Effects of Texting, AI & Tech on the Young Adult Brain

00:00:00.000 | I'd like to talk a little bit about technology with the advent of text messaging.

00:00:06.360 | So here I'm not going to talk about social media.

00:00:08.300 | This is not about social media.

00:00:10.400 | With text messaging, first of all, this is the first time in human evolution that humans

00:00:14.820 | have written with their thumbs.

00:00:17.360 | That's weird, been kind of quirky reflection.

00:00:20.240 | But the other one is this is the first time in human evolution, meaning very recently,

00:00:23.960 | that we are aware of what's going on with so many other people and we're expected to

00:00:29.360 | at least know it and perhaps even respond to it.

00:00:31.960 | Clearly our brain has adapted to this new format, but it did not evolve in this format.

00:00:37.560 | You said, and I'll keep repeating it because I love it so much.

00:00:39.880 | The more you can locate somebody, the more it reflects their values.

00:00:44.120 | So being able to locate somebody in space and time and understand how bounded they are

00:00:48.240 | or not to their own emotions or yours is fantastic.

00:00:51.680 | But the fact that you have 10 people in your phone that you're aware of, you're not even

00:00:56.520 | supposed to be aware of 10 people at once.

00:00:58.840 | We're being forced to navigate a new landscape with all this.

00:01:01.640 | My husband and I were talking about phones and text and social media and AI.

00:01:09.440 | And I brought up something to him, he's like, I don't think I, in all the arguments I've

00:01:11.840 | heard, I haven't heard that, where I feel like we're changing in a dramatic way our

00:01:19.520 | basic evolutionary drive around attachment in a way where attachment has always been

00:01:26.320 | the primary evolutionary drive of humans.

00:01:29.640 | And with all the different technological shifts there have been, because people say, oh, there's

00:01:33.920 | been this, there's been this, what's never been shifted is kind of the nature really

00:01:40.400 | of one-to-one human attachment.

00:01:45.160 | We're entering into something really new where let's even say text messages, 20 at once,

00:01:49.880 | 10 at once.

00:01:52.080 | Our bodies will always crave what's immediately gratifying over what is long-term good for

00:01:58.560 | us.

00:01:59.560 | Another way I think about it is our bodies will always choose convenience and ease and

00:02:04.840 | gratification over what's good for us long-term.

00:02:06.680 | So you think about all these pings coming in.

00:02:08.800 | It's a lot of information, this text, that text, this text, this text.

00:02:12.920 | And what you're doing in your circuitry and over time evolutionarily is getting used to

00:02:17.440 | the multiplicity of relationships, the multiplicity of information.

00:02:20.720 | It's just more gratifying than one-on-one to the point that one-on-one conversation

00:02:26.860 | over text or even in person is going to have so much more of a gap than it ever has been

00:02:33.160 | in terms of how slow, how low stim, and how boring and awkward it is compared to, especially

00:02:44.560 | for kids who get this early, the constant information flow and gratification and stimulation.

00:02:50.960 | I think that's going to have a profound impact, not right away, but over time.

00:02:54.600 | And if you add in social media and then if you add in AI, I mean, on the way humans just

00:03:00.760 | are even able to relate to each other.

00:03:03.800 | So yes, I think like this advancement in technology and what's happening, I think there's always

00:03:10.780 | been a trade-off, always, between how short-term gratifying something is and how long-term

00:03:15.760 | good something is for us.

00:03:17.520 | Because the things that are really good for humans long-term are the things that involve

00:03:21.120 | humans to tolerate frustration.

00:03:22.680 | I would say that is the most important skill, I think, for kids to learn.

00:03:27.120 | But the world more than ever is built now with insanely low frustration tolerance because

00:03:33.520 | we're built for so much information, so much consumption, and so much immediate gratification.

00:03:38.840 | This is actually, I think, the thing that isn't talked about with technology.

00:03:41.160 | It's why parenting has changed.

00:03:42.340 | It's why so much of parenting is about making kids happy and their lives easy.

00:03:46.340 | Because there's never been a generation of parents like my generation where our lives

00:03:51.260 | are just so much easier.

00:03:53.100 | We have so much less tolerance for our kids' tantrums because we're on our phones wanting

00:03:58.580 | our life to be easier.

