: loss of community, reduced play, and increased screen time.
- Boys and girls exhibit different interests influenced by biological and psychological factors.
- Boys tend to gravitate towards systems and competitive activities (e.g., war games, remote control vehicles), while girls focus on social dynamics (e.g., social media).
- Boys are attracted to themes of violence and sex, while girls are drawn to social interactions and relationships.
- Psychological concepts like effectance illustrate boys' desire for physical interaction and control, whereas girls seek to influence social environments.
- Girls often show more compassion towards animals, while boys may display more aggressive tendencies.

- A girl desperately wanted a dog, highlighting the need for relationships with animals, which is part of human evolution (biophilia).
- The speaker reflects on the caretaking aspects of having a horse and the emotional connections formed with animals.
- Discusses the impact of pornography on boys' sexual development, emphasizing its prevalence and potential consequences.
- Explains dopamine's role in motivation and how easy access to pornography can lead to addiction and diminished real-life relationship skills.
- Highlights the difference between observational versus participatory experiences in sexual relationships and the resulting anxiety and dysfunction in real-life interactions.
- Stresses the importance of developing skills in courtship and the challenges posed by modern technology in learning these skills.

- Evolving courtship requires slow, meaningful interactions; jumping into sex hinders this process.
- Comparison of two boys: one relies on pornography for sexual satisfaction, while the other engages in real-life courtship.
- Emphasizes the importance of learning social skills and emotional connections through slow, iterative experiences.
- Dating apps and technology disrupt traditional courtship and hinder personal development.
- Gen Z struggles with initiative and confidence due to limited real-life social interactions.
- Children learn essential social skills through play and conflict resolution, which is lacking in digital environments.
- Social media exacerbates conflicts, leading to high-stakes mistakes and potential emotional harm.
- The shift towards screen-based childhood experiences diminishes healthy social development.

- Childhood in the 2010s shifted from social interactions to solitary screen time.
- Hydration and electrolytes are vital for cognitive and physical performance.
- Element drink mix is recommended for hydration and electrolyte balance.
- Personal anecdotes highlight conflict resolution and friendship dynamics among boys.
- Dynamic subordination in groups, especially among males, fosters effective teamwork.
- Online interactions often empower extreme behaviors and create a performative atmosphere.
- The importance of trust in leadership and followership dynamics is emphasized.
- Different skill sets within groups help individuals find their roles and strengths.

- Andrew Huberman hosts the Huberman Lab Podcast, exploring science and practical tools for everyday life.
- Dr. Jonathan Haidt discusses his book "The Anxious Generation," focusing on the mental health crisis linked to smartphone use during puberty.
- The conversation highlights critical developmental periods and the differing impacts of technology on boys and girls.
- Solutions to improve youth mental health affected by smartphones are emphasized.
- The rise of smartphones since 2010 has led to increased social media use, particularly among girls, correlating with a sharp rise in anxiety and depression.
- Factors contributing to mental health declines include sleep disruption, blue light exposure, and reduced in-person interactions.
- Children now spend 5-10 hours daily on screens, transitioning from play-based to phone-based childhoods.
- Loss of community trust and fears of abduction have reduced outdoor play and increased screen time.
- Boys and girls exhibit different interests shaped by biological and psychological factors, influencing their interactions with technology.
- The impact of pornography on boys' sexual development and the importance of real-life courtship skills are discussed.
- Gen Z faces challenges in social skills and confidence due to limited real-life interactions and the influence of dating apps.
- The shift to screen-based experiences diminishes healthy social development and conflict resolution skills.
- Trust in leadership and group dynamics play crucial roles in effective teamwork.

- Social dynamics among girls often feature a dominant "bossy" figure, while boys tend to engage in simpler interactions.
- Online life amplifies social pressures, with girls focusing on perfectionism in their images and boys less concerned with details.
- Both genders experience insecurities, but girls face heightened anxiety and depression linked to social media.
- Boys have a higher suicide rate, often using more lethal methods, while girls' attempts are more frequent but less fatal.
- The developmental impact of social media is likened to "junk food," affecting children's social and emotional growth.
- Critical periods in brain development are crucial, with passive experiences shaping neural pathways until around age 25.
- Neuroplasticity can be influenced by experiences and substances, but needs direction for effective change.

- Dopamine release thresholds are influenced by stimuli exposure; intense, violent porn can dull other experiences.
- A varied and healthier range of stimuli promotes adaptive neural wiring.
- Processed foods can diminish the reinforcing properties of natural foods.
- Reinforcement is emphasized over reward to highlight the biological mechanisms behind behavior.
- Many children today may have maladaptive neural circuits due to exposure to extreme stimuli.
- Sensitive periods for learning, particularly during puberty, can affect identity and cultural assimilation.
- Hormonal changes during puberty lead to significant brain development, particularly in impulse control and social behavior.
- Feedback from social interactions during puberty shapes self-concept and identity.
- The brain's identity formation is complex and likely distributed across various networks.

