What's Your Advice for a Distracted High School Student?

00:00:00.000 | [MUSIC PLAYING]

00:00:03.440 | We got one here from Peyton.

00:00:08.520 | Peyton says, do you have suggestions for high schoolers?

00:00:13.000 | At my school, we have to check our email daily

00:00:15.840 | to receive updates from our teachers,

00:00:17.400 | and we rely heavily on our computers.

00:00:20.080 | Are there tips you would have for students like me?

00:00:22.640 | I do have tips for students.

00:00:24.280 | The idea that you have to check your email once a day

00:00:26.440 | for updates from your teachers is not your problem.

00:00:28.680 | The fact that, yes, there's work you

00:00:30.520 | do during the school day on your Chromebook is not your problem.

00:00:33.640 | Here's the things that I'm going to tell you matter.

00:00:36.000 | And it's what you were doing voluntarily with your time

00:00:40.160 | and how you were voluntarily engaging with the digital world

00:00:44.760 | that matters.

00:00:45.560 | So here are the rules.

00:00:47.360 | And I say rules.

00:00:48.280 | I mean, you can listen to them or you not.

00:00:49.720 | But I'm saying this is what I would suggest.

00:00:51.440 | If I was a high schooler and I'm thinking,

00:00:53.200 | I want a deeper life, I don't want

00:00:54.600 | to just be anxious and lost in my screen all the time.

00:00:57.800 | Number one, don't play online video games.

00:01:02.160 | I'm not against video games in general as a distraction.

00:01:05.840 | But the ones where you're online and there's

00:01:07.600 | lots of other people on them--

00:01:09.400 | in Roblox, I'm looking at you.

00:01:12.160 | The-- I don't know these things.

00:01:13.480 | Fortnite, I'm looking at you.

00:01:15.560 | World of Warcraft, is that still a thing?

00:01:17.200 | Look, I don't know games.

00:01:17.920 | But the ones in which there's lots

00:01:19.320 | of people who are online on a shared server

00:01:21.520 | are some of the most addictive technologies ever created

00:01:24.720 | by man.

00:01:26.160 | If you study digital addiction, these can be the worst.

00:01:30.240 | These are the worst.

00:01:31.440 | It's not social media.

00:01:34.160 | It's not I'm on YouTube too much.

00:01:35.920 | The thing that can cause I have to go to a rehab center

00:01:39.840 | level of addiction is actually these massive multiple online

00:01:43.560 | games.

00:01:44.280 | It's going to eat up your life.

00:01:45.560 | There's better things you can be doing with that time.

00:01:48.320 | You get very little return in the sense of connection,

00:01:52.520 | growth, resilience, character, skills.

00:01:55.240 | You get nothing out of the time you spend when

00:01:58.160 | you're five hours in Fortnite.

00:02:00.760 | Don't do online video games.

00:02:02.520 | Second, don't do social media.

00:02:05.440 | You can use your phone to communicate with your friends.

00:02:07.720 | And this is the good news.

00:02:08.880 | And this is a change that has happened

00:02:10.280 | since when I first started researching

00:02:11.880 | my book, Digital Minimalism.

00:02:13.280 | And today, back then, social media platforms

00:02:17.120 | were critical to teen socialization.

00:02:19.680 | Snapchat in particular was really big.

00:02:21.640 | That has changed today.

00:02:22.800 | The socialization has largely migrated off

00:02:25.680 | of social media platforms, especially for teenagers.

00:02:27.960 | They use text messaging and instant messaging tools.

00:02:31.720 | The social media platforms are more

00:02:33.360 | about distraction, entertainment,

00:02:34.920 | keeping up with cultural memes.

00:02:36.160 | Just don't use those.

00:02:37.320 | Communicate with your friends on WhatsApp and text

00:02:39.440 | or whatever you need to do so you can make plans

00:02:41.440 | and know when the party is.

00:02:43.840 | But don't use the other ones.

00:02:45.960 | Yeah, TikTok is interesting.

00:02:48.360 | But TikTok is also designed from the ground up

00:02:53.080 | to be like one of those pods in The Matrix

00:02:54.880 | where you're in a bathtub full of goo

00:02:57.280 | and a robot alien has stuck a needle straight

00:02:59.520 | into your spine.

00:03:00.640 | It's just engineered from the ground up

00:03:03.920 | to just press buttons and keep you looking at that screen.

00:03:06.160 | And God forbid, if you are posting on TikTok,

00:03:08.720 | they don't even try to hide what they're doing there.

00:03:11.040 | They are playing entirely with the weak spots

00:03:14.080 | of your adolescent brain to make you completely addicted.

00:03:16.000 | Here's what happens if you start using TikTok.

00:03:18.920 | You post a few videos.

00:03:19.960 | They have this all figured out.

00:03:21.880 | They will wait until your second or third video.

00:03:24.880 | And then the algorithm is going to expose that video

00:03:29.120 | to a bunch of people's feeds.

00:03:30.840 | And what do you see?

00:03:32.280 | You see a big burst of views.