00:03:59.620 | So we stop the tantrum.

00:04:01.040 | We make their life easier.

00:04:02.140 | We make them anxious.

00:04:03.140 | We make them fragile because of our lowered frustration tolerance.

00:04:06.560 | So I don't know where we're landing here.

00:04:09.240 | And by the way, I text.

00:04:11.180 | I'm not like a purist here, you know?

00:04:12.920 | I am a realist.

00:04:13.920 | I live in the world, you know?

00:04:16.980 | But I think it's profound how it's changing human interaction and expectations and gratification.

00:04:23.900 | My colleague Anna Lembke, who wrote Dopamine Nation, cited some data that humans have more

00:04:30.100 | free time now, across socioeconomic groups, more free time for everybody than ever before.

00:04:37.540 | More expectation of immediate gratification.

00:04:40.800 | And it's not just the texts that we're getting, it's for some people the texts that they're

00:04:45.760 | not getting.

00:04:46.760 | They're thinking about the people that they haven't heard back from, etc.

00:04:49.860 | The number of tethers, right, exactly.

00:04:52.700 | The number of tethers is just astonishing.

00:04:58.300 | I had a conversation with somebody recently that popped to mind where it was a little

00:05:02.780 | bit, it was like a low friction one that ended in a really good place where I said, you know,

00:05:08.120 | the problem is, you know, I was talking about, there's a little bit of an age gap.

00:05:11.620 | And I said, you know, the problem is you think slow is low.

00:05:14.900 | Like what I was saying was, I like to just chill.

00:05:17.800 | This is something I haven't done enough of in my life because I'm pretty ambitious person

00:05:21.380 | and always have been since I was little about everything.

00:05:25.500 | But I've learned that like slow isn't low.

00:05:28.820 | I love just like sitting down and like hanging out with the dog or just like slowing down.

00:05:36.980 | And it used to feel like slow was low.

00:05:39.020 | It used to feel like, oh, nothing's happening or this is depressing or it's boring.

00:05:43.800 | And I think in recent years that became more and more the case as I got more and more pulled

00:05:47.580 | into technology.

00:05:49.240 | And then I did a little bit of a technology distancing experiment, if you will, have this

00:05:52.940 | wooden box that someone made for me and I put my phones in there and it's so amazing

00:05:57.100 | how once you put the phone in a different container, it like completely changes the

00:06:01.480 | relationship to it.

00:06:02.480 | I don't get it.

00:06:03.480 | But anyway, again, physical barriers to make, to take emotional steps, always a good idea.

00:06:10.820 | And I just realized like slow isn't low, like slow is awesome.

00:06:14.140 | So I totally agree that the circuits of our brain have now adapted to expect immediate

00:06:18.460 | gratification.

00:06:19.460 | I like to think, and maybe this is a false wish, but I like to think that there are components

00:06:27.420 | of our brain that are hardwired enough through tens or hundreds of thousands of years of

00:06:32.100 | evolution that might be able to recognize and appreciate the slow moments and not feel

00:06:38.340 | like slow is low, meaning slow is depressing.

00:06:42.700 | But I do think that if one is weaned in, raised in an environment where you expect things

00:06:47.860 | quickly, well then, you know, it's going to feel like the horse and cart compared to

00:06:52.540 | the car at some level.

00:06:54.140 | I do, I agree.

00:06:55.140 | I think that's right.

00:06:56.140 | And I think for parents who have young kids, I think these are such powerful and empowering

00:07:01.820 | things to think about when your kids are young, because I think it's easy to think, "Oh,

00:07:05.460 | okay, so I'll deal with this when my kid gets a phone."

00:07:10.100 | It's the circuits around even how your kid will use the phone, how much you're going

00:07:14.100 | to be able to set boundaries with your kid when they get a phone.

00:07:17.460 | All these have to do with the patterns early on, right?

00:07:19.700 | So if we go back to slow is good, frustration and frustration tolerance is the name of the

00:07:28.580 | game.

00:07:29.580 | It requires a lot of inconvenient moments that matter so much for how not only your

00:07:35.940 | kid learns to tolerate the frustration inherent in life, but I think this is really important,

00:07:41.720 | how your kid learns to feel capable.