- The complexity of impulse control and reward systems during puberty impacts identity formation.
- Social reinforcement through dopamine affects neuroplasticity, leading to accelerated learning based on rewards rather than punishment.
- Recommendations to mitigate negative effects of technology on children include:
  - No smartphones before high school.
  - No social media until age 16.
  - Implementing phone-free schools to enhance learning.
- Exposure to harmful content during sensitive developmental periods can have lasting negative effects.

- Children are learning from dopamine-driven smartphone use, leading to decreased attention and learning capacity.
- Proposed norms include: 
  1. No smartphones until high school.
  2. No social media until age 16.
  3. Phone-free schools.
  4. Increased independence and free play in the real world.
- Emphasis on restoring adventurous childhood experiences for better memory and conflict resolution.
- Calls for societal norms to shift before implementing laws regarding smartphone use among children.
- Suggests raising the age for social media access and enforcing age verification to protect children.
- Advocates for laws that support children's free play and reduce the stigma of unsupervised activities.
- Highlights the need for collaborative efforts among parents, schools, and communities to restore healthy childhood experiences.

- The impact of summer camps and after-school sports on children's mental health is discussed, emphasizing the benefits of no phone policies.
- Summer camps provide a detox from phones, promoting healthier interactions among kids.
- Team sports and religion are highlighted as protective factors for mental health, fostering cooperation and community.
- Playing music in groups enhances neuroplasticity and social skills, suggesting that musical activities should be encouraged.
- The importance of synchrony and face-to-face interactions is emphasized, contrasting it with the asynchronous nature of social media.
- The detrimental effects of constant digital engagement on children's well-being are noted, with a focus on feelings of boredom and disconnection.
- There is a concern that children may not recognize their discomfort with social media, leading to compulsive usage despite underlying pain.
- The cycle of loneliness and anxiety exacerbated by digital consumption is highlighted, suggesting a need for healthier social interactions.

- NYU students struggle to quit social media despite spending excessive hours on it.
- Many students feel overwhelmed by constant notifications and messages across multiple platforms.
- The speaker emphasizes the need to regain control of attention by limiting notifications and social media usage.
- Two valuable exercises in the speaker's class include: 
  - Regaining attention control by disabling most notifications.
  - Doing "awe walks" in nature to foster mindfulness and emotional processing.
- The speaker critiques social media companies for monopolizing children's time and attention, comparing them to casinos.
- Concerns are raised about the long-term cognitive effects of excessive social media use, likening it to an "IV drip" of stimulation.
- The focus should shift from content regulation to understanding the transformative impact of social media as a medium.

- Girls often have a dominant "bossy" figure in social dynamics, while boys engage in simpler interactions.
- Online pressures lead girls to focus on perfectionism, increasing anxiety and depression linked to social media.
- Boys have a higher suicide rate, using more lethal methods, while girls' attempts are more frequent but less fatal.
- Social media's impact on development is compared to "junk food," negatively affecting social and emotional growth.
- Critical brain development occurs until around age 25, with experiences shaping neural pathways.
- Dopamine release is influenced by stimuli; extreme stimuli can dull responses to other experiences.
- Recommendations to mitigate technology's negative effects include:
  - No smartphones before high school.
  - No social media until age 16.
  - Phone-free schools to enhance learning.
- Emphasizes the importance of real-world play and social interactions for healthy development.
- Highlights the benefits of summer camps and team sports for mental health.
- Critiques social media's monopolization of children's attention and its long-term cognitive effects.
- Advocates for societal norms to protect children from harmful content and promote healthier interactions.

- Reducing exposure to harmful content for kids is important, but simply providing idealized content isn't sufficient.
- Delaying access to social media and smartphones during puberty is crucial.
- Parents' behavior significantly influences children's habits, as kids often mimic their actions.
- Teenagers prioritize peer approval over parental modeling, making rebellion against social media less likely.
- Encouraging outdoor activities and social interactions can help combat social media addiction.
- Collective action among parents can lead to positive changes in phone policies and children's experiences.
- The speaker is optimistic about the potential for change, noting a growing movement among parents to address screen time issues.