00:03:35.600 | And you start to suspect,

00:03:37.120 | hey man, maybe I'm onto something.

00:03:39.560 | You know, maybe people dig what I'm doing here.

00:03:41.640 | I kind of have a bit of an audience.

00:03:42.960 | And oh man, the next one didn't get that.

00:03:44.640 | The next one didn't get it.

00:03:45.480 | The algorithm gives you another burst of views.

00:03:47.400 | Oh, that one caught on.

00:03:48.760 | All right, man, this is important.

00:03:49.720 | Now I know I got my audience.

00:03:50.720 | I got to be on there.

00:03:51.560 | People really care about me.

00:03:52.480 | You are being 100% manipulated.

00:03:54.400 | They control exactly how many views you get.

00:03:57.440 | The algorithm has figured out how to titrate bursts

00:03:59.840 | of fake simulated popularity so that you think

00:04:03.160 | that you're one slot machine pull away

00:04:05.880 | from being an influencer.

00:04:07.760 | All the while they are just, here's your pocket,

00:04:11.480 | money, money, money, money.

00:04:12.760 | So just don't use it, man.

00:04:14.600 | Just don't use it.

00:04:15.440 | Don't use social media.

00:04:16.280 | Don't use online video games.

00:04:17.680 | Counter this by aggressively going

00:04:20.800 | after autonomously chosen positive social pursuits.

00:04:25.800 | If you're in any way athletic,

00:04:28.920 | get on a sports team and get serious about it.

00:04:32.160 | And you might have to do some exploration

00:04:33.720 | to find what sports team that is.

00:04:34.920 | I mean, if you look at my history,

00:04:36.720 | I played all the rec sports.

00:04:38.360 | I came from a family that said,

00:04:40.120 | you always got to be in a sport

00:04:42.640 | because otherwise you're bouncing off the walls.

00:04:45.360 | And it's a pain.

00:04:46.200 | And I played soccer, I played basketball,

00:04:47.400 | I played baseball and I was terrible at all of them.

00:04:49.800 | But then at some point in high school,

00:04:51.360 | I realized I had the right type of leg muscle fibers to run.

00:04:55.520 | I got really in the track and track got me into crew.

00:04:58.080 | And that made a big difference.

00:04:59.080 | So if you can do anything athletic

00:05:00.440 | and it might take some discovery, do that.

00:05:02.120 | If you're not athletic, that's fine.

00:05:03.240 | Find something else, a team, you can be involved in this

00:05:05.360 | when you work with other people towards building skills

00:05:07.400 | in the competitive situation where things could go wrong,

00:05:09.560 | but you feel the victories when you have the victories

00:05:11.360 | and you're working together on it.

00:05:12.880 | And you need this in your life.

00:05:16.040 | Positive skilled social pursuits

00:05:18.600 | that you can put a lot of energy into

00:05:20.800 | and to give you a lot back in return.

00:05:23.160 | That's where you want to be spending your time.

00:05:24.600 | Do that and also spending time with your friends

00:05:26.560 | and figuring out how to be a social human being

00:05:28.240 | and going to those parties

00:05:29.200 | where you're not quite sure if you should be in the party

00:05:30.720 | and try to navigate that social difficulty.

00:05:32.840 | That's just calisthenics for your social brain.

00:05:34.680 | You need to do that so that you're not weird

00:05:36.000 | when you're an adult, that's all great.

00:05:37.840 | Don't spend five hours on an online video game.

00:05:40.400 | Don't be tricked by the TikTok algorithm

00:05:42.520 | into thinking that you are six dance videos away

00:05:45.120 | from being Kim Kardashian.

00:05:46.200 | You're not, you're in the tub of goo

00:05:48.240 | and there's a thing in the back of your neck.

00:05:50.440 | And I think this is easier now than it was five years ago

00:05:53.080 | because socialization as a teenager

00:05:55.040 | does not require you to be on these services.

00:05:57.640 | That now happens separately.

00:05:59.600 | So that's what I would suggest.

00:06:01.120 | Honestly, even if you have a flip phone,

00:06:03.840 | get the phone where you can still text,

00:06:07.240 | but you can't go on apps.

00:06:10.400 | That's becoming the new counter-cultural thing,

00:06:12.400 | by the way, especially if you have some other thing

00:06:14.080 | you do really well, like you're an athlete

00:06:15.760 | or on the robotics team or something like this.

00:06:17.280 | You're like, yeah, I don't bother

00:06:18.120 | with that smartphone stuff.

00:06:19.760 | That doesn't make you the weird loner anymore.

00:06:21.320 | That makes you kind of the cooler guy.

00:06:24.000 | So if you're doing that,

00:06:25.680 | and if you very strongly ignore my advice from earlier

00:06:29.120 | to say, "Deeple meeple" when you run into people,

00:06:31.800 | I think you'll be okay.

00:06:32.960 | (upbeat music)

00:06:36.460 | (upbeat music)

00:06:39.040 | (upbeat music)

What's Your Advice for a Distracted High School Student?

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