00:07:44.860 | Kids only develop capability from watching themselves get through hard things.

00:07:49.860 | They don't develop capability by being successful, ever.

00:07:52.940 | In some ways, it builds up this pressure and a fragility if that's been the only thing

00:07:57.180 | they have.

00:07:58.740 | And when we think about this whole generation who's so anxious, kind of so fragile, I really

00:08:03.460 | believe the antidote to anxiety is capability.

00:08:07.500 | And I'll give an example, like we steal our kids' capability all the time when they're

00:08:12.820 | young in the name of short-term convenience for everyone.

00:08:16.660 | So here's an example, like I remember this day, my oldest who's now 13, he's like three

00:08:21.260 | and he was really into puzzles when he was three.

00:08:24.400 | Puzzles are like really hard, right?

00:08:26.660 | He was working on it, something like, "I can't do it," you know, the classic whine, which

00:08:31.700 | I just want everyone to know, like no part of me is like, "I love that sound."

00:08:35.780 | No, like nobody likes whining, okay?

00:08:40.380 | But to me, those are our like bang for our buck moments.

00:08:44.220 | You know, they're not our easy moments, they're our bang for our buck.

00:08:46.380 | My kid is going to learn something about how to deal with situations they don't think they're

00:08:51.020 | capable of completing.

00:08:53.340 | That is such an important lesson.

00:08:56.380 | And I have a fork in the road.

00:08:57.380 | I can either do the puzzle for him, which gives me short-term convenience, stops the

00:09:02.180 | meltdown.

00:09:04.980 | But beyond frustration tolerance, like one of the things I really remember thinking when

00:09:09.060 | my kid was young is, "If I do it for him, I'm stealing his capability."

00:09:17.420 | Because if he can get through this and kind of get to the point where he says, "I did

00:09:22.780 | a puzzle I didn't think I could do," that's incredible.

00:09:26.660 | So I remember this because it felt so -- he's still whining, but there are these moments

00:09:32.340 | as a parent, and this is what I like to help parents with.

00:09:35.020 | Our wins are not based on our kids' reactions.

00:09:37.320 | Our wins happen when you just know there's this amazing feeling you have as a parent.

00:09:41.340 | I know that was important.

00:09:42.780 | I know it.

00:09:43.780 | And I remember saying to him with this puzzle situation, "Sweetie, I'm not going to do the

00:09:48.260 | puzzle for you."

00:09:49.260 | And I want to tell you why.

00:09:53.340 | The feeling you get when you think you can't do something, kind of take a deep breath,

00:09:58.780 | maybe take a break, maybe even the next day, watch yourself do that thing, is literally

00:10:06.260 | the best feeling in the world.

00:10:07.620 | It is the best feeling.

00:10:08.980 | It becomes addictive.

00:10:10.380 | And I will not take that feeling away from you because I believe you're going to get

00:10:15.460 | it.

00:10:16.460 | I could cry.

00:10:17.460 | And one of the things -- I feel like people hear the story like, "Riley, Riley, okay,

00:10:22.500 | Becky, great."

00:10:23.500 | You know, I do not do that all the time.

00:10:24.560 | Sometimes I finish the puzzle.

00:10:26.180 | But when we think about what we want for our kids later in life, it might be, "No, I'm

00:10:31.240 | not getting you a phone yet."

00:10:32.620 | How a kid reacts to that situation, it's not just about a phone.

00:10:37.180 | It's kind of, "Well, have you always just done the thing for me?

00:10:40.140 | Have you always just given me what I want?

00:10:42.020 | Do I have any ability to feel like I can tolerate frustration and wait and figure things out?"

00:10:48.780 | That all layers into how kids react to not getting a phone, how kids approach hard math

00:10:54.620 | problems, how kids do or do not sit down to start their English essay that is difficult

00:10:59.460 | to do.

00:11:00.460 | And all that stuff, you can start building those skills in the teenage years, don't get

00:11:04.420 | me wrong.

00:11:05.420 | But the leg up your kid has at 14, when they've been basically building those life and academic

00:11:11.940 | skills from the start, and they've built their identity around capability, like that's what

00:11:17.620 | I want to give every parent and every kid in the world.

00:11:21.580 | [Music]

Effects of Texting, AI & Tech on the Young Adult Brain

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