- Childhood will change significantly in the next two years, particularly regarding screen time and social media use.
- Public attitudes are shifting against children spending excessive time on screens, similar to past changes in smoking norms.
- Expect schools to become phone-free and more children to engage in outdoor activities.
- Collective action is essential; parents should discuss these issues and share resources with others.
- Support organizations like Let Grow and advocate for legislative changes, such as the Kids' Online Safety Act (COSA).
- The speaker emphasizes the importance of community efforts to restore independent childhood experiences and mental well-being.
- Resources and further information can be found at anxiousgeneration.com and related platforms.

- Reducing harmful content for kids is crucial, but idealized content alone isn't enough.
- Delaying social media and smartphone access during puberty is important.
- Parents' behaviors greatly influence children's habits.
- Teenagers often prioritize peer approval over parental guidance.
- Promoting outdoor activities can help reduce social media addiction.
- Collective parental action can improve phone policies and children's experiences.
- There is optimism about a growing movement among parents addressing screen time issues.
- Significant changes in childhood experiences regarding screen time are expected in the next two years.
- Public attitudes are shifting against excessive screen time for children.
- Schools are likely to become phone-free, encouraging more outdoor activities.
- Parents should discuss these issues and share resources collectively.
- Support organizations like Let Grow and advocate for legislative changes like the Kids' Online Safety Act (COSA).
- Community efforts are vital for restoring independent childhood experiences and mental well-being.
- Additional resources are available at anxiousgeneration.com and similar platforms.

In this episode, my guest is Dr. Jonathan Haidt, PhD, professor of social psychology at New York University and bestselling author on how technology and culture impact the psychology and health of kids, teens, and adults.

Welcome to the Huberman Lab Podcast, where we discuss science and science-based tools for everyday life.

I'm Andrew Huberman, and I'm a professor of neurobiology and ophthalmology at Stanford School of Medicine.

Jonathan Haidt is a social psychologist and professor at New York University.

He is also the author of several important bestselling books, including The Coddling of the American Mind, and more recently, The Anxious Generation, How the Great Rewiring of childhood is causing an epidemic of mental illness.

And today we talk mainly about the anxious generation.

However, it is not a purely pessimistic conversation.

Height offers several clear solutions to the mental health crisis that now exists and that we have all created through the use of smartphones, in particular in kids entering and transitioning through puberty.

During today's episode, we discuss so-called critical or sensitive periods for social development, for the development of an understanding about competition and violence, about sex, and how boys and girls are impacted differently by smartphone use and the specific solutions that do exist and that Dr.

Height has created that can place boys and girls, as well as young adults, back on the trajectory of mental health.

So today's discussion is really 1 that brings together an understanding of neurobiology, psychology, social psychology, and technology in ways that are designed to serve the most critical members of our species, meaning our youth.

And for those that have already gone through youth, today's discussion is also relevant to you, because as many of you know, and perhaps have experienced, most everybody nowadays is challenged in some way by smartphones, both for the utility and the ways in which they can diminish our social and family interactions, academic performance and more.

Height, today's discussion really is a solution-based 1.

And it's 1 that is sure to educate, inform, and inspire specific positive action.

Before we begin, I'd like to emphasize that this podcast is separate from my teaching and research roles at Stanford.

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I've developed many good habits because of you.

I read The Coddling of the American Mind.

The Anxious Generation, incredibly important book.

I'll just start off with an easy question, which is, how are we doing as a species?

Well, as a species, as 1 of my friends said, we're going to be pretty hard to kill off.

We'll be like cockroaches, and we're pretty inventive in that way.

But as a civilization, I think we might well be at a point of there are peaks and valleys and there are some cycles in history.

And we may be at 1 of those turning points and it's gonna be pretty unclear what happens over the next 5 or 10 years.

It's a very interesting time to be a social scientist.

I suppose we can't point to any 1 factor, but we wouldn't be sitting here today.

You wouldn't have written The Anxious Generation, and it wouldn't be having the incredible impact that it's having, were it not for the fact that smartphones have dramatically, profoundly changed the way that we interact as a species.

In fact, a colleague of mine at Harvard, Jeff Lichtman, who's world famous for neuroplasticity, said a few years back, you know, this is probably the first time in human history that humans have written with their thumbs, implying that the brain representation of the thumbs is probably very different in all of us than it was prior to that, because the brain is an adaptive map of our experience in many ways.

That's a somewhat innocuous example of the changes that have occurred, the use of the digits, the thumbs to write, But there's so much more going on now as a consequence of smartphones.

So if you were to say the day, the date, the year in which everything changed, would it be the day that Most everyone had and has a smartphone somewhere around 2010 2011 2012 or did all this start prior Yeah

Well, actually if it's okay with you I'll answer that by giving sort of the history because the the short answer would be 2010 to 2015 but it'll make more sense if I just sort of go through how we got there.

