Episode AI notes
- Education schools lack viewpoint diversity, leading to confirmation biases and structural stupidity
- Correlation between social media usage and mental health is around 0.1 to 0.15 for boys and girls, stronger for girls at 0.2
- Physical interaction is crucial for children’s development, especially in the digital era
- Compulsive behaviors related to social media use can be classified as both addiction and compulsion, similar to gambling (Time 0:00:00)
Preserving Viewpoint Diversity in Education Schools Education schools have been criticized for leaning left ideologically since the 1930s. The concern lies not in the political leaning but in the lack of viewpoint diversity. This absence leads to the perpetuation of confirmation biases and the emergence of structural stupidity, where challenging ideas is avoided to prevent being labeled as conservative or discriminatory. Students in elite education schools express distress over the focus on racial justice and equity at the expense of practical teaching skills. The intensification of the left-right culture war has heightened ideological tendencies in education schools, particularly in elite institutions. Transcript: Speaker 1 So one of the, in this book, I’m trying to be totally not political and just really just focus on the kids. But since I’m talking with you, Chris, I’ll share some other thoughts. Roll the biggest here. It’s fine, Jonathan. So education schools have been accused of being ideologically progressive since the 1930s. And they are, they lean left. The military leans right, the police lean right, the arts lean left, education schools lean left. That’s just the way it is. That’s not necessarily a problem. But what I’ve been focused on since 2011 as a social scientist is the loss of viewpoint diversity. When everyone trying to figure something out, if everyone’s on the left or the right, you don’t get your confirmation biases challenged. And you start getting what I call, you start getting structural stupidity. That is, you know, someone can say something really stupid and no one dares to challenge them because if you challenge them, you look like you’re a conservative or, you know, or a sexist Or a racist or something, you accuse of something. So people just keep their mouth shut. I get emails from students in grad programs and education periodically, and they say, basically, help. I came here to learn how to teach. All we learn how to do is racial justice and equity. Like we never learn, you know, everything is oppression, everything’s racism. We don’t learn how to teach. So I can’t say this is true for all ed schools, but for the elite schools, I think they are largely become very, very ideological. They were that before 2015. But in the kind of the great awakening that we’ve had in the real intensification of sort of the left-right culture war, you know, we can see the right going off the deep end in a lot of ways, But, you know, for talk about schools, it’s really the left in the education schools. (Time 0:33:54)
Correlation between Social Media Usage and Mental Health Despite varying perspectives, there is agreement on the correlation between time spent on social media and mental health. The consensus is that the correlation is around 0.1 to 0.15 for boys and girls. However, some researchers, like Jean and the speaker, suggest the correlation is stronger for girls, around 0.2. This correlation, although not high in a mathematical sense, is significant in the public health context, similar to other health impacts like calcium consumption and osteoporosis. Transcript: Speaker 1 So there’s been, you know, a lot, there’s a huge academic literature on whether we all agree that there’s a correlation. We all agree. It turns out even if there’s a few major sort of skeptics and critics, and then there’s Jean Twangi and me on the other side, and that’s sort of where a lot of the debate has been. And it turns out we actually agree on the size of the correlation between how much time you spend on social media and how anxious and depressed you are. Speaker 2 When you say we agreed, I mean, you and Jean, or you and the other side? Speaker 1 No, no, me and the other side. They’ve done a number of meta-analysis, and they say, you know, the correlation is around 0.1 to 0.15. But that’s for boys and girls together, whereas Jean and I, many others have found the correlation is much bigger for girls. Social media harms girls much more than boys. So Jean and I found that the correlation for girls is about 0.2. Well, that’s actually pretty much the same. If they say it’s 0.1 to 0.15 correlation for everyone, that means they’re basically saying the correlation is around 0.15, maybe even higher for girls. So we actually agree. And that correlation is actually pretty big in public health effect. It’s not big in a mathematical sense of variance explained, but it’s about the same size as you get from many other public health things, you know, calcium consumption and later osteoporosis. I mean, all sorts of effects are around that size. So we actually agree on that. But then the debate, they say it’s small. (Time 0:37:17)
The Importance of Physical Interaction for Children in a Digital Era Children growing up spending 9-11 hours a day on screens are missing out on crucial physical interaction with other kids and friends, which is foundational for their development. Spending time in person with friends has significantly decreased since the smartphone and social media age, making it essential for children to participate in activities that involve playing with others. This physical interaction is highly beneficial, even for teenagers, as it fosters social skills and a healthy developmental environment. Transcript: Speaker 1 So once you see that kids have to grow up in a physical world, we evolved outdoors, nature, animals, people, when kids grow up on screens. So it’s not just about social media. When you grow up with what I’m calling a phone based childhood, where you’re spending the latest data, I think, is nine hours a day average for American kids. 11 hours, Freya just said there’s a British study, it was like 10 or 11 hours a day for British kids on their phones, which includes other includes tablets, I think, and video games, I Think. In any case, doesn’t include homework or schoolwork, just recreational time, nine to 11 hours a day. That pushes out everything else. And so what I say in the book is that there are four foundational harms. Once you see that it’s taken up 10 hours a day, pushing everything else out, what matters? The most important thing is time with other kids, time with friends. That’s crucial. I mean, all of your in person, that’s right, in person. And we’ll talk about whether virtual is good, it is not. But time actually with other kids, other with the friends. And that has plummeted since 2012. It was dropping before in the earlier internet age, but boy, it really speeds up in the smartphone social media age. And so kids, the most nutritious thing your kid can do is be out playing with other kids. And this is even true for teenagers hanging out with no adults telling them what to do. So that’s crucial. That’s really nutritious, as it were. Now, if kids, you might say, well, but the spending of this 10, 11 hours, a lot of it is spent virtually interacting, like on video games, well, let’s look at multiplayer video games. (Time 0:45:05)
Compulsive Behaviors: Addiction vs Compulsion The behavior of compulsively using slot machines to the point of financial ruin can be classified as both a compulsion and an addiction. The addictive nature of gambling is compared to the compulsive use of social media, highlighting the similarities in behavior. The mechanisms employed in phone features, like pull-down to refresh, are compared to those in casinos, emphasizing the addictive nature of technology. Tristan Harris stands out as a hero for bringing attention to these issues. Transcript: Speaker 1 I’m guessing it’s probably two to seven percent because that’s what I keep finding for behavioral addictions. For some number, when they get into a zone, it’s straight behavior, psychology, stimulus response, variable ratio, reward schedules, they get into a zone and they lose track of time And they forget their troubles. And of course, their troubles are in part because they’re blowing all their family’s money on slot machines, but they can’t stop. So I think would you say that a person who compulsively uses slot machines spends most of her family’s money so that the family is now bankrupt and yet she still keeps doing it? Would you call that a compulsion or an addiction? Both. Okay. Even if you call it, that’s fine with me. If you want to call it just a compulsion, that’s fine. My point is whatever that is, gambling addicts, which is real. Speaker 2 It’s me, would. Yeah, call it whatever you want. Speaker 1 Whatever you want to call it. That is what is happening to social media compulsive users. Whatever you want to call it, it’s the same thing. And it’s, I mean, in a sense, it’s literally the same thing because some of the features of our life on phones were directly copied from casinos, the thing where you pull down to refresh And then it kind of bounces up and you see things like that was literally copied from slot machines. Speaker 2 Shout out to Stann Harris. Yeah, he was. Yeah, that’s right. Yes. Speaker 1 Tristan is a hero in all of this. I really agree. I’ve brought our attention. Telling everyone about this. Yeah, for sure. (Time 0:54:41)