So changes in technology, when you connect people more, you get roads, you get telephones.

They lead to massive gains in knowledge, productivity.

Yes, sometimes there are disruptions, but in the history of humanity, they've been great.

When you and I are old enough to remember, do you remember the first time you saw a web browser?

And it was like, you mean I just like, I type in a question and I get the answer?

And I can talk to people for free and you had that by email which was free So in general connecting people is good and we were all very optimistic about the internet in the 1990s It was amazing and in our conversation today.

The internet is absolutely amazing This is not about how the internet is bad.

Smart phones or the iPhone is absolutely amazing, although there are some things about it that are problematic.

It's really especially social media, which has changed things.

And so If we look at a kid, let's take a teenager in 2010, and let's say January 2010.

At that point, there's no Instagram, there's no front-facing camera.

They all have, mostly they have flip phones.

The iPhone came out in 2007, but they don't mostly have them.

And so in 2010, most teenagers are using the flip phone as a tool to call each other, text each other, meet up.

So when technology helps us achieve our goals, that's good.

By 2015, the great majority of Americans, certainly teens have a smartphone with a front-facing camera The girls are mostly on Instagram Which was the first social media platform that you had to be on a smartphone for everything else was web-based They have high-speed internet unlimited texting and now it's possible to spend 10, 15 hours a day on your phone.

So I point to that, it's that 5 year period, 2010 to 2015, which I've called the great rewiring of childhood, because it affects everything, everything about what children and teenagers are doing.

I can recall in 2010, I was actually in New York City visiting friends.

I got my first smartphone and I recall I was up at 1 30 in the morning scrolling on this thing and thinking this is unbelievably addicting.

Nowadays, I think of it less as addicting, but almost like an OCD of sorts.

And here I'm not talking about clinically diagnosed OCD, but the interesting thing about OCD is that The compulsions, the behaviors don't serve to reduce the obsessions, rather they exacerbate them or reinforce them.

In many ways, I feel like smartphone use and social media use in particular is an OCD of sorts.

So it's already a struggle to pay attention.

And you know, ancient traditions have taught techniques to improve your focus, your attention, we're easily distracted.

And, You know, so I don't work on my phone very much because I hate to type on the phone and I'm always at a computer.

But even for me, sitting at my computer, as soon as the thinking gets hard, as soon as I'm writing, I'm doing something that requires concentration, some little part of my brain says I wonder what the weather's going to be and I go check the weather.

I go check my, I might check my email, probably 40, 50 times a day, and I know that's terrible.

So the question is, is it a compulsion where I feel pulled, I have to check it, or something bad will happen?

No, it's more like, imagine trying to do your work.

Imagine trying to be a kid in school and you have on your desk in front of you, you have your television set, your record player, a walkie talkie to talk to your friends, a guitar, a painting set, all arrayed in front of you, and your teacher is telling you about geometry.

And so I think the smartphone, and whether flip phone, it's a tool.

You pull it out if you want to talk to someone, then you put it away.

But the smartphone, there's no reason to ever put it away.

You offer some incredible solutions in the book, actually solutions that everyone listening and watching can participate in, not just by restriction.

We'll talk about what that means going forward.

And when did we start to see the trend toward diminished mental health, in particular in girls?

So feel free to hit us with the scary truth.

So, let's imagine, so in the US, we have really good statistics based on annual or biannual surveys.

There's 3 or 4 big ones that allow us to see what's happened since the 70s.

And so, what I'd like listeners to imagine is imagine a bunch of lines, maybe a line for boys, maybe a line for boys, a line for girls, showing the percentage that suffer from anxiety, depression, or that have self-harm.

And imagine these lines, they move around a little bit, but they're actually pretty stable from the 1990s all the way through 2010, even 2011.

On some measures, they're getting actually a little bit better.

Well, low, if they're around, say, 12, 15% of girls qualify as having had a major depression, you know, that's much higher than we would like.

That's a problem, but it's nothing compared to what it is today.

So the lines are pretty flat until around 2012.

And then all of a sudden, the Lines for girls go up like a hockey stick.

It really is there's an elbow It's like somebody turned on a light switch in 2012 now that's for the American data Internationally, you see very similar things.

It's not necessarily 2012 in other countries, but the girls graphs are very sharp The boys are also up on depression and anxiety.

Depending on the measure, it's usually, everything is the ballpark of 50 to 150%.

Almost all the numbers are in that range.

We're not talking 10 or 20% increases here.

For most things, we're talking close to a doubling, especially for the younger girls.

The boys curves, interestingly, are smoother.

That is, the boys are more depressed and anxious, but it's not 2012.

It actually often begins more like 2009, 2010, and then it just keeps going up gradually.

So that's a real clue, which we'll come back to when we talk about the boys' story.

A lot of people say, oh, you know, it's just self-report, you know, just Gen Z, They're really positive about mental health and they're willing to talk about it.

But the fact that we see the exact same curves, the very sharp uptick for girls in hospital admissions for self-harm, psychiatric emergency department visits, And we see this in the US, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, the UK, the Scandinavian countries.

So something happened across the developed world around 2012.

And I keep, you know, Jean Twenge was the first to really raise the alarm.

She and I keep saying, well, you know, we can't find another candidate.

Oh, and there's actually not just correlational data, there's experimental data too.

So we think, you know, of course, look, everything's complicated.

If you want to understand why 1 person is depressed, there are going to be many stories.

depressed there are gonna be many stories But if you want to understand why depression rates rose for girls faster than boys all of the developed world Unless someone can find like some hormone disrupting chemical that was suddenly sprayed over northern Europe and the South Pacific and the US and Canada around 2012, there is no alternative explanation.

So we break down smartphone use in these young girls that correlates with and maybe is causal for this diminishment in mental health.

There are a number of different variables, right?

There's the specific content that they're viewing.

And that's a vast discussion that we'll get into.

There are the social dynamics associated with being on a phone as opposed to in-person interactions.

And then there's, and I can't help myself, but as a neuroscientist who trained in the biology of the visual system, there's the effect of looking at something at about 8 inches to 12 inches away from you for much of the day as opposed to navigating an environment the way that we had for hundreds of thousands of years prior.

So there are a lot of features within this thing that we call smartphone use.

So if we pull all that together for the time being and put in a basket of smartphone use, and maybe we'll pull out each of those variables 1 by 1 as we go forward.

What are the numbers in 2012 in terms of how much time girls, maybe you can give us an age range, are spending with the smartphone?

They got the smartphone and immediately were spending 6 to 8 hours a day on the thing?

Okay, so first, the way you put it is actually very helpful.

What I want listeners to imagine, let's say I can imagine on the left side of a slide, I haven't made this slide, I'm formulating in my head.

Imagine on the left side of the slide, a whole bunch of harmful changes.

If you're getting less sleep, that's bad.

If you're having blue light at night, that's bad.

If you're not going out in nature, that's bad.

If you are sedentary, if you, so imagine about, you know, 15 different things.

Or if you're being contacted by strange men around the world who want to have sex with you.

That's not good for 11, 12 year old girls.

So there's all these different potential harms.

And then imagine all these different potential effects.

1 of which is depression, and another is anxiety, another is self-harm.

But there's doing worse in school, there's becoming more shallow, there's conflicts with your...

And then we want to look at the causal connections.

And what I'm trying to draw out is suppose we could quantify the degree to which sheer time, just spending 5 hours a day, does that make you more anxious automatically?

Well, maybe a little, but that's probably not the main effect.

So there's a gigantic multi-causal network of effects.

Now, I have good numbers for how much teens are using these devices and these platforms today.

Pew, in particular, has done a great job of tracking changes in this since the 2000s.

What we know today from both Pew and Gallup is that young people in America are now spending about 5 hours a day just on social media, just social media.

So it's actually TikTok and YouTube are counted in this analysis.

But the point is, especially the short videos, the short videos are really, really addictive because the time between action and reinforcement is so quick that that, as you know, in behaviorism, like that's the key, it's the quick reinforcement.

So 5 hours a day, it's a little bit more than that for girls, a little less for boys.

Just on social media, 35 hours a week of strange stuff coming in from random weirdos on the internet 35 imagine letting your kid import 35 hours Then you add in everything else video games everything else you do on a smartphone So now we're up to 7 to 10 hours in that range a day And this is not counting school of course in school 6 hours a day For a lot of kids 2 or 3 hours of that is screen time as well.

So that's why I say kids used to have a play-based childhood.

And since 2010 or 2012, our kids have a phone-based childhood.

It's just incompatible with healthy human development.

Maybe we can back up even before 2010 and talk a bit more about the play-based childhood.

I heard you say last night at a terrific lecture that you gave that when we don't trust our neighbors, we are far less likely to let our kids out to play without observation or oversight.

And that leads to a whole host of negative consequences.

So if we were to dial back the history clock even further and talk about, let's say, the 1950s, 60s, and 70s, I was born in 75, I basically was kicked out of the house every day to go play.

I now realized she wanted space, but we would go down the end of the street to the cul-de-sac and we would just play and do all sorts of things.

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Dr. Jonathan Haidt: How Smartphones & Social Media Impact Mental Health & the Realistic Solutions